>>93936147It was a calm morning, near the launchpad of the Stel Reguretto SpaceAZ complex. The seabeavers gnawed calmly at the cyan mangrove bushes carpeting the beautiful beach. Low and growing in intensity, the rumble of the day's spaceship being rolled out to the pad spooked the rodents, who skittered back into the ocean.
She was beautiful. The vessel, an AZKirianne-XII, was covered in black ceramic tiles interspersed with glowing pink runes. Ribbons of blue-white vapor cascaded heavily from the exposed parts of the cooling system, from whence a subtly different shade of pink was glimmering. At the bottom, the six thrusters of the first stage awaited their signal with bated breath, ready to deliver skull-numbing starfire to the area once their time came.
The carriage retreated back to the safety of the hangar, some hundreds of yards away. A deathly silence fell upon the idyllic scene. Then, a crystal clear voice resounded from a voice amplifier.
>十、>九、>八、Satori squeezed her sister's hand. Unlike most spectators here, she wasn't concerned for herself. The launch viewing area was kilometers away and up-orbit from the site. If the most catastrophic chuubic cascade occurred, they were far enough that not even the fastest chunks of shrapnel would endanger them. No, what was garroting her heart in this moment was the one sitting in the ship.
>七、>六、>五、Her husband, the pride of the Pioneer nation, and the #1 source of stress of her life. Every time he promised her he was retiring to a comfier role, there was "one more op" to do, "one more prototype" to test-fly. She damned those AZKineers who kept coming up with new magical baubles to gamble her love's life with.
>四、>三、>二、A blue flash roared to life under the rocket. In an instant, a furious plume of grey-blue exhaust raged horizontally out of the launchpad.
>一,>GUESSU!Down went the AZKirianne's shackles, and the tyranny of gravity over man was no more, for just her brave pilots. She rose up, slowly at first, and then faster and faster, leaving a growing column of shimmering smoke beneath. The furious sound of the screaming thrusters battered the audience, almost painful even at this long distance.
Ever so gently, the black needle angled herself sideways, curving her accelerating trajectory to the heavens towards her desired orbit. Soon, the engines could be seen from beneath; the five engines arranged around the central one formed a brilliant blue star of blue-hot magical plasma from this angle.
She flew straight and true. The launch, the most unreliable part of the mission, was a success. Her fellow watchers yelled and cheered at the new star the pioneers had just sent to join the firmament. Satori, on the other hand, put her palm against her chest and felt her beating heart calm down as she grew surer of her husband's safety. Each of these occasions had to age her a whole year...
