Seventeenth Light (A hero's welcome)

[curseu_reflexes]

1.

[The Seattle colony of the LS Cluster... a colony not even graced with a stationary orbit unlike those lucky bastards at the Sides.  The outer reaches of humanity's settlements in the Earth Sphere.  And more importantly, it was home.  It had been for eleven years of her life, and it had been almost a whole year since she'd said goodbye to

Comments

2

[emorangerpink]

Julia! Your home colony's a really lovely...

Er...

Are you okay? Sorry - did you want to be alone?

[curseu_reflexes]

O-oh... it's fine Laura. I was just...

You ever hear about good news that, the more you think about it, isn't all good?

[emorangerpink]

[Laura thinks about it.]

...I think I've only had bad news that turned out to be worse than I thought. Well - and good news that turned out to be better...

I think I know what you mean, though. What's happened?

[curseu_reflexes]

I got an offer... from some people that Mr. Herrera left an awful lot of money to in his will. The Deep Space Survey and Development organization... DSSD. It was in Mr. Herrera's will requesting that they offer me a position in their group...

... But it would mean leaving the Chalice...

[emorangerpink]

...Oh.

[Laura looks downcast as she thinks about it.]

And you're not sure what to do...

[curseu_reflexes]

Yeah.

I can either help advance that dream with the DSSD, or I can protect it with the Chalice. Doing both though... that's out of the question.

[emorangerpink]

Well...

If it is your dream, then I suppose the question is... which way can you do more for it? Where will you be most valuable?

[curseu_reflexes]

I...

I don't know. There's a lot of really great people who can fight onboard the Chalice, but at DSSD I'm probably just going to be helping them with the knowledge I know about space... being an alien and all.

[emorangerpink]

It's not just what you know right now, though. It'd be a career, right? Learning and working. Something to look to, past the fighting...

Julia, I'd miss you if you left. And I admire what you're doing on the Chalice - I'm glad to have you out there with me. But if you do this - for me at least, knowing what I'd be protecting would make it a little easier to keep going.