And to wrap things up, the opening scene from Profiteer:
For a hundred million years the two-kilometer-long Face had stared impassively up at the Martian sky. Dimitri Olmanov had only been visiting it regularly for the past century.
The first time he had seen it, Dimitri had needed a pressure suit and the sky had burned a hostile red. Today he survived wearing only a heavy parka. Today his breath fogged beneath an infinity of crystal blue that was only slightly tinted by clouds of engineered microorganisms.
His doctor would curse him for not using a respirator. Dimitri, he’d say, your new heart has quite enough trouble with the stress of your job. Don’t burden it with a too-thin atmosphere.
His general staff would object to him being out in the open like this— even with the omnipresent Ambrose. Too much risk in his job without inviting assassins.
The Confed publicists wouldn’t like to have it public knowledge that Dimitri— the Dimitri— had a sentimental streak. They made much from the mythical Iron Man at the head of the TEC.
He could ignore them with impunity.
The Face, Dimitri could not ignore.
He was the most powerful human being in the Confederacy. He needed to remind himself that there were things bigger than he was.
You can start with exposition, You can even start with exposition in a prologue, which is often a deadly combination. What makes it work here is we have a character and a setting, and a good dose of implied conflict. It also gives us a lot of background information in a short span of time, background about the technology, about the political structure of the universe, and about Dimitri himself and his role, and about his character.
