given birth to an absolute angel, and fallen in love with a prince, only soothed her with understanding.
Being without her mate was hard. It was not a punishment she would wish on anyone. There were three more months aboard this ship waiting for her before she would be united with her mate. Then all would finally be right in the world. But she didn’t know if she could last that long.
6
S ophia focused on her sweet new baby Hectosh. For a month, she spent all of her time with her baby in her chambers. She'd never been so happy in all her life. Having a baby awakened a part of her that she'd never known existed before he'd arrived. She watched Hectosh’s beautiful little face. When his eyes lit up at the sight and smell of his mother, it was the most satisfying experience Sophia has ever had.
In those first few weeks with her baby, she forgot all about why she had come into space in the first place. She forgot about her desire to pilot the ship and she forgot about her disappointment at not being accepted into the Academy. But as the weeks rolled by aboard the ship, her old self slowly began to return. She loved her son more than anything in the world, but Sophia could never really forget her truest passion in life.
So one day, when Hectosh was a month old, she left him with the medic for just a little while. She wandered down the wide, brightly lit hallways of the bride ship Breaking Dawn and arrived at the cockpit to chat with the pilot.
“I haven't seen you in a while,” he said, greeting her with a cheerful, Draconian grin.
“I've been busy,” she chuckled. I do have a newborn.”
“Oh,” he said with a chuckle. “Excuses, excuses.”
Sophia sat down next to the pilot and began inspecting his instruments and settings as she gazed at the dashboard. She then looked out the front window of the ship.
She examined the three-dimensional holographic map that showed their current star system and position in relation to the celestial bodies around them.
“So we are still two months out from Galaton,” Sophia observed.
“That's right,” he said.
“Then it seems like now would be an excellent time to allow me to pilot the ship,” she said.
“I know I told you maybe after the baby was born, but I still don't know if it's a good idea.”
“Of course it's a good idea. We've known each other for almost a year now, and in all this time you have taught me absolutely everything I need to know about how to fly. If you don't trust me now, then you must not trust yourself,” she said, raising an eyebrow at him with a smirk on her face.
He shot her a glance and then smiled, letting his shoulders relax.
“Perhaps you're right,” he said. “I can let you fly the ship, but I don't want you to ever tell anyone about it.”
“Why would I do that?” she said.
“All right then,” he said, “I'm transferring controls over to you.”
The pilot flipped a few switches and Sophia saw that the pilot controls had been moved to the copilot. She ran her hand over the holographic screen and then gripped the steering wheel of the ship. It allowed for three-dimensional control of the vessel.
For the most part, the ship was on autopilot, and only needed to be manually steered to avoid asteroids and the like. The pilot allowed Sophia to maneuver the ship around a small cluster of flying debris, and then move the ship back on course. She spent the next two hours working with the pilot in the cockpit until the medic contacted her over the ship board holocom.
“Sophia, the baby needs you,” the medic said through her wrist holocom.
“Duty calls,” she said, transferring control of the ship back to the pilot. “Thanks for letting me do that. It felt really good.”
“Just don't tell anyone, Sophia. I could lose my job.”
Sophia rose from the copilot’s chair and hurried out of the cockpit, down the hallway, and back to her suite. When she stepped inside, she found the medic and little Hectosh in her chambers.
Suzanne Woods Fisher, Mary Ann Kinsinger