Andrew and Linnie were spending some of their last free moments walking through the park looking for a place to enjoy the late summer sun. Despite a long and lovely walk while they looked for a new spot, they ended up settling at their usual spot. It sat on top of Linnie's favorite hill. She loved this hill in particular, as it overlooked a beautiful pond that sparkled each time the lightest breeze rippled its surface and that ducks always seemed to be there joyfully diving in and around the lily pads adding sparkles of their own.

  He loved this spot because from it you could see for a mile or so in any direction and only the rare house in the distance slightly marred their view. They both loved to dream that they were alone in a vast wilderness and those handful of houses and the occasional dog bark or child's protest in the distance were their only reminders that their dreams weren’t reality.

  After a moment of taking in the view, they busied themselves quickly clearing the spot of debris and the unfortunate litter left by some thoughtless previous patron. Once complete, Linnie took the blanket Andrew had been carrying and mindfully placed it near the top of the hill. She took the time to ensure its alignment was perfect. Occasionally deciding she was satisfied only to stop him from sitting so she could move it ever so slightly, before repeating the process for what Andrew felt was the millionth time. Once she was satisfied with the blanket's position, they both sat down hip to hip with their legs slightly intertwined.

  While Andrew always thought she took too much time with these things, he had to admit that her attention to the small details added far more than it subtracted from the experience. Never more so than when he noticed she had placed it so perfectly that the few houses that scarred the view were strategically placed behind trees and a small boulder. So, they would no longer distract them from the dream of being so remote that they were truly alone. They sat there for a bit hand in hand enjoying the dream before Andrew broke their silence.

  “You were saying?”

  "Oh yeah, so Jack is super excited about the modifications I made yesterday and neither one of us can wait to field test them tomorrow. Not to brag too much, but the simulations suggest we'll see a 6-fold increase in energy efficiencies, and I was able to manage it even at half the original engine volume! When Jack reviewed the simulations, he was so impressed that he even joked that maybe I should have his job! " Linnie's smile threatening to break out from the confines of her cheeks.

  "Linnie, you know, pretty much everyone agrees with him and that the only reason you don't have his job is because of who his mother is," Andrew said, annoyance slipping into his tone.

  "That's not fair at all, Jack is brilliant. I mean without the way he challenges my ideas; I'd never come up with half of this stuff. You've just never liked Jack because you think he likes me."

  "He does, but more importantly it was still YOU who came up with the ideas and not him. Just don't lose sight of that," Andrew pleaded.

  " Don’t worry Andrew, I won't. I’m just saying that while his mom is one of the 19, he didn't just ride her coattails into his position. He's a great leader in his own right and he makes the whole team better too, not just me. While I’m decent at my job nobody has ever mistaken me for a leader."

  "Come on, when Jacks gone it's not like the team just falls apart. You hold the team together more than you think and I want to make sure you give yourself enough credit. I hope you know you're the brighter of the two. The ideas are yours and not his after all."

  "Don't worry, I know" she said with a consoling smile while placing her hand back on his. Neither remembering when it had left.

  "But back to my breakthrough. Even better is if these changes prove out they will enable us to meet our secondary goal of fitting a unit into the Sled. Can you imagine what a ship of her size could do with a modern jump drive? I mean she’s like what only 83 meters in length? “

  “83.4 to be exact”

  “I am betting she'll be able to fully charge her banks in an hour or possibly even less! Our calculations show that even with six times her mass the Orinasa should be able to fully charge in 8 hours or less. Can you imagine what being able to do three jumps a day might mean for our mission?!”

  “It would mean lunch in one galaxy and dinner in another!”

  “Exactly! I get goosebumps thinking about being able to travel to another galaxy, millions of light-years away and in the blink of an eye return home before the day is done! If it fits in the Sled, we could do that 12 times in a single day!”

  "That's insane! Linnie just know that regardless of how things play out, as far as I'm concerned you're a sci-fi space magician who works miracles that could quite literally save humanity," Andrew said as he hugged her, playfully wrestling her down into a light embrace. After a short while, they separated slightly. She was still lying on his arm with a small gap between them and both were staring at the clouds as they tracked across the beautiful blue sky. After a short while, she continued to tell him of her changes.

  He loved how passionate she was and was enthralled by the way her whole person animated when she talked about it. Even with that, when the details she was talking about got a bit over his head, he found himself lost in a daydream. He knew he should be paying more attention to what she was saying, yet he could not stop thinking about how lucky he was to have been able to convince such a talented and gorgeous woman to marry him. Nor could he forget how in a number of days these moments would sadly be few and far between, if ever. Soon, their days would be consumed with the minutia of the mission launch and then the mission itself.

  His daydreaming went on for quite a while before Linnie caught him. Lost in his fantasies, oblivious to the fact that she had gone silent, and had turned onto her side to stare at him. He went on dreaming about them finally starting a family and worrying about how hard that might be if they were doing so while trapped on an alien planet.

  "You ever wonder if space ducks will be our biggest issue?"

  Andrew instinctually replied, "Yes they very well could be."

  When Linnie sat up and gave him a look that he was all too familiar with. He knew he had missed something important, and that she had caught him zoning out again.

  In a tone of a woman who's too used to something, but is still very much annoyed by it, Linnie responded, "I hope they don’t quack us to death, seriously?”

  A message window appeared on the edge of his vision.

  [Warning it seems you have agitated your wife. You might consider what you might have done to contribute to this situation. It is also advised that you take 4 deep breathes before responding.]

  What would I do without you, Ziggy? Andrew thought.

  [Happy to help]

  Andrew dismissed both messages, before desperately trying to weave back the tattered threads of their relaxing day.

  “Quack us? Wait what are you talking about?”

  “You just agreed that SPACE DUCKS might be our biggest issue out there, Andrew."

  "Sorry, I was daydreaming about us and how lucky I am to have convinced…"

  "Look Andrew I get it, I am talking too much about work…..as always. I just wish you could just be excited enough about my achievements to listen without zoning out for once."

  "I'm sorry, I really do love it when you talk about this stuff. It's just over my head so it gets hard to follow and then my mind wanders."

  "I get that, but this just increases my anxiety about us. It resonates too well with what was recently pointed out to me, your disinterest in my passion could be a sign that you married me out of the convenience of having someone in your life during our mission and not out of love. Since it was pointed out I have seen sign after sign, like this, that it probably is true. That you like me well enough and decided to lock me down now before we're stuck in another galaxy, and you have competition," Linnie said the last part accusatorily while waging a desperate fight to choke back her emotions.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  Another message window appeared on the edge of his vision.

  [Warning sudden heart rate increase detected. You appear to be agitated. Warning: things said in anger can rarely be taken back.]

  Oh really? I wouldn't have guessed. Thanks, Ziggy. Andrew thought before dismissing it and then jumped to defend himself, deftly avoiding the good advice from his implant.

  "What? No way! I married you because of how much I love you, not so I could get laid for the next two years. It bugs me that after all this time you still think so little of me. Let me guess it was Jack, wasn’t it?"

  "Why does it matter who it was?"

  "It matters because he's been trying to get in bed with you since before we met."

  "NO, he hasn't. He has a girlfriend, and they have been together since before we settled here on Yuta."

  "A girlfriend who's not on the Orinasa mission and yes, Linnie, he has, and you know it. You just want to think better of him than that, so you purposefully ignore the red flags. Does he bring gifts to anyone else?"

  "I stopped that Lather and you know that."

  "But does he now or did he then, ever bring gifts to anyone else?"

  "No, but that's because he was new and didn't realize how it looked."

  "Yeah, sure Linnie that's why. I know you know he wants more, I just wished you'd admit it."

  "You always do this. You've turned this around on me and made it about me and not about how you're not interested in me and are bored by my life's work," she said before she lost the fight and tears started running down her face.

  "That's not true, it started because I got lost dreaming about the future with my wife and starting a family with her. You're jus…."

  “Which wife is that exactly? Do you mean with me or your imaginary pornstar wife. You know the one you hope you'll find when we get back? Like the ones you used to watch before we got together. The ones who look better, aren't so career-minded, and you fantasize want to give you a baby or 10?"

  "Do you seriously think that's what I want?"

  "Whatever, can you honestly say it's not what you want?"

  Andrew sighed knowing that this was going into very familiar territory, "Yes, I can Linnie. It's really not and its past time you believed me. I really was thinking about how you are the woman of my d…."

  "You don't need to lie to protect my feelings I know you love me, but I am sure I am not the woman you had in mind when you used to dream of who you'd marry," she said in a softer almost defeated tone, rivulets of new tears forming before rolling down her cheeks and falling to the floor.

  “It's only because I wasn't capable of imagining someone as awesome as….. "

  Linnie cut him off again. Though her whole demeanor changed to seem emotionless and rigid. Even her voice sounded more like it was from a text-to-speech app, “You have experienced severe non-life-threatening damage. Attempting to wake you so you might avoid further damage."

  As she said this the landscape oily shifted into the cramped bridge of the Sledovatel, aka the Sled. Linnie having disappeared along with their perfect hill. The bridge was impossibly bathed in sunlight. His Kata implant flashed warnings and showed a silhouette of a man with the head and left shoulder highlighted in yellow just outside to the right of his normal vision.

  "LINNIE!!!!! LINNIE!!!!" He yelled even though the bridge was the size of his college dorm room, and he could see the entire thing without moving his neck. Right as he started to panic, the alarm bells squealed.

  “Why is there sunlight on the bridge?”

  Linnie's same computer-style voice came from the comms "Consciousness restored, please make your way to a safe location before further damage is sustained."

  *********

  His eyes shot open as if he had licked an electric fence. Based on the throbbing in his head and shoulder and finding himself on the floor somewhere awash in warning light red instead of the warm sunlight, he assumed he had been knocked unconscious. Though he had no clue on the events that had transpired or even where exactly he was.

  He lifted his head to get his bearings and found that there were a pair of women’s feet directly in front of him as well as a post crammed into the left side of his neck. As he worked to extract himself from wherever he was, he chuckled when he noticed the sheer number of warnings that floated just outside his normal vision a product of his Kata implant, Ziggy. Two of them particularly caught his eye, as they were exactly what Linnie had said at the end of his dream.

  [You have experienced severe non-life-threatening damage. Attempting to wake you to allow you to potentially avoid further damage.]

  [Consciousness restored, please make your way to a safe location before further damage is sustained.]

  I guess that’s why Linnie went all robotic. I wonder how long I have been down here.

  [Correct, and you have been unconscious for 2 mins, Mr. Lather. You are quite injured please make your way to medical quickly.]

  This message delivered in the semi-robotic voice of Ziggy, that Andrew knew only he could hear, and not displaying in his vision as it was a response to his thoughts and not a warning.

  He dismissed all the warnings with a thought. He couldn’t focus with so many floating just outside his normal vision like a pack of mosquitos looking for blood. He wasn’t concerned he’d lose the information they contained as knew he could get back to them when he wasn’t staring at women's shoes and his damage silhouette wasn't lit up like a Christmas tree.

  Just as the last of the warnings disappeared, the red emergency lights dimmed to nothing and Ziggy gave him an error that shouldn’t be possible.

  [Unexpected Error: Battery malfunction. Charge extremely low]]

  I don't feel hypothermic. So how is that possible?

  Andrew thought just as the bridge lit up in a painfully bright green light and the ship rocked as if it was in an earthquake.

  [Battery function restored. Charge 100%. Please see an implant specialist immediately]

  "That's me, I’m the implant specialist" he muttered to himself as he tried to get to his feet.

  As he did so, it dawned on him whose feet he had been staring at. It was obvious as only one person on the bridge crew wore women's shoes. His suspicion was comically confirmed as Ziggy chose that moment to highlight both feet in identification brackets.

  [Zoya Chaturvedi, Chief Pilot, Sledovatel. (Would you like to know more?)]

  Hoping to save himself from as much awkwardness as possible, he wasted little time trying to extract himself from under her pilot's station, bumping his head twice on the way out.

  [Minor cranial contusion detected. Skull fracture danger: High. Please avoid any further damage to this area]

  [Minor cranial contusion detected. Skull fracture danger: High. To avoid permanent brain damage, it is advised that you find safety. It may be advisable in the future to wear a helmet when performing this duty.]

  "Yes, we all know you’re the implant specialist, now Get OUT OF MY WAY!!!" yelled Zoya as she desperately tried to look around him.

  Without thinking, Andrew almost jumped into the nearby wall as he tried to move as quickly as he could to clear her line of sight. The feeling of needles stabbing into his ocular nerves and spinal cord, the only reward he received for his decisive actions.

  "You know Lather I never took you for a perv. Nest trying that move, sure; but not you. I'm really disappointed in you. " Zoya’s face a mask of concentration, though a slight hint of a smile could be seen peeking through. Her speech slightly delayed as Ziggy translated from her native tongue.

  "Shut it! Zoya, you wished I thought of you like that," said Vladimir Nesterov, the burly co-pilot who looked surprisingly like a brunette version of Dolph Lundgren. His speech also slightly delayed as his implant translated the Russian.

  [Vladimir Nesterov, Co-pilot, Sledovatel (Would you like to know more?)]

  "Oh, I how I secretly earn for you, Nest. Lather, I have to say, I've never been so happy our uniforms are more TNG and not the original Star Trek uniforms, as some stupid people suggested. “ she said without breaking her focus of getting them out of there.

  "I would take it as a personal favor if both of my pilots kindly turned their attention to getting us out of here and less on the banter. Unless you think the giant space whale assaulting us with its eyes is not worth your concern. Lather, good show not dying. Kindly get off my bridge and report to medical before you distract the crew further," said the calm British voice of Captain Rostron.

  Ziggy, bracketed the captain as Andrew hazily glanced his way.

  [Captain Arthur C. Rostron, commanding officer, Sledovatel. (Would you like to know more?)]

  Wait, did he say a giant space whale with assault eyes? How hard did I hit my head?

  [Yes, the Captain said that a giant space entity which closely resembles an earth whale was utilizing its eyes to attack the ship. You hit your head hard enough to suffer numerous injuries, please see Damage Silhouette in the top right side of your vision for more details.]

  Andrew, ignoring the captain’s orders, spun on his feet to look at the window. Through it he saw the sight of he could best describe as a giant finless green whale with prehensile tentacles that hung from either side of its face like a scraggly movable beard. The whale was massive, dwarfing the Sled at least 3 to 1 and its six spider-like eyes, each set a different primary color, stared angrily at him as if he had said something bad about its mother.

  His focus on the monster outside was broken by the comical grease smudge in the shape of his smushed face on the window. He started to wonder if that was the source of his injuries, but before his mind wandered too far, Ziggy highlighted the whale-like creature outside with brackets and the message:

  [Unknown life form, proceed with caution.]

  Seriously, that's not helpful Ziggy. I would be more worried if you knew what it was.

  [Noted]

  His thoughts were further derailed when the yellow and blue sets of the beast's eyes began to glow. Their combined light bathed the deck in a sickly green glow. In sync with the rise of that glow, the warning lights on the bridge dimmed again, this time so far that the only thing illuminating the bridge was the sickly green light coming from outside.

  "LATHER BRACE FOR IMPACT!!!!" Capt. Rostron yelled right before all lights and displays winked out.

  [Unexpected error: Battery malfunction. Charge extremely low]

  The glow around the creature’s eyes coalesced into retina burning beams of pulsing yellow and blue energy. They shot out of view just before he heard the deafening boom come from the aft of the ship and the whole ship listed violently to starboard from the impact. Andrew was thrown off his feet by the violent motion and launched towards the open bulkhead, at the back of the bridge, which separated it from the rest of the ship. As he sailed over everyone and to the back of the bridge, his only entertainment was the surprised and disappointed face of Captain Rostron and Ziggy’ boring messages.

  [Battery function restored. Charge 100%. Please see an implant specialist immediately]

  [Main reactor breached, radiation risk high]

  [Aft section breached. Bridge bulkhead door sealed]

  Comically the last message came moments before the sturdy bulkhead door slammed shut just before he would have flown, unharmed, through the opening. The last thing he remembered seeing was the word "CAUTION" written on the door before experiencing the bliss of unconsciousness for the second time that day.