Althea felt, rather than heard, the infrasonic thrumming of the Randall Impellors starting up. She checked the giant holographic rendering outside the Tourist Trap's huge, but fake, windows and could just spot the last of the light freighters as they disembarked. The projection temporarily unsettled Althea. It was oriented in such a way that it didn't match with her internal reference. Mars should be below the aft deck, not hanging over the port-side view like some giant rusty eyeball. She supposed the view was more for the comfort of the surface dwellers than the crew. Parked in the Mars-Sol L3 point, the Rocinante had been taking on colonists and their cargo for the previous week. Four hundred and fifty Twennies and their stuff and all the supplies they'd need to start a new life on one of many uninhabited worlds had been shuttled up from either Mars or the closest asteroid-based factories. It was a great view. The North Polar Ice Cap shone brightly and she could easily make out the Marineris Gash. And floating above that, the spark of Phobos. Just west and north, the great extinct volcanoes that made up the Tholus Chain sat like blisters on its surface. The expansive Solas Sea was just slipping into dusk. The sunset tonight in New Barsoom, the metropolis on its eastern shoreline, would be magnificent. A tiny voice inside her head wished she'd spent the last week there instead of chasing ghosts in the outer reaches of deep space. Or shooting them. She squeezed her eyes shut to blot out the images that sprang to mind: the assassination, the destroyed outpost. Althea took a quick glance over the rail on the starboard side and saw the ship's colony lander, The LandShark, moving into the docking approach trajectory. She made a mental note to check with the pilot later. Elyssiany had a direct line to the best Martian microbrews and Althea's fridge was practically to the point where edibles outnumbered drinkables. With all confirmed onboard, the gigantic Hammerhead Heavy Cargo vessel slipped away from the MS-L3 gravity well so gracefully that none but the most seasoned of crew could feel the acceleration. In hours, the Rocinante would have left the ecliptic plane of the solar system far enough behind that the stream of matter from Sol would abate enough for the giant interstellar drives to pick through the thready streams of dark energy and slip into metaspace to ride the otherwise undetectable currents to Gliesse 844E. Orianna nudged Althea's elbow and brought her attention back to the Captain's speech. A variation on Roaouh's Colonist Pep Talk Number 3B, the crowd on the lower floor were clapping and laughing in all the expected places. ----------------------------------------------------------- Another bit of narrative in my ongoing space opera, started here: Amazon CE:4693 The Rocinante is from powerage's 10 Ships collection. Thanks to everyone for looking and, possibly, reading. Special thanks to sevein for the awesome Eagle 5 Transport freebie, used here for the light transport ships. Also, a shout out to the Celestia community for the excellent Mars texture and normal maps. Have a great week everyone! See you in the galleries. Zoom in so you don't miss all the heavenly glory!