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Finley cursed to himself as he continued into the facility while scrolling through a medical text, panicking as the little hope he had of finding a way to save Ethuci's arm began to slowly slip away. Cursing aloud again as he watched in dread as Ethuci's arm vitals slowly dropped from yellow to red, he thought upon the last words his drinking said before he left. "Shit, that idiot is going to get me skinned alive."

Noticing Finley's aloofness, Hezexhel walked up beside him and opened a private com. "How bad?"

Finley once again looked over his gear and sighed. "Ever tell a lady you'll keep a man in one piece, but you're going to bring him back in two?"

Hezexhel looked over to the limp arm of his long-time friend and scowled. "Is it that bad?"

Slamming his fist into a sealed door he came upon in an attempt to create an opening, Finley flexed his fingers into the fresh crack and pulled it open. "Well, my options are. I set up a thermal tent and take his arm off. Or I keep injecting him with medical nanites and hope there aren't any long-term side effects. These aren't rated for you guys, ya know."

Walking into a room filled with data terminals strewed about, Hezexhel stopped to look between Finley and Ethuci. "Do you have functioning prosthetics?"

Finley Let out a small chuckle while he made his way over to a terminal. "The man who put the satellites in your planet's orbit is something like forty-seven percent cybernetic. His own choice, mind you. He says it makes his job more manageable. We can also clone and attach new limbs, but I'm not sure we can do that for you guys yet."

Hezexhel pulled out a syringe and walked over to Ethuci, who had managed to make his way over to a dusty chair and lazily occupy it. Keying his open com, Hezexhel tapped Ethuci on his good shoulder. "I am sorry old friend."

Harshly grabbing Ethuci's head and jerking it to the side, he jammed a syringe into the neck slot. Hezexhel then motioned for Finley to attend Ethuci as he suddenly went limp in his chair. "There is no shame in losing your arm for the sake of your people. This will slow his heart. We will gather the data and whatever else and leave within the hour. Make sure he doesn't die."

Finley nodded and watched as Hezexhel and his team walked off into the facility.

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Hezexhel walked into a room with a handful of his men, mostly technology experts recommended for this task by field leaders. "Anything look salvageable?"

Tech expert Kononos shrugged and walked over to the old server and began to run some scans. "A few server blades seem alright. Most are corrupt or just plain dead."

"We expected as much. Extract what you can. I'll try to find out what exactly is in this gene bank." Walking out of the dim room, Hezexhel stopped to look around for some sort of sign. He cursed as the sudden realization hit him. "I have no clue what any of these signs say." He thought, looking over the odd runes.

Deciding to walk down the hall into a random room, one near the end of a long path, he was pleased with the reaction as he forced himself in. Alarms began to blare, and two turrets dropped from the ceiling, quickly targeting him and opening fire. Well, one did. The other seemingly malfunctioned and destroyed itself, much to Hezexhel's amusement, as the operational turret pelted his armour with chemically propelled munitions. "What a lovely welcome this is. Something important must be in this room."

Walking up to the firing turret, Hazexhel Grabbed some debris from the ground and threw it through the turret, destroying it thoroughly. "Well, now that that's over. Let's see what's here." Walking past the destroyed turrets. Hezexhel came up to another door, one that was easily pulled off its hinges with a bit of force.

"I see. This is what they meat by gene bank." Walking into the room as his men rushed in to investigate the commotion. Hezexhel finally saw a sign he was familiar with.

He continued walking up to the cabinet, looking at a dusty bio-hazard marker printed plainly on its top. He checked his suit seals and quickly opened the chest. "Wood? Small wood pieces?"

Picking up the transparent container in confusion while his men began to rummage through the room, Hezexhel opened a com to Finley. "Hey, any idea what these are?"

Finley received a picture from Hezexhel and studied the off shapes. "What're the scanners saying?"

Hezexhel curled his tail and began to run scans. "Organic refuse?"

Finley raised his eyes in confusion before it finally hit precisely what kind of gene bank this vault was. "It's a seed! This is a seed bank. Grab what you can and store them in thermal bags. We can bring them to Leda and see if they're still good and if we can clone them."

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Finley stretched as Hezexhel and his men entered the room. Nodding to the group, he walked over and picked Ethuci up off the chair to sling him over his shoulder. "Got everything?"

Hezexhel rolled his shoulder and eyed Ethuci's limp body as he continued to move out of the facility. "We have what we can carry. I believe this facility will be a place of great study in the future."

Walking up beside Hezexhel as he left the vault, Finley passed Ethuci off to one of the Aasteran soldiers and waited by the exit. "Well, on that, your right. I'm sure once we get a proper science team down here, we can begin some proper restoration."

Hezexhel turned to watch Finley check to ensure the door was sealed and continued on his way. " Let us depart these ruins. We have data and seeds to study. I'm sure councillor Viscia will be ecstatic."

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Viscia playfully rolled off Tanda onto what she now called her side of the bed and let out a happy sigh. "I could get used to waking up like this."

Tanda grabbed the cup of water from beside his bed and took a large pull before responding. "You're gonna break me at this rate."

Gently cuddling up against Tanda, Visca curled her tail around his leg and laid her head on his chest. " You ready to work on the new fold drive today?"

Running his hand through Viscia's long white hair, Tanda fought to contain his excitement. "Absolutely, a joint venture between our people to really open up the galaxy? I can hardly wait."

Viscia frowned while pushing her head into Tanda's hand. "Does it count if it's just me helping?"

Ruffling Viscia's hair, Tanda sat up, letting out a small grunt as he pulled himself up. "Well, we got one Terran, One Aasteran, and one AI leading the project. So your people make up thirty-three percent of the leadership. The rest is all just hired goons moving stuff around for us."

Pushing Viscia over and getting up off the bed, Tanda threw on a shirt and walked toward the kitchen, ignoring the complaints coming from his room. "Get your stuff ready, ya pack-rat. I'll make us some breakfast."

Viscia rolled to the edge of the bed and took a deep breath. Placing her hands on the nightstand, she swung her legs over the bed and attempted to stand, only to crumble into a heap on the floor. Rubbing her stomach in content, she began to reconsider her new morning routine. "Maybe it's a bad idea to exchange so much heat in the morning. And I'm not a 'pack-rat'; I'm prepared."

Laughing from the kitchen, Tanda continued to prepare the eggs. "I told you. You couldn't even stand after the first time. What makes you think you could first thing in the morning, after cuddling all night? And you don't need that stuff here on Leda."

Laying on the floor, Viscia pulled herself to her feet using the nightstand and moved over to her dresser. "It's a habit. I don't feel comfortable without my tools, rations and water. You'll have to live with it."

Plating the food as Viscia walked into the kitchen, dragging some clothes behind her, Tanda let his eyes wander before moving the food to the table. "You normally eat naked?"

Visca slipped her shorts on and sat in her chair, dropping her pants and top to the side. "I'm letting the heat bleed off a bit. I feel like my bones are made of water."

"Hey, feel free to. No complaints from me." Sitting down to eat his food, Tanda eyed Viscia, who was oddly grinning at him. "Yes?"

Viscia let out a happy sigh as she munched on her egg. "So, Dr.Leviye is an AI?"

Tanda smacked his forehead, putting his fork down before sighing, "Fuck."

Chewing on her bacon, Viscia let out a triumphant squeal before continuing. " I figured he was. He always referred to Jack as a son, not a creation, talks funny and never sleeps. I'm just wondering why you're hiding it from everyone."

Picking up his fork and stabbing his egg yoke, Tanda decided he would try his damnedest not to hide anything from his new partner. "I can't tell you. But I can tell you a story about our first AI experiment."

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Dr. Leviye noted the extreme temperature difference from Viscia as she walked through the door with Tanda and logged it for a future query, deciding on greeting the duo before satisfying his curiosity... "Welcome. I hope you two are well-rested. We have a lot of work ahead of us today."

Tanda moved over to his locker and began to slip into his coveralls. "Ready to go doc, You two work out the kinks with the new system math, and I'll work out the problems with the hardware. Sound good?"

Dr. Leviye noticed Viscia was eyeing him on and off in a curious way and turned to address her. "Do you require anything before we start?"

Viscia nodded and walked up to Dr. Leviye. "I figured you out, and I'm not afraid. But, I do now have a request."

Dr. Leviye looked over to Tanda, who just shook his head then back to Viscia. "Alright. What is your request?"

Viscia straightened her tail and took a deep breath. "After we finish this fold drive. I know we plan to send your son, along with that test pilot and our explorer, to earth to report the drive's success. At that time, when we're finished with the aftermath. I want to create an AI for my people. Will you help me? I would feel safer with you around if it went all crazy and tried to kill people."

"That is all? I do not see why I would not help to bring more of my kind into this universe. I accept."

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Michael and Srettia sat awkwardly in a medical room alongside their chiming hardlight friend. Currently, they were staring at a furry alien in a mix of awe and confusion. "So, we got this singing dude and this furry dude now? What's this guy got to do with us, and why are we here?" Michael asked.

Doctor Leferts sighed and shook her head. "This one is a female; the other two are males. I brought you here because you're listed as the man responsible for the first contact with the Aasteran people. You also wrote the translation program we're using for them. I'm hoping you'll have similar luck with this lady here; she's the only one well enough to be woken up."

Srettia laughed and slapped Michael on the back. "Get to it, Mr.translator."

"Ahh, Doctor...Lefrets. I'm not really the one who did all that. I did meet Srettia here first. But the one who wrote the translation program is my co-pilot." Michael looked around to make sure they were the only ones in the room and continued. "He's also very classified, and I think I'm going to get in shit telling you this, but I'm guessing you need to ask this lady some questions if you made the fleet basically tractor us into the hangar. He's an AI, so were... so I guess... So I could have just avoided all this and pretend I was using a datapad while he translated. I'm stupid."

Srettia bent over in laugher at her flustered partner, nearly falling to her knees as he palmed his face in frustration. "You really are an idiot."

Gathering herself, Srettia reached up to massage Michael's shoulders as he figured out what he was going to do. "Alright, doc. I'm going to pretend none of this happened, and we can start, okay?"

"I don't think that will work, partner."

Dr. Leferts ignored the new voice and information, deciding to walk over to her medical table. "Alright, I will pretend I hear nothing. I'll leave it to you."

"I am hardly an expert. I am having no luck with these singing aliens; I may not be able to translate for this species either."

Michael watched as the doctor moved back to the bedside and injected the furred red alien with an unknown concoction. Soon after beginning to monitor the vitals before nodding and buzzing some security in. "Uhh, doc, you know the co-pilot thing is still in effect, right?"

The doctor walked over to her chair and sat down. "I thought you were going to pretend to translate, were you not?"

Srettia walked over and sat beside the doctor as the guards stepped in and took up defensive positions. " Yeah, get to it. Mr.Expert."

Michael looked down at his datapad then to the chiming alien beside him. "Well, we'll get to talking to you as soon as we get some real experts in. Let's give this lady a try, shall we?"

The bright floating alien let out a happy tune and floated over to the corner of the room before condensing into a diamond, confusing everyone in the room after doing so.

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Ankiah kept her eyes closed as the bright lights attempt to stir her, hoping that the other two prisoners would be selected for experiments if her abductors thought she was still out cold.

Unfortunately, that didn't seem to be the case as an odd barking sound assaulted her ears, and the prodding began, though it was much much softer than before. Panicking, she willed her fur into its defensive state, eliciting an odd roar and many new sounds she had never heard.

Finding that her bindings were now cut, she curled into a ball and flared her fur before daring to open her eyes. What she saw was something she didn't expect. Bipedal beings, a hairless one and a scaled one, with none of her abductors were insight.

Watching closely as one in white was tending to a larger one as blood dripped from its hand, Ankiah's confusion only grew. Daring to look around the room, an unexpected realization hit her. "This looks like a hospital." She thought in confusion.

Watching in awe as an assumed female doctor poured a grey liquid into the fresh hole of the larger one's hand, a male obviously. Ankiah watched in wonder as the hole in his hand began to slowly repair itself while the female began to wrap it in cloth.

"Advanced medical techniques." Looking over to the horned scaly one, Ankiah flared her fur to its utmost. She could almost see the hate and anger now radiating from it.

It wasn't until she saw the two huge and very space-armoured guards off to the side that she relaxed. "Are they policemen? I wonder if I just hurt a police officer."

Relaxing her fur, Ankiah sat up on the bed and looked at the damaged one. "I am sorry for hurting you, officer."

Flinching as the room turned to look at her, she quickly strengthened her fur, readying herself for if she had angered the officers. "Hello?"

Michael winced in pain as the nanites began to repair the hole in his hand. "Well, she's barking, yipping? At us. I guess that's a good sign."

"I'll kill her if she hurts you again." Srettia spat, glaring at the female.

"It's okay. My hand will be fine in a few days. She is, was? Obviously scared. I don't know why she looks somewhat relaxed now.

Walking over to sit in front of the female, much to Srettia's anger. Michael held up the datapad with his good hand and pointed to himself. "Hello, my name is Michael. I am Michael."

Ankiah had been one of the few lucky enough to see a picture communication drama before she was taken, and thanks to that, she knew where this was going. Pointing to herself, she wiggled her ears at Michael in a greeting. "I am Ankiah."

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