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It's a beautiful ship, really. Years of training has taught you much about the classes of space faring vessels to which you might be assigned, enough that you can tell quality on sight. You watch it loom closer through the shuttle window and swallow your nerves. Tomorrow it will be more than a ship.
The captain greets you in the airlock, no small honor given your rank and hers. There's a sort of ceremony and tradition to it all that strikes you as a little funny considering your species' technological achievements. Here you are, shaking her hand to ward off bad luck because you want things to go smoothly, too. It's only right that the new helm be greeted warmly since all of the lives aboard will be in your control soon.
They serve your last meal with more ceremony than nourishment. The captain sets the plate down before you and the low buzz of chatter in the galley falls to a hush. Everyone can feel the fear radiating off you but nobody is fool enough to offer insult. Eyes too numerous to count watch you in a tense silence as you stare down your meal: the raw heart of the helmsman who sat this post before you.
Your palms strike the table hard enough to rattle cutlery along its length and you stand, shoving your chair back. With a wet sound you crush the organ in your fingers and bring it to your mouth. It's room temperature and bitter on your tongue, blood running down your chin. You rip it apart with your teeth like an animal and the crew cheers. When you sit back down, blood on your dress uniform, several crewmen thump you on the back and you smile weakly at the murmurs of praise that meet your ears.
A tour by the second officer himself gives you as good an idea of the ship as anyone can get in a few hours on foot. You don't really need it; by this time tomorrow you will know the ship better than its designers, better than the body you've spent all your life in. The walk is mostly part of the ceremony, a last rite of sorts and a way to tire a body conditioned for frailty so you'll sleep later. You walk with your hands clasped behind your back to hide their shaking and smile at the crew who acknowledge your passing.
The rig is still being sterilized when you step onto the bridge. It makes every part of you run cold to look at it. This is it, the thing you were born to be molded into. When you approach, the technicians and bridge crew go quiet. You run your fingers over cables that seem to pulse in time with your blood already. They feel as lukewarm and rubbery as the heart you crushed in your fingers. Nobody mocks you for the shivers in your hands or the tears coursing down your cheeks. A few salute you as you exit the bridge with your back straight.
Medic is warm and friendly, smiling when you walk into her abode. As the ship clocks count down to zero hour she helps you out of your ceremonial crewman's garb and into a patient's smock. The gurney is surprisingly comfortable and she apologizes for not being able to give you anything more than water to help you sleep. You flex fingers and toes while counting the star patterns painted on the ceiling. Once in awhile you sit up and hug your knees to your chest. Sometime during the night Medic wraps her arms around your shoulders and croons into your hair while you sob.
When you crack open salt-crusted eyes, the technicians are speaking softly to Medic. She turns and injects a combined sedative/paralytic into your arm and helps you lie back while a tech slides the gurney straps over your chest and thighs. Sensations begin to blur and you feel as if you're floating, corridor lights flashing by overhead. The ship is quiet while you pass, voices hushed as if to respect the dead. You're thankful for the drugs.
Consciousness is required for the procedure, as is full body sensory input. You watch as the rig is prepped, connection points calibrated to fit your body. The clock ticking in your psyche groans to a stop and Medic pats your shoulder a final, reassuring time.
You don't want to watch as the surgical laser comes down toward your kneecap but your eyes are drawn to its color. Your scream comes out as a muffled groan and Medic gently wipes the tears from your face. When a technician cuts your arm at the shoulder it smells like burning meat and makes you glad most of your nutrient intake will be intravenous after this. As it is, the only thing which keeps you from vomiting is the lack of substance in your guts and the paralytic which allows you just enough physical leverage to breathe. Last night’s water dribbles from the corner of your slack mouth.
Severed limbs are set aside as technicians begin the delicate process of attaching you to the rig. Jolts of pain light up your bleeding stumps as each wire is connected to a nerve, a vein, a shred of muscle. It's a mercy in its way; with the pain taking up all of your mental resources you can't dwell on what they've done to you. Consciousness becomes a wavering thing, clicking off with one stab of anguish only to flicker back in the middle of another. Thankfully the team is efficient. You're trailing wires in place of limbs within the hour and they are placing the first layer of disinfectant casing over the connection points as you swim through fogged awareness.
When the basics are done, four technicians lift you carefully off the gurney. This time you do scream. When awareness trickles back, you're being set up in the rig proper. Cables and wires more numerous than you can count are being attached for support, for interface, for nutrient delivery. You're too fogged with pain to feel anything when the catheter goes in. Medic wipes sweat and blood off your exposed skin, leaving a cool, antiseptic trail behind the disposable cloths.
They leave you alone to settle for a time. There are pinpricks and large circular gouges of fire down your spine, in your phantom limbs, everywhere the rig has been connected to your flesh. A bubble of light gravity has been localized around you and the rig but it still feels like there is weight and too much pressure at every connection point. Through half lidded eyes you watch a technician carry your severed limbs away in packed ice. You know he'll come back with them in about an hour, liquefied and mixed into the nutrient solution synthesized from a blood sample you gave weeks ago. When you were a trainee the fact of this made you ill; now you're glad you get to keep your severed limbs, at least in some fashion.
It takes six hours for the sedative/paralytic to wear off and the nutrient solution to be fully integrated into your new system. You feel miserable, sick and aching while you drift in low G. The bridge crew begins to filter back in and out on their rounds now that you are mostly installed. This is the part you've dreaded most: waiting to be sure your mangled body can handle the inputs and remains free of infection.
The next week alternately drags and skitters through time. You become feverish twelve hours after the procedure, which is normal. In a haze of delirium you watch the crew wince when they look at you. If Medic is not on hand herself, two or three nurses are at your side, and there is always at least one technician monitoring your progress.
By the seventh day the pain is easing. Despite a total lack of food or water delivered orally, you don't feel dehydrated or hungry. The nutrient solution is doing its work, coursing through your body, then the designated parts of the rig, and back into you with every heartbeat. Though you haven’t bathed in a week you feel clean, another function of the machine that is most of you. As more awareness lights your neurons, you hear bits of conversation between Medic, the head technician, and the captain: it's time.
A shipwide announcement is made and the lights dim to amber for caution. You smile at Medic while the technicians prep the final connections. They give you no warning.
Pain stabs into the back of your skull, a star burst behind your eyes. Far away, the ship quivers while you scream and you have a vague sense of tension in the bodies around you...in you...before everything opens up inside your mind.
There's a tiny pinprick of pain at your core, the place you understand to be the bridge and your body in its rig. It is inconsequential when measured against the mass that is you now. Instinctively you draw a deep breath and the ready lights all along your hull flicker on, shining brightly. You can see the stars and touch the coldness of space in a thousand ways no amount of training ever prepared you for. Thousands of people are a part of you along with an infinity of sensors, wires, bolts....you are composed of so many pieces yet whole and it's the most wonderful feeling!
Someone is tapping in a command sequence, a request to bring your focus back. With some reluctance you pull your awareness toward the body in the rig, but you will never be without contact of your ship, your full self, ever again.
Medic is wiping tears off your cheeks. “How is it?”
“I'm beautiful,” you rasp through a half-closed throat.
The bridge crew is hurrying around you, filled with an energy you haven't seen in them before. You can feel fingers touch screens and hear a hundred giddy conversations. They like you. They're glad to have their ship back. It makes you feel warm all over and your biological face is smiling and still weeping with joy. You'll have several more weeks to become fully integrated with the ship, with yourself, before you leave port.
For now, the captain says the words you've trained most of your life in anticipation to hear: “All systems check. Welcome aboard, Helmsman.”