After the two lay on the ground and let the moments pass, Minzeek wiped her face clean and sat up.  She looked over at her girlfriend, placed her hand on her thigh and rubbed it up and down a little bit.   “Are you ok?” she asked.

“Yeah...I’m very good,” Etana replied slowly.  She lifted her leg and rested it up on Minzeek’s shoulder.

Minzeek kissed Etana’s leg.  “So what do you wanna do now?”

Etana thought about it.  “I don’t know…what do you wanna do?”

There was a little silence between them.  “You know,” Minzeek started, “whoever these people were, they’ll probably send more ships.”

Etana slid her leg off Minzeek’s shoulder and sat up.  “What?  Why would they do that?  We just destroyed a huge ship of theirs with probably a couple thousand beings!”

“Yeah, but if they’re as curious as we would be, they’ll send a team to find out what happened here.”

Another silence.  Minzeek shifted where she was sitting.  “We should buy this house.”

“Huh!?  Are you serious?”

“Well, you said it earlier, this house isn’t worth as much as your shoe collection.  I have money from my grandma saved away that we could use, and I’m sure my parents would be glad to help me move out of their place.  Plus, if we decide to stop having sex with them, I’m sure the government and their scientists would pay a pretty price to do have access to them.”

Etana pondered it for a few moments, then smiled.  She stood up and held out her hand to lift Minzeek up.  “Well then, what are we waiting for?”

The two girls cleaned up their messes (including themselves).  They picked up all the pieces of the ship and took them, along with the trash can, out to the garbage bin behind the coffee house down the street.  As they turned to head to their respective homes, Minzeek took Etana in her arms and kissed her.  “Happy birthday, baby.”

BACK ON EARTH…..

Lieutenant General Gerard Wilson shifted the papers on his desk.  He had spent the better part of the morning going through reports from department heads, officer reassignments, and other busy work typical of the Terran Space Agency’s commanding officer.

The sound of a knock on the door was very quickly followed by the sound of his door opening.  “This better be good,” he said without looking up from his paperwork.”

“Sir, I think you should see this,” Chief Master Sergeant Janine Solomon stated.  She tapped her ear radio.  “Patch it in, Ops” she said.

“Roger, patching it through,” the reply came.  Wilson put his papers down and looked up to the main operations television on the wall to his left.  On the screen, Gerard saw the image of his friend and colleague Marco Harrison through a lot of static and interference.

“This is Captain Ma…SS Sojurn…encountered two female Humanettas, both appearing to be……..twenties.  Upon discovery………”  The screen faded to mostly snowy static, then came back into focus.  “…come here…future trips are planned, it has become clear…location…safe….I am proud of how my crew has worked…Humanettas are, indeed, very much similar in some regards as Terran humans…”  The screen cut out, signaling the end of the message.

General Wilson turned to Sergeant Solomon.  “Interesting.  It seems like they’ve made contact, but something about his stature didn’t seem right.”  He paced for a moment, then stopped right next to his chair.  “Sergeant, get the senior staff in the conference room.”

“What for, sir?” she replied as Wilson headed for the exit.

“We’re sending the fleet to find out what’s going on.”