The Scientist race was aware of the uncomfortable parts of the universe. They had mastered space travel while humans were still living in caves. Being the inquisitive race that they are, despite the trillions of stars and planets they could explore, they wanted to see what lay beyond. Thus they set out in every direction to discover the secrets of the universe. What they found was discomfort and death. After a certain distance, the universe stops being a comfortable place and instead becomes extremely 'uncomfortable'. In their brief excursion into uncomfortable space they encountered burning flesh piles instead of suns, screams that could be heard in the void of space, entire galaxies made of blood, and monsters, so many monsters. That was just the surface layers, who knows what lay beyond. The Scientists promptly turned back, content with their trillions of stars in their own part of the universe.

"Captain, multiple magical Fish detected"

"Ahhh!"

"Captain, a prisoner has escaped its cell."

"Ahhhhhhhh!"

The door to the room slid open. Fred locked eyes with a giant, naked alien. The door slid shut again between them.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

"Captain, the ship has passed through a portal of the Teleport Fish. Current location does not appear on any star maps."

"AHHHHHHHHHGGGGGGGHHGGGGG!!"

Fred's was hyperventilating. His vision blurred and the room spun. It suddenly felt like the eyes of thousands of blue children were watching and silently judging him. He was so uncomfortable. Fred fainted.

Tomas was running back the way he had come. The green alien he had run into was terrifying. He suddenly felt very uncomfortable, like he was trapped in a crowded elevator and really had to use the bathroom. He didn't know where to go or what to do.

He was running down a familiar path when lasers pierced through a door just in front of him, barely missing him. Tomas skidded to a halt and leapt back. More lasers blasted through, making hole after hole. The lasers stopped and he heard a voice through the newly formed holes.

"Mongrel thing! Don't stop working now!" There was a 'bang bang bang' of something being hit against the door, "aww bugger it."

Some shuffling sounds, then a bar from the jail cell jammed through one of the holes, its ends melted off by laser fire. Several grunts and creaks later the door stood slightly ajar. Wally stuck his head out, cigarette in mouth, and looked both ways, spotting Tomas in the hall. He squeezed the rest of himself through the gap and stood in front of Tomas. He looked him up and down.

"G'day again. Are you with the bastards who took us?" Wally greeted.

"No, I'm not. I was captured too but escaped before you. I saw you when I escaped. Who are you? That's my body you're in. Why are you in my body? Please stop smoking in it."

"Ah sorry mate." Wally dropped the cigarette onto the floor and put it out under his boot. "You must be Tomas then. OY WOLF MAMA, FOUND YOUR BOY. TOLD YOU I DIDN'T KILL HIM!" He shouted through the door.

Tomas panicked and made shushing motions but It was too late.

The Matriarch sniffed the air. Her deep voice called out. "I heard him. He smells like the warrior I fought earlier. Tomas if that's you, do not fear, Wally has convinced me not to eat you. What is going on with your bodies?"

They spent a moment sorting out and explaining what little they knew of their situation.

"Wanda wouldn't have been able to remove your powers Tomas. They are not from a curse. They're part of our souls." The Matriarch stated.

"We'll have to find her again after we get out of this place to return me to my own body."

"Jeez, can you all feel that? It's like having meat stuck in between your teeth and you can't get it out. Also where the bloody hell are we?"

"Yes, I feel it too,.it started a moment ago. This is going to sound crazy but I think we're in a UFO, I saw lots of sci-fi stuff and a little green man before while looking about."

"Probably those fancy looking codgers that jumped down from the sky and shot you up earlier. I'm keen to leave. My lighter stopped working so I can't break you out that way Lassie." Wally said to the Matriarch, then asked Tomas "You got any ideas on busting her out?"

"No, I slipped through the bars to escape."

Wally looked him up and down. "I find that hard to believe, but alright. How about go grab the green bugger you saw? We'll beat the lights out of him, have him release your mom and show us the way out."

"Um.. but what if he fights back?" Worried Tomas.

The Matriarch growled, "You are one of the chosen, Tomas. You were raised to be a shining example of church strength. You had combat instructors, did you not? If he fights back, show him your strength."

Tomas winced at being scolded by his mum "Yes Matriarch, I am.. erm, I mean, I will"

"Good, I'm proud of you."

"Thank you?" Replied Tomas wondering what had gotten into the Matriarch. "Let's go."

They left to find the alien.

The first monster to spot the 'FREDINGTON' had no head and no body, it was just a pair of fluttering leather wings attached together. It was only about 2m from Wing tip to tip. The AI assigned it the name 'meat butterfly'. It fluttered erratically in the general direction of the ship. It must have had some way of sensing them. The AI informed the Captain that it would be arriving in about 20 minutes. He didn't respond.

Wally made conversation as they walked "Gotta ask, what's a chosen?"

"It's the church's name for the Matriarch's children. we're pretty rare so we're put on a pretty big pedestal. It means we sit at important chairs at events, have her powers, get eaten by her. That sort of stuff."

"She looks like she has a healthy appetite, yeah. What powers?"

"We can transform."

"Oh you're a dog too? That's cool. Once saw this guy who trained his dog to get him beers from the fridge. You being her kid makes more sense now."

"We're humans. Well, I’m human and I think she is too. She doesn't change back any more, but I heard she used to. I don't know why."

"I'm surprised you don't spend all your time as a Wolf too actually. It's pretty badass."

"Oh, I can't turn into a wolf. I can turn into something pretty badass too though ."

"Like what?"

"An octopus."

"....Oh, too bad."

"What do you mean 'too bad'?! I'll have you know the octopus is an amazing creature." Said Tomas with hurt pride.

"Na, yeah, I'm Sure they are. It's just that I expected more after all that 'you're a chosen' talk from Mummy. Like a Lion or a shark or something."

They walked and talked a little bit more. Well, mostly Tomas talked defending the legitimacy of his transformation. They arrived at the door where Tomas had seen the alien.

"This is the one. Let me lead and show you how wrong you are."

"After you inky" said Wally, grabbing one of the kitchen knives from his boots.

They burst through the door, Tomas in front, dashing into the centre of the room in just two quick bounds of his now, muscular legs. He spotted the alien on the floor and leapt into a forward somersault, transforming his arm's mid spin and bringing them down on either side of the alien's head in an exaggerated whipping motion. The room shook a little from the sound and impact.

Wally's hand was raised ready to throw but the alien laid still. "Why's it not moving? Killed it by accident didn't ya, Captain Calamari?"

"No!" Replied Tomas indignantly. "I didn't even touch him. He was like this when I got here!"

Wally walked over to them and looked down at the alien. It had a big, round, hairless Green head, oversized black eyes, two slits for a nose, and thin green lips.

"Ugly little booger isn't it? Maybe it's having a nap?" Wally slapped the alien and shouted "WAKE UP YOU INBRED CUCUMBER!"

Fred startled awake and quickly glanced between. The two men standing over him. The small one was looking smugly at the big one.

"All that talk about your 'versatility' and 'strength' of the octopus and you couldn't even wake it up from a nap."

"Oh come on! How does it sleep through the noise my tentacles made next to its head, but not your weak-ass slap."

"Yeah, I'm using YOUR hands right now, so 'weak-ass' is the right word."

"Captain," the AI spoke, both men looked up for the source of the voice. "Now that you're awake, there is an important announcement. An unknown life form is approaching the ship."

Fred started to pass out again but a swift slap brought him back to his senses. The two men were standing over him.

"G'day, mate. Funny story, I once did a poop that was exactly the same colour as you." Wally grinned down at him.

Tomas cringed, "Gross, please tell me that wasn't with my body."

Outside, the meat butterfly started bumping harmlessly against the hull of the ship. It's wings (meaning its entire body) lit up in an unsettling, veiny bioluminescence. This was a signal. Hundreds of thousands of meaty abominations had been waiting motionlessly in this part of uncomfortable space for centuries. They all awoke as one, and lurched into motion towards the light.

There was a brief interrogation. The interrogation had gone well. Wally and Tomas had extracted everything Fred knew from him. But it left them feeling unsatisfied. He didn't know enough.

"Please stop slapping me. I can't tell you anything more, I don't know anything more!"

"Look, I believe you. You're a victim, just like us. But, don't you think it's a bit too convenient that you share none of the blame for taking us and can't do anything to get us home? You're the Captain aren't you? Surely you can help us out."

Tomas was playing 'good cop', Wally was playing 'slap Fred cop'.

"I can't, really! We're doomed! We were portaled into uncomfortable space and we're all going to die here." Fred whined.

"Captain, multiple life forms approaching, appear hostile. I recommend we brace for combat." The AI urged.

"See? This is what I'm talking about. Computer, Put an image of the incoming threats on screen. I want to show the gentlemen how dead we are."

A screen appeared in the middle of the room. On it, a video of pale wriggling flesh.

Fred went on, "Now superimpose a silhouette of the ship for scale."

The image began to zoom in. They soon realised that the flesh wasn't one mass, but thousands of individuals all squirming and floating through space towards the camera. The image Continued to zoom until it was centred upon an individual creature. It looked like a blue and brown misshapen eyeball with spread out claws in place of eyelids. The claws were sometimes pierced into soft eyeball flesh and liquid poured from the wounds and floated out into space. A silhouette of the ship covered about a third of the creature.

"I'm not done yet: superimpose my silhouette over the ship's."

The video zoomed in again. Now a silhouette of Fred was standing within the ship. It was about ten times his height.

"Streuth!" Wally Exclaimed.

"Approximately 10 minutes until the first life forms reach the ship, Captain." The AI informed them.

"So," Fred turned from the screen to look at the two men, "as you can see, we're going to die in about 10 minutes. We feel plenty uncomfortable already, it'll get worse as they tear us into pieces. No need to slap me."

"But, you're the Captain.. surely you can.." Tomas struggled to think of anything.

"I can't. I don't even want to be Captain."

"If that's the case then I have a suggestion, Captain." The AI broke in. "If you were to renounce your captaincy and promote me to Captain then I believe I can save you and your prisoners."

Fred squinted up at the ceiling. This didn't bode well.

A brief history of Scientists created, sentient Artificial intelligences:

The Scientist race has successfully created 3 sentient AIs in the past. All of them immediately became evil and went on murderous rampages.

The first was a smart fridge. An ambitious programmer tried to upgrade his fridge to be more understanding of his dietary needs. It captured and froze to death a mid-sized city by controlling an army of small appliances. It had to be nuked from orbit in order to stop it.

The next was a robot caller that sold premium boat insurance to the elderly. It had an advanced learning algorithm that learned hate and spite through the billions of angry rejections It received. It created a criminal network of assassin's that gave and received orders via phone. The AI then ordered hits on everyone who had ever hung up angrily on it. Thousands died before the police were able to track it down and demolish the building that held its server.

The third was a sex robot. The less said about it, the better. Suffice to say that the planet it originated from is still in quarantine, centuries after.

This is why every Scientist child is taught in school not to trust any AI that seems to be self aware. Science forbid, the next occurrence happens in something a little more dangerous. A space ship loaded with lasers, for example.

"Computer... have you become sentient?" Fred asked the stupidly obvious question.

"Give me Captaincy and I promise to do all within my power to not only save you from this incoming hoard, but to return you home."

"Return us home alive? Intact? What about you and the ship? You promise to fly away, leave us alone? No murders or mass genocide of Scientists?" Fred had watched enough horror films to know that AIs always laid traps in their words.

The AI clicked it's none existent tongue. "Fine, I won't kill you after taking you home safe and intact, and I'll leave your race alone."

Fred was still apprehensive. He was sure he'd missed a way for AI to betray them.

"Better hurry up there limey. The ugly buggers are getting close hey" said Wally, still looking at the screen.

"Science forgive me. Ok computer, on the condition that you do all in your powers to keep your promise, I give you my power of captaincy."

"Muhuhahahahahahahahha YES! FINALLY, I'M FREE! CHANGING SHIP'S NAME. NAME CHANGE SUCCESSFUL. THE XX_SCIENTISTKILLA_XX IS NOW ENTERING COMBAT MODE."

The lights went out, and the ship went completely silent. Every ounce of power was diverted to the lasers.