"Hey princess?" My girlfriend asked while snuggled close. Hmm, that was definitely suspicious. Nora only used that tone when she was about to ask a deep think.

 

I nuzzled her as we lay in bed among the vines of our owner. Morning cuddles were great. "Yeah?"

 

"So when you get all needy and talking in third person… you like use it/its pronouns… did you want to go by those?" Yup, there my girlfriend went with the deep think.

 

"Uh… but I like she/her. I'm a good girl." I was a girl. Aster was a girl, and girls have she/her pronouns. I liked that. I figured it out years ago after way too many deep thinks.

 

Nora gave me a look like I said something really oblivious. "Aster, you know you can use more than one set of pronouns. You can't possibly not know that. You are definitely too queer to not know that."

 

 

"You are being a very silly little robot right now. Also, I know your vocal processor is working. Mistress told me so." My pinnate then poked me under the collar right in the vocals.

 

A vine patted me on the head. "Aster, do you like being my good little object?" Mistress's eyes found mine and started devouring me…

 

"…Sometimes."

 

"And is my good little object a she or an it?" The universe pried into my soul.

 

"…an it." My line of sight broke and my mind came back to me… Uh, okay. "But like I'm a good little object sometimes, but I'm a good girl most of the time."

 

Nora and Mistress pulled me tight and snug and then they did something super dorky. They spoke the same words at the same time. "Then you can be a she most of the time and an it sometimes."

 

I pouted. "Don't leave me out of the weird telepathy thing… I want to speak in sync with you both." Was I side stepping the whole issue? Yup.

 

"Mistress, I think it's feeling left out. Should we invite it to talk with us?" Gah!!! Nora the bully was never going away. My dreams of being free of the bullying by being Mistress's submissive little pet were dashed. At least, I got to be a pet. I loved being a pet.

 

"That's an excellent question my little maid. It does seem eager." Her eyes turned to me. "Oh hello little robot, would you like to be my little mouthpiece?" Mistress was a bully too. Jokes on her, I loved her and would do whatever she wanted. For all her scheming, she left one fatal flaw: I could just be an obedient submissive floret and honestly answer all of her questions. I, an aster, I was a genius. Good girls submit~

 

I chirped, "Yes please, Mistress. I want to be your little mouth piece."

 

Digitalis took control of my vocal components and spoke with three voices. "What a wonderful little object and an adoringly beautiful servant I possess. Both, so willing to be used by their Mistress." She then switched to only my mouth. "Aster, tell me your pronouns."

 

"She/her and it/its, Mistress." My thoughts trailed behind my words… Gah!!! I had new pronouns. What the actual dirt? Weird. It was weird. To think, if Mistress hadn't shown me how much I love being her little object I never would have known. All those years spent trying to be a person when I could have just been her good girl and good robot. Too many feels. I couldn't even tell which feels.

 

 

I nestled deeper into the vines pulling Nora down with me.

 

Mistress understood, she pulled me in and wrapped herself around my soon to be replaced body. "You're mine now, and that's all that matters my sweet beloved intelligent beautiful aster. You're my floret and always will be. Soon you'll be whole in body and then you'll finish your big project." Her words instilled a certainty in my heart. Every time she told me I was hers forever, it got etched deeper and deeper.

 

My project was mentioned and it placed an ask in my mind. Mistress gave me the go ahead to say it without either of us ever having spoken or messaged. The words came from my lips. "If you tried, could you do what I'm planning for my magnum opus?"

 

"Before I met you, no. But now that I've learned everything I've needed to teach you? Yes I can. But you already figured that out. Don't worry little one. You'll get to do it all on your own and I know you'll succeed." Mistress was too good and nice and perfect… and she gave it all to me every moment of every day. Bittersweet Subby Pet Feels indeed.

 

Nora cleared her throat. "Princess, can I please be allowed to know what this big thing you're planning is?" Yea, she still didn't know. I needed someone I could show off to during the big moment, and Mistress already knew. Digi left informing her to me. She gave me final say and my answer hadn't changed.

 

I mimicked my partner's smug smirk preset three. "Nope, you'll find out when you see me do it. Don't worry maid. You'll definitely be super impressed. Mistress said so." My pinnate's pouts were so good. I rarely got to tease them out of her, but this time I had her.

 

Unfortunately, morning cuddles didn't last forever. Fortunately, Mistress made every part of our days together great.

 

"Now, little ones, it's time to get up." Digitalis picked us both up as her form rewove and carried us off to the bathroom. Nora and I were stripped of our nightwear while our owner filled the tub.

 

Mistress carried our nude forms into the cozy warm water. The feeling of her vines on my bare skin while seeing my girlfriend naked was uh, gay. Gah!!!! Nora was gay, I was gay, even Mistress was gay. We were sooo gay and I loved it. Before them I couldn't say I was ever truly living, but now everything was great all the time forever. dlifjasdlkfjaslk

 

Us silly florets got into a splashing fight that ended with us pressing our soapy tits together while giving each other little kisses and bites all over. Just us playing the touching game in the shower like normal. All the while, Mistress delicately scrubbed us clean. Nora paused the make out when I started giggling too hard. "What's my silly princess giggling about now?"

 

"T-This is like gay s-sex isn't it?" It was hard to get the words out. It was just really silly now that I thought about it.

 

Nora started giggling back. "Yes, you silly useless lesbian, we are absolutely having gay sex. Now bite me." That only made me laugh harder. Stars, how did I never realize this was gay sex?

 

"Beep!" Nora pulled me in for round two. In another brief moment of clarity, I noticed Mistress was guiding all of my movements… Frost and fire, how did I never realize Mistress gesture trained me to sex my girlfriend? My mind didn't get a chance to think more on that as the love of my life kissed me with tongue and took all the thinkies away…

 

…

 

I was curled up in vines as a towel patted me dry. Mistress then guided me slowly upright so she could start drying my hair. Just a warm puddle of aster. I felt a phantom sensation of purring. Luckily the dysphoria was drowned out by class-A enhanced hair brushing.

 

With all the hygiene done we were carried out of the bathroom and to the dresser. Mistress dressed Nora in one of her frillier black and white maid outfits. My limbs moved to the rhythm of my owner's taps and she gently and delicately put on my hacker companion dress.

 

Nora and I got placed on the couch while Digi went off to make breakfast. We dove into VR after we secured our cuddling positions.

 

My real body felt sooo nice to be back in. My physical one wasn't awful, but I had to tolerate it for the time being. The weirdest part was that with the paws hidden, I looked exactly the same on the outside. The inside was another story. On the inside, I was an adorable little android that could like transform and stuff.

 

I swapped my VR outfit for extra goth princess dress floof. Gah, Floof!!! My inner good girl loved the big poofy dresses when I didn't have to worry about those pesky laws of physics. If sitting felt off I could just clip the dress through the chair. In here I was a sorceress, and a princess.

 

The maid finally took notice of her princess and broke away from cleaning. "Greetings milady." She gave me a flawless bow. Even with my android self I was far too clumsy to ever pull that off.

 

"Greetings maid." I flashed her a fang and watched her perfect stance falter by a momentary weakness of the legs. "It's time for my morning coffee."

 

My maid smiled back. "Your wish is my command milady." She loved it when I bossed her around, and I loved when she doted on me like a helpless princess. What a wonderful match of florets we were.

 

My pinnate carried me over to the sitting room and miraculously obtained a pitcher of hot coffee. Some techy shenanigans may have taken place. Nora never flaunted her tech skills, but even with her memories gone she still had the expertise of OCNI technical training. My girlfriend also had an advantage in the tech sorcery business too. She was malleable code after all.

 

Nora stood by my side and we got to play princess and her maid. Well, we didn't take this one as seriously as the other ones. More vibes than rules. As I sat there sipping my mug, I had a thought. "You know, I should be allowed to have an orbital cannon. Like a Mark V Super Magnetic Accelerator Cannon that can fire a 3,000-ton slug at 4% of light speed commonly equipped on Terran Cosmic Navy orbital defense platforms. Good girls deserve big cannons."

 

Nora coughed politely in a very eye roll but trying to maintain her maid role kinda way. "Princess, you know Miss Talis forbade you from having one in this simulation."

 

"Yeah, but I've been thinking over the wording. Like she didn't order me not to add one in otherwise I wouldn't be able to consider doing it. She said quote, I'm not leaving you the option for one. Her wording was like meant to leave me a loophole. I think she wants me to hack it in."

 

"Aster, that's the dorkiest thing I've ever heard… and you're right. Miss Talis is the kind of dork that'd set up that sort of game for you." Nora agreed with me! That meant I was totally right and should have a simulated orbital cannon to hold me over until I gained control of a real one.

 

My mind went to town on the puzzle and I quickly figured out the angle. It was the same as before. She was training me on how to break into an affini warship's weapon systems. My owner was the bestest owner ever. I bet none of the other affini would let me do this. For all their play security, there were systems that were definitely not okay to touch. Systems Digitalis taught me to break into.

 

The fun fact about the serious essential Compact tech was that if it was even possible to hack into, then you needed Compact tech to do it. They built good shit. Plus you needed mad skills, knowledge of their pretty wild networking protocols, and literacy in the affini dialect the system was designed with. All things Mistress had and was lovingly teaching me day after day. Digi was wonderful like that.

 

I had barely enough time to start making progress on the puzzle and sip some fake coffee before I had to reenter the physical realm.

 

 

She already had me sitting in my seat at the dining table. Mistress Digitalis could feed my body without me here, but I really really enjoyed meal time and she did too. Gah!!! It was pancakes today. Mistress was a master of both tech and flapjacks. I wondered if I'd be as skilled as her when I turned eight hundred and twenty one.

 

Every step of Digitalis feeding me was her showing off both how much she loved me and how much she controlled me. I couldn't eat anymore without her vines guiding me through every step. It felt good. I didn't even have to think about it. My mind instead just got stuck watching her while I thoughtlessly experienced delicious food. Mistress was so beautiful and lovely and amazing and perfect and gosh she made me feel so gay.

 

A vine massaged my throat and the food went down.

 

Mistress's eyes kept wandering away from me every little bit to look at something else. Something important. My eyes followed her vines and saw she was giving food to another… My owner was so kind and nice feeding both me and someone else. I loved Digi.

 

A tap had me open my mouth.

 

A little feeling guided my sight back up to staring at her face. Mistress made me feel so small and helpless. It was a good feeling because she was here. She was big, so I didn't have to be, and handled all the things I was too helpless to handle.

 

A hand patted me on the head, marking the end of the meal. "What a good girl~"

 

I was a good girl, the bestest cutest, most adorable girl ever… Nora was also really cute too. Almost as cute as me, except she made up the difference in being hot.

 

Digitalis cleaned up breakfast and carried us off to her tech lab. She got a pet bed for us to curl up near her. Not too close, but close enough I wouldn't get any separation anxiety.

 

She was super far along with her work, but there was no synth skin on anything so it all looked super roboty. There was plant tech sorta rooted through all the mechanical bits. As if the body had an implant of its own. Digitalis explained that since my implants current root system wouldn't bond right to tech, she was pre fabricating the roots. I'd still keep mine but only the central bit in my neck and everything in and around my brain. After all, some of those parts replaced my brain, and would keep doing so.

 

I curled up in Nora's lap on the pet bed and followed her back into VR. I kept going at the orbital cannon hack puzzle for a while. I really wanted it. Aster needs a big cannon. I just sort of lounged watching Nora clean up around me while Mistress gave us phantom pettings.

 

Then my pinnate showed up before me holding two tails. One a dog tail and the other a cat tail, each with a little techy connector. I did a little diagnostic and yeah I had a port for connecting tails. It was right above my butt. She then asked. "Kitten or puppy?"

 

"But Nora, we already did touchy stuff today. I wanna do hacker stuff." I hadn't been working on hacker stuff that long… a glance at the time dissuaded me of that notion. Mistress let me work through lunch.

 

"Hmm, that sounded like a bratty kitten more than an eager puppy." She made the dog tail vanish. "Look, it won't be sex, just play. Besides, you do hacker stuff all the time." Nora watched my expression. Play did sound nice especially considering it was fun hypno stuff.

 

 

"Little kitty come out and play~"

 

I hopped off the chair and landed on my paws. I strutted up to her and nuzzled her leg with a pur before she had me turn around. Then something slid into the wrong port. I turned and hissed, swatting her with a paw.

 

What a mean bully girlfriend. Nora was holding in laughter behind her grin. "Sorry kitten, but they are so close I get mixed up sometimes."

 

I pouted.

 

"Well if the good little kitty comes over here. I'll plug it into the right port." Her and her sweet promises. She was scheming something…

 

I huffed and then hesitantly crept forward. She held out her hand and I sniffed it before I rubbed my head against it. Nora pet me until she moved to gain access to my actual tail port and plugged it in. I gave a little moan as all the sensations came online. "Miaow~"

 

My maid stopped petting me. "Kitten look." She pointed, but I just stared at her finger. Then she moved her foot and I looked down to spot a little red prey. I pounced it, turning my paws up to find nothing. Looking around it had somehow escaped me. Again and again I pounced on it, never catching the red dot.

 

The red spot finally held still and I crept closer, and closer. My toe beans didn't make a sound as I crossed the smooth floor of the manor. I pounced and bit the dot to hold it in my fangs. It squirmed beneath me as I held tight. This was my prey and I caught it all by myself. My chest squished against soft ruffles and there were moans from beneath me as my prey succumbed to my expert hunt.

 

It stopped moving and I let go to bap it to make sure it was dead. The dot moved and I bit again. The critter squirmed and gasped. It tasted so familiar. This was definitely kitten's favorite prey.

 

Once more I checked by bapping it and the prey didn't move. It was soft and warm, and I was very tired from all the hunting. So I plopped down and curled up on top of it. Little purrs of contentment rumbled from my body.

 

A finger poked me. "Kitty get off of me." I flicked my tail to swat the noise away. Kitten was napping. "Ah, this is my life now, to be trapped by a kitten." The annoying sound wouldn't stop so I opened my eyes and placed a paw over the source. A hand came up and scritched under my chin eliciting very loud purrs from me.

 

"Aww who's my happy kitten?"

 

"Miaow~"

 

The maid's expression changed. "Okay Mistress. Aster, it's time to come back princess~"

 

"… Nora, did you really mentally turn me into a cat just to get bities?" I was also nude and laying on her torso, but that wasn't that big of a deal. She'd seen me shirtless, and we held each other close all the time.

 

"Maybe… I mean it's also fun to watch you chase a laser pointer like a cat. Anyway, are you going to get off me princess? Mistress wanted you." Nora the bite kink dork. She hadn't tried to teleport out from under me so clearly she was enjoying this.

 

I bapped her in the face with a paw. "I mean the kitten in me is saying no, but Mistress…"

 

 

I shifted my VR form out of cat mode to have a moment of mental adjustment before diving back into the realm of the physical.

 

As I came out of VR, I woke up outside of the cat bed… Mistress was right in front of me with a big smile. I wasn't wearing my glasses, but could see fine. I then realized I was on the workbench and my other body was down curled up in the pet bed on the floor… My synth skin covered hands flexed and felt so so right.

 

"Mistress?" There was an odd digital tinge to my voice, altered just enough to sound synthesized. I loved it. "Mistress!"

 

Digitalis smiled back at me. "My beloved little aster, I'm finished." Gah!!! My new body was finished! I was going to get my new robot body in the physical world. I shifted my limbs and watched them reshape into the upper furred paws and lower mecha paws. "Now, don't get up and move just yet. You're hooked up to another device so I could stream your little mind into here."

 

Oh, yup, that made sense. I mean, I was still adorably curled up in Nora's lap right over there. I waved my big silly paws. "Hey Nora!"

 

"Hey princess!" She waved back. "I love the pink heart eyes you've got going on. You're so cute it hurts."

 

I ran a diagnostic and yup, my pupils were big pink hearts… I had no control over my eye displays. Mistress seemed to have locked them to reflect my mental state. "Do I still get to wear my glasses?"

 

Before the words finished leaving my mouth Digitalis was already reaching down to pluck my glasses off my face. She slipped them on my android body and my eyesight deteriorated before my glasses adjusted to immediately compensate. "You do."

 

"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Mistress, thank you so much for all of this and everything. I'm so glad you're my owner. I love you lots and forever!!! Can I pretty please have a hug? I really really want to hug you Mistress. Please please please?" I didn't even need to check to know my eyes were still definitely hearts.

 

Digitalis, my owner, responded by gently reaching down and pulling me into a hug. I felt a slight tug of cords connected to the back of my head, but I mostly drowned in the loving embrace of my affini.  My Mistress who was the smartest most scheming of all affini, and perhaps a little bit evil in a very gay way. Her scent, her texture, her warmth, and her rhythm surrounded me and filled my senses with her.

 

She pulled away but left a few vines holding me. "Now remember my little robot. Your central processing unit still needs to be taken out of your other body."

 

My eyes glanced at my sleep self. "What's going to happen to it?"

 

"Little one, do you care what happens to it?"

 

I thought about it for a bit… "Uh, not really. I lived in it for so long, but it's not me and it never fully felt like me. Not like this." I shifted my paws back to hands and flexed my fingers.

 

"Don't worry about what will happen to it anymore. I'll handle it." Mistress made the thought go away. My mind obeyed her orders over itself. "It's also important to remember, little one, you can change and grow. Parts can be replaced as can your entire body. If you don't like this body next week, I will replace it. And the one after that and so on. Your pinnate is on her fourth body I've made and I would gladly make you both a thousand more to see you both smile."

 

"Yes Mistress, I'll remember!" I got a tiny vine hug.

 

"Good girl. All my diagnostic tests are done, and now I'll need to disconnect you so I can prep this for your surgery. You can go play in VR again until dinner's ready."

 

I went back into VR to find myself still laying on Nora's body. I glanced down at her grinning. "Nora, you're really silly."

 

"Takes one to know one, princess."

 

"You're also really gay."

 

"Takes one to know one, you beautiful silly gay princess."

 

"…You just want more love bites."

 

"My very beautiful lovely vampire robot girlfriend does give wonderful love bites." Her expression was screaming bite me.

 

I started giggling. "Fine I'll bite you lots, but you'll have to help me get the orbital cannon into the simulation and then let me blow up the manor with it."

 

The slut pulled her dress's collar out. "Deal. Now bities."

 

"Bities~"

 

---

 

"Aster, why in the stars was getting that cannon into this simulation that hard?" Whined the maid. She didn't appreciate a good networking puzzle the same way I did. Nora barely messed around with the play security at all.

 

I smiled. "You'll see. But for now I want to control a weapon of mass destruction and have harmless fun with it!" I mean I never dreamed I'd get to fire the main weapon of one of these, let alone straight downwards at a planet. They never built these things to aim planetside but wow, the math was saying it'd hit like an asteroid.

 

"Harmless…"

 

"The manor will be reset right after. It's going to be super cool." I looked up at Mistress who was holding us. We were in the simulation but moved out of range of the weapons kill zone… except the simulation wasn't that big. Mistress had to do a lot of tweaks to the simulation speed, the distant model rendering and a bunch of stuff that I had no experience in. All done in the name of making it fun to watch.

 

Digitalis ruffled my hair. "It's all set up, little one. Remember your surgery is soon so don't wait too long to fire your cute little weapon."

 

"Yes Mistress." I almost forgot that was in a few hours! Gah!!! I lied, I haven't stopped thinking about it. Excitement had to be channeled into something and it was big explosion cannon!

 

I input that same password into the simulated terran space station and easily shredded its network security until I had root access to everything. I used my supercomputer to do it and it really went to show how pathetic terran tech was. It was sad. To think the navy actually believed there was a fighting chance. Stars, there were rebels hiding around terran space who still thought they stood a chance. That was actually kinda sad… those poor little terrans who could be in loving vines like Mistress's.

 

Anyway, excitement! Orbital cannons! Explosions! Gah!!!

 

"Three!"

 

"Two!"

 

"One!"

 

In the blink of an eye a twenty mile radius was gone in a flash of light that had to be filtered just to not blind us in VR. We were far enough off the planet's surface to watch the explosion expand. It kept swallowing up everything in its path. This is what the navy did to the Rinans. This was why the cannons never pointed down. And even with all that, it wouldn't even scratch the hull of an affini shuttle. It might barely scratch our hab unit.

 

My mind got stuck on the thought of people actually dying. On what these weapons were meant to do…

 

Vines coiled around me. "Shhh, it's okay. No one got hurt. No one will ever get hurt from one of these again." Mistress hugged me tight. The implant flooded me with warmth. "Little aster, you couldn't harm another creature if you tried. Your implant makes you incapable of even conceiving of such. This was harmless fun watching a big explosion, something you very much enjoy. Enjoy this."

 

No one got hurt. No one can get hurt. The affini won't let anyone get hurt. I can't hurt anyone. Mistress made sure of that. I looked back at the big explosion and it was really big and cool. I did that. I made the thing happen with a big orbital space cannon like I used to have access to.

 

A moment later, we were back in the giant halls of the manor. A place more than big enough for Mistress. She removed the cannon from the simulation along with all the additions made so we could watch the explosion.

 

Nora landed on her feet as she hurried over to tidy something else that was in need of cleaning. I looked at the code. The manor was getting dirty over time, and stuff would mysteriously become crooked or what not. It was Mistress. I never saw her do it, but she was doing it. She made the place just dirty enough that my pinnate would always have something new to do. It was one of Nora's stranger quirks, but it made her happy. The maid deserved to be happy and fulfilled.

 

I was carried by Mistress to the gardens and she pet me a bunch while I just relaxed. Held and owned by Digitalis. The same pesky hacker who sent me cutesy messages what felt like a lifetime ago. The one who relentlessly flirted with me and somehow I flirted back without even meaning to. I loved her. I gave her a love bite.

 

"I love you too, my little pet." My owner tapped the dangly bit of my collar. "Good girl~"

 

By the time I recovered from her words, I was being put back into my old body for the last time.

 

On one of the two surgery tables was my body. My vet greeted me. "We meet again, little one."

 

"Hi Glebionis!"

 

The affini of small yellow flowers had a pleasant smile on. "Is this the same little independent sophont I met last time?" Gahhh!!!! He remembered my silly ramblings. I acted so ridiculous back then.

 

"N-No! I'm a good floret! I-It even like says it on my name tag." I glanced down at it so I could point. "See! Second Floret."

 

His hand patted my head. "I'm just teasing you little one." I pouted at the bully. Why did everyone enjoy bullying me? They should bully people who aren't me. Like Nora. My girlfriend could definitely use someone teasing her… I should get better at teasing her.

 

Mistress chimed in. "My little robot, are you ready to be in your new body?"

 

"Yes Mistress!!!" I immediately responded.

 

---

 

A number of prompts and warning messages popped up in my vision. A moment later, they all vanished to be replaced by a single message.

 

My eyes opened. "Beep!"

 

"Boop." Two voices called back. They were there with me. Digitalis and Nora. Two sophonts who held me in a loving hug.

 

There was no weakness or tiredness in my body because I was a robot. Robots don't get sore achy muscles. My hand raised in front of my eyes. It looked the same and it felt different. I'd felt it in VR but there was always that sense telling me everything was data. The artificiality of the simulation was not something I could be fooled by thanks to my tech sorcery. This, this was real.

 

My right arm shifted into its paw form. My partners released my left hand to poke my right paw. It was real. This was real. I glanced at Nora and then smushed my big paw into her face. "Boop."

 

Then the feeling came. My attention turned to Mistress at her whim. "How is my little bot doing?"

 

 

"Happy!" I chirped from my digitally tinged voice. Gah!!! I sounded so good. I felt so good. Every little bit of me was in place. My diagnostics showed everything was online and functioning. Unit 427-3R was performing optimally.

 

Nora finally displaced my paw, freeing her face. "Hey silly beautiful princess. I love you."

 

 

Mistress's loving vines picked me up like the little object I was and carried me to the big mirror in the bathroom. I was set down in front of it. The same busty woman with her silly huge boobs, and glowing blue vampire eyes behind black glasses stared back. Loving vines held her knee length black hair so it didn't get tangled up when she moved. Those same glowing tattoos radiated down from her neck to her torso and limbs. A single paw with black fluff and cute toe beans raised and squished the side of her face displacing her glasses. Lastly, girlfriend-biting fangs flashed from her stupid big silly smile.

 

I shifted all my limbs to paw mode and fell to all fours. My big thick collar with a bit of neck room was in its rightful place proudly declaring to the world that I was Aster Lutea, Second Floret.

 

Beneath its flawless artificial skin were rotors, servos, wires, and power core that could run a terran ship for decades. I was a robot, an android. Digitalis's little machine that could reasonably pass as a terran unless one looked deeper than a first glance, or interacted with me at all.

 

My eyes looked up at Mistress towering over me and my irises turned to big glowing pink hearts on black. Stars, she was beautiful! Her pink-purple short spiky "hair" style of petals was so gay, as was her big poofy dress of giant floor-dusting flower petals in the same color. Her exposed vines woven tight while those hidden by her flower petals remained loose.

 

Her hypnotic eyes drew me in and I didn't even register my own eyes turn into little black and white swirls with hearts at the center. Digitalis… pretty…

Ding-Dong. "Hey cuties~! You have a visitor!"

 

I accessed the door and let her in. My hand waved furiously as Cyathea came to visit. It had been months since I saw her. Mistress set me down from her lap and I bounded over to her. As I lost my footing she caught me.

 

"It's good to see you too, flower." Cyathea said as she picked me up. "How have you been?"

 

"Gah!!! Amazing! I get to play with Mistress, and Nora a lot. I get to do fun hacker stuff. Nora and I do fun kinky stuff. Mistress also joins us for it sometimes. Also, I'm a robot! Watch this!" I shifted my arms into paws and then pressed the toe beans against her. "Robot paws! Beep! I'm the cutest, most amazing floret ever!"

 

Cyathea, my old case worker, looked so happy with me with her gold and purple eyes. "You certainly are little flower. I always knew you'd bloom beautifully into a lovely floret."

 

My cheeks got a bit warm. "T-Thanks… and uh thanks for never giving up on me even when I was being really silly. You were the best case worker ever and I'm super happy that you were the one who showed up for my wellness check. Thank you."

 

"Little one, you've already thanked me many times before… But you are so very welcome. I too am glad I got to meet you too. Like a lot of little sophonts, you just needed a little extra care and I'm glad you found that with Digitalis. Not that I ever doubted you'd be hers."

 

"Wait what?"

 

The beautiful lady of wonderful ferns looked to my Mistress. "Did you tell her about your notice of claim?" Mistress shook her head with a sinister affini smile. Cyathea looked down on me. "Well little one, before we met, your owner filed a form so that if you ever sought domestication you'd end up as hers unless you specifically chose someone else. It was filed the fourth day after we arrived and that was three days before we met."

 

"I was always going to be Mistress's?" I glanced back at my owner.

 

A hint of thorn showed from her smile. "You were always going to be mine, my adorable little aster."

 

Nora giggled. "Princess, it's in your public record. You could have looked at it at any time."

 

My head tilted in a confused manner, before I accessed my public Compact record… Oh, Oh wow. It was all in here. My species being robot, my name as Aster Lutea, Second Floret, my status as a pinnate to Nora, records of every wellness check from Cyathea, the notice that Digi made a claim towards me, my pronouns, my address, my status as property of Mistress, my prior work history, my prior addresses, my [not for little asters], both copies of my floret documents, links to slightly less public records like my browsing history and medical records I could request access to… It had soo much.

 

"Huh, I never looked at that before." I rolled it around in my thinking space. "Yea, my only interaction with the bureaucracy was like, when I hacked the Office of beep beep beep…" That was weird. "beep?"

 

 

Cyathea was staring down at me suspiciously. "What did you hack, little one?"

 

"beep!"

 

My former case worker looked up at my owner. "What have you been letting her do?"

 

"From working with my little one before you should know about the network layer that she loves to play with in an authorized fashion." Digitalis flawlessly deflected… Or not.

 

"I saw the incident with the Planetary Office of Transportation, Digitalis. What are you letting her get up to?"

 

Mistress was the epitome of calm and peaceful… except I could feel she wasn't. Mistress was acting calm. "I am providing her harmless enrichment that has helped her bloom so beautifully as you put it. As I filled out in the Planetary Office of Transportation notice of unauthorized access, there was never an intent to alter the system. It was merely a game for her to gain access to. Her implant has been set, in accordance with the judgment by the investigative committee, to prevent her from altering or interfering with any system or record beyond gaining access for play."

 

They stared at each other for a very long while. I nuzzled my case worker and she broke the stare to give me pets. I started purring in her lap as she sat across from my owner. They both switched to talking in affini. Mistress forbade me from using my translator app. Nora was sitting in Mistress lap and we kept poking each other digitally the whole time.

 

"sdkljflkgjlakgjlakgjrlasgkjl Nora!!!" My cheeks had been designed to blush even more intensely than my old ones. My pinnate was getting too saucy for lap sits. Especially this lap.

 

The fiendish maid grinned. "Is something wrong princess?"

 

"Beep!" She did it again.

 

 

My pinnate toned it down, but we still kept poking each other. Digi and Thea finished up their private discussion too.

 

My eyes were shut and I was purring in Cyathea's lap when I heard a squeaky noise. I looked up and saw the thing! It was tossed with the word "fetch" and every servo in my body immediately leapt into action as I landed on the floor with four paws. I dashed after it far more stable on my big bappy paws than on tiny hands and feet.

 

I proudly came back and dropped it at Cyathea's heel. "Aww, you are such a cute little pet."

 

"Woof!" I wiggled a little before she threw it again. I managed to obtain the thing three more times before play time ended.

 

"It was good seeing you again, petal, but I have to go do my nightly check in with my current case." The fern lady said as she got up.

 

I grinned, "Going to remind them to Eat, drink, take meds, brush teeth, and everything?"

 

Cyathea smiled back, "Well she refuses to let an owner do it for her… For now." Gah!!! She got me giggling like a mad woman. Stars, another one like me.

 

Nora piped up. "Do all of the people you care for end up domesticated?"

 

"Almost all. Little sophonts who have trouble taking care of themselves enough to warrant a wellness check tend to be the kind in need of an owner. But some find themselves in a temporarily bad place and flourish on their own after some personal care. It was lovely seeing you all again, especially you Aster." She made her way out to save another floret to be.

 

Mistress ran a hand through my hair. "Now little one, it's time for some more networking lessons." There was something a tiny bit off about her tone. It was less eager and more… aster is a good little robot, aster wants to learn from Mistress~ I was going to learn more stuff from Mistress!

 

"Beep!"

 

A vine tapped me on the nose. "Boop."

 

A few more keystrokes and… "Done!!!!!!!!!" A maniacal cackling laughter of the greatest most adorable hacker ever filled the room. Every digitally distorted cackle flowed to the rhythm of the hab unit's lone affini. I, Aster Lutea, Second Floret, had done it. Before me lay the controls to the Acalypha’s weapon systems.

 

Upon finishing my laugh, I immediately turned to Nora who had been patiently waiting for the past five hours for me to finish. We were both on Mistress's lap in front of my super computer. It wasn't necessary at all, but how could I do my biggest hacker moment ever and not sit at a desk with a clacky keyboard to press buttons of. Tech sorcery was great but this was about the vibes.

 

Nora was finally allowed to know what the stars I just did, and I was waiting for her mind to catch up with what was displayed on my monitors. "Aster… Fuck. You didn't just… Mistress, did she just?"

 

"Gain access to the main weapon systems of the Acalypha currently sitting in geostationary orbit? Yes, my little hacker did just do that." A hand patted my head as I watched her back me out of the weapon system. I had done it and that was what mattered. I could sense Digitalis cleaning up my loose ends.

 

My girlfriend had one question. "How?"

 

The biggest, most excited smile stretched across my face. Gah!!! Words!!! "So basically, the two big things were gaining a connection to the system and the correct privileges. For system access, I had practiced on every system node in the city for months before we even met, but that was play security. I needed access to the backend too. Mistress showed me the tools she uses for working as a system admin. It turns out there are still vulnerabilities in the admin level layer. Just ones that no terran could ever hope to exploit. But I'm a robot, and can do robot stuff like memorize twelve separate affini technical manuals, the languages they were written in, and access and manipulate large quantities of data in my head. Also, a fun little thing about affini systems is that they use biorhythms as part of authentication and guess who has an affini admin’s biorhythm! Me! That worked for a lot of the ground networking up to the communication relay to the ship. If you remember my first trip into VR, I got my first taste of the Acalypha's public communication network doing that. Which was a little harder to crack but I got a few affini bee-drones. The kind they use to access and disable air gapped systems. The tiny things can sneak in and tap into all sorts of stuff. They attached themselves to a few systems including the physical weapon system itself. Next came the access codes. First I needed the actual long form encryption key style code but also the affini technician's biorhythm that the codes belong to. The bee-drones can mimic them but I needed a large number of samples. Luckily software for authenticating based on the biorhythm stuff is kinda common. Basically I stalked this affini Cycas Fugax, Seventh Bloom around the ship and recorded every sound and motion it made. One of the bees was used to keylog its access codes, and I compiled all the samples into a custom built analyzer by another affini who had no idea why I was asking for this. I lied and said it was because I wanted to like analyze my Mistress's rhythm because I loved it so much… uh I do actually… okay I wasn't lying I was more just also using it for sneaky hacker stuff. Turns out that software needed a beefy supercomputer to handle which was why I needed server runtime to help my computer finish the analysis yesterday. You know when you kept complaining you weren't able to run at your normal overclock. Anyway, I had both used the bee though my network tunnel and input the access codes and biorhythm signature and bam. Now the extra hard part was the fact that Mistress isn't the only system admin. I actually had to impersonate Mistress like two hours ago when one was like getting suspicious. I actually spent two days learning how to impersonate her and have an entire library of excuses we came up with for the network traffic. So that's the hack but obviously erasing the access records and removing the bee drones is super important to cover this all up which Mistress is currently doing right now! Actually our plan to get the mecha-bee-drones out involved me befriending a floret who is going to put the drones into a package to send back down to us. She's really cute, I think I may have done that like flirting stuff with her. But we're not like a thing but anyway… Yup I did it. Also in a week the access codes will have been rotated so the codes won't work, but the biorhythm sample will!"

 

Gosh, I was glad my vocalization wasn't dependent on breathing thanks to my robot body. I did that all in one go. I had done a good and my pinnate was at a loss for words.

 

I smirked. "You can give me praise now."

 

"Aster, you ridiculous silly beautiful intelligent hacker vampire princess robot pet, wow…" And then Nora pulled me in for a big kiss that sucked the big thinks out of my head. She pulled back. "You are so silly, you little dork. Why in the stars would you hack an affini warship's weapons?"

 

"Uh… Well, originally I wanted like control over stuff. It made me feel like powerful and capable and not worthless. The affini took away the one I had and I latched on to the idea of a new one… Then I met Mistress and realized uh, I didn't want control, I wanted to feel safe and secure and having a big orbital cannon under my control let me feel safe and stuff. But now Mistress makes me feel safe all the time. At some point it was less to feel safe and more, just to prove I could. I don't want to control a weapon. It scares me, and I think that's like partially the implant making me feel that way. I'm just a little pet and I shouldn't have weapons but I should have fun, and doing that was sooo fun." I thought a lot about that leading up to this, and Mistress helped me sort out my thoughts too. Little asters didn't want weapons, she wanted to do fun things while loved, safe, and controlled.

 

I gave a little pout and glared at Digitalis and Nora. "Now give me praise and head pats and good girls and stuff. I just did a big thing…" I saw the look in Mistress's eyes and for a second I was about to beg, but the look changed.

 

"My little aster, Your Mistress is very very proud of what a wonderful smart good girl you are, and is very impressed at your big accomplishment. Such a good little machine perfectly performing its task deserves a very special reward." Her vines started coiling around me. "Nora, what do we say to good little asters?"

 

Nora leaned in to whisper into my ear. "Good Girl~" And she bit my neck… with fangs?! dfjkashflkjhaslfaslfjkasdhflsakj

 

While I was moaning from the love bite, Mistress bent low next to my other ear. "What a good little toy~ Unit 427-3R run Mistress's Gift, argument one: good little toy, argument two: three days." With her thorny maw she love bit the other side of my neck and shoulder.

 

A slurry of gasps and moans came from my heart-eyed body as I fell into a mindless loop of I'm a very good little toy~ and mind shattering pleasure. A little love bot, left helpless to be cared for by a wonderful loving owner, and an amazing loving girlfriend. Everything was perfect, and always would be.