If asked what she thought of her life, Lucy Heartfillia would say that she had a pretty darn good life and didn't need any self-help pamphlets, thank you very much. No, she didn't want a promotion. No, she didn't want a boyfriend. Yes, she wanted you to stop asking questions.

Lucy grew up as an only child in a prestigious family on the planet Magnolia in the Fiore star system. A gorgeous blond with chocolate-brown eyes and a doll-like figure, she never wanted anything in life, be it looks or food or money. She was nice enough, always willing to provide aid to someone in need, and tried to be polite to everyone around her, even if they weren't. Often, as a child, she would gaze up at the stars from her bed and dream about what was up there, about new worlds and people to be discovered. There was so much more in the sky then her little home on her little planet. And so, when she was fifteen, she decided that she would be the first Heartfillia to leave her solar system and travel to worlds beyond.

Sadly, this decision was met with poor reception by her family. She was nobility, prepped and primed to take over her father's business and control the family fortune, not be gallivanting about the galaxy.

"You are a Heartfillia," she was told with haughty sniffs. "You will perform the duties expected of someone of your station, no more and no less. Abandon this foolish dream and focus on what's actually important. And besides," nasty sneers would add, "even if you were to attempt to graduate from the Academy, you would never succeed. You have neither the temperament nor the fortitude. You would come crying and sniveling back in the first month." Lucy accepted these words silently, and when she was sixteen, enrolled anyway.

The Federation Academy, commonly referred to as FA, was a brutal six year experience on Magnolia's moon, Hargeon. The higher-ups of the school were unimpressed by her exalted background and worked her to the bone. There were many a time where she could be found sobbing in a deserted classroom, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work and pressure on her, but she would always pick herself up and attack her studies with renewed vigor. She had promised herself that she would fly among the stars, and a few letter grades, evaluations, or condescending words weren't going to stop her.

In the end, this determination aided her greatly in her efforts, and she graduated the Academy at the age of twenty-two with top grades. With a blinding smile and a letter of accreditation Lucy came home and cheerfully informed her dumbfounded family that she had been assigned as a cadet to the starship Zodiac the following month.

The words of congratulations were lukewarm at best.

Lucy didn't care.

One month later she had stood at FA's starbase on Hargeon with the few possessions she had chosen to take with her, and beamed aboard her new ship. The Zodiac was a fairly spacious ship, an A-class scout vessel with approximately 400 crewmembers and an excellent reputation. The blond cadet wasn't sure what to expect from her new ship, but she had been determined to go with the flow and work with whatever hand Fate dealt her.

The captain was a stern, older man with an impossibly long mustache that everyone simply called "Captain King." At first Lucy was unsure if that was within regulations, but was informed that the crew didn't need to call him anything else—he was their king, and that was all they needed. He was kind enough to his crew and was a hit at the parties, but was coldly unforgiving in regards to rule-breaking and his punishments brutal and harsh. It made sense for it to be that way though, so far away in space with so much riding on them, so Lucy raised no objections.

Lieutenant Commander Leo, the first officer, was flamboyant young man with fluffy orange hair that stuck up like cat ears and blue-tinted glasses. He was also a complete womanizer, flirting with Lucy on her first visit to the bridge of the ship and rendering her flustered to the point of inarticulacy. He would often times behave in ridiculous and silly manners, especially around women, but was completely devoted to his duties and was a cold and brilliant commander when it came down to it.

Then there were the other major crewmembers: chief engineer Commander Scorpio with his not-so-secret crush on the beautiful and ferocious Doctor Aquarius, whose timid assistant Aries was thoroughly smitten with their serial flirt of a first officer. Lieutenant Commander Capricorn was the stoic and unflappable head of security who often had to smack his subordinate Lieutenant Taurus over the head for being too excited about his job. Lucy got along especially well with the ship's counselor Virgo as well as the barber Cancer.

Over the next three years she made friends with her fellow shipmates. Sharing her deck were the curious Gemini twins who had an odd habit of mimicking other people's voices and creeping them out, a mother and son who were always referred to by their last names, Pisces, Libra, an engineer in charge of weapons calibration, and Lieutenant Sagittarius, the ship's weapons officer.

Lucy started out as a mere cadet assigned to secretarial duties, but was quickly moved up in rank once her superiors saw her efficiency. Within one year she had been promoted to ensign, and by the end of her second year was working as assistant Communications Officer on the bridge. By the time her third year came around, the previous Communications Officer and retired and she had replaced him as Lieutenant Heartfillia of the Zodiac.

All in all, she would say to herself, she had a pretty good life. She loved the adventure of soaring among the stars, meeting new races and seeing new worlds, some never explored by man before. She was as happy as anyone could be.

And if she sometimes felt a nagging feeling in her heart telling her that something was missing, she brushed it off as fatigue. However, one day and a chance encounter with a wanted man changed that forever.

The Zodiac was passing through the Alvarez solar system on a diplomatic mission to a small moon outpost on the edge of Alvarez's solar system. There had been rumors of a massive civil war going on in that region, and the moon colony was supposedly unaligned with either side of the conflict. Lucy's ship was supposed to assess the situation from a reasonably safe distance without attracting any undue attention.

They had arrived in orbit of the moon earlier that day (or as close as one could classify it in deep space) and Lucy was off duty for some time. Humming cheerfully to herself, she made her way down to her quarters, eager to whip up a steaming mug of hot chocolate and relax with a good book. On her way, she bumped into Libra, who wore a stormy scowl on her pretty face.

"Hey, what's the matter?" Lucy asked.

Libra tutted in disgust. "Something's wrong with this deck's food replicators," she growled. "It won't make a decent cheese sandwich without adding burnt pickles and sour cream and onion ice cream on top."

Lucy grimaced. "That's revolting."

"Tell me about it. And because of this whole sneaky mission we've got going on, nobody can spare the time to come down here and take a look at it."

"At all?"

Libra shook her head. "Nope. Not 'till negotiations are done, anyway. I hope you like burnt pickles, Luce." She sighed, and walked away.

Dismayed, Lucy darted into her quarters and punched in the order for hot chocolate into her food replicator anyway. With an atypical sizzling noise, a cracked mug stuffed with what appeared to be fried grasshoppers embedded in lemon-flavored marshmallows materialized in the slot. Gagging, Lucy gingerly tossed the mug into the garbage receptacle and slumped on her bed dejectedly. She had been really looking forward to that hot chocolate.

She pursed her lips, thinking. She had taken basic mechanical engineering at the Academy and was fairly good at it. Granted, it had been a while since she had attempted to repair anything as complex as a food replicator, but she figured that with a little trial and error she could get it eventually.

Pleased with her decision, she grabbed her empty personalized bag and headed up to Cargo Bay 5 where the basic repair kits were kept.

With remarkable speed and precision, Lucy typed in the password to the bay and marched in. The lights in the large room were dimmed, but it was enough to see by. She strode over to the nearest supply bin and began rummaging through it, looking for the right equipment.

Suddenly, a loud clang rang out across the room. Lucy whipped around to see the lid to one of the supply bins roll to a halt by the door.

"Hello?" she called out cautiously. She hadn't thought there was anyone in here.

There was no reply. Her hand slowly itched towards the phaser she had strapped to her side. Maybe she was overreacting because of the tension on board as a result of the mission, but any member of her crew would have responded to her call.

"Computer," she said softly, addressing the automated system that ran the Zodiac, "is there anyone else in the room with me?"

"There is one other life form in Cargo Bay 5," it answered its usual cool monotone.

A drop of sweat trickled down her neck. If the other person had been a member of the crew, the computer would have said so. And while Lucy did take the required self-defense classes in her days at the Academy, she was incredibly rusty and had no idea what she was up against. Swallowing heavily, she steeled herself and slapped the communications badge on her uniform's chest and said quickly, "Security to Cargo B—"

"Wait!" A loud male voice cut her off, and a hand roughly slapped her arm away from her chest. "Don't do that!"

Lucy shrieked and instinctively kicked out, her boot connecting with her attacker's stomach. The man let out an agonized "Oof!" and fell to his knees. Rolling away from her, he clutched his abdomen in acute distress. Panicked, Lucy bolted for the door.

"Wait, wait," the man on the floor rasped. "Don't call security, they'll lock me up!"

Lucy was so astonished by this remark that she actually pulled up short and gave the man a scathing look.

"That's the point, idiot!" she hissed. "I don't know who you are, and I'll feel a lot better once you're behind a containment field."

"Please," he begged, still gasping for breath. "Just gimme a minute to explain myself."

Lucy glared suspiciously at the man's hunched form. "Sixty seconds," she snapped. "Computer, raise lighting to normal."

The light brightened, illuminating the man who was rising unsteadily to his feet. He had salmon-colored messy hair that brushed the top of a white scale-patterned scarf wound round his neck. He wore a sleeveless, gold trimmed, black waistcoat left open and untucked, exposing his lean bare chest. A gold trimmed black cloth around his waist reached his knees, held by a leather brown belt with an oval-shaped silver buckle. It hung over white knee-length trousers, and he wore a thick black wristband on his left wrist and black open-toed sandals.

Lucy blinked. Without thinking, she asked, "What kind of outfit is that?"

Surprised, he glanced down at himself. "A cool one."

"On what planet?"

"Mine." He tilted his head. "Is it normal for you people to interrogate thieves about their clothing?"

"No, I'm just used to a uniform and that—did you say thief?"

He gave her a broad grin. "Yup."

"Where you robbing my ship, thief?" she asked icily.

He nodded, oblivious to her ire. "Yeah, a little bit—" he squinted at the name tag on the bag still slung over her shoulder. "—Lieutenant Lucy Heartfillia. Nice name."

"I—you can't—" she spluttered, her irritation rising."Don't just stand there grinning like an idiot when you just confessed to stealing from my ship!"

"What's wrong with that?"

Lucy felt herself growing apoplectic with disbelief. She raised her hand over her badge threateningly. "Twenty seconds."

"Hey, that's no fair," he complained. "You were talking to me."

"Fifteen seconds."

"Fine, fine! My name's Natsu and I wasn't stealing—okay I was, but not a lot, I just needed to resupply my own ship. I can't go to any outposts nearby to restock so I just thought I'd borrow from you. I'll pay you back if you just lemme go!"

She raised an eyebrow. "Your ship, huh? And just where is this magical ship of yours? There were no other vessels detected in this area."

Natsu gave her a smug look. "Cloaking device."

Once again, Lucy felt the anger drain out of her as her curiosity was piqued at his remark. "You have a cloaking device? Those are really rare."

He shrugged. "I needed one. I mean, it's pretty hard to go around stealing effectively if every ship with a halfway decent sensor can detect me from lightyears away."

"But how did you get one in the first place? They're supposed to be almost impossible to come by, and cost almost as much as the ship itself."

"Thief, remember?"

She blushed. Actually, I did forget for a second there... He seems like way too much of an idiot to be anything but the star of a comedy routine.

Natsu smiled at her again. "Hey, you're pretty cute when you go all red like that."

Her blushed deepened. "Is that how you get away with stealing?" she demanded furiously. "You flirt and charm your way out?"

He stared blankly at her. "Huh? Flirt?"

Lucy gaped at him. "There's no way you're that clueless."

"What am I supposed to have a clue about?"

Her eye twitched. "Time's up. I'm calling security now."

"No wait, please, I hate getting caught," he pleaded. "Escaping is such a pain; please don't tell on me, I'll be good!"

"'Tell on you?'" Lucy repeated, amused. "What are you, four?"

"They don't arrest four year olds, right? Then yeah, sounds good to me."

Losing her patience, the blond officer flung her hands into the air in despair. "How in the world are you a successful thief? You're practically braindead!"

"My brain's not dead," he mumbled, rubbing his head with his knuckles. "At least, I don't think it is."

"Oh, I'm pretty sure it is."

His eyes lit up. "That's pretty cool then—I mean, would that make me some kind of zombie? Am I gonna start eating brains soon?"

"Only mine as it oozes out of my ears from your stupidity," she muttered waspishly. "I'm beginning to doubt your authenticity as a thief."

"Whaddaya mean? Of course I'm a real thief."

"Then this has got to be your first heist. People with your level of air-headedness don't become successful criminals."

His brow furrowed. "Hey, I'll have you know I've been doing this for years. I've actually made quite a name for myself."

"Says the man who claims he's four years old and is a brain eating zombie," she scoffed. "Come on, it's not like you're one of those bigshot pirates like Gray Fullbuster or Natsu Drag…neel…" Her voice trailed off. "No way. You're not—there's no way—you're not the Nastu Dragneel, are you? Of the Fairy Tail thieves' guild? The one who's wanted throughout practically the entire galaxy?"

The idiotic thief before her grinned and ruffled his hair. "Yep, that's me," he said proudly.

She stared at him. "You're pulling my leg."

"I'm not touching you," he said in confusion.

"I know that! It's an expression!"

"Oh. Whatever." He shrugged. "You say weird things, Luigi."

"I'm Lucy," she said acidly. "And if you are who you say you are, then I am definitely turning you in, right here, right now."

"But why?" he protested. "I thought you liked me."

She glared at him furiously. "I didn't turn you in immediately because I took pity on a thick-headed fool who blundered onto my ship. But regardless of your brain capacity, you are still a greatly wanted man with a huge bounty on your head. So yes, I'm turning you in." Thrown off by the pink-haired thief's dense personality, she made the mistake of turning her back on him and heading for the door.

Suddenly, a strong arm wrapped around her throat and another grabbed her hands. "Sorry," Natsu breathed into her ear. "You're funny and all, but I can't let you turn me in." Lucy yelled and tried to twist out of his grasp, but to no avail.

"Geez, you're not making this easy—" he grunted, trying to hold her down.

"It's not supposed to be easy!" Lucy screamed, lashing out with her foot. However, Natsu had learned from the first time and blocked the kick with his own leg. He yanked her arm and pulled her down, pinning her to the floor. She twisted violently, trying to grab the phaser by her side, but Natsu knocked it out of her hand and it skidded away across the floor. She jerked her head up in an attempt to hit his head, but missed and hit his shoulder instead. He pulled back and Lucy bit at his wrist. Natsu yelped but kept a firm hold on her hands and neck.

"Just calm down—"

"I WILL NOT CALM DOWN!"

"I'll be gone in a few seconds—"

"You need to be gone now, get off of me—"

"Look, if you don't stop fighting my transporter's gonna kick in and we'll both be—"

"I—don't—care—"

"Stop! Now!" he yelled in panic, but it was too late. Lucy felt the tingling in her body that accompanied being beamed to a location by a transporter. The world shimmered and blinked out of existence for a moment before reforming in a cramped, dingy room.

Natsu immediately leapt off her, ran to the piloting seat at the front of the room and began furiously typing commands into the control panel. Lucy sat up more slowly and took in her surroundings. They had materialized in a tiny vessel that appeared to be a cargo ship with barely more than one room and a bathroom. The interior was a disaster; trash, dirty clothes and dishes were strewn about the place, and a stale odor permeated the room.

"Where is this?" Lucy asked tremulously. She turned to face the fluently cursing thief. "Hey, where are we?" He didn't reply but added a few more expletives under his breath. Smacking the dashboard, he darted over to another panel and hit a key. The ship thrummed to life beneath their feet, and Lucy looked out the window in time to see the Zodiac orbiting by them before the stars elongated and they entered warp drive.

Stunned, Lucy slumped over onto the floor. "That was…that was my ship," she stammered. "We just warped away…from my ship."

"Yeah, sorry about that, Luffy," Natsu said, spinning around in his chair to face her. "I tried to tell you my transporter was set on a timer, but you wouldn't listen."

"My name is Lucy," she replied dully. "And you just kidnapped me."

"Looks like it," he said cheerfully. "So how 'bout it, Lucy? You ready to be a star thief?"

Lucy buried her face in her hands and groaned.

All I wanted was a cup of hot chocolate.

Apparently Fate had other ideas.

A/N: Thanks for reading! So, this story is going to be a bizarre combination of Star Trek and Faster Than Light elements, and Fairy Tail. We'll see how this goes, huh?

Please review, I really want to know what you all think.