He must have still been around the Sun Room while she'd been processing the news about Armand. Good -- any decent commander kept track of his troops, on duty or off.

"I don't believe in magic -- but I didn't believe in zombies, or brain transplants with no symptoms and no scars. Or stranded gods, time travel, aliens. What's magic to all of that. Besides, my creators never though five-space math was a requirement for a soldier, but wormhole jumpships still jump with me onboard." Her grin was wry, but honest. "If it can avoid some of the poking and prodding, I'll convert. I get so tired of medical tests." He wouldn't know why, though, so she continued in a low rumble. "I was an experiment -- designed as a soldier from the claws up." Her fingernails were pink-painted and anything but claws, but she waved them all the same. "So they ran a lot of tests -- to see how we turned out." And then to extend her lifespan, which made the endless rounds of enthusiastic specialists more personally useful but no less irritating.

"I'm in F-8, and they call me Katherine Jackson. Or, er, Kitty." She wrinkled her nose at the nickname.