A week later.Aron stood in a cavernous room in the Cube on Avalon Island, looking at the newly printed medical pods laying before him in precise columns and rows. As it turned out, actually using the first-generation atomic printers to print runic engravings into things was a much slower process than printing things without them. The process could be compared to trying to play a modern AAA video game on an old desktop computer from the 1980s.However, the tradeoff was well worth it, as he was only one person, but he had many atomic printers.He swept his gaze across the room and nodded in satisfaction as his runic heart spun into action. A slow breeze began flowing through the room as he greedily sucked the mana from his surroundings. The breeze soon grew to a small vortex of about ten feet wide before stabilizing.With the stomp of a foot, a brilliant golden runic construct appeared beneath Aron’s feet and spread throughout the entire cavernous room, slipping beneath row after row o
The treatment of the mana drain victims had already begun, even before Aron had called the families of the patients into the amphitheater and explained what had happened, how it would be treated, and the expected outcomes. Basically, the process would require two weeks of Earth time, during which the patients would remain logged in to VR. And each apartment in the complex the families lived in was also equipped with extended stay medical pods, thus ensuring that the families could remain together for the duration of the treatment.The best thing about it was that the families’ equipment would be maintained at the empire’s expense, as well as the standard fee that would normally be charged to the patients themselves.The bigger concern, and one that Aron hadn’t mentioned to anyone outside of his inner circle, was that using the awakening pods would light another beacon for the incoming visitors. That said, it wasn’t like it mattered anymore. Humanity had already caught their attention,
Kuiper Belt, just outside Pluto’s orbit.‘In the vastness of space, everything is a mere microscopic speck against the divine firmament,’ Monique de Groot, captain of the NIS-SV-765981-LRV, thought, gazing at the rapidly shrinking Pluto in her augmented reality display.The Kuiper Belt was home to numerous dwarf planets and had an extremely high density of objects, compared to the inner region of the solar system. The stealth ship had just passed through the “tail” of one of those comets on her journey outward, disturbing the microscopic ice particles as it passed through them, leaving a wake despite the advanced stealth systems in the exploration vessel.Thanks to the almost unconscionable speed the 5981 was traveling at, the disturbance was minimal and soon dissipated, returning the environment to its normal appearance.But even if the wake had lasted longer and propagated farther, there was no one to witness the spectacle other than the universe and imperial automated early warning
(Ed note: Sorry about the delay. Hay fever hit hard and early this year and I was completely unprepared for it; it usually comes in April, not mid-March.)The Voyager 2 probe spent an hour inside the stealth ship before being ejected. As the ship had matched course and speed with it, it continued on its way with no apparent changes. Unless someone happened to have been watching the entire process from start to finish, the disappearance wouldn’t even have been noticed.Even for keen-eyed observers, if they noticed the disappearance it would seem like a sensor glitch on their side, as nothing about the venerable space probe had changed, at least outwardly. The only difference was that the insides of the probe had been swapped out for nanite colonies that took the shape of the components that were already there, but with the vastly increased capabilities of imperial tech.The nanite colonies had vastly improved the sensors of the Voyager 2, though the communication issue had been a littl
“You, the brave men and women of the exploration fleet, have volunteered to take on a task for the betterment of humanity. And for that, We salute you.” Aron snapped a salute.He was standing on the stage against the backdrop of the empire’s virtual press room, delivering a speech to commemorate the exploration mission that was stopped at the inner edge of the termination shock layer of the heliopause. As it was Earth’s first manned mission to interstellar space—officially, at least—the exploration fleets and their escorts had turned out in their full dress uniforms to listen to the emperor’s remarks.“Generations before the Terran Empire was conceived, a visionary was born in the then United States of America. Born to humble parents, he was a decorated veteran and pilot, who yearned for the stars. ‘What if?’ he thought to himself, but the technology to fulfill his dreams wouldn’t exist for decades after he began his dreams.“So instead, he devoted himself to sharing those dreams of h
Aron walked into his suite in the Cube and sat next to Rina on the couch in his lounge. He sighed and fell over on his side, resting his head on her lap.She stroked his hair and asked, “Long day?”“Five million,” he replied.“Five... million?”“Five million people are about to leave the solar system. It was... a lot. Never had a speech take so much out of me,” Aron sighed again.“Why’d you have to do it personally? Couldn’t you just have someone fake being you to deliver the speech?”“Couldn’t do that.”“Haven’t you done it before?” Rina tilted her head, losing herself in thought as she petted her fiancee.“I owe it to them to do it myself. They’re the first manned exploration mission humanity’s ever sent past the Oort Cloud and they’re risking their lives for us... no, for me. So the absolute least I can do is personally send them off.”“Well, I guess... but just keep in mind that you can just like, make an AI or something that’ll write and deliver speeches on your behalf,” Rina gig
The fleets, despite being separated by light hours, simultaneously brought their gravity engines to full power and accelerated through the border of the solar system. Aboard the TSF Proxima.“Prepare for maneuvering,” Fleet Admiral of the Red Marco Bianchi ordered, then settled back in his chair, his job as the fleet admiral complete.(Ed note: The full rank structure for the TSF will be posted in Discord, but for now just understand that there are two admiralty branches: red and green. Admirals of the red are line commanders; they command fleets in battle. Admirals of the green are administrative; they handle logistics, personnel, and command stationary assets like outposts and refit bases. https://discord.gg/5ba9m5DFKR )The captain of the cityship echoed the fleet admiral’s command, but his job was just beginning.The cityship he commanded was colossal, measuring a full forty kilometers in diameter. It almost had to be; not only was it a mothership capable of containing thousands
Captain Trishan Das continued gazing into the void of space, something that caused his lips to quirk up into a slight smile as he wondered whether Nietzsche would roll over in his grave or not. After all, he was definitely misusing the idea, despite space being just as endless as the abyss spoken of by the German philosopher. Still, he was in a philosophical mood and couldn’t help but think back on all of his struggles growing up poor in rural India. In fact, if it weren’t for the efforts of Jai Chakrabarti, the Coeus Foundation’s CEO, he would still be living in a mud hut with a rusty corrugated steel roof over his head. So Captain Das had good reason to be thankful for the Terran Empire, as it had personally uplifted both him and his family.His mother, father, and little sister were some of the first to design their home in a fortress city, and Trishan himself was here, the captain of one of the largest spaceships ever built. He had to admit that, if his younger self knew where he