The West
Now they found themselves in the land of the west. Part of their month-long adventure, doubling as a date, as they explored Earth.
From the overly authoritarian and socialist government back home to this military and economic superpower - a few steps ahead of their own nation, they had to admit.
Yet consumerism sprawled everywhere you looked. Capitalist but with widespread homelessness scattered across its cities. Democratic, yet the leaders weren't even trying to hide their wealth - basically an oligarchy masquerading as freedom.
Technologically backwards in some ways, but still the world leader in scientific advancement and research, especially in Quantum computing , artificial intelligence and commercial space tourism.
The power structure remained untouched for at least past four hundred years or more. Their bloodlines entrenched in power for centuries without a single successful revolt or civil war unlike most of the world. But just like their home country, the system had perfected quiet suffocation over brute force ~ dissent didn't disappear; it was gentrified into irrelevance.
Activism is a performance and protest is a budget item in the age of globalization. Not just here all across the world.
...
Warrior Training
Here, martial arts didn't exist in name, instead the system was given another title. There was warrior training, sure, but actual fights weren't powered by just human strength anymore - conflicts involve more guns and exoskeletons. They ruled instead.
But close combat and warrior training is not isolated but open as regular subjects among academics. Clans and large families don't exist. Legacy inheritance in training arts gradually reduced into secret arts after centuries. Those who don't end up better in warrior training will feel themselves as second class citizens in public even though law says otherwise.
The extreme warrior training is in military and clandestine forces, focused on endurance and reflexes, essential for piloting supersonic military aircraft that could hit near Mach 20, plus deployment in remote corners of the world, in marines, and in space under harsh conditions.
There were many among the public with considerable higher realms scattered around, but far fewer than back home. The dynamics between untrained and warrior trained ones in public altercations are often very delicate.
There were even many scientists who spent lifetimes studying the biological basis of Qi as shown in their historical museum. Many private essence beasts farms are in the countryside.
His company had caught the second most foreign spies from this place. If they'd established themselves here first, he probably would've already built an independent global company with unprecedented reach - able to place confidants within governments themselves to create profiteering policies across the globe. Well, he didn't really care about that anyway.
This country had recently been accused of supporting terrorists with biotech enhancements - fueling silent wars. Unlike in the past where military deals mostly involved exchanging firepower, these new silent transactions hadn't gone unnoticed. The criticism had been so intense that they'd actually employed military action to eliminate those they'd initially supported. Wiping their own mess, basically.
Space
The nation was now eagerly awaiting its space returnees from Mars, along with others from all over the world. It would take a few more months for them to arrive. Speaking of space exploration - human colonization on Mars, their adjacent planet, had started before he was even born on this planet.
After a couple of disasters involving loss of personnel and deaths in space, humans had settled there using self-sustaining conservative machinery that could power itself, mine resources, and occasionally receive supplies from Earth every two years.
It now housed over 2,500 researchers and service staff. But it was an outpost of scientists, not really a livable destination. Though yes, rich tourists visited there too and a large portion of far away planet is symbolically divided by nations on earth, on paper.
Currently in the middle of city.
Coming to the present...
The holo-display flickered in the dim living room of their temporary residence. News about the interplanetary return shuttle ARES - ferrying rotation crews back from Mars to the gigantic orbital transfer vessel - had been struck, apparently by multiple micro-meteor fragments traveling at hyper velocity.
Communications slowly failing, control systems shattered, and the vessel had split and slipped off its return trajectory. Didn't kill everyone, instead, they got separated. Now it was tumbling beyond gravitational assistance and accelerating into deep space, powerless and drifting. The crew was mostly intact except for a few casualties, but critical thrusters were blown away.
The repeated transmission of their last delayed communication played on screen: grainy, delayed footage showed the interior of the Ares Return. A cracked viewport revealed star-streaked blackness beyond, emergency lights painting strained faces in sickly red. Oxygen warnings blinked silently in the corner. The audio feed was patchy - mostly static, punctuated by a stifled cough, the murmur of someone trying to run diagnostics.
There would be no rescue. Even a best-case mission, launched immediately, would take over a year just to intercept. By then, they'd be long gone - lost not only to space, but to time itself.
The public had mourned. Vigils were held. Condolences streamed in.
And then, as always, the world tried to move on. But a few billionaires who'd gone for mars exploration and tourism were also aboard, so the concern was a little more evident.
Hye Won sat curled on the sofa, knees drawn up, her knuckles white where she gripped a cushion. Yue Lan stood near the window, arms crossed tightly. Both had been enthusiastically following the developments up until now. After a bunch of dates to valleys, hot springs, national parks, canyons, even volcanoes last week, the ladies had wanted to experience what it was like to live the quite and ordinary lifestyle and culture, so they were staying in this temporary residence.
Chen leaned back in his leather armchair, eyes fixed on the screen, face completely impassive. He'd watched similar disasters countless times over the past decades - factory collapses, refugee ship sinkings, warzone aftermaths, religious atrocities, fascist governments, silent murders... much more. This was just another distant tragedy. More than that, in past life, he saw the news and his mini reality of life and concern is not really affected by such interplanetary events.
...
"They're saying... saying it'll take eighteen months minimum to even try a rescue launch from Earth," Hye Won whispered. "By then..." She trailed off, the unspoken they'll be gone hanging in the void - food supplies wouldn't last that long.
"Evacuations from Mars don't have the capability either," Yue Lan added flatly, not turning from the window. "Not for something this far off-course and moving this fast."
A burst of clearer audio came through: a woman's voice, shaky and paused, singing a lullaby. "...close your eyes, my little star, .... sleep until the morning light...I will miss you..."
It cut off abruptly, replaced by static. A choked sob escaped Hye Won, the song was also one in her distant memory. The news overlay scrolled: Private transmission leaked; crew member Dr. Anya Petrova sending final message to daughter, 5, on Earth. It continued with visuals of her partner receiving the news, with a child in hand. Grainy visuals played ~ Anya, belted into her seat, whispering her farewell into a wearable device.
"Han Chen... isn't this terrible?" Hye Won asked.
" Terrible? may be." Han Chen didn't flinch. His gaze remained on the screen, watching the slow, helpless spin of the crippled ship.
"And?" She is asking for more. His voice was devoid of inflection. "If you have something to say, I've told you to always say it directly. I'm not inside your head."
Hye Won uncurled slightly, turning haunted eyes toward him - not accusatory, just desperate. "It's... it's the smallness of it, Han Chen." She gestured weakly at the screen.
"Not by a war. Not some hate crime, profit or politics, not martial warriors creating trouble. Just people who do good for the world through courage and science. Just... bad luck. A tiny rock. A split second. And now they're just... drifting. Losing hope..." Her voice hitched. "Did you see her hair? Petrova's? In the leaked clip? It was floating... weightless. She was trying to braid it. Just... tidying herself up for her daughter to have a last look. For a message her daughter might see properly but not her remains. It's so... human."
She looked at him. "You can reach them. we can't, not as of now. Not governments, not corporations. You. Before the air turns sour or the void gets in. It wouldn't be... interference. It would just be... stopping the drift."
"Why does this merit more attention than the thousand other deaths today? Or yesterday? Or the decade before? Suffering is the baseline state. The people involved will be liable and learn to do better, Hye Won. You know this. I've never pretended otherwise."
Yue Lan finally turned from the window. Her eyes weren't sad - they were sharp, analytical, cutting through the emotional fog to the core of him. "You walk past suffering, ignoring it because it's woven into the fabric of this mortal world you chose to inhabit, however detachedly. Fine. But this?" She pointed a finger, not at the display, but at him.
"This isn't walking past. This is sitting comfortably in your fortress of indifference while watching specific people die slowly. It's passive cruelty. You stopped me from overly helping others once. But you didn't do the minimum too? You don't feel any guilt, which means you're not human. Don't you feel like re paying the karma that the world has given you? How many have you killed in the process of stabilizing our company? Don't you feel like paying it back? Don't you feel its weight as we felt for you?"
She took a step closer, her voice low and intense. "You built up from shadows, Han Chen. You were shaped in this world. You live among mortals, bound to mortals... at least think - if your mother asked, ...no imagine your sister asks, if you could have saved them all , would you lie to her at last?"
Her gaze flickered briefly to Hye Won, then back. "For her, you are her superhero. You even love mortals, in your way. We are, your parents are, she is. If this is truly beneath your notice, if their slow suffocation truly means nothing against the backdrop of universal suffering... then what does that make us? Convenient ornaments? Proof you haven't completely shed your humanity?"
She didn't touch him. Her words were the touch. "Prove your detachment isn't just cowardice. Or prove us wrong. Act. Or let them die, watching it as... acceptable background noise."
Silence stretched thick and heavy. The only sounds were the low hum of the display and the faint whistle of wind outside. Han Chen didn't look at his wives. His gaze remained fixed on the drifting ship, but his focus had shifted inward.
His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. The utter indifference in his posture didn't crack, but something behind his eyes... flickered. Not sudden compassion, but perhaps a cold reassessment. The criticism had landed.
Paying with saving lives for each mortal he'd killed. Karma.
She'd learned to talk back with grace. Yue Lan's challenge - the implication of hypocrisy, the stain of passive complicity - landed with a different weight than Hye Won's raw empathy.
He didn't speak of heavens or grace. He simply pushed himself out of the armchair with a sigh that sounded like weariness. He walked past the holo-display without a glance, toward the door leading to the private hangar beneath the residence.
"Don't wait up, it might take a while..." he said, his voice flat, almost annoyed. As if he were going out to buy groceries, not crossing interplanetary space.
He paused at the door, hand on the frame, not turning back. "That feed. Turn it off. The static is... irritating. This place is full of signals here and there - my spirit sense picks up lightbulbs everywhere, unlike back in the mountains..."
"Yeah, we get it. Seconds passing..." Hye Won, now energetic, gave him an approving smile that vanished any trace of hesitation he had left.
"I'm doing this because you asked, not for them."
Then he was gone.