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When the Fordham reached the Pecula System, there was no need for Sabre Squadron to fly a screening patrol around the starship. This stop apparently wasn’t going to take very long, and Pecula was well defended.

Thus, Jane and the rest of her squadron mates were in Hangar Bay 1, on standby.

They were in their flight suits, and their individual Spacehawks were primed and ready to take off if needed, but none of them expected to go anywhere. As such, the pilots were scattered throughout the bay. Some were playing cards, others were gossiping, still others were kicking a football around. In contrast, Lieutenant Gail Mumphrey was sitting by herself…knitting.

Jane was sitting on the floor of the bay, in between Hadiza and Sommer. The three women had their backs against the wall and were just chitchatting. Of course, Jane wasn’t really paying attention to the conversation. Every now and then she’d utter a “Mm-hm” or an “Okay,” but that was just to not appear rude. Her mind was on Veronica and their very recent kiss…

“I’m free after my next shift,” Veronica had told her in that service passage after their make-out session.

And it was the way she’d said it…

And the look in her eyes…

Jane knew that Veronica had been telling her exactly how she wanted to use her free time following her shift—and it wasn’t having juice drinks at Cosmic Melons.

Which was just fine with Jane. She was just as eager to move beyond kissing as Veronica seemed to be, and once the Fordham got done with this silly pitstop at Pecula Prime there should be no reason why the two of them couldn’t get together in her quarters. She had checked the duty rota. Starting in about three hours, there was absolutely nothing preventing her from spending time in her quarters engaged in the act of pleasuring a particularly stunning former ensign.

“Belivet!”

The shout of her name stirred her mind from its thoughts. Looking to her left, she saw Colonel Mbuwe approaching. Jane stood up at attention.

“You’re wanted at UHQ!” Mbuwe told her.

Jane gave an indignant scoff.

“What did I do?” she asked.

Instantly, she realized that she might want to make some changes to her life if the very first thing that occurred to her upon hearing she was being summoned to Unitary Headquarters was that she was in some kind of trouble.

Mbuwe stared at her.

“They’ve probably finally approved my request to transfer you to the Garbage Hauling Service,” she said. “But I’ve never been that lucky. Now…let’s see if we can come up with a reason why UHQ would want to talk to you , of all people.”

Jane felt herself blushing, already knowing the answer.

“The unspac,” she muttered.

“The unspac,” Mbuwe repeated, nodding. “Who knows? You might actually be too smart for the Garbage Hauling Service.” She tilted her head towards the hangar exit. “There’s a shuttle waiting for you in Bay Seven.”

Shuttle?

“I can fly myself!” Jane insisted.

“There’s a shuttle waiting for you in Bay Seven,” Mbuwe repeated flatly.

Jane sighed.

“Yes, ma’am,” she replied. She gave a quick salute and headed towards the exit.

She hated being flown by other pilots! And shuttle pilots were the worst! It wasn’t that they were bad flyers, just that their job—by definition—was boring! All of that back and forth, back and forth…

From a starship to the surface. From the surface back to a starship…

From a starship to another starship. From the second starship back to the first…

Or—even worse—from Point A on a planet to Point B on the same planet…and then from Point B back to Point A…

Over and over again.

And shuttle pilots always took things slowly as they flew, keeping in mind the comfort and safety of their passengers. Invariably, every time Jane was stuck on a shuttle, she wanted to shove the pilot out of the way after five minutes and take over the controls, getting them wherever they were going faster—and maybe with a couple of barrel rolls thrown in.

She hurried to the other hangar, grumbling to herself as she walked that if she had been allowed to fly herself, she would already be halfway down to the surface.

When she arrived, she found Bay 7 to be buzzing with activity. Various shuttles and cargo transports, with markings indicating that they had come from the surface, were being unloaded of crates, sacks, and equipment. Jane figured the captain was using this visit to Pecula to top up the Fordham’s stores. There were ensigns, stevedores, and other personnel scurrying around all over the place.

Well, Jane didn’t have time to wait for someone to notice her…

Her peripheral vision told her someone was about to hurry past her and so she reached out her arm to stop them.

“I’m here to be taken down to UHQ,” she said in her command voice, turning to face whoever it was she stopped. Then her eyes widened. “Fuck, it’s you!”

It was Veronica.

Veronica looked up from her all-in-one tablet and gasped.

“Ma’am!” she said. “What are you doing here?”

She seemed harried.

“I was about to ask you the same thing,” Jane replied.

Veronica sighed.

“Commander Voss put me in charge of all this, ma’am,” she answered. “We’re getting supplies and spare parts from the surface. Anyway…”

“Oh, right!” Jane said. “I’m to report to UHQ and apparently there’s a shuttle waiting for me here.”

Veronica looked around quickly.

“UHQ?” she asked in a whisper. “What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything!” Jane protested. “Not this time! This has to do with the unspac!”

“Oh!” Veronica said.

“Can you tell me which shuttle is mine?” Jane asked.

Veronica tapped her tablet.

“Oh, here you are,” she said. She pointed. “Go that way. You’re looking for the Hamill .”

“ Hamill , got it,” Jane responded. “Also, can you tell me what time you’d like to come by my quarters for dinner, Lieutenant?”

Veronica looked around quickly again.

“We shouldn’t talk about that here!” she whispered.

“No one is paying attention to us,” Jane whispered back. “Which is kind of offensive because I’m tall and pretty.”

Veronica started to laugh but almost instantly cut it off, which Jane thought was supremely cute.

“Please, ma’am,” Veronica said. “You’re going to get me in trouble.”

Jane rolled her eyes.

“If I wanted to get you in trouble,” she began, “I would tell you how I can’t stop thinking about kissing you.”

Veronica blushed and looked down for a few moments.

“I see, ma’am,” she said. “Well…we should get you to your shuttle…”

Jane shook her head.

“Nope,” she stated. “Not until you tell me how you can’t stop thinking about kissing me either.”

Veronica’s chest heaved. Jane couldn’t help looking down at it. It was an impressive chest.

Veronica, evidently still expecting spies to be lurking, looked around again.

“I can’t stop thinking about kissing you either!” she said. “Ma’am.”

Jane smiled.

“Good!” she exclaimed. “So…my place for dinner?”

“Shouldn’t you be worried about getting down to UHQ?” Veronica hissed. “Ma’am?”

Jane waved that off.

“I’ll tell the High Command that I was delayed by an incompetent former ensign,” Jane told her. “Now…back to dinner…”

“I’ll send you a message later, ma’am, I promise,” Veronica insisted. “Trust me,” she said in an even lower voice, “I’m looking forward to dinner just as much as you are!”

Jane beamed.

“Excellent!” she said. “Now, as far as my shuttle pilot goes…do you think they’ll mind if I fly the craft down to the surface?”

***

Three Pecula hours later—which Holly told her equated to nearly five Earth hours—Jane was finally back aboard the Fordham , riding in a lift, heading back to her quarters.

Ridiculous!

The whole thing had been ridiculous.

“All I did was sit there!” she said out loud. “Literally sit there in my cockpit!”

“Ma’am?” a worried voice said.

Jane looked to her left and sighed. She had forgotten that there was an ensign in the lift with her, using it to get to wherever ensigns needed to go.

“Sorry,” Jane said. “Ignore me.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the ensign replied.

When the lift stopped at her deck, Jane got off and walked quickly towards the sanctuary of her small piece of the starship.

When Colonel Mbuwe had told her earlier that she was being summoned to Unitary Headquarters, Jane’s initial worry that she was in some kind of trouble was far off the mark!

Like, parsecs off the mark…

Jane had basically been feted by the High Command—the executive and administrative arm of the Unitary Coalition, led by the Chancellor, the elected leader of the coalition. She had even gotten to meet the Chancellor, something she had never expected she’d get to experience in her lifetime—unless word of the Flashing Incident ever got out. But not only did she get to meet the Chancellor, she had gotten to have lunch with her, along with members of her cabinet.

During the meal, Jane had been asked—once again—to recount the story of her encounter with the alien ship in Andromeda, although each of these important beings had no doubt read the report filed by her and Captain Yarrum.

Yet they all hung on her every word, and spoke about what an historic event it had been. Jane could understand that to a point. After all, as she was reminded, she was the first Milky Way citizen to make contact with an Andromeda species, but she still felt as though they had been making more of it than needed to be done.

After all, she had literally just been sitting there in her cockpit when it happened! And it wasn’t as if she had discovered the alien ship! The alien ship had discovered her! The damn thing had probably been tracking her the entire time she had been in that patrol sector, and if it hadn’t decided to pay her a visit, Jane probably would never have known it was around.

Yet none of that seemed to matter to the Chancellor and her cabinet. They almost treated Jane as if she was a mystical creature which the aliens had chosen , for some reason, to contact first. They also spoke about how that event was precisely why they had expended so many resources on developing the fermion drive.

At one point, Jane had worked up the courage to say, “You realize, of course, that we don’t know yet if these beings are friendly. For all we know, they could be the less pleasant cousins of the Merkonians.”

The Chancellor herself had addressed that.

“That may very well be,” the Chancellor had said—her Flingella language being translated real-time in Jane’s ear by Holly. “However, even if that is so, your discovery is still incalculably valuable. As important as it is for a society to find new friends, it is equally important for that society to learn who its enemies are.”

Once she was done at the palatial UHQ skytower, Jane wasn’t allowed to return to her starship. Instead, she had been chauffeured via hoverlimo to a broadcasting studio where she was interviewed by a rather attractive human presenter—one that Jane had seen on the vidnets for years. Again , she’d had to recount the story of her encounter, for a galaxy-wide audience.

Jane figured that the interview was going to be used to garner even more excitement about the Unitary’s plans to explore the Andromeda Galaxy. She already knew that two sister ships to the Fordham —also equipped with a fermion drive—were being constructed at the Armstrong Yards between Earth and Venus, and she knew there were plans for an entire fleet of the Jovian-class vessels to one day reach out far beyond the Milky Way.

But such plans required the backing—in terms of money, resources, and scientific and engineering talent—of all of the Unitary planets, and it was clear to Jane that she was now an important part of helping ensure that such backing continued.

All because she just happened to be sitting in her cockpit at just the right moment…

“Jane,” Holly said now as she approached the door to her quarters, “the captain is calling.”

Jane sighed.

Fuck me!

“What does she want?” she groaned.

“I’m sorry, Jane,” Holly said, “but I think you know I’m not a mind-reading device.”

“Smart-ass!” Jane grumbled, opening the door to her quarters. “Put the call through.” She waited until she heard the connection tone. “Yes, Captain?” she greeted the commanding officer of the ship.

“I take it UHQ is completely done with you, and we can finally depart?” Captain Yarrum asked.

Jane, annoyed that she was being bothered by this, risked a wisecrack…

“I suggest you order departure now, Captain, in case they decide to give me a parade in Yette,” she said.

Fortunately, the captain laughed.

“Understood,” she said. “Ordering our return to Andromeda now. Yarrum out.”