THE LOST YEARS

by Soledad

INTERLUDE: THE LOST WARRIOR

Title: The Lost Warrior

Author: Soledad

Fandom: Original Battlestar Galactica (the one and only) x-over with Star Trek TOS.

Genre: Action/adventure, Drama

Rating: Teens, for now.

Series: A sideline product to my "Lost Years" series. Sequel to "Crossroads".

Disclaimer: The context and the characters of the Original Star Trek series belong to Gene Roddenberry and whoever keeps the rights right now. Battlestar Galactica belongs to Glen A. Larsen and Universal Studios, as do all the characters that appear in the show. Omega's background is based on the one created by fellow fanfic writer Karen, but isn't identical with that one.

Timeframe: Earth year 2271, shortly before "Lost Years Ep 01 – The Joy Machine".

Summary: When the Colonial refugees begin to settle down on their new homeworlds, Colonel Omega makes a startling discovery.

Author's note: A reader of "Crossroads" complained that I've obviously written out of my story one of the old show's main characters. At the time when "Crossroads" was written (more than a decade ago) this was, indeed, true. But after the "re-imagined" abomination, I reconsidered my decision. Those poor, gender-bent, dishonoured characters needed some reward, after all.

Chapter 01 – Cycles

Colonel Omega had been slowly reaching the conclusion that life – and the universe in general – was moving in cycles. This wasn't an idea appreciated by the stern Kobolian faith in which he'd been raised and which foresaw a straight and narrow path that led to salvation through selfless deeds and high morale, but that was how things seemed to move for him. Perhaps having been married to a Piscon woman – and a follower of the Diwest faith at that – had altered his thinking after all. Corrupted it, his grandfather, Sire Lares, would say. Enlightened him, his mother, an independent, free-spirited woman would counter.

For him, it was simply a matter of experience. This was the pattern that he seemed to recognize around himself all the time. Cycles. An endless spiral of events that changed with each circle but returned in some form, at a highest level, after each full circle. His life could have been a prime example for this theory.

Before the Destruction, he had been a highly decorated flag officer, on the verge of promotion to Captain and his own command. A happy husband and father of four wonderful children. The eldest of six brothers and sisters. The heir of some considerable health, although only seventh in line to become the head of their family, as his father had been a third son, and he'd had cousins. Lots of them. Few old families on Caprica had been as wealthy and influential and well-respected as his. They practically populated Natacapra, and that had not been a small island.

The destruction had taken from him everything: his family, his wealth, his promotion, his command – even his personal items that had already been transferred to his new ship. He'd been left with a few uniforms for change and a handful of family pictures to remember.

For a long while, he couldn't even remember. He'd gone through his days in some sort of fugue, functioning like an automaton, never fully realising what he'd been doing. To the present day, he'd not been able to remember those first few sectons. He must have done his job well enough, though, as nobody seemed to have noticed anything. But again, the others had been just as shocked and dazed.

He'd been a ghost among an entire army of ghosts. A shadow, moving soundlessly among a whole forest of shadows.

He'd never thought that it would ever change. That the running from the Cylons would come to an end some day. That they would get a chance to lead a normal life again.

And yet, here he was, living in a spacious home on New Caprica, built with the help of the best Federation world-builders (a species called the Tellarites, who had a disturbing resemblance to the ill-remembered Borays). He was the executive officer of the Galactica, of all ships, under the command of the newly-promoted Fleet Commander Apollo, none less. He even had a seat in the Planetary Council of New Caprica, being one of the very few surviving patricians. Capricans were traditionalists to their last breath, so he didn't really have the choice to refuse the "honour". And he had a long-term partner, and children in the house, too.

Granted, the house was nothing compared with the manor his ancestors had lived in on Natacapra for fourteen generations. The Planetary Council was a small governmental body, struggling with the enormous task of rebuilding a culture that was nearly lost already; to turn a wild, untamed planet into a home. The old politicians might still be believing in the lead role of Caprica among the New Colonies, but the new generation of planetary leaders, to which Omega also belonged, knew all too well that the greatness and leadership of Caprica was just an illusion.

It could be a dangerous illusion, if they were not vigilant enough. But with Sire (formerly Commander) Adama as the Council's headmaster, they hoped to stay on the right path. It would not only have been dangerous to keep trying to influence the other worlds, though – it would have been virtually impossible.

The New Colonies did not belong to the same solar system anymore. G-132 – now called the Kobol-sector, to honour their origins – was a small, insignificant sector of five solar systems on the very verge of Federation territory, and the New Colonies were scattered all over those systems. New Caprica and New Leonis were the ones on the farthest side, on the rim of the great unknown.

The old politicians had fought for these planets, back when the whole sector had been assigned to the Colonial refugees by the Federation, more than two years ago. The councillors of the once stronger and more influential colonies all wanted to secure these planets for themselves. Not only because these were best suited to support humanoid life, without extensive terraforming measures, but also because they offered the chance to further expansion. Theoretically, at least, as neither New Caprica, nor New Leonis would have the resources to expand, for a very long time yet.

Omega couldn't help but grin bitterly at the foolishness of their old leaders who'd chosen the most vulnerable position, with possible future conquest on their minds. At least the military had managed to secure two of the disabled Cylon basestars for the protection of the system, so that the Galactica stayed free to patrol the borders of the sector.

Becoming the XO of the Galactica was something Omega had never expected. Not before the Destruction – his own command would have been a light frigate, which had matched his abilities back then just finely – and certainly not afterwards, when his promotion would have meant the death of Tigh. Career considerations had become very much of a moot point after the Destruction.

Yet the unexpected fortune of finding their long-lost cousins from Earth had changed everything. The once more or less united fleet split into small groups of refugees again, each of them trying to rebuild their lost world with the help of various Federation planets. The older, more experienced officers of the Galactica had left to serve their own people, leaving Apollo and Omega with a skeleton crew full of newbies.

Tigh had been elected as the Councillor of New Libra and the Quorum's liaison to Starfleet. Boomer and Rigel had joined his staff, as well as Cassiopeia, and were now living on Earth and Mars, respectively. Bojay had been asked to take over the organization of New Piscera's planetary defences. Sheba, insulted about having to give up her personal plans concerning Apollo, had retuned to her mother's people and became heavily involved in Scorpian politics, protegeed by Sire Anton who hadn't taken the loss of his office kindly and was trying his best to make the new President's life living Hades.

Everyone who knew Anton's best shuddered by the perspective and felt very sorry for President Darius.

Personally, Omega didn't mind the loss of Sheba. Sure, she was an ace pilot, but she was also too much like her father – sadly, without Cain's tactical genius to even out a rather… colourful personality – for Omega's peace of mind. But that meant that Jolly, Greenbean, Giles and Brie were the only ones from the old fighting squadrons Omega could still count on. Dietra, too, had chosen to return to her people, helping with the terraforming of New Libra as well as she could, and Starbuck… Starbuck had been lost for a long time. He'd already been lost when the fleet had crossed the singularity to find this new home, and there was no hope to find him ever again, now that that space-time rift was closed for good.

Omega had his own ties to Starfleet, of course. It was inevitable, as he was practically responsible for the border defences. Apollo, bearing the burdens of the Fleet Commander, had to keep an eye on all other available ships, and he had to visit the Cylon basestar-turned-space-stations on a regular basis, as he answered to the Quorum of Twelve directly. That meant the Galactica was almost solely Omega's responsibility in these days.

He'd accepted the additional workload – and the long overdue promotion – with his usual, unflappable calm. This was what he'd been bred and trained for, after all. Aside from power and money, that is, but those two lay still in the very far future. If ever. His only complaint was that these even-longer-than-usual duty hours kept him away from his new, adopted family too often. Fortunately, he could always count on Aurora to back him.

He'd been surprised – well, shocked would have been abetter word perhaps – to find her distant cousin alive on the Celestra. Aurora belonged to a penniless side branch of their mighty clan – a branch that had been considered an embarrassment and thus never discussed. Sire Lares would have flat out denied having ever had a cousin who'd ran off and married a low-born Taurus, and a follower of the Aldebarian faith, who'd lived in a troika, a three-way clan marriage at that. But they were blood, nonetheless, and Omega welcomed Aurora in his house with open arms. He found it a strange irony of Fate that only the two of them had survived of an army of cousins, uncles, aunts and other relatives, but he was not willing to let her go, for reasons that, in his opinion, no longer counted.

Aurora was a skilled technician and a good shuttle pilot, and Omega intended to lure her over to the Galactica, eventually. That had been before the children, of course. The arrival of the children in the new house had changed everything.

During their long, arduous journey towards Earth, Omega had been paying semi-regular visits to the Orphan Ship. Not as often as he'd have preferred, duty had always been a harsh taskmistress, but as often as he'd managed to shuttle over. At first he'd hoped to find someone of his family – they had had a townhouse in Caprica City, after all, so there had been a slim chance (granted, a very slim one) that one of his children, or nephews, or nieces, had somehow survived. They'd been such a large family – and one important enough for any surviving children to be saved and brought to the evacuating shuttles.

He had found none of his own blood. But he'd kept returning to the Orphan Ship, because by then, he'd bonded with some of the children already. With adorable, dark-curled little Momo whose true name, Mnemosyne, was really way too long and complicated for a then-seven-yahrens-old, and who was a little slow at learning and would probably always be. With Aggie (or Aglayah, as she was officially named), a precocious redhead of then eleven yahrens, whom anyone would have taken home gladly, had she not come with two younger brothers attached; nobody wanted three kids at once.

Nobody but Omega, that is. He'd always had an entire team of siblings around him – had always wanted a really big family. So, as soon as they'd started building the house, he talked to Aurora, and in the end, they'd not only taken Aggie and her brother with them, but also Momo and six-yahren-old Chelle, who was a sweet and smart girl but had stopped to grow at the age of four and counted therefore as damaged.

The couples – or single persons – who'd been willing to take in orphans of suspicious origins to begin with, had wanted babies. Cute, healthy babies. Omega, however, had just shrugged when the matrons of the Orphan Ship had reminded him that both Momo and Chelle were damaged, and the boys, Mechi (Melchisedech) and Ari (Aharon) had serious attitude problems.

"One can't choose one's own children, either," He'd answered. "I was very lucky with mine, but they're dead. I've got empty places where they used to be, and these children don't really have that many choices, do they? We'll take them."

His decision turned out a fairly good one. He'd always known that Aggie was an unusually mature, reliable child – oldest children of poor Virgon agrists usually were that by default – who had taken care of her brothers like a mother hen on the Orphan Ship already. By now, at the age of fourteen, she'd have already been married off to a man twice or more her age, according to the Virgon custom of linear marriages. Instead, she'd practically adopted Momo and Chelle as her sisters, teaching them everything she'd been taught at a very tender age to become a good housekeeper, training them in housework and gardening and showing them how to read and to write and to use computers.

She'd formed a bond with Aurora as quickly as she would have done with the elder wives of her Virgon family, and between the two if them, they ran the household like a well-oiled machine. With the frequent visits of Apollo's son, Boxey, and his current best friend of the secton, the house was full with laughter and children's noises again, and Omega loved it.

True, sometimes he missed Clementia and their kids so badly that it hurt. Aggie and her brothers, who could remember their parents well enough, often struggled with the same grief. Aurora was still grieving for her family and her lost loves, and Momo and Chelle, found as abandoned babies and never known anything else but the orphanages, felt often… well, lost. But somehow, they always pulled themselves together, holding on to each other, and kept going. They had the others to relay on, after all.

The insistent beeping of the comm unit woke him from his brooding. A glance at the control panel told him that it was a planetary call. Federation technology did have its advantages. He switched on the unit and Athena's beautiful face smiled at him from the viewscreen.

"I hope I'm not interrupting any important family events," she said apologetically.

"Not at all," Omega assured her warmly. He'd always liked Adama's daughter very much; she was an excellent bridge officer and a loyal friend. "What can I do for you, Athena?"

"I was told you're about to shuttle over to Semiramis," Athena said. "Is that correct?"

Omega nodded. "Yes, I have to discuss synchronizing the border patrols with Commodore Hunter," he replied. "And Jana needs to catch the next crew transporter. Her orders have just been dispatched. The Enterprise is about to embark on her new five-year-mission."

"Oh, I see," there was something akin vague sympathy in Athena's pale blue eyes. "It's hard on you, I guess?"

Omega shrugged. "Not really. We both knew the day would come; that's Service for you. Besides, it's not like I'm alone. The house is as full as it can get, you know."

"I know," Athena laughed. "Boxey and I have just visited a secton ago, remember? Well, I happen to have a commission on Semiramis myself, and I was wondering if I could go with you? Interplanetary traffic is not what it could be, and I still don't have a shuttle of my own."

"Sure, why not? I'll pick you up at the spaceport."

"But if you'd rather spend the last centares privately, I'd understand…" Athena trailed off.

"Actually, we're taking Aggie with us," Omega told her. "She's getting tested for a Federation school aboard the space station – I want her to have the best education she can get; she's a smart girl. So, Jana and I won't be alone anyway. You don't have to worry about our privacy."

Athena gave him one of those luminous smiles that always made him wonder how Starbuck could have given her up for Cassiopeia. Sure, Cassie was a nice person, and – due to her former profession – most likely very skilled in bed, but she had neither Athena's class, nor her ethereal beauty. Well, men tend to be fools most of the time when they choose their women, he decided, although he'd always considered himself an exception. People who'd known Clementia would have agreed with him.

"Thanks," Athena said, without noticing his short mental absence. "I owe you one for that."

"And I intend to collect my debts," he grinned; that was an old private joke between the two of them. "I'll see you at the spaceport in four centares, then."

"I'll be on time," Athena promised, and then she severed the comm link.

Omega checked his chrono and realized that he'd got barely a few centons left till midday meal. The children, used to the strict daily schedule of the Orphan Ship, still lived by that structure, and he saw no reason to change anything they were comfortable with. He rose from his desk at the same moment as Chelle stuck her curly blonde head through the half-opened door (by building the house, they'd opted against automatic slide doors for security reasons) and beamed at him.

"Pa," she chirped, "we're ready to eat now!"

They all called him Pa, by some unspoken agreement. He suspected part of the reason was that Aggie and her sibs didn't want anyone to usurp the place of their real Dads. And longer words were a struggle for Momo, so they'd chosen something she could easily pronounce, too.

"That's good," he said, picking up the little girl as he would pick up a doll. "I'm very hungry. What about you?"

The curly head nodded empathically. Chelle might have stopped growing, but there was nothing wrong with her appetite. Sometimes Omega thought all that growth she didn't show was going into that incredibly thick mane of hers – she looked like a baby lionet. Silly as it sounded, Omega sometimes wondered if cropping her hair short would cause a sudden growth spurt by her. He knew it was a stupid thought, of course, and made a mental note to bring her to the medical facilities of Semiramis as soon as possible. While Federation medicine couldn't work wonders either, it was a good deal more advanced than that of the Colonies. Perhaps the doctors of the Starbase could help the little girl.

The kids had already gathered around the long table – the spacious dining room had been designed with a really large family on mind – and they were bouncing with excitement. Which could only mean one thing: Aggie had learned – or created – a new dish again. Omega looked forward to the experience with mild trepidation. Aggie was a surprisingly good cook for her age (she had to be, she'd been supposed to marry by her current age, after all) but sometimes she got too enthusiastic with experimenting. Whether it was done with the Starfleet-issue food synthesizer, the programming of which she apparently found very inspiring, or with real food that she grew in the garden.

Today was real food day, it seemed, and Omega eyed the strange looking, greenish ovals that had been filled with some indefinable stuff warily.

"Do I want to know what this is?" he asked in deep suspicion.

Aggie bounced on her feet with excitement, the freckles practically glowing in her face.

"Stuffed eggplants," she explained brightly. "With minced meat and cheese. I got the seeds from Semiramis and grew the plants in the garden."

"She truly has the green thumb," Aurora commented, and then, after a look at Omega's doubtful face, she laughed. "Don't worry, they're not that bad. It's an acquired taste, I won't deny that, but it grows on you."

"I've eaten in the O Club for many yahrens," Omega declared with dignity. "In fact, I still eat there when on duty. So, I'm not easily shocked by food."

"Besides, it's real food, so it can only be delicious," Ensign Jana Haines, one of Starfleet's finest, entered the dining room, wearing the new blue-and-black uniform of the science division already, and took her usual seat on Omega's right. Aurora always chose to sit at the other end of the table, so that he could keep an eye on everything and everyone.

"Would you speak the Blessing, Pa?" Aggie begged.

Omega suppressed a sigh. Praying at the dinner table had not been a custom in his family, except in grandfather Lares' strict Kobolian household, and it was something he really didn't feel comfortable with. Clementia had used to light a candle in the middle of the table, and they had been silent for a moment – that had the proper beginning of a meal for him.

But Aggie and her brothers hailed from a very simple Virgon family that belonged to the Soldiers of God, an almost militantly religious cult imported from Sagittaria, and blessing the food was one of the few family traditions they could still remember. Omega wasn't going to take that little piece of emotional safety from them – although he really, honestly hoped they'd grow out of it eventually.

It wasn't always easy to have a family with so many different customs and religious beliefs.

"All right," he gave in, albeit a little reluctantly. "Although you could do it yourselves just as fine, you know."

Aggie shook her head so energetically that her short, thick red hair flew in all directions. "Nah, it's something the head of the family must do!"

Something their eldest father had always done, apparently. It was a sign how much they had accepted him in that role already. A prayer now and then really wasn't such a high price for that heart-warming fact, Omega tried to persuade himself.

So he spoke the Blessing, ignoring Aurora's tolerant smile (her family, although nominally Aldebarians, had been on the rather… secular side, too) and they ate the peculiar-looking food that, in fact, turned out to taste a lot better than it looked. After they had stuffed the leftovers into the fridge and the dishes into the dishwasher, Omega sent Aggie to the children's wing to use the turbowash and to change, and then he turned to his partner.

"Have you packed everything?"

Jana Haines nodded and smiled. "I've been ready for hours," he replied. "You know I prefer to travel light."

"Yes, but you've been living here with us more than a yah… a year by now," Omega pointed out. "Things have a tendency to multiply when one stays on one place for a while. Of course, you can always leave part of your things here. You don't need to clear your rooms."

"Yes, I do," she answered gently but firmly. "You know that as well as I do. It would be only delaying the inevitable."

Omega nodded, feeling a bit disappointed that he couldn't lure her into some sort of commitment, no mater what. But he should have known better – she was a woman who knew what she wanted and preferred to lay down clear rules.

She'd made it adamantly clear that their affair… relationship… whatever… was timely limited; that it would only last as long as she'd get her new assignment. She didn't believe in "subspace relationship", as she called it, and as a talented and aspiring scientist (and an astrophysicist at that, who worked in space), she wasn't willing to give up a promising career in Starfleet, just to settle down on some backward planet, with a man she was only lightly attached to, and with five children who were strangers to her.

In the end, it all came down to this: she wasn't one of them, she couldn't possibly feel the same urge to protect what little was left from their previous lives. She had a life on her own, and that life had just begun.

They'd first met during the exchange program between the Galactica and the Enterprise, more than two years ago. A fairly good mathematician himself, Omega had got to work with the Federation scientist from Astrophysics and Stellar Cartography. He'd noticed the slender, supremely elegant, reddish-blonde woman at once. Being a blue-blooded patrician himself, he recognized a fellow aristocrat from a hundred metrons. And indeed, Jana Haines not only belonged to the nobility of science – her father, Sir Andrew Prine-Haines, held the Lucasian chair at Cambridge University, after all – she was also of high social circles, being related, however distantly, to the royal family of England.

Not that it would have meant any particular advantage on Earth in these days, with the Queen herself having long become a social peculiarity, stubbornly loved by English people yet forgivingly smiled upon by anyone else. Still belonging to English nobility meant a sophisticated level of education, both in the scientific sense of the word and in social graces; an education that was very similar to the one Omega had received in his youth. Small wonder that they'd understood each other splendidly.

The understanding had led to closeness, and after a while, to physical intimacy. It wasn't love, from either side, but it was something that helped them both to deal with all too recent losses. A comfortable, amiably restrained, highly satisfying arrangement. The only thing missing from it was true fire, but Omega didn't really mind playing safe for a while. His past hurts were still way too far from being completely healed. He didn't need any new ones, not for quite some time yet.

Perhaps one day he'd have the strength and the courage to fall in love again. To take risks. But for the time being, he was content in this safe, comfortable relationship. If it could be called a relationship at all. But whatever it was, for now, it was enough.

Truth be told, he'd grown accustomed to Jana's presence in the house. To wake up with a warm body next to him in the bed. To have someone to talk to, someone who could look at his struggles with a friendly but detached eye. He was going to miss her, and so were the children, although they had no illusions about the temporary nature of her presence. Perhaps that was why they never called her any other way but by her given name. They had felt, instinctively, that she wasn't there to stay; to fill the role of the mother in their lives.

Children could be unexpectedly wise in these things.

They seemed to like Jana well enough, though. Especially Aggie had grown to like her a lot. Jana had taught her computer skills way beyond the level of kids of her age, and she turned her interest towards science, at least to a certain extent. But all the children had kept a certain distance to Jana – unlike Aurora, they treated her like well-liked guest, not as a family member.

"Let's get moving; we need to pick up Siress Athena at the spaceport," Omega said with a small sigh. He hated the thought of Jana leaving, the same way as one hates to give up some convenience one had gotten used to. But he knew he couldn't do anything to change her mind.

Besides, did he really wanted her to give up everything for him, the way Clementia had given up her career as she'd become pregnant with their first child? Did he want to spend the rest of his life with Jana in matrimonial bliss?

No; if he wanted to be completely honest, he had to admit that he didn't. She was an attractive, elegant, supremely educated woman, they were a perfect match socially, and she was safe. But even that feeling of safety, the relief that he didn't have to engage himself emotionally too deeply, showed that they didn't love each other. He could let her go with regret – but without heartbreak.

Aggie came running down the stairs, proudly wearing her first "good dress" – a simple pale red one, in the colour of her recently achieved maturity (on Virgon, girls of fourteen yahrens were considered fit for marriage), and reached down to mid-calf as the gowns of adults would do. But the soft white shawl around her shoulders clearly signalled her unwed status – a status that Omega fervently hoped to keep at least for six more years. They weren't on Virgon anymore; she could afford to remain a child as long as she wanted, to dream her own dreams, to plan her own life. There was no need to hurry growing up, not any longer.

"I'm ready, Pa," she announced, adjusting the thin strap of her electronic notebook – tricorder, these clever little instruments were called in Federation Standard – on her shoulder. She was wearing a white flower beyond one ear. She looked positively radiant.

"And so am I," Jana Haines added, lifting her impressive carry-alls with practiced ease. "Let's go, folks, I have a crew transporter to catch.

They packed everything into the hovermobile – the first factory for these small and well-maneuvreable vehicles had just started production on New Sagittara less than a yahren ago, making Dr. Wilker a very rich man – and then it cane to the inevitable goodbyes. The younger children endured Jana's hugs good-naturedly, but when they had to part with Aggie as well, for the first time since the Destruction, there was some sobbing, and it came to teary protests.

Aggie talked to them patiently in a voice too low for the adults to understand – it almost sounded like some sort of spell. And it seemed to work, too, as after a while even Momo, sweet, slow-witted Momo understood that Aggie was not leaving them for good, and she stopped bawling. Chelle, brave little lionet that she was, didn't cry, just stared at Aggie with huge, envious eyes.

"When I'm all grown up, I'll too go to a Federation school," she declared loudly, obviously willing to fight anyone who might protest.

"If that's what you want, you can do it, of course," Omega agreed, deciding wisely not to voice his doubts about Chelle's growing up – at least where the physical side of growing was considered. "Now, children, let Aggie go, so that we can reach the station on time. We want to be back for evening meal in a secton's time, but we can't do that if you don't let us start on schedule."

The undeniable logic of this argument persuaded even the very stubborn boys to let go of their older sister. Omega understood their reluctance all too well. Aggie had been their safety belt ever since losing their mothers and fathers in the Destruction. The only unmovable rock in the storms of their young lives. Who'd let willingly go of something – someone – like that?

In fact, they'd probably never have been taken to the evac vessels at all – poor agrist families from Virgo hadn't exactly been trop priority – had Aggie not cleverly (and, as it turned out, falsely) claimed kinship with the legendary Commander Thor. Luckily for them, the linear Virgon marriages resulted in intricate family ties that couldn't be unravelled without careful examination, this she'd managed to save herself and her brothers.

It wasn't the most selfless action, for sure, Omega mused, but who could blame a then-eleven-yahren-old when many adults did the same – only in a much more aggressive manner? And no one can deny that leaving Aggie behind would have been a criminal waste.

When she'd grown up, Aggie would understand that she'd saved herself and her siblings at the cost of other lives. She'd probably be ashamed for it – but she'd never regret doing so, of that Omega was certain. It had been a life-or-death situation, where the survival of the fittest had decided the outcome, and she'd been just a child, responsible for her even younger brothers who'd depended on her in everything. How could she have acted differently?

Omega smiled at his oldest child – for weren't they all his now? – with a strange mixture of pride and pity. She was a strong, resilient child. She'd understand the true costs of their survival eventually – but she'd also be able to live with that knowledge.

They got into the hovermobile – Aggie took the back seat, so that she could wave the other kids – and the small vehicle left the courtyard in a vide, elegant curve. Her adventure had just begun.

TBC