I’d just started my doctorate program, and I was running late to one of Toob-Nix’s frightfully dull lectures on best archiving practices. I wasn’t late on purpose; a second-year I’d been having on-and-off relations with found out about the third-year I was also having on-and-off relations with and apparently neither of them knew about the “off”

part. It was drama, there was lots of yelling, and neither of them seemed sympathetic when I explained that it’s not my fault I’m so damn irresistible.

Anyway, Sava Toob-Nix had already warned me that if I was late again, he’d get the ol’ expulsion process started. At that point, I had next to nothing—I still thought university was the way to a proper professional life, I hadn’t yet perfected my own brilliant archaeological methods, and I didn’t always know how to find that door.

But I did know how to find a window.

So that day, when I was about to be late and Sava Toob-Nix locked me out of the lecture hall, I very stealthily shimmied my way through the window in the back and was slinking to my seat. I’d almost made it…

but of course, right before I did…the sava just had to let loose with one of his terrible opinions.

SAVA TOOB-NIX:

—and unfortunately, one of our greatest academic facilities, the university library on the Fifth Moon of Thrinittik, is no more. It once housed some of the most important artifacts in the galaxy—sadly, they were not preserved properly, or they might have survived the cataclysmic blast that destroyed the entire structure and everything in it—

APHRA:

[blurt]

That’s not true!

SAVA TOOB-NIX:

Chelli Lona Aphra! What have I told you about being late and disruptive—

APHRA:

But…I just…what you’re saying isn’t true. Yes, the university library on the Fifth Moon of Thrinittik was attacked, and some of it did crumble into dust. But pieces of the structure are still standing, and those artifacts…well, some of them are likely just buried deep in the ground, waiting for someone to find them. A particularly enterprising team could take initiative, and—

SAVA TOOB-NIX:

And…what? Get themselves killed chasing after fairy tales? Such an expedition would never be authorized—

APHRA:

Isn’t that all the more reason to do it? Isn’t that what being an archaeologist is about? Making new discoveries, finding treasures of the past, being able to see the…the fullness of the history of the entire galaxy? If we want to make real discoveries, it’s always going to be a little dangerous—

SAVA TOOB-NIX:

What insolence! I’ve had a bad feeling about you since I first saw your impertinent face, Aphra. If you’re going to contradict your professors and promote these…these dangerous ideas about unsanctioned expeditions, well, you won’t be doing it here—

SANA STARROS:

She’s right.

SAVA TOOB-NIX:

Excuse me?