When Leila first heard that Marcus wanted to take over the Cosmos itself, she didn't fully grasp the sheer scale of this.
Now she was able to access the project windows. So-called Project COSMOS. All of the projects that are space-related developments are under this umbrella.
Dyson Sphere, habitats, space stations… potential star gates.
'All of this…'
'When did he start designing all of this?'
Sure, all of them are concept arts; some of them are in the design phase. Like project SWORD, a sword-shaped space station.
But that's because he wants to scale up the production.
It shows how unbothered he is by…anything! The switch from Earth scales to Space scales didn't even phase him!
'That some serious self-confidence…'
That confidence with that specific theme… for Anna, it was extreme weakness; the poor nerdy girl has fallen for the Prince all over again.
She was not the only one, as his other nerdy girl joined midway as they began gushing and overanalysing his projects in the COSMOS section.
Sadly, none of them saw this the way Leila saw it. The blonde wondered… will he ever be able to finish any of them?
Humans don't live that long…
~~~~~~At the Same Time~~~~~~
"Amazing, isn't it?" Cecile said to Suzaku, as they were gazing at Mars as well.
Lloyd was also there, but his eyes were fixed on the holograms.
"It is…I never even considered that I would be here… in my lifetime." Suzaku replied with a strained smile. Space? Are you serious? He wanted to change Britannia so that the Japanese wouldn't suffer anymore.
But this situation? This solution? Yes! Now he fully agrees with his childhood friend.
Here he was in the final frontier, the amount of space… the worlds they could see, colonise, build something amazing.
Now it made sense; he understood Lelouch's goal. The wars they were waging. They are insignificant compared to what is before them.
"I feel the same way. Sometimes I wonder how far the Prince's ambitions go. How could he have such a vision?
Pushing it on everyone. At some point, I considered that he was a bully. But now… I think we needed a push like this.
It opened people's eyes." Cecile commented as she looked at the alien world.
"Yes, I feel the same way. I felt that he was nuts. But those machines he built…"
Suzaku, just like everyone else, almost dismissed him as nuts.
Conquering the world? Very hard! But it's possible.
But spreading humanity through the cosmos? That's impossible in a single generation. But the way Marcus talked, he was certain that HE could do it. Not his descendants or anything like that, but him!
In the end, Suzaku accepted it, as did everyone else. His mobile suits were simply too advanced, too powerful.
"If you think this is great, look at his plans for our Solar system," Lloyd said from the back. With a flick of his hand, he sent several holograms in their direction.
"He wants to make Mercury into a reactor and a battery, Venus into a CO2 farm for barren world terraforming, Mars a testing ground for new atmosphere technology, Jupiter for harvesting Helium-3, Europa for water, and Saturn will be an enormous size shipyards."
The nerdy scientist said with an amused tone. Truth to be said, he was excited as well! He wants to be part of all of these projects!
"...Damn…" Suzaku could only respond with one word.
"To think that he planned this far." Cecile was in a bit of awe. Many of these projects were in concept stages, but some of them were already in design and simulation stages.
"Indeed. Our Prince is dead serious about conquering the entire galaxy." Lloyd chuckled while saying that.
"...He was always serious about his goals." The brown haired teen replied with crossed arms. It would seem Suzaku's resolve was pathetic compared to his childhood friend.
Marcus was ten steps in front.
"Well, I am signing up for these projects!"
"Not fair, Lloyd! I want to see these as well!" Cecile replied with a flustered look.
As fellow scientists, they all want to be part of these exciting projects.
'There are two… Lelouch knows how to press those buttons.' Suzaku's lips twitched. His old superiors were bought over…again.
~~~
While everyone was gushing at Marcus' major future projectors, the Inventor Prince in question was putting finishing touches on Project SWORD.
The Sword-shaped space station, and possibly a colony. It was coming along; most of it is done in segments. The core segment is the Fusion Reactor and Legion Bot Maintenance.
This core will be built in pieces on Earth before being assembled in space.
Once the assembly is done, the refineries will be next.
The initial one will be done from Earth's resources before switching to asteroid mining.
'Though I have this feeling that we are going to be caught soon.'
Marcus never ignored his gut feeling… especially now.
He stroked his chin… he was sure that he didn't leave any trails.
'I mightn't have leave… but my personnel…'
The Exiled Prince sighed. SWORD's refineries need to be finished as soon as possible so that he can have enough manpower to end Britannia.
Worst case… it derails into complete anarchy and the world's order shatters, and then he collects the pieces.
'It doesn't sound that bad. I might consider that if plan A fails.'
That's right, as long as Ragnarok Connection fails. The rest doesn't matter that much.
[Sir, we are approaching the Asteroid Belt.]
Marcus nodded as he flicked the hologram away.
"Time for the first-ever asteroid gathering operation." He commented before floating out of his room and towards the front, where the cockpit is.
Once there, he used the microphone system to send a message to the whole plane.
"Hello everyone, your captain here. In ten minutes, we will be at our destination, so get into your working stations, pilots, get into your suits, the operation will start soon."
After saying that, he went to the changing room; by that point, the girls were already changing.
"...!!!..."
Kallen and Jeanne immediately got self-conscious as they rushed to the changing rooms.
The only one who didn't mind seeing her in undies was Leila, as she rolled her eyes.
"I think you did this on purpose, only a single locker room." The blonde complained with an eye roll.
"No way, how could I? I can't help it when you all want a piece of me and then complain that I do such a thing." Marcus joked as he swiftly undressed before changing into his purple and black pilot suit.
"Hmph."
He was right, but at the same time, it doesn't mean he can make female and male locker rooms!
She followed him and changed into her suit before taking her helmet.
The other pair left their changing rooms and took their helmets.
They swiftly went to the hangar that was preparing for the launch of the machines. The Legion bots were assisting them.
Before they were in their Mobile Suits.
As the OS was booting up, the Inventor Prince was checking out the upgrades to the OS. He had over a whole day to improve the operating system for the sensors.
"How are they working? I've been trying to widen the array of the movement pick-up. There are going to be thousands of small rocks everywhere." Marcus' fingers went through the keyboard made from solid holograms.
[The CPU will struggle with the number of objects it would need to process. That is why I made background checks for the size of objects.
The armour is more than capable of handling small objects colliding with the frame. We should only bother with 1 metre or more.]
The Prince stroked his chin as he opened his notebook OS and typed down a new sequence he would add to the programming once he is back.
'I really need to switch to the Divine Arms model, the Magnetic field could be improved and utilised as a secondary sensor.'.
"It will suffice for this operation. After all, this is our first time in the asteroid belt." He commented.
"Marcus, my machine just updated itself."
Kallen's image appeared on his right.
"Welcome to the future, the OS just updated for this mission."
"So that's what it was."
Cornelia's face appeared as well; the 2nd Princess was not far behind. She was eagerly waiting for this. It was a nice change of pace from her usual war-related things.
"Indeed. I am pushing the technology to the limit. We are, after all, in a place full of dangerous rocks that fly thousands of kilometres per hour.
Thankfully, the armours were designed for such a thing." As he explained, he flicked the keyboard and notebook holograms away before his hands went to the control sticks.
"So what are we going to be doing?" Milly asked as she joined the chat.
"I have prepared prototype weapons for cutting asteroids.
Our job is to cut them up if they are big and then guide the net." The screen changed for all the pilots as they saw the operation being made in a simulation.
It was quite a basic gathering and pushing them into a huge net.
"Where is the net?"
To answer that the hangar doors opened and air was blasted out, there was no breathing air anymore; instead, it was a void.
Then the centre box, which was in the middle of the hangar, opened up and blasted out, revealing itself to be a massive silver net that turned out to be a huge object.
"How big is that!?"
"Enough to win the war for the world and build a space station." Marcus grinned at his masterpiece.
"That's more than that…" Cornelia commented, before wondering if they could even move that much!
"Can our planes even pull that much?" Kallen asked; she was worried that they would bite more than they could swallow.
"There is no resistance here."
"Like Marcus said before, the issue will be for us to stop with the load instead of slamming into Earth," Leila replied to Kallen.
"Anyway, we should be going; the sensor shows us that there is a considerable amount of frozen Sakuradite."
The blonde showed the whole group what the sensors were picking up.
"T-This…"
"Yes… entire fields of Sakuradite, not just that, but other metals." He highlighted them.
"And even some unknown materials." The Prince highlighted those as well.
"We are going to have some fun."
"Your form of entertainment is a bit questionable. But I can understand your sense of enthusiasm." The 2nd Princess sighed, though she was interested as well. This was the deep space they were in, hundreds of millions of miles away from Earth.
"Indeed, now let's go."
The magnetic hold on Tiranis was released as the mobile suit floated over to the exit before folding into plane mode and then blasting out.
He was followed by the other two KK-units and a single Setanta.
"This will be a great time to test out how Setanta fares in space," Marcus commented as he looked at his knight's machine.
"Isn't it a bit dangerous? Such a test should have been made a while ago?" Jeane replied that she was a bit worried when he said it like that.
"In a way. Setanta's cockpit is the same as any KK-unit; they are designed with space in mind. Though the frame itself is what I am interested in." He explained while flying towards the floating rocks in the distance.
'I do wonder how lesser materials will do in space. Though they are still better than any other armour that is developed to date.'
It's something else to see these asteroids float like that. Like, there is some sort of invisible line keeping them flying like that.
As he drew closer, the new sensors identified the type of asteroids they were.
A small grin appeared on the Prince's face, he could see metals, precious metals, sakuradite…
Oh… this is the place! Sure… there are a bunch of garbage, just simple rocks, but…
When you have a 1-kilometre-sized lump of gold, it changes perspectives on things!