Star Drifting

Spoiler Tags: Science Fiction, Short Story, M/F, Transformation, Heterosexual, Celestial, Space,

"This is transport log four-three-seven-one, nothing of note to report, currently passing by the balmy blue giant Zeta-seven-four, who's looking lovely as usual. Fuel levels are nominal and I'm scheduled to reach my destination, the port town Sevenski in three days. It'll be good to get a home cooked meal and see my little sisters again. This concludes the daily operations log of transporter Logan Germinson, ID seven six three six eight two two." Sighing, I pressed the button to stop the recording on the central computer. Looking out through the shielded port view, I listened to the quiet hum of electronics The entrancingly blue star Zeta-seven-four shone and danced, solar prominences seemingly waving at me even through the vast distances of space.

Starting up a holovid, I tried to find a way to pass the time.

That's the worst part about this job. The solitude.

Protocols dictated that every transport have a human on board, even if the vast majority of operation of the spacecraft was automated. This meant that the vast majority of my time was spent trying to entertain myself.

This isn't doing it for me.

I flipped the display from stored videos to the most recent data burst, which contained news from my home in the space station Sevenski.

Damn. Another terrorist attack on a nearby outpost. They commandeered a ship and filled it with explosives. The ship was able to get past their long range defenses because of the familiarity of the vessel and lax security.

I shivered in horror, patting the dashboard affectionately. "You'd never betray me like that would you girl?"

She remained silent but for the odd clicks and steady thrum of the engines. Sitting at two hundred feet from bow to stern, she'd been my steadfast companion through my entire career with the company. Built for long range transport, she wasn't much to look at but she was steady, never once failing me or giving me trouble outside of a snapping noise that popped up in the fusion drive from time to time.

Still, the unease sat uncomfortably in my stomach while I milled about my cabin, cleaning up the remains of my lunch. After my mandated calisthenics, I took an unsatisfying shower in hydro-gel lather that always left me feeling grainy, before climbing into my bunk set into the wall. I held up my omni-tool and, after a few clicks and swipes, managed to pull up an old family album my mother had put together for some holiday long forgotten. I smiled at my oldest sister's usual antics, she liked to make silly faces in the back of the photos. Seeing their faces finally did what my puttering around could not, I settled into my bed and flipped the screen to a soap opera stored on the ships database.

A sharp jolt woke me from sleep, the television show still playing on mute from the ceiling.

Rubbing the forgotten dream from my eyes, I tried to figure out what'd roused me. Wrinkling my nose, the faint scent of smoke drifted in their air. All of a sudden I was wide awake. I knew exactly what fire could do in space. Not to mention that fire almost certainly meant some sort of catastrophic disaster that could lead to my death if I didn't act swiftly. Clad only in my boxers I hastily examined my small living space, not seeing anything I ventured back into the cargo hold. Particulate swirled through the air and the scent of smoke was certainly stronger.

None of my cargo was flammable... was it?

Uncertainty and fear had me racking my brain as I examined the relatively empty space of the bridge. It wasn't until I looked up that I noticed the problem. A small point of the ceiling was slowly turning a cherry read.

Electrical fault.

I raced to the cockpit, tripping over my feet on the way. My dashboard flashed with a message...

Ongoing transmission. What the fuck?

Confusion held me in its grasp for a moment before a chilling realization stole the breath from my chest and replaced it with ice water.

The terrorists...

Horror was quickly replaced with denial.

This can't be happening to me.

Leaning forward, I put my head in my hands.

Maybe they'll let me go. Hold me for ransom. Wait no...

Pulling out my omni device, I displayed a hologram of my sister's face, eyes crossed with her tongue sticking out.

I can't take that chance. If they mean to bypass the security systems...

Setting my resolve and trying to ignore my rapidly pumping heart and sweaty palms, I went to work.

Smashing the safety glass, I pulled the lever that placed the ship into total lockdown, only leaving the life support working.

I'm a sitting duck in here. Or a cooking turtle as it is. I need to find a way to get them off before they break through.

Twenty minutes later the smoke in the cabin was much more pronounced and I'd exhausted all the options I could think of to pry them free or keep them out. I kept thinking of my family and what would happen to them if I failed here.

There's only one option.

Shaky hands pulled on the legs of my spacesuit and worked the ratcheting clamps to secure it tight. I approached the cargo hold door with trepidation, just a single reinforced door between me and the deadly vacuum of space. I knew this route like the back of my hand and it was very precise, all it would take was a little nudge- I cranked the lever up and the side entrance was pried open with a groan. Only my magnetic boots kept me from going the way of the rest of the atmosphere as my ship was pushed off course. - and I would fall into the gravity well of the blue star.

It's only a matter of time now Zeta-seven-four, before we'll have a chance to meet face to face.

A strange sort of calm enveloped me and I unhurriedly trailed my hand along the bulkhead as I worked back towards the hold. My ship shuddered as the terrorists vessel pushed off. I could see them hovering, just out of sight as my course curved toward the inevitable. All that was left was to contemplate my own mortality while I drifted towards my death.

I'm not courageous enough to endure the suffering I know is coming.

I popped the seal on the emergency medical supplies. Following the directions I set up the IV, wincing as the needle slid into the vein of my upper arm.

If any god exists and is listening. Please take care of my family, let them know that I love them and want nothing but their happiness.

I closed my eyes and turned the dial, allowing the medicine to trickle into my body. The drug worked fast, robbing me of strength as I lay back on my deathbed, a holo-cube of my sisters smiling face falling from my unfeeling fingers to clatter to the floor of my ship. Darkness everlasting enfolded me in a opium-derived haze.

Only, it wasn't, the void somehow gnawed deeper into my mind, gaining texture and complexity.

Emptiness. An eternity of it, that paradoxically filled me to the brim while also removing each of my senses in turn. This continued until there was a nothingness so complete that it stretched a sliver of time into forever.

No thought.

No awareness.

Just...

Floating.

Then, like the genesis of the universe, I regained existence as a lone spark. A single dancing light, seemingly alone in the universe. Then there were two, the spark dividing to create a partner to dance with in the night. Then it happened again. Over and over the shining particles multiplied, splitting time and again until...

Bang.

I collapsed into a single point, atomic forces gripping the playful ball tight in their immutable hands. Energy sparking between the disparate parts of the roiling ball of exotice particles, approaching critical mass.

Awareness returned softly, like a sunrise, doled out piece by piece without a discernible pattern, beginning with the sense of heat. Like suntanning on a beach, rays of thermal energy danced around me from every direction.

Following heat was a smell, it was a warm sweetness, a chilli powder seasoned strawberry. These sensations were my only companions, comforting and nurturing me while the particles continued to reproduce, taking nutrients from the ambient cosmic solar rays to grow larger.

Then, like a god kickstarting the universe in a musty religious tome, there was light. A blinding blue brilliance surrounded me like a shell.

And with that light came thought. Memories and self-identity drowned me in a kaleidoscopic waterfall, if every drop of water was instead a brick, each one bruising in its own way as the wall of my mind was painstakingly built. Panic ripped at me with the remembrance of what had happened.

Shit! The terrorists got my ship. There gonna use it to kill my family.

I tried to thrash around, only to realize that I couldn't feel any of my body. Not toes or fingers or anything in between. I couldn't even open my eyes. I couldn't tell if I still had eyes. Blind with dread, I couldn't organize my thoughts. Cognition shattered and devolved into a series of fears.

Paralysis.

Death.

Torture.

Over and over they cycled.

Death.

Coma.

Paralysis.

Until a voice intruded, breaking through the maelstrom and offering me harbor from myself.

"Listen to my voice Logan. My name is Valka and I am here for you." The voice sounded feminine and had the overly steady tone one used when approaching a scared animal. For some reason, it worked, her words acting the part of a balm for my woes. Kinship vibrated between me and this mystery woman, thick enough to quiet my worries, but not enough to banish them.

I tried to reply, but again couldn't seem to locate my mouth.

She swaddled me with her essence, the heat flaring for a moment, calming me even further. A gentle melody was crooned and I relaxed, content to continue growing, miniscule pieces of myself puzzling together like a living nursery rhyme I'd hoped to never experience. I lived in the moment, the future a distant, inconsequential, thing. Until, between one moment and the next, something changed.

I spoke, just a single word, surprising us both.

"What..." I still couldn't feel any portion of my body, but the word came out clear.

There was a second of stunned silence, before I gathered myself and spoke again, the tethers that had held me back slowly snapping under my forward momentum.

"What happened to me?"

Valka let out a pleased cry, and her heat nearly smothered me as it flared. "You..." she started excitedly but quickly trailed off. "Well... It's somewhat complicated."

I lamented the fact that I couldn't actually see her, it made it difficult to tell if she was hiding something. "More complicated than a monkey wearing a sombrero dancing the tango?" I asked reflexively.

"... I don't understand."

"Sorry. It's an inside joke with my sister." The line was actually a reference to a silly virtual reality game we'd played as children. Focusing on the now, I continued addressing the woman. "My mind is already pretty blown just being her talking to you considering the last thing I remember was dosing myself so I wouldn't have to feel the pain of my skin sloughing from my body as my internal organs fried." I shivered at the recollection of the choking despair. "Even if I'm paralyzed, it's still leagues better than that fate."

She let out an unsettling hum of potential disagreement that did nothing to help my nerves. After an intractable amount of time, she finally revealed the truth. "You no longer have a body. At all. Paralyzed or otherwise."

...

"That doesn't make any sense. I'm obviously here talking to you. Unless... You mother-ploughing-arsehole-licker. Did you swoop in and 'harvest' me before I managed to reach the sun? Is this a brain-in-a-jar thing? I thought the stories of roaming mad scientists were urban myths, like sightings of Elvis amongst the asteroid belt of Silon Five." I continued, mind working at a million miles-per-hour, words spilling from my nonexistent tongue as fast as they came to me.

"I'll tell you right now, if you put my in charge of any sort of weapon systems, I swear upon all the imaginary gods in the universe that I'll find a way to use it on you. Torpedoes will penetrate orifices that were not designed to accommodate them. I'll pluck your eyebrows with defense lasers. Chaff grenades-"

She cut me off before I could continue with any further threats, both silly and gruesome. "Logan! You're not a brain. Nor are you in a jar."

"Oh..." I paused, considering this new information. I had the feeling she was telling the truth but I had little to base this off. "Then I guess I'm back at the first spawn point. What happened to me?"

There was the sense of exasperation and a gigantic facepalm before she spoke in a tired voice. "I was getting to that before you decided to skinny dip in the tabloid pool. Elvis, really?"

Chagrined, I spoke with a more subdued voice. "Sorry. I feel weird. Not actually feel, as I can't actually sense anything about my body, but I mean my mind. It's like my entire life my thoughts had to slog through a pool of fuel-gel and only now am I clambering into a Sagittarius fighter and punching it full thruster."

"Ah, I have an explanation for that. But first introductions are in order, I am Valka Ostansio Cortez-Laminas. From the Cortez-Laminas cluster." She paused and the warmth around me flared, as if she'd laid her hand on my nonexistent body. "And I am a Celestial. As are you."

"What-... How-... Huh?" I sputtered, finishing lamely. "How is that possible, you can't just change a person's species."

"No, you can't change someone's species. Or, you couldn't. Nor could you see or interact with the primal force that composes the soul of sentient beings. That is a quality unique to the Celestial race. Of which you are a member, in case you couldn't decipher the subtext. Congratulations."

My mind couldn't even begin to comprehend the words she was using. I mean, I understood them individually, but when she put them together in that sequence... Nothing but gibberish. "I guess I'm just confused on the specifics."

"Well, I was watching you as you passed by the blue sweety is currently housing us. I saw what happened with the vessel and how you sacrificed yourself for the sake of your family. It was such a noble act that I couldn't in good conscience let you die. So before you died, I reached out and pulled you into her core where I could keep you from drifting apart while bombarding you with my own essence. Eventually you'd absorbed enough to sustain your own growth as a new Celestial."

I thought about the feeling of warmth that was, even now beating against my formless soul. "So... your essence, not a huge fan of that term by the way, it makes me feel like I'm getting sprayed with sexual fluids, is turning me into a Celestial?"

"Yes. We can call it my seed if that is more palatable?"

"Essence is fine," I said quickly. "So now what?" I asked. I would be twiddling my thumbs if I had them.

"Now you remain patient. I'll continue to give you my essence until you are fully converted. I estimate your transition is approximately seventy percent complete so it shouldn't take too much longer before you make the leap. After that I can begin teaching you how to live as a Celestial, the pitfalls to avoid and whatnot," she said with puppy-like anticipation.

Silence reigned as her warmth continued to pulsate into the space that surrounded me.

"I mean, since I'm not going anywhere, couldn't you start to lay the framework now? Tutor me on the basic stuff before I get to the practical?"

"That is an excellent idea Logan. The first thing you need to know about being a celestial is that, without a physical body, your dietary needs have drastically changed. As in, they don't exist anymore."

Valka continued to talk while my core continued to grow. She lectured me on the ways my life would change, but while I listened, I couldn't help but consider the things I'd left behind when I'd jettisoned myself into a sun.

My family and friends. The savings I was going to use to get into the scouting training academy. My unfulfilled goals.

"And don't try to interact with the non-energy based species. It can only lead to trouble if you don't know what you're doing."

Between one nonexistent heartbeat and the next, something catalyzed within the dense particle cloud that now constituted the entirety of me. I regained physical form, and with it, my senses. The crackle of distant asteroids crashing into one another entered my ears, along with the low buzz of high density fusion from the nearby blue star and the steady hum of a ship's thrusters as it plodded through space. Everything was nakedly clear, almost overwhelming in its intensity. A copper buzz like the taste of blood danced on my tongue, along with an almost cool mininess that cut through the otherwise cloying flavor. Their was also the puzzling sensation of two hands pressing into my chest. Focusing, I pried open my eyes, revealing the cosmos in all their stark beauty.

"Hey. I've got my body back. I thought you said-"

Whatever I'd been about to say was lost as I beheld her for the first time.

Despite her words, she looked humanoid enough, with long willowy limbs that floated in the zero gravity with liquid grace. Her skin rippled with an internal light as if it contained a fusion reaction on the cusp of breaking through such a thin shell. A river of sunfire made up her hair, flowing out behind her like a cape, drifting through the cosmos as it weightlessly continued her every subtle move. Clothed in a sleeveless vest with skin-tight pants, she swayed through the air, floating side to side as she approached.

"Logan, are you alright?" she asked, concerned with my sudden silence.

"Yeah... fine," I said shaking off the daze.

"It's just, you went a wee bit quiet there." She swung up next to me and reached out with her hand to cup my face. Her eyes glittered like the starry sky during the night of the full moon, without irises, entrancing in their beauty.

Ack! Too close.

I blocked her hand with my arm and pushed away from her. "Yeah, I regained my sight."

"Oh, that's good, is it disorienting with your new form?"

Confused, I examined my body. Everything seemed to be in the right place, although it was interesting that I was clad in my standard issue Lexi Corp jumpsuit. "What do you mean? Besides, I thought you said that I was a Celestial but I still seem to be a regular ol' human."

"Interesting, you seem to still be interpreting everything as though you are still human."

"A little more explanation would be nice," I said, pinching myself. Everything felt normal.

If it wasn't for the fact that I seem to be sitting in a hollow space in the middle of a roiling ball of plasma, I might think that this was all some elaborate hoax.

"Well, you've spent your entire life as a human, I would presume."

"A safe assumption," I said dryly.

"Then your consciousness is defaulting to the state you've always known. Even though you have a whole new range of senses to utilize, you don't know how to interpret all that raw data. Eventually we will get you comfortable enough to expand what you're capable of experiencing, but for now let's work on movement."

"I'm not a baby, I know how to walk," I scoffed. Only to be proven wrong as I tried to do just that and went absolutely nowhere, remaining stationary despite the flailing of my limbs. "Okay. I guess, I'm a little like a baby," I admitted, thoroughly humbled by the experience.