Sitting down for a bit during Ellie’s showcase of the droid did help my stamina quite a lot. By the end of it I managed to stand on my own again, although standing up for an extended period of time for the remainder of the evening still might not be the best of ideas.

“So, how does the body feel?” I asked Ellie now that the more serious discussion about active camouflage was over.

“Doesn’t feel like much. It doesn’t really have any sorts of sensors yet to replicate touch.” She replied.

Eva chuckled. “Ellie, I’m pretty sure Lauren meant if you like it or not.”

“Ah… I do.” Ellie’s bot nodded, she then looked down at her hands, opening and closing them a couple of times. “It’s weird that I do like it as it introduces a couple of inefficiencies though.”

“Do you plan on going fulltime with the body when it’s done?” Luna asked.

Ellie’s bot shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. While having this is nice and all, I do not think I want to give up such a big part of me and limit myself to just one body.”

“If only you could have something like living metal. That way you could transform your body into anything you would want it to be.” I commented.

Luna looked a bit puzzled. “What’s that? I don’t think I have heard of that before.”

“It’s a common trope in a lot of science fiction. An old trope at that but still very present.” Eva explained.

“What does it do?”

“In most cases living metal is something like nanobots that are so interconnected that they can, in a short period of time, change their formation so that they can form anything. Cars, planes, human-like bodies, furniture. Imagine it a bit like these maintenance droids but way smaller.” I pointed towards the ‘chair I had been sitting on.”

“Ah, I see.” Luna nodded in return. “So it’s basically like my black box but with inorganic matter?”

“I suppose so.” I nodded. “At least from what I understand from your box.”

“Hmmmm…” Eva moved her head from side to side. “While I understand the connection you are making, I would not really say they are that similar. You can’t change into a creature that’s much smaller than yourself, nor can you change your posture too much. Living metal could easily do that without any issue.”

“Oh, right.”

Eva loosened her own posture again and smiled. “It surprises me you don’t know the concept though. It’s not that obscure, is it? Even Lauren knows of it and she doesn’t exactly read much.”

“I did play a lot of games when I was young though.” I replied, ignoring the rather rude comment of our Doctor, that said, she wasn’t wrong. Reading isn’t really, and never used to be, my favorite pastime.

Luna shrugged. “It’s just not been in any content I have consumed. I might have just missed it. But it’s an interesting concept for sure.”

“Living metal would indeed be a huge boon to my systems.” Ellie replied. “But as it is nearly impossible to create with the materials known to us at times, it is not an avenue worth exploring at the time being.”

“Well, it was just the musing of a random musclehead like me, so don’t think too much about it.”

“Science fiction has brought about many changes that we now use daily, so it’s always worth giving your opinion, Lauren. Who knows what we will encounter on our travels.”

“Like rockets that were predicted in ‘Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon’ by Cyrano de Bergerac.” Luna claimed matter of factly.

“The what now?” I chuckled.

“You are saying you don’t know what living metal is but you did read such a random book? Isn’t that from before the 1900’s?” Eva chuckled along.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

“It’s from 1657 AD, Doctor.” Ellie replied.

Luna started to blush a little. “Well… This might be a little bit awkward to admit. But while I was doing my research on Earth I came across that book and I thought it was a book about humans encountering other space-faring races we didn’t know about…”

“The word ‘Comical’ didn’t give it away that it was fiction,”

“I may or may not have read over that…” Luna admitted.

“And when did you find out it wasn’t?”

“Awkwardly late I must confess. I should have noticed sooner thanks to the absurdity of the story, but I was very very new to human culture and I didn’t know if maybe that was your kind of historiography.”

“I’m curious now.” I admitted myself. “Is it worth the read?”

“I think it is.” Luna nodded. “I think you will also find it funnier than I did the first time I read it.”

“I suppose I’ll read it too if you are up for it. So we can have a little book club later on.” Eva laughed. “Might as well right, it’s not like we can do that much with our free time in space.”

“It’s fine for me, but my reading tempo isn’t very high.”

“Can I join too?” Ellie asked.

“I don’t see why not.” I smiled. “But don’t you already know what’s in the book, given your encyclopedic memory?”

“I do, but I would like to talk about it nonetheless.”

“Then I’ll read it again as well.” Luna replied.

I chuckled. Somehow we had all decided to read a book that’s almost 600 years old, just because we wanted to and because we had the time to do so. At least they couldn’t claim I wasn’t trying to at least get my book count up a little bit.

“Thank you for coming over to watch this little project of mine. I will share updates about it regularly from now on.” Ellie thanked us as the bot walked back to the corner of the room while two maintenance bots attempted to get the blanket on top of it again.

“I’m looking forward to seeing more of it.” I smiled. “Do take care not to walk it outside by accident though. I wouldn’t want the crew to be scared off by a naked android lady walking through the hallways. Let’s wait until we can make an official announcement.”

“No problem, Commander. The droid will stay here until she is finished so she can be revealed.”

“Thank you.” Having a panic spread throughout the ship wouldn’t have been the best. Then again I’m pretty sure Ellie knew this but it’s worth mentioning nonetheless.

“Alright. If you don’t mind me, I should head back to my cabin now to get some rest. I sincerely suggest you two do the same.” Eva looked at me in particular.

“Don’t worry, Eva. I’ll be taking us straight home, getting us some food and then I’m putting her in bed.”

“Not a bad idea…” I admitted and then looked back at Ellie. “I’d say ‘see you around’ Ellie, but yeah. You are always around.”

“Have a nice evening, Commander.” Ellie replied. “And to the rest of you as well.”

“Good night, Ellie.” Eva waved her off as the door opened and we followed the Doctor out closely behind her.

We waited just a bit until the door had closed up behind us and then went our separate ways. This time Luna didn’t have to completely support me but she kept close to the side to rush in if need be. As long as we didn’t get in a huge waiting line at the food dispenser, it wouldn’t be a big problem.

Luckily, having spent a while inside of the room, post-shift change rush hour had passed and only a couple of tables at the cafeteria were still occupied with no one waiting in line for the food dispensers.

Nonetheless, Luna did command me to sit down at one of the tables while she would go and grab the food for us. “Anything in particular you want?” She asked, leaning on the table.

“Uh, I don’t know, nothing too fancy.”

“What about some pasta?”

I thought about it for a second before I nodded in agreement. “Sure, capellini with bolognese, with more sauce and less meat.” I wasn’t really in the mood to eat that much ground beef right now.

“Alright, I’ll be right back.” Luna smiled and headed off to the dispensers. It only took her two minutes to return with two plastic boxes, bagged in a paper bag. In her hand she was holding two cups. “I decided to bring us some fruit smoothies too for dessert.”

“Thanks, I’ll take those of your hands if that’s okay.”

Luna seemed a bit hesitant to give them to me.

“Don’t worry, I won’t drop them. It’s not far anyway.”

This convinced my girlfriend enough to at least let me carry something to the cabin. And just as I promised, I managed to take them to our place without a single issue.

“What did you get by the way?” I asked my girlfriend. “Also got bolognese?”

She shook her head as she put the boxes on the table, steam coming out of the little perforated holes in the lids. “No, bucatini talay. I’ve not had it before but it looks nice.”

“I don’t think I’ve had that either. Tell me if you like it, I might try it next time then.”

“Well, if you are a good girl you might even get a bite.” She gave me a wink.

My heart skipped a beat. Goddess damn it Luna… Not when I’m this exhausted. This could have been fatal…