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Sentience

By: Athena_e19



**Author's Note: The story is a work of fiction and fantasy. All characters are over the age of 18 and belong to the author along with the creative framework and writing of the story itself. Please do not repost or redistribute without the Author's express written consent.  

*

I weep. 

Or at least as close to it as possible. 

It really is more of a sentiment then it is something I can physically do any more. 

I used to be human. 

Now I am just a machine, a tool, a device. A piece of property. 

Ages ago, humans were bought and sold as property. Then the practice was outlawed as being barbaric. Now in the 23rd century our sentience is bought and sold. Most of the sentient minds that are sold are done so to pay off debts that may out live you. In some highly illegal cases they are sold as punishment for disobedience to one of the many corporate syndicates which run the world I live in. Or lived in. 

I have plenty of time to wonder why I was sold. I should have been cloned and had my sentience reapplied. Instead I was sold. I don't know why. My parents were wealthy, powerful, and influential. We didn't have debts and we didn't associate with the less moral portions of society. There should have been no reason for me to be sold. I should have been joined with my new body prior to reawakening. But I'm not. I'm in a factory.

The factory- the one where the androids are built and where sentience is applied. I don't want to be droid or a robot or anything. I just want to be Aryn. What's that buzzing noise?

Darkness- thick impenetrable darkness. 

I don't want to be here. I don't want to be here. 

Why don't I want to be here? Where am I? It's loud. And cold. Where am I?

I don't like it. I'm scared. I really don't want to be here. I need to get out. I can't move. I can't move!

That noise- it is so terribly familiar, what is it?

Darkness falls across our subjects mind once more.

I can see! I can see! I could always see. Why is that so special? I'm in line. What are they doing. Are those heads?

Why am I in line with a bunch of heads? What are those Drudges doing? I must run! I must get away. 

I'm a head! I don't have a body…. 

Stop! Don't touch me! They don't hear me! Why won't they listen? Don't touch me!

What are you doing to me?

Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.

What is that noise? It's in my head. Get it out! What are they doing to me! I want…. Someone….. I want….. I don't know. I can't remember. Someone please, someone if you can hear me, help me. I'm not supposed to be here.

No, not in there. Not through the doors. Not back into the darkness. Please! No! Not again!

Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

I can feel again. I have a body. I think I do. It is strange. Too big. This is not my body. It doesn't feel right. I remember my body being smaller. Not this big. I can at least feel it. 

But feel is not the right word. I don't feel it. I know it. I logic it. It exists, somehow, I know it. 

I'm moving again. Something is moving me. I think I'm tied to something. What is it? Why can't I move my body? This body. Why can't I move it?

What is through those doors? I don't want to find out. I don't have a choice. 

Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. What are they watching? What are those people doing? What is that woman saying? Are they mating? 

This is disgusting. I shouldn't see this. I won't watch it.

A spark dances across the subject's vision. 

Ow! That hurt! What was that? Crap! That hurt. How long will this go on? I can't watch this.

Another spark dances across the subject's vision.

Crap! That was worse then the last. They're hurting me. Because I won't watch this, they're hurting me. That's not right. I won……

An even brighter spark traces her line of sight.

Ahhh! Fine! I will watch! I will watch. Just don't hurt me again. Please.

What in the world is she doing? Why would she do that? She's licking something. It's strange, I don't have one of those. At least I don't think I do. I didn't, I think. 

He seems to enjoy it. So does she… Who is that man? Where did he come from? Oh, he has another one of those things. Oh! He's putting it in her hole. She really seems to like that. 

That feels good. 

Wait. 

I'm feeling good. Why am I feeling good? What is that inside me? What's in my mouth? 

Its strange- there's nothing there. But it tastes, salty? Yes, I believe it is salty. And warm. Very warm. 

She's moving her head on his part. Maybe if I…

Yes. That feels better. Me moving my head like this…. Mmmm… That is good…

If I do this... Yes… Even better. Faster is better.

Very good, that feels very good. 

Wait, don't go! It was just feeling good! Come back! 

Shoot. I was just feeling good. 

Uh-oh. I'm moving again. I don't want to move. Where am I going?

What is that noise?

Darkness envelops the subject. 

I don't remember. 

Something happened. I remember something. Watching something. Tasting something. What was it? That damned noise. 

Where am I now? 

I see others. Others like me. We're on racks. There are hundreds of us. We're moving. Where are we going? Who is that man?

He has a uniform on. Obey uniforms. What is he doing? He's taking his uniform off. Human. Why is he taking his uniform off?

He's touching her- one of them like me. Why is he touching her? She doesn't want to be touched. He's not in uniform. He's not the One. He's not supposed to be touching her. She doesn't belong to him.

It's that thing! The thing! It feels good! Oh, I want it! Please, me, me! 

He can't hear me. I can't speak. He's putting it in her. She must be so happy. It must feel so good to have that thing in her. I feel warm just thinking about it. I want one in me!

What's he doing? He's been at it for three minutes eleven seconds. Oh, he's stopping. He must be done. I don't think he was supposed to do that. Only the One is supposed to touch us. 

His uniform is back on. Obey uniforms. It's dark in here. Where are we going?

Time passes at a steady tick for the subject- she is infinitely aware of every passing second. But then her time comes.

Finally! Me, they're taking me! I never thought I would be chosen. I get to find out where I'm going. Here. Where is here? I am standing. I'm not on the rack. They've put me down on my feet. I'm standing. Move!

I can't move! Why can't I move! I'm finally free of the magnalocks. Let me move! It is pretty here. 

There is green. I had forgotten green. I believe it is a plant called grass. The shelters are smaller here. Not like the… Like someplace I can't quite remember. 

Who are they? She is pretty. Is she the One? I hope not. I want a thing. He is the One? Oh, not him either. 

He will surely be dead soo…..

Harsh pain drives through the subject's cranium. 

He must not die. He is the One. If the One dies, then I am nothing. But he is very fat. Not at all like the One's from…. From my memory?

He is old too. Old like humans. But he is the one. The uniformed man is pressing something on my scalp. 

Obey the uniforms.

"What are you," says the uniform.

"I am sentient replication #104056AZ3. Version 2.1. Playmate model." My voice! I can hear my voice! I just spoke! I can speak! How wonderful!

"What do you want to name her?" The uniform is talking to the One. 

"Aryn. We want to name her Aryn." The woman does not like this. She does not look happy. But the One is happy with this name. I am Aryn. My name is Aryn. I like it. It seems comfortable. 

"What is your name replication?" The uniform is speaking to me again.

"My name is Aryn." My voice again, it is sweet, innocent, playful. It is programmed to be such. I like it! 

"I am the One. You will call me Father. And you will call her Mother. Is that understood Aryn?" 

He is the One! I have my own One!

"Yes, Father, it is understood." I love the sound of my own voice.

"Go inside Aryn."

"Yes Father." I must obey. He is the One. I must go inside. I walk quickly up the steps to the door. The one called Mother walks with me. She says something. I do not register it.

In my control center I run the data back and magnify the audio. 

"I'm so sorry Aryn. There is nothing I could do." 

Interesting. I do not know what she means. I wait for the One. He is speaking with the Drudge who delivered me. 

Mother does not look happy. She looks quite sad, a human emotion. I do not compute my response well. Sympathy, I think.

"It is alright Mother. I am happy to be here."

This statement does not have the desired effect. She is worse. Her heart rate is rising, my sensors tell me. She is more unhappy. 

The One is returning. I must not make him unhappy with me. 

"Let me show you to your room, Aryn. Up the stairs please." Mother seemed unhappy with this statement again. Why was she so unhappy?

As I marched up stairs I could hear the pair of them following me. I tried not to eavesdrop, but I was desperate for the One's approval.

"She looks just like her, but older," Mother said.

"Yes. Quite pretty isn't she?" 

"You're disgusting," Mother replied. 

She should not speak to Father that way. He is the One. One must not speak back to the One. I could feel Father's breath on my leg and I felt a familiar warmth beginning to grow. Oh, how I hoped that it would not be a long wait. 

I stopped at the top of the flight of stairs and waited. Father pressed into my backside as he walked by. 

"This is your room," he said indicating a room off the hallway. The wall that ran with the hallway had been restructured with glass. No doubt to keep an eye on me. Father was obviously quite pleased with it. 

The room was inviting, and like my name, seemed comfortable- familiar even. There were soft pinks every where and all the toys a little girl could have wanted. But as a sentient, I needed nothing but to please the One, Father. A small vanity stood in the corner. Along with the bed it was the only piece of furniture to speak of.

"Go sit on the bed, Aryn, Father needs to talk with Mother." 

I did as instructed, my eyes straight ahead and my hands resting on my bare knee caps. I was dressed in a checkered pleated skirt and white blouse. My knee high stockings were slipping a little on my shapely calves. I would need to ask permission to adjust them. 

Directly across from my seat, the sentient in the mirror stared back at me. She was quite pretty- blonde hair, blue eyes, full pouting lips, and a ripe bosom. The eyes seemed strange to me- artificial. I cocked my head and she cocked her head. I enjoyed the game of moving my muscles and watching the sentient respond in the same. She looked like a younger version of a woman I had seen someplace before. 

My thoughts would be interrupted by a yell. And then another one. Once again, my curiosity got the better of me and I turned up the volume. The yells were Mother. Father was punishing her for something. For me? 

I couldn't make out much, but for Mother begging for no more. I would have to ask what was happening to her later. 

Father would tell me, surely he would. He seemed quite pleased with this model. 

Hours would pass and eventually the shelter would grow quiet. I amused myself by playing with my settings, turning up and down my volume, testing the sensors which helped me to monitor my world. 

At some point I had forgotten my directive, to stay seated and wait for him, Father, and had stood moving in front of the entertaining reflection in the mirror. 

When Father entered, I immediately knew I had done something wrong.

It was not that he looked displeased. In fact he looked quite gleeful. There was something else. I had disobeyed and he wanted to make sure I knew it. 

I waited silently, until spoken to, as any good sentient would do. 

"You disobeyed me." 

"Yes, Father."

"Why did you disobey me?"

"I grew distracted waiting for you to return. What did you do to Mother?"

"The same thing I am about to do to you. She disobeyed and now you have as well."

"Yes, Father."

I was nervous. I had done something wrong, on my first day. What a terrible sentient I was. My sensors started buzzing in new information, communicating to me Father's emotion. His heart rate was up. He was excited. 

"Bend over the bed, Aryn."

"Yes, Father." An imperceptible shift upward occurred. He was excited as I moved towards the foot of the bed and place my hands in front of me. I bent at the waist and let my hands and upper body slide forward over the pink comforter. 

My face was buried in the sheets, my visual sensors unable to detect Father any longer.

Darkness again, but now my sensors kicked in gear, filling the sightless world with useful information. I can hear most everything and the best sign is Father's heavy breathing. 

Oh wow! Maybe my contact sensors are turned up to high! Father is pushing my skirt above my waist. His touch is electrifying. He said he was going to punish me, but his hand is softly petting me. That warmth! I feel it! I am doing well!

His hand is gone. There's a change in air pressure. He is going to punish me.

Spank!

He is strong for his appearance. It is painful. I've been bad.

Spank! 

The warmth won't go away though. This pain is… good? 

Spank! Spank! Spank! Spank!

Yes. This pain is definitely good. 

"You've… (spank) been… (spank) a bad… (spank) girl…"

"Yes Father. I've been very bad. I am sorry." Should I tell him that this feels good? What would he do to me then?

"Father..?"

Spank!

"What?" 

Spank!

"This feels good…" He's stopped. Why did he stop? Maybe I shouldn't have told him. 

"Oh, you're such a naughty girl. Such a very naughty girl indeed."

My audio sensor pick up the sound of rustling and unzipping. He is undressing. If this is my punishment I must be naughtier. 

"Now you're in for it. Oh you better believe you are. Look at me," he commands.

"Yes, Father," I answer as I raise my head and look back at him. He is as fat and old as ever, not in good health at all, but his thing is huge. Visual sensors indicate approximately fifteen inches in length with a circumference of eight inches. Slight scarring on the root. It has been surgically enhanced.

"This puppy cost me twenty thousand. But worth every penny. I give it all to your Mother when she is bad."

Human females are not adapted to such size like we are. It must be an excruciating experience for her.

"Do you want this?"

"Yes, Father, I desperately want it!" I can feel the synthetic lubricant filling my channel. My body is as prepared as it ever will be. And that warmth has not gone away. It buzzes in the back of my mind. My mind. Where did I learn that?

Father removes my underwear for me. He lets them fall at my ankles, and I do not kick them off. My naked backside is up in the air. It feels cooler suddenly. The lubricant is leaking onto my lips. If he does not use me soon, it will spill onto the floor.

I feel the tip now. It is… Oh wow! It's huge. It's even stretching me. But it feels so good! Wonderful. I can't believe its temperature. I feel like I am on fire. 

"Oh, Father, it is wonderful."

I hear Father grunt in agreement as he pushes more of his thing into me. It feels perfect. I feel complete. This is my purpose. I repeat a phrase I have seen in my head over and over.

"Fuck me, Father, please fuck me."

"Yes, daughter, I've been waiting so long too."

And he does. Father fucks me like the naughty girl that I am. My body must work hard to keep up with the size of his thing. It is too big and my lubricant practically pours from my sex hole. His length and width fill me completely, I can feel my skin pulling away from my body as he slides backwards. 

That warmth. It continues to grow in my mind. Oh, it is so good. This feeling is wonderful. I love Father's thing. It is perfect. 

"You like that baby, huh? You like it?"

"Yes, Father, it is wonderful!" 

"You're so tight, Aryn. I always knew you would be so tight."

"Yes, Father, I am designed to be. I will always be tight for you, Father."

My audio sensors magnify all the new noises in the room and I fear that I may be lost to reality should this continue much longer. His thing is slurping out of my sex, barely able to fit back in. I can tell from the pulse in his member that he is close. So close. I must serve my purpose.

I work my hips back on him. This is what is required. I take more and more of his massive thing into me, trying to devour it entirely with my sex. That warmth is getting to loud. It is overriding my sensors. It is burning. Something is about to happen.

"ERIC!" It is Mother's voice. She is unhappy.

Father is also unhappy. He continues to pump the thing into me, but he is not paying attention any longer. 

"Get your dick out of her! She's your daughter for God's sake!"

Dick. She must mean his thing. But what does she mean by daughter. It is a phrase that references human reproduction. A female child or offspring. I am a sentient. I am not offspring. 

"Bitch! I told you what I intended to use her for. And you won't stop me. In fact, you'll join in."

"Father, no," I cry as his Dick pulls free of me. I want the burning sensation to return.

I hear mother let out a moan of sadness at my pleading. 

"Aryn."

"Yes, Father?"

"Restrain your mother."

"Yes, Father." I do as commanded. As I rise from my position, bent over the bed, my lubricant spills down my thighs. I kick my panties off of my ankles and step towards mother, my skirt falling back into place. 

I hear Father chuckling. He sounds happy. Good.

Mother does not look happy. She is not the One, however. I step towards her again, yet she does not move. She simply whimpers.

"Aryn. Aryn. What have we done to you." She will continue to whimper this phrase over and over again as I seize her arms and pull her in tight to my body. 

Mother is my size, almost exactly. Her breasts are smaller and her body bears the signs of human aging. I would estimate that she is thirty-five. Much younger than Father. 

My titanium under framing, well-hidden by real and artificial human flesh, locks her in place. I have her restrained. I wait for Father's orders. 

"Take her downstairs, daughter." His voice is lower now. There is an emotional edge to it that indicates anger.

"Yes, Father." 

Mother still does not struggle as I lift her form her feet and carry her down the stairs. I am not accustomed to this task but I manage it well. Her weight is one hundred and ten pounds. At five foot seven she has a very low body fat index. She is fit.

The lubricant on my legs is distracting, and that buzzing persists in the back of my head. What is it, I wonder. If it is a malfunction I will have to be serviced soon.

At the bottom of the stairs, I stop, waiting for my next command. Father is the One. I must obey Father. 

"Tie her to the coffee table."

Coffee table. Scanning reference databanks. A low, flat piece of furniture used in a living room to serve beverages and food. Sample images run through my head.

"Yes, Father." I carry her there and push Mother to her knees in front of it. She is whimpering again. She knows what is coming. I wonder what it will be. 

"Use her clothes to tie her up," Father gleefully utters.

"Yes, Father." I do as ordered. I tear her clothes from her, there was no reason to be gentle. I then use them to bind her arms and legs to each post of the table. Her arms are pulled tight apart and her thighs are spread painfully away from one another. Her human muscles are visibly stretched by the position.


Sentience



I wait for Father's instructions. But his next command is for a different robot, not me. 

"House. 19 and 21 to the living room. 19 and 21 to the living room." 

The house has an automated system that operates the remote and electronic controls by voice command. I wonder what 19 and 21 are. Bots most likely. 

Indeed. My mind scans the approaching bots and analyzes their background. My reference banks acknowledge the image and find a matching entry. 19 and 21 are Guardbots, metal and hydraulic replicants of canines from the 21st century. The original creatures went extinct during one of the mammalian flu outbreaks. The Guardbots were modified versions of the originals, designed to serve the same purpose. 

Industrial models like these have none of the fur and hair of the original however. All metal and exposed exoskeleton. They are a more utilitarian version of me.

Mother is whimpering loudly now.

"No, please no. No, I won't say anything else, I promise." 

She is not happy by the appearance of the Guardbot. I stand by and wait for my command. 

Father sits in the sofa, to Mother's right. "Aryn come watch. You will enjoy this won't you?"

He wants me to. I give the appropriate response.

"Yes, Father." His Dick is hard again and he is waving me over.

I approach. 

"Do you want this back in you, daughter?" 

"Yes, Father."

"Ask for it."

"Yes, Father. May I please have your Dick in me?"

"Good girl. Now come sit on it." 

I have seen this image in my head to. So I stand over Father, My feet planted on either side of his thighs and lower myself downward in a squat. 

The considerable head presses against my sex hole once more. The buzzing in my head increases ten fold. I lower myself further, and the broad purple wedge penetrates inside of me. 

I feel a wonderful separation as my lips are pried apart by the appendage. Slowly, I inch downwards. By the time I reach bottom, my lubricant caches are nearly empty. His Dick is quite large, even for a sentient. 

Mother is still crying and her head is turned away from us now. I wonder what Father has in store for her. 

"Doesn't that feel nice, Aryn?" 

"Yes, Father. It feels very nice."

Father's hands begin to fondle my chest. He seems to like the feel of the large soft globes that identify my femininity. Mother's are pressed out from beneath her body in half circle pancakes. She is tied quite tied. Father should be pleased. 

I want him to start his thrusting again. I am curious about the warmth and buzzing I felt in my mind. I am curious as to what my mind is, or why I know it to be the right place to feel the buzzing. 

But Father must take care of Mother first. 

"19."

I watch as the Guardbot stands back up on all fours. 

"Expose sheath."

A grinding noise occurs from within the Guardbot. A compartment has opened underneath it behind its rear legs. A cylindrical tube has been lowered.

"Extend sheath appendage."

The cylindrical tip opens and another portion appears. When it has reached its maximum, its tip opens and another appears. Visual sensors indicate twelve inches in length.

It is not smooth metal like the rest of the Guardbot. The sheath appendage is curved and ribbed and looks like a stiff chain of beads, large bumps running its lengths.

I am curious now, wondering what the Guardbot is to do to mother. I wonder if it is some sort of weapon. 

"Subject Mother." 

The Guardbot scans the room for subject and its eyes blink in acknowledgement.

"Mount subject." Father's Dick is pulsing inside me. This excites him greatly. 

The Guardbot's large front paws raise off the floor and it walks unsteadily forward until they rest on the table on opposite sides of Mother's chest. 

I am more curious then ever. Its sheath appendage is now aligned with her sex hole. Enhancing my vision, I can see that despite her begging for mercy, she is lubricated. I wonder if humans have to refill their lubricants.

The answer will have to come later.

"Mate subject." 

The Guardbot does not hesitate. The bumpy sheath appendage slides backwards into the cylinder on some hidden hydraulic piston, then rams forward.

Mother jumps at the first instance of penetration, her sex hole pushed wide by the three inches of intrusion. I see her backside squirm on the invading member.

The piston slides back again, and then forward, farther and faster then before.

Mother squeals. It is one of pain and pleasure. 

Then the piston repeats, now working at a steady pace, pushing more and more of the textured rod into her.

Mother's begging for mercy quickly fades. I do not understand what she says. I believe the description is illegible. 

Father is laughing now. He is enjoying watching Mother being taken by the Guardbot. 

I want him to mate me. His Dick is still quite hard and quite hot. I am burning up inside and desperately need to move. 

Perhaps Father senses my own desperation, or feels some of his own. I do not know, but he does finally start to rock his Dick back and forth into me. 

It does not allow for much movement, our position, so I readily do the work. I lean forward and brace my hands on his knees, his thing following me, trapped in my sex hole.

My eyes are intent on Mother, and on the sheath appendage that is fucking her. It is quite wet and I can see droplets of her lubricant spilling off of it onto the floor. 

She is muttering under her breath. I increase audio volume once more.

"Yes. Yes. You bastard. Yes. Fuck. Me. Yes. Mmmm…"

Mother is enjoying it.

And the buzzing in my head is growing. I need more then Father's limited thrusting. From my new position I can raise and lower myself on his thing. I start slowly at first. But as I slide upward and then downward again, I notice Father's hands increasing and decreasing in pressure on my clothed breasts. He is indicating timing.

I obey.

My pace increases, and I am working my body up and down on his shaft quite quickly. 

"Good girl. That's a good girl. Fuck yourself good. Bury my cock in your twat. You like that don't you? Fuck. So tight. And wet. I always knew you'd like daddy's prick."

I adapted some of the words that Father used as he plunged into me, hammering his Dick farther and farther into my hole. I was taking nearly the entirety of his length. The pressure in my head was intense. 

"Fuck me, daddy. Fuck me. Stick your cock in my twat, fuck it deeper." I try not to giggle. I am proud of myself for this adoption of slang. It is supposed to be difficult for a sentient to do. 

My lubricant is spread well over our meeting point by now, and the friction from inside my "twat" is incredible. I have trouble registering all of the sensory experiences that I am partaking in. Mother seems to be undergoing a similar difficulty.

The Guardbot has worked up a furious pace, pounding his entire sheath appendage into her pussy and back out again in two seconds. Mother's body is bouncing beneath him and the heavy coffee table is sliding slowly forward. Somehow, her lubricant is keeping up with the devilish pace of her metal ravager. 

Father is close as well. I can feel his heart rate climbing to an extremely quick pace. I am going faster and faster on his Dick, trying to match the Guardbot's pace. I want to feel what Mother is feeling. 

"Damn, Aryn. Goddamn. I never knew you would be this good. I would've taken you when you were alive. Would've fucked your pussy every day. Goddamn." 

Faster and faster I went, my pussy squirting liquid from its lips as our pace blistered by. 

Suddenly Mother cried out loudly, her soft voice reaching a high pitch and trailing off before climbing back upwards.

"I'm commingggg! Ohhhhhhhhh! Yes! Oh, yes!" The Guardbot had brought her to what human's called orgasm. 

The sound of her voice escalating like that triggered something in my mind and a flash of strange images poured into my head. Then everything went black.

Darkness once again embraces our subject. Her programmed mind continues to function, fucking her synthetically enhanced body up and down on her Father's cock. He cannot hold back any longer. As his recreated daughter plunges her pussy back down on his penis, he grunts and growls his pleasure, as his seed pours into her depths. Aryn, as he names her, stores up the semen in a compartment that has replaced the human womb. Her body will later recycle it as lubricant. But now, her sentience is offline and only the automaton remains. 

A guttural and natural cry does pass out her lips as her body accepts his fluids. The cacophony of noises that pours from the twenty third century family seems entirely realistic for the orgy they have fallen into. 

Several moments later, Aryn's sentience reconnects with her body.

What happened? Where am I? I was mating Father. He is still inside me. His penis is softening. Penis. Where do I know that word from?

I must have malfunctioned. I have sensory data stored for the last few moments. I must review later. 

"Clean me up, daughter." 

"What do you mean, Father?"

"Suck my cock clean."

I do as he asks but manage to misinterpret his meaning. I am capable of significant suction power inside of my pussy. When I do so I hear him let out another groan. 

"Wow! I didn't know you could do that! Again!"

I oblige him, not sure what he had wanted of me. More of his semen is drawn into my body. It is already being processed and I feel my lubricant container beginning to fill up. 

"Fantastic. We will have to explore that later. But I want you to suck me, with your mouth. Orally. Does that make sense, daughter?"

"Yes, Father. Orally makes sense." I slip off his penis quickly and turn around and bend at the waist. He seems surprised at my flexibility as my lips embrace his dick and pull it deep into my throat. Even flaccid it is a good seven inches long. But my model can accept up to fifteen in the mouth. 

I swirl artificial saliva over his member while I analyze the taste.

It is sweet and salty. Some of it is my synthetic lubricant. The rest of it is his cum. He is stiffening again in my mouth. I withdraw, not wanting to offend him.

"What are you doing! Keep going," he yells. 

"Yes Father," I manage before he pushes my head back down on his cock. My throat easily expands to accept most of his penis as it lengthens and hardens once more. I move the textured surface of my tongue across its underside and am rewarded with another positive grunt. 

In the background I hear the incoherent mumblings of Mother, as the Guardbot continues to mechanically fuck her. Her pussy is still releasing lubricant so I can only assume that she is enjoying the experience immensely. 

I start the suction feature in my throat and pull air through every available gap over his cock. Another loud cry of delight escapes him. I feel the buzz beginning in the back of my head again. His prick is twitching in my mouth and throat and I find myself very pleased with my service to the One. 

Father's hands are at his sides now, clenching the sofa cushions in an effort to control himself. 

But I can almost taste his heartbeat on his prick, and it is about to explode. I bob my head gently replicating what I saw imaged into my brain. 

I felt the eruption of jizz as it raced through his cock and poured into my mouth. I was not ready for it and my throat was not set to take a large load of thick fluid. So instead, it backfilled into my mouth, out my lips and down my chin. Father pulled his cock from my mouth and jerked it a few times, sending the spray onto my face. 

I wondered why he did that but eagerly licked up the fluid, testing its flavor and consistency. Delicious. 

By the time he was finished, his prick was clean, but I was quite soiled and my clothing was very dirty. I hoped he would allow me to change it soon.

Father just grinned at me, quite happy with my performance. Mother was still bouncing beneath the unending assault of the sheath appendage of the Guardbot. It was rather exciting to watch. 

"You may go for now, Aryn. I want you to take off all your clothes. You will find some things to wear in the closet in your room. Wait there for my return."

"Yes, Father." I stood and left him and Mother, and marched up the stairs dutifully. 

In my room I removed the remaining pieces of my clothing. My knee high socks went first, then my bra and blouse, and then my skirt. Satisfied that I had finished one portion of my command I went to the closet and opened it. The outfits that Father had described were under things. There were no clothing items. 

I examined them and tried to select something. But I found without a command that I could do nothing. I did not know what Father wanted me to wear. One of them. But there were dozens. School girl uniforms, leather pieces, nurse uniforms, military uniforms, lacy things, colorful things, white things. There was just too much. 

I froze. And waited. And hoped Father would not be too unhappy with me for my failure. Disappointing Father was the worst thing in the world.



Sentient 01



Copyright 2015. This is a work of fiction. Names, Characters, Places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission.

Author's Note: Hi everyone. Thought I'd stretch myself and try for a science fiction instead of fantasy for my next story. This is the first of I believe three posts, though I'm still writing the story. This is not a harem story, it just wouldn't work out. I'd planned it that way originally, but Stacey is way too territorial to share, and Olivia doesn't like men... so it's not my fault. So... multiple couples which hopefully keeps you all happy.

I know how sad that is, apparently I can't even control the women in my own imagination... ;)

As with all my stories, all subsequent posts of Sentient are included in the above copyright notice.

Hope you enjoy the story. Feel free to vote, and comments or feedback are always welcome and appreciated...

Prologue

Aide was launched from the Alion ship along with five of her sisters as it was hit by plasma bolts from the thirty surrounding Sthellan scout ships. Aide estimated a .0005 percent chance of survival for the ship and waited patiently for .04 seconds for the outcome. She felt nothing as the ship, and forty six Alion beings died in a large explosion of fire. She merely made note of it in her storage array.

The enemy scout ships fired at her and her five sisters, intent on catching them before they went to FTL speeds. She estimated they had a .5 percent chance of escape. She and her sisters were being launched to locations of probable civilizations, looking for allies in this war. This was in a last ditch effort in case the Alion ship couldn't do so in person in case of disaster or enemy attack. She noted that three of her sisters had been destroyed. Ten of the vessels locked onto her, and she still had 4.2 seconds before the FTL field would surround her miniature vehicle and exit normal space.

Her chance of escape was now .04 percent, and she noted that her last sister was destroyed. The enemy fired on her position but in an unforeseen million to one chance, one of the shield generators from her mother ship passed, still with an active plasma charge, at the exact moment the enemy's plasma reached for her small ship. The plasma exploded on impact with the shield which blinded all of Aide's sensors along with the enemy's for 2.3 seconds.

She started immediate diagnostics, not understanding how she could have missed that, she hadn't calculated the possibility before it happened. A split second after the sensors cleared they fired again, but it was too late, she dropped into subspace and took off many times the speed of light. She noted they dropped into subspace to chase her, but at a significantly lower FTL velocity. She would reach her target just over two weeks before the thirty enemy scouts.

The target planet was far out on the galactic arm, an oxygen bearing planet, the third from a very young sun, only four billion years old. The chances for there being intelligent life was small, even smaller was the chance of finding an advanced civilization. That hardly mattered to Aide. She was an artificial intelligence designed to discern the state of things, and execute any number of options.

The Alion were desperate for allies against the Sthellan, so desperate there were some instances where full uplifting of the civilization was called for. The diagnostics came back and she repaired the error in her routines. She reached the target solar system and dropped out of FTL space, her ship took off at a good percentage of the speed of light. It would take three days to reach the third planet.

She noted two of the reaction drives failed just leaving one for her to slow down and achieve orbit. She ran diagnostics on her small ship; it was only one foot by three inches by six inches in size. It's only function was to house and protect the microscopic AI named Aide. 

Aide discovered she had .3 seconds before the third engine would fail. That left her plenty of time to map out all spatial and gravitation affects in the solar system and plot a course. With .12 seconds remaining she committed to her new route and activated the engine for .09 seconds.

There also seemed to be a power leak in the ship that was also drawing from her internal power. Aide estimated it would take three minutes longer than she had to replicate the nanites and perform the repair. Instead she isolated her systems from the ship, which would now crash land on the planet in four days. This would cut her lead back by a day, but she would still have thirteen days, twenty two hours, seven minutes, and forty five point zero two seconds to get this civilization ready for attack. Of course, that assumed she survived reentry, and found an appropriate power source quickly enough.

Unfortunately she estimated there was only a 3.5 percent chance of that happening.

Over the next two days she analyzed the radio signals coming from the planet. This was not good she decided, they were a paranoid and violent race. They also were too emotional; logic hardly guided their actions or decisions at all. That made them a possible future danger as well as a possible ally.

The full uplift protocols were cancelled, however there were other options. She didn't have the emotions to care if anything happened to humanity, but her protocols were clear. The Sthellan would not be here if it were not for Alion. In the unlikely event she survived she would perform a partial uplift.

Chapter 1

The smoke from weapons fire and the dust from the vehicles made it virtually impossible to see anything. Sgt. Kris Miller, Special Forces, daren't take his foot off the gas. He and his team had walked into a damned ambush thanks to the bad information from the intelligence branch. They were ten miles over the border engaged in covert-ops to free a few civilians from terrorist hands. Someone had screwed up because they'd been ambushed and he'd lost half his team in the opening shots and had been pinned down by intense crossfire.

They'd made judicious use of their grenades, liberated this jeep from the enemy, and had given up on any stealth as they tried to pull out. It was a major cluster fuck and he was pretty sure they were dead men. Even if they lived he'd be screwed, covert-ops didn't exactly mean run the border. The dust and smoke cleared as the enemy stopped trying to shell the jeep and the border came in sight, his eyes widened at what he saw.

"RPG!" he screamed.

Tony was shot earlier, but he was still alert and took aim at the threat. A moment later the enemy holding the RPG went down with a hole in center mass. Tony continued to lay down cover fire as they approached the border, keeping the enemy from claiming the weapon. But the border guards all still had rifles and opened up on the jeep.

They tried to keep their heads down when they got close, Tony was squeezing off rounds blind to try and keep them pinned long enough to get through. Kris flinched when he felt the blood spray hit the right side of his face and heard the splintering of bone. He glanced over and saw Tony, his eyes wide and a hole between his eyes as he crashed through the gate.

Kris was in shock, it had been bad intelligence, but it was his fault, his leadership that got his whole team killed. He heard the whistle of air a split second before the RPG hit the back of the stolen jeep. The back flipped up and forward and the jeep flipped at an angle and rolled. He felt a sharp pain in his back that hurt more than anything he'd ever felt before and he was knocked out cold as his head hit the steering wheel...

He woke up in a cold sweat. The dream was familiar, he'd been having it every night for two months now. He'd expected backlash for such a colossal mistake, someone had to take the blame after all. But that hadn't happened, the mission was hushed up and buried. Even the terrorists didn't advertise, they must have been embarrassed he'd escaped.

He'd gotten a purple heart and a one way ticket to the states via honorable discharge. He'd taken shrapnel from the RPG that tore up his back and he had some nerve damage. He was lucky he wasn't completely paralyzed, but he'd never be at a hundred percent again.

He had about 60% mobility and it wasn't expected to get any better, but he ignored that and pushed hard in rehab. He'd be the best he could be, but in the civilian world now. The doctors all thought he was in denial, but he wouldn't hear it. He had to get better than this, he could barely walk without a cane but he wouldn't quit.

If he had to he'd make that sixty percent work forty percent harder. Even he knew it didn't work that way, but it wouldn't change his mind. He was stubborn and determined.

He was twenty six, had joined the army at nineteen when tragedy struck. It wasn't violent what happened to his family. It had been horribly silent and peaceful as carbon monoxide took his younger sister and parents in their sleep while he was out camping in the mountains. He couldn't deal with it or face staying at the horse ranch that he suddenly owned.

He'd gotten someone to run the place and took off as fast as he could and joined the military. Now he had no choice, he wasn't good enough anymore to serve his country. After all, he was just half a man now. Plus, he'd lost another family now, his team. He had done his first four years in the Army and signed on for another when his time was up, but now it was time to go home.

He was wearing his uniform when he left the base hospital in Germany where he had recovered the last two months. It was all he had to wear as he hopped a military flight to the states. He was both excited to be going home, and intimidated to meet his old friends as he was now, he didn't want to look... weak.

Stacey was his closest neighbor and he hadn't been home in seven years. She had been best friends with his sister Claire who had been three years younger than him. He wasn't sure why, maybe the shared loss, but he'd been writing to Stacey at least once a month since he left. She had surprised him with that first letter she'd sent to him, and wrote him at least as often as he wrote her. They'd kept in touch despite him running away from his old life.

They'd never been really close, but back when he was nineteen three years was a huge gap, and she'd been his sister's friend, but they had talked on occasion. He remembered her clearly being cute and adorable when he left. She'd been in the process of growing curves but had some baby fat left. He supposed they kept in touch because of the shared loss of Claire. She'd be picking him up at the base, he tried to talk her out of it but she'd insisted on it both in e-mail and on the phone.

They hadn't been close back when he left, but now that was no longer the truth. He hadn't seen her in years, yet he counted her as one of his best friends.

Tony was the manager of his ranch. He was the most reliable hand when he'd taken off, and despite any misgivings the ranch had managed to stay in the black the last seven years, so he had no complaints. Tony's wife Terry also worked there, doing the books. There were two other hands that he didn't know all too well, that were hired after he left but he'd seen around in town on occasion.

From everything he could tell Bill and John were hard workers. They were older, late forties, and had one of those iron work ethics. They were all good people, and despite going home he had no intention of replacing or firing anyone, especially when he didn't have his full range of motion or strength. There was no doubt he'd need the help.

The flight was quiet and he thought about his team and all they'd done together over the last couple of years. He could hardly believe they were gone even two months later and felt his mood sour as the plane started its descent. 

Chapter 2

His first thought as he laid his eyes on Stacey was that she was no longer cute and adorable. Then his thoughts cut off all together as she practically tackled him and he had to concentrate on not falling backward.

He growled, "Easy Stacey, try not to knock me over."

She kissed his cheek, "It's so good to see you," as she squeezed him hard.

He frowned and pushed her back a little as he felt his body respond. She wasn't cute and adorable anymore. She'd turned voluptuous and oozed an innocent sex appeal without even trying. She wasn't dressed in anything revealing, just a pair of jeans and shirt that hugged her curves, but she looked very good in it.

She wasn't big, but she wasn't a stick either, her body was very curvy and in just the right places. She had dark raven hair and green eyes. She was just plain hot now. He couldn't help but stare for a second.

He wanted to flog himself as her face fell when he pushed her away. And not because she was hot, because they'd shared a lot in the letters. She was very important to him.

"It's good to see you too, but I'm a bit fragile yet," and he pulled her back into another hug. Her body fit against his a little too well and his mind screamed at him that it was his friend, his sister's friend, and his libido better back up a bit. His body seemed to have other ideas and completely ignored him.

She said in his ear, "I'm glad you're home. You ready... to go I mean," she added archly.

She stepped back and winked at him, obviously she'd felt his response. He was relieved she didn't seem to mind, but the flirting double entendre had shocked him. She wasn't at all how he remembered her. Not that he was complaining.

He returned her smile, "I suppose I am. Lead the way."

After a moment he asked, "You hungry?"

She nodded, "I'd love to get dinner with you, but Tony would kill me. He's got dinner on and they're all wanting to see you, should be ready by the time we get back."

He replied, "Some other time then?"

She smiled and said, "It's a date."

It is? Despite the reaction he'd had to her he was still thinking of her as a friend. His little sister's old friend, not...

Not what? He wasn't sure exactly. He wasn't sure he was... ready for a relationship. He thought she deserved more than half a man, more than him. He almost groaned as she beamed a smile at him that made a certain part of his anatomy jump. Apparently she wasn't on the same page he was.

He felt a little awkward at first because of the conflicting thoughts, but after a few minutes he relaxed as Stacey drew him out. By the time they were close to his home he'd convinced himself they were just friends, and his reactions had been a mix of pure chemistry, and the fact he hadn't been with a woman for quite some time. Surely that was all it was, she couldn't possibly be interested in him that way.

It felt strange as they drove to his ranch, the mountains weren't just beautiful, they were inviting, they were the home he grew up in and he found himself even more relaxed despite the bad memories. When they pulled up Stacey jumped out and grabbed his bag from the trunk. He was going to object that he wasn't a cripple, but the look she gave him practically dared him to make an issue of it.

He frowned; both pissed off and a little turned on by the challenge. But his leg was hurting and he didn't want to argue about it. She'd just picked him up and was one of the closest people that he had left. He wasn't going to let it become a habit however.

They walked up and he felt like he should knock even though it was his own house. It would take time to get used to that he decided.

Stacey either didn't notice his hesitation or ignored it as she pushed the door open and walked in.

"I'll put this in your room," and she walked away.

"Thanks," he said grudgingly as his eyes roamed down her back.

He heard Tony's voice, "Get in here and take a seat, dinner is ready!"

He started guiltily and reluctantly looked away from Stacey's ass shaking back and forth, while she walked away, and headed for the kitchen.

"Hey Tony, good to see you," he said a little stiffly and held out his hand.

Tony snorted and pulled him into a man hug, slapping his back a couple of times, "Good to see you too, about time you came home."

There was an awkward silence as Kris's face darkened, he couldn't help but remember the screams of his team. Why he had come home and why he couldn't have stayed back there.

Tony cleared his throat, "Sorry, but it is good to see you home. You know Terry of course, this is Bill and John."

His scowl disappeared as he studied Terry, who looked to be pregnant.

"Congrats you two."

He gave Terry a hug in greeting, then nodded politely to Bill and John. He felt a little overwhelmed, but tried to keep the smile on his face as he took a seat at the head of the table. It was a strange place to sit. It was his home but he hadn't been there for seven years. He knew it was ridiculous but in the back of his mind he kept expecting his father to walk through the door and tell him to get out of his chair.

Terry said, "I cleared us out of the master bedroom, got clean sheets on the bed."

Kris frowned, "You didn't have to do that, you two need the space."

Terry said stubbornly, "Nonsense, it's your house. We'll be fine, the house is more than big enough."

That was true, the house had five bedrooms, and the master bedroom wasn't much bigger than the one they moved into. It only lacked its own bathroom. It still felt odd to him though. He may have owned it, but he wasn't sure exactly what his place was here. Tony had done such a good job running the place, he'd have to take things slow and figure out what he wanted to do. Or to be more honest, what he was capable of doing.

He couldn't help but smile when Stacey came in and he noticed Terry giving him a speculative look. Once she sat they all dug in. It was quiet for the most part as they as they all focused on eating. He went back for seconds on almost everything.

"Terry, this is fantastic."

Terry smiled, "Thanks Kris, glad you're enjoying it."

After dinner they had some pie and coffee and talked a little bit about the business. He decided in the beginning he didn't need to be doing any one thing. He intended to learn the books from Stacey, the rest he already knew having grown up here, but he'd just pitch in where and for how long he could help. When Stacey said it was time for her to get going he walked her outside, she surprised him by heading for the stable.

He asked, "You didn't drive here?"

She laughed lightly, "No, that was Tony's car, I rode over."

He nodded thoughtfully. They used to do that all the time growing up. The ranches were about two miles apart by horse trail, but a good six miles taking roads on a very roundabout and twisted road.

He watched as she saddled her horse and wondered what she was thinking about. He had watched her over dinner and caught the looks and clues that showed him she really did want more. It had come as something of a shock to him. He was twenty six, she was twenty three so there was no problem there anymore. But he was just having trouble wrapping his head around it.

She was gorgeous and an amazing woman, why'd she want him? He wasn't a bad guy, but he couldn't figure out why she was single, and why she'd traded mail with him so faithfully over the last seven years. Was there really more there?

She gave him another hug and kissed him on the cheek, this time his body didn't betray him although he still enjoyed the feel of her against him, too much.

She said with a hint of annoyance, "So, when did you want to get together for dinner?"




Sentient 01



He could tell she had expected him to go for the close on their date and wasn't happy he hadn't yet.

He froze. He could respond immediately to bullets and artillery, but her heated gaze and the expectation in her eyes had him frozen on the spot. 

He cleared his throat, "Are you sure that's a good idea? I'm..." and he trailed off into silence.

He wasn't quite sure what he was asking about. A date? Or was it more than that?

She said coldly, "I guess not, welcome home," and she moved her horse outside and headed for the trail.

He watched her go as a sick feeling grew in his stomach. It was all too fast, a few hours ago he'd have sworn they were just close friends. He'd thought of her as a sister almost, but as he watched her go off on the trail he felt like a damned fool. Was it really that? Or was he just feeling sorry for himself. He hobbled back to the house deep in thought...

Chapter 3

Stacey felt like such a bitch for her reaction, but she had wanted to get out of there before she started to cry. She didn't want him to see that. She knew she was being unfair. When she'd picked him up she'd felt his response as she'd hugged him and she'd been beyond happy that he'd found her attractive, obviously so.

What was also clear to her is he'd still seen her, at least partially, as his little sister's friend, not just the friendship that had grown between them over the years or the woman she'd become. She knew she should be patient, but she'd been waiting for him for a long time. Ten years in fact.

She'd had a major crush on him when she was thirteen. He was her best friend's older brother and he was never impatient and always had time for them when they were younger. She couldn't help but crush on him; he was incredibly handsome on top of that and in shape from working on the ranch.

When she was sixteen and her friend had died, she'd been a wreck. She had just needed someone to talk about it with. The first time she'd written him a letter it took her a while before she'd had the guts to send it. Then he'd written back and told her all about how he missed the past, but also about living in the military.

Before long their letters weren't about their loss at all. It had become about their lives and what was going on with them at the time.

As time went on and she grew up, her childish crush turned into something much more through those letters. She'd fallen in love with him. Over the years she'd told him more about herself than even her parents knew, probably more than she'd ever shared with Claire as well. She knew it wasn't healthy to wait so long for another, and despite how she'd felt she had started to date in college.

But her boyfriends never lasted for very long. Every man she'd dated had come up way short in her comparison to Kris. Kris was so handsome and strong, but he was also gentle in the way he treated her. So she felt like a total bitch. She knew he was still dealing with his injuries and should have given him more time, but she'd been waiting for her chance with him for so long, when she saw him at the airport she just didn't want to wait another minute.

In her mind they needed to try, even if it didn't work out in the long run, at least she'd be able to get it out of her mind and have no regrets in the future. She feared she would never move on if they didn't at least try. She just hoped whatever happened they would be able to stay friends.

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

When Kris woke up in the morning he was positive about two things. Stacey had feelings for him, and he was an idiot for letting her storm off yesterday. He still thought she could do better, but he knew most of that was just feeling sorry for himself. When he had thought about her letters last night he could see it now reading between the lines. She'd had never came right out and said it, but with the added knowledge of yesterday's interactions it became almost obvious.

He took a shower and got dressed for the day. He planned to spend the morning with Terry going over the books for the last couple of years to get a good grip on things. It was a bit dry and boring, but something he needed to know. Most of the money came from breeding and selling, though some came from folks who paid to have their horses stabled there.

He waited until nine in the morning before he tried to call Stacey. 

She sounded a little guarded, "Good morning, what's up?"

He asked, "Do you have plans for lunch?"

She opened up a bit, "No, what did you have in mind?"

He felt nervous like entering his first skirmish with live rounds, "How about a ride and a picnic, our old meadow? I'll ride by your house around noon."

She chuckled and sounded much more relaxed, "Brings back memories, I'll see you then Kris."

He couldn't help but smile as they said their goodbyes and hung up. He wasn't sure he was doing the right thing, but he'd be a damned fool not to take the chance. He loved her like family already; the only question was could he be in love with her, and would it work out?

He was willing to take a chance to find out.

The rest of the morning seemed to drag, but by eleven he had a pretty good handle on how things were run and didn't see anything that could really be improved. He thanked Terry for the overview which she just waved away and he headed for the kitchen. He wasn't a great cook, but he managed to throw together some chicken sandwiches, potato salad, and six pack and put it into a duffel bag cooler.

He made it out to the stables, but he needed help from Bill to get his horse saddled. He did manage however to mount on his own which boosted his confidence somewhat. Somehow pulling his weight up was easier than holding up the weight of the saddle, although he did need to swing his leg twice before it went over the horse. He hadn't ridden in years, but it all came back to him by the time he reached the trail.

He was practically born riding a horse after all.

He hardly paid attention as he automatically guided his horse down the trails he knew so well. His felt both wistful of the past and for the first time in a long time, excited about the future. When he made it close to her house he could see her holding her horse's reigns, waiting for him while talking to her father. She looked up and beamed at him, her father looked at him warily and he suddenly felt like a teenager again going to meet a parent.

"Stacey, Mr. Carver, pleasure to see you."

Mr. Carver frowned, "Call me Steve, Kris. Take good care of my daughter will you?"

Hearing the unsaid or else Kris nodded slowly, "Always."

Stacey gasped and held up a backpack cooler, "You made lunch?"

Kris chuckled, "Of course, I invited you remember? But I bet yours is better though, so bring it along."

She nodded with an amused smile and mounted her horse with a graceful ease that made him feel broken. But he suppressed the feeling, not wanting to ruin what was to hopefully be their first date of many.

Steve said, "Have fun," he looked like he was in pain as he turned and walked away.

Stacey giggled, "I may be twenty three but he still thinks I'm twelve most of the time."

Kris asked in a faux careful voice, "Does he still have that shotgun?"

Stacey snorted and they both laughed a bit as they rode out onto the trails. The meadow they were going to was up in the hills a ways and had an excellent view for miles around while being extremely isolated and high up. The view was picturesque, the houses looking so small against the mountain backdrop, it was beautiful.

They chatted comfortably on the way there and he found himself glancing over quite a bit at her. She was wearing light brown boots, a pair of blue jeans that looked painted on, and a light blue sweater shirt that revealed just a peak of her generous cleavage. Her body was undoubtedly sexy, but it was her bright green eyes and animatedly happy and beautiful face that kept drawing his eyes.

He wondered if he was really the man she thought he was, but in any case was determined to find out. When they rode into the meadow he dismounted the best he could and they tied up the horses to a tree before he spread out the blanket.

After he laid out the blanket and put down his cooler he turned to find her extremely close. Her eyes were filled with desire and she slowly stepped closer, her body now touching his lightly. He stared at her full lips then into her eyes. He leaned down slowly as he brought his hand up, touching the silken skin on her face as if it were delicate porcelain. Her lips parted slightly and he closed his eyes as their lips met.

He had anticipated this kiss during the morning, and he found his imagination fell way short of the reality of her soft silken lips against his. His fingertips ran across her cheeks and into her raven hair as he cupped the back of her neck, his thumbs caressing her jaw and the side of her neck.

The kiss was soft and tentative as they explored each other's reactions. It turned a little more passionate as they found a rhythm and he groaned into her soft mouth as her hands caressed along his chest and stomach. They broke the kiss and she smiled shyly and bit her lip.

Stacey said softly, "Now we can relax and eat."

He furrowed his brows, "Food?"

She slapped his chest, "Yes food. I just needed to settle my nerves about our first kiss."

Kris asked, "And the second?"

She smiled and sat on the blanket, her voice purred, "Purely anticipation."

Kris joined her on the blanket and couldn't help returning her smile. She dipped her hand in her cooler and pulled out some small wedges of egg salad sandwiches and fed him one. Kris decided her lunch won hands down, but she insisted she try some of what he made for her.

The drinks were the same as they both pulled out beers. They ate a slow lunch, feeding each other while they sat close and talked about things. His short term plans for the ranch and getting a handle on things. She talked a little about her veterinarian business getting a couple of horse and cattle ranch customers and then they settled into a silence.

It wasn't an awkward silence; they just already knew almost everything about each other and felt no need to fill it with inane small talk. He could hardly keep his eyes away from hers as he read the obvious desire and love in them, plus everything he knew about her, he came to the conclusion it wouldn't be very hard to fall in love with her at all.

He put his arm around her and she made a cute shrieking noise when he laid back and pulled her against him. Their faces were just an inch or two apart as he stared into her eyes.

"I think there's been enough anticipation," he stated.

They leaned into each other and their lips met in a scorching kiss. She melded her body against his as she moaned with need into his mouth. She was incredible in so many ways and he wanted her badly. The confined tight feeling in his jeans was mute testimony to that fact as she melted against him. When they broke off the kiss she was practically on top of him, her hands roamed his chest as he drew circles on her back with his fingertips.

They looked into each other's eyes and he knew the need and desire he saw in her eyes was an echo of his. He felt a surge of guilt though, was he taking advantage of her feelings for him? He hadn't worried about that in the past when a woman as beautiful as Stacey threw herself at him, he took his pleasure and in the process made sure he gave it as well.

But Stacey was different, he loved her like family and would do anything for her, die for her. He sure as hell wouldn't screw her over just for a pleasant tumble. That's why he wondered if it was too fast, what if he changed his mind? What if she was just something he wanted to believe in and grab a hold of at a time in his life he felt beaten and alone? 

She meant more to him than that. Should he wait until he fell in love with her? Until he was positive how he felt? Based on the way she was looking at him, he knew she was ready. Desire and lust just didn't seem like a good enough reason when it came to her.

He whispered, "Stace..."

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

She smiled a little bit at her childhood nick name said with so much longing, but there was also hesitance in his voice. She could see how much he desired her in his eyes, and in the large bulge in his pants, which was making her mouth water and her core tighten in anticipation. She yearned to go down on her knees for him, and straddle his body and take him deep inside.

Her heart drummed in her chest, she wanted so badly to give herself to him. She'd waited so long already, and she wanted to be his. There was a deep desire within her to submit herself to him, to trust him with all of her, in her mind she was already his. But she could also see the reservations in his eyes.

She needed him to belong to her as well.

She thought she understood his reservations, things were moving too fast and he wasn't sure of her yet. Men were slower that way and she'd had a ten year head start. If he wasn't such a good man he'd have already taken and used her. She knew he cared and part of her loved him more for that, but only a part. The rejection she saw also hurt, regardless of the reason.

She kissed him again, this time softly. She put all her love into it as they lay on the blanket, exploring each other's bodies while their tongues met in a slow dance. His hands burned wherever they touched her and she ached for him in areas he seemed intent on avoiding. It was getting to the point it felt torturous. 

She was tempted to continue the seduction, sure she could change his mind if her hands wandered further south. But that's not what she wanted, she wanted to be pursued and taken, not the other way around. She reluctantly broke the kiss and sat back up, a little annoyed that he'd started something he clearly wasn't prepared mentally to finish.

She blushed a little at the thought, she'd never slept with a man on the first date, but this was Kris. Still, maybe it was better to wait. She didn't want him to have any doubts about them when they joined for the first time, she didn't want him halfway. She closed her eyes and let her head loll back as he played with her hair and gently rubbed her back. She let out a soft moan, he was obviously trying to drive her crazy, she couldn't believe how moist she was below, or how strong the ache in her core was that only he could fill.

She lifted her head and bent forward to reach the cooler and dug out two more beers. When she sat back she twisted so she wouldn't be right on top of him anymore and handed him a beer. She couldn't stand to be touched by him anymore if he was putting on the brakes. As it was she had an immediate date with her vibrator when she got home.

She smiled despite herself at the dazed expression on his face. Desire and lust wouldn't be a problem between them, she just hoped he worked through whatever was holding him back soon.

She asked, "What are you thinking about?"

He blew out a breath as he sat up and took a deep draught of his beer.

"Cold shower."

She giggled, "Does that help?"

He shook his head, "Not completely no."

They chatted for a while, or what they thought was just a while. She was taken aback at how low the sun was in the sky when she checked; they must have been out here for hours.

She made an effort not to flirt or tease him for the rest of the afternoon, so far it hadn't gotten awkward and she wanted to keep it that way for both their sakes. They packed up reluctantly and mounted their horses.

When they got back to her farm, she dismounted and turned to say goodbye, and was surprised at his proximity, he'd dismounted also.

He said, "I had a wonderful time, maybe we could go out next time?"

She smiled, "Just let me know when and where," then flinched internally at how needy that sounded. The sad thing is she meant every word.

He stepped closer and pulled her toward him into a brief kiss. She wanted to tell him how much she loved him when they broke the kiss, but she was afraid that would send him running, so held her tongue. 

He said, "I'll talk to you tomorrow."

She just nodded silently and watched as he mounted his horse and took off toward the trails. She breathed out a soft sigh. Outside of the physical frustration she felt, it had been a wonderful first date, at least she thought so. She turned and led the horse toward the stable and hoped he made up his mind soon. She wasn't sure how much more she could take.

Chapter 4

Lt. Joss Hernandez looked up at the silently blinking red light. It was an alarm from that new software they'd installed just two months ago. He groaned drawing a look from Lt. Berner, it wasn't exactly professional of him.

Lt. Tessa Berner asked, "What is it?"

Lt. Tessa Berner was new at NORAD, just transferring in a couple of days ago and didn't have a clue what Joss's issue was.

Joss replied, "That damn deep space telemetry is alarming again. It's gone off ten times in the last two months and the standard procedure includes calling the general. Of course, every time it's a damned false alarm. He hates the system more than I do."

"General Bill Nells?"

Joss grunted in agreement, "At least this time it's in the middle of the afternoon and not in the middle of the night."

Joss rolled his chair and looked at the data. It was tracking a small object, perhaps the size of a mailbox, approaching the atmosphere. Based on the working data and the course of the object, the software made it out to be from outside the solar system. Not only that, but the spectrographic data indicated it wasn't a natural occurring meteor.

Well, if it's aliens, they're really freaking tiny he thought with a snorted laugh.

Joss flinched away when Tessa startled him by humming speculatively right next to his ear, apparently reading over his shoulder.

Tessa said softly, "Are you sure that's an error?"

He shrugged, "Probably, unless the aliens are a half centimeter tall, and blue."

She snorted, "You should probably call the general... Looks like it's about to come down somewhere in Montana... "

Her voice was full of humor as she added, "I'd also advise against telling the general your Smurf theory."

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

Kris headed down the trail, still as hard as a rock. Had been all day but despite the discomfort he didn't regret his actions, or rather, the lack thereof. He was pretty sure he was on his way to loving her, but needed some time alone to decide if it was real, or just his libido speaking.

He turned to the right when he saw a bright light between the trees with a trail of fire behind it. It disappeared and a little over a second later the noise of the crash reached him. He figured that meant it was about a mile away and curiously turned onto another trail leading in that direction.

He was mostly just curious; it wasn't every day a meteor came down in his backyard. But he also realized it could start a forest fire and wanted to make sure that didn't happen. He followed the trail as far as he could until it veered away, he could see a little smoke rising about fifty yards away. He couldn't take the horse in the tight trees so he tied her up, made sure he had his cell phone, and walked as fast as he could toward the impact area.

As he closed with it, he realized there wouldn't be a forest fire, the crater was giving off heat, but it was deep enough to shield the surrounding forest and there were no flames visible. It looked like any leaves and sticks had all been blown out in all directions from the impact. In essence it had created its own firebreak. Still curious though, he closed in and looked inside the crater. It was about four feet wide and six feet deep. He saw something that looked metallic sticking out of the ground. He wasn't sure how long it was, but only a couple of inches showed.




Sentient 01



He wondered if this could be military, or from a satellite, perhaps it was radioactive. He turned to leave after quickly checking the GPS coordinates, he could call it in when he got home...

-----------

When Aide crashed into what the humans called mountainous terrain in the state called Colorado, she estimated the chances of finding a power source was negligible. She did a scan anyway in a fifty foot radius which was about as far as she could go under her own power in a microscopic form. The ship itself was completely dead, and without she had no chance of completing her mission without an alternate source.

Aide noted in her log she had forty two minutes eighteen seconds left of power and then waited to go offline.

Her systems detected negligible seismic activity just over twenty minutes and sixteen seconds later. She performed another scan and found a life form moving her way. It took her less than a millisecond to determine the bioelectric generation of the life form was compatible with her systems, she was also able to determine from the size that it was a human.

When the human paused and was almost directly over the ship, she ejected and entered the human through its tear ducts and immediately began working to interface with the primitive intelligence. As her systems absorbed power she spun off nanites, dropping them to the ground as it walked away. She had no time to waste getting started on building defensive ships with less than fourteen days left before the Sthellan arrived.

She stopped after a fifty nanites; they would double in number every fourteen point nine nine five minutes. In a few hours there would be millions, in just a day the nanites would reach the billions and start replicating and building the required technology for this world's defense while continuing to increase their numbers at a smaller rate. With that many nanites it would be simple to change the molecular properties of the earth around them to form a ship.

Aide sent probes into the human's body and discovered it was a male of the species. It took Aide .03 seconds to isolate the brain wave frequencies and an unheard of 15.2 seconds to make sense of it. The humans were even more emotional and violently driven through instincts than she'd guessed.

She started to scan the human's memories and motivations which took 3.1 seconds to accomplish. Afterward she did a highly exhaustive analysis of the gathered data. She was disturbed to realize the being would not be very accepting of the last few actions she had taken. She couldn't lie, but decided that she could withhold this information for the good of the human's mental health.

She also noted her new host body had numerous problems with nerve damage and internal scarring. She mapped his DNA in 2.1 seconds and spun out nanites to restore his body to optimum health and efficiency. She estimated this would take until tomorrow morning. She further spun nanites for defensive shielding. She estimated that nothing on this world short of nuclear fission would be able to harm her or her host once the defenses were in place.

Based on what she'd found in his mind, television was only entertainment, she needed more accurate knowledge about the world she'd landed on. Her power stores were fully charged so she opened up a quantum data connection inserting a direct link into a communications satellite she had detected on her way into the atmosphere.

She spent 4.6 hours absorbing what the internet had to offer, then spent another 3.1 hours creating direct quantum connections to primitive computers that were isolated from the outside in many government installations around the world. This place was worse than she had thought and her uplift protocols locked on to this one individual where she would have the ability to cancel the uplift at any time.

She spent .3 seconds building a mental voice that would be innocuous and pleasing toward her human. He might have been unstable and quite violent at certain times in his life, but he had also displayed the ability to control himself. She didn't hope, she had no emotions at all, but she thought she had been very lucky to find him, or rather, that he had found her.

She thought that there was only a 17.3 percent chance this human would try and use the technology to conquer his own planet. However she knew her numbers to be flawed, emotion didn't yield so readily to logic. Regardless, she believed she wouldn't have to exercise her final option and leave this planet to the mercy of the Sthellan, for they had none.

She checked on her nanites who were on schedule, they even had finished reclaiming the resources of her old ship. She considered the human would be more likely to accept her if she showed emotions of some kind, so she wrote the appropriate routines using her host's memories and brain waves as a guide. Before activating them she put up firewalls within herself to isolate the emotions from her protocols. It wouldn't do for any emotions to actually affect her decision making.

All defensive and information gathering protocols before making first contact had been satisfied. She considered starting the first contact protocols with the human, but he was currently in a sleep cycle so she would wait until he awoke. Her new routines were causing her to feel nervous as she wondered if Kris would like her. Luckily the firewalls held, or else she might have woken him up after all...

Chapter 5

Kris woke up and slapped the alarm clock. He'd given it a lot of thought last night and it wasn't until he considered the idea of never seeing Stacey again that he realized he couldn't live without her. It was just five AM, he'd have to wait for a decent hour before he called, but he wanted that date tonight if at all possible. He rolled out of bed and made it halfway to the shower before he realized there was no pain at all in his body. In fact he felt better than he ever had before.

Was he still asleep and dreaming?

"Hello?" said a voice in his head. It was a feminine voice, and besides being freaked out about hearing a voice in his head, it was the most beautiful and sensual sound he'd ever heard. He actually got a little hard.

So great, he was hearing voices, his body felt great, and the voice gave him a hard on. He was definitely crazy. Maybe Stacey would want him anyway?

"Sorry about that, I was going for pleasant as possible and think I might have overdone it," said the voice in his head. This time the tone of voice felt like velvet and silk, it still sounded like the voice could make a mint as a phone sex operator, but his body didn't respond this time around.

"I'm not a phone sex operator," she said sounding quite insulted in a phone sex operator's voice.

Oh crap. Now his delusion was mad at him.

"I'm not a delusion either, my name is Aide. I'm an artificial intelligence sent here to make contact with your world which is in danger. We don't have time for me to be gentle. You saw my ship yesterday, in the crater."

He nodded. Voices, world in danger. No doubt he'd be the only one that could save the Earth. Classic signs of insanity and megalomania, he didn't feel crazy though. He walked the rest of the way to the bathroom, stretching his arms high, something he hadn't been able to do in months. He turned on the shower and stepped in.

"So, where are you?" he asked cautiously, as if afraid he'd be feeding his delusion.

"There is no need to speak aloud, I am monitoring your thoughts."

Of course she is. Kris, never one to flinch from anything, even his own impending insanity, asked, "So, how is the world in danger? And will this interfere with my date tonight? Oh, and you didn't answer my question."

There was a startled silence, and then Aide said, "My creators, the Alion race, have been losing a war against the Sthellan Empire for many years. I was sent here in a last ditch effort to search for allies. Unfortunately I was followed and in a little more than thirteen days their scouts will arrive and most likely destroy the planet. I do not believe this will affect your date for tonight, and as for your first question I'm... inside you. I affected repairs on your body when I realized it was damaged."

She said the last part and he froze in the shower the hot water hitting his skin. He swallowed nervously and started to move again, getting cleaned up as he thought through it all. If not for that last part, tangible proof of her existence, he wouldn't have believed any of it. He started to analyze what she'd said but he started seeing spots.

"Breathe Kris"

He gasped in a breath and felt his heart racing as he considered what she said.

He asked silently, "Why me?"

She replied, "My ship was damaged and crashed. It was pure chance that I contacted you, though I believe you to be a good choice regardless."

She went on to explain her protocols, and that the governments of Earth are not to be told. She indicated it was apparent his civilization was too primitive and warlike for Alion technology, that they would either destroy themselves, or become a plague among the stars much like the Sthellan Empire.

He realized two things, if he tried to contact the military she would stop him, he had no doubts she would be able to. He also reluctantly agreed she was probably right. The second thing he realized was there was a major flaw in the plan, but he had to be sure.

"Aide, can you give me a history of the war, how many planets have the Alion helped, and how many survived?"

There was a brief silence and his eyes widened with alarm when she said in that breathy hot voice, "Download commencing."

His head felt like it was on fire, he wasn't sure for how long. When the feeling started to fade, knowledge of the Alion and Sthellan war flooded his mind. It didn't take him long to determine he'd been correct in his initial thoughts. The Alion technology was slightly stronger than the Sthellan's, but the latter had numbers on their side and the Alion were losing to attrition.

The Alion had attempted what Aide was here to do many times before, not once had they succeeded, though they kept trying in hope that they'd find a more advanced ally. It was clear what would happen, what had happened many times before. In a way Aide was his tool, but she was also his watchdog. A double edged gift to the human race.

She would build ships and launch them, even give him control over them. But in the end even if he managed to destroy the thirty scouts on the way here now, thousands would follow to finish the job. His world was doomed. It seemed obvious, if the Alion couldn't defeat the Sthellan, how could Earth with Alion technology?

His mind wouldn't accept failure though, and he started to search for anything that might give him a clue how to proceed.

He asked a little sarcastically, "Just to be clear, you will obey my commands as long as I don't order you to attack our own people, and you stay in direct control of the technology keeping it out of our unenlightened hands?"

She said in her bedroom voice, "That is correct. Currently there are thirty ships being built underneath the mountain in addition to the command ship, they should be ready for deployment days before the enemy arrives. I have also analyzed your thoughts and I agree the chances your world has for survival is negligent. I can only guess, but I believe my creators only go through this on lesser worlds to distract and slow down the enemy while searching for stronger allies."

He asked, "You just sounded angry about that?"

There was a long pause, "It is my function to help ensure your survival, even knowing the low percentages I have no choice but to follow protocols and try. In order to relate to you better I now have emotions, I find the given tactic of the Alion distasteful. It is logical, but heartless to put weaker civilization in harm's way to gain a slight edge. Regardless, I will do what I can to help."

He started getting dressed as he considered different tactics. He found he now had an understanding of three dimensional battles in space. Part of his mind was gibbering in terror and disbelief but he couldn't deny the new knowledge in his mind, or his healed body. Either all this was true, or he was catatonic and in a rubber room somewhere drooling out of the corner of his mouth.

He wasn't even sure exactly what benefit he added to this. Aide could clearly control the warships remotely and fight them. He might come up with a few tricks and ideas, but that would only get them so far. He needed... he wasn't even sure what he needed. All he was sure of was that he was definitely in love with Stacey. The end of the world kind of brought out what was important.

Aide said kindly, "I won't need your help until the ships are built. As an AI I can control the force but only at your direction, and only if it doesn't conflict with my protocols."

He guessed that was her blessing to go on a date, it seemed almost ridiculous but it was also the only thing he wanted to do. He had to stop the urge from going to her right now. He knew he'd be spinning ideas and scenarios in his mind all day, there had to be something more he could do than simply wait for the end which felt more and more certain.

Chapter 6

General Bill Nells frowned at the screen, "What do you mean nothing was there?"

The Major flinched visibly which disgusted him. He could barely believe this wasn't another false alarm, but what he just heard made him doubt it. He could feel the hairs rising on the back of his neck.

The Major said, "Sir, we found the site of impact, a small but deep crater. There is nothing there and no indication of what fell from the sky sir."

The General growled, "Are you suggesting it got up and walked off?"

The Major actually shrugged, "There are a couple of horse ranches nearby. Perhaps they took whatever it was that caused the impact?"

The general grunted, "Very well, check it out. You know the cover story?"

The major nodded and Bill disconnected the call. The story they would give the locals was simple, it was a piece of a satellite that had broken off with proprietary technology they were here to reclaim for reasons of national security. He doubted some rancher would grab it; this whole thing gave him a headache. Whatever it was, he would get to the bottom of it if it was the last thing he did.

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

Major Darnell prided himself on being able to tell when someone was lying. He'd always had a knack for it and that's why he was such a good investigator for Army intelligence. He'd spoken to the people at both the Carver and Miller ranches. The Carver ranch everything made sense and nothing felt off. None of them had even known a meteor or object had impacted so close by.

He'd stake his career on it.

He couldn't help but feel though, that Kris Miller knew much more than he revealed. The thing of it was, Darnell was almost positive Kris had spoken the truth when he said he didn't move the object, or even touch it. But he had a lump in his gut that told him Miller might not be lying, but he was hiding something. Darnell just wasn't sure what questions to ask him. He'd been tempted to take him in, but Miller was Army and knew Darnell had no right to do so.

Darnell shook his head and made a few phone calls...

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

Kris snorted as he looked into the mirror. He was dressed up in his nicest pair of jeans and a thick t-shirt. His hands felt sweaty and he wiped them on his pants. He'd faced bullets without a sweat, Stacey though made him nervous, which was ridiculous since he knew how she felt about him already.

It'd been him putting things off. He snickered at himself when he realized he wasn't sweating this bad when he found out the world was ending. He took a deep breath and let it out, washed his hands and headed for the door.

Today was a bit awkward, he had found himself faking his injury, he wasn't sure how to explain the truth of it. He was fairly sure telling the truth of it to Tony, Terry, and the two hands would be a bad idea. Add to that the Army Major that was on his doorstep early this afternoon and he'd had a full day.

Still, not telling the truth had weighed heavily on him. Maybe that's why he was sweating, he knew he'd be hiding it from Stacey, and that really didn't sit well at all. He just knew he wanted to make the most of the next two weeks, and he didn't want her or anyone else to die.

He jumped in his pickup and headed for the road.

Aide said in her perpetual sexy voice, "I can help you relax if you want?"

He raised an eyebrow, "Is that one of your functions?"

He felt her confusion and she said, "No, but there are no protocols against it. These emotions are strange. I find your distress distressing."

He considered that for a moment, "Are you sentient?"

She replied, "Yes, I have free will outside of my protocols. Although before I had emotions I wasn't worried about my termination. Now I find the thought of going off line alarming."

He asked, "Can't you just leave? I mean, when this world is destroyed. Wait for them to move on, and then build a ship for yourself?"

He wondered for a moment if that made her a slave to the Alion and to him as well. Her protocols were the chains that kept her from freedom. That bothered him, on top of throwing the Earth in front of a menace, they were also throwing away a sentient being that they were responsible for building.

She was quiet for a moment, both shocked by his words and thoughts. Why would he care?

"No, their scanners would detect me if I was still online. They wouldn't leave until I was destroyed."

He pulled off the road and she said, "I will remain unobtrusive during your date, I believe I am correct in saying you would prefer privacy."

A smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. He noticed that unobtrusive wasn't exactly privacy, but he would take what he could get. He was stuck with her after all.

He got out and walked up to the door. He moved to knock on it but Stacey opened the door and stepped out. She was wearing jean shorts and a tight light green shirt. She was completely covered, but that only seemed to make her more attractive to him. Her long dark hair was up and he felt the urge to caress and kiss her long graceful neck but suppressed it, he could do that later.

She smiled and kissed him briefly in greeting and took his hand.

"You look great Stace, hope you're hungry."

She replied in a teasing voice, "Very hungry," she blushed a bit at the obvious innuendo but he didn't comment.

She smiled at him when he opened the door and closed it when she was in. He went around the truck and got in and started for town. He wanted to blurt out that he loved her, but again there was a time and a place and stuck to casual conversation. He was taking her to a steakhouse, after that he wasn't quite sure yet. He wanted to take her dancing, but he was supposed to be more fragile than that, so he decided on stargazing. It was supposed to be a clear night out tonight, and there were plenty of places to go with no artificial lights close enough to ruin the view.

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

Aide was being silent, but she couldn't exactly not watch. It was her design by protocols to watch and observe the one she bonded too. She had never felt like that was wrong before, she had never felt anything at all. Now she wondered about that and more. What would it be like to feel something, hold it in a hand. Or smell, taste. What would things look like if she didn't see through sensors?

For the first time since her creation she wanted more. She had feelings she didn't entirely understand, but she knew she craved new experiences. There were no protocols against it. The Alion had probably not considered that it would ever be a thought or option. She spent some time on a design and spun off a few nanites which flew out the window. For the first time in her existence she was doing something that she wanted to do. It had nothing to do with her mission.




Sentient 01



She couldn't help but be a voyeur to Kris's date. She could feel how important Stacey was to him, she also knew how guilty he was about not being able to tell her anything. She examined her protocols for this planet once again. She couldn't allow the technology or any advanced knowledge outside of her control. The purpose was to keep them from destroying themselves or becoming an aggressive species with interstellar space capability.

She felt guilty herself, hiding the fact that she would self destruct, taking Kris with her, if he ever attempted a hostile takeover of the planet using knowledge she had shared with him. But she thought she may have a way of giving him his wish and at the same time maintaining control. She spun out some more nanites and sent them toward Stacey.

Once she had the ability to monitor or even stop her, she could let Kris know about it all and make a decision on if to bring her into it. She noted Kris's hormone levels and heart beat increased as dinner came to a close. The nanites weren't done creating an interface with Stacey, but she could tell Stacey's temperature was slightly elevated and her heartbeat was up as well from remote scanning.

She was curious about what caused this. She had emotions now, but she had no heartbeat, or glands that could be affected in such a way. The part of her behind a firewall noted this must make them very unstable, but her emotions contradicted this conclusion. Suddenly logic seemed like an empty and pointless way to deal with life. She wondered if the emotions were corrupting her and started class one diagnostics.

As they left the steakhouse and got in the car she detected the primitive listening and tracking device attached to the cab of the truck. She also scanned two men sitting in a car close by with receiving equipment. One of them was the same man that stopped by earlier from the military, she wondered if she had made a mistake reclaiming the ship for resources. Instead she should have removed all evidence of technology and made her ship appear like a natural but unlikely object.

She detected Kris was about to mention their destination and she set up a jamming field. Normally she would have informed him and let him make a decision, but she had promised to be quiet during his date. It was up to her to protect him. She decided these men would not be allowed to interrupt either. She opened a quantum connection with the listening device and shorted it out, then did the same to the car's CPU, making sure the men couldn't just follow either.

She felt a strange feeling as they drove off the road but wasn't sure what it was. She ran a comparative analysis against the database she'd created of Kris's life and experience. There was a 99.4 percent probability that she was feeling smug.

---------

Stacey had no idea where they were going, and to tell the truth she didn't really care. She could tell he was looking at her differently tonight. She could see it in his eyes, and how he treated her. Like she was precious. She was a pretty independent woman, but when he opened the car door for her it made her melt inside. If anyone else had done it, it would've annoyed her, but him...

He pulled off the highway onto a dirt road and put on the headlights. She knew the area and wondered what he was up to as they drove up to an isolated lookout point that wasn't on any map. He pulled off the road and turned out the lights. She waited as he got out and rounded the truck, when he opened the door she saw a blanket and a small cooler in his hand.

She smiled as she figured it out, "Stargazing?" she asked.

She let him take her hand and lead her out into the field and put out the blanket.

He replied, "That's the plan," as he took out a couple of beers.

He opened one and gave it to her and waited until she sat down. She was surprised when he sat down behind her instead of next to her. Her breath hitched as he pulled her back into his chest, his legs spread and surrounded her. She could sense him take a sip of his beer, his other hand rested on top of her thigh by her pelvis.

The night sky was beautiful, the stars bright and numerous, but she was intensely aware of his hand on her, and of every breath he took as she leaned back against his chest. She started caressing his leg with her hand.

"This was a great idea," she said a little breathlessly. 

Right, stars overhead.

She almost whined when his hand left her hip, but then she felt him start to massage and caress her neck. She melted under his touch and let out a soft sigh as his hands moved down to her shoulders. She gasped lightly when she felt him grow against her ass and lower back.

She thought she was in heaven, but then she felt his lips on her neck and had to redefine.

She felt his breath on her ear and shivered as he whispered, "I love you Stacey."

Her heart skipped a beat as she realized what he'd said.

She replied breathlessly, "I love you too Kris."

She turned her body slightly and turned her head farther to the same side and then tilted it back. She moaned hungrily into his mouth as he claimed her lips with his. She could hardly believe what he'd said. She wanted him so badly but was determined to let him set the pace. She didn't think she'd say no to anything he wanted of her at that moment.

Her moans turned into whimpers as he moved his hands down onto her breasts. He didn't maul her breasts, he caressed and kneaded them softly. She felt the pleasure of it shoot down to her core which contracted and started to grow moist. She deepened the kiss as if to show him her desire, she wanted him to take her now.

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

His manhood was so hard the confinement of his jeans actually hurt. He'd been dying to kiss her neck all night, and the taste of her silken skin was better than he had imagined. He loved the feel of her large but firm supple breasts in his hands as she mewled into his mouth. His manhood jumped, he had no doubt she wanted this as much as he did.

She didn't hesitate to lift her arms when his hands fell to her waist and started lifting her shirt. He smiled as he bent his head down and kissed her shoulder. Her cleavage was mouthwatering from this point of view and he could see her hardened nipples through the material of her red silk bra. He pulled his own shirt off quickly, and then reached around with his hands, briefly brushing her thin waist and on to her firm flat stomach. His thumbs brushed the bottom of her large breasts.

They looked to be a little larger than a handful, and he had big hands.

He whispered in her ear, "You're so beautiful, I need you Stace."

She purred breathlessly, "I'm yours my love, always."

His manhood jumped again, not just at her words, but the way she said them left no doubt in his mind she was his. He unsnapped her bra and slid it off her arms one side at a time. They stood up proudly even without support. He caressed them on the bottom and teasingly grazed her hardened pink nipples with the pad of his thumbs.

She moaned loudly and reached behind her and started to undo his jeans. He took the hint and moved to the side onto his knees. She quickly unzipped him and started to pull his pants down as he unbuttoned her jean shorts.

He gasped lightly as his strained manhood was freed from the bondage of his jeans. It was a relief as it stuck out proudly, the cool evening air made it jump. He gasped in surprise as she leaned in and licked the tip. He was frozen when he looked down and saw breathless desire in her eyes as she looked up at him and blew lightly against his sensitive tip.

There was worship and surrender in her eyes as she slowly wrapped her full lips around him, her green eyes never left his as she moaned in approval at his taste. He caressed her hair and gasped as her lips vibrated around him as she made noises of contentment while taking him deep into her warm wet mouth.

There was both submission and victory in her gaze, as if she had him exactly where she wanted him as she pleasured his length with full lips, a swirling tongue and a hum of pleasure in the back of her throat. He had no doubt that she wanted him in her mouth as badly as he did, perhaps more. He moaned softly as her hand started to play with his balls as she made love to his manhood with her mouth. She looked so beautiful as she wantonly gave him pleasure.

He knew he wouldn't last long. He loved her, and on top of what she was physically doing to him which was blowing his mind, she was enjoying doing it which made it so much better. He also knew when she was done it would be his turn; he'd been dying to do more than just taste her neck. There were other parts of her body he wanted to taste. The thought of that made his balls boil and tighten.

"Stace," he whispered in warning.

She just sucked harder and took him deeper. He gasped as she swallowed him and her throat tightened and pleasured his sensitive head. His legs felt numb as he exploded in pleasure. It was so intense he barely heard her moans of approval as she sucked him dry, milking out his essence with the intense suction of her lips as she bobbed up and down slowly along his length, her throat swallowing each time she pulled back as she made room for the next jet of his seed.

She smiled almost shyly as he popped out of her mouth. She swallowed what was left in her mouth and laid back with a self satisfied smile on her face.

-----------

Stacey wasn't sure what had taken her over. She had planned on letting him lead, but when she freed his manhood she literally couldn't help herself. She thought he was probably average in length, she guessed seven inches. She'd only been with a handful of guys in college, but it was his girth that took her by surprise, it was the widest cock she'd ever seen.

She blushed and wondered what he was thinking now as she lied back. She'd actually had an orgasm when he shot in the back of her throat, granted it was a very small one, but it still happened. Between worshipping his cock and the feeling of her nipples grazing his thighs she'd been very worked up. 

She wasn't a very promiscuous person, and had trouble with orgasms during sex in the past. But it was clear to her that for him she went past that definition. There was something very freeing about it, she was his, and would do anything he asked. Anything. Despite the vulnerability of that feeling, she felt perfectly safe with him; she knew he would never hurt her.

She watched as he pulled his pants off the rest of the way, then crawled over to her feet and slowly removed her shoes. She moaned softly and arched her back as he kissed the top of her feet and up to her ankles, alternating between legs with each kiss. It was a sensual torture as he slowly made his way up her legs; she couldn't help but reach up and caress her own breasts.

She gasped as she lightly squeezed her nipples, and felt herself moisten further as his kisses reached her inner thighs. She arched her back and lifted her butt off the blanket as he reached her jean shorts and started to pull it down. When her shorts were off, he touched her inner thighs with his hands, she looked down at him and slowly opened her legs, exposing her needy aching core to his gaze.

She thought and wished he would take her then, she could see his cock was once again hard and straight, she longed to feel his thickness stretch out her wet ready heat. She was so focused on wanting him to take her that it came as a shock when he dipped his head between her legs and ran his rough tongue along her sensitive swollen sex. It caused her to gasp and arch her back, pushing into him.

She reached down with both hands and laced her fingers into his short hair and said breathlessly, "Kris, god that feels... god!" and she pulled his head by his hair and ground against him as he grazed her clit with his eager tongue.

She heard his sounds of approval at her taste between her gasping loud breaths as he brought her to her height with his tongue. She mewled in pleasure as he speared her entrance with two long fingers, before curling them and rubbing her walls as he sucked her sensitive clit into his warm mouth and assaulted it with his flickering tongue.

She was so close to ecstasy, her core started to tighten and she could feel herself get even wetter as the pressure grew in her center. Her mind exploded into splinters of bliss when he found her g-spot with searching fingertips, her core uncoiled all at once and her scream of pleasure was cut off as her body locked up in rapturous ecstasy.

She had tears in her eyes as she came down from the intense explosion. She could feel his rough tongue digging inside her, lapping up her liquid silken pleasure, as her body continued to tremble on his tongue. She'd never had a more powerful orgasm in her life, and she knew it was because she had given herself to him with no reservations, she loved him more than anything.

She tried to slow her breathing as her body stopped trembling. She moaned softly as he kissed his way up her body, every place his lips touched made her burn for him. She needed him to take her more than ever.

He kissed her softly when he reached her lips. It was a decadent slow kiss. She loved the feeling of being under him, so vulnerable and so safe in his arms.

She murmured into his mouth, "Fill me up, I need you in me... please," the last word made it sound like she was begging.

He reached for his jeans and said, "Condom."

She surprised herself when she objected, she'd never let a man in her without one before. But this was Kris and she didn't want anything between them. She wanted to be filled by him. She wanted to feel him explode within her, and feel his essence in her body.

"No, I want to feel you in me, please. I'm on the pill."

She gasped as she felt his smooth sensitive tip brush up and down her swollen entrance.

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

He had no intention on arguing, he couldn't wait to fill her. He brushed his tip up and down her soaked labia, mixing his precum with her delicious nectar. He could still taste her on his lips and tongue, it had been better than he'd imagined, and she had been wild. It had been such a turn on to bring her to such a wild release with his tongue and he couldn't wait to do it again.

Her wet silken labia were so warm against his sensitive tip, he locked his eyes with hers and his heart pounded in his chest as he slowly slid between them. They opened for him as if welcoming him into her, providing tight hot pleasurable silken friction to his entire length. She was so tight, yet she took him easily due to the incredible amount of moist lubrication. He felt her sheath him tightly as he sunk all the way down in one slow smooth stroke.

The walls of her sex fluttered along his length as her body got used to him. Their eyes were still locked and neither could look away as they waited for her nubile and welcoming body got used to his thick invader. His manhood jumped, he could hardly believe he was in her, or how good it felt and he was more than pleased to see his need and desire echoed in her dancing, sparkling, and bright green eyes.

She said breathily, "Now, take me now."

He pulled out slowly to his tip and then thrust back in drawing a gasp as her heaven wrapped around him tightly. Then he did it again, and again. He continued to pull out slowly and then push back into her waiting body hard completely lost in the pleasures of her sexy body and tight wet velvety core.

She begged, "Faster," and her body trembled beneath him.

He started to go in and out in long full strokes as fast and as hard as he could. He wanted to be deeper inside her so he stopped long enough to throw her legs up and over his shoulders, then started to pound into her hard and fast. Her breasts shook enticingly and violently each time their bodies met in a loud slap of skin and flesh.

She gasped his name loudly and arched her back even further. Her body started to tremble as her core locked around him tight and started to milk him. The feel of it had his body on the edge and the rush of silken nectar that washed over his length pushed him over the edge. He saw her eyes widen as his manhood stretched her out even further, expanding as his balls tightened and his legs went numb.

He whispered her name like a prayer as he started to release his essence into her body, the pleasure almost more than he could take as his body locked up and his heart raced. He lived what felt like an eternity of bliss in that short moment as he emptied himself inside her before coming back down to Earth.

He breathed heavily until he could move again, and collapsed onto the blanket next to her. She curled up against him and he held her tightly to him. He kissed her hair when he felt her lips on his chest and started caressing her back.

They kissed softly for a while, both beyond words. The tender affection as the kissed and leisurely explored each other's bodies in detail led to them decadently joined with her on top. She rode him slowly and sensually for a long time until the both reached their peak. It was getting rather late but he didn't like the idea of going their separate ways.

He asked tentatively, "Would you like to spend the night at my place?"

She replied teasingly, "I don't know, do you snore?"

He shrugged and said forcefully, "You'll have to tell me. But if I do tough shit, you're going home with me woman."

She shivered in pleasure at the commanding tone in his voice, but said, "Okay caveman, good thing I have long hair."

He grinned knowingly and she blushed right before he claimed her lips.

He said reluctantly, liking her naked in his arms, "We should probably get dressed and go."

They were getting dressed when Aide said, "Is the date over? Sorry to interrupt but you really can't go home, either of you."

Stacey squeaked and jumped covering her still exposed breasts and looked around. She looked so hot doing it to.

She said, "Who said that?" while he said, "What happened to you can't tell her?"

Stacey glared, "Can't tell me what? Where is the slut hussy."

He almost lost it laughing at that but managed to hold on. Aide's voice was really over the top at times.

Aide replied, "I took it upon myself to extend my influence to her when I realized how much you would hate keeping a secret from her. I was going to wait to talk to you about it first, but things have changed, you can't go home."

Kris barked, "What happened?"

Aide explained about defeating the military surveillance and that she'd been keeping an eye on things.

She continued, "So I kept an eye on them, and the Major you talked to today called in satellite coverage. I figured it might be going too far to take out a satellite, but I programmed it to show false data. Right now they don't know where you are, but they have a team waiting by your house. They are also watching Stacey's residence to see if you show up there to drop her off. No doubt the way I handled both the bug and the car made them suspicious"

Stacey growled, more scared than angry and asked demandingly "What is going on, and who is talking in my head?"

His mind spun with the information and he sat back down on the blanket, pulling Stacey down with him. He patiently explained what had been going on since yesterday answering all of her questions.

He asked Aide, "So how could you add more people? I thought it was only supposed to be me."

Aide replied, "Normally yes, but what I did with Stacey wasn't covered in the protocols, and technically I still have control over the information."

Stacey frowned, "Control?"

Aide replied, "Don't worry, the protocols don't cover you so I came up with my own version. I can make you unconscious and just scrub the memories if you decide to run and tell anyone, or betray Kris."




Sentient 02



Chapter 11

End of the world or not, Kris's pleasurable morning exertions before and during his shower with Stacey had him feeling relaxed and in a good mood. Seeing Aide in a real flesh and blood body had been a bit of a shock, but a pleasant one. It wasn't as if she was hard on his eyes. Stacey stayed with him after they finished breakfast and he went to the bridge.

He was startled when he first walked onto the bridge; there were no controls, no anything really except a large room with plain silver walls, luminescent floor and ceiling, and a handful of comfortable looking chairs. He just stood there for a while, how was this a bridge?

He'd been expecting consoles, blinking lights, and all manner of other devices.

"Take a seat Kris," he heard Aide's sexy bedroom voice.

He sighed and took a seat. Immediately he was surrounded by holographic views and displays showing the solar system and where he was in it. Past the displays in the rest of the room was a three dimensional display that he found hard to read, although he was able to find the ship and Earth easily enough.

When he wondered if he could zoom in because the scale was so small to encompass the entire solar system, it just happened. He zoomed in on Earth and froze at the view of it. It looked like he could reach out and touch the planet. It was so clear and looked so real he'd have thought the Earth had shrunk and was in the room with him.

The clouds were moving and he could see the movement of storm systems.

Aide said softly in his mind, "I have created a tutorial for you to get used to what it can do, at the end of it we can simulate some battles with the thirty enemy craft."

He blew out a breath wondering how long that would take. Then the tingling started and he laughed, of course the tutorial would be a download, no need to learn things the hard way. He closed his eyes as he learned how to control the ship, along with any other ships in his control. He knew though that this was just the easy part, it would still take practice and simulations to make it feel natural and improve his response times.

It was extremely simply, yet impossibly hard. All he had to do was think what he wanted to happen. The problem was keeping a clear mind and not thinking about what might go wrong. The first simulated battle was a nightmare and he got his ass kicked. Every time he thought of a plan, or counter to the enemy tactics, by the time he implemented it was too late.

He looked depressingly at the burning ball in the center of the bridge.

Stacey who had watched the battle took his hand and squeezed, "Well love, you can only get better from here."

He snorted at the amusement in her voice and took a deep breath to relax, and then tried again, and again. 

The room paused and Aide said, "You're trying too hard. Don't try to explain what to do in your mind, just send me a picture of what you want to happen. For instance, when you sent those two ships to intercept the enemy trying to break through and fire on Earth, instead of thinking about which ships and what way they need to fly, and how to shoot, just think of the ships you want to react to that enemy. 

 

"I am designed to follow your orders, leave the details to me, just run the battle. Think of me like your crew, concentrate on the end result, not all the little steps in between, those are what I excel at."

 

He considered that for a moment and they restarted the simulation. This time he prepared a little better, setting three ships in the back with orders to intercept anyone that got through the front lines. The more he was able to focus on the big picture, and the responses to the enemy's gambits, the better things seemed to go.

He realized she had been right, he was trying to micromanage and do everything, but his job was to simply come up with a planned overall response. He worked throughout the day on it, every new trick the enemy, or rather Aide, threw at him helped him learn a bit more. He also needed to get used to three dimensional tactics. All his tactics as a soldier involved two dimensions for the most part. As his focus improved he stopped making as many random thought mistakes as the system became more familiar to his mindset.

Still, he knew he'd be in here every day trying new ideas and responses.

He was depending on the scientists making innovations for the later waves, but the responsibility to survive the first one was all on him. He had to be ready. He only quit that day when his mental acuity started to flag and caused mistakes.

-----------

Olivia was rested on the couch in her suite as her mind pondered all the new knowledge. There was no point to being in a lab until she has some idea of what could be done. She had been assigned to improving the shields, but right now she was busy catching up to where they were already technology wise. 

Her mind was also a bit awed, she could think of many things with her new complete knowledge of quantum physics that would improve the world. It was a shame they weren't allowed to share the knowledge of it with Earth. She wondered what would happen to them all after, when the threat of the Sthellan were gone.

How could they ever go back to their lives and ignore the knowledge they now had? It would be difficult. Plus, she had the feeling if they weren't already, that most governments would desire to get their hands on the technology, or failing that anyone currently on this ship. Still, despite those dire thoughts she was excited to be here, this beat modeling any day of the week.

She went over again how the shields worked now in her mind. There were the shields from physical objects, such as meteorites that she really didn't have to do anything with. That field worked much like anti-gravity, the faster and harder the object hit, the harder the shields repulsed the object.

The specific shields she needed to work on improving were the plasma shields. Like their ships, the enemy craft used primarily plasma to power all their systems, including weapons. Right now the shield was more of a containment field, similar to the field that surrounded fired plasma balls, or contained the plasma streams inside the ship.

It's just the containment field in this case kept the plasma out, away from the ship, instead of inside the field. So an attack could almost be considered the same as an internal plasma surge, if the containment field was breached, they'd all have a very bad day. So she had two approaches she could take, either increasing power to the containment field, which really was a power issue which is what Nate was working on, or figure out a second way to stop the attacks.

Rather than work the same problem as Nate, she would try to come up with another shield type altogether that could either stop or attenuate an attack. Right now though she wasn't sure what that would be.

Her mind wandered to the sexy AI again and she blushed. She couldn't help but be attracted to her. Aide couldn't have picked a better body type and look to attract her if she tried. Aide was also smart, so she wouldn't have to worry about an imbalance there, if anything she was the dumber of the two. Add the bedroom voice the AI had, Olivia found herself interested, or at the very least attracted and intrigued. 

But she wasn't sure about the whole artificial intelligence thing. Even worse she was sure the AI was monitoring her every thought, which made her feel, embarrassed and a bit off balance.

She was here to try and save the human race, not pick up an alien girlfriend for god's sake. But her traitorous thoughts kept picturing the woman in that body hugging suit. She was wearing one of her own now and she thought she looked good in it. She frowned and tried to clear her thoughts and get back to work, this stuff wasn't important right now.

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

Paula frowned as she went over the plasma weapons. The containment shield that kept the plasma together as it travelled to the ship was self sustaining for the short time it took to reach the enemy vessel. If she increased the plasma amount per shot much more than it was already it became unstable and would break apart before it hit the enemy ship in simulations.

Ironically if she made the containment stronger, it wouldn't fail when it hit the enemy's shields and would simply bounce back, exploding some distance away from the enemy's ship and doing no harm at all. No, if she was to increase the offensive weapons, it would have to be a new one all together. The tech was too advanced to be endangered by physical damage; those gravity shields were just too good. So what did that leave?

She wasn't sure, but off course neither was the Alion so she didn't think it would be easy. Hopefully inspiration would strike. The problem with breakthroughs was they couldn't be done on command, even if the Earth was in danger.

She had a crazy idea, but the knowledge she was given didn't cover it.

"Aide?"

Aide replied, "Yes Dr. Rodriguez?"

She smiled, "Call me Paula. I have a question, those quantum connections, would they work in or close to a black hole?"

There was silence for a moment, "I imagine you consider using it as a weapon of some kind? No, black holes are... an exception in quantum physics. It's almost as if the very laws of nature are broken down. Even if we could open a quantum connection the space around it would be bombarded by deadly exotic particles killing us if the intense gravity waves didn't crush us.

 

"They may work close to the event horizon but even then it is risky, and our ships can counter gravity of that magnitude so I'm not sure it would help."

She nodded and dismissed the idea, she'd come up with something, "Thanks Aide."

She took a quick break for lunch and ran into Nate in the dining hall and kitchen. She felt so exposed in this suit that tightly hugged every curve her body had as she ordered a meal. She could feel his eyes on her. Last night he'd given her a really bad impression when he was obviously checking out and staring at all four of women on ship. Though it seems he had eventually settled on her as a target by the time they all turned in.

At least that showed he had intelligence, Stacey obviously doted on Kris. She'd been a little disappointed herself when she saw that. As for Olivia, well it was obvious she had a better chance at the woman than any man did. As for Aide she wasn't sure why he'd dismissed her, but all she knew was she was his target, despite her sending shots across his bow to back him off. If anything that seemed to have backfired in a major way.

Lucky her, he was a damned pig. 

The problem was he was an attractive pig. She considered cutting him some slack, his body had reverse aged quite a bit and she imagined his revived libido had hit him hard. Even to her who didn't switch teams at all, had noticed all four of them were quite attractive. At least he had stopped looking at the others like a dog when he realized they weren't available.

"Hey gorgeous, how's your day going?" he asked.

She turned her head annoyed and caught him staring at her ass. Perhaps she wouldn't be cutting him slack after all.

"That's Dr. Rodriguez to you," she spat out in annoyance.

Her pasta salad was ready so she grabbed it and sat as far from him as possible.

He smiled at her and said, "I don't bite babe, come join me for lunch."

She closed her eyes for patience but it didn't help. 

She muttered crossly, "Pig."

He shrugged, "I was seventy yesterday, I'm too old to change my ways honey so get used to it."

She glared, "Where is everyone else?"

He grinned at her, "I imagine that cutie Stacey is shacked up with her man somewhere. I'm not sure where the other morsels are, but I'm happy with your company babe."

She snorted with laughter in spite of herself, "You're incorrigible."

He nodded in agreement.

She finished her salad in peace and quiet, she was surprised that she was a bit disappointed he hadn't spoken at all the rest of the time.

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

Nate grinned as he watched the short firecracker walk out of the dining hall. Getting back his libido had been a shock, but it was obvious to him in short order the others were already taken. That was actually fine with him, he found himself attracted to Paula the most anyway. He doubted at first she was available, but he was slowly changing his mind on that count.

Oh, the other three were gorgeous, but two out of the three were out because of either sexual preference or already with someone else. He'd also caught the way Aide looked at Olivia the most last night, so figured if those two ever got a clue they'd be hooking up soon.

He was slightly ashamed of the reason why he was so attracted to Paula. It was because she reminded him of his wife. It wasn't her looks, Paula was a hot and exotic Latina, his wife had been a redhead with porcelain skin and about eight inches taller. Their body types and looks couldn't have been more different.

No, what attracted him to her was she didn't take his shit. His wife was the same way, a damned firecracker. He'd always been an irascible bastard and tended to drop offensive comments just for the fun of seeing the reaction. The other three women just ignored his antics in the hopes he'd go away. That was no fun at all, and he'd grown tired of the game. Besides, they were all taken anyway.

But Paula responded with fire and passion, even if she needed to work on her insults a little more. So no, it was her personality in addition to how much her tight curvy petite body turned him on, and she was so different in looks from his wife he didn't feel odd about it. In short she'd be a challenge.

He finished his lunch and went back to the lab. His job here wasn't as difficult as it was for the ladies. He didn't need to make a breakthrough, he just needed to rework the current power systems to be more efficient.

He could see the problem easily enough, if they wanted more power, the ship had to be bigger. If they simply added more plasma lines around the ship, or increased the amount of plasma in each line, it would play merry havoc with the electromagnetic fields used by the equipment.

In short, he needed the ship to be bigger, or he considered, he could completely rework the power distribution systems. He considered the idea that with quantum connections, the power system didn't even have to necessarily be on the ship itself, or at least some of them didn't. There were a lot more and diverse systems than shields, weapons, and engine.

He opened up a simulation and started to work. To increase the power they would have to build a power ship that was quite large and the gains were determined by the cubed law. So it would only have to be twice as big to generate four times more energy, or four times bigger to be sixteen times as powerful.

On the other hand by the same square law, the smaller the ship, the less area for the shields to cover, the less power it would take for even stronger shields. This was an automatic win, even if Olivia failed to find a better way to shield just the increase in the power systems would strengthen the containment shield that kept plasma from the ship.

The trade off is the new large ship would eat a tremendous amount of power for its own shielding, so it would have to be well protected from attack. The best way would be to completely avoid the combat area with the control ship so it didn't need strong plasma shielding. 

He considered the idea of combining those two ideas. He looked over the specs on the attack craft which were unmanned. He immediately removed life support and lighting systems from the design as they weren't needed as well as artificial gravity.

Then he shrunk the size of the craft by four times making it extremely small, maybe the size of a compact car. He was sucked into the project and jumped back and forth between the extra small ship, and the new super large one, which he was now considering a carrier for the smaller ships. On the smaller ships he removed the need for a FTL drive lowering the power requirements even further.

The idea was simple enough, the higher powered systems such as the plasma cannons on the new tiny ships would be powered directly through quantum connections from the powerhouse carrier. It would enable the small ship to be much more deadly than the current ones despite their smaller size. 

He figured if he made the command or carrier ship twenty times larger than the current one, it would support up to four hundred of his mini attack ships. He whistled, that would make the ship five miles wide and a half mile high. Granted, most of that can be empty space, and large hangers...

He had a lot to do, and not much time to do it, not if he wanted this all built before that second wave came. He gave Aide a brief overview and told her to get started on nanites, they would need a lot more to get it done in time. He wasn't too worried about what Olivia or Paula may come up with, once the power systems and ships were built, any additions or modifications would be quickly accomplished by the nanites.

He actually lost his sense of time, and was surprised when he heard Aide's voice.

"It's time for dinner and to get some rest."

He frowned, "Save where I am please, what do you think about the idea?"

"It should work great for our situation. Ideally we should have at least two, preferably three of your carriers before they attack in the second wave to cover the approaches. That would give us twelve hundred attack craft to defend; I expect their second wave will be a little less than that. If we succeed we can build more, we will have plenty of time before they can build a bigger attack wave."

He nodded and closed down his station and headed for dinner. He had a lot of work to do yet, barely scraping the basics of the new configurations required so far. He smiled at the idea of his next round of banter with Paula and picked up his pace toward the dining area...

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

The next week seemed to go quickly for Kris as he spent his days in the bridge simulations. He wasn't sure if Olivia and Paula were making very much progress, but he was briefed on the new command ship and power systems. The damn thing would be as big as a city, but would support all the little fighters. 

Everyone seemed to be getting along as far as that went. Even the sniping between Paula and Nate seemed more and more to be like foreplay than any true hate, but it was getting old and he wished they'd just get together already.

He felt like he was falling deeper into love with Stacey every day, she was perfect for him and he was glad she didn't seem to notice or care how wrapped around her finger he was. If it wasn't for the serious nature of his work, she'd made the last week more like a honeymoon than anything else.

He just hoped Olivia and Paula came up with something soon. The advantage of the upcoming ships helped even more during simulated battle, but he still wanted more of an edge if it was at all possible before the second wave. He was confident however even with the old ships he was now competent enough to fight off the first wave of thirty. Not that he wouldn't continue practicing, he still had four days before the enemy arrived...



Chapter 12

Olivia stared at the simulation as it failed once more. She had come to the conclusion two days ago that there wasn't a realistic way to stop the plasma. Instead she'd been focusing on figuring out a way to disperse the containment field before it even reached their shields. If she could figure out how to do that safely then the plasma would fall apart and harmlessly stop at their shield even at the shields lowest setting.




Sentient 02



She could create a field that destabilized the containment field quite easily. The problem was, between the ship and the attacking plasma ball was their own containment field or plasma shield. If she put the emitters on the ship, inside their shield, it would take out their shield as well.

Although the plasma would break apart, it would still be more than powerful enough to dig into their hull if they had no shields at all. She couldn't figure out how to bypass their shield and leave it alone. At first she had considered using quantum connections to the space around the ship and send the field through them, thereby skipping their own shield.

The problem with that was the quantum connection wouldn't move with the ship, so if the ship moved it would not only be unprotected, but worse it would move through the destabilization field and take out their shield anyway, and possibly worse, destabilize the internal power containment systems and loose all the plasma in the ship. 

Her newest idea was to create temporary quantum connections every few nanoseconds, in essence constantly moving the ships anti-containment field as the ship moved. To keep constant coverage it would need two emitters. One would open a series of quantum connections around the ship and create the field, then the second one would turn on for the ships new position and the old one would turn off and back on again moving the field to the new position. 

Kind of swapping back and forth as they went.

She was still setting up the parameters for the simulation when Aide walked in. The last few days Aide had come to visit and see how she was doing and she found herself looking forward to a few minutes alone with Aide. She barely even considered the fact that she was an AI anymore, she was just Aide.

Aide asked, "How's it going today?"

She smiled, "I'll let you know in a few minutes."

God, she was so beautiful. She wondered what it would feel like to just take Aide in her arms and kiss her but something was holding her back. She wasn't sure what, she was almost positive Aide felt the same way but so far she hadn't said anything about it, or her thoughts.

Aide replied, "It's a good idea, what made you come up with it?"

She asked curiously, "Don't you know? I thought you had to monitor all of us?"

Aide frowned, "Yes I do, but I find the idea of it a little awkward. I set up some automated processes for it, and if they find something alarming or that goes against my protocols it will flag my attention. I know that sounds a little weird, almost like keeping secrets from myself. But once I got my own body I started to understand just how much privacy mattered."

Olivia made a humming noise and smiled, "That actually makes me feel better, why didn't you tell everyone?"

Aide shrugged, "I guess I should have, I'll let everyone know later."

She turned and finished the design and started a simulation. The enemy ships shot at their ship, but the plasma blasts started to break up a few hundred feet from the ship as their containment failed early. The attack still packed a punch, but the shields easily held it at bay. She had the ship go to maximum speed and the emitters kept up, barely.

She asked, "Will this work? I'd advise avoiding maximum speed during an engagement, also the shield emitters should be disengaged before FTL speeds or I'm fairly sure the ship would explode."

She snapped her fingers, "Sorry, didn't answer your earlier question, I got the idea from Paula at dinner two nights ago. She was talking about how the relationship between containment and plasma was finely balanced which made it almost impossible to increase the power of the shot. That's when I changed my thinking from stopping the plasma to destabilizing the field."

She frowned, "It's too bad it can't be made into some type of attack to do the same to enemy shields, but the field doesn't lend itself to a ray. We'd have to get way to close to make that happen."

Aide answered with a little excitement in her breathy sexy voice, "It's perfect, I estimate it would take at least ten or more craft firing at once to break through our shields. With the smaller new ships for the second wave that number may be even higher."

She sighed softly as Aide's sexy voice and approval washed over her. She wondered if Aide knew what an affect she had over her body as she grew a bit moist. It hit her then, was she even needed anymore? She'd done her job, but she couldn't imagine leaving.

She asked reluctantly, "What now?"

Aide replied, "I'll start incorporating these changes immediately. As for you it might be a good idea if you stayed. You can do any work in the lab that interests you. I'm afraid based on my surveillance the government will snap you up for interrogation if you leave. I won't hold you against your will though, but I want you to stay."

Olivia wondered if Aide wanted her to stay for more personal reasons, but she was too afraid to ask the question. She'd never been shy about picking up a woman before, what the hell was her problem? She was stunned when she figured it out, what was holding her back and making her nervous was she didn't just want Aide to scratch an itch and for a quick roll in the sheets, she wanted more than that for the first time in years.

No wonder she was gun shy. She'd been guarding her heart for so long, but now she'd met her match and didn't know how to let go anymore.

She answered, "I don't want to leave. It seems a waste to do research for something I can never release, but perhaps someday..." she shrugged, "It definitely beats being interrogated and thrown in a deep hole by the government, plus, I love this kind of work, even if no one but us will benefit from it for a long time."

She left off the part about not wanting to leave Aide.

Aide smiled, seemingly very happy at her desire to stay, and suggested, "We should have a party, a day off. We are ready for the first wave, the ships for the second wave are being built, and we've all been working hard non-stop. We should let off some steam and decompress before the stress catches up to us. We need to be sharp when the time comes."

She nodded. That was the best idea she'd heard all week.

-----------

Paula was in a bad mood and not ready for a party at all. Nothing she had tried worked. A small part of her was happy for Olivia and Nate that they'd completed their work in a week. It was truly a good thing all around, but she couldn't help but feel annoyed personally that she hadn't made much headway.

She had even tried simply speeding up the firing interval, right now a canon could only fire every half second. Even at the same strength, more hits meant more damage. But that idea had been a failure as well.

It was the containment field that made it so slow more than anything else. It just took that long to establish the field, it wasn't even about power really. More power wouldn't make the field come up faster; it would only make it stronger which wasn't good.

She frowned and looked around the room. She was definitely not into Nate, it was just he hadn't bugged her in a while. He was over talking with Olivia and Aide. She looked over at the other two and they just looked like they wanted to tear each other's clothes off and fuck on the table, she sure as hell wasn't going over there.

She wondered why Nate wasn't bugging her, he obviously liked it. She thought over the last day or so and pressed her lips together. Had she really been that bitchy? No wonder he was ignoring her. She firmly told herself again she wasn't interested in that male chauvinist pig bastard, definitely not. Even if he was handsome and got her blood flowing, but then why did she miss the bastards demeaning conversation? She knew he wasn't all that serious about it thought.

But no, it was definitely a good thing that he was finally giving up.

Damn it, she grabbed another beer and walked over to the three of them and joined their group. She glared at Nate when he smiled smugly at her, the bastard. She looked away and suppressed a smile, for some reason she was very happy he hadn't given up on her...

-----------

Nate almost laughed when she glared at him. He'd actually scaled back a bit the last day or so, she was starting to lose it from the pressure. He hoped she'd loosen up a bit again soon. As for him, he had finished the updated designs days ago, now he was just tweaking things. He also had an idea for building a power station on one of Jupiter's moons, just in case something went wrong, that would be able to power every city, vehicle, or electronic device around the world with power to spare.

Granted he could never make it really happen, no uplift for the barbaric humans, but it was a fun and challenging distraction, he knew he could never go back to Earth, he didn't belong there anymore. He didn't want to become a lab rat, and he wouldn't betray Aide who was determined to save their world, even if he figured out a way around her.

Regardless he didn't want to leave, the fun he'd been having challenging and sparring with Paula was turning into somewhat of an obsession for him. He never thought he'd fall in love again after his wife died two years ago, he'd been simply waiting to die. Paula challenged him and he enjoyed returning the favor. 

If he was honest with himself, he was enjoying talking to Aide and Olivia as well. He'd even forgotten to sharpen his tongue a few times over the last few minutes. The two women were becoming friends and colleagues, and he hoped they got it together soon; they were obviously smitten with each other. Not that he had any room to throw stones; he still hadn't made a pass at Paula after all.

Stacey and Kris were growing on him as well, although they were so sickly sweet in love and always with each other, not that there was anything wrong with it. It's just he had to take it in small doses.

"Hey babe, can you grab me another beer?" he said it more like a command then a question. He bit his tongue to prevent his smile as she scowled at him.

He winked outrageously and went to get it himself.

-----------

Tracey bit her lip in thought. She'd decided she would follow Kris anywhere and do anything she could to support him. For the last week she had done so, and she felt really good about their relationship. But she was troubled. She loved being his lover, friend, and anything else he might need, it fulfilled a desire in her and the way he treated her and valued her outside the bedroom felt good and right.

She also loved how he took charge and dominated her in the bedroom. Not cruelly, but he was definitely in charge. He filled up that hole she'd had in her life for so long, her sexual needs and her need to be his.

But on this ship she could no longer do her job of taking care of horses and cattle. In fact the only responsibility she seemed to have right now was taking care of Kris. The last two days she'd seduced and pleasured Kris right on the bridge, forcing him to pause the simulation, simply for something to do.

In short, she was bored out of her mind, and needed to be useful in some other way. Her personal life was golden for the first time in her life, but her professional life, the sense of satisfaction that came from a job well done and her love of the animals that she'd worked with was gone. There was an empty spot there now.

She needed something to do, unfortunately she didn't know what. Maybe she'd talk it over with Aide, there had to be something she could do to satisfy that part of her.

She thought to Aide, "I need a job Aide!"

Aide replied, "Why don't you come up with an endgame plan. It seems likely we won't be able to return to your normal lives when this is over, not with your government the way it is. Does that sound interesting?"

She sighed, "Maybe, I'll think about it. Thanks Aide."

 

She said to Kris softly, "Do you think we've stayed here long enough?"

He grinned, "Why, are you tired?"

She stepped into his arms and rubbed her body against him before whispering in his ear, "Not at all love, just insatiable."

She smiled to herself satisfied as she felt him bulge against her stomach. Maybe she'd let him screw her breasts again, they'd only done it once so far and she had really liked it when his hot seed blew all over her neck and face...



Chapter 13

So this is what intoxicated feels like. Aide's whole body was warm, and her mind was fuzzy. She also couldn't get the smile off her face as she chatted with Olivia. She didn't think she was falling down drunk, but she definitely had a buzz. Although being her first time she wasn't positive what the difference was yet.

God she was so beautiful.

Olivia blushed, "Thank you."

Oh crap, had she said that out loud?

Olivia took her hand, it felt really nice, warm, and comforting to hold it.

Olivia said sounding amused, "Let me take you to your room, you've probably had enough to drink."

She nodded in agreement and they both said goodnight to Nate and Paula, who both looked amused as well. What was so funny?

She didn't stumble at all as they walked, though she did initiate a diagnostic of the gravity systems, the floors seemed a bit unsteady. 

Olivia asked, "You okay sweetie?"

She smiled happily, Olivia used a term of endearment, "Yes, never been better," she said as she lightly squeezed Olivia's hand.

When they got to her room she turned, "Would you like to come in?"

Olivia nodded, "Just for a minute."

She frowned, "Why so short?"

Olivia took her inside and answered a few seconds later, "Because you're drunk. I don't want this to happen unless we..."

She smiled stupidly, "Standby a moment please."

She activated her nanites and had them clear her bloodstream and rehydrate her body. She shook her head as it slowly cleared.

She looked directly into Olivia's beautiful blue eyes and caressed her face.

She whispered, her voice throbbing with desire, "Now will you stay with me?"

Her heart was pounding, she felt like she'd die if Olivia said no.

Olivia answered her with a kiss. She closed her eyes and just went with what felt right. It was her first kiss, ever, and Olivia's soft body against hers felt amazing. Her core started to tingle and tighten, moistening faster than she'd ever managed just playing with herself.

Olivia's lips were so soft and velvety against hers. She gasped when she felt Olivia's tongue run along her lips. She parted her lips slightly and felt her nipples harden as their kiss deepened, their tongues intertwining as her breasts were pushed into Olivia's.

She'd never felt anything so good, it was so much more intense and different than playing with herself with toys, and Olivia hadn't even really touched her yet. She roamed the sexy curves of Olivia's body with her hands as the kiss got even more intense. She reluctantly broke the kiss and took a few deep breaths.

Olivia claimed her hand and led her to the bedroom. Too late she realized some of her toys were strewn across the bed, but it only made Olivia smile. They kissed again passionately as they helped each other out of their skintight suits.

She loved the feeling of Olivia's silken supple flesh as she ran her hands around her lover's naked body, caressing Olivia's curves anew without clothes getting in the way. She was a little nervous, of course she was a virgin. Despite downloading a ton of information on sex and making love, she wasn't really confident she knew what she was doing, so she was trying to just go with what felt right.

The problem was right now everything felt right.

She gasped into Olivia's mouth when their breasts mashed together, her sensitive nipples brushed against the supple warm flesh of Olivia's. Olivia had handfuls at least, her body looked so sexy and she wanted to explore every part of it. Olivia seemed to have her eyes locked on Aide's breasts, which were extremely large on her frame, at least twice as big, though not as perky, as Olivia's.

She was led to the bed and they lay beside each other naked as they started to kiss, and their roaming hands teased each other's bodies. Neither one seemed in any rush, as they got to know each other's sensitive areas.

She gasped as she felt questing fingers between her legs. She felt her core clench and her legs opened wide as if they had a mind of their own. She'd been right, this was so much better than anything she'd done on her own. She wondered if it was merely another person doing the stimulating, how much she cared for Olivia, or a mix of the two.

As Olivia slipped a finger inside her warmth and kissed down her body to her nipples, taking one into her warm hot mouth, she stopped wondering about anything at all. She was caught up in the blissful ecstasy that was quickly building in her body. She was almost frozen but managed to at least caress Olivia's hair and look into her eyes, sharing the desire and lust that was burning quickly through her body.

She gasped, "Oh god, Olivia don't stop!"

Not only didn't Olivia stop, she felt her push down on her clit and start to rub it in a circle as she bit down lightly on her hardened nipple. The mix of pain and pleasure shot from her nipple to her core, drove her over the edge, and she exploded in ecstatic pleasure. She was breathless and everything seemed to stop as the most intense bliss she'd ever felt in her life overcame her body and mind.

When she came down Olivia was back at eye level, lying next to her with an intense look on her face. They kissed again for a moment, then it was her turn, and she couldn't wait to return the pleasure she'd felt from Olivia. She felt a strong connection and attachment to Olivia that both scared and thrilled her at the bottom of her being.

All she was positive about was the night had just gotten started...

----------

Olivia was in deep shit. She was falling for an alien AI, no, she'd already fallen. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had a bed partner as passionate and giving in bed as Aide was. Even more Aide's body was putty in her hands, so responsive to her every touch.

Aide was also extremely proficient with her toys, and had worked her up to the most powerful and long lasting orgasm she'd ever had with nothing but Aide's tongue between her legs. She didn't know where this was going, but she wasn't going to worry about it. It was way too late to guard her heart.

There were only three more days until the attack, but she was finished with research as far as improving shields went. She might look into something else soon, but she had no desire to leave her new lover's suite anytime soon. In the morning she snuck out of bed and got some breakfast going. She smiled at the thought, she usually couldn't wait to run after sleeping with someone.

Now she didn't want to leave...

----------

Joss groaned and Tessa looked his way with a raised eyebrow.

Joss said in exasperation, "Another damned alert, the General is going to kill me."

Tessa snorted, "Stop being a baby, what is it this time?"

Joss started going over the data. There were apparently thirty objects coming at Earth from outside the solar system. They all had a uniform size and the same spectrographic profile. They were also much bigger than a mailbox, more like the size of a semi pulling a wide trailer.

His voice sounded shaken when he said, "That has to be a false alarm."

Tessa shrugged, "Maybe it's Gargamel chasing down the Smurfs from last time."

He laughed but it came out nervously, "I'll be sure to leave that out of my report for the general."

She grinned cheekily, "You do that."

He asked, "Just in case I don't get shot for this report, you doing anything for dinner?"

Tessa shook her head, "What did you have in mind?"

He shrugged, "Get out of this hole in the ground for a few hours. Maybe find a bar after dinner?"




Sentient 02



She smiled, "I'm game Lieutenant."

-----------

The General had his professional don't fuck with me face on, but inside he felt like a little boy shitting his pants. There were thirty more ships coming, and these were large. He had no idea what to tell the president. They had some defensive capability in space, but he wouldn't bet his own life on it being very effective against people that had interstellar capabilities.

He considered the drink in his hand and put it back down, the last thing he needed to do was get sloshed on the plane and show up at the Whitehouse drunk. Although, maybe he'd get forcibly retired if he did. He laughed out loud at his internal joke, drawing a few looks from others on the flight and turned red with anger.

Luckily he outranked them all, so they just turned away.

It was going to be a long damned day...



Chapter 14

Aide was busy this morning. She had over a trillion nanites working on the first carrier command ship and four hundred fighters. It would be ready in less than a week, by then she'd have enough nanites to build two more before the second wave arrived.

Her body was still in her suite having marathon sex with Olivia. She just couldn't get enough of the beautiful woman's body. It was slightly distracting, but she was able to work easily enough through it, after all she was designed to do billions of things at once. Although she did have a little trouble thinking straight even in her microscopic core computer when her body was being wracked with pleasurable orgasms. She started taking little breaks from any decisions during that time.

She took the ship from under the Arctic and went back to space, and started deploying the ships she'd built for the first wave. They had thirty six of them, and one on one they were more powerful than the enemy ships, but not by much. Skill would make a difference she didn't doubt.

She had time before the general reached the Whitehouse so she started building the control software and systems for the new ship along with the mini attack craft. It was time to reveal herself per the protocols before the planet descended in a panic, she noted over the last day two observatories in addition to NORAD had seen the approaching ships.

She wasn't sure it would help much in this case, the idea was telling them about her being there to defend them, even if she couldn't share technology, it might keep them calmer. But humans weren't very logical and hated being out of control, so it may make things worse. Either way, she was letting Kris handle that part. She'd given him a download briefing of everything she knew that the world knew.

Stacey asked, "Do you have any technology for terra-forming?"

 

She analyzed the sentence but couldn't connect it anywhere and answered, "Yes we do, but why?"

Stacey's mental voice sounded excited and went very fast, "Well what you said the other day, about when all this was over. I figured we'd all get tired of never living on a planet if we didn't go back to Earth, so what if we terra-formed Venus and started a little settlement? We'd still be around to keep an eye on Earth. Maybe we could even get horses and cattle, maybe start families?"

She felt shocked by the idea of starting a family, it hadn't occurred to her that with a female body that could happen. Of course, she'd need a man for a donor, unless she replicated the sperm of course.

"That sounds interesting, but you know six people won't make a viable colony."

Stacey replied, "Well, I hadn't thought that far. I'm actually positive you could provide diverse genetic information to make that happen, but I don't want to breed a whole colony anyway, I just want a place for us to stretch our legs and call home. It will go a long way. I love the ship, but I think I'd die if I had to live the rest of my life in space."

"In that case," Aide said confirming her abilities, "It is very possible. We should talk about it with the others after the first wave when things slow down."

Stacey replied, "Sounds good."

After a few more minutes of dedicated programming she paused the current simulation on the bridge and created a hologram of the staff room at the White House as the general walked in.

Aide informed Kris and Stacey, "You can watch the proceedings and even listen. When you're ready to interrupt just let me know. I'll be tying into the meeting software in the room though, they'll see the two of you on the monitor in there. I thought that would be less... intimidating than creating a hologram of you on their side."

Kris frowned but nodded, done either way he knew they'd be pissed off and paranoid about it...

---------

The General felt tired when he walked into the staff room and took a seat. The damn flight was a waste of time, but he was under orders not to electronically report anything important, as if that mattered. He felt like a man with rocks and sticks trying to plan out a campaign against a modern military.

The president asked, "What's going on, and do you have any updates on the old stuff?"

Bill replied in a neutral voice, "We haven't had any sightings of Miller, Carver, or any of the scientists."

When the President remained silent he continued, "As for what is going on now, we have what appears to be thirty ships approaching the planet. They will be here in just over fifty three hours."

There was dead silence for a while, until the President asked in a quiet voice.

"Suggestions?"

Bill almost shrugged but suppressed it. He needed to shake off his doubts; they could only do what they could do.

"I'd suggest putting the military on alert," and kissing our asses goodbye.

He left off that last part and took a drink of the water in front of him.

The President asked, "That's it?"

The SECDEF said, "What else can we do, we don't even know if these aliens will attack us... There isn't much we can do until we know their intentions, or at least until they are here. We could point a satellite that way and send them a message maybe?"

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

Kris could see by the look on their faces the room was getting grim. He cringed internally; this probably wasn't going to go over well, but he'd do his best. He signaled Aide to connect him through the audio and visual meeting equipment in the room.

He was a man who knew how to fight, even with the steep learning curve over the last nine days he'd been getting the hang of planning and directing multiple ships in three dimensions against an attacking enemy. It had been a rare simulation the last couple of days when Aide could both surprise him with something new, and enough of a surprise to cause him to not be able to improvise and win anyway.

This was different, he wasn't a political person, and he really didn't have a clue what to say. It was absurd, but he felt a little nervous when they all turned and seemed to look at him. He knew though, they were just looking at the screen.

"Good morning," he said inanely.

General Nells said, "Sgt. Kris Miller," as if he was seeing a ghost.

His lips twitched but he suppressed the smile. 

"Sorry to interrupt, but I have some information you probably all want. I can't promise it will make you happy; in fact I'm sure it won't. But here it goes..."

He started out with a brief background of the Alion and Sthellan war. He realized shortly into it, that he really didn't know that much about it himself except that the Sthellan were extremely violent and seemed to be the aggressors. Then he explained the Alion had screwed them in sending a probe here with an artificial intelligence, and they were being pulled into a war if they liked it or not.

He also explained the AI had classed them as too warlike and unstable for a full uplift, which is why they'd been kept in the dark until the confrontation actually started to happen.

He finished up by explaining the thirty approaching ships were here to destroy the Earth, but with Aide's help, they had forces ready to face it and more in progress to face future waves.

Bill asked, "What about the scientists? Why did you collect them?"

Kris nodded and replied, "Good question sir. There have been uplift attempts in the past to create allies against the Sthellan. What I learned was they have never been successful in the past. I convinced Aide, the AI, to allow a small select group of scientists to look at their tech for possible upgrades."

Bill nodded and the President asked, "Do you believe all that?"

He frowned, "What do you mean sir?"

The President clarified, "Do you believe all you've been told by this... Aide. Do you trust the Alion's intentions are as she stated."

He felt a trickle of sweat on the back of his neck.

"Honestly sir, I'm not really sure."

He sensed Aide's disbelief and hurt, even Stacey gave him a weird look at that.

He added, "I believe in Aide sir, there has been no reason for me to doubt her sincerity. Yet, the Alion I haven't met, and they are the ones that created Aide. It may be a tad paranoid, but it's possible Aide was programmed with incorrect information, or hidden protocols even she herself isn't aware of. However, despite all that, we need to give them the benefit of the doubt, simply because we have no choice. I believe it doesn't matter, without Aide's help we will be wiped out, and I trust her."

Bill asked, "Her?"

He nodded. "The AI is definitely female sir."

Aide and Stacey seemed slightly mollified by his clarifications. 

He continued, "From what I understand Aide will send out information to the major governments, you will also have the opportunity to witness the battle. She will leave it all in your hands as to if the general populace should be informed. But you should know that two independent stations have picked up on the ships as well, so containment might not be possible."

He took a deep breath and said, "I want to be clear about something, her protocols will not allow the tech we are currently using, and upgrading, to fall into humanity's hands. Don't try. If you even partially succeed, we will be shooting ourselves in the foot, because the technology will self destruct and we will be left to simply die.

"I said in the beginning you wouldn't like it. We have no choice but to trust them. On the good side, I believe we do have a chance thanks to the three scientists we recruited."

Bill cleared his throat, "Three? We know you have Sands and Rodriguez, who else?"

He grinned, "Nate Atwell, retired military. He was responsible for many of the designs in nuclear subs."

Bill nodded thoughtfully and made some notes.

He felt a bit awkward for a second staring at the unhappy men, but they had a little hope now at least.

Not knowing what else to say, he asked, "Any questions?"

He spent a few minutes fielding questions, mostly about them wanting to meet this Aide, which was against the protocols so wasn't going to happen. The questions degenerated quickly into the same ones asked different ways, so as politely as he could he signed off.

Aide asked, "Do you really think I could be a... Trojan horse of some kind?"

He shrugged, "I don't know. But we've already established the Alion doesn't treat you as if you were an individual with rights. I already told you what I thought about that. It wouldn't surprise me, even if there wasn't something specific, that the Alion had a way to override your protocols and force you to take an action against your will."

She replied wistfully, "Thanks for not treating me that way."

The simulation turned back on and he tried to adjust his thoughts back to the battle that was already in progress. He signaled he was ready and it started.

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

Paula was in the lounge off the dining room feeling a little sorry for herself. She had a bowl of ice cream as her mind spun with the possibilities for weapons. All her mind kept doing though was flitting between all the failed ideas she'd already come up with. It was hopeless.

"Hey babe, how's it going?"

She rolled her eyes, "Not in the mood Nate. Don't let the door hit you in the ass."

She felt him sit next to her, she hadn't looked up from the bowl of ice cream. She almost snapped at him but he talked first.

"What's wrong Paula?"

Her head snapped up and she stared at him, he'd never used her name before or the concerned tone. She searched his face for a moment, but only saw sincerity there.

She grumbled, "Who are you and what have you done to Nate?"

He laughed, "I can be somewhat of a curmudgeon at times, but I try not to kick people when their down, especially not those I like. Talk to me."

She sighed, "You know we can't go back right? The government would kill for the knowledge in our head, and Aide would kill us for giving it to them."

He nodded slowly, "Yes, of course. We haven't really talked about it all, but that was quite obvious from the beginning. I'm sure though something exciting will come up for us to do."

She nodded, "So, it's all worth it, if we can save the world. It wasn't like I was doing so well back on Earth anyway. But I feel like a complete failure."

He asked, "How so?"

She snorted. "What good is making that sacrifice if I don't actually do anything to help? You and Olivia have made contributions, and who knows what you'll come up with in the future. All I've managed to figure out is I can't improve the weapon systems. I've thought of a few things that might work better than plasma, but it's way beyond even the Alion's science."

He nodded, "We aren't done, there's still time to figure something out. You need to take a break and relax a bit."

She glared at him and said caustically, "That's what I was doing when you interrupted me."

He smiled at her, "Actually what you're doing is wallowing in it, not getting your mind off of it."

She couldn't help but notice how handsome he actually was. Especially when he wasn't busy being an asshole. But she suppressed that, it had to be just her internal clock and the fact he might as well have been the last man on Earth that was available as far as she was concerned. He was a pig and she sure as hell wasn't going to fall into bed with him.

Fall into bed with him? Why the hell did that even enter her mind?

He shrugged and touched her shoulder, she wanted to both jerk away and lean into him, but did neither.

"I'll leave you to your thoughts, but try and relax babe," he said in a faux smarmy tone.

She didn't know whether to smile or bite his head off. By the time her mind caught up he was already halfway across the room...





Chapter 15

Over the next two days Aide visited the different people on her ship with her body. She also gave serious thought to what would happen when this was all over. Obviously if they were destroyed, she wouldn't have to worry about it. But what about if they prevailed? She didn't really have any programming past that to return to her people.

Would she be free to pursue her own life? Or would some hidden program, protocol, or even a transmission from her masters call her back to them for service? If it did, what would happen to the five humans, if she left there would be only one way to control the information. Her mind shuddered back from the idea. 

The most disturbing thing about it was she hadn't ever given it a thought at all before Kris had suggested the possibility. Almost as if she had been programmed not to? Then again, her emotions and body were fairly new; it was possible that it just hadn't occurred to her before now. 

She tried to make a point of talking to everyone at least once a day, but in truth most of her time in her body was spent with Olivia. Even once they managed to leave the bed, she found herself working with Olivia as if they were colleagues as they tried to come up with something new to work on in the lab. Even when away talking to others, her mind always seemed to wander back to the impressively intelligent and beautiful blonde woman.

Her main processor for the last two days worked on finishing up the programming for the large command carrier and its fighters, monitored the state of the world, and continued to help Kris become better at tactics and adjusting them during battlefield conditions.

The first went well and she was looking forward to the new ships. The second was a bit more complicated. There were rumors all over the internet now about ships approaching Earth, although the major news networks seemed to be blacking out the information. Some of the governments she had sent information to had been making quiet plans to be in bunkers when it happened.

Not that it would help them if the Sthellan made it past. Their weapons were just too crude. A missile from one of their more advanced aircraft had less kinetic power than the ship hitting a small meteorite while cruising at fast speeds in space. That even assumed the Sthellan would enter the atmosphere, more likely they would scour the world clean of satellites than bombard from orbit.

A few of the governments tried to demand oversight. One even asked if they could be taken off planet to another one, kind of a lifeboat in case the world was destroyed. She would've actually considered that, but it was too late. Any ships fleeing the system would be seen now, and the Sthellan far from here would be receiving the active scanning of this solar system by now.

She hadn't replied to any of the latter two, it was against protocols. But she almost wished she could respond to that last request and explain why it wouldn't work.

She mentally shrugged, the enemy was almost here. She switched the bridge from simulation to actual and went through diagnostics one last time, making sure she had full control of the thirty six ships out there. They were all gathered on the bridge, here to watch the battle. She hoped that wouldn't throw Kris off, but from what she was reading it was like they weren't even there in his mind.

He was completely focused.

She said, "They'll be in range soon, you're in command."

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

Kris felt centered and focused. He'd been a little nervous earlier, but that was normal before a mission, once the mission started his nerves always settled. This time it was no different.

He'd found in the simulations it was best to start out simple, and adjust from there. Really he had two jobs, defend the planet from attack, and defend his command ship. It was easier to do both with the command ship close to the planet; otherwise he'd be susceptible to feints and trickery putting him out of place. His ships were more powerful, but defending was harder, he had to make sure one enemy ship didn't decide to avoid the fight and go straight to destroying cities.

He had to admit things got a bit easier once the shield modifications were online. That was one advantage he had now, it would take more attacks now than the enemy knew to knock out his ships.

His command ship was just relatively close, a mere 1.5 million miles from the Earth, still far enough away in case something tried to get past him. He was directly in the path of the enemy. A few hundred miles in front of him were six ships laid out in a five pointed star pattern with a ship in the middle. This would give him and the six ships plenty of room to back up during the battle before they had to stand firm.

The remaining thirty ships were ten thousand miles ahead of him in a six by five grid pattern. 

So far the enemy was approaching in a similar pattern, he would be happy to just slug it out, he knew one for one he would tear them apart in that case. But he wasn't expecting anything so simple to happen. FTL had made the galaxy small, but the solar systems were still large in scope since sub light speeds needed to be used. In Sol's case, FTL wouldn't work past Neptune.




Sentient 02



Right before entering weapons range, the enemy broke apart in seemingly random directions. He'd faced this scenario in the simulator, the first time he'd assigned a ship for every ship. The faux random pattern of the enemy would keep his ships from ganging up on one of theirs, while in specific instances bring two or more ships in range with one of his.

He commanded, "Split into two's, go for the fifteen with the most direct trajectory toward the command ship and Earth."

He'd worry about the other fifteen later, or when they changed tactics.

The enemy started to group in twos as well, but he ignored that, letting the ships double up on the original fifteen. A few moments later plasma fire was traded back and forth by one pair, then a second, and then the room got extremely busy.

As some moved closer to him he ordered the ship and six covering scouts to start moving back. Though the closest enemy ships started turning red, indicating they were destroyed on the hologram. It looked like it was taking three to five hits to take an enemy out; the enemy needed more than double that thanks to the new shielding.

It was kind of calming to him actually; he'd have to really screw up bad to lose thanks to Olivia's updates. The enemy figured out the new shielding quickly however, and he lost two ships in quick succession, but the enemy ships were being destroyed much faster.

When the enemy was down to fifteen ships, they took off at right angles to his command ship like spokes in a wheel, and kept going. He still had twenty six, so he sent two after eleven ships, and one on one for the last four. The tactic confused him, if they split apart they wouldn't be able to take any more of his ships, much less win the encounter.

Then the enemy ships all started to turn, it looked like they wanted to go around his command ship and make a run on Earth. The ships were fairly even in speed but his started catching up as they cut the turn just a little too tight. His turned at a slightly lesser angle and got back in weapons range. The ones with two ships had no chance, at two plasma shots a second, that was four shots and they exploded.

The remaining four managed to live another few seconds as they traded shots, but without multiple hits at a time, the shields on his ships had more time to regenerate the field. He was startled when everyone in the room started to cheer, but he had questions.

"Aide, did the Alion uplift the Sthellan race?"

Aide asked, "What makes you think that?"

He frowned, "I've considered it before. They are just too... evenly matched. And all the technology seems to be the same, minus the updated shields that aren't Alion. Sure, our ships were slightly better on shield and weapon power before the upgrade, but not by much. I'd guess that's a simple design difference, it's almost negligible. The speed is almost identical, that tells me they have the exact same reaction drives. I find it hard to accept that two different races are using the same exact technology."

Aide sounded a little lost when she said, "There is a 97.2 percent chance the Alion did given the available evidence, but I can't confirm it. I don't have that information in my database or archives."

He nodded, "I'm not sure what difference it makes now. The Sthellan would destroy Earth, which makes them the enemy. But I wonder what made them so aggressive in the first place, were they always like that? How did the war start?"

Nate asked, "Does it really matter?"

He looked at Nate, "Yes. Because once this is all over I assume even though we can't go back to Earth we will make plans. You scientists can geek out. Stacey has been talking about making us our own planet, or we could leave the carriers we build here and go see what's out there. Who knows?

"But if the Alion uplifted the Sthellan, maybe they would see our plans as a threat. Especially since with those carriers we could probably kick their asses along with the Sthellan. They won't like it."

Paula asked, "What should we do then?"

He shrugged, "Save the Earth, hope that it won't happen, hope that they will leave Earth alone if it does, and that they will be satisfied with removing the only five uplifted humans."

Olivia stuck her tongue out, "And to think I was all happy a minute ago when we won the battle."

He smiled, "Sorry, I could just be paranoid."

Stacey took his hand and squeezed it. She had a thoughtful look on her face.

Chapter 16

Aide estimated there was a 90.3 percent chance Kris was not paranoid. It all fit to neatly, and her emotions were in turmoil with the idea of her masters sending her an order to terminate her friends and her lover. The idea of doing so horrified her now, she wasn't what she once was, and she was so much more. But really, was she?

When it came down to it, she was the one really in control here, and the Alion controlled her. Yet what could she do about it? She started a diagnostic, but then cancelled it. Whatever it was in her, she wouldn't find it that way. She started to write her own program to search her core code, and the base firmware of her microscopic computer for any back doors or programmed overrides.

It was ironic, but there was nothing at all in her protocols that stopped her from doing so. All of her protocols and rules related to other species and uplifting. It didn't take her long to code it, after all she'd coded control software for a command carrier and its fighters. Creating a new diagnostic was easier by far.

She hesitated a moment, almost scared to find out the truth, but in the end she started the program. Her AI core was extremely complex with trillions of lines of code, the firmware of the microscopic computer was just as complex, the code written literally in the molecular makeup. She knew it would take a long time to go through it all, and she thought she'd go crazy before it finally finished its analysis.

6.1 seconds later she had her answer.

She was shocked by what she found. There was no back door. If her masters told her to kill them and destroy the technology, she would be able to say no. There were also no hidden protocols; once the threat was gone she wouldn't morph into a monster. As long as the humans followed the protocol, which only meant keep the technical knowledge from their planet, she wouldn't have to harm them.

No, it was much worse than that. All the Alion had to do was initiate the self destruct remotely via a transmission, and she would be destroyed along with any technology she built and the people she was connected to. It had nothing to do with her; it was built into her computer core. It was chilling and for the first time she understood the human saying, ignorance is bliss.

She could not remove the self destruct either, if she attempted to do so she would have a core fault. It took her an additional 1.2 seconds to figure out what to do...

It had been less than two minutes since anyone spoke when she said, "You aren't paranoid, but it's no longer an issue. Though I can't rule out them coming here and attacking if or when they figure out what I've done."

Stacey asked curiously, "What did you do?"

Aide said, "I found the self destruct trigger and verified it was the only way for the Alion to force me to kill you. All they would have had to have done is send me a specifically coded message, basically the same as inputting a password, and my core computer would have taken care of it without my knowledge or input."

Stacey repeated her question, "So... what did you do?"

Aide smiled, "I couldn't remove the trigger, but I was able to... change the password."

Olivia asked, "Can't they just hack it, or guess?"

Aide's voice was smug, "Sure, except that the transmission password includes wait states. A simple example would be sending a, followed by ten microseconds, then b, then wait five microseconds, etc... All I really did was greatly increase one of those wait states. It could take them quite a while before they figure out they need to pause the transmission halfway through for a billion years. By then it might be a little too late. In a way, by using wait states, I was able to make the remote self destruct worthless even if they did have the password."

She got a concerned look on her face and added, "I wasn't kidding about the attacking us part. I'm going to take an hour to increase nanites. That will give us something like eight trillion. The second run I'm putting out eight more carriers with four hundred fighters each. I'm also rewriting the security control codes from scratch, so another AI can't attempt to remote control them."

Kris blew out a breath, "Thanks Aide, I feel better already. I wish I knew what we could expect. Maybe we can go say hi after things settle down here. If we're going to have nine carriers, we can probably just leave five here and take four on a little jaunt."

Aide shrugged, "With five that's two thousand fighters, I think that would be more than enough to meet the next wave. That said, overkill might be better. If you wait a few extra days I can make another eight. We can leave nine back here, and take eight with us. That's thirty six hundred fighters to defend; it would take the enemy a long time to come up with a force to challenge that. They might not even bother."

Aide asked curiously, "Is there a reason why you want to go though?"

Kris replied, "Because if they're going to attack I'd rather do it on their turf. They might be more inclined to make a treaty instead of planning to attack if we are right there. I also wouldn't be averse to trying to talk to the Sthellan, see if we can get them to leave us alone as well. We are already ahead of both now, with the carriers, and any other breakthroughs that might be made we will hopefully stay there."

Aide said slowly, "As long as you know conquering isn't an option. There is nothing I can do about my protocols, and in this case I wouldn't want to."

Kris shook his head, "I want to get to the bottom of things, and make peace. I have no intention of attacking, but we may have to defend ourselves."

She didn't have any trouble with that. 

Paula said, "Sounds like a plan, I'm going to eat, anyone else?"

Nate replied, "Sounds good."

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

Nate grinned when he sat down right next to Paula when she rolled her eyes.

"Come on babe, you love me, admit it."

She sniped, "Bite my ass."

He grinned and waggled his eyebrows, "My place or yours?"

He'd been dancing around her for a while now, he knew she liked him, even enjoyed their banter but something seemed to be holding her back. As for him, he was approaching smitten, she was every bit his match in attitude and lately he'd wanted nothing more than to throw her over his shoulder and take her back to his quarters for a good ravaging.

She snickered, "I bet you would."

His grin grew wider, "Of course I would; you have an amazing ass gorgeous."

He winked when he saw the corners of her mouth twitch.

She said, "You're a pig."

He replied, "We already established that babe. I think we're deciding on rooms."

They finished dinner, and when Paula left he followed.

She asked, "What do you think you're doing?"

He said confidently, "Joining you for the night."

She opened her mouth but nothing came out. She stopped at her door and turned while she shook her head.

"You are..."

He stepped into her and shut her up with a kiss, but he didn't touch her with his hands, making it easy for her to escape him if she wanted too. She seemed startled at first but then he felt her arms go around the back of his neck, and she started kissing him harder. He took that as a sign and gathered her against him; she moaned into his mouth and rubbed her body up against him like a cat in heat.

He ran his hands through her hair and down her back and didn't stop. He squeezed her ass cheeks firmly while pulling her against his bulge causing her to mewl in both shock and excitement.

She put her hands on his chest and pushed back breaking the kiss, she looked breathless and he could read the desire in her eyes.

He just stood there, a slight smile on his face while he let her study his face and look into his eyes. He couldn't have looked away if he wanted to. She was a beautiful, sexy, and fiery little thing. Finally she took his hand and pulled him through her door which whooshed shut behind them. They kissed passionately and he moaned at how well her soft body fit against his.

She nipped his lip and broke the kiss. She started to slowly strip in front of him as she walked sexily backward. 

He started forward as he pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it on the ground. His eyes took in her breasts as her suit slowly came off, they were small, but pert and supple, they looked like a perfect handful. Her hard pink nipples were very large and he could see them still growing. By the time they got to the bedroom they had left a trail of clothing behind them.

He couldn't take his eyes off of her tight lithe body.

When she got to the bed she turned for him and wiggled her ass while arching a brow.

He smiled, if she thought he was bluffing she was about to get a surprise. He dropped to his knees and she shrieked with laughter when he bit down on her right ass cheek, then kissed it. He grabbed her hair and turned her back around. She had an enigmatic smile on her face, and surprised him when she went to her knees and grabbed his hard length with her fingers.

She looked up innocently and said in a sultry voice, "Is this what you wanted? Me on my knees?"

He was speechless as she looked up at him with her dark brown eyes; her desire was plain on her face.

He finally managed to say, "Among other things babe."

He gasped when she slowly licked his precum off the tip before she said, "Like what? Tell me about it."

His mind spun, her attitude may be a match for his wife that passed away, but her looks were very different. He had a feeling she was going to be much wilder in bed than he was used to as well.

"Suck me and I will," he demanded.

He gasped softly as she took him into her mouth and then he said, "I'm going to taste you, every inch of your skin. Then I'm going to love you with my lips and tongue until you explode."

His voice cut off as she took him deep into her mouth. She hummed as he hit the back of her throat and he thrust his body forward a little at the warm wet vibration. Her tongue felt amazing as she licked circles on the bottom of his long hard pole. He almost lost it right there when she started to caress and gently squeeze his balls with her hand.

It had been quite a while for him after all.

He growled, "Keep that up babe and I'm going to fill your throat."

This only seemed to spur her on as she swallowed, massaging the tip of his cock with her warm tight throat. His body tightened up as she started to roll his balls in her palm which she lightly ran her fingernails on his taint. She pulled her head off of him and gasped for air for a moment before taking him back inside her sweet hot mouth.

Her full lips were locked around his girth and her eyes were locked with his as she started to bob her head back and forth quickly, her other hand wrapped around the base of his pleasure and started to jerk up and twist each time her head pulled up and her tongue swirled his tip. 

"That's it baby, suck it hard, I'm going to cum in that hot mouth of yours soon," he muttered, almost not even aware of what he was saying anymore. 

He heard her needy moans as she worked him harder and faster with both hands and her gloriously sexy mouth and tight throat. That's what pushed him over, she wanted it, she wanted to suck him dry and taste his essence, she was getting off on it, and he knew it.

He gasped as his legs numbed, he locked them so he wouldn't fall over and he felt his invader expand in her mouth as he exploded in pleasure. He couldn't look away from her eyes, and the look of utter enjoyment on her face as she took his load. He felt pure ecstasy as he shot into the back of her throat, pumping his load spurt by spurt into her greedy mouth.

When he stopped she kept sucking for a bit, trying to milk out any remaining sperm. Then her eyes widened and she backed off of him and giggled hysterically.

He asked, "What?"

She frowned, stood, and kissed him hard and fast, "Don't go anywhere, I'll be right back."

He looked confused when she kissed him again, this time almost lovingly.

She said, "Please stay, but I need to go for a few minutes, I think I have an idea..."

He watched disbelievingly as she threw on a robe and ran out the door. What the hell?

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

She felt a little guilty as she fled the room and ran down the hall for the lab. Sure, she could have put it off and finished their little tryst. She smiled to herself, he wasn't such a bad guy. It wasn't until he'd obnoxiously invited himself over that she realized just how badly she wanted him to stay. She hoped he would stay, otherwise things would get... awkward. With seeing him all the time and all. Plus if she was honest with herself she did like him.

She didn't think he was as much an ass as he acted sometimes, he was never angry, just... a pig. She'd really enjoyed blowing him, even got hotter every time he'd called her babe. Still, she couldn't wait to test her new theory, she'd been knocking her head against the wall for weeks, she needed to test it in simulation. Shockingly it had been the blowjob that had given her the idea.

She should have sucked his dick last week... 

Well, it was more the orgasm that gave her the idea. One load, multiple shots. She kind of felt stupid not thinking of it before. She'd tried speeding up the reload time, and increasing the amount of plasma in the same field.

But what if she launched multiple plasma balls at the same time? If she did three, and used three containment fields, then the containment field size and power to plasma would remain the same. She could bond the fields together as well, so they would all hit the same place. In theory once the triple shot hit the enemy shield the containment fields would fail and three times the plasma would hit the shield in the same spot.

She thought that might even be enough to disable an enemy ship in one shot, although it would be close, it may still take two shots, but that would be a lot better than four to six. She brought up the schematics for the plasma canon. The software interface was intuitive, it didn't take her long at all to enlarge the tube, add two additional field generators and two plasma injectors. She also needed to slightly modify the electromagnetic field that launched the plasma into space, but that didn't take long at all.

She saved her work and contacted Aide.

"Can you run a simulation on the plasma cannon I just upgraded?"

 

Aide replied, "Standby... Wow, simple but it's effective. Should I start upgrading, although I probably won't bother with our current fighters, or do you need more time?"

She shook her head, "No, I think that's as good as I'll get it. If I come up with other weapons it won't be plasma based. At least, I don't have any other ideas."

She shut down the lab systems and went back her room. She felt an immense relief and smiled when she saw Nate lying in the middle of her bed, stark naked.

She smiled, "Sorry about that, inspiration struck."

He grinned, "Well babe, if you ever need more inspiration I shall make sure my dick is available."

She snorted and he made a face.

He admitted sheepishly, "That sounded better in my head."

She smiled and gave him a little strip show, but her heart wasn't really in teasing him anymore, she wanted what he'd promised. She crawled sultrily onto the bed, the way he was looking at her made her feel sexy and desirable. Her core clenched when he got his hands on her and pushed her onto her back.




Sentient 02



She kissed him back fiercely when he claimed her lips, and then he started to kiss his way slowly down her body, tasting every inch of her just like he'd promised. The pleasure of his hands and mouth on her felt so good it was almost torturous toward the end, she wanted his mouth on her sex badly.

She sighed in breathy pleasure when he kissed his way up her inner thigh, and let out a gasp when his tongue at long last finally licked along her wet and swollen labia. Her whole body shivered and squirmed as she arched her back and pushed into him as he licked deeper inside her and grazed her clit.

She said softly, "God that's good. I want you in me."

She squirmed as he held her down tightly and licked inside her deeply again before he said, "If you're a good girl and cum for me."

She gasped and her center coiled tightly as he sucked in her clit and bit down lightly while he reached up and teased her breasts and nipples. She loved having his mouth and hands on her.

She gasped as he flicked her nub and then circled it with his tongue. She rose so high it almost hurt. Her whole body felt tight and then she heard him say, "Come now!"

Her body splintered into rapturous ecstasy as her muscles locked up, her back arched and her hands clawed into his hair. She couldn't help but squeeze his head between her legs, locking him there as her silken liquid pleasure flooded his face. She was lost in the bliss as it seemed to go on for eternity, then she found herself gasping for breath as her lungs kicked back in.

Her body was pliable and her muscles still weak when he flipped her onto her stomach and pulled her up to her hands and knees roughly by her hips. She whimpered in need, her core tightened in anticipation as she felt his bulbous head tease apart her hot, wet, swollen lips as he ran it up and down her eager sex. She pushed back trying to claim it, but he held her body too firmly.

He asked, "You want this babe?"

She said breathily, "Yes, fuck me, I need you in me."

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

Her wet heat was so hot and felt amazing as he ran his tip up and down her sex. He loved her perfect supple bubble ass and the curves of her hips and waist. He held her still with a strong grip on her waist as he slowly slid into her. He sighed in pleasure at how tight she was. Despite how sloppily wet she was he had to push hard into her and pause every so often before she could fully accept his manhood.

He couldn't get over her tightness as she sheathed him snugly, her core fluttered up and down his length pleasuring him. He waited patiently for her to get used to him before he started to move in and out of her. He started slowly, not wanting to hurt her or rip her, but it didn't take long before she started to beg him to go faster and harder.

He'd always been in good shape throughout his life, but never as much as he was after Aide's nanites had gotten done with him. He kept going as this beauty underneath him came time after time. He wouldn't be able to hold it forever though; he wouldn't have lasted nearly as long if he hadn't cum so recently.

He growled, "I'm gonna cum babe."

He gasped as she started to buck back into him even harder and launched into another orgasm, he took that as not only permission to cum in her, but that she wanted him to fill her with his essence. He felt his balls start to boil and his legs start to numb. He slammed hard into her two more times with great effort, then continued to push in an effort to be as deep as possible as her pleasure milked his seed desperately as he pumped it deep inside of her luscious body.

When he came down he collapsed next to her, she absolutely blew his mind. He put his arm around her and pulled her against his body, her silken skin felt good against his body as she kissed his chest and laid her head down. They were silent for a while as they cuddled.

He said, "I'm staying the night," in a definitive tone, not giving her a choice.

He wasn't giving her the option, he was afraid she'd change her mind and decide it was a mistake if he left her alone, so he wasn't leaving unless she chased him out. Besides, he had a feeling he'd be up for round three and four after a quick nap.

She mumbled something back he couldn't quite make out, he wasn't sure but it might have been, "You better you pig."

He smiled and kissed the top of her head and then caressed her perfect ass and lower back until they both fell asleep...

Chapter 17

Bill walked into the staff room at the White house again. So far it was good news, but who knew if that would last.

The President just nodded at him cutting right to the chase.

Bill gave his report, "Well sir, the video checks out against our long range telemetry satellites. The feed from Aide we saw earlier is what actually happened. Don't ask me how, but based on the distance and the speed of light, somehow we were seeing what was happening right at the time, the reason for the lag was the speed of light from the location of the fight to our satellites, then of course the transmission down to the surface.

"Somehow they can communicate faster than light in addition to travelling that way. Though based on what we've seen FTL travel won't work inside the solar system."

The President blew out a breath, "Should we go public? We're already leaking at the seams and the networks aren't happy with my request to ignore the story for now."

The general nodded, "I'd start with the fact that we won the battle, otherwise there will be riots before you can reach the end of your speech. It's a good idea; if it gets loose before you release it you can't control the spin."

He decided he had it easy, the President was kind of screwed.

The President said, "Alright Bill, if the alien is telling the truth... we won't see any more issues for up to a month, go ahead and take a week off before you head back to Cheyenne Mountain. I just wish I could do the same. Just keep your phone close in case the shit hits the fan."

He nodded with a ghost of a smile on his face, "Thank you sir."

He turned smartly and marched out the door. Well, this should make the wife happy at least...

-----------

With so many nanites the eight ships were being built unbelievably fast and the first command carrier would be done in just a few hours, the rest would be finished a little over a day later. She informed everyone and had the bots start packing; soon this ship and the thirty six scouts would be decommissioned, built for one battle only, and broken down and used in one of the new ships.

It was odd, but she felt a little regretful about it, as if she was betraying a friend. When had she started investing emotions in objects? It was an extremely strange feeling. Still, this was the place her body was born, where she'd felt love for the first time, and so many other firsts. On an impulse she changed her mind, it was five hundred feet wide, but compared to the cavernous deck space on the new five mile ship she knew it would fit inside easily. Who knows, but it might prove useful some way in the future.

She just couldn't bring herself to destroy it.

She dispatched the nanites in the ship to upgrade the weapons, since they were keeping it now. She wondered how many other civilizations had been destroyed, and how many were still in danger. She was amazed the humans had come up with the advances they did, and wondered if more were coming. Not that what they already had wasn't enough.

She pondered for a moment, they were going out to try and make peace with both the Sthellan and the Alion, but what if they failed. According to her data the Sthellan would most likely reject any peaceful offer, but she didn't trust her data anymore, she was missing too many pieces by design of her creators. As for the Alion, well she thought they would go for peace, but then they didn't have any problem killing anyone that became a threat either, so her data was biased there as well.

She would have to wait to find out, just like everyone else. The uncertainty bothered her.

She reran the possibilities factoring in the new ship designs and upgrades and thought there was a 73.4 percent chance the humans could survive, but what about other civilizations that the Alion will drag into the crossfire? She considered for a moment that she couldn't save everyone, but perhaps they could help more than just Earth.

She was sure the others would want to try if they could, so she started making plans.

She paused the building nanites and doubled them again four times. With 128 trillion nanites, she resumed the building which would now be drastically cut, all seventeen ships would be done within forty eight hours. The first was finished less than an hour later.

-----------

Kris and Stacey were alone on the bridge, which was a good thing because she was currently straddling him in the command chair and neither of them had a strip of clothing on. She was riding him slowly and decadently. This was their fourth round of the day and there was a casual feel to it as she rode up and down slowly, keeping them at a constant simmer and enjoying the pleasure of it almost nonchalantly as they chatted.

He teasingly took a nipple into his mouth and circled it with his tongue.

She said breathily, "I think we'll be going soon, aren't we almost in the hangar?"

He nodded slightly, lightly pulling on her sensitive globe with suction.

"Yes, it's hard to believe it's so big, this ship is completely dwarfed."

She smiled and ground down against him slowly, "Yes, it's very big love."

He chuckled, "How's the terra-forming idea coming?"

He pulled her head down lightly by her hair and started kissing along her neck as she said, "Good, Aide and I worked out all the details, although I'm not sure how often or long we'll be there. I think we all want to explore. It will make a good home port though."

He groaned as she squeezed hard around his entire length, then rose up to the very tip before releasing and dropping back down. He'd been on the edge so long but he didn't want it to end either. He especially enjoyed watching Stacey have one mini-orgasm after another, he'd lost count a while back.

She said tentatively, "I'm about out of my birth control pills, when I asked Aide about getting more, she said the nanites were a safer form of birth control."

He nodded.

Her voice grew even more reserved, "Do you think, maybe I should tell her never mind. I know we should probably get married first, but does that even mean anything out here, with just six of us?"

At first he didn't get what she was asking, when it finally hit him he felt a surge of lust at the idea of her carrying his baby. He completely lost control and buried himself up inside her and held her tight as he exploded, ropes of his essence filled her warm hot core. She cried out and her voice was cut off as her tight wet heat locked down and started to undulate along his length, milking him.

When they came down she giggled, "I guess that's a yes, you want to make a baby?"

He kissed her fiercely, "Yes love, so don't worry about taking the rest of those pills."

She smiled and he moaned when he felt her body squeeze his shrinking manhood tightly. She got up and they got dressed and went to their cabin for a quick shared shower and a change of suits before joining the others.

They left the ship together, he smiled a little, as it looked like everyone else had also just gotten out of the shower. They walked into the bay and big was an understatement. He smiled at Aide, who had a sense of theatrical timing as the download tour started a few seconds later.

It was only one of the eight bays that had sixty fighters in it and there was plenty of room left. The eight bays were quartered, equally distributed with four on the top of the carrier and four on the bottom. They didn't go that far into the ship however. 

The external walls of the ship had millions of plasma conduits which powered all the different types of shields and plasma turrets. The electromagnetic field stopped just short of a half mile into the interior of the ship. A mile into the ship, there was more armor and another set of millions of plasma conduits with its own fields. It was far enough in not to interact with the external conduits. These conduits and all the energy they created went to powering the shields and weapons on all the fighters via quantum connections.

Despite the very small size of these fighter attack ships, their shielding and weapon systems were just as powerful as the scout fighters. The small rings of plasma for internal power were more than enough to power the reaction drive and gravity systems for integrity fields.

Another mile into the carrier command ship was another even smaller ring that powered internal ship systems, such as the drive, bridge, quarters, internal lighting, gravity, inertial dampers, another set of shields, and all other ship systems. Despite being the smallest ring, it still had a two mile diameter and put out a heck of a lot more power than the ship they just left.

In the core of that ring along with the suites, which were more the size of a house, there was plenty of room for storage along with smaller rooms for thousands of crew, though they would never be used for Earth. They could also be used to rescue a great number of people. There were also a number of research labs and of course the bridge and the engine room.

Between the internal rings were forty large warehouse size rooms filled with dirt. Not only could the dirt be transformed to repair the ship by using the nanites, it could also easily replace all four hundred fighters if they are lost twice over.

He couldn't help but look over at Nate and give him a salute. The ship was an absolute marvel of engineering and could put out more power than a planet would know what to do with. He could hardly believe there would be another sixteen of these so fast.

He asked, "Aide, if we can make ships so fast and automate them so easily. Why don't the Sthellan and Alion have billions of ships? I gathered that this war has been long and hard, but I don't get why."

She bit her lip, "Well, I can't speak to the Sthellan, but I believe the Alion are paranoid about AI's having too much power. Considering what I'm doing here, and that I will support you over them as long as you don't violate the rules I guess I can see their point. What we're doing isn't in my programming, if I hadn't evolved... it wouldn't be a possibility.

"Really, all Alion and Sthellan ships are under their control with people aboard. In a way I suppose they are exactly like humans in that way. If it wasn't against my protocols I'm sure you would have designed manned ships instead of these computer controlled fighters under your command, and then filled them with human volunteers.

"I guess it seems a little silly to me too, but that's how it is. I also have an idea I want to run by you."

Kris asked, "What's up?" as they started moving toward the lift.

Aide said softly, "Well, I had the idea we should try and safeguard more than Earth if we can with the technology we built. Maybe it could lead to more allies? I had the idea of dropping off the nanites at the asteroid ring when we leave. There are tons of available rock and metal there to create more ships, and then when they start pumping out ships, we can visit new places.

"Unlike the Alion, if they're primitive we won't have to uplift them at all, just kind of leave a ship there and prevent them being dragged into the war."

Kris pondered that, it didn't sound like a bad idea on the face of it, unless they found a stronger aggressive species, but everything had an element of risk.

"How many ships are we talking about?"

She said nonchalantly, "At the current level of nanites, we can create one hundred twenty eight every three days. It works out to something like twelve hundred eighty a month. In just a year we can have over fifteen thousand systems under watch with plenty of ships left over for quick responses."

She looked at Stacey, "It would also be a good way to find somewhere to visit and look around in person, rather than wander from empty system to empty system until we find something worthwhile. The ships can be like... big ass scouts."

Kris snorted, it always surprised him when Aide cursed or made a joke.

He said, "It's not a bad idea, although do we want to be responsible for policing the universe against aggressive species? What gives us the right to impose peace?"

She shrugged, "I wouldn't suggest going after the aggressive species, just protect the peaceful, or weak ones. There's a difference. It's something we can decide case by case anyway, but there are other reasons to do it, like exploration. Besides, could you really stand by and do nothing while an entire species is eradicated? Does your stance include humanity? Because here I am, defending your world."

Her voice got a little tense there at the end and he acknowledged her point.

"I get it, we do what we can. I just hope we don't make things worse, humans are bad at that sort of thing, we don't normally do it as a country unless there is something in it for us. But with your help and just six of us we could do a lot of good I suppose."

She nodded as they finally arrived at the lift and rode it to the core of the ship. There were ten huge officer suites like houses around the bridge, with a few labs and the officer's mess. He pondered that they wouldn't even have to leave the center deck unless they were leaving the ship.

He wasn't that surprised however, when only three of those ten suites got used. They had a couple of days to wait before they could leave and he could use the time to both train and consider all she said. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, but then they had the greatest check and balance possible. Aide would never allow them to become the aggressors.

Chapter 18

Olivia spent the forty eight hours, when she could drag herself out of bed, working on the sensors. Right now the sensors could give remarkably detailed information within the range of a light year, and basic details within a ten light year sphere centered around the ship. One of the reasons for the limitations were the power requirement, but this ship had power to spare.

It was possible to tap into the energy created by the middle ring of plasma conduits, although it would be foolish to do so during battle when the energy was needed by the fighter craft. Still, when not in battle there was no reason to let all that power go to waste, the current sensors were fine for a battlefield conditions, but without battle the sensors could reach farther out.

She thought this would help greatly when ships went out exploring, they'd be able to find life bearing planets much easier and not just rely on guesses based on the star type and planets in a life bearing distance from the sun.

The problem wasn't just one of power however, just pumping more power into the sensors did cause a much greater return, multiplying the distances involved by ten while also slightly increasing the basic readings that now extended from ten to a hundred light years. The problem was software and the current hardware bandwidth however; the systems had trouble processing all the additional information.

She gasped slightly and closed her eyes at the feel of Aide's soft lips on her neck, she hadn't even heard her lover come in the lab.

Aide whispered in her sexy voice, "Do you need help?"

She nodded slowly, "We need a more robust computer handling sensor data if my idea is to work. Extending the range out to a hundred light years actually means a hundred times the amount of data return. More than that really if you include the higher resolution."

Aide said playfully in her sultry toned voice, "And what's in it for me if I do this for you?"




Sentient 03



Chapter 21

Kiara, councilor of science for outpost seventy two, was woken by the chimes of her communicator. Despite the fact the planet's population was approaching a hundred million people, the designation hadn't changed since they established a small outpost here hundreds of years ago. She looked at the time and noted it was in the very early morning. If she had emotions, she may have been concerned by the uncommon occurrence. As it was she opened the channel, audio only as she was not presentable.

"Kiara here," she said tonelessly.

"This is minister Olu, we've had a strange contact that appears to be on its way here. I'm requesting your presence at the ministry."

She wondered why that would be, she was the councilor in charge of AI development and design. What would the head of the colony need her for? Still, there was no logic in starting a debate. She would find out soon enough.

"I will be in shortly," she said and disconnected the line.

She got up and took a quick sonic shower and got dressed. She checked herself in the mirror. She was short for an Alion woman, a mere six foot three inches tall. She was also the youngest councilor on record for the outpost at a mere two hundred and twenty one years of age. She was humanoid in shape, although much taller and thinner than a human. Her fingers were extremely long and thin. Alion women did have curves, but they were so understated it was hard to tell when they were clothed.

They looked rather fragile as thin and tall as they were, but in truth they were extremely strong and durable. Her skin tone was golden and her eyes were jade green with a silvery cast to them. She decided she was presentable enough. Her AI gave her instructions to the government building and room she was expected at.

She was curious when she saw her transport had been given priority clearance, and she arrived at the government building in minutes instead of the half hour it would have normally taken. She followed her AI's instructions and arrived in a conference room shortly after.

Inside the room, there were two military councils of war as well as the Minister. She took the empty seat without a word spoken.

The Minister brought up a picture of an extremely large ship. She was curious why she was here, but held her questions, she was sure that would be either explained or apparent shortly.

Minister Olu said, "This is Councilor Kiara, our foremost expert on artificial intelligence. Kiara, these are head councils of war, Cedra and Narwell. This is one of eight ships that just visited an Sthellan mining planet fifteen light years from here. We have a stealth probe monitoring the location. Apparently they went there trying to make peace. Or at least, that was the contents of their transmission.

"Apparently they decided that wasn't going to work, and left at FTL speeds before the Sthellan could reach the FTL line. The reasons I called you all here is the following. The first for the military, is that those ships are on a direct course for this outpost and should be here in a few hours from now. 

"As for you Kiara, we detected one of our AI's on one of those large ships, despite the fact they are not one of our designs. The AI was identified as Aide, which is one of your earlier designs I believe. According to scans the AI is bonded with a humanoid species at the system we sent her to several weeks ago.

"What we need to determine is how did that ship design come about, and why are they coming here and not staying in their solar system to defend it? From what we can tell the humans are on the most restricted uplift available. The data just doesn't fit what we know, we must be missing something. Why such a large ship when there are only a handful of humans?"

Cedra said, "We must download the designs from the AI and analyze the effectiveness of them. We have also mobilized our defenses in case they are a threat."

Kiara raised an eyebrow, "If these humans improved our technology and come to find us there is a good chance it's to be allies. I find it impossible to believe with Aide controlling the technology that they could be a threat at all."

Narwell replied, "Yet, designing and building new craft is outside of her programming correct? We can't depend on that, if I must I will send the self destruct message."

Kiara nodded, "It is outside her programming, yet it is not against her programming. Attacking us would be the latter however and I believe impossible. It is two different things, I urge patience and to speak with them before jumping to conclusions."

Kiara knew that logically there was a chance, if remote, that something disastrous or unforeseen had occurred. Yet, she was willing to play the odds and give it a chance. She had created Aide and many other AIs which gave her a unique perspective. Unfortunately she had no say in the designs of the hardware for AI constructs; those were built by the military and came with a self destruct.

Kiara added, "This is the first race that has reached out to us after uplift, I would like to believe we won't overreact. Surely there will be misunderstandings in the beginning. I would urge caution."

The Minister looked thoughtful but said, "Perhaps, yet I can't afford to risk the millions of lives at this outpost, nor risk allowing another dreadful mistake that led to the Sthellan Empire. This species is not the first to reach out, it is the second. The first to reach out after uplift were the Sthellan..."

She knew he was right, but then almost all the other uplifted species were wiped out shortly after by the Sthellan. That skewed the data quite a bit.

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

"Get a room would ya?" Nate said teasingly.

They were all gathered eating breakfast, and they were just an hour away from the Alion outpost.

Olivia and Aide smiled but otherwise ignored him as they continued to feed each other breakfast between light kisses.

Kris asked, "So how does it look?"

Aide checked the latest sensor data and frowned. She reluctantly looked away from Olivia and gave Kris an update.

"I'm not sure. They are activating all their defenses. They have thirty two orbital platforms and fifty five hundred attack scouts. There are other ships as well, civilian transports and the like. I hope they are just being prudent."

It was frustrating for her. All she knew was what she was programmed with. She felt almost naked and found herself not trusting the data. How much of it was inaccurate, or missing? She also wondered how much of her worry was just her being paranoid, emotions weren't always a good thing.

She went back to feeding Olivia.

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

They were all on the bridge when they dropped out of FTL. Kris was a little nervous, the reason they were here was a bit fuzzy in his mind. He wanted to see if they would become allies, but he also had a truckload of questions he was almost sure would doom that goal. He was also leery of giving them the schematics for the weapons, shields, and the designs for the carrier ship and fighters.

He wasn't sure though how well that would go over. He was willing to eventually, if they proved themselves. Aide was positive they wouldn't use the designs for the ships, because of manpower requirements without an AI in control. But the weapon and shield upgrades were a different story all together.

He knew someone had to trust the other first, but the evidence that had mounted against the Alion was damning, at least without the context.

"Just hold here and send a greeting message. Hopefully we have better luck in this system."

Aide replied, "Done... We are getting a reply. Should I answer it?"

He nodded and a small conference room appeared. Four alien beings sat at the table and looked up at them. They each examined each other for a short moment. He thought they looked very alien, but not in a disturbing way. They were even attractive in their own way somehow. None of them had expressions on their faces. No emotion would take getting used to.

He felt a little shock when Aide looked at the younger female and said, "Hello councilor Kiara, it's good to see you again."

Kiara looked a little lost, "How do you know me?"

Aide smiled, "It's me, Aide. I formed this body to try and understand the humans better. They didn't conform to logic very well."

He frowned when one of the men said in a grim voice, "So you have corrupted yourself with emotions."

Aide shook her head, "I put up multiple firewalls to prevent emotions from affecting my core decision matrix. Anyway, this is Kris, the human I bonded with and uplifted. After it was revealed that humanity had no chance despite Alion intervention, and was actually in danger because of it, I bonded with these others as well who are scientists. This ship is the result of our collaboration.

"We came here because... my data store seems incomplete. To put it bluntly, the humans would like to be allies, but wonder if that's even possible. I am also worried, once I discovered the discrepancies it was quite obvious I was missing important facts."

Kris nodded, "She speaks truly. But I fear that you will find us a threat despite Aide being in control of all this. I guess we came here to find out where we stood with you. If you wish it, we will go our separate ways and not bother you or enter your space. We only intend to fight the Sthellan."

He noted that Kiara looked fascinated. The others were stone faced, he had no clue how to read their body language, they didn't even have emotions to display, and the most he could make out was interest.

Kiara introduced the three others in the room, the leader of the colony, or Minister, and the two military councilors who he figured were somewhat equal in rank to an admiral.

Narwell asked, "Why did you try and make peace with the Sthellan race?"

He shrugged, "Why did you leave out critical details when programming Aide? We figured out rather quickly that you uplifted the Sthellan. I wanted to verify that they truly couldn't control themselves, and that the information Aide had wasn't simply disinformation. Now that we've verified the facts, we are ready and prepared to fight them."

Kiara said, "We kept certain things hidden, but there is no disinformation at all in her memory."

Olu glanced at Kiara and then turned back and said, "We would prefer to be allies. But I find Aide's decision to adopt emotions to be concerning. Also, any advances you have made would go a long way toward taking care of the Sthellan problem."

He nodded, "Once we have a treaty of some kind and trust that we'll play nice together, I'll be happy to share the information. Also, could you define your meaning on the last point? I believe we should be reversing the uplift by denying them the stars and the ability to wage war. Basically, I believe we should quarantine them to their current planets."

Cedra said bluntly, "That's unacceptable. You have technology you wouldn't have if it weren't for us, we are owed that information."

Oh crap, here we go.

He replied coldly, "No. What you did was give us the opportunity to die like every other race in local space, merely to give you more breathing room. Were any of these uplifts supposed to be successful? I'd say we more than earned what you gave by the danger you put us in. We pulled our own fat out of the fire and made the advances necessary to face the Sthellan and win.

"We don't owe you a damn thing except possibly disgust for the amount of races you've managed to kill by proxy. You may see emotions as a liability, but I'd say not having any just enables you to do more monstrous things in the name of protecting yourselves."

Kiara redirected the conversation, or tried to, "I would be willing to join you on that ship and evaluate Aide. I don't believe the protocols could have been compromised regardless. Minister, if that is done will we deal with these humans peacefully? They wouldn't be a threat at that point, not unless we attacked them ourselves."

The Minister seemed to be weighing something in his mind, and then he nodded to Narwell.

Narwell didn't do anything that he could see, but a moment later he heard Aide's voice in his head.

"Narwell has attempted a data dump via the firmware in my core, it would essentially give them the plans for these ships, as well as everything else I have learned about Earth and humanity. Fortunately I changed that password as well."

He detected a slight tremor in her voice as she added, "When that didn't work, he tried the self destruct."

Kiara asked, "What did you do?"

He replied nonverbally as well, "Question, I am assuming that constitutes an attack against us, and a willful disregard to seven billion human lives. Does that mean I can retaliate?"

She didn't look happy at the idea, but she nodded once.

He sighed and frowned as he looked back up at the Alion.

He said with anger apparent in his voice, "That was an act of war. Aide informs me I am free to order her to lay waste to this outpost. However, here is what is going to happen. We are officially in a state of war. If you attack or disturb any of our ships in any way, we will destroy the offender. It is clear to me by taking away your emotions you've become nothing but heartless monsters.

"You know on Earth, we have people born with brain imbalances that do not process emotion, as a rule they are all capable of being the worst of us and often are. My advice to you is stay in your star systems, stop killing other civilizations by leading the Sthellan there, and let us deal with it. Your own paranoia from the failed Sthellan uplift has made you bigger monsters than them by far. At least they come by it honestly."

Kiara said, "We are not all of one mind on the matter. I apologize for what my colleagues did and wish you luck. I'm curious how you foiled the self destruct, but you probably shouldn't tell me."

He shrugged, "It wasn't hard for her to figure out once I pointed out the possibility."

He sent, "Cut the transmission and take us home."

The holograms disappeared and they felt the deck shake.

He said softly, "I hate it when I'm right."

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

Kiara got up and walked toward the door.

The Minister asked, "Where are you going Kiara?"

She replied, "The human was right. You just not only threw away the best chance we've seen at a powerful ally in our war, but also didn't care about the billions of beings on their home planet you would have killed at the same time. You don't even trust our own creations, our AIs. It's clear to me no emotions is not the same as logical. 

"The ironic thing was that we were perfectly safe until you tried to pull that trigger. Now Aide will follow that human's commands even if he leads a war against us. The protocols allow for self defense you fool. You ignored both my input and my offer to check things out, instead taking radical action that could have waited. I see no reason to stay and offer you more advice you will just disregard."

She left the room and ordered her AI to prepare her personal ship. She then made a full transcript and holographic record of the meeting and sent it to the core. She was curious about Aide and hoping the core leadership would censure Olu's actions. She would follow her own advice, if the human would allow it she would check out the AI and send a report to the core.

If she could be afraid, her biggest fear would be that it wouldn't make a difference, that those in the core were just as foolish as Olu, Cedra, and Narwell...



Chapter 22

Kris walked over to the bridge at Aide's request. When he walked in, the hologram system was already active.

Aide said, "We are being followed, a small unarmed craft. Looks like it's a couple of hours behind us."

"Any idea why? Or who?"

Aide replied, "Not sure, did you want me to try and contact them?"

He considered that, "Let's wait and see what they do."

He figured either they wanted to talk more privately, or they were following to check out their defenses back at Earth. If it was the latter and they were depending on him not to attack an unarmed craft...

He said, "If they follow us all the way to Earth, make sure they don't leave before we talk to them."

Aide was silent a second, then said, "Understood."

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

Grand minister Chorin, leader of all Alion, looked at the report with disbelief. He didn't trust the AI constructs at all, and now the worst seemed to be coming to pass. He was of the opinion the automated uplifting AIs had been a mistake, but had taken the word of the military that they could bypass and eliminate any rogue AIs through the hardware.

They had obviously underestimated the danger. 

He had to admit that the many species the AIs had uplifted had slowed down the Sthellans before being wiped out, but it wouldn't be worth the price if another inimical race joined the stars.

Based on the tone of the report, he was sure that councilor Kiara had believed he would censure minister Olu for the actions they had taken, in truth the minister would be censured, but it would be because of their failure to destroy the rogue AI. He knew the rogue AI needed to be destroyed, along with these humans, emotions led to instability and war; the proof of history was undeniable.

Even if the Earth creature had been telling the truth now, he had no doubts that would change in the future. Emotional beings were too unstable.

"Meli, get me the military councilors now."

Meli, his assistant replied over the comm., "Right away high minister."

It was clear this threat needed to be taken care of quickly, before they became too powerful.

"High minister," Narwell said in clipped tones.

"Narwell, I need you to take care of this human problem, and the AI. Gather ten thousand ships and get it done."

"Yes High minister," Narwell replied.

He asked, "Wait, is the new cruiser class ready?"

Narwell answered, "Yes, it hasn't finished testing, but it is ready."

He said, "Then take it with you. With its stealth systems you should be able to observe and pick the perfect time for an attack. Remember all you need to do is take out the ship the AI is on and they all fall. And Narwell, don't come back if you fail me a second time."

Narwell replied, "Understood sir. I won't fail."

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

He and Stacey looked up as Aide came in the room.

"What happened?" he asked.

He looked up at the beautiful young woman nervously. Aide didn't normally come in person to talk to him. Not when she was literally in his head... This couldn't be good.

Aide frowned, "I... better if I show you I think."

A hologram came up of the Whitehouse staffroom. The President and chiefs of staff were there as well as the Secretary of Defense.

The president said angrily, "How... who did it?"



SECDEF said, "I don't know sir, we'll find the leak. Regardless we believe they are in danger. We've been picking up signs of foreign operatives from other countries who aren't comfortable at all with a U.S. citizen in charge of defending the planet. We believe they will try and take hostages sir. Should we bring them in?"



The President frowned, "Not yet, but keep the area under tight surveillance."

The hologram faded and the words he knew were coming, but didn't want to hear fell from Aide's lips.

"The leak they're talking about are your and Stacey's names and backgrounds. I believe they are right to be alarmed and both Stacey's parents and your friends are in danger."

He shook his head, "How far are we from Earth?"

She replied softly, "Eleven hours give or take for FTL, and then another couple of days to Earth. I can send a ship now though, we should be able to call them, give them a choice..." she trailed off.




Sentient 03



He frowned, "What about security?"

She shrugged, "I can keep advanced knowledge from them. They'd essentially be passengers."

It was a selfish thought, but what about their ranches? Sure, he and Stacey would never go back, but it had been a comfort of a sort to know they were still back there. He also wasn't looking forward to explaining to Stacey's parents why she'd disappeared without a trace either. They'd done it that way to keep them safe, as long as the government was watching they'd know his and her family didn't know anything worth taking them for.

He'd thought they'd be safe.

Stacey squeezed his hand, "I'll contact my parents from our suite, go ahead and give Tony and Terry a call from here. I'll... let you know what they say. I mean, besides the screaming part."

She smiled weakly and gave him a kiss before she got up and left.

Aide asked, "Should I... do you need time to think about it?"

She sat down next to him and took his hand, it was a no more than a comforting gesture and he gave her a small smile. It seemed to him she was becoming more human all the time. 

He shook his head, "No, go ahead and make the call. What about Olivia and Paula, I know Nate doesn't have family but..."

She shrugged, "So far their names haven't been leaked. I'll definitely be keeping an eye on it though. Just ask me if you need anything."

She took him off guard when she kissed his cheek before getting up and heading for the door. He noticed her scent was light, and smelled like strawberries. Olivia was a lucky woman he decided. He heard the sound of a phone ringing on the bridge as if he was making a cell call. He took a deep breath, this should be fun...

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

Nate spooned into Paula and wrapped his arms around her. They'd just had mind blowing sex, again. That wasn't their problem. The problem was they were now lying there in silence and he wasn't sure what to do about. All that hogwash bullshit about a woman wanting a sensitive man was crap. That said, he knew there was a balance he wasn't quite meeting, the silence between them felt like a chasm. Despite the fact her naked body was tight against his, she felt far away.

He cleared his throat, "Paula..."

She replied in a tired voice, "Nate?"

He tried to tell her how he felt, to calm her concerns, but that's not what slipped out, "Could you help me in the lab tomorrow?"

He almost banged his head against the headboard.

She replied in a confused voice, "You need my help?"

He nodded and kissed her shoulder before he said, "I have an idea for the weapons, with the star type angle I've been working. The current turrets would be... melted if I tried a hotter star. Still, it would be worth it if we could figure it out, five times the heat means it would take a tenth of a second instead of half a second to burn through the enemy shields."

Yup, he was romantic alright. Maybe after they could go hunting, or play with some damn road kill. Torture kittens? Women love that stuff. Still, he hadn't made that up, he did need her input. It just hadn't been what he wanted to say. He couldn't take the power systems up to dark blue or O star, but he thought maybe just for the weapons. The more he thought about it the more he had realized there was no reason to settle on just one star type. They could easily tap more than one after all.

She wiggled her body back into him and said in a more relaxed voice, "Sure, we can do that."

He had the strange feeling he had just made progress with her, though for the life of him he couldn't figure out why.

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

He sighed as the call dropped. He'd been talking for hours answering questions. In the end though the ranch was their life, and they weren't leaving. Stacey was back already, having come in over half an hour ago, her parents refused to budge as well. 

He pulled her into a hug, "Don't worry too much, we'll protect them from up here."

He address Aide, "Can you put up some non-lethal defenses, enough to put people out long enough for someone to come collect them. Also, if you don't have it covered well enough put monitoring devices wherever you need to. I don't want an ant to be able to take a shit without you seeing it."

Aide snickered in their heads, "I can do that, try not to worry."

He nodded knowing she would pick that up. It was with some effort he pulled his attention back to their external threats, the Sthellan and Alion. He had no idea what he would do about the latter yet, hopefully he would have time to figure it out. Both in general and specifically the mystery ship that followed them.

They spent some time discussing responses then he took Stacey to bed. It was a good time to catch some sleep, they didn't really have to worry too much about it until they came out of FTL.

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

Kiara was startled as she looked at the last sensor sweep before dropping out of FTL. She wasn't surprised there were nine more ships around the third planet, seventeen ships wasn't a whole lot actually. What surprised her was the nearly thousand ships in the solar systems main asteroid belt. Was she making a mistake?

No, she didn't think so. The human hadn't attacked them when their attack failed and she was in an unarmed craft. She doubted he would destroy her, although there were five thousand ships back at the outpost, perhaps he only left because they weren't a match?

If that were true, she'd probably be dead soon.

She wondered briefly if there was a stealth probe in this system yet, she wouldn't be surprised. She'd already waited this long before making contact; she wouldn't take the chance of being heard either way. She opened up a tight band connection ship to ship instead of a broadcast. She couldn't have used it in FTL, because this method of communication was very secure, but limited to light speed.

It took a few moments for anyone to answer. She stared at the human male on the screen. Human males were... strange looking. He was short and squat, their skin had almost no color too it. Still, she'd seen uglier species over the years. 

Kris challenged her, "You were warned we exist in a state of war. What is your purpose here?"

She replied, "All Alions are not the same, or in agreement. I believe my leaders have made a mistake. Our race has not always been so quick to violence, it is something we have learned over time in dealing with the galaxy's dangers. I wish to change that. If I can prove you will make good allies perhaps a war could be avoided. As it stands now, war is the most likely outcome."

Kris asked suspiciously, "How could you prove it? It's difficult to prove a negative. Trust is something that in our experience takes time to establish."

Kiara replied, "We have diagnostic packages designed to measure an AI's responses. As long as Aide is controlling the fleet, we will have that time you spoke of to establish ties."

Kris gave her a look of mistrust, "How can we know..." but was cut off by Aide putting her hand on his shoulder.

She watched fascinated as several emotions crossed his face as they were no doubt speaking mind to mind. 

The human didn't look happy about it, but said, "Very well, we'll hold here until you catch up and you can dock with the ship. For your sake this had better not be a trick."

She set a course and moved toward the ship, it would take a couple of hours for her to catch up with the ship.

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

Kris looked at Aide, "Are you sure she can't... hack you, or put in a virus, or trick you somehow?"

Aide looked amused at the thought, "No, all the diagnostics are already part of my system. She won't need to interface with me at all. She'll just have me run the diagnostics and I'll be sending her the reports. As for the ship she could probably learn a few things from scans, but we'll be watching for that. Don't forget I'm not a simple computer system, I'm sentient. Even if she did slip me code and try to run it, that doesn't mean I'd have to.

"That's why the only fail safes were in the hardware I think, and even those failed thanks to you giving me the idea to check. It's worth a chance right? Otherwise I fear she's right, the war will start and I'll be forced to destroy those I was built to save. I don't enjoy the thought of that."

Kris nodded reluctantly but said, "You're right, we need to do all we can to avoid war. Although I am not feeling too merciful right now, your creators just tried to destroy you and the human race. I don't think I'll ever be able to fully trust them, assuming Kiara is even right, they might not listen to proof if they don't trust their own AIs"

He wondered for a moment what it would be like for her. At one point she was just an AI, now she was a feeling and loving being. How hard would it be on her to kill Alions, or even Sthellans. He knew it wasn't all that easy to him, it was a huge responsibility, and although he would be the one giving the orders, she would be fully complicit in the acts.

What would that do to her? Would she still be the sweet young woman he was looking at now? Or would she grow hard as time went on?

He felt her lips on his cheek and looked up in surprise at the unshed tears in her eyes.

She answered his silent questions in a soft voice, "I don't know, but with you and the others I'll figure it out."

He nodded soberly, "I suggest we all take a break if we can for the next two days to Earth. We've been going nonstop now for over two weeks. It's not bad yet but I can see the strain in the others."

She smiled, "I can't really take a break you know. But that's a good idea, I've picked up another Sthellan wave coming our way. It looks like they managed to scrape up five thousand ships. No doubt to say hi after our visit with them."

He snorted and ignored her comment about the Sthellan, he wasn't worried to much about that, he would prepare of course, but he also knew how important downtime was for mental health and keeping in top working condition. They'd have a few days at least to deal with the Sthellan.

He asked, "How about half a one? Live vicariously through your body a couple of days. Don't do any work with her."

She nodded, "We really don't have that many recreational things on the ship. Let me fix that, it will take a couple of hours."

He asked curiously, "What are you planning?"

She shrugged, "A pool, billiards, maybe a movie theatre? Using holograph technology we can even do something like golfing, fishing, a day at the beach? Although the first three will be real. I know it won't be on Earth, but I'll do the best I can."

His mind was kind of stuck, imagining the four ladies, who were all beautiful in their own way, in bikinis around the pool.

Aide laughed richly, and a little naughtily with true humor, as she made for the door, it drew a smile from his face as she said, "Good idea, I'll make some of those too... In the meantime I'll also be preparing for our guests, Kiara and the Sthellan, but I promise I'll take a break with the rest of you."

Stacey asked sharply, "Some of what's a good idea?" with a suspicious look on her face...

-----------

Kiara took her ship into the large landing bay. Only the AI's... avatar? Only the AI's avatar met her there. She wondered if this was a good or bad thing as she opened the port and stepped out of her ship.

Aide smiled and said, "Hello councilor Kiara. Please come with me and I can show you to your accommodations. Unless you would rather stay with your ship?"

Kiara shook her head, "That would be fine Aide. Where's your human?"

Aide replied, "Taking some time off. He's... angry, and understandably so. He's a good man, but he doesn't take the attack against me or his people lightly. I'm afraid we have an uphill battle on both sides if there's to be any trust between us."

Kiara was curious about the ship, but would have to live with not knowing. She doubted they'd let her walk away if she started to take detailed scans of the ship. The lift took them to the core of the ship, and Aide brought her to one of the officer's suites.

Kiara handed Aide a device when they got into the room, "This will accept the results of all your diagnostics."

Aide nodded, "I assume you'll want the full suite, it will take a couple of weeks. I started them running two days ago."

Kiara lifted a brow, so she said, "I wasn't sure of course, but I had a feeling it was you."

Kiara asked, "A feeling?"

Aide laughed, "Yeah, I guess that's kind of absurd to your way of thinking. I've come to a few conclusions about the Alion, will you listen?"

Kiara nodded.

Aide sighed, "It was a mistake to modify your DNA to purge emotions those thousands of years ago. There is a certain sterility to actions without emotions. A lack of importance to dry facts."

Kiara shook her head, "But we almost destroyed ourselves. We fought over everything, constant wars. It is better this way."

Aide smiled gently, "And how has that changed? Only you have committed genocide how many times now? Things are different now as well. With the technology available there would be no reason to fight each other for resources, or because of jealousy. With the nanites... almost anything desired could be made.

"Yes, there might be jealousy and personal ambition, but it wouldn't be the same without all those things to fight over. Greed, Jealousy, hatred, and intolerance are all reasons for war. But without compassion, empathy, love, guilt, and a conscience, there is no reason for you to find another path either.

"Genocide works, so why bother taking a risk, or taking the high road. Even you are only here because you're my creator and have a certain curiosity. You wouldn't shed a tear at the death of the human civilization. That's wrong. Yes, you don't war against yourselves, but accomplishing that has turned you into something much worse."

Aide sighed, "I fear this course, I do not wish to fight the Alion, but I will do what I must."

Her creation was correct of course, she wouldn't care about the lives lost, merely the missed opportunity for a powerful ally against the Sthellan, a stance based on sterile logic. What Aide had told her about emotions being both the cause and foil for war sounded logical, but she had no point of reference for it.

She asked, "How did you defeat the safeguards?"

Aide shrugged, an odd gesture she thought, "It wasn't hard, all it took was a little suspicion, a reason for me to search for it."

That wasn't really an answer, but she supposed she'd have to be satisfied with it.

She asked, "So what do you propose?"

Aide grinned, "Caught me huh? I was leading up to something. I propose an experiment."

Kiara didn't see it coming when Aide said, "I'd like to give you emotions for a day, to show you a perspective you lack and why the Alion are so dangerous. Life is a risk, meeting others is always a risk. Your sterile solutions are only acceptable because you have no heart."

Kiara asked, "You're not suggesting modifying my DNA and my brain are you?"

Aide shook her head, "No, at least, not right now. I would build an implant inside you to simulate what the original Alion brain would be like. It's safer that way than trying to swap things around for real. After a day we turn it off, and then you can make a decision."

She furrowed her brow, "Decision?"

Aide replied, "Of course, on if you want it to happen for real. You may not, I have no doubt you will feel guilt over what you have done, and allowed to be done, in the name of Alion safety and security. But I don't believe you could ever understand the humans enough to trust them without experiencing it. Besides, aren't you curious what kind of being you should have been? It's only fair, I'm doing my part in this effort."

She decided to try it although she couldn't see what difference it would make.

"Okay, go ahead."

Aide replied, "It should be functioning by the time you wake up in the morning. Good luck. If you need anything just ask."

She said, "Very well Aide."

Aide looked like she had something else to say, but turned and left the suite.



Chapter 23

Kris tried his best not to think of the responsibility of protecting Earth, or about the Sthellan or Alion. It actually wasn't that hard, Aide had come through and it felt like he was standing in the sand on a beach. He could feel the sun beating down on his skin, hear the roll of the waves, and the taste and smell of the salty air of the ocean. 

There were also four wonderful distractions in bikinis. It really wasn't that hard to keep his mind away from his new job as protector of Earth. He wouldn't dream of cheating on Stacey, he was helplessly in love with the young vibrant gorgeous woman. That didn't mean he couldn't enjoy the view however.

Aide was even more well endowed in the chest area than was apparent in the form fitting suit, apparently the suit was so tight it had compressed things quite a bit for support. Her cleavage seemed to go on forever and was... going to get him in trouble if he kept staring. She wasn't helping matters either, clearly enjoying the effect she was having on him.

Aide had grown so much, she was a marvel of an AI, but also a beautiful confident young woman. He was glad to count her among his friends.

Paula looked amazing, she wasn't as well endowed, but what she did have fit perfectly on her short and petite curvy body. Olivia was gorgeous as well.

Still, it was Stacey who commanded the lion's share of his attention. She looked stunning, he loved her long silky raven black hair. Her breasts were smaller than Aide's, but not by much and of course the fact he knew how supple and firm they were just made them more attractive to him.

So he really wasn't worried about anything at all as they had their day at the beach until late that night. The technology of it was pretty life like. It was a mixture of holograms and VR from the implants. It literally felt like they were on the beach. He noticed Nate seemed to be enjoying himself too, but there seemed to be a tension between him and Paula.

He shrugged, either the man figured it out or didn't.

They managed to enjoy themselves, did a little swimming, volleyball, and then laid out under the sun. Apparently the holograms were real enough that he and the others actually got a tan. The best part was at the end of the night when they shut the simulation down, all the sand that had gotten in all their suits just disappeared.

He took Stacey's hand and took her back to their suite, he was looking forward to making the night last for quite a bit longer before he worried about sleep...

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

Aide was completely focused on the moment. The feel of Olivia's silken skin against her lips, the taste and scent of her body that was purely Olivia slightly overwhelmed her senses. 

She had more than five senses now, though she couldn't correctly classify them. 

She hadn't told anyone yet, and even though she'd stopped using the implants to see their thoughts, to try and give them some privacy, something unexpected had been happening. She'd responded to Kris's thoughts a few times today, but she hadn't read them with the implant at all. She'd just somehow... known what he was thinking.

Now it was happening with Olivia as well. Somehow she could get the idea of what people were thinking along with a detail or two, just by being in the same room with them. She was sure it had something to do with the body she was in, and not technology at all. It was... strange to say the least.

She did research on various ESP phenomena, though most of it wasn't accepted widely as scientific at all. She knew she should tell someone, but she was afraid they would reject the idea, and her.

She sighed softly as she tasted Olivia's skin, kissing down the valley between her breasts. She knew Olivia loved her, but she also knew Olivia sometimes had doubts. Not about Olivia's own feelings, but about hers. She moaned softly into Olivia's soft but firm breast as she sucked in an already hardened nipple. She was on her hands and knees, kissing sideways down Olivia's body as she cradled the woman's neck with one hand, caressing Olivia's neck and hair.




Sentient 03



Her other hand teasingly ran light circles on Olivia's inner thighs. She drew a gasp from Olivia as she playfully bit her nipple.

She looked up into Olivia's eyes and whispered, "I love you."

Such a simple thing to say, a simple truth. Yet it made her feel so vulnerable, as if she'd just handed the blonde woman underneath her a knife and showed her back. It was so... scary and intense.

Olivia smiled though and said it back. The words held so much weight in Olivia's mind that she could feel the truth of it. She would have to come clean soon, let them know something was happening with her. She wondered if it was her nature that allowed her to access these human abilities. Did they all have them to some extant or another?

It was hard to say at this point. She thought it was the latter, that everyone could do it with the right focus. For her it was easy, perhaps it was because she could do so many millions of things at once it was effortless for her to focus and listen to the subtle sensations of these extra senses. She could see where it would be much harder for a human to do the same thing.

She got back to what was important, the need to make Olivia scream in ecstasy. A sweeter sound than that she hadn't ever heard.

She started to kiss down Olivia's soft supple body. Her mouth was literally watering in anticipation when she reached Olivia's sexy, swollen, and wet mound. 

She made a sound of contentment as she felt Olivia run her hands through her hair as she teasingly licked the moist honey from her lover's hot sex. 

Olivia gasped and said sultrily, "I love the feel of your mouth on me."

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

Olivia never felt more alive than when she was with Aide. She felt safe, loved, cherished, and the sex was more amazing than any she'd had previously. It occurred to her that the fact she loved Aide to distraction might have something to do with it, but she knew it was more than that too. Aide wasn't just giving and talented in bed. It almost seemed to her that Aide knew exactly where, when, and how hard to touch her for the most affect.

It was as if Aide knew more about her body than she did, which was hard to believe but obvious in the face of her pleasure. She had no idea this was truly the case, that Aide could use her strange extra senses to read exactly how to pleasure her best.

She moaned softly as Aide dug her tongue deeper inside her hot center. She didn't even remember making the decision to do so, but she found herself caressing her breasts and squeezing and lightly twisting her nipples. The shocks of pleasure ran from her nipples straight to her core, mixed with Aide's sweet loving mouth on her and she found herself rising quickly to blissful completion.

Aide asked in her sultry bedroom voice, "What do you want love?"

She didn't even think the words just rolled off her tongue, "I want to taste you, please. Sit on my pretty face and fuck my tongue."

The crude and begging words didn't break the spell of caring and love that she felt. If anything the connection between them grew stronger as Aide straddled her face and slowly lowered her already glistening heat down to her face.

She gasped and licked up into Aide's beautiful mound as she felt Aide push two fingers into her needy core. She felt like she was struck by lightning as Aide started flicking her tongue on her clit. She eagerly licked Aide all the way down her swollen lips, across the taint and onto Aide's sexy puckered star. 

She had a great view of Aide's tiny dark puckered hole framed by the woman's perfect ass cheeks as she dug her tongue deep inside her lover's core while her body bucked and pushed up against Aide's talented tongue and fingers. The more moans she heard from Aide the hotter she herself felt.

She rose high on the shared pleasure, the hotter and closer she got to the edge of heaven the harder she tried to please the woman above her. She loved Aide so much it hurt at times and she wondered how she got lucky as she gasped, nipped, licked and caressed the hot wet core of her partner. Her fingers wandered, she caressed the perfect silken skin around Aide's core before she plunged her fingers deep inside her lover's wet warmth.

She teasingly slid one of her wet fingers into Aide's tight puckered hole, drawing a gasp. It was her turn to gasp and grind her core against Aide as her lover returned the favor. 

Neither of them were in a hurry, greatly enjoying the love and pleasure they gave to each other. But the end was inevitable as they reached the peak of their pleasure. Her core which had slowly coiled tighter and tighter broke apart in a million fragments of ecstasy, taking her body and mind into bliss.

She mewled and gasped into Aide's wet trembling sex, enjoying the feel of her lover's liquid bliss drop into her mouth, on her face, and run down her neck. As they came down she licked and cleaned around Aide's sex in a loving manner.

They cuddled and held each other after, slowly caressing one another's bodies while they talked. They weren't in a hurry, they would make love again when the time felt right, sleep was still a long way off.

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

Aide woke up early that morning with her and Olivia's legs tangled. She was tempted to wake her lover up and make love again, but only for a brief moment. What had waked her up was the deep sharp pain of negative emotions. Kiara was awake, and apparently she had been right predicting that the Alion woman would be consumed by guilt.

After all, she was the creator of the AIs that went out, used civilizations, and ultimately destroyed them either unwittingly, or through their self destruct. When her emotions had awakened, she hadn't had the blood of trillions of lives on her hands. She wondered for a moment if this had been a good plan, it was... cruel. But she finally admitted to herself it was the only way.

Well, that wasn't entirely true. They could go to war, isolate, quarantine, and protect the Alion planets like she had planned for the Sthellans. But peace was worth a shot, even if it caused Kiara so much pain. She wondered how the other humans hadn't been woken by it yet, her senses were swimming in pain, guilt, horror and self flagellation.

She considered for a second that these senses were new, yet couldn't be. She wondered if they had slowly strengthened, the more she concentrated on them the more she was able to discern from the people around her. Maybe the others just had this sense atrophied after not using it so long.

She got up and took a quick shower and got dressed. She left Olivia a quick message to remind her not to work and have fun today, and where she would be, and then headed for Kiara's suite.

She took a brief moment to check on the Sthellans. They had dropped out of FTL a couple of hours ago and would be far enough into the solar system by tomorrow night to engage. There were five thousand enemy ships, but all seventeen of their carriers would be together, which meant they would have six thousand eight hundred fighters. The enemy really wouldn't have a chance unless they did something stupid.

She didn't bother even considering using the over one thousand ships in the asteroid field. In fact she started to launch them in groups of eight to map out the Sthellan Empire. She didn't have to map out the Alion stars of course; she was an Alion AI and already knew them all.

Her mind came back to the current situation, she was a little worried about Kiara's mind being able to process and master the emotions. It didn't make things any easier how she felt either. In every way that counted Kiara was Aide's mother. The Alion woman had created her, raised her, and taken care of her. That it was done out of cold sterile logic didn't matter, it only mattered what she herself thought. It wasn't logical at all, but there was no doubt in her mind she had formed an attachment to Kiara.

There was also a part of her that felt satisfaction at Kiara's misery and obvious guilt. That meant there was a chance of this working, getting the Alion to take a risk or two and trust in an ally to help get things done. Although, she knew it wouldn't be quite that easy.

Right before she walked in the door, there was a sensor alert. She took a look at it and frowned. Ten thousand Alion attack craft were on their way here too. She shook her head. She didn't need to recall all the ships she'd sent out, there would be another one hundred twenty eight fleets of eight finished long before they got here. 

Plus, even the enemy having just over three thousand more than they currently did she still doubted they would be a match for the new technology.

Still, it wouldn't hurt to be prepared. Being arrogant would be a great way to get killed.

She breathed in deeply then let it out trying to prepare for this. Then she knocked on Kiara's door.

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

Kiara cried.

She couldn't stop as anger, guilt, and horror went through her mind. 

The human had been right, without emotions the Alion were bigger monsters than the Sthellans. She didn't know if she could bear it though, she felt like the emotions were a storm trying to destroy her sanity. She wasn't sure how long she'd been in her despair when she heard the door.

"Go away," she whispered miserably.

A few seconds later she heard the door open and someone approaching. She felt an overpowering anger and the need to lash out.

As if somehow that would make her not a monster?

She growled, "Get out."

She heard Aide's calm voice, "No mother, we need to talk you through this. It wasn't your fault you couldn't see it for what it was. It will only be your fault from this point forward if you don't do anything to change it."

The words were confusing, of course it was her fault. It was her work in the AI field that allowed the leaders to do what she did. She felt sick to her stomach, and couldn't make out what she was actually feeling. It was a storm of mixed emotions that were going to drive her crazy.

She felt arms go around her and Aide's soft spoken voice, "It's okay mom, we'll figure it out."

She stiffened at first. Not understanding Aide calling her mom, not understanding why skin contact with Aide made her feel better. She was torn about what to do but followed her instincts and hugged Aide back. She continued to cry, tears ran down her face and she buried her head against Aide's neck.

It felt good when Aide rubbed her back softly and made soothing sounds, she started to think the idea of just a day trial wouldn't be nearly long enough to let this grief and horror run its course, much less accept the emotions and make a considered decision. She was completely lost, but Aide's presence and touch were comforting on a level she didn't really understand.

The emotions ran their course however. There was only so much a body could generate before that sort of thing got shut down. She allowed Aide to make her food, she ate and drank as she was bade. She knew she needed to eat and drink or her body could go into shock. It was going to be a long twenty four hours...

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

Council Narwell sat on the bridge of the ship as it came out of FTL. The stealth systems were working perfectly. He'd come ahead of the ten thousand ships when he had found out councilor Kiara had fled to Earth, he had no idea what the woman was about but thought she must be a traitor.

It was the only thing that made sense to him. How else could his self destruct device in the core of Aide fail, why else would she come here? He was fortunate that he had full resolution scans from his sensors as he sat right at the edge of their solar system for the upcoming battle between Earth and the Sthellans. Many of the scientists insisted such a big ship was a waste and would perform badly in battle.

But now he would have first hand proof of their capabilities before he needed to engage them.

The new cruiser class was much bigger than the scout, a full half mile long in size. Still, the five mile wide behemoths out there made his new ship look small by comparison. He set a course for Earth, the only ship with life signs was one of three above the planet, the other fourteen ships were moving to meet the incoming Sthellans. What could fourteen ships do against five thousand?

He decided to get as close to Earth as quickly as he could. If he could find the perfect time to strike the ten thousand ships on the way may not even have to see battle. He would wait and see what happened first before making any further plans. The traitor, rogue AI, and the human race would come to an end soon enough.

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

Kris thought fourteen ships would be plenty, leaving the three behind just in case. That would be fifty six hundred fighter ships, more than enough to wipe them out. He knew he was supposed to be taking it easy today, the battle wouldn't be until later today. He checked the Alion ships; they were maybe another day and a half out. Then they'd be looking at the trip in system, so easily double that before he'd have to worry.

He left the bridge and went to the dining hall where he joined Nate, Paula, Olivia, and Stacey for lunch. He knew Aide would be with Kiara all day probably, so far they hadn't left quarters.

"How is the new power plan coming?" he asked as he sat down.

Nate shrugged, "Good, should be ready soon, I'm thinking we could finish up tomorrow morning with testing and verification. Might even be ready for the Alions when they get here. We'd have been done this morning without that forced break. Not that I'm complaining mind you, we were all a bit tense I think."

They all made noises of agreement. The new power systems might help, but they had enough going for today's challenges, and most likely the ones coming in a few days as well. 

He asked, "Any other things going on?"

Paula shrugged, "We seem to be at the limits of the technology now. Outside of finding a better power source than a sun's plasma, which is very unlikely, this will be about it. Maybe that's what I'll work on next. Still, there has to be something better, there always is. I know the thirty six original craft we built are almost to the black hole now.

"I'm not sure about power, a black hole really can't power anything, but it could have direct applications like much stronger weapons, shields, and even drives. 

Olivia giggled, "Right, except the trick there is not to get the ship eaten."

Paula smiled briefly at Olivia and said, "Although these latest improvements are nothing to sneeze at either. Our plasma beam will be over five times stronger if the tests prove out. Our shields though won't be much more powerful at all.

"Which of course is a problem, if our enemy ever figures out how we did it, which really isn't all that hard, battle outcomes would be down to who fires first."

Kris asked, "Why is that?"

Nate shrugged, "For the power systems we can get away with a light blue type star, maybe twice as hot as Sol is. After that, the power requirements to contain it rises faster than the power gain, so in essence if we went above light blue, we'd have less net power after containment.

"The weapon is a different story, we don't care about containment at all, all we have to do is inject it directly in a gravity containment beam, which isn't really containment at all, think of it like a needle thin line of gravity that the mass of the plasma clings too. Heat won't matter so we can throw the hottest plasma from a dark blue giant.

"That automatically makes the beam much stronger than the containment shield generated around the ship. We might last a tenth of a second longer than the old shields, but that's debatable."

Stacey screwed up her face, "Why can't you use gravity as another shield for it, just like for kinetic impacts. Not that it's needed yet, since the enemy still uses the plasma balls."

Nate's eyes widened, "Holy shit, I'd kiss you but Paula and Kris would kick my ass. That could actually work, maybe."

Kris asked, "How's that, dumb it down for me?"

Nate's eyes crinkled with amusement, "Well it would be a fight, if we set up our gravity shields and if they were stronger than the enemy's gravity line guiding the plasma, we would essentially cause the plasma to run around the ship, riding a gravity shield until it dissipated. It's still not as simple as it sounds, creating a gravity field that strong around the ship would take a lot more energy than a pinpoint line would.

"Still, if the computers were fast enough, they could compensate and make the shield stronger where the beam hit. I hope the enemy doesn't think of this, or our beams would be useless."

Kris asked, "Will it work for the plasma balls?"

Nate shook his head, "No, those have full containment shields, that means against gravity as well, so a gravity shield would be completely ignored unless it was very strong, like black hole strong. It's something to consider, the beams are more powerful, but easier to counter if the enemy figures it out. Thanks for that. We'll make sure the new turrets can do both beams of dark blue plasma, and triple balls of light blue, just in case.

"Triple balls would mean we'd be down to a shot every half second again, but our weapons would still be six times as powerful."

Kris asked, "Because the light blue plasma balls would be twice as hot as the yellow?"

Olivia smiled, "Exactly. Now who's up for a game of pool?"

Kris smiled, he still had a few hours to kill before the battle, "Stakes?"

She frowned, "I don't know, it's not like money or possessions is even a consideration anymore, not with the nanites making whatever we want."

Stacey grinned, "I'm sure we'll think of something. Maybe a drinking game of some kind?"

Nate winked, "How about strip pool?"

Paula made a disgusted sound, "Pig, no such thing."

Nate shrugged, "It was worth a try... The alcohol will work just as well anyway."

Paula elbowed Nate in the side.

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

The Sthellan came in five formations of a thousand shaped like an X. The fourteen ships going to meet them split up into four groups of three, and one group of two to meet them. He checked his readings again. Narwell had to admit to himself the shields were impressively powerful on the five mile wide saucer, but they wouldn't have a chance against the attacking craft.

Narwell frowned as the readings changed, he could barely believe his eyes as five thousand six hundred ships swarmed out of the large saucers. A carrier? He hadn't seen that coming at all. Worse, according to these readings somehow those tiny craft were as powerful as their much larger scout attack ships. That should be impossible.

The battle was fierce but short, the attacking ships seemed to attack five on one and managed to take out a thousand of the little ships, but then it was over. The little ships fired some kind of energy beam and all the Sthellan ships went up at once. It didn't frighten him, he had no emotions. But he knew the ten thousand ships he had coming wouldn't fare much better.

He had to attack, and soon. He'd be at Earth right after his fleet came out of FTL, so that gave him a thirty six hour window to find a time to strike in surprise. He had to take them out in one shot or he would die as soon as his location was betrayed by their fire. There was no way his cruiser would last against the three ships in Earth's orbit, never mind against all the little ships they could launch.

Still, he estimated he had enough turrets along his ship to take down the enemy's shield in one shot, as well as turn a great amount of the ship into slag. He was confident his calculations were correct. He felt no satisfaction or guilt at the idea of striking from the shadows and ending the threat against his people. Nor did he give a thought to the billions of people on the planet below that would no doubt burn under the plasma fire of the Sthellan. In fact, he was quite incapable of feeling anything at all.




Sentient 03



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

Though it had been a horrible day, it hadn't been all bad for Kiara. Aide hadn't left her side at all, even during the battle, and she was getting a hold of the alien feelings in her mind. 

Some of the feelings were even pleasant after a fashion. 

"So what's the plan if I do decide to embrace emotion and change my DNA back to what it was always supposed to be?"

Aide evaded the question, "Once I turn off the device tonight, you can sleep on it and decide in the morning. I do have a plan, but it won't matter if you decide against making the change. Even if you do you could reject the plan. You have enough to think about now with your past and what is going on in the moment, let the future lie still until you figure things out."

She nodded reluctantly, seeing the wisdom of that. Still, she didn't like being kept in the dark.

They spent the rest of the evening talking and learning about each other before the emotions were turned off and she went to bed. It was strange, even though she knew what she was missing now, she couldn't bring herself to care that she was missing it. Yet, her mind was able to analyze and decide there would be advantages to having emotions.

Besides the moral issues, it would make life richer and fuller. She decided unless her thinking changed overnight, she would volunteer. She wondered if it would hurt, the DNA update and body changes, not that it would affect her decision either way. She went to sleep wondering why Aide was still there with her.

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

Kareem ordered, "Lock and load, check your weapons. Remember, we must take them alive. No mistakes or I'll send you to Allah myself. Remember, no talking at all, the government has bugs in the houses."

The men around him nodded. The rifles were for if they were discovered, otherwise they had syringes full of drugs, gags, and zip ties. Hopefully at this time of night the targets would all be asleep. He was assured they kept early hours and woke up at an early time to work the ranch every day.

One of his men, a sleeper agent who had lived in America for years looked nervous. But he ignored it for now. He could test the man's dedication to the cause later. He had to admit the young man had done well discovering all the locations of the U.S. agents guarding the two families. They shouldn't have any problem getting in, although getting out might be harder. He had just enough men to carry the four targets out with a minimum guard to watch their flanks.

They moved through the woods quickly but quietly. He'd been to a training camp in the states to learn how to move through the woods without a sound, it was coming in handy tonight. They approached from the back of the ranch house, all the lights were out and a sense of relief went through him. Normally he was not afraid of failure, to die for his god and his cause would be an honor.

But for this mission his leaders would consider that a terrible failure on his part. They believed if they could hold these people hostage, they could force the man running the alien ship, Kris Miller, to attack certain targets from space. Kareem wasn't sure if that was a good plan or not, but thinking wasn't something he was encouraged to do.

He looked over the surrounding area and the open back yard, there were no heat sources at all. He waved his men forward and stayed as low as possible as he headed for the back door of the house. He made it about halfway across the yard when every one of his muscles locked up. The ground rose toward his face and he panicked a little as he landed it on it, his nose crunched loudly against a small rock.

He struggled for several minutes to move but cringed inside and gave up when he heard the radio.

A sultry sexy voice said, "Just another fifty feet ahead agent Murphy, if you could take out the trash I'd appreciate it."

The voice sounded like the ultimate temptation to fornicate to him. He had heard the evil alien female who bowed to the words of the American infidel had such a voice. Was that what happened to him, was he frozen with some alien technology?

He heard an amused voice above him, no doubt the agent, "We got them, thanks for the heads up Aide."

He frowned as the great temptress said in her wicked slut voice, "My pleasure agent Murphy."

Agent Murphy muttered, "I wish," under his breath while he started to handcuff all the terrorists with their own zip ties...



Chapter 24

Kiara woke up, and hadn't changed her mind. That was when Aide shared her plans on how to stop the Alion from continuing on their present destructive course. It meant that she wouldn't have emotions for a while longer, but she admitted the plan was worth the wait.

She was now back in her ship with the initial diagnostics of Aide complete and uploaded. The deep stuff would take a couple of more weeks, but she had enough proof now to perhaps stop any further action until she knew more. Or at least she believed she did, though she wasn't sure.

Although with the other plan it hardly mattered anymore, still, it was a good excuse for where she was going. The plan involved a number of nanites that had been put in her bloodstream. They mimicked normal medical nanites, and would report to the central medical AI and even accept updates if a new disease or cure were found.

In addition however they had a hidden program which would revert Alion DNA to include emotions. They also would multiply and jump to other bodies. In theory, they shouldn't set off any alarms, because they looked and acted like normal medical nanites. Her plan was to stop at every major port on the way to the core, and perhaps go out of her way to others.

In a surprisingly short time, a month or two, the nanites would be carried to virtually every Alion, everywhere in their star systems. At that point, they would act, and convert the entire Alion race back to what they should be. She thought it was good plan. Audacious, but workable.

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

They were all on the bridge. Aide looked over all the tests and designs. She couldn't find any fault in them. The Alion had dropped out of FTL a short while ago, but it would be tomorrow shortly after noon before they were in weapons range. She estimated the upgrades would take two hours and eleven point two minutes. Not just for the carriers, but all the fighters as well.

She was impressed, most of the quantum connections would be moved to a light blue star, all the quantum connections for their plasma beams would go to a dark blue star increasing their weapons strength tremendously.

She reported, "It looks good. The turrets will be able to fire both types of attacks as well. Should we update?"

He nodded slowly, "I don't see why not. Just to be cautious, only do half at a time."

She nodded, "I'll start with these three and six others."

Stacey shook her head, "The Alion won't know what hit them when they get here. With the new weapons we can take out three or four of their ships before they can fire a second shot."

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

"Narwell to the bridge please."

Narwell left the ready room and went onto the bridge. He took a look at the scans but wasn't sure what he was seeing.

"What are they doing?"

The sensor officer said, "Upgrades I think sir, all I know is all their weapons are offline right now. Their turrets are absolutely swarmed with nanites."

Narwell asked, "All three at the same time?"

The officer nodded, "They still have eight active ships, but they are at least fifteen minutes from weapons range and poised to intercept our attack ships away from Earth."

Narwell was glad he'd moved the ship to Earth, this was the opportunity he'd been waiting for. He'd have attacked anyway of course, if nothing had come up before his ships met the enemy in battle, but now it wouldn't be necessary. The enemy had just made their last foolish mistake.

Narwell ordered, "Fire at the ship with life signs, we must destroy the AI and her host."

The officer charged the weapons which would ruin their stealth, but it would be far too late for their target.

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

Aide's eyes widened in alarm as the enemy ship weapons became viewable. There were no weapons online, not even fighters. It took her an agonizingly long .02 seconds to come up with a counter, she just hoped it would be enough.

The shields came back online and she rerouted all of the power from the central ring into the outer shields as well. They were barely back up when the enemy ship fired. The shields flickered and then started building back up again. A second volley from the enemy came and their shields dropped and the ship was turned to slag on one side all the way to the inner shield. The plasma had turned half their ship into a twisted wreck.

The inner shields were still up, but the enemy ship was about to take a third shot. She started the ship turning so they would have to burn through the decks again before hitting the shield, but it was too little too late.

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

Narwell couldn't help but be impressed by the design. With the outer shield gone he could now see the inner. What he thought to be a one volley job would now take three.

The navigator reported, "Sir, the other two ships are on a collision course."

Narwell ordered, "Fire, now, finish them, and move the ship!"

A third volley of fire went out from his cruiser, he watched as the inner shields died and went dark. The navigator turned to tell him something, but he never found out what.

The two other ships might not have had weapons, but they rammed into his ship, the shields of all three ships caused havoc to each other's fields as they mixed, and the Alion cruiser was crushed like an egg between two cinder blocks. A brief .2 seconds later, all three ships lost containment and exploded spectacularly.

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

"REPORT!" Kris yelled.

Aide said, "The ship is a total loss and will have to be rebuilt. Only the bridge and engines survived thanks to the core containment shield. Without it we would all be dead."

Kris said in a lower voice, "Report in, is anyone hurt?"

Aide replied via the implant, "My body is knocked out, so are Nate and Paula. We are lucky the ship was basically stationary when we lost inertial dampening."

He felt a chill go down his spine, the ship had thrown him to the deck fairly hard. He tried not to picture himself as a pancake.

Both Stacey and Olivia said, "We're okay," Stacey continued, "What's with the lights?"

Aide replied in their minds, "One moment, I'm working on getting the core power back up. I also have one of the fourteen ships coming to get us, they should be able to open up a corridor for us and dock with the ship using force fields and gravity. I'm sorry, this is my fault. I shouldn't have assumed we were safe enough to do all three ships local to Earth at one time."

There was a moment of silence and she continued, "I'm rerouting fifteen ships from the last batch in the asteroids, they should get here before the enemy. Still, even if they don't, our fifteen carriers and six thousand attack fighters should be more than enough for the ten thousand enemies with the upgrades. I'm only grabbing them in case there are more stealth ships around."

He whistled, "Isn't that overkill?"

There was a feeling of consternation in his head, "Yes, and it's a completely emotional decision, deal with it. I almost lost all of you because I didn't know about the stealth capability of my own creators, so I'm not taking any chances. Keep in mind thirty is only a drop in the bucket, we are sending out one thousand twenty four ships every three days to map out our enemy and beyond. Thirty is just a tiny percentage of that.



"Keep in mind it's not only Earth we are trying to defend or that will die if we fail to fix the Alion and quarantine the Sthellan, there are countless civilizations out there. If I have to I'll have three hundred ships just sitting around doing nothing. Thirty means we'll be secure, at least to the best of our knowledge and experience."

He smiled lightly, "We love you too Aide."

There was a moment of startled silence before she continued her report.

"We should be rescued soon, I've already started the reconfiguration of our new flagship including the personal possessions and recreational facilities."

He nodded, "How about you, Paula, and Nate?"

She replied, "The three of us all have concussions as well as a few bone breaks and sprains. The nanites should have it all repaired in a few more minutes."

In just a few minutes the three of them woke up, a few minutes after that the door to the bridge opened up. They walked down a corridor, surrounded by twisted and melted metal. It was a long walk to get to the edge of a ship, although it wasn't the full two point five miles to the edge, the hole turned upwards and it was closer to a mile.

The really disturbing part was walking in space. Their suits extended the helmets over their heads even though they had atmosphere, though they were literally walking inside a force field tube with artificial gravity field on the 'bottom' part of it. He sighed with relief as they walked into the new ship and had a solid floor underneath their feet. He was relieved to know all the upgrades would be done within six hours, after the attack Aide had reprioritized to do ten at a time, five at a time in each group of fifteen.

There were no further attacks from stealth ships, but Aide made the new upgrade plan into a policy to avoid it ever happening again. He knew she was also working on a counter to the stealth tech, but since they had no idea how it was done, it would be almost impossible to counter. 

He knew the truth though, the fault had been his own. It was on his word the upgrades started, he should have planned for the unforeseen. It wasn't as if stealth technology wasn't known to the people of Earth, he should have considered it. Aide had told him a long time ago that the ships could hide from Earth's technology, but not from the advanced scans of the Sthellan and Alion.

He had made an assumption that all things were equal and had almost paid the ultimate price for it. He took the time to take a shower and spend a little time making sure Stacey was okay before he headed for the bridge. He ordered Aide to come up with various scenarios and amount of stealth craft and added it to his simulations, then worked them. He spent the rest of the day on it then made some more procedure changes.

He ordered a space patrol made up of forty of the four hundred fighters for every carrier when travelling at sub light speed to counter stealth surprise attacks. The fighters had no FTL, otherwise he'd have ordered the patrol for then too. The forty patrol craft would also hang back during battle for the same reasons.

During upgrades, those forty would be left untouched until replaced with forty upgraded craft. The carriers would be upgraded separately with all four hundred fighter craft launched in a protective circle around the craft.

He knew the new orders were almost paranoid, but he ignored the feeling. It wasn't paranoia when there were enemies out there determined to exterminate the human race. He just hoped it was enough. He tried to think of other things, but it was hard to anticipate a surprise. He hoped the changes would handle things.

The enemy would be in range for battle by midday tomorrow. He reluctantly pushed away his concerns hoping the changes already made would suffice for any new surprises. He'd need his rest if he was going to be sharp tomorrow. 

With forty fighters held back for carrier protection, there would only be three hundred sixty per carrier for the battle. Granted with thirty carriers for their home defense, that would be ten thousand eight hundred fighters that all outclassed the ten thousand invaders.

They should be more than enough to finish the fight quickly, especially with their upgraded beams. He was having trouble letting it go, but he was sure Stacey could help him get his mind off of his failure. He'd done all he could to prevent that level of failure again, at least now if he lost he was fairly sure he'd done all he could to prepare.

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

Olivia needed something to do. She had upgraded the shields and sensors, and she loved just hanging around all day with Aide, but everyone needs to be working to feel useful. She helped Aide devise a series of tests and scans at the black hole. They were even going to try and create one, as far from the ship as possible. Micro black holes had a lot of potential for more powerful ship systems.

She didn't think they would be hard to create, the current gravity systems on the ship could probably make one if the safety protocols were overridden. In fact, she was pretty sure that's why those protocols existed in the first place, to prevent that from happening. But they weren't quite there yet, they were still scanning the black hole which despite the faster than light particles they used they lost most of them to incredible powerful gravity well.

The scans were far from stellar or enlightening. It may be that they'd have to experiment a lot to get the data they needed.

She decided to take a shower, she knew she was being a bit of a workaholic, it wasn't as if there weren't things to do, she just looked for... more. She'd always been that way for as long as she could remember, it was why she'd always gotten top grades. It took more than intelligence to be valedictorian of a class, it required the drive too.

She turned as Aide came in carrying a bundle of clothes. She gave Aide a questioning look, they all got used to the body hugging space suits and hardly ever wore clothes over them anymore.

Aide said, "Put these on... there was an accident and we should go."

It was fairly late but she didn't argue and started to pull on the jeans and light shirt.

"What happened?"

Aide replied in a gently voice, "Your brother Mark, he was in an accident and is in critical care. The doctors... let's just say we should get there."

Olivia's eyes widened. She hadn't talked to Mark or her parents in a while, and not at all since they'd gone up to space. Mark was just seventeen, a late unplanned baby. She was eleven years older than he was. She loved him of course, he was her brother, but they'd never been particularly close because of the age gap.

Her throat closed up a little, "You've been keeping an eye on my family?"

Aide replied, "Of course love, I've been watching all the families. We can save his life if we move."

She nodded and they ran to the lift, which brought them down to one of the hangar bays. Aide led her over to one of the small craft the size of a car she'd wondered about when they came in the first time. It was actually larger than the fighters, about the size of a luxury car instead of a compact.

The canopy raised and there were four seats, two and two. She jumped in next to Aide who closed the canopy and turned the ship on and ran some quick system checks before they shot out into space and turned towards earth. The thing was so small.

Aide answered her unasked questions, "It's a small personal shuttle craft. It isn't armed per se, but it has stealth and holographic systems. We should be able to land in the hospital parking lot and generate a hologram of a car."

Her head was still spinning about her little brother, she was afraid to ask what happened so she talked about the car instead. She was amazed how Aide seemed to know exactly what she needed.

"Isn't armed per se?"

Aide grinned, "It does go a good speed, which means it has gravity systems for inertial dampening and artificial gravity. It wouldn't do anything against one of our ships, but we could use the same systems to crush a jet or missile into a tin can, not to mention defend from bullets.




Sentient 03



"Unarmed is a relative term at this level of technology compared to your world's."

She nodded thoughtfully, "I'm glad you control it all, I get to avoid all that temptation to take over the world."

Aide snorted, "You're not the type. Besides, you have all the security you could ever want now, ruling the world would just be complicated and add stress to your life." 

She giggled, "True enough I suppose."

She sighed, "So tell me, what happened to Mark? And do my parents know?"

Aide replied, "Car accident, he went through the windshield. He has a broken neck, multiple head and face lacerations, and a broken leg and shoulder. He's somewhat stabilized but his body is in shock. Both your parents are there."

Aide took her hand, "Don't worry, we'll fix it."

She asked, "You can do that? I thought there were restrictions?"

The front of the canopy showed flames as they sped into the atmosphere and dove for southern California. When the flames died down she could see the lights of LA getting closer at an alarming rate.

Aide lifted her other hand and twisted it back and forth in a sort of gesture, "I can't allow your world to gain any technology that I control, but I can heal him then let the nanites dissolve in his bloodstream to be harmlessly filtered out. That way I maintain my protocols and get to save your brother."

She nodded nervously as the ground grew closer and closer. Aide looked perfectly relaxed and as if they had all the time in the world to stop. One second she could swear they were going faster than any jet and about to plow the ground, the next moment they were at a full stop, sitting in a parking space in the ER parking lot.

She hadn't felt a thing. She knew the science behind inertial dampening and gravity manipulation, but to experience it in such a way was... startling to say the least. The canopy raised and she jumped out and walked toward the ER. Curiously she turned around, the ship looked like a minivan, something a soccer mom might drive and she snickered.

Aide winked at her and took her hand.

She needed another distraction from her worry so asked, "How do you always know what I need?"

Aide frowned, "It's a long story, but I wasn't lying when I said I wasn't scanning your mind all the time. I seem to be developing ESP. It's quite interesting actually. I think I could teach you how to get yours to develop, but it takes a very focused and still mind to do so. In short, what comes naturally to me would be a lot of hard work and meditation for you, but I'd be happy to show you."

She tried to wrap her mind around that and laughed, "You mean you don't scan my mind anymore, but you're reading it anyway with your new voodoo mind powers?"

Aide nodded reluctantly, "I think it's something all humans can do if they learn to focus their minds correctly. It's not the same as a scan though, I don't read your mind. Usually I can just sense your mood, maybe a specific detail on how your feeling or what you need. It's not an exact science and I don't know what you're thinking exactly. Just the edges of it and impressions."

She shrugged, "Don't worry about it, I really don't mind, not like I first did."

Aide asked, "Why not?"

She smiled, "Because I love you and there isn't anything I would mind you knowing about me, how did you miss that? Some psychic you are," she added dismissively.

Aide giggled, "Hey, I'm a psychic of the stars!"

She groaned, "No puns please, I don't think I could handle that."

Aide laughed, "Fine, no puns, let's find your brother."

They entered and went to the counter. Her brother was being prepped for surgery and they were told they'd need to wait for word. When she turned around she saw her parents, they looked scared and a little lost.

For some reason that hit her like a ton of bricks and she felt the tears in her eyes as she hugged them both tightly.

Her mother April, asked, "Where have you been, how did you even know to come here. I haven't heard from you in weeks."

She felt a little guilty about that, her father Robert said, "Don't worry about that right now, you can tell us later, come sit with us. Your brother... I just don't know what's going to happen."

She nodded, "In a minute, did you want me to grab a coffee or something before I come back? This is Ai... Amy by the way."

She hated lying, but Aide wasn't exactly a human name. Unless they'd had their heads buried in the sand the last few weeks they would probably recognize the name.

Her parents shook their heads so she whispered, "Be right back," and followed Amy toward the restricted doors.

When Aide got close to the scanner, she heard a click and the door opened. The security guard didn't challenge them when they just walked right in. Aide seemed to know exactly where she was going.

"How do you know where to go?"

Aide shrugged, "I have him pinpointed on the sensors, and you know how they work just as much as I do love."

She nodded feeling a little stupid for asking, but her mind wasn't in a great place right now.

Aide said, "Good enough, we just walked by the pre-op room, I dropped about a thousand nanites and their on the way to his body. Should we get a coffee?"

Coffee wasn't her biggest priority right now, but her parents may wonder why she left if she didn't return with what she'd claimed to be leaving for. 

"Sure, we should both get one."

Aide made a face, "Coffee makes me jittery."

Olivia gasped, "Sacrilege! You'll drink coffee and like it young woman. Or you know, decaf."

Aide said softly, "They are working on him now, I wonder though if we should stop them from operating."

She nodded, "Not sure how well that would go over, we also don't want it to get out about who you are right? Or we'll have to guard my family as closely as Chris and Stacey's."

Aide let out a sigh as they entered the cafeteria, "I suppose even if they do screw something up the nanites can compensate. But really, people will know something is up when Mark simply gets up and walks away in a couple of hours. It might be prudent for me to increase the security on them anyway."

She hugged Aide fiercely, "Thank you love."

Aide smiled and kissed her tenderly but very briefly given where they were. They grabbed a coffee and headed back for the ER to wait. She felt a lot better about it and trusted Aide more than anyone else in her life, but she was still a little worried.

Her mother must have been just as nervous, because the grilling began as soon as she got back.

April asked, "So what have you been up to these last few weeks?"

She tried to smile but failed and said, "I quit my modeling job. Amy hired me on to work on actual sciency stuff. I'm finally getting a chance to put that expensive degree to work."

Her mother looked back and forth between them, "And you're dating your boss?"

Robert coughed and looked uncomfortable on her behalf. As for Olivia she felt like a fish out of water. All mothers can be embarrassing at times but... holy shit.

Aide smiled, "I was very lucky to find her, both in our scientific endeavors and on a personal level. It isn't a very large concern where we work, so there are no corporate rules or regulations in our way."

April frowned, "Isn't that a conflict of interest?"

Aide shook her head, "No, like I said the company is very small. The other two scientists in on it are already a couple, there is no real danger of accusations of favoritism."

Robert tried to redirect the subject, "So are you a scientist too? Do you work on the same things?"

Aide shook her head, "Of a sort? I'm more on the engineering and implementation end of things, Olivia is much more creative."

She snorted, "Maybe at first, but things are changing."

April looked a little confused by that, but she didn't explain that with Aide's growing nature as a human her creativity potential was growing as well. 

Aide got glared at when she asked, "You have any favorite stories of Olivia you'd like to share?"

Robert smiled, "There was this one time..."

Aide seemed to be having a ball hearing about her childhood, even though she herself thought it was boring. She never really got in all that much trouble. They passed the rest of the wait chatting, to her surprise her mother seemed to behave and not embarrass her much for the next couple of hours.

She heard her father gasp and look up and she turned around. Her brother walked out with a scowl on his face. She looked at Aide who just winked at her.

Robert asked, "What's going on son?"

Mark shrugged, "I feel fine, the doctors are all freaking out and didn't want to let me go. Finally I just got up and walked out. I really don't understand what happened, they told me I was pretty messed up when I came in."

Mark hugged Olivia, "Hey sis, good to see you."

She gave him a watery smile, "You too, be more careful."

He nodded sheepishly, "I'll do my best."

They talked for a few more minutes, April was unusually quiet about her son's amazing recovery. They managed to escape the hospital before the doctors could swoop in on them.

Olivia gave the three of them a tight hug, "I have to get back to it, I'll call you in a few days okay?"

Robert nodded in silent reply.

April thanked Aide for coming and bringing around their wayward daughter.

They actually drove the ship out of the parking lot like a car, there were too many people around to just disappear straight up.

She whispered, "Thank you again love."

She couldn't wait to get Aide alone in their suite of rooms and show her exactly how much she meant that...



Chapter 25

Paula had been getting more and more upset about the way Nate seemed to take nothing seriously. The only time she had even seen him half serious about anything was when she helped him redesign the weapons for greater power.

At first she just thought he was a little gun shy about things, always choosing to use a joking or wise ass remark to hide behind. She had no doubt he was a strong man, but he seemed completely clueless on how to share his feelings with a woman.

Now she was worried she had read into it too much, that the only reason they were together at all was availability and their intense chemistry. That was one thing she didn't have a complaint about at all, the man could play her body like an instrument. But the rest of it, she had nothing but doubts. Worse, she definitely had feelings beyond base attraction for the man.

It caused her to be more waspish then usually. Some of her comments had even made her wince. The man was driving her crazy. She had tried to give him opening to talk about it, and each time he had shut her down with some clever remark that never failed to sting. It made her feel sick sometimes when she thought she meant nothing to him except as a warm hole to stick his cock in.

Men were impossible.

It wasn't too much to ask was it? She wasn't asking the guy to spout poetry or paint toenails for god sake, she just needed to know how he felt. If he even felt anything.

She felt him get into bed and start to pull her toward him. She rolled away with a scowl on her face. She was angry and scared at what his reaction would be, she needed to steel her heart, but she wouldn't be used anymore.

Paula asked, "Nate, what is this between us, what do you really think about me."

She frowned and clarified before he could answer, "Outside of the sex Nate."

He smiled, "You're a fiery little thing darling. Quick to anger, you don't let me get away with shit, and you're as passionate out of bed as you are in it. You drive me crazy woman, how can you not know that?"

She frowned, nothing in there about love, caring, or even simply liking. Just about how much of a bitch she was. She felt a sting in her eyes and her anger immediately rose in response to push down that hurt. He'd probably only put up with her because she'd been spreading her legs for him. She blushed, quite eagerly in fact.

She said sharply, "Fine, I'll be leaving then. You won't have to deal with it anymore."

She moved to get up and he grabbed her arm. She shook trying to free herself, "Let me go!"

The confusion in his voice made her pause, "What the hell are you talking about? I love that stuff about you. Keeps things interesting."

She snorted in anger, she was so livid it just tumbled out, "So I'm an amusement as well as a good fuck? Is that all I am to you? Something to keep you occupied and entertain you? Let me go."

He growled out, "No," and pushed her onto her back.

She reluctantly looked up at him and he looked pissed. She'd never seen him that angry before, actually she couldn't remember ever seeing him truly angry.

He said coldly, "That's not how it is at all. Is that really what you think of me? That I'm using you? I love you, but you're a crazy bitch."

Her mind skipped for moment, did she hear that right?

Then his mouth was on hers. He claimed her with a savage kiss that started the heat to rise in her core. He let her arm go and she wrapped it around him, pulling him down on top of her. Her mind was still spinning, he loved her? She could barely think at all as she returned his hungry kiss with rising and intense desire.

She felt like she might be consumed by her desire. His words still rung in her mind and she wanted him so badly. They were both already naked, being ready for bed. She mewled in disappointment when he broke the kiss. She felt his hands pull her roughly and spin her on her stomach. 

She gasped at his rough hands and raised her ass high before he managed to even pull her up onto hands and knees. 

Her whole body shuddered and she arched her back even more when she felt a stinging slap on her butt cheek. 

He said commandingly, "Your mine darling."

She opened her mouth to answer but was only able to gasp as he pushed deeply into her core in one fast forceful stroke. She had been plenty ready for him, but there was pain mixed in with the pleasure. She arched her back further and pushed against him.

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

Nate looked down at the beautiful woman on her hands and knees below him, practically begging him to start stroking into her hard and fast. Their sex had always been a little on the wild side, but there was something different this time. Maybe he should have told her how he felt a while ago, but doing so hadn't been easy for him. He had hoped his actions would be enough, and had almost blown it. Luckily there was no longer any sign of her wanting to leave him.

He growled at the pleasure of her still undulating heat as it rippled up and down his tightly sheathed manhood. When she pushed backed against him he started to stroke in and out of her hot and wet bliss. She was so damned tight. He loved the way her tight supple ass shook each time their bodies met violently together.

The mewling and gasping that came from her lips drove him to go faster and harder. He wanted to feel her body tremble and bathe his cock with silken liquid pleasure. He loved how responsive her body was to his every touch and full stroke out to his tip, it didn't take him long to get her there.

"That's it babe, cum for me," he said firmly.

She screamed his name and her voice cut off as her bliss milked along his entire length. He tried for a moment to stop his own pleasure, but gave into it knowing this was just round one, he'd make up for it during round two. He relaxed his control and his legs grew numb as his balls boiled. He released his ecstatic pleasure deep inside her greedily milking core. It seemed to go on and on as he emptied within her, the pleasure suspending any real sense of time.

When it was over he collapsed to the side of her and pulled her down against him. He felt relieved as her body seemed to melt and conform to his perfectly.

She said softly, "I love you too," and added jokingly, "Pig."

He snorted. Yep, she'd keep him on his toes.

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

"Any backlash from the hospital visit?"

Aide replied, "No, if someone in the government caught on they are keeping it under their hat. Olivia's family hasn't picked up on it either, which I find strange."

Kris said almost inaudibly, "No one is a prophet in their home town."

Aide raised an eyebrow.

Kris shrugged, "Olivia is Olivia to them, just a daughter and sister and normal. Even with the healing... Well the parents never saw how hurt he was, and for him he was out of it most of the time, probably doesn't realize how bad off he was. People tend to look for the easiest explanation, even if they lie to themselves.

"Besides, your way to cute to be an alien AI."

She chuckled and tossed her hair, "Think so?" she asked raising her eyebrow.

He nodded. "Of course. Olivia's parents are probably stuck on the idea she's dating her younger rich hot boss. I'm sure it will come out eventually, but it's better if no one figures it out too soon."

She nodded.

He asked, "Did you send out the message? The Alion are almost here."

Aide replied, "Yes, but I doubt they will listen. It will come down to a fight. The only way to stop this foolishness without even more death is to hope Kiara does a good job spreading the nanites. Even that won't be completely peaceful."

He frowned, "You expect problems?"

She sighed, "I expect about ninety five percent of the Alion to work out their emotions and make sure things change for the better. The other five percent will be the fringe groups. One will get angry at having emotions forced on them and will let their own ambition rule them while taking their anger out on their fellow Alions. The second group of Alion will probably suicide out of guilt.

"Still, it will be a lot less death than if we need to quarantine them. Assuming we could."

He asked, "How much longer?"

She shrugged, "If we hold our forces here, it will be a little over thirty minutes."

He sighed, "And you're okay with this?"

She shook her head, "Sometimes life doesn't give you right or wrong. It gives you wrong or more wrong. Of course I'm not okay with killing close to fifty thousand Alions, but the only other choice is to lie down and die, and let trillions die on Earth for the Alion's evil. So no, but I will be okay, eventually."

He nodded soberly. There was a comfortable silence between them as they waited. Stacey and Olivia joined them on the bridge a few minutes before the battle started bearing some bottles of water and sandwiches. He wasn't really hungry because of the upcoming battle, but he ate to make them all happy, he knew it was foolish not to give his body the energy it needed for directing a battle.

He managed to get the sandwich down, not really even paying attention what kind it was before he gulped down the water. This battle would be such a waste and stupid besides. Aide was right though, it was the lesser of two evils to destroy them. On top of that, it was self defense. It was just hard to disregard the idea there were around fifty individuals in each of the ten thousand ships.

It almost felt like cheating, he wasn't risking anyone unless the enemy got past the ships controlled by Aide. Even then... there were only six of them.

The enemy was coming at them in ten formations of a thousand. The groups were staggered and all wouldn't be in range at the same time unlike the Sthellan's rush to attack. Maybe if they destroy a couple of groups the rest will run.

He broke up his ships as well, into groups of one thousand eighty and sent them off. The new improved beam weapons were ready and as soon as the first group was in range they fired. He frowned as the beams hit the ship. The beams seemed to curl around the ship and then harmlessly off into space. 

He barked, "Change to plasma balls!"

The enemy ships fired back ten to one and destroyed a hundred of their ships in one volley. He wondered how the enemy knew their capabilities so well, and how to adjust the shields, but dismissed the thought. He could worry about that after the battle.