A commission for last_of_workers
Johnath was lounging, scanning the space around the planet he was on for any cosmic events he could use to get off this planet and somewhere more interesting, while his ship, the Titan Green, was walking around eating all the delicious flora on the planet.
Now most people might look at you like you’re crazy when you tell them your spaceship is hungry and needs to eat, which Johnath gets a lot, but it’s true. He’s the captain of a Biolet ship, which means his ship is alive.
Not just partially alive like a cyborg either, the ship is one hundred percent organic and a living, sometimes breathing creature. Biolet’s are one of, if not the rarest type of ship; even among the empire, the corporate territories, and the houses, very few exist.
Chances are, Johnath was the only one bold enough, or perhaps crazy enough, to pilot one through space. The biggest reason why it’s crazy for anyone to take one through deepspace was because the ships themselves are unable to move between star systems.
They require the help of other ships and/or some sort of cosmic event to occur that would allow them to move through space. Things like a meteor coming by, a wormhole opening up, or even solar winds for the ship to ride, which was how he got here.
Despite that problem, the ship itself is quite neat. The ships, being real, are actually very similar to insects and like the species that breed them, they are quite intelligent and are able to form real bonds with their captains.
Their creators, the Giz'on, were also an insect-like species, one that was conquered by the empire and enslaved, which was why they had access to their version of technology, which were, in fact, all bug-like creatures.
Being that they were made for space travel, they are not only capable of handling the vacuum of space indefinitely, but they also create neutral oxygen in their bodies so the people inside can survive alongside them.
They’re also quite large, and their insides are laid out like a house, which, while sounding strange, makes it quite comfortable and allows it to be used like a real ship. So if something needs to be transported, it can do it with ease.
That’s what makes this type of ship great for space caravans, as they can help others by carrying things while they help it move through space. Of course, in deepspace caravans are rare, and the one Johnath was with, he sort of got separated from when Titan Green needed to eat.
That was a pain, as it caused him to be trapped on this planet for quite some time, but he still knew the benefits of the ship were worth it. One of the best things about a Biolet ship is that they're extremely hard for other ships to combat.
Since the ships are a hundred percent organic, they don’t have things like a reactor, hyperdrive, energy shields, or any of the normal electronic parts you’d find in every other type of spaceship, not even weapons you’d find on a normal ship.
However, they do still have weapons. They are able to spit out a gas that dissolves most materials if they sit in it long enough. They can also take that gas and mix it with their stomach acid to create a ball that they can spit like a missile that explodes on impact.
Thanks to all that, you can’t use an EMP to disable them. Energy blasts and missiles from ships also don’t affect them, as they have a super thick layer of chitin around the outside of their body. Of course that doesn’t mean they’re invincible; they can get damaged, and if they do, it can be a pain.
You can’t repair them like you would a normal ship. Instead, they heal themselves over time, but very, very slowly, which can be a real problem if they take a lot of damage, as they don’t have long life spans, maybe a decade or two.
Of course, before they die, they do spit out an egg containing another Biolet that’s a duplicate of them, both in terms of looks and memories, but it takes a year to hatch and another year to grow to full size in order to be used as a ship again.
Of course, if they’re not well cared for during that time and they die again, that’s it; the ship will be permanently gone. Which would not only be very bad for Johnath but also quite sad, as Titan Green is his partner and best friend thanks to their close bond.
They first met after Titan Green was hatched and Johnath was working for the empire as a soldier. Johnath was the only one compatible with Titan Green, so he became its captain. Johnath got to watch Titan Green grow up, and eventually they went to space together on missions.
However, a few years later the empire wanted to take Titan Green and run some cruel experiments on it, ones that would likely kill it. Johnath couldn’t let that happen, so he escaped the empire while they shot at him and made it to a wormhole that warped him into deepspace.
Ever since then, the two have been traveling around randomly, sometimes with the help of other ships, other times thanks to some cosmic event, and sometimes stuck on a planet like they were now. Despite how lonely it sounds, both Johnath and Titan Green are happy, though a bit bored.
Johnath continued to scan the space around the planet when he got a hit. There was an asteroid coming by that was heading right to a wormhole. Johnath got into gear and told Titan Green about it, and the two quickly made for space.
Titan Green got in the path of the asteroid and they waited for it to come by. When it did, Titan Green latched onto it and the two began to shoot through the part of space they were in. It doesn’t take them to get close to the wormhole.
They went through it, and everything on the side was chaotic. There were crazy space events happening everywhere, along with crazy, impossible things. There were also almost a dozen ships flying around, dodging, shooting, and helping each other through it.
Johnath had no idea what he got himself in the middle of, but they all seemed to be heading to this large rock nearby with a space station, so he figured he’d follow them and hopefully get a ride from them.
It took a lot of work to get there, though. Johnath got hit by a few lightning strikes from portals that were open to some random planet, as well as crashing into a satellite that seemed to be from the era of Earth thousands of years ago.
Luckily it didn’t damage Titan Green, but with how many things there were, it used up all of its resources to create missiles, and by the time it landed, it was quite hungry again. So it didn’t surprise Johnath when, after walking out to talk to the other pilots at the space station, that Titan Green left.
Johnath knew it was just going to find food, so it wasn’t a big deal. Johnath went and chatted with the pilots and found out why they were all here. Apparently the place below them was Zeta-13, which Johnath knew about from his time at the empire.
He also knew how the rules worked out here, so this place was now up for grabs. Knowing a bit more than the others about what happened here, Johnath knew this place was a big score and had to claim it for his own.
So he followed the others to the orbital elevator and went down with them. That’s when more chaos ensued. The orbital elevator vanished and all of them were now falling to the surface. Most of the others had used their coms to call their ships, but Johnath didn’t have that because his was a Biolet.
Johnath thought he was done for, but just before he hit the ground, Titan Green caught him, not on purpose, but because it was still flying around looking for food. Johnath was in the middle of thanking his friend for the rescue while also nervously laughing when the next anomaly occurred.
Johnath blacked out and didn’t wake up until her stomach started to growl like crazy. She sat up and groaned. Without thinking about it, she stood up and looked around. All around her was desert, so there were no tasty leaves for her to fill up on.
Johnath then snapped fully awake. Why did she want to eat leaves so badly? She’s never wanted to do that before. She then looked around for Titan Green but it was nowhere to be seen. Johnath put her hands on her face and started to yell into them.
That’s when she noticed something hard covering her hands, almost like some sort of armor. She looked down at them and had no idea what it was; all she knew was that it wasn’t her spacesuit, and it wasn’t her skin since she could feel that under it.
Johnath followed it up her arm and realized it covered her whole body. So she started to check out other areas, and she went right to her chest, which she realized was sticking out quite a bit now. Johnath tilted her head and wondered why it was like that.
She ran her hands around those spots and realized they were quite round. Then she realized they were shaped like that because something under them was shaped the same way. She stopped and thought about it, then gulped.
There was only one thing that would be shaped like that and sitting on someone’s chest. Johnath grabbed her hair and loudly asked how the heck she turned into a girl in the middle of nowhere. She then kicked a bunch of sand and then yelled, calling out to Titan Green.
Suddenly she heard some noises from inside her head, the same ones Titan Green always made when they were talking. Johnath was confused and asked Titan Green where it was and how she could hear it.
Titan Green didn’t really have an answer. It told her that it was here with her, but it felt completely strange, almost like it was smaller and standing like a human. Things clicked in Johnath’s head and she moved her hands to her face and asked Titan Green if it could see her hands.
Titan Green confirmed but was confused, saying it was looking at its own hands. Johnath sighed and reminded it that it didn’t have hands, which made it go silent for a moment. Johnath then explained what she thought happened.
Zeta-13 was well known for being a crazy place full of wild anomalies capable of doing almost anything, so the two of them were likely hit by one that fused them together, though she had no idea why that turned her female.
What she did know was her body was very different now. Fusing with Titan Green meant she was now part insect, or mostly; she really wasn’t sure. Neither of them knew how this body worked, so there was only one way to find out.
They began to do some tests, starting with checking if they could still use weapons, which Johnath could, though it was a bit embarrassing to have gas come out of her like that, and a bit uncomfortable to shoot balls out of her mouth, but it was cool when they destroyed a few rocks.
One of the rocks ended up sending a small shard backward that cut her, and Johnath was worried about being injured, but thanks to Titan Green’s abilities, she was slowly healing, though it only made her hungrier.
Johnath turned towards the center of Zeta-13 and wondered if there was any food there she could eat. If not, maybe one of the other captains will spare some food for her and give her a lift back, unless, of course, they’ve yet to claim Zeta-13. In which case, Johnath will do that and then make a trade with one of the other captains if need be.
Riley
2025-04-07 19:55:41 +0000 UTClast_of_workers
2025-04-06 15:46:02 +0000 UTC