CHAPTER 1

With an almost too sudden awareness, I regained consciousness as I slammed bodily through not one, not two, but three trees and coming to a stop at the fourth. I then proceeded to fall several meters until I reached ground level on some bushes. I laid there face down in more pain than I had ever felt in my life.

“Echo. Status.” There was a long pause, and I worried that my implant had been damaged from the high energy of the transfer. It had never happened before but there was a first for everything. “Echo,” I said again with no small amount of pain.

“Unable to access Sub-quantum network. Switching to local network. Please be aware that processing speed will be less than ten percent until link with sub-quantum network is re-established.” There was another pause before I heard the computerized voice I was used to. “Lex.”

“Yeah, Echo. Glad to hear your voice. Status,” I said with a sigh of relief. I’d had Echo implanted when I was legally allowed to get him. He was almost like a brother to me.

“Assessing.” The wait was long enough that it had started to rain. I stared up at the sky and realized that only half of my normal vision was there. “Reporting. Your DNA has completely changed. All of your ribs are broken. You are missing an eye. Multiple locations of internal bleeding. Forty broken bones. End report.”

“Is that all?” I asked then blinked. “Wait! What do you mean my DNA has changed?”

“Affirmative. From the intimal examination, it appears your human DNA has merged with that of the Biuna that entered the portal with you.”

I tried to raise my hand up to see if there was any change, but the moment I started to move, a wave of pain washed over me, and a black haze began to eat at my vision. I closed my eyes and took several long deep breathes. It looked like I wouldn’t be moving any time soon.

“Echo. Activate Nanite repair sequence.”

“Unable to comply. With your changed DNA, there is a chance that they might kill you.”

“Shit. Seriously?” I laid there as I considered my options, but I was pretty much up a creek without a paddle. “Echo. Can you tell if there is any visual change to my body?”

“Negative. I am linked to your retinal nerves.”

“Yeah. I knew that, but was hoping you might know a way around that,” I said, exhaling in defeat.

After about thirty seconds, Echo chimed in with an idea. “We cannot use the nanites on your body, but we can use it on the environment around us. Shall I construct a drone to check your body as well as the surrounding areas?”

“That sounds wonderful. This is why you’re the supercomputer and I’m the meat puppet,” I replied with a laugh, only to regret it the next moment. I quickly calmed down by taking deep breathes again.

“Affirmative.”

I couldn’t see it, but I knew that a canister on my right arm opened allowing a small cloud of nanites swarmed out. They should be rushing into the ground to acquire the raw material they would need to synthesis the more precise metals, alloys, and plastics needed to create a rudimentary drone.

A few minutes later or at least I thought it was as I started to drift at some point, the buzzing of the blades caught my attention. A small holographic image appeared in front of my working eye as Echo fed me the image feed.

“Echo.”

“Yes, Lex?”

“Why do I look like that?”

“As I stated your DNA has fused with that of the…”

“No. I understand that. I’m asking why the hell am I female!?”

If I could smack my forehead I would. On my chest were two lumps of fat that no man should ever have. Not only that, but my member which had made me famous back on the station with the ladies was completely gone. Even my face had been changed to that of a lovely woman’s. I mean, it was sexy enough that I was sure I would have been chasing after the person it was attached to before I meet Layla.

“Unable to answer. Too many unknowns.”

It was too much. The darkness that had been eating at the edge of vision took over and I fainted.

I'm not sure how long I was out, but the feeling of something covering me was what woke me. I tried to access my situation with just my sense of touch. I could still feel the leaves of the bush that I landed on earlier still under me, so I knew I hadn’t moved anywhere. Cracking my eyes, I mean, eye open. I saw that a rough blanket covered me.

“Echo. What’s going on?”

“After you fainted, I spotted what was similar to a wolf on Earth a couple of hundred meters away. I thought it was best to create some camouflage.”

“Got it. Good work. How long have I been out?”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“A couple of hours. I believe the lessening light means we are approaching night.”

“Let’s just hope that night only lasts a few hours on this planet.”

I closed my eyes and explored my body as best I could. Thankfully, the pain was not nearly as bad as earlier. I could breathe much easier and even move my hands and feet without feeling like a blade was cutting into me. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought the nanites had repaired some of the damage.

“Echo. I feel ten times better than I did a few hours ago. Did you do something?”

“Negative. I believe it is related to the Biuna DNA that has fused with your own. The Galactic Federation of Human Colonized Planets has records of some types of Biuna having accelerated healing and regeneration that made them incredibly hard to deal with.”

“Not sure I want to hear that, to be honest.” I stared at the cloth that Echo had laid over me. I might feel better than a few hours ago, but I was nowhere near able to move yet. Since I was recovering, I might as well wait some more. “Echo. I’m going to try to get some more sleep. Please keep a lookout.”

“Of course, Lex. Sweet dreams.”

~~~

Like that, two days passed. It appeared this planet had an almost Earth-like day and night cycle. Well, Earth-like from two hundred years ago. The mother planet hadn’t had a true day and night cycle since before the upheaval. Now it was stuck permanent day on one side and night on the other. Not that we abandoned her. We came together as a race and created the Mega-Dome that covered the entire planet.

As the sun crested the horizon, bleeding through the canopy of the trees, I sat up feeling almost one hundred percent. I took in my new features with some trepidation. For one, I needed a bath. My clothes had been incinerated by the portal leaving me naked. If that wasn’t bad enough, I couldn’t move for two days. I still had to use the bathroom during that time even if I was close to dehydration.

Deciding that I would come to terms with my changes later, I took the sheet that Echo made and wrapped it around my shoulders like a cape. Reaching down and grabbing the plasma rifle and proton pistol that Echo had retrieved during my bed rest, I took in the damage they had received. The pistol was shorted out, but the rifle with its higher-level shielding had just barely survived the trip with only some minors burns on the outside.

Shouldering the rifle, I addressed my trusty sidekick. “Echo. Please tell me you found a river, or creek nearby during your scouting?” I paused as I found that even my voice had finally changed to a more feminine version. I had hoped that would stay the same. I guess I didn’t pray hard enough.

“Affirmative. Approximately five kilometers to the north.” A projection appeared in front of me that plotted a path through the forest

The forest we found ourselves in was straight out of a picture book from Earth’s history. If I remembered correctly, this one would have been called a temperate forest. I snapped my fingers as I remembered the name of the type of tree, conifer. It was interesting, but not really relevant to my current predicament.

“Echo. Did you find anything interesting or worth investigating while I was out?” I asked more to make conversation to pass the time.

“There appeared to be some ruins to the east at roughly fifty kilometers. The drone spotted a tower sticking out of the canopy.”

“What era would you place them?” Even if we weren’t on Earth, cultures generally went through a few different paths of development as they approached space flight. Earth was actually unique in that it had so many different cultures. Many of the other planets that had humanoid life had killed each other until only one remained rather early on.

“Medieval European. The stonework was reminiscent to castle found in that time.”

“I just hope the rest of the planet’s not at that level.”

“It would make returning back Federation a nearly impossible task. At least in your lifetime.”

“Thanks! Though just to spite you, I plan to live to five hundred years old now!”

“That would benefit me as well. Please do so,” Echo replied in his deadpan voice.

“Smartass.”

“I am the model you bought. In the end, you can only blame yourself.”

Echo and I continued to bicker back and forth until I reached the stream. It was a small thing, but I wasn’t sure water this pure had existed on Earth in close to seven centuries. Naturally pure, of course. I dipped my toe, which was more of a two-pronged claw thing now, into the water, and enjoyed the coolness. With the breaking of my own dam, I jumped into the stream.

I washed all the filthy that I could from my body. I really didn’t like being unable to tend to myself even during the short walk over here. I made it a point to be clean, I had a feeling that was going to be a lot harder to accomplish going forward.

“We could have used the nanites to clean your body,” Echo chimed in having heard my mumbling.

“A little late now!” I shouted, dropping back into the water.

Once I was as clean as I could get, I moved over to the bank and sat down. Staring at the reflection in the water only struck home that I had completely changed for some reason. I just hoped that I didn’t continue to mutate until I lost control of myself. “Echo. Has my DNA stopped changing?”

“Affirmative. As of thirteen hundred standard time yesterday.”

“What do you think are the chances of me getting back to normal?”

There was a long pause before Echo replied. “Without corrective DNA manipulation, zero. This level of technology is only available on Earth and Mars.”

“A three-hundred-year trip from the mothership. God knows how far from here.”

“Correct. I’m sorry. Lex.”

“Don’t worry about it Echo. Nothing you could have changed. I just hope the others got through alright.”

There was no reply from Echo. He couldn’t comment without data after all. I stared up at the sky as the sun rolled by. At least I was on this beauty of a planet. It sucks that Layla wasn’t here with me, but given my current condition, it wouldn’t have mattered much.

I sat up and plunged my head into the water, both to cool it off and to take a few gulps of water. Pulling my head back out in a spray of water, I laughed as loud as I could. Ignoring the tinkling sound of my own voice, I resolved to make the best of my situation.

As I stood up, I felt something latch onto my arm and pull me to the ground as it tried to tear it off. I jerked my head around to find what looked like a wolf from Earth’s history biting my arm. It was green with what looked like pieces of bark sprouting from parts of its body.

The chitin had stopped the bite from penetrating, but it appeared just barely. “You want a piece of this meat!?” I shouted as I brought around my free hand’s claws angled at its eye. With a spray of blood, I tore the organ out of its skull and crushed it. The wolf released me in a whine of pain as it took off into the trees. “Yeah! You better run!”

Looking at my arm, I found close to a dozen pricks where the wolf’s teeth had failed to penetrate. If it had been my human skin, I probably would have lost my arm. A tantalizing smell drew my attention to my hand. The crushed eye was still in my grasp. Almost against my will, I brought my hand up to my mouth and tossed the flesh in. I barely even chewed before I was swallowing it.

I came out of my trance then shook as I could still taste it in my mouth. “Lovely. Just lovely,” I said with a groan as I jumped into the water to wash again.