Starbound: A Space Odyssey

John Peri walked around until they found a Crystal Erchius vein laying around in the surface of the moon.

"If that Ghost consumes Crystal and Liquid Erchius, why would still have some laying in the surface like this vein and that lake?" Peri asked John that was beside her.

"I don't know." John shrugged his shoulders, "Erchius Ghost is still mystery to this day. Information about them is always lacking. Some scientists even debate if Erchius Ghost can be a life form or not as they don't seem to have a material body with their ability to seamlessly faze through any wall in front of them."

"Hum..." John looked over at Peri that scratching her chin in deep thought.

Deep within those black eyes, John could still see the fighting intent burning inside her.

[Once a Floran warrior, always one...they love a challenge, a tough fight.] John shook his head.

John pressed his PIPS and started to communicate with Forge that was overseeing their situation through the images in the Navigation Console, "Forge, is the engine ready?"

"No, almost done. The Assembler has already began fabricating it, but it will take some time until is ready." Forge's voice reached John's ear.

"Alright, mark down this location on the moon's surface, we are going to mine this later." John said to Forge before turning to Peri, "We are going back. I'm going to change the old and destroyed engine to the new one before taking the risk to mine the Crystal Erchius Fuel."

Peri nodded and followed along with John as both of them beamed up back to the spaceship.

...

It took some hours, but after some arduous work, John, Forge and Lenny managed to exchange the engines.

Now that everything was ready, all they needed was some Erchius Fuel.

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Although John already marked down a relatively large vein of Crystal Erchius, he simply couldn't down and mine everything, since he didn't know if the Erchius Ghost was around them.

John was back at his room, exchanging his clothes that were dirtied with oil and other liquids that were spilled all over when he was fixing the engines.

They got it working, they spaceship could finally move around, but he also didn't have enough Core Fragments to power up the thrusters to move them to another moon and possibly evade the risk of being brought down by the Ghost as soon as he get his hand in the Erchius Fuel.

While his clothes were being washed and he was bathing, his mind was trying to find solutions to the problem.

But it didn't matter how much he thought, all he came up with was the same, a gamble.

He have to take a gamble and try to extract the Crystal Erchius Fuel and hope the Erchius Ghost is far enough for them to leave unscathed.

"How troublesome..." He muttered as he cleaned up his black hair.

After washing up, he looked at himself in the mirror.

He saw that his hair, beard has grown a little bit.

John took a razor that was by the sink and started to shave his face.

Done with the facial hair, he moved on to use the scissors to cut his hair.

*Click*

*Click*

John stared up at himself in the mirror and saw that he pretty much looked the same as when he was in the Terrene Protectorate University, but there was something different.

The difference was in the look of his eyes.

They weren't the same anymore. This last weeks has been pretty wild for him.

"I'm still myself..." John muttered to the image in the mirror, "...right?"

Closing his eyes for a moment and then opening was enough for him to recover from the doubts sprouting in his head.

He glanced down and his eyes focused on the back of his right hand.

Although he couldn't see it, he could feel it.

The mark.

Ever since he was branded with that mark in the Ceremonial Hunting Caverns, he had the same dreams over and over again.

They showed those gray people with red eyes and pointy-ears, that advanced civilization John didn't know a single thing about.

But he had some guesses as the language that was written in some of the images that was shown to him the dreams was the same language that he saw in the Ancient Gateway and in the Ark.

The Ancient Language.

[I should ask Esther about this dreams when I meet with her...] John thought one last time before shaking the unnecessary thoughts away, [Focus, first things first. Let's get out of here, go to the nearest Ancient Gateway and then meet up with Esther Bright...but what about Fujiwara Saito... that's a problem.]

John bitterly smiled as he thought about the Hylotl child.

There was bound to bring trouble to them as soon as they set foot in the Ark Outpost, after all, that place was Letheia's area of influence and they will surely get to know about Saito's identity.

Since Lenny went through all the trouble saving the kid, John couldn't just abandon him.

They will have to protect the kid when the time calls for.

John could already imagine they facing off against Letheia, Ocean or Reef Factions, or the Miniknog.

"Ahhh..." John sighed and wore his clothes before quickly leaving his room.

It was time to get back to the Ark Outpost.

John decided to leave the future troubles to the future.

...

John beamed down to the moon's surface alone this time.

He stood by the Crystal Erchius vein and observed it for a while as he hesitate to whatever or not start to extract.

"We're ready up here." John heard Forge's voice coming from his PIPS.

"Okay." John answered, "I'm going start now, keep your eyes in any change on the moon's surface for me."

With the Matter Manipulator on his hands, he started to extract the Crystal vein.

It was relatively fast, despite the Manipulator not being fully upgraded, but to John, it was like an eternity since he continued to worried scan his surroundings.

The more Crystal Erchius entered in his PIPS, more worried he became since he knew that by now, he got the Erchius Ghost's attention.

It took less than three minutes for John to extract everything, and as soon as he saw the empty vein, he didn't hesitate to beam back to his ship.

After throwing all the Crystal Erchius Fuel in the compartment inside the cockpit, John immediately selected the coordinates of the nearest Ancient Gateway in the Navigation Console.

Even when the Warp Jump began, John and company didn't saw a glimpse of the Erchius Ghost, and this fact made them sigh in relief.

Their next destination Ark Outpost...