Captain Alexis Kratzer stood on the bridge of her beloved Seawolf, The USS Connecticut. Starboard, she watched her men below in magboots as they sealed the outer hull of her ship. The damage was luckily minor--caused by a fragment of metal too small to detect and too quick to avoid once seen.
No casualties today, she thought.
Then she looked up and gazed at the less fortunate tattered mess of shrapnel suspended in space in front of her--the objective of her mission. Although obscured, Alexis could still make out the letters of the once-best ship in the entire US fleet: The USS Dvospolan. A gift from Croatia after the events of WWIII, it was a ship unique and beautiful as its country of manufacture, but now it looked as if Saturn had swallowed it, spat it back out, and sawed it in half with its rings.
"If only she stayed alive for five more years," her second-in-command, Jerry, muttered beside her. "She was due for the museum in 2106."
Alexis didn't acknowledge his remark, because it was just as much about her as it was about the mangled Dvospolan.
Jerry sighed and faced his captain properly.
"Much like you, Captain," he said, and then after a break of silence, asked, "Why the hell did you volunteer an attack vessel for a rescue mission?"
Kratzer swallowed disdainfully before responding, "Because we were close and no one else would, Lieutenant."
Dissatisfied, he pointed outside and challenged her.
"Captain, it is a minefield out there. We have over half our staff dedicated to repairs. And even more unlike you, you want to personally board that shipwreck? We don't even know what happened--"
"Lieutenant," she interrupted him sternly, "you are dismissed. Ready my suit and prepare my men. We will board within the hour."
"Aye, Captain," Jerry saluted her.
Her trusty lieutenant, although headstrong at times, followed her orders and swiftly left her presence.
Once she was sure he was gone, she pressed a button on the comms table to replay the distress signal that started all this.
He sounded just as she remembered him on the battlefield all those years ago...
Brothers-in-arms back then, she joked with herself.
"This is head-engineer Carlile Smith of The USS Dvospolan," said Carl's lively face, "and I... I have sealed myself in the containment chamber on Deck Three."
He put the camera in the air and steadied it before letting it float. In his hands was a control board he ripped from the wall and somehow manipulated to send out his distress signal.
Alexis always liked that about him. Carl was the kind of guy who was genuinely dangerous with nothing but a paperclip. A goofy grin spread across her face as she remembered all the times he sent her to fetch him scrap metal so he could repair or sabotage waterships (always under the threat of imminent death) and how miraculous it was when it all actually worked. She missed those days. Sometimes when looking out to the stars, she'd catch herself daydreaming about how space would smell like the ocean if she let some of it in.
But she knew Earth was a long way away now, both in distance and time.
Carl ran diagnostics on his makeshift panel and explained how an unidentified power surge overloaded the spacecraft's reactor, killing many, and oscillated the grav-generator between neg-five and pos-five, killing the rest. After realizing he was truly alone, Carl put his head in his hands and wept.
"Oh, stop your bitching," Alexis whispered. "I'm coming for you, sir."
*****
The Captain and five of her men, excluding her second-in-command, watched as the only viable airlock hissed and dissipated their atmosphere. Soon enough, Captain Kratzer was presented with the vacuum and absolute darkness inside the Dvospolan. She turned on her suit's light and took the first step off her ship.
Bodies were suspended and slowly moving through the main hangar like beads in a freshly shaken snow globe. A new drop of red attached itself to her helmet with every step forward through the once-bustling trade center. She spotted a child among them and had to remind herself it was common for children to be born on ships that weren't purposed for war.
"This way," said the soldier assigned to the navigation device.
They followed him without a word deeper into the ship, highly attentive but finding nothing abnormal or out of the ordinary.
Then they hit a blockade of jumbled furniture which the soldiers were unable to dislodge.
"Is there a detour?" asked Captain Kratzer.
"I'm on it, Captain," said the nav soldier, but was quickly distracted by a blinking light behind them.
The squad could only stare until another ceiling light began to blink.
It wants us to follow, Alexis realized.
So they did, and soon enough they were on Deck Three with the containment chamber in front of them. Containment chambers were general purpose rooms for persons suspected of crimes or diseases, so they usually had their own airlock and utilities.
A soldier tried to follow her into the airlock, but she held up her hand and told him to drop the spare suit. She would go in alone.
The airlock sealed behind her and after a few moments the front gave way.
Carl was sitting on a cot with the panel in his hands, smiling at her like she was his savior. Alexis was struck with a mixture of relief and nervousness about their reunion, because now came the inevitable reveal. She didn't know what would happen but she gathered her courage and took off her helmet.
"Hello, Carl," she greeted him.
"Thank god you came," he whimpered, then attempted to get her name, "Miss?"
"Alex," she told him.
"Alex who?" he asked.
She looked into his eyes and answered, "Kratzer."
Carl was taken aback and licked his lips in thought, "What a coincidence, I used--"
"One and the same, Carl," she assured him.
He gave her a sideward glance as he lifted off and floated to her. Only inches from her face did he reach out to a wall-handle to stop himself.
"Prove it," he challenged her as he studied her features.
"Twelve missions, twelve sunken ships, but never our own," she began.
Carl waved it all away, "All on record."
His casual dismissal provoked Alexis to cut the shit and blurt out, "Hey, remember that one night on our last transport to Mars, you shithead?"
He blushed deep red and had to back away. "Holy shit! It really is you!"
Alexis could only shake her head at him.
"Oh my god, Alex!" he went on, then caught himself and embraced his old comrade. "I've missed you a lot, buddy."
She hugged him back and shed a few tears for how much she missed him. She always felt safe when she was close to him.
"Lexi is a... is a better nickname for me... I think..." she choked out.
"Of course, of course," Carl broke away and smiled. "Look at you, Lexi, all hot and... a captain too?! You have so much to explain. I think you're a little shorter than I remember as well."
"They did take off quite a few inches," she giggled.
That earned her a jovial laugh, but there was still the mission at hand. She engaged captain mode and instructed the head-engineer to put on the spare suit she brought.
They were going home.
*****
After a battery of tests and inquiry, Carl was given a visitor badge and allowed to roam the USS Connecticut freely. The first thing he noticed about the ship was how many reflective surfaces it had. As he walked, he found a soldier wiping off the condensation buildup along the ship's metal interior. Over many years, these rags had polished almost every surface.
Carl stopped in front of such a surface and inspected his handsome features. Then, he ran a hand through his hair and moved on.
The first place he went, of course, was to the Captain's quarters. She opened the door and excitedly welcomed him in for a round of drinks and reminiscing. Carl politely declined the alcohol, as he had made a vow previously to remain abstinent, which Alexis respected. But the lack of alcohol did not stop his tongue from loosening and his stories from being shared. Neither did it prevent him from returning the affections of his old friend. Lexi was different now, but she wasn't at all alien to him. The moves, techniques, and dances she performed were all the same as Carl remembered.
To Carl's knowledge (for who knows what occurred during blackouts past), it was the first time he managed to make love to a woman.
It was also the first time it ate one.
She didn't struggle long and didn't put up much of a fight, for it was far stronger than any human, man or woman. Their weakest spot, as well as the most dangerous if members of their species were nearby, was their throat, so it was the first thing it ripped out of her.
The following sequence of events was a habitual joy for it. The feeling of dissipating warmth, the bath of crimson, the consumption of soft flesh, and, most of all, the digestion of brain matter and the following renewal of its thoughts.
The living machine grew bored quickly and often felt depressed if left alone for too long. Every human being was like a movie to it, but movies got stale far too quickly for its liking. That was why it sought for the best-lived of them, and it could already tell as it chewed on Captain Kratzer that she would satisfy it for weeks. Her DNA absorbed into the creature as well, washing out poor old Carl from its cells. This erasure also included the previous victim's memories, and much like those memories, the creature had forgotten its place of origin or any original identity it might have had.
Not that it cared. All it wanted to do now was repeat its life cycle and stave off boredom.
It laid in her bed and answered her phone curiously once it rang.
"This is Captain Kratzer," it said.
"Captain! Where is the head-engineer?" inquired a woman.
It remembered that the woman was an Officer. Officer Jennifer Worthe.
"He went out to get some food."
"Lock your door! Right now!"
"What is the problem, Officer?" it demanded skeptically.
"We retrieved the black box of the Dvospolan... Captain, Carl was put in the containment chamber before the explosion! He was caught for murder, and then he used that control board to destabilize the reactor!"
"Oh my god..." it reacted. "Keep watch on my quarters; ambush him once he returns."
"Aye, Captain!"
It put the phone down and began to clean house. With all of the Captain's memories, it made quick work of that task.
After a few hours of inactivity, there was a knock on the door.
It opened the door and smiled at Officer Worthe.
"Cap--"
Before she could finish addressing her superior, she pulled out her weapon and pointed it at its face.
"Officer Worthe, put the gun down," it ordered.
"Where is Captain Kratzer?" she asked.
"I'm right here, Jen!" it shouted, frustrated and confused about why it was being questioned.
"I need every available unit at the Captain's quarters," Jennifer Worthe spoke into her radio.
"This is ridiculous," it said, and began to move past her.
"Halt!" the Officer ordered.
"This is my ship," it spat back.
It took a step too far and Officer Worthe pulled her trigger.
The creature felt the bullet tear through its heart. It felt its blood stop churning. It collapsed on the floor facing the wall. It didn't understand any of what it saw on its polished surface.
It was a man's face.
It scoured Alexis's memories for what it missed, for the face it saw, but couldn't find it as its consciousness slowly faded away.
It went further back in time.
A bathroom on planet Earth...
A handheld mirror after a surgical operation...
The gym at the Navy...
The ballet studio at Connecticut University...
A friend braiding her hair during a sleepover...
Before it died, it concluded Alexis always had her face.
Always...