A/N: This story is pure indulgence. I love spies. I love time travel. I love dinosaurs. I love robots. I love astronauts. I love romance. Expect to see them all in this story. Also expect short chapters for more frequent updates.

Chapter One.

I had to fight long and hard to get the position of narrator for this story. I’ll tell you that right off the bat. There are a lot of characters in this story, as you will soon find out, and it’s surprising to me how many of them actually thought they would make a decent narrator! Heck, even the short order chef from the dinner in chapter three thought he should narrate. He’s only in that one scene!

Well the point is, I won the battle. I talked everyone else down until I was the last man standing. My name is Javier Roambot, and I am an astronaut. I am a sailor of the stars, I am an explorer, an adventurer, a pioneer. And I am your narrator.

That said, I should like to begin the story with a few brief introductions. I was one of the few children who didn’t say “When I grow up I want to be an astronaut.” I always fancied becoming a dentist, because they always seemed to have an endless supply of sugarless gum (and I am quite a fan of gum.) My father was and astronaut, and my mother was an astronaut (well, she worked in the radio tower) and so if any kid had a shot at being an astronaut it was me. Well to keep things moving, I’ll skip the whole coming of age drama where I realized that there was more to life that gum and pulling out people’s teeth wasn’t as much of a picnic as it had first seemed, so I eventually did find myself settling into my parent’s footsteps. I’ve been working for Okay Air for seven years now. My father, once the champion astronaut, is now the Chief of Operations and my strongest supporter. His name is Daniel Roambot, but people call him Chief. I call him Dad. My Mom is Cynthia Roambot, and she too is still involved at Okay Air, but no longer as a radio girl. It’s hard to say exactly what mom’s official title is these days, but basically she’s there making sure that the entire operation doesn’t fall apart. And occasionally she still gets on the radio.

Okay Air has always been an exploratory operation, with missions ranging from exploration of the Crouton Galaxy to a closer range expedition to our moon. Always to take rock samples or radiation readings or some other boring stuff. Sometimes it’s as dull as pulling teeth. I’ve never been on any kind of exciting missions like cross galactic hostage rescues or intelligence gathering or worm hole wrangling. That kind of work is always left for EspionAir. We got the educational missions while they had all the fun. The EspionAir astronauts were your typical spies, arrogant, overpaid, and overrated. You’ll meet more of them later.

But we at Okay Air had one thing that EspionAir didn’t, and that was Agatha Hollows. She was on the junior staff at Okay Air, which basically meant she was a peon, a nobody, a coffee maker. But I was in love with her. I know I’m dragging out these introductions already, but I feel like I need to expound on how perfect Agatha is. She is fairly quiet, very meek, and I doubt most people at Okay Air even know she exists. But I certainly do. Because when that woman smiles it is the only thing I can see. I’ve been to some distant star systems in my days, I’ve seen some wild cosmic anomalies, but nothing I’ve ever seen shines brighter than Agatha when she smiles.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure if she felt the same about me, and I was too much of a ninny to tell her how I felt.

But I suppose that will do for introductions for now. At this point I had better start into the meat of our story, when I received an assignment like no other, an assignment worthy of the agents at EspionAir.

“You’re going to want to sit down for this,” my dad said to me, as I was standing in his office. I had been working down in the hangar when he called me in. I took a seat in the chair opposite his desk.

“Yeah?”

My dad scratched his head and tapped his finger against a manila envelope that was resting on his desk. “Son, I’ve just gotten word of an operative that is a bit… unlike anything we’ve dealt with before.”

My curiosity was piqued.

“There’s been a bit of a catastrophe over at EspionAir… two of their agents were out on a mission near the Yentik star system when they lost radio contact.”

“So?” I really didn’t have much of a soft spot for EspionAir agents.

My dad cleared his throat brusquely and continued tapping on the envelope. “So, EspionAir has arranged a rescue mission but unfortunately they fear their agents have drifted into an uncharted region of the galaxy.”

I shrugged, and said again, “So?”

Dad sighed loudly and rolled his eyes. “So they’ve contacted us. They want one of our agents to go along and serve as a kind of a guide, while they set out to find—“

“Oh lovely, so they want me to show them around the universe?” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm. “That will just be a delight, because you know how much I love those arrogant little…”

“Unfortunately for you,” my dad cut me off, “This is a direct order from the Governor. As you know, the government funds both Okay Air and EspionAir and so they can mix us up if they very well please. You’re just going to have to suck it up and work with their agents or else—“

“Yeah yeah, I know,” I cut my father off. I am lucky he is a patient man, because it was out of line for me to act in such a way to my superior officer, let alone my father. “Well how long is this mission going to take?”

Dad shrugged. “How ever long it takes to bring their agents back or confirm them as dead. That’s why they have you along, Jav. No one knows these galaxies quite like you do, you’ll speed things up,” he said with a wink and a twinkle in his eye.

I heaved a sigh and stood up.

“You’ll leave tomorrow. Be here by 8 for a debriefing,” he said.

As I stepped out of my fathers office I noticed her, crouched over in the hallway picking up a mess of papers. I rushed over to help her, but as I bent down to help her she jumped back and gasped.

“Agatha, I’m sorry!” I said, jumping to my feet.

Agatha’s face was bright pink. “Oh, hello Javier. I’m sorry, you just startled me.”

“What happened here?” I asked, gesturing to the papers that were littering the hallway.

Agatha looked down and it seemed her face got a little bit pinker. “Oh well… it was really clumsy of me, really. I was just, walking over here from the radio tower when I saw this—“

“JAVIER!” came a loud voice from further down the hall. Agatha and I turned to see another Okay Air agent marching through the hall with a giant grin on his face. It was Pierre Gordot. He was as wide as a football player and a good foot taller than me, and I am by no means a short man myself. Pierre was one of the bulkier astronauts I had ever known in my day, and it was a goofy enough sight on its own, but with that silly grin that he always wore it was almost too much to bear.

“Hello Pierre,” I said, glancing back at Agatha, who had slipped away to finish picking up the papers.

“I just heard about the rescue mission!” Pierre said loudly. If Pierre even knew the definition of quiet he certainly didn’t exercise it in his day to day speech.

“Yes, yes, it’s quite an… an ordeal,” I muttered.

“Well I’m going too!” Pierre boomed, his grin practically outstretching his face.

“You’re… what?” I asked, confused. Dad hadn’t said that I would be taking a partner.

“We just got word, the Governor wants two Okay Air agents so we can work around the clock! Anyway, I’m on my way in to talk to the Chief right now. We’ll catch up later, partner!”

I rolled my eyes. Pierre was a good guy, but there was only so much of him I could handle. By the time he was gone Agatha had managed to pick up the rest of the papers. She began to walk in the opposite direction. She would be out of sight soon, and if I didn’t see her tomorrow before we left on the mission I might not see her again for a long time, if we even made it back at all!

“Agatha!” I said, before my brain could tell me otherwise. I reached out and grabbed her arm, nearly causing her to drop her papers all over again.

Agatha looked back at me again, with a mix of puzzlement and surprise. Her face was so beautiful, with big blue eyes, a perfect little nose and soft pink cheeks, framed by dark hair that fell just past her chin.

I should have told her then that I loved her. That I saw her as more than a girl who files unimportant documents. That I wanted the first thing I saw upon my return to be her, followed closely by her warm embrace. Of course that is what I should have told her, but all I could think to say then, as I stared into her questioning blue eyes, was, “I think you… make wonderful coffee.”

And once again Agatha’s cheeks were pink, and I had to walk away before I embarrassed either of us any further. Besides, I had a mission to prepare for.