Captain Zoe Andersen ((link)) Direct

She laughs, but it’s true. Zoe Andersen started as a mechanic. She learned the smell of burning hydraulics before she learned how to trim a flight yoke. Her rise through the ranks of TransStellar Dynamics was less a meteoric rise and more a stubborn crawl through engine rooms and midnight cargo inspections. You cannot write about Captain Andersen without mentioning The Themis Incident .

As she walks toward the airlock, I ask her one last question: What advice do you have for the next Zoe Andersen?

“It’s a psychological anchor,” Voss explains. “When the ship is screaming, she focuses on something alive and small. It keeps her human.” At 44, Andersen is at a crossroads. TransStellar wants to promote her to Fleet Commander—a desk job. The outer colonies are begging her to train their volunteer pilots. And a certain documentary crew is following her around for a feature called “The Last Stick-and-Rudder Captain.” captain zoe andersen

“The computer froze. I didn’t. That’s not heroism. That’s just knowing that your crew sleeps in the aft section, and you refuse to let them wake up dead.”

Dateline: Arcturus Station, Transit Ring 7 By: Mira Solis, Deep Space Weekly She laughs, but it’s true

“Learn to fix the engine before you learn to fly the ship. The sky doesn’t respect your title. It respects your hands.”

When asked about it, she shrugs.

That quote is now stenciled on the wall of the Vanguard Dawn’s mess hall. What makes Andersen a favorite among passengers (the ones who aren't terrified of space, anyway) is her dry, grounding wit. During turbulence, she doesn’t recite sterile safety protocols. She gets on the intercom and says things like: “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re hitting a patch of gravitational chop that feels like a giant toddler shaking a snow globe. Please return to your seats. No, we are not dying. I have a bottle of very expensive scotch waiting for me in my quarters, and I refuse to let the universe waste it.” Her first officer, Julian Voss, tells me she keeps a small garden of cherry tomatoes in the hydroponic bay. She talks to them during red alerts.