“Rosemary!” said Officer Howler as he shook her gently. “Rosemary!”

He laughed as she slowly came round with a gurgle.

“What are you doing?!” she screamed. “Get back to the cockpit! We’ll crash!”

“We won’t, we won’t!” he laughed, “we’re on auto-pilot.”

Such was Rosemary’s state of panic, he was forced to return to the steering console. She began to settle a little, but as soon as he expressed any possibility of him coming over to check on her she began to panic again.

“You can’t leave the cockpit, it’s suicide!” she insisted.

“It will be fine,” said Officer Howler, who knew 100% that it would be. “Have you ever been on a spaceship before?”

“Only once,” admitted Rosemary. “And they did have to drug me to get me on the ship. I was much better this time.”

“Oh,” said Officer Howler. He seriously wished he’d known about this before they had left. This was going to be a difficult, and patience-testing mission.

“It’s ok, Officer Howler,” said a voice from the back of the room. “I can help you.”

Officer Howler heard footsteps making his way into the cockpit, and he turned to see whose they were.

“Melissa! What are you doing here?”

“Hey,” replied Melissa sheepishly. “Please don’t tell anyone I am. Especially not Eric.”

Rosemary was pleased to see Melissa, she had been quite sweet to her following her shock at being teleported into the FOG offices for questioning.

“Of course we won’t my dear. It’s lovely to have you here.”

“It is,” agreed Officer Howler. He knew already that an extra pair of hands would be needed to help Rosemary deal with the many shocks she would get during this mission. “But why are you here?”

“To get away from Eric. He’s really creepy.”

No more needed to be said. Eric was creepy. Especially when drunk, which was most of the time, and Melissa was the unfortunately recipient of most of his attention.