Paramanuensis

The party was terrible before they were boarded by space pirates.
These provincial rock-dwellers find the mercenaries too loud, too brash, too much, but this? The shipself's attempt to join in by autofacturing a batch of custom servos — shiny chrome humanoid legs with the exaggerated, sexualised proportions of a fashion croquis, nothing but a spinning mirrorball above the mannequin waist, which attempt to give the lower half of a lapdance to anyone who sits still long enough — has brought the feeling crashing into the open. Everyone is baffled and miserable, and Nene, weeping over her drink, resents it; she is supposed to be the exception, the embarrassing spectre in the corner, not just another glum face.

Nene Redbat is a mercenary mech pilot aboard the great Apparat ship, Goatfish Eats the Sun; her relationships and place in the world are thrown into turmoil by the Deepnavigator's sudden marriage to planetborn provincial, Two Marks.

First posted on Cohost; this simply collects the original episodic presentation into a single downloadable edition. ~16k words in total.