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In the middle of the 'night' aboard the battleship Ingenuity, Solaris was training inside one of the ship's gyms. Standing in the middle of a mat, Solaris centred herself for the nth time before kicking the empty air in front of her, then she switched her centre of mass before kicking once more, but still, something felt off, she was still too slow. Moving over to a sandbag instead, Solaris abused that with kicks and punches for about half an hour before frustration once more overpowered her.

"Too fucking slow!"

It wasn't that Solaris was doing bad per se, if she was observed by a skilled martial artist they would say she was extremely skilled, but forced to give up her wings due to obvious reasons and under hasher gravity, she was still too slow for her own liking. The reason for that was that because of the increased gravity, the world she had lived on for over 600 years had lower gravity than the what she was experiencing now, while the difference was under 0.4 G, it still messed with her sense of balance and inertia when fighting, even though her bone and muscle density had been raised to an acceptable level she still felt strangely heavy when training. Wiping away the long strands of golden hair that was sticking to her forehead as she breathed a deep sigh, Solaris took a break to drink some water when she finally noticed she wasn't alone in the gym like she had thought.

"Umm... Good evening."

Caught like a deer in headlights, Solaris froze up when she was greeted by a youth with a pair of bright blue eyes and bright red short hair.

"Good evening… Please excuse me."

Not currently wearing her information control mask, Solaris panicked as she turned to hurriedly leave the room when the red haired girl grabbed her hand.

"I'm sorry for spying on you like that but you don't need to leave for my sake, I couldn't help but think you're having trouble with adjusting to the gravity so I thought that perhaps I could be of assistance, it's just that it was hard to approach you!"

Blurting out everything on her mind in a panicked attempt to keep Solaris from leaving, the red haired youth's face turned as red as her hair.

"How did you know that?"

Turning suspicious when the youth saw straight through the problem Solaris had even kept hidden from Lia, she briefly considered eliminating the young sailor who clearly knew too much.

"That's-! It's just that I saw you training and was fasci- I mean I've gone through gravity adjustment myself so I thought that perhaps you were dealing with something like that, I'm sorry for assuming that Miss Hellwalker, please don't be angry!... Ah, and my name is Rin, I talked with your commander yesterday when admiral Simmons suddenly recommended me for the position of liaison to the 125th!"

(She doesn't seem to be lying, and Dax did say all the officers on this ship were trustworthy individuals… It should be fine to ask for her help as long as I report that I did to Dax after the fact.)

"So, what do you have in mind, miss Rin?"

"Eh?- Oh, yeah! Wait for a second, I'll be right back!"

It seemed like Rin hadn't expected Solaris to accept her help so she once more froze up like a deer in headlights for a few seconds until she snapped out of it, disappearing off to the strength training area and returning with a pair of 2 kilo dumbbells.

"Please try and do some punches into the air as you did before, but this time hold one of these in each hand."

"Okay?..."

While not exactly following along with what Rin was getting at, Solaris nevertheless followed her advice and started practising martial arts again, this time with the slightly extra weight added. After about 30 minutes of moving around the mat while she beat up an invisible enemy, Rin stopped her.

"Okay, now try it without the weights."

"Sure… Wait, what?"

From the first punch Solaris suddenly felt a difference, it was like the strange heaviness had suddenly disappeared, or at least for the first while until it eventually returned. 

"Working with extra weights will trick your mind into adjusting into that weight after a bit, then when you're suddenly not working with that extra weight added on top there's a period where your mind still assumes it is still there, making the 'heaviness' of fighting and working disappear for a time."

Making a fist herself, Rin punched a sandbag for demonstration.

"So to overcome and adjust to a new and harsher gravity try to remember and visualize the sensation you had just after letting go of the weights…. Not that that will be easy to d-"

Not that just knowing the solution would make it such a thing possible to do, or so Rin believed after going through the process herself.

"I got it."

"-... Eh?"

With a stunned look on her face, Rin looked in disbelief as Solaris took seconds to overcome what had taken Rin herself months to even attempt.

"Hellwalkers sure are amazing…"

"I don't know about that, but feel free to praise me more~"

Placing a hand on Rin's head Solaris ruffled with a haughty expression on her face, due to her history of being worshipped Solaris was way too easy to please with praise.

"Thanks for helping me out Rin, I look forward to working with you as a liaison."

"I-it was nothing, Miss Hellwalker. I'm glad to be of assistance."

"Just call me Solaris~"

---

Keeping busy by training and touring the battleship, Dax's group eventually reached the Galactic Empire's capital, a Terran type planet entirely covered by the city sitting at a comfortable 0.9 G unimaginably named Delta-09 4. Home to not only Hellwalker and navy command, Rex heavy weapon systems, but also the Galactic senate and the administrative AI along with dozens of mega corporations, the capital was the centre of power, trade and authority in the Galactic Empire.

".... Is this all a city?"

Looking at the planet from low orbit, the sense of scale seemed wrong to Lia who believed she was seeing things, as did everyone else except for Dax and Phillipa, they were just too stunned to say anything.

"Yeah it is, although there are some major industrial areas like the one we're landing at, most of this planet is densely populated and also home to a lot of things which can't just be moved off world, chief among those are the administrative AI."

"I've heard you and Dax talk about that before, but what is this 'administrative AI' thing? Is it like ICI?"

Not afraid to ask questions, Alice who had heard that therm one time too many without any explanation unknowingly opened up the problematic topic of intergalactic politics.

��Not exactly, the integrated combat intelligence and its successor, integrated management intelligence are both derived from the administrative AI, which itself is what we classify as 'lost technology' because it was designed and built by the same long extinct race which made us qitons. It currently serves as one of 3 pillars of power in the Galactic Empire's political structure, with the two others being the senate, an elected house of representatives, and the other being the special council made up of appointed experts in a number of fields respectively."

"So you don't have an emperor? Then why is it an empire?"

"Because remaining the state has turned into a political topic which is highly splintering among members of the senate, about every 50 years a proposal for a new name and flag manages to survive the senate but it never gets past that point."

"Leaving all that aside for the moment, you girls can visit the senate and get the full explanation on a guided tour later, but right now I need all of you to focus on the present."

Intentionally derailing the discussion before it turned into a 3 hour political debate, Dax got the group's attention.

"While I figure out what's happened to the 125th in my absence together with Phillipa, the rest of you are free to act as you see fit after getting all of you officially appointed at the Hellwalker command, with some notable exceptions. Top of those exceptions is your state of dress, as active members of the 125th you are all to wear your provided uniforms whenever in public, you are not under any circumstances to disturb the general populace, including using your unlimited cash to buy out restaurants or goods. Tl;dr: be civil to the civilians, wear your uniforms, never start a fight, but always be ready to end it. Understood?"

"""""Sir, yes sir!"""""