The shuttle from Rittersberg descended through the hazy skies of Cloudy Curtain with a soft rumble, its inertial dampeners gently humming beneath Ren's seat. As the hull vibrated from mild atmospheric turbulence, Ren Larkinson stared blankly out the small window, watching the gray-tinted clouds peel away to reveal the familiar industrial terrain of the planet below.
Prefabricated buildings squatted among massive exhaust towers and dust-blown access roads. Once again, he was returning to this quiet colony planet in the middle of nowhere—a place where dreams rusted as easily as metal left out in the rain.
It was strange to think it had only been four years since he had first stepped foot here, fresh from rebirth, still reeling from the disorienting memories of another life on Earth. Back then, he had barely known how to operate a comm unit. Now, his fingers instinctively danced across a virtual interface, the foreign tech of the Komodo Star Sector slowly becoming second nature. Not mastery—far from it—but enough to keep up.
And now, after two additional years of catching up and four years of formal training at Rittersberg University, he had returned home… if you could call this place that.
"Landing in five," Ves said quietly from beside him.
Ren blinked and turned. His younger brother—by blood, at least—sat with his head slightly bowed, eyes dull, jaw clenched. The usually driven and energetic Ves seemed carved from stone.
Ren didn't press him. He knew why.
Their father, Ryncol Larkinson, had passed.
They'd learned of it only days before the end of their final semester. Ves hadn't said much after reading the message from the local authorities on Cloudy Curtain—just that there was no funeral, no grave, and nothing left but debts and a derelict workshop.
Ren had no particular emotional attachment to the man—he'd only met him a few times and had never really felt part of the extended Larkinson family. But Ves... Ves had carried that bond for years, even if it had grown frayed and bitter.
The shuttle touched down with a soft hiss. A moment later, the hatch opened, revealing the dull brown haze of the spaceport.
Ren followed Ves down the ramp, the dry air instantly coating his tongue with the taste of dust and metallic residue. The small, government-owned port was almost empty. A customs officer waved them through without much interest—Cloudy Curtain didn't get many visitors, and two returning university students didn't even register as noteworthy.
A rented hovercar waited for them just outside. Ves drove.
Ren stared out the window in silence as they passed the edges of the small settlement, where basic industrial buildings loomed like weary titans left behind by a more ambitious age. Cloudy Curtain had never flourished. Its population had stagnated, its industry withered, and its infrastructure felt older than its supposed age.
"I thought maybe… maybe there'd be something left," Ves murmured as they crossed an old freight causeway. "Some foundation I could build on. Even a single functioning lathe would've been enough."
Ren nodded. "Did you get the power readings?"
"Yeah. The grid still runs to the lot, but the energy credits are almost gone. We'll have to top it up ourselves."
"What about tools?"
"Mostly gone. Sold off. The CNC line, the old industrial printer, the component diagnostic scanner—all liquidated years ago. I don't even think there's a coffee maker left."
Ren winced. "Harsh."
They turned down a narrow street lined with rust-stained metal fences. The car slowed as Ves pulled into a small lot facing an old structure—more warehouse than workshop, with corrugated metal siding, a retractable roof, and a small office extension bolted onto one side.
The Larkinson Family Workshop.
Or what was left of it.
Ves parked the car and stepped out without a word. Ren followed, his boots crunching against the gravel as he surveyed the scene. The building was in poor shape—panels warped by weather, scorch marks near the loading bay, and broken glass barely patched with plastic film.
Ves approached the front door and keyed in a long access code.
The panel beeped once, then turned green. The door hissed open on old hydraulics.
Inside, the air was stale. Dust hung visibly in shafts of weak sunlight filtering through overhead skylights. Rows of empty tool racks stretched across the workshop floor, and a layer of grime coated every bench, table, and screen.
It smelled of rust, old oil, and disuse.
Ren walked in slowly, boots echoing in the cavernous space. His gaze flicked from the power conduit along the back wall to the disabled fabrication units near the far end. A few things remained—an out-of-date fabrication arm, a scorched welding terminal, and a wall-mounted workbench— but it was a skeleton of a workshop.
Ves walked over to the office and retrieved a dusty folder of legal documents, sitting heavily in the squeaky old chair behind the desk. Ren watched him flip through the papers with slow, tired hands.
"Here's the title deed. Still in his name," Ves muttered. "Utilities… unpaid. Asset inventory—shorter than I thought. There's nothing left."
Ren pulled over a chair and sat opposite. "What now?"
"I don't know," Ves admitted. "I always thought I'd come back and find… something. Even if he'd been gone, I thought there'd be a core I could build around. But this—" he gestured to the empty room "—this is a grave."
Ren tapped the dusty desk surface. "Then we bury the past and build something new."
Ves looked up. "We?"
Ren smiled faintly. "What, you think I came all this way for sightseeing?"
"But… you always talked about applying to an internship. You wanted to work on advanced targeting systems—modular fire coordination, you said. Why come back to this dump with me?"
"Because this dump is where your story begins. And maybe mine too."
Ves stared at him, and something shifted behind his eyes. The tension in his shoulders eased slightly.
"I don't even know what kind of mechs I want to design," he muttered. "At school, everyone kept talking about their 'design philosophies'—'agile brutality,' 'mobile sustainability,' 'flame-and-force duality.' I don't have anything like that. Just… a bunch of disconnected ideas and a hollow workshop."
Ren leaned back and crossed his arms. "You think I walked in knowing I wanted to specialize in long-range systems? That came later—after reading thousands of schematics and failing dozens of mock designs. I still don't know what my final philosophy will be."
"Maybe I'll never find one."
"You will. Because you care. That's the first step."
Ves looked down at the folder again, fingers absently tracing the Larkinson name etched on the paper's edge. "This place doesn't deserve it. But I'm going to try."
"That's all you can do," Ren said quietly.
That evening, they began cleaning the workshop together.
Ren focused on the workbenches and floor while Ves cleared out the old office. They found spare parts, corroded wiring spools, forgotten toolkits, and even a cracked portable scanner that might still function with repairs. Most of it was junk—but not all of it.
Ren cataloged what they had left while Ves ran diagnostics on the main power line. After several hours of sweat, curses, and one minor electrical shock, they got partial lighting back online.
The workshop remained eerily empty, but at least now it breathed.
Around midnight, they sat side by side on crates outside the entrance, watching the Cloudy Curtain sky—murky, starless, and still.
"We'll need to register a business license if we want to operate formally," Ves said quietly. "Even on Cloudy Curtain, there's bureaucracy. The system here hasn't changed in ten years."
"Have you picked a name?"
"No. I don't even know if I'm ready to start a business."
"Doesn't have to be today," Ren said. "But think about it. This workshop is yours now. The name you choose will shape how people remember it."
Ves went silent.
Then, after a long pause, he said: "I think I want to name it after our family. To honor what's gone. To remind myself of what's left."
Ren gave a small nod. "Then make it worthy."
They sat in silence a while longer, until the wind picked up and the distant hum of the industrial sector returned.
Inside, the workshop waited—scarred, quiet, and still full of possibility.