LOG: Rudy's Ruminating

[Proselyte]

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PERSONAL LOG
Vandenhout, Rudy C
Fixer
Blue Skies Caucus
Gaian Movement

For all the years making a second life on that rock, how’s it come to be that back there trudging through the ruins with those pensioners, I didn’t feel much in the way of missing it?

Hrm. Must be Leeds.

When you lose everything once over, you’ve already had the whole experience one and done, haven’t you? At least on Leeds, no matter which side held the tunnels snaking through Horsforth in one month or another of the war, there were always flames to squelch and people to keep track of. That’s life as it was.

But Veracruz? When word came in that the fleet was gone and Liberty parked overhead, and by the time the first blazes we’d prepped for weeks to fight cropped up, we knew our jobs were pointless.

Isn’t a simple thing, evacuating a whole planet of every man, woman and child. Some people slip through the cracks, others want to be the last out, a few just don’t want to see the writing on the wall. Those of us left assumed we'd be standing tall in front of Yank soldiers once the junta’s military had their last hurrah.

Well, the reality seemed obvious after the sky started belching fire. Left us a mite outmatched with our quaint water projectors.

And you know what? Good riddance to them.

The place turned over the decade from a new beginning for us, to a vipers’ nest of jackbooted thugs. Sure as sure, they had it coming. No, it’s no surprise I don’t feel much for the place anymore, even as beautiful as she was and the fresh air that graced my lungs each day.

But seeing my sobbing countrymen and women looking over the ruins of their old borough, a barely recognizable sea of slag and rubble… It's their memory that gave that old nowhere the real life that the rebels squandered.

Now that's worth respect.

The moment never lasted, course. Any planetary approach alerts the bloodhounds, so I could only loiter us on the surface for an hour or so with each group. But every bit of closure garnered is one more pair of eyes letting the past stay dead, and looking to the future.

The Crown not being inclined to secure that for us, I’d say I’m something of a samaritan even. Really! Her Majesty aught to knight me for all I do for this community.

We’ll see if BMM’s Nottingham branch agrees when the sparks fly in Cinderhill’s spaceport next week. I’m sure the gents are eager to thank them for all the years of “stable employment” on the homeworld.

Meantime, here’s a glass raised to Veracruz from her once-again-wayward citizen!

It was too good of a deal to last.

Cheers!

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