Ships Interface Ch 004

Pirates return seeking to tie up loose ends.

"Hey, can you bring me that bundle of cable over there?" Will asked June as he sat in the shadow of the large spherical power core.

"This one?" June asked, pointing at the bundle from Will at her feet on the other side of the room.

"Not that one, the one on your left," Will said, immediately regretting it; a small frown momentarily crossed June's face as she turned her head left, finally seeing the bundle Will wanted, subconsciously fidgeting with the patch over her left eye.

Will watched June from across the room as he wired the last Rad batteries into the integrated control system salvaged from the 'Saturn's Heart'. The euphoria of being alive after such a harrowing experience wore off quickly; both June and Will were dealing with the aftermath of their trauma.

At his core, Will instinctively felt that he needed to shield and protect those he loved. The recent attack showed him just how helpless he was and how catastrophically he had failed both June and Interface.

Will sighed deeply at thinking how close he had come to losing everything. It crushed him.

Watching June as they worked over the last couple of days, he could see how much it had also bothered her. The pain of the experience lingered, and the missing eye was a stark reminder.

Then, on top of all that was his raging libido; he had been walking around with an almost non-stop hard-on. He'd constantly catch himself fantasizing about bending June over the console of the power core or grabbing her and fuck her in the hallway as they passed and made her scream out in pleasure, but the mood just didn't seem right. It seemed to Will that she needed time to process everything, and it was best to keep it to himself.

He watched her across the room for a moment as she bent over, arranging a large bundle of coiled cables, heart-shaped ass pointing his way, and he inwardly groaned, feeling his pants tent in response. Feeling his eyes on her, June turned her head and caught Will watching her. She smiled knowingly, but the smile was interrupted, chased away, and replaced by a small frown.

June picked up the bundle and brought it to Will, who accepted it and began installing the final connections between the rad batteries and the components integrated into the power core.

"Ok, Interface, that's the last of them," Will called out, knowing that she could see and hear everything on the ship even though, at the moment, she could only communicate through the consoles distributed throughout the ship. "Can you run one last system check and make sure everything looks okay from your side?"

Interface responded on the power core control console screen. She typed, "On it. Should only take a minute."

June stood next to Will as he sat, waiting for Interface to finish her last checks. She reached out to hug Will as he sat on the stool, placing her arm on his shoulders. He tilted his head and leaned into her side, wrapping an arm around her hip, feeling her warmth as they held each other, he smiled.

The console terminal lit up with text. "All systems check out. I think we're ready to light this candle." Even through the terminal, Interface's playful banter lightened their spirits.

"Okay, initiating startup sequence." Will announced, typing a few commands into the 'Saturn's Heart' former main computer, now power core controller.

The lights on the rad batteries panel indicated the ramp-up of power output to the core's circuits, followed shortly by a low hum as the batteries strained to produce the required power.

The surface of the spherical core began to glow with a soft, mesmerizing, waving pattern, like a light shining through a subtly transparent medium. The light pattern shifted and swept slowly back and forth, reminding Will of a Borealis that one might see in the polar regions of some planets they had visited.

The waving patterns began oscillating faster; they could hear a low rumbling sputter from deep in the core, like the first lighting of a primordial forge. It sputtered for a few more seconds until it fully caught, and a low, continuous rumble emanated from the sphere. The wavy aurora of light was joined by what appeared to be a tiny, shimmering star of darkness, shining through the surface of the sphere, dancing in the center surrounded by the waving pale blue-green aurora.

"It worked!" Interface typed across the terminal in huge letters. "Give me a few moments to check the core stability." She typed again in normal-sized font.

They held their breaths and waited for Interface to report: "Core stability well within operating parameters! Now switching to draw power from the core for self-sustaining operation." A few moments passed, and the gauges on the batteries indicated lessening demand. "Okay, that did it. You can ramp down the batteries. The core kickstart was an unqualified success! Good Work, everyone!" Interface typed in congratulations.

Will set the batteries back on standby, and then he and June hugged each other tight, their hearts filled with joy, as they watched power being restored to the ship.

"Alright final hurdle, shunting power to the ship's main power relays." Interface typed.

The console stations circling the core lit up bright one after another. The low emergency lighting Interface had been providing was replaced by the bright high bay lights, flooding the room with its glow. A shimmering wave of light passed through all of the surfaces of the ship's interior, and all of the flat white metal surfaces brightened to a gleaming white as energy from the core coursed through the ship for the first time in more than a millennium. The Nestia was waking up.

Interface again typed on the terminal. "Okay guys, the core will take some time to ramp up power, probably a day or two. I'll begin turning on sub-systems as the power level increases and monitor progress." June and Will read the message with wide grins. "You two have done a phenomenal job and deserve a reward. Come up to the med bay, I have a few surprises for you."

Curious about what surprises were in store, Will and June walked up the ramp hand in hand. The silver intricately scrawled across their skin looked like it flowed continuously from one hand to the other. They felt on top of the world as they entered the med bay, and they saw the panel near the back flashing, indicating the one Interface wanted to talk through.

They walked up to the screen, and it read, "I have a couple of things for you two. First is in the top drawer of the fabrication unit over to the left."

June slid the drawer open and found two small, pencil-eraser-sized devices. She took them in her hand and went back to the terminal.

"Those are micro comm units, one for each of you, inscribed with a 'W' and 'J'. I took detailed measurements of your ear canals, for a nice precise fit. Like every other thing I like to stick in you. ;)" Interface typed on the screen.

They took their prescribed earpieces and inserted them. They were a comfortable fit. "You are incorrigible; you know that Inta?" June said, smiling; the thought of Interface's 'precision device' being stuck into her made her heated libido turn up a couple of degrees.

"Can you hear me alright?" they heard Interface ask in their ears.

"Yup, crystal clear. And you can hear us through these too, no problem? What's the range?" Will asked.

"Well, while on the ship, I can see and hear everything without them. The range, thanks to the wonders of higher dimensional engineering, it's practically limitless. They're hardwired to the ship's comms systems directly through the 4-D space."

"Doesn't that take a ton of energy?" June asked, suddenly concerned.

"It takes a small bit to build it and make the connection, but it's a static connection, so once it's in place, it doesn't require any more energy to physically move it," Interface explained. "A 'body at rest, stays at rest' sort of thing."

"I'm not sure I follow," Will said, voicing his confusion.

"Think of it this way," Interface began. " Picture the surface of a table, two axes, a 2-D space. If you run a cable flat on a table, in 2-D space and leave it there, it only takes the energy required to arrange it how you want. Now imagine if you took the same cable, and ran it half across the table, but then up to a hook over the table and then back to the table. The cable is in 2-D space when it's flat on the table, then enters 3-D space as you pull it up to the hook to drape it over. You run the cable back down to the surface of the table and snake it off to somewhere else. The cable returns to 2-D space, and you can continue to run it wherever. So the cable starts in 2-D, is held suspended in 3-D space by the hook, and returns to 2-D. You would need to spend a little energy to lift the cable into position on the hook, but then it would stay there. Kinda the same thing with your earpieces, just a bit more complex."

"Ah, makes sense, I guess," Will said, the analogy helping. "Any chance you have any reading material on 4-D engineering? That would be fascinating."

"I can translate and index what I have available to me at the moment, so you can read it from one of the terminals, though it probably will be incomplete as there's still a lot of my memory that I can't access yet," Interface said through their earpieces.

"Memory that you can't access?" Will asked, "Could you swap some of the information you do have access to for some other stuff?"

"My memory doesn't work the same way computers handle memory," Interface explained. "A computer will not 'know' something, but knows where it's located, copy it into working memory, then when it's done forgets it. With me, I grow to fill the crystalline matrix, and can access everything I touch all at once; I don't forget anything. The reason I can't access a lot of my memory is that I'm a lot smaller than I was when the ship was first commissioned. Though you two lovelies are helping with that nicely. The more energy I have, the more of the matrix I occupy. If I tried to 'swap out' data, it would be like you forgetting how to walk so you could do differential calculus."

"Well then, I guess we're just going to have to pump you full of energy then, aren't we," Will said, a sly grin on his face.

"You got it, Lover Boy. Once I form my body again, consider it a date." Interface flirted. "But we have more immediate concerns to deal with first." She said, her tone turned serious. "It is my primary job to care for the crew and the ship, and while we have been focusing on the ship lately, the crew sorely needs attention. First item, June's eye."

June's face soured at the mention of her missing eye, but she tried to put on a brave facade. "You don't have to worry about that right now; we have much bigger things to deal with."

Interface interrupted her. "No, nothing is more important than your health and well-being, physically and emotionally. I've been watching you two like a hawk; what you went through was pretty tough stuff, and I'm not going to allow you to try to be stoic and brush it off. We're going to deal with it all and make ourselves stronger despite it." She paused to let her words sink in.

"To that effect, Let's start with the physical, specifically your eye. Will, can you open the top drawer under the programmable matter generator and get the box inside?" Interface asked.

Will went over to the sarcophagus-looking device and opened the drawer, revealing a small white box, slightly larger than one you might present jewelry in. He retrieved it and opened it, his face a mixture of surprise and puzzlement at the contents.

"June, at the moment I don't have access to much of the bioengineering information locked away in my memory, but I can fabricate a wide variety of components that can be used to repair the ship. I've spent a little time redesigning and miniaturizing some of the ship's sensor components, and made you a temporary replacement."

Will smiled, looked at June, and handed her the opened box. A gray and pewter-colored eye with a light blue iris, matching Interface's, minus the glow, sat on a small satin pillow.

June stared at it for a moment, stunned at the gift, then smiled as a tear started to roll down her cheek from her good eye. "Thank you Inta, this is very considerate, but I don't think a glass eye would work out for me." June was touched by the gift, but she was still coming to terms with losing the piece of herself and felt that it would serve more as a reminder of what she had lost.

"Sweetheart, it's not just for show; it's completely functional. Once you pop it in, it will integrate with your optic nerve and musculature. Of course, we will be able to upgrade later, but for now, it will serve the purpose." Interface said, trying to defuse June's hesitancy.

June looked at it for a moment, and then the smile returned. "Okay, how does this work? Is there an 'On' button or something?"

Interface's voice betrayed her delight when she responded. "Just pop it in and it will handle everything."

"Okay, here goes nothing," June said as she removed her eye patch and grimaced at the weird sensation of sliding the eye into the socket under her eyelid.

Will watched in fascination as the moment June released the artificial eye, it spun around of its own accord, oriented itself correctly, and then made the necessary connections.

"Woah, it tingles," June exclaimed, eyes wide as the iris of her new eye dilated to the same proportions as her natural one. She blinked several times and looked around in wonder.

"Everything looks kind of strange." June said. "like it has a weird overlay."

"You didn't think I wasn't going to take the opportunity to give you the best features, did you? It'll take your brain a little bit of time to understand the new information it's receiving, but now you'll be able to see in the dark, infrared, a bunch of stuff like that. Do you like it?" Interface asked, her voice full of hope.

"Yeah, I do! This is great!" June said, an unspoken worry having been resolved.

"That's neat, Interface! Maybe I should poke my eyes out so I can have a set, too!" Will said playfully. Then he said, "And you've got the two different eye color thing going on to boot!"

"Not necessarily," Interface interjected, "that is unless June likes it like that. I can change the color to match the other exactly."

June didn't take time to decide, "That would be fantastic. I'd like to keep my symmetry if at all possible."

No sooner than June had said it, fleshy white coloring bled into the sclera of her new eye, and the iris phased into the same shade of brown as her other eye. She blinked a few times in succession, and if they didn't know, a passerby wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

"Absolutely amazing." Will said, voicing his appreciation of the craftsmanship of the work. "And as beautiful as always," he said, pulling June close for a kiss, and this time there was no hesitancy.

Still holding each other tight but releasing their kiss, Will joked, "But you would have looked badass with a cyborg-looking eye." June pinched his shoulder in rebuke but didn't release her embrace.

"Great! Now let's deal with the other issue, your raging horny-ness." Interface said, cutting them off as they were about to disagree. "There's no use in denying it. It's my job to watch the crew and make sure they are well taken care of; in this respect, I have not been able to do a very good job for the last couple of days while I recuperated." Interface said with a note of frustration in her voice.

"There are a few compounding reasons for your state of unsatisfied arousal. First, there are still traces of toxins in your bloodstream, heightening your libidos. Second, the Bond itself causes you to be hypersensitive to my, as Will puts it, 'Fuck-me Field'. Even more so right as you enter the 'Deepening' of the bond."

"Deepening? What does that mean?" Will asked.

"The Bond is an intense moment when the connection is first made, but there is a period of acclimation, what my people call the 'Deepening'. The Bond is growing, getting stronger. Your markings are an outward sign of how your bodies are changing. You are fusing with me on a micro-cellular level, which modifies how your body operates, almost atom by atom. Part of what fuels this is the energy we share. As your Bond deepens, your energy requirement skyrockets to feed the process, turning you into hormone-crazed, sex-starved teenagers."

Will and June listen raptly to Interface's explanation.

"Normally the ship and crew wouldn't be expected to do anything during the Deepening, well other than fuck each other senseless." Interface couldn't help but be a touch raunchy. "But we are dealing with unusual circumstances."

"How long does the Deepening last?" Will asked, already feeling his blood rise, and cock stirring, at the mention of a normal crew fucking with abandon.

"Oh Honey, it's a glorious thing! Basically, it's a six-month orgy." Will and June reached down and shifted their pants, almost in unison, thinking about the six-month-long orgy that must have taken place on this very ship. "And the ship's Interface is most crucial at that time. The energy exchange during the Deepening feeds the crystalline matrix most of its initial energy store, and gives the crew a most welcome outlet."

The image of Interface fucking two hundred-plus people for six months straight made Will's cock ache in his pants, and June involuntarily clenched her thighs together, searching for sensation.

"The image of the entire crew running a train on you, for six months straight, gotta say, that's pretty hot," Will commented, unconsciously rubbing his cock through his pants.

"Well, if you must know the dirty details, it's not like the sex was continuous, more like an extremely frequent occurrence." They could hear the smile in her voice. "I spawned multiple bodies, so I could more effectively manage their Deeping and give them all the individual attention they needed, though it didn't often stay individual."

The image of several Interfaces surrounding June, pressing their naked body into her, surrounding her, caused June to moan involuntarily and then become mortified, squeak, and cover her mouth.

"That's the other half of what is bothering you. Your Deepening is a little stymied because you're not getting the feedback from me that you would have normally gotten during your Deepening. Not to mention how your Bond was formed was extremely unusual. I don't think anyone has ever created a Bond through direct contact with the crystalline matrix. That alone is going to play havoc with the normal process."

Interface continued, "I will need to be extra vigilant and monitor you to make sure you stay healthy throughout. And I have the perfect 'solution'," she said, emphasizing the word, " to take care of you until I am fully back on my feet and able to give you the attention you need directly."

As she finished her sentence, the wall beside them opened, revealing a hidden closet containing a large bathtub. The tub was about waist high and could comfortably fit two.

June and Will approached the tub and looked at its contents. It was filled about halfway with a silvery liquid that gently sloshed back and forth. Will reached and stuck an index finger into it, and when he pulled it out, the silvery solution clung to his finger, coating it in a metallic sheen. He rubbed it between his index finger and thumb, turning to June, and said, "It feels warm like the stuff when we bonded."

"Well spotted," Interface chimed in. "This is the precursor to what I make my physical body out of, and more importantly, now a physical necessity for you, a regular dietary supplement, if you like."

June and Will glanced at each other, one quizzical eyebrow raised. Interface continued, "Like I said before, your Bonding was highly unusual. Normally, during Bonding, the crew is immersed in the precursor fluid, absorbing it into their body and creating the physical component of the Bond. When the two of you bonded, you didn't have very much of the stuff, so while your bond is strong, and believe me, from this side of the Bond, the texture and strength is like nothing I've seen before, but it is extremely thin, and uneven, due to the circumstances of its creation. So, we will rectify that by marinating you in the stuff until the levels in your system come up to where they should be. So go ahead and start undressing and get in. But go slow, I want to watch." She said in a low, sultry tone.