30: First Prime Colony ※

This story is told from Vee's perspective.

"This is the First Prime Colony of the Grogrobeta System, correct?"

"Indeed. More precisely, the upper level of the First Prime Colony of the Grogrobeta System, docking bay eight—the port designated for police vessels."

When the police ship arrived at the First Prime Colony of the Grogrobeta System, the three of us—me, Memo, and Sata—were disembarked from the vessel.

Around us, numerous ships are docked, and some of them, along with their docking cranes and surrounding machinery, are slowly sinking into the colony.

Of course, not all ships sink—those that remain afloat dock at the harbor and depart once they've unloaded their cargo.

Watching multiple ships bustling back and forth through the open-entry passages, it's easy to see just how lively this colony truly is.

"Unloading docks? More like this is a colony format I've never seen before—nothing like the Hira-Tora Tsugumi system or the Seiryō Colony. It's even larger than my main body; there's definitely a lot about this place that's intriguing."

"Then, for Your Majesty's sake, let me explain everything in order."

The passage leading into the colony... yes, there it is.

Let's head that way, and while we're moving, I'll refresh your memory with some basic information about the first primal colony, straight from the notes.

First, to clarify, this First Primal Colony is essentially a space station built around Planet Glogrobeta 1, the primary planet of the Glogrobeta star system.

Around Planet Glogrobeta 1, the main star of the Glogrobeta system, there are two Primal Colonies—First Primal Colony and Second Primal Colony.

With that in mind, let’s begin from the beginning.

It's not an exaggeration to say that agriculture takes place across the entire planet of Glogrobeta—indeed, throughout the oceans and underground as well.

While large-scale agriculture requires some preliminary preparation and processing of crops to be done on the planet itself, the nobles, politicians, and corporations managing the Glogrobeta system determined that any work beyond a certain point would be inefficient if carried out on the planet.

As a result, the two primal colonies came to be built specifically to handle tasks deemed inefficient to perform on the planet... in fact, designed to make such operations possible.

During construction, it was even suggested that moving materials along a conveyor-like system would be more efficient within this primal colony.

Thus was born the docking port, a method of transferring ships by moving them entire, dock and all.

Not all ships do this, but those that have predetermined arrangements move in the following way within the first primal colony.

Based on the gravity direction of our current position, the main disembarkation point is located at the top, where passengers are first offloaded.

Next, the entire ship is moved to the cargo unloading bay, where cargo is then offloaded.

Meanwhile, the unloaded cargo is processed across various locations in the colony... In contrast, the ship continues descending without pause, carrying out maintenance and refueling during its descent.

Finally, it follows the reverse procedure of when it disembarked: cargo is loaded from the colony's lowest loading bay, passengers board at the boarding gate, and it departs back into space.

That's the overall process.

"Wow, but that would be a problem for ships in a hurry, wouldn't it?"

"That's right. Ships that don't transfer to the colony interior at the disembarkation point seem to exit outward and travel around the outside to reach the boarding gate."

"It's surprising there aren't more problems with that..."

"Over ninety percent of the ships arriving at the Prime Colony in the Glogrobeta system are affiliated with corporations, and there are many ships of the same type. In extreme cases, crew members have been known to disembark at the unloading point, walk to the boarding point on foot, and board a different ship of the same type to depart."

"Efficient... is it really?"

Incidentally, privately owned spacecraft scheduled for long-term mooring are said to be gathered at a dedicated port with no disembarkation points.

The location was... somewhere on the midsection of the colony, on the opposite side from where the planet is situated.

If we had arrived here aboard the *Tsumebakei*, we would have used that port.

Well, that plan vanished after the incident with the Giga-Rok Pirates, though.

"I see. So what's the plan from here on out?"

Sata asks me.

"For today, we'll be staying at the hotel we reserved in advance. After tomorrow, I'm planning to observe the planet Glorgobeta 1 using the ultra-precise telescopes from the colony, visit a few of the sites within the First Prime Colony, just wander around the city, and maybe check out some local shops. Altogether... it should definitely take over a week."

"Hmm, hmm. By the way, what about the rocket corn?"

"Note."

"Other reservations were easy, but the rocket corn has been quite tricky. I'd like to book a table at a restaurant serving the exclusive dish from the Glogro Beta system, if possible... It's clearly very popular."

"Apparently."

"I see... that makes sense..."

Although our plan for the First Prime Colony is just a casual sightseeing tour, we've also received several invitations to visit and tour some of the corporate colonies afterward.

Let's go take a look while coordinating with the intelligence unit.

"Ah, we can see the city now."

"O-oh wow... This is quite something."

"..."

Now, moving from the docking area into the interior of the colony.

As we passed through the corridor, the view that unfolded before us was... a residential area lush with greenery, so dense it was hard to believe it was inside a colony.

09/19 Correction of typo