A nice bit of showing off ways in which the Friends do reflect their originating species.

> Iwabi emerged from the flooded pit on the far side with a wild leap that
> trailed Sandstar sparkles behind her, springing out of the water by more
> than twice her height to alight on a half-buried boulder partway up the
> rock face. Without hesitating, she bounded upward, making great both-footed
> leaps from one prominence to another,

Heh. And I don't think anyone other than a Rockhopper Penguin could have pulled this off!

> She hit the water feet first, throwing up a tremendous splash, and surfaced
> nearly halfway to the opposite shore. Even hampered as she was by having to
> keep hold of the cube with her arms, she reached that shore long before the
> floating Cerulean could alter course and follow.

At first I was wondering why she dove feet first, instead of head first the way all penguins do until I reminded myself ... Arms full of alien energy thingie that you aren't too sure about.

> —And then, with a shimmering wild release of her own, she wound up,
> raising one foot clean off the ground, and hurled the rock with a
> complicated full-body motion that turned her almost completely around,
> switching her stance from one foot to the other in the process.

That is one killer fastball. Literally.

> (Her father, teaching her to fight years before, had called this
> maneuver "Bowling for Baddies".)

I wanted to make some sort of snark about that sort of maneuver calling for an underhand throw with a lot of topspin... but that just doesn't work when one remembers the rock is bigger than she is.

> From her back, a colossal pair of wings unfurled—not the feathered wings
> of a bird, nor the leathery wings of a bat, but iridescent wings made up
> of millions of glittering scales. They were like the wings of a gigantic
> moth, their jagged scarlet-and-blue markings calling to mind the shape of
> the plates running down her spine

Ah. Clearly channeling her mother here.

> "Hi, Fennec!" called Serval cheerfully, waving back. "Hey, how are you
> at running for your life?"
>
> Fennec tilted her head quizzically. "Huh? I mean, I'm OK at it if I
> haaaave to..."
>
> "Great!" Serval declared. "Because, um..."

RUN. RUN LIKE THE SWIFT ANIMAL YOU ARE! I think what really had me giggling was the way you've evoked the first encounter between the Doctor (or the Professor, or even Don) and any number of companions over the years.

> Their unique energy signature stood out to her seventh sense like a
> bonfire on a salt flat.

Ah. This is the same sense that caused 'Doshinoji Goji' to attack the bird type friends... But this Goji knows these are valid targets for...

> Not one but dozens of blindingly white-violet beams sprang forth,
> lancing out not from her mouth but from all along the rows of plates
> lining her spine and upper tail.

That. I'd be more surprised by this attack except that there had been multiple mentions along the way that implied Shin Goji had an 'anti aircraft' setting.

> "They're called calves," said a mellow male voice from outside.
>
> Goji and all the Friends turned to look out the open side of the bus...
> to see a rhinoceros—a regular rhinoceros, not a Friend—standing beside
> it, peering in at them with an amiable sort of expression.

Hang on... We've yet to see ANY non Friend animals other than Kaban...

> "Oh, for—dammit, Rhinox!"

Aha!

> "Wow. Smug rhino is smug," Serval murmured to Kaban, who nodded.

Yeah. I'm sure it is from all those years dealing with one Prime, one Primal, Eight-Ball one and a really pessimistic Rat.

> Huh, Rhinox replied. Pretty sure if I maximized right now, being this
> close to an E-wave source that powerful would put me straight into stasis lock.

The first time through I read this, I didn't realise it was the big reason Rhinox never Maximises until the two are back aboard. I'd assumed it was some sort of attempt to keep first contact issues under control.

> "Huh," said Serval. "Never knew the bigger ones could do that."
>
> "Mm," Kaban agreed, nodding.

Would have been handy at the end of Season 1. Also, the food raid alluded here... was that something that only happened in the Manga? (or even the original game?)

> And the Friends, she didn't add out loud; that wasn't a worry any of
> them needed right now.

And um... yeah. Kinda Creepy and disturbing and quite probably wrong in the eyes of the WDF, 3WA, and IPO

> "That's some rack on Moose, huh?" Tsuchinoko remarked, causing a couple
> of the Friends to give her puzzled looks and Goji to stifle a bark of
> laughter.

Which just goes to show that subtext is all in the eyes of the beholder.

> "Still sorry I missed the Sample Bun Incident, whatever it was,"

Oh... you just had to say that...

> Then, silently reciting Shepard's Prayer in her head,

Allan or Gin's? *reads annotations* Oh. You mean the AVATARS prayer. *snerk*

> "What kind of unusual behavior?" Iwabi wondered.

Oh, you poor penguin. your about to find out...

> A moment later, the food machine's central compartment glowed and
> dispensed a Japari Bun—rather forcefully dispensed, it, ejecting it
> clean out of the machine and toward the middle of the room.

This feels clunky from a sentence structure standpoint. But about the one thing I can think of that would improve it other than going all the way back to the drawing board would be just deleted the comma between dispensed and it.

> "I got it!" Serval cried. Deep instinct propelled her to snag the bun
> in mid-air, as her wild pre-Friend form had once leaped to catch birds
> on the wing.

or students in the cafeteria in Ranma 1/2

> Before anyone else could react, the slots behind the counters all along
> the wall began to glow, and then they, too, started discharging Japari Buns
> —one every second or so for the first few seconds, and then faster and
> faster, until warm pastries were volleying forth like fire from dozens of
> machine guns set in an arc all around the back half of the room.

This would be the unusual behavior Lucky Beast area prime was referring too.

> "Gee, I wonder who's gonna volunteer for that mission," said Tsuchinoko
> sarcastically, making Kaban blush.

Heh. Yeah. wonder who. *Wink wink nudge nudge*

> "Read up on that when you get a chance."
>
> "It'll save you some work when the time comes," Rhinox agreed, nodding.
>
> Kaban looked down at the book, read its title, then smiled. "I will! Thanks.

Gee, this sounds like *checks annotations* Yup. Thought so.

> "You don't see that every day," Tsuchinoko observed.

Only if your not a transporter operator, Tsuchinoko.

So, last thoughts. Works really well as a stand alone, yet still has stuff that could be mined for use in other projects. And Rhinox as Shingoji's 'controller' provides the perfect explanation of why Goji, and how she knew what she did.