Chapter 28

  You have created : Nut x 10.

  You have created: Bullet Ant.

  You have created: Bullet Ant.

  You have created: Drone Attachment: Manipulator Arm,

  You have created: Steel Cube.

  You have created: Copper Ball Bearing

  Experience rate 355/min.

  You have created: Variable Speed Piston.

  Disbelief, shock, trepidation…

  All of it flooded through my mind as the last message popped up in my feed. Carefully, I took my hand off of the cylindrical construct I’d been working on for the past few hours. The System message was a good sign, but I wasn’t ready to celebrate just yet. There had been too many failures for that, too many times my dream died before it could get going.

  I grabbed the construct, examining it skeptically. Of course, I angled it away from my face to prevent any accidents. It didn’t currently have power other than the mana I’d used to create the Triggers and the Automated retraction function, but one could never be too careful. The eye incident taught me that. We don’t talk about the eye incident.

  Everything seemed in order. The shape was right, the connections ready for signal. A tiny pulse of mana told me the potential was there, waiting for the right prompt. Could this be it?

  Stop stalling. Just do it.

  I sighed. I was right, of course. I didn’t need to draw this out. I needed the truth, even if it was that I’d failed again.

  With care, I slipped the Variable Speed Piston into place in the housing, essentially a female connection with a bundle of wires running off of it and to my power pack that I was using for these tests. I hefted the pack onto my shoulders, securing it with the rudimentary wire straps until it fit snugly on my upper back. Then I reached over my shoulder and flipped the rod insertion Trigger. The Volatility rods inside the pack shot into the Collector assemblies with a quiet *snap* that I felt through the metal housing. A pulse of mana later and the rods were back in the Collect/Volatility loop and building a charge.

  There was a click from the piston in my hand, but that was all the reaction I got. Good.

  I fought the urge to rub at my eye.

  Then I breathed out, maintaining my thin veneer of calm.

  “Okay. Super Suit test number… ah.”

  “Four.”

  “Four. Thanks, Tilly.”

  Tilly was currently hunched over the workbench on the far side of the workshop, tongs in one hand, a blowtorch in the other.

  “Should I call Doc now, or do you want me to wait?” she asked in a disinterested deadpan.

  My eye twitched slightly, but I kept my voice calm. “No. No. Should be fine this time.”

  “Because you don’t want to lose an-”

  “I thought we agreed not to talk about that.”

  Tilly’s tinted helmet wobbled, but she didn’t take her eyes off the torch. “Fine. Fine. Just saying you don’t want to lose anything you can’t grow back.”

  Focus time. The System just said you did it. This is just confirmation.

  I took the prototype gauntlet off the work table and slipped it over my hand, letting the cold metal settle into place and the Automated sensors to recognize I was wearing it. Once they did, the metal plates of the oversized glove contracted, bringing the separate pieces together and sealing my hand into the device. I wasn’t scared about this one. I’d designed the thing directly on my hand, so the measurements were as precise as they could possibly be. With that done, I raised the glove up high until it hovered over the end of the piston.

  Another click of the piston. It did not, in fact, shoot out of its sleeve at max speed and impale me. That was a nice change. I raised the gauntlet further.

  *KFF*

  I cracked one of my eyes open. I hadn’t realized I”d closed them, actually, but ever since the… the thing we don’t talk about, I’d been a little gun shy about running these tests.

  But I needn’t have worried. The piston had extended only a couple inches, and it was holding there.

  I pulled my hand up some more.

  *KFF*

  There it was. My heart, such as it was, hummed with delight.

  Smooth as butter, the piston moving. As my gauntlet went up, the piston’s head rose as well. I brought the gauntlet down. The piston went down. Again. Slowly. Quickly. I wobbled back and forth, wiggled my fingers, tightened the construct into a fist. The piston moved with it too, always exactly the correct distance from the sensor. It was following the instructions. It was following the instructions and I wasn’t on the floor bleeding. Hell yeah.

  I whooped, raising the piston and the gauntlet high into the air and did a little dance. I’d done it.

  “I take it that it went well and I don’t have to call the medics?” Tilly asked from behind her welding mask.

  “Correct, Miss Tilly. My superweapon is complete,” I said in my best cheesy supervillain impersonation. “You may mark today as the day Ryan Kotes began to conquer the multiverse!”

  “That’s a hydraulic piston.”

  Tilly took a lot to impress. She was a sweetheart on the inside, though, so I didn’t mind..

  “Aha, but what if I told you I took the hydro out of the equation?”

  “I’d ask why.”

  “Wel… It’s…” I began before trailing off while the gears in my head ground against one another. “Because I can, I guess”

  Nevermind. Tilly was mean. She could at least pretend to be impressed.

  “It won’t lose power if it gets damaged, I guess. No pressure to lose. There’s that,” Tilly offered tentatively.

  “There you go. No risk of explosive decompression.” My grin came back with a vengeance.

  In fact, the desire not to explode had been the impetus for the invention of my power pack. Speaking of which…

  I flicked the switch on the side again, retracting the rods from the collector assembly with another mechanical *snap.* Inside the pack, the Volatility enchantment circuit was cut, and the spell stopped being refreshed. With how little time the collectors had been exposed to the sticky Volatitly mana, they’d probably gotten another five minutes of charge or so. Nothing excessive. The rods themselves were still kind of explody, though. I was working on a good way to ground them out, but I hadn’t come up with anything yet that didn’t involve ejecting them at the nearest thing I needed to destroy. That wasn’t a bad method, per se, but I was on a damned space station. They took explosions very seriously around here.

  An alarm beeped on my borrowed datapad. It was nearly time.

  I slipped the power pack off my shoulders and hung it on the rack with the rest of my new constructs, followed shortly by my new variable speed piston, which I placed right where I envisioned forming the leg. So far, I had vague outlines of what my suit of armor was going to look like and outlines only. Right now it looked like a professional kitchen and a rover repair bay had a baby. Thick steel plating sat atop various bundles of wire, color coded battery banks, heat sinks, thick shock absorber springs, and the beginnings of a smart card “brain case” to beat the band. That thing was taking a while to design, especially when I couldn’t stop inventing new systems the armor needed to support.

  You could never have too many safety features in your first set of power armor.

  Eventually, I would need to sit down and put all of it together, but the piston I’d just made was a big part of why I hadn’t yet. If my armor wouldn’t move worth a damn, everything else was pointless.

  I guessed I’d just solved that problem, though. Now I was free to invent all new problems.

  The door to the shop slid open and Isea stepped in, two cups of coffee in his hands, a nervous smile on his face. As had become his routine, he walked one of the cups over to Tilly first as tribute for the lady of the house.

  “That time already?” I asked him.

  “Unless you don’t wanna go,” Isea replied brightly. I could see the hope in his eyes, the little spark of possibility that I didn’t feel up to practicing today.

  I had to dash that hope. I had a schedule to keep. “Sorry, buddy. We’re still on.”

  Tilly snorted wetly behind her mask and turned to face Isea with that black tinted visor of hers.

  “Laziness doesn’t become you, boy,” Tilly said.

  “It’s not laziness!” Isea protested. “We’ve been going at this so hard we’ve not had a night off in a week.”

  Tilly shook her head ruefully. “You’re committed now, young man. You should be grateful for every minute of practice you have before you get down in the real fight.”

  I got between the two of them and turned to Tilly with no small amount of indignation. “Wait. You spent a lot of oxygen trying to convince me not to do another dive, but Isea here gets a pass?”

  “He’s got a lot of character to build.” She said it so matter of factly, the welding mask not giving any other clues to her demeanor.

  “What and I don’t?” I asked.

  “You’ve got too much character already.”

  Isea jumped in at that point. “I still haven’t fully agreed to this, you know. I mean, I was entertaining the idea of dive work before you came along, but I just never really… I’m just saying it’s hell working this into my schedule with the clinic.”

  “Which is why it’s time we left,” I said. I pulled my borrowed jumpsuit top off of the hook next to the door and slipped it on.

  Someone put a hand on my arm.

  “How much do you think you’re going to get out of this, Ryan?” Tilly asked. Her visor was up, her sweaty face worried. “All jokes aside, Isea may be right about taking a night off. I know you aren’t sleeping much. You’ve made a dent in the coffee supply around here so big, the prices have changed.”

  “I’m driven.”

  “It’s the match tomorrow,” Isea tattled on me.

  Tilly ripped the mask off her face, tossing it aside. “Tomorrow? Why didn’t you say anything? Suppose that’s why you’ve been burning the candle at both ends. Shit. Wish you’d have told me. I wouldn’t have had you working on all those orders.”

  I laughed at that. “I’ll get all those seconds back somehow.”

  The assembler array in the corner of the shop chose that moment to drop another ten nuts into the nut bucket. My logs condensed the finished products into a singular clump of messages.

  You have created: Steel Nut x10

  Experience rate: 460/min.

  On second thought, I needed a new name for that one… The nut can? No, that was worse.

  Next to the assemblers, an ever dwindling pile of rusty scrap shifted as the casting bowl underneath converted a chunk of it into a solid metal cube. A gaggle of drones stood nearby ready to remove the rust byproduct and sweep it into the garbage can.

  “Well, if we’re not taking the night off, what do you have me doing today?” Isea asked.

  I grimaced in discomfort as I mentally called up that bit of information.

  Oh, boy.

  “Range time,” I replied.

  —--------------------------------

  *CRACK* *CRACK* *CRACK*

  “You’re too tense. Stop holding onto it like you’re trying to strangle it. Here.” Dev’s dexterous fingers trailed up my wrist until she had her hand wrapped around mine, and she gently slid my hand further up on the las-rifle’s foregrip. She had her arms wrapped around me, her head right behind mine so that we could both look down the rifle’s sight.

  “Now take a breath and try again,” she said softly in my ear.

  I did. I breathed, summoning all my focus and putting the sight directly in the center of my target.

  *CRACK*

  Red energy lanced through the air and struck the target dummy downrange, a featureless humanoid mannequin with a shiny glass-like skin. The laser hit my foe squarely… in the crotch.

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  Dev sighed, letting go of me and placing her hands on her hips. “So, you said you’ve got gun magic?” She asked, her tone doubtful.

  “Was that not sufficiently magical?” I replied sheepishly.

  She didn’t even pretend I was funny.

  “You do see where the vital parts are, right?” She asked. She had her eyes narrowed at the dummy’s still glowing groin like it had insulted her personally. I wondered how far she was from calling me hopeless as far as marksman training went.

  “I don’t know, Dev. Pretty vital from where I’m sitting,” Hall chimed in.

  Dev made a disgusted sound. “Men. Seriously, unless the scourge have recently gone through a puberty-like transformation, I don’t think genital destruction’s going to be useful in the short term.”

  *CRACK* *CRACK*

  Two las-bolts struck the dummy next to mine, one in the stomach, one in the heart. Isea whooped, spinning around, a victorious grin forming on his face. Hall practically slapped the gun out of medic’s hands before the muzzle could turn dangerously on the rest of us.

  “I told you it always faces away from other divers,” Hall chastised the younger man.

  Isea’s cheeks reddened. He rubbed his hands together where the weapon had been forcefully ripped away. “Sorry,” was all he could say..

  Dev shrugged. “You’ve got the makings of a decent rifleman, doc. Put the work in, and we’ll make a diver out of you yet. You, though. Where did you learn to shoot?” She asked me.

  It was my turn to be sheepish. “I am- uh… self taught.”

  It was a truthful statement. Dad had always emphasized the sword when I was a kid, and gun training was generally given to older kids that could be trusted to not shoot themselves or each other while they were learning. Then I had my accident. There was no training after that.

  I’d been to the range three times with the 33rd so far, and every time, Dev took me under her wing to try and teach me a thing or two about marksmanship. I still hadn’t unlocked the associated Skill, however. I had no idea why. Pistol had been so easy to pick up. Why not long guns?

  Isea, however, had taken to it like a fish to water. When I’d first pitched the idea to him about dive work, he balked, unable to believe I’d even asked. He had a perfectly respectable career going for him, a girl that he could hardly stand being away from, and regular work that paid well. He didn’t see any reason to upset that apple cart, especially after his new lease on life, debts paid, body healed, and all that.

  I’d gotten the idea just before leaving from the planetary dock. The divers had lost one of their own, Themms, and the mood had been somber. Captain Reed had been especially quiet as he loaded everyone up and made preparations to leave.

  When I’d asked about why they didn’t have a dedicated medic/healer in their group, one that dove with them, they’d simply said, “Not a lot of doctors in our line of work.” Those with medical training were highly sought after in the diver community. Some companies went so far as to give multiple shares to people with the requisite knowhow. There weren’t a lot of takers, though. Diving was a dangerous business.

  On the other hand, I knew an up and coming doctor with a gambling problem, maybe as the result of a thrill-seeking streak.

  After introducing the Captain and Dev to Isea, they practically made the rest of the pitch for me. Isea said no that night, just as he’d done with me, went home, slept, and then came right back and accepted the offer. He’d signed on as a provisional trainee that same day.

  And he was already a better shot than I was.

  I sighed and put the old, discolored las-rifle on the table next to me.

  “Don’t think it’s going to happen tonight,” I lamented. “Guess that just leaves the other thing.”

  Dev nodded in understanding, quite ready to be moving on with the next task already. Then she waved at the booth that hung near the top of the hangar/shooting range. It only took a second for the tinted glass windows to go transparent, revealing a burly old man in military fatigues and a magnificent braided beard, standing there with his arms crossed. His voice squawked over the intercom.

  “What?”

  “Need number 12 and… number 21 powered down to minimum,” Dev replied, leaning over slightly to speak directly into the old microphone.

  “What?” the speaker crackled.

  “Number 12 and 21. Power them down to minimum.”

  “12 and… You said power them down?”

  “To minimum.”

  “Damnit, really? I told you we got limited functionality today. Interface is getting an overhaul, and it’s a mess.”

  “Can you not do it manually?”

  “Is that weirdo asking you to shoot him again?”

  “I have you on speaker, Carl,” Dev said with an apologetic look for me.

  “Good. Tell him range time ain’t about getting your jollies. It’s about the pursuit of perfection.”

  I didn’t bother to respond. I was already in the middle of peeling off my jumpsuit and undershirt until I was down to nothing but a pair of athletic shorts.

  Dev glanced back at me then back to the speaker. “I’ll tell him, Carl. Can you come down?”

  *Cease fire! Cease fire! Cease fire!* the speaker system at every lane’s table bellowed. There were 20 of them lined up with a couple divers practicing at each one. The lights overhead went red briefly, flashed, then powered down until the only illumination in the room was that from the tables themselves.

  The door to the control booth slid open and out came Carl, the Rangemaster. Barrel chested, solid shoulders that swallowed all but a sliver of his neck, and a beer belly, he hobbled down the stairs from his booth deliberately, leaning heavily on the railing beside him, his labored breathing loud enough to be heard all around the hanger now that it was quiet.

  Behind Carl came someone else, petite, dark hair up in a ponytail, her face buried in a datapad.

  The duo approached us, and Carl snatched the two rifles from Hall and Dev, all the while giving me the stink eye. I, meanwhile, was semi-nude but trying not to give into my blush reflex.

  The woman behind Carl made a curious noise. “Hmm. Oh, I see. Your neurals are pinging the system through the security gate. Do that again.” She punched a command into her datapad and held up some kind of electronic wand to Carl’s temple where an implant was just barely visible through his close cropped hair.

  Hold on. Was that-?

  Carl gave the woman a sour look then reached over and powered down Hall’s gun just as he’d done mine, his eyes flicking from the weapon to the woman’s wand and back suspiciously.

  “Ha! Got it. There was a failure in the security startup sequence and-” She trailed off as her eyes left the datapad and started to take in her surroundings. Her eyes finally landed on me, going wide as saucers.

  “You!”

  I gave her a little wave. “Hello again. Mina, right?” I hadn’t actually forgotten her name. You don’t forget the first woman to beat you with a baseball bat. I just felt it was incumbent upon me to play this cool, even though I was in my underwear. Last time I’d seen her, Mina was the one in a state of undress.

  “Uh. Hello,” Mina squeaked. She blinked rapidly, her eyes flicking very briefly between me, my… everything… and back again. Whatever battle she was fighting, she was barely holding on.

  Carl, ever the charming man, hocked a loogie on the floor. Then he shoved the now depowered rifle back into Hall’s arms. He gave me another look of disgust before turning on his heel and waddling back to the stairs and to his tower.

  “So, you two know each other?” Dev probed, looking mildly amused.

  “We’ve met,” I replied.

  “Right. We- uh- met,” Mina repeated with a blush.

  “It’s already weird that he’s in his underwear. This just makes it more painful to watch. There’s a threshold of weird I can stand, and we just passed it,” Hall stage whispered to Isea, who looked for all the world like there were several things he desperately wanted to say.

  Isea’s face went through a spectrum of emotions before he settled on saying: “Oh, I could make it weirder.”

  “It was a mistake introducing you two,” I lamented, sighing.

  The lights flicked back on and the intercomms buzzed. “Range open. You are clear to fire.”

  Tired of the preamble to this, I turned and stepped over the firing line, walking twenty paces before turning around to face my gruesome fate.

  As I stood there, readying myself, there were a few whistles and catcalls from the other lanes, which I ignored. I took out a few cubes of newly minted mendau and consumed them in preparation for what was to come.

  “Okay. Let’s do it,” I called.

  “I’m sorry. What is he doing?” I heard Mina ask.

  Dev, however, wasn’t wasting any time. She scooped up the rifle and, in one fluid motion, checked the gauge, sighted in, and snapped off a shot. The bolt hit me right in the forearm.

  Devora Minerva attacks you for 1 damage. (fire, piercing)

  Burning hot pain lanced up my arm, and I found myself dancing around, my bare feet slapping the metal decking, my burned forearm oscillating between freezing cold and bonfire hot.

  “Ow!” I shouted. “I thought we agreed to call our shots, Dev!”

  She shrugged, her shoulders shuddering slightly as she visibly fought not to give into a giggling fit. The woman really had a sadistic streak to her. “Had to make sure they were powered down. Did it hurt?”

  “Does it look like it hurt?!” I shrieked. My prosthetic was clutching my burned skin protectively, even though I knew it wouldn’t help. I really hated being shot.

  Dev winked at Mina. “Supermen are such babies. I think it’s an arrested development thing.”

  Mina, for her part, didn’t seem to know what to say to that. She opened her mouth to reply but eventually thought better of it, choosing, instead, to just look equal parts intrigued and just plain shy.

  I nodded, puffed out a few breaths, and rolled my shoulders , readying myself

  You can do this.

  “Okay! Give me the next one!” I shouted

  Dev waggled her eyebrows at me. She really did enjoy this too much. “Same spot,” she announced.

  I nodded again, summoning my mana and feeding it into Hardened Defenses. The Dean had asked me to work on defensive skills down on Saibum, but I hadn’t had a chance to do it while there, busy as I was with all my experiments. This was the next best thing, letting my new friends drill holes in my epidermis. The results so far had been painful but elucidating. I hadn’t gotten too many Skill-ups, but I’d gotten a lot better at moving my little protective enchantment around. You had to if you wanted to intercept an attack that was as quick as a las-bolt.

  One thing I could count on, though, was that Dev would always hit her mark.

  My mana coalesced in my forearm, just under the skin, washing into the muscles, and reinforcing what was already there.

  *CRACK*

  Devora Minerva attacks you for 0 damage. (1 fire, piercing, -1 resistance)

  That was more like it.

  “Right shoulder,” Hall shouted. He tended to take more careful aim than Dev did, but he, too, was a fine shot. My Ability activated more quickly this time, the flow of mana and my mental control of it a bit more sure.

  Meanwhile, Mine stared intently at me, unblinking. It was actually a little weird, how hard she was staring, and if I wasn’t currently being shot at, I might have asked her to stop. It made me feel like I wasn’t wearing any shorts at all.

  After I had that thought, Mina averted her eyes, suddenly finding the floor very interesting. Oh yeah. She was a little psychic wasn’t she? I needed to remember that. Maybe I’d ask about it later.

  “Right ankle! Face!”

  *CRACK* *CRACK*

  Those, I just barely intercepted in time.

  “Okay. You dialed in?” Dev asked.

  I shook my head. “Absolutely not.”

  Dev nodded knowingly, then said: “Stomach,” just as she squeezed off a shot, almost zero time to react.

  Devora Minerva attacks you for 1 damage. (fire, piercing)

  “Shoulder.”

  Again, I couldn’t get the mana there in time to block..

  “Focus on the barrel. The barrel,” Dev advised.

  I nodded again. Focusing.

  This still wasn’t working. With this new pace, I still couldn’t keep up. It was good training for my Ability use to only focus on the mana and moving it around like I was, but I was running out of time. I would need to incorporate movement into this exercise and see how it went for actual combat. My big fight was tomorrow.

  Time to try something new.

  Body Infusion [20 MP/sec]

  Mana flowed through my body like cold water. I felt my muscles harden, my insides tighten, my mana seeping into the cracks between my tissues, binding them together and providing them with power. I felt energized, dialed up to eleven.

  Hardened Defense [10 MP/sec]

  This time, I focused on hardening my wrist, bringing it down in front of my thigh just in time to intercept Dev’s bolt. I let the Ability drop a second after.

  “Nice!” Dev cheered.

  It brought a smile to my face that she was just as excited for my success as she was when I danced around in pain. “Again!”

  Again.

  Another few minutes and Hall handed his rifle off the Isea and let him take a crack at me. The only rule: don’t set Ryan’s shorts on fire. Isea wasn’t a great shot, though. Better than me but not great. My shorts, did, indeed, catch fire. It was almost worse to have a marksman like Isea shooting at me, since his shots could pull to the left or right at the last moment due to his inexperience, making for some interesting places I could be hit.

  I did my best, though, and after a while, I was blocking more than I missed.

  The Body Infusion and Hardened Defense combo was working well. My speed and reaction time allowed me to dance and turn so that only some parts of my body were visible to a shooter on the firing line, and that kept the parts of my body available for burning limited. That helped me get my mind focused and allowed for some pretty impressive blocks.

  The only downside was how expensive it was.

  I Consumed a few more mendau cubes while Isea reloaded. Sweat beaded on my forehead, and my breathing was labored. Physical activity and mana manipulation was hard to do together.

  “Okay, hit me with a few shots in quick succession.”

  “You sure?” Dev asked.

  “Not at all.” I shook my head, but took up a bobbing fighter's stance regardless.

  In a surprise move, Dev handed the rifle off to Mina after a quick tutorial on how to use it. Then she and Isea raised their rifles together… the way Mina did it reminded me terrifyingly of Dev… How good of a shot was she?

  Focus. Breathe. Dodge. Block.

  I activated Body Infusion, felt the thrill of my mana washing through me like adrenaline and liquid steel. The triggers were pulled. I raised my leg like a kickboxer, my arms up to guard my neck and face. Hardened Defense coalesced in my channels… The way the barrels were turned… They were going to hit… there.

  Only this time, once I activated the two Abilities together, I felt… I don’t know. Inspired? Dialed in? Focused? Whatever it was, I had these two separate Abilities, one that suffused my entire body with power, the other a flowing igneous rock just under my skin.

  What if I-

  My mental picture of the Abilities shifted, the world warping around me until the mana I was using to toughen my body reached out and fused with the liquid rock. Hardened Defense and Body Infusion combined, reinforced one another until they became something entirely different. My body became wound high tensile cable.

  Mina Caraway attacks you for 0 damage. (1 fire, piercing, -1 resistance)

  Isea Tevorini attacks you for 0 damage. (1 fire, piercing, -1 resistance)

  Isea Tevorini attacks you for 0 damage. (1 fire, piercing, -1 resistance)

  Mina Caraway attacks you for 0 damage. (1 fire, piercing, -1 resistance)

  Mina Caraway attacks you for 0 damage. (1 fire, piercing, -1 resistance)

  At some point I just stopped dodging. I felt the lasers strike my skin, but that was as far as they went. They couldn’t hurt me anymore. I closed my eyes and just focused on how it felt, how the mana formed its mesh of protective steel. This was exactly what I needed.

  Hardened Defense is now level 4.

  Body Infusion is now level 2.

  Ability Synthesis: Hardened Defense + Body Infusion

  New Ability: Body Reinforcement

  Body Reinforcement is now level 1.

  They stopped shooting me sometime after I received the message.

  When I opened my eyes, I saw everyone staring, not just my friends but all the divers on the range. I gave myself a once over. No burns. I was okay. My pants were less okay. I would need to replace them. Still had the important parts covered, though.

  That was when it hit me. My limbs shook. My vision swam. Fever chills spread through my body while Crystalized Channels was in the process of immolating me from the inside.

  MP [90/365]

  I popped another couple mendau cubes into the old Engine, followed by a chunk of magnesium to help top off the tank fast.

  “You okay?” Dev asked. “You look- I don’t know.”

  I staggered back to the firing line on wobbly legs and sagged down next to the table, letting my forehead absorb the coolness of the metal. Isea was right there, fingers checking my pulse and then looking disgusted when he felt none.

  “Seriously. You okay?” Dev asked.

  “Think I just had the breakthrough I was hoping for.”

  “You look terrible,” Hall observed helpfully.

  Dev already had the magazine out of the lasrifle. “That mean we’re done?”

  “Not… Even… Close,” I breathed.

  “You’re gonna kill yourself before the Academy gets its chance,” Isea murmured.

  “Speaking of which. Hey, you okay?” Dev asked Mina, who looked almost like she wanted to sink down to the floor with me. She, too, was sweating, her breathing ragged, her face flushed.

  Mina swallowed and held up a shaking hand. “I’m fine. Just. That was-” She didn’t finish. She leaned on the table and just breathed for a while.

  Dev raised a curious eyebrow while exchanging a look with me, but I could only shrug. She didn’t push harder. “Ooooookay. So, as I was saying. We’re watching Ryan’s fight tomorrow night on the holos. You wanna come? Far too few women in this company, and I’m tired of being the adult in the room.”

  “Sure,” Mina breathed. She had a dreamy expression now, her eyes glazed over and her mouth never quite finding its way closed. “I’ll uh- I’ll be there.”

  Speaking of which…

  I pulled myself upright and rolled my neck until the vertebrae let out a satisfying crack. It wouldn’t do to make them all watch me lose.

  “Again.”

  Hey. Thanks for giving In my Defense a chance. New chapters will be posted Tuesdays and Thursdays, eventually ramping up depending on the amount of interest we can generate here.

  As of right now, Patreon is about 30k words ahead of Royal Road. Additionally, patrons have the dubious honor of access to my audio tracks where I do silly voices and pretend to know what I’m doing.