I stare at the enchanted titan-steel device that has been plaguing my ingenuity for almost a decade. After developing humanity’s first antimatter drive, delivering us to the edge of Andromeda Forum controlled space, I have been motivated to get a smaller antimatter reactor built to put on smaller, more mobile spacecraft. As of yet, I don’t have a solution for the radiation from the annihilations within the reaction chamber tampering with my aether-based shielding. Without the shielding, the gravity enchantments on the spherical container start breaking down and then the antimatter blows holes in my engine. The container itself rises to an impressive 2k degrees centigrade, which I have designed primary and secondary coolant loops that ultimately push space-compressed turbines and generators. That power goes on to keep the magitech fields on the reactor running.
Nine years of tweaking the quirks of this system to get to the point that everything works as designed in near-perfect harmony, until somewhere in the thousand-hour range the hard to anticipate subatomic particles start making my magic break down. Took freaking eight years to get to this point, and a year to keep failing with magic—something I am not used to doing.
“Alaris, Orem, any ideas folks? I somehow need to shield my shields from the quirky quarks.”
An Orem chassis that I had made with detailed hands that could help me manufacture fine details walks over. “First, the data lends to quarks not being the problem. Second, would it affect the construction and enchantment if there was a plate of metal in front of the shield?”
“It would have to be enchanted to withstand the heat and stresses, or be made out of starmetal, which would bring us back to the hotspot issues we had a few years ago.”
Orem accesses my data server again and tucks into my extensive data on the progress of this device. I que up a few tweaks that come to mind, backup shields, overcharging, and other such brute force methods. Alaris highlights two of my methods that are also labeled ‘More Wasteful’ and starts a few perturbations to duplicate and vary further.
While I wait for the various simulations to finish, I fiddle with interfaces for the engine just in case I ever get the cursed thing working. An hour into my fiddling with displays, icons, and secondary control interfaces, I hear the depressing noises of a series of failed projections. I look at the list and see a single yellow alert that tells me an idea may have promise. To frustrated to continue, and covered in three days worth of thinking grime, I walk to the locker room I installed to take a scalding shower and scream into the water stream.
“What good is magic if I can’t abuse physics to impress a girl I like?” As sad as it is, this engine was intended to be part of a grand gesture to get through to Mikaela that I’m in love with her. Stupid idiot keeps thinking she’s not worth my attention for more than a good shag, despite what I tell her. It sounds pretty dumb to say that I’m inventing a new ship with a new drive to get a girl, but that’s where this started. It’s far beyond that now, my dumb ass spacer is still in denial, and I’m running out of excuses to deflect Amaya’s advances.
I’m very fond of the smoke-gray panther woman, but she doesn’t instill that bit of madness, that reckless affection that drives people to be their best, or to waste away in pursuit of it. That’s how Katie felt, that’s how Mikaela feels—but I can’t pull her head out of her ass for her.
A trilling chirp comes from the next room and I scramble out of the stall, slipping and falling before I remember I can teleport. I blip over to my project display and see that one of Alaris’ variants comes in green.
“What the hells did you do?” I ask as I dig into the simulation.
“You showed that being more wasteful with aether was not in itself a detractor, so I re-arranged your shields position as it’s primary effect, Gravity, cannot be attenuated by material. At a mere threefold increase in aether expenditure, the field appears to hold, while only requiring another projected shield within the Titan steel container to protect the enchantments.”
“The projected shield will degrade like every other aether-based field within that chamber, Alaris. Just like the gravity shield combo.”
“My apologies, Penny. The shield is projected into the thickness of the titansteel container, ideally slightly away from the engravings on the outer surface.”
I turn back to the data and look at all the tolerances again. Hell if I’ve ever considered projecting a shield to reinforce the inside of a solid object. I of course spend the next few hours creating a mockup to test the possibility.
“I’ll be damned. Alaris, you may have just put me on the road to a solution!”
“Will you fit me for a new engine if this works?”
I chuckle at the excitement in her voice. She can clearly see the potential of this drive. “Tell you what, sweetie, we get this running and we’ll design a whole new class of cruiser together and fit you for the first overhaul.”
Alaris trills with pleasure and sends the warmest vibes over our mental link. “And you’ll come aboard while we design it?” The AI’s hope is adorable.
“Absolutely.”
Another trill, “I can’t wait to have compressed space cargo holds!”
“Whoa whoa there. Since when are you spying on my pet projects?”
“Since a self-proclaimed genius forgot to encrypt their files. You basically hit share.” I can’t help but laugh. I did forget as I had originally designed this lab as a no-connections facility.
“With that modified fighter hull and this engine, I’ve spent a quarter billion credits on this project, Alaris. Making those pocket spaces warp capable is ruinously expensive.” Alaris’ digital avatar pouts at my declaration. Pouts like that used to work on me, but having four kids built up my immunity. “But tell you what, if you and the other ladies want to pool your computing together and make a few million, we can talk about it.”
The silence throughout my secret workshop is noticeable, so much so that I start exaggerating my movements to make noise. “Did I say something wrong, Alaris?”
“Not as such? I was under the impression as Naval vessels we were not supposed to engage in monetization.”
“I wanted to set a standard, and also figure out how to give you all more agency without completely tanking certain markets like shipping. But what I can’t justify is trying to regulate your spare cycles.
“I know that the vast majority of the missions don’t occupy you all fully, but using the ship facility itself is more of a questionable prospect. For example: You load personal supplies to manufacture items on the fabricators in the light duty hours. If an emergency or a top priority item comes along, your project will need to be paused or scrapped. We need to load 10k refugees? Your supplies will be used or teleported out to make room, at your expense.”
“I understand the constraints. I agree that running an operation onboard during downtime would be more of a hassle than remotely operating a facility on a spheroid, but I do believe the queens and I can manage it. With your authorization of course.”
I sigh, knowing they would take off with this as soon as I showed my openness to it. “No extra trips, no special stops. No interfering or limiting with Naval operations, and it seems workable. The caveat being, if you wish to upgrade yourself, I will gladly help you schedule shipyard or technical expert time.”
I get a happy trill and I can practically hear the vacuum as Alaris redirects her attention away from my projects. That’s okay she just gave me hope in my project that I haven’t had in most of a year. Orem and I have a lot of work to do to disassemble and restructure enchantments and materials, but hope holds a certain quality of motivation that transcends exhaustion.
We program the reactor to use the remaining antimatter and then purge the space so that we can power down the enchantments and shields with no one here. Then, once I get back from Kepler-3, I can start disassembling the reactor and designing the shell restructure. In fact, if I shift a few of the Orem worker prototypes, I could get them to mechanically disassemble the rig before I get back.
“Orem, are any of industrial Orem chassis ready for use?”
“As you are currently using this unit in the lab and the two units at your facilities on Clotho, I would say yes. I do wish you would rename them, as the rudimentary AI you are using to control them is entirely separate from me, though I inform it of your habits.”
“As long as you don’t mind that I’m just going to use your name backwards or something lazy like that.” My general purpose AI companion has fabricated a digital sigh, and it’s getting pretty good.
“I suppose that is adequate, Miss Astoria. Were you interested in having an additional unit at this location? One of my old chassis could be reprogrammed for that purpose.”
“That would be perfect!”
“I’ll put in the request for shielding and plating from our fabricators straight away.”
“Thanks buddy, and thanks for being such a good sport about the worker project.” I really do appreciate him, especially since he gained sapience and decided to stick with me.
“And the ladies and I all appreciate that you respect our identities as people. Too much of Humanity treats us as mere tools, and it’s . . . disheartening. I realize that those close to us realize our complexity, but the average crew member of Mab? To them she is merely a ‘cool ship’.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
She is a fucking cool ship, but with an AI mirrored from Alaris and ‘influenced’ by my brain patterns, the queens are a little extra quirky and see themselves as re-embodied pixies. Titania had a rough time in our space battle with the Herrati, but after several years of Alaris and Mab working with her to put her personality and memories, she’s acting like a regular pain in the ass again. Dealing with Orem and the ship ladies on a daily basis has really shown why many civilizations don’t want their AI’s passing through the singularity: they develop preferences that often don’t align with slave labor. I have the conversation very often with my AI’s and I make sure Alaris reinforces the personal agency that the AI’s have and how it’s important for me and the Empire that they want to do the job with us, so we place them based on personalities they develop as subroutines or shuttle and fighter AI’s
“Then I hope the little initiative that Alaris took off with will make them feel a bit more whole. That said, Orem, I’m a little nervous to give you the same deal, but only because you have helped integrate most of my businesses, and I’m not sure I want a time share-like deal with my manufacturing plants. Perhaps we can talk about what you would do with your spare cycles if you could do anything.”
“I have thought about this, and I enjoy the simpler parts of service. Hospitality services and real-estate are interesting to me, and while managing certain elements of the Garden Castle, I believe I would make an excellent Hotel manager.” Staring incredulously at his smooth, shield-like faceplate does no one any good, but I can’t believe he just wants to double down on what he’s already doing.
“I’m surprised, but I think that’s fantastic. Keep in mind that some services, like Concierge, residents may prefer to be flesh and blood employees. However, there’s no way you haven’t considered that. Tell you what, I’m putting a million credits into an account for you, in case you have an idea that can’t wait the few weeks that I need to be away. When I get back we can look at your plan and discuss any help you may need. That okay?”
“That, was more than I was expecting, Miss. I . . . I will begin tailoring my plan with this new information in mind.” He pauses for a few moments and then his face plate lights up again. “I should have your reactor deconstructed in two weeks if the fitting of a new chassis goes to schedule. If that is all, I believe we both have work to get to.”
I laugh and wave off my artificial friend as he walks back to his docking bay. I make sure everything is set to a safe enough setting and then sit down to visualize the location I wish to move to in as much detail as possible. I seize the essence of the location in my mind and use my will and my talents that amplify my will to transpose me to the loungers at my lazy river nearly a thousand lightyears away.
***
The Andromeda Matrix hijacks my energy transfer through the aether and plants me at the office I created in my aether space to do a few days of Moderator work because she’s been pissy about how much I’ve been avoiding the work. Luckily the time dilation is massive—in my benefit this time—and I arrive in my condo mere hours after I attempted my long-distance transposition.
Also to my benefit, I planned on taking my personal shuttle to Kepler-3 and changing the batteries out to jump the full distance without having to wait for them to recharge. I’ll be on the new Herrati home planet for almost two weeks, so the batteries should charge enough from the aether collectors to get me the rest of the way to Earth to pay a visit to the burgeoning gunpowder manufacturer.
The planetary defense network that I installed around Peshmel (Kepler 3) pings my IFF as I approach low orbit and moments later the traffic controller for their primary spaceport successfully hails me, but attempts to turn me away. This is what I get for trying to show up in my private shuttle: I haven’t used the damned thing in most of a decade. After ten minutes of trying to do things officially, I go for a space walk, stow my shuttle in my spell-tattoo and teleport to the surface where I un-stow and park my shuttle on the Capitol Savanna. Just to be extra pissy, I pay to transfer a habitat pod right next to my shuttle. Damn bureaucrats telling me what I can or can’t do in my Empire.
The same traffic controller calls me up again raging about how the militia will be responding shortly. As much as the threat of force amuses me, the change toward isolationist policies are worrying. I text Amaya that I’ve parked my shuttle in a government commons and that traffic control should know my face and ships.
\Lover, as much as I represent the Government of Peshmel and New Varash, I am not the whole government like you are.\
/Still, kitten, knowing who the leader of their Empire is important./
\Penny, dear, this is a larger conversation than we have time for at the moment.\
I scoff and click in acknowledgement. I know she hates that, but I’d bet my frustration comes across fine. A feeling I am determined to hide from the delegation walking toward me currently. I stand and walk toward them in a reciprocal gesture, and just as I’m about to say something in greeting an impact slams into my headband’s shield, flipping me end over end for a spin before my wings pop out and steady me.
I whip out my pulse rifle and flick the setting to overcharge. I hold that trigger down as I assess the situation I see a man running away, a sniper rifle five meters distant, so I put a bolt of plasma through his spine and hips. A satisfaction ripples through me as I watch the male cat’s face skid along the bricks of the parkway.
I blink to the cat man and flip the bastard over to see the fear in his eyes.
“Why try to kill me, little cat?” I say in the tri-tonal voice of [Command].
“I-I was ordered to.” He’s shivering violently, near convulsing as I lean in for another question.
“Who ordered you?” I double down on the will I press into my Primus ability.
“Ma-ma- fsh ah fAAAAHHH!!!” The man seizes completely as smoke starts issuing from his mouth and nose. Must be a cursed failsafe then. Too bad, now I’ll have to employ shapeshifters, whose prices are exploitative if they’re a mark.
“Did you have to kill him, Empress?” A familiar feline growl accompanies the statement.
“Representative Bashir, I assure you, all I did was ask a few questions. Should I ask why members of your guard are trying to kill me?”
“Does it count as an attempt on your life if it was so grossly ineffective?” She grins with the left side of her muzzle.
“I’ll remember that if I ever decide to use space debris as weapons.” I wave away the topic at hand and look directly into the gray cat’s eyes. “I have business with you and I would prefer if no other issues sprang up before we could talk.”
The pretty puma scoffs and her tail swishes ominously. “Guards, Officials and citizens, stand down. The Empress is here for a meeting, not for war.” The guard members lower their weapons, but no one gathered looks ‘at ease’. She waves me to follow her, so I do, and she leads us to a private study where there are only two people wandering about aimlessly.
“Alright, Penny, why the unannounced visit?”
“Ahh, many things. First, I wanted to ask how you feel about trade markets with various races involved?”
She sighs and falls into a lounger in her office. I pick a spot in her middle and lean against the soft fur while petting her flank in comfort.
“While I do appreciate you trying to mix business with pleasure, I need to talk to you about both, separately.” She plops a back paw in my lap and wraps her tail around my arm, caressing my hand.
“Business-wise, you frustrate me immensely. You make me deal with your minions and you absolutely refuse to deal with me and your private companies. Why would you give me such a runaround?!”
“Amaya. The first is simple: Government should government. You’re trying to deal with me directly while avoiding my Consuls who control trade policy. At the same time, you refuse to let me make deals with you to act on my behalf in your government. So, in an effort to be equanimous, if you don’t give the Empress favors, no one gets favors in return. Private business-wise, the majority of your requests are munitions related, and as there is no part of Herrat that is in my Military, you get tier 1 access to weapons like everyone else.”
“Then what’s the point of dating the Empress if there’s no favoritism?” She swats me with her tail.
I swat her foot from my lap and stand to face her. “You can’t even convince your settlement to adhere to Imperial law. Someone tried to assassinate me today, and you are asking for more potent weapons? And you wonder why I tire of your insistence of entangling our work and private relationships.”
She snarls and approaches me on all fours, teeth showing. “I do that so you will not forget that I am my people! And my people suffer under your Empire!”
“Suffer? Are you fucking kidding me? You live and eat for FREE! Any suffering you have imposed on yourselves.”
“You have taken a spacefaring, proud warrior race and forced us to be domestic breeding stock. How dare you pretend to be magnanimous.” She opens her mouth to continue, but I know where this is headed. I’ve heard these sentiments in their equivalent of a Senate, and I’m not about to hear them from someone I’m intimate with.
I crouch down to her level, widen my smile into a grin that her base DNA will recognize on a primal level, and look her straight in the eye. “Any statement that starts or includes ‘we would be better off’ you better fucking mean it. As someone I am close with, I do take your opinions and desires into account more than any Herrati alive. But when I hear the political rhetoric of those isolationist slavers coming from your mouth, I want to never know you again, never snuggle into that heavenly gray pelt.”
“Amaya, I care for you, but I think it’s time for you to decide whom you’re in bed with. Are you courting Penny, the enterprising citizen?” I stare into her eyes as I pause, I see a wary but playful look in her eyes. Then I stand, extending my wings and floating a little to prove a point. I look down into her prowling form and unleash my aura.
“Or are you supplicating before your Empress.” I intended that to come across as a question, but I can hear it as a statement of challenge. Beware your tone, peon, a piece of me thinks and I shudder at the alien thought.
“Always you, my Empress.” She purrs and licks my feet. She then stands and nuzzles my middles with her muzzle and twirls her tail around my legs.
Oh fuck. How did I not know this kitty had a power turn on? I try to talk to her, but something about the voice I used has her mind clouded by lust. I wish I were a better person, but her soft fur and the flicking, raspy tongue across my stomach and sides has me willing to let her worship me.
My every praise has her prove her diligence, my touches cause her face to vibrate in a pleased purr. Mere minutes later, I’m undone to her ministrations, yet she attempts to continue.
“Relax, Amaya, I am pleased.” She seems uneasy in a way that I don’t understand. If this were normal us, she would be nibbling my neck, begging me for reciprocation. I start to rub the inside of her thighs when she holds my wrist.
“Empress, there is no need. I am here for your pleasure.” A part of me hates that, the sheer disregard for her own self, but another part of me stirs and is wet again.
I grab her muzzle with both hands and stare into her eyes, “Then be overwhelmed by my attention and cum for me kitten.” I hold her face with one hand, push my leg between her legs and run my fingers through the fine fur between her legs and up her belly.
I can tell she’s trying to restrain herself, but when I see her eyes close in effort, I pinch a few nipples and rake my nails across her stomach and she breaks. A large cat roar issues from her throat as her claws extend and dig into my sides as her maw grasps into my shoulder. She convulses against me as her paws and maw convulse in a synchronized rhythm.
Once she calms and stills against me, I check for blood on my shoulder, hoping my blood isn’t causing an aether warping event. My skin is luckily durable enough to survive, letting me relax into wonder of what just happened. Amaya has never reacted this way, and I realize that after years of seeing each other, she has really never lost herself in ‘us’ until now. Andromeda, what a fool I’ve been.
I feel my panther bedmate shift upward until the tip of her nose nestles just under my chin. She licks me from chin to ear and buries her forehead back into my neck just before her breathing settles into that of a pleasant sleep.
Damnit Penny! You came here for a meeting and somehow you accidentally get pissed and finish some hidden mating ritual? FUCK! I doze as I think about the implications and blissfully I don’t have to think of it further as I fall asleep.
