"Apollonia Nor, you should be getting some sleep."

Jaya's voice was too much like a nagging mother for Apple's taste - at least what bad sitcoms had taught her mothers were like.

She regretted even taking the call. She could have pretended to be asleep, laying in bed when Jaya had called. But, Apollonia supposed, Jaya must have known she was awake if she had called at all.

"I'm studying," she said. "Wanna . . . brush off any cobwebs, you know?"

She could hear the frown in Jaya's voice. "Dr. Y and I made an itinerary for you for the week leading up to your test, and for good reason. With a proper sleeping schedule, study hours, and diet, your brain will be at its peak efficiency for-"

"Yeah, I know. You two built it off my biometrics and all that, and it absolutely will help me on my test," Apollonia replied. "And I appreciate it. I really do." She actually hated it, and the idea that they'd been analyzing her brain so thoroughly, the idea that she could be so easily predicted . . . but she wasn't going to say that. "But I'm prone to flights of fancy."

"Like your flight with the Captain today."

Apollonia stared at the ceiling above her bed as Jaya spoke, one knee crooked upwards with the other over it.

"Yeah. What of it?"

"You should have been exercising," Jaya told her. "It will help-"

"Jaya. Thank you for your help, but I think I will get some sleep now."

Jaya went quiet a moment. "Well, that is good. Remember, your test will be at 1100 hours in office suite seven."

"Does it really have to be tomorrow?" Apollonia asked. She'd asked before, but deluded herself into hoping that asking enough might get it to change. "It seems like I could use more time."

"If you don't want to wait another year, yes. While there's some leeway, we're nearing the point where it will be too late for you to get into academy classes for this cycle." Jaya took a breath. "Just do not be late tomorrow. Office seven!"

"Don't worry, I won't be late. I wrote it on the back of my hand, along with the answers to the test. Oops, should I not have said that?"

Jaya snorted slightly, but just by voice Apollonia could not tell if it was amusement or annoyance.

"Good night, Apollonia. Rest well."

"Niiiiight," Apollonia replied, as the call ended.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

She remained gazing at the ceiling above.

It was not that interesting, but it eased her over-wrought mind.

She'd finished studying not long before Jaya had called; mathematics, physics, theory of command, ethics . . . A whole slew of science fields on top of it all. She hadn't even gotten to history or economics, which were huge in their own right.

Once her brain had lost the ability to focus, she'd called a stop to it. Not that she'd felt much like she had been focusing in the first place, but even just looking over the lessons again was good, right?

Her mind left her studies behind, looking back instead at the rest of her day.

The whole airplane thing with Brooks had been fun. Cut short, but fun.

Brooks, she thought wryly. The man had such an air of authority that even off-duty, in her head, she could only think of him by his surname.

Ian? That seemed a weird way to think of him.

Her mind moved on, in the way that minds wander, coming to Cathal. She found herself smiling thinking of his calm. He just seemed . . . friendly? And non-threatening but in a way that wasn't pathetic.

Trustworthy, that was the word she was looking for.

She didn't really find herself so interested in his religion. She hadn't ever had faith, so why start now? And this stuff about how we were tiny and insignificant - it was the opposite of inspiring.

Maybe she could give it a shot, though? He'd been really patient, never pushed anything.

The thought of spending more time with him was nice.

A ping came on her system, a ship update. They came in regularly, starting with the most important news and working down to things like "hallway x was closed due to pipe maintenance".

Glancing at the headline, she saw that the ship had a new priority mission.

She rolled over on her stomach to look at the screen better. This kind of update always seemed to turn into a big deal. The last time it had been Ko . . . the time before that the pirates.

There were scant details. That boded even worse. Only that they were being routed to . . . well, it didn't name a system. Only an approximate coordinate designation that meant nothing to her.

"Tell me the nearest star system to this point," she asked her system.

It came up with "109 Piscium". A G-type star a hundred and eight light years from Earth. They were forty light-years away at their current position.

They'd arrive late tomorrow, by ship time.

Hmph.

She already had a bad feeling about this one. It wasn't even in the Sapient Union.

Neither had Ko or its star system, but it was kind of odd to be heading to the middle of nowhere to reach nothing. What was out that way?

She scanned through lists of nearby stars. Nothing important leaped out at her. It was not near the fuzzy contact lines of Union and Glorian space, nowhere near Gohhi or the Aeena or anybody.

But oh. It was near the Terris system . . . She shuddered. Only five light years away. That seemed too close for her tastes.

Her system came up with something under the 'persons of note' list. An itinerary filed with Gohhi central public records indicated that Nadian Farland's ship the Raven's Ghost was in the region . . .

Nadian Farland! The adventurer? She sat up, excitement welling. "Oh damn," she said out loud. "This might be interesting."

If Nadian Farland was there, maybe she could finagle her way into whatever was going on.

And, she thought, buy herself a few more days before she had to take her damn test.