Roze and Newt's Cosmic Quest

"Newt? It's time to eat. That soup you like is already in the microwave."

I heard High Commodore Roze calling me from downstairs. I was upstairs in my room just looking out the window at nothing. I didn't know why I had this stupid habit of just staring out the window for hours. Sometimes I even forgot what I was doing, but then a memory would pop up and I would remember that I was just looking at nothing.

"Newt?" she called again. "Are you okay?"

I turned from the window to look down at her. She was standing at the bottom of the stairs. Her brown hair fell around her face as she looked up at me with a worried expression. She wore her usual uniform with its black jacket and white shirt over black pants. Her jacket was unbuttoned and hanging loose over her shoulders, revealing her collar which held her rank insignia as High Commodore of the Fleet: three silver stars on a field of red. She usually wore it buttoned so that it was neat and tidy, but now it hung loosely and made her look tired.

The last few weeks had been very stressful for us both. It started when we got word that our last colony had been attacked by The Green Menace, an alien race who were known to attack without provocation or warning, so we had no idea when they *would* attack next. We spent those last weeks preparing for a defense, but never did we suspect that we would be at a disadvantage for such an attack.

"Yes," I replied as I turned back to look out the window again, "I'm fine."

After a moment of silence, I heard footsteps walking up the stairs behind me, then felt hand placed on my shoulder as High Commodore Roze sat down beside me. "It's okay Newt," she whispered, "we're going to be fine."

She sounded like she didn't believe herself though. But then again, neither did I believe her either.

We sat together in silence like that for a while longer until we heard the sound of something boiling inside my room's small kitchenette. Then there was a loud hiss before some steam escaped out through one of the vents in the ceiling as something began cooking in the microwave oven. My soup had finished heating; it always took exactly seven minutes to heat up to just right temperature after all.

"Oh!" exclaimed High Commodore Roze suddenly, "look! Look, Newt! Here comes another one!" She grabbed my arm tightly and pointed outside towards the star filled space beyond our windowsill where large white cloud-like shapes drifted past us like asteroids floating through some huge place full of rocks, only these weren't rocks - they were stars! Some were really bright with hundreds of little pinpricks of light around them; others were much fainter with only a few dots visible around them; and one was actually *full* - that is it wasn't a cloud shape but rather looked like a circle with each point touching each other into one perfect sphere - but not one dot could be seen on it because it shone so brightly it blinded us both if we stared too long at it! This last star was bigger than all the rest put together and gave off so much light that we couldn't see any more stars past it!