Welcome to the Journal of Now and Forever. This Journal is a collection of my Star Control and Star Control 2 fiction. Note: Some of this material is, by necessity, extrapolation from the slim information provided by canon sources.

New fiction is posted first at My Livejournal before it appears here. This story is in response to 15 Minute Ficlets' Challenge #44.

He'd never thought he'd want to be a pilot.

His actual specialization was in petroleum-substrate cracking research, up until the Exodus. And then he'd found his calling.

Oh, Earthlings had been beyond their system before. Androsynth hadn't, but Earthlings had. And some Androsynth had worked in the astronomical fields, and pored over the finds, and when the Exodus happened, the whole group of them had gone to Eta Vulpeculae, in their stolen Earthling ships and stations. The hyperspace portals were DF'd and the ships went into hyperspace.

And then he'd felt it. An ecstasy that he'd never felt before.

He'd never told anyone about it. When it came time to establish regular patrols in and around the Vulpeculae stars, he'd volunteered at once, to see if it would happen again. And oh, it had, it had.

From the outside, when dimensional fatigue caused hyperspace to open, the ships appeared to twist upon themselves as though a giant toddler were wreaking grievous harm on a rubber toy. To those on the ships, the universe spun around them instead.

That was when it began. The ecstasy. It filled him as though with light, a light he always mentally pictured as somewhat on the yellow-white spectrum, which was funny since in hyperspace everything was a red heavily tinged with pink. And bits of redder or pinker stuff, whatever it was, slowly boiling about as if in slow motion. And the 'quarks,' they called them – small white blips going in and out of existence – the Androsynth who knew most about space said that those blips were other things entering and leaving hyperspace at the same time – but they weren't ships, because ships were bigger black dots. Which isn't poetic, but it was true.

He could hear the sounds of the ship, and the yawing of unseen forces outside, and wails of unknown things beyond, maybe those white blips, and the thudding of his blood in his brain, and the whole thing made him want to shriek and cry and laugh all at the same time. And the best part was, it took days to get somewhere in hyperspace, and the feeling might lessen a bit but it never ended until they dropped back out into truespace.

He wondered if this was what sex was like. Or religion.

He'd tried speaking of it sometimes, but the other pilots and crew looked at him strangely for it. So he clamped his teeth shut when the portal opened, and blinked back tears, and got it under control, and enjoyed being in hyperspace every single chance he got.

He'd never intended to become a pilot.

When it came time to choose a nickname, he chose to be Otto.

Comments? Email me: laridian at aol dot com