A Plain Jane Book One

All characters in this publication
are fictitious, any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is
purely coincidental.

Second Edition

A Plain Jane

Book One

Copyright © 2012 Odette C.
Bell

Smashwords Edition

Cover art stock photos: Blue glowing
lines in space © sakkmesterke, Sword © choreograph, Asteroid impact
© I_g0rZh, and Scout Ship on Final Landing Approach © algolonline.
Licensed from Depositphotos.

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current and upcoming titles, please visit

www.odettecbell.com

A PLAIN JANE

BOOK ONE

Chapter 1

Jane sat on the window
ledge, gazing up towards 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 did not shift her gaze
once. Though she had work to do, she didn't move. She simply sat
there starring 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 quite fixedly gazing at the heavens, her mind moved. In her
fantasies, as she sat on that window ledge facing the night sky
above, 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 just above the console display
panel. She stared at them glumly, her head propped up on one hand.
She had 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 very 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 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, a rookie, he’d once
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 had 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. In fact, 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 seriously bored; the strain of focusing so hard was giving
her a headache.

‘
I heard from one of the med
students that they are 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
will 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 just so terribly 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 had not. 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
xeno biologist; capable, kind, willing to go up against an entire
squadron of robots in order to save her and the Galaxy.

But n
ow she was here again – back at work.
While she was fighting it, her mind was starting to wander. 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.

Again she valiantly tried
to open her eyes but found herself closing them
languidly.

She could feel her cheek
bunch up against her hand, her mouth being pulled open in a
probably highly unattractive manner as her head nodded forward
again, her muscles relaxing 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, probably the very same
tail that had poked Jane in the first place. ‘We've got
company.’

Jane blinked as her eyes 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 had accidentally wandered off into a
daydream after all. All of her colleagues were on their feet, eyes
sparkling. How absolutely 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 perhaps 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 heavily 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 what she had to say was positive. Which was
another thing her colleagues, especially Mandy, liked to point out:
Jane was too innocent. She wasn't interesting in any way and didn't
appear to have any depth to her opinions or beliefs 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 interesting, 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 technically met him once and was sure he wouldn’t
remember it. She’d run into him on his very first day at the
Galactic Force. It had been her first day as well, but unlike
Lucas, she had not gone on to rule the universe. Now 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 had 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, incredible skill. A couple of times he’d asked
what the time was, or perhaps 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 absolutely no question in her mind that Lucas did not even know
who she was. Yet she didn't mind one bit. She was sick of being
compared to the very best the Galaxy had to offer.

‘
Don't do anything embarrassing,’
Mandy hissed from her side.

While her colleague's tone
was curt, 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 of the
division suddenly clapped his hands together, his green scaly flesh
glinting under the light. ‘I have some very exciting news,’ he
smiled broadly. Though he was from a race who did not usually show
emotion through facial movements – preferring instead to
communicate solely with their hands – apparently even he had to
crack a grin around Lucas Stone. ‘Now, Lucas here needs no
introduction.’

There was a smattering of
almost overjoyed laughter in the room, a smattering that Jane did
not join in with.

‘
I have some incredible news,’
the general manager continued, his green skin now turning purple
indicating just how excited he was about it, ‘but perhaps I should
now step aside to let the man of the moment fill you
in.’

The general manager
actually bowed out as he gestured for Lucas to step
forward.