Aron extended his hand and a single rune appeared in front of him. Anyone who had seen him using his runes in the past would know what the rune was: the humble, yet mighty, shield rune. It glowed its usual golden color and was its usual small size.But that didn’t last long, as Aron continued pumping mana into it with the intent of expanding it. The thing he was planning on shielding was enormous, so the rune had to be equally as large to perform its task.A minute passed and it continued growing... five minutes passed... ten minutes.... Aron continued pushing intent-laden mana into the rune for a full hour before the flood of mana died down to a much more sustainable amount and the rune stopped growing. Now, he was only directing enough mana into it to prevent it from disappearing and forcing him to start the process over again.But despite that, it still remained inactive, silently hovering in the vast blackness of space outside Earth’s atmosphere. It had reached a gargantuan size o
Aron closed his eyes and began the process of imprinting his intent into the enormous runic construct he had created over the past hour. It was no easy task, as the necessary intent that would allow the construct to function at full capacity was just as complex as the construct itself, and he had to futureproof it by leaving room for upgrades as his knowledge of the runic language increased. In order to make that possible, he needed to imbue it with an even more complex second layer of intent that would create “hooks”, so to speak, that would be used in the future to tie in potential upgrades, a task that would be made much more difficult should he ignore it now and leave it for later.The runic system, he had discovered, was much like a computer. The carved runes in their physical form were like a computer’s hardware, and the intent that allowed them to function was software. The mana itself was the power that allowed the entire system to function. And just like a regular computer p
Aron, despite the rune construct’s activation, continued feeding a steady stream of mana to it to ensure it didn’t collapse. Despite it being in a neutral state and receiving no attacks at all, its sheer size meant that it required more than the relatively small amount of ambient mana could provide. So, to prevent it from destabilizing due to the lack, he needed to act as a temporary bridge.He passed through the shield and headed toward Ceres Station, where an entire bank of massive, hundreds-of-meters-tall fusion reactors had been purpose-built to fuel the enormous runic construct. Nova had calculated the minimum amount of mana required to ensure the shield would remain stable without Aron’s intervention and she’d built sixty reactors to handle the load, with a combined output of 112 petawatts of electricity.The generator bank was connected to the surface of Ceres Station by a conduit spanning ten meters in diameter, lined with a second printed runic construct that would ensure a s
John was in the shower, getting ready for a night with his ladies, when he received a priority notification. Since only Aron, Gaia, and Athena could ping him when his availability was registered as “do not disturb”, it was important enough for him to immediately check it. Thus, he stepped out of the shower, and without even drying off, he simply wrapped a towel around his waist and found the nearest chair he could drop his ass into and sat down.He logged in to the simulation and called for his AI butler, Jotunn. “Catch me up on the situation,” he ordered.{His Imperial Majesty erected a global shield. The information hasn’t been made widely public yet and it’s still classified pending testing. His order is for you to hold wargames and test the shield to failure in the simulation. As our VR game hasn’t been made public yet, we have no staff for our space navy, so the wargames will be between you and Athena with simulated crew....} Jotunn continued briefing John as he threw him a data
The announcement informed everyone that anyone interested would be employed under a temporary contract with Hephaestus Heavy Industries that came with some truly hefty perks. For twelve months, they would be employed with a salary of a thousand END per month, a per-diem meal allowance of a hundred and fifty END per month, free on-site housing, and each employee would receive a credit for a free future visit to a medical pod, should they ever require one. Not only that, they would be given priority access to advanced courses and certification as electricians, plumbers, HVAC technicians, welders, and so on, should they choose to take that path. And with the first full month being essentially a paid vacation while they waited for the cities’ foundations to be laid, it was an excellent proposition. So they would be paid 12,000 END for the entire job, all while gaining an essential, marketable skill to prevent them from being unemployed in the future.Once the realization sank in, billion
Deep below the Cube on Avalon Island, kilometers below the surface and near the border of the crust and mantle of the planet, was ARES Central Command. In contrast with the usual understated elegance or futuristic decor of the Terran Empire, the command structure was very, very barebones. So barebones, in fact, that it was a simple cavern that’d been dug out of the ground and had workstations placed in it for the military high command to issue orders, make plans, and track the progress of ongoing operations.Not that it really mattered, to be honest, as augmented reality could make even a cesspit look like a palatial garden.Currently within the rooms carved out of the rock, a planning session was taking place between John and the rest of the human leadership of ARES.“It’s strength against strength this round. Our defense fleets are limited, and we won’t have reinforcements. We also have to work with simulated crews, so our orders will be followed exactly to the letter, but only to t
The next stage of the war game, testing the shield against a determined infiltrator from the inside, was scheduled for four days later. Considering the upper echelon of ARES had all been involved in the first stage from start to finish, one day was allotted for rest before the three-day preparatory period began for the second stage of destructive testing on the shield.As John had been on defense first in the first round, he would be on offense first in the infiltration round. His task was to send a single reaper team into Ceres Station to take down the planetary shield in whatever way they could. They would be given limited intelligence to simulate spy action, including the number of defenders, types of defenses, and potential routes to the shield control stations in the planetoid-cum-space-elevator.The confidence level of the intel wouldn’t be high, but it would be generally reliable to form the framework of a plan around. The briefing John received set the confidence level in the
Within a day, the first hundred million new construction workers had been selected and notified to report for training. However, something seemed odd; there were no other movements on the construction side. No materials had been purchased, no construction equipment had been rented or bought, and so on, making people wonder what exactly was going on with the construction. Shouldn’t there be piles and piles of materials and heavy equipment excavating the ground or laying foundations?But those questions went unasked and unanswered as people recalled that Hephaestus Heavy Industries was the company behind this megaproject. They had a history of always producing everything they needed in house, from materials to machinery, and even their “staff”, robots though they may be. The only difference now was the scale of the construction. HHI was known for operating under a strict veil of secrecy, sure, but how could they hide a project of this scale?And taking it a step further, where would the