Worldbuilding Prompt #1125 - The Rim Awaken - Part 10: Contemplation
Published on HivePostify by @alonicus · Fri Sep 04 2026
This post was inspired by a writing prompt in the Worldbuilding Community - [Worldbuilding Prompt #1125 - New Perspectives](https://peakd.com/hive-191038/@worldbuilder/worldbuilding-prompt-1125-new-perspectives)
Enjoy !
This post was inspired by a writing prompt in the Worldbuilding Community -
It is also the next part of a series which is developing into a full-length story. The working title I'm going with for now is "The Rim Awaken". Previous posts are [PART 1](https://peakd.com/hive-191038/@alonicus/worldbuilding-prompt-1127-salvage-or-something), [PART 2](https://peakd.com/hive-191038/@alonicus/worldbuilding-prompt-1106-the-rim-awaken-part-2-life-support), [PART 3](https://peakd.com/hive-191038/@alonicus/worldbuilding-prompt-1122-the-rim-awaken-part-3-not-imperial-at-all), [PART 4](https://peakd.com/hive-191038/@alonicus/worldbuilding-prompt-1104-the-rim-awaken-part-4-percussive-maintenance), [PART 5](https://peakd.com/hive-191038/@alonicus/worldbuilding-prompt-1133-the-rim-awaken-part-5-who-commands), [PART 6](https://peakd.com/hive-191038/@alonicus/worldbuilding-prompt-1128-the-rim-awaken-part-6-multiple-redundancy), [PART 7](https://peakd.com/hive-191038/@alonicus/worldbuilding-prompt-1095-the-rim-awaken-part-7-downtime), [PART 8](https://peakd.com/hive-191038/@alonicus/worldbuilding-prompt-nnnn-the-rim-awaken-part-8-forced-compliance), [PART 9](https://peakd.com/hive-191038/@alonicus/worldbuilding-prompt-1138-the-rim-awaken-part-9-questionable-choices).
Enjoy !
Image created by AI in NightCafe Studio
Three days. For three days Zrami had been working on the shield of the Deckmouse 2, trying to get the control panel to do anything more than flicker briefly to life and then die.
All the while, General Hazar had been on his back demanding progress, as if the warrior caste commander (and self-appointed general) had the ability to magic something into being just because they insisted it was so.
Finally, Zrami has resorted to the old fashioned expedient of following wires to see what was broken where. With all the technology available to them, the Imperials who designed and built this huge warship had clung to using wires. But after finding and fixing his first dozen short circuits, Zrami began to understand their logic.
Sure, resonator fields and zero-space shunts were more "modern", but if one was knocked out by battle damage you'd have to find and replace the whole unit. Or the units at both ends, which you'd only discover after you'd replaced the first one. Assuming you had the spares and specialist tools required. Good old fashioned wires might break, and you might spend an age disentangling the wreckage, but you didn't need anything more complex than a multimeter and soldering pen, and perhaps some spare wire, to fix it. Luckily, all those who had come before to make repairs had been polite enough to follow good form and use the correct colours of wire.
So on this third day of tracing and soldering, Zrami gave the control panel a cautious wave and felt great satisfaction that it came to life without immediately dying.
He wasn't surprised that it was covered in red lights and warning symbols. But now he had something he could work with. All those red lights were breaks he hadn't found yet, and it was going to be comparatively simple to trace them all down and start fixing things. Even better, he could generate a small amount of shields for the ship for a brief time even with the circuits as mangled as they still were.
"There we are, General. I'm finally getting somewhere. I can give you five percent shields on four sides for around ten minutes. More importantly, I've now got enough diagnostics to find and fix the rest given time."
Hazar harrumphed, a sound conveying both pleasure at progress and displeasure at it's limited nature. By warrior standards it was pretty eloquent, so Zrami decided to try for some benefit.
"I've made progress General. I'll keep working on it to the best of my ability, but I have to insist that you let me see Archivist Naldre. You've been holding her incommunicado, I want to see and talk to her to be sure she is not being mistreated."
Hazar bridled for a moment, but Zrami knew which buttons to press to sting the sensitive Rim commander's honour and ego. The idea of a Rim mistreating a fellow of their race from a different caste was abhorrent, bred into them all from birth. Yes, a warrior might execute another Rim if they were a threat to the mission, but to keep them alive and mistreat them was a complete taboo.
The General pulled out a dataslate, wrote on it briefly and held his index finger to it.
"Follow this. Go see her. You will have ten minutes in her presence, monitored."
Supressing a sense of triumph, Zrami nodded acknowledgement and headed straight out of the control room following the directions the dataslate fed him.
It took nearly an hour of walking, deep into the maze-like interior of the battle cruiser. Finally, Zrami was at a featureless door guarded by a bulky ochre-furred warrior. He held out the dataslate for inspection, and after the warrior slowly and carefully checked it (another genius-level specimen, Zrami thought to himself sarcastically), the door was activated and Zrami was able to enter.
"Ten minutes, and no more," the warrior intoned.
The chamber inside was virtually bare; a desk, chair and bed all more fit for Imperial humans than Rim, and a viewscreen that was grey and unlit above the desk.
Inside sitting slumped on the bed was Naldre. When she saw Zrami, it was as if a light had been switched on. She leapt to her feet and jumped over to hug him.
"Oh you're alive ! I was so worried, and so lonely and bored ! What is happening ? Has that warrior bastard said what he's going to do to me ? I thought he'd put me out any moment !"
Zrami returned her hug enthusiastically.
"It's okay. Hazar has pulled everyone away from recommissioning the city, he's got everyone working on the ship, he's desperate to get it working better. I think he thinks we can work some kind of miracle and restore it to full functionality. But there's another ship circling at a distance, we don't know who, so I guess he wants to be ready for the next Scavenger attack."
Then he collected himself. "But what about you; is there anything you need ? Are they feeding you and treating you okay ?"
She nodded. "They're treating me fine, but I'm just so bored ! If there is any way you can let them give me access to my notes, my records and the city-ship's archives I can at least do some useful work. I might even find something to help Hazar, much as I hate to say it. Or just something to read. Anything other than that endlessly dead screen."
That was the point where the screen flashed to life. It darkened to black and amber words formed on it.
"This conversation has been monitored. Access to notes, records and archives granted. Find ways to defend us, Archivist. Signed: General Hazar."
Tags: #writing#fiction#fantasy#scifi#scholarandscribe#freewriters#dungeonsanddragons#dnd#proofofbrain#vyb