Welcome to the Journal of Now and Forever. This Journal is a collection of my Star Control and Star Control 2 fiction. Note: Some of this material is, by necessity, extrapolation from the slim information provided by canon sources.

New fiction is posted first at My Livejournal before it appears here. This story is in response to 15 Minute Ficlets' Challenge #31.

"So. You're Dean."

"Yep." Dean sat before the starbase commander. It worried him – just a little – that the commander didn't have his nametag sewn on his uniform, and it sounded for all the world as though he'd introduced himself as Commander Pain.

"And you say you want to be a spacer."

"That's right."

Pain looked at Dean across the scratched metal desk. Dean was willing to bet it had been part of the original looted equipment taken from Earth years ago. "Did you think about this at all before you came up here?"

"Um... no?" Honesty was probably best. "It was sort of a whim, sir. My job hasn't exactly been going anywhere, and I thought maybe I could take a look at this instead."

There was a long silence that, Dean thought, could mean anything.

At last Pain spoke, in a tone disapproving and stern, completely at odds with his youthful looks. Of course, Dean knew the odds were good that Pain was up to fifty years older than himself – Androsynth just didn't age after a while.

"Dean," Pain said, "what possible reasons would we have for making you a spacer?"

"Well, I –"

"You have no space experience."

"I can learn – "

"You're a gene splicer, and your clone series was designed expressly for that purpose. You've had steady work since we arrived on this planet. Speaking of work, did you forget to tell them that you were coming up here?"

"Er, yes." Well, this is going badly. Guess it was a waste of a trip here. Oh well. Dean found it didn't matter that much – but then, as he'd said, the whole trip was a whim.

"I don't think we could afford to have, as one of our crew, someone with such a lack of foresight as to forget to at least call in sick if they had other plans." Commander Pain stood. "This audience is ended."

Dean bit back the impulse to automatically respond Go forth in peace to love and serve the Lord - you never knew who, like Nick, would get upset about it – and stood as well. "Thanks for the interview, sir. I appreciate your time."

~ ~ ~

In the atrium, Dean had to wait two and a half hours for the next lander. The starbase was not meant for random travelers like himself, so he had little to do. After a while he dozed on a bench, not caring who saw him, half waking each time the public address called out a boarding call or arrival of a named ship. Landers weren't named, he'd found, so he just had to wait for the PA to announce one.

<"I>Final boarding call for Montana Sky at docking station 12. Arrival at docking station 1: Lander." Dean swung himself up to a sitting position. He felt a little hungry; he hadn't thought to bring anything, and since the lander had just arrived, he didn't have time to find a commissary. Now he'd have to wait until planetfall. He made his way to docking station 1 and waited for the arriving Androsynth to disembark. Looked like he might be the only one heading back down this time.

He was just wondering if he should wait for the next lander and go get something to eat anyway when one of the arriving crowd called out to him. "Dean!"

Dean looked, startled. "Nick? What are you doing here?"

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