Unity Station

Just outside of Imperium space, a small but well equiped research station.

Unity is a joint venture between multiple worlds, hence the name. Xenobiology, anthropology and astronomy are some of the things researched here.
There's a small school, a few shops, one or two tiny restaurants and a coffee shop but generally speaking, the majority of the inhabitants are either researchers or family of researchers.

The chief of medicine is an insectoid woman named Yessalia.
Chief of security is a man named Tias.

The star dragons had heard Starr's telepathic voice for the first time in over a decade last night. Now they knew that their families were alive and that Vestia had literally skipped out of time for ten years, although Starr had likely been too tired to tell them much more than that.

And now it was a weekend morning, and the little family had all the time in the world to wonder about their bigger family on Vestia, who hadn't yet sent them any more information about what had happened.

Asher might have been freaking out a tiny bit. He insisted he wasn't, but he kept trying to compose messages to people, and was constantly making an effort not to pester the dragons with questions.

Lana really didn't understand what was going on to be fair.
Vestia had reappeared? So where were they then? Were they coming here?

admittedly, as she'd never met these people she had slightly less excitement, more just slight nervousness. Did that mean her father was alive?

Right now she was trying not to think about it, reading a book while sprawled over the sofa as she often did.

"Uncle Asher?" She asked quietly, looking at him over her book. He seemed distracted and a bit flustered didn't he? "Are you alright?"

Asher paused writing his latest attempt at writing a message--he kept discarding them because the tone was always wrong somehow--and tried to smile reassuringly.
"I'm all right. It's just been a long time since any of us saw these people, and everything's changed so much since then." He shook his head, "Looks like we'll get to have a family reunion." Well, that was what he hoped anyway. He didn't want to get anyone's hopes up too much though, he remembered the day that Vestia had disappeared all too well.

Lana frowned a little, not sure how to feel about that.
She felt a little conflicted. On the one hand, her father was actually alive... on the other, where the hell had he been for the past ten years!
Was it wrong to feel a tiny bit bitter at being robbed of a parent for so long? Whether it was his fault or not, she felt a little bit bitter.

"They're coming here then?"

Asher hesitated a little, not wanting to make any promises. "I'm sure they're going to try to come see us as soon as they can," he said carefully. He looked to the dragons, hoping they'd received some message from Starr since the last time he'd asked.

Lana exhaled deeply. She wasn't going to get her hopes up. She'd learned the hard way over the years that hoping got you nothing.
She'd spent years hoping her mother would come back and look how much good that had done?

tucking her legs under herself, she went back to her book.

The three dragons looked over at the speech then at one another "Mother was really tired, Part of what she said was that Vestia was hurt." Danika said for them. Asher was sort of her dad and adopted brother at the same time after all. She had gotten as close to him as she could over the years they had been stuck here together.

Asher looked unhappily at Lana. Poor kid. He didn't know exactly how she was feeling about all this, but he imagined it had to be difficult learning that the father you'd never met was definitely alive, and might or might not be visiting soon. She was the only one here who'd never gotten the chance to meet Vestia and her crew, too. That had to make this all even more confusing.

He nodded gratefully to Danika. "I guess that's going to delay things, then. Did Starr say Vestia will be on her way here once she's fixed up, at least?"
For a moment he imagined them all going in Starr's shuttle to meet Vestia, but he banished that thought. Vestia was a danger magnet, and it would be beyond foolish to leave the station to go to her.
Which made him wonder, should they even rejoin Vestia at all, or was her bad luck too dangerous for the kids?

Danika shook her head with a frown. "No, she started to say something then went on to something else. I think she forgot to finish the thought." She replied softy. "I don't think they would go anywhere else now that they are back though. Mom wants to see us so much."

Lana was listening, though pretending she wasn't. She'd read the same sentence about 3 times now.

Asher smiled sadly. Yes, that sounded about right. Even completely exhausted and possibly injured, Starr would still want her kids back. "Poor Starr. I hope she's all right."
He hesitated before asking Danika, "Since they can't come right away, do you want me to tell Kay anything for you? Or I can give you his contact information if you want to write to him."
At least with the star dragon parents, the kids could probably contact them by telepathy. But Kay was different, and Asher knew Danika missed him terribly.

"Just that I miss him and hope they come soon." Danika said, dipping her head a little.

Asher smiled softly. "All right. I'll tell him that." Relaying a message from Danika would make writing to Kay a little less daunting a task. Maybe that made Asher a coward, he wasn't sure, but he was grateful to her regardless.
He hesitated. He knew he should talk to Matt too, or someone should. Someone needed to drop the news that Thalia was gone before Lana met him.

"We didn't tell mom about Thalia." Danika added and shook her head a little.

Asher nodded. "I'll try to talk to Matt too then," he said quietly. Well, this was going to suck. He just hoped he'd be able to contact the guy, he wasn't entirely sure the crew weren't just completely without internet service.

Danika looked back to him and came over to give him a hug. "If Vestia is hurt, does that mean they won't get a message electronically?" She asked curiously

Asher hugged Danika back gratefully, it was nice to be hugged on a day like this. He let go so he could look at her. "I don't know," he said honestly. "It's possible her wireless will be down, but then again, it might not be. The only way to find out for sure is to try to send a message, I suppose."

Danika nodded and tried to smile at him before going to sit with the others again. "We will listen to see if mom contacts us again."

Asher nodded. "Thank you. You don't have to stay in here you know, just message me if anything happens."

At that point, his tablet chimed as a message came in. He read the message hastily. "It's from Shane. He says there's no wi-fi on Vestia, but that they can borrow from a ship they met up with. And none of them have aged since we last heard from them ten years ago." Starr had probably mentioned something along those lines, but it was scary to have it confirmed.

He wrote Shane a quick, [Thank you for updating us. Welcome home, we're glad to have you back]

"We know, but it's nice to be around one another." Danika said for them again.

"All right." Asher smiled at the kids. "I'm going to go to the Pegasus and try to contact some people. See you guys later, okay?" If he managed to contact Matt, he was pretty sure the guy was going to appreciate some privacy.

"Bye uncle Asher." Lana waved vuagely, glancing at her 'cousins' and deciding that she didn't really want to finish this book right now after all.
She'd go wander the station instead, another thing she liked to do.

Maybe the Professor would sneak her sweets, he always seemed to have candy on him. He said he liked gumballs and sucking on one helped him think when working on a particular difficult problem. Lana just thought he was a bit silly.

Asher waved to Lana, then headed off to the Pegasus.

He'd start by writing a message to Kay, because he was relaying for Danika and that made it easier. [Hey Kay, welcome home.
Danika wants me to tell you that she misses you and hopes you'll be here soon. I pretty much want to tell you the same thing.
Contact me when you have some time? I know you're probably really busy right now.]

He'd also respond to the messages from Shane's tablet.

Moone got up after a while and went to find a tablet. She wanted to send a message to her sister, who was now the younger sister. That was too odd to think on though.