My radio alarm clock woke me up at 7 o'clock Earth’s meridian time with some orchestral classical music, to the great displeasure of the headache that I had developed.

“I drank way too much yesterday…” I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling, luckily I’d made the wallpaper dark-blue, so my automatic lighting didn’t fry my eyes. Sadly enough I couldn’t stay in bed because today was launch day and we had our launch ceremony in a couple of hours already. The Fleet Admiral and Earth’s Chancellor would both be present to see us off.

I got up and a quick shower later I put on a fresh uniform, making sure to attach all my medals and emblems, even having them slightly askew would reflect badly on the navy and since this entire deal was all broadcasted globally, I definitely didn’t want that to happen.

I’d just put on my last medal as someone knocked on my door.

“Commander, are you up already?” It was the voice of Eva.

“Yes, you can come in. Ellie, unlock the door, please.” The door lock opened with a click and Doctor Winter walked in.

“Good morning, Commander, how are you feeling?” She approached me as I was checking my uniform one last time in front of my mirror.

“Dreadful, to be honest, I have a killer headache.”

“At least you look a bit better off than our Gunnery Sergeant.” Doctor Winter grabbed me by my shoulder and turned me towards her so she could inspect my uniform. “Looks good to me.” Before she fished something out of her jacket, it was a little yellow pill. “Here, take this, it should help with the headache.”

“Thank you.” I smiled and took the pill from her with my gloved hand, and walked into my en-suite bathroom.

“Did you take your other pills already?” Doc stayed behind in the other room, giving me a bit of privacy.

“Not yet.” I opened the cabinet and took out a couple of pill bottles and filled a glass with water.

“It’s important to keep taking them.”

“I know.” I put five pills in the palm of my hand, including the yellow one Eva just gave me, and put them in my mouth, flushing them down with my water. “Uhm, the grey ones are almost out.”

“Do you still have a couple?”

“Three days worth.”

“Okay, I’ll synthesize you some more after we’ve launched.”

I put the pill bottles back in the cabinet and walked back into the main room.

“Is the XO already up?”

“I haven’t seen her yet. She might still be sleeping.”

“We should probably wake her then.” I opened the door for the Doctor and let her walk out before me. “Turn off the lights, please, Ellie.” The lights of my room went out and I closed the door.

“Why did you call her Ellie?” Doctor Winter asked.

“Why not? She needed a name.”

Doc shrugged. “We could have just kept calling her AI.”

We’d arrived at my XO’s room and I knocked on the door. “Hmm, I don’t know, that feels so impersonal, she’s part of the crew too. It’s easier to talk to her if she has a name.”

“I guess people on the bridge do interact with her more than I do.”

“You could talk to her as well, she’s wired throughout most of the ship. With a couple of exceptions.”

“What exceptions are those?”

“I can only interface with your rooms with express permissions. The Federation also decided not to have me present in mission-critical rooms to avoid me from taking over the ship if I went rogue.” A warm female voice came out of a couple of speakers above us, which made Doctor Winter jump a little.

“I-I didn’t know you could speak.”

I smiled. “Yeah, she’s a bit shy.”

“I prefer not to interject too much.” Ellie replied.

“I see.”

The door opened just as our conversation had finished.

“S-sorry for the wait. I was brushing my teeth.” My XO greeted us at the door with a salute, her breath did indeed smell minty fresh. She was already dressed in her dress uniform.

“At ease, LC, you don’t need to salute me all the time.” I did salute her back out of politeness, though. “Are you ready for the launch ceremony?”

She nervously dropped her salute. “I-I think I am…”

I looked at Doctor Winter.

She nodded. “She looks fine to me.”

“If the doctor says so, it must be true.” I smiled and waited for LC Moore to join us.

“J-just give me a second while I turn off my lights.” She disappeared inside for a moment before she joined us again and closed the door. “I-I’m ready.”

We all started walking towards the elevator that'd bring us down to the airlock. The walk towards it was pretty quiet until Doc decided to break the developing awkward silence by speaking to our XO.

“So, what do you think of the shark plushie our lovely Commander has bought you?”

I awaited her answer with a bit of curiosity.

“I-it was a nice gesture…” LC Moore replied with a bit of a blush on her face.

“I will buy you a nurse hat and armband for it too. Just a little present from me as well.”

“Ah! Thank you...”

“I’m happy you like it.” I smiled at her.

“Mhmm…” She stayed quiet for a couple of seconds before she started talking again. “Could I ask something about our rooms?”

I pressed the button to call the elevator to our level. “Sure.”

“Why are they so big? My room back on earth was smaller than the one I have now.”

“Didn’t they teach you this in space psychology class?” Eva asked as the elevator zoomed into place.

“I’m pretty sure that’s not a required class for us, doc.”

“Ah, I thought it was a general course.”

I shook my head and waited to reply a bit until we all had boarded the elevator. “It comes down to this. The rooms on this ship are bigger because the mission this ship is on will be considerably longer than the missions on other military vehicles. It’s better for crew morale to not be packed on top of each other like sardines.”

“It’s a way to avoid crew conflict.” Doctor Winter added. “The rooms for enlisted sailors are a bit smaller than those for NCO’s and CO’s, but not by a lot. We don’t want to have inter-crew conflict when we are light-years away from home.”

“Does that answer your question, LC?”

Luna nodded. “I-it does, thank you.”

“If you have any more questions about the ship, do not hesitate to ask.”

“I will…”

The elevator arrived at our destination.

“How did your inspection go, by the way?” I asked while we walked out.

“F-f-fine… n-nothing out of the ordinary.” She stuttered, she definitely looked quite on edge.

“Are you okay, Lieutenant-Commander? You look incredibly stressed.” The LC’s demeanour hadn’t escaped Doctor Winter, either.

“We can excuse you if you don’t want to be at the ceremony. They only really want me to be there.”

The LC thought for a second before shaking her head. “N-no, I’ll be fine…”

“Being reassigned on such a short notice must’ve been pretty hard. Please keep it easy, don’t overexert yourself and take breaks when you need to.” I patted her on the back, but that caused her to jump up a little. “Ah, sorry.”

“I can give you something to ease your nerves if you want to. It’s a mild calming agent.”

Luna took a moment to think and then nodded. “T-that… that’ll probably help…”

Eva smiled. “Alright, come with me to the medbay for a second. Commander, we will catch up with you later.”

“Okay.” I nodded as Doctor Winter took my XO with her into a different corridor. I walked on towards the airlock, where I found Ensign Yuigahama and Gunny waiting for me.

“Where’s the rest?” Gunny asked. He was nonchalantly leaning against the wall.

“Doc took the XO to the medbay to give her something to calm her nerves.”

“She’s still nervous?”

“Yeah… but she did say she liked the shark, so I’d call that progress.”

“Are you feeling alright yourself, Commander?” Yuki asked.

I nodded. “I had a headache, but that’s pretty much over by now. For the next time, though, stop me after two whiskeys… I hope we didn’t scare you off too much?”

Yuki violently shook her head. “No, not at all! I had a fun evening, ma’am.”

“Good.” I smiled and opened the airlock with my ID. “We can go on, the others will catch up later.

--A couple of hours later--

The Fleet Admiral and the Chancellor had just finished their speeches to the masses and handed me the stage.

“Good luck Commander.” Gunny patted my shoulder before I stood up from my seat.

“Thanks, I’ll need it…” I walked up to the podium and smiled at the crowd in front of me. The cameras from the navy’s press agency were pointed directly at me, and stage lighting was somewhat blinding, which did make me praise that little yellow pill doc had given me this morning.

After taking in my surroundings for a second, I started speaking. “Hello everyone, I will keep my speech short so as not to repeat what the Chancellor and Fleet Admiral Hanssen have said. Today, we embark on a mission which will permanently change the way us humans look at the galaxy. The galaxy that we’ve only been able to observe through the lenses of telescopes and through the data of our scanners. We will now be able to see it through our very own eyes.

Frontiers will be pushed, new opportunities will be discovered. Every new step will be a daunting one, and not without risk. But they are steps that, in my opinion, are fully worth taking.

We’ve had a lot to rebuild in these last couple of years, new relationships have been forged. And now we are finally ready to leap into the unknown, to navigate and find our way through the cold, harsh darkness of space. So, together, we can craft a warm, bright future for humanity.

Thank you for your attention.” I saluted the cameras and the crowd in front of me and left the stage under thunderous applause. Although I strongly believed in the ideals portrayed in my speech, there was another reason that pushed me forward to go ahead with this mission. A reason that, if it became public knowledge, would cause quite a ruckus.

I sighed and mumbled under my breath as I returned to my seat. “I’m so glad the PR part is over…”