Christmas in Space

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A classic from a few years ago, brought back to the front page...
 

Christmas in Space
by Melanie Brown
Copyright  © 2017 Melanie Brown

In space, no one can hear you say Merry Christmas.

 

 


 

That bright flash and feeling a zillion pin pricks. I hate being reconstituted.

I kept my eyes closed as I drew in a few deep breaths. I felt a bit dizzy and held the side of the chamber. I wondered why I was being brought out for this time. Routine? Sensors detect something? Something’s broken? I won’t know until I step out.

The dehydration chambers have been standard equipment on all ships in the Alliance space fleet since before the war. By not having to maintain constant life-support, the ships could be smaller, less expensive and with smaller crews. In literally, a blink of an eye, you’re diced up, digitized and your body mass stored as water and silica gel or what looks like common sand to most people. Which is why all the non-technical people call the process being sanded and nick-named the devises Sander. I hate the damned things.

As I slid the chamber’s door open, I immediately felt something out of kilter. I think the first thing I noticed were the long strands of blonde hair falling across my face. The next thing I noticed that was wrong were the rather ample tits hanging from my chest. I was buck naked, but then, that’s normal.

I looked down at the tits. “What the fuck?” I asked aloud. To myself I thought, what’s wrong with this stupid thing?

I’m the captain, first mate and crew aboard the smallest class of vessels in the fleet. The vessel I’m manning, named Nostromo, is a fast recon ship. It has no weapons and equipped with the deepest probing deep space radar system in the fleet, which is why I’m stationed in the furthest, loneliest outpost in Alliance space. The computer will wake me up when something is detected or if some component of the ship malfunctions. So occasional reconstitution is normal.

But waking up from being sanded, as a woman is not exactly normal.

Frowning, I walked over to the main console. It read, “ERROR: PROFILE TEMPLATE LAST USED CORRUPTED. CORRUPTED TEMPLATE DELETED. USING PREVIOUS USED TEMPLATE”

“What the fuck?!” I shouted. How could my template be corrupted? The profile is, well it’s a very complicated holographic memory file that contains your very essence. Not just how you look and how you are pieced together, but also your memories and even your last thought before being sanded. Your physical appearance and the mass you use is stored in the template. When you’re sanded, your mass is converted to water and the silica gel, how you’re pieced together stored in your template, and your memories and characteristics stored in your profile on the computer. Everyone creates a backup profile before heading off into deep space.

There is no space wasted on mirrors aboard a small recon vessel so I had to look at my reflection in the glass of the deconstruction chamber. “What the fuck?!” I exclaimed.

For some reason, I had been reconstituted with the Lola template. The Lola template, which is actually illegal in the military, but is found on virtually every ship bound for deep space, is a profile of a wicked gorgeous prostitute who died around a hundred years ago from Seka-5, one of the sleaziest, dirtiest, dangerous piece of shit planet in known space. It’s actually just outside the boundaries of the Alliance but not in Ergon space either.

The Lola template is part of an entertainment module. On long missions, when the crew gets bored, someone, usually hated by the person performing the action, gets reconstituted using their profile, but the Lola template. Their profile is used to bring Lola to life, with all her feminine wiles as well as being a complete nympho. The Lola profile, originally developed for espionage, is a very clever and extensive piece of programming that allows for emergency situations as well as different levels of depravity.

But as the Nostromo has only a solo crew, using the entertainment module makes no sense. Some previous crew must have last used the module because it sure as hell wasn’t me.

Lucky for me, when the computer used the Lola profile, it disengaged prostitute modules so it would be me, but in the girl’s body. Otherwise I’d be a completely lost little bimbo with no idea how to run any of the equipment. Like I said, the entertainment module had a lot of features.

Pissed, I walked over to the communications console. The ship is in constant communication with Alliance headquarters using the sub-ether transmission system that provided faster than light communications. However, the bandwidth it uses is so narrow, the communicating has to be pretty light; mostly text and small bit streams.

At the console, I typed in my access code along with the brief message, “REQUEST PROFILE REFRESH”. I noticed on the clock it indicated the date was December 25. Being from Earth, I have the ship’s clock synched on Terran Time. Well Merry fucking Christmas to me.

Even at sub-ether speeds, I had to wait several minutes for a reply. “REQUEST ACKNOWLEDGED. ESTIMATE 4 MONTH TRANSMISSION. IF YOU DON’T KNOW YET, STATUS FROM YOUR SHIP INDICATES FAILURE OF CIRCUITS J12 – J16 AND IMMINENT FAILURE OF CIRCUITS K5 AND K20. PLEASE CONFIRM.”

Dammit. I should have checked the status first. But I was too pissed off at being Lola that I wasn’t thinking straight. That’s probably why the ship woke me up in the first place. I checked the status report and Alliance HQ was correct. These were critical circuits and needed to be replaced post-haste. There are plenty of spare circuit boards in the store below deck. I punched in a confirmation message into the console and then walked over to the access hatch on the floor.

And waiting four months was no big deal. It’ll be longer than that most likely before the ship wakes me up again. Checking the year on the clock showed that I had been at this far flung point in Alliance space for ten years. But I had only been awake for less than a month that whole time.

I popped the latch and grabbed the recessed handle and pulled. Nothing. I pulled again. It seemed stuck. The panel is a bit heavy and I guessed my Lola body lacked the upper body strength to unstick it. I stepped back to the ship’s control panel, flipped up the red protective cover and hit the switch to turn off inertial dampening. Along with the brief sound of an alarm, my feet immediately lost contact with the floor, my long hair started floating wildly and everything including me started to drift towards the rear of the ship.

I pulled myself back to the access hatch and tried again now that the hatch would have no weight. It was either completely stuck or the fact that it still had mass and therefore still had inertia and wanted to remain at rest. Shouting obscenities, I tried several times almost losing self-control jerking on the handle.

Disgusted, I turned the inertial dampening back on and immediately fell on my ass. Christ on a crutch! How am I going to get that hatch open? It’s internal so there are no explosive bolts or other handy emergency ways to blow it open.

Scowling, I typed into the communications console, “CAN’T OPEN ACCESS PANEL. SUGGESTIONS?”

“CHECK PRESSURE DIFFERENTIAL BETWEEN COMPARTMENTS,” came the reply.

I should have thought of that myself. I checked the status panel and all indicator lights were green.

“PRESSURES EQUAL,” I typed.

After a few minutes of waiting, HQ replied, “ODD. BTW, WHAT PROFILE? SHIP REPORTS YOUR PROFILE HAS BEEN DELETED.”

Frowning, I typed, “LOLA.”

There was an extended pause followed by, “HAHAHAHAHAHAHA”

I angrily punched the keys on the console, “IT’S NOT FUNNY. SERIOUSLY, ANY IDEAS?”

After a pause, HQ responded, “SORRY. IS FUNNY. TRY USING THE M.A.J. – I PROGRAM.”

I replied, “DOES THIS VESSEL HAVE THAT?”

The reply from HQ was fairly quick. “EVERY VESSEL DOES. JUST VERY RARELY USED.”

“ACKNOWLEDGED.”

I don’t remember what all the letters actually stand for, but it’s one of those protocols that while everyone is trained on, almost everyone forgets it’s there. Usually there is never a need. It would probably only get used in a single crew vessel such as the Nostromo. Basically it’s a spare crew member. A construct based on an actual human who lived God knows how long ago, but heavily modified and programmed to have knowledge of the ship’s innards and on the freaky side, some of the original person’s own memories. Most never use it because of how creepy it is. But I needed an extra pair of hands.

I walked the few steps over to the sanding console and punched up the profile for the spare crew member. I really didn’t want to do this. I know it’s stupid, but I was suddenly embarrassed to be a gorgeous, over-sexed woman. It’s one thing to be that by yourself. It’s another when someone else is present; even if he is mostly a construct.

After bringing up the profile, I punched the Reconstitute button. There was a brilliant flash, a smell of ozone and then a naked man appeared in the chamber. He looked confused at first. He looked over at me and smiled broadly. The chamber door slid open. I couldn’t help but gasp a little when I saw him step from the chamber.

He was male of course, His face was chiseled handsome good looks, very well muscled and… holy shit. He was hung like a horse. I was expecting some dweebish guy with glasses. I highly suspected that female crews brought this guy out when no one was looking.

And something else started happening. Something I couldn’t control and was very disturbing. I was alone with a male, no active emergency to prevent the programming from initiating. I found myself suddenly very attracted to him. I needed to concentrate.

The construct said, “Hello. I’m Adam, your spare crewmember. How may I assist?”

I took a deep breath and cleared some of the Lola ideas on how he could assist. “Look. I got stuck as a woman and I don’t seem to have the strength to open the access hatch to the second deck. Could a big strong man such as yourself open it for me?” I bit my lower lip as I slowly pulled a few stray strands of hair from my face.

Adam smiled. “Sure miss. Let me see what I can do.” He bent over the panel and tugged on the handle. It didn’t open for him either. He frowned a moment and then gave the panel a jerk and the hatch popped open with a metallic twang. Adam’s eyes glazed over for a few moments.

He stood up after his eyes returned to normal. His eyes were very blue. “I was just communicating with the ship’s computer. I quickly perused the status logs. It seems the ship suffered from overheating because the cooling system was frozen. This hatch got a bit warped from the heat. The heat also caused those circuits to fail and probably damaged the memory where your profile was stored. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go get those circuits repaired in a jiffy.”

And before I could react, Adam had dropped down through the hatchway to the deck below. I looked through the hatch and saw him moving rapidly, more rapidly than a normal human could, busily replacing circuit boards. After less than twenty minutes, he returned to the main deck. He gave the hatch door a twist and then tested opening and closing it to make sure it operated properly. He flipped the catch back down.

He smiled a dazzling, toothy grin at me. “Everything is back to ship shape, miss. I also did some needed preventative maintenance to ensure this ship’s readiness.”

I stepped very close to him and even took his hand. “Thank you so much, Adam. You don’t know how much I appreciate your help. You’re the best Christmas present a girl could ask for. A regular dream come true.”

He held both my hands and drew me close to him. His member was touching my pussy. I could feel myself getting wet. This is insane! I tried to think of sports players.

Adam smiled again. “Are you Terran?

I nodded as I bit my lower lip.

Grinning, Adam said, “So am I.”

Even a construct couldn’t ignore all the cues I was unconsciously sending him. He bent his head down and kissed me. And that’s when I lost it. Lola fully kicked in. I slid my arms around his neck and kissed him deeply. I moaned as he slid his tongue into my mouth and I sucked on it. He held me close to him and rubbed his swollen penis against my pussy.

I fell back against the ship’s console. He bent me backwards a bit as he pushed more into me, kissing me harder. He reached down and fingered me as I continued to get very wet. I found it getting harder to breathe. I wanted him inside me so bad!

“Fuck me!” I squealed.

Between heavy breaths, Adam said, “As you wish, miss…”

“Oh God!” I gasped as he slid his massive cock into me. It was literally like nothing I’ve ever felt before. Oh I wanted him! I wanted him bad! Squirreled away in a dark recess of my mind locked in hiding, my consciousness marveled at the idea that here I was, trapped in an over-sex prostitute’s body, having crazy sex with a construct based on a man who has probably been dead for more than a century.

Leaning back against the console, I lifted my hips to meet his rhythm as he rammed harder into me. I cried out in raw pleasure as he pushed one last hard thrust into me as he emptied his load. We stood there, leaning against the console, Adam still inside me as he kissed me.

Adam stepped back, his own programming kicking back in after his lust had receded. “My work is complete. I need to return.”

My legs weak, I slid to the floor. I grabbed his leg and cried, “Please don’t go! Oh baby, please stay!”

He looked down at me and ruffled my hair. He sighed, “The system is calling me back. I may have exceeded my operational parameters.” He grinned at me. “Call me again when you have need of me.”

I watched helplessly as he returned to the sanding chamber and in a flash he was gone and the silica gel canister hissed as the sand started refilling.

I sighed. “Baby, you can count on that!”

I stood up on shaky legs. My head started to clear as Lola shut down since there was no longer a man present.

I placed my forehead against my palm and slowly shook my head. “What the hell did I just do?” I said aloud. And why do I want to do it again?

I walked back to the sander and pressed some buttons. The chamber door slid open. By the time the ship wakes me up again, my profile should be restored and I will be my old cynical self again.

The chamber door closed and there was a bright flash.

*          *          *

There was a bright flash with a zillion needle pricks. God I hate being reconstituted.

The chamber door slid open after the momentary dizziness passed. I stepped out and immediately noticed things were not right. I looked down. I had tits. I was still Lola.

I ran to the console and checked the status history. My profile finished being transmitted three months ago. Why the hell didn’t the system use it?

I looked at the sander’s log for the latest operations. “FOREIGN BODY DETECTED. REJECTING NEW PROFILE. USING PREVIOUS PROFILE.”

“What the fuck?!” I shouted at the console. One of the great features of the dehydration/reconstitute process is that foreign bacteria and viruses are removed. Why didn’t it just remove whatever this was as well?

I quickly typed a message to HQ. “SANDER FAILURE. I’M STILL LOLA. PLEASE ADVISE.”

After a minute, HQ replied. “CHECKING LOG DETAILS…”

There was a very long pause and then another message from HQ. “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! YOU’RE PREGNANT! HAHAHA. THE SYSTEM WILL NOT OVER-RIDE THAT CONDITION. SORRY. YOU ARE BEING RECALLED FROM HAZARDOUS DUTY. A NEW CREW MEMBER IS BEING DISPATCHED TO REPLACE YOU.”

Just what the fucking hell? Pregnant? Oh my God! Because the way the Lola profile was activated, it didn’t turn on the fail-safes, like the one that prevents pregnancy. Adam, that bastard! And I always thought you couldn’t get pregnant on your first time. The Alliance military command won’t put expectant moms in hazardous positions so I’m losing my crew status.

All this because of a gift of the MAJ-I…

*          *          *

The End


Previously posted 2017-11-18

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Comments

"gift of the MAJ-I"

WillowD's picture

As frequently happens Melanie, your story has me laughing. Thank you.

*clap, clap, clap*

Emma's picture

I always look forward to your post and I’m never disappointed. Great job once again

Lola, LOL

laika's picture

This was set in such a well-realized universe I stopped a third of the way through to see if it wasn't a fanfic of some tv series or author I wasn't familiar with. Storing your crew that way makes sense, surprised it isn't used more often (the closest I remember is Scotty from the old Star Trek stashing himself in a transporter field so he could rematerialize 100 years later in Picard's series). And the same process creates the, uh... entertainment units; which are also internally logical to this world. The story takes bits and pieces from other sci-fi worlds, but almost everything does these days and it saves the hassle of having to explain everything. And with some other details I thought were clever (a few days ago I was trying to come up with another name for subspace; wish I'd thought of sub-ether, it ties in with that mysterious aether that nobody's found yet. I wound up having the aliens I'm writing now call it "slippy-space", but they're goofy like that...) it's an especially good story universe for a tale that's just the set up for a Christmas pun.

I hope your heroine gets workman's comp for losing her original body, and some decent maternity leave compensation. And if there isn't a backup copy of her own form somewhere so she could be a single dad after a while, if she'd prefer; I would hope she can get her face changed enough that she doesn't have to go through life looking like a famous sex toy, and all the awkward situations that would create: especially at Christmastime when people might think she's a HO HO HO....
~sorry, Veronica

I suppose this

great little story reiterates what we all know , Never ever trust a computer , They always have the last laugh...

Kirri

Trying To Think Of Something Witty

joannebarbarella's picture

But the story is so witty in itself. All I can say is "Mwahahahahah"
Good one, Melanie.

OW!!

Did you have to use such a large punny stick? :-)

Grand story, left me laughing, and groaning.

I don't normally read sci-fi.

...but I thought I'd read a few lines, and, ZAM, I was hooked just as securely as Lola.

To me, this had the feel of the Hitchhiker's Guide. Once you've got over the "This is crazy," thing, it's a highly credible, well-written short story, which carries you along from beginning to end.

Of course, as we all know, the problem doesn't end when the baby is born - that's only the beginning of the pain and the pleasure.

Thank you.

A great sweet morsel.

I'm a big SF fan and particularly like hard, techy SF. This pushed all the right buttons! Thanks so much!

Cindy

Cindy Jenkins

Too much! heh. Gift of Magi...

Someone got what he... err... she didn't expect. Unexpected consequences. Or maybe someone decided to play a... [ahem] harmless prank.

Fun

It's amazing how you set the scene so skillfully and gave us so much story with only one real character. What a wonderful Christmas present you've given us! A great story from a gifted author. thank you

Oh brother...!

Jamie Lee's picture

This is a nice story, showing problems of unusual types pop up anywhere. And that not all problems are of a mechanical nature.

But the last line was a face palm statement, one which causes the reader shake their head and emit, "oh brother!"

Others have feelings too.

oops

LOL well there are always those little problems arising... evil grin

Gift

The story is pure gold and I would frankly be incensed if I were 'Lola'. Knowing Ang's humility I am sure she would de-myrrh at all the praises.

Happy holidays all!

Glad to see this one surface again

Iolanthe Portmanteaux's picture

It's a cute story -- as I've said elsewhere, the Sander is one of Melanie's greatest inventions, and this one is as much a Christmas classic to me as Dickens.

- io

As you wish…

Not exactly the “Princess Bride” version. Snerk!

It's been a few years since I first read this gem,

but I readily admit it was just as enjoyable as the first time. The sander is definitely one of Melanie's best inventions. Judging from the number of times the Lola pattern has had to be used 'for emergencies', it must not be very reliable. And considering the availability of the extra crew member construct it seems the ship's designers had an interesting sense of humour!

I enjoyed the story

Angharad's picture

I'm not a great fan of SF but I do enjoy Melanie's writing, my only query would be why silicate gel? We're carbon life forms so the amount of silicates in us would be tiny 1-2g according to NCBI. I suppose the sander pun wouldn't work with carbon.

Angharad

I would suspect

Rose's picture

Compressing carbon into its logical diamond state could lead to people being ringed... maybe that should be rang? No wait... that happened anyway... if not turned into a ring, computer parts? I could see a black market developing around former humans...

There's also the fact that some people aren't Terran. Maybe it's a misconception that "all" people are dehydrated to "sand". Perhaps there are some silicon based life forms (hortas?) That are condensed to sand. Maybe it's not common knowledge that humans and other carbon based lifeforms are condensed to carbon just to stop the black market from searching out ships and hijacking them.

Signature.png


Hugs!
Rosemary

Sander Tech

Melanie Brown's picture

The sand is just a convenient and a plentiful inert material the dehydration system uses to store mass. The system converts the mass along with the ionized water back into a person. I could explain it further, but I'd have to dig out my Alliance Academy Dehydration System technical manuals. I might have left them on my other ship.

Melanie

Funny response

Your response made me laugh