Vice President of United States of America was running to the landing pad as my shuttle was coming down for landing, trying to tidy up his clothes and get a somewhat formal look. It was quite obvious he was in a rush.
As soon as the shuttle's crew hatch was unlocked, I jumped out.
"Welcome to planet Earth at it's worst." Vice President welcomed me. "I would like to greet you with a proper party, but unfortunately -and I won't even try to hide the fact- this is the best we have."
He didn't have many people with him.
"It is not necessary, it is my fault as the unexpected visitor." I said. "I get the president himself is busy with something more important."
He looked at me as if he was expecting something.
"The president is still in intensive care." he said after a few seconds of silence. "I am still in charge of his responsibilities."
"Still?" I asked. "I haven't got the news, what is the situation?"
"Yesterday, he blacked out in the White House. He was immediately flown to the hospital."
"I am sorry to hear that." I said. "So, Vice President, I would like to learn more, but unfortunately, I am not here for a diplomatic meeting. However, there is something I need to ask, so I will get right to the point."
"Please, Mr. President."
"I want an explanation on the Crystal Mirage's use on dwarf planet Ceres."
He looked at me, and a silence filled the gap again.
"We thought..." he paused. "We thought that you have gotten the message. We've sent it hours prior to the activation of the device."
"I haven't got any message." I said.
"How come? The complete reception of the message was confirmed!"
"At that time, I wasn't even on Mars." I said.
"Oh..." he said. "So that's how it is... There were news about your disappearance, but with all the chaos going on, we thought the news agencies were just feeding from it and decided not to believe in such rumors."
"Disappearance? What is- I wasn't- I had just..."
Now, to think of it, I haven't officially notified anyone of my departure.
"The activation of Crystal Mirage was an emergency decision by the Federation Security Council, Mr. President. When we received the news of Ceres' fall, we couldn't let these machines use your resources to replicate more of themselves."
"They can replicate themselves!?"
"Unfortunately, that seems to be the case as Pentagon shared the information." he said. "They are clever automated machines."
"And you decided to destroy Ceres' mining and refinery facilities, along with some of the machines. Did I get it right?"
"It was an emergency decision. We had no resources to spare in order to recapture the planet. Everything was dedicated to Earth's protection, though I can understand why you are still amassing your fleets around Mars."
"I didn't give any orders to Republic Navy yet. It is up to the grand admiral to manage the fleets right now, and I am sure he is doing what needs to be done."
The Vice President was not listening to me. His eyes were stuck on something behind me, far in the background of the scenery. I turned around curiously.
A Federation cruiser was falling towards the ground like a brick... A brick that's on fire, covering the sky with dark fumes.
We saw it hit the ground and create a fireball, which slowly turned into a growing mushroom. The explosion sound came some time after that, with a moderately strong shockwave that pushed us away, breaking a few windows and tree branches here and there.
As a former naval officer, I knew what was coming, and I was prepared to fall the safest way I could. I also had caught the Vice President of USA in the air to protect him.
"Thank you." he said as we both got back up from where we fell. "Hopefully that wasn't a nuclear one."
"It wasn't." I said. If it was, I would know.
"Cities being bombarded by random space debris... Death tolls are going to go off-charts."
"Vice President, I would like everyone to know that I'm here and safe on planet Earth. Republic of Mars did not lose their president."
"Of course, we will make sure that is well understood."
"But we did lose someone else."
"I'm sorry, could you repeat that, Mr. President?"
"What? I didn't say anything."
My voice was luckily too low for him to hear. I would not like to contribute to the chaos, with the death of a minister.
"Vice President, I won't take more of your time. I thank you for the reception amid this semi-apocalyptic scenario, but I am sure we both have better things to do instead of useless chatting."
"Of course, Mr. President, it's always an honor."
I hastily parted ways, and got myself a vehicle to fly to Quasistellar Corporation, the company that designed, manufactured and often maintained Vineuras, but did pretty much nothing else; one of the most trusted, so-called transparent, famous and also the richest companies in the Sol system.
When I landed on their landing pad, a majestic building was rising in front of me. One of the largest and most serious-looking modern buildings on Earth... Just by looking at it, you could say that these people meant business.
And apparently, the anarchy wave had not hit this region yet.
As soon as I got out of the vehicle, I had quite a lot of eyes on me. Coming to visit a corporation with pretty much no one accompanying me, amid all the anarchy... Even I questioned myself for a moment.
Yet no one was specially interested in accompanying me. People turned around and started minding their own business in a minute or two. I was but a random person for them now. I tried to ignore the weirdness and went to the reception as if I was a regular customer, the way I was treated.
"How may I help you, sir?"
"I would like to meet the CEO." I said. Simple and clear.
"How about I redirect you to our customer service, sir? You can be sure that all your s-"
"I want to see the CEO himself." I said.
"Sir, we can not accept-"
"I DEMAND you take me to the CEO." I said in a slightly more aggressive way. "Right now."
"Please calm down sir, I don't want to have to get you taken out-"
"No, actually you know what?" I calmly said, showing my identity to the reception. "Why am I even getting up there myself? Get your CEO down here. We have important business to talk."