“Time off is weird for me, but my birthday is always the worst.” Rosalyn frowned as the narrow windshield opened, showing an unbroken and twinkling field of stars. Her father had insisted that it was ridiculous to celebrate her birthday and Christmas separately when they were so close together. Efficiency, that was his thing. Better to just fold it all into one. This last chance at keeping her job wasn’t much of a gift either way.

“Not me. Got a calendar next to my bunk, been counting down the days to this trip for weeks. Second I get back, I rotate out and back to Earth. About time, too. Getting a little stir-crazy on base.”

“That’s good,” Rosalyn said, distracted. She stared out at the vastness of space and the stars. They looked like a flat, unbroken wall, so numerous it was impossible to contemplate what might be going on around each and every one of those stars. They could hold civilizations yet to be discovered or, if the pattern of history held, just more emptiness, more planets unconducive to intelligent life.

“You’ve got a big family?” she asked.

Walters shrugged and wriggled down into his seat, getting comfortable while they hurtled toward their destination. “Not really. Just a sister, but she’s got three kids and they like to hear my pilot stories. The oldest one? Alice? She eats up all the gory details. Shit, that kid is gonna turn out to be real weird one day.”

Rosalyn smirked, glancing over at him. “Then maybe you should redact some of those details for her, don’t you think?”

“You kidding me? That’s the best part of being an uncle . . .” The spacecraft shook, hard, both of them jostling in their seats as the ship reached maximum velocity. Rosalyn felt her teeth rattle, the chattering almost loud enough to block out her pilot’s voice. “’Sides, not my problem if she’s a fuckup. Everyone will blame her parents, not me.”

“Charming.” She bit out the word and closed her eyes. It was always disconcerting to see the ship’s instruments shaking around as they flew. It lasted another ten minutes or so, and both of them were silent, gripping their seats hard until the craft came to an abrupt stop and Rosalyn lurched forward, nearly propelled out of her harness.

“Hate that part,” Walters muttered, sighing and glancing over the flight monitor. “Always makes my guts churn.”

“Pilot, report.” The mission control Servitor’s voice filled the cockpit again.

“Green as you please,” he chirped back. “FTL systems operable, ninety-nine percent functionality. Doesn’t get much better than that.”

It gets exactly one percent better, she thought with a grimace.