Chapter 12: A Taste of This Chapter (Pairs Well with Dinner)

After capturing Dubrak Kunto’s band of smugglers, the next week or so settled into a calm rhythm, with the colony steadily growing.

Four mining stations now orbited the gas giant—also called Endor—supplying the mothership with helium-3 fuel for its fusion reactors. That was the limit, though; the mothership only carried four modular mining stations. Building more would require constructing them from scratch.

Of the nine moons circling this Endor, three were rich in metal ores. The engineering team was working overtime to build an interstellar mining operation on one of the asteroids, securing raw materials for space-based construction.

On the ground, the colony on Dawn Star was thriving. A thousand modular two-story residential buildings had been erected, housing over 1,700 residents, with capacity for more. Daphne Clement, head of administration, was busy selecting and awakening suitable colonists to join the construction efforts on Dawn Star.

But two big problems loomed. First, the rapid population growth was straining job availability. Second, the mothership’s five small transport shuttles—each capable of carrying only 100 passengers or 50 tons of cargo—couldn’t keep up with demand. At roughly 30 meters long, these shuttles were corvette-class, too large to be built on the mothership’s production lines. Building more required a small space dock, which was under construction but wouldn’t be ready for another week, even with modular materials.

To make matters worse, one of the shuttles had broken down.

These issues had Ventus running ragged. The colony’s early days had been manageable, but as it scaled up, problems snowballed. He hadn’t had a moment to think about Star Wars plotlines; he was too busy shuttling between Dawn Star and the mothership, making decisions on the fly.

The upside? The knowledge crammed into his head was starting to click. After weeks of hands-on work, he was getting the hang of things. If someone had told him a week ago—back when he was just a regular college grad—that he’d be managing a growing interstellar colony, he’d have laughed it off as sci-fi nonsense.

Under his leadership, the colony chugged along smoothly. Hunting teams were formed, giving marines combat experience while supplying meat. Mines were scouted on Dawn Star for limestone, coal, and metals. Farms and orchards were established with native plants, alongside sealed hydroponic farms growing rice, wheat, and corn from the mothership’s stores. Steel mills, cement plants, sewage treatment facilities, power stations, and water treatment plants were built. Roads, airstrips, pipelines, and power lines were laid.

Then came the toughest challenge: waste management. Dawn Star’s surface was 95% land, with most water locked underground, making sewage disposal a nightmare. There were no rivers to carry waste, no oceans to dilute it. Dumping into the groundwater would poison the planet’s ecosystem within a year—everyone would be drinking sewage.

During a colony inspection, Ventus watched residents digging drainage and latrines when inspiration struck. Back on the mothership, he dove into a very serious discussion with Daphne Clement: he proposed building a massive “manure collector” on a nearby mountain, centralizing all sewage and wastewater, then constructing a dam to generate power from the waste.

It wasn’t a random idea. He’d done something similar in a game once. If game spaceships could become reality, why not a manure-powered generator?

Clement was horrified, barely resisting the urge to drag him to a medbay for a brain scan. She patiently explained that, in reality, sewage lacked the pressure to drive a dam’s turbines and was too full of debris to work reliably. “You never know if someone’s constipated, right?” she added. Plus, in winter, the waste could freeze, requiring costly heating systems.

To drive the point home, Clement roped in energy expert Guan Yan, who was eating lunch. Guan Yan, caught off guard, promptly vomited her meal upon hearing the topic but gamely helped Clement dissuade Ventus.

When that plan flopped, Ventus asked how many water treatment plants it would take to filter sewage into drinking water. Clement and her team, floored by his wild ideas, called in Qu Xuewen and Feng Yongwang. The experts spent hours talking him out of sewage-based power and recycling schemes, saving him from a path that might’ve ended with a mutiny.

The smelly topic demanded a solution, so they hashed it out for half a day. The conclusion? A giant “manure collector” was, shockingly, feasible—a super-sized sewage treatment center. It was expensive but could solve Dawn Star’s wastewater problem, given its underground water systems.

Just not on a mountain. A breach would flood the city with… well, you get the picture.

Ventus greenlit the plan: every city would have a central manure collector. Unbeknownst to him, he’d just founded the most infamous department in galactic history: the Public Sanitation Bureau.

Soon, Ventus moved on from the stinky subject. Now, he was leisurely stirring a bowl of gooey chocolate paste with a spoon, taking occasional bites while discussing a critical issue with a newly awakened elite-tier sociologist.

The mothership had no real snacks, so this half-finished chocolate sludge was his guilty pleasure.

“Administrator,” the sociologist, Norris Barry, said earnestly, “we need to focus on the colony’s cohesion. Right now, we’re small, and everyone rallies around you—that’s great. But as we grow, that won’t be enough. Take a look at my proposal…”

Just then, Guan Yan walked by with a boxed meal and spotted Ventus. “Oh, there you are, Administrator! Quick update: the infrared laser weapon analysis is going smoothly. We might finish ahead of schedule. We’re running the first weapon test this afternoon—want to come?”

“Sounds good, I’ll be there,” Ventus replied. Impressed by the team’s progress in just over a week, he wanted to praise her but blanked on what to say. Instead, he held up his bowl of chocolate paste. “Want some?”

Guan Yan eyed the sticky, brown, spiral-stirred mess and paled. “Uh, no thanks, I’m… not hungry.”

“Aw, too bad. It’s pretty tasty,” Ventus said, shaking his head. He stirred the bowl, scooped out a gooey spoonful, and popped it into his mouth with a loud slurp.

Guan Yan’s face went from pale to green. Dropping her boxed meal, she clapped a hand over her mouth and bolted.

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*[Easter Egg Chapter Images 1 & 2: Various Manure Collectors]*