Steel Rising

Chapter 24: UCSB Branch 9696

Walking down the gangway of the Wings of Eos, Tellius looked up at the rest of the station. With the 'sky' made up of white 3x3 km wide armor plates,  the entire station was illuminated by natural light as it rotated to face the sun with its energy shields.

Truth be told, as the largest space station in the western section of the other edges of colonized space, the Terminus Space Station was a modern-day beehive impressive not only in scale but also in trade volume.

Its horizontal cross-section being the shape of ∈, it combined defense and trade efficiency optimally. With spaceships docking on the - section and the commercial & residential area on the c section, it was quite a long trip for Tellius down the pier.

Switching from a slow walk into a slow sprint, the cyborg quickly reached a public elevator to the station's commercial district.

*Woop!* The elevator stopped right in front of him and the entire compartment turned counterclockwise before its door opened. *Womp!*

Immediately all kinds of people, some only vaguely resembling baseline humans, immediately came rushing out past Tellius. Despite being bumped into and attempted to be pushed aside by some,  the cyborg remained unmoved like a rock until the flow of people ended and he was able to get in.

*Ding!* *Ding!* The elevator chimed, just as the elevator's orientation changed and it started moving.

Suddenly standing on what was technically the wall, it took Tellius a moment to deal with his newfound perspective. Yet before he was able to get used to it, the elevator abruptly stopped to spill out its passengers into the commercial district. *Womp!*

Following the masses, the former commander soon found himself in a wide alley between skyscrapers. These colossal skyscrapers and megabuildings were both a show of power and prestige for the Big 5 as well as proof of their eternal inferiority complex.

As soon as he had walked for a bit, Tellius discovered the district's main attraction called Main Street. It was a huge, bustling ring with all kinds of luxurious shops and boutiques between the corporate headquarters surrounding the Med Center in the middle.

That was when, on one of the giant screens built into the facade of the Med Center, a particularly eye-catching news flash headline overlaid a news report concerning Admiral Celestine LeFay's latest deployment. It read 'Marshal Ryan and wife died by suicide'.

With the memory of Ethan & Yelena still fresh in his mind, the news of their sudden death hit him all the more, and yet it wasn't making any sense.

'Why would the Ryans commit suicide after finally reuniting with each other?' Tellius asked himself as he continued looking for a UCBS branch office. '... Or is this some kind of cover-up by the UCG to hide the existence of the Devil?'

Truth be told, he would most likely never know, as the new Marshal Service would never release their files to the public. Not wanting to dwell on the death of yet another acquaintance, as the Battle of Thermopylae-6 was still also fresh in his mind, Tellius said a quick, silent prayer for the dead and moved on.

Yet he couldn't, which in turn made him call Sarah via transmission to tell her. "Hey, Sar. Did you know that Ethan and Yelena have supposedly committed suicide?"

"What? No!..." Exclaimed Sarah just as shocked as Tellius had been just a moment ago. "... Why would they? Was it that deal the Section Attorney made with Ares?"

"What? Why would the Section Attorney have a Marshal & a former UCGI agent killed?" Asked Tellius apprehensively as he began to consider that the current UCG might be capable of such a thing.