Like other residential towns built around military fortresses, nearly every business in Hovey Town catered to soldiers.
The residents built their homes from prefabricated slabs cast from slag and timber felled from the cold-region coniferous forests. The roofs were covered in dark-gray shale tiles. Some traditional Turaxians still used fireplaces in their homes, and deep-red chimneys could be seen rising from their snow-covered roofs.
The townsfolk had clearly failed to plan their roads well when building their homes. The streets between rows of houses were crooked and winding, stretching all the way into darkness beyond the reach of the streetlamps.
As the Kel-Morian-controlled territory on Turaxis II continued to shrink, their aircraft could no longer take off under cover of night to bomb cities controlled by the Terran Confederacy. The blackout order had therefore been lifted. Every shop was lit up, its display windows bright and open. Mid-range restaurants, travelers' hotels, gun shops selling semi-automatic firearms, and bars with sexy women standing at the entrance.
Augustus walked shoulder to shoulder with Warfield along the streets of Hovey Town, followed by the noisy Heaven's Devils.
Augustus wore a three-eared hat made from the fur of a Kayadir Bear-Toothed Beast. His cold gray eyes calmly surveyed the town and its people. The biting wind howled as the thick fur wrapped snugly around his ears and the back of his neck—only the bravest alien-beast hunters dared venture deep into frozen planets to hunt such ferocious creatures, but his brother Arcturus seemed to have many such trophies.
"The Confederate Senate on Tarsonis announced a new round of economic sanctions against the Umojans yesterday. They expelled the Umojan diplomats stationed on Tarsonis," Warfield said as he walked beside Augustus. "The reason given was that the Umojans exported advanced technology to the Kel-Morians, funded anti-government elements