After the adventures in the medical bay, the crew gathers in the Galley for lunch and an informal get-together (all that is, except for Gabriel and Remiel's dopplegangers). Fred is being charming, and Nora is being.. well, nice. No need to frighten the new recruits. Liza and Remiel pair off to talk quietly, while Joachim and Nora seem to hit it off discussing.. logistics. Digger-of-Ancients tries his best to tell a joke with his glove's monotone voice, and Hakeber tells worse ones. Celeste talks to Fred mostly, and Katie sits with Tasha and Gabriel.

"I wish I could go with you," Katie laments. "Next time for sure though, when there's not any potential conflicts-of-interest.."

In a lowered tone, hands entwined and leaning over her coffee -- a drink she's steadily acclimated to given how often she's been offered Gabriel's -- Tasha says, "I've been thinking about that, conflicts of interest I mean. If you come with me in to space, I have a feeling we're going to have to deal with an increasing amount of them. Not just us, but everyone on board. We don't know what the future will hold or what we'll need to do, and there are too many powers and loyalties. Sometimes I wonder if I cna keep everyone together in the face of all of that."

"Most crews will run themselves, it's not for you to worry about," Gabriel says. "And Katie will technically be on leave for all that."

"True, I've got no requirement to spy on aliens, just Abaddonians on Abaddon," Katie notes.

"Well, that's good," Tasha notes with some apprehension, which may as well be a blatant announcement that she hasn't quite internalized the assurances and is still worrying for the two closest to her. "And most of the crew is Terran, so mainly I'll just need to look for any severe anti-Terran conflicts. And besides," here the young woman turns to grin at the older, "that's what my command staff is for. Or, as Gabriel calls it, 'delegating.'"

At the mention of delegating, Tasha feels a tap at her elbow, where Liza is standing with a tablet.

"It seems the person I delegated fixing my hopelessness at hairstyling needs me!" The cadet notes in a cheery, intentionally unnecessary remark. She then unfolds her hands and sits up, scooting around in her chair and looking up, coffee cradled in her lap. "Having fun with Remiel? Or, did you or he need something?"

"We've come up with a bunking arrangement," Liza notes. "It's based mostly on the fact that the recruits will be young, under stress, and have little actual work to perform. Dr. Caravelli and I have been watching them, and think the best setup is Celeste with Fred, Digger-of-Ancients with Hakeber, Remiel with.. uh.. himself. Nora and her Gabriel are already paired up in the First Officer's quarters. You and I will be with the Captain. There may be some weirdness with Gabriel."

"That sounds fine with me, I see you're trying to avoid leaving anyone alone to stress out -- including me. How do you like it," the red woman turns then to her mate, "Captain?"

"It makes sense," Gabriel says. "The alternative is letting Hakeber run wild, which would just end her up with Fred and leave the newbies to themselves. What's this about me being weird though?"

"Nora," Tasha replies, turning to look at her mate with an upraised brow. She then glances towards Katherine and explains, "The Captain and my sister were involved, briefly. It can be a awkward for all of us, even now. Old ghosts."

"Dr. Caravelli explained about the merging of experience when you and your phantom half are in proximity," Liza notes. "Since he is active with Commander Argentine, that will certainly spill over to you. There may be a 'feedback loop' or something. It may just cause you to call out the wrong name at an intimate moment, or it could drive up your hormone output. The doctor suggested taking a libido suppressor."

"But that sounds like so much fun," Tasha insists, turning back to Gabriel and grinning, resting her head back on her hands. "I don't think I've been mistaken for my sister enough, really. I'm curious if you were any different with her." She then turns back to Katie and further explains, "My sister and I are really nothing alike, so I wonder."

"She hides her uncertainties better, I can see," Katie notes. "Not sure if that's healthy. I know what it's like to have to wear a persona like that all the time."

Tasha's ears go askew. "I'm not sure if that makes me better or not," she notes with something of a pout and further flattening of the ears.

"It makes you not having gone through officer training," Katie says with a wink.

"And here the officers and educated people tease me again about my insufficiences. I trained for four years as a drover, I know how to get things to do other things. You just have to have a big whip and yell alot," Tasha insists. Her expression is exgeratedly put-upon, but her tail wags.

"That's part of it, but the other part is being a symbol of stability," Katie notes. "No matter how crazy things get, the crew needs to be able to look to you and see someone that has a clear idea of what's happening and what needs to be done. Even if you don't, because your actions might lead to disaster, but inaction always leads to disaster."

Tasha considers this for a long moment, sipping her coffee, then she suddenly blurts out, "It's a good thing I learned to delegate." She then has another sip, grinning around her mug.

"I suppose I can be the cool and confident one then, if needed," Liza offers. "There are perks, right?" she asks.

"Not really," Katie and Gabriel both say at the same time, and then drink their coffees.

"I didn't hire you to show me up," the hybrid woman notes, glancing over her shoulder. "You're there to make me look like I didn't just arrive from the back woods of Kilamanjar, and to help me seem less threatening. You balance me out. You're also supposed to be my confidant." As she turns back to the others, Tasha shakes her head. "Why am I surrounded by so many smartasses? Anyway, my job is mainly direction, I think. I'm not here to be stability, I'm here for instability. Direction, action. And direct action, if that's needed. That's why I'm a field agent and take charge of initiating so many of our projects."

"You do keep things interesting certainly," Katie notes, and puts her hand on the back of Tasha's taloned one.

At the gestures, Tasha smiles brightly. She looks about to say something, but instead she seems to think against it and just sits there sipping at her coffee and looking much more at ease with the world.

Once the room assignments are given out (and Hakeber does a victory fist-pump for whatever reason) and people settle themselves, Katie and Joachim say there farewells and leave the ship. For boarding ramp is raised afterwards, and the ship is sealed off in preparation for flight.

JEF Bellerophon, Bridge
The bridge is alive with blinking lights and consoles, including displays that seem to hover in the air before the three command seats that jut out into the viewing bay. The command seats themselves are detached and stacked near the airlock, along with a few of the non-Terran control consoles, which leaves the bridge looking more open and yet more cluttered at the same time.

Fred supervises getting the extra seats and stations set up - the modular nature of things allows for a pretty flexible bridge configuration, after all.

Normally Tasha would have made her way to the navigator's seat by now, but her injuries have lead to doubts. A great deal of the information encoded in to her mind was lost as she vegetated in the recovery tank, the knowledge fading from her mind with a lack of use and thus reinforcement. With so much lost, and not all of it recoverable even with the help of her PersoCom, the cadet has abdicated her position to her sister and now hovers towards the rear of the bridge where she fidgets and watches the proceedings.

For the others, this is the first time seeing the bridge in action. When the main display dome shows the surrounding hangar, there are oos, followed by silence as MOTHER's 'activation' message is displayed in the open area ahead of the command stations: The Chimera Is Slain. The Hero Has Stormed Heaven. His Soaring Steed Awaits The Commands Of The Gods.

Somehow the words feel more ominous this time around. Balthasar was a Chimera. Tasha has been to galactic space (while that was hardly a Heaven). The final part could mean anything - there are two ships now that can be considered the hero's steeds, and the identity of the gods is rather fluid still.

"The Expedition belived strongly in upbeat and cheerful slogans before missions," quips Tasha, who suddenly feels the urge to say something. In addition, she's a lot more chimeric these days and here brushes with death make her anxious in the face of such macbre words. She then turns to Celeste and, gesturing towards the screen, offers a more serious interpretation. "The words are actually a reference to Terran mythology, just like the ship is. It's meant to instill a sense of defiance in the crew, to better prepare them against the fear of the unknown and the dangers of space travel. Specofically, it refers to the hero Bellerophon who, in his arrogance, took his stead pegasus to Mount Olypus -- the home of the gods -- because he believed as a great hero he deserved to be among them. They struck him down and cursd him and took back his stead, which was a gift."

"Mythology is pretty powerful," Hakeber adds. "It can bind different cultures together surprisingly well, since the goal is to teach universal lessons."

"Some of them hold truths beyond the lessons, as well," Tasha adds the the subject of mythology. "There are god-like beings in the universe and beyond it."

Fred reports go status on the reactors and engines, Nora talks to the base flight controller and the ship begins to hum. The displays show the hangar doors sliding open up above.

"A stator shift will take place now as the stator system engages. The stator system manipulates the mass of effected starships through a means I don't fully understand using proprietary Khattan Trade Emirate technology," the senior cadet informs the others, figuring if she can't be directly useful she can at least supply explaination and history.

The first sign that the ship has left the ground is that the remote-controlled cameras on the hangar floor have begun panning upwards. Bellerophon clears the hangar silently, rising on stators alone as described. Once above the base, the ship begins to turn for its speed run. "Aerospikes are warmed up," Fred announces, and Gabriel cracks his knuckles before taking the pilot joysticks in hand. "The new engine canopies better not shake loose, Fred," he notes, and applies thrust.

Tactical displays come on, as the vessel scans ahead along the flight path, which had to be chosen so as to not fly over any inhabited territories, just in case.

"Cold plasma spike is active," Nora reports, citing the mechanism that prevents the formation of hypersonic bowshocks ahead of the ship.

"The Bellerophon ignites funneled air using powerful reactors and a current, which must be disabled upon exit from the atmosphere or catastropic feedback will occur as the current is unable to arc," continues the cadet, who wonders if she's perfectly comfortable sitting back and explaining things. Regardless of how she feels about it, she keeps going, not wanting to show a lack of enthusasism to the others. "The ship will proceed on an exit trajectory, exiting the atmosphere in to orbit. From there, we will break orbit on an intercept course with L3."

Gabriel brings the nose up as the ship accelerates, although it isn't really felt thanks to the stators. Nora begins a boost countdown, and the seat restraints automatically increase their tension. At zero, the rocket motors kick in with a literal kick. Ahead is only sky now, which quickly darkens.

Digger-of-Ancients is silent, his hands busy gripping the arms of his seat. The rumbling brings a low moan from Celeste though, and a manic grin from Hakeber.

Tasha sits with her hands in lap, eyes watching the blue slowly fade to black. She's done this all before, and as a bird the sky passing by isn't new. Instead she looks inward, thinking about how metaphor turns in to reality leaving the world behind. She wonders, too, about her won ship and if everything is well with it. She thinks about her mother, not really knowing why.

There are a few alarms, which Fred quickly shuts down. He doesn't say anything about them, so they're probably not critical. The shaking subsides as the atmosphere thins. Finally the rockets cut out, and the ship turns again, so that Abaddon is rolling past underneath.

"Reconfiguring stators for inertial control," Nora reports, her tail wagging through the slot in the back of her chair. Trajectory displays show up now, showing their flight path. "Orbital slingshot in seven minutes."

"You may already know this, but many of the planets and moons in the Prmus System exhibit artificial gravity and atmospheric conditions," Tasha goes on, not really hearing her own words as she stares out in to the black. She briefly wonders what she'll be thinking when it's her time to knock on heaven's door. "This can make exploration difficult for modern craft, even older vessels like the Bellerophon, but allows for extensive colonization."

The question breaks Tasha out of her haze, causing teh young woman to look over. Her gaze is distant, not quite focused, but she answers. "People who don't need blue skies and trees," she replies.

"I've only seen trees in the Pit," Celeste notes. "Pictures and gardens just aren't the same."

"I was being general," the senior cadet notes, rolling her head to look Celeste-wards. "Everyone has their own blue sky and their own trees."

Gabriel spins his seat around to face the others. "Well, we didn't explode, which is always a good way to start a flight," he says cheerfully. "We're going to be reducing our inertia now, which will gain us orbital velocity and eventually kick us free of Abaddon altogether. Unfortunately that means our sense of time is going to be affected, and those six minutes of real time will pass as an hour for us. But the view will be nice! So.. if anyone has to use the bathroom, this is the time."

"Oh, right:" Tasha chimes in, having been reminded of something she forgot by Gabriel's words. "Time isn't the same everywhere. You might have thought time was, um, immutable, but it's actually relative. Depending where you are and how you're traveling, minutes, days, years, or even no time at all can pass." She then makes a shooing gesture with both hands. "But enough listening to me, go do what you have to do! We have time."

Digger-of-Ancients struggles with his restraint belt a bit, then hurries off to use the bathroom. Hakeber asks, "Are we going to be in freefall at all for this?"

"Only if we need to conserve power," Gabriel says. "Which we will be doing on approach to L3, just in case there's anything there that will react badly to spacecraft."

After releasing herself form her seat, Tasha stands up and stretches, hands above her head, then walks forward towards the viewscreen. She places her hands on the edge of the railing, leaning against it and chewing on her lip.

The red world passes by below, and everything else is black. "Nothing to clutter orbit," Gabriel says, leaning back in his seat. "Pristine, if not virgin."

"Yah ... " Murmurs the woman who shares the world's color. "Is it what you hoped for, back then?"

Gabriel grins. "Pretty much, yes," he says. "There could be anything down there, instead of.. everything I already knew."

"It's funny how you run to and I run away from. I guess it's all in where you come from?" Tasha shifts her stance, propping her head on her hands as she watchesd the world literally turn. "For me, it seems like a much more barren version of Sinai. Don't get me wrong, I like it a lot. It's unexplored and more dangerous and I haven't been across most of it, but I'm looking forward to seeing the places you came from. The cities that span worlds, the stations. Homeworlds."

"There's nothing wild left on them," Gabriel says. "We were made to explore and break in new worlds. It's a drive inside of us."

"I guess I don't have that drive. I must be a city Karnor," Tasha admits, frowning. "Of course I explore in other ways, otherwise my being here would be a strange career choice."

"Sure you're not just looking for new and exciting bad habits?" Nora asks, and smirks. "I'm a little guilty of that myself."

"Like I don't have enough bad habits," the younger sister insists, slumping against her hands. "Not as many as I did, but enough. Besides, what will I do around here if I stop wandering around and picking up strange things?"

"Cooking is good," Nora suggests. "You can make a lot of friends with decent food. I used to make muffins at the Academy. Everyone wanted a bite of my muffins. The secret ingredient was jellied booze in the center.."

"Back on The Rake, they tried to make me the cook because they knew my mother would be leaving and she usually handled it. I intentionally made the food as bad as a could but still edible so they'd give me another role without thinking I was sabotauging things. Captain Eyeshine said he thought I'd made a good drover because, "You very loud Tasha, you yell at animals instead, you get somewhere." Well, I got somewhere didn't I." The hybrid woman gestures out at the screen before tucking her hand back under her head. "I still feel a bit useless, though. Maybe I should learn to cook, or, I don't know, make Liza do it."

As if summoned be mention of her name, Liza enters the bridge with a robotic cart, which has a coffee service on it. Digger-of-Ancients follows behind. "I found this magic cart that follows you around, so I put it to use," the Lapi notes. "Would anyone like something to drink?"

"I love my magic bunny," Tasha remarks as the astoundign timing of her personal assistant. "I'll have some, I need more energy for ungrateful complaining." She untangles a hand to waggle it behind her, not looking back.

Liza knows how everyone likes their coffee, after watching them in the galley. "What are you ungratefully complaining about, Tasha?" the doe asks. "Not me I hope. I have big ears. If they burn it might cause a lot of damage."

"Of the usual, how I'm not very useful, how everyone is better educated than me, bla bla bla." Tasha makes a yapping motion with her outstretched hand until its mouth is crammed full of mug, which she brings over and sips from. "I think I'm just depressed because I lost most of my ability to handle the controls to, um, there's a word ... Convalesence. At least I still have my vocabulary. Thanks, Nora." She reaches over and, not quite able to see her sister, flails her free hand about until she awkwardly pats the side of her sister's head.

"And I've learned lots of swear words from you," Nora notes. "A sailor can never have too many."

"We're sailors now?" Celeste asks. "I never thought of it like that. Sailors! From a desert!"

"Droving and swear words were two of my specialties," Tasha insits, retracting her hand so she can be lazy on it some more. "I think we're actually astronauts. Or, spacers. I think you have to spacewalk first, before you can be called a spacer."

Back in his seat, Digger-of-Ancients adjusts his gauntlet and sign-speaks, "What is a drover?"

Tasha pushes off, turning to afce the returning junior cadets as she spreads her hands. "A drove is someone that handles, guides, and takes care of beasts of burden -- specifically those that are driven to pull things. On Sinai, we don't have internal combustion anything, because it explodes and metal is expensive. So, we mostly use sail or animals for our airships and for ground travel. I was an airship drover, I drove pteras. Big, retilian, smelly, bitey, pteras." She drops her hands, then cocks her head, folding her arms loosely. "I miss them some times, they could be nice when things were calm."

"They just breathed whatever I fed them earlier, which was a lot of meat," Tasha answers, turning to the human woman. "I was the- hey!" She lifts her hand,a bout to swat the large Karnor, but then catches herself and quickly tucks the hand behind ehr back before pressing on like she didn't just swat the Captain infront of the cadets. "Anyway, I was the one who had to keep them in line, so I had to be loudr. The big whip helped a lot, too. I'd show it to you, but it's not on the ship right now. Airship droving whips are the largest whips used on Sinai."

"I would like to hear more about airships of Sinai," Digger asks. Which is understandable, given his archaeological interests. And it would pass the remaining time before leaving orbit.

"Well did you ever pick the right person!" Tasha practically teleports over, in the seat behind the man in a second flat. "I have airships in my blood, and a few in my arm and other places. Splinters. Plus the scars, anyway ... " Gesticulating energetically, the young woman breaks in to a from-a-poor-girl's perspective on all things Sinaian airship. Which, as it happens, is considerable.

Leaving orbit was not particularly eventful, aside from the view of Abaddon receding. There was more inertial hijinks and boosting from the rockets, but after that it was just a matter of coasting in real-time towards the target area. "We'll be nearly there by tomorrow morning," Nora explains. "We'll be using intertial stasis to bleed our speed and then using purely reaction thrust to make the final approach, in order to mask our presence. The stators will be shut down and we'll be arming the weapons."

"By then I'll be arming as well, just in case," Tasha notes from where she had been discussiing airships, not havign gotten up since then. "In fact we should all be gearing up by then. Space suits, the works. You'll all be restricted to the more secure areas, in case of attack and depressurization."

"We weren't the first expedition to this system," Hakeber notes. "There were the First Ones before us. Anything could be there."

"Lets see," Tasha begins, counting off on her fingers, "Automated defenses including defense AIs, Khattan observers, unknown alien life forms-" she pauses for Hakeber's review and nods, "ancient derelict vessels, beings from outside space and time, Titanians, who am I missing?" She glances towards the Karnor Elites.

"My bet is a Confederate ship.. or what's left of it," Nora says. "That's the closest in-system point for hyperspace access. If they were desperate to try and escape.. who knows what happens to a ship that engages hyperdrive when there's no hyperspace access. Do it in curved space and the drive or the ship usually just vanishes forever. But normal rules don't apply here."

"Vanishes forever? Where does it go?" Tasha asks, ears perking. She knows a bit about hyperspace, but in her mind not nearly enough. "Do you mean D-Level? Or another hyperspace?"

"Nobody knows," Nora says. "Maybe they're eaten by something, or get shredded in the Maelstrom."

"You know about the Maelstrom?" Tasha asks, now leaning forward. "I thought only the Titanians called it that."

"I know it exists.. early hyperdrive experiments fell afoul of it, since we didn't know you had use flat-space. It was discovered on the way to perfecting the Aldersen Drive, which we're pretty sure uses A-level Hyperspace."

"From what I've been told, the Maelstrom is a border area. Beneath the, um, I'm going to use metaphors here ... The rough strata of wind of the maelstrom, there's a calm layer which is the grey between our reality -- light space -- and the reality of the Lloigor, and Ogdoad -- dark space, also known as D-Level Hyperspace." Tasha sits back, running a hand back along the side oif her head under her hair. "I'm not sure what the Maelstrom actually is, but I wonder if it's the transition point -- the gate between our reality and theirs. Because their reality isn't quite compatible with ours, the exit point is causing the distortion -- but it's all beyond me so I'm probably wrong."

"I've 'seen' it though," Tasha then adds, head cocking to the side. "It looks like a hole in reality that pulls everything in, but more than a blackhole. Stretched reality bending in to the abyss."

"The deeper levels of hyperspace can mess with you," Nora agrees. "I don't like it myself. Never know what you might run into."

"I know. At least, I know some of them," Tasha admits, ears canting back. "I know a bit about the Maelstrom and the things in and beyond it because they told me. I had a conversation with a Harrower on two different worlds. They ... " She trails off at Hakeber's observation, but then she nods slowly. "You might be a lot closer than you know. I have some suspicions about the Outsiders."

"You call them Outsiders," the Silent-One explains. "We call them the Cold Ones. Ever culture has a different name for them."

"Well let me tell you now, they are real. I'd say as real as you or me, but that would be a lie. They're as real as they are," the senior cadet insists. "On a world called Encante I spoke to one trapped in a monolith. It was locked in stasis, but it could still move because it existed simultaneously in multiple modes of time. I spent the rest of the day in bed after that, convincved I was going to lose it. And when it departed? It just vanished. Its door vanished. No vacuum, no readings, nothing. Like it had never been there. It said it had been trapped there to move worlds."

"That is not what we consider a Cold One," Digger explains. "They are cold beings that live between the stars. Nomads like the Khatta, but ancient and wise and inscrutable."

"Oh, like the Nephilim?" Tasha asks, ears perking. "Not that the Outsiders aren't ancient and wise and inscruitable. Well," she bites her lip and pauses, "wise in their own way, I think? The one I spoke to didn't seem to understand concepts like being imprisoned and time. I think it got them from my mind, actually.? Um, anyway, you mean the Nephilim?"

Digger shakes his head. "They are oldest, an Order of Life unto themselves," he sign-speaks.

"That still sounds like the Nephilim," Tasha insists, although she sounds less certain. After chewing her lip a moment more, she then pushes herself to stand. "Well, I'm going to go suit up and get a nap, in case anything happens."

"I'll wake you for supper," Liza promises, and collects the coffee mugs. The ship is turned over to MOTHER for the cruise section of the journey.

"I'll be suited up, but you can use my head as a pillow if you want," Tasha tells Gabriel before heading towards the exit hatch. Just before she leaves, she pauses, glancing back. "Digger, come to think of it, do you mean the Progenitors?"

The cheetah pauses, then shakes his head again. "Cold Ones are not gods. Not created by the Star. Not good or evil," he tries to explain.

"Not in front of the kids," Tasha insists as Gabriel walks past her, this time she does swat at him since they're now off-duty. She then looks back and nods. "I see, well, I guess I'll keep my eyes open. Who knows what I'll find out there?" She then tilts her head towards the exit. "I'm off, I'll see you all in a while." And with that she slings an arm around Gabriel and follows him to sleep.