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The honeycomb-ship sailed through a sea of stars, traveling faster than light. It did not simply zoom along at an impossible multiple of the speed of light, nor did it travel through a wormhole or other extradimensional space suitable to FTL travel. Rather, it rolled like a marble on facets of space-time that folded like origami under it, riding a never-ending fractal of cascading patterns.

If it looked strange from the outside, it was all the more dazzling, and horrifying, from the bridge. Reed Richards watched breathlessly as space-time was spindled and mutilated in ways thought impossible by the laws of physics. He moved only to scratch equational observations down on the forearm of his uniform, which had been designed to record such notes and store them throughout the miniature cloud network of his suit. Were only a scrap to remain, the data would still be encoded there.

He and the rest of his team—his family—were just returning from a mission of mercy to Rigon IV, where the native population had called upon them to expel a tyrant who had taken over the planetary government by promising to save them from an oncoming singularity. The Fantastic Four (a name Reed stood by without irony, since he could see no way it didn’t apply to them) had proven him a charlatan, deposed him, and found a way for the insectile Rigonians to slow the onset of the singularity long enough to begin a generational evacuation. It would be a long and hard project, but with decades of time in which to act and no Lord Slayfist to curtail them, the hardest part of it was over.

Now—as if totally forgetting the injuries he’d sustained, and in fact having unslung his sprained wrist from the cast Sue had forced him to wear—Reed was entirely focused on this new, hitherfore unknown means of propulsion.

“How can your power core possibly sustain this reaction?” he asked, more as if musing aloud than sharing his thoughts. The captain of the ship, Mm’rxx, raised a finger as he prepared to answer, but Reed quickly shushed him. “Never mind, don’t tell me. Not important. I’m on the verge of something, it’s on the tip of my tongue—the right answer might spoil it. Tell me later. Better yet, write it down and put it in my pocket. I’ll check it when I’m ready.”

“My Lord Fantastic, most revered of heroes and saviors—“

“I said not now,” Reed barked, actually having to reverse course on his calculations and scratch out an incorrect integer on his forearm.

“But sir, we are but two mate-cycles from your home planet. We must begin disembark protocol. Will you be needing quarantine? A specific landing site? A—“

“That’s not important!” Reed cried, almost moaning as a thought fled. He hastily searched the equations of the last ten seconds, trying to summon back his inspiration. “Ask Sue.”

“Sue?” Mm’rxx asked. Despite all the Fantastic Four had done for him, he just could not get his head around their strange naming conventions.

“The—“ Reed gestured absently to indicate long hair, felt a twinge, and realized he had agitated his injured arm. “Golden hair. You can see color, right? Yellow? Sue. Sue Storm. She’ll take care of everything.”

“Yes, sir. As you wish, sir.”

Reed was barely listening, having recovered the thought and now happily occupied with jotting it down. A few moments later, he began to hum to himself.

***

“Are you Storm’su?”

“Am I what?” Johnny asked, turning around, and suddenly finding himself faced with one stacked bug.

She was only about four and a half feet tall, and stylized after a praying mantis, but her triangular head was softened and shrunk so much it could almost be a cute cosplay girl doing a Star Trek act. Her red eyes barely bulged, and her mandibles reminded him of a girl licking her lips. Plus, she had a nice rack. Johnny didn’t know why it was so many non-mammalian species had breasts—Reed wondered too, so he wasn’t just a pervert—but Johnny suspected it was proof that God loved him and wanted him to be happy.

Yeah, sure, maybe evolution could explain breasts, but could they explain C-cups?

“Storm’su?” the bug chica said, mangling his name as usual.

“Yeah. Sure. That’s me!” Johnny answered.

“Richard’re would like for you to review disembark protocol before you leave us.”

“Absolutely! Sure thing! I’m your guy!” Johnny sat down, patting the chair next to him. “How about you, can I get you anything? Something to drink, maybe? You guys drink, right?”

She didn’t seem to understand the question, but she sure looked cute doing it (not doing it). No way a bug should be so cute. Reptiles were one thing, but a bug? Gross. Kinky, too. “We know that in space travel to other planets, there is a risk of infection by another species’ virus, bacteria, or parasites. Do you have a procedure in place for decontamination on your planet?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah, Reed has us get a little zap in the Baxter Building first thing when we get back.” She looked crestfallen. Or maybe it was just that her mandibles had stopped moving. “But hey, better safe than sorry! A second coat of paint never hurt anyone!”

“Then you would like us to apply decontamination nanobots to you? To ensure that you are… clean?”

“Oh yeah, baby.” Then Johnny realized what she was implying. “I mean, not that I’m not clean! I don’t have any—y’know—anything. It’s just that I take precautions anyway. Really, it’s neurotic of me, I just do it to put my mind at ease, I’ve never had any sorta—“

“We will apply the decontamination nanobots.”

“And then you won’t have to worry about me infecting you with anything,” Johnny added. “That must be a load off your mind. I mean, not that you think I have parasites… you don’t, do you?”

“I have no parasites.”

“No, I mean—never mind.”