[Scene 4B]

Avery Bissel

Reth this! If Heath was sitting in the Commander’s seat, you’d launch this bird, just to declare your disgust with the corrupt idiots in Parliament. They’ve been making it harder and harder on Blue Phoenix, even as the company has been taking bigger and bolder leaps into the void. The payoff to Emera has been profound, creating jobs and new technologies, enriching those greedy morons in the Parliament and their rething friends.  

Instead, Taylor Orkney sits in the Commander’s seat - not a surprise for the boss’s kid. You’d bet that the switch would become permanent, if Heath stays on the sick list for another two or three days. Years of C.J.’s protection meant that Taylor didn’t wash out, despite there being better candidates; grudgingly, you have to admit that Taylor has learned some competency with maturity. 

The thing is, this is a full dress rehearsal of every mission system prior to launch. Phoenix One could fly, if systems aren’t shut down at the end of the countdown. Everyone in the control room and the support stations around the world are practicing today. Everyone has simulated the post-launch procedures repeatedly for months, from the moment of ignition until the moment the Phoenix One Commander steps onto the surface of Bery. The primary crew - Heath, Cranmoor, and Enfield, have been working together for a year for this flight. The backup crew - Orkney, Edwards, and Hewitt, have been working just as hard and just as long, prepared to step in as needed. All of these astronauts are ready to fly.  

And they’re coming to arrest everyone? If you launch, they’ll probably just add “aiding and abetting fugitive” charges too, but let’s see them make a rething arrest of the Phoenix One crew, who’ll be laughing all the way to Bery. The Parliament will have to let you support a mission to Bery, looking like dangerous idiots if they arrest the supporting ground crew in the middle of the biggest space mission in sixty years. 

All it would take is the two astronauts in Mission Control agreeing to not stop the launch procedure. Phoenix One could fly today.  

GM NOTE: If the two astronauts in Mission Control agree, they can override a decision by C.J. stopping the launch.  