“Admiral!”

Fucking four of us turn to watch DeGurgis run up the beach. I shamefully enjoy watching that muscley heap of woman in motion. She’s in liberty gear, and I’m a thirsty lesbian. Most of the boys are looking too.

“Lieutenant, there are multiple Admiral’s here.”

“I mean, sure, but you’re my Admiral.”

Okay, fuck me. I wonder what color my blush is. At least one of the other admirals is laughing at me, probably Rich, the bastard.

“Out with it Sailor.”

“Oh! Right,” She looks away from me to the other Admirals. I look down and see that I’ve unzipped my jumpsuit without having an undershirt. Just me and my sports bra. Well shit. “Well, I’ve been talking to the other officers, and we really need some more land area and I was wondering if emigrating was available yet?”

“Not until Alaris makes it back to Astoria. But what are people looking for specifically?”

“I’ll just send Tessa the list yah?” She needs to tone down the chaperones Right Now. That’s Camacho’s job anyway. I motion for her to get on with that.

I get lost in some menus and see that the requests are substantive and end up being lodging for a few thousand more people? Oof. Tessa. How much would it cost to transport all of the chaff from our mine in Astoria?

To create the landfill you require on this atoll will cost 1k CE and 10 million or so credits. But the plan I’ve tentatively selected will support 15k people with requisite community spaces and an additional rec center on a different island. The most radioactive islands will be made effectively safe in the process.

I don’t love that this is necessary, but I was naïve to think that 5k was going to be enough for my emigration station. Make it so Tessa, make sure don’t kill anyone.

Any personnel in danger will be moved aside.

“Wait, are you literally doing it right now?” DeGurgis asks.

“Of course. This endeavor showed that my initial estimate was wrong for the project I intended on these islands, and that aggressive expansion is necessary. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.”

“How much expansion are we talking?” The Chairman asks?

“Fifteen thousand with some options. And no, this is not new Hawaii. This is going to be a connection to Astoria with emigration support.” I look over to see my bulky LT shifting her weight, waiting for something. “Did you have another question, L-T?”

“We need another for the Volleyball tournament this afternoon?”

I chuckle at that. If it were now I could decline, however, “Sure, if I can get the Codgers Club settled by then, I’ll be around.”

She smiles and looks like she’s about to bound out of her skin. She then quickly recovers and then swipes her hand through her short hair and says, “Cool, cool. See you then.” And then jogs off.

I can’t help but laugh and shake my head.

“Codgers Club?”

“I’m trying to be hip. Lay off, Jim.”

“Fine, fine. But we still need to discuss the logistics of collecting our national labs and forming a government body with them in it.”

“We stabilize and reinforce our bases and make an aggregate nation for the meantime.”

“Is there some kind of fast travel we can enable?” They all look at me.

“The answer is yes, but it’s expensive. Prohibitively so. It would be cheaper to build supersonic cargo jets.” I reply to the barrage. “Gents, I told you to bring some of your younger officers. Commanders or so should be adequate. They should be able to help you through the system aspects that seems to be plaguing you.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the air force admiral chastises, “we’ve heard this and I’ve asked several of my installations to start working the problem. Their solutions just aren’t workable. I can’t transport a whole wing without additional support”

I want to claw his eyes out. He’s not paying attention.

“CNO. If you could move any asset to this location, what would you move?”

“A carrier we had in the Middle East that we lost contact with.”

“Okay, Admiral. Give me temporary command of the vessel in the system.” The authority shifts with a ping and a notice.

Alright Tessa, do I get a discount if I use my talent and my space magic?

Normally no, but in this case, the ship is in your range, so yes. The Matrix loves you for some reason.

You love me too, sassy cat. She sends me an image and I fucking pull and mutter some words. My body starts glowing and my aether just dumps into a portal offshore. Tessa sends me an alert of credits spent and a fucking thousand foot long mass of metal appears a kilometer offshore. I sink to my knees and look at the astonished faces of the flag officers in front of me.

“I used skills as well as money, but the Sector Host can transport anything up to that size with a tax proportional to the mass.” I look over to the air force chief of staff. “Now stop bitching about what is and isn’t possible and fucking figure it out.”

I start falling over slowly trying to stabilize my core and catch myself with an arm. It shakes and I’m about to collapse when I feel hands on my back and legs and don’t remember anything else.

***

I wake up in a bed I know with no one else in it. I’m briefly relived, but I do wish that Katie were here. I sit up to find that my living space is empty save a beefy Lieutenant with a rifle in her shorts and tank facing the stair well. Well, shit, she’s taking the Security Chief job seriously.

I look down and I’m in my underwear. In for a penny, heh, nice. I have a coffee maker around here somewhere. I start rummaging and sway a little and I immediately feel a hand on my back.

“Thank you for the rescue, DeGurgis. And for keeping watch, but I’ll carry on.”

“No dice Ma’am.”

“Fine. Go check the fridge for a swirly-colored fruit and I need something to call you if you’re going to hang out while I’m half dressed.”

“Half dressed? Please, you’re basically wearing a swimsuit. And I go by Jay or Jenna.”

“Alright Jay, be cheeky while searching.” I keep looking for where Katie put the coffee. Oh, she always hides it behind the grinder. I start grinding and brewing and set out some cups.

“Is this what you’re looking for?” She’s holding a couple slices of Galaxy fruit that are amazingly preserved.

“Yes!” I snatch the plate and stuff the wedges in my maw and feel the sluice of aether flood my bones. “Oh, Andromeda that’s good.” I ask Tessa if I can have more slices before a mutation.

At this point, a whole fruit would fill your stores to 125%. Your capacity was upgraded significantly after your level 32 mutation.

I thank Tessa with a few pings and order another fruit and slice it. I continue to moan through half of the fruit before setting the plate down. I look up to notice that Jay is facing to the side and her ears are bright red.

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“Sorry about that. Those things are almost pure aether and likely the tastiest thing I’ve ever eaten.” I look at the fruit dreamily until I see her reach out tentatively. “Unless you’ve been exposed to aether, I suggest you don’t. You want your first mutation to be subtle. This wedge of fruit would not be subtle.”

She searches my eyes for a lie and then nods.

“If you want to ease into it. I drink an infused beer or juice that keeps me topped off.” I summon a bottle of each and hand them to her. She takes a sip of each.

“Oh shit! It makes me itch and tingle at the same time.”

I bite the innuendo I could sling back, “If it’s effecting you that much, then work up to a bottle of juice a day. If you want to Chose an aether-based path, and have not hit tier 1, I can help you change over. Using magic is cool, but so is tech, but unfortunately you have to commit to one.”

“Have you seen shape shifters?” She asks with sparkles in her eyes.

I chuckle, “I have seen a wolf-man Jedi, but never a full werewolf. As always with this system, keep what you want and how you want to advance in mind, and it will help you get there. Mutating too fast is something it cannot fix.”

Universe, her innocent look is fucking too much. “Did we miss volleyball?”

“Uh,” she checks her actual watch, and her face brightens when she see’s it’s barely noon. “We have enough time to eat and get out there!”

I sip my coffee and quirk an eyebrow at her.

“I mean, you should change into your suit first. Unless you want people to stare, I mean, they might stare anyway ‘cause you’re kind of blue and exotic but . . .” She stops worrying her hands and looks up in shock. “Oh, no, I mean I . . .”

“Calm your tits Jenna, it’s okay.” I chuckle at her antics and walk back to my closet and shop in the exchange. A cute purple number with a sports top and tiny shorts bottoms. It’s basically workout gear with too short shorts. I kind of want Jenna to stutter and I want Katie to see it and abscond with me bodily.

“You should turn around Jay, lest I think the wrong thing.” I turn my head to look at her with a smirk. She flushes hard and retreats into the stair well. I cackle inappropriately. My change is quick and I take a second to check myself in the mirror, for maybe the first time since I went through the massive change from my former physiology.

Full of aether, I kind of glow in the low light, my features are sharper than I expected and I’m very thin. I can’t say I didn’t notice, but since I had my suit adjusted, I really haven’t paid attention. Andromeda, everything on me looks long. Alright, a tie back of my front hair and we’re good.

I walk over put on my pistol belt and put a hand on LT embarrassed’s back to tell her I’m ready to go. “Alright. Lets go get lunch and spike some fuckers.” I punch her lightly in the shoulder.

She beams at me and rushes up the stairs. I follow but see it’s sunny as fuck outside. Get me a big floppy hat. Floppy hat saga part two! I mean, if we’re going bougie socialite I need an oversized wine glass with my fuzzy peach beer in it. Bitch smirk engage!

I walk down the beach like I own it. I literally do, but it’s the vibe not the fact that people are looking at. It might be because I’m wearing a pistol belt with a bikini, but who really knows. There’s an appropriate amount of murmuring as we walk toward the Rec Center, it’s three kilometers or so and the beaches in between are packed with off-duty Sailors. Hopefully the northernmost islands will get attention from the carrier that I teleported in a few hours ago. That sucked, I hope to never do that again.

“Duuude, when we asked you to find someone for our team, I didn’t mean get the Admiral.” Camacho says looking uncomfortable.

“She’s the only other Astorian available. What was I supposed to do?” She’s beaming from actually getting me to show. “Plus, she needs a break from all business all the time, like anyone else.”

Camacho asks me the veracity of that statement with her thick, shaped eyebrows.

“It’s true, the Joint Chief’s needed to be reminded that their younger staff members also have good ideas.” I sigh dramatically, “But then, I also have delusions that I’ll be able to take a vacation when we get back to Astoria.”

“How do we have work already, Astoria just got a Navy.” Lemoore asks.

“Soon as Alaris, my fancy new ship, gets back to Astoria, we’ll start migrating our first group of immigrants. That first group will need to have specialists and planners to make sure we can handle less productive members of society, but this is all for future us.”

“Not too many harrowing boarding ops I hope?” one of the other crew, whose name I’ve forgotten asks.

“Nope. I plan to tow the Galilei back to Ganymede, and then do domestic operations around Astoria and Hades, including figuring out what you all want for your personal lives as well as your Navy lives.”

“You planning on mandatory service?”

“Civil service maybe. Twenty hours a month participating in civic services for your first year, or something like that for people taking the free shuttle. People that pay the gate charge can opt out, because money can help fund more free services. Etcetera. None of that really matters for you all and the first group of immigrants, as most have agreed to help organize government efforts and new immigrants.”

“No way that will go horribly wrong.” Camacho adds, helping immensely.”

“Fuck off Camacho. You already signed up anyway.” Jenna jumps to my defense. That’s probably going to be an issue in the future.

“Ease up LT, a complaining Sailor is a happy Sailor. Plus, if she pisses me off too much, I’ll drop her off on an asteroid to deal with Contractors. Space Alien contractors.”

Camacho shudders visibly. “No need for threats Ma’am” She grumbles into her Thai beer.

“Oh, thanks for the reminder, y’all hungry or thirsty. I’m happy to spring for a spread after a job well done.” I look around for the best place to put extra tables. “Message me your orders and I’ll see what I can do.”

Each of them order a different favorite food and a different beer or liquor. I set it out on tables I order and put the drinks in a shiny new trough full of ice. I even put a few of my blue-bottle Belgian topped beers with a mutation risk label on them.

“Thanks for not ordering anything ridiculous.” I say to my Sailors.

“Damn Admiral, you should be in charge of all picnics.” One of my enlisted chimes in.

I chuckle at that and enjoy watching the team smile and chat after that ordeal in the brig. Speaking of.

>P]Katie, how’s the op? [<

>K] Broken. Comms. Horror. Show. [<

>P] ETA? [<

>K] Soon. [<

That’s not a good sign. I’m not sure if I hope it was a result of warp sickness, or horrific leadership decisions. Then again, they brought some horror to the Galilei, so I want to put a pulse or two through their heads anyway. I need to forget this shit for a few minutes.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

I look over to see a concerned Jenna, ready to take bite out of that pun, but then it would feel so wrong to kick this big brown-haired Labrador. “Jenna, do you know my first name?”

She looks worried now, “Uh, Admiral?”

I snort. “It’s Penny.”

She goes from worried to horrified to holding in a laugh within seconds.

“Come on, Jenna, in for a Penny, in for a pound.”

She snorts the seltzer she’s drinking and starts laughing between coughs.

“I don’t love those kinds of jokes, but you had no way of knowing.” I take a swig of my beer and remember that she’s trying to get a symbiote so I pass her the bottle for a swig. She takes one and passes it back with a full body shiver.

“Does the transition hurt?”

“Not that I’m aware of. You’ll keep a few of the swarm bots to help early communications with the symbiote, but you get used to it. It’s a little squirmy as it settles in though. And I hope that you’ll take to it and help me train new folks through the transition. The last few folks I helped through aren’t part of my Empire anymore. Since you’re in the Navy, you’re mine for at least five years.” I didn’t mean it to sound so possessive, so my cheeks purple in slight embarrassment.

“Is Beecham coming to Astoria with us?” She asks stealing the bottle from me again and taking another swig.

“That was the original plan. I told him he was in charge of my shipyards and that he could design one around Mercy and I’d pay for it.” I snag my beer back and point my finger at her with stern eyes.

I am apparently not threatening at all because she quirks an eyebrow and a mouth corner at me. She has to be flirting with me. If she gets any cuter I’ll have to talk to Katie.

“You know, he likes you and all, but has a hard time with the idea of Empire. In fact, most of us do.” She fiddles with the pop top while waiting for an answer.

“Yeah, I get that. I don’t love the term either, but what else to you call the overarching government that organizes commerce and travel between independently governed settlements, that also has the power to adjudicate inter-system disputes?”

“That sounds like a collection of republics under a Caesar or a King. Empire makes sense.”

“Yeah, it’s a relatively common style of expansionist governing style. Looking for something a little less corrupt than the Roman Empire and the Senate, and a little less heavy handed than Persian Sultanates and their Satrapies.”

“How do you have time to think of all of this and be a scientist?” She asks, reaching for my beer again, but I smack her hand away.

“I don’t. I only have three Consuls right now, so I needed to take an Empire Administration Module. I have memories of many government types and personnel in my brain. I tried to be more involved in discovery and invention, but I tend to neglect everything else, so one of my fiancée’s left because of it.”

I had the odd privilege of watching Jenna DeGurgis reboot.

Loading . . . 30% please wait. She drains her beer and goes to get a whiskey bottle and a beer.

Loading . . . 50% please wait. She swigs from each and passes me the whiskey.

Loading . . .75%, paused waiting for interaction to complete. I swig and give the bottle back.

Loading . . .99%, finalizing new state. She takes a hard drag off of the bottle, caps it, and tosses it back into the trough.

“You have fiancées.” She states.

“Before you get weird about this, it was one of their ideas, and I took a long time to come to terms with it. My remaining fiancée is kind of a Vampire and needs multiple partners to survive on Aether lean worlds, so I have to come to terms with that too. Haven’t settled on what that means yet.”

“Should you be sharing this with me?” Jenna asks, not looking at me. Ah well, opportunity missed.

“I mean, I think Katie would approve? I’d have to talk with her first?”

“WHAT!?” Jenna screams, staring at me?

“Yah, it’s a lot. If you weren’t flirting with me, no harm no foul.” I reach up to squeeze her shoulder and leave her to stare into her beer.

“You having a spat there Admiral?”

“Why, want to join us Camacho?”

“Well, yeah! I’ve been working on that for months!”

I chuckle at that. “You need to be more obvious, I don’t think she knows.” Camacho growls in response.

With DeGurgis distracted and Camacho angry, we play like shit. It’s fun though to see the boys tease them about their terrible play. They don’t make fun of me, sometimes it pays to be the Empress.