"For the view" replied his Gordon
"ha ha, no seriously, why?"
Gordon and Hassan were two of the colonists who had escaped the Moon, neither were particularly special or important, Gordon ran a shop and Hassan was a miner.
"I wanted to see our new home, all of it, all at once I'm ashamed to have waited so long"
"Why didn't we just take a shuttle?"
"Nowhere to land and I felt like a hike now shut up and enjoy the view"
It was an amazing sight to behold. Hope city had grown rapidly since the city's founding five months previously, Biodomes had sprouted up around the two huge bulks of the original colony ships creating what looked like what looked like two rocks surrounded by mushrooms. Settling had been surprisingly easy, the red martian mountains were rich in minerals and fertile and the terraformed atmosphere was perfectly breathable. Food was grown 60 km west of the city in the terraformed half of the planet and bought to the city by shuttle.
Admiral Jerek was not as impressed by the city as Gordon or Hassan, he had not forgiven the separatists for their destruction of Hilburns landing were he had grown up and had even had family, had, the word created bitterness in his mind, three generations of his family had been wiped out in the blink of an eye, great-grandparents, grandparents and even his parents. He was also the only survivor of his generation, his two sisters and brother also dying with his parents. Today they would be avenged, only blood can repay blood.
Hassan sat on a rock and Gordon joined him, each admiring the city and the determination it had taken to build, each smiled and remembered creating everything from street lamps to a water system.
"Deploy Armageddon system" ordered Jerek, a lieutenant at the console beneath him obeyed without question, it was his day of vengence too his son had been a marine aboard one of the Alpha convoy ships.
Two large racks folded down from the cruiser, each rack had three missiles, each with eight thermonuclear warheads. The letters UE stood out clearly on their metallic surfaces like shadows.
"Fire"
The missiles simultaneously left their rack, rocking the ship from the sudden increase in force. Jerek regained balance and joined his crew in a triumphant cheer.
Gordon and Hassan were still admiring the view when the missiles hit, all they had worked to achieved disappeared infront of them before they too were reduced to ash.
The farming colony was spared only because the UE was unaware of its existence, the survivors spent three years building a 'Dunkirk' fleet of ships to transport them to Jupiter, from where 100 years later they began their revenge.
The circle continues