FR June 2012

"Captain Raurrssatta?"

The bridge chime. Mallin. Cirr looked at his chrono. Always too late. He closed his eyes, thinking about the bed in his quarters. The blankets drawn tight and the pillows arranged like military habit. Pristine and unused.

He looked back at his shitty rough draft, and saved it. Incomplete. To unfuck with later. Only after removing that eyesore from his sight did he answer the comm. "Rreporrt."

He'd reached an understanding with his comms Lieutenant. This wasn't a trivial interruption. Mallin had as much interest in seeing Cirr get a full night's sleep as he did. Neither of them were getting their wish right now.

"Picking up a distress signal from the Gordian frontier. Imperial territory. Quality's in the tank, but you might want to hear this."

He was already on his feet.

"We picked this up on the holo about ten minutes ago. It ran on a short repeat cycle and then we lost it completely."

Cirr stepped to the comm terminal, and nodded for Mallin to play the message.

"...reading this... ...evacuation... ...ion cannon... .... ...Rebel ship... ... ...they're taking everyone alive... ........."