"Vortex will take care of arrangements. The merchant will be waiting for you in the spaceport, but you can probably just rendezvous on departure." The elevator door opened and quickly and she let Ascot board with her before taking the elevator to the hangar bay, beneath her workshop. Vortex should have already had the mech ready to go. "If you want to purchase supplies, I suppose Vortex could also load your supplies for you. She'll figure it out."

The elevator opened to reveal the hangar, and there it was, the Ashbringer. "Alright, kid. I think that merchant is ready to leave when you are. Be careful out there." She'd stay by the elevator, letting the kid walk to his mech and waiting until he got in before she'd get back in the elevator. She needed to review Vortex's report and get to work on her designs.


~~~

The coming week was enough time for her to finish designing an upgrade to one of her builders. Nothing major, just some performance optimizations. She'd started construction on the new residential section, and had plans to convert the existing one into dedicated food productions once work on the new one was complete and everyone moved over. That'd also put her personal quarters behind tighter security, something she wasn't opposed to.

For the moment, she was taking a break from things. A nice stroll through the park in residential was what the mind needed. For all the trees, though, there wasn't any wildlife... She missed the sound of birds and forest critters. Maybe she'd have to arrange for some. Would they live happily here, though? If she wanted to bring animals here, they should be able to live well. Sounded like she'd have to balance an ecosystem, and that sounded like a nightmare.