To outsiders, it is the Veil--a shadow over stars, a black pit in the universe. In space, light is life, and this small, cold, dark place--anchored between monolithic empires--has remained ignored.

Dark nebulae rarely play host to stars--but this one is an exception. Nestled within the Veil--which its inhabitants refer to as Tartarus--is the star Erebos, with its host of worlds. Among them, Asphodel, final resting place of humanity.

Tonight, these humans reach beyond, to the skies. Tonight, for the first time they send a man into space.
Mission control smells of nervous sweat and midnight coffee. Balding men in slacks bark vectors, fuel figures, telemetry into bulky beige headsets like some frantic cult of telemarketers. The rocket's rumble drowns them.
[img=http://i.imgur.com/iCrJVPC.jpg]
It is cheap, lean and elegant, simple in both purpose and design. Margins are narrow, and any failure now would assure disaster--but these are constants in the industry, mere facts of physics.

"...central engine shutdown--"
 "prep for orbital insertion."
"Fairing jettisoned. All systems nominal. [i]Gödel[/i] is away. Beginning lunar injection burn."
[img=http://i.imgur.com/PyUGZ8W.png]
Bright cones of light blossom from stern, and [i]Gödel[/i] ascends, like some four-horned demon out of hell, upwards, to desolate Akheron.