<div dir="ltr"><span id="gmail-docs-internal-guid-ad3ca1d7-7fff-40bf-1ddf-c4a01189049d"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Mission: Gone in a Flash</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Day: 12</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Stardate: 2446.01.12</span></p><br><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">(Sol III, SFMHQ - Rose Gardens, adjacent SFHQ - FltSrgGnl VAdm Aimee Bracken and DirAeroCmd VAdm Dale Bracken - 1100)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Aimee sat on the grass, caring not the stains on her right thigh as her legs curled underneath her. Her attention was fully on a rose bloom, in this most private of places. Few came here, the occasional student, who, should they ask a question of Aimee, she would always answer it, at length, and depth, she recalled her most favourite taught lessons in this place. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">A gentle footstep behind her belied her companion, a footstep that she didn’t need to turn around to greet.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“You’re getting old mum.” She smiled. “Your left knee shows signs of cartilage damage.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Dale smiled. “Too many old injuries to count sweetie. I could still have iced you. You need to be careful. Besides, I knew you’d be here, this is the spot where you told me you were pregnant with her.” Dale’s memory supplied a hint of assorted linked information.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Aimee nodded. “You always were the field agent. I found that out on Dureth Station, staged your death and everything, by hologram...at my hand no less, that was ballsy.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Dale looked at the bloom. “I’m not one for flowers, they seem pointless, but this is the only one of these I’ve ever seen, and it’s only occurred to me that this is the only place I see you sit in this garden. </span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Aimee nodded. “This...is the only rose of this breed in existence. The only cutting was grafted on the date of Ailynn’s birth all those years ago, and planted, cared for and allowed to thrive. It’s unusual, the colouring, the soil chemistry is all over the place, it thrives with other plants that it shouldn’t, and jealously crowds its roots. Bloody sharp thorns too. Funny really.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Dale said nothing but regarded her daughter.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“I’ve been a terrible mum haven’t I.” Aimee said, the words cut Dale deep as the admission was let out.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“Hey, we all make shocking decisions honey. I wasn’t a poster child for mumsiness.” She referred to when she sent the young Aimee home to stay with Leola, Dale’s own mum way back when.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">“All Ailynn’s issues though, her confidence, her addictions, her utter loneliness, that was all my doing.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Once more Dale nodded. “Ailynn’s addictions would have happened anyway, it was a byproduct of her own psyche, not your doing.” Dale rested her hand on her daughters shoulder. “You’ve been hard on her though…”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Aimee nodded. “I feel so bad...I was just worried that…”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Dale smiled, “...that you had to let your baby bird fly...and soar?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">A tear had formed, Aimee blinked them away then turned to Dale. “I want my baby back home safe, I’m so scared mum….”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Dale nodded. “I know. Me too.” She paused, then spoke “Of course, if you have any prayers or thoughts, it should be for anyone getting in her way right?”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">Aimee laughed gently, knowing the true depth of her daughters will. “Oh lordy, you’re not wrong.”</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"> </p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">(Reply None)</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.656;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Arial;background-color:transparent;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre-wrap">(Posted by Mark)</span></p></span><br class="gmail-Apple-interchange-newline"></div>