As the Vitae sat in her cradle, its hull shining, and ports pumping out steam, its surrounding dock- a massive installation in the middle of the desert was a hub of activity. Even in the intense heat of the Sahara desert, work continued as usual. The catwalks were especially crowded as the last of the non-essential personnel and civilians began boarding- all the non cryo-genically frozen ones anyway, they were already placed into the massive cryogenic bays inside the arks. The perimeter and entrances to each Ark were guarded judicially, armed guards ensuring that only people that were supposed to be on the Arks boarded, not that many people had the starch to cross the Sahara desert, much less break into a guarded military installation. 

The interior of the Vitae was a structured shit-show, civilians milled around, mourning their leaving of home, and blue-uniformed security guards tried to make sure the traffic flow kept working, all the while the crew scrambled past them trying to make sure everything was okay and that the ship wouldn't crash and burn on lift-off. A big ship like this required a considerable amount of fuel and energy to propel into space, and they couldn't afford to refuel a ship if a take-off didn't work, not without jeopardizing the rest of the fleet- which was why many Armani suggested building the ships in space. 

Noticeable in the crowds of civilian clothes, military fatigues, and crew worksuits were the body-contouring jumpsuits of the Vitae's strikecraft pilots, the otherwise slimming gray suits was offset by the bulk of the EVA harnesses that several of them wore over their torsos, legs and feet. The pilots were in various states of dress- some wore their helmets with the visors open, while others hugged them to their sides. The pilots traveled in grouped clumps, their metal-clad boots clanking throughout the ship corridors as the jogged in the direction of the Vitae's hangars.

"Lieutenant Hawkins, please prepare your personnel for lift-off." Came the voice of the Ship's AI, Noah, through the internal speakers of Sara's flight helmet, which hung off the finger of her index and middle finger, slung over her shoulder. The back of the helmet had [i]'Twitch'[/i] printed in small letters just above the neck, while the back of her retro-styled bomber jacket displayed her actual last name. Standing in at 5'5", a combination of the slimming jumpsuit and her short height made her almost disappear in the sea of tall military men and crew members. 

"I'm well aware Noah, I just need these bastards to get the hell out of my way." Sara growled as she roughly shoved her way past crew and civilians, using the bulk of her duffel bag to complete what her smaller frame could not. The Vitae's hangar bays were a small work of technical marvel. A wide central walkway and catwalks, leading to individual cells for each squadron fighter, and a small engineering crew for each machine. When needed, one of many moving arms would pick up individual fighters and move them to one of the 14 launch catapults to deploy from the ship- the same equipment would be used to return fighters to their ship. The Alert 5 fighters were already positioned at several of the ramps in case the Vitae needed defense after launch. At the center of the main walkway, suspended over much of the hangar were the squadron lockers, and rec room. Across the floor, engineering personnel walked around busily, carts with people and equipment drove by, and loud machine arms moved around as the hangar made moves to prepare itself for the ship's first combat inspection. 

With Sara's Smart-Vision enabled, she could easily find her squadron members in the sea of gray jumpsuits, names and basic dossier information of anyone she looked at popping up as her eyes passed over them. Picking out the rest of the 7th 'Grave Robbers', exchanging some friendly rivalry with one of the other squadrons. Her squadron noticed her immediately as she approached- of the Vitae's modest air corps, Sara was one of 20 female pilots, and one of three female squadron leaders, and gave her an assortment of lazy salutes, chrome arms flashing, to which she dismissed. She wasn't much for formalities in situations involving other pilots and military personnel, and only pulled rank when sufficiently annoyed. 

Like Sara, most of her squadron- and most of the air-corps for that matter- were Armani. The Armani was as native to space as a human could get, which naturally lended itself to tasks involving space and traveling through it. While much of the Arman fleet had been decimated during the 3 Day War, the remnants of Armani had built themselves a new generation of spacefaring warriors, and their best and brightest were sent to the Arks to protect the ships in ways only the Armani could. As such, the hangar bays had the largest percentage of chromed and aug-ed out individuals. For Armani, augmentation and improvement was a culture, and several of Sara's squadron members proudly displayed their cybernetic augments.

"Hawkins!" one of her own pilots called out, walking over to greet the squadron leader. "Its about time we finally got off this damn desert, huh?" the pilot said, holding out his hand. The pilot was young and fresh faced, much like Sara; but also like Sara, the pin on his jacket marked him as a veteran, and his Smart-Vision dossier identified him as Loch.  

"Loch," Sara greeted him as she clapped the pilot's hand in a friendly manner, "Looks like you boys are getting along rather well." she said with a nod to the pilots of 3rd Squadron.

Ryan 'Nessie' Loch was Sara's subleader, and was very much her foil. Whereas she was hot headed and dynamic, he was calming and sometimes unbearably logical. Any further conversation between the two pilots however was cut off as Admiral Locke appeared over the shipwide speakers, and began a short speech. It was one part curt, one part inspiring, and the pilots in the hangar gave the Martian commander a general murmur of approval. 

With the Admiral's speech over, Sara waved her hands around and a general circular motion to the rest of her squadron. "Okay boys, you heard the Admiral, prepare for lift-off. EVA Harnesses on and all pilots on standby in the next 5 minutes, go!" 

With that, the squadron broke, some heading towards their strike craft, Sara and others heading towards the locker room, where the EVA harnesses were stored.