Chapter 4 – The Green Flame of Descent

The Horizon of Ashes slid silently across the black gulf, Saturn dwindling behind it as the red point of Mars grew brighter ahead. Its immense hull shimmered with a shifting emerald glow, the ship’s deceleration sheath.  Engines bleeding plasma into a controlled cone, their thrust field folding back on itself. Outgassing vents spilled exotic propellant—ionized cryogens harvested during the crossing—forming what appeared to human eyes as a comet’s inverted tail. It was no natural phenomenon. It was the work of deliberate physics, slowing a leviathan to meet its target.

Inside the command chamber, Selvek hunched over a cluster of shifting displays. With careful precision, his four hands manipulated vectors, threading the massive vessel between denser corridors of the asteroid belt. At intervals, he flicked commands, and small dark shapes launched silently from the Horizon’s flanks. Mining bots—semi-autonomous drones—sped toward glimmering asteroids rich in iridium and frozen volatiles. “These veins will fuel the colonies,” he muttered, voice tight with focus. “Better to strip them now than later.”

Not far away, Dorrin stood in the embarkation bay, his module prepared for surface descent. Around him, thousands of colonization pods lined the cavernous launch galleries like patient seeds awaiting the soil. Each housed crews, machinery, bio-vats, and the beginnings of ecosystems. He ran a hand along the ribbed wall of his assigned vessel, murmuring a vow to the world that would soon cradle them. To Dorrin, Mars was not barren—it was potential incarnate, waiting to be awakened under their touch.

On the command dais, the Commander brooded, eyes fixed on the view of the red planet growing larger in the viewport. Beside him, Veydril, the Sub-Commander, studied the tactical overlay. A scan had just completed, a pulse lancing invisibly across the Martian system. Its results were troubling.

“Seven orbitals,” Veydril said flatly. “All human-made. Communication relays, mapping platforms, a few for observation. Crude, but dangerous. They must be erased.”

“Done,” the Commander replied. With a subtle gesture, a weapons operator executed the order. Silent beams of directed energy lanced outward, invisible to any Earth telescope. One by one, the satellites winked out of existence, their husks spiraling into cold silence.

On Earth, no announcement was made. Hours, then days would pass before analysts pieced together the sudden loss. By then, the Horizon’s children would already be falling toward Mars.

Veydril exhaled slowly, folding his arms. “Humans are unready. But they learn quickly. They adapt. That alone makes them dangerous.” His voice was low, contemplative. “For now they are blind, and we are free to move. But eventually, they will come looking for their lost sky-eyes.”

The Commander did not answer. His gaze remained fixed on Mars, its ochre face smeared with faint white clouds. He seemed to savor the moment, the stillness before destiny unfolded.

For weeks, Earth’s astronomers would see only absence as the Horizon drifted behind the blazing glare of the Sun. No new observations, no updates—just a missing object lost to the star’s brilliance. They would not know of the sudden burn, the violent braking hidden by solar light. They would not witness the dispersal of hundreds of scout modules, streaking out like sparks to map, probe, and prepare.

In the silence of the great command chamber, the last of the preparations finished. Dorrin’s module was sealed, Selvek’s mining bots were away, and the colony pods hung in their launch cradles like fruit ready to fall.

The Commander rose from his throne of black alloy, his silhouette framed by Saturn’s fading glow behind them and Mars’s rising face before them. He lifted a single clawed hand, and his voice carried like iron through the chamber.

“Launch.”