Okay, I stayed up a little later than I’d planned, but somehow I finally settled down to revising a Jump Space story at midnight. Done now, sent it off to Jed Hartman for review. Feels good to commit fiction. 
With luck, we’ll be including it in the Jump Space book he’s bringing out later this year from Constellation Press.
1:15 a.m. I feel like I’ve earned myself a slice of buttered toast, and then I’m crashing into bed…
*****
Now the girl – she must be fourteen now? or the Razuli equivalent, an early adolescent – was arguing again, this time with a security officer three times her size.
He loomed over her. “Miss, we can’t release you without an adult who can take custody. You’ll have to go to security.” Jenny felt a flicker of concern. It was probably fine. Nothing was going to happen to the girl in security. But the guard reached out and grabbed Katika’s arm when she tried to walk away, and the girl let out a yelp of startlement – or was that pain? And before Jenny knew what she was doing, she had turned fully towards them, taken a few quick steps, and interspersed herself between the two, so that the guard released Katika’s arm, surprised.
“Katika! I’m so sorry I was so slow.” She carefully got plenty of ‘s’s into that sentence, to reassure the guard that she was no closeted Razuli. Jenny gave him her best harmless middle-aged woman smile. Most days she hated being middle-aged; it made her feel invisible. Even in her form-fitting uniform, men mostly didn’t look at her anymore. But if Jenny could use middle-age to her advantage here, she would. “Her mother called and asked me to bring the girl home, since we’re leaving the port at the same time.”
— “Hush”
*****