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Ugh. That sinking feeling in your gut when you see the lights in your rearview mirror. I put the ship in park and looked over to my copilot. No words needed to be said. I kept my hands in view and on the yoke. I've seen enough dashcam footage to know officers can get a bit antsy if they don't know where your hands are.

He strolled up to my window and knocked on it with his flashlight. I rolled it down just enough so we can hear each other. The moustache, the aviators, the sense of self-importance. Speed trap officers are always the same.

"Do yous have any idea how fast you was goin'?"

Why does he have a New York accent when we're light years from earth?

"Uhhh, sorry officer. You see, we're just testing out the first ever faster-than-light spacecraft, so speed is kind of the point here."

"Ohhh, we la-dee-da." He seemed like he was having a rough day and was about to take it out on us. "In that case I suppose the entire galaxy just needs to make way for your royal highness ova 'ere. We gots rules, buddy. You aint above them."

"I understand, officer. It's just that this is a major breakthrough for mankind, and-"

"Listen here. You aint the first ones to discover faster than light travel. Some planets have been there for centuries. But we all gotta go by the same rules."

"Understood, we just thought that faster than light travel is the best way to get from one star system to the next."

"Oh, lookie 'ere at Mr. Efficiency all of a sudden. You think yous the first ones to want to get somewhere fast? Newsflash, buddy. Wormholes. Inter-dimensional teleportation. Z-space. You gots options that don't involve potentially t-boning a family of Andagredians on their way to the supamarket."

Suddenly the lights went on. Crap. The officer quickly scurried away. I looked over at Davis in the seat next to me. We're definitely in trouble now.

The intercom beeped. "You guys have got to be kidding me. We told you that you need to stop doing this. Get out of there."

We unfastened our harnesses, opened the hatch in the back of the cockpit, and crawled out. It was one of the assistant flight directors.

"Do you have any idea how expensive this equipment is? Each simulator is almost $5 million. And you're here using it to play intergalactic space explorers."

"Technically, sir, it's interstellar. Intergalactic requires far more advanced tech than we'd imagine-"

I put my hand on Davis's shoulder to shut him up. I don't think he had any interest in our story.

"Just get out of here and don't give me a reason to report you."

We shuffled off, our heads down, back to where we left the mops.

"I don't get it, man." I complained when we were out of earshot. "NASA hires us to clean up at night when there's no one here and then gets surprised when we use their equipment to simulate humanity's first contact with alien species."

"It's like they *want* to be unprepared," he replied.

I checked my watch. 2:37am. Still more than 4 hours left on our shift.

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Submitted by TheBlackLimba on Sat, Apr 22, 2023 to /r/WritingPrompts/

The prompt

The first spaceship to achieve FTL is stopped by the Universe Police and given a speeding ticket.