354 Return to the Wildlands (1/2)
Back on Sorrel II, when Remian tried to buy supplies in the Dragon Empire, there was an arrogant quartermaster who…
Actually, no, forget it. Nobody cares. In the end, the guy was demanding to know ”Who let you buy openly in the great and mighty Dragon Empire?!” and Zor'khan showed up and said ”I did…”
So the guy turned and fell to his knees, his face quite white and Remian smiled.
Remian was smiling for roughly three seconds before Nai'khan-dras pounced on him and squealed ”Doggie!”
That was the end of his smile.
Anyway, the important thing was, the partnership between Zor'khan-dras and Remian Vin brought another huge fleet to the Wildlands. Upon seeing it, the Song Clan at the Great Docks cheered, thinking powerful reinforcements had arrived just in time to help them face the Beast Flood. To their amazement, however, the fleet went right past Song Chen's territory, heading farther west, and stopped at Craggy Falls.
”We'll set up our district on the south side.” Zor'khan tapped a finger on a map laid out across a large table.
”Remember. You promised me. Clean industries!” Remian reminded.
”I swear it on my own name.” Zor'khan assured him. ”This is a military district, not some industrial park. We just need forges and armories for our combat gear. The heavy duty construction and such would be done back in the Empire.”
Most importantly, the Trade Beacon would be built in the Draconian District. This was Zor'khan's means of providing security.
As for where the traders might land, that was Remian's job. Originally he had planned to upgrade the airport into a spaceport, but Zor'khan strongly advised against letting otherworlders land in the middle of his core settlement. Thus, they drew up new plans for a massive spaceport atop the Rocky Thorns themselves. Doing so would pretty much flatten more than half those sharp stone 'thorns', but nobody was going to complain about that.
The design was a simple square landing platform sporting four main loading bays surrounded by cranes and warehouses. While it might be unreasonably large for the common Frigate and Galleon-class airships favored across Sorrel II, Quarin cargo ships tended to be larger and heavier, at least Mothership-class.
By design, each corner 'lot' would be able to host a Behemoth-class spaceship or airship, with loading capabilities on two sides. As for a Leviathan-class… just one of those would occupy half or all of the lots by itself, depending on its shape. Remian only hoped that their visitors' ships wouldn't be so heavy that the entire structure broke beneath it, or sank into the ground. After all, in terms of material technology, this world's structural steel and concrete could only support so much weight.
”Just what sort of ships are you expecting to visit?” Remian once asked.
”Draconian Thrones, at least. Those would be Mothership-class, in airship terms.” Zor'khan thought for a bit. ”Those are basically single-dragon vehicles favored by the adults of our Dras Clan. Eventually, we should expect a Leviathan-class Draconian Star Nest. That would be the ship coming to take my siblings and I to safety.”
Khar'al-dras was already big enough to be mistaken for a Cruiser. Obviously his elder siblings were bigger. Imagine a single ship capable of hosting all eight Great Dragons at the same time…! Not to mention their Broods…
On top of that, the 'Great Dragons' were just juveniles according to the Dras Clan, not even matured enough to venture into space on their own strength. How big were the adults? For a Mothership-class to be just a 'throne'…
Then again, Zor'khan-dras in human form as he was now really shouldn't take up too much space. Remian wasn't sure how it all worked but the fact that they hadn't scaled down their ships to fit human-form Draconians said that the size was important for some reason. Maybe it was to contain all the food? Did dragons eat less while they were in human form? Remian didn't know.