I guess I should have stated from the beginning that this isn't the beginning; far from it. She is a pilot and a damn good one. She is the leader of her squad and a captain.

I don't want to use space travel because the planet they landed on and named Eden Prime is very hostile. There are parts of it that are just plain spooky, and the native population which was friendly and giving at first has become very hostile toward them. Hence the war. The easy way out is to board Eden and get the hell off the planet. But it will be explained that doing that is impossible. The engines were designed to get them there and that's it. They were to be repurposed as generators for the new colony once they began construction.

The pilot in question (no name yet, I am still working out a lot of details) was on a routine patrol when her plane got hit by the anomaly she can see in her HUD. She lost control when her navigation controls couldn't tell up from down.

Her new friend is way more than they seem to be. For one, the assumed gender is only an attempt to make the pilot more at ease. The entity has no gender.

I like using everything at my disposal when I am creating, and using Andy and Andrea instead of modeling a creature just made sense.

If I had a nickle for ever time a woman told me to get lost, I could buy Manhattan.