beep booooeep beep beep booooeep beep beep
Selene snapped awake. As exhausted as the events of the previous day had left her, that sound cut through her fatigue like a vibroblade through silk. The sound of her holocom…her other holocom was not one she’d heard since arriving on Viscara, and one she’d not expected to hear again…
Grabbing the small, ornate box that held the device, and fitting the old-fashioned key in the lock, both her heart and mind were racing, wondering who could be on the other end since less than a dozen people had both the contact data and the encryption key required to contact her that way, and half of them were dead…
Click As the lock released and the box opened, Selene snatched the holocom from the nest of soft foam and activated it, eager to see who it was on the other end. Tears welled in her eyes as the blue holographic visage of an older Echani woman came into view
“Mom…” the word came out half spoken, half as a gasp
“Happy birthday, Little Mouse” the smiling visage of the woman said “You didn’t think I’d forget, did you?”
Truth was, Selene herself had lost track of the date, with everything that had been going on.
“I thought…” Selene started.
“That you’d never see me again?” the woman replied “Oh, Little Mouse, I know what the protocol says, I wrote it myself, remember? …but sometimes it’s worth it to bend the rules just a little bit, don’t you think? Besides, there’s someone else here who’d like to wish you a happy birthday as well”
The projection of the woman blinked out, replaced by one of a man in his early 50s. Selene gasped, reaching out a hand to steady herself and nearly dropping the holocom
“Hey kiddo” the man said, a wide grin spreading across his face “It’s been a while, guess you’re not much of one anymore, eh?”
"Da…but…you…how? Selene stammered in disbelief at what she was seeing in front of her. He’d been dead for years, or so she thought…even the official reports had listed him as KIA following the Battle of Serroco, but clearly that wasn’t the case…
“You look like you’ve just seen a ghost” the man chuckled “It seems the reports of my demise were…grossly exaggerated”
In the hours of conversation that ensued, with the three sharing what few details they could of their recent life events, Selene learned that her father was one of the lucky few to escape what was essentially a massacre and had been reassigned. Her mother had also left her self-imposed exile to return to field work for the Republic on an unofficial basis. The two of them beamed with pride when she told them of her application to join the Order, and of her exploits in the meantime.
Even hours after the call had ended, she couldn’t help but smile. Though it pained her that current events kept the family from reuniting in person yet, the knowledge that her parents were both alive, relatively safe, and doing well was enough.