Tessa

  Two days ter.

  “Ok… there we… go.” I said softly as I gently pushed the repcement cheek panel into pce.

  “I could have done this, you know…” C.A.S.I murmured.

  “Yeah but it's something we could be together for.” I sighed and let my hand linger on her face as I kissed her forehead. “We've been so busy with everything…”

  “We’ve been together at night.”

  “After I asked…” ‘...so that I wasn't alone.’ “You might've just worked through the night again.”

  “I-I went to you st night on my own…” I smiled a little. She did show up right as I was getting changed, it was hard to tell if it was coincidence or not.

  “Still, it's nice to have a calm minute with you like this. Awake too.” I patted her cheek and put my other hand on the shoulder I fixed and gently ran my thumb over the fabric of her repaired bodysuit.“Is everything ok with this…?”

  “It catches at some points but doesn't seize completely…”

  “Damn, I thought I got all the dents out. We might have to repce it.” I slowly looked down at her arm and gently moved my hand to that wrist. “Did… did everything go fine with washing this out? Have you tried… um bringing it back out?”

  “I haven't. No reason to.”

  “‘Testing now saves time and cursing ter’” I joked softly, quoting something Dad always said.

  “... I suppose that makes sense…” she turned that arm away from me, out of my grasp, and tilted her hand back. I jumped a little when the two panels of her arm split apart and the rge bde shot out with a shnk!

  “Sorry! I didn't mean to scare you…” Her eyes dimmed and she watched my face almost worriedly.

  “N-no it's fine! Just a bit surprised is all…” I let out a little breath and gently touched her arm again. I had been meaning to talk to her more about this but never found a good way to approach it at all, no better time than this. “So… um this… is part of your original design…?”

  “... yes.”

  “And what was that exactly?”

  “...” She opened her mouth to say something then hesitated as her brow furrowed and eyes pulsed a bit in thought. It was like she wanted to answer but something was stopping her.

  “That bodysuit, combat stuff, the censoring... Corpo security?” I offered. She shook her head. “... ok good… guess I don't have to try guessing which corporation…” I joked a little. Her eyes brightened slightly. “So… military? Earth?”

  “Yes.”

  “What ship were you on…?”

  “I… I can't say…”

  “I told you we were gonna have to talk about this stuff eventually.” I pointed out.

  “I know.” She sighed and looked away, pulling the bde back into her arm. “Part of me still counts you as a civilian… it… makes things difficult. With my second directive…”

  “Please, as much as you can, then? We're going to make it to the station today and I kind of don't want any more surprises of what you can do.” Her hands clenched a little. “If it helps… My dad served on an Aska-Css Carrier? From like ‘56 to ‘64?”

  “...” Her eyes pulsed slightly in thought. “There. I… made some updates. It opened some things up.” She sat up a little straighter. “I was the C.A.S.I for a Scotnd-css light frigate… I… can't say the name…”

  “‘The C.A.S.I?’ So… there could be more of you?” ‘Yeah, makes sense why she is how she is… probably used to working around the clock with a ship like that… not my four-man brick…’

  “...We were tailored to our ships so we would be different… an Aska-Css like your father was on could have had two to handle the size of it. I guess they were my… siblings? Cousins?” She shrugged slightly. “Not copies of me.”

  “Huh… so… what can you do? Or what were your jobs?” I gently prodded. She shifted a little in her seat.

  “Mostly was system management, but also electronic warfare, maintenance assistance, …and field work too…”

  “Electronic warfare?” I could understand the others, she helped maintain the ship and was a soldier too, nothing surprising, but that one was new.

  “‘Hacking’ and defending against it. I am… was advanced for my time. A lot faster than any organic when it comes to writing code to attack or patch security.” I smiled a little, it was cute how proud she sounded about it.

  “So when you started up, that's how you got on my network? You broke in?” She blinked.

  “I-I did but I released almost everything I got access to after we talked!”

  “Almost?” I teased a bit and pyfully poked her cheek I just put in. “What did you keep?”

  “... exterior cameras… I… couldn't let them go.”

  “Wait… did I ever give you those?” I quickly checked my wrist and navigated to the screen to the privilege settings for her access. “Huh… I didn't… I'm sorry about that…”

  “You're not upset?” She asked while I adjusted it to officially give her those permissions.

  “I mean, you aren't in anything else are you?” She shook her head.

  “Nothing you haven't given me.”

  “Not even my room?” I teased more.

  “W-what? No. I never had access there! I had no reason to…” Her eyes were pulsing with her cute confused look but then started turning pink from the center outwards. She definitely thought of a reason why she would want that access. “That's… that's your room, y-your space. I wouldn't do that!”

  “You're too cute.” I ughed.

  “W-we're getting close to the rey…” She mumbled right before my multi-tool chirped with the arm I set hours ago after we dropped out of FTL… while C.A.S.I was busy spacing the bodies at the edge of the system.

  “Break time's over I guess.” I sighed and kissed her again before standing with a stretch. She hopped up as well and followed along as I started heading towards the cockpit. It was quiet most of the way back except for my boots and her bare feet on the floor. When the doorway to our destination was in sight, I felt her hand grab mine and she spoke up again.

  “Before we get back to work… I have to ask… you… you didn't react when I admitted to field work. Why?” I paused for a step.

  “You were a soldier… you fought and had to kill. I know Dad had to too…” I gnced down at my other hand when the memory of the other day came back up and had to force it to stop shaking. “And I guess I have too… I don't ask him about that stuff, he doesn't talk about it. I won't push you about it either but I'll… try to listen if you need to get anything off your chest.”

  “... that probably won't be needed even if I could share. I didn't have emotions before I met you.” I gnced at her. Eyes were dim again.

  ‘There is something though. With how you were at the end of that…’ I leaned down and kissed her cheek. “If you say so, but I'm always gonna be here ok?”

  “... Ok.” Her hand squeezed mine slightly. I kept ahold of it for the rest of the way to our seats, where I let her go to hers. I flipped the switch for the shudders as I sat down.

  They slid up to reveal the rey we were approaching at the very edge of the system. It was a just over half-mile wide ring with a thin frame for its size but some thicker sections for the control ‘tower’ and reactors. Inside was the view of the red-orange star Utopia in its own system lightyears away. Whatever science that stopped its gravity from messing with all the ones it was connected to with the other reys might as well have been magic to me, I avoided those advanced physics in university like a pgue. Various ships, cargo, transport, mining, were passing through the ring in an infrequent orderly fashion while a group of U.E.M.F corvettes and a much, much bigger destroyer lingered nearby, its many turrets pointed in every direction. It would've been nice for that to have been nearby to hammer the Esmeralda a few times with some of those “small” tank-sized guns or put a hole through it with one of the bigger ones.

  “Yamoto.” C.A.S.I said softly, also looking at the same ship. “On guard duty out here…”

  “Not surprised. Hub clusters usually have one hanging around somewhere. Exodus is a bit of a crossroads for the gaxy.” I slowed us down to a crawl and reached for the comms controller to switch its frequency for the rey. “You recognize it?”

  “Yes… flew in a fleet with it before.”

  “Oh! That's pretty cool. Like just escorting or something?” I slowed us down to a crawl with the reverse thrusters and fshed a smile at her. If she was going to be open on her own, I wanted to encourage her to keep doing that .

  “... or something.” She answered after a short pause.

  ‘Guess not…’ “You know… when we're finally on Eden station, we should go on a date or something, rex for a bit.”

  “A date?” She gnced over at me.

  “Mhmm. Fresh food at a restaurant or something, doesn't have to be too fancy. Eden is an Agri-world after all so that should be good. Or we can just walk around.” A few more adjustments and some chatter from the rey started coming through. “What do you think?”

  “... I would like that…”

  “It's a pn then~ you probably should queue up some casual clothes to wear for it.”

  “... I'll consider my options and get some going.”

  “Ok~” I waited for a break in the chatter of comms to key in myself. “Kypdon Rey Approach, Tyche 688431, Ten kilometers, approaching from Nahua jump point, inbound. Requesting full stop at Eden Station”

  …

  “Tyche 688431, Kypdon Rey Approach. Gravic contact made… Have you in sight.” A man's voice responded on the other side. “Switch to subchannel 3.”

  “Willco.” I answered and made the switch.

  “I'm seeing some damage on your side. New?”

  “Run-in with pirates a couple days ago in Nahua.” I noticed the destroyer's engines start up and it slowly started moving forward. ‘For us? Kinda overkill… they're over five times longer than us and not mostly cargo and empty space.’

  “… Is medical needed?” My hand went to the small, coin-sized semi circle cut into the edge of my ear on its own. The medi-gel I had put on it and the slice on my arm had both nearly completely healed but I'll always have that little reminder on my ear now.

  “N-no, it has been handled.”

  “Copy, no medical needed. Full stop at Eden cleared. Continue approach towards flight path thirteen, hold at two kilometers until cleared further.”

  “Full stop at Eden cleared. Continue approach to flight path thirteen, hold at two kilometers.”

  “Readback correct. Be advised, you have a freighter css 4 and military css 3 in front of you taking paths one through nine.” C.A.S.I updated one of my screens to show the flight paths of the rey, and excmation marks over the nine in the center of the gate and thirteen highlighted. I turned the main thrusters back up and slowly brought us over to the waiting point. As I did, the blunt front end of a giant freighter, bigger than the waiting destroyer (that had started to come around itself), started zily sailing through the gate to our side of it, dead-center and obvious why it needed all nine nes. It just went on and on for several minutes until its main engines finally made it through, the entire ship as long as the rey was wide. Then, once it had made it some distance away, the destroyer moved forward and the controller's voice came back over the comms. “Tyche 688431, after the Yamoto is through, you are cleared to pass. Dock at gate 24, bay 143. Once you are docked on Eden station, prepare a report to send in to the Peacekeeper office for your incident in frontier space.”

  “...Wilco…” I reluctantly replied, and turned off my broadcasting side of comms. I knew it was going to happen and I had been putting off that paperwork. “Ugh… we're gonna have to drop that off on our date…”

  “... you think that will be an issue…?” C.A.S.I asked.

  “Maybe. Agh, still so much to do and check.”

  “I… could help with the report. Compile everything from the cameras…”

  “We… still gotta be careful about letting people know what you are though.” I leaned back in my chair and ran my hand through my hair as I thought. “I think I gotta do a lot of that.”

  “... As in falsify it…?”

  “Some… just enough to protect you.”

  “... I will still like to help. I believe I can… adjust some data to be favorable for us. I… can't do anything about camera feeds, though.”

  “I'll come up with something.” I sighed and resigned myself to watching the military ship slowly make its way through ahead of us. A long few hours ahead of us to prep.

  –

  “... Ok… ok…” I murmured to myself, pulling away from the bathroom mirror to check myself over again. It was my third attempt for what should have been very basic eyeliner but being very out of practice and my incessantly wagging tail messing with my steadiness made it a lot more difficult than it should have been. “L-looks fine…” I gnced down at the rock band T-shirt I had thrown on.

  “... hope this isn't too casual…” I sighed, grabbed the jeans I had ying out and worked on wriggling them on. Part of me knew I was fussing too much, but it was the first date I had in years and wanted to look good for her.

  “...Tessa? You said we were going to leave by now.” C.A.S.I’s voice rang out in the hallway.

  “Y-yep just a sec!” I called back, quickly trying to get my pants up the rest of the way over my hips and my tail into the cut I had to make in them and get my boots back on. I double checked my hair. Ponytail was holding, no loose strands like the bun I normally put it up in normally got. All clear. Once I was sure of that, I left the bathroom, still half expecting her to be just outside but finding that she was just using the speakers again.

  “Drone bay” she happily told me.

  “You sound excited.” I ughed softly, trying to hide my nervousness a bit as I made my way towards her.

  “I do?”

  “A bit, yeah~”

  “... I-I suppose that might be what I'm feeling… There is a lot to experience here that I never got to before.”

  “Aww not for our date?”

  “T-that’s included too.”

  “I would hope so.” I smiled a little to myself and picked up the pace a bit.

  “It's so familiar and so different at the same time… almost reminds me of one of the stations around Earth.” She mused.

  “I mean, I'm pretty sure humans did most of the work for this one, it's gonna be simir.”

  “I meant in the amount of traffic too but… I'm seeing ships from three… no four different other species and even more working in the docks.”

  “... you didn't hack into a camera out there did you?”

  “What? No! It was one that we were given access to watch the boarding bridge. I'm following the ws here. I promised”

  “Hmm… and how's the extranet access?”

  “Much faster. I… haven't looked much… I want to see most things for myself.”

  “‘Much’ what have you checked out?” I ughed as I reached the door and reached for the button.

  “Local maps, ws, recent events…” She trailed off as the door opened. I found her on the other side, watching the door with an expectant look on her face and wearing a light grey knee-length v-neck sundress. It fit her really well and I was a little stunned by the sight of her. Her eyes started to dim as she started talking again after I failed to find my words. “And… some bit of fashion…? I…it took some experimenting in the few hours I had… I wanted a lighter color but … too much of the quartz fiber and...”

  “You're so fucking cute…” I mumbled, finally breaking out from checking her out. The corners of her mouth twitched up into a smile and her eyes brightened back to full.

  “You like it?”

  “Yes, of course!” I moved over to her and wrapped her up in a hug that she quickly returned. Now that I was closer, I could see sparse little strands of color hidden in the fabric, all together leading to its slightly grey look. “You're so adorable, I don't normally do girly stuff myself but it looks really good on you.”

  “Good…”

  “You ready to-” I started to ask but then I finally noticed it. The replicator was still humming away and there was a silicone-like smell in the room that should have disappeared since this morning. “Are you printing something else?”

  “Oh!” She had nearly rested her head on my chest but it quickly snapped up. “I am. I had the time after this…”

  “What is it? I thought we got everything repl…” Her eyes were turning half pink again.

  “Well…” She was being hesitant about it, so I had to see it. I pyfully kissed her before pulling away towards the replicator with her quickly padding along behind me.

  “Well what?” I ughed, turning towards her as I put my hand on the shutter handle.

  “... go ahead…” she murmured and I opened it up. I wasn't sure what I expected on the build pte but it wasn't this: a half-finished, pink and bck mottled horse dick. Heat rushed to my face instantly.

  “Oh… um…”

  “I thought… when you had something simir before our first time…” C.A.S.I looked away, fiddling with her hands. “You… seem to like this type…”

  “I-I mean I have th-that one toy but this… it's already looking it's going to be bigger than it!”

  “Still below average for the species…” She shrugged. “I figured it would be a safe secondary… one I knew for sure…”

  “... secondary? There's another one?”

  “Installed it already.”

  ‘...she has a dick now…’ I stared at her and I felt more excitement build up in me.“...well what is that one???” She gnced back at me, thinking for a moment.

  “I… I'm keeping this one as a surprise… I… I think you might like it too.”

  ‘That just makes me want to see it more… agh No… let her do this… no harm… stop being horny…’ “O-ok… ok, show me when you're ready.”

  “Thank you,” She perked up again then got a pyful glint in her eye. “Now we're even ter for the departure time you said earlier.”

  “You really want to get out there, huh?”

  “Like I said, there is a lot out there I want to experience.”

  “Let's get going then~” I grabbed her hand and started leading her to the main airlock between the kitchen and cockpit. When we reached those doors she stared at the progress of the cycling with a cute kind of impatience even though it didn't take that long to complete.

  There was another short wait inside but we were soon inside the short boarding corridor that opened up to a much rger pathway where a decent amount of foot traffic was crossing in each direction just beyond our exit.

  It was mostly other humans but there were quite a few of the other races: rge blind wolf-like Lykaians, a few of the smaller Panthera that kinda look like anthropomorphic versions of extinct snow leopards from earth, squid-headed humanoid R’lyehians (everyone suspects they were our first contract in the early 20th century, their government denies it), and the tauric Sagittarians with their remarkably human-like top half and bottom half of some mammalian predator halfway between a cat and a dog. Almost everyone here had clothing fitting for the industrial dockyard we were in, so C.A.S.I and I stood out a little, especially her in the bright dress and her tiny frame. She didn't seem to mind though, calmly scanning around while squeezing my hand in her excitement.

  “Lemme make sure everything is locked up.” I told her softly as I checked my multi-tool.

  “It is.” She replied.

  “I still like to check…” With all the conveniences of being on a station, the fact that there's a small city’s worth of people means there's a chance of someone trying to poke around for anything and I didn't like that.

  “I am still here.” She pointed out softly and a notification popped up on my screen, showing that every door near the airlock just closed and locked themselves. “I can watch the ship.”

  “That's so easy to forget with you able to walk around.” I sighed and took her hand again to start leading her away towards the center of this floor of the station. I had to force myself into a more casual pace to walk with her, otherwise I'd be doing my normal filtering between everyone else walking to go at my own pace. As we moved away from the ship, something suddenly occurred to me and I kissed her cheek to disguise whispering in her ear. “...Probably should've asked before… but how far do you think we can go before it's an issue?”

  “... let's… only risk as far as your drones can go…”

  “So, about a mile… ok, should be fine anywhere up here… just no trips down to the surface.” I shrugged. “Though Eden is an agri-world so I dunno what we could find down there that's not up here other than fresh air.”

  “Didn't you want to take care of that report first?” She asked.

  “... I did…”

  “We can take care of that now before you forget.” She motioned ahead towards a small Peacekeeper station between us and the main station elevator as a group of uniformed humans left through one of the doors.

  “Hey, you were excited for this too, you could have also forgotten.” I teased and she gave a slight smile.

  “Now I know for sure that is very unlikely.” She squeezed my hand. “Even with my bad drives.”

  “Uh-huh.” I ughed softly and happily led her over to the station she pointed out. I approached the public entrance door first and went through into a short hallway with no problem, with C.A.S.I however… As soon as she passed through the door, the frame lit up with a red light and snapped closed with a tone that hit the worst pitches for my ears. “...The fuck?”

  “Hold for a moment.” A male voice came from a speaker above us. A locker among a cluster of them on the wall popped open. “Pce your handgun in the locker.”

  ‘Handgun? I didn't bring mine?’ I thought but then C.A.S.I casually hiked up her skirt slightly and retrieved a MD pistol from between her legs. It was more beat-up than mine, and had to have been from the pirates.

  “Thigh holster.” She expined simply as she strolled past and put the weapon in the locker.

  “Could've told me you were bringing that.”

  “... there's nothing illegal about it…?” Her head tilted slightly with an adorable little blink as she closed the locker. She was right, a certain big country back on Earth made absolutely sure one of their major founding ws was adopted before they joined the rest of United Earth, and everyone was free to carry in most situations in its systems, especially in the border ones.

  “What are the functions of the android?” The voice above asked. “I'm seeing… odd internals from the scan.”

  “U-um security and companion.” I said quickly. I instinctively gnced at her, worried that this might be a little offensive to her but she only returned a curious look. “She's a recent salvage… more than five years uncimed…”

  “I see… Get her tested and registered or you'll be held responsible if she acts unjustly. You may proceed, you may retrieve your weapon when you leave.”

  ‘Yeah… like I'd chance that before I can even get the permit for her to even exist…’ I grabbed C.A.S.I's hand and led her inside to the small, empty waiting area. There were two reception desks behind the clear panes but only one of them was occupied by a bored-looking woman. This officer was not human, despite her very human-like face and normal-looking olive skin, her eyes and lips were pure bck, she had a pair of antenna poking out from her honey-blond hair, had a slight ‘colr’ of white fluff poking out from her uniform and she was resting her chin on a three-fingered hand covered in bck bug-like exoskeleton up to the elbow while her other main hand and secondary smaller arms below them typed on a holo-keyboard in front of her. A Mellifera.

  “Oh, finally someone.” The bee-girl said with a tiny bit of excitement, her four clear wings fluttering as she popped up and sending her chair sliding back with the stinger-tipped abdomen behind her. “Got someone for me to chase down?”

  “No, it's your day to man the desk.” The same voice from the speaker chastised as a lightly-armored Sagittarian man stepped into sight from the hallway behind her and stopped her chair with a paw and pushed it back to her. He strolled up to her window and set a tablet down on her desk.

  “Sir, I-”

  “No, everyone has to work the desk sometimes.” He told her then gave Cas and me a polite smile that exposed his fangs slightly but his lion-like tail was flicking behind him. “Sorry for Officer Ininise's… enthusiasm, she'll stay here and help you two.”

  “Ok, thank you.” I replied, not really wanting to get involved in this. Thankfully, he moved away from the window and started moving out of sight towards the general direction of the other door to the outside hall.

  “Ugh… of course…” Ininise sighed and slid back down onto her returned seat then motioned to chairs on the other side of the window with one of her lower hands. “Sit please…”

  “...” C.A.S.I and gnced at each other but we both took the offer. Even with the window between us, I could catch whiffs of honey coming from her when I sat down.

  “I take it… you don't like this work?” C.A.S.I asked innocently as she settled next to me.

  “Sorry, I was being really unprofessional, I love the job, hate being still, and” She waved to the monitor, tablet and holo-keyboard in front of her, “... this stuff is boys’ work, I'm sure there's a few hive-boys that would happily take over this office stuff…” I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at this. She blinked when she noticed. “Right… we're the only ones like this. Sorry… how can I help you?”

  “We wanted to report a pirate attack and boarding in Nahua.” I answered, removing the data chip with my report from my multi-tool and sliding it under the window carefully.

  “Nahua… hmm.” She took the chip and plugged it into the monitor in front of her. “How big is your crew? Are there any going to medical now?”

  “Just us and we took care of patching me up already.”

  “...just the two of you fought off a boarding?”

  “Part of my function is security.” C.A.S.I said.

  “Still, how many boarded and do you have any to transfer to our custody?” She sounded hopeful about this as she clicked through the data I gave her. I could see the silent reflection of one of our security feeds from the event in her eyes and looked away.

  “Six, all… all were dealt with and jettisoned. Weapons were kept.”

  “... well within your rights to… huh… this is a mining ship… you got away from a corvette in this?”

  “We were lucky enough to be close-ish to our jump point when it was over…” I sighed. “Oh I don't know if I mentioned this in the report but they acted like they were using Peacekeeper IFF before.” Her antenna twitched as she watched the camera feed more.

  “Interesting… How long are you pnning on staying? And what bay are you in?”

  “Why…?”

  “... In case I need to follow up with you about some things.” She waved a hand dismissively. I instinctively gnced at C.A.S.I, who was carefully watching her. My girlfriend shrugged after a second.

  ‘Should've figured, Cas hasn't been awake for twenty years, I probably know what's normal more than her.’ “Fine, bay 143… and for a few days at least”

  “Ok, noted… I'll pass this along to the navy divisions for you.” She gave a polite smile. “Anything else?”

  “Um… could you point us to any Q-comm* points nearby? I… I should probably set up a time with my dad for a call…”

  “Hmm, down here has some issues with those, there's a few up in the atrium in the shopping district. One's by a cafe close to the elevator… Harmony Harvest? The baristas there are cute too.”

  “Thank you.”

  “... you think we can stop by there too?” C.A.S.I suggested as she stood up with me.

  “Huh… a bot suggesting her master go to a date location…” I barely heard the officer mumble.

  “We can…” I replied, ignoring her for now. “Oh and our gun?”

  “Oh, yes, here you go,” She picked up the tablet and flicked something towards me, a prompt appearing on my multi-tool to accept a data-code. “That's the temp key to that locker, don't leave it in there.”

  “Thanks!” I grabbed C.A.S.I's hand and led her to the exit.

  “Have fun~” She called after us. As the doors to the entrance hallway closed, though, I heard her say something else, not directed to us: “Lady Zailith, I have a lead…”

  ‘Probably just following up on something else.’ I thought before retrieving C.A.S.I's gun and returning it to her. With this detour over, we could finally spend some time together.

  Draconis_Primus