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Dr.leviye watched Viscia curiously. Her tail movements were erratic, and her eyes had not left Tanda's figure from the exact moment he took control of the hangar bay, personally directing the refit procedures when all the panic had started. "Ahh, she has done it again. Curious, how she sticks her tongue out when Tanda passes her."
He sat in the raised observation lounge, watching as two organics of the Terran classification argued over how best to refit a cooling coil to the Aasteran style lance battery. Dr.Leviye let himself feel amusement over this as Tanda walked over, throwing a wrench of some kind before yelling at the two to continue their work without complaints.
It was very amusing watching Tanda work. He was always so calm and collected while excitingly designing and investigating new technology. But, it seems that when it came to repairs and refits, Tanda was a man with whom none could contend with or would want to cross.
Observing Tanda's work was a sight to behold. Even the lead engineer of the hangar was now under Tanda's wing, as the man in question fought to get things back on track as the hangar crew had fallen drastically behind. To Dr.Leviye, This was somewhat of a problem as it was his understanding the enemy had engaged them in a neighbouring system. With all the commotion, Leviye had assumed it was easy to miss Viscia watching the engineer with rapt attention.
Upon Noticing the time, Dr.Leviye decided that Tanda required a rest period, as he had been functioning at a high level since he started directing the hangar engineers. Quietly, walking past Visica, who had been oddly withdrawn and obsessive with her observations, Dr.Leviye waved at Tanda, an effort at attaining his attention. "Mister Tanda, It would be in your best interest to retire for the day. You have been working for the past seventeen hours."
Tanda paused as the doctor approached and looked at his implant hud. "Ah crap, has it been that long already?"
Nodding his assent, Dr.Leviye pointed towards Viscia, who had started walking over to the two while oddly swaying her hips and tail. " It would be prudent to attain nourishment and rest. I suggest you take the councillor to a local eating establishment."
Dr.Leviye watched as Tanda sighed and moved over to the cleaning room, where he quickly divested himself of his work clothes before returning to what the doctor noticed was a disappointed? Viscia. "I shall stay and take care of any emergencies. However, I feel the current lead engineer should be sufficient.
"Got it, Doc. Thanks for the help." Tanda said as he waved and turned towards the hangar exit.
Leviye watched as Tanda walked off with Viscia, who seemed excited for reasons unknown to Dr.Leyvie. He2 turned away happily, resuming his hobby of watching panicking organics.
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Tanda decided on taking Visca to a steakhouse in the civilian living quarter, something she seemed excited over. Stepping off the lift and turning to walk down the street, Tanda noticed that oddly enough, Viscia was keeping relatively close to him. "Uh, is something wrong?"
Viscia looked around the Terran city in awe as she walked closely beside Tanda. "They built a city and painted a sky on the ceiling. No, It's moving! The clouds are moving!"
"It's hard to light technology." Tanda replied as he continued down the sidewalk. "They display a sky over our heads to make it seem like we're outside." Stopping, Tanda waved Viscia through a glass door, surprising her as she entered the restaurant.
Visca, in turn, waved at the female attending the front door, one who seemed excited to see her as she studied the inside of the building. "It's dark in here, is it supposed to be dark?" She asked, missing with the female had said but following along with Tanda as he continued to walk into the building.
Following the server to his table, Tanda pulled out a seat for Visica and motioned for her to sit down as he finally answered her question. "Yeah, it lends to a calming or romantic atmosphere."
Stilling her tail and fighting the urge to show her tongue, Viscia picked up the menu to study and frowned. "I can't read this."
Tanda picked up his chair and moved to sit beside Viscia. "Well, Let's go over what they have." Leaning close so he could share her menu Tanda began explaining what the different dishes were.
Viscia was excited that her sneaky plan had worked out. The implant she received from Dr.Leviye allowed her to work closely with the two and read Terran standard. But her mother had taught her acting was also part of the great game. "I think I'll let you chose for me after all." She responded coolly.
Tanda put down the menu and waved at the waitress. Who already seemed to be on her way over with some water. " Can we get two droantep steaks medium rare, side of mashed garlic potatoes and mixed greens? Oh, right, some warm water and Coffee, please."
Watching as the waitress seemed to intentionally lean over Tanda's shoulder to look at his menu as she wrote his order down. Viscia felt the venom begin to pool in her mouth and quickly decided to give the female a glare that could freeze her blood. She hoped the Terran female would understand the warning to leave her male alone... Was he her male? She had yet to claim him. Viscia was confused at this thought.
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"Figured you'd like a piece of real meat, and this place is pretty traditional. So no fabricated food or anything like that." Moving back across the table, Tanda sipped on his water and sighed in relief, not noticing that Viscia was staring at her ice water in horror.
Pushing her cup of death off to the side, Viscia rummaged through her trusty satchel and grabbed one of her containers of water before looking across the table at Tanda, who seemed to be, lost in thought. "Is something wrong?"
Tanda looked over to Viscia, who had oddly separated herself from her water. "Well, I was just thinking about how we could fix the fold drive, is all."
Viscia eyed the waitress as she brought over her Coffee, making sure she knew her place, before looking back to her soon to be male." I think you should fix your inefficient warp drives first."
Tanda choked on his water, quickly putting his cup down in shock from the declaration. "Inefficient, how? We have less than a zero point zero two percent power loss between core and bubble."
Viscia tilted her head up and revealed a smug smile. "Well, unlike you Terrans. I worked hard without any of those fancy tools. I think Aasteran warp drives will be, at minimum, ten to thirteen percent more efficient than a Terran one when I'm done fixing them."
Tanda raised his eye at the sassy snake with great interest. "Alright, I'll bite. Tell me how."
Viscia produced a datapad from her satchel and keyed an equation she created over a year ago and something she had been working on for the last eight. "See this! WRITTEN DOWN math, you skipped this bit. It's like it didn't even occur to your people." Pushing the pad over to Tanda for him to read, Viscia took a drink from her container in triumph.
Tanda scrunched his eyes and mentally ran the numbers in his head before coming to his conclusion. "Well, yeah. It's just graviton saturation. We found out how to create warp bubbles and avoid all that at the orbimax supercollider. Besides, when you're at warp, you don't need to worry about the gravitons interfering with your tools since you can outrun them."
"What's the orbemac super collider?" Viscia asked, a tad deflated.
"Oh, it's our particle collider in orbit around Mars." Tanda replied, accepting the steaming plate of food from the waitress.
Viscia accepted her plate and happily popped a green bushy vegetable into her mouth as she pointed her clawed finger at Tanda. "See, you skipped this step with your fancy collider. I had to create all my theories from math and observation."
Cutting into his steak, Tanda looked at viscia, who had already managed to somehow eat half her steak. "Well, how about this. After we finish our meal, we can go rent a hard light suite. I'll give you a tour of the supercollider."
Viscia pulled a cleaning wipe from her satchel and cleaned the sauce from her now messy face. "It's a deal!"
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"THIS IS AMAZING!" Running around and poking all sorts of devices she'd never seen, Viscia turned to smile at Tanda. "I hope I can come here to study one day."
Tanda walked over to the main control panel and keyed in a simulation, the discovery of the first stable warp bubble. "Shouldn't be too hard to come here. The place is a museum now."
Viscia frowned and softly hit Tanda with her tail, happily finding him a rather solid male. "Say so sooner. I look like an idiot now."
Tanda rubbed his side and activated the sim. "To tell you the truth, I acted the same way. It's nothing to be ashamed about."
Viscia sat in a nearby chair and watched as the collider sprang to life, the warp bubble glowing and shakily forming soon after. "Cheaters." She whispered, looking over to Tanda.
Tanda held back a laugh at the pouting Viscia as he slowly moved over to casually sit beside her. "You should be proud, you know. All you were missing were the tools to test your theory. You were very close."
Viscia looked at the screen in confusion before a smug smiled spread across her face. " So, I was right!" She announced, jumping from her chair and throwing her hands into the air.
Tanda looked over and smiled. "Well, yeah, I always backed you on how you were right about yo-"
"No, no, no, LOOK!" Pulling up her equation and taking the time to carefully input it into the simulation. She happily watched as the unstable warp bubble began solidifying, followed soon after by the attracted gravitons bouncing away rather than sticking. Viscia cheered at her discovery and stuck her tongue out at Tanda, noticing the sweet taste of his sweet had returned.
Tanda, however, watched in amazement as the data flowed through the ancient devices. The first warp bubbles were inefficient. They worked well enough to get around, but ate a lot of power. The current one he was looking at was closer to a second-generation warp bubble, with an added benefit, though he didn't want to mention Terrans were on eleventh generation warp drives and hurt Viscia's feelings. That's when it hit him. "This, it's so simple yet complex. How did we miss it? You fixed the drive."
Viscia walked over and poked Tanda in the chest. "The drive was always working, silly. I just made it better."
Tanda excitedly grabbed Viscia by the shoulders and looked her in the eyes with a giant smile. "NO! You don't get it. You fixed the fold drive. Our problem was attracting gravitons due to how warp bubbles work, causing the portions of it catching the fold space to get all jumbled. Now we can use the bubble to bounce them away!" Clutching Viscia's face with both his Hands, Tanda kissed her on the lips. "You're amazing!" He nearly shouted, turning back nonchalantly to look at the data."
Viscia was stunned into inaction, thinking to herself for a second before excitingly realizing what had happened and how easy it was to attain her desired male. "I accept your offer!"
Tanda turned to look at Viscia, who walked directly into his personal space and began oddly running her tongue along his body before stopping at the trapezius along his collar bone. "Well, hi. What's this all about." Watching as Viscia opened her mouth wider than he'd ever seen an Aasteran attain, she proceeded to reveal two long, sharp fangs that swung forward from the roof of her mouth.
"Uhh, Hello?" Tanda said, watching in Horror as Viscia swiftly bit into the meaty muscles along his collar bone with her fangs, causing Tanda to yell out in pain... "Wait, no pain? That's odd." Looking down at Viscia in confusion, he noticed her eyes were smiling at him as she placed her arms on his chest. "Uhhh, what?"
Viscia pushed Tanda to the ground, following with him as she continued her bite and began unbuttoning her shirt, revealing her bare chest and the scale pattern to Tanda. She knew Terran males liked mammaries, but she hoped he would appreciate her hunting scales just as much.
Tanda quickly realized what was happening. Well, kind of. Viscia was still attached to his collar, which was weird due to the not hurting bit. But she was removing her clothes, and she had a beautiful scale pattern on her chest. Running his fingers gently along them, he chuckled as Viscia let out a delightful moan. Deciding to move his hands lower as Viscia began working on his pants, Tanda tried grabbing the base of her tail, eliciting a much louder reply, while he nibbled on her ear. "Oh, this will be fun."
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