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We were three Sectans out from Sagitara when our Cork blew.
He was a thin man, as Responsives go, quite gaunt, with lines and hits of age wrinkling the paper-weight thinness of his skin; but for all of that, he was a young man, and it showed in the way he moved---easily, sliding along with that forward shove affected by men new to space, the lopsided tumble that bumps you off walls and cracks your head against the low hatches, gives you 100 bruises and cuts on your first trip out. Like a mosca on water spinning on gauze wings----he moved like that. He was a quiet man for a mentalstar Cork; usually the burden of draining the emotions of a crew makes a man want to talk, but him, never. Occasionally he would smile, but when he did, the smile would rest only a moment on his lips, as if waiting to be blown away. I suppose if I were to choose a word to describe him, a single word, it would be young.
Like all Corks, he was a Responsive. You could see it in his hands, the way they fluttered over his lap when he sat in the crew's lounge, the way they touched and lighted on the arms of his chair, rested on his knees, or move on to trap themselves under his elbows. His fingers were long, tapered candles lit from within, always sallow and drained, pink at the tips where the nails once were. When he spoke, his hands would jump and dive, winding tapestries in the smoke-stained air of the lounge where we sometimes slouched about, chatting and listening carefully to the worn tapes. When he spoke, his voice was quiet and unobtrusive, and he looked down, watching his hands. Sometimes he'd stare at them as if they were apart from him, flesh-colored avians nesting in his lap. I know that look.
3 sectans out from our third port, he blew. We were lucky to get back to Caprica. Lucky for us. His luck ran out the day he shipped aboard the Galactica.
A man can't think of himself objectively, at least that's the way it was with me. I can't judge my actions; it's too easy to relax the more important aspects of one's personality and take Hades out on oneself for the sins of one's past. Too easy. We all tend to mark ourselves as sacrificial victims.375Please respect copyright.PENANApCkGfyljqp
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I was commanding the Galactica when we first limped in to Virgon. Half the crew had been blown away by our last jump into Ur space; our previous commander had been among the first to go, and because I was his Captain, I took us up and carried us through and brought us down and kept us out. I did all the right things, all the smart things....and we still lost half our crew.375Please respect copyright.PENANACAoABWHlUx
By the time we touched down on Virgon, we were a crippled
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