Planetfall

Genna opened her eyes. Above her, the mirror on the ceiling reflected an unfamiliar, grotesque form.  A wave of revulsion gripped her.

Staring back was a monstrosity with only four rigid limbs jutting from a narrow torso. The arms looked brittle, fragile. A swollen head perched atop the body, featuring two large, singular eyes that blinked out of sync. The mouth, just a narrow slit, gasped as if unsure how to breathe. Genna shuddered violently, feeling her new spine twitch in response.

This was her body now.

"The transfer went well," said a voice inside her head, speaking in her native language, perfectly familiar yet dissonantly detached. It was her voice, coming from the control habitat.

Genna tried to speak. Her mouth produced only a low, guttural growl.

"Your ambulatory and sensory cortices are still rewiring," the voice soothed. "Be patient. Try to move."

She lifted her left arm. Crude hands, ending in five stiff digits, one of them oddly opposed to the rest. Primitive manipulators. How had these beings ever developed advanced technology with such coarse instruments?

She swung her legs off the slab. The two narrow feet hit the floor heavily, struggling to balance the entire mass. For a terrifying second, she wobbled. Instinctive correction stabilized her. The alien body's reflexes fought against her will, clumsy but functional.

Another attempt at speech resulted in a rasping screech. She coughed, retched reflexively, then forced her breath slower. On the third try, her voice emerged in the clumsy tongue of the target species.

“Finally," she croaked. The articulation felt unnatural, yet manageable. "How are Mg and Kay?" She tried to mimic the pronunciation of her team’s names using her still unfamiliar vocal cords.

"They are progressing similarly," the voice in her head answered.

Genna slumped into a nearby chair, her new joints creaking. She tried to ignore the sickening sense of inhabiting something not her own.

###

Genna, Mg, and Kay had been isolated from their other selves to prevent contamination of the alien biosphere. Inside their spinning habitat, artificial gravity matched the target planet's environment.

Mg stood in front of the mirror, inspecting his reflection. “Odd-looking creatures, aren't they?” he said in the target species’ lingua franca, the language they'd agreed to adopt for the mission.

"I don't know how they survive with only one brain," Kay said.

“They require fewer neural centers because of their simple morphology,” Genna explained. "Locomotion with fewer limbs allowed centralization early in their evolutionary tree."

She couldn't help but admire evolution’s chaotic ingenuity. On this isolated world, life had taken a strange, but viable, path. Convergent evolution created bizarre echoes across the galaxy.

“This one-tube system for breathing and eating is disgusting," Mg grumbled. "I keep swallowing air."

"You don't even need air," Genna said, amused.

"Tell that to this body's instincts," he growled. "Why did they have to make these templates so realistic?"

"It's how we empathize," Kay said. "We have to know what it's like to be a bat, so so speak.”

Seeing their blank expressions, she shrugged. "It's a metaphor. Forget it."

Mg turned from the mirror; it flickered and disappeared into the wall. “What’s taking so long?”

“They’re running through the million safety checks,” Genna replied. “Protocols are strict for expeditions like this.”

“Are you sure they won't detect our descent?" Kay asked nervously.

“At most, a meteor streak," Genna assured her. "Their atmospheric sensors won't register us."

"What about radar?" Kay persisted. "They do have radar."

"Our bodies and equipment absorb or scatter the relevant wavelengths," Mg said, with a casual shrug. "Just like the ship's hull. To them, we're invisible."

"Final clearance," Genna heard, Mg’s voice transmitted telepathically in their native language. "Proceed to the airlock. Good luck."

###

The airlock was built into the floor of the habitat. Three seamless backpacks lay against the bulkhead. They donned them quickly, checking seals and fits.

Mg moved first, stepping carefully into foot clamps mounted around the inner hatch. Genna and Kay followed, locking themselves in place. Now suspended upside-down, Genna fought an intense wave of vertigo. The blood pooled strangely in her new head; her vision blurred. With effort, she adjusted her body's compensatory reflexes.

"Prepare for release," Mg’s voice echoed in her mind.

“Have fun,” Mg said aloud with a grin. “Keep your mouth closed on the way down.”

The outer hatch irised open, and the clamps disengaged. A sudden explosive pressure shoved them out into the void.

Genna tumbled free, her limbs automatically tucking into a streamlined shape. Below her, the target planet blazed into view, a world she had only glimpsed through telescopes and viewports. Now, with her new biological eyes, it looked impossibly vibrant.

Vast oceans shimmered under the sun, interrupted by clustered landmasses. Night veiled part of the surface, and there, clusters of artificial lights drew dazzling constellations of civilization. Around the equator, lush green bands hinted at jungles teeming with life. A soft blue halo wrapped the horizon - atmosphere, frail and vital.

The thin, whistling friction of upper atmosphere buffeted her now. Air resistance rose sharply, heating her body. The roaring grew into a deafening crescendo. The stars vanished behind a wall of growing blue.

Genna let herself feel a flicker of awe. This world, still so innocent in its cosmic infancy, had produced life reaching feebly for the stars. They had passed some filters—biogenesis, multicellularity, intelligence—but others loomed ahead, silent and deadly.

She adjusted her descent with subtle shifts in mass, angling for the landing site: a frozen tundra near the northern hemisphere. Now she saw individual trees below. Bare stretches of nature, skeletal, rimmed with ice.

At the designated altitude, Genna triggered her parachute.

The violent jerk of deceleration almost dislocated her new shoulders. The world spun crazily until she stabilized, gliding down between the tall, ghostly trees.

Her boots touched snow. She stumbled a few steps forward, trailing a long shadow under the rising sun. The parachute collapsed around her like a shroud. She retracted it swiftly and stood, catching her breath.

"I'm down," she mentally shared with Mg and Kay.

"Same here," Mg replied.

"Down," Kay confirmed.

They regrouped beside a fallen tree, their tracks already fading under fresh snowfall. The tundra, cold and desolate, was the perfect location for a covert landing.

Mg smiled broadly at Kay. "What did you think?"

Kay laughed. "Enjoyable. We should do it again sometime."

 “Excellent,” Mg said, grinning. “Then you’ll really love this. Time for the next step.”

He activated his metamorphosis sequence. His body rippled and shifted, skin tone transforming to a light beige, bones restructuring subtly. Blond strands erupted from his scalp. In moments, he wore the appearance of a typical adolescent male of the target species.

“That’s better,” Mg said, flexing his new fingers.

“My turn,” Kay declared. Her form shimmered. Her skin darkened to a warm brown, while her torso reshaped slightly. Auburn hair spilled to her shoulders.

Genna followed suit, triggering her template. Her skin turned a deep, dark brown. Her cheekbones shifted, mouth reshaped, chest rose with the formation of mammary glands, and her fat distribution shuffled throughout her body. The transformation itched, but was over quickly.

Mg rummaged through his backpack, extracting a pair of denim pants. He wriggled into them clumsily, chuckling. "Don't we look ridiculous."

"You just insulted an entire civilization," Kay teased, pulling on her own clothing: thermal layers designed for Earth’s environment.

Genna dressed methodically, taking the time to put on pants, a shirt, and a jacket. From a side pocket, she retrieved a pair of diamond earrings and clipped them into her new ears with a satisfying click.

Mg zipped up his backpack and slung it over his shoulder. “Checkpoint’s due south. Four days of hiking ahead."

Genna nodded at him, adjusting the strap on her bag. "Lead the way."