Family from Beyond the Stars, Ch. 6 (Patreon)

CH. 6NovaAs the engines dropped out of slipspace once again, Kenny's eyes fluttered slowly open.  The interior of the pod greeted his immediate vision, the door already beginning to open by itself.  He sat up from his position, slouched against the side of the curved interior wall.  He let out a groan as cramped muscles and joints popped and cracked, satisfyingly loud before he hopped up to his feet and climbed out of his tube.  His hands reached for his glasses, hanging around his neck.  He placed them onto the tip of his nose and glanced around.  He blinked.  Everything was foggy and blurred.He took off his glasses and rubbed them on the sleeve of his livesuit.  The soft material was as gentle as a cleaning cloth and did not snag once on the thick-rimmed spectacles.  He put them back onto his face and peered around again.  It was still blurry.  He sighed in annoyance.  Maybe that gel had...stained them somehow, or ruined the prescription."Where the heck am I going to find an eye doctor in the middle of space?" he pondered aloud.  He took a deep breath in and out.  His chest didn't catch.  He blinked in surprise and looked down at it.  He took another breath.  There wasn't any twinging, or tightness.  He had always had breathing problems, ever since he was little.  Slightly malformed lungs, the doctors had said, a birth defect.  He'd always breathed shallowly.  Combined with his nearly constant state of being sickly, getting sick, or barely recovering from it, his lung capacity had done nothing but shrink over the years.  The smoking also probably hadn't helped, but that had been because Derrick pressured him into it and gotten him hooked.The illnesses had started first with catching pneumonia as a child, various colds and cases of flu, and then the virus a few years ago that had nearly killed him.  The ensuing hospital bills from that alone had contributed greatly to his constant state of drowning in bills and depending on the cheapest, least nutritional food to avoid starvation.  But now...He inhaled again, as deeply as was physically possible to do, and just kept doing it until his stomach felt like it was going to burst.  He let it all out again in one giant exhale, not even coughing once.  The sound echoed around the hanger bay.  He wasn't sick.  He could breathe.  Who knew being abducted by She-Hulk Tiger-Xenomorph Space-Mom could be so good for one's health?He took off his glasses once again, his head spinning from how weird it felt to breathe so deeply and clean for the first time in years.  His vision being perpetually blurry was going to still be a serious issue.  He looked around the room, prepared to squint hard to make his sight at all clearer, despite that you weren't supposed to do that.  His eyes slowly went wide, flitting about the room.  It was all already in focus.  He blinked, rubbing his eyes.  When they cleared again, he stared.  His mouth began to fall open.He could still see.  He looked at the sloping walls, the humming panels, the pods behind him.  He could see!  His knees began to shake and he hurriedly pinched himself, hard.  "Ow!" he yelped, rubbing at the sore spot of his arm.  He looked around again.  It was still there, his perfect vision.  He looked at the glasses in his other hand.  The bane of his existence, growing thicker and thicker each and every year.  His doctor had told him that due to his glaucoma, he would probably lose his vision permanently by the time he was 40.His vision finally started to blur and hurt and he assumed this was nature correcting itself.  Until something wet rolled down his cheek and he hurriedly blinked several times, wiping at the hot trail.  A tear?  His eyes returned to normal, the new normal.  It wasn't a dream.  His smile slowly spread, wider and wider, until it was stretching from ear to ear.  He looked at his glasses, then dropped them to his side."I can see!" he shouted as loudly as he could.  The walls echoed with his laughter as he pranced up and down in place, pumping his arms, and then without thinking about it further, he jumped right up off the ground, giving out a whoop!  A light fixture flashed right by his head as he sailed into the air.  He just kept rising before he finally sank back down.  He landed back on the ground and staggered from the return of his full weight, almost stumbling before he caught himself.  What the...He looked up at the same light.  It was at least three full feet above his head.  Three feet.  He blinked.  It had been directly at eye level, nearly blinding him.  He looked at his feet then.  Was it the suit?  He stretched and twisted, feeling more flexible than he ever had.  His joints didn't creak.  His bones and muscles didn't protest.  He felt...good.  That was when he turned and saw himself in the reflection cast by the darkened panel of his pod.  His eyes went wide and he hurried over to it.His fingers pressed at his cheeks, no longer sallow and thin.  He touched his cheekbones, no longer seeming like they were trying to rip through his skin.  His eyes didn't have bags underneath them.  His hair, while still curly, was full, lustrous, and no longer stringy or looking gristly or oily.  His hands were pink, healthy instead of how they had always been: gangly, bony, and thin.  His veins were only barely visible underneath the skin, rather than protruding out or dark because of poor circulation.  Then he looked down at the suit.Had it always looked that...defined?  He even flexed and the suit's arms actually tightened.  A nervous giggle broke from him and he turned from side to side, pulling various poses.  Each time he did, his once gangly limbs bulged and flexed impressively.  He even pressed at his abdomen, expecting to at the very least still immediately feel the hard lines of his ribs and deformed stomach.  He felt hard resistance, squishy padding, having to push in firmly to feel the bones of his ribcage or sternum.Legs feeling shaky, he hurriedly half-sat, half-sagged onto the floor, before they went out from underneath him, still staring at his reflection.  He touched his face, seeing his reflection mirror it.  He winked one eye open, and so did the other version of him.  So absorbed in his shock, Kenny didn't even register the thudding footsteps of the Mother until she appeared right behind him.  Her glowing stripes shone on the polished surface as she leaned down and over him, causing him to first look up at her then whirling around to see her actual face.The huge Alien looked down at him with what could only be described in smug amusement at his expression, which faded into similar surprise and interest at his complete transformation.  She leaned down and sniffed at him several times, then snorted.  The vents on the side of her throat opened and shut, lights flashing, and the implant on her temple rapidly cycled through colors in alternating rainbow patterns.  Then her glowing blue eyes crinkled at the edges and she winked.  She actually winked.   Afterwards, she stood back up to her full height, stretching out her amazonian, alien build, and stepped over and around him to reach the cubs.  A paw tapped each container and their doors slid open with synchronized hisses.The cubs emerged a second or two later, yawning sleepily and shaking out their fur.  As before, they appeared more bright-eyed and bushy-tailed than they had previously.  Their eyes, to Kenny's astonishment, had also changed.  While at first, they were still the galaxy-like swirls of black with pinpricks of light, a moment or two later, as they focused their attention on the room and Kenny sitting in front of them, all three cubs' eyes began to glow and turned a brilliant, electric sky-blue.  Just like their Mother's.Their faces lit up to see him, but all he could do was just stare.  Phoebe's stripes had changed colors, from an inky black to alternating bands of indigo, navy blue, and marigold.  Her red-brown fur had become more crimson, which only made her white underbelly seem all the more colorful against her otherwise dark pelt.  Joey's spots were now swirling motes of purple, green, and blue against his bushy, snow-white, almost silvery-tinted fur which often would shimmer underneath the light in a rainbow of colors like an oil sheen.  Meanwhile, Chandler's bronze hide had acquired a much more pronounced metallic gleam.  His ruff actually crackled, as did the tufts of his ears, and down his spine, the cherry-red edges producing small static arcs of energy.  His tail had even acquired a bushy tuft to the end of it, like a lion's.Even stranger, each Cub now also had what was unmistakable the signs of real hair beginning to grow from their skulls, similar to their mother’s flowing tresses.  Chander boasted an impressively tall mohawk now standing as tall as his ears and the same bright red like his ruff and tail tip.  Joey meanwhile had grown something only describable as a Fabio or John Travolta in Grease-style mullet, combed back from his beaming face with the tips colored to match the hues of his rosettes.  Phoebe’s was the most intricate: deep scarlet waves combed back into a female Viking mane, striped through with gold, dark blue, and black, and somehow already braided on the sides of her skull while the rest hung to her shoulders.All three let out yowls of joy to see him and, as one, rushed their Daddy.  They hammered into him one after the other, licking, nuzzling, and pawing at him.  To his, and their complete surprise, while he did rock back underneath the impacts of their bulky bodies, he didn't flop onto his back as he usually did.  He stayed sitting upright, holding them happily in his arms.  He could feel his touch actually cause their flesh to conform against his hands, depressing the biomechanical material underneath the thick fur and scales slightly.  He scratched and patted at them and they responded to the vigorous pets with absolute delight.Then they noticed the other changes.  Chandler sniffed at his face, while Joey pushed his nose against the small of his back.  Phoebe pawed at his chest as if testing his durability.  All three looked stunned and then overjoyed as he stood up in front of them, standing taller, stronger, and more healthy than they had ever seen him.  He was still no great height or muscular of frame, but anything was better than the bag of skin and bones he had been before.Their purrs and growls echoed around the room and they gambled about happily all around him, sniffing and pawing at him as if trying to determine if his new appearance wasn’t somehow a hologram.  It was only when Joey, meathead that he was, lifted up onto his hindlegs and leaned his full weight against Kenny, paws balanced on daddy’s shoulders, finally made him stagger back a step.  Having found his limit, they all seemed to agree that his new body was real.  Their reactions made his eyes brim with tears for the joy they radiated up at him.They proceeded to play, and for once he didn't have to stop every five minutes panting for breath.  Where once he had been easily winded or reduced to hacking coughs, now he kept up much more easily.  They chased one another around the entire hanger bay, even wrestled, which was Joey's favorite game, and the big lunk was shocked, even delighted, to see that Daddy could fight back now and wasn't just automatically pinned, even if in the end that was still the outcome more often than not.  Chandler found a random object that could fit in his mouth and Kenny tossed it for him as hard as he could, which the springy wall-climber would then bolt away after, scrabbling along walls and across the floor to try and catch up to the bouncing thing.  Phoebe enjoyed power hugs, wrapping her four arms around him and squeezing to see how hard she could go.  Usually, his bones would creak, but now he was able to give almost as good as he got.Sure, he wasn't some Olympic gym junkie, but for the first time in his life, he was in shape.  He could run, jump, wrestle, and, most importantly, breathe.  He couldn't get over the last one.  His racing heart no longer caused him to become dizzy.  He could see everything and didn't have to be careful so as to not break his glasses.  Entire minutes would pass just holding the cubs as they snuggled into him before one of them would gamble about and resume their play.Kenny finally, barely able to breathe through his joyous laughter at both his transformation as well as his cubs' excited reactions to it, pushed them slightly off of him at last.  "Okay, kids!" he giggled and hiccuped, beaming at them all.  "Okay!"  They took the signal obediently and backed off, but still looked ready to resume at a moment's notice.  Their faces were crinkled in joy and their engine-like purring seemed a constant thrum that filled the air.He glanced up at the Mother then, beaming, but was surprised to see her sitting off on her own again.  She alternated looking at the four of them, busy with their snuggle-play, or out of a plated window that had been revealed by a section of wall, opened no doubt like the disposal doors.  She looked dejected, to say the least, but when their eyes met, she gave him a small blink before going back to staring outside.Kenny felt horribly guilty all of a sudden.  Here he was, playing around with the kids, and even despite them bonding the previous 'day', she still felt alone.  His shoulders slumped at first.  The kids really hadn't tried to involve her either, running around and towards her but always veering off.  She didn't look up much, always staring out at the swirling nebulas or twinkling formations of stars, but every time the cubs weren't looking, she would flash a look after them with a pang of longing obvious in those glowing orbs of starlight and electric blue.He steeled himself and leaned down to Chandler, who was nomming on one of Joey's ears.  The two boys looked up at him immediately.  He whispered something to them and they purred more at first, but then looked worried, even hesitant.  He nodded.  "It'll be okay, I promise," he told them both.  Their glowing eyes brightened and they took off, bounding after one another in their usual chase game.  He settled back to stroke Phoebe, who immediately took the chance to drop her defenses and snuggle her head into his unoccupied lap.He saw the boys getting closer and closer before, with an energetic scrambling of paws, Joey hammered his bulky shoulder as hard as he could against the Mother's thigh.  She jerked and looked around, growling in reflex, but Joey had already scampered away, seemingly oblivious.  She blinked and chuffed out a breath, accompanied by the glowing green hiss of the vents at her throat.  She began to turn away to resume her lonely vigil when she saw Chandler.  The golden-furred, red-tufted boy crouched down in front of her on all six limbs.  His newly-tufted tail waved in the air like a pennant, his claws flexing over and over, and his eyes were fastened onto her.Then he yowled and batted at the metal floor with a paw toward her.The Mother arched an eyebrow in puzzlement.  Her eyes sharpened, her ears slowly turned fully forward to face him and she rose slightly from her curled-up ball against the corner of the bay.  She rumbled and it shook the floor beneath Kenny's crossed legs, even so far away.Chandler waved his tail more, back hips shimmying for all the world like a playful kitten before he pounced forward.  One of his paws swatted at her leg, not using his claws and simply batting at her striped hide before he pranced back out of reach again.Her retort was an immediate growl, showing her teeth as if expecting a challenge in the attempted game, but when her son didn't react more than sinking back down into the preparation to pounce again, she blinked rapidly.  Her eyes became brighter and she rolled onto her knees, sinking into a similar posture and mirroring his posture in confusion, tail waving to match his.  They matched gazes for all of one long, drawn out second of indecision and wary tension before, with a hearty yowl, her son spun, turning on a dime, and bolted away from her.The effect was instantaneous.  The Mother's eyes glowed with new light and she took off after Chandler, paws thundering along the metal floor.  Her son dodged and weaved as she quickly overtook him with superior speed and size, but he was so nimble that, for all her slapping paws and grasping tentacles, she could not catch him.  Kenny watched in amazement and delight as they continued to pounce around the empty hanger bay.Each impact of the Mother landing from a leap shook the entire area, and she was getting wise to the game very quickly.  Chandler darted in between her legs once too often.  Her head dipped down and her muzzle snagged onto his ruff.Just like that, the game was over.  Chandler yowled in protest but also sounded delighted.  His mother took her victory lap, prancing on all six limbs around the bay before she plopped her son down onto the ground, licked him from head to tail, and then nudged him with her nose.  He took off once again, this time climbing the walls and springing around like some demented flying squirrel.  She caught him even faster this time, releasing him once more to continue their chase.  Each and every capture led to a nuzzling and heavy licking.Joey, who had been sitting beside Kenny and a lightly dozing Phoebe, decided at that point that he had waited long enough.  He gave a loud yowl as the Mother caught Chandler for the fourth time and barreled straight toward her at full speed.  He bolted across the hanger floor, charging right at his giant of a Mother with his head lowered, steadily gaining speed like a pitbull-sized steam engine, rosettes glowing brighter and brighter as if gaining power the faster he went.Turning her great striped head at the sound of his impressively loud footfalls and cry of challenge, she saw him barreling towards her.  Her muzzle stretched immediately into a feral smile, revealing more of her saberteeth and double-row of glowing neon fangs.  She immediately lowered her head, widening her stance, and squaring herself off to the silver-white bullet zooming toward her.  Joey hit her skull with his at full force with a loud dull thud of impact, the sound of it echoing all around the hangar.Kenny was almost surprised he didn’t see a mushroom cloud from the blow.  For a moment he was concerned something might very well have broken in one of them.  Then he saw Joey's straining muscles as his paws scrabbled for purchase, trying to push her back, the literal equivalent of a kitten trying to overpower a full-grown tiger.  His tail lashed and he growled out loud and ferociously.  All of it was completely, adorably, in vain, for his mother did not so much as even budge an inch.Then the Mother neatly flipped him with a twist of her head and Joey landed flat on his back before her.  He looked dazed, paws spread wide and his tail going limp.  Leaning down, she licked all along his belly up to his face several times, then nuzzled her nose against his fluffy stomach.  Joey responded immediately, wrapping his four arms around her muzzle and pawing at it in delight.  She snuffled and sneezed a second later, signaling him to let go.  He got back up again at once and resumed their play shoving, stymied at all.  This time she let him do so against one of her paws, the limb actually quivering if only slightly.  Chandler was swift to join in.Kenny settled back again, beaming.  The cubs were actually playing with her.  He had worried at first that she didn't know how, but now he understood.  She had just been shy, worried that they would still rather only do so with him.  And speaking of shyness, he felt Ms. Moody stir against him.  When he glanced down, Phoebe could be seen staring sullenly at the wrestling boys with their mother.  She huffed and leaned against him more.  They really were mother and daughter."You know..." he said then, getting the young female's attention.  "Someone looks like she would really like to try out those rougher games that particular parties might enjoy too."  He trailed his voice off innocently as if commenting as a true outsider. "This is just entirely hypothetical," he added.  Phoebe rumbled against him, not looking convinced.  "Or...maybe someone instead just wants a big nuzzle-hug from someone who gives the best ones ever."  He winked down at his daughter.Phoebe actually growled and she shoved herself harder against him, one tentacle lifting his arm to drape over herself as she crawled halfway into his lap and rested her upper body there.  What once had been a near-crushing weight was now just a solid, comfortable one.  It was as if to say, 'Daddy gives the best hugs.  No one else can compare.'  At least, that was what he imagined she was saying.  He squeezed her and she purred immediately."I wasn't talking about her hugging you," he leaned down to whisper into one of her spiny ears.  "I speak from personal experience...that someone's very special hugs are absolutely what got me through the first few nights of our family finding one another."Phoebe's eyes went wide and she looked up at him.  Her tentacles wound around him and she almost looked tearful as she curled in around him more, snuggling her Daddy.  He snuggled her back, the two of them continuing to watch the Mother playfully bat the boys around with her huge paws.  Even when she seemed to get carried away and sent one of them tumbling, head over tail, away, he would just leap back up and leap back into the fun."But...remember Phoebe..." he continued a second or so later.  "You've had the boys and me all this time.  Your mom...she's been all alone.  I bet she could really use that hug, even now."  He met the female's eyes, looking deeply into her now bright-blue biomechanical orbs.  "And there's nothing stopping you from being able to give me hugs too.  Daddy would be very sad if you didn't."Her muzzle crinkled up at him and she rubbed her head against his belly."I don't plan on going anywhere for a long time, sweetie.  I promise."  That seemed to relax Phoebe, but as her eyes glanced again towards her embattled siblings and Mother, she still looked nervous, perhaps even guilty too.  "Hey," he murmured, gripping her chin in one hand and nuzzling behind her cheek with the other.  "Just because you're learning to love her doesn't mean I love you any less.   You're my special girl.  The best in the whole universe."  He leaned down and kissed the bridge of her muzzle.  Phoebe purred steadily against him and licked his cheek.  He nudged her.  "Go on."Rising slowly, Phoebe slowly trotted over towards her siblings who had curled up once again against the reclining Giantess.  The Mother's eyes were hooded and pleased but they shot open once again to see her errant, third child now approaching.  She sat up a bit more, locking gazes with her daughter.  Phoebe paused, like a mouse caught in the gaze of a cat, before she set her shoulders and resumed moving forward again.  She didn't hesitate.  Phoebe just walked right up to her startled mother and thumped her head against the plush chest.The reaction was immediate.  The Mother's eyes went wide down at her daughter before they slid closed in complete, shuddering rapture.  One of her quartet of arms reached down and wrapped around the shivering, furry body, pulling her tiny form flush with her own and nuzzling the bottom of her chin against the top of Phoebe’s skull.Kenny forced himself to look away, eyes feeling misty and not wanting to intrude on such an intimate moment.  Never before had he felt like such an outsider, but not in a bad way.  He knew that in the end, the cubs being closer to their mother was of pivotal importance.  The way they held one another, as made him suddenly believe they might be the only ones of their kind they had left in the whole universe.  The thought of that made him incredibly sad.Rising from the floor, he crossed over to the window where the Mother had been leaning against before and then sat back down.  At his height, he was just able to watch the stars and swirling nebulas whirl past and around their vessel as they drifted in space.  He noticed that, on the side of the ship, what had once been the blade-like wings or perhaps engines were now extended outwards, like leaves on a tree, as well as many unfolded panels along the length of the hull that he could see.  The edges all glowed brightly, motes of light floating into them from their brightly lit surroundings.  He was reminded somehow of how a tree absorbed sunlight.For some reason and completely unbidden, his thoughts strayed back to Earth.  He remembered working in the park, cleaning the trash or tending to the gardens.  Even as badly as people looked down on workers like him, he had never minded.  Trash came and went, but the trees were always there.  The occasional squirrel, who spitefully threw acorn shells at him.  The birds, singing their summer songs.He thought about walking home every night, about getting up early on his days off or even before work to volunteer at the homeless shelter.  He would stand in line with the food servers, distributing breakfast and cheerful smiles to try and brighten their days.  He always felt that kinship with them, and perhaps they felt it with him in return.  They hadn't looked up to him like he was the example of the working-class American that they all strived to become again or for just once.  But they could see how he lived just by looking in his eyes.  A kindred spirit, not so alone as he seemed if only for those brief moments of time.  Angrier souls like Alfred were few and far between, he liked to think.What he wouldn’t give to see that grumpy old, bearded face again.  To see any of them at all: Clarissa with her constant, gloomy predictions about the weather based on the creaking of her bones, Ted and his solitary eye, or Ruth who carried around old pictures of grandchildren long grown in a faded wallet as if they were fragments of glass, happy to talk about them all at great length with no provocation.  He remembered Austin, and Audrey, and Emily.  Hell, he even missed Derrick.  Okay, maybe not Derrick.The weight of his isolation slowly came crashing down as he saw a planet, rings surrounding it, slowly drift by the window.  Here, at the far edge of the galaxy, farther than any Human had ever gone into space, beyond where his own kind even imagined they could conceivably go: he was alone.Space was cold, lonely, and terrifying, nothing at all like Star Trek, or Star Wars with their promises of exploration, discovery, and the thrill of the unknown.  All he had in the entire universe were the cubs, and they were finally reunited with their mother.  She was infinitely more important to their growth and development than him.  It left him, once again, the outlier, the leech, the needless expenditure of effort and thought.  Just like with Austin.  He had weighed down his one true friend for years.  His vanishing had done them all a favor.He had truly gotten his wish.No more Kenny to drag others around him down.  No more sad, pathetic, unhealthy Kenny Sissom to ruin everyone else's day.  His head hung slowly and his eyes burned, vision beginning to cloud and become hazy.  Despite his best efforts, he sniffed; he didn't want to cry.Boys weren't supposed to cry.  They were supposed to be strong, to be confident.  Society put such importance on good looks, on being in good physical shape.  Both of which he now had.  Yet, here he was, stronger and healthier than ever, but still the same pathetic wreck he always had been.  Women would maybe have liked him better now until they got to know him.  In the end, they would always leave.Phoebe never had though.  She had been different, like him, saw the world differently than how society or the media portrayed it.  She had been homeless, off and on.  She had suffered so much and yet never lost that smile, the same smile in the photograph he had carried and cherished just like Ruth with her grandchildren.His Phoebe had been a beautiful woman, not just on the outside but even more so from the inside.  He had always told her she had a light to her, one that made her shine from within.  How she had teased him for it, calling him corny and dramatic even as she beamed.On one occasion, he remembered her taking off his glasses only to wrap a blindfold over his eyes.  Her retort when he had demanded the reasoning why would stay with him for years to come.“Just so I don’t blind you with my Light!” she had joked.  Then she had brushed his hair away from his face, kissing the scars on his forehead.  “I’d hate for those eyes of yours to get hurt.”“What’s so special about my eyes?” he asked, remembering the glow she lit within him in those quiet, private moments between them.  “They’re brown, ordinary, and dull just like the rest of me.  Garbage eyes for a garbage man.”  He laughed then, like he always did when he made a joke at his own expense.A heavy thwack to his forehead had caused him to yelp as she hit him with the heel of her hand in one of her legendary chops.  Even Austin had learned to fear them.  “It’s not what they look like, Ken,” she had chided him sternly.  Then she removed the blindfold, afterward worming her long fingers into his thick, curly hair to massage his scalp in exactly the way that made him melt.  “It’s how you see the world through them.  You see Light in everyone, not just me.  The good in people, even when others might not believe it exists.  Evil does exist, but good will always rise up to go against it.  No matter what negativity tries to keep you down, you have to be the sun that outshines the darkness.  Never lose your sun, Kenny.  Never lose your Light.  The universe needs someone who believes in it.”The memories faded, his eyes returning to the present, to the great, black void before him, dotted with constellations he didn’t know the names to.  He missed the ones visible back on Earth: Orion, Draco, the Big and Little Dippers.  They were like old friends, sometimes the only constant when all the world seemed ready to leave him behind.  Now he didn’t even have them anymore.  Only his memories.  Just like Phoebe…God, he didn't even have her picture anymore.  It was back on Earth, back in his shitty apartment.  He never thought he would have ever missed it.  He had never felt so horribly alone, even on his worst days when life had chewed him up and spit him out, when he had no one to call, to talk to, or to depend on.  Wetness dotted his cheeks and he again had to fight hard not to draw in a great sniffle.Abruptly, he felt the floor creak nearby, accompanied by the looming presence of her suddenly close by.  His shoulders stiffened, not wanting the Cubs, or especially her, to see him like this.  It would only serve to convince her that, even with his new body, he was still weak inside.  That he wasn’t any good for the cubs, or anyone.  The most he could do was at least meet her eyes.He looked slowly, warily up, from his hunched-over position.  The Mother stared down at him, face impassive, somehow even worse than raw contempt.  The device at her temple flashed off and on, inhuman expression unreadable, and he looked away from her again, burying his face back in his arms.  He was wrong; he didn't want to see her obvious and barely withheld disgust like before.  He was pathetic, and she knew it.  She'd known it since she’d been forced to bring him along from off of his home planet.  To her, he was like a child's favorite toy, slowly growing more and more ragged until the day he could finally be thrown away."Sorry..." he muttered, voice catching on trying to hold back anymore tears.  "I don’t mean to upset the kids.  I'll try and be quiet."The response to his pitiful words was silence; nothing but the silent hum of the engines thrumming through the hull.  Outside the plated window, the wings continued absorbing light.  He glanced up, just to look at something other than his own ankles, the cold, scuffed, and scratched-up floor, and especially not her.  The system's sun looked different than it had.  There was a term for how the light it exuded flickered and flared, but it escaped him.  The planets kept revolving slowly around it as it seemed to dim before his eyes.He realized then that it was all too quiet, forcing himself to look away from the anomaly outside, and instead glancing around the hanger.  "Where are they, anyway?" he asked.  She chuffed once, turning her head silently to the side and away from him across the hanger.  His gaze dutifully followed hers towards the pods, wherein lay his answer.  Once again, the pods were closed, the cubs floating in their ‘beds’ and dreaming happy dreams.  They looked so peaceful.  Despite his miserable state, he allowed himself a small smile.  "They really tuckered themselves out," he observed.  "They're such good kids."She growled, but lightly, as if in agreement with him."You're...a fantastic mom," he admitted shyly, glancing up at her face and meeting her glowing eyes more easily this time.  She cocked her head slightly to the side, staring down at him with a curious expression.  "You do it all so easily.  All the emotional stuff, like you were programmed to."  He hesitated after he said that.  He hoped that wasn't rude or anything.They were technically cyborgs, weren’t they?  Androids?  Cat-droids?  Were they more mechanical or biological?  He had no idea.  Not for the first time, he felt the weight of his situation come crashing down onto his shoulders.  He knew nothing about his 'kids', nor their mother.  Not their species, what they ate, where they had come from, or anything."I guess it's just...instinct?" he ventured a second later.The Mother, for her part, just seemed to nod.  She settled down the way she had been earlier before the cubs and she had started to play.  She both mirrored and dwarfed him as together they looked out the window at the star system outside.  He couldn't help but look up at her more than once, admiring the variety of colors that passed over her from the flashes of planets and celestial bodies moving around outside, like a huge coordinated dance.  God...she was so beautiful.At seemingly the exact moment that thought crossed his mind, her implant flashed and she glanced down at him once more.  Kenny quickly and shyly averted his eyes before she got mad at him again.  Then she purred, causing him to start as the floor actively quivered beneath him.  He caught her reflection in the plate glass of the window and was so startled by it that he looked back up at her directly again just to confirm it wasn’t a trick.The Mother was smiling, at him.  It was small, barely there at all, but it was real.  He stared in awe at how such a tiny expression could change her whole appearance.  He had been wrong; now…she was beautiful.The device at her temple flashed as before, and not for the first time he wondered what the heck it was.  Every time he thought something, felt something, especially about her, it responded, and then she did as well.  He decided to risk the question, summoned up his courage, and asked."That...thing," he started carefully, getting her attention directly.  "On your head."  He pointed at where it would be on his own.  "The one that flashes with the colors.  What is it?"She glanced up out of the corner of her glowing eyes at where the device was, looking contemplative.  Her jaws opened and a gust of radio static and garbled audio came out.  The vents on the sides of her throat opened as well before they, and her jaws, closed again.  Was that how she talked?  Could she even talk?  She could growl, roar, purr, rumble, even yowl.  So could the children.  They were capable of auditory sound, but speech?  Was that weird sound what her species spoke as a language?  He would sooner learn to sew without hands than he might decipher even a word of it."Is it..." he tried again.  Maybe he could prompt her into yes or no questions instead if she could understand him but not the other way around.  "A mind-reader?"She shook her head.  Progress!  Her mane of hair behind her waved elegantly, the fiery stripes and markings continuing to alternate their colors like the ripple of flame on water, momentarily distracting him.  He could have watched that all day, on any part of her body.  Even without her incredible assets, her form was a marvel to watch just for the power, the rippling texture of scale and fur, and especially the way her stripes blazed so brightly against her dark pelt.He tore his attention back to the conversation.  He noticed, to his flushed embarrassment, that she had seemingly noticed him staring at her body again.  This time though, rather than snarling a warning, she actually seemed...flattered was not the word.  Accepting?  They were as different species as possible.  Maybe she thought it was natural for him to be a little star-struck.  She even eyed him a bit too, more so now than she had yesterday.  'Maybe she likes what she sees,' some tiny voice pondered.  He waved it away.  That was a physical impossibility.  There was nothing he could offer a being like her.  Wishful thinking would only end up hurting him in the end, as it would only ever be one-sided."So it can't read minds," he continued.  Her eyes had drifted away from his new, healthy features and he noticed, suddenly, that one of her paws had been twitching at her side.  He put those thoughts out of his mind, hoping he wasn’t boring her.  "But you do seem able to notice when I'm thinking certain things.  Like when I'm...sad or...stuff."  She nodded, in her own, cat-blink of acknowledgment way, her attention once again focused on him.  That was something, making him feel like he had achieved something even in such a small way as holding a conversation with her.  "But not thoughts.  So it’s…emotions?"She blinked again, and he fixated onto that train of thought with delight.  He was happy to be able to figure anything new out about her, and by extension, the cubs.  He had few enough victories in life, so these seemed that much more meaningful."So it senses…uhh..." he patted his temples with a hand, trying to think of the word.  "Right on the tip of my tongue…emotional thought..."'Empathic.'The word leaped into his mind right as his livesuit blipped at his collar and wrist.  He fixated on it.  "Empathic!" he stated excitedly.  "It's an...empathic sensor?  So you can look at me and see my emotions?"  Another idea came to him.  "Like you and the kids' bio-lights!"  He pointed at a series of her stripes, along one of her four arms.  "They tell each other what you're feeling!"She smiled again, actually looking almost as pleased as he was by making the connection.  This caused her stripes to turn to warmer colors: more soft reds, blues, and oranges.  It made him think of a merrily crackling campfire.  Her eyes even twinkled, reminding him ever more of the stars shining outside.He swelled up a bit, feeling proud of himself for figuring it out, even a little, or just one detail at all.  Understanding her even a little more than he did made him feel much better.  He scooted a bit closer to her, eager to know more, but she scooted back, maintaining the distance between them.  Her expression faded somewhat again from its glow, understandably still wary of him.Kenny took the hint, scooting back to where he had been.  Personal space; still important.  He didn't even mind.  "So...can I ask where you're from?" he ventured hopefully.She looked away from him and out the window.  Hard no.  There were some things she actively and quite obviously did not want to talk about.  Her eyes had noticeably darkened when he asked.Again, he understood.  It wasn't that important to know anyway.  Unless that was where they were ultimately heading, he would either find out one day or he wouldn't.  He rubbed at his arm, shivering a bit.  It was still very cold in the hanger bay.  A second later, his suit blipped and he started to feel warmer.  This suit was awesome.He looked down at it, eyes tracing the material as it caught the light.  "You've...done a lot for me," he murmured a moment later.  She didn't look at him but he knew she had given him her attention once again, if more distantly this time.  Her tail thumped the floor in acknowledgement of his words.  Even so, his question seemed to have struck a deep and painful nerve.  Her stripes blazed dimmer now, blue the predominant color as she looked out at the star system outside.  He did too.  The planets looked like they were getting closer to the sun for some reason, and it too had grown increasingly less radiant than it had been.  He looked back at her, and her eyes flickered toward him as well.  "I...know that if you had your way I'd be..." he tried to think of a tactful way of saying 'space trash', and settled on, "Not around."She blinked once, short and slow, then looked back outside.  Her broad upper pair of shoulders shivered from a deep sigh, and her ears actually turned down slightly.  If he didn't know better, she looked...almost regretful.Desperate to set her at ease, he smiled immediately.  "Hey no, I told you, I get it!" he stated brightly, getting her attention once more.  "I mean...I'm used to that feeling.  People not wanting me around."  He kept smiling even as he looked down at his knees.  He clenched them a bit tighter together between his arms.  "It's been that way for a long time.  My family was always poor, and I was always sick.  I didn't have many friends growing up, and the ones I did have I constantly felt like I was a burden to.  I got bullied a lot, beat up, pushed around."  He chuckled.  "I practically lived in my school locker for how often I was shoved into it!"Her face, when he glanced up at it, still grinning, had grown more serious and confused.  She seemed startled that he could speak of such things and seem happy about it.  Or maybe she was surprised to see his obviously deteriorating emotional state but still putting on a different face.  Maybe Humans were rather unique in being able to wear one face while feeling another?  Not like her and the cubs, who wore their emotions literally on their sleeves.  He imagined that her species probably couldn't lie about how they were feeling ever.With one hand, he lifted his curly hair from his forehead, revealing a series of puckered scars, cut into the shape of a crude, half-finished word.  He could still feel them there, so whatever had been done to his body had apparently not healed those.  He glanced at his reflection in the glass.  They did seem dimmer maybe.  Or perhaps they just didn't stick out so much on his actually healthy skin anymore.  He shrugged.  "See these?" he asked, still grinning.  Her reflection blinked down at him.  "A couple of jocks gave me these.  They caught me after class and pinned me down in a bathroom.  They always called me 'Sissy'."Her brow furrowed and her fur seemed to be standing up a bit at the topic of conversation."Because my last name is Sissom," he explained.  "Sissy Sissom?  Also because I was always so skinny and weak compared to them?  Well, anyway, they took this shaving razor, and started to cut it into my head."  He traced the line of the faded S, I, and S, for her with a fingertip of his other hand.  "They thought it would be hilarious."  He laughed, but his voice caught a bit.  Why was he telling her this?  It was morbid as hell.  Then again, maybe it would reinforce his point to her that he understood why she didn't want him around.That was also when he noticed her face had changed again.  He started, voice trailing away right as he was ready to keep narrating the story.  Back then, it hadn't been funny at all, and it wasn't now either, even with his attempt to make it sound so.  The Mother certainly was not amused.  Her eyes had sharpened, glowing blue orbs narrowing into tighter, smaller rings as she traced the rest of the uneven letters on his forehead.  Her lip started to roll up on one side, her fangs showing more and more.Then the growl came.  It made the entire floor shudder and his skin went cold and prickly inside of the suit as his natural instincts kicked in.  The device at the side of her head was flashing rapidly, and her stripes blazed to life once again.  Heatwaves once again distorted the air around her, even if the temperature of the room remained the same.He closed his mouth.  "S-sorry..." he stammered out, quickly letting his hair fall back down over his forehead.  "I didn't mean to make you upset...I'll stop."  Great.  Now he'd made things even more awkward.  He wasn't quite sure why she would care that much about even a memory of his as bad as that one.  Most people looked...sympathetic enough whenever he talked about it, which was seldom if at all, but they also always looked at him as if he couldn't possibly be serious or that at least part of his story was a lie."What did you do to piss those guys off so much?" some had asked, as if blame for it partly sat on him, which maybe was fair.  Not walking by that bathroom on that particular day, maybe he could have avoided them.  "Surely people weren't that cruel", others had said, as if he were making it up, even after he showed them the scars.The memory continued to play itself out in his mind, even after he stopped talking about it.  He saw their pleased faces, heard their mocking laughter as he just lay there, stunned, unable to believe what was happening.  The pain was excruciating.  The cuts were uneven and sloppy, and he remembered trying not to move so that they weren't so deep or ragged.  Even so, it hurt.It was just another random bit of cruelty inflicted upon him, a single highlight in the cavalcade of how spiteful, mean, and sadistic that kids could be to an outcast like him with no friends to stick up for him.  Like when the swim team had thrown him and his school bag into the pool, knowing he couldn't swim.  Or when the track team had made him sprint around the field, warning him that if they caught him, he'd be getting his ass kicked.  They'd caught him.  He remembered the barrel that a couple of students had decided to shove him into then roll down the school hill.  He'd broken his arm at the bottom but lied to his mom about it.  Her storming into the school would only have made it worse.  Zero Tolerance was a joke.He looked out the window again.  His tearful expression looked back at him and he furiously wiped at his eyes.  Damnit.  He sniffed angrily, then tried to pull his hair down over his forehead completely.  The curly locks refused to cooperate.  He hated his hair; it never did a thing he wanted it to.  He pulled on it harder.Something brushed his hand, making him freeze.  A warm, thick, strong something.  His hand was pushed out of the way, as was his hair a second later, exposing the scars once again.  He felt the tip of something gently brushing his forehead, light as a feather.  His gaze snapped forward.The Mother's pawpad barely made contact with his skin, delicately tracing the lines carved into it, but he felt every touch.  She stopped at the last letter.  Her expression took his breath away.  Her jaw was set in a tight line, her eyes crinkled, and her ears folded down.  Something sparkled in the corner of one brilliant, sky-blue orb.  She crooned down at him in distress, retracing the letters again with her thumb, as if trying to wipe them away like a smudge or blemish.Kenny couldn't help it.  That gentle, motherly touch was too much.  He sniffled more, his body tightening up.  He hadn't known, couldn't have known, that there was an expression he would hate to see on her face more than literal hate or disdain for him: pity.  To see her pity him was like having acid dripped on his heart.  He wasn't just pathetic to her as being so inferior a creature; he was now pathetic on every level possible.  He tried to lean away and out of her reach but he hadn’t accounted for her massive reach, allowing her to continue without seemingly needing to move at all.  Her expression nonetheless grew more stern, still rubbing his skin.  He tried to push her hand away."Stop it," he growled weakly.  She refused to let him move her.  "It's fine, really," he insisted.  She started to trace them again.  "Knock it off!" he snapped.  He raised a hand to actually smack her paw away, and while he missed, he felt her finally pull away.  He didn't care that it was a bad idea.  He didn't care if he was pathetic.  He couldn't stand pity.  Not from Austin, nor Aubrey, and especially not her.Then that same paw brushed into and through his hair.  He froze.  The Mother slowly and carefully worked her way into his curly tresses, massaging his scalp, almost petting the soft fuzz atop his head.  Her face was soft and gentle, eyes as kind as he had ever seen.  She looked so much like Phoebe, the Human Phoebe, right now.  She had been the only other person who didn't look at him like everyone else did.  She had smiled at him like that too, combed her fingers through his hair as if those simple touches could make up for so many years of pain and suffering.  Her empathic implant flashed on and off.  Blip.'It hurts,' she seemed to say.Without meaning to, he nodded stiffly, not moving much so she wouldn't stop stroking his head.  It didn't feel condescending or demeaning, as if doing so to a pet or a lesser creature.  It was intimacy, soft, simple, and gentle.  Just like she used to do, finding the triggers, the hidden pains he kept locked away, and coaxing them out so, if only for that moment, he could feel healed.  "Yeah...it did hurt..." he said softly.  He knew what she meant somehow.  "All of it did."She scooted closer.  Another of her six-digited paws lifted, big enough to envelop his head in a single palm, to cup his shoulder and cheek all at once.  The other continued to keep stroking and kneading his scalp through his hair.'Lonely,' came that feeling inside of his head again, almost like a word put there by the way she was looking at him.  Her implant flashed again as the word came and went.  Blip.Again, he nodded.  "I was...still am.  Even with the kids.  I'm all alone.  I've been alone..." his eyes and face crinkled again as a fresh wave of emotion started to build up, like water swelling behind a dam.  "Ever since she..."  He hung his head, sagging into her touch.  Her fingers did not stop massaging and comforting.  Blip.'Loss,' he heard.He bit his bottom lip as, again, memories of Phoebe the Human came rushing back to the surface.  The way she smelled, her laugh.  Her smile, even on the hospital bed.  He hadn't cried then.  She had seemed so upset to see him cry, and she had been going through enough then.  He had saved them all for the first time he stood over her grave, that tiny little headstone.Phoebe Jacqueline Tills.  Born 1990.  Died 2019.  Hers a flame that burned its own way, brightly, to the end.The cold of the rain that day had stuck with him ever since as he stood there, crying his eyes out.  He felt that cold again now, and no livesuit could make it go away.  Even the pleasantness of the Mother's massage had vanished in the weight, the wave of emotion and memory.Warmth suddenly enveloped him, surrounded him.  Soft smells, unlike anything he had ever experienced, filled his nostrils.  It was like summer.  Something heavy was pressing all around him, almost crushing but comforting at the same time.  He couldn't see, even with his eyes open.  Something tickled his face.  It was slightly hard to breathe, and yet he never wanted this feeling to end.  He didn't even know what was going on but he knew he had never felt something so wonderful.  Blip.'I have you,' whispered the voice in his head.  Slowly, the pressure around him lessened and he leaned back from the smothering soft heat that had become his entire concept of reality.  He blinked rapidly in shock.  He refocused his eyes.  He was staring...right at her chest.  It was up close, right in front of him.  His wet cheeks quickly heated, so hot that he wondered how his tears didn't turn to steam.  Her arms were coiled around him, all four of them despite that only two were necessary to completely envelop him.  She released her gentle crusher-hold more and he leaned back even further, still effectively locked in her embrace, but now able to look up and into her face above him.  Her softly glowing eyes stared back down at his shocked expression.  The implant flashed.  Blip.'Alone, no longer.'He realized it then.  It wasn't just a thought or a feeling.  It was her.  Her voice, if voice it could be called.  The words filled his brain, resounding there like echoes in a deep cave.'Never again.'He couldn't believe what he was hearing, feeling, seeing.  His mind raced, unable to process it, to imagine, in all his wildest dreams, of what he was absolutely sure was his wildest dreams playing themselves out as a full auditory hallucination. And yet, even as doubt wormed its way in, her arms squeezed around him again, and he knew.  It was real."I can...I can hear..." he whispered.  She nodded.  "I can hear you!"  He saw her ears flinch from the volume and quieted down immediately, not having meant to shout so suddenly.  "H-how?"  Blip.  He looked down.  His wrist and collar gave off that same sound again.  The same frequency as her implant.  He looked into her face again, marveling.'I, too, have lost.  Have been lost.  Have known…loneliness.'  She explained, then looked away from his eyes, out across the cosmos and swirls of nebulas, of spinning planets and celestial bodies.  She went to a place far out of sight but never of hers.  A place that, like he and his tormentors, she carried with her wherever she went.  No matter how fast she flew, how hard she fought, or how angrily she tried to forget, it was there.  She looked back at him.  'My Mate…is gone.  My Home, is gone."  She looked to the side and he followed her gaze.  The floating forms of the cubs greeted their eyes.  'They are all I have.  I have been…unfair.  Unfair to you.  I have been…scared.’ Their eyes met once again."Scared…of what?”  Her gaze never faltered and he quickly put two and two together.  “Of...me?" he asked, and again she blinked.  "You..."  He looked down, ironically at her chest again, but not really looking at the vast expanse of fur-covered softness right then, even if only a minute ago he had been being smothered by them.  Of course.She was scared, had been scared of him, of losing her children to him, been scared of what he was and how different they were.  He was as Alien to her as she was to him.  To make matters worse, her children had been loyal to him, defended him.  She was alone, just as alone as he had been, almost more so.  His world had not wanted him.  Her world was gone somehow.  Taken away?  Destroyed?  She might very well be the last of her kind for the forlorn despondency shining from her right then, save for the cubs.He looked back up into her eyes and the understanding that passed between them made him feel closer to her than he had ever felt towards any other living being in his entire life.  He didn't even know her name.  Did she even have a name?  She had seemed confused when he had told her the cubs' names, even as silly as they sounded for what they actually were.  They would one day grow as big as she was.  Three giant-sized Alien monsters, all named after characters from an Earth sitcom about friends who spent way too much time in a coffee shop.He flushed and then chuckled.  A second later, her implant flashed.  His livesuit blipped.  The Mother began to rumble against him.  He met her eyes and she smiled down at him.  She was laughing too as if his amusement at that small little detail was so funny that it bridged the species and communication gap for that brief second.As their momentary amusement subsided, he finally sighed ,and as if they had shared a signal to do so, she let go.  He climbed reluctantly back down out of her arms.  He would have happily stayed there forever, but given everything, maybe they just weren't there yet.  Not that he had ever expected they would even get that far.They both looked out the window.  To Kenny's shock and amazement, the planets of the solar system had disappeared somehow.  Then he saw that the star that had been its sun had darkened completely to the core.  A second later, it burst, turning in on itself and exploding like a million atomic bombs going off at once.  Colors he never would have thought possible bloomed into existence where it had been.  Flashes of light accompanied that swirling vortex of impossible flame and power, lingering in his eyes."What happened?" he asked in an awed voice.'Supernova,' replied the mother.  'Star's final stage.  Exploded.  Core unstable.'"And...we're safe here, right?" he asked nervously.  "Don't supernovas eventually turn into black holes?"  He remembered seeing an animated movie about something like that happening.  It had also involved a forgetful robot, a morphing ball of sentient, flying slime, and a British female feline space-captain of a colonial sailing ship.  He was 1 for 3 in that category currently, minus the British accent, but much preferred the strangeness of his reality in many ways.The Mother shook her head.  'Ship is shielded magnetically, and we are far enough away to be safe from the well.'Kenny’s brow furrowed and he glanced again at the slowly expanding sight of a literal tear in the fabric of the universe.  “What’s…the well?” he asked.In response, the Mother opened one paw wide, somehow simulating the black hole’s radius.  Another of her four six-fingered furry hands hovered above it at a distance, one digit extended; obviously that meant their ship.  A third paw drifted closer to the ‘black hole’, drawing closer and closer to the others palm before being ‘sucked in’.  She raised an eyebrow slightly as if to query if he understood the visual.It clicked easily enough.  “Oh…you mean the Event Horizon!” he exclaimed eagerly.  She blinked and he again turned his attention to the view outside.  If she was unconcerned and just continued to watch the amazing spectacle, he might as well do the same, and settle in to ‘enjoy’ the view.  He was probably the only Human, ever, to see such a scientific marvel up close and personally.  It was breathtaking; no words could accurately describe it.The silence stretched on and he eventually looked up from the surging flares of celestial flame and cosmic explosions, similar to the universe's version of a fireworks display just infinitely more amazing and deadly.  As amazing as it was, something else was nagging at him, and, with the admittedly romantic light show going on outside the pressurized hull, if he didn't ask now, he never would.  He even didn't try and beat himself up for describing it as romantic."Can I ask just...one more question?" he voiced hesitantly.She glanced at him again then blinked.  It was long, slow, and warm.  She returned to watching the collapsing star implode in on itself."What is your name?"She blinked again, this time seeming surprised.  She looked back down at him over her shoulder.  Her head cocked to the side slightly, her ears twitching.  Her expression spoke volumes."Your...species don't have names?" he asked.  She snorted.  "How do you tell each other apart then?  Names on Earth give you your identity, make you stand out.  Even two people who have the same name are completely different."To answer, she flexed one of her burly arms.  The stripes upon it shifted and danced before his eyes, blazing with beautiful hues and shades.  'Color,' she messaged him.  'Smell.  Movement.  Thoughts.'He chuckled.  "Those are...really good reasons, for your kind," he retorted, actually feeling confident to joke with her.  "But I need something to call you, other than mentally addressing you as 'the Mother' over and over.  Mother is what you are to the cubs, not to me.  It would be weird for me to call you that."She fixed him with one glowing eye curiously.  'Why?'His face flushed and he looked away from her.  "Umm n-no reason," he responded, then hurriedly resumed talking, as he could tell she was already attempting to emphatically read his surface emotions and thoughts.  "W-would it be okay if I gave you a name?  Just for me to call you by?  You can veto any that you don't like."She pondered the idea then after a long pause, blinked.  His heart soared and she actually smiled to see how excited he became, even if she still looked hesitant, even confused and dismissive of having to be addressed by a simple label.  He took the win regardless.He thought deeply.  "What about...Rachel?" he asked at first, then shook his head even before she had sniffed in distaste.  "No, definitely not.  You're nothing like a Rachel.  Not quite a Monica either.  You're no Lily, or a Robin.  You don't feel like a Penny either, or an Amy, or a Bernadette."  He completely dismissed the concept of using a sitcom to aid in giving her a fitting name.  She needed something unique, something entirely her own.  Something that was like a symbol of how amazing she was.  How nerdy a fanboy could he get...?He looked out the window.  Star?  No.  Nebula?  No, and he didn't really like the comic book character that had the same name.  Venus?  He sighed.  This was really hard.  He looked over at her again, feeling defeated.  Then he saw it.  His eyes fastened on the blazing stripes on her fur, burning like fire, colors as bright as living flame and shifting even as he watched them.Kenny looked slowly out the window, back at the collapsing star in all its infinite cosmic beauty.   It was a force of nature, the beginning, and end, of something beyond Humanity's wildest dreams of being able to understand.  It symbolized the vast universe around them, within which they were but a tiny speck.  It was terrifying, mysterious, powerful, and the most beautiful thing he had ever seen."Nova," he breathed.  Her body stiffened and she turned slowly to face him, glowing eyes locked onto his face.  "Your name is Nova."She blinked, looked away from him.  Her furry lips quivered and parted.  They mouthed the word, and even though he once again only heard the garbled static, he knew that he could make out, just barely, her repeat the name out loud.  Her implant flashed brightly.Nova's muzzle stretched in a wide smile.  'Nova,' she repeated, this time within his head.  Her eyes fixed onto his once more.  'Kenny.'His face burned bright and warm but he just stared up into that beautiful, mysterious, dangerous, and wondrous face, into those eyes that were like beacons."Nova," he said again.  It was a good name.  It was her name.