Victoria

“All systems are go. You are cleared for take-off, Cookie Bandit. Over.”

“This is Cookie Bandit, confirmed. Over.”

My co-pilot Geoff Bridges roll his eyes so hard his bulky helmet moves. I grip the control stick tightly, my tongue sticking out of my mouth as I concentrate on getting this brand new, billion dollar space ship into the air in one piece.

It’s not every day you get to take the latest piece of NASA hardware for a test drive.

The take-off is fairly smooth… for a space ship. It still feels like an elephant is stamping on your chest, like the world is spinning at a million miles per minute, and you have to focus to stay awake, you have to bite down on the insides of your cheek to keep your consciousness from slipping, but if you do, if you manage to do all that…

You’re rewarded with the most beautiful sight imaginable. You see Earth — all of it. The entire globe, hanging in the darkness, surrounded by stars on all sides.

The entire world. Every place I’ve ever visited, everyone I have ever met, all the people I know and love… all of that is just a blue-green marble from up here. It looks like you could pluck it from the sky and slip it right into your pocket.

Not many people have seen this sight, and I am awed every single time. When I was but a little girl, I never could have imagined I’d follow in the footsteps of Neil Armstrong or Buzz Aldrin.

Neither did my father. All he ever wanted was a son, and a woman’s place was in the kitchen as far as he was concerned. My mother died in childbirth. It’s something he never forgave me for. In his mind I committed two crimes: I robbed him from his wife, and I was born with lady parts.

No matter how hard I fought for his acceptance, his approval, and boy did I fight… it was never enough.

“Cookie Bandit, this is command. How’s the view up there? Over.”

The radio crackling in my headset pulls me from my thoughts and back into the present. I curse myself under my breath. No matter how hard I try, no matter how far I run — I just left Earth’s atmosphere for crying out loud — it’s never far enough to outrun my father’s presence.

“Cookie Bandit coming in. The view is astonishing. Every single time. Over.”

“Enjoy your time up there. Over.”

I glance to my side to see Geoff glaring at me.

“Cookie Bandit? Seriously? You couldn’t think of anything better?” he bites.

“What?” I ask my co-pilot. “You don’t like it?”

“I loathe it.”

“You’re no fun.”

“We’re not here to have fun. This is our job.”

“If this is our job, then it’s our job to have fun.”

Most of the other pilots consider Geoff a real pain-in-the-ass, but he’s not so bad. You just have to learn how to ignore most of what he says. If you manage that, he’s a pretty good co-pilot.

“I can’t believe you’re so cheery all the time.”

“I can’t believe you’re so morose all the time,” I counter. “Look at this view. Just look at it!”

“It’s Earth,” he shrugs. “Big whoop.”

“So I guess everyone’s right when they call you a grouch, hm?”

“Better than what they call you.”

“Oh, now you’re just being mean,” I laugh. “Why are you so angry today?”

“I just want to make it back home, in one piece preferably,” he says.

“Me too, buddy. Me too.”

There’s a cute little puppy waiting for me back home. My neighbor’s mother fell ill, so I’m looking after her dog while she’s out of state, but the little rascal has already stolen my heart with its big fluffy ears and big puppy eyes. If my neighbor thinks she’s getting her puppy back, well… she’s right, but it’ll hurt me more than I thought possible.

This was supposed to be my weekend off, but they called me in at the last moment.

I agreed under the condition they’d call me Cookie Bandit the entire time, in honor of my neighbor’s pup, because that’s what he is. A scoundrel who steals cookies.

And hearts.

Of course, I couldn’t take the cute bugger into space with me, so he’s now staying with my other neighbor, Leslie. She’s a darling, but she has trouble walking, and the puppy is one energetic pupper, with the boundless energy of a newborn… so I really like to get back home as well.

“I don’t like flying a new ship,” Geoff continues complaining. “Too many things can go wrong. I don’t like being a guinea pig. And I especially don’t like not being the one holding the control stick.”

“Ah, so you’re jealous,” I tease Geoff as I wiggle the stick. “You got stick-envy.”

“Be careful with that thing,” he mutters. “If you crash us into the moon, I’ll never forgive you, you know. I’ll haunt your ass.”

“Noted. However, there’s nothing out here to fly into—”

“Warning! Warning! Collision course detected!”

I utter a cry as something big and gray seems to materialize out of thin air right in front of us, coated in purple light. I press the stick down and the spaceship lurches to the side, my stomach doing a somersault.

“What the fuck was that?!” Geoff screams.

“I don’t know,” I say, sweat trickling down my brow.

We barely missed that thing, and I mean barely. That was too close for comfort. Way too close.

We’re out here in space, with the best radars possible. They are tracking every meteorite, every satellite, every square inch of space debris that is floating around Earth is continuously mapped and tracked… so how did that gray cylinder just pop out of nowhere?

“Control, are you seeing this?!” I ask.

“Yes, we are. Are you safe? Over.”

“We’re fine, I think. Over.”

I glance down at my control panel, but nothing is lighting up. Nothing is telling me we’re about to die out here.

“Good. Come back i—”

The connection suddenly cuts out.

“Control?” I ask. “Control? Come in, control?”

My lips are dry and I try to keep the panic from breaking into my voice. This was supposed to be a standard mission. Take the new ship for a spin and head back to Earth. Back in time for dinner.

The com crackles back to life.

“Cookie Bandit?” a deep voice says. It’s strangely familiar, yet I can’t quite place it — but it doesn’t sound one bit like Control. “What kind of name is that,” the voice curses under his breath. “What kind of two-bit show is NASA running here?”

“Yes?” I ask, raising my eyebrows at Geoff. He shrugs and shakes his head.

“This is General Bowers. I need you to take that pod in. That is a direct order.”

General Bowers?! That’s the highest ranking officer of the entire armed forces. Only the President outranks him. Why would he be on the line?

“Do you copy, Snow? Do you copy?”

“Sir, yes sir,” Geoff cuts in on the line. “We read you loud and clear.”

I shake my head at Geoff and disable my com.

“I’m the one in charge here,” I say. “Don’t make calls on my behalf!”

“You’re not in charge, you’re a pilot, like me,” he counters. “That’s General fucking Bowers on the line.”

“We have no idea what that thing was! It could be dangerous!”

“Whatever it is, the army wants it.”

“I’m not in the army,” I say. Not anymore.

Geoff laughs. “That doesn’t change a damn thing. Now, I don’t intend to spend the rest of my life in jail for treason, so I suggest you turn this ship around.”

“They wouldn’t dare.”

“Do you really want to find out?”

I curse under my breath.

And turn the ship around.

The big, metal pod hangs still in the air. Ominously. It’s about ten feet high and covered in strange marking, something akin to hieroglyphs. I’ve got a real bad feeling about this…

I open the cargo bay doors and maneuver the ship so that the metal device slides into the belly of our ship.

“This is Cookie Bandit, coming in. Package is secured. Over.”

“Good,” Bowers answers. “Return to base, there will be a team waiting for you. In the meantime, go down and see what you can learn.”

“Sir?” I ask. He can’t be serious. I’m not touching some alien artifact.

“That’s an order. I want to know if that thing is North-Korean. If they’ve got warp-technology, than we’ve got no other option than to declare a preemptive war. Time is of the essence. Go!”

“You heard the man,” Geoff says. “I’ll fly her home, you go and see whatever that thing is.”

“What? No! You go!”

“He specifically gave you the order, didn’t he?”

I can’t believe this.

I woke up this morning with my only plans beings taking my (okay, my neighbor’s) cute labrador puppy out for a nice long walk — and now I have to check out some alien technology to see if we should declare nuclear war on the North-Koreans?!

This day can’t get any worse.

With every fiber of my body fighting against me, I head down into the belly of the ship. The walkway down towards the cargo bay is long and dark and I’ve never felt quite so alone. There’s something just not quite right about all of this.

The giant metal pod looms up in front of me.

It’s even bigger than I thought. Big and gray, covered in strange markings, this thing looks decidedly alien.

Except aliens don’t exist. Of course.

Suddenly, the pod opens with a loud hiss.

What I see makes my heart jump into my throat.

There’s a gorgeous man inside of the metal pod. Seven feet tall, if not more, with bronzed, olive skin. He’s wearing metal armor, like some kind of ancient warrior, with a red cape hanging over his broad shoulders.

I know one thing: This man is not North-Korean.

I’m not sure he’s even human.

As strange as it sounds, he looks more like some semi-divine being. A perfect specimen if there ever was one.

Impossible, of course.

Aliens aren’t real.

That’s the one thing I’m sure of.

Aliens aren’t real.

And then his eyes open, his powerful gaze landing right on me, and suddenly I’m not so sure of anything anymore, except for the fact that my core is burning with the heat of a thousand suns…