All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Second Edition
A Plain Jane
Book One
Copyright © 2012 Odette C. Bell
Cover art stock photos licensed from Depositphotos.
www.odettecbell.com
A Plain Jane
Book One
What if you had lived your whole life thinking you were normal? No, worse than normal – plain? What would happen if one of the most highly-trained and vicious assassins in the galaxy attacked you one warm summer's night? What would happen if you were thrust into an adventure with the galaxy's greatest heroic heart-throb? What would happen if a mysterious and ancient race appeared with one desire – to kill you? What would you do?
Jane grew up knowing one thing: she's nothing but normal. But then one little run-in with an assassin robot threatens to destroy everything she thought she knew about herself. Soon she finds herself with none other than Lucas Stone, the galaxy's number one pin up and hero. And together the two of them have to find out exactly who Jane is and what's after her before the galaxy is plunged into war.
Chapter 1
Jane sat on the window ledge, gazing toward the night sky. She watched the stars high above as they punctuated the darkness. She saw them twinkle and light up the land below.
She didn’t shift her gaze once. Though she had work to do, she didn’t move. She simply sat there staring up at those stars. She often did so, almost every single night. The stars never changed, and neither did she.
They called her plain Jane. From her appearance, to her job, to her leisure time, the name suited her well. There was no excitement in her life, there was no growth, there wasn’t stimulation or challenge – just the same old thing, day in and day out.
Yet there was a contradiction in Jane: while every night she did nothing but sit there gazing at the heavens, her mind moved. In her fantasies, she would travel the Galaxy. She would do the things she never did in real life.
Every single night her imagination moved, it grew. It created the most fantastic, wondrous adventures. So plain Jane closed her eyes, a small smile spreading across her lips as she opened up the doors of her imagination.
…
Jane sat at her desk, staring down at the console in front of her. Blue and green holographic images moved around above the console display panel. She stared at them glumly, her head propped on one hand. She’d been staring at the same damn images for the past hour, and now her eyes were losing focus.
Around Jane, her co-workers chatted, laughed, and socialized. Mandy – a beautiful blue-skinned Hoya who sat alongside Jane – kept chortling as she talked loudly about everything other than work.
“You should have seen what he said to those new recruits.” She laughed, her lips spreading wide as her large eyes sparkled.
“Well, I suppose the rookies weren’t expecting a lesson from a professional,” noted Tarta. He came from an insect-like race, and he spread his pincers as he chuckled wildly.
Jane knew who they were talking about, because there was only one person they ever talked about: Lucas Stone. The shining star of the Security Division of the Galactic Force. When he’d been a student, he thwarted an attack on the Galactic Union Senate. That same rookie had once single-handedly saved an entire battle cruiser by heroically plugging an engine leak with his own armor. He was also the man who’d practically rewritten the book on security procedures throughout the Galactic Force. Most importantly, he was the guy everybody knew would be picked to lead the new expedition to the outer rim. It felt like when it came to the Galactic Force, he was the only one anybody ever talked about or acknowledged. The legendary Lucas Stone.
As for Jane – she was just plain. She was also getting bored; the strain of focusing so hard was giving her a headache.
“I heard from one of the med students that they’re just going to give the new expedition to him. They’re going to let him pick whatever ship he wants and whatever crew he wants, too,” Mandy continued, her long tail flicking around as she gesticulated with it.
Tarta nodded soberly. “Of course, that makes perfect sense. Lucas is the best we’ve got. He’ll know how to make that mission a success.”
Jane fought against the urge to close her eyes but couldn’t quite manage it. Everything was so boring. People always accused her of being boring. Fair enough, she hadn’t gone out last night to see Lucas Stone give an impromptu lesson to a couple of first-year security students on how to save the Galaxy. She’d stayed at home. Yet while she had, her mind hadn’t. Jane had traveled the Galaxy. She’d pretended she was an ambassador, someone special, someone unique, someone with incredible power, someone who a crafty and malevolent ancient race had wanted to kidnap. Then, in the nick of time, a daring hero had come to her rescue. Last night, her hero had been a xenobiologist – capable, kind, and willing to go against an entire squadron of robots to save her and the Galaxy.
Now she was here again – back at work. While she was fighting it, her mind was wandering. She’d heard about the dreams that humans had. She’d even learned about something called day-dreaming. Well, Jane now knew she was a day-dreamer. A serious, serious day-dreamer. It was no doubt a quirk of her alien DNA.
She tried to open her eyes but found herself closing them languidly.
She could feel her cheek bunch against her hand, her mouth drooping open as her head nodded forward. Her muscles relaxed as her body succumbed to the boredom and transported her to dreamland….
Just as her head nodded forward again, someone jabbed her hard in the back.
She spluttered, making a choking, startled noise halfway between a hiccup and a yelp.
“Wake up, Plain Jane.” Mandy whipped her tail in front of Jane’s face, the same tail that had poked Jane in the first place. “We’ve got company.”
Jane blinked as she looked up to the door on the other side of the room. It was still hard to focus, but….
Wow.
Talk of the devil.
It was Lucas Stone.
He was standing just inside the doorway, one of his trademark smiles on his trademark face. The head of the Administrative Division was standing next to him.
It was such a surreal scene that Jane thought she’d wandered off into a daydream, after all. All her colleagues were on their feet, eyes sparkling. How wonderful it was for a living legend to pop in before morning break to parley with them.
But why exactly was Mr. Universe taking time off from saving the Galaxy to come see the admin staff?
Was he just walking into the room so he could get a glass of water from the sustenance terminal on the other side? Or did he like to play this kind of game all over the city? Occasionally pop into random offices, workstations, schools even, flash that amazing smile of his then wait for his adoring fans to cheer?
Jane blinked but remained seated, even though most of her colleagues had been standing from the moment he appeared in the doorway. It was a peculiar thing, but usually she wasn’t all that cynical. Plain, yes, boring, yes, but cynical, no. She was the kind of person who preferred to see the better side of somebody, and who didn’t like to say anything unless it was positive. Which was another thing her colleagues, especially Mandy, liked to point out: Jane was innocent. She wasn’t interesting in any way and didn’t have any depth to her opinions because she hadn’t been anywhere or done anything or been challenged by anyone or any event.
Then there was Lucas Stone. When it came to Jane, he was different – he got on her nerves. Perhaps it was the fact that whenever anybody concluded she was boring, they would always contrast her with Lucas. Look at Lucas Stone, they would say, how interest
ing, how handsome, how accomplished. He saves the world on Tuesday, teaches the next generation on Wednesday, and woos the daughter of Senator Cooper on Thursday. A busy boy, a perfect boy, an immensely interesting boy. Then there was Jane, who went home every single night and stared up at exactly the same night sky and dreamed about adventures but never, of course, had one.
So while it went against most of her personality, she had a bone to pick with Mr. Stone. Though she’d only met him once and was sure he wouldn’t remember it. She’d run into him on his first day at the Galactic Force. It had been her first day as well, but unlike Lucas, she hadn’t gone on to rule the universe. How had they met, again? Had she done something clumsy, stupid, and incredibly embarrassing in front of him? Had she fallen from one of the transports only to be caught by Lucas at the last moment? Had she tripped over one of the cleaning robots only to smack right into his chest? Had she slipped in the mud? Nope, because she was plain Jane. Those were the types of amusing if not embarrassing things that happened to interesting people. He’d simply asked for directions.
Nothing amazing, nothing spectacularly klutzy.
They’d crossed paths several times in the corridors over the years, and each time Lucas would have a different colored stripe down the arms of his armor or uniform, indicating that once again he’d been promoted or had acquired some new astounding skill. A couple of times he’d asked what the time was or where the nearest sustenance receptacle was. On another occasion, he’d even asked her where the bathroom was. That was the total sum of their interactions. Jane had no question in her mind that Lucas didn’t even know who she was. Yet she didn’t mind one bit. She was sick of being compared to the best the Galaxy had to offer.
“Don’t do anything embarrassing,” Mandy hissed from her side.
While her colleague’s tone was terse, Jane didn’t pay any attention to it; when it came to rationalizing or making excuses for other people’s behavior, she was well trained. Unless it came to Lucas Stone, that was.
Jane waited silently for whatever would happen to hurry up so she could return to her task – trying not to daydream at her desk while avoiding work.
The general manager clapped his hands together, his green scaly flesh glinting under the light. “I have some exciting news.” He smiled broadly. Though he was from a race who didn’t usually show emotion through facial movements – preferring instead to communicate solely with their hands – even he had to crack a grin around Lucas Stone. “Now, Lucas here needs no introduction.”
There was a smattering of overjoyed laughter, a smattering that Jane didn’t join in with.
“I have some incredible news,” the general manager continued, his green skin turning purple, indicating his uncontrollable excitement, “but perhaps I should now step aside to let the man of the moment fill you in.”
The general manager bowed out as he gestured for Lucas to step forward.
Lucas stood there, smiling heartily, his teeth practically glittering. He didn’t have his armor on today; he was in his dress uniform. As with everything he wore, he looked damn near perfect in it. Or at least some version of perfect – a version of perfect that Jane didn’t share. While she went home every single night and dreamed up romantic fantasies for herself, the likes of Lucas Stone were never included in them. Her romantic leads weren’t anything like Lucas; they were kind, bashful, capable but dignified. They had flaws, fears, and limitations, with a great sense of humor added in. And most importantly, they always displayed modesty and humility. In other words, they were light years away from Mr. Universe, Lucas Stone.
Still smiling, Jane watched Lucas take a big breath, his chest puffing out against the white, black, and gold of his dress uniform. “I’m sure you have all heard about the upcoming mission to the outer rim.” He kept on smiling, but now there was a glint in his eye, a glint that appeared to suggest there was nothing more important in the world to him. “I don’t need to tell you that no Galactic ship has traveled through Hell’s Gate for almost one hundred years. The scientific and technological discoveries to be made could redefine our generation and pave the way for a brighter future for all the races of the Galaxy.”
Everyone in the room gave a smattering of applause. Of course they’d all heard about the mission, and everyone knew that nobody had passed through Hell’s Gate in over one hundred years.
“If we pull this mission off, we will be the first people to cross beyond the Pillars and to come back again. The scientific data we can gather by studying the unique singularities throughout Hell’s Gate could advance our current understanding of quantum field theory by decades….”
Jane started to tune out. She could still hear Lucas speaking, but she began to pay less attention to him. She let her gaze wander to her left until it settled on the view outside of the huge flex windows. She could see the other buildings of the Galactic Force, see the rest of the city stretching out behind and especially the sky above. She loved the sky; it was always so big and inviting and, quite frankly, non-judgmental. The sky didn’t care that Jane was boring. The sky hadn’t once called her plain.
As always happened when Jane started to get distracted by the view, her mind began to wander. She liked to plan her night-time fantasies in advance. Right now, she imagined a dignified, capable, handsome, accomplished galactic adventurer, someone a bit like Lucas Stone but without his personality. Someone who didn’t command the limelight but shunned it. Someone who wouldn’t ever consider her plain, because they wouldn’t ever consider anyone plain. They would look beyond appearances – they would see the beautiful dynamism and creativity inherent in everything. Perhaps he would have sandy-blond hair. Perhaps he would be half human and half Elurian, his eyes a glowing electric blue. But most of all, he wouldn’t judge her.
It was while Jane was engaged in her daydream, twisting her long mousy-brown hair around her fingers, that she missed something important.
It was also when Mandy whipped out her tail, poking Jane hard in the back.
Jane gave a splutter, falling forward right into the holographic display of her terminal.
Of course everyone turned to look at her, because the sound she’d made was a loud, awkward, and disrespectful noise considering present company.
Rather than stop to admonish her in front of her colleagues, Lucas didn’t appear to notice. He might have glanced her way once, but that was it.
In fact, he seemed to be finished. Everyone was now back up on their feet, clapping.
Jane had no idea what they were clapping about as she’d fazed out through the entire thing only to tune back in from a tail poking her in the back.
He gave a bow, turning on his heel as he immediately left the room, leaving them in peace. Well, not peace, because the second he left was the second the entire room erupted in happy chatter.
Mandy turned to Tarta, her face alight with interest. “By the Lord of Yarla, can you believe it?”
Tarta nodded his head. “I have never been wrong about that man; he has, as the humans say, a head on his shoulders.”
Jane wanted to point out she had a head on her shoulders too – having such a feature didn’t mean a great deal.
She turned back to her holo terminal to get on with her work. Though she didn’t want to know what Lucas had said, she couldn’t help from overhearing everyone in the room. You would think Lucas had come in offering everybody signed autographs or a personal dinner with him that night. Nope, it was nowhere near that grand. He hadn’t offered anybody a role in the team for his upcoming mission, but he had said that their division would be involved in the administrative side of putting the team together from the best, most promising recruits and seniors at the Galactic Force. By the way everybody else was talking, you would’ve thought they’d all won the Galactic lottery – not been assigned extra work that they wouldn’t get paid anything more for. Ordinarily, Jane didn’t think too much about money. She didn’t gripe about how much she was paid, but for some reason, the thought that Lucas
Stone was trying to give them more work made her want a small moon in return and maybe even a large planet, too.
It was unusual for her to be in a bad mood because, as Mandy would point out, she was far too boring to have an emotional reaction as interesting as anger. Yet Jane wasn’t pleased at the moment. So she sat there, pursed her lips, and returned to her work. The administrative unit she worked for was responsible for the data collection, consolidation, and maintenance of low-security data that went on throughout the Galactic Force. It was a simple job and didn’t require a great deal of skill or training, but Jane liked to think she was at least okay at it, if that was something worthy to admit on the same day the great Lucas Stone had popped his head through the door.
The best and the brightest, that was what Lucas wanted on his trip. Fair enough, everyone always wanted the best and brightest; nobody ever wanted the slightly okay and the moderately interesting. Well, nobody but Jane, that was.
…
Jane worked until late that night. With the hullabaloo over Stone’s visit, everyone else had been far too busy talking about his heroic mission to bother getting any more work done. So Jane, being Jane, had offered to stay late and do what was needed. She always liked working late, anyway; if she had her way, she would work alone. It wasn’t because she shunned human or alien company. Jane wasn’t antisocial; she was just awkward, quiet, and apparently far too innocent. Whenever she espoused her “sugar-coated, candy-style views of the universe,” Mandy or others always told her that she didn’t know what she was talking about. That was another reason why Jane never bothered to go out. Whenever people started to talk about the current state of the Galactic Senate, as they always did, she would put forth her happy, optimistic views only to be shot down and told she was thinking like a child.
Yet she didn’t hate her co-workers, far from it; Jane held them in high esteem and valued each and every one of them. She just knew she was different. Different in a way that everybody else would assume made her ordinary, but she knew it went beyond that. She knew there was more to her, and that if people bothered, if they tried, if they suspended their views and judgments for long enough to get to know her, they would see what was on the inside. All the adventures, all the romance, all the life.
Jane knew she didn’t fit in. She knew that she’d never fitted in. Even as a child, she’d been different. After all, she wasn’t a human, but she had grown up on Earth. Not that you could tell without a thorough physical exam, but Jane was technically an alien. She wasn’t an interesting alien – she wasn’t like an Elurian mercenary or a Hirean sprinter, or anything like that. Jane’s alien DNA was, fittingly, quite plain. She had the full appearance of a human, but she wasn’t quite as strong, quick, or attractive. As one of her colleagues had once joked, Jane managed to do human duller than the humans did. She didn’t have any pincers, any tails, no third eye, no incredible strength and agility, nothing to set her aside from the crowd. Which pretty much summed up Jane perfectly: there wasn’t a thing in her history, schooling, ability, or her appearance that could set her apart from the crowd. All her features did the opposite – they embedded her so far into the realm of normalcy that she became just too normal. So normal, in fact, that there was zero point in talking to her or looking her way.
She planned to work for at least the next two hours and then take the late transport back home. She would have all tomorrow morning off because of the overtime, so she could spend most of the night sitting up on the window ledge gazing at the stars. One peculiarity about Jane’s physiology, and possibly the most interesting thing about her, was that she didn’t sleep. To a normal person, that would seem like an unbelievable feat and would pave the way for an enormous increase in productivity, but it didn’t have that effect on Jane. She spent the time when everyone else would be sleeping staring at the sky and imagining. She knew it was a regenerative process for her body – she always got cranky if she wasn’t given time to daydream – yet she didn’t lose consciousness while she did it. It was as if her brain never wanted to lose control of her body.
It was when Jane had almost finished her work and was getting ready to leave that the building shook. It was slight at first, and she hardly noticed it. But when the Central Intelligence – an interconnected computer system that ran throughout the entire Galactic Force – began to blare with a warning, she realized something serious was up.
“Ci, what’s going on?” she asked the computer. She always called it Ci for short – its full title being Centralized Intelligence Unit, but Ci being far shorter and far cuter. That was another thing that set Jane apart – though Ci was just a computer, Jane liked to treat her as something more. Yes, she was an artificial intelligence, just a system of computer banks and interconnecting panels; she didn’t have real intelligence or emotions, and in fact, one could say “she” wasn’t real at all. But Jane liked to think she should treat everything – from a tree, to a human, to an alien, to a rock – exactly the same. With perfect dignity. Well, maybe everything except stones. Lucas Stones to be more specific.
“Depressurization has occurred in containment chamber one,” Ci replied, her synthesized voice expressing no emotion.
While technically Ci didn’t show any outward feeling, Jane liked to think there was a certain warm efficiency about her.
“Thank you, Ci. Is it serious?” Jane asked.
“Containment has been re-established. Correct personnel have been notified. There is no risk to life or property,” Ci advised, voice maintaining an even tone.
“Thank you, Ci,” Jane said with a sigh. Which was a little silly, really, because she shouldn’t be sighing at the pleasant fact the building and everybody in it were fine. Perhaps a deeply buried, mutinous part of her personality had wanted something more exciting, something more adventurous for a Monday night. Jane buried that voice, said good night to Ci, and walked out of the office.
It was when she was walking across the campus to one of the transport hubs that the thing attacked her. She had no warning, she had nowhere to run, and she had no chance.