Kaxus's observations-

Kaxus looked over the data he had obtained from the Human Amelia's scans with a furrowed face. Humanity, it seemed, would turn the medical community, indeed the scientific community in general, on its head based on what he had seen. He was sitting in the medical bay at his desk, occasionally glancing over to where Viza and Amelia lay unconscious and recovering, and had been discreetly taking scans of them. Prolonged use of Anti-rut medication on Krultathan males was rare enough that it deserved study, and since Viza had been steadily taking it and would have to when they got to Krultatha as well, it provided a good opportunity to study its effects. Notably, it seemed his body was developing a slight resistance to it, requiring higher doses though whether or not this was permanent he couldn't say.

Amelia on the other hand was another problem entirely. Her augments made it difficult to discern what was natural and what wasn't to Human evolution, but even the things that were definitely natural just made no sense. They had multiple blood-filtering organs unlike most of the galactic community, two lungs that each could support the body on its own, which was unheard of, and an effective strength of 15 tons if all their muscles pulled in one direction. Even more startling was their ability to adapt on a microcellular level. Human immune systems seemed to have redundancy after redundancy after redundancy, making them like a Hexat Phalanx formation with how they attacked any disease. It even kept genetic copies of diseases it had fought in order to combat them more efficiently if it ran into them again. And this is to say nothing of their effective endurance which was so far off the charts Kaxus had to make a new chart, and even then he couldn't tell where humans landed! Even their neurology spoke to the adaptability these humans had, being able to quickly form new connections, even survive with parts of it damaged, if the information that had been given to them by the now Terran Confederacy was to be believed. He had his doubts at first, but now...

Kaxus poured himself a hot drink of root juice and picked up another set of scan data.

The implants Amelia had were something else entirely. He had thought they were responsible for the combat chemicals but no, the humans actually produced that naturally. The implants alone weren't all that much to write home about, any individual one would be interesting, but nothing more than a novelty from an alien race. No, what made them interesting was JUST HOW INSANE THE HUMANS WERE FOR MAKING THEM.

They used the human's metabolism to power themselves chemically, which was unique among races but since only humans had the metabolism to do so it wouldn't be likely another race would adopt this strategy. What made them insane is how they bypassed the Human's own evolutionary limiters to keep their body functioning, making the humans literally TEAR THEMSELVES APART using them!

Amelia had enough damage in just her arm to have warranted amputation on most other species, and Kaxus would have if it weren't for her V.I. sending him a notice on her regenerative capabilities being able to heal it. That was another thing. Did humans bypass the damage by limiting the implants?

NO! THEY MADE MORE IMPLANTS TO MAKE THEM HEAL FASTER INSTEAD!

What is wrong with this race, they just do things no normal, sane species would do. Forget the using chemical explosives for propellant, forget the using kinetics as weapons, forget the fact that they made APEX PREDATORS ON THEIR HOME PLANET PETS, the most insane thing about Humanity was the Humans themselves!

There was a report of a human running 400 kilometers on their homeworld, another of one lifting an industrial heavy equipment that weighed 2 tons to save their offspring, and that was in Earth gravity, by a human that self-professed was weak and didn't "work out"! He even saw a report of an individual struck by a 4-mile particle accelerator's beam IN THE HEAD and survived. And another of one falling 15 thousand feet from the air with no safety system and surviving!

The more Kaxus learned about humans, the more awed and terrified he became. Given another one or two hundred years of development, they'd be on par with the rest of the galaxy at their rate of growth. If they hadn't made friends with them by then, Kaxus shuddered to think what they could do.

Getting back on point, however, he looked over the scans. Amelia's entire right arm had been reinforced more than the rest of her body, using a thicker nano-ceramic coating over her bones to reinforce them, a host of nanites and stem cell injectors throughout, and some other implant that he couldn't even make out. Every time he tried scanning it he received no data on it nor even a visual of it, as if it were an empty void.

The rest of her body had been heavily augmented as well, though you wouldn't see much just by looking at her. Her legs had been reinforced with artificial muscle and the same nano-ceramic material, as well as some sort of auto-stim injector for the natural muscles and yet more nanites. Her lower spine seemed to house a nanite regenerator, a place to make more if needed, and trailing through the spinal column up to her brain was a direct wetware connection. One eye was artificial as well, and from what he could tell had a multitude of functions, explaining how she saw the Axon. But the most surprising was that what she had called her "Translator implant" was anything but. He couldn't tell much about it, it had a lockbox function that kept him from peering too close, but what he could tell let him know it was less like a simple implant and more like a second brain, an artificial one, housed within an implant. he still wasn't even sure how one could fit tech like that into such a small space. And the craziest part was that it was all self-regenerating! For all intents and purposes, unless someone shot both brains at once, or killed her while unleashing an emp, or dismemberment, Amelia would functionally survive almost any kind of combat.

Stolen story; please report.

The void could still kill her, starving could too since her implants ran on her metabolism, but actual damage? that would be hard. He quickly made up a list of tests on metabolism, endurance, strength, ability to sweat, temperature extremes, and more that he would ask Amelia to help him with, hopefully, she would agree.

Kaxus put the holopad down and held his head in pain. Humans were definitely less advanced than them, the tech even in Amelia's implants, while certainly much more advanced than most of her race, was still considered outdated by the S.A.'s measure. But it was how they applied it, that made it so troubling, and how much they were willing to use if Amelia was anything to go by. To be honest, it terrified Kaxus, even if he had seen enough of Amelia to know she wouldn't harm him.

'Well, not unless did something to her precious Viza, anyways' He thought with a smirk.

Kaxus was an old Hexat and had been around long enough to know the two wanted each other but were too shy to actually talk. He even had a running bet with his brother Kixix on how long it would take. Kixix said another week, but Kaxus thought it could easily be another month or two with how much they were using pheromone blockers. Still, he found it odd. They already knew that Human's affected Krultathans. No one expected the Krultathans to affect humans as well, however.

To be fair, humans weren't actually affected. At least not how the pheromone is intended to work. From what Kaxus can tell, Krultathan pheromones have a calming effect on humans, causing a similar effect to if they were being protected. A far cry from the lustfulness that Humanity apparently would cause to the Krultathans.

Kaxus laughed at that, trying to imagine how many "Incidents" were going to happen between the Krultathans and Humanity because of that. They still didn't know if human males also affected Krultathans the same way, but time would tell.

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Hal & Viza-

'Mr. Viza, are you conscious yet?'

Viza let out a sound between a growl and groan as the message entered his private comm channel. He wasn't even sure how Hal had set that up in his translation implant.

'Yes Hal, what is it?' He asked groggily. His body was still sore and he was still on bedrest, so it wasn't like he could ignore it anyways.

'What are your intentions in regards to Ms. Amelia? And do not lie, I have temporarily gained access to the med bay's sensor logs. They include many ways of detecting lies from your species.'

Viza thought for a moment. Hal had asked him remarkably tough question, one Viza himself was struggling to answer for his own sake.

'I..I do not know, Hal. As long as she is happy, that is the most important thing to me.' He answered as honestly as he could.

Several minutes went by, and Viza thought the bot had left him alone, so he turned in bed to try and get more comfortable when the ping in his head of another message woke him again.

'What do you want from Ms Amelia?'

Viza groaned again. 'I just told you.' he responded back with aggravation to the AI. He thought they were supposed to be smart, why didn't it understand it had already asked that question?

'From, not for, Krultathan.' It responded with. Viza was growing frustrated, was it playing mind games with him? messing with him because he was stuck in bed? he was sure half the ship knew how he felt just from his phero- Oh. he had to think of how to explain that one then. To a robot of all things.

'Do you understand Love, Hal?' he asked tentatively. Of course he knew he and Amelia were quite at that level yet, but it's what he hoped for as foolish as it may be.

'Human And Krultathan aren't compatible to produce offspring. Ms Amelia will not be able to further your line, nor you hers.'

'I know that, but that isn't love, that's biology. There is a difference, Hal.'

'Explain.'

Viza groaned internally. Why did he have to be doing this, why now of all times, when he was in turmoil himself. And why did it have to be from an AI he wasn't even sure understood him?

'Love is.. Love is.' Viza started, but took a moment to recenter himself. Words were hard.

'Love is an eternal commitment among my kind. It means to protect one another, care for one another, support each other. It is to claim each other as lifemates, to journey together until the sands of Eidolan run out and we return to nature. It's to be one with each other not just in body, but in spirit as well. That is what it is for my kind.'

Another long pause ensued, longer than the first as Viza, once again, tried to turn and get some sleep. And once again, right as he was almost asleep, he heard that familiar ping of a message. Gritting his teeth he grimaced and opened it again before all aggravation washed from his face, and he understood.

'Take care of my mother, Viza. Protect her as you claim your 'love' demands, or you'll meet your sands faster than anticipated.' Viza took a moment, but understood now. Just like the other AI Amelia talked about, Hal also saw her as his mother, and was trying to protect her. He had been vetting Viza, and apparently Viza passed. Smiling a bit, Viza turned over only for a final message to pop up, keeping him up even longer and returning his aggravation.

'Also, you should really get some rest Viza, you look terrible.'

'Fuck you Hal.'

'I thought you were trying to woo my mother? Being mean to her child isn't the best way is it?'

'No, it's not. But fuck you.'

'Have a good rest Viza.'

'you too, murderbot.'