There were a few reports regarding the antimatter plants, they have been able to boost production by 2%. And requests from Fleet for help in building their new ships. They had already started building a shipyard in the orbit of Thanatos. They had brought the station that was in orbit of Gem, the one they used for building mining equipment and ships, and used it as a core for the new Fleet station and shipyard, as they didn’t have the need to expand their mining fleet in the close future. They were already well into construction, with a part of the shipyard already operational. They needed some of Seo-yun’s people to oversee all the tech that they wanted to put into the ships. Seo-yun sent an inquiry to her people for volunteers to go to the station. As she scrolled down, she came upon a report regarding a strange crystal formation on the southern continent, she saw a few pictures of the crystals and was struck with an idea.
She opened a channel via her implant to the transport pilot.
“Can you get me to Tomas Klein’s offices?”
“Of course ma’am.” The pilot said.
Seo-yun relaxed into her seat, and tried to think about the best way to tackle Tomas.
Chapter Seven
Olympus city
The morning started as it usually did for Tomas, he was reviewing the requests and reading various reports, until about midday when Seo-yun interrupted him. She entered his office without being announced, she was one of very few people that could do that. She glanced through the open door to the room adjacent to his office, she could see his unmade bed there.
“When was the last time you went home?” She asked.
“Hmm… Two days ago I believe, I had lunch with Elias.” Tomas said.
“That was a week and half ago.” She said glaring at him.
“Really? I guess I lost track of time.”
“Have you looked in a mirror lately? You are tired Tomas, you are awake too much.” She said softly.
Tomas sighed. “There is much work to be done.”
“You are going to burn yourself out. You don’t age anymore, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need rest.” Seo-yun said.
“I know, but I still need to work.”
She approached his desk, and shut it down.
“What are you…” Tomas started.
“That’s it, you are taking a break.”
“I can’t just take a break.”
“You have good people working for you, they can manage for a day. Come, we are going out.” Seo-yun said, grabbing his hand, pulling him out of the chair and guiding him towards the door.
“Where are we going?” Tomas asked, he knew better than to resist, when Seo-yun set her mind it was impossible to change it.
“One of the exploratory teams found something, and we are going to take a look.” She said smiling. They exited his office, and Seo-yun turned to Tomas’s assistant.
“We are going out for a day, tell Nadia that she is in charge.” She said. Marie, Tomas’s assistant just nodded cheerfully.
Seo-yun took him out of the government building, and had him in a shuttle so fast his eyes barely had a moment to adjust to the light of the day, he spent too much time inside.
“So where exactly are we going?” Tomas asked once they were seated inside.
“The southern continent, a team found an interesting cave.” Seo-yun said.
“What’s so important that we need to be there to see it?” Tomas asked.
Seo-yun looked at him. “It’s not that it’s important, it’s that you need a break, a walk through the forest will do you good.”
“Alright then.” Tomas said, surrendering to this field trip, he found that he had trouble saying no to her. And that scared him, he had never felt that way towards anyone. He looked out of the window, they were rising out of the city, and he could see its entirety spread out over the plateau. The city had no skyscrapers, they had more than enough room, the plateau spread for 100 kilometers in every direction. It didn’t resemble the cities of Earth, it was spread out, buildings were large, but none had more than four floors, all but one. The building was set in the middle of the city, surrounded by walls, it had one great blue tower in the middle and various adjacent buildings around it, all connected by elaborate bridges, there were gardens, populated by flora brought from earth, it was a palace. Tomas grimaced as he gazed at it. Seo-yun caught his expression.
“You need to spend more time there. It is your home.” She said.
“I don’t feel comfortable there. It’s too big, I have no need for so much room.” Tomas said.
“It isn’t only for you, it’s for the people, they built it for you, and you are insulting them by avoiding it.”
“How am I insulting them? I am working for them every day!” Tomas said angrily.
“This isn’t like the past when we were Olympus. You are now our ruler, and your people need to see you accept it, living in the palace is the first step. You can’t keep leading from behind the desk, seen only by those closest to you. You need to lead from your throne, and the palace is its symbol.” She said softly. Tomas looked back at the palace, it was disappearing in the distance, he knew that what Seo-yun said was true, but he was still uncomfortable.
Soon even the palace tower disappeared, and all that could be seen were the teal colored forests of Sanctuary. Here the trees had a teal tint to them, unlike the green of Earth, though other plants came in a variety of colors just like on earth, the tree stumps were darker here, closer to black, and the trees reached higher. Sanctuary looked much like Earth, or as close as one could get on an alien world. There were two big continents, and a lot of islands, the amount of water on the planet was only a little bit smaller than on Earth, so the climate was mostly the same. The days were a bit longer, with a 25 hours per day, and a year was a bit longer, it took Sanctuary around 370 days to make a full circle around its sun – Apollo. The other sun in the system was sufficiently away to have little influence over Sanctuary. Though Sanctuary’s thick atmosphere aided that as well. The red dwarf was named Bhanu – meaning the sun in Indian. One could rarely see Bhanu from Sanctuary, as it was mostly in orbit behind Apollo and eclipsed by it most of the time. The fauna of Sanctuary was diverse, the same as it was on Earth. There were no insects here, or insect like creatures, most looked like furry mammals, though genetically they weren’t even close. Every animal that they catalogued was covered in fur that was also a part of their senses, the ‘hairs’ were receptors that detected miniature changes in their environment and alerted the animal about it. Most every animal evolved with this ‘sixth sense’ alongside other five that humans shared as well. Their eyes tended to be poorer than those that the Earth’s animals had, even humans, but their ‘fur’ senses made up for it. There was only one predator species, the theory behind that was that the ‘prey’ animal’s fur senses made them much harder to catch, and so with the lack of food, the predators died out. The predator species that their scientists found, seemed to be able to sneak on the prey without them noticing. It baffled the scientists, because it was very hard for them to sneak upon any animal, and this predator did it easily. The predator was big, about the size of a large Lion, and had a vague resemblance to a cat only in their body shape, they were wider in the shoulders and had tougher legs, their fur was a bit longer, and they had two pairs of eyes on their elongated head, one set above the other. The head looked a little bit like that of a wolf, though fatter and wider like that of a cat, with the nostrils higher on the snout, their teeth were more like a cats than those of a wolf. The scientist had named them some Latin name of course, but most of the people call them wolions, a name they came up with because they looked as a Wolf and a Lion hybrid. They haven’t managed to capture one to run tests, so they knew their appearance only, and they managed to estimate their weight based on the imprints they found in dirt. By their calculation the animals weighed about 650 kg, making them about a third heavier than Lions from Earth, though not that much bigger, which indicated that they had heavier bones. Their fur was of a soft blue color. The wolions rarely came near humans, and they have never attacked them. Early in the colonization, they could often be seen looking at them from the outskirts of the settlement, or hunting in the vicinity, but always they ran away when humans tried to approach. Hunting of the wildlife was forbidden by their laws. And when requests came to Tomas, for a wolion to be caught for tests, he denied it. They have never bothered humans, so he decided that they weren’t going to bother them.