Postillion Tales (text version) Chapters 1-

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POSTILLION TALES

A tale of a weird postal delivery polycule. One's a military veteran and a demigod with a desire for a quiet life, another is the AI on one of the galaxy's most feared warships of old, and the other is ... well, it's hard to tell in a short blurb like this.

Originally planned as a comic, I realised I could do better if I visualised the story as a prose tale... but it's written from multple angles so expect some weird shifts... back and forth in tone... especially since the three main characters are as different as chalk and cheese.

Chapter 1 - Worst Start To A Week At Work
Woozy:

I wake up in dim amber light. I always wake up in dim amber light, at least when I go to sleep in my bunker. I squeak a little, and look out the window, my paws clutching the straw walls of my tiny pet basket. The dim amber partially reflects my face in the darkness of the wee morning hours - New Moscow may be a capital city and the home of the Tsarina, but it certainly has a dramatic lack of lighting outdoors at night. That lets you see the stars in the sky without light pollution however... one of the few capital cities that can proudly brag of this as a quality of life plus that it offers.

... I should let Liliana see this, I think. I quickly scuttle over the empty table and drop down to the floor of the bunk, letting out a shrill squeak as I do so. The amber light turns to a brighter pale greenish-blue, allowing me to see myself properly in the full-body mirror as I ascend a small stepstool. I admire the bristly fur, the short whiskers, the pale blue eyes... the light tints everything slightly green, but the rich green of my fur is still very much obvious. I get a little twitchy in my face and will myself back into the proper look that a Godon demigod should assume, shifting size and species until I look like a young, toned 20-ish human male, not the most handsome in the block, but certainly a looker.

Those same pale blue eyes blink as I don my prince-nez glasses, perching them onto my nose carefully. They can stay on surprisingly well when things get hectic, but you first have to wear them properly.

I stare at my naked self in the mirror, lacking in embarassment. There's nothing for which embarassment can be the proper response in this room, I think to myself. Then I look over to the other end of the married-couple bunk, and blush. Maybe there is... I quickly slap my face with both my paws - hands, I mean, and walk over to the cause of my momentary ill-ease, grabbing the step stool as I go along.

A Godon person-sized mecha is docked in her cradle at the other end of the bunk room. When I turned fifty, a friend gifted me this machine. He was always the weird one amongst his kind - empathy, shortened lifespans, usually person-sized rather than some giant monstrosity like most of the Godon were. These mechas were piloted by their essences and used as puppets, usually denied autonomy.

She told me that she couldn't take care of me any further, saying that this was a gift long overdue - others usually got theirs just a few years after ascension. But my ascension had been really chaotic and a matter of saving a life rather than gifting a worthy individual great power, so things had gotten muddled up. She'd fixed the problem partly as a final gift, and partly because she really didn't want to do what she was about to do if not for circumstances.

And then she finalized our divorce and left our love nest. I sighed briefly at the thought and wondered what she was doing out there, out amongst the Rundel galaxy's stars. Not much time to feel sorry for myself, time's a ticking... I quickly picked up my Fixit box and fished in it for a multitool, before placing the stool almost up against the mecha and standing on it.

The average Godon demigod often used these types of mechas as puppets, parading their beautiful forms and revelling in the power they carried, turning them even more inhuman with every alteration they made. They took great pride in building them into these unattainable people who looked down upon everything around them, in making people feel small.

I was always an odd one in the group. I think the way I ascended might have something to do with it.

I left her the same height as I did when I first got her, about 1.7metres in human height... then I altered her face... A stubby nose rather than the finely chiseled nose most mecha females had. slightly bigger eyes and a smaller mouth that didn't look like it could devour you if you displeased it, cheeks puffed out a little... a more homely look rather than one of a goddess. I did keep everything beneath the neck though, maybe added a little curviness... the body of a healthy girl rather than one who pulled weights hard.

This made me the butt of jokes whenever we met up in our mechas... at least initially. They learned fast. they always did.

I carefully run my hands along her form, admiring the way she was beautiful to me for a little. I carefully depress my fingers along two moles just beneath her pendulous breasts, causing a small section of flesh to slide up into her ribcage, exposing her control panels and her cockpit. I briefly open it up to check that the controls are still working, even though I do more controlling with my unique gift rather than my paws, smiling faintly as I note the slight embroidered note on one armrest's leather:

"From Princessa: May she love you the way I still love you."

Everything reminds me of her... I shake my head out of nostalgia quickly and use the multitool to tap the controls, watching her head slowly jerk around in a few angles before aiming straight ahead again, followed by her arms moving with a grace I had never ever had even after all these years... "Kinetics are good... sensors are good... cockpit works..."

I smile as I close her up, rubbing her slightly plump belly as if for good fortune for the day ahead. The Chinese had buddhas with plump bellies for that sort of thing. This girl was my lucky charm. I stood on tiptoe and gave her lips a small kiss, before hugging her.

I did mention most of my ilk operated them merely as puppets. Again, I was the weird one. I almost never sat in the cockpit, preferring instead to give her free will. Or as much of it as I could give her, there were always limits built into the system. Giving her as much autonomy as I did also exposed quirks that the Godon had never bothered to fix. I didn't care, I found them charming mostly.

I close my eyes and took a deep breath of her synthetic flesh and the faint scent of lube that had wafted out of her during my brief check... I'd even given her a name back when I first got her. It is the last thing I say before I quickly shift back to my usual workday form and pounce back into my basket to pretend I was still asleep. It wasn't a mecha puppeted by a Godon controller. It was a girl and her pet out there in the streets...

"Liliana Skygazer, wake up."

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Liiana Skygazer:

It always begins in the morning with the same warmth wrapped around me... a gentle man's voice greets me. "Liliana Skygazer, wake up." And then the voice is gone, and so is the warmth.

I wake up and slowly get off my sleep rack, clicking faintly, listening to the faint whirring of my body coming to life replaced with something that sounded like the cacophony of a living thing - the faint thump of pumps pushing power into my limbs, the faint beep and whirr of my internals processing the day's planned deeds and checking that the bunk was as it should be...

I find Woozy still sleeping in his basket, stretched out and making that odd snore of his that he always does when he's peacefully asleep... Then I look up at the window and smile... all those stars...

My name is Skygazer. I guess I know why I got that name.
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I don't spend too much time gazing. it's a workday for me and even at this hour in the guilds quarter, people begin to wake up to use the shared bathrooms. I barely manage to book into one with Woozy tucked in my arms, eyes half lidded - he hates waking up this early, but I know what will fix him after the shower.

The booth beeps and clicks, signalling the start of the ten minutes of running water and cleanser. I have a lot of bits to clean, and I get to work quickly, lathering the cleanser into foam before scrubbing my body and hair all over with it, before doing the same to Woozy. (it's safe for him, okay?) I quickly rinse it off and towel ourselves dry, before I get semi-decent with just a minute or two left before the door forcibly opens out and in full view of the queueing crowd - not the kind of thing I want to face naked.

I quickly redeploy to my bunk room and start dressing up for work, opening up my dress cabinet. Sensible bra and panties, a minidress in dark postal blue, a mini-jacket in brown leather that goes around my back and the sides of my chest. Dainty but big leather shoes go on my legs after I don a pair of white thigh high stockings, and my hat goes in hand, the Postal Service Clarihorn badge shining faintly on it from careful polishing. There are several civilian-day outfits, but half my closet is full of the exact same outfit.

I reach for my postal insiginas - one to denote that I can go anywhere to deliver anything, even into the enemy territories of the the North (though the thaw has turned that emnity mostly into a friendly rivalry and occasional gazes at each other that say they're still watching each other slip up), one that denotes two decades of service, one that denotes I'm a Class D in a postal couple with a Class S+ Postman (about the only way I can actually work in this job - Class Ds are supposed to still be in the Postal Academy trying to boost their grades to at least Class C before they even try to work)

I quietly button the insignias to my jacket, deciding to leave out the few awards I've gotten here and there. This is a workday, not a day for a show of hands and prestige. I pause, then reach in for a small packet of carefully rationed coffee beans and a portable espresso maker, plus a small bottle of carefully boiled and clarified water.

It takes several minutes of careful grinding, but I eventually pour out two tiny cups of espresso. Well, one of the cups is dainty in my big fingers, but for Woozy, the cup is big enough to fit his entire head into... He stirs, then notices the cup of espesso... in a few moments his head is buried deep into the cup, making me laugh a little. "Don't forget your breakfast, I tease, as I pop a jam tart next to Woozy, which he devours with glee, even as I fish in my work bag and pop out a big red "Safe Nuke" fuel pill for the power I need to get through the day. I wince and cough a little as the pill goes down my throat into my digester, feeling the warmth of it beginning to slowly dissolve and juice me up. The cheap stuff is good enough as fuel, but the flavor of it is like the worst thing ever. Hopefully today's going is good and I can actually follow it with actual human food - the calories in it couldn't keep me running for more than a few minutes, but the flavor... I love the flavor.

I lift my work bag and let it rest against my hip, strap on shoulder, before I turn around to see Woozy carefully washing the espresso cups in the small sink we have in one corner of the bunk room. He has already donned his tiny Postal Service Hat and prince-nez glasses. These are not cute pet items I purchased on a whim from some pet store - he has always had those things hidden somewhere, but I've never seen exactly where. Perhaps one day I will.

I look in the mirror to check one last time that I am professionally presentable, brushing my azure blue hair as I do so. There is a standard dress code that most postmen strictly adhere to, but I am granted a waiver on most of it as the stores don't stock the uniform in my size. I'm a little pudgy around the middle and from some angles I look a bit more like a dump truck and less like a woman. I look at myself from the side and smile. These are the hips that can hold an entire postal sack without using an assist lift or getting a strained back - who cares if I look a little plump?

I grab Woozy out of his basket, now wide eyed and ready to face the sunrise. It is 7am New Moscow Time. Work starts at 8am. There is time to walk over and get into my assigned booth at PostalSentral. I check one last time that the bunk is locked up properly, before pacing down and out into the square, the tower parked just a short walk from our quarters.

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Woozy:

Even after years of working the postal in New Moscow, the view never stops being amazing. PostalSentral is about 90 floors tall, with about 30 floors set aside for customers, another 30 for the work of sorting, collating, and sending out mail, and another 30 for overseeing all postal operations within the Southern side of the Rundal galaxy. The tower is a gleaming edificeclad in some sort of golden material that is presumably cheaper and more harder-wearing than actual gold, seeing as I've only seen it being replated twice onto the tower. Both times, it was just after a terrorist attack.

I didn't know it back then, but after today they would be doing a third replate - for exactly the same reason.

I remain disciplined as I perch on Liliana's shoulder, quietly surveying the area as she flashes her identity pass and walks through the barrier into the staff-only section, into the back office. The corridors were busy as usual, KatOperatives were pushing loads of mail to and from the sorting floors, newly arrived colleagues were talking over instant office caf (none of that classy homemade espresso here), and I looked over Liliana's shoulder as she fished out a paper containing the day's schedule. "Lessee," she said, "I'm supposed to be manning booth 3 until 12 noon today. Terrific. I'm the Goddess in Booth 3 again today."

I squeak in commiseration. Between her heft and her efficiency at this part of the job, adding her unconventional good looks to the mix had only served to cement that reputation with folks in New Moscow... Better her than me, I suppose. I hopped off her shoulder onto the table as she settled in, checking that everything needed to do the work was in place, before she tapped the requisite button and opened the shutter to signal that she was ready to help customers out at Booth 3.

My role on booth duties is mostly advisory. While Liliana is only certified as a D+ grade postman and should not even be out of Postal Academy, she knows the Postal Code by heart and the procedures well. The only problem is what happens when life throws her a curveball. That's why I have to be by her side - she can thrive on monotony, but perish the thought of trying to adapt a 400-page book of rules to a sudden unusual requirement from a customer.

It is also why I am a little leery when just two hours in, the terminal by her side flashes. The Postmaster has summoned me for a discussion. I squeak in misery. There is so much that could happen while Liliana is left unsupervised... But there is nothing to be done... I hop over to Liliana's side and pat her wrist - the signal that I need to see to something else at work. She pauses, then gives me a slight finger boop on my nose and nods. "I understand, Woozy. Go on, I'll try to hang on here."

I quickly leave the booth, walking over to the lifts that will take me to the 88th floor. As I do, I slowly shift back into my 'grown human male' look, then quickly shift on a proper standard postman's outfit complete with the insignias I'm qualified to wear on my left shirt pocket. The sudden morph gets me a wide berth from other staffers as I make my way into the lift and flash my anchor device, now worn as a bracelet on my right side complete with a small ball trinklet with the Chinese word for "Five" inscribed on it. The lift recognises this signal and orders everybody else out. There is a lot of dismay and muttering as the staff file out. I really didn't want to get this much attention on me, but the rules clearly state that the lift must be emptied out of everyone not headed to the 88th floor it goes to the 88th floor. As the lift quickly ascends, I briefly wonder what the Postmaster is summoning me up for.

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Liliana Skygazer:

With Woozy heading off to god knows where in the tower, I crack my knuckles briefly and sigh. I did promise I could hold out, but looking out of the booth at the sea of customers coming in, I'm not exactly confident.

It turns out that actually, I can. The work goes swimmingly. Greet customer, enquire as to what they need, offer directions elsewhere in the tower if I can't help them at the booth, take in parcels and letters and check that they're properly filled with postage and addressed before dropping them into a secure box for a KatOperative to collect, their tiny feline bodies scrabbling around with the postal carts in the corridor to unlock the boxes and shift their contents into the sorting floors.

An hour or so later though, an old man hobbles in, looking very tired and anxious, a parcel clutched in his left arm as he stumbles with a cane in his right arm. The rules are clear though: first come, first served. He will have to wait half an hour, based on his queue number "04833".

I look down at my paperwork, pretending to get some admin done before calling in the next customer. But something sticks in my craw. it feels wrong making a unfit old man like that stand for so long. I look at my terminal and decide to do something that according to the rules should not be done.

I tap out the queue number I am about to serve next as 04833.

I will have plenty of time later to regret doing so. Funny thing though, I wind up using most of that time getting other things done. No time for regrets, right?

The old man smiles delightedly, but is still anxious as he hobbles as fast as he can up to my booth. "Nature of business?" I ask calmly, not caring one whit about the amount of protest behind him about how he's queue jumping. I am, in the end, the final arbiter of whom I choose to serve, and whom I choose to serve first, and if they wish to bear a complaint about it, I will deal with the consequences later. Someone once told me that one should be able to make a decision and bear its consequences, as a form of bravery.

The old man shakily pushes the box he is carrying into the slot for parcels. The scanner acts up a little, but eventually, the delivery address and the person it is to be delivered to is flashed on the screen, then fill in the form for it, flashing a copy... Then I blink quizzically as the terminal flashes a peculiar message underneath "Postage Class:"

Class 0 - Absolute Delivery - Collect Without Further Question

I stamp and sign the form, before flashing a copy and handing it to the old man. He bows quickly. "Thank you... and I'm sorry." He says, as he hobbles out of the lobby.

I blink even more quizzically. Usually people just thank me, I muse, as I reach for the parcel in the slot to stick it in the secure box for-

The bottom falls out of the hole - quite literally. The panel the parcel was placed on suddenly clicks and drops the parcel somewhere beneath the counter just as I reach my hand out for it, the sounds of something falling down a chute and ancient machinery whirring to life somewhere in our basement... hang on, since when did we have a basement? And since when was I not allowed to push mail into the secure box myself for later delivery?

As if to answer my puzzlement, something explodes against the postal tower barely a few minutes later. Did I just a war against the Postal Service?

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Captain Harold 'Woozy' Wu:

We are in the midst of me explaining to the idiotic purple lobster man alien that we have as a Postmaster for New Moscow exactly why I refuse to take a promotion to head the post office at New Orion if it does not include Liliana as my wingwoman, when the tower shakes hard. Then again. The shutters come down over the windows of the Postmaster's office, as the Postmaster sits back down at his desk.

"We'll have to table this discussion for another time, but I guess my current answer is no," I idly observe, trying to maintain a semblance of not panicking. But I would be lying if I said the weasel within me was shrieking and running uselessly in circles.

The postmaster frowns, his mandibles knitting together in what I recognise as calm panic in his species. He reads something on his terminal, then frantically types something out. I hear the tell-tale buzz of an urgent message on my Post-pad, and quickly fish through Hammerspace in my Anchor for the fussy little device. It's not a very long message. Two messages actually.

PostalSentral New Moscow Under Attack - divert all mail to adjacent facilities till resolved
Call to all S+ postmen in PostalSentral New Moscow: Require volunteer for Class 0 Delivery to Coriolis-3513
- small parcel
- must leave immediately
- ship compatible with difficulty of mission, provisions, 24/7 overtime pay, extra pay into retirement fund

I blink and look up. "Those are some pretty decent terms really. Let's see who responds. In the meantime..."

The postmaster literally hops right over his desk and runs past me. "With me, Harry. We have a visit to make to the basement. Get your girl to meet us. " he yelps as he runs past a horde of postal workers running past in all directions, securing or burning documents as per Postal Code requirements.

I follow him since I'm not sure what to do anyway. And Woozy is just a nickname and a callsign, albeit one I prefer to use. Harry Wu IS the name on my Postal ID for formal purposes. Look, there's some sort of attack going on right now, can I just leave the detailed explanations till when we're not shaking every tweny seconds? Thanks.

I ask the obvious question as I hop into Lift 4 with the Postmaster, even as I punch out a message to Liliana to rendevous with us at Lift 4 on the third floor where I had left her to work the booths. "Since when the hell did we even have a basement, Kregg?"

"Old Postal Sentral. We used to only be three floors tall above the ground and thirty below before we expanded into this tower. The facility is still wired to push certain... secured mail down there instead of into the sorting system we now have." There is a faint ding, incongruous amongst all the chaos going wildly around the tower - the explosions, the thumping of something trying to force its way through four layers of reinforced shutters and the clang of defence turrets smashing rounds into something quite clearly designed not to give one single fuck about the caliber they use.

The lift doors open, and a blur of tan brown and non-standard New Moscow postal worker uniform practically rolls into the lift, before slamming upside down against the glass wall of the lift car - it starts cracking a little because it is not rated to have that much mass slamming into it.

Liliana Skygazer is just sitting... lying... whatever... against the cracked glass, held back by the railing. She blushes as she looks at me, and I can already tell she's struggling to keep professional even as her systems lock into the subservient and adoring mode she goes into whenever she sees me in my demigod form. "H.harry... Mr Kreggs, I'm here.... did I just a war?" She asks.

Postmaster Kregg looks at her, then at us. Our lack of professionality in some aspects on a normal day has been a source of frustration for him, but right now is not a normal day. He fishes a card out of somewhere in his craw and slides it into the card reader that normally secures access to the uppermost floors, causing the lift panel to briefly flicker before displaying a new set of floors, all basements apparently, before he punches the button for the 30th basement floor. The lift doors slam shut just as a giant metal tentacle pierces right through the shutters and starts fumbling around.

I stare blankly just before the lift goes beneath what is supposed to be the ground floor, being swallowed up by darkness. The lift could REALLY run faster, and I'm not just saying this because there's a war above us in progress. "that was not a postal bandit." I observe. "They don't usually bring the kind of hardware that can literally spike all four layers of the entrance barrier."

Postmaster Kregg grunts as he observes the Post-pad on his claw. "Yeah, no shit... I'm at a loss as to what to do, so it's the Postal Code I'm using... dammit... we have 20 S+ grade postmen in the complex roster.... 5 are out delivering, 14 are just tabbing in declines..."

Liliana Skygazer has managed to right herself. She looks extremely shaken, and she does what she would do anytime she's in this mode: she clings on to me and whimpers. "Harry, I'm scared... what are we going to do?" She asks, almost childlike in her frightened posture.

Everything has to come to a head, doesn't it? I feel like I've been railroaded someway or other. Either by being dragged along by Kregg, or by the cowardice of my supposed peers. I take a deep breath... "In the end, it falls to me to fix all your fuckups, Mr Kregg." I scowl, as I reach for my Postpad and volunteer for the deliver, the faint ping of a contract being established on our Postpads sounding unbelievably loud in the quiet of the lift.

I also turn my head to look at Liliana, and do something I know I will regret somewhere down the line. but I need that effective, intrepid her now, not this frightened simping lovedoll. I yell. "LILIANA. I need you to be on your A-game now! Code Alpha"
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Liliana Stargazer:

I hear the command, and I obey.

I let go of my Captain and stand at attention loosely. "Yes sir. Command acknowledged sir." The feeling of needing him very much and adoring him goes away suddenly, replaced by a cold respect and a need to follow orders. "Captain, what are your following orders?"

Captain Wu dusts himself off and frowns at me. He knows the needs I have just pushed into a closet and locked the door on will only come exploding out once this emergency is over. But we both know this is necessary, logically speaking.

Captain Wu doesn't answer me immediately, instead turning to Postmaster Kregg. "I trust the necessary requirements and the parcel are being delivered to the ship you promised?"

Postmaster Kregg is now the one doing the subservient thing... he knows that if Captain Wu doesn't take this order, the place is basically done for with whatever's coming in probably after the parcel, given the timing between its delivery and the attack starting. "It was already being prepared the moment I issued that request for a volunteer. I'm bringing you down to the hangar it's parked in."

The lift door opens and... Captain Wu stops moving forward like one would expect him to do. He just stares at the ship in question, as one last worker drone zooms out of the back cargo doors of the ship we're supposed to operate to deliver the parcel. It seems unusually big, as if one was expecting to go into an actual war. There are literally turrets on the sides, totally not expected of a typical Postal Service ship.

And then... Captain Wu screams at the Postmaster, "Sir. That ship class is supposed to be totally decomissioned. What are we doing with one of those? It's a contravention of multiple peace pacts. I flew one of those, I would know!"

Postmaster Kregg continues walking over with the determination of a lobster man determined to get something done even while burning bridges at every step. "If you're a military. It's perfectly legal once you remove the one thing that made it that notorious and hand it to a civilian. Which you are right now, right? right?"

I follow along, watching Captain Wu bite his lip. "Technically, yes... but I could be recalled to my old unit anytime..."

Postmaster Kregg's mandibles make what is clearly a grin if you understand his species. "Then what's the issue?"

"We are practically declaring war on any system we drive this into, Kregg. Do you comprehend? We're a neutral party. We can't be just flying the galaxy's best warship into a peaceful place and going, 'hey, we're just here to deliver the mail.' " Captain Wu agitatedly yells as we enter the cargo hold of the ship.

Postmaster Kregg's Post-pad coughs out a delivery order, which he hands to us. "And you've seen what the hell is coming for it. Go deliver the parcel to Coriolis. I'll apologise to everyone you accidentally antagonize or offend just by showing up. We can do it, we're the goddamn Postal Service. If they can't understand, we'll just cut service to their place and see how long it takes for them to understand we're not powerless... despite how it looks like upstairs." He then starts skittering down the ramp, his claws reaching into his personal Hammerspace. "As for me, I've heard of the Postmaster's Last Resort, but this is the first time I've gotten an excuse to use it. See you maybe never?"

Captain Wu sighs and turns away after a long minute, then pauses. "Keep it together girl. Until we get somewhere safe I need you like this."

I nod hesitantly. "Yes, Captain Wu." Already the urge is surging and banging on the command keeping it lidded shut, I don't know how much longer I can rebel against my innate mecha programming. I follow him into the corridor, presumably headed for the cockpit for an emergency launch and jump.

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Captain Harry "Woozy" Wu:

The ship was properly maintained, as was the hangar, the lift slowly bringing us up to ground surface... then a slight niggle happens, as the hangar door opens, sending a few benches, some soil, and a tree down and banging against the carapace of our ship, a Peacekeeper Finality frigate.

I stare as the windshield cleaners operate to push off the soil and tree that has gotten on the windows of our three person cockpit. "..." I am staring literally into our bunk room at the quarters for married couples or teams of three... the same windows we had just looked at the morning starry sky through only a few hours ago.

Liliana pales. "Oh my god, Captain... we literally took our picnics on top of a hangar door?" She points this out, appalled. Frankly, I'm appalled too. Perhaps there was another way to get this ship out of the hangar, but it was probably locked down by our attackers...

As if to make this point clear, an interceptor of sorts buzzes by, shredding our fuselage with ineffective rounds... and is immediately taken out by a turret on the roof of the married quarters we hadn't noticed.

Liliana seems to repeat herself. "Oh my god, Captain, we literally spend our nights staring at the stars there..."

"Girl, stop, there are only so many levels of appallment I am capable of, and I don't want to have to reach any further... Start calculating a course to the nearest safe zone and I'll get us ready to make the jump the moment we can." I try to sound professional, but I simply cannot hide all of my appallment and exasperation. When I get home from this mess, there will be a reckoning with Kregg on why the hell so much of our home apparently resembles a military base.

We look down briefly at the fight we're running from briefly as the ship follows the fastest path out into orbit. The red colors of the New Moscow State Militia and the dark blues of the Postal Militia are commingled together, against a swarming grey of sorts. I pale as I look back at the cargo hold, then at the grey... laser bolts are swarming the air, a few hitting out ship but doing no visible damage. When we accepted that package, the Grey Men were seeking it?

I lean back in my chair as we ascended. This was precisely the sort of shit I had retired partly to get out of, and now those bastards had pulled me back in, even if accidentally?

As if to make matters worse, it wasn't a clear path to the nearest jump - the Grey Men had decided to set up a blockade in front of it. I was getting extremely sick of the workday so far. A crackle indicated a hail, to which I responded. "Erm, Postal Service here. Go ahead?"

A crackly voice came on the comms. Exactly as I remembered it - the Grey Men had never been one for pleasantries. They hadn't even bothered to use a more pleasant voice synthesizer here. "We are the Grey Men. We have detected desired cargo on your ship. You will submit this cargo and be destroyed."

I whispered to Liliana. "Look on your controls, they're for weapons. They can't have removed every damn huge thing this ship ever carried. Surely there's a can of whoop-ass somewhere in our weapons setup."

Liliana nodded quietly and started looking through the myriad buttons on her console even as I wisecracked back.

"Wait, submit and be destroyed? That's not exactly an encouraging inducement to us. and we're the guys who don't normally surrender our cargo even."

The voice sighed. "You humans and your stupid humor. We mean exactly what we say. Now, you can drop the cargo and be destroyed, or we can destroy you, and pick up the cargo you drop. Firing in 10... 9..."

Well I did try, Now I needed a miracle.

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Liliana Skygazer:

I was panicking hard, most of the buttons on my panels had been greyed out. no options available aside from the turrets, which would be responded to a thousand fold... I briefly brought up what Captain had once told me about this class of ship - the armor and shields were immense, but we would probably last only half a minute more even with all of the extra protection we packed. it was not the protection that this ship packed that the Finality class were feared for, it was its loadout - a loadout we clearly had stripped out totally before they sold it to the Postal Service.

A button under a protective cover flashed. It read "COWA". It was the only thing besides the mines, the turrets, and the drones we had left, and none of the others seemed like a good first response to a blockade... I took a deep breath and flipped the cover, hitting the button.

There was a faint thoompf, and a giant can-shaped something fired out of our vessel from beneath us. And then space went totally white. Like, everything we could see, we suddenly couldn't.

It took a bit of time for my optic sensors to recover, but when they did, we stared at a horrendous scrapyard of freshly blasted apart grey hulks.

Captain Wu stared at the mess, then at me. "Did we literally have a can of whoop ass on board?!"

I shrugged, this ship was utterly new to me. "There was a button called COWA that was available, so I hit it and then... bwoom." I made a gesture with my hands, like that of a really big explosion.

The Captain didn't waste too much more time. someone might probably have come looking to see why there was such a big explosion. He punched the hyperdrive, sending us into a drive jump. He then sat up and got out of the pilot's chair, assuming everything was safe. "Well, we're going to be unstoppable for the next three hours. Let's take stock of what Kregg left us with and get a quick nap... Liliana? You there?"

I was there alright, too much of me. The Captain still looked like a fine dish, and my innate programming had come back to start haunting me now that the adrenaline had poured out of us both. "Captain... my captain... I WAS SO SCARED." I screamed as I pounced at the captain, pinning him down to the hard metal of the deck and starting to shrug my clothes off. I panted wildly, gazing at him with hunger. "I want you so badly..."

---------------------------------------------------------

Woozy:
I wiggled out of the prone form of Liliana Stargazer, shivering a little. It had been my bad, not shifting back into weasel form before we came down from the high of dealing with an emergency. She had ambushed me, pinning me down and getting naked and hot. Still, it had been fun, though I would have to ask Princessa one day if we ever met again:

One: Why did Liliana have a working human vagina?

Two: is this something that's standard on all Godon mechas? actual fun bits, I mean.

I wheezed and looked at Liliana's blank face. Apparently she had fucked herself to bingo fuel. I let out a sigh of relief, good fortune on that... I would fish in her bag and feed her her usual "safe nuke" pills in a bit to bring her back online, but right now I just wanted to sit back and think about how lucky we got-

I paused. Then I shivered...

There had been one weapon on the Finality Class warships they could never remove from the design ever. It was welded to the ship AI, which produced one shot every 4 hours, up to 4 at a time. This had made it one of the most feared ships ever, even if it was limping home with none of them in the can left to fire. An enemy couldn't just assume it wasn't just baiting them along before turning around to let off a Curse of West Antares smartbomb to decimate everything in the general direction it was launched in...

They called it Curse of West Antares. In the bawdy humor of the sailors who ran this kind of ship, they renamed it the Can Of Whoop Ass. I wasn't really a nautical officer aside for three months dealing with an insurgency where ship combat had been the advised method of handling the issue. Still I had grown fond of it.

Now it was coming back to haunt me. If the ship was functional, and the COWA smartbomber was usable, that meant that the original AI that ran this ship and usually helped make up the missing crew in a two-person configuration was still viable and online. which meant...

"You have a habit of going on walks this long, Woozy?" A familiar squeaky voice came from behind me.

I shivered even harder, that voice had jumped maybe two or three steps down my pathway to total fear. I turned around slowly... It was a hologram projection of a young girl in a baggy grey suit, with a pair of goggles on her forehead. She was clutching a spanner in one hand, her feet were shod in jet black and orange safety boots. Her hair was a touslled mess of pale blue hair, much like Liliana's. Same blue eyes too

She frowned. "And now I find you on the deck of my ship after five decades, and you're fucking a love bot to tilt on my cockpit deck. That's one hell of a way to tell me you're back."

I whimpered and squeaked. "A...Aries, dear, a lot happened in those five decades. Also, she fucked herself to bingo fuel, and she's not a lovebot, she's my Godon mecha and wingwoman..."

Aries considered this gently. "We'll it's good to see you, Woozy. We can talk about a lot of things," she said sweetly before screaming with all the nous of a little girl with a temper, waving her wrench menacingly just an inch from my face. Despite being merely a softlight construct and incapable of causing actual damage, it remains menacing. "BUT FIRST CLEAN UP YOUR DAMNED MESS. Those bastards ripped my cleaning bots out when they sold me for scrap. It's a bloody wonder I'm still mostly in one piece!!"

They say in space, nobody can hear you scream. Thank god for that... I was screaming so hard...

[handle2]

Chapter 2 - Those were the days, my friend

Captain Harry 'Woozy' Wu:

Aries proved surprisingly easy to calm down, I briefly switched my form back to human adult male, taking care to shift in a baggy suit similar to what Aries always wore albeit tailored slightly better to fit my gawky, lightly toned frame. With that, I took care to catalog the contents of the warship in its depleted state, and find a place to recharge Liliana between extended engagements.

I find the old recharge racks that had been used to hold a stickbot and the two cleaner bots... They were a slightly older, express version of the standard rack in use around Rundel. just a little lower voltage than what Liliana was used to taking. But they worked, just a little slower. I took a little extra effort as there was no assist available on the racks, but eventually I got her into place. Then I stepped out of the room they were held in, and looked over at Aries.

Aries looked me up and down silently for a bit... then shrugs. "Woozy, you know I remembered you a certain way, and when you poked out from underneath... her... I almost couldn't recognise you but for the way you spoke, the way you shivered..."

I frown, crossing my arms. "Honestly, you remembered the way I was scared? You got a kick out of me being frightened?"

Aries quickly answers in the affirmative, nodding her head. "It was so adorable on that tiny frame of yours. Remember the good old days?"

As if to make the point clear, the cockpit is suddenly awash in ghosts. Just holographic recreations of a past long gone. Somewhere in a weasel-sized rig at the cockpit, a grizzled rodent with an actual darker green beard against paler mint green beard flickers in and out before sitting in the rig to control the ship. Various familiar faces flicker into view, carefully managing the ship in its full complement, as Aries sat in her usual 'seat of honor' atop a crate that was no longer in its spot, but had once occupied the one empty cockpit in the corner. The crate had "FINAL RLAST HUMAN/INORGANIC RATIONS - 30 days- IF YOU USE THIS EVERYTHING IS FUCKED" childishly printed and then crossed out on one side.

Funny, in my three months on this ship, I had never figured or found out what was in that crate. I didn't think it was rations.

A Soviet MRU elite marine pokes his head in from the cargo hold, carefully turned into informal bunks for 20 or so startroopers. The back cargo door acted as a great way for the warship to shovel them out in their single armored dive vehicle while we threw a world a hurt at everything approaching us. His mouth opened and closed silently, but I knew enough mouth reading to know that he was performing the time honored rite of little children in long rides going anywhere. "Are we there yet?"

Aries hops off the crate, causing it to vanish. "Those were the good days... And then the peace accords ended everything we were going in hard for." The crew started to slowly vanish, one by one, leaving just the grizzled weasel calmly piloting the ship to its last destination...

The weasel suddenly vanished, reappearing at the main airlock that spanned out of the cockpit on one side of the door, carefully dressing up in a hardsuit for a spacewalk. Aries' voice came from elsewhere, all hollow and echoey. "Wait, Woozy, where are you going!?"

The holographic weasel paused and looked back somewhere. "Just arrived where we had to get you as part of the peace accords. Next bit is I have to take a long spacewalk."

A pregnant pause. "Will you be long?" Aries' voice asked, all innocent and unaware of what was about to happen for six long decades.

"Yeah. Don't wait up for me. Be back when I can..." The weasel walks past me, glitching briefly where the holographic emitter can't exactly render an entity inside of me, as I hear the last words I had said then. "close your eyes and think of us. time will go by fast and maybe you'll get a new team in here."

Aries' present form sulks next to me. "Which I did. repeatedly. I kept being awoken briefly, then put to sleep. Everytime I woke, more things were missing. Meeting people everytime I barely had time to bond with. Eventually, I woke up inside a dusty old hangar with only my signature bullshit weapon hanging down my bottom and everything else missing. But they did keep me clean and maintained, as if I was going back out there one day."

Aries pauses, then starts quivering a little.... before bawling. "SIXTY. FUCKING LONG YEARS. I WAITED SIXTY. FUCKING LONG YEARS. For nothing to happen. Granted most of it was spent powered down with large gaps all over my idea of history, but do you know what does to an AI? Especially one that's lonely?!"

I shift backwards a little uneasily. "I thought the end would come easily for you. one quiet sleep and everything taken apart in your unawareness. I didn't know you'd become the world's quietest, most dangerous game of hot potato. Anyways... we're back together, right? I'm sorry most of the crew probably got old and died - we didn't really figure rejuvenation therapy until a few years back and human lifespans are a bitch - but that just means we can find new faces to fill the roster..."

Aries shakes her head. "This was a warship built for three, Woozy. Me, You, some other person if possible. The Marines we used to host half the time were for all purposes useless except in a ship boarding or when clearing air defenses for us to land. I wasn't that lonely with just me... just that..." She fidgeted a little. "I'd gotten used to having you on board. Just three months in a long operational life of twenty years shouldn't be enough to form a bond with anyone out of nothing. I really liked you when you were a weasel. Being married has cleaned you up hasn't it? I briefly heard about it from one of my uptimes..."

I shrug. it had been very big news the day Princessa and I had married and "forged a new bond between the Godon Protectorates and the New Soviets, long may it last." Then I frown and send the happy look on her face crashing. "yeah, plenty of habits I still kept from before the divorce."

Aries shivers. "divorce? But... Princessa seemed perfect for you."

"I felt the same way then. But ten years can change a couple's priorities. And in the end, she did truly love me even as she let go. She left..." I turn back to look at Liliana's sleeping, prone naked form. "she left a really big gift for me. Something to remind her of that."

Aries looks back, nodding slowly. "I can see that, she has Princessa's eyes and hair... but holy shit, I'm pretty sure she was way fitter than that."

"That was my doing... I didn't want an absolute reminder, so I had some alterations done." I look around the cockpit, breathing in the stale air I'd remembered all these years. "I still treat her more as her own person rather than as a tool. Most Godon uplifteds just fall into the same trap as their sponsors, and treat them like toys. That thing you saw happen earlier... she has needs too. and sometimes I need to be fair and give in to them. And she has some flaws that keep her from being exactly who she wants to be all time, that's part of what happened just now too. I'm looking for a Godon who can make the necessary corrections to fix that problem"

Aries nods with a gradual understanding. "You're just the way I remember you, Woozy. Gentle and kind under that sandpaper packaging." She leans over and tries to hug me, but briefly glitches. "Sorry, I forgot I wasn't mapped to a stickbot anymore... bastards somewhere must have ripped it off me and sold it for parts."

I laugh a little. "And don't think I haven't noticed... Remember what you said once about AI versus AI combat?"

Aries thinks a little. "I do... a ship AI will almost always outmatch a android AI in a struggle." She offers.

I nod. "You had plenty of opportunities to override Liliana's personality and map your holograph to it... well, maybe with a few pounds gained on top of a foot or two of growth... but you didn't at all from the time we boarded till the time she conked out from bingo fuel. I appreciated that."

Aries blushes and looks away shyly. "Love's not a competition, Woozy... Besides... It's not this form of yours I loved..."

The holographic emitted buzzes again, and a copy of Aries is sitting next to the weasel rig, carefully cuddling Woozy's old grizzled form as they both sleep. The old Aries looks adorable, drooling onto old Woozy's fur, the drool glitching as it fails to map onto his fur and goes right through rather than splashing like real saliva.

Aries' present self glances back at me. "It was this weaselform." She blushes as she points at the old Woozy, looking away. "Sorry if the stickbot was uncomfortable."

I nod understandingly. "You hungered for the contact. I did insist you get that stick bot to map onto after years of you being a purely imaginary construch floating in the ship. I need to be responsible for that hunger, right? If it makes any sense to you, I'll try to find you something with a little more softness and volume the next time I get you a droid to map onto."

I get off the wall and nod slowly. "Well, shall we see what we're carrying on our little trip while Liliana takes a nap?"

[handle2]

Chapter 3 - Time Spent Together is The Best Time Of All

Captain Harry "Woozy" Wu:

I am about to disengage us safely when I notice that the autopilot and drive have been altered to a slightly different course, one that takes us much closer to the busy hub that is Elfarion Station. There are closer ports, but this is one of the few that has the capability to berth an actual frigate rather than forcing us to park farther out and spacewalk onto a ferry service to get into the station.

Aries nods when I point this out to her. "It's a gentler slowdown and drop out of drive travel, and with less ripples. which should help us raise less attention as we get to the station... we DO want to be less obvious, right?"

I nod as fish in my Anchor Hammerspace and find my trusty Post-Pad. Besides all the Postal work I do on it, I DO happen to be able to do a few things in it on a separate partition- take photos and videos, make sketches and notes, even run a simple spreadsheet. I switch partitions and walk over into the cargo hold, Aries following in behind me with her feet sliding slightly as she walks, without the benefit of mapping to a stickbot to track her walking along the ship flooring.

There are several stacks of various expendables, plus the parcel that had started all the chaos that placed me in this this ship again after six long decades. "We have solid android fuel tablets... 400 tubes... good for 40 days human-edible rations, 300 packets in random menus... 100 days... ammunition for the physical cannons on the turrets, about 16000 rounds... probably good enough for 16 short engagements or half that in longer engagements... showerless cleansers, 400 boxes, good for... uhm... 40 days, with just two bodies at oone or two baths each a day... We NEED to get in a kitchen and a proper bathroom, I swear."

Aries nods. "we had those before I was sent for scrap. not top notch but good enough for two or three crew at a time. But you know, like everything else about this ship, it's been taken off and sold for scrap."

I laugh. "I remember the toasted donuts you used to try and make with your stickbot and no actual frying equipment... those were... the best... for something without any oil involved."

Aries nods. "Yeah, those were good..."

I doublecheck by counting the stacks. "shame you couldn't taste it... I shouldn't have skimped."

Aries pshaws and looks away. "Please, I'm not a sensualist. I just wanted to feel the things I touched. I didn't NEED to actually enjoy the food. just that silly smile on your itty bitty face..."

I pause and look at her. "I'm sure you're not just doing a slower drive into the Elfarion Station hub just so we have more time together."

Aries blinks... "There MIGHT have been an element of that. remember, I can't exactly walk off this ship ever. Not without a more put-together avatar than just a stickbot that my holographic emitters in here map to."

I nod. "Fair enough." The rest of the next two hours are spent quietly checking through what we have... which admittedly is a much shorter list than what we should have had had this Finality class warship been fully kitted out.

That became a source of concern to Aries. "Coriolis... that place is a crappola war-torn world. or at least it was sixty years ago. Have they finally managed to resolve that idiotic tiff of theirs?" She wonders aloud.

I shrug. "No, just as bad as I remembered it. Names and places might have changed around. doesn't look like a war either side can win anytime soon."

Aries thinks about our loadout. "We can only tank so much ordnance before we break, even if we have more protection than any ship ever. I'd like something extra put on at Elfarion in the weapons department. I know, we're not on a mission to break stuff like in the good old days, Woozy. But at the least, if something tries to break us I'd like to be able to dictate terms of surrender. Their terms of surrender. Something like two missile launchers, or two torpedo strikers. or a mix of one of each. We only have the turrets, and I can only recharge one Curse smartbomb every 24 hours.

I blink hard. "But we used to get 4 shots every sixteen hours if we fired off everything as we recharged."

Aries blushed and looked away... "I'm not fully cognizant on how the COWA smartbomb launcher worked, but apparently something sped up when we cuddled back then... the bomber is mated directly to my AI matrix for some reason, and we always had the most terrifying numbers back in the day after you mapped my holographs to that stickbot. We were the poster boy for why the Finality frigate class was feared. Didn't you know that?"

I gulp a little. I have one more reason to get Aries a proper mappable droid, definitely. I know the COWA launcher is not a I-WIN button, but having it as a last resort to wave in the face of anyone who understands its implications and still threatens us would be nice.
----------------------
About an hour or two later, I welcome Liliana back into wakefulness. She seems mostly happy, and there's this big refractory period between the bouts of horniness she has. I will be safe for the moment in whatever form I take at the moment.

Then she sees Aries, and blinks. "Ah, Woozy, I didn't know our ship was haunted."

I slap my face. She's never been on a ship with a holographic emitter before. "Erm... Liliana, introductions, She's the AI of this ship, Aries... We used to work a long time ago."

Aries corrects me gently. "A very long time ago. just for three months."

I nod. "And Aries, this is my personal mecha slash loyal wingwoman, Liliana Skygazer."

Aries grins and looks at Lilana from side to side. "Is it because she loves gazing at the sky? That name I mean."

Liliana laughs and nods. "Every morning, back home at the sky. the stars were lovely in New Moscow."

Aries continues teasing her. "you'll get plenty of sky to look at out here in space. nice."

Liliana shakes her head. "No... it's just not the same when it's not framed by actual ground elements. sorry. Anyways, are we stopping anytime soon at Elfarion station station?"

I watch quietly as the two of them converse, almost like sisters. they might be able to get along somewhat. I smile at this thought. It was never a good idea to have two women in the confines of a small cockpit on bad terms.

Aries thinks for a moment, checking her navmaps and where we approximately were. "Yes, thirty minutes. I recharted your approach to reduce the ripples the ship makes when it pops out of drive travel."

Liliana sighs and looks to me. "Harry, could I take classes from her on mapping out drive travel routes? she seems to be better than me for the kind of approaches we need to make in this ship."

I wonder aloud. "I don't know... can she, Aries?"

Aries tilts her face into the air, and for one brief moment I swear her nose grows an inch or so from pride. "Gurl, you be looking at the second navigator of the Maxim, this Peacekeeper Finality ship, for twenty operational years. I'm not counting the sixty years I've been forced to nap. but the principles should have stayed the same - physics rarely gets updates. I'd be delighted to impart my knowledge to you from Bosun Fraxis... may god rest his soul."

I deadpan at the mention of that name. "With the amount of alcohol that guy drank, I am sure he accidentally discovered another form of rejuvenation therapy by pickling himself in the stuff, maybe he's still alive."

Aries laughs as we sit together right there in the cockpit, all chairs filled as intended. "I'm not counting on it!"

There is more discussion and laughter in the cockpit as the ship arrives at Elfarion, her bulk seemingly unnoticed by the port authorities. I briefly consider it, and decide to shift back into my weasel form to reduce the amount of work Liliana has to go through at the port with only one person and one pet rather than two folks.
----------------------------
Oh yes, it was noticed alright. As Liliana and I walk down the back cargo door into the hangar after it seals and oxygenates, we are greeted by a bunch of militia frantically running in and getting into place behind various fixtures. I squeak a little. "Liliana Skygazer, non-aggressive posture!"

Liliana understands the squeaks and raises both hands, her work bag swinging slightly. "Postal service, just seeking maintenance and repairs for my ship. No hostilities intended."

One of the militia, presumably their leader, downs his rifle and apologizes after looking us over. Just a girl in a sort of uniform and her weasel pet... "I'm sorry, it's just that usually when a Finality frigate pulls into a port area, the general understanding is that things have gone fucked."

Liliana sweats a little and laughs. "Perfectly understandable, officer. These things used to have the most incredible loadouts known to the entire galaxy. But this one's been sharply defanged and we use it only for the additional armor and shielding for our cargo." She gives that disarming grin she's practiced, as if trying to roll on charisma for a charm check on some RPG.

It works. The officer blushes and looks away a little. "Yeah... it's just a young woman and her weasel pet. Stand down guys... Still... you're going to have to come with me down to The Lunar Lounge for a bit. the management are probably anxious for an explanation, and having you guys over would help.

Liliana looks a little unsure. this isn't the first time she's been invited to a nightclub, and the results are usually never good. There's always a few quarts of date rape chemicals in her digester at the end of the night, failed attempts at getting her totally soused on alcohol mixed with stuff to kill memories and make her an easier lay. Being a personal mecha of course, that is about as effective as feeding her marshmallows to make her sleep. Wrong vector of approach. Hacking would be easier. barely...

I ponder this, then squeak affirmatively. At the least we should apologize for freaking them out. Liliana relays it as if it's her own personal decision made in consultation with a friendly pet. "Gladly. Shall we?"
----------------------------
Liliana Skygazer:

I am impressed by the amount of glass I see throughout the station as I follow the officer in a buggy, the rest of the militia having been ordered to disperse. Glass is one of the hardest materials to build extensively in space from, even if one takes into account that such glass would have been significantly hardened and thickened before use - when this stuff goes, it tends to go catastrophically, so most people just give up and wire cameras outside and screens inside to fake the effect, but there's always a odd sensation when you look at such faking screens. This was the real glass stuff... People were walking all around the place, shopping, trading, and just walking from point to point.

It seemed like a good place to settle down if you ever wanted to settle in a space station. The trip is not too long, and I notice Woozy is enjoying it, his nose in the air sniffing the various scents in the brew that is the carefully recycled air.

The buggy eventually stops at The Lunar Lounge and we are ushered in... some sort of quiet, classy jazz bar. the crew on the instruments are half human, half other aliens, all on traditional instruments either brought from Earth or carved to specs transferred by the colony ships. After a short walk, we are led past a door into a private room.

I blink. Of the seven people sat around the table drinking and smoking, all of them are Godons. Empathetic, shorter-life Godons.

There is a large chair, and as it turns around to face it, Woozy starts shivering, but in a sort of good way, smiling as he does so.

When you've been inducted into The Other Place partially as a Godon uplift, the process creates a peculiar link between the person being uplifted and the Godon subjecting them to the process. The old Godon gets off the large chair and walks up to me, lifting Woozy before I can even react. "False alarm. It's just my godson come to visit, nothing bad can possibly happen with his presence on Elfarion..."

Woozy squeaks a little. Apparently the bond between the two of them is deeper than what I have with Woozy. "Yes, yes, old Priabus missed you too." The Godon shares a little noserub with Woozy before he notices me. "And the lovely little lady my Princessa sent to aid you all those years as well... Liliana, it's good to see you too."

I bow in respect. "It is good to see you again after so long, Priabus. So what brings you to this station?"

Priabus considers this question. "Like everyone of us in this room, exile in retirement, and the expectation that we'll do nothing to upset the status quo in the few decades we have left before The Other Place takes us completely. We've done nothing like that haven't we?"

Another Godon, this one seemingly female-identifying and dressed in a gaudy pink dress, laughs. "NOTHING? Twenty years back, Elfarion was the shittiest station in this bit of the galaxy. time was when you only came here to die or kill someone or hide. Now? Look at all this wonder. Between this station and Nihleim down the road, we've upset things a lot!"

I nod in agreement, observing something. "It seemed like a nice place to live in long-term."

Priabus laughs. "You'll always have a spot here as long as I'm around, Grandson and erm... friend of mine... But seriously, that was a serious amount of warship you brought in. Everyone gets antsy when a Finality frigate pulls in, even one without fangs."

I take a deep breath. "Actually, we might need to impose on you for a few things... the ship has been badly defanged and it's only good for a few extra shots on fuselage before we're all huffing vacuum. Which wasn't the point of the ship... Would you like me to step out of the room so that Woozy here can... erm... shift and give you the details, or can I give them to you by myself?"

Priabus blinks... "If Woozy here says he vouches for you, I suppose your word is equivalent to those of himself." Woozy nods and squeals affirmatively. "Yeah, I say that's a yes. Go ahead, young girl."

I take a deep breath and fish my Post-pad out of my work bag. I estimate that without any interruptions and questions all asked at the end, it will take me about ten minutes to go through the list....
-----------------------
I'm off by about a minute. The Godons at the table are surprisingly good listeners, leaving the questions and responses to the end.

"Well, we don't have an armorer, but we do have a good installer crew who can be trusted to install stuff onto ships in confidence, and we might have something in the heaps here from one or two Finalty frigates the place once tore apart before we took over. I'll have them look over the scraps and install anything that might fit on the loadout list. Will that suffice?" One Godon in a pair of glasses, apparently the manager of the ship scrapping facility, speaks up.

I nod and bow in thanks.

"As for the modifications to your programming, Gigov here can get started immediately. He's a better mecha programmer than I am, and he can probably squish those bugs given enough time." Another speaks up this one in a black bowtie.

"Ah, but Berov, you are a better mecha designer than me... I think you finally have a use for those charging racks and that ship avatar that was meant to go on the Finality class." Gigov, who is apparently the Godon in a red bowtie - twins? speaks up as if to reflect some of the credit back. "if you don't mind staying at least three days and letting Berov into your ship to make sure the avatar is exactly fitted to your ship's AI.

I nod and bow again. "Thank you so much... we can offer so little in return... this is so much help..."

"Anything for the man who helped our niece." One offers. Then another. "The man who helped our goddaughter out all those years ago." "The man who fostered closer ties between us and the New Soviets." "The little boy who showed bravery beyond his years for his fellows." "The child who put himself in front for the good of others." "The guy who was best man at my wedding. What a lovely riot that was. not some tomb meeting like the usual Godon marriage ceremony!"

Priabus proceeded to underline all this by bowing back, gently resting Woozy back on my shoulder. "And the boy who I established a tie with all those years ago. It goes without saying that as long as we remain in management here, you'll always have a home base here in Elfarion."

Woozy starts quivering even harder, sniffing and weeping. I do manage to add one more thing. "And yes, invoices for the value of each gift... I suspect when we return to New Moscow, they'll just try to take all of it off us as "Postal Property" ... I don't believe that would be acceptable to each and everyone of you, so we need to be able to demonstrate that they can't afford to pay us properly in full for every change you make that improves the value of the ship. Postal code rules." I wink mischeviously.

The flip side of my inability to adapt fully between the Rules and reality is that I do remember the entire code, even the bits nobody thinks to remember. Not a good combination with a weasel who knows how to adapt to virtually everything he's ever run into with what little he does remember or know.

"But of course, we wouldn't want that."
"Why would a Postal Service need a fully kitted warship?"
"What a individual does with a warship is none of anyone's business as long as they don't actively pose a threat to anyone who doesn't genuine deserve it."

I bow one more time. "Thank you... Woozy, if you'll permit me, I'll be off with Mr Gigov while you accompany Mr Berov back to the ship, if it pleases..."

Woozy lays a paw on me and squeaks affirmatively before hopping off to shift into his human male in classy postal uniform look tweaking his prince-nez glasses as he greets Berov. I glance upwards, then quickly look back down, blushing hard, as Woozy leaves with Berov.

Gigov is suddenly in front of me, squatting, as he looks up at me. "Him, fascinating. a mode-specific adoration and love pattern... yes, I can see some benefits in fixing you up so that it doesn't necessarily have to be a hindrance... Shall we go?" He stands up and offers his hand to me.

I nod quickly as I follow him out of the room, after he's had another shot with me. It's nice to find a mutual sensualist who understands the flavor of good alcohol. Gigov even laughs about it, saying that the taste of alcohol encompasses everything he's ever tried to accomplish when programming a new mecha.

I press him on it. He winks back and says "When I'm done with the proposed alterations to your code, you'll understand in full. No explanations needed."

I shrug and toast Gigov one more time before we set off.
----------------------------------------------------------

Captain Harry 'Woozy' Wu:

The next three days pass slowly in a sort of halcyon calm before the storm. As part of our stay in Elfarion, our ship is shifted to a different berth. This one is suspiciously close to a small villa with a incredible view of the starry sky in the dome with nothing save the structural safety elements mandated by all station certifications in the way of a perfect view. Just three rooms, a kitchen and dining table, and a small pool with shallow to deep levels gradually carved in the flooring.

I do check the ship regularly as they bring in the new recharging racks and 'some room modules they thought we'd need', and occasionally on Gigov and Berov, which is easy as they share a small workshop in the middle of the industrial quarter where their skills apparently synergized. What seemed to be two separate projects started cross pollinating as they each often looked in on the other and discussed each other's projects.

I seemed to spend more time in the pool, wading as a weasel, and sunbathing in the starlight. I mean, starlight is technically just lots of tiny suns coming in from farther away, so sunbathing in it should be kind of the same thing...

The salvage and install project was a success of sorts, with the scrapyard workers finding about half the weapons systems a Finality Frigate could have installed. After weeding out one or two weapons that had dependencies on stuff we couldn't find, they managed to clean up and install most of it on the second day, and would be ready on the third.

Liliana and Aries' new ship avatar were in a day early. LIliana showed up together with Aries in physical form at the villa pool... I had to blink a little. "But this villa is pretty far away from the ship."

Aries smiles wickedly. "That's the beauty of it, Woozy. my avatar has a transmitter for up to 100 kilometres from the ship, and I can temporarily split off an instance temporarily for longer distances just in case, and this villa is well within the 100km range."

I look up and down at her. She looks incredibly lifelike, as well as like a grown up version of Aries' little girl hologram... A bit leggy and hourglassed shaped, even. a different kind of healthiness from Liliana. Aries squeals as she jumps in the pool, her long hair splaying out as she floats in it. "So this is what water feels like..." She comments.

I offhandedly watch them and note something. "Well, in commemoration of your cracking through the barrier, we're doing a small food tasting session tonight for dinner, Aries... I figured, maybe 10 or 15 of the foods me and Liliana like the most, seeing as you'll be sharing them with us in the future."

Aries beams. "I can't wait!"

It turns out later that maybe she should have waited, as she discovers that chilli is incredibly hot, grapefruit is awfully bitter on the edges, and that she doesn't quite understand the point of tuna fish...
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Payback comes a little later at night, as I'm awakened by the two of them, seemingly eager to show me something with my fingers. I wonder what it is, then blush really hard as I realise it's oddly familiar in its warmth and moistness. There is a gentle moaning from the two of them in the darkness as I feel their bodies entwine with mine - I had stayed human after the dinner by mistake, believing it would be a quiet night.

Aries smiles. "Isn't it wonderful, Woozy? Berov made these for every mecha he's ever done, and now Liliana and I have the same creator for our hardware...." This floors me with some questions I really want answered - so Princessa had commissioned Berov to make Liliana? and he made fun bits for every mecha he's ever made? What was the point of those bits anyway? Did Personal Mecha even need working fun bits?

Liliana purrs softly. "He says it makes us more... alive. He does it no matter which species the mecha is for. Isn't that interesting?"

I stammer. "Erm... y.yes... it is interesting..." I really want to relate to these girls on more than just a carnal level... I sigh as they start getting gropey with my body, eventually discovering my cock and marvelling at it. There's really nothing I can do tonight but just sit right here and let them explore their new ways of experiencing the world, isn't there?

Mind you, a threesome does turn out to be fun. But I don't have the endurance to do it nightly, I think.
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They did manage to restrain themselves, and I am somehow miraculously still alive, if feeling a bit violated. Several hours later, we have left the villa for good and returned to our berth to check out the completed ship upgrades. There was a small kitchenette and a bathroom big enough for three people at a time, the charging racks had been replaced with modern speed-recharging-enabled charging racks, a small resting room for crew who just needed to lie down a bit had been added, and there were now two maintenance racks in the cargo hold with a decent large-size printer in place for printing anything I had DRM permissions and data to print, and several new weapons had been cleaned up and carefully locked into place on the fuselage. It still wasn't at 100%, but the ship was certainly at a pretty high number now... 60? 50 percent? I felt way better about our chances of surviving this postage run.

Priabus is standing outside our cargo hold, smiling, as we exit after marvelling at how different everything feels after three days in Elfarion. "Satisfied with all the upgrades?"

I quickly nod. "Yes Uncle Priabus... thank you so much..." I can't help but hug him appreciatively.

Priabus pats my back and gently lifts me off of him. "With the new fuel tanks we put in, you should be able to get a bit further to Coriolis-3513 before you need to pause for a refuel during drive jumps too."

I hadn't asked for that. I thank him even more for it.

Priabus nod. "Always come back to us okay? Now get going, I'm pretty sure I remember hearing from you that you'd be a day late if we made you stay three days - well, here we are, done a day early. But not if you keep standing around and refusing to leave now."

I sighed and nod back in reply. Three days in the villa, including a night of quiet pawing sex from two lovable mecha, was a lot more than I had expected, or even dared to desire. I bowed in respect as we got into the cargo hold, Aries quietly shutting the cargo door and gently lifting us up and off of the berth and through the hangar door.

I waste no more time on our delayed but restful departure, pausing only to check on something... "Liliana... how do you feel when you look at me now?"

Liliana blushes a little. "It's funny... I feel the same thing no matter what shape you're in... that warm happiness and need to be around you... but not necessarily to pouce you all the time... I mean, except for a good night like last night."

I nod and heave a sigh of relief. What were the odds that eight Godon would be on the same space station, one in each specialization I had needed except perhaps a ship armorer... I froze. In all my warmth and happiness I had failed to ask the important questions... Godon didn't just gather in large groups for no apparent reason outside of their Protectorate and during their colonization recruitment programmes... Had they perhaps been exiled for a reason rather than simply joined together coincidentally on a failing space station?

I thought harder for a moment, before I decided some things were better left unanswered. After all, what benefit would knowing the answer to that question bring me? All I needed to do now was focus on the point of this trip...

"Aries, set a course for Coriolis-3513. Liliana, I want you to go through our new cargo and see if we have enough fuel for both you and Aries, since we now have to pack more "safe nukes" whenever we go out. Then the both of you get on your new racks and get some rest. I didn't exactly recharge either of you yesterday, and I don't want to have to pop the cork on those safe nukes unless we have extended external time outside or power draining activities."I issue the order as I find a weasel rig at the pilot controls, smiling as I realise this place now felt more like a home away from home...

Liliana deadpans. "Amongst other things, those damn pills taste HORRIBLE."

Aries blinks. "Horrible?"

Liliana nods back at her as we suddenly pull into the strange land that is drive travel. "You'll feel grateful for grapefruit and chilli tuna salad after you take your first pill via your avatar."

Aries icks and sticks her tongue out. "Gurl, I am NOT looking forward to that experience now that you describe it that way..."

I can only laugh as I think of how much fun there'll be with a full crew of three in this little frigate, and I don't necessarily mean that kind of fun, though yeah, that's fun too sometimes....