After loading the cargo, Sam sat down in the office to watch the news and eat some of the assorted American food the staff had bought. Doritos, Dr. Pepper, and oreos made for excellent emotional eating. "Are they sending someone down to help?" She asked the question of no one in particular, but the communications officer answered promptly. "They are dispatching a kinetic to assist you. This hasn't been officially communicated, but if you have your tablet on the shuttle, you might want to start drafting an incident report."

Sam decided to delay that particular task. Cassandane abandoned me in a world where my only friend is enslaved with mind control. How could she be so selfish? Does she even care? Is that just how the Aoleyen are? Maybe there is a reason no one likes them. Sam felt a stab of pain at the thought. She was Cassandane's friend, even if the woman's definition of friendship left something to be desired.

An idea began to form in her, a daring plan that would either right everything or plunge her into the most trouble she had ever experienced. Sam took a few moments to run through the broad outlines of it. She would need to commit to playing a role with absolute conviction. And when the time came, she would need to act without hesitation. I may not be Stateira frickin' Cassandane, but I am Samantha frickin' Wilcox, and I'm tired of being played with.

A deep breath. "Could you put in a request for me to inherit Cassandane's duties? I might need some help until I get stronger, but I think it is only fair after my mentor abandoned me. I don't want to go back to being a nobody in the fleet."

The communications officer's eyebrows rose high on her forehead. "I think you should talk to your direct supervisor about your career options. You might want to check your entitlement before then. Just because you're a paragon doesn't mean you get to dictate your assignments."

Sam rolled her eyes and went to her seat on the shuttle to begin writing up a report.

After my first solo landing, my mentor Cassandane informed me that she was leaving the fleet to go after Tyler Marius. I tried to argue with her that my training hadn't even been completed, but she flew off as soon as the door was open. She had been lightening her skin lately like Mengko Virkell did. I thought she was just trying to be better than him, but now I thinks she wanted to blend in with the locals. I think she is going to kill Tyler Marius based on how she was reacting to the hospital attack. Since Stateira Cassandane was such an asset to the fleet, I am willing to step up and take on her duties. With some assistance in the beginning, I should be able to handle all of the shuttle runs. I think I am able to run the generator as well if you want to give me a chance at that. Please remember that I am a paragon whose strength is growing every day. I can do a lot for the fleet.

She read over what she had written a few times to ensure it struck the right tone, then queued it to send automatically to her commander when the tablet was back in network range. Then she reclined in her seat to double check all the angles of her plan. It would work. It had to work.

The first notice she had of the second shuttle's approach was when the terminal before her lit up with a proximity warning that another Angmari beacon was approaching. Sam stepped outside in time to witness a smooth descent right beside her vessel. A few seconds later, the door banged open and Reginar jumped out. "Hey, Sam!"

Ugh. "Hey, Reginar! Are you going to help me get this shuttle back to the Angelship?"

"Yes. Even better, right now you can come inside and meet Alpha One."

"Alpha One?"

"The Synth kinetic. He flew down to drop me off." Reginar lowered his voice. "I know losing Stateira Cassandane is a major retroburn for the fleet, but today has been great for me. I was promoted to shuttle duty and got to take a ride with Alpha One. Now come on!"

Sam followed Reginar into the shuttle, where an older woman eyed her warily. In place of two pilot chairs, the control center held a mess of tanks bolted to the floor amid a tangle of tubes and wires.

"Hello, Sam, it's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Alpha One." The voice, otherwise disturbingly non-artificial, echoed in the space.

"Hi Alpha One. How are you?"

"Great. This is my first trip planetside. I was getting bored with intership runs."

Sam waved her hand. "It's just a lot of dirt down here. Space is much cooler."

"Cooler?" The perfectly intoned question came from the speakers.

"I think cool is like saying centrifugal," Reginar said.

"Oh, tell me more English slang!"

Sam put her hand on her forehead. A robot is asking me to teach it slang. This has been one surreal day. "Uh, well, there's ginormous. That's like a cross between gigantic and enormous. Or YOLO, that stands for you only live once. I'm actually not so great on slang. I'm more of a pop culture reference girl, if that makes any sense."

"I can't say that I've ever heard of pop culture," the machine responded in a deceptively human voice.

"Short for popular culture. I basically say a lot of things that only make sense if you watched the same movies and television shows as me. For example, I might say 'take it easy, HAL 9000' to you. That's a reference to a computer in a movie called 2001 that went crazy and killed the human crew."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa" Alpha One said, "that's contestist."

Sam squinted at the mess of equipment before her, wishing some focal point existed to look at. "What?"

"I'm quoting an Angmari comedy series."

Reginar nodded. "Glib Garibaldi. He's always messing up the things he says. Like he always goes 'clock out!' instead of 'watch out!' because clocks and watches both tell time. It's . . . a little silly."

"It's considered a classic," Alpha One said. "A solid choice for a 'pop culture reference', in my opinion."

Sam crossed her arms. "Wait a minute. Is the word contestist supposed to be calling me racist?"

"Only as a joke. I'm actually not a computer. I'm a human brain, more or less."

"So you're more of a Frankenstein, you're saying?"

"Ummm . . . ."

"I like your Frankenberry cereal. Shame it only comes out once a year."

"I'm con-breaker-ed," Alpha One said.

Sam smiled. "I like you, Alpha One."

"Sorry, I already have a girlfriend."

"Hey now, a guy like you should be able to handle more than one lady." Sam winked in the general direction of the tanks.

The severe older woman had been hovering in silence behind them. She put a hand on each of their shoulders. "Time to get your shuttle back up to the Angelship. Alpha One is going to haul a load up to keep us on schedule, but the rest of today's work is going to fall on Reginar."

"What about me? I can help," Sam said.

"Take it up with your supervisor. Get going, now."

"Bye," Alpha One called after them as they departed.