The First Love

“It looks nothing like a dersheri.”
Nwesen shrugged. “No, but it works.”
Eyne Dorsteldyn looked at the tech, then back at the ship. “What do you call it?”
“Zhedeç calls it Sheçsaw.”
Dorsteldyn sighed. “Of course they do.”
Nwesen chuckled. “It is their first love here in the Evenacht.”
Dorsteldyn smoothed his black mane back, flicked his small, pointed ears, and decided not to care. “When will it be ready for flight?”
“It passed the test runs. A day or two more, we’ll have a cargo ship.”

In this Document:

The First Love

all images by Shade Melodique
unless otherwise stated
Featured image background by Mihai Vlasceanu, Pexels

The Problem

Eyne Dorsteldyn, after founding Badeçasyon in 6071 EPR, wanted a reliable mode for transporting supplies to the city from the peoples of the Evenacht willing to trade with the interstellar invaders. Those of a ghostly persuasion, still furious that his planet invaded theirs, hounded them into the wastes, and the native umbrareign who did not care about Talin prejudices and who had the supplies they needed did not necessarily live close.
Garbridarço ghosts had needs, just like their living selves. They needed shelter from winds and rain, they needed some mechanism to create mist for them to absorb, they needed research facilities to figure out how their new forms could travel through space to reach their home planet’s afterlife—if it had an afterlife. For all of it, they needed raw materials not found in the Scorn, so they needed to find a way to bring these things to Badeçasyon without worrying about faelareign spirits waylaying them.

Eyne Dorsteldyn

Zhedeç Zhaun

Zhedeç Zhaun was a technologist aboard one of the Khun Stellar Region’s longstays command ships. Not highly placed, when the call went out for hands to attack a before-unknown planet, their superiors shipped them away. They met Eyne Dorsteldyn aboard the invader’s command ship, but nothing came of it before Erse Parr sucked the life out of every being in the attacking fleet.
Zhaun and a small group of technologists wandered the Evenacht in terror until they heard of a Gabridarço lieutenant building a safe haven on Fading Light, in a region called the Scorn. They traveled to this haven, and arrived just as the commanding officers of the fleet stepped foot on Badeçasyon soil. They, upset at how their perfect invasion went, upset that ground had yet to be broken for the stately buildings Dorsteldyn promised, sat in a tent and whined.

Zhedeç Zhaun

Luali Ta-ren

Disgusted by the leadership’s behavior, and wanting to support the construction of a safe space for the Gabridarço, Zhaun searched among the local Glejeth for help. They met an architect by the name of Luali Ta-ren who agreed to aid in planning the buildings they needed to construct.
They, with Ta-ren and her assistants, drew up blueprints for the city. Everything looked good—on paper. Their largest obstacle? The supplies and equipment they needed were nowhere near the Scorn. Ta-ren had contacts in other parts of Fading Light, so rounded up what they needed—but she had no way to get them shipped safely to Badeçasyon.
Zhaun knew that Dorsteldyn had asked Kaçidor, the chief technologist aboard the invasion command ship, about creating a floating vessel to haul cargo. Kaçidor, however, refused to get involved; still smarting from the loss of the fleet, their life, and any meaningful social and occupation status, they joined the commanders huddled inside an inappropriately small tent, whining in tune with them.
Figuring they would not step on any toes if they helped Dorsteldyn, Zhaun set about sketching a cargo ship with helpful input from a science tech, Nwesen, and their research group.

The Ship

Zhaun's design relied heavily on the outskirt cargo ships they maintained as a young technologist. The ship was rectangular, with silver strips containing running lights marking the six levels. The center of the ship had an elevator that descended, which could carry up to four heavy, armored ground vehicles. A ramp would ensure an easy on/off for all equipment and supplies.
The local rufang mines provided enough metal for one ship, and Ta-ren had the brilliant idea of using greol bones instead of wood for the interior and not only discovered a replacement mechanism for narnak engines, she showed Zhaun thermal management the native way—with dried saltmud bricks. The Glejeth smiths used magic and might to mold the metal into usable beams, down to the thousands of screws and rivets needed.
The only thing missing? Suigt. The Evenacht had nothing comparable to the crystal grains the Gabridarço used to make ships float. Fortunately, Nwesen and their scientific group already discovered a new way, based on native plants and animal waste, to create a lighter-than-air gas that ships could use for floating.
They called it mazhsuigt—new suigt. Ta-ren called it hover gas, which was easy to remember for all involved. Using local mushrooms for inspiration, she and Zhaun worked on designing an apparatus that would let the ship float.

On the fourth level, they placed spherical bases at the ship corners which held the gelatinous goo. When combined with the wickering flower pulp, gas from the reaction would run up long pipes the roof of the ship. There, mushroom-shaped metal netting would expand with the gas.
The center netting looked like an upside-down tree that was three times as large as the corners' mushrooms. With all filled to capacity, the ship would float two hundred stories above the ground. When at rest, it would float the elevator’s height off the ground, moored by four anchors attached to chains at each corner.
Hover gas engineers would manually combine the materials in the base. Engines linked to the command console would power valves that released the gas into the mushrooms and the center tree. Any excess would be released into the air via ducts.
Ta-ren was not a shipbuilder, but she designed the room layout using both Gabridarço and Glejeth principals.
Once completed, the Gabridarço had a familiar-but-not ship that could haul the materials they needed to build Badeçasyon from the distant places they were purchased from. Zhaun, with much pomp, called it the Sheçsaw, or the First Love.

Epilogue

Dorsteldyn gave a grand tour of the Sheçsaw to the sulky commanders, who immediately wanted to conscript it for their personal use. Grinning to hide his annoyance, he reminded the leaders that getting out of the Evenacht and back to Gabridarç was a group effort. The ship would do as intended--cart cargo to build Badeçasyon, not ferry them about the Evenacht.
The commanders went back to their complaining, and the shipbuilders finished three more ships before Zhaun embarked on a new endeavor with Ta-ren—Re-ship, a company that re-fit seaworthy ships using Gabridarço and Glejeth ideas.
Dorsteldyn continued to build Badeçasyon into a bastion of Gabridarç architecture and might with one purpose in mind; conduct research to find a way for ghosts to travel through interstellar space.

Further Reading:
Badeçasyon
The Flayn Invaders