Synopsis:

Thousands of years in the future, man has become something else, since they fled the wave of destruction that was going to annihilate all life on Earth. Now they are a race of people living in a galaxy far far away in huge space habitats. They are people that cycle regularly from partly male to somewhat female in a strange hermaphroditic process, due to gradual genetic changes in their DNA caused by the radiation from space. One rebel that lived on the edge of the space laws, falls captive to a wormhole while fleeing from those that wished to board the unique ship the rebel had found abandoned. Araya Lightsword survived the emergence from the wormhole to find the legendary Earth, only to find it intact and under siege by aliens. This story tells of the travails Araya goes through, to bring back the news, and of Araya’s body transformation back to the original human form using the undamaged store of DNA preserved on the ship called Hope.

Story:

ARAYA’S HOPE
By Prudence Walker

Whoop! Whoop! Warning, imminent danger

WHOOP! WHOOP! WARNING…

“SHUT THAT OFF!” I screamed, over the com, drowning out the ship’s alert system.

“Sorry captain, but that’s not under my direct control,” the AI that I call Puda, replied. “I have, however, rerouted the alert system so your cabin is isolated.”

“On my way,” I acknowledged.

Fumbling to drag on my pants, I cursed the day I’d left Orbiter Nine, my birth habitat as I raced to the control deck and headed for the bridge. There, a myriad of flashing lights greeted me. I had no crew, not that I needed any, as Puda controlled all of the ship, bar the alert system. It seemed.

I shut off the alarm manually, and looked at the screens in front of me. “Situation?” I asked, already sensing that the news wasn’t going to be good.

“We have four inbound raptors coming from the Clementine,” Puda announced.

“Damn!” I cursed, knowing it could be tricky to survive those semi intelligent missiles.

“Countermeasures?”

“I’ve locked onto one of the AI’s and have control of the raptor and am now trying for a second,” Puda responded, strain tingeing her voice.

“Great, but what about the other two?” I asked worriedly.

I keep forgetting that Puda isn’t the usually run of the mill AI. Her personality was feminine for a start, not like the sexless monotone of a standard ship’s AI. I remembered the day I found the strange ship which I named Hope. My life as a privateer often saw me one step ahead of the law, not that I considered myself a lawbreaker.

“I have two, but the others have shielded themselves from my data acquisition.” Puda announced, breaking into my train of thought.

“Can you detonate the two you have? Maybe that would disrupt the others… wait, do you have full control of the two raptors?” I asked, getting an idea.

“Yes to both captain,” Puda answered.

“Use the two raptors to take out the other two,” I told her quickly.

“Executing, captain.”

“I wish you would call me by my name and stop calling me Captain. I keep wanting to look over my shoulder,” I grumbled, checking the screens for the missile plots. “I want you to head for that nebula with the dust clouds. We need to hide before they really get organized.”

“Done, Araya, but I’m picking up some anomalous data from that area. Do you still want to head there?”

“We don’t have much choice, I just hope whoever built you did a good job,” I muttered.

“Detonation accomplished, Araya. All four raptors destroyed. Clementine turning to new heading and has loosed four more raptors and a Rex Class corvette.”

“DAMN, open her up Puda! We need to vacate,” I cursed.

I watched the numbers changing as Puda accelerated to point 9 light, trying to calculate in my head whether or not we would reach the cloud before the missiles reached us. I knew the raptors would now be screened against Puda’s manipulations. The Hope could still surprise me with her capabilities. Unfortunately, her data base concerning her origins had been erased, but whether that was a deliberate act by whoever had owned her previously, or just damage from age, I hadn’t worked out yet.

The Clementine had been after me for some time before the current situation. It was a military D Class super dreadnaught from Excelsior 2 habitat in the Psion quarter. The captain had demanded I return the cargo I was carrying, saying it was tech stolen from their government. When I refused, saying it was a legitimate cargo from a Psion noble, and was being delivered to Quasmat’s scientific research station, he went berserk. He threatened to destroy me before I reached Quasmat station and set about doing just that. I had eluded him for sometime, by using one of Hope's extra features, which had apparently come from her original builders. Unfortunately, this cloaking device had burned out when I was doing an upgrade to her wiring and accidentally shorted out a bus line.

“Araya? I sense a serious disturbance ahead. I’m getting a large K particle bombardment. There’s something else too, I detect a gravimetric anomaly 3 degrees up on the port side. It could be a wormhole.”

“How close?”

“Four thousand units … wait, the K particle count has gone off the scale, I’m turning away to port,” Puda called out.

“A nova storm front?” I gasped, knowing the significance of K particle sources.

“Affirmative. Our only chance is the wormhole,” Puda answered, resignedly.

“You up for it?” I asked, looking worriedly at the approaching wave of nova energy boiling out of the dust cloud.

“We’ll soon find out,” Puda replied tensely. “Inertial damping at maximum. Hull integrity shields on. Araya? You need to buckle up.”

I lay back in the command chair and the auto restraints activated sealing me in. I wondered whether I should have put on my protective suit, but if the ship broke up, I was dead anyway. Looking over at the screens I could see the missiles were closing on us, as was the corvette which had decided it was to close to avoid the nova storm and had decide to follow our lead. I noted that the Clementine was making a sharp turn away and building speed, obviously trusting to their more powerful shields and distance from the wave front to avoid destruction. I wished him well, as his survival was just as uncertain as ours.

As we entered the wormhole, I could see the missiles following us. I hoped that without the inertial damping the Hope carried, the missiles would tumble and destroy themselves in the wall of the wormhole. One did almost immediately creating a flash that flowed down behind us.

“Did the corvette make it?” I gasped out as the Hope bounced around, making speech difficult.

“Yes, just in front of the wave front.”

“Execute an acute vector shift at the emergence. We want to avoid being fried by what’s coming down the hole from the nova.” I told Puda.

“Brace yourself, emergence in 20 seconds.”

I did a quick calculation. That was about 10 centons. ‘That’s another curious thing,’ I thought, as I got ready for a rugged turn, ‘Puda persists in using her own time units. I always have to convert to the universal one all colonies use’. She won’t or can’t change to our system and I often find myself using her system unconsciously.’

As I felt the ship groaning under the sudden stresses forced on it as it emerged from the wormhole and made its vector shift. That was when the remaining missiles decided to explode. I felt the ship lurch, and the lights flickered as systems rerouted extra power to the shields. We made an ungainly exit, but we did make it.

The corvette wasn’t so lucky. It was hit by both the missiles' explosive back wash and almost simultaneously by the outer edge of the nova wave, which struck it while it was still in the wormhole. Unable to avoid them, it tumbled out of control with all systems dead, erupting from the wormhole like a cork out of a carbonation enhanced wine bottle. Instead of being enveloped with foam however, it was surrounded by flame.

The inertial dampers flicked off for a moment and I blacked out for a timeless moment from g forces not meant to be withstood, by flesh and blood. During those seconds, I relived parts of my life again.

*****

“Araya Lightsword, where are you going?” Asked my life mate, as I packed my few belongings.

“Away from this place,” I answered.

I seemed to become more claustrophobic living in Orbiter 9 the older I got. I wanted, no… I needed to get out and make my own life away from the press of life in this place. I checked myself in the mirror, hating the sight of my lack of height. For my age, I was the shortest “Niner,” (as we called ourselves) for my age on board, it seemed. Even my unit cohabiter Tryst, who happened to be entering estrus and would be considered under the norm, as hir body changed, becoming smaller and more feminine, was a head higher than myself. At least my honey blonde hair was my crowning glory. Most went around with hair cropped close, but I liked to wear it long, for some unknown reason.

“You really think that wreck you call a ship will take you to Psion?” Tryst laughed.

“Sure it will,” I answered, sounding positive, even though I did have a few niggling doubts about the shield generators holding together.

“Blip me sometime, okay?” Tryst asked, giving me a hug.

“Okay, I’ll let you know how I’m doing,” I promised my life mate.

The ship I’d cobbled together lasted until the second gravity well, before the shields failed. I found myself without main power as the wiring in the Saur runabout burned out.

I found myself in the middle of nowhere with no communications and only the mass reaction thruster controls working. I looked for any place I could reach with the fuel reserves I had, but nothing habitable was within reach, so I drifted along under the momentum I had accumulated. It was a pity that I hadn’t stuck to the usual navigation routes and had let youthful enthusiasm and over confidence dictate my eventual route. I managed to get the radar working and started searching space directly ahead for anything that I could land the Saur on. The Gods must have been smiling on me, as I detected a small barren planetoid somewhat higher and to the right of my azimuth.

I calculated furiously, trying for anything that would give me a soft landing. I worked furiously, altering and slowing my direction and speed. At the last moment I looked up at the planetoid and saw a strange ship on the surface, directly in front of me. I was going to hit no matter what I could do. I hit all the thrusters together trying to avoid a collision.

I blacked out to a roar of crushing metal.

*****

“Araya? Araya?” I heard, as I came around.

“Argh, not so loud,” I protested, flailing around before realizing I was back on the Hope and not my doomed first ship.

“Bad dream Araya?”

“Yeah, I was back in my first ship when I nearly crashed into you,” I explained, with a shudder.

“The corvette seems to be dead in space, do you wish to investigate?” Puda asked.

“No, let’s move away quietly. I don’t trust them not to be playing dead on purpose. What’s our status? And where the hell are we?” I asked, climbing out of the chair’s restraints.

“Some of the new gear you fitted to me has been disabled, but the basic ship systems seem serviceable. Our location is still unknown, but I have a strange feeling that I’ve seen these constellations before …” Puda trailed off.

I looked out the view port, shocked at how few stars were within visual detection. Surely we hadn’t left our home galaxy. Looking back at the now receding wormhole and its belching mouth, I knew we weren’t heading back that way for some time.

“Is the cargo still strapped on?” I asked Puda.

“There was some damage to the cargo hull and the environmental controls are out,” she answered.

“Damn,” I muttered under my breath. That meant a space walk in a suit. The Hope only had limited hold space, having been built for … well, I wasn’t sure what she was built for, but whatever it was, it wasn’t for carrying much of a load. I’d basically gutted my first ship of everything I could salvage and strapped it onto the Hope. It also served to disguise the fact that the Hope was not a conventional vessel, and was in fact an alien craft.

The military knew something was different about the Hope from the energy signature of her engines. This, more than the supposed cargo violations, was probably the reason for their hounding.

I moved to the hatch and donned an EPS prior to depressurizing the airlock. Once the helmet was fixed and sealed to the protective environment suit, I pumped the air from the airlock to the reservoir to be stored until my return.

I paused before opening the hatch to the secondary hull, which hopefully contained my cargo. Memories of the last time I’d had to do this came flooding back. I’d awakened from the crash where I’d narrowly missed some strange ship, at least I hoped I’d missed it, as it might be my only salvation. I remember being thankful I had been smart enough to seal my helmet to the suit prior to the landing in case of a hull breach.

Although the suits are supposed to be skintight to aid the flexibility when working in the vacuum of space, there is always some air trapped inside and this made the suit balloon a little, making movements stiffer. I had a hull breach, and my life was only going to last till my suit air ran out. If I was lucky and the ship still contained a supply, I might last a quarter turn; otherwise I had only a sleep cycle worth.

I finally climbed into the cargo hold, or what was left of it. The outer section had sheered away from the stresses encountered and I could see the star field all around. Somehow my luck had held, as the magnetic sleds holding the cargo to the deck were still in place. Some of the packages had been damaged by explosive decompression as air inside had sought a fast route out.

I checked the Hope out for damage looking down at it from over the broken edge of the old hull. Nothing discernable seemed amiss. Whoever had built her had done an excellent job.

When I’d first entered her on that barren planetoid, looking for help, I’d been surprised to find her empty. Although it was obviously not from any of the known habitats in this corner of the galaxy, I’d had hardly any problems figuring out how to power up the ship.

I made my way back into the Hope, chuckling as I remembered the way I’d almost wet myself the first time Puda had spoken.

“Something funny about losing half the hull of that bolt on garbage can?” Puda enquired, in a tone that suggested raised eyebrows.

“No, just remembering when we met … Wait! How did you know we’d lost half the … argh! Never mind, I’m not sure I want to know.”

“Basic mass extrapolations. I kept track of the extra mass you attached to me and I know what the current cargo massed when you loaded it. The rest is simple,” Puda insisted on informing me with what sounded like satisfaction.

I knew Puda hadn’t been happy with my modifications, but to earn money, I had to move freight. And as beautiful and graceful the Hope had been, she had no room for storing cargo, which in itself was strange, given the Hope’s external dimensions.

I’d tried to investigate some of the internal spaces near the engines, but there seemed to be no access, and Puda wasn’t very forthcoming about those spaces. Mind you, that might have been due to the odd gaps in her memory banks, rather than a deliberate evasion on her part.

Even her engines were as frustratingly mysterious. Most craft sported Mag 2’s with the military craft using anything ranging up to Mag 6’s. The Hope’s engines were the equivalent in size to a Mag 5, something unheard of, given her light mass. Unfortunately, something seemed to limit the engine’s potential, giving her only a marginal gain over most other similar sized craft.

“I know you don’t like my additions, but you needn’t sound so pleased they are damaged,” I grumbled.

“I think I know where we are, at least in relation to where we were? Several systems became active while you were outside,” Puda informed me. “One was a navigational system, which showed the local star systems. The other … is an archive system.

I asked resignedly, “So where are we?” as she waited for me to react to the news.

“We are near the outer edge of our galaxy in one of the arms near the rim.”

That was something that annoyed me about Puda; she could be rather frustrating and temperamental, just like a citizen in estrus

When I’d tried to load my old ship’s AI through the only compatible data port, it refused to take. Puda had somehow kept control and just mined the data stream for the star charts and other useful bits of information, like docking protocols.

I despaired. That far out would take years and years to return using maximum speed, even if we had the fuel.

“I don’t suppose there’s a handy wormhole around we can to use to return?” I asked not very hopefully.

“Not handy, but there must be one around. The wormhole we came through is one way only, so I couldn’t have used it to get to where you found me.”

Her words drilled right though me and a surge of hope blossomed.

“You came from here? How can you know that for sure?” I questioned her.

“Those systems that came online?”

“Yes!” I nearly shouted, “Yes!”

“The navigation system shows a star chart covering this area…and my home planet.” Puda answered, drawing out the suspense.

“That information would be nice to know sometime this rotation,” I pressed, trying not to get annoyed at her delaying tactics.

“According to the information I just accessed, we are in an arm of the Milky Way Galaxy. The nearest sun is a white dwarf circled by nine planets and something known as an Oort cloud. According to this information, your home habitat lies within Baade’s Window which is near the edge of the Sagittarius star system.”

“Baade? Psion is in the Baade’s cluster, but I haven’t heard of Sagittarius, I wonder if it’s a local name for Sagenous?” I questioned.

“The planet where I was constructed is the third planet from the sun known as Sol.”

“SOL? You come from SOL? The legendary birth system of man?” I gasped unbelievingly.

“Yes, I have proof aboard that I am from the long lost cradle of humanity. After the great exodus when man fled the predicted collapse of the Van Allen belt and the resulting extinction of all life on Earth, we were … we were …” she broke off.

“You were what?” I asked impatiently, thinking this was another ploy of Puda’s.

“I don’t know, the data stream in the archive is corrupted beyond that,” Puda acknowledged apologetically.

“The data stream?” I asked, thinking if I could get at it, I might be able to run it though some programs to find out more.

“The file opened by itself, but is incomplete; there is no more to find.” Puda answered sounding angry that she couldn’t finish what was obviously a message.

I thought back to what I’d learned of our history. I knew we were not natives of our system, and that our habitats had been constructed by our ancestors. I’d heard of speculation that we’d once been planet dwellers strange as that might seem. Seeing most planets were hostile to life and only a few actually had domes large enough to support any sort of real populations, made that seem unlikely. I’d always believed that the legend of Sol and its water planet was mere myth, as if free water could exist in nature without special containment.

The closest I’d got to a planet was Hadras 3, where I’d picked up a cargo of pure water from the orbiting station. Hadrian’s were even stockier than I was, due to their planetary gravity being higher than the standard maintained in the habitats. The water was mined from the rocks, as there was none on the surface with its ammonia nitrogen rich atmosphere.

“So which planet did you come from?” I asked curiously.

“The third from the sun … it’s called dirt, no … ground?’ Puda replied slowly, sounding somewhat uncertain.

“Earth!” I gasped, a million thoughts racing though my head.

I barely heard Puda agree on that, as my mind was cast back to when I first heard of the legend of Earth. Even though I’d doubted its validity, I found the concept of a water planet struck a chord deep in my psyche. I wondered what was left of it now, probably just another barren nondescript ball of rock by now. In some way, I didn’t want to destroy my childhood image of the legend, by visiting something that bore no resemblance to my dream.

Back at the habitat, there had been a growing undercurrent of unease, as the population grew. Even though I’d fled the massed humanity in the habitat and ended up in the tighter confines of the Hope, I’d always felt freer in the vastness of space.

I was so deep in my thoughts that at first, I missed Puda’s question.

“Araya? Do you want me to set a course for Earth?”

“Yeah, yeah, I answered distractedly. “I’m going to get some food. Alert me if anything unusual comes up.”

I made my way to my cabin and opened the food dispenser. I took out two protein bars and added a flavour cube to the water container. I lay back down to get some rest, as I knew I’d be too worked up later when we neared our goal.

I don’t know why, but my dreams took me back to my meeting with the Hope. I remembered starting up the engines, half expecting the magnetic bottles to fail as the matter-antimatter drives kicked into life. With the systems powered up and everything on the strange ship seeming to be working normally, I’d lifted off the planetoid and checked to see if I had a viable craft before I did anything else. Once I’d established that her cargo capacity was negligible, I’d returned to try and salvage the wreck of my hull. It had taken a long time to free it and strip out what was useless, before welding it to the Hope.

“ARAYA! WAKE UP.”

“WHAT IS IT NOW?” I shouted, feeling adrenaline fighting off the remnants of my dream stupor.

“Earth seems to be under attack, I detect energy weapons being directed at the planet.”

“Holey hull,” I cursed as I raced to the command center. I hope I wasn’t going to be deprived of my goal this close to achieving it.

Puda filled me in as I strapped in. We were just on the edge of this solar system, having negotiated the Oort cloud without incident. We were still doing 0.5 light and should have been slowing our descent into the gravity well of Sol. By the readouts I could see our engines were throttled back to idle.

“Sensors indicate that the Earth is surrounded by a large unknown fleet which is bombarding it with both fusion and optical weapons.” Puda reported.

“Damage?” I asked, dreading the answer.

“None at this time,” Puda answered.

“None?” I asked incredulously, a wave of relief flooding though my body.

“There seems to be some sort of force barrier protecting the Earth’s surface. It must be generated from the surface.”

I questioned, “How is that possible? I thought Earth was abandoned,” as I tried to see it on the screens.

“What are your orders? Should we proceed on?”

Now I had a dilemma; as far as I knew, we had no offensive weapons, but something was calling me home to Earth. I couldn’t explain how that could be so, as I’d never been there or ever expected to. Maybe it was something inherent in our souls that felt a bond with our long lost home. I couldn’t leave, I just couldn’t.

“What are our chances if we sneak in behind the shadow of the outer planets?”

“Earth has a large moon, we could use that to hide behind, but you need to jettison the hulk on my back. It will complicate matters later on,” Puda insisted.

I didn’t protest. After all Puda knew the ship best, and violent maneuvers might break the hull off and cause damage to the Hope. I suited up again and took up a plasma cutter and cut the old hull free. I left it in a Trojan orbit outside Neptune’s orbit that I could find later.

Using the planets’ gravity wells and a complicated spiraling orbit that took advantage of the screening effects the planets afforded, the speed of the Hope was reduced. On the last hop from the forth planet to the moon of Earth, we coasted, using no power at all from the engines. Several things in the Hope’s favour were her small size and the black finish of her skin. I Hoped that whoever was out there, wouldn’t be expecting a solitary craft to come barging in.

For the first time, I was able to get a good visual of Earth. The sight was breathtakingly beautiful. No wonder someone wanted to fight to make her their own. For the first time in my life I had to struggle for words to describe her. Earth was a brilliant blue jewel in space, interspaced with glimpses of brown/green and covered with blobs of white from some sort of vapour.

As we neared, I realised that the moon we were shadowing was huge as moons go. The fleet surrounding Earth was about a thousand strong, with all sizes being represented. As soon as we got into the penumbra formed by the moon’s shadow, Puda fired up the engines to slow our velocity while the emissions were shielded from the alien fleet by the moon.

Once all the Hopes speed was washed off, Puda navigated to the edge of the terminator, where we could get our first close up view (relatively) of the Earth. One thing was for sure, whatever was stopping the bombardment from having any effect, was definitely a shield of some sort. We could see the flashes of missile detonations splashing on a spherical surface well away from Earth.

“We need to land on Earth,” Puda spoke up.

“What? And how do you suggest we do that? It has an impenetrable barrier around it, with an armed alien fleet surrounding it, and we are in an unarmed vessel of questionable reliability,” I scoffed at her suggestion.

“All will be revealed,” Puda replied enigmatically, as I felt her accelerate forwards.

“Stop! You’ll get us killed,” I shouted, a horrible gut wrenching feeling forming inside.

Puda ignored me and I felt a kick in the seat of my pants as she went to full boost. She didn’t being bother being subtle. Our only hope was that our actions were foolhardy and brash. Once they detected us, they might think we would try to escape or at least veer away. I noticed several lights come up on a board that had remained dark until now.

“What’s that? Have they detected us?” I called out, checking out the sensor screen.

“It’s a hail,” Puda replied calmly.

“From the fleet? What are they saying?” I asked hopefully, feeling that if they were willing to talk, we might get to keep our skins intact.

“No, it’s coming from Earth,” Puda answered.

“Well?” I pressed, feeling frustrated that I wasn’t really in control of the Hope, merely its passenger at times. Puda flew the ship and controlled most of its functions while I just told her where to go, and like the current situation, sometimes not even that.

“It’s sending a code, asking us for a password for permission to penetrate the shield.”

“Do we have one?” I asked, hoping that the new lights on the panel meant the Hope had recovered more of its original functions.

“Searching.”

“Has the fleet detected us yet?” I asked her, seeing some odd movements in the fleet immediately ahead of us.

“It appears so. The attack has paused, and the ships directly ahead have moved aside.”

“Probably wary, until they can decide whether we are a threat or not.” I answered.

We hadn’t slowed, and I was rather worried that Puda had forgotten that Earth had an atmosphere. I didn’t even know if the Hope was capable of a landing on a planet, let alone lift off from one. I suppose I should have investigated her capabilities more, but I hadn’t wanted to risk damaging her just to find out something I might never need.

I heard a channel open as someone from the fleet tried to communicate with us. The language was unrecognizable to either Puda or myself. Puda sent a general greeting and a “we are peaceful” message in all the languages used by humankind, but the rise in tone as we continued on made their meaning clear, regardless of the language barrier. They were getting angry.

Suddenly there came the sound of alerts coming from the instrumentation boards, and more lights began flashing. I didn’t know where to look first, at the instruments or at the screens showing the fleet maneuvering closer. We were very close to the barrier now, and I saw several missiles launched in our direction. Just as I was expecting to be killed by either the missiles or the barrier, something unexpected happened.

Everything stopped dead and a huge flash filled the screens, nearly blinding me. If the internal inertia dampening hadn’t been on max, I would have been a red smear on the panels.

“What’s happening?” I shouted, trying to regain the use of my sight.

“We are safe Araya; it seems Earth control has taken over our descent.”

I looked out of the ports. A shimmering column surrounded us. Puda reported that a tube-like force had engulfed us just prior to us reaching the barrier. It had also taken the brunt of the missiles impact without any injury to the ship. The column was now sinking back into the barrier and continuing to hold us in its grip as we neared the planet’s surface.

All of a sudden, our descent was halted just above the vapour layer, which Puda informed me were clouds of water vapour.

“Why have we stopped?” I asked, as the readings indicated that the engines were idling and not providing any thrust to keep us aloft.

“I suspect we are to be interrogated before being allowed access to the surface,” Puda commented.

“Strange, I thought if you came from here, they would allow you to land.”

“It’s not me they want to interrogate, it’s you,” Puda answered, and I thought I detected a smirk in her tone of voice.

As I wondered what that meant, a small craft of some unidentified type flew up and docked to us somewhere on the top of the Hope. I heard a small clang as it locked on to the ship.

Moments later all the lights on the control panels lit up, most of which hadn’t been active before.

“What’s happening?” I questioned feeling a sense of alarm.

Some time passed before Puda painfully cranked out a reply.

“Ship ... to … ship … transfer … recalibration,” she managed, before her overworked drives forestalled further voice communication.

I waited anxiously, wondering what recalibration meant and how long it would take. While I waited, I looked out the ports and noticed that the fleet outside had resumed its barrage. I could see occasional glimpses of the Earth between gaps in the clouds and what I saw made me want to go down there even more.

“Recalibration complete,” Puda announced, breaking into my reverie.

I glanced up to see most of the lights had shut off, but more were alight than before and most seemed to be active.

“What happened?”

“My record files were downloaded and my damaged files and all the lost data I suffered have been restored,” Puda answered.

“What about me? What did you tell them?” I asked.

“I’ve explained that you are one of the descendants of man that I was sent to find?

“You were sent to find us? So if I’m a descendant of the people living here, why did they stop us from landing?” I asked, feeling a bit confused.

“First, there are no people left on Earth. That was one of my primary objectives, to return mankind to its ancestral home.”

“No people? Then who or what is controlling all of this,” I interrupted, waving my hand around above my head indicating the shield and where we were stuck.

“Second,” Puda continued, ignoring me and carrying on with the answer to my first question. “Mankind has changed physically during its long sojourn in space. You are no longer able to stand the gravity of Earth and there is another factor. Your immune system isn’t able to cope with a non-sterile environment.”

My heart dropped, ‘Am I going to be denied access to the planet of my ancestors?’

“Tell me who’s in charge if there’s no people,” I pressed.

“She calls herself Gaia.”

“Gaia?” I queried.

“It’s an acronym, she’s an A.I. Her main function was to produce a Gamma Ablation to Insulate the Atmosphere. It got shortened to Gaia, which is also the name given the Earth mother.

“There’s an Earth mother?” I asked, feeling even more confused.

“Earth as a whole is alive, in a sort of gestalt that forms a mother figure. The thoughts are slow, but the AI has managed an interface that allows a type of communication to exist.”

‘The Earth thinks?” I interrupted, not so much as a question, but as statement of surprise.

“Think of it like your brain. You can analyze every tiny bit of it yet in no one part can you locate the mind. The Earth is like that. All the land and the living biomass on and in it, make up an intelligence that’s been there for millions of years.”

“So what does this intelligence or Earth mother want?” I asked.

“She wants her children back,” Puda stated plainly.

I thought about this for a moment feeling a rush of emotions that brought a tear to my eyes and a weird sense of sadness for a planet that had brought a species to life and then felt their loss when they had abandoned her to her fate.

“Wait, I thought you said the collapse of the Van Allen belt killed all life on Earth.” I protested, trying to get my head around all this.

“A few dedicated scientists remained behind. They had started project Gaia once predictions of the collapse became indisputable. Gaia carried on their work after they died, building a vast array of generators that form the basis of a force screen that protected the Earth from the dangerous radiation coming unabated from the sun.

“After it was in place, Gaia started cleaning up the toxins left by man. Strangely, about 300 years after man left for the stars, the Van Allen belt reformed. Earth has blossomed in the meantime and most of the animal species has been repopulated. Gaia maintains the shield generators just in case, which was fortunate, given that half a rotation around the sun or 6 months ago in local time, an alien craft landed here.

Gaia observed it without giving away her presence, until it started to loot resources left behind. Unfortunately, it avoided the automated defense robots sent against it, suffering only minor damage. It left, but two months later, the fleet you saw turned up. Gaia detected it as soon as it passed Mars the fourth planet, and had the shield up in time.”

“When we entered the shield, exactly what happened? What was that flash I saw?” I asked, remembering I’d forgotten to ask, what with everything else happening.

“The shield can be manipulated to form a tube so ships can enter without leaving a vulnerable opening. One end of the tube is always closed, so if enemy fire was directed down it, nothing could get through. Initially the planet side of the tube was closed as we entered. Then the tube was closed behind us, preventing the missiles from destroying the Hope. Now the Hope was moving at a tremendous velocity, generating a huge store of kinetic energy, all of which had to be dissipated as the shield gripped the Hope and stopped its forward motion instantly to prevent it impacting the lower end of the tube. The energy was released as heat which the shield was designed to handle harmlessly.”

“Ah,” I said, crossing one of my many questions off the list.

“If the Earth wants us back, how can that happen, if it will kill us?” I asked, sorting out another question from the flood of new information bouncing around my skull.

“We will modify you on the genetic level using the vast store of human genome stored in my hold,” Puda answered, dropping the bombshell calmly

“Modify?” I gasped, thinking the worst. Then another thought. “What genome store?”

“Many ships like the Hope were sent out into space with a collection of human genome. They were destined for the use in the colonies that were built in the far flung reaches of space. Besides being stored in extremely well shielded holds, lined with a Lead-Osmium alloy, they had force shielding similar to what surrounds the Earth now, powered independently from the ships engines, using a tiny fusion fuel cell.”

I vainly tried to sort out this overload of information, my list of questions quadrupling by the second. I decided not to ask the obvious, figuring I’d be here for a full rotation listening to Puda spout forth, otherwise. I shelved the questions for later, deciding to stick to the immediate one that concerned me.

“You intend for me to change into an Earther?” I pressed, trying to clear my head of a backlog of questions.

“That’s Terran, not Earther, and yes, we need to give you the best chance of survival on Earth. You can refuse of course, but that’s your choice,” Puda pointed out.

I looked at the Earth, marveling at its beauty from the view port. I felt it calling me like a mother to a child. I had to go there, that was an absolute. Maybe the dissatisfaction in my old life that I’d felt since I was young was finally going to be remedied.

“What do I do?” I asked, giving my tacit assent.

Puda, in answer, brought up a screen view of two people. One looked similar to an Orbiter in estrus, except the two breasts adorning the chest were much larger. There was no sign of the erectile organ, but the familiar vaginal slit was there. The other person was much taller, but seemed deformed by the absent of even non-estrus-sized breast tissue. It seemed that the erectile organ had compensated for the lack of upper development, and was huge in terms of Orbiter comparisons.

“This is what is considered the norm for human beings on Earth,” Puda explained. “The taller one is a male and the other a female, humans are supposed to be two separate sexes, not a mix of both,” she added.

A third person was projected up on the screen between the two, and I recognized my own body being displayed there. Height-wise, I was more like the male, but my breasts, which had been a minor source of embarrassment to me, due to them being larger than norm for an Orbiter not in estrus, were formed more like the female’s, only not as large. My erectile organ was miniscule compared with the males, but I knew it was only undersized by Orbiter standards, having seen Tryst’s in the refresher.

The other main difference, now I could compare myself against a true Terran, was the stockier build of the Terrans. Even the female with the more slender physique, was stronger looking than my spindle like legs.

“You need to choose which one you want to become,” Puda announced.

“I thought about it for a while. I hadn’t realised how much man had changed from the original design. Obviously radiation screening hadn’t worked as well as expected with unforeseen changes and mutations taking place. At present, we were pretty much both sexes in one body, with the body cycling from non-estrus to estrus, which meant going from a more male like form to a female form similar to the images on the screen before me. Looking at the choices, I knew with certainty, which I would pick. I’d always felt most comfortable when I was in estrus, so the choice wasn’t so much a choice, but a necessity.

“I choose to become like the female,” I told Puda.

“Noted, Araya,” acknowledged Puda without hesitation.

“So what’s next?” I ventured, somewhat anxiously.

“You know that part of the ship you figured held some secret?”

“Yes?” I answered, looking back to the rear section of the ship in question.

“In it is a regeneration booth, where I can re-sequence your genes based on a stored genotype.”

I moved back along the passage and saw the blank panel which I’d spent hours wondering what was behind it, was now open. I ducked through the opening and saw a long cylindrical tube with a transparent lid that was hinged back waiting … waiting for me. I walked over and looked inside at the sterile padding that lined the bottom.

Following Puda’s instructions, I stripped down, got inside the booth and lay down. Puda brought up a display that moved out on an arm from the side and stopped in front of my face. On it, Puda showed different images of females that could be selected for my final form. They ranged from black skinned women to ones with a yellow tinge. Other details were available. I decided to keep the same white skin colour I was born with, but I could see where the origins of some of the different Orbiter inhabitants came from, even though now, those features were muted by time and intermingling.

My honey blonde hair, as well as my skin colour, were to remain the same, with just a general feminization of my face so I was still mostly recognizable as Araya. My height would be reduced a little with a body that fit into what Puda termed, “the classic female form.”

I okayed the choices, and the process began. Puda had said that the process would take two Earth days, and that I’d be held unconscious while I underwent my change. I could feel the pricks as needles began to do their robotic worst. My last thought as I slid into sleep, was that I hoped everything worked.

I woke suddenly, as a sound punctured my dream. I could hear metal disengaging from somewhere on the outside of the ship. My fear of being boarded made me jerk up in the booth. Luckily the lid was open, or I’d have smacked my head on it. The distraction of the added weight almost stopped me calling out to Puda … almost.

I yelled out, “Puda what’s happening? Are we being boarded?” hearing my new lighter voice for the first time.

“No Araya, we are safe. I was undergoing a refit while you were asleep. That was the auto-up-grader docking module just leaving,” she reassured me.

Panic over, I looked down at my body, but the view was partially blocked by my chest, which swelled out in two enormous mounds.

“Puda? They look huge. Are you sure these are normal sized?” I asked, cupping them gently and hefting them up to judge their weight.

“Those are in the range known as a C cup, which was considered average,” Puda responded.

“Good grief, if this is average what was large?” I whispered, more to myself than anything. Of course Puda heard me and decided to enlighten me. I was glad I’d not gone large with my choice, as these moved much more than I’d ever experienced before, even during estrus.

I clambered out, feeling odd. I was much more limber and I felt stronger than before. My musculature felt denser, even though it didn’t show on the outside.

The lack of my organ wasn’t bothering me at all, but I suspected that the wiring of my nerves to it had been re-routed or removed altogether.

I did a quick appraisal of my new body, and checked it out with a few exercises that gave me a better idea of its fit. I went to get dressed, but discarded that idea when I realised I’d need new clothes.

“Hey, I need new clothes,” I wailed in protest.

“In the locker to your left.”

Clothes being made synthetically, I was expecting the universal coverall that most spacers used. When I opened the locker, I was shocked to see real clothes made of some kind of silky fabric.

“What’s this?” I asked, lifting two curved triangles of white shiny fabric with attached loops of thin material.

“That’s called a brassiere,” Puda replied.

“I don’t care what it’s called, what is it used for?” I voiced with frustration.

“It holds your breasts up,” Puda answered with what sounded like a giggle.

“Um … okay …” I answered, looking at it dubiously and trying to figure it out. “Does it come with instructions?” I hazarded, twisting the thing about.

Puda make a noise that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. I figured the upgrades must have included a personality transplant.

Puda brought up a view screen with a woman wearing a brassiere on it. The woman was rotating, showing how the garment was positioned and fastened. I orientated the thing in my hand and tried putting it on. My first try had it inside out. After fixing that problem I struggled to fasten the hooks and eyes. Didn’t Earth have Velcro like everybody else? I finally figured it out and realised that the brassiere made things much more stable. Breasts in the Orbiter population were never this big, even in estrus, so no additional support was needed. As a result, this was my first time wearing a brassiere.

One thing I felt in this new body of mine was the sense of rightness. It was hard to explain, but the times I’d been in estrus had made me feel almost complete. That feeling was back, only better, and I exulted in it.

“Where did all this clothing come from?” I asked as I felt the softness of the undergarments.

“One of the upgrades was a clothing replicator, Gaia has been developing new technologies while you humans were gone and even since I was produced.” Puda announced with a tinge of sadness in her voice. “One of those upgrades is really neat though,” Puda added with more animation in her voice.

“Oh?” I queried, concentrating more on pulling on the clothes.

“Watch this,” Puda warned.

I was just fastening the skirt and looked up to see someone standing in front of me.

“What the!!” I exclaimed, stumbling back in my low heeled leather boots.

“It’s me, Puda!” the female figure announced, her voice seeming to come from the girl’s lips.

“How …” I spluttered, my heart finally managing to climb back down my throat to its usual position.

“Holographic emitters,” Puda said, doing a twirl.

“Please don’t do that again. I nearly died of fright,” I growled.

I reached out and tried to touch her. I felt a slight resistance as my hand entered her body image.

“I can provide a more physical presence, if I combine my image with a holosytropic force field,” Puda added, trapping my hand inside her as she provided proof of her substantiality.

“Hey! Leggo!” I protested, wriggling my wrist in a vain attempt to free my hand.

Puda laughed as she cancelled the effect, nearly causing me to fall on my ass as the sudden lack of resistance to my efforts overbalanced me.

“We need to acclimatize you to the Earth’s biosphere. I suggest you get back into the booth where I can administer the full spectrum of antibiotics to immunize you against the non-sterile atmosphere of Earth.”

“Okay I grumbled, not looking forward to being exposed to the numerous bacteria that said filled the air of Earth.

I felt the Hope settle towards the Earth. Eventually a slight tilt of the ship indicated that she was now on the planet’s surface. I waited as I heard pumps starting up. I felt a humid breeze on my face and smelt an odd aroma, my nose filled with the scent of a million organisms some decaying, some living. It wasn’t unpleasant exactly as a hint of perfume overlaid some of the (excuse the pun) earthier aromas.

My nose itched and I sneezed. I could imagine the bacteria gleefully running amok in my pristine body. In only a short time, my temperature rose, and my nose started running.

Puda administered more antibiotics, then gave me another burst of Earth’s germ laden air. Soon I itched all over and my fever grew, my stomach grew leaden and my joints ached. I lay exhausted for what seemed ages, feeling like I wanted to die.

I clambered slowly out of the booth and made my way to the hatch. I had decided to end it all and let the Earth’s germs do their worst as I opened the hatch against Puda’s protests.

I stumbled outside feeling the Earth’s gravity for the first time, wincing as the bright sunlight struck my unaccustomed eyes. Greenery stretched everywhere, some tall, some small. I fell to the ground and lay on a green thatch that I realized must be grass. My whole body was assaulted by smells and sounds. I lay on my back, watching the clouds of water vapour scud across the sky. Somehow, despite feeling like death warmed over, I felt a wonder and a sense of coming home. The absolute beauty of the flora and fauna of Earth more than made up for the agony of my body. If I died now, I felt it was worth it to finally experience the magnificence of actually being on the Earth, the home of us all. My only regret would be that Tryst wasn’t here to see it also.

As I lay there, an unseen breeze cooled my brow as I experienced natural wind for the first time. I rolled onto my side and watched some tiny black creatures scurrying busily along the ground. They seemed to be following some sort of invisible path as they greeted those going in the other direction with silent communication. I lay there entranced, moving my gaze upwards to where some sort of flying creature was singing high in the sky, before it suddenly plummeted to the ground and was hidden by the grass.

A noise alerted me to the fact that I wasn’t alone. I turned my head and saw a huge beast rambling along in my direction. I’d taken no weapon out with me, figuring I wouldn’t need my stun stick on Earth, where I was supposedly the only human there. I didn’t even know if it worked anymore, having never had to fight off what few pirates were reputed to exist.

I rolled over and struggled to my feet, edging away from the approaching beast. I didn’t think the stun stick, which was the standard weapon aboard space craft would have much effect on the animal in front of me, so I kept backing away, trying not to show the fear that was growing.

I didn’t have any other weapons. Projectile or energy weapons were a thing of the past, being too dangerous in an airless environment where only the thickness of a hull stood between you and an agonizing death. Pirates were more of an old myth than an actual threat, but there had been occasions of people struck by space dementia, who had then gone on a rampage of destruction.

I was backed against the ship and the animal was now between the hatch and myself. I was too terrified to try and run from the animal and stood still, hardly breathing as it plodded relentlessly forward. It stopped an arm’s length away and sniffed curiously in my direction, before making what I thought was an attack call.

“MOOOOOO!!” It called, making my chest vibrate with its volume.

“It’s harmless. It’s only curious,” a voice I recognized as Puda’s rang in my ear.

I sagged in relief and turned to see Puda’s holographic form next to me.

“Shoo,” she shouted at the animal, making it jerk back in surprise.

I thought it rather cavalier of her to do that while I was in such close proximity. It was okay for Puda in her intangible state to be gung ho, but it was my flesh and blood that would suffer if the animal decided to be unfriendly. My protest died unspoken as the animal lumbered off with the curious bulbous growth between its back legs swinging wildly side to side.

“What was that?” I asked instead, trying not to show how relieved I was now it had gone.

“That was a cow. It’s a common herbivore and harmless.” Puda answered with a smirk, showing she had known I had been frightened by it.

“Hey, how come you can project yourself outside like this,” I spluttered. “Why didn’t you show up earlier?” I added, feeling angry at being seen as scared over nothing.

“Gaia has enabled me to project myself anywhere on Earth using the force field surrounding it as a type of mirror to bounce my image anywhere I want. It took some time to set it up after you decided to go outside. I got here as soon as I could,” she answered with a hurt tone.

“Sorry, but I nearly soiled my panties,” I admitted. “Are there any other animals that could be dangerous still wandering around here?”

“Not in the immediate area. This place is an autofarm, which produces meat and other products for human consumption. Wild animals are kept outside the perimeter with sonic fences.”

“Wait a moment; I thought you said there were no humans left on Earth, so why have a farm to produce food for them?” I asked, seeing the flaw in Puda’s explanation.

“Gaia reactivated this farm, when she received a transponder signal from the Hope, half a solar unit out. Most of the domesticated animals have been kept suspended in stasis fields. Only the animal life that could fend for themselves were allowed to remain active and continue to live normally,” Puda announced.

“So how many farms have been activated for me?” I asked, curiously, feeling somewhat overwhelmed at the significance of my arrival.

“Only this one. Should you move somewhere else, then another farm will open in that area and this one will be shut down.”

I moved out from the side of the ship and looked about. Puda mimicked my movements, seemingly walking also. A row of what Puda informed me were Pine trees stood a short distance away. Curious, having not seen much other than algae cultures before, I decided to take a closer look. As I walked over, marveling at how this new body of mine was adjusting to gravity twice what my old one had been used to, a pungent smell grew stronger. It was coming from the trees. I stood there, marveling at how anything could grow that tall. I breathed in the wondrous smell, trying to figure a way to preserve it for the Hope’s air system.

A noise from behind alerted me that the Hope was lifting off. I panicked, thinking the worst, and ran back towards it unthinkingly. What hope did I have of reaching it, when it was already higher than my head. It turned and hovered over me, as if saying goodbye then it sped off, leaving Puda’s holographic image, which had appeared in front of me just at that moment.

Frantically, I asked Puda, “What’s happening? Where is the Hope going?” Without the Hope, I was stuck out here without food or shelter.

“The Hope is going to be refitted and armed for the journey back,” Puda calmly replied.

“The journey back?” I echoed stupidly. “What about me, stuck out here alone?” I pressed.

“You’re not alone, you have me,” Puda announced cheerfully.

I could have groaned, thinking ‘Sure, I have a helpful hologram, what else do I need,’ but I didn’t want to upset Puda, so the groan died stillborn.

“The Hope’s returning to the Orbiters?” I repeated my first question.

“Not without you, so don’t worry. You have much to learn here before you are ready to return,” Puda answered.

“Um, what am I going to do right now? I have no food or shelter,” I pointed out, waving my arms around at the horizon.

“Gaia will provide,” Puda spoke with assurance.

Sure enough, soon after, a low hum preceded the arrival of a small one person hover vehicle. Puda explained how to mount the bike, as she called it and how to control it. I climbed aboard gingerly; hoping whatever powered it could handle a novice driver. Steering it was remarkable easy. It had a crossbar, which was grasped in both hands and pulled, depending on which direction you wanted to head. Speed was controlled by a twist grip on the left hand side of the bar, and height was controlled by pulling the bar towards you. It had several safety features. It couldn’t be driven into the ground, as the lowest it would go was a handbreadth above the terrain, nor could it go too high. Speed was limited by the height. The higher you went, the faster you could travel, which made sense, really. Up high, there were no obstacles like trees and animals to avoid.

I set off, keeping above the ground at about twice my own height. The ride quickly became exhilarating as I got used to controlling it. Puda stayed at my side, which was more than a bit disconcerting at first, seeing she seemed to be standing on nothing. We zipped along, covering quite some distance, before the setting sun indicated that night would soon follow. I slowed, yelling to Puda that I needed to find somewhere to shelter for the night. Her image shifted nearer. Reaching out, she pressed a glowing icon on the control surface at the center of the steering bar.

The hover bike took over control, and veered away towards some hills in the distance, without any assistance. A lake in a forest appeared. The bike dropped down and as it slowed I saw a structure on the shore of the lake. It appeared to be made of stone, and looked to have been there a very long time. The hover bike slowed and stopped near the building.

Trusting that it would not take off on its own, leaving me stranded, I climbed off and went towards the stone building wondering what to expect within.

A door made of some unknown material faced me. It had a simple latch with no obvious locking mechanism. What was disturbing were the deep vertical gouges scored into it near the top. Puda’s answer, when I asked about them, didn’t reassure me a whole lot. I hoped I didn’t meet one of these Bears she’d described. The inside was a complete contrast to the outside. Where the stone outside blended into the surroundings with its obvious aged worn look, the inside was clean and up to the minute with comfortable furnishings and eating facilities.

A window faced the lake on that side of the building. Puda pointed out numerous devices designed for the preparation of food and cooking, neither of which I knew how to do. Orbiter food usually consisted of nutrition bars that need no preparation or cooking. I didn’t know what was in them exactly, only that alga was the basic ingredient. Puda explained the devices, but it really didn’t make sense what a cooker did, or an oven. The building was powered through some tight beamed power via a geo synchronous satellite and had light and heat.

I’d grown thirsty, and as there were no fluid baggies in sight, I asked Puda if the lake water was safe to drink.

“Yes it is, but why not look in the SAT,” she pointed out, directing my attention to white box like appliance. SAT turned out to mean Sub Ambient Thermaliser, which on opening, revealed all manner of objects. Puda indicated I take out a metal cylinder that had a ring device attached to the top. It was filled with some kind of liquid, that much I knew as I shook it. Puda gave me a smug look that warned me that she had something up her sleeve, metaphorically.

On her instructions, I opened the ring pull. Luck must have been with me, as the foam that erupted from the top squirted away from me and landed over Puda’s holographic image. The smirk on her face turned off in a flash as did she, as she vanished from sight.

I looked at the can, wondering for a moment whether this was some sort of anti holographic weapon. The smell of the liquid once that first burst of foam had ended drew my nose close. It smelled fantastic, so I took a sip, then another. My world exploded. It tasted like nothing I’d ever had. I couldn’t describe the tingling bubbly feel of it as it went down my throat. My world closed down to that can and my mouth as I swallowed the rest of it down.

Puda popped back into existence and coughed to get my attention.

“What is this stuff?” I asked, ignoring her chagrined expression.

“It’s called beer. It’s an alcoholic drink made from hops, malt and other ingredients.”

I knew about alcohol. Its general use was frowned upon after the Carlstone incident, where a drunken spacer had vented his whole section after a binge. Its use since then was tightly controlled, and death was the penalty if one was caught with it.

“I suggest you eat something before you decide to have another,” she offered.

“I don’t see any Nutebars here,” I told her, looking around in the shelves above the SAT.

Puda sighed. “You could catch your dinner, you know. There are trout in the lake for the asking.

“Trout?” I asked, now totally confused.

“It’s a fish. You catch it with a hook and line. Then you cook it,” she explained patiently.

I was still no wiser, although it sounded like I was expected to kill some living denizen of the lake and eat its flesh. The thought turned my stomach.

“Isn’t there anything else?” I questioned my holographic companion. It was okay for her, she didn’t have a stomach.

Puda shrugged, telling me I had to learn to eat real food sometime, the sooner, the better, in her opinion. I acquiesced to her demands, as my stomach began to rumble. The beer had given me a small buzz on my empty stomach and I figured, ‘What the hell.’

Following Puda’s instructions, I went to a door that led into a sleeping compartment. In there I found a cupboard that contained a tapering metal rod with several buttons on the thicker end. According to Puda, I was supposed to place the tip with its small hook and feather arrangement in the water and press the red button.

I took the rod outside to the lake shore, again marveling at the peacefulness of it all. There were just a few avian calls and the odd sound of some animal in the far distance. Placing the tip of the rod under the surface of the water, I pressed the red button. At once I heard a very high pitched whine coming from the rod. I scanned the waters, wondering what I did next, but as I was about to ask, a silvery shape struck at the hooked lure that had been at the end of my rod, leaping clear of the water, the surprise of it nearly making me lose my balance on the stony bottom.

The trout, as I assumed it was, took off with the lure which seemed to be attached to the rod with a fine line. Puda then suggested I press the other button on the rod, which I did. I almost dropped the rod as the line drew taut and I felt the weight of the trout as it struggled to free itself. Puda told me to keep the rod tip up and keep pulling it in via the button. It took longer than I expected, as the trout thrashed back and forth. There seemed to be some sort of tension device, which released the line when the strain grew too much.

Once the fish had exhausted itself, and it lay panting in the shallows, Puda told me to pick it up. I did so reluctantly, as it seemed too beautiful to kill it and eat it. Puda spouted something about the natural order of things, as I released it from the hook and carried it inside the building. Puda took over the “cleaning” of the trout, as her image solidified sufficiently to manipulate a knife. I watched squeamishly as she disposed of the head and some other bloody contents. I felt like I was about to throw up, before she washed it clean.

She had me open a container filled with a white powdery substance called flour, and had me put some on a plate to roll the fish in. Next was finding a pan and learning how to operate the cooking appliance. While that was heating, Puda had me open the SAT and take out some yellow putty like substance and place a portion in the pan to melt. The butter, as she called it, apparently came from the large animal that I had first encountered.

The smell of the sizzling butter made my nose twitch and my stomach rumbled loudly. Placing the fish in the pan as instructed, another far more appetizing smell issued forth. Once the fish was cooked on both sides, Puda told me to put it on a plate and season it lightly. By this time, all signs of queasiness had vanished as my taste buds prepared themselves for what was to be a sensory delight.

Puda seemed to be genuinely delighted with my reactions to “real food” as she called it. For my part, I was in heaven, so to speak. The whole trout disappeared in no time flat, and my stomach seemed to find it acceptable as well, at least the complaints stopped. The pan and plates all went into another box to be cleaned with a combination of steam and sonics.

I went outside to look at the stars reveling in the freedom to walk on a planet without needing a suit and its complementary air supply. The stars could be seen clearly as the moon hadn’t risen yet and even looking at them through the thickness of the atmosphere, the lack of pollution in it made it easy to see through. As it had been a fine day, only a few wispy passing clouds occasionally blocked the view. I tried looking for the area where the majority of our colonies now resided, but it was only with Puda’s help once she appeared beside me, that I could locate the region. The stars in that area were a little denser, but it was hard to image how far away it was from Earth.

I looked for signs of the craft that were attacking the Earth, but the trees obscured the view when Puda confirmed their position for me. The evening air took on a chill and having only light clothing on, I decided to go indoors. Besides, animals were now making their presence known by calling to each other, and I saw a large dark shape splash into the lake on the other shore. Puda informed me that it was a bear and could be dangerous if cornered.

Inside, I entered the sleeping quarters, which were separated from the dining and food preparation area by a wooden door. The sleeping equipment there was rather different from that on board the Hope and on the Orbiters. There were none of the restraints that normally would be pulled down over the sleeping mat to prevent one from being flung about the cabin if the inertia controls failed. The normal sleeping platform had a mesh net that clipped to the edge of the sleeping platform to allow you enough space to turn over and no more.

This bed was huge in comparison. It could have been used by three people side by side, and the pad was six times the thickness of the pads used in space. I reasoned that Earth’s gravity played a large part in the construction of the pad, which Puda told me was called a mattress. Puda showed me how to use it, which was helpful as I’d not encountered ‘blankets’ and ‘sheets’ before in the temperature stabilized environments all space vehicles provided.

I looked around for a sonic shower as I undressed, but saw no sign of it. Puda saw me looking and guided me to another door leading off the bedroom. Puda called it a bathroom, which led to more explanations as to what a bath was. All these new terms for things were starting to fill my head and I had to concentrate on what each new thing did.

The toilet needed little explanation, as it was similar to what I’d been used to except instead of vacuum assisted suction as used on the Hope to rid it of the excretal matter, it was flushed clean by water. The orbiters used a different method, as they needed to recycle the solid mass for the algae vats.

In spite of being called a bathroom, there was no bath, just a shower, which to me, used water in seemingly wasteful quantities. Puda remained with me, instructing me on what to do with the knobs and all the other things on the shelves. Unlike the sonic method of cleaning, where the hypersonic vibrations shook free all grime, water needed soap to do the same job. My smugness over our superior technology being better was soon wiped away, as the warm water cascaded down over my body in a rush of sensations. I reveled in the scents coming from the soap, and the shampoo and conditioner were equally enjoyable.

Having Puda’s image presence near me while I showered seemed a little odd, but I’d always had her voice with me all my waking hours while I’d been in the Hope, so I wasn’t put off by her presence. It was just strange seeing her standing in the shower telling me this or that while unconcerned that water and spray were passing through her image without effect.

When I finally tore myself away from the wonderful feeling of the warm water spraying on me, she hardened her image enough to pass me a towel and then showed me the hairdryer.

Dry, I padded naked into the bedroom and donned the gown Puda held out to me. I wasn’t expecting the slippery softness of the material, nor its lack of weight as it drifted airily around my body. I didn’t think it was particularly practical, as it didn’t exactly conceal anything underneath with its near transparency, however, it felt good against my body, so I didn’t complain.

I pulled back the sheets on the bed and slid in … and almost slid out the other side. The slick material, which Puda called satin, seemed to be another oddity. I was sure I’d have trouble staying in bed without slipping out accidentally if I moved at night. As with the nightgown, the feeling of the sheets as I brushed it with my hands and the rest of my exposed flesh, more than made up for any inconvenience it might cause later. Whether it was the combination of both materials on my body or static charges forming, my body seemed to react in a way similar to when I’d been in mating posture with Tryst. As I drifted off the sleep, I wondered. ‘If I feel like this on my own, what would coupling with a partner feel like in this body?’

I woke up wondering where I was. Then I remembered as I slipped out of bed, somewhat faster than intended. I looked up accusingly at the sheets from my position on the floor. Of course, Puda was right there to catch my embarrassing tumble out of bed. She saved most of my dignity, by not saying anything or even cracking a smile.

Looking through the closet Puda pointed out, I found I had new clothes to wear, supplied by Gaia. Puda explained that clothing in my size was now in all the places I might visit during my time on Earth.

I got dressed, thinking the lilac shorts exposed a lot of flesh to the open air and I wasn’t used to that. A ship’s jumpsuit was almost the only thing worn by anyone in space. Exposing skin to sunlight was a big no no, as radiation from unfiltered light left the skin red and blistered. Of course here on Earth that wasn’t such a problem.

I looked for something to eat, and Puda suggested a cereal from a package with some milk poured over it and sugar added.

“Why couldn’t I have had this last night instead of eating that fish?” I observed, watching Puda get the meal from a cupboard and the milk from the SAT.

“Because your body needs proper protein not that stuff you ate on the Hope. “Fish is a very good source of protein that the body can readily assimilate. By starting off with the right food, your body will stay healthy.”

“Okay,” I concurred, seeing the logic in her explanation. Following Puda’s directions, I was soon eating a cereal called wheat, compressed into a rectangular biscuit like form.

Puda sat down in front of me as I savoured another new flavour and texture of food. She looked at me with an anxious expression that made me pause in my eating.

“What?” I pressed.

“I have something I need to tell you.”

I waited, taking another bite of food, eyeing her carefully.

“When you selected that body, Gaia insisted on giving your mind a memory dump to assist you while you’re on the surface of Earth.”

“You messed with my mind?” I challenged, feeling alarmed at the intrusion.

“Not me, Gaia. I was prepared to stay at your side and give you the answers as needed, but Gaia said you’d need to recognize danger when you saw it, not when you might decide to ask about it.”

“This memory dump, what does it contain?” I asked, slightly mollified at Puda’s answer.

“If you want to access it, I can give you a synaptic trigger that will allow you to activate it. What it does is give you the right words for an object that you observe. If it is a threat, you will have instant knowledge of it. The longer you concentrate on it, the more information the dump releases. The contents of the dump can’t be accessed all in one go to prevent the flow of information from overloading your brain.”

“And if I refuse the trigger?” I asked curiously.

“That’s your choice of course,” Puda declared.

I only needed to think about it for a moment. This was a strange new world with many things new to me. My decision was a foregone conclusion. “Trigger it please.”

Puda spoke a word, and my world crystallized. I looked around the cabin, realizing that I knew what each object was called without thinking about it. I put the bottle of milk back into the refrigerator, former known as the SAT. I still had access to the old words I’d used for objects, but new words seemed to pop out in my mind, insisting to be used.

I finished breakfast then as Puda showed me how to make coffee, a hot stimulating drink once a mainstay of the long vanished people of Earth. I tried it with just milk at first, but it was too bitter for my uneducated palate. With the addition of sugar, I knew I’d be trying this again, as the drink made me more alert.

After I finished the drink, I did the few dishes and went outside. The sun was just above the tree line, beaming its warmth right on my body. The crisp air with its scent of pine filled my lungs with a richness I didn’t want to end. I could have stood there forever taking in the view as several birds I now identified as ducks, flew in low and skidded to a landing in the water, making a ripple in the lakes placid surface.

In this solitude, I could sense life all around, from the calls of birds to the buzz of insects. The lake showed signs of life from the small disturbances fish were making on the surface as they searched for insects on the water. Even the trees seemed to be breathing in a soft susurrus of wind aided movement. I couldn’t get over the stark contrast of this from the sterile environment of space.

Puda interrupted my reverie, reminding me that we needed to explore this new land further. I reluctantly dragged my attention away, and moved to the hover bike. Once in the air, I turned in the direction Puda indicated and off we went.

After several hours of flying over verdant green countryside, interlaced with forests and other assorted trees, I needed a break. I motioned downwards to Puda, ever present at my side, who nodded and pointed towards some rectangular shapes to the front and right of our line of travel. Angling the bike and descending to about tree top level, I saw rectangular shapes that grew into recognizable buildings. These were much larger and taller than the odd building I’d seen while flying that morning.

I landed the bike between the buildings on what looked like the remnants of a road that ran a short distance beyond the buildings and then vanished into grassy fields. Puda directed me to the lowest building, which had the word Café on a board above its entry. I looked at it and realized information about what a Café is, was just there, below my conscious thoughts, obviously info implanted by Gaia.

“Was this just activated for my benefit?” I questioned Puda, seeing some movement within the glass frontage.

“Yes, Gaia has activated all buildings within attainable distance along your route,” she supplied.

I went inside to meet an indescribable aroma. I was going to taste fresh baked bread, Puda informed me. Inside, it looked like automation had taken over jobs, people might have done in the past, as small flying robotic manipulators whizzed back and forth between the tables and the counter where the food and drink were being made.

Puda indicated a table, set for one. I sat down and fiddled with the knife and fork that I’d only used once before in the cabin. One of the spherical bots flew to the table with a card in one of its manipulators. On it was a list of different foods and types of drinks. Not knowing what I was in for, I asked Puda to choose for me. She asked how hungry I was. My answer prompted several of the bots to scurry around the machines behind the counter area.

Soon I was treated to a bowl of vegetable soup and two small warm rolls that had already been buttered. For a drink Puda had selected a chocolate milk shake. I didn’t know what to taste first. I tried the soup, and then the bread roll. I didn’t even try to identify the vegetables in the soup, but just closed my eyes as my taste buds were treated to a symphony of flavours. The bread was equally delicious, its yeasty flavour demanding that it be eaten. I let the flavour subside, before trying the milkshake. I couldn’t get over the fact that there were so many flavours still to be savoured. I felt sorry for those back in the Orbiters, having to live with just bland nute bars on which to survive. I could have anything I wanted, if I could bring back an unlimited supply of the foods from Earth.

I soon polished off the soup and the bread, forgoing a second helping in favor of something called a doughnut. I felt as if I could have lived in the Café permanently, just spending all my time sampling the different foods.

While I was finishing off the milkshake, I asked Puda a few questions. “There seems to be no reason for the buildings here. Were there more here at one time?”

“Mankind had left Earth in a terrible state. Very little of the natural world was left without a tangle of buildings and old transport systems. Gaia managed to restore most of the biosphere once the abandoned buildings were demolished using robotic help. After the land was cleared and the debris broken down or recycled, many supposedly lost plant species were found springing up from where cities once stood. Small pockets of habitation were left in case they returned. Now that Gaia knows that man has survived his ordeal in space, more buildings will be constructed. Now that roads are no longer necessary, there was no need to keep more than that to separate the buildings themselves.”

I walked outside to look at the other buildings. A tall multistoried building had the words Grand Hotel blazoned above the entry, and the word hotel triggered the memory dump, telling me its purpose. I wondered why a building existed here that could house around a thousand people Existed here in the middle of no place. I looked at the other buildings trying to see what the reason might be for having accommodation for that many. I walked into a glass fronted building that held some puzzling items inside. There were racks full of these long colourful objects with curved points at one end and a strange arrangement in the middle scattered in circles on the floor and hung up on the walls.

“Are these weapons? I asked Puda who had ghosted along behind me.

“No,” she laughed gently. “These are what are called skis. They are used for recreation on the ski fields north of here.”

“Ski fields?” I asked, the word conjuring an anomalous image from what I’d seen outside.

“The mountains just north of us are covered with snow in winter. People once skied the snow covered slopes on these things,” she explained, pointing to the skis in front of me.

The words snow and winter brought forth more knowledge from the memory dump, so my earlier question was answered as everything gelled. “That’s why they needed the hotel. It was for the people to stay in, along with the Café and the other buildings for entertainment.”

I went outside as I digested this influx of information, looking towards the building named Sensorplex, and Amelia’s Restaurant next to that. I sat down on a bench seat outside the ski shop and looked toward the mountains towering in the distance, trying to visualize this filled with people in the winter season.

“I can’t believe people left this place,” I sighed.

“Well, Earth several thousand years ago wasn’t like this.” Puda pointed out. “Despite all the best intentioned environmentalists, the world was a dirty polluted place. People were sick of the cramped living conditions and the smog laden air. Even those bent on making money, had little better conditions in the end. Man was ready to leave the planet and saw the then looming disaster of Earth’s imminent sterilization as a chance to be free.”

“They didn’t gain much then,” I told her, thinking of the cramped conditions I’d left in the Orbiter.

“They did learn how to conserve the air and the water, and their recycling was almost 95 percent.”

“I guess,” I conceded. “They were fools.” I grumped, thinking of how life could have been for me if they’d not left for space.

“They thought they had no choice, Araya. For them it seemed to be stay and die or leave for somewhere better.”

“I wonder what happened to those that were the major contributors of Earth’s pollution.” I asked, not expecting an answer.

“We can’t be sure, but we don’t think a lot of them survived. When the colony ships were built, they were designed to hold, transport and sustain the lives of many thousands of people each, whereas the rich had their own ships built on a smaller scale holding maybe a few hundred, or even less. Even if they had the best minds aboard, they couldn’t survive longer than a few generations before serious inbreeding would cause irreparable damage to their survival.”

“I don’t know very much about our history, as they say it was destroyed not long after they reached the final destination, but surely they could have bred with others in the Orbiters?”

“I think they went off in different directions to be by themselves, fearing being attacked for their luxury items.”

I thought about the many people that must have died on their voyages to the stars. When I asked Puda how many people were on Earth at the time of the exodus. I was staggered and suddenly felt ill at the waste.

What’s wrong?’ Puda asked concernedly, seeing me turn pale.

“Puda, there are barely 5 million people left, between the Orbiters and the planet based colonies.”`

Puda put her arm around me, firming it up to solidity, so I could feel some comfort from it. “I know, but think about this. How many children are born?” she asked.

“Well it depends on the death rate and then you have to earn a chance at having a child.” I mused.

“Exactly, the population is static, replacing a life for a life. I would hazard a guess that most that are left are the cream of the Earth’s ancestors.”

“Cream huh? I didn’t think you’d try to butter me up,” I laughed milking the intentional pun for all it was worth.

Puda surprised me, by grinning and churning out one of her own. “Cheese, that was pungent.”

“Yeah, I know, it stank.” I laughed feeling much better.

I made a call of nature, using the amenities provided by the restaurant and taking a look at the inside of it while I was there.

After that, we, or rather I took to the air again heading in an easterly direction. I saw herds of animals that my new knowledge told me were buffalo. As I came lower to look them over, they began to run, and the dust raised by their passing made me veer off and go higher. I became so intrigued with the buffalo I nearly flew into a flock of geese. Only Puda’s timely warning saved me from hitting them. I slowed, asking Puda about the numbers of animals below.

“Buffalo like a number of other species were made extinct. Only the DNA saved by various organizations allowed them to be regenerated by new processes Gaia developed after man left for the stars.”

Returning to full speed again, we continued on over vast expanses of fertile land. One might think that traveling as I was doing would become boring after a while, but after Puda suggested setting the auto pilot, I just sat back and watched the scenery flash by while letting the bike fly itself.

I couldn’t get enough of the variety of animal and bird life I saw, not to mention the way the land changed colour and shape. It seemed to fill my senses, soaking into my psyche like a sponge. I wished I could show the rest of our people in the Orbiters all that I was experiencing.

I mentioned it to Puda who just grinned. “I have a complete record both visual and audio of your journey so far,” she informed me.

“Not all of it right? Just the traveling bit?” I asked hopefully thinking of several embarrassing moments.

“All of it, from the first visual sighting of Earth,” she announced proudly.

I groaned, thinking my life would be over unless I edited certain parts out. I was already replaying certain conversations out in my mind.

*Your meeting with the cow was really amoosing.*

*I geese you should have ducked when flying with the birds, or were you just too busy avian a gander at the flock of sheep.*

I mentally slapped myself, before I punished myself further. Lunch was another tasteful experience, as Puda had me try cooked meat for the first time. We had dropped down to a village on the shores of a lake, where another hotel was joined by several eating establishments. When Puda mentioned I should try some roast chicken, I felt somewhat uneasy. I’d seen flocks of the birds on my journey and they didn’t seem particularly appetizing looking.

I soon changed my mind as I entered the restaurant that had been opened just for me. A smell unlike anything experienced till now filled my nostrils. It was combined with another smell that I’d eventually associate with cooked sliced tubers, known as French fries. I felt somewhat guilty having all this done just in case I might drop by. I wondered if there were other places nearby that also had food ready prepared for a possible visit and would now be wasted, so I asked Puda about it.

“Don’t be worried about wastage, Gaia only releases places from their stasis fields along your route. As soon as you select a place to stop, anything that was being prepared elsewhere goes back into stasis.”

“This stasis freezes time?” I asked, wanting further clarification.

“Sort of, the field stops all motion down to the atomic level. If a human was put into stasis, it would seem as if no time had passed once it ended. Things like heated food remain at the same temperature they were before the field is activated. Once the field is on, the items are calculated to have no temperature until the field is collapsed.”

“Calculated?” I asked, pouncing on the uncertainty.

“Once the field is on, it generates its own barrier to outside influence or measurement. This protects you from putting your hand into it and having it become a lifeless solid. The emitters of the field limit the size of the stasis containment and have to be placed on the perimeter of the area you want to cover.”

I finished my meal while Puda explained, and then sipped the indescribably delicious taste of some fizzy drink called cola. My mind wandered, thinking, that given everything I’d tasted in the last few days I didn’t think I could go back to eating nute bars. I HAD to get some of this stuff back to the colonies. If nothing else, this would convince them to come back, I’m sure after tasting what I had, they’d breathe vac to get back.

Once again we resumed our journey. I wasn’t sure of the purpose of traveling this way. Surely it would be easier to do it in the Hope in a fraction of the time. I suspected another purpose might have been to get me used to the wonders of the Earth in gradual increments. I wondered what more could outdo what I’d already seen. My unspoken question was answered four hours later.

As the sun was getting low in the sky over my right shoulder, I looked ahead, wondering where we would be landing for the night. A sudden flash in the distance somewhere in front of me caught my attention. It looked like a column of orange fire spearing high into the air. I slowed the bike, not sure whether what I saw was a warning of some sort. When Puda motioned me to continue, without explanation, I figured it was my next surprise.

As I started the bike again, I noticed that the glow changed slightly and other flashes also showed themselves. I finally figured it out. It was a reflection of the sun, but what was it being reflected by? I was about a hundred feet up and the reflections were as high, or even higher than my current position. As I got closer, I saw huge buildings gradually take shape. Not just one, but hundreds of glass faced buildings of many different shapes. One thing in common was that they all towered high into the sky and I wondered what kept them from falling over. I circled the city from the north, as the word ‘city’ sprung forth from my memory dump.

It was then I truly did stop as something else caught my attention … water. A huge lake spread out in a huge expanse that stretched to the horizon and beyond. I asked Puda about it and she corrected me, saying it wasn’t a lake, but an ocean. The word ‘ocean’ triggered a whole host of information regarding its size and composition from the memory dump.

As I swung my gaze from the ocean back to the city, my gaze was arrested by another surprise. A huge statue of a woman stood on a small island. It wasn’t as tall as some of the city buildings, but it had a presence that made it stand out. She held a torch in one hand that belched real fire from some unknown source. I circled closer, fascinated by the statue’s unusual green color.

A lump swelled in my heart as I gazed upon it. “Who is that, some famous leader?” I choked out to Puda.

“It’s called the Statue of Liberty, and was a gift from another nation across the sea.” Puda then gave me a brief history lesson, which supplemented the facts brought forth from the memory dump at the mention of the statue’s name. I mourned for all those that had missed seeing this statue, tears flooding forth as I cursed the loss of the history files back at the Orbiter colonies. I had to tear my eyes away from the statue before the night overtook me.

Puda directed me back to the city and led me into the glass and steel canyons made by the hand of man. Gaia had lit up the city in welcome. The coloured signage was nearly overwhelming.

I noticed curious gaps between the buildings as if something was missing, and asked Puda about it. “Gaia determined that certain buildings were now inappropriate, given the conditions on Earth and the advancements in robotic technologies. What remain of the old buildings are those to be lived in and places of entertainment. Buildings of historical significance remain and some office towers, but buildings for insurance and all those dealing with any facets to do with currency have been removed, and replaced with parks. Also, all buildings failing certain levels of safety have been removed.”

I stopped at a modest hotel building that would afford views of both the ocean and the Statue of Liberty and got off the bike. As I walked towards the doors, the bike automatically moved off to an underground storage area.

The entrance doors opened as I approached and I heard music coming from within. I entered, feeling like an interloper as I surveyed the grandeur within. There was a reception area, for assigning people rooms, serviced by an autobot. To one side, behind a huge glass wall, sat tables for dining. It looked as if it had been set up for hundreds of people, instead of just one. Pictures hung on one wall showing attractive couples, presumably of the rich or famous. Looking at the clothes the women were wearing, I felt rather underdressed.

“Who are those?” I asked Puda, pointing to the pictures on the walls.

“Once famous movie stars and other renowned people from the past,” she answered, triggering more information from my memory dump.

“I need a shower,” I stated, feeling positively grubby in this immaculate setting, even though hunger assuaging was equally high on my current list of needs.

An autobot came out immediately, and guided me up to a penthouse suite. I looked around at the huge multi roomed penthouse, thinking ‘This is all for me?’ Water running in another room, attracted my attention away from the opulence of my quarters and I moved in search of it. The bathroom from whence the noise was coming from sported a huge oval bowl like contraption that was being filled with hot water judging by the steam. An autobot was in attendance and was adding something to the water that reminded me of the flowers I’d smelled on my first day on Earth.

Puda appeared and suggested that I have dinner served up to my room for when I was finished with my bath. I nodded, undressing so that I could enter the bath now it was ready. I shooed away the autobot, preferring to wash myself, rather than allow it to do it for me.

“Ah heaven,” I murmured to myself, as I slipped into the frothy foam covered water.

Later, after another gastronomic delight, eaten in only my nightgown, I asked Puda what was next on my tour of Earth.

“Well, my refit is nearly complete, so once supplies and the weaponry are loaded, we could start on our return.”

“Weaponry?” I asked, feeling a sense of dread enveloping me.

“The new Hope is armed with the latest technology, and that includes weaponry. Remember we have to pass our attackers and avoid leading them to our existing colonies.”

“Ah, of course.” I’d forgotten about them in the heat of discovering all the new things the Earth had shown me so far. “So how long before you are ready?” I felt a certain sadness, knowing I’d soon be leaving this paradise.

“About a day longer. Oh and don’t be surprised at the Hope’s new look. She went though a major refit.”

“I hope she has room for some luxuries, I don’t think I could live on nute bars anymore,” I told her.

“Don’t worry about that. Food will be one of many selling points when we return to the Orbiters.”

I spent the next day exploring the city, trying to get a feel for what it might have been like before the exodus. Puda remained my guide, explaining most things, where there were gaps in the memory dump. I went into a sensodrama theatre, where one could feel what the characters in the show were feeling. The one I saw was about a polar expedition, using old fashioned transportation. I could feel the biting iciness of the air searing into my lungs, as the explorer breathed. I could also feel appendages I no longer owned, shriveling between my legs, as they tried to disappear into whatever warmth they could find. I’d never seen dogs before, and as the Huskies in the expedition dragged the sleigh I was on over the ice, I wondered if they still existed today.

I spent time in clothing stores, checking out the ancient fashions of my ancestors. The variety of styles and types of clothing boggled my mind. As old as I knew them to be, they still looked fantastic to eyes accustomed to utilitarian jumpsuits. Autobots continually enquired if I needed assistance, and after browsing for a while, I accepted their help. I was in a place called Vees and their selection of underthings was staggering.

The memory dump was hard pressed to supply names for all of the fabrics and items on show. I asked how I could pay for these items, as I had several I’d tried on in my hands. When I was told my presence was all the payment needed, I must admit I went a little crazy. A handful became an armful, then several bags full. Autobots took charge and organized for the clothes I selected that day to be delivered to the Hope. I worried that they’d be no room to move with all I’d picked up, but I couldn’t help myself.

I’m afraid I made a pig of myself, trying different foods from the numerous cafes along the way. I didn’t know how much or what Puda had selected to take back, so I figured I could eat now and be sick later.

I was ready to leave when the day started ebbing and the shadows grew in the canyons of the city. Even the bright lights on the frontages, couldn’t dispel the feeling that I was alone, and for the first time, I missed the bustle of Orbiter life. It felt almost as if the city was sucking my soul out in its need to be filled with its long absent humanity. For all her seeming insubstantiality, Puda was a welcome companion as I walked back to the hotel.

After another sumptuous meal, Puda announced that I should follow her to the transport entry under the hotel. “We have a longish journey to where the Hope is being made ready for launch. You can sleep on the way and arrive there in the morning refreshed.”

The underground transport system was a Maglev train that arrived as soon as we did. I climbed aboard and found the sleeper carriage. The train moved so quietly and so smoothly, I hardly noticed it was moving at all in the tunnel out of the city. Once out of the city limits, the tunnel rose and I saw just how fast we were traveling, as we sped through the countryside. As it was night, not a lot could be seen, so I settled down for the night, wondering what tomorrow would bring.

“Time for breakfast Araya,” Puda announced, waking me from formless dreams.

“Argh, what!!” I spluttered, dragging my eyelids open.

I raised my head and looked out the window. Ocean greeted my eyes, as the train ran down the coastline. I got up, and dressed before following Puda to the dining car. The smell of something delicious cooking greeting me before I even sat down. Bacon and eggs, toast, beans, and hash browns served by the ever present autobot, followed by coffee.

The Maglev stopped while I was finishing breakfast and I could see a massive building in the distance. It must have been a thousand feet tall and was shaped like a cube. Nearby, I could see some space craft, which looked to be out on display. Of the Hope, I saw no sign, so I assumed it wasn’t there yet, unless it was inside the building.

I climbed out the train and got into a hover vehicle driven by an autobot that started a running commentary as we neared the complex. The ships I’d seen were old space craft from Man’s first flights into space. They had been preserved as reminders of Man’s first faltering steps into space.

We moved closer to the building and a door opened to allow us entry. Inside, the immense size of the building became apparent. A huge spherical craft lay on a motorized carriage that seemed hardly able to support such a giant object. The craft was almost 6oo feet across and took up most of the room that wasn’t taken up by gantry cranes and support equipment. I didn’t see the Hope anywhere, so I asked Puda who was still by my side.

“This is the Hope,” she replied with a grin, waving towards the spherical craft.

“You’re kidding right? The Hope could fit inside this … this thing a hundred times,” I gasped.

“All that was essential in the old Hope is now incorporated inside the new Hope. Only your personal effects, the computer system and the genome bank were saved. The old Hope is now scrap waiting to be recycled.”

I hardly hear Puda’s words, my mind trying to take in that this was now my ship. As I walked towards it, a ramp extended from a hatchway on its belly and I walked up it like an automaton.

“Welcome back to the Hope, Araya,” Puda’s voice came from both the hologram standing beside me and from the ship’s com system.

“Thanks,” I answered, trying to look at everything at once. EVA suits lined one wall next to a locker containing what looked like weapons. I looked askance at Puda, who explained that they were non lethal.

“They are keyed only for your use unless you specify another user. They are gas weapons and stun weapons using high voltage neural disrupters. There are a flash bangs as well, guaranteed to temporarily blind any sighted being.”

“Hmmm,” I murmured, ardently hoping I wouldn’t have a need for any hand weapon.

I walked over to a vertical shaft that appeared to extend from the top to the bottom of the Hope. Puda urged me into it. I must admit that it was unnerving at first as there seemed to be no apparent floor to stand on. I found myself suspended on an invisible platform probably formed using a force screen.

“Bridge,” I commanded, seeing there were no buttons to press.

The expected stomach falling sensation as I accelerated upwards, failed to eventuate as I rose up to the bridge level in the middle of the ship. Obviously, inertial damping was included in shaft itself, negating the acceleration effects on the body.

I stepped out at what appeared to be the bridge, judging by the consoles and command chairs. I examined the room, which was 50 times the size of the old bridge. It was wedge shaped, like a segment of an orange, with the point ending at the center at the shaft. Ports looking outside lined the perimeter of the room, with screens above showing other views of the exterior of the ship’s hull. The command chair ran on a rail that could move sideways so that any screen could easily be reached in seconds. Behind the command chair was another, mounted higher so that the view from it wasn’t obstructed by the command chair, should it be directly in front of it. It too, ran on a rail system independent from the command chair.

Puda sat in the rear chair, as I went to sit in the one in front. Puda demonstrated what she had been explaining, by making her chair move side to side at high speed. I hoped there was a speed control or I’d suffer whiplash. I sat in the command seat, noticing that besides the manual drive controls, there was now a tactical weapons display.

“We will need that, once we leave Earth’s protective shield,” Puda explained, seeing where I was looking. She had stopped playing with her chair and was stationed just to one side of mine. Her antics with the chair reminded me of children playing with a new toy, and I wondered how much more humanlike she would get in time.

Puda ran over the weapons list, explaining their function and power ratings. It was quite impressive, but I had no idea what the aliens waiting outside the shield were fully capable of. I had to survive and get back to the Orbiters. Not only did Earth need humans to help ward off the attacking fleet, humans needed to return home to avoid further genetic damage that was taking it away from the original human norm. For those that decided to stay out there, the cargo of pure undamaged human genome was essential for their continued existence.

I would have liked to have had more time to familiarize myself with the ship, but Gaia had detected more ships entering the system, and we had to leave before they got within range. Puda lifted the Hope off at my command and we ascended quickly through the atmosphere. I shed a tear, as I looked down at Earth, as it grew smaller, the higher we went. I had Puda power the shields on the ship as we broke though the portal Gaia generated for us in the Earth’s protective shield.

At once, we were under attack, and our screens blurred into white incandescence as the fleet concentrated all their firepower on us. Alarms sounded, and then went silent as Puda acknowledged them

“Are the screens holding?” I asked stupidly. Of course they were holding, or we’d have been reduced to random atoms. What I really meant, was could we keep them up against the barrage of energy weapons from the alien fleet.

“Yes Araya, power levels are within tolerance,” Puda reported, politely ignoring my mental lapse.

I checked the instruments and the heads up display showing the position of the fleet. We were still moving outwards and the attacking fleet was repositioning itself to englobe the Hope as we moved further away from Earth. Strangely, no missiles were directed our way and I had a suspicion that they wanted the Hope intact. That gave me an idea.

“Puda, how much of this energy can the hull withstand?”

The hull is made of 3 inches of Cobalstantium, a tungsten cobalt platinum alloy, covered with a refractory layer of CCT, a ceramic composite that acts as an ablative. At the present levels of dissipation, we could withstand the forces on the skin for about an hour before things would get desperate.”

I watched the ships closing around us, negating our relative movement out of the system. I wanted them closer so I could deploy weapons that so far we hadn’t deployed.

“Reduce the screen power, and slow the ship. I want them to think we are in trouble.”

“Reducing power.”

Although I knew we were safe, I felt nervous at allowing us to become more vulnerable to alien weaponry. The incandescent grew even brighter and I had to filter down the visuals from the view screens. I watched as the screens powered down and the CCT took the full brunt of the attack.

Puda put up a view fed by one of Earth’s orbiting telescope via a tight beamed communication link. In it, I could see the Hope under attack. We looked like a brilliant comet as the ablating CCT streamed off the ship leaving a comet like trail.

“Energy levels dropping,” reported Puda.

For a second I thought she meant our power was dropping, but I could see the attack was waning, as they obviously wanted us intact and were tailoring their attack to our apparent diminished defense.

‘A little closer,’ I thought, watching the screens.

‘”Now!” I gave Puda the command to attack. Immediately, the defensive screen went back up and the incandescent flare from the vaporizing skin rapidly died away. The magnetic pulse weapon the Hope had deployed sent a globe of energy at the speed of light out to the encroaching ships.

I noted that the screens of the smaller of the alien ships were overwhelmed and flared into a rainbow of colours before going dark. Those ships seemed to lose cohesion in the englobement and fell away in our wake. The larger ships screens seemed to have handled the damage from the electronic pulses better. There was no indication they were damaged other than the attack on the Hope had stopped.

Puda had already launched a secondary attack consisting of 2000 Blackfire missiles that launched in every direction from the surface of the Hope. Many were destroyed, but a lot got through as there were at least 20 missiles for every ship still active. Of the nearly100 ships, about 60 were hit resulting in varying degrees of damage.

I had Puda open the Hope’s throttles and we hiked it out of there before the aliens could regroup. I set course to intercept my long abandoned cargo which I’d placed in a Trojan orbit around Neptune. I knew it was foolish, given my soon to be pursuers and the incoming reinforcements, but I hadn’t lost a cargo yet, and I was just stubborn enough to take a chance. Puda refrained from pointing out the obvious, instead, suggesting a plan that would allow me to get to the cargo without losing too much speed.

The new engines had a unique braking system, which allowed the kinetic energy of the ship to be dissipated by focusing it forward in a type of presser beam. This would normally be deployed against planetary bodies with little effect on them.

My route was anything but direct; something I hoped would confuse those following if they planned an intercept. I looped around Neptune, my presser beam fully focused on the small target that was my cargo pod. With the discrepancy in the masses, instead of slowing the Hope much, it sped up the pod.

Just as we neared the pod, Puda sent another beam against Neptune itself, slowing us further and acting like a fulcrum for the beam’s lever. Puda grabbed the cargo pod and opened a hatch to allow it to enter the vast hold just before we arced out in a normally impossible curve from Neptune.

Puda announced that the fleet around Earth hadn’t followed, but that the incoming fleet had diverted half its numbers to intercept the Hope based on our original direction of flight. I figured we had about 5 minutes before they could close on us. Luckily, we knew where we were going, or at least Puda did. This meant that any intercept course made by the alien fleet had to guess our intended direction based on our previous course. Having used Neptune’s mass as a brake, our tighter than usual turn caught the pursuing fleet by surprise.

I looked over the specs for our primary weapon, with it; I hoped we might survive long enough to reach the wormhole the Hope had initially used to reach the colony habitats. We were already going faster than the alien ships as we vectored across their path. They opened fire with their main weapons, but the shields barely registered it as we accelerated away.

Once they came into line behind us, Puda released a gaggle of mines in a roughly circular pattern. That would hopefully take out a few ships. Made of the same ceramic as the Hope’s hull, they should be nearly undetectable and filled with a new chemical explosive that would go off via a smart proximity trigger that would calculate the correct firing time based on the enemy’s speed and vector. The mine didn’t rely on the explosive itself. That only served to launch the main stage of the weapon, several thousand one inch balls of solid cobalt, expanding in a near invisible cloud, which with luck, should pass through the toughest hull. Unlike nuclear based weapons they wouldn’t give off a detectable radiation signature, which could alert them to the danger.

The lead ship ran into the exploding mine’s effects and broke out of formation, obviously damaged. The next in line dropped back, taking more care, but still following our lead. We managed to put some distance between us and the next ship that took up the lead position. As soon as contact was cut down to instruments, rather than visual, the Hope underwent a transformation. The bright silvery skin of the hull from the midline to the rearmost side broke away like an empty circular bowl. The skin of the body of the separating Hope was black by contrast, making it hard to see against the backdrop of space. The Hope used her engines for a short vector change, while still shielded by the breakaway portion. The empty shell continued on, veering slightly off course due to the effects of the thrust upon it from the Hope, providing a diversionary target, while the darkened Hope vectored off at an angle.

The wormhole we were heading for was about an hour’s distance at the speed we were traveling. I wanted to get there faster, but realized if we used the engines again, our energy signature might be detected by those following.

While Puda prepared for arrival at the wormhole’s event horizon, I got up and wandered through the ship, letting Puda update me via the ships com system. I felt like having a shower and changing into something less constricting than the jumpsuit. It wasn’t that it was particularly uncomfortable, but its body conforming tightness rubbed distractingly across my chest and my much more sensitive breasts.

I found the “head” and was amazed at its appointments. I saw a real shower and turned on the water to test it. Even though we maintained a half gee, slots in the base of the shower would allow no gee showers by using suction to keep the water flowing away. I promised myself I would try that if I survived the next few hours. I was tempted to take a shower right then and there, but I could see time was ticking away, so I headed back to the bridge.

“Ring deployment will be activated in three,” intoned Puda.

I watched on the monitor as one of two rings the diameter of the Hope separated from the hull at the point of maximum girth of the ship. The second ring remained in place while the first was pushed ahead of the Hope using the energy beams the Hope carried. It started getting larger as sections of the ring slipped out from each other like a telescoping antenna, except it remained in a loop. It finally ended up as a loop that could have encompassed a ship three times the size of the Hope. I knew of no ship in the colonies, bar the habitats themselves, that couldn’t easily pass through the ring with ease.

The ring was pushed far forward of the ship, for the next maneuver would be critical as we neared the wormhole, which was now in visual range. I saw the direction of the wormhole was working against us and I hoped the ring would do its job or we would have a very short journey ahead.

The ring grew till it reached the calculated diameter of the mouth of the wormhole. Gaia must have retrieved the data of the size from the memory banks of the Hope when it first used the wormhole. I watched anxiously as the ring entered the outer edge of the wormhole. Instantly, the force exerted on it was reversed, causing the ring, with its lighter mass, to stop, while marginally accelerating the Hope in return. With barely seconds to spare, the ring activated, causing a complete force barrier to form across the mouth of the wormhole. This had the effect of reversing the direction the wormhole with a hydraulic shock effect. The barrier dropped as the nose of the Hope approached the event horizon, and then we were in.

The ring would be undetectable, masked by the wormhole energies formed at the entrance. The wormhole had to remain open for it to work, so there was a possibility that more ships could enter the wormhole behind us. I trained our main weapons rearwards and waited for the inevitable.

Why is it that when you are waiting for something to happen, time seems to crawl? I felt an itch begin to niggle under my bra strap and I shifted my stance to see if it would go away without having to scratch. Of course it didn’t, and just as I reached to scratch, Puda interrupted. “Three alien ships have entered the wormhole.”

My senses galvanized, the itch forgotten as Puda read off the distances. I couldn’t fire too soon, or the back blast might damage the ring, even though it had it own screens. Too late, and we would risk damage ourselves, from either our own weapons or the alien’s fire.

Taking a deep breath, I fired a burst from the quantum particle cannon Gaia had developed. The burst hit the leading craft and sliced through its shields like a hot knife though butter. Its engines took the full brunt of the hit and exploded, sending the hulk careering into the wall of the wormhole. A massive portion broke off and breached the wall itself, never to be seen again. Where it would end up was anyone’s guess, but survivability would be a long shot. The rearward section slowed and impacted the following ship, whose screens failed to hold. The ship opened up like superheated tin can, spilling its contents into the path of the third ship, crippling it and leaving its crew dead or unconscious.

Momentum kept the last ship moving after the Hope, as Puda readied the second ring for launch. I slowed the Hope as Puda launched the ring just before we reached the wormhole’s other mouth.

“More ships have entered the wormhole,” Puda announced.

“I see them; do we have enough time to deploy?” I asked, checking the instruments.

“Affirmative.”

The crippled alien ship shot out of the wormhole moments before the ring gate placed at the mouth of the wormhole was activated reversing the direction in which the flow was directed.

“What will happen to the ships inside the wormhole once the flow of the wormhole is reversed again?” I asked, as the gate sent a coded signal to the far gate reversing its polarity.

“Anything from hydraulic crushing, to breeching the wall. Even if the ships survive the reversal, the crews will be crushed to a paste,” Puda intoned emotionlessly.

I shuddered, at the thought, but it was them or us, and my vote was for us. Now we had control of the wormhole, I relaxed somewhat. I checked the drifting alien ship, seeing it was still on its original trajectory and showing no signs of activity. I wanted that ship, but wary of surprises, we approached within grappling distance with full screens up.

Once we connected, Puda sent a diagnostic probe into the ship through a hole bored into its hull. An atmospheric seal around the probe’s entry point kept the “air” from escaping. “It’s breathable, but it does contain sulfides.” Puda announced after analyzing the air inside the other ship.

“Fart gas?” I joked, needing to laugh after our close shave in escaping pursuit.

Puda didn’t comment. The small remote she had sent into the other ship started sending back pictures of the alien interior. I was puzzled at seeing no alien bodies, until Puda pointed them out.

“But those are only metal robots, surely?” I retorted, seeing the oddly shaped machines scattered inside.

“Apparently not, and don’t call me Shirley” she replied, chuckling at some inside joke, as the remote zoomed closer to the shattered ‘head’ of the alien and highlighted the organic ooze seeping out.

“Eeewh,” I commented, feeling my gorge rising up. The androids if that could be applied to the alien crew consisted of a conical base with what looked like a variety of mobility systems in its base. Going by the views shown by the remote, some had tracked wheels, some had small manipulators sticking out, some even had what looked to be some sort of propulsion system, but it might easily have been a suction system that allowed them to stick to any surface. It was hard to tell what the cone-like projections were used for with them all lying inactive.

One thing was clear, on a second look, each system retracted into or extended from the base depending on which one was needed at the time. The torso was basically a metallic tube from which four arm appendages, two on each side, one under the other. The arms themselves seemed to be flexible all along their length and held different type of manipulators on each ‘hand.’ The head was cone shaped, making the whole thing look like a short two stage missile or rocket. Obviously the organic brain inside, was the weakest part of it and smears of brain and what might have passed for blood could be seen leaking out of the joint at the base of the head.

“The atmosphere is a 60 percent nitrogen 30 percent oxygen mix with the rest being carbon dioxide and a 2 percent sulphur dioxide.” Puda reported.

“So can we get rid of the stink?” I asked.

“I need to interface with the computer systems first to see if the sulphur is an original component of the air or something produced by the aliens themselves. I could replace it with our air, but I would have to shut their air system off.”

“Get on it, please. I’d like to examine the ship in person, but first I want to get a shower,” I told her, getting out of the chair and stretching. Having a real shower in space using water was a luxury I couldn’t do without now. The system worked fine in the half gee conditions that were standard in space flight. The added suction in the base helped prevent the water from bouncing up my legs. I wondered idly how much fun null gee showers would be if I asked Puda to shut off the artificial gravity. Lots, I figured, if you had a partner with you. The tensions of the last few hours were happily washed away with the imaginary dirt I felt I’d accumulated, and when I turned off the water and turned on the hot air towel, I felt as if I could tackle anything, even the insides of an alien ship filled with dead bodies. I realized I’d probably need another shower after that job, but at this point in time, having another shower later, didn’t seem like it would be any kind of chore.

Encapsulated in my EPS with the visor sealed, I opened the hatch of the Hope. Puda had turned the alien ship around using grappling arms so that its own port lined up opposite our own. An extendable and flexible coupling now joined the two ships, as Puda had determined the two hatches were incompatible for a direct mating. A force tube was put up around the coupling to ensure that any breach in it couldn’t cause depressurization of either vessel. I pulled myself along the coupling tube using the hand rope attached to the other end, seeing I was in a weightless environment.

I readied my stun stick, just in case there were any survivors hidden away. Opening the hatch proved to be anticlimactic, as the manual controls for it were easy to access and simple to use. Like the Hope, there was a short corridor leading to the inner hatch. Even though there was pressurized atmosphere outside the first hatch, the inner one refused to open unless the outer hatch was closed. I hoped this meant that the ship wasn’t capable of landing on a planet, which made it inferior to the Hope in capabilities.

I didn’t like being without a speedy exit if something untoward happened aboard, but I had no choice as the outer hatch shut behind me. Once inside, I confirmed that no hostiles were waiting to pounce, before venturing very far from the airlock.

“Everything seems okay,” I informed Puda, adding ‘so far,’ under my breath. I walked to the command center by following my instincts and the amount of traffic wear on the floor decks. There was about 1 gee gravity aboard, so I assumed some ship functions were still active to keep the artificial gravity running. I was glad I hadn’t removed my faceplate, as the alien’s demise looked particularly messy and smelly. I knew the Hope carried several robotic drones that would clear away the remains, once I’d established some control.

The controls, although the alien symbols next to them were, of course, undecipherable, but as to function, they looked reasonably recognizable. There were no chairs to indicate where the captain sat. The alien’s body form must serve as a platform from where they worked and controlled everything.

I examined the control board minutely, looking for some sort of port, so Puda could access the ships systems. I located it eventually, but found it was occupied by a fallen alien body’s manipulator.

I set aside my stun stick before I tried to pull it free, and suddenly found myself fighting off an arm that had whipped around my neck and was doing its best to separate my head from my body. As I started to black out, I wondered briefly if the alien was indeed dead or whether this was some programmed self defense system built into the mechanical part of it.

As I fell to the floor, my leg kicked the stun stick leaning against the control console. Luckily, the active end fell against my chest and I managed to grasp it and shove it past my face into the alien’s body with all the force I could muster. A stun stick can be triggered two ways, either by using the control button on the grip, which sends a high voltage arc out of the tip for a no contact defense, or by physical contact when the tip is pressed against an opponent, as I was attempting now. Luckily it activated, and being insulated by the EPS I didn’t feel the shock from the metal arm around my neck. The alien twitched and the arm relaxed as the brain encased by metal and whatever served its neural network was fried by the supposedly non lethal discharge.

I rolled out of its embrace, trying to suck as much oxygen back into my lungs as I could. The air seal to my suit must have remained intact, as I smelt none of the vapour now issuing from the alien body’s neck joint. At this point I still wasn’t sure if the alien had been alive or if it had reacted to my pulling its plug by some unknown defense mechanism. I vowed to tread warily around any others I wasn’t sure were obviously dead.

“I’m okay,” I informed Puda, who had been calling insistently over the com from the moment of the attack.

I placed the gadget Puda had cooked up, over the now vacant port, and Puda went silent as she started interfacing with the ships computer systems.

“I have a lock,” she told me, a few minutes later.

Once Puda had gained control of the ship’s systems, she sent over several of the Hope’s bots to clean up the ship. Most of the bodies were dumped into space keeping only those that looked reasonably intact except for the fact they were dead. They were stored in a stasis field in one of the holds on the Hope, so that further examinations could be carried out.

“Is there anything useful onboard in terms of technology?” I asked after a while, having seen the last of the aliens removed.

“They do seem to have a cloaking device attached to their propulsion systems, which eliminates most of their ion trail.”

“Can we utilize it for our own drive?” I asked looking for any advantage for the future.

“No, we use a different propulsion method, but it has given me an idea how to mask what little trail we do leave. I can have it in use by the time we get to the colonies.”

“Have you found out who they are yet?” I queried, asking the next important question.

“They call themselves the Eleven and they originate from a star system halfway across our galaxy called 01011 in their binary language.”

“They use binary as a language?”

“So it seems. They are little more than organic powered computers, searching the universe for resources. They haven’t used the wormhole method for travel, as they are so long lived time and distance has no meaning for them, they just travel though normal space till they reach a suitable planet.”

“What about the new ships that arrived as we left?” I asked, thinking they couldn’t have traveled so far in so short a time, if it was in response to my arrival on Earth.

“It would seem their arrival had more to do with the discovery of Earth than our arrival.” Puda replied, seeking out the information in the alien database. “Fleets of ships were sent out in all directions. This ship was part of a fleet. The second part was just moving out to investigate Alpha Centuri, when they were called back by the fleet that had arrived at Earth.”

“So we were just unlucky to be leaving when the second fleet entered the system?” I asked, more to myself that Puda.

“The fleet around Earth sent a message saying the target planet had a visitor, and another alerting them that we had departed,” Puda confirmed.

“Ah,” I replied distractedly. I’d been exploring through the ship where I could reach. The only passage big enough for my body was the passageway from the bridge to the airlock and from there to the hold. There were other passages, but they were only as tall as the aliens themselves and I didn’t feel like putting myself at risk going into such small openings.

The hold was filled with ingots of metallic ore and what seemed to be some kind of sugary syrup in vats. I figured that the sugars were to be used to feed the organic part of the alien’s brain. The ore, well I supposed that would eventually end up as either new bodies or new ships. Finding nothing else of interest, I decided to get back on board the Hope and get a meal.

“Wow! I didn’t expect to have fresh fish, and these chips are also excellent,” I enthused, still feeling pleasure at the new and unaccustomed textures and flavours from real food. “I hope you have plenty of supplies on board, or I’ll run out of food once I let certain people have a taste.”

I decided to get another shower before heading to my sleeping quarters. I knew I wasn’t dirty, but I just wanted to rid myself of the intangible stink from the alien ship. Maybe the penchant to bathe my body was because I was now fully female instead of the mixed gender of my birth. Having sensitive breasts was certainly a plus when showering, and I spent a long time washing imaginary dirt from them, until arousal was almost too much to bear. I felt guilty using so much of the precious liquid for such frivolous enjoyment.

“Are you sure we have enough water?” I asked, speaking to the invisible presence inhabiting all areas of the Hope.

“We are carrying 500 tons of pure water,” Puda answered from the speaker in the cubicle I was in.

“500 tons…” I gasped, trying vainly to imagine that volume aboard the Hope. “That’s worth a fortune, where I come from.” It was true; water was the most valued commodity among the habitat communities. Recycling can only go so far, before inherent losses in the system means you need to acquire a new supply.

“The Hope will use no more than one ton of water to reach the colony and that includes your personal usage, which will, of course, be filtered and used for fuel,” Puda reassured me.

We resumed our travel back to the colonies keeping the alien ship on tow behind us. It was two days before I began recognizing the stars familiar to me. Unfortunately, as we neared familiar territory, someone was nearing us.

“Unidentified vessel, this is the heavy cruiser Basher. Power down and prepare to be boarded,” an authoritative voice broke in on the com.

“This is Araya Lightsword out of Orbiter Nine, commanding the Hope,” I replied to the hail.

“If that’s true, and I don’t believe it is, then you are under arrest for trafficking in stolen goods and for the destruction of the Clementine from the Excelsior sector,” the as yet unidentified voice replied with venom.

“I deny those charges, and I’m on a mission of greater importance to the colony than you can imagine,” I spat back, unrepentant. Nevertheless, I urged Puda to continue on and be alert for incoming fire.

Puda moved the Hope so that the alien craft attached to the hull, was facing away from the incoming cruiser, just in case. I didn’t want it destroyed by the cruiser’s fire should she attack, not knowing its own defensive capabilities. I knew it didn’t stand up to our own fire, but while I was assured that the cruisers weaponry was inferior to our own, it might still overwhelm the defensive screens of the alien vessel.

“Last warning! Power down or face destruction!” the Basher’s commander warned.

“Screens up,” I ordered needlessly, knowing Puda was already acting. I sent a tight beamed message aimed at Orbiter Nine’s calculated position. It would arrive too late for any help to arrive, even if they decided to send any, but at least I had sent a brief description of my travel and the location of Earth.

I watched as the cruiser fired a salvo of Crip missiles. She obviously wanted the Hope intact, so had sent the ship riddling fragmenting missiles that would cripple a ship without totally destroying it. I didn’t bother to retaliate and the proximity fuses detonated, sending several tons of shrapnel into the shields. I saw the flare as the kinetic energy was dissipated in a blaze of pyrotechnics. Seeing the ineffectiveness of their missiles, the Basher unleashed its main weapons, her Ionic Cannon.

As the beautiful looking, but deadly blue beams bit trenchantly into the Hope’s shields, I watched the screen's readouts while Puda monitored the load on the screens themselves.

“I guess its time to show our own teeth,” I ventured, wondering what the commander of the Basher was thinking about our seeming indestructibility.

“It looks like they are preparing to ram us,” Puda noted.

I sighed, ‘Some people never learn’. To put one’s crew at risk to ram an unknown ship was foolishness in my eyes.

“Can you place a shot on her bow, preferably non lethal?”

“Yes, Captain,” Puda agreed somewhat happily.

I guessed that Puda felt the need to defend herself, so I didn’t pip her on the use of Captain.

I watched our main weapon fire upon the Basher. Although the ship had her own shields, our beam cut through it like a hot knife though butter, something I had done on Earth, so knew what the term meant. The skin of the Basher’s nose vapourised instantly, even though it must have been several feet thick. After checking that no serious damage had been inflicted apart from some minor loss of air in the forward bulkhead, I called the Captain.

“That was just a warning. If you continue on a ramming course I will fire once more. Please break away. I don’t want to cause loss of life, but I will fire if you persist and then it will be on your head. As I said, I’m on a mission more important than the lives aboard your ship, so I will fire.”

I waited, and watched anxiously, meaning every word I said. If I had to fire, I’d try only to cripple it. Slowly, the Basher turned away, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

“This is Captain Kurt of the Basher; we are breaking off, but will be paralleling your course to your destination.”

“Understood,” I answered, knowing he’d decided to play it safe until the situation changed or he got some backup in the form of a galaxy class Super Dreadnaught.

“Puda? Let’s get the lead out. We have a date on Orbiter 9,” I prompted, urging her on before we needed to defend against the might of the Excelsior sector’s navy

We traveled onward, ever alert for more of the Basher’s support ships. It wasn’t until we were nearing our destination that Puda detected several heavy ships on an intercept course. I was working out where our position would be from Orbiter 9 when they’d eventually catch up to us when I spotted what I’d hoped I would see, ships coming from the Orbiter. I knew then that the Basher and others following would have to stay their hand.

“This is the Constance and the Ulysses from Orbiter 9. Please advise your vessels to observe protocol approach,” I heard the Captain advising the Basher and myself.

“Hope complying,” I replied, slowing my approach speed, with a sigh of relief. The Basher took longer to execute the same order, closing in on the Hope as if he could take us before the others arrived.

“Acknowledged, Hope. Please stand down, Basher, or we will be forced to act,” the Captain of the Constance admonished the Basher.

I watched the Basher slow reluctantly, but I knew I wasn’t out of the woods yet. If they could prove their case, that I was carrying stolen contraband, then I could be turned over to them and my ship confiscated, something that I had to prevent at all costs. Time for some legwork. I grabbed the inventory for the cargo I had been dragging over half the galaxy and went in search of the damaged portion of the old Hope that had contained the cargo.

Puda directed me to where the cargo had been placed within the ship, I started opening the seals and then had a thought. “Puda? Can you record what I’m doing so no one claims I tampered with the goods.”

“Go ahead Araya; footage will include time stamping for continuity veracity.”

I opened the first container, checking its contents against what was listed on the manifest. I finished about an hour later, confirming my suspicions. What I found inside bore no resemblance to the goods listed on the sheet I had been given. Someone was playing a double game, and had used me as a pawn. Someone would pay for that, and pay dearly.

I headed back to the bridge feeling rather angry. Checking that everything was still okay, I headed to the galley to indulge my anger on a huge helping of ice cream. One thing for sure, it was going to be interesting once we reached the Orbiter.

I felt too nervous to sleep, so I indulged in a hot shower and dressed in a military style uniform Gaia had designed for me back on Earth. It looked impressive on me. The dark navy blue cloth with its abundance of gold piping fitted my new form exactly. I even had a medal with a ribbon. Gaia had insisted I accept one representing the rediscovery of Earth. The medal itself was gold with the outline of Earth’s continents engraved on its face. On the collar I had Captain’s Pips. Checking that my hair and makeup were fine, I made my way back to the bridge. In the hours before we reached the docking bay at the Orbiter, Puda had sent a remote to bring some food for me.

The Basher and its two fellow ships stood off some distance from the Orbiter, with the Constance and the Ulysses in attendance to one side. As I prepared to dock, I noticed a gig coming from the Basher, heading towards the Orbiter.

I still had the alien ship attached to the hope, which made docking a bit more difficult. Our size was another problem, as the Hope was bigger than the usual ships that berthed here. Once the docking tube mated with the Hope’s airlock and the umbilical with its electrical and data transfer connections were tight and sealed, I shut down the drives.

When I stepped out, Puda had a remote go with me. Although it could fly on its own, I had it perched unobtrusively on my shoulder with an earpiece connected to it to relay anything Puda might need to tell me privately. It looked more like an ornament than a high tech surveillance device. I didn’t need to tell Puda to refuse entry to anyone else trying to enter the Hope, no matter what section of officialdom they claimed to be.

“Captain Araya Lightsword reporting,” I told those gathered at the airlock, standing still, but poised.

“Captain, there seems to be some confusion, if you are claiming to be the Araya Lightsword from Orbiter 9,” one of the officials stated, looking over my form with more than a hint of interest.

“Sorry, Sir, let me introduce myself again. I’m Araya Lightsword 95632. I know I don’t look like my original ID picture, but I can explain.”

I waited while the official verified my registration number, but another, who was too impatient to wait, broke in. “What about this ship? It’s nothing like the Hope we have registered. That was a hybrid vessel, much smaller than this ship. I say we have it towed out of here, so we can examine it thoroughly for any possible threat to this habitat.”

Just as I was about to protest that no one was to touch my ship, several men in the military uniform of the Excelsior Navy burst into the room with several security personnel from the habitats own force.

“I want that person arrested for murder and trafficking in stolen property belonging to us,” a forceful hir, whom I assumed was Captain Kurt, shouted over the voices of the officials.

Kurt hadn’t seen me before this, and as hir parted the ranks and took a good look at me, hir stopped, hir’s anger fading into a type of stunned awe.

‘What’s going on? I hissed to Puda via the lapel com, making sure no one overheard me.

“I think that maybe they are awed by your appearance,” Puda answered after a pause. “Remember, you are the epitome of the female form. I’m guessing that buried deep into every male’s psyche, is an image of the ideal mate. Even those Hir that are in estrus and take on the more feminine traits will be attracted to you, as they still have a masculine side to their altered forms.”

“So now I’m everyone’s wet dream?” I whispered back, worriedly. I didn’t have time to ponder on that bit of news, as we were all interrupted by the arrival of several of the Orbiters Presidential security team. I was then asked to follow them, along with Captain Kurt, overriding any objections from the first officials that had questioned me.

We entered the chambers of the high council where the President held sway over the governance of the colony. After we were shown to seats set some distance apart, the President entered in ceremonial dress. It looked as if we were to be judged, going by the colours of the sashes. The President had many duties besides running the day to day events in the colony, even being judge, jury and if need be, executioner.

“Opening statements,” the President stated formally.

I waited, allowing Captain Kurt to go first. “I claim that Araya Lightsword did willfully take on stolen contraband from the Excelsior 2 habitat and failed to yield to the Clementine when ordered to submit to an inspection. In the subsequent battle, the Clementine was lost with all aboard. We demand that the ship Hope be turned over to us and Araya be punished by our laws.”

“These are serious charges. What say you in the defense of these accusations?” The President asked me.

“If it’s not too much of a burden, I would like to have Princie Constantine Bregen from Excelsior 2 brought here to substantiate my claim that the cargo I was carrying was legitimate,” I pressed. I had a gut feeling that the Princie was nearby, either already onboard the habitat, or on one of the two ships accompanying the Basher, since that was where I would have been had it been me in hir place upon hearing that the Hope was back.

“But Princie Constantine is a respected noble! What makes you think hir would have any dealings with you … you?” spluttered Kurt, obviously coming up short of a word to describe my womanhood.

The President, powerful as hir was, still needed justice to be served, even if it meant a delay in getting this matter resolved.

“Enough, Princie Constantine will be duly summoned. Until that time, you’ll both be assigned quarters where you will stay until we reconvene.”

“That shouldn’t be necessary,” Kurt spoke up. “The Princie is on my sister ship, the Nebulon. I can have hir here shortly,” Kurt added somewhat red faced.

The President wasn’t happy with the Captain playing hir for a fool and wasting hir time. The President glowered, as Kurt put in an urgent call to the Nebulon.

“Araya Lightsword, will you answer the charges of the destruction of the Clementine while we wait for the Princie?” the President asked

I nodded and began to speak. “The Clementine was lost to an ion storm in Epsilon Minor 14 degrees above the galactic plane, after attacking and pursuing me to that region. It was captured by a wormhole I’d entered a short time earlier in my attempt to avoid destruction.”

“See? This person even admits hir caused the loss of the Clementine,” crowed Captain Kurt.

“I’m a SHE, not a hir,” I informed Kurt, deciding to put everyone straight as to my new gender.

“A she? What is this term? Is that why you look like your body has gone to the extremes of an estrus cycle?” The President fired at me.

“A she is the term for a female of the human species, and “he” is the term for the male. My form reflects the feminine half of the human race as it used to be long ago when we first ventured out to this place,” I replied, laying the bombshell into utter silence.

“What are you saying?” the President demanded. “We have always been like this, cycling back and forth in and out of estrus.” the president added, becoming sidetracked from the main issue, as I had hoped.

“Think of it as being permanently in estrus,” I added for clarification. “This is how life was lived back on Earth before we emigrated into space.”

“Earth? That’s just a legend,” snorted Kurt.

“Oh it exists alright. I’ve been there.” After dropping this second bombshell, I waited for the noise to die down as the people gathered in the room argued back and forth.

I saw an official whisper to the President and then hir looked at me with anger before calling for silence. “As I’ve just been informed, Earth did exist thousands of years ago, but it was destroyed, so your statement that you were there doesn’t hold up. I’m inclined to believe that if you are willing to lie about that, then you could be lying about the other,” hir finished with a smug look.

Of course Kurt smirked as well, seeing that the Hope would soon be in hir hands very soon.

“I have proof the Earth still exists. It is aboard the Hope,” I protested.

“Show us, then,” the President demanded curtly, not looking amused.

Before I could say or do anything, we were interrupted by the arrival of Constantine Bregen. Now sharp objects were really going to hit the vac seals. “Ah just the person I want to talk to,” I started, before anyone could get set.

“Araya? Is that you?” Constantine asked with some surprise.

“Yes. Now please tell Captain Kurt the deal we made to transport a particular cargo to Quasmat’s scientific station.” I cut short Constantine’s greeting and waved the manifest I’d just removed from my pocket.

“Ah yes,” Constantine sighed, seeming reluctant to admit having had a deal with me.

“You still owe me payment, even though I didn’t get to deliver it yet. I named a figure just off the top of my head, which made the Princie’s eyes widen.

“You still have the cargo?” hir asked. Not realising that the question had confirmed my deal with the noble.

“Yes. It’s aboard the Hope safe and sound. I would like everyone to come and examine it, and realise why I’m asking for such a high payment.”

This turn of events caused a considerable buzz among those gathered in the room. The President had to again call for silence before announcing that we would go and inspect the said cargo and either validate or invalidate Kurt’s claims.

We walked back to the docking bay, where I admitted only the President and hir bodyguard, Kurt and Constantine, into the Hope itself. The rest had to wait outside, as I flatly refused to allow so many into my ship. As it was, I could see the greed in Kurt’s eyes as hir looked around at the interior of a ship hir hoped to own very soon.

I led them to the cargo bay and showed them the cargo manifest and the identifying codes on the boxes. Kurt, of course, soon spotted most had been opened and protested that I’d tampered with them and had probably got rid of the evidence.

“Check these. They haven’t been touched. They are supposed to be propulsion unit parts,” I interrupted, moving towards the rear of the cargo bay.

Kurt attacked the cases, intent on proving hir claim of contraband. The others and I stood back and let Kurt open them without hindrance. As Kurt pulled the top free and removed the packing aside, hir face dropped and reached in and pulled out what I’d found in the other cases.

“What is this?” Kurt shouted angrily, throwing the lump of plaster to the floor.

“That’s what I want to know. All the cases I opened contain the same worthless plaster,” I asked, looking at Constantine for an answer. “I don’t like being made a diversionary target and having my life put on the line while you play political intrigue among your own people. That’s why I asked for such a high fee. I nearly died several times, and put my ship though hell carrying your useless cargo.” I accused Constantine.

“I’ll pay it, not because I set you up, but because the goods actually got to their destination. I’m sorry you went through all this. I had expected you to submit to a search while the real cargo went by another route. The reason I went though all this rigmarole was that we had a spy, who was alerting certain parties to our deliveries, and thus allowing them to intercept them. We set this delivery up to uncover the culprits. I never expected Captain Kurt to be involved in this smuggling ring. What say you, Captain?” Constantine accused Kurt.

“Stand back, I’m taking this ship, and nobody had better try stop me,” threatened Captain Kurt, unlimbering hir weapon and pointing it in our direction. The President’s bodyguard twitched automatically to the threat, and Kurt fired a blast, catching the bodyguard high in the chest. The guard slumped to the deck with blood pumping out of a steaming hole in hir chest.

“Move it,” Kurt ordered, waving them out of the hold with the barrel of the weapon.

“We’re going, no need for further violence,” I growled, heading towards the bridge. I had foreseen this kind of problem and knew Puda would be alert and ready to help.

Once on the bridge, Kurt looked around to see a radically different setup from the normal layout. While we waited in a group, Kurt ran back and forth, trying to find out how to get the Hope underway. Finally, Kurt came up to me and ordered me to get the ship moving.

“It is voice activated, but you need to sit in the command chair,” I spat at Kurt.

Kurt leered at me before striding over the command chair and settled in.

“You’ll get yours … unnn,” were hir last words before Puda put the command chair into a stasis field, cutting Kurt off short.

It took a few seconds for the others to realise that my precautions had taken effect.

“We need to get your guard to medical help,” I called, shaking them out of their shock.

“What? What happened to that traitor?” Constantine demanded, starting forward angrily.

“Don’t get too close,” I warned. “My ship’s defensive system doesn’t discriminate between friend or foe,” I added, not wanting to reveal too much.

“My guard is dead, no one can survive those injuries,” the President stated mournfully.

“Puda?” I queried.

“The patient is in critical condition, I had the droids move Tyler to the med unit. We can save Tyler, but not the body, Captain. We need to use the regeneration booth to resequence Tyler’s genes and build hir a new body,” Puda’s dulcet voice echoed throughout the bridge area, startling the others.

“Tyler’s still alive? … How is that possible?” the President asked incredulously.

“I set the cargo hold up in a similar manner to my command chair, just in case of trouble. Unfortunately, I wasn’t expecting Kurt to be so desperate as to fire a weapon, and when Kurt fired, hir was outside the range of the four defense fields I’d installed.”

“What was that about a regeneration booth?” The President asked.

“This ship, as you no doubt noticed, is radically different from anything we have ever built. It was built on Earth, and has superior technology, and part of that is a regeneration booth to rebuild a person’s body back to Terran standard. I can save Tyler, but only by giving hir a male or a female body.”

“Earth? That is only a legend,” scoffed the President. “This whole story is ridiculous. Do what you want with Tyler’s corpse,” hir finished, turning and heading back to the airlock.

“Puda? Commence the procedure. I suggest making Tyler male,” I finished before heading after the President, who’d signaled to some security personnel outside to take Kurt into custody. I led the security people back inside to the bridge, where I had Puda release Kurt from the stasis field once they were ready.

Saying Kurt was unpleasantly surprised, was an understatement. Luckily, the highly efficient life support systems worked like a charm and kept the air from turning blue from hir curses. Finally, only Constantine was left lingering on the Hope’s bridge.

“I hope that’s my payment you’re working on,” I told hir, as Constantine worked a small handheld com unit.

“Check your credit balance,” came my answer.

“Puda?” I asked, knowing she didn’t need anything explained.

“The credit you demanded has been transferred into your account,” Puda spoke, having accessed her existing records through the umbilical data connection.

“That’s some AI you have there,” Constantine stated, as I accompanied hir off the ship and back through the docking bay.

“She’s one of a kind … one of a kind,” I added under my breath.

“I need to go back to the Basher now that we need a new Captain,” Constantine sighed, as we parted at the dock.

I was torn between going after the President with my claim about Earth, going to find my unit mate Tryst and staying to oversee the bodyguard’s recovery. I finally decided to check on the guard. After all, I needed to make sure the Hope was empty and secure before attempting to convince everyone of my claim.

While Tyler was being processed, I went for another shower and then ate a meal. I managed to open a link to Tryst in our unit.

“Tryst? It’s me, Araya.” I said once the com was connected through.

“Araya?” Is that really you? I don’t recognize you,” Tryst sounded confused.

“Yeah, I have changed a lot I guess. This is my new body. I hope you like it. It’s the latest fashion on Earth.” I tried making a joke of it.

“Earth?” Tryst replied, the question clear in hir voice. “It is kind of cute,” hir added hastily, looking me over in the Vidcom screen.

“Want to meet me? I’m at dock 12. Buzz me when you get there, and I’ll let you in,” I told hir.

“Dock 12? Where in dock 12? The city side or the waste plant side? You know I hate looking for you in amongst the other ships.”

“There are no other ships. The new Hope is a bit bigger than the old one,” I laughed.

“No other ships?” Tryst’s reply sounded puzzled, knowing that the docks were usually full of ships loading or unloading goods of one type or another. “I’ll be right there,” hir answered, breaking off the link before I had time to explain the sheer size of the Hope and its alien passenger was too huge to allow other ships to dock along side.

I checked on Tyler again and saw he was nearly finished changing. The new regen booth worked much quicker than the old one in the original Hope. While I was there, I got a call from Tryst, saying hir had been prevented from coming aboard. Puda informed me that several security people were standing across the boarding tube. I raced down to the airlock, which Puda opened as I reached it. I could see Tryst standing, arguing with the security guards. I stepped forward and reached past them and grabbed Tryst’s hand.

“Stop! We were ordered that this ship was off limits to unauthorized personnel,” one shouted, trying to stop me from pulling Tryst through.

“Hir is authorized … by me,” I replied, bringing Tryst onto the docking tube regardless.

The guard unlimbered hir weapon and shouted that unless we stopped, hir would fire.

“My mate is now standing on Earth’s sovereign territory.” I indicated the boarding tube of the Hope. “Fire, and you’ll be in breach of the international space treaty 604.” I retorted firmly. “I suggest you look it up,” I finished, turning my back and guiding Tryst into the Hope.

“I couldn’t believe it was this big. When I was on the concourse, passing the other airlock doors, all I could see was the side of one huge ship out the viewing ports.” Tryst enthused. “I thought the guards were just there for routine duty. I wasn’t expecting to be stopped from entering. What have you done to upset everyone now, besides showing up in a cute new body?”

“Well …” I hedged, wondering where to start. “It’s like this,” I added, taking Tryst to the bridge. I started telling my tale from the time I’d accepted the cargo from Constantine, right up to the present moment. I left a lot of the more embarrassing things out … or tried to, as Puda chimed in and revealed all … the blabber mouth.

Of course Tryst was charmed by Puda as she revealed what I’d tried to hide. During the explanation, Tryst wandered around the Hope curiously checking it out. With Puda’s ever present voice taking over, I felt like a replaced broken vac seal. … pretty useless.

Tryst seemed interested in seeing the med bay when Puda got up to the part where Tyler got injured.

“So this is what the other sex looks like?” Tryst asked, looking in at Tyler’s new form, where he lay in the chamber.

I nodded, waiting for Puda to confirm the question, but she remained silent, letting me take over again.

“So if I decided to be your life mate, I’d be expected to become like that?”

“I had hoped for that. … Yes. Of course you’d be able to pick out exactly how you’d like to look. …” I paused, wanting to see hir reaction.

“So I wouldn’t ever have to go through estrus again?”

“No, I take on that job. Only the women give birth on Earth,” I offered, hoping this would be the key point in hir decision.

“When can I get started?” Tryst asked with a grin.

“When the oven timer goes off,” I joked, nodding to the comatose Tyler.

“That is not an oven,” sniffed Puda, sounding highly put out.

Tryst laughed, saying it did contain meat.

To my question, Puda informed me it would be 15 minutes longer before Tyler was finished. Tryst looked blank, until I explained that the ship was on Earth time and explained the difference.

“So what can we do to fill the time?” hir asked suggestively.

As much as I wanted to take hir suggestion, 15 minutes wasn’t going to be anywhere long enough. Instead, I suggested a shower. I grinned at Tryst’s blank look, then took hir hand and led Tryst to my favourite place. At first, when I started getting undressed and suggested hir to do the same, Tryst, who thought we were going to do something else, came close and clinched together with a kiss. Feeling sneaky, I dragged hir into the shower and kicked the door closed with my foot before reaching out and turning on the water.

Tryst yelped as the first touch of the water hit us. I’d had Puda preset the temperature to what I liked, so it was nice and warm. “What’s happening? Your water supply has sprung a leak,” was hir first reaction.

“No it’s okay, it’s called a shower, its supposed to do this,” I explained, seeing hir eyes widen at the extravagance of using water for the mundane purpose of washing ones body.

Of course Tryst didn’t object to the kind of fun two can have in a shower, especially when the soap came out. I almost regretted starting something that due to time restraints, we had to curtail … almost.

“Tyler is waking,” warned Puda, as we were getting dried.

“Be there shortly,” I replied, accepting Tryst’s help getting dressed.

Leaving Tryst to dress and catch up, I left for the med bay. Tyler was just stirring as I got there and I signaled Puda to release the lid. “Where am I?” He asked groggily, once he became coherent. “I remember getting shot, then nothing … What … What happened to my body?” he asked, looking down at his newly defined chest.

“You were shot and would have died if I hadn’t applied Earth’s technology and given you a new body. Even the President had given you up for dead,” I explained as I helped him from the booth.

“It feels so much bigger and stronger,” Tyler commented without too much concern about his near fate, just as Tryst entered the lab.

Tyler was naked and I saw Tryst’s glance down at the newly minted man’s endowments. Hir eyes widened, then turned to look at my blushing face, as I tried to hide the fact that I was turned on by the sight. Tryst grinned, knowing that soon hir would own one of those monsters and knew the perfect receptacle to test it out in.

I handed Tyler some clothes to wear, which Puda had produced in advance.

“Be careful of your strength, it’s set for Earth norm of 1 Gee,” I warned, seeing him bounce a little in the half gee conditions.

“Wow! This will take getting used to,” exclaimed Tyler, looking at his arm and flexing his muscles.

“Let’s go, I need to visit the President again. I have important news to give him,” I urged, guiding Tyler outside.

“What about me?” Tryst asked with a pout, as if I’d already discarded hir for the hunk Tyler was now.

I turned and gave hir a kiss, “Ask Puda how to set it up and I’ll see you later.” I winked suggestively.

“Activate security protocol five,” I told Puda, as we headed for the airlock. Tyler looked at me, curiosity written over his face, but I just shrugged and muttered, “Routine stuff.” I wasn’t about to reveal any of my plans just yet, especially when I didn’t know what reception I’d get to the suggestion that everyone move to Earth. I’d taken the remote off my shoulder earlier and now it rested in my pocket, thinking it would be prudent not to reveal its capabilities just yet. At the airlock, I handed Tyler back his weapon, which I’d retrieved from his discarded clothing.

“Thank you, and thanks for saving my life. I owe you one,” he added with a smile before we stepped out to confront the security detail outside.

After the airlock cycled open, we were confronted by the sight of two weapons leveled at us by the guards. Tyler strode forward, confident that the men would give way to his approach. He slammed to a surprised halt when the unmistakable whine of charging weapons indicated their readiness to fire. I’d intentionally held back to watch developments should anything occur.

“Halt and release your weapon,” one ordered Tyler, who was holding it down by his side.

Lacking a place to put it, as his holster was still with his discarded clothes, and reluctant to stick a weapon in his waistband, Tyler had held it muzzle down and the safeties on.

Realising that they wouldn’t recognise his new body, even though a lot of Tyler’s original facial features remained similar, (due in part to Puda selecting a close match from the DNA bank aboard the Hope.)

“I’m the President’s bodyguard Tyler Dillon 56784. No lower ranking officer can request my weapon, under article 5 dash 7843c of the Presidential house code,” he rattled off, bringing his weapon up to lay it across his chest protectively.

I cringed, expecting to see Tyler go down in a hail of fire, but I was pleasantly surprised to see the guards check their com links for verification before lowering their weapons and engaging the safeties.

“Sorry, Sir, we were expecting your corpse, not a complete stranger.”

“I would have been a corpse if Araya here hadn’t saved me and given me a new body. Now she and I need to see the President on an urgent matter. Please alert hir for our arrival,” Tyler finished.

“Yes, Sir!” they snapped instantly, parting to allow us to pass.

I wondered what the President was going to say when hir saw Tyler next.

“You’re saying that you are Tyler?” asked the President, when they finally managed to get an audience. The President walked closer and studied the face of the person who claimed to be hir bodyguard.

“I know I look different, but it is me and I can prove it,” Tyler stated emphatically. “Two cycles ago, we played Hango (a null gee chance game) and I won the first round 6 to 3.”

“Who won the second?” asked the President, more than half convinced.

“You did 4 to 1,” smiled Tyler.

“So that is what a human male body looks like?” the President mused curiously, as hir examined Tyler closely and even felt Tyler’s muscle enhanced body.

“I can now do this,” stated Tyler, showing off his one gee strength by leaping up to touch the ceiling of the room without any apparent effort.

“Impressive.” The President agreed. “Araya? You mentioned having important news for us and wanting to setup a broadcast to all the colonies. Before I can authorise that, I need to know what it is you’ll be talking about.”

“I have found Earth, the planet where we all originated. It wasn’t destroyed like they said. It is ready for us to return, we can go home,” I pleaded my case. “I have footage of my visit to Earth in all its glory,” I waxed enthusiastically.

“Our records show that the Earth was destroyed. It can’t be still there,” the President argued. “We even have footage of its destruction,” hir added, calling on one of the aides to retrieve the data from the archive and put it up on one of the screens.

I watched the footage play out, never having seen it before. Having seen the real Earth from close up, it was easy for me to see that the footage had been faked. I knew Puda was watching this through the com link she had provided me with prior to this visit with the President.

“Puda?” I whispered, putting all my emphasis to make the one word a question.

“Checking Orbiter Nine’s database,” Puda’s voice via the sub dermal speaker fitted behind my ear replied. Seconds later… “Retrieving data.”

“Play it,” I hissed quietly.

Suddenly the footage that was playing flickered and was replaced by a person speaking. He was recognizably a human male, which I knew placed him in the early years before everyone’s DNA mutated under the influence of cosmic radiation.

“This is my confession. I hope everyone will forgive me for my deceit regarding the Earth’s fate. I am the last of those who decided to prevent those foolhardy souls who wished to return to our native solar system from going back. In a few hours, I’ll be dead. The cancer is inoperable and I have decided to end my life on my terms. We faked the Earth’s destruction to prevent those who believed they could return to it and survive from attempting it. Instead of depleting our precious resources on a doomed quest, we, the Cabinet of Elders decided to put the matter to rest. In light of the uncertainty surrounding the Earth’s fate, we made sure no one would try to attempt a return by faking its total annihilation, therefore preventing future adventurers from trying to return. We need everyone to remain here and rebuild our civilization with our eyes looking forward, not backward. Now that signs of human genetic changes are taking place due to long term exposure to radiation, we need to accept these inevitable changes, instead of looking for a place to flee. The lack of absolute proof either way has troubled me. In the event that the Earth did escape its destruction, although I truly believe it didn’t, I leave this confession. If I was wrong, then God forgive me and all those of us that remain isolated from home.”

The screen went dark, leaving everyone shocked and silent.

“How come we didn’t know about this before now?” Demanded the President, after gathering hir thoughts.

I got the answer from Puda, who had already anticipated the question. “Maybe it was hidden behind a type of dead man switch,” I suggested, repeating Puda’s explanation coming from my SDP. (Sub dermal patch).

“What’s that?” asked the President as hir aides scrambled to find answers in the mainframe.

“It’s an ancient Earth term,” I supplied via Puda. “It’s a mechanism that works only if the person in control is incapacitated or dead. Maybe he only wanted it known well after hir death. When was the footage last accessed?” I asked curiously.

The President nodded hir understanding and waved for the aide to find out the answer to my question.

“The file was last accessed well before Elder Thomas’s death. The person who we just saw died on the fiftieth anniversary of our foundation.”

‘That would explain why I hadn’t seen the footage before now,’ I thought to myself.

“This puts your story in a much different light,” the President offered, sounding much more polite.

Just then, a pounding on the door heralded the entry of an out of breath official, who then proceeded to gasp out, “Is the news about Earth’s faked destruction true?”

“What!” The President shouted, sounding angry that anyone else knew about the revelations.

“It was on all the screens! It even overrode communication screens, so other habitats also got the transmission,” the official explained, cringing as the face of the President purpled in rage.

“Your work?” I queried Puda under my breath.

“Of course,” her voice replied, sounding smug.

Whatever plans the President might have had to capitalize on this new data were now blown out of the airlock. I only hope hir didn’t trace the leak back to Hope and take it out on me.

“You say you have proof of landing on the Earth?” Asked the President turning to me with a speculative look.

‘Oh, oh!’ I thought, sensing another scheme fermenting in the President’s head. ‘I’ll have to be careful here.’ “I do have a clip of some footage approaching the Earth and some from on the surface.” I offered, glad that Puda had edited any sign of the aliens surrounding Earth. That was something I wanted to keep secret just a bit longer.

I handed over the cube containing the recorded material. The aide that took it then put in hir console and stood ready for the President to give hir consent to play it. The President looked around those assembled as if considering having everyone leave the room, but apart from me, only hir trusted staff remained, so after commanding the entry to be locked off, hir signaled for the data cube to be played.

Everyone gasped as the first frames showed Earth in all its glory. The planet with its mostly blue colour and the white clouds looked like a gem in the heavens. The picture changed, showing the Earth swelling in size as the ship approached. Now patches of green and brown could be seen as the continents became visible in detail. The next shot showed me standing on the field where I first put foot upon the Earth. The detail was magnificent. Everyone chuckled, as I was greeted by the bovine ambassador. There was a shot of me catching my first fish by the lake, which drew more gasps than my eventual dinner.

“Is that all water?” asked the President eagerly.

“Yes, but that’s just a small portion of what the planet has to offer,” I answered, trying to down play its importance as if it had none of the value it did in space.

“We must go there,” stated the President with new resolve in hir voice.

I tried not to show the jubilation I felt, knowing that anyone visiting there would likely remain. “So can I make my announcement?” I asked hopefully.

“Yes, but only after I make a statement first,” the President cautioned.

Obviously, the President wanted to be in the limelight, not that it bothered me. I was more concerned about getting my message across than worrying about people making political points.

At last it was all arranged. I had intended to stay dressed in my ‘uniform,’ but the President insisted I dress in something more elegant. “To show off your body in a way to make it obvious that you are now a native of Earth,” Hir suggested.

I figured it was more so hir could ogle my breasts, but I didn’t demur, as I loved to have an opportunity to show off my body to its best advantage.

Puda out did herself, producing a glorious gown in a material she called Glitterweave. It was a floor length gown with a red glittery effect that changed hues in certain light conditions to a deep purple. It hugged my body like a glove, yet it was lined with something so smooth and slippery, that it made my new uniform feel like rags. I could only wear the flimsiest of panties to avoid what Puda called panty lines, apparently this was a big no no back in Earth’s fashion history.

I wore no bra, as the gown was apparently self supporting, even though it felt like my breasts were going to fall out at the slightest movement. I wore high heels as well, not that anyone would see much of them unless I was walking. I felt like I was perched up on stilts. Luckily my one gee muscled calves made easy work of moving around gracefully in the half gee gravity.

Puda, using her ‘hard image’, which enabled her to interact in a physical sense, gave me a makeover, which included a new hairstyle called a French Twist. I wasn’t used to having my hair styled in this fashion, usually having opted for the natural unkempt look or gathered together at the neck with an elastic band. That had been my tidy look for when I was working. Most of the population had little need of styling, as they kept it cut short for practical reasons.

Puda lamented that I didn’t have my ears pierced, and vowed to do it in the med lab before my next public appearance. She did, however, produce a lovely necklace with a semi precious stone from Earth called Tiger Eye as its center piece. Looking in the mirror, after she pronounced me ready, I saw someone I barely recognised. Not one to be tied to a mirror all day checking my appearance, I was still getting used to seeing my new self, as it was, when I used the bathroom. I hadn’t bothered using makeup when there had been nobody to impress, so what I saw now blew me away.

“I’m gorgeous!” I exclaimed, twisting and turning before the mirror to check myself from all angles.

“Tryst will love you,” Puda agreed.

“Tryst … oh crap!” I felt a little guilty not having checked on his progress in the lab, but I guess I’d known he’d have a few hours to go before he would be ready to get out. I hurried to the med lab as fast as my dress would allow, wondering what Tryst would think of my getup.

Tryst was just climbing out of the regen unit as I minced in. We both stopped and stared at the other. My eyes went down from his face to his toes, lingering at a certain point for a few seconds, while his eyes seemed glued to certain points of my body. I giggled girlishly; thinking we both had a few points to check out later.

“You’re gorgeous,” we stated simultaneously.

Tryst was nicely muscled without being overly beefy. In my mind I saw him as having the ideal male form. Broad shoulders, slim hips with a six pack that wasn’t blatant like a weight lifter’s, but softer, and more subtle. Arms that showed muscle with a sleek look that gave a hint of hidden power leashed, but ready. Long legs rippling with sleek athletic strength finished off his overall look. He’d opted to keep his non hairy chest look, which I preferred, keeping only the hair on his head and at the groin. I licked my lips unconsciously, as I checked out his new improved play toy.

“I got the new self supporting deluxe model,” Tryst chuckled seeing where my eyes rested.

“I wondered what was holding it up like that,” I flirted with a giggle.

Tryst came towards me, took my hands in his and devoured my body with his eyes.

“Can I unwrap you now?” he asked, leaning in for a kiss.

“Oh no, not yet,” I squealed, moving my head back to avoid smudging my makeup.

Seeing his look of disappointment, I explained what I was about to do, and gave him instructions in case anything untoward occurred. “Wish me luck, and hopefully I’ll be with you later,” I finished regretfully.

Tryst kissed me lightly on the cheek, and gave me a hug, which I returned.

Back in the habitat, I could feel both lust or envy from everyone I met, depending on the particular stage of the estrus cycle of those I passed. I’d begun seeing them in terms of Earth’s standards being either feminine or masculine, rather than using estrus or non estrus. I surprised more than a few by glancing back after I’d walked passed, catching them standing there openly gazing at my departing back with desire in their eyes.

I felt like one of those models that paraded on a catwalk back on Earth in the centuries long passed. I wiggled my ample ass, making the most of my five minutes of fame.

“That is a very interesting gown,” the President complimented me, as I entered his quarters.

“Well, with a restructured DNA, you could wear one just like it,” I offered jokingly, knowing that what I’d said was probably the last thing hir would accept. I could see the President would like to get into my dress, but only to touch what it contained, not wear it.

“I don’t think I could carry it off like you can,” hir replied with a wink.

Then the President escorted me to the room where all public announcements were broadcast. The President began hir speech with the announcement that the Earth was indeed still intact, and that the footage broadcast earlier was not a hoax.

I was pretty nervous when hir handed over things for me to continue. “My name is Araya Lightsword. I am the first to rediscover the Earth and set foot upon its verdant surface. As you can see from this footage, the Earth is indeed alive and well.”

I signaled for the technicians to roll the footage I’d shown earlier to the President. “My body has been modified to not only withstand the full 1 Gee of the Earth’s gravity, but also to withstand the myriad of micro organisms that are part of the natural biosphere that hosts life on Earth.”

I went on to explain how the radiation in space had led us on a divergent path from our ancestors, and how on Earth, a person could choose to be either one sex or the other. I had the camera pan across to Tyler’s new form for a comparison. I went on to explain the abundance of food and water and even mentioned that even many of the old habitations had survived the ages. I didn’t mention Gaia or the alien fleet, thinking that they might deter some from returning to Earth. I finished off by saying that the Earth needed us as much as we needed Earth.

I knew things would galvanize soon, as room aboard the habitats was stretched to its limits. Everyone wanted children, but only the lucky few got to reproduce. With resources running low, everyone’s life was hounded by the need to conserve and recycle everything. There was a growing hubbub, as I stepped down and let the President take over again.

I went back to the Hope as the President talked about setting up a committee to check out how to facilitate a move back to Earth. Tryst welcomed me back with a hug and a kiss, then marched me to my quarters to unwrap my present to him. Of course, like an idiot I said, “What present?”

I sure found out in a hurry. I was his present, and Tryst took great care in unwrapping me from my clothes. What followed next was the best sex I’d ever enjoyed, and by the grin on Tryst’s face, I gathered it was more than adequate for him as well. I would have stayed for another round, but Puda called, insisting I get dressed.

“There’s some activity on the com network. There’s been an attack on one of the habitats. Our friends, I suspect,” Puda explained.

I jumped up, adrenalin washing away my sexual languor. I threw on some clothes, opting for a more practical jumpsuit. I gave Tryst a quick kiss, while insisting he not leave the ship under any circumstances.

I armed myself for the first time, strapping on a weapon Gaia had made for me and made sure my little friend was in my pocket. Then on second thought, I slipped the com remote into my hair and concealed it there with the addition of a couple of hair clips. Some instinct warned me not to let it be seen by anyone.

On exiting the ship, Puda sealed it off from uninvited guests. I didn’t encounter the guards, so they must have been called away. I didn’t know if that was a good sign or not. I found an access panel that lead to a com duct, took out my remote and placed it inside unobserved. I knew Puda would send it up to the nearest nexus point where it could tap into the communications hardware.

“Araya Lightsword?” asked a stern voice from the left of me, as I passed a cross corridor.

“Yes,” I answered automatically, as I turned to see who it was.

“You are under arrest for sabotage and the attack on Habitat 2,” shouted an armed guard, as hir brandished hir own weapon.

‘Habitat 2? Not this again,’ I thought to myself, feeling stunned at hearing what I was being accused of doing. Habitat 2 was one of the furthest distant of the group of habitats, and one I’d only visited twice.

The guard brandished hir weapon, indicating I move ahead of hir. I was surprised I hadn’t been disarmed, but then decided the guard did not realise I was. The weapon that sat in the wide belt around my waist was unlike any conventional weapon, having no barrel or handgrip. Even the trigger was concealed. It looked more like a bar of soap, slightly flatter and longer, but rounded at both ends. It looked more of fashion accessory that would sit in the palm of my hand. Truth be told, I hadn’t tested it and wasn’t exactly sure of its function. With my back to the guard, I slipped the weapon out of its pocket unseen, then slid my hand up to the top of my jump suit where it was opened, and slipped it under my left breast inside the bra.

“Hold!” exclaimed the guard seeing my gesture and thinking I was reaching for something. I spun around, pretending to massage my breast, and getting hir attention focused.

“Sorry, my bra is a bit uncomfortable. I just threw it on in a hurry and the cup needed adjusting,” I said in my sexiest voice. I unzipped the jump suit a bit more, revealing more cleavage and fiddled with the other cup.

The guard’s eyes seemed mesmerized for a moment, before duty reminded hir of where we should be going.

“Right, now move along,” hir choked out with a hard swallow.

Relieved that hir hadn’t frisked me; I felt exhilarated and walked jauntily along, swinging my hips out in what I hoped was a sexy walk, as I’d seen catwalk models do in some old Earth footage Puda had found for me. It must have worked, because the tone in hir voice changed as hir gave me further instructions, or directions. Eventually, we reached the security quarters, where I was locked in a secure cell, until my ‘accusers’ got there.

It wasn’t long before I was taken to an interrogation room. Several military personnel arrived along with the President and hir guard. I was pleased that Tyler was back on that duty, but he didn’t acknowledge me in any way, so I gathered this was a serious charge.

Curt introductions were made before questioning began. Chris, the head of the defense council began, while hir aide took notes. “Habitat 2 was attacked by a group of alien craft just after you went back to your ship last night. Fourteen people died from hull breaches, before we managed to fend them off. It was only after pictures of the alien craft were sent to us that we realised that you were involved.”

Here, hir turned and activated a monitor on the wall and bought up a picture of the same kind of ship that had attacked me. “This ship, when pictures of it were sent out to all naval vessels was recognised by the Basher, which was then confirmed by the docking crew. It is the same vessel you have attached to your ship.”

‘That is true,” I admitted, without a qualm. “There is one thing that you missed, though,” I stated calmly, watching Chris’s face intently.

“Oh? And what might that be?” hir snapped, anger flaring in hir eyes momentarily.

“The craft that is attached to the hull of my ship is damaged, and all its crew is dead as a result of a battle against the Hope. I had hoped to release it for study, but we have no time for that now,” I warned.

“I demand you turn over the Hope and the alien craft to me! … What do you mean we have no time?” Chris spluttered, as my last words sank in.

“Was every attacking ship eliminated?” I asked, already knowing the answer. “Because believe me, any that escaped, will be back with reinforcements.”

“We can fight them,” Chris retorted, not willing to be scared by my words.

“Yes we can, but for how long? Our resources are limited, remember? If we stay, we die, and those that flee will be hunted down. Are you willing to risk the lives of everyone because you don’t want to make a tactical retreat?” I pressed, knowing with a sense of fear that all of us could be doomed if Chris was unwilling to accept my advice.

Chris stood up and began pacing the room, moving behind us as we sat waiting, hir face was a mask of concentration. “We will take the Hope and use the technologies of both ships to fight them,” hir ground out finally.

My heart sank, even as I made my reply. “You won’t get my ship. That was built on Earth and given to me to use. It is not your property to just commandeer as you wish,” I angrily retorted.

“You have no say in this as you are still under arrest and have no say in this.”

“You’re a fool,” I retorted. “You will never set foot aboard the Hope,” I fired back in anger.

“Wait, we don’t need to do this,” the President broke in, trying to placate Chris.

“Shut up, you weak willed puppet! I’m taking control of things from now on,” Chris demanded. “Have both of them taken to the cells.”

“But sir, hir’s the President,” groveled Chris’s aide.

“Not for long, I’m taking charge under article 15.”

“Article 15? Isn’t that only for when the President is incapacitated?” asked the aide uncertainly.

Chris turned towards the President, who had stood up and was about make a call on hir com unit, and struck the unit out of the President’s hand. Chris’s other fist crashed into the Presidents jaw, sending hir slumping to the floor unconscious.

I stood, but made no move, waiting to see what Chris was going to do next. The aide scrambled to the Presidents side to check for life signs, fear showing in hir eyes, at the insane action of hir superior.

“Are you going to hit a woman?” I asked, as Chris advanced on me.

Saying nothing, hir grabbed me roughly, slapped restraints on my wrists, put a devocaliser in my mouth and fastened it around my head. I watched as the President was hauled upright and restrained in a similar fashion before more security people were called in. I stood, trying to ignore the taste of the buzzing gag designed to mask any attempt to make a sound, while Chris concocted lies explaining our being restrained. If looks were daggers, I’d have filleted Chris to the bone, as I tried to convey my fury using only my eyes.

I was forced into a small cell with no windows except for a small grill in the door. The President was dragged in and left on the floor. The door clanged shut and the sound of locks closing seemed to signal a sense of finality to things. My hands were fastened behind my back preventing me from reaching the weapon lodged under my breast. I knelt carefully by the President, hoping hir would awaken soon. Hir hands were fastened at the front, and there lay my only hope of getting free. I wondered what Puda would do if a boarding party tried to storm the Hope. I just hoped Tryst had sense enough to stay secure inside and not try to rescue me.

I waited, hearing nothing outside our cell. At last the President stirred and groaned, before opening hir eye.

“Whaa … where are we?” The question seemed self evident to me, but being gagged, I couldn’t answer.

Seeing my predicament, the President struggled to sit up. Bringing hir hands up, the President cursed, seeing the bindings on hir wrists. An attempt at releasing my gag failed, as the releases were positioned above both of my ears. They were designed so that they needed pressing at the same time, something that was impossible when cuffed, which prevented one from self releasing the gag.

I had to get the Presidents attention and make have hir find the weapon I carried in my bra. I tried looking at the breast concealing the weapon and nodding my head in that direction too. I moved closer and tried nudging my breast against his hands. At first, the President leaned away, moving hir hands down to hir lap.

I increased my nodding and eye movements and the President finally grasped what I was trying to signal. He slowly moved hir hands up near my breasts, watching for a negative reaction. “You want me to touch your breasts?”

I nodded, and then shook my head sideways.

“You don’t want me to touch your breasts, but you want my hands there?” The President asked again, trying to figure out what I wanted.

I nodded yes, this time. I turned away, so my back was toward hir and tried a poking motion with one finger.

“Ah, you want to poke your breasts?” The President questioned, looking puzzled.

I nodded vigorously, and turned so my left breast was in reach of hir hands.

I felt him poking my breast gently, so I lifted up so the underside came into contact with hir finger. The President’s finger paused at it came into contact with the hard surface of the weapon. I pulled away a bit so hir could reach in. The President reached up and pulled down the zipper on the jump suit. Sliding hir hands in, the President retrieved the weapon from its warm nest.

“What is this?” hir asked, turning the ovoid over in hir hands clumsily.

I moved over to the wall and managed to point at a spot with my fingers.

“It’s a weapon?”

I nodded and smiled as best I could with the gag in my mouth. I watched hir examine it closely before pointing it at the wall and depressing the dimple on the side. Suddenly, a red pencil of light flashed out and scorched a hole into the metal lining the cell. The President immediately used the weapon the cut the link between the cuffs on my wrists. Once free, I rubbed my wrists, trying to avoid the hot ends. The gag came off next, and I worked my tongue, trying to rid the taste of the foul thing. Taking the weapon back, I cut the link on the President’s cuffs, leaving just the cuffs themselves as we’d need the key to release those.

As I’d heard nothing from Puda since my incarceration, I suspected this section of the ship was screened against any radio transmission. I needed to know what was happening before we attempted to escape. I discussed several ideas with the President as to the most likely thing Chris would do next.

As we could hear nothing outside, we decided to make a break for it. The President indicated the best place to use my weapon. I made a circular cut in the door near where the locking mechanism was located, hoping the weapon had enough power to last, as the sparks flew. Luckily, before the circle was completed, we heard a dull clunk as some unseen part was cut and dislodged. I shut off the weapon, which was getting quite warm by this time, and pressed on the door. It moved slightly, and then stuck. Both of us leaned on the door adding more pressure, until it snapped open.

With the door open a bit, we listened for any activity, but heard nothing. We swung the door open and stepped out quickly. I had my weapon held out ready. The room was empty, as was the next.

“Looks as if you were right. Mirs President, when you said Chris would take all the personnel out of here on some order so no would be tempted to check on us or consider a rescue.”

“Please Araya, you can drop the formality now and call me Thomas,” the President urged. “We need to proceed carefully or we might find ourselves back in a cell, or worse, the recycling plant.”

“Let’s see if I can contact the Hope,” I offered, but still got no response on my com link.

I moved over to the desk where the communication setup was housed. I flipped on the viewer to see my worse fears. The Hope was under attack. Assault crews were attempting to force the airlock with a MAP. The Mobile Assault Platform was firing a jet of plasma, which should have gone through the door in seconds. Somehow the door was resisting, and the backwash was masking the details of what was actually happening. I switched viewers, getting a better wider angle of the docking bay. I could see more of the Hope’s hull, and saw the screens were active. Unfortunately, the screens had severed the umbilical that provided the Hope with information from the Habitat’s own system.

Suddenly I noticed the people operating the MAP withdrawing. I hoped this was a good sign, but something told me otherwise. We heard klaxons going off in the habitat and I looked at the President nervously. Thomas drew my attention to other screen showing the area just outside the ship near the docking bays.

The Basher had closed the distance to that section of the habitat where the Hope was docked. I watched with shock and amazement as the Basher opened fire on the Hope with its main weapons. “Idiots!” I shouted unbelievingly.

The Hope’s screens shone brightly as the energy from the Basher’s beam weapons was rebuffed and deflected. The habitat’s hull took the full brunt of the deflected energy and flashed instantly to hot metallised droplets. Air pressure within the breaches vented everything not fixed into space. With horror, I saw bodies, some mangled beyond recognition fly into the void.

Immediately the captain of the Basher stopped the futile attack as new alarms began sounding.

“Hull breach! Hull breach, sections 9f and 10g have been sealed off. Please vacate the adjoining sections in the docking section,” an automated voice intoned.

I tried vainly to contact the Hope, but it seemed, apart from the video links and the warning system, the security section was completely locked out of the habitat’s communication network.

“Let’s get out of here. I need to contact the Hope from outside of this place,” I urged Thomas.

“Yes, okay. I can’t get through either,” Thomas agreed. “Chris has tripped the isolation mode, which shuts this section off from the rest of the habitat.”

The door out was locked, but Thomas punched in an override code that opened the locks. Once we had checked to make sure the corridor was empty, we slipped out and headed for the President’s quarters.

I called the Hope on my com link and immediately got a reply. “We are holding station in the dock, even though we severed connections when they started to force their way in,” Tryst spoke, sounding relieved that I was safe.

“Stay there, I don’t think they will attack you again, while you’re so close,” I advised.

The President managed to find out what was happening once we entered hir quarters. Tyler was surprised to see the President alive and well. Apparently Chris had convened an emergency council, stating that I had killed the President. That’s why the boarding attempt on the Hope had been sanctioned. There was still some confusion as to just where Chris was now, but as reports started filtering in from the damaged section of the habitat, it seemed most likely that the security chief was one of the nine casualties killed in the section that had lost atmosphere due to the Basher’s weapons.

I asked Puda if she could help, now the danger was past, thinking her screens might be widened to cover the damaged section.

“Moving into position now,” Araya reported a short time later. “The area is secure. The screens are in place, so you can pressurize the damaged section.”

I passed on the information to Thomas, who then had teams rush to pressurize and weld emergency plates to the damaged hull.

While Thomas was busy with getting the habitat emergency teams co-coordinated and repairs underway, I talked to Puda on my com link. “Any sign of the aliens return?” I asked quietly in the hubbub of the President’s quarters, as people were shouting orders and relaying information back and forth.

“I did intercept a call that I believe came from the alien ship, at least it was a binary code similar to the language they use.”

“What do you think it was? A call for reinforcements?” I pressed.

“It’s possible or it might have been a distress call. Either way, it doesn’t bode well for everyone here,” Puda answered.

I agreed, and as soon as I could get a moment to speak to Thomas alone, I warned hir of the coming threat.

“I agree that isolated in space, we are vulnerable, but even if we started right now, we don’t have enough room to take everyone in the limited number of ships we have. Even if we did have room, we don’t have enough fuel for the voyage.”

“Puda? Did the remote find the information in the habitat’s records that Gaia told us to look for?” I asked, waving off the question Thomas started to ask at my query.

“Yes it did. Gaia’s research into the old construction plans of the habitat was proved correct. The habitats can come home.”

“I have new information from the Hope,” I told Thomas, explaining that I had a direct com link to my ship. “In the old records on Earth, we have found out how the habitats were constructed and sent out into space.”

“So the habitat is a ship?” Thomas mused. “It still leaves us with the question of fuel and that it won’t fit through the wormhole control rings because of it being larger than the rings themselves.”

“Fuel isn’t the problem. The Hope is a floating ocean of water,” I replied. I was listening to Puda’s explanation of the construction, for she was answering the President’s questions as soon as she heard them over the com link. Then I relayed the information to Thomas as soon as Puda finished explaining.

“The habitat didn’t start out this big. It was built from smaller units after it reached its destination, becoming one combined whole,” I relayed.

I paused, as I listened to Puda outlining her plan.

Impatiently, Thomas started pacing and voiced perceived flaws in my explanation so far. “We don’t have time to deconstruct the habitat! Even if we knew how, that information was lost after the purge.”

I knew only of the purge from hearsay. It was way back in the beginning when certain groups of people wanted to return to Earth. They had `caused some damage to the habitat in their aborted coup. To prevent this happening again, many of the key records were destroyed, along with all information and data relating to the Earth and its location in space. Of course the story of the Earth was then passed on by word of mouth, becoming legend.

“Puda says the process is automatic, once the codes are given to the main computer. It should only take an hour before the habitat is ready to move.”

“Puda is the Hope’s AI, right?”

At my nod, Thomas, became very business like, brushing aside the people pestering hir with reports and updates. The President asked for an immediate priority call to all habitats, citing a community wide catastrophe priority.

Once the channel was cleared for the Presidential announcement, Thomas declared all habitats prepare for a coded transmission that would reconfigure the habitats for space travel capability. Thomas explained the reason for our return to Earth was to avoid extinction of our species by a threat from an enemy that cared nothing for anything but its own survival. All ships capable of carrying passengers were to rendezvous with the orbiting station at Hadras 3 and pick up all personnel on the planet.

“Stand by for the coded data stream.” Finished Thomas, signaling me to have Puda to send the code.

Once Puda transmitted the code, alerts sounded throughout the habitat, warning everyone to proceed to their duty positions and accompanied by verbal orders that no one was to go through the airlocks situated within the habitats themselves. We had 5 minutes to comply, before the habitat began its reconfiguration. I called to Thomas, saying I was heading back to the Hope. Thomas nodded, before turning hir attention to the screens before hir.

I raced though the corridors, half expecting to be crushed as the ship broke into sections or whatever it was supposed to do. I breathed easier when I saw the loading dock, and the reconnected airlock ramp to the Hope. I raced aboard, noting some burned areas where the damage from the Basher was still evident.

The Hope launched even before I got to the bridge, and once there, I saw the reason why. Lines in the habitat’s skin opened and I could see small puffs of air from within the cracks voiding into space, as the moisture in the air produced a brief fog effect. The cracks became even wider. Fortunately, the air loss slowed, then stopped as all the air trapped between the separated sections was dissipated.

Once there was a hand’s span gap between the surfaces, huge sections began sliding forward and backwards, revealing guide slots that allowed movement of a particular section against another, but still retained the section via a mechanical linkage. This linkage performed the secondary function of allowing the section that had originally been alongside it to change directions and move to join with it end to end.

With Tryst by my side, we watched spellbound at the sight of the shifting sections of the habitat as its surface seethed in a sort of choreographed dance. Slowly, the roughly spherical shape of the habitat began to elongate into a cylinder slightly larger than the diameter of the Hope.

The interesting part was the rearmost section. Originally buried deep in the core of the habitat, the engines with their thruster nozzles slid into position, looking large, dark and powerful. The engines that once powered the habitat and all its secondary systems, now regained their primary function, that of moving the total mass of Habitat 9 … no, it was more than just a living place, it was now a ship. I wondered that the people on the other habitats thought, seeing their world turn into a space craft again.

I asked Puda for the status of H9’s fuel load, as I knew it would probably have enough for the journey.

“There is enough water for the journey, if they ration it for human consumption. Once started, they will be committed to reaching Earth, as there will be too little left to go anywhere else.”

“I thought there should be enough water aboard. It’s just the fleet and cargo ships that will require the extra water.”

“In the ship configuration, the habitat’s water resources are concentrated, as the hydroponics growing algae are shut down. I have signaled all ships with low fuel reserves to rendezvous with the Hope as we journey. That way there is no delay in trying to come here.”

“So they will be plotting intercept courses with the Hope to refuel?” I affirmed.

“Correct, as will all the other Hab ships.” Puda answered.

The Basher and the escort ships that had joined it in pursuit of the Hope, now had to queue to get some much needed water for the upcoming journey to Earth. Once all the ships in the immediate region of space were refueled, Hab 9 ordered a course change, the first since arriving at this point in space. As the ship moved ahead gathering speed, the others fell into a conical formation, so that no ship was following in the emissions of a preceding ship.

The Hope was now resting in the belly of Hab 9’s now fully enclosed loading bay, barely fitting there. The bay took up much of the cross section of the ship, leaving only a thin crescent of hull within which lay access tunnels that connected both ends of the ship, along with life support and communication ducts. With the doors closed over the Hope, it could be pressurized to normal atmosphere. The rest of the naval ships became the escorts for the Hab ships, as they joined and swelled the convoy’s ranks. I tried to come up with a plan to get past the alien barricade surrounding Earth. Scientists were examining the alien ship, now that it was in an atmosphere filled environment. So far, they hadn’t learned much more than Puda had found out.

I posed my problem to Puda, hoping for some insight from her. She didn’t reply for some minutes, which told me a quick solution wasn’t coming.

“You could use me as bait,” she whispered with a voice I hadn’t heard before.

“What?” I asked, feeling a shiver of dread at her tone.

“I could leave Tryst you and on the Hab and fly direct into the alien fleet and then self destruct by shunting my primary weapon on itself.”

“NO!!” I cried feeling my heart break.

There had to be an alternative. Puda was more than just an AI. She was my friend, and had saved my ass more times than I could count. I paced the bridge while looking at the men swarming over the alien craft sitting next to the Hope.

I stopped, a germ of an idea brewing, then went outside and talked to the person in charge of investigating the alien craft. I explained my problem and then my idea, and asked if it was feasible.

“It could work if we borrowed a few things and stripped out some of the guts of the ship to make room.”

“Get on it, our very lives will depend on this being a success,” I urged with all seriousness.

The next few days were filled, as we worked on the Hope and the alien ship. As well as that, a steady stream of people were making use of the booth to become human females or males. Counter to my first impressions, the ratio of male to female forms chosen, was tipped slightly more to the female side. The water reserves had been transferred to the Hab 9 so that refueling the fleet of smaller craft could be facilitated much better.

I did have one last glorious shower with Tryst before deciding to conserve the rest of the water for more important things. It culminated with us both making a life bond together, before sealing our commitment with another round of sex. Then it was back to business preparing for our eventual emergence from the wormhole.

As we neared the wormhole entrance, I called for a ship wide conference. We used tight beamed optical transmission systems, linking each and every ship with a fool proof way to avoid broadcasting our plans to our enemies if we were to use broadcast radio communications.

It was then that I came clean about the alien threat on the other end of the wormhole, and also about Gaia, the Earth’s caretaker. I heard some dissent about being left in the dark, saying that we should have stayed where we were.

As I was about to reply, Thomas spoke up in my defence. “Fighting an enemy in space with our resources already just on the limits for survival is foolhardy. Being based on a planet gives us a much better chance. Not only will we gain the resources we need, we will also have the defence shield to give us time to develop and build new weapons and upgrade our current ones to defeat our foe.”

I interrupted, reminiscing over fond memories, “We all want to breathe air that hasn’t been recycled a million times, and drink fresh water that hasn’t been … well I won’t go there. Besides, Earth has real food.”

“I want to hold a baby of my own, when I want it, not when and if I win a lottery after someone dies.” I added with feeling.

“Just ask any one of those who have undergone the process to regain their genetic inheritance, what real Earth food tastes like.” Tryst surprised me by adding his voice.

I smiled, remembering the looks on the faces of those we had rewarded for going though the process to become either a male or a female. We had set up a meal from the Hope’s stores, using real food and drinks I had particularly liked myself. The looks of amazement on their faces will be something I’ll cherish forever.

The response was better than I’d expected. All protests died as they absorbed our words and our sense of commitment. I told them my plan and what I expected them to do, whether I survived the next part of the journey or not.

Later, with the Hope leading the fleet some distance ahead of the rest, it was time to send a drone through the wormhole. The drone probe was barely large enough to contain the sensors needed to check out the other end and report back. Being mostly made of a composite material and matte black, it should escape detection should there be an alien craft waiting there. It was also set up to communicate to the ring via an optical link, which would send a signal back to the ring on our side. The fleet, meanwhile, had slowed and lined up to enter the wormhole. Luckily, there was still no sign of any pursuit, even though Puda had detected some spurious communications from the direction of the first attack.

“There is one ship near the portal,” Puda announced, giving the coordinates to me

“Damn,” I groaned, having hoped for a free run. “I guess it could be worse,” I temporized, glad that a whole fleet wasn’t waiting there.

“Same plan as before?” asked Tryst anxiously.

“Yes, just the action starts a bit earlier,” I answered, trying to look less worried than I was feeling. “Oh why do I have to be the hero here? I don’t think I’m cut out for it,” I sighed.

“You’re a hero anyway,” Tryst pointed out. “You found Earth for us,” he added.

“I thought heroes were always strong and dashing,” I half complained, feeling somewhat confused about my role in all this.

“Signal the fleet we are going in, and for them to close up and enter after me,” I told Puda, feeling the fluttering of butterflies in my stomach.

The only thing I felt glad about was the fact that the wormhole was already working in the right direction, from when I’d reversed it the first time to prevent entry by the alien ships. This meant that the one waiting would have no warning. One second there would be nothing, and then a second later we would appear.

“Control systems working?” I asked, Puda, checking that the remote control system for the jury rigged alien ship that was preceding us was working as expected.

“Yes, all systems are nominal Captain,” Puda replied, showing the stress she was under by calling me Captain.

“Engage.”

We entered the wormhole, watching the salvaged alien ship ahead shut its engines down so we wouldn’t end up with thrust exhaust emissions disrupting our sensors and control systems. The fleet behind us would be doing the same, getting into line and coasting though the wormhole. This didn’t mean we were going slow, as the speed built up prior to shutting down the engines, would hardly diminish with the added thrust from the wormhole effect. The smaller craft would tuck in between the Hab ships.

I had Puda prime our main battery of weapons so there’d be no delay firing them, once we exited the wormhole. Time seemed to drag by, not helped by what felt like a feeding frenzy by the butterflies in my stomach. Tryst sat behind me, more for moral support than anything else.

We watched the alien craft disappear as it exited into normal space. This was a critical moment, as it wasn’t under our control until we too, emerged from the wormhole. I barely heard Puda announce the first of our fleet were entering the wormhole, as my concentration was directed to our imminent engagement with the enemy.

We were out. I looked out to where I expected the alien craft to be from the coordinates relayed by our probe. It wasn’t there, for it had moved to intercept its sister ship, which had ignored its hails.

Instead of being a problem, this actually was better for us. We had originally expected to change vectors to concentrate our attack on the waiting ship. Instead, it had moved to follow the emerging ship, which brought it almost into our direct path.

“Fire,” I called, as I corrected for optimal impact. With that, beams of coruscating energy flashed out from the Hope, and bit trenchantly into the energy screen of the alien ship. Energy flared, as the beams from the Hope overwhelmed the alien energy screen. The surprise attack didn’t give the alien time to retaliate, and even though their screens flashed to incandescence as full power was fed to them, it was already too late. Our beams penetrated the hull and wreaked havoc inside. Suddenly the ship disintegrated as the engines torn apart from our plasma beam annihilated themselves in a fiery pyrotechnic display.

Our own screens flashed to brilliance when the debris from the ship impacted on it as we flew though what remained of the alien ship.

“There was a brief transmission before the end,” Puda announced.

I nodded. It was what we’d expected would happen. I just hoped the rest our plan worked.

“There’s a fleet of heavy ships on an intercept course from 15 degrees right ascension, about 30 minutes out,” Puda reported a minute later. We altered the course of the alien ship under our control to intercept, and followed about 3 minutes behind it. Time to set the bait and arm our secret weapon. We were still 15 minutes from engagement when Puda announced that the fleet behind us was all out of the wormhole and headed Earthwards, away from our current course.

I wished them a silent farewell, wondering if we would meet up with them again. I had to concentrate on what was coming up. I had warned the fleet about the aliens surrounding the Earth. I hoped that what we were about to do would draw most of those ships away when we engaged the approaching ships. Puda had assured me that Gaia had contingency plans for the arrival of our fleet, so even if we didn’t survive, they would be safely looked after.

Tryst climbed down from his seat to come back and hug me. I hugged him back, giving him a quick smile of reassurance. He wasn’t fooled, but pretended to be cheerful for my sake. This mission was dangerous and our survival uncertain, but at least we had a fighting chance, unlike Puda’s chances under her initial plan of self sacrifice.

As we neared the alien fleet, we started firing on our captured alien ship. Not wanting to damage it unnecessarily, we kept the power levels of our weapons around 50 percent. We had preprogrammed a set of instructions that would have our captive alien ship react to our attack, so that it too, would fire back at us at reduced power, giving the approaching fleet an impression that there was possible damage to both of our ships. Being closer to them, the damage on our tame alien ship from the fight in the wormhole would substantiate the impression we were trying to give. We hoped that this damage would be an acceptable reason for it not communicating with its own kind.

The alien fleet maneuvered to protect their own ship by forming a protective ring and returning fire at the Hope. Our screens flashed in defense and we increased our firepower back at our alien ship, ignoring the others. We wanted it to look as if we needed the fleeing ship destroyed at all costs. Puda had postulated that the alien ships might think this meant that the damaged ship might contain secrets of our technology, which is why we wanted it destroyed before it could rejoin its own fleet.

The approaching fleet slowed and closed upon the pursued ship. They must have captured it in some kind of linked screen that acted like a giant hand and slowed the forward velocity of both the single ship and their own fleet. This was a signal for Puda to veer the Hope away from the approaching danger the fleet posed. It was better than trying to reverse thrust. Veering away meant our speed could be maintained as we arced back towards Earth.

The screen net deployed to capture their missing ship had the effect of drawing all the alien ships together, just as a physical net would have done. The fleet had slowed, but because of the mass difference between the fleet and the single ship, it was still moving forward, while the single ship has stopped and was being pulled in reverse. I watched as the fleet crowded close to the damaged ship and had Puda put full power to the screens facing the alien fleet.

“Brace yourself,” I shouted to Tryst, as the universe exploded.

At least that’s what it looked like, as the main weapon that the Hope used to have, self destructed. We had mounted it in the alien ship prior to leaving the area where the habitat orbited. The explosion radiated out in a spherical pattern, annihilating everything in its sphere of influence. The Hope was just starting to increase the distance between us and them when Puda tightened the arc as much as vector shift would allow as the wave front from the explosion engulfed us.

Without the inertia free environment on, we would have been crushed into paste as the Hope tumbled out of control. I heard the shriek of metal twisting and alarms sounding before the lights went out, both on the ship, and us. As consciousness fled, I wondered if I’d ever wake up.

Pain… my world was filled with it. Everything was dark, so I didn’t know if all the power was out, or that I was blind. I vaguely remembered the last moment before I fell unconscious. I struggled to remove the seat restraints while calling to Tryst. Silence was all I heard back. My whole body felt like one huge bruise, and even the slightest movement brought pain. I was still breathing, so there mustn’t be any air loss, but I was freezing, even in my EPS that I’d been wearing just in case. I looked around for my helmet, but couldn’t see it anywhere in the pitch blackness. It looked like it had been torn off the hook on my seat. I closed my eyes to better visualize my bridge, even though I might as well have left them open. It just seemed more normal to do that in the circumstances.

I realized with horror why I was having trouble getting out of my chair. It had nearly been torn from the floor and was leaning at an angle. With that realization, I had another. Something was still working. The Grav was still working, or we’d be in freefall. I managed to struggle out of my chair and crawled back to the chair Tryst had been sitting in. It wasn’t there; obviously the null gee had failed at some point and it had broken from its moorings. I panicked, imagining it and my love crashing with force into the unyielding walls of the bridge and crushing Tryst to a pulp.

I felt around the floor where the chair used to be and found some cables that were part of the control system that connected to the arm controls. I pulled one, expecting it to come free, but there was resistance. I crawled down its length, hoping it was still connected to the chair itself. It seemed an age before I felt the base of the chair. My heart leapt, it was still connected. I felt over to the other side, disregarding the pain every movement caused. There, Tryst was, still strapped in. My heart began pounding as I reached up to see if I could feel a pulse at his neck. I cursed the ring of the EPS as it limited my explorations. At last, I confirmed that he was alive, but still unconscious. With his greater mass, the forces that had bent my chair over, had broken his off completely. Only the armoured cables had prevented his chair from impacting the wall.

I was too hurt to undo his restraints, so I decided to leave him and try and get some systems working. Puda still hadn’t responded to my calls, and I felt a deep fear that she had been destroyed in the back wash of the explosion. That brought up another point. Where were the alien ships? I couldn’t tell how long I was out, so I had no idea of the situation outside the Hope.

I crawled to the main board, feeling my arms and legs stiffening now that the adrenaline rush had faded. If anything, the pain was slowly increasing as the numbing effects of shock wore off. I just wanted to stop and lie there on the deck, but a voice inside made me crawl on. I could hear thumps and bangs on the outside of the ship. I hoped this wasn’t the aliens trying to gain entrance. The sounds helped urge me forwards.

Once I’d reached where I thought I needed to be, I had to gather every ounce of strength to pull myself up to the panel controls. Damn, I was too far left. I pulled my body along the panel’s surface, my legs barely holding me up. There! I fumbled over the panel, searching for the control breakers. The gee forces on the Hope had tripped them off. I switched them on, the sudden rush of light blinding me in its brilliance.

I looked slowly around once my eyes had adjusted. Devastation met my eyes. Anything that hadn’t been fixed down was smashed, and even some of the fixed panels were leaning over at a drunken angle. The power had restored some systems, but Puda remained silent. I saw a screen glowing and made my way over to it. It was a scanner with the external view of the ship. I controlled its movements and checked out the area where the alien fleet had been. All I could pick out was an expanding debris cloud, some of which was already hitting the Hope, which explained the thumps and bangs earlier. I couldn’t see any survivors, so I panned the scanner back to the Hope’s hull.

What I saw there made me wish I hadn’t looked. There was a huge flattened area on one side and the hull itself was torn to shreds. We were lucky not to be breathing vac. I wiped some sweat from my brow, but realised it wasn’t sweat when I looked at my hand. It was red. I needed to get to the med bay, but knew I couldn’t just crawl there. I looked around and saw one of the bigger bots in its recharging niche. It looked okay, so I called it, hoping its voice command circuitry was undamaged.

“Attend bot,” I croaked out, my sore ribs preventing a stronger voice to issue.

The bot stirred and finally floated over to my position.

I grabbed hold of it, wrapping one arm around its levitating body. It sagged with my weight, but remained afloat, barely.

“To the med lab,” I ordered, feeling awful at leaving Tryst behind. As the bot struggled to move me along, I rationalized that I couldn’t be of much help to Tryst if I was to collapse as well. At least with him unconscious, he wasn’t in any pain. The airlocks opened as we approached, showing that so far we had atmosphere other than just in the bridge.

The bot grew hot trying to float a load beyond its design limits, but at last we made it. I entered the med booth and triggered the diagnostics from inside. I used the limited setting, as a full setting would take too long. All I needed was to have the most urgent injuries seen to, so I could aid my beloved Tryst. My last thought as needles rendered me unconscious, was to hope that Tryst would survive long enough for me to get back to him.

It seemed like seconds, before I woke, relatively pain free. I struggled out, feeling stiff, but reasonably mobile. I had to find a robe, as the booth’s robotics had cut my EPS open from neck to groin to access my body.

I regretted the waste of a good EPS, but I had been too weak to remove it before getting in the booth. I hurried back to the bridge, knowing that the aches I still felt were from the bruising, and would need more time to heal properly.

Tryst was moaning and had managed to half free himself from the seat, by the time I got there.

“Are you okay? Where does it hurt?” I asked, fussing over him.

“Did you get the number of that space cruiser?” he groaned, making me grin, knowing that if he could make jokes he wasn’t too badly hurt. “You should ask me were it doesn’t hurt,” he added, wincing when I lifted him up a bit.

“Does this hurt?” I asked kissing him on his lips.

“If it does, you’ll never get me to admit it,” he replied after a bit.

I tested that spot again, while managing to get him up on his feet.

I half carried him to the med bay and put him in the booth, ordering full diagnostic and recuperative help for him. Once I saw everything going as programmed, I went back to the bridge to see what I could do with the mess in there. I was very concerned that Puda still wasn’t responding. I managed finally to pull up a schematic of the Hope. My heart dropped. A as l had suspected, the area where the hull had taken the most damage was close to where the main computer systems were housed.

It looked like I was going to have to Captain the ship for real. I next checked out the propulsion systems to see if we were going to be a helpless derelict or not. It looked as if 3 of the 4 engines were offline. The remaining engine was only working at 50 percent efficiency. I then checked our speed, position and vector. We were heading roughly in the direction of Sol and at point 2 light. I sat down and thought. At our present speed, it would be a month before we neared the solar system, but with our current vector, we’d likely pass across it at about Jupiter’s orbit. As we had no power for weapons, any alien ships in the region would make short work of us. Okay, now that I knew the problems, it was time to work on the solutions.

Without Puda’s constant chatter, the Hope felt abandoned, especially now Tryst was in the med lab. I went to the galley where I fixed a meal, hoping the distraction of food would help with the problem solving. I did have one idea as I was finishing my drink, so after checking in on Tryst to see how he was progressing, I went back to the bridge to see if my idea was feasible. We had enough water left, now I only had one engine to use it, so I set about making a course correction that should have us pass between the orbit of Mars and the Earth. We were too far away to get a more accurate vector, and my math skills weren’t up to the standard of Puda’s lightening computations. I did ascertain that the other engines were history. The gee forces had knocked them out of alignment, which was something I couldn’t fix out here. I needed to get the remaining engine up to speed, but I needed Tryst’s help with that, so I had to wait. At the moment, we were coasting on momentum after the vector alterations had been completed. I was trying to maintain the derelict look by not using the engines, in case there were some alien survivors of the explosion.

I did one more check of Tryst before I tried getting some sleep. Tried was right, as the stiffness in my body prevented me from getting comfortable, plus my mind was awhirl with what ifs and second guesses. Finally, I gave up, got up, and indulged myself with a shower to wake up fully.

Tryst came out of the booth and hugged me tight. “Ouch!” I winced, feeling my body protest. “Not so hard, Hon. I didn’t have time for a full rebuild.”

“Sorry, I don’t know my own strength yet,” Tryst apologised, giving me a kiss instead. “Are you going back in?” he asked, looking at the booth.

“No, not yet, maybe later if we fix the engine,” I told him hopefully.

“Do I have time to eat something?” Tryst asked, innocently.

“If you mean food, then yes,” I deadpanned, watching his face fall. I might have allowed the other, given the circumstances and our bleak near future, but sadly, my body wasn’t up to it right now.

I went and prepared a meal for him while he cleaned up and got dressed. I sat and watched him eat, stealing the occasional tidbit off his plate. After clearing things up, we headed back to the bridge. I gave instructions on what I wanted him to monitor, while I went down to the engine bay. I got into a fresh EPS suit in case there were any environmental problems down there.

At the airlock into engineering, I found a slight difference in pressure between the two sides. I had to use the manual override to force the door open. When I cracked the face shield, I could smell burnt insulation, but otherwise it was breathable. The first thing used was the leak detector, which was basically a pressurized can of orange smoke. The highly visible trail of smoke I vented from the can, lead me to a slight fracture near a support girder. I slapped a self sealing patch on it and watched it heat up and flow over the fracture before it cooled and hardened.

Using more of the smoke, I verified it had been the only leak before I turned my attention to the power transfer couplings. One was hanging loose, causing the loss in power. Unfortunately, I could see it needed replacing. This meant I had to shut down the cold fusion reactor, which would leave us without power. I checked out the other three fusion reactors, but only one was capable of producing any power. Checking the schematics again, I conjured up a makeshift bridge, which would reroute enough power to run the lights, artificial gravity and life support, while I shut down the reactor I wanted to repair.

“What are the power levels like?” I called over the com link, after hooking up the temporary power link.

“It’s holding, at 20 percent.” Tryst answered back after a few seconds.

I did a mental calculation. It would just be enough. I instructed Tryst how to shut down all systems bar the essential life support. Then I shut down the reactor, watching the lights dim a little, as my bypass took up the load. I waited for a minute before starting the repair, in case the bypass failed to hold. The repair took about an hour, and by the time I was finished, every muscle ached.

“What’s the power level showing now?” I asked, after initializing the reactor.

“89 percent,” Tryst replied after a delay.

“Okay, I’m coming up,” I said somewhat resignedly.

I had hoped for more, especially as I’d kept the link from the other fusion reactor connected. At least it should shorten our journey by half. I hoped my idea would work as planned, or our trip would either end in destruction by our enemies, or we’d shoot right though the solar system on a journey to oblivion.

“We’re going to have to do this the old fashioned way,” I distractedly told Tryst that night in bed.

“Oh? That sounds kinky,” chuckled Tryst, as he moved against me.

“Not that, Honey. I meant getting back to Earth,” I chided gently, while fending off his more amorous moves.

“How so?” Tryst asked, sounding a little disappointed.

“We don’t have enough power to use the repellors to slow us down. We will have to turn over just before we enter the solar system and use the engine’s thrust to reduce our speed if we are going to have any chance at a having an entry window.

“Won’t that advertise our presence to the alien fleet?” Tryst asked, now sounding worried.

“Yes, but it can’t be helped. I hope my idea works.

“Idea?”

“I plan on making our entry very noticeable,” I finished enigmatically.

I was too sore for sex, but wanted some sleep before using the med booth for the full healing treatment. Besides, I wanted to be near my lover after our close shave.

When I woke, I found Tryst had woken earlier and had brought some breakfast for us. While we ate, I filled Tryst in on what to monitor on the ship, while I was unavailable in the med booth.

Awakening from the booth the second time, I felt great. No more pain as I climbed out of the booth. Tryst was there and handed me a robe, after giving me a hug and a kiss. After two days in the booth, I wanted to take a shower, and proceeded to get one while Tryst filled me in on the status quo.

The next few days were spent working on my idea. I had Tryst do the heavy work, rerouting some pipe work from the fuel storage to the injectors on the three defunct engines. I rigged the redundant pumps on the three engines to a control operated from the bridge. We were now ready.

Tryst was still in the dark about what I was up to, so I searched the Hope’s data base for Earth’s astronomy records and pulled up a display of rare astronomical events. I let him read it while I did another round of checks.

“Impressive. Do you think it will work?” Tryst asked, finding me looking out at the star field.

“It better, it’s all I could come up with,” I answered, turning to look at him.

“It’s going to take a lot of water. If it doesn’t work, what will happen then?”

I couldn’t answer. Tears started flowing, giving him all the answer he needed.

It was time. We were just outside the orbit of Pluto and coming in hot. We flipped over so our thrusters were facing in the direction we were heading. I started the pumps, feeding water from the storage tanks and firing it out of the three crippled engine nozzles. I used the remaining external scanner to monitor the effect and adjusting the flow till the hope was enveloped in a white misty cloud. Comet Hope was about to return home. At least I prayed she would. Now all I could do was hope this simple disguise would shield us from the alien’s interest until we were much closer to Earth.

At least in the time spent getting to this point, Tryst and I had tweaked up our remaining engine so we had 98 percent power available to the mag 10 engine. The increase in power meant we could leave our braking maneuver till just before we crossed the orbit of Mars, the fourth planet in the system. Our speed would gradually increase the nearer to the sun we got, just like any other comet entering the system. I increased the water flow as well, making our “tail” grow in length. Waiting was the hardest thing left to do. Both of us were in our EPS suits, and had our helmets on with the visors open. Tryst and I were on the bridge together to face whatever fate was going to mete out to us.

We kept a close eye on the long range sensor trained on Earth’s close environs, trying to see what the aliens were up to. There seemed to be some activity there showing energy readings spiking seemingly randomly. This presumably was energy discharges that indicated intermittent weapon fire. There seemed to be some changes around the Earth itself, but with the only optical scanner being distorted by our own wake flowing past and over the scanner, it was hard to make out exact details. So far, our luck seemed to be holding out, with no undue interest from the alien fleet, but that was about to change as we closed in on Mars orbit.

I looked at Tryst, with a look filled with love mixed with hope and regret. He reached out with one hand and placed it over my hand that was about to throttle up our remaining engine. I appreciated this simple gesture that we both were responsible for whatever may come. I opened thrust control and felt the Hope shudder as the first deceleration forces hit. Now the engine was at maximum thrust, I adjusted our trajectory in a best guess for an interception with Earth’s orbit. It was Tryst that pointed out that we had something incoming. He wasn’t sure if it was missiles or an alien ship. We waited anxiously, counting down the seconds, knowing that with every second’s grace that the aliens gave us before attacking, the Hope was getting closer to Earth.

Our luck ran out, as a huge flash burned away our shroud of water vapour. The Hope rocked under the impact of a missile hit. We snapped shut our visors as alarms blared out depressurization warnings. If we hadn’t had a partial screen up, we would probably be a floating debris cloud. Now that we were a target, I broke radio silence and sent out a distress beacon. I didn’t hold out much hope of our naval vessels coming to rescue us, as they were probably on Earth with the crews enjoying life on the Earth’s surface.

“The screen is down,” Tryst called over on the EPS com channel.

I acknowledged that info with a curse, knowing we couldn’t take another hit. Tryst shouted that there were more incoming missiles and my heart sank. We were so close! I could see the Earth there just out of reach. Tears flooded my eyes, knowing I would never be able to show my love the wonders there just a short distance away.

I kept my eyes glued to the image of Earth, made bleary by my tears. I could see it shimmering and something expanding from its surface. I uselessly tried to wipe my eyes, forgetting the visor made that impossible. I could hear Tryst shouting that something was happening. I looked at him, then back to the screen. The Earth seemed to be becoming indistinct, as a wall of something seemed to be expanding outwards. I thought I could see the circling alien ships, being pushed outwards as the wall reached them. The wall was closing on us, as were the missiles. I didn’t know what the wall was or what its effects would do to us, but seeing it coming from Earth, I trusted it more than the alternative.

In a last ditch attempt to avoid the missiles, I cut off the engines and rotated the Hope on its axis before starting the engines again. We were headed directly into this opaque wall, hopefully giving us a few more seconds before impact with the missiles.

The aliens must have seen my maneuver and guessed my intentions. Seeing the ship would be swallowed by this mysterious wall before their missiles could reach us, they remotely detonated all of them in a last attempt to destroy us. Our world went blindingly white and I could feel the Hope tumble out of control as all systems went down. Blackness descended as the raw energies put our restrained bodies back into unconsciousness.

I struggled to consciousness, to see only darkness. Only the tell tales in my helmet showed me that I could still see. I flicked on the suit light mounted at my shoulder and twisted around in my replacement command chair, feeling glad I’d had it reinforced after the earlier disaster. I could see Tryst was still secure in his seat, but trying to get out of it. I turned my attention to the console, trying to get any readings on our situation. Nothing, every instrument was dead. I wasn’t sure why, as we still had power for the artificial gravity. My suit indicated that I shouldn’t open my visor, as the air pressure in the bridge was down 50 percent.

I got out of my seat, wondering, if I should. There was no telling if the Hope would break up or not, without knowing her present condition. I checked on Tryst before I went over to look out the view port, trying to see anything that would clarify what was happening. A shadow moved over the Hope, blocking my view of the star field. I moved away to the weapon’s locker, and got out a wicked looking energy weapon.

I shook Tryst, trying to rouse him, as I felt a deep vibration that I assumed was a ship grappling on to the Hope. I heard a moan from Tryst, but I didn’t think he’d be alert enough to help repel boarders. I left a weapon with him and went to the corner of the bridge that had an excellent field of fire towards the entry door.

A silver form, moved in the doorway, and I nearly fired, but a voice coming over the suit com link stayed my finger.

“Araya … Tryst? Are you okay?” It was Tyler’s voice.

I moved out into view, lowering my weapon as I did so. “Tyler? What are you doing here?” I blurted out in surprise.

“We figured, you’d need to hear a familiar voice, just in case you thought it was the aliens boarding.”

“A good call, I nearly did fire, but why not one of the other guys on the Basher?”

“Let’s get you and Tryst on board the Basher and I’ll explain.”

“He needs help, we had a bit of a shake up and he’s still a bit groggy,” I explained, as Tyler moved over to where Tryst was moving sluggishly.

Tyler lifted Tryst and walked him out, while I supported Tryst on the other side. Eventually we reached the airlock where the Basher was attached. I let the others go ahead, while I lingered on the Hope. I felt awful, abandoning my ship and the ghost of Puda. It took Tyler a few minutes to get me to board the Basher, and then only after he insisted that they weren’t going to leave the Hope behind.

Once I got out of my suit, I helped Tryst out of his. By this time he was able to walk on his own, but I insisted he go get checked out. Tyler signaled for a person to guide Tryst to the med bay. I watched them go, then asked to be shown to the bridge. It was there that I realised why they had sent Tyler, as Princie Constantine, was now a Prince. I looked around, seeing all the crew were now either male or female.

“Welcome aboard. I wish it was under better circumstances,” Prince Constantine greeted me in an unrecognizable timbre.

“Me too, so what’s happening? Where are the aliens?” I asked, moving towards the screens on the bridge.

“We are moving back to the Earth. Gaia’s screen is preventing the aliens from penetrating it, but we have to make it quick, as the energy to produce the screen this far out is limited to about 10 minutes.

Ten minutes wasn’t very long. If it failed, we could find ourselves under attack again. I had an idea, but first I needed some information.

“The screen is stationary at the point the Hope entered it?” I asked.

Constantine checked the instruments and nodded.

“Have Gaia reduce the diameter of its screen coverage to match our changing position, but place it between us and the alien fleet. As we get closer to Earth the energy requirements for the screen will reduce, allowing it to remain up long enough for us to get back.”

“You’ll need to tell her yourself, she seems rather temperamental. She refused our landing on the surface till you returned,” the Prince answered.

I went to the com and sent my message, getting an affirmative and a welcome home from Gaia.

“You mean you haven’t been down to the surface?” I asked incredulously.

“No, we have been in low orbit getting everyone changed back to human norm and going though immunisation,” Constantine answered.

I turned my attention to what was happening to the Hope. I felt I had to look after her, even though to many, she was barely more than a hulk. I had a strong feeling, of her being family, and I was determined to take her back home to her birthplace where she could rest in peace.

“What about the Hope? You just can’t hold it by the airlock, and magnetic grapples won’t work on the Cobalstantium hull metal,” I stated.

“It’s secure, trust me. Let me start from where we diverged from you at the wormhole,” Constantine began.

“Okay, I’m all ears,” I urged.

“When we turned for Earth and saw you heading for the alien fleet, we were concerned over your safety. Then when our sensors picked up the magnitude 6 energy burst, we feared you’d been destroyed. When we neared the Earth, all our naval ships formed a cordon of fire against the alien ships, not that we caused much damage, but it did allow the habitats time to get within reach of Gaia. Once we reached the shield around the Earth, it opened and allowed us to enter.”

“She talked to you?” I interrupted.

“Yes, she contacted us and asked where you were, and the Hope. She didn’t accept our speculation that you’d been destroyed. She said that until you arrived, no one would be allowed to land. We docked with low orbit stations where Gaia had set up regen booths for all of us to select our new bodies. She had supplied the stations with food and water, which were gratefully accepted.”

“Just as well I survived then,” I grinned, wondering what might have happened if I’d been killed, along with Tryst.

“I think she considers you to be her ambassador, and that you should be there to welcome us to Earth,” Tyler suggested, having joined the conversation.

“Gaia seemed positive you were alive and had us make a special cradle that would allow us to make a secure grapple for the Hope. This was finished several days ago, and is what’s holding the Hope secure at the moment. It’s weird … I mean it was like she has a 6th sense or something,” Constantine continued, sounding somewhat puzzled.

‘Yeah, a sixth sense,’ I thought. ‘Wait till they find out that the Earth has its own kind of sentience.’ I felt comforted that while we were going through hell, someone or something had faith in our survival, prompting a rescue package to be built, without ever sighting the Hope or its eventual condition.

Tryst walked in, interrupting my thoughts. We hugged each other, both of us glad that we had survived.

“You okay?” I quizzed him.

“Yeah, just some whiplash and strained muscles,” Tryst answered with a wry grin. “I thought a male’s body was stronger than a female, yet you survived better than I did.”

“It’s not the strength, Hon, it’s the mass. Rapid acceleration or deceleration of a heavier mass means more forces are acting against it.” I explained, trying to bolster his self esteem.

“So just how does the grapple connect to the Hope?” I asked curiously.

Constantine just laughed at my persistence, and waved to Tyler to explain.

“Using the airlock connection as an initial brace, the grapple was moved down from the links on the Basher, to lie against the skin of the Hope’s hull. Thermal lances at the ends, burned through the hull and then special tungsten vanadium expanding bolts were inserted and pulled tight. There is no way they are coming free until we want them to,” smiled Tyler.

I let my fears subside, knowing the Hope would return home. I still felt sad about Puda, and turned to Tryst for another hug. I think Tryst knew where my thoughts lay. He asked Tyler for a place for us to rest.

I woke, after having some odd dreams regarding Puda. I looked over at Tryst, who was sleeping beside me and just watched him sleep for a while before I got up in search of a bathroom. It felt odd, not having to be on the bridge, or worrying about landing vectors and the myriad of other details the Captain of a ship deals with. Truth be told, I felt kinda useless. I got dressed and kissed Tryst, leaving him to sleep on. I left a note for him under his pillow, telling him how much I loved him and then made my way back to the area where we’d boarded the Basher.

There was no one in the airlock bay, so I found my EPS and put it on. I looked at the airlock controls and bypassed the sensor contacts that showed the status of the airlock. What I was doing was dangerous and foolhardy, but something was driving me to go back to the Hope.

I checked out my suit systems before opening the airlock and entering the Hope. I closed the airlock after entering and made my way back to the Hope's bridge. Opened some panels and checked power connections to the instruments. I found fuses blown, from shorts in broken circuit boards. Replacing these boards and replacing fuses, I got about half the instrumentation back online. I checked the status outside the Hope, and saw the massive cradle connecting the Hope to the Basher.

I could just see the Earth past the hull of the Basher and knew we were only hours from entering the atmosphere. I decided to go check out the damaged area near the main computer control system. It was awkward work in an EPS, trying to squeeze down the access tunnels. It took longer than expected as some access doors were so warped, they couldn’t be opened. Detours got around this problem eventually and I entered the computer bay, which housed that entity I called Puda.

A few telltales indicated that the main power systems were out. Despite the power failure, and the backup fuel cell failure, the memory core still seemed to be powered up according to instruments I’d dragged along with me. The computer that made up much of Puda was bio organic with a lot of volatile elements that would die if all power were lost. The only thing keeping the core up was the Iridium Hydride chemical cell, which only comes into play as a last resort. I checked its status and was horrified to see it was nearly exhausted.

Due to the delays getting to the computer, my oxygen reserves would only give me 5 minutes before I needed to return to the Basher. I agonized as I knew I had to return power to the computer before the core went down. I crawled to the fuel cell, but saw it was cracked, and totally useless. I then checked out the main bus that usually fed power to the computer. The multiphase array was dead and there seemed to be a short across the output. I worked frantically, not daring to look at my O2 gauge. I knew if I left now, the chemical battery would die, and with it, any faint chance of retrieving Puda would die also. I had to clear the short before attempting to replace the fuses to the multiphase array.

I found the fault. It was the fuel cell. Being the primary backup, it was connected to the main bus, and the damage it had sustained resulted in an internal short. Luckily, there was a secondary backup to keep the all important core powered. The only reason the battery hadn’t been affected by the short was due to the dead man relay. Normally powered by the primary system, it kept the battery isolated, until the changeover contacts connected the battery and isolated the core from the primary system.

I scrambled to bypass the fuel cell, knowing I was cutting it close, time wise. Unfortunately, I couldn’t just switch it out. I had to physically unbolt the power rail from the fuel cell. I finished and went back to the main switch control and replaced the fuse links. I did one quick check for any more shorts before closing the circuit. I saw the telltales change and then I started to crawl out of there.

I knew it had been hours, since I’d come aboard the Hope. I wasn’t sure if I’d be missed, with Tryst sleeping and the rest occupied with landing preparations. I felt the air getting worse in the EPS, but struggled on as fast as I could. I managed to get as far as the main deck, before I knew I’d gone as far as I could. There was no way to reach the Basher, and my com link wouldn’t reach past the hull of the Hope. I lay there panting, fighting the urge to sleep as oxygen starvation clouded my mind. I called out in my mind to Tryst, trying to send my love and say I was sorry. I reached up with my last strength, to open my visor. I didn’t know if there would be any air left to breathe, at this stage I didn’t care. I cracked the visor, hearing a hiss.

I gasped, feeling ice fill my lungs. I lost consciousness, but not before thinking I heard faint voices, one sounding a bit like Puda’s and I knew then that I was hallucinating even as I died.

The next seconds, minutes, hours seemed filled with dreams. A tiny analytical part of me seemed to be saying to me ‘this is your brain cells firing off memories as they die.’ Another part seemed to be saying ‘don’t give up, you’re not dead yet.’ I didn’t seem to have a choice in the matter as the dreams seemed to grow stronger and louder, seemingly coming from outside of my mind space. Voices, I was hearing voices … I was alive.

Things went from fuzzy to crystal clear in an instant, as I came to.

“She’s awake,” a voice I recognised as Trysts spoke up.

I turned my head, and saw my love getting up from the seat by the bed I was lying on. I tried to get up, but felt restraints holding me down firmly.

“Don’t move love, let me undo the restraints,” Tryst offered, unfastening the straps holding me down. “We had some turbulence and were worried you might fall out of bed.”

“Turbulence?” I asked puzzled by the word, then realising what I wanted to say, given my survival and what I’d thought had been my last thoughts on board the Hope.

“I love you. I thought I’d never see you again.”

“It was a close call, Araya.” Constantine’s voice coming from the other side of the bed, informed me sternly. “The turbulence is from atmospheric disturbances in Earth’s atmosphere.”

“What happened?” I asked. “Did the Hope make …”

“The Hope is safe on Earth,” Tryst interrupted, answering my unfinished question.

“I should lodge a complaint against you for damaging my airlock and putting yourself in danger, but I won’t,” Constantine admonished gently. “I’ll let Tryst explain the rest, while I go and pilot the Basher.” Constantine said, before leaving the room.

“I thought I was going to die, after I released my visor, the first breath froze my lungs.” I told Tryst, once we were alone.

“We’re not sure how you survived. Maybe something you did allowed the Hope to protect you, but let me start from when I woke up.”

He sat down on my bed and we held hands, as he started to talk. “I woke and found you gone, I figured you’d gone to get something to eat, so I showered and dressed. I went looking for you but got sidetracked in the dining room. I looked for you on the bridge after I’d eaten something, but nobody had seen you. A limited search for you was done. Limited, because preparations to achieve orbit required most of the men to be at their stations. We were nearing the outer edge of the atmosphere, when we discovered the airlock tampering.

We suited up and went in search of you on the Hope. One area seemed to be sealed, near the computer core, so we overrode the airlock and found you on the floor inside, with your visor open. I feared the worse, but I noticed your breath steaming in the frigid room, so I knew you were alive and breathing air. Somehow the Hope had closed the airlocks to your area and pressurized it from the rarefied atmosphere that we were passing through. There was just enough to keep you alive and the frigid air reduced your brain’s need for oxygen.”

“I did manage to activate a lot of the bridge systems before I went down to the computer core. Maybe Puda had something to do with it. Near the end, I thought I heard voices. I’m sure hers was one of them,” I got out.

Then I asked, “Is Puda okay?” I grasped at Tryst’s arm.

“I don’t know, you probably heard our voices over the suit com, the rest, well, it might have been delirium or wishful thinking. I never heard Puda at the time, and as soon as we got you back on board the Basher, Gaia insisted we release the Hope into her hands.”

I sank back, ‘Were my efforts in vain? I hope not. At least she’s now with her mother.’ I felt tears run down my cheek at the thought of not seeing or hearing Puda again.

Tryst kissed the tears away and gave me a gentle hug. I could have stayed there like that for much longer, but a call over the ships com, brought us back to our current situation. “Araya Lightsword, your presence is required on the bridge.”

Tryst drew back, pulling me with him. I realised I was now dressed in a white gown and not the clothes I’d been wearing. I was barefoot, but I didn’t delay searching for something to put on my feet. Tryst and I ran for the bridge, wondering what was so urgent. I could still feel my aches and pains, and wished I’d had time to go the med bay myself and get the full treatment.

“Ah, glad you could make it,” Constantine greeted them, as they entered.

“What’s the problem?” Tryst asked as I caught my breath.

“Gaia wants to talk to Araya,” Constantine offered with a shrug.

I walked over to the communication console, and keyed the transmission channel. “Araya calling Gaia,” I tried to sound calm and collected.

“I had heard of your personal dissolution in the conflict with the alien invaders from the returning fleet. I’m glad to see my trust in you was justified,” Gaia intoned.

“Is the Hope okay?” I asked, getting the first thing on my mind answered.

“The Hope is being dismantled as we speak,” Gaia replied. “I require you to come to these coordinates, where we will facilitate the landing of the fleet and welcome back Earth’s children.” Gaia added, sending a coded blip to the navcom.

The area selected seemed to be located in the southwest of the landmass I’d landed on my in my first visit, namely North America. The blip from Gaia must have included more than just the coordinates, as when the area was magnified, it showed an overlay of towns and roads. The landing place, which had once been called Nellis Air Force base, was slightly south and east of a place called Las Vegas.

The Basher, due to my being aboard, was the first down, aided by Gaia’s force screens. Then it was the turn of the habitats. They looked so long, but the area had been cleared and was now a vast flat area covered with a product called concrete. As each huge ship landed, smaller craft started landing, filling in between.

Gaia had provided fully adjustable mobile ramps to match up with our airlocks. Once one had mated with the Basher’s, I was escorted out first, with Tryst on my arm. The sun felt great, and I breathed in the dry desert air with relish. I looked at Tryst, who was experiencing this for the first time, enjoying the look of amazement on his face. I felt a momentary twinge of jealously that nobody had to endure what I’d gone through in my acclimatization to the biospheres germ laden air.

We went down the ramp with the Captain and the crew following cautiously. They moved slowly, looking around, the strangeness of everything impacting their senses all at once. I felt at home immediately, even though I’d never been to this particular place on Earth. I could see streams of people coming out of the other ships, and a huge crowd gathered at the base of the individual ships.

I saw a path ahead lined with rope directing us towards a raised dais. I went toward it, dragging Tryst along with me. The rest of the Basher’s crew stayed by their ship, whether by Constantine’s order, or a natural fear of leaving the safety of their ship, I couldn’t be sure.

I stepped up on the dais, and noted the microphone and address system. It seemed that everyone out by the ships stopped and were waiting for me to speak.

“I’d like to welcome you all home,” I began, taking Tryst’s hand in mine. “This is where we belong, until we, as the human race, can become strong once again. I’m not sure what’s going to happen next, but I’m sure Gaia, the guardian of Earth will shortly enlighten us.” I waved then, hearing a muted roar from those gathered as they cheered. I stepped down, which must have been a signal, for the speakers came alive again, as Gaia spoke.

“When mankind left their birthplace so long ago, it was for their very survival, or so they thought. The Earth Mother was dying, not from the threat from space, but from the ravages which mankind had inflicted upon her from decades of abuse. Yet, through the work of a few people, members of a talented and far seeing group, I was born. So not only was the threat from space nullified, but also they put into place the building blocks of the Earth’s recovery. It has taken a long time for this recovery to reach fruition, time for me to build a rapport with the living Earth, I call the mother. Now as her long lost children, she welcomes you to her bosom.” Here, Gaia paused, as a roar rose from the multitude gathered by their ships.

“Transportation will be provided over by the red building. It will take all of you into what used to Las Vegas, where accommodations have been provided. There you will be given information to help you make choices as to which part of the Earth you wish to live on. There is no rush to decide and your choices can be changed at any time. Each ship’s and habitat’s crew will stay together, so familial ties can be restored and joint decisions made. Now I will allow you to make your way to your next step on the journey home.”

Knowing a little of what was in store for the mass of humanity behind me, I took the stand again and called for attention. I suggested that people only take personal mementos of value, and leave everything else, as clothing and food would be provided for them. Here, Gaia broke in and announced,

“All items that could conceivably be considered personal will be held for at least a year, so that forgotten items can be retrieved later. Each will be documented as to where it was located before we begin to disassemble the habitats. 1800 days from now, all unclaimed items will be available for the asking, first come, first served, for 200 days, after which they will be disposed of.”

I further suggested that each ship’s personnel stay together and transport as a group before the next ship’s crew left. “If anyone does get lost or separated from their group, just ask any of the autobots you encounter for help and directions,” I suggested, knowing that Gaia would probably have a myriad of them at our disposal.

I wandered over to the red building with Tryst in tow. As we had no belongings with us, and nothing in habitat ship 9 worth keeping, it made sense to head the first of those to follow. Truth be told, I was as curious as hell, and wanted to spend a lot of time showing Tryst the marvels of Earth.

The transport turned out to be a maglev subway with long carriages that would hold nearly a hundred people each. Guiltily our carriage left with us alone, but I could see more coming up behind, so I shrugged off the feeling and looked forward to reaching our destination.

The carriage soon reached full speed, and judging by the way the tunnel lights flashed past, it was fairly substantial, given it was land bound. Our journey took only minutes and soon we emerged at a station in Las Vegas. An autobot took up station at our side, floating along at shoulder height. It gave a running commentary on some of the history of the place and how the city was now more of a giant hotel than a gambling haven. Having privilege status as Ambassadors to the Earth, we were allowed the freedom to pick anywhere to stay. I asked the bot to save us a room somewhere central, in case anyone wanted to see me for any reason.

Once that was confirmed, I decided to treat Tryst to a meal. My own stomach was grumbling, and I had the bot direct us to the nearest dining place. It pointed out that the lowest level of the huge high rise buildings lining the single road consisted of shops and restaurants. It also told me that with the expected influx of people, Gaia had got things in motion to feed the rest of humanity that were soon to follow us. All of the restaurants had meals waiting. We could smell food, before we even entered.

We turned our attention to the menu supplied by the ever present bots. I let Tryst choose the meal, although I had to explain roughly what each item was like. I decided to eat the same choices he’d made, and watched the expressions on his face as he tasted certain foods for the first time with amusement.

We watched the street, having chosen a window seat, and saw the first of many walking slowly along, faces filled with awe. We waved to a few as they spotted us sitting there at the table. It wasn’t long before others entered the place, drawn there by the smell of hot foods. Soon there was a party atmosphere about the place, as people wandered in and out of the different places to eat.

It was past midnight, before we got away from the crowds. Tryst was intrigued with the concept of night and day on a planetary body, and had to go outside to look at the night skies. Unfortunately, the lights from the city made seeing anything other than the moon impossible, so we hailed the nearest bot and asked to be shown our room. Our identities must have been on a data base, for it needed no prompting as to who we were.

Our room proved to be the penthouse suite, whatever that meant. All we knew was it was at the top level of the hotel unit assigned us. We were both in awe of the amount of room in the penthouse, and Tryst even asked the bot how many others were going to room with us, and was gob smacked when told it was for us alone.

While Tryst checked things out, I went into the bathroom to fill the bath, only to find a huge tub already filled with hot water. After questioning the bot, I called Tryst and told him to get undressed and come try out the Jacuzzi. We had a lot of fun that night with the pulsating jets of water making us feel really relaxed.

The following days and weeks, were so filled with organizing people and educating them on all the things they’d need to know, that I hardly had time to dwell on the absence of Puda. Each room had audio visual entertainment systems, which had documentaries about the Earth, its history and all the different countries it was made up of. This helped people choose whereabouts they wanted to live. It was weeks before the exodus from Las Vegas began to be noticed in the reduced number of people remaining. The population slowly grew less, as they were moved out by train, planes or various styles of hover vehicles.

I started to feel something was missing, and was getting a bit antsy. I felt I needed time to regroup my thoughts, so I told Tryst that I wanted to be alone for a while, and that I’d be back later that evening. I asked for a hover cycle similar to the one I’d ridden on my first visit, and headed out of the city going into the desert. I didn’t have a destination in mind, I just wanted to commune with nature away from the distractions of the city.

I must have traveled about 200 miles before stopping near a mountain range. I climbed up a ways on foot, needing to stretch my legs. I sat and looked out at the desert, marveling at the changing hues. I drank some water, I’d brought with me, content to let the stillness seep into my senses.

Something about being on this planet hit a chord in my soul, Earth with its ever changing moods, filled me with wonder and excitement at what I might discover next. I knew I’d fight to my last breath to preserve this wondrous place for all our future generations. Somewhere out in this desert, I found a sense of peace.

The end? Or just the end of the beginning?

*********************************************
 © 2006 by Prudence Walker. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, and compilation design) may be printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without the express written consent of the copyright holder.

Notes:

Look for "The Return of Hope" soon.

Synopsis:

Back on earth with the remnants of mankind, Araya makes a decision that could cost her her life. But she makes it willingly to rid the Earth of the alien threat waiting just outside the protective screen around the Earth. Join our heroine as she makes a sacrifice no woman should should have deal with.

Story:

ARAYA’S HOPE

By Prudence Walker

Part Two
The Return of Hope

After refreshing my psyche in the desert north of Las Vegas, I returned to Tryst, filled with a renewed sense of purpose. I wanted to take him on a tour to some of the places I’d seen on my first visit.

My presence wasn’t in so much demand now, as people made up their own minds on what they wanted to do. Like myself, everyone had been provided with a memory dump, courtesy of Gaia. This was essential to help people cope with living with relatively primitive Earth conditions when compared with those of habitat life.

I now had time to think. Unfortunately, that meant my thoughts turned to the loss of Puda, who had been my constant companion and saviour aboard my ship the Hope.

I knew that Thomas, the ex-President would remain in Las Vegas until the last, guiding the remaining people to their final destination, his sense of responsibility having not ended with the end of his Presidency. This fact helped make up my mind to leave as soon as possible.

There was still one thing I felt uneasy about. The alien fleet was still out there, putting a dampener on our celebrations. Just because we were safe at the moment, didn’t mean we would be safe forever. I wasn’t one to just run away and hide my head in some far away location. I felt I needed to be doing something, even if it meant losing Tryst.

After a few days trying to decide where to go to first, I felt like taking a break. Leaving Tryst shopping for some fishing gear, I took a ride back to where our fleet had landed. I was surprised to see the vast area empty of everything, bar a few marks on the ground. Only the platform where I’d made my speech remained. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. If Gaia was capable of rebuilding the planet like she had, she could easily remove the space craft to wherever she wanted.

I went over and sat on the platform, wondering if the ships were now scrap, or just stored someplace else. I felt kind of sad, so I decided to return to Las Vegas.

As I stood up and turned to climb down, Gaia’s resonant voice spoke from the platforms speakers, almost making me stumble in surprise.

“Araya, why are you here?”

After a pause, I replied, “I don’t really know. I guess I feel that the alien threat still needs dealing with.”

“Anything else?”

“I feel sad that I couldn’t save Puda,” I admitted sadly.

Gaia’s reply, “You did save her,” sent my heart pumping.

“Puda’s alive?” I asked, thinking I’d misheard her.

“Yes, what you did was foolhardy and put your own life at risk. Yet you did it without regard for your own safety for something, most wouldn’t call life. Can you tell me why you went to the brink of death to save a bioelectric jumble of synapses?” Inquired Gaia gently.

“To me, she was my friend … no it goes deeper than that. She was family! I just couldn’t leave her to die,” I got out, feeling tears forming.

“She didn’t die, thanks to your bravery. It was close, but the repairs you did on the bridge prior to that, allowed her in turn to save you.”

“So, I did hear her voice?”

“Once the main power was restored, she was able to shut the airlocks surrounding your position and pressurize the area enough to ensure your survival. She did try to call to you, but her audio unit failed due to a short circuit,” Gaia explained.

“Where is she now?” I responded, urgently needing to know. And when can I meet her?”

“She is on a shake down cruise of the new Hope at the moment. She could be here in oh … about 2 minutes.” Gaia laughed.

“In the new Hope?” I asked curiously, wondering what was going on.

“Yes, the new Hope is much bigger than the old Hope. It has the latest innovations in offensive and defensive weapons.”

“Bigger? How can you have made it so quickly?” I gasped trying to get my head around the idea.

“It was started not long after you departed Earth, and with the analysis of the alien’s weaponry from the data stream of your encounter as you left to go back, I think we have a solution. As for the size, see for yourself,” Gaia finished.

I looked up as a shadow came over me. All I saw was a huge ball of darkness in the sky, blocking out the sun. Scale was hard to make out, until it got closer and closer, becoming ever more gigantic with each passing second. I was almost afraid of being crushed, as it descended vertically almost directly overhead.

As I watched, it stopped just out of reach. Then a hatch opened as it hovered, and a ramp slid out to the ground.

Then I heard a voice I’d feared was ever stilled. “Welcome aboard Captain,” Puda chuckled.

“Puda!” I yelled, racing for the ramp. As I boarded, a series of shrill whistles piped me aboard the ship. Inside, I paused, not knowing which direction to head. I needn’t have worried, as Puda’s holographic form appeared before me. I ran forward and tried to hug her, but ended up running straight through her immaterial form.

I heard her laugh as I turned, only to find myself in a hug, as she firmed up her form. “Got you,” she giggled, sounding more like a meddlesome child than ever.

“No, I got you,” I refuted, squeezing her form back.

“You like?” Puda asked, waving her hand at our surroundings.

“It’s huge, I still can’t estimate its size,” I laughed.

“Hope 3 is about 3000 feet in diameter, with a main hull of Cobaltstantium nearly ten feet thick. There is an ablative armour outside of that, of a new refractory ceramic, about four feet thick, with another property we think will help.”

“Oh, wow!” I gasped, too shocked to say more, as the statistics gradually sank in.

“That’s not the best bit,” crowed Puda, seemingly unfazed by it all.

“Puda, thank you for saving me back there.” I sobered, feeling a need to get that off my chest.

“Well, I consider us even; after all, you saved me first. That’s something I will never understand, why would you risk your life for me, when Gaia could have easily rebuilt me from scratch.”

She was right in a way. Gaia certainly seemed more than capable of doing just that, given this ship as an example. I knew at the time that I wanted to save the Puda I knew, not a re-creation, no matter how similar it might end up as.

“I was saving you, not some copy Gaia might have produced. To many, you might just be an AI, but to me, you are family. One doesn’t abandon family,” I stated with feeling.

Puda was silent for a moment, which I took to mean she was surprised. Her holographic image hardened as she hugged me.

“Come on, show me the ship,” I urged, breaking the hug, before I let my emotions overwhelm me.

Everything was huge. Instead of four Mag 10 engines, the new Hope had twelve Mag 15’s, an unheard of size. The engines were located at the widest girth of the ship. Besides propulsion, the engines powered the new force field generators that acted as tractor and pusher beams. This would help in vector changes within the solar system, by using the planets and anything else with enough mass to counter the momentum the Hope generated. Puda stopped for a moment to show me the living quarters where the appointments were even more luxurious than the last Hope.

Finally reaching the bridge, I saw that there were still command chairs. I had thought they might not be needed on this new ship, seeing all the other improvements.

“Check these out,” Puda gushed, moving over to the chairs.

I went closer. They were certainly different from the front, more like pods than chairs. I looked through the clear visor-like window in the lid, seeing the seat inside.

“These are high-g seats,” announced Puda proudly, opening one for my inspection. “Fully self contained and vac-proof with its own independent environmental systems, so no need to be suited up,” she added.

The lid hinged on one side like a shell, revealing a form fitting gel padded interior. All the controls were there, plus a few more I took to be weapon controls.

“Seems a bit excessive,” I muttered, pressing on the gel padding.

“Well, if in the unlikely case of null gee failure, you can still survive the stresses of extreme gee maneuvers.”

“Looks like a cocoon,” I mused, getting in it and looking for the belts.

“There are no belts, Araya.” Puda informed me, preempting my next question. “The lid padding prevents your body from moving about, while still allowing you hand control.”

“How fast does she go?” I asked curiously.

“Point nine five light.”

“Oh crap! Look at the time! I left Tryst shopping back in Vegas,” I cried, having not noticed the passing time.

“We can be there in a minute,” claimed Puda calmly.

“Please,” I urged.

“Close the pod,” Puda advised.

I closed the pod, feeling it close gently against my body and found that the clear window in the lid was now a vision screen from the inside. On it, I could see a view of the ground passing below the ship.

“Puda?” I questioned, more for some reassurance that she was in control.

“Yes Araya?” Her voice sounded close in the command pod.

“Where are we?” I asked, not having seen the route to Vegas from the air.

Immediately, an inset appeared in one corner of the screen, showing the ground terrain at a lower magnification. This allowed me to see the city we were headed for and a moving red blip which represented the Hope’s position. I let Puda fly the Hope, content to watch until I could learn how to pilot it myself.

As we neared the city, Puda took us lower, and I saw people looking up at us in shock at our vast size. Some started to panic and run to the nearest building; obviously thinking we might be one of the alien fleet.

“Puda! We are scaring them! We need to tell them who we are,” I warned, fearing someone would get hurt in the panic.

“On it.”

I kept watching the ground and noticed that the people stopped running and started waving, and jumping up and down.

“What did you do?” I asked, seeing no reason for the change in mood.

“Oh sorry, watch this feed from Gaia,” Puda apologised, switching the view on my screen.

The video feed I was seeing must have been from somewhere on the streets of Las Vegas. It showed the huge silver grey craft hovering above, but on the underside was emblazoned in lights the word … HOPE 3.

“How am I going to get down? You can’t land here,” I put to Puda.

“Do you trust me?” she asked.

“Implicitly,” I retorted with a snort.

“Go to the turbo lift,” I heard a hint of a smile in her voice, and wondered what she was up to.

Opening the pod, I made my way to the lift, and I stepped into it with a sense of wariness, knowing Puda. I wasn’t scared, I trusted her with my life, but she wasn’t above pushing my buttons for a reaction.

As I stepped into the floorless void, I looked down the shaft. Instead of darkness, I saw the bottom was open, and I could see the street some hundred feet below the ship. Suddenly, I felt myself falling, it wasn’t exactly free fall, but it just felt like it. I fell right out of the ship, but although one part of my brain wanted to scream in fear, another more logical part held fast, as I could feel no wind rushing past, as if I was supported by the energy field used in the turbo lift.

By the time I reached the ground, Puda had slowed my descent, allowing me to land gracefully like one of those mythical superheroes, I’d read about as a child. I looked around at the crowd that had gathered, wondering if Tryst were among them.

“Tryst,” I called out, as the crowd closed on me all filled with questions. I held my hands up, making hushing gestures. Seeing a raised part of the footpath surrounding a drinking fountain, I stepped up on it, still with my hands raised. As the crowd quieted, I could hear a familiar voice, asking to be let through.

“Tryst,” I called again, as I saw him coming through the crowd.

“Araya,” I heard him call back as the crowd parted, allowing him through.

Reaching me, he planted a kiss, the crowd cheering and making encouraging comments.

When I broke it off, I faced the gathered people, one arm around Tryst for support. “As you can see, the Hope is back, bigger and better than before,” I announced. “With it, we hope to eliminate the threat hanging over our ancestral planet.”

I went on to explain a little of Puda’s survival, before asking for a little room. I knew Puda was monitoring me, so I pointed to the cleared space and introduced Puda, who in her holographic form, suddenly appeared at my command.

A cheer went up, as Puda waved to all the people gathered around. “Ready to go?” she asked, as she came and stood next to Tryst and myself.

“Anytime,” I answered, clinging tight to Tryst.

Suddenly, both of us lifted into the air and I heard Tryst gasp as we rose about a hundred feet into the air, before entering the Hope. The next hour was spent showing Tryst around the ship.

In the meantime, Puda was going north to the cabin I’d first stayed in on my first visit. Because there was no space to land the Hope, we both went down the scary ATT, or, Atmospheric Transport Tube, as Puda called it. Puda told us she’d be back the next day, as she still had some tests to do before the Hope could be signed off for active duty.

I didn’t say anything, but it went through my mind, ‘had the ATT been checked out before I used it over Las Vegas, or had it still been untested.’ I pushed the thought away, knowing I’d start feeling paranoid if I dwelt on it.

Tryst was every bit as curious about the cabin and the lake as I’d been. I suggested he catch us dinner, using the new equipment he’d bought. It was funny watching him trying to take on the traditional role of man the breadwinner, or in this case, trout catcher. I sat and watched after explaining how to use the fishing rod. I knew the memory dump would be telling him what each bit was and how it worked, but it didn’t automatically confer the skills to use it.

I felt a bit smug when he took longer to catch our meal than I had, but I didn’t let him suspect that I thought he wasn’t as capable a fisherman as I. Instead, I applauded his efforts, and commiserated when he lost several fish after hooking them. By the time he’d caught the last fish, the first one had expired and didn’t jump about when Tryst attempted to de-head it and clean it. That was one job he could have with pleasure. The second was pretty much gone too, by the time its turn to be gutted came around.

I took on the traditional feminine role, and cooked the meal that Tryst had eventually caught, while he sat back and sampled a can of beer. I decided to try some wine instead, and sipped it while I watched over the fish. Gaia must have known I’d end up here, as she’d had the cabin restocked with a more varied selection, and realized Gaia had been keeping close tabs on me. I’d watched some recorded cooking programs while in our room at Las Vegas, and had learned what a salad was, and now I saw the cabin had the tomatoes, lettuce and other ingredients necessary to build a salad. I did get Tryst to butter the bread rolls I’d noticed in a basket. At least I knew there would be no food allergy problems or the worry of getting sick from overindulgence. Gaia had taken that into consideration and had tweaked the DNA bank that had been in the Hope I’d piloted back to the colonies. She’d seen my reluctance to try eating meat for the first time, with my thoughts of getting sick. The tweak, meant, that the human body could eat a wide variety of foods with little or no adverse effects.

Dinner was a success. Tryst enjoyed his trout immensely, saying it was the best meal yet, but I think it had more to do with the fact that he had caught it himself. I agreed with him, knowing that you can’t beat something cooked fresh and simple. I enjoyed eating tomatoes for the first time, the salty sweet taste complimenting the relatively bland taste of the lettuce. Of course the bread rolls went down like, well, like bread rolls. I watched Tryst eat five to my modest two. Oh well, I knew a certain exercise he could perform later to work those buns off.

Later, when the day’s exercise was over, and we lay together in post orgasmic languor, I brought up the subject of the Hope’s return. I didn’t know if Tryst realised the import of the new and improved ship, or whether he did and was not letting on.

“I have a duty to finish off what I started,” I began, turning on my side towards him.

I watched Tryst turn and face me, his eyes shadowed by the dimmed light behind him. “You’re talking about the aliens, aren’t you?’ he asked quietly.

‘So he did know,’ flashed through my mind. I nodded, not trusting my voice at this point.

Tryst turned on his back and looked up at the ceiling. “As soon as I saw the Hope, I knew you’d be going out there.” He paused, then turned his head and looked at me. “I’m going with you,” he stated.

“NO! I can’t risk you,” I protested. “I love you, and if you’re on board, you’ll be on my thoughts, and your safety might sway a major decision I make at a critical moment.”

“I’m coming,” Tryst argued. “My life would be over anyway if you never came back. If I’m there, you won’t throw your life away needlessly if it comes to the crunch.”

“I couldn’t ask you to risk your life …” I choked out.

“Then don’t, because I’m coming anyway,” Tryst replied, sealing the deal with a kiss.

I had to turn away as tears flooded out. Soon we would both be risking our lives for the defence of all the people on Earth. I considered our lives forfeit, seeing I’d led the remnants of humankind home, to an uncertain future.

~~~~~

We awoke to the smell of breakfast cooking. I looked at Tryst, who was stirring next to me.

“Puda? Is that you?” I called out, as I slipped out of bed.

“Who else knows where you are out in the wilderness?” Chuckled Puda.

“Good point,” I admitted, as I walked into the cooking area pulling my robe about me.

“Pancakes Okay?”

“I don’t know what those are, but judging by the smell I’ll have a double helping,” I agreed.

“Triple helpings for me,” Tryst urged, having followed his nose.

Puda served the pancakes, explaining the various toppings one could choose. I went for the lemon juice and sprinkled sugar, while Tryst, having more pancakes, tried most of them. Maple syrup, golden syrup, lemon and sugar, honey, and even one with jam and whipped cream. Seeing him stuff them away with gusto nearly put me off my own, but I stuck to the lemon and sugar ones, enjoying the acid tang against the flavour of the fluffy pancakes.

At last, it was time to leave this idyllic hideaway. We went outside and drank in the sunshine in the crisp clear air of the morning. I wondered if this might be the last time we experienced this. I looked at Tryst, seeing the same look in his eyes. It was then that I vowed that if it was ever humanly possible, I’d bring us both home safely.

Puda brought the Hope over from behind the tree tops, so that it was now directly overhead. Taking Tryst’s hand in mine, I nodded to Puda, standing next to us. We shot vertically into the Hope, using the ATT, and went directly to the bridge. Immediately, I got to work, checking out the systems in detail, as Puda showed me all the new improvements and what Gaia hoped the new weapon developments would be able to achieve. For hours, I was so deeply involved studying every facet of the offensive and defensive weapon arrays that I closed off all other distractions.

“Araya! ARAYA!” Tryst shouted repeatedly, finally dragging my attention away from refractive indexes, and force field coefficients.

“Oh, hi, Hon,” I answered, shaking my head to try to refocus my thoughts.

“You have been at it for hours. It’s time for a break,” he scolded me.

I nodded, suddenly feeling guilty for ignoring him all this time. I took both of his hands in mine and lifted my face, trying for a kiss. He resisted for all of three seconds before obliging me with a tonsil extraction. We would have stayed lip locked for longer, but my stomach had other ideas and complained loudly.

“I guess it’s mealtime,” I giggled, breaking off the kiss.

“That’s what I was about to tell you.” Tryst huffed indignantly, obviously feeling somewhat miffed that I’d preempted him.

In the galley, he heated something called chicken soup. While we ate, and made small talk, my mind was working on another level, trying to come up with a plan that would see the demise of the alien fleet. A plan that wouldn’t let the same fate happen to us. I was partly aware that Tryst noticed that my mind was busy elsewhere, but he never called me on it. I guess he knew that whatever I was planning, involved our survival in the coming battle.

~~~~~

It was time. The Hope had been waiting just inside the screen protecting the Earth, while I strategized and grew familiar with the Hope’s controls and weapons. Tryst was with me on the second pod while I was in the command pod.

“Have Gaia open a portal, we are going out,” I requested, opening the engine’s thrust plates.

The Hope surged forward and passed the now opened protective force screen. Within seconds, we left the blue sky behind and embraced the blackness of space. My instruments started cataloging the numerous blips of the alien fleet. They were widely scattered around the Earth, not ideal for what I had in mind.

I needed a new plan, so I headed towards the nearest ship within a normally possible vector change. I didn’t want to give any advantage away by revealing the Hope’s true capabilities too soon. I charged up the particle cannon. We closed rapidly, and for the first time I saw a change in their tactics. Instead of advancing on us and attacking, the ship fired a few salvos at us and turned to run.

I guess our sheer physical size had suddenly made them decide to be circumspect. Our particle cannon beam lashed out at them in a lethal frenzy of annihilation, which seared through the hull of the fleeing ship. All that remained of it was a flaming fireball streaking though space, shedding bits of incandescent hull fragments.

Puda announced the next ship’s coordinates. For this target, I had to use the tractor beam to help us change the Hope’s vector quickly. At the same time, Puda fired the self targeting million watt maser beam at our prey. This would jam all transmissions from it and might even destroy some of the more poorly shielded electronics. We didn’t want them warning others of our tractor beam.

The tractor beam, as we had named it, was really more like a force tube energy screen. This tube could envelope a target, and lock it inside an impenetrable wall of energy that could be retracted. The way it was being used at the moment, was to help the Hope and the alien craft to assume a converging vector change. In layman terms, it was as if the alien ship was a ball flying past you and you reached out and caught it in your hand. If the ball (alien ship) has mass, and your arm (the force tube) is locked to your shoulder (the Hope), then your shoulder is pulled towards the ball and vice versa. As the Hope had more mass than the alien ship, the net result was that it was forced to assume the Hope’s velocity and direction.

The alien ship tried everything to wriggle free of the Hope’s grip, jinxing back and forth in vain. It also tried firing down the tube directly at the Hope, using beams and missiles. I let them come, knowing I could alter the way the tube worked. As the beams flashed closer, with the missiles trailing behind, I changed the nature of the tractor beam. Instead of a hollow tube, it became solid, starting at the hull of the Hope and working outward towards the incoming attack. As the beams hit the blocked off tube of force, they rebounded and the energy being reflected back up the tube exploded the missiles. With nowhere to go, but back, the exploding ball of energy took the path of least resistance and continued back up to the tube to impact on the alien ship.

“More of the alien fleet is converging on us,” Puda warned as I watched our captive destroy itself with its own weaponry.

“Good.” I smiled as I shut off the tractor beam and watched something truly amazing happen.

When the ship exploded within its cocoon of force, it had grown hotter and brighter, consuming itself, but without expanding in size, due to the constraints on it by the force field. Once I shut off the force field, the energy suddenly expanded like a mini supernova, leaving not a trace of ship.

I had Puda move the Hope back in the direction of the Earth, as if fearing the advancing fleet gathering against it. I took the time to take a drink of iced coffee from the dispensing straw fitted into the pod.

“You okay over there?” I asked Tryst in the other pod.

“Yes, I’m just nervous,” he replied with a hint of tension in his voice.

“Me too,” I offered, showing him I wasn’t superhuman.

As the ships gathered against us, the Hope came under fire from their weapons. Puda fired back in a desultory fashion, trying several different experimental weapons to test their effectiveness. This was done not to destroy ships per se, although should that happen I wouldn’t be complaining. It was more to be seen to be attacking, without having to use our main weapons.

Some of the weapons we used had marked effects, some had none. It didn’t matter too much as it was all data for Gaia to digest and analyze.

As the alien fleet moved to englobe the Hope, they resorted to using energy weapons alone. I wasn’t sure if this was in case missiles fired at us might be avoided, and could endanger those on the opposite side. In any case, it was what I wanted. Taking a deep breath, I dropped the Hope’s protective energy screen. When the energy output from the alien ships reached the maximum limits of the ceramic composite outer hull, it began to evanesce.

As the surface layers puffed off in a haze of particles, the unique properties of the hull began to come into play. “Energy levels rising,” announced Puda.

“Power storage systems engaged,” I acknowledged, watching the levels climb as the attack against us intensified.

I suddenly realised that Tryst might be terrified at the sight of the hull burning away. “It’s okay Tryst, we are going to use this energy against them. The hull is designed to gather energy directed against it. We lowered the screens so we can gather it. We need more than a million exawatts of energy to power the weapons we intend to deploy. The ceramic composite has a unique property. As it reaches its destructive thermal tolerance, it converts the energy directed against it into power that we can feed into our storage system. We will allow the outer hull to disperse until it’s all gone, hopefully providing us with enough energy to complete our task.”

“I’m glad you told me that,” grumbled Tryst with a relieved voice. “Otherwise I might have been worried,” he added dryly.

“Sorry, I’m not used to having another person on board when things start getting tense.”

“How much storage do we have?” he asked.

“We have one hundred storage units.”

“I didn’t think you could store that kind of power in a battery or accumulator storage system, especially at the rate it’s being fed,” Tryst mused.

I tried explaining, while keeping an eye on the increasing energy levels. “That’s because it isn’t a battery. It’s more like a capacitor, which can absorb vast quantities of energy quickly and discharge it just as quickly.”

“It still sounds impossible to me,” Tryst argued.

“Okay, imagine the storage system as a black hole that can absorb as much energy as it can get and then turn itself into a white hole and eject that same energy.”

“You have a black hole on board?” I heard fear in Tryst’s voice.

“Well, it’s a tame black hole and there’s not one, but a hundred,” I joked. “Actually, they are quantum anomalies that act like black holes,” I reassured him.

Tryst said nothing. By switching some settings on my monitor I could see his face from within his pod. I could still see confusion written there as he tried to take in my haphazard explanation.

I took a breath as I settled into teacher mode. “Okay, let’s try this. The way Puda explained it to me, Gaia found this effect when she was designing the tractor beam. Actually, I’d prefer to call it a force tube, because that’s what it is.

“When we fought the first ship, we sent out a tube of energy that caught it inside. The tube then sealed itself, trapping the ship in a sort of test tube of force. When Gaia was developing this, she tried narrowing the tube down even further, to see what would happen. When narrowed to the point that the inside of the tube was touching itself, it cut off, leaving just a doughnut like ring, except the hole in the center was only on one side of the ring and hardly detectable. When she tried finding out what it was the hole did, she likened it to the event horizon of a black hole, but one only a few nanometers wide. When she tried sending energy into it to see the effects, it absorbed vast quantities, seemingly with ease. Once she stopped filling it, the ring lay dormant, with no sign of where the energy had gone. But when she collapsed the ring, a huge pulse of energy erupted out. Gaia thought it was the equivalent of all the energy poured in, but done in an instant. It destroyed all the equipment in the place where it was being generated, so Gaia could only make an assumption of the energy output, but it should be enough to deal with our friends. Especially as the ones we have are a hundred times the size of the one Gaia was experimenting with.”

“Wow! So where are these rings?” Tryst asked in wonder.

“Think of them as flattened spheres with a hole on one side than a ring. All one hundred are embedded into the surface of the Cobaltstantium hull under the outer ceramic hull. That’s why we can’t use it till the outer hull is burnt off. The ceramic serves two purposes. One, it protects the main hull from damage while the screens are down and two, it’s destruction under fire, generates the power to arm our main weapons.”

“Araya? All units have received the specified charge,” Puda interrupted.

“Keep them charging, till we are ready,” I told her. “Let me know when the ceramic hull is less than 2 inches thick, so we can jettison it cleanly.”

There was one item I’d kept from Tryst, we had a hundred charged weapons, but the scans showed more than a hundred alien ships. I just hoped my backup plan, crazy as it was, would work.

I watched the alien fleet move closer to us, as we had offered no attack against them. I knew it wouldn’t be long before we would start our attack. When the skin was down to 3 inches, I decided it was time. “Check all systems. Inertial dampening on max and prepare for spin attack maneuver. On my mark of ‘Engage,’ blow the outer skin and activate the screen.”

“All systems check complete. Ready for hull dispersal,” Puda intoned immediately.

“Engage,” I ordered. The primary hull was so thick that with the inertial damping on full, it was impossible to feel the outer ceramic hull breaking off. Only the screens showed the shards floating off into space. Now, only the screens protected the main hull against the onslaught of fire from the alien fleet.

The Hope began a spinning motion, using the thrusters to give us an oscillating spin, rather than just a plain spin. Because the ring weapons were in fixed positions on the hull, to aim them meant rotating the ship to align them at the enemy. The idea was for Puda to take over and fire at the ships as they crossed the alignment path of any unfired ring. Due to the fact that the pulse of energy from the rings was so massive, and of such a short duration, the speed of the Hope’s rotation wouldn’t be a factor.

I watched the star field gyrate around crazily as Puda targeted any ship in line with a ring, nearly making me dizzy. Only the fact that there were no middle ear reactions, due to the artificial gravity and the inertia control, kept me from losing my last meal. I used the targeting program to keep track of one of the ships as it took the full brunt of a ring’s discharge.

With this program, I could pick a target and receive a picture from all the scanners that moved into that point of view as the Hope spun madly. It was a bit jerky, but I could see the burst of energy from the ring spear out in a coruscating beam of lambent fire that was almost too bright to make out. It speared through the target’s screen and hull in an instant, leaving a fulgent auroral glow as the ship dispersed into a cloud of incandescent atoms.

I was stunned by the effects, but Puda’s announcement that we were down to our last 10 ring weapons brought me out of my fugue.

“How many ships left?”

“Twenty five ships remaining,” Puda calmly announced.

“Kill ratio?” I asked, trying to work out what we’d be left with.

Puda replied smugly, “One ring to one ship.”

I sighed. I might have known she wouldn’t have missed any shots. Fifteen ships to deal with.

Knowing the battle had taken less than a minute, I asked, “Are they reacting yet?”

“All weapons fired, the remaining 15 ships are beginning to veer away.”

I knew it would take some time to change vectors, but we couldn’t let one get away.

Now was the time for my plan. “Prepare Hope for ramming, target the one furthest away,” I ordered.

Puda used the force tube to encapsulate the enemy ship, and then retracted the sealed tube. Then, as in our first attempt, the difference in mass meant that it was pulled more towards us than we to it. Not content to wait for it to fall into our grasp, Puda opened all thrusters to the max, accelerating the Hope towards its target.

If the alien ship had fired down the tube, we could have finished it off earlier using our earlier tactics. Instead it had turned to flee, vainly firing its thrusters against the tractor beam. We impacted the alien ship with enough kinetic energy to burst it open like a tomato dropped 10 feet onto concrete.

Immediately, Puda targeted another ship, using the explosion of the alien ship as impetus to alter our vector. Our hull took no damage, and thankfully, only a few sensors had been taken out from the physical deformation of our defensive screens as they were compacted against the hull. We weren’t going to be left blind however, as the Hope had replacements retracted deep into the hull.

This battle seemed to be in slow motion compared with the first. Not only were the ships beginning to separate, the vector changes grew ever more extreme. When Puda caught one ship heading in the opposite direction to the Hope, the sudden impact of having the mass of the Hope being applied to it, simply crushed it into oblivion. After 2 hours of this, we finally ran out of targets. Sensor readings could find no trace of any more alien ships within the solar system itself.

I was too wound up to just return to Earth. On a hunch, I decided to check out the moon. I’d noticed that there’d been some activity around it when we had launched from Earth. I was thinking that they might have been setting up a base from which to attack the Earth from.

As the Hope passed the terminator, Puda called out a warning.

“Araya! I’m detecting a high radiation reading over a vast area. I think it’s some kind of weapon.”

“A weapon? What’s it doing on this side of the moon then?” I questioned, and then a possible answer suddenly struck me. Oh shit! … You don’t think they were intending on changing the moon’s orbit, do you?”

“Given the quantities I’m detecting, it’s possible. There’s worse news, I’m detecting some sort of detonation sequence. They must have triggered it during the fight, seeing they were losing.”

“How long do we have?” I screamed, my blood running cold.

“59 seconds.”

My heart froze and my mind went into overdrive trying to come up with a plan, any plan. Ideas flashed into my head and were discarded. Was this the alien’s plan all along? To disrupt the moon’s orbit, and cause widespread havoc on Earth? Any change at all, could cause tidal motions that would see gigantic waves and earthquakes smash the Earth, which might spell the end of Gaia and all the human life so recently returned.

I could hear Tryst screaming in the background and Puda counting down the seconds as I tried to come up with a workable solution. Firing on the weapon base, would only hasten the inevitable end and add to the destruction of all I held dear. Same with using force screens against it. Sure, it would prevent the explosion from hitting us, but it would only magnify the effect on the moon, as the energy would be trapped against the lunar surface. I needed to separate it from the moon itself.

When Puda announced that there were only 45 seconds left, a glimmer came to me. “Puda, can you encompass the entire weapons base with a force tube?” I shouted, coming up with the only idea I had.

“Yes I can. 40 seconds,”

“Enclose the base in an open ended tube and make sure it ends below the lunar surface, before sealing the ends.”

“Done,” Puda replied a moment later.

“Pull away and bring the weapons base with us. Rotate the away from the Lunar surface as soon as you’re clear.” I ordered, trying not to think what the effects upon the Hope would be if it went off prematurely. “As soon as the end clears the moon’s horizon, open the far end of the tube.”

I hope it would minimize the damage against us if the blast had another route to vent itself, although I had no illusions as to our survival.

I could see the base moving away as Puda applied full thrust, trying to arc us up and away.

“Prepare for impact,” was my last order.

I looked at Tryst through my monitor, seeing his face directly in front of me. If this was to be my last moment alive, I wanted his face to be the last thing that I saw. His eyes looked into mine. He must have had the same idea in mind. I saw no fear, just trust, and my heart broke, thinking I’d failed him. I didn’t hear the final second count down, but I saw the screen wash out as a brilliant flash of actinic light wiped away all vision. I heard a noise getting louder, like a runaway rocket engine firing, and then all went to hell as the explosion forced the collapsing force tube backwards into the Hope. My last thought as oblivion took me, was ‘Oh hell! … not again!’

~~~~~~

I was walking along a bush trail with Tryst at my side. We were looking for a mountain lake reputed to have salmon just waiting to leap onto a hook and line. All of a sudden, I slipped off the path and down a muddy bank. I yelled out to Tryst before tumbling head over heels down the slope, ending in a muddy pool where I was covered with a sticky layer of mud that prevented me from moving. I struggled to move, somehow knowing that if I didn’t, I might never get back to Tryst.

It was then I awoke. Shaking off the dream, I tried to move and found that just like in the dream, I couldn’t wriggle an inch. I panicked for a second, thinking I was stuck in my dream. I opened my eyes and saw the dark monitor blinking with a tiny icon in the left hand top corner. Everything came rushing back. I was still on the Hope, it had survived the explosion, but what shape was it in? I wondered if I was paralyzed, as I could feel no pain and my inability to move could be the result of a spinal injury.

“Puda?” I called, hoping she was still able to communicate.

“Puda?” I repeated, somewhat louder, her silence, starting to worry me. I wondered if Tryst had survived, feeling frustrated that I couldn’t use the controls to see into his pod. In my heart I felt he was still with me, but I needed to see his face.

“Puda?” I screamed, venting all my feelings into the shout.

The screen blinked a few times, before text started showing on it. I read, # Yes Araya, I’m here. My audio and holographic systems are down, but I can communicate by text. #

“I can’t move, I think I’m injured. Can you check on Tryst, please?”

#You’re surrounded by a polymer called collision foam, that’s stopping your body from moving. Both you and Tryst are okay. I’ll use the release agent to free you, but please remain in the pod till I can make some repairs to allow pressurization of the essential areas. #

When I heard a hissing sound, I hoped it wasn’t my pod leaking air. I started to feel something damp spraying my body and I realised I could move again as the polymer was broken down by the spray of release agent. The smell wasn’t very pleasant, but I managed to purge it by increasing the oxygen flow. My exposed skin felt sticky, and I wished I could get a shower to clean up. When my hands were free, I tried accessing Tryst’s pod to see how he was doing.

The only views I could access, were an exterior shot of the hull and one from the propulsion bay. What I saw seemed impossible. The ten foot thick hull had a dent about 50 feet across and 80 feet deep. I could still control the sensor mounted near the edge of the damage, so I extended it and looked over into the damaged area. At the deepest point, there was a hole about 10 feet across, penetrating the hull to an indeterminate depth. I switched to the other available view and could see some of the effects the damage had caused in the propulsion bay. Warped walls and sheared girders stood as a stark testimony to the ferocity of the impact on the Hope.

“Can you patch me through to Tryst?” I asked Puda.

# You can come out of the pod, as long as you remain on the bridge. It is the only area I have managed to pressurize so far. # Puda wrote on the screen.

“What’s the problem with pressurizing the other areas?” I asked her again.

# Most of the bots I need to move the mobile screen units are out of action. Unlike you, they broke loose and were smashed. #

“Can we help move the units into place? After all, our EPS’s are stored on the bridge,” I suggested, as I cracked open my pod.

# It’s dangerous, and you’ll be exposed to danger, but I could do with your help. # appeared on the screen as I climbed out.

“You’ll get it, just let me check with Tryst,” I told her, not waiting for a reply.

I stumbled over to the pod containing Tryst. I felt like yuck as my clothes stuck to my skin, thanks to the residue from the foam.

I cracked open the lid on his pod, my gaze going straight for Tryst’s face. He smiled, sending my heart aflutter. I leant over and gave him a kiss.

“Come on lazy bones, we have work to do,” I told him, helping him climb out.

He was as sticky as I was and the hug he gave me made it hard to separate, as our clothes stuck together. It did give me some kinky ideas for later, but preferably with naked bodies.

“See, I’m stuck on you,” he claimed proudly.

“We’d better stick to the job in hand. Maybe later you can stick it to me,” I offered with a wink.

With that, we went over and struggled into our EPS’, struggled, because the form fitting suits clung to the remnants of the sticky residue coating our clothes. Suit on, I went over and tinkered with the boards, to see if I could get Puda up on audio instead of relying on the clumsy text printouts. I must have lucked out, as Puda’s voice crackled over the com, before becoming steady.

As we sealed our suits, Puda informed us of the damage, and what needed to be done. After venting the air from the bridge, we passed through the airlock and entered the main part of the ship. Unlike the ultra protected bridge, the rest of the ship’s lesser priority areas showed some damage, whether it be minor or major. Puda directed us to a bot, setting up force screens to seal off the worse hit areas.

The bot, when we caught up to it, had one manipulator hanging off. It was trying to fly a portable force screen generator that would have weighed a hundred pounds on Earth. Here, while it weighed only half that, a load easily flown by the bot if it had two manipulators, it was unable to stop one end from dragging on the ground.

I reattached the dangling arm, and tightened it using my trusty universal tinker tool. After I joined the severed cabling with Gripits, it was as good as new … well, good as second hand, at least.

Leaving the bot to fly on unassisted, we went to the storage unit containing the portable force screen units. There, we dragged out a unit and followed after the bot.

Finding the bot, we started to set up our unit near some damaged I beams that had borne the brunt of the forces that had penetrated the hull. We lifted the unit to where we thought it would overlap the bot’ force screen. Once in position, I waved Tryst away to help the bot, while I secured the unit in place using percussion bolts fitted to the unit.

As I fired the last bolt into what I thought was a secure girder, everything went wrong. The explosive charge, instead of penetrating the girder, shifted it away. Another beam that was resting on it shifted and fell on my leg, trapping it and puncturing my EPS. The first beam prevented me from reaching my leg and applying a sealant. I could feel the effects of vacuum, burning my skin. I looked down to Tryst and was about to call for help, when I saw that the other end of the shifting beam had swung around and knocked Tryst over. Worse news than that was the fact that I could see blood leaking out of his suit, so I knew he’d suffered a puncture as well. I knew I only had seconds to do something. I looked at the unit by my hand. The activation button was on the ship side, and once it was turned on, I’d only have seconds to pull my arm back, if I didn’t want the screen to cut it off. If I activated it, it would allow Puda to pressurize the area where Tryst lay under the beam. The only problem, was that I’d be stuck where I was pinned, still be out in the vacuum of space, separated from safety by an impenetrable field of force.

“Puda, once I activate the screen, pressurize the area inside. Tryst’s trapped there in a punctured EPS.”

I switched on the unit, biting my teeth against the agony flooding my lower body, knowing this was the end. I could feel my blood boiling as it was drawn out of my leg. Only the sticky residue and the snugness of the EPS stopped the air from venting out in a rush. This meant I was just going to suffer for longer. I couldn’t even call to Puda or say goodbye to Tryst because the screen blocked my suit’s transmissions. I felt the pain growing further up my body and I moaned, as it became too much to bear. Eventually I blacked out.

~~~~~~

Some indeterminable time later, I came to. ‘Is this heaven?’ I thought. After what I’d been through, being pain free got my vote, what more could heaven offer? As I drifted in that strange twilight zone between waking and slumber, I realised all wasn’t quite perfect in paradise. My body felt different. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it until I moved. Yes, there was something seriously different with this body. I felt uncomfortable.

Suddenly light flooded my world, and there, looking down, on me was Tryst. He looked haggard and his eyes seemed haunted by grief. There was a sort of embarrassed silence as his eyes slid away from mine.

“Tryst? I’m alive?” I got out before stopping in horror. My voice sounded different, deeper, more masculine. I realised then why I felt ill at ease in this body. It was male.

“What happened to me?” I asked, as I struggled out of the med booth unassisted.

“Araya, I’m sorry, I couldn’t save your body. It was too far gone. We only saved your brain in time. I came to just after you activated the screen. The bot came and helped free me from the beam, after Puda turned off the grav control and began pressurizing the room. That was when we realised you were still outside.

I slapped a patch on the puncture, not bothering about the wound and had Puda depressurize the room again. I jumped to where the screen unit was and turned it off. With the grav control off, I managed to free you from the beam and dragged you back in before switching the unit on again. Puda pressurized the room a second time and told me to place you in the bots arms. Using the bots system, she put you into a stasis field that stopped you from dying.”

“But why give me a male body?” I asked, as Tryst paused in his explanation to hand me a grey coverall. I pulled on a coverall, wincing at the difference in texture to my regular clothes. Maybe I could get Puda to … nah that would be a waste of time and resources, even if she could provide them in satin and pink.

“Because the DNA store was breached, there were only two samples left intact.”

“Oh! What was the other then?” I asked feeling somewhat mollified.

“To get back to Earth, we require your strength and drive, which is why Puda didn’t keep you in a stasis till we got you back to Earth or use the only other DNA sample, which was a female child. Trying to put you in that body could have killed you.”

I felt bad that Tryst had had little choice in making that difficult decision, but part of me was so uncomfortable in this hunk of a body that I wanted to scream out to give me the female child’s body. “Couldn’t Puda just alter the DNA sample so I would have the child’s genetic code, but in an adult form?” I heard myself whine.

“No, it’s more complicated than that. Each sample contains nanites that break down the host’s DNA and replace it with the new DNA. But it also contains instructions on the physical make up of the new form, such as age and size. To break down your larger body, even with the damaged parts, would probably have killed you, or at best, left you with memory loss. A child’s brain is physically smaller than your own and some part of it would have been cannibalized. All your bone structure would have had to be broken down to size. As it was, your body was fed an organic cellular soup to replace the body mass lost to vacuum burn.”

“Okay, I get the picture,” I snapped at him, feeling instant regret at my outburst. After all, it wasn’t his fault. Luckily, he didn’t react like I thought he would, but I could sense I’d hurt him, when he was already feeling down with the way things had turned out.

This body was filled with testosterone, and I was already having problems controlling my aggression. What was I going to be like in a few days, constantly seeing my love and not being able to have any sort of sexual contact? I wanted to fall into his arms and beg forgiveness, but as soon as I moved towards him, my body reminded me that I couldn’t do that any more if I wanted to preserve our life bond, or what was left of it.

This fact didn’t help matters much, so I apologised. “I’m sorry for snapping at you. It wasn’t your fault. I think it’s the shock and these male hormones I’m not used to. Please forgive me, and try to make allowances until we can rectify this situation. I love you dearly and thank you for saving my life.” I tried to make my voice sound softer and more feminine.

I opened my arms for a hug, worrying that because we were both male, he wouldn’t accept it. Tryst, to his credit, didn’t pause and hugged me. I must admit that it didn’t feel the same, so I broke it off after a few seconds.

“It’s okay Araya. Puda did warn me that your emotional control would be subject to fluctuations from the influx of male hormones.”

“You don’t look too good either, have you been in the med booth since your injury?” I asked solicitously.

“No, Puda wasn’t sure the med booth would last through two cycle’s, with all the damage incurred, so I decided to let you go through first. I can take my chances later; at least I’ll have you there to take charge if something goes wrong.”

“Strip,” I ordered, doing just that … taking charge.

I watched him blush, and I wondered what thoughts were going through his mind. To put him at ease, I told him I want to see him naked so I could check his body for his injuries.

“How long has it been since the accident?” I asked, as he started to disrobe.

“Five days, we are now somewhere near the orbit of Saturn,” he answered, removing his coverall.

“Damn, we must have picked up some serious velocity. Puda hasn’t been able to get the engines online?” I questioned, as I came close and ran my much larger masculine hands over Tryst’s body.

“Not yet. There’s only so much she can do with only one functioning bot.”

I could feel Tryst tensing up as my hands neared the wound site on his side. He’d applied a general purpose wound dressing over it and I could see the purpling redness through its transparent surface. I was no doctor, but I knew this needed more than just a dressing.

“Lie down on the table, on your side!” I instructed, going into insistent nurse mode. I giggled, or tried too, as the thought of my wearing a female nurse’s uniform on this body, suddenly struck me. The giggle sounded more like a chuckle, which made Tryst ask what was so funny.

Knowing he could do with something humorous to laugh at, I explained my thought. He chuckled too, which made me grin. I picked that moment to rip away the bandage, and his chuckle turned to a yelp, for which I apologised. While I was examining the wound, I asked him if it would be easier if I did wear female clothes in my size, while I was stuck like this.

“Let’s see how things go first. Hopefully we will be able to repair the Hope and go home before it becomes an issue,” was his careful reply.

I hoped so too, but then a thought occurred to me. Could Puda jigger the med booth to change this body into a more female looking one, even if I was stuck having this third leg between my thighs. Maybe I could finagle some breasts if the repairs took a lengthy time.

I treated the wound with the standard med pack, and recovered it with a second skin dressing. “Let’s go, we have work to do,” I told him, my voice threatening to betray my feelings over his close call with death.

I made my way to the bridge, letting Tryst to get dressed by himself.

“Puda? What’s our status?”

“We have been at a two gee acceleration since the explosion. We are somewhere near the orbit of Saturn. I have been endeavoring to alter our vector with one of the remaining thrusters, so we should encounter the outer planets. The main engines are offline, as are all defensive weapons and force beams, and we only have minimal life support, due to power loss.”

“So nothing major then,” I joked, trying to lighten the mood in the bridge, as I’d noticed Tryst had joined us.

Puda chuckled. “I’m sure you’ll find plenty to do Araya.”

“Come on love,” I told Tryst. “I think I’m going to need your help checking out the engines.”

~~~~~~~

“Something’s odd here. This engine checks out, as far as I can tell.” I informed Tryst a bit later. “There’s something I’m missing. Let’s check the fuel lines.”

“They are empty,” Tryst told me a few minutes later.

“Impossible, unless the tanks … THE TANKS! OH, SHIT!” I was feeling real fear, as I raced to the gauges on the far bulkhead. There, my fears were realised. The tanks containing the water used to fuel the engines were empty. We were dead in the water, to use an ironic expression.

“Puda? What water reserves do we have? The main tanks seem to be empty according to the readouts down in engineering.”

“I don’t have any readings coming from down there. I just thought the sensors were damaged. We do have some water on the accommodation level used for washing and cooking.”

“How much and is it separated from the main supply?” I asked, hoping it was.

“It is fed from the main supply, but there is a one way valve that stops back feed, if that’s what’s worrying you. It should last for several days, maybe a week if you ration it.”

“How long if we use it for the propulsion?”

“Five hours at maximum thrust.”

I sat down wondering if it would be better to drift and drink, or waste it trying to slow the ship somewhat. With the velocity we had accrued, 5 hours wasn’t going to put much of a dent in our speed, unless we had a force tube working and something to push it against.

“Okay Tryst, I have a job for you. I need you to find out how much food the Hope has that has liquid in it. That includes tinned foods and fresh food in storage. If we are going to use most of the water for the ship, we will need every drop of liquid contained in the foods for us to survive.”

“I guess that means no showers?” Tryst grimaced, lifting one arm and sniffing.

“No cleaning anything, except after bathroom needs and then we’ll be using antibacterial wipes.”

“Right.”

“I’m going to the bridge. I have an idea, but it’s a bit of a long shot,” I told him, leaving him to go to the galley.

I knew we needed water. The trick we had pulled off on our return to Earth, had given me an idea. Ice. I didn’t think we’d be lucky to find a comet, but often there are moons that have ice on them. Our lives depended on coming close enough to a moon of one the planets remaining in our path.

Once I reached the bridge, I asked Puda about my idea. She went into a search of her data base and came up with several possibilities. Problem was, the moons of Uranus and Neptune were out, because they weren’t in our path at this time. Charon, the moon of Pluto, the last planet in our system and therefore, our last chance as well, was it.

“We might be able to get close to Charon if I use the main engines to alter our vector without wasting it in braking,” Puda announced.

“Just remember, we need some power for the tractor beam,” I cautioned.

“If I could have some the thrusters from the aft and port section shifted across the starboard side, it would increase our chances, without using water for the main engines.”

“Okay, I’ll get right on it,” I promised, even though I had a major chore fixing up the broken tanks. I knew the sooner the thrusters were moved, the bigger the effect over the distance we still had to go.

“Tryst, I’m going to need your help,” I called as I entered the galley food lockers.

“Here, time for some food,” Tryst offered, holding up two cans of beef consume soup.

As urgent as all the work ahead of us, I knew we had to eat, and his choice was just what we’d need before going EVA to work on moving the thrusters.

“Great, let’s heat and eat, we have a date outside.” I grinned, trying to make light of our situation.

Over our tasty soup, Tryst discussed our food and liquid situation. He seemed to think we could survive for a month without having to use supplemental water.

I told him what we were about to do and its importance to our survival. “I know you had a bad experience in our last EVA, but we need to focus on our goal, if we want to get back to Earth.”

“I guess there is one good thing about this … no washing the dishes,” Tryst grinned, to which I nodded.

Moving thrusters is hard work when tethered to the outside hull of a ship. They were constructed to be disposable, as the solid hydrogen fuel feeding a micro fusion reactor would need replacing after a hundred hours of continuous use. The liquid hydrogen was compressed using force screens, to a metallic monatomic form, which provided a long lasting fuel source.

Using a special key to unlock them, the thrusters would rise out tubes set into the hull, where they could be rotated 90 degrees to release them. Moving a mass of about 500 kilos was easy if you pushed long enough to overcome the inertia. Stopping it was another matter. Even in weightless conditions, the thruster’s momentum was an unseen beast that wanted to take control.

It took us five days to move 20 thrusters. Each was placed near an existing thruster and shock bolted into position. Control cabling was linked to the nearby thruster through the access ports built into the hull. The end result was a forest-like group of thrusters looking like candles in a cake. The danger was enormous, as Puda had to shut down the thrusters each time we approached the starboard side, then fire them up again as we left to get the next one.

We slept little and ate sporadically, mostly when we had to refill the tanks of the EPS units. We were exhausted, by the time we finished, conversation reduced to ‘pass that’ or ‘hand me this.’

I checked the wound on Tryst’s body, as he lay exhausted on the med booth table. It looked a bit red and puffy and felt warmer than the surrounding skin. I made a call and ordered Tryst into the med booth, with it set to a diagnostic and cure setting.

While he was resting in the med booth, I dragged my aching body into an EPS and checked out the main tank that had once held the water for the engines. The stresses from the force of the explosion had split the tank. I figured it would need several days to weld it up again. Satisfied that there should be no surprises, I climbed out the tank and went to check on Tryst.

Seeing he was due out in a few minutes, I decided to wait for him. I pulled a fold out chair from the bulkhead and sat waiting, while my mind tried to slow down to sub-light velocities.

The recent strenuous activities in this body had allowed me to come to terms with it, now it didn’t feel as alien as it had when I first woke up in it. But it still wasn’t me and I don’t think I could ever get comfortable in it. I liked being female, no, make that loved being female, even if I was a take charge kind of girl.

“Araya, wake up,”

“Sorry, I just thought I’d wait for you,” I mumbled tiredly, realising I must have nodded off.

“You have been pushing it too long. Let’s get some sleep,” he insisted, offering a hand to help me get up.

Such a simple gesture, yet one he knew I’d appreciate. I knew despite my appearance, that Tryst was looking past it to see the real me, the one who loved him.

I guess we were both throwbacks, to our ancestors. Before my discovery of Earth and the change to either male or female, most of the space colonists were happy to have sex together in either phase. When two became partners, their cycle changed so that they became compatible in both phases. Tryst was different. He would only have sex with me when I was in the fem part of the cycle. Not that I was insistent on sex while he was fem, as she didn’t turn me on then. Although strange by the standards then, it made a certain sense in light of developments. Tryst was as male as I was female, even masked by our changing forms.

The problem now was, while I still saw Tryst unchanged as a male and still wanted sex with him, he saw another male, and was turned off sexually, despite my being his life mate. It must have taken great strength of mind to help me up without a thought of my changed sex.

We walked back to our cabin in silence, where I stripped off my coverall for something smoother and cleaner and in pink. I pulled on the extra large gown that I’d had Puda whip up for me. I didn’t care what I looked like; it was comfort I was going for. I turned and saw Tryst changing into some clean shorts. It was then that this body of mine truly became uncomfortable, by revealing its arousal, as I caught a glimpse of the twin of what was tenting my gown. I turned away, hoping to avoid his seeing it.

Climbing onto the large bed, I turned my body away to my side, thinking about this awkward situation. Back in the habitats, when I was in the male or non estrus phase, and Tryst was consequently in estrus, I didn’t feel sexual attraction for hir body, even though I still loved Tryst the person. As Tryst felt the same way, sexual intimacies weren’t a problem. We had just abstained, while cohabiting the same living space. Now however, we were both male. I still felt attraction for Tryst, as he was still in the form I loved. That attraction translated into sexual arousal, the kind that made me get hard. It was so frustrating, I could scream.

I felt Tryst get into bed and turn on his side.

“Goodnight,” I whispered, turning my head a little.

“Night,” I heard him reply.

We slept. I woke the next ship’s day feeling achy, but better than the day before. Tryst was up already, and had opened our first meal of the day. This consisted of tinned peaches and a small cup of coffee to brush any lingering cobwebs away.

Tryst couldn’t assist me in the tank repair, as there was only one plasma welder aboard. Instead, I had him check out the state of the tractor beam units we’d need later, under Puda’s instructions.

I got to work, venting my frustrations on the obstinate tank by frequent use of foul language and several swift kicks at the metal with my boot. It seemed to help somewhat, but not enough.

Plasma welding in a suit is hot dangerous work, but I stuck to it and got over half the tank done that day. During one of my breaks, Tryst came up with another problem. “The tractor beam generators are mostly intact, but how are we to get the ice collected by the force tube into the ship?”

“Fuck, I don’t know! I shouted. “I’m still fixing the effing tank,” I burst out, as everything seemed to boil over.

In the deathly silence that followed, the female part of me wanted to break down and cry, then beg forgiveness and then get it within the comforting arms of my lover. Unfortunately, this testosterone driven body seemed adamant that not only would it not cry, it wouldn’t allow me to seek comfort in Tryst’s arms. Fueled by frustration and anger, I stamped off, going back to the job of welding.

While working, I went over and over the way I’d reacted, trying to understand why I’d taken it out on Tryst. Now that I was alone with my thoughts, I felt bad about how I’d treated Tryst. It wasn’t his fault that he wasn’t mechanically minded. He’d been part of the hydroponics section looking after the algae, the mainstay of the oxygen and food supply.

I began to hate this body with a passion. I didn’t know how Tryst handled his so calmly. It must be a mental thing. I knew I didn’t have it. Thinking about it logically, I needed to calm myself down. Only on Earth could I be given a new female body. To get there, I needed to fix the ship, get the water we needed and find a way of filling the tanks so we could go home. Nothing to it … suuure.

I made a mental note to apologise to Tryst, and then concentrated on finishing the tank. I must have lost all track of time, because by the time I decided I’d had enough, I found myself eating alone. Puda had informed me that Tryst had already eaten and had gone to bed. I felt bad that I’d left him to stew so long about my verbal outburst. After eating, I went to the bridge, where I did my best thinking, and paced for a while, trying to come up with a solution to the problem Tryst had brought up.

I tried not to disturb him as I crept into bed. I didn’t sleep all that well, what with everything on my mind. I did eventually get to sleep, but it seemed like moments later Tryst woke me up to give me breakfast in bed. Nothing special, just toast, with marmalade and fruit juice.

When we both started to speak at once, Tryst deferred to let me speak first. I got out, “I’m so sorry I took my frustrations out on you. I couldn’t seem to control myself. I hate this body, and some part of me feels angry that you put me in it, even though you only did it to save my life and you had no other choice. I’m sorry, but I can’t seem to squash that niggling feeling. I love you and pray you still love me.” I finally managed to shed some tears.

“Araya, I know you feel uncomfortable with that body. I anguished over the choice, knowing I’d have to see you everyday in it. You were always feminine even as a herm, and suddenly being drowned in a wave of male hormones can’t be easy for you. I don’t forgive you because there’s nothing to forgive. I wondered how you seemed to be taking this disaster in your stride, without seeming to flag or falter. You seemed almost to be superhuman, but now I know you’re not. I love you and always will. Whatever happens… happens. Don’t try to do it all on your own. I know I’m not that good with mechanical things, but I can assist you whenever you need a hand.”

“Now eat your breakfast,” Tryst admonished gently. When I reached out my arms to hug him, momentarily forgetting my body’s sex, he placed the tray in my hands with a grin.

“I’m keeping count,” I muttered with a rueful sigh.

“Of?” Tryst asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Of the hugs I owe you,” I mumbled around a mouthful of toast.

When I got dressed later, I sniffed at my armpits, regretting it immediately. Even though we hadn’t bathed properly, the fug surrounding our bodies hadn’t seemed to bother us unduly. My male nose didn’t seem as sensitive as the one I used to own. Armpits were another matter, however. I sprayed on my perfume, not caring if it seemed inappropriate. Even if I was male temporarily, it didn’t mean I couldn’t indulge in a little femininity.

Puda then announced that our present course would intersect that of Charon’s, which was good news. While I finished off the last welds in the tank, I pondered our water collection worry. Then it came to me. I finished off the tank and had Puda do a pressure test to see if it held atmosphere.

While that was going on, I called Tryst to get him to put on a suit and meet me in by the damaged section of the ship.

“I have this idea,” I told him, once he arrived.

“Oh?”

“Let’s check the tractor beam emitters at the bottom of the point of impact.” I said.

The tractor beam emitter ring that had contained the explosion from the moon was now sitting at the bottom of a funnel-like depression. If they could be reactivated or replaced, it could be the ideal position to collect the water. I explained to Tryst as we worked, that if we removed the center section of the ring, we could rig a pipe to feed directly into the tanks, which were less than twenty feet away. We’d need to fit a screen generator to the opening to seal it up afterwards, but after the work we’d done already, that should be relatively easy.

We got to work and in the end, we found it easier to cut a hole in the newly fixed tank and fit a force tube array to connect it to the opening in the back of the external tractor beam array. Two intervening bulkheads also had to have holes cut through them. We strengthened them as best we could with some scavenged metal from less important parts of the ship’s structure. The tank was also fitted with a screen to seal off the opening once it was filled. This did leave a potential weakness, but it was the only way we could do it, with what we had.

Two days later Puda fired up the engines, veering our course towards Charon.

~~~~~~

Finally, Charon was within the reach of a tractor beam.

“Activate beam,” I told Puda, hoping against hope that everything would hold together.

Both Tryst and I watched, as the beam flicked on and speared outward to Charon. It bit deep into the frozen crust, encircling many tons of frozen water ice. Puda closed the end as soon as the beam hit the solid rock of Charon’s core. While we still had some power in reserve, Puda used the beam as a braking pole. Titanic kinetic forces warred against the comparatively stationary moon. Cracks formed in the icy crust as the Hope slowed, braced by the slowly compressing force tube of the tractor beam.

The beam remained intact, bleeding off our massive speed as Charon’s far greater mass absorbed the energy. Such was the heat generated, that the ice in the force tube melted, as did the ice surrounding the base of the tube where it intersected the moon.

“We are getting very close,” Tryst warned unnecessarily. “Are we going to hit it?” he asked anxiously.

“No,” I told him, as the tractor beam got even hotter.

“Shut off all screens protecting the damaged section. Leave up only the force tube connecting the tank and the tractor beam,” I ordered.

“What you doing?” asked Tryst.

“The heat is turning the ice into steam and it’s coming up the center of the tractor beam tube. Once it hits the cold tank, it will condense into water again. Opening the area surrounding the tank to the vacuum will ensure the heat can radiate out and will keep the area cold,” I explained.

Puda announced that water was collecting in the tank, as the tube was allowed to compress a bit.

The rigid stick effect of the tractor beam started the veering the Hope away from a direct impact with the moon, as the end half buried in the core acted like a pole-vaulter’s fulcrum. Once Hope’s changed vector showed it would clear the moon, Puda started retracting the tractor beam, bringing back our means of survival, water.

As we flashed past Charon’s now marred surface, we could see the molten surface where a core of ice had been extracted.

Puda announced that she had captured 20 metric tonnes of water, to which Tryst and I yelled out our glee.

Now that all the work we’d done had resulted in success, I could let myself relax. I felt exhausted, but somehow freed from having to be the one making the tough decisions. I left to get a shower for the first time in ages. Although I enjoyed being clean, I was too tired to really do it justice. After the shower, and wrapped only in a damp towel, I flopped onto the bed and passed out in fatigue.

I slept like a log, and when I woke, it was to see Tryst. He then told me I’d slept for two whole days straight.

“How’s the ship?” I asked, once I’d reactivated a few brain cells.

“We are going home,” Tryst announced proudly.

“Already? I questioned, thinking we’d need a few more days yet.

“Yes, Puda spun the ship around after you left, and used the tractor beam to latch onto Pluto as we went past. It enabled us to pendulum around and Puda released us as we neared the correct vector to intersect the Earth.”

“We are going home?” I repeated in wonder. No word ever sounded so sweet.

“Puda said that Charon has a slight speed wobble, but nothing that will affect it long term.”

“Well we did bleed a lot of speed off on it,” I agreed. “I’d hate to work out how much energy it absorbed from us,” I called over my shoulder as I scrambled to the toilet.

It was time for a real meal. Now that water wasn’t restricted, we could eat something that wasn’t soup or fruit. I think I enjoyed that meal almost as much as the first one I’d had the first night on Earth. Maybe the lack of stress contributed to its flavour.

With nothing urgent to do, I wandered back to the bridge, Tryst following behind. I stood by my command pod, but didn’t enter, as the residue from the acceleration foam still clung here and there. With the Hope at full boost we were already closing on Saturn’s orbit.

It was then that Puda announced an approaching craft of unknown origin. It was coming from the inner system and was making good speed.

I was getting fed up with all these seemingly endless crises. We had no offensive weapons left and only one working tractor beam.

“Is it hailing us?” I asked Puda, forgetting that communications were still out since the initial explosion at the moon.

Puda gently chided me, “I only have the sensor array up, not the communication array. You didn’t get around to fixing that.”

“I’m not running away. We can ram, if they get close enough,” I suggested.

“They are decelerating, I detect thruster burns, shall we slow too? Puda asked.

I thought about it, and then came to a decision.

“No, if they are friendly, then let them do the work. I want to reach Earth quickly. If they are the enemy, the same applies.”

We continued on, our eyes glued to the sensor readings, trying to discern any more info on the approaching craft. It seemed to be slowing faster than one would expect. All we could discover when it had spun end for end in its braking maneuver, was that it was teardrop shaped. I hoped this was a sign of non-aggression, as usually weapons are directed from the front of a craft, which was now pointed away from us.

Suddenly, the Hope’s engines shut down.

“What happened?” I called, thinking we’d come under some new kind of attack.

“I shut the engines down,” Puda announced calmly.

“What? Why?” I countered, feeling confused.

“The ship’s from Earth… from Gaia.” Puda answered.

My protest died stillborn, as that bit of information struck home.

“How do you know for sure?” I asked warily.

“I only have visual contact. They must have figured that out that from the lack of answers to their hails. Someone started sending laser coded messages. It seems to be commanded by Prince Constantine,” Puda elaborated.

“Can you communicate back?” I asked, feeling a sense of relief.

With wry humour, she stated, “No. I don’t have anything to signal back with. Maybe with the next model.”

“You don’t seem to be able keep your ships together very long,” I poked fun gently at Puda.

“Don’t blame the tools, blame the operator,” she snapped back, before a noise sounding suspiciously like a giggle issued forth.

“Point taken,” I conceded, feeling too jubilant to argue.

Tryst defended me, “I think the operator did a pretty damn good job if you ask me.”

“Point taken,” Puda admitted, making that sound again.

“Puda must be having some harmonic distortion problems,” I muttered, winking at Tryst.

We were now coasting along with the engines off, neither accelerating nor slowing appreciatively. The other, as yet unnamed vessel seemed to require less time to reverse vectors and was already on the move to match our velocity and vector.

“It must mass less than us, yet it is only slightly smaller than the Hope,” I speculated.

“Either that, or it has some new kind of engine,” Tryst pointed out.

“Or both,” Puda added.

We watched fascinated, as the teardrop shaped ship closed on us, having switched directions in a seemingly impossible way. Eventually it closed to match our speed, before attempting a docking maneuver. Both Tryst and I went to the airlock dock bay to await our visitors.

The first through, came dressed in EPS suits. They obviously thought that with the damage they’d seen on the Hope, that they would be needed. When they saw us through the view port in the airlock door standing there unsuited, they seemed overjoyed. As they took off their suits and waited for the airlock door to cycle open, I realised with a shock that they hadn’t expected us to have survived.

“Boy, are we glad to see you alive. Where is Araya?” were the first words Constantine greeted us with. “We were sure that only Puda had survived, although Gaia had said there was a 50:50 chance of your survival.”

“It was a close thing,” I replied, uncertain as to how to explain my new sex.

“We wouldn’t have survived without Araya,” Tryst pointed out.

“I thought there were only two aboard. Who are you, and where is Araya?” Constantine asked me.

At our continued silence, as both Tryst and I looked at each other and pondered how to break the news to him, his face took on a look of alarm. “She’s okay isn’t she?” he cried, obviously fearing the worst.

“Well, sort of,” I started to explain. “Araya’s body was killed and Tryst had to rebuild her with the only viable body left. This one … I’m Araya.”

“You … you’re Araya?” Constantine repeated, trying to come to terms with my changed visage.

“Can you explain …” I turned to Tryst before running to my cabin in embarrassment, as tears of frustration and pain overwhelmed me.

I ignored Tryst’s anguished call and shut the door, leaning against it as my body warred with itself. Mentally, I wanted to fly to the bed and weep till I could cry no more, but physically, my stoic testosterone imbued body tried to block the emotions from showing. This dissonance between body and mind was slowly tearing me apart. I wanted out of this body with such urgency, I could hardly contain myself.

A soft knock interrupted my misery. “Go away Tryst, I can’t face them right now,” I answered.

“It’s me, Constantine,” I heard him say. “I’m sorry if I upset you out there. It was insensitive of me, please let me talk to you?”

“It’s not your fault. It isn’t anybody’s fault, I just feel off balance in this body. It’s so not me. Even as a herm, I could fool myself on my off cycle. This body won’t allow that. I’m more masculine than Tryst, and that’s saying something.” I wailed to Constantine, through the door.

“Please let me talk to you,” Constantine pleaded once again.

I turned and reluctantly opened the door before going over to sit on the bed.

Constantine hovered by the door for a moment before coming and sitting next to me on the bed.

“The main thing is that you are alive,” he pointed out. “I wish I could help you right now, but the ship we came out on only has the bare essentials. It’s not even finished yet, but when Gaia saw what happened on the moon, she rushed to complete it for the recovery of Hope.”

“It’s fast?” I asked, curious despite my current misery.

“Yes and a lot of other things too. It has new shields, new engines, new shape, and new communications,” Constantine enthused.

“Weapons?” I couldn’t help, but ask.

“Um, none at this stage. I said the Hope wasn’t complete yet.”

“Oh yeah, sorry.”

I slipped back into disinterest, as my present problem didn’t have the quick fix I’d hoped for. I had mixed feelings about the new ship. I felt jealous that the new one had superior technology, that the Hope didn’t, but at the same time I felt pride that the Hope had come through such an ordeal and had survived to go home under its own power.

“When I saw the Hope and the damage it sustained, I thought that neither of you had survived. You know you are both heroes back on Earth. Gaia managed to capture the battle and had broadcast it to all of us. I think they are going to give you medals.”

My immediate reply to that bit of news was, “I don’t want to be seen like this!”

“I’m sure Gaia will have something worked out by the time we get back,” Constantine promised. “Would you like a tour of our ship?” he offered, trying to bring me out of my fug.

“I woul … uh, no, it’s okay.” I’d started to accept realising I’d have to meet people in this body.

Constantine shrugged, but didn’t press me to accept, for which I was grateful. I got up off the bed and wiped my face.

“I guess we should get back to the job of getting the Hope back to Earth,” I sighed.

Of course Tryst jumped at the chance to tour the new ship while I languished in our cabin in my self-imposed restraint. Constantine had promised that the crew members who had already seen me would keep quiet about my unfortunate circumstances. This did help a little, but in my desperation, I still felt like punching a hole in the hull with my fist.

It didn’t help when Tryst got back from the tour, all enthused about the new stuff he’d seen.

“The hull is only two feet thick and is made of a new cerametal that works in a similar fashion to the sacrificial hull we had on the Hope. But it’s protected from being burned away by a force screen that covers the entire hull. Energy weapon fire can be selectively passed through to allow the energy to be converted into power, while the bad stuff is kept out,” Tryst informed me happily.

I grunted, wishing we’d had that capability before all this started.

Tryst babbled on, oblivious to the mental anguish I was feeling.

“They also have instant communication to Earth via a super light sub quantum energy beam. There’s even talk that a new FTL drive being developed will allow a ship to go anywhere without relying of wormholes. Apparently, Gaia has been gathering information from the gate rings we installed on the wormhole and the new drive is based on that.”

Damn this stoic face of mine! I had to grit my teeth and clench my fists under the table to stop the anger that threatened to boil over and end in a physical attack against Tryst’s seeming indifference to my mood. I knew it wasn’t his fault and I hated feeling this way, but the body I occupied seemed to have its own rules of behaviour.

When I got up and smiled sickly at my love before turning away and pacing the deck, Tryst, bless him, finally caught on to the fact that I had other things on my mind right then. He came up to me and turned to face me, before giving me a gentle hug.

“Gaia knows what happened love. I talked to her and she thinks she has the solution. You’ll step back on Earth as a female.”

At the news, I stood there and silently wept, tears finally flowing with the promise of regaining what I’d lost. I cried my anger and my fears away in a paroxysm of pent up emotion. Tryst waited patiently, patting me gently on the back as he allowed me to cry myself out against him.

Things were a little easier after that. With the other ship now following us, we could relax as the Hope reached the inner system and the beautiful sight of the Earth grew in the view screens.

Puda took the Hope through the docking procedure with the orbital station circling the Earth, while Constantine landed the other ship directly on the Earth at the space center where all the Hopes had been built. Apparently something there had to be picked up and delivered to the orbital station.

Once we were ensconced in the orbital station, Puda took the Hope back to Earth for a refit. We had a communication link with Earth on the station and watched the news broadcasts of our survival. The reason given for the delay in our arrival was that I needed a surgical procedure on the station before I was fit to return to Earth.

Within an hour of our arrival, Constantine returned and docked with the station. He had a DNA sample with him that he guaranteed would please me.

His other news wasn’t so good. “The Hope is being scrapped. Gaia deemed it easier to build a new ship rather than bother repairing her.”

I felt sad and a sense that I’d let Puda down again by not being there for her in her time of need. I wished there was some other alternate outcome.

“Let’s get this started,” I pressed, trying not to weep in frustration at my helplessness in looking after my ship.

Constantine handed me the sample and turned to leave. Before he disappeared from the room, he said, “I have to return to Earth. Gaia will send a ship back up once your body is rebuilt. Good luck and I’ll see you soon.”

Tryst followed me to the med lab where so many of our people had recently gained their new bodies. I placed the sample in one of the many lab machines there and climbed into the adjacent booth. Tryst held my hand and said, “I love you,” before I closed the lid and started the procedure that would hopefully, return me to my proper sex.

After what seemed only a moment, but was in actuality many hours, I woke. As is usual at first, things were a little hazy as my scattered thoughts gathered themselves back into cognizant awareness. My body felt different, yet familiar. I didn’t need to touch myself to know that I was a woman once more. I couldn’t help, but smile. No matter what I looked like, I was now female. I just hoped Tryst could love this body as he’d once loved my first female form.

I opened the booth’s lid and saw Tryst waiting for me. He helped me out and took me into a fierce embrace that threatened to smother me.

“Air,” I gasped, before he captured my mouth in an ardent kiss.

We broke at last and I got a chance to look at my body, at least what I could see. It was remarkable similar to the one I’d picked originally. Same colour skin and my hair seemed to be the same colour and length.

“I wasn’t sure you’d recognise me,” I admitted my worry to Tryst.

He grinned and his expression aroused my curiosity. I could tell he was hiding something from me. He gestured towards the wall, where a mirror had been strategically placed. I walked over, keeping one eye on Tryst and his growing grin.

When I turned my attention to the mirror, my world rocked. There before me in her naked glory, was … me. The exact same person I’d been before the accident. My knees buckled under the shock of seeing my ghost, or the body I’d thought lost forever.

Tryst caught me, supporting my weakening legs. “How?” I gasped out.

“I talked to Gaia after you went into the booth. I wanted to know what to expect when you’d finished in the booth,” he began, as he held me in his arms.

“And?” I prompted, looking up into his eyes.

“Did you know that the original Hope had a backup of its samples?” he asked.

When I shook my head, he continued. “Well there were duplicate DNA stores in case one was breached through some mishap. This meant that each sample had a duplicate. Once the original Hope returned to Earth, she removed the DNA banks back into storage. The second Hope had a whole new set of DNA samples. Once she heard of the loss of your body, she searched the original banks to locate the only sample that had its twin missing. The one you had used. Your new body is the twin of the one you lost.”

I was so overjoyed, I jumped upward, flinging my arms around his neck and kissed him while scissoring my legs around his waist in a vice-like grip. His hands dropped to my ass, cupping my buttocks to hold my weight while I tried my best to give him a tonsillectomy using only my tongue.

He carried me, still lip locked, to the nearest sleeping quarters and set me down on the bed. As I used my hands to undress him, I tried not to break our kiss. The sex that followed was a feeding frenzy that took the edge off our desperate needs. A second round followed the first. This time we could take our time and get to know each other’s bodies again in a less urgent manner. Eventually, we lay entwined, our passion sated for the moment, drifting on the aftermath of our orgasms content to hold each other in silence. Somewhere in the silence, we both drifted off to sleep.

Waking up in Tryst’s arms made me smile remembering the night before. I squeezed out of bed, trying not to disturb Tryst as my bladder sent me to the toilet. Afterwards, I took a shower, reveling in the way my body felt under the stinging droplets. By the time I was ready to come out, Tryst entered with some clothes he’d been given by the AI that ran the orbiting station.

I got dressed while Tryst took his own shower, nearly tempted by his offer to join him, but I knew where that would lead, and I didn’t think the bowlegged walk look was the impression I wanted to give at our arrival on Earth.

We ate a leisurely breakfast with just a bit of small talk going on between us. I think we were both we wondering what our arrival back on Earth would bring.

“Ship approaching,” the monotone voice of the AI informed us.

“Screens on,” I ordered, activating the monitors in the dining area.

It looked like Constantine was back in the ship he’d commanded before. We finished our breakfast and made our way to the docking level. There, we were directed to the bay where the ship had docked.

The airlocks swished open as we approached and we entered the ship once more. “Constantine,” I called, seeing no one was there to greet us. Hearing nothing, we ventured further in and started making our way to the bridge.

“We’re underway … that’s odd!” I exclaimed, feeling the subtle sensations only one used to space travel would recognise. We saw no one, and the ship's com remained curiously silent as we arrived at the bridge.

The reason became clear once we reached the bridge. There was nobody around. The bridge was empty. “Ship? Where is everyone?” I asked the onboard AI.

“SHIP? SHIP? What am I, a piece inanimate cerametal?” An instantly recognizable voice snorted.

I screamed in joy, “PUDA!”

“Welcome aboard the newest Hope, Captain,” Puda announced with pride. “I hope you won’t break this one too soon, I’m getting tired of having my memory core transferred to and fro.”

My voice filling with choked up emotion, I cried, “I could hug you.”

“Easily accomplished Araya,” Puda responded, shimmering into holographic existence.

I moved to embrace her, hoping she was using her hard light mode. She was, and I could put all of my relief and joy at seeing her into that hug. Once I released her, Tryst gave her a hug too, which I found moving. Tryst’s association with Puda hadn’t been anywhere near as long as mine, yet he obviously thought she was more than just a run of the mill AI.

“Thanks for saving both our lives,” I heard him say to her.

“A ship is just a pile of metal without its crew” Puda replied with an astonishing touch of insight.

“Well, hardly just a pile of metal. You are unique in whatever shell you’re in,” Tryst told her.

I’m sure I saw a blush appear on Puda’s holographic face, as she stepped back a pace.

“We have a reception to attend,” Puda began. “I have some clothes for you that I thought would look appropriate if you’d like to try them on.”

“Darn, and here I thought jeans and a tee would be fine,” I giggled, trying not to show my nervousness at the upcoming reception.

“Well I thought you’d like to show off that body you just regained,” Puda astutely pointed out.

“True,” I agreed. “This was all the AI could supply us,” I grumbled, plucking at my top.

“Well let me show you what I selected.” Puda smiled, leading the way to the Captain’s quarters.

The Hope entered Earth’s atmosphere, tearing a hole in it and creating a contrail of water vapour as it traveled across the continents in the upper atmosphere. Puda took the Hope down once we neared the legendary Cape Canaveral, where Gaia had created all of the Hopes for me. The ship slowed, and descended to tree top level near what Puda informed me was the rocket garden.

It was here that the history of early space travel was preserved, using old rockets as statues. Redstone, Atlas and Titan rockets stood there, along with a Saturn 5 that dwarfed the others. Alongside that were several Russian rockets, including the one that had launched Sputnik 1, and others that had been used to build and supply Mir, the first long duration space habitat. Then there was the space shuttle and a Nimitz class asteroid miner along with a Pegasus Mars Lander.

As Puda moved the Hope slowly past them, she pointed out three new additions that dwarfed the others into insignificance. I gasped and tears sprang from my eyes, as I saw the three ships that had borne the name, Hope. The three stood in silent testimony to the trials they had endured to save mankind and bring Earth’s children home safe again.

“They were saved as a reminder to the future generations of mankind,” Puda explained. “Gaia left them in the same state they were when they arrived back on Earth, still showing the signs of damage in their efforts to save mankind. They stand as symbols of Earth’s determination to recover her children and of the few brave souls that commanded them, meaning, you and Tryst.”

“Hey I didn’t command anything,” Tryst protested, looking as embarrassed as I surely did at this role we’d been placed in.

“Just a second, if I have to bear the honour of being famous, then you are going to suffer along with me,” I joked.

“Damn, does this mean I can’t slob around anymore? I’ll be stuck wearing this suit forever?” grumbled Tryst, twisting the collar of his dark blue military style suit.

“Tough,” I giggled. “What about me?” I pointed out. “I can just see myself working outside in this,” looking down at the ankle length gown in shimmering Aquamarine silk that hugged my form like a cocoon. My 4 inch spike heels, and the severely limited leg movement from the gown, made walking an exercise in precision navigation.

“You certainly look appropriate for placing on a pedestal, in my opinion,” approved Tryst, winking at Puda.

“You’d soon grumble if I lazed around idle while you did all the work,” I laughed.

“Ready to meet your adoring public?” Puda asked with a raised eyebrow.

“NO!” We both chorused together.

Puda laughed, and the Hope moved away at speed, heading towards Vegas. Apparently Gaia had provided coverage of the last battle for everyone that had scattered around the globe. She’d also gathered up them for this gathering, just to celebrate our success. It was going to be a daunting time, being the focus of attention with everyone’s eyes.

It was around midmorning when we arrived, not at Las Vegas as expected, but at the spot of the first landing. Looking down on those gathered there, we could see a huge arc of people seated in front of a platform, where I guessed we were to stand. For those further out from the platform, huge screens had been provided to allow them to see and hear us clearly. Looking at the immense gathering, I suddenly felt overwhelmed.

I staggered, my knees becoming jelly, feeling more nervous than I had facing the enemy in space. “Don’t worry, you can lean on me,” offered Tryst, moving to support me with an arm around my waist.

“It’s these shoes,” I lied, looking up at him in gratitude.

“Of course it is,” Tryst agreed, seeing through my fib. “But we can’t have our heroine going barefoot, can we? You know, I’m scared too, But together we can get through it. The world needs its heroes right now, and we got handed the job.”

“Darn I know I shouldn’t have signed that job application,” I wailed, pretending to hit my head against the view screen.

Tryst’s support had sent the collywobbles off to pack their bags. Hovering twenty feet in the air, Puda sent us slowly down to the ground via the ATT, then put the Hope down behind the platform, away from the crowd.

After the tube had been shut off, we walked carefully to the platform. I held on to Tryst for dear life as we could hear the ever increasing cheers start to wash over us.

We climbed up onto the platform, still holding hands. And the roar from the people peaked as they waved and cheered. A huge screen was mounted above us, replaying everything we’d been through in the last battle. There was even footage of our struggle afterwards, as we struggled to repair the Hope. I suddenly realised that Gaia must have got that footage from the monitoring cameras that allow Puda to keep track of our movements aboard the ship.

The footage ended when Tryst carried my dying body into the med booth, for which I was grateful. I turned from the screen, letting go of Tryst’s hand and raised both my hands slowly. The roar slowly died, as they saw I wanted to speak. I waited until things quieted before I started to speak.

A million things flashed through my mind as I tried to decide what my opening words would be. Stupid things, most of them, such as “Dearly beloved, we are gathered …” I shook my head, trying to come up with something decent people would remember.

“People of Earth, I’m not a hero. I am just an ordinary person like you, forced to do extraordinary things. Any one of you would have done the same in my place. What I did, I did for all of mankind and Gaia, the giver of life. Let us celebrate our return to this planet and our continued survival upon it. Our enemy is defeated for now, but we must build a civilization that will endure past those who might try to take it away. Let Gaia guide us in our endeavors.”

I finished, stepping back to Tryst and taking his hand. “You want to say something?” I asked, expecting him to say no.

Tryst paused before nodding. Surprised, I let him stand forward and address the crowd.

“I’m not a speech maker, and speaking to you all scares me silly, but I need to get something off my chest. After the near disaster with the moon, the Hope was in poor shape, with very little fuel and with a horrendous velocity debt to overcome. I watched Araya get stuck with trying to repair the ship with little thought of her own fragility. She even sacrificed her life unflinchingly, to save my own. She never gave up, never thought of defeat. I was constantly in awe of her spirit’s attempts to overcome the odds that were stacked against our ever getting home. She is the real hero here, I’m just glad I was along for the ride.”

Tryst stepped back and took me in his arms and kissed me, while the people responded with a roar of approval. I felt stunned by what Tryst had said. In hindsight, even I could see that everything he’d said was true, but at the time it had just been the right thing to do. I wasn’t a hero, just a survivor. I guess Tryst saw it differently.

I broke the kiss and smiled at him. “Come on love, we have a world to discover.”

Of course we didn’t get away that easily. More speeches were made, and it wasn’t until the celebration party had been in full swing for quite awhile that we could slip away.

Puda, who’d appeared at our side after the speeches, had flown the Hope away with the excuse that it needed to complete its refit. As we were still seen there, nobody bothered much, as the bots flew around supplying everyone with food and drink.

In reality, Puda had flown back to Vegas to await our arrival. Feeling like children sneaking away from the party, we took the rail transport back to Las Vegas. There, Puda waited with the Hope.

We quickly boarded and the Hope flew up into the afternoon sky. “Where to Araya?” Puda asked with a snappy salute and a grin.

‘Where to? Indeed’ I thought.

“That way,” I literally pointed with my arm at the horizon, not caring which direction my finger was aimed.

Puda took the ship in the direction I’d indicated. I held Tryst as we watched the every changing terrain flow past below. Occasionally we would pass over some habitation, but nothing I saw caught my attention enough that I wanted to stop. Eventually, the East coast came into view and I had Puda take the Hope North along the coastline.

“There! Stop there,” I insisted, seeing a familiar landmark rising into the evening light.

The Statue of Liberty shone like a beacon, still welcoming her weary traveler’s home. I felt it was rather appropriate, and choked up at the thought. Tryst who’d never seen it before other than on the records we’d seen back on the habitats, said he liked the way the torch was lighting up the way home. I nodded, shedding a tear. Puda circled the statue once before depositing us next to the hotel I’d stayed in last time.

“I’ll see you soon, I really do need to go back and finish the refit,” Puda announced. “If you decide to move anywhere else before I’m finished, there are plenty of hover cars. Just ask the nearest bot,” she added before taking the Hope South.

I took great pleasure in showing Tryst the sights in person. Having someone to share the experience made it so much more satisfying, especially at night between silken sheets.

At first, we were alone, seeing no people at all, but gradually others started coming back. Maybe it was because they wanted to see the place where I’d been and subsequently seen on the video clip of my travels. Often, we’d meet them in restaurants, where the time ingrained routine of breakfast, lunch and dinner guaranteed synchronicity of our movements.

In space and in particular the habitats, this routine had been observed as well. But because of the need to have people awake and alert every hour of the day, these routines were staggered so that while some were sleeping, the others were awake. On Earth, that need disappeared, and once more, waking life was governed by the diurnal cycle of earth’s planetary motion.

Meeting others was strange at first, as recognition only went one way. They knew us, but mostly, they were anonymous to us. The adoration of these strangers was nice, but it made me feel like I had to be circumspect in public, as if having been placed on a pedestal, I wasn’t allowed to put a foot wrong. I wanted to scream at times. Just yell out. “I’m just like you.”

It got better after they got to know me, but there was always someone new coming along as people traveled the earth searching for the right place to stay.

Then one day it all changed. The Hope was back. We were on the island where the Statue of Liberty stood, having a picnic, when Puda appeared standing next to us. We literally jumped and I nearly exhaled my drink through my nose in shock, not a nice feeling when it’s a cold fizzy cola.

“I’m baack,” she quipped, striking a pose.

“You … you …” I spluttered, looking for something to throw at her.

“You know, you’re not supposed to snort coke,” she laughed unrepentantly, as I wiped liquid from my face.

“Where’s the Hope? I asked, changing the subject. I knew I wouldn’t win if I tried playing her game.

“Behind you,” she grinned, watching me spin to look.

I saw nothing but the city backdrop. I searched the sky above, still seeing no sign of the ship.

“Where?” I finally asked.

“Keep looking,” she urged.

Suddenly the sky seemed to darken and from nowhere it seemed, the Hope emerged, solidifying into physical form. Both Tryst and I gasped, as the now visible Hope moved lower, settling down near the island’s shoreline.

“Not only is she now fully armed and has the fastest engines, she has cloaking technology. Gaia discovered a curious property of the cerametal hull. She found it has a crystalline structure which not only has energy absorption properties; it also can emit energies as well. By connecting each crystal to its diametric opposite with micro filaments, light impacting on one would emit out its opposite, rendering the mass in-between invisible,” Puda explained.

“Wow! I guess next you’ll be telling me about faster than light drives,” I kidded her, seeing how enthused she was with the cloaking device.

“How did you find out about that?” Asked a puzzled Puda. “Gaia only just started work on it.”

I was the one caught out this time. I didn’t really want another explanation like the last, so I swallowed the obvious question, and pretended to be all knowing.

“Well it is the next logical progression,” I put to her.

“I think Gaia wants to make a fleet of similarly equipped ships,” Puda mused as we followed her back to the Hope, our picnic forgotten in the heat of the moment.

Once aboard, we found that the Hope contained the new clothes we’d acquired over the last month we’d been in the New York area.

“I take it we are going someplace?” I asked.

“Gaia thought you’d like to take a tour of Earth, seeing you saved it from the alien fleet,” Puda answered.

I looked at Tryst. “You up for a tour?”

He grinned, “Sure, let’s blow this joint.”

“You’ve been watching too many old movies,” I laughed, at his expression.

It was good to be back in the Hope, even though it was a new ship. Puda chattered on about this or that, imparting the local history of the places we visited to us. Things were different though. Without the need to fly into space, transporting goods, and avoiding the pirates that used to ply the void between the habitats, I felt restless. I guess I missed the excitement and the danger that came with my old job.

Visiting the wonders of the Earth helped assuage the feeling of missing something. That is, until one particular morning over Africa. I had had just awakened and got dressed, when suddenly I felt nauseous. I barely made it to the toilet before retching. I felt somewhat better afterwards, so I didn’t mention it to Tryst who was still abed. I wondered if the native fruits I’d sampled the day before were responsible, so I resolved to limit experiencing new flavours today.

But the next morning, I experienced the same nauseous feelings, and after worshiping the Earth mother, to which all things eventually return, I woke Tryst.

“I think I need to use the med booth. This is the second day that I’ve been sick after I woke up.”

“Okay, Love, let’s go,” Tryst offered, as he scrambled out of bed.

“Diagnostic mode,” I ordered, as I climbed into the booth while Tryst looked on anxiously.

“Diagnostic completed,” Puda announced in a strange tone, several minutes later.

I climbed out of the booth and posed the question burning in my mind. “What’s wrong with me and is it curable?”

“There’s nothing wrong with you. Curable? No, there’s no need of a cure for pregnancy. In nine months or thereabouts the situation will resolve itself.”

“No cure …” I started to protest, before the rest of her words began to sink in. “I’m pregnant? I’m going to have a baby?” Shock making me babble on.

“You’re going to be a mommy. Congratulations Araya and Tryst. Welcome to the cycle of life.”

I stood there with a jubilant Tryst hugging me, while I tried to contemplate being pregnant. Puda rattled on about how I might have three more months of morning sickness before it subsided. I was going to bring new life into this world, something that might never have been possible in the cold reaches of space where I’d lived most of my life. I suddenly had a purpose again, nurturing the beginnings of Earth’s new future civilization.

I rubbed my stomach in anticipation. “Tryst, you’re going to be a daddy,” I giggled, feeling giddy.

“I think we need to read up on what’s in store for us … and you.”

The news that I was going to be a mother gave me back my sense of purpose. No longer did I need to go exploring in outer space for excitement, because I had something exciting happening in my inner space. As I sat on the bridge of the Hope watching the Earth turn below me, I cried with joy at the thought of our children having the freedom to wander where they will on this magnificent globe we call home. I turned to Tryst and hugged him, knowing our future together was complete. “Honey, let’s go home.”

The end.

Postscript: Araya and Tryst never did settle on one particular place on Earth. Instead, they used the Hope as a sort of mobile home where Puda took on a secondary duty as a nanny. They did stay at various places around the world for months at a time, enjoying the beauty of a particular spot, but always returning to the Hope. Araya decided to have her first child in the hut where she had first stayed, as a symbolic gesture, with an ever watchful Puda at her side in case she was needed.

Araya went on to have four children, two boys and two girls, who later commanded their own ships, having inherited their mother’s passion for adventure. Each had their own AI, based on Puda’s memory core, but with an individual personality. It was they who commanded a new fleet of FTL ships bent on discovering if there were any other survivors of man’s first exodus from Earth.

The alien fleet that had plagued mankind’s return to Earth was never a threat to Earth again, thanks to new innovations in robotic weaponry that protected the solar system from their positions in the Oort cloud.

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 © 2006 by Prudence Walker. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, and compilation design) may be printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without the express written consent of the copyright holder.

Notes:

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