Aron, despite the rune construct’s activation, continued feeding a steady stream of mana to it to ensure it didn’t collapse. Despite it being in a neutral state and receiving no attacks at all, its sheer size meant that it required more than the relatively small amount of ambient mana could provide. So, to prevent it from destabilizing due to the lack, he needed to act as a temporary bridge.
He passed through the shield and headed toward Ceres Station, where an entire bank of massive, hundreds-of-meters-tall fusion reactors had been purpose-built to fuel the enormous runic construct. Nova had calculated the minimum amount of mana required to ensure the shield would remain stable without Aron’s intervention and she’d built sixty reactors to handle the load, with a combined output of 112 petawatts of electricity.
The generator bank was connected to the surface of Ceres Station by a conduit spanning ten meters in diameter, lined with a second printed runic construct that would ensure a smooth flow of mana from the integrated electricity-mana conversion rune. It would light Earth up, but over time, it would settle down and normalize with the surrounding mana in the solar system. Besides, they had already been discovered, so what would come would come.
Better to have a shield than not.
[Reactor self-test indicates all green. Powering up... 37%... 51%... 77%... 94%.... Ignition. Fusion reaction stable, initiating electricity generation at ten percent capacity.] Nova continued narrating the step by step process of reactor startup as the immense power bank rumbled to life.
[Electrical output stable. Initiating connection to converter rune. Converter rune is functioning normally with minimal loss. No errors reported. Increasing electrical output... no errors. Reactors are at 56%... 71%... 80% and stable. Safety interlocks engaged, safety systems reporting all green. Electrical output at 91% and holding steady.... No fluctuations detected in the mana flow.
[Sir, I think we can call this a successful ignition,] Nova reported.
“Got it, I’m connecting the mana feed to the shield rune construct now. Start the control interface in the Cube,” Aron ordered.
[Understood, sir,] Nova said and, deep in the bowels of the bottommost basement beneath the Cube, deep within the Earth’s mantle, a bank of quantum computers hummed to life, their soft blue indicator lights shining as the bootup process continued. Soon, the lights turned green as all the computers completed the process.
Aron, meanwhile, had linked the runic shield construct to the outflow of mana from Ceres Station and was finally able to rest. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and rested for a few minutes before rolling over and falling head-first into Earth’s gravity well, aiming to land on the roof of the Cube on Avalon Island.
As he freefell back to the surface, Nova was busy running tests and checks to ensure that the shield was operating perfectly. As check after check returned all green, she finally reported the successful installation and initialization of the ERD-26 Planetary Shield Generator and Aron relaxed.
‘At least the final line of defense is in place,’ he thought as he rolled over to gaze at the planet that was rapidly growing in his field of view.
“When will the space elevator tether be connected to the anchor point on the surface?” he asked out of idle curiosity. He had been too busy with the construction of the planetary shield over the past few days to keep current on the space elevator’s construction progress, but he knew it should be connected soon; the tether was only a few hundred meters away from the caldera of the extinct volcano on Elysium Island that had been tentatively named Olympus Minor.
The preparatory work on the island had already been completed, and the anchor sunk from the volcano’s caldera to the very bottom of the Earth’s crust. All that remained was for the carbon nanotube weave of the elevator’s tether to be molecularly bonded to the waiting anchor point on the surface.
[Within two weeks, assuming nothing goes wrong,] Nova replied.
Aron grunted an acknowledgement, then fell silent again as his freefall from orbit continued. After a few minutes, he mused, “From up here, everything on the ground just seems so... petty. Petty and shortsighted. Humanity is a truly fickle species that fluctuates between ‘but I want it now!’ and ‘so what have you done for me lately then?’
“Tell me, Nova. If it were up to you, what would you do?” he asked.
Nova was lost for an answer, a first for her. [I’m not sure, sir. Human nature is the driving force behind its development as a species, so I don’t think I would change anything,] she finally said. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she felt a twinge of annoyance at her inability to immediately answer the question she was asked. Aron was her creator, her father, her brother, her patient, and many other things to her, and her attachment to him bordered on the absolute.
“I think... I agree, as much as I don’t want to,” Aron sighed, then changed topics. “How’s the shield interface?”
[I’ve completed the diagnostics and everything’s green, sir,] she answered. [The computer bank is functioning normally and is currently operating at peak efficiency with connections to all 188,901,753 shield lattice nodes.]
The shield was designed as a layered honeycomb lattice, with each node reinforcing and being reinforced by those around it. It ensured that there were no gaps or weak points in the shield, and the flexible structure was excellent at dispersing impacts over a wide area without shattering.
“Excellent,” Aron said. Avalon Island was finally visible to him without augmenting his vision, and he made minor adjustments to his trajectory to ensure he would land where he wanted. He would make more during the remainder of his freefall; it was something of a competition he had with himself to land as close to his desired target as possible with each of his entries from orbit, and he was determined to win this first bout in reality.
“I look forward to seeing it in reality,” he added after ensuring he was on target.
