The hours passed quietly for Samantha. She did not return to her bed, as she had come to the conclusion that she had slept enough. If she slept, she might dream things. Odd things. Things that made little sense, and might possibly lead her down the road to madness.

She busied herself about the ship. Nothing interesting had happened in the waking world while she was out, though she had slept through most of her transfer time. Once all of her preparations were made, there was little left to do but to sit around and wait.

Samantha gazed up at the ceiling of her little ship and sighed. There was nothing to do. She had not updated her ship's entertainment library for quite some time. Nearly everything she had brought on board had been read, viewed, played, or shot into space.

Eventually, she gave up on trying to entertain herself for her last hour of transit. Instead she opted to perform her pre-mission ritual, a nice hot shower with actual water.

A sigh of pure contentment escaped her lips as Samantha pressed her palm to the shower wall. She leaned heavily forward and allowed the water to cascade down her back and along the curvature of her muscles. She carried tension every day. Even when she was at her most playful, her body remained highly taut and tense. From a young age, life had been a battle field. It was here, in this lonely room, that she could finally relax.

Each mission could be her last. While a water shower was wasteful of resources, albeit most of the water would be reclaimed and purified, it would not matter if she died. These moments of pure bliss were well worth the negligible risk.

Steam wafted through the bathroom and fogged her mirror. Not made of glass due to the risks inherent in space travel, it was a composite of various metals and translucent ceramics made to achieve a reflective surface easily superior to older models that used glass. It reflected back the image of a woman whose physicality and physical beauty was unrivaled, a veritable amazon of the space age.

Shower time at an end, she allowed her air jets to dry her quickly then went to find a clean body suit. Her ensemble was not particularly varied, but she looked through the dozen or so suits that she had then frowned. Most were pink, or even black. Two were blue, though for various reasons she eyed those two suits with annoyance. "Alvaris-Hector VI is a combination orbital research station and planetary base camp. Topology in the area they will want me to work is a rocky desert..."

Camouflage was not really an option given the fact that she would be wearing a power suit, though the color of her suit could shift to match whatever under armor she wore. It was a weird facet of its existence that she never quite understood. Usually, she left it in its standard color mode.

Eventually, she opted for a reddish pink bodysuit that was far more red than pink. Just like all of her under armor it was skin tight and would hug the curves of her body. This one was a sleeveless affair that also stopped above her knees. A pair of running shoes completed the look, though she did not bother with socks. Footwear designs no longer required such protection for the feet in her era as the materials made would prevent chafing and the like.

Suited up, and ponytail in place, she went to her command chair and sat down. The station would soon be appear on her view monitor and she wanted to see it before she bothered to suit up. There was always the off-chance that it had been blasted to hell by space pirates or something while she slept. There was no need to get into her armor if her employers were dead.

Not long after she sat down, a communication's request came in asking her to identify herself. She responded with her call sign and stated her business. The station was operational and everyone was eager for her to arrive.

"Guess that's decided," she said.

Samantha rose from her chair then stretched a little. Her short voyage, which had felt to her like a lengthy journey, had come to an end. It was time to get to work.

She headed over to her room, then entered a door beyond it. In a small enclosed space stood one of her few remaining relics of the days she spent with Broken Claw and the Dillozou. Anachronistic in design, the little statue of a bipedal armadillo with outstretched hands was not actually a statue, it was a power conversion and teleportation device. The basic design of artifacts such as this one was what allowed the federation to creation spatial technology. In effect, this little statue was her armor closet.

Samantha placed her hands atop the hands of the statue and then closed her eyes. Sights, sounds, and scents pervaded her senses. She searched her storage with a thought and located her power suit. Activating its call function caused her to gasp softly. She rose slightly into the air as a powerful surge of energy radiated from her body. Five points on her back began to glow brightly and a spherical shield formed that held the rising energy in check.

Her old prosthetic, the most advanced suit of power armor in the galaxy, began to form around her body. Reminiscent of an armadillo's shell, albeit with overly large shoulders. The suit took on a similar coloration to her under armor in accordance to her will. A bright reddish pink, it gleamed softly in the light. Screw camouflage. She wanted the scum bags of the galaxy to know that she was coming for them.

Fully armored, she stepped back and lightly articulated her articulation points. She wiggled her fingers to see if her suit responded properly. She twisted from side-to-side, then she jumped up and down to see if everything fit. Her onboard diagnostics claimed all systems were normal, but she liked to be thorough.

One last glance at the armadillo statue caused her to smile slightly. They did not actually look like the statue, the Dillozou. They were armadillo-like people, true. Still, they were slightly more human in appearance. Albeit, it was only a slight resemblance.

The statue was made in the image of an armadillo for her sake. It was a gift from Broken Claw because he thought she would like it more if it were a cute animal.

She reached out and placed her hand atop its little head. "I can't believe I was such a brat to him that day..."

Samantha closed her eyes and relieved the memory. She had wanted to go home, to see her parents, to have her life back. It was hard to accept all of the loss that she had suffered. That day she had been thinking about the one vacation they had gone on. She had gone with her parents to the beach and she had seen a crab for the first time. Her mother had spent over and hour helping her chase them around the beach while they laughed. It might have been the happiest day of her life.

Broken Claw came into her recovery room, and looked at her through the bubble she had to live in while her body acclimated to the ship environment. "Small child. No longer will you suffer the agony of the function call for your second skin," said Samantha softly while she heard his voice in her head.

Annoyed to have had her dream of her parents disrupted, she did not want to talk. Trauma had given way to sadness, which begat anger. Samantha was petulant and annoyed at the moment. She had lost so much, and the one thing she had been given caused extreme pain when she used it.

She could call upon her armor at any time, but it hurt to do so. In many ways it was like her body was being torn apart at the subatomic level.

The elder Dillozou gestured to his side then pulled the sheet off of the little statue that he had brought with him. "This device will make it so that you can call your suit with less pain. Take his hands into yours and search for the protocol."

Samantha sniffled a little then turned to look at it. She said nothing for a while then rolled up and curled into a ball. It was an armadillo. She had seen one on a nature show, and the Dillozou looked a bit like them as well. Of course he would make a similar looking statue.

Broken Claw stood in place for a moment, then sighed a little as his ancient shoulders sagged downward. "Rest well, small child. I will return again."

Tears trailed down Samantha's face. Even though she knew the old Dillozou was trying to help her, and he was incredibly nice, she still wished that the statue had looked like a crab. She liked crabs. They reminded her of her mother.

"Broken Claw," she said softly. "Thanks for putting up with a selfish little girl like me."

The elder Dillozou proved to be quite patient with her, and always kind. Her loss was great, and he'd had the wisdom to know that a suffering child needed time to heal. Even so, she wished now that she had been nicer to him in the beginning.