[b]Kourou, French Guyana[/b]

	It began with the traffic. Expansions to the [i]Centre Spatial Guyanais[/i] always did. Ships arriving at the port in Cayenne fifty kilometers down the river offloaded endless streams trucks, tractors, trailers, shipping containers, and heavy machinery. The N1 highway that ran southeast-to-northwest along the coast from Cayenne to Kourou, although expanded in 1982 to deal with the [i]Armée de l’Air[/i]’s expansion of the CSG, was clogged with contractors and construction workers. The short-distance Guyanese rail line from Cayenne’s port to the CSG was constantly shuttling freight back and forth. Even the light people-mover was packed to the doors with workers in high-vis vests and hard hats.

	The CSG had already been developed into a sprawling complex across the Guyanese coast. Kourou, a historical little town of colonial French pedigree, became the cantonment area for a system of headquarters and administrative buildings. Military forces from all branches maintained already significant presences there, as well as French scientific and space offices. The accompanying barracks rose from the dirt roads of old Legionnaire bases and Kourou itself had developed itself into a service town informally called [i]Le Bourg[/i]. Anything a young soldier could want, Kourou had it: bars, clubs, restaurants, barbers, tailors, sex workers, and more. Respectable employees of the CSG lived in Cayenne, away from the raucous parties of the [i]Bourg[/i] in Kourou.

	Inside the perimeter, a multinational and interagency maze of offices presented a massive challenge for any one body to administer. Military units competed for motor pool space with civilian scientists who needed new laboratory structures, requiring a solution not unlike a miniature provincial government. CSG was split into several zones that were allocated to tenants of the facility. A compound was specifically designated for the French military and an OTAN international liaison facility on the west side of the facility adjacent to training areas cut into the jungle far beyond the paved roads of CSG’s main area.

	Directly to the north of the military zone, an NLC control area had been established. Within the high-tech compound, Legionnaire patrols left and returned to [i]Zone Rouge 10[/i] with their artifacts in tow. Facilities decontaminated the personnel and their vehicles, examined and assessed their payloads, and rendered NLC artifacts safe for further processing in the scientific offices of CSG’s research component. The factory-like appearance of the control area towered over the jungle beside it, with another intricate system of decontamination washes and pits leading up to its automated motor pool offload area.

	A [i]Centre National d'Études Spatiales[/i] compound was the beating heart of the [i]Centre Spatial Guyanais[/i]. Built out from the core launch pad that was established for the first French spaceflights in 1965, the CNES owned six rocket pads lined up neatly alongside the ocean. The [i]Armée de l’Air[/i] owned another two dedicated exclusively to classified military launches. CNES, in cooperation with French companies and industry, had sponsored the creation of a vehicle assembly and manufacturing complex where spacecraft were assembled on site in massive factories before being moved to hangars to await launch. French space operations had achieved a capacity of mass production as the military and civilian sector clamored for space capability.

	Born from CSG, the French network of information satellites was simply referred to as [i]La Constellation[/i]. It was a constantly maintained mesh of communication, measurement, surveillance, navigation, and military satellites run out of the center. French vehicles, ships, and planes received directions and coordinates from the joint OTAN [i]GALILEO[/i] global navigation satellites. Satellite phones and internet relays were run through the [i]SÉMAPHORE COMSAT[/i] network. Intelligence observation satellites maintained constant eyes on adversaries that rivaled the Soviet Union’s capabilities. Rumors of anti-satellite and missile defense weapons were abound in the French media, although these were never directly addressed by the space authorities. Many of these hangars and command posts at CSG were classified.

	More importantly, the French had launched a manned space station in 1974. From a simple laboratory in space, astronauts worked feverishly to mature the capabilities to live and work in zero-gravity. By 1981, the French government established a program to augment [i]La Constellation[/i] and establish dominance in the newly-conceived doctrine of space warfare. [i]Les Quais[/i] became the reference for France’s equally impressive collection of space stations that now numbered into the teens. From small manned laboratories to large cylindrical habitats providing Earth-like gravity and living conditions, Kourou was now charged with supporting a permanent presence in space.

	As such, many of these launch facilities were designated for routine workhorse logistics operations. Rockets loaded with supplies and replacement crews constantly launched, docking hundreds of times a year to support France’s increasingly complicated system of orbital facilities. Alongside the CNES’s launch, maintenance, and production facilities was an equally impressive campus of training and personnel management buildings designed to efficiently prepare astronauts for their orbital rotations. After the collapse of Cape Canaveral into a red zone and the crippling of America’s space infrastructure, CSG now competed only with the Soviet Baikonur Cosmodrome.

	While CNES maintained the largest civil component of the base, various other French research and government institutions had opened field offices at the CSG as it became more convenient to be closer to space-based experiments. Out of the jungle, trees along the coast were chopped away to build structures, sensors, industrial facilities, and laboratories. A true city of science had emerged within the last decade, and it was only getting bigger. The trucks and trains that clogged the N1 highway all headed into the northern portion of the facility where large gravel parking lots were flattened out to control the influx of traffic.

	Construction fences quickly went up around a plot of land, with boards bearing the flag of the United Nations adorning the entry gate to the compound. “UNITED NATIONS INTERSTELLAR ENGINEERING FACILITY”, a clumsy name, was stenciled on the boards. The fences hid the fabrication of the facilities from view, but anyone could tell the construction workers were working fast. They worked through the day and changed shifts into a night lit up brilliantly by floodlights while the rest of the CSG clocked out at five in the afternoon. But the UN-funded overtime was paying off, and the contractors kept building all day and night through the heat of the South American jungle.

	As the facilities came up for the official parties of the UN mission, more of their delegates flew into the towns of Kourou and Cayenne. They rented apartments with yearlong leases, opting to extend. For the property managers, it was a boon of income. But it betrayed their intent to stay: the UN compound was furnished with modern office buildings and high-tech conveniences. It was no mere temporary camp. Their personal automobiles clogged the N1 road with the rest of the contractors, and the French authorities were now discussing widening the highway again. The patios of the cafés on base were now filled with voices speaking foreign languages unusual for even the OTAN staff: Portuguese, Japanese, Hindi, and even Russian.

	As the construction crews worked on the UN facility in the distance, the CSG continued its operation. The construction was paused only for launch windows, when all traffic lights on the base would flash red and indicate the motorists stop. Although much of the rocket propulsion was contained by massive concrete bowls that directed the force out and upwards, the CSG police, themselves a uniquely empowered arm of the French [i]Gendarmerie[/i], mandated everything stop for the ten minutes before and after a launch. But it was back to work as soon as the rocket cleared the facility’s airspace, so routine that most people barely paid the launches any notice.

	All [i]Adjutant[/i] d’Avout could think of when he pulled through the gate every morning or got through the crowded lines at the base exchange for lunch, was how much of a pain in the ass the influx of people had become. He could barely get a haircut without waiting an hour, not to mention find a spot to lift weights at the gym without two more people breathing over his shoulder. Most of all, the international civilians were the people who confused him the most: he knew what to do with a Legionnaire who was crowding the bench press, but not a Brazilian scientist.

	So he commuted, day in and day out, handling his business at the Legionnaires’ barracks on the west side of the facility. He cursed the traffic and he cursed the lines. It was obvious, however, that the UN was there to stay: he’d better have to get used to it.