2: Vidako

Space Elevator, Vidako
Imperium Stellarum
August 12, 2847

The framework of the space elevator which descended from Pinnacle Station to the surface of Vidako was hexagonal in shape, so that six elevator cars could move up and down the tracks on each of the sides, forming an arrangement roughly modelled after that of a beehive. As the car in which the cadets rode descended, having passed the point where motors were needed to propel it downward, a rising car shot past them to one side on its way from San Teodoro to the station.

The sky changed from black to blue as they entered the atmosphere to the clap of a sonic boom, and Arc knew that dozens of systems were at work to prevent the car, and the people inside it, from dying in just as many horrible ways. Simply falling to the ground at this speed would have seen all of them consumed in fire, gasping and suffocating from a lack of oxygen, or broken and smashed into little more than a wet, sticky paste upon impact. The same technology which produced an artificial gravity field above their heads, on Pinnacle Station, gentled the g-forces which would have crushed them into their seats. A heat shield at the bottom of the car protected them from the friction of atmospheric reentry, though Arc could see beads of moisture fogging the windows.

Still, he knew that before the Alu’ka had joined the Imperium, nearly a century ago, it wouldn’t have been possible. The first space elevators had taken days to climb out of a world’s gravity well, or to descend from orbit. The materials science expertise the Alu’kan mega-engineers had brought with them had revolutionized everything, and most human colonies were still catching up.

They plunged through white fog, and he only realized once they’d left it behind that they must have passed through a cloud. The land below was closer, now, and Arc could make out the shape of the coast: the deep blue of the ocean on the one hand, and the strange, muddy hues of the native foliage marking the land, on the other.

Unlike Arc’s homeworld of Zurah V, this system revolved around a pair of binary stars, one red and one orange. The familiar olive-green shade of Zuran mulberry trees would have seen foliage starved of the light they needed to survive here. Instead, Arc knew from reading the academy’s student handbook, both the native flora and the genetically modified terran stock relied on leaves of brown, red, and even, in some cases, color so deep it was nearly black.

As they drew closer, Arc could pick out the city of San Teodoro itself, a splotch of brighter gray that spread across a single peninsula jutting north and east into a twice-sheltered inner bay. Traces of urban development could be just made out along the edges of that bay, connected to the city itself by thin, bright lines that Arc realized were bridges. The elevator itself fell directly toward an island just off the coast, but even the size of the space port couldn’t distract Arc from the realization of just how much wilderness there was outside of San Teodoro.

Beyond the city, the dark jungle stretched out and out, broken only by the thin ribbons of sparkling rivers or lakes, and the upthrust peaks of mountains. It was as if humanity had reached out with a single finger to mark a city, a single smudge on the glass of a wide window, and then walked away.

“There really is nothing around it,” Arc muttered. He hadn’t forgotten Cassie was at his side—not precisely. In fact, he was intensely aware of her presence in a way that kept him constantly on edge, lest he move in a way that upset her by some accidental intrusion into her space. But he also hadn’t exactly been seeking a response.

“The academy likes it that way,” she said. “They use the jungle for training. There’s supposed to be indigenous predators that can rip a Tyro in half. Look.”

Cassie pointed a finger at the window, and Arc leaned over once again to search the vast forest. He thought—thought!—he saw movement of some kind, a shaking in the trees. Were they really low enough to see something like that? He glanced back to the city and saw that, yes, they were. Out in the bay, lines of white traced the movement of ships through the water, while he could actually make out individual streets and buildings in the city, complete with grav-trucks and cars snaking their way through the urban canyons in the intricate patterns of daily traffic.

The city grew until it, and the bay, encompassed everything that could be seen out of the window. Arc sat back into his seat again now that there wasn’t anything to see. Warning lights flashed above every seat, and a moment later the elevator car began to brake, hard. Even with the help of an artificial gravity field to modulate what they were feeling, he felt himself pressed down into his seat forcefully, and now that they were surrounded by air, rather than vacuum, he could hear a rushing and roaring from outside.

Arc couldn’t help himself: he clutched at the armrests to either side of his seat, and concentrated on taking deep breaths to still the squirming feeling in his stomach. Something about the sensation was much worse than taking off in the shuttle from the surface of Zurah V had been, and the only comfort he had was the knowledge that it couldn’t possibly go on for very long.

“Are you alright?” Cassie asked, from the seat next to him. If the bright tone of her voice was anything to go by, she wasn’t bothered by the descent in the slightest.

Rather than trust himself to speak, Arc carefully nodded his head, keeping his eyes fixed on the back of the seat just in front of him. Even that motion made the nausea in his stomach worse.

“It’s almost over,” Cassie said, and reached over to give his hand an awkward pat with hers, the gesture made heavier by the great weight pressing down upon their bodies.

Arc nodded again and then, mercifully, the pressure eased all at once as they came to a halt. He exhaled in relief, surprised to find that he was actually trembling. The curdled feeling in his belly hadn’t gone completely quite yet, but the urge to vomit which had been rising within him began at last to fade.

The same uniformed elevator operator who’d urged Arc to find a seat when he’d arrived stepped out to address them all, and he was glad for the distraction.

“It’s my honor to welcome you all to Vidako, and specifically to the city of San Teodoro,” the man said, in a smooth, even voice which came at once from small speakers next to every seat. “It’s been a pleasure to have you travel with us. Every passenger on this car is an academy cadet, which makes things quite a bit easier. In just a moment, when we open the doors, please retrieve your luggage and proceed out to the terminal in an orderly fashion. There will be a representative of the Imperial Mech Academy there to retrieve you, and to direct you on where to go next. Again, thank you for travelling through Pinnacle Station, and we wish you all the best of luck at the academy.”

Arc saw that some of the passengers were already rising, having unbuckled themselves from their seats, and were in the process of unlocking the overhead storage compartments. Almost uniformly, those who’d gotten a jump on the crowd had short-clipped hair, even the women, and something about the practiced way they moved gave him the impression they were old hands at elevator travel.

“Upperclassmen—third class cadets,” Cassie said, nodding her head at a pair of young women two rows up, who were helping each other get down one suitcase at a time. “You can tell by the short hair.”

Arc shook himself, unbuckled his restraint belt, and slid out into the aisle, where he quickly found the correct latch and opened the compartment in which their luggage was stowed. He got his own battered suitcase out first, and set it on the floor at his feet, and then, with a grunt, wrestled Cassie’s down next, resting it on the seat he’d just been sitting in. Everything felt just a bit heavier than he was used to in the local gravity.

She grinned. “You know there’s an onboard hover function?” she asked.

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“I figured when I didn’t see the wheels,” Arc admitted. “But I wasn’t certain how to turn it on, and I didn’t want to mess anything up.”

“It’s right here.” She showed him a cunningly concealed button, built right into the hard shell of the suitcase by the seam, which Arc would never in a million years have found on his own.

An auburn-haired young woman moved up from the row of seats behind them, her own suitcase already set on its wheels behind her, and made as if to wait for them to move.

“Oh, you can go on past us,” Cassie said, waving the other cadet on. “We’ll take up the rear.”

Arc shifted to let the woman pass, and then stepped out with his suitcase to make room for Cassie. “I suppose we’re all going to the same place anyway, so there isn’t much point in rushing now.”