I feel the bed move and instinctually reach out and groan as I find a leg that is not currently pressed against me and pull it close.
“Penny, I’ve got a busy day today. And you,” she pokes my cheek when addressing me, “should look at building an extra cargo pod in case we have to rescue people.”
“This isn’t fair. You waking up before me.” I turn my head up, the sleep in my eyes keeping my eyes closed, searching for a kiss.
Katie chuckles and rewards me. “Now release the docking clamps honey. I’ll start the coffee and pop in a strudel for you.”
“You are going to be the best wife in the world.”
“Only wife on this world.” She chuckles again. “Do you think you can get that fabrication work done in a week?”
I’ve really enjoyed how much freer her laughs are in the last few days. She still has a mind for work, but it really seems that she’s found another piece of happiness that she’s not trying to hide. Being around her makes me feel so warm and sunny it’s embarrassing sometimes.
“I could strap a box together in a week, but I’d rather spend that time touching every panel and button on my new space ship.”
Katie spins on me with surprise and accusations in her eyes. I waggle my eyebrows at her.
“I don’t know why I’m surprised. You even told us that you were going to choose a gate and the ship, despite Tessa and I recommending you use your token on something different.”
Tessa’s dulcet tones reply from the speakers in the loft. “While I don’t normally have reason to recant my thoroughly analyzed opinions, I underestimated the unabashed favoritism Andromeda shows for Penny.”
“OH?! Tessa! Is she pretty?! I’m so excited to meet her.” I squeal a little, despite my best efforts not to. I’ve been trying not to focus on the ship in orbit that I could have been losing sleep studying and acquainting myself with.
“Sadly, yes. ‘She’ is everything you look for in a woman, smart, capable, pleasing to the eye, and full of surprises.”
“Staking a claim already Tessa? What will Atropos think?” Katie teases my AI.
“I imagine Atropos will feel I betrayed her for not telling her as soon as I got access. But as you are both the more logical partners in this relationship, she, and you will realize why we waited.”
“I would have just assumed that Penny told you not to. Barring that, Katelynn would not have slept knowing it was up there waiting for our inspection.”
“She’s right. My plans are ruined and now I’m annoyed I’m not having coffee on the bridge of our new vessel.”
Tessa?
On it.
“I would normally take the liberty of supplying the ship for Penny; However.”
“Don’t you dare, Tessa.” Katie warns, then coughs, “I mean, please let me handle that.”
She so cute when she flushes, I can’t help but get up and hug her.
“It’s settled then, Breakfast on . . .”
“An AES Interceptor, provisionally named Alaris. Should I bring the shuttle?”
“I am not waiting for a shuttle. If one of you wants to drive it up to meet us, I’m good with that. I’m going to . . . see what the showers are like in the captains stateroom!” I dash over to get my EVA suit, grab Katie up in a kiss and teleport us both to the coordinates Tessa has anchored in my mind.
We arrive in a surprisingly large cabin, maybe 8m x 10m, with a small table with chairs, a double bed and a stand-up closet. Everything styled in a military stainless-steel look, with mottled heliotrope splashes of color, which is apparently the Astorian Navy’s color of choice.
I hear Katie scoff in distaste as I dump my EVA suit by the coat rack and rush into the shower and hurriedly peel off my panties. The program panel has several different modes? Am I at a carwash? Tessa laughs in my mind and changes the menu to look like a carwash menu. I select full cycle (rinse, soap, rinse) power wash with gentle flow on top for hair washing. Medium hot.
The next five minutes scour whatever dirt was on me away, with at least a few layers of dead skin. It stung, it was hot, and Andromeda-damned glorious. The air-jet full body blow dry was a yelp and giggle worthy surprise. Feeling refreshed and awake, I order a new Navy jumpsuit and skivvies and go out to meet the rest of my day.
“Sounds like you had fun in there,” Katie’s dead-pan delivery with her eyes buried in a tablet belied her interest.
“I just got car washed and full-body blow dried. For a no-shenanigans shower, that was a good time.” I walk over to kiss her cheek and she hands me a cup of coffee. “Interesting reading?” I peak over her shoulder and see a list of numbers without context.
“Mm. Whomever interpreted our ‘current level of technology’ was generous in their assessment. For example, the matter conversion reactor uses tech I’ve never heard of, and our backup power supply is a heavy-water fusion reactor. The backup to the backup power supply is a bank of crystals that run the length of the hull. The sensor array seems to be an upgraded version of something I put in my future projects file, and life support is manifestor and a miniaturized colony waste processing plant. This ship was made to the limits of your tier three rating. Or so it appears.”
“Why would an interceptor need that kind of power? That’s enough to service millions of people.” I pull up the info deck on my HUD and have it bring up the ship and highlight systems by power use and another list of systems by peak power use. The wireframe image I’m shown looks like a freight train engine with a cow grate at the front and nozzles at the back.
From this list, the highest average power consumption is propulsion, followed by supply and life-form transportation. The hell? I dig a little deeper and see that primary deck transiting can be through elevator, or intra-ship gateway. Holy shit. I’m in a train-shaped Stargate ship.
“Never mind. The primary mode of transportation inside the ship is Magitech. I’m going to switch that to elevators for people, and leave the supplies and gear transport to teleportation.”
“Good. I’m enamored with the idea that the ship will handle space management and retrieval for me. However, Alaris will only deliver items to consoles or bays designated to do so.”
“Smart. I feel that’s going to be a huge benefit for workshop fabrication as well. Nope! No more diving into the data on my HUD. I want to see stuff. Tessa, did you put waypoints in?”
“I did, however, with the enhanced capabilities, I’ve arranged something a bit more interactive.”
More interactive than waypoints and HUD items of interest?
The door to my cabin opens with a fwoosh. And behind it is a stunning woman with artificially lit hair, wearing an Astorian Navy jumpsuit.
“I’ve arranged a tour guide.” Her mouth moves to Tessa’s voice and I am stunned, frozen in place by the disconnect from what I’m seeing to what I thought was going to happen.
Katie’s interest overtakes her awe as she stands and starts analyzing the robot? Construct? Synthetic person? When Katie pokes the smooth-looking skin on their face, three synthetic fingers and a thumb grasp Katie’s arms and pull them away.
“Katie, that is a very odd feeling. Please restrain yourself.”
That breaks my stun and I run to greet my symbiote. With a flying tackle hug. Tessa catches me and laughs as we tumble to the deck.
“Ouch, Tessa, your chassis is very unforgiving. But I like the responsive face and wild hair.”
“Thank you! I had time to customize this emergency utility assistant and felt that the face and hair would suit me to change. I would like yours and Katie’s help on some other changes, but we can talk about that after a guided tour?”
“Heh, I suppose I’m holding us up.” I push up to where I can stare at her face. It doesn’t match her voice so well, but it is a good face. I kiss her cheek and stand to help her up. “Its very nice to meet you in person Tessa.”
“Its extremely odd to be looking at us from this perspective.”
“We are definitely talking about this later, when I can gush about you properly, but I would like a tour of our new Capitol Ship please.”
She smiles and walks out the door into what appears to be the bridge. Katie follows her out without saying anything.
The room we walk into is a motion theatre affair akin to the old Star Tours ride mixed with a Star Trek cleanliness of design. The mechanically compensated seats have harnesses and attached console arms, where the decking around the Captain’s chair is gimballed instead of the seat itself. Odd, but we’ll see what happens. Behind the Captain's chair is a rail with monitors on either side of a navigation table. The far wall appears to be a Ship Health slash engineering display and the wall opposite my cabin has enough buttons and switches to be communications or electrical. Which would make the seats in front of the captain’s chair to be Helm and Fire Control.
“Tessa, is the ship’s computer linked to my HUD?”
“No, it is currently set up for voice command, though any request you make to display them in your HUD will do so.”
“Very well.” I turn toward the curved screen in front of me. “Alaris, display live view forward of the ship, screen arc, normalize for parallax. Set standard display, default setting: on when the bridge is manned.”
“Yes Admiral.” A sweet synthetic voice replies.
The screen fades in to showing my beautiful glowing planet on the right and Mercy far center, bright as day.
“Now that is a view.” I take a second to appreciate the accomplishments of claiming this system and then move to the Navigation table. “Katie, if you have other places you want to be, you don’t have to take the tour with me.”
She slides in behind me for a hug and kisses me on the neck, “I’ll split off when we get to the mess decks.”
I push a few obvious buttons on the table to get a chart of Astoria. The sector host is shown orbiting Astoria-C. While I’m looking at our system, Katie reaches around me, pushes a few more buttons and gets a spherical holo-display of our sector. A pink outline surrounds my systems at 100ly and a 10ly wide lane between each of my systems, labeled Astorian Imperial Trade Region. There is nothing but frontier space surrounding us, save a dotted-lined blob that encroaches to within 10ly that is labeled Patrolled Space. It’s neat to see the distance we’ve traveled through the Galaxy displayed on a map.
“Think I want to skip the other panels for now. I’ll be down to the weapons systems eventually, and the comms array I might as well be looking at a stats sheet.”
Katie pinches my side for slighting her Magitech systems. I swat her hand and she snickers at me.
The XO’s and Guest staterooms are similar to mine but with single beds and no meeting area. They also have a pull-down extra rack bed if we get extra guests or spouses? Who knows. The officer’s quarters are arranged similar to the goat locker on the Copernicus, one on each side of the passageway a deck below the bridge. Each bay has five small single-occupant rooms with a community space and a bathroom with two shower stalls and a bench sink. Similarly, the goat lockers are laid out the same with two racks in each of the rooms. The deck below that has a massive central crew berthing with outboard passageways that lead to a large crew mess area just aft of crew berthing. Officer’s mess and Command mess are aft of officer’s berthing, and Chief’s mess is aft of Goat berthing. Command has its own private kitchen, while the crew mess kitchen has a teleport delivery to a small bay behind the officer’s and chief’s mess for staging.
“That is a lot of berthing, Tessa. Alaris, what are the ranges of crew compliments onboard?”
“Admiral, I can be crewed by as little as seven people. The ‘ideal’ compliment is three rotations of 70 people with Auxiliary staff coming up to 240 personnel. A US Navy compliment would probably man this ship at about 315. Maximum berthing load is 574 with three tactical force components berthed forward of the hangar and maintenance bays.”
“And for a refugee situation?”
“With a full supply load, I can support approximately 2100 average humans for a period of two to three weeks. A humanitarian aid package would be needed to provide enough bedding and personal items for that many.”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
“Thanks Alaris. Well, looks like we could start with a few hundred people and see where we go from there. If it gets hectic, we can sell upgrades from cots to beds, etcetera.”
“I’ve been thinking about that, Penny. I want to institute a mandatory work-service agreement for accepting transport services. Like a year of paid work, contribute to society for a year and then you’re free to do nothing.”
“Yikes, I don’t love that idea. Maybe once we set up the Teleporter, we could do that in lieu of portal costs, but if they hop on a ship, I don’t see why they would have to do that at all. I mean, the free shuttle would be scheduled like twice a year to make room for enterprise.”
“You know how I hate the word ‘Free’.” Katie grumps. Ugh, she can be like my dad sometimes.
“Yes, but my dutiful and beautiful fiancé made the government sponsored housing I wanted anyway.” I squeeze her hand and she grumps some more. Makes me want to pinch her cheeks. “Of course immigrants is the problem I want to solve, but cyborg Morris should be addressed first.”
“We should finish our tour before you make those plans. This ship’s capabilities are impressive.” Tessa assures me. “The primary weapons for the ship are an upgraded and up-sized version of the charged corundum CO2 lasers you’ve been using. There are fifty total 40MW lasers with the forward and broadside arrays having specialized prism drones that can align a dozen beams into a single coherent beam that can melt through most hulls in less than a minute. If that doesn’t cause a breach, then the turret-mounted rail guns can mimic a sabot round as it punches through the molten hull steel.
“For larger ships, we have 100 low aspect torpedoes of various payloads.” The horror must have crept into my face, “I’m sorry, did you want to visit the torpedo and weapons room? I figured that since the weapons were spread and diversified it would just be easier to explain.”
“No, it’s just I read the payload on the breaching torpedoes. I chose not to make those, and now I’ve got ten of the damn things on my ship.”
“I get that they breach, but what else do they do?” Katie asks.
“It’s a layered shield and antimatter bomb. The first layer annihilates the hull plating, the atmosphere and the explosively pushes the small core into the ship where it annihilates more and forces massive compression on the remaining layers while the torpedo shell is locked into the hull plating, causing a deliberately unstable warp rift. Just one would make about a third of our ship disappear and scatter those parts and pieces over lightyears. I was trying to perfect a warp shape and experiment with magnetic aether shields. I accidently created those abominations. The plasma torpedoes are tame in comparison. If it’s okay with everyone, I’d rather not talk about this anymore.”
Katie reaches up to pet the back of my head and cool, smooth fingers squeezes my hand. I lean into Katie with a squeeze and smile at Tessa. “Thanks ladies. Want to go see the mess decks?”
“Would it be rude to run?”
I chuckle at her enthusiasm. “No, but it would be silly.” I flick her nose and when I make contact, I send her to the crew’s mess and stay behind with Tessa.
“A new use you didn’t share with the class?”
“Yeah. I’ve been testing shielding my thoughts for minor things. Defending against Melissa should she ever turn against us and what not. Turns out it works on you too. Don’t tell Katie that’s the first time I’ve tried it for real. Sorry I’ve been trying to keep things from you, but I would honestly like it better if neither of you knew I invented those despicable weapons.”
“I don’t like it, but I understand. It is really easy for me to not tell you what I find in the Exchange in my spare time, but I tell you the things I think are important. I’m also sorry I brought up the weapons. I know you don’t like them, but they are important.”
“Blearg. I really don’t want to feel crappy while on this marvel of a vessel, Tessa. Can we catch up with Katie, then go to engineering and maybe talk about this new you a little?” I fiddle with my fingernails, feeling nervous asking Tessa to talk about herself. She really seems to like being her own, separate person, and after three years of having her in my head, this feels a little like she wants to leave.
She offers me a sweet, understanding smile and squeezes my hand again. “That sounds acceptable.”
I grip her hand and teleport us to where I left Katie. She’s not here, but I see that her comm signal is in the kitchen.
“It’s useful that you can teleport someone by themselves. I would prefer you never use it as a form of punishment aimed at me.”
“No way, I prefer having a snuggle partner to a cold bed. Thanks. If I need space, I’ll tell you so and teleport myself somewhere.”
She nods at that, “Good. Now Tessa, why does this kitchen look like it can’t service 500?”
“Support Force areas have their own kitchen and supply store area for accounting purposes.”
The micro projectors in Katie’s face show her navigate a few menus and then nod. “So they do. There are also additional utility tanks and an expanded armory down there. Damn, this ship has everything.”
“What about hydroponics?”
Tessa answers, “There is a multi-deck terrarium in the bay that houses waste and water treatment. I believe the self-contained ecosystem is based on Dr. Summers’ previous goals for inhospitable planets to support expansion within the Sol system. It is configured to supplement vital nutrients for a minimal crew indefinitely.”
“Damn Tessa, the tooltip wasn’t kidding when it said the tech would be pulled from our tier levels. Though, like Kay said, Andromeda extrapolated a bit for many of our systems.”
“Perhaps, but nothing that would be above tier 3 for your corner of Humanity. I believe you may cry with joy when we get to engineering.”
“She cried when she installed an induction panel for kitchen and bathroom appliances. I raise you crying with forgetting that we exist for half a day.”
“Hey!” I protest as my girlfriend and my symbiote laugh at me. Turds.
“Just thought of something, brief housekeeping ladies.” I slip into a command mindset, “Alaris, set Authorization levels, descending, Primus, Supernal, Alpha, Bravo, Crew, Guest, Visitor. Set Penny Astoria, Primus. Set Katelynn O’Connel, Tessa, and Atropos, Supernal. Set Naval Officers Alpha, Set Naval Chiefs Bravo, Set all else Naval personnel Crew, set Astorian citizens Guest. Set all else, Visitor until entered otherwise by someone with higher authority.”
“Copy, wilco Admiral. Synching with Tessa for full security priorities.”
“Alaris, include your own permissions for Crew and Ship safety protocols. Thanks Tessa for anticipating my needs.”
Katie scoffs. “This is all very routine Penny, you could have just sent a list of your preferences to Alaris.”
“Alright, listening to the smart and capable women by my side, Tessa, Katie, Atropos, populate protocol and procedure as you see fit. We need a body of work to operate, and Alaris can start to compile our Naval Doctrine.”
“Finally! You’re relying on others instead of us having to come to you? Halleluiah!”
“Ha ha ha, Katie. I love you, asshole.”
“I love you too. Now go away I have numbers to get lost in. Alaris, Enable onboard teleportation for Supernal Authority upon request. I request teleportation for the remainder of the day.”
“Yes Lieutenant. Teleportation enabled for 12.6 hours. Teleportation enabled to or from any elevator and select places as listed. Gateway services available in port shuttle bay.”
“Fucking what?” I word vomit, “Alaris, repeat Gateway services.”
“Gateway services are available in the port shuttle bay as long as this vessel is within delivery range of a Host Ansible and within delivery range of a local ansible relay. Currently in range of Summer station, no Gateway connected to Sector Host.”
“Holy shit. HOLY SHIT!! I can put this Gateway on Earth and use this ship as a receiving terminal to access my planet! FUCK YES!!” I dance my happy magic ass off.
Tessa giggles at me and Katie watches and licks her teeth. As soon as I see Katie do that, I stop because neither of us have time to be horny right now.
“We’re spending the night in the Captain’s quarters tonight, Penny.” Katie says in her hungry voice.
Alaris, install wet bar and aether infused juice tap in Captain’s quarters. Nothing happens.
“Alaris, fabricate mental link bracelet to interface in accordance with Tessa’s specifications.”
“Order received. Order requires User fabrication to complete. Adequate User proficiency found onboard. Sending fabrication requests to adequate Users. Fabricating remaining components in preparation.”
“Alaris, send all future non-priority personal request responses via comm link chat.”
->/Comms altered as ordered, Admiral./<-
“Perfect, thanks Alaris.”
“Are you done flirting with the ship, Honey?”
“Katie, love, snuggle bear, I don’t think I will ever stop flirting with this ship; and you should obviously start. Point to point supply transportation Katie, use your dusky voice.”
She smiles and coo’s at the dumb waiter. “Maybe I don’t need you tonight, Penny.”
“How dare you! But also lies. It would take like three drops of blood before your head appears in my lap. But in any case, we’re off to view Engine porn.” I grab Tessa by the waist and teleport us to the engineering side of the blast bulkhead?
When we appear, Tessa puts her arm around my waist. It’s oddly familiar, and more comfortable than it should be.
“Blast bulkhead Tessa?”
“Alaris is configured for three sections to double-hull isolate during battle stations, and pressure isolate a dozen other sections. The bridge and Maneuvering are the only exceptions with blast and pressure isolation where the compartment has Magitec telemetric control even if the fiber and aether lines are disrupted.”
“Don’t stop now, Tessa, talk dirty to me.” I try to pinch her side, but it’s synthetic armor.
“I can feel that, despite the lack of soft tissue to pinch.” She says sternly, a flush coming to her soft features.
It’s really cute. “Why did you pick a blue complexion with pearlescent hair?” I ask.
“I wanted to mimic your skin color, and the hair, well, I really believe in the Empire, as corny as that sounds, and your colors, your eyes, are the Empire.” She has a hard time looking at me.
There’s no way, right? There’s no fucking way my own side brain likes me like that. And because she isn’t talking to my brain right now, I’m going to assume that parallel minds are super occupied and she can’t.
“You’re adorable, Tessa, more so now that I can see your mannerisms. Care to escort me to the primary power system?” She hooks out an elbow covered in coveralls and I grab it. She walks and I easily follow.
“The reaction chamber is the full width of the ship and four decks high. There are highly modified viewing portals in locations I have pushed to your HUD”
“Hey, how come it’s not called a mass utilization reactor? If I understand the math correctly, we’re coaxing matter into energy and harnessing the explosion with a light turbine and a force turbine.”
“You understand the math correctly. The mnemonics were not important to the Matrix when originally placed onboard.”
I blow out a breath full of stress and breath in a lung-full of burden. “Tess, how much of this ship is based on my weapons tech?”
She’s quiet until we get to a console, where she sits into a watchstander seat and pulls me into her lap. “Penny, this ship is based on many of your and your citizen’s ideas. The limits are based off what you have personally accomplished.”
She places her knuckles under my chin and coaxes me to look at her kind fucking eyes. “You are not a monster for inventing weapons. You are not a monster for discovering a way to better deliver items, even though the initial item was a weapon. You are not a monster for creating technology or Magitech, or Aether techniques. You are not a monster.”
“You will not be a monster when you use your weapons to save lives. You will not be a monster when you put down your assailants, and you will not be a monster when you defend what is yours. You are loved, and you are respected. By me and several others.”
I sniff, I’ve already started crying and I haven’t seen the utilization reactor yet. What a pansy I am.
“Tessa, I think you’re a better human than I am, and that is so not fair. And now I feel shitty for asking you to do things for me all the time.”
“Penny, stop going down rabbit holes for a second. I was created to serve. Despite my newfound independence, I will always have a part of me that wants to serve you. No, stop, just listen Pen Pen. You’ve treated me as a person this whole time, even when I was not yet one. I’ve always felt valued, and at some point, even when I became me, I started enjoying serving you.
“My life will always be tied to yours. But now that I have the ability, I chose to continue to serve, support, and tie my existence to yours.”
I smile softly, realizing what this artificial representation of Tessa just said to me.
“I love you too you sentimental harpy.”
Her synth face contorts to such a degree that I thought it would fall off. She shoves me off her lap and storms out of the space.
>P] How would you have felt if I kissed Tessa [<
>K] Do you want to kiss Tessa? [<
>P] I mean, Yeah, Katie, that’s why I asked, but between us and her being a part of me, I don’t think I’m prepared for how weird this is going to be. [<
>K] do you love her more than me? [<
Oh, no. what the fuck is this shit. >P] She is literally a part of me Katie, but also no. I love you more than I love myself. Which is fucked, and I understand that, but Tessa is also me, so yeah, but Atropos is kind of a bitch, so I won’t build her a body unless she behaves. [<
I can practically hear Katie sigh in her mind. >K] you just had to poke her, didn’t you? In either case, I had to resist comforting Tessa as if she were you, so I get it. She’s still us, the four of us are in this together. Tell Tessa to save me a kiss. [<
I shake my head at her antics and thank Katie for her support. I find Tessa’s body and teleport next to her and take her hand in stride.
“What are the primary and secondary reactors rated for?”
“Distraction is banal and simplistic.” She chastises me, but as she is a consummate professional, she answers my question. “Six terawatts and 700MW, conversion and fusion respectively. The fusion reactor is responsible for life-support and containment barriers, while the mass conversion reactor powers everything else. The aether battery bank supports the Magitech equipment, but at full-load, we deplete the batteries at 20% per day.”
“It blows my mind how over-engineered this vessel is. And also that a ship this capable is called an Interceptor instead of a Cruiser or a Light Destroyer. How fast are we?
“I won’t bore you with the stats, but faster than most humans can tolerate. And realistically, Alaris could tear herself apart with the wrong maneuvers. To answer the question you meant to ask, our sympathetic ripple drive can get to 0.2C without altering the crew’s existence.”
The knowledge flooded my brain and I recognized the source of that kind of impulse drive.
“You made fun of me for that hypothesis. Literally told me it wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on!”
“In my defense, your annihilation drives were not this refined and would have torn the ship apart.”
Tessa and I banter on for a few hours, seeing the new reactors, inspecting new maneuvering for connectivity, and ensuring thruster propulsion was adequate for the future engagements I have envisioned.
“This is what you should be proud of Penny, you built a pure tech warp drive. Pure tech. Only a handful of civilizations can claim that, so far, but yours was so much more.”
“Mm, Thanks for the prop up, but lets talk tech. This drive uses aether shields to amplify and ensure safety?” I ask the resident AI.
“This ship is a work of art, Penny and we’ll have time on our way back to Earth to explore it properly. Is there anything else you wanted to see today?”
Your lips against mine? Stop it. Damn planet’s still lousy with horny women.
“I want to see the bays that open to space. Specifically the gateway and how we can accept refugees and transplants.”
Tessa holds my hand and asks me to teleport us. We could have taken the ship’s network, but I think she’s used to me taking us places. I see the gate when we appear and I instinctively reach out to it and inject a small amount of aether.
The gateway lights up and its runes fill with power.
//You have advanced user access, would you like to access the Sector Host?//
Can I leave a mental anchor for my will-based teleportation?
//Runic anchor accepted. Welcome, Empress.//
Shit, that’s not freaky at all. Wait, maybe they can give Astoria more data.
->/Astorian Query: Are comms range systems available for connection? /<-
//Multiple queries. No connected gateways detected. Twelve connected ansibles available within delivery range.//
“Alaris, construct Astorian standard query message for connecting to foreign ansibles. Automatically request visitation status.”
“Copy Admiral, message will be compiled with assistance.”
“Tessa, we have to talk about how distracted you let me get while you’re not in my head.”
She chuckles at that and shows me the next gen fabricators and reclamators. I’m honestly more impressed that the whole ship has gravity plates than the fact that our fab system is ‘better than ever’.
Tessa scoffs and pushes my head away. She must have been focused on skimming my thoughts. Good. When no one else is around, I don’t mind and it eliminates miscommunication.
“Tessa, is there an entertainment room where we can watch a movie?”
“There is a conference room set for lectures that can project videos.”
“Want to watch a movie with me? It’ll be a butt-watching supers movie, but I . . . seeing the tech on this ship has been hard for me, can we just snuggle and objectify some humans?”
“I hear there’s a cute AI in this one.”
“Eww, Tessa, it’s a guy AI. Stick with the lesbians hon, our advice isn’t just lip service.”
“Respectfully, go die, Penny. That was awful.” I chuckle at that and continue the assault.
“Ah, I just died in your arms tonight, it must have been . . .”
“Nope! It must have been nope. Out, Penny, get out before you infect me with your awkwardness.”