The Setting is that of The United Federation of Alternate Worlds, which as you might suspect is a large civilization that spans many alternate realities. Synthetic persons are common. Some realities have human societies that are composed entirely of synthetic female humans, both for good or ill. Given the fair amount of background information I took a page out of the SF&F playbook and wrote up some In Universe background material that takes the form of an Information Pamphlet the UFAW hands out when it moves in to "assist" a less advanced society. It should provide you with a few chuckles in its own right.
A Visitor's Guide to the Multiverse
I will also take the step by providing a reference pic (NSFW!) for the main character, Serena. There are slight differences in that she has slightly darker hair and is a bit more athletic in build.
I welcome ALL feedback, especially since I was not able to find someone able to give the story a close read with a second set of eyes. Feel free to ask any questions about the setting and yes it works well for crossovers or incorporating other settings. I am also looking for anyone interested in RPing in this setting as that's where a lot of the ideas come from. I know he's probably gone forever, but I would once again like to mention Technophile in his work on the Interlink civilization. You can expect about 12 parts total, but that might shrink as the editing isn't taking so long and I plan to break it as the plot dictates. Again no need to wait until the end for comments. If you are disappointed by the lack of your favorite type of "content", feedback generates future stories! However be warned, I got burned including overly explicit material in the last story I wrote for this site so in the future I am always going to err on the side of "tasteful".
EDIT: A revised version of the story is not located at the following link. It incorporates changes suggested during the original run.
http://shifti.org/wiki/User:Sturmovik/Extracted
So without further ado here is "Extracted".
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Serena stood in the forest covered neck to foot in slick black lightweight armour. The sun shone through the fall canopy lighting up her dark blonde hair as a light rain of yellow leaves fell around her. From somewhere in the trees she heard a voice, someone was in trouble. She took off running at high speed, her feet barely touching the forest floor.
"Help! Help me!"
It was a man, a hunter, rifle to one side, his leg pinned under a fallen tree. Serena pulled up and surveyed the scene. The task would be trivial considering her great strength. She bent down and lifting with her legs, hefted the great trunk off the man, tossing it to one side. The hunter still out of breath from his ordeal acknowledged the synthetic woman with a nod.
"Don't worry sir, you'll be ok."
Before she could bring the hunter to his feet Serena heard another call for help. Turning, she instinctively ran toward it, the forest giving way to a rough moonscape and the air became noxious and thin. Smoke rose from the distance. Covering the distance to the sound's origin she found a crashed shuttle and through one of the windows she saw a young reptilian alien pounding on the window.
"I'm here…just let me figure out what to do."
Serena went about the shuttle devising a plan to rescue the family trapped inside when suddenly from behind her a red ball of plasma hit the ground nearby sending a shower of dirt and debris into the air. Serena reacted instantly rolling into cover and morphing her arm into a blaster rifle. A shiny silver humanoid male pattern stood nearby, a smoking energy weapon in its grasp. It fired again, and again. Serena returned fire, ducking and weaving to get closer, scoring multiple hits on its living metal exterior, blowing off arms and legs and finally putting a shot between its eyes.
She turned back to the crashed shuttle only to find in its place a human family cowering before a skeletal robot, its hard metal manipulators around the neck of the father. The woman let out a cry as it crushed man's neck and tossed the corpse aside. Serena raised her weapon and opened fire, slagging the robot, but more appeared. Serena dashed in, putting herself between the oncoming bots and the survivors.
"Stay behind me! I'll protect you!"
Serena fired until her weapons began to overheat and her own internal power supplies began to dwindle. Just as the horde of robots seemed to be abating Serena was hit from the side by some sort of hot energy blast, tossing her body into the air where it proceeded to land against a rock. She had suffered significant damage, one arm missing as sparks and fluid shot from her shoulder. The multi limbed mecha approached to finish her off, but she raised her other arm, changing it into an armour piercing plasma bolt gun and shot bolt after bolt into the mech until it collapsed in a smoking pile of scrap. She had only a second to relax before another mecha appeared from on top of the large rock she was against. She raised her arm to fire, but her ammunition had been depleted. The mech's front mounted energy weapon charged and fired.
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Serena's eyes opened, it had taken 38 seconds from the time her internal alarm had activated to the time her consciousness had roused from its slumber, a new record high. Staying motionless on the bed she stared up at the ceiling, a mix of alternate vision modes kicking in to dispel the darkness and allow her to carry out the first of the long list of tasks that had built up in her queue. She let out a sigh and in a single movement tore off the covers and slid her feet over the side of the bed, jumping up to a standing position. She looked back, the pattern of disorder in the bedding combined with a latent weariness tipped Serena off that she had had another bad night, but her most recent package of tweaks had fortunately prevented any of the nightmares from registering with her conscious mind.
Looking around her bedroom Serena let out a sigh as the Spartan décor seemed to drain away any excitement that she had for the new day. Bare be even the standards of her own kind, Serena was becoming convinced that her choice of accommodations was bumming her out on several levels.. Never much one for the typically feminine pursuits of fashion and home decor, Serena had already forsworn the generous accommodations typically provided to an officer of her rank, but could still never find the motivation to properly equip even the smaller space. Reaching the dresser she shook her slightly tussled dirty blonde hair getting it to fall perfectly over her bare shoulders. Standing before the mirror, her hands working on autopilot to tie back her hair for the day's activities, Serena contemplated her synthetic body as the morning light began to leak in between the slats of the venetian blinds. The 5 foot 10 inch construct of advanced polymers and alloys was a better than perfect simulation of a biologic human body. Her firm athletic build was ready for anything she might encounter on the job, but not in such a way that might potentially turn off any potential partner, or adversary. Her skin was light enough to not stand out too badly from the pallor of a long duration spacer, but tanned enough to look at home on any beach. Even her breasts were designed with an impossible firmness that allowed for full freedom of movement even without external support.
Even though the all-female race of synthetic humans colloquially known as Sisters had their cybernetic shells built in factories, most Sisters still took great pride in maintaining both their performance and physical appearance. For Serena a few moments contemplating her naked self in the mirror was all it took to chase away the gloomy clouds that sometimes seeped into her waking mind. After finishing with her hair and making sure everything else was in order Serena began to look around the room for the armour that she had carelessly tossed aside the night before. Sisters had a not altogether unwarranted obsession to protect their core systems from from both physical and technical attack and just seven years earlier spending a whole night in the buff would have been unthinkable for Serema. However ever since transitioning her mind from a code-based AI matrix chip to a natural intelligence type neurocrystal lifted the threat of being wiped out by an rm —rf command Serena took it as a point of pride to be able to kick off her armour or simply wear it in ways that would make younger members of her race cringe. Still, as the android girl sat there idly running the smooth black nanoweave material through her fingers, she couldn't help but note that her morning preparation time had increased between 5 and 10 percent in each of the years since her change.
Stepping into the suit she pulled it up, sliding the arms through the openings and fitting it over her shoulder. Immediately the suit compressed around her torso covering her completely all the way up to her neck. Selecting one of her custom patterns the material began to flow about, exposing her midriff and taking the shape of a shiny black two piece athletic outfit with the excess concentrating along the full length of her spine in a series of semi-rigid plates. Serena got a perverse joy in using an otherwise "useless" fantasy armour design to store her combat gear in the least obtrusive way possible and once she felt that the change had completed she sent the suit the command to bond to her body and pass through all tactile feedback. After putting on a spacer jumpsuit Serena threw a few extra items into her bag and checked her various message systems in case any of the details for her trip had changed. Finding no updates she grabbed her kit and hurried off to the base transport center.
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At 0615 hours local time the transport center was virtually deserted with just a handful of guards and technical staff manning the facility. Sized to accommodate mass deployments and mobilizations the facility had a post financial crisis vibe to it during normal operations. Walking into the room Serena stopped and stared at the artwork that had suddenly replaced the government issue white wall. A floor to ceiling circular seal with the words "Synthetic Lifeform Intelligence and Response Team" emblazoned around the edge sat on a dark blue background. In the middle a robotic eagle was emerging from a portal, a scanning array in one talon, an EMP blaster in the other.
"You like it? I like it," said the only other person in the room.
"I can't believe they got it up so fast. I only approved the design the day before yesterday."
"Hasn't anyone told you we are "hot shit" these days?"
Serena dropped her bag and took a seat next to the stack of info tablets, picking one up logging into her social profile. Across from her a hulking beast of a synth sat across three seat positions, his vaguely humanoid limbs and torso had the appearance of dull blue-grey metal and the consistency of tree trunks. The head was little more than a lump sitting on top of the shoulders with a triangular array of sensory nodes that could themselves light up to display various facial "expressions".
"Forget to calibrate your optics this morning?"
"Nah, I just like having something to do with my hands and besides, I don't want to be a hypocrite when I complain about people who just sit around hooked up to the net looking zoned out." There was a brief pause as Serena was momentarily distracted by one of the news blurbs. "So where are you headed to L'orn? I didn't know you were tasked on anything today."
"There's a nano-swarm killing people on some mining colony so it stands to reason that I'm going to get called in to deal with it. You know just because I'm one myself doesn't mean I'm any more effective at going after them." L'orn's lights changed to the color of sarcasm.
"What do you mean by that? I always try to schedule….oh, wait," Serena closed her eyes, touching her forehead with her fingertips. "I don't do that anymore do I."
"What's the matter Colonel, not used to having underlings?"
"Don't remind me," Serena sighed. "I'll talk to, um, Captain Martinez, make sure he gets a better handle on tasking. Sorry I'm out of the loop, but he moved the schedule to a network I don't have PKI for and to get it have to do an in-person visit."
"Ah, with great responsibility comes great irritation. If you don't mind my asking where are you off to?" L'orn inquired, his lights turning blue.
"I've got a school bus run over on Earth 537. Yale was conducting an archeological survey over on one of the outer arms of the Gamma Quadrant in Milky Way 15,278. They found a Network portal and of course you know that Federation security directive S-3779441A requires the presence of personnel certified in the synthetic lifeform containment protocol any time a new Network node is discovered. Skie was going to handle it, but apparently he got pulled off for a priority mission. I owe the principal investigator a favor so I decided to suit up and get my hands dirty." Serena exhaled and rolled her eyes. "I swear, I stop running the tasking for one week and everything goes to hell."
"To solve one great mystery Lt Aryria was assigned to my mission. I apologize if I somehow played a hand in disrupting your plans."
"No no L'orn, Martinez made the right call. We can't take unnecessary risks with nano swarms. Better safe than sorry and all that. Besides, what's a commander for than to take the jobs her subordinates don't want to do?" Serena glanced down at her tablet. "Oh, they're paging me." She put it down and picked up her gear before turning back to the synth. "Stay safe out there ok? You're only invulnerable until you aren't."
Walking up to the raised her hand to the NFC reader and verified her identity to the tech.
"Hello Colonel Hanford, you're portal is ready, #4 to the left."
Serena thanked the tech and walked over to the 4th bay, a shimmering doorway of light at the end. Like any other veteran commuter Serena didn't even break her stride, sliding through the energy boundary and appearing out the other side in a completely different location in a completely different reality.
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