Ep 6 - The Girl Who Shouted ‘Yes!’ at the Heart of Her Ship

Wherever you are in the world, I hope you're having a wonderful week.

This is our sixth story of Season 1.

“If you believe in supporting great stories and the authors who write them, subscribe to”

this podcast and share it with your friends. You can also support us on Patreon and get early access to all episodes and more. Our story today is the girl who shouted yes at the heart of her ship by River S. River is a YouTuber and writer, far to obsessed with giant machines and the fragile people who pilot them.

Their analysis on the Mechajanar can be found on their YouTube channel, Pyramid Inu. Currently they are working on a novel that combines their love of Mechagankst, Real Politics and Weird Fiction. And now, let's live this story together. It's a big one today, Dr. Nebuchave says with a wince, "You up for it?"

Dr. Nebuchave is new. She's in her early 20s, a long, limb-dabony woman who's expression is locked in a sympathetic frown. She still feels bad about all the things she has to do to me. If she knew me better, she'd know not to feel bad.

Lay it on me doc, I say with a grin.

“It's her I need to put it ease, not myself.”

I stretch out an arm across the table. Is it a limb you need? She shakes her head. This is serious.

For a second, my stomach drops.

It's not the teeth. Is it? That's the one thing that makes me anxious. Her face goes very white. She raises a palm to her mouth.

"Oh no, not at all," she says. And it's clear that this is a doctor-patient dynamic. She has no idea how to navigate. It's just, she trails off and says, "Just your limbs. All of them.

I sense it's not done.

“I wave my hand in a comhither motion saying, and she nods.”

And no anesthetic, pain free, not on the menu.

She shakes her head. I sigh. It's not a real sigh. It's a foxy little affectation, like everything else in this conversation. Must be a tough battle out there, huh?

She nods. The biggest grand die they've ever seen. Well, I say, lying back on the steel table. Do what you gotta do. She thinks me for my service as she is legally obliged to do.

To Federation of Human Planets, recognize as your bravery. Then she walks away for a moment out of sight. I put my arms in the steel tables, straps. When she returns, she fassens each one. That's not too tight, is it?

She asks, and the gentility of it almost makes me laugh. She retrieves the long clear vile, the thing that will collect my pain and fear and stabs it into my chest. I cough, and I wheeze, the pain is strange, crunchy. Not a pleasant feeling, but I knew what I was signing up for, being a ship heart girl.

Then I hear the word of the exoblade. The light from it is red and neon. The room now stinks of cotterized flesh and burnt bone. After Nebuchahve removes each limb delicately and with precision, like she's using tweezers to pluck out an in-row and hair.

Afterward, I'm just a body, and a head. Nebuchahve comments that it's a good thing that I'm so small as she picks me up and cradles me in her arms. A nice feeling, though it lasts only a few seconds before I'm placed in the exoblade. The place where they preserve me in amber.

The world looks strange from inside that translucent tank of orange fluid. Nebuchahve all stretched and distorted. She bends towards me, tells me she hopes that was okay, and don't worry about the battle. We will prevail. But by that point, I'm already being lulled to sleep.

The sounds of the womb tank are very nice, soft and aquatic, and it seems to magnify the beating of my heart, that slow, rhythmic pulse. I drift off to dreams of battle. Monstrous, grand-eye, with gnashing teeth and too many eyes bursting from dead planets like insects emerging from their pupa.

The clean, straight lines of F-H-P ships coming to meet them, our ship, the beautiful hectic, firing its weapons. Plasma making contact with hissing flesh, and eventually, as my consciousness fades, I see the most beautiful thing of all pure, shining victory.

Our ship was vital in the victory, it even had to use its gravity well canon.

“The next day, my limbs feel bendy and soft and far too new.”

Nebuchahve suggests I play some sports to help break them in. Hectic is hosting visitors from some of the other ships involved in the battle, and some other ship-heart girls will be on deck. Do you know the names I ask, raising a eyebrow? Not all ship-heart girls are made equal, after all.

Oh, she says, tapping her pen against her clipboard, looking lost and thought. What were they? Samantha? Never met her. Alice?

Nope. One of them had a funny name, the kind you get on industrial habitats. Jack's? I think? My whole brain lights up.

“I'm pretty sure my features explode into a smile.”

Jack's? You sure? She looks puzzled. I think so. I leap from my chair, my new legs launching me toward the door.

All right, see you tomorrow, Doc. I run through the dark quarters of the ships up her shell.

I enjoy, as always, the way the military men with their hard features and serious

stares are forced to salute as I pass. I jog and giggle, occasionally reaching my hand out for a high five, sadly never returned. Eventually, I reached the dignitary suite where I'd been told they would be. Inside, three girls around my age sit on the red velvet city, sipping tea and dipping biscuits. Behind them in their white lab coats stand their respective doctors, two men and a woman,

all locked in conversation, talking shop, I suppose. They look at me briefly, nod, then go back to being boars, discussing the newest article

“in Journal of Ship Heart Management, I imagine.”

The three girls also look toward me, jacks with her short red hair and her beautiful, yet gremlin-like smile notices me. She squeals. "Why didn't you tell me you were here?" I asked after we finished our hug.

"I was about to," she says, "but you know, my brain is hazy during limery growth. I nod. I ask her to introduce me to these fine ship-heart girls." She smiles and says, "Of course." Soon, we're discussing how it went.

Jacks takes out her data pad, begins showing us footage of last night's battle. A horrible creature of twisting limbs and grasping hands and darting eyes reaches out toward a dread not. A laser cuts out from the ship's hide, turning the grand die into a mess of pus. "My handywork," says Samantha proudly, "a pleasant girl with long braids and smooth dark

skin. Impressive stuff," I say. "That's a linear canon, right? They had to take a few fingers, and toes," she says, "but come on, it's nothing compared to what you do."

I scratch the back of my head and laugh. Jacks seems to use that as her excuse to segue onto my work. She taps the data pad and there's the ship or in, the beautiful blue and silver heckety. Scores of nebulously shaped grand die are moving toward it, but it's cutting them apart with its plasma cannons.

And ahead, stretching amid the void of space, a creature so massive it's not picked up entirely by the camera. A lizard like being with massive clawed hands and teeth where they shouldn't be, and in its stomach that twisting blackness from which the smaller grand die are produced. "A pretty mean queen class they're dealing with," Ha, says Jacks, "the tip of our ship,

heckety burns bright blue, a beam of light emanates from it starting thin but growing wide, all the smaller grand die around it burst into nothing." Everyone's looking now, Jacks, smiling, cement the eyes wide and the other girl, Alice. She has straight black hair, so long she seems to be able to hide behind it, and narrow somewhat feline features.

She stares at the screen and then at her hands. The beam of light, the one born from my pain, makes contact with the queen class grand die.

It pierces through its gargantuan stomach, a limb falls and turns into nothing, a powerful

hit but the beast seems to still be alive. "Wait, I say, that didn't finish it?" Nah, Jacks says tapping the data pad, almost but, and she gestures Alice, the girl hiding behind her long black hair. She had to finish it off, another section of footage, a new ship, this one long and grey

like a blade, a black orb seems to emanate from its tip and to sharp hissing beam fires several times, each one delicately moves through the queen class grand die, setting off a chain reaction

Holy, I say trailing off, my stomach drops, I look at Alice, we all do this shy little girl

who last night unleashed the federation's most powerful weapon that must have been a lot

of pain, Alice nods. She moves some long black strands of hair from her face and smiles. "Yeah," she says, "voiced small like someone who finds it mortifying to be noticed. It's then I notice, the gaps in her smile, all those missing teeth." Regroth is a skill, a talent which takes years to perfect, "Oh, now I can reform a limb

like it's nothing." The doctors inject the hormones and there it is, growing from fetal thing to bone, perfect, all in just 20 minutes, but it didn't used to be that way. It used to be a whole day of heaving, agonizing pain, like giving birth to your own body. Back then, I was pretty sure I would just be a temporary ship heart girl.

“Why go through all that misery for your whole life?”

But then, Regroth became a fine thing, and I realized, why else would I rather be? Teeth though, teeth are hard to regrow.

They always take a while, and it's always painful.

Is that why Alice's teeth still hadn't come in? Was it inherent in the process or was she just new to it? One day, during a lull in the fighting when the grand die were weak and shy, a group of university students came to visit us. I assumed it would be a bunch of eggheads, bio-carvers and stuff, but actually the one's

most interested in me were the estheticists. A bunch of them came to inspect me, down at the heart of the ship where I sleep. A boy with bushy eyebrows and blonde hair looks at his data pad, then it me. I can't see the screen, but I know what he's doing. I can sense it from the way he glances at it.

He's comparing. How I look now to how I looked before. Is this standard? He asks, "This level of deviation?"

I open my mouth to speak, but Dr. Nebrikov gets their first.

No, not at all. Most ship-hark girls treat the regrowth period as, "Well, just that. Regrowth." It's quite unusual for one to treat the process as a way to alter their body, as a way to become something new.

But then, and she grasps me by the shoulders, gives a very wide smile. She's very unique. She says it all in a clear, precise way. This is information from our files. She knows it in the way when knows a Wikipedia article.

Why don't more girls do it?

“Ask a young woman with lots of metal in her face and long dark hair?”

It seems like a fairly consistent desire to want to change yourself. Dr. Nebrikov nods. Yes, but alterations have complications. But on this ship, of course, hectic is a finely-managed thing. Its primary goal is to keep its ship-hark girl intact, but outside, in the real world,

out there alterations can lead to medical complications. Reduce lifespan is common. The real world? I hold back a giggle at the term. Yeah, the real world.

That bubble of cities and restaurants and industrial habitats, safety maintained by our wall of ships constantly keeping the grand diet bay with our plasma. This is the only place anything real ever happens. So you've decided? Asked the woman with metal in her face.

She makes eye contact with me and speaks a little forcefully, though not in an angry way.

“I think she just wants to make sure it's me who responds, not my doctor.”

You've decided to be shipbound? I nod. Then I smile. Yeah, why? The girl asks and her face gets slightly small.

I think Dr. Nebracov is frowning at her. "They don't teach you tact at the University of Dharger," says Nebracov. "No, it's okay," I say. I say it a little sharply, but it's not directed toward the girl. It's normal to ask, but let me ask you something first.

Actually, this is for all of you. I gesture across the room. All the students look at me meagrely, a bit like I am a barking dog. Why wouldn't you be shipbound if it means getting to live in a perfect body, one that you choose?

For a while, there's silence. I'm sure they have many answers, but none they feel comfortable voicing. Dr. Nebracov suggests we move on to another topic, when suddenly that boy with the bushy eyebrows speaks.

He looks around with white eyes, then at the floor.

You're attached to the ship. If it dies, well, then I die. I say beaming.

“I nod at him like, that's what you meant, right?”

He nods back. I let out a pleasant sigh cracking my knuckles against the air. Yeah, I say, we all die. Is dying as the heart of a beautiful battleship worse than dying, shriveled, and rotten in a hospital bed?

Alice isn't even good at volleyball. That's the thing, but everyone acts like, "Somehow, this is just so so cute." Just another adorable little affectation she has. The little girl who took down the queen class, Grendai, who doesn't even mind having her teeth pulled out.

She smiles and apologizes when the ball hits her face, when she swats it rather than grabbing it, and jacks laughs, Samantha laughs, how cute. She's not cute. She's like the rest of us.

“Her blood is gasoline, her terror is fire, she's fuel, and she's damn good at it.”

After a few rounds we all take a break, jacks, hands up recovery fluid. The kind you're meant to drink for 48 hours after a battle. Tastes like battery acid, but I know my new cells will thank me, so I force it down. Alice has decided to sit next to me. Her hair is up in a tight bun, and somehow it makes her features seem less feline and

more rat-like. I just wanted to say, she says between big breaths, "It's really cool to meet you. I heard all about you, of course, and seeing what you could do, the power of your ship unleashed." She lets out a long sigh, "It's amazing."

I can't tell if she's testing me or not, I nod and say thank you. You did a good job out there too, I say. I try not to look at the gaps in her smile. Teeth is my one no-go. It would be good fuel for the plasma fire, I know that, but it's too painful.

Too painful on the body and the mind. Recovery lasts too long.

I let them take my teeth once, never again.

A limb is fine, a finger, even finer. A sharp, soon-cautarized pain, hissing, and predictable. After a while, pain is just another sensation, something you can learn the contours of, anticipate

“in its peaks and valleys, peculiarity, that's what's difficult, unpredictability.”

That's how I became the ship-hard girl. The invincible girl they called me. My pain has taken down more grandire than any other in the service. Back plan it side, I'm told people sing songs about me, get tattoos of my form on their body.

Recently sold the rights to my story for animation, can't wait to spend the creds next shore leave. Teeth, I'm told, would elevate me even further. My one-week spot, the one way another girl could be better than me, but I can't do it. The pain is so unpredictable, crunching and serrated and long, instruments grabbing onto

calcium, tearing down, and they make it as bad as they can. I know they do, it isn't a clean wound. I couldn't look at my last doctor after she did it, it poisoned our whole relationship and eventually I had to arrange for her to be transferred. Dr. Nebuchave knows not to touch my teeth.

What kind of ship is it, I ask Alice? At first, she looks confused, like she doesn't know what ship I mean, I let the moment hang.

It's Javelin class. She eventually says, almost stumbling over the term. I've never

heard of that class before. She shakes her head. "No, you wouldn't have. It's new. Only recently developed. Another shard of jealousy, a new ship, a better ship. No, not possible. Physically, I'm past the point where switching ships would be possible. Another heart bond would fry my neurons so I can't even entertain the possibility. It looks odd. I blurred out trying to get the thoughts out of my head.

So thin, what's it like inside? It's okay. She says, voice very quiet. But it's not like this one. Heck, it's beautiful. We don't have, and she gestures at the court. Stuff like this on mine. I nod. For the first time I find myself feeling slightly

and deadly, but with no luxury. The moment I saw heckity, I knew I wanted her to be mine.

I was being given a tour of one of the shipyards. I was just ten years old. One of the

“kids scattered by the Federation to be a ship heart girl. I still remember the woman in”

her suit with her clipboard fairing me about. I remember how she told me that being a ship heart girl didn't have to be permanent. I could do it for just five years or so, and that would be fine. The pay she explained was serviceable, but better than that, the experience provided sponsorship for future education. Some girls, she told me, liked being

a ship heart girl so much that they did it forever. After seven years, that's when you

were welded in. When living outside, wouldn't be possible. But I didn't have to worry about that. Have you ever seen a Federation shipyard? They're beautiful. The size of a city and constantly moving sheets of metal and finely tuned mechanics being sped around like clock work. An orchestra of sounds too, steel groaning and sparks sizzling, and there, amid anonymous cubes of gray she was, the most beautiful ship I have ever seen.

Hacquete isn't like the others. She isn't functional and blocky and hard. She's curved

and organic, sinewy and coiled. I gasped when I saw her. The woman with me, she lit up a

new model, she told me. The finest in the Federation fleet, but joining with her is quite a challenge, quite a responsibility. Everyone's tired after the volleyball game. We've given our new limbs enough of a welcome. We decided to go to the mess hall to get our food. Two guards walk us down the adjoining hallway, holding rifles in their hands. I don't know why they have to do that. They think

a grand die is going to infiltrate the ship or something. They're bigger than the ship. Lasagna is the food today. May favor it. We all dig in greedily. Well, accept Alice. Perfect, struggling Alice has to do with liquids. She ships some sort of yellow, neutral-paced pouch from a straw. For a while, it's quiet. Everyone just eating. But the sight of that beam from Alice's ship keeps entering my mind. It's jabbing at me like a migraine, such

a precise and delicate weapon. I need someone to talk to to film my thoughts. No one does, so I decide I'll do it. How's the canteen on your ship? I ask Alice. Oh, she says after finishing a ship. Not great to be honest. She gives a roofful smile. I look at her a little blankly. Really? Well, yeah, she says. That lasagna looks a lot nicer than anything I have.

“The nonchalance stuns me. Well, you should ask for a new cook team, I say. I mean, you're helping”

save the galaxy. Good food is important for both physical and mental health. Yeah, Alice agrees giving an awkward, agreeable smile. This girl, she'd let you walk all over her. I'm serious. I mean, if you're going to be eating mostly from one canteen for the rest of your life, you want it to be good, right? I look around at the other girls, but they mostly don't give any response. Well, that's not actually a problem for Alice. Jack's eventually says giving me a firm smile.

She's not planning to be shipbound. She'll leave the program in two years. I blink. None of that makes sense. For real, I ask Alice. She nods, slipping down the rest of the paste. I'm dazed. Samantha and Jack's continue eating like nothing strange at all has been said. Come on, I say. Alice, that's crazy. Her eyes go a little wide. I saw what your ship did out there.

“It was amazing. That was you. Your fairimones, your fear. That's what caused it. You'd give that up.”

She doesn't respond. Just stairs at the table. The federation needs girls like you. I say. To defeat the grand die, hell, you've got more power to give than me. I think. Hey, says Jack's. Her voice is suddenly very serious. That's enough. I look at her incredulously than back at Alice. She's still staring at the table. I let out a sigh. I pushed my plate of lasagna away. Sorry, I say. I shouldn't have let myself get so hot.

bite, but the pain. I feel it sometimes, even during the dreams. The dreams of those monsters

“that emerge from the dead worlds with their smiles and their curious eyes and their hungry mouths,”

and our ships bleeding astray. My pain coursing through our engines tightly coiled into beams of plasma, and then such wondrous release as those monsters hiss away turned into nothingness. The grand die are growing larger and larger. I hear. We'll need bigger and bigger ships to fight them. And of course, more and more. Jack suggests we watch a movie. Apparently, the lounge has been secured for us. There's a new witch wonder film out. She says, "Hell yeah," I say.

"You like witch wonder too?" Alice asks. Her face has erupted into a smile. Yeah, I say. Who doesn't? We walk through the coiling tunnels of the ship on a way back to the

lounge, as always, Jack starts cracking jokes or almost jokes to fill the void.

Next time we meet, I wonder if we'll be watching a movie about this ship heart girl. She says pointing at me. I blush and groan. "They're making a movie about you?" Alice asks, "I's wide." "Yeah," I say. "Well, maybe," I sold the rights to Apex.

“"Hapax?" Alice asks. Her tone is hushed. The same studio that made witch wonder?”

Involentarily, I find myself smiling at her. This rival of mine with her missing teeth. That's right. I say. She asks me to tell her all about it. Do I know who they're going to cast in my role? Her words are delicate and very gentle. I can't help it. I'm beginning to warm to the squirrel I hate. A few times, she stops mid-conversation. Winces. "Sorry," she says. "You okay?" I ask. "Yeah," she nods. "It's just impossible to get used to."

I raise a eyebrow. "You know," she says. "Speaking with half-formed teeth." River tells us that this story is inspired by Sakai-K stories. A difficult to define

Japanese sci-fi subgenre that first appeared in the late 90s. If new wave sci-fi made the

personal political, then Sakai-K made the personal apocalyptic. Stories in this genre interrogate what it would mean for the survival of humankind, if the fate of the world depended directly on the emotional and psychological needs of adolescent heroes. This story beautifully centers these girls as both conquering heroes and as vulnerable young people, still trying to find their way in the world. Typical adolescent questions about changing bodies, rivalries, and future careers take on

a new resonance. For example, when Alice says that maybe she doesn't want to be a ship-heart girl forever, the narrator is appalled. The narrator seems to imply that she has shocked the

“Alice would be so selfish when humankind needs her. But I think there's a deeper reason there.”

She surprised that Alice would give up such incredible power that comes with being a ship-heart girl. We get a glimpse into the narrator's past and a tantalizing hint that maybe she didn't

always want to be a ship-heart girl forever. But now, she associates her identity so closely

with that of her ship. That we actually learn her ship is called Hechety, but we never actually learn our narrator's name, not even in passing. She really has become Hechety's heart or Hechety has become hers. Traditionally, the heart has been associated with incredibly important themes, love, soul, spirit, strength, morality, as ship-heart girls, the characters in this story carry incredible burdens. They aren't just protecting civilization. They're also trying to protect themselves.

As I read this story, I get a sense of affected nonchalance from the narrator, but there are sparks of fierce self-protection too for herself and for other girls. She surprised and angry the Alice's ship won't give her good food, and she is fiercely protective of her own teeth. Symbolically, teeth are an apt metaphor for a hard, physical boundary, separating the inner parts

and hardest boundary, the narrator could become the greatest ship-heart girl of all. The tension

“of this decision pervades the story, but by the end, I get the feeling the narrator isn't just”

at peace with her decision. She might even feel vindicated in holding her teeth and her boundaries unbroken. So, on one hand, the ship-heart girls in this story give up a certain amount of freedom and control over their bodies. They constantly have to make painful sacrifices for a society

“that they are largely forced to live outside of. On the other hand, I actually see this story”

as a powerful narrative of liberation and self-actualization. The narrator does not choose to

regrow parts of herself that she sacrificed exactly as they were. Instead, she chooses to experiment with her physical identity in ways that many adolescents could only dream of. Additionally, she is increasingly confident in the lines she will not cross. The sacrifices

she will not make. To me, that is one of the most critical lessons any adolescent can learn,

whether here on earth or soaring in a dreadnought among the stars. So, what did you think of this story? Email me at [email protected]. You can also find the email address in our show notes. I'd love to hear from you. If you enjoyed this story, please take a moment to check out our Patreon link in the show notes and to special thank you to Shinella, our biosphere supporter and a vital part of what biome is becoming. And of course, if you haven't

“done so yet, remember to follow biome so you can get each story as soon as it drops. I invite you to”

join me for our next incredible story coming out next Tuesday. Thank you for listening to biome

with me, your host and narrator, Alex Zubin. Until next time, farewell, wherever the days take you.