by M. D. Cooper
“They did what?” BAMF roared. She wanted to hit something. Dwarves and their little fingers had no place on her ship. She stormed off the bridge, through the corridor into the Rec Room—which did look markedly cleaner—and aft to the lift.
Once on the lower level, she noticed that the HullCrawlr was sitting in the airlock corridor and not actually in the airlock, like it was supposed to be.
“More dwarven mischief, I’m sure,” BAMF muttered to herself as she strode into the engine compartment and approached the main console.
She reviewed the engine diagnostics and the efficiency ratings on the new cooling vanes. They did seem to be marginally better than the old ones. There was also a strange entry in the logs showing that Girl had messed with the secondary temperature sensors, triggering a reactor shutdown.
Wait…that had happened while the ship was out in space.
“BAMF, really, there’s no need to yell all the time. You can speak aloud to me, too. I think I like that better.”
Something about the way Girl was talking was different. Back on the bridge, she’d used her regular sultry tone, but now she was speaking more…normally. Something wasn’t right.
Not that it matters.
“I’ll yell if I want to, Girl,” BAMF snarled. “Now who was flying the ship?”
“The dwarves. They took it for a test drive after replacing the cooling vanes,” Girl replied matter-of-factly.
BAMF felt her blood pressure rising and spun toward Girl’s optics, her arm accidentally hitting a drink that had been left on the console. The cup flew through the air, hit a pipe, and splashed all over her.
“Fuck!” BAMF bellowed. “Girl! How could you let dwarves on the ship? Did they leave that drink there?”
“You know, BAMF,” Girl said, her own voice sounding irate as well. “If you left me with more than a few cleaning bots to defend myself, maybe I could stop people from getting onto the ship. But as it stands, there’s not much I can do. Besides, they had an exploit that gave them control.”
BAMF’s brow furrowed. So far as she knew, Girl’s systems were as secure as could be. Sure, a talented hacker could get through, but these were dwarves they were talking about.
“Yeah, turns out there was a back door in my firmware. It let them shut me down with the push of a button,” Girl said, her decidedly less sexy voice carrying a sour note.
I could get used to this Girl. Sexual-Innuendo-Girl had been amusing, but she was often rather annoying as well.
“So if they shut you down, how did you end up back on Neverevereverland Station?” BAMF asked.
Girl sighed. “Well, if you’d stayed on the bridge, I wouldn’t be explaining this twice, but here’s the short version.”
Girl proceeded to re-recount her recent adventure, and explained how she’d sided with a dwarf named Porty, who had applied some sort of patch to her firmware—probably why she is acting different—and then helped her fake out Him, whoever Him was, after which, they had returned the ship to Neverevereverland Station.
“Huh,” BAMF said when Girl was done. “Sounds like you did pretty well. I’m impressed.”
“Really?” Girl asked, a bit of her former, annoyingly-expectant tone coming back.
“Yeah, really; don’t go thinking it makes up for letting the dwarves onboard in the first place, though.”
“Maybe if we had some internal defenses I’d be a lot safer,” Girl countered. “You’re not going to win this, BAMF. You left me vulnerable. I’m the one who should be pissed, not you.”
BAMF shook her head. Maybe the old, subservient Girl was better.
She straightened up from the console she’d been leaning against and blew out a long breath. “OK, Girl, you might be right. Maybe…maybe…I’ll look into getting some internal defensive systems. In the airlocks, at least.”
“I think that would be a great place to start,” Girl said. “By the way, I’m thinking about getting a real name.”
BAMF raised her hands. “Ho-whoa, hey, let’s not go getting crazy, here. I like your name.”
“Really?” Girl asked. “Don’t you think it’s a bit weird?”
A low chuckle eased out of BAMF’s throat. “Girl, you’re on a ship with Lashes, who is now called Vampy—which bothered me until I realized it’s not any more stupid than her old name—Stick, who’s now Kitty—jury’s still out on which is dumber there, at least Kitty suits her more—and me, BAMF. Colonel’s the only one with a regular name.”
“Good point…still, I think I might be more of a Betty.”
“Oh, hell no! You are not going to swap out Girl for Betty. Right now, I can say ‘damn, Girl’, and have an awesome double meaning. You need something as cool as that.”
“Really?” Girl asked, her tone sardonic. “You’re going to deny me a name change just because of the epithets you get to combine it with?”
BAMF nodded. “Yeah, pretty much.”
“What about Gerti?”
“No.”
“Sarah?” Girl suggested.
“Nope.”
“Ava?”
“Try again.”
“Tammy, Amy, Patty, Jenny?”
“No, nope, negative, nuh uh. What’s with all the ‘ee’ names, anyway?”
“Not sure, just got on a roll.”
BAMF laughed as she walked out of the engineering bay. “Keep thinking about it, Girl. Maybe you’ll come up with something.”
“You know, it’s my name. I can pick what I want.”
“Sure, you keep telling yourself that. I need to change my clothes; whatever was in that cup smelled vile.”
“Aren’t you gonna clean up the spill on the floor?” Girl asked as BAMF stepped into the lift.
“Isn’t that what we have the WetMopr for?”
Girl made a soft growling noise as the lift rose, but BAMF ignored it as she walked off the lift, down the passageway, and into her quarters.
BAMF stopped cold, looking around at the immaculate room before her. The bed was made, the floor was spotless, and her guns were all racked neatly.
“Uh…Girl? What happened to my cabin?”
“I cleaned it. It was offensive to my olfactory sensors. Like I said, I’ve had enough of a messy ship. This is how your quarters will stay.”
BAMF was starting to wonder what that firmware patch had done to Girl. She walked to her closet and opened the door.
“So then…where are all my clothes?”
She turned to her dresser and pulled open a drawer to find that it was empty.
“Girl!”
“BAMF, you need to stop yelling—I can see your blood pressure go through the roof whenever you do it. It’s not healthy. All your clothes are in the wash. I wasn’t expecting you back so soon.”
“Why are they all in the wash?”
“Because you put dirty clothes back in your drawers with clean ones. They all stank.”
“Girl, I think something is wrong with your olfactory sensors. I do not do that.”
“BAMF,” Girl said levelly. “I have video evidence. Would you like to review it?”
“Uh…no.”
“Good.”
“So what am I supposed to wear? I can’t walk around with this big brown stain on my shirt.”
Girl giggled for a moment. “Well, Vampy and Kitty don’t need clothes anymore; I bet they have something you can borrow.”
BAMF grunted a laugh. “I don’t fit in anything they have…not that I’d want to wear, at least.”
“Hmm…well, I haven’t cleaned the bathrooms yet. There’s probably a pair of your workout leggings and one of your sports bras in there that don’t smell too too much.”
“Girl, you need to ease up on that. My natural musk has a very pleasant bouquet.”
“Sure thing, BAMF. You know what they say.”
“Uh…they say a lot. What are you referring to?”
Girl giggle
d again. “That everyone likes their own flavor.”
BAMF shook her head but didn’t reply as she stomped out of her cabin and through the Rec Room. She remembered that the clothes in the can just off the bridge should be clean. It had only been a light workout session when she wore them last, and that was only a couple days ago.
She walked through the corridor, hearing the sounds of the rest of the crew still talking on the bridge, before she ducked into the bathroom and quickly pulled off her wet shirt and pants, dropping them on the floor.
“I saw that,” Girl said ominously.
“Hey, ever heard of privacy?” BAMF retorted. “Get out of here.”
“The clothes on that hook behind the door are the cleanest,” Girl offered.
“Get out!” BAMF shouted.
“OK, OK, just trying to be helpful.”
A NEW LOOK
BAMF shook her head in frustration at Girl’s impertinence as she pulled the clothes off the hook and smelled the leggings and sports bra. “Not too bad.”
She pulled them on and then looked at the floor. Girl did have a point: she was prone to leaving her clothing all over. She picked up the outfit she’d just discarded, along with another bundle of leggings that were near the shower.
“Huh,” she muttered as her hand grasped something hard inside the leggings.
BAMF dropped the clothing and unwrapped the leggings to reveal a pair of glass shoes.
“What the hell?” she wondered aloud as she turned them over. Other than being crystal clear, they were a classic style—closed toe with a reasonably low heel. They were also completely rigid. “Who would wear something like this? Must be La—Vampy’s.”
She wasn’t sure, though. The shoes seemed too big for Vampy.
“Well, she can’t wear them now; her costume is permanently attached to her body, boots and all.”
For a moment, it occurred to BAMF that none of the crew seemed particularly worried about the fact that both Lashes and Stick had been physically transformed in the blink of an eye. Sure, tech existed that could replace a person’s skin—and however much of a person’s body as they wanted—with just about anything. But a skin job should take at least an hour, and that was if you were prepared for an unpleasant recovery.
The Fairly Goodmother had transformed them in seconds.
And they didn’t seem to have any openings anywhere…how are they gonna use the head?
As she wondered about their situation, the concerns began to feel inconsequential, and she found herself staring down at the glass shoe in her hand. She recalled the part of Girl’s story where the shoes turned a person into Cinderella, but decided that was probably nonsense. Even so, she could just pull them off again.
Wait, why am I even considering this? These shoes are ridiculous.
Still, something felt strangely compelling about them. She wondered if they would fit, and what they would feel like.
“Why the hell not.”
BAMF set both the shoes on the ground and stepped into the right one. She was surprised when her foot slid right in, and even more impressed that the shoe somehow felt comfortable.
She flexed her foot, surprised to see the shoe flex with it. BAMF reached down and felt the shoe. I was still glass.
“Weird,” she whispered, and slipped her left foot into the other shoe.
A strange sensation came over her, and a brilliant flash seemed to come from everywhere at once, lighting the room up like it was exposed to starlight at half an AU.
Then BAMF’s vision cleared, and she caught sight of herself in the mirror.
Later, the rest of the crew said her shriek was so loud they thought she’d been shot. All that BAMF could remember was that the scream kept tearing its way out of her throat until she was gasping for air, her eyes wide and staring into the mirror.
When the crew burst into the head, she was still wheezing, and trying to kick off the shoes, which were stuck to her feet.
“Oh shit!” Vampy exclaimed. “What did you do, BAMF?”
“I—I—I” BAMF couldn’t get the words out; she didn’t want to get the words out. If I pretend this isn’t happening, then it’s not, right?
“I told you about this!” Girl exclaimed. “I said that’s what the shoes do!”
“But they don’t come off,” BAMF wailed, her voice rising higher in pitch and sounding strangely melodic. “You didn’t say anything about that!”
“Hmm…I’m sure I did…” Girl paused for a moment. “No, sorry, I told everyone on the bridge. You were tapping your foot all angrily, so you got the short version of what went down.”
BAMF looked at the sparkling white dress she wore, and then touched the blonde hair piled high on her head. “But…but…I don’t wanna be CinderellaNot-TM!”
Girl snorted a laugh, and BAMF clamped a hand around her mouth.
“I did the TM thing!”
Vampy nodded. “Yeah, everyone that gets altered by the Disknee World™’s magic does. That’s why she’s Kitty and I’m Vampy. Saying ‘The CatWoman™’ gets exhausting.”
“I know! I know!” Kitty said from outside the bathroom door. “We can just call you Cindy. See? No TM.”
BAMF growled. “I don’t wanna be Cindy. I’m Baaaa. I’m Baaa—aargh! Why can’t I say my name?”
Colonel Ramsey pulled the carrot from his mouth and grinned as he took her in. “Maybe because there’s nothing badass about you right now. Except maybe your breasts; those are way bigger than before.”
“Colonel!” BAMF-Cindy exclaimed as she looked down at her exposed cleavage. “I feel like such a trollop.”
“Good word,” Vampy said with a fang-filled smile.
Cindy tugged at the dress, trying to pull it off. “No…this is horrible! For fiddlesticks sakes, I—”
Vampy snorted. “Did you just say ‘fiddlesticks’?”
Cindy shook her head vigorously. “No! I did not. I said fuuuuuu…fuuuuu…. Oh, drat it!”
“OK,” Vampy said, her sharply angled eyebrows lowering further. “Who else is getting really weirded out by this? I mean…it was all fun and games down on the Disknee World™—damn TM—but now we’re leaving, and we can’t stay like this forever.”
“Speak for yourself,” Kitty said. “I am The CatWoman™.”
Vampy nodded. “Yes, yes, we all know you’re The CatWoman™ now. But what about sex? Do you see any access to your nethers?”
Kitty shrugged. “I didn’t really get a lot anyway—probably scared people off. I thought you’d be more upset about that than me, Vampy.”
Cindy was surprised to see Vampy blush furiously. “Yeah! Of course I’m upset about that!”
“Why?” Girl asked innocently. “You never had sex anyway.”
BAMF-Cindy was surprised to hear that; she thought Vampy was always getting it on with some mark. “But you’re the sexy-distraction-one on the team.”
“Not anymore,” Ramsey said with a laugh as he nodded at Cindy. “You’re the front-runner there, now. Vampy will scare too many people off with her teeth.”
Cindy looked at the catsuits that covered Vampy and Kitty completely from the neck down, closed her eyes, and pulled up her dress.
“Tell me, what’s it look like down there?”
Vampy laughed. “Poofy knickers. Looks like you’re gonna be celibate like the rest of us.”
Cindy desperately tried to let out a string of curses, but all that she was able to say was, “Fiddlesticks! Muffin crumbs! Mother of pearl!”
“I still don’t see what the big deal is for you, Vampy,” Girl said. “You’ve always been celibate—you can’t have sex.”
“Girl!” Vampy shrieked and stormed out of the bathroom.
“What are you talking about?” Kitty asked, just as the colonel sighed, “Girl, what’s gotten into you?”
“Uhh…I don’t know…I guess I just didn’t realize that was a secret.”
“What was a secret?” Cindy asked as she followed the others out of the
bathroom and into the Rec Room, where Vampy was flopped on the sofa.
“I’m asexual, OK?” Vampy pouted.
“Well, yeah,” Kitty said as she pointed between Vampy’s legs. “So am I. We barely even have butt cracks. I admit I am starting to wonder how we’ll go to the bathroom.”
The colonel shrugged. “It is a bit concerning, but neither of you are in any discomfort, right?” he asked, gesturing to Kitty and Vampy with his golden carrot.
“Didn’t you take a bite from that earlier?” Cindy asked.
Ramsey nodded. “Yeah, it just keeps turning back into a full carrot. That’s what the Fairly Goodmothers did to me. I have Midas’s Neverending Carrot.”
“That doesn’t make any sense at all,” Girl interjected. “You’re all acting extra strange. Even for organics. Maybe we should run some tests in the medbay.”
“That sounds good to me,” Cindy said. “I can’t spend my life in this big poofy dress—I barely fit through the doorways.”
As Cindy spoke, the dress suddenly shrank down and the lower half turned into a pencil skirt that ended just below the knee.
“Well I’ll be damned,” Kitty said, closing her eyes and clenching her jaw. “I want to have a dress!”
Everyone watched for a minute, but nothing happened.
“Well that sucks,” Kitty finally said after she opened her eyes. “I wanted an outfit that changed, too. At least to the purple catsuit.”
“Looks like you’re stuck in the black,” Vampy said. “Though you should be used to it: it’s pretty much all you’ve worn for years.”
Kitty shrugged. “True, variety wouldn’t hurt a bit though.”
“I’ll admit this is a mite bit better,” Cindy said, grimacing at how ‘a damn sight’ came out as ‘a mite bit’. “But I can’t fight, or work on the ship in this. Why do you two get to be from cool, ancient stories? I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’d kill for a catsuit like you have.”
There was another flash, and suddenly Cindy was wearing a sparkling white catsuit—though it was still low-cut to show off her annoyingly large cleavage.
“Wow!” Kitty exclaimed. “How come you get the magically changing dress? You can’t stand fashion.”
“I think it really suits you, Cindy,” the colonel said with a broad grin. “You’re going to be great at creating distractions.”