When one of the technicians noticed the Admiral enter, he sprang to attention and shouted, "Admiral on deck!"

Admiral Beck waved lazily and said, "As you were."

Dr. Sivaram, one of the junior physicians, hurried over to the Admiral and said, "Herr Admiral, what brings you here today?"

Several technicians scrambled to their stations while others went to fetch necessary equipment.

The technician at the main console said, "Initializing activation sequence for Alpha-Zero-Three. Herr Doktor, your authorization, please."

Dr. Sivaram went to the console and inserted his key. When he turned it, though, a buzzer sounded and the computer said, "Insufficient access level. Gamma Series activation is restricted. Please contact the Section Chief."

The Admiral could appreciate Dr. Van Neumann's dedication, but he did not want to wait on him to get here. Also, if the good doctor was restricting access like this, he might object to the activation period, which was another hassle the Admiral wanted to avoid.

The measure of caution that required a physical biometrically-encoded key was undermined by the fact that the Admiral could override any system with a simple voice command, but it was a special privilege extended to the fleet commander alone.

A robot hand extended from the overhead and moved to the array of hexagonal cells built into the bulkhead. It then extracted Major Yang's pod and set it in the central socket in the deck. The pod rotated so that it was facing forward and the outer sheath retracted, revealing the dormant Major floating in suspension.

While ordinary stasis pods would permit their occupants some measure of concession for modesty, the Hybrids received no such consideration. They were not supposed to be regarded as fully human and any form of clothing would only serve as a hindrance for all the tubes and wires connected to their bodies while inactive.

The Admiral, however, was less concerned about the practical reasons than he was for the aesthetic ones. He had yet to meet a Hybrid who was not beautiful, a work of art. To cover their beauty was as ridiculous and offensive as putting a brassiere on the Venus de Milo.

Admiral Beck tried not to play favorites, but he could not deny being partial to Major Yang's more mature charms. Though only average height, she would carry herself as if she was taller. Her proportions were close to mathematical perfection, without lack or excess. Her skin was like porcelain and her long hair was the light pink of cherry blossoms. Such distinctive features were not uncommon in the Gamma Series. It was but one of the reasons they were more difficult to integrate, and so the Major and her sisters would spend much of their time inactive.

The pod tilted in its frame so that it was horizontal as the fluid was drained. The clearplaz shell slid open and a scanner swept down the length of the Major's body.

As if on cue, Major Yang's eyes opened and she slowly sat up.

She started to exit the pod when Dr. Sivaram told her, "Please wait for the technicians to disconnect you, Major."

Mechanically, she stopped and did not move a muscle as the technicians moved in to remove all those tubes and wires, placing patches on the insertion points that would cause them to heal by the time the diagnostics were complete. Dr. Sivaram then went over to give her an abbreviated physical exam. With the sophistication of modern medical scanning technology, such primitive practices were mostly obsolete, but it was a point of pride in the Empire to preserve the human element wherever possible. You never knew when modern technology might fail you and a knowledge of primitive practices could mean the difference between life and death.

Once Dr. Sivaram was done, before anything else could proceed, Major Yang stood up and approached the Admiral.

Standing at attention, she said simply, "Herr Admiral."

It was not that Major Yang did not understand human emotion, only that she was obedient to her conditioning to suppress her emotions. It was dangerous for a creature of her power to be too strongly influenced by a variable as chaotic as emotion, after all. Nevertheless, the Admiral enjoyed testing the limits of her conditioning.

Still looking him square in the eye, the Major only slightly tilted her head into his hand. She was very reserved in her responses to his displays of affection, but the response was certainly there. She was much like an aloof cat, far more so than any of the other Hybrids. The challenge level made these little reactions thoroughly rewarding.

Major Yang never did pull her punches. It was one of her charm points as far as the Admiral was concerned. Her utter lack of hesitation was exactly why she was the best woman for the job.

The casual observer would not have noticed it, but the Major knitted her eyebrows ever so slightly before replying, "Aye-aye, sir."