Star Runners by Clayton J. Callahan

Author:Clayton J. Callahan [Callahan, Clayton J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-04-03T22:00:00+00:00

The End

A Bar Is Born

It seems strange to me that decades after I left Tarkan, people are still haranguing me for tales of the Screaming Eagle. After all, there are a whole slew of veteran’s bars across this galaxy, and the Screaming Eagle is certainly not unique in that way. Also, the planet Tarkan upon which it rests is the most backwater Confederation planet imaginable and hardly of interest to most people. However, ever since I made it the subject of my doctoral thesis, folks have been pressing me for anecdotes. Perhaps they ask simply because the stories are amusing, but I suspect another reason is that academics just don’t spend much time in bars.

Now, in the past, I have recounted the exploits of my friend, Kilroy Matterson who held court at his table by the broken holo-machine until the end of his days. But today, I wish to relate another one’s story. That of Ms. Coleen O’Hara, the mistress of the bar by who’s stubborn, never say die nature the bar was brought into being on that lonely world. She’s an amazing woman, and I think it’s high time her story was told.

Dr. Jan Paulaski PhD

***

Ms. Coleen found the abandoned building by the Tarkan starport at the same time she found herself abandoned. She had no home, no money, and no prospects. She also had an eight-year-old girl to look out for. To be sure, Coleen O’Hara never expected to be a single mother on a backwater colony world.

She expected to be traveling the stars.

Coleen dreamt of space for as long as she could remember. As a little girl, she’d gaze at the stars through her daddy’s old telescope on warm summer nights. John O’Hara served in the Aerospace National Guard back then and spent most of his weekend service on an orbital defense platform high above the Earth. During the rest of his time, he worked as a grav mechanic in a garage in Minneapolis. He often regaled his daughter with tales of life in orbit and the feeling that you yourself are a heavenly body when you’re up there. Coleen was enchanted. As soon as she finished senior school, she joined the Confederation Station Services, determined to be closer to those stars and to know what her old man had tried to explain.

The Station Service built and maintained the huge orbital fortresses that served as waypoints for Confederation Navy and Marine units in need of quick resupply or repair. It’s always been known as the least military of the military services, with crewmen calling their officers by first names and wearing uniforms that are more comfortable than crisp in appearance. All the same, navy captains and marine force commanders rely on those stations to keep their units in the fight, whether they admit it or not.

Basic training challenged her as it does every new recruit. Sleeping in a crowded compartment with eighty other scared young recruits and getting yelled at by drill technicians was not her idea of fun.

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