[b]Frostbiter[/b]
[b]Deep Space[/b]

"How long has it been?" Abe asked the technician sitting opposite him.
"About a hour..." the young technician said, turning his head to the clock on his personal device, reclining on the table beside them. A rumble of giggles and faint laughter echoed from the seats surrounding them.
"No, in Alsibassi" Abe responded with frustration. Dumbfounded surprise wiped over the technician's dark face.

"Oh uh... Sek...mirconna... uh... majar tar?" The technician's accent became clunky and slurred with the foreign words tumbling out of his mouth.
A device pinged itself and another person got out of their seat and left, treading between the curtains and crates of the research hanger. Half of Abe's drop in class on Alsibassi had to fit their education between work duties, thus the preference for a drop in class. 

"That was... alright, though I can tell you haven't gotten far on the audio-guides I provided to you all" Abe swayed his head to tell the rest of the class and the empty seats.
"I hadn't got the time this week, a dozen of our escort satellites were hauled in for repair and barely any are back out" the technician defended himself, Abe could see the scratches and scabs on his hands.
"Okay well we'll leave it at that for today I guess" before Abe could finish, people already rose from their seats.

Soon all the chairs was empty, and Abe was regulated to packing up after his own classroom, folding and stacking chairs back into a sealant frame.
"Class is quiet huh?" Wing commander Willow shouted, Abe quickly turned in surprise as was locking the frame.
"They literally just left Commander" Abe told the officer pilot as he trapesed down to him. 

"Well good, now that you've packed up, the Captain has called us up to the CIC" Willow retorted, picking up the papers on the table like he'd left them there himself.
"Did the Captain say why?" Abe asked, moving to collect his things on the said table as if pushed into a rush.
"We're heading into a new solar system and a nice little planet needs some boots on it's ground" Willow told Abe, leaning against the table.

"Okay well give me a second" Abe asked the commander.
"I got yah, though I've been itching to get into a cockpit for weeks. There's only so much theory and manoeuvre plans you can write up, ya know?" the Wing Commander informed the envoy.
"Yeah" Abe didn't, but the tedium was suitable for a tedious man.

-=-=-

The images lifted themselves from the holo-table and wrapped themselves around an invisible sphere. The blue haze of the sphere coated itself on everything surrounding it, on consoles and work stations, it glazed the faces of everyone present around the holo-table.
"That's a rather soaked planet" Willow commented with a smirk to the captain and Abe.

"It's an entirely oceanic world. A dozen drones are already on the surface making sub-scans for life in it's depths. I'd like boots on the ground and set up an observation post, before we start investigating it's waters" The Captain said to the wing commander, the head researcher, the tactical envoy and Lieutenant Tethys.

"If I may Captain..." Abe started, the Captain's deep blue eyes slung up to match his. "Why do we require such a strong military presence?" A wing of strikecraft and teams of dispatchers seemed a bit too much for the envoy. 
"Well Mr Var Constavos, I'd prefer having too many people than too few" the Captain answered and got back to the briefing as if to quickly move on.

"You'll enter the atmosphere with the outpost foundations, probably on a near surface atoll or reef. Any other questions?" The Captain asked and scanned her vision around those at the holo-table. With a lack of further questions In the space between them, the Captain dismissed them all and Abe had a light fluttering in his stomach all of a sudden. [i]It wouldn't be that bad, would it?[/i] Abe thought as he thought about what he needed to bring planetside.