Scene 1: Leaving the Next
Year 4392 IMC (in the Modern Calendar)


Location: A makeshift conference room, lined with file cabinets, deep in the bowels of the Eastshore warehouse serving as the headquarters for Blue Phoenix, Incorporated. 


Blue Phoenix has had a couple of successful test launches, with their entire budget put into technology, and are ready to try a manned launch. If this goes well, they will be able to get more funding, some government contracts, and excellent press. If it goes poorly, the company is toast. 

Astronauts Avery Bissel and Harper Aiken are the final candidates to be in the cockpit for the company’s (and Emera's) first manned launch. CEO C.J. Orkney likes doing things aboveboard, so they have invited Astronaut Bissel and Astronaut Aiken to discuss which of them should be sent. Along with C.J. Orkney’s only child, Taylor Orkney, who trained as an astronaut before being promoted directly to Mission Control, the CEO is meeting with Dr. Riley Eckhart, who is tasked with deciding which of the astronauts is best suited to being in the cockpit, given the stakes. 

While the others will give advice, the final say belongs to Dr. Eckhart. 