Majime walked around the circular lab a little, looking at the Nekovalkyrja bodies in the tubes. There was actually a spare for Yui in one of them. "The Taisho!" she exclaimed.
"The Empire has to ensure continuity of government so there are backups for all of the Yamataian leadership," Hanako explained. "After the Empress declared that the Nekovalkyrja were a species and not equipment, most of the development program moved from making new models of Nekovalkyrja to making updates to the existing models to make them a forever-Nekovalkyrja and to protect them from engineered threats. The Kuvexians had a great deal of technical and biological engineering expertise at their disposal."
Kwabba-an was startled somewhat when someone spoke. She opened her eyes and looked around, trying to find the source of the voice. She saw the gradient-haired woman talking and she listened in carefully. The Nekovalkyrja were considered equipment at some point? The insectoid looked down and away. Would she have been considered equipment since she was manufactured? Or was there enough of a biological component in her creation that she would have been a species even under the old rules?
Cheilith looked on amazed at the copy of Yui ready to go. Cheilith wondered what it would be like to be transfered like that.
"They were trying to hack us the whole time," Pidole speculated aloud.
"That is correct," Hanako nodded.
Kwabba-an heard a new speaker and turned to see the girl with the cute beetle pet under her sweater. Was she a neko? She didn't look like one, but the insectoid knew there was a certain amount of physical variation within their species.
Cheilith never knew any of this and so listened in wide eyed facination. Then again, she was still less then a year old so everything was new and amazing to her.
"In the battle of Yamatai, the Kuvexians managed to corrupt most of the mental backup data throughout the Empire. Since then we have had to make new copies for everyone," Hanako added.
Kwabba-an thought for a while about Nekovalkyrja before a question occurred to her. She looked up at the gradient-haired woman and wanted desperately to simply ask it, but she felt her chest tighten at the thought. She closed her eyes and hummed quietly under her breath until she felt relaxed enough to speak.
"Do Nekovalkyrja..." Kwabba-an began, but then trailed off and felt herself starting to blush with embarrasment. Then she furrowed her brow in determination and pressed on. "Do they combine genes with one another? Or is that up to the designers?"
"Are you talking about sex?" Cassie grinned.
"I...I suppose so," Kwabba-an wanted to hide, but did her best to stay calm.
"Nekovalkyrja are capable of asexual reproduction, just as much as we can take on genes from donors. Dependent on the race of the donor will determine just what we produce." The blonde that had been a silent ghost for most of the tour so far finally spoke up. Hoshiko's blue eyes wandered left and right throughout the room before they settled bak on Kwabba-an.
"My mother was my only genetic donor, though for my original body it was a little different." She admitted as she missed her NH-27 body.
Kwabba-an breathed a little easier once the conversation turned to answer the question rather than asking more of her. She hadn't, in fact, been asking about sex. Her own parents had combined their genes without it, and she was curious if new Nekovalkyrja were created in a similar way.
Kim Eun-Kyung just listened to the others, not really having anything to contribute for the moment. She just stood in the back of the group, looking around curiously.
"So where will your crew go first?" Hanako asked Majime and her crew.
Majime laughed, "Well, our ship is still in the shipyard, so I think we will take the train or shuttles around Yamatai for a little bit and practice exploring before we get out into deep, scary space."
"Ah, maybe we'll go through Ternifac again!" Gabriela grinned. "By the way, does the ship have a medic yet?"
"No," Majime yet. "Do you have a recommendation?"
"Yes, Poppy Pink," Gabriela told Majime with an eager grin.
Kwabba-an perked up as her hometown of Ternifac was mentioned, then she started to feel sad as she remembered how much she missed her parents. She hadn't had a chance to go back home since she shipped out for training and looked forward to going back.
"Okay, what about recommendations for places to visit?" Majime asked everyone.
"The Jhuniata Desert seems like an interesting place to explore. Read there are a lot of wrecks and beautiful scenery there." Eun-Kyung suggested as ordered.
"It sounds hot," Kalena noted with a bemused grin. "Say, even though the Resurgence isn't finished, we could probably get our shuttles for the ship, right?"
Pidole had her face up against the glass of one of the Nekovalkyrja tubes and was staring into it, inspecting the occupant.
"I don't see why not," Majime told Kalena. "Are you eager to get in the pilot seat?"
Kalena nodded.
"Anyone else have suggestions to add to the list?" Majime said.
Kwabba-an listened to each voice in turn until they began to feel familiar to her and she felt herself relaxing.
"I would like to visit Nepleslia," the insectoid suggested. "I understand they have an interesting music scene."
"Hey," said Cassie. "If we want to visit someplace really hot and unknown we should go to Hell."
"Hell?" Gabriela blinked.
"Think about it," Cassie said. "It's the place the Elysians and Taisho Yui fought over when she was young. It's got demons and catacombs."
"Sounds kind of claustrophobic," Gabriela noted. Not that she considered herself particularly prone to that.
"Catacombs have good acoustics," Kwabba-an pointed out with an expression of interest on her face. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the red-haired technician with the beetle pressing her face up against a neko tube. She tilted her head, then walked over and pressed her ear up against the same tube, wondering if she could hear a heartbeat. There was none.
"We could also look at Black Sands? Lots of cool millitary stuff there." Chilith suggested absently as she still was trying to take in and understand everything she was seeing.
"I will look into getting you this medic," Taisho Hanako offered.
Pidole spun around. "With the captain's permission I would also like to request a science specialist, Kawa Euikoshi."
Hanako and Majime both nodded. "I like the sound of Black Sands," Majime told Cheilith.
Chielith grinned at her idea being approved of.
"I love beaches," Kalena grinned. "The more nude the better!"
Kwabba-an giggled at the sudden suggestion of nude beaches.
"I think going West does offer us the chance to see some little-known cities, the caverns of Hell, and Black Sand in one trip. That sounds like a plan is starting to form," Majime said.
"Oh man, I gotta shit, where's the litterbox around here?" Cassie asked Hanako suddenly.
Hanako put her hand over her mouth in shock and to avoid laughing. "Ah, if you follow me," she said, disappearing with Cassie into a side hall.
Majime just stared at Pidole and Pidole started back at her.
Kalena shrugged in an exaggurated fashion.
Kwabba-an hummed the tune of "On Through the Portal to Fight" softly as everyone started staring at each other.
"On through the portal to fight..." Cheilith started to sing softly as she tried to figure out what a display with a slice of genetic code on it meant and was actually for.
Kwabba-an smiled widely and listened as someone else sang. Actually, she thought that she recognized the singing voice. Was it the black-haired woman who had talked to her at Glimmergold?
Cheilith wasn't a great singer, not a musician, but good enough to follow the tune and hit the right notes. "O sisters, let's fly on..."
"This is why the Star Army has officers and enlisted and why some people are in the infantry for a reason," Kalena told Gabriela.
Gabriela smiled politely. "I do not recommend swearing in front of the Taisho," she simply said. She paused to listen to the singing.
Kwabba-an walked closer to the singing and joined in, harmonizing with the black-haired woman. "Thinking all about our guiding light, O Empress of Yamatai Won't you safeguard my flight."
"Oh hi there Kwabba, I think this is a device for checking the integrity of a genetic sequence against a known code. No idea what that's used for though." Chelith said, distracted by the appearance of the person she had been unconciously harmonizing with.
Kwabba-an looked at the display and made no attempt to hide her confusion as she quite obviously couldn't even begin to understand what she was looking at. She turned to the black-haired woman, smiled, and nodded.
Hanako returned after a moment to find singing. "Fascinating."
"I think we are on our way to the train station after this," Majime told Hanako.
"Ever eager," the Ketsurui raised her teal eyebrows. "I will show you the way once your infantry catboy returns."
Before they left, Cheilith came up to Hanako, "I wish you could come with us on this adventure." She said wistfully, as to a friend rather then as to a Taisho.
(OOC: JP by Wes,
@hyralt @Soban @SageShooter and
@demibear )
