Rise of the Empire 1: Olympus by Ivan Kal

way, you know how Tomas gets when he is kept waiting.”
    “Lead the way.” Elias said.
    They moved through corridors, passing people in Olympus uniforms, rushing from one end to the other, carrying all kind of different equipment. Every so often they would pass by an open panel in the wall with wires or big conduits peeking out and someone fixing something. The inside of the station might be habitable but it wasn’t finished just yet, not by a long shot. The walls were still just metal plates, with no paint or decoration, at least in this part of the station. Elias had visited the station once before with Seo-yun, when it was just barley habitable. It amazed him sometimes how fast Tomas managed to build everything. But then again he had the advantage of near unlimited resources, and alien technology. Most of the things here were built using Olympus’s version of the alien fabricator. Seo-yun and her team had managed to unlock, and somewhat improve on the concept, in its complexity if not in scope. Olympus nanotechnology was, as it turned out more advanced than the one they found in the alien ship, their nanites were capable of much more sophisticated work, and they could be programmed to do much more.
    They arrived at the elevator that would take them up to the top part of the cylinder were Tomas’s office was, they entered and the elevator started moving as soon as the doors closed, meaning that Nadi a sent instruction via her implant.
    “You’ve finished a lot of work in a short time.” Laura commented.
    “Yes,” Nadia sighed “And still we are only about twenty percent done. The central is operational and habitable but it still isn’t close to being finished, we are currently using only ten decks of planed fifty. And other arms are all still in the beginning fazes, except the food processing, which we needed to get operational as soon as possible, Tomas wanted the station to have its own food supply, rather than relying on supply ships from Earth.”
    “It’s impressive nonetheless.” Laura said.
    “It certainly is.” Elias said.
    The elevator slowed and the doors opened, as soon as they got off they arrived at the security station were the security asked for verification, which they provided with their implants. When their identity was verified the guards saluted and let them through, they entered the office space, which was the entire deck, there were dozens of doors on each side leading to private offices, with dozens more desks in the middle of the room where employees sat and worked. Each desk was improved version of the command desk Tomas once had in his office, the new ones hadn’t changed much in appearance but were much faster with better hologram technology, these have mostly replaced personal computers back on Earth.
    They walked beside them and arrived at Tomas’s office.
    “He wants to speak to you in private first.” Nadia said to Elias, “We’ll wait in my office.” She said pointing towards her office next to Tomas’s. Elias nodded and entered.
    Tomas’s office looked very much like the one he had on Earth, the couches and a table in the middle. Tomas sat at his desk and looked up when Elias walked in.
    “Elias, come sit, we have much to discus.” Tomas said gravely.
    Elias reached the desk shook Tomas’s hand across it, and sat in a chair in front of it.
    “This is serious then?” Elias asked.
    “Very much so.”
    Elias remained silent and waited for Tomas to continue.
    “You know that our space projects caused a lot of protests by the world governments outside of the League and Concordis, primarily with Russia and U.S. They protested our right to explore and build facilities on the moon and other planets in the Solar system, citing the Space treaty. The League and Concordis, gave us permission, and responded to their protest by saying that they didn’t sign the treaty and that Olympus was a company not a state, since then Russia, India and the U.S. have been trying to get