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Post by LucianG on Oct 30, 2004 14:14:09 GMT -6
Urdea turned to show her, but Joster was gone. He said, helping the youngsters up, “Just an old friend, I guess. I think he may be gone now. Permanently, I hope.”
She looked at him quizzically, but said nothing. The small group went quickly through the remnants of the town, and arrived at the shuttle shortly before dark.
As he launched, Urdea used the shuttle’s longer-range comm, on a scrambled channel, to send out an emergency distress call. Moments later, a female voice responded, “Galactica Control to Shuttle 742-Delta Tau, come in. You’ll have to join us quickly. The fleet is preparing to depart as we speak.”
“This is Lieutenant Urdea, retired, of the Colonial Warrior Corps. There’s been an attack at Kenkillen on Libra, and I need to speak to someone about what’s happened—”
A new voice came over the system, “Lieutenant Urdea, is it? You’re not retired any more, my friend. This is Colonel Tigh of the Battlestar Galactica. We’ve got a Colonies-wide emergency, with attacks all over. If you don’t want to be left behind, you’ll join the fleet at the coordinates being sent by scrambled code, along with your reinstatement papers, within the next centar. Like I said, if you don’t show, you’ll be left behind and on your own. You can file your report when you arrive. For now, stay off the comm. Tigh, out.”
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Post by LucianG on Oct 30, 2004 14:15:14 GMT -6
Urdea received the coordinates, and the reactivation notice. He couldn’t believe they would use that clause on him, but just in case, he decided to be a good little soldier, and follow “orders.” He punched the coordinates into his navigation system. As they covered the space between Libra and the “fleet,” the boys ate heartily on a couple of the packaged meals in the storage locker. The girl, on the other hand, disappeared into the back by herself for a long while. He assumed she was cleaning herself up. When she finally came forward, he saw that she had indeed done her best to make herself look presentable, and somewhat younger. He now estimated she was around fifteen or possibly sixteen yahrens. She joined him without comment or invitation, sitting down in the copilot’s chair. She looked away, out the viewshield, ignoring Urdea entirely. They sat in silence for a while, but it finally started to bother him, so Urdea decided to try to bring her out of the shell in which she seemed to have wrapped herself.
“Well, we’ll be there, wherever there is, shortly, and maybe we’ll get some answers then. By the way, my name’s Urdea. How are you and your brothers?”
On hearing his name, she’d looked at him sharply, with a glaring look of hatred in her eyes, but it seemed to soften after a few moments. She said, “They’re not my brothers, and I don’t even think they’re related. I found them wandering in town, looking for their mothers. My mother and my little brother were killed by one of those ships last night. My big brother was a Colonial Warrior who was killed in an accident about two yahrens ago. I have no one left…and my name’s Jostine.”
Urdea turned incredulously to look at her, seeing the resemblance for the first time. “Sis-ter!” he thought to himself, "I should have studied lip reading after all!”
He tried to express his sorrow to her about her brother, but she waved him off, paying him no attention. Instead, she was focused on the shining lights of a rag-tag collection of ships that was just ahead.
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