I awoke with a jolt, my very bones rattled. Looks like we'd cleared lunar space and the nuclear detonations had begun. Let's hope the Earth's magnetosphere held up.

Eventually, as we picked up speed, the interval between consecutive blasts diminished, to the point that we had something approaching smooth acceleration.

I got to work compiling some reports, and the rest of the journey was unremarkable, we weren't using standard transfer windows, leaving almost no other vehicles within a quarter of an AU. Still, you could spot the distant signatures of other torchships, their exhaust so bright they outshone stars even out past Jupiter.

We continued coasting on our nuclear wake, till we eventually reached the next milestone of the journey, where the ship flipped over and began exploding its ass off in the opposite direction to kill our velocity enough to be captured by Martian orbit.

At the end of the week, Mars was clearly visible to the naked eye, and then became a swollen ball of rust, with slight hints of green and blue being the only real signs of human habitation where biodomes clung to the barren surface.

I spotted the IR signature corresponding to where the artificial magnetosphere was running, an asteroid brought over to serve as the base for a fusion plant that powered massive superconducting magnets. It reduced the radiation load on the surface to levels where you could venture out with sunscreen on, at least if your cancer suppression genes were good enough.

Just as I was going stir crazy even with the VR, we finally approached Phobos and Deimos.

The latter was exclusively claimed by the US Space Force, and was absolutely bristling with all manner of emplaced weaponry. I spotted a hundred kiloton yield mass accelerators, shored up with metahuman tech to actually launch projectiles at small fractions of c without tearing themselves apart or yeeting itself out of orbit from the recoil. It even shimmered with a force field, more bespoke metahuman work. There were a couple vessels restocking on antimatter prior to the long lonely journey to Sedna, where the sole working wormhole in Sol lay behind all the structural and military reinforcement Mankind could spare. It was the best bet for getting anything larger than a car to AC at faster than light speeds.

Another was being constructed at Gonggong, a joint EU-Indian project, but the other end was still being conveyed sublight by a linelayer ship and expected to take another year before coming within a useful distance of AC.

Phobos was a gateway to Mars, having been diverted last decade into a Mars-stationary orbit so it could serve as the counterweight to the Mars Spire rising from below. It had been extended and built over, until today, half a dozen nations and a hundred corporations held ownership of various chunks, all leased by a UN holding agency.

Captain Vassar informed us that the Next Time wasn't going to dock, preferring to divert to a nearby orbital depot. I and the others getting off here boarded a small space plane and flew over to Phobos.

I've seen some shit, but even after having traveled all over the universe in VR, I still felt future-shock when I disembarked inside the bustling spaceport.

Phobos was a hive of activity, filled with immigrants awaiting their turn to head down the space elevator, drawn by promises of better standards of living and significantly higher UBI stipends.

Asteroid miners clogged the halls, arguing about where to stake their next claim and which brands of autonomous mining equipment to buy.

The air was rich with an energy you rarely saw on Earth these days, people genuinely felt they were on the forefront of human progress, staking a little slice of the future before it cooled. I spotted Indian and Chinese soldiers in conversation, the animosity of decades temporarily dismissed as they used their day off; Texan tycoons arguing water rights with USMA officials, and even I felt energized at the frontier.

I couldn't hang around long, there was a priority berth on the elevator, and I joined a few other middle management types in clambering into our capsules as the rapid descent down began.

It was something, seeing Phobos dwindle above us as we descended, the thin haze that passed for atmosphere in Mars growing to encompass us. I spotted Olympus Mons in the distance, sloping so gradually you could almost imagine you were on level ground unless you had an elevated view.

Eventually, we arrived at the immigration checkpoint at Elon Gate, undoubtedly named for how goddamn long I had to wait even with my expedited pass. Still, USMA managed to pull me through the bureaucracy, and I found myself boarding the Hyperloop bound towards Hellas, at least the length of it that hadn't been sabotaged.

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I spotted great herds of terraforming bots on the horizon, maws tilling the toxic Martian soil, tanks of water the size of buildings used to dissolve away toxic perchlorates, the cleaned dirt mixed with biomass and greensmithed microbes thrown out the back. Behind them, constructor bots threw up layers of glass and soil that heralded the next anthill meant for colonists before a biodome was raised to make it possible to traverse the surface unsuited.

We passed the Cemetery, a model of a Starship built to scale out of diamond, intended to serve as the memorial for the tragic loss of a ship in 2029 with all hands aboard.

Oh pioneers of distant skies, with hearts aroar,

To breach the heavens and upon red sands explore,

The black expanse with stars arrayed, doth silently implore,

Strive, strive against that lonesome tide 'til home is but a lore.

Celestial voyagers, seek not solace in despair,

To Martian terrain, arid and spare,

With vigor forge a loyal bower,

An iridescent dream of Earth's next hour.

With coursing blood fierce and bound,

For solar winds shall blow thy faces round,

But in the hollows of this celestial mound,

There harbors life, lost and found.

Navigators of the vast, do not be quelled,

Your thirsty suffering shall not be quelled,

Press on against invincible night,

Through metallic meadows bathed in silver light.

Fear not the feeble hand of mortal matter,

For thirsting hands will one day scatter,

And toiler's toilsome doom be not in vain,

From rocky dust new Eden boughs shall feign.

Oh pioneers of hope, cease not the noble fight,

In the somber crepuscule of Martian night,

Where sandstorms wail and shatter stone,

Emerge ye, beacons of supernal dawn.

Though sorrow's shroud befits this alien hearth,

Unite, the fire that nurtures human birth,

Engage the endless battle, push on with zest,

And conquer the cold and heartless breast.

And in the echoes of whispered sorrow,

A hopeful song will serenade the Martian morrow,

In crimson dunes, still rivers flow,

Upon this distant world, a home we'll know.

For they who brave the void shall thrive,

In gardens sown by the sacrificed,

Cry out, rejoice and sing of tomorrow,

When from Martian moons our lineage will borrow.

Rest ye now, those who dared to dream,

With breathless silence, gaze upon the deep,

Upon this alien soil, we lie,

Rise now and do not gently transmute into night.

The words were carved into the Martian surface with lasers so hot the very crust had melted and frozen into basalt. Flowers bloomed in tiny biodomes, and more lay bundled outside in the sand, dessication turning the oldest into tinder meant for sparking a new era.

The loop got me two thirds of the way to Hellas, until I had to disembark at a hastily constructed station. Ahead, the route had been attacked by an insurgent drone swarm, explosives tearing down supports, leaving cylindrical sections half buried in Martian dust like extinct sandworms.

Immigrants still stuck waiting for transport eyed us enviously as we disembarked and headed over to an awaiting shuttle, but they had their own temporary shelter and would keep for the short while till service was resumed.

We flew over several sandstorms, already threatening to coalesce into a planet-wide monster that would put a pause on most activities except by the most hardened robots. To be honest, it wasn't that threatening, the thin atmosphere meant that even hurricane winds barely tickled, it was the dust clogging sensors and covering up solar panels that made travel a PITA.

And there it was, Hellas Basin, represented from a distance by the horizon abruptly dropping away behind a rim of mountains. A faint shimmer, more of a distortion akin to heat haze, showed me where the edge of the Firmament lay, holding in just enough proper air to let a baseline human breathe.

I approached an airlock, resisting the urge to poke at the iridescent shimmer beneath the watchful gaze of USMA mechs, and stepped through, to where escalators and tramlines raced towards New Washington.