"Quite contrary, if you double the mass of the ship you will not have to put out any extra exertion at all.
"Why? Oh due to the lack of friction in space. So the only concerns one should have with building extremely large vehicles is the amount of raw material needed, and the man power to operate the ship."
"And forced conscription makes that second point moot."
-------------------------
The hustle of the streets was upon him. Walking down the street towards the market at the corner, he made his way through the large crowds of people along the sides. It was one of those rare nice days. The weather control system was in dire need of repairs. It seemed about every two days or so it would crap out and start throwing out random sleet, snow, rain, or hail. Authorities claimed to have requested new parts, but they had this strange habit of always seeming to get lost along the way.
He paused to study the sign. "Open Air Market. Hours: Sunrise to sunset except when raining." The smell had already told him that the market was going to be closing soon. These nice days always had a way of ending suddenly. He just assured himself that whatever happened in here was always better thhan what was going on outside the perimeter. Out there, if the weather didn't kill you, whatever was living out there would.
--------------------------
"Open fire"
"Aye Sir"
--------------------------
The change in the wind direction meant that he would only have a short while before he was going to have to start making his way back to his shelter. He tried to grab as much of the items that were on his list as he could. Some of the fresh karpathi meat, som toregi, and a bit of the tralai was all that he could carry; so he made his way back. The trick about cooking toregi was that you had to find a common consistencey for it. You have to get it to the point just before it breaks if you touch it. The reason for this is that you want it to break open over the karpathi when served. You can't expect to be able to soften up while cooking the karpathi, because the karpathi meat dries out extremely quickly. Allowing it to sit over an open flame for too long would turn the meat into a solid brick.
It's not really all that important to him now. A building has fallen on his head.
---------------------------
"Transmissions coming from the planet."
"Seems that we've gotten the ambassadors attention now. Target the source of transmission and remove it."
---------------------------
The people of the small isolated planet were fleeing from building to building, thoping that the next one to fall would not be the one they were in. Some had resigend themslves to ther fate and were performing last rites on each other in a hope to escape a more serious fate and to hopefully arrive in the hands of their maker. One man walked down the street, through the rubble screaming at the top of his lungs.
"SEE!!! The day of reckoning has arrived. Repent now while you have a chance!!!!"
