Chapter 136: 136: One Small Step

Stepping down onto Actaeon was simultaneously thrilling and underwhelming. 

It was thrilling because this was a new world, one that I had never been to before and never experienced, and now I was free to walk across its surface. Something that I had only ever dreamed of back in my home universe. 

Now, yes, there was the fact that I had already been walking around Prespian City for over a week, but in my mind, that didn't really count. 

For a start, I hadn't actually walked around on the surface of the planet where Prespian City was located. There wasn't even a surface to walk on, thanks to the water world nature of the planet. 

For a second thing, I hadn't flown there in a spaceship. I'd just kind of woken up there one day. It didn't have the same thrill as getting in a ship, flying to a place, and then leaving the ship to explore it. That was some real sci-fi stuff right there. 

However, yes, it was also underwhelming. 

Birds wheeled through the air, squawking just like seagulls on Earth did. Maybe close up they'd be a little bit more interesting to look at, but from a distance, they didn't really give me much to be inspired by. 

Green grass lay on the floor of the park that we were standing in, which was complete with fun rides like a slide and a roundabout. 

Above us hung one solitary star, a little bigger and darker than the one I was used to back in my own universe, but all in all not that interesting. 

Even the sky was blue, which was a good thing because it meant the atmospheric makeup of the world was breathable without the use of some kind of respirator but was a bad thing because it was just so standard and basic. 

My first time flying to a new planet, and it basically just felt like I was back on Earth. 

Okay, that was a lie, it didn't feel like I was back on Earth. 

Without the manna cores of the megabuilding's on Prespian City, I was forced to endure the standard gravity of this world, which turned out to be just a little bit stronger than Earth's on gravity on account of the planet being a good bit bigger, if slightly less dense. 

What that left me feeling like was heavy and grounded, not exactly how you wanted to feel when exploring a brave new world. 

"What's up Jacob?" Asked Fal, my Lyrin friend, as we watched another group of ten thousand settlers flash into the open grass of the park. 

"I guess I'm just a little underwhelmed," I replied, grateful that one of my friends had dropped the formality. "I've only ever been to two planets, the one I was born on and the one that Prespian City was located on. This world is a lot like the one that I was born on. I guess I was just hoping for something a little bit more interesting." 

"I can understand that," Fal said, giving me a friendly pat on the shoulder. "Still, at least all of these people will have a nice, boring and safe home to live in for the foreseeable future." 

That was true. While I had been told that Prespian City was one of the most well-defended places in the galaxy, I was quickly finding out that the statement may have been more of a hometown pride kind of thing rather than something based on actual fact. 

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Sure, Prespian city had been protected by the gravity of all those moons and the ocean below it, but Actaeon actually had a defence grid projected way out into the system. 

Unless the ship was cloaked there would be no way anything could get anywhere close without triggering an alarm, and from what I knew it was pretty much impossible to maintain a cloaking field while travelling through subspace. 

<Well, impossible for anyone but the Morde Kash,> BB chimed in, <But other than that solitary Morde Kash controller that Akash dealt with in the tournament, they haven't really been seen all that much. Little pockets here and there, but nothing dangerous enough to launch an attack on a world like Actaeon.>

In all meanings of the word, Actaeon was a paradise. 

So why did I still feel so uneasy?

Was it just lingering shock from what we'd been through on Prespian City, or was my gut telling me that an even bigger storm was starting to loom on the horizon?

Another flash, another ten thousand were brought into the park, guided by a fleet of drones to their new homes. 

There were sites like this all over the city, with tens of thousands arriving every couple of minutes. 

It'd take the better part of a day to get everyone into their new homes, and then the Guard's Matrix AI would allocate jobs for everyone that had arrived, taking into account their previous employment and what they would be most suited to on their new world. 

I expected things to be quiet for a few days, but I wasn't foolish enough to believe that everyone would just knuckle down and do what they were told after the novelty and horror of the situation had worn off. 

Would there be rioting? Probably not.

But small incidents throughout angry residents who weren't acclimatizing to their new situation? I expected more than our fair share of that. 

So, at least for the first few weeks and months, my team and I were going to be acting as the police force for the city. 

We'd iron out those disputes, keep people safe, and hope that with time everyone would come to agree that this was the best possible outcome for them. 

For those dissenters that truly wanted to move off-world to somewhere different, for whatever reason they might have, then we'd try to facilitate that too. 

I took a deep breath, filling my lungs with the sweet and fresh Actaeon air. 

This would be good, no matter what that feeling in my gut was trying to tell me.

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