A month later.Proxima Centauri b was a hub of activity. The initial construction phase of the exploration base had been completed, but the building continued, though the base was already home to a hundred-odd researchers and two reinforced companies of marines. There was also a constant flow of technicians directing the ongoing construction.But just because the construction was still ongoing, that didn’t mean the base wasn’t operational. It was, actually, though just at a minimum level; the ongoing expansion was more for creature comforts and wants, rather than needs. Everything the researchers needed was there, it was only luxuries that were missing.Well, most of the scientists considered their labs to be rather luxurious. After all, up until a few years ago, they were relying on prying research grants out of donors and benefactors of all sorts, and those grants practically never covered all of the equipment and other assorted materials required to “properly” carry out their exper
TES Farsight, geosynchronous orbit over Research Base New New South Wales.A detachment of two corvettes, a destroyer, a heavy cruiser, and a drone tender that Fleet Admiral Bianchi had ordered to take up escort duties for the Farsight had finally arrived and slotted themselves around the exploration cruiser like a protective shield. Except this particular shield had teeth, and knew how to use them; their job was to provide overwatch with constant flights of drones, and orbital strikes from the cruiser and destroyer, if necessary. The corvettes would be on constant patrol of the shoreline of New Australia, ready to report any activity on the part of the being, or beings, that inhabited the ocean floor.Terran spaceships had excellent sensor suites in general, but as corvettes were meant for pickets and patrols by their very design, they had completely outsized sensor suites for ships of their size. In fact, the only ships with better sensors were the cityships, as they had the room to
Conference room, Research Base New New South Wales’ main operations tower.Commander Takahashi and Major Petrovich were seated along one side of a long conference table that ran down the center of a fairly large, though still barebones, room. At the head of the conference table were the holographic projections of Fleet Admiral Bianchi of the TFS Proxima and Captain Marinakis of the TES Farsight. Across from the commander and major were Dr. Standing Bear, head of research for Task Force Proxima; Lieutenant Commander Kuznetsov, captain of the TFS Revanche; and a representative of the meteorologists who had been assigned to the task force.“Good afternoon, Commander Takahashi,” Captain Marinakis said. “I wish I had better news for you, but you’ve got a potential disaster coming up on you in a few hours. It seems that a supercell formed off the coast of New Australia and is headed your way. Estimates currently have the center of the storm passing a few kilometers off of your....”He conti
(Ed note: Red Rover is a playground game that Gen X kids used to play. It isn’t played now, because, like most Gen X games, it was incredibly violent and kids would sometimes get serious injuries (like concussions, teeth being knocked out, the occasional broken bone, and bloody abrasions) and nowadays people prefer their children to come home from school uninjured. More info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Rover )An hour ago.A team of seismologists had taken a rover filled with measuring equipment to install on what they believed was a fault line just off the coast of New Australia. It was considered research-worthy, as they had never seen a fault line run perpendicular from ocean to land before. Parallel, sure; there were plenty of fault lines on Earth that came within proverbial spitting distance of coastlines. The San Andreas fault in California, the Cascadia Subduction Zone in the American Pacific Northwest and Canada, and the Alpide Belt in the Mediterranean region, amo
Research Base New New South Wales.The storm front had already reached the base and, as they had been worried about, the mana-infused raindrops sheeting down were having a rather negative effect on the shield. It was draining the shield capacitors nearly as fast as the reactor could charge them. But that much, they could handle.Then the lightning began striking and the fusion reactor could no longer keep up with the draining capacitor banks. And to make things worse, there was no way of increasing the output of the reactor any more than what it already was; in fact, it had already been increased to 110% of its max-rated output, and after the storm passed, they would need to tear it down and completely rebuild it.But even that much wouldn’t be an issue. The reactor could be run at the red line for thirty-six hours before they began running the risk of a containment breach. The biggest problem they were facing was one they hadn’t anticipated at all: mana.As the water built up on the
Moments before Lee Joon-ho had been attacked, he was enjoying the feeling of unfettered flight kilometers above the surface of Proxima Centauri b. He had done it before, of course—at least in the simulation and on Earth—but there was something different, something special about doing it on an honest-to-god alien planet. And having been stuck in the research base without being able to fly on his own had been like sandpaper rubbing against his desire to exercise his superpower.Before he’d been blessed by mana, he had been lost. As restrictive as the Kim regime had been, at least he knew he had a place. He was a cog. A small cog, but a cog nonetheless, and cogs ALWAYS fit somewhere. But then China stuck its fingers in the North Korean pie and triggered an attack on South Korea, the retaliation for which had completely wiped out the dictatorship that ruled the northern half of the divided country.And his place had been wiped out with it.So he lost himself. He lost himself in food, in l
“Divert the lander and pick him up,” Ayaka ordered moments after watching the recovered video.“Apologies, Commander. Orders from the fleet are that we’re to immediately proceed to rendezvous with the Khopesh. They’re non-discretionary, I’m afraid,” the lander pilot replied. The lander continued rocketing straight up with over 20 subjective gravities of acceleration pushing its passengers into their acceleration seats and crash harnesses. The pilot would have gone faster, but his passengers were no ARES troopers or fleet sailors that had been trained to tolerate that kind of force; they were scientists, and scientists were by and large a sedentary lot.Lasers from the Khopesh’s drones began firing, the ionization in the air from the storm making them visible as flashes of dim blue beams as they burned through root after root. The empire’s drones were designed to increase the strategic missile defense depth of the TSF, so handling relatively slow-moving roots was an easy task that cou
Ayaka was still standing on the bridge of the Khopesh when the last evacuation flight passed Proxima Centauri b’s Karman Line and rocketed toward the TFS Escapade, the heavy cruiser it was assigned to.She had—barely—been able to keep herself from pacing back and forth behind the drone wing commanders, but a thrill passed up and down her spine when she heard that the last lander had safely made it off the surface and she was unable to keep herself from practically vibrating in place. Only two decades of comportment and etiquette training, courtesy of her father’s expectations, kept her from showing how anxious she was.She turned to Captain Chang, who shot her an empathetic glance as he began, “Don’t worry, we’ve already prepared the rescue mission. Wing three, prepare to—”Before he could finish his sentence, the holotank in the center of the bridge turned red and an abort signal flashed, accompanied by a message: “All surface missions are suspended until further notice.”The message