To Hell and Back (Hellworlder pirates)

Ch13 Adventures with Pirates

Adventures with Pirates

Sweat dripped from Aster's brow as she slowly dropped her body from the solid handstand down to a perfect 90° plank, her legs and chest perfectly parallel with the floor as her hands supported all her weight. She held it for a minute, five minutes, ten minutes, before she slowly eased her feet back to the ground. Some of the crew who had gathered around her in the gym applauded quietly. Her arms burned, and her core was so sore she felt nauseous.

She walked out of the enhanced gravity field and wiped her sweat off with a towel and took a drink of the heavy citrus sports drink Brown had concocted for the crew. Everyone on this ship had to maintain their physiques, and that included the captain. It was how they combated the disturbing low standard gravity on stations, and meant that her crew was ready for anything, even if they were constantly sore. Fine by her though, the pain and exhaustion brought with it a sense of euphoria and vigor. Plus it helped clear her mind and organized her thoughts, human beings weren't meant for chairs and offices. They needed to balance tedious desk work with real physical exertion.

That feeling of improvement and reward was why she had opted for advanced artificial muscles and tendons rather than traditional cybernetics. Hers, and most of her crews, cybernetic enhancements were more like upgraded muscles than mechanical replacements. They still required regular diet and exercise but improved much slower while providing more power per pound of muscle. And while the start was slow and painful, advanced artificial muscles eventually outpaced the stagnant standard cybernetics, healed like ordinary tissue, and were more energy efficient. Meaning that she and her crew had to work extra hard for every little improvement without turning into massive hulking brutes who needed to chow down ten times a day. Or at least it meant that for most of the crew

Gato was the exception to the rule; him, and his team of marines. They rarely spent any time outside of the gym and it showed. Even Limey who was the 'smallest' was still a wall of barely restrained muscle. And after about a month of forced bedrest Gato was pushing himself harder than ever. He had lost so much mass on that bed that his fellow marines were calling him 'little kitty'.

On a technical level it would have been easier to genetically upgrade and modify their bodies, rather than using advanced and expensive cybernetics that bordered on edge of true living tissue. But after the wave of fashionable body modding that swept post contact Earth, both Terran and Union governments had completely banned genetic tampering. Especially after the wave of 'uplifted' species flooded society. Medical cybernetics on the other hand were still legal, even if they just about bordered on body modding. Besides, small little genetic flaws would leave future generations plagued with a new emerging host of genetic diseases.

Aster was about to join the Virtues for some flexibility training, when a petite angry voice silenced the room with a word, "YOU!"

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Alwen was upset, Gato had already missed his first check-up, and when she tracked done the hulking Feliniod she found him lifting nearly five times her weight. She stalked across the gym until she stood outside the black and yellow barrier that marked the high-g section of the gym and glared.

He didn't falter under her stare and continued to lift, barely grunting under the strain. "Can I help you Vi?" he asked calmly and nonchalantly.

"You missed your first check in, and when I track you down I find that you're lifting five times my own weight in..." she looked over to the gauge on the wall "3.6 times the ships gravity!" if Alwen wasn't so angry she might have been impressed. Terran native gravity was already slightly more than what she was used to.