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Sorehl

New Light in the Heavens

In the darkness, the Vulcan and his oldest daughter sat on the grassy hill, looking skyward.

 

Not far from them, where the ground leveled out, two other girls squeezed in closer to the tripod which held a rudimentary refractory telescope. Oblivious to their interest in the heavens, a toddling boy stumbled in dizzying circles around them, occasionally bumping into their legs and falling to the grass.

 

"You've got it centered?" the father asked.

 

The taller girl near the telescope nodded. "I can see the station," T'Ael described, "but I don't see anything else." She thumbed a control on the tripod display and brushed a blonde hair from her delicately pointed ear.

 

"Camelot is large enough to reflect sunlight," Sorehl explained, "but the drydocks are free-floating and lack surface area. They may be difficult to locate visually."

 

The younger girl twisted her mouth before speaking. "It's weird to think we can see somewhere we used to live up in space," T'Jen remarked, putting her hands on her hips.

 

Sorehl raised an eyebrow. 'Weird' was obviously a descriptor his eight-year-old had picked up from visits with Blair and his family. "The station holds a geosynchronous orbit," he explained, "so it remains in the same spot in the sky." He glanced toward his oldest daughter T'Kel, remembering earlier experiences sharing astronomical observations with her. "This makes it easy to locate, even when we can't see it easily." Avalon had no moon, but its sister planet Tintagel was bright and close enough to fill a sizable portion of the sky, obscuring nighttime observations. Tonight, there was no such appearance. "Why isn't it directly overhead, T'Ael?"

 

His eleven-year-old daughter turned and looked back, the hint of a frown on her face. "Doesn't it orbit the middle?" she answered, a slight questioning in her voice.

 

Sorehl nodded. "Essentially correct," he confirmed. "The ground trace of a geosynchronous orbit is above the equator. We live twenty degrees north, so we must incline the scope to offset the difference." He gestured toward the tripod. "Do you notice the starfield moves behind it?"

 

T'Ael and T'Jen both leaned in toward the viewer. "Yeah," said the younger.

 

Sorehl turned to his oldest daughter. "Why?"

 

T'Kel barely hesitated. "The stars are fixed, but the station moves as the planet rotates," she answered. "Since our scope is locked on Camelot, we see apparent motion in the background."

 

Her father inclined his head. "Very good," he offered, inwardly pleased that she had learned her lessons well.

 

Off to the left, there was the gentle sound of a door opening, followed by graceful footsteps. Sorehl glanced toward the house, its windows darkened. His wife was moving out on the flagstone balcony, their infant daughter cradled in one arm. She had returned from the station only a few hours earlier, having endured another round of Scorpiad briefings as part of her continuing diplomatic duties. T'Salik looked out over the gathered group and simply sat, not disturbing them.

 

Beside him, his daughter stirred. "There it is, I think," T'Kel observed, pointing.

 

Low, toward the southeastern horizon, a steady point of light - not quite as bright as Camelot - moved upward. He sat up, directing his attention toward the two at the telescope. "You'll want to reduce magnification to see the approach," he counseled. He stretched out his arms, waving his son toward him.

 

T'Ael picked up the display and made adjustments.

 

Sorehl placed his squirming son on his knee, pointing toward the slowly moving light. "Can you see it?" he asked.

 

There was a silence below before T'Ael finally answered, "There it is."

 

"Now, you can narrow in as it closes," he instructed.

 

Beside her sister, T'Jen stood on her toes. "That's it," she announced triumphantly, "I see it!"

 

Sorehl continued watching unaided until the two points merged, then looked down the hill toward the scope display. Onscreen, he could see a shape looking like an Akira-class starship easing into berth.

 

T'Jen turned around, her hands back on her hips. "Did you really serve on that ship, daddy?"

 

Sorehl set his son down as he rolled to his knees, then got to his feet. "No," he shook his head, "I served on two of her predecessors - ships of the same name." Before rising to command on Aegis, his only starship assignment had been on the Excalibur-A as an ensign in tactical systems. After years of starbase-related duty, he had then served briefly as interim chief engineer on the Excalibur-B before taking command of Camelot Station.

 

He gripped his son Sawyek by the hand. "Very well, let's turn off the display," he directed, "and get you ready for bed." He spoke to several of them at once. He looked back to T'Kel, who had laid back and was still looking up at the sky. He let her stay as he herded the others toward the house.

 

* * * * *

 

On the balcony, Ambassador T'Salik watched her husband and children approach. The expected moment of Excalibur's return had been no secret, but the nature and result of their mission certainly was.

 

Or rather, she corrected herself, it was supposed to be.

 

In meeting with her husband, Semil had admitted he knew that Excalibur quest was to seek an instrument to contact the Founders. The Vorta had intimate knowledge of events, suggesting the Hundred had a spy in Dominion Intelligence or on the ship itself. Although she had done nothing to confirm her husband's report, she knew the Hundred had threatened to reveal the Founder's absence if they were excluded from use of the device. The fear was, of course, what the Jem'Hadar would do when faced with such knowledge.

 

She shifted the newborn T'Riel in her arm, hearing the baby snurgle in her sleep. Given the cost, she realized, no one would let it come to such an illogical conclusion.

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