He walked through their modest two-story house on the outskirts of suburbia. Justin had rented it for them the year before after they outgrew his small one-bedroom apartment. Abstract artwork lined the walls along with family photos, including pictures of Maggie as a baby. Ending up in the kitchen, he found both of them seated at the table, waiting on him.
“Sorry. Took me a few extra minutes to get my beard back in regulation,” he said with a chuckle as he slid into the empty seat with a plate of hot food in front of it.
“Don’t forget the mustache,” Michelle replied in reference to a private joke from when Justin was still on active duty. “It’s never in regulation.”
Justin laughed loudly, thinking of how many times he’d gotten ribbed for showing up at basic training with a mustache. “Touché.” He dug into his food.
Michelle cleared her throat. “You forgot to say grace.”
He glanced up with a sheepish expression on his face. “Uh, grace?”
“I’ll do it, Mommy,” Maggie interjected. She bowed her head. “Heavenly Father, thank you for the food we’re about to receive. Keep Daddy safe in space, and help me be a good girl for Mommy. Amen.”
“Amen!” Michelle chorused before taking a bite of her eggs.
Each plate had bacon, eggs, and toast on it. Justin’s had more than the rest of them, and he attacked it with gusto. “Thank you, ladies. I love a full breakfast.”
“I wonder what you’ll get for breakfast on… what’s the ship you’re on again?”
“CSV Zvika Greengold. It’s a thirty-year-old escort carrier from the end of the Saurian Wars. Too bad we can’t train on the new ships like a Saratoga-class carrier,” Justin groused. “That’d be so much fun.”
“Because being in space for weeks on end is fun,” Michelle teased. “No, thank you. I prefer keeping my legs planted on New Washington firma.”
“Uh-huh.”
By the time Justin polished off his food, both his wife and his daughter had finished their meal. He leaned back in his chair and stretched, yawning. “I think it’s time we get a move on.”
“You two go ahead, and I’ll catch up,” Michelle replied. “I’ve got a quick errand to run.”
Justin nodded. “Sounds like a plan. Maggie, you ready?”
“Ready, Daddy!” she shouted at the top of her lungs, flying off the chair, and ran so fast to the front door that she was almost a blur.
“I think that’s my cue.” Justin stood and kissed his wife on the top of her hair. “See you later, baby.”
Michelle smiled in a way that always made his heart melt. “I love you.”
He turned and grinned. “Love you too.”
With that, Justin made his way to the front door, which Maggie had thrown open. She was running toward one of the two helicars parked in front of their home.
Shaking his head with a smile, he walked to his vehicle and opened it by scanning his handprint. “Okay, munchkin. In the back you go, and fasten your seatbelt.”
Maggie opened the door and climbed in. The helicar sensors flagged her size and weight, and the integrated child-protection system came out from the back of the seat and locked into place an arm on each side of her. “When can I sit up front with you?”
She asked that question every time they took a ride together. “You’ve got a few years, dear. It’s safer for you in the back.”
While most Terran Coalition citizens would engage the autopilot and allow the automated planetary-flight-control system to fly their helicar, Justin preferred manual mode. He had to accept responsibility for any accidents through several pop-up screens in the vehicle's steering system, and once he had, he powered up the throttle. The helicar shot up into the sky, and he engaged maximum thrust to skim over the trees at two hundred kilometers per hour. It only took five minutes, including landing time, to get to the park. Once they arrived, he parked near the main entrance and got out, touching a button to allow Maggie to exit as he did.
She bounded out and jumped on the ground. “Daddy, pick me up!”
One of her seemingly favorite activities was to ride on Justin’s shoulders and see the world from two meters up. With a grin, he reached down and slung her on top of him. “Hold on tight, now.”
“Yes, Daddy.”
With Maggie holding on to his head, Justin walked through the tall, genetically engineered pines. They had been grown from seeds brought from Earth and adapted to the slight environmental differences of the planet’s soil. Through a freak of genetic splicing, they had purple needles instead of the usual dark green. They were a thing of beauty and what made the park unique.
Maggie reached out and grabbed a branch as they walked by, pulling some needles off. “Here, Daddy. Take one of these with you for luck,” she said, handing a needle down to him.
He took the offered leaf and put it in his pocket. “I’ll put it in the cockpit of my Sabre.”
“Will you take me for a ride one day so that I can see space too?”
“Someday, we’ll do a family trip together… but this next trip is my last one in the CDF.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ll have completed what I promised I would, Maggie.”
“You don’t want to keep flying? Mommy said you love flying through asteroid fields and acting like a hot dog.”
Justin laughed and set her down. They’d reached the hill she wanted to slide down. “I think she was saying I like to hotdog my fighter, and she’s right. There’s nothing like pulling turns around rocks, dodging ring particles, and putting on a show. One of these days, I’ll rent a shuttle and take us up into the Oort cloud around our solar system.”
“When I grow up, I want to be a pilot just like you!” Maggie
