Chapter 16 - Olympus Mons

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Codi was in the mess hall of the cruiser with Gareth and Ripple when an announcement speared out over the interior communications system telling them that they were now on a close orbit approach to Mars. The wait was over. Gareth stood and motioned for her to follow.

"C'mon," he said. "You'll want to be on the observations decks when we go down. It's awesome."

Codi didn't need a second bidding, abandoning her half-eaten food and following him through the halls.

The Hercules could have housed the whole academy if they'd needed it to: it was an enormous ship inside and out. The interior was made up of smooth arched hallways that glided their way around the vessel, lit by a single snaking line of white light that ran along the roof of every single route like a vein of power.

Codi had spent the better part of the previous day's travel just wandering the ship, entranced by its technological beauty. She would make her way to the edges of the ship where the long observation platforms had been built, allowing her look out into the glittering vastness of space. When she'd eventually adjusted for it and deigned to go to her cabin for the night she was rewarded further with a large, comfortable room with all the amenities supplied.

Luxury. A word that was creeping into her life measure by measure. Codi found that she was enjoying the sensation.

When they arrived at the port side observation deck it became clear that all the recruits knew this was not a sight to be missed. Every single fighter on the ship clustered around the enormous ovular window to look out, and there, approaching out of the dark, was the crimson globe of Mars.

One of the home colonies, Mars had its own substantial network of space stations in orbit and the long, ringed cigar tubes turned lazily as the Hercules soared past them. Shuttles and smaller ships filled the skies, some leaving, some arriving, all of them adding another tiny burst of light and life to the Martian skies. On the planet itself the man-made features paled into insignificance, dwarfed by the 2,500 mile scar of the Valles Marineris.

A rumble juddered through the ship as the Hercules smashed into the atmosphere of the red planet, causing a ripple of whoops, yelps and the occasional shriek to pass through the assembled Battlecast recruits. A faint orange glow rose up beneath them, just visible from the superheating armour plates on the cruiser's underside.

The shaking lasted for only a moment, before the ship broke through the atmosphere and its anti-gravity engines thundered into life. Even encased in its metal body Codi could hear the roar as the colossal boosters fired, keeping the behemoth aloft and guiding them along the next leg of their journey.

At this high altitude she could see the Olympus Mons volcano and her eyes widened in amazement as for the first time she started to get to grips with the scale of the thing. It was truly vast, a shield volcano that sprawled out over an area of almost four hundred miles and climbing a staggering sixteen miles high. She caught a brief glimpse of the summit before the Hercules dropped lower on its approach. Suddenly she felt very, very small.

Their flight toward the volcano took them over a dozen of the larger Martian cities. They were smaller than their steel-sheathed counterparts on Earth, but still large in their own right – the capital, Tarshish now swelled to house well over three million people. They squatted low against the red landscape, huge conurbations of black-stone structures that glimmered and glittered with civilisation. Built within the triangle of land that spread between Olympus Mons and the Tharsis Montes Plateau, this monumental region was home to three quarters of the planet's population.

The Hercules began its descent towards the bulbous sprawl of Tarshish's main spaceport and it was not alone. Codi caught sight of other ships bearing academy livery joining them on the pilgrimage to the biggest mountain in the solar system. Most of them were smaller – some barely shuttles – and she felt a sense of pride that she had been able to take the journey aboard the most impressive vessel in the sky.

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