The Connacht Summit

[Luminium]

CONNACHT DEPOT, DUBLIN SYSTEM, FREE MOLLY STATE

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Dublin has barely changed. It was still the same lone yellow star circled by resource-rich asteroid belts, bathing them in warm light that would never give rise to life. Yet something was also missing. Silence greeted the rare visitors to the system. They darted around cautiously while keeping one eye on the sensor feed at all times. It was best to conclude their business as quickly as possible and depart. The signals of trade convoys and the chatter of mining crews working the gold fields were a memory of the past, as were the cheers and shouts from the famous Hood race track.

Finding Connacht Depot was easy, if you knew where to look. Its central structure was built out of a cargo storage platform that was a common design in Sirius - a large, airless warehouse for dumping ore with a small pressurised section for crew quarters and administration facilities. The station was once meant to be cheap and disposable, but now it had a fully sealed interior and sprouted multiple extensions: salvaged ore smelters, habitation blocks and recreation modules. Not all of these were well-integrated into the station complex and some were still under construction, haphazardly bolted onto the hull and linked with a network of struts and conveyor belts. But it had a sense of permanence now as a well-established outpost for the Mollys.

Minister Burns was quietly working, engrossed in his reports. He was alone in the observation lounge, where the meeting was to take place. It was a half-circular room, reached by a grungy lift not far from the docking bay. A large curved window gave a good view of the rest of the station, columns of fire and smoke rising from its furnaces, obscuring the distant stars. An unopened bottle of whiskey and some glasses were set up on the table in anticipation of the IMG delegation's arrival. Soon, their representatives will walk in, flanked by a pair of dour, well-armed Mollys. Until then, there was always another report to view. The minister glanced at the bottle and reached to pick up the next sheet of paper from the stack.

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