When immortal soldiers, and sociopathic assassins are out to kill you, your friends, and your family, you lose track of the important things in life.

For example, I'd lost track of the fact that I had a spaceship in my basement.

I'll write that again with more appropriate emphasis.

I had a spaceship.

In. My. Basement.

A SPACESHIP.

As someone who'd watched the space shuttle lift off on TV, watched science fiction, read science fiction, and spent a lot of time thinking about science fiction, the question of whether I'd actually use it didn't exist.

The question was when.

And how.

And whether or not I'd manage to blow myself up in the process.

I'd spent a lot of time bringing the League "jet" out of mothballs, so blowing myself up wasn't likely. Unfortunately, I'd heard a lot of stories from my grandfather about things he'd done in space. What I'd gained from those stories was that even if I didn't manage to blow myself up, there were plenty of aliens out there that were willing to do it on general principle.

Fortunately, not a lot of those guys had any reason to be near Earth.

Well, with the exception of the Xiniti, and they were there as much for our protection as they were to stop us from acquiring alien tech.

Let's rephrase that. They were there as much for our protection as they were to destroy the planet if we showed signs of acquiring alien technology, expanding into space, and committing genocide.

To be fair, they had some reason to worry, but it still felt like overkill to me.

So that's why, when I finally did decide to take the League jet into space, I didn't do it with the idea that I'd be putting the human race in danger. Grandpa had told me the Xiniti were okay with the League jet. I did it because I loved the idea of leaving the planet, and possibly for another reason or two.

Haley looked up at me, "You want to make out in space?"

It was a little after seven on Friday night. We were both in HQ, and were going to do something together. We just didn't know exactly what.

"Well... That's not the whole reason. I mean, there are stars. We could orbit the Earth. That's romantic. Right? Honestly, I'd want to go even if you weren't here just to do it."

She raised an eyebrow.

The great thing about superheroes dating superheroes is that you don't have to do any of the "hiding your secret identity" stuff, and running around corners to change into costume, and pretend to be a coward or something.

The bad thing is that you might end up dating someone whose sense of hearing is so good she can hear your heartbeat speed up when you shade the truth, or smell your scent change when you become nervous. Or aroused.

In short, lying was useless.

Still, I wasn't inviting her along to make out. Flying into space would be the fulfillment of a dream, and having the two of us to do it together would be better. We could watch a movie or go out for coffee any time, but this was different. Tonight, we could join the few people who had ever left Earth's gravity well. That was incredible.

I couldn't deny though, that part of me hoped we'd do more than talk.

"And besides," I said, "if we did want some privacy, who could bother us?"

She gave a laugh, and then became a little more serious. "Is it safe?"

"I asked Isaac a couple days ago, and he said they haven't had problems lately."