Free Earth's New Masters by Adriane Ceallaigh

 
     
    Shura read through her contract again. It had taken a while to get used to the optic implant, but had proven well worth the cost. Data came in through the implant and out into her field of vision, untraceable and undetectable even with the best scanners. Bio-tech made her life easier.
    She sat down, loaded the coordinates into her wrist unit, and prepared to leave. The next transport left in twenty minutes. She’d make it if she hurried. They’d already transferred the initial credits to her account. She’d have enough time to change her form on the forty-five parsec trip.
    She wondered at the secrecy. Normally her jobs gave her a lot more details up front. More information gave her the chance to opt out, although if she did, she would have to sign a nondisclosure agreement.
    She entered the passenger quarters on the shuttle, slid the door closed, and set the lock to voice recognition only. She flipped the dampening field into full silence and tossed her bag at the foot of the small decompression bed. She paid extra for the sound dampening field, but she always included the cost in her retainer fee.
    She stripped, staring at the unfamiliar visage in the mirror. She couldn’t remember what form her body had started life as, just the never ending pain of transmutation.
    She hated this part, the tearing of flesh as she snapped and reformed her bones to fit a role. She watched in the mirror as silent screams pierced the room. She focused, making sure she got the shape and feel of the body right.
    Shura stepped into the sonic shower, cleaning the debris of dead skin and blood from her body. Then she crawled across the floor and into the decompression bed.
    She lay down, hair damp, breathing heavy, resting. She reached over, disconnected the dampening field and relaxed into unconsciousness.
    ***
    Shura watched out the portal as they approached Riker-10. A space station dedicated to orbiting, and defending, planet Earth. Humanity had decided to give their planet time to heal. She’d often thought it a good plan, but she wondered what millennia untouched had done to the health of the world. She turned away, gathered her stuff, and headed to the spacedock.
    She took a small shuttle transport to Dark Woods. The spacer bar offered anonymity; no one really focused on the people coming in or out of the establishment. Not that it mattered to her, an unregistered body morph.
    She changed her appearance so often she rarely worried about people picking her out of a line up. Her physiology allowed her to absorb the D.N.A helix of any living species she came into contact with.
    She could be any other creature in the known universe, live as they did, love as they did, reproduce and mother her children as they did with maybe a one in a thousand chance of passing on her physiology to them.
    Body morphs were outlawed, their parents required to register their child’s abilities with the Alliance. They were implanted with a chip that alerted scanners and transports all over the galaxy when they passed, letting the governing body of those places know that one of her kind walked among them.
    Her parents hadn’t registered her. At least she didn’t believe that they had. She had no real way of knowing. She’d been raised by a spacer named Corbin who made his living hunting other species for pay, and he’d taught her the profession as early as she could remember.
    Maybe he was her family. She’d never know. She didn’t know where he’d gotten her nor why a man like him had taken her in, but she did know that he’d cared for her in his own way.
    She shook herself out of her reverie as the shuttle slowed and the disembark lights flashed. She followed a few people off the transport, being careful not to touch them. She didn’t like picking up random D.N.A.
    The near sterile corridors of the space station made her slightly more comfortable. The short walk to Dark Woods allowed her time to calm her mind. She began the process of