After the moon, Rocky and Lucy test the rest of the solar system
The moon still carries human footprints and corporate hardware. The other worlds do not. They are quiet, empty, and honest. The two of them walk strange ground, feel different rocks and weather, and use the suit scanner to read each planet's minerals as they go. It feels like honest exploration, not a sim.
When they have "played" the solar system, they look outward. Past the heliopause, there are places no one here has touched. They are unknown, and they are calling. With the ship's faster-than-light jump, Rocky can finally lift the veil. Soon, the two of them leave tracks outside the solar system.
The farther worlds are even stranger than anything in-system. He crosses many star systems and still does not find life. He does not see an actual paradise world either. He expected this. The universe is too large. Finding a haven is hard. What he does find are resources, and a lot of them. Many planets carry rich mineral belts that matter to Ascension Technology.
…
A nearby, unnamed galaxy
A small world under a thin sky
The ship settles on a flat plain. The suits wake their scanners and post the first readout.
[ Radiated Planet ]
[ Planetary Climate: intermittent radiation storms ]
[ Planetary Resources: rich ]
The suit's hazard protection spools up and keeps the ambient dose outside the threshold. It is a radioactive world, but not an extreme one. For them, this is a first.
Lucy takes a slow look around, curious. Rocky is more excited than curious. He switches the helmet to mineral scan. Just as he guessed, the planet is full of radioactive ores that Ascension Technology needs for energy work and weapons research. On Earth, megacorps lock these sources down.
Getting raw feedstock is hard. Development cannot slow down, so his eyes turn to space, where no one has filed the claims yet. Here, he finds exactly what he wants.
He draws a gun-shaped multi-tool from the suit rack. In the No Man's Sky catalog, this device mines, scans, shapes terrain, and even fights if you slot a weapon module. He activates the Mining Beam, and a green lance cuts across the rock, breaking organic minerals and common ores down into molecular feed that the suit packs into its storage.
For deep, dense metal seams, he swaps to the Terrain Manipulator, a multi-tool add-on that carves and fills ground in controlled volumes. It is perfect for opening a vein and building a shelter if needed.
The visor pings a nearby uranium seam. He shoulders the multi-tool, brings the Terrain Manipulator online, and starts peeling ore from the slope. The beam chews through the overburden. The refining process breaks the load down. Uranium joins the stack in the suit's backpack.
The first batch of radioactives is in hand. He does not overmine. He logs coordinates, notes the grade, saves a short field report to the starmap, and moves on. This trip is for travel. Mining is a side effect. A Marvin team can come later to do it right. He needs more than a few hand-carried kilos.
…
They cannot wander forever. After a time, they arc back toward the Sun and reenter familiar lanes. Honest exploration is not like a game. Real planets do not guarantee new biomes and wildlife every five minutes. Most are empty and harsh. The process is slow and often dull. Even so, the star sea hits hard the first time you cross it. For Rocky and Lucy, the trip is beautiful. It is enough.
Earth
Night City
Ascension Technology Space Base
Engines hum. The ship that carried them through their first space tour kisses the pad and rests. Rocky and Lucy step down from the cockpit. The journey ends.
The work resumes. From this moment, Ascension's goal is not confined to Night City. Night City is prosperous, but it is small and full of wolves. Every motion Ascension makes pulls corporate eyes. So Rocky chooses a different vector. Skip the international game. Skip Earth. Go straight to space. Bring an actual dimensionality-reduction shock to companies still playing in the mud. Today's trip is the first step in that plan.