“Alright, talk to all of you later!” said Eva.
She waved at the EyeCast and ended her stream. She was previously discussing a few things with Miko, the family, and Mack. Their numbers had done a little better and reached some people on both sides, but the results weren’t mind-blowing.
Not that any of them expected it - growth always took time. And effort.
That said, it would also benefit them greatly if they had a strong start. They had taken down any videos they had published previously, and only uploaded the one they had recently created. It was a strong “first” video, but Eva reasoned that their followup ‘casts needed to be better.
To help build the snowball’s momentum, that sort of thing.
All of them decided to
Things are about to get a little emotionally intense.
Amal’s shuttle landed on New Persepolis, the capital city on Venus. Similar to Mars, Venus was also terraformed for human habitation. When Sol was mostly enclosed by the dyson sphere, Venus’ overall temperature dropped. This allowed its atmosphere to be transformed into something more breathable. The planet’s atmosphere was thick with carbon dioxide, so humanity employed a great many techniques and machines to force a Great Oxygenation Event. They used different methods, from artificial photosynthesis to specialized ultraviolet light to achieve this. In the end the result was the same - carbon dioxide was converted into oxygen. They then covered the entire planet with plant life in order to complete the process of making the planet truly habitable.
Amal had spent a great deal of time ruminating about applying for citizenship at the Federation. She had become distrustful and disillusioned of offers such as those. In her old life, she and her family had been offered asylum by a few governments, but she had learned that there were ulterior motives behind them. Some of her friends and acquaintances who had gone to those other countries and experienced those tragedies had warned her. They often used the refugees as political leverage, and this never bode well in the long term. After all, once their usefulness had run out, there was no longer a need to continue supporting them. Many found themselves living in abject poverty, having been forgotten and abandoned by their new hosts. Although Amal had been lucky wi
The ground whipped by quickly as the tractor sped towards the chaos. It had reached maximum velocity and was cruising at a relatively good pace. Its main display showed that they had topped out their speed, which fluctuated between 24 to 26 meters per second. Although it wasn’t fast compared to space superiority fighters, it was definitely rather quick for any land-based vehicle. Especially for something that weighed as much as the tractor did. As they neared, the sounds of gunfire became clearer and more recognizable. “Should we continue flying over there, or walk?” asked Amal. Dareon shook his head. “Walking will take way too long,” he replied. “By then… everyone would… I
Amal woke up with a start and quickly looked around to get her bearings, but her sight was hazy at best. She saw that she was in a dark room, and could tell that there were a number of other people there. But before she could take a better look, or even ask what was going on, pain suddenly flashed through her head. She felt the pounding sensation of a migraine take root at her temples, which then slowly spread everywhere. Amal groaned as her hands went up to her head to massage it, but found part of it wrapped in some sort of cloth. It felt a little damp under her fingers, so she brought them in front of her so she could take a better look. Her eyes had trouble focusing, so it took her a few moments to realize that she had blood on her hands. It seemed her head
Eva, Miko, and Amal immediately met up after the meeting. They were joined by a handful of others who wanted to help take down Nightmare. Although many of the people in the room certainly wanted to help, Eva had to turn them away from front-line work. It wasn’t that they weren’t willing to take their help, but what they were going to do was incredibly dangerous. After all, hunting down a violent, abusive, and dangerous individual such as Nightmare no doubt would lead to various conflicts, including firefights. Many of these people wouldn’t survive such a skirmish. Not against Nightmare’s brutes. Eva didn’t want to endanger them unnecessarily. Instead, she convinced them to help out privately and in the background, while the team did the legwork. Those she
The Seven spent the next few hours building their dossiers. As Locke mentioned, going after Nightmare meant finding all his associates as well. It wasn’t enough to just go after him - his entire outfit needed to be removed. To do that, they pulled together all kinds of information gathered from all sorts of sources, and sifted through the things they needed - names, associates, places they frequented, and so on. By the end, they had built a rather long list of names. Nightmare, of course, along with 21 of his associates. All of them were refugee players, and were stronger, tougher, and smarter. Well, supposedly smarter, anyway. Eva surmised that they had played Bellum Aeterna for years, and were incredibly familiar with each other. They no doubt worked very well toge
After they turned in the thugs for their bounties, the Seven took the very next shuttle to Venus. They were determined to do right by Amal. When she admitted that she and Jionna hadn’t returned, they realized that they needed to go back. Eva reasoned that they needed to collect evidence of Nightmare’s wrongdoing. Throughout this whole process, Eva and Miko had their EyeCasts following and recording them. It unnerved the others, but they insisted that it was necessary for their line of work. That they were necessary for their evidence. It was certainly true, but not the whole truth. More importantly however, they needed to come to the farm to help patch things up - mostly Amal’s wounded heart. Plus Eva had a hunch.
Amal sat on the roof of one of the silos on the farm. She peered through an optical monoscope at the land around her. As she scanned the horizon, she caught sight of a frigate in the distance. It was accompanied by a handful of fighters. They were all descending carefully. The readings on her monoscope showed that the ships were roughly ten thousand meters away. It was further than even simple sensors could pick up. And certainly further than what the naked eye could see. Amal immediately told the rest of her team through her DI. --- Amal: You were right. Nightmare and his gang really showed up.