Starchildren Options

[Kane]

Two stories at once is a lot for me, so these updates may not be as frequent. I also did not plan on this but a certain young woman in my head refused to be quiet.

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Prologue (May 7th, 2330)
Ebbside, Neon City, Volii Alpha


Andromeda awoke with a start. Somebody was pounding frantically on the door to her sleep crate and had ruined a perfectly deep slumber after a long day of work and even longer night of partying to celebrate her birthday. There was no way in hell it was daylight already which meant she probably left her slate at Euphorika. Again.

The bleary-eyed young woman fumbled in the dark for her glasses while the pounding on her door continued. If whomever it was out there kept it up much longer, she felt like her head would start pounding, too. Having finally fished her glasses off of the cold floor Andromeda slid them on and then clicked her bedside lamp to life. Most of her clothes were strewn about the floor of her metal box, which also explained why she was now so cold.

Two minutes or so later, she was half-dressed, and her nearly decrepit Solstice was clutched tightly in her left hand. Please don’t fizzle out on me now old girl, she thought. Looking down at the worn laser pistol in her hand, she sighed and silently chided herself for never spending any credits on a decent gun. The little pistol had been thrown out for good reason, yet Andromeda had fished out of the garbage anyway and fixed it up in the most half-assed way possible. Each time she squeezed the trigger was just another gamble on whether or not the damned thing would even fire.

This time she prayed to gods she didn’t give a [censored] about that it wouldn’t let her down. And then she finally opened the door.

Andre burst into her sleep crate and slammed the door shut behind him.

“It’s about goddamn time you answered! What the hell took you so long, Dro?”

Andromeda blinked in surprise at the urgency in his voice. She’d known Andre for over six months now, and the man was usually as cool as a cucumber. Even when he drunkenly tried to flirt with her. Andre had taken a courier job for HopeTech on Valo and was reassigned here to Neon City, much to his initial dismay, but they had grown close in the time since. The man was of average height with dark skin and kind brown eyes that sometimes hid behind a mop of unkempt blue hair.

“Slow down, Andre,” she said. “What’s the big deal?”

“No time to slow down. The ‘big deal’ is that your [censored], Dro. Absolutely [censored].”

“Wha -”

“Gather up what you care about the most and stuff it in your bag. Security thugs are closing in already �" I set up a prox alert for when they get within twenty meters.” Andre saw her bag sitting on the floor near the door, grabbed it, and handed it to Andromeda. “Pack! Now!”

“Andre, I am not going to move another goddamn muscle until you tell me what the [censored] is going on!”

“[censored]. Fine. Start packing and I’ll explain while you go.” He waited until a few things had been shoved unceremoniously in her bag before continuing: “Those Ryujin files you hacked yesterday for your anonymous buyer? They were tagged for Bayu’s personal records. Dunno how he tracked you down so quick but if you wanna live to see your twenty-sixth birthday then we need to get you the hell out of this city.”

Her blood froze. Benjamin Bayu. The Administrator of Neon City and possibly the most corrupt man in the settled systems. His fingers crept into every business venture on the planet and the security force was at his beck and call. No one did business in Neon without giving him a cut, and his ruthlessness against would-be competitors was legendary. Everyone who lived in Neon lived comfortably by skirting his brutality.

If she was on his radar at long last, then she had definitely taken the wrong job, pile of credits notwithstanding. Being a Cyber Runner in Neon always ran the risk that Andromeda would one day cross paths with that monster, but she had always been careful about her choice of contracts in the hope of avoiding Bayu. Her luck had finally run out and yet she still was uncertain about leaving the only home she ever knew.

“I can’t just up and leave!” stammered Andromeda, freezing midway through emptying the contents of her wall safe. “My whole life is here! It’s all I’ve ever known!”

“Doesn’t matter. Bayu will have you killed just to make an example - “ Andre ceased talking abruptly at the sound of rapid beeping emanating from his slate. His face took on an unhealthy pallor and he nervously ran his hand through his hair. “Time to go. They got there sooner than I expected.” Andre pulled another slate out of his jacket pocket and gave it to Andromeda. “Here, take this and give it to Doc Manning at the clinic. He’ll give you a short makeover to fool security at the spaceport.”

“Andre, I...” Andromeda was at a loss for words. The sudden shock of what was happening and the thought of fleeing her life �" Neon, Andre, the friends and people she’d grown up around �" was too much. Hot tears fell down her pale cheeks and splashed on the floor of her crate. She raised a hand to brush them away, and then shoulder her bag. “This isn’t over,” she finally said with a firmer resolve than what she felt inside. “Bayu isn’t chasing me out of my [censored] home forever. I’ll come back for all of you, I promise.” Andromeda stood on her tiptoes and planted a kiss on Andre’s cheek. “I promise.”

“We’ll do what we can to clear your name. You need to go. Now. They’ll be here any second. I can keep them occupied for a few minutes but they’ll tell me to get lost before long. Go!”

Andromeda pulled her hood up to hide her vibrant fuchsia hair and fled into the night without another word. The garbled chatter of Neon Security radios echoed up from the alleyway to her right, so she moved silently away from them and ducked into a dark alcove that was still within view of her crate. It was hard to much of anything, but she recognized the dim form of Andre now standing back outside of her door and soon heard him pounding on it once again.

“Yo! Open up, Jen!” Andre’s voice rang out. “Open up!”

Flashlights illuminated and three security goons stood at the ready, their guns trained on her friend. Andre’s hands flew skyward while the nearest guard began to pat him down.

“Who are you? What are you doing here?” demanded another guard.

“Damn, take it easy, bud,” said Andre. “My friend lives here and she’s gonna be late for her shift at Generdyne again. Just trying to get her ass on the move!”

“Jen, huh? Yeah, sure pal.” The guard shoved him aside and addressed one of his partners. “What do you got, Reg?”

“Andre Mitarn, known associate of one Andromeda Renault. Courier for HopeTech.”

“Did ya hear that you lying piece of [censored]?” laughed the first guard. “Jen my ass. Where’s the girl?”

“If I knew where Jen was I wouldn’t be here, officer.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever, punk. Reg, you know the drill �" get him out of here.”

Andre lowered his hands to leave while Andromeda released a breath she didn’t realize she had been holding. Her friend turned to walk away but Andre only made it a few paces before two sharp cracks rang out through Ebbside. He fell to the ground in a pool of blood while Andromeda watched in silent horror. She shoved her hand in her mouth in a desperate bid to stop herself from crying out.

“Dump that sack of [censored] over the side. The chasmbass will get rid of the evidence for us.”

Two of the security goons forced open the door to her sleep crate and disappeared inside while the third dragged off Andre’s lifeless body and heaved it over the railing and into the churning waters far below. Andromeda slipped away unseen and headed silently for the Neon Core, wiping away the tears as she went. The nearest door to Bayu Plaza wasn’t far, and within five minutes she had stepped through it and darkened her glasses against the garish light that gave Neon City its name.

Every type of store and service imaginable spanned the length of the Core, brilliant neon signs and lights shining down upon everyone who walked the expansive length from Ryujin Tower to the Trade Tower. Even late at night (or early in the morning, as it was now), the walkways were teeming with citizens, tourists, guards, scumbags, and dregs.

Andromeda’s destination was Reliant Medical and thankfully it was only a short distance away. Doc Manning seemed to never sleep and with her life crumbling around her, Andromeda was grateful to see him sitting at his counter.

“Ah, there you are, Dro! Andre warned me you were coming �" c’mon around back and we’ll get you fixed up.” He paused at the signs of grief that had stricken her normally carefree face. “What’s happened? Wait… where is Andre?”

It took everything Andromeda had to not scream in frustration and anger. She settled for kicking helplessly at the front of his counter which only resulted in a stab of pan shooting through her foot. “They [censored] killed him, Joe! Bayu’s security goons iced him without a second thought and threw him over the rails of Ebbside!”

“Bastards,” sighed the Doc. “I keep hoping this city will change some day but I don’t think I’ll ever live to see it. Despite younguns like you fighting back, Bayu’s grip never seems to relent. All the more reason to get you out of here, I guess.” Doc Manning waved her towards the back again and dismounted from his stool. “Go on, I just have to lock up real quick.”

The back room had a small biological modification chair that the doc had somehow procured from one of the Enhance! stores that were peppered throughout the local galaxy. It must have cost a small fortune, but she once again found herself thanking gods she didn’t care about for its existence in the back of the clinic. Doc Manning followed her in a few seconds later and instructed her to take a seat in the chair.

“Okay, so Andre...” Joe trailed off and made a gesture that Andromeda had never seen before. His hand moved across his face in the shape of a ‘T’.

“What was that for?” she asked him.

“The cross? It’s from an old-Earth religion that most have forgotten about. I’ll explain some other time. Anyway… so Andre most have been tipped off pretty early and with a good bit of info. Bayu has your name, financial history, work records, and physiological profile; but not your DNA records. We lucked out there. A few cosmetic changes will get you past the spaceport sniffers.”

“Joe, I can’t pay for any of this,” said Andromeda. “All my accounts are probably seized and I have less than two-hundred credits in my bag.”

“You don’t owe me anything, Dro. You’ve already done so much for the hard working people of this city that your friends are lining up behind me to get you safely out of this place.”

Andromeda sniffled and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue from the box Doc Manning held up to her. She knew it would be a long time until she saw those friends again, and the thought of that hurt more than anything else. Then she laid back in the chair and closed her eyes while the doctor powered up the alteration arms. She knew it would take thirty seconds to a minute for the machine to fully boot, so Andromeda pressed her friend on what would happen next.

“I have another slate from Andre,” he said. “It will transfer enough credits to get you on an outbound freighter, and provide a new identity. But the tricky part will be getting you to the port with perfect timing. We need to have you at the gates just as the ship’s thrusters begin to burn, so that the guards will hopefully rush you through without looking to closely at your records.”

There was lot that could go wrong with that. However, she trusted her friends implicitly and so she closed her eyes again and let the doctor go to work. The procedure was relatively painless, but she did flinch from the occasional needle or sharp prod. Some calibrations to the machine were in order when she returned. If I can return, she thought. Benjamin Bayu had a long memory, and she doubted he would forget about her anytime soon.

Ten minutes elapsed before Doc Manning leaned back on his stool and powered down the alteration arms. He grabbed a mirror from a side table and handed it to Andromeda. The same brown eyes stared back at her, but Joe had completely changed her hairstyle and its color: the long ponytail she had entered the clinic with was gone, and only a small knot was tied up in the back. Instead of fuchsia, her locks were now dyed an incredible opalescent prism of stunning colors, and the strands on the right side of her face fell down past her cheeks while being tucked back tightly on the left side.

She noticed the bare skin of her neck and left cheek and inhaled sharply. “Did you get rid of my tattoos?! Those were really personal to me, Doc!”
“Relax, I just covered them up with some foundation. Keep your hood up a the spaceport or the rain will wash it away and give up the goose. They’ll stick out like a sore thumb. Oh, and leave your piercings here. Those are easily replaceable.”

Andromeda frowned but did as advised. She popped the studs out of her ears and nose, removed the loop from her septum, and slid the barbell out from her nose bridge. Doc Manning collected them all in a small steel pan and then dropped them into a medical waste bin. Andromeda slid out of the modification chair and gave him a hug.

“Thanks for everything, Doc. I’ll be back to repay you some day.”

“I already told you your credit is good, Dro. Just promise me you’ll be careful out there.”

“I’ll try. But you should know better than most that the trouble usually finds me first.”

“That I do!” laughed Doc Manning. “Damn, almost forgot �" lose the glasses, too. I have some lenses for you instead.”

She removed her glasses and chucked them in the bin with her piercings. The good doctor handed her a set of icy blue colored contact lenses and after a couple minutes of struggling, she managed to pop them in to obscure her natural eye color. Another hug for the Doc Manning. Then he tapped a slate to hers and ushered Andromeda out the back door of Reliant Medical. Syndal, her best friend from university and one-time lover waited somberly in the trash ridden alley running behind the shops.

“Time to go, doll,” said her diminutive cohort. “Ship leaves in six minutes.” Syndal was tiny even compared to the slight 1.6 meters Andromeda rose to. The top of her head just barely made it to Andromeda’s nose. She put a hand on the back of Andromeda’s head and pulled her down to a reasonable level, kissing her very briefly on the lips. “For luck,” she explained to Andromeda’s quizzical stare. “Don’t think we’re ever getting back together or anything.”

“Fair enough,” said Andromeda. “Are we taking the main elevator down?”

“Have to. It’s all you have time for. “Let’s go, and try to keep up. Security is swarming the Core for you.”

Andromeda nodded and followed along in Syndal’s speedy wake. It was easy to unobtrusively hang a few steps back and still keep tabs on the impressive length of platinum hair falling past her friend’s hips. It swayed to and fro in the constant gentle breeze flowing through Neon City. The draft was one of many effects of living on massive platform built high above the roiling seas of a water world. A world that Andromeda had never left. Or had ever planned to leave. Those idle thoughts helped keep her features neutral when they stepped back onto the main thoroughfare and snaked their way towards the spaceport elevator.

Neon Security had fallen for the gambit. None of them paid her any mind, despite having her former appearance projected on the inside of their helmet visors. Syndal led her right past squad after squad of the corrupt officers until they reached their destination.

“You’re on your own from here,” said Syndal. “Take the lift down to the port and make a show of rushing, but don’t outright sprint. Play the part of the late departee who is trying to make their flight. The guards down there are a different detachment than the Core goons and generally skew towards being less of an asshole than the ones chasing you up here.”

“Okay, I’ll try. Never was much of an actor but I can do this. I have to do this.”

Syndal slapped her on the ass. “Quit stalling. You’ve got less than two minutes.”

“Right. Bye, Syn. And thank you.”

The elevator doors opened and Andromeda rode the lift down to the docking port. Two guards flanked the it at the bottom but the alterations Doc Manning made to her appearance seemed to have fooled their scanners. She showed them her slate and they told her to get moving else she miss the freighter. Settling for a speedy trot, Andromeda sighed gratefully and flitted down the long catwalk spanning over the ocean below, squeezing her hood tightly to her face. The warm, wind-driven rain splattered against her while she half ran to the ship waiting for its final passenger.

It was an ancient Deimos model that took up most of the landing pad. Bright lights illuminated faded letters above the ramp: The Gryphon. A crew member ushered Andromeda inside with little patience and directed her to a jump seat in the main cabin. Unsure of how the seat worked, her fingers trembled while she tried to strap herself in.

“First time in space, dearie?” A middle-aged woman next to her smiled gently at Andromeda.

“Yeah. I’m scared shitless if I’m being honest.”

“There’s nothing to it.” The kind woman reached over and showed her which buckles went where, and pointed out the safety pouch under the cushion. “Mouth guards in there if you’re worried about biting your tongue off. Once we take off, just keep your mouth closed and you won’t need them.”

Andromeda thanked her, and the woman went back to humming an off-tune key. Voices rang out over the loudspeaker and warning signs began to light up all around them. The entire ship rattled and shook, and the message on the flight console on the wall across from her changed from ‘docked’ to ‘achieving thrust’. Seconds later the engines roared into life and the sudden g’s from massive acceleration pressed Andromeda back into her seat. Unable to move so much as a finger, she closed her eyes and whimpered slightly as the ship gained altitude.

And then the pressure was gone. She opened her eyes and the porthole in the ceiling above revealed the deep black of space, dotted with innumerable points of light blinking back at her from incomprehensible distances. For the second time in as many minutes, her breath had been taken away for very different reasons.

She had done it. She had escaped Neon City and the closing grasp of Benjaim Bayu.

The tears came again anyway. Her life as she knew it was over and she had no idea where things went from here. She didn’t even know where this ship was bound. She was alone among the stars. And then the engines powered down while the grav drive engaged, folded space around the ship, and leapt from the Volii System in a blazing show of cosmic light and energy, carrying Andromeda far way from danger with a dumbfounded expression on her face..

This post has been edited by Kane: Jun 20 2025, 12:59 PM

[Kane]

Five - Among the Stars
New Atlantis, Jemison, Alpha Centauri System

Andromeda woke up several hours later with a splitting headache. Her hands fumbled on the nightstand by her bed for the light control and she breathed a sigh of relief when her hand closed around it and the bedroom lights dimmed. As she laid in the darkness, Andromeda realized that muddled voices speaking in hushed tones were coming from somewhere close by. She pulled herself off the bed with a supreme effort, and shuffled quietly towards the door. Placing an ear by the edge where it met the frame, she listened intently.

“Are you sure about this, Walter?”

“Believe me, Sarah, I wish I weren’t, but the info came straight from Neon Security’s own database. There’s no denying it.”

“What a dreadful thing for her to have gone through. It’s no wonder Dro is having such a hard time of it. And here we thought she was just stressed about the bounty and the incident on Vectera. She even mentioned her friend being killed earlier, but I didn’t think it went quite that far.”

“Yes, well, if it’s any consolation, the Cyber Runner who pulled this together for us also included a fair bit of dirt on the scumbags that pulled the trigger.”

“Did they now?” said Sarah. “How interesting. Do me a favor, Walter, and see to it that we put that dirt to good use.”

“I’ll contact my associate in the security corps and slide the details to him. Not everyone in Neon Security is so corrupt - he’ll make sure the ones responsible for Andre Mitarn’s death are locked up for a long time.”

Just beyond the bedroom door, Andromeda could hardly believe what she was hearing. For all of her adult life, she’d thought Walter Stroud was just another rich megacorp asshole with luxury offices in a fancy tower in Neon City. And now she found that the man standing in the hallway just outside of her room appeared to be anything but. This place, and the people who called it home, were all too good to be true. There was no way she could leave. Not after everything they’d already done for her, and continued to do.

Andromeda opened her bedroom door, walked across the way to a surprised Walter Stroud, and hugged an old man she had never formally met. “I overheard you talking to Sarah,” she said. “I’d thank you, but words can’t express how much this means to me.”

Still surprised by the sudden turn of events, Walter patted her awkwardly on the back. “It’s my pleasure, Ms. Renault.” She pulled away from him and Walter extended a hand. “We haven’t been introduced yet, so we might as well start now. Walter Stroud, at your service.”

“Andromeda Renault. But for the love of god, please just call me Dro. The next person who asks if they can call me ‘Annie’ is getting kicked in the shin.”

“Fair enough, Dro,” laughed Walter. “And I’m glad I can offer you some light in these trying times. Trust me when I say that Andre’s killers will regret what they’ve done.”

She smiled at the old man through teary eyes. “It’s more than I ever hoped for.” Andromeda hugged him again before turning to Sarah. “I’m in, Sarah. Constellation has done more for me in the past day than anyone ever has. I’ve never met a group of such kind, helpful people, and if you want my help in unraveling the mystery of those Artifacts, then you’ve got it.”

“Excellent! I knew you’d come around!” exclaimed Sarah. “Now let’s see… you’ve already been given your quarters, so I think the next step is to…” She trailed off and looked at Andromeda in alarm. “Dro, are you alright?”

“Urk. I’ve been better.” Andromeda leaned against the wall with an outstretched arm and clutched at her stomach. “No, I’m definitely not alright. Bathroom… gonna be sick… too much damn booze…” She bolted down the hall for the bathroom and slammed the door behind her.
“Poor dear. Walter, have you seen Noel around? I think our newest member is going to need a Junk Flush.”

* * *

The toilet became Andromeda’s best friend for the better part of thirty minutes, until the queasiness subsided and she felt like getting to her feet again. If not for the heated floors, her round of stomach expulsions would have been even more miserable than it already was. To her sweet relief, Noel had been waiting outside the bathroom door with a chem injection that Andromeda recognized at once. She grabbed the toxin flush from Noel’s hand, ignored her protests of caution, and jammed the innoculator into her upper arm with a satisfied sigh.

“My hero,” said Andromeda.

Then she kissed Noel on the cheek and headed for the lounge in search of another meal. Skipping the coffee this time, Andromeda grabbed a bottle of cola and rooted through the refrigerator until she found enough ingredients to make a sandwich. She wasn’t entirely sure what the protein in an unmarked bag was, but it smelled fine and so she tucked it into a folded naan with some lettuce and a slice of cheese. All in all, it ended up being pretty tasty. The chems helped with both her nausea and headache, leaving a somewhat refreshed Andromeda that felt up to checking out the rest of The Lodge and getting settled in. Having seen the lounge and bedrooms, she headed down to the basement. Several workbenches and a research station awaited her but there didn’t seem to be a lot of resources around, which struck her as odd.

Tucked away down a hall and through a few other rooms Andromeda found something that really caught her eye. A Constellation spacesuit locked behind a glass case. It was slightly darker and looked more slim fitting than the suit Barrett had been wearing on Vectera. She made a mental note to ask Sarah about it before heading back upstairs, where she bumped into her anyways.

“Familiarizing yourself with the place?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty impressive all told,” said Andromeda. “Much cozier than anything on Neon. Or at a mining outpost.”

“I’m pleased you think so. Listen, take the rest of the evening to settle in and get to know everyone, but don’t be up all night. Starting tomorrow, you and I have some things to do.”

Andromeda looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Don’t be up all night? Isn’t that a motherly sort of thing to say? What, am I sixteen again?”

“Well, I don’t know, Ms. Renault. Perhaps you should stay up all night and be dreadfully tired when I put you in the cockpit of the Frontier again. What do you think? Fancy another go at flying when you can barely keep your eyelids apart?”

“...Point taken. Wait, are you really making me go back out there already?”

“That I am,” grinned Sarah. “I like to personally see what our recruits are capable of, and we’ve got a few new leads and some loose ends to tie up. We’ll talk again over breakfast, yeah?”

Sarah retreated to a small desk near the Artifact collection and left Andromeda to her own devices. Which meant an evening coffee and a snack in the greenhouse adjacent to the main room of The Lodge, where she finally spoke at length to the one person in Constellation she’d inadvertently evaded thus far: Matteo Khatri. He was just as kind a person as everyone else she’d come to know over the last day, if on a bit of a different wavelength. A religious type felt out of place with explorers, but Matteo seemed enthralled by the Artifacts like everyone else. But getting mired down in a debate on science and faith didn’t appeal to Andromeda, and, thankfully, Noel managed to rescue her in the nick of time.

“Give Dro a chance to relax, all right, Matteo? You and I can go back and forth on that later - Sarah asked me to get her outfitted before bed.” She led Andromeda back down to the basement and opened a locker tucked away near the workbenches. “Grab one of the spacesuits and I’ll show you how to alter it at the spacesuit bench. We’ll tailor it to fit you perfectly.”

“Sounds boring,” said Andromeda, eyeing up the young woman. “Want to go for a walk under the stars instead? It’s probably nice and quiet outside now. We could grab a couple drinks from the bar on the way out, too.”

“Why go through all that when we can just used the telescope?” said Noel. “It’s far better for looking at the stars than the naked eye.”

Andromeda faltered a little bit. Was she loosing her touch? She’d never had a problem flirting in the past, but Noel skipped right by the thick innuendo she laid down just now. Andromeda felt quite certain that Noel hadn’t missed her lingering eyes, the compliments, and the unexpected kiss on the cheek.

“Not exactly what I meant, Noel.”

“I know what you meant,” she sighed. “Look, you seem like a really nice person, Dro...”

Here comes the dagger...

“...But I’m asexual.

Okay. Not what I expected.

“Now, if you wanted to connect on an intellectual level, you’d have my undivided attention. I’m just not interested in the physical aspect of relationships. Never have been.”

“Fair enough. Show me about the suit instead?”

Noel spent the next hour going over the workbench with Andromeda and showed her all the different options and modifications that were possible, should she have the right resources. By the time the lesson was completed, Andromeda had a Constellation emblazoned spacesuit that fit like a glove. Everything about it felt more comfortable than her old deep mining suit, and it even let her retain some of her natural agility.

“Thanks, Noel. And sorry if I came on strong earlier.”

“Don’t worry about it. Why don’t you head upstairs and get some sleep? I overheard Sarah saying something about Mars. It sounds like you might have your work cut out for you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, alright.”

Andromeda headed up the second level and returned to her bedroom. Her shopping bag still unopened sat on the floor by the dresser, so she decided to put her clothes away and make the room hers officially. After finding a spot for everything, she put on some clean sleeping clothes and crashed into her new favorite place in the galaxy: her soft bed.

* * *
Alpha Centauri System

The following morning zipped by in a blur. Protein bars for a hasty breakfast and a coffee delivered from Terrabrew was all the time Sarah spared for them at The Lodge. By eight o’clock, they were bound for the MAST building to meet one of her contacts, who turned out to be a recruiting officer for the UC Vanguard. John Tuala seemed like a nice man, but the sales pitch he laid on Andromeda fell flat; she could barely fly and he expected her to join a civilian fleet? She let him down gently and stood aside to let Sarah get what they came for. Details in hand, they headed for the NAT and then the spaceport. And once again, Andromeda found herself seated at the controls of the old ship, only this time with a new co-pilot.

As it turned out, Sarah was a good teacher, and she didn’t like to rely on the robot for everything. They spent nearly three hours on the launchpad while Sarah intricately went over every system and subsystem on the ship until Andromeda could recite their uses and means of operation back to her without help. Then she sat back in her chair to watch how the rookie would fair. Andromeda took a deep breath and began flicking switches on and inputting commands to calibrate the thrusters and set their orbital destination. She checked the navigation vectors, and then the fuel levels. And then she checked them again. On the left screen, power distribution read as nominal, and all systems were green. There was nothing else for it.

“Ooookay. Here goes nothing. I can do this. I can do this. I can do... this!”

Andromeda’s finger hovered over the ‘Initiate’ button for the briefest of seconds before she pressed it. The Frontier’s engines and thrusters roared to life, and the ship slowly lifted off from the ground. Emboldened by her unassisted success, Andromeda yelped with delight, grabbed the control console, and shunted full power to the engines. They ascended into the upper atmosphere at a blistering pace while the g-forces held them firmly against the backs of their chairs. Up, up, and up they flew until the air began to thin and the blue skies of Jemison faded to the deepest black of space. A sea of stars twinkled all around them, interspersed with ship traffic, orbital satellites, and marker buoys.

“That was amazing!” exclaimed Andromeda. She turned to look at her co-pilot with the biggest grin plastered on her face. “I totally get it now, Sarah, and I’m glad you made me do that. I felt so much more comfortable with my life in my own hands, rather than trusting it to the computer.”

Sarah clapped her on the back. “We’ll make an explorer out of you yet! Now punch up the Sol System on the navigational screen - we’re bound for the red planet.”

“What’re we after?”

“Another Artifact, I hope,” said Sarah. “In the hands of a Vanguard patrol, which, hopefully, makes this a routine trip.”

“Red planet… that’s Mars, right?” asked Andromeda. She scanned the starmap to find the planet, and then linked the coordinates to the grav drive computer. “Fourth rock from the star?”

“Yes, it is.” Sarah looked over at her sharply. “Don’t tell me the importance of Sol is lost on you, Dro.”

Andromeda shrugged nonchalantly. “The education system in Neon isn’t very robust, Sarah. I only know as much as I do because I’ve always been curious. And I do know of the Earth and our origins, but not much beyond that.”

“Ridiculous. All the advancements our society has achieved and some parts of the Settled Systems still take so much of it for granted. I’m sorry the system has failed you, Andromeda. But maybe together, we can work towards a brighter future for all of humanity.”

“Failed me?” growled Andromeda. Sarah may have meant well, but the inference in that statement rankled Andromeda. “What [censored] is that supposed to mean, Sarah? Just because the schools in Neon are [censored] doesn’t mean there weren’t other ways to challenge ourselves. You think I ended up a Cyber Runner because crime is all my home had to offer? Think I’m some sort of half-educated nitwit who doesn’t know the difference between my ass and a [censored] hole in the ground? Well, I may not have a fancy degree in astrophysics or biology from a prominent university in New Atlantis, but I sure as [censored] taught myself everything I needed to know and then some!” She jabbed angrily at the buttons on her grav drive screen until it began to spool up for the jump to Sol.

“Dro, that… that’s not…” sputtered Sarah. “I’m sorry. That was a callous thing to say and I didn’t mean to imply you’re uneducated.”

“Whatever. Just get strapped in. Jump commences in thirteen seconds.”