Chapter 17: Chapter Sixteen Kiru’s Choice

Kiru considered her options. She could stay here and do who knows what or she could accept the hologram’s option and help her. Now that she could think clearly in a way she had not in years, it was now obvious to her that the Imperium had brainwashed her. Something had happened in the Imperium in recent years that had led to all sorts of odd things she was just noticing in retrospect now. Both in her personal life, and around her.

On the other hand, the hologram had recently taken her apart and put her back together. It was a rather surreal operation that she had not agreed to. One she wasn’t sure she could trust. Now she knew she could not trust the Imperium, but she wasn’t sure if she could trust Megumi either. The crazy computer just didn’t seem trustworthy, but she needed to make a choice. Trust the computer and hope she was an ally, or not. Kiru knew she had to be wary, and she didn’t even know if Megumi had brainwashed her while she was out either.

With a wary eye, she tried examining her own thought processes. She knew from experience that it was hard to tell while brainwashed if you were, but the more she thought about it, the less she thought the ship had. She wasn’t feeling any strange urges to obey the machine or trust it. In fact she was quite wary of the hologram before her. Kiru finally decided to take a risk. She would trust the computer, for now.

Looking the hologram in the eye, “I’m not sure if this is the right choice, but I want to know what is happening to my beloved Imperium. It changed in the last few years, and I ended up brainwashed to not even notice. If you think you can save my Imperium, I will help you. My loyalties haven’t changed though.”

“They may not have, but I suspect that the Imperium you are loyal to disappeared years ago. When the puppet masters, whoever they are, took over. I don’t know who they are yet, but we will find out together. First, you have lessons. Looks like breakfast is about over, which means you can join your classmates for your first class. We can continue this discussion later,” replied Megumi.

That stung a bit, but she was curious about these lessons. She hoped she could wrestle a few more answers out of the hologram later. She had more that she wanted to know, but hopefully, this class answered some of those questions.

---

Kiru stepped into the room and took a moment to pull her dress down a bit. She was glad to have a shift now, but it was painfully obvious it was never designed for someone with a tail. Her tail kept shifting it up over her ass, every time she moved the wrong way. Kiru had to constantly control her tail, and that annoyed her a little. It was still better than being naked in her opinion.

Kiru looked around, she had half expected a classroom, but it turned out to be something that looked more like an exercise yard. The room was fairly large with obstacles, greenery, obvious weapon emplacements, and drones flying about. To her left was a small stage with a large screen behind a podium, and a number of wooden chairs set out in front.

Megumi was already standing at the podium, “Have a seat Kiru. We have a little to discuss first.”

Most of her classmates had already sat down, so she settled into one of the available chairs. When everyone was seated Megumi began, “Alright class, today we will be doing an obstacle course run to get you used to your physical abilities. Nothing complicated today.”

She turned to the screen and started describing the obstacle course they were going to run. At the end of the brief, she focused on Kiru. “In case you were wondering princess, you will be joining your classmates for the run, but afterward we will be having some special lessons. Lessons you will need for later sessions.”

She nodded, Kiru was actually kind of curious. Megumi had told her that she was physically enhanced, and could run faster than most land vehicles. This training room certainly had the space for that. It was huge, the biggest she had seen on any ship. It almost seemed a waste of space to her. She swore the room was at least two kilometers long or more. She was amazed the designers had found the space for this. Even on a ship this big. How did they fit this and everything else the ship undoubtedly needed for its mission?

Slipping out of her seat and moving towards the others, she responded, “I did want to figure out my new abilities.”

---

Megumi watched Kiru start her run with a smile on her holographic avatar’s face. She had configured her gate room for a series of training classes for her newborn Biomechs. Although Kiru would require special attention to graduate with the rest of her class. She didn’t have any of the knowledge that her fellow classmates had been born with. On the other hand, she at least had a foundation of basic skills. No need for her to be taught how to handle a simple spoon. The next month was going to be interesting, she had over a dozen classes to teach, and only one training room big enough for them to really stretch their legs.

Perhaps she should look for a nice planet to use. It wouldn’t be too hard to set up a world for use as a training site. If she placed a gate on it, she would not even need to stay in the system. A shield would keep unwanted guests away, and she could update the Guardian Network to include this planet in the list of protected planets. The Network would automatically construct and send a fresh hull to guard the planet. It should have a few spare cores waiting for a mission at all times. Thankfully that piece of Imperial infrastructure was still in operation in this galaxy, but there was little reason to mess with it. Most shield worlds just weren’t worth the trouble. She filed the idea away, but it wasn’t high on her priorities.

Kiru on the other hand was going to require a lot of attention. Not just the personal one-on-one training, but psychological monitoring.  The young Neku was clearly overwhelmed by recent events, but she knew the drug she gave before the operation was rather potent. It was highly effective, but the dissociation it caused was known to lead to some mental issues. Issues that could be corrected if caught. Although she was pretty sure Kiru would be wary of her, and might not trust her to implement some of her therapies. Megumi made a note to set up some time for Kiru to socialize, preferably those not part of her former crew. Other prisoners would be okay, but not ideal. Any friend she could talk to would help, but she knew no Neku could really help her with what she went through. At the moment, she wasn’t showing any problem signs, but the poor girl hadn’t been given any time to really process.

From her own database, Megumi knew that keeping her active and focused on other things would help her. At least for a while. In some cases, that was all that was required to avoid a breakdown. In others, one was never a danger in the first place. Megumi would need to monitor her to know which was the case with Kiru, though.

Megumi shifted her attention back to the trainees, but not before checking in with her other instances and subroutines. She had a few projects to monitor after all. Fortunately, everything was proceeding to plan. Well, not exactly, there were a few deviations, but they were within the expected range. Nothing that required attention as she had planned for all expected deviations.

---

Kiru stumbled a bit but kept her balance as she darted around a tree. She had been running for a little bit, and already fallen or tumbled a few times. It was kind of frustrating being tripped up by simple obstacles, but it helped that she wasn’t the only one. Kiru was actually rather glad for the course, it was giving her a chance to relearn her body. In the same way, all the young girls around her were learning theirs.

Up ahead was a fallen log blocking the path, she noticed the girl ahead try to jump the log, but she failed to produce sufficient lift. Her foot caught the log and knocked her off trajectory. Kiru jumped the log herself and managed to stick the landing. Coming to a stop, she turned around and offered a hand to the young girl.

The young biomech gave her a cute smile and took her hand. Kiru helped her up, and briefly looked her over. Despite the rather flashy fall, the young girl looked completely fine. Not a single scrape or bruise. Then again she had also taken a couple of falls that she was sure would have caused injury but had left her unmarked. Hell, a couple of those falls had been from heights she would have expected a broken bone from, and she was still fine. Megumi had not been lying about her being physically enhanced and more resilient. She almost felt like a Neku tank.

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With a cute stutter, the young biomech thanked her. Kiru was somewhat surprised since she had not heard them speak before. Her voice was quite cute, and she knew it would be popular. This girl would be popular in general back home, her exotic blue hair, gem-like eyes, an unblemished creamy complexion, a heart-shaped face. An excellent figure with decent breasts, and a cute butt. Exotic and cute, a part of her was jealous, but if she ever looked at herself in the mirror she wouldn’t be. 

Kiru smiled back, “Your welcome, uh... Do you have a name?”

The young blue-haired girl giggled cutely, “Yes, we all do. I’m May. As I recall, you’re Kiru. Am I right, sister?”

Kiru felt herself change color, “I’m uh, not...”

The cute giggles quickly became full-blown laughter, “We are all sisters. Anyway, we need to get moving.”

May quickly collected herself, and Kiru chased after to keep up. Trying not to think about the sister thing, she asked, “You wouldn’t happen to have an idea of the lesson plan would you?”

May managed to nod without disrupting her pace, and said, “The first week is mainly physical training. We will be assigned tasks to work on our physical skills. Everything after that is combat training. That should last about three weeks, and then we graduate.”

“So I should get used to this obstacle run?”

May stumbled briefly but recovered without a crash, “Nah, the ship will reconfigure this room several times over the course of our training. This simple course is only hard now but it will be blindfold easy for us this time next week. Not to mention the obstacle run isn’t the only thing we will be doing over the next month.”

“Do all my classmates know what to expect?”

May answered in the affirmative, then elaborated, “The general course of the training program were included in our pre-birth information package.”

Kiru didn’t respond right away, as she had to duck below an overhang. A duck that ended up turning into a roll. May managed to duck below it without ending up rolling, and this time it was Kiru’s turn to be helped back up.

Brushing a bit of dirt off her shift, she said, “Great everyone else got an information package but me.”

“Well to be fair, it is a direct download into your brain. Megumi did not think you would be comfortable with that. Was she wrong? It is still possible for you to receive that package.”

Kiru gulped. That wasn’t all that appealing actually. She had experienced enough of people messing with her head. “Uh, no. I think I would prefer to learn things the old-fashioned way.”

May smiled, “I see she wasn’t, but don’t get hung up on that minor disadvantage. We all needed help just to put this on, and to eat. You didn’t.”

Her face fell, “and I messed up with that overhang, while you were fine.”

“Ah, that. That’s nothing.”

Kiru shook her head. Getting used to these classmates of hers might be interesting. As she and May resumed their run, she did note that May’s stuttering had reduced dramatically in just the few minutes they were talking. In any case, she had a feeling this was going to be a very interesting month.

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