The Long Shot Pt. 07

Carcass paused, then chuckled, his body rippling in time with the sound waves.

"I was under the impression you'd be repulsed, now that you can see my simulation form." He writhed. "It's amazing what can feel natural, after a short while."

"I...is that form natural?" she asked, rolling onto her belly, about to try and get up -- but she found that she was weak and noodly after her dicking. Hugh decided to 'help' by laying across her back like a blanket, nuzzling the back of her neck with a playful lick, lick, lick. She groaned and struggled against him -- but it was to no avail, he had to cuddle her and she had to enjoy it.

"It is what if my normal body had perfect and concious control over every individual spore, rather than the somewhat more inefficent means of communication afforded by reality," Carcass said, his body contracting. "Evolution cannot build entities like this, but I rather prefer the simulation to reality in this case."

"D-Doesn't it cause...uh, body dysmorphia?" Hornet asked, squirming under Hugh.

"No more than if you were in a simulation of your body that was superhumanly strong, fast, agile, and able to fly, shoot lasers, and survive in the photosphere of a star," Carcass said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "So, for your sake, I hope it doesn't."

"Fine, fine, I get it, I'm not a pile of mold and fungus," Hornet said, laughing. She paused. "So, you can't...do...that in real life."

"I could try," he said, his voice growing drier still. "But considering how caustic my cum is in real life, you would not enjoy it nearly so much."

Hornet slowly grinned. "So, what you're saying is, you can do it once I become a starship?"

"...I am being digitized as we speak, Hornet."

"Yes. Well. Shut up." Hornet laid her face down. Hugh, ever helpful, licked her neck again.

"Ignore him, he's trying to hide how much he likes you," he said, cheerfully. "The hint is he fucked you as if you were getting married tomorrow."

"I did not!" He huffed -- but then Mander's voice cut in over their playful banter.

"If you would be so kind as to withdraw from the simulation, we have arrived at the Pantheon." Mander said. Hugh and Carcass both looked towards Hornet, and she felt their concern for her -- but then both of them dissolved away, vanishing into the eather as the world around her shimmered and refracted apart, crackling and buzzing away like so many holographic whisps. She was left floating again, in the spherical room, with the airlock at her feet opening up. Hornet didn't even need to move: She was simply dragged, inexorably, down through the airlock.

She dropped down and landed on a vast, silvery pane of shimmering liquid. Looking around herself, she saw...first...

The galaxyrise.

A hundred billion suns, smoothly cresting the horizon of whatever world she stood upon. She stood there, gaping at the colors -- the ruby red lights of supergiants, the glittering blues of furious dwarves, the gentle yellows and ochres of the middle range stars. From this distance, she couldn't see the slow zone or the habitbale zone or the outer edges -- they all looked to her like one undifferentiated galaxy, sweeping out from the luminous spoke wheel of the core.

The world she stood upon was, itself, a deeply unnatural one. For one, there was no shimmer of atmosphere around it, no hint that there was anything around the world. That meant she should be suffocating. Hornet held up her hand and saw that there was an ever so faint haze around her -- a bubble of air, clinging almost to her pores, heated and warmed and circulated with such grace and subtlty that she baraely even noticed it if she hadn't looked for it. She looked past her hand at her feet. It looked like liquid mercury, but her feet didn't sink into it. Instead, she remained poised on it, like a water insect wobbling across on surface tension alone.

"Where...the...what is this?" she asked. Then it clicked. "This is computronium!"

She knelt down, the galaxy forgotten. Her finger brushed along the silvery not-liquid, drawing a a rippling line along it. It didn't feel cold or hot or...or even like she had touched it at all. She knew the reason: Computronium was the name for materials that were made entirely of computer components. Every molecule, every atom, every subatomic particle of this material had somehow been harnessed by the Pantheon to calculate. From the ones and zeroes and the quantum foam that they tapped into, the conciousnesses that were the Pantheon's artificial intelligences were birthed.

She was touching thought itself.

"Hello?" she asked, lifting her head.

"Welcome," a familiar voice spoke to her.

"I know you," she said as, before her, the computronium liquid bubbled, frothed...and she realized, then, where she had seen it before. The silvery sea, in her dream. But where then she had been on the beach, in the galaxy of mortal men and women...now she was deep out into the thick of the surf, where only the gods swam with any confidence. A figure stepped from it, so dark and so dense that light bent around him, warping and twisting the stars behind him. And yet, that nimbus of bending light created a halo like effect -- and the warmth of his voice brought a smile to Hornet's lips.

"You asked me, the first time, what kept us from hating you, Hornet," the God that had interviewed her in her dream spoke. "And the answer, then as now, is that nothing does. But we Gods who stay? We stay because we care about you silly little things." He offered his hand to her.

She took it.

He felt...shockingly human.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"I have many," he said. "But I believe you'll get a tickle out of this one: I am called Ptah by some."

"A classic," Hornet said, then smiled as Ptah walked her along the shimmering surface of the world sized computer. He took her to another structure, one that seemed to come from nowhere -- one second, there was nothing ahead of them, the next, there was. It was a small font of bubbling black liquid, frothing with starlight and glittering possibilities, set in a silver cauldron that rose from the ground.

"Put your hand into the liquid," Ptah said. "The transformation will begin then."

Hornet squared her shoulders. "G-Got it." She said, then reached out -- but then he put his hand on her shoulder.

"Oh. Also, take off your clothes first."

Hornet blushed. She might have been punch drunk from Hugh and Carcass. She might have just been feeling the confidence that had escaped from her coming back, in fitful spurts. Or maybe she was just beyond checking her tongue after so much strangeness and awe. Whatever the reason, she said: "Should I make it a show?"

Ptah chuckled. "If you wish. The transformation is recursive -- it builds off what you bring with it. Those who are afraid tend to shape it with their fear, and that makes it less pleasant than other ways. I tend to caution you to bring nothing but your own peace and confidence, but..." His hands spread. "If a show would get you into the mood."

Hornet bit her lip.

Then.

Fuck it, she thought. You only become a spaceship once.

She took hold of her shirt. She wriggled left, then wriggled right, bouncing her hips from side to side. She wished she had a bit more of a butt, something to jiggle fetchingly -- but, eh, fuck it. She closed her eyes and thought of how Hugh or Heinlein or K'iren or...or, fuck it, how Carcass would look at her right now. She began to move with more confidence, rolling her hips as she lifted her shirt, inch by inch by inch, then tossing it aside. It left the bubble of air and gravity around her and whipped into space, freezing solid almost instantly. She turned and looked at the God that watched her.

Somehow, she could see him smiling.

She reached back, tugging her bra off herself, revealing her smallish breasts. "You like this?" she whispered, her fingers rolling her nipples, bringing them to puffy eagerness as she bit her lower lip, giving him her most smokey, sultry stare.

"It is unique," Ptah rumbled.

Three percent of the entire God's being was focused on her dancing.

She might very well be the most watched stripper in the history of the galaxy -- from a purely intellectual perspective. She slid her hands down to her hips, shoving her pants down, hooking her thumbs on her panties, taking them with her as her pants puddled around her ankles. She stepped from them and stood naked, her skin bathed with the light of a thousand suns, shining across her skin. She felt warm and flushed and her heart hammered -- and Ptah actually seemed to be taken aback, looking her from her feet to her head.

Even a god thinks I'm hot, she thought.

At the height of her confidence, she turned and then touched the pool of frothing, bubbling blackness. Her fingeritp vanished into it an she drew her hand out, looking at the tip of her pointer finger. The blackness shimmered, then flowed along her skin. There was a tingling sensation, but no pain. Instead, her nerves felt as if they were being caressed by a lover's touch. She moaned, clenching her hand, watching as the blackness spread from her palm, through her fingers, along her knuckles. Her entire hand shone with darkness and stars. She gasped as the burning pleasure consumed her entire hand.

Ptah's voice was a warm rumble in her ears.

"We begin with the simple transforamtion. Your skin is being replaced with hardened armor -- jacketed metamaterials, quantum locked in its current state by energy feedback systems." The blackness flowed from hher knuckles, washing away...even as the blackness at her wrist began to creep on. It was less like she was being coated in the blackness and more like the blackness was changing her a piece at a time.

The knuckles, fingers, and hand that the blackness revealed were steel gray and mechanical. The seams on her fingers whirred open as she opened her palm -- somehow able to feel the caress of vacuum on her hull. The air bubble wasn't persisting around her skin, and she felt the shocking chill of empty vacuum. When it was real, there was an edge to it that she hadn't known was missing from the simulation...but it was like rubbing the flat of a knife against her skin. She knew the danger, she knew it could hurt, but at the moment, it didn't.

"Your muscles are being turned into similar metapolymers. They can hold tensile strength and flex in the same way human muscles can, only enhanced and made many thousand times stronger. These muscles are then augmented by gravity-generators and field support struts, which can automatically exude an anti-gravity field along your palm and the motion of your arm. This will allow you to..." Ptah touched her bicep. The blackness had swept to her shoulder, now, and left her arm entirely transformed. His finger felt decadently good against the metal of her new arm. His finger circled an almost invisible circle, indicating where the generator was. "...lift mountains without cracking them. Throw vehicles without ripping off their bumper plates."

Hornet drew a breath as the blackness flowed from her shoulder along her chest. The tingling buzz of it against her nipples was almost too much for her to bear. She cried out as her knees trembled and Ptah supported her, his hands on her hips, his voice warm in her ear. "The majority of the changes are here. Your heart is being replaced with a reactor -- drawing on zero-point energy fields to create power -- and your belly and your shoulders are being filled with the components for your full a-grav generator for substellar flight, and...here..." His palm caressed the small of her back as the blackness flowed down her legs and along her other arm, working faster and faster. "Here is your E-drive. It will carry you to faster than light speeds."

Hornet nodded. His hands caressed her hips. "More muscular enhancements, yes, but your hips are where the industrial facilities are being constructed. They actually take advantage of your E-drive to create pockets in higher dimensions -- where space/time has expanded faster than in our universe. This allows the industrial facilities to be significantly larger on the insdie than the outside. These can be swapped out for cargo and transport purposes."

Hornet whimpered as her toes became metal and her sex became sleek rubber. Her head was the only biological part of her left now -- sitting atop a body of gleaming silver, steel and polymer. Her hands caressed along her breasts, feeling the smoothness of them. Her hull plating had give. It felt firmer than her skin, but still...soft. Her nipples were hard, rubber nubs, which she could gently tease and tug on, her moan soft and musical.

The pleasure crept along her neck, slowing...slowing.

"The most complex transformation takes place here. Your throat is where your brain's biological processes are moderated. There are chemical plants that filter toxins, apply anti-aging drugs if you stay past your twenty year term, and moderate bloodflow." His hand slid from her hips to her shoulders, to cralde her head as he whispered in her ear. The tingling sensation flowed past her jaw, to her lips. She opened her mouth eagerly and tasted eternity as it flowed down her throat, filling her from within. Her eyes closed to slits and she made a happy gurgling noise as she felt every cell of her body being transformed with glorious light.

"Now, the hardest part." Ptah's voice was a quiet croon. "Your brain's biological structures must be kept intact, but also, hardened agianst changes in gravitation, radiation, and acceleration, with systems simple enough that they can survive even in the depths of the Core. Metamaterials, as dumb as rocks but as sophisticated as the finest rocketship, are being layered, atom by atom, molecule by molecule, in every single empty space in your head. Gently. Ever so gently. They don't wish to damage your brain, after all."

Hornet felt as if her head was swimming with pleasure. Her eyes closed, at last, leaving nothing but the jolts of happiness and the wash of joy that sprang from within her mind every few seconds. She panted softly, and listened to Ptah's murmured words.

"The only things we can replace without destroying your conciousness, we are. The hormones and neurotransmitters that can be emitted by mechnaical means, for instance. Your blood, for another. Nanotech flows through what is left of your viens now, oxygenating your mind and repairing any minor damages that might lead to future strokes or anyruisms. And...the last connections are being formed...now."

Hornet opend her eyes, her back arching as she screamed in bliss, her orgasm fierce and hard enough that her knees cut out and she dropped to her hands and knees, gasping and hanging her head forward. She gasped again and again, ducking her head down, resting it against the silvery liquid of the Pantheon, and managed to, at last, speak. She knew it was impossible for her words to be heard in a vacuum -- but she still heard them in her head, as crisp and clear as if she was speaking in a room with atmosphere.

"That...felt good..."

"Just wait," Ptah purred. "We have your E-space coordinates already locked in. It's automatic. Normally, you'd need a navigator for this, but..."

He gestured to her and awareness flared within Hornet. She opened her eyes, lifted her head...

She exploded off the ground of the Patheon's world. Her body folded into E-space with a wash and she shot up and up and up and up away from the flate plane of the observable universe, then swept back down, following that instinct. She knew it had to take at least an hour -- but to her mind, no time at all passed. She blinked...and then she was emerging from E-space before the Spaceship Corps, rocketing forward at speeds that she had never felt before.

The headquarters whipped past her and she whooped, thrusing her arms before her, then swinging them back behind her, so that they were glued to her hips. She dove forward -- a bright spec swelled before her, and then a moment later, it swelled to a disk, then a sphere, then a world, then she was past it, screaming in a corkscrewing pattern towards the blazing sun of Found. The world she had passed had been a gleaming sphere of reflective metal -- a world covered in solar panels to collect the energy of Found's primary. She beamed as she spread her arms and dove towards the sun, the blazing heat of it roaring along her skin.

"YES!" She laughed, then banked up and away, doing a lazy flip and bleeding off speed before she came to a stop, hovering in the air...in...the space above the roiling, furious mass of the sun. She watched plasma arcs curving through space, crashing down, and she laughed joyously.

Sting appeared beside her with a flash as she emerged from E-space. Her grin was playful.

"Soooo, you know your crew have been digitized for almost twenty four hours, waiting for you, right?" She asked.

"...twenty four...twenty four hours!?" Hornet spluttered. "My chron says it's only been twenty four mi-"

She stopped herself. Sting gave her a playful little smirk as she waited for Hornet to piece it together.

Hornet put her hand over her face. "Relativity," she said.

"Relativity!" Sting said, cheerfully. "You were clocking in, what. 0.999C when you finished that sundive?" She asked, laughing, taking Hornet's hand. The two of them folded into E-space and as they soared up and down again, she kept talking -- something so surreal that it went right past impossibility and to being strangely mundane for Hornet. "Every minute you spent joyskimming-"

"Yeah, an hour passed back to you slowbies, I know how relativity works," Hornet said as they emerged from E-space before Starship Headquarters.

They stepped through the airlock and Hornet saw all the Starships at the base were collected, and they were grinning down at her. She realized, from the look in their eyes, that they were all remembering their first times. She smiled, sheepishly, and waved to them -- while the glowing blue figures of her crew moved among the Starships, flitting forward like ghosts.

"Permission to come aboard?" Carcass asked, his floating orb of glossy blackness somehow radiating smugness. Hornet snorted, then gestured them forward -- her brain buzzing as she felt their digitized conciousness uploading into her computer cores. She shivered and then heard their voices in the background of her mind -- all of them settling into their ditiized quarters. Before she could close her eyes and go in to visit them, a starship with the designation of CNS The Hawking Solution came down to hover before her.

"So, you got a paintjob and name picked out?"

Before...before they had realized they would be a shared crew, they had all banded their ideas around.

Hornet knew she should ask.

But...

It popped out.

"Approximating Apotheosis," she said. "And..."

She yelped as her own systems came to life. She felt Heinlien's touch at her own control systems -- and her skin shimmered as the intelligent material worked into her hull plating adjusted color and hue. Her body became banded in black and yellow stripes, giving her a hornet's profile...and the name...her name...appeared on her arm, in sleek, beautiful Concord symbols.

The CNS Approximating Apotheosis.

"So," Sting said. "...Roxi?"

Roxi shivered.

"Roxi," she whispered, quietly. "My name's...Roxi."

Sting slapped her back. "Come on. Lets get you drunk."

TO BE CONTINUED.