"W-what?" Willow asked, seemingly not all together just yet before realisation dawned on her.

"Oh! Right No, I didn’t come to spy on you, hehe. The Machine in the kitchen area synthesised something and asked me to give it to you. Here!"

Willow proceeded to reach into a gap in her armour and pulled out a small disc. "The machine said to tap the centre and it can talk to you from anywhere within the facility."

"Oh that is handy." I admitted as I took the disc from Willow. She then continued to look at me with eyes I had seen before from many a cultist and lover. I felt my heart warm at the sight, however.

"Alright you. Go catch up on your beauty sleep. I want at least eight hours from you, understand?"

Willow then looked at Sithrik’s head on my lap before back at my face. Before she could ask the question, I stated.

"No, I can handle one of you, but two is a distraction and I’m supposed to keep guard. Now go find a bed. I won’t tell you again."

Willow smiled at the playful sternness in my voice before standing up. "Good call. I am actually exhausted. Night night."

I watched Willow till she disappeared from sight before I resumed stroking Sithrik. From her breathing, I could tell she had fallen asleep in the few moments I was speaking to Willow. I smiled at her as she had been putting in a lot of effort.

From my talks with Yacob, her species usually sleep up to sixteen hours at a time. In a normal twentyfour hour cycle. So for her to have been as active as she has been, she had really been pushing her biology. Which made me appreciate her being here all the more. She was really putting out all the stops.

’My life is weird.’ I couldn’t help thinking to myself for a moment at all the stuff that happens to me. Before I could fall down that rabbit hole further, I looked at the device in my other hand and clicked the centre.

As I did so, a small red ring lit up on the disc before I heard a voice. "Apollo. I am glad your subordinate completed her task. Query, where is your location?"

"I am at the entrance of the bunker on guard, the rest should be heading to find somewhere to rest. Why? Is everything ok?" I asked.

"Standby." Was All I received for ten seconds before.

*Trmmm!*

With a power fluctuation, the red lights of the hallway turned a cool blueish white, illuminating the surroundings better. The wood-metal walls also suddenly changed into a slick white colour with a grainy pattern with blue energy like patterns running through them.

"Power to the entrance hallway re-established. Internal energy turrets set to standby." As the voice said that, two turrets suddenly appeared on the roof, facing the door.

"Well, that makes life easier." I mumbled.

"Is the illumination to your liking, Apollo? I can now increase and decrease it at will in that section."

"Actually, I can see in the dark, enhanced vision, but I appreciate the effort. It will do wonders for everyone. But right now I have a sleeping snake on my lap, can you lower the lights just a little bit?"

The lights then dimmed enough that everything could still be seen, but the atmosphere was more moody.

From one thing to the next, the Artificial life form wasted no time.

"Query. Apollo, would you like to resume your questioning before you were interrupted by whatever distraction took place?"

Leaning back against the wall and getting comfy. I nodded my head, even though there was no visual-

"Excellent. Ask away." The voice spoke. I then looked into the disc, but couldn’t see anything like a scanner, but it spoke again.

"There is a visual component to the device you are holding. I cannot scan you like I can in the other room, but I can see your movements. Apologies for the confusion you are experiencing."

I decided to just ignore that and got into it. "Ok, question time. The first one is for my biological brain to have a better understanding of you, but do you have a name I can call you? I don’t want to just refer to you as ’Voice’ or ’System’ unless you can open my stats."

"Unsure what you mean by ’Open my stats.’ But the tone of your voice indicated a joke of some kind. Ha-Ha. As for your question... My data is corrupted in an odd fashion. I once possessed a name the original inhabitants of this structure used for me, but it is lost to me. If you like, as my new owner. You can grant me a name for ease of reference"

I nodded my head. "Ok, I’ve named things before. Do you have any preference for what you would like your name to be?"

"Space." Was all the voice said before going silent.

I too sat in silence for a few moments. My mind was turning black. I kept on just thinking ’star’ over and over again. Star space. Space star. Which was odd because my naming sense was impeccable. Jewel named after her jewel like orbs on her head. Orchid because her scythes on her old body reminded me of an Orchid mantis and Sapphire because she is blue to name a few...

I pondered for a few more moments before something came to me!

"Astra! That sounds cool. Super spacey. Thoughts?"

"Astra. Former human language for star."

’Fuck!’ I cursed internally...

"Astra. I like it. A reminder of your old language now that I am in your service. Astra at your Service for further questioning Apollo." Astra spoke, with what sounded like for a brief moment, enjoyment.

Deciding not to anthropomorphise the voice further I got into my questioning.

...

My questioning wasn’t fruitful. Astra was in bad shape according to her self diagnostics. It was barely running and needed energy to get into other parts of the structure and recover the bits of Itself lost behind firewalls and corrupt datastreams.

I didn’t get a single part of the tech stuff. In one ear and out the other. But bottom line, she needed power to work beyond basic functions.

Pulling a Nerissa, my curiosity was peaked and I would treat this as a little sidequest during our guerilla war. If Astra was still going to be able to synthesize us food and provide us with a base behind enemy lines, it was the least we could do for it.

After a few more hours of sitting, meditating and relaxing, I suddenly let out a breath and shook my head at the silence.

"Either you are taking it easy on me, or you are getting sloppy, my love." I whispered to the empty hallway.

A moment later I felt a head on my shoulder. "I was only trying to sneak up on you, that’s why. If I went for the kill, you would never have picked up on me, my universe." She whispered back, prompting me to let out a quiet gasp.

"*Gasp* You would try to kill me when you have all your emotions and memories in your noggin? Onyx, I am shocked."

*Mwah*

Onyx proceeded to shut up my banter by pressing her lips against mine. "Never again will I do that. And sorry it took me so long to meet up with you, I had a whole thing happen and then I couldn’t find this place. As it wasn’t in my future. You were supposed to go caving a few miles from here... I mean, what is this place?"

"Do I need to bonk you on the head? Stop telling me stuff." I warned, kissing her on the forehead instead.

"Sorry." She said cutely before leaning up against me. After a few blissful moments I spoke.

"So this is a bunker or something like that. There is an alien artificial intelligence running the place called Astra. While we commit our sabotage, we are going to find some energy so it can boot up and do whatever it needs to do.

Onyx then proceeded to close her eyes for a moment. Knowing what she was doing I just shook my head and didn’t want to know.

When she opened them once more instead of telling me what she just ’saw’ in the future like a bad girl, she instead changed the subject.

"You will never believe what I found earlier on my little adventure... Oh." She suddenly looked down, realising Sithrik was asleep on my lap. She formed a smile on her lips, which I did not expect, so I asked.

"What did you find? Something delicious and nutritious?"

She then turned back to me. "No, well yes actually, but that isn’t what I was referencing. I will tell you in the Mindspace. I can’t risk anyone hearing what I have to say. If it got back to Jewel that I told someone that wasn’t you about it, I will be destroyed. And I can’t have that when you insert your love inside of me as much as you do~"