Hyperspace travel was complicated. While it was a different dimension, it was also fully coterminous with real space, meaning that it wasn't that different a dimension, and we still had to worry about running into a big ol' gravity well and getting yanked out of hyperspace- we were only allowed to stay for as long as we maintained superluminality, and getting caught in a gravity well would slow us down, possibly enough to bring us below C.

Enter the concept of Hyperspace Lanes: a thoroughly-charted stretch of space where you could go as fast as you wanted without having to worry about plowing into a black hole that you hadn't realized was there. It felt ridiculous to me that this was a serious worry, considering how truly vast and empty space was- they didn't call it outer space because it was cramped you know- but when you're moving through it fast enough, I suppose it makes some sense that this would cancel out.

"Now... what are you doing?" Zash asked.

The Century Eagle's hyperdrive was pretty good- a Class 1.5, which was on the fast end as these things go. I knew from experience and basic math that, using a Hyperspace Lane, I could get from the Galactic Core to the Outer Rim in about a day of travel time- one galactic radius. So, as long as we were mostly traveling via Lanes, then we could get pretty much anywhere in the galaxy in just two days, and probably less.

I should stress: Hyperspace Lanes aren't a physical phenomenon. They're a pre-charted course that is well-traveled and clear. Hyperdrives can go anywhere, just not safely.

"All will be revealed at the appointed moment," I said, squeezing a summoned balloon-shaped demon rhythmically, coaxing it into producing more and more thick blue slime. "But... the short version is, I possess powers beyond this world."

"Is it possible to learn these powers?" Zash asked.

"Not from a Sith," I said. "Hrm... I think that'll be enough slime to get started. One last ingredient..."

I dismissed the balloon-demon, and knelt down, pricking my fingertip with a needle before touching the slime- luckily, it was too thick to properly stick to my hand. A pulse of my will, and the puddle of slime infused with a trace of my blood began to grow and take shape, going from a puddle about the size of a loaf of bread to a life-sized humanoid made of slime, equipped with what I called the 'Primordial Ooze' build. The key feature of the Primordial Ooze build was something the Warehouse Staff had discovered, and which Matsu took advantage of: the Essential Legacy perk.

With Essential Legacy, one's descendants would inherit one's Essential Body Mod in the state it had been in at the time of their birth. The simple and straightforward way to use this was to create a minion with Minion Creation- which were always temporary, unless fashioned from a living creature or a corpse- and Minion Empowerment, and then have this temporarily-empowered minion bud off permanently-embodied and permanently-empowered children who could be further augmented with Minion Empowerment.

"Fascinating," Zash remarked, watching the primordial ooze bud off a number of children, which rapidly grew to full size. "How is this..."

"Again, I'll explain later," I said. "You may as well go take a nap. The autopilot can get us the rest of the way without issue."

"And miss the rest of this?" Zash demanded.

"Fair enough," I said with a shrug, reaching out and touching the Primordial Ooze's many children. They were all currently more-or-less mindless slime monsters; once I'd gotten to the proper point in the project, I'd add in human-like intelligence, but for now, that would only get in the way. Each slime got a different array of powers, covering a broad spectrum, and then the real exploitation started.

See, Essential Legacy stated that your children receive your Body Mod as it was when they were born, and didn't state much else. And, well, it's generally pretty well known that the advantages of sexual reproduction are bringing in the advantages of two parents, not just one. So, with sixteen Generation Two oozes- and the first generation ooze having been depleted and destroyed in the creation thereof- and their odd approach to sexual reproduction, I watched them merge together in pairs, forming eight Generation Three oozes with effectively three doses of Empowerment- one from the Primordial Ooze, and one from each parent. I ran through the third generation with Minion Empowerment again, and let them merge again, repeating the cycle until, with Generation Six, I was back down to a single Primordial Ooze, this time bearing thirty two permanent doses of Empowerment, rather than Generation's single temporary dose.

If I was in a better mood, I would wax rhapsodic about the perfectness of my munchkinry and powergamery, but right now, I was more concerned with more practical matters. After all, we'd be staying out in the frozen, barren wastes of some no-name iceball for a long while. I might be functionally immune to the weather, and devoid of any real need to eat- and, hell, so was the Primordial Ooze and anything that might spawn off of it- but Zash very much was not. She needed food, water, breathable air, and a livable temperature. My ship could provide these things indefinitely, thanks to Jumpchain Fiat, but spending a year inside a ship barely bigger than a house would probably drive her crazier than she was currently, so I needed to make plans for life support.

"Attention," the autopilot chimed over the intercom, pulling me out of my thought process. "We will be arriving in the. Hoth. System, in. Ten. Minutes. Please prepare for the return to realspace."

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"Hang on a moment," I said. "Isn't Hoth the system where the Empire and Republic had that great big battle that turned the local iceball into a huge graveyard full of derelicts that's currently overrun with scavengers from all over the galaxy, plus government spooks trying to reverse engineer the other guy's tech?"

"Well, yes," Zash allowed. "But, if my lord will bear with me, I felt that a graveyard of unmoving ships would be an inconspicuous place to put an unmoving ship." She grinned. "Besides, we're a mining vessel, aren't we? Absolutely nobody would question why our ship is going to Hoth."

I opened my mouth to protest, to tell her to try again and pick an iceball that wasn't relevant to galactic politics, and then paused. I had a feeling about this.

"...The Force is informing me that I'm going to Hoth, and I'm going to jolly well like it," I said dryly.

"Is the Force telling you anything else?" Zash asked.

"That we'll still be hidden from those we need to hide from, but, when the time is right..." I shrugged. "We'll be found by someone we need to meet."

"Oooh. How much detail are you getting?"

"As much as I need and nothing more," I said, sighing. "But, well. It tells me that, whatever temporary home we make on Hoth, I'll want to make it fit for company."

"I look forward to my lord's attempts at interior decoration."

"Yeah, yeah. Right, well, this upcoming maneuver is risky for anyone who isn't confident they can survive the vacuum of space, so I need you to confine yourself to your quarters until I give the all-clear."

"And miss the excitement?"

"I'll have a feed of what's going on pumped to your dataslate. Now move, Zash. That was an order."

She traipsed back to her cabin, and I reached out to the Primordial Ooze. When I'd created the first ooze, I'd infused it with a drop of my own blood. That hadn't been necessary for Minion Creation or for Minion Empowerment, but it had been necessary for something more grounded in the local metaphysics: the Force.

There was a biological mechanism and underpinning to the Force, and by giving a drop of my blood- blood from an earth-shakingly powerful Force Adept- to my Primordial Ooze, it had also become Force Sensitive. Funnily enough, it was even Force Sensitive in the same ways I was, with Jumpchain Perks making it stronger than average in every arena, and giving it the potential to grow more powerful with training, more-or-less without limit.

I'd been commanding the mindless slimes with the Force, and now, as I made my way to the helm, it was time to do that again, but with something a bit more complicated than telling it what to mate with.

We exited hyperspace over Hoth 6, a frozen waste so covered in wreckage, I could see it from orbit. I brought us down through the atmosphere, relying on the Force to keep me from colliding with anyone else in Hoth aerospace- there wasn't really an authority here, so there wasn't traffic control, either- and brought us down towards a spot that was far, far away from any wreckage. And then, before we landed, began the interesting bit.

The Primordial Ooze used one of its Kinesis abilities, this one tuned towards ice and snow, to move that ice and snow aside, making a hole wide enough to park the ship in that was gradually getting deeper and deeper. I brought the ship down at about the same rate as the hole got deeper, feathering the throttle the whole way, before finally, after half an hour of this incredibly tedious descent, I set the Century Eagle down on a smoothed-out patch of bedrock. Next up for the Ooze and its ice Kinesis was to form a big, dome-roofed chamber in the ice around the ship, as well as filling in the deep, deep hole it'd made in the ice layer over the past thirty minutes.

After another five minutes- the Ooze may not have been intelligent, but it did, to some extent, learn through practice, and so its skill with Kinesis was growing rapidly- our little icy hangar was complete, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

"All clear," I announced over the ship's intercom, before making my way back to the cargo bay, where I'd been doing my work with the slime. I spared a glance at the indistinct humanoid I'd created, thought about the way it'd had such potent control over snow and ice, and then forcibly cut off that train of thought once I wondered what a slimegirl facsimile of Akitsu would look like. Now was really not the time to be mourning my broken heart.

"So," Zash said, waltzing back into the cargo bay, wearing a vacuum suit against the cold. "Is now the time for you to divulge your secrets?"

"Yes, actually," I said. The Force, at least, seemed to want me to spill those beans here and now. "My name is Rose Victoria Corcoran. I'm a human from another galaxy in another universe, who, by a cosmic mechanism we'll get to in a bit, become empowered with esoteric abilities, and set onto a life of jumping from universe to universe."

I opened the cargo bay door, and stepped out into the frigid air of my new home.

"The Lord Khar'cair you knew?" I continued. "I was empowering her, but... not guiding her. But she's dead now, and I'm what's left."

"I see," Zash said, following me into the dome, already starting to shiver.

"Mmn. We'll need to fabricate proper winter gear for you," I mused, glancing down at the soon-to-be-popsithle. "A vacuum suit is rated for vacuum- this is an atmosphere, and those are much better at sapping away your body heat. Or..." I placed a hand atop her head, and pulsed Minion Empowerment, giving her just the Perks that would let her survive without warmth or food. "There. Feel better?"

"Much," Zash said, nodding. "What next?"

"We're going to have to build a proper home base," I said with a shrug. "And for that, we'll need to start digging into the bedrock, because supernatural powers or not, I do not trust the structural properties of ice."