Beyond Sol

Chapter 12L

"Guess who's back?!" Scott Richard's busted the front doors of Building 927 open, the illuminated, six metre tall letters outside spelling out AURORA flickering, giving building 925, just across, hell of a glow pattern.
"How the hell are you out? You're in for genocide!" The front desk woman's jaw fell open.
"Bail." He walked to the door on the right of her, passing the semicircular station, running his hand across the smooth, fabric lined seats, which in reality when you sat on them felt like concrete, probably was.
"Bail ain't gonna fix tha- Okaaay." Scott left her, pushing open the restaurant-kitchen-like doors open to the room titled SHIP CONSTRUCTION.
A marine on duty took him down without breaking line of sight dead ahead. By take down I mean a solid ankle to ankle. "Make sure he doesn't get up." Liam Smith commanded the marine, turning back to the overlooking platform of the ships below. Building 927 was solely dedicated to the production of Project Aurora. I had taken it as a joke, it isn't.
The production of 418 starships was in full swing. Similar to the Aeson's gunships, they all had the same general form. A rectangular, circular edged hull maintaining four VTOL jet engines, two each side. (Across, EG: An engine in the top left and right, bottom left and right, if that wasn't already clear.) A solid tiny bridge in the front, just ahead of the two engines.
They consisted of carriers, battleships, cruisers, transport etc. The transport ships carried 700 foot long naval battleships that would be dropped in the waves that dominated KLMA-3B. They would focus on the first waves of Aeson's, being shot directly out of the sky. I was never informed, but apparently Liam, the new director of the whole Beyond Sol program had established contact with the HWSC Event Horizon.
Here's the rundown on the plan, the Horizon team, (Spectrum's from the Event Horizon,) would cling to the crater wall in the waves that destroyed our little home until the Aesons arrived, just to stay under radar. The Aurora team would cling to the Horizon team, acting as a shield and a gateway. The Aurora is our main defence team, although the Horizon is the first. Complicated military things. From there on out it's whoever the hell destroy each other first.
"What's our ship count?" Liam asked, standing at ease.
"402, sir." The marine at the doorway remarked, standing at easy.
"Notify our candidates for it, 1700 of 5000 is our crew, remember." Liam sighed, walking away from the glass. "Ship rollout by the end of the week."
"That's a day, sir."
"Now you're getting it."

The two rovers, trailer winches pulling along a batch of freshly grown agriculture from down south, about an hour, ran across the ice lake. "90-David to 93, how we looking? Pedal to the metal, we have 3 tonnes in there."
"93-David, I got some brake fluid leakage, I'll get to base. 91 reported 92 is in semi-stable." Amelia pushed down on the gas, or as far as she could in the exoskeleton, helmet sitting on the passenger seat beside her. The small 'colony,' although I hesitate to use that term, was marked ahead. After the Christmas Incident, we set up a small base.
Most of it is tents and Alpha Centauri base supplies, although we have some cement buildings. Our garage and the Living Quarters. We contaminated nearly all our fuel with lake water, which turns out running through a nuclear burner combustion chamber...is not a good idea.
Look; The Spectrum at minimum load requires at least 21% fuel, or about twenty one thousand tonnes, after the contamination we were left with about 2% usable fuel, or about 2.15 thousand tonnes of usable fuel. I won't get into the maths, that's a James thing, but long story short we need to strip weight. Turns out, that's a very, very long process. Figuring out what we can boot, what we need, etc.
Muhammed says we're almost there, but he's been saying that for months now. "10-4, base is 4 clicks out, visual confirm."
"Visual confirmed, sneak ahead of me, I'm laying off my engine."
"10-4." I pulled ahead of her, just a simple little more gas and a little nudge to the left on the wheel. "What's your speed?"
"110 KM/H, my engine is struggling. Take it in for inspection back at base." Amelia got knocked around over the rough patches of ice, but remaining steady at the wheel.
"Copy that...try and push to 120, lay to 100 if you can't." I ramped up to 160 KM/H, c'mon... The base rapidly approached, I slammed on my brakes. My engine break stopped the pistons, all eight wheels, (including the trailer full of corn and shit,) locked up. The rover slid to the side, the trailer dragging me along.
"Fuck!" Amelia screamed, slamming on hers. The little brake fluid leak earlier? Yeah, cost us two rovers. Amelia slammed into the rear of my rover, dismembering the trailer. An eruption of flames broke out, the conjunction sliding into the 'town.'
The burning mess flipped on the melted down path of rocks over the ice. It stopped about two thirds of the way down the fifty metre long path of smelted rocks. "Shit!" I blacked out pretty fast after my suit punctured.