September 12, 2041

~6:00 AM CST

Today was going to be a historic day for the Plutonian Empire. Gene Empire and Amy O'Rinn were at the Plutonian Space Agency, seated together with countless command controllers in the main Mission Control room, at the back. Also in the room was a small news crew from TPEIN. At the front were was a main, big screen at 16:9 aspect ratio, with two smaller screens on both sides.

On the main screen was the trajectory of an airliner-sized, remote-controlled drone currently on the ground at Neuve Pluton International Airport, with a HUD overlay bearing flight and space data. The drone itself was a modified "PlutoCon" short for "Plutonian Concorde," inspired by the 20th Century's only supersonic airline. The Plutonian variant had a shorter, wider fuselage, completely round if seen from the front. It's wingspan was shorter and wider as well. Current versions of the airliner had a tri-jet configuration similar to a 727, with all 3 engines on the tail, but all partially built into the aft fuselage instead of as separately mounted components. Planned future designs had a more traditional 4 engine design. The PlutoCon was originally borne from the mind of King Gene himself from when he was a teen at the turn of the millennium.

On the top right screen, was a wingview from the drone from within the fuselage looking over the right wing, with the curved delta wing taking up a portion of the bottom half of the screen. It was currently taxiing to the runway from a government hangar. The bottom right screen was temporarily displaying a feed from TPEIN, the Empire's public 24/7 news network, for the duration of this mission. The two screens on the left had additional flight and orbital data for the mission. Once the plutocon drone was waiting in line behind a dozen other airliners, TPEIN magically hijacked global communications as the controllers in the command room began the go/no go polling.

The TPEIN anchor of the hour was a busty succubus with brunette hair and D-cup tits, sitting at her desk. She introduced the mission, saying only that it was going to be a very historic flight, and that TPEIN was as out of the loop on the purpose of the mission as the rest of the world, and providing commentary. She also introduced King Gene and future Queen Amy O'Rinn as they waved to the camera.

Ka-foom!

Right then and there, at the very first ever public mention of Amy being the future Queen of the Plutonian Empire, millions of Americans exploded in total fury, appalled that their most notoriously treasonous traitor in recent memory would be given ABSOLUTE POWER in the Plutonian Empire. Amy sensed their rage and smirked, knowing full well Americans were watching her smirk, feeding their rage even more, ad infinitum.

The succubus anchoring TPEIN this hour had to refrain from smirking too, also enjoying the collective psychic rage coming from the Americans. She made commentary about the mission specs, the design of the plane, the engines used, and so forth. She also mentioned that both the PSA and the Plutonian government requested cooperation from NASA and several other surviving space agencies for one hour ar most. The PSA wanted their cooperation only in the sense of confirming or refuting signals recieved from the drone for peer review purposes, and that they would be allowed to install their own signal transmitters on the drone, so they weren't required to participate much. The only space agency that accepted was the European Space Agency. after several minutes, it was finally the drone's turn. The sound feed from the wingview camera was already on, transmitting the sound of the rear-mounted engines. The engines were modified and enhanced versions of the P&W JT8D-200 engines used on old MD-80's, retrofitted and enchanted to produce enough thrust for hypersonic flight. The sky had mixed sets of winter-time clouds, with a similarly wide variety of cloud types that Minnesota used to have before climate change began to spiral, as the weather control magic extended for a few hundred miles from the island. A few moments after the drone lined up, facing west, the all clear was given; go/no go polling was all go. Within seconds, the engines roared to life, going from the traditional jet sounds, to the rumbling droning as they increased thrust. TPEIN maximized the window displaying the live feed from the wingview camera, with the view of the TPEIN broadcast on the bottom right, PSA mission control on the bottom left, and ESA mission control on the top right.

The drone accelerated, booming down the runway as the outer passenger terminal closer to the sea rolled out of view. The spoilerons (aileron/spoiler hybrid) on the leading edge of the wings on both the upperside and the underside, an unusual design choice, helped keep the drone stable as it pitched up, working together with the trailing edge elevons (elevator/aileron hybrid, like what the original Concorde had) and the rudder, located on the vertical stabilizer (tail fin). The innermost spoilerons closest to the fuselage also doubled as a spoileron/elevator hybrid for even finer flight control.

The drone, still flying straight, flew over the island's mountain range, formerly part of the mid-Atlantic Ridge, before passing Nuke Factories to the city's south, revealing beautiful space age architecture of a major tech-, magic-, and science-oriented city. Once the drone was over open sea, it pitched up again and maintained a 45° upward pitch as it reached 245 knots, penetrating two cloud layers and staying at that speed until it passed 10,000 feet. At this point it slowly accelerated to supersonic speeds as it continued climbing, penetrating another two cloud layers, still maintaining a 45° pitch. Once above the highest and last cloud layer, cirrus at 50,000 feet, the engines roared to max thrust. The plutocon rocketed out of the atmosphere within a few minutes, the engines sounding fainter and fainter due to rapidly thinning air, before turning off as the drone crossed the karman line. The sound of the engines was almost immediately replaced by an ever so faint hum. The plane banked 90° to the right, so the wingview camera was now looking at Earth, the clouds speeding by, before parts of South America came into view for the first time. The drone slowly accelerated, endlessly turning right as it reached orbital speeds previously thought impossible. Even more impossibly, it's direction of flight always immediately matched it's attitude. The faint background hum seemed to intensify at lower tones or weaken at higher tones as the drone maneuvered in space. At this point people the world over realized something was up, as the drone rounded the Earth twice following an equatorial-ish path, before drastically slowing down at an unprecedented rate as it reached 50,000 miles from the planet, fully lit. The faint hum seemed to come to a rest, and one could see parts of South America; a tiny sliver of Canada; most of Europe; all of Africa, the Black Sea, and what was left of the Arabian Peninsula; portions of the Middle East; and Pluton Island, a white, snowy speck half the size of Hawaii's big island almost halfway between South America and Africa on the Tropic of Capricorn. The planet had pitifully less green than 20 years ago, as the environmental destruction caused by human greed and nuclear warfare took its toll on the biosphere. The jungles of Africa had expanded somewhat, but in the middle of it right on the equator, there were signs a torrid zone was beginning to develop; an equatorial climate zone utterly too hot for ANY life at all. The still mostly-blue seas had occasional faint brown streaks and swirls, giving an ever so vague appearance similar to a broken swimming pool in those regions. So far the ESA still gave acknowledgement they were receiving the signals from onboad the drone the whole way through, with half the staff on their view expressing shock or excitement at the Empire's newfound capabilities.

The succubus mentiomed the PSA had started a five second countdown, with the PSA window showing several controllers counting down with their hands/fingers. During the countdown, the drone made an orientation adjustment, pitching up about 20 degrees and slightly turning to the left. A second after reaching zero, the faint hum increased pitch above what had been previously heard, as the full Earth suddenly seemed to accelerate to the right beyond all precedent. A millisecond after Earth had completely vanished from view, the TPEIN anchor gasped, partially covering her mouth as she saw a faint, fuzzy white line fly past the drone that she instantly recognized, and began vaguely smiling as she finally realized what this space mission was truly about. The looks of shock on the faces ESA scientists spread like wildfire.

Fourteen seconds later, another fuzzy white line sweeps past the drone a mere second before a gibbeous Mars showed up, coming in from the left, making almost all the ESA scientists o-face in surprise, some covering their mouths too. The TPEIN anchor spoke again, saying the drone was now transmitting pulses to the Martian colonies, and that magical microwormholes stayed open the whole time, and another one opened straight between Earth and Mars. Sure enough, after a few moments, the ESA confirmed the European colonies on Mars had recieved the transmitted pulses.

With that, the PSA room broke out in cheers and applause as the news anchor announced, with the biggest grin on her face, that they have confirmed that the Plutonian Empire has broken the light barrier without time dilation, with the news banner on the bottom changing to "Breaking News" and with the bold text in the big white space saying "TPE BREAKS LIGHT BARRIER, DEFEATS TIME DILATION." After a few minutes of cheering, with tons of high fiving and congratulatory remarks from Gene and Amy, the PSA mission control crew settled down enough to be able to complete the mission and bring the drone back to Earth and land at Neuve Pluton international.

Within moments, the drone began moving again, flying behind Mars, rounding it until it was a crescent, so it could aim at Earth. After another 5 second countdown just to be safe, Mars swiftly flew off to the right as the drone again reached superluminal speeds. The sun came in from the left, slowing down as the drone decellerated, before Earth came in from the left and blocked the sun as the drone dropped out of warp behind the planet. Once again, ESA confirmed they were still hearing from their transmitter on board the drone. The drone circled Earth twice as it got closer, flying above Africa for the last time as it approached the Atlantic. As a final feat, the drone was able to enter the atmosphere at a slower, non-burning speed. Once there was enough atmosphere, the jets restarted as the warp drive powered down. The drone descended through the clouds as it approached Neuve Pluton International, entering Plutonian airspace and following the approach pattern and flight regulations for the runway. Within minutes, the drone landed and the leading edge spoilers fully deployed in conjunction with the thrust reversers. Once the drone was off the runway, the TPEIN anchor announced that the mission was over, and the TPEIN staff sent signals to the world's broadcasters to warn them of the impending handoff as the anchor made final statements and commentary. Soon, the global broadcast hijack ended.

Social media was firestorming the rest of the day, about both Amy being announced as the future Plutonian Queen, and the historic day for not just the Plutonian Empire, but also for humanity, having defeated a major scientific and engineering barrier long thought to be impenetrable. ESA sent out a statement as well, saying they wish the PSA had involved them more, but understood the desire to keep it as a surprise.

Within hours, a celebration party was being thrown by the Plutonian government at Gene's Hangout.