Confession - Day 1

1 – Rome

PRESENT DAY

“Bless me Father, for I have sinned.”

The man on the other side of the screen was tall. I could tell that much just from the shadow he cast; and he was broad at the shoulders.

“It has been–too long–since my last confession.”

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A Sea of Stars - Ch. 19 - Traitor

              is
            there
    anything more terrible
     than being betrayed
        by a       man
       that         you've
      come            to call 

             friend

“… Adrian.” Lillian jerked straight up in her bed. For a second, she wavered between her dream of events years gone by and the disasters of the present day.

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A Sea of Stars - Ch. 18 - Daedalus

            the
            mind 
    is a miraculous tool
     for bringing order
        to      chaos
       and       truth      out
                           of the
                   darkness; but with this
                    ability comes the risk
                        of      seeing
             real,     what       isn't
            making
    phantoms of shadows and
     conspiracies of those
        that      mean
       no          harm

For the first time, Lillian had been trusted with a solo mission to repair a damaged gravity plate. She gotten up that morning to check her assignments for the day and there it was:

LILLIAN SHAW - 0800 - REPAIR GRAV PLATE 1352 IN MESS

Her mentor finally trusted her! Today, she was extra careful as she collected her tools from the small chest under the bed in her bunk and fastened them around her jumpsuit. Tanaka-sensei had given her the belts–made with a mix of Velcro and elastic bags–and she loved them. A place for everything and everything in its place.

One last check to make sure she had everything and off she went. Her first solo!

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A Sea of Stars - Ch. 17 - Darkness

         all
        those
    who are afraid
     of the dark
     are   afraid
    for       good reason

           in
          the
    cold dark of space
     there is no one
       there    to
      save      you

The second time she came to, it was to a sharp pain in her side. Although she was still floating in the near darkness, her light was in front of her this time, so there were no shadows to threaten her awakening. As she woke, one hand flew to her side where it met with Eve’s shell.

“Do you mind?” Eve’s voice sounded in her head.

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A Sea of Stars - Ch. 16 - Collision

          the
          void
    between the stars
      is cold dark
     and        more
    lonely        than

           one
          could
    possibly hope to imagine
       but it is foolish
       to         see
      it           as

    completely
         empty

They waited a heartbeat. Two. Half a dozen. The emergency power finally kicked in, bathing them all in a reddish glow that contrasted harshly with Eve’s blue. With a start, Lillian realized that she wasn’t actually sitting on her bed any longer, but rather floating a few centimeters above it.

She looked over, Madeline was doing the same beside her. On her other side, Eve seemed unaware of the fact that they should be floating and was still sitting resolutely in Lillian’s chair. That puzzled her for a second longer than it probably should have until she put it all together. The power was out. And with it, the artificial gravity, apparently. It should have been on the emergency circuit, but apparently it wasn’t.

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A Sea of Stars - Ch. 15 - Artifact

        we
        are
     not alone
      in  the 
     uni   verse

It all started out in the Kuiper Belt. About 40 years ago, that’s when the first real effort to mine the Kuiper Belt objects came about. And Dark Sun was at the forefront. They’d claimed hundreds, if not thousands, of Kuiper Belt objects for themselves. Most of them were for mining, but they had a good number of scientific endeavors as well. One of particular interest was the Deep Deep Space Array of telescopes.

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A Sea of Stars - Ch. 14 - Madeline

        of
       all
    the species     
     on Earth
    only   one  
    has     not

            only

             the
           ability
      to destroy itself
        but also what
       seems     to be
      the          need
             to
            do
           so

“Missing something?” Lillian could feel her voice rising and tried to push it back down. “We’ve been looking for you for over an hour.”

“Looking for me?” Madeline looked truly confused.

“I stopped by your room probably a little bit after midnight and you weren’t here.”

“Sure I was. I’ve been here since I left your room.”

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A Sea of Stars - Ch. 13 - Missing

                  when
                 in the
             deepest darkest
    depths of space, there is nowhere
      to run, nowhere to hide and
          no one to turn to when 
         everything      suddenly
        takes a              turn to
       the                     strange

“Madeline?” Lillian choked out after a moment of stunned silence. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m completely serious,” Eve responded evenly. “Why?”

“She’s my best friend,” Lillian replied, but it sounded flat even to her own ears.

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A Sea of Stars - Ch. 12 - Eve

           the
          human
    body and soul are
     sometimes known
      as the  ghost
     and         the

    shell    what
            no-one
      seems to ask is can
        you can have a 
       shell     without
      its           ghost

             or a ghost
                without a shell

Leaving Adrian’s office, it was too late to finish her shift and too early for dinner. Nothing else particularly drew her, so Lillian decided to go back to her room. She was going to have to have to deal with that briefcase sooner or later.

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