Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 3

Rogue

None of this had gone as planned, absolutely none of it.

He had been sent out months ago to try and track down Admiral Vir and inform the UNSC on his whereabouts, and then everything had gone to shit. Now he was stuck on an unknown colony out in the middle of nowhere without the funding or ability to get back home.

The only thing he knew for sure was that, Admiral Vir had been here, and not only had he been here but he owned the planet. The man was, somehow, incredibly rich. The Martial knew that the man had received a substantial government payout for the Steel Eye debacle, but that did not account for all the money he would have needed to buy and run a small moon.

He had some theories on the subject. Clearly the infrastructure was built on capital that had been gained by way of criminal enterprise, the only problem was, apparently the man had gone legitimate as soon as it was feasible, and there was no traceable evidence of any illegal activity, as far as he had been able to find.

But none of that mattered now.

Just when he thought he was getting somewhere, the Behemoth had happened, Admiral Vir had vanished off of Arcadia to steel a ship from god, and the result had been behemoth's death and a second star in the sky above earth. Admiral Vir was MIA, and Earth was on the verge of a Civil war. The Martians had begun backing support of Citizen 404 after a rash of arrests lead to a few wrongful deaths. The Lunar colony had taken the time to announce itself as an independent government though they were willing to back earth. It was a smart move considering how close they were and how much richer earth was.

Mars on the other hand seemed intent on removing themselves from association with the UN.

Boarders had been closed, stations cut off, communications halted. And here he was sitting around twiddling his thumbs with no orders and a voided contract.

It wasn't all bad though.

The Martial sat in a small café at the edge of the city. The small table he had claimed was on one of the outer balconies, and a warm wind gently blew past him, before him Arcadia's developing ecosystem stretched out into the darkness, lit only by strategically placed artificial stars, and the ever present sky jellies.

Arcadia was a beautiful place. He missed the warm radiation of the real actual sun, but if he had had to chose somewhere to live that was not earth, than Arcadia would do. The landscape before him was a wash of color and light, an intricately designed biome of bioluminescent plants and animals. The water itself was infused with non-toxic algae that glowed with a gentle blue light, giving the impression that lakes ponds and rivers glowed.

Jellies floated gently through Anin Coiltrees, and moss, and past orchards of bulb fruit.

Creatures resembling snakes slithered through the underbrush opening recemented mouths to bit into the overripe fruit.

Small blue, many legged lizard creatures climbed up the side of buildings and rested under the canopy of leaves.

Friendly two legged birds wandered both outside and inside the city, walking up to curious bystanders and demanding food or pets.

There were very few earth animals present on arcadia, mostly because earth animals tended towards violence in way that other planets animals did not , but he knew for a fact that the opposite hemisphere of Arcadia, house a nature preserve for more dangerous animals, including roving packs of wolves, and certain large cat species. The Arcadian scientific community had even been given license to attempt and create animals in their spare time. It was the addition of adaptid DNA to their creation process that had been so exciting.

Almost anything was possible now if you tried hard enough.

A crowd gathered around him, staring off into the strange landscape with a soft murmur of awe. The Martial couldn't help but agree with their wide eyed assessment, as the Genetically modified Bright Stag stepped from the trees.