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Star
Year: 2188
Setting: Lake Seminole, Georgia, USA
"I got one! I got one!" A young Chris Eager exclaimed as he fought to reel in the biggest bass he'd ever seen. "Help me get 'im, Grandpa!"
"Held 'er steady, Chris, ma' boy." Grandpa held out a net to catch his grandson's fish. "There, now drop 'im in."
The boy eased the fish down into the offered net. The fish flopped around, flailing until it was hopelessly caught in the net's web.
"Looks like we're eatin' good tonight." Grandpa said, admiring Chris's catch. "Wish I'd been the one to catch one this big, but oh well. I've caught my share, I reckon." He grinned at his grandson. "I s'ppose we can head back to camp now."
"Yeah!" Chris agreed, scrambling to get all the fishing gear together so they could get back and cook supper. It was starting to get late and his stomach was grumbling. "Dad said he'd help us cook when we get back."
"Slow down there, sonny." Grandpa called as Chris ran down the trail, arms filled with fishing gear. "Don't wanna trip and fall."
Chris slowed down and waited for Grandpa to catch up. The old man patted Chris on the shoulder when he finally reached the boy. "It's good to be eager, ma' boy, but sometimes rushin' gets ya into more trouble than ya wanna have."
"Okay, Grandpa." Chris replied.
"Now, let's get ourselves back to camp."
"Look what I caught, Dad!" the boy showed off his prize fish.
"I haven't seen a fish that nice in years." Dad replied, admiring the freshly-caught bass. "Not since your momma and I…" Dad's face fell.
"No good dwellin' on the past, Jim." Grandpa said. "Maggie wouldn'ta wanted that. You an' Chris are everything she wanted in a family."
"I just wish she'd had a little more time." Dad said slowly, then ruffled his son's brown hair. "I wish you'd known your momma a little better, son."
"Well, let's get ta cookin'." Said Grandpa. "Haven't got all night to clean these nice fish here."
Without another word, all three got to work on the fish.
It took an hour or so of work on everyone's part, but soon, three large bass were roasting over a fire-pit. The smell of cooking fish made Chris's mouth water as he waited for their dinner to be done.
His stomach growled.
"Almost ready." Grandpa announced. "Jim, get that can a' beans open. Can't go campin' without baked beans."
"Sure, Gramps." Dad dug out the beans and popped open the can.
"Fish're done." Grandpa said, pulling the skewered fish away from the campfire. He handed Dad and Chris their fish, then took his before plopping a healthy amount of beans on his plate and doing the same for Chris and Dad. "Eat up, boy." He said to Chris. "This's the best camp dinner you'll ever get."
Chris nodded and shoveled a spoonful of beans into his mouth. It had been a while since he'd had these. They tasted different than he remembered, but he wasn't sure exactly why.
He took a bite out of his fish and was delighted to find that the meat was fluffy and flavorful, just like Grandpa promised.
Once they were all done eating, Chris helped clean up what little was left of the food before heading off to bed.
He crawled into his sleeping bag and zipped it up to keep the cool night air out.
As he lay on his back looking up at the stars, he wondered, as he often did, what was out there beyond the atmosphere. The thick trees here around camp were too close together for him to get a good look at the sky above. He wished he could see the stars better.
Then a thought came to him.
Chris sat up and looked around for Dad and Grandpa. Dad was snoring and Grandpa was asleep already too.
Unzipping his bag, Chris quietly crawled out of his bed and slipped on his shoes. He grabbed his jacket and took off down another trail that he'd hiked with Dad and Grandpa two days ago.
The air was getting colder and Chris thought he smelled rain, but he pressed on.
It took two hours in the dark to find his way back to the place he remembered, but when he got there, he didn't regret coming.
Stretching out before him was a vast sky of stars, clear and twinkling with all the beauty he'd known it would hold. And there were no trees to block his view.
"Wow…" Chris whispered as he sat cross-legged on the ground and stared out at the stars.
He reached out as if to touch one.
"I wonder where you are, little star? Are you close by anyplace interesting? Are there cool things close to where you are?" He asked the glowing speck.
"When I grow up, I wanna see everything out there. I wanna see the stars, the comets, nebulas, all that stuff." He said to the star. "I wanna fly through space and discover stuff that nobody has before. And when I find somethin' really really pretty, I'm gonna name it after Momma. I think she'd like that."
The star did not answer, but Chris didn't need it to.
"Yep, that's what I'm gonna do." He repeated.
A cold wind picked up, tugging at Chris's jacket.
"Better get back, I guess." He said to himself, then stood and wandered back down the trail to where his Dad and Grandpa lay sleeping.
Year: 2199
Setting: Onboard the Argo, somewhere between Balan and Iscandar
Chris Eager sat back in his seat. Nothing much had happened since everything went down at Balan. They hadn't changed course in days and there weren't any stellar phenomena that needed analyzing. There was, essentially, nothing for him to do right now.
He sighed and stared at his duty station.
Several hours passed this way with nothing to do. He was just about to ask Sandor if there was something the science team needed help with down on the third bridge.
One of his monitors lit up, calling for his attention.
"Unidentified phenomena." The monitor read.
Eager changed the display to the video feed.
The image that appeared made his eyes widen in surprise.
He stared at the picture for a long time, taking in every detail of the image.
It was the most beautiful thing he'd seen in their entire trip thus far.
"Hey, Sandor, whadda you make a' this?" He called the science officer over to his duty station.
"Hmm." Sandor said, leaning over Eager's shoulder to take a closer look at the image. "I didn't know something like that existed. Where is it?"
"Few thousand light-years away, looks like." Eager replied. "Probably don't have time to go look at it now, but maybe one day we can come back through here and really look at it proper."
"Well, I suppose it'll need to be logged if we're to remember it well enough to return." Sandor said. "Catalogue it in the database."
Eager nodded, thrilled to finally have something to do.
He studied the celestial wonder, noting everything that his eyes or the ship's sensors could tell him from this distance.
He carefully recorded it all in the ship's computer. Finally, everything was logged. He was just about to close the file when he noticed the name the system had assigned to the phenomena, "Y-098."
"What kind 'a name is that?" He thought, shaking his head at the machine's naming convention. "You're too pretty to have a name like 'Y-098.' Nope, from now on, you have a new name, one that'll suit ya much matter."
Eager selected the name field in the computer record and erased the generic name, inputting the new one instead. "Margaret."