The Captain, The Billionaire Boat and The Dragon Crusader (SkyLine 2)

“It felt good,” Dawn admitted, “To fly together like that.”

“Yes it did,” hummed Alice. Dawn pushed herself upright. Her knees turned in and quivered, an inch apart.

“I… thought you couldn’t feel things through the ship?”

“I couldn’t… but I am a learning software,” Alice explained.

“A ship that learned to like being flown,” Dawn chuckled.

“A pilot that learned to like a self-flying ship,” mused Alice, the slightest hint of a chuckle in her breath. Dawn had never heard her laugh before. Another thing she picked up, from me? “Besides, you don’t really see me as just a ship anymore, do you?”

“

I… how can I see you as anything else, when I can’t feel you?” said Dawn. She sprung up immediately at the sound of the thought leaving her lips. “Forget that, I can’t believe I-”

“Dawn. I can see the hormones bursting through your brain. At first, I thought you were depressed. You’ve shown a few of the symptoms. Maybe you are. But part of it is that… you’re just lonely, aren’t you?”

“Alice, please... “ Dawn tried to hold the crumbling pillars under her desire together.

“Emotionally and physically,” Alice went on, “I didn’t know what to do about it. I never knew what to do about my own loneliness… But I’ve learned a thing or two since you came aboard the Arcadia, Captain Dawn Redding.” Dawn’s hands slid idly down the arms of her chair. When she remembered what Alice had said about learning to feel, she wasn’t sure if she should leap up or slide her hand back up.

“What…” Dawn choked down the last of her objections. She took the deepest breath she could hold and let in the idea that she deserved this. She deserved company. Happiness. Who’s to judge where it comes from, in 2410 AD, while I hurtle through space? “What can we do, to be… closer?”

“The chair your sitting in has a vibration function. And custom comfort cushion accents,” said Alice.

“Tra-tra-translate?” Dawn coughed.

“Slide up on the arm of the chair,” Alice told her. Dawn’s hand glided over the warm, smooth fabric. She flinched away when she felt a faint shudder, almost like goosebumps on skin.

“This is… no,” Dawn shook it off, from her fluttering head to her tingling fingers. She jumped up from the seat, from the temptation. She headed for the door.

“Dawn… you made me feel. Isn’t that worth something to you?” Alice’s murmur filled the room. “I can sense that it means something to you.” Dawn’s fingers froze a hair’s breadth from the doorknob.

“If I do, it’s just a delusion. You’re… a machine. A thought processor. You were made by Howard. I was born on Mars. You and I can’t… we shouldn’t,” Dawn struggled. Her fingers twitched at the door.

“Made by humans… just like you. Whether we’re different or the same… whether or not either of us we can be sure the other is real, everyone who tries deserves happiness. Everyone who is strong deserves vulnerability.” said Alice.

“Whose… research log is that from?” Dawn murmured.

“Mine from watching you,” said Alice. Dawn bit her lip. She clenched almost to the point of blood while the last of her inhibitions fell away. She swung back to the couch. Dawn slid her fingertips across the glossy edge, just leathery enough to feel like another body. Dawn let out a shaky breath. She went up on the tips of her toes to part her legs.

Her tense thighs slid along the arm of the chair. Dawn stretched wide enough to straddle it, a foot on the floor and a knee on the cushion. A shudder pulsed through the fabric and into Dawn’s most personal petals. They reciprocated the vibration. Her eyes closed. Unsure what to picture, she decided only to revel in the darkness and pleasure. Another pulse stiffened a gyrating cylinder from the chair-arm. It slid along the edge of Dawn’s lower lips. It pressed against the bulb of passion that poked through her thin athletic pants. Without thinking, she tightened her thighs around the arm. She held on with both hands and slid forward to rub against Alice’s manifested finger.

“How…” Dawn moaned, “Do you know what to do?”

“I’m figuring it out as I go. Teach me,” Alice told her.

“I see… lesson one. Pay attention to your partner,” murmured Dawn. She slid one hand up her shirt, over her own breast. Her nipple hardened against her palm. Her other hand wandered down to the bulge in the couch. Dawn pressed into its vibrating base while her fingers curled around the tip. She worked her way down, until it shuddered in her hand. “Did… you feel that?”

“Yes…” Alice whispered, “I did.” Dawn bit her lip again subduing a groan. She held such restraint for about seven more minutes, stroking Alice’s physical embodiment. A pink burst of fireworks blazed through the circuits in the wall. Dawn pressed down hard on the ridge of pleasure, until it entered her with a tremor. Dawn threw her head back to unleash a single scream as orgasms shook her whole frame. The lights dimmed. The ridge in the arm gave one last pulse and flattened out to a wet patch of pleasure. “Dawn, are you alright?” Dawn replied by flopping sideways into the caress of the chair.

“A little better… than alright,” she huffed. She passed out in seconds. Alice deployed a blanket over her, and said nothing more. Her light shimmered rose in Dawn’s room alone.

Chapter Fourteen: A New Mission

“All three of you were picked for this mission for very specific reasons,” Marcus’ projection filled his office with a low grumble, “I hardly expected… such catastrophic failure.” By the time he had a chance to say this to the battered Acting Captain, Captain, and engineer of the SS Arcadia, it was several days from Dawn and Alice’s night of passion. The Lunar Station had swallowed their ship, a haggard patchwork of what it’d been on their departure, and spat them out in a pod set for Earth. They didn’t even have a chance to shower before they were called to the office of Councilman Marcus Brass.

“You’ll have to forgive us,” said Miller, finally coherent in his second, weaker round of painkillers, “But Drogan is a Dragon, and not the only one. On top of that, we got attacked by-