Bellona Project: Bloody Nova

3845 AD

19 years ago...

The smooth thrust of repulsor engines powering the family grav car, a sleek model boasting a pearlescent finish, nimbly accelerated and wove through eddying waves of traffic in response to my father's expert light touch.

"How's she doing back there?" I hear my father idly asking up front, gingerly making adjustments. I'd be lying saying I wasn't proud of him; my father's a talented engineer specializing in optimizing aerodynamics and sensitive touch responses geared for developing better grav cars and cycles.

"Nothing's changed, she's still soundly buckled up and fast asleep."

"Well, I don't blame her. Let her sleep, we've still got a ways to travel."

A ghostly cherubic smile on my small oval face, medium tan skin flush and warm with life, securely strapped in with restraints fastened over my midsection, i blissfully sleep in the family car's backset. With temperature controls set and putting out a gentle wave of heat, and my small belly full with delicious food and drink from a quick breakfast stop over, clutching a plush toy close to my chest, I wonder could anything be better? The cadence of my father's and older brother's Vietnamese voices rolling over me like a balmy summer scented breeze, minutely shifting beneath cozy maroon microfleece blankets, sniffing and nuzzling my plush toy I enjoy this well earned family time.

Excitement burbles gleefully within my stomach: we're en route to an aunt's place who cheerfully promised us a good time over a two week period at her beach house.

"I can assure you Uncle, she's doing fine back here, we both are." I hear my cousin saying from beside me, small lips curling up on feeling him affectionately patting my blanket covered hip. Barely detected by me is a soft drawn out yawn by emitted by my cousin.

Silly boy, he should lay back down and resume sleeping if he's so tired, I absently think to myself while murmuring incoherently and doubling down on my own sleeping.

"You keep getting familiar with Beverly, your parents and I'll have to discuss marrying you off to her." I faintly hear my father joking from the driver's seat, deftly applying fresh corrections and keeping us on course.

I'm one of a handful of members in my family not possessing a publicly known Vietnamese name, on account of my parents wishing to honor two women who meant a lot to both of them respectively. My father chose bestowing my first name on me after a woman named Beverly Sin Park who working closely with him, proved instrumental in making successful initial prototypes for grav vehicles while they were both in college. And while there may've been a short, but passionate series of flings between them, nonetheless my father considered it only proper honoring someone so key in his life. My middle name is derived from a fiesty Mexican woman named Ramona Sanchez who in an act of supreme heroism, saved my mother's life when they were both in the Army, when an enemy advancing upon my mother's position should have had her dead to rights.

Some bonds simply transcend the normal experience and merit the honor due in naming one's offspring. What better way in carrying on an enduring legacy and symbol of eternal friendship and familial ties?

"Doesn't sound half bad." My cousin tiredly concedes laying down on the seat, fluffing up his own tawny microfleece blanket and rearranging the position of his small travel pillow.

Six years older than me, and a handful of years than my brother, my cousin has largely managed procuring for himself quite a reputation. Chiefly from all the numerous fights he's been involved in, or creating such mischief his shenanigans prompt one of my aunts in creatively bailing him out. In all fairness though, he's taught my brother and I on how to better handle ourselves in dirty, underhanded situations. Whereas some people may view my cousin unfavorably, I'd trust him my with my life.

"Incoming call, there's a new one." My father lightheartedly remarks cheeks dimpling as he smiles broadly, casually flicking a glance at the central console. "Well let's see who it is. Ah, love of my life...this is a surprise." I can hear my father declaring joy suffusing his voice as my mother's voice crisply sounds through.

"Sorry for interrupting your drive," I can hear my mother saying, imaging a grin blossoming on her sweet face. "I'd been hoping for a slight chat with my family, while there's a lull in work at the moment."

"You know it's never a problem." My father replies.

"Morning Mom," I hear my brother exclaiming, doubtless waving and smiling broadly. "Miss you much! Father treated us to a delicious breakfast."

"He did?" My mother responds chuckling, "And doubtless didn't bother saving any for me, so typical." She teases.

"Hey now, you're not even here," My father retorts chuckling, "you could've come along, but oh no...ever the workaholic." He says laughing.

"Whatever..." I hear my mother responding with a drawn out sassy drawl before dissolving into fits of unprofessional giggling. "Now patch me through to the back seat screens, let me see my daughter and nephew."

"If she's awake," My father playfully mutters, nonetheless punching buttons up front.

Instantly the screen in front of me blips to life its gentle azure backlight bathing my face, noticeably waking me up. There's just no escaping a mother's devious tactics grounded in love when it comes to interacting with her children. Scrunching up my face, I make a silly expression ruined by a short yawn, genuinely smiling warmly as I fixate on my mother's face.

"Good morning sleepy head, are you enjoying the drive so far?" My mother inquires in that pleasing Vietnamese nightingale soothing voice of hers. I've always loved my mother's dulcet tones, somehow they always bring a smile to my face.

"Morning Mom, wish you were with us. It's been a pretty drive so far." I greet smiling happily while stretching my arms and legs. The plush toy I'm cradling starts falling, before I manage feebly grabbing it one handed. That was close.

Obviously humored by my antics, my mother bursts out in laughter, love shining behind her glasses. "Well, I'm glad it's been a pleasant trip so far, you and your brother be nice to your aunt."

"Okay Mom, I will," I yawn. "Hopefully my boyfriend is too."

"Boyfriend?" Again my mother laughs. "Someone needs to slow down and catch me up."

"She's just being funny auntie, she means me, I'm afraid." My cousin dryly interjects from where he's lying on the back seat behind me, sheepishly waving a hand.

"Sure you can't make it out to join us love?" I hear my father asking, sensing the minute adjustments made as he adroitly goes swerving and weaving between sporadically light and dense repulsor lanes.

"I'll try if i can darling, you know I'd love nothing better. Work's getting heavier with projects ramping up." I hear her saying, glimpsing a wistful expresssion. "What's this I hear about a boyfriend of Beverly's?"

"Her cousin's rather fond of her. Told him we'd speak to your sister about a possible arrangement." My father responds lightly chuckling.

"Ooohh, decadently spicy!" My mother giggles. "It could almost work. I'll have to think about it."

"Mom!"

Predictably my embarrassed exclamation draws warm laughter from my entire family. Once again I've blundered into a situation seeing offering myself up as a source of amusement. It'll belatedly mark a time not far off, I'll desperately wish for such times again.

And then it happens; a dreadful blaring noise coupled with florescent strobing magenta and tangerine light flares up from the central console. My father swears, my older brother gripping fast to the passenger door handle, whimpers coming from his lips. Furiously my father punches the accelerator to the floor.

"That's the proximity alarm, what's going on?" My mother asks worriedly leaning forward into her screen, alarm showing evidently within her face.

My father swears. "Damned repulsor lanes above us are shorting out, collapsing."

"That hasn't happened in over two hundred forty-eight years!" My mother gasps.

"More recently than that, but yeah...those were dark days." My father agrees speaking tightly grasping the steering wheel more tightly than usual. "Jacqueline, give me flight module mode." He says to our car's smart AI system.

"Engaging flight module mode," Comes Jacqueline reply, altering the steering grip in a sleeker, more downturned fashion.

Lying back down, my cousin holding me tightly I can't help but mewl and whimper. From the front of the car, I can feel my father's desperation as he fights like mad to escape now plummeting grav vehicles, their velocities increasing.

"Hang on everyone, I'm going to try and get us out of this, above it if I can." My father grimly states clenching his teeth, swerving and putting us into alternating short and long drifts like a madman. All around us chaos reins as grav vehicles and disrupted sections of repulsor lanes come crashing down.

Feverishly maneuvering the car now less like a driver and more akin to fighter pilot, my father takes us a few levels higher up on steep angles. Power sliding several times, putting our grav car through partial half turns and short controlled glides, my father does his best threading our way through the bedlam now taking over.

In the end it's not enough as a large grav truck like the ones used for transporting heavy loads comes bearing down on us, flipping over and spinning haphazardly as it slams into another large grav truck, taking out several small grav cars. And then it hits us head on, speed unchecked.

Viciously slammed around in the back seat, horrified high pitched screams ripping from my throat as everything rapidly got compacted, my life changed forever that day. The tops of my femurs in both legs badly fractured, the restraint painfully crushing and caving in on my midsection even as a portion of console tearing free, was forcibly jammed between my thighs were just the beginnings of my problems.

My father and brother were the lucky ones; they died almost instantly upon impact of that horrible collision. My life ended when I was nine years old. Through hasty medical intervention and connections manipulated by my Mom, my cousin and I received prompt emergency medical attention.

Quickly and quietly as you please, I'm slipped beneath society's view and whisked away to an innocuous building to become something wholly new: the lone successful candidate of the Bellona Project.

3864 AD Present Time

Blissfully shielded and at peace inside a luxury, cutting edge sleeping pod equipped with a full length tempered frosted glass canopy, and synched to preferred regulated temperature and audio settings, located here in the heart of Delphi Prime Corporation, I slumber.

"Time to wake up Ramona, examination day." I hear technician Sean Edleman softly instructing in a companionable sing-song voice. Mumbling incoherently, speech laden with reluctance in rousing myself from deep restorative slumber, my right arm curled upwards, fingers caressing the pillow cradling my head and left hand resting lightly over my blanket covered belly, languorously shifting my hips beneath the covers, gingerly I fractionally part my thighs.

Ramona he calls me, and technically it is part of my name. Officially my legal name is Beverly Ramona Pham, thought mostly these days people simply refer to me as Ramona. Feeling the familiar sensations of concentrated infrared heat pressing against the surface of cinnamon cotton panties, passing through and being gently pulsed throughout my belly, as Sean and the other attending technicians cast light within the depths of my vagina, my eyes flutter briefly. I'm aware most women would deem such prolonged examinations rather intrusive and bothersome, but then I'm not most women.

"Your tissues are still appearing quite well, fallopian tubes are intact and ovulation cycles are still falling within their natural limits." Debra Park gently informs me, her lilting Korean voice sounding crisp and perfunctory as ever over the embedded speakers. Always nice knowing people care enough about you to promptly bring any deviations or accepted parameters to your attention. But then again, perhaps it's because I'm simply listed as the Corporation's most prized asset.

Gradually opening my eyes, I stare in soft defocus to a small screen off to my right. Watching data collating and streaming by on the screen, I breathe evenly. Nothing seems to be amiss.

"Glad something is going right. Do I need to be harvested again?"

"For your eggs?" Sean asks his fingers rapidly tapping over keys, pulling up relevant data. "No, I don't think so, should be enough cryogenically frozen and available."

"Concluding the examination. You can fully rouse yourself whenever ready, Ramona." Says Debra. Sparse seconds later, soft pneumatic hisses sound indicating the sleep pod's canopy has been depressurized and is retracting. I know, you're wondering why pressurized something not at high altitude, right? Well, can't say Delphi Prime Corporation or its Director would be thrilled with a highly prized asset being stolen or compromised, now would they?

Reluctantly throwing off the hedonistic thick downy soft covers, and letting them pool about my thick midsection as I gradually blink sleep away from my eyes, reveals the extent of my physical differences. Peeking out below the edges of soft covers and straining against the front of my panties, a deceptive wafer thin seeming piece of gunmetal organic circuitry framing an inset visual display screen, grafted securely to my Venus mound, emits faint beeping and buzzing noises. Similarly grafted onto me running the length of my forearm and wrapping around the outer edges, and gently curving beneath the swell of my full left breast, are other respective cybernetic implants.

Obscured by my thick glossy short-cut black hair, lies another wafer thin gunmetal plate delicately worked beneath the surface of my cranium itself, its revelant access points and ports well sealed and masked from most prying eyes and technology. Perhaps the hardest cybernetic augmentation of mine to spot resides within my left eye. Superficially while my eyes look a healthy dark brown shade, in actuality embedded deep within its retina are highly advanced nanobots amplifying my vision and enabling it to view highly unique information.

Standing a mere sixty-four-point-five inches and going sixty-point-seven kilos with my body evenly proportioned, I am in so many ways most mens' idealized form come to life straight from a lurid dream. And if I'm being honest with you, I'd have preferred living just such an existence actually. Before you even consider criticizing me, ask yourselves this question: would you rather have a full normal life or be turned into a living weapon, devoid of most joys normal citizens take for granted?

Conscious of my hips swaying, padding over to the cleansing station lost in a moment of quiet introspection, I notice the cinnamon and lemon plush carpeted floor of my room feels softer, warmer today. Not entirely sure why this morning should be different than any other. Mmm, something worth ruminating over when next I've got some idle downtime. I'm not complaining mind you, just ever since growing up with cybernetic implants, we'll say my senses wound up being acutely heightened. Sometimes this is a boon and other days it can leave one screaming.

Approaching the showering station, lightly inhaling a breath I soak in the immediate burst of humidity. My eyes focused straight ahead, absent mindedly peeling off my articles of clothing and casting them to one side, I scarcely pay attention to the blast of water jetting up inside my vagina briefly. No time paying much attention either as my body's blasted high pressure streams of water, a tender downpour soaking my head. Ten sparse minutes pass with the impromptu cleansing waters shutting off as high powered air dryers kick in. The faint buzzing sensation announcing my cybernetics ramping up, tickles my skin as excess moisture is dispersed under the weight of the air dryers onslaught. A loud insistent beeping noise draws my attention.

Barely audible clicking noise is picked up by my well trained hearing as a subdued symphony of sound raises as meticulously disguised slender slots meant for integrated USB ports and secondary cable access points, whirring open, faint neon azure light leaking forth from within surfaces of my upper and outer quads, left forearm and breast, right elbow and bicep, left eye and left side of my cranium pulsates. Situated most prominently, the organic circuitry grafted onto my Venus mound shining brightly, evokes a strangeness of a hangar bay yielding to vast empty space. Quick as you please, a swarm of assorted USB, visual and sensory cables unleashed from their sterile confines, come flying at me eager in interfacing with me once more. As narrow flat tips and elongated pins happily sink themselves within my various access points, I can't help but crack a faint smile.

In many ways the inanimate tips and pins gleeful dance feels eerily reminiscent of friends happy to see one of their number once more.

Obediently a lightweight wireless keyboard with azure backlit keys, detached free-floating ten-key data entry pad and a pair of sleek cinnabar and jet smart glasses with attached ear buds and separate multi-function stylus, slides out of a recessed port hissing open. Before I even go to delicately pluck the smart glasses from their plush cinnabar cushion, a twenty-seven inch wide viewing screen flickers into life on the smoky glass panel before me.

Putting the glasses on, flexing strong slender fingers I patiently await for the prompt to arrive. I needn't wait long.

"Reset your password Ramona and then proceed to workout room three-A." Sean cheerfully advises me. Sounds as if someone's hopped himself up on a few cups of coffee before waking me up.

Every sixty days I go through this ritual of conjuring up newer security passwords, logging them in and running intensive diagnostic sweeps of all my cybernetic implants and systems. Blessedly I'm still more warm, soft bodied woman with pleasing tanned flesh and not circuitry. I pray I never fall victim to such catastrophic occurrences either, though life's painfully taught me on neither taking anything for granted nor discounting probabilities.

"Wondering as to the extent of my reaction times, processing abilities and cognition reasoning remaining intact, Sean?" I ask playfully scoffing in barbed rhetorical teasing accompanying a sarcastic little smirk. Canting my head lightly to the side, deftly keying in new passwords as they come into my mind.

"Not really. Everyone on the team remains assured of your capabilities."

"Yeah?" I retort, reflexively bumping my hips, staring matter-0f-factly into part of the observation room. "Well, I am."

Punching in the final password, patiently I away the gentle barrage to come. Sure enough a "rain" of beeping and humming noises commences, subtle vibrations rippling setting my flesh to tremor. Softly licking my lips, slightly parting my mouth I breathe shallow and evenly riding out the familiar sensations.

"Quadricep cybernetic password reset parameters verifying now, approval sanctioned. No malware or virues detected."

"Venus mound cybernetic password reset parameters verifying now, anti-intrusion parameters verifying, approval sanctioned. No malware or viruses detected."

I can't help but snort in amusement, quirking my lips into a lopsided cheeky smirk. Nice turn of phrase that; anti-intrusion. Starting in the twenty-seventh century technological advances had been made, allowing for women the option for subdermal implants in thwarting attempted rapes. Attempt being the operative word; one still had to keep everything updated or the implants did little good.

As the technicians patiently drone on with their assessment of my cybernetic implants, mentally I tune out. Well, till it comes to my visual acuity and cranium implant, hard ignoring those.

As elevated energy levels register within my mind, neural pathways brightening further for a brief span of time as connections are checked, HUDs and assorted detailed maps and overlays splash up on the viewing screen. I spend a good five minutes going through rapid blink protocols, ensuring everything works the way it should; amplified range finding, topographical and tactical map readouts, schematics for various weapons. Concentrating for a minute brings up a rendering of my battles suit if you could ascribe such a notion to it.

Off to the right side of the screen shows a full helmet, stylized off of ancient Greek Spartan warriors in the Corinthian style, complete with ornamental cheek guards and glowing cinnamon and lemon plume. A stoutly reinforced breast and back plate with equally sturdy upswept shoulder guards, floats above a hardened midsection. Attached beneath the armored midsection is an intimidating protective skirt overlapping with pair of thick burgundy and sable leather pants pairing with calf high boots braced with overlaying ornamental greaves.

Presently I find myself jarred back to my senses, as I experience the absence of USB, visual and sensory cables retracting as Debra calls out to me. "Ramona, hon you alright? Diagnostic sweep is good, passwords are fully fleshed out and encoded anew. You're cleared for working out." She says a flash of concern edging her voice.

"Thanks Debra, spaced out a minute there is all." I say gamely flashing her a smile and short wave. More embarrassed than anything else I head over to a small changing room where blessedly a fresh round of warm air buffets me. I could use the gentle reminder. Approaching an understated drawer, cheekily bumping a hip against the drawer has a few compartments extending, showing their contents. Nothing fancy her mind you, but then again I'm hardly making myself ready for a fashionable night out.

It may seem on casual perusal, how with a spartan set of preprogrammed selection for undergarments and clothing styles contained within ambient heated padded drawers, how little say I have in my life. Such just isn't the case. From childhood into the present day, it was decided with my input how lying out such selections days ahead of time, would greatly reduce stress in my life.

So you tell me who's the fool.

Selecting a pair of comfy cinnamon cotton high rise panties and matching bra, slipping into the items and hearing them satisfactorily snapping nicely into place, I proceed sheathing myself in a muted golden grain cotton top and shorts. Suitably attired, padding over to a door off to my right, meandering down a few short turns I emerge within the designated workout area.