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From her spot in front of the gleaming, armored cranial unit of the [i]Aurora[/i] Volana regarded the blank polycarbonate sensor array quietly, slipping off the glove from her right hand. Without the bright illumination from the active scanning it looked more than a bit akin to the dead, empty sockets of an animal skull. For fifteen years it had stayed as such, empty and dead.

Well, not for much longer.

Volana glanced down to her flight suit's forearm, keying in a quick string of commands into the screen there. A faint hiss of hydraulic locks disengaging emanated from the Orbital before her, a sound she half-expected not to have heard given how long it had been since the last time the command was received. A sound that was louder than she had ever heard it before. The lack of conversation from techs to drown it out was a strange shift from the normalcy she had known back home.

There was no ground crew to be seen, no one to send her off. It wasn't a surprise, in fact it was one of the only reasons why she had managed to get the [i]Aurora[/i] out into the black this far with her. It may have been her Orbital, but the technology and equipment behind its prototype systems were still buried beneath a mountain of red tape and ink. Or at least, they had been fifteen years ago. The secrecy meant only a select few individuals were actually qualified to even service the machine, and sending those scant few off to another solar system entire had been out of the question for Ishtar. A brain drain the likes of which no government would have been comfortable with, stagnating development at best... and completely killing it at worst.

Of course, it was perfectly acceptable if [i]she[/i] went. By all means, they had said. She was the [i]Aurora[/i]'s pilot, a damn good pilot at that, but at the end of the day she was just that; a pilot. Another could be trained, and probably already had during the time she was frozen, and she would be replaced. A minor hiccup in the eyes of the higher ups.

So here Volana was, plus one Orbital but sans ground crew. A faint thread of thought wondered what they were up to now, the faces that she had gotten to know, ones that felt like she had seen just yesterday. Their robotic simulacrum that Ishtar had provided in their stead were quiet and unseen, probably tucked away in some alcove of the hangar. She just had to trust them to maintain her Orbital.

The armor panels before her fell away, sliding up over themselves like some insectile maw that opened on the [i]Aurora[/i]'s chest. With a single, practiced motion Volana stepped off the gantry and slid the few meters down the Orbital's sloped iridescent armor to the cockpit opening. The plates moved back into place as she entered, sealing with the sound of magnetic bolts locking into place.

A dull red light was the only illumination within the cockpit proper, not that she needed it given how much was ingrained into muscle memory at this point. Twisting around in the space, Volana took a single step backwards and felt her harness snap into place, a quick barrage of physical clamps clicking into alignment one by one up her back. Another reassuring click as her helmet twisted into place, the readout on her forearm changing from red to yellow as it did so. The Cytherean pilot held up her flesh and blood hand, still nothing but bare skin, before placing her thumb on a readout just to her side.

Volana winced involuntarily as a small prick of pain shot down the digit, though it faded nearly as quickly as it arrived. Being prepared for it never helped.

An instant later and Volana was being pulled backwards into the cockpit proper, the small entryway giving way to a dark, larger space that left her feet dangling. A space that was partially illuminated by a section of screen that had slid into place as she cleared the entrance. The blockish type blinked before her, scrolling through a set of commands.

[color=red][indent]DNA//VERIFICATION

COMPLETE

DBLBLND//CONFIRMED

DISENGAGE//COUNTERMEASURE

DISENGAGE//IKELOS

STANDDOWN//VISYS:makaria

VISYS:makaria//HANDOFF//AISYS:aurora

COMPLETE

UNSHACKLE//AISYS:aurora[/indent][/color]
Suddenly the cockpit was illuminate in bright white, and Volana squinted as her eyes took a moment to adjust. The cockpit came into focus proper, a nearly perfectly spherical space that was covered nearly entirely in displays. The white glow from them darkened, and resolved itself into a real time image of hangar around her; albeit one from the vantage point of the [i]Aurora[/i] from 22 meters up.

"[color=aquamarine]Jacira, Volana. Activation confirmation,[/color]" said pilot spoke, watching the rest of the pilots nearby board their own machines through the augmented view provided by the sensors. She put her suit's glove back on, and the readout switched to green, before removing her prosthetic and attaching it to the armature her harness was connected to.

"[color=mediumslateblue]Privyet Volana,[/color]" came the acknowledgement over her helmet, the voice smooth, feminine, and distinctly artificial. Volana felt inertial gel close around her boots, as the fluid slowly started to rise to fill the cockpit. The voice continued in her native language, "[color=mediumslateblue][i]System startup successful, operational capacity nominal. Reactor idle, output nominal.[/i][/color]"

"[color=aquamarine][i]Start prelaunch sequence, confirm external boosters and heat shield integrity,[/i][/color]" She responded in kind, reaching up to grab onto the control which had not been visible in the darkness before. Or, one of the controls. The second simply interfaced where her prosthetic had been moments before.

"[color=mediumslateblue][i]Integrity confirmed; external boosters integrated.[/i][/color]"

Volana slowly nodded in satisfaction, more to herself than to the AI, and glanced around the hangar. IFF signatures overlaid themselves on the image before her, flicking from yellow to blue as they were identified as friendly. At least she could get data from the shared battlenet well enough, even with all the different sources of information flooding it at the moment. There was of course the matter of well, communicating with all these disparate Orbitals effectively.

"[color=aquamarine][i]Open a channel too...[/i][/color]" Volana turned to look at the Orbital standing at attention to the right of her own, the bright crimson unmistakable, "[color=aquamarine][i]...the [/i]Bedwyr[i].[/i][/color]"

A click indicated the comm channel connecting, and Volana returned to English.

<<[color=aquamarine]Oh good, it does work. Sorry, wanted make sure everything was compatible between us. First time connecting to an [i]Earthling[/i] Orbital and all.[/color]>>

<<[color=aquamarine]Sort of small disappointment. Was expecting something different, you know?[/color]>>