S F Space Story including chastity belt

[John R Starvele]

Not much seems to be happening with this forum so I though I would donate one of short strories' I would sure make things simpler if postings would take MS word.

Please Don’t
By
John R. Starvele
© December, 1999
Jstarvele@cox.net


Intoduction

One of my glimpses, a vision, was of a man, perhaps myself, making love to a beautiful woman clad in a tight silver suit. She had a mirror-silver faceplate screwed in place. I/he and we/they had reached climax and I/he reached for a screwdriver, removing all her screws and was prying on her mask. She screamed, “PLEASE DON’T!” This glimpse has stayed with me. I have in bed, discussed my vision with my wife Carroll, although considerably later.

I asked her, “What kind of woman do think she is?”

Carroll suggested, “She just dresses to get a man.”

I suggested, “Do you suppose she’s even human?” We let it go, for more intimate things, but I did write this story.

When I create a character, some I like, others I don’t, and as time passes, I look back at my characters. I will say this, Cathy in my Creating the Cybernetic Woman ©1995, I still find beautiful and would make a wonderful lasting wife, but there is something about Celest that I find even more attractive than Cathy. I’d like to bed her but I know it would be only a fling, because she would be a fish out of water finding me just a boring-old earth bound man that spends too much time writing Science Fiction Stories. Can you image going to the grocery store with her?

As I’m writing this, I’ve remembered another glimpse, which I’ll share with you. While I was working in an electronics fabrication plant (I was not a regular employee being a contract electrician), I saw her. I thought she was beautiful as she pleasantly smiled, saying “Hi.” As she passed me. Somewhat later during my contract, we had a fire drill, and we wound up standing next to each other in the parking lot. She was shivering in the cold wearing clothing too tight and revealing but ever so sexy, just like the first time we’d met. I couldn’t help but look; most of her exposed skin was scar tissue including parts of her face. She had been badly burned sometime in her life but it didn’t impede her any. She seemed happy and very pleasant and very much sexy. Maybe I owe part of this story to her. I don’t remember her name, but thank you for the glimpse.

I like to enjoy an adult beverage and some of my colleagues have even called me John Hemingway because I like to sip on my bourbon while writing. Ethanol came to mind while I was writing this story. Ethanol Powered Werner Von Braun’s V-2 because it was available and a predictable fuel when mixed with pure oxygen. In 1938 Werner could have had operational nuclear reactor to power his V-2; if he put on the other end, we might all be Spreckenzee Ducthe now. As rocket fuels go ethanol is probably the least toxic to human tissue and a good choice for Celest’s systems. To amplify ethanol as choice for Celest’s systems, I will paraphrase from the book, The Rocket Team. Werner’s team had an ethanol filled train-tanker car, sitting on a side rail to fill rockets the next morning. It was empty and all the Russian prisoners working at the launch site were drunk. Werner concluded that if Russians could consume that much raw alcohol and work the next day the Third Reich was doomed.

I’m sure as I’m sitting writing this and the eternity of male-female human mating going on, there will be a woman who thinks a copy of Celest’s permanent space suit will make a neat costume for an adult party. Drinks will be served and it wouldn’t take much effort for her to run a tube from her mouth under the suit down between her breasts. The glass receptacle and support will be more of a challenge. If a woman has a will, she’ll find a way. Oh, the looks she’ll get standing there drinking. And now, how to deal with hors d’oeuvres? She may even include the screws in the appropriate places but they will be much shorter. She might bring home a partner maybe her husband who’s turned on by her suit. She might even let him remove her screws.
Perhaps we’ll catch a glimpse of her.

Please Don’t

Many years ago, the galactic governments determined that it was cheaper to contract out deep space exploration rather than have their ships and crews do the searches. I’m one of a lonely-special-select-small group of deep space explores; we have few friends and our families are gone. Maybe that’s why we chose and continue to choose deep space exploration as our profession. Our isolation grows with each mission. Depending on the mission’s profiles, after three to five missions, you’ve outlived your grandchildren, if you’d bothered to have any. Most of our ships are solo with a few being Gemini crewed. The ship’s configuration is up to us owner-captain, with many bizarre hodgepodge designs that would not meet the Galactic government’s rules for space worthiness; however, they waive most of their rules to get us out. Less than forty percent of us ever return.

I and DEEXSER Seventy-Seven had been out on the rim thirty-six ship-months, depending on our relativistic velocities it might be anywhere from twenty to seventy terrestrial years; there’s no way off knowing until your sub light and putting into port. DEEXSER is short for DEEp eXpanse Single ExploreR. I spend most of the time ‘out’ in what we call ‘slow time’ in a state of sleep and almost sleep, but you still get sensory inputs of your ship’s status. Your ship can wake you or you can do it yourself if you feel there’s a reason. There were some anomalies that my ship woke me for; however, mostly I just slept in my G-tank so that I would not age and fend off the boredom. We’d been conservative with our fuel, using slingshots every opportunity and foraging for fuel until we’d found an inhabitable world.

Seventy-Seven woke me and we had spent two days in a parking orbit confirming the data; I even took our lifeboat down to the planet, returning with confirmation. It would mean a good paycheck for me and a refit for my ship when we put in. We still had some major area to search by our mission profile and it was hard for me to get back in my G-tank with the exuberance of finding an Inhabitable.
Seventy-Seven woke me again when our mission profile was over. I commanded Seventy-Seven to put in at the nearest port, RD4W, and to burn at maximum with no reserve. Seventy-Seven, when I give her a command like that will always keep a slim safety reserve. If she did exactly as I had commanded, they'd have to catch us at RD4W and it would mean a twenty-percent penalty on the mission. I was still tucked in my G-tank as always with any considerable burn. I selected sleep and we burned at our maximum tolerance till Seventy-Seven’s nozzles were critical. While I slept, we lit up the local skies for three terrestrial nights on our inward plunge towards RD4W building relativistic velocity for translight passage and another week they didn’t see us accelerating beyond faster than light. It was two weeks that we were powered down just drifting at twenty times light. Four days after translight deceleration RD4W saw our inbound trail as we burned again in the critical range. Seventy-Seven woke me three hours out. We flamed out in prefect synchronous position to RD4W.

DEEXSER Seventy-Seven do you request assistance?

I had watched our approach to RD4W in my tank through my intra-cranial implants when we flamed out. I quickly checked the fuel sensors and said “No” through my vocalizer com-links and returned:

DEEXSER Seventy-Seven request docking.

DEEXSER Seventy-Seven maneuver as best as possible to level nine, dock thirty-three, assistance is standing by.

Dock thirty-three was on the other side of the station, all so typical of the docking unions; they have to extract their sum for getting a ship in.

I said to Seventy-Seven and RD4W docking command through my vocalizer, I think we should talk face-to-face about your handling of DEEXSER’s. Seventy-Seven, directional burn, 20 second, one G, target command module, initiate on my mark.

Seventy-Seven did the calculations for the burn and not enough fuel remained for the burn. We’d be lucky to dock on this side of the station with fuel on board.

Seventy-Seven, can you manage level three, bay fifteen.

It was just under the command module where we hung in space.

Roger, and thank you. It’s nice to be welcomed home.

I took over and did all the maneuvering thrusts although Seventy-Seven could have done the docking and perhaps even more efficiently.

When the dock-latches engaged our tanks were dry.

I’d been spaced a long time and it was wonderful to be finally put in with flair. Most of my obnoxious behavior would be over looked with what I had discovered. My ship was withdrawing most of her symbiotic equipment, trimming my hair. (I had done away with my beard years ago) so I could look my best in my dockside fling.

I wandered about RD4W with my discovery credits, when I found the Space Bar. All space stations like RD4W have at least one Space Bar; it’s something ancient science-fiction writers have cursed us spacers with. I stood in the doorway with floor curving upward to the left and to the right, blending into an opposite curving wall with a large port. The stars moved in the port from the rotation of the station. It was still more economical to spin a large station then to generate artificial gravity like large ships do. The Space Bar was dimly lit not detracting from port viewing, but the two dancers in their cages above the bar on the left side sure did. They were bathed in strobe-spot lights as they danced in their cages to the electronic music. One of the dancers was a well-built guy, almost naked; I was far more interested in her, as she danced.

She just enticed me in, executing every dancing move in her too-perfect shiny silver suit. Her suit was supposed to be a G-tank/EVA suit like the one I had just gotten out of. In these bars you can meet real ones like me, but there are so many that are just wan’nbees; they all dress to kill with various imitations of us. I tried to look normal as I wandered around among the patrons, some being of species other than human, but my gaze always returned to her. She never missed a step or a beat. Her mirrored faceplate was always oriented toward me, while she danced in her cage above the bar. I shuffled up to the plastic and chrome bar just under her and ordered bourbon on the rocks, which still leaves a bartender some latitude. It wasn’t my favorite whiskey but at least it wasn’t gin; it tasted good after being out so long.

She climbed out of her cage and sat down on the bar next to me. Her silver suit could be one of us spacers, although it was just too faultless. Not a seam showed anywhere, looking like it had been shrink-wrapped on her. Not a wrinkle marred the curves of her exquisite feminine hull as she moved. Her breasts had no cleavage, just as it should be in a suit, but they were huge for being encased, leaving a pronounced canopy over her flat stomach. She wore an authentic-looking wide black collar with dual nodules around her neck; it looked like mine. The gill slits of the wet-filter pack on the lower nodule pulsed just like mine; the upper vocalizer nodule looked certified. When she spoke, it was a voice of a true vocalizer, far too melodious for a woman.

“How about buying me a drink?”

She stared at me. I stared back into the depths of her reflective mirrored faceplate, seeing only my own grizzly self; a thin face with sparse hair going gray at edges with not enough any more to cover my forehead sockets, and the reflection of the bar behind me. I didn’t look too bad for five hundred and twenty terrestrial years; I’ve seen men look worse at fifty-five. My eyes eventually wandered around her cambered-mirrored-faceplate to its frame. The upper two corners were at her temples and were punctuated by screws as were the two lower two corners of her chin curvature. Where her cheekbone would have been were another set of screws. All the screw heads were Number-Two-Star tip that a matching screwdriver could remove. Even through her mirrored faceplate, I knew there was something very, very special about her.

“Ok, beautiful, what do you want?”

Her too-precise voice answered, “Pure ethanol, order vodka two-hundred proof.”

I wasn’t in a robo-bar or land-based-vehicular-refuel station, so I ordered her vodka two-hundred proof.
The bartender produced a special tall slender plastic glass with a center shaft; the rim of the class had screw threads. He completely filled it with a clear liquid out of a four-liter (1.06-gal) plastic can in a bag, leaving the can shrouded in the plain bag on the bar. I noted that my account had been charged for four-liter of ethanol. It was much more than it took to fill her glass, but still cheaper than glass of vodka that I’d ordered, so I didn’t protest, but I did give the bartender a squinting look.

He said, “It’s her preference. Once it’s open, it’s yours. I don’t normally stock the damn stuff, but I have several cans at the lady’s request. Add it to your drink, save if for the lady, refill a ’bot, or your car, no never mind to me.”

She reached up with a flawless right arm and a beautiful hand, opening an access panel in the center underside of her breast overhang and with her other immaculate arm and hand she screwed her special glass into her breast access panel. The center shaft leisurely lifted the inner bottom of glass the ethanol disappearing. I had never seen anything like that before, but I’d been out a long time. I was really hoping she would open her faceplate to drink so I could see what she looked like. She removed her glass and refilled it, inserting it again. She sat with me, drinking another glass of ethanol with her glass hanging from her breast canopy with both hands free. A nice touch, for a wan’nbe.

From her came a silvery “Thank you. I’ve heard you’ve been out deep.”

“Yes, I even found an Inhabitable. Ever been out?”

“No but I was made to be. I need to find out-bound berth a on fast ship.”

Strange response from wan’nbee, credit-robbing bar girl. My continued scan of her head noted a spacer helmet of the same shiny silver material as her suit, however, it was just too-perfect and too-tight, shrunk in place resembling her suit, all too impeccable to be real. There were lumps in her helmet at the various locations for the usual ship-brain interface implants. Where her ears should be, she had cones with antennae. She was superlatively beautiful and had gone to a lot of trouble to look like one of us deep spacers; we usually try to look more human than she was, before venturing out of our ships.

That euphonic too-pure voice spoke again.

“I hear you go out often and have a better-than-average find rate.”

I was wondering if she had already scanned my credits, and I was wondering how much the evening was going to cost me, before it was over. She was working on another glass.

“We’re just lucky. Mostly it’s my ship’s doing.”

“Tell me about her. What’s her name?”

“DEEXSER Seventy-Seven. She’s an old Dyntel thirty-eight Scout, but she’s been truncated just below cabin.”
“She’s tiny. What her business end?”

“No not really. Our cabin sits on a Deekroll supertanker’s hull containing all five fuel cells.

“That’s over a trillion trillion liters of fuel!”

“Fuel when you’re out on rim fuel can be very scarce. You can never have enough.”

“I want’a get out there so bad. It’s what I was fabricated for. What do you do; if you run out?”

“You never want to run out so I had Seventy-Seven fitted with a 3,000 meter (1.86-miles) Porhtnon ram scoop to refill her tanks.”

“Wow! The scoop when it’s deployed is as big as the station. What’s she kicked by?”

“Her engines are Numang Galaxy 59’s and with her refit they will be upgraded to 75’s her thrust will exceed the Enterprise V on her best day by at least twenty-five percent.”

A long whistle came from my bar companion. I don’t know if her vocalizer did it or she managed it with her filter’s wet gill slits. I shouldn’t boast about my ship, but Seventy-Seven is my life and I have to have something.

“God! She must be faster than anything in the universe. She’s what I was constructed for. What’s DEEXSER Seventy-Seven’s personality habitation.”

“Lentri Uridium.”

She ran her exquisite silver-gloved hand over her lumpy helmet.

“I have compatible Lentri Uridium implants.”

This faceless, nameless stranger asking all these probing questions about my ship and having the implants to interface Seventy-Seven’s computer put me on the defensive. I considered leaving her, but my eyes wandered down her impeccable suit and her exquisite chassis to the five screws across her pubic arch. The same Number-Two-Star tip screws as in her faceplate held a crotch case. They required a Star-tip-Number-Two screwdriver. I always keep at least one in my tool kit, and I hoped I’d be using it tonight as I stared at her encased crotch, wondering what it would take to get in.

“What’s your name?”

“Call me Celest. It’s short for Celestial, where I was meant to be.”

“Well, I think you have a heavenly body. Would you mind holding it against me?”

“Thank you,” she said with her head bowed also looking at herself as I was. She snuggled over and let me hold her, all of her, that suit like perfect supple silk and her touch--ecstasy.

“For that, I’ll freshen your glass with your favorite,” She said. “Bartender, fill my spacer’s glass with his favorite, not your house bourbon. On me.”

Celest passed her hand over her lumpy helmet again, hesitating as if she had forgotten that there was no hair under her helmet or it was gone. She continued her preening, contenting herself, with twiddling the end of her ear-antennae.
“Thank you.” I said, “What other things do you do besides dance?”

“I’m a licensed master pilot, looking for a position on a deep space explorer.”

I called her bluff, “What’d you fly?

She gave me list, some I had heard of. But, most of I had never heard of,. The ones I had never heard of were ancient core haulers.
The bartender was looking at her as she injected yet another glass of ethanol. She removed her glass from her chest access panel and handed it back to the bartender. He capped it and put it away for her.

“I’ve got to do another set.”

She rubbed the back of her ideal silvery-gloved hand across my cheek; the material smoother than silk sent a shock of bliss through me.
“I’ll keep your drink fresh if you’ll stay until my next break. I’d like to talk some more.”

As she climbed back into her cage, she accentuated a tail-wiggle for me. I couldn’t help but notice the four screws in her center lower back. I think she wanted to make sure I saw them too, as she climbed in her cage.

I stayed for the next three sets; she kept her promise, keeping my glass full. She’d finishing off the four-liter can that I had purchased for her and she ordered herself another one. This was one of my cheapest dockside nights yet. Many other women entered the bar and paraded past me but she held my interest. I was beginning to get a glow, and she was joyous to watch. She told me she’d been a core-freighter pilot. Flying the core is one of the most difficult things to do because all the stars are in such close proximity. One missed calculation and you’re in a star, and freighters are the worst to handle. I still had my doubts about her being a core pilot. I didn’t really assign it a very high priority.

She logged out of the bar, suggesting that we go for a walk. She filled her glass and inserted in her breast access panel. She placed her almost full Third can of ethanol in her duffel bag. We wandered to the observation port my arm around her waist while she was working on the glass. She showed no sign of inebriation from all that alcohol which is more than I can say about myself.

“Which one is yours?”

I pointed.

She said, “She beautiful. Let’s go outside.”

When she meant for a walk, I didn’t realize it was going to be a space walk. I had to retrieve my suit from Seventy-Seven. I made her wait outside the dock-lock while I got my suit; the cabin was a mess with the refit to a DEEXGEM.

We stood at the entrance of the airlock, me in my silver suit, holding my helmet and her, just standing there, as she was earlier. She filled her glass one more time and inserted it, letting it inject. She removed the glass closing the breast-access panel, stowing her glass and her can of ethanol in her duffel bag.

“Do you need to get a space suit?” I asked.

She answered, “It’s on.”

She pulled a backpack from her bag and removed her collar. She really did have trachea tube and the jacks for a vocalizer. The backpack had a simple circular hose attached to a collar that she fastened in place over her trachea tube on/in her throat voice jacks.
Check me. Came over my suit intercom as she stowed her out-of-tank collar and was checking my suit. I wasn’t acquainted with her equipment, although I did check to see that everything was secure and no leaks as we cycled through the airlock, I still had my doubts as we stood, looking like mirrors of each other. Her suit didn’t look real, but she continued giving me the thumbs up until the outer door opened. That crazy woman, too much alcohol, launched herself out of the airlock while I was still attaching our tether. By the time I noticed her departure, she was so far out I wasn’t sure the tether would even reach her, but I launched toward her in desperation. I was at about half the length of cable when she tucked, somersaulted, and blue flames came from her stiletto high heels, sending her darting back toward me. She flipped again, sending blue flames at my face. She flipped once more stopping right in front of me and gave me a suited hug, touching both sides of my faceplate with hers in a helmeted kiss. Then she shoved me away, jetting off in a different direction, sending me even further out on my tether. Over my suit intercom I heard, I love taking a walk after work. The ethanol provides me with electrical power, heating and cooling, as well as fuel for my rockets.

I was beginning to wonder what I had found this time. There was no way to build all that into her trim, curvaceous suit as tight as it was unless she was a ’bot. She continued to ever so lovingly play with me like I was a paddleball, always giving me a loving suit-hug and helmet kisses before launching me for another one of her maneuvers followed by a save.

I’m running low; we better go in came over my suit intercom.

As we stood in the airlock, she could tell I was staring at her with questions.

“I’m not ’bot’. I’m mostly human and female.”

It was clear, we both wanted the same thing but it promised to be a more interesting evening than I ever expected, that is if it was even possible. Her credibility had improved but strangeness had replaced it. I still thought she was sexy. Even more now, in an unusual way. I wondered what else I was in for as I removed my helmet and she changed back to filter-vocalizer collar.

“Come on, I’ll get you another drink. You probably need it about now.”

She tugged at my hand, and I considered going back in my ship and dogging hatch but my cabin on Seventy-Seven, now DEEXGEM Seventy-Seven by the dock signs was in disarray with the refit. I gave in reluctantly, putting my arm around her waist. She led me to her quarters where I got the drink, and it was clear she didn’t want to talk any more as she slowly stripped my suit and undergarments off. I got into the mood too, although I had no idea how to get her out of her suit, and I wondered what I would find when I did. She handed me a powered screwdriver from her bedside bureau. She turned her back to me and wiggled.

“Hold still.”

I backed out the first of the four screws in back-side of her crotch-case. The screw was three-centimeter (1 1/4”) long. The socket for the screw must go way into her coccyx bone if she still had them. The other three screws were the same lengths. She turned and let me do the five screws across her pubic arch. They were equally long; the screw sockets must have been imbedded in her pubic bones. The case came away revealing definitely all woman.

“How do I get the rest of your suit off?” I asked her.

“It doesn’t come off. It’s my skin.”

Celest had been ecstasy three times. Wow! I went foraging for another drink and had returned to her bed for another round, this time with her powered screwdriver, placing it on the bed stand as I crawled in under the silver thermal blanket with her.
I had fucked Celest to my pleasurable climatic satisfaction again and lay on her, while her vocalizer purred of satisfaction too. I reached for the power screwdriver, removing a temple faceplate screw. It was long; its socket must have gone to her brain. She violently shoved me off, placing both of her hands on the corner of her faceplate where I had removed her temple screw, shouting:

“Please Don’t! Put my screw back in. Now!”

I put her faceplate screw back in. I had definitely broken the mood.
Celest commanded, “Computer record. Personality intimate compatibility for DEEXGEM projects input. Was I satisfactory in bed and every other way since we met?”

I answered, “Celest, you were wonderful, far more than satisfactory, one of the best. I’m sorry, I just want to see your face.”
“Computer end recording. You should ask first. I never take my faceplate off.”

She got up and wandered around eventually retrieving a large, heavy wicked-looking device from a locked storage bin. She fondled it, playing with it, teasing me. I knew what was; it’s sometimes called a ship’s bride-maker. I find its appearance intimidating though necessary. Women entering our trade must be absolutely terrified by it, especially a virgin. Something about its three protuberances and thick curve makes it look so formidable; yet, she stood there fondling it like an old friend. If she put it on, the party would defiantly be over.

“You know, I wore this for almost five years without ever taking it off. I’m going to have to wear it again.”

She put it on the nightstand. “How about one more time for the trek?”

I held the covers for her as she climbed in. I kissed her screwed temple; the one I’d R&Red. My gaze frequently wandered to the nightstand while we’re engaged.

“I’ve got to get ready. I’m going for an interview this morning.”

She went in the head to freshen up, sitting on the seat. She filled her special glass with G-food. G-food is specially formulated for direct injection into the stomach by gastro-tube. All us spacers have a g-tube for tank time. She repeatedly injected herself in the breast access panel.

She explained, “I still have to eat like you do, but I can only do it the way you do in a G-tank. I miss the taste and smell of food, but it’s a small trade-off for being alive and adapted for space.”

Then she switched to water followed by more ethanol finishing the four-liter can. She came out of the head and went to the nightstand She picked up the ship’s bride-maker and began un-wrapping it.

“Be a dear, and give me a hand getting it in. If I get the job, I'll be wearing it a long time again. I’ll be putting out to deep space. Thank you for the evening, dear.”

I reluctantly aligned it and she squirmed and wiggled it up in place, matching her screw holes. I put the rear four screws in for her, but she chose to do the front five herself.

“I’ve got to run. I still have things to do before the interview. Lock-up when you leave.”

I started to speak but she put her silver-skinned finger to my lips and left.

I sat in my ship’s dock office with the sign that read DEEXGEM Seventy-Seven looking over data on her refit. It seemed I now had to have a first officer with the refit. It had become law while I was out. All Captains must have a backup on any exploratory mission of more than a month. The station’s computer had already posted the mandatory employment ad for me just after I’d docked. I was not looking forward to the hassle of interviewing unqualified candidates as my thoughts returned to Celest. I wasn’t sure how to contact her after last night or who she was even shipping with. I wondered if I would see her again when a familiar melodic synthesized voice chimed:

“Captain, permission to enter.”

“Enter.”

Celest entered, standing at attention in front of me. The six screws of her faceplate had been replaced with permanent-tamper-proofs screws, screwed in with breakable tabs. The tabs are usually broken off with a blow or blows from a hammer, sometimes there cut with diagonal cutters with resounding snap, or sometimes sawed off, or ground off with a grinder. Then the screw head is ground smooth with a grinder. I tried to image the noise and the pain she must have endured to have all six of her faceplate screws done if they were anchored in her facial and skull bones. It would take a major extraction process to get them out now and I pondered if they had been poxywelded as well. I checked the lower screws and they were still standards.

“Request for employment interview and submission of my resume, Sir.”

She submitted an info-chip which I began scanning. Her original name was Careenia Destina and her picture was just as she stood in front me in her suit with the ship’s bride-maker in place. A note under the picture read ‘positive identification by implanted chips or DNA testing only’. That, was an interesting note. She held out her hand; I scanned her chips and they matched. I began reading her service record. The ships she had served on were the same ones she’d mentioned last night, as best, I could remember. I was also cross-checking her resume against shipping records at the same time. They all matched. She had numerous commendation and glowing recommendations until I got to the Odessa. Her resume stopped for four years. Then it listed deep space simulations and training but no flight time. Next, a list of interface and adaptations she had for deep space. I wondered if she went earth-side somewhere for a family that didn’t work out. She had sacrificed and submitted to numerous modifications trying to work her way back in.

When the detailed Odessa records came up, it surprised the hell out of me. Lost in the core, Globular Thirty-Seven-Epsilon Cluster with all hands, Pilot Careena Destina posthumously decorated with distinguish star for her efforts as pilot to save her ship and crewmembers. I looked up at her not wishing to carry on this ruse of reading a requiem for a valiant pilot.

“Careena, Celest or whatever you call your self, I don’t find this amusing.”

“Please, call me Celest. Careena doesn’t exist anymore, as my resume so notes. I died as the Odessa records state. Actually, I’ve died two more times during my reconstruction.”

“Tell me why you were posthumously decorated and dead three times while you’re still standing here?”

“It’s medical policy to record a death and notify the family if there’s little hope of reviving and quick reconstructing of a person. However, the medical staff doesn’t give up if they are successful they will just give their patient a new identity and name like me.”

“So tell me what happened on the Odessa?”

“It was a routine freight run then the drive became erratic the engineer ran diagnostics and they indicated imminent failure so the Captain sent out a distress call while I attempted to park us in orbit around the nearest star. The drive failed before I could establish a stable orbit. We were slowly spiraling in. The captain sent another update of our condition to the Deliverance that was on the way. We all got back in our tanks as the cabin temperature rose. I kept the cabin in the shadow of the cargo pods to keep us as cool as possible while we prayed. The heat in the cabin caused the ship’s computer to crash. When the computer went down, I couldn’t direct the thrusters from my tank and the life support systems for all the tanks ceased, so I got out. I did my best to get the tank life support working for my crewmembers but I was unsuccessful. They were boiled alive if they hadn’t suffocated first. I did keep the cabin in the shadow manually until my suit failed. I can remember looking down at my feet, seeing my boots melt then my feet caught fire. My hands went next and that’s all I remember. I’ll release my medical records for you if you want to know more.”

“Please.”

“I would suggest you start with my medical file from the Deliverance.”

She gave me the address and code to open her medical file.

THE PILOT, CARRENA DESTINA OF THE ODESSA IS THE SOLE SURVIVOR, NOTE POSITIVE IDENTIFICATION IS IMPOSSIBLE FROM PHYSICAL FEATURES. IMMEDIATE CARE IS INDICATED SO I HAVE BY-PASSED DENTAL IDENTIFICATION. I HAVE FROM THE EMPTY G-TANK TENTATIVELY IDENTIFIED HER UNTIL DNA TEST ARE CONCLUSIVE.

THE PATIENT HAS SUFFERED THIRD DEGREE BURNS TO NINETY SEVEN PERCENT OF HER BODY. LITTLE REMAINS OF ANY FLESHY FEATURE. THE BONES OF HER ARMS AND LEGS ARE EXPOSED. AND NOTHING REMAINS OF HER HANDS AND FEET. THE PATIENT DIED ON STASIS TANK ENTRY.

DNA TEST IS CONCLUSIVE OF OUR STASIS PATIENT.

“I would recommend the hospital psychological evaluation files rather than wading through the volumes of actual medical files they generated on me for the next four years. After you read them, I’ll let you open the medical files if you still have questions.”

CAREENA DESTINA CONDITION IS EXTREMELY CRITICAL WITH POOR PROGNOSIS. AFTER ANALYZING HER LAST REQUEST I AM GIVING MY APPROVAL AND ENTERING THEM IN THIS RECORD FOR GUIDANCE OF HER TREATING PHYSICIANS.

IF THE DELIVERANCE GETS HERE IN TIME I’LL NEED MAJOR RECONSTRUCTION. TELL THE DOCTORS NOT TO WORRY ABOUT MAKING ME LOOK HUMAN, JUST MAKE ME FUNCTIONAL FOR DEEP SPACE EXPLORATION. I’VE SEEN CORE AND SUNS ALL TOO CLOSE NOW!

There was another entry almost six months later by the same psychologist.

CAREENA IS STILL WITH US AND HAS UNDER GONE RADICAL QUADRUPLE AMPUTATIONS OF HER LIMBS RATHER THAN ATTEMPTING IMPOSSIBLE REGENERATE. ALL NECROTIC TISSUE HAS BEEN REMOVED AND THE STASIS TANK IS ALL THAT IS KEEPING HER REMNANTS ALIVE. THIS IS THE FIRST TIME SINCE HER ARRIVAL SHE IS HIGH ENOUGH FUNCTIONING FOR ME TO EVEN COMMUNICATE WITH HER THROUGH HER CRANIAL-SHIP IMPLANTS. MOST OF HER THROAT IS GONE WITH HER LARYNX. I WISH AT THIS TIME TO VERIFY HER WISHES BEFORE WE PROCEED FURTHER IN HER RECONSTRUCTION.

NOTE SHE HAS AFFIRMED HER DESIRES AND WE ARE PROGRESSING. SHE HAS AN EXTREMELY POSITIVE OUTLOOK FOR SUCH A SICK PATIENT.

The next excerpt was three and a quarter years later.

CAREENA HAS DIED TWICE IN THE RECONSTRUCTION PROCESS HOWEVER THE PHYSICIANS AFTER LONG REGENERATIVE STASIS PERIODS WERE ABLE TO REVIVE HER. HER RECONSTRUCTION IS NEAR COMPLETION MOST OF IT WITH HER CONSCIOUS APPROVAL. FOR ANY WOMAN SO DISFIGURED, SHE SEEMS ECSTATIC AND LOVES HER RECONSTRUCTED BODY. I WOULD LIKE TO NOTE SHE DOES HAVE AN EXTREME PHOBIA OF ANYBODY OPENING HER FACEPLATE.

HER FACEPLATE DESIGN WAS OF HER OWN CHOOSING. WE OFFERED TO FASHION A FACE FOR HER OUT OF THE SAME MATERIAL AS HER SYNTHETIC SKIN AND MAKE HER OCULAR IMPLANTS SPACE AND TANK WORTHY. SHE HAS REJECTED OUR SUGGESTION SAYING IF I’M WEARING PERMANENT SPACE SUIT MAKE ME LOOK LIKE I AM. MY CREW WILL ACCEPT ME MORE THAT WAY THAN SEEING A STONE-COLD SILVER FACE IN ABSOLUTE VACUUM OR EMERGED IN A G-TANK.

SHE HAS REQUESTED THE NAME CELESTIAL DESTINA. WE HAVE FILED THE LEGAL PAPER WORK FOR HER.

The last entry was dated just before Celest’s arrival a RD4W.

CELESTIAL HAS PROFICIENTLY PROGRESSED THROUGH ALL DEEP SPACE TRAINING AND I NOTE NO DETRIMENTAL PSYCHOLOGICAL REASONS TO DENY HER REQUEST FOR RELEASE. SHE WILL BE A CREDIT TO THOSE SHE SERVES WITH. IT HAS BEEN A POSITIVE AN UPLIFTING EXPERIENCE FOR ME TO WATCH THIS WOMAN’S RECOVERY.

I had an idea what was behind her faceplate; it might be something very grotesque that a once and a still a beautiful woman chose to keep a secret.

I asked, “There’s stasis fluid behind your faceplate supporting what’s left, isn’t there?”

She nodded her head.

“If I’d opened it last night, I could have killed you?”

“Remotely.” She said, “But seeing what’s left might have scared you to death. In any event, it would have been a mess--Captain, I deserve a place on your ship. Let me also point out that I’m far over-qualified and we have a satisfactory or better than satisfactory intimate relationship ratings for DEEXGEMs by your own admission. Do I get the job?”

I said, “About last night?”

“I enjoyed it and would love to do it again. I set out to explore a possible employer and his ship but it turned into much more than that. Thank you, Sir.”

She stood at attention. I thought she was more beautiful than ever. Her secret would be ours, if she didn’t mind. I shouldn’t. I finally answered her.

“It will add two days to the refit for your special requirements.”

I made a note to make sure we had a good supply of ethanol on board.

“My place tonight and you had better take this thing out of me until we’re ready to get in the tanks.”

I said, “Tank. The refit design is for one tank, dual occupancy. You should know that.”

I let my First Officer Celestial Destina adroitly nudge us out of our slip and into the launch sling, sending us into the safe burn zone. When we received clearance, she lit Seventy-Seven, burying the throttle into the emergency range. It destroyed that stupid sign the refit crew hung on Seventy-Seven. A scream of pure glee came through the ship’s electronics from Celest’s intra-cranial implants as we accelerated off the scale. Seventy-Seven was having trouble keeping us a live even in our tank. Seventy-Seven’s sensors were going into the critical range when she throttled back to an economic acceleration. I had already started my electronic sentence.
Take it easy on the fuel, Celest. We have long way to go.

Celest did it just like I do, maybe better.

[Admin]

A very interesting story. Thanks for sharing it!