The sound of some mechanical locking mechanism activating rose from deep within the earth. The automatically operating spacecraft had docked with the automatically operating home port. Once the two expanses of Steel Land had connected, everyone heard the deep hum continuously emanating from the ancient ship beneath their feet gradually fade away—it seemed the vessel's systems had entered sleep mode and begun receiving supplies and inspections from the home port.
After setting down the "passengers" on her back, Melita returned to Human Form amid a curtain of light. She looked ahead, a hundred meters away—what had originally been the edge of the spacecraft was now connected to the home port's dock. The ship's shield at the corresponding point had also merged with the home port's own shield. Before her now lay an unobstructed road leading directly onto the "home port," which was nearly the size of an artificial continent.
"Should we go ashore and take a look now?" She turned to Gawain beside her. "We just don't know how long this ship will remain here. What if it suddenly leaves while we're exploring after disembarking..."
"It will remain here for at least twelve hours." Gawain slightly shook his head before Melita could finish. He looked up at the junction between the ship and the dock, where an enormous Holographic Projection stretched across the deck and connecting passage. A line of flickering characters pulsed across it. The others could not make sense of it, but he understood it clearly: it displayed the ship's progress in undergoing engine calibration and shield charging at the port. It seemed that although the main system here had been damaged, some of the home port's basic functions were still operating normally, just as the lights throughout the area remained functional—though they too appeared to have been