Worlds Beyond Number - Flight of the Icaron: Ep 1 - Maiden Voyage

Episode Date: January 6, 2026

This is the maiden voyage of the Icaron - Earth’s first S-Class Battle Station. This demonstration flight has been certified as routine by all relevant oversight bodies. Systems have been tested, personnel vetted, and contingencies reviewed. Passengers are reminded that the Icaron represents the highest standard of planetary defense engineering.Please remain seated.We are:Brennan Lee MulliganErika IshiiAabria IyengarLou Wilson Flight of the Icaron was produced by Fortunate Horse and Worlds Beyond NumberEdit and Sound Design by Brian Flaherty from Many Sided Mediahttps://www.manysidedmedia.com/Score by Will Savinohttps://wsavino.com/Sound Effect library courtesy of artlist.io Director of Operations: Melanie BowmanSocial Media Manager: Shannon HLorekeeper and Transcriptionist: Jack Morgan E.F. Lavandowska Special Thanks to: Amanda Freberg at Big Giant Head and the team at LaservisionCharacter Art Alecia Doyleyhttps://tallnquirky.carrd.co/Ship Art by Britt Andersonhttps://brittajj26.com/Graphics by Lu Tomkiewiczhttps://www.lumadethis.com/ You can find transcripts of all our episodes on our Patreon. Just navigate to the post for the episode and the transcript will be attached.

A bright summer sun shines out over the city of Mombasa. A clear blue sky, an occasional lazy cloud floating by. At the city's most humming landmark, New Dawn Plaza, the first thing that draws your eye is the ground itself. The entire plaza is paved in a vast mosaic of the Global Executive Council insignia. Two-cuped hands stretched upward, palms open to the heavens. Around them, tiny inlaid tiles catch the sun in shifting colors, forming constellations and planets in brilliant whites, deep blues, and flecks of gold.

When the light strikes just right, it looks as if the stars themselves are glittering beneath your feet. At the far end of the plaza, the space opens onto a viewing platform that looks directly toward the Mombasa airfield and the towering silhouette of its gravity well. From here, visitors can watch spacecraft's taxi across the strip, engines roaring before they rise into the sky and are carried upward into orbit around the shining blue-white column of the well. The air is alive with sound, distant turbines, sudden bursts of thrusters, and the smell of sea salt mixing with exhaust.

Opposite the platform, a statue dedicated to the Mombasa Initiative, six astronauts, arm and arm, rendered larger than life in gleaming alloy stand together atop an artistic rendering of the lunar surface. Their helmets are polished to reflect the sunlight, and their stance is not martial, but communal, a symbol of unity. At the base lies a bronze plaque inscribed with the words of Dekhambay Mbopso, the UN leader who signed the New Dawn Act. Those technologies that once propelled our destruction will be turned to the heavens to launch

humanity into a new age. Crowds gather in the bright equatorial sun, tourists, schoolchildren on field trips, space or families waiting for their departures. Some are taking hollows of the mosaic. Others linger at the rail of the viewing platform, shading their eyes against the glare. The plaza hums with life, broken only by the constant thunder of humanity's reach for the stars. Abria, where do we find your character? Lachesis, who only ever respond? to the name Kiki is she's looking around, but is physically uncomfortable.

She stands at just a little over five feet tall, and she tries her best to shrink away in this bright open plaza into the thing that looks the most like her home. The, like, cramped, artificially lit, but mostly dark and cool, spaceship, but there's no space that's like that. So you just see her like backing away and trying to find a wall or a breeze or something without looking too uncomfortable because she knows that her handlers are probably close at hand. And she's just uncomfortable with how open and airy everything is.

I think as Kiki is looking for a place that's like cramped smaller, uh, you see there's, an overhang on one side of the plaza that is, you know, you can tell a series of benches meant to kind of keep people who have maybe spent a little bit too much time in the sun, give them a break, and you see flanking on either side. You see men and women who have these small carts with like, you smell hot oil and dough calling out, Mandasi, Montazi, these little bits of fried bread are handed out at carts on either side. But in this overhang, you're able to kind of, I think, shrink back a little bit into something that is not as loud and not as open as the plaza itself. Nice.

Then I'm going to move over to get a little piece of that, like, fried bread to have a reason to move in that direction and then slink into the shadow. And I think he's, like, she assumes, like, arms folded across her front and with her, like, with her, like, left hand over her mouth and nose, it smells good here? There's too much scent. She's wildly overstimulated. So much going on. I think even as you get closer to the cart, that smell, sweet as it may be, I think just kind of fills your nostrils along with the sweat of the crowd and other people standing beside you. You get up to the head of the cart. You see the guy cooking the fry bread, looks up with you, best mandasi and all of Mombasa, best Mondazi. One, two.

Oh, just one? Three. Three. Two? Two. Two. Two. Yes. Thank you. You see, he prepares for two of you. I think as you, he hands you the fry bread in a small bag. And as you kind of step to the side for the next person in line, you do see your handler, calling out from across the plaza. Miss Davis. Pat, over here?

I'm just flexing a little bit to see if I can get him to move in my direction. You see he stands and waves to you. Ms. Davis. Yeah, right over here. And I stepped more in the shadow. You see standing there, a slim man, thinning sandy hair, a narrow frame, his face marked by fine lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth, pale complexion, wearing a tailored black suit with gold trim.

This is Chairman Dorian Dawes. who you've spent the last couple days with. He moves towards you, finally. He goes, sorry, I was having a hell of a time with the flight managers trying to get our time moved up. Thank you. I told them who I was, and of course who I was traveling with, and they were nice enough to make arrangements.

Would you like a piece of? Oh. It's really good. You're just shouting, and I would love for you to... This is a lot. Can we go now? Yes, the craft is ready. Oh, great. You can just start with that. We don't have to do all of that. It's fine. Sorry, I thought you were perhaps enjoying the plaza.

No, thank you, Dorian. It's, it's quite all right. I'm sorry. I thought it would be nice to visit Earth again, but for some spaces, I understand. It's just a lot. There's just so much here, and it's all the time. And everyone yells and smells. And then she just slowly takes a bite of the bread. And I think this is the one thing that she's experienced in the last, like, three or four days. This is the best little bite of food she's ever had.

And it grounds her. And she takes a nice deep breath through her mouth. Okay, we can go. This is great. Thank you. You're doing such a good job. Of course. I mean, I apologize. Oh, you're great.

I think I built an itinerary that I think reflected some of my own taste rather than being considerate of yours. Okay. However, I promise this last bit is going to be incredibly special. Please, right this way. You see that he takes you across the plaza where there's like a small golf cart waiting for you that takes you through an open gate where he flashes his badge. and you drive onto the tarmac where you come upon a kind of a small jet craft. It's about the size of maybe like a regional jet

built with clean lines and smooth white hull, black viewing strips, and a dark metallic band that wraps around the Fuge Lodge with the GEC insignia, that of the same hands open palm up to the heavens that you stood upon in the plaza. Oh, is this the new model? Or is this the one from a couple of years ago that had that problem with the heat sink?

That, uh, it is, it's the one that it's the one from a couple of years ago. Yeah, that's great. I, oh, you prefer it? Look, everybody crosses a finger and a couple toes on the way up and out. But once you get into low orbit, nothing better. Well, of course, but I was, I was going to have them put the dampeners on so that it flew a little bit more like the newer models. No, do whichever. That's fine.

Do whichever you need to do. No, no, no, no. Can we take the dampeners off? Yeah. You see he looks at you and your excitement. And like, yeah, take those things off. Take them off now. We want to feel it.

Okay, I'm locked in. And you just see her staring at like all of like engineer personnel. And she's just looking at like tools and like large machines brought out and just listing them and loving them. You see that what was like a halfway done job to installing dampeners for the ride up are removed. Yeah.

Woo! And you see that your pilot for today is standing kind of at the gangplank up into the jet crap. And you see Bowes, any bag, Smith? Oh, I don't carry my own bag, so did they get here? Will they be? Eh, don't worry about it. You see that

Uh, Dorian steps forward. Sloan, it's quite all right. They've already been delivered. Apologies again, Ms. Davis. No, it's okay. You gotta stop apologizing. Sloan is it? Yes.

Uh, yeah, how many, what's, how are you feeling? Like, can you, can you get this bird in the air without killing us without the dampeners? Do you need that? Is that for you? It's not for me. Okay. Happy to fly. Okay.

Confident. Incredibly. We should have. started here. I had to see so many museums. Shit. Well, I just thought, I'm so sorry. I'll hit you. It's just, I wouldn't hit you. Oh, that's very kind. Well, direct this right. Oh, yeah, sure. You see that the two of you board the ship. Sloan don't kill us. And I give them like a little pat on the shoulder. You see Sloan goes, wouldn't think of it, ma'am. You see that you and Dawes board the craft, Very plush, wide cushioned seats,

you know, muted fabrics, leather textured recliners. You see that there's several privacy screens for rest. The flight to the moon and beyond is generally minimum of 10 hours. You see that Dorian sits into one of the seats and beckons you to sit down. Like, buy him?

Yes. That guy. There's just so much room. All right. I'm sure we can spread it out. Good, it's fine. I sit across from him. You sit across.

Coming out from the back of the craft, you see a woman, carefully styled blonde hair that falls to her shoulders, sharp jaw lines softened by heavy makeup, her skin fair, posture upright. She comes out, extends a hand. Talia. Talia. I don't, okay. And she shakes hands. Doesn't love it. Oh.

No, it's fine. Hi. How do I know you? I'm Mr. Daw's wife. Oh. Oh, it's lovely to meet you. You see Dorian caught off guard. I'm sorry, she'll just be joining us for the weekend.

Oh, lovely. What do you do? What keeps you busy? Home things. The light behind Kiki's eyes goes away. I've recently acquired a series of vase. Um, that... Of what?

Bars. What's of... Like an urn. Earn. Ceramics. Oh, yeah. What for what? What do you keep in? Oh, nothing. It's decorative. You keep empty jugs in your house, and that's the thing that you share within minutes of meeting someone.

I mean, you asked, kind of... Damn, that's all me. Okay. That's... Beautiful. Do you have... Of course. She pulls out her hollow, skims through a few photos of a kind of rather bland and muted home. Lots of grays, lots of beige, lots of top. I think Kiki understands now that the way to get to go to her own little mind palace is to occasionally ask just enough of a follow-up question that she keeps getting more and more of a tour of this like drab house. And then she can kind of just zone out. for two to four minutes at a time before going, wow, tell me more. That goes on for about 10 minutes before you hear Sloan kind of step into the cabin.

They're ready for us to depart if everyone's ready to go. Yeah, let's do it. Fantastic. You see that he gets into the cockpit. You feel the ship begin to taxi. You see that the cabin lights dim. Tali, do you think we're going to die? I'm sorry?

Yeah, just on the way out. took the dampeners off. Doreen. Well, it's just our friend would like to feel it. You don't like to feel it. Dorian.

That's a skill issue, bud. A skill issue. Oh my God, I got to get off of earth. This place fucking sucks. You feel a subtle hopping through the floor as the old dampen the existing dampener system

does come online. And you see that Dorian begins to strap himself into a five-point kind of harness situation as you guys taxi. You feel yourself begin to pick up speed and take off. A faint shimmer runs across the windows as the glass polarizes. The engines thrum as you approach the well and are seized by it. For a split second, your stomach drops like you're on a roller coaster. and because you don't have the dampeners on, it sits there.

You hear Talia start, oh, Jesus, what does it happen? As your weight is pulled forward, you can tell you are accelerating at impossibly fast speeds, even though they are somewhat muted as though you are wrapped in layers of velvet. Through the tinted windows,

the world becomes a blur of light. The gravity well outside is a silver tower, arcing into the sky as you ascend, you glimpse bands of plasma and magnetized particles racing along the conduits as they flank your ship, lights of blue, violet, and gold, chasing each other upward like lightning. The cabin floor vibrates faintly. You hear a glass shatter in the back. Talia, you hear the structure of the ship groan under the intensity of the gravitational push, and then abruptly the sky outside darkens from blazing azure to the deep indigo in near space. Stars start winking into view as the ship bursts from Earth's pull.

And you hear over the call sign from Sloan. Welcome to outer space. Who, Sloan, you did it. I'm glad I could make it easy for you. Look, every time I get dragged back on planet side, that feeling, we don't get that where I'm from. I'm sorry, honey, if that was scary for you. You see that Talia's hair is a must.

mess as she is gripping the sides of her seat eyes clenched, her hands white as she goes it was fun, it was fine. I believe that maybe a little more if your knurcles weren't the

color of your vase. You see that she immediately lets go and unclipped but anyone like champagne? Oh yes please. You see that she moves to the back. Dorian leans over to you unbuckling his harness. Wow. Wow. It's just, it's great to feel it.

Right. That's what I'm saying, because like, once we're up there and we're out there, you don't feel the scale of it. Of course, yes. You get it, bud. I totally get it. Speaking of which, out there, the you, your work, this claim you've stayed. Oh, yeah. You know, as the chairman of rare minerals for the GEC, it's my pleasure to kind of parlay what a possible deal could look like for us to be installing infrastructure and perhaps gleaming some of your resources. No, I love that because we've spent, oh, God, maybe a good couple months at this point, really upgrading gear.

So what we've got going on that little rock, we're going to get things up pretty quickly. And, I mean, if we're going to talk business, we're going to talk business. You are not our only offer. Of course, completely understand. So just knowing that like everything that's going to be happening with our little red friends. Yes. Things move quickly. Of course.

So I'm excited for whatever this last thing you show me is, but I'm hoping we could like tie off. an offer in the next 24 to 48. 100%. The place we are going, there will be a number of members of the executive council there who will be excited to meet you. We'll all be able to discuss,

you know, what a sum that makes you feel seen and make sure that we are able to get what we need. I feel confident we'll be able to come to a number. Okay. All right. I look forward to that. Of course, of course. I mean, it's just, I mean, you understand. Since tranquility and since... Sure. You know.

Yeah, our voices all get low when we talk about that. Well, we respect and all that. No, I understand. No, but it's, it's just our hope to be able to build defenses. Of course. And, I mean, the platinum resources on your asteroid. Does it have a name? We call it Jimmy, but we've got platinum, we've got a couple, there's eridium, and a couple, Kiki is normally quite like sharp and on top of her business.

That's all she has in great space. The entire arc of her arc is bent to mining. But I think there is something important in the way she's like jumping over words and thoughts and not naming, even though. in all of the docs that have been going back and forth, there are, like, comprehensive lists. Mm-hmm. And she's trying very, very specifically to, like, sort of pussyfoot around a couple things about the asteroid.

Mm-hmm. But it's all in there. I'm sorry. I'm just a little, you know, it's been a big day. Give me a deception check against Dawes' insight. Natural 20. Ooh, 50's different. That beats the hell out of a four.

You see that Dawes looks at you, goes, it has. And again, I know I'm not supposed to, but I'm doing everything I can to make sure that you know that the Global Executive Council is excited at a potential partnership with you, Miss Davis. Thank you, Dorian. The GEC has been nothing but accommodating and generous in all of our discussions. And I do know that and it'll be remembered. I wouldn't be here spending this amount of time with you if I didn't think we were going to get to like it. We're going to get to an amical plate. We'll figure it out.

We'll figure it out. We'll figure it out. Hey, but right now, how about champagne? I love that. Tahlia. You see Talia comes out. There's about 10 hours to kill. Is there anything that Kiki does during this time?

If not, Talia's just going to show you more pictures of more things that are tope. She has a folder. It's called my favorite things. And they're all tope. At some point, there's like a middle stretch of there can't. How much tope could there be? And she's now re-bought in on the like, this could only be like a 10 to 20 minute presentation, right?

You know, something that's really exceptional is that I've actually been partnering with a paint company to create. My own version of top. Oh, wait. Hold on. What do you mean? They got it. They got it in one.

Well, this is called Topu. Hope 2. They made a sequel. Actually, hold on. I'm into this now. It might be the champers, but let's find out. Show me Top 2. Here.

She takes you on a long through her process of defining the new color, Top 2. Is it cute? Is it like a little? Because there's that moment where you, like, kind of lose the, like, lose the plot. And you're like, oh, no, I kind of, I kind of fuck with it a little bit. Yeah. Give me a wisdom saving throat. Yes.

Okay, okay. 13? Top two's kind of cool. Oh. All right. So my question for you now, dang, I feel like I stressed you out earlier, but I really like what you're putting down. There are some space, some communal spaces on my arc that actually could maybe be a little

calmer and give a what, how did you phrase? that, the illusion of grandeur without the distraction of grandeur. Yes. Oh, gosh. Can I, how do I get Tope 2? Well, you're on the right ship. Yeah, we're going to make a deal. We are. After a number of hours passing the colony of tranquility along the celestial highway,

emerging kind of into deeper space, here's Sloan come over the inner calm. The vessel is coming into view. You'll be able to see it out the right side of the ship. Come on, Talia. Grab her by the hand and pull her to a viewing area. You see Dorian moves with you. So this is it. This should we choose to partner is what your resources will be going to.

Staring out into space as you approach, the Icaron doesn't at first look like a ship. It looks like a city stretched into the void. Its spine, the arc line, once nearly eight kilometers long, armored in hyperwood plating and reinforced with lattice. Running the full length of the spine, you see the meridians. Four vast, parallel arms, each as long as the ship itself. They frame the Icaron like a colossal outrigger, balancing and bracing the vessel against the stresses of deep space. Each meridian is studded with detail, defense arrays bristle along the outer faces,

Rail guns, lasers, EMP projectors, mounted on armored housing, and on the interfaces, docking spines glitter with magnetic capture coils and port rings, drawing in visiting ships much like your own. Near the zenith of the ship, a glass dome mushrooms outward like a lantern, and at the other end, another like an observation bell. Midway along the vessel, you notice reinforced housing and glowing conduits, and as your vessel draws closer, the scale becomes overwhelmed. What seemed like smooth plating at a distance reveals itself to be dense with gantries, antenna masks, armored shutters, and faintly glowing

observation galleries where crew and guests alike watch the void. You see that Dorian turns to you. This is the Icaron, Earth's first S-class battle station. There is no art-laden basilica no statuary or feat of earth architecture that has ever moved her the way this has that is the most beautiful thing she has ever seen and she is just quietly weeping and doesn't hear doryan speak at first I'm so sorry, Sugar, what was that? It's the Ecoran. This is our defense. Perfect.

Yes, you'll have to see it. It is, I've only seen plans, but it is magnificent. Dorian, my word is my bond. If this is as good as you say, our deal is struck. And she simply puts her hand out to the side to shake. As Kiki fixates on the Icaran, she does not see the ear-to-ear grin on Dorian Daz's face as he quietly shakes your hand. And we move from this place to the Icaron itself. Within the bowels of the Icaron, a broad canterry, 15-foot-wide catwalk of grated metal, in an immense space, nearly 3,200 feet tall and over 400 feet, a groweron.

cross. At its center, the thermoplastic routing port. A massive glowing torus, 250 feet across, 40 feet thick, the size of a ferrous wheel turned on its side. Along the walls, cooling towers, and tall black pillars are built to quench and vent plasma instantly should anything falter. And in this space, a sound hits you, a low, frumming base of a drone. Where among all of this do we find your character, Brennan? Andre Dalca is a 57-year-old man, short, thick, earthy, graying hair. It's, you know, 90% salt, 10% pepper at this point. He is charmingly unattractive.

He's got a kind of... affinity to metal and welded material that makes him sort of almost like a, I think he harkens back to some kind of spirit of some Slavic folklore of like a deep earth mine haunting creature. But in this moment, he's got his white engineer's uniform with some high viz strips on it in case lights suddenly go out. The high-vis strips don't look that different. It's like a slight yellow tint to the off-white or cream of the engineer's uniform. Right now, he's hanging upside down, whatever that means on a sideways tourist. But essentially just means that he's activated the grips on his knee pads and the tops of his shoes. So he's in a

kneeling position, but with the artificial gravity is not on. in the sector that he's working in. So he's just sort of like swaying kind of weightlessly as his knees and feet are attached to this panel. He's got a panel open. He's taken a small net that is pinned down over the panel that's open in case any tools get dropped so that they don't float off into the mechanism. So he's got like almost a mosquito netting over the panel that he's working on. And he's happily working away, fine-tuning something.

thing, this is not a problem. This is like a readout from a failsafe protocol is not connected to the same network that it should be so that they can run diagnostics on it. So it's like, oh, we're not getting diagnostic input from the failsafe program that's not even on right now. We're crossing T's that are not even in the final draft. We're going back and crossing T's from like earlier drafts that just need to be preserved for propriety. Otherwise, I am aware that it is a go time, as they say. So just focus on work here for this moment. As Andre works dedicated to his craft and his creation, because of the immensity of the sound in here, you all wear these communication collars that essentially just allow you to speak to each other

and hear each other in your ears more clearly over the many sounds in this cavernous space. You hear coming over the comms, your builder, the person who's dedicated himself to the actual manifestation often of your most complex ideas. Tubbs McIntyre comes over the comms. Yeah, we got the same problem from before. They want everything to be able to talk to everything else, but also all be firewalled for maximum security. So, you know, it's a contradiction. Yeah, you better get down here as fast as you can. No, can you come on down here?

Toobs, you want me to come down there? You come on down here. What problem you have as big as my problem? No, it's the cool one. Okay, cool and bigger problem. I'll be right down. And he's going to put his tools away, seal up the panel, open up his slate, which is this sort of wrist-mounted writing tablet.

and type in a shorthand. I think my great shame in this moment is the document I'm supposed to have prepared to make everything user-friendly because this whole project is going to get handed off to GSEC. So everything here needs to be usable and readable. I have perfect faith in the military engineers that will be taking this over, but I know that this will be reviewed by military brass. and it will need to feel knowable from people that are not engineers. So this document is my great shame because it is all engineers shorthand

and not full sentences that can be read by someone who's not a scientist. And I just go, okay, this is going to be, okay, we're going to fix this. No, no, you know what we're not going to fix this. We're going to explain why this can't work like they want. and takes the net away, puts it down, and it makes a note that, like, for this to stop reading as a malfunction, they will either have to open its operational security

to let it talk with other systems and be exposed or make their piece with only being able to come down and read it manually. And she says, they're going to choose, and he's going to head off to go find tubes. You see, Tubes is just on the gangplank below you, so you just have to kind of make your way off of the TRC and then safely down to the kind of catwalk that's kind of the base of operations for you guys.

You see Tubbs is there weathered and wiry older black man wearing a kind of half-buttoned formal shirt and a work-stained fabrication vest, deep-lined skin looks up at you. Now, I understand that we're doing this whole pass around the sun. Does the doctor understand how much coolant that's going to require? You can only put report so many times. We put report, we say how much cooling... It's half our reserve. It's half our goddamn reserve.

Tubes. You want boss to catch plate. You have to let plate drop. We tell them how much coolant it take. They say it's not a problem. We say here's what can go wrong. They say we need to do this for other reasons. So we do what we can.

Our job is not to drive car, is to build it. Yeah, all right, all right. You go on to the party. Of course I go to party. All right. Make me live in space for three months, I go to party. I'm going to double my wage in Crudite. Oh, we eat good snacks.

The good snacks, yeah. You know, my daughter is coming. My other daughter is coming. No. Oh, Stella on her way. Oh, God damn, I want to meet Stella. I tell you, if you, she only bring Mandasi, and if she don't, I disown. Oh, that's right.

That's right. Are you going to go to the party? Just for a little bit. How much is little bit? You're going to get there, like, you're going to try to go for middle 15 minutes of party? Yeah, first five. First five? Get in, nibble, get out.

Oh, God, it's so rude to arrive to party on time. What? It's so rude to a party on time. No, no, no, no. Why don't they make it to start down if they don't want you to be there right at it? No, no, no, because, listen, what you are describing is not attending party. What you are describing is food heist. The same thing.

Same thing, if you ask me. Absolutely. You are cold-blooded. You are ruthless. Oh, hey, they don't call me tubes for nothing. All right. Hey, I cannot knock the hustle. If the goal is to get small cubes of cheese and get out, this is plan that will work.

Well, you start with small cubes, put them together. Big cube. I really sit with that for a long time. I think I go kind of classy-eyed and stare off into space. Small cubes into big cube. Yeah. Cubs are uniform. Small cube, you need minimum eight cubes.

cubes to make next biggest cube, then from there you're going to need, that's going to be 12, that's going to be 16, that's going to be 20, and then you need the corners. So it's going to be 24, 24 cubes for next size of cube? Yeah. Okay, let's get out of here. You see interrupting this conversation, entering the, walking onto the gangplank, wearing the same comms communicators, so you actually start to hear them as. they approach. You see a group of four people enter this engine room. You see leading the group is a small,

slightly younger person, his enthusiasm kind of bubbling over, pale skin, sharp jawline, wearing a slim black suit, crisp white shirt and tie with a small pin in the symbol of the Icaron, a kind of parentheses around a star, fastened high. and straight on his jacket. Uh, so this for the vessel, uh, it takes raw energy from a number of sources, solar, nuclear, magnetic and reminds them into stable, controllable plasma streams that are then facilitated throughout the rest of the ship, uh, depending on energy needs. Um, and uh, uh, um, uh, uh, uh, Dr Dolka.

Uh, hello, good to see you. Oh, uh, I'm sorry. giving a tour to the council member Resnick. Oh, very good to Council Member Resnick. This is, you're explaining the routing core. You know, the plasma is actually not the only energy source. We convert to stable plasma stream, but the core itself still use some of the electromagneticism, nuclear, solar,

because for the purposes of those energy, it's actually sort of interesting to dive into the... specifics of it, but probably the short version to say is, yes, stable plasma streams. You see that, Councillor Resnick, who is pale complexion, tall, angular, dark hair streaked with silver, immaculately dressed in the black and gold of her office, looks at you, incredible. When Dr. Cortez told me that she had found someone who, could build an engine for the vessel she was describing. It lifted, it really lifted our spirits.

That is the number one quality I aspire to, spirit lifting. Am I doing it right now? It's quite an impressive room. Oh, this, as far as rooms go, this one way up there. Andre's smiles. He knows he's being. funny. Like he, he, he's trying, he's a very gregarious, like, you know, he smiles in a good-natured way and says, I'm glad, yes, the tourists is something else. It is very strange to be a young man in university

and have a piece of theory land in front of you. Feels almost unfair that I am the one who gets to see it in real life after everyone did work so hard to draw it on paper so long ago. It must have been incredible to have access to the resources that Project Datal has provided. Oh, of course. Yes, the resources. For this to happen, it requires so many hands. They don't all get to see. Very few eyes, very many hands.

And we say thank you to the hands, you know. Of course. I have brought along two of the engineers who would be working in here. after you. Gentlemen, you see stepping forward two young men, one of them steps forward, absolutely sweat-drenched hand.

Arjun, nice to meet you. Arjun, nice to meet you, young man. This is a lot. Sure. In terms of size, or in terms of its significance? Everything. It's just a lot going on. We've been reading over

some of the, some of your notes that you've been providing to the G-Sec, and they are dense, which is great. It's been great kind of jumping in, and we're really feeling wrapping my head around it. I'm going to lean in and go, it's not just the plasma streams. When you talk to the brass, you say plasma stream, stable plasma stream, because that's the showstop. That's what's actually powering the vessels movement and the core systems, weapons array, thing like that. But like for life support systems and things like that, you don't want to actually... There's tangential energy efficiency losses.

If you're going to use systems that are already coming prefabricated from Earth to use solar energy, you want to divert some of that. To turn it from solar to plasma back to solar is a waste. Do you understand? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah, I got it.

So the energy come through the thermal... Yeah, yeah, yeah. How many years you spent studying thermoplastics? 14. 14 years? That's good. Okay. I'm genuinely very happy to hear that.

So, okay, you understand the transition to plasma is... That is a recurrent loop and that we are going to be able to... In other words, you're drawing energy refracted off of the transition to fluid state and back again to solid. You see stepping forward here is the second engine. who introduces himself. Sorry, Lewis. Yeah, man, we got it. All right, Louis.

Big, your britches, they are so big. Well, you know, me and Arjun have been studying for, I mean, Arjun got there first, but we're feeling pretty good. All right, feeling pretty good. This emotion is always good to see in scientists. They call this hubris. I slap him on the arm. and I go,

Lewis, you are good. Confidence is necessary. If you don't mind, we were hoping to kind of look around, if that's all right? You want to look around right now? You want me, Joe Mer? I look over at Tubes and I say,

I can do it to tubes. No, no, no, no. You got to go. You got to go. You're going to take one for the team. I put my hand on the back of Tubes' neck, and I go, you are a good man and a good friend. I don't want to show the young ones the machine.

I'm going to run these boys to their bases. You see the tube puts on two climbing, like the same kind of climbing apparatus as you were and says, boys, if you want to follow me, it's just climbing the side of the wall as Lewis goes, all right. I look up at tubes and I go, Tubes, by the way, I was wrong before it.

Not 24, 27. Cubes. Yes. You need one. One cube and then you need eight and then you need 27. Exponential growth. This is why I like you. I snap over to Lewis and I go, Lewis, what do you think I'm talking about?

Oh, cubes. You can't slip one past this guy, Louis Sharp. You see breaking up this moment arriving into the space, striding forward, spry, Brazilian woman in her 70s, tightly braided gray hair, sharp, sharp, discerting eyes, warm brown skin, wearing a formal black dress with kind of a lab coat over it. You recognize this to be Dr. Imani Cortez, leader of Project Adelis. She walks in, you all aren't bothering my engineer, are you? You see that Nico goes, no, we were just doing the tour.

She goes, it's quite all right, Nico. Dr. Cortez, thank you for defending me, my very valuable time. It is being mishandled. Yeah, of course. There's a big slideball game tonight, and I mean, you need to get prepped. Okay, I'm going to run to party. I'm going to get cheese. Going to grab Stella when she gets in.

Going to hope she brings Mandazi. Going to go make sure we get a pregame pep talk with the servals, go serfels. Do you want to walk with me for a second, Andre? Oh, of course. Let's have a walk. All right, boys, Tube's going to take you and show you everything you need to know. Remember, a minor issue can absolutely galvanize an entire chain reaction, negative consequences. Make sure all eyes dotted teeth crossed. You have a good one.

You see that Arjun's face falls as Lewis just quietly nods along. And Nico and the counselor continue their tour. Dr. Cortez walks with you back towards the central lift. You're going to change? For party? Yeah. If you say so, you know, these are systems in which you are experts. So if I should wear nice clothes, I wear nice clothes.

Just a little something. Little, little propeller hat? Not right now. All right now, Andre. I could do it. We have members of the Global Executive Council. I wear suit. I wear suit, high collar, look like good engineer.

I keep propeller hat in my satchel. How, hey, if you wear the suit, you're more than welcome to wear the propeller at. Break even. Oh, why not? I'm going to look at her and say, and a gesture to what I was working on before the young engineers got here, I say, this, uh, look, I'm going to tell you, this whole thing with the comm system, you know, we've had the brief change once a day for the last three weeks in terms of new information coming in. So this is not going to be fixed in time. everything working. We're already in the backup of the backup of the backup, but this is, I understand the stakes, but this level of security means that it's not going to be, you can't have this much security and have it to be functional. No, of course. I mean,

I have been trying to keep General Manhold off of you, and believe me, he has been on me. I'm having the same issue up and down the arc line. Every station, every lead is getting backwards directions to try and explain. operations while also keeping them clandestine. I mean, it's all over the place. The transition is not, I think that GSEC is thinking that this transition is going to be seamless. And it's, I mean, I'm already getting ready to stay on the ship for an extra month or two.

I mean, you know, we were, I think most of us were hoping to load off next week. But I think I'm going to be here for at least another month. You are holding up the sky on this one, Amani. Big dreams need a strong foundation. I hope that I have done right by you. Do I know that everything is writing on you, your reputation, the work you have done here. God, another month. If I'm not, I'm not going to lie.

I have an escape pod with a back door in it. If they say I have to stay here one extra week. I'm going to be, you're going to find me in gray space at some blackjack table. I'm going to change my name. I'm going to burn my fingerprints off. Is there room for two? I give her over the shoulder, like, around that, like, big hug and pull her close to me. I'm, like, shorter than her.

Yeah. Okay, we're going to make a brave getaway. I explain two of my children. I try not to ruin my daughter's political career. Oh, I've, we've done this whole, I've planned this whole solar, thing that I, you know, I just thought would be a nice demonstration of everyone's hard work. And I think that it's, I mean, I have no worry that there's not, I have no, I have no fear that it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, the ship can manage it. I just, it's, it's. Tubbs, you know Tubbs, he mentioned cool it to me again. I know, I know, it's, I know, it's, I know they're landing on your desk.

but it is going to be extremely taxing on the ship to do this past. Reagan just thought if we could show the council how well their money was spent, that it would just ease everyone's hearts about this and make it easier to demonstrate to the public that this was a worthy endeavor. Cost analysis, this easing of hearts going to be about as much coolant as putting for X-class convoys to Mars and back. Yeah. Yeah, I know.

Just saying these hearts, I hope they're worth a lot of money. They are. Okay. By the way, I know that you do have that slideball game tonight against the Hydraxes. The Hyraxis, they're looking so strong. Hieraxis, that's it, yes. Well, I arranged for the sun viewing We're keeping you off the command deck

So the mucky mugs can't encircle you So I put you on one of the Meridian Operations Gallery With the kids From the Cots program And that you're going to be giving them a lesson I mean, you should be able to get out of there 10, 15 minutes, get your pregame pep talk in and all of that Oh, that

That is so I Thank you I prefer much to be at kids' table. This is not grown-up's table. I need something a little bit more mature than grown-up's table. A kid's table is perfect. Yeah. I'll be down and in half tonight and just save me a beer six.

I do it. I save you a beer six. Also, I tell Stella to bring Mondazi. So, you know... She's going to bring him, right? She better. I mean, I get it that she's an aide to... one of the leaders of Earth space.

But, you know, it's not that hard. I just, I just know, it's 10 hours from Mombasa to Tranquility, and then it's, I just hope. I mean, Mandazi's best in like the 15 minutes right after it comes out of the oil. But still have a little bit of that. Yeah, I just need a fraction. I just need a fraction. There's a lot riding on this one. Yeah.

It's been, I'm not going to lie. I'm going to talk to some people about how much I've been thinking about the Mandasi because it started to, even I recognize it's not healthy. It occupies my every waking moment. There'll be time for that soon. You guys ride the central lift down to Enhab

for you guys to get changed for the event that is to come. As the airlock fits into place, we hear the release of pressure. Stepping off a not-so- luxurious shuttle walking between two rows of seating bolted into the walls and into a wide receiving corridor where the block yellow letters you see read Welcome, Zenith Docking Bay. We see a group from children, five kids kind of dressed up, pile out of the ship into the open corridor,

pushing and shoving each other. Behind them, a patient, older man with a cowboy hat, broad-shouldered, full beard. heavy-set frame, hold on, hold on, steps off. And behind them, another character. Irika, will you please describe who you'll be playing in this campaign? Vera Lamb, who is known to most people as fish cakes, is a small and skinny, very foldable-looking human, who is 19 but looks younger,

a shock of white frizzy hair, big, watery dough eyes, wearing a functional clothes that were clearly not made for them. Fishcakes has clearly spent a lot of time drifting and is in one of those states right now of great alertness. You see the man in front of you, who you know as Boris Koff or Bogo, is wrangling the five younger children with whom you've traveled and looks back to see you in this state and is just going to offer a hand. As I take the hand, I look them in the eyes and I say, so I did get the blueprints of the Icaron, but I did not get the blueprints for this station. Oh, well, kiddo, I asked and they said those were government secrets. That's ridiculous. I mean, I mean, these children, we are all guests here. We should have some sort of a feeling of safety and knowing the ins and outs of this place.

Pishcakes, they promised that there would be plenty of security and that at all times you would feel safe and secure. Okay. All right. Well, that's very kind of them. But be that as may, now, especially since I'm, you know, helping out with some of the younger ones, I think maybe perhaps they would feel a little safer if, you know, we had just had a little more control. You see that running up to you as you speak of them, one of the kids, who you know is Timo, lanky teen, curly hair, runs up and goes, Fish kicks, come on. Okay. Well, I just want to make sure that, you know, before we get ahead of ourselves, that, you know, everything's secure and in place.

Come on, fish cakes. Boko said there were lasers on the ship. There's lasers here. We have lasers. But back at the, at the Cots house. Yeah, but like fun ones. These are big ones. Big lasers, fish cakes.

Right. Well, I know you've been really looking forward to this, but. You know, you, we're going out there now, and you haven't seen the things that I've seen. Yeah. You say that like every day. Well, you haven't. Not yet. Because they don't have your eyes.

I have my eyes. Well, if you could see, Fishkeakes gets up real close to Timo, points at her eyes. If you could see, with the eyes that I have, you'd know that it is, it's best to be prepared for anything and I pray, I pray that you would never have to look through eyes like mine. Go ahead and give me an intimidation check. It's an eight. You can see the sort of fluid because she has not blinked in a good 30 seconds. The water in her eyes sort of brims up and spills down over her cheeks.

You see that Timo looks at you. his face kind of curling. Your breath stinks, fishcakes. Yeah, it's the fishcakes. You see at this point, Bogo walks back over now followed by a woman, elegantly dressed in the black and gold of the Global Executive Council. Kids, I want you to meet Helena. She's going to be showing us around.

You see, this woman steps forward. Hi, I am a... to the vice counselor Quill, who has invited all of you here this evening. We're just running a little bit late. So if you can just follow me, we're going to head right upstairs to the event. I'm going to take a look at this lady. What can I tell about her from her demeanor other than that she's on a council? She seems to be well-to-do.

What didn't mean? An inside check. Oh, natural 20. Natural 20. Nice. Is that our second Nat 20? Yeah. Yeah, we're rolling hot, baby.

You see this woman, Helena Voss, this person who's just introduced themselves as Helena Voss, tall, narrow shoulders, tightly pinned back black hair, wearing rimless glasses, precise, minimal lines that match their kind of sharp posture, looks at you, especially fish cakes. I think on this Nat 20, you see that this person is very concerned with doing a good job. They want for anyone who sees them to imagine and understand that they are doing a good job and are a good representative of the Global Executive Council. On a Nat 20, you see that this woman is scanning the group of children that have landed here, but that her eyes rest especially on you.

you see that she looks at you up and down and then actually leans forward vera correct uh yes hello i am vera lamb i uh helena was it uh yes you're doing a good job oh thank you so much for inviting us you we are thrilled to have the children of the stars here it is your futures that we will be fighting for and Mira, you especially, it means the world that you would join us. Mm-hmm. Right this way. You see that she takes you down,

corridors that are lined with clean, white illumination, soft edge panels set into walls, fiber-lit conduits run along the floor, glowing a steady blue. You see that she walks at a kind of quickened pace with a sense of urgency, kind of leaning back, talking to Bogo. So did you have any trouble getting in or I just wondering about the tardiness?

Was it something on our end? No, no, it's just wrangling these kids. Sometimes people need a little more time. Of course, of course. That makes sense. Right this way. She takes you through a series of corridors. You've entered on one of the meridians, kind of four tall, slightly curved parts of the ship.

extending out from the center. You see that Chi has kind of taking you from the docking area toward what looks like a connecting causeway that will take you from the meridian to the arc line, the center of the ship, as you pass through kind of bulkhead windows that allow you to see out into space into the connecting elements of the ship.

As you wait for one of the lifts that looks like it's going to take you up to the causeway that'll inevitably cross you over into the center of the ship, the arc line. You see that she stops you and kind of more to the kids than to you. It says, do you all want to see something rather special? You see they go, yeah. Sure. You see one of them goes, yeah, what?

That's a child. And she points off the causeway looking down into one of the cargo lanes that seems to kind of take up the majority of the meridian. And she says, down there, gravity runs in a different direction. And Fishcake says you step forward and look over, you do see that the gravity, the gravity here pulling you down, but that below you in the cargo lane, workers and exo loaders are moving in a direction and have gravity oriented to what is for you, the wall. As you stand here on the causeway looking left and right, you see them moving up and down.

Beneath you, you see a massive shipping container glides past you on magnetic tracks, appearing to defy your sense of the direction you would define as up. And you see that, you see that Helena steps forward, pointing. So the meridian, these meridians on the four of them attached to the arc line, they used localized graviton channels to optimize cargo. floor. And so here, while we are able to walk this way, they are able to move more efficiently up and down. Pretty neat, right? You see, goes, kind of. As you're looking at the cargo moving up and down, will you give me a perception check? Oh, 13. 13. On a 13, big tall men are

pushing this cargo down the lane. There's a symbol on the cargo. Horizontal. Horizont. onto line, and then above it, two dashes connected by a curved line. There's something familiar about it. On a 13, you can't, it's not immediately coming to you, but you see this symbol, and there is just something in you that it evokes familiarity. That is a very efficient way of loading cargo. What all are they loading there? You see, Helena, looks down.

Oh, I'm not sure. I know there are a number of finishings on the ship that are still being put in. Some of the habitats aren't fully complete. The life support systems have all been installed. But in terms of, you know, every little control panel, every little dial, you know. Right, I'm sure you don't have oversight in all of the manifest for the cargo hold. Myself, personally, no. Oh, well, can I tell everything being loaded,

by the men, or do they look like locals? Give me a, like a lore check. 18. I'm 18. These are definitely spacers. Your Cots ward is on Tranquility. So I think you, and as like a 19-year-old with your ability to roam and leave and come and go as you please, like you've interacted with a lot of different communities on the Tranquility colony.

these are true spacers. These aren't, you wouldn't even call them GSEC. You would assume that these are the kind of people who operate in mining colonies, gray space, dock workers. Like it is that kind of, these people haven't seen Earth in a long time. The cargo, you said that it's very large, the new older, very large. Huh. Now, what kind of cargo would be needed for in such massive containers?

I turned to the kid who said it was kind of cool. Yeah. And saying, you should familiarize yourself with the different ways that gravity can benefit or detract from your living. You see a younger girl, Zadie, looks, June goes, yeah, we talk about gravity all the time at school. Yeah, but talking about something in school is different than the practical application of the theory. Okay, Zadie? Okay. You got to prepare yourself.

Fish cakes, your breath stinks. Again, it's the fish cakes. You guys say that every day. You think it hurts my feelings at this point? I'm called fish cakes. Yeah, and now we know why. You see that Helena leads you all into the lift, rising up, connecting to the causeway

where you're then loaded onto a people mover, which moves you over to the top of the arc line. Stepping out, you see a broad sign that reads, zenith habitat. The floors here are a polished, hyperwood composite, smoother and warmer than other spaces you've seen. Private rooms and offices line the outside of this kind of circular space. But stepping forward, you see that Helena leads you to a staircase that spirals up around a central pillar, bringing you to a viewing platform. Underneath a glass, dome mushrooming out, looking out at the void.

Wow. There you stand on a central platform ringed by greenery and what looks like temporary seating, much of which is occupied by a kind of small gathering of folks. You see a lot of them wearing the black and gold of official governmental uniforms. You see that in the corner there's a bartender serving drinks, a large table, of little canopes, cheeses, rolled meats, and a race stage on which a man is currently giving a small speech. You see that Helena kind of ushers you into this area and says, alright, if you could all just stay here for a moment,

I'm going to let, I'm going to let Vice-Councila Quill know that we've arrived. Oh, thank you so much. You see that Bogo immediately turns around. It's like, no messing around, all right guys. Just please, act respectful. Yes, act respectfully, everyone, and then under my breath, I do say to the younger case, I say, and what did we say about all the appetizers? In our pockets.

Yes. For the ride home. That's right. That's right. Yeah, you see that the crowd up here mingles as the man on the stage giving the speech. As chairman of defense for the Global Executive Council, it has been my honor to oversee Project Daedalus working with its architect, Dr. Imani Cortez. We are thrilled with the results of the project, and I believe, as you all will see today,

the power of what is currently called the Icaron, but will soon be, have its official GSEC call sign. This vessel is state of the art, and unlike anything existing in our solar system today. Now I know it's tempting to go for the sweets, but we need to, the caloric density of the meats and the cheeses is going to be what really puts us over the edge here. Can we do like a mix? All right. Okay, you can do a mix, but still keep it like a, like a, at least a 70-30 split between, you know, meats, cheeses, sweets. Okay, 70-30 splits. 70-30.

70-th Street. No, no, no. 70 sweets, 30 cheese. 70 cheese's meats. You see, as you're having this conversation, Lena crosses to you. Could you all come with me? Could you all come with me?

And you see that the man on the stage is wrapping up his speech. I would now like to bring to the stage to speak, Vice-Counselor Everett Quill. All right, everybody, big smiles, big smiles. Stepping up onto the stage, chasing the general off the stage with polite applause. Is Vice-Counselor Everquil, handsome in a boyish way with a quick smile and carefully styled hair that never seems out of place? Fair complexion and a narrow nose.

His black and gold suit pristine as he steps up to the mic. Fellow council members, crew, staff, thank you so much for being here. And an especially great thanks to Dr. Amani Cortez and her crew for their incredible work building this magnificent. station. Now, I hope people won't mind if I remind us what we're all fighting

for. The children. And you see that at this point, Helena pushes the four of you up onto the stage. Go, go, go, go, go. We shuffle up. I have Zadis' shoulders in my hands

as I guide everybody up towards the stage. These here are children of the stars, an organization I'm sure we're all familiar with. Each of them has lost their parents or guardians to awful and avoidable space tragedies. And I wanted them all to be here on Dr. Cortez's solar pass that they might know that their futures are safe. I think that's something worth clapping for. He turns to you, and an especially important person is here today. I'm not sure you all remember the stories about 10, 15 years ago, just before the attack on tranquility.

When a young girl was found floating in an escape pod in gray space, having just escaped from the horrors of Martian rule. That is Vera Lamb, who is with us today. I incline my head gratefully, and as I raise my head back up, you can see my eyes tilt upward, welling up once again. I poke Jacks as well. What? Oh, it starts.

Oh, yeah. You see. tears well at the corner of his eyes. It's you. It's you that brought us all here today so that other children don't have to have the experience that you've had. Never again. I think we can all say that together.

Never again. You see that applause breaks out as he steps down. And now I'd like to welcome to the stage, Councillor Miriam Adyemi, as he steps down with you, puts a hand on your shoulder. Nicely done. We are grateful for the honor of being here. You are so very brave.

I don't see it as bravery. I see it as just doing what I had to do to survive. Oh, can we get a photo? You see that Helena slides up with a photo. He puts his arm around you, click, could click of a few, hollows being taken as you are freed from your obligation and you see that Jacks walks up to you. Come to do the sweets now?

Yeah, okay, maybe more of a 60-40 split. Yes. Pulling out from this moment, this is the welcome drinks and kind of snacks for all of the visiting guests and crew here on the ship. Where would we find Kiki and Andre? Kiki, I think she is over in a corner holding court. No, she's going to be looking for a thing she cares about the most. She's trying to duck any government official and is trying to find something gambly, something just more interesting than listening to people give brief and unuseful speeches. I'm just trying to, I'm looking for fun.

people with drinking hands. Give me a stealth check and an investigation check. That's a dirty 20 for stealth. And a two for investigation. Woo! We're back, baby! I'm not CB. You are able to effortlessly dart and move around the crowd.

As you multiple times catch Dorian seem to like find a someone wearing like an official kind of black and gold looking uniform and then kind of begin to move to wherever you just were. As he kind of moves around the space, you avoiding him seeking. You struggle to find anyone who looks like full party. There's just so much black and gold here. There's so much government. There's so many officials.

Give me a perception check. Or? You eventually are looking for. crew or people who are just a little bit more with it. Yeah. And people who start to stand out to you are essentially secret surface, like the kind of like people attached, the attach, the attachés, traveling with these different executives. Among them, you're seeing, you're definitely seeing spacers, which I think is maybe odd,

but not really. But you're seeing these, like, big guys, big guys with tattoos kind of creeping up above kind of black and gold collars, suits that don't exactly fit the way that maybe they're supposed to. I mean, it's been so long since you've been on Earth. Yeah. And who knows, maybe they're just hiring new types of people. I think Kiki is of the opinion. Like, this isn't working and she's not finding people that are interesting to her

because she's dressed too much like the other officials. She's got, like, a crisp, pure black jumpsuit on. And the formal where she's got, she commissioned a 10 meter long sorry when she was on earth that cost her, it's ghost to say the number, not that she cares very much, but there are six places in it. Or maybe it hit a million. She wasn't really paying attention and taxes as a concept are confusing. And it's this very like gossamer thin, like silk fabric that's embroidered at the edges with like tessellated geometric patterns in actual platinum and studded with like clear sapphire. And she's just now kind of looked down as like, oh my God, I look like these fucking nerds. Got it.

Okay. And the ones that look like spacers look like a different breed of spacer than people I've dealt with. Mm-hmm. Is this like the beginning of the night? This is the very beginning of the night. Oh, well, it's because I'm here too damn early. Okay, okay. The next time I unfortunately get caught by Dorian long enough to, like, make eye contact.

I'm going to do some, like, gesture to my outfit that would be like, I gotta fix it. Where do I go? Oh, down, down there are restrooms in the lower areas. I'll be right back. Of course. Overgesticulates and uses that an excuse to try to move across the room. She's going to make it a retreat in the next couple of minutes. Like, that's where her brain is at.

100%. You begin to take the initial steps in making your retreat. Andre. I am keeping an eye out primarily for Sophie, who I know lives up on Zaha. I'm in a sharp, I think it's like a little gray, Nehru suit. There's not a tie that goes with it. It's like a high collar.

It's sort of like, it looks spacey. You know, like, I think there's certain things where they have like formal attire for non-military staff. And they're like, make him look like a spaceman. So it's like everything has like,

you're in your own society with its own conceptions about what it is that you're doing. And because we want to aspire to this ascent around the sun, I look, they have made the uniforms such that non-military engineering core have this little like sort of formal space like look at this outer space engineer man but I am a little bit I'm not the body type for it I'm a little bit thicker and it is sort of squeezing my neck a little bit but I'm rooting around looking for Stella. Bria is your character near the

catering tables or no yeah she's going like she's trying to find a door and it just always like Entrances and exits keep getting blocked by groups of officials that she doesn't want to talk to. So she keeps losing sight of it and then getting bored and a little hungry and grabbing food and then trying to find it again. I am lifting up one of the table covers with a foot to look if the catering coolers are underneath the tables for service. And if I notice you noticing me doing that weird thing, I'm going to look up and go, biggest cube you're going to be able to make is going to be five inch cheese cube unless you mix cheeses because the serving packets they come in they they don't have enough it's a small serving packet so you're going to do if you want pure cheddar you best you're going to do mixing the little

cubes together is is a five inch cube which is how many of those cubes would that be 125 oh oh because they're one inch each what André Dalca. Hi, Kiki, Davis. She says it, like she says her last name very quietly. Nice to meet you, Kiki. It's nice to meet you. Are you, why are you making cute?

What are you? Is there a door under that table? I'm trying to get out of here. My friend, Tub's going to come by. He's looking to make a quick getaway with cheese and get out. So I'm trying to see if there is unopened the bags of this cheese for him to get. Well, shit, hold on. And I'm going to go ahead and, like, go to.

to the other end of the table and like do the like turn my back because it's hard with like the full sorry wrap so i got to go heel back uh and i'll like flick my heel up and just try to like get a little can i get a little whiff i have a really good sense of smell can i can i check for cheese smell go ahead and give me an investigation check or perception check for cheese smell that's a nine there's no cheese down here the perception for me as well oh sure now that's a little bit that's a little sharper there. That's going to be a dirty 20. Surf like cheddar. They're keeping the cheese under the bartender station.

I'm going to look over at the bartender station and I go, that's a bingo. That's where the good stuff is over there. What I'm looking at is I'm looking at whatever cheese is the least populated general look from table to table because least amount means most popular in stomachs and not tables. and I noticed this herbal white cheddar is moving very fast. As you guys stand here over the canopy's table, you see that encroaching on you is a group of five children and a six larger child.

Actually, I would like to say I rolled the combined 26 for stealth, being by the bar crouched down, hand in the cheese bag. Andre, you see a shape at the bar of someone, as these five children, as five children approach your, your canopays table with hungry eyes. Oh, my God. Why does it lose children? Excuse me. Excuse us.

Ten hands just begin powering through canopays. Oh, hands up. You'll lose them. Oh, look up and go, hey, everyone, everyone hungry. Where? What do you like? You like the good stuff? You like sweets?

6040. 6040. Sweets do not sweets? or not sweets to sweet? You see, one of the taller ones. We're interested in 60-40 suites, 40% non-sweets. Okay.

All right. You know what? How old are these kids around about? 10 to 15. The youngest, probably around 10. The oldest 15. These are yours. No, my children are politicians and engineers.

And I'm going to turn around and go, okay, we're going to do 60-40, but some of the sweets, they're going to be healthy sweets. And I'm going to start passing out dried apricots to kids. You see them hold the dry apricots. What? Take a bite. This doesn't count.

It has a... It has higher fructose than candy. Dad, what are you doing? I turn around. You see your daughter, Stella, dressed in the black and gold of the Global Executive Council steps forward. Are you giving these children apricots? Oh, Stella. My sweetie, and I'm going to just give her a big hug.

Dad, she hugs you back. Dad, I'm at work. I'm at work. I want, I'm at work too. Your father not important? Oh, you're very important. It's just, you know. Turn around and I say, the children, they wish for sweets, but 60, 40, that's a high ratio. None of those children are holding apricots anymore. I was immediately like, in my hand, in my hand, in my hand. Get him out of here. I turn back around and see the apricot has vanished, and I go,

Miss Davis, you have seen where the apricot went off? Oh, they put them in the... I got hungry. Okay, we're going to learn about fuel input, output, because if you want these chocolate-covered espresso beans to go to these children, you're going to see a real output like you never believe. I'm going to point to Stella and say, one time she gets into chocolate-competro be...

Dead, please. When she is seven years... You see that she lets you go on as she just shakes her head. You hear a whistle trip. You see all five kids immediately turn their attention away from your story and rush towards the bartending station. I'm following the kids because what is that sound? We're on a spaceship. I'm going to look over to you and say, apricot, very sweet, have fiber, fiber.

Oh, I've made that mistake before. Don't you worry. I'm a killer of a tube I'll turn around to Stella darling it is very good to see you It's good to see you too dad This is incredible I mean we've been Getting the pictures and reading

The updates but to see it in person Oh the ship Yeah the ship I thought you meant the spread Oh this is fine I mean for a spaceship it's not bad Hey I've been here for three months To get a nice

Fresh cut of meat Or to get some thing like a nice chicken and goat stew or some actually well-coated rice and get a mandazi which speaking of this dad i tried it's a small craft all right it's if i bring montazzi on the ship the whole ship smells like mandazi this is a fate worse than death dad come on cut me some slack all right hey hey Hey, it's okay. Hey, next time you're, when you get home, it's on me. I was joke, it's a joke.

I like to rebu, you don't have to bring Montaise. No, I wanted to. I tried. No, no, no. Hey, listen, I wanted a piece of home, and look, she is here. You look beautiful, my darling. Thank you. Is Sophie around?

Yeah, she should be around here somewhere. She is supposed to give me pep talk because big game is tonight. We're going to take those hierarchies down a peg. You're playing slideball again. Yeah, I start the league on the ship. I leave the children. I've heard a word I care about. You see, you come back over.

That's awesome. Let's see. We find Sophie. She's around here. Hold on, did we have you all had your beautiful moment yet? I heard slideball. You're looking to play? Always some players drop out last minute.

Hold up what? I managed the league, so you need to, listen. There's a league. Here. Somebody say slide ball? Walking toward you, wearing a souvenir jacket, tall and lean, close-cropped hair, perpetual five o'clock shadow, walking up to you is Nate Sharp, who has been the security consultant for the last couple of months on the Icaron.

You know the hyraxes are going to kick your ass tonight. I hope you're not telling our guests anything different. This man, he flagrant cheater. know how, but we're going to prove. We're going to prove it. Cheater. It's going to come out. Wow.

Everyone. Big words. Everyone distracted with the 5 o'clock shadow along the jaw line. Everybody distracted. He wowed them with the sculpt from marble face, and then no one can play good. Oh, all right. All right. Well, hey, man, you step to the wah-wah.

You better be prepared. Oh. Hey, hey, you're going to come for the servals. Get ready. and this cat can jump. Not bad, not bad. Oh, that's kind. When's this happening?

Oh, is there money on it? We're, you know, some people gamble, but I personally do it. Believe frown on it. They do. Don't let me if it's supposed to be a team building, okay? You're going to bet. Make sure you bet with someone who's not going to blow their whole commissary on it, okay? What's the color of the servals?

Are uniform yellow and black? And by uniform, I do mean penny, because you can't get uniform shipped out to your secret military installation. Well, you know what you can get if you ask Yousef nicely. You see that he turns around and on the back of his souvenir jacket is embroidered the words the Wawa, which of course is the name of a group of Hiraxes. We all know that. Underneath my actual key card pass, there is a small little little, pin of a servile jumping, a little, like a small hunting cat. And I flick it.

And I go, all right, the wawa go. Where do the wawa go? You're going to be your little rock rodents to scream. I'll tell you what. You're going to be screaming. Oh, no, we lost so much. Okay? I've been, I'm getting limber.

I'm to stretch. There's never been a bigger circle fan than me in this moment. I'm going to pull out a little slate from like a little pocket in jump suit and like quickly toggle through and like tap it and every clear sapphire has like an LED sitting under it and they all turn yellow so now she's in yellow and black wow whip my head over to you and I go like oh so you like important important oh I'm a huge deal let's get out of here and yet a fun one you see that Nate goes well I mean we're not supposed to get it up to anything until after after the pass.

So we'll, but we'll be, we're gonna head down to Inhab and cook up some food, you know, something a little bit more substantial. But after you guys do the whole sun thing, please come on down. I'm gonna say, I'll be right down. Stella, I can introduce you to my friend Kiki, Kiki number one Servals fan. I am, hello.

Hi. Kiki, you are, this your first time aboard the Ikaran? It is. Welcome aboard the ship. I need to go get cheese for tubes. Are he going to be mad? And I want to turn and walk over to the bartending station. You move toward the bartending station where five children have all gathered around.

And you see the bartender is now going, you can't take the cheese. Please, we, some of us have not had cheese for so long. I've never been. 22. You see the guy, when you know. down, goes, there's more cheese in the back. I, I can get you some more cheese. The herbal kind?

The, okay, you specifically want the herbal kind? Yeah, it's a special treat from Timo's home, and I push Timo forward. Yeah, it's from my home. You see that he goes, I'm so sorry. Please go get the cheese. Yeah, I'm gonna go. Special treat cheese. Yeah, I'm gonna go.

Thank you. Thank you. Okay, quickly. Meanwhile, I'm taking cheese. So what you have to do, if you squish them into little, like, little flat as flat as you can, the pancakes, you can just slip them under any sort of layers that you might have. I'm going to walk up. Has the bartender just left? Has just left.

And you see a group of children underneath the table, mashing cheese together. I'm going to go look down and I go, oh, cheesecakes. Hello, may we help you? Hello, I am Andre. Pleasure to meet you. You are Vera, yes? Yes. Pleasure to meet you. Vera Lam. Beerleam, pleasure to meet you. Welcome to Icaron. I see that you are employed in the service of this ship. We thank you for your service.

Hey, not that kind of service. My thank you come in the form of a paycheck. Would you care for some cheese? Oh, certainly. Actually, I'm grabbing for my friend. Bartender is gone. We grab and make a run for it? Yeah, he's coming back with more cheese, though, and we do kind of want to eat. Do you know what kind it is? The herbal kind. Nice.

Yes. Okay. Yes. I wait for this. I'm going to walk over at this point. I'm going to be like, what is the drinking age on earth? Because there's a lot of kids here. From legal perspective, you are on earth right now.

Sure. What is it? It doesn't matter. matter. Hi, young child, please make me a drink. I look around at the ingredients that are in the bar. I can, I can, I can cook something up. Yeah, go ahead and give me, like a chef's. I was about to call them chefs tools again. What is it? Go ahead and give me like a kitchen utensils, proficiency check. Uh, 11. Massive glass of ice, a little bit of whiskey, and a lot of soda. you've done a terrible job so you don't do this who are you oh hello i am my name is virile lamb we call it fish cakes

you smell like fish cakes mm-hmm yes oh shit you're one of the yonk you got found yes it was a very tragic story miss oh davis They were looking for you. They came to my Ark trying to find you 15 years ago. You're from Arc? Well, it is nice to meet you, Miss Davis. I apologize. I don't have that much of proficiency with mixing drinks. I'm much more used to sort of a...

Don't apologize. Vera, I'm going to ask you, you are traveling here with the children of the stars with Cots program, yes? Yes. So you're not planning to stay for a long time, though? Oh, no, I think we're just here for the photo opportunities, and then we will be back on our way. Well, you know, my daughter, she worked on the ship.

A young woman, maybe a few years older than you, but she worked here as life support engineer. You know, I know that you are partially here for promoting your program, but correct me if I'm wrong. You are adult, yes? In a manner of speaking, yes? Well, I'm going to... Oh, a vocational, sort of a vocational ride-along?

If you are interested in this, you know, I'm happy to make the introduction. I just want to... Well, that's very kind of you, yes. I don't know what I'm going to do after this. I'm hanging around in the Cotshouse for a little while, just because everything that I've sort of tried to embark on every enterprise since graduating has not really panned out for one reason or another.

So I would not want to disappoint you or your lovely daughter. I'm sure she's lovely. Ah. Well, I am very sure you could not disappoint me because I actually don't have any expectations for you. So not possible to upset something that don't exist. But, yeah, why not? I'm getting the cheese. Can I look around to see if Sophie is around anywhere?

Yes, please. You do not see your daughter. Yeah, low roll. However, you do see your ex-wife. I didn't roll a Nat one, man. I'm going to look over, I look over at Vera and go, you know, I, heck. Good.

Listen. Is that your daughter? No. Who are we looking at? Over here, over there, the woman that had, there's some sort of a recognition. ring check I do not wear a wedding ring Bantan

Bantan yes Got it But old Old Like you know one of those things Essentially like there's just an area That's like finger divot Yeah

I'm going to look over to you Vera and say I don't see my daughter Sophie anywhere But Listen If you want to take tour of ship, look around at some place, I'm going to lean in and say, I think sometimes very uncomfortable for everybody to know big thing about you. So you want to go for a walk, see tour of ship, anything like that, maybe bring other kids along. Maybe we can make that

happen so you don't have to sit here and everybody ask you same question over and over. Do you have a breakdown of all the ventilation shafts? Hey, that is a question which if Nate Sharp hear you, he's going to ask you follow-up questions about why you want to know this. That's why I didn't ask Mr. Sharp. Okay, Vera, well, you have a nice time. I'm going to hear that question and peel off to go say hello to Nisha. He absolutely does know where all the ventilation shafts are.

You do that. Just really quick. The language of everyone associated from Mars is that, like, is it a different language, or do they just speak? They speak. Most of the world speaks English. And so it's the predominant language in both Terran space and Martian space. Okay. I'd like to think there's, like, enough of a patois or something in it to, like, market

as like Martian specifically, and I want to lean in and use sound trick just to get a little whisper in your ear as you make the like comment about the ventilation shafts and just say, I think they were looking for you because they came to my arc asking questions years ago. Just very quietly in your ear as I then chuckle about the ventilation shafts and like look over your shoulder out at the rest of it. of the party. Just to see, I'm just like reaction checking you. I also look out over the party and I say very low. Oh, so you have an arc. You're out in a gray space, huh? Mm-hmm. Oh. Every now and then, they can convince me to come back and never stay around these parts

long, though. What about you? Oh, you know, we go from place to place where we're needed for a handshake or a, you know, reminder of the horrors of this war. And, you know. You're not a child of the stars. Where do you belong? Fishcakes. I don't really belong. I say looking out over the crowd.

This moment is interrupted by feedback from a microphone. Oh, this is so loud. Dr. Amani Cortez steps up to the stage. Andre, how do you approach, Nisha? I approach respectfully. Like, I don't want her to see me, like, walking across a B-line, but I'll walk up to join whatever circular conversation she's in, just to say hello.

She turns to you. Her face lights up. Andre. Nisha, good to see you. You, welcome. Hope Trip, you travel up with Stella? Yes. Wonderful. I just see her. She did not bring any Mandazi. We need to discuss as family, as co-parents.

Of course, a huge. Oh, Dr. Cortez, I think, is about to speak. And I will take that minor rebuffing of a bit really hard on an interior level and turn around to look at Dr. Cortez about to speak. You see that she steps up. Hello, council members, esteemed guests, and of course, my fellow crew. My name is Dr. Amani Cortez. I serve as the GEC's chief technical advisor on fleet development and is the lead architect of Project Datalus.

Ten years ago, when Morris struck us at Tranquility, the world was faced with a choice. How should we respond? The decision was made. by those in this room, that our next steps would not be to strike back in vengeance, but to create a defense, one strong enough to protect the Earth's space, and allow our home to flourish in safety rather than become an aggressor in turn. Tasked with that mission, I dreamed of a wall, a protector,

something to shield us, and what I most wanted to protect was not just our planet. but this sense of boldness that carried us to the stars in the first place. As the head of Project Datalus, I had the privilege of naming it, and I, of course, chose Datalus my favorite inventor of legend, and it felt only right that the creation of Project Datalus should bear the name of his son, Icarus, and thus the Icaram. In a few days' time, once he is formally commissioned into service, by the Global Security Corps, he will take on his official name of the ESS.

DeKambe Mbatsu. And, you know, some of my colleagues found the name Icaron unusual, but I could think of no better one. The myth of Icarus is about a young man who flew too close to the sun. And that is exactly what we are doing here. There's nothing safe about going to space. There's no protection. but the one you build for yourself.

For me, the lesson of Icarus has never been about that we should not fly. The lesson is that we must be prepared for the fall. And 10 years ago, we fell. However, today we rise, prepared to ensure the generations who come after us will inherit the same audacity that carried humanity to the stars in the first place. That's all I have for pros. and now I'm on a round to thank somewhere in the range of four to six hundred people who made this all possible.

I'd like to start with, you see that she begins to go on. Oh, she's going to do it? Of course, I need to thank the members of the Global Executive Council. Those present today, she begins to go through it. I lean back under the bar and I hand you the full bottle of whiskey. Thank you, Vera. Give me a perception check, everyone. Twelve.

Seven. Seventeen. Reeling from your ex-wife's rebuff and focused on the bottle of whisking your hand, fish kicks. You are the only one of these three who notice that multiple members dressed in black and gold at this moment produce their side-ons. and raise them up and begin firing shots into the air. There's a scream as people fall over the ground in terror, and one of them steps forward and goes, Nobody move.

This ship is under our command. That was Erica Ishii as Vera Fishcake's Land. Abria Aingar as Kiki Davis. Brennan Lee Mulligan as Andre Dalka. And me, Lou Wilson, as everyone and everything else. Flight of the Icaron is produced by Fortunate Horse and Worlds Beyond Number, edit and sound designed by Brian Flaherty of many-sided media, and score by Will Savino.

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