The Federation Service Station hovered around a red giant that was over a billion kilometers wide.
It was a massive piece of metal structure that looked like 3 cylindrical rods, rounded around a bigger rod at the center.
There were metal antennas and whatnot coming out of the service station, and hundreds of ships flew in and out constantly.
Ning stared from the window while the captain made some communications with the person in charge of handling research vehicles.
"Is that… a sun?" Saphandra asked. She had never seen a red giant before.
"Your first time huh?" Ning asked. "It's the second time for me. That star will die in a relatively short time and burst open."
"Really? Won't these people die?" she asked.
"Oh, when I say relatively, I mean relative to how long it's been alive. The star bust have formed many billion years ago, and by comparison, it will die in a few million years."
"Oh, so they have plenty of time," Saphandra said. "Still, it is so red."
"I wonder why they chose this place," Ning thought. From what he could tell, everything in this science-enhanced world needed a single thing to survive.
Water.
Water was not only important because it was what kept the humans alive, but also because they needed water for Oxygen, which was necessary to keep living, and Hydrogen, which was what fueled everything around here.
Since they were capable of Nuclear Fusion, the federation gained their energy by fusing Hydrogen to create Helium and release a bunch of energy.
Now, while Hydrogen was plenty available in the galaxy as it was the building block of the universe, Oxygen on the other hand was not as readily available, and the easiest way to get that was to simply split water into Hydrogen and Oxygen.
Ning opened his Star Chart for a second and saw a planet that was currently on the other side of the sun but would come around in at least 50 more years.
"Oh, that makes sense," Ning said when he saw that the planet was made up of water for the most part with a huge surface of it simply frozen.
"There's plenty amount of water here, so I can see why they live here," Ning said.
"I would still hate all this redness," Saphandra said.
Suddenly, the window through which Ning was looking outside turned into a screen and a face appeared on it.
It was a blue-haired man with multiple folds of skin on his forehead. Other than that, he looked normal.
"Captain, please verify yourself," the man said.
"Authority O319SG33. Captain Gerrbax of FRS Icefall, requesting to land," the captain spoke to the system.
"Authority verified. Welcome back, captain. Please head to the 76th hanger on the 2nd Rim," the blue-haired man said.
The FRS Icefall flew to the 2nd rim of the station and flew in through a door that was opened just for them.
"System, looks like there might be verifications and stuff, make sure to fake something for me and give me the information you fake," Ning said.
<Understood>
A new identity flowed into Ning and he couldn't help but immediately regret giving the system full authority on what to make of his identity.
According to the system, Ning was born on one of the Federation planets called Gyronix which lies on Quadrant 3, sector 5.
Apparently, he was a really rich person on that planet, fated to marry the most beautiful girl, but on a dare, he bet away his money, house, and the seal of marriage that forced the girl to marry him.
Once he was poor, Ning was forced to join the federation to make ends meet and were somehow able to become an ensign to enter one of the ships to go on a survey.
While on the survey, they hit a bunch of asteroids due to a malfunction on the ship's Light Emission system that was used to check on things that the ship was headed towards.
Once crashed, the ship fell to Nulwurn, and Ning had only managed to survive because he was in one of the cryo-chambers.
Also, his name was now Rattrap Barnacles.
"Why the hell would you give me such a bad name like Rattrap Barnacles? Are you making fun of me?" Ning asked.
"Wait, that's what you're called? Hahaha!" Saphandra started laughing on her own.
<That was not the system's intention. The system only wished to provide what the host asked while using the least bit of energy.>
"What? How does naming me a rat trap save energy?" Ning asked.
<The system merely changed a person's bio-signature in the database to replace it with yours. As such, not much energy was used.>
"What? A person named Rattrap exists?" Ning asked.
<Existed. He was one of the people that died when ZSS Unity III crashed in Nulwurn.>
"Oh," Ning's emotion softened when he realized he was disrespecting a dead man. "My bad then. I guess I'll use his name then. Still, his story is quite sad. To think he lost so much on a single drinking game."
The ship slowly landed inside the enormous hanger with nobody inside and the shutter for that hanger started shutting down.
Then the ship's own hanger opened up, and one by one, the crew mates started getting off.
Ning followed them and got off as well.
A dwarf-like man with a thick beard came running up to them with a glowing piece of item in his hand.
He quickly pointed it towards the 12 of them and scanned every one of them.
"Hmm, all are fine. Welcome back," the dwarf said and turned around. "Follow me."
The group started walking, and Ning followed them. The hanger was truly large, so it took quite some time before they reached the other side of the hanger which then opened up to reveal a giant circular tube.
The small rim that looked like a cylinder was actually a massive piece of living space that was multiple kilometers wide and could house millions of people inside of it.
Ning was truly surprised by just how big the place was.
