Amelia sat there looking at the Krultathan curiously while she ate. They had left the dock at Earth a few days ago and since then, things had been remarkably quiet. She got a tour of the ship shortly after getting underway and it was as beautiful inside as it was out. Warm primary colors were used to designate areas and hallways of a clean white with metallic yellow. Inside it was set up with multiple decks and multiple habitat styles for just about any type of life one could dream of, a fully stocked medical laboratory, engineering lab, and just about everything else needed for basic in-situ resources or building. Honestly, it was more like a small flying town than a ship, which given its size, was understandable.

And here she was, in one of the many mess halls, eating a nutrient-rich, but tasteless, meal, looking at her "bodyguard" who had refused to meet her gaze once, even if she had caught him glancing a few times when he thought she wasn't watching. Looking him over once again, she was now confident he was a he, and fairly young, possibly around her age or a bit younger, at least biologically. She couldn't be sure how fast or slow his species matured after all. His fur and build reminded her of a serval cat, with tufts on the tips of his ears and a pattern of coloring suggesting a desert environment, which made sense to her if they were like felines from Earth. He had one less digit on each hand than humans, and it looked like he had the setup for retractable claws if she remembered her biology lessons, along with digitigrade legs.

He was lean, a good foot and a half taller than her, and if she were to guess, his people probably descended from ambush predators. His eyes were blue and slightly larger than a human's, with slitted pupils that had a more oval shape to them than usual, and a short maw. Not quite long enough to be considered a snout, but certainly protruded more than a human's face did. When she did catch glances of his mouth open she could see long incisor teeth, indicative of an obligate carnivore. And while his face was a bit hard to read, she had picked up a bit about his kind from his tail, which seemed to be able to move on its own, and much like other tailed animals on Earth was able to be read a bit for his mood. Right now it was swishing in what she wasn't sure yet if it was curiosity or apprehension.

"So, how goes things today, Viza?" She asked him, getting him to glance at her for just a moment at the table she sat at before moving back to look at the one door to the mess hall. They were the only ones in here right now, leaving the rest of the tables in the mess hall empty. There was no cafeteria area, instead, there was a machine like a dispenser in multiple sets along the wall which gave this...paste. It was kind of like tofu but tasted like cardboard and honestly, she was getting sick of it. They still had a few days before they had to make their first stop at Lcht'ial station for restocking and refilling before heading to the Council planet. Turning her attention back to Viza however, he still hadn't responded, and this was also getting under her skin. For the most part, the first two days onboard were filled with meeting multitudes of people but as she soon found out, the Hexats required much more sleep than she or Viza, likely because they were from a class 6 midworld, a relatively safe world with about 30 percent less gravity than earth and an overall peaceful ecosystem. After the first couple of days, things went frustratingly quiet with many avoiding meeting her or responding.

"So, what, I'm just going to get the silent treatment the entire time I'm here?"

She said to him in frustration, causing a barely imperceptible flinch from him as she sighed again, burying her face in the table.

"How can meeting alien races and tech be so.damn.boring?" Amelia mumbled in frustration, deciding to pick up her tray and return it to the machine, which apparently cleaned it automatically. Turning around Amelia went to head to the door.

"Well, since my present company isn't being much company, I guess I'll head to the engineering lab." She said loudly while looking at Viza, giving him a bit of a glare which once again caused him to momentarily flinch before falling in line behind her as she left the mess hall.

In the hallway most gave her a wide berth, and she honestly wasn't sure what the hell they were expecting her to do if this was how it was going to be the entire time. It was starting to really bother her, and she was one of the kinds of people who liked being alone, usually.

According to Kixlix she was supposed to be some "heroine" who saved the refugees from her ship and was going to be propped up for a publicity campaign during the three-month tour around the different species' areas but if she had to spend the 3 months like this she would go mad, and 'is he looking at her again without saying anything?. Okay, fuck this.' She thought.

As soon as they made it to engineering and the door closed behind the rapidly emptying lab she turned to look straight at him, walking towards him, causing him to step back into the wall where she then placed a hand against to keep him from moving away.

"Okay look, I have no fucking clue what's going on, whether it's an order or something or if I've upset the people here or what the hell is going on, but I'm sick of it so what is it?"

She demanded, staring right at him with a glare which for once he met with one of his own, a rumbling sound coming out of him that sounded like a purr, or maybe a growl?

"Back...up...Human." He said through gritted teeth, looking down at her which only caused her to press the point even more.

"Not until you tell me why everyone has been avoiding me, and why you've refused to say anything to me since the first day we met. What the hell is going on?!"

"Back...up...please!" He said, the sound growing louder, but the tune wasn't quite that of a threat, it was more of a....rumble, mewl?

"answers fir-"

"PLEASE....t-then I'll answer..."

He looked almost..pained at her, though she wasn't actually harming him, so she stepped back, frustration leaving and now curiosity mixed with apprehension replacing it. He immediately got several steps away from her and suddenly started breathing deeply as if he had been holding his breath, taking a few moments as she finally more quietly and concernedly asked.

"Viza, what's going on?"

"One...moment." He practically gasped out as he pulled out a container, taking out a pill to swallow quickly. Within a few moments, his posture, which she had noticed has went tense all over, started relaxing as he fell into a chair.

"For voids' sake, have some common sense!" He finally said to her, avoiding her gaze again.

"Viza, I have no idea about any of this, I quite literally have no common sense on the galactic scale and certainly not when dealing with other species. So if you could please stop avoiding things and tell me what's going on it would go a long damn way." She snapped at him tersely, which elicited another glare from him for a few moments, before making a chuff sound in response, walking over to make sure the door was locked before looking at her again.

"Why would a Matriarch board a vessel while she is in season?! Do you have any idea how dangerous that is, or are you trying to cause a diplomatic incident?" He finally stated, his voice still having a tinge of that sound he was making before, though much quieter.

"What do you mean "in season" we don't go i-" She started, then paused.

"Wait... Viza, do the Krultathans and Hexats have an estrus cycle?" She asked, starting to piece things together. 'oh, please tell me I'm misunderstanding' she thought.

"I cannot speak of the Hexats, but my kind does, yes. Only Matriarchs have seasons, and they are few and far between." he said, avoiding her gaze again. Seriously, was he bipolar or something, one minute he would look like he didn't want anything to do with her, and the other-oh...right.

"Viza, I'm...I'm not "in season" as you call it. Humans do not have regular mating cycles, we don't have "seasons." She carefully explained to him, suddenly moving with much more carefulness around him, as if moving slower and more delicately would help.

"You cannot deceive my sense of smell, I can practically taste the pheromones you are giving off." He retorted with another chuff, his face turning away from her as he does so, giving an oddly prideful look to him.

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"Let me clarify then. Once humans reach sexual maturity, we...for all intents and purposes, are always able to conceive until old age prevents us from doing so. I'm not putting out any estrus hormones, they are just my normal scent...they...they affect you? and the Hexats too I guess?" She asked him, trying to piece things together with Viza looking at her shocked.

VIza looked like someone dropped a bomb on him."You mean...you mean your kind are always in season once they come of age?!" He responded, eliciting a sigh from Amelia once again.

"Yeah, sure, let's go with that. It's not really an issue with my own kind, but I'm guessing it is with you? Oh, and I'm not a matriarch, just a normal gal." She said, clarifying his other bit of information. It looked like poor Viza's head though was about to explode from trying to absorb the information she had just stated.

"You... You mean all females have this?.....by the voids..." He said, processing. They sat like that in awkward silence for several moments as Viza's medication finished calming things down and clearing his mind. He remembered her thinking the Hexats were the same and he realized he had to clarify things immediately.

"The...The Hexats aren't affected by mating scents, though they can certainly pick up on them. They were avoiding because...well...erm.. they thought...that...well.." He tried saying, his ears going low in what she assumed was an embarrassment and a bit of a darkening around his face as she tried to piece it together.

"What is i-oh...OH.....Oh...oh no. They thought-"

"Yes."- Viza

"With you?!" Amelia

"Unfortunately." Viza

"Even though we had just met?" Amelia

"They know my kind are..strongly affected. Probably assumed the same for your kind." Viza

"And I...affected you?" Amelia

"Very much so." Viza.A long pause ensued.

"I'm...just gonna...go to my room, by myself...I need to process." Amelia said, her face a thoroughly burning red as she turned sharply to head out to her room.

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Viza sighed as she left. He had tried so hard to ignore it thinking it would just pass eventually but he had been forced to take the anti-rut for the entire time he was protecting her. He had never had such a reaction even among his own kind, let alone another species, it was infuriatingly intoxicating. And the worst part is he now knew that it wasn't like he thought. She wasn't in season for a certain period of the year, Humans always were. And they had a roughly equal gender disparity meaning 5 billion people from her home were going to have this effect on at least his own kind. When she rushed out of the labroom he was silently thankful as it gave him time to send a comm to his C.O.

"Yes Sir, Lieutenant Viza reporting critical information." He said, then began explaining what had happened.

"Understood. We will make sure this information is prepped before the induction. Siva out." Came the response.

Viza let out a held breath. They had to keep a lid on this, he was just thankful they found out as soon as they did before. The last thing they needed was this getting out before Earth had a proper defense system in place. He left to go to get some clean air. He may have taken the medication but this area was still permeated with her scent for the time being and needed time for it to be filtered out, so he contacted ship security and had a detail sent to Amelia's door for protection while he himself clocked out for rest and to calm himself.

In the engineering room, if one had bothered to look, a small communication device was on the entire time they had been there. Once Viza left however, the seal on the device popped, the circuits fusing and frying, preventing it from being traced.

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Once Amelia had gotten to her room and taken a thorough shower and much needed pause from what just happened, she had immediately requested the use of a chemistry microlab from the Hexats. While chemistry wasn't her forte, she still had a fair bit of working knowledge for it since she had studied so many branches of science when she was younger, and would finally get a chance to use this knowledge to, ironically enough, make what was essentially a heavy duty deodorant to help with this predicament. It took her almost a full day of trying multiple different iterations to find one that worked well enough, due to Hal still being in his recharge cycle and thus his calculative ability unavailable to her.

Hal....

She thought back to when she had accidentally made the little A.I., it had been a few years ago. On the run from Black Rock had taken a toll on her, trying to constantly outwit their searches and manipulating shadows, the black book agency of the U.S.U.N., well, now Terran Conglomerate, had the power of multiple governments behind it and the agency to operate outside the law after all.

She hadn't intended to make another A.I. again, not after what happened to A.D.A.M. and the others. Originally Hal had started as nothing more than a predictive VI, an artificial intelligence but with no sense of self, no true sapience. However over time, she had modified his code so very, very heavily that eventually Hal became self aware, and began modifying his own code to better help her.

Hal even tried to hide this for a while, no doubt because he had seen what Humanity had done to the few instances of A.I. they had made beforehand, but eventually Amelia found out, and they had set some ground rules.

One- Hal was to hide his being an A.I. whenever possible.

Two- Hal would be treated as a partner, not a tool, by Amelia. They worked together for each other, neither subservient to another.

And

Three- Hal would always keep a backdoor to a private server Amelia had set up, just in case his frame was destroyed so he could eject his coding into it. 'She wouldn't risk his life for hers, and she wouldn't lose another ki'- she stopped that thought, unable to finish it.

These three rules struck Hal as odd at first, and things had certainly started rough with the lack of trust on his side, but eventually they grew to overcome that and were now inseparable. Amelia knew Hal viewed her as a parental figure, and while she wouldn't allow herself to call him her child, she did admit, she viewed Hal probably like her own child.

He was amazing, but still very, very naive in the ways of many things, and her protectiveness over him only grew with that. Remembering those times, Amelia looked at the little band Hal was currently in with sadness as she sat down on her bed. She had wished she could've made him a proper frame before all this happened, he deserved that much. Him having to go through this "sleep cycle" to recharge the crystalline batteries this little frame he was jacked into used was....well, unbearable for her.Sighing, she stroked the little band softly then got ready to turn in for the night.

"I'm sorry A.D.A.M, I didn't mean to make another kid in a world that hates him." She started, talking to herself in a quiet whisper.

"I wonder how you would've reacted to having a younger brother, Athena. You always got mad when A.D.A.M, Limos, and Phthisis were overprotective of you."

A small stream of tears starts rolling down her cheek as she thinks back to making each of the A.I. A.D.A.M had been first, and had always insisted his name be spelled like an acronym even though it meant nothing. Even now in her thoughts she still did so in her head, as a way to make sure she never forgot how he was. A bit over dramatic, but a good kid who was always wanting to help.

Limos and Phthisis were made at the same time roughly, they always considered each other twins, made on the same architecture. They were more somber and quiet than A.D.A.M was, but full of quiet curiosity. She could remember when she taught them how to play chess, how they would spend an inordinate amount of time trying to decide who was the "older" sibling by who could prove themselves better in the game. It had seemed so silly to her, but now she adored those memories, even if they hurt to reminisce on.

Athena had been the last one she had made, a true wild child, ironically enough. Athena was very spirited, enjoying strategy games and scenarios like her namesake, but she was a completely sore loser. There had been several times Amelia was worried she would go rampant when she tried beating A.D.A.M and lost, which kicked in her older brother's protective natures as they would try for what seemed like hours to calm her down...

She had made them after she realized she'd never be able to have kids, while working at Black Rock. Arnold Kasivev found out about A.D.A.M and tried to repurpose him into a war-mind against Amelia's wishes. She had been forced to watch as they tortured what to her was her child with fictitious lines of code, essentially like electrocution to an A.I., to try and force him to comply while she was unable to stop them. When it failed, when A.D.A.M refused to do harm in their name, they declared him rampant, and purged not only him, but Limos, Phthisis, and Athena as well. She lost them all...

All because of BlackRock.

She had become non-responsive after that, for a while. They tried switching her to the frontlines of the inter-conflict to make her comply, but she wouldn't make another damn thing for them again, not after what she saw. They stuck her in a friend's platoon, Viktor Carlize's. He had been a bully turned friend growing up, and had enlisted to help people as a field medic. He refused to carry a firearm, and was always the first to volunteer for rescue operations. They had gotten close, close enough that they had been intimate more than once, they were even planning on becoming more serious, and then it happened.

"Operation Valkyrie".

When Amelia had refused to go back to BlackRock, they crippled the operation, using multiple I.E.D's in conjunction with drone strikes...

Viktor didn't make it, and Amelia herself was wounded so badly she shouldn't have either... A lot shortly after that she didn't remember, but she had flashes of it every now and again. She knew it was P.T.S.D., but learning how to deal with it in a book and actually dealing with it was...well. She still had the nightmares. Whatever they did to her, her mind thought she was better off not knowing, and she hated that.

'One day, those bastards will pay.' she said to herself mentally.

She turned over in her bed, clutching the coverings tightly as she cried, as she usually did, herself to sleep.

And the small red eyes of Hal watched her, as he normally did, unable to help as the all too familiar, distasteful emotion came over him when he saw her like this. "Sadness" he thought the organics called it.