ON, VSV Astarte
High Orbit Over Mazerin
Bukor 12, 936
7:03, Commonwealth Standard Time

It had been half a day since the Astarte's maiden battle, and for the very first time in her history, the ship was finally fit for service. Repairs were complete, and only slight discoloration on the aft section even hinted at the vicious plasma and radiation damage that had been inflicted by the NVR battleship's final attack. After hours of intensive patching (that might be more adequately referred to as surgery than maintenance), repair crews from both inside and outside the vessel were finally returning after undoing the last of the damages.

The ship's beginning had taken on an ominous note with the defense of Mazerin against what was an attempt at genocide by the New Veyrin Republic, but even with a skeleton crew, they had managed to pull through and prevented the worst. With all hands on deck and a full crew, there was no doubt the vessel would be ready for her maiden voyage.

Despite that, it felt a bit rushed. Traditionally, one of the first ships of a class should be christened in extensive ceremony, but they scarcely had the chance for that. The Astarte seemed to have earned her christening in battle, earning some measure of renown by wiping out an NVR battlegroup so quickly.

The name seemed less ironic now.

----

A day ago, Serhan Nejem had watched the battle from the bridge, anxiously feeding his runners orders and providing his own tactical know-how to the Captain of the ship. Now, and for what he hoped to be the last time, he was helping the FTL adjutants on the bridge finalized the calculations for Fold travel. It was something entirely out of knowledge base, so he often found himself just watching over shoulders and verifying output from the engines.

In effect, he spent most of three hours up to this point watching bars and waves synchronizing with other bars and waves on a screen that he had been asked to watch while they worked. It was exactly as uninteresting as one could imagine, although Serhan had gone through the tedium of staring at a screen for three hours without moving a muscle, only calling out numbers until the engineers had gotten the drive up to working order.

With everything ready, he sent a notice to the captain's suite, informing him that the ship was ready go to.

----

"Phew. Looks like we're all done up here."

Khiyai Sahrzad had admittedly had a fairly easy job of repairing the VANDR this time, with most of the damages being superficial enough that she and the other mechanists had just needed to plug the units into their racks and let them regenerate normally. Some of the units had plasma scoring that needed to be excised manually, but the ship was automated enough that they'd only marked off a few of the targets.

She glanced over at her superior, Alia, who had been working on a few units adjacent. "A-7 through B-16 are taken care of, ma'am. They'll all be ready to fly in less than an hour."

"Huh? Looking at this, seems if we had another Raevr..." Malik Ibn Rashidan had been busy since the Astarte's first battle. Besides the ceremony to honor those who died, the Vaybalri had attempted to work out a training schedule for the wing, with the purpose of getting everyone to work well together. He had gotten mixed results on that; and then he managed to run into Nenetl in the hallway, with what had happened there leaving him verily confused.

And slightly turned on. Was that supposed to happen?

Currently, Malik was in the Astarte's rec room, linked into his datarod. The Erla VANDR II and Raevr VANDR were both new, and someone in the first squadron needed to know every single thing about the capabilities of them.

Mu'Tasim grunted as he curled up heavy weights on the other end of the recreation room. He still wasn't at 100% concerning his physical aptitude, but with the mass of what he was lifting, most would assume that he was more than able. Up and down, Up and down, slowly went the weights used, as the Temple Guard was trying to get the most of out of them. Then, he set them down for a break, grabbing a near-by towel to wipe some sweat on his forehead, and some off his bare chest.

Unlike most times when people saw him, Mu'Tasim was wearing only shorts and a pair of shoes as he worked out. As a result, the usual, quaint appearance of the man was glossed over with sweat, with a chiseling build, making him appear more like the Sund Wakir he was, rather than a Temple Guard. He looked to be on a mission, as he lifted the weights back up, and got back to it, doing a different form of exercise with them. The events of the past few days were pushed out of his mind as he strained his muscles further in the intense weight training.

Mridula slowly made her way onto the bridge - she was dressed in her uniform (which was a little disheveled, her turtleneck a bit crooked), her frazzled hair still pulled back in a low ponytail. Her eyes had the telltale haziness of someone who had been drinking - not heavily, but she was clearly slightly buzzed.

She wound her way through the people and equipment on the bridge until she found herself standing in front of the bored-looking Serhan. Of course, he always looked bored. "Vaytulri Osei reporting for duty, Marranr," she slurred.

Akjit sat in the VANDR bays beside Nightmare. His sketch pad was out again, and this time, he was finishing the final touches on his latest bit. A single Erla VANDR II flew through space; in one hand was it's lance, a round, slightly cracked and charred object rested in the other. The Ivouri reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a small silver cigar box, only to smoothly open it up to reveal several colored pencils. Akjit's fingers reached down with precision and picked out the red one, and added the first color to the small drawling.

Red oozed and blossomed out of the escape pod and into the dark void of the sketch. A frown slowly worked into his face, and with fury, attacked the sketch with large movements of the arm and grandiose slashing of the crimson pencil tip. A single sketch-slash punctuated the sound of his work, signifying that he was done. For all that effort, the change was minor; the EVII in the little notepad was now weeping tears of blood as it flew across the starry night. Globules of it's tears were left in it's wake as it went on and on into infinity.

The Ivouri closed his leather bound pad and put it away for later, letting out a sigh of relief. He still had lots on his plate and already banished that other pilot from his mind. No time for petty grudges; he still was thinking of the why's behind the attack, and the mystery behind Nightmare, whom stood over him. Drawing what he felt always helped, and this wasn't an exception. Feeling better, he stood up to go off and do something, but was struck by an epiphany.

"Now what do I do?"

Isha rather unintentionally snuck up on Malik in the rec room. She was in her workout clothes, and had been hoping to find someone from the squad to pick up a game. She came upon Vaybalri Rashidan first, however, and found him to be rather out of place. "That's not much of a recreational endeavor," she commented from over his shoulder.

Ah, yeah! What a day yesterday had been!

Battles, drinking, and then some much required rest. The young Vayshirin had gotten himself quite tipsy a good eight hours ago, but was now fine. For some reason whenever he drank a lot, the tips of his fingers and toes would swell up a little and itch, but that was pretty much all that was left of that. By now he was completely sober, so he was fine with showing up at the bridge. He needed to, of course, because unlike Frame Runners, he was one of the members in charge of getting the ship running.

"Vayshirin Jaralei reporting for duty, Marranr." He had only approached Serhan once Mridula had finished looking a bit shameful in front of the Marranr. Man, thank the Saints Malik told me to watch my alcohol... wouldn't want to look like an idiot when I finally start to take a more active role on the Astarte...!

Since Firuz had never had a strong role aboard the Astarte, it was only natural that Vaytulri Osei hadn't really noticed him. He had only had a couple of test runs with the ship thus far, and was only a Vayshirin, but once he had his little interview with the Marranr, things had been starting to look up, and today was the day he took up the role of full-fledged Spaceship Operator. Thankfully, his reputation somewhat preceded him... or at least, he was pretty good at his job for being so low ranked. It was due mostly to the fact that he was raised navigating commercial spacecraft that he had been able to marginally excel more than his compatriots, who hadn't managed a space vehicle until Astral Vanguard boot camp.

At the moment, of course, he felt a bit excited and a bit nervous. But he followed standard 'calm down and relax' thoughts as he did last time, so he was a bit more at ease now.

Chanda had came into the work out room, nodding to the Sund Wakir as she stretched, warming up for a short workout routine. After a bit, she had grabbed a practice staff, and was running through various katas, the pole swirling around her at a decent speed.

As if to break up the Vayshirin's reverie, five figures came up behind Firuz. Two, standing what seemed an impossible height for a normal Iromakuanhe loomed behind him. Be cloaked giants would be a closer approximation, much of their appearance hidden save for a rough outline of shape, unnatural circles of light coming from underneath their shrouded faces, forming the vague outlines of eyes and strange unnatural features. What could be discerned from up close was a spindly gauntness of character and flat boards and blunt, rounded hands that seemed to sway from out of the cloak.

Ahead of them however were three shorter and decidedly more "Iromakuanhe" people. One, a gruff looking man with an eye-patch and gray hair simply surveyed the bridge while walking past, the rank pin of a Vaygraiv standing out on his uniform. He carried himself rather well, reserved, calm, poised, the wrinkles and bright luminescence of his 'good-eye' giving away the fact his hair wasn't a fashion statement, but a reminder of his age.

The next shortest happened to be a woman with gray hair as well, however she looked decidedly younger. A look of serenity seemed to be suffused about her person. Wearing a crisp white labcoat and a Vaytulri rank pin, her amber eyes held a smile behind them as she walked beside the Vaygraiv.

The shortest however was the most oddball of the five next to the hulking figures behind them. With a head of pink hair that fell to her ankles, a svelt frame and very short in stature, the girl's bright golden eyes just seemed to dart all over the place. Her attire was even odd, from the light beige felt coat that had a white fur lining near the neck, and on down to the sleeveless dark blue turtle neck and short, yet bright blue skirt she looked every bit a civilian and not one of the military.

In truth, she was. While the turtle neck covered one of the more obvious signs upon her rosy, pale skin, her horns however were a lustrous white that twinkled with glowing components. One of her pale hands had been clasped by one of the labcoat wearing woman's own dusky hued hands.

The Vaygraiv merely nodded to his XO as he passed, moving on to begin collecting reports from his operators while the four had stopped in front of him.

The shortest though, seemed to be the first to answer as Amari, the woman in the labcoat was about to speak.

"Hello Marranr!" her lilting voice greeted. The oddly attired little Iromakuanhe waved at the somber man with a burst of enthusiastic energy, thoroughly enjoying the sensation of doing so. "I'm very happy to finally be able to do this without having to resort to one of my holographic screens and a mere facsimile of myself being projected .~" the girl said bouncing slightly as she stood there.

Amari however just wore a very amused expression on her face as she watched her small counterpart. "Yes...as you can see, she took very well to the transfer." however the look she gave Serhan seemed to try to convey she had not been the one to pick the girl's attire.

Serhan nodded to the new arrivals, standing up to greet the group. On many fronts, he found himself tested, but was at least able to rely on the dependable characters of the Captain and Field Physician. Even if it was for a fleeting moment to introduce their newest arrival, seeing Amari at all brought him a small peace to his mind and a slight upturn to the corner of his lips. The bland visage cracked slightly.

"Vaygraiv, Vaytulri." He said with a polite warmth, giving Amari gentle a pat on the shoulder as he approached her, before turning back to the other arriving Warrant Officer that had managed to pass him by on her way in.

"Vay... tulri." Osei was another issue entirely, one that tensed his back and found him wanting to berate her, but he relented in doing so at such a time. Although he could not exactly go on to judge her for failing to return to sobriety in proper time, there was little point in doing so as anything more than a concerned reminder. To a degree, she was untouchable.

At least until she was shortening lives other than his own through a means other than stress.

And then there was the new Altjiran body housing the core intelligence of their fleet. An OMNI-type data construct, more powerful than all the vessels in their flotilla and one that approached him in mental age, that had taken such a childish guise. A body of a young girl that could easily pass for one of his daughter's schoolmates, with an otherworldly sort of beauty that seemed to defy the purpose of her construction.

Ishtar was once the core of a great warship, after all. He held back the urge to frown. I don't exactly see the utility in that body type, but I suppose that she's at the age where we're required to give her the option. I don't see the reason for that... sort of body.

"I suppose this will be the first time we meet face to face." The Marranr nodded again to the NI and her two escorts, and cleared his throat. He would have ordinarily given a curt and professional greeting, but he already had something of a working relationship with the intelligence. "You seem well within that body."

----

"Well. You could start by helping me carry some of these spare parts over to the offices, idiot." Akjit heard a rather annoyed voice say directly above him, coupled with a small clanging and shaking of glassy objects inside of a plastic container. The voice belonged to a girl wioth a decent tan, perhaps a year or so older... or younger than the frame runner, dressed in a working outfit up to her belt, and what appeared to be the uniform sleeveless turtleneck above it. Her face and what was mounting up to be an impressive bust based on the dimensions of her hips, were concealed behind three stacks of boxes.

"I know it's not in your job description and you're too busy-to-do-anything-except-angst-about-taking-lives, but I could really use a hand right now." She explained, sounding vaguely exasperated.