PrincessColumbia

  “So,” said Leki as she toweled off her face and neck, “I hear there’s a ship captain that’s causing a stir.”

  Diane gave a non-committal rumble from the back of her throat, letting her eyes drift closed.

  “Scuttlebutt has it that she’s assertive, a little pushy, but good to her people and takes no shit from anyone that gets in her way.”

  Diane sighed, having a feeling she knew where the conversation was going but unwilling to do anything to dissuade her sparring partner since that would just encourage her. Not like the silent treatment will discourage her, she thought.

  “Norma put in a call earlier to ask about meals that would be good for both human and Morvuck physiologies. Had a good, long conversation. Apparently, she’s expecting you and this new captain to share the same food and wanted to make absolutely sure everything would be biocompatible.”

  That Diane had not known but wasn’t surprised.

  “Norma also says this woman captain seems to have you quite flustered.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Leki chuckled, “Well, I suppose we could talk about why you’ve been so depressed tel~”

  “Yeah, she’s kinda pushy she managed to video call me when I was still asleep and I took the call in my underwear because the video was too bright so I had my eyes closed and I didn’t realize I was nearly naked on camera and she seems to have decided that she liked what she saw and insisted on us having dinner tonight and I have no idea how to arrange what is basically a state dinner with a visiting dignitary and I’ll admit she’s very pretty and she has a very cute smirk especially when she’s got her eye on something she’s interested in which apparently I fit the bill for.” The entire run-on sentence was said in a single breath without opening her eyes as quickly as she could in order to get the horrible, no good, very embarrassing, incredibly awkward conversation out of the way as fast as possible.

  Anything to keep from talking about Rachel, which she couldn’t talk about with Leki anyway.

  She heard Leki chuckle and finally opened her eyes to gre at the other Morvuck.

  “So, she’s cute?”

  Diane frowned, “No, her smirk is...I guess we’re talking about this.” She huffed in frustration, “Whatever happened to being big, scary predators that nobody messed with?”

  Leki shoved against Diane’s shoulder with her fist, “It doesn’t work if the other predator is just as big and scary as you are.”

  Diane grumbled, “Fiiiiiine,” her head thumped against the wall as she sighed, “Caitlyn is a human and a very...attractive one at that. She’s the kind of girl that I would have just watched from my pce among the wallflowers at the high school dance wishing I had the courage to ask her out. She’s the kind of woman who would probably have been my boss if we crossed paths in any other context. If she were descended from dinosaurs she’d fit right in on Mortan, and she’d probably be the most dominant woman in the room.”

  “She makes you nervous?”

  Diane could see Leki’s smirk out of the corner of her eye. “Yes! Of course she does!” She unched to her feet and started pacing on the sparring mat, “I was the quiet loser in high school and college! And then I was in the agency program after the whole thing with my caretaker got cleared up and there was no way I was even thinking about being with a woman while I was trying to get my life straightened out, then I’m here and I’ve been perfectly happy running the station without distractions...”

  Leki snorted, “Yes, happy. You’ve been so ‘happy’ the st few weeks.”

  “Shut up!” Diane snapped, “I’m not the g-girl,” she almost said ‘guy’ but caught herself, “Who has women chasing after her! I’m just some loser orphan that...” she halted on the mat, fists clenching and unclenching as she stared at nothing. An embarrassing little whine escaped her, and she wished the gravity pting under her feet would malfunction and flip to ‘neutron star’ levels of G’s and crush her into the deck just to put her out of her misery.

  Leki pushed herself off the wall and got to her feet in a single motion before crossing over to put her arm around Diane’s shoulders. “Hey, it’s okay. You met someone, they like you and you like them. You’re having dinner tonight and if it goes well, you see where it goes from there. If you and she aren’t good for each other? Well, at least you tried, and everything goes back to the way it was.”

  Diane shot a gre at Leki, “I didn’t say I like her!”

  The other woman chuckled and tapped her nose, “Even if you weren’t throwing off the full, ‘nervous teenager with a crush’ bouquet of scents, your entire body nguage when you talk about her broadcasts it to the entire parsec.”

  Diane groaned and cpped both her hands to her face.

  “Why are we here?!” growled Diane.

  “Because you, sister, need a couple wing women to help you get ready for a date,” smirked Koar into their reflection in the doors of the lift.

  “It’s not a date!” grumbled the station commander, “It’s just a welcoming dinner to a captain on her first visit to the station!”

  Koar snorted as Leki said, “Yes, because you’ve asked Norma to put together a ‘Commander’s Table’ in the mess hall all the other times a new ship has docked. Like the Branwell Consortium’s captain. What was his name again?”

  Diane growled while the other two Morvuck women snickered.

  The lift notification bell went off just before the doors slid open to reveal the Commander’s Suite level of the officer’s hab. Diane sighed and barely kept from sulking back to the door to her quarters. She turned and crossed her arms, well aware that she looked more like a petunt toddler than an intimidating station commander. “I could just say ‘no’ and lock you out of my quarters, you know.”

  Koar smirked as Leki called into the hallway, “Katrina?”

  The hologram rezzed in, “Yes, Leutenant?”

  “Could you open the commander’s quarters so we can help her prepare for her date, please?”

  Diane heard the door hiss open behind her and gred at her digital assistant, “Traitor!”

  Leki smiled indulgently as Koar Morvuck-handled Diane around and practically frog-marched her into her own quarters.

  The lights flicked on as they passed through the living room and the hallway to the bedroom. Koar gnced around with far more curiosity than Leki, but neither made any comment as they entered the main bedroom suite of the Commander-grade quarters.

  The bed was...a bed. Earth-style, in a size still called “California King” by the station’s databases since that was the going ‘rgest common’ mattress size avaible at the time the seed stations were initially designed. The furnishings were the same uniform shades of beige and trimmed in off-white with a duvet on the bed that matched. On one side of the entrance (which was wide enough for a double-door) was the very spacious walk-in closet. While Diane had never spent any significant time there, she had been inside the ‘common’ apartment habs most of the crew used and the observation that her closet was nearly as rge as a single-bedroom apartment wasn’t without merit. On the other side was the toilet and sink of her master suite, on its own rather spacious. Paired with that on the opposite corner (and kitty-corner to the closet) was an angle-set bathing room, which had partially opaque double doors, not made of gss as such a material was too fragile and dangerous, but a grade of transparent aluminum. Through the doors could be seen a truly voluminous bathing facility that would have caused an ancient Roman noble to sit up and take notice. The designers of the seed stations clearly wanted the eventual commanders to feel like they were indulging in luxury. Along the wall between the door to the bathroom and bathing room was a fairly rge sit-down desk that, thanks to the office down the hall and her office in the Ops building, was rarely used for more than holding the occasional tablet or article of clothing. Next to that was a nine drawer chest-of-drawers with the drawers stacked three high and three across that was barely used. Honestly, most of Diane’s clothing fit in the closet and the two chest-of-drawers in there. Hanging over the three-by-three dresser was a rge mirror that added even more unnecessary visual space to the room. Along the featureless wall opposite the door was a chaise lounge and a six-stack chest-of-drawers, also empty, that presently hiding the weapon that she was trying not to think about having brought into the game.

  After a moment of the two women taking in the appearance of Diane’s bedroom, Koar made the first comment, “What, no windows?”

  Diane shrugged and removed her jacket, a small part of her mind habitually reminding her that she might be exposing her weapon, but then she reminded that part that she’d tossed her weapon behind a dresser, then mentally shot that part for reminding her of its existence. “I have the bst panels closed. I tried sleeping with them open but deep-space starlight is...very bright for someone raised in an atmosphere.” She tossed her jacket over the back of her desk chair and said, “Computer, open bst panels in this suite.”

  On the wall opposite the entry door, a massive panel suddenly rumbled to life and slowly slid its way down into the wall, revealing a vast vista of stars in consteltions that were entirely unfamiliar to either a former resident of Earth or Mortan. And it was, in fact, quite bright. The unfiltered light with no atmosphere to dim it was nearly as bright, if more diffuse, as a te afternoon on a sunny day.

  “Why didn’t you just set the filter on the window?” asked Koar.

  Diane swept a strand of hair behind her ear and shrugged again, “By the time I figured out I could do that I got used to sleeping in nearly total dark. It’s a nice view when I’m not trying to sleep, though, so we can keep it open.”

  Leki nodded, “That sounds good, so let’s see what you’ve got for date-appropriate clothes.”

  Diane sagged, “Can’t I just wear one of my suits? I’m even swapping out the tunics with new ones as we get them from Mortan!”

  Koar chuckled, “N-nope!” she drawled, “Katy can see you in your suit every day if she wanted…”

  “Caitlyn,” corrected Diane.

  Koar’s chuckle turned to a snicker, “You wanna give Caitlyn something that she’ll never forget!”

  Diane muttered under her breath.

  From inside the closet Leki said, “Just because she’s already seen you ‘nearly naked’ doesn’t mean she won’t appreciate what she saw in fine wrapping.” She leaned out of the closet, “We’ve got Morvuck hearing, too, remember.”

  Diane’s response was to just turn an even brighter red.

  Around half an hour ter, Diane found herself feeling entirely too exposed while being technically fully covered. The formal dress...or what she thought was a good formal dress when she tried it on in the character creation stage...was viewed and rejected by the two Morvish women as entirely unsuitable for an intimate date. (She really wished they’d stop saying it was a date, and definitely didn’t want them implying intimacy)

  (Of course, they weren’t implying it. They were stating it. Openly.)

  This prompted a dig through the bins in the back of her closet of the clothes her benefactors back on Mortan sent in the form of gifts of the clothing variety. A variety of dresses were found, and when Koar asked why there were only dresses in the bins, Diane expined that she didn’t see the point of wearing them when she had plenty of very serviceable pants with plenty more arriving every day. Not to mention the clothing shops in the expanding promenade could provide all the perfectly serviceable pants she could ever need. This was when Leki had summarily kicked Diane out of her own closet in only her panties and bra and Koar pyed point defense to keep Diane from going back into the closet for her nice, comfortable pants.

  Diane didn’t have any practical experience with sibling retionships but given what she’d observed of other students in high school and seen on various streaming shows, the two Morvuck women had accepted and understood the assignment to treat her like their younger sister. It was simultaneously heartwarming and mortifying and she wasn’t entirely sure that was how she was supposed to feel about it.

  Finally, they had pretty much forced her into an article of clothing that, when she first got it, she had mistaken it for a particurly oddly made scarf. It was stretchy and light and airy and made her feel like she wasn’t wearing anything whatsoever. They did agree that the heels that went with her formal dress worked just as well for this one.

  “Well, as far as date outfits go,” said Leki rather smugly, “One can hardly go wrong with a little bck dress.”

  Koar whistled appreciatively from her seat on the edge of Diane’s bed as she squirmed under their gaze. “Damn, girl!” she said, “If I had legs like that I’d never hide them!”

  Leki pulled out her mini-tab and tapped a button on the screen. Moments ter, Norma’s voice came from the device’s speaker, “It’s your evil overdy on the line, the floggings will continue until morale improves!” chirped the mayor.

  Leki smirked, “How goes the preparations?”

  “Excellent!” came the far-too-eager-in-Diane’s-opinion reply, “The chef is working on the main course now and the facilities folks are not only making a nice, big-ol’ starship style captain’s table, they’re giving the mess hall a full overhaul and refit. We’re going to practically have a crew-only exclusive club by the time dinner happens tonight.”

  Diane raised her voice to be caught by the microphone, “I don’t remember authorizing that!”

  Norma’s reply was actually sing-songed, “Emergency powers you never actually took ba~a~ack...”

  Diane facepalmed and muttered a few choice words to herself.

  “So, Tall Dino Nuggie,” began Norma, “How goes your end of the operation?”

  As Diane mouthed ‘tall dino nuggie?’ to Koar, whose reply was just a shake of her head, Leki answered, “Excellent, but it’s missing something...” she trailed off as she looked Diane up and down.

  Koar stood and made a show of closely examining Diane’s face, “Ah! Well there’s your problem!” she waved a finger in a circle around Diane’s face, “This girl has clearly never had a spa day!”

  Leki smiled at her friend’s impish behavior, “I do believe you’re right. Norma, you know all the businesses on the promenade; which one would be best for a makeover? And maybe a pce to get her cws done?

  Diane whimpered.

  The hair salon and spa was, in the tradition of such businesses in the history of modernity, named after the proprietor. Delih had initially been unwilling to allow a walk-in, but once she took a second look at Diane and realized that she hadn’t recognized the station commander when not in her usual suit, the proprietress capituted and insisted on taking care of Diane personally.

  While Delih had, at first, inquired what Diane’s target ‘look’ should be, Leki interrupted and advised that ‘the commander has a date tonight.’ From that point forward, nothing Diane had to say about wanting something simple or understated was given the slightest bit of attention. She was shampooed (in spite of having showered that morning), conditioned (and advised she was using the wrong hair care products for a Morvuck), trimmed (and lectured that she needed to do a better job of brushing her hair, then lectured how long, thick hair like hers needs a brush and not a comb young dy!), styled, and spritzed within an inch of her life. THEN came the facial, accompanied by yet more lecturing on keeping her skin looking soft and beautiful and how the right product can go lightyears for protecting against even deep space radiation, not even mentioning the microstar used to provide the day/night cycle for the station.

  By the time the facial mask was applied, and some sort of warm pads pced over her eyes for reasons she wouldn’t begin to guess, she had resigned herself to the tortures they were determined to inflict upon her. She felt her hands being gently maniputed to rest her palms against a rounded surface so her fingers could be gently set between some sort of guides. The cw-beds on her fingers suddenly felt a couple of degrees cooler than the rest of the room. She felt her shoes get removed as her feet were guided into some sort of rest and her toes separated by some variety of foam and the same sudden cooling sensation where the nailbeds were for the cws on her feet she rarely used. (Though she’d learned her socks needed to be special made or her boots would wind up needing to be repaired a time or two.)

  Finally Delih spoke to her, but only to give an instruction, “Pop out those cws, darling…there’s a good girl.”

  Diane was suddenly immensely gd for the mask covering her cheeks as she suddenly blushed nearly as warm as when Caitlyn had been touching her…

  Nope! No-nonononoooo, na~a~awt thinking of that, calm down girl, not in public!!! Just the reminder that her privates were reacting to the effect the other pyer had on her brought her attention to that part of her body even more and it took every ounce of self-control to keep from squirming or making any noise lest People Ask Questions and she embarrass herself even further.

  By the time she’d regained enough control of her physiological reactions (and libido), Delih had finished and was gently peeling the mask from Diane’s face, which was followed by a strong smelling fluid being used to polish her skin (a process Delih’s running commentary was calling ‘toning’). Whatever it was called, it made Diane’s eyes water. Once the toner was dry, her face was moisturized before even more chemicals were being applied.

  “Oh, c’mon!” she protested, “Haven’t I been in this chair long enough? I’m sure the heat-death of the universe is approaching by this point, and I haven’t done my bucket list yet!”

  Her statement drew ughs from the women attending her, though there was no pause in their work.

  Creams, powders, sticks, paintbrushes, and sprays were all used in rapid succession. Instructions about all of it turned into a buzzing in her ears as she was overwhelmed and a ball of anxiety was wrapping itself tighter and tighter in her gut. Amidst all the flying direction she caught that they were going to have all the products that had been used on her sent up to her quarters. …I’m gonna need Katrina to get the recordings of this from the security vault if I’m going to have any hope of replicating what they’re doing.

  Finally, she was told to close her eyes and hold her breath for a moment. She felt a light misting of some sort of slightly sticky spray hit her face, then when it was clear the spraying was done, she released her breath.

  “Ut-ut!” advised Delih, “No opening those eyes, we need to do the big reveal!”

  Diane fought a petunt pout as her shoes were put back on her feet. She was gently lifted to a standing position and guided to her feet. After a slightly wobbly moment where she got used to the heels again, she was gently guided by what she guessed was Leki and Delih (judging from the scents) away from the station she was being coiffed at and away from the store’s front from the sound of the foot traffic’s diminishing.

  Finally, they stopped and made some st minute adjustments to her posture before Delih said, “There, darling, now take a look at the butterfly that has hatched from her cocoon.

  Oddly, she was afraid to do so.

  She took a deep breath and let her eyelids flutter open.

  Intellectually, she knew she was looking in a mirror. She’d seen the woman looking back at her naked, after all, and had mirrors in her own quarters to confirm that this person and her were one and the same. And it wasn’t just one mirror, it was three, arranged so she had a view of multiple angles of her person. From the elegant looking bck heels to the midnight dark and slightly shiny fabric of the ‘little bck dress’ covering her torso, what little clothing was visible served as an enhancer and framework for the body it was on, and while she’d had months now to get used to the sight, it had never been quite like this.

  Even without taking in her hair and face, the woman in the mirror seemed utterly transformed, even just from her stance to accommodate her heels. Her legs seemed longer than she knew they were, her muscuture standing out as she shifted her weight back and forth on her feet. With as much work as she did on maintaining the body VR had gifted her, she expected to be…beefy, with overly built muscles that should have, she figured, made her look ugly and masculine when the look she wanted…no, needed to present was that of a woman. Needed to for the mission. Having absolutely nothing to do with what she wanted. What she saw instead was athletic beauty that, had she been looking at any other woman, would have caused her pulse to race with desire.

  As it was, her pulse was racing, but not because she was aroused. It felt harder and harder to breath as she moved her gaze upwards, past the almost unfairly generous rack she sported in this game and up to her face…and she stopped breathing entirely.

  She’d observed women in the world around her nearly all her life applying and wearing makeup, and though she had always understood the purpose of the application, never once stopped to consider what she might look like with some, even after creating this body in character creation. Her skin had always had a slightly sun-kissed hint to it, though on the whole it was pale. Now her skin glowed, seemingly like she was radiating some light from within. The impression was hyperbolic, of course, there was no light being produced by the makeup or her skin, but whatever was in the creams and powders seemed to catch the light and accentuate her natural coloration to make her look less like a woman and more like a goddess. Her lips had been painted a bold purple, and when she reached up to touch them, almost running on automatic, she saw that her cw beds were the same shade of purple. There was a tiny cw-tip that always protruded from the cuticle just a bit, showing where her actual cw was ready to snap out, and it also appeared to be purple. She flexed the appropriate muscles and her cws snapped out, and sure enough the entirety of the cw, save for the cutting edge on the inside curve, was painted the same deep purple.

  She looked back at her reflection and saw that her irises seemed to pop, and realized that, though the shade was different, the lip color brought the lighter shade of purple out even more so. This wasn’t even talking about the very gorgeous ‘smoky’ eyeshadow that had been applied with the expert precision of a master painter. The deep colors of the makeup did not, as she would have thought at first, detract from her natural appearance in the slightest. In fact, it brought more attention to the things that made her…

  …pretty.

  Her vision blurred as tears leapt to her eyes. She forced herself to breath, “I…I gotta go…I can’t…” she turned too quickly and stumbled over her own feet as a result of the heels she wasn’t used to moving in. Leki happened to be standing close enough catch her before she hit the floor, and the physical contact caused the bubble of anxiety inside her to finally burst. Great, heaving sobs spilled out of her as she curled into Leki on instinct. She was lowered gently to the floor and pulled into the other woman’s p as big, wet tears streamed down her cheeks and unexpinable guilt and fear boiled out.

  “Th-that’s not me!” she gasped out between sobs, “That’s not me! That can’t be me!” she repeated the two sentences over and over when her throat wasn’t so tight the only sound she could make was inarticute crying sounds.

  After being lost in the flood of disjointed emotions for what felt like hours, she was finally able to say more, “Sh-she’s…pretty! She’s pretty and I’m not! I’m not pretty! I’m ugly and a monster and I don’t deserve to…to…” As though having vocalized her feelings invited more to the party, another wave of feelings caused fresh tears to stream from her eyes and loud and painful sobs to escape her throat.

  Time passed in a blur of self-hate and disgusted loathing for the man she was in the real world. The longer she spent in the pod, inside this body that seemed to fit her every hope and dream of who she would be if she was a good person who deserved good things, the more it felt to her like leaving would be the worst possible thing ever.

  Once she was able to breath again, she realized that she was still almost curled up in a ball in Leki’s p, who was herself sitting on the tile floor of the salon. Oh, god, I just had a complete meltdown in public… She felt her cheeks warm as her eyes started flickering around, taking in her surroundings. She realized that her eyes were confirming what her ears were trying to tell her; the shop was empty of people except for herself, Leki, Koar, and Delih. The huge panel windows and door that was the storefront had been tinted bck and the doors were closed. Some sound from the foot traffic of the promenade could be heard coming in through the seams and joins of the door panels, but it appeared the shop owner had cleared her customers out and closed the store while Diane had been lost in her emotions.

  Her nose was useless for information about the space, her crying had clogged her up so badly that when she tried to sniff it back, she got no movement. Someone put a damp washcloth in her hands, and she wiped her face and blew her nose with it. “M’sorry I ruined your hard work…” she said before she gnced at the washcloth and realized that none of the makeup had transferred from her face to the fabric.

  At her confused expression, Delih chuckled, “We already used the setting spray. You could deep sea dive any time within the next twelve hours and the makeup wouldn’t come off.”

  Diane felt her eyebrows jump at that in surprise. I’m…reasonably certain it doesn’t work like that IRL…but hey, this game is in the 26th century…no, 27th? It’s in The Future and if they can make skin cream to protect against radiation, then maybe they can make makeup that doesn’t come off unless you want it off.

  Gulping down a few deep breaths, she moved to extricate herself from Leki’s p and was mildly surprised when Koar stepped in to help her up, “Easy there, sister. Take your time.”

  “Thanks,” Diane almost muttered, embarrassment still fming her cheeks, “…sorry about that, I won’t…” she closed her eyes as she got her feet under her and let the smaller woman help her the rest of the way, “I won’t let it happen again.”

  Leki rose to her feet and put her hand on Diane’s shoulder. “Nonsense,” said the normally buttoned down woman, “Those humans who raised you must have done a terrible job if you think your emotions are something that should never happen. If anything, I’m honored you felt safe enough to let me catch you like that.”

  Diane opened her eyes and turned to the other woman, “…catch me?”

  To Diane’s surprise, Koar pulled her in and hugged her close, “Yeah, ya big dummy. Nobody’s the top of the pyramid forever, sometimes you gotta just let yourself fall down and let someone else catch you.”

  Diane rested her cheek on the top of Koar’s head for a moment, her arms circling the other woman.

  Koar let the moment continue for a bit before she gently pulled away, “Alright, how about we try that again now that you’ve gotten that out of your system?”

  Diane frowned, “…but…”

  “You already said you’re pretty, lots of times just now,” the smaller woman interrupted with a grin, “Now take another look. I think you’ll see you’re way more than ‘pretty.’” So saying, she gently guided Diane back to the triple-mirror and stepped back, Leki taking up the spot behind Diane opposite where Koar stood.

  Hesitantly, as though seeing her reflection again would burn her, she turned to look at her face in the mirror.

  I…I really am… she felt like saying it, even in her thoughts, would be some sort of desecration. The recognition that there was nobody here telling her she wasn’t allowed to be…pretty, or even beautiful, she almost snarled. The memory of standing in the street on Mortan as the Matron bore down on her and roared in her face almost blinked to the surface of her thoughts and she realized that she was as petrified then of the Matron as she was now of the word that felt forbidden to her.

  The woman in the mirror straightened her spine and the fear and indecisiveness vanished from her face. She went from looking lost and broken to confident and powerful in a heartbeat and that made her smile.

  “I really am…beautiful!”

  PrincessColumbia