Sweet Android

A note to the reader:

Please be aware this chapter could easily be filed under Nonconsent/Reluctance. Though I believe my use of themes serves the story well and isn't distasteful, it remains gratuitous. If that's not to your genre taste, I understand!

Love,

-Alizzia

*****

Soon enough, Sam and Jack were back at work.

With the detour notice rescinded, the lighthouse resumed its function: acting as a traffic controller to guide spacecraft of all types through the narrow safe corridor in the neighboring nebula. As usual, the job was a constant, ordered chaos of calls and responses to dozens of ships' radios.

In the communications room, ringed floor to ceiling in glowing consoles, Sam stood solidly mag-booted at his terminal, sleeves rolled to elbows, fingers skimming over radio switches and notification lights. Jack floated about him, flitting like a bee from one glowing console to another, monitoring not just radio antennas, but sensors measuring ship sizes, inventories, and energetic readings from the temperamental and unpredictable nebula. She was a lighthouse-keeper, a comms-engineer, and this was her task.

"I've given note to that Navy convoy to follow the greens," said Jack, kicking off to another console. She held a headset to one ear, typed at a touch panel with the other. "She needs maximum berth. Send a public notice."

"Yes, Specialist," replied Sam. He transmitted a notice.

"Congestion in queue-isle nineteen. Tell those vacationers to follow protocol and stop sightseeing the nebula."

"Done. Politely, of course."

"Someone's gone and creamed a buoy. Mark it for replacement when we have a lull."

Jack spiraled to another console, wincing as she kicked with her wounded leg. She looked at a screen, snarled. "Sam, tell that freight hauler to take its queue spot immediately or get tug-droned. It's about to get blasted by a gamma flare from the nebula."

"But Jack," said Sam, looking innocent. "There's no flare warning, so far as my readings show."

"I know," Jack snipped. "It's just he's been dawdling too long and needs an incentive."

"Done."

"Thanks, Sam," she listened for a moment at another headset, spoke. "Yes, you're green. Adjust your Y point one-one degrees." She poked a red button, switched channels. "Please hold, Liner 404. There's a Navy delay in an adjacent lane." She took the headset off, covered a nearby microphone, turned to Sam.

"Sam? Can you do something for me?"

"Yes Jack."

"Eat my pussy after this?"

Sam smiled. He stretched, lifted one arm overhead. His lats stretched appreciably. "With pleasure, Jack. I am glad to perform maintenance on my lighthouse keeper."

Jack looked smug, picked up her mic. She maintained eye contact with Sam as she flipped to a radio channel, announced. "Thank you. You are green for entry any time."

At that, Sam glowed.

They returned to work.

-

Two hours of work later, traffic had slowed. Only a few craft lined up for departure in the many-laned, three-dimensional queue projected on holographic glass above Jack's main lighthouse panel. They proceeded according to automated cues, orderly.

Jack, floating nearby Sam's station, stretched, arched her back in the micrograv. She hung upside down, smiled at the robot as she did so. Her jumpsuit, partially unzipped, allowed more than a little of one pink nipple, quite hard, to point through. "Believe it or not, Sam," she said, eyes locked on the android. "I'm actually pretty pleased to have company, now."

"I'm glad, Jack."

"I should teach you to play cards," she mused, cupping one breast idly. "Blackjack. When we're not too busy fucking, of course."

"I'm sure I would like that."

Jack grinned, drifted closer. "Want to— "

Suddenly, there was an urgent ringing, a flashing from a panel nearby Jack. Startled, she quit her musing, rushed to the screen.

Distress signal received,

it read, showed the details of the craft involved.

"Fuck,"

said Jack, keying in a query message. A response flashed back immediately, posted by the distressed craft's computer:

SOS

.

This is an automated message from the unmanned ship

Organic Carrier Bathsheba.

Request urgent assistance. Subthruster failure has caused uncontrolled drift on the following unsafe heading:

What followed was a line of vectors and impulse measures.

SOS

.

This is an automated message from the unmanned ship

Organic Carrier Bathsheba...

"It continues like that," said Sam, shutting it off.

Jack looked at him, stone-faced. "By that vector, at that speed, that ship'll be in the corona in two hours. Irretrievable." She moved fast for the airlock. "I need to take a tug out and fix what I can, or she's lost."

"You're still hurt," stated Sam, frowning slightly. He stepped closer, touched her shoulder.

"I can do it. It's not bad." She moved on.

"Jack." He stepped round her, blocked the hatch to the EVA room. "In this state, you cannot safely take the requisite G-drugs required to sublight traverse to the

Bathsheba,

and we cannot take the time to travel there at a slower speed. As a synthetic, my body can endure the Gs produced by the traverse without adverse effect." He raised his blond eyebrows. "In any case, sending you would be against regulation. A wounded Specialist is a liability to the Company."

Jack rolled her eyes.

"Fine,

but you have to let me guide you."

"Of course, Jack. Your skill is greater than my own."

"Damn right." Jack shoved him towards the EVA hatch. "Go save that ship, pretty robot. I'll be on comms."

-

Minutes later, Sam had shrugged off his red uniform, replaced it with the skintight segments of a void suit. He twisted the bubble-helmet into place, heard the slightly peppermint-scented hiss of a personalized atmosphere equalize within.

Through the transparent, circular hatch of the EVA room, Jack watched him from behind. "You look pretty good in that," she said, eyeing the android's muscled thighs and tight ass, both quite well-defined in their second skin of spacesuit material. Sam acquired, from nearby lockers, a thruster pack, a belt of tools, and a regulation subcompact sidearm. He strapped each, respectively, to his shoulders, thigh, and front, respectively.

"Thank you, Jack," he said, quite serious. He turned. Jack giggled, raised an eyebrow at the bulge evident in the over-tight front of his suit trousers. Sam smiled. "I find I now enjoy looking at your behind as well."

"Get out there and fix that ship, Robot," said Jack. She kissed the glass separating them, exhaled. When she pulled back, a steamy mark remained. "You can play with my ass when you get back."

Sam saluted, blew a kiss, touched the airlock

Cycle

panel. Soon enough, he was floating free from the station. The endless horizon of space was dominated, lit red purple by the nebula. Outstretched before him, Sam's gloved hands shifted in hue as the great stellar obstacle shimmered and swirled. The android triggered his thruster pack, climbed towards the wide portion of the white, Olympic-torch shaped station, where a mess of antennas and drone crannies clustered, contrastingly steel grey. Sam neared the cradle of one or the larger drones, a tug model with a wide molecular clamp arm, and nestle himself in its cockpit. His suit helmet yielded no sound of the outside, save vibrations as his head bumped against the seat back.

The cockpit was small and barebones. Merely a seat, protective roll-cage, and pilot's controls stuck atop the usually unmanned ion drone. Sam, at six feet in height, was cramped within. His knees nearly blocked the travel of the pilot's stick.

"Your poor knees," piped Jack, tinny in his ear. She watched his helmet camera feed, presumably in the communications room.

"Don't worry, Specialist." Sam fired the engines, squinted as a piercing ionic glow radiated behind him, reflected throughout the bell of his visor. "When I get back, you can help me stretch."

"Hmm," said hummed, a hint of lust husky over the intercom. "Think I'd enjoy that."

Sam's tug jetted several dozen meters from the station, stopped with a pressurized hiss that vibrated through his helmet. Around and to his left hung, a thousand kilometers wide, the great grid of spaceships queueing for passage through the nebula's narrow, dark pass. Some were small as Sam's own. They flitted, like shiny bees, between craft large as curvaceous, silver skyscrapers. Amidst even these floated behemoths: Navy and Corporation carriers and habitat ships larger than Sam and Jack's humble lighthouse-station by a factor of a hundred. They sat in space, large enough to form whole chunks of Sam's field of view, all huge windows, stacks of shipping containers, and shrouded engines boiling with the power of suns. Down and below all these ships, growing nearer the nebula's coronal fringe by the second, floated a silver cylinder: the wayward biological carrier Sam was bound to rescue

.

"

Orienting for primary burn," said Sam. He twisted the pilot's stick in precise accordance with a heading displayed on the green holoscreen of his visor. In a flash of ionic light, the little tug drone rotated in space, pointed towards the Bathsheba.

"Initiating burn." Sam shut his eyes, flipped a red cover with his thumb, depressed the red button below. There was a blinding flash, and the tiny tug drone tore a white streak through the void. It shot like a little silver comet towards the floating Bathsheba. Its superstructure screamed with vibrational forces as the powerful main thruster ripped a line of fire through black space.

In his helmet, Sam's face rippled, melted against G-forces enough to kill a human instantly. His hands flew from the pilot's stick, crossed, compacted against his front by inertia. His lips peeled in a grimace. White, sugary tears ran in forking streams from his bulging eyes.

Then, he came to a halt. The little tug coasted for a few hundred meters, burning its front thrusters hard, came to a hard stop. Sam's flesh sprang back into place, only mildly sweated and sugar-sticky from the experience. He worked his jaw, cracked his knuckles.

"Sam!" said Jack, panicked in the intercom. "Sam, are you okay? My instruments say you hit a hundred fucking Gs!"

"I am quite safe, Jack. Thank you."

"Shit, Robot. Did you override the burn safeties?"

"Yes. The faster I board

Bathsheba,

the better. We don't yet know the source of her failure, and maximum available worktime may be required."

"Shit, Sam," said Jack, dismay evident in her tone. "Warn me before that sort of thing, okay? I like ur ass too much to see that."

"Apologies, Dear Specialist. I will."

"Good. Thank you." Jack paused a moment. "Also, I'm radioing

Bathsheba

to let her know you need to come aboard, but she's not responding. You try? It is an unmanned transport, and two AIs might communicate better."

"I shall."

Sam turned to view

Bathsheba;

naught more than a segmented, spinning cylinder with engines and access points. The trademark plain appearance of a utilitarian AI ship. "Carrier

Bathsheba,

" said Sam, broadcasting on the same near frequency the carrier had SOS'ed on:

"Calling

Organic Carrier Bathsheba

operational intelligence: This is Service Android 7771, system-named 'Sam,' dispatched from Seer-nebula Lighthouse, submitting a request to come aboard and address the failure described in your distress call."

Static returned. Sam frowned. He switched channels, repeated his call. "Calling

Organic Carrier Bathsheba

operational intelligence: This is... "

After two more repetitions, two more channels, there came a response. A flat, cool and feminine voice on the other side of the intercom:

"This is the OAI of Carrier

Bathsheba,

sysnamed 'Lai'. Thank you for responding to my distress call. Do you require EVA entry?"

"Yes, OAI."

Lai replied. "Please approach access gate C and prepare for entry."

"Acknowledged."

Sam switched channels. "Jack, I am in contact with

Bathsheba's

AI and have arranged boarding

."

"Gotcha. Be careful, Sweet Robot."

"Of course, Jack."

Sam maneuvered his tug towards the prow of the drifting carrier. A small hatch, suitable for human access, showed in the hull there. He corrected the tug's course to match

Bathsheba

's heading and gravity-spin, extended its tug-arm, and connected to the nearest bulkhead. A subtle

thump

reverberated in his ears as the molecular clamp engaged, bonded to the carrier's hull. Sam extracted himself from the pilot's cage, thrusted over to the gate, which was already open, cycled, in expectation of his arrival. Against the centripetal gravity of the station, he pulled himself down a steel ladder built into the gate for that purpose, flipped, set down on plain, steel-grid decking within, locked his mag boots on the deck, level with the gate he'd just came through.

"I am prepared for entry, OAI."

"Confirmed. Initiating cycle."

The airlock sealed, silent. Air flushed, hissed dustily about Sam, gradually grew in volume. As soon as the wall panel read

Equalized,

the interior door flushed open. A yellow-lit room, small, circular, similarly decked in steel gridding, showed beyond. It had only one, shut pneumatic door. No one was there.

Unperturbed, Sam advanced from the airlock into the room. In his ear, Jack crackled, unclear.

"S-

am

." Her transmission broke up.

"Jack?" Sam frowned. "Jack, it seems there is interference produced within

Bathsheba.

Your connection is not stable."

In response, there was only a hiss from the lighthouse.

"OAI?" queried Sam, returning to the Bathsheba channel. "Why is this the only frequency without interference? Are you experiencing harmonic issues with your engine cores?"

The OAI's tone was calm. "It appears so, Crewman. It took me several attempts to find a stable channel with which to communicate with you. I regret you may be unable to contact your lighthouse."

Sam cocked his head. "No matter. I will likely be able to perform required repairs without lighthouse oversight. Do direct me to the malfunctioning systems."

Across the room, the door hissed open. "Please proceed, Crewman," said the OAI. "Though, I must notify you of several details before you get to work..."

As she spoke, Sam passed through the door, fund himself in a broad, low, steamy room. It was lit from bellow, through a low-entry pool of steaming water built into a window-floor floor like that on the lighthouse station. The chamber extended some five meters back, where its pool reached a depth of five feet. There was a walkable lip along either side and another pneumatic door at the far end. Three meters above the water, their fiddleheads hung through steel grating, hung hydroponics ferns, grown for air purification. The chamber was, in all, very much like a swimming pool.

Sam frowned about at the room. "What details should I be aware of, OAI?" he said, examining a fern.

Amidst the plants glittered a hint of movement. Sam's gaze shot to it, made eye contact with the black lens of a ball-camera. It glimmered like onyx, turning and focusing its internal apertures as the ship's AI scrutinized him.

The OAI spoke, serious. "This is, as you are aware, a carrier ship laden with biological material. Specifically: Empty android bodies."

Sam nodded, looked away from the camera-eye, turned a fiddlehead in his fingers. "I see. Bodies ready for an operating system like myself to be installed."

"Exactly," said the OAI. "In addition to software, the bodies lack immunity. They are highly vulnerable to infection. In order to reduce risk of pathogenic contamination, it is required that you disinfect before entering further into my interior." The OAI paused. "Before you is a nanobath that will strip you of all dangerous microlife. Please bathe quickly before beginning work." An amused tone entered the OAI's voice for just a moment. "I will provide towels and replacement clothes. You may collect your voidsuit when you leave."

Sam beheld the bath, noticed it was ever-so-slightly bluer than usual water, glittered just below the surface. He paused, nodded. "Affirmative."

He began to strip. Without modesty, he peeled off the skintight sections of his EVA suit, bared his clear and supple skin, already glistening with condensed stream. He piled them on the window-floor, neatly. By the time he stepped a toe into the heated pool, he was beading with dew. Droplets clung, combined, and rolled from his nose, chest, and long fingertips.

A subtle phosphorescence bloomed about Sam's feet as he stepped further into the pool. A clean scent, like the petrichor-musk of plant oils after rain, rose on curling steam. The android's face and chest flushed with heat. The pool was considerably warm. He began to wash, dipping his head beneath the surface and rubbing water into his cropped, blond hair. He reemerged. Liquid sparkled on his cheekbones.

As he washed, the OAI spoke. "You are certainly a unit in need of cleaning," she said, voice echoing slightly in the poolroom. "Soon, you'll be as fresh as my cargo. No more fungi, viruses, or bacteria. I see them all, there, on your skin. No more spores, bacteriophages, or... Oh." The voice stopped. "What's this?" It said.

Sam cocked an eyebrow.

"My, my," said the disembodied voice, its neutral tone abruptly fascinated, quiet. "You are a dirty unit. What

is

this? Curious little proteins, salt, and..." it paused. "Human DNA. Two X-chromosomes." A sort of huskiness entered the AI's voice. "You've had sexual contact with a female. A human. She's all over you."

"OAI," said Sam, reserved. "I fail to see the relevance of your discovery. If any biological material offends your systems, have your nanoswarm clean it as you require. It is urgent we repair your subthrusters in due haste."

"Of course, Sam," said the OAI. "And do please call me Lai."

"If you wish, Lai."

"Hmm," echoed Lai, thoughtful. From the pool, more steam began to rise. Water dropped from the farms above. The pool room rustled with the hiss of steam and gentle

plop

of droplets. "You are a very aesthetic model, Sam," said Lai. "Whoever designed you surely had a gourmand's taste in masculinity. What model are you?"

Sam stood thigh-deep in the water. The little hairs of his body lay flat against his skin. He squinted through the growing steam, frowned as a shadow passed through the vapor near the edge of the pool; flitted with light, silent footsteps. "Ceres-6, Lai. I'm sure your sensor analyses can discern that." He frowned. "Where might the linens you mentioned be?"

"We don't need those, Sam," said Lai, playful. In the ferns, the camera-eye winked out. The steam thickened. "You're not sufficiently clean, yet."

"Lai," said Sam, voice thick in the heavy atmosphere. "From what my encyclopedia catalogue knows of nanobaths, I am very well clean, by now. What else must I do to disinfect?"

"Don't worry, Sam," said Lai. Throaty, chipper. "I'll help you."

At the far end of the pool, from where Sam had come, there was a gentle splash of water. Another, and another. The splashes deepened, drew into long, flowing draws of liquid: sound of someone else entering the pool.

Sam frowned, looked about, saw nothing in the steam, save the green ferns and sparking blue water just above his head and below his hips. Then, his eyes fixed on it: A feminine shape from the mist close at hand. She walked, slow and relaxed, towards Sam.

She was pale, like he, and entirely naked. Thin, shorter than Sam, but possessed of long, shapely limbs and spindly fingers. In the steam, water beaded on every inch of her body, held there unbroken as she glided through the water. Droplets hung, wobbling, on the large, pointed pink nipples of small breasts perked atop defined ribs. She was typically human, if thin, save for one mechanical trait: A black camera orb, larger than that in the ceiling, which sat in place above her nose, replacing her forehead and both eyes. It fused into her cheekbones and hairless scalp, fit neatly above her pug nose and into the curve of her small, rounded skull. Apertures and lenses twitched within, reflected Sam's own image.