Cambria's Corner

How many pilots have I had?

I have been in service for nearly two centuries. Through that time I have had dozens of pilots. After that many, they tend to blend together.

So, when this one comes on board and I can feel the difference in seconds, I am bound to pay a bit more attention.

I am in sleep mode, so I am only dimly aware of the feeling of her moving through me. She slips through my navel, through the pith that surrounds my heart, and into the Aril at my core. The Nectar of it surrounds her, and I can feel the pulse of her breath and heartbeat reverberate through it. Her touch is gentle as she slides into the inner chamber, her fingers fluttering delicately over my control panels and startup buttons.

“Hello, beautiful,” she says softly, and I feel a lurch as the Cynosure connection activates. Suddenly, we are one.

Diagnostic information floods my awareness. She is Dame Emilia Noraya, Dragoon in service to the Viscountess Kiraia. I can see her, now: she is slight, and enveloped in my Aril she looks as delicate as glass. Her hair is dark and thickly braided, floating and drifting in the Nectar that envelops her. Her eyes meet the ocular sensor that serves as my window inside, and I find myself stunned by the deep amber glow that reflects my own light back at me.

Nectar connection online, I find myself thinking to her. Our minds are connected through the Nectar, but our thoughts are still separate. All systems nominal. Standby mode engaged.

Welcome aboard, Dragoon Emilia. I am Hetairos-class mechanized Chariot unit Granatum-6J02, designation Calyx.

Call me Emi, she thinks. Her thoughts wrap around mine, and it feels like fingers lacing together. Are you ready?

Ready, I think back. Now initiating accordance test.

I feel the tendrils of her mind fluttering against mine, ready and eager, almost hungry. I reach out with my own mind to grab on, and I feel her pounce. Her mind nestles into mine, burrowing deep and touching every corner. I feel the lines between us blur, and I give myself over to her control.

It feels… different. My previous pilots wielded me like a sledgehammer, clumsy and heavy. But she moves me like a scalpel, delicate and precise. Her mind, too, feels different. The finesse and prowess of her control is almost swallowed by the desperation, the hunger that drives our connection through the Nectar. She wants to swallow me whole. I want to let her.

My body rumbles as she takes her first step with my legs. I settle into the familiar rhythm of managing subsystems, rerouting power, and otherwise managing the minutiae involved in moving the 1,400 ton machine that is my body. I feel the exultation rush through her body and mind, and I find myself caught up in it as well. I feel more than see the wolfish grin on her face as she moves as my actuators whirr and whine.

Accordance at 93%, I think to her. She is good at this—93% on the first run is nearly unheard of.
You’re doing amazing, Callie, she thinks. I feel something approximating a flutter in my stomach.

Are you ready? she asks me again.

Ready, I answer.

She activates my boosters and we launch up, up, up, through the long tunnel, and break out into the open sky above the bunker. She launches us up higher, higher, higher, through the low-hanging clouds of the Jovernal sky. We float for a minute, as if suspended by a thread from the heavens, before she lets us fall.

The wind rushes past my armored body, activating the myriad sensors that cover my skin. I know that she is feeling the air rush over us as we fall. She lets out a whoop from inside my Aril, and I blast my horn in response. The sound reverberates through my body, and she laughs. Her laugh reverberates through my mind.

She lands us with an earth-shaking crash. My servos whine as they absorb the impact, but we feel none of it. She springs to my feet, rolls my shoulders, and takes off at a dash. I don’t know where she is going, but I don’t care. I would let her take me to the winds and beyond.

I feel her mind reach for my hands. It feels like fingers brushing down my arm to grasp at mine, and I grasp them back. She flexes my fingers and draws the heavy maul that is my primary weapon. She experimentally takes a few practice swings, and we both exhilarate in the thrill of the power behind each swing. She laughs again.

She uses my body for what could have been a few minutes or several hours. I savor every movement, every brush of her mind against mine, every whine and press of every hydraulic. When she is done, she collapses backwards, my back on the ground and my limbs splayed out. She is breathing heavy, even though her body has not been strained in the slightest, safe as she is inside my Aril.

I can feel her mind against mine. We are pressed together and wrapped around each other, made one in a way that is hard to articulate. I feel her heartbeat as though it thrums in my own chest, her breath as if it fills my own lungs, though I have neither. I know she feels my body in the same way, my hydraulics in  the place of her muscles and my armor in the place of her skin.

You’re amazing, Callie, she thinks to me. What’s our accordance rate?

98%, I answer. An incredible performance, Dragoon Emilia.

Call me Emi, she thinks again.

Very well, Emi, I respond.

Callie? she asks.

Yes, Emi?

We are going to be amazing.