"No! No!" I screamed while backing away "Absolutely not"

"You don't even know it's going to be you" John said. He seemed giddy about it.

"But I do. It's going to be me"

"Yeah you're probably right" He laughed.

"I'm not doing it" I made it clear "I don't agree to it"

Will who seemed to be pondering the whole time finally spoke "Is that even possible?" he asked.

"I mean, I've never done a uterine transplant myself but with the Autodoc on-board, it should be easy enough with very little chance of complications. That's if the Autodoc here is programmed with that procedure"

"The Autodoc in the surgery is running Version 5.12, the latest and most complete Autodoc library" Pola responded.

What were they talking about? They weren't seriously considering this were they?

Autodocs revolutionized the field. It was a kind of table capable of monitoring all aspects of surgery procedure including the patient's vitals. The key feature was the Augmented Reality headset that the doctor wore to receive real time instructions on the steps to take.

This paired with the gloves that tracked all actions and made precise adjustments allowed even the most mediocre doctors to perform successful open heart surgeries.

"So it is an option?" Will asked.

"Yes it is" John replied.

When Pola suggested that Heather's uterus be transplanted into one of us, I didn't think it would get this much consideration. I thought and hoped the absurd suggestion would be immediately thrown out.

Will who now seemed to only care about the mission was clearly becoming more and more in favour of it.

"Dany..." he started.

"No." I shook my head and took another step back. "I refuse"

"You need to do this for us" He pleaded.

"Why me? Why can't any of you do it?" I asked desperately with tears welling up in my eyes.

"Hey I'm doing the surgery, it can't be me" John excused himself.

"We all play critical roles to the mission. We can't afford to be indisposed for any amount of time. You're the least crucial here." Will explained. "I don't mean that to say you're not important but if we need to, I can fly the ship with Pola's help"

"I don't look like this by choice" My eyes begged but it seemed decided. Everyone was on the same page.

"It's this or we try whatever we can to pull Heather out of stasis. Your choice" He said finally.

=^..^=

I stared blankly into space as I contemplated my fate and what options were available to me. I was sitting in the med bay while John droned on about the processes it would take to achieve it. My mind however was entirely elsewhere.

What were the chances we could fix the stasis capsules without an engineer? I knew Will would atleast attempt it. Lately I hadn't been able to understand him. It seemed the mission was more important to him than any of us.

Maybe he was justified in taking that stance. The stake involved was the fate of humanity. Was I being selfish? Would I really condemn humanity because I was afraid of being more of a woman than I already was?

".... and by introducing FSH and LH hormones, we can Kickstart your menstrual cycle. Progesterone at the right moment should further prepare your new uterus for..." John paused at which point I realized he'd been speaking to me "you're not listening".

"Sorry" I muttered.

"It's okay" he placed a hand on my shoulder as I sat in the chair in front of him "I know how hard this must for you. I can't imagine losing the big guy down there"

This caught my attention "Wait nobody said anything about losing anything"

"Well yes we could perform a Cesarean to remove the baby but since this is for research purposes to discover the viability of human reproduction, it would be entirely worthless without a natural birth". John explained

I wanted to punch that stupid British accent out of his mouth but I knew he was right. What he had said made sense. I couldn't believe I was going to lose it before I even got a chance to use it.

"And what about Heather? Is it okay just removing her uterus without her permission?" I asked searching for something that could make this nightmare stop.

"They'll be able to grow her a new one when the medical teams arrive" He shut down my pleas "once they get here, they can regrow her a new arm if she wants"

Fuck. Was there really no way out of this?

"Whats that?" I asked about the injection John was prepping.

"Accelerated hormone replacement therapy" He told me "We need to prepare your body for the transplant and we don't have a lot of time if we want to inseminate you immediately we reach Gaia and keep the original schedule.

This implant will track your hormones and dispense the perfect doses"

What the fuck was happening??

Not long after John finished injecting me, Robert burst through the med bay doors breathing rapidly, "You need to come see this?"

As we began to follow, I asked John if Heather would be okay there alone.

"She's not going anywhere" he replied.

=^..^=

As we walked through the bridge door, my eyes darted to Will and Cillian who were staring at the wreckages currently being displayed on the viewport.

"That's outside the ship?" I asked.

We looked to be passing through a debris field but it wasn't made of rocks or dirt, it was made of thousands of broken pieces of space ships floating in the blackness of space.

"What's going on?"

Of course I knew the answer to that. We did make it through as Pola had confirmed earlier. We were in Andromeda. There was only one reason why there'd be broken spaceships flying around.

That was confirmed when Pola zoomed in on a particular zone. On one of the broken hull pieces, you could clearly make out the letters "HFIN".

It was the same partial inscription that was on the side of our ship.

"You sent us out here to die!" Robert accused.

"Would I be standing here next to you if that was true?" Will defended.

"Explain that then. Why are there pathfinders floating in space right now?".

"Those were model 3s. Not even half as durable as the model 5 you're standing in now" He reasoned. He seemed to be trying to diffuse the situation before losing the confidence of his team "We were confident this pathfinder would be strong enough and we were right"

"How many?" I asked. "How many others?"

He shook his head, "Just two of them. Worthy sacrifices that got us to this point. Humanity has a shot because of them"

"Throughout human history" he continued "Sacrifices have been necessary for progress. NASA will not apologize for doing what needs to be done to save humanity"

"We're expendable. Just like they were" Robert turned to us.

"You are" Will admitted "But so am I. We're in this together. I will do my best to protect you but the mission comes first always".

Well I knew that much.

When no one said anything, he sighed "John, are you making any progress?"

"Uh yeah, I've just started her AHRT regimen. It's a pretty aggressive treatment so tell me if you feel tired or dizzy." John said turning to me.

"Good, we arrive at Gaia in a month so we need to get that transplant done soon"

"Yes captain" John responded.

"All of you dismissed, Dany stay back a bit".

When everyone else had gone, I took my usual assistant's seat and turned to face him so he knew he had my attention.

"I'm sorry about this" He began "I've seen how insecure you are about your appearance so it means a lot that you would do this for Heather"

"I'm doing this for the mission too. I care about it too, you know?" I said back to him.

Will was back to his normal self. Cool and collected.

"I know" he agreed "You care about everyone back on earth as much as I do and believe me when I say that's who we're doing this for"

"I know" I replied softly. He was a nice guy. If it seemed like he didn't care about us, I needed to remember that that came from a place of utmost care about saving humanity.

"Listen uh I needed to tell you something" he said to me.

Uh oh.

"I'm listening"

"We lost the sperm samples" he said.

"Wait what? How?" I asked. Did this mean I no longer had to do this.

"We lost power to cryo. Pola estimates we were floating completely dark for up to 5 days. The samples are destroyed."

"That sucks" I said. I did mean that. While it might have been better for me, we were going to fail that one of our crucial missions.

"It's unfortunate but one of us here will have to donate. I know it can't be easy for you" He consoled me.

Suddenly what he was saying actually clicked. He wasn't talking about ending it. No, now instead of some random guy on Earth, the father of my baby would be someone on this ship.

I wanted to argue but I knew where it led. Me or Heather. And besides I'd already steeled myself to do what it took.

As an olive branch, he offered to let me choose who it would be instead of having Pola select the most genetically superior candidate. Not that that was much help.

I tried to calm myself. It was still just sperm. Nothing had changed. It's not like they were going to fuck me. They were still just artificially insemination me. God that whole thing sounded horrible.

"Okay" was all I could say. There was no point arguing anymore. I already had the first dose in me so it had already begun.

=^..^=

The next three weeks were pretty uneventful. At the end of each week, I'd have a session with John who'd check that everything was progressing optimally.

I didn't have a frame of reference of how it would work but honestly things were progressing rather quickly. My nipples became sore and grew only a few days later. By the end of week one, I was already a solid A cup.

At that point, I could still get away with going without a bra but that led to some uncomfortable situations with the crew. For some reason, they were hard and pointy, all the time.

Eventually I'd had enough and printed a sports bra.

"Everything looks good" John had said to me after the second week's session. "Physically and hormonally. Are you experiencing any side effects?" He asked.

My new breasts were still growing rapidly with no sign of stopping. "Just a little bit over an A" John had told me but they felt massive on my small frame.

I'd also decided to keep my hair at that point. Figured they were the least of my worries and cutting it wouldn't do any real good.

"Not really" I responded, "I'm just tired a lot and I feel like crying a lot more but I guess that makes sense given the circumstances."

"Feeling more emotional is normal" He answered reassuringly. "I'll print you some supplements to help with the fatigue"

"Thanks, hey are we done. Can I put my shirt back one?"

John had wanted to do other tests like heart rate and blood pressure tests so I was sitting on the examination table in only the sports bra.

"Yeah yeah go ahead".

I hopped off the table and felt my butt jiggle slightly. I looked over to John but thankfully he hadn't seen that. Everything was happening way too quickly.

Looking in the mirror, there was nothing remotely masculine about me anymore. John had commented that my hips were still more or less the same size but he seemed confident that that would pick up soon to my dismay.

"Anyway if it's still stubborn, it won't be able to resist the effects of pregnancy" I remembered him saying.

I turned to Heather who still slept peacefully in her capsule, "the things I do for you" I said under my breath.

After putting on my suit top, I exited the med bay and headed back for the bridge.

=^..^=

Will was asleep in his chair when I got back. He was always handsome but his crew cut never did him justice. Now that it had grown some more and he'd trimmed it to just around his ears, I thought he looked much better.

I moved a collection of hair out of his face and gently shook him. He sprung to life like a soldier at war.

"Hey hey hey" I tried to calm him down "It's just me"

"Oh hey" he sat up in his chair, "did something happen?" He asked.

"No, no" I assured him "let me take over, go get some sleep"

He sat up straight "I'm fine"

"Hey, no" I tapped his arm playfully "Get up before I carry you. I can handle a shift for a couple hours".

"You're undergoing treatment" he refused.

"It doesn't make me invalid" I laughed "I can handle it".

He looked at me skeptically but agreed. Reluctantly he got out of his chair and I basically had to push him to the door.

"If anything goes wrong..."

"I'll come get you" I smiled at him. He smiled back "Now go".

=^..^=

"Pola, show me Gaia" I said and almost immediately the empty space being displayed on the viewport switched to a close up of our new home planet. We'd been able to get proper scans done so we knew more about it at that point.

Gaia was almost 90% water. This paired with the fact that it was only around 80% the size of earth meant that there was significantly reduced land mass than we were used to. As more humans arrived, we'd have to look at ways to make the ocean our home as well.

Despite the smaller size however, Gaia was denser than Earth which averaged out its gravity to about 95% that of Earth's. Not unnoticeable but well within the range where human lives wouldn't have to change much to adapt.

The atmospheric components were also very similar. Gaia's atmosphere was made up of 60% Nitrogen, 30% Oxygen, Argon at 8%, CO2 at 0.06% and other trace gases.

We were still approximately 8 days away though so we'd know more when we got there.

"Show me Aurora" I said.

The viewport switched to a close up of the brightest star in space. My star. When we got a chance to really inspect where we were, we found out it was a four star system. And since no one had even been here, we got to name them.

I got to name the largest one as thanks for my sacrifice. The other stars became Elysium, Hyperion and Beatrice after Robert's mother.

=^..^=

Of course nothing happened. Nothing ever happened in space. It was always just a whole lotta nothing.

We just hung out together, watched old movies, played one of the numerous games on board and did our jobs. Lately that last bit didn't include me any longer.

It seemed the more my body changed, the less Will wanted me to do.

"What do you guys think I'm going to find down there ?" Cillian asked as we sat together in the mess hall one last time before beginning final approach and it would be all hands on deck. Hopefully even mine.

"Wouldn't it be crazy if we actually found intelligent life down there?" Robert proposed.

"It's possible." Will put forward "The planet's composition is basically ideal. If you do find any, I cannot stress enough that you remain friendly no matter what"

Protocol was that when we actually got to Gaia, Cillian would go down in a pod while we remained in orbit. If everything was good, he'd radio for us to bring the ship down.

Pathfinder wasn't capable of leaving a planet by itself so once it got down there, it wasn't going anywhere ever again. This way if Gaia turned out to be not what we were hoping for, we could try to scan for other potential planets and try our luck there or double back and see if the wormhole was willing to take us back.

It was a cruel plan for Cillian but he seemed up for it.

"I will be the first to step foot on a new planet. My name will be remembered like Neil Armstrong"

'That's the spirit' I thought to myself.

We all knew the procedure. If we came across hostile intelligent life, we were to remain friendly at all cost. Under no circumstances were we to draw first blood... or whatever was under their skin. It was their planet after all.

If we came across hostile wildlife then weapons free.

"As soon as we stabilize in orbit, John begin the transplant" Will ordered.

I crossed my arms, "shouldn't we wait until we know for sure that the planet is even habitable?" I asked.

"We're already way behind schedule. You should have already conceived by now" he explained "As soon as Cillian let's us know it's breathable, we're turning on the first beacon. 11 months from that moment, the beacon about the baby's health is expected. As it is, we won't make it because of your recovery time".

'Whatever' I thought to myself as I pouted.

"You're going to be a good mother" Cillian said. I didn't know if that was genuine or not. He wasn't the type to make jokes at my expense so it must have been but it was still weird regardless.

=^..^=

"Double check entry trajectory" Will told me again as we approached Gaia's geostationary orbit - the region where we could easily escape the planet's gravity if the need arose.

For the fifth time, I told him the trajectory was good and we were approaching at the right speed.

I waited patiently for his order as he carefully calculated the precise moment to begin. Through the viewport, I could see Gaia big and bold taking up almost the entirely of the screen. If we made a mistake and got too close, she would easily swallow us up and no amount of reverse thrust would get us out of her grasp.

"Begin engine burn" He instructed.

I slowly pulled back on the control sticks leaving the fine directional adjustments to Will. My eyes glanced briefly to him. So focused. He was so cute when he focused like that.

"And release" he exhaled happily.

I calmly returned the sticks to neutral and breathed a sigh of relief as well. After an extremely long journey, we had finally arrived.

=^..^=

I stared hopelessly at the mirror in my room. A lot had changed since the operation 3 weeks ago. I didn't think it was possible but now I looked even more like a woman.

I unzipped the dress I was wearing and let it fall to the floor. Doctor's orders unfortunately. Pants, even the IVA (Intra-vehicular Activity) suit I'd been wearing the entire trip were off the table until I fully recovered.

The now unobstructed view of my body left me sick. Just as he'd said, my hips had started growing sometime within the last 3 weeks. Not too much, even narrow by most women's standards but still undeniably female.

My breast's were considerably bigger as well. Their sensitivity was also so much higher that I'd had to switch to soft cotton bras to get some peace.

Less visible was the uterus that I now possessed. Nobody could see it but they all knew it was there and so they stared at my belly anyway. Sadly, my body didn't reject the foreign organ. Modern science was scary.

The final nail in the coffin was my flat bottom area. The little guy hadn't been much to look at but atleast he was there. Now he was gone forever. In his place, a glaring absence.

I let the cotton panties fall to the floor then reached into a drawer to retrieve the absolute worst part of my day. It was time to dilate.

=^..^=

"You are needed on the bridge" Pola announced through the speakers waking me up from sleep.

I groggily got up, put on my dress and made my way to the bridge.

I'd only been in there one other time in the last 3 weeks. For the first 2 after the surgery, I couldn't leave my room nor did I want to.

"Hey" I managed as the doors slid open.

"Good you're here" Will said turning to me "You look better".

"Thanks" I responded.

"We got a message back from Cillian" he announced happily.

It was about time. We'd been in contact with him for about 15 minutes after he touched down. He'd told us that the air was breathable and it felt great and he was going to map a landing area for us. That was three weeks ago.

Will had tried to get in contact with him everyday but there was nothing and we had begun to fear the worst.

"Restart playback" Will called out.

The viewport changed to a recording of Cillian in his drop pod:

"Pathfinder, if you can hear me, I am okay. I lost my radio trying to get to high ground."

God he looked terrible.

"There was a storm. It lasted 2 weeks, 2 whole weeks non-stop. I had to hole up in a cave, surviving on the rations I took with me. It ended last night so I was able to return to the pod this morning. And the days here are so long. The sky is clear so I'm heading back out to look for a landing zone. Watch out for my beacon soon"

"That's such good news" I breathe out. Losing Cillian would have been hard.

"There's more" Will alerted me.

The video which seemed to have been frozen continued "I saw what I can only describe as stone shelters. I don't know what to make of it yet. Anyway I need to get out there. See you soon"

=^..^=

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Thanks for reading. Would love to hear what you think.