sws.

[mllememe]

SIX WORD STORIES MEME
TELL A STORY IN SIX WORDS


1. Post your top level with a six word story prompt. Making up your own is fine as well.
2. Other people respond, write a starter, get a thread going somehow.
3. ???
4. Profit!


DON'T LEAVE YOUR TOP LEVEL BLANK!

Original meme from here.

Comments

[astrogator]

[It seems wrong to Ari to be delighted by this discovery of Paul's. This woman - Dalia Katril, in her mind now too, unless they should learn otherwise - had died out here, alone and likely in terrible circumstances. She should be solemn. Yet at the same time, it was possibly an important historical find, and she couldn't help her curiosity, her sense of anticipation when Paul held the book out to her. She wouldn't have minded, Ari tells herself. An astrogator understood that sense of wonder. She takes the little journal, handling it very carefully, examining the cover. It's a script that she can read.]

Dalia Katril. 2214. That's...that's towards the beginning of the war.

[Cradling the journal gently, Ari starts to turn the pages. It's not systematic, just a way to see how much is legible. There's damage in some places, but it's largely readable.]

These first entries are standard astrogation record-keeping for a ship of this time. Every ship was called upon to fight, if it had the capability, and most of them did. That's how we beat the UAE. [Not in 2214. The war took seven long years. Ari skips ahead in the journal.] Her ship was attached to a planet, part of its defenses - there was no Tradeline system yet, although it grew out of wartime co-operation later. [Ari keeps reading, and her commentary stops, drawn in as she as by the text. Then she looks up at Paul again, clear emotion on her face, shock and sorrow.]

Paul, I think this woman did...she did something very terrible but very heroic, all those years ago, and nobody ever found out.

[desertpowered]

[That information confirms a couple of thigs. First, the deceased spacer and Dalia Katril are almost certainly the same person if the name on the journal is the same as the name Ari discovered that identified her in the first place. An if that's true, the journal might be able to tell them who Dalia was when she was alive and what happened to her during her last expedition. Ari had dated the book to the beginning of the war. That means it was almost certainly a time of political tension and anxiety. Paul listens to Ari's explanation.]

But this isn't an inhabited planet, so it's not the one she was attached to.

[Paul approaches to get a closer look. It's best to be careful with the journal, it's delicate and its contents are precious.] Besides, it sounds from what Ari said that this particular spacer did something worth honoring.

Then we should pay her proper respects as a fellow spacer and bring her back to the ship. What exactly is it that she did? We could spread that knowledge to your ship, if you think it's appropriate, and see to it that her heroism is properly recognized. If she did something incredibly brave and died alone because of it, some kind of sacrifice, it's what she deserves as a reward, posthumously.

[astrogator]

[Ari nods her agreement. After what she's just read, what she knows now, there's no question of not bringing Dalia's body back. Even if it means quarantine - and she thinks it's less likely, now, that it'll prove necessary. Paul's theory about Dalia's death is probably correct.]

The war was sparked by the death of Stanley Lorentzen, the man who discovered the Lorentzen equations and the theory of L-space. Lorentzen space. He'd been persecuted by United Earth, who wanted him to hand over his work. He never would...he said that the products of his mind were his to do as he chose with. His company united the early colonies against the Earth government. [A history lesson, some of which Paul may already know, but Ari wants to be sure he understands Dalia's sacrifice.]

Dalia was a ship's astrogator near the beginning of the war. According to these records, she discovered that her captain was a traitor. That the course he was telling her to fly would lead to a rendezvous with the Earthers, where he'd hand over all the details of L-space - the equations, and the engine. We'd have lost our main advantage, in a war where we were very outnumbered. The state of communications back then meant that Dalia couldn't have contacted anyone outside her ship for help. They probably wouldn't have taken her word over a captain's, anyway.

She deliberately botched the L-space flight. Way off-course, into the unknown, and the dimensions in L-space mean that if you do that, with no regard for the patterns, you could end up anywhere, or never come out again. She ended up here, and it looks...it looks as if the traitor captain left her on this planet, alone. [Had he discovered she'd done it on purpose, or was he cruel enough to have stranded her there because he thought she was a failed astrogator? Ari would have to read more carefully to find out.] Whatever became of that ship, it would have had no way of returning to the known space of the time. No way to give our secrets to the enemy.

[By this time, Ari's getting a bit emotional, eyes filled with tears. It may have been a century ago, but the war still looms large in spacer culture, and this woman was an astrogator, too. It's all too easy to imagine how she must have suffered - in making that decision, and in what came after.]

[desertpowered]

[Paul listens to the story without a word until Ari finishes. He's able to follow it without any trouble. Delia found that her captain was a traitor who was planning to give technology ad wartime secrets to the enemy, and intentionally trapped them both deep in space. But either way she'd been marooned as punishment, with no way to contact help, and died on the planet alone, body untouched until they found her.]

We should...well, I'll defer to you on this, but I think leaving a small memorial by the site wouldn't be inappropriate. We'll bring her back to the ship and give the captain a full briefing. Let the crew know what we found. Then we can take care of the funerary rites. You said that the tradition of your culture is sending deceased spacers into space one last time. I'd like to be there, if it would be all right.

[It can't have been an easy discovery, or an easy decision, but her choice played a role in the war being won. Even though she had to know that she would be punished, and not granted the mercy of a quick death. Paul doesn't know how long Dalia had managed to survive planetside, but for all he knew she'd managed to live for a while before her injury killed her. Even a treatable injury can become serious without any treatment and in a harsh environment.

Marooning is a punishment you give someone if you really want them to suffer. Paul swallows hard. He can only imagine that the lost ship is a derelict somewhere in unknown space, the captain long dead.] So there's a good chance that the Tradelines as we know them wouldn't have come to be without her help. It feels unfair, that she saved your people and helped you win the war and this is what happened to her. There's something about it that's wrong. But I think we can change that. I don't know your culture well enough to know if this is a appropriate suggestion, so ignore it if it isn't, but a ceremony in her honor would be one way to ensure her memory stays alive. Or maybe we could tell the Tradelines so that her actions can be recognized as they deserve.

[He offers Ari a hand and a sad smile - it's a little awkward, but it's a warm gesture, to let her know that he's there as support.]

[astrogator]

[Ari gives Paul's hand a tight squeeze, and takes a moment to compose herself. It's a sad story, but it's true that there's something they can do about it now.

Yes, we'll leave a marker by this site, and go back to the shuttle now. I'll talk to the captain from there, and suggest bringing Dalia back to the ship, and having the rest of the survey team continue to search for anything else she left behind. There are a few museums further up the line that will appreciate that, I'm sure.

[She's silent for another moment, thinking it over.] There should be a proper ceremony when we send her off. You should be there for that, but the details are for the captain to decide on, really. The communications team will share the news, up and down the lines by relay station. We might get a lot of people wanting to attend. It's...I don't know how old she was, when she died. She could even have living descendants. Astrogators didn't start so young in those days.

[Letting go of his hand, she rummages in her kit to find a place-marker to stick into the ground, a little blinking beacon. Then, carefully carrying the journal and the small bundle of cloth, she starts to make her way back towards their shuttle.]

[desertpowered]

You can approximate how old someone was on death from the skeleton, I think. Not the exact age but close enough. Teeth, too, and from the look of things there were teeth left. Since we have a last name it may not be necessary, but we could trace for living descendants through her genes if anyone consents to tests. The body is recent and intact enough that there should be genetic material left.

[Paul nervously reveals a pile of stones he gathered while he was at the site where he discovered the journal. He seems relieved that his idea was a good one, and lays roughly half of them down at the site. Then he offers the other half to Ari.]

Whatever the captain decides, I’ll go along, but I’d be honored to participate. She must have been a brave person when she was alive, to make a decision like that. Turning on your senior officer is never a decision to be made lightly. She deserves a proper ceremony in her honor. We can at least make sure she’s recognized as a hero now. While we can’t do much for her, we can do her that small favor.

[Besides universal cultural stigmas against treason, it would be very easy to frame such a person, however justified their actions were in truth, as a traitor. People are inclined to believe their leaders, Paul figures, even when they shouldn’t.
He follows Ari to the shuttle, head low as he thinks.]

[astrogator]

[Ari takes the little pile of stones, and quickly arranges them in a pattern, one of the Tradeliner signs, to indicate to anyone who comes by that this is a place of significance. She's thinking about what Paul said. How much would they be able to learn about Dalia? Genetic testing was a possibility, although it brought its own complications. They'd have to see how things developed.

She knows, too, the difficult position Dalia was in. The only higher authority than the ship's captain is the spacer code, and treachery in wartime is certainly a breach of it, but convincing others that their leader is a traitor? That might have proven impossible.]

It's why she had to do it in the way that she did. She must have thought that if she tried to tell the others on her ship, they wouldn't believe her, and then word would get to the captain and she'd be left with no way to stop him. We'll make sure that her story's told now. It's the least we can do.

[When they reach the shuttle, Ari asks Paul to wait outside while she speaks with the captain. It doesn't take long, and she soon emerges again, that same solemn look on her face.]

We're to bring her body back with us, and the rest of the survey team are going to search the wider area. We're not to tell the rest of the crew anything, not until the journal has been authenticated and verified. [Ari's not especially happy about this, but it does make sense. Captain Kavarai wants to ensure it's not a forgery, check that there really was a Dalia Katril on the old astrogation registry, look up her records.] When that's done, though, we're going to have our ceremony, and he's going to invite all the captains in local space.

[As she speaks, she's opening up another of the shuttle hatches, retrieving the antigrav sled, which hovers at an easy height for them to push along, and another, larger bundle of material, which she places on top of it.]