Three Blackbirds were parked on the runway; they were getting checked by Legion Bots, while another batch of them were loading tools for the asteroid collection.
"I understand that we need a considerable amount of resources. But are you sure that these planes can pull that many?"
There were several people who were a bit sceptical that the planes would be able to pull asteroids in hundreds of metres and even over a kilometre long.
Marcus showed them the latest 3d imagines of the asteroids he uncovered just several hours ago.
His latest toy, a deep space telescope, sends radio waves at different frequencies.
Whey bounce off and return at a different frequency. It's like throwing an item at a metal surface; it would ring differently; it applies to all surfaces.
Wood, rock, metal, plastic, and liquids. Even solid sakuradite has a similar sound to hitting glass.
That's what Exiled Prince found…fascinating.
He found a lot of Sakuradite in the asteroid belt.
Around the centre of the belt. If the theory is right, at the beginning of the solar system, the asteroid belt was a planet that ended up being destroyed either by collisions or the gravitational forces of Gas Giants.
Well, it doesn't matter; what matters is that there are a lot of raw resources that he can mine for his future conquests.
"The size doesn't matter. This is space, not Earth. There is no resistance.
What you need to care about is stopping these rocks from getting close to Earth.
Because we can accidentally send them on a collision course with our planet.
That could not only destroy life and the ecosystem, but could even impact our distance from the sun." Marcus clarified, causing the people who are a bit lacking in understanding of cosmos to pale in fright at the consequences of the failure of this.
"This is why we are going to use specially prepared solar sails." The Inventor Prince ignored the looks he was receiving.
"These sails are a temporary measure to slow us down the moment we are close. We will use them to accelerate and slow down.
This is, of course, temporary as I never designed these models of ships to have something like Solar Sails." He showed a hologram of how the BlackBirds will look.
The sails were huge… to say the least!
"...Holy…"
"Damn…"
"Awesome…"
The reactions were quite something as the gathered group felt that they were stepping into a space odyssey.
"We will use the sails to pull a huge amount of asteroids, and when the time is right, we will pull them in reverse to stop close to Earth's Orbit.
Well, more like at Lagrange 3 or something of a similar location, you could say we can use that area as our first Infrastructure spot." He showed the area around Earth, a location close to the blue planet.
"My question is why most of what I hear is 'maybe' or 'like'," Cornelia asked as she didn't like a certain number of maybes he was saying.
"Because, my dear sister, we need to be flexible. There are many factors that we need to consider.
From planetary rotations to gravitational pulls from planets like Jupiter, to actual asteroids we will be collecting.
After all, my only source of information is a single deep space telescope." He clarified to her why so many maybes and probablys were in his speech.
"...Yes… that is the possibility, but this is where our machines come to play, isn't it?" Cornelia pointed out the obvious.
"Indeed. This is why the majority of us will be coming with us."
"I am going as well!" Suzaku chipped in.
"Your Lancelot is not built for space." Marcus reminded him of that.
"I can use one of the Setanta. I don't care for the specs; I want to assist in this operation."
Suzaku realised that with the amount of resources he would bring back, he would change the world forever.
"Fine, the hangars can carry four machines; in total, there will be 12 of them.
"I take three." Cornelia showed three fingers.
"You can take four. One of the Blackbirds will be yours; you can train your personnel how to operate the Anaheim vehicle."
"Do you think it's a good time for this?" Suzaku asked, with a bit of concern.
"It is fine, because in the end, the AI will take over if someone messes up." Marcus clarified why he can let something like this.
"Once in cruising mode, the controls can be turned off and people can train."
"...I see…"
~~~
Once everyone had gone to prepare for departure in an hour, one of the individuals approached Marcus instead.
"Solar Sails? Seriously?" Leila got close and whispered with a surprised tone.
The girl never even heard of this term!
"Got this idea two days ago."
His blonde girlfriend has this look of realisation. Wasn't it the time when he got inspired? And began to print innovations as if they were paper currency?
"In two days? Does this even work?" All of a sudden, she was concerned.
"It does. Did you forget that we use Ion Technology for propulsion? And on what it's based on?" He reminded her of that specific technology.
"...I guess. Just lower the amount of surprises." She sighed before walking away. She needs to prepare.
"Remember, it's only for a few days, and there is no gravity."
"I know…" She waved her hand at him as she walked to the depths of the base.
"My Prince, I might not have a machine, but I wish to assist in this operation." Jeanne got his attention as she attended to him like she was his shadow.
"You can have a Setanta for this trip." He casually gave her a machine.
"There is a new batch that just arrived from Narita."
"...You have my thanks, my Prince." The girl with wine coloured hair saluted her new Lord.
"Take it easy, Jeanne, you are still recovering." He slightly smiled at her. His smile easily disarmed her, causing her to blush a bit.
"...I-It's fine. I am almost fully recovered, anyway! Just a bit underweight." The girl trained to explain herself.
"It's fine, relax." He patted her shoulder." Instead, help me with check-ups." The Prince pulled out a tablet and showed it to her.
"We are going to run some maintenance on the capture net."
"...A-Are you sure, I am qualified for this?" She looked nervous.
"And you think I have some sort of PhD in engineering?" He scoffed.
"The tablet is linked to the systems, and all it does is run simulated releases." The Prince demonstrated.
"As you can see, once I press on one of the functions, the plane reacts and something happens. If something doesn't happen, an error pop-up appears on the tablet." He gave her a crash course.
"Since you are my knight. You will be tested with these small things. Since I am an inventor, you can expect experimental tech tests." He smiled brightly at her. Jeanne's face turned pale when she heard 'experimental'.
"Moh! Marcus!" All of a sudden, Milly hugged the Exiled Prince.
"I want to captain the third plane!" She asked him while hugging him.
"...What? Do you even know how to do any of that?" He asked, more confused than concerned.
"I do! Besides, you haven't given me a military rank! I am one of the original Mobile Suit pilots!"
"..."
The knight girl looked at this blonde with large melons. She can't believe someone like that exists!
"If you have… then I could give you the plane. Though he is careful, this is space. You can't crash land and think it's okay."
"I know." The girl turned serious all of a sudden.
"But it's exciting! You forgot that I am quite good at organising people." She smiled at him.
"Sure…" He then stroked his chin.
"Well, you will have Suzaku on your ship; he will most likely be capable of pulling you out before you mess up somewhere." Marcus teased for a second.
But that tease made her puff her cheeks and turn red.
"I am more than capable."
For a while, the pair teased each other before Milly rushed to get a Captain's uniform.
"... You know that your sister won't be happy that a girl who barely knows a thing about planes is captaining one, in space no less." Jeanne was more than concerned about this.
"Relax, Legion will help her with that. She was quite bad not long ago when it comes to combat, but now… she has not a bad shot, thanks to the training." He explained to his new knight.
"...Mobile Suits are different from Planes… there will be several people inside one of these planes, and its space…" She tried to reason with him.
But all he did was smile.
After checking the machine, the pair observed how mobile suits and a huge cargo is loaded.
This huge cargo is what Marcus simply calls 'the net'. This is what will be pulling the huge asteroids.
Apart from that, on the plane's hull, something else is being attached.
It was the solar sails.
"How…we will return with these?"
Jeanne asked, as the more she looked at this, the more she thought that he was planning to kill them.
"We won't need these; they are for deep space travel. The sails will remain in space."
The reply made her relax a bit.
More people approached him; this time, it was the ones who would remain.
"Lelouch, we are certain that this move will attract the Chinese Federation… if they are not aware, this time they will be. The huge asteroids that you will bring close to Earth will make them pay more attention to this side of the planet." Kyoshiro Tohdoh, with his Holy Swords, approached him.
"The fragile part is pretty much over, Sensei. We are getting deliveries from Narita and the Mobile Suits that are being assembled here.
We are not that easy to deal with," Marcus said to the group.
"In other words, secrecy is no longer a priority." The man concluded himself.
"Indeed… we will be going on the offensive, even if they don't notice us," Marcus said that quite seriously.
"...Yes, I heard, we will be attacking Constantinople… of all places." One of Tohdoh's followers, the only female, commented with an annoyed tone.
"Chiba!" The Commander tried to shut her up, but Marcus didn't mind.
"I will be taking the whole world; it doesn't matter when we are going to take over Japan. It should be a relief, as my little sister will be taking the role of Viceroy; the Japanese are great hands in the meantime."
Marcus's response is not something the soldier lady expected to hear.
"..."
"Chiba, don't speak out of line!" Tohdoh used that opportunity to rein her in.
"...Sorry, Sir…" The lady realised that she was far too snarly with her comments.
"It's fine. You lost your homeland, I understand your anger; however, in my case, my homeland tried to kill me. It's a bit different, but I can understand your anger."
"..."
The lady finally realised that it was worse for this Prince. He got betrayed by his homeland!
"That is why I am doing this. Not to mention my father has issues with the world itself."
The group slowly nodded; they knew that the Emperor needed to be stopped.
"With your Machines, you could drop on Pendragon and destroy his plan? No?" Tohdoh asked, Marcus.
"....Yes and No. While we could destroy the thought elevator, he could be inside it. Just blowing up one won't stop the Ragnarok Connection.
What we need is a systematic and instantaneous destruction.
This way, he couldn't salvage it and try another method. We still have no idea about the other abilities these elevators have."
He explained to them. The Exiled Prince doesn't know all the details, and C.C. barely speaks about them. The more he wants to know something about them, the more she teases him about them.
It's like she finds it amusing for him to try so hard.
"I see… we truly don't know anything about these." The man and his soldiers were clueless.
Space travel and magic-like powers are already enough for them…but on top of that, there is an ancient civilisation that could access the afterlife?
It's becoming far too crazy!
~~~
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