The wall across from Dr. Han Lao illuminated, as she sat, finishing up in her office. It was now displaying a silver and blue symbol, depicting a stylized globe and a silver industrial building sitting on top of it, overlooking everything.

Han stopped what she was doing, laid her hand on her heart, and paid attention.

The symbol was soon traded for film footage. 

“Earth’s population long strived to unite themselves,” a male voice spoke. “Before our most devastating war, rudimentary councils were formed to allow all separate nations to liaise with each other,” and the footage was of these councils: the first councilroom showed was ascribed “the League of Nations,” then the second, “the United Nations.”

“We are the descendant of their valiant efforts, but we have united all of Earth more effectively than they could have ever dreamed.”

A flag was shown flying— it had the same symbol as before, but this time bore a name too: EarthGov. 

“All the nations once represented in those earlier councils, having been destroyed in our third World War,” the voice said, “left us a mess of wreckage.” 

War footage was shown— people injured, people dying, people dead, infrastructural devastation, collapsing buildings.

“From this wreckage, we built EarthGov, uniting all remaining peoples on the planet under one banner— converting the remainders of each nation into distinct sectors within our same, shared, Earth government.”

A blue sky with a shining sun was now shown. 

“We need to hold to our Unity more than ever as we face our next challenge,” the voice continued. “As we load our starships with colonists, to send them out into the universe, we must all remember we are one EarthGov, seeking a common goal: to settle new homes, and perpetuate our species!”

The music behind the dialogue had swelled, as footage of various starships being built and loaded was shown.

“We wish especial luck to our two latest completed ships, scheduled for departure this week.  Their voyages will be the first to go beyond the Milky Way. We must all remember— a united EarthGov is a strong EarthGov!”

The broadcast ended, and Han dropped her hand from her breast. She pushed back from her desk, and stood. She always loved those informative broadcasts, even if they followed along similar themes. She loved them— for she loved receiving updates from her government— for she loved EarthGov, and they could do no wrong in her eyes. She was completely loyal to them.

She walked out from her office— built of scrap metal, like all the industrial buildings EarthGov had put up. They had not mentioned the motivation for the star-trips— that the Earth was too devastated to ever fully restore. Life was cruel, in all sectors of EarthGov— just as much so in the sector that Han occupied, which had once been the country China. All humans that remained lived in ruins and rubble and tin-shacks— worked in quickly built industrial buildings just like this one. 

But EarthGov never admitted to the crueller realities of life— better that they shouldn’t, as it prevented panic. Han really believed that.

She made her way through scrapmetal halls, down to the construction bay. There were the two EarthGov Spaceships— they were in fact embarking today. The EGS Promise— of which she herself would be the chief medical officer and de facto leader— and the EGS Invictus.

All the colony teams were here today, as boarding would be starting soon— Han rededicated herself the mission. They needed to go forth and find hospitable environments— they needed to go forth and sow new civilizations in undiscovered soil; they had been given the honor, and the trust of leaving the solar system for the first time— all other EarthGov starships previous had only ventured to other planets nearby.

There was also a deeper purpose— which only Han and the leader of EGS Invictus knew. They had both been trusted with classified information from their government, and they had not shared it with anyone else— or even really discussed it with each other. 

Han turned her mind away from that second objective as she came to the grouped colonists, standing on metal flooring beneath the two ships.

“Thank you all for arriving promptly today,” Han called out to the groups. Her eyes scanned— yes, there was Lingyun, the chief medial officer of the Invictus. He rushed to stand with her— the two figures of authority addressing all subordinates.

“We are ready to begin boarding the ships,” Lingyun said. Han’s eyes swept over colonists. There were a lot of people from Han’s own sector, and she recognized her face in theirs, but EarthGov approached all projects as unity projects, so they had also shipped in people from other sectors; sectors in the west, sectors in the south— a sea of very diverse faces was looking back at her.

“Here’s how the boarding is going to go,” Han said. “The two ships are going to be divided by sex— this will ensure that more people can board each ship. They will meet up again later.”
She had said what EarthGov wanted her to say. She felt pride, and peace about that in her heart.

There was commotion as the grouped colonists split into men and women. The ramp to each ship had descended— women divided from men— Lingyun divided from Han— the two of them  shared a serious look for a moment, which no one else saw— then Lingyun was gone with the other men up into the Invictus.

Han was the last one aboard the Promise, and the ramp came up behind her. Since they were leaving the Milky Way, their ships would be doing a hyperjump, necessitating that everyone onboard entered a hypersleep— every colonists had been previously briefed on this, and so once everyone was inside of the ship, they sought their hypersleep chambers.

Han passed amid these many closed chambers— making sure all of them were functioning as proper— that every woman was being preserved. 

She stopped by the autopiloted engine room, and watched as the controls ran themselves, aware she was the last woman on the ship who was awake and, for the moment, unpreserved. The engines ran, the Promise entered space, and took a course alongside the Invictus.

Han sought her own hypersleep chamber, and lay down inside it. When it sealed, her consciousness drifted away from her.

With all women asleep on the Promise and all men asleep on the Invictus, the two ships veered— the Invictus taking a rightward course, and the Promise taking a leftward course, separating from each other.

The Promise continued on alone through void space— passing planets and distant starts at impossible speed, with the force of its hyperjump. Jump completed, it continued on, now outside the spacial territory of the Milky Way. Its system scanned each passing planet for conditions— and at last a planet was selected, and the landing mechanism was activated.
Once the Promise had anchored itself on soil— there were many simultaneous hisses as every hypersleep chamber unsealed, and every woman aboard awoke, swung their legs out and stood.

Han’s hypersleep chamber was near the engineroom— there was an intercommunicator on the wall, and as soon as she was awake, she activated, pressed the button: and the words she spoke echoed throughout the ship.

“Exit the ship and assemble outside— we will review the process of beginning our colony.”
There was a bustle as all colonists ventured out. 

Han stopped by the main displayscreen in the engineroom— the system was telling her that the planet they had landed on was Amphitrite— the coordinates of it were also listed, with the name of the galaxy they had ended up in.

 
Outside, the grasses of Amphitrite were purple, and the sky was yellow. The one hundred female colonists were standing in clumps, shying together out of nerves.

But they were also surveying their surroundings as Han came to stand infront of all of them.

 
“Where’s the Invictus?” A voice called out. 

A more panicked, different voice. “What happened to them?! Did their ship wreck?!”

A wail of despair. “It’s only us! We’re all alone!”

Han had reached the front of the crowd, and she looked back at all of them. She pulled a remote from her pocket, pressed it, and the remote turned itself into a three-step metal stepladder.

She ascended it, so she would be easier to see for all the colonists.

“Nothing has happened to the Invictus,” Han called out. “It was planned by our brilliant government that they take a course to a different galaxy, and begin their own colony on a planet there.”

The crowd of colonists was stunned into silence.

“We’re luckier than any of you knew,” Han continued. “EarthGov has honored us with the chance to be part of the first in their set of experiments on human behavior. We, the Promise, and they, the Invictus— we each have been tasked with constructing single sex societies. I will be observing you all and speaking with you frequently, in order to make reports back to EarthGov. As at home, there will be surveillance everywhere, at all times— in our case, so that I may send back footage with my findings. The chief medical officer of the Invictus will be doing the same, but what the findings of his report will be are not relevant to us. We have our own experiment to live out.”

Everyone looking back up at Han wore a betrayed expression.

“No more men,” one of the women called out. She looked like she’d come from a southern sector. Her skin was dark. “But I’m straight! Couldn’t they have selected queer women for this colony?”

“There’s a few of us here,” another voice snidely returned from the other side of the crowd. Another southern sector woman, among ten women who were standing together. Han wondered if they were all queer. Ten out of a hundred was a fair proportion— higher than back on earth. “We’re not happy about being stuck with a bunch of straight women, either.”

 
“EarthGov did not take anyone’s sexualities into account,” Han spoke over the dissenting voices. “All that mattered was the single sex objective.”

There was more Han thought of and didn’t say— she remembered her first meeting with the overseeing EarthGov official, Jingzhu, when she’d told Han about her new post.

“It doesn’t matter to us,” Jingzhu had said. “We don’t care enough to select for queer women. Straight women, queer, whatever, they’ll all make a single sex society and they’ll be happy about it. Besides, what’s the point of sorting by sexuality when in all reality your expedition is probably a doomed one anyway?”

Han had only felt graced— happy to be given the opportunity. It was right that EarthGov did not care about the people it had stewarded through the apocalypse and its aftermath. Caring too much about individuals decreased focus on the overall objective. Han could understand that as a scientist. EarthGov was wise.

“You know we are all expendable in the eyes of the regime,” Jingzhu had gone on. “That’s as it should be. The value of human beings is evidenced when they prove themselves hardy enough to survive unthinkable conditions— or evidenced in the data they provide to their observing scientists through those acts of survival. Beyond that, all are nothing— I am nothing. You are nothing.”

“Praise EarthGov,” Han had said, reverently.

Han explained— each woman would be assigned a wife based on ideal genetics. Once the colony was established enough to support children, each wife would give her DNA to an artificial womb, thus forming the couple’s child. But that child could only ever be a girl— the wombs had been rigged.

No men. The colonists grieved it. They grieved it as they received their wife assignments. Grieved it as they directed materializer beams about the planet, forcing buildings of clean synthetic plastic to form. No men in any future generation. Weeping, teeth-gnashing, howling.
An uneasy acceptance came to be. After all, the colony need be maintained— however the colonists felt about it. If they wanted to survive, they had to work. 

Routines were developed. It had been easy forming their buildings— but materializer beams could only manifest objects— they could not manifest food. Expeditions were formed to discover food sources, they were tested, it was learned how they could be made into foods that were safe to ingest.

Han frequently spoke with the colonists— her reports to EarthGov were weekly, and full of footage compiled from the many surveillance cameras both outside and inside the buildings. All colonists understood her as their leader, and when she questioned any of them, they answered her honestly, if a little resentfully— they knew everything they did was watched.

Even the expeditions overworld were surveilled— there were cameras even in the EarthGov uniforms. All camerafeeds fed back to Han Lao’s office in her home, from which she did all her work— she saw the personal experience each woman was going through in adjustment of this colonizing.

Some of them were so angry. In their homes, they cursed EarthGov, and called them evil— totalitarian, dictatorly, called them betrayers for tricking all of them— and swore celibacy, no physical intimacy, no sexual intimacy, not if it had to be with another woman.

Han kept her second in command, Stacey, apprised of her findings too.

“Aren’t you worried about their dissent?”

But Han had a plan for that. 

“Take a materializer beam down to the heart of the colony and put up a new building. We don’t have any clubs yet, that can be our first.”

Stacey frowned. “What kind of club?”

“A strip and drag club,” Han said, folding her hands together. “If so many of the women are so angry— if they miss men so much— let them ape them, while they can still remember what men were like.”

Stacey shifted on her feet. “You’re sure?”

Han waved a hand. “Only a temporary concession. In a few generations when there is no further living memory of men, the interest in clubs like this will be gone.”

Stacey went and did as told— the drag club was open for business the next day, once owners and managers had been assigned.

This presented a shift to the overall routine, but a welcome one. Some of the angriest women were not softened, but some were. And then for some women, going to the drag club to watch a stripshow seemed to comfort them— and give them some outlet for sexual release that could reach them.

The club had been open a few months before Han got around to going herself. It seemed too ripe an opportunity for insight into the psychological states of her colonists to pass up. 

It was made of synthetic gray, like all their buildings— clean, sturdy, nondescript. Inside there was a long stage, and many small two or three person tables covered in utilitarian black tablecloths.

The club was packed— and as the show was beginning, the lights lowered.

When the first person walked onto the stage, Han had to remind herself she was not looking at a man— it was a woman dressing up like that, experiencing a sexual thrill by doing so, perhaps— but it was easier to think of the woman as he, because that was what he looked like.

Under the lights of the club, the facial hair— which must have pressed on or applied with adhesive, looked like it really grew out of the man’s face— he must have bound his breasts first— and put on some kind of muscle shirt— because he truly just looked like a man well-endowed with muscles— his shirt was very tight and showed them all off.

The other women in the bar whooped— the music that played was suggestive— the man gyrated, and danced, removing his shirt— if he was only wearing a muscle shirt, it was impossible to tell where it ended and his true body began.

When he took his pants off, and wore only boxers, there was a more astounding illusion. He must have been wearing materialized phallus strapped to him, but obscured by cloth, it only looked like a real penis. 

Some of the women sighed. Some of them salivated— some of them touched themselves, and when more male dancers of this type came into the audience to grind on laps, for their trouble they received stuffed EarthGov bills to their briefs.

Back in her office, Han was free to watch what happened in the drag club as she was free to watch all other footage. She found herself going back to it; some of would ultimately be clipped and sent as part of one of her reports. But there was a personal hint for her too.

One of the men looked like Lingyun. From the eastern sector, like she and Lingyun were— with a face reminiscent of her own— and of his— and there was an ache behind her ribcage when she saw him.

She remembered a harried meeting in a storage closet, the feeling of temptation held between their mouths but never tasted.

“Even if we weren’t leaving,” Han had said. “We never would have been assigned as marital partners.”

Lingyun had looked at her beseechingly.

“We have our mission. We shouldn’t get involved. We’ll have separate spouses in our future colonies.”

She was managing well herself, all things considered.

Even into the most intimate details of colonist lives, Han was able to see. Some spouses really favored using materialized phalluses, of the kind sported in the strip club— many of the heterosexual women who’d been paired really preferred that— sometimes they even put themselves in drag first. All though there always seemed to be some bitterness about who had to be the “man.” This was often decided by flipping a coin. 

Unluckily for the ten queer women— three of them lesbians, Han had learned in conversation, and the other seven of them bisexual— none of them had been paired up together. Each one had been paired to a heterosexual wife. They all of them seemed to resent being with women who didn’t truly want them— seemed to dislike the inherent force behind that.

And when Han made mention of any of these things noticed to the women she watched— none of them were ever surprised. They took it for granted there were eyes on them at all.

All the laments Han heard— all the anger she witnessed, and she still couldn’t understand it. In her eyes, the mission was  perfect— and more successful than anyone had dared to hope for.
She supported the mission with all her heart.

And yet, with her own wife, Cassidy, she still felt the difficulty of adjustment. 

Cassidy was more masculine than her, which should have made it easier for her— but she was still clearly a woman, even if she was more tomboyish. She wore her blonde hair short— and she was from a northern, western sector— so the cultural clash might not have helped either— nor the difficulty of someone who understood life through strength and physical ability colliding with someone who understood all things cerebrally. Han felt a duty to Cassidy, but nothing more than that yet— no affection. 

Their daughters would be both smart and strong— in EarthGov’s wisdom, the two of them were the perfect genetic components to make an improved third individual with the best of their both qualities— and in a year or two, once the colony had settled in, the time to begin gestating children in artificial wombs and raising them would arrive.

But for now, out of duty, Han had to try making bonds with her wife. And so nightly they tried at sex. Han didn’t find it very appealing to pet Cassidy’s vagina— Cassidy didn’t seem to find it appealing either. Han just wasn’t a sapphist.

Tonight, in particular, she was struggling. Cassidy had spent a good thirty minutes between her legs licking at her vagina, at her clitoris, and very little sexual arousal had resulted. Certainly no remote hope of orgasm had arisen. 

She pushed Cassidy back by the shoulders, sighing her frustration. It always felt a little like cheating to do this, but— 

“Cassidy?” She asked. “Will you be the man tonight?”

Cassidy acted a little put upon by it. But she stood, and went into the bathroom— binding her breasts, putting on her muscleshirt, putting on a materialized phallus— pressing the facial hair to her face. She looked like a man— it made Han a little wet.

But— even if it was an enemy to her adjustment in the end, she wanted the comfort of it tonight.

“Turn the light off?” She asked, and her voice was earnest.

Cassidy turned the light off. And when she fucked Han, her face obscured, Han imagined that it was really Lingyun thrusting into her.

It would get easier, Han told herself. It had to.