Welcome to Gaia! ::

Chris followed Rios gaze and was suddenly jerked back to what he was doing as the ship jumped to lightspeed and left Bams orbit. As soon as they were clearly out of Bams orbit, Chris shut the lightspeed down and sat back in his seat. He suddenly said, " Rio, Who was it that you told me to go back to Bam for?" Chris was concerned for Rio and fell quickly to sleep.

((Oi, Killa, I said don't talk about things that you don't know about! Also, Rio is the pilot, so he does most of the flying. I control Rio, so I generally control the craft. In addition, these crafts don't jump into lightspeed, they go into warp drives. You leave a planet's orbit, then jump to warp drive, not jump into warp drive and end up leaving the planet. This is your last warning: control only your character and what he controls or you will be kicked out!))

Rio looked at Chris, sleeping, and backhanded his shoulder to wake him.

"Oi, wake up. You need to keep the craft steady while I start the calculations for warp drive."

He pulled a clipboard and used the choppidu's computer to begin the calculations. "I'm a little slow, so we won't jump for another ... ten minutes."

He scrawled for a few minutes before speaking. "So, here we are. Three strangers, travellers by the looks of you two, on a six-man choppidu having just witnessed the destruction of a entire country without knowing who could have possibly commited such an act. And yet I am not going to any bloody offical or large company - I'm taking us to Mauchi. You may not have heard of it; it is past the Darlain Mark. We'll have to make three jumps. We should be there in ... six days."

He looked at Chris and the woman behind him to see their reaction, then returned to his calculations.

"Okay Kara let me tell you a bit about Mauchi. It is a technological desert - so you had better get use to walking. You'll be called Kara-uni and Chris will be called Kri-si-une. I speak their language with a proper accent so I'll be called Rio-mulle. When you hear your name say Kara-esi koni umbinarah-esi, or for you Chris, Kri-si-ese kone umbrinarah-ese. Practise saying that properly and try your best with the accent - we don't want them to turn away from us too readily. Now repeat your replies."

"A pretty simple one, really," replied Rio, able to talk and do his calculations at the same time. "Every four years each city votes for their mayor. After the mayor serves their four years, they replace the old senetors who make decisions for the country as a whole. The Prime Minsister is voted by the senetors in times of crisis or quick desicion. First they vote to see if martial law is needed, then they vote for the Prime Minister, who is more of a military leader. They've had Prime Minister Kolire for four years now, every since Geam declared war on them to get more land in their conquest. The senetors vote for whenever the martial law should be released."

He frowned at his calculations. "Okay, I think I'm almost done."

Rio was not worried. "I have a sister who is obsessed with studying cultures and I keep visiting Mauchi. If you keep coming back to a county and listen to my sister for three years, you would know a lot about the place as well.

"That should do it," he added and entered the final equation into the computer. "Okay Chris, redirect enough power warp drive and then I'll hit it."

As the ship shook, and Rio called a warning, Kara sat up straight and immediately began checking the dials on the control board in front of her. Everything seemed to be alright, and after a moment, she leaned back with a sigh. The gravity generator on her ship did the same thing. Well, it used to. She corrected herself. Rio suddenly appeared at the door with two plates of food, one of which he deposited in front of her. Kara nodded to him and sat up from her slouched position to eat.

"Thanks. Goat milk is fine with me." Kara replied between mouthfuls. She'd been on enough choppidu expeditions to have experience with food in no gravity. It wasn't fun. She ate mostly in silence for a bit, preferring to get lost in her thoughts as she watched the choppidu travel through space. It had been a long time since she'd travelled on someone else's craft as a mere passenger, although over the course of the six days, she had helped pilot a bit.

By the time they both had nearly finished their eggs, she finally spoke.

"Where are you from?"

((Just to let you know, to get from one of the Grutain planets to Mauchi would take (due to a nearby intergalactic wormhole) two days. Okay?))

Rio's hand paused with a fork of meat half way to his mouth.

"Ah ... that is a little difficult to ex-" Suddenly a warning flashing started on the control board. Rio jumped on this excuse.

"Oi, Chris! Wake up and strap yourself in - we're about to come out of warp drive."

He quickly strapped himself in, disposed of his remaining food in the nearby trash bin and strapped the top down, then finished of his goat's milk.

"Now we just have to hope those don't shatter," he chuckled, though it wasn't as if he couldn't afford new flatware.

He had barely finished speaking when the jarring effects of a choppidu coming out of warp dirve. They heard the sound of breaking glass and plaster from the living room. Rio had the mental image of split milk and grease all over the floor he had kept clean for the past year.

"You are cleaning that up, Chris!" he shouted back. He turned in his seat to see the approaching Juon planet on which Mauchi was located somewhere.

"Okay, let's get us in to orbit," he said to Kara, who was acting co-pilot at that moment. "Then we'll have to wait for clearence. To get anywhere on this planet is hell, but to get into Mauchi is bloody sixes and sevens."