Our story begins with a starfield where distant galaxies and the billions of stars in the Milky Way flicker, only they don’t twinkle in space because there is no atmosphere, but maybe we’ll get lucky and a nebula will pass between them and our point of view. The wizened voice of the heroic captain can be heard despite the lack of molecules in the void to carry the noise.

  “Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Second Prize. Its 5-year contract: To explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, and monetize them.”

  A fanfare of music swells in the vacuum of space that was really just the same song that was commissioned for the first movie, and did you notice that they they just reused a bunch of footage of the Enterprise in space dock from the first movie in the second film, they couldn’t commission–

  Captain Peecurd woke up from a bad dream, and stumbled in the dark to the bathroom in his cabin. He fumbled for the sink and coughed.

  “Lights,” he said in a deep commanding voice. Two strips on either side of the mirror glowed and he looked at himself up and down. Age and beer had not been kind to his hairline or his gut. He coughed again and cleared his throat. There was a chirp at the door of his quarters.

  “Come,” he said.

  An android with a golden chassis that made C3PO looked like cheap plastic leprechaun gold walked into the sitting room part of the quarters. He was polished and wore a crisp spandex uniform of blue with the double thumbs up Star Cheap logo pinned to the upper left part of his chest.

  The captain walked from the bathroom, still pushing off sleep. The android had turned to face him, and he recoiled at the horrific sight before him. The droid’s hand was distinctly human but hooked on backwards, had one finger too many, and two of them were meddled together in a disgusting way that sent shivers down Peecurd’s spine.

  “What the hell is that LMM!” Peecurd pointed to the horror the bot had for a hand.

  LLM lifted his monstrosity and titled it back and forth that only seemed to enhance the creepiness.

  “Do you like it?” LLM said with the same flat aspect he intoned all his words. “In my quest to become more human, I constructed a synthetic hand.”

  Peecurd felt his stomach churn. Partially from the beer he had last night, partly from whatever it was his bridge officer decided to do with his hand. “That’s giving me some serious uncanny valley shit right now.”

  “If you want I can take it off,” LLM reached to remove his hand.

  “No, no,” Peecurd said and patted his friend on the shoulder. “What you do with your body is your business, so long as it doesn’t affect the operation of this ship, but maybe you should study hands more before you make one for yourself.”

  “I have analyzed over five quadrillion human hands including the hand models of Snoop Dogg V, and I believe this a good approximation of a human hand.” LLM marveled at his own creation.

  “Right. But it’s more than just what the hand looks like. It’s what it is, what it represents. The artistry,” he squeezed his friend on the shoulder and walked him to the door mainly to get the thing out his side.

  “I do not think I understand. Is not art a visual medium?”

  “It’s about the soul, LLM. A feeling.”

  “I can not feel.”

  “Then maybe you should start somewhere simpler, like a fingernail, or a tooth or something. I mean, a whole hand. It’s a big undertaking if you really want to be human. It’s more than just having a hand.” He said as he walked LLM to the door.

  “I have been working on teeth as well. Humans seem to appreciate a good smile.”

  “There, now you’re getting it. We are more than just the sum of our components. Now, did you have anything else for me?”

  “We are at Rakim II. You wanted to greet the dignitary yourself.”

  “Right,” Peecurd said. “Shit, are we there already?”

  “It is shipboard time 11 hundred hours.”

  “Whoa, wait? Seriously.”

  “You do have a tendency to sleep in after one of your benders.”

  “I prefer to think of it as mission prep. These things take a cool head and people decompress in their own way. Now if you excuse me, I got to get in the shower.”

  He shuffled LLM out the door, and held his hand to his head. “Computer, 6 Ibuprofen and a glass of water.”

  “Safety limits restrict–” The computer voice chimed.

  “Computer, override safety protocols, authorization Peecard One.” He blurted.

  On a shelf a couple paces away, a glass of water and six tan pills appeared.

  ***

  A shower, shit, and a shave later, Peecurd was in his dress uniform in the teleportation chamber. The uniform was a lot like LLMs only with red accents. It was not the height of elegance but rather looked like a certain feminine article of clothing. The only reason the “dress” uniforms became the standard of Star Cheap was the fact that the first ever picture of humans to be widely distributed among the galaxy was Audrey Hepburn from Breakfast at Tiffany’s. All the aliens in the galaxy (especially the ones who never met a human before) thought that humans wore dresses and were deeply offended if the earthlings appeared otherwise (at least in the first contact meetings).

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  After a while, it wasn’t weird that everyone wore a dress during meetings with alien dignitaries and the industrial prom complex was one of the most powerful industries of Earth. Peecurd’s first officer, Stryker, came into the room wearing his kilt. Preferring a more masculine article of clothing to match his rugged good looks, he got a heritage exception for all the times they had to dress up for a race that didn’t know anything about humans except what they might have gotten through pop culture references and rumors.

  Stryker was six foot, broad shouldered, sported a distinguished beard and was always well groomed, at least compared to captain Peecurd, who let what little hair he did have left grow wild. They were joined by Counselor Joy and LLM who thankfully had decided to remove the freaky hand and put back his golden one.

  Joy was a demure woman in a tye-dye dress with blonde hair tied up in a bun. She was a Thetazoid which was a mildly telepathic race. Mild was a nice way of putting it as Thetazoids had to channel their telepathic abilities through crystals and Tarot cards, thus why she was wearing a massive blue quartz crystal around her neck.

  Thetazoids also looked inexplicably almost entirely human except for some shadowing by their eyes that made them look like they were ready to be a pop music video. One of the big surprises about the galaxy was that almost all aliens more or less looked like humans except for forehead ridges.

  Most thought sentient aliens would come in all shapes, sizes, and forms as evolutionary pressures of the myriad of planets in the galaxy would produce life even more varied than the animal kingdoms of earth, but it turned out that pretty much every planet with a mild enough climate to let intelligent life evolve was nearly identical to Earth. Thus they had the more or less the same evolutionary pressures that meant the first species to walk upright and have the advantage of seeing predators on all fours from far away and given time to evolve intelligence looked more or less human minus a forehead ridge or two.

  That wasn’t to imply that weren’t superintelligent crabs somewhere in the galaxy as crabs have also evolved on every planet too, it was merely to illustrate that when a man appeared on the teleportation that looked like a human who dunked his forehead in a batch of tan colored Play-doh, Peecurd wasn’t entirely surprised that the guy reminded him of his best friend’s Jewish grandfather in a sparkly blue suit and molded forehead that remind him of a elevation map at Yellowstone Park.

  Captain Peecurd walked up to the dignitary and said. “Welcome to Star Cheap where we make travel to the stars cheap!”

  Stryker popped a champagne bottle and poured a glass for the guest. The alien looked down with disdain and pushed past him.

  “Take me to my quarters,” the alien said. “I wish to meditate.”

  “While we get your luggage transferred,” Peecurd said. “May I interest you in our premium buffet or perhaps a round on our 9-hole golf course on the VR deck?”

  “I do not wish for leisure or food. I wish to meditate,” The digitary said more forcefully.

  “He means what he says, captain.” Counselor Joy said. “I think he wants to meditate.”

  “Is there something wrong with Furgle Translate?” The alien said. “I want to meditate!”

  “No, no,” Peecurd said. “Nothing wrong with that. LLM. Please show our guest to his quarters.”

  LLM popped a wide grin and held out his hand. He had an inhuman amount of teeth.

  The captain jumped and said. “Sweet mother of God what is that?”

  LLM cocked his head. “You mean my teeth? Do you like them?” He said.

  “Artistry, LLM. Remember what I said about artistry, maybe learn something more basic before you move on to body parts.”

  “I like his teeth,” the ambassador said.

  “Ahh,” LLM said as they walked out the door. “Then maybe you will be interested in how I made them. After studying several quadrillion human teeth…”

  After the dignitary was gone, Peecurd sighed and said. “I’m going to get out of this damned dress.”

  He walked out the door, then back in again and took the champagne bottle.

  “I’ll be in my quarters,” he said.

  ***

  A bottle of champaign, a new sensible spandex uniform later, and some breakfast cocktails later, he was sitting in his ready room staring at a picture of him with more hair and a blonde woman his age. He had a half drunk glass of whiskey, and the headache he’d woken up with was almost numbed.

  His ready room was posh compared to his other postings. He had models of various ships on the wall all the way from the seafaring kind to the massive Interstellar Forces battlecruisers from another life. Back when being a captain meant something.

  Compared to his office in the IF vessels, the room was massive. He had a couch, chairs, and even a fish tank with a living fish in it. There was a bookshelf with real books, something hard to come by in deep space. By all accounts, he had an upgrade, but somehow, it didn’t feel like it.

  There was a chirp of the coms.

  “Yes,” Peecurd said.

  “There’s a priority one call from Star Cheap Headquarters.”

  Peecurd sighed. “Put them through.”

  A man appeared on the screen. He wore a Star Cheap Fleet Admiral’s uniform and had slicked back hair. He had a backdrop of a couple standing on the beach on an alien planet with a purple sky. They were holding hands, and the words, “Travel to the stars, cheap!” were prominently displayed.

  “Drinking on duty again?” The admiral said and Peecurd realized that he had neglected to use one of the company approved backgrounds for the call. During his life in the IF, they were discouraged from using backgrounds. As a result of the years seeing people in their own offices, Peecurd couldn’t shake the feeling that Admiral Archer was hiding something.

  Peecurd sipped his whiskey. “Buttering up the dignitaries is part of the job description.”

  “That’s why I’m calling,” Archer said. “I don’t see any value-adds coming through. He’s been on your ship, what? Two hours, and no value-adds?”

  “He’s meditating in his quarters.”

  “Fucking people in steerage buy a glass of water after two hours in one of our vessels and you can’t even manage one value-add.”

  “We tried. He didn’t even want the complimentary champagne.”

  “We are two bad quarters away from the whole company going bankrupt, and you can’t even manage one value-add. Fucking leave a pastry cart outside his door, get that pretty little engineer you got to make eyes at him. I don’t care what you have to do. Get me that fucking value-add by the of end of the day or you will be sucking on IF disability in the under city.”

  The connection dropped, and Peecurd gave a middle finger to the blank screen.

  Peecurd tapped his com line to the bridge. “Stryker.”

  “Yes, Captain,” Stryker said.

  “Looks like our orders came through.”

  “Archer’s being an asshole again, sir?”

  “Yeah,” Peecurd said.

  “Don’t worry, sir. We’ll get the value-add.”

  “I can always count on you. I’ll be out in a moment,” Peecurd said and took the rest of his whiskey in one shot.

  He looked up and almost fell backward in his seat. A probe hovered in his ready room. It was a black sphere with machine parts and sensors jutting out at impossible angles. It whirred and gyrated in a mind bending impossibility that made Peecurd nauseous to even think about.

  Before he could even think about calling his chief of security, red lights flashed and pointed towards him. A wide beam went from the alien machine through his desk and started at his toes. His feet, calves, and thighs all disappeared in succession. He barely had the time to think that maybe he should cut back on his drinking when his torso, neck, and head followed.