Mars, ARES main base.The Sol system’s fourth planet, if seen from a higher orbit, was completely different than it was in the past. Just two years before, it’d only had a population that could be counted on one hand... if you counted unmanned exploration vehicles, or “rovers”, as population, that is.Mars had always fascinated humanity ever since the species had first looked to the stars and asked themselves what those lights in the sky were. It was represented in close to a century’s worth of science fiction tales, with greats like Ray Bradbury, Orson Welles, and Edgar Rice Burroughs some of the more recent people to look to the red planet and think, ‘I wonder....’So once human technology reached the barest minimum level that would allow them to explore Mars, whether in person or not, they had immediately built exploration drones, strapped rockets to them, and threw them at the planet until one successfully survived the landing. Nobody knew what they would find, though everyone was
On Mars, work had already begun in the hundreds of already-completed buildings on the surface, and in the thousands of rooms beneath. One of those rooms was a cavernous chamber that housed Mars Central Command, or CENTCOM.“Tenth ring is coming up on schedule... now,” one of the technicians announced from his console. He was an ST1, or Sensor Technician First Class, and his current task was to monitor the ongoing construction and activation of sensors throughout the Sol system.The entire front wall of CENTCOM was an enormous display, about the size of the screen in an IMAX movie theater. It was currently displaying a map of the solar system as seen from above the ecliptic, with points of interest labeled in colors denoting their operational status. Mars, for example, was surrounded with a yellow ring to highlight its partially operational status.And with Sol as the center, nine green rings surrounded it, each of them a tenth of an AU—about fifteen million kilometers—from each other.
The moment the imperial ship received the emperor’s shuttle, the captain brought up the shields and began heading to Mars.Aron and Rina stepped out of the shuttle into the boat bay and met the side party that had been arranged to greet them. The ship’s executive officer, Commander Shannon Robinson, came to attention and saluted. Aron returned the salute and asked, “Permission to come aboard?”“Permission granted, Your Majesty, and welcome aboard Imperial One,” Commander Robinson replied.The bosun announced, “Terra arriving!” Then he pulled an old-fashioned bosun’s pipe from his hip pocket and whistled the tune for arriving royalty.“If you’ll follow me, Your Majesty, I’ll show you to your quarters. The captain is currently on the bridge, but he should be with you shortly,” Commander Robinson said.“The side party is a nice touch, Ms. Robinson.” Aron smiled at the competent officer as she led him down an impeccably decorated passageway to the imperial quarters.“Tradition is importan
Seven hours later.“Now there’s something you don’t see every day,” John mused. He was in CENTCOM, watching his emperor and empress float in the emptiness of space, a brilliant halo surrounding them on the viewscreen as the Henry’s Eyes monitors included in the sensor rings detected all the mana flowing toward Aron.It still lacked a little in terms of fidelity and resolution, so it showed up on the screen as an enormous blob. If the monitoring system had had that level of fidelity and resolution, however, it would have shown something entirely different. Instead of a formless blob that shifted and flowed like an amoeba, reaching tentacles out here and there, it would have shown the intricately detailed runic construct growing out of Aron’s figure like spider silk from a trapdoor spider’s spinnerets.But even without that level of detail, the staff of the CENTCOM monitoring center could still enjoy the view. And enjoy they did; especially as they knew that the emperor was putting the
If someone were close enough, they would be able to see a golden glow in Rina’s eyes. At least if they were looking at her from the front, anyway; she still had yet to develop literal eyes in the back of her head. The golden glow was coming from magic circles surrounding her pupils that acted like mana lenses, and they were currently zooming in on the runic construct that Aron was carving.Ever since receiving her blessing, she had been putting at least five hours, Earth time, into studying it and practicing its usage. And with the time dilation factor in Aron’s private “sandbox” in the simulation, that equated to five HUNDRED hours each and every day. So, in effect, she had spent more than a decade within the simulation doing nothing but learning from Aron and various virtual instructors, having the theory of magic pounded—sometimes quite literally—into her.She had long since begun putting the theory into practice, and following that, begun developing new theories of her own and eve
Once the shield was online, Aron and Rina took a shuttle back to the surface of Mars. Both of them were exhausted after such a marathon mana manipulation session and, after a brief rest, they planned to officially begin touring the facilities on, and in, the planet. There were already a few million soldiers stationed there on their three-month duty rotations, but those rotations would gradually lengthen until the Mars base was staffed with permanent residents. The only reason it hadn’t already been a permanent duty station was because not all of the R&R facilities were complete yet.And while there was perhaps nothing more dangerous than a bored soldier, stressed soldiers were at least a close second.The tour would thus only briefly visit the areas of the base that would, once they were fully online, be designated as official rest and relaxation areas. Most of the week-long tour would be spent inspecting the vast automated factories that were nothing more than kilometers-long and kil
As the colony ships carrying the first diaspora were beginning their journey, another journey was coming to an end. The TSF Proxima was coming out of its final stretch of warp travel just a few AU outside the heliopause of Proxima Centauri.(Ed note: AU stands for “Astronomical Unit”. It’s the average distance between Earth and the Sun at any given point, as Earth also has an aphelion (the furthest distance from the Sun) and a perihelion (the closest approach to the Sun). All of the planets orbiting the Sun are on elliptical orbits. One AU is about 149.6 million kilometers and change. For normal purposes, since I doubt any of us—Agent and myself included—are either astronomers or astrogators, it can be rounded off to 150 million kilometers.)The inside of the Proxima was choreographed chaos as people who had chosen to spend the entire journey either in stasis or in their personal VR spaces woke and rushed to their assigned ships. The only people who had remained fully awake for the en
“Ugh... I might literally die of anticipation,” the tech snarked in an attempt to dissipate his impatience.“Do you really think so?” his neighbor cheerily chirped, sarcasm dripping from her voice.“I know, I know, it’s just that...” he sighed, but realized that the distraction of talking with his neighbor was an effective cure for his impatience. Well, that plus the continually arriving new data, that is. It might not be complete, but there was something satisfying and cathartic in watching the display slowly grow on his screen.As the two continued discussing the map and their plans for the very near future, another team of researchers were having heart attacks and existential crises of their own as the results of their scans were coming in.“Well, soo... yeah, that’s a thing,” one of them announced, listening to bits of a radio broadcast that, to the best of their knowledge, was a mere five years old.The TSF Proxima had multiple sensors studding her exterior, and of course some of