June slowly rose from a slumber full of dreams of warm bodies and passionate sex. Not quite blinking the sleep from her eyes, she felt the warm body she was pressed against, her arm draped over the still form, soft and curvy, with a faint scent of cinnamon. Her mind was still hazy from sleep; she realized that the body did not belong to Will.

  June’s brain snapped to the present, and it came back to her that she had been in bed with Interface and Will all night instead of hiking back to the ‘Saturn’s Heart’. She smiled at the thought of the lovely robot girl and their previous night’s lovemaking. As June’s face flushed at the memory, Interface whispered, “Good Morning, Honey. Did you sleep well?”

  “Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you.” June apologized and gave Interface a peck on the cheek.

  “It’s alright, I don’t sleep. I was enjoying cuddling you two so much, I couldn't tear myself away.” Interface said with a big smile. “This is how the crew used to sleep every night, in a big cuddle pile. The orgies were fantastic, practically a nightly occurrence, then afterward everyone would fall asleep cuddling, basking in the afterglow. It was glorious.”

  A small, wistful smile stole across her face. “I miss the cuddling, and small tender moments as much as the mind-blowing sex,” she said, lightly stroking June's bare shoulder.

  June smiled. “You must have loved them a lot.”

  “I did,” Interface replied. “We loved each other deeply. That's the real secret to the Bond between the crew, the Interface, and the ship. We were bonded by Love, and everything flowed from there.”

  “Including the energy you need for your crystalline matrix?” June asked, curious to learn more about the silver girl beside her.

  “Well, yes. Including that too. It's more than just a battery charge, though; it's Life Force that energizes me, just as it does you and Sleeping Beauty here.” Interface said, gesturing over her shoulder to Will, also draping an arm across the silver girl, who was beginning to stir. “Good morning, dies,” he mumbled as he moved his arm so that his hand slid down over Interface’s hips and zily rubbed one pewter ass cheek.

  Interface twisted around to give Will a quick sideways kiss, then turned back to June and continued her expnation. “Organic beings, for the most part, generate their own Life Force. But the only time I generate any is when I give it away.” She paused to give June a quick kiss on the neck.

  “There are some people who live small lives, isoted from everyone around them, and never give so much as a drop. Those people have no idea what they are missing.” Interface’s fingers traced lines down June’s side and back up, finding her breast and tracing light patterns around her areo and nipple.

  “Small things like a comforting touch and a kiss on the cheek can be carriers for Life Force.” She said as her hand moved north to stroke June's cheek, “It just happens to be that great sex is a much rger conduit.” She said with a smirk and a twinkle in her eye. “But it pales in comparison to when a crew and Interface have been bonded. The connection is so full and deep, we are less a group of individuals, but more like parts of an intimate whole.”

  June thought about Interface's expnation, then coyly asked, “So did we help you out st night? Did we start to fill you up?”

  “Oh Honey, you have no idea.” Interface’s expression lit up. “It was like a gss of water for someone dying of thirst, and it was beautiful. But I would need to fuck you two non-stop for years to fully charge these batteries.” Interface had a look of longing on her face.

  “So, you really do need a couple of hundred people to satisfy your ‘energy’ needs?” Will asked, finally cognizant.

  Interface giggled a little and said, “It's less about the quantity of connections but more about the quality, but yes, I'm insatiable.” Smirking, she paused momentarily, thinking of a way to expin. “It's like the difference between a drinking straw and a fire hose; the bandwidth is that much wider with a bonded connection.” then she added, “Even if the sex is hot as fuck.” she said, leaning over to give June a passionate kiss, her silver tits pressing up against June's perky pair.

  Will pressed close to the kissing pair, lightly kissing the back of Interface’s neck while his stiffening cock found a home nestled in between her ass cheeks. “You’ll find no argument here, the sex is hot.” he said while nibbling her ear, “But being awake and as active as you are right now, can you sustain it? The st thing we want is to see you get hurt on account of us.” Concern for her wellbeing was clear from the tone of his voice.

  “That's sweet of you, but you don’t need to worry. I’ve grown fond of the two of you and that will be enough to sustain me as I am now,” she said as the wake-up cuddle began to get more energetic; Interface simultaneously kissed June’s neck and pyed with her nipples while grinding her hips back against the cock resting in the cleft of her ass.

  “But is it enough to just survive? You should have the chance to thrive and reach your full potential. How much do you have left? Fifteen percent of your full capacity? Ten percent?” June’s worry wouldn’t let her leave the subject be, just like she could not leave the two silvery breasts in front of her alone.

  “If you must know,” she said, with a mouth full of nipple as her hand snaked down to June’s moist snatch, “I’m hovering right around one point six three percent of maximum. But, oh Honey, you are keeping that steady in the most delightful manner possible.”

  Both Will and June’s writhing stopped cold, and they sat up, serious looks on their faces. Will spoke first. “And if we hadn’t come along, how much longer would you have sted?”

  Interface sat up, too, with a resigned look on her face. “By my estimates, maybe another thirty years, give or take.” Her expression and tone became sober. “Then my spark would dim and go out. My memories would remain encoded in the crystalline matrix, able to be retrieved by another of my kind, but I would be gone.”

  The horror of that possibility expressed in their faces spoke volumes. Then, after a moment, Will’s face hardened into a look of fierce determination. “That’s unacceptable. I won’t allow it.” Gncing at June, he saw agreement in her eyes. “We won’t allow it. We’ll find a way. I don’t know how, but I swear to you that we will never let that happen to you. I’ve never met a person quite like you; you are too special and unique to let slip away.”

  Interface was taken aback by the complete conviction in his voice and their concern for her. Her heart glowed at their decration, and tears pooled in the corners of her eyes. “You’ve only just met me, and here you are, ready to defend my very existence. I don’t know what gods to thank for sending you two, but I am dearly grateful you are here.”

  She grabbed June and Will and embraced them both, holding them tight, unwilling to let them go. They returned the embrace, and the three clung tight to one another.

  A thought tickled the back of June’s mind, then raced to the fore. “If our ‘fun’ is enough to keep your decline in check, what if we could give you more? What if you weren’t drinking from a straw but a firehose instead?” June said, using the exact words Interface just had a few moments ago.

  Seeing exactly where June’s thoughts were going, Interface spoke up. “Honey, in our short time together, I have become very fond of the two of you, but what you’re thinking about is too big an ask.” Will’s confused expression prompted Interface to eborate. “Yes, being bonded to me would allow our connection to grow to the point where we could feed each other much more energy, but there is a price. Once done, it can not be undone. You would become as physically dependent on me, as I would be on you. If you were away from me and this ship for too long, you would grow weak, and eventually, die. It is not a thing to take on lightly and I wouldn’t want to drag you down with me.”

  Interface looked into their eyes and saw care and loving. She had been resigned to her fate for so long that just the chance of escaping this pnet was more than enough reason for joy. But she couldn’t allow herself the cruel hope of rebuilding her family. It was a grasp that she knew was too far for her reach.

  “You’re right; we’ll find a way.” Putting her cheerful disposition back on her face as a mask, this time to hide behind. “Between the three of us, we’ll come up with something,” Interface said, kissing both of them in turn.

  June could see the trepidation in Interface’s manner and let the idea go for the moment. She did not wish to push someone who had suffered so much for so long into something she didn’t seem to want. “You’re not the only lucky one. Of all the pces we could have crashed, it ended up being here with you.” She said as she leaned over to kiss Interface, their breasts pressed together, nipples rubbing.

  Their lips parted, and tongues reached out to caress one another. June reached around and held Interface close with a hand on the small of her back while the other went down to Interface’s hardening cock, stroking it to full mast.

  Will once again pressed himself against Interface’s back and kissed up and down her neck, pausing to nibble the lobe of her ear. He reached around with his big arms and pushed his hands in between the pressed pair of tits and grabbed one of each, a soft pink nipple in one hand and a pewter nipple in the other, gently stimuting them with light pinching and twisting. He got the appreciative moans from both that he was looking for and smiled.

  Interface, delighted to be the meat in this sex sandwich, reached down and forward, pushing her fingers into June’s folds, stroking circles around and over her clit, and was rewarded with loud moans. Her entrance slick, Interface first slid her pinky and ring fingers into June’s wet, hungry pussy, then repced them with her index and ring fingers, getting them equally wet. As she slowly worked her fingers in and out of June, she extended her ring finger so that it pressed on the outside of her anus each time she stroked in.

  Once Interface’s fingers were well lubricated with June’s arousal, she gently but firmly pressed her ring finger into June’s asshole. She was immediately rewarded with a cry of “Oh My!” from June and continued for a short while pumping three fingers in and out of her pussy and ass. As June rexed, Interface added her pinky to the troupe of invading digits, and June lit up and shook with a powerful orgasm, catching her unexpectedly.

  Interface continued to stroke, prolonging June’s orgasm with one hand. With her other hand, she reached back and cupped Will’s balls as he ground his steel hard shaft in between the soft silvery globes of Interface’s peach-shaped ass. Unable to withstand the stimution any longer, Will reached down and guided his dick to Interface’s waiting pussy, and smmed it to the hilt in one go. “Yes, Lover! Drive it into me! Ride me hard!” Interface encouraged.

  Will wasted no time and grabbed her by the hips and began hammering her pussy. He drove his dick hard into Interface’s depths, causing her ass to jiggle on impact, then slowly drew out until just his tip was at her entrance, then crashed back into her, his p contacting her ass cheeks with a cp. He fucked her like that for several minutes while Interface’s fingers ministered to June’s needy nethers.

  Driven wild by Interface’s ministrations, she couldn’t stand it any longer and cried out, “Oh, Fuck! One of you better stuff your dick in me, NO! BOTH! I need them, don’t make me beg!” June pleaded.

  “As you wish,” Interface said in a low, sultry timber. Turning her head and reaching over her shoulder to caress Will’s face, she asked, “Do you trust me, Lover?”

  Will’s response was immediate, “Of course.”

  “You’re both gonna love this,” Interface said with a mischievous grin creeping across her face. Her glowing blue irises of her eyes fred brightly. Will had momentarily stopped pounding into Interface but remained buried in her warmth when his dick felt a pull from Interface’s depths. The pull soon became irresistible as his hips were pulled into and subsumed by her silvery ass.

  As Will’s hips were pulled deeper in, Interface’s ass began to flow around him, enveloping his lower half like a sea anemone. The flesh of her legs and thighs started to flow at the same time, completely wrapping themselves around Will’s legs, looking like torn, silvery pantyhose.

  Will’s envelopment continued as Interface’s swallowing moved up his torso as her back opened and flowed over him until he was pulled entirely into her core. As he reached her center, she seemed to defte and shrink tight against his frame; his rock-hard penis emerged right straight through her, projecting out from underneath her silver erection.

  Before her face and head melted away, she moaned into Will’s ear, “Take her, Lover. Fuck her with my body, drive her mad!” Then her face disappeared into her shoulders, which flowed lower down his body until he had an extra set of feminine silver arms projecting from just below his tanned, muscur arms.

  Her front shrank tight and met his meaty pectoral muscle until Interface had left a retively thin skin of herself wrapping around his chest, leaving only Interface’s perky breasts sitting on his chest, two silvery, jiggling masses begging to be caressed.

  As she completed shrink-wrapping Will, he wondered where her mass went; except her arms, dick, and breasts, he was wrapped as if in a silver “Interface” suit, with a healthy patchwork of his skin exposed through her covering. Every millimeter of his skin that Interface clung to was as warm as he had come to expect her body to be. At every point of contact, he felt as if multiple hands were rubbing, lips were kissing, and tongues were licking, especially where Interface had wholly covered his scrotum with a silver yer; the sensation of a dozen tongues caused him to hitch his breath.

  June y there staring in amazement at the amalgamation of her two lovers. She reached up and held Interface’s breasts on Will’s chest and massaged them, tweaking the nipples. “Oh Yes, Lover!” they both heard Interface excim, though they couldn’t see where she was speaking from. As June caressed Interface’s breasts, Interface reyed the same sensations across Will’s chest, feeling to him that June was rubbing his pectorals and pying with his nipples.

  June’s hands left the silvery breasts and slid down Will’s front until she grabbed both of the dicks in front of her, one in each hand, and began stroking. Will groaned as loudly as the disembodied voice of Interface, both enjoying the attention.

  All four hands reached out to hold June’s shoulders as she leaned forward, continuing to stroke the two cocks in her hands. Bringing her face to them, she licked slowly up Will’s cock and down Interface’s, in alternating fashion, drawing out more moans from Interface and a low, “God Damn, that’s good” from Will.

  June then took the soft, bulbous head of the silver cock into her mouth, swirling her tongue at the spot just below where the head meets the shaft. More grateful moans. Sucking the tip, she pulled her mouth off her silver lick toy with a pop, then proceeded to do the same with Will’s member. She went back and forth between her two lover’s cocks over and over again; Lick, suck, pop. Lick, suck, pop.

  She moved on from teasing their tips to a nguid slurping, pulling the silver cock into her mouth, sucking it in until it hit the back of her mouth, then bobbing her head over it, massaging the underside with her tongue until switching to Will’s cock, sucking and bobbing her head while Interface’s rigid member gentle spped and rub her saliva all over her face.

  June was driving Will and Interface wild, as was evident from Will’s eyes rolling back. Will gripped her head in his hands tight while Interface’s hands held June’s shoulders in a vice-like grip.

  June’s attention was too much for Will, and as June had his cock in her mouth, he suddenly gripped June’s head tight, driving as much of his cock into her mouth as he could, mashing her nose into the underside of Interface’s member and grunted loudly as blew his load into the back of her mouth.

  Will released June, and she sat back on her haunches, smiling like the cat that got the cream. Then, she opened her mouth wide, showing Will that she had indeed done just that. She closed her mouth, swallowed, smiled, and said, “All right, you two. Now it’s my turn. Give those meat missiles to me!”

  June id back, spread her thighs, and opened her folds with her fingers, her arousal dripping down over her backdoor pucker in clear invitation.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Is all Will said as he leaned over her body, silver tits hanging and nipples grazing, sending jolts of electricity through June and Interface. Will id the two penises across the top of June’s pubis mound, letting her feel the heat and weight of the two members. “Are you ready for this?” He asked in a low growl.

  “Yes, oh God, yes! Give them to me! Fill me up with them!” Will took both rods in his hand, three other arms holding him up over June, and guided both tips to her sopping wet slit, rubbing the heads up and down across her opening and clit several times before she cried out, “I need them in me, NOW!”

  Will acquiesced and slowly pushed both girthy rods into June’s vagina, centimeter by centimeter, pausing occasionally to let her adjust. June exploded in orgasm as the heads nestled just inside her, her fingers raking Will’s back, drawing thin lines of redness across it.

  June’s orgasms chained together as he pushed more and more of the two penises into her until he bottomed out, just kissing her cervix, stretching out her walls far beyond anything she had ever taken before. She was incapable of words and could only cry out, “oh, oh, oh” as he slowly pulled them out to the tips, only to push in again, much quicker this time.

  Her orgasms blended in one continuous wave as Will sawed the two rods in and out of her, June chanting out in time with his thrusts, “Uh, Uh, Uh!”. Will pulled out one st time, dicks slick with June’s juice but leaving her pussy desperately empty. June whimpered. Then Will lined Interface’s cock back up to her pussy and his cock to her puckered asshole and pushed both with steady pressure.

  Even though Interface had stretched her backdoor with her fingers just a little while before, her tight ring of muscles resisted the meaty intruder, trying to hold back that which wouldn’t be denied. Her asshole rexed, giving up the fight, and the head of Will’s cock popped past the barrier of muscle, victoriously entering her rectum.

  June’s girl cum slicked everything from her slit to the crack of her ass, enabling Will to slide both dicks into her to the hilt, his silver-covered balls resting against the cheeks of her ass. June hadn’t stopped cumming the entire time; Will felt the muscles of her asshole quake and flutter, gripping the base of his shaft tight.

  Feeling June's orgasmic spasms grip his cock, and Interface’s constant attention on his balls, something snapped in Will’s brain, and he began thrusting into June like a rutting animal. His thighs and balls spped loudly against her ass cheeks as he drove into her fast and hard, a cock in each of her holes.

  June’s eyes were wide, and her mouth hung open in a long, wordless cry as her unending orgasms tore through her body. Her arms were spyed wide, gripping the bed sheets in clenched fists, her tits rocking back and forth, smacking into the silver set of tits dangling above her in rhythm with Will’s pounding.

  Interface had one st surprise for Will; as he rocked and pounded into June, oblivious to what Interface was up to, a pinky-sized tendril formed out of the silver surface covering his ass. As it grew in length, it snaked down the crack of his ass until it found his backdoor. It quickly flowed and pushed its way into his ass, wiggling and searching until it found his prostate. The tendril began to writhe and stroke against his prostate in time with Will’s thrusting, surprising him with sensation and driving him over the edge. Will’s breath grew ragged, and his pace became frantic, “I’m gonna cum!” his grunt like gravel.

  “Yes! Give it to me, Fill me ass up with your spunk!” June yelled out, finding her words again.

  With one final thrust, Will drove into June as far as he could go and grunted loud and low, filling June’s bowels with his thick, creamy cum.

  June, already riding wave after wave of orgasm, was swept under by an enormous climax that swallowed up all her other previous orgasms and combined it into one monster that caused her to arch her back and convulse as if she were being electrocuted. Interface’s climax was a mirror of her lovers’, and she cried out in joy and pulsed her emissions deep into the depths of June’s pussy.

  They colpsed into a heap and couldn’t move for several minutes until Will finally rolled off June’s delightfully smothered form, withdrawn dicks leaving her holes gaping slightly. After a short while, Interface returned to her senses, flowed from around Will’s body and coalesced into her usual form, wedged between Will and June’s panting, sated bodies.

  Interface leaned over and kissed June. “I’m going to need this back, Lover,” she said, holding her palm just under her sex. June’s eyes flutter with a mini orgasm as Interface’s pewter emissions streamed out of June’s still gaping pussy, into Interface’s waiting hand and melded into it.

  They y there like that for a while, cuddling and enjoying the afterglow, when Will’s stomach grumbled loudly. “Well, you’ve had your breakfast,” he said, giving Interface a peck on the cheek, “now it’s time to see about ours.” With a satisfied smile, Will got up from the bed while June and Interface continued to snuggle.

  Will followed the trail of discarded clothes, bare ass naked, from the bed back to the couch, where they had set their packs down the previous night. As he bent down to rummage through the items they had packed, he gnced back at the bed to see both June and Interface wearing big smiles as they admired his behind as he worked.

  He smiled and continued searching until he found two ration packets, then under-hand tossed one to June, who caught it easily.

  Will flopped in one of the overstuffed armchairs, tore open his ration, put his feet up on the hassock in front of the chair, and began eating the bnd nutrition bar.

  With half a mouthful, Will asked Interface, “You know, that was a pretty neat trick. How did you do it?”

  “Do what exactly?” Interface replied, pying coy and giving him a cute smile.

  “When you wrapped yourself around me, a lot of your mass disappeared. I would have been carrying your entire weight if you hadn’t.”

  Interface turned up a corner of her mouth, and her eyes looked up and to the right as if she were trying to find the best way to describe it. “Well, that’s because I'm a six-dimensional construct.” She said ftly with a smile, knowing that it didn’t expin anything.

  “Okay, let’s pretend that I don’t know what that means; I mean I obviously do,” he joked, “but expin it to me, for June’s sake.” He said, catching a discarded pair of pants June picked up and lobbed at him.

  “The crystalline matrix that I reside in was constructed in six spatial dimensions, not just the three you normally see. This has all sorts of benefits with memory management, energy efficiency, and the like. One of the rgest benefits is that the fourth dimension is all sorts of wrinkled and wavy, and by building in all four dimensions, you can make connections with things all over three-dimensional space that requires almost no distance to travel.” Interface paused, thinking up an example.

  “Imagine you’re standing on the edge of a piece of paper. Instead of needing to walk the whole length, the paper is already folded and you can just step from point A to point B without needing to travel the distance between them.”

  Will still looked confused. “Yeah, but how does that expin where your mass went?”

  “The crystalline matrix, my body, and this entire ship straddle the third and fourth dimensions. The matrix and I operate in the higher fifth and sixth dimensions too, but only to work the coordinate systems for the fourth. All I did was pull some more of my body up into the higher fourth dimension, making my presence in 3-D space smaller. Picture a ft 2-D pne, like a piece of paper, and then you take a ball and set it so that the pne passes right through the middle. If the only thing you could see were things on the pne, You would see the center slice of the ball as a circle. If you lifted the ball, that circle would appear to get smaller until the ball was no longer intersecting the pne and it would appear like it disappeared.”

  “Huh, that’s pretty neat,” Will said, impressed.

  “That’s not the best thing about being multidimensional; I can pull my entire body into Four-D space, take a step, and come back down into Three-D space in an entirely different pce.”

  “Like teleportation?” June asked.

  “Well, it looks like teleportation, but I’m just going for a walk in Four-D space. This is the main mechanism the ship uses to move long distances through 3-D space.” Interface expined cheerfully.

  “That must take an enormous amount of power,” Will observed.

  “Yes. And right now, I barely had enough spare energy to pull that little trick off. I’d burn a lot of the energy reserve I have if I tried anything more than that parlor trick.” Interface said.

  June looked concerned. “You have to be careful. I wouldn’t want you to put yourself at risk, just to py.”

  Interface gave her a crooked, flirty smile. “I’m careful. I knew that stunt would blow your minds, and I came out on top with an energy surplus, to boot. Positives all around.” Interface gave June a big hug. “Expressed sentiments like that feed my surplus almost as much as that fantastic session did. I’m drinking up all of the positive energy the two of you are pouring out, even as we speak.”

  “So it isn’t just great sex that charges you up?” Will asked, continuing to munch on his breakfast.

  “We’ve formed a connection, and energy is constantly exchanged. Have you ever gone to a pub with friends and talked for hours, feeling great afterward? Or listened to live music in a group setting, and felt the rush from being in the crowd? There are lots of different ways to connect and exchange energy. My race just happened to have perfected it.”

  Will thought for a moment, and his face grew serious. “What about negative interactions with people? I’ve met people who you might call an ‘energy vampire’. They were real downers and would suck the fun out of any situation. You would always feel worse for having met them.”

  Interface’s disposition changed in a fsh. “That’s a real thing. People who take without giving. It’s abhorrent to my people and short-sighted. It’s a zero-sum game, pying like that. There’s always a loser, and the amount of energy generated pales in comparison to a virtuous cycle of giving.” Interface paused. “A very long time ago, we purged this from our society, bringing about a golden age that sted eons. We would stamp this ‘vampiric’ behavior out wherever we found it. Mostly through, ah hem, ‘education’,” Interface said with a sultry smile, “but other times it needed to be taken care of with prejudice.”

  Will and June thought about what Interface told them while finishing their meal. After they had finished, they reconvened on the couch to discuss their pns.

  “June and I had originally pnned to investigate your ship and see if we could salvage anything to help put the ‘Saturn’s Heart’ back together. Seems to me now, that we should salvage what we can from our ship, to get this ship up and running again.” Will summarized.

  June interrupted. “We keep saying your ship, this ship; what is this ship’s actual name?” She asked.

  “‘My people didn’t name things. For instance, ‘Interface’ is more of a title than a name.”

  “Then how did you distinguish between individuals?” Will asked.

  “We were all psychic, remember, so our individual beling was more of a feeling than a pronoun. People feel different from one another, so that’s how we’d identify each other.”

  “Kind of like knowing your grandmother was in the room by smelling her perfume,” June suggested.

  “Exactly.” said Interface, “We referenced each individual by the feel of their emotional context.”

  “So what is the feeling-name for the ship?” June asked.

  “Instead of telling you, let me show you.” Interface reached out to hold both June's and Will’s hands. They were suddenly filled with a sense of belonging, comfort, and home, like if you had spent a long day outside working in the cold and snowy weather, then coming inside to warmth, hugs, and hot cocoa.

  “Wow, I guess that seems to fit,” Will said. “What is your ‘feeling-name’?”

  Still holding their hands, Interface smiled. “You’ve already felt it before.” She said with a wink. “But here’s the more formalized version.” A feeling of connectedness and belonging washed over the two spacers. It was seasoned with feelings of warmth and caring of a gentle embrace, with a heady undercurrent of sexual need and primal urgency.

  June and Will blinked furiously, suddenly feeling aroused as their faces flushed.

  “I guessed we HAVE already learned your name, then,” Will said with a light-hearted ugh. “But we really do need to figure some stuff out. As much as I would love to continue to fuck like rabbits.” He added, suddenly feeling his pulse in his crotch.

  “That’s going to be difficult to ‘pronounce’ in certain company,” June began, “So if you don’t mind, I think Interface is a fine enough name.” Interface nodded in agreement. “But I don’t want to keep calling the ship, ‘The Ship’, and I don’t know exactly how to emote it like you just did. I propose finding a suitable stand-in, Human-readable name.”

  “Excellent suggestion.” Interface uded. “What do you propose?”

  Will chimed in. “I think she deserves a goddess’ name; Hestia was the Greek goddess of hearth and home, and Nanaya was the Mesopotamian goddess of Love; ptonic, erotic, and lust.”

  “Didn’t know you were into ancient history,” June said, surprised.

  “I took a couple of csses at the academy.” Will offered coyly.

  “Oh, I remember now. You were following this girl around. What was her name, Sarah, Susan…” June teased.

  “It was Samantha. I had a thing for redheads at the time, but that’s beside the point.” Interface’s hair suddenly changed from a flowing silvery metallic to a curly mop of red hair, then she gave him a smoldering look, “Redheads, huh?” She winked, and her hair returned to the silver they had become accustomed to.

  “As I was saying,” Will started again, now blushing, “ I think a portmanteau of the two goddesses' names would be a pretty good fit. Nastia?”

  “Sounds too much like nasty, and she is not.” June objected.

  “Hesnanya?” Will offered.

  “Bit of mouthful,” June said, shaking her head.

  “How about Nestia?” Will offered again.

  “Hmm.” June considered. “ I like it. Sounds like nest, where you’re safe and home, and where you can do some ying.” She said with a devious grin, “You know, like eggs? What do you think, Inta?”

  Interface paused, considering the pet name and proposed ship’s name. “ I approve of the derivation. Nestia it is. I also approve of the pet name, you minx.” At which point she pushed over June, id on top of her, and smothered her with kisses.

  Will watched the two of them heat up again and interrupted, clearing his throat. “So, I think the best course of action is to do what is necessary to bring Nestia back online, salvaging everything working and valuable from the ‘Saturn’s Heart’. The top two critical items we need to take care of first is finding a way to power up and control the Nestia’s subsystems without taxing Interface’s matrix. The other is figuring out what June and I will eat once we run out of rations, which gives us about three weeks to find a solution before we have to start hunting Munchers in the valley.”

  “I haven’t had food aboard Nestia since I lost the crew.” Interface’s face grew sad momentarily, then she continued, “But the nutritional dispensers should still be functional, provided we can find a way to power them.”

  “Do you think it’ll be safe for us to eat from the dispensers if we can get them powered up?” Will asked.

  “ I will need to configure it to produce what is optimal for your biology, which is easy enough, and as sub-systems go, it’s not terribly power-hungry. Yeah, I think it’s a good candidate for testing the integration of your ship’s components.” Interface thought for a moment. “I think I can make a coupler that is compatible with your ship’s power systems. I have to go over the details with you, to make sure I’m making the correct assumptions.”

  “You know how our systems work? You’ve been isoted on this ship well before humanity created fire; how’d you pull that off?” Will asked with disbelief.

  June chimed in, “She obviously picked up more than nguage when you scanned our minds, didn’t you Inta?”

  “Mostly surface stuff,” Interface confessed, “I went as deep as necessary to build a nguage model, which included a lot of tangential references, such as, ‘voltage, current, impedance’ and the like. I didn’t go too deep, though.”

  “Well, it seems only fitting that she’s familiar with the inside of our heads; she’s plenty familiar with the rest of our insides,” June said, giggling as Interface tickled her without mercy.

  “Okay then, we have our first objectives, Strip down the ‘Saturn’s Heart’, get it all back to the Nestia, and get one of the nutrition dispensers running on our ‘low tech’ power supplies,” Will said, reaching for clothes, finally about to get dressed.

  Interface dramatically extended her arm and pced her wrist on her forehead, in mock distress. “But I have been underfed for so long,” she let out a long, fake sigh. “Surely you wouldn’t begrudge me a second breakfast, would you?” She fanned her face with one hand to accentuate her point, grinning.

  “Well, we would be poor guests if we only worried about what we were going to eat, and not also attend to ‘your needs’ as well,” Will said, overly dramatic in response. He dropped the boxers he was about to put on, and then June helped him push Interface over on her back, the three of them giggling the entire time.

  ************

  After Interface’s ‘second breakfast’, followed shortly by ‘second and a half breakfast’, they finally dressed and prepared to return to their ship. Stuffing the st item into his pack, Will slung it over his shoulder. “We haven’t seen much of the Nestia yet. Is there another way to get back up to the airlock we came in, or do we need to crawl back through the maintenance tubes?”

  “Having been fed well recently,” Interface said with a smile, “I should have plenty of spare juice to operate one of the lifts.”

  “It’s not too much of a strain without main power?” June asked, concerned.

  “Not really. I’m only powering up the portions of the ship we are in at any one moment, which doesn’t take too much. If I feel peckish, I’ll let you know.” She said, grabbing June by the waist and pulling her close for a squeeze and a kiss. “Follow me.”

  They entered the corridor and walked a dozen or so meters deeper in the ship; then Interface stopped in front of a door that looked like all the others. The soft blue light in her eyes fred briefly, and then the door melted open, revealing a small, round room without features made of the same ft white material everything else aboard the Nestia was.

  Walking inside, the door closed, and they stood there waiting for a moment while nothing happened. Will was about to ask if something was wrong when the doors opened again, this time on the command deck, with red sunlight shining down the hallway.

  “Smooth elevator,” Will commented. Interface smiled and nodded. They walked to the airlock hallway door, already open, and went inside. The outer door had been closed at some point, so they paused and checked their gear. Will retrieved the auto rifle, checked the magazine, and chambered a round before engaging the safety and slinging it over his shoulder.

  Suddenly thinking of something, he dropped his pack to the floor and rummaged through it until he found their extra short-range communicator and spare binocurs, then pulled them from the bag. “We’re probably going to be gone most of the day and might need to stay in the other ship for the night, depending on how te it gets before we head back. You can use this communicator to keep in touch or let us know if you need anything. I know most of your sensor array is powered down, so you can use the binocurs to watch us if you get bored.”

  He held out the comm device to Interface, but she didn’t move to take it. Instead, her voice crackled out of the comm device on his wrist without moving her lips. “I was tuning into your wavebands before you hiked over. I’ve set Nestia’s short-range comms to ultra-low power mode; it’ll give me enough range so that I should be able to broadcast to the end of the valley with no problem.”

  Will chuckled and handed Interface the spare comm and binocurs anyway. “Just in case.”

  Interface hugged both of them and gave them each a lengthy kiss. “Don’t be gone too long. I don’t want to wait any longer than I have to until I can ravage you both again.” A wave of lust and longing poured off the silver girl, and they almost postponed the trip. Interface realized what she was unintentionally doing and eased up, making their parting slightly easier but not easy.

  When the outer airlock door opened, Will and June gave Interface one st kiss goodbye and stepped back out into the wide open space of the valley. As they hiked down the slope to the valley floor, they gnced back and saw Interface hadn’t moved from the doorway. She stood in the doorway and watched them walk away until they were only small dots in the distance. Only then did she sigh and close the door.

  The te morning air was cool as the light breeze ruffled their hair. On their descent to the valley floor, they noticed a herd of slow-moving Munchers about a klick ahead and off to the left, some distance from their line of travel.

  Will bzed the path, and June hiked single file behind him through the low brush in companionable silence. She reflected on the st week and how wildly their prospects had shifted. Had they remained in the actual hyperspace ne and not been detoured by the pirates, the ‘Saturn’s Heart’ would be entering the Brazo system by now, on final approach to the Rangonian orbital spaceport and its loading docks. After unloading, they’d spend a day or two rexing at one of the port bars, eating some nice meals with drinks, but eventually heading off to individual motel rooms while waiting for new orders.

  June thought about how Will and June would have maintained their friendly, professional retionship. It struck her at that moment how lonely she must have been. Busy in the day-to-day, she never gave it much thought; it was just how it was. She figured Will must have felt the same. June had originally cursed the pirates for attacking them, but a small part of her thanked them for nudging her fate into Will and Interface’s arms.

  For the first time in a very long time, her heart was full of hope and promise, and the empty feeling of loneliness was filled by warm companionship, great sex, and a blooming sense of deep love. The connection to the man trudging in front of her and the silver girl waiting behind her filled her heart.

  At that precise moment, Will looked back at her, then back the way they came, and smiled.

  They had been hiking for about an hour when they stopped on a rise in the unduting valley floor for a five-minute water break. Will removed his pack, set it on the ground, and leaned against it while sipping from his canteen.

  The communicators on their wrists crackled with Interface’s voice. “Hello, Lovers. How goes it, everything okay?” Her voice almost imperceptibly edged with concern.

  “Everything’s good,” Will responded. “Just taking a short break. Somebody was working us hard this morning.” He said with some good-natured flirting.

  “Don’t take too long, my darlings. I’ll expect my next meal as soon as you return.” There was a pregnant pause before Interface closed the channel as if she wanted to say more.

  “We’ll be back soon, Inta, and I’ll give you all the smooches you can handle,” June called into her communicator.

  “You’ll find I can handle quite a lot. You better be prepared.” Interface, replied. June could almost see the flirty smile on the silver girl's face as she spoke over the radio.

  “We will be,” Will said, joining in the banter. “Okay, we’re off again. We’ll call again when we’ve reached the ship.”

  “Talk to you soon, Lovers,” Interface said, signing off.

  “Let’s go,” Will said, picking up his pack, then they headed off again.

  They reached the scorched and buckled hulk of the ‘Saturn’s Heart’ around noon and called Interface to let her know they had arrived. They did a quick perimeter sweep, then climbed up to the top of the hull and entered through the airlock, Will closing and sealing it behind them.

  Will descended the dder after June to the main deck. As his boots nded heavily on the decking, he said, “We need to clear the ship before we get started.” Raising the bullpup auto rifle, he swept through the ship compartment by compartment until he reached the cockpit.

  “Ship’s clear,” Will called into his wrist comm, “We’ll begin salvage shortly.”

  “Understood,” Interface replied. “Take care; see you soon.”

  Will sat in the co-pilot’s seat and reviewed the logs recorded while they were at the Nestia. He paused, looking up and around the cramped cockpit. He and June had flown this ship for nearly a decade, and the number of cups of coffee and conversations shared while sitting here was uncountable. For a long time, ‘Saturn’s Heart’ felt like home, but now it felt like a stranger's house; though familiar, he suddenly realized that his heart and home were back at the other end of the valley. It was so strange how everything could change so quickly; he regretted none of it.

  Turning back to the logs from the reconfigured short-range sensors, he saw that a small herd of Munchers had run up alongside the ship around dusk st night and sheltered in its shadow until morning. At daybreak, they had sauntered off, probably to find good grazing.

  He wasn’t looking forward to powering down the ship and losing the sensors, but it was necessary. June came up to the cockpit carrying two cups of coffee. “One final cup before officially decommissioning her?” June asked.

  “Sounds perfect,” Will said, accepting the warm beverage. “We’ll start with a full shutdown, giving the radioisotope batteries time to settle into safe mode, ready for removal. While they cool, you can start removing the control panels in the cockpit and main computer. I’ve got to cut a door in the side of the ship to make removal of all the equipment easier, now that the cargo bay and the bay doors are no longer an option.”

  “Have you thought about how we're going to transport everything? We lost the cart with the rest of the cargo bay.” June asked.

  “I think I can jerry-rig some of the artificial gravity decking into an ad-hoc grav cart. I can also use some of the decking to help lift the heavier components.” Will said.

  “Good pn,” June said, taking the st sip of her coffee. “Let’s get to it.” Will followed June’s example and drained his cup, setting the empty vessel into the cup holder. They got up from their seats and got to work. They each took a tool chest from the surviving maintenance locker; Will also grabbed a psma torch and headed mid-ship across from the dder to the upper hatch.

  June powered down the st ship’s system, and the lighting system dimmed and went dark, so Will took out the portable mp from the tool chest, turned it on, and set it so that it shone on the wall he was about to carve up. Fishing out a set of dark goggles from the chest, he put them on and lit the torch with a pop and hiss. He made short work of the hull, and when he cut the st few centimeters of material still holding the freed wall section, it squealed loudly as it fell out of the opening and onto the ground outside.

  Will quickly attached hinges to the cut-out section of the hull and remounted it into the hole he cut with the assistance of a chain hoist he mounted just inside the new opening. He then cut a thick bar from an internal wall section and fashioned it into a slide bolt for the new door. He slid the tch and pushed and pulled, testing its strength. It was a bit primitive but effective.

  They continued working through the day, removing and staging components before the makeshift door. By the time Will had cobbled enough pieces of pting for an anti-grav sled and powered it up, dusk was falling.

  “Interface, are you listening?” Will asked into the comms.

  “I am. How are things going?” She asked.

  “We’re almost ready with the first load. We leave first thing in the morning.”

  “Oh, okay. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to wait long to see you two again, but I waited for you for a couple of millennia, what’s a few hours more.” Interface said, forcing a joke, clearly disappointed.

  “Don’t worry, Sweetheart, we’ll be on our way, first thing in the morning.” June piped in.

  “Okay, Loves. I’ll be counting the hours. Good Night.” Interface’s voice was full of longing and a hint of sadness.

  “Let’s hit the hay, so we can get going early. That silver vixen’s love-sick pining is like a stake through my heart and I already miss her. Is that weird to say of someone we literally met yesterday?” Will asked June as they prepared to bunk down.

  “No, not really. I feel the same way. Even though she might be older than humanity as a species, she has a sweet innocence that works its way into you.” June shared. “This has been one weird week; I’ve almost died twice, and I’m falling for two incredible people,” June said with her hand ft on Will’s chest as they cuddled on the bunk.

  “Yeah, me too.” was the st thing Will said before falling asleep with June in his arms.

  ***********

  Early the following day, they woke and ate a quick breakfast of cold rations, then packed the sled with the first load to bring to the Nestia. Standing just outside the makeshift portal, they tied down everything on the sled, and once secured, Will went back into the new door and slid the brace bar from the inside, securing it. He raced up the dder, sealed the hatch, and ran back down and around the ship to where June waited with the sled, chatting with Interface over the comms.

  “Someone sure seems in a hurry to get back. Would it have anything to do with the nice piece of silvery ass waiting for us when we get back, would it?” June asked Will, knowing Interface was listening over comms.

  “You know it. It’s only been one night and I think I’m already addicted. I can’t get enough of her.” Will said as he heard Interface audibly swoon over the comm link.

  “You sure know how to push my buttons, Mister,” Interface replied. “But I know how to pull your levers, oh so right.” The slow, sultry way Interface said, ‘Oh so right,’ was enough to stiffen Will’s cock in his pants.

  “Ok, time to go. Now.” He said slightly more hurriedly than when they had left the ‘Saturn’s Heart’ the first time.

  The makeshift anti-grav sled made hauling the heavy components to the Nestia retively easy, if only a little more awkward. Still, they made good time and arrived back at the ft white-colored airlock of the Nestia a couple of hours before noon.

  Interface was waiting for them just inside the doorway, wearing the happy grin of a giddy schoolgirl. “Welcome back, Loves!” she said, embracing them as soon as they crossed the threshold. “I hope you had a good night,” she said, giving them a lewd wink, “because as lonely as I was, the only thing that got me through the night was the thought of the two of you fucking all night long.” She hugged with an arm around each of them, then smoothly, the hugs turned into hands sliding down, groping asses.

  “You really are insatiable.” Will chuckled. “Yup.” Interface cheerfully acknowledged.

  “Before we end up naked and fucking right here in the airlock..”

  Will was interrupted by Interface, “Sounds good to me!” She said enthusiastically.

  Will continued, “We need to get all of this stuff inside and down to deck four. Any thoughts?” he asked Interface.

  “Sure do! I’ve already prepared the way. The st part I wanted to wait until you arrived.” As she said that, her glowing blue eyes fred slightly, and the outer airlock door expanded until it could fit the entire sled comfortably. Will then noticed that the dimensions of the inner door had already been stretched for easy passage for the sled.

  “Smart thinking. That will make this a breeze.” June said appreciatively.

  They pulled the sled full into the airlock, and Interface sealed it behind them. Interface seemed to have thought it out well; the corridor walls just outside the airlock had been pushed back, rounding the junction and making it easy to turn the sled. Further down, the hallway floor snted into a ramp that brought them to the next level, with a switchback bringing them to another ramp.

  Soon, they were on deck four and found that Interface had widened the door to a galley a few doors down from the lounge where they had spent the night.

  She had already cleared the room of furniture save a few small chairs and a workbench. “This is the nutritional dispenser. I've pulled it out from the wall so we'd have easier access, and I've already attached the power coupling for the power supply. It has its own small control matrix; it's one of the few systems on the ship that doesn't need my supervision.”

  “Looks like you thought of everything, well done!” Will praised. Interface beamed with pleasure from Will’s praise.

  They got to work unpacking the sled and ying everything out in organized piles along the wall with the workbench. Interface and Will briefly discussed the dispenser's power requirements and agreed that the coupler Interface built should work nicely.

  Then, it was time to pce the power module for hookup. “Damn!” Will cursed, spping his forehead. “I forgot the chain pulley at the ‘Saturn’s Heart’. This is going to be a bitch to put in pce.”

  Interface smiled, then walked over to the sled, which was still holding the power module. She looked over to Will and June and gave them a wink, “Watch this, Lovers.” She reached around the bulky module for the hard points, lifted it off the floating cart with ease, and gently set it in pce with a low thud.

  Will and June stared at her, dumbfounded, and then Will spoke up. “Damn! Remind me not to get into an arm wrestling contest with you!”

  “Oh, you know you like it when I let you take charge,” Interface said, ying a soft, silver feminine hand. “You don’t have to compete with me unless it’s who can pull the most orgasms out of who.” She smiled and wrapped her arms around his neck, crossing her wrists behind his head so that her bare pewter tits squished against his chest. “I may look hard, but I’m soft where it counts.” Then she gave him a deep passionate kiss, drawing his cock to attention in his pants. “Ooh, someone’s ready to py. I know I am.”

  “Hold on now, we’re close to finishing…” Interface interrupted,” Me too.”

  Will rolled his eyes and continued, “Installing the power module, silly. Then we’ll py.” Interface faked a pout.

  “Alright.” She said, adjusting his trousers, relieving the tension on his engorged penis trapped by the fabric. Interface patted his rigid member and said, “There, there, little buddy. You can come out and py in just a minute.” With one final squeeze, Interface left Will’s cock alone.

  “What do you think, Hun, wanna give us a hand?” she said to June, who was too busy squeezing her thighs together for stimution in response to Interface’s dispy to answer coherently. “Huh, oh yeah, right,” June said, blinking rapidly. “What do you need?”

  Will, red-faced, cleared his throat. “Can you fish out the electrical tester from the toolbox?” As June searched through the tools, Will inspected the electrical coupler Interface made, which was a little closer. “This is fine work.” June handed him the tester, and he checked the impedance of the dispenser system. “This should be perfect.”

  Will uncoiled the wiring bundle from the power module and plugged it into the dispenser’s coupler. He then tapped a few buttons on the module's control pad, and it hummed to life. “Stand back a little bit, please. If it arcs, I don’t want you close,” he said to the girls.

  They complied, and Will spoke. “Here we go..” then pressed the power delivery button. The dispenser hummed for a moment, and then the lights on the device's front panel started blinking, dispying text in Interface’s native script.

  “Success!” Interface shouted joyfully and adjusted the programming to dispense according to Will and June’s dietary requirements. She pressed a big blue button, and a nozzle squirted what looked like toothpaste onto a small tray. “All done!” She celebrated and then offered the tray to Will and June in turn. They both took a fingerful and licked the goopy material off their fingers.

  “Tastes like bananas. How appropriate.” June decred, gncing at Interface’s silvery cock. Interface returned her stare with a sultry smile.

  Will nodded his head in agreement. “A little bnd, but a lot better than starving. Well done all!” he congratuted them. “And now for the promised reward,” he said, pulling Interface in by the hips. She picked up where she left off, giving him a passionate kiss, snaking her tongue into his mouth, seeking his. Her hands deftly unbuttoned his shirt, which he shrugged off, and pressed her pewter tits against his chest.

  Interface was always naked, so June came up behind Will and undid his belt and the button of his pants. Pulling down, she helped him shimmy out of his trousers and boxers, removing his boots in the process.

  June swiftly shed her clothes and then pressed herself against Will’s back, reaching around his waist to grab both the flesh and silver-colored cocks in either hand. She held them tight by the base, stroking slowly while grinding her pussy against the back of Will’s leg.

  Interface, appreciative of the attention on her cock but deciding she needed more, pulled June down between Will and herself by the shoulder until June was kneeling facing the two cocks she had been attending.

  Resuming stroking the base of both cocks, she sucked the head of the silver cock into her mouth, coating it with saliva and swirling her tongue along the underside. She popped the silver cock out of her mouth and attacked Will’s in the same fashion. June continued to alternate her attention from one cock to the other, face pressed against their groins, breathing in their combined heady musk.

  June couldn’t get enough of their cocks and hated that she had to stop sucking one to suck on the other, so she pressed them both together and interced her fingers so she could stroke them together at the same time. Satisfied by this arrangement, June opened her mouth wide and stuffed as much of both cocks into her mouth as she could take. Her csped hands pumped the base of the meat rockets while she bobbed her head up and down frantically, drool leaking out her mouth and down each shaft while she worked her tongue around and in between them furiously.

  Will groaned loudly into Interface’s mouth, and Interface cooed a rhythmic “ooh, ooh, ooh” in time with June’s bobbing head.

  Interface’s face lit up, close to orgasm, when she gently pulled June’s mouth off their cocks. “I’m about to blow Honey, and it would be unpleasant if I had to fetch it from your stomach.” Pulling them both along, she said to them,” Come here, my Lovers. I need you in me.” she hopped up on the floating surface of the anti-grav cart and id back, giving them a good view of her ass.

  Will man-handled June, picking her up under the armpits and held her over Interface’s waiting rod. He lowered June slowly until the silvery mushroom head was pressed against her nether lips. While suspended, June arranged her legs so that she was kneeling, straddling the girthy pewter shaft; then Will simply let go, and June’s drenched pussy was impaled by the silver length to the hilt. As Interface bottomed out, June shrieked as she orgasmed hard, squirting all over the lower half of Interface’s silver form.

  Will, in dire need to sink his cock into somepce warm and soft, drove into Interface’s well-lubricated pussy, balls spping against her silvery ass, June’s ass cheeks close, rubbing against his stomach.

  They froze like that momentarily, taking in the sensation of tight connectedness, their pelvises ground together in a perfect fit like interlocking jigsaw puzzle pieces. June’s first orgasm ebbed, and she set the pace, bouncing up and down on Interface’s silver cock, while Will matched her movements and pounded into the pewter pussy.

  The three of them were lost in their sexual bliss, pounding and pumping, bouncing and bumping, letting the sensations take over their whole world. June leaned forward slightly, grabbing the silvery breasts jiggling with every one of Will’s thrusts, like hand holds on a wild ride. Interface reciprocated, mauling June’s breast with her palms while simultaneously pinching and twisting her nipples.

  That was enough to pitch June over the edge with another titanic orgasm. She smmed her ass as hard as she could on Interface's cock, eyes wide and mouth open with a silent, breathless scream. While her back arched and her body trembled, her pussy squeezed and clenched tight Interface’s cock buried in her depths, setting off her orgasm. Interface screamed as she shot rge globs of silvery emissions into June’s pussy, her own pussy frantically squeezing Will’s cock in time with the cum, painting June’s insides silver.

  The wave of chain orgasms crashed into Will, and he rammed into Interface’s depths hard, balls spping one final time as he jerked and shot the biggest load of his life into Interface’s warm pussy. They were locked in a clenching group orgasm; each twitch and shake from one prolonged the sweet agony for the other two in a virtuous cycle of orgasm feeding orgasm.

  After two minutes straight of sustained orgasm, the shared euphoria faded into a golden glow; they remained pressed to one another, joined by more than just physical presence, by something deeper..

  ********

  They y in a pile on the anti-grav cart for a good half hour until June decided it was time to get moving again, even if she would have preferred to cuddle for the rest of the day or maybe the week. She slid off the cart and nearly fell; her knees were so shaky. Her two lovers continued to lie on the cart. Will passed out, and Interface smiled at her with a cute, dopey look on her face, which June returned.

  She pulled back on her hastily discarded panties and pants but couldn’t find where her bra went, so she decided to forgo it and pull her shirt on without it. As she pulled her socks and boots on, she felt how battered and stretched her pussy was, and it was glorious. She also felt a peculiar warmth in her lower belly and thought about how sexy it was when Interface blew her rge, silvery load into her. June was blissed out with post-coital after-glow, and the warmth in her only enhanced the feeling.

  She went to the nutrition dispenser and pressed the big blue button to squirt out some more banana yogurt she had decided to call it. She took the little tray full of goop over to one of the chairs and sat scooping bits of it into her mouth, watching her lovers draped over each other on the cart, breathing slowly, at peace. It was a beautiful sight that made June’s heart feel full.

  When she saw Will and Interface finally stirring, June stretched her arms above her head, yawned, and said, “Now that it’s clear we’re going to be living here for some time, with no worry of starving to death, I think it’s high time for a grand tour and see the rest of the ship, don’t you agree?” She asked her two naked lovers on the cart.

  Will propped himself up on his elbow, tracing small circles on Interface’s belly, “I think that’s a great idea. I’d like to see the Nestia’s power core and reted subsystems so we can start pnning the integration of our salvaged equipment.”

  “Well then,” Interface said, sitting up, “There’s no time like the present.” June marveled at Interface’s command of English, including idioms, even though she just started speaking it a few days before. Interface gave Will a quick kiss on the forehead, hopped off the floating cart, and walked over to June, pulling her tight against her silvery body. “And when I’ve finished giving you the grand tour of the ship, I expect a grand tour of my own,” she said, low and breathy as her hands stroked June’s back, then descended to grab two handfuls of ass cheeks.

  By this point, Will was getting dressed and shook his head. He chuckled, “Insatiable,” he muttered under his breath, buttoning his shirt.

  “You know it,” Interface replied and passionately kissed June.

  Will finished dressing. “So where do we start?”

  “We start at the beginning, then continue until we reach the end.” Interface joked sarcastically. “You two have some bizarre phrases bouncing around in your heads.” indicating where she picked up the line, smiling wide. “A survey vessel, like Nestia, was usually crewed by two hundred and fifty-six members.” a little sadness crept into her eyes, so June pced a hand on her silvery arm for comfort. Gncing between June and Will, seeing the care and concern on their faces brightened her attitude again. “So there’s a couple of cafeterias, ten sleeping lounges, or as I like to call them, fuck pits.” She said with a lear and a twinkle in her eye.

  They followed the silver girl into the hallway and headed down to the next level using one of the temporary ramps Interface set up.

  “There’s a cargo bay and a hanger on the lower decks, which still has the spare shuttle parked and a couple of the one-person pods.” They continued down the next ramp to deck six and followed Interface further to the ship's rear. Making a quick mental map, Will figured they were now deep beneath the side of the valley wall.

  The hallway ended at a ft white door resembling every other door on the ship. “This is the main engineering compartment, home to the power core.” With a flourish, she waved her arm, and the door melted open. Interface led them in.

  They were standing on a mezzanine over a rge dark space, as Interface was still saving power by illuminating their immediate surroundings. Walking over to the railing, she looked back at Will and June eagerly, ready to impress them with her next revetion.

  “This is the ship’s power core, the Dark Matter generator,” she said with another flourish as the high bay lights turned on, illuminating the cavernous space. The vast open space in the engineering compartment was four decks deep, spanning thirty meters.

  The mezzanine they stood on and the two below ringed the space, and at the center of the chamber was a ft white sphere that occupied most of the volume. Leaning over the railing, Will could see a ring of consoles surrounding the sphere, with cables of various sizes attached to it, routed away on cable trays to various ports located all over the exterior wall at several levels.

  “At max output, this power pnt puts out the equivalent energy of a dozen quasar stars.” Will stared at her, mouth agape, not quite believing what she had just told them.

  “A dozen Quasars. Really?” Will asked, incredulous.

  “Yup.” She responded blithely. “Working in six dimensions and maniputing four takes big-time energy. And we have it in spades. Or we will, once we figure it out.” She shrugged her shoulders. The high bay lights turned off, and Interface led them back into the corridor, the door melting closed behind them.

  As they walked down the hallway, Interface was practically bouncing with excitement. “The st thing I wanted to show you is the ‘piece de resistance’, the pinnacle of my people’s achievements,” the door slid open, revealing a room bathed in the same blue glow as Interface’s eyes, “Me!”

  They entered the room, and in front of them was an enormous crystal snowfke. It stood two stories tall, with thousands of crystal offshoots running off through protective conduits, presumably throughout the ship. A transparent barrier separated them from being able to touch it directly.

  Most of the crystalline structure was dark and inactive, but small bolts of blue lightning pinged back and forth throughout the massive crystal, creating a hypnotic dispy. Aside from the small crackle of energy zipping back and forth through the crystal, it was entirely dark.

  “As you can see, I am nowhere near the levels of power I’m capable of. But, in just a few days, I’ve increased my capacity by 0.6 percent! I am no longer on a downward spiral and have you, my Lovelies, to thank for it.” Interface embraced them warmly, and they returned it in kind.

  June walked over and touched the transparent barrier, tone sober. “You were really close, weren’t you?”

  “Yeah, I had just about given up. Now that you’re here, I’ll be good as new soon.”

  “Yup, first things first though, we’ve got to get all of that equipment out of the ‘Saturn’s Heart and over here. Then figure out how to use it to control the power core.” Will said, listing out their to-do’s.

  “And then we find your people,” June added, hugging Interface tight. Will joined the embrace, and Interface beamed.

  ********

  For the next couple of weeks, Will and June would get an early start and head back to the ‘Saturn’s Heart’, pulling the empty sled behind them and returning with the sled heaped with equipment before dusk. They would have a quick meal of ‘banana yogurt’ from the nutrition dispenser while Will and Interface discussed several paths they could try to jump-start and control the power core.

  Inevitably, the conversation would get derailed by Interface’s omnipresent ‘Fuck Me-Field’, as Will put it, and although it derailed their progress while someone was getting railed, it gave them all a boost of energy to work te into the night. They would then retire to their lounge, go for another round, and fall asleep in a comfortable tangle of arms and legs.

  It was a lovely few weeks; they made significant progress while growing closer as lovers and friends.

  *******

  “The circuits look good, and all the point-to-point checks on everything are finished,” Will said as the three lovers returned to the lounge after working on integrating the power core.

  “We still need you to program the core control algorithm in our main computer bank, but if you're as much of a wiz at programming as you are everything else, it should go smoothly.” It was tough to see, but her silver cheeks flushed with the vote of confidence. “June, do you think we’ll be able to get the rest of the gear back to the Nestia, tomorrow?”

  “I think so,” June said, looking through the inventory list for the st items to bring over. “According to this, there’s two more rad batteries to bring over and a handful of odds and ends. Lugging two batteries on the cart instead of one like the rest of the loads will be a slight challenge, though we won’t have hardly any other equipment. We should be good.”

  “I’m all for one less day of hiking back and forth between the two ships,” Will said.

  “And I’m looking forward to not spending the entire day alone while you are gone.” Interface chimed in, looking at them longingly.

  “Well, I’m beat, so let's get some shut-eye and get this salvage operation done with,” Will said with a yawn. Interface rubbed his chest and June’s thigh then amended his statement. “Maybe a nightcap first, then some shut-eye.” He said, smiling, climbing into bed where June and Interface were already making out.

  ********

  They woke early and were so eager to be done with the trekking back and forth between the ships that they only had a quick makeout session instead of a full romp. They dressed, breakfasted quickly, and headed to the airlock, anti-grav cart in tow. Will and June both gave Interface a hug and a kiss before departing, and Interface stood in the airlock door until they had become small in the distance, as had become her custom.

  Sealing the airlock, Interface didn’t have much she needed to do until they returned, so she proceeded with what had also become her custom and went to the bridge to watch the distant glimmer of their former ship. With June and Will’s arrival, the Nestia, after so long, finally began feeling like a home again, filled with love, ughter, and hope. They didn’t say so out loud, but it seemed clear to Interface that Will and June felt the same way, too.

  Her heart ached with fullness as she thought about them. She continued to monitor the comm traffic as she watched them from a distance.

  The early morning hike across the valley was uneventful except for crossing paths with a grazing herd of Munchers. When they arrived, they searched the ship for danger with well-practiced efficiency, had a quick snack, and then got to work. June gathered up the st odds and ends they pnned to bring back with them, piling them up in the hallway next to the cart just inside the makeshift door. At the same time, Will worked to free the remaining two rad batteries from their storage rack.

  The batteries were in good condition, but the rack had been twisted and damaged at the end where the st two batteries sat, pinching and holding them fast. Will cursed and pried at the rack; they were stuck and stuck good.

  “June,” Will call on the comms, “the batteries are going to take me a bit longer than pnned. I’m going to have to cut them out of the rack with a torch.”

  “Understood. I’m almost done with the other stuff. I’ll come down and help when I’m finished.” June replied. “Interface, we’re going to be a little bit longer than we anticipated.” She radioed, knowing that Interface was monitoring comms.

  “Don’t take too long, I believe you have an appointment this evening.” Interface teased.

  June smiled. “Wouldn’t miss it. See you shortly.”

  ********

  It was a little past noon, but Will and June had only managed to free one battery. They continued to cut away the twisted metal of the racking, and soon, the second battery was free. Eted, June pumped her fist in the air with a “Yes!” and hurried to help Will load it on the cart with the other.

  They slid the bolt on the makeshift door, opened it wide, and pulled the cart down to level ground, preparing for the march back to the Nestia. It was a little past four, and they at least an hour and a half before dusk began settling over the valley.

  “Well, everything of value is out of the old girl; do you still want to button her up?” June asked.

  “Seems only right,” Will replied. “She’s served us well and deserves a peaceful rest. I’ll stand watch, you go ahead and close her up.”

  June climbed in through the makeshift door one st time, closed it, and slid the bar, bracing it shut. She walked to the dder and paused before climbing out for the st time. She id her hand on a bulkhead and said, “Thanks so much, Saturn honey. You’ve earned your rest.” With a small tear in her eye, June climbed the dder and sealed the tch behind her.

  Climbing down, June met Will at the hovering cart as he double-checked the bindings holding everything in pce. “Ready to go?” She asked.

  “Ready, willing, and…” Before he could finish his sentence, the small power pack energizing the jerry-rig cart shot out sparks and burnt out. The cart nded in the dirt with a heavy thud, startling the two and almost crushing Will’s right foot. “For fuck’s sake.” He cursed as he looked over the small power pack.

  He examined and poked at it briefly before decring, “Yup. It’s dead. Call Interface and let her know we’re going to be deyed a bit. I’ll swap out the connectors and use one of the rad batteries to power the cart. Shouldn’t take me more than twenty to thirty minutes, tops.” He looked at his watch; it would be dusk soon. They needed to get going soon, or they’d have to spend the night here, where they were unwilling to risk a hike in the dark.

  “Interface, we’re going to be deyed heading back, the cart’s power shorted out, but Will’s fixing it now. We’ll be on our way shortly.” June informed Interface.

  “Hurry home, I’m missing you already,” Interface replied with sincere longing.

  Will unhooked the dead power cell, wrestled it off the grounded cart, and rolled it a couple of feet away so he could work. Ten minutes ter, he had everything hooked up to one of the radio-isotope batteries and threw the switch to start it up. “It’ll take about five minutes for the rad batteries to get up to power, then we can be on our way.” He said to June.

  Sunlight was failing, and dusk was right on its heels. The battery chimed, letting them know it was ready. As Will was about to engage the power to the cart, he paused, listening intently, “Do you hear that?” Will asked June.

  June paused to listen. At first, she wasn’t sure what she was listening for, but then she heard it. It was a low rumbling in the distance that seemed to get louder as it got closer.

  “Stampede,” Will said with a serious tone as he unslung and checked his auto rifle. “Check your sidearm.” He ordered. June did so, and while they waited, Will checked in with Interface. “Interface, it sounds like a herd of Munchers are stampeding nearby. Can you see anything from where you are?”

  Standing by the bridge window, Interface looked out and replied. “Nothing visually. I can’t power up the sensor array until the power core is reactivated.” Remembering the binocurs, Will left her, “Give me a minute, I’ll get the binocurs.” Interface ran down to the airlock where she had left them and returned to the bridge. Setting them to max range, she spotted Will and June by the cart, weapons ready. “Checking the surroundings now.” She broadcasted as she scanned the horizon.

  A moment ter, she thought she saw something but couldn’t make it out, so she switched to thermals. She spotted the normally docile herd as faint heat signatures about a kilometer from June and Will’s position. “It’s a herd, moving fast, about a click from your position. They don’t seem to be heading in your direction, looks like they’ll pass by a half a click in front of you.”

  Interface continued to watch the herd with the binocurs when they suddenly turned left, heading straight for their position. “They just turned inbound to your position. Contact in five minutes.” Interface said, now worried. Something must have made them turn; she thought and scanned the area behind and to the fnk of the thundering herd.

  Then she saw it, or rather a ck of something on the thermals. Large groups of pitch-bck shadows on the thermal scope seemed to be steering the herd. She suddenly recognized it as a pack hunting technique, one group to drive prey and other groups to steer them into an ambush. She quickly checked up the valley on the opposite side of Will and June’s position and saw another group of absent thermal signatures. She then scanned back to the other ship and saw that her two lovers were radiating like bright beacons compared to the low-level heat signature of the Muncher herd.

  It all clicked in an instant. “It’s a hunting ambush!” Interface called, beginning to panic. “Something is hunting the Munchers using their thermal radiation. They’re closing on your position; take cover, hide!”

  Hearing Interface’s warning, several puzzle pieces fell into pce in Will’s mind. The piles of Muncher quills they found, the weird feelings at dusk that first night. They were in danger.

  Not wasting a moment, he grabbed June and shouted, “Inside, Now!” They ran up the dirt piled alongside the ship to the hatch. Opening it, he rushed June inside and scanned the surroundings again before descending. The herd was almost upon them, running from some predator. Just before he closed the hatch, he could make out dark shapes closing in on the herd from all sides.

  Joining June at the bottom of the dder, he gestured for June to stand behind him in the ship's center, just around the corner of the makeshift door. The sounds of the herd grew loud as they stampeded around the cart they had abandoned just moments before. The sound of the stomping beasts grew more frantic as they ran out of room to run, being hemmed in by whatever was corralling them.

  Suddenly, the frantic huffing and stamping of the Munchers just outside the door turned into panicked screaming as the herd was attacked. More ominously, all sounds of the distressed herd ceased, with no stomping, bleating, nothing.

  Quietly, Will called on the comm. “Interface what do you see?”

  Interface, unable to remove the scope from her eyes, was fixed, ser-focused on the ship and its surroundings.

  “They caught them all but haven’t moved anywhere yet. The ship is still surrounded.” She continued to watch and report, and suddenly, one by one, the low heat signatures of the Munchers became almost as bright as Will and June had been. “I’m not sure what’s happening now. The herd seems to be glowing brighter on the thermals.”

  Will listened intently to the activity just outside. Suddenly, he recognized the sound of tearing fabric around the area surrounding the ship, and then he understood. “They’re being stripped of their quills, just like the piles we keep finding.” He said quietly into the comm while looking at June.

  A tense few minutes passed, and Will gripped his rifle tight, thumb on the safety tch, ready to fire.

  “They’re beginning to carry them away.” Interface called over the comm, watching as suddenly bright Muncher signatures moved away south down the valley, paired with a companion shadow.

  The sounds filtering into the ship quieted and went silent. No sound was being made outside, no sound of hooves stamping, no sound of predators dragging their quarry away, just eerie silence.

  Interface called out again. “All of the Muncher signatures are gone, but there are still dozens of dark signatures all around the ship.”

  Will and June held their breath and position. Through the half-buried cockpit window, dusk had begun to transition into this pnet's starless night. Soon, complete darkness would fall, and they would have a very difficult time making out any attackers.

  They huddled in the small hallway. As the darkness grew thicker outside, they began to hear rubbing on the ship's hull. It started in one spot on the outer hull, but soon, the sounds of more exploratory rubbing could be heard all over the ship.

  June jumped slightly and swung around when she heard that same kind of sound rubbing on the cockpit forward viewport. She caught sight of the maker of the sound for only a moment, and it sent chills down her spine. A dark, flexible arm or appendage pressed against the surface of the gss and stroked down as if looking for purchase.

  Will’s eyes widened in concern when he heard the sound at the makeshift door. As the presence outside explored the crude seams, the simply fashioned hinges and bar on the door squeaked and groaned as it began to shift back and forth.

  “They found our new door.” Will quietly reported to Interface over the comm. She was beside herself with impotent worry, being too far away to help.

  Without warning, the soft exploration of the door became a violent assault. The door shook and shuddered against the pounding onsught, and as Will watched, it was gripped on all sides at the rough seams and pulled out of the door frame with a loud screeching of metal.

  “They’ve breached!” He called out as an enormous dark shape filled the door frame.