A few hours later, outside the planetary defense shield.

There was no sound in space, so all was silent. And there was an almost hypnotic rhythm to the dance of barely visible satellites in the emptiness between the shield and the gorgeous blue planet acting as a backdrop. The only disturbance was the glowing blue trails of ionic thrusters traveling in a convoy that stretched from the shield to the surface of the moon, where Aron had built an automated logistics and distribution base.

If an observer were to stand atop Ceres Station and look up, they would see enormous vessels shaped and colored like planks of burnt wood, each of them blending in against the blackness of space save for the output of their ionic thrusters. Thousands of them were sailing in a line, headed toward the entry port of the now permanently active shield.

The frontmost vessel came to a halt a few hundred kilometers outside the shield as the convoy fleet commander reported their arrival to Ceres Station and requested permission to pass through the shield and enter Earth orbit.

Approved, commander. Your entry gate is 32A. Lower your shields and pass through at Mach 1 for security scans as you pass through the inspection field, the control operator broadcast on the fleet comms channel.

Copy that, control. HHIS convoy 15 out, the fleet commander replied, then signaled the convoy to move out as ordered.

One by one, the ships passed through the designated entry portal, and the commander didnt know if he was imagining things, but he thought he might have felt the scans pass through his body. He looked out at the tunnel in the shield through his augmented reality view and gazed in wonder at the security measures he could see; he couldnt even imagine the ones that were as invisible as the shield itself.

He shook his head and refocused himself, clapping his palms against his cheeks to get his head back in the game. He had an important job to do: deliver his cargo to the surface so that construction could begin on the new fortress cities.

ARES shouldve kept all of the old military gear instead of just a few for museums. But those idiots scrapped almost all of it! a girl slurred.

She was sitting at the bar in a dive bar in the middle of the afternoon, a row of empty shot glasses turned upside down in front of her. Despite her gorgeous appearance, she was dressed like it was laundry day, wearing loose, faded sweatpants, an old My Little Pony t-shirt with most of the silk-screened art peeled off, and an old military camouflage jacket that was two sizes too big for her with one torn pocket. Her hair was disheveled and she was wearing a pair of Deadpool socks, and her look was completed with a pair of crocs.

She looked like she hadnt slept in quite some time, and in fact, she actually hadnt. She hadnt showered, either.

Ever since the empire had stolen all of the military hardware she so loved, shed been depressed, which explained why she was bellied up to a bar in the afternoon, day drinking. She was a military otaku and certified ammosexual; instead of fashion magazine subscriptions and an extensive makeup kit, she subscribed to Guns & Ammo and had a gun locker. Her video game library, which was extensive, was filled with realistic first person shooters, and she even had copies of the now-

defunct US Army recruiting tool, the Americas Army video games proudly displayed in a shrine in a corner of her studio apartment.

(Ed note: Believe it or not, that franchise existed from 2002-2022. The US Army thought that publishing a realistic FPS would be a good way to stop people from failing boot camp and washing out. Personally, Id rank that right up there with feeding estrogen to Hitler to make his mustache fall off and sending exploding cigars to Castro in terms of dumb shit the US government thought was good enough to spend money on.)

Yes, a shrine. With candles and incense and everything.

She was curious about ARES, though, and the only thing holding her back from immediately signing up was that... she didnt know if their guns and other gear was badass enough. Thus, she had decided to wait and see at least a bit of it before diving in with eyes wide shut.

Basement dweller, NEET, otaku, hikkikomori.... She had been called many things due to her rather odd obsession. But despite that, she was usually a rather sociable person and had a broad network of friends who were similarly addicted to all things badass. One of whom was the man behind the bar, sighing as she continued her drunken diatribe. They could spout off facts about every gun going as far back as the Sharps rifle and enjoyed debating whether or not blunderbusses got a bad rap for being useless.

And with the Akashic Record having made all of the classified specs of all that military hardware freely available, she had become something of a military historian now, not just someone who lurked on the War Thunder forum waiting for classified material to be leaked there. In fact, her AI battle maid, Alita, had even been trying to talk her into applying for a job as a military history teacher in the imperial scholastica.

I dunno why youre so sad. Aint they gonna be available in VR in a few months? Didnt that... whats-her-name, the GAIA Tech lady? Anyway, didnt she announce that theyll be releasing a video game where you can use their hardware soon? So just chill. Here, have another shot, but its your last for today. Gonna have to cut you off, or else I risk the bar getting shuttered. The bartender cast his gaze across the line of empty shot glasses in front of the girl, counting them in his head and comparing the number of shot glasses to the apparent weight of the girl sitting across the bar from him.

The conversation came to an abrupt halt as their glasses and phones pingged a push notification on them. It wasnt a priority notification, but they had both decided to set up constant keyword searches for certain things, and one of those had just triggered the ping.

The bartenders eyes glazed over as he began reading something only he could see through his AR glasses, and the girl fumbled to pick up her phone from the bar in her drunken haze. And they werent the only ones, either; two more of the day-drinking regulars of Bugsys Bar were doing the same.

All four of them were met with a livestream from Hephaestus Heavy Industries that was trending on Pangea. The bartender clicked on the link and was shocked to see a view from the ground, with dots rapidly growing in the sky.

Soon, the other three joined him in his slackjawed expression as they, too, clicked on the livestream link that had generated the interest notifications on their devices.