The big entertainment screen came to life, displaying a head and shoulders view of Gabriel Piper.

This video was recorded about a year before the one Gabe left for Rebecca in his private journal, so he was in his mid-sixties. He didn't look that different from what we saw in the other recording though. He had that same ruggedly-handsome look, of a tough but kindly grandfather type. And after a couple deep breaths he finally spoke up, addressing the camera.

"My name is Gabriel Piper," he stated in a fairly calm, official-sounding voice. "Currently I'm captain and owner of the MV Demeter, operating outside Imperium space. We're based in the Gorath Sector, one of a hundred similar sectors along the frontier."

After a brief pause he continued, "For the record I was born in the Imperium, on Vysalis-4. My date of birth was the two-sixty-first day of year four-twelve, in the fifth cycle. And my name at birth was Anastasia Magrethe. My mother is Queen Isabella Magrethe, and I was heir to the throne before I fled. As for why I left, it's simple. I'm a trans man and as princess I was denied the right to transition. It took me five years of planning and preparation, but I finally escaped at age twenty-six. And by age twenty-seven I'd achieved almost all my goals. I'm a man, I'm Gabe Piper, and I'm free."

He held up his hand and displayed the ring that Rebecca now wore on a necklace, and the identity implant she had in her cabin. "These are my original identity disc, and the royal signet ring from home. I know some people on Vysalis-4 know the truth about me, including the queen. Incase that's all been suppressed though, this stuff should be enough to prove my identity. So on to the next part..."

Gabe paused for a deep breath then stated, "To whom it may concern, to Queen Isabella, and to the government of Vysalis-4, and anyone else who needs to hear this? I hereby state for the record that Rebecca Piper is my adopted daughter, heir to my name, my ship, and the Magrethe family legacy. I know that in the absence of a biological child, adoption is considered valid for the purposes of succession. So once again, I'm confirming here and now that Rebecca is my adopted daughter."

"And if anyone questions who Rebecca is," he added as he held up a picture to the camera, "I have plenty of photos of the two of us together."

The picture in question depicted a rather grumpy-looking eighteen-year-old girl standing next to a sixty-something Gabe Piper. The Rebecca in the photo had short messy red hair, and she was wearing a loose dark-grey t-shirt that somewhat concealed her curves. I could tell the picture was taken not long after she emerged from another trip through the Re-Gen pod, based on her youth and the lack of defined muscle on her young body.

Gabe's face appeared on the screen again as he added, "And once again, Rebecca I'm sorry. Sorry I never talked to you about any of this in person, sorry I didn't explain any of it in all our time together. Hopefully you've had time to review this in private, so you can decide what to do with it. Delete it, share it, or use it to assert your claim to the throne. Assuming my mother hasn't officially disowned me, you're now the crown princess and heir to the throne. Do with it what you will. I love you Rebecca, and I support whatever choice you make."

The recording ended there, and the boss turned her attention from the screen to our guests.

"Do you think that's enough?" she asked Lady Magniveen. "I can have it copied to a datacrystal if you need to forward it back to your family."

Gwen continued staring at the dark screen for a few more moments before she finally nodded, "Yes your highness. I don't think we can do any better than hearing it in Gabriel's own words, along with the picture of the two of you together."

"Actually I have a question or two," Tanya spoke up. Then she glanced at Gwen and added, "If you don't mind, ma'am?"

The noblewoman grimaced slightly but nodded, "Go ahead captain."

Tan turned her attention back to our captain and asked, "When was that video recorded? How long ago? Or if you want to cut to the chase, how old are you exactly? How old are all of you?"

I felt a little lurch in my gut as she asked the question. On the one hand I'd sort of expected it to come up sooner or later, but I'd been kind of ignoring the possibility. And from how my tall strong girlfriend tensed up next to me I knew she'd been hoping to avoid that topic as well.

Rebecca didn't answer right away, so Tanya added "You know at some point somebody's going to ask. If nothing else, they'll want to know when you were born so they can put it in the history books. But odds are someone's going to want to see some identification. Or they'll want to create some for you, if you ever do go back home."

"Captain Nieves is right," Gwen sighed. "The question will come up sooner or later. I've been willing to overlook it, just like I didn't ask about proof of your relationship to Gabriel until my family posed the question. It will be an issue sooner or later though, I'm quite certain of that."

After a deep breath and a long slow sigh, Rebecca replied quietly "Gabe recorded that vid towards the end of year four-seventy-eight."

Both Gwen and Tanya looked surprised. The noblewoman sounded confused and uneasy as she stated, "That's almost eleven years ago. You looked a little younger in the picture Gabriel showed, but not that much younger."

"That picture he had looked a lot like you did the very first time we met you," Tanya said. She sounded just as uneasy as she added, "Then when we met again a day later, you looked like you do now. Taller, longer hair, and more muscular. And you'd been shot twice during the altercation with your client, but you seemed completely healthy the day after."

She hesitated a moment before asking, "Sorry for being blunt ma'am, but just what the hell are you people?"

It took another half minute before Rebecca was ready to respond. She took a deep breath, then stated "Before I answer those questions, I'm going to ask both of you to swear that what I'm about to tell you doesn't leave this ship. If this is a deal-breaker as far as working together, then so be it. We can part ways here and now."

After a glance at our engineer the boss added to Gwen and Tanya, "If we do part ways now I'll leave it between yourselves and Sarah whether or not she helps with your repairs."

Our two guests glanced at each other, then Lady Magniveen nodded. "I swear on my family's name, I will hold whatever you tell us in the strictest confidence."

"Same," Captain Nieves agreed. "On my honour as a member of the Vysalis System Defence Forces, I swear to keep this information secret."

Rebecca accepted both their oaths. She took another deep breath then responded, "I have access to some extremely rare and extremely advanced technology, which I've also made available to my crew. I'm not prepared to tell you all the details, but in summary this technology is capable of rebuilding a damaged body, essentially from scratch. The first time I used it was back in four-sixty, or twenty-nine years ago. Every time we use it our bodies are reset to age eighteen."

"There's more to it than that," she added. "A lot more, but as I said I'm not going to tell you everything. And I'm not able to share the technology itself. Suffice to say, there are some limitations and drawbacks, and as a result I cannot freely offer it to everyone. Nor can I make it available to either Vysalis-4 or the Imperium. It's not mine to give, and I have reason to believe the Imperium at large would reject it out of hand or try to destroy it, rather than embrace it."

Our guests exchanged a look, then Tanya asked "Are you human?"

"We are," Rebecca replied. "Our bodies have some genetic modifications, but we're still human."

I grimaced as I spoke up, "My fox traits aren't cosmetic, and that's reflected in my genome. I'm mostly human, but a genetic scan will detect some vulpine DNA."

"I suspect the same goes for you Cam," I added as I looked to the cat-kin. "You've probably got some feline DNA, although the bulk of it will still be human of course."

Gwen looked back and forth between me and Cam then asked, "I take it your er, non-human traits came from this secret technology then?"

"Yes ma'am," I replied. "I was born a hundred-percent human. The vulpine enhancements were offered as an option, and I'm happy I took them."

The cat-kin agreed, "Me too. I'm a lot happier like this than I ever was before."

"Last question then," Tan said as she looked to Rebecca again. "How old are you, ma'am?"

The tall strong redhead paused for just a half second or so, then calmly lied. "I'm twenty-nine years old."

She elaborated a moment later, "The first time I experienced that technology my old life ended. Who I was before that died, without that tech my life would have been over. That is when my life as Rebecca Piper began."

Our guests exchanged another look. This time Tanya addressed Gwen, "It's your call ma'am. If you think you can somehow swing this so the folks back home accept her majesty then I'll go along with it. Whatever lie or spin you want to put on it, I'll do everything I can to help."

Lady Magniveen frowned as she asked our captain, "Did your father know about this technology? Did he know you used it?"

"Of course," Rebecca nodded. "It's saved my life over a dozen times since then."

She was still frowning as she asked, "Then why didn't he use it himself? If it would have left him young and healthy again, why not use it? Why did he die?"

Rebecca tensed a little, as did both Sarah and myself, since Gwen's questions and tone were both a little insensitive. I opened my mouth to say as much, but my girlfriend's hand on my shoulder stopped me.

She stated in a calm level voice, "I told you there were limitations and drawbacks. I'm sure Gabe would have used it if he could, but it wasn't compatible with him."

Tanya glanced around at all of us sitting together in the lounge, then she looked back at Rebecca and commented "Just a guess, but it doesn't work on men? Or it doesn't work on trans men...or it would have reverted him to his pre-transition body?"

Rebecca just slowly shook her head, making it clear she was unwilling to confirm or deny any of the tall brunette's guesses.

Instead our captain stated, "That's all I'm willing to say on the subject. Take it or leave it. I'm confident I can come up with some official identification, and I can probably get just about any date of birth on there that I like. But everything I just told you both, that doesn't leave this ship."

She gestured towards the large screen on the wall and added, "I can give you a copy of the video if you still want it, if you want to move ahead with this. If not, I guess we go our separate ways."

Gwen sighed deeply as she slumped a bit in her seat. "I'd appreciate a copy of the video your majesty. But I don't know yet if we can use it. I think... I need time to think about this. About how this changes the situation, whether or not we should proceed. Whether or not it's safe to proceed."

"Fair enough," Rebecca said as she got to her feet. "I'll get you a copy of the vid, then I suppose we'll be in touch."

Sarah stood up as well and offered, "I'm still willing to help with your repairs. Whether or not the princess thing goes ahead, I'll try and get your ship flying again."

"Not today," the boss stated as she looked to our engineer. "We've got our own plans. You can help them tomorrow Sarah."

With that our little meeting came to an end. Rebecca disappeared into her cabin for a few moments, then returned with a datacrystal for Gwen. She handed it over, then escorted our guests down to the lower deck and saw them off.

In the meantime I gathered up the glasses and coffee cups and cleaned them up.

Rebecca returned a few minutes later, and the five of us got settled in the lounge again. This time it was just my girlfriends and I on the sofa, with Rebecca in between Sarah and myself. Jenny and Cam were both relaxing in the big comfy chairs.

"So that probably didn't go the way anybody expected," Sarah commented. "Other than the bit with Gabe's video, I think that whole meeting was one surprise after another. For everyone."

Our captain shook her head, "It didn't go as planned, but it wasn't that unexpected. Those questions were bound to come up. In a way, we're probably lucky Tanya brought them up now? Rather than someone else asking after we were further along on the whole thing. Or some government official doing some digging on their own."

Jenny cautioned, "That might still happen, even if Lady Magniveen does come up with some acceptable answers for those questions. Or a way to avoid them entirely."

"At least this way we won't be unprepared," the boss pointed out.

After a brief pause I changed the subject with a question, "What were the important plans we all had for today? Dinner at Gilly's?"

Rebecca shrugged, "Sure? Or we can save that till tomorrow. Mostly it was an excuse to keep Sarah and Cam here for now. Sorry you two, but you can go look at the Persephone tomorrow if you want."

"No worries boss," our cute engineer replied. "Why'd you want us to stick together today?"

Our redheaded girlfriend smiled, "Tradition. The first day back here at our 'home port' is family time. Right Amanda?"

Hearing her say that made me blush slightly but I nodded, "It's true. We've always ended our first day back in port together. I didn't realize you'd been thinking the same thing as me though, Rebecca."

"Um," Cam spoke up, and they sounded a little awkward. "If y'all are doing some sort of family tradition thing, do you want me to leave the four of you alone? I could go back to my bunk."

Rebecca shook her head, "Only if you're feeling uncomfortable Cam. You're welcome to stay with us."

I gave the boss a bit of a look as I asked, "Do you mean here with us right now in the lounge? Or do you mean here on the ship indefinitely, as part of the family?"

"I am in no hurry to see Cam leave," the captain responded with a relaxed smile. "Either the lounge or the ship."

Sarah grinned and told the cat-kin, "I think that means she's inviting you to join the family."

Cam's eyes widened in surprise. "Thank you ma'am, but you already have a great mechanic. I don't know what I could do to help out around here."

"We'll worry about that later," Rebecca replied with another shrug. "Details and logistics can wait till tomorrow. For now let's just enjoy each other's company, and the fact that nobody's shooting at us, shouting at us, or making any unreasonable demands."

"Well said," Jenny stated. Then she gave the cat-kin a warm smile, "And welcome aboard, Cam."

I was smiling happily as well, as I cuddled a little closer against Rebecca's side. My tail was laying across her lap and onto Sarah's too, and both of them were idly stroking and playing with my floof.

Roughly a third of a year had passed since Sarah and I ended up on the merchant vessel Demeter, and despite the various complications and dangers we'd all faced together, I couldn't be happier.

~ The End (of Book Four) ~

PurpleCatGirl

The crew of the MV Demeter will be taking another break, but they'll be back eventually with Book 5!

Acknowledgements: Thanks to my girlfriends Kylie and Jess for all their support! Thanks to all the great writers we've met on Discord and Scribblehub. And huge thanks as always to all my awesome Patrons for your support! You're amazing! <3 <3 <3

If you're enjoying our work and you'd like to support us, please consider joining our patreon & get early access to bonus chapters, new chapters, and new stories! This time Patrons got *5* bonus chapters (92b, 97b, 104b, 109b, & 119b) and Inner Circle patrons also got a 3-chapter NSFW mini-story in which Sarah got to explore a new side of herself along with a little help from Jenny.
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