CH36

"We were approaching the edge of our system. Where the pilots Jen and Meg thought they could engage the Star Drive tomorrow sometime. Up to this point most of the flight was spent on auto-pilot. We were getting ready to go to our rooms to get some sleep before the big day tomorrow. 'Mom' came on line and they were worried. The enemy was closer than they liked. They were worried that we would not make it to our FTL point in time."

"Mom and the Teak were somewhere out in front of us somewhere. One to our port side and one to our starboard. I couldn't see them by the naked eye, but I was told they were out there. Then all of a sudden space in the distance lit up in a light show. Along with sudden flashes of light. Jen who was at the flight engineer station told me that the red was Mom and the Teak, while the green was them. The sudden flashes were the explosions of torpedoes from either of the Frigates. High speed missiles if you prefer that exploded sending out radioactive high intensity X-rays."

"The communications between us and Mom were increasing. Yet again I could only listen in on my end, but the women seemed concerned about how well the frigates were holding up. They were being out flanked and some of the enemy were getting passed them and headed for us. Suddenly there was a very large flash of light. Much larger than the torpedoes that had been exploding. Just after that Jen said 'That was the Teak'. We had just lost the Teak."

"Shortly after she was telling us that 'Mom' is telling her to use the Star Drive, now! NOW, NOW, NOW! Then there was another very large flash of light. Jen was crying now, we just lost 'Mom'!"

There were tears rolling down Ricks cheeks and Kate could feel Alexis sitting in her lap softly crying. Kate instinctively wrapped her arms tighter around her to try and tell her she was alright.

Rick picked up where he left off, but his voice was unstable and a lot softer. "Meg (pilot) was saying we were too close to go to FTL. Jen responded that they were going to die if they didn't and might die if they did. Jen said the she was firing up the star drive, and to hang on. Meg didn't argue back, just kept mumbling, to close, to close."

"Suddenly the view out the window changed and Jen said Star Drive was active and functioning normally. Course set for the colony world. Estimate drop out of FTL was 8 months."

"I take it you didn't just blow up." Jim said.

Rick just shook his head.

"But your here Castle, not there. Why?" Jim asked.

"We exited FTL right on schedule. We just weren't were we wanted to be. We were way off course. It took them 2 weeks just to figure out where we ended up. Turned out we were behind enemy lines. Way behind enemy lines. But on an outer edge of what we thought was their territory. Worse we didn't have the fuel to get to where we intended to go anymore.

"We ended up using the internal communication system to poll what we should do and where we should go now. It was just too important a decision to make for a couple of pilots and a writer to make alone. There were basically 2 choices, find someplace to re-fuel and try to find a way to the colony planet as intended. This option had a drawback. It was still relatively close to our home planet, and the enemy may possibly show up to soon for us to do anything about it"

"Our second option was to find someplace to re-fuel several times and go to a system so far away we knew nothing about the system itself. Drawback was there may or may not be a habitable planet for us to use. If going there didn't work we had no information on anyplace else to go."

"I take it you chose the latter." says Jenny

"Yes, about 7/8 of the people on board wanted to get as far away from the enemy as possible, and hope our children or our children's children would have time to prepare for them."

"So we traveled to the nearest star and flew into it to scoop up the fuel we needed."

"That's not possible!" Jim explained. "You would burn up in seconds."

"Our shielding kept us safe and once inside the sun we scooped up the necessary fuel to take us on our first leg of a long trip."

"Bro, energy shielding? Like in Star Trek?" Javi questions.

"Similar, but not exactly. To defect the harmful affects of a sun is more about bending it around you. It does not have the power or capability to keep out weapons fire, like in Star Trek. That technology has eluded us."

"We then spent the next 2 weeks getting out of the system to activate our FTL again. Another four months or more in FTL travel to our next destination. Two more weeks to get into that systems sun to scoop up more fuel for the next trip. Two more weeks to get back out to activate our FTL yet again."

"Castle, how long did it take you to get here?" asked Kate.

"Just a little over two (2) years." Rick answered softly.

"Two years!? How did you survive?"

"You forget, it was a colony ship. It was self sustaining. It had everything we needed. Or we had the ability to make what we needed."

Kate whispered into Alexis's ear just loud enough for everyone else to hear. "You grew up on that ship." It was more of a statement than a question.

Alexis just nodded her head. "It was home. There were not any kids my age. No one to play with." Her crying increased a little, making Kate's heart break just a little more.

"There were a large number of births before we got here. But even then they were not much more than babies still." Rick clarified.

Kate whispered in Alexis's ear. "I didn't know sweetie. I'm so sorry, so sorry." And kissed the back of her head.

Jim stepped up and put his hand on his daughters shoulder from behind her. Kate reached up and put hers on her dads. Kate had lost her mother and Alexis had lost hers. But at least Kate got to grow up with hers. All Alexis had was her dad. This thought started Kate to cry, quietly.

Rick moved forward and kissed his daughter on her forehead, "I love you, Pumpkin!" with as much heart as he could put into it.

"I love you too, Daddy!" still crying a little.

Kate kissed the back of her head once more and gave her a little squeeze. Since her arms are still wrapped around the child.

"Castle, what about your wife?" Kate kind of croaked out thru the tears.

Castle was kind of dreading this question. He was in trouble now!

"Lucile?" Rick asked.

A very soft, pleasant and disembodied voice responded. "Yes, Richard?"

Kate recognized that voice immediately. She knew that voice well. Very, very well. It was the voice on her cell phone.

Rick saw Kate's face change from one of surprise to one of anger. She was getting mad. Very, very mad.

Rick was a dead man! Even if he didn't know why exactly.