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STARBURST

By Lockely Fox

[Alert: One Minute remains until detected supernova impact, activate hyper drive immediately.]

The computer blared out its warning for the fifth time in as many minutes, as the human captain of the small freighter banged his fist on the console in frustration. "I'd bleedin' love to! If only I could get a habitable planet on sensors for the jump..." He frantically scanned local clusters, his fuel perilously low from the jump that had led him to this godforsaken system in the first place. His lead was either wrong, or had set him up, but either way he was staring down the raw power of a sun ready to burst with only enough juice for one more hop.

[Alert: Thirty Seconds remain until detected supernova impact, activate hyper drive immediately.]

"C'mon... c'mon... THERE!" His scanner flashed green, a Class One atmosphere, water and oxygen in good supply. He swung the scanner back around and slammed the Lock key, then spun his chair to the navigation station to his right. He only had a few more seconds to pull this off.

[Hyper drive charging, initiation in ten sec-- Alert: Ten seconds remain until detected supernova impact. Predicted radiation levels above maximum survivable values. Emergency transmat to med bay initiated.]

"No wait, I still have to prime the landing seq--"

In a flash, Captain Elrin found himself standing inside a closing med bay pod, the air being cycled out for a nanogenetic compound meant to repair his body from the oncoming radiation damage. It had the added effect of putting one to sleep for this process. As he drifted off, he could feel the engines finishing spinning up, as long as his ship shifted into otherspace before the shock wave of the star hit, he'd be fine. In the last moments of his fleeting consciousness, the ship lurched forward, and he passed out.

---

[Alert: Co--li-*snap**--on de-et-et-cted. Nanog--geeeeeee repair succe----*static*]

Elrin awoke with a startle, his vision blurry and dark. He could hear the struggling sounds of the computer alerting him to-- something, but it was garbled and disjointed. The door to his pod must have opened for emergency evac, wherever he'd ended up. For some reason, he was covered in what felt like a large sheet, perhaps the linen closet had been blown open by the impact he felt before he drifted away. He tried to push it away, but it felt like it was encapsulating him, and his fingernails kept getting caught along it. He groaned in frustration, but even that *sounded* off. He had to find out what was going on, maybe the Computer could still respond to his voice commands.

"Computer, status report."

Is what he was trying to say, however what instead came out of his mouth was something that started like a chitter and ended in a squeak. Several more chittersqueaks followed from inside the pod as an oversized shirt was struggled with and thrown about. Elrin panicked, eventually finding and pulling his entire body through the neck hole of the shirt, tumbling from the pod and across the floor, which now sat at an angle it was never meant to. The dark red emergency lights gave him little to work with as he tried to look down at his body.

Instead of a proud, six foot two human, he was now barely a foot tall and, from all accounts that he could tell, covered in a thick layer of fur. His hands still seemed dexterous, but there felt like a thin layer of skin connecting his underarms to his side. His ears pinned themselves back against his head as another loud alert blared through the ship.

[A--*crackle* Collissio--io-io--io-io-iioioiooioooooo---*ZAP*]

The computer's alert system had shorted itself out, sending a shower of sparks cascading across the room. Instinctually, his new body sprung backwards towards the floor that had become a wall and gripped alongside of his, his tail adjusting so he could balance. Oh, wonderful, he had a tail too.

Elrin chittered and blinked a few times, regaining his senses. He needed to get out of here. He felt trapped, and he wasn't going to solve any of this if the ship exploded with him inside it. Dropping to the 'floor', he took a step and fell flat on his face as his body wasn't configured for a bipedal stance. Though it took a moment of disorientation, he found his new body seemed to be hardwired for walking on four legs and he scampered out of the medbay into the hallway. The exit was to the right, and he dashed towards it without a moment's notice before stopping halfway to the partially cracked exit door. Light and air were coming from outside, the scents of the world reaching his nose and enticing him out into the cool afternoon, but he pushed the instincts down and turned back towards the cockpit. If he had any hope of recovering from this, he needed the Black Box.

The former human moved quickly back down the darkened hallway. His eyes now more adjusted for the low light, but only just. Whatever he had become, it wasn't nocturnal. The cockpit wasn't sectioned off by the bulkhead, thankfully, and he was able to sprint in and pry the black box from its connection under the main nav panel. At least the nanogenes gave him a form with dexterous hands--- or paws-- or whatever they were. Before departing, he slammed his paw a few times into the broken screen of the comms panel, hoping he'd activated the emergency distress beacon. With that, he turned tail and fled for the cargo doors, holding the apple sized box tucked tightly in one of his front arms. A little squeezing through the gap, and he was outside, laying on his back in the cool blue colored grass of the alien planet.

Elrin's eyes drifted up from the wreck of his ship to the skies. Two large moons hung effortlessly among the clouds, while a warm blue sun shone brightly. Strange, colorful bird floated high in the breeze, calling out to each other in a symphony of song. He'd never been on a world like this before, would have been a beautiful spot for a vacation, and that was a positive thought, though he didn't want it to be a permanent one. His ears twitched at the sound of running water close by, and honestly? He was feeling pretty parched.

Dragging the Black Box along with, he scampered over to what ended up being the edge of a cliff. Mist rose from a large lake down below with a picturesque waterfall cascading off the opposite cliff edge. He felt a sense of pride that he was likely the first human eyes to lay on this dazzling landscape, or, well he should have been, had he still been human. A rumbling behind him tore him from his fascinated stupor as the ship began to groan. Before he could react, the ship exploded in a giant fireball, the force pushing him over the cliff. Instincts once again took hold and his arms and legs spread out, catching the wind but forcing him to drop the Black Box to the depths of the thick treeline below. It was meant to survive falls far greater than that, but how was he to find it now? But still! He was gliding! With his own body? How cool was that!

His instincts kicked back in once more, relegating his concerns with his lost humanity to the back of his mind as his gliding body came to a rest near the lake. He scurried over to the cool, clear water and scooped some up in his hand paws, bringing them to his mouth. As he wiped his wet muzzle in his arm fur, only then did he finally catch his reflection in the water.

Two large, sharp ears sat atop a brown furred face, not dissimilar in shape to that of a raccoon, but without the little bandit mask. He sat on his haunches as he pulled up one of his hands and pulled down at his gums. Sharp teeth in front, flat in the back, an omnivore. At least he wouldn't starve. Speaking of his hands, or, more accurately, front paws, they had four fingers and a thumb, once again similar to that of a raccoon, but the skin between them was webbed. They weren't as dexterous as human hands, but he could manage, even with squishy beans in the way. Glancing further down at his reflection, his long, otter-like body was covered in a distinctly not-otter-like thick layer of brown, fluffy fur with tawny stripes along his sides. His legs were short and stubby, with his feet now three-toed paws with the same webbing between his digits. Absentmindedly, his exceptionally long, lemur-like tail curled around his body. With a little effort, he found he could control it, and perhaps, he thought, it might even be prehensile.

He stared at his reflection for a good long while, coming to terms with his new form. He'd never seen an animal like this, didn't even have close to a name for what he was. What would you even call this species? A flying raccolemottur? A swimming lemurbat? More importantly, he wasn't sure why the nanogenes had reconfigured him to a form not able to use the computer. Perhaps the radiation from the bursting star had damaged his body bad enough that it did its best with what was left? Or did it damage the computer's species library? His thought process was interrupted by the sound of some rustling branches behind him, and a chitter not unlike what he was now speaking like.

Elrin turned, his ears honing in on it before his eyes as he spotted another animal just like he was. It was hanging by its tail from a branch staring at him, confirming at least one suspicion. Under its arm was something shiny and dark. The Black Box! It chittered at him once more, then swung itself back towards the forest.

"Stop!" He tried to shout, instead chittersqueaking at it as it left him lakeside. Again, Elrin let his instincts take control, sniffing the air and picking up its scent, or rather, her scent. He wasn't sure how he knew that. In a moment, he was dashing off into the forest after her, climbing trees and jumping between branches like it was second nature. It was getting more and more comfortable to let the animal inside him take control, and he only hoped that by the time he got the box back and others had come to rescue him, he'd still want to go back. For now though, as the trees flew by and he took in the amazing new sights and smells, he could almost consider this a little R&R.

The End

#TFTober 2020 Prompt 1: Burst