[b]Amar Cenadi
200 km from capital[/b]

It was a dark, cold and rainy day in the city. In the days of modern man, such weather was characteristic of a violent and life-threatening cyclone; in the age of future technology, this was just another negligible storm, and not even an occurrence severe enough to halt launches. Of course, other catastrophes take place when others fade to insignificance. Such as meteor impacts, or barbarian invasions. Osteros Madus, his arms pressed against his sides in an effort to slide through dozens of crewmen, slipped through the iron doors of the [i]Ceco[/i]'s cockpit. 

The room smelt of grilled [i]Mardijas[/i], with hints of Cabac mead mixed in. Even for a room simply designed to navigate the corvette, there were a few pieces of art and decoration stuck around; some were built-in as part of the classic Canzanese design, others were later installed by the crew. Such example is a colored painting in the center of the rain-soaked windows, tacked to the partition. On it was the face of an Adarro male in his 70's, with a glimmering blue exoskeleton and ruggedly handsome features on the face underneath, known to the general populace as the incumbent Emperor Cadacasus. Another were the murals at the edges of the semicircular ceiling, with depictions of Escerianic scenes on the far left, Qasteric scenes on the far right, and general Canzanese and Maratigal historical events at the center. Interestingly, the exterior of the ship-- and most ships of the Empire in general, seems to be void of any decoration and follow simple, minimal designs.

Activity was hectic. If one could understand all the jargon being thrown about, most of the talk was all about a pre-colonization reconnaissance mission, or to make it simple, checking a planet if it has everything the telescope-slash-spectrometers said about it. If the instruments said that a certain planet had high concentrations of iron and rests on the habitable zone, but the mission denies it, then they could simply look elsewhere. Otherwise, without a mission, time and resources are wasted on making dozens of colony ships return-- just one fuel-efficient recon ship going there and back here is enough. 

Osteros descended slowly down the steps to meet with his brother up front, taking a bottle of mead from a crewman that immediately took the initiative to serve him along the way. Cemau Madus, able to hear Osteros' treads approaching closer among the sea of noise, raised his left hand in a welcoming gesture. The [i]Corator[/i], after sitting down and taking a quick swig of a Cabac, sensing the burst of bittersweet flavors swirling and gushing in his mouth, leaned to his side towards his brother. (Neither of them are heirs to the throne.)

"You know..." Osteros said.

"Yes, yes, I know what you're talking about." replied Cemau, "Qadem ain't a very nice fellow, and you don't like him."

"No, that's not what-" said Osteros.

"Outsiders, sure. You've been talking about them for the last... three years. The heir you keep griping about how you don't like him for like, five. Calm down. We don't even know if they're real yet. Besides, we'll just speed away if we ever saw one, because all they speak is good old gibberish, and we haven't even figured out the art of breaking language barriers fast."

"Ugh." Osteros groaned. "You have no sense of caution."

"And you're pessimistic. But enough of that, we're about to do the job."

"Wait, I-"

The room trembled and shook, and the heart of the engines raced as the ship began its vertical ascent to the grey skies. Immediately the remaining few crewmen who forgot to sit beforehand sat and buckled up, trying to secure themselves before the [i]Ceco[/i] would suddenly thrust itself forward, upward and away from the skies of Maratigal, dropping raindrops from its hull. The ship then stopped again to adjust its position, calculate, prepare and engage its warp, and in the blink of an eye the Ceco was no more from the vicinity of the world.