Chapter 15: Farewell Friends

“And farewell friends.

Thus Thisbe ends.

Adieu, adieu, adieu!”

- Flute (as Thisbe), A Midsummer’s Night Dream, Act V, Scene 1

Despite everything that had changed in the world in the past eleven months, some things had not yet been seriously affected. Postal delivery services happened to be one. Across Ontario, five letters were being delivered to five addresses, last messages to loved ones from Whitefeather and his ladies announcing that they were no longer on, or of, the Earth. Each was filled with remarks of love for those left behind, and instructions as to how to handle their estates. There were also empty assurances that things would be fine – as if the Sa’arm would for some reason leave the five of them unmolested – that did little to reassure those left behind.

In Ottawa, another prepack moved into Whitefeather’s former Permanent Married Quarters.

In Camp Valcartier in Quebec, Captain Michael Deschenes began training yet another class of recruit officers.

And above them all, life on T’klikrooz and T’kliktguul – now known throughout the Armed Forces of the Confederacy as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern – began to settle into a routine.

Judy and Lisa stared at the 90-centimetre-tall holograms of themselves in some shock. “You’re doing hardly a thing to us...” Judy said, blinking.

“Why mess with perfection?” Whitefeather demanded rhetorically. He gave her a squeeze. “All I’m going to have done to you is tighten things up, tone things up, bash out a couple of small dings. That’s really all that needs doing.”

The five of them were sitting in the living room, cuddled up on the couch and planning their body modifications. William’s set was the most radical of the bunch, as he was taking the standard Marine height and breadth – but not much on his equipment, which his women were already pretty happy with.

Della was smiling happily at her doppelgänger. William was having her tummy tightened – it had always been a sore point with her, defying all efforts at exercising it away – and straightening her teeth, eliminating a filling and getting rid of her appendectomy scar. She realized now that he felt she looked pretty just as she was, and once the modifications were finished would think her absolutely ravishing. It gave her hope of being regularly ravished.

Callie herself was just plain satisfied. She would still physically be “Callie”, still look to her parents like the little girl they’d sent off to university. William had indicated that everyone would be encouraged to send video messages home, so that their families being able to recognize them was important.

The pod AI broke in at that moment. “Leftenant William Whitefeather, your family’s medical tube times will be in twenty minutes.”

“OK, let’s go, troops! Fall in!” Whitefeather called, leaping eagerly to his feet. He was dressed in Marine-green sponsor’s coveralls. The girls were nude, as they’d been since boarding the ship three days previous.

“Gotta get dressed first!” Lisa averred.

Whitefeather gave that mischievous look of his as the replicator dinged in the background. Lisa had the uncomfortable feeling of a mouse between the paws of a cat.

“Ball gowns?” Callie joked.

“Ball gowns,” William confirmed, quickly returning his attention to a thoroughly confused Lisa.

“Give me a hand?” Callie asked of Judy.

“Sure. I’m used to the ‘ball gowns’ by now,” Judy nodded fatalistically as she rose from the couch.

It didn’t take them more than a moment to get the four pair of sandals. “Here,” Judy offered Lisa, “your ball gown.”

Lisa didn’t move her head, but kept her eyes clicking back and forth between the sandals and her sponsor’s amused look.

“Where ... um ... where’s the rest of it?”

“Honey,” Callie advised her sister-concubine, “you are the ‘rest of it’.” She bent over and put hers on, aware but utterly unconcerned that she was giving him a full backside-of-the-moon view.

Lisa hesitated two seconds and quickly put hers on, then rose from the couch. Together, the five of them, William in the lead and the four nude women hard on his heels, started off for Medical Bay Forward Alfa.

Medical Bay Forward Alfa was busy, a scene of controlled chaos. All the preliminary checks had been accomplished long ago, and the emergencies and medical priorities dealt with, but now they had a constant stream of sponsors and concubines coming in for body modifications.

Corpsman Tania Boswell entered the medical bay to start her shift. She noted that every med tube was in use, with knots of families waiting at a few of them.

“Sithembiso!” she called to the tall Swahili corpsman who had the duty shift before her. “It looks like you’ve been going crazy in here!”

“Well,” he responded, “I haven’t lost all my marbles, but there’s definitely a hole in the bag.”

He swiftly ran through the current cases. Tania nodded and advised him, “I relieve you, Sir!” She threw him a mock salute.

“Noted,” came the bass voice of T’kliktguul.

“All yours,” Sithembiso replied. “Don’t let them take off with the family silverware.” Whistling happily, he headed off to the quarters he shared with his two concubines.

Over in the corner sat four concubines, waiting for the nanites to finish weaving the magic spell on their lord and master – Judy, Lisa, Callie and Della. They weren’t saying much, just holding each other and waiting nervously.

Another two concubines came in, sent from their family pod for their mods. They didn’t look happy – and looking at what the foolish kid had asked for, Tania could see why. “Guildenstern, we need to have a talk with the young lad in pod Green Two. Can you put me through, please?”

As the conversation between errant sponsor and corpsman continued in the background, the four Whitefeather women silently contemplated what the changes to William Whitefeather the Confederacy Marine would do to William Whitefeather the man. Would his personality change too? And if it did change, in what way?

The light on the wall above the pod finally changed from red to yellow, and a tone sounded to alert the duty corpsman. Tania came over, having sent the now-far-happier concubines back to their sponsor’s pod to redesign their redesigns. Pressing the release switch, she raised the tube lid. As the lid reached full extension, the light changed to green and William Whitefeather awoke.

The four girls stared at him in awe. He looked like the man they’d fallen in love with – and he didn’t. The face was still him, but everything was proportioned to that of a two-metre-tall giant – one with a linebacker build. He’d been ruggedly handsome before, now he was breathtaking.

Tania could smell female arousal and knew only a bit was coming from her. One thing she liked about this duty was how horny it made her – when she got off shift, she’d be ready for some serious sex with any available crewman. In the meantime, she’d speculate about the loving he was going to get from the four glowing concubines gathered around this man’s med tube.

Whitefeather, for his part, was not quite fully awake yet. Nanites take a lot of energy out of a person when they’re working flat-out and performing the standard Marine type of body modification took a LOT of “working flat-out”. He was cognisant that he was stronger than before, and that his sense of his centre of gravity was completely screwed up, but that was pretty well about it.

Judy held three fingers up about ten centimetres from his nose. “How many fingers?” she asked, concerned.

“Tuesday,” William joked.

“Now, no fucking for the first twenty-four hours,” she warned the girls. They groaned in response.

Whitefeather turned a bleary eye first to the corpsman and then to his harem. “I see why,” he muttered. He looked down at Della’s glistening slit. “Guildenstern, tell the pod AI to have four vibrators waiting in the replicator when we get back, if you please.”

“It pleases me to be of assistance to you, Leftenant William Whitefeather,” T’kliktguul responded, a note of amusement in his bass voice. “I am assured that the requested sex toys will be available when you return. I am further assured that a good, hearty meal will do you a world of good. I recommend that you first stop at Mess Hall Forward One.”

In Mess Hall Forward One, the Whitefeather clan tucked into some fairly palatable food – for William himself, a large roast beef dinner, mostly for the proteins he reassured himself. His harem chose to split a meat-lover’s pizza – none of them were vegetarians, and besides, did replicator meat really come from animals?

Around them, family groups gathered, sharing games and enjoying each other’s company. Clearly many of the people aboard knew each other prior to being picked up. Many people were preening over their new looks.

One pair of sponsors, surrounded by children and shift-clad concubines, were ignoring the cacophony around them, Lisa noted. The two men, now clad in Marine duty uniforms, were playing chess using holographic pieces. To move them, one would tap the square of the piece he wanted to move and tap again on the destination. T’kliktguul would then move the pieces to the desired location as if they were on transporter pads.

As they finished their dinner, Whitefeather turned to the ladies. “Dessert? I’d like a double-layer pumpkin cheesecake. And a coffee.”

Judy hopped up and raced over to the replicator to place her master’s order. Lisa followed a moment later with the other two girls’ choices.