Just playing along.

The Captain and his marines arrived in time to see the pirates evac through the hull. "Joe, can you get a lock on the group exiting the wreck."

The Marine in the engine room glanced at the engines. "Cap, We get salvage rights to this wreck right... Three class four engines. This sucker is not using even half its thrust." He looked about a second time. "This place is packed with goodies that we could use in our hull."

The girl submitted dropping off the disks on the counter as the pirate put her in the quarantined area. She waited till the door was sealed before removing the armor. She cleaned her hands in the sink and sat on the bunk. Her eyes showed no fear, just curiosity.

It was a few minutes' delay before the ship's chief medical officer arrived. Valerie Klein, M.D, stepped across the threshold of the door, ear-length blonde hair bobbing as she moved across the room.

"Hello. I'm Valerie Klein. Captain Harrison has ordered that I give you a medical examination to check for parasitic organisms from the ship. Can you recount anything that you saw?" The doctor pulled a large apparatus down from the cieling that looked like a periscope and placed the orb against the girl's chest.

"ANything you can tell us will help."

She shrugged, her fingers made gestures as if she was typing on a keyboard. "Disk." One of the techsgenetictechs outside pulled up the data on the disks and looked it over. His whistle drew attention.

"Doc Klein, The last doc, looked her over. She is not carrying anything contagious, at last scan. Her nervous and muscular systems are highly tunes. He was waiting on a genetic scan of her. Something in here about her learning far too fast to suit him. Doc says she is scary. Hmmm.. no language skills when they first picked her up, learned words daily. Doc is not sure how many, more words she hears the more she learns. Says here she was able to activate secure locks and several units that were in direct line of sight of her. She learns quickly by watching. Interesting thoughts spring to mind." His lecherous leerOK was audible. "Uh.. OK.. that is scary.. Says doc let her watch some of the crew spar. She bested their champion after watching a few hours. In his own style... "

"Interesting," Docter Klein said, then produced a small scraper resembling a frosting spreader and took a scraping of her skin.

"DNA sample. Kidd, run this to the analyzer. I want updates ASAP." the M.D looked the girl over again.

"Oh man, what is this thing..."

The tech pulled the sample and moved to the analyzer. He slid it into the scanner and punched up the codes. The girl's fingers moved in time with his.

She stood about 5'10", maybe 150 lbs, brown hair and green cat-slit eyes. She showed signs of primitivecallusedcontainmentprimitive upbringing. Her feet were callused as if she did not wear shoes. The girl watched Doctor Klein, her eyes absorbing her movements. The computer started to spit out sheets of data, more than a normal scan. The tech looked down at the sheets and lost a bit of color.

"Uh, Doc, you might want to look at these. Its an E.L.F." He did not put the sheets in the containment area. He motioned the Doc to come out. "Who ever did it, is better than anything I have ever seen."

"Uh huh. Can you just tell me what the hell E.L.F stands for so I can get around to figuring out the connection between the alien Gonzales found and that girl?" Klein crossed her arms and tapped her foot.

The tech laughed. "Si.. Ma'am, E.L.F. Engineered Life Form. Someone built her. Just looking at preliminary data her helix is not a double helix, but a quad. Two strands of genetic information designed to learn from example. Let me look." He punched a different series of buttons. "Wished I had some of those expensive machines back in the medical college." He looked back at the data files on the disks. "Definite phobia of insects. According to data she lost it and went into a full blown flight panic when the last Doc's lab assistant brought in a bug on a peg. They learned quick that is about the only thing that scares her. Turning on full array of scanners."

The tech looked at the notes. "Seems she is ticklish as well. Avoid the ribs, says the last person to play with her found out about her retractable claws. Wait a sec." He turned back to the genetic tests, reading a bit and pulling up other data. "Interesting, her base genetic strain is both canine and feline." Looks at the data again. "Got a quick scribble here about ear-scratches." He looked into the window. "Body temp, five degrees off normal. Blood make-up O-negative. Hmm.. walking blood bank." He walked and read, forgetting the rest of the world. "Bunches of notes in an almost legible hand writing. This guy needs to not write information down." He set the papers on the desk by the window. "Nothing in the information says anything about changing into big ugly monsters."

Valerie frowned. She'd been fearing this. Now that she was sure that there was no genetic and physical connection between their mistery aliens and the test subject, she was absolutely sure that without a test subject from the Silver Veil... It could take years of searching to figure out just what brought those things to the Veil.

"Retractable claws, you say? Maybe it's some kind of combat form. Sounds a lot like a cat brain in a humanoid body... We'll run some more tests and set her out on the crew."

The tech suddenly turned away from the glass redness showing on his visible skin. "Doc. I think someone called mating season." The girl had slipped her tunic down for all to see. Intricate lacing of scars on her arms showed signs of learning to use at least a knife. From what the other doctor had written she learned as fast as she saw. She sat in a provocative pose and looked at Valerie.

"Exam.. Doc show.." Her hands softly moved across her own body in careful gestures of measurements. She was giving herself a physical. The engineered form had no visible defects and lacked any sort of modesty. She gave herself a through physical and looked at Valerie, Her voice took on a slightly English accent as she said. "Test subject in excellent health. Borand, What is that infernal noise?" She looked slightly over her left shoulder and continued this time in a rougher voice. "Unknown, looks like the Veil is under attack. Several ships arrowing to wards us. Too small to be anything but fighters. I am heading up to the Bridge to talk to the Capt. Get her dressed and away from the crew. See if she is usable as a body slave, should be able to pick up some good money for someone that looks like that with a perfect memory. Maybe get her on the Flag. Too bad Capt had to just grab randomly when we split that rock. There was a blond on the surface that was hotter than the sun. And built like a.. " The conversation stopped as something happened. The e.l.f. girl went silent. She waited as if expecting something. She looked at Valerie hopefully and then at the Tech outside the window.

"Doc, What ya think. Personal recorder on legs. Smashing set of legs, but still." The tech still had his back to the window.

Valerie sighed.

"Keep her away from the male crewmen. And get some clothes on her..." She put a shroud on the window and waited for her assistant to get a gown from stasis.

This day just keeps getting wierder and wierder...

A female nurse brought the gown in. She had a slightly irritated look on her face. "His laziness.. Ah I see. Got a medium shipsuit. No insignia or other stuff here. I don't think you wanted the body sock." She handed it over without a raised eyebrow. She shrugged and looked at the Doc. "I can take her around if you need me to. Dead-head out there wants to show her around. He also grabbed the body sock." The uniform was a very slight bit small. The girl looked at the uniform like it was a threat, then after seeing that both the others were wearing one. She slid into the outfit, it snugged up and sealed off(a precaution: just in case of decompression, you had a few seconds to get to a good space suit.) She still looked a bit daunted but did not look so innocent in it.

(Aboard the patrol boat.)
"Joe did you get a lock on the those armors." The captain was not happy that pirates got to the life form first. A live pirate was worth quiet a bit. "Send a computer crew into that hull and see what you can find in the data banks."

Valerie sighed again.

"I don't think it's a good idea to let her loose on the crew yet. At least have her interact with one of the male crewmen first." She pressed a finger to her temple, which lit up with a soft red light.

"Lorenzo, come to medical. I've got someone i'd like you to meet."

__________________

After a few minutes of waiting, Lorenzo Ruiz rolled down the gangway to Medical.

"You called, ma'am?"

"Yeah, i've got someone i'd like you to meet."

"This isn't gonna be another robot, is it?"

"No, it's an E.L.F."

"You mean with pointy years, works at the north pole, all that good stuff?"

"No, an engineered life form. You'll recognize her from the Veil." With that, Valerie opened the door and the 6'11", 229 pound Lorenzo stepped across the threshold to meet with the strange life-form.

The girl looked at Lorenzo with a calculating eye. She was sizing him up if there was trouble. She knew how to defend herself. She relaxed a bit as he moved into the room. She did not smile. She moved fluidly, keeping distance between herself and the stranger. He moved like a fighter. She did not want to get close. She waited a second and made a formal half-bow. She did not take her eyes off the newcomer. Pointing to herself, "Lahiri" She moved slowly not offering resistance, but did not want the get too close.

Lorenzo read Lahiri's body language perfectly and held up his hands in a non-violent gesture. He pointed to himself with a large thumb and identified himself.

"Lorenzo. Pleased to meet you."

Lahiri quirked a grin. She did not move. She pointed at the screen. "No.. be nice.. , she had a bit of fear in her tone.

"What? What do you mean 'No be nice'?" Lorenzo looked at the screen that Lahir was looking at. he pressed a button on his ear.

"Val, we have a name. Lahir."

The girl just looked about sweat was starting to form on her forehead. She looked nervous.

One of the techs looking over the data, looked up. "Doc, she has a case of claustrophobia. Heart rate climbing, so is respiration. Veil's doc mentioned he had problems with her in a scan tube."

Lahiri moved closer to the window and the screen on the other side of it. She tried to open it back up. Pushing on the glass to move the material. her claws extended slightly. They could not get traction on the window, which made her fear worse. She dropped to the floor covering her head. "Lahiri good, no bite, no claw.. good.. help.." She whimpered.

"Claustrophobia. Greeat... Val, I think we should let her out before she blows this section of the ship into space." Lorenzo opened the door and waited for Lahiri to take the initiative to leave.

Lahiri settled. She moved to a bed and sat. She smiled softly but made no effort to leave. "Question?" She cocked her head and looked at Lorenzo.

"C'mon, let's get you out of here." Lorenzo moved Lahiri into the more spacious area outside the examination room.

"Val, requesting permission to escort Lahiri around the Charmer's Luck." Lorenzo cleared his throat.

"Granted, Ruiz. Bring her back here when you're done to get our new crew member a place to sleep." She smiled slightly when she said 'our new crew member'.