"They're carrying enough antimatter to probably destroy the research station if we let them get close enough, of course that also means we can destroy their ship with transposers if we want to assuming they don't have a way to block them. Depending on how good their automation is we might just be able to protect ourselves by transposing their full crew away. I don't like questions like this though."

"Neither do I... it's the price of being in charge though."

"On a happier note do you have a sensor for me? I expect I can get a much closer look at some of the new species onboard, I don't think we should go for copying their technology in person."

Emiko laughs. "I was hoping you'd ask that." The skin on her shoulder opens up revealing crystal nestled in a number of metal rods. She reaches in with her opposite hand to grab it and hand it over. Her shoulder closes back up, the skin once again looking seemless. "This is a standard biomedical sensor resonator. It was made for operatives expected to need to diagnose injuries or plagues in areas where we're not making open contact."

"You're always so dramatic. Really opening your shoulder?" She takes the crystal and opens her jaw a bit wider than an ordinary human could to swallow it.

"You're one to talk. I bet you're about to do your whole age up routine like you do when talking to people not used to us."

"I..." she says before her dress begins lengthening while along with her legs arms and torso. "Have no idea what you're talking about."

Her face shifts last losing some of the softness of childhood. Then she breaks down laughing.

"I hope this goes well. Good luck to you and your teams Emiko."

Some time later she appears without any fanfare in the Shuttlebay. "Hello, thank you for inviting me to your vessel."

"You're welcome. I hope your time aboard goes well. The captain is waiting in a conference room."

"Of course. Is it polite in your culture to enquire as to someone's species?"

"That's a complicated question but it's definitely acceptable during first contact situations. We have a number of species on board. The captain is human, our science officer Lieutenant Hriss is Caitian, our chief medical officer Dr. Fook is Vulcan and I'm a Jovian."

"Could you tell me about your species? If that's a polite question to ask?"

"Well, I'm not sure if you could tell but I'm not biological. This is my Avatar but my body is this ship. We're a species of AI, though perhaps species is the wrong word. We're all forks off of a single original AI."

"I see. Are most starships in your Federation Jovians?"

"Most Starfleet ships are, it's a lot less common among civilian ships. For political reasons there's a portion of Starfleet ships without AI either."

They arrive at the turbolift and step inside.

"There's politics in everything I find."

"You're right about that. Though I don't think there's that much among us Jovians just yet. We're small enough that we run everything among ourselves as a direct democracy."

"Your population must either be very small or have a lot of free time if you're able to sustain that."

"Jovian's are naturally very good at multi-tasking. Some of us hold thousands of conversations at a time. And things requiring a full vote of the Gathering don't happen that often. We only vote on things that will impact most or all of us."

"That's impressive, I don't know if any of our people can do something quite like that. I never took cognitive engineering courses."

"What does cognitive engineering entail?"

"It's the study of restructuring and augmenting people's minds to allow them to have abilities or manifest in forms very different from those of baseline humans. My mind has been restructured to allow me to manage this body, to experience less trauma and to have a more effective memory than what a baseline human would."

"Is there a reason why you've been engineered to experience less trauma in particular?"