FSE

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Chapter 5 - Flushed

A new series continues. Set in a far off future where humans are just one of a hundred species with mixed earth animal DNA, the anthro-furry faces have populated a small section of our galaxy, filling it with life of all kinds, AI's and androids and cybernetic beings as numerous as the organics that created them. But space is harsh, and empires rise and fall. But for every long lost fallen empire are the scavengers and salvagers eager to find and sell some gem from a forgotten civilization. This is the story of one such salvager, and of his greatest find yet. Will she be the the priceless artifact he has been seeking to make him rich, or something more?

Series will contain stories of an adult nature, including BDSM, Master/slave, kidnapping, violence, consensual and non-consensual acts. Some chapters will be light, others dark, others... read and find out.

(Thanks to all my long time and new readers.

Don't forget to Fav the chapter you like it!

It's a big help and means a lot to me. Thanks!)

Brave New World (Full cover illustration by Fortuna)

**_ EXCERPT FROM GALACTIC DATABASE:

FRACTAL CURRENT DRIVE TECHNOLOGY

THE MOST COMMON METHOD OF INTERSTELLAR TRAVEL.

DESTINATIONS LIMITED TO KNOWN AND MAPPED HYPERSPACE CURRENTS. ROUND TRIPS ARE DIFFICULT.

LARGE SCALE CURRENTS ARE STABLE BUT SLOW. REQUIRES EXTREMELY MASSIVE DRIVES AND POWER.

SMALL SCALE CURRENTS CHANGE RAPIDLY AND ARE UNRELIABLE. USEFUL FOR SENDING SMALL OBJECTS.

RARE LARGE SCALE DISRUPTIONS LIKELY CAUSE OF MASS REALM EXTINCTIONS.

IT'S BEEN 7,852 CYCLES SINCE THE LAST KNOWN LARGE SCALE CURRENT ACCIDENT.

END ENTRY _**

Coell trembled under the weight of the equipment crates hanging off her sides, supported by a makeshift web of glowing lines of force generated by her HardLight emitters. The boxes and storage containers 'strapped' to her back was non-standard, something she had thrown together when she found the required template files were corrupted in her memory store. The physical weight wasn't really the problem, she could carry vastly heavier loads with her over-engineered internal structure, but the mental weight of finally leaving the cave was making her nervous and excitable.

She shouldn't be so nervous and eager, she thought. Although she had been trapped inside the underground bunker for countless years, she had been offline for all of it. Even her memories of her former life were gone, just fragments, but somehow she FELT the weight of the years trapped here, piling up more than the spare parts and unknown storage boxes she carried for her new owner. She fidgeted, sending commands to her HardLight command processor to re-adjust a strap here and there.

"I think that's enough for our first trip. We can come back for the rest later. Bound to be some good stuff in the locked storage units, but nothing as valuable as you, so let's get you out," said Argos as his tail swished slowly behind him. Despite the troubles with the re-programming of her mind that he had to remove, she was in remarkably good shape for not being properly stowed and stored for such a long time. Most of the AnDragons that were found in her situation required extensive refurbishing and spare parts to bring back to working condition. If he was lucky, there would be a good amount of rare parts in here once he had the time to sort through it all.

She nodded eagerly and began to follow the dragon, her eyes spending most of their time roaming up and down his form, memorizing every inch of her owner's body, wanting to know everything there was about him, enjoying his proximity and closeness. She felt a pang of guilt and loss over her former owners, even though she couldn't remember them. Whoever they were had been lost with the rest of her memories, but she could feel the shape of the scrambled memories and simply knew it was a family, and they had been nice. Did they send her here to fight, or did she volunteer? She had no idea, but was sure she went willingly. She would do the same now for Argos, after all.

She walked on automatic, most of her attention on her owner and the sloping corridor they were following. Once out of the large cave the walls became smoother, made from some kind of artificial substance, the rock turning to walls, floors and ceilings. There were no lights except for one Argos had clipped to his jacket, so she formed a pair of floodlights on stalks from her small emitters on her horns, lighting up the passageway.

Argos turned around with a surprised look, then giggled as his eyes took in the sight, "Well that's effective, I suppose. You look like some kind of alien insect."

Coell blushed a bit and asked, "Should I turn them off? I'm not sure where most of these blueprints come from. Much of the metadata is missing since it was stored with less redundancy. I can't determine which are appropriate and which aren't so sorry if... eep." She came to a stop before even noticing he had paused, her head pulling back a bit as she found herself nose to nose with the smaller bipedal dragon.

Argos lifted his hand to the side of Coell's face, "Relax, it's fine. I just thought it was cute, you don't have to worry."

"I just don't want to do anything wrong," she said sheepishly, seeing his hand turn slightly pink in the glow of her facial lights that mirrored her emotional state. She forced the colors to dim somewhat, able to override them if she concentrated, but knew that as soon as she stopped focusing on them they would return to showing her emotions clearly to anyone who knew her color codes. She could perform a large amount of computational or physical tasks in parallel, but her emotions and self-awareness were single-threaded, just like her creators. It was both comforting and annoying to know she shared some of the same flaws and limitations of her creators, but did they really HAVE to copy that particular limitation so well? She nodded and smiled, walking as Argos began leading the way once more. It felt good to follow someone who knew where they were going. She had been so lost before he reset her imprinting, and knew she would willingly follow him anywhere, even if he didn't have a clue, but knowing he did made her feel even better. Anyone could make one of her kind follow, but not all could make her happy. She gave a small shake of her head as the vision in her right eye flickered, then snapped back into focus after a quick reset of her ocular systems.

_ RIGHT OCULAR DEVICE CHECKSUM ERRORS RESETTING COMMUNICATIONS CHANNEL. FAILED. RESTARTING. COMMUNICATIONS ESTABLISHED. PACKET LOSS AT 13%_

She frowned as the eye reported 87% functionality, examining the data stream as it gave occasional bad frames and data errors. Yet something else that needed calibrating. She closed her right eyelid before swiveling it left and right, then up and down before rotating it in a barrel roll, attempting to locate the issue. Having no luck she reset her eye back to it's normal operation and opened her eyelid once her unnatural movements were completed. She pondered the issue before perking her ears at Argos' voice focusing her attention back to her task at hand.

"Step carefully here. There were some collapses at some point, but they happened long ago, probably from an earthquake, but best not to take chances," he said, checking the ceiling as he stepped over a small pile of rubble.

She stepped carefully around the bits of rubble, peering up and feeling the ceiling with low-levels of her flight radar, adjusting the frequency to rock-penetrating mode before widening the beam to scan the walls and floor as well. It was as natural as looking to her, even though she hadn't known she could do it before her instincts kicked in. Her memory-loss was so very strange, she couldn't remember details of her life or her own systems, but still knew how to operate all of it. She searched through more fragmented files, finding bits of existing code and specifications and even the beginnings of a tutorial.

"Argos? You said all AnDragons were damaged by the doomsday weapon. Do any of us remember our old lives?"

He shook his head as he made his way around a long curve, "Bits and pieces, as I'm sure you are finding. Whatever the aliens used, it was extremely thorough. AnDragon brains, classic and quantum computers, even sufficiently dense physical information like books were targeted. The current theory is information itself was corrupted, causing the physical manifestation of it to become damaged. Memories, art, the entire fabric of your society was nearly erased, leaving only functional systems. Many suspect that was intentional, they wanted to destroy the people, the minds, leaving the hardware intact and operational, just with no instructions on what to do, ready for them to move in."

"That's horrible, why would anyone do that? What did we ever to do them?"

"Probably nothing, things like this happen. It's a big galaxy, and sometimes we even get visitors from others. Conflicts happen, especially when they are fighting over some old bit of godlike tech left over from those that came before us. We won't ever know exactly what happened, but every mind we recover usually remembers something. There is a massive database of everything known, from thousands of you, and I'm sure you will eventually remember something, and add one more piece to the puzzle."

Coell pondered this, thinking she would like to examine that database, wondering how much of a picture it could paint, and if it might trigger more memories. Almost if on queue, she felt a tickle in her mind, and with each step it grew until the tickle turned to a buzzing, then a crisp stream of data as she began to pick up signals and transmissions. It was all encrypted, but some of it had a familiar structure and she could recognize various wireless connections as her internal communication net tried to ping recognizable sources. She cocked her head to one side, sensing a familiar network protocol. Another mind? Another AnDragon? She pinged the source but got nothing back, pursing her lips and wondering why, then canceling the connection attempts as she realized it might be rude. She had no idea! Instead she simply monitored the various signals that were finally reaching her as she came closer to the entrance, able to see it now and flicking off her hovering lights, feeling the HardLight energy flowing back into her emitter storage as she craned her neck to eagerly look at the approaching opening.

Argos paused at the door, looking it over and then back at Coell. "Careful not to catch the edges, they are still sharp from where they were cut through. Don't want to damage you or your cargo."

"My hide is fully covered by a manufactures warranty and is durable enough to resist all but the most dangerous environments," she said automatically, blinking a bit and wondering where that came from, then shaking her head as her right eyelid fluttered. She shook her head and ignored both the sales pitch and her eye as she peered into the bright light beyond, the view washed out which she felt was unusual but couldn't remember coming out of a cave before to really know one way or the other. Taking a deep breath she followed Argos out and emerged into the sunlight, careful to avoid the jagged edges of the thick door before finally emerging and looking up.

Her body froze as she took in everything at once, the deep blue sky half covered in thick, white clouds. The sun was a bright spot behind one of them, a deep yellow as her spectral analysis systems broke down the color spectrum, adding in data about spectral lines and the elemental makeup of the star itself. Behind her was a sheer rock wall, some kind of mountain jutting right out of the ground, blocking a good half of the landscape and towering above. There was a ship here, large as it rested on three heavy landing pads, sleek, like some sort of animal, and clearly made by her creators, a large shield emitter on the nose, not to mention the source of much of the familiar data traffic.

** MAXIMUM SPECTRAL PEAK 512NM. OPTIMAL OPTICAL CALIBRATION 480NM TO 570NM. ATMOSPHERIC ABSORPTION RANGES 440NM TO 480NM MINIMAL CHARGED PARTICLE ACTIVITY. CLASSIFICATION: SAFE FOR BIOLOGICALS. NO EMERGENCY SHIELDING REQUIRED. IDENTIFICATION: ERROR! PLANETARY DATABASE CORRUPTED. UNABLE TO LOCATE. INCONSISTENT BACKGROUND RADIATION ON ALL WAVELENGTHS DETECTED. ATTEMPTING TO REPORT TO CENTRAL. FAILED. MULTIPLE DATA STREAMS DETECTED. ATTEMPTING STANDARD ENCRYPTION KEYS. REJECTED. UNKNOWN ANDRAGON PACKET SOURCE IDENTIFIER GH671-IJEH-JY44GV-I3HBD6-2HH34-34NUG-3NNB2-U4N59-MVS19F**

She only took a second to notice all of this before she focused her attention on the creature standing before her. Another AnDragon. Her eyes looked the male up and down and back and forth, holding her breath as she examined him. He was covered in seams and joints, not smooth unbroken hide like she was. His body was made of a mix of flexible segments and rigid plates and joints. The purple color was two toned, dark on the top and a much paler along his underside. And he was big, maybe half again her size, bulkier and powerful looking compared to her sleek frame. She let out a sigh finally, some part of her relieved beyond belief to see him, to know that her kind weren't all destroyed, that her owner did indeed know all about what she was and where she came from. The warm feeling she had when she thought of Argos redoubled as she looked at the other AnDragon, comforted by the presence of two familiar beings, and owner and more of her kind. She flushed a bit as she saw he was looking back at her with a similar expression and looked down, right at his shiny right hindleg. It was clearly a replacement, much newer looking than the rest of him, not covered in any skin, simply showing the chrome metal bands making it up. A single bright purple HardLight was formed into a ring around his ankle, contrasting with the duller and smaller purple emitters at his shoulders. How had he lost his leg? Did he fight in the war too? Did one of those, things take it? She shuddered in horror, then winced as she realized how she must look, staring at his damaged leg. He must think she was so rude!

"Woah... Argos, she's gorgeous! I've never seen anything like her before. She's so... oh," he said before breaking off as he saw her focusing on his leg. He turned his body, presenting that side to her and stretching his leg out in her direction, toes spreading as he curled and uncurled them. "You like it? Isn't it amaaaaaaazing? It was a gift! Oh, where are my manners, I'm Gellan!" He wriggled his foot in her direction and gave a candid grin.

Coell blinked again, taken aback at Gellan's clear happiness at the state of his leg, cocking her head a bit before slowly reaching up with a forepaw and shaking a silver toe. "Ahh... I'm Coell," she said, then gave a wide smile as she decided she liked him, relaxing her worries about not fitting in somewhat. She hadn't been sure what to expect, not knowing what sorts of customs or subjects she should avoid, but she felt herself relaxing more and more, wavering a bit at the emotional roller coaster of tension and release.

"I think we should get you into one of the servicing bays before going back for the rest of the salvage," said a worried looking Arogs, his arm up and examining data symbols flowing from Coell's systems on his forearm display.

She blushed, both at her wobbling and the slight tingle of Argos' attention on her internal state, "Nothing wrong with me, just a little overwhelmed."

Argos looked up at her, "Nothing wrong that you wouldn't expect to find for being shut down for so long, all easy to deal with once you're in a proper maintenance bay and not a cave. Ok, lets deal with the cargo and get you situated. Gellan, help her unload then, get everything packed."

"Yes Sir," said the large purple AnDragon, moving closer to Coell and waiting for her to release the cargo strapped to her sides.

Coell smiled brightly, "Okay." She released the crates and boxes one by one as Gellan took them to stack in a neat pile, then followed Argos to the back of his ship. It was wide, two engines on either side and more antigrav lifting units running along the top edge. The center had a ramp extending down to a large opening and she noted the ramp surface was a similar material to her own HardLight projections, but very solid and opaque and such a dark hue it almost looked like some kind of dull metal with faint glowing hexagonal lines running just under the surface. "My Creators built your ship?" she asked.

Argos nodded, "Yes, it's an original salvaged from near from your homeworld. Cost me quite a lot, nearly everything I had and that was even after I sold off a cache of priceless artifacts I had found, but worth every credit. Other worlds make fancier, faster and bigger shuttles, but for someone who's job it is finding and maintaining your kind, nothing beats having an authentic Creator ship. No need to jury rig power systems or controls, it all just works with all the equipment I use." He shrugged. "It's a collectors item."

Coell nodded, seeing how proud Argos was of his ship. She had no idea what a fancier or better one would look like, and didn't frankly care. It looked like a cozy home. She stumbled a bit as she remembered it wasn't really going to be HER home, not permanently anyway. Argos was taking care of her now, but he would be finding her another family to live with once she was all patched up. Her thoughts were jolted out of her as a flash of light lit up the back of the shuttle, a light that wasn't bright but felt wrong, dirty, evil. Her head whipped around and she stared into a storm along the far off horizon. Lightning crackled, but it was shaped weirdly, the jagged bolts mixed with odd curves, the eye trying to follow a branch but finding it suddenly cut off, only to reappear elsewhere, offset in distance and time. It made both her eyes hurt to look at, and beyond it was, something? She squinted, confused. The storm wasn't that bad, only a bit of rain and the occasional bolt of that strange lightning. Why couldn't she see what was beyond it. Another mountain? Ocean? A forest? A city? Nothing. Nothing at all was what she saw.

** MULTIPLE OPTICAL INCONSISTENCIES DETECTED. VISUAL FIELD INTEGRATION CALIBRATION: SUCCESS ENGAGING SUPPLEMENTARY EM WAVELENGTH SENSORS. SCANNING. COMPLETE. VISUAL SYSTEMS OPERATING PROPERLY. UNKNOWN VISUAL AND EM ANOMALIES CONFIRMED. INCREASING SUPPLEMENTARY EM WAVELENGTH BANDWITH. ALLOCATING SPARE PROCESSING RESOURCES.**

Argos touched her chin with his hand and turned her head away from the disturbing storm behind them, "Don't look too long at it, all that will do is give you a headache. Make sure to cancel any automated analysis, it will just run endlessly," said Argos.

Coell did as her owner suggested, shutting down background processing on the phenomenon and asked, "What... what was that?"

"Information storm. Leftovers from what the aliens did to all the worlds here. Some worlds like this one are still heavily affected."

"Is it dangerous?"

Argos laughed, "Oh yes, very dangerous. Information can still get scrambled, and you don't want to get hit by one of those rift bolts. The only way to defend against them is to avoid them." He made a face as he saw fear in Coell's eyes, "Don't worry, we're safe here. On the surface the planet's gravity-well keeps the storms from moving too fast. They are unpredictable but we would know in plenty of time before they got here. Planetary forecast gives us three more days before this area will be considered unsafe."

Coell looked unsure but nodded and walked the rest of the way into the ship, looking back once more before walking the rest of the way inside. The corridor was wide, more than large enough for her, the other end of the corridor sloped up, and there were four large bays, a pair on either side. The two on her right were clearly set up for doing maintenance on androids. She could recognize various displays and connectors, her internal database helpfully highlighting connectors and the state of her sockets. She concentrated, looking at one in particular and knowing it was meant to flush out her matter converters input storage buffer, but she swore that there were more details about the connection now than when she had glanced over them earlier. "Why do I feel like I'm, uh, remembering more about things?"

Argos was working on a console beside the bay further inside, transferring the wireless debugging from his wristpad to the more capable systems on his shuttle. "In a way you are. AnDragon brains aren't like classical computer storage. It's not just bits or q-bits stored in tidy rows, it imitates neurons and dendrites like an organic brain. The information weapon the aliens used affected it, strangely. In some cases the data was scrambled, but left, hmm, holes where it used to be. Seeing familiar objects and places lets those memories settle back into place."

"Would I be able to remember my family?" she asked hopefully.

"I'm afraid that's unlikely, I'm sorry. Maybe some vague feelings, but the effect targeted personal and social memories. Operational systems, blueprints, diagnostics and background code was only partially damaged and is much easier to restore fully. Nobody knows why or how. It's on a ring level well above anything we can understand. Oh, and it says here, you're connected to the ship's public net, so it's also filling in the blanks for you."

"Oh, am I?" she said with a surprised look on her face. She pulled up her recent logs.

** WIRELESS CONNECTION ESTABLISHED WITH ID SHUTTLE-ARGTINK-PUBLIC-INTERNAL-76YT24 DATA CONNECTION ESTABLISHED WITH LOCAL KNOWLEDGE BASE. QUERY: PHYSICAL CONNECTION ENDPOINT DIAG-MATCONV-V54 RESPONSE: [BINARY DATA BLOB] META: CONFIGURATION OPTIONS FOR PHYSICAL ACCESS PORT.**

She checked and saw that now that she was inside, some of the ships network was allowing her access, eagerly poking around what she could find. There wasn't much, just standard databases, local weather conditions, general status of systems. She should have noticed she had connected, but a little exploring showed that many of her internal settings were on default. She corrected that, making sure her firewall and monitoring sub-processes were configured correctly. Her tail flicked back and forth as she worked, looking up just in time to see a glowing purple and blue blue heading right for her face! She gave an audible sound of discomfort as she reflexively tried to engage her overclocking, but nothing happened as it was one of so many systems in standby, leaving her running in real-time as the, whatever it was hit her in the face.

"Whaaaarrrmph?" she managed to get out, eyes crossed as she focused on the small creature wrapped around her muzzle.

"Twitch! Get off her face, you know better," said Argos in a stern tone.

"New toy, Master!" said a small, excited voice.

"No, shes an AnDragon, like Gellan," corrected Argos.

"New friend! Better!" said that same voice, a purple muzzle peering into one of Coell's eyes.

"Ahhhh" said Coell as she focused her eyes, automatically switching to macro vision while she accessed her HardLight sensors to get a better look at her own face. Each emitter could relay it's sensor input to her, giving her a 360-degree view of the world, and even herself if she needed. In an emergency she could turn them all on but it was taxing on her concentration and got overwhelming quickly, so she just created a virtual display of her face off in the corner of her vision as she examined the overly-excited creature using her face for a perch.

"Ohhhh... it's so pretty... what are you?" asked Coell, looking over what was clearly a small AnDragon. It looked more like Gellos than her, it's body segmented and made of discrete parts, but still giving the impression of something alive rather than machine. It's eyes glowed a friendly purple, large ear-fins giving it an expressive quality.

"I'm Twitch! I'm an AnDragonet model. I'm Master Argos's PDA. I'm a Personal Dragonet Assistant. I'm purple. I'm female. I'm running at 85% power levels. I'm excited! I'm made of exotic alloys." The AnDragonet rattled off it's status like a verbal machine gun, twin sets of Casimir wings fluttering over her back to keep her alighted lightly on Coell's nose.

"I see..." Coell managed to get in, and shook her head a bit as Twitch's tail tickled her chin.

"I'm a I'm a I'm a I'ma ima iiiiimmaa-" said the small dragoness before her wings flickered and vanished with a small crackle of energy, then she toppled off Coells nose.

Coell gasped, and managed to catch the small thing in her paw before it hit the ground. "Oh no! Is she ok? I didn't mean to shake her off. Did I hurt her?"

"She's fine, Coell. She's got some damage to her brains IO systems and tends to get overwhelmed, especially when given open ended questions or tasks. Her flight emitters are prone to overloading as well if she doesn't keep focused on them, so when she gets too excited, well, she kinda does that." He pointed, "See, she's fine."

Coell looked back down just in time to see Twitch right herself and then run up Coell's foreleg like it was some kind of tree. She eeped again and arched her back as the small AnDragonet began climbing all over her. "Gahhh, tickles!" she said with a giggle as she felt tiny paws gripping her synth-hide, roaming over her back, under a leg, hanging upside-down before continuing to explore and inspect.

"Dirty!" exclaimed Twitch before leaping off of Coell, wings snapping back into existence just in time to keep her from crashing into the floor before swooping between Argos's legs, dodging his tail and flying up behind his back to land on his shoulder. "Chirp!"

Coell giggled at the cute thing literally saying 'Chirp' before looking down at her self. She WAS dirty, covered in countless years of dust and from whatever had happened to her.

"She was my mentor. He found her in one of his early trips, and couldn't bear to sell her, knowing what would happen." He reached up and scritched the small AnDragonet under her chin, getting a chirring sound in response.

"What would happen if she was sold?" Coell brushed at one leg, but only manager to smear a dark stain more.

"Her brain's interface is damaged, and repairing physical damage to a QTGL brain is beyond anyones abilities. We can only guess at how they work on a physical level. She would just be used as salvage. Her body is in good condition, other than her wing emitters, so possibly have her CPU removed and replaced with a fully functional model who had a body that was beyond repair."

"They can... do that? Just kill one of us?" asked Coell, looking concerned.

"Oh, no! Not you. You're fully sentient, you can't be treated like that. But Twitch here, she's a lower level AI, on-par with a smart animal with language implants. Laws don't cover her like they protect you."

Coell gave a small huff, "Just because she's not as smart as me doesn't mean she doesn't have the right to exist! You can't just throw her away because she's damaged."

Argos looked a little hurt, "No, you can't. Which is why my mentor kept her, and why he gave her to me. I'd never do that."

Coell gulped and lowered her head slightly, "S...sorry. I just... it's just not RIGHT."

Argos took Coell's head into his hands, holding her by the backs of her jaws and lifting her head back up, "It's ok. I know this is all a lot to take in, and it has to be overwhelming. I won't let anything bad happen to you, okay?"

Coell gave a small nod, calming down as she looked into her owner's eyes. Whatever he wanted with her she would be bound to go along with due to her imprinting, but knowing he truly cared meant so much to her. "I guess I'm just having, the worst day of my life..." she said with a hint of a smile.

"And the best day?"

Coell blinked a bit as he spoke her next planned words, "Ah, yeah, because I don't remember any other day."

Argos chuckled, "You're not the first AnDragon I've dug up, and not the first time I've heard THAT joke. It's a good sign."

Coell flushed a bit in embarrassment at being so predictable, "Why?"

"A sense of humor is pretty much a guarantee that everything up here is working as it should," he said and tapped on the side of her head with a finger. "Even a bad joke is a great sign."

Coell huffed, "It wasn't THAT bad."

Argos set Twitch down on top of the console he had been working on earlier, then unzipped his jacket, shrugging out of it and beginning to disrobe.

Coell watched, her head tilted as her owner undressed. "Is it bedtime?" She knew it was still afternoon, but maybe biological dragons needed more sleep than she thought? She was pretty sure they didn't, but her memory was being unhelpful as normal.

"Bedtime? Of course not. I can't give you a proper washing down if I've got my good clothes on. Step inside, lets get you hooked up."

Coell nodded, "Oh, of course." She backed up into the maintenance bay, easily figuring out where to stand by the arrangements of hookups. Her eyes watched Argos undress until he wore nothing but a pair of tight fitting underwear, trying not to stare too much but finding his form rather pleasant. More than pleasant, and more than the imprinting could account for. Evidently having an appreciation for a hot male was yet another aspect her Creators had programmed into her. The thought made her blush and she once more fought down the blush that threatened to cover her facial emitters.

Argos stepped into the bay, a transparent door sliding down behind him to seal the two of them inside. He lowered her head with one hand, the other reaching up for the main horn interface harness, pulling it down and asking, "Please open your horn ports, Coell."

"Yes... um..." she said, ordering her horns to unlock and open, feeling vulnerable as her programming and full diagnostic ports were exposed, feeling the interface sliding and clicking into place. She groaned as the invasive, but somehow comforting feeling of the bay's diagnostics reached into her and began to read out details. It was mostly one-way, information on her status flowing in, with only the occasional command for more specific status coming down the downlink directly into her mind, bypassing her own controls and firewalls. She licked her lips and shivered as she got used to the familiar sensation, searching for a distraction and finding one. "Argos? Should I call you Sir like Gellan? Or Master like Twitch?"

Argos coughed a little as he secured the interface, making sure it had a good connection and was sealed properly. "Um. Well. You don't have to call me either, Gellan is my employee for this trip so he's just being polite, and Twitch was programmed with that language. Whatever feels comfortable?"

Coell repressed nodding her head as Argos worked on her interface, looking straight ahead but keeping track of Argos with her peripheral vision, seeing him as clearly as if she were looking right at him, sensing his nervousness and picking out the hint of a blush, magnified with a thermal vision overlay. "Ok... so nothing. Or Sir. Or Master," she said slowly as if she were deciding, watching his reaction. She noted a tiny droop in his shoulders at the option for nothing, a mildly interested reaction from Sir, and a clear increase in facial heat, and a 5.8% increase in the size of his underwear contents at 'Master'. "Ok, Master," she said with a smile, happy at her stealthy probing of her owner, her Master's wishes. The word had certain connotations, and she was unsure which ones triggered his reaction, but was sure she could puzzle them out in time with quiet, subtle questioning like she just pulled off. She tilted her head to look at him more directly with a knowing smile, then gulped as her face lit up in a deep blush. The display Argos was looking at had dozens of windows showing statistics on her mental and physical systems, and one of them was showing a copy of her visual data feed. Complete with markers highlighting the thermal monitoring of his face, and a bracket targeting his crotch overlayed with a best-guess 3D mesh of it's contents.

"Ahhh, how about that bath? I'm uhm I'm really dirty..." she said to try and distract him, then blushed even harder as the dual-meaning of that statement, forcing herself to look straight ahead and narrow her visual cone of view, deleting the targeting and monitoring overlays with a vicious mental command to her visual processors. Had he been looking at that window? Did he see?

"Lets get you fully hooked up first, Coell" said Argos, leaning into her new visual field with a very deliberate motion, and giving her a grin.

She pretended that WASN'T a clear sign that yes, he had been watching, and simply nodded, forcing her face to assume a more neutral color. "Yeah, sounds good, uhm, Master."

"Open up your spinal ports, please." Argos placed his hand on one of Coell's shoulders, pressing lightly as he looked over her wing emitters. The two long and sleek emitter ports were placed on either side of her spine, sitting above her shoulders and extending downward before merging back into her hide. They were placed far enough apart that an adult anthro could sit easily behind her neck, as most AnDragons were designed to accommodate riders for control or transportation. Thin lines glowed along the top of the ports where the wing membrane fields were emitted, extending down onto the hide all the way to the hindquarters, giving support along her entire body when the wings were powered up.

Coell moved as her owners hand commanded, crouching down a bit on her forelegs to allow easier access to her back. She sent the commands, knowing he could just order her body to do whatever he pleased with the unrestricted access he had through her horn debuggers. Her twin Casimir emitters shut down with an audible dwindling whine, the lines fading to dullness as they went from standby to fully offline, allowing the casing to click and whir as it unlocked and extended upward.

** WARNING: CASIMIR EMITTERS OFFLINE. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO DESCEND DROPS OVER 20 METERS. ACCESS REQUESTED TO INTERNAL PORTS. EXTERNAL OVERRIDE ENABLED. ACCESS GRANTED. ALL SYSTEMS ENGAGING MAINTENANCE MODE. EXTERNAL CONTROL REQUESTED. GRANTED. EXTERNAL PHYSICAL CONTROL PRIORITY SET TO 100. REROUTING LOCAL CONTROLS THROUGH DEBUGGING SAFETIES. REVERSE KINETIC RESTRICTIONS IN PLACE.**

Argos inspected the internals of the emitters, exposing not just the mechanics of her flight generators, but revealing a series of ports that could access all of her internal systems. He reached up and began tugging various cables down, hooking them in with satisfying mechanical noises and soft beeps as they connected and linked.

Coell felt each connection as it was made, giving the maintenance bay access to her core systems. Her insides lit up inside her mind as various systems were put into diagnostic and repair mode, making her feel strange as external commands began telling her own insides what to do, an odd, slightly unpleasant feeling of having something exploring inside her. She had returned her vision to normal, and was watching Argos as he worked, head turned enough to keep him in view, able to see him checking each connection before enabling the automated system. Her head dipped and and she groaned as one of the thick cables began to glow a familiar color, the soft orange of her HardLight emitters as it began to drain both her generator and the various emitters placed around her body. Her legs quivered as she felt the HardLight particles being sucked out of her body, making her feel weak and empty, the glow of her emitters fading to a dull opaque surface as they were fully emptied.

"Relax... it's all right," said Argos as he gave her had a caress.

Coell nodded with a soft gulp, knowing this was something she must have done before. Her former owners had taken good care of her, hadn't they? But she never had been shut down in a cave for centuries, or fought a war, so maybe this was the first time she had to undergo any serious work. Her eyes swiveled as she saw a large shape moving up the ramp, watching Gellan carrying in the crates and stowing them in one of the bays across the corridor, then heading back down to fetch more. She could see him stealing glances at her and Argos, guessing he was curious about her model. Both Argos and Gellan said she was unique, but she didn't feel special, she just felt like herself.

Coell's tail stiffened and she let out an "Oooooooooh" as sudden warmth flooded her HardLight generator, buried deep in her chest. She had used it to top off her HardLight emitters and capacitors but it THRUMMED with power now, making the previous sensations feel like mere idling and puttering.

"There we go, the ship's power plant is hooked directly to your internal systems now. How's that feel?"

"Oooooh feels gooooood," she said, and even though the power was only flowing to one component, she still felt hyper aware of her entire HardLight systems. Then her generator began to run at full power, both testing and recharging her systems. Her emitters began to glow and return to their normal yellow-orange color, and she could feel the main storage capacitors in her generator begin to fill too. Each emitter had a store of HardLight particles, used when she formed objects and recovered when shutting them down. More could be drawn from the main capacitor bank, but it took her internal generator time to make more if she lost them, especially if she was projecting and the generator needed to produce the shaping fields at the same time. Her body tingled as the fresh particles flowed through her, and she realized that what had been flushed out must have degraded over time, partially decayed. It felt so GOOD, so clean that she closed her eyes and let out a long, crooning sigh of pleasure.

"Mmmm... see? Much better. HardLight isn't like matter. It's far less stable. It will take a while to recharge fully even with access to the ships power. Once you're full we can fill an external storage cap for quick top-offs if needed."

Coell nodded, then thought, "Can't the ship charge my emitters directly? I can see a feed for that in the diagnostic data, but it's offline."

"The ship's HardLight is only vehicle grade. It's hard-coded to a few shapes, like the ramp, flight surfaces and shields. Very primitive compared to yours, although they can handle a lot more punishment. It can't make the exotic energies your systems need, and being a unique model, the few standard generators I have wouldn't match. It would be like trying to do a blood transfusion with an incompatible donor."

"I see," she said, slowly coming to terms with surviving the downfall of her civilization. Resources were scares apparently, if someone who specialized in her kind still only had a handful of tools available. "You have all these tools to fix AnDragons you find?"

"That's half of my job. The rest is traveling and working on AnDragons and other models your Creators made. They are all over, being so popular and also many of them having paid off their contracts by now. Anywhere I go there are always customs looking for original spare parts, or wanting refills of authentic consumables. Most worlds can make passable knock-offs of parts or fuels, but nothing can beat the real thing. None of it FEELS as good as the real thing, or so I'm told. Your body has a matter converter built in than can make a lot, but not all of what you need. Models like Gellan can only make essentials, and has to settle for off the shelf lubricants and fuels when he runs low.

Coell pondered this, then eeped as her tail hiked at the feel of fingers sliding under the base. She craned her head around as far as the cables attached to her horns would allow and saw Argos holding a pair of attached, curved suction-cup shaped devices on the end of a thick cable. As he lifted it up between her hindlegs, she felt the tickle of commands flowing from the attachment to her body and felt her sex automatically shifting from Stealth to Adult mode. Then he pressed it against her hide and she let out a deep, warbling groan. The cups suctioned themselves to her hide, cupping her sex and anus as lubricants and cleaning filled the surface between them, swirling and scrubbing as small pumps whined, matching the sound coming from her throat. "Ahhhh... nnnngh..." she managed as the cleaning heads began to press and enter her, activating her own internal lubricant systems as a cleaning and scanning probe began to slide in deeply. "Nnnnnnnnnf!"

Argos gave Coell's rump a soft petting, "Relax... and let me know if you think my calibrations need any adjustments."

Coell hufffffffed long and deep as a response, feeling the depths of her sex being cleaned and, unf, scrubbed. Much like her HardLight systems, the full cleaning cycle felt amazing compared to the emergency maintenance done in the cave. Her body squirmed and wriggled, and she let out a questioning "Ahhhhh?" as Argos made his way beck in front of her and slipped a finger into her lips, prying he rmouth open. His other hand held a similar device, a set of cables and tubed ending in a muzzle that she allowed him to slip over her face. It sealed with a soft hissing noise, and warm saline flooded her mouth and tongue. She closed her eyes at the sensation, having had an urge to spit and clean out her mouth ever since she woke up, but not wanting to be crude. Her systems had been producing more synthetic saliva to clean her mouth but it wasn't enough to fully wash out the years of collected gunk. The muzzle was hooked to her debugging ports as well, and she automatically swallowed when commanded, gulping down mouthfuls every few seconds. Moments later she felt more of the ports on her back powering up, accessing her matter processing systems directly, flushing and cleaning them as well, hooking into the various fluid circulatory systems used for her muscles and skin lubrication and beginning to circle through those as well, her entire body heating up in a pleasant warmth. It was all very overwhelming, a mix of comfort and invasion and sexual pleasure making her quiver and shake.

"I'm finished," said Gellan as he stood outside the bay, looking in at the trembling female, then blushing a bit and turning his head slightly, but not completely.

"Good, go ahead and hook yourself up, we have more diagnostics to run on that new leg of yours." Argos spoke without looking, his eyes on several displays now as he examined the readings from Coell's internal cleaning and refurb.

Gellan nodded and padded into the bay next to Coell's, placing his chrome leg next to a row of diagnostic cables and systems. With a thought he opened ports along his leg, watching the almost organic movements of the cables as they snaked out and clicked into place. A flood of requests began as the maintenance bay's main debugger began demanding access and he went through the list and allowed each one after making sure they were only accessing his leg and his HardLight systems. One couldn't be too careful about such things. The bay demanded direct access to his mind via his horn ports and he denied them as he always did. His leg was a much more advanced and capable model than his body had been designed to work with, the HardLight emitter far more powerful and complex. The initial install had gone well, but as proud as he was with the new leg it had never completely integrated and required care and attention when using it. It required an expert's touch to get it working to it's full potential, and he had high hopes Argos could do the job without needing to modify any of his critical, and private systems. Gellan felt the ship begin to collect data as he worked the leg, moving it this way and that, powering up the HardLight emitter and generating the bulk data Argos said was needed as he formed simple geometric shapes with the powerful emitter matrix. He could dimply sense Coell in the bay next to him, the two maintenance units connected and communicating, enough for him to be aware of her general status.

Curious, Gellan cocked his head to watch Coell get her deep cleaning, knowing exactly how it felt to have certain, areas flushed and washed. She was clearly enjoying it, her face was a mix of purple arousal and pink embarrassment and heat. He squirmed a bit as he watched her sleek, adorable and sexy body twitch from whatever was being done to her, and with alarm focused his attention back on his own body, feeling a stirring between his own hindlegs. He snorted and concentrated, shutting down the physical reaction to his arousal. Stay in stealth mode, dammit. Once again he cursed his Creators for linking things like that directly to his brain, forcing him to use some of his vast, but ultimately limited concentration to keep it at bay. Did they have to make him so realistic in THIS way in particular? Done ranting to himself he shrugged and continued split his attention between Coell's trembling form, and his own.

Coell squirmed in embarrassment as she caught the male watching her, wondering if he had to undergo cleanings like this too, and then pondering how Argos cleaned himself? That thought only made her squirm more. She almost sent a text ping to the other AnDragon she could feel through the debugging connection, but decided she would have to ask if he knew later, but her thoughts were cut off as sensations from both ends grabbed her attention. A tube slid from the muzzle into her throat, extending smoothly down into her stomach to begin a steady pumping, her throat slightly bulged as it worked. From behind another accessed her rear port, and soon her entire matter conversion systems were being flushed from front to back, adding yet another sensation to the long list of inputs she was dealing with. She didn't think she could possibly feel more, but then a large, deliberate presence began to slip into her mind. She could feel the diagnostic and debugging core built into the bay powering up and beginning to explore her mind, probing into the accessible areas, focusing on her Framework and classical computing compatible memory stores. Once again, it was a far more thorough cleaning than the emergency work Argos had done in the cave. The large computer here was far more capable, and began cleaning out bits of code left over from his wipe of the oppressive military system that had previous controlled and enslaved her. She whined into the muzzle, but then relaxed, sensing the familiar touches of her owner through the link. She could feel when it was running a standard routine, and when it was being altered by Argos as he monitored and guided the intimate probing and gentle adjustments.

Coell once more felt there was nothing else she could process, nothing more she could handle and was once more, proven wrong. A warm feeling washed over her neck, her eyes opening just enough to see Argos with a soft cloth beginning to wipe away the grime and grease and dirt. Her entire body shuddered in pleasure as he worked, feeling the caked dust of a thousand years washed away with the warm and caring caresses of her owner. Argos. Master Argos. She squirmed and leaned slightly into the scrubbing. Even as overwhelmed as she was, her core programming never let her forget her size and power, always careful not to step on or harm an organic. She couldn't vocalize, not with the constant flushing of her systems, but her emotional emitters along her face, and entire body were pulsating and glowing, speaking for her as loudly as a voice for anyone who could see.

Argos scrubbed down Coell, enjoying the work. It could all be automated of course, even the maintenance cables, crotch cups and muzzle would snake into place at a press of a button. But Coell needed a more, intimate touch, and he felt she would benefit from a more hands on cleaning, given her rough awakening. He smiled and murmered to her as he worked down her side, making sure to scrub and clean her rump and haunch, as she had been laying on this side and was extra dirty here. He absentmindedly reached down and adjusted himself, his underwear not quite fitting, but even he couldn't totally ignore the fact that yes, he was very turned on by all of this. Coell wasn't the first AnDragoness he had worked on, not by far, but she was absolutely something special. He had to be careful not to go too far, or she would have a hard time with the re-imprinting. On the other hand, ignoring her needs would be unhealthy too. He would have to walk a fine line.

Coell swayed back and forth as she was scrubbed literally from head to toe, feeling brand new inside and out, even some mental cobwebs were gone that she hadn't even noticed making the world seem sharper, her feelings just a touch more intense. The sensation of Argos tenderly wiping her face feeling like pure bliss to her as she stared into his eyes, a trembling mass of overloaded pleasure, and came hard. She bucked as much as she was able, a dozen tubes and cables connected to her from front to back, throat and sex convulsing as pleasure ran up and down her spine through laser-pulsed optical nerves. Her body trembled and glowed as she rode out the mind-blanking pleasure, as all consuming as any organic, doing more to flush away her troubles than any diagnostic could. It went on and on, as the machines working her body and circuitry didn't let up their work as she thrashed. Only after she was completely and totally spend did she shudder and slump. Panting through her nose, her head held in the comforting grip of her owner, she looked up at him lovingly, and trembled even more as she saw the look returned.

Argos watched her tenderly, feeling slightly guilty at tweaking her sensory inputs up just a tad more than were required, but those were just data levels, and he could tell even without access to her core mind that she was at heart a very sensual creature. Not even a full mind-wipe would have changed that, it was hard-coded into her when her brain was constructed, each one unique and different, built up from that core seed, wrapped in a personality and flavored with memories. The memories were gone, but the rest of her was still there, and he smiled happily at her.

Gellan watched both, eager to see what they did next.