Chapter 523 An Ammosexual Walks Into A Bar...
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?A few hours later, outside the planetary defense shield.
There was no sound in space, so all was silent. And there was an almost hypnotic rhythm to the dance of barely visible satellites in the emptiness between the shield and the gorgeous blue planet acting as a backdrop. The only disturbance was the glowing blue trails of ionic thrusters traveling in a convoy that stretched from the shield to the surface of the moon, where Aron had built an automated logistics and distribution base.
If an observer were to stand atop Ceres Station and look up, they would see enormous vessels shaped and colored like planks of burnt wood, each of them blending in against the blackness of space save for the output of their ionic thrusters. Thousands of them were sailing in a line, headed toward the entry port of the now permanently active shield.
The frontmost vessel came to a halt a few hundred kilometers outside the shield as the convoy fleet commander reported their arrival to Ceres Station and requested permission to pass through the shield and enter Earth orbit.
“Approved, commander. Your entry gate is 32A. Lower your shields and pass through at Mach 1 for security scans as you pass through the inspection field,” the control operator broadcast on the fleet comms channel.
“Copy that, control. HHIS convoy 15 out,” the fleet commander replied, then signaled the convoy to move out as ordered.
Yes, a shrine. With candles and incense and everything.
She was curious about ARES, though, and the only thing holding her back from immediately signing up was that... she didn’t know if their guns and other gear was badass enough. Thus, she had decided to wait and see at least a bit of it before diving in with eyes wide shut.
Basement dweller, NEET, otaku, hikkikomori.... She had been called many things due to her rather odd obsession. But despite that, she was usually a rather sociable person and had a broad network of friends who were similarly addicted to all things badass. One of whom was the man behind the bar, sighing as she continued her drunken diatribe. They could spout off facts about every gun going as far back as the Sharps rifle and enjoyed debating whether or not blunderbusses got a bad rap for being useless.
And with the Akashic Record having made all of the classified specs of all that military hardware freely available, she had become something of a military historian now, not just someone who lurked on the War Thunder forum waiting for classified material to be leaked there. In fact, her AI battle maid, Alita, had even been trying to talk her into applying for a job as a military history teacher in the imperial scholastica.
“I dunno why you’re so sad. Ain’t they gonna be available in VR in a few months? Didn’t that... whats-her-name, the GAIA Tech lady? Anyway, didn’t she announce that they’ll be releasing a video game where you can use their hardware soon? So just chill. Here, have another shot, but it’s your last for today. Gonna have to cut you off, or else I risk the bar getting shuttered.” The bartender cast his gaze across the line of empty shot glasses in front of the girl, counting them in his head and comparing the number of shot glasses to the apparent weight of the girl sitting across the bar from him.
The conversation came to an abrupt halt as their glasses and phones pingged a push notification on them. It wasn’t a priority notification, but they had both decided to set up constant keyword searches for certain things, and one of those had just triggered the ping.
The bartender’s eyes glazed over as he began reading something only he could see through his AR glasses, and the girl fumbled to pick up her phone from the bar in her drunken haze. And they weren’t the only ones, either; two more of the day-drinking regulars of Bugsy’s Bar were doing the same.
All four of them were met with a livestream from Hephaestus Heavy Industries that was trending on Pangea. The bartender clicked on the link and was shocked to see a view from the ground, with dots rapidly growing in the sky.
Soon, the other three joined him in his slackjawed expression as they, too, clicked on the livestream link that had generated the interest notifications on their devices.