Lost in the Stars
By Dennis M. Falk
4 June 2011
Issued under a Creative Commons license BY-SA-NC

She had just settled in at the space station in preparation of her history-making flight to another solar system, some 16 light years away. The interstellar ship, the Trailblazer, was due to leave for relativistic space in a few days.

Meredith was a squirrel of average build-- In her mid-20s, and already a top exobiologist in the still-nascent extrasolar exploration program if the Space Confederation, a global organisation of space agencies from Europe to Japan to America. And she just left home for the last time, unlikely to see Earth again for another 140 years- Most of that time in cryosleep to and from her destination.

It was late at night, station-time, and checked to see if the zero-G observation deck was free, just opposite the docking portal on the large rotating orbital station- A small town in its own right, with about 1000 residents of all species and nations living in the rings, which had centrifugal gravity. Oh, good- It's free!, she thought to herself, and made her way to the center.

Once there, she floated in, closed the door, and locked it, so she wouldn't be disturbed. Then she turned off the monitoring cameras, so she could have some privacy. Lastly, because it was very quiet, she turned on the station comm audio, receive only- It helped her relax, something radios always did for her as she grew up in Colorado.

She then took off all her clothes, except for her panties (which did little to hide her femininity), and set them aside near the doorway...

And proceeded to let herself float freely by the huge bay window, allowing herself to be surrounded by the view of the Earth below, the Moon ahead, and the stars beyond.

She had always wanted to float freely, naked, in zero-G, and just meditated, as all her limbs and tail floated freely, letting the radio talk her through the meditation- This was her last time to see Earth, and she wanted to savour the moment.

"Commander", the comm radio quietly spoke, not even disturbing the squirrel girl's reverie. "Looks like someone turned off all audio and video input at the obzervation deck."

"Well, try to get them back on!  For safety's sake, we need to make sure our visitors are safe!" "Yes, sir!"

Meredith's mind drifted, not hearing the radio, or the fact that an otter in spacesuit was dispatched to check the observation deck from the outside.

"Blimey! She's nakey!", the otter exclaimed through the radio.

"Got it, and-", the comms technician stated, once getting audio and video back on. "Whoa!"

It's when she heard the wolf whistle, she was startled out of her reverie- "Eeep!" -and tumbled backward, only to give the spacesuited otter a clear view of her pink panties, which still did little to hide that she was female. The otter's helmet cam beamed back images of the startled squirrel back to station command.

"My God, she's SEXY!", the same wolf who whistled exclaimed.

"Yikes!", she yelled, as she scrambled to get her clothes, unlock the door, and try to get out, without bothering to dress.

After exiting the elevator, she barreled down the hallway to her room, and locked the door, thoroughly embarrassed, and cried herself to sleep.

The next morning, she awoke to an incoming message: "Commander Meredith Wilson," the image of the station commander, a fox, resolved on screen, "On behalf of the entire station, I apologise for last night's behaviour of my crew. All have been reprimanded, including the otter who took pics of you from outside the observation window," uh-oh, she was afraid of this, "and posted them on the Internet."

In a sense, she's glad she's leaving Earth for the stars, and leaving behind the immaturity of boys pretending to be men.

Fin.