* FOUR Well, a mini moment of destiny had arrived, thought Sierra Ballantyne, standing up in response to Mason Littlejohn’s sweetly uttered invitati...n, ‘Come to bed.’ Did she need to go to bed with someone! She was taut with sexual longing as she’d not had release for quite sometime but now that she had the glimmer of hope that she was bottoming out on her downward socio-economic spiral, this offer was reason to celebrate. But she decided not to be too eager. ‘No,’ flustered Sierra, ‘I’ve been. The look was prim, brusque,and rather 1930's retro. Kinda like a sweet BarbaraStanwyck....On a whim, I drove up to SCSU. The guard, all smiles andpoliteness, directed me to what he thought was the HumanResources office. No such luck. A black woman cleaning thewindows, told me it had been moved, across the street. Noone seemed the least bit concerned that I'd been walkingall day on my 3-inch heeled ankle straps and that my feetwere beginning to cave in on me. Two misdirections later, Ihobbled. "You only charged me a dollar for thetwo pastries. Surely they are more?" Special sale today," Geoff said with a smile. "For the girl who hasbeen promoting my bread in the high school." Thanks," Rachael said. "Normally we don't get sweets. We have beentrying to slim down. But Bobby here was a prizefighter today, so he getsa treat. And Danni was the prize he fought for, so she gets one too." Oh, these are so good," Bobby said as he crammed Danish into his face."Best treat ever." You didn't get. "A fighter pilot can always try ramming." You were planning to ram any attacker with Marsh Hare," Kelsey accused. "Don't. You won't save anybody that way." Peter, you look guilty," Constance observed."It was a back-up plan," I admitted. I outlined what I wanted Lightning Bolt to do: immediately prepare a micro-jump upon emerging from jump space. That would, in effect, be a time machine; Lightning Bolt would re-emerge close to its insertion point in the standard 150 hours a hyperspace jump took..