"So that's Stonehenge, bigger than I thought. Uglier too" - Admiral Katrina Sanders, American Carrier Group, Third Interstellar War
Freelance Corvette Guinevere, Somewhere near Arcturus
Sometimes life takes you by surprise, you can be cruising through space at 12 kilometers per second, then suddenly the smell of smoke reaches you. You quickly slam open the doors, dashing downstairs, And that is exactly what Captain Cassandra Farren was doing at this particular moment as the door to the upper deck opened. She was greeted with the sight of their resident medic, Temara 'Meds' Malari, who was presently holding a small ceramic mug. "Somethin' up Cas?". The Canadian looked around, "I can smell smoke, did Croft attempt to create another rocket out of antimatter?".
"Nope, but he is cooking breakfast". She raised a hand, "Oh gods help us. I can't have the Alliance impounding us for illegal research into chemical weapons again. That chicken fried ration paste still haunts my dreams, and my inner hull".
"I thought we got rid of it all with those industrial burners?".
"There are still a few patches on the inner hull. I'm pretty sure it's started to develop it's own spacefaring civilization". They both rounded the corner onto the kitchen, where a thin-boned kiwi was carefully tipping a frying pan over a flame, while the small corner microwave blared away.
"Mathias Croft put down the frying pan and step away from the cooking implements!".
He ignored her, still humming a tune and pouring several long spindly pieces onto a board and chopping them up. "Sorry skip. But since our last haul on Centrum went so well I thought I'd break out the good stuff for today's breakfast. Fried toast with real butter and scrambled eggs, served with premium pork and apple sausages!". He then revealed the plates. "Please hold you applause ladies and gentlemen as I reveal the crème-de-la-crème, the finest orange juice from this side of the Tadaari nebula".
He placed several small glasses filled with an orange substance onto the table, "Mother of pulsar how the hell did you get this stuff!?", asked Temara.
"Remember our little pirate sting near Somerset? Those farmers were very thankful after we quite literally saved their bacon!".
"I won't berate you for holding out on us Croft, but, thanks".
"I aim to please cap. See what I did there... eh?". They rolled their eyes and took seats at the tiny wooden table to dig in, the consoles just meters behind them bleeping occasionally as they cruised silently through the system. "Aww man that's the stuff. Been ages since I had some proper food", Temara explained, closing her eyes in bliss.
"Afraid this is all we got for a while mates, Back to your standard Atlantean Ration bars for a while". Cas kicked him, "Don't knock-em. I grew up on those things."
"Woops, hey I got a joke for yah".
"Oh here we go".
"A Scottish man visits Canada, and on the third day goes into a bar. He looks up and see's a massive animal head with antlers on the wall and asks the barkeep. What the hell is that?. The bartender replies 'That's a moose'. To which the Scot replies, 'Bloody hell. I'd hate te see how big yer rat's are'. Cassandra rolled her eyes, before picking up a tablet. "Did we get the readings from the reactor".
"Aye we did skip. Should have enough fuel to make it to a star and do some fuel scooping, unless you fancy headed straight for Erusea to refuel".
"Head for the star, I'd rather not have to deal with Alliance inspection teams until we've unloaded the *ahem* shipments at Belka".
Temara raised her drink, "To a completely illegal job in the ass-end of alliance space". Before finishing the shiny yellow liquid in 1 gulp. "Eyy, careful meds, I only got the one carton".
She shrugged, and poured out a little more. From the bridge, a mechanical whirring sounded out, followed by a klaxon. Mathias stopped chewing on a bit of egg and turned, "Odd, I checked the entire system. I will be right back ladies". He rose and headed into the room and the other two returnED to the meal. "How's the med bay treating you?".
"The latest refit is much better. Passengers seemed nice, one of them was asking me to introduce him to you". Cas leaned back, "Ignoring that. How many tons are we dropping off at Belka?".
"12 tons of weapons for the civilian volunteer force. They've been waiting for requisitions for two months and apparently got fed up with the lack of weapons. That's what you get with a centralized military economy".
"Uhh cap, you might want to get up here!". They both rose, the remnants of their meal forgotten and proceeded into the bridge, where Tamara took a position at the communications station. "What is it Croft?".
"We got several unknown ships at the rim, they just came from that mass relay. They appear to be scanning the system".
"Shut down all systems barring life support and activate the heat sinks!".
The ship began to dim as he flipped several switches. "We've gone dark sir!".
"Somethin' up Cas?".
"That ship looks like an Alliance... oh crap that's a Missile Schooner. Whisper class".
"Whisper... I thought those where classified, why would they send one here unless..."
"This is the ADIN Conqueror to freelance ship Guinevere, you are hereby ordered to halt your engines and await an inspection team".
"Kill the stealth systems. Bring us to a halt".
"Cap?".
"They're here for me, not for an inspection. We comply and hope they don't find the weapons".
"Okay then. Coming to a halt now".
The contact loomed closer, sometimes life takes you by suprise.
Corporal Saren Arterius, Turian Naval Marines, Unknown Colony
The shuttle jolted as it hurtled through the increasingly thickening atmosphere, orange wisps of flame licking the edge of the window causing the other marines to look outward at the grandiose landscape beneath them. The planet in question was made up of only one significant super-continent with occasional cities dotted about. The fleet in orbit had put up quite a fight before retreating, and Saren could barely wait to take revenge for the thousands wounded in the fighting as he once again checked his rifle. "1 minute till ground contact".
Through the window, a few dozen more shuttles, accompanied by a single much larger landing craft and three squadrons of fighters were carefully maneuvering down as the speed increased. "All marines, please lock-in, we have 2 dozen unknown contacts closing at almost 8 times the speed of sound."
Saren quickly ducked into a bench and fastened a seatbelt, before activating an eezo field to lessen any impact forces. Through the window, he could see the other shuttles beginning to make evasive maneuvers, and yet no sign of the incoming contacts. At least not until one of the fighters of their wingtip jerked, as an explosion brushed against its barriers. Another struck, and when the third impact came, the cockpit of the fighter disappeared into a ball of flame, as the two winglets spiraled away, trailing smoke.
"40 seconds till ground contact". Another pair of fighters disappeared into flames, and the others pulled away suddenly, moving to engage with 12 small black dots in the distance, which were obviously the source of the missiles. "30 seconds", as the shuttle made contact with the thicker atmosphere, the air around them was suddenly filled with bright tracer fire, as distant flashes from the ground began to fill the air. Black puffs of smoke caused the shuttles to suddenly jerk, and the large transport ignited it's retrograde thrusters to slow down as it began to take the brunt of the fire.
"25 seconds!". The shuttles began to pitch up, preparing to ignite their thrusters, before one of the shuttles suddenly jerked across them and exploded into debris, after taking several of the missiles. In the distance, flashes between the two sides fighters were clear. Even as several exploded, Saren couldn't tell which side at this distance.
"Prepare for deceleration!", Saren bit down, before cringing as the massive g-forces began to take their toll, even through the element zero fields". All too soon, the shuttle made contact with the ground, and the restraints released. Saren grabbed his weapon, and an anti-tank material rifle and hopped out. The ground chosen was a large flat plateau, with distant mountains to the north, deserts to the east and west, and fertile forests to the south, where their first major target would likely be. The mountains seemed to be lightly colonized with small settlements not really important, and the deserts were bare, besides the occasional towers and small villages. The real prize where the six enormous city centers on the planet, the largest of which was just miles from an enormous cable stretching into the sky which had been dubbed 'the elevator'.
Immediately he was greeted by a grand sight of... nothing. Besides the battle in the sky raging, with tracers still zipping past and occasionally hitting the still descending shuttles, there wasn't a single hostile contact, not one. Just rising trees in the distance. Several strange four-legged creatures, with small snouts and dull teeth, wobbled up, sniffing them, before rolling around on the stone. On a flat rock, a fluffy white and black creature with triangular ears was licking itself, before giving the most professional marines in the galaxy a hostile look.
He looked around to see one of the troops attempting to touch one of the four legged things, which growled, before letting out a series of barks. The other creatures seemed to get the message and retreated, leaving the troopers alone. Even the gunfire seemed to have stopped after the shuttles reached the ground, and deposited their loads, before burning back towards orbit.
"Saren!, What's happening?", asked Nihlus, a fellow marine in charge of the ground forces. "No clue, they haven't bothered to greet us, nor have they attempted to fire on us, they just... let us land without any trouble".
In the sky, the other fighters had disappeared, leaving a barely intact force of just 2 interceptors flying around, their much thicker barriers seeming to be much better than the more fragile fighters. "General Kryik, the deployable garrison base has been dropped". The large landing ship pulled away, leaving a set of metal buildings and plenty of supplies. Saren pulled out a pair of binoculars, scouting the distance and spotting the pack of creatures running in the opposite direction, before disappearing into the wide open and tall woods.
Hatties Desert Orbital Defence Complex, Designation: Stonehenge
The monoliths of Stonehenge were remarkable up close. From up close they resembled eight enormous towers, rising 1200 meters into the sky, connected to enormous clamps normally reserved for cranes. Their construction had been painstaking, and the engineering challenge was only eclipsed in scale by the Noordzeestormvloedbarrière, Gargantua Station, and the Selatapaura Space Elevator, which was by far the largest space elevator ever constructed, even 20 years after its construction only 2 where under production, and it would still remain one of the 7 wonders of the space age.
Since the falling of Ulysses, the monoliths had remained dormant, until now. The eight metal forged objects oriented against the sky, and once again tasked with keeping the Kingdom safe from threat, however, this threat was intelligent, not that it mattered, as the ground shook with the vengeance of an earthquake, and the force of a god.
Seven Wonders of the Space Age
I) Gargantua Space Station - The largest man-made space station ever built, the enormous station is actually a set of four structures, the Penrose sphere around Gargantua, then the Political, Economic, and Industrial ringworlds of the Atlantean Defence Initiative, maintaining itself as its capital, militarily, economically and politically.
II) Stonehenge Orbital Defence Complex - Conceived as the fragments of Ulysses continued to rain down on Erusea, the 8 massive railguns were designed to hurl nuclear charges of enormous magnitude to impact and destroy fragments of space rock, as with so many falling targets, simply using ships and missiles was not enough, as each projectile needed to lead with a kinetic impactor. Almost 60 percent of all fragments were destroyed by Stonehenge
III) Noordzeestormvloedbarrière - The most recent construction on the list, having been completed just two years prior, and still remaining under construction by both the ADI, the Neutral Bloc, and the EU despite being at war during the third interstellar war (As earth still remained a conflict-free zone under the PHWM Accords), the massive set of barriers keeps Eastern England, South Scandinavia, Jutland, the Baltic Sea, the North coast of France as well as the lowland beaches safe from storm surges which would threaten the safety of millions. The barrier stretches all the way from the northern tip of Scotland, to Norway, and from the tip of Cornwall, all the way to Brittany.
III) Arcturus Station - The second-largest station ever built, Arcturus station is almost 40 kilometers in length and 2 miles in width, and despite having all the aesthetics of your average rubbish bin, it's engineering work has long been toted as the pinnacle of human engineering, as it remains the only large scale project to transcend the third world war.
IV) Sahara Terraforming Project - The STP, first started during the Third World War was a geo-engineering feat that saw the combined GDPs of every African nation, along with billions of IMF dollars used to fertilize and nurture the Sahara Desert into an enormous set of farms and settlements. The project saw the digging of hundreds of thousands of kilometers of canals, and enormous desalination efforts, and eventually culminated in the very quick ascension of Africa as a Superpower during the Second Cold War.
V) Selatapaura Space Elevator - Being built as a joint venture from the Jewel of the outer planets, with Erusea being the economic hub of the Kingdom of Erusea, Osean federation, Colonies of Kobol and Outer Planets Alliance, the SPE was a joint venture, that culminated in a 30,000 kilometer long cable that has allowed enormous quantities of people and materials to transit from space to ground each day.
VI) Martian Supertethers - Similar in scale to the great elevator, the Martian Supertethers allow mars to remain as the transportation hub of the Sol system, allowing virtually propellant-free transfer to the Jupiter Morrigan shelter, and quick transportation of goods across the solar system.
VII) The Asimov class Fleet Carrier - With a size rivaling that of the tallest skyscrapers, Asimov class Fleet Carriers are law enforcement and military engagement vessels capable of patrolling entire quadrants. They can carry dozens of PT boats and thousands of drones, and their construction was a joint venture between the nation-states to unify military defenses across the systems.