Klaus Robar-Fulton floated out of the pristine white transit shuttle after it had reached its stop and took a moment to take in the view of the city.
Sandan looked vibrant as the local star rose up from the horizon and illuminated its rays over the planet of New Constantinople VIII.
As the founding colony of the planet, the Devos Ancient Clan had invested a lot to build up the city's infrastructure and facilities.
The modern Terran architecture made this expansive settlement look a bit too new for Klaus to get accustomed to. The original intention was to turn Sandan into a beacon of civilization.
That policy changed after the Great Severing took place.
Now that humanity lost access to a huge amount of support from the Milky Way, everyone living in human-occupied space had to make peace with the fact that the aliens might come for them all one day!
While Sandan still featured a dizzying amount of delicate and highly artful structures, the defense forces became more and more visible with each passing day.
Construction bots erected turrets as quickly as the available supply of raw materials remained sufficient.
Powerful first-class mechs patrolled the streets and the skies with greater frequency.
Entire construction crews had been contracted to erect additional bases and supply depots.
The vision for Sandan had completely changed. It was no longer supposed to be a paradise away from the Greater Terran United Confederation where many of its residents emigrated from in recent years.
It was slowly transforming into a fortress before everyone's eyes. The fresh new paradise that people yearned to settle in so that they could climb up the ladder and become the new movers and shakers in a society that had yet to be carved out was becoming an increasingly more distant dream.
Klaus found this to be profoundly sad and ironic.
Just like every other Terran on the planet, he never signed up for this kind of life.
If his father hadn't gone into debt back in the old galaxy and been offered a way to redeem himself by accepting a long-term work assignment in the new frontier, Klaus would have still remained safe in the highly protected territories of the Terran Confederation.
That part of his life was gone forever now. The fourth year mech design student had little choice but to accept this new reality.
Klaus let out a sigh and floated down onto the ground. Hundreds of other students arriving from afar did likewise.
No matter whether the students came from distinguished clans and resided in private villas or rented more modestly furnished apartments built in neighboring towns like himself, each of them had to go through the security checkpoints situated at the main gates.
The Eden Institute of Business & Technology instituted this policy just before the start of this semester. It was yet another sign that the Age of Mechs had passed for the people who ended up stuck in the Red Ocean.
Klaus walked through the corridor while a dizzying amount of scanners verified his identity and checked for any dangerous contraband.
As a civilian from the Terran Confederation, Klaus was unable to afford the luxurious internal weapon modules that merited greater attention from the security guards.
Once he got through, he began to follow the crowd and walk towards the center.
The large auditorium had opened its gates once again. Thousands of students and staff members poured in because they all grew curious about the opening lecture of a newly hired professor.
Klaus didn't know what to make of this absurd circumstance. He thought that this treatment was only reserved for the most honored and accomplished Master Mech Designers and business magnates that decided to hold a guest lecture.
He did not understand why the Eden Institute granted the best possible treatment to a young second-rater who held no status within Terran space.
Certainly, this young professor did have a number of impressive accomplishments to his name.
Klaus did not consider himself to be a Terran who automatically looked down on second-raters as subhumans, but that did not mean he was able to treat them on the same level as himself.
Terrans were the original humans. Each of them were born at a much higher level than any second-rater. The augmentations that they received along with their much more advanced schooling propelled each of them into geniuses in their own right!
The only reason why Klaus did not feel he was remarkable was because he was surrounded by people who received the same treatment or better.
He swept his gaze around and spotted many groups of students who possessed a more obvious bearing of superiority and class. Their smart clothing looked more refined in all of the little details that were difficult to replicate with cheaper tech.
These were the true princes and princesses of Terra. Their higher stations granted them access to the best gene optimization treatments and implants.
Whereas Klaus had to struggle a lot in order to memorize and comprehend an astonishing amount of learning material, these highborn scions could easily absorb twice as much knowledge in the same amount of time!
Klaus deeply envied the descendants of wealthy clans and families, but he had lived in this society long enough to know that Terran society was deeply stratified.
A relatively ordinary citizen that belonged in a lower layer had to work extremely hard just to obtain a chance to be promoted to a higher layer.
Comments
The readers' comments on the novel: The Mech Touch