CHAPTER 1

Somewhere outside of the known regions of the galaxy, HMS Light, the best starship of its class suddenly started stretching until it completely disappeared, for people outside it would look like the whole ship had become nothing, but the truth was much more complex than that, using humanity's most advanced work of engineering, the ship entered hyperspace in order to jump to its next location.

In the cockpit of the ship, many people would go back and forth in order to do their job, but some had green faces and seemed to be extremely disoriented, the captain, Daniel Anderson, frowned in disgust seeing those useless people working for him, he was a military hero with 40 years of experience, he commanded the best of the best in war! How come he was forced to work with such low-level professionals... He could only blame his luck and the fact that he knew the queen, had he never met her, he would probably be at home now having some good time with his wife.

"Ugh!" Someone vomited in the middle of the way making the people around frown at this situation, they couldn't allow this mess to stay there, seeing this, Daniel took his communicator and spoke. "Chief of the janitors! I want you and your team here to clean this mess, code 1-2!"

And just a few seconds later, they came, the true heroes of this ship! With his stylish blue and white jumpsuit, Reginald Newman, the youngest person to ever enter a starship, and chief of the janitors of HMS Light, being only 22 years old walked in the cockpit followed by his subordinates, Happy, Smiley, and Sunny! The three most reliable cleaning robots one could ask for!

Reginald had a smile on his face as he walked towards his objective, the puddle of half-digested food that could severely affect the work inside the ship! How noble of him, to sacrifice his mental sanity to clean other people's bodily fluids!

But there was nothing he could do about it, after failing the entrance exams from more than five universities, his seven years of experience working as a janitor for mega corporations allowed him to met a man who gave him the opportunity of his life! That man saw how good he was and instantly begged for Reginald to come and work for them at the HIASE, Reginald who was taught to be generous by his mother saw how desperate the man was and decided to accept his invitation.

After all, even those governmental agencies have a need for talent, he knew that there was no better janitor on Earth so he decided to do this as a contribution for humanity, he decided that he would create a legacy of being the most reliable and best janitor to ever work for them!

And after two years of hard work, he was assigned to work in this starship, where humans decided to make history! It wouldn't be the Centurians or the Photodians who would explore and study this part of the Galaxy first, it would be them! After thousands of years, humans finally had the chance to be the frontline, and so they took this opportunity with everything they got!

Trillions of dollars to build the best ship ever? No problem the humans said! Paying hundreds of thousands for the best people to work on it? No problem!

And so his work was one of the most important ones there, without him people would have to work in the middle of a dirty and poorly maintained ambient and that would obviously affect their performance.

Being the professional he was, seeing the dirty ground he turned to his subordinates and said. "Officials!" Hearing his words the robots saluted him with a military salute. "I want you to give your best in cleaning this place! Happy you are in charge of the vomit, Sunny I want you to clean the surroundings and make sure this place smells like lavender or you will receive the punishment of your life!"

Happy and Sunny nodded with a serious mechanical face! Their AI knew that they had to do a good job!

"Smiley, your job is to clean the vomit of that guy! Make sure to make that place shine!" And just as Reginald said, another person with a green face suddenly vomited. The people around were all impressed with his abilities and praised Reginald in their mind, he was such a good janitor, going as far as predicting where a place would be dirtied!

Smiley nodded and went to work.

Seeing how their subordinates were already working, Reginald took out his mop and started cleaning the place with fast-dry lavender water. Daniel smiled seeing his Janitor working so hard, not even in the army you could find such a dedicated and good individual! He not only did his job he would always do more than he was asked to ensure the quality of the ambient!

Sighing he thought about his other pathetic subordinates and went back to work.

And just a few minutes later, the place was so clean that everyone had a smile on their faces as they smelled that fresh and good smell! Reginald revised the work of his robots, and after seeing his job was done, he gave the captain a military salute and went out of the cockpit together with the robots.

But, of course, his job didn't end there! He had more than seventy subordinates taking care of the ship, and his work involved more than just cleaning places, he was also responsible for the maintenance of every single cleaning unity and he had to supervise their work, Sunny and the others were always with him in case he had to do some job personally.

Extending his left hand, he tapped on his holo clock making it grow bigger in some sort of screen, then he opened a tab called 'checklist', after going through it from the top to the bottom, he smiled, today there was only one more thing that he had to do.

And that is, he has to check the unity responsible for making sure the storage room was always clean and smelling like lavender!

Having confirmed his next step, he went out to do his work. After walking through the many corridors he entered the elevator and pressed the button to take him to the seventh floor, but just a second before the doors could close a woman used her hand to stop the elevator.

As the door of the elevator opened, she looked inside and flinched, but she wasn't the only one surprised, Reginald could only open his eyes wide and look at the woman in surprise.

"Reginald? Is that really you?!" She asked.

But he could only blink, who would have thought, he never expected to meet one of his childhood friends in such a place!

"Skye, you... I never expected to meet you here at HMS Light!"

She smiled and entered the elevator together with him, but unlike him, she was going to the eighth floor.

She looked at the robots accompanying him and then to his jumpsuit and exclaimed! "Wait, are you that legendary janitor! The guy who stole my chance to be the youngest person to be part of the crew of a starship!?"

Hearing her words he couldn't help but smile proudly. "Hahaha! What can I say, it was destiny that begged me to help starships when I was only 20 years old! Besides, I have been doing this for two years already and you know what? There was never a Janitor with so many accomplishments as I!" He put his hand in his pocket and took a medal to show to her.

It was a lion-shaped medal with five stars below, it was a meritorious service medal, only awarded for people whose work is exemplary and considered the best, he was even the first Janitor in history to receive this medal.

Seeing this she laughed slightly and her cheeks blushed. "Mm, you are truly impressive, even after so many years, you are still in front of me, even going as far as making history for an entire profession... Haha, what a great guy you are!"

Seeing her smiling beautiful face he felt happy, it has been more than 8 years since they last spoke, he couldn't believe that little girl had grown to become such a gorgeous woman, nor that he could recognize her so easily, it is just that there was something in her eyes that he would never be able to not to notice.

"What about you, what are you working with? I remember you saying that you wanted to follow in your father's footsteps."

She lowered her head and shrugged. "It didn't work, the military work is too difficult to learn... my father was a soldier but I wasn't born to be one as well, so I went with my second best option."

"Which was?"

"Rocket engineering!" She smiled proudly and with a wink, she made the V pose with her right hand, something people did to say "Victory!"

"Haha! That is great!" Reginald smiled, he was really proud of her.

"Mm, you know I did some big things as well, I'm even the chief engineer of this ship!" She lifted her nose with pride and a pout on her face.

"Oh? And why are you making such face to me?"

"Aren't you going to pet my head like you did when we were kids to congratulate me?"

Hearing her words he blushed slightly, so embarrassing... "Alright then, if you wanted it so much."

He then approached her and stroked her long chestnut hair, messing it up and making her smile. But then she did something that he never expected, she suddenly hugged him with all her might, making him flinch in surprise!

"Hey, hey, what was that for?"

She shook her head in his chest and answered with a pout as she looked at him. "You baddie... I missed you so much..."

Hearing her words he felt his heart pounding, it is true, he never called her again after failing the entrance exam of many universities, he was ashamed and didn't want her to know of his situation... While he eventually accepted his situation and even grew to appreciate his job, he felt that he had lost the privilege of calling her his friend.

"I'm sorry Skye... I... I promise you I'll never lose contact with you again."

She avoided his eyes and muttered. "Liar..."

Hearing her he laughed slightly and hugged her back, he really missed her.

Unfortunately, their time was too little, the door of the elevator opened, and a voice said, "Eighth Floor."

Hearing this she reluctantly separated from him, after saying her goodbyes and giving him the number of her room, she left.

Seeing her leave, and the door closing, Reginald sighed, some regrets he had dug up deep in his heart suddenly came back to him, when he was younger he wanted to become someone great, someone, that her father could accept as the husband of his daughter. But he failed so many times... He truly wished he could go back in time and change things...

Shaking his head, when he heard he arrived on the seventh floor he left the elevator and went towards the storage room. But he had a smile on his face, at least now he had the chance to try once more and see how far he could go.