Tuesday, August 21, 2018

There it is

Published: 2018-08-21 1207)UK T.P.

Start of story: A sliver of red

Scenes
A sliver of red | There it is | The barrier | More than a job | Inside | tba
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He noticed the signs on the environmental display of her moving through the ship to the control room before he heard her steps.   Todd continued to flick through images and video footage as she entered the room and made her way through the maze of narrow gaps to sit in the seat next to him.

"Here."  He said, sending a video graphic on to one of the main screens in front of them.  "You'll like this."  Todd enhanced the image to pick out a fuzzy ball of dark greys against the pitch black background.  "It's a Tmolus battle cruiser.  Very rare.  We haven't had any contact with the Tmolus race in over four hundred years.  Thought they'd wiped themselves out."

Todd watched the fuzzy image as it spun slowly.  "But apparently not."

"What's their thing?"  Shuang asked, at least feigning interest.

"That's a good question."  Todd said.  He knew that the deep character piece she was writing was focused on himself, but he liked to give her some breadth to work with.  "We don't know.  Couldn't decipher any of their communications.  But then we haven't really tried that hard.  Every time we've encountered them they were lurking around long dead battle fields.  We thought it best to keep a wide berth."

"Have you encountered them before?"  Shuang asked.

"No."  Todd said.  He cut the video stream.  He could feel himself throwing up a barrier but sometimes her probing questions about his personal history or personal feelings were too much for him.

"So we're here then?"  Shuang asked.

"Yeah."  Todd let a grin sweep across his face.  They were here.  It had paid off.

"How does that make you feel?"

"Happy."  That question he could handle.

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James Aston
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Story 2018-08-21, part 2 of N (tbd)
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285 words

Scenes
A sliver of red | There it is | The barrier | More than a job | Inside | tba
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