How I Got Here: "Making Plans"
24 Jan 2023Columbuss
Commander Justin Estok. Stardate 24-JAN-3309."I'll find 'em. You make 'em talk."
Before it was called "terraforming", it was called "planetary engineering". This was before corporations like Sirius Atmospherics and WorldCraft started judging worlds based on profitability instead of habitability. Back when the primary metric with which to survey new worlds was the planet's ability to sustain life, not turn a profit. This "idealistic" mindset, it rarely lasts. Nothing good ever stays free for very long. It was only a matter of time before the manufacturers of the atmospheric processors and land enrichment systems wanted a return on their investments. It's not everyday you can gift someone the world, but in this case, The Federation handed over thousands.
WorldCraft and Sirius Atmospherics began surveying, and laying claim, to hundreds of planets across uninhabited space and began installing huge atmospheric processor plants, the size of small cities, as fast as the industries in the core worlds could produce them. Before long, there were dozens of worlds across The Bubble that had begun the decades long process of becoming livable. This was before the "resort" worlds. Before the "themed" planets and low-g garden worlds showed up. Before the "Safari" worlds, where the richest people could pay to take part in the genocide of whole species. Once those happened, the motivation behind the engineering process, it changed. Worlds were being "designed" for attraction. Think "sculpted". Not "grown". Planets became playgrounds for the wealthiest one percent. With the profits being what they were, megacorps like WorldCraft and Sirius began surveying and claiming new worlds at a rapid pace. Staking claims for hundreds of new planetary engineering projects and slating them for terraforming without any real plans to do so. If you've ever heard the phrase "putting the cart before the horse", this is what it means.
These corporations, they acquired these worlds so the competition couldn't. The standing order wasn't to produce new livable planets, it was to procure real estate. Acquire assets. Lay the ground work for plans that may, or may not, come to fruition in the future. The surveyors got paid, the processor manufacturers worked double shifts at cut rates and everyone walked away, leaving these worlds exactly as they found them. At this point, the word "terraforming", it became synonymous with "arms race".
Atarapa was one such world. A barren, lifeless rock, buried under a stack of plans for other barren, lifeless rocks. A file on someone's desk, somewhere, collecting dust. Just another world lost in the queue. An empty promise.
Standing on the surface and looking out over the vast nothing this planet was, I think about what this place might become should the processing plants ever show up. The dead mountain range in the distance, so gray and lifeless now, might transform into white capped peaks, gushing fresh water into newly formed rivers that would provide the nutrients needed to lush forests and valleys below. The land enrichment systems and atmospheric engineering, they'll eliminate harmful bacteria, making the air breathable and the land rich for growth. The vegetation here, it'll grow three times higher than anything you might find on a planet with full gravity. This will all be before the excavators and paving teams come in. They'll take one look at the miracle they've created and, these people, they'll turn it into a parking lot.
Looking back down and seeing this world for what it really is, I wonder if terraforming would really make this a better place. It might be nothing more than a dead, lifeless rock, but at least now it's not being exploited. I nudge a piece of stone with my boot, rolling it over on its side as the sun begins its descent over the horizon. The atmosphere here is thin and the composition, it gives the sky a yellow hue. Yellow like a wall stained from the smoke of a billion cigarettes. That burnt match smell, it's the sulfur dioxide in the air. Once the atmospheric processors are installed and water begins to form, this place, it'll rain sulfuric acid.
My comm pad beeps with an approaching ship. I look up to see a dark jet stream race across the yellow sky, trailing a green Eagle Mk2. As the ship slows and the landing gear descends, it's thrusters kick up a cloud so thick that I lose sight of it until the dust settles and it touches down. This is before I see Finn Hardy walk down the off ramp.
Finn steadies himself, adjusting to the 1/3 G, as I tap my helmet at the ear, signaling him to tune to frequency three.
"Been waiting long?" he asks.
"Not long enough to leave."
"It's good to see you," he says, before we exchange an awkward vac suit hug.
On board The Chelsie, I pour two fingers of Federal Reserve into a glass, the brown liquid slowly settling at the bottom, before turning back toward the galley table and sitting down.
"None for me, thanks" says Finn.
"This is for me."
"So, what do you know?" Finn asks.
"Nothing. Last time I saw John, they were pulling us out of a smashed Type-7, compliments of Federal Security" I say, raising the glass and swallowing its contents.
"John's in a cell on Al Mina A1. They're trying to paint him for the bombing. The newly "appointed" Chairman Grill, he's doing everything he can to make sure John goes down for this, which only makes him look more guilty."
"He is guilty" I say back. "We just have to prove it."
Over another glass of Federal Reserve, I tell Finn everything. I tell him about the purge. The assassination attempt on Gilleken. I tell him about Kevin Malloy, the Purple Council and the mysterious Rising Damp. I tell him that if we don't find the evidence connecting Grill to the attacks before Grill has an opportunity to pin it on John, then there'll be nothing either of us can do to stop what happens next.
"Those bombs kid, they were the same ones they used in the Nine Martyrs," I say before refilling my drink for the third time. The bite of the liquor starting to loosen my tongue a bit.
"Are you saying this might have something to do with what's happening in the news? Do you think the NMLA is involved?!"
"Not sure," I say with a shrug. "But Grill got his hands on those explosives somehow. If he had any brains at all he'd kill everyone who helped him. That's what we'd do in the old days. I guess we should feel lucky the man's a bureaucrat and not a gangster. It's only a matter of time before someone like that gets in his ear though."
"So what'd you have in mind?"
"Grill's got no gangster in him... but I do. I just need the resources to go after him."
"I think I can help with that. I have people who can look into these things. We'll find the connections but we'll need you to make them stick. I'll find 'em. You make 'em talk. How does that sound?"
"I can do that," I say, finishing the drink.
"How?" He asks.
"Let's just say, a lot of people are going to get hurt."