First Lieutenant Cooper skipped along the bare corridor, having fun in Phobos station's extremely low gravity. 'It's not every day that I get to spend time on a captured asteroid,' she thought as she made her way towards the station commander's office.

On her way, she passed a nearby portal, and she took a moment to savor the amazing scene before her. There sat the red planet in all of its glory. From Phobos' low orbit, Mars dominated the sky. Cooper couldn't help but marvel at the planet below her. 'It's almost unreal," Cooper thought as she pulled herself away from the spectacular scenery. 'I never thought that I would make it to Mars as young as I currently am. I thought I would be in my late twenties at the earliest before I got to see it up close. This is a dream come true.'

Phobos base was originally a civilian base, but that was no longer true. Once they completed the Mars Alpha Station, the military had claimed Phobos as their own. After all, Mars Alpha was a lot less spartan than Phobos was. That alone was enough to cause the civilians to go elsewhere.

'Besides, when compared to the interior of a military Alliance ship, the facilities here are actually quite spacious,' she thought as she literally bounced down the wide hallway.

Upon arriving at her destination, she rang the chime asking for entry into the commodore's rooms.

"Enter," said a voice through the intercom built into the wall.

Cooper realized she was the last of the trainees to arrive upon entering the room. 'I shouldn't have looked out the window for so long.' she thought as she went over and stood next to Simmons in front of Commodore Babbage's desk.

She knew Simmons very well. Back during their time at the academy, they had been both friends and rivals for the top of the class. The fact that they graduated at the top of their class was because of that fact. They had also graduated with the highest averages in the academy's history. That was also why they were the two candidates from the Empire of Britania.

Simmons was a tall and muscular man with dark brown hair. His ice-blue eyes set inside of his handsome face meant he had no shortage of female companions over the years.

Next to Simmons stood Kobayoshi and Watanabe the two candidates from the Empire of Nippon. Both of them had black hair, brown eyes, and were on the shorter side of normal. Kobayoshi was the male candidate whilst Watanabe was female with long, flowing hair.

Finally, the two blonde officers, Johnson and Anderson, were from the Greater United States of the America. Both Johnson, the male, and Anderson the female candidate had blue eyes. Both were also on the tall side of normal.

Commodore Babbage looked quite distinguished behind his desk. He had graying hair that was once dark brown and piercing hazel eyes. He also had the chiseled good looks of a Hollywood actor.

"I know that all of you are awaiting news of your next assignment since your planned tour on the Sendai was cut short because of serious mechanical issues," the commodore began. "Today, I have been authorized to reveal your next ship to you."

'Yes!' Cooper thought with a smile. 'The past month on Phobos has seemed like an eternity...'

"Your new berth will be on the USS Lexington," the older man revealed. "She is an older ship, but she has had over a decade of service under her belt. Therefore, you shouldn't have to worry about a faulty drive system."

The Sendai was one of the newest ships in the Alliance fleet and had been on her maiden voyage with the candidates aboard. Unfortunately, a problem had cropped up when they were over halfway to their destination. That was when all but one main thrusters had gone offline. That effectively crippled the ship until they could make it back to port for repairs.

Due to time constraints on the Hope project, they had loaded the six candidates onto the Sendai's emergency skiff and sent them back to Mars. Thus, while the six officers had already made it to Phobos, the Sendai was only a fifth of the way back. After all, the lower the mass of a ship, the faster the ships could accelerate while using the same amount of propellant.

"We are going to send you out on one of our available skiffs and you will rendezvous with the Lexington where you will begin your assignment. The voyage time should be roughly three weeks under maximum thrust." Babbage said. "The skiff will then partially refuel, using reaction mass from the Lexington, and then will be sent back here to Phobos on a very lengthy voyage."

After a pause to let the information sink in, the commodore asked, "Are there any questions?"

---

Later that day, Cooper went searching for information about the Lexington. Just as Babbage had indicated, the ship class that the Lexington belonged to were the workhorses of the Greater United States' fleet. They were so durable, in fact, that only one of the seven Explorer class ships had been scrapped. The rest had continued exploring the Solar System over the past fifty years since they were first commissioned. Of course, all the ships had undergone several refits over the years.

"I wonder what type of armaments the Explorer ships have," she murmured to herself as she tried to pull that information up. "Access denied, huh?"

She spent the next hour or so trying to look up the information. However, no matter how she tried she couldn't access the data she wanted. "Come on, this is information that I need to know."

Finally, she gave up. It was chow time, so she went down to the mess hall. There she ran into Simmons. After explaining things to him over their meal, he suggested we go talk to the Commodore.

Ten minutes later the duo stood before the door to the base commander's office once again. Simmons rang the chime and the office door opened almost immediately.

The two junior officers stepped inside and Commodore Babbage asked, "How may I help you?"

"Sir," Simmons began, "Cooper and I have run into a bit of a roadblock while looking up the specs for the Explorer class ships."

"Cooper, is this true?"

"Yes sir," Cooper responded. "I was looking up the armaments and plans for the Lexington to help familiarize myself with it only to find that they locked me out of the files that I needed."

"I see," said the commodore. "Well, I will let you both in on a secret. I locked all the candidates out of the system."

"Why?" Simmons inquired.

"It was a test to see who would show up to request access to those files," Babbage exclaimed. "Only the most diligent officers would look up this type of information on the same day that we assigned them to a new ship."

"So it was a test?" Cooper asked.

"Yes, it was, and the two of you just passed with flying colors."

"Thank you sir," Simmons said with no hesitation. "I am glad that we met your standards."

"Here, let me give you two the access you required," Babbage said as he typed away on his keyboard. "There, you are both allowed to view everything that we have on the Explorer class of ships, and the Lexington in particular."

"Thank you sir," Cooper said. Then she gave him a deep Nipponese style bow. Simmons quickly followed suit and bowed to their superior.

"Now, if you two need nothing else, I ask that you leave. I have a base to run, after all."

---