Two weeks before the Founder’s Festival I finish making bombs. Send this last batch to the mine factory and I’ll have my ten thousand. Now, ten thousand isn’t much considering that Astoria is larger than Earth and I don’t want the mine explosions to interfere with the satellite and missile defense network. So, they are staged in net-like clumps and assigned group numbers. The satellite network will detect incoming hostile ships, find a cluster in very short warp (VSW) range and have them use their small aether batteries to warp to a ship and kaboom. If they manage to shut down my satellite network, Alaris, Titania, and Mab (naming the new cruisers after fey queens seemed appropriate) can take control of signaling the mines. I obviously can too, but I try to make sure there’s an Empress Failsafe on all of my weapons.
“Penny, I am getting tired of fielding questions from the Consuls about Founder’s day. You need to talk to them.” Katie barges into my office.
I look up at her with barely veiled anger. “As First Consul it is literally your job to do so! You don’t want to be involved in the war, so what else is there?” She’s been pointing her sorrow at me in the form of anger for the last two months and it’s wearing on me.
The edge on Katie’s anger fades as she replies, “I’ve killed enough people lately.”
“I understand that, but everyone’s a bit stressed right now so I’m trying to point them at staying busy. If you want another job, tell me. If you don’t want to work in government service anymore, that’s fine too. Could you at least talk to me about this before blowing up at me though?”
“Naomi!” I shout while a variety of unsaid emotions pass across Katies face.
“Yess Empress?”
“Is the Governor still the head of the Founder’s Day Committee?” She nods. “Then why the hell is Katie getting pestered so much?”
“Governor Banks is trying to get every leader in the community involved at the few events we do have planned, so naturally he would try to get a Founder to attend. Additionally, he’s asking said officials to help sponsor seats/prizes/food anything really to help the people feel more appreciated.”
“Oh, how very responsible of him. Have we already sponsored a food vendor?”
“I have a list that we are tentatively agreed to, pending your approval. I don’t have access to your finances.” I nod at that. My finances are a bit strained as I’ve been spending a lot of personal money on getting us ready for the Herrat.
Katie coughs for attention, “I want them off my back Penny.”
“Then tell them that. The Governor doesn’t outrank you.”
“But the other Consul’s are still insisting I participate in their work.”
I sigh, not wanting her to disappear completely, but that’s what she wants I guess. “I don’t know what you’re working on, or what’s going on in your head that’s making you pull away, but if you want me to get the Consuls and government responsibility types from hassling you, I can do that.”
She nods, “that’s what I want.”
I open up the Empire Menu, click a few buttons on my personal access and some on Empress authority and then send out a message to the Consuls and Governors. “I accept your resignation.”
Katie looks shocked, “What did you just do?”
“You didn’t want the responsibilities of First Consul or System Lord of Moiriax, so you no longer hold those positions and the appropriate parties have been informed. The Founder stuff is on you, though.” It’s hard to determine which is affecting Katie more: the loss of access to thousands of credits as the System Lord, or that the role of First Consul is tied to being married to the Throne. “I’ll make sure the Mansion and your manor on Atropos are transferred to your ownership and you can work or play at your leisure.”
“This isn’t what I wanted,” she whispers.
“I know, hon, but maybe it’s what’s best for now. Spend some time thinking about what you do want, and come back and talk to me about it. We’ll figure something out.”
She doesn’t nod or say anything else, a lingering stare is all I get before she turns and leaves.
“Sorry about that Naomi. Is there anything urgent from the Consul’s that I need to take care of?”
“Our supply lines to Clotho and Lachesis have been degrading steadily since we started converting half our shuttle fleet to Fighters. Some mercenaries have been hired to pick up the slack, but some shipments have been billed without cargo and other cargo has gone missing. It was never whole shipments, until this week.”
Crap. Our largest contingent of for-hire transport and protection comes from the Russian Syndicate, which looks like it recovered from Katies murder spree. I’ll have to ask Ivanka if she’s heard anything about it.
I send her and Petra a message about the missing cargo and ask if it’s the Syndicate that’s doing it. I don’t mind a little black-market organized crime, but if whole shipments are going missing, then we’re going to start having problems. They know I have no intention of getting involved unless it’s serious, and I already warned that I’d be more than willing to go on a crusade and deal with the next organization that pops up if the Russians don’t feed me a liaison. They chose Ivanka and Petra, and generally keep them at arm’s length because of it. From what I can tell, no one is happy, but no one is angry either. Well, Katie angered the lot of them by killing most of upper management, but I choose to think that’s not my fault.
After that little wonder, Commodore Casey sent her latest report earlier this week, and I haven’t read it yet. She finally figured out that if she feeds me regularly, I don’t show up unannounced and mark everything as mine. Her report indicates that the shuttle refits are completed, Titania and Mab are on their way to Astoria, and my new wing of warp fighters is incoming. Most importantly, she forwarded me the latest from Rear Admiral Jessup that explains that we have a full complement of people ready for our four main ships, and enough pilots to get the job done. Still only have two people that are capable of piloting the warp fighters, but both of them assure me that others will be capable given time to mod or mutate into it.
“Empress! Bart called and said Zia snuck into her meal bag and ate all of the fruit. Now she’s huddled up holding her head and shouting for you!”
I teleport into their living room and ear Zia yelling “Mama” from Bart’s lab. Another blip and I pick up my small, fetal-coiled child and inspect her with my aether sight. Her vortex and brain are blinding auroras and the rest of her body looks like a mirage of her body as the saturation of aether distorts my vision.
Panic hits me and I blip us home, giving a little waive to Bart before I leave.
“Oh honey, I wish you had listened. Just hold on, and think about how much you would like to grow up. Keep thinking about that until you see a window with a yes or no okay? The transformation will ease the pain baby.”
I sit on the edge of my recovery tank and wait for a sign that a window pops up.
“I love you Zia, and I need you to pull through this okay? Mama needs you to be a big girl and transition, honey.”
Zia keeps crying and squirming. She’s in so much pain and I don’t know what to do for her. How do I help her Tessa? Tears start rolling off of me and on to my daughter as I kiss her tiny, hot forehead and whisper positive words and my love on a continuous basis. Until I feel a little hand on my cheek.”
“I see box. Okay? Momma no cry.” I see her stare off into the distance and then close her eyes. A flash of light and mana an instant later replaces the 12 kilo weight with a 30 kilo weight and we both get pulled into the pool by the change.
I right myself quickly and emerge with Zia’s head above the liquid and realize I’m holding a horrifying fleshy blank with medium brown hair. The form stays this way for long enough to make me panic that something has gone wrong, which may have been only a second, I try to look at her in aether sight and that was painful and unhelpful.
“Andromeda, please don’t let me lose her. Please let me help her.”
//DONATE? –YES | NO --//
“Yes! Anything if it will help me get her through this!”
//SACRIFICE: TECH IMBALANCE, MIND OVER MATTER. ASSISTANCE COMPLETE//
I see the message and am completely numb at the loss of a skill, one that has been a constant in my life, but if it helps Zia, then I happily part with it.
Zia’s face and form start remodeling and a wave of relief hits me and suddenly I feel like I’m about to pass out.
“You know, it’s impossible to reach you when you panic like that. You couldn’t hear me in your head or out loud.” Tessa says from behind me.
“I’m sorry, it’s just I thought her mutation level was too high and it killed her to transition.” I can hear an edge of panic still in my voice.
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“Shh,” she runs fingers through my hair and it begins to soothe me immediately. “I wasn’t chastising you, I was worried that you might sacrifice yourself for her, and I was trying to tell you it wasn’t necessary. This happened to you when you became a pixie from that dark fey golem thing you were headed toward. The mannequin stage lasted longer in your case.”
“Oh.” So I gave up a tech imbalance and a powerful skill because I panicked and opened up my big mouth. I can’t say that’s a new development, and in fact it has happened through every one of my transitions, so why not Zia’s.
“What did you give, Penny?”
“A skill and tech imbalance.”
“I wonder what the Matrix will do with the imbalance as she is a symbiote user? The skill is obvious though. She’ll get it at a reduced capacity and modify her body to use it. That’s still really dangerous to offer the exchange anything, though.”
I lean my head back to find her knees to rest on. I look up and see concern from Tessa, whorls of brown hair escaping from her ponytail to frame her face. “I’ll know for next time. But I would have given a lot more to ensure she survived this.”
She sighs, “There’s no changing your nature, I suppose. Oh! Hello Zia’s AI. Must be what they used the imbalance for!”
Keep talking Tessa, tell me what’s going on in there.
“It’s not much, it’s just a hold message telling me that their integration is hold pending transformation. This is good though, having an AI at this stage should help her develop her shapeshifting and blinking.”
Her face continues to shift throughout the transformation, perhaps a warring of intention? Her skin tone alters from pale white more towards my own, her body gives the slightest whisper of widening hips, but is otherwise androgynous, and her leg proportions can’t seem to make up their mind.
“Watching this is not helping my mindset. Please distract me.”
Tessa smirks and brings her other hand to play with my hair. “Lets see, I’ve been thinking about your magic a lot. The first being that you should be able to play with time as well. That little space dilation trick you do when sparring? Time should behave the same, but I don’t know what it would feel like. I was also thinking about how you can make pocket spaces like those storage rings, and the Vault Guardian hinted at a large storage space in one of the stable pocket dimensions, so it could stand to reason that pocket spaces could have pocket time as well.”
“Ooh. See, I like that idea. Pocket space with pocket time. That has to be how the shuttle storage spell works. I should study that form more, I haven’t looked at it since tier 1 and I still don’t know any time runes. Come to think of it, I don’t know any Void runes either. That’s a weird thought.”
“Considering you have spent zero time developing your magics since the void incident, that doesn’t surprise me.” She smiles down at me, “you have been busy though.”
“Leveling things like Bureaucracy, blarg. At least my engraving and enchanting have seen benefits.”
“You’ve used those skills to build an Empire, Penny. You should be proud.”
In her tone, I hear that she’s proud of me and it’s the first time in a while that the person saying it to me meant enough for me to feel it.
“Thanks Tessa. You truly are a masterpiece of incalculable worth.”
We stand vigil for hours until my Suite mate tells me that the AI is now integrating with Zia. I carry her to our bed and tuck my much larger daughter in. Her body settled on a look similar to mine but with much longer proportions. It seems like she wants to be taller than me, otherwise, she looks like an athletic pre-teen with shimmery wing stubs. Tessa suggested cut them free--like I did mine—while she’s sleeping. I almost vomited when I saw the little trickle of pearlescent blood come out when I pulled her wing stubs through.
“Is it weird that I really want to see what else the transformation did for her?”
“Collecting data makes you feel useful, so not really. Plus, there’s no handbook or module to help you with her, so I get it: every data point that helps predict her next benchmark or with your next daughter.”
“Next daughter? Hold on there, I have no plans for more kids!” Seriously Tessa, what’s wrong with you?
“The joy on your face when you’re with her plus the easiest pregnancy I’ve ever heard of, you’re definitely having more kids. Though I wonder what would happen if you grew the entire Intelligence Matrix out of crystal.”
Now that’s a thought. Is there any reason I couldn’t? What benefits or drawbacks would there be? “Oh, that was a cheap shot. Asshole.”
She giggles that adorable-ass giggle and I suddenly want to throw her in the lazy river. Instead, I take a deep breath and use my words. “I don’t want to worry about Zia or the war for the evening, want to Science or watch a movie?”
“I would like to . . . pick your brain about space pockets, actually.”
“Would you like me to search the Vault for a relevant book or just brainstorm how we might do it, then confirm after Zia awakens?”
“I bought a satchel with a foldable, metallic-framed opening to experiment on.”
“Ooh! I can show off the engraving interface I’ve been working with!”
***
“Momma, you’re crushing me!”
I hear from a deep sleep, the pokes in my side are what really get me moving. “I’m sorry honey, it’s been two nights since you started your transition. How do you feel?”
“I feel weird wearing your clothes. But thanks for not dressing me up like a doll, I guess?” She looks at my shirt as she sits up and throws the covers off her legs. Wiggling her toes, inspecting her arms and hands, and poking at her face shows her that she’s not hideously deformed. The look on her face was relieved.
Hmm, how far did she advance on memory to be worried about transformation defects? I inspect her in aether vision.
Holy cow. A twenty percent increase in memory integration? That has got to be disorienting.
“Okay, you’re doing something. You starry eyes are glowing and spinning.”
“Sorry honey, just wanted to check your growth “progress” aether-wise. I can’t see your sheet without permission, don’t worry.” I immediately go on the defensive, for some reason.
“Chill mom, I’m getting a lot of . . . cascading thoughts, and it’s super distracting. I saw your eyes and got a rush of emotions that might trigger it. I heard aether and a mess of info just flushed into my brain. Being able to talk is nice though.”
I pull her into a fierce hug, the emotions of relief and love make me want to thank her for surviving. “I was so worried I was going to lose you.”
“Yah, I was scared too. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t have the tasty fruit, I thought you were just whining ‘cause they were expensive.”
I can’t help but laugh at the reduced logic. “Yeah, a slice was enough aether to give like a quarter level.”
Zia’s eyes gloss over while I assume she is checking her character sheet. Oh shit, momma, I fucked up.”
“Language! PG rules in this house, young lady. That’s your one swear for the day.” She snickers at that.
“I can handle that. No no, look at my sheet.”
Race: Blink Pixie Andromeda Code: S/w AI Subrace: Royal Track: none (t-0, lvl. 9) Intelligence: A, Clever: B Awareness: B Beauty: A Charm: B Presence: B Strength: D Agility: B Fitness: D Capacity: C Refinement: C Power: A Skills Beguile: Beginner, step 8 Mind over Matter: Beginner, step 3 Talents Body of Power 3 Blink Aether Conversion Hereditary Memory Mutation Prone “What the hell? Zia, darling, how much fruit did you steal?! Level nine, and a hindrance talent? What the what?!” Zia blushes and starts fiddling with the corner of the comforter. “You know what? Not sure I care. I’m just glad you’re not dead or some mind-addled aether forged beast.” I look back on the sheet, glad that she has more Body of Power, and amazed that her actual power went up. Not sure if she’s getting my Primus blessing or the ‘of the Matrix’ blessing, but thank Andromeda for that boon. “Can I ask you some questions momma?” Aww, the frikkin’ cutie. “Of course baby.” I turn my head toward the lab. “Tessa! Zia has questions!” A minute later, she comes trotting up, expending no apparent effort. “What is it? Oh! Zia! I’m so glad you’re okay.” She lunges to hug my daughter, and Zia wraps her up as well. “I’m so glad you’re here.” Zia says, to my confusion. She’s only met her a few times after all. “So, when should I pick a track and who is going to teach me magic?” I take a deep breath, let it out and get ready answer when Tessa chimes in. “Well, by Imperial law, you can’t go to the Symbiote school until you’re 14 or tier 1.” “And, I don’t intend to change that for you, or any magic-oriented offspring. However, for Track selection, I’m glad you didn’t pick already. With all of these memories roiling inside your head, you wont have a proper sense of what you want. I recommend you not decide until you know what you want to do, or you have reached the requirements for tier 1. You should absolutely accept your track before tier 1 and experiment with your skills and talents before accepting the transition slash ascention.” “While that’s nice and all, totally great advice, but I wanted to learn how to blink.” “Close your eyes, open, and repeat.” I smile widely. My pre-teen roars and tackles me while I chortle at my supreme, top tier joke. When I see her about to dig into my sides, I blip us over the Olympic pool and then blip myself back to the picnic area for some breakfast. Zia screams in frustration. Tessa laughs as she jogs back down. I am feeling very proud of myself. Lessons are fun! “Are you in the lab all day?” I ask Tessa. “Mm, planned to be. Did you need something?” “I was hoping you could start on a warp drone if you have the time. You do drone better than I do. And before you ask, I don’t have the tech imbalance to accept that mod anymore.” “More or less important than network upgrades?” “Less! Way less. Need that to keep missiles from the surface please and thanks.” “Your outfitting them with pulse rifles was successful, but you dismissed our best network associate.” My whole body laughs. That is certainly one way to say I forced the First Consul to resign, which also means I no longer have a wife. Yeah, no big deal Tesssa. “Hey, she asked to be relieved on Imperial responsibilities. I just chose the select all button and executed her wishes.” “Are you talking about Katelyn?” Zia asks wet as hell, holding my sweatpants up. “Yes baby, not a topic I want to discuss right now.” “Good riddance, she was so fucking toxic for you.” “ZIA!” Tessa and I shout at the same time, but I continue. “Broke the movie rules honey. No blood or Ink or a week. I know where my engraving bottles went now, young lady.” “This is bullshit! You know she was an ass to you, I REMEMBER!” “Want to make it two?” Her face transitions from outrage to disgusted as she uses two fingers and a very pointed raspberry to tell me where to stick my discipline. She stomps off to a third room and slams the door. We’re silent for a few minutes, I was thinking about what I need to do for Zia, but her little scrunchy face kept creeping into my mind. “Andromeda, she’s adorable when she’s angry.” I whisper. “She really is.” Tessa says, grabbing my hand from across the table.