Chapter 13

I was awoken four hours into my REM cycle. Samantha had put out a call for a crew meeting which overrode my SLUMBER unit. Groggily I changed into some clean clothes. I stopped on my way to the meeting to get a coffee and some food as my stomach was rumbling.

When I got to the meeting I found it was already in full swing. They were reviewing the video of the prison break and throwing out commentary. I found I was on semi trial for my actions by the rest of the crew. They were trying to decide if I had used excessive force on the prisoners and if I was negligent. I just sat down and keyed my PerCom under the table. I was putting Eve on alert in case Samantha had something stupid planned. My worries were mostly unfounded. They created a report noting that I had used acceptable force but also noted that I had released the prisoners without seeking permission from the captain. I was docked 3 months pay. It was a kangaroo court as far as I was concerned. I asked if I could leave once they were done and Samantha said that was fine but to make sure the shuttle was ready for another scouting and exploration mission in 20 hours.

Mentally and physically I was exhausted and feeling isolated in the new crew structure. The four of them were essentially two couples and there was no adherence to navy fraternization doctrine. I went down to the shuttle bay and checked on Shinade. Eve was there and Shinade was awake. She laughed when I came in and said I was a formidable but merciful opponent. She half jokingly apologized for trying to escape. I said it was a prisoners duty to try to escape jokingly in reply. Since she was essentially immobilized I decided to get a screen mounted in here and give her access to some entertainment programs. During our conversation she was all smiles. She had a great smile.

I asked her why did she join the marines? She said she had five older brothers in the service, one was a marine and the other four were navy. Well, she failed the entrance exam for navy so marines it was. She asked me about why I was in the navy and I told her about my childhood on the farming behemoth and being drafted into the navy due to children limitations by the corporation. She sympathized with me or perhaps she was a good actor in showing sympathy. Eve broke into the empathetic conversation saying I needed to reassign duties for six bots who were currently idle.

I slide over to the small desk and connected via the terminal and started doing my duties remotely while still talking with Shinade. Three hours later I had done everything I could from the terminal and had to head back to engineering. I set up the screen for Shinade and gave her access to the entertainment directory.

I locked the med alcove door and decided to take Eve with me and her face showed relief. She was getting better at facial expression. She was just too valuable to be a prison guard. I told Eve to bring Shinade meals and relock the door during the day. I headed to check on the other prisoners. Vanessa was showering. I had set up her cell to allow her to shower anytime. All the other cells were limited to 10 minutes a day. I checked and she had been showering for the last thirty minutes! I decided to walk in on her after deactivating the security camera and she just continued to shower and started talking to me.

She was not being bashful at all. I found I was preferring the attentions of the prisoners to my own crew. She dried off giving me a full frontal view and slid into her beige jumpsuit. I went and got two officer meals heated for us and we shared a meal. I did notice she hadn’t zipped up the jumpsuit all the way giving me a nice view. Halfway through the meal she threw up her hands and said what did she need to do to get me to fuck her? I was flustered and said it would be wrong…she was a prisoner…it would be me taking advantage of a vulnerable woman…. She told me to shut up. She said she liked me a lot. If it made me feel any better she said we could stage it so she ‘assaulted’ me on the cameras and it was her taking advantage of me.

I was speechless but my body was definitely showing it was willing as she started detailing how she would do it. I waved my hands and said the rest of the crew was going out...I checked my PerCom...in 14 hours. While they were gone we could use my quarters. Vanessa had a Cheshire grin on her face at my concession. I left her in the cell and went about my duties.

The cargo containers were done and I checked the scans of the containers. Most of the welds looked good but only two of the containers passed the vacuum seal test, good enough. I was setting up the repacking program for the bots. I needed to pack the containers with a specific mass profile and put some materials needed to be near the access door for ease of access. I was also setting up a particular canister with all the high value goods. I was also contemplating on how I could lock that particular canister to the drop shuttle. It was a rather difficult proposition as I would need to attach emitters to cargo container to get in into FTL with the shuttle. I was obfuscating everything I was doing but I figured the second I heard the Union had surrendered I might want to abandon ship. Going into the cargo container would be parts and fuel for the shuttle...after some playing around I think I could get enough fuel for six jumps, all the specialty fuel we had...as long as I could get the shuttles mini jump drive at peak functionality and encompass the container. Well this was plan B and I was far from comfortable with the numbers. Maybe Samantha and the rest of the crew would lighten up.

As I was progressing in my duties and possible escape plan Samantha commed me and I got anxious for a second. Thankfully she just wanted the freighter moved closer to the opening they were exploring. She was making sure the ship was ready to be moved. Well nope. I checked some things...seven hours to repack the canisters and another hour to lock them all down. If we had been in zero G this would have taken less time but the planetoid had some gravity. I asked if they had found any water in their exploration. We needed 25,000 gallons for the life support system to be topped off. The prisoners had thrown off the numbers for the freighter and with the long flight and delay on this planetoid...

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Samantha was agitated but said they would look for water on their next trip. I asked if it would be ok if I went on my own search for water. She thought on the other side of the link for a long time before saying that would fine. Fantastic! I wanted to explore the ruins and I was sure I could do a better job than Samantha and the crew. I had reviewed the shuttle video recordings and it was a fascinating complex. The access they were going into went over two miles down and along the walls were hundreds of levels of buildings.

I started focusing my time on translating the alien bots repair and maintenance programs. If I could get the schematics downloaded into my Union scanner I should be able to quickly search the ruins for valuable tech. Our replicators could not match the intricacy of the alien tech so replication was not feasible. I could get devices to function with some make shift power cables but worried about sending too much power and damaging them. From some of the early translations it was obvious the civilization had been furiously seeking ways to maximize their power generation and usage as their fuel was running out. I was sure there was a gold mine of advanced tech in the dead city based on what we had found so far. If not in this city then there were at least seven other city access ports on the planetoid unexplored.

Samantha commed me saying they were loading into shuttle and departing. I got to the shuttle bay just after they left but confirmed they were all on board. I was suppose to move the ship to the location near the entrance they were exploring. This exploration was slated to be just 16 hours on their end. Much shorter than the last few. I checked on Shinade and got a big smile from her and she said she was doing great but bored. She wanted me to stay and talk but I said I had to too many things to do right now but promised to be back.

I took a bottle out of the officer's alcohol and went to see Vanessa. I made sure the cameras were all turned off and then brought her to my quarters. The other five prisoners were in a different cell block and didn't see us. In my quarters we stripped quickly and I let her tackle me to the bed. Vanessa started on top and I didn't last long from her quick rhythmic motions. I recovered quickly and slowed down our copulation and used my knowledge to change the sex from frenzied to passionate. It was two hours before we were both satiated enough to pause.

Laying there Vanessa made her first mistake. Her words started to focus on my troubles with my crew and she was offhandedly suggesting maybe it would be better if I took the ship back to the Sapphire Empire. I just nodded and pretended to give it some thought. Vanessa didn't like violence, that was clear from her personality, but she was still trying to manipulate me. I had needed this sexual vent and decided to get as much out of this encounter as possible. I resumed the sex shortly after, relying on the three positions I was best at according to Haily and gave my partner the best experience. After we both climaxed two more times I escorted Vanessa back to her cell. At first she was confused but then realized her mistakes and tried to apologize. It was too late though. I was done with Vanessa and I didn't feel I could trust her.

As I was heading back to engineering to work on the alien bot and updating my scanner Eve approached me and said if it would help I could give her a vagina. I was a little shocked by her comment and asked her why that was necessary? She then spent forty minutes relaying a psycho analysis of me and how I needed to have intimate relations with a female in order to function effectively. She had the medical readings and efficiency reports to prove her points as well. I asked Eve if that is what she wanted…she said yes without hesitation. I told her I would comply with her wishes but I didn't have the required fabricators on the ship to fabricate it properly. I wasn't sure if I would have access anytime soon to the required fabricators.

I did spend two hours reviewing some files I had saved when I had been making Eve's skin. A lot of the files were from generic sex bots and I had not really delved too far into including all the upgrades into feminine parts for Eve. I should probably plan to add nipples too? I made thirty pages worth of notes in the two hours and planned to work further on it in my spare time. I couldn't fabricate the upgrades but I could be ready to do so.

Checking my PerCom I noticed it was time to move the ship. I confirmed the exterior bots had finished with the canisters and had returned to their docking locks. I went to the bridge and activated the autopilot that was preprogrammed for the move. There were no major problems during the relocation but unfortunately for me twenty eight alerts scrolled onto the screen as the ship moved. Six were in the red, meaning they needed to be addressed immediately. I sighed going through them. Two hull leaks...easy fixes. A maneuvering thruster was operating at 8%...checking the profile...probably a sheared control line somewhere...I sent a bot to follow all six control lines to see if they could find the issue. The next was a simple one...the mass distribution had not been updated! I had sent the new load profile to the bridge and they hadn't updated it in the system, sloppy. I updated it.

Next was a secondary reactor was operating at 40% capacity...I checked and the fuel canisters hadn't been topped off. It took me ten minutes to find the issue. The bot that was slated to refuel that reactor had broken down in a corridor...but I couldn't figure out why I hadn't been alerted to the bots malfunction...eventually I found the issue. One of the bridge crew had reassigned the bot to bring crates from the shuttle and then tried to scrub that data from the bot and cancelled my orders by mistake. She was sloppy! I noted the location where bot had brought the items from its memory files. It was an unassigned crew cabin. I couldn't find which crew member had messed with the bot on the cameras. Interesting. I needed to see what they had decided to hide from me. The last alert was for failed responses from crew terminals during the transit flight. There were Union requirements as to the number of bridge crew required for operation. I reset the last alert. It would be logged in the system and if there was ever a navy review there might be questions. Not!

Now I wanted to see what Samantha and the rest of them had decided to hide from me.