Orbital by bill zhao copyright 2017 Bill Zhao Table of Contents act one (earth)

medical technology allowed him to look more or less in the middle of
his fifties. “You must be Derek Ragston. Please, come on in.” He smiled
and gestured for Derek to walk on through. As Derek entered the room,
he was surprised to see how minimalistic it was in design. Nothing more
than a wooden table, a few chairs and a Holo-monitor. The image being
displayed between the two projector bars was of the Grand Canyon. A
slideshow was being played.
“
Take a seat, Derek.” They both did but Derek maintained his homicidal
look at Mar n. “Now I understand that you tried to overtake an official
USOC military outpost. You killed four hundred of my men and destroyed
tens of millions of dollars’ worth of technology. I just don’t understand.”
Now it was Derek’s turn to speak.
“
Your army targeted us, opened fire on us when we only arrived to collect
equipment.”
“
Equipment that you would have used to repair a defunct spacecra , and
what? Go flying around space terrorising civilians?”
“
To clear my name. Our name. All we wanted to do was to reach the Icarus,
and the fact that your men ac vely tried to stop us meant that there is
something at our des na on that you don’t want us to find.”
Martin retained his calm composure. “Well despite that, it’s still illegal
to land an unlicensed, homemade rocket so close to a military
installation. An installation that was overrun by your forces.”
“
But that’s the thing. We didn’t land. You shot us down before we could do
anything.”

---

“
All I saw were reinforcements to an already dangerously growing amount
of Orbi-Sec allies. And those allies of yours, what sort of lies have they
filled your head with? The son of the great Cameron James Ragston,
convinced that because of us, the earth is in chains. That’s cute. USOC has
helped build ci es across the world and beyond. We provided more
security than any military, fed more children than any charity and have
lowered poverty rates by forty percent. You want to see what’s really on
that ship? I’ll take you there.”
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Lullaby