Alex, Jack, and Ricky Lynn’s trip to the future continues as the trio learns more about their future selves. The cure for Randi Van Pelt’s mysterious illness is just as strange. Alex goes on her first mission as ‘Empress’ and finds that sometimes, they don’t end as expected. Which is more of a headache: the missions, friends, or family, and can the pharmaceutical companies keep up with the demand for aspirin?

The Potomac Inlet, Boston-Atlanta Metroplex, May 10^th 11:40 PM

Having completed their first mission as a ‘Search and Rescue’ unit, the crew of the Sand Dollar is given shore leave while their new base is completed. Things become even stranger when Alex and some members of her crew start to ‘develop’. What does the ‘future’ hold for Capt. Steinert?

Newly repurposed, the Sand Dollar sets out on her next mission, but does the strange Mahanilui plan more…’miraculous’ changes for Alex Steinert and her crew? Do the women of Kili Island know more about what is happening than they let on?

Capt. Steinert and her crew continue their first mission, but what does the future hold for the crew of the Sand Dollar as they make their way home to Pearl Harbor?

 
"Hey," I called, more softly this time, "I won't let you down, Clara, don't worry. I've done this before."

"Hey yourself," she called back, without looking up. "For today, you just need to be better than nothing.
I'm not thinking past the morning rush."

The life of a physicist can be troubling, at times, as the universe doesn't always play well with others.

But even the universe can't break a true promise.

A Quiet Strength
by Anon Allsop

-Part One-

-Eight-

Each day the young female spent in her sanctuary, high in the hills, brought new changes to her young life. She had managed to create traps, kill and eat several types of the small creatures that dwell within close proximity to her shelter. As best as she could figure, it had almost been a full month since she was deposited on this planet by her body's former owner. Even though she was stuck with this form, she didn't have to like it. Unused to the small frame and appendages that seemed to just be in the way, she could only tolerate everything that seemed to come with being a female.

She cringed each time she had to respond with the call of nature, it was so degrading and hard to accomplish being that she had spent most of her young life with quite a different outlook. She wasn't naive, she knew that at some point she would have a monthly visitor, all females do, and now that she was one... she could expect it any day now.

It had become much warmer now, the heat of the day would build until it almost grew uncomfortable in the animal hide that she was wearing. Often she would remove it and slip into the water to bathe, but only when the moon was out and never in daylight.

Tonight was one such night, it was warm and she had just finished eating half of a small creature that she had caught. As the stars high overhead began to dot the sky, she slowly slipped down to the stream below her shelter. There, she carefully made her way to the edge of the stream staying within the shadows.

Pulling off the skins she slipped quietly into the refreshing water. She felt along the underside of her arm where the skin had begun to chafe her tender flesh. The cool water helped to take some of the soreness away. As she slowly swam, she heard several voices.

In the not too distant future, evolution has taken humanity down a different path. In a society where gender is controlled with numbers, one young man finds that being evolved might not be such a good thing.

 
People paused and stared, but I must have looked terribly depressed,
because only one person dared to stop and talk. Her name was Jane —
no last name given. She was in her late fifties, about as old as I'd be if were still Fred.