Epilogue

General Greaves sat in the command chair on the USS Leviathan. The largest space, well, anything that had ever been constructed. The Leviathan was part colony ship, part battleship, and all grade A american made hardware right down to the lugnuts that helped rivet its armor to the outside of the hull.

The Leviathan was in orbit around Titan, the largest and most colonizable moon that orbited Saturn. General Greaves read the data that the colony had sent up, it was just a basic status report. “Captain, go ahead and order the landing craft to start heading down to the surface. They’ll need our supplies to start the planned expansion.”

“Yes General,” Captain Thomas was in charge of the Leviathan, but he answered to Greaves on mission specifics. Greaves knew better than to step on the man's toes though, he was a good officer and knew his business. Instead, Greaves busied himself with reviewing the report.

They’ve reached as far as they can without more colonists. That will have to be on the next trip out this far. He thought. If we can get just two more dome habitats added, we’ll secure Titan, which will get us one step closer to controlling the entire Sole system. Then, we’ll be safe to start exploring through the portals. Until then, well, let's just hope they don’t dig us any deep holes. Like what happened in China.

“Flight away Captain,” one of the bridge ‘guardians’ said. Greaves never liked the term for the Space Force personnel, it was too sci-fi for his liking. But then again, what were you to call someone who worked in space to defend the planet? A Spaceman? No, that was too on the nose.

“Sir, we have an explosion down on the surface.” Greaves perked up at that but kept his mouth shut. Thomas was a good officer, it was his job to command his crew.

“Where? Get me and the General a visual.” Thomas demanded, and a few seconds later Greaves saw the images of the explosion on his data pad. It was a small dome, half built. No one was living there yet. “What are the colonists saying happened?”

“Unknown for sure captain, but they’re guessing the oxygen tanks for the welding cascaded somehow. The computer's initial scans suggest an industrial accident, no accelerant sir.”

“Fuck.” Greaves said under his breath. Captain Thomas turned to him with a raised eyebrow, but Greaves ignored him.

“Captain, I'm picking up a cem light. It's faint but whoever that ship belongs to is heading away from us at an angle to best hide the flair. I only picked it up because it reflected off the atmosphere,” another officer said.

“Sabotage?” Thomas asked, looking at Greaves.

“More than likely.” Greaves said, grinding his teeth as he reviewed the damage. “Have the colonists do a full sweep of everything. Every rafter, every bulkhead, even their freaking gym shorts, check everything we can’t afford further setbacks.”

“Yes, General.” Thomas said and he began barking orders. Greaves ran some projections. This he knew was going to slow down their growth enough that they might not be able to capture Titan in time. They would need something else, some other mericle. The Russians had ganymede, the CCP had started pulling ahead on Mars. Titan was meant to be the USA’s ace in the hole. Now though?

Whoever had sabotaged them, had set them back nearly a month. Giving the Russians time to catch up, and the CCP time to finish pulling ahead on Mars. The other powers were back in the race, and that meant the Human Race’s future was once again uncertain.