The Wolves Ch. 014

"My people know nothing about spaceships."

"Neither do humans, who will make up the bulk of the crew on each ship. We only have a few months to quietly recruit almost one million people to crew the ships. Your people could help a lot. If you agree to both of those conditions, we can have your elders, and all five hundred sixteen thousand and two eggs transported to a new planet within a month."

"A month? How can you transport them so quickly? When I proposed the deal, I had assumed it would have to wait until after you take your throne back."

[Please ask Selalea to have the dragons gliding over head move out of the way, please. I wouldn't want them to splatter against my shields,] Abi said, before I could respond.

[How many are there?]

[Thirty-seven, flying at different altitudes, all circling the island.]

"The reason we can transport them so quickly just arrived. She informed me that there are currently thirty-seven dragons circling the island. Can you please have them either land, or move a kilometer or so away from the island?"

She looked shocked that they were detected, but nodded. She looked up, breathed in, and let out a roar so loud, and so deep, that shouldn't have been possible from someone so small. It had all of us clapping our hands to our ears to block out the noise. When it ended, dragons started appearing in the sky, and were quickly descending down to the island. When the dragons were all landed around the island, Abi lowered her shroud, revealing that she was hovering just above the ocean. She is a lot bigger now, than she was this morning.

"Selalea, meet Abi. She'll be transporting your people, as soon as an uninhabited planet is decided upon. She's the fastest ship we know of."

"Why do you refer to it as 'she'?"

"Abi is a sentient crystalline lifeform. She is the ship."

Selalea looked at the ship in wonder.

[Abi, have you configured the ship yet to store the eggs?]

[I just finished before I let you know about the dragons that were gliding above the island.]

[Awesome. Mind forming a door so we can show Selalea how you'll be transporting them?]

[Sure, one moment.]

"How about we show you the initial plan Abi has come up with for transporting the eggs. She's making a door directly to the cargo bay."

"Making a door?" she asked, looking at me.

I nodded, "Abi can change the layout of the ship, as well as grow in size. On her way down here, she was creating a cargo bay to store the eggs. Most ships you'll find have dimensional storage for storing supplies rather than a cargo bay. That is the case because it doesn't take up any more space than the anchor for the dimensional storage. We would have had to purchase a new ship, or extensively modify a bunch of ships to be able to carry the eggs. Abi can do it without any trouble."

By the time I finished explaining it to Selalea, a large opening had appeared in the side of the ship. Just from my vantage point, I could see a large room with cell guides, similar to those you might find on a container ship. Cell guides prevent containers from moving around on a container ship, and they would serve the same purpose here.

"Come, and Abi will go over her plan. Your insight will be valuable."

As we walked over to the ship, a gangplank grew out of the ship, and extended onto the island. Upon walking inside, I had a new ship schematic downloaded to my mind. I had initially thought that the room would be too small, but wanted to make sure it would be a snug fit. The room is about forty meters long, fifty meters wide, and twenty-six meters high. The cell guides are included in the dimensions, and are about two feet think.

With those dimensions, the room is big enough to hold six rows of containers stacked twenty wide, and ten high, enough for twelve hundred containers.

"Abi, meet Selalea, Selalea, meet Abi."

"Greetings, Selalea. It is nice to meet you."

"Hello," she said, looking around to see where the voice was coming from.

"You said that dragon eggs are the size of beach balls. Is that size consistent with all of them, or is that the average?" Abi asked.

"That's the average size. Some are bigger, and some are smaller, though not by much."

"On average, that means a dragon egg will be around forty centimeters in diameter, then?"

"Around there, yes."

"Perfect. I'm sure you're familiar with shipping containers that are used to transport most goods around the planet?"

"I am. Is that how you're thinking of transporting them?" Selalea asked.

"Yes. It seems like the easiest and most secure way. I have estimated that eggs can be stacked in eighteen rows stacked five wide, and five high. That would come out to four hundred fifty eggs per container, requiring one thousand one hundred forty-seven shipping containers. That would leave fifty-three extra shipping containers if it turns out we can't fit four hundred fifty eggs per container."

"I like it, but there is one concern. What do you have in place to stop eggs from being scrambled should the ship hit something, or something hit the ship?"

"Once everything is loaded, I will activate stasis that encompases the entire room. With stasis active, it will be as if time has stopped inside the room. There is no risk of them being scrambled, as you put it. Just to be safe, I will have a backup generator installed that will immediately continue powering the room, should my own power be disconnected somehow."

"Stasis will not damage the eggs?"

"They will not. Jonathan and his sisters actually spent over fourteen hundred years in stasis as babies before finally being taken out."

"I see. I don't have any complaints, and I doubt any dragon would, either. Our eggs are suspended from the ceiling so they don't get damaged or destroyed in case of an earthquake. Stasis seems like a more elegant solution. I have to bring this up with the council, but when is the earliest we can start?"

"Do you see any of the council members putting up any resistance? I would say that we could start on Monday, but may want to wait until they're all on board." my mom said.

She shook her head. "They won't put up much of a fight about this. Many of them think they'll be stuck on Earth until we come up with the technology to leave, which is why they sleep so much. I think the council members will jump at the chance to leave Earth and finally see their children and grandchildren hatch."

"How about you meet with them and let us know what they say. If they approve, then you can give me a short tour, and we'll begin preparations. How many dragons can we expect to help crew our ships?" I asked.

"Almost all of them. Most of the elders, and all the egg-tenders will be traveling with their eggs. There are only a few very young dragons, so I'd say maybe seventy-eight thousand."

"That many? We were thinking it would be about half of that."

"Dragons live a very long time, and we usually remain quite active for the majority of our lives. You can count me among one of those seventy-eight thousand."

"Perfect. Well, how about we complete the trade we initially came here for, and then we can start making plans?"

"That is fine with me, though I will still not allow myself to be scanned. Luckily my son is here, so you can scan him."

She led us back outside of the ship to where the gold was still stacked. She looked over to the smallest dragon, and called him over. He's still pretty big, at perhaps ten meters from head to tail, but nowhere near as big as his mother. The young dragon ran over and stood beside her.

"This is my son Ilnod," she said. Looking at him, she explained what was going to happen. "I want you to lower the shield protecting your mind. These people are going to scan you by entering your mind for a short time. They say it won't hurt, but I want you to tell me immediately if it is uncomfortable, alright?"

He nodded his huge head up and down.

"Okay, you can begin."

I closed my eyes and reached out as I had before. I was able to sense all the dragons around me, and Ilnod was the only one who didn't have a shield up. I slowly entered his mind and navigated to where the information I needed was located. It didn't take very long at all, and within a minute, I had what I needed. I left his mind as gently as I entered, and opened my eyes.

"Done," I said. I moved back a short distance since I didn't know how big I would be, and began shapeshifting into a dragon.

It took much, much longer than it took with any other forms, and I could feel my mana being drained almost as quickly as I could generate it, to help fuel the transformation. After about three minutes or so, it was over, and I was looking over everyone. I couldn't tell how big I was, but I knew I was at least two times bigger than Ilnod, who was looking at me with wide eyes.

[So, how do I look?] I asked everyone.