Elara Rennway stood at the helm, frowning slightly as she directed the ship away from one of the many cloud towers that covered the sky in these parts. She’d been in the navigation room all day, and various maps and charts were spread out on every nearby surface. The clutter served as evidence that she’d been going over the ship’s current course, checking and rechecking every aspect of the journey, not that she was likely to make a mistake in the first place. 

The sailing master was not extremely happy at the moment. The Aleph Null had been sailing less and less smoothly over the course of the last day or so, and she hated to keep it at this kind of pace. She had felt the ship lurch in the sky only moments earlier, as she was sure every other crewmember had as well. The captain wanted them to go undetected and so they would. This particular stretch of sky had an ample amount of cumulonimbus clouds reaching up into the blue. It was perfect for sailing unnoticed, though she supposed that itself could be both a blessing and a curse if their target decided they didn’t want to be seen either. Fingers tapping lightly on the helm, Elara kept her eye on the skies, like always.

At least the winds seem to be somewhat favorable today, she was thinking to herself as the captain and first mate came into the room. Elara looked over at them. “Captain,” she said, nodding her head in greeting. She gazed out at the skies as she spoke, traces of unease detectable in her voice. 

“I’ve been going over the maps,” she started, briefly gesturing to a few of the frankly extensive amount of papers currently out in the open. “If the information we have is good, this is just about where the target’s going to be. Frankly, I’m surprised we haven’t seen them already. As you can see, there are plenty of cloud towers out here, so it’s possible they’re just out of view.” There were all kinds of possibilities really. The target could’ve been delayed, or it could’ve been warned ahead of time. However, Elara had an uneasy feeling. Maybe the winds were a bit too favorable. Something was probably going to go wrong, she thought. Something usually did.

She paused, clearly irritated. Elara had never been skilled at hiding her feelings, and she truly never bothered to try. “With the way we’ve been going through the chop these past couple of days, maneuverability’s going to be down when it comes to fighting. Especially at this speed, a quick getaway’ll be hard on the ship. In short, we probably should’ve come across the target by now, and the ship’s not in the greatest flying condition to boot.”