Space Fleet Head Quarters as it is almost never called by anyone due to the convenience of it's initialised acronym, also happens to be the Earth based HQ of that other very secretive space organisation to which the handsome Bryce Cork belongs as well as his Admiralty father.

"This door only opens to those of us with clearance, and must be held open by such a person when someone without clearance is to enter." He explains to Sophie who although still impressed by his good looks and heroic reputation, is beginning to think that he does tend to blow off about himself and his privelidges rather a lot.

"I've brought you here because the Admiral wishes to speak to you about a very important assignment."

"There are also some people waiting here that we'd both like you to meet in person before you decide!"

Sophie only takes a few steps into the top secret top floor area before noticing them...

as it happens, this is the team that Bryce Cork has assembled for the Admiral as Sophie's unit for the purpose of her forthcoming mission.
"Now the mission which the Admiral is about to propose, involves taking a rather special new ship for a test... "Sir", "Captain sir" the four ner-do-wells echo as Sophie and Bryce approach.
"As you were, as you were. Sophie, this is my very special team of Star Core personell which the Admiral and I have hand-picked for your upcoming mission. From left to right we have Milly, Maurice, Jimmy and Leyton. I'll introduce everyone properly straight after we've heard from the Admiral. You lot looking forward to tommorrow?" "Yes, sir." echo the ner-do-wells in unison.
Bryce opens the door to Admiral Corks top secret Star Core office, and they march in, one after the other.
"Admiral sir, you wished to brief me for a mission?" asks Sophie...

The reason for this is about to be explained by the Admiral: "hello people, I'm afraid I've been just a little bit naughty; but also, a little bit clever as well,
you see team, which I'll be calling you from now on for reasons which will soon become apparent, and until further express notice is given by me. Now, we believe that this new top secret ship of ours is so valuable, that the Chinese are almost certainly going to want to try to grab it from us - which is why we've put one of their spies on board. We believe that only way that we could ensure its safe passage from Saturn back to Earth, was to have it brough here by a crew whose members are of such low value to us, in organisational terms, that our enemies would consider them absolutely incapable of being trusted with anything of any real value whatsoever..." "Now you, team, will in fact be accepting handover of the Starfrack from Jensen, who, unbeknownst to him, will be taking a new and rather less illustrious though undoubtedly more suitable position on what I am reliably informed is fondly known as a 'dockless doughnut'*



*a kind of circular ship that gets its gravity by spinning around, and ferries mostly well paying civilian passengers from the Earth to the Moon, where they mostly spend their time in overpriced hotels having lots of nookie in a low gravity environment!

this shuttle alone is so advanced, benefitting as it does, from the same anti-Higgs drive technology as the Starfrack, and another smaller Starship, the Star One, that it could easily get him from star to star in the space of a few weeks to a maybe month at most; but that isn't enough for Tanktop, and anyway that isn't what this beautiful, if small, space craft was built for - in fact it was made for what he is now about to do - to be able to move around the solar system in the blink of an eye - from Earth to Saturn, or Neptune, in little more than a few seconds, burning through space at exponential rates of velocity. Fifty seconds maximum burn and you've travelled a whole light year, but then need about a week for the drive to cool back down.
"Ok then computer, that's all ship systems checked and working, including food," he asks with a good degree of certainty, "do I now have complete control?"
"Starfrack Janitor Lawrence Proudfoot," the computer offers in a sensual English female voice, "prefers to be called Tanktop. And yes Tanktop, it does appear that you now have full controll of all of my ship systems. Might I suggest that the original owner, Professor Calvin Kimble, may now remove his hands from my command lock." "No problem computer, ah I'll just make sure he does that before we leave."
"Will the Professor still be coming with us to dock with the Starfrack?" "Mmm," says Tanktop as he finishes his rather delicious hotdog, "What time is our liason scheduled for computer? "Not for another four hours and thirty seven minutes. The dock is scheduled for exactly five-forty-five a.m. SFU time." "Superb computer, that gives us plenty time to check on all your other systems before we leave. And no, Professor Kimble will no longer be able to join us unfortunately. He's a little tied up here in NCT, and not feeling too good neither. There you are, he's leaving with me now anyway, to pick uhm up a few things. I'll be back in a couple of hours computer, and we can go for a nice little test drive before our liason with the Starfrack. Maybe check out the asteroid belt for an hour or two before hand."
Tanktop picks up the esteemed professors severed hands and places them back into a carbonised ice box which he places back into his military holdall. "Computer?" he asks.

"Yes Tanktop."
"Do you have any files in your banks listed Top Secret?"
"I have three such files Tanktop, would you like to see them?"
"Could you just transfer them and Professor Kimble's voice files over to my PDA here, I'll read them while I'm gone." "Ok Tanktop, that's done." "Why thank you kindly computer; and I'll see you in a few sweet hours hours."
Tanktop picks up his military holdall and walks surepticiously off the sweet little black shuttle that he caused to get built and helped to design without anyone ever even knowing about it. "I got to admit it Mr Tanktop," he says to himself as he exits the black shuttle, "you are just about the cleverest son of a stick I've ever known!"
"Well thank you for saying so sir."
"Oh, you're welcome..."

"Can you tell me why I don't actually appear to be in command of this ship Computer?"
"I'm sorry acting Captain Cork sir, but I'm not currently authorised to give you that information."
"Well who can give me that information then?"
"A member of the Admiralty only sir, I'm afraid."
"Afraid? Of what?" The computer resumes its less apologetic terse mode: "its a figure of speach sir - I'm a highly advanced AI, programmed not only to serve as the ships main mechanism of control, but also to interact on a more, human level."
"Yes I can see that for myself. In fact you're all too human aren't you."
"Oh, sarcasm, excellent - well I really hope you find someone who can tell you what you need to know, haha. Do you in fact know any of the Admiralty."
"Yes of course," the Captain feels a little perplexed by the computers previous response, "my father!"
"Hmm yes, I don't think that'll help you."
"And why not?"
"Because I'm following his orders..."

"So your mission parameters Sophie my dearest are clear then. You and this hand picked team of select operatives here are to leave by shuttle at presicely six-fourty-five am, ready for a eight am liason with the Starfrack when she arrives at the Earth moon Lagrange number one. Once there you will effect handover from the C-team there on board, who is everyone except Harry Nakamura and your own lovely freind Ashley Jones."
Sophie allows the rarity of a smile to surface across her otherwise very serious face when she hears Ash's name - the name of that beautiful woman, who she hasn't seen, let alone smelt or touched for almost eight months.
"I knew that'd get you to smile," the admiral offers, "every cloud has a silver lining my dear. Now there'll be another few shuttles arriving with some important paying passengers just after you, I want you to escort them to their cabins on deck three before telling Jensen and the rest that they're to report to moon base alpha for debreifing."
"But sir won't Jensen be, well hostile to the idea of just giving up command like that?"
"Oh yes," smiles the Admiral, "Probably. I mean wouldn't you be? However, we have prepared for such a contingency. All you need to do is stay calm when, I mean if, anything untoward happens, then don't give Jensen any help with the concomitant command decisions he might have to make.
Suffice to say that when he understands the truth regarding his ability to take charge of a ship like the Starfrack, I'm sure he'll quickly come around to our way of thinking."
So like I've already said, once its all sorted, and he's once more satisfied to adhere to my will, then you're to send him down to the moon base for debreifing, ok? which Bryce my boy, is where you will be until just before they arrive at the Lagrange - it's good to have at least one of my children there whenever possible, so, I suppose you can head on up there now and get things ready for tomorrow morning - make sure everyone's prepared for having Jensen there pretending to be an important Captain - you know how he is."
"Yes sir father. And we'll see each other again on the Starfrack sir?"
"By tomorrow dinner time, and you can show us all this lovely star you visited recently with a nice green planet - Epsilon Eridani C isn't it?"
"Yes sir, and a beautiful planet it is too sir; not a mutant in sight."
"And no fracking idiot sons there either I hope. OK then everyone, for the moment you are dismissed, and good hunting."
"Sir, yes Sir." They all give one final salute before leaving the Admirals office.

"Will we pass the red planet as well computer?"
"Oh no, you're all so lucky," opines the computer "instead of Mars, after Jupiter we get a close pass of Pallas in about three hours, then straight on to the Earth from there."
"What the frack is Pallas?"
Well, it's a planetoid in the asteroid belt, five hundred and twelve kilometers in diameter, its a lovely white colour as a result, not of water ice, but of chondrite carbon and silicate compunds, which make its surface all shiny and beautiful like a clean snowball, or a pockmarked pearl maybe. And as a special treat, I'm going to bring us in to about two hundred kilometers of her surface, That way we won't look too conspicuous as we turn in to head for Earth; just another science vessel making the run from Saturn back home via Jupiter and being lucky enough to catch Pallas on the way. Straightish arc, not too fast, not too slow."