The Dark Run

Chapter 1

All things considered, moral values were not the most essential gear to have along in the darker reaches of Settlement space. In fact, if you wanted to make the real money, they could be something of a hindrance. And if, like most pilots, you usually wound up spending the bulk of that money at the infrequent and deviant layover stations from which the Dark Run took both its name and its reputation, then morality was an outright liability. Jarek Fen had long ago embraced those aspects of his personality that allowed him not only to survive but also to thrive on the Run, but the diversions readily available at the strip clubs and brothels of even the most notorious stations were a far cry from fucking an android. Once, it had been a line that he swore he would never cross no matter how hard up. But now, as he pulled his dick from the artificial cunt and watched his load float across the zero-g space to the machine's waiting face, he wondered why he had ever been so repulsed by the idea. Robot or not, Giselle was one hell of a fuck.

Fen had picked up the GSL-450 only a few weeks after trading in his light cruiser for a legitimate deep-space freight hauler. The new ship was a good deal larger and more complex, and the broker warned Fen that it would be difficult if not impossible to operate by himself. But Fen was a solitary man by nature, which was one of the reasons that he had started working the Dark Run to begin with, and he abhorred the idea of having a crew or even a single assistant on board. The long months between stations on the Run had always allowed him plenty of time for maintenance on his old ship, and he was convinced that the new one couldn't really be that much more difficult. Barely a week into the journey from the auction yard back to the nearest Dark station, however, he was already convinced that he had made a serious miscalculation. The grueling maintenance schedule and even basic repairs had barely left time for sleep, and that came in truncated fits between alarm bells. The freighter was in excellent shape, but with four decks at more than one hundred meters each and a beam of nearly half that, the sheer volume of pipes, circuits, and moving parts was simply beyond one person's abilities.

Three weeks after launching from the auction yard, and after sleeping nearly two days straight in the large but utilitarian captain's stateroom of the now thankfully docked ship, he found himself wandering through a depressing gauntlet of gray-market shops and warehouses in naive hope of finding an affordable engineering android. Bots were common on most large ships, and they could be equipped and programmed for anything from EVA repairs to piloting. It was an obvious answer to his problems, but the purchase of the ship had stretched his already questionable credit to the breaking point, and even the most harshly used and probably stolen models were beyond his present means. His first run with the cavernous new cargo hold would more than repair his finances, but without an android, he didn't see how that first run would ever happen. He was about to give up and hire a mate - there were always able hands in any port who were willing to forgo an initial salary in return for a profit share at the end - when one of the shadier warehouse dealers offered an unpleasant solution.

"Look," the dealer said, "I can't get you a flight-rated mech at that price, but I've got a few old fuckbots in the back." Fen must not have been able to keep the disgust from his face, because the dealer elaborated quickly.

"Yeah, I know what you're thinking, but they can work in a pinch. You don't get the dexterity and speedy AI of the flight models, but anyone with a little know-how can program one to be a deckhand. I've seen it done. Should be no sweat for you, if you're soloing a freighter anyway."

Fen had heard this story before and had even been on a ship once with a suspiciously sultry female flight mech, but he still wasn't sure that such a complete reprogramming was actually possible. As he had no other options, however, he spent a few minutes looking at a pile of available models and grilling the dealer on technical details before handing over most of his remaining cash and arranging for a fuckbot to be discreetly delivered to his ship. He knew that it had probably been carried out of the back door of a tax-evading brothel during a raid, and God knew how many people had dumped their cum in it, but he didn't care so long as it would last until he could pick up a full cargo and buy a real flight mech. It wasn't like he was going to fuck the damn thing.

The bot was delivered deactivated and in the same latex suit that it had been wearing in the dank backroom of the warehouse. The first thing that Fen did after heaving the android onto a work table in one of the ship's tool rooms was to cut the suit away and toss it in an incinerator. He used a scanner to check the mechanical systems and added fluids and new fuses to the small maintenance port under her scalp, trying all the time not to notice that the soft skin and tiny toned body covering the mechanical frame. She was supple and petite, and her small but firm and life-like breasts pointed slightly upwards in a seductive pout even when the machine was laid out on its back. Her pubic area was bald and smooth, and her perfectly formed pussy was distracting him more than he wanted to admit as he finished the checks and tried to rationalize the fact that it had already become she in his mind.

The last step was the actual reprogramming, and Fen decided to use his ship's own AI computer for that. The process would wipe the bot's old software and add all of the technical knowledge and skills required to perform routine tasks on the ship, leaving him with the time to handle the more complex jobs that would most likely be beyond the fuckbot's capability. He had also reluctantly concluded that he should probably save a copy of the sexual programming to a drive in the ship's memory core in case he needed to reinstall it later in order to resell the bot in the future.

He was about to plug the computer in and start the wipe when he again noticed the bot's inviting pussy, and as curiosity finally won over, he reached gingerly down and cupped the folds of skin in his hand before inserting his middle finger into the tight opening. He didn't really know what he had been expecting, but he was surprised by the realistic and even wet feel of the textured tunnel. Someone had put a lot of thought into the design of every bump, and Fen had to admit that she actually felt better than the real thing. Instinctively, he hooked his finger up toward what would be the g-spot in a real woman.

"Hmmm," a sensual female voice suddenly hummed. "That feels good, baby."

Fen looked down, stunned to see a set of sexy, piercing eyes staring up at him. The bot must have been in a sleep mode and programmed to wake up at the initiation of sexual contact. She even writhed sensually on the table and thrust her hips further down on Fen's probing finger. Her delicate hand reached out to find the bulge in Fen's flight suit, and she started to expertly massage his quickly stiffening cock. Fen lost himself in the sensation for a moment as he watched the bot arch her back. But then he regained his senses and, feeling strangely dirty, abruptly pulled his finger out of her wet pussy and shoved her hand away from his crotch.

"What's the matter, baby," the machine protested. "Don't you like-" Her voice cut out as Fen shoved a connector into her data port. Her body stiffened, and her eyes shot wide open in a dead stare.

"Interface detected," a new voice said. It was coming both from the android's mouth and from a speaker in the ceiling of the tool bay. Fen supposed it was the ship's AI, which he had never heard before. He hadn't known that the interface would work like that, but he didn't actually have a lot of experience with the advanced computer on his new ship, so he figured it was normal. "Waiting for command," the eerie dual voice continued.

"Execute transfer." Fen ordered, having already programmed the ship's computer to carry out the necessary functions.

"Command confirmed," the bot and the ship said in unison. "Initiating transfer. Time to completion is one hour, eighteen minutes..."

Fen ignored the rest of the report, already heading out of the tool bay. One of the many luxuries of being in port was gravity, and with it the ability to take an real falling-water shower, which was exactly what Fen suddenly felt like he needed. A very long and very cold shower.

--

The outer Settlement territories had once been swarming with massive military ships, sophisticated enough to have hyperlight systems and even artificial gravity. But in the chaotic months before the Revolution, an increasingly paranoid military brutally suppressed civilian access to faster-than-light technology. Even now, decades after the brief rebellion had been obliterated, hyperdrives remained solely under military control. Civilian use was strictly forbidden, and so interplanetary travel and commerce in the Settlements relied on an aging armada of sublight cruisers and freighters.

The new economy gave birth to the Dark Run, which was a rough circle around an outlying and isolated group of largely lawless worlds. Most Runners made a living moving around the loop, carrying whatever cargo that they could from one orbiting station to the next and often not setting down on an actual planet for years at a time. But for the larger ships, such as the one that Fen now owned, things were less simple. A single leg with a full cargo bay would pay more than a full loop around the entire Run in his old cruiser, but finding enough cargo to fill the hold was a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Fen decided that the best plan would be to fly straight to Argon Station, which was an old hyperlight hub and still the primary focal point for Dark Run trading. From there, he shouldn't have to wait long before a suitable job turned up.

Wanting to use the run to Argon as a chance to work out the kinks in both the ship and his new bot, Fen contracted a small freight - just enough cargo that the prepayment would cover fuel and oxygen to the station - before returning to the tool room to check on the memory transfer. He had expected to find the bot still lying on the table, but instead she was sitting up and looking curiously around the room. Fen wouldn't have thought it possible for anything like a real personality to show through in a robot's eyes, but the raw sexual aggression that had been there before was now replaced by the young eagerness of an apprentice engineer on her first cruise.

"Captain!" she exclaimed excitedly when she saw Fen. She jumped off the table, seemingly unaware of or simply untroubled by her nudity, and stood sharply at attention. The site both aroused and amused him. "First Mate Giselle reporting," the bot said.

"Giselle?" Fen asked.

"Yes," she responded after a pause. "That is my... name." The bot moved and spoke with an odd jerkiness that clearly marked her as artificial but still took nothing away from her allure.

Fen nodded at her response. It hadn't occurred to him to bother giving the thing a name, and he certainly hadn't told the ship to do it. 'Giselle', he assumed, was taken from the GSL-450 model number, and it was probably what she had been programmed to call herself as a fuckbot. The identity must have been in some core area of memory that the transfer hadn't erased. But before Fen could start worrying about that, there was a more obvious concern. Crossing the room, he picked up a duffel bag from the floor and pulled out a cheap flight suit and pair of utility boots that the bot dealer had thrown in with the purchase. Fen tossed them casually on the work table.

"Put those on," he said. He watched intently as Giselle slid her athletic body into the jump suit, and he actually felt a tinge of disappointment as she slid the zipper over her small chest. The jumpsuit was baggy and would have given her an almost boyish appearance were it not for her elegantly long black hair and the outline of her apparently always hard nipples showing through the faded gray fabric.

"You should so something with your hair," Fen suggested.

"Yes," Giselle said. "We will not have gravity on the way to Argon Station. My hair will be in the way." Fen was caught off guard that she already knew the flight plan. Seeing his surprise, she explained. "I have an uplink to the ship's mind."

Mind?That was an odd word for it, Fen thought. But he supposed that it made sense that as an AI herself, Giselle would see the ship's computer as a peer. He watched, fascinated, as Giselle effortlessly pulled her hair back and wound it into a perfect knot behind the base of her head. He didn't know a lot about the grooming rituals of women, but he guessed that no human could have pulled that off so easily. The bot turned and smiled innocently at him.

"Should I prep the cargo bay now, Captain?"

--

In addition to being obsessively solitary, Fen was also a deeply erotic person. It was an unfortunate combination that caused him to prefer the company of impersonal and professional companions on the rare occasions that he was in port and also to elevate masturbation to both a science and an art during his long spans in space. He had a sophisticated palette for all things pornographic, and his considerable technical skills and abundance of free time on the old cruiser had resulted in the construction of his private pride and joy: a virtual reality system that would make even the most state-of-the-art military training exercise look like a cheap toy. He couldn't simulate the actual physical sensations of sex, at least not yet, but he could jerk himself off while watching any deviant fantasy that he pleased as if he were actually there. He had even connected the system to the rudimentary AI in the old ship, allowing it to learn his preferences and spontaneously come up new material. But he hadn't had time to see what the new computer could do until a few days out on the voyage to Argon.

Giselle was already an expert pilot and engineer, and once Fen finally felt comfortable leaving her alone at the helm long enough to get a full night's sleep, he couldn't think of any reason not to start off his rest with a nice relaxing cum. He decided to start with his favorite program, but as he strapped himself into his stateroom chair and slipped the VR gear over his head, it was obvious that the computer had something different planned. He had expected to find himself in a seedy strip club on Pran IV, his favorite layover, but instead he was in a luxurious ballroom filled with symphonic dance music, pulsing laser lights, and dozens of the most exotically beautiful women that he had ever seen. The old program had simply pulled dancers from porn networks and hacked vice files, but Fen didn't recognize any of the girls gliding sensually past him or writhing on the stages all around the room. The computer seemed to have created all of them, and done so in exquisite detail down to goose bumps and thin sheets of sweat on the dancers' heaving chests.

Fen reached his right arm out to the side where a drink sat on a real table back in his room, but he saw that the computer had replaced the ugly zero-g cup of cheap spice rum with a crystal goblet filled to the brim with an exotic concoction that he couldn't even begin to identify. As he brought the drink to his lips, a camera on the wall of his stateroom tracked the motion and maintained the illusion. Fen caught a glimpse of expensive black cloth on his arm and then looked down to see that he was wearing a classic tuxedo. It would have seemed ridiculous in any other setting, but it was perfectly natural here. Fen chuckled and leaned back in his chair, and he marveled at a glass ceiling twenty meters over his head that showed the Dark Run's sparse scattering of stars. The depth was stunningly realistic, and although he would ever describe himself as anything better than an average navigator, he had no doubt whatsoever that the view was an exact replica of what was currently outside of the ship. Other than the fact that his drink sadly still tasted like the rotgut that it really was, he was in a sensory heaven that he hadn't thought it possible for a computer to create.

For a moment, Fen forgot that the point of the program was to get him off. But then the lighting in the room changed, and a wide spotlight illuminated the previously dark stage in front of his chair. A trio of smaller spots suddenly appeared and rose slowly up a glinting chrome pole in the center of the stage. Fen let his gaze drift up until the lights reflected a figure in a silver sequined gown at the top, seeming to float just beneath the stars. The figure in the gown arched her back and leaned slowly away from the pole, stretching out her arms and using her legs to slowly and smoothly slide down toward the stage. As she neared the bottom, she returned her hands to the pole and swung her legs away, touching down on the stage with a deft elegance that would not have been possible for a real woman. She was tall and voluptuous, with blue eyes and short-cropped blonde hair that framed her beautiful round face. Fen couldn't imagine where the computer had drawn the inspiration for the dancer, but it had rendered her perfectly.

The dancer already had the attention of every other character in the scene, and elegant patrons - both men and women - were gravitating toward the stage they nodded to Fen but gave him the distance that his VIP status demanded. This was, after all, his fantasy. The dancer also acknowledged him, he noticed with pleasure, but she immediately turned away from him to make her way around the stage. As she did, she slipped a strap of the dress off her perfectly toned shoulder and turned back to wink at Fen. It was a brilliant touch that immediately hardened his cock against his pants.

The dancer slowly glided around the stage as admirers laid down lavish tips. Fen put one down himself, larger than anyone else's, from a stack of credits that he was not surprised to find had appeared next to his drink. The dancer ignored him, however, other than an occasional teasing glance. He watched patiently - this was obviously part of the program - as she tended to the other tippers with brief flashes of skin that were carefully and maddeningly timed to be just out of his view.

Finally, as the music changed to the next song, she turned to Fen. She glided straight to him, gracefully unzipping her dress and letting it fall to the stage. She didn't miss a step as she strode over the crumpled cloth, and to his utter delight, she was wearing absolutely nothing beneath it. Her body was simply perfect; there was no other word for it. She was softly curved in all of the right places, not chubby by any stretch but not a waif either. Her breasts were large without being vulgarly so, and a delicate pink nipple hung aroused in exactly the center of each. As she walked, she reached down and pinched them while staring directly into his eyes.

She reached the edge of the stage and, without pausing, thrust one long leg out and placed her heel on the back of his chair. She lunged slowly forward, and Fen was treated to a close and personal view of her sex. She was shaved everywhere but a small patch just above her pussy, and the delicate blonde hairs exactly matched those on her head. Her lips were smooth and tight, and the tip of her large and wet clit was peeking out from between them. Slowly, she swung her hips in an arc as she teased her nipples again, moaning as she did so. Normally, Fen would have played the fantasy out for a while, waiting until she offered him a private dance before he started in on himself. But the past few months, and especially his guilty experience fingering Giselle, had built up too much tension. Besides, the whole point of his VR scenarios was that he could take his cock out anywhere that he wanted to, and that was exactly what he did.