Space Series Box Set

1. Operation a Go

ONE

OPERATION A GO

Jackie

Jackie Darling Lee is a badass name. My parents did well, bestowing a name that held the promise of fearlessness, hotness, and/or general awesomeness on me.

With a name like Jackie Darling Lee, I should be a movie star, a best-selling author of steamy erotic romance novels, or at the very least a Southern belle socialite who lives in a Georgian mansion and can rock a hat as well as those British royals.

But no, I am not any of these things. Not even close.

I’m a nerd. And not one of those ironic, rock and roll nerds who wear combat boots and Buddy Holly glasses, but a straight-up calculator-carrying nerd.

Okay, so I don’t actually carry a calculator around with me. I mean, honestly, there’s an app for that these days. I do have Buddy Holly glasses, but I had those way before they were trendy. I just got lucky. Even so, Buddy Holly glasses do not a cool person make.

I work at NASA, though, so that’s something. But don’t get too excited. I’m just a cubicle junky who pushes paper about. It’s not like I’m an astronaut or anything. Now that would be badass.

I’m on Orbit 2, the 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. shift in Mission Control Center.

MCC is always quiet, because we’re all on our headsets listening to a constant stream of commands and chatter.

I’m FOD, which means Flight Operations Directorate.

I’m responsible for all spacesuit- and spacewalking-related tasks, equipment and plans.

An Extra Vehicular Activities officer—aka EVA.

Not to be confused with the actual EVAs, or space walks, that the astronauts perform up in space.

It’s a mouthful, I know. NASA loves it some acronyms.

I began my scheduled EVA procedure review by calling up to the International Space Station.

A spacewalk is scheduled tomorrow for maintenance and to look into why one of the external multiplexer-demultiplexer data relay boxes (EXT-MDMs) has been failing.

EXTs are like the motherboards of the ISS.

However, there are two of these boxes, so no one is in panic mode—yet.

But NASA does not like operating without an active backup, and right now we are literally flying on the backup.

“Station, Houston, do you have any open questions prior to the EVA?”

“Houston, Station on 2. I think we’re good. We’ll take a look at the uplinks and final timeline again, but we should be good to go.”

“Station, Houston. All right, conference complete.”

That finishes my final run-through for the next day’s EVA with astronaut Julie Starr.

Yes, that is her name. And yes, she is most definitely living up to it.

Youngest female astronaut and Mission Specialist on the crew.

On top of that, all the men at NASA like to comment on her universal hotness.

Jules is rumored to be making the move to Commander soon and on top of all that, the PR department has coined her NASA’s Sweetheart.

You’d think it’d be fun to hate her, especially as she has my dream job, but Jules is just as badass personally as she is professionally.

And for some strange reason, she likes me.

When she is actually on Planet Earth, she makes it her mission to get me a social life.

A ring breaks through the chatter on my headset.

It takes me a minute to realize my console phone is ringing.

No one has ever called me on it before. I’m not like the other guys with spouses or children who check in.

And it isn’t my birthday or Christmas, so it can’t be my dad.

And even if it was, my dad is pretty strict about no phone calls at work, no matter the occasion. I get my work ethic from him, I guess.

Preparing to tell someone they dialed the wrong number, I pick up. “EVA console, Jackie speaking.”

“So are you going out?”

I blink at the computer screen in front of me a few times. “Jules?”

“Yes, Jules. Now come on, Jackie, you going out, or what?” Jules’ voice comes through clearly, but it still astounds me that she’s 270 miles up in space and moving over 17,000 miles per hour. And that she’s calling me.

“Jules, what are you doing calling me?” I glance around the room nervously. It isn’t against the rules to take personal calls, but I’ve never done it. “You should be prepping for tomorrow’s EVA.”

“Did you want me to ask you about your social life on the public loop?” She laughs like she could see me cringing from space.

I sigh. “No, I guess not. And no, I am not going out. I’m on call for the front room on your EVA tomorrow.” Besides the normal scheduled shifts, there are also people on call in case someone gets sick or for emergencies.

“You need to get laid.”

I bark out a laugh. Now everyone in Mission Control is looking at me. My face heats. Sean, the Flight Director, frowns. MCC is supposed to be quiet .

“Jeez, Jules. We’re a bit preoccupied down here,” I say quietly.

“You’re always preoccupied. You have your hand in so many projects and your mind is always so busy calculating or referencing some quantifiable thing that you’ll end up dying a virgin.”

The heat spreads down my neck. “For God’s sake, Jules, I’m not a virgin,” I whisper-mumble.

“Well, you could be. You haven’t gotten any since I’ve known you and I met you on your first day at NASA. How you can go so long, I do not know. You must have one hell of a vibrator.”

I’m thankful for the tall console in front of me that helps to hide my now raging blush. Honestly, I’ve started sweating.

Jules keeps going. “You read those cowboy romance novels, so I know you’re not dead down there.”

“Jules,” I grumble softly into the phone, “I spent my first year at NASA living with my head in reference books and manuals so I could be sitting here talking to you from Mission Control.”

“Don’t ‘Jules’ me,” she snaps. “What about now? You finished not one, but all three of your certifications in your first year. In record time, you’ve become a specialist in your field, even getting promoted. Now you’re sitting in MCC with underlings to do your bidding.”

“Underlings?” I laugh again, earning me another glare from Sean.

“Well, I’m not calling them minions, that’s just rude.”

“I didn’t?—”

“No more excuses, girl. I can’t take it knowing you’re down there, living in that shit apartment, doing nothing but reading about the filthy things you should be doing.”

“They aren’t filthy, and my apartment isn’t that bad. Besides, my lease is coming up. I’m thinking about buying a house.”

“Thinking about and doing are two different things.” She huffs out a breath. “Promise me you’ll go out tonight.”

I start envisioning the crowds, the heat of the room, the noise of a bar and suddenly my blush isn’t the only thing making me sweat.

“No Jules, I’m not going out. I’m on call.

It’s not like I can drink.” Or have anyone to go with me to make sure I don’t pass out from nerves or general social awkwardness.

“Jackie, what am I going to do with you? You’re gorgeous.

You have that wild blond hair that guys love.

You don’t even wear makeup and men flirt with you.

And when they are flirting with you, you don’t have a clue.

Or you turn fire engine red and stiff as the carbon fiber on our heat shield.

I mean, what the fuck, girl? Wait, you’re rolling your eyes at me, aren’t you? ”

I stop my eyes mid-roll. “Uh, no?”

“Ugh. I wasn’t going to do this, but you leave me no choice. You either go out tonight, or I’ll call Ian’s console, and I happen to know he’s working tonight, and tell him you told me you want to bone him. Hard.”

Mission Control Center is manned 24/7, with the days split up into three eight-hour shifts. People are always here providing support and more. So even though I’ve been lucky to get the standard 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. gig today, Ian, also an EVA specialist, will take over after my shift.

“Jules. You can’t keep doing this.” I turn my head quickly and catch a glimpse of Ian, behind the glass, in the back room, waiting to take over.

Ian is a co-worker Jules thinks is cute.

Jules likes to use him to blackmail me whenever the mood strikes her.

Ian happens to be hot and single. Seeing as when we do talk, it is about work, I don’t freeze and turn into mute nerd statue.

This makes Jules think we would be perfect together.

He is her only fodder really, as most of the engineers here are either married, in a relationship, or have been here since the Apollo days.

Last time, she blackmailed me into going out to a bar with her by threatening to send Ian flowers from me during one of our EVA meetings. And that is how I ended up drunk, telling Jules about my romance novel vice in the middle of a rowdy drunken bar crowd.

A request for a flight operations summary comes through on my headset.

“Gotta go, Jules, MCC calls.” Saved by the MCC bell, as it were.

“All right, Jackie, but what’s it going to be? You going out, or am I setting Ian on you?”

Or not. “Jules…” It doesn’t escape me how whiney I sound right now.

“Tick tock, sweetheart. I’ve got nothing but time to float and scheme until seventeen hundred Earth central time.”

The flight op request repeats in my ear. Louder.

“Fine! I’ll go out. But that’s all I’m promising.”

“That’ll do, hooker. That’ll do.”

Four hours later, cut to me, sitting alone in Big Texas Saloon, drinking a Coke, surrounded by a flurry of people who are dancing and having fun.

My barstool is in the perfect spot for people-watching – behind the railing that encloses the oval wooden dance floor and wedged beside a wooden post. Couples spin, belt buckles glisten and rhinestones sparkle.

A whole hour passes this way. Not a single person asks me to dance. This is a good thing as I don’t actually know how to dance. But still, it would’ve been nice to have had the option of turning someone down. Even one of the older dudes with the crazy big hats.