Tarina heard the buzzing in her head, but her weary mind told her to ignore it. She pulled a pillow over her head and tried to block out the irritating noise. A second later, the door slid open and the light from the hallway flooded in.
“Tarina, wake up. I have a message for you,” said Wright, his tone serious.
She instantly sat up, rubbed the sleep from her eyes and looked over at the clock on the wall. It was early morning. She flicked on the light switch beside her bed. The bright light bothered her tired eyes.
“I’ll leave this with you,” Wright said as he handed Tarina his personal tablet and left the room.
Tarina shook her head trying to wake up. She stood up and took the device from her bedside table. On the screen was a message for her from Sheridan’s father. Instantly, she found it hard to breathe. All of the suppressed emotions she had buried deep inside her heart flooded back. Why was the admiral calling her now? She knew Michael was dead. Hesitantly, she opened the message.
Admiral Sheridan appeared. “Tarina, I know that you and Michael weren’t seeing one another when the war started. However, I thought that you would want to know that based on the information that you brought back from Derra-5, Michael is still alive. He is down there fighting with the rest of the garrison. How he ended up there, I have no idea. Michael is listed as being a reconnaissance platoon leader attached to the divisional headquarters. I was told that you might be going back there. If you are, and if you see Michael, please tell him that his father loves him and that I couldn’t be prouder of him than I am today.”
With that, the message ended. Tarina sat there staring down at the screen. She reached down and played the message again, listening carefully to each word to make sure that she had it right. For a second, she thought she was going to be sick. It was all too much to comprehend. Tarina had just come to terms that Sheridan was dead. She walked over to the sink, turned on a faucet, and gently washed her face.
The door’s alarm buzzed.
“Come in,” said Tarina, wiping her face dry with a towel.
Wendy walked in. She stood there for a moment and then rushed over, wrapping her arms tightly around Tarina. “Colonel Wright just told me. It’s wonderful news that your friend is still alive.”
Tarina could not hold her feelings in check anymore and began to cry tears of joy. “Yes, he is. Michael is still alive.”
Wright coughed at the open door, trying to get the women’s attention. “Tarina, Wendy, I hate to drop this on you at a moment like this but I have just received word that we have a landing craft on route to our location, ETA six hours. I need you to be ready to depart when they arrive. As soon as you have transferred the jump calculations to the landing craft’s navigator, you will both proceed to Derra-5 as per your plan.”
Tarina wiped the tears from her face and handed back Wright’s tablet. “Thank you, sir.”
Wright smiled. “I knew you’d want to know.”
“Come on,” said Wendy to Tarina. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.” Together, the women headed to the flight hangar to join the technicians prepping their craft for its next mission.