The first day of Summer; 18:30 hours. Aaen donned his uniform in front of the top floor's hallway mirror of the family home, double-checking his rank insignia pinned to the white ribbon extending over his right shoulder, and brushing his hands down his front in hopes of ridding his uniform of any pet hair. He wanted to make sure he was looking sharp for his next assignment. One minute later, he went downstairs on his way to the shuttle port; he noticed through the back door window the Sun was almost completely down amid a crimson-orange horizon. He felt a surge of anxiety and excitement. Time to go, Aaen grinned. Enthusiastic and jittery, he picked up his sleeping bag and quickly thumbed through his two papers: one with his mission orders, the other was his rank certificate signed by Fleet Admiral Williamson, himself. Lieutenant-Commander, Aaen slowly went over the fact of his promotion in his head. Someone at Command undoubtedly read the First Officer's report from the Odyssey mission and put in a deserving good word in. He maintained his grin as he yanked his sleeping bag over his right shoulder and started for the shuttle. He recalled looking up the rest of the then-crews' ranks after returning home only a week ago. Most of that crew were still ensigns; one had been promoted to Lieutenant. Who was that again? Aaen didn't immediately recall. He was too focused on the fact that he had been recalled and assigned to a space station. The Odyssey would have been better, but he found the idea of being assigned to a space station for at least one space mission appealing. D-S-S Magellan. He raised his eyebrows at even the mental recitation of the station's name. The station was commonly regarded as a 'flying fortress'. He found himself curious to find out. Some deep space stations were for scientific research and development—for who-knows-what. Aaen didn't try to compute the possible answers to that question, though he silently speculated that the Union undoubtedly had to have someone figuring out new ways of keeping the fleet as technologically as far ahead of the Union's adversaries as possible. Not to mention the Rotelans . Yeah, especially the Rotelans . Contrarily, he started to wonder if the Union and the Rotelan Empire would ever find mutual peace; maybe even become allies? For the time being, Aaen decided that only time would tell . . . but he hoped that he would be physically present or even have a direct influence on that point, should such an opportunity present itself. Hopefully.
He tossed his sleeping bag in the cargo hold, and then enjoyed a brisk flight to Starbase One. After docking and then off-boarding, he waved goodbye to his parents as he started walking to the security check-in area. He turned in his papers to one of three wearing black uniforms bearing Command's logo on the outside of the right short sleeve, who was sitting behind a large shared desk. One paper got briskly scanned, and then the other—his rank certificate—was also scanned for two large bolded numbers in the top-center of the paper. The young lady who had his rank certificate looked up at him. "Have you been on any training flights or other programs since you were last here, Lieutenant Commander?"
Aaen looked at her gorgeous brown eyes and emphatically said, "Two missions on the Voyager; one on the Odyssey." She did a brief calculation, and then pulled a piece of paper from a short stack and wrote two new numbers down, one on each blank line, and then inched her pen from the bottom of the paper up the list of ranks . . . and then circled a new rank almost halfway up the list. Aaen read the upside down paper—WOAH!
She handed the paper to him with a smile. "Congratulations, Commander. Head down the hallway to your right for further instructions."
Aaen nodded acknowledgment. He relished the gently reverberating computer beeping and similar sounds flowing through the hallway. Another wearing a black short-sleeved uniform, male, extended his right arm to Aaen's left. "Head down this hallway to the door that's open."
*****
Steve H. told Jordan Foutin, "You are the next Tom Clancy. You really are a gifted writer."
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