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Chapter 402 End of Watch

Aron had never attempted to take cultural identities away from the people under him, but had instead supported them in their diversity and different heritages. All he asked was that they were human first, and cultures second.

To his left was a guard detail of a hundred ARES troopers from the ceremonial brigade. They were standing ramrod straight with their rifles held before their chests. Aron nodded to the detail leader and ordered, “Detail, salute!”

The hundred soldiers shouldered their ceremonial rifles, updated versions that had the same appearance as the venerable M1 Garand, and raised them to the sky.

Then a hundred rifles spoke in unison, again and again and again. The firing continued uninterrupted until 6,881 shots were fired in total. After firing the final shot, the leader of the funeral honor guard brought the detail back to attention and shouted, “Now their watch has ended!”

Six thousand, eight hundred and eighty-one soldiers had died, and six thousand, eight hundred and eighty-one shots were fired by the funeral honor guard in tribute to the soldiers’ willingness to sacrifice their lives to defend their homes.

A squadron of EF-14 Daedalus jets flew overhead in close formation, dipping their wings in salute.

The funeral was over, and the crowd broke up, heading in much smaller groups to the individual graves in the field behind them. Each grave was covered in a mound of soft dirt and had a holographic headstone that included a picture of the occupant and a brief history of his accomplishments during a life that was tragically cut short. The holographic headstones themselves were in various shapes to honor the beliefs of the people held within.

And for those that had no remaining family, Aron had brought their brothers in arms to visit them in their final resting place.

For the rest of the day, until dusk cast the last rays of red light over the horizon, Aron walked from grave to grave, saying a brief few words about each of the fallen soldiers, as prompted by Athena, who had actually interacted with them every day. He took her stories and made them his own, a move done out of compassion that also happened to ensure the continued loyalty of the surviving family members of the fallen troopers.

……

The rest of the world, meanwhile, had also begun the long process of recovery. While the number of people who had died in the war seemed like a lot, that number of casualties was actually miniscule to humanity as a whole. The worst damage was to the global economy.

Nearly every company dealing with anything related to space had either gone bankrupt, or was on the verge of bankruptcy once the news of the blanket of space junk spread. Once people found that out, especially those formerly rich power brokers, the entire world nearly turned hostile to Aron again. If he hadn’t announced that the process of cleanup had already begun, it would likely have erupted into another armed conflict. He had also issued a press release offering highly paid jobs to any and every engineer with credible qualifications from the bankrupted companies, and made generous buyout offers to those that were teetering on the edge that allowed them to shore up their faltering businesses.

No one would have been dumb enough to believe an empty promise, but coming from the person who had turned science fiction into science, the people of the world chose to give him a chance. This was due in no small part to the influence of the creator of the Marvel comic books and the actors involved in the Marvel Cinematic Universe coming out in support of him and bringing their legion of worldwide fans to essentially drown anyone who tried to drum up opposition against Aron. Even Stan Lee had gotten involved, posting a single phrase on Pangea that hyped up the crowd surging behind Aron and Eden.

“Excelsior, Mr. Michael!”

That single, short post had done more to gather support behind Aron than anything he could have said. After all, he was still seen by most as a terrorist and villain, but with the support of Stan Lee, the Father of Heroes, Aron’s reputation turned around and he became a hero for his efforts in cleaning up orbit and rescuing failing businesses.

(Ed note: Stan Lee was an American patriot and volunteered to serve in the Army Signal Corps during WWII. That said, he was always willing to stand up for the “little guy” and wouldn’t have bought into the propaganda painting Aron as a villain. If nothing else, the hospitals and schools opened by the Coeus Foundation and the lengths to which he went to ensure that disabilities were accommodated by the GAIA OS would’ve convinced him that Aron was a good guy. Stan Lee was far from stupid, after all, nor was he blind.)

Beyond the space industry, many other businesses had also taken serious hits thanks to the wholesale destruction in orbit affecting the parts of their infrastructure that were dependent on the existing satellite networks.

Companies that depended on maps and accurate location tracking, like FedEx and UPS, or other logistics companies that delivered goods, had floundered. Weirdly, they were joined by many chain restaurants, like pizza places, that also relied on offering delivery services as a large part of their income. But whether they were delivering critical supplies to hospitals or just a pizza to a house party, all of them had suddenly found themselves in danger of going bankrupt.

Thus, Connect Enterprises stepped in and allowed the satellites launched by Aron to replace the GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, and BAIDOU navigation networks, filling the hole that was bleeding those companies dry. And beyond simple GPS services, the Panopticon network provided all of the other satellite services that used to be provided by governments around the world, allowing for normal operations to resume in many other areas as well.