Or at least you may think you do, if you were alive at the time and remember hearing the news. But you weren’t there on Juniper Ridge, so you don’t. Here’s what I saw: For the next six days, the sat tracked Na as it fell toward Earth, its microwave beam continuously pressing the rock while toasting its surface. Comstock followed it from a safe distance, its crew carefully keeping out of the beam’s path while constantly monitoring Na’s position, watchful for any significant changes in trajectory or surface appearance. And meanwhile, back home … Back home, we did what we’d always done. We waited. This time, though, it was for a different reason. For the first time, Galactique was all but forgotten. The fate of our little lost starship was the furthest thing from our minds. None of us slept well during those days. We took shifts in the MC, but more often than not, there were two or three people in the MC. There was a certain fascination with the screen displaying Na’s position.
