Sweet! So, we need to do a timeskip, and I'm not sure how to proceed from the current hook. Tentatively, I'm thinking it'll look like (and this is a very rough draft)...

"Ever since that day, Ed and Sofie studied together on more amicable terms. Ed relied on Sofie for her remarkable intuition and superior knowledge, and such were her abilities that he often wondered whether she was really taking this course anew. Since they had much material to study, they had little time to develop their friendship, so by the time they were ready to board their first starship, they still knew very little about each other. They both applied for crew positions aboard the [ship name pending], captained by an old war vet named [name pending]. [More description pending]."

"Their first job was [to be determined]."

Still working on it. :P