Scent Notes: Vanilla, machine oil, Chocolate, ozone, and a splash of Defiance.

"But grandma I don't even like these ribbons!" The dress was itchy too. 

"Cece, what did I tell you about meeting people for the very first time?" Grandma asked, and Cece sighed as she was forced to repeat, again, “You only get one chance to make a first impression.”

The NASA recruiter had had a dazzling smile and a sharp uniform, and Cece had daydreamed about her ever since her bone rattling launch into earth's orbit.

"Cece, it's important that you look nice when we go to meet them, stop fussing with your hair," said Grandpa, always in support of grandma's whims.

Sweat started to pool up on her scalp and all she could smell was machine lube and the chemical disinfectant that had spilled when her spacecraft started to rattle in the turbulence. She kept her hands steady as she spotted the insertion point in the monitor  and started flipping switches.

"Cece! Get your hands out of your pockets, we are in public." Cece carefully let go of the wet frog squirming in there and hoped he wouldn't jump out while someone was looking.

During training, her superiors had made it excruciatingly clear that she got one shot at this. The aerobraking orbital insertion was no joke, and if she didn't want to go bouncing off the atmosphere like a rock skipping on a pond, she had to connect on the first try. That or burn up on reentry. She took a deep breath as an alarm started to sound behind her. 

"That's enough humming Cece. You are to be seen, not heard." 

She thought back to the moment she told her grandparents about the recruiter, how she had already signed the paperwork. They were horrified. "It's not appropriate," they had said. However Cece had learned over the course of training that while there is nothing elegant, proper or "appropriate" about personal hygiene and femininity in space, this is exactly where she wanted to be.

She nudged the controls a little this way, a little that way. 

She braked, braked, braked... CLICK. Cece sat back in her seat and let go of the breath she had been holding. This is what it was all about, the thrill of not bouncing across the atmosphere and burning up in reentry.

The unglamorous taste of tube food and the smell of her sweaty jumpsuit. This is what she wanted to be doing, and exactly the flavor of 'you only get one chance' moments that she craved.

First Impression? Hell, Grandma. You only get one chance to make an aerobraking orbital insertion.

Scent Notes: Vanilla,  machine oil, Chocolate, ozone, and a splash of Defiance.