The Terren Empire

[Lonestar]

Part One

Texas, 2105, A.D.

The blistering summer sun bore down on the crowd assembled at the Texas A&M aerospace reserch facility. Even the heat was not enough to prevent a great cheer from the crowd as the extensively modified Kistler-12 rocket took off, putting the first human into space in nearly 40 yrs.

Wiping the sweat from his eyes, Laurence Tarwater, head of Internal Security for his excellancy, Lord Protector Ian McDiarmid I of the Terren Empire, turned and grinned at Dr. Pineda. "Well down doctor. It seems you've bested your competitors at Groomlake at returning a human to space first."

Pineda shrugged. He knew the humility expected of him. " It was nothing. I am merely humbled to serve His excellancy."

"None the less, you and your men will be rewarded," Tarwater give one of those smiles again " And, I daresay, we can now give you your next assignment."

Pineda shrugged again. " The Kistler series rocket was built to be reusable. I'm sure we can put a man into space within a week."

"No, no, you misunderstand Professor. His Excellancy is ordering you to return a man to the moon and reactivate the Centauri observation system. He desires to know if theUnity made it to Chiron or not."

Pineda struggled to not so his dispair. "Ah, sir, even if the Unity sucessfully made it there, the optics on the Centauri observation system wouldn't be able to resolve any settlements."

" I know. That is why his excellancy, in his wisdom, is giving you 5 years to do it. Ah," Tarwater paused, recoginizing the President from LeBaeuru Terraforming Tools across the way " I will speak to you of this later. Get cracking!"
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UN Headquarters, Chiron Provisinal Council


"Very well, now that old buisness is done, is there any new buisness?" Lal put down the PDA from witch he had been reading the 'old buisness'.

Zakharov motioned to be recognized. Thankful that Santiago wasn't trying to monopolize the time with rhetoric, Lal recognized him.

"Thank you, Chairman. I will now inform this council that the Univeristy is going to begin construction on a transmiter that will be able to reach Earth. The University Board requests monetary and material aid in this endeavor."

There was a brief silence in the council chambers, then everyone burst into noise. Lal banged the gravel and brought order. Lal spoke first.

"Provost, If I am not mistaken, such a transmiter would require a Terawatt of energy, would it not? Need I remind we you that even on Earth, a TW represented almost 5% of the energy needs? Need I remind you that the mission has nowhere near that capacity, with the lost of the Unity reactors?"

" Yes, that is why the University needs your help." Zakharov was blunt and to the point "This would be a great project for the mission, re-establishing contact with Earth. We-"

"Provost," Morgan's deep voice interrupted him " It just isn't practical at this time. Remember, we have yet to recieve any messages from Earth ourselves. Surely, we do not need a TW to recieve messages, do we?"

"No, but-"

"Then, we can conclude that there are no humans left on Earth capable of even respnding IF we were to send a message, correct?"

"It's possible-"

"Mr. Chairman," Morgan began again. He had one of the most forceful personalities on the planet "I move we bring this to a vote. A secret ballot, of course."

The motion was passed, and Lal tallied the vote. "I'm sorry Provost, but the vote is 2-5. The motion fails. You will not be getting aid from the planetary council."

"Very well." Zakharov's voice sounded bitter. " We will, of course, accept all such resoltuions as binding, and not bring it up until the next meeting."

"Thank you Provost. Now, any more new buisness?" Lal sighed as he recognized Santiago.

[Lonestar]

Part One (Continued)

San Antonio, Texas


Jono Griffin strode across Lone Star Square, the large central Square that the Lord Protector had built after establishing San Antonio as his capitol. The public viewscreens had been trumpting humanity's return to space for a week now, showing that ****ing rocket take off again and again. Griffin could only assume the government was trying to take the publics mind off the fact that, even 30 years after the unification of planet earth, famine, disease, and radiation pervaded the planet. Most remaining power planets went to the Great Houses, while the remainder went into public propaganda through the use of viewscreens in large squares.

Griffin sighed. He remembered the stories his grandfather use to tell him, about when the North American continent was run by people who cared about the people. Imperial expenditures on enviromental engineering had gone down steadily during the past 10 yrs, as more money was spent on restarting old technologies.

Griffin turned off the square, and went down to the riverwalk. Entering the Dixie Chicken Bar he murmered, "Oscar, give me a Corona, will ya?"

Oscar the bartender chuckled and handed the beer to Jono "You do not look so good, my friend. Bad day at work?"

"You could say that." Jono took a sip at Corona. " Just found out His Excellancy is giving the Tennesse Valley Clean Up Project to LeBaeuru. We were suppose to get it. Five years ago, there would have been plenty of enviromental projects to go around. Now he's spending our tax dollars on this obsession of space of his. Bloody Little Green Men."

"You should watch what you say " Oscar said severly

"I would't worry about it, I-" He was interupted by two men walking in, both Morale Police Uniforms

"Oh. Hell."

One of the men walked up to Jono. "You are Jono Griffin of the Catapillar company? You will come with us"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

University Base, Chiron.

"Well, Provost, we couldn't expect them to give us funding. Lal is too busy with his 'grand city' idea, and the rest are trying to put themselves on top."

Zakharov glared at Chemrylinko, the head of the University's nascent space program. Unperturbed, Chemrylinko continued. "However, our geologists have found a rather interesting mineral field in the Northwestern part of this continent. It is very, very rich with heavy metals. We only got word of the discovery yesterday. Dr. Lao didn't want to broadcast it, even on secure radio. I already sent a security team out ther."

Zakharov's mood did a 180. "Are you telling me that there is readily accesible Uranium, right there on the surface...?"

"More than that Provost. Dr. Lao swears it shoudn't be possible, and it's the unaminous agreement of our physics board that it shouldn't be possible, but there's plutonium there. Dr. Nesterov says if we can begin immediate recovery of these metals, we could have a fission plant running within one mission year."

"So, you are saying...."

" I am saying, Provost, that if we move quickly and with the outmost secrecy, we could provide the power ourselves within 5 years."

[goldenerasuburb]

Jono was in trouble. This had been coming for a while. Jono, unbenkownst to those who thought they knew him, was a subversive. They had the proof- The records of his dealings with a group of rebels known as [I]The Liberators[I] He did not know why, but it was clear someone somewhere had ratted on him. Now all they needed was to get what he knew about the Liberators and he was donefore. He stared the interrogator down with a facade of bravado about him. Inside, he was trembling.