"Thank you for your instruction," I said, bowing my head to my own creation.

Those skill perks I'd dismissed in the beginning were, I had to admit, pretty useful, when you actually had access to them. The second Primordial Ooze had possessed all of them at their maximum level- a learning rate multiplier of a thousand, allowing one to hit the nebulous 10,000 hour mark of 'world-class master' in only ten hours of study and practice- alongside the Natural Teacher perk, which granted half of its own relevant learning multipliers to the student.

Given how there was an Occult Mastery skill perk that affected the usage of every supernatural power that wasn't spellcasting, I couldn't help but feel like a jackass for spending all those points on Force powers I could've picked up by just creating a bespoke Yoda and spending a week with it. Maybe then I wouldn't have taken the Drawback that locked me out of my fucking Warehouse.

I rose, and swept out of the training chamber, exiting into the street of what looked more like a lively underground town than a mere secretive hermitage for two fugitive Sith Lords. The hallway thoroughfares were high-ceilinged, and wide enough for people to come and go without having to squeeze past each other, but not so wide that all of the blocks were that much farther apart, making the walk from Point A to Point B that much longer and more inconvenient. Underneath these footpath hallways, there was a more complicated and bespoke network of hallways built for vehicles, used mainly for moving heavy things around, and not very often. We had it mostly just to have it, really.

More interesting than the architecture, however, were the people. I'd created them, and so, naturally, there was a bit of a bias towards my own natural tastes, but... well, it was hardly my fault I was sexy as hell and had correct opinions about how many foxgirls should exist.

"There you are," Zash said, rounding a corner and spotting me. "What were you up to in there, hm?"

"Honing my summoning skills," I said with a shrug, continuing to walk. A funny quasi-loophole (which, really, was probably an intended interaction) was that, since Minion Creation mentioned that practice could increase the number of created minions one could maintain from two to... well, there wasn't an upper limit given... anyhow. That little Occult Mastery perk applied to skills with supernatural abilities that weren't spellcasting, and Minion Creation very much was that. "I don't strictly need to be a master summoner, considering that everyone you'll find in this city was born, not summoned, and they're perfectly capable of popping out more of themselves on a moment's notice, but there may come a time when I have to create an army from scratch on short notice, and..." I shrugged. "Well, I don't have anything better to be doing."

"You're certainly more driven than my apprentice was," Zash remarked, falling in behind me. "Oh, she practiced and trained, but... in the sense that she was merely playing with her Force abilities to stave off boredom, rather than any sort of focused training."

"Better than nothing, still not great," I summarized. "The story of Khar'cair's tenure as a Sith. How's External Affairs holding up?"

"Quite well," Zash said. "In the week they've existed, they've successfully set up a network of proxies to prevent the Empire from following our holonet queries to Hoth. They anticipate that, two weeks after we first touched down on Hoth, we'll have a corps of master engineers ready to go on whatever projects you dictate."

"I love my stupid, broken Essential Body Mod powers," I remarked. "Right, well. What about life support?"

"Operational and holding steady, with no serious malfunctions in this first week."

"Excellent."

We made our way to the center of town, where we kept the Century Eagle, and where Zash and I had made our own private residences. I spotted an elf in a high-visibility vest and a hardhat looking over a clipboard, and approached.

"Clover, good to see you," I said. "How's Project RepRap coming along?"

"Slowly but surely," Clover said. "Your ship's fabricators can churn out metal and polymer parts easily, but then, so can we, with metal creation and kinesis. What we need are electronics, and your fabricators take longer with that."

"I know that," I said. "What I meant was, how close are you to constructing a new fabricator out of parts printed on the old one?"

"Almost done," Clover said, before turning the clipboard to face me, flipping to the right page. "We have the components needed for the motion system and the toolheads, and now we only need sensors and the mainboard. Two more days of print time, then a day of tuning."

"Excellent," I said.

"Hang on," Zash said. "If your engineers and mechanics are so good, why can't they simply build the required components by hand, and bypass the slowness of the fabricator?"

"Hand-built components aren't precise," Clover explained patiently. "Especially not if they're a rush job. Given the cycles of iteration necessary to hone an imprecise machine into a precise one, I can safely say that this is the faster way."

"Naturally, the fastest way would be to have dedicated and optimized factories for all of the components needed," I said. "However, would you look at that, we need to use the fabricator to make all that factory equipment in the first place." I shrugged. "Bootstrapping takes time, Zash. My people are the best there is; if they say it'll take this long to get things running, then that's the truth, and you can take it to the bank."

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Fair enough," Zash said. "But... Remind me again why you're building more fabricators in the first place?"

"Oh, that's easy," I said. "We're not just laying low, Zash. We're building a power base that Thanaton will not, and cannot, see coming. A camp of, what, a thousand?"

"Two thousand one hundred twenty three," Clover supplied, having returned her attention to her clipboard.

"Over two thousand Force Sensitive superhumans may be useful," I continued, "but they'll go a lot farther if I can actually equip them all. Which is one of the main reasons I'm having an industrial base built in our encampment. The other reason, of course, being that I am a huge nerd, and I want to."

"So..." Zash paused, humming quietly. "...if I understand you correctly, you intend to build up an industrial base powerful enough to not merely salvage but rebuild one of the crashed warships, claiming it for your own and bringing it to bear against Thanaton?"

"Something like that, sure," I said with a shrug. "Anyhow. Was there something you needed me for?"

"You've been invited to a pazaak tournament," Zash said.

"Eh," I said. "I'll pass."

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I felt something in the Force. A presence that I recognized... which was quite distressed.

I pulled out my communicator. "External Affairs, this is Rose Corcoran, do you read me?"

"Rose, this is External Affairs, we read you loud and clear," the voice on the other end said.

"Assemble a search and rescue party, and prepare them to be deployed on my order," I said, pulling on a robe and tying it shut. "And scan for signs of life, and have a report ready for me when I arrive."

"You got it, boss."

It'd been two months since I'd arrived on Hoth. Thanaton still lived, and while he'd declared me a marked woman and a traitor to the Empire, plenty of other Sith were content to ignore him, and he'd basically just immediately given up on finding me; something about having more problems in his life than just me.

In that time, I had expanded my power base, building from a single ship and a puddle of slime into a bustling city with powerful industrial capabilities and a downright terrifying R&D team. Just two days ago, our first corvette rolled off the assembly line, and was out in space doing a shakedown cruise, testing out not only the spaceworthiness of the craft (crewed by thoroughly space-proofed people, of course) but also an experimental hyperdrive.

"The report," Clover said, handing me a printout as I walked into the External Affairs hub. I looked over the map quickly, and then nodded. "Orders?"

"Is search and rescue ready?" I asked.

"They are, yes," Clover said, nodding.

"Send them to this location," I said, pointing at a grid square on the map. "I'm going to give our visitor a little call."

Clover relayed the destination coordinates, and I stepped into a side room, where the noise and hubbub was inaudible, before dialing a number I hadn't in... fuck, it'd been a full year by this point. The communicator rang twice, before I was answered.

"Now's not a great time, Rose."

"Hello to you too, Karasuba," I said dryly. "You're on Hoth- I can feel your presence. The good news is, I am too."

"Unless you can come meet me in ten minutes with the mother of all heaters and some medical droids-"

"They're on their way," I said. "They'll rendezvous with you soon; just adjust your heading to twelve degrees and fifteen minutes South of due East, and you won't miss 'em."

There was a pause.

"Thanks," she said, before hanging up.

----------------------------------------

Fifteen minutes later, the rescue team returned with Karasuba and her own traveling companions in tow- both young women, one human, and one blue-skinned twi'lek. Karasuba had been given the Essential Body Mod, and a build I'd created for her to be 'the ultimate ass-kicker,' so she was completely fine out in the cold, but her friends... weren't quite so lucky, and had, perhaps, vastly underestimated the insidious threat of the cold.

"I'm in heaven..." the twi'lek slurred out gently, being cuddled as she was by three very fluffy foxgirls to warm her back up.

"Well, you've had a hell of a time," I remarked, watching Karasuba's friends float past us, towards the medbay; hypothermia and frostbite sucked, to be sure, but a few hours soaking in a nice, warm tub of bacta- I had a limited supply of kolto, but the girls in the lab managed to cook up an artificial substitute that could be cultured and produced in great big industrial tanks- would fix them right up.

Karasuba didn't respond, just staring at me with an unreadable expression, before making some sort of choice, and stepping forward to wrap me in a tight, squeezing hug.

"God, am I glad to see you," Karasuba murmured.

"I'm pretty happy to see a familiar face too, hon," I said, hugging her back. "What's the story? What brings you to Hoth?"

"It's a long story," Karasuba warned me.

"I want you to take a look at your surroundings," I said. "At this subterranean city carved into the living stone of Hoth. This was not here when I arrived." I shrugged, grinning down at her. "I have plenty of time. But!"

"But?"

"Some hospitality is in order," I continued. "C'mon, let's get you dried off and something warm to drink. Then you can tell your story."

"That... does sound nice," Karasuba admitted. "It is fucking cold out there."

"And it must be boring in here, if even two Sith Lords can't find anything better to talk about than the weather."

She laughed, and I led her towards the nearest fireplace.