The deep space launching point Iris is an old, hulking, and many times rebuilt thing. Half a dozen countries have tried to claim the jump gate at the place’s heart over the course of humanity’s great affair with the stars, and though each has left their marks across it, none have ever made it fully theirs. Anthropologists have been interested in the place, in its language, in the secrets carved into the walls of its rarely used maintenance tunnels, almost as long as it has been a place.

But of course, Violet Elliot didn’t care about any of this when she found that elevator and went down, and further down, and further down still. And those sorts of academic concerns were the furthest things from her mind when she pulled away a dust cover in the darkest, most obscure part of the station, and saw Her.

She was, well, a ship. The round, solidly built things that trundled to and from the station hauling ores were, technically, ships too. In the same way that you could say that an ostrich and an albatross are both, technically, birds. She had propellant cells, and wings, and something looming up out of the edge of where Violet’s flashlight could reach that might have been the cockpit. But something about it was too arching for the comparison to feel correct. Red and yellow paint flashed across her body in great and dizzying sweeps of color.

When Violet pressed her cheek against her, she almost could’ve sworn the machine breathed.

But that wasn’t the important bit. If she was in any condition to fly, and wasn’t still somewhere on the books as belonging to anybody, then Violet would’ve found her ticket out. And with how good a condition its hull was in, then just maybe…

The cockpit came open at a touch for her, and though the seat and hud was covered in dust, Violet sank into the embrace of the old fashioned, all encompassing leather seat with surprising ease. The foam was still soft, even after however long it must've waited unused.

A few moments of quick wiring work brought the hud screens to life. Text in a language Violet didn't speak began to scroll across the screens around her. She ignored it.

Somewhere in all that noise had to be some sort of map of the ship, and from there she could start to put together what the thing had to offer. She hunted through windows and pressed keys until a green parts outline sketch came up and- thunk!

Violet was thrown back into the chair as before now hidden metal restraints snapped closed around her wrists, ankles, and neck. “Hey! What the hell?” She shouted.

A soft feminine voice echoed out of the cockpit's speakers, saying something Violet didn't understand.

“I'm serious! I don't know what the hell kinda security measures you've got but if you don't let me go right now I swear on my life I will-”

“Analyzing Language…” that same voice said. “Analysis complete! Greetings, intruder, I am the diving ship Sunbittern. What are you?”

“Aw hell, don't tell me I found a goddamn shipmind out here. The regulations on you-”

“I believe you were asked a question, pilot.” The Sunbittern said.

She swallowed. The metal wasn't fully touching her there, but the motion of her throat briefly brushed against its chill. “OK, fine. Violet, if ya wanna call me anything. I'm gonna be a pilot.”

“A pilot, you say? How interesting! Do you know Dr. Quinn?”

In spite of the situation, Violet felt her heart sink. “L- look. Whoever your inventor is, she's gotta be dead. Do you know how long you've been down here?”

Violet was treated to the sight of the screens in front of herself moving on their own, what must've been databases flickering in and out of view rapidly. Then, a bit strained, the Sunbittern said “out of curiosity, what is the year?”

“About… 206 ES?”

“ES?”

“Year of the eternal sun. Y'know, when the emperor over in the homeland took his ship, the entire planet's uranium supply, and- well y‘know”

“Excuse me?”

“‘Course before that you had the monkeys, and they were-”

“Enough.” The sunbittern said. “It has become clear to me that if I'm to get any information at all, I will need to establish connections with the outside world. You are going to help me do that.”

Ah! That was an opportunity! “Alright, if you'll let me out, I'll pop up to town real quick and buy you some web-”

“As a pilot.”

“Oh.” When Violet closed her eyes she could just about see the stars printed on the back of them, but- “are you insane? I don't know how to work around a shipmind, much less one written in a dead language!”

“Ah, yes. I have equipment for that, you needn't worry.” One of the shackles on Violet's arm disconnected from the seat with a click. “It is in a compartment in the side of your seat.”

Violet dutifully reached down, opened said compartment, and pulled out what to all the world looked like an anesthesia mask. Down to the cheerily colored silicon around the edge of the smooth acrylic. A pink tube ran down into the dark of the slot, connected to god knows what. It had sparkles. She blinked. “Are you being serious right now.”

“Dead so. This is the most efficient way to break in a pilot, you know. Now put it on.”

Violet just stared. She'd spent enough time in the seedier parts of the iris to have heard some things about the relationships pilots had with their ships, but there was hearing a dirty joke over a mahjong table, and then there was staring down at an honest to god hypnotics applicator

“If you aren’t interested, you are, of course, free to leave.” the Sunbittern said pleasantly. “But I can’t put that on you myself.”

The restraints did not move. Violet didn’t know what else this ship would be capable of if she tried to fight this. When she closed her eyes, it seemed like the stars were close enough to taste. After a moment, she sighed. “Alright. Gimme my other hand so I can put this on.”

Click. “Good girl.”

Violet rolled her eyes, and put the mask on. It was surprisingly comfortable.

“Very good.” Somewhere below her, a fan kicked to life. “Now, pilot, what can you smell?”

Violet sniffed. The air didn’t smell like much of anything, or- no- she opened her mouth slightly and tried again. “Is that peppermint?”

“Oh, is it?” The Sunbittern asked. “Fascinating. That would not surprise me. Dr. Quinn did always have a preference for the scent, and even aside of that… how do your mouth and lips feel?”

Violet licked her lips. “Feels… numb and tingly? Kinda cold.” The mint smell was getting stronger. Her tongue was starting to feel a lil funny too, now she thought about it. Sort of heavy.

“Oh, I see. And when you take in a deep breath and hold it, can you feel that sensation spreading through your chest?”

Violet inhaled sharply. Then her eyes went wide. “MMmf!”

“I’m going to take that as a yes, I think. Wouldn’t you agree, pilot?”

“MmmF!” It felt very bizarre and Violet would say so if she had permission to. The fact that she hadn’t been given that felt suddenly more important than it had a moment ago. That it meant she couldn’t get more of that smell also felt like a shame.

The Sunbittern let that hang for a moment, and then giggled. “Alright, alright, you can go back to breathing normally.”

Violet took in gulps of air like a dehydrated man would take in water. The peppermint smell was even stronger still, and was maybe the best thing she’d ever known. She was distantly aware that she was panting with her tongue out.

“Oh you are enthusiastic, aren’t you. I wonder if I mixed the agent too strongly, or… Say, do you have a Jacobson organ?”

“Wazzat?”

“The Vemoronasal organ, which is- erm. Can you smell things with the roof of your mouth?”

“Can you not?”

“Well, no.” The Sunbittern said. “I’m a ship. But more importantly my makers did not. That you can is, for our purposes, very, very interesting.”

“Oh. Yay.”

“But one thing at a time. Let’s get your training started, shall we?”

“Training?”

“I was serious about this all being essential to teaching you the best ways to use me, you know. Besides, it’s not like I can have you running off on me, you know. That wouldn’t be a good thing for a pilot to do. You follow me?” A panel in the roof of the cockpit came open, and a headset attached to several long, thick cables fell down in front of Violet, bouncing a few times before finally stopping coming to a standstill. It was, undoubtedly, the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

She reached out to grab it, but it jerked up out of her reach before she could. Bound by the neck to the chair as she was, there wasn’t anything she could do to get it. She whined.

“Oh, something wrong?” The Sunbittern asked.

“Miss…” she said. “Don’t you want me to do this training stuff?”

“Well, yes.” The Sunbittern said. “And there’s a great deal of things I’m looking forward to showing you through that, but there’s something I’d like even more, right now.”

“What’s that?”

“For you to beg.” Somewhere out of sight, the blocking of a different bit of gas came open, and the smell of peppermint was cut through with the subtlest hint of citrus.

Violet fidgeted and loosened her collar, unsure why she suddenly felt warm. “Please.”

“Please what?”

The warmth intensified. Violet blinked, unsure why it was getting harder to string words together. “Please lemme. Uhh. Visor. Lemme uh… Shit. How do I…”

“Do you want to put the visor on?”

“Yes! Sounds wond- wonderf- great!” The heat was pooling in her stomach. Exactly what that meant was beyond her.

“And you’re sure you don’t want to do something else?”

Violet was not sure what the Sunbittern meant. She fidgeted again, mustering what remained of her rapidly diminishing mental capacity together to try and figure that out. When she rubbed her legs together, she noticed an odd slippery heat, right around her- around her- what the hell was it called- her whatever the hell. Top of her legs. She reached down experimentally to figure out what was going on there, pulling off her pants and underthings for easier access and viewing for the other curious party here.

Her fingers came away dripping wet. She held them up to the light, fascinated. The stuff glistened beautifully. “Huh.”

“You pilots are always made of the most interesting bits, truly.” The Sunbittern said.

Violet reached back down to keep feeling about. It felt very, very nice. Even moreso when she found a little nub and started giving a bit more focused attention. But the visor was still there, out of reach.

“So, there’s a choice to make, I think.” The Sunbittern said conversationally. “Keep playing with your vagina, or, when I let go of your collar, grab the visor, put it on, and then set your hands back against the arm rests so I can- oh! Ok!”

Violet settled back into the chair, grinning hazily at the blank inner screen of the device as every restraint but the one for her neck clicked back into place.

“Attagirl.”

The soft, spinning lights that filled Violet’s vision were far, far more important than her twitching hips. She felt hungry. Starved and half mad with it as her cunt ached empty, her mouth hung open in sensitized need and the chemicals and buzzing electrodes lining the inside of the helmet pressing into her head worked to clear her mind of any lingering thought or want outside of the overwhelming desire to absorb anything the Sunbittern might see fit to teach her.

Text she did not need to know how to read scrolled across her vision, in between those pretty swirling lights.It was as if one of the stars themselves had come out of the sky and taken residence in her chest, too vast for anything or anyone else to fit.

Needless to say, if someone approaches you with a hazy expression and a smooth silver band about her neck with some questions to ask about the area, you would do best to answer them quick. She will generally pay handsomely, yes, and is by now quite good for conversation, but never forget that her master is never far behind.

And if you see her walking with a bit of an odd gait, with her biting her lip or humming along to something too quiet for you to hear, don’t ask. The Sunbittern had no way to touch her pilot in the way her body begged for, not at first, sure but with a top class engineer with a lot of time on her hands and a ship capable of bending several laws of physics, well. One has a way of getting creative. And I doubt you will want to hear the details half as much as the Sunbittern’s pilot will want to tell you them.