“It’s just Jackson.” The answer came back with just a dusting of irritation. “What can I do for you?”

“An unscheduled delivery just made dock,” the orderly said. “There was a data card in it addressed to you with no origin marker.”

Jackson wordlessly held out his hand, not taking his eyes off his terminal monitor. The orderly put the package in his hand and turned to walk back out through the hatch.

“Thank you,” Jackson said politely and set the packet on his desk. He assumed it was from his wife, Jillian Wolfe, formerly Jillian Davis. She was younger than him by a margin that raised some eyebrows, but not enough to make him seem like a lecherous old man. The fact he looked younger than his forty-nine years helped out a bit. She had been the OPS officer on his first command, the TCS Blue Jacket, and then had followed him over to the Ares. After serving with distinction as his executive officer once Celesta Wright had been given the Icarus, she had resigned her commission when he had retired after the war.

He had begun to suspect that she had a harmless infatuation with him and was thus unprepared to learn just how deep her feelings went. At first he had been afraid that the intensity would wane once they were civilians, but, if anything, losing the distraction of the commander/subordinate dynamic to their relationship had made them equals in every aspect of their life and brought them closer together. In short order after his return to Earth they had started a family and were the proud parents of healthy, beautiful twins, a boy and a girl.

Jillian was such a stabilizing force in his life that he wasn’t surprised when she’d simply begun packing when he came home and proposed that they re-enter service as contractors with the Prometheus Project. What did surprise him was that she had no desire to go back to work for him. She used her own connections to secure a position on Arcadia and before they’d even arrived at their new home she was scheduled for orientation at her new job. In a move that surprised Jackson even further, she’d also submitted the paperwork to change her last name from Davis to Wolfe, a practice that, while still common on Earth, was almost non-existent in most of the enclaves. She explained it as a purely business tactic: the name Davis was common and she had no particular attachment to it, but Wolfe opened doors and commanded a modicum of respect just by its association to Jackson’s exploits.