Chapter 92: Chapter 89 – The Social Ladder

The planet Strathon was the centre of trade for the
Strathon System. Each and every citizen of the Loeric Empire filtered through
here to either reach the far-flung borders or the Beyond.

Bounty hunters, merchants, explorers, and soldiers were
just some of the few professions one could find in the urban sprawl that
encompassed a significant portion of the planet.

Trillions of humans called this planet their home,
surrounded by buildings that kissed the sky as they levitated, the city
designed in a three-dimensional fashion. Scores of hovercars, loop trains and
small starships flew between the gaps in buildings and over the cities, forming
a non-stop transportation network.

The planet was a far cry from the dusty hot surface of
Athen. The temperature had been perfected. While the cities of the planet were
the main feature, there were plenty of cultivated forests, parks and rolling
fields for people to enjoy. Thanks to advancements in technology, citizens
could choose between living closer to the bustling city, or out near nature in
idyllic homes.

Of course, nature was not ‘natural’ per se, but a result of
extreme terraforming. The entire Strathon system used to be a
slovesa-controlled system more than two centuries ago. With its perfected
climate and temperature, many companies and travellers decided to visit this
port and even establish a permanent presence to exploit the resources left
behind by the slovesa.

Millions of ships passed through the various orbital
spaceports every day, with the largest being the size of a planetoid. Known as
The Cloud and supported by gross amounts of anti-gravity technology, the
mushroom-looking spaceport loomed dominantly like a miniature moon around
Strathon. With a hundred thousand ports, the scale of the operation was
humongous. Millions of employees worked the spaceport.

It was definitely a far cry from the spaceport of Athen, which
only handled a maximum of two thousand ships each day. The logistical
difference between the two was incomprehensible.

Though it was not the only spaceport present on Strathon,
it was the most significant one and where all the current military garrison of
each Legion was berthed.

It was here where the five Dynasties of the Loeric Empire
concentrated their military forces to create a coalition border defence fleet
against the slovesa and criminal activity. Many habitats and living spaces on
the spaceport were dedicated to each of the Dynasties and their respective
forces, with all the expected amenities as well.

Every merchant in the region dreamt of owning a space on
the spaceport, to flaunt to their friends that they made it up the social
ladder. The literal hub of trade of the ‘south’ of the Loeric Empire, the
planet Strathon was a far cry from the relatively lacklustre Athen, which only
served as a resource and manufacturing planet, fuelling the rampant consumerism
on Strathon.

Oliver frowned as he stood on the bridge of his luxury
spaceship, a simple fast ship with the amenities to last three months. The
bridge doubled as a viewing deck, allowing Oliver to watch as they slowly
approached Strathon and its various spaceports.

Despite the technological advancements of humankind,
faster-than-light travel was not able to function within star systems. Human
ships still had to rely on sublight engines to push them through the star
system, which could take anywhere from a few hours to a month from the centre
to the rim of the local star system depending on their orbital trajectories and
the technology of their engines.

The two planets of Strathon and Athen were not that far
apart, but this meant that Oliver had to spend close to three days in travel to
visit Strathon. Sure, there were faster ships that could finish the trip in
less than three hours, but they were for the rich.

Despite him being at the top of Athen right now after
dethroning Cardenia, he still lacked such resources. Therefore, he frowned as
he prepared himself for the upcoming meeting, which was critical to his current
authority and power as the owner of Athen.

He was about to meet the secret party for the first time –
someone who had been supporting him in the background to prevent the Dynasty of
Hawthorn from clamping down on him ever since he overthrew Cardenia. It was the
Imperial Prince Zachary who somehow managed to arrange such a meeting.

“Sir,” a young man stood behind, saluting him. He wore an
enforcer uniform with the colours, though there was a slight difference
denoting that he was from a space branch.

“Leonard, what’s the issue?” Oliver smiled gently at his
grandchild.

“We received a request from the other party to dock
directly at their private space hangar.” Leonard Athen replied stoically
without a tinge of emotion. If Ceres was here, he would be extremely shocked to
see Leonard Athen this prim and proper. It was as though someone had performed
brain surgery on him to finally shut him up from talking too much.

Completely different from his usual dishevelled self that
Ceres was used to seeing, Leonard looked like a dedicated ship crew. Right now,
he was effectively the secretary of Oliver Athen.

Oliver was slightly worried. He had originally intended to
park at a specially allocated hangar that his acquaintance had helped to set
up. The security detail and information were already all planned in advance in
the event he was attacked, yet this threw him off-guard.

Oliver had always played it safe as much as he could. He
understood humans only had one life, and he was no different.

What if the other party had malicious intentions, and
either kept him hostage or killed him? However, due to all the benefits, he had
received over the last five years since Cardenia was ousted from power, he
couldn’t reject the offer lest he angers the secret party.

“Accept it. Recalculate the ship’s trajectory and proceed
anytime.” Oliver finally ordered, not wanting to waste any more time or show
much hesitation. Showing weakness in a first meeting was taboo for Oliver, who
had spent a lifetime handling such business transactions.

[Warning: Ship undergoing automatic deceleration.]

“Sir, please strap in for deceleration,” Leonard advised,
himself strapped into the seat.

Oliver’s starship had been travelling at a breakneck speed
to be able to close the distance in three days – the ship needed to decelerate to
match orbits with the Cloud, or else they would swing right past it.

Oliver nodded, strapping himself into a nearby seat which
began to undergo automatic rotation, aligning it parallel to the thrust of the
main engines.

The starship began to flip around using its gaseous
thrusters, causing its main engines to face forward along its path of travel.
With a roaring sound that rocked the starship, the main engines kicked in and
Oliver was slammed back into his seat. He gritted his teeth as he felt the full
force of inertia slams into his chest, but the chair’s unique gel helped to
soften the impact.

Oliver groaned as the deceleration lasted for more than a
few minutes, his body beginning to ache and his vision going slightly dizzy.
The chair automatically injected a stimulant into his body, reliving the pain
and reducing the stress he was feeling.

He barely let out a chuckle when he thought of how the
Dynasty members got around in their high-speed personal ships. Genetic
enhancements and years of training had made most immune to high accelerations.
If they were in Oliver’s position right now, it would be like a breeze to them.

The viewing deck showed the holographic trajectory of the
ship deviating greatly, with the path now pointing to a more luxurious section
of the Cloud. The spaceship gradually moved along at the specified speed shared
with the local coordinators, ensuring minimal collisions or accidents.

The deceleration finally ended, with the starship flipping
back to its original facing, allowing Oliver to see in front.

As they neared the spaceport, the sheer scale of it amazed
Oliver, as this was his first time visiting. He had never been on a spaceship
apart from the colony ship that went to Athen, and that was when he was barely
a kid, the memory vague.

Millions of drones that acted as tugboats helped to guide,
push or pull spaceships out of the respective berths and hangars that stretched
all the way into the spaceport like a honeycomb. The especially large ice and
agri-haulers with thermal-blanket-wrapped asteroids required hundreds of drones
to slowly ease the ship out and into the spaceport.

The existence of these drones reduced the attitude control
requirement of large spaceships, as it was quite cost-prohibitive to ensure
accurate pointing with the immense mass and inertia. Many of these ships only
ferried cargo and people between known systems, hence they could rely on the
local drones when they entered orbit.

Humans of all kinds wore spacesuits with cables attached to
them to prevent themselves from drifting away, retrofitting or performing
repairs on ships that limped here from the Beyond. Some of the ships suffered
from charred and dented armour plates, signifying a fierce fight.

Other ships had complete sections torn out of them, the
damage far beyond the capability of the spaceport to repair. Oliver saw one
ship that looked like a space monster had taken a bite out of it on its side,
making him wonder how this spaceship even managed to survive.

Many of the ships that treated this port as home were
mostly mercenaries and soldiers, heading to the frontlines of the slovesa
territory to fight.

It was a non-stop skirmish spreading out across the entire
border of the Loeric Empire, hence rewards were plenty for every inch of ground
and every planet they took. Some mercenaries signed on in the hopes of wealth
and fame and the chance to own their very own land on a newly cleansed planet.

The Cloud brought space logistics to an entire new scale –
with billions of packages being continuously distributed both up and down to
the planet, fulfilling the ever-growing consumption needs of the urban planet.

Millions of drone ships that continuously delivered to and
fro flitted about, forming something that looked like a shoal of fish, swimming
in the darkness that was space.

Oliver couldn’t help looking at one of the largest starships
in view: a slovesa capital ship. The five-kilometre-long oblong
asteroid-looking ship was actually a deadly vessel, capable of wiping out many
human starships at once from a far distance.

It was even considered a herald of destruction if spotted
in orbit, as countless slovesa and their spawners were held within. No border
colony could fend off such an invasion on their own.

You are reading story Ceres’s Chaos: A Tragic Space Opera at novel35.com

Yet here lay the slovesa capital ship, with all its former
glory and lustre gone, chunks of it stripped and mines for its rare metals and
exotic resources to be used in a never-ending war of expansion against the
slovesa.

Despite the meticulous mining, the exterior of the ship
never truly lost its original shape, kept as one of many trophies to serve as a
testament to the Legions’ skill in space combat.

Soon, Oliver’s spaceship reached the luxury quarter of the
Cloud, enabling him to see the decadence of the Dynasties and lesser nobles in
all its splendour. Statues in the image of their creator or owner, while entire
villas surrounded by lush green fields were displayed under large separate glass
domes, allowing one to enjoy the view of space while being protected.

Each of the large domes that could house a thousand
represented a single ‘room’, and Oliver’s ship sailed to one of the docking
ports of a ‘room’. As it reached the hangar, a low buzz could be heard as the
ship entered past the energy shield of the hangar, which also kept the air in
as much as possible.

Two large magnetic clamps latched onto the starship, and
Oliver could only hope that the other party that he was about to meet would be
friendly enough to not cause him too much trouble. The ramp of the starship
opened below, with Oliver walking out with his entourage, Leonard following
closely behind him.

“Greetings, Mr Athen. Thank you for arriving on time,
however, our master is still not ready to meet you yet, so I would like to give
you a brief tour of the place before bringing you to our waiting area. If you
would please follow me.” A kind butler bowed in front of Oliver, flanked by
four exosuits.

Oliver noticed that the exosuits in front of him were of
much better quality than the Athen Defenders that he had brought along –
Dynasty exosuits, one of the best in the Loeric Empire. If just one of those
exosuits were to fight against his security team, it was almost a guaranteed
loss for Oliver based on sheer firepower and technological advantage.

Yet Oliver did not reveal his thoughts in his body
language, simply nodding and following the butler, as though nothing had fazed
him so far. They walked through the massive hangar, where a dozen other
starships were also docked in place.

Oliver noticed each of the starships had a very unique
design, some could almost be called perfect in design. Most were sleek and
well-furnished, providing a lustrous glow as Oliver could not help staring at some
of the starships they were passing by.

All of them far outclass his starship in terms of cost and
design alone. Oliver wondered who else was meeting the lord at this time.

The butler noticed Oliver’s glances before smiling gently.
“These starships all belong to our lord, who has a unique hobby in collecting
starships. Specifically, these starships used to belong to his former rivals
and business competitors, as well as the crime lords he apprehended. Our lord
loves to look at them from time to time.”

His expression froze, and Oliver barely nodded in acknowledgement
before walking. He now knew he was considered a small sewer rat in terms of
power in the Loeric Empire, but to see the power manifested in front of him was
another thing altogether. Who was this secret party?

Despite the blatant presentation of wealth, Oliver kept his
expression stoic, not revealing any of the turmoil and the gradually sinking
feeling that he felt in his heart. He followed the butler out of the hanger
into a large resplendent central hall, decorated with paintings and shiny
jewels at every nook and cranny.

The Dynasty of Hawthorn’s red and green were the main
colours that adorned the walls, ceiling and floor, accentuated with lines of
gold, while the emblem of their Dynasty was plastered onto the floor in the centre.

The emblem featured an axe, with the head of the axe
imprinted with a red rose while the handle was coiled in green thorns. Oliver
was all too familiar with it, having lived under multiple owners of Athen all
from the Dynasty of Hawthorn. Was it one of the elders?

Two dozen butlers were lined up, receiving Oliver into the
hall as he walked around, this time unable to control his expression of awe. If
Oliver did not know any better, he might have believed that this was the Loeric
Emperor’s palace instead. Yet this was barely the hall of a successor of the
Dynasty of Hawthorn.

Oliver’s security team naturally have not experienced this
level of splendour before, their eyes darting everywhere as though they only
had a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visit a holy relic. The ceiling had
glass that showed the stars clearly, the sunlight from the local star streaming
through, causing the floor and emblem to glisten like marble.

He noticed a few accolades and awards on display. They
featured a holographic video of why the award was issued, which showed valiant
battles fought against the slovesa both on the ground and in space. The battles
all took place near the frontline against the slovesa. Oliver began to realize whom
he was about to meet, gulping in his throat as he stared at a portrait of a
valiant admiral leading a fleet.

Assuming that this was the main audience hall, Oliver and
his team began to slow down, but the butler turned and beckoned to them to
follow him. They walked out of the central hall through one of the exits,
opening up to reveal a single path that stretched through a large field of
grass. The sky looked boundless – it was a mere glass dome that separated the
air within the hard vacuum of space.

The countless starships and reflections of the planet shone
like jewels above, while the large field of green grass extended for a
kilometre in either direction. Oliver noticed humanoid figures numbering close
to a hundred performing gardening work in the distance, trimming the grass.

The path was made of marble, leading to a single
palace-like structure at the end. The butler walked down the path with Oliver
following him closely behind, taking extra care to not step on the grass.

The palace structure was built with yellow marble, making
it seem like a mix between pearls and gold bars. A large emblem sign hung from
the top, the red and green colour visible again.

Oliver glanced again at the humanoid figures, some of which
were near the palace. He was amazed at the scale of the robots put in place to
merely manage the garden.

The grass was cut to a meticulous height, all equal and
upright at the same angle. If one were to look closely enough, one would notice
that each blade of grass was separated by an equal distance, the soil being
perfectly level.

Oliver almost gasped in shock when he noticed that the
gardeners were not robots – they were all humans. Yet none of them showed any
signs of being enslaved nor forced to work - they instead took it with pride
and showed great care in their work.

He internally shuddered as the scale of grandeur continued
to pummel him. Oliver knew it was a tactic to make him submissive, to
understand how small he is.

And so far? It was extremely effective.

Soon, they reached the end of the path, reaching the stairs
that led up to the palace.

“What a wonderful sight, isn’t it? To see humans working
tirelessly in the pursuit of perfection for the greater good. Don’t you think
so, Oliver?” An eloquent voice floated down from the top of the stairs, causing
Oliver to look up at the source.

At the top of the stairs was a tall young man, dressed in a
formal grey suit with a green ornate cloak flowing behind, dashed with streaks
of red marking the colours of the Dynasty of Hawthorn. The emblem was clearly
shown on his chest, pinned as a badge. His lapels on the shoulders marked the
high rank of general, signifying his service record in the Loeric Empire’s
military.

An air of importance surrounded the young man, while his
eyes shone with brilliant intelligence and fiery ambition. Oliver noticed
certain similarities in features between Cardenia Hawthorn and the young man,
but it was overshadowed by the sheer presence the young man exuded. One could
not simply ignore him on sight.

The butler and the four advanced exosuits hurriedly knelt,
while Oliver and his security team gave a deep bow, despite still not having
fully ascended the stairs. “Oliver, come up.”

Oliver resumed climbing up the stairs, but when his
security team tried to follow, they suddenly felt an innate terror stemming
from the young man, who simply glanced at them, before looking back out to the
grass field. The security team immediately retreated, knowing that they could
not afford to offend the young man even to do their job.

Reaching the top of the staircase, Oliver joined the young
man and looked out over the field. The view was spectacular – the green grass
field struck a deep contrast against the darkness of space, with millions of
sparkling dots moving in tandem across the planet.

“Amazing, is it not?” The young man asked gently, his voice
soothing in a charismatic way as he held a photogenic smile. “Technology has
advanced so far since our ancestors left the gravity well of Earth, and here we
are, more than a thousand years yet things really do not change.”

Oliver did not reply, slightly confused as he tried to
understand what the young man was looking at. Was it not just a garden? The
young man glanced at Oliver’s face, chuckling.

“Despite your age, it seems it has not hit you yet. Do you
know why I hire humans instead of relying on automated robots to perform all
the tasks you’ve seen so far?”

The young man simply reached out his hand, pointing at a
random gardener far into the distance with his index finger, before suddenly
clenching his fist. At the distance, Oliver only heard a small ‘pop’ sound as
the gardener’s body exploded into a bloody mist, and vaporized into the air,
the red colour staining the green grass in a gruesome outward pattern.

The scene bore a striking resemblance to the colours of the
Dynasty, causing Oliver to gulp internally in shock.

“Because there’s a certain quality of submission that
robots can’t fulfil.”

 

You can find story with these keywords: Ceres’s Chaos: A Tragic Space Opera, Read Ceres’s Chaos: A Tragic Space Opera, Ceres’s Chaos: A Tragic Space Opera novel, Ceres’s Chaos: A Tragic Space Opera book, Ceres’s Chaos: A Tragic Space Opera story, Ceres’s Chaos: A Tragic Space Opera full, Ceres’s Chaos: A Tragic Space Opera Latest Chapter