Ashes to Ashes

Posted on Wed 8th Apr, 2026 @ 12:41pm by Captain Gordon Francis & Commander Mindo & Criswell Sandbags & Qaraq & Commander Heriah Rex & Commander Paul Graves PsyD & Commander Geraldine "Geri" Severide & Lieutenant Commander Azusa Nakano & Lieutenant Victor Delling MD & Magnus Temple & Khellian s'Siedhri MD & Captain Izwyx 'Lo & Lieutenant Nalani Emmiad & Alidade (Computer) & Verelan i'Mhiessan t'Saeihr & Maiek s'Ethien & Auric Nepenthe

5,146 words; about a 26 minute read

Mission: [MAIN] From The Ashes
Location: Starbase 109
Timeline: after "Bombshell"

-Previously-

Anslo had been unceremoniously dumped into an interrogation room. Things were not going well to say the least. How did the Captain of the station not know already of the plot to destroy the station?

~

Anslo said, “I am not your enemy, listen to me closely. Three weeks ago H'tek gave this device to me for this very mission... I do not know if the device has been implanted. I only know of the device by reputation.”

~

=^=We found it," came Mindo's voice. "Whoever planted it had little imagination. It's in a Jefferies tube outside main engineering, connected to an electrical conduit... It's an Armageddon bomb. It will destroy not just the station, but this sector of space. It uses the form of matter Section 31 was experimenting with in the Delavi Expanse.”

"Mr. Mindo, can you neutralize it?" Francis barked.

There was a delayed silence before Mindo replied, "Sort of... I can neutralize the black matter, but can't defuse the bomb.”

~

=/\= Lt. Kell to Captain Francis... We need to power down IMMEDIATELY. They can keep our containment fields and vital systems powered, but sir that's a one way trip for the Ticonderoga.”

Francis barked, “Tell the engineering crew to prepare for station shutdown and coordinate with Lieutenant Kell on how to proceed. I don't have time to explain, just got a hunch... Lieutenant Kell, how would you like to proceed?"

Sufai Kell said, “Sending to Ticonderoga to move, and activating lower power protocols with Azusa. Powering down the Fusion core will stop the timer altogether in theory, but no ship in our vicinity can keep us powered without system failures. Containment and Life support will drain our reserves in approximately eight to twelve hours on their own. We're moving people to habitat ring, shutting down non essentials, including life support in non occupied areas its outlined in your command brief now sir. Science teams will need to work on the containment unit, but everything we do drains us faster. We can swap to battery mains in ten minutes, and that should stop the countdown in theory, giving us maybe eight to ten hours to hook up the Ticonderoga without suffering total power loss on station, including containment."

=^="Sufai,"=^= came Alidade's voice over her commbadge. =^="If you were to open all the docking ports, nearest to Engineering, to the vacuum of Space Dock after exposing all the power conduits...of course everyone within five decks will have to clear out...I can aim the Thunderchild's array dish at the exposed conduits, beaming power directly to the starbase. That can buy you 30.1678 minutes more time. This will of course melt all the panels in those five decks and render the area useless until repairs can be made."=^=

Sufai said, "We can use our sensor arrays to receive additional power, I'll create a task force of runabouts to allocate Warp power to phase to the main deflector. You can coordinate them as well, since our main computer is offline you're the only hope to coordinate that. That'll buy us more time but likely burn out our sensor array... fifty two minutes or so with Alidade's beam as well...

~

Sufai continued, “Captain Francis... Once we shut down main power, auxiliary has capacity for twelve hours of emergency power only. Containment of the device and evacuations, plus life support brings us to eight hours, with Thunderchild and the runabouts we can buy back an hour but it will burn out most of the relays after that hour of sustained energizing. Ticonderoga states they can restore emergency power to systems in six, if nothing goes wrong.”

~

Francis tapped his badge. "Lieutenant Kell, prepare to execute shutdown procedures."

*****************And now for Part 2*****************

-Start-

{SB109- Engineering Decks}

It only took the Captain a few minutes to get to the Engineering decks to assist the remaining crew. At his order, shutdown procedures would begin, hopefully as soon as possible. But he wanted to be sure all the proper procedures had been completed and every crewman evacuated before the docking ports opened and the surrounding five decks became an inferno when Thunderchild used its array dish to... well, do something, thought Francis.

It was times like these Francis, whose specialty was Intel, was grateful the Engineering department knew what they were doing. All of his Engineering knowledge was left behind thirty years ago at the Academy. He was sure there had been advances since, and he wasn't one for technical manuals.

The giant dark matter device, "Armageddon bomb," as Mindo had put it, was still a factor in play, only a few decks away. Francis had high hopes it wouldn't go off until he himself was evacuated. He had full confidence in Kell's plan. It might mean losing the Thunderchild, and possibly a lot of the station, but that beat annihilating the entire sector for the next few millennia. He also thanked his lucky stars for the use of the Ticonderoga in the evacuation. He did wonder what would happen to the Ibex, but no doubt Commander Ildaran had everything in place.

Francis tapped his comm badge. "Rex, I need skivvy from you and Mindo on the evacuation."

Frank's commbadge returned with the sounds of a scuffle, some static which proved to be fabric rubbing against the audio receiver of the target's commbadge. The sound ended in something of coughing and gasping for air. Obviously someone was in a choke-hold.

=^="Evac nearly complete Captain,"=^= came Heriah's voice. =^="As you instructed,"=^= there was some moving about and grunting. =^="Be still you. As you instructed, sir, no innocents on your conscience. Here,"=^= she was speaking to someone else, =^="take this one. Evac complete in 5 minutes, Sir."=^=

"Graves," said Francis. "Do you and Severide have anything to report?"

Sir, the aquatic decks are fully evacuated, Graves reported. The sounds of a large crowd of people could be heard nearby. Personnel in the Promenade decks are being moved to the habitat ring and beamed to whatever ship we can fit them into. Someone growled a sharp phrase in Tellarite, to which Graves replied. "Yes, Ms. Gruk, you have to go now. It is life or death. Move!" Paul's voice returned to addressing Francis. Sorry, sir. Customers in the hair salon aren't happy at being told to leave mid-shampoo. I believe Cmdr. Severide is arranging prisoner transport for our...guest.

"Dr. Delling," Francis said. "Is Medical ready to go?"

"I have authorized medical personnell for each of the evacuation ships, civillian and Starfleet should be adequately covered. The ambulatory patients went out with the first wave distributed among the doctors.

"I will be organizing a central hub for medical treatment, that way nothing gets lost in the shuffle.Dr Erebos is coordinating that at the present momemt. We have a few patients that will need specialty care, and may not be able to move without...planning. I have not yet determined where I will go, but my plan is to stay until the last possible moment."

"Alright Doctor," Francis said. "But don't hesitate. Get out when you can." He tapped his badge again.

"Lieutenant Kell," said Francis. "Have you coordinated with Thunderchild on your plan of action? I'm close by in Engineering but I'd like to get the hell out..."

Sufai responded in a huffing breathy tone. Her adrenaline response was also making her stomach ache but a sense of duty stuffed it all down. "Sir, The area's being prepped for the direct infusion from Thunderchild, but there is no time to soften the impact. We will for all intents and purposes be blasted by a plasma beam, and it will cause minor secondary explosions. The time it buys is vital, we need every minute. I'll signal when the final preparations are done."

Francis let out a quick sigh. "Thank you, Lieutenant."

He turned around to see Lieutenant Commander Nakano, still at work. She moved fast and had been hugely instrumental in preparing the station's systems for evacuation.

"Miss Nakano, I believe you and I are the last ones to evacuate this area," said Francis. "How soon can we hightail it?"

"I'm still working on shutting down the power systems" Azusa replied. "This isn't just like flicking a switch. Its going to take a few minutes." She replied. "I can temporarily switch to backup power systems, bit we'll lose most primary systems."

Francis shook his head. "Commander, I admire your spunk, but main power needs to be off in less than ten minutes. Like it or not, a good portion of this station is going kaput, including this very deck. We need to leave this in Lieutenant Kell's hands. Now scoot!"

Azusa's fingers danced faster over the console, finally they came to a stop. "Done. I've transferred engineering protocols to Lieutenant Kell." She said as she turned away from the console. "Lets go." She added with a nervous smile.

=/\= Captain Francis, this is Lt. Pampo Gnu, Diplomatic Department. I'm with a group of security personnel and a large throng of Garden District residents. Sir... I am keeping a kettle on things for now, but these Garden Districters seem to think they can stay on the station, something about Net positive Oxygen production in their arboretum, but they say they won't leave and ahhh security is not being patient."

"It never rains but pours," Francis muttered as he tapped his badge again. "Mr. Mindo how many are left resisting to evac?"

=/\=About thirty," Mindo replied. "We're doing everything we can short of pointing phasers."

Another tap from Francis. "Francis to Thunderchild, is there a way you can transport thirty people from Garden District before you activate the beam? I know you have a full workload but we're desperate here and timing is everything."

=^="Aye sir,"=^= returned Alidade's voice. =^="I can Site-to-Site whomever you need directly to my cargo hold before activating the deflector. Just give the word."=^= There was an ever so brief pause. =^="Was that question meant for me?"=^= Alidade then added, =^="Sir?=^=

"Alidade, hold on, don't change configurations! Captain Francis? This is Izzy here, I've actually had an interesting chat with a fellow here, Renatis. We think there's a way to save the station from internal destruction. These thirty are all maintenance and other station techs, and they know others as well, they want to perform damage control, in EV suits if necessary. They are volunteering to stay, I propose evacuation to the Ticonderoga while the device is poised to detonate and if things go well, they'd be the first responders going back after. Damage control teams changes the stations likelihood of survival tremendously."

Francis and Nakano were moving as fast as they could to reach the turbolift and get to safety before power went out.

"Whatever you gotta do, Izzy," said Francis. "Beam them to Ticonderoga, Thunderchild, or Omaha, Nebraska for all I care. Just get them out!" As the turbolift doors closed behind Francis and Nakano, Francis barked, "Habitat Ring." He hoped they'd get there in time. The journey would take the lift thirty seconds. It would be a very long thirty seconds.

Izzy replied swiftly, "ThunderChild is at capacity, All ships are at capacity sir. I'll take as many as I can on Ticonderoga, but we are..." Izzy consulted her people and returned, "over a thousand past our life support capacity we can't stretch the numbers that far, a few hundred will have to go somewhere else or stay on board."

Captain Francis scoffed. "And how do we pick that hundred, Izzy? Draw lots? A little Ro Sham Bo?" Suddenly the turbolift doors opened to utter chaos.

People were everywhere, yelling and pushing. Francis felt like he was twelve again, moving through a sea of panicked cattle in a thunderstorm. He now wondered where Mr. Mindo was, and hoped the station's Chief of Security hadn't been swallowed by the group.

Francis had an idea, but he had to step away from Azusa to do it.

"Commander," he said to Azusa, "See what you can do for these people. I'm going to..." he thought for a second, "...get help."

Azusa nodded. She wasn't too sure exactly what she could do, but she had to at least try to help in someway.


{Embassy Row, Starbase 109}

Magnus tried to steady his shaking fingers as he tapped impatiently at the PADD screen, adding the latest personal information from an elderly couple into the evacuation list. The couple gripped each other’s hands tightly as they waited in front of him.

“Alright,” he finally breathed, “You need to head down that corridor to docking port 325, the Nameless Grace is your ship.” Magnus pointed towards where the station’s emergency lighting was helpfully directing the evacuees to their transports. He watched as the couple locked their arms around each other as they shuffled along towards where he was pointing. “Please hurry.” He pleaded after them.

From around the corner, his personal assistant Ashra appeared, PADD in hand. “That’s everyone from my sector cleared.” She announced as she approached. With a nod, Magnus quickly scanned her PADD and reviewed the information, seeing green confirmation ticks across the listing. Ashra fidgeted nervously as she looked around the deserted area. “What now?”

Magnus looked up and gave her a half smile. “Your turn. Port 325. You have the last seat.”

Ashra immediately opened her mouth to protest, “But -“

“Go.” Magnus replied warmly, but firm enough to know there wasn’t any protesting to be done. She squeezed his shoulder for a moment and hurried off towards her rescue.

Magnus tapped his badge, =/\= Remaining Embassy evacuations complete. =/\= He announced, his breath catching once more as he waited for a response.

An acerbic and exasperated tone came over comms,
=/\= Magnus, are you there?, this is Pampo Gnu in Garden District, we got folks hiding here. Can you assist in pinpointing them?”

There was an underlying resentment in the people of the Garden District towards Starfleet, but also towards themselves. The factions had been fighting a silent war at each others throats for years. The fighting, mistrust and animosity was still there, but had been increased in sophistication as the decor had increased in its relative value. Where there once had been garottes and bodies, there was now poison and subterfuge. The people there simply didn't trust Starfleet to have their best interests in mind. The Upper levels had simply looked the other way on their suffering, sending the occasional officer down to report on their status.

Auric, however was steadily directing his people in the path that the Dawnstar Doctors had set for them. Makila had come with the Translator and they spoken to all the Faction chiefs, and they stood wary but resolved to save their people....Despite their mistrust of the people sponsoring the evacuation.

=/\= “On my way.” =/\= Magnus replied.

(Promenade)

Paul had left the hair salon customers to Security and was now monitoring intra-station communications to see where he was needed most. He was beginning to feel like an EMH, flitting here and there to put out fires, and this close to the time for power shut-off, that was inefficient. The more recalcitrant members of the Garden District were being a pain in the butt that no one managing an evacuation needed right now. He tapped his combadge. "Graves to Nasz. If you're still at your post, open a station-wide channel for me."

A man so busy as Entaaro was could only process orders and mindlessly perform them ten at a time. Coordinating the evacuation of over a quarter million people in thirty minutes had become a task unequal to any other in his life. Entaaro felt a warrior's pride in its completion. No sooner than the request came in, did the Klingon slap the console, replying to Paul, “Aye sir, channels open.”

Had the station been fully occupied, Paul would never have contemplated doing what he was about to do, but since only a few people among a few hundred left onboard were resisting the evacuation order, their emotions scratching against Paul's mind like rough sandpaper, they were easy for him to find. Paul connected only with those minds.

He sent calm to wash over them like gentle waves lapping against a shore, smoothing over fear, soothing anger or resentment. There was nothing to fear, nothing to fight against.

"Attention, all residents of Starbase 109. Attention, all residents of Starbase 109. This is your Second Officer speaking. As stated before, this is a mandatory evacuation order. It is not a drill. You are all to proceed to your assigned muster stations to board lifeboats or evacuation vessels immediately. It is not safe for you to remain here. You must go to your assigned muster stations now. Safe travels, all of you. We look forward to seeing you when it is safe to return. Graves out."

Paul broke the connection abruptly and clutched at his skull, groaning. Sparks glittered in his vision, and he could feel the mother of all cluster headaches coming on fast. He swayed on his feet and then dropped to his knees from the pain. "Computer...medical emergency. Lock onto my signal and beam me to the Thunderchild."

If the computer acknowledged his instruction, Paul never knew it. His head now felt like it was exploding, and then everything went black.

{Thunderchild}

Over comms came the sound of salvation, Entaaro announced, "Incoming support vessels, marked as Reserve Merchant Fleet. It's the Second Star, Denali, and Skellig Down!"

Second Star had to have the capacity for the remaining souls on board, the repurposed Excelsior class starship could hold several thousand. Unfortunately as Entaaro discoverd, these ships had been hollowed for cargo. The other two merchant vessels were the Denali, a retired Miranda class converted into a tugboat, and the Skellig Down a 23rd century Federation class Dreadnought converted into a powerful freighter hauler. Tons of freight, but only hundreds of people on board.

Izzy took her liberty, "Entaaro, anyone on Station in..." She was checking the timer for loss of main power, "four minutes gets beamed to one of those ships, make it happen!"

She turned to her former second in command, now commander of Station Ticonderoga Sepp Agandar, "Tell me Ticon is about to begin the linkup."

Sepp shook his head, "No, but I will tell you we have completed the linkage chain and are now securing ourselves into position to begin building the power trunk." The Tellarite stifled a grin, "We will have main power restored in as little as three hours, though its the damndest thing, the batteries on board seem to be receiving a low level trickle charge from... nowhere."

In a rotten day, this was a miracle, Izzy expressed that by keeping an open channel with him as she updated the Captain,

"Captain Francis, Ticonderoga will have auxiliary power online in three and a half hours approximately. Batteries won't last, let's use Alidade's idea for emergency power need. We are also prepping our repair crews to perform damage mitigation. All personnel have a safe place to go as the arrival of the merchant fleet vessels! Evacuation will complete on schedule. Tasking runabout fleets for maximum life support and personnel rescue and containment of device and ejecta."

=/\=They won't make it in time!" Mindo exclaimed, still yelling above a crowd. "We're still swamped in Sector G of Habitat Ring. A lot of late-arriving Garden District citizens I believe. There's gotta be a few hundred."


{Habitat Ring, Section G}

Captain Francis was relieved to hear Mindo was at least alive enough to report. Through the dense crowd Francis couldn't see Mindo, but at least he knew he was around and still helping.

Francis knew Section G was facing almost directly into the beam of the Thunderchild. In just a few minutes, maybe seconds, the entire area would be toasted, with hundreds still not evacuated including himself. Francis knew there was only one way left to save them. It was a huge risk, in more ways than one. Francis tapped his comm badge.

"Francis to Ibex," he said. "Commander Ildaran, what are the chances you could store a few hundred people in the White Room until more ships arrive? This includes myself, Nakano and Mindo's security team in Section G. I know what I'm asking, but desperate times and needs of the many and other hoo-ha will get in the way of my conscience if I don't try everything."

{IBEX}

Reggie just about said the obvious again but Grazia beat him there, "Our Brig. We have a quantum unfolding compression chamber. Anslo is currently in house there. It won't be comfortable, but it will preserve our stealth profile, and keep those people alive."

Kolor piped in, "We will need to cut our power cycling, this will decrease the time available to the personnel. Quantum teleporters can snag fifteen at a time, twenty seconds to recompile... it can work sir."

Six impossible things before breakfast, Damion told himself. He opened the channel to respond to Francis. Ildaran here. Aye, sir, we can beam them to our brig 15 at a time, with 20 seconds between beam-outs. That's a bit slow to capture several hundred, but we will get who we can. Tell us when you're ready.

"That's not enough time," Francis said, "but do what you can."

Aye, sir. Coordinates received; beginning transport now. Ildaran out, Damion said with a glance at Kolor to begin.

Francis' comm chirped again.

=/\=Captain Francis!" came a familiar voice.

"Qaraq?!" Francis said, both puzzled and impressed. How had he been able to get him on the secured Starfleet channel?

Qaraq laughed. "You and I have several mutual friends at Drebom Station, specifically the Captain of the Zelux Pal! I called in a favor and was able to get seven freighters to help evacuate!"

Francis literally jumped for joy. "Hot diggity dog, Qaraq! When do they get here?"

Another laughed. =/\=We're already here! Who would you like us to beam up?"

"I've got about two hundred here in the Habitat Ring, maybe more on other decks," said Francis, now grateful for the giant Broot.

=/\=That's all?" Qaraq boomed. "Transporting now!"

The deck was washed in a rainbow of transport waves, all from different ships. Francis was one of the last to be beamed out. He was transported to the Bridge of the Zelux Pal. Qaraq was aglow and enveloped Francis with an embrace.

"I'm glad you are safe, my friend!" Qaraq boomed.

"You're crushing me, Qaraq," Francis managed to say. Qaraq released his grip. Francis looked at Qaraq with a grin. "I owe you big, don't I?"

The Broot's shining iridescent blue face nodded with a smile.

The doors to the Bridge opened and Criswell emerged from the turbolift. The awkward human looked strangely at home on the ship. "Mr. Qaraq, everyone from Habitat Ring has been transported and several are in the cargo bay. They're a little disoriented, but otherwise unharmed. Mr. Mindo and some of the security team who beamed over and are doing the best they can to help."

"Thank you Criswell!" Francis said, giving the man a hug. Criswell gave a nervous laugh, patting the Captain on the back.

Francis turned around. "I'll remember this, Qaraq," Francis said, and tapped his comm badge. "Francis to Rex, I'm aboard the Zelux Pal. We've got some new friends helping with evac. Should be done in a few minutes."

"Master," said the Ferengi Tactical Officer, addressing the CO of the Pal. "There's a Romulan ship decloaking."

=^="Copy,"=^= returned Heriah's voice over Francis' commbadge. Some other shuffling about could be heard, some cries. =^="Advice the Pal's teleporter tech to keep a lock on me and beam me aboard in 2 minutes. Clearing my section now."=^=

{RWS Ehtevau Bridge}

The lights glowed green and white aboard the Romulan ship, casting an eerie flickering glow across the face of Ambassador Verelan. It sharpened her features to an almost sinister scale, and she processed the evacuation of her people with a single gilded fingernail. The Ehtevau was at only 47% capacity, and could hold many more, should the station need additional room to ease the transition.

"They aren't going to ask for our assistance." she stated flatly to her nephew who stood at the operations station. There was a hint of dissappointment in her tone, that only someone who knew her well would pick up on.

"No, not unless we offer it." Maiek answered, thinking that Starfleet would possibly not count on the resources of an 'enemy' for assistance. The animosity between their peoples was still a reality.

"Make the offer, immediately."

Maiek's hands flew over the keys of the panel before him, opening the channel to the operations center of the great starbase they had been docked with since they arrived.

No one answered, but within seconds the Tactical officer saw a channel open from the Ferengi freighter not far from them.

=/\=This is Captain Gordon Francis of the Federation Starbase 109. Please tell me why you're here."

There was a brief, astonished exchange in Rihan, before the cool female voice answered in standard. "We live here Captain Francis. Our Embassy is well established, or so I had thought. The politics of that, we can address when there is not an emergency looming. You need space for people, and advanced medical bays. We have both in abundance."

=/\=This is Blurg, Captain of the Zelux Pal," came another gruff, but not as gruff, voice. "Please forgive my business associate forgetting his place. We have some people in our cargo bay in need of medical treatment, and I'm afraid we're a little short at the moment. If you are offering your medical services at no charge, we would gladly partake."

=/\="Transmit their coordinates, Captain Blurg, and I shall arrange transport. Dr's s'Siedhri and i'Hartelhai have taken over our medical bay and will be awaiting your people. I am earnest in my offer, Captain Francis, no harm will befall anyone upon my ship. =/\= Verelans voice had softened on the line, her reaction to the insult fading in responce to the genuine emergency that had stolen his tact.

=/\= “Ambassador, your timing is impeccable as usual.” =/\= Came Magnus’ voice over the comms. He had seen the Ehtevau was still in the vicinity whilst he finished evacuating another area of the Garden District. =/\= I’ve just given away the last seat on a transport. Wonder if I might be able to join yours?” Nerves were breaking through his tone as their remaining time was ticking down all too quickly.

(SB-109)

Magnus breathed a deep sigh of relief as the familiar beaming lights appeared around his vision and he felt that little tingle across his skin as he was being transported away. He looked out to the station again, knowing that he had only spent a short amount of time on the 109 but still hoping that he would see it again.

As the lights dissipated and his eyes adjusted, Magnus found himself surrounded by a room of Romulan faces, their eyes set upon him. He had expected to arrive in their transporter room, or somewhere with the rest of the evacuees, but certainly not on the Bridge of the Ehtevau.

He gave a friendly nod to the Romulan crew in front of him and said gently, “Hello there.”

{RWS Ehtevau - Crew Quarters}

The KarenQuest Gaming Group was settled into cabins on the Ehtevau, along with the Hangman's Noose staff. It was good to be loyal regulars at your favorite restaurant and gaming spot. The six of them had been assigned to several different muster stations and had requested to instead evacuate to the Ehtevau so they could travel as a group. Mary Elizabeth had vouched for them, so there they were.

"We won't get in your way," Larry Kersenboom promised Maiek. "In fact, if we can make ourselves useful, we'd be happy to help you in any way we can. Mainly, we do maintenance work."

Maiek nodded from his place at the Ops station. "As soon as evacuations are complete we can discuss that in depth. If my lady vouches for you, then I am trusting of her judgement entirely. Bide a moment."

"Thank you, sir. I'll look forward to talking with you later," Larry said and withdrew.

{GARDEN DISTRICT- CRC}

The Community Resource Center had grown from a supply depot, and become something of a hame, a place to gather, and was in its final moments the staging point for sending groups to be evacuated as the station powered down. The people of Garden District had evolved as well, from diaspora in a bazaar, to an independent community, and now, a thriving center of education and connections to resources for folks who had lost everything. A staggering history, over forty years of people fighting to keep what little they had and making these sheets of deck plating a home as any other.

Kya surveyed the community gardens, finding them immaculate, the envy of any botanical gardens you would find on a real world of soil and rock. The weight of all which had come before was staggering in the final moments of its loss. Power rationing took the plants sun away, the atmospheric generators took their wind. Pollinators running on their last full charge would sleep in this endless night perhaps never to rise again. Three decks, full ringed Gardens, and they were glorious to her eyes.

In their haste to flee, a smock had been left behind. Smeared in dirt, with a trowel in its small pocket the last hanging thing on the rack caught her eye. The smock belonged to Susana, a wonderful resident of their community who practically lived in the soil and communed with the bugs as much as anyone. Stragglers came, and her well trained staff sent them to the evacuation stations. Kya felt it necessary to retrieve the denim and dirt piece, if nothing else for the spirit of the place to endure.

A hundred memories, with a dozens as regrets, came to her at once. Kya left the smock where it was, saying farewell to what was, knowing memories were all she had.

A voice stirred in the distance, Renato Kya knew instantly.

Her senses detected the trembling voice, he was upset, very upset in fact.

"We can't find Hasskin, and Lexy left the drop zone to find him. They aren't on any transport I can find, but its a nightmare out there-"

He was in a panic, and strangely Kya found that calming.

He was doing the feeling, so she could do the critical thinking.

She looked to her partner with a determined gaze. "No time for Hide and Seek, get a starship to scan the station. Call Paul, call anyone you've worked with."

{To Be Continued}

 

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