Sk-15. Admiral, I’m a Girl Now
When Artemis awoke, she was greeted by the sight of Zehra and Laria peering at her intently, their faces mere inches away from her own.
“GAH!” she screeched, making to stumble backwards but hitting a posterior wall instead. “WHOA! TOO CLOSE!”
“My apologies,” Laria said primly while stepping back, although Zehra did no such thing.
“Why do you look different, gao~n?” the undiplomatic scientist asked, peering to her heart’s content.
“Uh, that’s… uh… I don’t…” Artemis was far too disoriented and flustered to form a meaningful response.
Laria sighed, straightened her glasses, and grabbed Zehra by the collar of her lab coat. With an elegant spin-kick motion, she sent the scientist flying into the opposite bulkhead.
Satisfied with her handiwork, Laria batted at some imaginary dust on her lapel and turned back to Artemis. “Once again, I must apologize. My colleague will not trouble you further. 2nd Lieutenant Kretzer, please describe your material condition.”
The familiarity of military routine centered Artemis, and she reflexively stood at attention and saluted. “Yes ma’am. I am… operational. Combat ready. No physical or emotional impairments.”
Laria returned the salute, then quirked an eyebrow. “I see on your metadata that you’ve changed names. I presume you wish to be referred to as ‘Artemis’ from now on?”
Artemis flushed, but did not let her posture relax. “Yes, ma’am.”
The eyebrow rose higher. “Your pronouns?”
“Uh… f-female please?”
Laria held Artemis’ gaze for a moment before nodding. “Very well. Your service record has been updated accordingly. The remainder of the USSE network will follow suit the next time we’re within transmission range of Pluto Anchorage. Are there any further administrative duties pertaining to this matter that require my attention?”
Artemis’ eye twitched. “I think I need to see the therapist.”
“I was just about to order the same,” Laria said with a half-smile.
Artemis nodded, then froze as she remembered something quite important. “Ah, there’s one more detail we should go over first.”
“And that is?” Laria asked in the fashion of a put-upon librarian.
As if on cue, a small blue holographic crab materialized on Artemis’ shoulder, piggybacking on the very same holographic systems that rendered her skin and clothes. The crab tapped out a welcome.
“Hello. I am Engineer-32459, but please call me E-59 for short.”
Laria’s eyes went wide as dinner plates, even as she spoke a reply in the crab tongue. “H-Hello. I am Radiolaria, Central Artificial Intelligence of the battle carrier Radiolaria Galactica. It is an honor to meet you.” She looked back at Hunter, her confusion coalescing in a single word. “How?”
“Dunno, ma’am. Ask Sveta,” Artemis replied with a shrug.
Laria groaned, feeling a familiar headache return. “Sveta. Of course. I’m afraid your therapy will have to wait, 2nd Lieutenant. I need you to brief the Admiral directly on what you know.”
******
If Artemis’ sudden genderswap troubled Admiral Savitskaya at all, she didn’t show it. She simply listened to the young lieutenant’s story with an impassively analytical look on her face, spine straight and hands clasped behind her back. Artemis wasn’t sure whether to find her stolidity comforting or intimidating.
“I have three points,” the Admiral said at the end of Artemis’ tale. “Firstly, congratulations on your apparently quite accidental gender transition.”
“Th-Thank you, ma’am.”
“Secondly, I commend you on the actions you took to protect the crab homeworld. Were it not for your heroic near-sacrifice, we would have failed to save them from extinction.”
A mixture of relief, gratitude and pride bubbled up inside Artemis; this was her first solo mission, and she’d done well. “Thank you, ma’am. Does that mean there are more enclaves? More survivors?”
Katya nodded. “Since broadcasting our initial greeting, we’ve made contact with over two hundred hidden enclaves, fortresses and shelters. We estimate the surviving crab population to be in excess of 100,000.”
That brought a sharp gasp from Artemis, along with a clatter from the crustacean on her shoulder. “That many?!” they proclaimed, shining jubilant orange. “That’s incredible! We thought we were the only ones!”
“Indeed. Your people will thrive again. What’s more, they seem amicable to forming a military alliance with humanity, although the lack of any current central government is muddying things.” Katya looked upon crab and lieutenant with a pitying gaze. “That brings me to my third point. E-59, if you would consent, I would like you and Artemis to serve as official liaison between the crabs and humanity.”
“Of course, of course!” E-59 proclaimed, before uncertainly turning and looking up at Artemis’s face. “You… have no objections to doing this?”
To the crab’s great confusion, this remark drew wry smiles from Laria, Katya and Artemis alike. “I’m a soldier, and I’m on duty,” Artemis explained. “The Admiral doesn’t need to ask my permission. She merely has to give the order.”
E-59 looked at Artemis, then Katya, then back to Artemis. “You humans are a strange species.”
Katya cleared her throat. “Yes, well. I must express my regrets at asking so much of you shortly after your... transformative experience,” Katya said, sounding almost tender. “I will see to it that you are granted double leave time once your current task is concluded.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” Artemis replied, wondering at the iron woman trying to act nice.
“That concludes our official business,” Katya said, her eyes glinting mischievously. “Off the record, I wanted to address a minor personal matter.”
Artemis felt her veins freeze over, racking her processor for any personal contact she might have had with her most frightening commanding officer. Nothing came to mind. “U-U-Uh, wh-what might that b-be?”
“Did you hear that your boyfriend tried to punch me?”
The scream that followed was audible on several neighboring decks, despite the Radiolaria’s supposedly state-of-the-art soundproofing.
“HE DID WHAT?!”