It’s hard to express how angry I’ve been lately. Like something inside of me is itching with a need to get out and I fucking can’t figure it out.
You’ve said that casting aether spells relieves the pressure somewhat.
Yeah, Tessa. The ice and fire and normal elements don’t give much relief. Am I attuned to a different element or something? That’s what the books I used to read would suggest.
Unless there’s an element for petulant child with authority problems . . .
Ha ha, Tessa. How about you tell me why my constructs are not behaving? Oh wait, you can’t ‘cause rules or some shit. Fucking love you, but your bullshit is legendary.
If you’d stop worrying about Empire crap that people have handled, then you could level and I could tell you more.
I totally want to teleport to Alaris so I can swear at you in person.
Universe’s most powerful child folks.
Little too real bitch, little too real. I love you, and I’m trying to build a better body for you. No matter, I’m a year away at best. I have so much Tessa. I need your help bae.
Advisor Talk: You need a few months to Personal Journey on Elysium. You NEED an Aether quest. Tech can wait, your puppy can come with. I’ve already talked with my girlfriend and . . .
Hold up, you and Atropos for real? Congratulations. This is weird and also inevitable?
I like her more than you, so watch it.
This Empire is fucking lousy with horny women.
***
Taking my anger out on hundred pound crystals feels good. I feel the worst when my aether is full. I swear, at this point, I’ve been asking Katie to snack on me as often as she wants it. Our relationship has improved.
”As much as I like these casual snacks, Penny, what has motivated this?” She pets my ribs, noting each glowing feature.
“I’m getting angry? Some part of my Aether is out of balance and from what I can tell, I need to find a resonance before that evens out? “
“My harem will be quite sad if you stay in this state for long.” Katie chuckles.
“Well, to hell with them. I like providing or you, and you like to do more than drain when you feed, and it helps me forget.”
She up-zips my jumpsuit to run her hands against my stomach. “As much as I love touching you, honey, there’s an issue here.”
I wrestle and flip her until I have full limb control. “I know, lover, Life, and wife. Tessa thinks I need an Aether Quest to figure out my resonance or some shit.”
“Honey, Tessa is very well informed. I would banish you to Elysium if I could. Take a class with you and teach like you’ve promised. When you do the mystic stuff that science is woefully poor prepared to explain, you will be better able to assist your charges.”
I look at my wife, seeing her expertise and . . . TLDR her sexiness skyrocketed and all I can think of is boobs in my mouth.
Which she denies. Asshole.
“Honey, tonight is my Harem night. Invite your puppy over. Have a good time and forget about the obligations of the Empire for a second.”
“Ugh, Katie! We need to work on a marriage override or something. Because if we need each other, the other shit needs to drop.”
Katie takes five quick steps and grabs the back of my hair to tilt my head directly toward her eyes. “You forget your station, Wife. I told you once when we got back together, and again when Melissa left, and I thought finally when I Married you: There is no one above you in my eyes—Andromeda be damned. I would die with the whisper of your blood on my lips before I would betray you. Don’t profane my dedication by forgetting my promises.”
I kiss her on impulse, a desire, a demand on the tip of my brain, “Be late to your evening. Let me christen it before and cleanse you in ritual before you return to our bed.”
She smiles and growls into our next kiss. “Time waits for no one Empress. Get to work.”
I attack her with my whole naked body and a bit more teeth than strictly necessary.
***
“Naomi, I swear to Andromeda I will teleport you to Mercy if you come back before my two hours are up.”
“Empress, I don’t think . . .” she blips out of my workshop.
“Time out. She’s safe in the downstairs foyer. Lets work.”
Benja Waits stares at me with curious disbelief, inherently trusting I didn’t just murder my aide and his wife.
“Fascinating, if I could collect . . .”
“BEN! Construct, not teleport.”
“OH! Oh yes. Well, if my observations are correct, a Magitech solution exists, but a telepathy control would be more efficient.”
“Sadly I agree Benja. However, how will my people govern without the remote control ability of the drones. Right now, I want to figure out how to keep the component runes powered without a dozen tiny aether crystals or soaking the damned things in aether.”
“Well, what you seem to need is an aetheric field contained within a shield or something; or a kind of Magitec induction drive system.”
“Like an induction motor or a transformer, but with aether.”
“It’s technically closer to aether-imbued electricity, and yes, but I am not well versed in Magitec induction technology.” He looks nervous and waits for me to say something, maybe encouragement?.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“No worries Benja, I’ll see if Katie is familiar and if not, I’ll give the aether field idea shot. I’ve only needed engravings that direct connect to a source so far. The shuttle’s distributed effects were arranged by my wife. So, now that you’ve taken a look at my issues and if you could contribute in any way, what would it be?”
He thinks for a few minutes, hunting through screens of my active projects and some of my past ones. He’s being thoughtful and making his screens visible while he thinks. “I think, I can help with your survey systems and task automation and optimization on your intended worker constructs.”
“Oh! So you are familiar with advanced hardware for digital intelligence?” This could be great for me once I get the aether connecting to animate the parts as a whole.
“Ah, no. High intermediate. I am an Expert in seeding tasks for nascent complex thinking algorithms.”
“Sweet! That’s better than anyone else I know. Design me a brain for my construct! Actually, I would like five, one leader brain and four drone brains. I want a task force of semi-autonomous constructs for hazardous environments.”
“Swarm iteration and refinement with reinforced overarching tasking. I have the tools to do this! What social structure would you like to imitate?”
“Hmm. I guess ape? I guess like foreman and miner style where I’m the boss and the foreman carries out my orders. I want at least three with one being the leader available for tasking in six months. I would like all five to be ready to interface with their construct bodies in a year.”
“Hmm, that does leave some time for learning and advancing. Not much time for setbacks. Seems workable though. I will take this assignment. Naomi will be very pleased with me.”
“Oh, she’s going to be pissed with me, but that’s not important right now. I’m sending you a contact for requisitions that I use for sensitive state projects. Naomi can connect you with payroll. You can use these spaces or the lab spaces at the Mansion. Message me on project stuff at any time. I’m going to jet before Naomi gets back, so . . . I’ll talk to you in a month to see how things are shaping up.”
I give a short wave and blip back to the top floor loft of the Mansion to tinker with my gun idea. It’s a fun little pistol that “should” form a bullet-shaped shield with an antimatter runeshape, that I collected from Aetheric Insight a while ago, that projects a quarter centimeter into the breech where the magnetic shield is formed. Then I inject mana into the chamber, the back of which is inscribed with a plasma vortex rune.
The problems I am having currently are shield formation longevity and flashback of bottled aether attached to the gun. The tier 3 shields of my EVA suit have been tested many times. This time is going to be different because I now have a magitech link to my aether port and my internal comms gear. The connection should let me form the shield bullet myself and . . . wait, why don’t I make them ahead of time and load them like a magazine? Damnit, I’ll proof of concept before I commit to that. It should also let me control the aether injection as precisely as possible.
>P] Katie, I’m going out to the test range. My EVA charge is full and I’m texting Jenna right after this. [<
>K] Are you testing your doom pistol again? I hate that project. But if you didn’t have at least one horrendously dangerous project running at all times, would you really be Penny? [<
>P] Yes, and you know me so well. I promise to wash the explosion smell off before I come home. [<
>K] I would prefer if you didn’t explode, but I’ll take what I can get. [<
I call Jenna and she connects immediately. “Work or Personal?”
“Hello to you too Lieutenant. Work. I would like medical overwatch for a field test.” I don’t love that she sounds so tired of answering my calls.
She sighs into the call, “Alright, give me coordinates and twenty minutes. I gotta get the pool smell off me and some pants on.”
“Thank you. See you soon.” Hmm, mid work-out. I understand why she would be annoyed now.
Twenty two minutes later she shows up on the far side of Mercy, where my test range is. She has a tier 2 security EVA suit on that I helped her pick out. It has a better combat rating than mine, but it doesn’t fly or re-entry as well as mine.
“Alright, get in the Bunker, or join me behind the standing shield. Long pistol target, high explosive charge. Possible self detonation.”
“Astoria’s tits, that’s insane.”
“Is that how the kids swear these days? On my body parts?”
“Aww, shit. I’m so sorry Penny. I . . . it’s a bad habit. Most of the people in town and in the Navy don’t know you. You’re kind of like a demi-goddess and it’s just a weird habit that was made popular by a new novel series.”
That’s not embarrassing at all. “So, what’s the worst one. When shit’s all wrong and it looks like everyone’s fucked.”
Jenna mumbles.
“What’s that Nini?”
“Astoria’s sandy cunt.” She blushes hard and hides her face.
I snort and lose my shit. I mean, sandy nethers is something to swear about, but they are swearing about my sandy nethers. Bahahahah!! “Oh, Andromeda, that is funny. I approve of this method of swearing. Certainly better than being afraid of me smiting them all the time.”
Jenna stops looking uncomfortable after a few minutes, during which I’ve set up the pistol in an isolated enclosure with a wire poking through the shields to connect to me. Jenna has a hand on my shoulder in case she needs to help pop up a shield around us both. She’s been progressing rapidly in her shields due to my research.
I form the shield bullet, the antimatter is formed within via runeshape, and I fill the chamber with aether and drain the feed line. Everything is ready save triggering the vortex rune.
“Standby, triggering pistol in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Fire.” I hear a pop and a whistle before the back side of the concrete shed at 25 meters explodes with percussive thunder. The moon dust flares around the edges of the standing shield and as the dust settles I see that no part of the concrete shed remains standing.
“That was the plan right?”
I shake my head and squeeze the side of her neck lightly. “Yes dear, though I’d hope for more penetration and less back-pressure demolition. Lets go see the site. The walk isn’t long, but as we get closer, it’s evident that the front wall of the shed was shattered toward us. It was shattered by the back wall exploding towards us? What the fuck happened? We walk further and find a partially conical gouge out of the moon surface and a small spherical depression at the start of the cone, five meters past where the back wall was supposed to be.
“Well, that certainly seems effective. Terrifying for a pistol, but effective.”
“Andromeda forbid I ever use that in atmo, or even a thicker target. I test out here because my explosive yields are weaker, and you can’t catch things on fire. This would have been 25-40% more destructive and oh so very hot.”
“It’s funny that of all of your useful projects you have on your plate, you seem to have the most success with weapons.”
Andromeda does that make me feel like shit. Fuck you Jenna. I’m not going to say it out loud because she doesn’t know better, but I hate this feeling so bad. Is this how Oppenheimer felt? Or dozens of other legitimate researchers who created horrors that decimated people. It’s just so hard when I’m drawn to annihilation. It’s so damned destructive, but what can it make besides an enhanced state of Entropy?
“Hey, Nini. Can we not talk about this. I, uh. I really don’t like it.” I instinctively crouch and hug my knees. I kind of float and tilt because of the low gravity, but eventually, Jenna picks me up and takes me to her shuttle.
Once we get inside and the shuttle pressurizes I get embarrassed and start yammering, “Some big terrifying Empress hey? Breaks down because she feels like a monster?” I growl and start crying. Fucking weak ass vulnerability. I need a life time out for like, two weeks, to smooch my wife and project and forget that horrors like me exist.
“As stupid as it sounds Empress, seeing you vulnerable makes it so much more worth serving you. I would trade a thousand days of strength for a single day where you needed me to lean on.”
My whole body beat with affection for her comment. Andromeda bless that she doesn’t know how suave she can be.
“Do you need medical attention?”
And then she ruins it. I laugh, dork. “MM, yes, I need emotional support smooches.”
She moves in immediately and stops halfway. “Astoria’s crooked pinky, you’re a flirt.” I flick a look at my pinky before I realize she’s just having me on. She uses her nose to tilt my head up for a few temperate but tasty kisses.
I can’t help but giggle at her attention. “You give the best medical attention.”
“You are the weirdest and most delightful dichotomy and I love you. Wait, I . . . shit.”
“Universe, are you adorable. Want to have a picnic with me on Elysium?”
She pulls out of her fluster as she worries about my safety. I explain my idea and she relaxes. Why I got hooked on a strangely literal person is beyond me, but she’s sexy as hell and good at her job. My super fluffy Adonis. This time I check my schedule before making plans, and she’s free next week to survey our training spaces. I make sure that she remembers to bring cute and comfortable stuff.
When we return, Katie asks me for some enchanting help and I’m happy to oblige. I ask Jenna to review our security at Lake Retreat before I arrive and she’s amped to visit Elysium for the first time. I’m setting her up for her first hard mutation, but she should be acclimated enough to receive it favorably. I want to see what her Aether acclimation looks like.