Kiru followed the pair out of the cafeteria. What she had just watched go on in there was nothing short of a nightmare. It was all too obvious after hearing that. What Yiria was planning was terrible, and yet Riku was just going along with it. Yiria had flat out told Riku that she wasn’t going to be seeing much of her kid for a week, and barely any of her the week after. Worse, she was planning to take the baby away from Riku after just two months, possibly less. From what she understood, Riku would have barely any time with her infant during that period. Barely two days worth of it, by the end of the first month. Assuming, of course, that Yiria was being honest, and frankly she had the feeling that Yiria wasn’t.

While there was no reason for her to lie, Kiru figured there wasn’t any reason for her to be perfectly honest either. For all she knew, she was only going to let Riku think she had that time, and in reality she had no time. None of what she had heard sat well with her. That Riku hadn’t protested, and just went along with it just went to show how much something needed to be done.

Frankly what the Iniri were doing here was just downright terrible. It seemed nothing was safe in this den of madness. Not only were they messing with Riku’s memories, one of them was after her child. 

She let out a breath. It wasn’t entirely their fault, and not all of them were that bad. Larelu, and Qelu were both rather decent. Part of it was that the Iniri had so much power. Their own gifts had enabled their race to do such evils. Perhaps Megumi was right, they shouldn’t be eliminated. As evil as they were, she would be lost if she fell that far. Instead they had to be shown the path, and Qelu was certainly moving away from this nonsense. Kiru was certain of it. She just hoped it was the right choice, that she wasn’t making a mistake. Already, she had a feeling that her conversation with Megumi would be a long one. Lost in thought, she let May guide her down the corridors to keep pace with the pair they were trailing.

Elsewhere, an Iniri girl let out a nervous breath, as she stepped off the shuttle. The last few days had been long, but she was finally here. The trip had been a bit boring, as there wasn’t much to do. Well, much she wanted to do, but now she was here. The Starblossom facility, it was one of the biggest training facilities in the Empire. This outpost in deep space was so heavily classified that for most it may not have existed.

She looked around marveling at the craftsmanship on display. The Iniri girl had gotten a look at it from the outside, but it was just as impressive on the inside. The facility resembled a massive flower floating in space,  with twelve ‘petals’, and a domed area in the middle. The long ‘stem’ below was actually a vast docking area. At the moment she was in that vast domed area, which was the primary habitation zone. Above her, she could see through the dome and was treated to a massive starfield, with one star in particular being prominent. That was the local star, but it was so far away that it looked like a burning moon.

Around her were countless structures, some of them normal in size. Others were gleaming skyscrapers. All of them were truly beautiful, with architecture to rival the capital. If not better. Afterall, Starblossom was apparently of Iniri design, not Neku design. At least according to the people she had talked to about it.

Another thing she noticed was the people. Unlike back at the capital, where it was unusual to see a man. Here everywhere she looked there were dozens, along with plenty of females. Many of them in military uniform, the modified Iniri versions anyway. Ones designed to be revealing, and freeing. 

The number of men she could see wasn’t all that surprising though. Many of the men in the capital had been sent here before being sent on to various military deployments. Although this wasn’t the only training facility, and so there were others that had plenty of men there as well. In addition, she knew that not every Neku boy that had been removed had been deemed suitable for the military. Many of the younger ones had simply been corrected and sent back. While older ones not suitable for the military were sent elsewhere. Where exactly that elsewhere was, well, she didn’t know. Not that she much cared for all the men. They were such ugly creatures, and not very useful either. At least the military found them useful, some of the time anyway.

She blew out a bit of breath and then reached into her bag. It was her carry-on luggage and it had everything she needed. Unlike a Neku she wasn’t wasting space with all that pointless, and bulky clothing they liked to wear, which meant her small shoulder bag had more than enough space for her bathing supplies, a medkit, her mobile terminal, and that map she had been issued. Along with a few other items she needed. It was the map she was looking for, and she found it easily enough. Right where she had left it.

Pulling it out, she looked it over. It wasn’t hard to find what she was looking for, and she made her way off the platform, and into the ‘town’. Her destination was the local training clinic, and thankfully it wasn’t a long walk away.

As she made her way there she took a moment to observe the people on the street. She spotted a few cute girls that might be fun to play with. Not that she bothered to act on the thought. She had places to be, and from the sound of it, her days at the training clinic were going to be a lot of fun. Plenty of cute girls to play with. The boys likely wouldn’t be as fun, but who knows? She hadn’t spent time with them before, so she couldn’t say for sure. Maybe it would be fun helping correct them? She knew the military did correct some of the men sent here, although only if they tested positive for potential. Potential was an important metric, and post-correction it would increase. If it was high enough, they could be trained in certain arts, arts that were highly valued for ground troops. Realized potential had other applications as well, and not just the infantry benefited from those with talent.

She shelved those thoughts when she found her destination. It was a larger building with a clean rounded exterior and gleaming white walls. It was quite gorgeous actually, but she didn’t pause to admire the structure. Instead she approached the double doors under the sign, and headed inside. What followed was a bit of a rush. As soon as she spoke with the receptionist, she was shown around the building. It had attached dorms, and a room had already been prepared for her. Her room wasn’t anything special. A small room with a nice bed, a desk, a chest, and a few other amenities, but she ended up not having much time to look around. She did leave her shoulder bag on the desk, figuring she would unpack it later. In the meantime she had to meet her new boss. Although technically, since she was a trainee everyone outranked her, except maybe the Neku. The Iniri girl wasn’t quite sure yet, which is why she was restraining herself from playing with the cute receptionist giving her the tour.

After a brief tour of the building, she was ushered into a small office, and abandoned. An older Iniri was there waiting for her, “Terqu, Correct?”

She nodded, “Trainee Terqu reporting for duty.”

“You’re cuter in person than in your photo. Glad to finally meet you in person.”

“Thank you!” she replied, feeling her cheeks warm a bit at the compliment.

The other girl stretched, “Alright take a seat, and why don’t you tell me what you know about what we do here.”

Terqu nodded and settled into a free chair, “In short we do a few things here, military brainwashing, memory extractions, and alterations, corrections, potential assessments, and when needed sterilization procedures.”

“You seem to be missing a couple of procedures, but that does cover the basics. You did miss most of the procedures we do with men, and a couple with women as well.”

“I see, but the recruiting office didn’t mention anything else.”

“They rarely do, but that’s perfectly fine. You’ll learn more on the job than they could tell you. Now if you would follow me, I do have a few patients lined up. Why don’t you show me your skills?”

Terqu nodded, “Alright, I’ll do my best.

With that, her superior stood up, and she followed her out of the room. The exam room wasn’t that far, and when they entered a nurse was busy securing a Neku woman. A rather pregnant-looking Neku woman.

“Okay, your first subject. She was recently promoted, and as per policy we will have to sterilize her. As for the pregnancy, that’s okay, she should be giving birth in a few days, and we have a caretaker lined up for the infant.”

“I see, what about separation? An infant does need a brief period with her mother before she can be completely separated.”

“That will be fast-tracked, with a near-zero contact schedule. Her only contact with the infant will be for feeding. Unlike a civilian, she won’t be getting supervised hours at all. If everything goes to plan, we’ll be able to take the infant away and assign the subject to her new post in three weeks.”

“Understood, although I doubt that would sit well with the mother. How does she feel about being sterilized?”

“Doesn’t matter, she won’t be allowed to remember that she was sterilized, nor will she be allowed to keep any memories of her child. Unlike with civilians, she won’t be meeting the kid again later, so no need to archive those memories either. Simply extract, and purge.”

“I presume that means, we will later be removing any memory that she was ever pregnant?”

“Correct. Now why don’t you get started, and prep her for sterilization.”

Terqu nodded, and began by cleaning her bare stomach. Next she ran a scanner over her, and confirmed the positions of her organs. While she had never done the procedure before, she had already been taught all the basics. Once she had the data, she marked two spots on the girl’s belly, along with entry angles. Before moving on to prep a pair of needles, filling their reservoirs with a special sterilization jelly. As she prepared the injectors, she glanced at the Neku girl’s face. It was rather cute, but she noticed the eyes. She wasn’t just docile, the eyes were glassy. In that way a Neku’s eyes looked when under control. Not surprising, it would make things easier if she was being controlled.

Checking the injectors, and satisfied, she brought the first one to the girl’s belly, and pressed it firmly to the markings. An instant later it injected the special jelly directly into the girl’s ovaries. Next she twisted slightly causing the special injector’s needle to expand, widening the entry point, and then she waited a moment before pressing a button. Then she moved on to repeat the process with the other ovary. The jelly she was using was used to remove the eggs directly from the ovaries, the process did kill some of the eggs, but the majority would survive in the special suspension. Where they could be put to use. Terqu did know that a few versions of the sterilization jelly were designed to kill all the eggs, but those were only used in certain cases. What those cases were, she didn’t know, nor did she know what use the eggs were put to. What she did know was that officer sterilizations were typically never reversed. As officers never truly retired, and pregnancy was not desired among their ranks. The upper officer ranks anyway, lower ranking ones were often allowed to get pregnant, even encouraged.

Once the auto-extractor completed its job, she removed the capsules with the extracted eggs and placed them into a special container that was waiting for them, and turned to her boss. “How’d I do?”

“Perfect,” she smiled, “Now, go ahead and purge her memory.”

Terqu nodded, and proceeded to hook up the equipment needed for that, which she was quite happy to find was all here. Of course, it was supposed to be. It was a simple procedure, which went even quicker since the subject's mind was fully mapped. Made it easy to locate, extract, and purge the memories about the procedure.

Her boss smiled, “Good looks like you know your way around a mind scanner.”

“I was using them a lot back at my old clinic before I signed on with the military. Can’t say I did any sterilization procedures before, but I have adjusted the fertility of a patient before. Just it had been the other way around with me increasing it in girls found to be insufficiently fertile.”

“You’ll be doing a fair number of those among lower-ranked girls. Especially the talented ones, who we make sure will get pregnant a few times, during their careers. Much as was the case with this girl before her promotion.”

“I see,” she replied, as a nurse stepped in to escort the Neku officer out. A moment later, another nurse came in with the next patient. This time a man, he was young, nude, and seemed to be just as controlled. His overall condition seemed to be rather good.

“Alright, this subject is a bit of a treat, a fresh ‘recruit.’ I’ll walk you through this one, as I doubt you have done any of these before. We’ll need to damage him, down there. Can’t have him doing anything while he is here, and it helps make him more... cooperative with our other goals.”

Elsewhere, Megumi shifted more of her attention to a feed she had been watching. Although she’d barely been paying it much attention. Now what that drone was reporting was suddenly far more interesting. It seemed she was finally learning a bit about what they were doing with the men. They didn’t seem to bother much with electronic records on that, and her previous efforts only revealed that they seemed to be shipping them off-world. At least most of them. Some of them end up being ‘corrected’ locally as the Iniri called it.