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Stories from the Verse
In Version
Chapter 82: Kondor 240
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Beam 180
“Good, you’re awake,” Kondor said to Zeke as the lieutenant stumbled into the living room.
“Um--can I go to the latrine before we get to the serious stuff, or is it really urgent?”
“No, go ahead; it’ll keep.”
He waited perhaps less patiently than usual, but soon enough Zeke emerged. “T’sup?” he asked.
“Apparently Derek crashed Seeker into the ocean and sank it; as far as I can tell the aliens mostly survived.”
“And you know this how?”
“There’s another verser aboard who contacted me. Our people all got off, one way or another. But that’s not my concern. It seems that the splash created tidal waves that hit all the coastlines. This world has never had the technology needed to be aware of and respond to a disaster, so they’ve never developed the infrastructure for it. I’m going to discuss that with the acting dean and a few government officials, and see if they can get the ball rolling on that, but I think I should take my medical skills out there and start working on helping them rebuild. I don’t know what there is to do out there, but maybe I should get you to bring a portable radio of some sort just so I can stay in touch with the people back here.”
“Right. So, how do we get there? We could take one of our new planes.”
Kondor nodded in agreement, but spoke otherwise. “That might get us there, but we don’t know that there would be anywhere to land, and they probably wouldn’t have fuel for a return trip. No, I think we have to take the train and see how close the line can get us.”
“It’ll take a couple days to reach the coast, won’t it?”
“Yes. Maybe longer if there’s trouble on the tracks, but we can talk to the railroad people about it. We’re going to want the birds in the unaffected areas to ship food and supplies, even drinking water, out there, and that means they’re going to have to get the trains running anyway.”
“All right, Cap. Do they have breakfast at the caf? I’m hungry, and would like something to eat before I start working on this radio problem.”
“Sounds right to me. They had a skeleton crew to operate the kitchen for the other essential personnel and those who had nowhere to go, so we should be able to get something.”
Together the duo headed out for breakfast, and to begin launching the world’s first disaster relief effort.
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #489: Battle Worlds. 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:
