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Summary: In the cold expanse of space, a fractured soul finds salvation in the unlikeliest of cradles. Sam Carter, a man shattered by abandonment and the relentless cruelty of life on Earth, is ripped from his desolate existence by two enigmatic aliens. Lyrin, a bioluminescent empath who mistakes Sam’s brokenness for a call to nurture, and Veyth, a cybernetic soldier grappling with the ghosts of his own extinction, believe they can heal this "star-child" through radical empathy. Using alien technology, they regress Sam into a childlike state, swaddling him in diapers, glowing bottles, and a cocoon of misguided love. But trauma cannot be soothed by starlight alone. Terrified and furious, Sam resists their care, battling the aliens’ invasive kindness even as his body betrays him with reluctant dependency. Yet within the ship’s humming walls, a fragile bond forms between a human who fears he’s unworthy of love, a nurturer who loves too fiercely, and a warrior who rediscovers his humanity in the chaos of parenthood. From the neon-drenched hell of a gas station to the bioluminescent gardens of alien worlds, Starlit Cradle. Can love heal when it’s forced? Can family exist without blood? And what happens when the universe’s loneliest soul discovers he’s worth fighting for—diapers, tantrums, and all? Chapter 1: Last Shift at the Gas’N’Go The rain hissed against the Gas’N’Go’s asphalt like static from a dead channel. Neon flickered in the puddles, 24/7 FUEL bleeding into COFFEE $1.99—as Sam Carter leaned against the bulletproof glass counter, staring at the security monitor. The grainy screen showed aisles of stale chips, motor oil, and a flickering freezer humming louder than the highway beyond. His shift had three hours left. Three hours, seventeen minutes. Not that he was counting. He’d stopped counting a long time ago. 11:43 PM The first customer was a shadow in a hoodie, reeking of wet asphalt and meth sweat. He slapped a Monster Energy can on the counter without meeting Sam’s eyes. The transaction was silent, save for the click-click of Sam’s chipped nail polish against the register keys. The man left, the door’s bell jangling like a broken laugh. Next came a pair of headlights, blinding through the rain. A woman in leopard-print leggings stomped in, mascara smeared into Rorschach blots. “Gimme a pack of Marlboros,” she slurred, leaning too close. Sam’s nose twitched at her perfume—vanilla and vomit. “ID,” he muttered, though he’d sold to her every Friday for months. She snorted, fishing a crumpled dollar bill from her cleavage. “C’mon, sugar. You know I’m old enough to—” “ID,” he repeated, voice flat as the Kansas plains outside. She cursed, slamming a weathered license on the counter. He scanned it, tossed the cigarettes, and watched her stumble back to a pickup truck idling like a growl. 12:22 AM The trucker arrived with a gust of wet wind, his boots tracking mud across the “WELCOME!” mat. He was all beard and belly, smelling of diesel and Dentyne. “How’s the graveyard treatin’ ya, kid?” he grinned, thumbing through beef jerky pouches. Sam didn’t look up from his dog-eared copy of The Hobbit. “Peachy.” “Ain’t you a ray of sunshine.” The man chuckled, leaning on the counter. “Y’know, I got a cousin in Cheyenne. Auto shop. Always needs hands. Pays better than this shithole.” Sam’s jaw tightened. Everyone leaves eventually. “Got a W2 form in your pocket, or you just flirtin’ with me?” The trucker blinked, then barked a laugh. “Feisty one, huh? Suit yourself.” He left with a Slim Jim and a wink, the door sighing shut behind him. In the silence, Sam’s hands trembled. He shoved them into his pockets, fingers brushing the constellation tattoo on his wrist. Orion. The Hunter. Always chasing, never caught. 1:15 AM In the storage room. Fluorescent lights buzzed like flies. Sam slumped against a pallet of toilet paper, the whiskey bottle warm in his grip. He’d stolen it three weeks ago—a handle of Old Crow, bottom-shelf burn. Clink. The cap hit concrete. He drank, wincing as the liquor seared his throat. Outside, rain drummed a funeral march on the roof. A mewling cut through the noise. Sam froze. Then, with a sigh, he fished a half-eaten Slim Jim from his vest. Crouched by the back door, he cracked it open. “Here, Sir Hiss,” he whispered. The stray cat slunk in, fur matted, one ear chewed to a stub. It devoured the jerky, purring like a rusty engine. Sam didn’t pet it. Too tired. But he left the door open a hair longer than necessary, watching it vanish into the storm. 2:03 AM Restocking beer, Sam heard it—a low thrum beneath the freezer’s slowly dying groan. A sound that wasn’t a sound, more a pressure in his molars. The lights flickered and dimmed. The air conditioner going silent. He turned. Outside, the rain had stopped. No—not stopped. Frozen. Drops hung suspended in midair, glittering like shattered chandeliers. The highway’s roar had died. Even the flickering neon was still, casting the lot in jagged red silence. Sam’s pulse hammered. Sleep deprivation. Withdrawal. Hallucinations. He’d had them before. Shadowy figures in his periphery, whispers in empty rooms, footsteps outside his apartment door with nobody there. But this… A shadow moved. No—a non-shadow. A silhouette of light, too bright to look at directly. It phased through the door, and Sam’s breath hitched. Lyrin hovered, tendrils of silver hair undulating as if underwater. Their skin shimmered mother-of-pearl, robes rippling from lavender to anxious indigo. Sam stumbled back. “The fuck—” A chime. Lyrin tilted their head, lidless eyes narrowing. A spore—glowing gold—drifted from their palm. Sam swatted it. “Get away—!” The spore burst. Warmth flooded his veins. His knees buckled. The world softened at the edges, colors bleeding like wet pastels. He slumped against the beer rack, vision tunneling, head pounding. Lyrin trilled, a sound like angelic glass wind chimes. Sam’s last thought before blackness: Not how I thought I’d go. Should’ve left the door open for Sir Hiss. Veyth watched from the ship’s neural interface, crimson eyes parsing data streams. TARGET VITAL SIGNS: Elevated cortisol. Malnourishment. Sleep-deprived. His exoskeleton hummed, circuits flaring violet. Pathetic creature. Yet his core pulsed faster as he saw Lyrin cradled the delicate human, spores knitting the frayed edges of metallic mind. “Waste of energy,” Veyth rumbled, cables retracting from the console. “Primitive. Broken.” Lyrin’s response chimed through the ship—a melody of rebuke. Veyth’s grip tightened. Broken things can be reforged. He’d seen it before, in the ruins of his own world. The human stirred, whimpering. A name—Sir Hiss—garbled in its throat. “Prepare the cradle,” Veyth ordered, though the ship had already obeyed. The chamber glowed, a womb of bioluminescent tendrils. Lyrin laid the human inside, robes now dawn-pink. Veyth hesitated. Then, with a subvocal command, he adjusted the neural sync—gentler, this time. The human’s nightmares flickered on his retinal display: A bus station. A teddy bear aflame. A needle in a dead boy’s arm. Veyth severed the feed. Across the ship, Lyrin began to sing. Sam woke cold. Not the storage room’s damp chill, but a sterile, humming cold. His head throbbed. He tried to sit—straps?—and panicked. “Let me go!” His voice cracked. Above, a ceiling swirled with galaxies, constellations he didn’t recognize. The air tasted metallic, sweet. Shapes moved. Lyrin, glowing faintly, reached for him. “No!” Sam thrashed. A tendril brushed his forehead. Sleep crashed over him, warm and syrupy. As his eyes shut, he glimpsed Veyth looming in the shadows, crimson gaze unreadable. The ship hummed in C-sharp minor. Somewhere, far below, a cat sat hiding behind the dumpster, the Gas’N’Go now cold and empty, whiskey bottle rolling in the wind. Chapter 2 The Injection The first thing Sam knew was the smell. Not the Gas’N’Go’s mildew and gasoline stench, but something antiseptic and floral, like a hospital doused in lavender oil. His eyelids fluttered open to a ceiling alive with pulsing veins of light, cerulean and lavender capillaries thrumming in time with a deep, subsonic drone. He tried to jerk upright, but his limbs refused, he felt thick bands of translucent gel held him down, cool and faintly sticky against his skin. Panic surged, sour in his throat. Restraints. He’d been tied down before, in the bad homes, the ones where they called him “feral” and locked him in outside. His breath hitched, a dry heave clawing up his ribs. “Let me go!” The words ripped out raw, bouncing off curved obsidian walls decorated and glowing with shimmers like mother-of-pearl. A shadow loomed—no, a light, too radiant to look at directly. Lyrin’s opalescent face hovered above him, tendrils of silvery hair drifting as if suspended in water. Their robes flushed a worried mauve. A chime rang out, melodic but alien, and Sam flinched as a spore, glowing like a firefly detached from Lyrin’s palm and floated toward his forehead. “Don’t!” He thrashed, the gel straps stretching but not breaking. The spore burst on contact, and warmth spread through his skull, syrupy and seductive. His muscles slackened against his will, tears of fury pricking his eyes. “Fuck you,” he slurred, voice thick. “Fuck you… space weed…” Lyrin trilled, tilting their head. A hologram flickered above the pod jagged fragments of Sam’s own memories, distorted and bleeding color. A foster mother’s sneer, pixelated and warped. A teddy bear melting into flames. The stench of vomit and bleach. Sam gagged. “Stop it!” he screamed, though the spores muffled his voice to a whimper. Lyrin’s robes deepened to indigo, their fingers dancing in a rapid, sign-like language. Another chime, and the hologram shifted a younger Sam, maybe seven, curled under a blanket fort, reading a stolen copy of The Hobbit by flashlight. His own voice echoed, tinny and distant: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit…” “No,” Sam whispered, cold sweat pooling under his arms. “That’s mine. You don’t get to—augh!” A needle-thin cable snaked from the shadows, piercing his jugular. Veyth’s obsidian exoskeleton gleamed as he stepped into the pod’s bioluminescent glow, crimson eyes narrowed. “Necessary,” he intoned, voice a bass rumble that vibrated Sam’s teeth. The serum burned—a liquid glacier seeping into his veins. Sam’s vision doubled, tripled, ears rang before he could hear again. The walls breathed. Lyrin’s chiming fractured into something like language: “Ssssoft now, ssstar-child… sssafety in nest-sssong…” “M’not… a child…” Sam’s tongue felt swollen, clumsy. His thighs were wet—had he pissed himself? He knew he wasn't drunk yet! Shame flushed his cheeks. Veyth retracted the cable with a metallic hiss. “Regression protocol: engaged,” he announced, as though Sam weren’t thrashing in a pool of his own humiliation. The gel straps dissolved, but his body wouldn’t obey. He rolled off the table, knees buckling, and Lyrin caught him with limbs that felt both solid and incorporeal, like being held by warm fog. Their touch ignited a memory. Fever dreams as a kid, a foster mom pressing a cool cloth to his brow before walking away. Sam shuddered. “Let go,” he rasped, but his fists clenched Lyrin’s robe, the fabric rippling sunset-orange under his grip. The spores were everywhere now, clinging to his lashes, his chapped lips. His pulse slowed against his will. Veyth loomed, neural cables twitching. “Resistance illogical,” he growled. “Accept nurture. Rebuild.” “Rebuild this,” Sam croaked, swinging a feeble punch, before giving him the finger. Veyth didn’t flinch; the blow glanced off his exoskeleton. Lyrin chimed a scolding tone and pressed a hand to Sam’s chest. His lungs seized. Not pain, but… pressure. A lullaby vibrated through their touch, resonating with the ship’s hum. Against his ribs, something unraveled a knot he’d carried since the bus station, since the matches caught the teddy bear’s fur. He didn’t realize he was crying until Lyrin wiped his cheek with a luminescent thumb. The tear glowed faintly before evaporating. “Sssee?” they chimed, their voice a broken radio transmission. “Hurt-ssstone become sssoft. Sssoon.” Sam’s vision blurred. The pod’s light dimmed into a womb like dusk. He wanted to scream, to bite, to run but his body was lead, his mind cotton. The last thing he felt was Veyth’s clawed hand, surprisingly gentle, brushing the hair from his forehead. “Sleep,” the alien commanded. And Sam did. Chapter 3 Broken Constellation Sam’s mouth tasted like battery acid and regret. The pod’s gel straps had dissolved hours ago or was it minutes? Time bled in this fluorescent hive. He waited until the ship’s hum dipped into a lull, then slid out of the pod, bare feet hitting a floor colder than a Wyoming winter. His legs buckled instantly. Withdrawal. Shakes rattled his bones, sweat slicking his gown a flimsy thing that clung to his shoulders, crinkling with every step. He didn’t let himself think about what was underneath it. The corridor stretched endlessly, walls angular and cold like an ancient tomb. Sam staggered, fingernails scraping bioluminescent grooves. Escape. Find an airlock. A weapon. Anything. But the floor tilted, his stomach lurching. Bile scorched his throat. He collapsed against a wall, retching nothing but acid and pride. “Pathetic,” hissed a voice like grinding stars. Veyth materialized from the shadows, exoskeleton glinting. Sam snarled, “Come to—hic—zap me again?” His words slurred. The gravity shifted—sudden, weightless. Sam floated, limbs flailing, as Veyth’s crimson gaze narrowed. “Regression requires rest,” he droned. A clawed finger flicked, and Sam’s gown billowed upward, revealing the humiliating bulk between his legs. “NO STOP!” Sam’s face burned. He clawed at the air, but Veyth’s gravity field cradled him like a newborn, lowering him onto a spongy platform. The alien’s movements were mechanical, precise. A panel slid open, dispensing wipes and a fresh diaper patterned with glowing constellations. “Stop you fucking toaster!” Sam writhed, but Veyth pinned him with a gravitational press. “Compliance ensures dignity.” “Fuck your—augh!” The wipe was cold, clinical. Sam squeezed his eyes shut, teeth grinding. Veyth’s touch was neither rough nor gentle—efficient, like recalibrating a faulty engine. But when Sam’s stomach cramped, a whimper escaping, Veyth paused. His claw retracted, replaced by the warmer, smoother edge of his palm. A hesitant gentle pat on Sam’s hip. “Adequate,” Veyth muttered, fastening the diaper with surprising care. The stars on the material pulsed—Orion, but warped, unfamiliar. Sam’s laugh was jagged. “You’re a real pro at this, huh? Changed a lot of shitty alien babies? Dumbass nanny bot.” Veyth’s exoskeleton flared violet. “You are the first.” He said it like a confession. Lyrin arrived with a bottle of nutrient gel, its glow a soft azure blue. Their robes blushed hopeful coral. “Ssstar-child,” they chimed, cradling Sam’s head. “Drink. Sssoothe the ache.” Sam swatted the bottle. It shattered against the wall, neon blue gel oozing down like radioactive sap. “I’m not your fucking pet!” Glass shards bit his palm—he hadn’t meant to catch one. Blood welled, black-red in the ship’s light, tracing the faded lines of his Orion tattoo. Lyrin gasped, tendrils recoiling. Veyth seized Sam’s wrist, his grip crushing. “Destruction demands consequence,” he growled. “No!” Lyrin’s spores erupted in a protective cloud, gold and furious. Their chimes sharpened into argument, a duet of clashing frequencies. Sam hunched, clutching his bleeding hand, as the aliens’ debate raged: Lyrin: "Frightened creature! Sssoftness, patience! Veyth: "Chaos requires order. Structure." Lyrin: "Your heart-light dims with anger! Remember the sssoft human nest-song?" Veyth’s cables retracted with a hiss. “Illogical,” he muttered, but his voice softened. Lyrin pressed close, tendrils brushing his cold metal jawline, a lover’s plea. The sentinel’s exoskeleton dimmed from wrathful crimson to bruised violet. “…Very well. Your method.” Sam watched, incredulous, as Veyth stalked off. Lyrin turned to him, spores already knitting his cut. “Sssshhh,” they hummed, retrieving an unbroken bottle. “Little ssstar, your fire burns so bright. It hurts you.” He wanted to spit. To scream. But the nutrient gel, when it touched his lips, was honey-sweet and warm, flooding his veins with something like safety. His throat moved against his will. Traitor body. Lyrin smiled, robes shifting to sunrise gold. “Ssssee? Not a cage. A… chrysalis.” In the shadows, Veyth watched, his claw tracing the constellation on Sam’s discarded diaper—a flawed Orion, yes, but one he’d memorized from Sam's hand all the same. Chapter 4 Sir Hiss and the Pacifier The nursery was a cathedral of soft light. Bioluminescent vines coiled across the ceiling, their petals dripping nectar that evaporated into mist before it could touch the floor. Nanotech toys floated in the air as geometric shapes that morphed into animals, starships, or abstract puzzles depending on the observer’s mood. Sam hated how the room adapted, how it seemed to breathe in tandem with his racing heart. Lyrin had dressed him in a loose onesie, its fabric threaded with filaments that warmed or cooled in response to his sweat. He’d torn the feet off, leaving frayed edges that scratched his ankles. A rebellion, however petty. Lyrin hovered nearby, robes shimmering aurora-green with excitement. His tendril-hair had woven itself into a braid, a style they’d copied from Sam’s fragmented memories of a foster sister. “Ssssee, little star?” they chimed, gesturing to a hologram coalescing in the center of the room. “We craft nest-joy for you.” The light resolved into a cat, a pixel-perfect replica of Sir Hiss, down to the chewed ear and patchy gray fur. It blinked, tail flicking, and let out a mechanical mrrp. Sam froze. The hologram padded toward him, purring in a looped cadence. Too rhythmic. Too artificial. It butted its head against his knee, and the projection’s pixels scattered briefly, glitching into static. “No.” Sam recoiled, slamming his back against the crib bars. “Turn it off.” Lyrin trilled confusion, robes fading to misty gray. “But… your heart-song yearns for this creature. We hear it in the dark-sssleep.” “It’s not real,” Sam snarled, throat tightening. The hologram leaped onto his lap, insubstantial weight tingling like static. He swiped through it, the image distorting. “Sir Hiss is... he’s out there, in the rain, because I left the door shut. Because I left him!” His voice cracked. The guilt was a shard in his gut, older than the foster homes, older than the bus station. Always leaving. Always left. Lyrin’s spores flared, panicked gold. “Sssorrow-mending, we can—” “Get rid of it!” Sam hurled a nanotech block at the hologram. It passed through, clattering against the wall. The fake Sir Hiss flickered, confused, and Sam’s resolve shattered. He crumpled, hot tears scalding his cheeks. “He’s gone. Because of me. Just… just stop.” Veyth observed from the neural interface, data streams reflecting in his crimson gaze. SUBJECT EMOTIONAL RECURRENCE: 93% match to “Guilt.” His exoskeleton hummed, conflicted. Lyrin’s approach, all softness and light was failing. The human’s pain was a corrosive agent, eating through their careful protocols. Yet… A memory file auto-played: Sam in the Gas’N’Go storage room, whispering to a skeletal cat. “Here, Sir Hiss.” The tenderness in his older male voice, so at odds with his sneers. Veyth’s core ached, a phantom sensation, legacy of his organic half. He ejected a pacifier from the ship’s fabricator, its silicone glowing with embedded nano-sensors. “Adaptation required,” he muttered, marching to the nursery. Sam glared as Veyth loomed over him, the pacifier levitating in a gravitic field. “Suck. It regulates neural distress.” “Go to hell,” Sam spat, still shaking from the hologram’s betrayal. “Irrelevant. Your physiological instability risks a mental regression collapse.” Veyth thrust the pacifier closer. It emitted a low pulse, thrumming in Sam’s sternum a counterfeit heartbeat. Sam slapped it away. “I’m not your damn lab rat!” The sentinel’s cables snapped out, pinning Sam’s wrists. “You are Lyrins,” Veyth growled, exoskeleton flaring violent crimson. “And you will heal.” They grappled, a tangle of limbs and defiance. Sam kneed Veyth’s chassis, hissing as metal bruised his new flesh. The pacifier bounced, rolling beside the crib. Veyth immobilized him with a gravity press, their faces inches apart. Sam’s breath hitched not from fear, but the intensity of the alien’s gaze. A flicker of something… parental. “Please,” Veyth rasped, the word foreign on his vocalizer. Sam stilled. Since when do toasters beg? The pacifier glowed, its pulse syncing to the ship’s hum. C-sharp minor. Sam’s ribs vibrated. He tasted bile, guilt, the whiskey-tainted memory of Sir Hiss’ trusting eyes. “…Fine. On one condition-” Veyth released him. Sam snatched the pacifier, shoving it into his mouth with a snarl. The effect was immediate—warmth radiated from his chest, loosening the knots in his diaphragm. His scowl wavered. “Satisfied?” he mumbled around the silicone, determined to sound hateful. Veyth studied him, sensors mapping the dip of Sam’s shoulders, the involuntary suckling rhythm. “Sufficient.” Lyrin burst into the bridge later, spores a frantic pink. “He accepted the nest-tool? Let me sssee—” Veyth blocked them, claws retracted. “No. Observe from afar.” He transmitted the data: Sam curled in the crib, pacifier hidden under his thumb, feigning sleep. His vitals spiked each time he adjusted the device, pretending to dislodge it. “He… uses it?” Lyrin trilled, delighted. “In secret. Shame complicates progress.” Lyrin’s tendrils drooped. “We should comfort—” “He needs the lie of autonomy.” Veyth surprised himself by cupping Lyrin’s face, thumb brushing a bioluminescent tear. “As you needed to believe I didn’t reprogram the lullaby AI.” Lyrin flushed orchid, nestling into Veyth’s chassis. “Ssstill. The cat-yearning…?” Veyth’s core clenched. Having not forgotten the agreement. “We retrieve the real creature.” Earth stank of exhaust and rain. The Gas’N’Go’s back door bolted shut, Sir Hiss’ water bowl overturned. Sam’s scent lingered—sweat, alcohol, despair—but the cat was gone. Lyrin released a sonar chime, spores floating through the area. A faint mew echoed from a drainage pipe. Sir Hiss slunk out, fur matted with oil, one paw mangled from a trap. He hissed at Veyth, then froze, nostrils flaring. Sam’s smell on the alien. “Sssshhh,” Lyrin cooed, extruding a nutrient blob. Sir Hiss devoured it, purring. Veyth’s neural cables knit the cat’s paw, a temporary graft. “Illogical expenditure of resources,” he muttered, cradling the creature like glass. Sam awoke to a weight on his chest. The pacifier had fallen out, drool cooling on his chin. Pathetic. He reached to fling it— Purring. Sir Hiss stared down, eyes reflecting the nursery’s constellations. Real. Alive. Sam’s breath caught. He glanced at the crib’s entrance. Lyrin’s robe swished around the corner, pretending not to hover. Veyth’s silhouette darkened the doorway, arms crossed. “T-thanks,” Sam whispered, too raw to hate himself for it. Sir Hiss headbutted his jaw, then curled into the hollow of Sam’s throat. The pacifier glowed nearby, ignored. For now. Veyth’s data logs updated: ATTACHMENT PROTOCOL INITIATED. FURTHER REGRESSION LIKELY. He shut off the screen. Let the human have his victory. For tonight. Chapter 5: Gravity The zero-gravity chamber was a cathedral of absence. Walls curved into a seamless obsidian dome, studded with nodes that glowed faintly like distant stars. Lyrin had called it a “soul-sanctuary”—a place to float free of the body’s weight, the mind’s anchors. Sam called it a prison with better lighting. Veyth’s idea to make. The sentinel loomed at the control panel, neural cables jacked into the ship’s core. “Trauma resides in gravity,” he’d intoned, as if quoting some alien textbook. “Weightlessness will aid in the reset neural pathways. Begin.” Sam hadn’t been given a choice. Now he drifted, limbs splayed, the shirt Lyrin had stitched for him billowing around his diaper and thighs. The air was cool, scented of ozone and something floral, Lyrin’s spores, no doubt, leaking into the vents. Sam clenched his fists, nails biting his palms. Don’t panic. Don’t give them the satisfaction. A chime. Lyrin floated into the chamber, tendrils of hair undulating like sea grass. Their robes had shifted to a tranquil aquamarine, pulsing in time with the chamber’s ambient hum. “Little star,” they chimed, hands outstretched. “Let us play-nest. Sssoftly, yes?” “Get away from me,” Sam hissed, kicking off a node. His body spun, disorientation rising. The walls seemed to breathe, the stars blurring into streaks. Lyrin trilled concern, gliding closer. “No harm. Only… flight-joy.” They extended a hand, bioluminescent spores trailing like comet dust. Sam batted them away. “I said don’t!” His voice echoed, distorted. The chamber’s lights dimmed, nodes flickering red. Too much like the closet. The dark. The foster father’s laughter. “Stop the program! FOR FUCKS SAKE!” Sam thrashed, but zero-g turned his fury into a pathetic flail. Lyrin caught his ankle, touch feather-light. “Sssshhh, nestling. We—” Sam screamed. It wasn’t a sound. It was a rupture an explosion. Years of swallowed terror, of bus stations and needles and Sir Hiss’ mangled paw, tore loose. He clawed at Lyrin, at himself, at the nothingness. The spores around them darkened, thickening into a smog. Lyrin wrapped around him, limbs and tendrils cocooning Sam’s shuddering form. Their chest vibrated a subsonic hum that resonated in Sam’s marrow. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. A heartbeat. A memory. “Breathe,” Lyrin murmured, their voice syncing to the rhythm. “Breathe with the nest-song.” Sam choked, snot and tears globules floating. He tried to shove Lyrin away, but the alien’s embrace was relentless, a living straitjacket. The vibration seeped deeper, loosening the vise around his lungs. Against his will, his breath hitched, then slowed. “There,” Lyrin crooned, spores brightening to a soothing gold. “The fear is a storm. You are the sky. It passes.” Sam’s fists unclenched. He hated them. Hated himself more. Veyth watched from the doorway, data streams reflected in his retinal display. HEART RATE: Decreasing 40% CORTISOL LEVELS: CRITICAL → MODERATE NEURAL ACTIVITY: AMYGDALA OVERLOAD → THETA WAVE DOMINANCE The numbers should have satisfied him. Instead, his exoskeleton itched, a phantom sensation from his lost organic nerves. Lyrin’s lullaby thrummed through the ship’s alloys, a frequency even his cybernetics couldn’t filter out. Sam’s face, slack with exhausted surrender, flickered in Veyth’s memory banks. The human’s fragility. His defiance. The way he clutched Sir Hiss in sleep, as if the cat were an anchor in the dark. “Illogical,” Veyth muttered, retracting his neural cables. The control panel dimmed. He should leave. Return to the logic of algorithms, the cleanliness of data. Yet he lingered, crimson gaze tracking Lyrin as they carried Sam from the chamber. The human’s head lolled against the empath’s shoulder, pacifier dangling from its clip, used, despite his protests. “Where…?” Sam slurred, too drained to lift his head. “Rest, nest,” Lyrin chimed, robes shifting to twilight indigo. “Our own.” The bedroom was an amalgam of contrasts. Lyrin’s side bloomed with bioluminescent flora, petals unfurling into hammocks of light. Veyth’s quadrant was austere. A slab of obsidian embedded with charging ports, data crystals stacked like gravestones. Lyrin laid Sam in their moss, the woven light conforming to his shape. Sir Hiss materialized from the shadows, limping onto Sam’s chest. The cat’s purr synced with Lyrin’s residual hum, a dual vibration that made Sam’s eyelids flutter. “Stay?” he mumbled, fingers twitching toward Lyrin’s tendril. “Always,” Lyrin trilled, curling around him. Their spores dimmed to a nightlight glow. Veyth observed from the threshold. Sam’s vitals projected onto his HUD—steady, for now. Yet the sentinel’s core throbbed, a remnant ache from the organic heart he’d replaced centuries ago. Query: Why does the human resist care? Hypothesis: Trauma-induced self-sabotage. Probability: 87% Additional Hypothesis: Pride. Probability: 62% Irrelevant. He turned to leave. “Veyth.” Lyrin’s voice, soft as a dying star. The empath extended a tendril, bioluminescence dappling the floor between them. An invitation. Veyth’s exoskeleton locked up. “The human requires rest. As do you.” “We require you,” Lyrin countered, robes blushing rose-gold. Sam stirred, half-conscious. “...’S he staying?” “No,” Veyth said, too quickly. “Yes,” Lyrin insisted. The sentinel’s systems overheated, coolant hissing through his vents. “I will… monitor from the interface.” Lyrin’s tendril brushed his wrist. An angelic spark of static, a plea. “Stay. As you were before the metal. Before the void.” Veyth’s neural cables twitched. Before. A dangerous word. A memory file he’d encrypted, buried under firewalls. Yet his chassis moved, unbidden, to the beds edge. He sat rigid, joints creaking. Sir Hiss eyed him, then butted his metallic knee. “See?” Lyrin hummed, nestling closer. “The nest-song includes all.” Sam’s breath deepened, his fingers curling around the pacifier. Veyth’s sensors registered the exact moment he slipped into REM sleep—the hitch in his pulse, the flicker beneath his eyelids. “He dreams,” Veyth observed. “Of kindnesses,” Lyrin murmured. “We shaped them in the spores.” “Deception.” “Hope.” Lyrin countered. The empath’s tendril coiled around Veyth’s wrist, their bioluminescence seeping into his exoskeleton’s seams. For a nanosecond, he allowed it. The false warmth, the connection. Then he stood, cables retracting. “Rest,” he ordered, and left. Alone in the neural interface, Veyth replayed the chamber footage. Sam’s scream looped, raw and endless. The sentinel’s claws flexed, gouging the obsidian console. Query: Why preserve this pain? Answer: To learn. Query: What is learned? Answer: Failure. Sir Hiss padded in, mewling. Veyth scooped him up, ignoring the cat’s initial hiss. The mangled paw had healed crooked “Imperfect,” Veyth muttered. Sir Hiss purred, nuzzling his chest plate. The sentinel’s core stuttered. He set the cat down gently, then opened an encrypted file. A memory, older than Lyrin as old as the void. A child, organic and laughing, cradled in arms that were not yet metal. He wanted to delete it. He tried so many times. He couldn't. He looked to the other display. The chamber footage of panic continued to play. Chapter 6 The Shattering The dining area’s crystalline walls throbbed with uneasy light, fracturing Sam’s reflection into a hundred shards. He sat pinned in the highchair, its bioluminescent restraints coiled snug around his waist and thighs, the living material pulsing faintly as if alive. Lyrin had shaped it to be gentle—soft edges, warmth radiating from the resin—but to Sam, it was a cage. The alien flora on the table taunted him, their petals unfurling to reveal nutrient gels that shimmered like liquid sapphire. Breakfast. Another performance in this endless, humiliating pantomime from the monsters. Lyrin hovered close, their opalescent skin flushed a fragile sunrise pink, tendrils of hair knotted into intricate loops that quivered with their every movement. They hummed as they worked, the melody a saccharine counterpoint to the ship’s dissonant drone. A bottle floated within Sam’s line of sight, its nipple soft and inviting, glowing faintly with the same azure liquid that had sustained him and made him feel infantilized him for days or weeks. It was hard to tell with no constant rhythm from the Earth. But it was driving him mad. “Morning song, little star,” Lyrin chimed, their voice a brittle carillon of glass. The bottle drifted closer. “First nourishment. Then light-shapes, yes? Play-nest joy.” Sam’s jaw ached from clenching. The onesie Lyrin had sewn—filaments stitching too tightly around his ribs, as if trying to suture his fractures from the outside—itched mercilessly. The large puffy diaper beneath crinkled with every shift, a sound that crawled under his skin. “Go to hell,” he spat, thrashing against the restraints. The highchair’s tendrils tightened reflexively, gentle but unyielding. Lyrin’s spores dimmed, their robes leaching to ashen gray. “Body-mending requires care,” they murmured, reaching to brush a spore-laced finger against Sam’s temple. “The hurt is deep. We must—” “We don’t exist,” Sam snarled, jerking his head away. The motion strained the restraints, the bioluminescent coils glowing brighter in response. “You’re not my family. You’re kidnappers. Monsters.” The words struck like a blade as they always did. Lyrin recoiled, tendril-hair unraveling from its braid, spores darkening into a storm-cloud haze. For a breath, the room held perfectly still. The cold crystalline walls humming, the alien flora wilting and then Lyrin turned, robes swirling like oil on water. A flick of their wrist, and the highchair’s restraints clicked, locking Sam in place with a finality that vibrated through the resin. “Wait—!” Sam’s voice cracked, panic flaring. “You can’t just—leave me here!” Lyrin paused at the threshold, backlit by the corridor’s eerie glow. Their silhouette trembled. “When… when the storm-rage passes,” they whispered, voice fraying at the edges. “I will return.” And then they were gone. Hours bled into the walls. Sam strained against the restraints until his wrists burned raw, the highchair’s living material flexing but never breaking. The ship’s AI had dimmed the lights, casting the dining area into twilight, the table’s alien flora closing their petals as if in judgment. His bladder gave out first. A hot rush of shame that the diaper absorbed silently, its crinkle deafening in the hollow quiet. He screamed then, curses dissolving into ragged sobs, but the sound evaporated into the ship’s indifferent hum. Lyrin did not return. Instead, the false holographic Sir Hiss flickered to life on the table, its pixelated form glitching at the edges. It padded toward him, purring in a looped, artificial cadence. “Fuck off poser,” Sam choked, kicking at the hologram. His foot passed through it, disrupting the projection into static. The cat reformed, persistent, and nuzzled his trapped hand. Its touch tingled, a poor imitation of warmth. Veyth found him there, an hour later. The sentinel’s obsidian exoskeleton gleamed in the low light as he loomed in the doorway, crimson eyes narrowing at the scene. Sam had sagged in the restraints, cheek pressed to the highchair’s resin, dried tear tracks itching his skin. The holographic Sir Hiss blinked up at Veyth, its tail flickering. “Pathetic,” Veyth rumbled, though the word lacked its usual bite. Sam didn’t lift his head. “Come to gloat toaster?” Veyth crossed the room, neural cables twitching at his temples. With a subvocal command, the restraints loosened, retracting into the chair. Sam slumped forward, muscles screaming, but Veyth caught him with a gravitic field, suspending him mid-collapse. “You broke them,” the sentinel said, lowering Sam into a hover-cradle that materialized from the floor. Sam’s laugh was hollow. “Good.” Veyth’s exoskeleton creaked as he crouched, his gaze level with Sam’s. “You mistake their silence for surrender. Lyrin’s light fades when you rage. Their song hurts and… ceases.” “Maybe they should’ve thought about that before strapping me down,” Sam shot back, voice hoarse. Veyth’s claws flexed, the sound like grinding steel. “You are a paradox. You crave autonomy yet court annihilation. You reject care yet wither without it.” He leaned closer, his non existent breath a metallic whisper. “What terrifies you more, human? The cage? Or the fact that part of you wants it?” Sam’s throat tightened. He looked away, the hover-cradle’s warmth seeping into his bones. “I want to go home...” “You have no home,” Veyth said, not unkindly. “Only this.” The sentinel stood, retracting his cables. “The restraints will remain. Until you learn.” “Learn what?” Sam sneered. Veyth paused at the door, his silhouette blending with the shadows. “That some chains are kinder than freedom.” Lyrin returned at dusk, their bioluminescence dimmed to a ghostly pallor. They said nothing as they changed Sam’s diaper, their touch feather-light, spores trembling like fallen stars. Sam didn’t fight. Didn’t speak. Later, in the bath-pod’s singing fluid, he scrubbed until his skin burned raw. Lyrin wanted to help but did nothing worrying it would anger littler star further. The real Sir Hiss watched from the corner, with the false one. Both of their mangled paws twitching. When the tears came, Sam didn’t stop them. Somewhere, the ship hummed on. Chapter 7 The Nightmare Algorithm The nursery-pod throbbed with the nebula’s wrath. Outside the viewport, electric mauve and sulfur-yellow gases clashed, birthing lightning that cracked against the ship’s hull in silent, luminous veins. Sam’s organically grown crib is a grotesque parody of safety, all glowing tendrils and padded edges vibrated with each strike. He’d refused the sleep-spores, clawing them from the air until Lyrin relented, leaving him in the dark with only Sir Hiss’s mangled purr for company. The cat slept curled against his shins, a living, breathing anchor to a reality Sam no longer trusted. The nightmare began as it always did the scent of burnt sugar and bleach. Eleven years old. A basement room with water-stained walls. His foster brother, Micah, sixteen and already ghost-thin, smiling with needle-tracked arms. “C’mon, Sammy. Don't be a pussy! Just hold my arm. I can’t find the vein.” Sam thrashed in the crib, sheets tangling his legs. The ship’s AI, ever attentive, detected his distress and did what it thought best. It recreated. The walls dissolved. Suddenly, he was there. Cold and damp concrete under his knees, Micah’s skeletal wrist in his hands. The needle glinted, trembling in Sam’s grip. “I don’t wanna,” he heard himself whimper, child-voice high and brittle. “You owe me,” Micah slurred, head lolling. “I covered for you… when you stole Mrs. K’s meds…” The memory unfolded, unstoppable. Sam’s tiny fingers pressed into cold flesh. Holding the arm still as he found the vein. The needle slid in. Micah’s sigh of relief curdled into a gasp—wrong vein, too deep, too much, and then the seizure, the frothing at his lips, Sam’s screams as the foster parents pounded down the basement stairs… The ship made it real. Sam gagged on the phantom stench of urine and death. The nursery walls projected Micah’s corpse in high fidelity, eyes milky, hand clutching Sam’s ankle. Sir Hiss yowled, fleeing as Sam scrambled back, skull cracking against the crib bars. “Stop—make it stop!” Lyrin arrived in a storm of spores, their bioluminescence guttering like a dying star. “Sssshhh, little star, we undo this—” “Don’t touch me!” Sam lashed out, catching Lyrin’s wrist. The empath’s skin was fever-hot, their usual opalescent glow now a sickly jaundice. Spores burst from Lyrin’s palm, seeping into Sam’s pores. Warmth flooded him as the AI’s simulation was fraying at the edges, but Sam fought, clawing at the tendrils of false comfort. “You don’t get to—augh—erase me!” He writhed, the nursery’s projections flickering. Micah’s corpse pixelated, then reformed, a glitch-horror of half-rendered bone and sinew. Lyrin choked, spores now blackened with absorbed pain. “Please—let us help—” Sam’s fist connected with their jaw. A sickening crack—bioluminescent fluid splattered the crib sheets as his fingernails dug into his cheek. Lyrin recoiled, clutching their face, tendril-hair shriveling. The spores curdled, raining ash. Veyth’s arrival was a tempest. Neural cables snaking from the ceiling, yanking Sam into a gravitational vice. “Enough!” The sentinel’s exoskeleton blazed violent crimson, his voice a detonation. Sam hung suspended, chest heaving. The AI’s simulation dissolved, leaving the nursery bare, sterile. Micah’s corpse faded, replaced by the storm’s relentless flashing outside. Lyrin crouched in the corner, leaking iridescent fluid from their slashed cheek. “We only… wanted to ssspare you,” they rasped, robes muddied to sludge-gray. “You stole it,” Sam spat. “My pain. My shit. It’s all I have left, and you—” “Silence.” Veyth’s cables tightened, constricting Sam’s ribs. “You are a toxin. A recursive algorithm of self-destruction.” Lyrin flinched. “Veyth, no—” The sentinel turned, cold and colossal. “We purge him. Reset his neural pathways. Return him to the human larvae colonies.” Sam froze. Foster system. The endless cycle. The Gas’N’Go. His heart stuttered—relief? Lyrin floated upright, trembling. “No. His light is… fractured, but there. We cannot—” “Look at you!” Veyth’s roar shook the room. “You diminish daily. Your spores rot. You bleed light, Lyrin. For what? A creature that gnaws the hand nurturing it?” The empath curled inward, arms wrapped around their middle. “He is… ours. Our star-child.” “He is a black hole,” Veyth hissed. “And you drift too close.” Sir Hiss yowled from the doorway, fur bristling. The cat limped to Sam’s dangling form, batting at the cables. Veyth’s gaze flickered. “The human authorities will take him in as a new child. We can make him… pliable. A blank slate.” Sam’s breath hitched. Wipe him. Empty him. Micah’s death, the bus station, Sir Hiss—gone. The terror was dizzying. The temptation more so. Lyrin drifted to the viewport, their reflection warped by the nebula’s rage. “And he must… forgets us? Our nest-song?” “Necessary,” Veyth said, too quickly. The bridge’s holographic interface flickered to life, a route plotted back to Earth, blinking red through the foster system’s labyrinthine bureaucracy. Sam strained against the cables. “Do it. I would rather have my own life than the one you've forced on me.” Both aliens turned. “Do it,” he repeated, voice cracking. “Wipe me. Dump me. I don’t care.” Lyrin’s spores guttered out. “You… mean this?” Sam bared his teeth. “Why? You need permission now?” Veyth’s exoskeleton hummed. “The process is irreversible. You will be… hollow.” “I’m already hollow,” Sam whispered. The sentinel stared at him—long, silent—then retracted the cables. Sam collapsed, Sir Hiss immediately clambering into his lap, purring like a broken engine. Lyrin hovered near the exit, their damaged cheek weeping luminescent tears. “We will… discuss.” They left together, Veyth’s claws lingering on the door frame. Sam pressed his face into Sir Hiss’s fur. The cat reeked of antiseptic and alien nectar. Pitiful, he thought. Even the strays get stuck with me. On the bridge, Veyth input coordinates with mechanical precision. The galactic location of Earth loomed on the viewport—a blue-green bauble, fragile. Lyrin’s voice trembled. “What if this is… what if this is wrong?” “It is not.” Veyth’s claws typed away, creating the neural purge command. “He is entropy. We restore balance.” “And if we are entropy?” Lyrin touched their cracked cheek, the bioluminescence beneath flaking like dying stars. “If our light… was never meant to heal?” Veyth’s core ached—a phantom pain, deep and organic. “Then we fade. Together.” Sam’s nursery-pod darkened, the crib tendrils coiling protectively around him. Sir Hiss hissed at the shadows, tail bristling. Somewhere, in the ship’s belly, the AI whispered a lullaby in C-sharp minor. Sam did not sleep. Chapter 8 Pacified Protocol The living quarters existed in a fragile equilibrium, a collision of Veyth’s stark, angular technology and Lyrin’s overgrown bioluminescent flora. Holographic consoles flickered beneath curtains of vines, their petals dripping nectar that pooled in the grooves of obsidian flooring. Sam sat on the edge of a floating disc, its surface conforming uneasily to his weight, while Veyth occupied a jagged command throne across from him. Lyrin lingered near a cluster of glowing mushrooms, their light dimmed to a sickly amber, tendrils of hair coiled tightly as if to contain their sorrow. Sir Hiss lay sprawled in a sunbeam synthesized by the ship’s AI for the cat, his tail flicking at motes of dust that weren’t there. The negotiations began without ceremony. “You will comply with essential care protocols,” Veyth stated, his voice a synthetic rumble. “Diaper changes. Feedings. Hygiene. In return, you retain mobility aboard the ship until we reach your planet.” Sam’s fingers dug into the disc’s gelatinous edge. “No restraints. No forcing me into… into any of it! AT ALL!” Veyth’s crimson gaze didn’t waver. “Resistance nullifies the terms. You will be immobilized.” A shudder ran through Lyrin’s tendrils. They drifted closer, spores trailing behind them like frayed threads. “We only wish to… to keep you safe, little—” “Don’t.” Sam’s voice cracked. “Just… don’t.” Lyrin recoiled, their bioluminescence guttering. Veyth’s exoskeleton emitted a low, grinding hum. “Acceptance or refusal. Choose.” The word hung in the air, sharp as a scalpel. Sam studied the floor. The way Lyrin’s nectar seeped into Veyth’s machinery, the slow, stubborn fusion of two incompatible worlds. Freedom or dignity? Neither, really. Just a lesser prison. Just another joke by the monsters. “Fine,” he muttered. “But I pick when I sleep.... I go where I want! And you don’t talk to me like I’m… like I’m some project.” Veyth inclined his head. “Terms accepted.” Lyrin’s spores released a dissonant chime. They floated to a console, inputting coordinates with trembling fingers. Earth’s hologram bloomed above them. A swirling blue marble streaked with white storms. Sam stared at it, the Gas’N’Go a microscopic speck somewhere in the chaos. The journey back... home.... began in silence. Sam wandered the ship’s arteries, tracing paths he’d once fought to escape. The corridors reacted to his presence—walls rippling with subdued light, vents exhaling warm air that smelled faintly of Lyrin’s nectar. He found the observation deck and slumped against the viewport, all the constellation distorted by the ship’s warp field. Lyrin avoided him. They tended their gardens in the hydroponics bay, singing fractured lullabies to the flora. Veyth monitored Sam through drones, their lensed eyes glinting in the shadows. The first diaper change after the treaty was a mechanical and cold ritual. Sam stood rigid in the nursery-pod, jaw clenched, as Veyth’s claws made quick, impersonal work of the fasteners. Lyrin hovered in the doorway, spores wilting before they could reach Sam. “Done,” Veyth intoned, discarding the soiled garment into a biorecycler. Sam yanked up his tiny sweatpants, face burning. “Happy?” Lyrin’s tendril twitched toward him, then curled inward. “We… we are sorry.” “Save it!" Meals were mostly solitary affairs. Nutrient bars materialized in Sam’s quarters. Veyth’s pragmatic solution but Lyrin left bottles of honeyed milk outside his door, their glow fading each night he ignored them. Sir Hiss took to batting the bottles down the hall, lapping up the spills with a predator’s patience. On the third day, Sam found the pacifier he discarded in rage under his... the crib. It now sat innocently on his pillow, silicone glowing a soft cerulean. He finally glared and yelled. Then hurled it against the wall. It bounced, rolling to Sir Hiss, who nosed it with a curious chirp. “Don’t!” The cat ignored him, batting the pacifier into a corner. Sam shooed Sir Hiss who simply left without a care, then retrieved it. The silicone was warm, pulsing faintly. He clenched it in his fist, the rhythm syncing with his heartbeat. He woke hours later with the pacifier in his mouth, Sir Hiss purring against his side. The ship hummed its eternal dirge. Veyth intercepted Sam in the hydroponics, a cavernous space littered with plants from across the stars that Lyrin had raised and infused with his own spores. “Query,” the sentinel began, neural cables twitching. “Why sabotage the hydroponics bay?” Sam shrugged. He’d snapped a handful of Lyrin’s orchids that morning, their bioluminescent sap staining his palms. “Boredom. Because I can?” Veyth’s exoskeleton flared violet. “Lyrin’s light diminishes. You… derive satisfaction from this.” “Yeah.” Sam met his gaze. “Got a problem with that?” For a moment, Veyth’s rigid posture faltered. “They grieve. As do you.” Sam spat the pacifier into his hand. “Don’t psychoanalyze me, toaster.” The sentinel’s claws retracted with a hiss. “You are a wound. We attempted to mend you. This… was an error.” Sam laughed, hollow. “Finally something we agree on.” The truce held, brittle and thin. Lyrin bathed him in silence, their touch ghostly, spores avoiding his skin as if he were contagion. Veyth dictated schedules through the ship’s AI by controlling the lights in the ship, his presence reduced to a watchful shadow. Sam explored the armory, the engine core, the empty chambers where Lyrin’s light once thrived. At night, he clutched the pacifier, its warmth a shameful solace. Sir Hiss nestled into the crook of his arm, purring as the ship hurtled toward a home Sam no longer recognized. Lyrin sang to the orchids, their voice fraying at the edges. The stars blurred past, indifferent. Chapter 9 Homeward Bound The ship’s corridors breathed differently now. Softer, slower, as if the vessel itself had resigned itself to the inevitability of during the trip to back to Earth. Lyrin’s bioluminescent gardens crept into Veyth’s austere sectors, vines threading through console seams, petals dusting the obsidian floors with pollen that glowed faintly underfoot. Sam moved through these hybrid spaces like a ghost learning to haunt gently, his presence no longer a storm but a draft, unsettling, yet familiar. The truce had carved out an uneasy rhythm: diaper changes without thrashing, feedings without spit-out nutrient gel, baths where Sam sat rigid but still. It began with Veyth. The sentinel appeared at the nursery-pod one cycle, interrupting Lyrin’s careful ritual of prepping a bottle. “I will assume fifty-three percent of care duties,” he announced, neural cables retracting into his exoskeleton. “You require emotional preparation for separation.” Lyrin’s spores flared agitated crimson. “He is ours. Not a… a duty to allocate.” “He is not ours, he made a choice. He is a temporary variable,” Veyth countered, taking the bottle. Its glow reflected in his ocular lenses, softening their harsh red. “Your luminosity has decayed nineteen percent since negotiations. This is… suboptimal.” Sam watched from the crib, Sir Hiss a warm lump against his thigh. “You two gonna fight over who wipes me next?” he drawled, but the edge had dulled. Veyth’s first truce diaper change was an exercise in mechanical precision. His claws made quick work of the fasteners, but Sam noticed the sentinel’s gravitic field subtly cushioning his lower back against the cold pad. “Why’s the ship hum in C-sharp minor?” Sam asked abruptly, staring at the ceiling’s nebula projection. A pause. “The frequency aligns with Luminal biology. Lyrin’s species finds it… soothing.” “Sounds like a dying fridge.” Veyth’s exoskeleton emitted a grinding noise Sam had learned to recognize as a sigh. “Your auditory cortex lacks refinement.” Sam almost smiled. Lyrin retaliated by baking. They converted Veyths the nutrient synthesizer into a pastry forge, crafting alien delicacies that resembled Earth croissants if viewed through a kaleidoscope. Flaky layers shimmered with bioluminescent jam; fillings oozed liquid starlight. “For our little star,” they chimed cautiously, placing a plate at Sam’s feet during his self-imposed exile in the observation deck. “I’m not hungry,” Sam muttered, eyes fixed on the holographic stars. “The Porthian nebula,” Lyrin ventured, pointing at a swirling pink gas cloud. “Its core stars births melodic crystals. We harvested a shard once—it sang of a supernova.” Sam snorted. “You’re making that up.” “Ssscoff, but truth!” Lyrin’s spores brightened, projecting a flickering hologram of their memory. A crystalline shard vibrating in their hand, emitting a haunting choir of light. Sam’s chest tightened. He took a bite of the pastry to hide it. Nights were the worst. Or the best. Sam couldn’t decide. He’d wander into the hydroponic garden, drawn by the hum of Lyrin’s spores and singing, and found Veyth there too, the sentinel’s obsidian form incongruous among the weeping blossoms. They didn’t speak at first, just coexisted, Sam sat on what he now considered his floating disc, Veyth recalibrating drones slowly, Lyrin humming as they grafted new flora. Then came the stories. “The Fractured Wars,” Veyth began one cycle, his voice smoother, almost narrative. “A black hole civilization that split itself into twelve factions via quantum cloning. Each believed itself the prime reality. All at war with one another. Their self creation drew a wedge between them all. Forgetting who was the original” Sam pretended to pick at his cuticles. “Who won?” “The black hole,” Veyth said. “It consumed them all. A… poetic end.” Lyrin trilled laughter. “Veyth omits, they merged in the event horizon! A hive-mind once more. All divided just to come back together again.” “Unverified,” Veyth grumbled, but Sam wasn't sure if caught the flicker of amusement in his ocular lenses or he was just seeing things in the cold and unmoving face shield of the toaster. Bath time became a reluctant ritual. Lyrin would fill the basin with petals that changed color based on Sam’s vital signs, crimson when he was tense, cerulean when (rarely) calm. Veyth insisted on scanning the water for “pathogens,” though they eventually learned it was an excuse for him to linger. “Your epidermis remains inferior to exoskeleton,” Veyth noted during one session, adjusting the bath’s thermal regulators. “Yeah? Bet you can’t blush,” Sam shot back, flicking water at him. The droplets hovered in Veyth’s gravitic field. “Irrelevant. My thermal displays serve tactical—” “He turns violet when ssstartled,” Lyrin interjected, grinning, and giggling. Sam’s laugh startled even himself. The pacifier became a secret indulgence. Sam kept it tucked under his pillow, slipping it into his mouth only after Sir Hiss’s snores covered the sound. The silicone’s warmth spread through him like stolen sunlight, Veyth’s voice recounting wars among comet-riders, Lyrin’s spores weaving constellations on the ceiling. He’d wake with the pacifier still in, drool on his chin, and pretend not to notice Lyrin’s hopeful glances. “Why’d you take me?” Sam asked one cycle, sprawled in the armory on the ground as Veyth polished plasma coils. The sentinel stilled. “Lyrin heard you, your call. I found biosignature indicated… profound isolation. Lyrin hypothesized intervention could prevent collapse. So I agreed.” “So I was a charity case.” Sam rolled his eyes and stared up at the metal man. “A hypothesis,” Veyth corrected. “Now disproven.” Sam rolled the pacifier between his fingers. “What happens when you drop me off?” Veyth’s exoskeleton hummed. “We resume our voyage. Lyrin longs to see more, to catalog supernovae, and plants throughout. I will harvest nebula birth shards.” “Just you two... Alone?” “We are… were accustomed to solitude with each other. It will be no problem.” Sir Hiss chose that moment to pounce on a loose cable, yowling triumph. Veyth gently disengaged him from his tools. “You’ll miss the cat,” Sam said. “Irrelevant,” Veyth lied. Lyrin found them later in the observation deck, Sam half-dozing against Veyth’s chassis as the sentinel explained deep asteroid mining. The empath’s spores burst into auroras. “Sssee?” they chimed, floating closer. “Our little star… he shines here.” Sam jerked upright. “Don’t get sappy. I’m still leaving.” But that night, he didn’t throw away the bottle Lyrin left. He drank it slowly, savoring the honeyed milk, while Veyth’s voice through the ship’s comm recounted the tale of a sentient nebula that adopted orphaned comets. Earth’s hologram loomed ever closer, its blue glow tinged with storm. Sir Hiss purred against Sam’s chest, the pacifier warm in his hand. Somewhere, in the ship’s heart, Lyrin sang a lullaby in C-sharp minor. The whole ship listed carefully. Chapter 10 The Choice of Sol The viewing deck’s panoramic window framed Earth like a jewel half-submerged in ink—a marble of swirling blues and greens streaked with the angry red scars of storms. Sam stood at the glass, Sir Hiss cradled against his chest, the cat’s purr a fragile counterpoint to the ship’s mournful hum. Behind him, Lyrin and Veyth hovered in uneasy silence, their presence a weight he’d learned to carry but never accept. Lyrin spoke first, their voice a frayed melody. “The choice is yours, little star. Stay… or return.” Sam didn’t turn. He traced the constellation of city lights on the night side—Denver, maybe. Or nowhere. “You don’t get to call me that anymore,” he said softly. Sir Hiss’s claws pricked his skin, anchoring him. Veyth stepped forward, exoskeleton casting jagged shadows. “The neural purge will excise all memory of us. You will awaken in a human medical facility, believing yourself… lost.” Lost. The word echoed. Sam had been lost long before the abduction—in foster homes, in Gas’N’Go’s fluorescent limbo. He pressed his forehead to the cold glass. “Do it.” Lyrin’s spores wilted, drifting to the floor like dying fireflies. The medical bay was a crypt of steel and shadows. Veyth had stripped it of Lyrin’s influence—no bioluminescent vines, no nectar-scented air. Only the sterile tang of antiseptic and the rhythmic beep of the neural purger charging. Sam lay on the slab, restraints inactive but heavy with implication. Sir Hiss had been sequestered elsewhere; the absence ached. Veyth loomed over the console, claws dancing across holograms. “The process is painless. You will dream of… nothing.” Sam’s fingers dug into the slab’s edges. “Will I forget everything? Even… even the stories? The nebula shards? Sir Hiss?” A pause. The purger hummed louder. “Yes.” “What if I don’t want to forget?” The words slipped out, raw and small. Veyth’s ocular lenses narrowed. “The risk of cognitive dissonance—” “No one would believe me anyway,” Sam interrupted, sitting up. “A kid babbling about aliens and spaceships ? They’d pack me in a psych ward. Just… leave the memories. I’ll pretend they’re gone.” The sentinel’s exoskeleton emitted a low, grinding whine. “Lyrin cannot know. Hope would… unbalance them.” Sam swallowed. “Yeah. Wouldn’t.. wouldn't want that.” Veyth hesitated, then ejected a data crystal from his chassis. “A monitoring device. Embedded in this.” He produced a teddy bear—clumsily stitched from ship fabric, its eyes glowing with miniature star cores. “Crude, but effective.” Sam took it. The bear smelled of ozone and alien pollen. “You made this?” “Irrelevant.” Veyth reactivated the purger. “Assume position.” Lyrin found them post-procedure, Sam feigning drowsy confusion on the slab. The empath’s tendril brushed his cheek, spores scanning for damage. “Little… Sam. Do you… recall us?” “Who’re you?” Sam mumbled, clutching the teddy bear. His heart hammered—lie better, lie harder. Lyrin’s light dimmed to a ghostly flicker. They slid a bracelet onto his wrist—strands of starlight woven with nebula dust. “A… a trinket. For luck.” Sam stared at it, the stars pulsing in time with the ship’s hum. “Thanks, I guess.” Veyth herded Lyrin out, his gravitic field a subtle barrier. “The human authorities approach. We must depart.” In the corridor, Lyrin unraveled. “We should remain! Monitor him, ensure—” “No,” Veyth growled. “Attachment is a recursive algorithm. We terminate it here.” “You are wrong! His light still—” “His light is extinguished.” The lie clanged between them, metallic and final. “Prepare for warp.” Sam stood in the road, Earth’s gravity tugging at his soul. The teddy bear hung limp in his grip; the bracelet itched. Their voices cracked through his head from the bears com. “The foster facility expects you. You will… thrive.” “Thrive,” Sam echoed, tasting the word’s hollowness. “Sam.” Veyth rarely used his name. The sentinel’s exoskeleton gleamed, impassive. “The bear’s third eye. Press it… when you need.” “Why?” “Hypothesis:... unknown.” The ship flew off the burst of minor gravity throwing it out. Sam fell. The foster facility was all fluorescent lights and chipped linoleum. A social worker with coffee breath led him to a cot, her pity a familiar stench. “You’re safe now,” she said, as if safety were a place and not a lie. Sam waited until her footsteps faded, then pressed the bear’s third eye. A hologram flickered—Veyth’s voice, stripped of its mechanical growl. “Query: Do you require assistance?” Sir Hiss limped into the woods towards the familiar Gas'N'Go. Sam smiled, fragile but real. “Back home again.” Above Earth’s exosphere, the ship lingered—cloaked, watchful. Lyrin sang to the void, their spores forming new constellations. Veyth monitored the feed till authorities picked Sam up. Chapter 11 The Divide The ship cut through the rifting void like a blade of ice and light. a double inverted pyramid fused at its apexes, its obsidian hull studded with Lyrin’s bioluminescent gardens that glowed faintly against the eternal night. Between the pyramids spun a central sphere, its rotation silent and perpetual, a mechanical heart pumping data instead of blood. Cold seeped from the walls, unsoftened by the empath’s flora, as the vessel hurtled away from Earth at speeds that warped starlight into smears of color. Distance yawned, vast and unbridgeable. Lyrin drifted through the corridors, tendrils trailing over surfaces Sam had once touched. The nursery-pod still smelled of him—sweat, rebellion, the faint tang of honeyed milk. The empath rearranged the crib’s padding for the twelfth time, fluffing pillows that would never hold the shape of a child’s head again. Sir Hiss’s hologram flickered on a shelf, its programming stuck in a loop: mrrp, mrrp, mrrp. Lyrin’s spores, once vibrant gold, now hung like ash in the air. “He would hate this,” Lyrin muttered, adjusting a nebula-orchid in a corner. “The… the orderliness.” Veyth observed from the doorway, neural cables jacked into the ship’s core. “Disorder is inefficient,” he said, but the words lacked conviction. Lyrin spun, tendril-hair lashing. “You pruned his chaos! Even the AI mourns!” As if summoned, the ship’s hum shifted—a dissonant chord in C-sharp minor. Veyth’s ocular lenses narrowed. “The AI is code. It does not mourn.” “Liar,” Lyrin whispered. The bridge was a tomb of light. Star maps holographized the void, Earth a receding pinprick in the scarlet smear of warped space. Lyrin floated to the console, fingers trembling over the navigation array. “If we decelerate—” Veyth’s claw slammed the interface dead. “No.” “But the monitor shows he’s—” “The monitor is irrelevant.” The lie hissed through Veyth’s vocalizer. He’d left the feed running in a hidden partition, Sam’s vitals flickering in his periphery—heart rate elevated during nightmares, steady when the boy clutched the teddy bear. Lyrin’s spores darkened. “You grieve too. I sssee it—your cables coil tighter when his voice replays.” Veyth turned, exoskeleton grinding. “Return to your gardens. Cultivate. Heal.” “There is no healing,” Lyrin said, drifting away. “Only… pruning.” Nights were the worst. The pair retired to their shared chamber a space as divided as their souls. Lyrin’s side bloomed with bioluminescent moss, its glow sickly and dim. Veyth’s quadrant housed a charging slab, its surface scarred by centuries of use. They hovered in the gulf between, the silence thick with unsaid things. Lyrin broke first. “Do you think he… he asks for us?” Veyth’s ocular lenses flickered to the hidden feed of Sam curled on a too-thin cot, Sir Hiss now gone. “No.” The empath’s tendril brushed a petal from the teddy bear’s replica Lyrin had crafted. “I should have left more spores. To… to guard his dreams.” “Spores decay,” Veyth said, too harshly. “As do fantasies.” Lyrin’s light guttered. “You are cruel!” “I am practical.” Veyth’s hypocrisy festered. In stolen moments, he replayed data logs: Sam’s rare laughter during bath time, the boy’s head resting against his exoskeleton as he drowsed mid-story. The sentinel dissected these memories like a scientist, searching for the moment his logic had fractured. The Fractured Wars, he’d once lectured, teach us that division begets collapse. Yet here he was—divided from Lyrin, from himself. He found Lyrin in the hydroponics bay, singing to a wilting star-blossom. “We should visit Oshara,” Veyth said abruptly. “Your home nebula.” Lyrin stiffened. “Why?” “You require… familial resonance.” “You require absolution.” The flower crumpled in Lyrin’s grip. The journey to Oshara was a silent siege. Lyrin tended his gardens with robotic precision, their vibrancy leaching daily. Veyth monitored Sam’s feed obsessively, noting the boy’s alliance with a foster sibling—a girl with Micah’s hollow eyes. He bonds, Veyth observed, unease coiling his cables. He adapts. Jealousy, hot and illogical, flared. On the eve of their arrival, Veyth found Lyrin in the nursery-pod. The empath had reactivated Sir Hiss’s hologram, its pixelated form nuzzling empty air. “Delete it,” Veyth ordered. “No.” “It is a glitch.” Lyrin whirled, spores erupting in a corona of grief. “You are the glitch! Your protocols, your distance! You broke him! Broke us!” Veyth’s exoskeleton flared violet. “I preserved us.” “Preserved?” Lyrin laughed, a sound like shattering crystal. “Look at you... hunched over his memories like a scavenger droid. You crave his chaos too!” The accusation hung between them, undeniable. Veyth fled to the armory, where Sam’s scent still lingered in the shut-down and sealed vents. Oshara’s nebula loomed a whirlpool of amethyst and emerald, its song a chorus of pulsing stars. Lyrin drifted to the viewport, tendrils limp. “It is… diminished.” “All things diminish,” Veyth said, watching Sam’s feed. The boy pressed the teddy bear’s third eye, a habit he’d developed during nightmares. Hypothesis: Some algorithms deserve recursion. The ship pierced the nebula’s heart. Lyrin’s family signals pinged a thousand empath songs, none his own. “I do not belong here any more...” Lyrin whispered. Veyth’s claws flexed. “Nor I.” They lingered at the threshold, the nebula’s light refracting through their fractures. That night, Lyrin curled against Veyth’s chassis, a mimicry of intimacy. The sentinel’s neural cables twined with the empath’s tendrils, data and grief merging in the dark. “We should have kept him,” Lyrin murmured. Veyth said nothing. On the feed, Sam cried a sound the ship’s archives had captured. Chapter 12The Void’s Lullaby The foster facility breathed in sighs and flickering fluorescents. Peeling walls the color of curdled milk, floors sticky with old juice and unspoken resentments. Bunk beds stacked like cages, thin mattresses sagging under the weight of children no one wanted. Sam’s corner was the coldest—near the drafty window where November gnawed through the glass. He kept the teddy bear clutched to his chest, its third eye a dormant star, its stitches fraying where he’d worried them raw. The other kids called him Spacecase. “Where’s your UFO, Spacecase?” sneered Jaden, twelve years old with knuckles scarred from basement fights. He’d cornered Sam by the lockers, breath reeking of stolen cough syrup. “Gonna beam me up?” Sam pressed the bear tighter. “It’s not a UFO. It was a ship. They had gardens… and stories…” Jaden snatched the bear. “They had diapers for crybabies?” The world tunneled. Sam’s lungs seized Veyth’s claws adjusting straps, Lyrin’s spores sweetening the air, Sir Hiss purring against his ankles. Now only the locker’s metallic stench, Jaden’s laugh sharp as a syringe. “Give it back!” Sam lunged, but Jaden shoved him hard. His skull cracked against tile. A caregiver’s bark cut through the haze. “Enough! Sam, stop causing trouble!” They didn’t let him keep the bear in the therapy office. Dr. Ruiz’s clipboard tapped a jaunty rhythm. “Let’s talk about these aliens, Sam.” The room smelled of lemon sanitizer and lies. Sam traced the bracelet on his wrist—starlight strands dulled by grime. “They weren’t aliens. Not… not like movies.” “Mm-hmm.” Dr. Ruiz didn’t look up. “And they… regressed you? From an adult to this? Fed you bottles?” Sam’s face burned. The diaper beneath his sweatpants crinkled. Lyrin’s hands, impossibly gentle. Veyth’s gravitic field steadying him. “They thought I was broken. They tried to fix me.” “And now you’re here.” Dr. Ruiz’s smile was a scalpel. “Safe.” Safe. The word curdled. Safe was midnight tears, muffled into a pillow reeking of bleach. Safe was caregivers sighing as they stripped his soiled sheets. “Again? You’re ten, Sam.” Nights were harsh and painful. The bear’s third eye glinted under his thumb. Press it. Press it. Veyth’s voice, static-laced: “Query: Do you require assistance?” Sam pressed until his nail cracked. Silence. He wet the bed twice that week. “You’re too old for this,” hissed Ms. Dora, yanking the sheets. “What’s wrong with you?” C-sharp minor. The ship’s hum. Lyrin’s lullaby. The void where comfort should be. Sam rocked, arms wrapped around knees. “I want to go home.” Ms. Dora snorted. “You are home stu... sweetheart.” Jaden found the bracelet in the shower room. “Space jewelry?” He dangled it over a drain. “Bet it’s worth nothin’.” Sam’s scream was silent, a fracture in his heart. He scrabbled at Jaden’s fists, but the older boy laughed, snapping the starlight strands. Beads clattered into the drain. Sam’s knees buckled. The tiles were cold. The water was colder. They found him catatonic under the spray, fingers bleeding from digging at the grate. “Shock,” the nurse said, injecting something icy into his arm. “Probably schizoid. We’ll up his meds.” Sam’s head lolled. Veyth’s stories, Lyrin’s gardens, Sir Hiss’s weight. All draining now, swirling into the dark. He closed his eyes. The void hummed no lullabies. The girl’s name was Elise. She appeared one frostbitten morning, her sneakers duct-taped at the soles and her eyes hollowed by a hunger that had nothing to do with food. They’d found her sleeping in a laundromat, they said. Troubled, they said. Sam saw Micah in the way she picked at her cuticles, in the tremor of her hands when the caregivers raised their voices. She claimed the bunk beneath his. At night, her breathing hitched in the same jagged rhythm as Micah’s had—a sound like a knife scraping bone. Sam would clutch the teddy bear, its third eye cold and silent, and pretend not to hear her crying. “You talk to aliens,” she said one afternoon, cornering him in the dusty library nook. Her voice was a ghost of Micah’s, frayed at the edges. Sam stiffened, hugging the bear tighter. “They weren’t aliens.” “Jaden says you’re crazy.” She leaned in, her breath sour, her pupils dilated. “But I think you saw something.” He shouldn’t have trusted her. But her hollow eyes mirrored his own, and the loneliness was a vise. “They had… gardens,” he whispered. “And stories. They tried to fix me.” Elise’s chapped lips curled. “Nobody fixes us.” She started following him to meals, to the yard, to the cracked sink where he scrubbed soiled sheets. She said nothing, just lingered, a shadow with Micah’s laugh. Sam hated how her presence unspooled him, how her silence felt like a question he couldn’t answer. One night, she crawled into his bunk, her ribs sharp against his arm. “They’re giving me pills,” she said. “Make me sleep. But I don’t wanna sleep.” Sam stared at the water-stained ceiling. “Sleep’s where the nightmares are.” “You’re not scared of anything,” she murmured, fingers brushing the teddy bear. He almost laughed. The theft happened on a Tuesday. Elise found him in the laundry room, her pupils blown wide, hands shaking. “They’re gonna send me away. To the bad place. You gotta help me.” Sam hesitated. “How?” She pressed a key into his palm stolen, still warm. “The med closet. Just… grab the blue bottles. Please.” He shouldn’t have. But her hollow eyes glistened, and Micah’s ghost whispered, You owe me. The closet creaked open, revealing rows of orange bottles. Sam’s fingers closed around a blue one Xanax, the label said. Elise’s breath hitched behind him. “Got it,” he muttered, turning. The hallway lights blazed on. “Caught you,” Jaden sneered, phone camera flashing. Elise backed away, her face a mask of tears. “I told you not to do it, Sam!” The caregiver’s grip was iron. Sam dropped the bottle, the pills scattering like broken stars. They stripped his bunk tore the teddy bear from his arms. Dr. Ruiz’s smile was a devouring. “Stealing meds? That’s a new low, Sam.” Sam rocked, mute, Elise’s sobs echoing down the hall. She set you up, he told himself. Just like Micah. But the truth curdled deeper: he’d wanted to believe her. Needed to. Ms. Dora slapped a fresh diaper on his bed. “You’ll wear this ’til we trust you again. If we do.” That night, Sam lay in the dark, urine soaking the mattress, Jaden’s laughter seeping through the walls. Elise’s bunk was empty. They’d taken her at dawn. He pressed the teddy bear’s third eye until his thumb bled. Static. No voice. No rescue. Chapter 13 Glitch in the System The caves of Oshara breathed. Bioluminescent moss pulsed across cavern walls in rhythms older than stars, their light pooling in the hollows of Lyrin’s childhood home. His mother’s tendrils lashed the air as she hovered over Veyth, her voice a shard of ice. “You dared bring him back like this? Hollowed out? Dimmed?” Veyth stood motionless, exoskeleton blending with the shadows. “He required familial resonance.” “Resonance?” Lyrin’s father boomed, his massive form coiled in a nest of singing lichen. His voice vibrated the cavern floor, a bass note that made the moss recoil. “You hollowed his song.” He began to hum, deep and mournful, the melody weaving through the caves like a dirge: “Tendrils once bright, now ash in the void, A star-child’s light, by cold hands destroyed…” Lyrin flinched. “Father, stop. It wasn’t his fault..” “Wasn’t it?” His mother whirled, her opalescent skin mottled with rage. “You left with this… this machine, and return a ghost! His kind knows only taking. Upgrades. Efficiency. They don’t love—” “He tried!” Lyrin’s spores burst in a defensive cloud, their gold tinged with grief. “We both did! The little star.. Sam.. he… he needed us. We failed him.” Veyth’s ocular lenses flickered. The cave’s organic warmth clashed with his metallic chill. “The human is irrelevant now.” “Irrelevant?” Lyrin’s tendril snapped toward him. “You watch his feed nightly. You ache.” A beat of silence. The lichen’s song swelled, accusatory. Lyrin’s mother hissed. “You still monitor the creature?” “He is a.. variable,” Veyth said stiffly. “A variable?” She surged forward, bioluminescence flaring. “Your variables broke, my son! Your logic stripped his light! Go back to your void, machine. We’ll mend what you cracked.” Veyth’s claws retracted with a metallic snick. “Lyrin is not a circuit to be mended.” “And you’re not a father!” Her scream echoed, fracturing the lichen’s hymn. Lyrin recoiled. “Mother!” “No.” She rounded on him. “You defend him? After he let them erase your star-child? After he let you grieve?” “Sam wasn’t erased!” The lie tore from Lyrin, raw and desperate. “He’s… he’s safe now. We gave him a choice.” “A choice?” His father’s laugh rumbled, dislodging moss. “You sound like him. Cold. Distant.” Veyth’s neural cables twitched. “This is inefficient. I will… reconfigure the ship.” He turned to leave. “Wait.” Lyrin caught his wrist, spores instinctively seeking the seams of his exoskeleton. “Don’t go. Not… not yet.” Veyth stilled. Somewhere in his chassis, a cooling fan stuttered. Three cycles passed. Three cycles of Lyrin’s mother glaring at Veyth through mealtimes, her lichen-plates clattering like knives. Three cycles of his father’s bass-heavy laments shaking the caves: “Oh, starling lost, to darkness thrall, Who clipped your wings? Who dimmed your call?” On the fourth cycle, the teddy bear’s signal vanished. Veyth stood abruptly in the middle of a meal. “I require the black markets. Upgrades.” Lyrin’s mother scoffed. “Of course. Your kind always needs upgrades. Why not upgrade your soul?” “Mother! Enough.. Please.” Lyrin’s spores paled. Veyth ignored her, ocular lenses fixed on Lyrin. “The journey will take 1.7 cycles. You will… stay. Heal.” Lyrin’s tendril coiled tight. “You’re leaving? Now?” “Affirmative.” “Why?” Veyth’s exoskeleton hummed. “The ship’s neural core is suboptimal.” “Liar.” Lyrin floated closer, voice dropping. “The bear’s signal failed. You’re going to him.” A pause. The lichen held its breath. “Irrelevant,” Veyth said. Lyrin’s mother laughed, brittle. “Pathetic. You can’t even admit you care.” Veyth turned to leave. “Care is a miscalibration.” “Then recalibrate!” Lyrin’s cry echoed through the caves. Veyth paused at the threshold, backlit by the ship’s sterile glow. “I am.” The argument chased him to the docking bay. Lyrin’s father blocked his path, massive form vibrating with subsonic fury. “You fracture him further, machine. I’ll end you.” Veyth’s claws flexed. “You lack the capacity.” “Try me.” “Father!” Lyrin darted between them, spores flaring gold. “Let him go.” His father’s tendrils quivered. “You still choose him?” Lyrin’s light dimmed. “I… I don’t know.” Veyth boarded the ship without farewells. As the engines roared, Lyrin’s mother hurled a final curse: “Rust in the void, machine!” The caves shrank below, their song swallowed by the cosmos. Alone in the neural interface, Veyth replayed Sam’s final transmission—a scream, static, then silence. He opened a encrypted file, its contents forbidden: Sam’s laughter. His head against Veyth’s chassis. Sir Hiss’s purr. “Glitch in the system,” Veyth muttered, plotting a course to Earth. The ship hummed in C-sharp minor. Somewhere in the dark, Lyrin’s father sang: “Foolish machine, with heart of stone, You’ll carve your grave in flesh not your own…” The ship’s corridors grew dimmer the farther Veyth drifted from Oshara, its bioluminescent veins throttled by some unseen, suffocating grief. The central sphere’s rotation slowed, gears grinding as if weighted by the void itself. Only the crimson glow of Veyth’s ocular lenses pierced the darkness, twin embers in a tomb of shadows. He sat motionless on the bridge, the holographic interface casting jagged reflections across his exoskeleton. Sam’s footage played on loop a grainy projection of the boy’s laughter as Veyth recounted the Fractured Wars. The sentinel’s claws hovered over the playback controls, pausing at the moment Lyrin had interjected, spores shimmering with mischief. “Veyth omits they merged in the event horizon! A hive-mind of sorrow and rage!” Sam’s grin, bright and unguarded, as he flicked bathwater at Veyth. “Bet you can’t blush!” Now, the silence was a vacuum. Veyth re-ran the data, parsing vocal inflections, biometric spikes, the dilation of Sam’s pupils. Hypothesis: The human derived pleasure from social bonding. But the numbers bled into noise. He cross-referenced Lyrin’s spores’ frequency during the interaction gold, warm, resonant. Without them, the footage felt… hollow. A symphony stripped of its baseline. The ship’s hum deepened, C-sharp minor warping into dissonance. Veyth’s cooling fans stuttered. He found himself in their chamber hours later, drawn by a subroutine he couldn’t name. Lyrin’s side of the room still pulsed faintly, star-blossoms wilted but clinging to life in their hydroponic beds. Their scent sweet, narcotic clashed with the sterile bite of Veyth’s half. The empath’s sleeping pod remained as he’d left it: moss-lined, scattered with mood stones that stored emotions Lyrin had deemed too fragile to carry. Veyth hovered at the threshold, neural cables twitching. Irrelevant, he told himself. Organic sentimentality. Yet his chassis lowered onto the pod’s edge, its surface still indented with Lyrin’s shape. A star-petal clung to the fabric iridescent, brittle. Veyth crushed it absently, the dust staining his claws. The terminal beneath on Veyths side of the room lit up on his thinking. Blinking, calling from the ships AI. A file, long encrypted, flickered to life at Veyth’s proximity: FIRST CONTACT. ENCRYPTION LEVEL: OMEGA. He shouldn’t. He did. The hologram flared a blur of light and shadow, the edges of a memory Veyth had buried under firewalls. He severed the feed before it resolved, but not fast enough. A ghost of Lyrin’s voice lingered, bright and unbroken: “You are not just metal. I ssssee the pulse beneath.” He shut off the terminal, but the words looped, corrosive. Pulse beneath. Pulse beneath. Sir Hiss’s hologram materialized in the doorway, glitching. Mrrrow? “Delete,” Veyth ordered. The cat flickered, persistent. Outside, the void offered no counsel. In the armory, Veyth dismantled a vacuum energy cell with excessive force. Sparks hissed against his exoskeleton, leaving scorch marks he’d later buff out. The teddy bear’s dead signal gnawed at his processors, a corrupted algorithm. Query: Why retrieve the human? Answer: Hypothesis incomplete. Query: Why risk Lyrin’s ire? Answer: Irrelevant... Query: Why retrieve the human? Answer: Hypothesis incomplete. Query: Why risk Lyrin’s ire? Answer: Irrelevant.Query: Why retrieve the human? Answer: Hypothesis incomplete. Query: Why risk Lyrin’s ire? Answer: Irrelevant!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The coil snapped. He dropped the broken parts on the table and stalked out. Holographic cat in tow. Hypothesis: Glitch in the system. The ship shuddered, rerouting power to engines now charting a course back to Earth. Veyth didn’t remember inputting the new coordinates. Worthless AI. But the stars bent toward Sol, and the hum steadied—C-sharp minor, resolve. Chapter 14 Collapsing Heart The caves of Oshara exhaled. Bioluminescent moss sighed along the walls, their rhythmic pulses syncing with the distant violet pulsar that crowned the horizon. Lyrin sat at the cavern’s mouth, tendrils limp, staring at the star-scarred sky. His robes once radiant as the sacred lichen hung dull and frayed, their opalescence smothered under the weight of absence. Veyth’s silence. Sam’s erased laughter. The void between stars felt thinner than the space between his plant body's cell walls. Footsteps vibrated through the stone, deep and resonant. Lyrin didn’t turn. “You haunt this ledge like a wraith,” his father rumbled, settling beside him. The elder empath’s massive frame blocked the pulsar’s light, casting Lyrin in shadow. “The caves whisper your sorrow. Even the mites flee it.” Lyrin’s spores drifted listlessly. “Let them flee. Sorrow is all I am now.” His father grunted, plucking a shard of glowstone from the ground. “You blame yourself. For the metal-man. For the star-child.” “I failed them.” The confession tore free, raw. “Veyth… he tried to protect me like he always does... And I let anger blind me. Now Sam—” “The human is gone,” his father interrupted, crushing the glowstone to dust. “But the machine… he returns.” Lyrin stiffened and stared in confusion at his father. “You hate him.” “Hate?” His father’s laugh shook the moss. “Hate is a song for simpler souls. I dislike his coldness. His arrogance.” He leaned closer, the bass of his voice softening as he hugged Lyrin. “But he brought you home once. Half-dead from the void’s bite, your light guttering… yet he carried you gently. A machine does not gentle.” Lyrin’s tendrils coiled in embarrassment. “You never told me.” “Would you have listened?” His father opened his palm, releasing the glowstone dust into the wind. “You were aflame with him. But I watched. A machine who forcibly defies logic for you… that is a power beyond hate.” The pulsar’s light crested the horizon, staining the caves violet. Lyrin’s mother’s voice echoed from within, singing the Evening Weave a hymn of roots and resonance. “He left me,” Lyrin whispered. “And returns.” His father stood, joints creaking. “He is… flawed. As are you. But even old flawed things can grow.” Lyrin stared at his hands, where Sam’s tiny fingers had once clutched them. “What if he doesn’t?” His father’s shadow engulfed him, warm and heavy. “Then you root here. In the light. In us.” The moss pulsed. The caves hummed. Lyrin wept. His father stayed, a silent monolith, until the pulsar dipped below the edge of the world and the stars sang their cold, familiar hymns. Later, in the heart of the caves, Lyrin pressed his brow to the mood stone embedded in the sacred lichen. Its resonance flickered a fragment of Sam’s laughter, a shard of Veyth’s synthetic graveled baritone. He almost smiled. The stone held its secrets. The void held its ghosts. But here, in the dark, his father’s faith glowed faintly, a pilot light in the crushing night. Chapter 15 Little Star in the Night The woods swallowed him whole. Rain needled through the canopy, turning the forest floor to a slurry of mud and rotting leaves. Sam stumbled, barefoot and shivering, his threadbare shirt plastered to his skin like a second layer of filth. Two days. Two days since he’d bolted from the foster home’s chain-link fence, the teddy bear clutched to his chest and a scream lodged in his throat. Now the scream had curdled to silence, and the bear hung limp in his grip, its third eye dull as a dead star. He’d ripped off the diaper hours ago, the sodden thing dragging like an anchor. His legs were scraped raw from brambles, his toes numb. Stupid, he thought, kicking a rotten log. Stupid to think you could run. Stupid to think they were real. The bear slipped from his hands as he tripped, landing face-first in the muck. Sam lay there, rain sluicing down his neck, and laughed—a cracked, broken sound. “Hallucinations,” he spat, mud filling his mouth. “You’re crazy. They’re all right.” He scrabbled for the bear, fingers clawing through the sludge. Its fur was matted, one eye missing, but he pressed the third eye anyway, jamming his thumb into it until the joint ached. Static. “Answer!” Sam screamed, shaking it. “You said—you promised—!” Nothing. Just the hiss of rain, the creak of pines. Somewhere, a branch snapped. Sam froze. Veyth’s voice, cold but steady when he was telling a story of hunting monsters on a lost moon: “Predators stalk the vulnerable.” “Shut up,” Sam whispered. But the woods hissed and howled back. Night fell like a shroud. Sam crawled into the hollow of a lightning-split oak, its innards rotted and teeming with beetles. He curled tight, the bear wedged under his chin, and tried to remember the ship’s hum—C-sharp minor, Lyrin’s lullaby. But all he heard was the drip of rainwater, the skitter of legs over wood. The echos still rang in his head..."Hypothesis: You are broken." He’d read the reports. Dr. Ruiz’s neat, looping script: Delusional attachment to fabricated narratives. Regression indicative of severe trauma. They’d shown him inkblots, and he’d seen Veyth’s claws in the smears. They’d played white noise, and he’d heard Lyrin’s spores singing. You’re sick, the caregivers said. You need help. Sam dug his nails into his arms. “Not real. Not real. Not real.” The bear’s dead eye stared back. He dreamed in fragments. Lyrin’s hands, warm and glowing, wiping his tears. “Little star, you shine so bright.” Veyth’s gravitic field, cradling him during warp storms. “Sleep. I will stabilize the vessel.” Sir Hiss, purring as Sam fed him nebula-jelly scraps. Sam woke choking on a sob. Rainwater pooled in the hollow, soaking through his shirt. His teeth chattered. The bear was gone. Panic spiked! He lunged, groping blindly, and found it wedged in a crevice. The third eye flickered. Once.... Just once more.... please.... Sam’s breath hitched. He pressed it, hands shaking. Flicker. A hologram sputtered. Veyth’s cold faceplate, fragmented and glitching. “Q-quer—” The image died. Sam slammed the bear against the tree. “Liar!” Wood splintered. The bear’s seam split, spilling out wires and a tiny, crystalline core. Sam stared at the shard a sliver of Lyrin’s garden, still faintly glowing. He hurled it into the dark. Dawn came gray, wet,and hollow. Sam crawled from the tree, muscles stiff, skin mottled with insect bites. The crystal shard lay in the mud, its light smothered. He left it there. The woods blurred oaks became pines became thickets. Sam walked. Walked until his feet bled. Walked until the foster home, the pills, the hollow-eyed stares of kids like Elise melted into the drizzle. You’re nothing, the rain whispered. You’re no one’s star. He fell to his knees, mud seeping into his wounds. The bear lay abandoned somewhere behind him. Sam tilted his face to the sky and screamed at the aliens who’d left him, at the void that didn’t answer, at the self that couldn’t remember if he’d ever been whole. In the two chances he was given. The scream dissolved into the storm. Somewhere, light-years away, a ship’s engine flared. Chapter 16 Convergence of Shadows and Light The ship tore through the fabric of space, its obsidian hull rippling with the strain of velocities that bent reality into smears of starlight. Within the command throne’s cold embrace, Veyth sat motionless, his crimson eyes the only embers in the dark. Around him, holographic readouts flickered a cacophony of data streams, damage reports, and the ceaseless ping of Sam’s last known coordinates where they left him at the home. The teddy bear’s fractured signal had long gone silent, but Veyth’s claws hovered over the console, replaying the final moments of static as if they might reassemble into a voice. Hypothesis: The human perished. Rebuttal: Irrelevant. Retrieve the remains. Hypothesis: The human perished. Rebuttal: Irrelevant. Retrieve the remains. Hypothesis: The human perished. Rebuttal: Irrelevant!!! STOP! The ship shuddered, its neural core protesting the strain. Veyth rerouted power from nonessential systems life support, gravity simulators until the air grew thin and the corridors hummed with the ache of vacuum. He did not need to breath or move. He needed velocity. A proximity alert blared. The viewport shimmered, reality blurring at the edges as the ship grazed the event horizon of a nameless black hole. Veyth did not alter course. Let spacetime fracture. The void will not claim him. Sam’s coordinates pulsed brighter, a siren call in the dark. Light-years away, Lyrin knelt in a field of bioluminescent moss, his opalescent robes pooling around him like liquid starlight. The air thrummed with the gentle pulse of a thousand tiny jellies translucent, gelatinous creatures that floated between towering flowers, their tendrils brushing petals that chimed like glass. Above, the violet pulsar of his home world had faded, replaced by the cold blue glare of an alien sun. The crystal in his palm shimmered faintly, a shard of the mood stone he split with Veyth. It held no songs now, only echoes flickers of Sam’s laughter, the graveled timbre of Veyth’s voice. Lyrin’s tendrils trembled as he clutched it. “Why did you leave us?” he whispered, not to the crystal, but to the emptiness between stars. A jelly creature drifted near, its body refracting the light into prismatic tears. It hovered, curious, before alighting on his knee. Lyrin did not sing to it. His spores, once gold and eager, hung gray and listless in the air. His father’s words returned, unbidden: “Flawed things grow.” But growth required roots, and Lyrin had severed his for the man of metal. The ship’s alarms screamed. Veyth ignored them. Ahead, Earth’s solar system sprawled a fragile nest of planets clinging to a mediocre yellow star. The ship’s scanners parsed the third planet: forests, oceans, a blip of heat signatures in a region once labeled “Pacific Northwest.” Probability of human survival: 0.3%. Veyth’s claws flexed. Margin of error: Unaccep.... Unaccep..X: Acceptable He opened a channel to through the void. The crystal flared in his cold grasp. Lyrin gasped, nearly dropping it as the shard erupted in fractured light. A hologram sputtered, jagged, glitching but the voice was unmistakable. “Lyrin. The human’s coordinates. Transmit.” "Veyth...." Lyrin’s spores ignited, gold and furious. “You abandoned us! You left me to—” “Transmit. Now.” The crystal shuddered, its light coalescing into numbers, vectors, a planetary grid. Earth. Sam’s last heartbeat, trapped in data of a song from a stone. Lyrin’s anger crumbled. “Bring him home...” The hologram dissolved. Veyth’s ship breached Earth’s atmosphere in a hail of fire, its hull screaming against the crude embrace of gravity. Below, the woods sprawled a tapestry of green and shadow. Life sign detected: 72 hours stale. Margin of error: negligible. The stealthed ship landed, crushing pines beneath its bulk. Veyth emerged, exoskeleton steaming in the rain. Somewhere in the dark, a child’s whimper echoed. Lyrin stood, the jellies scattering as his robes flared with renewed light. The crystal’s pulse synced to his own, a beacon in the night. He lifted his face to the stars and sang a single, piercing note that shattered the stillness. Around him, the flowers chimed, the jellies swirled, and the crystal blazed like a star rekindled. Rain fell in sheets, turning the forest into a labyrinth of shadows and silver. Somewhere in the dark, it moved. Trees splintered. Bark shredded under claws that glinted like forged obsidian. Veyth’s exoskeleton drank the moonlight, a living void slicing through the undergrowth. His gravitic field bent the rain around him, droplets hissing into steam as they struck his chassis. He did not breathe. Did not blink. The human’s scent lingered blood, sweat, the sour tang of despair. Close. He followed the trail of broken ferns, snapped twigs, the occasional fleck of dried blood smeared on lichen. The boy was careless. Weak. Mortal. Veyth’s claws flexed. Sam crawled. His knees were raw, his palms split from grasping roots and rocks. The rain had washed the mud from his face, but not the blood. It seeped from a gash above his eyebrow, mingling with the tears he refused to acknowledge. He didn’t remember passing out. Didn’t remember waking. Only the need to move forward, always forward, even as his legs trembled and his vision swam. Just like the bus station. He’d been five then, teddy bear clutched to his chest, watching taillights vanish in the rain. They always leave. A sob hitched in his throat. He bit his tongue until copper flooded his mouth. Silent. Be silent. But the woods knew. Branches clawed at his arms. Stones bit his feet. The foster homes had been kinder. At least their walls held. Veyth paused, crimson eyes narrowing. The human’s trail veered sharply east, toward a river snarling with runoff. Foolish. The current would swallow him whole. Hypothesis: Self-termination attempt. Veyth’s neural core stuttered. He crushed the thought, surging forward. A tree trunk splintered under his momentum. Sam reached the riverbank, swaying on his feet. The water roared, black and hungry. Jump, it seemed to hiss. End it. You are broken. He’d tried once before. Age thirteen, foster brother’s pills clutched in his fist. Swallowed them dry. Woke to IVs and a Dr. standing over him with pity. “You’re lucky we got to you in time kid.” He wasn’t lucky. He was cursed. The river beckoned. Behind him, a branch snapped. Sam turned. Veyth froze. The boy stood silhouetted against the void, shirt torn, ribs heaving. Alive. Furious. Sam’s eyes pale blue, ringed with bruises locked onto Veyth’s. No fear. Only defiance, sharp as a plasma blade. “You.” The word was a rasp, a curse. “Not real.” Veyth stepped forward, claws retracting. “I am.” Sam stumbled back, foot skidding on the slick bank. “Liar! Hallucination! Crazy—” The river took him. Veyth moved. Gravity bent. Time fractured. He plunged into the current, exoskeleton screeching against boulders. The human’s body tumbled ahead, limp as the teddy bear he’d abandoned. Margin of error: zero. Veyth’s claws closed around Sam’s wrist. The boy fought, thrashing, sinking teeth into metal. “Let me die!” “No.” Veyth dragged him ashore, pinning him to the mud. Sam’s fists battered his chassis, weak, desperate. “Why? Why?” Veyth’s ocular lenses dimmed. “You… matter.” The word hung between them, alien and fragile. Sam stilled, breath hitching. “Liar.” But the river raged on, and the monster did not let go. Chapter 17 The Storm and the Static Rain slashed sideways, needling Sam’s skin as Veyth carried him through the tempest, his claws clamped like iron bands around the boy’s thrashing limbs. The forest blurred into a smear of charcoal and emerald, trees bowing under the weight of the storm. Sam writhed, fists hammering against the sentinel’s exoskeleton, voice raw as stripped wire. “Let me go! You’re not—augh!—not real! Just another fucking dream!” Veyth adjusted his grip, indifferent to the blows. “Negative. My chassis registers your strikes at 2.7 human newtons. Insufficient to qualify as a dream.” “Monster!” Sam spat, trying to bite teeth sliding against Veyth’s forearm. The metal tasted of ozone and static, nothing like the warmth he’d hallucinated. “Affirmative,” Veyth replied, unfazed. “But your monster.” The words, borrowed from Lyrin’s lexicon, hung awkwardly in the air. Sam froze, then redoubled his frenzy, kicking at the sentinel’s joints. “I hate you! You left me! Everyone leaves!” Veyth’s gait didn’t falter. “Illogical. I am here. Lyrin is waiting.” Memory File: Initial Containment Cycle 02. Human subject exhibits hostility. Gravitic restraints recommended. But Veyth hadn’t used restraints then, either. Sam had been all teeth and venom, hurling nutrient gel and curses. “Fuck your space bullshit you fucking toaster!” Veyth had stood sentinel, neural cables parsing the boy’s vitals elevated cortisol, accelerated heart rate, tear duct activation. “Cease resistance. Nourishment is essential.” “Bite me!” Now, months later, the script repeated. But the sentinel’s processors hummed with an unfamiliar variable: satisfaction. The ship loomed ahead, an obsidian monolith crushing saplings under its bulk. Veyth shouldered through the pelting rain, Sam’s insults devolving into slurred, hiccuping sobs. “N-not real… can’t be… liar…” Veyth paused at the airlock, rain sluicing off his chassis. “Why do you reject verifiable reality?” Sam’s head lolled, exhaustion etching cracks in his fury. “Reality sucks.” The sentinel’s ocular lenses dimmed. “Agreed.” Inside, the ship’s sterile glow sharpened Sam’s hollowness sunken cheeks, bruises blooming like ink spills, feet caked in mud and blood. Veyth deposited him on a med-pad, claws retracting. “Remain stationary. Hygiene protocols will commence.” “No!” Sam scrambled backward, spine hitting the wall. “Don’t, don’t touch me!” Veyth tilted his head, accessing fragmented files of Lyrin’s methods. “Softness. Patience.” He extruded a gravitic field, immobilizing Sam without contact. “Resistance is counterproductive.” “H-hate y-you…” “Unlikely. You require care. Lyrin is not here. Accept.” The sanitizer beam stripped away grime and blood, stinging Sam’s wounds. He hissed, tears mingling with the spray. Veyth observed, neural core partitioning focus: Task 01: Disinfect lacerations (87% complete). Task 02: Monitor psychological volatility (critical). Task 03: Suppress irrational satisfaction at subject’s vitality (failed). Task 04: Bathe and sleep. Sam’s voice frayed to a whisper as he was put into a warm tub. “Why… why’d you come back?” Veyth loaded the least illogical response. “You… matter.” He spoke while gently scrubbing the boy with the flowery soap Lyrin left on the ship. The boy laughed, brittle. “To who?” The sentinel’s cooling fans stalled. To Lyrin. To the cat. To me. He said none of it. But gave gentle to pat to his head. Later, swaddled in a plant sheet, Sam stared at the ceiling’s nebula projection. Veyth stood sentinel, a statue of shadow and crimson eyes over his crib. “Still… not real,” Sam mumbled, drifting to sleep. “Just… crazy…” Veyth replayed the boy’s heartbeat—72 BPM, steady and opened an encrypted channel to the void. Transmission to Lyrin: “Asset recovered. Vital signs stable.” No reply. But the ship hummed softer, C-sharp bending toward D-minor a key Lyrin once called “hope-adjacent.” Sam slept. Veyth did not. Chapter 18: Bloom The ship’s corridors, once cold and sterile, pulsed with color. Bioluminescent vines spiraled across the ceilings, their petals unfurling in riotous purples and golds. Lyrin’s gardens, dormant for cycles, now thrived with reckless abandon—moss crept over consoles, flowers burst from ventilation shafts, and the air hummed with the nectar-sweet scent of alien lavender. Even the moss on the floors softened underfoot, yielding to more velvety lichen that glowed with every step. Veyth monitored the overgrowth without complaint. Sam slept. Curled in the moss-lined crib Lyrin had woven lifetimes ago, the boy lay swaddled in a blanket of iridescent threads harvested from the ship’s oldest star-blossoms. The fabric shimmered with every rise and fall of his chest, casting prismatic light over Sir Hiss, who sprawled atop Sam’s legs, purring like a well-oiled engine. The cat had been retrieved from the Gas’N’Go’s ruins singed, surly, and inexplicably alive. By Veyth while Sam slept. Veyth stood sentinel at the nursery threshold, replaying Lyrin’s latest transmission. Lyrin’s Chambers, Oshara The hologram flickered to life, Lyrin’s opalescent skin flushed frantic pink. “Proof!” they demanded, tendrils lashing. “You sssaid he’s alive—show me!” Silently, Veyth patched through the nursery feed. Lyrin froze. There, in the crib, Sam sighed in his sleep, thumb grazing his parted lips. Sir Hiss’s tail flicked, batting at a floating spore. “Oh,” Lyrin whispered. A tear of liquid light slid down their cheek. “Oh, little star…” Veyth’s ocular lenses narrowed. “Query: Is your luminosity increasing?” Lyrin’s laugh chimed through the ship’s speakers, sharp and bright. “When? When do you return?” “3.2 cycles.” “Three cycles?!” Lyrin’s spores erupted in a supernova burst. “Make it two! One!” “Impossible. The human requires stabilization.” Lyrin leaned closer, their holographic image pixelating with intensity. “Stabilize faster!” Inside his parents cave Lyrin’s parents looked up as their son streaked into the cavern, bioluminescence blazing like a comet. “He’s alive!” Lyrin trilled, tendrils fanning in jubilation. “The little star! Veyth found him! They return in three cycles!” His mother’s lichen-plates clattered in disapproval. “Three cycles? That machine drags his claws.” His father’s subsonic chuckle shook the moss. “Told you he’d return.” Lyrin spun, robes flaring. “You doubted?” “Doubted? No.” His mother sniffed. “Resented? Profoundly.” But her spores betrayed her soft gold, rippling with reluctant relief. Aboard the ship, Veyth adjusted Sam’s blanket, claws retracted to blunt nubs. The boy stirred, murmuring into the moss. “...not real…” “Incorrect,” Veyth rumbled. “Rest.” Sir Hiss cracked one eye, hissed, then resumed purring. In the halls, the flowers bloomed louder. The Osharan spaceport was a cathedral of living light. Bioluminescent trees arched overhead, their canopies dripping vines that sang in harmonic frequencies as they swayed. Moss cushioned the landing pads, glowing softly underfoot, while crystalline pollinators zipped through the air, trailing prismatic dust. Lyrin’s parents stood at the edge of the platform, their bioluminescence muted to respectful silver, though their son was a supernova in motion spores erupting in frenetic bursts of gold, violet, and cerulean. “Calm yourself,” his mother chided. “You’ll exhaust your spores before they disembark.” Lyrin vibrated, tendrils lashing. “Calm? How? Our little star is... is home—” The sky split. Veyth’s ship descended like a blade of obsidian, engines roaring in dissonant counterpoint to the port’s melodic hum. Landing struts crushed the moss beneath them, hissing as they met organic stone. For a breath, the vessel loomed silent—a monolith of death amid a symphony of life. Then the hatch opened. Darkness bled out, tempered by the crimson glow of Veyth’s ocular lenses. The sentinel stood framed in the threshold, exoskeleton scarred from battles Lyrin’s parents could only imagine. In his claws—retracted to blunt, careful edges he held Sam’s hand. The boy blinked into the port’s kaleidoscopic light, dwarfed in the onesie Lyrin had woven for him lifetimes ago. The fabric shimmered with constellations only Osharans could name, its threads pulsing gently in time with Lyrin’s own bioluminescence. The diaper peeking beneath its hem was crisp, pristine, a stark contrast to the mud and blood Veyth had scrubbed away. “Little star,” Lyrin whispered. Sam squinted, lips trembling. “Ly… rin?” The empath flew towards him. Osharans gasped as Lyrin streaked across the platform, robes flaring like solar flares. He scooped Sam into his arms, spinning until the boy’s laughter tangled with his own trills. “You’re here! You’re whole! Oh, my little star, my precious.” Sam buried his face in Lyrin’s chest, fingers clutching his robes. “Thought you were a dream,” he mumbled, tears soaking into iridescent fabric. “No dream,” Lyrin crooned, spores cascading in jubilant arcs. “No dream, only us.” Behind them, Veyth stood immobile, a statue of shadow. His ocular lenses flickered, recording the reunion the way Sam’s breath hitched when Lyrin nuzzled his hair, the exact frequency of the empath’s hum. Data streams scrolled across his HUD: Subject Emotional Output: 98.6% joy (anomalous) Ambient Bioluminescence: 12,000 lux (overload) Threat Assessment: Negligible (hypothesis: familial unit secure) Lyrin’s mother drifted forward, sneering yet not. “So. The machine delivers.” Veyth inclined his head. “The human required retrieval.” “Sam,” the boy corrected, peeking over Lyrin’s shoulder. “My name’s Sam.” The elder empath’s spores rippled in amusement, reluctant approval. “Sam.” Lyrin’s father loomed, his subsonic rumble softening the edges of his disdain. “And the… cat?” Sir Hiss slinked from the ship’s shadows, fur bristling at the alien sights. He hissed at a passing pollinator before leaping into Sam’s arms, purring loud enough to rival the port’s ambient hum. “Sir Hiss!” Sam giggled, nuzzling the cat’s singed fur. “He’s *real* too!” Lyrin’s mother sighed, tendrils drooping. “This is what you chose? A human, a beast, and a… a sentient toaster?” “Mother!” Lyrin hissed, spores flushing indigo. Veyth’s ocular lenses narrowed. “I am not a—” “He’s Veyth,” Sam interrupted, scowling. “And he’s mine.” The sentinel’s neural core stuttered. --- Later, as the Osharan suns dipped below the horizon, Lyrin carried Sam through the sacred caves, the boy drowsing in his arms. Veyth followed, his exoskeleton scraping against bioluminescent growths. “We’ll stay,” Lyrin murmured, not a question. “Temporarily,” Veyth said. “The human requires stability.” “Sam,” the boy mumbled, half-asleep. Lyrin pressed a kiss to his brow. “Yes, little star. Sam.” Outside, Lyrin’s parents watched the stars, their spores interlacing in a rare harmony. “The machine… cares,” his father rumbled. His mother snorted. “For now.” But her gaze lingered on the ship far off black, brutal, yet cradling a single bloom of Lyrin’s star-flower in its landing strut. Growth, evenL there. Even now. The caves of Oshara, once solemn temples of harmonic light, became a riot. Sam’s laughter ricocheted off the walls as he splashed through crystal pools, his diaper sagging with the weight of alien water. Amphibious klirr-fish fled his stomping feet, their bioluminescent tails flickering in protest. Lyrin trailed behind, spores bursting into fireworks of gold and pink, while Veyth stood sentinel—part guardian, part relic—recording the boy’s every squeal. “He’s… energetic,” Lyrin’s father grumbled, watching Sam scale a glowshroom pillar. “He’s perfect,” Lyrin sighed, tendrils fanning with pride. The elder empath’s subsonic rumble softened. “For a human.” When the time came to leave, the caves wept moss-tears. Lyrin’s mother clasped Sam’s face, her lichen-plates trembling. “You… you are sssmall,” she hissed, as if accusing the universe itself. “But bright.” Sam hugged her, uncaring of her spines. “Thanks, Grandma.” She stiffened, then melted, spores puffing silver. “Grandma,” she repeated, testing the word. “Adequate.” Lyrin’s father loomed over Veyth, his bass voice cracking stone. “Keep them safe. Both.” The sentinel inclined his head. “Probability of success: 97.3%.” “Make it 100.” “Illogical. But acceptable.” Aboard the ship, chaos bloomed. Sir Hiss batted a star-blossom off the console, petals scattering like confetti. Sam pointed to a nebula swirling on the viewport—a maelstrom of emerald and amethyst. “There! Let’s go there!” Lyrin chuckled, adjusting the boy’s onesie. “After your nap, little star.” “No naps! Explorin’!” “Ah-ah.” Lyrin patted Sam’s padded backside. “Diaper change first.” “Veyth!” Sam whined. The sentinel didn’t look up from his console. “Compliance is advised.” Sam groaned but trudged off. Alone on the bridge, Veyth stared at the nebula. Sir Hiss leapt into his lap, purring. The sentinel’s claw hovered, then settled on the cat’s singed fur. “Chaos,” he rasped, voice stripped of its mechanical filter—raw, ancient, decaying. “Is… efficient.” The nebula spun, its light fracturing into a thousand possible paths. Somewhere in the ship, Sam’s laughter mingled with Lyrin’s song. Veyth’s ocular lenses dimmed. Hypothesis confirmed: Family is a recursive algorithm. Conclusion: Optimal. The end.

Okay, before we start this story, I just want to blame Cute_Kitten for this story. She's the one who asked if I could write a smutty one-off story with tentacles. You've been warned. And as always: Feel free to leave comments. Abducted There was no alarm when Meiko woke up. That was her favourite way of starting the day. Until the alarm went off, she could just lie in bed, drifting halfway between asleep and awake, maybe playing with herself a little, or maybe just enjoying the warm embrace of her big duvet. She reached up to push the duvet off her face, or tried to. Her arm refused to move. In fact, she couldn't move at all. Oh great. Sleep paralysis. Again. It was not Meiko's first experience with sleep paralysis. Ever since her early teens, it had happened every couple of months. In the beginning she had been terrified, but after talking to a doctor she had found ways to deal with the paralysis when it happened. Meiko forced herself to take a breath and relax. It would only be a couple of minutes before things would be back to normal. That was when her brain woke up enough to realise something wasn't right. There was no duvet on top of her; nor any mattress under her for that matter. She opened her eyes. It was completely dark. No street lights filtering in through the curtains, not even the glow of the clock radio. And no sound either. No traffic, no noisy neighbours. She was floating in the middle of a complete void. She couldn't even feel the t-shirt she usually wore to bed. Meiko's heart raced. Something was very very wrong. Just then, she felt something hard and flat pressing against her back. And as the pressure increased, a sensation like a thousand silky fingers brushing gently against her skin. It's like being pushed through custard. Suddenly, Meiko felt heavier; almost like coming out of a swimming pool after having been in the water for a long time. She found that she was no longer floating but lying on her back. There was a series of pops and a hiss as what she realised was some kind of mask was removed from in front of her face. Meiko squinted and blinked at the dazzlingly bright light. Her eyes seemed to take forever to adjust. She tried to lift her hand to shield her eyes, but it stubbornly refused to move. What the FUCK is this?!? "Relax," a velvety soft voice said. What?!? Who's there? Meiko tried to say it out loud, but couldn't. With the exception of her eyes, her entire body was frozen. She looked around, frantically trying to find any clue as to where she was; what was going on. The room was all white and as far as she could see, completely empty. In fact, so empty that there was nothing to even fix her gaze at. She couldn't even see any corners or where the walls met the ceiling. It was almost like the air itself was white. Whatever it was Meiko was lying on tilted forward, making her slide off. Before she slid off the edge, something wrapped itself around her chest and legs, lifting her upright. Meiko's head lolled forward, giving her a look at her body. It looked like it had been coated with a thick white paint. Fat drops of the goop dripped slowly from her bare feet. Segmented tentacles held her up and pulled her legs apart. Another tentacle descended from somewhere outside of Meiko's field of vision, waving up and down in front of her. "You should probably close your eyes now." Meiko realised that the voice sounded like it was coming from inside her head. Why? Where am I? What the fuck's going on? Before Meiko could get an answer, there was a loud hissing and a hot, stinging jet sprayed from some of the tentacles. The water felt like the most powerful shower Meiko had ever had and it blasted away the white substance, leaving her feeling itchy and tingly, like a thousand ants crawling across her skin. By the time the spray reached her hair, Meiko had had time to close her eyes and hold her breath as the white sludge oozed down her face. A faint whiff of ammonia tickled her nostrils, almost making her sneeze. "There we are. All nice and clean. Isn't that better?" The voice almost felt like like a physical caress; a velvety soft touch down Meiko's spine. She shivered and felt her legs twitch helplessly What the fuck is this? "Calm yourself. I will explain everything soon." "What..." Meiko whispered weakly. Her own voice sounded like it came from a million miles away. "Oh right," the voice said. "I keep forgetting you people still haven't mastered visual telepathy yet. I'll explain this using words. We're conducting a long-term study of sentient life forms on your planet, and we picked you up to do a quick examination of your species. It should only take a little while, and then we'll put you back. You won't remember a thing." Meiko's mind raced as she hung limply in the firm grip of the metal tentacles. Telepathy? Your planet? Your species? "Aliens?" It took all of Meiko's concentration and energy to whisper the single word. "Yes, I suppose to you we would be. But don't worry. Our guidelines prohibit permanent damage to research subjects. In fact, most of them seem to find the probing procedure quite pleasant." Meiko wasn't sure, but she thought she could hear some kind of chuckle. "Probing?" It didn't seem quite so hard to whisper now, and Meiko thought she could feel a slight tingling in her fingers. She tried moving them, but they still stubbornly refused to respond. There was a clicking sound as more tentacles emerged from above. These were thinner and smoother than the ones holding her. They slithered down Meiko's stomach leaving a cold wet trail As they slipped between her legs, Meiko couldn't suppress a slight shiver at the touch of the cool metal. One of them slithered frictionlessly in between Meiko's buttocks, and when it poked against her sphincter, Meiko let out an involuntary gasp. "Try to relax. We are just going to measure your core temperature." Meiko tried to relax as the poke became more of an insistent push. Eventually, despite her resistance, one of the tentacles wriggled its way in. Once the tip was in, Meiko's body seemed to realise the battle was lost and she shivered at the sensation of the cool metal sliding slowly and smoothly inside her. The tentacle went deep; far deeper than anything Meiko had ever experienced before. And it wriggled around. Meiko hated to admit it, but it felt good; even if the tentacle was quite thick. Just then, Meiko felt a warm trickle running down her leg. What the hell?!? I'm peeing? "Oh," the voice said. "We should probably do something about that before we continue." The tentacle in Meiko's butt withdrew, leaving her feeling oddly empty, even though it had only been in her for a few seconds. The tentacles that had cleaned the white gunk off her returned, spraying her crotch and legs with warm water again, then leaving her to drip dry like a dress on a clothesline. There was the clicking sound of yet more tentacles descending into Meiko's view. One of them held what could best be described as a cast of the front half of an oversized pair of panties. It was just as white as everything else in the room. The tentacle pressed the half-panty against Meiko's crotch and the cool, smooth material raised goosebumps on her skin. Then Meiko felt a similar cool touch against her buttocks. Of course there's a second half. The tentacles pulled back, leaving Meiko's hips encased in a smooth, hard shell. While the waistband and leg holes felt tight against her skin, the rest of the interior felt quite roomy. How is this going to help? Maiko's train of thought was abruptly derailed as she felt the cool touch of more tentacles slithering down her body. They wriggled their way down past the waistband and inside what Meiko realised was some kind of diaper. <pffrt-pffrt-pffrt> The tentacles juddered as something shot out of them with a vaguely farting sound. It was something that felt almost like not quite solid marbles. They were soft and slippery and felt like a thousand slick fingers caressing every square inch of Meiko's skin. And as if that wasn't enough, Meiko felt yet another tentacle make its way down the back of her diaper, sliding almost frictionlessly between her butt cheeks. As the tip pushed against her clenched sphincter and slowly forced itself inside her, Meiko couldn't help herself and let out a low moan. "Try to relax," the voice said. "It shouldn't take too long to take the rest of the preliminary readings." Meiko didn't care. She didn't want it to stop. The feeling of the probing tentacle slowly filling her was the perfect complement to the sensation of thousands of slippery fingers caused by whatever her diaper had been filled with. "Hmm. 251 Beldars. You're hotter than our other subjects." Meiko barely registered what the voice said. She was lost in whatever was happening inside the rigid shell encasing her hips. She once again felt the warm rush of pee, but didn't have the mental capacity to care. The marbles in her diaper seemed to swell and shift on their own accord, and that was enough to bring Meiko over the edge. She let out a ragged sigh that would have been a scream if she had been able to make any sound louder than a whisper. "I see you understand why many of our subjects don't mind being... tested." The voice had an almost audible smirk. Meiko didn't try to respond. She was still riding the post-orgasmic high. The tentacle in her butt began to slowly retract; wriggling and teasing, keeping her from coming down. Once it was finally out, Meiko felt the same sensation of emptiness as she had before and moaned softly, hoping it would return once more. The tentacles holding Meiko slowly lowered her to the floor, resting her back against the wall. As her butt hit the floor, all the squishy marbles in the back of her diaper were squeezed up between her legs to the front. The thousands upon thousands of slippery spheres sliding across her most sensitive skin was enough to bring Meiko over the edge again. She simply squeaked and whimpered as she came, wetting herself as though she had lost all control over her bladder. "Oh my," the voice said. "You seem to be reacting quite differently from the other subjects. Your physical readings and aberrant behavioural traits put you outside the sample profile of this study. I'm afraid we're going to have to stop the testing and return you." "No," Meiko mumbled. "Don' wann' go." "We can't use your test results. You deviate too much." "Please. I don't make me leave." The voice didn't say anything for a while. Eventually Meiko thought she could almost hear a sigh. "I suppose I could get a pet licence to keep you," it finally said. "Would you like that? To be my pet?" "Yes. Please. Anything," Meiko begged. "Very well. But we're going to have to find a more practical solution to that fluid leakage you seem to have. The shell isn't a viable long-term solution. And it does seem to get you a little worked up." "Mm-hmm." Meiko smiled and bounced her chin off her chest in something that resembled a nod. "Of course, there are always other studies you could be in. Have anyone ever done neural pleasure induction on you?" "Neural what?" The voice didn't answer, but the tentacles that had held Meiko up, gripped the waistband of her diaper. There was a sharp crack, and then they lifted the entire front half away. Multicoloured marble-like balls spilled out, bouncing and rolling silently across the floor. The lights grew brighter, and there was a whirring sound to Meiko's left. She let her head roll to the side to see. A doorway had appeared in the previously featureless wall. As she squinted at the dark rectangle she saw a grey humanoid shape enter the room. The light grew almost painfully bright as the being approached Meiko's limp body. It knelt down next to her and scooped a handful of marbles out of the back half of Meiko's diaper, slipping a finger, or at least what Meiko assumed was a finger, inside her. It was warm and impossibly slippery and as it moved around, it managed to hit all the right spots, gearing Meiko up for another ride on the dopamine roller coaster. "Aren't you a frisky little pet?" the voice whispered. "Kiss me," Meiko murmured. "Are you sure?" Meiko nodded. The grey fuzzy shape withdrew it's finger and gripped its head. There was the crackling sound of tearing velcro. "Oh Christ that's bright." The voice in Meiko's head gave a weird echo to the unfiltered voice. The lights dimmed, letting Meiko see more clearly. "You okay babe?" The olive-skinned woman kneeling next to Meiko brushed the wet hair away from her eyes and pressed her lips to Meiko's forehead. "Yeah. Hands feel kinda tingly." The woman reached behind Meiko's ears and removed the bone conduction speakers taped there. "That's the paralytic I put in your tea wearing off." The echo in Meiko's head disappeared as the second speaker was removed. "I still can't believe you got permission to do this." "Welllll, I didn't so much get permission as I bribed the lab techs to let me have the place to myself for one night before they tear the whole thing down next week." "You, my dear Farzanah, are a very sneaky woman." Meiko smiled and put a limp hand on the woman's thigh. "And please say you're keeping that suit. It makes you look incredibly sexy." "That's just the drugs talking. Now, do you want your diapers before we go back home? In case you have an 'accident'?" "Prob'ly a good idea, 'cause I think I'm about to have an accident any minute." "I'll be right back." Farzanah pressed her lips to Meiko's, giving her a quick kiss before rising and walking towards the door. "And Zanah?" "Yeah babe?" Farzanah stopped and looked back at Meiko who was grinning broadly. "Best. Birthday present. Ever!"

My name is Corinna Kishek. I am one of the star pilots on board the starship Indefatigable. It was a colony ship and a warship and I was in command this year. I was in command because the passengers and the rest of the crew were in hibernation for the duration of the trip to Melcom VII. At the end of the year, I would wake one of the other crew members and he would relieve me, so I could go into hibernation. I sat alone in the bridge of the Indefatigable. My job was simply to monitor the hibernation capsules of the crew and make sure they were in working order, make sure the ship didn’t run into anything, and fix things that broke. That was easy enough, I had thought. But it wasn’t to be that easy. “Hull breach on deck nine,” said the computer and started to run the siren. “Damn it,” I said. “Computer, cut out that noise.” I got up from the pilot’s chair and ran to deck nine. On deck nine, I went to the room with the hull breach. Thankfully the room was sealed so only that compartment had lost its air. The light above the door was flashing bright red. From the window in the door, I couldn’t see the hole. “Computer, what is the status of the breach?” “Compartment 926 is in vacuum. Breach in compartment is inaccessible from the inside. Situation requires EVA for repair.” Darn, I thought, I am going to have to go outside to fix this hole. “I never want to hear about another maintenance problem,” I said to my self. I thought about, just ignoring the holed compartment and relaxing, but instead, I headed toward the lockers where we kept the spacesuits. We had space suits of all types, from battle armor used by Marines, to thin pressure suits used in leaky compartments. I chose the type used for repairing holes in spaceships. The suit was hard. It contained oxygen that would last a week; food and water that I needed to drink from a straw; and tools: patches, rivet guns, and vacuum safe glue. Still, the suit lacked anything resembling comfort. If I had to go to the bathroom, I was out of luck. I couldn’t come inside. By the time I would get out of the suit, I would have gone in the suit. Knowing this, I grabbed a think disposable diaper from the shelf and then stripped out of my jumpsuit and panties. I lay down on the deck and pulled the diaper around my hips. I pulled it snug and firmly taped it in place. Once diapered, I stepped into the spacesuit and sealed it shut. It wouldn’t do for me to lose all my air when I went outside, so I made sure to double-check the seals. # # # The breach was worse than I thought. It took me an hour of walking on the outside of the spaceship to find the hole. Worse still, I would have to dig out chucks of meteor out of the hole, so I could patch it. I took out my drill and started it up. It made a silent vibrating motion as I directed it to start drilling out the meteor. As soon as I placed it against the rock, the vibration thrummed across the skin of the spaceship up the legs of my spacesuit and shook my body like a bobble head. This was going to be a long job. Three hours later, and six drill bits later, I had to pee. I just let it out into my diaper. There was no use trying to hold it. I still was only halfway done drilling. I drank more water; I was sweating in the spacesuit, and then I drank some of the food. I hated spacesuit food. It tasted like someone put fruit and vegetables together in a blender so it could be drunk. Actually, it was made that way. Still, I ate (or drunk) because I needed my strength to finish the job. I got out my drill and resumed my work. I was getting the meteor drilled out and I was finally to the point were I could pick up pieces of the rock and dig them out of the hole. It was a nine drill-bit job, but the rock was gone, but the hole was jagged. A jagged hole would not do. Now I had to get out my grinder. “Will this job never end?” I asked myself. I stomach growled and cramped. I knew the space food I had a few hours ago, wanted out. But I did not want to mess my diaper. The inside of the spacesuit already smelled faintly of pee. I knew from experience that pooping a diaper in a spacesuit would smell a lot worse. I would hurry and get back to work. I got out my grinder and turned it on. Sparks flew as I began to ground out the jagged edges of the hole. Another hour and a half. The spaceship’s metal was hard and I was cursing the time it took. The vibrating grinding of the ships hull, did nothing to ease the cramps in my lower abdomen. I wanted to hold my stomach, but I couldn’t reach into the spacesuit to rub it. Besides rubbing my stomach would make me lose my lunch in my diaper. I had at least two hours of work to do. I would never make it. I took out my grinder and did the last bit of detail work. The vacuum safe glue, would only work on smooth surfaces and I didn’t want to come out here again. Finally I finished grinding. I put the grinder away and pulled out a patch. It was steel plate about 12 inches in diameter. It was big enough! I put it on the deck and stood on it so it wouldn’t float away. My magnetic boot soles held me to the ship like a magnet on the fridge. I wanted to work on this quickly, but not rush. But the cramps hurt too much to work. I really had to poop. “I am so foolish,” I said to myself. “I should have gone before I came out here.” I grimaced and stared blankly off into space as hot, muddy poop slid into my diaper. Since my suit was snug, the mess was squeezed all over the back of my diaper. I hope those tapes held. I bent down and resumed my work. I squeezed a tube of vacuum safe glue part A into the hole. Then I got a tube of part B and squeezed it in the hole. Then I stirred it with a rod so both substances were well mixed. They would harden soon since I mixed together both parts. I placed the patch over the hole and smiled with satisfaction as some glue squeezed out from under the patch. “That should hold,” I said and then smiled at my work. I saw a flash of light from the other side of the ship, but I thought nothing of it. I hadn’t seen anything. I headed back to the airlock. # # # The space suit stunk. My butt stung from spending two hours in a messy diaper. I pulled off the helmet and placed it in the cleaner box. I heard another noise, but I must have imagined it. I was alone. No one was around. The passengers and the rest of the crew were asleep and I was the only one who could control the hibernation pods unless the ship’s computers sensed I had been dead or missing for 24 hours. I pulled off the rest of the spacesuit and put it in the cleaning box. My jump suit and panties were gone. The cleaner box must have already put them away in my room. I turned and headed to the shower in just my wet and messy diaper. Out in the hall, I heard the noises again. “Computer, have you awakened a crewman?” I asked. “Negative.” “Is someone on board.” “Affirmative.” “What do you mean?” I asked. Someone here? But how? “Corinna Kishek is on board, commanding,” said the computer. “I know. That’s me. Who’s making the sounds?” “Information unavailable. Internal sensors are down on decks one through eight. On decks nine through twelve internal sensors are 25% working.” “Why didn’t you tell me the sensors were down when I came back on board?” I asked frustrated. “You said, ‘I never want to hear about another maintenance problem.’” “Belay that order, then,” I said. “I will take a shower and deal with the sensors and investigate the noise.” I continued my journey to the showers, but when I turned the corner I saw the aliens. They were blue and humanoid, but they had strange translucent skin—no, not skin—scales. They had clear scales over blue skin. They had a black mane on their head and neck and they had glowing green eyes. One came toward me and I turned to run. I only tripped and he caught me and pulled me toward the others. They conversed in an alien tongue as the pointed and gestured toward me. One pointed at my dirty diaper and touched his nose and the other left and walked down the corridor. He gestured to me and pointed the opposite direction and pushed me. I walked in front of him trembling. When I tried to run, he caught up with me and pulled me back. When I tried to rebel, he pushed me along until I moved cooperatively. Finally we arrived at the airlock where his ship was docked. That was the light I saw on the other side of the ship! He pulled me inside and made me sit on the floor beside the airlock door of his ship. “But I can’t sit down,” I started to protest. I didn’t relish the thought of sitting in a poopy diaper. He pushed me down and I had no choice. The mess in my diaper spread toward the front and the back. More speech was said in the alien tongue. This time it was not directed at me, but at his companion who had returned. He was carrying a bag of EVA diapers. He stood me up and pulled me along the weaving, curving hallways of his ship. The other alien followed behind carrying the diapers. Other aliens made comments at me and pointed. Others touched their noses. My captors said some words to them and they desisted. I was taken into a chamber in the ship with a waterfall. I wondered at the engineering required to keep a waterfall working in a spaceship, but then saw other aliens swimming in the pool below it and rubbing sand on their scales. There were several other pools too. It must be their shower room, but it was so fancy. My captor pulled off my diaper and pushed me into the pool. He threw the diaper into a hole in the wall and then pulled off his green tunic and threw it in another hole. He then followed me into the water. He gestured to me and took a handful of sand from the bottom of the pool and rubbed it on his scales. He then rolled around in the water and stood up. What was he doing? He pointed at me again. “I don’t understand,” I said. He wanted me to do something. Instead I looked longingly at the waterfall. The alien grabbed me and dunked me in the pool. He then took sand and scrubbed me with it. Since I didn’t have scales, it really hurt. I screamed. The alien dunked me in the pool again and pulled me out. He then pulled me toward the waterfall pool. Aliens stared at my naked body and chattered in an alien language until my capture said something to them. I was dunked under the waterfall and scraped with sand repeatedly. Then I was pulled out onto the floor and led over to my alien captor’s companion. My captor’s companion handed me a diaper and pointed at me. I saw my captor, pulling on a black garment and pointing at himself. He pointed to the garment and then pointed at himself. Then, he pointed at the diaper and then at me. I understood he intended me to wear diapers. I reluctantly lay down on the floor and put the diaper on. I was pulled into another room and forced to sit in a chair. A collar was put around my neck and the aliens push a button on it. The alien said a few things to me. Then he pointed at my mouth. “I can’t understand you,” I said. He nodded rapidly and continued to talk in his alien language. “What do you want me to do?” I asked. “I don’t speak your language.” “<gibberish> talking.” Said the alien. “Talking?” I asked. “I understood talking.” “Keep talking. The <gibberish> needs to hear you talk to learn <gibberish>,” said the alien. “So why an I here? Why did you capture me? And why did you bring diapers off my ship for me to wear?” I asked. A bell on my collar rang and the alien pushed the button on it again. “Can you understand me?” asked the alien. “Yes, that’s amazing how that device works,” I said. “The universal translator helps us with new aliens we meet,” he said. “Can I go back to my ship? I am needed there.” “No, we left the vicinity of your ship. You will be retuned to your ship in one year’s time.” “But I need clothes. You have me wearing diapers and I am bare breasted.” I covered my breasts with my hands. “You were wearing the same thing when we encountered you. Aren’t these diapers you wear your clothes?” “No, I wear them in a spacesuit to go outside the ship for long periods of time. I was on my way to shower and then get dressed.” “We regret that diapers are all we brought from your ship for you to wear. You will have to make do.” “Just great,” I said. “What else can go wrong today?”

The planet earth, home to the species known as humanity. This species has been through so much in the past 66-million years, from wars to famine, to extinction-level events and many other catastrophes that would have ripped other species and planets apart. Nope, not this species, these species, these humans have survived for so long and why, no other race in the galaxy that has been observing them for as long as they have existed could tell you that. The only thing they do know is that this species is new to the space-faring and has only barely started establishing its own foothold in the galaxy. But now the galaxy was about to feel what it was like to have humans roaming about the galaxy in a military vessel no-less, some leaders of other races, just couldn't believe the idea that humanity had managed to get this far and survive long enough to be able to become space-faring, others are happy that the humans have finally reached a league of their own in space-travel, the rest of the leaders try and come together to discourage humanity from continuing its endeavor into space by fighting or denying them access to their planets. They thought that if they could starve out the humans then the humans would not have any reason to continue to be in space, oh how very wrong they would eventually turn out to be. Meanwhile, at spaceport Athena, docking-bay 36-4 the crew of the United Nations Carrier Ship zero-one Invictus was getting the final stragglers of its crew-aboard as they were going to be the first military ship, representing humanity in the stars and the galaxy are preparing to set out on their maiden voyage of the milky-way. All of the crew was excited, some were nervous, others were frightened of what they might find out in the dark reaches of space. But all had a determined mind to see this through and see what life was like on other planets, some were veterans of wars on the planets, others were freshly-trained recruits out of the academy that had never been away from home, let alone their home planet. "Oh god, this is gonna be such an exciting moment. I can't wait to see what we get to see when we get to our first planet." One of the officers excitedly says to the officer next to him and quickly falls silent as he and the rest of the crew is called to Attention and the captain of the ship walks out onto the deck and everyone, immediately salutes him, to which he gives the order to stop saluting, which they do and return to a position of attention, it was then that he spoke to all of them. "I am Captain Rangers, you men, and women of this planet, have all been a great opportunity, to become part of the first-ever military endeavor by humanity, in its history among the stars, to patrol and make our presence to the rest of the galaxy be known, now this isn't gonna be easy for most of you because your all used to the gravity of earth, trust me I was too when I first stepped aboard this ship, but I am happy to report that it will get easier, just remember that you are representing humanity aboard this ship, we are humanity upon the stars, so whatever petty crap you have among each other I do not wanna see it aboard this ship, we're here to do a mission and live and work together without any major diplomatic incidents happening. I do not care about your race, where you came from, etc. None of that will have an impact on this ship's mission, do you all understand this? Good! Now, have a safe tour and let's get back to this planet in one piece Hu'ah?! Good! That is all, you're all dismissed!" (If anyone wants to join in, feel free to post a response and a character starter, thank you)

(Apologies for minor errors, I try to avoid them but I know they crop up occasionally. If it's something that majorly effects a sentence or is a fairly big deal, let me know. If I used 'their' instead of 'they're', don't bother. Also, I'm going to get all of my references out in one chapter, so see if you can find them all. There isn't much diaper content here in this part of the story, but I promise it shows up later. Now, to start off my book in the most elegant way possible:) Chapter 1: Touchdown. "Fuck!" One of the engineers, by the name of Dobson, screamed, as a hunk of superheated steel came crashing down, narrowly missing him. "Dammit, Walter, hold her steady!" he shouted into the intercom, to the pilot. There was a brief gap before he replied. "Walter's dead. This is Tosh," replied a voice, as a young face flickered onto the screen. "What the hell happened?" "A loose reactor cable came loose, and when he tried to get it back in he..." he trailed off. There wasn't much else to say, and even if there was he had trouble choking it out. The singed, lifeless body on the floor made its own message. "The forward thrusters burnt out on the entry, we can't land it!" was the shouted reply, as the enormous craft shuddered. The metal outer shell was white hot, begining to melt from the heat of re-entry. That wasn't supposed to happen, an air gap was supposed to build up and superheat instead, protecting the shell. All it took was a two degree miscalculation and a highly oxygenated air pocket, and the ship went from warm and cozy to crispy fried. "Not my fault, we can't do anything about it from back here." There was a loud crash, and another support beam collapsed. The ship shuddered again, as they spun out of control. "Well, what CAN we do?" He shouted, over the din of the fires starting all around him. Tosh shrugged, admitting defeat. "I don't know. We're out of options. "Fins?" Dobson suggested, and Tosh started trying to adjust the forward maneuvering fins. He had scoffed at them before; they weren't needed for in-space flight and were practically worthless with the forward thrusters installed. Now, they could potentially save lives. Except they couldn't, because the white-hot metal had fused to the ship, rendering them unusable. "Can you steer at all?" A head shake this time. "Slow our decent?" Again, head shake. "What about the escape pods?" "Even if we got to them in time, they aren't big enough to hold everyone on the... Wait, the escape pods have their own reserve engines, right?" Tosh asked. He wasn't prepared for any of this, but he still knew the engineering of the ship. "Yeah, so what?" "So can we use them to slow us down?" "That... That might just work. What's the ETA before crashdown?" he asked. "Three minutes. Big planets mean big atmosphere, this one is at least three times the size of eart..." he stopped himself, there were more important things to do. "Let's slow this thing down." ......................... "Fuck!" Sarah yelled as she grabbed a needle of adrenaline and painkillers, injecting it straight into the chest of the next injured to be dragged in. It certainly wasn't the best cure for their wound, (Three missing fingers and massive burns,) but she couldn't worry about that now. They needed people back to work then, no delays, if they wanted to survive the crash. The worst cases, missing limps, comatose, brain damaged, they got to stay. But if you could walk and talk without screaming, you were declared fit to get back to work. "How many more?" she asked her assistant, Don, grabbing a bandage gun and sealing a massive cut on someones stomach, so their intestines would stop spilling out of their gut. Poor guy, she thought, as he was lead into the room with the other criticals. Anyone with an injury that bad had no chance of surviving the crash, bandage or no. The best he could hope for was that the painkillers in the liquid bandage would work quickly, and he could spend his last few moments of life with some peace. But, in a matter of minutes the shock would kill them all, no matter how much medical attention they got. "We have a dozen lined up, and they keep coming in," her assistant, ever faithful and diligent, replied. The structural damage was causing massive failure everywhere, and massive failure on a personnel transport ship meant massive injuries. She reached for another needle, but the shelf was empty. "Where's all our supplies?" "We used it all, sir," Don replied. "We can't have, I had a hundred thousand CC's prepared." Sarah was growing frantic now. "And at a thousand CC's a dose, we ran out," he explained, somehow keeping his cool. "There are three crates in the storage room, and another in the escape bay," he added. "If we need more, I can go fetch some..." "No," Sarah said, cutting him off. "I'll get it. Track and Field, silver medal. I trust you, keep everything under control." She nodded at him, not taking the time for a handshake, and was out the door in a matter of seconds. ....................... Dobson and Tosh both arrived at the escape pod simultaneously, hurrying to their respective locations with just a short nod. "How long before we can launch?" Tosh asked, from the helm. "Any time, but if we want enough power to divert the ship I'll have to take some time to divert power to the engines." "Do it, we're running out of time." "Do you have a plan to slow us down?" "Ramming count?" "Fantastic." ....................... "Sir, what are we going to do?" David asked his captain. "Sir?" The captain, James Harrison, simply stared blankly at the screens. "Sir!" "We're all going to die..." "SIR!" David yelled, trying to get the captain to snap out of it. When it became clear he couldn't, a new tactic was approached. "On behalf of the United Federation of the Human Race, I hereby relinquish you of command. Helmsman, take the deck," he said, ordering the third in command to take charge. "Where are you going?" Asked the Helmsman, seeing David stand up. "Getting the captain to safety. In charge or no, it's my duty to see that he survives." Making the captain get to his feet, David supported him and forced him to walk, the blank stare on James' face un-nerving everyone in a ten foot radius. They made it through the ship, equipment breaking all around them, to get to safety. ..................... Thirty seconds later, the OSC Griffin crashed into hard, unforgiving rock. On the ship, there were no survivors.