Introducing Tu Esther Nyol {3rd generation 08 descendent}
Tu’s Story ~ Part 1
2050 & seeing children whilst out & about in the built up areas of the known verse is a pretty unusual occurrence. In the cities the child friendly elevators & trains transport directly from the family habs to the child zones keeping youngsters isolated from the rest of the inhabitants and passers through. On rare occasions you might catch a fleeting glimpse of a parent with a child closely in tow rushing through a space station, but this was likely out of absolute necessity for complete lack of a better option, because opportunistic marauders make space stations and unattended children a dangerous combination.
Many children are brought up in the habitation camps, constructed painstakingly from the ground up when colony ships such as the Pioneer are still only a promise & everything needed had to be painstakingly transported in, these camps, often called homing hubs, were built for the sole purpose of bringing up children safely away from the madding crowd. Some homing hubs could run for generations, others preferred to disassemble from time to time for various reasons.
These family colonys, scattered throughout the peaceful, further regions of planets & protected to the hilt are generally considered off limits to anyone other than the inhabitants & just not worth the risk of interfering with.
This was Tu’s upbringing. Growing up in the safety of her hub, nestled in the lakeside woodlands of a beautiful valley somewhere on ***redacted***. Like most of the children growing up in these isolated camps; as soon as they were able to fly, most, though not all, left to explore the skies that had been tempting them all their lives so far.
Tu was one of these youngsters. Like most preparing for their first, independent journey off-planet, she was ‘encouraged’ not to go alone, but this was fine by her, because she & her friend Isla who lived in the dome next to hers had been planning the adventures they would have as soon as they were able as far back as they could remember. Nothing much excited Tu more than waiting with all the other basecamp kids in the Cartography Deck of the Carrack dedicated to schooling, for the ship to fire up & the holoviewer come to life. Transported by the stars & planets holographically suspended before them, she loved to listen to intriguing stories of the system around her and beyond.
As Tu & Isla wandered round the community shipyard where all good ships go to die & eventually be reborn, they would plan their future escapades. Fast forward a decade or two and the two are packing the Terrapin.
It was Tu’s Terrapin. Grandpa Bob*, after giving up on trying to interest Tu in managing a weaponised ship, had at least been able to talk her into a heavy armoured Terrapin instead. But Tu loved her Terrapin. She had watched her father bring the well worn, close to salvage ship back to life, learning as much as she could at the same time.
‘Watch as if your life depended on it,’ Her father had said.
Which had seemed at bit extreme at the time, but she did anyway. A thousand test runs later followed by an eternity of flight training & the day had come when Tu was to become spacefaring.
***
Tu watched as the last of their escort pary, that included most of the community plus mum, dad, Grandpa Bob & Granny Rebel, which was customary for the occasion, slowed down in their wake & fell away to become a few specks amongst the distant stars far, far behind.
Caught in a cocktail of emotions, the two young women were heading for New Babbage MT.
***
A few months later, Isla, having fallen in love & paired up, moved into a hab in Adira Falls, Area 18. Subsequently Tu lost her travel companion & found herself travelling ‘Lonewolf’ as Granny Rebel of Earth descent would call it.
Though Tu was alone, she wasn't lonely, she had made a few other friends on her travels so far & she stayed connected with her family at home via the abundant friends & colleagues of her extended family or network that Bob & Rebel had encouraged, (on the verge of insisting ), she connected with. Tu found it surprising & somewhat perplexing how dynamic & robust this network was, but some extra sense told her this observation was probably best kept to herself.
She was also surprised when after returning to ArcCorp from that forsaken Day of the Vara journey to visit Isla, to be contacted & instructed to visit a woman said to be a friend of her mothers. This woman who Tu recognised a s a frequent visitor to her homing colony told her that her folks had asked her to tell Tu to head back to her family as soon as possible.
‘Everyone is safe’, the woman had said whilst pouring them both a coffee,‘But there’s some stuff that they need to speak to you face to face about...oh & don't tell anyone where you are going'.
This was where Tu was heading now. She just hoped her Terrapin was going to make it & not be taking her to anymore abandoned labs. She was sure her dad would be able to get to the core of her navigation issues. Heart filled with joy at the thought of seeing them again.
Tu cranked up her playlist & as the stars sped passed her, she was in her element.
*Find out more about Grandpa Bob {1st generation 08 descendant}
https://deepspacecrew.com/crew-hall/stream/item/7183
“This is a work of fan fiction. All characters, places, events, ships, and ship designs, and other content originating from Star Citizen, Squadron 42, or other content produced or created by its publishers or developers, are the property of Cloud Imperium Rights LLC and Cloud Imperium Rights Limited.”