Interstellar: Exploring The Cosmos With My Anomaly System
Chapter 34: Drunk workers

Chapter 34: Drunk workers

Sylvi backpedaled into Astra, nearly tripping over a rolling cup.

"What’s going on with everyone!?" Sylvi exclaimed as both she and Astra were faced with a group of zombies, the Aelvarians barely standing through their stinging temples. The group stunk of the smell of alcohol mixed with the burnt charcoal of last night’s fireplace.

"This, Sylvi is why you shouldn’t over drink." Astra smirked, her eyes narrowing in amusement at their stumbling forms, groaning as they suffered their hangovers. All except for Vagnis and Belk. "They drunk too much and now they’re dehydrated,"

"After I TOLD them to take it easy!" Astra snapped at the group, the Aelvarians covering their ears at the sudden shout.

"Loud..." They groaned, heads pressed against the earth.

"Yeah yeah, put a sock in it—" Astra huffed, her brows furrowed as she took in the miserable sight in front of her.

"To be fair... it was a celebration," Vagnis defended softly, almost hesitating to stand up against Astra’s word. Her gaze snapped to him in an instant causing the scout to flinch before looking away with pursed lips, keeping quiet.

"Now—" Astra huffed, her hands on her hips "I suggest you all drink water and follow me!"

Belk and Vagnis looked at eachother in confusion as Astra stormed off with Sylvi close behind her.

"Your friend is scary—" Vagnis responded, shivering slightly from her cold gaze. Belk chuckled at his response, his arms crossed as he watched her from behind, his brow raised slightly.

"Yeah, but I don’t know if i’d call her a friend—"

"Celi, is the analysis done!?" Astra called out, watching as the wolf made its way outside of the fallen ship.

"Affirmative," She confirmed, walking up to them.

"Celi!" Sylvi called out, nuzzling into the neck of the wolf, feeling her soft fur on her skin.

"The power circuit is completely unusable, along with the ship’s battery but other than that and the ship’s external damages it’s usable." She explained, Astra nodding to her analysis as she watched the ship from afar.

It has been roughed up whenever it crash landed, rips and tears in the iron, not to mention the wires inside are likely corroded.

"This is gonna be a while before we fix this, even with [fast repair]." Astra muttered, taking in its rough appearance, the sound of sloppy footsteps snapping her out of her analysis.

"Took you a lot long enough," She turned to see the Aelvarians, their gaze instantly locking in with the work they had before them. They stared in amazement at the machine, Belk’s eyes also widening with wonder.

"What’s that," Vagnis muttered, his voice filled with disbelief that something this size can even exist.

"This is the result of years and years of science," Astra grinned like she made it, "We call it a spaceship!"

"So this is the thing that’ll take Belk and Vagnis above the sky..." Sylvi gasped, she could hardly stand still from excitement, her eyes sparkling with amazement at the machine.

"Amazing..." Belk muttered, his hand scratching his chin as he stared at it, snapping his fingers as an idea crossed his mind. "I’ll call it, Skypiercer!"

"No one said you get to name it!" Astra snapped, the technician taking a minute to collect herself, leaning against the ship with an exasperated expression.

"So when do we start building this thing?" Belk asked, a bit more excited than he should be.

"We can’t yet..." Astra sighed.

"Huh why not?" Concern laced the young scientist’s words as he walked closer to take a good look himself, his brows fixed over his eyes as he used every neuron in his brain to figure this out.

"Cuz we need to follow the roadmap to iron first," Astra explained, picking up a stick from the ground and beginning to draw, everyone gathering around her to take a closer look.

"We need glass, we have no copper wire, not to mention the iron itself’..." She mumbled, more to herself than anyone else as she kept drawing, her hand reaching to idly twirl her hair as she continued to think. "We also need aluminum for the lithium ion battery..."

Finally she stood up, looking down at her handy work with her arms on her hips, her brow furrowed as she still tried to make sense of the rest in her head. "And on top of that we’re going to have to fix the communication system—"

"So we need to build a telephone as well," She explained, already losing the crowd, as they stared at her in pure confusion.

"Telephone?" Vagnis pondered.

"Right—well..." She thought, her hands waving dismissively as she thought of some way to effectively explain it. "To put it bluntly we don’t have these things,"

"So what do we do?" Tanaka questioned, ready to help in any way he could.

"Not to worry, because since this is a rocky planet like earth and X-0 we have about the same minerals, maybe a stronger one, everything naturally follows a natural road map and this is the map of the universe," She explained, a confident smile on her face.

"They’re the backbone of every planet,"

"Although even the same type of minerals are kinda different so we’re going to have to improvise probably—" She sighed, crossing her arms as she opened a translucent screen before her, scrolling down to see the list of minerals in the planetary scan.

"We’ll start with some pickaxes first," She explained, her eyes narrowing as she read the list no one else could see. "Then we can start with mineral gathering, which me, Belk and Celi are gonna handle."

"Why’s she squinting..."Vagnis asked softly, one of the Aelvarians walking before the group, his purple eyes and missing arm immediately standing out to her as he made himself known.

"And what shall the rest of us do?" he pondered, his voice way softer than when they first met, the young scientist freezing at the sight of him, a bit hesitant to speak.

"Well, the rest of you are going to make the pickaxes and the other tools we’ll need, today." She choked out, walking to the side to look at Belk, motioning him to come over.

’She’s scared of Zelr?’ Sylvi thought, watching their interaction with curious eyes.

"Take me to your hut," Astra said bluntly, her tone leaving no room for debate. She stood with her arms crossed, her boot tapping impatiently against the rocky soil as Belk blinked at her, his earlier wonder at the spaceship evaporating into baffled irritation.

"What the hell? You don’t just demand to see someone’s home, you know—" Belk started, his voice rising in protest, but Astra cut him off with a sharp step forward. Her hand shot out, snagging the cuff of his sleeve like a hawk seizing prey.

"You pick up minerals, don’t you? Rocks, ores, whatever shiny thing catches your magpie eye?" she hissed, her voice low but razor-edged. Her grip tightened, not quite painful but impossible to ignore. "We need them. Now. Unless you’d rather spend the next few months chiseling iron with your teeth—"

Belk yanked his arm back, scowling as he rubbed his wrist. "I don’t just ’pick up’ ores—I catalog them. There’s a difference."

Astra rolled her eyes, unimpressed. "Semantics— just show me."

"Fine—"