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Stories from the Verse
Old Verses New
Chapter 147: Hastings 91
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Chapter 146: Kondor 91
There was one other thing Lauren had to do before she left the station.
She had sorted through her things, taking on her back the most important and leaving the less important things behind. They were going to make a twilight walk of what was probably millions of miles, and if she died over there she would be lucky if the things she left on the station were even in orbit around whatever world she entered. She would of course need all her weapons. However, the last time she went on one of these missions, she neglected to take survival gear, and she regretted it on the long trip back to camp. This time she would be more prepared.
Before she could leave, she had to say good bye to Raeph.
Derek gave her his location, so she was now standing outside his door, fully dressed in armor and robes with weapons holstered and loaded and extra ammo to go. Yet she was not ready to go. She knocked on the door. He answered.
"Lauren?"
"Raeph, I–I don't know what to say. I want to thank you for everything, for trying to help me, for all your kindness, for dinner and solga and conversation. It may be that I won't be here long enough for it to matter. I think I know why I'm here, and I might not be here much longer."
"What? What are you talking about?"
"The ship that's coming toward us; did you know that there is now no plan to stop it?"
"How do you know about that?"
"It doesn't matter. Joe and Derek and I are going over there. Hopefully we will be able to stop it. If not, at least we tried, and we'll be gone if it crashes. If we succeed, we might even get back alive. But I'm not counting on that. I might not get back. If I don't, I wanted you to know...."
She broke off, not quite sure how to put what she meant. He was standing in the door of his apartment, she still in the hall. Leaning forward on her tip toes, she put a kiss on his cheek, and quickly turned to rush back to her waiting companions. On the way, she made one last check of her weapons and holsters. Everything was ready, save perhaps her heart.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eight other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #142: Characters Unite. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
