A stunned silence rippled through the cockpit. Galyn had just started the movement engines of the Thantir Two, expecting pretty much nothing to work. Instead, everything was working as intended, and the engines were purring away, ready to go. In fact, they sounded far quieter than normal.
“Alright, which of you three did this?”
Retvik responded with a tut. “I think the ship sounds a lot better now. Much calmer and much steadier.”
“Did you modify the engines yourself?” Galyn grunted.
“Of course not! I simply spoke to the many Decay Lords out there, looking for help in fixing it all, and one of the pit stop owners helped me fix everything.”
“Which one?”
“Uh… Some being called Nupa. He was best friends with the nice Decay Lord Arkay made friends with, which got us our supplies more quickly.”
Galyn grunted some more, mostly satisfied with Retvik’s answer. He then turned his attention to the navigational console, the duties of which he had given to Arkay. Displayed on said console were holographic points, all marking nearby ships and locations.
“Are we clear for movement, Arkay?”
Arkay didn’t answer at first. Galyn repeated his question.
“Arkay?”
“One moment…” Arkay frowned, watching a particular holographic dot. Once the dot disappeared, he finally turned to Galyn. “Alright. We’re clear now. Was just waiting for that super erratic git to stop being super erratic and leave.”
“Ah, good…” Galyn smiled, his clawed hands running along the controller in front of him. He nudged the controller ever so slightly, then tapped a button on its side. The Thantir Two began to move, rising upwards and away from the Decay Lord pit stop. Once they were clear from the main airspace, Galyn gripped the controls more tightly, guiding the ship in a gentle orbit, keeping a steady distance.
After only a few minutes though, the ship began to move back closer to the pit stop. Arkay quickly realised that Galyn was doing this intentionally. The ship slowly descended, before parking perfectly back in its original location. As the landing gear connected with the ground, there was a very slight bump, and the engines all quietened down once more.
“You planned to do that, right?” Litvir asked, looking rather confused.
“Of course.”
“But… why?”
Galyn spun his chair around to face Litvir. “You never heard of a test flight?”
“Pardon me, but before I became a Decayling, I had never left my home planet…” Litvir paused. “Or even really my home city…”
“You never left Thre-Sia?” Retvik piped up.
“A couple of times. As I was promoted through the ranks…” Litvir shrugged. “Not that it matters now, what with my obtaining immortality and godhood…”
“What was your mortal life like then?” Galyn queried as he turned back around, putting the ship properly in park mode.
Litvir shrugged some more. “Oh, nothing special. I was just a psychiatrist with telepathic powers that spent a long time trying to help broken Rethavok, only to realise that I should have just been helping myself. I spent my adult years designing a super-computer that kept broken Rethavok inside a matrix-like digital landscape to allow them to live some semblance of a normal life, while using their brainpower to for my calculations in trying to find a way to obtain immortality. That was, until three of my captains, Retvik included, attempted to kill me and trapped me inside my own matrix…”
Galyn blinked, not quite sure whether to believe Litvir or not. He eventually tutted and decided to change the subject. “And here I was thinking Arkay was the most out of place out of the three of you. Anyway, we needed to do a test flight before we set off entirely. And we have not properly decided on which region of uncharted space to explore.”
“We have not?” Litvir blinked this time.
“No. We never came to a decision.”
“Well…” Litvir glanced at the others. “Maybe we should make a decision then…”