The Shape That Holds
I stopped pretending that I was only preparing.
The cleared ground near my shelter had remained empty for several days, its flatness almost accusatory every time I passed it. I told myself I was waiting for the right moment, for more material, for a clearer plan, but the truth was simpler and less flattering. Beginning meant committing, and commitment meant that failure would no longer be hypothetical.
That morning, I placed the first piece anyway.
It was a long structural beam, heavier than anything I had moved before, scarred and uneven but fundamentally sound. I set it upright at the center of the cleared area, holding it suspended for a long moment while I adjusted its orientation by fractions I could feel more than see. When I finally anchored it into the reinforced ground, the vibration traveled up my arms and into my chest, and something quiet inside me settled.
This was no longer an idea.
This was a spine.
I stepped back and studied it from different angles, circling slowly, imagining forces acting upon it that did not yet exist. Acceleration. Stress. The violent indifference of vacuum. I adjusted its position twice more before I was satisfied, each correction smaller than the last, until it felt right in a way I had no language for.
The next pieces followed more easily.
I chose supports that shared material properties, not because they matched visually, but because they would respond similarly under load. I attached them at deliberate intervals, branching outward from the central beam, forming the beginnings of a frame that suggested a hull without enclosing one. It looked skeletal, fragile, and deeply honest about what it was.
I worked in silence, stopping often, not from fatigue, but from listening.
Every structure spoke in its own way. Metal under stress resisted differently than metal at rest, and I learned to recognize the subtle feedback of my own control slipping toward excess. When something resisted too strongly, I changed the design instead of forcing compliance. The frame rewarded that restraint by holding steady when I released it.
By midday, the outline was unmistakable.
Small. Compact. Narrower than the wrecks scattered across the basin, but denser, purposeful. This was not a station or a shelter. This was something meant to move. I stood inside the empty space where a cockpit would eventually exist and felt the odd sensation of standing within a decision I could no longer undo.
"I could sit here," I murmured, testing the acoustics.
The sound died quickly, swallowed by open air and unfinished structure.
That felt appropriate.
I broke for food only when my hands began to tremble slightly, the warning pressure behind my eyes returning with quiet insistence. I ate near the greenhouse, watching condensation bead along the panels, and considered what I had done. The frame behind me was exposed, vulnerable, and entirely dependent on my continued attention.
I felt no regret.
In the afternoon, I reinforced the lower sections, adding cross-bracing where torsion would concentrate during movement. Each addition changed the way the whole responded, and I learned to think in chains rather than parts. One mistake here would not fail locally. It would propagate. That understanding sharpened my focus more than any fear could have.
As the light began to fade, I climbed onto a nearby wreck to view the frame from above.
From that angle, the proportions were clearer. The ship would be agile rather than strong, designed to avoid punishment instead of absorbing it. Space for systems was limited, but not absent. Everything would be close, reachable, efficient. I could already imagine where control interfaces would sit, where power would flow, where heat would need to escape.
I did not yet imagine weapons.
That omission felt deliberate.
When I climbed down, I rested my hand against the central beam again. It was cold, unyielding, real. I closed my eyes and let myself acknowledge something I had been carefully avoiding.
This was not survival engineering.
This was shipbuilding.
I returned to the shelter after dark, leaving the frame exposed beneath the stars. Sleep came slowly, my mind replaying structural decisions and unbuilt solutions, but when it did come, it was deep and untroubled.
Outside, the unfinished ship stood quietly, holding its shape.
And for the first time since waking on this world, I dreamed not of where I was, but of where I would go.