Blue Star, the Equator Construction Belt.
Waves of heat mingled with the pungent smells of ozone and metal coolant, rolling across thousands of kilometers of scorched earth.
Viewed from low Earth orbit in outer space, Blue Star's once azure, temperate equator now seemed to wear a fearsome, imposing ring-shaped collar of steel.
A thousand colossal building complexes, larger than the limits of human imagination, were rising along the equator!
These were the planetary engines.
Each engine's central propulsion nozzle and main furnace chamber were enormous, with a base measuring an astonishing thirty kilometers in diameter.
And if one included the peripheral ring-shaped energy-absorbing foundation responsible for supporting the pressure of the crust, the heavy-element fusion storage silos, the superconducting cooling circulation stations, and the barracks for the stationed combat engineers-
The footprint of a single engineering complex reached a diameter of sixty kilometers, enough to drive any traditional architect to despair!
The Equator Engine One construction site.
An engineer was busy on a cantilever 2,500 meters above the ground.
Wearing a fully enclosed protective suit equipped with active temperature control and magical purification, he solemnly checked the Holographic Three-Dimensional Tolerance Diagram before him.
Violent high-altitude air currents slammed into the meters-thick Composite Armor Plates on the engine's exterior, producing a dull, thunderous roar.
Yet beneath his feet, the entire mountain of steel stood immovable.
"Load-bearing column number three has a vertical tolerance of 0.017 millimeters, meeting deep-space propulsion safety standards!"
"The first layer of high-temperature-resistant ceramic lining in the heavy nuclear fusion ignition chamber has been cast. Nanoscopic Inspection Robots are conducting acoustic scans for microcracks!"
"The energy pipelines and the underground nuclear fusion power grid have completed their seventh grid-connection pressure test!"
Reports from hundreds upon thousands of working groups crowded his headset.
In the ring-shaped chasm beneath the