You couldn’t wait, huh? The council must’ve pushed for some heightened security.

The Space Agency hadn’t socialized the construction of a battleship to the general population, not yet. They were going to address it during their maiden voyage, turning it into a big spectacle, a celebration of the accomplishment. The citizens of the world needed to see where their money went.

Anonymous polls went out to the world, attempting to gauge their biggest concerns and interests in regard to space. Questions were meant to determine what they cared about most whether it be resource acquisition, exploration, scientific discovery or threats from beyond the solar system.

By far, security topped the charts of what the people wanted. Warren blamed it on television and cinema, creating a culture of paranoia. Horror films of the nineteen-fifties certainly helped breed the mentality then writers built from there. Even novelists dating back to HG Welles fostered fear in the general populace.

The Agency was run by a council of appointed officials from each participating nation. They unanimously voted on the creation of a fleet of defensive vessels, which resulted in several smaller ships capable of launching from the surface. Each of these they focused on a different discipline until they were ready to construct their flagship.

Warren joined the team at that time as Colonel Jacks’s first choice as commander of the new vessel. Getting him in early meant he would understand and learn every part of the ship, that he’d be a true expert in how it operated and functioned. Furthermore, he could apply his tactical for weapon placement and system redundancies.

Though if he was being perfectly fair, he spent more time in a fighter cockpit than he did running a large naval type vessel. In order to rectify that, he spent time on their smaller ships, the ones that could essentially make a run to the moon in a matter of hours. Advances in fuel efficiency allowed them to accelerate and decelerate as needed.

Where in the past, astronauts had to account for the weight of fuel and slowing down to land or attain orbit, modern space vessels carried shuttles that could make the trip to the surface. This meant they merely had to get close enough for the smaller ship to get to their destination.

When Warren joined the Agency, they explained the problems they came together to solve. They were, in no particular order, propulsion, gravity and survivability. Once a ship could travel fast enough with artificial gravity and plenty of space to prepare and preserve nourishment, then humanity could truly begin exploring the stars.

The first attempt to generate artificial gravity came from magnetism but it was expensive and impractical from a power perspective. While rooting around for other theories, they discovered a scientist who had developed a crystal capable of withstanding incredible vibrations and through that, he showed he could generate measurable gravitons.

That breakthrough allowed the Agency to build these into the ships, providing an artificial gravity system that was inexpensive and functional. Their smaller shuttles did not benefit from the technology but the larger ships allowed people to operate as normal and with that, the space travel door was open.

Warren’s first mission into space involved a trip to the moon. They were there and back in a grand total of twenty-four hours with six of those spent on the actual research mission. Several researchers went to the surface, taking samples and plotting the creation of a lunar colony. They weren’t quite to the building phase but plans were in the works.

The experience gave him perspective and allowed him to contribute meaningfully to the project. Warren left the academy with an aeronautics degree which gave him some leg to stand on in discussions with the scientists.

Checking his watch, he felt the pressure of time sitting in that traffic. Warren willed the people to move around him, wished the authorities would get things done. Maybe if he called into the base, he could get a chopper sent to pick him up. Getting stuck in the middle of the city, regardless of his transportation, left him in the same horrible situation as those around him.

Desperate but helpless.

Not all of the Agency missions went off smoothly and they knew they wouldn’t. The earliest attempts to send their ships into space met with disasters of varying severity. They lost four entire crews, all volunteers from some of the harsher nations that participated in the project. This meant their deaths could be kept out of the public eye.

Each life lost for the Agency was honored with a star on a particularly large wall. Warren didn’t know if the person who built the base had some foresight into how dangerous the work would be or if it was a coincidence but either way, they had plenty of room for a good thousand people without having to bring the marks closer together.

The news started their loop again, playing Jacks’s statement and reiterating what they’d already said. No new developments would be released for a while so people would have to be patient.