Prologue

Wandering the corridors of his immense starship, the young captain found himself thinking about recent events. Nodding to members of his crew as they waved at him, he didn't know if he could talk about any of it to them. The ship's psychiatrist, while proving himself to be quite competent, was more cold and clinical than empathic and compassionate. Once again, he wondered why the people who made the crew assignments hadn't included a real counsellor among them – on a journey like this, one would have proved invaluable... particularly in situations like he now faced.

Soon enough, he stood outside one of the ship's many Privacy Lounges. Since not even the Captain had been provided the luxury of personal quarters, this would have to do. Soundproofed, screened, and cut off from the computer monitors, a person could be totally alone with their thoughts. Or with someone else – rumours had begun floating around that some of the crew had started using the lounges for more 'intimate' purposes. This didn't bother him – rumours are just that, and nobody had made the mistake of being excessively public about their relationships.

But the Lounge he now faced turned out to be empty, so he stepped in and keyed the lock. Sitting in one of the comfortable benches, he placed the terminal board he had been carrying on his lap. He typed in a code that granted him access to a section of computer memory that he had locked off for personal use, and flipped through some of the prior entries...

"Journal Entry #1 – I feel a bit silly doing this, but Jake suggested to me that a Captain should make a habit of recording important events on his own... as a supplement to the computerized log. 'A ships log give you data', he said, 'but putting it into your own words gives you context.' So here we go – this is Jonathan Hays, captain of the Earth-Star Voyager, and this is my first journal entry. It's been three weeks since we fought both the OTZ Assembly ship and Admiral Beasley's Trident Corsair. Between our improvised solar laser and Jake's railgun, we seem to have gained the upper hand. We must have damaged the Trident Corsair quite badly, or else I'm sure the Admiral would have chased us by now – that, or he can't catch up with us while we're using the Baumann Drive. Either way, we shouldn't be hearing from him again for quite some time."

"Lani is still in a coma, due to Brody's sabotage of her cryo-sleep pod, but Sally tells me that she's making better progress than the had expected. I wonder if I should tell her about the – prayer? Incantation? - that Luz and I did for her. She'd probably dismiss it as nonsense... and maybe send me to Doctor Eugene for a fitness examination. For all I know, it was just a coincidence – but you never know..."

"Doctor Eugene himself seems to have lightened up a little bit – he still expects us to refer to him as 'Doctor', but I've heard him crack the occasional joke. By the time this voyage is over, we may even be calling him 'Lee'."

"That's all for now – I'll try to do better later."

He ran his finger over the board, scrolling through more entries, and paused at another one...

"Yesterday, Beanie celebrated his fifteenth birthday. We had a party for him on the Bridge, so that Priscilla could celebrate with us. Everybody had Bio-burgers, shakes, and there was a cake that Priscilla refused to tell us how it was made – it tasted good, though. There wasn't much in the way of gifts, but he did get a surprise when both Luz and Sally kissed him on the cheek."

"I think his adolescent hormones are starting to kick in, because he's looking at Luz a lot differently than he did when we started this voyage. Thinking about it, I believe that he's starting to look at Luz the same way that I looked at Sally when I was his age."

"I wonder if Sally ever figured out the hint that I gave her about my first crush. She's never said anything about it, but I can't help but hope that she's started to realize that I still hold those feelings for her. I don't know if I should tell anyone about it. I surely can't tell Priscilla, because she's broadcast it all over the ship within minutes of hearing it. Sorry, Priscilla."

He stopped the playback there, not wanting to revisit those memories right now. He scrolled down the list, reaching the final entry.

"Four hundred days into our mission, and Lani has finally awoken from her cryo-sleep coma. Sally has already checked her over, and she seems no worse for wear."

"Worse for wear – another one of those odd terms that Jake has started teaching us. It's supposed to imply no damage has been incurred because of an ordeal, but I still don't really get how clothing is involved. Oh, well..."

"As for Lani herself, she got a terrible shock when she learned that she had been sleeping for more than a year, and what had transpired to put her there. According to Sally, she hasn't aged at all while she was in the sleep chamber, so she was very surprised when she found out how much we'd all changed. But I think that the changes have been more to what we went through ourselves. We all did a lot of growing-up in those first few days of our voyage, so I guess it really shows."

"Sally has her on limited-duty for a week, then it's back to her regular schedule as Alternate for Luz at the Communications station."

He stopped the recording at that point, and pressed his steepled fingers to his lips. Lani has been through so much, he thought to himself, I wonder if it's really fair to her that I record more about her now. Then he remembered what Jake had told him about the duties of a Captain...

You have to learn to put your feelings aside, he had said, and focus on the important parts of the mission. As Captain, it's up to YOU to decide on the course of action – it may be right, it may be wrong, but it's always your decision.

Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath. Exhaling slowly, he looked down and pressed the 'Record' icon on his board and started speaking...

"Poor Lani," he began, "I can't imagine what she's feeling right now – having only so recently come back to us, only to first find, and then lose, an entire branch of her family that she had never known that she had. I may have to get Doctor Eugene to talk with her... although this is one of those times that I wished that the people who made the crew assignments for this mission had included a Counsellor as well as a Psychiatrist – both are helpful, in their own way."

"But this is going to take some explaining, in order to 'put it into context' as Jake would say. So..."

"It all began about forty days ago – just a normal day aboard the Earth-Star Voyager..."