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'FAR HORIZON' SILESSIA ORBIT - Even shrouded as she is by the pre-launch support framework, the Far Horizon is an awesome sight. The colony ship is kilometers long - larger than some groundside cities - a series of silver-white cylinders sparkling from within through hundreds of port windows. The central habitation pillar is surrounded by a ring of six fusion drive units that will one day propel this ship into the great unknown, north of the Blue Drift.
When fully loaded, the Far Horizon will become home to fifty thousand colonists and flight crew members. To accompany the human colonists are more than ten million terrestrial animals stored as cryogenically frozen embryos, each smaller than the period at the end of this sentence. However, while the embryos are all on board in special refrigeration modules, most of the human colonists remain on the planet below.
"When we are operating at full capacity, we can bring two thousand people aboard the ship every day," said the expedition leader, Captain Anders. "Two thousand people is pretty much the limit of both our heavy lift capacity, and the airlock and berthing systems. Unfortunately, since the Hegemony lock-down we haven't been able to bring aboard two people, much less two thousand."
The Marakan Hegemony fleet occupying the Silessian system has imposed a moratorium on all in-system travel by civilian personnel, ostensibly to prevent terrorists and saboteurs from striking the colony ship. However, until the embargo is lifted, no progress can be made in bringing aboard the more than forty thousand colonists living in the quarantine center on Silessia. "For now, we can only watch and wait. And hope that this delay doesn't cause us to miss our launch window," said Captain Anders.
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