Payload Fabrication Bay

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LIGHTFALL FOUNDRY

Excerpted from the Terran Trade Authority Industrial Atlas (Vol. VII: Launch Systems and Orbital Vehicle Fabrication)

Beneath the basalt strata of Charon Station’s inner ring lies the Lightfall Foundry, where pre-flight hulls are assembled and primed for their first ignition tests. Its name derives from the distinctive weld arc signature—an atmospheric glow visible even from orbit—that occurs when the plasma seals are engaged.

Each craft begins as a simple pressure vessel, suspended on magnetic stabilizers and rotated at precise angular velocities to balance thermal load. From there, the Foundry’s artisans—descendants of the old orbital welders of Mars—build outward, layer by layer, until a vessel’s skin sings with tension and readiness.

The Foundry’s overseers maintain that every hull retains a faint residual resonance from its construction: a barely perceptible hum audible in deep space, where the ship’s memory of its own creation lingers forever.