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DRIFT (Homecoming) Written by Leo_Todrius Commissioned by Dariuswhitefur

[December 31st, 2095]

Minute by minute, time clicked by on the digital display, keeping a grasp on how many moments had passed outside the ship. Dustin Steinbar had been away from Earth for one thousand, seven hundred and eighty one days. When his journey had started, losing that much time had paled in comparison to losing Earth... then again, when he'd started the thrill of exploration had been enough for him. After losing everything he had at least found Zar, but in all truth he had lost that as well.

As far as the universe outside was concerned, three years, ten months, and twenty-nine days had passed since he had met Zar. The quantum slingshot of the Drake had been adjusted time and time again, making far less time pass for Dustin, but... it still felt like an eternity had passed. Dustin wasn't sure that relativity could have an influence over the human soul - assuming any of that was left.

Dustin felt lost in himself, sitting with his back to the bulkhead that separated Zar from the rest of the ship. At least when his alien boyfriend had been an aquatic gargoyle he could get closer, see him with his own eyes... but now there was a feral scorpion beast in heat locked away, lost from himself, lost from who he was. Dustin's eyes squeezed shut tighter, his fingers balled into a fist and he slammed them against the deck plating again.

The lost astronaut recounted everything he had been through, everything he had encountered. He'd been hijacked by living crystal guardians, kidnapped by refuse collecting dogs, manipulated by slave traffickers, infected by an alien plague, and involved in one of the strangest diplomatic incidents he had ever learned about... but it all paled compared to the fate ahead of him.

The guardians had given Dustin a choice when he had first set out from Earth; continue his life in the protected territories of the forgotten architect race, or end his life there at the edge of the solar system rather than contaminate his own people with the knowledge of the universe beyond. It had seemed clear cut before, but now he was hurtling back toward the one place he had been forbidden from.

There was one hope Dustin held in his heart. The architect upgrades to the Drake had been amazing. Crystalline coating to protect the ship, advanced engines, sophisticated computers... Every time Dustin encountered another race, his ship learned from the culture they encountered. The database redoubled its sophistication over and over... Maybe there was a chance that they could sneak past the observatory, land on Earth and vacate the ship before they were noticed. The Drake's AI seemed eager to help, having bypassed the architect command node to set the course in the first place. A loud clang echoed from the bulkhead, then several scratches. Dustin winced at that.

"I'm so sorry Zar, I know you hate being cooped up. It'll just be a little longer, I promise." Dustin said, looking up at the closest orange and yellow display console, "Drake, where are we?"

"We are approaching Architect Region 10,829, crossing threshold in five, four, three-" the voice ended with a disheartening crackle. The lights down the hall flickered and there was an incredibly uneasy shifting of inertia before all at once the entire ship went dark. Dustin tried to grab onto something, but the floor below had no firm holds.

In the sudden darkness, sounds seemed more intense to Dustin. He heard Zar scuttling on the other side of the bulkhead, and somewhere beneath his feet he both felt and heard the ever decreasing speed of the spinning gravity generator. The Drake had died as they passed into Earth's solar system. The integrated components had shut off and taken the rest of the human built ship with it... save for one aspect.

Moments after the crash, the emergency lighting sputtered to life. Amber lights snapped on, flashing in sequence down the length of the hallway as a dull klaxon started to pulse. Dustin started to skid and slip off the floor without gravity, trying to use his green reptilian tail to compensate. While he was only five foot nine in height, his limbs were gangly from all of the changes. He wondered for a moment if the worst was behind him, but his thought had been nothing more than a jinx. The ship shuddered again, hurtling through the space with no guidance. Sparks erupted from panels and tubing as systems overloaded with the incredible strain.

Dustin reached out and grabbed onto the wall with a gray hand, his webbed fingers wrapping around a metal brace. It was the hand of a Topian gargoyle. Having achieved a firm grip, Dustin pushed forward again, his clawed toes scraping along the floor. Dustin could smell motherboards overloading and melting with his canine sense of smell as he gained speed, heading for the front of the ship.

Several bulkheads had been left open for his ease of movement, but as he got to the bridge he encountered the toughest one of all. Dustin reached over and pried the cover off the hydraulic box. A faint white light filled the interior of the slot, emanating from what had essentially been a glow stick kept inactive by a steady electric current. Drake gripped onto the lever inside and pulled it down, grunting and bearing his fangs until the double doors to his side opened half way.

The pilot maneuvered over to the gap and used his strength to pry them open just a bit more, but he had to change positions. With his tail steadying him, he grabbed onto the door with his webbed, clawed feet as well. The monkey like toe thumbs gripped hard and he let out a groan, forcing the doors the rest of the way open. The Drake's cockpit inside was as beautiful as ever with its reflective floors and comforting design.

Without meaning to, Dustin caught a brief reflection of himself in the floor. The face that looked back of him never seemed to be the same for long. His nose was still canine, moist and receptive to scents. His canine ears had lost their fur some time ago, but the three earrings in the right ear were as vibrant as ever. His hair was a royal blue, matching the lonely patch of fur on his chest, and nestled in his hair he still had some of the reptilian crest that had grown encountering the viceroy.

Dustin hated to admit that his months with artificial gravity had started to erase his flight training, but it took some adjustment to maneuver around the cockpit and pull himself down into the pilot's chair. The seatbelts were pried out of the slots on the sides and Dustin strapped himself in, waiting in hope that the basic redundancies he had programmed into the ship would help him one more time. Registering pressure against the chair, a single panel on the console in front of him slowly came back to life, operating on a separate battery backup.

"Welcome back Dustin. System status is severe." The Drake stated. Dustin was a bit surprised at that, feeling uncertain and relieved at the same time. When he had launched from Earth, the ship had limited artificial intelligence but the voice and the true interactivity had come as a gift from the Architect upgrades. Dustin wasn't sure he could trust the Drake's voice, but at the same time it was almost like a friend had returned.

"Tell me about it." Dustin said, closing his eyes for a moment to rest.

"Propulsion is offline. Artificial gravity is offline. All Architect modifications are offline. Quantum Slingshot drive is offline, battery packs exhausted-" The Drake stated, sounding as if it would continue on for some time.

"Drake, I didn't mean literally..." Dustin murmured, keeping his eyes shut. Given the speed they had been going when they entered the solar system, or the erratic way they had decelerated, there was no telling if they missed the planets entirely and were headed back out to space, if he'd been captured in a gravity web from the observatory, or if they were hurtling toward the sun.

"Astrometrics and Navigation are offline." The computer responded. There was no reason to resist the truth any longer. His eyelids slipped open, revealing the eyes beneath. One was a vibrant violet color, the other solid black and ringed with gray, gray that continued down in a single line, where the tear had fallen and left a trail of gargoyle skin.

Dustin looked through the window of the Drake, his eyes widening as a slight, hopeful grin crossed his lips. Even his gills fluttered as he felt excitement. Everything he had encountered, experienced, gained, learned and lost... it had all lead up to his return. Hanging in space, just on the other side of the glass, was the world he had been forbidden to return to. Just beyond was Earth... and it was getting closer. If he didn't slow the ship down, he'd hit with enough force to simulate a smaller version of the impact that killed the dinosaurs. Earth had to be warned, and he had to work fast to save himself and Zar.

"Alright Drake, we're going to get back to basics. I've got, from the looks of things, four minutes to unhook enough of that alien junk to get the most basic engine systems back online." Dustin said, climbing out of the chair, pushing off to float back down the long hall.

"The odds of our success-" Drake was interrupted with a chittering from Dustin's mouth.

"Don't care. All we can do is try... It'll be just like old times." Dustin said, thinking once more to the day he had launched from Earth, the day everything had started.

[February 14th, 2091]

A warm, humid breeze blew along the coast of Florida, retaining the heat of the day well after the sun had started to set. As the last edges of the crimson disk settled into the horizon, a hundred shades of violet spread across the rest of the sky. It was a perfect counterpoint to the silhouette of palm trees along the mainland and the sequentially blinking lights of the massive structure that ran along the strip of sand out across the ocean waters before curving upward toward the sky at the very end. The Key Largo linear catapult was ready, and so was Dustin Steinbar.

Dustin's jade green eyes gazed out a the beautiful landscape, wondering for a split second if he was having regret about leaving his world behind... but he knew that regret would disappear the moment he stepped off the Drake. He had the thirst for exploration, and no human ever living would have seen as much of the solar system as he was about to.

The pilot's image was projected on one of the nearby monitors, showing Kennedy and Tokyo the feed from the cockpit. Even with his helmet on, Dustin's shock of blond hair and his fair skin was visible. Despite his young age, he had accomplished so much. He'd graduated in his early teens from college and devoted himself to a growing movement to revitalize space exploration. With so many people bogged down in Earth politics, it was easy to excel toward the final frontier. With input from Elon Musk, Nasa and a host of Japanese engineers, Dustin Steinbar had crafted the world's first Faster Than Light drive. A trip that would have taken decades before would take five months end to end.

"You know it's sad, little dude." The deep voice murmured from the radio in Dustin's helmet. Dustin turned his head, looking to another screen and into the deep hazel eyes of one of his team members. The scientist seemed to be in his mid to late thirties, his thick dreads dyed red and pulled back into a ponytail, contrasting with the dark chocolate tones of his skin. A pair of rectangular framed glasses resting on his broad nose.

"Uly, this isn't the time to get sentimental." Dustin replied.

"I mean, think about it... You couldn't get a date for valentines day and now you're leaving the planet entirely. If anything, it's a bit emo of you." Uly replied. Dustin chortled at that, writhing in his chair.

"You think I couldn't get a date? Uly, I have a date with destiny, a date with the cosmos, a date... with the universe. You tell me one other man on this planet that lucky, and I'll finally eat that tofu mash you call cuisine." Dustin replied. Uly chuckled back at that before he groaned and leaned back in his chair.

"Just promise me you'll come back in one piece, alright?" Uly asked. Dustin looked back forward at the linear catapult.

"One way or another, Earth will learn just what I'm capable of." Dustin replied.

[December 31st, 2095]

The amount of sparks that erupted out of the conduit around Dustin's gloved hand was quite over the top, though the smell of singed circuits and ruptured capacitors was even more poignant. Dustin scrunched up his face and coughed heavily, but he looked down at the glowing blue trapezoidal crystal in his hand. It was a lot more complex than the last time he had looked at it. There were buzzing lines of purple moving through it, having networked and grown with each encounter. It was the heart of his journeys, the heart of the enhanced Drake... and he had just torn it out.

"Drake, status?" Dustin asked. There was a long silence before there was a single tone and one of the near by displays flashed red before listing system damage. Dustin's heart sank a little before he looked back at the crystal in his hand. In his isolation he hadn't ever stopped to think much on where his ship ended and the crystal began. The Drake had grown and evolved along with him.

The Drake's limited artificial intelligence had been developed over a year and a half based on Earth's most sophisticated models at the time, but in practice Dustin hadn't spent long with it in its original form. Ever since the Guardians upgraded his ship, he'd been getting to know the new Drake. It was almost like he had just killed one friend to save another, though Guardian tech was resilient. Even if he had to rebuild the circuit boards, he was sure his friend was still in that crystal... which meant he had to keep his mind on the mission.

Dustin pushed off the deck plating and left the fried panels behind, making his way to the auxiliary engine control. It was almost all of the way back to where Zar had been locked up. He maneuvered around with relative ease thanks to his monkey like foot paws, gripping and grabbing panels as he moved along before reaching his destination. The master systems display looked quite a bit different with the architech disabled. The FTL engines, artificial gravity, weapons and shields... but over half of the ship's original systems had snapped back on.

The astronaut hung onto the panel with one of his feet, both hands occupied in opening up the code wall to input several new commands. Before long he could feel the Drake's maneuvering jets firing, slowing the ship and increasing the angle. Dustin bit his lip a bit, feeling cut off still without the Drake to talk to. He was back to the drawing board, utilizing shipboard cameras to triangulate his position and relation to Earth. There wouldn't be any way a landing would be possible in the ship's current state, but orbit... That might just work. Between the anxiety of the crisis and the complexity of the math involved, Dustin's brain was aching - but no obstacle was going to keep Dustin from doing his best. It never had before.

[March 22nd, 2091]

Mars. The red planet, the fourth rock from the sun... A hundred and seventeen degrees below zero on a good day. It was cliché, Dustin admitted, but it had been Mars that had captivated him the most growing up. Maybe it was the views of the green sunsets from the Miracle Rover, or the dusty dry channels that had once held water eons ago. Maybe it was the lonely charm of a planet that had lost its atmosphere and everything else... A forgotten world, a dusty remnant... until now.

Dustin's face was so close to the window he was practically smashing his nose against it, gazing out at the planet below him. No one else, no one ever, had been able to look at Mars with their naked eyes... and it was beautiful. Dustin drank in the view for almost twenty minutes, barely wanting to blink... but time waited for no one. Eventually he felt the nagging tug of the mission at hand.

"Operation command:" Dustin called out, triggering the computer's AI to accept verbal instruction, "Launch program M-1R. Let's get that attendance sheet out." Dustin grinned.

"Martian Rover Prop-M, USSR, 1971 remains located. Sojourner, USA, 1997, remains located. Communication attempt; unsuccessful. Beagle, ESA, 2003 remains located. Spirit, USA, 2004 located. Communication attempt;" The computer paused its readout and Dustin held his breath, "unsuccessful." The computer added.

Dustin's brows furrowed a bit. It was too much to hope for. The rover was nearly a century old. Moment by moment the Drake tracked down rovers, stationary labs and archive drops that had been littered across the Martian landscape over the decades. It was a little more time consuming to go chronologically, but Dustin had a flare for history.

"Curiosity, USA, 2012 located. Communication attempt; partial systems access. Networking." The computer responded. Dustin slammed his hand against the arm of his chair and let out a whoop of excitement. After several initial mishaps, the Mars rovers had a history of miraculously outperforming design specifications. The curiosity rover had broken records for distance traveled and science performed, but it had eventually been reduced to little more than a relay point for signals.

"Now this is like it." Dustin said in excitement.

"Freedom, USA, 2022 located. Communication attempt: full systems access. Murasame, ISS, 2034 located. Communication attempt: full systems access." The Drake announced. Dustin watched the screens as the ship moved through the list. Keppler, Dragon, Perseverance, and Miracle. The ship was patching into every system left on the moon that had an ounce of power in it. Information was being downloaded, and updated operating systems that would have taken months to transmit from Earth were sent to the new systems. Dustin practically danced around the cockpit with excitement.

"So, which champagne pouch should I open with dinner? The Ace of Spades Rose, or the Winston Churchill?" Dustin grinned.

"Unidentified relay point detected. Communication attempt:" The Drake announced. Dustin stopped where he was, looking at the screen in surprise. The Drake had been programmed to attempt an interaction for every listed Mars mission on record. Even the missions thought destroyed or lost en route had been included for the sake of thoroughness. The idea that there was any unidentified signal was a startling concept.

After moments of inactivity, every screen in the cockpit started to flicker, filling with an alien script. Systems began to snap on and off and random files displayed. Dustin's eyes went wide as he grabbed onto the chair and pulled himself down, strapping in before he grabbed the keyboard. Dustin opened the command console and started typing as fast as he could, trying to shut down the interface. The intruding code seemed to fight for dominance, using ciphers unlike anything he had experienced. He watched the code streaming in, becoming more complex, moving on from probing the systems to trying to interact with them.

"Shit, shit!" Dustin repeated as the code tried to find the ship's reactor. Dustin dropped the frontal attack and even bypassed trying to block the signal, instead going after a relay power point. He wrote a quick bit of code to shut it down and initiated the program. Several minor systems in the ship lost power, including a regulator for the radio antenna. A few sparks shot out of the ceiling panel above Dustin, but the computer screens returned to normal. The signal had been interrupted.

Dustin slowly started to breathe again, but he didn't waste too much time before he looked back into the systems display board. Luckily it seemed he had stopped the process before anything was irrevocably sabotaged... but the speed of the attack, the complexity, it was faster than anyone on Earth could have managed. It had to be local. Dark thoughts raced through the back of Dustin's mind of the lost Mars missions. Had some of the rovers and probes met the same fate? Had they tapped into something on Mars that didn't want to be discovered? Whatever the case, it seemed the adventure wasn't yet over. Movement caught Dustin's eyes and he looked up at the window quickly.

Outside there was a flurry of light, almost like an aurora borealis stretching towards the Drake from well beyond Mars' orbit. The long line of light disappeared in an instant, leaving in its wake a mass of hurtling debris and dust. Several pieces went crashing down toward the Martian surface, others falling into a garbage orbit, while still more went sailing past the Drake's hull.

"Operation command: Scan debris in orbital path. Makeup and hazard assessment!" Dustin commanded. The computer chirped, running what tests it could from that distance. Laser lights shot out, radio telemetry was pinged, everything short of taking direct samples. Before long the information started coming up on the screen, listing the contents of the debris; carbon nano-fibers, ceramic heat shielding, transparent plasteel shards... it was like looking at an inventory of his own ship, or rather a manifest of what would have been left after a catastrophic explosion.

"Warning, gravitational anomaly." The ship's computer called out, though it was soon clear the assessment was an understatement. Mars began to move from the window, slowly at first but picking up speed. The planet fell away and the ship's acceleration continued without the engines even being on. Dustin's hands snapped to the controls, but soon he started to groan. It was taking more and more effort to keep his arms at the interface while gravity was pulling them back.

"Operation... command! Launch com pod, use gravitometer to map distortions!" Dustin called out.

"Preparing com pod release. Opening external hatch. Detaching moorings. Launching pod. Warning, equipment malfunction. Com pod has been unable to clear housing. Com pod has failed to launch." The Drake announced in an unfortunately calm voice. Outside the ship the stars moved faster and faster, becoming almost a blur. Dustin was having a hard time even keeping his eyes open, but as he watched the screens there seemed to be an oddly specific pattern of gravity forming around his ship, almost like some sort of webbing, almost like he had been caught in a net. Dustin's fingers dug into the chair, the astronaut forcing his eyes to remain open. Whatever was ahead, he was going to face it.

[December 31st, 2095]

Blue light shone through the windows into the cockpit of the Drake, illuminating Dustin as he floated just above the captain's chair. There were circuit boards in the air, dangling cables, but to Dustin it was almost zen like. His brain was going kilometers a second, running back and forth through the ship's wiring in his head, trying to bypass that next problem and anticipate the hurdle just beyond.

The impact deadline had come and gone and the Drake had settled into an uneasy but stable orbit of Earth, almost twenty three thousand miles above the surface. It was almost calming in a way, being above geosynchronous. It was like the Earth was spinning just a little too fast below the ship and they were losing ground ever so steadily. Dustin had used the time they gained to repair as many systems as he could, but without the architect augmentations offering repair services of their own he hadn't made a lot of progress.

He had faced a similar problem before, but he had one advantage this time... He hadn't been noticed, they had emerged on the opposite side of the solar system from the observatory, though surely he was losing time on that front as well. There was undoubtedly no time to get the Drake back up to snuff to survive a landing... but there was one plan left, a plan that he had anticipated so very long ago. A soft smile crossed Dustin's lips.

"Operation command: Prepare G1 for disengage. Secure all moorings." Dustin ordered. Even in its limited state, the ship obeyed. A countdown clock appeared on one of the few functional screens, indicating that there was just under four minutes until the procedure was ready - though Dustin could already hear the steps being taken. The ship shuddered, the air pressure was changing, and bulkheads across the ship were closing one by one. Dustin set aside the equipment he was working on and started clawing and pulling himself down the hallway.

It had been an idea when he'd been a prisoner of the guardians, to take the one part of the Drake designed for orbital drop and return to Earth. It had been impossible with a gravity web in place, but if he could launch before the Guardian knew he was there? It was his best shot - but he wasn't going to do it without Zar. Dustin took a small detour into one of the supply lockers and moved up to the wall, opening a panel before pulling out several pins. What emerged seemed to be some sort of supply harness; a cargo net and a collapsible frame. Thankfully gravity wasn't an issue, making the move easier. The hard part was going to be sedating a feral scorpion beast... but Dustin had faced harder challenges before.

[March 22nd, 2091]

Despite all odds, Dustin had managed to stay conscious through his journey. He had watched the asteroid belt pass by, Jupiter, Saturn, and perhaps even Neptune. The planets were more majestic and lovely than he ever could have imagined, but the glimpses were fleeting. The gravity web had tugged his ship well beyond any speed the Drake was designed for... but somehow it held up, it stayed together, and finally it began to decelerate. After a few weeks in space, it had been a hard adjustment to be pulled into his chair with such fervor, but the gravitational forces subsided and the weightlessness returned. More chirps and beeps came from the computer as the gravity web weakened some, though it was still present.

"Proximity alert." The computer stated. Dustin leaned forward, peeking out of the window, watching an object loom larger and larger. At first it looked almost like some sort of pale blue metal flower blossom drifting in the black of space, but as the Drake got closer it seemed to catch the faintest glimpses of the sunlight able to make it so far away. The light passed through the pale blue material like crystal. Dustin thought about the Oort cloud, a bubble of ice crystals around the outside of the solar system, but this was too big and too ornate. As the Drake got closer, the structure began to shift. The crystalline flower pedals pulled apart, revealing a small gap. It was a station of some sort, and the Drake was headed right for the bay.

Dustin's eyes were almost painfully dry from the astronaut's insistence to see everything, but he didn't dare blink as he entered the bowels of the massive station. The blue crystal walls were almost ghostly in form with the faintest of green light shimmering through the wide, flat plains. The Drake seemed almost like a white ivory eastern dragon floating in a pool of ice, but the ship slowed and started to descend. Dustin reached out, pulling the switches for the landing gear. Even if he had been abducted by aliens and was about to be eaten, there was no reason not to scuff the ship too terribly bad. Dustin looked down at his flight suit, soiled with sweat and grime from the intense jaunt through the cosmos. He wondered in the back of his mind if there was enough time to find anything else to wear before the inevitable next encounter.

---

The hatch of the Drake hissed as it depressurized and lowered down, coming to a stop on the blue crystal floor. It had taken almost four minutes to ascertain the atmosphere of the station, but it had all checked out. Oxygen, Nitrogen, and all the trace elements in the perfect amounts. It was clearly an atmosphere made for Dustin, but the question was by whom. The astronaut slowly descended, not in a uniform or even an encounter suit, but in denim overalls. The blue straps rested over his shoulders, the jean legs hugging his hips and thighs perfectly. It had been loaded down with tools but Dustin knew that weapons would be misinterpreted. If the aliens were hostile he'd be killed faster, and if they were friendly it could impact their character.

Dustin walked slowly away from the ship, looking around and then up. He could see other rooms, other sections, even other floors of the station beyond. It was almost enough to trigger a case of agoraphobia in Dustin. Seeing the stars so clearly, the structure didn't feel the most safe against the elements - and yet it had been enough to capture him, his ship, everything.

"Hello?" Dustin called out, breaking the silence, "Is anyone there? My name is Dustin Steinbar of Earth... I'm an explorer, but you probably already know that." Dustin called out. There was no answer of course. Dustin slowed to a stop and sighed, having expected at least something. Perhaps the system was automated. If it had been a Martian trap, maybe they were long dead and had disappeared when the Martian atmosphere did.

Dustin turned around to return to his ship before he stopped in his place, gasping in shock. Standing between him and the ship was an eight foot tall humanoid figure with four arms, two legs and a head... but it was made entirely out of some sort of mobile crystal. The crystal figure luminesced with more intensity than a pile of glow sticks, positively radiating. Dustin let out a lop sided grin.

"Greetings from Earth, regards from humanity." Dustin muttered. He'd practiced that moment in his head a dozen times before, but when the actual moment came he had forgotten everything.

"Dustin Steinbar..." The crystal being murmured with a deep, smooth voice that came from nowhere and everywhere at the same time, "You will follow me. We have much to discuss."

"I don't even know who you are or where we are, how can I trust you?" Dustin asked. The guardian stood in silence for a moment before his head lowered once more.

"I am Guardian Sigma. You are on the Observatory. Trust is not required but can be acquired. Follow me." The crystal being murmured before turning, walking across the large expanse toward a ramp that led up to the higher areas. Dustin watched the Guardian take almost ten steps before his hands drifted over his coveralls. With one last check to make sure he had protein bars and a utility knife he followed reluctantly after his host, trying to come to grips with everything that was happening to him.

[December 31st, 2095]

The hatch to the rear pod of the Drake rumbled open with double trapezoid doors, revealing a hexagon shape hole in the floor. While there was a ramp built in, without gravity it would only be an obstacle - and Dustin had dealt with enough of those. Sharp claws clicked against the floor grating as Dustin advanced toward the rear hatch, wearing his denim vest, pulling a cargo net almost as big as a car behind him. Zar had eventually been sedated, but his massive bulk was bundled up in pounds and pounds of strapping. There was little doubt in Dustin's mind that his boyfriend could cut his way free in moments if he were awake, but just as with everything else it was a race against time.

Dustin reached the edge of the hatch, his dexterous feet gripping the edge before he dropped down through the hole. His descent was slow, but he lowered steadily down. The stuffed net followed suit, though it slowed a bit as the sides grazed the edge of the hatch. Dustin winced and pulled more, though the net snagged even more. Grunting, Dustin crawled back up the net and braced his feet against the pod's ceiling before he tugged. With one last bout of resistance, the net broke free and settled down to the floor of the pod.

The astronaut moved quickly, trying to secure it as much as he could into one of the corners. He used clamps, straps, snaps and magnets to try and latch it into place before he pushed off and floated back to the hatch. With one last longing look to the rest of his ship, he grabbed onto the latch and pulled it tight. The double doors slid shut and secured, punctuated by the hiss of rebalancing atmosphere. With that done, Dustin pushed off and swam through the air before settling into the harness on the far side of the lab. He strapped himself in, thinking about all the times he'd dreamed of this moment - though he'd never actually planned on being in the mobile lab when he dropped it on a planet.

"Operation command. Calculate landing trajectory for coordinates zed zero, zero, ninety two." Dustin commanded. The computer began churning through the data, analyzing atmospherics and angles of orbit. The countdown clock on the screen began to change, counting up a few notches to coincide with the next launch window. As it did, though, there was another flash on the screen.

"Warning:" the voice that came from the speakers startled Dustin. It was his own voice, a stand in recording that had been intended to be replaced at a later date by something automated, "The intended landing coordinates have been deemed unsafe. The surrounding atmosphere or landing conditions are unsuitable for prolonged exposure. Please confirm landing coordinates." Dustin's voice called out.

"Operation command: Confirm query." Dustin replied, closing his eyes. The alert disappeared from the screen and the countdown started toward the launch window. In moments he'd be hurtling toward his homeworld. It had been a dream of his for many months, but now he was destined for the barren wasteland of Antarctica.

---

Even without significant populations inhabiting Antarctica, it was not completely without sound. There was the howl of the wind, the crackle and thunder of the ice shelves in the distance breaking up and refreezing. Every so often there were the calls of the native wildlife populations. It was a delicate and subtle song that played across the icy landscape, one that was interrupted by a deep and thunderous sonic boom. High in the sky, amid the drifting clouds, there was a contrail following the course of an incoming object rapidly slowing.

The pod had entered the atmosphere somewhere near the equator, arching down and around the globe toward its final destination. The pearlescent hull had grown quite hot, nearly gleaming like a molten diamond - though the outer hull of the pod still had the crystalline coating grafted on with Architect technology. The result was a far smoother ride than Dustin had anticipated, though it was by no means relaxing.

Entering atmosphere had knocked almost every secondary system offline, leaving the pod itself a mass of shaking and rattling. Lab equipment had been secured for an orbital drop, but even so there was a symphony of shaking inside the cabinets and drawers, surrounding Dustin. The one live computer screen was grasping at the outside world for any sort of information; atmosphere, telemetry, and for a few seconds the radar tracking that the governments of the world had trained on him.

"I come all this way, and what are the odds they shoot me down before I land?" Dustin asked out loud to no one in particular. His knuckles were already white from how tight he was gripping the chair. The pod continued down and down and down before there was a heavy shudder. The parachute had been deployed, then three more. A slight jet of gas fired, correcting course, trying to guide them in more and more. Dustin had always hated this part of training. He knew what was coming, but he wasn't sure when it would happen. Dustin slowly exhaled, breathing out what air was in his lungs. With one more lurch, the pod hit surface and began sliding. Dustin gasped at that, but he had anticipated the reaction. He breathed it in and held on as the seconds passed and the pod kept sliding. One of the security latches on a cabinet broke and it slid open, dumping a half dozen glass beakers. Dustin gritted his teeth at that, hoping no other ones would fail and impale him.

After what felt like an eternity, the pod finally began to slow before it finally lurched to a stop. All at once, the sounds were gone. The rattling was over, the shaking was over, the whistling of the air outside was gone. Dustin's heart raced a mile a minute. He was back on the Earth, his homeworld... and he was an alien. The ears, the tail, the nipples. Something suddenly felt so dirty about him and everything he had experienced. Would his own government trust him after he had changed so much? Maybe it was good he had landed in the middle of nowhere... though there was no good end game.

Dustin carefully released himself from his harnesses and stood up, groaning as he felt the pull of real gravity again. Perhaps Architect gravity was more forgiving, or his body had taken more of a toll than he anticipated. In either case, he started fumbling towards the door before he stopped. The astronaut had remembered the coordinates that Drake had uncovered, but those coordinates still covered several dozen square miles. He needed something more, something to find the librarian facility.

With a weary swallow of saliva, Dustin reached into his pocket and gripped the one object there. His fingers almost trembled as they emerged, holding the blue and purple crystal from the Heart of the drake.

"You can't do me nay more harm or keep me from getting here... So you better find a way to be helpful." Dustin murmured out loud, walking the crystal over to a tablet. If he was lucky he could create some sort of buffer between the lab's systems and the tablet if the crystal shorted everything out, but if he could make it work, he would have built the first alien GPS on Earth. At least the thought of innovation made Dustin smile.

---

Light shimmered off of the ice and snow, illuminating not only the fresher flakes but the deeper gray and faintly blue ice that had been at the bottom of the world for so very long. Dustin had tried to gaze at it, but his eyes were tearing up from the elements, the exertion, and the exhaustion. The explorer had put on every bit of cold weather gear he could find in the lab pod, fashioned a sled to pull Zar on, and he'd been tugging. The straps were looped over his shoulders and chest and around his ribs like a harness, freeing up his hands to clutch the tablet that was struggling to remain active.

Dustin tried not to let the water at the edge of his eyes freeze, but the tears were coming faster now. He watched the clock on the corner of the tablet slowly tick over second by second until it happened... New Year's day, 2096. He hadn't realized it was so late at first, but it was December near the south pole. The sun remained up all day and all night. Dustin felt like he'd been pulling Zar for hours, and it seemed to be the case as every so often the load would shift. The beast was struggling to awaken from the sedative.

"Approaching destination." Drake's voice called out from the tablet, distracting Dustin. He looked down below the clock to the glistening blue and green interface that had dominated the tablet since he got his hot fix working. It seemed that somehow, someway, the universe was trying not to give him more than he could handle. He had faced impossible odds but he had made it to the surface, he'd made it across the tundra, and now...

"Wh... Where is it? Where is the destination?" Dustin asked out loud from chapped, cracked lips, looking up and around.

"Destination ahead." The tablet replied unhelpfully. While his alien GPS had functioned fairly well, it was hard to get the crystal to work on a scale smaller than a solar system. After get setting around the universe, moving meters at a time was hard to calculate - especially on such a limited device. If it hadn't been for the architect's enhanced crystal abilities, the tablet would have been dead already.

Dustin's hands started to tremble even more; not just from the cold, but from his situation. Dustin felt foolish again that he hadn't prepared more, that he hadn't anticipated every obstacle, that he hadn't even considered the fact that the librarian crystal could be frozen in ice or stone thousands of feet below him. Every time he thought he had the next answer, his own mortality seemed that much closer. Dustin had been stretched over and over and he was at his wit's end.

"WHERE IN THE HELL IS IT?!" Dustin screamed out at the top of his lungs, panting hard before hanging his head.

"Destination ahead." The tablet replied once more. Dustin stood there in silence for a moment before something caught him off guard, a tug at his left shoulder. Dustin's back went rigid at that before he slowly turned his head. Before he could get a view of it, the sled rocked violently before it flipped over. Dustin was ripped from his stance, landing on his ass on the snow before he was dragged toward the sled.

Claws and talons and limbs were flailing, struggling against the straps. The winch clamps groaned under the strain. The copper colored metal started to stretch and buckle before it came apart. The cargo net that had worked so effectively before unraveled and the obsidian black creature slowly rose up from the debris of the collapsed sled. A double set of eyes blinked against the cold as the barbed tail lifted up higher. Elixzar looked around before his vision settled on Dustin, sprawled out in the snow.

Dustin slowly pushed himself up, blowing snow off his lips and blinking it off of his eye lashes before he looked at the scorpion beast before him.

Was he about to get fucked? Eaten? Hugged? Rescued? Whatever it was, maybe that would be alright. Maybe this was his strange, twisted tale. Earth had a dead space shop in orbit, catching the attention of any agency looking skyward. They would undoubtedly plan a mission to get there before its orbit deteriorated. The records from the flash drive backups would be pulled and the secret would be out... the story of the gay astronaut genius who disappeared above Mars, being raped and pillaged by a half dozen species in a far flung corner of the universe. It would certainly be one for the record books...

A hot breath escaped the mandible slits of the Kadian's mouth. One leg claw drug through the snow almost experimentally, as if ensuring that he could manage traction. In one split second, the beast lunged. He moved in a blur of black on a white background, shining beneath the sun. Dustin felt the ground tremble beneath him from the impact of each leg... One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three- but the ground didn't tremble any more. It gave way.

The sound of cracking ice echoed around them both, like a sea cliff falling into the bay waters of Alaska. The ice collapsed and the two fell, hitting a slope beneath. Dustin tucked his limbs in tight and rolled, narrowly missing the sprawling gangly insectoid form that rolled down the slope ahead of him, crashing through thin sheets of ice. The sunlight disappeared above, but there was still light around. Beneath the ice and in veins running through the stone walls, Dustin saw that familiar dull blue glow.

The slope evened out to an open space and Dustin slowed to a stop in a heap of snow. He slowly uncurled from the fetal position he had been in and looked ahead, realizing why the ground had given way in that particular fashion. The ice was actually melting in places, pulling back as the subterranean facility woke up. Dustin watched the hexagonal door reveal itself before he looked around, frantic for a moment.

"How far until destination?!" He called out, looking around..

"Destination ahead." The tablet called out, muffled and buried in the snow. Dustin ran over to the source of the sound and started digging, uncovering the tablet. The screen had cracked in the fall, but the crystal was still attached. Dustin inhaled slowly and tucked the tablet under his arm before he started walking forward, step by step toward his destiny. Zar had been stunned by the fall but was starting to shift his position by the door. As much as Dustin loved Zar, he needed the facility to save his boyfriend, to save their very lives. He moved toward the door, inhaling as it started to open in response to the crystal's proximity.

[March 23rd, 2091]

The sheer number of pictures that the Hubble telescope had taken in its operational lifespan had been staggering. Images from far and wide, piecing together the universe like a massive puzzle. They had been the backdrops to not only Dustin's childhood, but three generations of his family. It had always been one of Dustin's favorite image libraries, but in an instant it had been dwarfed by the holographic collection the Observatory had collected.

Dustin had been sitting in the small side chamber for almost ten hours. He'd looked at the crab nebula, at the Andromeda solar system, at exo-planets that Earth had discovered only in the last few years. He had watched a black hole feed and spew out what it couldn't devour at nearly the speed of light... but at the end of it all, he'd returned to his own solar system.

Hovering just before Dustin, the size of a beach ball, was a marvelous blue and green world... but it wasn't Earth. The planet was Mars, back when it had maintained an atmosphere. The green came as much from minerals as anything else, but it was an exotic world right next door. The Observatory had existed for not just thousands of years, but millions, orbiting the solar system, recording everything that had happened... but none of that compared to what he had been told, what news the Guardian had broken to him.

"Cultural contamination..." Dustin whispered to himself, closing his eyes before he laid back on the floor, sprawling his arms wide. Dustin should have stayed in the Drake and tried to escape, but he'd set foot on the observatory and walked into the ambush. Across the room, on the other side of the Martian globe, the doors hissed open and the huge crystal giant stepped into the doorframe.

"Dustin Steinbar, are you prepared to make your choice?" The Guardian questioned.

"Are you sure I only have those two choices, Sigma?" Dustin whispered, feeling like a pampered prisoner.

"Your choices remain the same as before... You can receive the gifts the Architects left behind to allow you to continue your exploration of the universe alone, or you may choose to perish. There is no condition under which you will be allowed to return home." The Guardian replied.

"To protect against cultural contamination?" Dustin replied.

"Humanity is not yet ready to learn its place in the cosmos. Your planet has evolved in isolation, without interference. It is unlike any world the Architects have come across and must be preserved." Sigma replied. Dustin exhaled slowly. He hadn't said much after the initial offer had been made. The thoughts of Uly, his friends, his family... Never seeing Earth again, Or worse, his death being a reason that people feared traveling into space... But he wasn't dead yet, he wasn't lost.

"How many worlds have the Architects come across?" Dustin asked. The crystal Guardian seemed startled by the question.

"The Architects discovered countless worlds in their explorations, the exact number-" Sigma was interrupted.

"How many inhabited planets, populated by sentient species?" Dustin asked.

"Due to the Architect's terraformation and-" Sigma was interrupted yet again.

"The closest systems, the closest network of species?" Dustin asked.

"The Thirteen systems of the Child Races contains ten independent races and several sub-species and variations." Sigma replied.

"These are all worlds that were... What, raised by the Architects?" Dustin asked.

"A more accurate term might be that they were created by the Architects.

"Is there a variety of stellar phenomenon in those systems? Nebulas, pulsars, asteroid belts, gas giants?" Dustin asked. The crystal being cocked its head to the side.

"That is correct." Sigma responded. Dustin slowly sat up and looked through the holographic globe.

"Will there ever be a day that the information I learn can be given to those on Earth?" Dustin asked frankly. The Guardian paused at that.

"The likelihood that humans will eventually learn of the existence of other species and organizations in the universe is quite high. When your species reaches a point of no return, the withholding of information would become irrelevant." Sigma replied. Dustin slowly stood up and crossed his arms, hugging his stomach a bit. He hoped the creature couldn't read body language because he wanted to try and be gutsy.

"Then I will accept the opportunity to explore conditionally... I want every upgrade to my ship that you can give me to help me survive out there, to truly explore. I want to be able to amass as much knowledge as I can, and when Earth finally learns what happened out there, I want them to get access to my records. I want them to know that my life wasn't wasted, that I pursued knowledge for their benefit as much as my own." Dustin replied. Sigma stood in the doorway, motionless and silent for a long moment.

"Your conditions are accepted." Sigma replied. The image of Mars flickered and disappeared, replaced by a three dimensional representation of the landing bay. Gantry arms were moving out towards the Drake, coming to life and performing a variety of duties. Some started to spray some sort of liquid composite onto the hull while others started pressing against the hull plating, inserting tiny mechanisms into the gaps.

"I don't want it looking all funky, alright?" Dustin asked uncertainly.

"The cosmetic appearance of your ship will not be significantly impaired." Sigma replied, "But the process will still take some time. Please replenish your nutrients and rest." The Guardian replied. Dustin nodded softly at that, taking one last glance at the hologram before he moved for the door.

[April 7th, 2091]

Dustin's green eyes drank in his surroundings as he moved up the ramp onto the newly refurbished Drake. At first glance the interior wasn't all that different, though Dustin could feel one key distinction already. His entire time on the Observatory had felt a little light when it came to gravity, but the Drake itself was set to Earth normal. It had its own artificial gravity. Dustin grinned at that and took a few bouncing steps, getting a real feeling for it.

The astronaut checked several side pods, ensuring that his hydroponics were still there and that his manufacturing station was still intact. If anything, it seemed that thee had been a few more crates of resources added to help him survive his journey. In an odd way it felt a bit like Christmas, but Santa wasn't letting him ever go home.

Dustin tried to squeeze that out of his mind and he resumed his walk down the long central hallway, passing through section to section on his way to the cockpit. As he approached, it seemed the room was already waiting for him. The chair was retracted, the screens were on, and there was a distinctly cooler color palate at work. Most of the displays showed copious amounts of blue and green instrumentation in addition to the original red and orange.

"Operation command: Prepare departure sequence?" Dustin asked, having never programmed a series of events to leave a hanger bay. At most he had anticipated to dock with the international space stations, not land in an alien station.

"Preparing for departure." The Drake's automated voice replied, though it sounded a bit more life like and animated, "May I also indicate that the operation command prefix is no longer necessary. My vocal processing abilities had been improved dramatically. It should be possible now to use a much wider range of phrases to achieve the same desired effect." Drake replied.

"Well, what if I'm talking to myself, but then switch to you?" Dustin asked uncertainly, wondering if the ship was always going to be eavesdropping on him now.

"If you wish to indicate that my attention is required." The Drake replied. Dustin nodded a bit at that.

"Have coordinates been provided or the thirteen systems?" Dustin asked.

"Affirmative. Course and trajectory are set. The enhanced Quantum Slingshot drive is coming online now." Drake replied. Dustin squirmed in his chair a bit.

"Enhanced?" Dustin asked in surprise.

"The Drake's primary Faster Than Light engine has been significantly improved. Quantum phasing has been extended by eighty five percent, allowing it to travel the vast distances between solar systems without being restrained by conventional physics." The Drake replied.

"So, they souped up our own engine rather than adding anything on top of it. At least it's not that gravity web thing... Maybe it'll be a smoother ride." Dustin whispered.

"Atmosphere is being withdrawn from the surrounding bay. I am ensuring that the Drake is sealed and prepared for departure." The automated voice sounded. Dustin took a breath and sat down in his chair, securing himself before scooting up. The other doors started to open and the Drake ever so gently lifted off of its landing gear, suspended mid-air.

"So Sigma isn't going to say goodbye or anything?" Dustin asked softly.

"According to the included Architect database, the Guardians serve as sophisticated technological units fulfilling the needs, desires and mandates of the extinct Architect species. It is possible that Sigma was not programmed to behave in the most polite way." The Drake replied. Dustin was silent at that, running the words through his head again and again. It was almost as if his own ship was trying to help make sense of the encounter, but his own ship couldn't do that. Whatever they had put in the Drake, the two technologies were slowly merging and becoming something else... hopefully something better.

Dustin knew it would take him some time to get used to the new version of his ship and get over his petty, small feelings of being unable to trust his own surroundings. For the moment he had to stick to the plan. Returning to Earth wasn't a possibility, but everything he learned could one day be sent to them. His sacrifice wouldn't be in vain. Dustin reached out and started swiping through the database before he found some coordinates.

"It looks like the closest Architect territory is Thh... Thoa... Thola. Let's give that a try. Set course and initiate when ready." Dustin said, leaning back against his chair. The Drake started to ease forward out of the Observatory's bay, the crystal structure disappearing from view. Once more Dustin had a field of stars before him, and a brand new future unfolding.

[January 1st, 2096]

Lights flickered around the room before the artificial luminance kicked in. One blue strip snapped on around the floor of the round room, then another along the low ceiling. It was a wide, flat cylinder in shape. Very subdued, very symbol. It was almost too austere, though Dustin knew exactly why he was there. His eyes locked onto the crystal floating in the center of the room. It was almost hourglass shaped, though the edges were beveled and it was a bit sturdier. The crystal was green in nature, but just like the other architect crystals it was impossibly complex. Inside there were thousands of minute structures physically, and the glittering circuitry of energy was latticed in the material itself. It pulsed with energy and almost had a peculiar gravity to it.

"Drake, are you there?" Dustin asked, looking down at his broken tablet.

"I am here, Dustin." The artificial intelligence responded. Dustin smiled a little wistfully.

"What can you tell me about the Librarian crystal? It can decipher the genetic code a person has had at every point in their life?" Dustin asked.

"It can understand the code of all life ever encountered. It is the librarian crystal, the chronicle, the researcher of life itself." Drake replied. Dustin stopped his advance, looking down at the broken tablet.

"Which life?" Dustin asked softly.

"All of it." Drake responded. As the words left the tablet's speakers, the connection between the two pieces of alien tech seemed to be forged. The green crystal lit up much more brightly before a wave of light swept out into the ovoid room. The walls disappeared, replaced by an image of a very different sort of landscape. There were leaves across the floor, palm trees rising up toward the sky. The ground trembled ever so gently, though it was still muffled compared to the source off the interference. A brachiosaur sauntered along to Dustin's right, its long neck allowing its head to tower above the tree tops. The images rippled as if a stone had been cast into the pond, showing a cooler and more hostile climate. There was movement around a rock outcropping as a saber tooth tiger came lunging along, stalking something. One more ripple came, an intense one before it showed a polar bear meandering. The beast let out a few soft cowls before it disappeared into the fog and a human dressed in the orange and blue p arkas of the Antarctic research base wandered into view for a moment before the crystal reset. The room went still and blank and the crystal returned to its dormancy. Dustin stood in silence for a long moment, contemplating what he had just seen.

"How far can it see?" Dustin asked finally.

"Planet wide." Drake responded.

"And how is the information curated?" Dustin asked.

"The collected information is transmitted to the Mars relay network, and from there it is sent to the observatory outpost." Drake replied. Dustin could feel his blood starting to boil as years of pent up rage and hostility broke through every restraint he had.

"BULLSHIT! It was all bullshit about cultural contamination... They were protecting this, their research... If humans found out about them, they could disrupt it. I tapped into it, I found out about them, they wanted to use me as a way to keep other humans from finding out... But now I'm here and they gave me a skeleton key..." Dustin whispered, looking down at the tablet with the glowing crystal attached to it, "Drake, do you still have access to your decryption engine?"

"The decryption key is still in my database." Drake replied. Dustin's eyes rose slowly, looking at the hourglass shaped crystal hovering in the center of the room.

"I want you to do whatever it takes to get the librarian crystal ready to restore Zar to how he was when we met him." Dustin said. The crystal on the back of the tablet illuminated brightly at the same moment the librarian crystal did. Ever so slowly the center crystal started to spin and move in its place.

"Subject intended for resurgence must be in closer proximity to the crystal." Drake's voice replied. Dustin took a breath before he set the tablet gently on the floor and moved back for the door. As he passed the threshold he shivered a bit, realizing just how much warmer the facility had become after its activation. Dustin turned to the right to recover Zar from where he had fallen, but the creature was no longer there. Dustin's muscles tightened again before he looked to his left, then checked back to the right.

"ZAR! ELIXZAR!!!" Dustin called out, moving up the slope. While it had been easy at first, the incline increased in grade until he was clawing at the snow and the rock, unable to climb any further. Dustin looked around in a panic before he turned to head back to the lab. As he turned, a sharp barb came down and stabbed into Dustin's shoulder. Dustin's eyes went wide as he looked up at Zar, feeling the venom pumping into his veins once more.

Dustin had experienced this effect once before on the ship, though the scorpion spike kept pumping. Dustin felt his skin and muscles tingling, his cock hardening and his ass softening. His mouth was producing more saliva, but still the Kadian released more venom. Dustin's vision began to get a little blurry, his nipples ached and his stomach began to rumble - not from being empty or even full, but the remnants of the scorpion cum in his stomach seemed to be reacting, as if the venom and the semen were together trying to achieve some higher goal.

There was clearly lust in Zar's eyes, feral and untapped, realizing it was achieving its end goal. The huge insect cock dripped black goo onto the snowy, rocky ground as it grew longer and thicker. Dustin moaned, his sense of balance so affected that he fell down against the slope again. He wiggled his fingers in his right hand, but his vision distorted, doubling what he saw. Even with all the genetic drift he had experienced and all he had been through, the scientist in him wasn't sure that he could survive another bout... Even if he did, there was every chance he would become a feral beast just like Zar or the Topians.

One hand reached up and grabbed onto Zar's stinger, then the other soon joined it. Dustin grabbed on with both hands before he groaned, lifting the barb up out of his shoulder. He winced and let out a scream as he got the stinger out, closing his eyes and turning his head away as the purple venom sprayed out all over his shoulder. It took every ounce of strength to pry the tail back, but with one deft roll to the left Dustin let go. The stinger struck back down but hit stone instead, giving the young man a chance to escape.

Using his monkey like feet, Dustin grabbed onto rocks further down the slope and pulled hard, resuming the slide downward. His lizard tail smacked against the snow, knocking him up into an unsteady run before he bolted down for the door. Zar let out a roar of anger at having been interrupted and came clambering down behind him. Dustin picked up speed as much as he could, feeling the ground tremble beneath him again; one, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Dustin was losing his head start, but he didn't need much more. He all but lunged for the open door into the facility.

"DRAKE, DO IT NOW!" Dustin screamed out, landing on the hard hexagonal tiles, sliding part way across the room. Zar squeezed through the entrance and moved after his prey, looking up only briefly as the green crystal exploded into light. Phantoms started to appear around the room sequentially, showing a translucent amber egg hatching to reveal an adorable baby scorpion beast that grew into a teenager, then a version of Zar with his hind legs and tail removed, then an even more humanoid version. There were dozens of revisions before a familiar face appeared.

Floating in the green mist was a tall, lanky black skinned Drow with long silver hair, purple goat eyes, sharp blue demonic horns and glowing blue tattoos. A spaded demon tail was curled coyly around his ankle. More phantoms appeared afterward, including the aquatic Topian form. It seemed that the librarian crystal knew this was an aberration and the ghostly form turned red, locked out of the system entirely.

Dustin looked up at all the versions, wondering just how much about Zar he had left to learn, how much he had left to see... but as his vision started to fade to black and his legs went numb, he wondered if he'd ever see Zar again. Dustin trembled before he collapsed to the floor, looking up just long enough to see white light envelop the version of Zar he had met on Io.

With Dustin collapsed on the floor, Zar's body was lifted slowly off the ground. The insectoid beast scratched and clawed at the stone until he lost his grip, floating in mid air. The mohawk like spines along the crest of his head softened, turning lighter and lighter shades of silver before they cascaded down the sides of his skull. His hard, chitinous body armor became softer and more jelly like, allowing the structures beneath to start to re-form. Some of the material melted entirely, dripping down in black sludge to the facility floor. Other portions were reabsorbed into the body, reinforcing his bones and muscles.

Zar's long tail started to shrivel, curling up and drying out before the exoskeleton cracked and the appendage fell to the ground, shattering all but the tip. Zar's hind legs began to writhe and curl before softening and withdrawing, almost like watching a horse being born in reverse. The mass that had made up the legs fleshed out Zar's ribs and ass before a brand new, completely different tail started to push out just above his naked black skinned cheeks. The demonic tail was a complete genetic invention, separate from his own origin... but once more it was part of him.

The Kadian let out a shrill shriek as he shook and trembled, clenching his eyes shut. His face seemed to warp and shift, his nose becoming more prominent as the four lidded eyes worked closer and closer to one another before the divider between them separated. Every cell in Zar's body was being given new instructions, being changed from the core. The natural process of cells dividing and repairing had been turned up a thousand fold and they rebuilt him in every detail. Four eyes became two, his lower arms started to press upwards, merging into his upper arms. Nipples emerged from the formerly insectoid abdomen and more familiar muscle groups started to appear.

If there had been any witnesses, it would have seemed beautiful to watch the demon Drow emerging from the gangly mass of insect. Zar threw his head and luxurious mane of silver hair back as blue horns pushed out of his skull, curving upward. Pointed ears emerged from the sides of his head and his sharp, fanged teeth became more prevalent as his mandibles retracted and disappeared. His body was elegant and sophisticated, fit and muscled, but one detail remained unfinished.

Elixzar looked as though he had been sculpted out of the darkest stone, out of night itself, but a soft faint blue glow started in his sharp toenails before ceremonial curves and angles worked up the sides of his legs, creeping up past his knee to his hip before covering the left side of his torso. The edges became crisp and perfect, the skin itself becoming a constant light source. With the tattoos restored, Zar let out a soft sigh, his eyes opened slowly. For the first time in months, Zar had a coherent thought. His mind had been clouded for so long, the Topian plague playing havoc with his own natural reproductive cycle. At long last, though, Zar was himself again.

"Dustin..." He whispered slowly, wriggling and swimming in mid air. He looked around the room at all the different versions of himself before he spotted a heap on the floor. He tried to get out of the field, swimming and groping at the air before finally he started to drift down slowly. As his black feet finally touched ground, he jolted himself free of the grip of the crystal and ran over to Dustin. Zar whimpered, reaching to his shoulder, turning Dustin onto his back slowly, "Dustin, wake up... You did it! You saved me. We can be together again... Dustin?" Zar whispered. Dustin said nothing and did nothing. Zar whimpered more before he leaned down and kissed Dustin's lips.

The kiss didn't feel right, not only because Dustin was unresponsive, but because something was in the way. As Zar's tongue explored the recesses of Dustin's mouth he found the culprit... sharp baby mandibles, growing outwards, starting to push his lips apart. Zar's eyes widened sharply at that as he sat back up, pulling up Dustin's sleeves. The humanoid's arms were already molting, the skin getting tough and dry and flakey. The outer edges were thick and firm, but a crevice was forming down the entire length on the front and back sides. Dustin's arm was trying to split.

"Oh god, no..." Zar whispered, looking around frantically, "Someone help, please!" Zar called out.

"Please restate request in more specific terms." Drake's voice emanated from the tablet on the ground. Zar's lips quirked into a half relieved, half curious smile.

"Drake? You're here? You're that?" Zar asked.

"My operational capacity has been greatly reduced, but yes, this is 'me'." The voice replied. Zar wished he had the luxury of being more amused, but Dustin had been affected by the venom and he was changing.

"I need you to do for Dustin what you did for me, save him the same way." Zar said. There was a moment of pause, allowing the AI time to think.

"Accessing crystal. Preparing resurgence process." Drake responded. The green mist started to fill the room again and an image of a blond haired, green eyed lanky human scientist appeared on one side of the room. As the crystal tried to advance, however, the room started to fill with static. There were glimpses of dogs and lizards and gargoyles, but as one started to appear the rest would flicker out of existence.

"Error, error. Genetic template compromised. Genetic template incompatible. Error, error." Drake's voice warned, repeating the message again and again. Zar's heart raced in his chest, looking at his boyfriend changing. His hair was shedding on the sides and turning black in the center. The mandibles were emerging and his face was puffing up, swelling. Zar cradled his changing lover in his arms, realizing that Dustin had gone to the ends of the universe to save him, and there wasn't anything he could do in turn. Whatever was going to happen, there was no stopping it this time.