NOD
Things blow up.
Fast as we make torpedoes, Hound of Difficulty fires them.
Cannon ammo running away like water.
Barely keep up.
Raw material running low.
Have to start feeding furniture into the hoppers soon.
Convert everything not nailed down into raw material for printers.
Print cannon shells.
Load torpedo tubes.
No rest.
Okonkwo help.
Okonkwo good in crisis.
Calm.
Knows what to do.
Not like some humans.
Every clunk on hull is a dent I’ll have to fix later. Always work.
I tell offspring.
Always work, then rest.
Maybe work then die.
But not to worry. Nothing ever truly lost. All comes back to World Tree in end.
Even cousins on Fleet of Pointy Death.
Gone for five thousand years.
Now back.
Back and grumpy.
Too long away from World Tree.
Too long tucked away in pocket universe.
No connection.
No roots.
No wonder pissed off.
All I had to do was tell them situation. They had been kept in engineering section. No access to outside. They didn’t know what was being done by their ships. As soon as I told them, they offered to cripple Fleet.
Would have if Scourers hadn’t shown up.
Now many dying with their ships.
Spirits flying back to World Tree.
Never lost.
Never truly dead.
Everything returns.
Like seasons.
Like weather.
Day and night.
Light and dark.
Order and chaos.
But if Scourers win, World Tree threatened.
If World Tree falls, who knows what happens?
World Tree has always been.
Should always be.
Urge my cousins to fight the monsters.
Urge Hound of Difficulty to fight the monsters.
Make ammo.
Load torpedoes.
Fate of all rests on how fast I produce.
How many torpedoes I make.
How hard I work.
Always work.
No rest.
No rest until victory.