Few people on board would even try to stand up to her, but he was cocksure. Everyone liked to watch her from a distance whether they were in training or sitting across the table in an observation lounge, but he would step up and stand right in front of her after being the most obnoxious sod on the ship. He looked like a burly lout, but when she leaned into him, felt his big arms around her, it felt indescribably good. To her surprise there was nothing rushed in his kiss, and that magnetism just held her to him, made her feel like she was suddenly part of a pair.
The Freedom Tower
System security was the responsibility of Forward Admiral Rice. Her political push to have Jonas Valent located had crumbled when Regent Galactic threatened to add Freeground to its long list of enemies. The Admiralty was displeased and had to make an example of the Admiral and her associates. They pushed back and she was given a distant, although prestigious post on guard at the first colony settled by the Freeground nation.
The first significant structure built was a tall, needle like tower. Over one hundred thousand Freeground citizens were housed there while most of the outer townships were home to the prisons and work camps. The untamed wilds discovered in the newly named planet Dumuzi were filled with animals that reminded the populace of Earth's oxygen breathing creatures. The major difference between them and what was known from ancient Earth was how hardened the creatures of Dumuzi were after surviving the violent changes that had occurred over the recent centuries.
The planet had only begun recovering from a stage of wide scale volcanic development, and they had settled on the largest continent capable of supporting life. The short, squat terraforming structures sat on the coastlines, helping the excess carbon dioxide process into breathable air.
Before they had arrived they had discovered a jungle growing out of a surviving vegetative mass. Some time after initial landfall they discovered an entire food chain was fighting its way back from near extinction. With the help of the Lorander terraformers and Freeground workforce they expected the forested area to double in the next three months.
The view of the nearing forest's edge from the high Freedom Tower in the center of the smaller trio of towns was better every day. Farms were already growing a natural food supply and soon it would be more efficient to eat what was cultivated rather than materialized meals.
None of these things were at the forefront of Admiral Rice's mind as she walked through the green and white hallway of the Freedom Tower restricted areas. There were a few things she had to check on, and she saved the best for last.
She waited patiently as the security system for the Freedom Tower Special Projects laboratory scanned her on a molecular level. After a moment the door opened and she walked through, making sure that it closed right behind her.
“Welcome back Admiral,” Doctor Anderson said as he examined detailed cellular holograms above a long white table. “Come to see how she's doing?”
“Why else would I make the journey. My shuttle was in orbital gridlock for three hours.”
“What's another three hours after five years?” He said with a shrug, knowing that finding even the barest thread of humour in her had been next to impossible for years. The Admiral, as he called her these days, had gone emotionally bankrupt long ago as far as he was concerned. His holodisplay shut down with a button stroke and he closed the vertical blinds.
Admiral Rice waited patiently in front of a display wall. In earlier days it was covered in genetic information, works in progress that all had critical deadlines. As she looked at it there was only the mysterious electrochemical matrix of a human brain, the careful conduction of guided memory to form the full realization of a naturally formed personality, or the nearest facsimile anyone could have dreamed possible.
Doctor Anderson walked to the side of the large display board, stretching two and a half meters tall and four meters across. “That's mostly for decoration now. The memories are all in place, even adjusted muscle memories, which were the hardest part.”
“I know Doctor,” the Admiral said impatiently.
“On with the show then,” he said to himself quietly as he entered the code to draw the two dimentional display aside.
Behind it was a transparent artificial womb. Within it's synthetic flesh was a blonde woman, a little too short, not of the desired social weight but still well proportioned in a fetal position. She was fully grown, to see her anywhere else someone would think she was just another early to mid twenties woman.
“She looks so much like her great grandmother,” Admiral Rice said in awe, walking up to the soft outer layer and putting her hand on it. The occupant turned towards the ripple in her protective home. “Does she know I'm here?”
“She's unconsciously aware of everything around her. I talk to her constantly and sleep in the lab most nights. She prefers Wagner and she very nearly dances when I play Magic Fire Music from Die Walkure.”
“I should have recorded my voice for her.”
“I tried to tell you,” Doctor Anderson said quietly.
The Admiral gave him a dark look. “What does it matter, when she wakes she'll remember everything Ayan did right up to five years ago.”
“You mean right up until you gave up on your only daughter.”
“Don't you dare-”
“When you brought me onto this project you gave away all your power. If anything about this were to slip out to the Admiralty they'd have your head. I'm just here following orders.”
“But you wouldn't do that, she's as much your child as she is mine.”
“I'll do anything to protect her, but only because I know if Ayan had a choice to be born without any genetic meddling that's the road she would have taken. If you'd have been brave enough to show her what you were doing with the scan you had made of her, she would have applauded it. This isn't a clone as you originally requested, this is what should have been,” his words were clear and loud enough, but they were spoken gently for the benefit of his captive audience.
“So you've managed to eliminate all the imperfections?”
Doctor Anderson laughed quietly and nodded. “What I consider imperfections. The genetic modifications are gone. Everything from the enhanced physical aptitudes to her adjusted phenomenal balance to the one that ensured she'd have red hair. What's left is the code as it should have been. No growth therapy or acceleration was used either.”
“Is she ready?”
“Not quite. She's still experiencing the last of the memories in the scan, Jason and Laura's wedding.”
“I wouldn't have chosen that as her last.”
“Because Laura and Jason are both missing? Written off by the military? I was at that wedding, it was a great time. There were so many friends there, a lot of them from the First Light. Her toast as the maid of honour was fantastic, you could barely tell she was ill.”
Admiral Rice sighed as she looked at the young woman. “I wish we could have taken the bad times away. If only we could have scanned her before the Sunspire. ”
“Just like she needs someone here so she can listen to someone else's heart, hear their voice and experience the world through a filter of a womb to have a good subconscious foundation to work from and a starting point of well being, she needs those negative experiences for a complete personality. Without hardship we don't appreciate good times or know how to deal with life when things are less than ideal.”
“I know, Doctor. What will the birth be like?”
“Well, since there's no point in putting her through a simulated natural birthing experience, we'll be waking her up once she's out of the chamber and clean. I've had an apartment prepared and one of us can tell her what's happened,” Doctor Anderson said quietly as he walked from the control board to Ayan herself and put his hand on her knee. “Do you want to be the first person she sees?”
Admiral Rice looked at the second inception of her daughter for a long moment. Her curled long hair was kept
