“We’re entering the gravity field around Torsca now, Captain Mera.” one of the bridge personnel spoke over an intercom in the now centralized bridge bay.

  It was a wide open room now, with Meras’ orb fit snuggly behind a captain’s chair that rested in the middle of the room. Around the structure was a circle of monitors, computers and various devices used to operate the vessel. All streamlined with the memories that Chimera held from her time on Asta.

  She didn’t have a lot of those memories, but the rest was filled in with Meras’ help, making a circle around the chair in such a way that the Captain could see all and everything on their screens while also being able to monitor the main one.

  Chimera was sitting in said chair, several of her tendrils shifting into eyes as she monitored the ship’s systems.

  “Good job, notify me once we’re near geo-synchronous orbit, I have some plans for our would-be invaders.”

  Chimera had already spent a day going over the various changes to the Meras, the vessel now situated with all the upgrades made and the new fabrication bay for the new designs and rooms powered and ready to receive orders.

  Their job involved protecting an entire moon until reinforcements arrived, so orbital defenses were a must. However, such things required time to build and resources that even with their new changes the Meras and her crew could not spare.

  Chimera already had something in mind though, a little device that could shut down systems and leave the vessels who entered range unable to function.

  It wasn’t a golden bullet or anything, but it would give them time to respond in case any vessels made it past them.

  Though, this was under the impression that even those systems were somewhat similar to her own and that of the Elfari.

  If they had any other way to function the electric-field generators might just be duds in the water.

  Rather than worry, Chimera worked on alternatives instead. Magnetic accelerator cannons were always a solution, most space faring things would have problems dealing with a rock flying at sixteen times the speed of sound.

  Gravity cannons were becoming a bit of a favorite for her, as simply debris could be made into weapons. The cannons could also double as suicide drones by tethering themselves to enemy vessels and exploding their energy cores.

  “Meras, let's start with building those disposable gravity cannons we talked about.”

  Meras appeared on her screen, sending her a thumbs up while the fabricator began building the cannon designs.

  “Make room for some MACs as well, it would be better if we had more permanent defenses to help out when the Verdant Hood arrive.”

  Chimera checked the screen to see if Meras was listening, seeing a clock appear on her screen instead. It gave a timer showing fifteen minutes with a number next to it. Currently it was showing a number one, showing that one of the gravity cannons was already finished and another was already being built.

  Another timer appeared, showing what she and Meras designed for a magnetic accelerator cannon with an hour timer next to it. It currently read zero meaning she hadn’t gotten to building one yet.

  “Good, keep up the work partner.” Chimera jumped from her seat as she moved to the door.

  “Bark, keep things running and start deploying the gravity cannons Meras is working on. Place them every one thousand meters in Torsca’s orbit. I’m heading to the launch bay to check on our fighters.”

  “Aye Captain. When will we know when to release the devices?”

  Chimera pointed to the screen near her chair, which Bark checked.

  “Ah, I see. Good luck Captain.” Bark spoke while giving her a salute.

  Chimera gave him a thumbs up of her own as she held the image of the launch bay in her mind, transporting herself to the shipyard.

  The fighter squads that her ship held numbered thirty, leading to a total of one hundred and fifty fighters in total. The fighters themself were pod shaped, hanging off of a conveyor hook that would dispense five at a time and wait until the pods were all ready to launch.

  They were good, but like everything else in the ship, they could be better.

  Two thrusters were set on each side of the fighter pod, with a third that also acted as landing gear on the bottom for a total of three thrusters. Two wands were on each side of the cockpit which were held in place by hinges and deployed with a twist of magic.

  The pilot was the one that had to use their own reserve to charge the wands, which to Chimera seemed like a design flaw.

  Granted the Elfari weren’t short on mana, but when everything was running off of a source that could be depleted just by fighting them, it was a weakness to focus fire tactics.

  Chimera set one of the jets aside, pulling it down from its wrack with a bit of gravity magic. She could have used her druid abilities, and with the blessing from big momma Yggy those abilities did come easier now.

  However, there was just something about using her gravity magic that reminded her of the telekinesis she used to have.

  It was nostalgic, and she couldn’t help but enjoy the experience.

  The pod lowered, buoyed by her power and the gravity from the ship.

  “Alright, let's make some minor adjustments.”

  Stretching her body out, Chimera shifted into her blobby form and wrapped it around the vessel, enveloping every inch of the craft. Once she had the entire ship surrounded, she began breaking down the components.

  Having the schematics was nice, but having a body that could break down tissues and rebuild them was way better.

  The knowledge of the vessel flooded into her brain, taking no more than a few minutes after the entire thing was gone.

  Alright, let’s make a fighter!

  The pod began to reform within her building itself up from part to part as Chimera printed the parts, filling the part of a biological 3-D printer. Using her tendrils, she placed and molded the parts togather, leaving no seams or bolts for weak points in the hull. Entirely built from one piece, but with parts connected like a living organism, Chimera finished the new pod fighter in an hour’s time.

  It was still pod shaped, but the outer hull was… gooey. It morphed and moved with a subtle vibration, as if the air from the ventilation system was disturbing the surface of some body of water.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  The wands were gone, replaced with three cannons and a missile port that launched from within the fighter vessel, leaving no chance for the missile to be destroyed if it was hit by debris. The cannons themselves were placed in three points, two off the side and one above, with the internal missile launcher below to open up whenever the launcher fired.

  The glass in the front was crystal clear, but the material was actually a carapace from the Wujack that Chimera beat so long ago. It could heal itself given enough time, but it would take a very powerful weapon to break it enough to require it.

  As a failsafe, Chimera placed a P.E.G next to it so that it could draw from it to enable the auto repair function.

  Finally the pilot seat was laid out so that the person could choose either a normal chair configuration, or a lay-down configuration where the pilot could pilot the vessel prone.

  It was a thought that Chimera had regarding injured soldiers that still wished to fight. This way, even a prone Elfari could pilot the pod and continue to fight until they needed to retreat.

  Chimera had tossed around the idea for the pod fighter to transform into a walker, but the smaller vessel wasn’t big enough to allow such changes, and she still needed to update the other fighters before they encountered the Hood.

  Priorities now, messing with new designs later.

  Thankfully with the schematic in her head, Chimera could refit the pods with the newer design much faster. It only took her another five hours to outfit the rest of the fighters with her new design.

  Given its jelly-like appearance, Chimera decided to call them Stinger fighters.

  The Stingers were all outfitted with their own Magic-P.E.G. engines for power and ordinance, and the new cannons also used kinetic rounds as well as magic to allow for different types of firepower as needed. With their three booster jets, they could make omni-directional turns and still keep on target so long as the fighter was familiar.

  Chimera sighed as she just realized another headache she would have to take care of.

  Pulling out her communicator, she hailed the bridge until Bark picked up.

  “Yes Captain? Everything’s reading well for the new improvements you’ve designed, and I’ve already commissioned the Meras to build more as needed.” Bark said, a bit of pride in his voice.

  Chimera smiled, “good word Bark, but not why I’m calling. It occurred to me that our pilots are going to need to learn how to use these things now that I got them upgraded. Send a call to all our pilots to meet me here in the hangar.”

  Bark raised an eyebrow when he spoke back, “that is a worry Captain, most training for new pilots can take weeks until they are passable. How do you plan on getting them up to speed?”

  Chimera pulled out a tendril, a small needle with smaller tendrils at the end wriggling with the movements as she answered, “I’m gonna download it into their brains. It’ll be messy, but it will also get them ready much quicker.”

  Bark face morphed into one of disgust, “I can’t imagine that will feel great Captain.”

  Captain Chimera nodded, “it’s necessary, but I’ll give them the opportunity to refuse if they don’t want to go through it. We can have them do traditional training after we’ve gotten some time for it.”

  Bark nodded, “I didn’t mean to say it was a bad idea Captain, but I've heard the changes made to the crew wasn’t pleasant to experience. I’ve still not gone through it myself, but the stories…”

  He made a face like he was having a flashback to some horrid atrocity.

  Chimera laughed, “it wasn’t that bad, but I see your point.”

  Bark nodded after a while, promising to send the pilots, and Chimera took the time to comprise a ‘manual’ of sorts for her crew. It didn’t take long before the pilots arrived.

  “Captain, you requested us?” one of the pilots asked, a bit of worry on his face. Chimera recognized him as one of the Harriers that were in her first batch of changes.

  She smiled as she immediately stuck him with the tendril in the back of his neck.

  “Gentleman and Ladies, I just built you all a new toy, but I’m not one for tutorials. So I’m going to give you all a crash course in a few seconds by stabbing your brains and downloading the details.”

  She spread her arms out as the Harrier pilot spasmed on the ground, “you can refuse, but you won’t be allowed to pilot unless you go through either my update,” she motioned at the still Harrier on the ground, “or basic training which will take weeks of time.”

  The Harrier pilot got up, shaking his head as the tendril plopped out.

  “Woah, that… that pod can do so much now! Holy Mother of Nature, this is incredible!”

  Chimera smirked as the pilot raced into the pod fighter and began a test burn to launch, and after a few minutes she witnessed him leave the hangar with the pod, taking a few laps around the vessel.

  Turning back to her pilots she spoke, “So, who wants to try out the new Stinger class fighter?”

  Unanimously, all the pilots raised their hands, and what followed was a lot of twitching limbs and slurred speech.

  …

  Chimera was once more on the bridge when the last of their materials was used to create another MAC weapon, which even now was being towed over to a spot in orbit.

  The orbital guns she and Meras had spent building were not in place, ready to defend against the Hood and their ships.

  She counted fifty gravity cannons with fifteen MACs to go along with them. The gravity cannons acted as both a weapon and shield to protect the bigger but more vulnerable MACs from attack. Their gravity fields were able to reflect and divert both kinetic forces and some magical forces, all the while being able to use improvised weapons like meteorites and debris from vessels.

  As a side option, Chimera had hundreds of the electric-field mines on standby, floating just in front of the guns.

  Chimera also made sure to give them each a massive payload in the form of a mana bomb, allowing the mines to act as more than simple disruptors.

  For the gravity cannons, she kept another option as well, a last ditch effort in case the mines and the MACs couldn’t keep the Hood at bay.

  If all else failed, she could use them as sacrificial defenders to launch at their vessels and detonate their P.E.G cores, turning into miniature singularities.

  She was thankfully able to test this function with Meras’ help, though they made sure to have them far away from themselves and the planet before they conducted them.

  With all their defenses in place, this was as ready as they were going to be.

  Chimera checked their devices, rechecked the pods and their pilots, and motioned to a star chart to check the perimeter of the moon.

  Everything was prepare-

  The map that Chimera was peering at immediately turned yellow and began flashing as a proximity alert sounded throughout the ship.

  With a pulse from her mind, Chimera pulled up the ship’s star chart for all to see, and sent out an alert to the rest of the crew.

  “Everyone to their stations, double time!”

  Chimera watched as her bridge shuffled to gather the crew and send them to their battle stations. The Harriers arrived on the bridge shortly after the message got out and Chimera turned to greet everyone as she showed the chart.

  “Our scanners just picked up three vessels heading towards Torsca, each of them not registering as Elfari vessels. I need you all to confirm.”

  The Harriers had faced the Verdant Hood before, they would be able to identify what Chimera was seeing on the chart.

  Bayleaf went to her side along with Bargo and Arrose, each one checking the signatures.

  “Those are destroyer classes, I recognized them from Cerula when our patrols faced them a few months ago.” Arrose spoke as she pointed at the approaching vessels.

  Bargo nodded along with her, “these three were the ones that retreated after the sortie we had over Cerula, those signals are practically identical to the ones we fought against. Good eye Rose.”

  Arrose smiled, “it's what I’m good at.”

  Bayleaf turned to Chimera, “we can confirm, these are enemy vessels and we need to act quickly. Their destroyers were faster than any of our ships, and quite a few of our frigates were lost during that attack.”

  Chimera nodded, turning to Bark who gave her a salute.

  “Bark Ironwood, I’m charging you with keeping the ship running until we get back.”

  He looked gobsmacked for a moment, “Pardon, Captain?”

  Chimera grinned as she sent a tendril into each of the Harriers that even now began to convulse on the ground, a thin tube in the back of their heads.

  “We’re going to capture those vessels, vice-captain.”

  Chimera turned, teleporting the entire Harrier force alongside her as she prepared to hop into a Stinger.

  “Get ready boys and girls, we’re about to go bag some snakes!”