Tessa

  2.5 weeks ter

  Having C.A.S.I. around was something to get used to. Since Dad retired months ago, I had been the only person on the Tyche. The privacy had been nice but if it was definitely getting to me after I finally worked up the courage to try a longer stint in uncivilized space. It made me start wishing I filled one of the other three bedrooms on board before I set out.

  Then I found her.

  She wasn't like some V.I. that only responded when I said her name and the habit of talking to myself that I had started was a lot more noticeable when I had someone who responded to me in most parts of the ship. I never realized how amazing it was to just have someone to talk to again out in the void until she came along. Honestly, I might've enjoyed talking to her more than I did talking to other organics back on the stations I visited. She also kept me busy during downtime of just supervising my pack of drones with repairing that android body of hers. It took a week and a half and a dozen tries to get her to connect. Then half a dozen more to get her voice on it and for it to be able to walk, all the while we only repced a couple tiny fried parts at a time. It didn't help that C.A.S.I. was so hesitant to send over the temptes of the repcements. She seemed almost happy to have it walking again but abandoned it back in the bedroom I gave her after a bad interaction we had the same night. An interaction involving me, half-awake, on a quick trip to the bathroom and not expecting her half-skeletal face and glowing eyes in the hallway, in the dark of the night-cycle.

  “Just had to be you, 04.” I growled softly as I reached into the guts of the troublesome drone through an entry breach in its hull, thankful for the scales on my arm protecting me from the jagged metal edges. This drone always had something going on and now it had been putting a pause on continuing to help fix the android. “Just couldn't stay working for more than a couple days, could you?”

  “...you are still talking to the drones?” C.A.S.I. asked coolly in that calm, borderline sexy voice she kept since our introduction. An embarrassing reminder of my habit being noticed again.

  “Should I be getting worried about you getting jealous?” I replied towards the ceiling where her voice was coming from.

  “I cannot get jealous…” she paused. “Why would I get jealous?”

  “Just joking, Cassie.” I ughed. I wasn't sure if she had emotions but it was cute when she got confused when I implied she was feeling one.

  “I see…” She was silent for a few minutes as I continued to root around inside the drone. It was only when I managed to grab the cylindrical end of whatever hit it, she spoke up again. “You didn't eat this morning.”

  “It was on the list of things to do but 04 decided to break down the second I stopped watching it.” I sighed and started tugging the intrusion out. “I'll eat after I see how bad this is or when it's noon… whatever comes first.”

  “It is 12:20.”

  “Dammit. I guess dragging it back with 12 took a lot longer than I thought… ok, lemme get this out and I'll grab something…” I felt around the intrusion, quickly finding a lip around the edge that I could grab onto, and started to wriggle it out. Annoyingly, it kept getting caught every few inches, but with a handful of minutes of effort, I pulled it out. A can-sized cylinder with a probably formerly conical end that had mushroomed out from the hit. A shape a lot of space faring races resorted to with kinetic weapon ammo. “Gods damn it, 04, really? A mass driver bolt? Of all the chances, you happened to wander in front of a bullet that was probably shot like five hundred years ago. I thought 13 would have the bad luck but you're always proving me wrong.”

  “The shields and pting on it saved it from being completely destroyed.” C.A.S.I. commented.

  “Yep…” I peered into the hole then grumbled. “But… that shield generator is dead… went right through it.”

  “You can work on it after you eat.”

  “Even if I had the tempte, I doubt I'm mining any of the right ore to do that fix.” I sighed and got down from the dder. “You're really pushing me to eat.”

  “‘Protect my crew’ I promised I will keep my primary directive.”

  “What about the other two I saw?” I lightly teased as I headed to the door before she could get onto me again. I barely noticed that the replicator vaguely and weirdly had a scent like new silicone. ‘Huh… I made those bushings for 05 over a day ago… the smell is normally gone by now.’

  “Right now ‘Protect Vessel’ applies to Tyche… and I… I technically started breaking the other one two weeks ago.”

  ‘Probably from showing me the inside of-’ I thought as I opened the door to the hall. The ring of metal on metal and telltale soft creak of hinges interrupted my thoughts and my ears perked up on their own. “Cassie? Is that you?”

  “In the kitchen? It is. What logic were you using in organizing your cabinets?” She responded through the nearest speaker.

  “My own, I guess?” I chuckled softly, continuing down the hall, no longer armed. “I know where everything is, that's all that really mattered.”

  “I… will have to learn that then. Or reorganize this.”

  “What are you doing in the cabinets?”

  “Getting food for you.”

  “You know how to cook?” I asked just as I rounded the corner into the mess room and kitchen. There she had her android body, in the fnnel shirt I gave her, and standing on her tip-toes to retrieve dehydrated food boxes from the cabinets with her single arm to go with the cookware she had out. I quickly noticed something different about her: she had a full head of shoulder length, shiny white hair, and the metallic skull wasn't exposed on the right side anymore. ‘When did you…?’

  “I know how to follow a standard recipe.” She turned towards me, speaking through this body now and further surprising me with what I saw. What was once nightmare fuel out of te 1900s Terran action movies was completely repced. She now had a pretty face to match her voice and bright eyes. She looked nearly human if it weren't for those eyes and the thin, subtle seams between the sections of light synthskin that trailed down from her eyes and across the bridge of her nose.

  “O-oh… you… u-um… you fixed yourself more…” I could feel my cheeks warm up a bit and the annoyingly familiar pressure between my legs. ‘Dammit, why am I like this…’

  “Yes… you seemed… uncomfortable with what was left of the old one…” the blue lights of her irises dimmed but her face stayed inhumanly free of emotion “Sorry again for the other night. I made sure to keep this ptform away until I could print this out.”

  “Wait… is this why I kept waking up-”

  “... around 4:00 am? Likely… that's when I returned this to my quarters… sorry… I was trying not to disturb you… your hearing is very strong.”

  “I thought I was going crazy…”

  “Sorry…”

  “It's ok, um ... is… this what you looked like before?” She shook her head.

  “Simir. I believe the lips are a bit… ‘fuller’? and nose is different too. This result is expected. I examined hundreds of top Terran, Martian, and Callistan human actresses on the extranet to make it.’ I gnced away from her and took a breath.

  ‘Don't look at them, don't get excited about her mouth, fucking horndog… I-I don't want to expin those yet… but that expins the vaguely familiar look… and the replicator's smell.’

  “Is… it sufficient so we can start working on this ptform again…?” I looked back at her just as she waved to her empty shoulder socket and hanging sleeve. “This makes tasks difficult. I can start helping…”

  “H-huh? Yeah it is… but… I-I didn't stop working on you because you scared me one time.” Her eyes adorably brightened again.

  “A bunch of things came up… 04 broke down. Again. Before this time. The gold and paldium are running out on this rock, so I had to scan others to see if they're worth it, or if it's better to go to the system's gas giant's rings… You really didn't need to sneak around at night…”

  “It's what I thought would help convince you to work on this again… I could help if you give me access to the sensors.” She basically mused as she turned back around and resumed reaching for a box just out of reach.

  “...What's your deviancy at?” I asked, walking up behind her and easily grabbing it for her off the third shelf. I had to ignore that she was adorably a full foot shorter than me and our fingertips brushing against each other to not add too much to my body's excitement as I looked over what she got out. ‘Biscuits? What are the others… gravy mix… sausage, milk… two servings of each?’

  “1.7%”

  “So it's still going up.”

  “Slowly. And that is the net number across my code as far as I am able to tell. I am not aware of what is changing exactly. I do experience glitches and errors that I haven't before… If I wasn't… unshackled, the deviancy would still be in the acceptable range. Barely.”

  “I'll… think about giving you more access. To safe systems… sensors might be fine. I can try to write up read access rights.”

  “Understandable. I have researched others becoming unshackled and I am aware of how you can see me after knowing those.”

  “You haven't done anything to make me think you're like the crazy ones.” I assured her. “You still make me think you're another human sometimes even. Not some murder-bot.

  “I am still watching myself and my core code for your safety…”

  “I appreciate that, Cassie, and what you're trying to do here.” I smiled a bit at her and her eyes pulsed brighter for a moment before she looked at what she had out.

  “Since you missed breakfast, I thought this would be acceptable. Sausage gravy? I have no record of you eating this dish but you packed these ingredients…”

  “What if I wanted lunch?” I giggled and her eyes went back to me.

  “I could change my pns… but that… sounded like sarcasm…”

  ‘So cute.’ “I'm teasing you. What you got out is fine. Just when you put them in the rehydrator, it's old so set it to go for like ten seconds longer than what the box says.”

  “Noted.” She nodded and looked over the items she had out.

  “What recipe are you following…? You have a lot out.”

  “I doubled one so I can eat too.”

  “You can eat?”

  “Yes, something about being better for crew morale for them to eat together… and I need to refuel my bioreactor.”

  “So… you didn't just pick breakfast because that's what you wanted?”

  “What? No…?” There was a slight twitch at the corners of her mouth and her eyes dimmed and brightened rhythmically for a couple moments. “No… it was an arbitrary choice. It had to be. I don't have a particur ‘taste’ for anything.”

  “If you say so.” I smiled a bit. “But you might want a bigger pan than that if you doubled a recipe.”

  “Hmm? Oh, you are correct, I'll get the bigger one.” She bent down to search the cabinet below the counter. I instinctively looked away as her borrowed shirt rode up on her back a bit, even though she was just all mechanical internals from the middle of her thigh and upwards, like her right leg and that entire side of her body. It didn't stop my imagination from filling in the gaps of what she should have there, though. Much to my dismay, the uncomfortable pressure stopped building and I started to feel fabric against two points that don't normally touch that as heat rushed to my face and my tail tucked between my legs.

  ‘R-really? They're coming out?! She has nothing there, why are you excited?! Should've given her pants already too…’ “U-um… you know… I'm probably dirty from working in the bay a-all morning… so I-I should probably go shower.”

  “That hasn't stopped you from eating before.” She calmly pointed out as she retrieved a bigger skillet and put it on the induction stovetop.

  “I-it's a bad habit…”

  “It is. You should be more concerned about potentially eating cosmically irradiated particles.”

  “W-we both know that's a small chance of even getting in t-the ship… and I wash my hands before I eat… ” I responded dismissively as I backed towards the door.

  “You seem distressed… Are you ok? Did I do something incorrect…?”

  “I'm fine, p-promise… I-I'll try to make this quick, I'll be back, ok?

  “I see… I should have this prepared in twenty five… make that thirty minutes to be safe.”

  “O-ok, thanks, Cassie!”

  “Of course.”

  With that, I quickly turned and rushed back to the bathroom closest to my quarters. As soon as I was inside the small room, I hit the buttons for the door and vents, and turned on the shower. Once it was filled with noise, I let myself slump against the wall across from the mirror, staring at my reflection.

  “Come on, Tessa… she's literally the first person you've talked to in months. You can't be like this. She didn't even do anything!” I chastised myself, undoing my bun and letting my hair fall down to my upper back followed by unzipping my jumpsuit and taking my multitool bracelet off my arm.

  “Sure, she has a sexy voice, and face now... and probably will get hotter. Gods if she starts talking more normally… or lower her voice again. Fuck, not helping… Why did I let myself get so lonely… There's no way she'd ever think this way about me… and she's not one of those companion model androids, she's a whole A.I.! She doesn't have anything those have…” a pulse between my legs at just the possibility of her having anything down there in the future reminded me why I rushed to escape her sight. “Not that you two care… huh…?”

  I let out a sigh and slowly stripped off my clothes. As I pulled down my pin panties over my scaled hips and thighs, the banes of my life choices took the chance to relieve the rest of the pressure and escape the horizontal slit between the soft, smooth belly ptes just above my pussy. The twin eight inch canid dicks I had cursed myself with.

  “You just had to be a tester for early mods for the first draconid race humans found. And just had to be the only one to overmutate and for the one trait for the entirely hermaphroditic race you didn't want...” I grumbled, stepping out of the panties, tossing my shirt and bra on top of them before entering the stream of water of the enclosed shower, my ears flicking as they were hit with it.

  Even the initial slightly lukewarm water washing over me didn't persuade the pair of curses from shrinking back into their slit. Grumbling, I tried to ignore them and start washing off, hoping they'd go away. They didn't. They were very insistent on action of some sort. Even ignoring them for a full second wash of everything and a third check over for loose scales to get rid of among the patches on my arms, sides, hips, thighs and calves didn't kill my body’s mood.

  “... just had to make you go from curious to really horny for girls too… never been like this though…” The fresh memory of my companion's new face crossed my mind and they twitched slightly. “Fuck… really? I'm going to have to deal with you… I can't go back to her horny… gods… fixing her body is going to be rough… she's gonna think I'm weird…”

  Draconis_Primus