“I have to say Administrator Vil, the perks of the job do seem worth it.”

“Most of the time,” Udaz Vil replied as they accepted the drink being offered to them. “But it does come with having to answer to certain cretins within the Senate.” Vil was an older member of their people and the years of sitting behind a desk, using the brain and their will disproportionally more than their body had taken a toll on their figure.

“Hey, that’s just the joys of life in the Conglomerate.” Captain Rejach Vaanj sat down on the balcony of the sixth-floor office next to Udaz, attired in their full dress uniform. The dark green of the Conglomerate Defence Force clashed with Vaanj’s sky-blue skin tone in a way that brought to mind that a fashionista somewhere hated the military with a passion, then bribed some committee somewhere to take up their design. But Vannj’s striking figure and aura of confidence pushed those considerations aside and made the uniform work. Though Vil couldn’t help but notice Vaanj’s youthful look of late.

“I would bet all the wealth of the Southern Seas that Architect Sish over in the Kinship doesn’t have to deal with the same idiocy I have to.” Vil raised the glass they’d been given, examined the dark red spirit within against the mid-afternoon sky, and then took an exploratory sip. “Which bottle of klelik is this you’ve opened?”

“The ’86 that was hiding in the back.” Vaanj’s attention was firmly set on the horizon as they sipped at their own drink. Out there, across the bay separating the Conglomerate Space Agency’s head office from the Cretn Space Centre, stood an array of launch towers. All of them were monumental structures in their own right and three of them were partnered with rockets matching their height. “Last of the fuel ships?”

“Pads 14 and 18 are. Pad 7 is your ride up to orbit.”

“Why is it on the pad then? We’re not due to launch for another two weeks.” Vaanj turned away from the launch towers on the horizon and towards Vil, an eyebrow raised questioningly. “What’s going on?”

“Both the Pride of Gavlor and People’s Will have truly started racing each other. Our estimates had Pride beating Will by a few hours after they revealed they had a bit more sail than they let on. Then Will started increasing their burn rate, taking back the lead. It’s gone back and forth overnight but seems to have settled down with Will once more set to win, but it went from the week lead we thought to a few hours at most now.”

Vaanj blinked at Vil, then sculled their drink entirely before setting the glass down on the small table between the two seats on the balcony. “So how long then before they reach Xemis?”

“Four weeks at our current estimate.” Vil rolled their head to the side. “You and your crew launch into orbit tomorrow.”

Vaanj chuckled, their shoulders bobbing with each exhalation. “You know, we could still take things slower and still beat both of them.”

“We took a major, major risk with the Cush Plan. With the Pact and the Kinship up there actually piling on speed, I’m not risking it.” Vil’s eyes narrowed as they locked on Vaanj. “You launch tomorrow, you get the Nimma ready for flight and you beat the ever-living snot out of both of those ships.”

“One moment.” Vaanj stood, collected their glass and disappeared back into Vil’s office, returning quickly with a freshly charged glass. “To Nimma Cush,” Vaanj said as they held the glass out for Vil to tap their own against.

“To Nimma. May your forgotten and discredited theories finally be recognised by all of Qal.” Vil’s smile edged on predatory then, which on such a large person made it worse. “And lead us to embarrassing those insufferable pricks in the Pact and Kinship.”

“I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t want us beating the Pact too much,” Vaanj protested weakly. “But I’m sure Nimma would back us on this. No one else took their theory seriously until you Administrator.”

“Just go win the race to Xemis. We’ve spent years being mocked as the losers of the race too afraid to even launch the Nimma and too embarrassed to admit we’re going to lose that we still pretend we’re going to win.” Vil sipped at the klelik still in their glass. “But in two days you’re going to win the race and usher in a totally revolutionary era of space travel.”

“Damn straight Administrator.” Another tap of glasses in acknowledgement. “Damn straight.”