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Imperial Star , which had miraculously
survived the explosion. Probably still running on some internal emergency power
supply.
    Taking one final glance at the wreckage floating around the
now stationary fighter, Miranda took a moment to reflect on all the people who
had lost their lives in this huge flagship. She was sure a large number of
those had been individuals like her, good men and women just following orders.
Realising she was long overdue back at the station, she wondered why she had
not restarted the engines, somehow feeling drawn to this location, not just by
the light but also by a feeling — .
    Miranda found herself staring directly out of the cockpit at
one piece of wreckage floating directly in front of the ship. A small piece. A
dozen or so meters in length, half that in width. Perhaps it was the shape that
drew her gaze? More angular than the other more ragged pieces floating around,
almost the shape of a wedge, tapered towards one end. Something about the shape
of it triggered a memory. She was sure she had seen this piece before. Turning
the object around in her head, finally it occurred to her it was a smaller
piece of a much larger ship. Running through all the ships she knew off the top
of her head — until she came to an abrupt stop.
    It couldn’t be.
    But rotating the ship to orientate the fragment correctly,
she was certain. Peering more closely she could see underneath the black
exterior to the once pristine white hull, in a few places the black exterior
coating was smudged enough that she could see through to the cockpit windows
underneath. She was looking at the cockpit of the Eternal Light !
Suddenly her heart seemed to stop beating, her mouth went dry. The cockpit
looked intact. Perhaps…
    She slapped the communications panel, broadcasting an
emergency request.
    *****
    It took far longer to recover the fragment of the shuttle
than Miranda ever expected. Precious minutes were wasted fruitlessly trying to
convince the junior officer on duty in the C&C she had not completely
lost her mind and was not hallucinating. Eventually she had to order the
officer to put her though to Paul. Even then it took him an agonisingly long
time to answer. Paul already looked ashen faced and pale before Miranda even
explained her discovery. After quickly recounting her story and describing what
she believed she had discovered, Paul quickly assented to dispatching a Search
& Rescue shuttle to her location. For a time Miranda wondered what had
already shocked Paul so badly that he acceded to her outlandish request so
quickly.
    Instead Miranda urged the S&R shuttle to hurry. Fuming
at the time it took to arrive and to attach towing cables to the remnant of the
shuttle. For the cockpit of the Eternal Light was too big to bring on
board the shuttle, and had no docking hatch to allow a team to board. Hence the
only option was to tow the piece back to Terra Nova , into a pressurised
docking bay to open.
    Miranda flew ahead of the S&R shuttle, docking at Terra
Nova . Not even waiting for all the ships systems to power down she hurried
to the docking bay to await the arrival of the S&R shuttle. Miranda was
pleased to note Paul seemed to have taken her story seriously, as there was
already a small crowd of technicians and an emergency resuscitation team from
medical swarming around the entrance to the docking bay.
    Paul was at the head of the crowd, waiting for the green
light indicating the docking bay was pressurised and they could safely enter.
He still looked as pale as a ghost.
    “Paul, what’s going on?” Miranda demanded, still dressed in
her flight suit, having come directly from her ship.
    “We’re just waiting for the bay to pressurise, the S&R
shuttle with the fragment is on final approach now.”
    “Not that,” Miranda replied exasperatedly, leaning forward
and lowering her voice so that she could not be overheard. “Why do you look
like you have just seen a ghost?”
    Paul glanced around to make sure