Gabatrix: The Silver Rain

Bekra smacked her tail against Zalika's leg.

"Alright, alright!" Zalika said. "I will shut up......fuck."

Zalika folded up her arms as she remained quiet and watched the scene continue. The wings did slow Minerva's fall. Regardless, it was still happening at a rate that seemed dangerous. She was on a direct collision course with the tent. Each second that went by, she could see everyone watching her get closer and closer.

Bekra was wondering what was going on. Minerva was nearing the ground floor. Even the frame of Minerva was not rated to handle a crash even if the ground was softer than it should be, but Ericson could see what was happening as Zalika looked at his display. She could see that Minerva's flaps were slowly going up. This would start to cause her body to point more and more upward. She then held her arms outward near the wings, almost forming a third wing.

She was about ten seconds from impacting the ground as Ericson shut off his arm display. The projection faded as he had a look of concern on his face. It felt that each second was like five. Chuang almost started to back away from the tent. Bekra naturally cradled Eve even closer than she usually did. Her other hand naturally plugged the baby's ears as she got ready to move out of the way.

Near the last two seconds before impact, the flaps went all the way up. This caused her body to rotate to a vertical position. Her thrusters rotated and pointed at an angle ahead of her and towards the ground. Within the second before hitting the ground, the thrusters activated at reduced strength. The flames pillared as it caused her body frame to slow down relatively fast. Smoke pillared out in all directions as Chuang held up his hand.

There was a light thump sound as Minerva landed comfortably on the grass. Her rate of descent was slowed down entirely with near precision. Perfect timing and perfect use of her maneuvering had caused her to stall just before impacting the ground. The thrusters did the rest of the job as they completely deactivated. It would have been a graceful landing, but her clawed bottom feet stumbled very lightly on the uneven thick grass. The engines' sound was startling near the others, but the sound completely and abruptly ended before it blasted everyone's eardrums.

The thick smoke covered the area. Bekra could see Eve was a little bit startled but fine. She didn't even cry as she lessened her grip and hold on her. Her hand went out as Bekra kept her fingers for her to grasp onto.

"Minerva?" Ericson called out to her.

The smoke cleared away quickly as there was a sound of wings folding up and grass shuffling. Minerva was standing up and proceeded towards the tent-like nothing had happened.

"I am undamaged," Minerva informed them. "The flight test was successful."

"Daammmnn......." Zalika said almost in a sassy way with a nod. "You almost looked like you were going to crash at first."

"I simply used the laws of physics to perform a controlled landing. Did you believe I was incapable of performing such a maneuver?"

"I didn't know what to believe. Today I just saw a companion bot strap some wings to herself, strap some vehicle descent thrusters on herself, and then fly around like it was nothing. Now I have seen everything."

Ericson seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. He closed his eyes and looked at Bekra that was still holding onto his daughter with ease and comfort.

"I believe, Ericson, that we can conduct future test flights with this design," Minerva explained.

"Yeah, but I would recommend switching over to something smaller," Zalika explained to her. "You had the right idea of wanting to fly around with these things, but there are actually smaller thruster packs out there that could lift up your frame with ease. For example, we have vectoring thruster packs that our power suits use to help us move around in space. There are even rocket-propelled aircraft that use similar systems as the vehicle thruster packs the UHN uses."

"I agree," Minerva said. "The reason for using what you had was what was available for our usage. This planet had limited availability in various thrusters that were strong enough to lift me on Eutera."

"Minerva wanted to try this method first before going to the next step," Ericson explained. "She has other ideas to continue on the next procedure."

"I believe that it will be possible to create extendable thruster modules that will allow my body frame to hover or fly to different destinations depending on the gravity, climate, or air quality of the location. This was just the first flight to achieve flight capability."

Eve began to start crying as she wiggled from her place in Bekra's arms. Bekra looked down to try to help calm her. Minerva was observing her actions.

"Ericson," Minerva asked. "May you remove the wings? I believe that Eve is hungry."

"I definitely think so," he agreed as he walked up to Minerva. She turned her back to him as there was a brief blue glue of lines where the wings began to disconnect. "Zalika, mind helping me on these?"

Zalika walked up as Ericson uncoupled one of the wings from Minerva. He handed one piece to her as he grabbed the other part. Her small extended wings on her legs retracted back into her frame as she looked at her baby. As if nothing had happened at all, she walked up to Bekra and began to look at her daughter. She used her synthetic hand and began to feel the skin of Eve. She reached her hand down and towards her stomach. She seemed to be processing the information that she was scanning from her. She could feel a rumbling sound of hunger coming from Eve.

"Correct," Minerva assessed as she gestured Bekra to hand the daughter to her. "Thank you, Bekra, for safeguarding my child."

"Thank you for allowing me that honor," Bekra replied back to her as she extended the infant to her to pick up.

Minerva carefully took Eve and bundled her to her chest. The baby was starting to cry a little bit more as Minerva walked over to her seat and sat down. When she rested comfortably on one of the chairs, one of the white layers of synthetic skin slid away from her right breast to reveal a dark gray nipple. She brought Eve to it as the baby naturally began to suckle from it. The baby's protests ended then, and there as Eve seemed satisfied with what was happening.

"You can breastfeed her?" Zalika asked her.

"Of course," Minerva replied. "I had my body frame modified by myself and Ericson to allow such an event to take place. While I lack the antibodies to pass along to my baby like other human mothers, I can still ensure that I eat the right foods to be processed f......."

"Alright, alright, I get it," Zalika said.

"That is amazing, though," Bekra commented. "How long did the modifications take?"

"Two days and seven hours," Minerva replied.

"And you managed to modify your entire body frame to allow you to rear a child inside of yourself."

"Correct. Eve developed and was birthed from this body frame."

"Incredible. You managed to perform something that took my people hundreds of thousands of years to accomplish."

"What do you mean?" Chuang asked as his attention was focused on Bekra.

"All the Itreans used to lay eggs. My past descendants long ago, decided that rearing a child inside of our bodies was a......more reliable way of having children. Laying eggs risked getting destroyed if not properly taken care of. This was the same with having breasts and milk to give to our children. We used bioengineering to encourage a new form of evolution in our bodies. It took a long time to accomplish this, but the end result was very similar to what humans naturally evolved too."

"That is why the Itreans have boobs then?"

"Yes. It isn't to say that all of us have it. A small percentage believes in the old ways. The very few left today represent our closest long-distance relatives."

Chuang for a little while looked down at the body of Bekra. The discussion was causing his curiosity to look where his thoughts lie naturally. He could see the protruding breasts from the reptilian woman's chest as her clothing fabric covered them up.

"Yeah," Zalika said to the both of them. "I admit it is a big plus for human and Itrean relations that we both have.....Hey!" She paused. Her eyes caught Chuang as he quickly looked away from Bekra. "Don't you be eyeing my girl!"

Chuang almost displayed some embarrassment. "Sorry.....," he said as he looked at the trucks.

"It is alright," Bekra told him. "I am bonded to Zalika. My mate.....," she paused as Zalika displayed some annoyance. ".....My closest friend does not desire such actions. There is no need to forgive something that you did not know."

"According to the T'rintar clan database," Minerva added. "There are at least one trillion T'rintar clan women that are currently seeking mateship or marriage with human beings, Chuang. If such a thing is under your desire, I am sure...."

"Ok......" Chuang said, somewhat embarrassed and cutting her off. "I get it."

"If you excuse us, you can tell Staff Sergeant Kole my thanks," Ericson told them. "If.....you mind?"

"Of course," Zalika said. She began to walk by the tent to look at the truck. "Guys, let's go! We are done for the day."

"Thank you for the help," Minerva told them as Eve was happily nursing from her breast.

"Thank you for allowing us to help you in your experiment," Bekra said. "Kole will be happy to know that the thruster packs were put to good use. We do have other thruster packs used for smaller equipment. Those thrusters could be used for your next flight experiments. I can put a word in for Kole."

"That would be acceptable. Take care of yourself, Bekra. Zalika, Chuang, I wish you a good day."

Chuang waved his hand to Ericson and Minerva. He said nothing else.

Bekra smiled and waved her hand at them. "Take care of Eve. She is so cute."

Minerva gave a brief smile as she waved her synthetic hand at them. Even Ericson seemed to smile as he watched the others begin to walk towards their vehicle. Zalika said nothing else as she eyed the truck in a desire to leave.

"That was pretty cool," Chuang said as they walked past the tent. "I really wasn't expecting all of that."

"I liked it too," Bekra commented as they were walking closer and closer to the truck.

Zalika said nothing as she tried to hold her comments back. The doors of the vehicle opened up as they were getting ready to jump back into the truck. Finally, she decided to say something to Chuang.

"You know, Chuang," she said. "Bekra wouldn't be down your alley anyway if you tried."

"I already apologized," Chuang replied as they started to get into the vehicle. The doors closed as they sat in their same seats as before.

"No, no. That isn't what I mean," Zalika commented. "Well.....maybe she could be meant for you.....what I am trying to say is that she is an ivon."

"An ivon?"

Bekra seemed a little embarrassed at first, but it quickly faded. Zalika looked at her almost apologetically for a moment, but then it appeared necessary for someone to explain it to him. Bekra decided to go ahead and be the one to tell him.

"The ivon are the necessity of our race during the Zilik's Disease that ravages my people," Bekra explained. "The disease kills all the males and leaves only the females behind. You, humans, have no idea what we have to go through every day back in our worlds. The ivon are the necessity for the women to survive....we....."

"What she is trying to say is that she has both parts," Zalika said. "Ivon are the constructed third gender."

"Shit....." Chuang said. "I didn't know. To be intersexual and all that."

"It is......we have to let you humans know that, especially when I saw you looking at my breasts," Bekra told him. "Some humans don't know enough about us until they desire to mate with us. A few don't know until it is too late."

"Ugh....." Chuang sighed. "Yeah, I think that you are pretty.....ehm.....no offense Corporal Zalika. Thank you for letting me know that."

"Try to keep that a little bit on the down-low," Zalika explained. "Itreans are pretty used to this by now. They consider it a necessary evil forcing their people to become ivon so they can ensure that their people don't become extinct. Most of us humans don't care, but a few might say something derogatory."

Zalika started up the truck as she began to shift the vehicle into reverse as it backed up in the grass and away from the tent. She then began to turn it towards the colony as the truck sped forward.

"Well, I promise you that I don't have any issue with it," Chuang said, looking at Bekra.

"What you prefer both on a person?" Zalika jokingly asked him.

"No.....I mean, no. I mean that I don't have a problem if she is an ivon and all that. What you guys.....women do is your choice, you know? Since this topic is brought up, though, I do have some questions."

"What is it?" Bekra asked.

"I mean.....there are trillions of Itreans. I don't mean any offense. I don't prefer both parts. Is half the population ivon?"

"No. 40% of our population are chosen to be ivons when they become an adolescent. A few do willingly volunteer to become ivons, and a few even decide to become L'ivons....the next choice after that. We are chosen by a.....lottery system as you humans might call it."

"Shit, man," Chuang commented. "That is what they did to you?"

"Yes.....I remember crying the day they told me that I would be that......, but I learned to embrace it. If anything.....I am happy to be the way I am."

"You don't have to say anything else on it," Zalika said as she used a free hand to grip her scaly hand across the seat. "Happy the way you are."

"Are you....trapped as an ivon?" Chuang asked.

"When the humans came along, they have reduced the rules a little bit. When it comes to being mated with humans, we can have our procedures undone."

"It can get a little bit complicated," Zalika explained as there was a slight bump in the grass to jolt the truck a little bit. "It really depends on the human they find. Most of the ivon have their procedures returned to female once again when they marry off to a human male, but there are gays, bisexuals, etc. among the human community.....heh...." she paused as she gestured to herself. "Some human men and women prefer an ivon to keep both parts because hey.....both is better. In most cases and the general population, the T'rintar clan is trying to maximize the people that their people can marry off and become mates to. Human women usually are naturally turned off to having an Itrean woman for a mate, but an ivon can become a l'ivon and help solve that little hurdle."

"The l'ivon are full male?" Chuang asked.

"Yes," Bekra tried to explain. "It is a surgical procedure that allows the ivon to be completely stripped of female identity. They have all-male parts and nothing on their bodies that make them female. I am thankful my people do not force our people to become L'ivons. Before our people met humans, there was hope that there would be a solution to the ivon programs. At least by making us ivons, the procedure can be easily reversed. With L'ivons, there is no going back."

"And some ivons become L'ivons in hopes of marrying a human woman?"

"Yes. To them, it is the ultimate sacrifice. The desire to become a parent is so strong that if it means mating with a human woman to achieve that goal, then they will do it."

"I can imagine the complexity of the couples that can occur because of it. You can have human male and female couples that have an ivon for a......husband.....wife......you know what I mean?"

"It is already happening," Zalika said with some reluctance. "I don't need to comment on that. I have a brother that mated with an ivon. He is bisexual like me, but he has the chance to become a father with an ivon. He had to alter his views on things just as......what is her name again? Damn, I need to get in contact with him again."

"I understand what you are talking about. So, ivons can impregnate human women? I thought it was only human men and itreans that can have kids."

"No," Bekra continued. "In fact, the ivons in the first experiments with humans, an ivon was able to impregnate a human woman."

"Voluntarily," Zalika added.

"The child born from her was human as well. They recently announced that with further adjustments, human women could give birth to give Itrean children too. Human women now have more options when it comes to preferences in kids."

"Wow," Chuang replied. "Cool."

"It's all interesting and all, but it really doesn't matter that much with me," Zalika said. "Does cause a lot of odd things to appear on the porn propaganda channel that is for sure."

"It doesn't bother me that you are an ivon," Chuang said. "You don't have to worry about any criticism from me."

"Thank you," Bekra replied with a smile.

"That does bring a question up," Zalika asked. "Plan on finding any Itrean tail of your own?"

"Me?...." Chuang seemed to think about it. "Hadn't really thought of it. My brother and I once talked about going to New Olympia to meet the many women there but not the T'rintar clan worlds. Of course, that was before we met you last year. I mean.....you know I have seen a lot of the.....Yutilian women from a distance. They are.....attractive. It is something that I am still thinking about."

"Well, you were staring at my girlfriend's boobs, so that is a sign for you," Zalika commented.

"I do have a sister that would be interested in having a mate," Bekra told him. "I can give you her contact information."

"Really?" Chuang asked. "I mean.....of course she would be looking for a husband with the whole situation going on. Is.....she an ivon?"

"Yes."

"She can have it easily reversed like you said, right?"

"Chuang, they have this thing down to a science," Zalika said. "Like an hour later, they can have the process changed out. The only reason why they keep them that way is to drill it into their brains that they are not what they are supposed to be anymore. It is bullshit, honestly. Can't let people be what they want to be."

Bekra looked down as she thought about it. Chuang seemed to acknowledge everything as he could see the colony get closer and closer as the vehicle's speed began to increase more and more. He wanted to change the topic.

"That was interesting with the whole flight thing," Chuang said. "I wasn't expecting that."

"Always be prepared for the unexpected," Zalika said. "Before you know it, you are going to have some tattoos and getting drunk with the whole crew before this weekend ends."

"I am looking forward to it," Chuang replied somewhat hesitantly.

Chapter 4: A Typical Night

"Ugh....." Zalika commented as her foot stepped on a fallen branch of a tree. "I think another couple minutes of walking, and we will be far enough away from the base."

Zalika and Bekra were both alone, as it was fairly dark outside. The forest had some buzzing sound created by the native insects of the planet. Almost similar to the crickets of former Earth, these sounds would go up and down in tone. It was both harmonic and perhaps eerie in its music.

In the vast distance covered up by most of the tree cover, the base's lights could still be seen as the two walked further and further away together. The goal was to gain as much ground as possible from the location. Zalika was using a flashlight on her augmented arm to light up the path ahead of her. Bekra had a pair of tilons and what looked like an illumination flare in her scaly hands.

"I had a good time today," Bekra said as she stepped over a large tree root. Her clawed feet gripped the base of it as she hopped over it.

"Yeah, just more busy nonsense," Zalika replied. They continued walking through a set of brush ahead of them.