Jessica Morgan smiled pleasantly at the wrinkled, tear-streaked face of Gwendolyn Shay the Elder.

"You bitch!" Gwen snarled.

"I think your anger might be just a little misplaced," Jessica replied as she sipped a cup of tea. "Did I allow your great-granddaughter to enter an unshielded observation chamber? No. Do I even have such abominations on my ships? No. Was I so stoned as to not even notice it happened? Again, the answer would be no."

Jessica leaned back in her comfy chair, a far cry from the golden throne of legend.

"Jesus, Gwen, putting your nine-year-old great-grandchild into a fucking hyperspace torture chamber? Even I haven't done something that fucked up, and I poisoned half my goddamn family."

"WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO TO HER!" Gwen screamed.

"Now, that is an excellent question," Jessica replied in a calm and pleasant voice. "To fully answer that I'm going to have to do that thing you hate almost as much as you hate me, answer your question with one of my own. Do you know how many species can survive unprotected contact with hyperspace?"

Gwen just glared at the screen, tears staining her cheeks. To say she hadn't taken the information concerning her "Baby Doll's" new captain and crew very well was an understatement.

They had just a tiny bit of a reputation.

Jessica sighed.

"I hate answering myself," she said, setting down her priceless ancient Corelle teacup onto its equally priceless matching saucer. "There are three species that can look at hyperspace without damage, the Kalent, the Ykeen, and the Voo, a rather insignificant race of little space nomads that roam the fringes of civilized space. They are cute little things, as nice as can be, and they sell the most interesting things sometimes. They are on the protected list, by the way, but I digress."

Jessica smiled.

"But," she continued, "species that can actually touch hyperspace and be touched in return? Zero. In fact, the entire galaxy believes it to be impossible. Your great-grandchild is very, very special, Gwen. She is one of an extremely small number of humans that can."

Gwen's eyes cleared as she looked at the screen in shock.

"That's right, Gwen," Jessica smiled as Terrence appeared in the frame to refill her cup. "Thank you, Terrence," she said as she took the cup from him. "Your baby doll is not unique," she said as she returned her gaze to Gwen. "She's impossibly rare, so rare that we don't even have a good idea of how infrequent the mutation is… or if, in fact, it is a mutation at all. To be honest, we still don't have any idea how they do it. All we know for sure is that they can and that we are the only people who have these individuals at all. I've checked."

She took a sip.

"And by we, I mean us, the porkies. Not only do the Republic and Empire not have these people, they don't, to the best of my knowledge, even believe that they exist."

"But..." Gwen started.

"As far as your darling little angel is concerned, the Republic believes that the shields and shutters were in place and that the whole thing is a hoax you perpetrated in order to give the child some mystique to strengthen her chances at succeeding you when the time comes."

"That's stupid," Gwen replied. "It would do the opposite. My people think she's cursed, a beacon for… something… Things happened…"

"What's more believable," Jessica asked, "the convenient narrative I presented them or the actual truth? Even you refused to believe it, and you were actually there… until those things you mentioned, but we are getting off track."

Jessica paused and took a sip.

"I believe that Baby Gwen and those like her are the next step in the evolution of mankind, a step that we have taken first and that, just like every other such advance, will ultimately dominate our species. Your great-granddaughter is one of the crown princesses of that new humanity. So you can rest assured that I have absolutely no ill-intentions towards her. In fact, if I had my way, I would wrap her with kinetic buffer tape, set her up in a fucking mansion, get her and the rest of them together on the weekends and pay them by the kid."

"So why don't you?"

"Because I can't," Jessica laughed. "It's impossible. The void calls to them. Hyperspace wants them, and they want it. They will do anything, and I mean anything, in order to get their next 'fix', and if they can't, it gets ugly, very ugly, and so do they. The only thing I or anyone else can do is try to keep them from killing themselves and everyone around them when they do what they will do. Even so, keeping them alive is quite the challenge. As of now, only three still live, including the beautiful young Gwen."

Jessica sighed made a rueful little smile.

"Hopefully, the lessons we learned with the last ones will keep us, or more precisely her, from repeating her predecessors' rather unpleasant mistakes. I might be able to keep her alive. You can't. Aside from their fondness for open-ended jumps into hyperspace or otherwise blowing themselves up, they tend to be… well..."

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Jessica's smile turned from rueful to malevolent.

"Let's just say that your little firecracker is the kindest and most gentle of them thus far. People think that we are monsters? Compared to the humanity that is to come, we are fucking Starshield. We, and the rest of our species, had to adapt to Yellowstone and the delightful galaxy that we have found ourselves. They?"

Jessica chuckled.

"They've evolved."

Gwen couldn't help but shudder.

"And," Jessica continued, her voice rising in excitement, "if they can manage to establish the tiniest toehold, the smallest viable population, they will do the galaxy what we did to fucking Earth!"

She took a moment to collect herself.

"I believe this to be our most important, most sacred, duty. You are quite literally one of the mothers of the new children of man. You have no idea how much I envy you, Gwen. Your line will endure. Your genes will be carried into whatever future awaits us. No," Jessica said, her eyes starting to burn with what almost looked like religious fervor, "The future awaits your children."

Jessica took a deep breath, and the unholy light faded from her eyes.

"So, no, Gwen," she said with that fucking soulless smile of hers, "I have no nefarious plans where young Gwen is concerned. I honestly only have her best interests at heart. I want nothing more than for her to thrive and hopefully survive long enough to find herself someone she finds suitable and reproduce."

"You ain't turning my Baby Doll into a fucking whore breeder!"

"Absolutely not!" Jessica exclaimed. "For one thing, I have absolutely no idea what causes this. I don't even know how to breed it, and the population is far too small to crossbreed. Besides, if you studied history, which would require you actually reading a book, you would know that eugenics and even genetic tampering have never worked out well for us. We've been taught that lesson plenty, and I'm not repeating that history if I can help it. No, for now, I watch, and when I find one, I grab them and try to properly train and equip them so that they are as 'fit' as they can be, which is what I am now doing with Gwen."

"But why Marakovich?" Gwen asked. "Why him?"

"Because he is already familiar with the situation and how to deal with them," Jessica replied in a matter-of-fact manner. "And he swore to me over his son's memorial that he would not fail again. Unfortunately, it was just a memorial. We were unable to recover his body."

"His son?"

"He has also been 'blessed' by the arrival of one of these heralds of what is to come," Jessica said. "Twice. The first one was his granddaughter, one of the first, and we barely had time to realize what we were dealing with before she went… well, it went very badly. She was one of the ones we tried to 'lock up'. She killed many people before bashing her own brains out against a steel wall. His great-grandson did better, but he was 'imperfect' and eventually succumbed to what they refer to as 'the call'. He literally spaced himself mid-jump."

"Jesus fucking Christ!" Gwen shouted, "and you are trusting Marakovich with my baby?!?"

"He has more first-hand experience than almost anyone, and he won't be alone," Jessica replied. "There will be a few specialists on hand to assist, and we need someone like him to keep your 'baby' in line. You have done an inconveniently great job of training that little demon. I need someone who can subdue her without breaking her as her captain. Don't worry," Jessica said. "Marakovich works for me now. Considering the value I place on Gwen, you can rest assured I have put the best people that exist near her. Gwen, she's…."

Jessica sighed.

"She's the most' perfect' one I've ever seen, the most complete, the sanest… the fittest example yet! Gwen, your 'little baby' means more to me than you can possibly imagine. She's not only survived longer than anyone post initial exposure, she's thrived! I'm not going to lie to you. Nothing is certain when dealing with these individuals, but I have three breathing at the same time now. I honestly believe I'm her best shot, and if I didn't, I would send her to whoever was. That's how important she is."

Jessica smiled in a friendly way at Gwen.

"Hell, I would even leave her with you."

Gwen just sighed and hung her head.

"But why did it have to be her?"

"The same reason why Yellowstone blew," Jessica said sadly, "the same reason why so many lost so much, the same reason why you lost your first baby, the one that Gwen was supposed to replace..."

Jessica's eyes grew hard.

"It's because God hates us. But Gwen will be part of the blade we plunge right into his fucking heart!"

She smiled, her eyes shining with pure hatred.

"She will rip God's favorite children from his arms, just like he did ours, like he did yours, and, with the fangs you gave her, feast upon them as he weeps the same tears we did."

Gwen the elder's eyes shone with the same unholy light.

"She is something, isn't she?" Gwen asked with pride. "Did you see her land on that fuckin' egg?"

***

When the transmission ended, Jessica slumped into her chair with a relieved sigh.

That went much better than she feared. Not only did she prevent a rift with The Angels, but she actually managed to bring Gwen on board with the whole thing.

Agreeing to let that old fiend send along one of her people to keep an eye on things was a small price to pay. Not all of The Angels were complete animals. In fact, "Bloody Arissia" was far more stable and reasonable than her name implied.

Besides, matchmaking was one of her hobbies. Arissia and Boris would make the cutest couple. Boris really needed someone ever since his wife passed, and Arissia would be perfect!

She had noticed them checking each other out before. Granted, that was more than a few decades ago, but still…

Her antique desktop pinged.

It was a message from Gordon!

A smile played across her lips, but it soon faded when she read its contents.

Subject: Critical issue involving Johnsons!!!

Something serious has come up! Please review attachment ASAP!!!

"Great," Jessica muttered as she raised her cup to her lips, "Now what?"

She opened the attachment.

She snorted, spraying tea onto her ancient-tech flat-screen.

She immediately drafted her response.

Re: Critical Issue

It is customary that when you send an unsolicited dick pic, it be your own. I expect this corrected by the end of the business day.

J

She smiled as she hit "send".

"Weirdo..." she said fondly.