Chapter 21 – The Three Arrows

The day had come.

Across the continents, the world held its breath as the first of three Mars probes—Europa One—stood poised on the launch pad. Months of construction, calibration, and debate had led to this moment. The launch teams at Kourou watched the countdown with a silence so taut it felt like prayer.

Still no reply from the message Earth had sent—its signal repeating endlessly into the void, a chorus of human voices calling across the dark. No acknowledgment. No sign.

At 04:16 UTC, the ignition sequence lit the sky. Europa One rose through the atmosphere in a column of white fire, streaking into the blue and vanishing into the upper dark. Applause broke through the tension in control centers around the globe. The first arrow was loosed.

After two orbits of Earth to gather speed, the probe performed its slingshot burn and began the long outbound arc toward Mars. Its course was perfect. Its telemetry, steady. Ninety days to arrival. Ninety days until answers.

Six days later, the other nations followed. 

The Chinese probe Tianwen-Beta, then the American Ares Pathfinder, both launching within forty-eight hours of each other. All three ships now traced glowing arcs away from Earth, their trajectories converging on the red world.

For a brief moment in history, humanity was unified by purpose—scientists, engineers, and citizens all watching the same countdowns, the same rising flames. The world dared to hope that knowledge would prevail where silence had reigned.

Meanwhile, the telescopes never slept. Hubble, Webb, and a dozen ground observatories focused on Mars, their lenses trembling with data. What they saw deepened the unease.

The surface was changing.

Infrared scans showed sprawling heat blooms where none had been before—lines of industry etched across the plains, faint glimmers of geometric patterning. Cities, perhaps. Machines. Growth.

Whatever had come to Mars was not idle.

And as the probes sped outward, cutting through the darkness toward that red horizon, none could yet see what waited above it: the 3 great leviathans, now cloaked in the shadow of Mars itself, invisible to human instruments. Watching. Waiting.