Three days later, it’s Friday, and my meeting with Danielle is pending, but also important is the meeting I’m about to have with an interstellar gun manufacturer. My life has gotten a bit too strange lately, and I need my sister back. I’ve told her so half a dozen times and she sent me a video of her drinking whisky, telling me that she loves me and to put my big girl pants on. As ridiculous as it seems, that video helped a lot.
Kimber, do you want me to project a mental image? Or do you want to work through a comms device?
Uhh, whichever is as interactive as the other side intends? I don’t know, Tova! It’s a chat thousands of light years away. I have no idea how to do this. Asshole chuckles in my mind.
Okay, then we’re ordering two charged corundum batteries that will fit inside your nose, and then you’re going to meditate while I connect the meeting.
Are you sure I don’t have to dance counter spin while praying to the Empress?
Next time I’ll order a crystal that you have to put in your butt.
You’re disgusting. I do as she says and spend the money on crystals I can use later, but this time, I get to shove them in my nostrils—yeay! When she says meditate, I only have a rough idea on how to do that, despite the training I went through. Instead, I sit in the pose, I enhance my calm by draining then suppressing my emotions through my talents, and then concentrate on the flow of my symbiotes connecting with the power inside the crystals. Tova, this feels like witchcraft.
You have tiny aliens attached to your heart that feed you Universe energy that can re-shape your body and lets you manifest objects with your mind. I’m going to punch you in the brain right now and put you in a transitive coma.
My vision jostles, fades to black for long enough for me to panic, and then fades back to . . . a lab? I near jump out of my simulated skin when I hear a voice behind me.
“I was so excited when your AI said we could meet in a construct!” I turn to find a five-foot nothing pixie with eyes that swirl if you look too long.
“Oh, uh, Sorry about my face. I legitimately though Fey and Pixies were stories.”
The pixie woman titters like a wind chime. “Best introduction ever: Sorry about my face.”
I bury my face in my hands with extreme mortification. “I’d say it was a fluke, but I am super nervous, and I’m uncomfortable negotiating for myself.” I take a few deep breaths that I know are imaginary. “So you wanted to talk about gunpowder.”
“Oh, yes definitely. You see, your method of instilling aether in your alchemic works is inherently unstable until you finish your project with imbuements that counteract each other’s instabilities. It took me a whole week to understand why your smokeless powder was decaying in efficacy so fast! I quite nearly booked a portal to come wring your neck in frustration!”
Tova tells me there is one Astorian portal on this planet, and it takes two weeks on a boat to get to, and a hundred credits to book passage through the portal once you get there.
“Imagine my surprise when a sack of enchanted crystal dust and a small bale of shredded paper lands on my desk.”
“Ahh, but you promised the draw of piracy to go along with my explosives. How could I deny you the opportunity to make our weeks? I daresay I could not!”
My explosives nerd is vibrating with excitement right now. “You see, I heard that you couldn’t build me a suitable rifle without solving the reaction first. I obviously want that sexy gun.”
The cute pixy sighs and throws herself into a lounge chair that appears right before she hits it. “And there’s where the hitch comes in. I haven’t managed to keep the arcane bronze casings from scarring the breach as the canisters rupture from your powder’s expansion speeds and that nifty bit of Divine aspected aether.”
“Are you saying that after all of this work, the idea doesn’t work? I could alter my ratios or leave some solvent in to bring down the high temperature and expansion rate of the powder, but I don’t know how accurate I can be.” I spin a dozen test reactions through my head before I realize the woman is trying to get my attention again.
“This is why I wanted to meet. You see, I have vessels on the mind, all the time. Enchanting and Elemental smithing, and I can make a lot of cool things. The alchemist I have on staff for another project, doesn’t do explosives. Imagine my excitement, when I see a new gunpowder float across my desk. Anyway, my question is, was there a reason you needed the canister? Do you need it to instill more stability on the mixture?”
“No . . . the only problems I was having with conceptually was the spark of aether necessary to ignite the powder in the first place.”
“Great! I have that part solved. I have the rest of the weapon you want actually, I just need to rebuild the magazine carriage and the breech to fire from a canister-less charge.”
“We talking blow injected, or compacted slug of granules?”
“Blow injected? That’s an interesting idea, but on the ship scale I think. Person scale, I have two options, portal-based injection—like an Exchange delivery—or a double-action bolt one to seat the round, and a second to mechanically inject the powder from the magazine. The downside of the portals is expense, the downside of the double-action is fouling and powder buildup in the trigger assembly and magazine housing.”
“Like, we talking ten rounds per clean or?”
“No, nothing that terrible. One hundred rounds or so per deep clean, and a blow into the housing between each magazine should keep complications away. It’s not a great solution, but if you’re putting a hundred rounds through a sniper rifle in a sitting, you have other problems.”
That is true, my max sniper rounds on a mission was less than twenty. “You’re saying this like there’s a catch. Did you scoop my product? Is the gun so expensive that I’d have to work a lifetime to make get it?”
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
She laughs at me and flicks a screen over to my side to look at. “The two prices are what the rifle cost to make and what it would retail for on the exchange.”
At four thousand credits, the cost is staggering. The Exchange market price is ten times that. I start crying in shock and frustration.
“Please don’t do that. It was just a prelude to the rest of the conversation.” Her tone changes to one of a curious inventor to a comforting . . . mother? Moments later I feel a touch on my shoulder and something cold touching my hand. “It’s not real water, but it’ll give you something to focus on.”
When I look up, the first thing that hits me is how much smaller he looks up close. “Thanks. I don’t mean to be a mess, but I’m in a weird place emotionally, and my adoptive sister is on a mission for a year, and . . .” I sigh, “that’s not relevant really. I don’t suppose you have good news?”
“Andromeda, are you adorable.” She looks like she wants to pinch my cheeks but thinks better of it. “I have other news. If you take it well, that’s good I suppose. First, I want to buy this powder we’ve made. Like industrial scale. My preferred deal is for you to commit to an initial buy of ten thousand units and ten years of exclusive distribution rights. You get preferred status for Astoria in the Exchange via Merc Arms, and you get the rifle and a thousand rounds plus one credit per unit in kilograms for compensation.”
That does not sound like a terrible deal. Ten thousand credits worth of rifle, plus ten thousand in credits for the order, and I make it only for her company? How is this not some piracy on my part?”
Rough estimates say she is undercutting the price your accelerant could bring in by forty percent. I don’t have access to ‘preferred status’ as you are not currently established as a Vendor on the Exchange.
“Forgive my naivete, but what is preferred status?”
Her head quirks to the side before she buries her face in menus. “Blarg. Paperwork am I right.” She says and continues working. I see a flashing pop-up on my inbox but decide to wait until she’s done to check them. “Okay, so Preferred status is both a status and a decision to forego taxes and tariffs to preferred suppliers and vendors. I sent you some other documents that would bring down delivery fees, and finally, I sent the contract. Also I put in a little side deal to incentivize you to work with Merc Arms past our initial agreements.”
Skim, skim, skim; As discussed as far as I can tell, she set up some odd things in contract two, and the third document is an offer for a pistol using my accelerant with a thousand rounds for 300 credits. Yup! Tova sighs in my mind
I now understand why you verbalize agreements. You just indelicately agreed to the lot.
“Huh, that was easier than I thought.” The gun maker stated.
“I was mostly agreeing to the pistol purchase, but I’m still new-ish to mental communications.”
“No way I’m letting you off the hook then.” She grins, comically wide, exposing her alarmingly sharp teeth.
The shock and horror must be apparent on my face.
“Relax, kid. The agreement was slightly better than anything you could have gotten on Earth, and much better than anything Warram Holdings would offer you. Now how long do you think it will take you to make my 10k units?”
Shit, I’d have to build a vacuum chamber, and even then, I don’t have a stirring vat of any size. “Two months if I spend my income smartly, a month or so after that.”
“That long? Do you have space, gear or money issues for getting my order out in a month? I already have a buyer for the pistols.”
“Miss mercer, I’m an intermediate 3, level 8 alchemist. If I spend all my credits on gear, I won’t be able to order the meals to replenish my aether.”
She groans and wipes her hands across her face. “Fine, I’ll see about getting you an Imperial exception to Citizenship requirements , and aether rations, if you agree to focus on my project.”
Take that deal. Like now, before she realizes the full spectrum of what that means.
“Deal.” Sparkles flood out of my body and encase the both of us before quickly fading.
“Oh? System contracted eh? That was a clever move Kimber Novarro. Now before either of us get involved any further, I’ll ask that you keep Merc Arms in mind should you develop any other exciting toys or components.”
“Wait! Please. I forgot to ask your name. I got so excited.” Blush and lower my head.
“Penelope Mercer. Owner of Merc Arms.” She says before disappearing from the construct.
Well, should I look at my messages now or later?
Time is lightly compressed here, Miss Mercer created the construct.
/You have signed a contract on behalf of Nova Chem to supply Merc Arms with ten thousand kilos of Thrice Imbued Smokeless Powder and to an exclusive supply contract in exchange for a proprietary sniper rifle, ten thousand credits, and preferred status as an Astorian supplier./
/You have signed a contract to express delivery in exchange for pending Provisional Citizenship rights of the Astorian Empire./
/You have purchased an Enhanced Propellant Semi-automatic Pistol for 300 credits./
You need to put in a manufacturing order. Maybe several.
Before I collect my thoughts, the construct begins dissolving and I wake up dizzy from the experience, pulling the crystals from my nose immediately. I wash them before putting them in my pocket and start shuffling toward my Lab.
I spend a few minutes to properly configure the permissions on my lab space for ordering, delivery, and general Exchange access. Moments after that, I start to understand Miss Mercer’s frustration in dealing with me and the scope of the paperwork she filed for me.
I now have a business menu and research the kind of vat with a stirring implement that can then be pumped into a vacuum chamber to dry partially, then transferred to an extruder to form pellets, then back to the vacuum chamber or a drying apparatus. The vat and the chamber ended up costing me 932 credits, but the vacuum chamber with combination vat and shaper is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.
The shaper, which was almost half the bill, was a modified cracker conveyer with roll-cutter that the hired company put hydraulically operated barrier walls that seal to the outer edges of the conveyor to make a water-tight seal. I dump my treated plant pulp and crystal powder colloid into the conveyor pool-thing, then draw a vacuum on Plexi enclosure constructed around it. The 11k liter vat that I bought was fitted with pumping and stirring and all of the valves and lines. It needs to stand up to the nitric acid washes and then be rinsed then pseudo gelatinized in the infused ether alcohol that I can create. Then that slurry is pumped to the 10cu m conveyor setup, a quarter to a third vat at a time to evaporate the excess solvent.
Luckily Tova had pushed me into asking about industrial production as soon as I figured the recipe out. I’m glad she did as I had a several day head-start to find that the vat was a standard brewing size with a 2-day turnaround on other supply inputs. The conveyor was a spitball that a spacefaring food company bid on as a ration formation and dehydration apparatus, including condensation reclamation units so I can re-use about 55% of the imbued ethanol.
A day to saturate, three days to dehydrate and a day to process, leaves us with two weeks and change to make 10 tons of powder?
Ten tons of pre-evaporated slurry. You could meet this order in three weeks if we tweaked some things and sent the first batch to Merc to get more processing funds.
She sends the changes into my visual imagination—a cool yet creepy form of hallucination—and I can definitely see it. A secondary drying area for pellets to get down to 3% saturation would take a secondary alcohol wash and evap. She imagines a space made for four 200 kilo bins. She also tells me the secondary space can be used for nearly all of my evap needs, such as the balm for heated evap. Plus, the first delivery should get me enough to order another evap conveyor, that I might not have the space for. Buh, I low-key need a factory for this.
Tova, can you look through Astorian and Exchange records on moving whole apparatus via the Exchange. She chirps in the affirmative. I’ve got a layout and a plan to fill Miss Mercer’s order, the timelines require very little active work from me, and Warram work is barely keeping two days a week busy. I may just get a pass on this transition.