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 #38.

We think it's normal to work like we do. To dedicate every waking hour of our existence to one thing and one thing only, and for everyone you know to be just like you. Oh, maybe the item of your obsession is different than mine, but we still all have a compulsion to focus single-mindedly on something.

Humans – well, non-Androsynth humans – sometimes treat us like machines. As though we weren't really alive, weren't really human. Nope, just put an Androsynth in front of a computer or a microscope and we'll happily work there until we fall down from hunger.

The computers and microscopes are packed away now. I'm just writing this in my head so that whenever I can access my machine again – a couple weeks, maybe? I hope not longer than that! – I can transcribe it.

I should feel something more than this. I'm apprehensive. This is the first time any of us has left Earth, and we're doing it en masse. And we're going to a star system where, yes, there are planets, but we don't know if any of them can support life without massive infrastructure.

Is it better to live long as a slave, or die quickly as a free being? Everyone always thinks that's an easy thing to answer. It isn't. At least, not for me. Right now, I don't know which is better.

Most of the forty-nine other Androsynth in the crew pod with me are quiet, but you can almost taste the waiting. Once we all knew we were leaving, we studied up on what we could expect... or at least, what we thought we could expect, since 'normal' humans haven't gone there either.

We're going to make a new world. You wouldn't believe how much bioscience and xenoscience we've studied collectively, to make sure we have some idea what we're doing when we get there. All on the sly. All while focusing on whatever our work was, and (probably) some of us sabotaging our work on the sly as well.

A new world. Completely from scratch. Once I read about some "Biosphere" project – an attempt to re-create Earth inside a big dome, something like that. It failed, because they didn't have – I can't believe I just thought because they didn't have Androsynth on the job. Well. A little egotism never hurt anything or anyone.

The point, though, is that we're probably the best ones to colonize another planet. We'll work hard and we're just as adaptable as our Creators. I think that's the part they never considered – we're not machines. We're single-minded to the point of ignoring everything else, but that's only when we need to be. We can change plans as quickly and efficiently as humans – maybe more so.

Of course, many of them were just as single-minded – about denying we were human. We are humans, the same as them... only different. Yet people that could accept skin color as an acceptable difference couldn't accept that we were just as human. We were machines, androids, like the ones in the old science-fiction films, as far as they were concerned. Emotionless, super-smart, human-like machines.

We've got emotions. Just look at the Androsynth who got revenge on the way out. Or those of us who made friends, among each other or among friendly humans. Some of us had pets, though no pets could come with us – we needed the space in the ships for our cargo.

The word's just come down: the hyperspatial drives will kick in momentarily – two minutes. We've never gone into hyperspace before. Nobody has. We're the first. We discovered the concept, we developed the drives on paper and in computers, and put them together during those two months on the Moon, after we left Earth's surface. On paper and in computers, everything works.

Someone makes a sighing sort of sound, almost a sob. We're almost out of here. We'll find out what hyperspace is like, and travel to our new home, and start our new world and new life. And then we'll try to start new lives, new Androsynth. That'll be the most critical part, but it'll probably have to wait until we get everything built – shelter and crops and water and power – so much to do. We got our assignments based on ability and knowledge, rather than series. Nothing is technically shameful here – everyone has to pitch in, because if one person fails, the whole group could fail.

My superior is one of the rare female Androsynth. I know her series number, and she knows mine, and it's so awkward trying to sound – well – to sound like an Androsynth, instead of a human rattling off series numbers to intelligent machines. I don't even know what "sounding like an Androsynth" means, but I do think it would be easier if maybe we used real names instead of series numbers.

My superior is... I don't know how to put it. I'll be very happy to work for her. I guess let's put it at that.

There's the sound – the hyperspatial drive activates – but here inside the crew pod, nothing feels different –

The sounds! What in God's name is out there?

Comments? Email me: laridian at aol dot com