A Plain Jane Book One Read Free Page B

easy despite the bulk
of his armor.
    ‘ Well it is still dead,’ Alex
replied at once.
    ‘ I just saw it move, Alex,’ Lucas
snapped, tone tense. He knew at some level that he should relax,
that Alex was right, and the containment field was back in place,
nothing was damaged, and nothing had really happened. However,
Lucas couldn't shake the feeling that this was important. Hell,
ever since he’d been given this command, he couldn't shake the
feeling that every single detail was the most important thing he
would ever do. He was hardly sleeping at night because he would
spend every minute of every day going over the troop manifest, the
personnel list, the supplies, even the programs that were to be
loaded on the computer. Every detail, every hour of every day: he
was already living his mission non-stop and it hadn't even started
yet.
    ‘ It could have simply been a
fluctuation in the power grid,’ Alex said, his voice calm and
reasonable.
    ‘ I swear I saw it move,’ Lucas
said again, this time through a sigh.
    ‘ And, I am pretty sure you
haven't slept in the past 48 hours,’ Alex raised an eyebrow as he
popped his head up from staring at the computer panel. ‘As I am
soon to be your Chief Medical Officer, let me tell you that’s not a
good look.’
    ‘ Soon to be Chief Medical Officer,
Alex. I think you will find I am fine and that I look great,’ Lucas
added with a chuckle.
    Alex put his hands up. ‘Far be
it from me to say that the great Lucas Stone doesn't look
fantastic. What exactly would the good Senator's daughter
say?’
    ‘ Don't bring that up again,’
Lucas warned, though his tone was playful.
    Perhaps Alex was right,
perhaps he was just tired and he’d imagined the whole thing.
Because now that Lucas had his armor on and he had access to the
on-board computer and his augmented senses, he couldn't deny that
there really was no evidence that the specimen had moved a
nanometer, let alone an inch.
    Lucas let out another
massive sigh, finally letting his armor melt back into his
implants.
    ‘ I'm telling you, you need to get
some rest,’ Alex waggled his finger. ‘Our friend can wait, after
all, he has waited for the past 100 years, I really don't think
he’s going to mind if you take the night off.’
    ‘ Right,’ Lucas
managed.
    ‘ Really, that is your comeback? I
thought the great Lucas Stone was meant to be charming and witty?
You call that witty?’ Alex smiled.
    ‘ Knock it off.’ Lucas put a hand
up to his brow and started to massage it, letting his eyes close
for a thankful, blissful moment. ‘I just don't want anything to go
wrong; this is probably the most important mission I will ever go
on.’
    Alex shrugged. ‘Why would
anything go wrong? You will have the best team, the best ship, and
the best leader: you.’
    Lucas rolled his eyes. He
knew Alex was just teasing him, but it was fair to say Lucas was
starting to get fed up with all the attention. Lieutenant Saber had
run up to him only last week to let him know that there was going
to be a documentary series on Lucas' life that was going to run on
all the major Galactic news channels before the mission. That, on
top of the fact that he’d learned only the month before that he had
a fan club with a subscription of over 1 million Galactic citizens.
It was all too much. In fact, Alex had told him yesterday that
there were some people on the moons of the Dia system that now
worshiped Lucas as a god.
    Lucas hated it. He had
never done this for the attention; despite what everybody liked to
believe, he hated attention. It had never been about that, it had
always been about something more. Though the Galactic media liked
to think he did it all because he was some kind of hero, they were
wrong. He just always found himself the only person around when
trouble erupted, and it always seemed to be up to him to solve it.
He didn't seek it out, he just found himself having to face it
alone. Prack, sometimes he thought he was cursed. The