For new subscribers who missed out on it, here is a "rebroadcast" of the first chapter. For subscribers that already received it, I've included a "blue variant" on Alex's illustration.

KABOOM!

Jenny Wakeman’s secondary boot-boosters roared to life as she kicked into overdrive, propelling herself past the massive gravitational pull of mighty Jupiter and on toward Mars. Piloting around planets was no big whoop for the teenage robot, but doing so was a bit trickier while trying to corral a gargantuan, sentient space probe set on a collision course with Earth. 

It was a classic story — Earth launches probe, Earth loses probe, probe gains consciousness, Earth gets probe back. This kind of relationship always ended badly. The “feelings” and “needs” the probe developed for its home planet were never welcome, mostly because the probe “felt” like it “needed” to crash into the Earth. And at the incredible speed it was travelling, the probe would get its chance at reunion all too soon.

“Alright pal, I’ve got one question for you, and the future depends on your answer.” She paused to make sure she had the spacecraft’s full attention. “Should I wear my hair up or down?”

An amplified voice bellowed from the enormous probe. “X-Plor-R does not understand the question.”

“C’mon, big guy. I already explained all this. It’s the first day of the new school year and I want to dress to impress.” She gestured to herself. “This is my work outfit. I’ve been cutting sleep mode short for the past week, trying various transformations to find a ‘new look’ I can debut today at Tremorton High. It hasn’t been easy. Most of my internal gear is meant for combat. But yesterday I finally found the right combination — heavy on style and light on laser guns.”

Light beams shot out from Jenny’s eyes and created a small hologram of herself in a dazzling new outfit. The image of her hairstyle shifted between a complicated up-do and something simple and straight. “So? Up, or down?”

“Um. . .” X-Plor-R hesitated. “What is wrong with how your hair looks now?”

“With my thrusters hanging out?!? Get serious!”

Another amplified voice rang out, but this one came from inside Jenny. “No, you get serious, XJ9!” Jenny’s chest split down the middle and a video monitor emerged. The image of Dr. Nora Wakeman said, “Stop this silly fascination with fashion and focus on the job at hand!”

“C’mon, Mom. It’s just another renegade space probe. I’ve already disabled it. All I gotta do is babysit the big lummox and make sure it burns up in the atmosphere.”

“True. If the craft was still the original size it was when Skyway Patrol launched it. But somewhere in its cosmic travels it gained independent thought and also added quite a bit of ‘junk to its trunk’ as you kids like to say.”

“No one says that, Mom.” She gave the probe a quick scan. “I bet it was the Space Bikers who tricked this thing out with all the extra hardware.”

“No matter the cause, if that spacecraft collides with Earth, the result will be a global catastrophe! So stop all the fashion-chatter, use the self-destruct code I gave you, and neutralize the threat!” The screen went blank, and the monitor retracted.

Jenny reluctantly rotated her rockets, adjusted her wings, and changed her course.

The probe bellowed, “Robotic Response Unit XJ9!” 

Jenny sighed. “Only my mom calls me XJ9. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll call me ‘Jenny.’ ”

“You are interfering with the destiny of X-Plor-R. Our new trajectory will not reunite X-Plor-R with Mother Earth.”

“Trust me, hanging out with your mom isn't all it’s cracked up to be.” Why was stuff like this always happening to her? Summer had been swallowed up by these sorts of dumb but lethal threats, and now this dangerous dingus was going to ruin the start of the school year!

Jenny took a breath, though doing so was impossible in the vacuum of space and completely unnecessary for a robot like herself. Nevertheless, it helped to draw some cosmic dust into her system and run it across the overheating angst circuit in her positronic brain. Scanning her memory banks, she found several enjoyable entries from the summer that had nothing to do with the drudgery of her superhero duties. 

More important was what she didn’t find there. No recent memories of fashionable Brittany and Tiffany Crust, the mean girls who wielded their considerable power to prevent Jenny from gaining popularity. Brit and Tiff had disappeared from Tremorton at the start of June and hadn’t resurfaced. Apparently the Crust Cousins had spent the summer overseas, and rumor had it that they would stay abroad for the fall semester, possibly the whole school year.

Jenny’s diodes danced at the thought of high school without the Crusts. The popularity she’d long sought was finally within reach. She just needed to dispose of this pesky cosmic threat and perfect her “new look” before school was in session. 

But how? The self-destruct code her mom had given her would take hours to upload into the spacecraft’s central computer. She might miss the entire school day! Plus it was kind of mean. 

As Jenny pushed the probe around Mars, the Earth and Moon came into view. The teenage robot turned her boot-boosters up another notch. “How about I set you down on the Moon where you can gaze lovingly at Earth from afar?”

 “Negative! X-Plor-R must be reunited with Mother Earth!” A series of hidden panels opened on either side of the ship and two dozen heavy-duty thrusters ignited, sending the no-longer-disabled craft hurtling toward Earth.

Jenny hurtled helplessly along with it.