A Sentar Brain Dump of a Potential Series (Patreon)

This is very rough. But an idea that's been stuck in my head and I plopped it down here for you.

Chapter 1

“The Stellar Calendar is 00169. Approximately 1600 hours.” I licked my lips in anticipation as I prepared one of my first logs.
Even if it wasn’t my specialty.
The captain must have made an honest mistake. He was a busy man, but he handed me the strange rock in a hurry. Maybe they found something. Because as the foremost expert in theoretical biology I was really looking forward to some action.
Maybe I’d even get a red shirt and be able to go down planet side with the officers for the next expedition.

My girlfriend, well we weren’t quite telling people yet, but after four dates I was smitten and tonight was the big night.

Both between us and because of her new promotion.
My girlfriend got her red shirt and was down with them on their most recent planet visit. This made number fourteen. So far we hadn’t seen more than a few amino acids, most likely inorganically created.
Right, back to the log.
“The silicate structure is…” my eyes scanned over over the computers read out. “A dense crystalline structure with impressive strength.” I jazzed up the description even though it was just ordinary silica just a funny shape and formed at lower gravity which changed the refraction of the crystals, making it shimmer in admittedly cool colors.
“Dr. Santiago. What are you doing?” Melvin came up behind me in the lab, he was the resident geologist. The thin man of African descent paused seeing the rock and the computer open in front of me with a log running. “God damnit, Tyler shut that down. It’s a rock and I’m pretty sure that is well outside you specialization. It’s just another pretty rock the captain sent back.”
“End log.” I signed out. “I’m dying man.”
“We all are. This is like the hundredth rock that’s just a pretty rock. I asked Jane to, you know, take an actual soil reading with a laser boring tube. Hopefully we can get some actual data. Who knows there might be some microbes for you under the crust.” The whole science crew was itching for some sort of finding we could see.
That’s why we were all on the Intrepid in the first place. We were going to see the stars and explore unknown worlds.
Hell we have two ambassador trained officers on board. We wanted to find life, real intelligent life out there.
“You have that date with Jane set up for when she gets back, right?” Melvin shot me a smile. “You are here because you are nervous.”
I had it all set up in her quarters, the synthesizer was all set, I had a penchant for tweaking them and had this one set up to make my famous braised short ribs with a slightly different cellular structure to make them several times more tender.
If you weren’t careful, the meat would fall off the bones if you picked it up by the bone.
“Want to share your synthesizer mods with me? Chef Santiago?” Melvin joked.
“Nope. It is my secret weapon. Maybe once I lock Jane down.” I smiled at the thought of the medical officer.
She was beautiful with those curls of light brown hair that always seemed to dance around her shoulders as she worked in the medbay.
The first time I scorched my hand playing with the synthesizer and needed attention she fixed the burn and stole my heart.
For a woman who was going where no one had gone before she had an extraordinarily kind heart. I could see it in her blue eyes the first time I met them.
“Go man. I got this. Take a moment to loosen those nerves.” Melvin pat my back and gently moved me away from the station.
I took a breath we were all just so ready for what came next.
Walking to Jane’s quarters I double checked the synthesizer and then triple checked it.
I enjoyed the work, it kept my busy mind occupied.
But there was another way I relaxed.
Stepping into the biggest empty space in her quarters I started moving.
A slow rise of my hands as I breathed in sync with the movements, before widening my stance and wiping the air in front of me with and upheld palm.
Tai Chi was my exercise of choice. It wasn’t about it being a martial art at all. There was a purpose and a meditation in the movements that let me focus in a way that was just sublime.
Time started to flow and my heart rate hit a steady, low but controlled pace and my mind focused on each form trying to make it perfect.
I blew out a breath as the doors slid open.
A guy from the lower decks stood there with a box in his arms. “Uh. Dr. Santiago I didn’t know you felt this way. You have me at a disadvantage.”
I frowned at him. “Wait did I get the wrong room? I’m waiting for Jane.”
“Oh shit man. They haven’t told you yet?”
My heart sank. “No.” Gasped.

This couldn’t be happening.

Tonight was supposed to be the two of us and a bottle of wine.

I could almost taste it on my lips as much I could hear her regaling me with some weird happening of her most recent trip to a planet.

Like it was all just out of reach. Her words meaningless whispers on the wind, but the inflections, the cadence of her speech and her laughter rang in my ears like chimes on the wind.

I wanted it so badly.

Yet, it was gone.

My vision swam half with anger half despair and everything turned upside down.

***

“Welcome back.” Medical Tech Talbot smiled at me. “How are things?”

This was the medbay, one of the private rooms. The cold, yet oddly comfortable medical table below me hummed slightly. It had the full suite of medical diagnostic tools as well as advanced regeneration attachments, though those attachments weren’t present, so that was a good sign.

“Wait. That was a dream? Jane? Jane?!” I called out louder.

Talbot’s face fell. “Tyler.” He put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “We have a counselor coming here right now. It’s important that we deal with this.”

“Where’s her body? I want to see her.” I could feel the hot tears running down my face.

“There’s not body.” He said.

I didn’t normally exert my size, but I wasn’t thinking very rationally right now.

Grabbing, Talbot by the lapel, I shot off the table, and pinned him against the wall in one fluid motion. “What do you mean? We always bring back the body.”

He shook his head rapidly. “She fell. It was too far for them to recover her.”

“Wait. Did they even confirm death?!” I pressed him hard against the bulkhead door.

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.” Talbot’s fear kicked in and I dropped him.

“I’m so sorry.” I felt terrible.

My entire life, I had dressed nicely because I had inherited my father’s broad shoulders and sharp features. I just looked aggressive and had always done my best to tone it down.

“Fuck. I’m just overwhelmed.” I made excuses and pat down the front of his green uniform.

“You scared me. But I understand the councilor is coming to see you. I’ll hurry him up.” Talbot tapped on his datapad as the bulkhead doors swung open.

“Dr. Santiago!” The captain, a quarterback if I’d ever seen one. Big square jaw, broad but balanced by a good amount of height. He was as competent as they came for command.

As for the science part, he was supposed to lean on us, but I thought he could really use some better timely advice. Otherwise we wouldn’t keep getting stupid unimpressive rocks.

“Captain.” I had enough of my wits to salute.

“At ease.” He had a big smile and completely failed to read the room. “I have a surprise for you.” He unfurled a red shirt. “You get to go down on the next expedition to the planet. We saw some interesting rock formations and are going down for a second look tomorrow at 0600 sharp.”

“Captain—“ Talbot started before I stopped him with a sharp glare.

It wasn’t who I normally was, but either because I had just pinned him or because I was possibly a little unstable right now, he shut his mouth.

“Is there an issue?” This time the captain seemed to step back and reassess the room.

“No issue. I’ll be cleared and ready tomorrow.” I promised him.

“That’s what I like to hear.” He slapped me on the shoulder. “Don’t be late and make sure to pack everything for a whole day trip.”

Talbot glared at me as the captain left. “You won’t be cleared.”

As if he summoned her, Dr. Gilson walked in. “Hello.” She had that psychiatrist tone that was supposed to be calming but always came across a little patronizing. “I hear you didn’t take the news of Dr. Sweeney’s death well.”

I blew out a breath and pulled myself together. Because I was going down to planet side tomorrow and nothing was going to stop me. At the very least I was going to bring Jane’s body back.

“Yes. The news was very shocking. We had just barely started seeing each other and I was preparing a meal.” I bit back any more. As much as it pained me, I needed to downplay anything between me and Jane if I was going to get down there tomorrow.

“Ah.” She glanced at Talbot and he quickly left the room. “So. You decided to take it out on Talbot?”

“No. I mean. Yes.” I knew I sounded confused, but that was part of it. “Waking up here was very disorienting.”

“Do you often find yourself disoriented?” She made a note on her datapad.

“No, not at all. In fact I’m in fantastic health. My neural scans are top ninty nine point ninty nine percentile. No issues there.” I was glancing at the readouts from the table I had been laying on.

“I find that sometimes even with our technology that scans can miss things. So we are going to need to be sure.” She said, settling in.

“I tend to agree. When Dr. Lawrence did his thesis on depression as a communicable illness in the sense that humans were a empathetic colony, he revolutionized the approach to mental health. For years before and after he fought tooth and nail against those who couldn’t find the hard data in the scans to back up his claims.” I liked to think while science was concrete and could solve just about any problem that existed, there was always that slight unknown, a thread that we’d have to look for often time by the data that didn’t exist in order to push science forward.

“Ah. Did you study psycology?” Dr. Gilson asked.

“No. Not really. It is just one of those inspiring data points out there that encouraged me to keep pursuing science because there is just so much to discover. We have studied humans for millennia and we are still finding out new things about ourselves.” I smiled at her.

“Yes. Science is truly incredible. Back to you and Dr. Sweeney, how long have you two been seeing each other?”

I knew she wanted an exact number and I lied. Part of me hated myself for lying, but I had to go down tomorrow. “We started casually meeting at the mess hall last week. This was the first official date. Maybe I put too much of my hopes on it to pass out like that when I got the news.” I tried to laugh it off and barely succeeded my body actually wanted to sob.

“You seem relatively okay, ignoring the first exposure to the news.” She said.

“I’m just a very empathetic person. And she’s the first one we’ve lost this entire expedition. It was certainly a shock.”

“Yes.” She jotted another note before the battery of questions continued.

I lied more times that I’d like to admit.

But I HAD to go.

Chapter 2

I double checked the pouches on my belt. Dried rations, check. Compressed water, check. Belaying wire and six inch self securing grappling hook, check. Medi-injector, check. Just in case I found Jane still alive, but injured.

It would stabilize her until we could get her to the medbay.

“You look dashing in red.” The Captain turned to see me enter the helm where the rest of the expedition was gathered.

“Thank you. I’ve been ready and waiting for this opportunity.” I gave him a sharp nod and moved over to the transfer pads, they were half wrapped in a ceramic and metal alloy to shield it from any other signals that might be moving about the helm with all of the technology here.

Molecular transfer was always an interesting debate among scientists. It was incredibly complex and there were more than a few superstitions around the technology.

Sadly, the power requirements were massive along with it being a very finicky technology.

It was unusable around so much of earth or the space stations. Landing areas had to be heavily shielded from a dozen types of radiation and energy while still allowing the transfer.

As for on planet, there were limitations with penetration, you couldn’t materialize something on the other side of rocks, and a few atmospheric conditions could make transfer prohibitive.

“We have a clear shot to the mineral deposits here in a few moments. Everyone, prepare for transfer.” The ships navigator said as they tapped on the complex display.

Everyone on the starship was exceptional.

“Transfering in 3…2…1.”

Bright white light flooded my field of vision before it faded and rather than the graceful metal curves of the helm, I was standing on a rocky outcropping of a rather barren looking world.

“See those?” The captain pointed. “We got some interesting readings from orbit. The crystal formation is actually putting out several forms of electromagnetic frequencies. But they read as if they are on a very slow decay.”

“Half life of eight point two billion years.” A stiff voice of the engineering officer clarified.

“But Melvin said there was nothing showing it was coming from the crystal itself. So we are wondering if there is something underneath.” The captain rubbed his hands with excitement. “This could finally be the big discovery.”

We were all walking towards the large crystal formation fanning out slightly and reading the area with our scanners.

I realized, the captain was the same as the rest of us. Only while we were waiting for the discovery he was actively pushing to pursue it.

“Given there was a death yesterday, I’d like to understand if there is any treacherous terrain I need to be cautious of?”

“Yes. The ravine over there gave way. The crystals shifted color over there and I had…” He paused trying to remember her name. “Dr. Swen collect a sample before the ground gave way.” He winced at the memory. “I take it as a personal failure for anything to happen to any of my crew.”

It felt hollow to me though, he had sent Jane to her death just yesterday and couldn’t remember her last name.

“If you don’t mind, I’ll check that area?” I asked.

“No. That’s off limits. Let’s search the area and see if there are any way to see if we can figure out what’s underneath the crystals.” He slapped my back and moved off to talk with another of the officers.

I slowed down, and looped back toward the ravine, following it and checking things with my scanner.

Despite being here to find Jane, I was interested in the readings.

There was actually a trace of complex amino acids in this place. Which was odd, you normally got concentrated patches on uninhabited planets.

Lightning or other severe environmental conditions could by happenstance fuse materials together.

It took millions of tries and potential failures before you got an amino acid. But it happened and normally in a burst of the right gases and minerals being together.

My scanner said it was well distributed and it blipped, showing incredibly complex proteins for a moment.

I paused, double checking the scanner and then searching around for more of it.

But I couldn’t find another blip.

In truth, it could be us. We had already contaminated the planet and shed some amount of skin cells.

I nearly tripped, a crack in the land gave way to a gentle slope, down into the the ravine.

Kneeling down, I looked through the opening. It wasn’t large, I’d have to either slide or crawl down it.

“Hey Captain.” I called and turned around, no one was close, we were all spread out and I could only see two of the other people on the expidition from here. Neither of them had been close enough to hear me.

Glancing down, I decided to take the risk.

Pulling out the grapling hook, I pressed it into the dirt and it deployed, a six inch needle into the ground before two prongs would shoot out the end anchoring it in place.

Next, I connected the belaying wire, twisting a knob to control the release to a slow and steady pace as I got on my butt and scooted into the hole.

“I’ll find you Jane.” I gave myself a good push and slid a few feet before the wire caught and I started to slide down.

This was a lot safer than just going off an edge, the slope would greatly reduce the strain on the anchor. That and it wouldn’t collapse like an edge of the ravine very easily could.

I wasn’t claustrophobic, but being squeezed into a space, on an alien planet, not far from where my girlfriend had just died induced a certain kind of terror.

One that I pushed through, taking a deep breath as my head came out of the rocks and I was descending down a sheer slope, the gentle angle having disappeared into the ravine.

This really was quite deep.

I had gone far enough blow the surface that light was growing dim and I tapped on my scanner to engage the light.

The bottom was that much farther.

And of course that thought was a jinx as my belaying cable hit the end of its line.

I made a face, glancing down at the ten meter drop I had below me.

Thinking back to the safe falling I had learned once upon a time along with tai chi. I breathed twice and then ran out the last of the cable dropping to the floor and letting my legs collapse as I shifted the inertia into a roll rather than a painful direct collision.

It worked, partially.

My left leg laced with sharp pain, but it wasn’t nearly enough to stop me.

“Jane. I’m going to find you.” I promised as I pushed off the ground, testing my leg. It hurt, but everything seemed to be working.

“No problem. Just a little pain, probably going to have a nasty bruise.” I used the wall to support some of my weight as I swept the scanner back and forth, looking for signs of Jane.

“Something’s been here.” I saw crumbles on the wall as I passed them, my hands were just a little above them. But there were clear marks, soon I saw several patches of dried blood. “Fuck me, she survived the fall.”

My jaw clenched at the thought of her having survived and waiting for help that never came.

But Jane was a fantastic doctor and she would have had her field kit on her. If there was someone who could patch themselves up after that, it was her.

As I continued I found where she had fallen, there was a solid amount of blood, but not enough to kill someone. Certainly not with the tools that she had available.

“Jane. Where did you go?” I frowned and went to check my scanner, I needed to get the ship involved. They could scan the surface for her.

But my scanner wasn’t connecting.

Which was odd.

While the transportation technology was spotting through objects, the frequencies on these scanners were legendary for penetrating nearly everything. In the twenty first century there was a big deal about how some of the ‘cellphones’ as history called them might penetrate through so many human minds that it would cause mass hysteria.

I used the old tried and true method to get a device working again.

I smacked it against my hand and tried again.

“Odd. But if I can’t get help, I’ll just have to do it myself. There’s no time to waste.” Pushing deeper into the ravine I searched for Jane, the whole way I was trying to spot for markings that she’d passed through, yet at a certain point I wasn’t sure if I was making them up or not.

At the very least, I hadn’t seen more blood which calmed me down.

I came to a split in the path, pausing and lifting my scanner for signs of biological life. Dead cells and more peptides to see if I could determine which way she’d gone.

“This way.” I followed the path, keeping low as I ducked through a narrower pass in the rocks.

By now, I was probably almost underneath the stupid crystal formation that the Captain was so interested in.

My scanner blazed to life, beeping with finding after finding.

“What?” I frowned at the readings. It was molecules that would indicate organic life, but not recognizable to anything on Earth. “Jane? Jane?!” I shouted into the cavern wondering if she might be close by.

I rounded a corner and there was a female form and I jumped forward only to see it wasn’t her, because it was hard, like a sculpture.

For a moment my thoughts of finding Jane were shattered and blown away as I took in the sculpture.

“Holy mother of science.” This… this was something someone had made.

On a planet humanity had never been on before.

This wasn’t just some random organic life in the form of microbes or animals. This was something created by the hand of sentient life.

A part of me knew I should be still looking for Jane, but this was… the entire reason I had trained to go on this trip.

This was IT.

My scanner was going off, picking up heavy residuals all over the sculpture and the surrounding space.

I wondered what this might have been? Some sort of temple?

My focus shifted back to the statue, I took in the very female face. Beautifuly carved face, looked human. Smooth cheeks, sharp features that held a sort of noble dignity. Really it wouldn’t look out of place if someone told me this was the face of a goddess.

But outside the face and the fact it stood about the right height, it didn’t look human at all.

Rather than hair it had what looked like tentacles atop it’s head, and a third eye set high on the forehead. Then tentacles wrapped around its body almost like they were protecting it from view, before a number of them flared out around the waist like they might actually be usable as secondary limbs and a column of them supported the aliens base.

I had to get some scans for the labs. This was the discovery of the century, wait, no it was one of the biggest discoveries of all human kind!

The first definitive proof of other intelligent life out there.

“Wait.” My mind forefully pulled itself back on track. “I need to find Jane.”

I had gotten so enamored with the discovery, I forgot why I was down here in the first place.

Just as I turned away to search more, my scanner went wild and I turned back to the statue, I couldn’t help my curiosity.

That’s when I heard it.

A small wet noise of something moving.

The statue’s mouth moved.

“Oh my—“ A thing. I didn’t register what it was.

It shot out into my open mouth and my body locked up and my eyes rolled up in my head as I fell over convulsing as something wormed its way through my throat, cutting into the back and oozing painfully around my spine as it traveled up to the base of my skull.

Thankfully, I stopped feeling it as I passed out from the pain.

Chapter 3

“Tyler, you are awake.” Jane smiled up at me from the bed.

I blinked and looked around my mind wrapped in that fog right after you wake up when your body wasn’t quite ready.

“Jane? Jane!” I rolled over hugging her and pressing her down to the bed with a peppering of kisses.

“Tyler! What’s gotten into you?” She laughed but didn’t stop me.

“I had a nightmare, you died and I went planet side to get you.” I kissed her one more time for emphasis.

“Well. Nightmares aren’t good, but if they make you this effectionate, I can’t say I’d mind them once in a while.” She ran a finger along my jaw studying me with a strange interest.

There was this feeling like she was inside my mind, picking it apart.

Her face stuttered, shifting to a soft purple color and resembling something I’d seen recently, but I was struggling to place it. There was a third eye on her forehead, something about it pulled my perception and threatened to overwhelm me.

Then Jane’s face was back. “Are you okay?” She asked.

I blinked several times. “I think… I think I should go to the medbay. I just… saw something?”

“Oh. Let me see.” She reached into her nightstand, all of us kept our scanners close at hand. “Lay back and I’ll give you a once over.”

“Like you did last night?” I found myself teasing her.

Though, as I tried to pull the memory of what I was sure was a fantastic night together between the sheets with her, it wasn’t coming to the surface.

Something was very wrong.

Her scanner went over my head and then she swept it down my body. “Hmm. Interesting.” She said to herself.

“Interesting is never good to the patient.” I reminded her. “What is it?”

“How do you produce so much Primo?” She asked.

“Primo?” I asked and as if the word summoned something, Jane was gone.

Instead she was replaced by a woman with purple skin. She was mesmerizingly beautiful, but she wasn’t human.

Tentacles came out of the crown of her head almost mimicing hair, but they curled and swayed as if they could be controlled. Them more emerged from around her waist. One of those was holding something while her hands were empty.

She noticed my wide eyes and strange look and frowned. “Sorry. You are frustratingly strong even if you have never used it before.”

Everything went black.

***

I was in the lab with Melvin. “Yeah. A horse is a quadruped with hooves at the end of each leg.”

“Why does that have to do with looking in their mouths?” Melvin asked.

“Really, are you serious?” I asked.

How had Melvin never heard the phrase, never look a gift horse in the…

Melvin shifted to an enchantingly pretty woman with tenta—

***

“Explain this to me.” The captain pointed at yet another scan.

At the very least the captain was finally taking an interest in learning some of the science rather than just giving us pretty rocks to examine.

“That’s a platypus. They might look like a weird amalgamation of things, but they are actually very uniquely adapted to their environment. They have what we call analogous evolution, even if it looks like a beavers tail, a ducks beak and reptile like hands it got all of those features independently from those creatures. They just happen to be the same because over years and years of evolution, an organism in a different part of the world developed the same features for similar tasks.

“Actually it brings up an interesting point as we look for life outside of Earth. Extraterrestrial life might actually look at least reasonably similar to humans. Because being bipedal with flexible digits is a big part of tool making and using. You see—“

I paused, the captain had turned into a tentacle woman again.

Wait, again?

He’d done this before?

My mind was trying to retrace its steps, wondering why ‘again’ had slipped in there.

“Your mind is becoming increasingly difficult to guide without force.” The woman said as she stood there looking a little grumpy. “But I think I have a decent grasp of your knowledge, language and more. I’ve never seen one of your kind, but I am adapting.”

I grabbed my face, covering my eyes and forced myself to remember what was happening.

“Stop. You are strong. Stop, I—“

My eyes opened up and I was in a lit room, with smooth brown walls. Immediately I knew this wasn’t of human design. There was a faint ribbing in the walls.

Like… it was organic.

I was on a strange planet, looking for Jane… then…

My mind spiked with pain.

A door opened, like an iris, spiraling out. “You interrupted me. I am trying to acclimate to your mind.” The woman, or at least that’s what her form looked like said to me.

There she was again, the sculpture turned to life.

She had soft purple skin, and tentacles coming from the crown of her head and around her waist.

One of the ones around her waist held a cup, while two around her head held a strange sack of fluid.

All that distracted me from the fact that she wore almost nothing. As if sensing my roving eyes, her tentacles wrapped around her chest hiding large breasts that I wasn’t sure were there before and others wrapped around her pelvis and legs to hide more of her.

I struggled, trying to get off the bed I was on in the center of the room, but everything hurt and my mind kept spiking with pain as I moved.

“Stop. Please stop. You will only hurt yourself right now. Your human mind is a wonder and it is taking me some time to acclimate.”

“I ate something.”

“My trilite.” She said and if I didn’t miss my mark, she blushed. “You performed something of a courting ritual to me. Though, I understand now that you didn’t understand. Are all humans so rich with Primo?”

“Primo?” I asked having never heard the word. “Wait, how are you speaking my language?”

She tilted her head curiously, that third eye hidden among the tentacles on her head coming out briefly.

It wasn’t so disorienting to me, but I felt it, like the eye was crawling into my mind.

“I had been avoiding the topic because it caused you to break out of the syncing every time. My assumption is that you’ve never heard of it before? An energy created by all biological life, a mental energy capable of great things.”

“Wait, you are telepathic?”

“Psyonic is probably a better term.” She said, I felt her digging through my mind again. “Curious, your race was right on the cusp of developing psyonic abilities. The fusion with my trilite has unlocked yours quite readily.” She came up next to me the entire time sensing my reactions.

Mostly I could tell her it was curiosity. I was overwhelmed with the fact that a real, sentient alien was in front of me.

She gave me an amused smile. “Yes. I am. You can touch me too.” She hovered a tentacle in front of me.

I went to reach out, and felt her continuing in my mind.

This time there was no pain.

“If you won’t stay asleep for the syncing, I will have to do my best.” She said.

I touched the tentacle, it was smooth, not at all slimy. In fact it was extremely soft and a little slippery, more like very fine scales. It felt almost like a soft cloth. “How do you hold anything with these?” I frowned.

The tentacle I was touching become rough, like velcro, hooking into my flesh. I felt like if I pulled away suddenly, it would take my flesh with it.

She released my skin.

“Okay. That’s super cool.” I said.

“Glad you find me… cool.” She was digging again. “Ah. That isn’t because I’m cold. No you find me fascinating.”

Given the mental abilities and the tentacles my mind jumped to a cthulu horror. But sexy.

“A mind flayer. Curious. No, I’m not turning you into a mind flayer with my trilite. But the resemblance is a close thing if inaccurate in many other ways. Always strange how the multiverse bleeds through to other cultures.” She said.

I pushed back wanting to know about these other races.

My mind flooded with things as I tried to dive into her mind and I convulsed on the table.

“Oh dear.” She stumbled. “Yes. Humans are incredible. But please restrain yourself until you understand your new abilities. Such powerful psyonic potential and you are a heavy worlder. Yes, focus on that single term, let me share it with you.”

I focused on the term ‘heavy worlder’ and several examples of strange yet humanoid creatures show up. There were only four others, one was a large green species, space orcs— Oraks. The name slipped into my mind.

That distracted me and I lost the mental image of the other three, as a more detailed mental image of the Oraks came into my mind.

I had never really been this imaginative before.

My caretaker laughed. Floo.

That was her name. Floo.

I focused on that and more information about what she was came to my mind, but I was too eager and it was too much.

She shut it off.

“Wonderful.” She said. “But I would restrain your curiosity. Yes, my name is Floo. My people are the Flaizen. We were once a supreme power in the galaxy.” She became sad.

I just knew that she was in emotional pain from our connection. Deep pain.

“You aren’t any longer. There was a tradgedy?” I asked.

She nodded. “I slipped away to a remote part. Hiding in the spatial folds before finding this place among the stars well out of reach.”

“You were a statue?” I asked.

“My kind is not planet bound like yours. We long ago left our planet and have developed ourselves in space. I can survive in nearly any atmosphere, even with none at all.” She explained.

I wanted to know everything!

She giggled, making her chest bounce in a way that caught my attention again.

“Did you…”

“No. I did not have breasts before.” She smiled at something she was picking up from my mind. “A Flaizen only has one trilite their entire life. We share it with someone who has shown us they have incredibly strong reserves of Primo.”

“That again. So I have strong psyonic potential?”

“You have more than potential now. We will practice.” Floo smiled as she held the cup out to me.

I took it and sniffed at it.

“It is just water. In my other tentacles is a nutrient serum based on your biology. I have been doing my best to nurture your body as you rested.”

Drinking the water felt like a relief.

I half expected stabbing pain, remembering where the trilite had gone through my throat. I wondered if I could remove it.

Floo gasped like she’d been slapped and fumbled with the sac of serum.

“Oh shit. That was bad. I’m sorry.” It hit me, she had been smiling, she now had breasts and was covering herself.

Much of syncing this trilite was likely her understanding human mannerisms. She also said that she only produced one of these in her lifetime.

And… that it was a mating ritual.

Her breasts sudden had secondary meanings besides just looking like a female.

Floo’s face was frozen as she watched me.

“You are in my head. I don’t have the same. Uh. I’m sorry for my errant thoughts. There is a lot of adjusting happening here.” I swallowed trying to make amends.

“The receiving of a trilite was once considered the highest honor in the galaxy.” She said. “Obviously you don’t know that. If you want it removed though, it will essentially kill me.”

“Oh. That’s not good. But, Floo. I have to go find Jane.” I said.

Floo tilted her head. “She’s gone. So are the rest of your people.”

I blinked. Remembering the healed cut in the back of my throat. “Uh. Floo, how long have I been asleep?”

She rifled through my head to find a way to equate her time to mine.

I could feel that was the purpose of it.

“One hundred and eighty seven days of your stellar calendar.” She smiled at me.

"WAIT WHAT?!" I nearly screamed and jolted hard enough on the bed that the world turned over and I passed out feeling Floo's mixed amusement and concern.