"Material megastructures, extract the first batch of stellar matter as soon as possible!"
"The will's orders cannot be delayed! Early completion is the only option!"
The cluster leader's radio messages broadcast frequently, radiating commands at light speed to every unit in the cluster.
"Cooling megastructures, prepare yourselves! The first batch of heated helium from the material megastructures urgently needs processing!"
"Prepare the antimatter! Constructing the gravity rings requires antimatter reactors for power!"
The Collectors' arrival shattered the silence of this binary star system. Under the cluster leader's coordination, vast numbers of megastructure organisms headed to their assigned posts.
A material megastructure arrived in close orbit around one of the stars and aimed its matter intake at the stellar surface. A crimson pillar of flame tens of millions of meters long surged upward as vast quantities of stellar matter were devoured by the megastructure, then cooled with solid helium into room-temperature matter.
The high-temperature helium produced by the cooling process was funneled into an insulated storage sphere, carried away by an arriving storage megastructure, and delivered to a cooling megastructure for further cooling.
Storage megastructures, which handled transport, delivered the cooled stellar matter extracted by material megastructures—its various elements sorted into categories—to pressure megastructures. Helium was made into new solid helium for cooling the cluster's various units, while hydrogen was used to manufacture the liquid metallic hydrogen needed to construct gravity rings.
The red dwarf being mined by the Collectors resembled a dark crimson sea urchin. Its round body was covered in spikes, and at the tip of every spike was a material megastructure frantically stripping away stellar matter. The material megastructures synchronized with the star's rotation, maintaining relative stillness against its surface.
Thus, while the Collectors harvested matter, the star's "sea urchin" appearance remained remarkably stable.
The Collectors manufactured one