It All Started With Magnets

.36.

A week and a half later

I paced back and forth, anxiety churning my stomach and I did my best to remember how to breathe. I had my speech prepared and the slideshow was done. I made it look fucking fantastic but still. I was less than an hour away from giving a speech to twenty-five world leaders, countless journalists, random assistants, and god knew who else.

"Stop pacing. It's fine." Hudson called it out from where he was flying the ship to the CANSOFCOM training base and I glared at him.

"Says the person not responsible for giving the very first speech talking about first contact with alien species." There was a lot riding on this speech and it took a lot to be able to even give the speech. Everyone on Torin, even the other Councils, had expressed serious concern for my well-being after the whole getting shot incident and a lot of them had stated that it would be better for me to remove myself from the situation entirely but I couldn't do that, not now.

I did, however, make a promise that after the speech was done and I had a good night's sleep, I would be returning to Torin. I had agreed with it, a bit reluctantly, but they said once the speech was given and the Accords handed out to the world leaders, they could then discuss it with each other and contact the Galactic Union. Which meant that the second chance box, as I had taken to calling it, would be given to Bianca, who I determined I could trust with it. They said that I could 'potentially' go back in several weeks, once the world leaders had a chance to process the information and it would be 'safer' for me.

"It'll be fine, tanky girl." Hudson sounded amused as he adjusted the trajectory and I knew we were lowing down to the base. I rolled my eyes at the new nickname. The guys had taken to calling me Tank. Which I knew I probably had to get used to because it seemed the nickname was going to stay. Take a large game round to the shoulder and walk away with just a bruise and suddenly you were a tank.

I glanced down at my shoulder, it was currently partially on display from my sleeveless blouse and the bruise was... fucking pretty. It was yellow and brown and the bruise had extended down the inside of my arm and down the side of my ribcage. So not only was it pretty, but due to gravity, it had gotten bigger. I rubbed at it gently, wincing slightly as I rubbed the main line where the bullet had slid across the shield. That was the worst part of it and it felt like a really weird muscle knot and it ached when I rubbed it. That was part of the reason I had said I would go back. Torin was much more medically advanced and I knew Bav'ka would be able to get rid of the bruise and heal the soft tissue damage so I would be good to go within like ten minutes, rather than having it still ache a week and a half later.

"This is Colonel Hudson of codename Void Breaker, requesting landing clearance for pick up of the One-Twelve." Hudson called it out and my anxiety grew a bit more. Not only was I going to be presenting to world leader, I was going to meed Luke's team... in person. Which was... I was kind of almost more anxious about that then anything else

"Clearance has been granted, Colonel Hudson. You may land on the main runway for pick up" At the words my eyes widened and I checked out my outfit, making sure it looked alright. Bianca had given me the blouse and dress pants with matching blazer. I felt just so weird. I wasn't someone who dressed up like I was, I felt weird. Not to mentioned I was meeting 'the boys'. Which made me feel even more over dressed and anxious. They were a bunch of unmitigated ruffians who liked poking fun at literally everything.

Ham had called me 'Moose' a few days ago which had resulted in seemingly endless laughter and the absolute solid defenses of 'Come on, Ham! She's not moose, a moose would have dropped, she's a fucking tank!'. Which I wasn't going to lie, did not make me feel any better about either one. Not that it upset me, no, it was just like the 'cure for that isn't better than the disease' type of situation. They were just a lot to get used to and I didn't know if I could really handle all of that teasing right before I went on stage to present one of the biggest discoveries in the world's history.