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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Ogiwan on 2024-10-29 03:24:32+00:00.

While this is something that has been in my head a while, I'm afraid my current inebriation has dialed the complexity back more than I would have liked. Not that I thought of other supply chains while sober; I'm just sure that I would have thought of other aspects if I was able to fully plot stuff out. Because if you remember nothing else, remember this: The amount of work put in to whatever will kill you, or that asshat alien you hate, is worth it.

***STORY BEGINS***

My skin was made in Altair.

The furious, blue burning heart of that system, combined with the thick asteroid fields resulting from not only its mass, but from its quick rotation, meant that my skin was forged from simple steel in one of the two great stations in that system. In my case, Brown Station.

 My burning antimatter core, a mere ten grams, was forged above the furnace of Sol. The vast solar arrays piped energy into the proton accelerator that gave birth to my molten fury.

The raw materials for the hypermagnets were drawn from the burning hell of Sirius. Between the A-class Sirius A, and the white dwarf of Sirius B, no serious planetoids ever developed. Which means that protoplanetary mining, and the requisite station and support structures for said miners, meant that Sirius had a booming mining sector. And entertainment sector.

The circuitry that runs through me came from Terra itself, surprisingly enough. The “rare earths” from her surface, and the manufacture from the zero-G forges in orbit. In my case, Heinlein Station.

All of my components were sent to the New Rock Island Armory, on Phobos. The minimal gravity allowed for the easy manipulation of everything. I was made whole.

I was placed on a pallet with many of my brothers, and we waited. How long, I cannot tell, but long enough for us to be loaded on a heavy freighter. We traveled to the naval depot in Vega; you know the one. King Station, named after one of the greatest naval leaders of human history. All I know is that the appropriate sacrifices were made in his honor.

I waited for an indeterminate time in the z-gee storeyards. Look, I’m a shell, not a PFC or whatever. All I know is that a courier pinnace popped in, shot a transmit to Central, and I was loaded on a Busy Hauler.

If you don’t know, a Hauler moves a bunch of containers to wherever. A Busy Hauler moves containers, as well as the lighters that move them from orbit to surface. Yeah, it might sound hot, but it’s actually a point of pride that the drop boys and the grunts exist on such a tenuous supply chain.

My pallet was in a container that was on a lighter that was…..well, look, if I was a fleshy I would be paste. The only reason I got down was because of the inertial dampers in the cockpit.

Once everything stopped screaming and moving, I was yanked out by some fleshy in a suit. They dumped me onto a floater, along with a bunch of other pallets. Then, we moved in.

We bounced around for a bit, and then things slowed down, stopped. MHE, Material Handling Equipment, picked us up. A few hundred years ago, it would have been forklifts or pallet jacks or so I’ve been told, but now it is suits with tractors or the like. They put us on to all-terrain haulers.

My ATH bounces quite offensively over some rough terrain. The only reason I don’t go flying off is because of the curtain screen that keeps us from bouncing outside of our pallet.

 We come to a stop, and are taken off of our ATH. My pallet is put in front of a field piece that would be indistinguishable from its great-to-the-X grandfather from 1941. But, instead of hydraulic cylinders, this one has mass accelerator cylinders.

I wait, and am eventually loaded in. I am sent on my way with a great cacophony, but I do not pay attention to this.

Once I arrive at the necessary point, my anti-matter containment field cuts out, and I hits. My fury burns forth, a dozen, no, a dozen dozen hundred human’s fury expanded on the Bulro. A star briefly burns.

I have fulfilled my purpose.

***STORY ENDS***