Chapter: "Approach vector green 7, the Pillar of heaven"

*200 seconds went by without anyone saying anything else, the rest of the crew seemed sad that the specifics had to be discussed. Artemis and company also realized why that this specific topic must be a bit depressing for the crew and stopped asking. The count reached 30 seconds and confirmation came from the helmsmen.*

Merialia: "engines 1-18 online. Levitations systems leveling out for vertical launch. We will reach maximum combat speed in 15 seconds."

Lt. Romius:* activating comm. Systems* "All hand lock down anything that can move. Prepare for vertical launch."

Ray: *relieved* "We should sit down, even with gravity dampeners this trip can be rough I've heard."

Shiro: "Definitely, I remember my first time coming down to earth, so beautiful, I was amazed that our ancestors could abandon it, but the dampeners only help so much, it can be rather hard to stand up at a 45 degree angle. Despite that, I was rather amazed that in this cycle things that were never that where never there before, like the people existing. We were all just waiting for a shuttle to get to close, or a ship to realize something was wrong near Atlantis II."

Merialia: "maximum combat speed reached, all quarters locked down"

*The count reached 0*

Lt. Romius: "All hand brace for acceleration initiating firing sequence for Lohengrin, prepare assault cannon 1 and 2. Begin jamming surface communications and release Menovsky particles at combat density. Activate "Vulture Luminaire" light propulsion system. Open assault cannon 1 and 2 maneuver them into firing position."

*As this happened the bow of the ship began to move. The bottom of each of its 'legs' opened up and a large barrel appeared with wires combing out of it and into the ship. This cannon was easily the size of a London double-decked bus.*

Artemis: "Umm… Is that… the Lohengrin...?"

Ray: "Yes, it is, is there something wrong with it.?"

Artemis: "Isn't it a bit large? Why would you need a cannon that size?"

Lt. Romius: "Because when this ship was designed, they had to take in A.B.D.C. equipment. These systems are still in use in some of our larger ships like this one, so they needed something to break through that system. Thus the Lohengrin, a weapon used to annihilate the enemy force in front of you down to their last atom. It was designed so that the enemy would be completely destroyed; they had no problems killing off coordinators."

Artemis: "2 questions more, what's ABDC, and what's a coordinator?"

Lt. Romius: "… I forgot were dealing with naturals… ABDC is short for Anti Beam Depth Chagres. And a coordinator is a human who has been genetically modified before birth to be smarter, faster, stronger, and sometimes more appealing to look at. Well now that, that's explained, CIC, are we ready to fire yet?"

Officer in the CIC who no one could see: "Ready ma'm!"

Lt. Romius: "Fire!"

*The 2 cannons simultaneously began glowing a bright red/orange color. In front of the cannons by about 5 meters a red orb began to form, and a red line appeared and shot out in the direction they were firing. A large blast was heard through the ship that sent ripples down all the way to the bridge. The 2 red lines then started glowing into a lager red/blue/green/ and white blast of electrons. This blast encircled the ship creating what appeared to be the northern lights surrounding the ship.*

*As this happened the ship began to accelerate past its limits, and launch into orbit. They watch as they see the earth slowly get smaller the farther they get from the earth. The speed they were going, though no one in Artemis's party would ever know it was Mach 10. Well beyond what in theory a human or fairy could handle before the force of inertia would kill them. At this speed it took them less than 1 hour to reach heaven pillar command tower, and enter its mirage colloid field.*

Lt. Romius: "Heavens pillar command, this is EFSF Archangel requesting approach vector and docking bay number."

*Static if heard over the comm. Systems while they wait for a response.*

Heaven's pillar CIC: "EFSF Archangel you are cleared to land on docking pillar 12, hanger 9, approach vector green 7. Landing lights will engage when archangel approaches stage 5, repeat landing lights will engage when archangel approaches stage 5."

Lt. Romius: "Confirm approach vector green 7, landing on stage 5, docking bay 12-9. Archangel beginning approach"

*When they entered the field, everyone got a good look at the pillar, it was a large structure. Though not generically beautiful, such as its architecture, they all found it surprisingly good looking. It was a long tube leading up to a large station, here at the station was 24 tubes leading out from all sides. Attached to these tubes were entire fleets of ships. Above that was what Artemis judged as the residential center, a large circular facility with windows circumventing the facility. Above them are massive windows revealing a large park like structure with a gold building in the center? Above that was another set of tubes with ships attached to them, and then there were the 2 extremely large tubes and about 12 large gold disks.*

*After looking at them for wile Artemis realized that while appealing to look at they served a purpose, they were the solar panels for the facility, he then realized that the tubes extend further then the field, and must be in another mirage colloid field themselves.*

Lt. Romius: "Welcome to heavens pillar"

Artemis: "For reference what type of facility is this? Research and development, military hardware, or something else?"

Ray: "I've been wondering what it is that goes on up here as well. all I know is that when I get an order for A2 they usually are just passing on an order form here.

Lt. Romius: "Not a military facility. This is a power production facility. They have the command in control tower for earth so that why you receive orders from here, but beyond that this facility is mainly civilian. Actually the majority of the facilities we have are civilian. There's is only 2 military colonies, Grypes 1 and Grypes 2."

Artemis: "so, a lot of ships, and a large military but only 2 military facilities'?"

Ray: "So far as I've heard Atlantis is the only remaining facility on earth, and even it's only a civilian city and research center."

The group from the shuttle: *finally realizing what they're talking about* "Atlantis?"

Ray: "Not the Atlantis your thinking of. This one's much older, and is actually named the Atlantis 2 Research center. It was built on the ruins of the last Atlantis from there restart."

Foaly: "must be interesting, how much could be learned from a facility like that. A past civilization advanced enough to create these marvels."

Lt. Romius: "Humanity isn't ready, and neither are the fairies. It would simply cause another war, that's what happened 2 restarts before, and we will not allow that to happen. When the humans and fairies are able to find us themselves, then and only then will we reveal ourselves."

Artemis: "what about us, we were in the path with the tower, we would have found you. Isn't that why you forced us onboard anyway."

Shiro: "That was my fault. When you noticed me, and you went into a path that put you directly in the line of fire with the lohengrin. We couldn't have you dying on us and thus we had to make you go with us. Originally my only orders were to slow you down, but with the lohengirn in the picture we could no longer afford to let you be in the area, especially in its line of fire."

Artemis: "so our participation in your world is completely by mistake."

Lt. Romius: *smiling* "If it wasn't, you wouldn't be forced to be here and you would be back on earth if you chose to do so. But unfortunately you were forcible exposed to highly classified secrets and thus may not leave until we judge you not to be a threat to our PEACEFULL existence."

*Everyone was quiet after that all the way into the port. The archangel was easily as big if not larger than a cruise liner, yet compared to the station they were going to, it looked like a pebble. When they first got a look at it, they thought it rather small, not looking at the ships, but the closer they got to it the more they realized that this one station was easily as large as New York City 3 times over. The station which was separate from the pillar, was rotating slowly on it axis. When they got to see its inside they realized that it was actually rotating very fast, and was using this force to create artificial gravity on the station.*

*There was several small city's surrounded by peaceful green forests, it was even raining on the other side of city. If they didn't look up they would never know that they weren't on earth. The place was a beautiful reminder of what earth once was, this world had tons of high tech devices, but it was also closer to 18th or 19th century earth. Before humanity massive influence began destroying the world. But it was also filled with reminders that they were on a space station, such as occasionally when they approached the side of a city in there small electric cars, they would see one of the sides of a colony, a large glass window, that spanned miles, but was only 1 mile across. *

*To the fairies this place looked like absolute paradise, even Artemis found himself occasionally letting out a sigh, but most of those were in amazement to the tech of this world, holographic cell phones, A.I.'s, and much, much more. Occasionally they saw the police of this colony, each would be a team of 5 mobile suites patrolling outside city limits, when they saw one the police would stop, and salute to the military members of the crew. Apparently the majority of the archangels crew other than the bridge crew and pilots were civilians, and thus didn't go with them but went to go shopping or visit friends.

*They only had 5 hours, but they got to see a large portion of the pillar's civilian sections. The ECOAS base was rather dull. It was 4 large grey hangers, and a control tower in the center, all of them rusted and in need of a new paint job.*

Ray: "You know I work for the ECOAS and so does Shiro, I was expecting a larger base then this…"

Shiro: *Laughs,* "The ECOAS is not nearly as popular as the EFSF is in space. Anyone who would want to go into the military form the colonies normally would want to join the EFSF. If the people had their way the ECOAS would remain on earth. That's why the bureaucrats refuse to fund this facility the way they fund the Atlantis facility. To be honest the way the people of the colonies see it, the ECOAS is like the titans of old, and thus they don't want to worry about them, sure they'll use our tech like your ECOAS Stark Jegan, but they'd prefer if an EFSF pilot was at its controls."

Ray: "Still I think I would like to move my family up here, even if the ECOAS would be disliked, it's much more… uplifting then haven, more like the surface of earth."