"Old Ma! Old Ma? Quit eating and come with me to the hangar! The maiden voyage test for Ship One is about to begin! This is a huge deal! I can't believe you're still sitting here stuffing your face while everyone else is waiting!"
"Is it really that good?"
The shout from Big Shot Eat Dates Before You Die rang through the cafeteria at the Sun Ship shipyard of the Sangha Empire. Lord Ma, who was working his way through a serving of hot dry noodles and tofu pudding while holding a local crispy potato pancake in his hand, looked up and sighed helplessly.
"What are you yelling for?"
He leisurely scooped a spoonful of sugar into his tofu pudding and said:
"Isn't the maiden voyage test still twenty minutes away? The ship's not going to suddenly fly off by itself, and its onboard control system needs time to run its self-checks. You'd just be standing around getting worked up.
"It's like when you're slacking off and waiting to clock out. You can stare at the clock all you want, but it won't make the time pass any faster."
"Isn't that obvious? We've worked our asses off for so long to get this far. How could anyone not be excited?"
Big Shot Pill walked over in his powered armor pilot's suit, carrying a helmet painted red with a five-pointed star. He pulled out a chair and sat down across from Old Ma, then caught sight of the sugar in the tofu pudding and immediately frowned.
He grumbled:
"How the hell are you still a sweet-tofu-pudding partisan? I've known you for over ten years and had no idea you were a secret heretic! Tsk, you're clearly betraying tofu pudding. I'm gonna kill you!"
"Huh? What else would you put in it,