Shepherd Moon, Book 2: Homeworld   by Roberta J. Cabot

Chapter Two Drama, as there always was when the former councilor of Dravidia, Councilor Cor, was on the scene, and this time was no different. Cor, trying to break the so-called Earth Alliance's growing influence in the Federation, made claims that the Earthers' influence on the Elyran and Federation economies was detrimental to the people, especially to the Elyrans, so he therefore filed a motion with the economic council to intervene on behalf of the Elyrans. But even before a discussion of his motion could ensue, Mia called him out and demanded to see evidence to prove his accusations. But he didn't have any. His idea was, as it almost always happened, that the mere accusation would make the accused party capitulate and begin negotiations. But Mia didn't. So the Dravidians pulled their motion. It was yet another reason for the Earth-Dravidian feud to continue. When the case was canceled, that meant Mia's trip to Colossus was for nothing... Still, there was some good news - since Mia didn't need to stay, she just might be able to make it to Earth in time for the start of the conference she was originally scheduled to attend. In fact, she might even arrive earlier than Tasha or Sahsha.

---

 

Chapter Two: Quoting Sherlock Holmes

 
A new language

"Hi, honey," Mia said to Tasha. Mia was currently on a Phase-Wave call to Tasha, who was currently onboard the Elyran royal flagship, the Talon, with Sahsha and their royal entourage. They were currently on their way to Earth. Planetfall was three weeks away for them. But Mia, onboard EarthForce's 5th Fleet flagship, the Shepherd Moon, was confident she could make it before then, but she wasn't saying that to Tasha so as not to get anyone's hopes up just in case she was a little late.

"T'chahn, my love," Tasha replied. "I heard the Dravidians dropped the case?"

"Yes. I was shocked, myself. But it seems Cor didn't have any of his attestations ready." Mia referred to what Earth courts would called demonstrative evidence - exhibits or documentary material that would prove or support Cor's claims.

Tasha sighed, smiling. "Typical of Cor. I suppose he was counting on you giving up and negotiating."

"Most likely."

"So I suppose you can leave for Earth now?"

"Yes. Within the day, actually. I just need to say goodbye to Mumu, Pinpin, Nicky and the guys. I have Ben going around and getting all of the things we need done completed. Hopefully we won't be too late getting to the shindig."

"Well, no need to rush too much. The secretary-general has said she can delay the opening ceremonies..."

"No! Tash, don't let her do that. We want to get this locked down right away..."

Tasha chuckled. "You worry too much, my love."

Mia scrunched her face. "I know, I know... Where's Sahsha, by the way?"

"As usual, dear heart is still in bed." The two of them laughed. Sahsha was not known as an early riser, and her two spouses kept on making fun of that.

"What time is it there, anyway?"

"It is mid-morning ship time."

"Hmmm... that's late, even for her. So what were you guys doing last night? Hmmm?"

Tasha blushed, which confirmed it for Mia. Mia chortled.

"Hush, Mia!" Tash said, but her tone couldn't cover the hidden pride in her love and affection for her spouses, and she blushed so prettily.

Mia sighed. "I wish I was there with you."

"I, too, wish we were together. But it's all right. We'll be with each other soon enough. This is important - we need to do this."

"Yup, yup. 'kay. I'll leave you to your queenly stuff, and I'll call again this afternoon." Mia laughed.

Tasha smiled in exasperated resignation at that lame, well-worn family joke. "All right. I'll leave you to your admiral stuff. I know just how much you enjoy bossing people around."

Mia stuck her tongue out at Tasha. "Talk to you again later, my love."

And they switched off simultaneously. It's like they read each other's mind, although it was, in reality, just them knowing each other so well that it was almost like reading minds. To Mia and Sahsha, they were very surprised at this meshing of the minds, but to Tasha, it was just something that happens to bridges. But, regardless, the three of them were very happy.

If someone were there eavesdropping, she would have been amazed that the two understood each other so well. After all, Mia was talking in heavily colloquial Earther English, while Tasha was talking in highly contextual posh Elyran. But in the Kerr-Steele-Delyer family, they switched languages without even noticing. Over the years, Tasha and Sahsha had become extremely fluent in each other's native tongues, and Mia, already fluent in both, just refined her understanding of both languages. Their family was a polyglot family and, as such, the three had started to develop a kind of intermediate family dialect, which was a mixture of standard English, standard Elyran, standard Federation, New York English, posh Received Pronounciation English, contextual Royal Elyran, a mishmash of Dixx and Telcontari phrases, and punctuated by Arachnian glyphs (these were the physical signals and arm gestures Arachnians used to express emotion).

The people in the royal staff have had to learn a bit of this pidgin language just to keep up with the three. The best among them was Ben, of course, because he was Princess Mia's right-hand man (in Earther terms, he was the Queen's Hand), and was the confidant of Sahsha and Tasha. So he was exposed to a lot of this pidgin Elyran-slash-English. Still, even he wasn't quick enough to keep up sometimes. It sometimes got so thick, the royal staff and the 5th Fleet crews referred to it as the secret royal language. It was one of Ben's secret projects to actually document it. He was actually getting to grips with it, and it was his intention to finish the book he was writing soon, which he was calling "The New Language of the Northern Kingdom," as a birthday gift to his liege, Princess Mia.

Celebrating one's birthday was yet another common thing between Earthers and Elyrans, so it was only natural that Mia's birthday was going to be celebrated, and naturally, celebrated in royal fashion. In fact, a delegation of sixteen Elyrans from from Mia's royal household staff was currently billeted at the princess's official home on Earth, Star Castle, on St. Mary's Island - part of the Sciollian Isles, which her duchy, after all. They were there to help Mia's staff prepare for her birthday fete. It was a big deal because it was her first royal birthday to be celebrated on Earth in years, and it was going to be done as a mix of Elyran and Earther traditions. And all of Mia's, Tasha's and Sahsha's people, both Elyran and Earther, were determined to make it an epic one.

- - - - -

In the 19th century, the medieval castle and garrison on St. Mary's Island was converted to a luxury hotel, but after the war, it had essentially been abandoned, as were the entire Sciollian Isles. But during Recovery, everything was refurbished, including the castle. It was Mia's home now, and it was where Mia stayed when she was on Earth - about two out of every twelve months.

The castle was in a bastion fort or trace italienne fortification style - a style of castle-building that evolved when cannons started dominating the battlefield in the fifteenth century. The design evolved to resist cannon attacks - its thick sloping walls would resist cannon fire, and its distinctly star-shaped layout, with bastions filling "dead zones," so achers and infantry wouldn't have to any areas to hide in along the fortification's walls.

This style gave the castle, and all of the others that used the same design, a star-shaped layout. The locals, as expected, called it the Star Castle, and it had been known by that name ever since.

- - - - -

The book Ben was writing was going to be a grammar book, and though it began as a joke book, because of Princess Mia's encyclopedic mind, Queen Tasha's pedantic and meticulous nature, and Lady Sahsha's linguistics and philology disciplines, this pseudo-language really was shaping up and looking like a legitimate language more and more - with the princess' encyclopedic knowledge of Earther, Elyran and Federation languages, it ended up using words and ideas that the three were cherrypicking from existing languages that were appropriate, while the duchess was able to identify and adopt the appropriate language forms and language rules to fit what they were trying to communicate, and the queen, most importantly, insisting on consistency, forcing Mia and Sahsha to stick to their invented rules, allowing the three to perfect it. This was all done unintentionally, but just as a byproduct of their own preferences and predelictions. All Ben really had to do was to just document it.

Several weeks ago, he approached the duchess and the queen, and informed them of his project. He showed them what he had, and he said that he was about a month away from finishing his book, which would make it just in time for Mia's birthday. He asked if it was all right, as he may offend the royal family or something. The queen delightfully said yes to the project. As for the duchess, she took all of Ben's material and shut herself in the royal bedchamber for three straight days.

At the end of the three days, Sahsha summoned Ben, and when he came over, Sahsha gave back his book and other notes, and the two of them talked it over.

Ben knew the duchess was extremely smart, but when in her own element, she was an absolute genius.

What she did for him was to organize his work, applied lingustics standards to his amateur work, and retooled many of the sections he had written into a full-fledged language reference, both in the Elyran style and the Earther style. She also identified the missing language elements and identified the remaining areas that Ben needed to concentrate on.

Ben was looking at his friend with mouth agape.

Sahsha looked at him. "What's wrong?"

Ben continued to stare at her. "Well, whatever it is," she said, "just get back to work. Go, go! Finish the book!" Sahsha shooed him away, and he scurried out of the royal bedchamber. In the back of his mind, he had always assumed Sahsha as the weakest link in the family, but he was utterly mistaken. Sahsha was more than equal to the other two, and was shamed for so thoroughly underestimating his friend, the duchess.

In any case, his book was almost done, and, after finishing his ship's inspection round for the morning, he'll go back to his cabin and work on it for a couple of hours. But only after he checks in with his princess, and see if she had other things for him. Which was all but an inevitability.

He had met only a few people like her, smarter than all the people around her, driven to do what she thought needed to be done, and was the worst overachiever that he knew, and she assumed everyone was like her, too.

It was hard to dissuade Mia of that conceit, simply because she didn't know it was a conceit. After all, she surrounded herself with superlative individuals like the dearly departed Prince Ren, Queen Tasha, Admiral Dax and the First Ambassador, Secretary-General Romarkin, Admiral Silverman, Dr. Running-Stream, Captain O'Connell, Swordmistress Reena, Ambassador Andros, and so many others. Even the Earther Queen Margaret. All of them were smart, driven people just like her. So how could Mia know?

Ben has had to do double-time just to remain at par with them. Never in his life had he worked so hard just to keep up. But Ben wouldn't have it any other way. His liege trusted him so he must prove worthy of Mia's trust.

But in his first year as the queen's hand, he was often on the verge of tears - his work was so demanding. But Sahsha would always be there to comfort and commiserate. But when she offered to tell Mia to slack off, Ben said no. Sahsha respected her best friend's wishes and didn't say anything to anyone.

But in that year, Ben found reserves he didn't know he had, and he didn't just cope but actually thrived as Mia's right-hand man. And everyone in the castle - the Alwahri Taryn Eloisha Seraphim, or just Seraphim for short - came to know Ben as the most capable person in the castle despite his being what was referred to as a "submissive bridge," and was the highest person in authority next to Princess Mia. And, in the fullness of time, he became one of those capable and driven people he so admired.

After that first year of hell, Mia invited him to dinner on the Seraphim's open-air rooftop lounge, where he and Mia dined in grand royal style, but yet conversed in the casual and intimate way that Mia preferred. Tasha and Sahsha was conspicusously absent, so he, naturally, started to worry. He feared that he was about to be fired, and tried to compose himself.

But, instead of firing him, Mia instead presented him with a jeweled, silver Phase-Wave cellphone as a token of her gratitude and esteem. And Ben was shocked.

To an Elyran, such a gift was priceless. The few Phase-Wave phones that circulated in Elyra were valued at over twenty million crowns, and were considered close to family heirlooms by now. Very few tried to break open their phones because their built-in seemingly foolproof Earther protection circuit prevented any tampering. So the secret of Phase-Wave remained a secret.

But these Phase-Wave phones were drab affairs - though smaller and sleeker than their Elyran radio-based equivalents, they were still quite functional-looking, just like the Earther non-Phase-Wave cellular phones that were, by now, in general use in the Federation.

The Phase-Wave ones that the royal family used were sleek, too, but, in keeping with Elyran royal sensibilities and aesthetics, they looked more like pieces of jewelry. Tasha's and Sahsha's phones were hand units that they kept in their vest or trouser pockets on the end of unbreakable jeweled silver chains (as a guard against pickpockets, for even the royal family was prey to such criminals, although in their case, the pickpockets were actually Elyran royal relatives or their retainers). Their phones were like pieces of crystal sculpture that were functional tools as well, and small enough to readily fit in the palm of one's hand.

Their phones doubled as CCs, or "comm-computers," - those devices that Earthers used as a phone, a small computer, a timekeeper and calendar, a recorder, an entertainment device and an electronic concierge.

As for Mia, her own Phase-Wave phone-slash-CC was designed to look like a carved, crystal bracelet, and she wore it on her left wrist. But depending on the setting that she would select, the bracelet would change its predominant color - to either ruby, amber, silver, gold, emerald ebony, chocolate or its default transparent crystal color. It was a function Mia specifically asked for - something she said she needed given how Ben was so insistent that her clothes and accessories be tasteful, and that they match.

As for Ben, Mia gave him something similar, although his was more like a carved silver bracelet that could transmute at will to look like it was made of gold instead of silver.

Aside from that, it looked just like Mia's, which marked him as part of the royal family. Unbidden tears stinged his eyes, and he looked at his princess with gratitude and love.

"I'm so glad, dear Ben, that you passed through this year with flying colors," she said. "I knew you could do it, and I am so proud."

He looked at her. "You knew, princess?" he asked.

"Tasha and I knew that you had it in you, but you needed to know it for yourself as well." She reached for his hand. "I'm sorry, my dear, for putting you through such a year. Others in your place would have surely given up by now, but it was the only way for you to truly know your capabilities."

"My princess?"

Mia pulled him close and gave him a hug. "I'm sorry, but it was something that needed to be done. Especially for family," she said.

And Ben broke into tears.

- - - - -

Back to the present - as predicted, Mia had a couple of dozen last-minute things that she wanted Ben to take care of because she had some business in Colossus, and couldn't take care of them herself. These were pretty easy, and he had them sussed out within the hour, giving him most of the day to work on his book.

He worked through lunch, and had his meal brought to his quarters. Just before the evening shift was called, Captain O'Connell gave him a call, saying that Mia was now onboard. Ben acknowledged and asked that the captain get underway.

O'Connell acknowledged and Ben felt the slight movement that signified that the Shepherd was already on her way to Earth.

"Shepherd Moon," he thought of himself, marveling at the sheer poetry of the name.

 
What is a Shepherd Moon, anyway?

As Ben made his way to Mia's cabin, he thought of the ship's lyrical name. Formerly called the Seeker, the Fifth Fleet's flagship was renamed the Shepherd Moon, after it came back from rescuing the Federation's first expedition to Earth.

It was a lyrical and magical name to him, with the touch of the romantic and the legendary.

Originally, Ben thought the ship was named after one of the historical Earther figures from the early days of space exploration. Rear Admiral Alan Shepard was one of the first humans to ever go out into outer space, but the ship's name didn't come from him - that should have been obvious, given that the spelling was not at all the same.

Then he researched the word "shepherd." He knew, of course, what it meant, based on the Elyran translation, but he was looking more for the etymology of the word, which came from two words - sheep and herd - shepherds were those people who were in charge of herding and managing sheep - domesticated animals raised as a food source and a source of something called "wool" (he wasn't sure what wool was, yet, however).

So "sheep" plus "herder" became "shepherd," and the term was made to apply to the herding of other domesticated animals, not just sheep. As to how this applied to spacecraft, he didn't know.

He also read about a religious figure that was called a "shepherd of men," but that confused him so he decided to look for other material.

Eventually, his research showed that the ship was named after a "shepherd moon." A moon or other planetary satellite that orbited near planetary rings have the effect of repelling the material of the rings. This effect confines the rings to certain formations. And, sometimes, two of these moons would work together and confine the ring particles to a narrow band between them. A single would-be ring would then be divided further into separate rings on the same plane because of the actions of these "shepherd moons." A spectacular example of this was Saturn’s multiple rings. This effect could also be seen on the other two ringed planets in the Sol system – Uranus and Neptune, though their rings were paltry affairs compared to Saturn’s. Astro-scientists call these satellites shepherd satellites or shepherd moons, because they metaphorically were herding the rings.

People from Earth's NASA and ESA suggested this as Seeker’s new name and EarthForce approved it.

This little datum was far from poetry, but, for him, it added to the romantic aura of the Shepherd Moon - the ship that guided the people of the galaxy to a new, undreamt-of future.

He continued down the passage and came to Mia's cabin door. He nodded to the two EarthForce marines by the door, and they saluted him. He went straight in and found Mia at her desk. On the screen was the image of a young Earther.

"Ahh, Ben!" Mia said. "Ben, let me introduce you to Phil McIntyre's latest protege - this is Mr. Bernard Dietrich, a doctoral candidate from the Humbodlt Univerrsity in Berlin. Mr. Dietrich, I'd like to introduce you to Dr. Ben Tevann-Areeyah.

The young man turned to face Ben.

"Good evening, Dr. Tevann-Areeyah," the Earther said in fluent, though very accented Elyran. Since there was no echoing English equivalent, Ben knew he wasn't using a translator - that and his attrocious pronounciation. "I am so pleased to meet you. I have heard so much about you."

"Good evening, Herr Dietrich," Ben replied in Earther German.

"Anyway," Mia said, "thank you for your call, Mr. Dietrich. We will see you on Earth in a few weeks."

The man nodded. "Thank you for your time, my lady. Doctor. See you then." And then Mia cut the call.

"What do you think, Ben?"

"About that boy, my lady?"

"Yes."

"Well, I just met him - I wouldn't have enough..."

Mia smiled. "I know. I was actually looking for first impressions."

"Well..." Ben hesitated, "If we're talking first impressions... I don't like him - he seems very officious and very... " He shrugged. "Plus that atrocious accent!"

Mia laughed uproariously. "You are a snob, my dear."

Ben laughed. He was always pleased to make his princess laugh. "What may I do for you today, my lady," he asked.

"Well," Mia said, "I'd just like to go over everything we're supposed to be doing before we land on Earth. I don't want to miss anything."

Ben took out a paper pad. Mia had always found that a little quaint, but it seems a lot of Elyrans still used pen and paper to take notes.

"Well, my lady," Ben said, "one of the more important things is thatt we need to contact the Federation Garrison and Star Harbor at Elyra Prime, to tell them that we will be pulling out the Fifth Fleet..."

"And EarthForce, of course," she said.

"Darn," Ben muttered. "Of course, my lady." He made a quick note and moved down his list.

"Next, we are to negotiate for three of the old Seren stations... You haven't told me which ones, though."

Mia shrugged. "It doesn't matter which. But I suppose... maybe we should negotiate for the ones on Phobos, Luna and Venus. At least the logistics would be easier. Dismantling them and loading them on ships would be easier if we can do it planetside."

Ben nodded and made some more notes. "We then need to contact the Telcontari regarding their solar farm technology."

Mia nodded. "Maybe Mumu, Pinpin and Chi-Chi would know. Ask them."

Ben nodded. "Then there are the terraforming people. Per my Federation contacts, the best are the people from Star-453 and the Kembels. But they charge a lot."

"Oh. Then we have to look for others."

"I'm sure EarthGov can negotiate for lower..."

Mia shook her head. "No, we can't. We can't be beholden to anyone. This project needs to be completely independent of anyone but the consortium."

"In that case, I don't know anyone anymore, my lady."

"Contact the First Ambassador. I seem to remember he was talking about a terraforming project that the Arachnians were working a few years ago. They might be able to help"

"All right, my lady."

"All right. I guess those are the big items. Now, let's tackle the rest."

"Of course, my lady," Ben said, and he started going through the list.

"There's the reception, the logistics for the expedition, recruitment..."

And the two worked on through the night.

 
Going to a party

Marjorie hated her name. It sounded, well, it sounded old-fashioned and funny. But that's the name that her mother saddled her with. Prior to her GRS, when she was selecting her femme name, she could have found a nice one, but her mother over-rode her. "Marjorie" was her great grandmother's name, her mother said, and great-gran was very beloved relative, and besides, it was the name that she would have used for Marjorie if she turned out to be a girl.

Marjorie respected her mother and father, so she acceded to her mother's request. So that's how her name was changed from William Bernard Quinn to Marjorie Beatrice Quinn.

And now that her new name was official, she planned to use the much better-sounding nickname of "Trixie" on a day-to-day basis. Her brother said that was too cutesy, but she said it's her name so she can call herself whatever she wants.

So, though she tried to use Trixie as often as possible, her family still called her Marjorie.

Oh, well.

But if this whatever-it-is is the start of something new, it was her opportunity to start using her Trixie name again. She can start with the people at the party.

- - - - -

Walking around the big ship gave Marjorie time to think, but not enough as she would like. The Halo Flight she was on was extremely fast. In less than a day, they would be making planetfall. But, befoe then, she thought of this mystery project. There were rumours about what Princess Mia was planning, that it was her intention to establish another colony - this time at the very edge of Federation space. Everyone had wondered why. At present, there were now thirty-nine Earth colonies outside of the Solar System, although each colony world only had between fifteen to fifty thousand colonists, since the minimum number of permanent residents requred, per the Federation's Chamber of Migration and Peerage, was 12,288 colonists (an oddly specific number, but not not so odd to the Federation, because 12,288 was 30,000 in Elyran), each was therefore a legitimate colony, and was registered with the Chamber as such. Earth now had more colonies than any single race in the Federation - the race with the next highest number of colonies were the Dravidians - they had 24 - though that number was in doubt. In fact, it used to be 25, but the colony status of one of them was revoked - the first colony to lose its status in several millenia.

The Chamber had wanted to perform colony inspections for a while now, to verify if they were legitimate colonies. After all, a colony was entitled to Federation protection as well as commercial rights, prospector's rights and shipping right-of-way in their system, so the legitimacy of a colony was an important thing.

Many races have made false claims of colony status in the past, but the Chamber didn't have the budget, nor was the technology available, to perform snap inspections. But now that the Earthers were here, the Chamber had made inquiries if EarthGov can provide travel facilities to the Chamber, hopefully at rates lower than the normal going rate.

Of course, EarthGov readily agreed, and offered the Chamber the use of one of their new "Type One" interstellar cruisers, fully-crewed and ready to go, at no cost to the Federation.

The Chamber jumped on this offer, and made their first inspection trip in millennia. Randomly, they selected one from the list of colonies that they wanted to inspect, and this happened to be a Dravidian colony.

When they got there, the "colony" turned out to be a fake one. The planet itself was actually uninhabitable. But the Dravidians wanted rights to this sytem because of the heavy deposits of minerals and other compounds that many of that system's planets had. These were considered vital resources to the Federation, and the Dravidians were making an awful lot of money from them.

When the Federation's "inspectors" arrived, they were able to ascertain that the so-called colony was actually an automated Dravidian mining outpost, and there was no permanent population on the colony planet, save for about 512 miners (1,000 in Elyran Base 8) who worked in the system on one-year tours of duty to keep their automated mining ships and plants running.

The net effect was that the "colony's" status was revoked and the Dravidians were charged with an enormous sum- what the Chamber called "back taxes," and penalty fees. The Dravidians were appealing these fees since it was nearly impossible for them to pay the gigantic amount - an amount that was almost equivalent to the total GDP of Dravidia Prime for one solar year.

So while the case was being litigated, the Federation dispatched a small flotilla of warships to the former colony to make sure that no more mining operations were being performed.

This case was well known in the Federation, because it set a kind of precedent. Since the case was filed, many ships lifted off from their home worlds bound for their colony planets, with new settlers to beef up their colonial communities. And a few colony planets were actually "abandoned" and was registered with the Chamber of Migration and Peerage as such. No one wanted to be charged fees like the ones that the Dravidians were charged.

- - - - -

Marjorie thought of all of these things, as well as the fact that Earth didn't need another colony. She could barely manage the 39 she already had. So why was the princess thinking of establishing a new colony?

This particular rumor had been going around Triton Station for a while now. And she had been on enough of Dr. McIntyre's secret meetings with the princess to know that this rumor was more than just a rumor.

And the day before, just as they were about to leave for the spaceport and board their flight to Earth, Marjorie found one of Dr. McIntyre's briefcases in his office. She thought he'd need the case so she took it with her with the intention of giving it to him later.

But he was busy with the pilot and, after that, had to take some calls from Queen Tasha and with Admiral Silverman, so she was only able give the case to him a little while ago.

But, before she gave it to him, she had a peek at the documents inside. She justified her... spying by the fact that the doc didn't lock the case. If he didn't want anyone reading his secret documents, he should have locked it. lol

When she returned the case, though, she was considerate enough to lock it. You never know who would want to have a peek at his secret stuff.

"Oh!" Phil said. "Thank you, Marjorie! I've been looking for that the whole day - where did you find it?"

"You left it on your desk back in Triton, sir," she said. "I knew you might need it so I took it. I was trying to give it to you since we boarded but you were busy."

"Sorry about that. Thank you."

"No problem, sir. And if you need me, I'll just be in my room."

- - - - -

Anyway, from the documents that were in there, she figured it out. Mia and the Elyrans, the Dixx, the Arachnians and the Telcontari were working with EarthForce. Their plan wasn't just to establish a colony out in the edge of Federation space, but to actually make the planet for the colony - three of them, actually.

This ludicrous idea was so beyond what any race had ever done before, but the proof was there. Still, how could it be true?

Then she recalled something she read when she was a child.

She was a big fan of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, specifically his Sherlock Holmes stories.

She remembered something that Holmes once said in the Sherlock Holmes short story, "The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier." The famous quote was, "once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."

And though this one, this preposterous idea of making a planet just so Earth can have another colony when there were literally millions out there just waiting to be colonized, seemed so far from the truth. But given all that she now knew, then it must be the truth.

She was excited, to say the least. But there were so many questions. She couldn't wait for the reception, and meet Queen Tasha and Princess Mia. And maybe she'll find out what all this was all about.

Though it was still a day from planetfall, she just knew she wasn't going to be able to get a wink of sleep.

to be continued...

 

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