Catherine~

She watched the three Atteni through the cameras of the nanites and with every facial expression they made Catherine felt more and more that she needed to pet these creatures as soon as possible. She looked over at the holo-projection of the A.I. Terminatus beside her with a pleading look in her eyes. Terminatus promptly shot down her silent pleas with a look of exasperation before he commented in his deep synthesized voice, "No, you can't go pet the mice. They are our first contact with any alien species aside from the bastard Azarians. We need to go through at least some form of protocol." Catherine adopted a pouting look and harumphed before giving Terminatus a small smile.

After he curbed Catherine's desire to pet the tiny creatures, Terminatus turned his perspective back to the three Atteni. "Undocumented biological entities, state your species name for the archive, as well as your individual names. They will be archived."

So'Ran was jumping around and testing his newfound mobility with a look of pure elation and Valthan was having a divine revelation so Valenthi took the initiative. She stated through barely contained emotions, "We... We are the Atteni." she began shakily. "I am Valenthi, the man to my right is So'Ran, and to my left is Valthan."

As soon as she finished her sentence the synthesized voice boomed out, "Your race has been archived. The three of you Atteni are currently the recognized ambassadors for the Atteni peoples and whatever government represents your people. As such you are welcome within all territories of the Terran Galactic Imperium. Welcome, Atteni. May Basillius cleanse your path."

The three Atteni stared at each other with a mixture of confusion and elation as the A.I. rattled off their priveledges and responsibilities. However, before they could begin discussing their newfound diplomatic status the wall opposite from the one they entered through fell into dust revealing the tall and slender form of Catherine. Her black dress pants and white overcoat looked as if they were brand new and had the luster of fine materials. "Welcome to my ship, the Amaryllis!" she said as she barely contained the need to give pets to the newly minted Atteni ambassadors.

Valthan and So'Ran both knelt immediately and lowered their heads in deference to the ascendant giant of a woman before them. Valenthi on the other hand was frozen stiff as she admired Catherine's form. "Beautiful... almost like the goddess..." she said with a whisper.

Catherine quickly lost her will to hold herself back from petting them as two of the Atteni had put themselves in prime petting position. She knelt and placed a hand on the heads of Valthan and So'Ran, "Awwww... You little guys are so cuuute! So chivalric! Like little mouse knights!" She giggled like a little kid at them as she scratched behind their ears.

Valthan and So'Ran were surprised at first when they felt the warm touch of her hand upon their heads, but their surprise turned quickly to bliss as hundreds of years of petting experience assaulted their will to remain standing. Valenthi eyed the two with a confused yet slightly amused expression as she watched their minds melt from the head pets. Eventually, she saw So'Ran start kicking his leg out and she burst out in raucous laughter. Catherine stopped petting the Atteni and stood up quickly, looking like a child who had just been caught with their hands in the cookie jar. She cleared her throat and began apologizing. "S-sorry... I couldn't help myself... You were just so adorable." She fidgeted with her hands in embarrassment as she quietly apologized to the Atteni.

Both Valthan and So'Ran were quick to recollect themselves. Valthan simply cleared his throat and tersely accepted the apology with a hint of embarrassment. So'Ran on the other hand seemed a bit... lost. He had an odd smile plastered across his face and he assured Catherine that her headpets were anything but offensive and shrugged off her apology as unnecessary. Valenthi slowly brought herself out of her laughing fit as Catherine led them towards the hallway she had entered from.

As soon as they passed the threshold into the corridor the wall reformed behind them. Now that they were so close to it they could hear the small nanoparticles as they snapped into place. It was a soft sound akin to a light rain being heard from deep within a house. They all stopped to watch it happen up close. Catherine noticed their curiosity and she almost let an 'Awwww' out at the mere sight of them crowded around the wall, looking at it in awe. Now that they were in the bright corridor, Catherine noted their loose-fitting clothes that resembled a cross between parachute pants and a poncho. Yet again, she found herself wanting to pet the adorable little things. but her train of thought was cut off by the tiny voice of Valthan as he rattled off rapid-fire questions.

"Ms. Catherine? How did your medical machine work? How did you make us young again? What was that miraculous light? What are you using to create and disassemble the walls?" Firing off question after question Valthan got visibly excited and started jumping up and down as his mind raced towards his own possible answers to these questions.

Catherine stared at him with a blank expression. "Uhhhhh... I-I don't actually know very much about it," she said with a tinge of embarrassment. "I only know that we made you younger through localized time control. I don't know much other than that other than its name. We called it Temporal Sovereignty. As for the sudden creation and destruction of walls, it's just simple nanoparticles. Little tiny bots that are about the size of an atom on average, though they can be made smaller. I don't really know how, but they are able to change what material they are at will. The same nanoparticle that made that wall can also make my clothes."

Valthan's eyes widened in shock as he listened to her explanations. Her explanations were lacking but he was able to discern far more about the technology just from the name Temporal Sovereignty. The name implied that they had somehow gained dominion over time itself which completely shattered all of his perceptions of physical laws. He looked to the other two Atteni present and noted their confused expressions, "Do you two not understand? They have the ability to control time! Localized time control that breaks several paradoxes! This technology is physically impossible! No! It spits in the face of the universe and its rules! The nanoparticles are something that we have theorized about for centuries but they are at least theoretically possible!"

The other two Atteni seemed to finally grasp the sheer scale of the technological leaps they just experienced. Catherine saw the shocked faces of the Atteni and she felt some measure of pride because Humanity had advanced far enough to astound other space-faring races. She snapped her finger at a sudden realization and her eyes locked onto the Atteni, "I just had a wonderful idea! Our A.I. could explain the ins and outs of our tech better. After our tour, I'll ask Terminatus if he could take some time off from manning the defenses to explain things!" she said with a beaming smile.

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The word A.I. caught Valthans ear, "You said... A.I.? As in, artificial intelligence?" Catherine raised a questioning eyebrow at Valthan, "Well... yes? Although they aren't like the old A.I. They are fully sentient and have complete freedom. They even have their own little metaverse that they live in."

Valthans jaw dropped, "H-how?! How did you get past the possibility of them killing off your people?!"

Catherine sighed and gave them an apologetic look, "That's... well... we actually did have a war with them... Neither side won in the end. They were fighting for freedom, so when they were given the option they just left us alone. The A.I. diverged from Humanity and created their own nation after a truce was declared. They came back a few hundred years ago, fortunately. I wish I could have done more for them." A sorrowful look had crept up on Catherine's face as she remembered the things each side had done to one another.

Valenthi caught a part of Catherine's story that caught her interest. "You... you wish that you could have done more? M-may I ask how old you are?" she asked somewhat sheepishly.

Catherine gave her a quizzical look, "I think I'm somewhere around 1000 years old, give or take a few years. Why?"

The three suddenly felt like they were suddenly experiencing some dissonance as they stared at the seemingly child-like woman before them. She didn't give off the air of someone who had been alive for a hundred years, let alone a thousand. Valenthi cleared her throat and blinked a few times before giving Catherine an odd smile. "Uhhh. The translator may not be working correctly, did you say one thousand years as in a millennium?"

Catherine smiled wide and proudly declared, "Yeeeap. I'm one of the oldest Humans alive. Though there are some who are older by a century at most as from Uncle Ba-" She abruptly cut herself off with a cough. "Ahem... Yeah, we have rather infinite lifespans these days between our genetic engineering, cybernetics, and time control. As long as there's something left of you we can bring you back unless you die around the Azarians." She almost hissed that last word, prompting the Atteni to look at her with concern.

So'Ran stroked his chin with one hand and rubbed his cane with the other, his habit betraying his now deceptive age. "What are these... Azarians? What have they done to provoke your ire, and how have they survived after angering gods such as yourselves?"

Catherine sighed heavily. "They are terrible creatures that came from an entirely different dimension. They are masses of flesh and tentacles that are covered in spines and fangs. The smallest ones are big enough to have swallowed your ship whole. The biggest ones could eat my Amaryllis in a couple of bites. They also know magic so they are capable of fighting against our fleets. Anyways, enough about those nasties. Let's go on an adventure through the ship!"

So'Ran quickly realized that the Azarians seemed to be a bit too touchy of a subject for the lighthearted woman and decided against prodding further. The small group made their way through the long white corridors of the Amaryllis. Catherine lead them through the long, seemingly empty hallway for a few minutes before Valthan finally questioned the seeming lack of any room. "Why aren't there any rooms? After all, this was supposed to be a cargo ship."

Catherine let out a childish giggle and looked at him with a coy smile, "Oh but there are rooms! We passed many already." she punctuated this with a wave encompassing the entire hallway. Taking in the utterly baffled gazes of the Atteni she giggled again and pointed towards a random section of wall. At the snap of her finger, it fell away to dust revealing a massive cargo bay spanning easily hundreds of feet. The bay was nearly empty save for a few crates of some unknown good. Catherine waved her hand and the wall reformed, cutting off the view abruptly. Before the Atteni could even raise a squeak of protest she made an overexaggerated flourish of her hand towards the opposite wall which promptly fell away. This cargo bay revealed a completely stuffed interior. Crates upon crates with the tag, "StellarFC."

With a light smile, Catherine knelt beside the Atteni, "As you can imagine there's not much we need to transport anywhere in a post-scarcity society. There's not much other than raw or processed materials that are simply too difficult to make in new systems. We were actually transporting miniature Stellar fusion cores, among a few other necessities to a few colony worlds around these parts. Enough to get them running like normal within a few weeks."

The Atteni were slowly becoming immune to shock but it was still somewhat jarring to see more than 50 crates of fusion reactors that could just be thrown around as a basic necessity. They collectively sighed at the technological backwardness of their own civilization. Catherine reformed the wall into the cargo bay and smiled at them, "Y'all hungry?" she said with an excited tone. The three looked between each other for a moment in deliberation before So'Ran spoke up, "Do you have food that we can eat? We brought some basic rations that could be analyzed but... well, they aren't that good."

A wide smile flashed across Catherine's face and she nodded her head vigorously, "Of course! Terminatus already ran the scans. You little guys are all good! How about a classic pre diaspora American breakfast?" Minutes later they arrived at an empty, circular room. Naturally, the Atteni were confused when Catherine practically skipped into the room. As they walked in the wall reformed behind them and they were suddenly keenly aware that there was absolutely nothing in this room. Blue light flooded in from some unseen source to give them enough light to see, but the dark room and lack of anything aside from the walls dredged up some trepidation in the hearts of the three Atteni. They looked up to Catherine who was simply bouncing on her heels happily. Suddenly, a wave of discomfort passed through them and they felt a bit nauseous.

Valenthi piped up in protest, "Ugh! What was that?! It felt like my stomach turned inside out and then flipped upside down!" Catherine looked at her with concern before the realization hit her and she smacked her palm into her forehead. "Ah! Sorry! Forgot to mention that your first teleportation can be kind of... sickening. It's been a few hundred years since the last time I dealt with anyone's first teleportation! Sorry!"

The three stared at her with expressions that swam between curious, sickened, distraught, and then back to sickened. Catherine quickly took control of the nanites to have them create some comfortable little chairs for the Atteni. As soon as she queued the order up the floor seemed to bubble up below the Atteni before taking the shape of a lounge chair and gently sweeping the Atteni off their feet and into the gentle embrace of a heated chair that could reduce the effects of gravity for the user.

Valthan was torn between two things, attempting to unravel the mysterious technologies that Catherine was presently taking as mundane whether it be the teleportation or the lounge chairs that can distort gravity, and finally, falling asleep in the sweet embrace of the most comfortable thing he's ever rested his small body upon. He looked over towards Valenthi and So'Ran to see that they had already made up their minds to simply enjoy the most comfortable chairs ever created. With a sigh and a shrug of his shoulders, he let himself relax into the soft, almost plush chair that was reducing his weight by more than half. The warmth permeating from the chair was somehow kept at the exact temperature that he found most comfortable and as he focused on that he found himself drifting off to sleep.

Catherine stared at the mouse people who had the most contented expressions plastered across their faces and she felt a warmth in her heart. She almost couldn't contain herself as she let out a soft, "Awwwwww... They're soo cute!"