Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

Sendoff

It had never been this hard to leave the ground before.

Adam had often felt out of place, and out of sorts tethered to the ground , gravity was a ball and chain that held him back from blue skies and the starry darkness of space. But now, for once in his life, he was gong to find it hard to force this ship off the ground, and yes, he did mean ground.

It was hard to remember just how big the Empyrean was without the constant reminder of scale to put it into perspective, so for the first time since acquiring the ship, Adam was truly reminded of how colossal she was, at least as tall as the spiral tower, and big enough that the far end of the ship was faded blue with interfering atmosphere. If it had been any other ship anywhere close to her size, and he would never have considered landing her planeside. Taking off would have been a immense waste of energy, not to mention the engines producing the amount of thrust needed would have glassed a good quarter mile of ground.

But Maker energy or Anima energy was a little different.

They didn't entirely understand how it worked, and they didn't really need to. It was jut convenient to stock the ship with everything they would need to embark on this important journey. No one knew how long it was going to be , and that is what worried him.

At the base of the cargo ramp now General Kimball was checking off names from a massive list welcoming the crew aboard as they slowly trickled onto the ramp. A few last minute supplies were being loaded up but otherwise most everything had been packed weeks in advance. Entire teams had taken night and day for a good month to put everything into place to Adam's satisfaction. It was better to be overprepared than underprepared, and the Empyrean had a lot of space. This would be the first time she would fly with a full crew, which was well over two thousand individuals, the most he had ever commanded on one ship at one time.

And that was only counting their human passengers.

Lord Celex had brought with him an entire compliment of Celzex warriors and engineers as a good faith offering from his son Emperor Avex. As small as they were, an entire army of them had easily disappeared into the Empyrean. Adam might have estimated there were over a thousand of the little furballs roaming the ship, but crew members claimed not to have seen a single one since stepping inside. No one was sure where they were only that they were there somewhere.

He walked slowly down the length of the ramp towards where Kimball was standing

"All well?"

"Admiral." Kimball acknowledged before "All is well, so far. All the Celzex have been loaded up including Lord Celex himself. The Lumin and Mike delegations have already boarded and have claimed three of the interior laboratories as based on the agreement. Very polite but weird as hell they are."

"Who else did I miss."

"No one yet." He said, "We just started."

Adam nodded once standing next to Kimball as the crew slowly trickled aboard,

Narobi and Glados were the first to appear walking side by side as they made their way towards the ramp talking animatedly about something or another. Glados did not go unnoticed by the rest of the crew and received plenty of surprised and uneasy stairs as she scuttled past.

Glados had grown to her full height within the last few years, not nearly the size of her mother but still on the large size, she was about as tall and as board as the average horse with a rather bulbus horaz and ten sets of spidery legs. Her wolfish head was covered in a thick layer of blond fur, and her eyes were unsettlingly human.

"Narobi, Glad you could make it." Adam said

The woman held up a finger to silence him before absently adjusting the yellow and red scarf tied decoratively over her tight curly hair, "of course I was going to make it, someone needs to make sure that this ship is taken care of." She waved a hand at him, "If it was up to you yahoos shed be falling apart in under a week."