The background noises aboard the Pious Lament have changed significantly over the past few hours as the Engines are bought into an operating condition and here on the bridge there is a sense of quiet anticipation. The view of space has gone now as the great armoured shutters have closed over the huge 'bird cage' window, the insides painted with images of the emperor destroying the foes of mankind in a series of imaginary ways. In the centre of the bridge the great, primary visual auspex display hangs like a giant pocket watch, showing vid feeds and tactical data to the command bridge, the helmsmen and the navigators below them. The three dimensional effect created by the tactical auspex display that dominates the floor gives the impression of a sphere of space, shrunk to forty feet across, in which a tiny image of the Pious Lament floats high above the planetary surface, accompanied by various other craft, each with their name floating above along with various coloured coded letters and symbols, and each surrounded by lines and circles representing predicted courses, weapon ranges and anything else anyone might need to know in the heat of battle.

Cherubs circle in the air, singing hymns and wafting fragrant incense from their censures, while in the Mechanicus balcony, high up on the port side wall, red robed figures scuttle about amongst their brass leavers and dials below the glowing red of great nixie display that is repeated at locations throughout the ship and reads two hours eleven minuets and twenty eight . . .twenty seven . . . twenty six seconds

Where is your character right now and what are they doing?
Please remind me if you have any unfinished.
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 For the great Rite of Activation that coaxed the sacred plasma drives back to their full life, Jak laboured mightily in the Engineerium itself, wielding torsion-wrench and holy anointing oil alike to appease the vast and ancient spirit of the drive to arise from their stood-down condition to the holy tension that is the state of 'stand-by'. Now however, with the Lament poised to break orbit for the journey out-system to the Manderville Point (one significantly shorter than most, for complex reasons of orbital dynamics) he's standing on the Mechanicus balcony, high above the bridge where he can watch as the Captain and the Helmsman enter into the no-less-blessed process of fully awakening The Pious Lament to ignite her engines and leave the shallow shoals of planetary orbit for the depths of space.

 Of course, he's plugged into a number of cogitators and is monitoring a great many functions as he does so (to be on the safe side) and there's a greenish tank floating behind him, but that's a mere detail to set against his imposing presence as he witnesses on behalf of his charge.

As they made their way from their newest acquisition towards the mandeville point Searlait took a little time to relax in her staterooms. With the festivities, galas, balls, ceremonies and feasts taking the last several days she took the time to sleep, laying in bed with Medb in a near comatose state.

They had their course set and she had an alarm to wake up to be on the bridge for when they prepare to enter the warp. With the freedom now given to them she had the course set and would just be waiting for the time to get enter the warp and in the interim relax.

Once the course had been set, the Navigatrix and her kin had retreated from the bridge to their Sanctum with the whole of their respective aides, escorts, and sundry attendants. Their expertise no longer needed now that all had been entrusted to the skilled hands of the helmsmen to navigate and negotiate the hazards of the mundane universe as they approached the Manderville Point where they would be needed again. Such time, however, was not spent idly by any stretch of the imagination as each of the Navigators aboard committed themselves to the complex trans-dimensional mathematics, ritual warding, scrying, and sundry preparations that proceeded any warp journey for their strange ilk.

For the Navigatrix, the Navis Primaris, this meant many things from a serious of inspections under the calculated eyes of her personal medical staff, a bevvy of fortifying injections and inoculations against the known physical hazards of warp gazing, and finally the exhaustive mental preparations that saw her nearly literally attached to the cartography table and illuminated only by it's sickly greenish hues. The trappings of her office discarded save for the Navis Prima that was now rested atop a lectern beside one of the many data access ports of the table. The eager machine spirits consuming and translating the complex notations therein to a hololithic display of the many channels, lanes, and other features of note known of this sector and the Endless Sea on the other side of the Empyreal Divide.

There was some chagrin she felt every time she set to pre-emptively charting the course as none of it was absolute. The Endless Sea was ever changing in the mannerisms of it's flow, the nature of it's storms and shoals, and the thousand other things that didn't have an adequate nautical comparison in the languages of both Low and High Gothic, among the handful of other more engineered tongues that she knew. This is where the necessity of scrying came into play as she continued to sing softly to herself and stare out and beyond the confines of the hull with her blessed third eye. One hand always working with calculated precision over the control keys of the table whilst the other worked to carefully adjust the orientations of the display. If any but her kin might have weathered her uncovered eye, it all would have looked both bizarrely mundane and utterly alien.

Made only more so as it was done without the many trappings of her station and office, it was an intimate and quiet moment. The last she would have for some time once they were committed to the journey.

At some point in the midst of all of this, the Lady Navigator found a moment to dispatch a runner to deliver a letter to the Lady Captain's offices and quarters in kind. The caliber of hand writing was, to no one's surprise, exquisite in flow and attention to the proper forms of each letter upon expensive vellum with touches of incense and other small courtly authentications to support the identity of the sender. The seal of House Shiraishi serving as the first and final marker.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:09, Tue 02 Apr.

Searlait readed the message from the navigatrix as she moved through the corridors then makes her way to the unto the bridge. She makes her way to the throne to allow them to begin the official rites to make the jump. She types a short response into the intra-vessel vox network

Once the vessel makes the jump and is underway she holds a conclave in the ready room for the senior officers and once their assembled she states "We are currently on route to the Forsellis system for a brief stop for minor trade and the show the colours, after that we have several options of what to do. Head to Footfall and gather supplies and hunt for opportunities there. The Navigatrix has passed on knowledge of an unsanctioned space station nearby that may prove fruitful or there is a rather old distress near the Rifts of Hecaton from a former Imperial Navy vessel that formerly belonged to my family, unknown vessel name, but My families losses include the Bane Sidhe, my great-grandmother's vessel and the Stríocóir Réalta My elder brother's missing vessel. Has anyone else come across any promising leads or feelings on either possible missions?"

 Attending in person, with servo-skull and grav-tank in attendance (quite what's going on there is anyone's guess, but there's probably a reason for it, maybe?) Jak struts into the room, his motion slightly more predatory and raptor-like than in the past, something explained (to some degree) whenever the full-length red robes he wears shift slightly to reveal long, eagle-like clawed feet patterned after those of the Imperial Aquila, only wrought in ceramet and bronze-gold obdurate alloy.

 Apparently, he does have a sense of style!

 "My attention has been entirely committed to the repairs and refitting of the Pious Lament during the course of our layover. Access to the theological expertise and time of so many experienced members of the Adeptus Mechanicus was not something I could fail to take advantage of." Jak remarks, the binaric content of his side-bands chiming and buzzing around his words carrying significant quantities of statistical information about their work in a way that is not likely to be helpful to anyone else.

 "That stated, my recommendation is to investigate the missing vessel. Restoration of a lost hull to the dynasty would be an act of no small benefit and, more significantly the restoration of a holy voidship to the service of Man would be virtuous in and of itself." - Jak of course, always has his eye (lenses?) on the prize.

Delegating work is fun, and Gregory decides to delegate even more as the ship gets ready for the void transition. Someone's handling the patrol scheduling, someone's drafting a roster for corridor patrols during the translation, he even has little Caerul from the armory apprentices polishing his storm bolter for him. All this frees him up to contemplate the truly important things on life; whether to have a recaf or to go hit Scarlet up at the Psykana spire.

As he arrives at the spire with a mug of recaf in hand, the leader of the Psykana wardens politely informs him that the choir is having an internal meeting and that they will not be out for some time. Before Gregory can thank them for their trouble, Aase informs him that there is a matter that requires his attention down in the Ops Room and he returns to settle the issue.

***

At the conclave of the senior officers Gregory chimes in behind Jak in approval.

"An extra voidship is an extra asset to the dynasty; not as much as a colony but still a vital one nonetheless. Reclaiming a lost ship so soon after reclaiming a lost world will only send your star rising higher. However, we should probably provision ourselves as well as possible before heading out into the Rifts, so perhaps we will pass by Footfall after all."

Faith squeezes Scarlet's hand before stepping away from the bed, nodding to the medical servitor that tends to her as the door to the latter's room closes behind her. The chirurgeons still don't know what happened to Scarlet; all they can do is hope her condition improves.

***

The next order of business is sorting out the choir's duties. With one of their major duties being the sending and receiving of astropathic messages, one of the astropaths will be on receiving duty at any given the time, flanked by mundane scribes from the First Officer's typing pool to organize, archive and properly route messages to and from the various departments on the vessel. Said scribes are also accompanied by the braver cryptographers among the Master of Whispers' entourage, to decipher any coded messages received, as well as dedicated lay brethren and Techpriests Minoris from the Mechanicus contingent to ensure everything is in working order. All these personnel will be defended by detachments of the Psykana Spire Guard, who have been recently reinforced by Archmilitant Asgard rerouting a company's worth of men to them. Like any veteran officer, Gregory knows that clear comms and fire support are two of the Guard's greatest weapons, and he intends to have the Dynasty's biggest guns ready and able to rain death on the enemy when needed.

All the personnel involved are gathered in a large audience room that can hold the five hundred-odd people present, the better to get everyione acquainted with each other. Responsibilities and assignments are handed out, and after the briefing, the astropaths convene to discuss their more spiritual duties.

***

After Gregory speaks in support of going after the ship, Faith raises her hand.

"I third the suggestion of investigating the voidship, though it might serve us well to bulk up the astropathic choir's facilities and manpower. After all, if we are venturing into the deep void, it would only make sense to ensure we can send a distress signal should an emergency arise.

"It would seem that the general consensus is to look for the missing frigate after we visit Forsellis. With any luck we will get more information about the ship and get provisions, should we not get sufficient supplies we may need to make stops on the way to Rifts to get what's needed. That being mentioned, should your departments have any requests please forward them onto Vormav's staff, and please for his own sake sort them into priorities and we will see what we can get, remember this isn't a forgeworld or fortress world, we get what we can get at these backwaters."