Two months have passed since the ILR attacked Dornthant and Erma Felna has been unable to locate the ILR fleet responsible for the attack on her homeworld. Suddenly on SD 201-02-27 (February 27th, SD 201), Erma receives a call to her room from her crew warning her that a hostile ship is approaching theirs. As she got out of bed, she ordered her crew to prepare to intercept the enemy ship, including the use of ACVs to destroy it if necessary, in addition to getting any information they could get about it and any other ships that might be in the vicinity.
Six days later, Erma and the rest of her ship's crew see that there is no change in the status of the enemy ship that was near them, while the ACVs were hovering near their target. Seeing that nothing was happening, she ordered warnings to be sent to the hostile ship to see what would happen next. Seeing no reaction, she orders to attack the ship (most likely from the ILR) with the ACVs, but no reaction is observed from the opposing ship. One of the navigation officers warned Erma that something had happened, and that "something" turned out to be that the enemy ship self-destructed to avoid being captured by EDF. Seeing that her enemies chose to kill themselves rather than face her, Erma leaves the bridge furiously and leaves control of the ship to another officer for the time being.
Moments later, we see Erma trying to calm down by running through the ship, while the commanding officer at the time, a Canine named Pxaneet, went to look for her to notify her that the enemy ship did indeed self-destruct using two nuclear bombs inside. Upon learning of this, Erma cursed heavily, as she had missed the opportunity to finish off her enemies with her own hands, something that alarmed Pxaneet, as he had never seen anyone who was so eager to see their enemies really dead. Erma, for her part, tells him that although she does not like unnecessary violence, she wants to see those responsible for destroying her home in their graves. And seeing that Pxaneet felt sorry for her, Erma warned him to stop seeing her that way, since they were on a warship and that their main obligation was to have their enemies receive a rain of lead over their heads first.
Meanwhile, elsewhere at SD 201-03-01 (March 1st, SD 201), we see Ipcha Tankannahai continuing the ungrateful work of continuing to inspect the Feebles for any person of interest to the ILR, especially EDF members hiding on the ship, and while the vast majority were passengers who were more terrified of having the ILR in front of them, the effort was at least worthwhile in finding several EDF members on the civilian ship.
After having the all the hidden members of the EDF traveling on that ship in his hands, Tankannahai told Barlahan about the prisoners he was holding. Among the prisoners were two Lepine women, Anap-Had Damahannan (mother) and Temmanah Damahannan (daughter). Temmanah, for her part, began to notice how handsome Tankannahai was, something that began to upsate her mother when she began to ask about what they were planning to do with both women, something that was natural for her, for she hated the ILR dearly.
Later on, Tankannahai was still searching inside the Feebles, and they found an ILR citizen inside the ship, who was fully identified. Moments later, the young lieutenant takes a momentary break for a snack, while Barlahan congratulates him on his work. The lieutenant asks his captain what they are going to do with the prisoners, to which Barlahan lends his Data Pad, which contains some "sealed" orders for this contingency and which he needs Tankannahai to give his personal opinion on. The content of the orders sent to the Data Pad horrified the young soldier, since they were ordered to execute the prisoners and any Lepine belonging to the ConFed, since for the ILR, they are considered traitors because of the racist policies of the Republic. Both Tankannahai and, surprisingly enough, Barlahan, refuse to comply with these orders because they considered them illegal and not coming from a reasonable authority.
Once rested, Tankannahai warns the prisoners that they are now the "guests" of the ILR. Meanwhile, one of the ILR citizens on the ship who Barlahan and company had let go wanted to talk to him in order to congratulate him, but while the citizen was talking, Barlahan started to notice Temmanah, who was more interested in Tankannahai than him. Unfortunately for her, her mother warned her not to meet him once again because he was their enemy.
Meanwhile, Tankannahai was having lunch with his friends, who were teasing him because Temmanah was noticing him, something that depressed him, since she being a member of the EDF would not be interested in going out with him. To his surprise and that of his comrades, Temmanah suddenly appeared, asking to eat with him, something he refused to do to avoid further problems with her mother and with Barlahan, his captain, and while he made several excuses to avoid her, Tankannahai's friends kept laughing at him.
At SD 201-03-05 (March 5th, SD 201), we see Captain Itzak Arrat again as he and his crew are preparing for a joint mission with several members of the EDF, who will visit the spacecraft to work with them. One of the crew members, a Mustelid (otter) was in charge of loading the ship with ACVs with the help of his assistants. The only problem was that the drones were too large and several changes had to be made to the ship so that the ACVs could be used in it, something that was not to the liking of several of his co-workers. A few days later, the members of the EDF that would participate in the joint mission with Enchawah, and by default, with Arrat, arrived at the ship of the latter, and when Arrat asked them to integrate with the rest of the crew of the ship, the members of the EDF refused to do so, arguing that the crew of Arrat was hostile to them, something that was quite noticeable.
Meanwhile, the crew of Arrat's ship was in charge of installing the ACVs on the ship they received from the EDF, while Arrat and company were trying to find out what were the plans of those members of the EDF that would participate in the joint mission, deducing that they would probably have to take care of them once the mission was over, bearing in mind that the ConFed was gradually becoming more authoritarian, while trying to eliminate Arrat long ago. It should be noted that Arrat, despite being the captain of the ship, had no authority over the use of the ACVs, but that their use was exclusive to the EDF, whose members were authorized to work in complete independence from Enchawah, and that was another thing that began to worry Arrat too much.
In other events completely unrelated to the war, at least partially, in the Kawhateena system we see Teka Ardehad playing with her Data Pad with a friend of hers, a Feline named Moda, who together with her had developed an animation on her devices. Both children decided to show their work to Sharda, Teka's bodyguard, who temporarily decided to leave his job to see the work of the young princess on her device.
Suddenly, someone opened fire on Teka, but Sharda covered the girl with his body. Fortunately for him, the bodyguard was wearing a bulletproof jacket, which allowed him to survive the attack, but the same could not be said of Moda, who received a graze on his arm. Quickly, the other bodyguards went to protect Teka and to try to find the person responsible for the attempt on the life of the princess, while they tried to help Moda, who was wounded on the ground. Sharda asks Teka to enter a safe place, while she asks what happened to Moda, to which he replies that he was not seriously injured.
Already safe, Teka cries into the arms of her mother, Lady M't, while she thanked Sharda for saving her life. Meanwhile, Sharda and the rest of the bodyguards found the perpetrator of the attack, who was a mini-robot with a gun and a sensor, which was hidden in a garage. Because the automaton was created with generic materials, it was impossible to find the true perpetrator of the crime. Lady M't was not going to let the attack on her daughter go unpunished, but there wasn't much she could do, considering her husband had gone out to fight the ILR. All she could do was keep the attack a secret, and keep everyone involved in the incident quiet, including Moda's family.
Back with the ILR again, we see Ipcha Tankannahai cleaning the spacecraft's pipes, while he asks the Net for advice regarding Temmanah, since she was interested in both him and Captain Barlahan. The computer confirms that she is indeed in love with him, but by internal ILR regulations, the Net was forbidden to discuss anything about Barlahan with Tankannahai, because he was an subordinate inferior, but the only advice the Net could give him was to expect Temmanah to take an interest in someone else, which Tankannahai assumes could be Barlahan.
And as for the above-mentioned captain, by chance and in the following scene, he invited Temmanah and his mother to eat with him, in order to try to conquer the girl. As prisoners, both women have no choice but to agree to Barlahan's invitation, even though the captain tried to make the situation as pleasurable as possible for both of them. The situation took a very ugly turn when Lady Damahannan realized that Barlahan's real intentions were to have a date with her daughter, and to top things off for both the ship's captain and Tankannahai (who was not there at the time), Temmanah denies having any interest in Barlahan, and to the surprise of her mother and the captain from the ILR, she says she and Tankannahai were having a secret relationship, something she made up in order to keep Barlahan off her back.
After these events, Barlahan summoned Tankannahai to talk to him privately. The captain was more than pissed off at the young officer of engineers, since because of Tankannahai not only was his authority violated when he mutinied against Barlahan, but he had even stolen the girl of his dreams in his own face, even though he was not holding any kind of relationship with Temmanah, since he was already engaged to Tahdi back home, something that even the net helped to support the young lieutenant's words. It also didn't help that Barlahan didn't have any experience with sentimental issues, which made the situation more difficult for him, but there was one thing he could do, and that thing was at least making life difficult for Tankannahai, whom he threatened to retaliate against if he saw Temmanah again, not to mention that he didn't want to see his face at the time, even though he knew he needed his help for the mission they had in their hands.
Leaving all this aside, we now see Dr. Elaki Kalahahahaii, who was analyzing in a laboratory somewhere secret within the Enchawah space what appeared to be the nanomachines that artificial humans carried inside their bodies. She had no idea of the function of these artificial microscopic organisms, except that they seemed to be replicating each other, while trying to find out what materials these nanomachines were created from, something that the Net, for obvious reasons, knew nothing about. In the meantime, the scientist was amazed at the degree of freedom she had in Enchawah compared to the one she had in the ConFed, which allowed her to have the professional opportunity of her lifetime.
But suddenly, the lights went out, and the only thing being heard suddenly are the sounds of what appeared to be explosions inside the lab. Once the lights came back on, the scientist was seriously injured by the explosions. Someone (most likely the EDF) tried to kill her in her lab by planting bombs inside the place. To make matters worse, the vials with the nanomachines broke on her, contaminating her with their contents. Now all she could do was see how the nanomachines reacted in her body, while I helped her on her way. And as the Net tried to help her, the computer suddenly and mysteriously went offline and another program from it, of unknown origin, interfaced with the nanomachines, in order to use them to cure Dr. Kalahahahahaii. Seeing the beneficial effect these organisms have on her body and before losing consciousness, Kalahahahahaii came to a conclusion: She, like all anthropomorphic people, was created by the human race and this was the ultimate proof.
Tropes:
- Best Served Cold: Erma does not like to kill people unnecessarily, but she has a very special place in hell reserved for the entire ILR's military once she gets her hands on them.
- Category Traitor: Both Barlahan and Tankannahai are ordered to execute all the prisoners, including Lepines as well, because they are members of the EDF, and as such, they are considered traitors for the vehemently racist ILR. Needless to say, they refuse to do so.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: As already mentioned before, Erma hates being pitied by anyone, something that Pxaneet, the temporary commanding officer of the ship while she was trying to calm down herself, found out the hard way.
- Driven to Suicide: The ILR ship near Erma's one self-destructed rather than facing her, much for her own chagrin.
- Fantastic Racism: Temmanah's mother hates the ILR with passion, and she doesn't want her daughter to date Tankannahai because of this.
- Killer Robot: A downplayed example of this: Someone built a mini-robot with a gun with a sensor, so in the case Teka came close to the automaton, the gun could fire against her.
- Love Triangle: Between Temmanah, an EDF Lepine, with both Barlahan and Tankannahai, from the ILR.
- No Biochemical Barriers: The nanomachines Kalahahahahaii found in the artificial humans are as useful for them as for her as well, despite being an anthropomorphic Feline, when she was almost murdered by the EDF in her lab.
- Not Itself: Some hidden program inside the Net temporally overrided the AI's default personality in order to interface with the nanomachines and heal Dr. Kalahahahahaii with them.
- She Knows Too Much: Someone, very likely the EDF, tried to kill Dr. Kalahahahaii by setting bombs in her lab. She survives, thanks to the nanomachines that accidentally sprayed over her body, healing her wounds.
- Sealed Orders: It's revealed there's a specific protocol for dealing with ILR prisoners that is only disclosed after an officer has taken such a prisoner and asked Mission Control what to do. The orders are sent to their Data Pad and consist, essentially, of executing the prisoners, especially if they are ConFed Lepins.
- Succession Crisis: It's more than obvious than someone from the House Ardehad tried to kill Teka because she is not technically an Ardehad, but the clone of someone else, but they only managed to injure one of her friends, while Teka herself was saved by one of her bodyguards.
- Touched by Vorlons: Dr. Kalahahahahaii is contaminaded by the nanities she found inside the corpses of the artificial humans, and those organisms heal her wounds she suffered during her attack on her by the EDF.
