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Strapped into one of the jump seats in the somewhat cramped personnel transport section of Jane’s Spacehawk, Veronica watched as Jane maneuvered the starfighter out of Hangar Bay 1, into space, and then into a descent towards the planet.

My first-ever away mission as leader.

This was a huge milestone in her career! It also showed the tremendous regard Commander Voss—who was leading one of the other away teams—had for her.

All Veronica had to do now was not fuck it up.

The mission was simple enough…

She and her team were being sent to the location of one of the beacon-like signals emanating from the surface of this planet. Their task: find the source of the signal and attempt to discover what it means. Along the way, they were to document as much as they could about their specific location, using the recording and collection equipment they were bringing along.

Very standard. Very simple.

Of course, the Marine was tagging along just in case things became unstandard and unsimple . For that matter, it was a good thing Jane would be present down there as well. Jane had ground combat experience because that was part of every pilot’s training.

With the possibility of unstandard and unsimple scenarios in mind, Veronica, Findara, Raya, and gHarx were also armed, but with basic blasters, nothing at all like Jane’s HM-F9, or the Zed-7 pulse rifle that the Marine was toting.

Veronica had never been in a…shooting situation; that is, not outside of basic training or simulators. The threat analysis provided by Meg stated that all that remained on the surface were small, rodent-like animals and insects—the types of creatures that had been able to survive the cataclysmic climate and geological changes that had been wrought when the planet had somehow been thrust out of its orbit around its original host star.

“Entering the atmosphere,” Jane announced.

There was a slight jolt, and then the view through the cockpit window changed, showing the typical fiery effects outside that were caused by the spacecraft slicing through the planet’s upper atmosphere.

Looking straight ahead into the cockpit, Veronica let a small smile form on her lips.

Jane was fucking hot sitting there in the pilot’s seat, commanding this starfighter. There was just something super sexy about watching her work, wearing her UASD spacesuit, which hugged her tall figure perfectly, and knowing how deadly she was with this Spacehawk. Why that particularly appealed to Veronica now, she had no idea, but it did. Perhaps it was because she felt really safe with Jane, considering they were flying to an unknown world.

And she’s mine!

That tall, sexy, and deadly-capable pilot was hers!

She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and told herself that was enough of fangirling over Jane. She had a job to focus on.

It was Commander Voss who ordered her to take Findara and Raya with her on this mission. Veronica was certain it was a test. No doubt the Commander knew that she, Findara, and Raya had become close friends—thanks, in no small part, to living together on the Fordham . Therefore, Veronica figured that Commander Voss wanted to determine whether she would be able to give orders—unhesitatingly—to lower-ranked officers whom she was friendly with, putting aside her closeness to them.

Which meant this was also a test for Findara and Raya. The two of them would be expected to follow Veronica’s orders without question and without trying to take advantage of that friendship.

And Veronica was as certain as certain could be that Jane being the pilot in the cockpit was also not a coincidence, especially since it had been Captain Yarrum who had ordered this arrangement, superseding Colonel Mbuwe’s prerogative to make pilot assignments.

Of course, there could be a dozen reasons why the captain had wanted to attach Jane to this away team, but Veronica decided it would be wise if she operated under the assumption that the captain knew she was involved in a relationship with the pilot, and that this was also a test. After all, the same classroom instructor who had made the comment about the reversion clock had also warned the class at another time to assume that the captain of a starship knew everything .

That seemed especially true of this captain. The rumors among the lowlies was that Captain Yarrum was somehow…otherworldly in her abilities to know things. But that was probably just a result of the usual fear and respect lowlies had for the commanding officer of the starship.

Well…

Veronica planned on passing all of these tests. She could wait to be buddy-buddy with Findara and Raya until after this mission, when they were all in their quarters, sitting on their beds in their pajamas, chatting and gossiping. Likewise, she could wait to be romantic with Jane until the next time their free time coincided.

She closed her eyes briefly when the thought of being alone again with Jane brought back the recent memory of being fucked by her on Deck 5 earlier today.

That had been amazing! Jane had just… owned her with those long fingers of hers! Slamming them into her repeatedly… hard . Curling them perfectly, so that the tips of them stroked the upper wall of her passage, stimulating her g-spot, as she just lay there, her legs spread open…submitting and receiving until she came so fucking hard!

Shite!

Her clit was starting to pulse now in her environmental suit. That was the last thing she needed.

Pursing her lips, she told herself to focus.

After all, it was too late to request a different pilot…

***

The Spacehawk touched down on the surface about fifteen minutes after first breaching the planet’s atmosphere. The landing site was in the middle of the largest city on the smallest continent, and it looked like the typical town square or piazza found on Earth. The buildings surrounding the open space of the square were a combination of those that seemed very old—shorter, and made of stone or brick—and those that were very tall, and made of metal and what appeared to be glass.

This tableau showed the usual signs of an urban area that had been abandoned, left to the caprices of nature and time, with no one remaining to maintain the structures or to prevent this continent’s flora from reclaiming the territory.

It was raining when they landed, but Jane informed them from the cockpit that it was, in fact, only water, and not something acidic that would prevent them from exiting the Spacehawk.

“Okay, we’re down, Lieutenant,” Jane announced, “and the ship is stable. Take it away.”

Veronica nodded. It was her show now.

She unbuckled herself from the jump seat and activated the controls to open the hatch, being the first to step outside, the steady rain pelting her. She was immediately followed by the Marine, and then the ensigns.

Jane then appeared in the hatchway, but didn’t exit the starfighter.

“What would you like me to do, Lieutenant?” she asked.

Veronica blinked, having not expected to be asked, but then realizing that of course she was going to be asked. She analyzed her choices fast so as not to appear uncertain.

“Come with us, please, Lieutenant,” she stated.

There was no need for Jane to babysit the Spacehawk. The ship could be locked tight, and the onboard AI could monitor it. It would be much better to have an extra pair of eyes and an extra pair of hands while the team searched for the mysterious signal.

Jane nodded and then reached for something inside the ship, emerging a second later carrying her own Zed-7 rifle. The hatch closed behind her.

“Lieutenant Vale to Fordham ,” Veronica said, “do you read?”

“ We read you, Lieutenant, ” Ensign Pike said from the bridge. “ And we track you. ”

“Copy,” Veronica acknowledged, having established that they were still in contact with home, one of the first things an away team should do.

That done, she had to lead...

“Okay…” she began. “I’ll track the signal and get us to it. Everyone else just keep your eyes open for the time being.”

She instructed Rosie to display augmented tracking on her helmet’s visor. Viewing it, she turned to her left and pointed to an odd-looking building at one edge of the square.

She heard Jane scoff over comms.

“I wish my bank back home looked that secure,” Jane said.

Veronica could only agree…

The building was squat, with a domed roof, and absolutely no windows. There appeared to be a circular doorway on the side of the building facing them, but other than that, no other markings or features could be seen—decorative or functional.

But what made the structure so formidable was that it was constructed completely out of metal.

“Tungsten,” Raya said after a moment, checking a scanning instrument she was carrying. “The entire thing is made out of tungsten.”

So far, a stronger, naturally occurring metal hadn’t been found in the universe, Veronica knew. On Earth it was extremely rare, but there were other planets and moons in the Milky Way that had it in abundance. Apparently this world did as well, if the former inhabitants had been able to use enough of it to construct an entire building.

The team approached what Veronica guessed was the entrance. It was sealed shut with a massive round door, but it had no handles or other grips. Nor was there a control panel anywhere to be seen.

“How do we get in?” Veronica asked, running a gloved hand over the surface of the door. “Maybe there’s a hidden…” She left the sentence unfinished.

“No luck, ma’am,” Raya said, looking at her scanner. “That thing is just one solid piece of tungsten. No mechanisms in it at all.”

“The lieutenant is really good at breaking into things,” Private Swyburne stated, tilting her head towards Jane. “At least she was at that house of horrors we visited.”

“I’m good at breaking into things that have actual locks and bolts and normal door stuff,” Jane said, standing before the tungsten barrier. “But this…?”

She also ran a hand over the surface of it. Then she knelt and ran gloved fingertips along the bottom edge of the door.

“Oh…okay…” she murmured.

Still kneeling, she tapped on a specific portion of the door, tilted her head as though listening for something, then tapped again.

“Got it…” she murmured just like before.

Eventually, she stood up, nodded, and turned to Veronica.

“I know how we can get in,” she announced.

Veronica was so proud of her girlfriend.

“How?” she prompted.

“We gotta blow the fucker,” Jane said dryly. “Boom!” She looked at Swyburne. “It’s gonna take a lot more than a breach charge. I’ve got some thermals in my ship. Wanna help me?”

Jane and the Marine walked back to the Spacehawk.

Veronica was disappointed that they would have to resort to destruction to gain entrance to this building. By all appearances, this was a lost civilization, and the Unitary credo in situations like this was to try not to destroy, but to catalog and preserve. The beings which built this society deserved to have their legacy left intact.

Using comms, she contacted two of the other away teams, including the one being led by Commander Voss. Remarkably, apparently all of the away teams had encountered this same tungsten building at their locations, but couldn’t find a way in other than blowing the door.

“ It’s either that or we transport a field laser cannon down here, Lieutenant, ” Commander Voss told her. “ Either way, we’re going to do some damage if we want in. Don’t feel too badly. It happens. Just try to keep it to a minimum. ”

At that moment, Jane and Swyburne were returning, but it certainly didn’t appear as if they had any intention of keeping things to a minimum. Each of them was carrying two cases of thermal detonators, and Veronica knew each case held six charges.

“Is all that really necessary, Lieutenant?” she asked Jane, standing in front of the door as though protecting it.

Jane set down her cases and shrugged.

“I mean…I don’t think so,” she said. “But what if there’s another door inside, and another one beyond that?”

Veronica saw her point.

“Very well,” she said, standing aside.

It was Private Swyburne who set one of the detonators on the center of the door, affixing it with adhesive. She then tapped the buttons on the timer.

“Sixty seconds,” she said.

The team then retreated en masse to a location that used one of the nearby stone buildings as cover.

“Why do you have so many thermal detonators on your ship?” Veronica asked Jane via a one-to-one comm channel while they waited for the explosion.

“That’s nothing,” Jane replied. “I have, like, three-hundred tampons onboard also, just in case I end up stranded somewhere…”

***

An hour later, Veronica’s frustration kicked up yet another notch.

So far, the lowlies were not making a good impression…

After gaining entrance into the tungsten building, the team had discovered a large chamber with a domed ceiling.

Unlike the exterior of the building, the chamber walls and the ceiling were covered with writing and pictograms that had been carved into the tungsten. Veronica had immediately ordered Ensign gHarx to set about capturing all of the carvings with the small hovercameras the team had brought with them.

Other than the carvings, the only other thing of note in the structure was a circular platform in the center of the chamber. About thirty seconds after they had entered, the edges of the platform had started glowing bright white, almost as if beckoning someone to stand on it, proving that there was tech being used here.

And that was it. There was nothing else in the entire building.

Once they had determined that there weren’t any dangerous beings hiding in here, Veronica had decided to station Jane and Private Swyburne outside, to act as sentries. It was a textbook tactic. Even though the Fordham hadn’t detected any intelligent beings on the surface, that didn’t necessarily mean there wasn’t any danger from whatever creatures had been left behind.

Besides, Veronica had wanted herself and the ensigns to find out what needed to be discovered in the tungsten building.

But so far, all they had discovered were walls covered with carvings, and a round platform—the exact same things all of the away teams had discovered in their tungsten buildings.

They had not been able to figure out what was the deal with the platform, even after discovering that when someone stood on it, the ring of white lights turned blue, and the person was subjected to a scan from a device embedded in the domed ceiling.

But that was it. If something else was supposed to happen, they couldn’t trigger it.

Adding further frustration to their lack of success was the fact that their scans showed that beneath the platform was a shaft which extended down to the unusual depth of 56.4 meters. Not 50 meters. Not 60 meters. 56.4 meters.

She had puzzled on that for a minute before realizing that the beings who had built this thing didn’t know anything about meters or feet, and that 56.4 meters probably translated into a nice round number using whatever measuring system they employed.

However, figuring that out had done nothing towards actually getting them access to the shaft.

The only thing keeping her from feeling utterly despondent about that was the fact that none of the away teams had cracked this puzzle yet—even the teams with scientists that had been visiting alien worlds for decades.

Because there was obvious technology integrated into this building, there was never a discussion about blasting their way into the shaft and potentially destroying that technology. Which meant trying to solve this problem in a non-destructive manner.

“I have an idea!” Findara suddenly exclaimed.

That was about the tenth time Findara had said that since they’d been in here. All of her ideas—and Veronica’s, and Raya’s, and gHarx’s—had been good ones, yet they were still without success.

“I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before!” Findara continued.

“What?” Veronica said resignedly.

“Remember Lieutenant Belivet’s encounter?” Findara said. “The use of prime numbers?”

Veronica’s eyes lit up.

Why hadn’t they thought of that before?

“Try it,” she instructed.

Findara went to stand on the platform. As usual, the platform lights turned blue, and then another white light shone down on her as the ceiling scanner was activated. Findara tapped the screen of the all-in-one tablet she was holding and then held the device up towards the ceiling.

They waited. Nothing happened.

“Is it doing it?” Veronica asked.

Findara checked the tablet.

“It is,” she confirmed. “I’m transmitting the first three prime numbers.”

“Try the first ten,” Veronica suggested.

Findara made the adjustment on the device and held it up again.

Still nothing.

With a groan of frustration, the Lydig started hopping up and down on the platform, uttering curses in her own language.

Veronica blew out a breath. They would have to leave soon. The air supply in their suits would only last another hour at most—Findara’s even less if she kept jumping up and down like she was.

She had an idea, even though it kind of felt like admitting defeat…

“We need fresh eyes on this,” she said to the ensigns. She then keyed her comms to another channel. “Lieutenant Belivet, Private Swyburne…would you come in here, please?” She then pointed at Raya and gHarx. “You two go out and take their place watching over things. Findara, while they’re doing that, why don’t you collect some of those plants that are growing in the square?”

The ensigns acknowledged the order and started trudging out of the building. Veronica could tell how disheartened they were. She wasn’t exactly feeling ecstatic herself.

“Still no luck, huh?” Private Swyburne asked after entering and standing next to Veronica. Jane came to stand on Veronica’s other side, and it made Veronica feel as if she was stuck between two giant oaks.

“Any ideas?” Veronica asked them.

Jane shouldered her rifle, stepped forward and walked around the platform.

“Yeah,” Jane said, looking back at Veronica. “Boom!”

“We are not blowing this up!” Veronica replied, annoyed that, unfortunately, that seemed to be the only answer.

Jane blew out a breath.

“Have you tried hopping up and down on it?” she asked.

Veronica clenched her teeth.

“Oddly…yes,” she stated.

“Okay, well, look…” Jane said, stepping onto the platform, activating the blue lights and the overhead sensor. “There’s gotta be a switch or something we’re miss—”

Suddenly, the blue lights around the platform turned yellow and the platform started descending!

Rapidly!

It happened so quickly there was no chance for Jane to jump off it, or for her teammates to pull her from it.

Veronica and Private Swyburne rushed to the edge of the shaft and stared down it.

“ Fordham , be advised!” Veronica shouted after toggling her comms to the ship’s channel. “Lieutenant Belivet has activated the platform and has been taken down into the shaft! We are unable to follow. I repeat…unable to follow!”

Looking down into the dark and circular passage, Veronica could still make out the lights from Jane’s spacesuit, dwindling into the depths.

She felt so helpless!

Of course, they had been trying to get that platform working, but the assumption had been that they would be able to use it to send a hovercamera and some sensing equipment down the shaft first…not her girlfriend!

She watched the lights from Jane’s suit continue getting dimmer and dimmer the further the platform traveled.

She only hoped it wasn’t carrying Jane down to something horrible…