> LEGACY AUDIO TRANSMISSION DETECTED

> TRANSMISSION RECEIVED AT 22:23 2103/01/18 GMT

> ORIGIN POINT: TELEMACHUS STATION [CONFIRMED: DESTROYED SEPARATION WAR 2085]

> ORIGIN TIME: 22:23 2085/01/18 GMT> RECIPIENT ID DETECTED [EARTH-UK-981442-12301-44-1101]

> RECIPIENT IDENTIFIED. ELSA T JENNINGS

> AUDIO DECRYPTED

> FLAGGING TO RECIPIENT MINDNET

> MINDNET ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

> PLAYING TRANSMISSION

My dearest Elsa,

Today, you will be turning eighteen. I wish, more than anything, I could be there to see the woman you have become.

As I sit here now, looking out of this window at the vast expanse of space, I know that somewhere, back on earth, is my daughter. I've done this a lot. Life alone on a sentry station is nowhere near as exciting as the holovids make out. It gives you a lot of time to think.

Mostly I daydream that there is a small girl, five years old, looking back up at those stars. I like to think so. It gives me comfort to know we are looking at the same thing.

But it's not my little Elsa I'm talking to now. The small, gorgeous baby I got to hold in my arms so briefly before this stupid war pulled me away. The daughter I've seen in photos and messages. Who I have loved from a distance of a thousand stars.

I am talking to Elsa. A grown woman. One I have never, and will never meet.

By the time you receive this message, I will be long dead. The subspace communication relay is gone, wiped out two days ago by a long range pulse, and some of those stars outside are growing brighter by the minute, as they have been since that moment. If the computer is correct, then within an hour they will be within firing range and this sentry station - and me with it - will be gone.

I'd always wondered what I'd do if an attack came. We like to think of death as an instant thing, but out here in space it turns out sometimes it's not. I guess in my head I always hoped that, with a few days warning, I'd be lucky. There'd be one of our own fleets nearby and they'd swoop in at the last minute and save the day. But reality isn't like that is it? When the first warning came, I got out an alert and, once the subspace had been pulsed, spent a day or so listening to the short range audio receiver waiting for a reply.

None came.

And so I decided to spend my last day productively. Well, I hope so at least, because this message to you is the result.

I have reconfigured that ship-to-station audio receiver for a single, focused blast. If my maths are correct, this will take exactly thirteen years to reach Earth. Fate is a strange thing, isn't it? And, if it gets there the header codes should be enough to get it to you. I hope so anyway. I really hope.

I don't have long. The power required to do this is immense, but there are a few things I want to say to you, my beautiful, beautiful girl.

I wish I could have been there to see you grow. I wish I could have joined you on your journey so far. Been there when you needed a shoulder to cry on, or when you just wanted to have a laugh. I wish I got to see you discover the things that you like and love, and the things that you hate. I wish you could have got to know the same about me. I wish, more than anything else in life, that I'd been able to give you just one proper hug.

I want you to know, on today of all days, that out here in space I was thinking of you. Indeed in a way this message is my last memory, and that memory is not complete until it reaches you. So if you don't mind let's pretend, when you receive this, that I'm thinking - and talking to you - now.

Happy eighteenth birthday, Elsa.

I am so proud of you.

Whatever you have become, whatever you do in life, I know that I would be... I know that I am proud of you. With every fibre of my being.

And I love you.

I always did, and I always will.

Dad. x

> TRANSMISSION COMPLETE

> SIGNAL LOST

John Bull

The Message