Mei looked confused, for the Empress truly looked worried, “Imperium technology? I’m sorry your highness, but I don’t know what that means, it appears to be in Imperial speech.”
The Empress put down the bauble and sighed, “I truly meant it when I said the Empire could be in more danger than anyone knew, or could fathom.”
She reached down and picked up the divinity stone and placed her thumb on the red gem, it seemed to glow brighter, when she removed her thumb the imprint glowed on the gem and it began to flash on and off. “Nothing to do now but to wait.” She said.
______________
Victor was sitting at the control station in the habitat, setting new routes for the mining drones as they had exhausted their current shaft when an incoming message flashed on his primary screen.
He sighed, he was both looking forward to this and dreading it, he acknowledged the request and before him he saw an attractive blonde in a gold and purple robe sitting at a table, beside her sat Mei.
He maximized the screen and spoke, “Greetings your highness, I am Captain Victor Cane of the Imperium. I see Mei managed to deliver the communicator to you. Hello Mei!” He waved into the camera above the monitor.
The blonde seemed to deflate a little at his greetings before sitting up straight again. “Greetings to you Captain, I assume by your presence the Imperium has now perfected dimensional travel?”
Victor took a moment to take that in, she was speaking Imperium Gothic, “I am not aware as to whether or not they have perfected it, but I was brought here by accident, I am reaching out to you to see if you know of a way to get back?”
The Empress then seemed to let out a relieved sigh, “So you are not an advanced scout into this dimension?”
Victor laughed, “No ma’am, just a guy who suffered a transmat accident, my suit said something about getting pushed beyond the finite curve of the universe, whatever that meant.”
The blonde then seemed to exhale greatly before speaking, “Thank the divinities, I thought I was looking down the barrel of a full scale invasion.”
Victor shook his head, “No invasion here ma’am, just me. I do need to know if there is a way back though.”
The Empress paused a moment before speaking, “What year was it when you stepped on that transmat pad?”
Victor spoke instantly, “The year of our Emperor, 37,867.”
The Empress nodded back through his screen, “When I arrived here it was the year 30,231. But I have only been here for a little over two millennium. Time does not work the same across dimensions. Nor does it seem to take into account time from one dimension to another.”
Victor thought about that for a moment, “So what does that mean for me?”
The Empress sighed, “Hundreds, if not thousands of years have passed since you arrived here just from the transfer between dimensions, now that I know the time difference I could work out the conversion, but even if I could send you back everyone you know would be much older or dead by now, and you would definitely be considered AWOL or MIA.”
Victor thought on this before answering, “You said even if you could send me back, what did you mean by that?”
The Empress brought up her hand and a blue hologram appeared above it, “This is a dimensional transmat, it was what I and Dr. Monroe were working on before it failed spectacularly, the next thing I knew I was here, I have no idea what happened to Dr. Monroe.”
Victor nodded and took a sip of his coffee, “So were you Dr. Monroe’s partner in creating the dimensional transmat?”
The Empress shook her head, “No, I was to setup basecamp on the other side of whatever we opened up. I was former Imperial Guard, after I did my term I setup a few new colonies in the Emperor’s name. I was on hand for the first real startup of the prototype, now I’m here.”
Now it all made sense, “So the experiment went horribly wrong or exceptionally right, and you were brought here, luckily with enough gear to start a new colony in an unknown environment, which let you get established here in magical not-china?”
The pretty blonde on the other end nodded, “Yes, that is the gist of it. I have the information on the dimensional transmat, but I’m no scientist. Even if we could build another, which without at nano-forge that is out of the question, we have no idea if it would take you back to Terra.”
Victor sighed and ran his hand through his close cropped hair, “So I’m stuck here, and even if I could get back it would be centuries or even millennia in the future.”
The Empress nodded, then turned somber, “And now that you know the truth, what will you do with that knowledge? Will you be a threat to me Victor Cane?”
Victor sat back up, “I don’t really see how I could be, you probably have as much technology as I have, the Imperium has stagnated over the last ten millennium, new technologies do still happen, but not like they did in your day and even more so before that.”
Victor paused, “Plus you have had two thousand years to establish yourself, and are surrounded by magical cultivators. I doubt I am much threat to you.”
The Empress seemed to take this in for a few seconds, “Very well, you seem to understand the pecking order, now you need to understand what you do not know about.”
This got Victor’s attention, “I’m all ears Empress.”
The Empress leaned in to the camera, “I had a daughter about a hundred years ago. Her name is Bao Feng, and a few years ago we had a falling out. She destroyed some of my technology that she knew about and made off with forbidden cultivation texts.”
Victor nodded, “I had heard mention of a great betrayer in the inn and from… another source, I take it she is your daughter?”
The Empress nodded looking sad, “That she is, apparently the offspring of someone with gene mods combined with a prodigy in cultivation makes an exceptionally powerful individual.”
Victor thought for a moment, “The forbidden texts taught her how to use instinctual cultivation?”
The Empress looked away for a moment before continuing. “It’s worse than that, it takes years, decades even to become a powerful cultivator, but if someone even has the innate talent, they can become a powerful instinctual in weeks.”
She then sighed, “She recently destroyed the Imperial third army, and while she lost far more troops and cultivators than we did, she can easily replace her numbers, even with males, while I cannot.”
Victor nodded, seeing what she was getting at, “So you are in a war with your daughter, and it’s not going well for you, I assume you are going to ask me a question?”
The Empress straightened up again, “I know you are an Imperium Officer, and even in the short time I’ve talked to you I’ve seen that you’ve held back some information. I’m not mad, I understand, I was Imperium too. But I need to know if you have manufacturing capabilities.”
Victor looked up for a moment trying to decide how much to share, “I do, I was close to retirement and had quite a bit of gear saved in my dimensional storage.”
The Empress leaned in again, “Do you have a nano-forge?”
Victor thought for a moment, “Well, there it was, should I lie?
The blonde on the monitor noticed his pause, “Judging by your pause I would assume you do, so my next question is, do you have plates for gene mods, weapons or armor?”
“Well, she’s no dummy.” Victor thought, in for a penny… “I do not, I do have ammunition, auto factories, refineries, mining drones, forge spiders, as well as food templates and canning plates.”
The Empress nodded putting her finger to her chin. “Would you consider making a trade? That bitch of a daughter of mine destroyed my nano-forge, which was nearly out of nanites to begin with and without a nano-foundry I had no way of replacing them. So some of my plates are worthless.”
This did catch Victor’s attention, plates were invaluable back home, here they were damn near priceless. “I’m listening.”
The Empress smiled, “I have basic gene mod plates, as well as scout armor and bolter plates, I would be willing to trade them to you if you could manufacture a set amount for me. None of these could be made without a nano-forge, I need the finished product, you want the plates.”
Victor stifled a swallow at this, gene mod plates were unavailable even on the black markets for any price, even scout armor and bolter plates would be more than all but the richest companies could afford, “And how many of each do you want me to manufacture for you?”
The Empress sat back in her chair, “As many as I need to win this war and either in-prison or kill my daughter. After that, the plates are yours and we can work out a new deal between us in this world.”
This wasn’t a hard decision, with that equipment the unknown problem of this world would be vanquished, and the status quo would be brought back, and he would have invaluable plates. “I believe we have a deal your highness. I will have to meet up with you to pick up the plates.”
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
The blonde looked back at him through the monitor, “I hope you have something better than your armor’s jump jets to get here.”
Victor smiled into the camera, “I think I can do a little better than that.”
________________
Mei looked at the Empress dumbfounded, Victor had spoken in common tongue at first, but when the Empress spoke in Imperial, Victor immediately switched to that language. Perhaps that is why his accent was so eloquent.
She stared as they had their conversation back and forth, she understood some common words between the languages, but in all, it seemed they were working out a deal of some sort?
Soon it was over. The magical vistage of Victor in a strange white room went away, and the Empress spoke, “You did well Mei, Victor Cane will be coming here soon, and after that he will be a loyal subject of the Empire.”
Mei nodded to the Empress, she wasn’t sure what was going on, but she didn’t think Victor was going to just bow the knee that easily, “Thank you Empress, do you think I could see him when he arrives?”
The Empress raised a single eyebrow at the blushing cultivator before her, “So, you’re a little sweet on our divinity are you?”
Mei’s mouth dropped, “Divinity?”
The Empress nodded solemnly, “Surely you did not think I would have been worried for my Empire over a simple hidden master cultivator did you?”
Mei nodded, looking down at the table. “He did hand me what you call a divinity stone, I guess that would make sense.”
The Empress looked at Mei for a moment and thought, “Yes, I think I should have you here for his return. Perhaps you should go with him back to his sanctum, maybe it will be part of our deal.”
Mei looked up at the Empress, was she offering her as a… mistress? Concubine? “May I ask what will be my duties Empress?”
The Empress smiled at the tiger-kin, “You will keep him company, you will do whatever he asks of you, and you will report back to me as he delivers divine gifts to me.”
Mei nodded, “As you wish Empress.”
With that the Empress pushed her chair out and stood up. “Excellent, until he arrives you will be my guest in the royal quarters, where you can get… cleaned up.”
Mei blushed again as she stood beside the table and the wall opened up once more.
The Empress walked around the table and the other wall opened to display the throne room once again. “I would like to thank you Shui for bringing this matter to me immediately, I will be borrowing your pupil Mei for a while, I have a job for her, and I think she will be well suited for it. I will see to it you are compensated.”
Shui nodded and bowed, the Empress then led Mei out into the throne room where a lady of the court was waiting, the rest of the Iron Paw sect left the way they came in.
No one noticed the guard tap her amulet and subvocalize a few words.
_______________
Pan tried not to bounce as Victor told her about the Empress, for one, she was rabbit-kin and that would be weird, and the other was that this meant Victor could never go home again. But this also meant he would be staying.
She hugged him tight, “I’m sorry you can’t go home, but I would be lying if I didn’t say I’m glad you’re staying with me.”
He put his arm around her, amazingly gently, considering how strong she knew him to be, “It’s ok Pan, I know you wanted to stay with me, looks like now you’re stuck with me.
She pulled away looking up at him, one ear hanging lower than the other, “So you said something about a deal with the Empress?”
Victor nodded and pulled away to go to the fridge, after opening the door he grabbed a beer and offered Pan one, “Yeah, she has a few things I need, something we call plates. They are extremely rare and they hold the information on how to build what you would consider magical items.”
Pan took a drink of beer, “I suppose she isn’t just going to give them to you, what does she want in return?”
Victor took his own pull of beer, “It seems when her daughter went rogue she busted her nano-forge, and without it she can’t make things from those plates anymore.”
Pan sat down at the table, “But you still have one of your ‘nano-forges’.”
Victor sat down across from her, “That I do, and she wants me to make her things from those plates to help her end this rebellion. I do that and I get to keep the plates.”
Pan leaned forward, “What’s so great about these plate things that you would do all this work for them?”
Victor laughed, “Well, for one, I can make someone like you more like me.”
Pan nearly spit out her beer, “What?”
Victor passed her a napkin as she had some beer that did make it out of her mouth on her chin and shirt. “One of the plates she has is for something called gene mods. Once attached to the persons’s spine they modify them on a genetic level, making them stronger, faster, smarter. Oh, and they give you these neat augments.” He stated as he pointed the the silver discs on his arms.
Pan was wiping her shirt down and asked, “So someone with one of these ‘gene-mod’ things would be as strong as you?"
Victor shook his head after taking another pull, “No, these are basic gene-mods."
Pan dropped the napkin on the table, “So you don’t have the basic gene-mods then?”
Victor shook his head, “Nah, mine were upgraded when I joined the Imperium, and then upgraded again recently. The ones I’m using now are top of the line.”
Pan nodded, “You said plates, so there’s more?”
Victor nodded and took another sip, “Yeah, you know my suit that I was wearing when I first met you?”
Pan thought back and pointed to the airlock, “The one out there?”
Victor raised his beer, “The same, she has a plate for those, although I don’t know what model, I’m sure they won’t be better than mine due to the age of the plate.”
Victor put down the beer and pulled something from his dimensional storage, “She also has a plate for this.” He put the bolter on the table.
Pan looked at it, it looked similar to the thing he killed all those ox-kin with, but this was held in one hand.
He picked it back up and it vanished into his storage, “It’s called a bolter, and it shoots explosive projectiles at ridiculous speed at a target.”
Pan finished her beer and sat it on the table, “So she wants you to outfit her army, then you get to keep the plates. Um, what happens if she wins, then decides she wants what you have and has an army to come take it from you?”
Victor smiled and finished his beer, “I’ve thought about that, you see, back when she was still in my dimension, plates couldn’t be altered. They only produced what was on them, and nothing could change that. It’s different in modern times.”
Pan stood and picked up the beers and their caps and threw them in the recycler, “So you’re going to modify the items you make before giving them to her?”
Victor stood up and grinned, “Got it in one.”
Pan sighed and looked down at her shirt, then grinned and looked up to Victor as she pulled it up over her head, “It seems I made a mess with my beer and need a shower, care to join me?”
Victor grinned and followed her to the bathroom.
_______________
Qiao received the report from her spy in the Imperial Guard, the Iron Paw cultivators managed to get the missive to the Empress. Evidently the bauble that they carried was a legendary artifact called a divinity stone, one that had not been seen in millennia.
Whether she wanted to or not, she had to report this to her master. She took another puff from her pipe and pulled out a special calling stone.
Touching the gold stone she placed a small amount of chi within it and waited as it connected to her master.
A familiar voice answered through the stone, “This had better be important Qiao, I’m busy at the moment.”
Qiao knew what that meant, she was busy with her male toys. “The Iron Paw managed to get their missive through to the Empress.”
A sudden flurry of cursing came from the other side, “I guess it is too much to ask as to what the missive said?”
Qiao sighed, “No, the Empress took the group into her private meeting room. However, there is another thing reported.”
Her master sighed on the other end, “Let me hear it Qiao.”
Qiao took a pull of her pipe and spoke, “The item wasn’t just a missive, it was a divinity stone, and evidently the palace went into something called the ‘Jericho Protocol’. Whatever that means.”
The stone went silent, at first Qiao thought it might have quit on her before it spoke once more, “That is interesting, I remember hearing as a youth that the guard were on the lookout for such artifacts. Jericho Protocol means they have locked down the Palace, which means it has my esteemed mother very spooked.”
Qiao exhaled a large amount of smoke, “You don’t think this hidden master could be a divinity do you?”
Silence for a while from the stone, “My mother is a divinity, even if a minor one. I suppose it is possible after a thousand or so years another one could come along. If so that would make my mother pause. I will think this over and get back to you Qiao, keep me informed.”
And with that, the stone went cold.
Qiao sighed, could anything be salvaged from this? The ones in the group there were present for the meeting, perhaps they will have more information?
The more she thought about it, the more plausible that would be, she would reach out to her contacts and find out who was in the meeting room, and arrange for them to disappear.
_________________
Mei was in heaven, the attendant brought her to the royal guest quarters and drew her a bath before taking her torn and dirty robes.
Now she sat in a huge copper tub filled with hot soapy water and marveled at the magic the palace offered. “Hot and cold water a the turn of a handle!”
She washed up with the softest cloths and sponges, and then simply laid back and relaxed, she had been on the road for almost three weeks and this was paradise in comparison.
Later she pulled the plug and dried off, then anointed herself with perfumed oils and powders before slipping into a green silken dress that would have put her entire sect back a month.
After leaving the bathing room she then lounged on the couch and looked around the spacious room. A quick knock followed by the same attendant entered the room and offered her a note before heading into the bathing room to clean up.
The note was from the the Imperial calligrapher and its lines were exquisite. It invited her to a private dinner with the Empress.
It was obvious the Empress had plans for her, she guessed she had the beginnings of that plan after she asked to see Victor again. By tonight that plan would be ironed out.
Mei reached over to the chilled wine and glass on the table by the couch and pulled the cork before pouring it into her glass.
She took a drink, “It is not as if I can tell her no, she is the Empress after all. This will also let me see Victor again.”
Once more she shrugged, and finished her drink as the time rolled by until her dinner.
Now she sat at a small table on a terrace overlooking the celestial city. An attendant brought her more wine and tiny dumplings. She apologized but stated the Empress was quite busy.
After nearly an hour the Empress arrived and spoke to her body guard before sitting across from Mei at the small table.
She squinted at the green robed form before her before speaking, “Well, you do clean up nicely don’t you?
Mei blushed, “I apologize for earlier, Xiang and I were traveling for three weeks to get here and we reported in immediately. Headmistress Shui would not give us time to bathe or change before she hurried us to the palace.”
The Empress opened her napkin and placed it in her lap as she spoke, “It is good that you did, had word gotten out that you possessed a divinity stone I have no doubt that it would have caused both you and your sect ruin.”
At that moment food began arriving, rice, dumplings, roasted duck, beef, noodles, and more kept coming. The Empress knew as a cultivator she would be able to eat far more than a woman of her petite size.
They both ate as the Empress spoke, “I need you to discover everything you can about Victor, for while he is helping the Empire, he is a powerful being. Powerful beings usually need to be in control, and if necessary, I need to know how to control him.”
Mei wiped her mouth with her napkin, “How powerful is Victor?”
The Empress sat back, “Physically he is male, so I would not expect him to be much stronger than a powerful cultivator. But he will be able to produce incredible items that can do amazing things.”
Mei nodded, “Like how he materialized items in front of me?”
The Empress leaned forward with her chopsticks and plucked a dumpling from the bowl, “Sort of, but he also will be able to craft things. I need to know what he can craft, how he does it, where he gets his raw materials.”
Mei listened as she ate, she got the picture, she was to gather all the information she could on Victor for the Empress.
As they wound down dinner and ate dessert together the Empresses body guard came forward with an ornate wooden box.
“Thank you Nuwa.” The Empress said as she opened the box and produced an amazingly intricate jade bracelet.
She placed it on the table next to Mei, “This is both a gift and a necessity for you now, it has the symbol of the royal court as well as the symbol of the iron paw sect. This ensures all know that you are part of the iron paw but on official business from the royal court.”
Mei reached down and marveled at the craftsmanship, it was flawless workmanship. “Thank you Empress, I will replace my iron paw bracelet with this one for the remainder of my duty.”
The Empress nodded, “See that you do, for while you are in the palace wearing that bracelet, everyone will be at your beck and call.”