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Pleased, Gully hums to herself as she takes stock of the tower, frowning at light fixtures and debris scattered across the floor. “A good photographer lets nothing stand in her way for the perfect shot.”
Port authority might disagree with that, but bully to them. She’s a PUEXO pilot. Eccentricities are to be expected and accommodated for the work you do. Besides trespassing for the sake of a good photo is mostly harmless.
“So we’re just gonna snap some pictures?”
“Mhmm. But in all honesty…” Gully clasps the railing, looking over her shoulder across the lagoon, beyond Ishtar Bay towards the distant horizon of the Atlantic Ocean. Her gaze is wistful, longing and so far away from here. “…I promised you an answer for why I wanted the crew manifest. Back when we had to go rescue the <span class="mu-i">Mackerel</span>.”
That she did. Her response of wanting to know whether or not she had been on the <span class="mu-i">Olympia</span> had been burning a hole in your pocket. That’s certainly a strange claim to make, and one that you’d really appreciate an explanation for. Claiming to be a passenger aboard the Exodus Fleet is certainly one for the books.
Gully turns back to you, resting her back against the parapet. “Twenty three years ago, before they emigrated to Babylonia, Rashid Elishani and Morgan Geary were officers in the Megiddan navy, fishermen when they were on half-pay. During a rare peace, they chartered a boat to hunt for shrimp, squid and whatever fish they could find in the Appalachian Sea. Just the two of them – they were skilled enough to do it.”
That explains much about Elishani. Same thing with Geary. But that definitely clears up the strange accents they have. Megiddan expats. Not unusual, yet there’s a saying about how nobody leaves paradise for all the Empire touts itself to be the safest place on Earth. Let alone its officers.
But you stay quiet. Gully’s words become slower, even as you get the feeling that she’s unburdening herself of a great secret. “They found what they were looking for. Plenty of fish, plenty of shrimp. But one day, after a squall that nearly capsized their boat, they stumbled upon something unusual floating above the water.”
“What was it?” you ask softly, intrigued and eager for an answer.
“A…pod,” she answers just as quietly, just as uncertainly, “…an escape pod from a spaceship, but they only recognized it after a closer look. Floating there on the water without a care in the world. And no answer as to how it got there."
You draw a sharp hiss of breath.
“Inside, they found a girl.” Gully's smile is uncertain, wobbly with emotion. “A little toddler swaddled in a white blanket, embroidered with the emblem of the Terran Union. But beyond that…nothing else. The onboard computer was fried, the systems controlling cryo were a week away from failing. There was nothing, not a name for the girl or anything else, save for a serial lasered against the hull – RV-171.”
(cont.)
