The Confederation, a group of independent worlds bonded together for mutual trade and defence, have a dirty little secret in how they make their trading ships - hijacking the souls of dead transgendered. Please follow one subject's rebirth into the Confederation.

Universe is now open if anyone else wants to write in it, but for the moment if you want it to be canonical you need to run it past me because there's some bits I haven't told anyone. :-)

Our universe ended was with a whimper, not a bang. Those who use magic collect the ambient magical energy emitted by all living things, the same way solar panels collect light emitted from the various stars. The universe was in advanced stages of heat death, with only a few small pockets of life held together by the few remaining wisps of depleted magical energies.

I rechecked Jill's work. Her work, as always in this area, was flawless.

"Thank you, Jill. You have no idea how much this means to me." I hugged my eldest daughter.

Tag and I had named our first daughter after his dead fiancé, to honour her memory and remind those around us that ships could create life as well as end it. Much to my sorrow, Tag himself was long lost to me.

"Well, it's enlightened self-interest, I want to see my mum on the other side as well." she smiled at me, but I could sense her underlying fear.

We had no idea when we first encountered them, but the Faithful had been right about one thing, ConFed's collection method for souls used in ships had crippled them and prevented them from moving on hen dying. Methods had been put in place to correct this countless aeons ago, and I was the last of the soul cripples left alive, although countless numbers were lost, insensible and unaware in the cold soup that remained of the universe.

Jill and I had managed to scrape together enough magical energy for four uses of our joint creation. I had wanted so much to make it five, but we were suffering from diminishing returns at this point. I mourned that Red had to miss out.

"I love you so much, and I'll see you soon, but it's time for you." I told her sadly.

"I know mum." she said, and we dissolved into tears, hugging each other.

We eventually calmed our tears.

"I love you, Jill." I said.

"I love you, Mum." Jill said, and my last image of her as she disintegrated herself was a tear running down her cheek, but a smile on her face.

"I'll see you soon." I whispered to my empty living room.

I reflected on how much I had learned much over the years, combining the magical knowledge of countless dimensions, and my magical power had grown, as it does for all mages who live for so long, even if I has skipped a few aeons here and there. Our dimensions were all linked in time, all starting in parallel with identical big bangs, diverging from each other at still poorly-understood points where quantum processes differed by greater than usual amounts at different points in time. As such, they all fell into the slow but inevitable decay of heat death at the same point in their histories, so there was no point jumping from one dimension to another to escape. The only ones happy were the demons, as life ended and everything unable to move on joined them in the void. They winked out of existence happy as the magical energies waned.

Enough reflection, I spun through time. I had been calculating this series of spins for so long it came almost without thought. I still had the kernels of my four original ship mates, and used them to jump through time, dimensions, and space to the demise of the bodies used previously to the ones I had known them in.

I was there, cloaked and ethereal, as Jet's former elderly male body died of heart attack during orgasm, and I used the construct to push her soul on to the creation device in such a way that it wouldn't be crippled and would be able to move on. I was amused that he had died in his previous life much as I knew her in her next.

I repeated for Kart, and cried for the nobility of his sacrifice to save those he loved even as I pushed his soul into her new life. Two saved and able to move on.

Pif had died through friendly arrow fire in a charge on a forgotten asian battle ground, as an archer misfired and the arrow fell short into his own troops. He died from drowning in his own blood, and he too was successfully pushed.

Finally I got to my own death. Jill had made me promise on both our souls as a condition of her helping me that I would do myself, and not assist someone else with the last charge. I think she overestimates my nobility, although I would have considered something similar to save Tag or any of my children, you don't live as long as we all did without having a streak of self-preservation.

I watched the truck come down the hill towards the intersection, and I watched the car in front of my previous body's sailing through the intersection, mine close behind. A quick scan showed the driver of the truck awake, alert, and his brakes in good condition, and nothing wrong with the car. For a fraction of a second I was confused as to how I would die.

And then I realised.

I may have been shocked, but I always acted even when shocked, as I had found out over many years that hesitation always led to death or pain. I dropped pressure in the brake lines of the truck, and stalled the vehicle in front of mine. I winced as the truck sailed into the intersection and crushed my original male body inside my car, stuck behind the driver who had stalled for no good reason.

I had killed myself.

I used the last charge in the magical device to push my own soul such that I would be able to progress. Although still damaged, with willpower we would all be able to move on, and our souls would recover as time went on.

Things seemed to make so much more sense now. I had travelled through time often enough, even though the danger scared me to bits, to realise that paradoxes don't occur. The timeline is fixed as it has already happened, trying to change it in noticeable ways always ends in disaster. The only way to change something you know about is to do it in a way that won't be noticeable to your recollection. As for anything else, how do you know it didn't happen that way all long?

That said, nasty and even deadly coincidences conspire against with alarming regularity when time travelling, so one only does it when it is necessary. Still, undetectable to the sense of anyone on the planet of my birth, I hung around for some time to make sure my original family didn't suffer from my loss, making small nudges here and there, including one with a lottery ticket. I owed that much to them at least.

When I felt the time pressure was too much, I returned to the time I had left, appearing a fraction of a second after I had left.

"I'm coming, Tag." I whispered, and as a single tear rolled down my cheek, I too disintegrated myself.

THE END.

3rd July 4570: Initial mental interview.
9th April 4571: Focus chamber stable, human form decanted.
12th April 4571: Ship design.
13th April 4571: Ship lay-down in transport ship.
15th April 4571: Transferred to ocean of Vechog.
23rd July 4571: Promotion to Midshipman, selection of "Harpagornis" name.
1st August 4571: Meets Tag Hargel
3rd September 4571: Accepts proposal of marriage from Tag Hargel.
4th September 4571: Ship / Captain relationship formalised with Tag Hargel.
5th September 4571: Promotion to Sub-Lieutenant.
17th October 4571: Ship form decanted.
22nd October 4571: First contact with the Faithful, seven ConFed ships destroyed.
24th October 4571: Second contact with the Faithful.
26th October 4571: Returned prisoners to the Faithful.
2nd November 4571: Promotion to Lieutenant.
4th January 4572: Promotion to Lieutenant-Commander.
5th January 4572: Transfer to Rigel Three.
6th January 4572: Transfer to Rigel Four.
9th January 4572: Legal action against Harpagornis Corporation dismissed.
10th January 4572: First cross spin to the planet Bim.
12th January 4572: Escorted diplomats to Bim, nuclear attempt on Harpagornis.
13th January 4572: Entered ship/mage medical training.