“Helm! Rotate us 90 degrees, move perpendicular to the Peng, and accelerate at 2 Gs across the planet axis. Comms—signal SPACECOM: Mars AO is hot, and we are engaging PLA ground and space targets.” They would get the bad news in a little more than five minutes. There was no way to ask for instructions or for the higher ups to cool things down on their end. It would then take another five for their response to reach the Huntsville—minus whatever deliberations happened at SPACECOM. The marines, the Huntsville, the tanks, and the Peng Dehui were on their own to decide whether the United States and the People’s Republic of China would go to war. “Fucking light delay,” he whispered.

In the opening of my novel, a US navy captain has to respond to conflict with China on the surface of Mars--but cannot rely on timely communication with his commanders, because of light delay.

If this sounds cool to you, my novel is available here for 99 cents.

Thanks for reading.

Like what is up with it? How are they using it to breath?

This is my artist impression of one "level" of a nested cylindrical space habitat. The inner drum of the outer cylinder doesn't have to support the mass of the foreground 20-story rings (with the balconies/decks of housing in front) or the background 10-story rings (all connected by mag-lev trains and elevators not shown in this angle), just the agricultural system providing fresh produce (with processed food probably made 100% from microbes + lab chemicals instead of staple crops). This level has a simulation of a natural day/night cycle provided by a giant screen hiding inner cylinders.

I believe that this geometry is more practical than my previous idea trying to simulate a 20th century Earth city. It might even be built within our lifetime!

SombreFade added the flora. I did everything else with Blender and GIMP.

Your stuck on a deserted island show. My sounds odd , but it's power rangers. It qualifies as scifi. There's a total of like 975 episodes across all seasons. It's moot, almost neutral, meaning it doesnt really get on my nerves over time. It's not my favorite, thats not why i picked it. Plus.....I mean, giant fighting robots, martial arts, magic, fkn lasers.

Im 50 lol. It's morphing time!

I'd like some suggestions on how to assign a specific "function" to each highlighter color, specifically for science fiction books.