Solar

Mary watched as the plains of Wyoming fell away until she could no longer see the city. Soon the curvature of the earth was consumed by the blackness of space. The transition was surreal. She was not greeted by the weightlessness of space, because her ship was still accelerating. She glanced over at Daniel. They were alone in the cockpit of the ship. Daniel's hands played over the touch screens that served as the control mechanisms of the ship. There was no traditional yoke. "Ground do you read me?" He asked. In response, a face filled the communications panel. "We read you loud and clear, brother." Samuel answered. "We are ready to transmit." "Good morning world! The time is now seven twenty-five, Tawn time. I am sending this message from one of one hundred colonial ships now leaving Earth's orbit. In four hours, the first permanent human colony will be founded on the moon. Its population will be one hundred and twenty. In four days, seventy ships will found seven separate colonies on Mars. The Asteroid belt will host twenty more colonies, including a mining base on 16 Psyche. The other seven ships will continue to Jupiter..." Daniel finished the transmission then looked at her and smiled. "Tawn Time!" She said. "Has a ring to it." He replied. She looked back out of the ship. The Earth was behind them so she couldn't see it. The ship shuttered some. "It's a cargo pod docking with us. In a moment, the ship will enter expansion mode. I don't want to stay in this seat for four days." Daniel said. His eyes scanned the control screens again. He sighed as if he were relieved. Mary looked at her own controls. Everything was normal. The ship shuttered again as it began expanding. The hull, which was built to wistand the preasure of Earth's atmosphere split down the middle and began to open. Only the front third of the plane stayed as it was. This is where the passengers were.seated. Mary touched the view of the rear camera and watched as the blue orb that had been her home shrank to the size of a marble and then vanished. An hour later, the ship stopped shuttering and the back two-thirds of th ship turned green on the monitor. Daniel unbuckled his seatbelt and stood. "Shall we go to our room?" *** Samuel watched as his brother's face disappeared from the massive screens that had casted the message to the fifty-thousand guests that crowded the stadium. Most of these people were world leaders in politics, science, or business. "Today, Earth Tech made history; we have launched the first human colonial ships. Others are closing in on the ability, but history will remember us." As Samuel spoke, the roof of the stadium opened. Moments later, three cylinders shot into space. "That is thirty tons of garbage off the planet, it will go to the moon." He pointed to three dots descending and cameras locked on them showing three more cylinders descending. "That is the first shipment of minerals from the moon. For every ounce we take from the moon we replace with an ounce of material from the earth, mostly garbage. These containers are launched via a magnetic launcher that is powered by geothermal pressure and has zero ecological effect." A reporter sitting in the press section directly in front of him raised her hand and Samuel stopped talking. He pointed to her. "Yes." "Mr. Tawn, how do you hide one hundred colonial ships and four thousand colonists?" She asked. "They weren't hiding. the four thousand colonists are all part employed by our research department, and the hundred ships were classified as experimental cargo planes," he replied. *** Samuel sighed as he stepped from the stage. At times he envied his twin. Daniel made all the discoveries and he paid the price. Sure, this deal had made them trillions, Earth Tech was the largest company in the world by market cap, and employed over a million people, mostly in some research capacity. Today had been a success, but it wouldn't be long until the naysayers started building a case against them. Samuel knew that the main reason his brother had left the planet was that he wished to escape the controls governments put on research. This would cause chaos at very high levels. Sure, they had their allies. Anyone who wanted a cleaner world would like that they were exporting garbage to the moon. He sighed again, all great men had to face those that wanted to see them hurt. You could not change the world without starting a fire. "That went well," Tamia said as she entered the office from a side door. He turned to look at his wife. Her shoulder-length raven hard framed a face that was perfectly chiseled from sandstone. He brown eyes were alight. She was his chief media specialist and tactician. She smoothed her purple business suit as she handed him a tablet. "These are the areas we need to focus most on. Daniel hasn't announced Mary's research projects yet. He probably wants to wait to celebrate some success in the field. The mining sector won't be hurt, yet, give that ten years. Manufacturing will remain mostly unaffected. Daniel expects to make most of what the colonies will need. Your brother was able to prove that his colonies can sustain themselves." She said.