In a new, yet familiar way.

Slowly coming to his senses, Elias started noticing something weird. His brain quickly took stock of what just happened, a short detour that happened to technically be a financial loss landed him a quite priceless asset. One whose (very reasonable) weight and (very comfortable) warmth was no longer on him. What he could feel that was something wet and warm enveloping his morning wood.

Squinting, he took a discreet peek. Clara was kneeling next to the bed and giving him a nice morning blowjob. She was still naked and it seemed like her hair was wet, she probably found the showers. The ration bars he had set on the table were gone, with only the wrappers left.

Warning: main reactor off-line
Warning: water filtration cartridge expired
Warning: atmospheric control operating at less than 25%
Warning: thrusters 1, 3, 5 and 7 off-line
Warning: hyperfuel levels below safety limits

At about the same exact moment, he reached an orgasm and as the alarm made Clara jump back she received his load on her face.

Some laughter, a shared shower (that put the water filtration and heating unit to its limits) and some explanation about the ship's issues later, the two of them were sitting together around the table of the common space of the small corvette being used as crew quarters and bridge for the freighter.

"So, we are flying in an antique piece of junk and collecting enough of whatever valuables we find to pay the mob? Part of it is familiar. What's our next gig, Captain?" she pointed, adding the last part in her best sailor impersonation, the serious of which was slightly dampened by her tits on full display over the table.

"Well, there's a patch that is promising for beryllium crystals, we are heading there. But first we are going to need to find you some clothes. Because as nice it is to look at you like that, I don't think much will be achieved with you running around in the buff."

"Really?"

"You are beautiful and beautiful naked ladies tend to be quite distracting."

"Fair enough."

Due to their differences in sizes and measurements, the final outfit consisting of a tank top offering ample cleavage and side boob access, a pair of stretchy boxers that perfectly huged her ass and some rubber soled socks for safety and grip purposes was barely less distracting than having her naked, but at least it she was somewhat covered.

On the last stretch of the run to the asteroid, Elias gave Clara a tour of the ship, mainly to show her the dangerous areas she shouldn't go into and the things she shouldn't touch.

One of large cargo pods of the freighter had been transformed, it now contained a large airlock allowing some very small vehicles to land and take off, a small workshop with tools, a refining module and a small manufacturing module allowing for the production or repair of very simple parts. This is where Elias said goodbye to Clara as he got on some modified hover bike, wearing a spacesuit.

The bike was designed to fly around in the towering, tentacular megacities of more developed worlds where gangs of speed junkies use them to race between the titanic skyscrapers. Like most of what he owned, Elias got it cheap from a scrap dealer because it was completely crashed. He had fixed what could be fixed, added some extra power and life support, and finally welded a bunch of tools on the nose of it. Laser drills, plasma cutters, concussion charges throwers and a deep-penetration molecular auspex were the tools of his trade, be it to find gems and precious ores while prospecting or valuable components to salvage on derelict ships and crash sites.

A concussion charge and some fidgeting with the moded repulsors of the bike, Elias was sifting through the debris floating around his bike. Using both repulsors and a grav module at once on different strength stopped the rocks fragments from hitting him while preventing them from floating away.

The good news, the beryllium detected at long range wasn't some low concentration ore that would be a pain to refine, but some nice green crystals packed with the good stuff. The bad news, the localized high concentration tricked the scanner and made him overevaluate the wealth of the vein. He'd be lucky to get 50kg of crystals from this asteroid and the rest of the field was hopelessly poor, only packed with ores of such low value that trying to exploit them with anything else than industrial grade equipment for mass extraction and refining was a sure way to lose money on it.

"Captain, the ship is telling me that we received a message but doesn't let me know what it is. I had to argue for 20 minutes with it before it let me contact you!" he could hear through the link in his helmet. Clara seemed pissed and he couldn't blame her, the AI was obtuse at its best and really aggravating most of the time. It would have been one of the first things to go, if the freighter hadn't been build in such a way that to use another AI he'd have to change a bunch of hardware in a lot of systems. The ship was an antique, running obsolete systems on forgotten software and the AI that had been designed to run it was the only one he encountered that could possibly operate it, so far.

"Vera, patch me through. And let Clara link me at any time."

Transmitting data: hypercom transcript.
Coms authorization: updated.

"Good, the weirdos replied."

"What does it say?"

"Being a very polite megacorp as they are... Actually nothing, just a single line of script giving instructions to forward an encrypted file to their ship." He tapped a few buttons on his wristpad. "Hell, it's done. At least as soon as they receive the file and conclude the transaction we'll be free to leave this desolate system. I'm almost done with the asteroid, I'll pack it up and I'll be back in 20 minutes."

"Can't wait, it's getting lonely in here."

Home sweet home. The familiar thump noise of the magnetic clamps of his bike securing it in place, the hissing sound of the airlock cycling atmosphere in again. It had been a short excursion, but despite the harvest being small it was at least made of easily tradable, concentrated crystals, he won't have to waste tons of power to refine it nor to take a price cut selling raw ore. He opened the door to the modified cargo module used as an engineering bay, carrying his bounty, and was welcomed by a beautiful sight.

Clara was waiting for him, her tank top was apparently slightly damp, making it stick to her generous breasts and almost see-through where it touched her skin. She was smiling and had a vacuum flask with two glasses with her.

"I thought you'd like something to drink after some hard work outside," she told him as he unzipped his suit and removed it. "I wasn't sure if you drunk **** during the day so it's just vitamin fruit powder, but I chilled it."

She poured him a glass of some neon pink liquid with some ice chips in it. He had recovered a full container of small individual sample packets of the stuff years ago during a salvage operation. The normal large containers of the product had sold easily but no one had wanted to buy the thousands of individual drink packets that were designed as promotional material. So he had some in his kitchen and by some you should read hundreds, plus what was left of the container (nearly all of it) still in storage. Thankfully the taste was actually pretty good, one would had trouble knowing what it tasted like, it was a mix of dozens of different fruits evolved in completely different biomes and some genetically altered, but it tasted fresh with a slight acidic tang and was chock-full of vitamins and other amino acids to keep spacers of multiple species healthy.

"Thanks I like it, I hope you like it too, because we have tons of the stuff and that's pretty much all we have to drink except booze. And well, day drinking loses a bit of its meaning during weeks long travel in space with no set schedule, but I'd rather stay alert until we can leave this place."

Incoming transmission

"Open the channel"

No communication channel open. Transmission is a single data package with a timestamped receipt for end of transaction.

"Log it in the folder with the others. Typical Corp mentality, not even a thanks or goodbye. Come on Clara, let's go to the bridge. I'll get us out of here."

On his way to bridge, savoring his cold drink he quickly understood why she had been slightly wet. The place was clean, a lot more clean than usual. She had found the sparsely used cleaning devices and went at it with passion. The main ship was still a flying relic with corrosion, wearing and damage everywhere, but a lot of the grime and clutter was gone, the same was true for the habitation part of the ship, she had even cleaned his room and made the beds in both bedrooms. Hard to tell how much of it was her wanting to be useful and appreciated and how much was ingrained instincts to the point of near programming from her years as a maid.

He complimented her for the work done and it's with a refill of his drink and her sitting on his lap that he planned his course from the captain's chair of the bridge. First he set course full speed to a jump point (full speed being the highest speed he could achieve without wasting power or overloading a reactor designed for a much smaller ship), the hyper drives had trouble operating in gravity fields, technically one only had to clear a certain distance from the nearest star or planet to jump. But there were points in each system that were special. From these points one could jump using less energy, with greater accuracy and offering a marginal speed boost to travel. When travel could be counted in weeks or months, the few hours it took to reach such a point were nearly always worth it. The only exception would be emergency jumps to avoid something.

The shortest trip back to Zaphurlan Station in the Mellides system was in 4 jumps, could be done in 3 with a better ship but he was missing the needed jump range by 20% for that.

Once the course set for the first jump there wasn't much left to do piloting-wise. He had a free hand and a nice pair of tits within his reach. This was a nice relaxing setting to explain more in depth to Clara the details of what he was doing for a living. He spent the next hours alternating or dual tasking between some heavy petting and the update of her access rights on the ship, review of operational logs, inventory of leftover stock and one of the most time consuming task, the processing of the maintenance logs.

He had to constantly sort through the myriad of technical issues on both parts of the ship, deciding which ones could be fixed right now, which ones needed parts to be fixed, which ones needed outside help to be fixed and which ones were lost causes and wouldn't be fixed. With a ship in the state of of his, this was à very long thing to do.

Thankfully, time while traveling in space was something one gets in abundance. Setting his schedule on the ship's clock, he waited for one of the 3 daily alarms to launch the jump and calling it a day. Having had a nice meal of freeze dried noodles earlier (cheap, easily bought in bulk, non perishable and feeling more like food than ration bars.) he and his newly acquired crewmember went to bed, he had not wanted to rush her into his bed each night, but she had insisted to sleep with him in his cabin. They had some fun in the shower (Elias bumped the repairs of the water filtration system to the top of the priority list) but Elias decided not to go overboard with sex, they were both tired and would have lots of time with nothing much to do later to enjoy each other. For now he just tried to sleep with a warm, cuddly, naked girl in his arms and everything was nice in his world.