by Aer-ki Jyr
All in all, the moment Star Force arrived at Mars it launched into a fury of activity…none of which so much as touched the thin atmosphere of the planet, let alone the surface. That would remain the case until the starport was fully constructed and the transportation link from Earth’s micro-system and Mars’s was established, with regular inter-planetary ferries brining in the people and materials needed.
That occurred some three and a half months later, with two Cobra-C’s hauling over a small fleet of Martian dropships, designed aerodynamically to fly through the planet’s atmosphere, which was 0.6% the density of Earth’s, but still far too thick for a zero atmosphere dropship like those used on Luna…and too thin for the short winged craft used on Earth.
The Martian dropships were designed as wide bodied wings, with a much higher surface area/weight ratio than Earth dropships. They had both air breathing and vacuum engines, but did not use a lift cradle for the initial liftoff from the surface, given that the planet’s gravity was .37 g. The giant ‘boomerangs’ did require runways to take off and land, though with modification could be configured for light cargo runs using vertical takeoff chemical engines, which were put into use for the first few landings until the engineers got the first makeshift runway constructed.
Once the dropship flow began, the construction of the first Martian spaceport followed, establishing a conduit to space on the red planet. After that point, with the surface of Earth and the surface of Mars accessible to each other via Star Force’s transportation network, all a person had to do was buy a ticket to travel to another world…opening up space travel to the public in a whole new dynamic.
The worldwide reception of Star Force’s expansion to Mars was met with mixed reviews. The anti-Star Force crowd used it as an example of the corporation’s already too powerful position growing by leaps and bounds, with renewed calls for international pressure to place all spaceborn operations under the UN’s mantle.
Star Force supporters hailed the milestone as an example of what Humanity was capable of, with great ambitions for the future colonization of the planet and the upcoming territorial allotments that Davis had promised would follow.
Everyone though, sensed opportunity in the wings, and began positioning themselves to pursue their national or private agendas, with most of the players involved realizing that they relied too much on Star Force business to ever conceive of bringing the mega corporation to an end. Davis’s near monopoly had become a force of nature, something to work around, against, or with…but not something that could be lived without. Like it or not, Earth needed Star Force’s technology, experience, and funding to continue the colonization of space.
The calls for UN oversight eventually died out, and business continued on as usual.
The US Secretary of Defense was of a different mind, however, and continued to pressure President Jamison to legally prosecute the corporation for a myriad of American legal violations. The Star Force expansion to Mars resulted in a very heated debate in the oval office, with Jamison refusing to accede that Star Force denoted a clear and present danger to American sovereignty and security. The meeting ended with Mr. Mendez cursing him for being a sell out after he resigned his position and left the White House bellowing at whoever had the unfortunate timing to be in his way.
The following week Mendez filed with the opposition political party and announced that he would be making a run for the Presidency on an anti-Star Force platform in the next election, three years away.