It should come as no surprise that the rest of my stay on Tau-Ceti was miserable and brief, a fitting end to the many rotations spent growing up on this warrior planet. 

My decisions about what profession I wished to work in, what to eat, and how to arrange my hair were all made by superiors in higher positions. I had to endure drawn-out and sometimes excruciating physical examinations simply because my appearance differed from that of the other Tau warriors, so my body had never felt completely like mine.

It did not seem fair to waste another twenty-four rotations standing around catering to the Tau empire before they decided I was too weak and eliminated me. Therefore, I could only hope that the stars would align in my favor and that I would find my place in the universe, somewhere out there in the darkness.

I undergo stasis once I'm stripped of everything that I am, and like a newborn Gherkin, helpless, flushed, and faintly whimpering in terror from time to time, the guards load me into a large tank and onto a cylindrical spaceship for takeoff. It's not very large in appearance, and the inside lacks a toilet and a kitchen, which was understandable given the fact that I would be asleep for the journey.

The world blurs as I'm shifted and jostled on my stretcher, my arms strapped down to either side of my body. My torso is paralyzed from the waist down. I feel nothing but pressure and vibrations, but I'm aware of the many tubes that carry fluid into and out of my body to keep me from decomposing on my journey.

"It is no surprise they chose this one! Of course, they would pick the most expendable subject to go to Tralfamadore. We know nothing of that planet!" I hear a guard tell another as they stand outside on the deck of the ship. A faint green light shines down on them from the many buttons beeping and ticking overhead. There had to be thousands of switches all over, some of them labeled in Arcturian instead of Tau. 

"They are quite pretty, though, aren't they?" The other guard asks and presses her face against the glass to peer in at me. "I would greatly enjoy fighting this one and then engaging in a coupling ritual."

"What a useless ritual!" the other guard snorts. "You've seen what it has done to the Arcturians. Coupling all day, consuming sweets, and virtually no training! They form bonds, make love, and love one another with great passion. It has made them soft and weak! Tau Warriors do not need such trivial things. That's what makes us the fiercest species in the galaxy."

"Ah," the other guard says, "I suppose you're right."

They both start laughing, and I wince.

This is the last time I see and hear my people when a metal shutter is pulled down over the tank, enclosing me in a soft blue darkness. My brain begins to swim, my eyes drift shut, and I smell something sweet and soft before that is gone, too.

I find myself leaving my body behind and losing all sense of time and space, floating out of my ship and into the bright universe around me while attached to a plastic umbilical cord. It was incredible how small life was when it came down to it. Something no bigger than a seed had exploded out here and blossomed into the planets, moons, and brilliantly burning suns. 

My ship passes through meteor fields full of purple and pink clouds and dodges explosions and nebulas that collapse and die. I leave Tau-Ceti behind until my planet is a grain of sand in the cosmos, quickly moving at warp speed to carry me to Tralfamadore, my new home.

I undergo my own changes as the celestial field shifts around me. My number of rotations increases greatly, and my hair, cut down to my scalp, grows until it reaches past my shoulders in pink and pastel waves.

I will also say this: the dreams that were projected through a cord attached to my neck were not what the Tau had prepared me for, but they were vivid and heated the star in my heart as time went on. 

An impressive Tau warrior takes me into his arms during these intimate moments and does unmentionable things to my body that make my monitors screech as pleasure mounts. "Come now, little one," the Tau warrior growls into my ear as his massive hands stroke my body. "Let me copulate with you."

The screeching grows louder and louder until I think my head is going to explode, until finally, it becomes unbearable. My eyes snap open in an instant, and I come face to face with the metallic cockpit of my ship and Yanyan standing outside my stasis tube.

"Meeww!" Yanyan explains and hits a large green button next to his paw. 

I choke and gasp as I fall forward and hang there for a moment, trying to catch my bearings as I'm plunged back into my body. It was similar to waking up from a long dream—all sense of time gone, all direction lost into the darkness. 

"Yanyan?" I whisper hoarsely, a bit of dribble coming out from the corner of my mouth. "Did we make it to Tralfamadore? Have we landed properly?"

Yanyan looks over at the screen at the front of the ship and then proceeds to play with a piece of lint on the ground. Startled, my eyes focus on what I'm seeing, and all at once, two large, golden arches come into view as our shuttle crashes over them and rocks wildly across a bright blue sky.

My world rips apart again, and I am hurled out of my container. Tubes and wires rip as I roll around on the grate floor, screaming in pain and terror. Yanyan also screeches as he rolls past, his claws digging into the metal floor, leaving twisted strips of metal behind.

I crawl to the front seat as all this is going on and pull myself up in time to see one of the back engines blow out, swaying us to the left till my head hits the wall with excruciating agony. Luckily, I was Tau, so I only wept a little as I seized both sticks in order to steer the ship. The spacecraft rolls around and around under my hands; it lets out an unholy howl that sounds like a death cry.

"This is for everything you took from me!" I find myself screaming as I lurch towards the nearest landing pad I can find. "I will not allow you to control my life any longer!"

I see a huge sign welcoming me to Tralfamadore as I hurtle closer to the landing pad, and even though I cannot read it, I figure this must have been the work of some sort of Tralfamadorian greeting committee.

"Roswell Sweets."

My ship slams into the surface of the building. Metal and glass crunch until I hear and see nothing but bright green smoke and ash around me. And all at once, I'm plunged back into darkness.