It had been done by accident.

By G.Bone

Crewmember Len Tanaka was sent on a scouting mission. The planet itself was docile, quiet, with its natives quite amusing to the officers of the Savoy. The city was nice, the technology not far behind theirs, and a very orderly way of doing things.

It was all Kerry’s fault. He wanted to go out in the nearby forest and see what they had there. They had gone there with a guide and they romped around until they came upon an abandoned city. The guide wanted to get out of there. Then Kerry went off and Len had to go get him.

On hindsight it seemed constructed. Len was poking around with a flashlight when he saw Kerry lying down. The room itself was to their level – lighted consoles, read-outs of power levels, various flat screens, and the occasional keyboard in different dialects.

Len Tanaka was a man. He was a man that really didn’t do much. The officers seemed to always be on adventures. He liked this one officer but she seemed always to negate things. She was Chinese, watered down with African and Cherokee, and literally embodied everything that Len Tanaka was not. After all, Len was a crewmember and she was the Chief of Operations – his boss essentially.

Len came to when he was in his cabin. He had some memories on what had happened but not concrete. He saw flashes of them – someone pretending to be him – making observations all the while. Somehow Doc Evans was persuaded to not give a scan and something unexpected shown to the officers that had not been expected – courage, defiance, and a dash of charisma.

Len looked himself in the mirror. What he saw was typical – a watered down Chinese descendent, mostly passed off as white, and the usual build that one would have as a repair man. It was typical. It was ordinary. Then the question arouse on why did he had missing chunks of memory. He remembered that Kerry was well – but again that went with the chunks of memory.

It was surreal then that his brain shut down. He wasn’t in his bathroom anymore. In fact he wasn’t on the ship anymore – on a white open space – on one of those situations before his imagination created with the Chief of Operations down to his might.

It was very surreal then that a strange man came forth. He was dressed in a tunic, slacks, and wasn’t a man after all. There was something ambiguous about him – something –

The fact of the matter was that Len Tanaka never had a creature in his head. The "woman" revealed herself as part of an ancient race that had survived through data transfer. She had limitations of the host that she was in. She was very much someone that wanted to live, had power, but seemed to lack the very body to hold her spirit in her.

In simple words then, she was a vampire, although restricted towards the spiritual realm.

Len Tanaka really didn’t know how to deal with that. He was a crewmember on the Savoy, a deep space exploration ship, mostly devoted for trade whenever the big names – such as the Chicago and the Vicksburg went ahead. It was a very dull thing to be surfing in the wake of other surfers. Len Tanaka liked his uniform but everything else about his life was dull, boring, and one step away from being dead.

She was a vampire. She had blue eyes that seemed on the verge of a different color on the spectrum. She had red hair. While the contours of her body really didn’t matter – affairs of the mind negated that as well – what she offered in a feminine version of his voice held his eyes.

There were flashes of her life. Len could only absorb a small fraction of it. It wasn’t dull – it was simply that he couldn’t absorb it all. It was one of those times when Captain Jen went on her tirades. Somehow the Savoy was the lucky one when it came to officers. Somehow he was the unlucky one that didn’t get what he wanted.

Len Tanaka looked around this mental landscape – or at least that was version of it – that he thought. He didn’t get much of what she was telling. It was the eyes that the woman offered. The fact was that she was offering power in exchange for existence. While it was true that she hijacked his body (he really didn’t need it), this was power, and it was lesbians!

Len Tanaka looked the vampire (for that was no other word to describe it) and consented. The woman seemed apprehensive. She actually seemed concerned. She actually went a pause on talking – then sort of went into the details that what would happen. She touched his (spiritual) shoulder.

Len found himself staring in the mirror. There seemed nothing wrong about him. He was Len Tanaka; stuck on the Savoy, and most certainly within the period on when legends had passed on to their own lands. The Savoy had shuttles. The planet down below had shuttles. He had almost forgotten about the vampire’s name.

A voice echoed in the rear- Siren.

It was done on purpose.

The fact of the matter was that the ship was fairly large. It had been constructed in the same class as Captain Cooke– the one legend that still hung on to his white origins. The only thing was that Len could do so much more down below on the planet, in the ruins, and escape into what the promises that her memories could provide.

So he went down to the transport room for an excuse. The only problem was that he had encountered the Chief of Operations while she was walking down. The problem was the way of thinking. She had been told that his eyes had somehow changed, referred to the doctor, and easily evaded. The pronouns really didn’t matter. If she was to be equal with her host then equality of the mental sex was to be approached. It was the only way that things would be done.

So she went down to the transport room for an excuse. The Chief of Operations was named Lea Yasutake. She was quite a floater. She could remember a couple of other folk that ran along the same lines. He would learn in time what had happened. There was so much more to be done.

The problem was on the Chief of Operations. She was curious on why Len didn’t go back to the deck that he was working on. There was some bile in the back on her stern measure. It really didn’t fit and she shushed him. Then she sank into more masculine memories.

The excuse was mostly on some trivial assignment that the Chief of Engineering, a certain Ling Iron, had stated over the intercom. The only problem was that she hadn’t gotten used to the situation at hand. The Chief of Operations simply stared at her/him. It was very embarrassing for Len to slip up on this. He had done mistakes such as these before.

So the thing was done in a deserted alleyway – for there were a lot of them around – and Siren impressed her way upon her. She was dazed. Len had dirty thoughts about lesbianism and seemed quite – odd. There was a reason why Siren had been so dry in her tone with men about this. Of course the fact being that she was in a "human" body – masculine to boot – was nixing that in the hole.

She managed to slip into the transporter room. He was entering the codes (he had won an extra shift there in a past poker game) and forgot something. He pressed a button. In Yasutake’s voice, she managed to give out the excuse. The Chief of Operations was staggering down a hallway, befuddled, and somewhat empty.

The room itself had been her study. With what she had lifted from the Chief of Operations, Len could assemble the equipment needed. It was mostly modification equipment. She needed it so that Len could give her form one hour of the day. It was hard enough keeping the pronouns together. It was hard enough running with him awake in the rear, pointing out, and touching her back as a child would, or Demetrius did in the past.

Siren paused for a moment. She pushed him away into the white landscape. It was hard for her do this. She needed privacy. She remembered the time that – it – happened. There was no time to dwell on the past. With what she had lifted from the Chief of Operations, she could pass off, and perhaps live beyond computers.

She took extra care of time. She found her shuttle. She stole some chips and data from it with her equipment, used what she could in a limited amount of time, and then found the console that could tap into the Savoy’s mainframe. She closed her eyes and pressed the button. It wasn’t fun being privy to the process again.

No one was in the room. She erased all data from it. She paused at the mirrored reflection. She hadn’t been careful. Her genes had pushed him down, making her what she was, small hints of what her race was, and that could pass of in Sheer Sheaf – the Savoy – but there could be questions.

She closed her eyes. Len took over. Len knew what he was doing. He did the artful dodge and darted to his room. The cabin was simple – none of the spacious design that Siren’s study was. It felt kind of nice tampering with the Chief of Operations. He poked around with the devices – not too different with what Doc Evans had although deviances – and smiled of what he could do later to her. Then it happened.

She had taken over his hands. He found that somehow it was made into one of those projectors that R&D was murmuring about on a room with everything at the fingertips. While it was a couple of decades off, Len saw that with her knowledge it could actually be real.

"Len –"were the words inside.

"What?" Len replied to himself.

"Someone at the door" was her voice, tones lifted from the Chief of Operations, almost one step away from humiliation (in his mind) and visions of grandeur (with him as Captain) in his mind.

He had done it by purpose.

Len had lost all track of time. This was the normal route of excuses. He had tomes of it in his mind. The tricky thing was that Doc Evans was there, along with Kerry.

"Len – you were absent" said Doc Evans.

"Absent from what?" said Len, thanking God that he had shoved the devices underneath his bed.

Kerry looked at his feet. Kerry was a nice guy. He was the one with the quips, the bravado, and curiosity of the other areas.

"Len – someone KO’d Lea and you used the room" he said.

"What the Hell is this? I just was going to pick up something that you left there-"Len replied.

Kerry looked at his feet again. She remembered what it was like in his body. It was welcome to be alive again. It almost seemed half an effort to get him there. The problem was that he was telepathic – latent- but telepathic. Siren remembered what they did. It was only then that Len reminded her of the stakes. Siren prodded him (mentally).

Doc Evans simply stared at Len. He pulled out one of those new variations that medical got. Doc Evans was a tall chap – from Luna – and seemed willowy – if it could apply to him. He wasn’t as quick as Kerry – but the barbs were apparent if annoyed. Len always thought that Kerry was related to Doc Evans.

"Len – by chance did you know that your body has changed?" he said, drawing out the vowels as if he was from Manitoba.

Len changed his stance. His right hand was held behind his back. That had changed to become feminine. Siren did not want to leave. Len did not want to loose his passenger. Anyway – Siren was flat – she hit Len on the head for thinking that – but she could easily rush into shape and be passed off as a guy with locks.

"Of course – I’ve been telling you guys that you need to change the equipment in the room. It’s probably the ruins down below. Kerry – you should have never gone off on your own" she said, not changing the tone, but hopefully changing the subject.

Doc Evans pulled out one of those new versions that had been handed out in Medical. He turned it to face Len. Len simply stared at the readouts.

"Your eyes are changed – you know that?" he said, not threatening, but a rapier nonetheless.

"It’s the light Doc – and if you don’t mind – I’d rather you get out of my room" Siren answered. This was the reason why she hated the science boys. She would rather be with him – but she hastily buried that under miles of mental dirt.

Doc Evans turned to Kerry. Kerry was staring at her. She could definitely read that look. By instinct she pulled up firewalls. Kerry’s eyes bored holes from a glass tower.

"It’s for the best Len. Let Doc help you-"

"Kerry – trust me on this – I don’t want help"

"I’m sure that Captain Jen would like to know of this" stated Doc Evans, his hand moving towards the communicator.

"She doesn’t have to know-"Len said, the voice of Siren echoing in the highest pitches, not betraying as so much as ringing.

"Then show us who you are" demanded Doc Evans, who could have passed as an Intel agent by full colors, the new model retracted.

"What says that this is my body? Kerry – Doc’s been sipping from the flask. Come on – tell him – it’s a fever"

"I don’t know you Len. It’s Siren isn’t it?" he said, those infernal eyes staring into Len’s brain, the snake like vines wrapping into Len, merging the two entities faster than one could blink, the promise of yesterday and today merging into one, and the lure of a new legend flying away.

"I tell you story – once a bugger man saw an opportunity. He welcomed it and then buggered it off. Tell you what- I go tell Captain Jen and tell her that you’re harassing a crewmember over some trivial thing. She’ll have a tirade on you two. What the Hell do you think you’re doing? The bugger man took me off. What the bloody Hell are you doing? This is my opportunity – and I finally have a body after some years of buggering in a computer bank and you have the bloody mind in stating the obvious? Bugger off – I’d rather be in the brig rather than ripped out of here. It’s a blessing not a curse. For Christ’s sake, did Peter make the Church or was turned away as the other man?"

They had done it by purpose.

They threw her in the brig. It was irony but Len cared not. He stared at the invisible energy shield that blocked him out. Siren, in the fury of her tirade (or his), showed the color of her eyes. Thank Heavens that she did not go the whole way. So here Len sat with Siren, staring at one of the Security thugs, not really knowing what to do with him/her.

Len got up. The Security man looked at something else. Len didn’t fraternize with Security. They gave him the creeps and all he did was to pick up their messes. He wasn’t Engineering – Operations – the Custodians.

Without thought, Len touched the wall that made a small gateway, but within its frame was the energy shield. Everything was gray. Siren could remember the time where everything was a riot of color. She remembered the last time that she wore a white dress dancing before her lover. She closed her eyes. It would hurt.

It was an utter shock. Siren gasped for air. She was a woman now. She looked up. The Security man was yelling something at an unearthly shade near him, electricity shocking him, her powers transmuted to her companion of convenience. She was weak. Len knew the systems.

There was blackness. The energy shade faded. There was a thud.

"Siren –"spoke the words of Len through the Security man. He looked shocked. The eyes were all Len’s. He touched her, brought her to him, and the body fell to the floor a second time.

Len grabbed the weapon. The door took some force until it gave way. Len made his getaway.

The hallway was a mixture of panicked people. Len evaded the beams of the flashlights. He found another crewmember – someone by the name of Peter Johnson. He had simply knocked Peter asleep. The doorway was easy. The tunnels were easy. Siren didn’t have to take control.

Then there was the call over the communicator.

"Siren – this is Captain Jen Ivan – why are you doing this?"

Len hit himself on the forehead. He took it off at some level. Then he went down one more, leaving it.

It was by some godforsaken accident that Len seemed to screw up.

Kerry was in league with them. He had almost gotten to the room where he could get away. He didn’t have the equipment. Len was tired. She had sat on the wall. Without anything to control herself, Len just simply sat there, something as a mix of both the lost future and what they both wanted.

Len was insecure. This was obviously known. It seemed kind of evident. Although Len now carried a passenger, it was welcome, and in fear they had rooted themselves. Len was looking for peace. Siren wanted a body, life, and just somewhere that she could go off into the stars.

Len shook his head. There was no time for depression. That was the reason why she had lapsed into the console. She stood up. She looked to the left. There was time to get out from the hallway of certain doom.

"Hello Milady" spoke a childish tone.

There was a young lad no more than the age of 10. He was bald. He was cute. Of course that was belayed by the fact of two Security men flanking him with the new models pointed at him. The young lad was named Ripper Jack, for a good reason, but looked so cute. It was then that Len suddenly realized that in his/her desperation, they had sunk into a diffuse form, and that their natures had been switched.

"I’m sorry sir – I didn’t know – I was sleeping the whole time" she stammered, the first she had heard her voice in a while.

Ripper Jack smiled. His eyes raked her frame. That was the one thing that Siren liked about Len; he knew his place. These men, lorded by queens, did not.

"I’m going to love doing you in the brig" he said. One of the Security men coughed. Ripper Jack’s smile fell. Len looked towards the right. There was Captain Jen Ivan, flanked by more security men.

"I’m going to love you doing exercises across the decks" stated Captain Jen Ivan. She was Russian – Cossack to be sure – and could have been an Admiral if the ranks held. Len bit her lip just to make sure that she was still on the ship and not the mainframe of her silicon-plastic light-wires-data exchange – the rot without a body – prison.

It was by accident that she picked a worthless piece of trash to harbor her. Kerry had betrayed her. They had shoved her in the cargo hold, locked in by makeshift walls, and security men simply staring at her – him – it really didn’t matter at this point. It was one of the curses of being in the Computer Age that everything had a connection. Len would welcome being in electronic form. Siren did not want to leave her host.

"So – Siren – tell me exactly why you chose my crewmember as your unwilling host" insinuated Captain Jen Ivan. She was Russian to be sure – Cossack to the core – the only missing was her saber. She was not Ripper Jack. She was some creature that was masquerading as some human, some female, and lights on to something interesting.

She had the chair directed opposite to her. The security officers were dressed in red. They had found another telepath – of the same species but in Science – by the name of Breather Luz. There was the gentle probing. Len stood by his parasite. Inside he could feel the genes locking in place. It didn’t matter for sex, power, and dominance. Len Tanaka-cum-Siren had found something beyond that.

"What bespeaks of hostility? It was just an industrial accident" said Len. He was taking down notes in the white space. The white space had developed into a library of mismatched designs, clashing colors, and that window in which all things could be seen.

Captain Jen Ivan got up. She paced the makeshift room. Breather Luz was staring at him. There was Doc Evans in the dark. He was probably taking notes. Len scribbled a note and fell down to her feet. There was a ripping-raping-releasing and there was an exchange of natures.

"Don’t speak to me of lame-arse excuses creature. I want to know what in God’s name are you doing. You make my ship a soddering light switch. What’s the game here?" Captain Jen Ivan said with a small device beeping at her belt. Siren looked through the pathways. The umbilical cord was still through her. All she had to do was to find the system that would link her up to the room. Then there would be the fusing – Len showed her – and all then they would do was to go back to the study.

Captain Jen Ivan paused. Breather Luz stared at her. There were so many things in the Savoy to tap into. She was only a sprite with the umbilical cord between him. She did not love him. She trusted him with his life and he hers. No doubt Doc Evans was having a field day with the new biological form that sat on a makeshift bench.

"There was no game. I don’t see why –"

They had made a trap. They had made a bloody trap. There was a cut – a stab in the back – that old familiar pain. Len pushed her away in what was remaining. He wanted her to survive. She slipped through the trail. The body was weak, again, falling off the bench. Blood from an unseen wound fell through his mouth. Her hair fell forward. A boot pushed her over.

"So explain to me why you’re in the system German" she crowed, "because I was a bloody hacker before I took the pips."

Breather Luz looked sick.

"Captain – I don’t think she’s too well" Siren through Breather Luz. Breather Luz paused in his breath. This was an intelligence ship. The bloody ship was intelligence – the best of the best – and she felt bloody sick. He was gone. The genes did a funky dance in her veins. She needed him as anything. Len-cum-Siren attempted to plunge her fingers into the metal. They couldn’t get through. Tears fell. She was not going to leave her host in that electronic brig. She was trying to get through the metal. His fingers felt gummy on her strength. The tears were flowing. It was a performance done the Scottish Play Lady proud.

Captain Jen Ivan pulled her from the floor. Her eyes were of an iron preacher – not pretty in any respect – a rapist in all her glory – in a chorus of bloody rapists all. Siren attempted to rape into the metal, bend her bones, just to get her lover man down there. It was bloody unfair, bloody sick, bloody sad, and the genes were doing a lovely dance in the muscles of her legs.

"I served with Lea. You made her weak. Do you know what happens to weak? They become you. Now tell me what the bloody hell you are doing to my crew!" she shouted in Len’s face. It was pathetic. She reached to Breather Luz. There were chemicals in his brain. Doc Evans looked concern. How bloody cute – the white space in her mind falling apart in fast forward time – the genes becoming dead things floating in the leftover fluids of a cancer patient.

"Captain – it would be prudent in not bulldozing her now-"uttered Doc Evans, who looked as any Spanish priest would, in presiding over a subjected population.

"Doc Evans – I am presiding over this here-"she spat.

"Captain – is everything all right?" spoke Commander Bogie Normandy, through the communicators, a question mark.

They had done it on purpose.

Captain Jen Ivan was only promoted as such due to her connections. Commander Bogie Normandy was in control. Captain Jen Ivan was not human, bipolar if she was, and Doc Evans was a coin that only the Regime of Terror would love.

Commander Bogie Normandy now lorded over his new prisoner. They had shifted her to a radiation room. They had let go of Len. Siren gasped in shock as the genes stopped dancing. She was locked in the observational lounge. The electrical systems had been shut off. There was food near her. Near it was the garden, grown simply for food, and the other materials within the observational ‘gallery’.

Len rocked her back and forth. It really didn’t matter what she looked like. She gave Kerry and Luz a magnificent migraine when she got her lover man back. Everything in her precious white room had turned to briars. They had made the walls, the floors, and held the doorways to the other minds as sacrosanct.

Len told her a story.

It went like this –

The USS Savoy was an R&D ship; that meant that although it wasn’t the deep space type, it did have top of the line mechanics, and it did have a share of the victories as the surviving legend on the leading ship of the class. Len had learned about this when he transferred from the Sweden. The Savoy was a modification for intelligence. Captain Jen was just their nickname for her. It was really Commander Jen, Security, and Captain Bogie Normandy. Commander Goblin Troll, the XO, was down planet-side relating to the Elfin Rogue government.

Siren just shut him up by holding him tight. It really didn’t matter about sex or gender. Len had a thing – he would always nervously shake his right arm when he was nervous, scared, or cold. In this case, both arms were shaking. Both knew that they weren’t quite human anymore. Both really didn’t care at this moment. Ripper Jack was simply her lieutenant. There were strong vines within that room.

Time passed.

Len got up. He looked around. He had never been in the observational lounge. It was pretty. He had plans on taking Lea up here one of these days. Now – it was lies.

The stars were nice. He could spot a couple of systems. She had excelled at astrophysics. There was the Pine System. There had been the same constellation she had taken her lover when they were together. Then it called and there had been some sense knocked in them.

The door opened.

There was Lea Yatsutake. She was pretty. Then Len remembered her manners.

"Would you like to sit down? I’m afraid they didn’t give any seats here" she/he said. The room was large. It was the Lover’s Seat as the rumor said. It was made out to be the Science Department’s "scanning" room. Over time, it became the Lover’s Seat. There was the door that cut the room into the rest of the Lounge. Somewhere to the north was the small café that the upper echelons loved.

Lea sat on the one sitting next to the wall. Everything in the room was dead. There was the equipment that would scan for the Science Department, dead, able to form Siren’s body. Siren already had a body – Len – and Len already had someone to trust. The chairs were comfortable. That window was shut out of privacy for her.

"I’m sorry that Jen went all captain on you" she answered, not looking to the rapist that had been raped, assaulted, interrogated, now in a body that was not quite human, the ears peaked as her descendents now had, the eyes a shade near blue/violet, and limbs that knew their place in things.

"It’s no biggie – I learned how to quip" answered Len.

Lea stared at him with a grin.

"I’m not too sure how to answer that" she said with her fingers picking at her sleeve.

"Then could you ask if they have a tailor – I’m really sick of wearing red. Maybe they could have a tunic on hand or slacks perhaps. Black makes me resemble a technician" Siren answered, poking around in what they called soup. In honesty it was little more than lukewarm coffee. She had tasted better in his days at the Academy.

"Len – are you all right in there?" Lea broke, looking into her eyes, the starlight enhancing on her beauty. She would look good in a white dress. He wasn’t a lesbian but Siren could. Siren jabbed him in the back for that.

"It was just an industrial accident Chief- nothing more."

Lea stood up. The Savoy wasn’t moving at full speed. It was simply going around the planet. She could see the rise of the other continent, the major cities, and the convenient way of not looking over that Podunk of a town.

The massive block of plastic, wires, and chips resembled her prison. She was free now, ironically, in a body that was no longer human. There was some sense of humor in that thought.

"Can you just tell me?" queried Lea, standing before her. Len was in a corner, dark, with the light reflecting on that box, that loveseat, and the door. She liked to be in the kitchen when she was younger. It was a bitter memory as Len agreed, with the Commander that had demoted him from the Helm, broken out from the ending of the war.

"Tell you what? You’re sound of mind by my standards" answered Len, getting out of the corner. The chair looked good where the North Star (Siren thought) shined. She was so sick of memories. Len still dreamed of lesbian sex.

"Len – you altered my brain chemistry. You screwed with Kerry’s, affected Luz, and you’re not quite human. You’re a new species and even the Elfish Rogues down below look at you with alarm. Could you just at least answer the bloody question?" she demanded with the starlight shining off the pips that made her the Chief of Operations. She had been raised with her cousin not quite well in the operation business. She would love to torture the ants by pouring hot wax in their nests, letting it cool, and then let confided water to reveal their fossilized corpses in a murder tree.

Siren was listening through Len’s ears. The communicators messed up with the genetic structure. The pronouns really didn’t matter anymore. To be reasoned with was insane. They had stolen her equipment. There were briars all about the room. Inside, deep within those walls, they were lovers of convenience, lovers of desperation, comrades in arms patrolling Hadrian’s Wall, and too tired to go into further details about their private life.

"You’re very attractive – you know that Lea?" he said, coming to her.

Lea took several steps back.

"All I wanted was an answer Len. Don’t touch me."

Len rolled his eyes.

"I’m not going all spiritual on you Lea."

"Go away Len. I don’t need you in my head."

It was an accident that they had put males as her guards.

She had to, by all accounts, not attract Luz, Kerry, or Doc Evans.

She also had to avoid Lea’s cousin, her second, and the entire Security department.

He got into the café. The barkeep was busy with the food. There were all officers of the echelons there. Their talk was of rumor. She avoided that. Siren pulled her partner back. They were there for only one mission and one mission only.

"Hey Lea- you feeling all right?" said Jim Ma. He was serving some dishes along the line. They looked rather delicious. An alien hand pointed to the kung-pao chicken that was sitting along the long table. An alien head nodded. It was a shame that this wasn’t a rowdy place. He had constructed places in the past – OW – and he kept quiet.

A couple of random excuses were made. The people were just so exciting. There were noises downstairs. There was thumping down below. Two fangs penetrated into spiritual skin, Len’s dreams set aflutter, genes mixing, and the usual random things.

The kung-pao chicken was delicious!

"Hey Lea- you know the starlight makes your eyes blue" said a smooth charmer. He was quite handsome. A slight sliver of a thought showed him bleeding on a bed. There was a snaking into his intestines. It was all chemistry. This ship would do well – what was she thinking of departing it – for everything seemed to go well.

"Really Welker – I never knew-"an alien smiled at him, showing teeth, and no elongated fangs.

There was thumping downstairs. She wouldn’t stay weak! That was the thing about these humans – they wouldn’t stay weak. An alien hand shoved some cooked chicken into an alien mouth. The spices were very well merged into the flesh of the bird. There was the question on how they managed to get the chicken in the first place.

There was a correction – some alien bird that was eaten like a chicken – but it was Len’s vocabulary that Siren stole it from.

"Yeah – it really makes you beautiful" he said, stupid.

That wasn’t done by accident.

Len backed away from her victim. She seemed rather weak. Yes, Siren agreed, she would look better in a dress. The tunic was well fitted, as well as the slacks. She would be presentable when his captain came in. He really didn’t like the uniform anyway. It had no – pizzazz.

She moaned. There was something quite delicious seeing her woozy. While no sex had been made, the sensation still ran into her limbs. At one point Len-cum-Siren was giddy with joy and jumped. It really didn’t matter about sex as so much as power. Her genetic structure had been changed. There was something delicious about revenge.

"Thank God for stupidity!!!" Siren yelled.

The tunic was rather itchy though.

"You" spat out her voice. Len looked at her victim. She had been husked out. It wasn’t fully husked. The brain operated on the same lines as a computer; it was just the different ways of tapping it was the key. Siren put down Len, slapped him about, and asked him what the bloody hell was it about his fetish.

Len stated that they were triumphant.

"Why? How? Just a question you-"she pushed herself from the wall. She looked ravaging when ravished. All now was the tearing of the clothes, beating her down to servitude, and Len would gloat to Kingdom Come with power. All his life he had been shamed by idiot echelons of commanders. All his life and now he would make them serve him!

The seat was located on the wall. She was on the left hands side of the non-functioning box. The food was great. The sex was great. Siren pulled her eager horse back. She reviewed what was going on. There had been time, examination, and Doc Evans as the man with plastic covered hands. It was the computers that she feared the most. She pushed Len down.

"I’m a parasite. I’m sorry, Lea."

"DON’T TOUCH ME!" she screamed, staggering, slipping away to the left hand corner of the observational room.

"I’m trying to say I’m sorry Lea"

"You’re a bloody siren you know that? Don’t ever touch me – ever again! You – you – you’re a bloody – you-"

This was on purpose.

"I see our little bird has come to roost" stated Doc Evans.

Lea had pushed herself away from the confusing gender person. She was in the Med Bay now. Doc Evans was scanning her with the new models. She wasn’t confused; she was just raped. The Captain wasn’t any help. Jen should have just killed her then. There were noises below.

"Can you tell us what she is besides a siren?" asked Commander Goblin Troll. Captain Bogie Normandy looked over the new data that the Doc had acquired. It was the Captain that seemed Puritanical, Stoic, and Regal. The only difference was that he didn’t have human genes in him. He seemed like a tired old troll with many wrinkles, bald, with along line splitting his cranium. It was Commander Goblin Troll that was human – from Mars to be exact.

"She’s got connections to the data system" Lea heard herself saying to her bosses.

Doc Evans snorted.

"I meant details Lea, details. Regent Lingard says that her kind is all but extinct. Perhaps we can reason with her" stated Commander Goblin Troll.

There were a couple of words that Lea found hard to follow. A serpent in Eden had done its work. Doc Evans stared at her, recording, pulling out another device from his tray of lethal injecting tools. A flicker of memory came up – victims from the exploded planet – his petitions on a new disease – leanings towards Intel – and a far shadowy thing that scared Siren out of her wits.

"What do you think Lea?" interrupted Captain Bogie Normandy. It was hard to pay attention with Doc Evans putting those things on her skin. It was utterly repulsive. It was utterly poison, venom, with ants crawling up her skin, ruining the synapses, and fear just shaking her bones.

"I’m in favor of not having Doc Evans work with me" she said.

"It’s for the best until she speaks" said Commander Goblin Troll, with kind eyes that only a hydra would have.

Something clicked. The siren screamed in pain.

It had been done by accident and her wings had been broken off. She had been nailed on a cross. They both felt stupid. They had been planning on to send a signal to the lounge. They were still in distance.

A cold knife in warm flesh, thrust, twist, and burning flesh on the forehead made her a captive forever.

Len staggered away from the conduits. It seemed a good idea at the time. Time was fading. This was her limbs. This was her feet. This was him not saying anything at all.

The doors opened. There were her descendents. She hadn’t noticed them. They were regal, stoic, and boring. They looked at her. She was a little child again, looking into the secret holes that she could find, wishing forever that her big brother didn’t come again, and that still ran in her again. Len had lapsed into his duty as a big brother. They had their devices scanning her body, lances into her torn flesh, simply mocking the Wounded King/God upon the cross, and the box remained dead in the lounge.

"It’s you" she/he said.

One of her descendents stopped scanning. They all stopped. They all were Elfish Rogues. They had markings on their tunics – which had changed in the cut.

"Why?" one of her descendents asked.

"I was tired of being a program. You probably welcome it." Siren-cum-Len said. She/he got up. He/She had been sitting in the back of the dead box. Len was tired – just for the moment – and it appeared that the Commander had some pull in the government.

"We can’t protect you know – you know that" said the other one, with sandy hair, and a lighter complexion.

"What makes you think that I wanted protection?"

The middle one, husky, of a thuggish complexion, sat where Lea was when she picked at her sleeve. He had a beard on him. It made him look very profound, but sad looking.

"Because of your brethren and our elders" the older man said. The other two stood near him. She had a regular triad of tribune officers over her seppuku. Len pulled Siren closer to him.

I was Circe said Siren sadly, Odysseus lost to the sea.

Now that was on purpose.

Of course everything is.

Viceroy Lingard, brother of the Regent, avid archaeologist, fiddled with something on Captain Bogie Normandy’s desk.

He cleared his throat.

"Sir – as you might have guessed, for every Reformation, there is a Counter-Reformation. She was one of those people that went beyond anything that we knew of. Now – I’m a study of elder things. She is one of those elder things. I differ on my brother upon this.

I know that the actions of my team may be frowned upon. She was one of our dear figures within history, and no doubt by what you told me of the late legend that opened a thousand worlds and currently is in retirement, she is in such a legacy. We can only learn from her. I know that the body that she inhabits used to be of your crewmember. I know that you have a policy within the Intelligence Service, but the fact remains that she still lives.

I’m told that there was this witch called Circe who fell in love with a Sailor King before letting him go. We have that same in our realm, although different. In our legends she retained her love with the Sailor King, his wife becoming independent in her own right, and a legend carved out within the Cretan Sea. While there have been damages on your ship, there isn’t really much that was done by her that was balanced out by the actions of your subordinates.

Please do not think of us as ignorant people Captain. It is just that we are far more connected with our legends than yours, it seems, and it is only by the actions of your lamented Admiral in retirement that you seem to glow. There might be room for yet another legend, a pastor maybe, a shop of constant morality that seems to lack within this transitory state that you are in."

Captain Bogie Normandy took this all in. He took a small model car and made it swerve a right turn on his desk. There were several computer notebooks piled on his desk.

"I didn’t ask for the sermon Viceroy" said the Captain.

"I just thought that you needed it" replied the elderly bearded man dressed in a tunic and slacks, cut differently than what the Siren had remembered.

"We’re not barbarians you know" replied the Captain.

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