So, the thing about child labor I don’t like is the coercion. But when my daughter insists on bein involved, I make her sort my messages and reply to the stupid ones. She replies to several expressing that multiple Imperial appearances will be done by the Princess of the Empire. Cute title, troubling habit.

“I’m going to need armor if I’m to appear in public.” Zia insists.

“Honey, I already commissioned shin guards, armguards and a tiara for your protection, but it will take a few days.”

“Momma, I swear, you have no idea how fast things are progressing. Point in fact, you just got a message from your buddy Ivanka saying that she has dire news.”

“Zia, that one. Don’t reply, lemme see.” I read a message from Ivanka telling me in very uncertain terms to head to Asphodel for a briefing. Fucking short-ranged shuttles.

“Tessa, I gotta go, you staying here? Might be a few days.”

“Sure, drop me off on Alaris? You’ll be boarding soon and I might as well stay.”

“Can do, Zia, go to Uncle Barts. Talk to him about your progress or something.”

Damn girl blinks in front of me and gives me the teen-est, pre-teen attitude that ever ‘tuded.

“Hell no. Bart looks at me like he’s going to cut me open. Hard pass.”

“Your remaining options are Alaris with Tessa, or Farming with Frannie and . . . Jenna? Well okay then. Auntie Jenna would love you.”

She gives me an exasperated sigh and accepts being dropped off with Francesca and Jenna. Andromeda help them if they let a Blink Pixie get drunk. Little shit blinked blindly into Oren’s locker and got plastered and made a teleporting menace of herself. She’s had this body for a week.

“Elevator, NOW!” I yell, impatient. Ivanka rarely contacts me and I am chomping at the bit to go see her.

“No chill, momma. I swear that you’re more hormonal after my birth.”

“Excuse me? I was plenty pissy while I was pregnant, young lady.”

“Not the time, Pen,” Tessa intrudes as she shuffles into the elevator.

“Why are we taking the lift when you can teleport anywhere?”

“I want a coffee from the new café.” I declare, then blush, “and flirt with the barista.” The look of shock on Zia’s face is surprising.

“Tessa,” Zia says.

“Don’t.” Tessa orders.

“What the hell?” I demand.

“You are such a useless lesbian,” my daughter states. What the ever-loving shit is that? Tessa starts giggling, and Zia joins her.

Nope, not in the mood friends. I grab both of them and teleport us to the upper atmosphere and summon my shuttle. Zia freaks and blinks repeatedly until she reaches the shuttle and engages the airlock.

“You’re not going to let me splat, Penny.” Tessa stares at me with a warm smile, no fear apparent at all.

Andromeda damned mind readers. As my embarrassment fades, so does my drive to throw a tantrum. I grab Tessa and blip to the cockpit. As soon as I’m secure in my seat I apologize.

Tessa laughs at me, “I know you have a hard time with shame and embarrassment. Zia doesn’t know you as well as I do, yet, so you might want to talk with her about this later.”

When we land at Summer Station I hug her and apologize, but she grunts at me and doesn’t return the hug. Yeah, I messed up. I talk to Francesca about her staying for a few days and give her the bag I brought with expensive treats. She sends me with a bottle of booze for Ivanka and we depart for Alaris. Tessa hugs me too and as cozy as it feels, I need to see what Ivanka has to say.

The warp to Hades system takes a moderate amount of auxiliary power, but none of my personal aether. I check in with the V’tek Collective while I’m in system to see if they need anything, then ping Ivanka to see where I’m meeting her. She tells me a location in the Fields, a spread out suburb of Asphodel City with a small tech center where they research fusion horticulture.

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I land on the roof of the Earth Science building and stow my shuttle before descending into the building. I’m greeted by an armed man with a thick neck and a brick face. Leads me to an elevator and blocks the panel as he fiddles with it and blocks out the floor number readout overhead. Smart man not to try and blindfold me. I would have protested.

Longer than I expected, we exit the lift into a cold, concrete hallway with more lights than features. I get the feeling that the organization that Ivanka and Petra belong two has a major foothold on Asphodel, especially if the control substantial research real-estate.

Through the only visible door in the hall, I see my friends and quite a few military-geared folk dressed in dark colors, some of them with masks.

“Ah, comrade Astoria, good to see you. Care for a drink?”

“I would.” I pull out the hooch present from my satchel and hold it out. “A gift from Summer Farms.” She takes the bottle, cracks it and takes a swig. Her eyes widen and she hides a cough. She hands it off to Petra and she does the same, without the cough and takes another swig.

“Mm, pretty raw, but good flavor. This would be nice with aging. But,” She hands be a glass that was handed to her. “we should talk about what my team found in Moiriax.”

She brings up a display and I make the inset details display in my hud.

“When we looked into your shipments, we found that a lot of them were handled by our transportation arm. The whole shipments that went missing are missing from our company ledgers as well. Not ‘show up missing’ but off the books. That raised some flags. I forged some IDs and did an inspection for your new factory, which was supposed to get two of the missing shipments, and they’re a skeleton crew. When I went by this morning after I’d heard you dropped off some mine charges, the place was empty, mine shells for about 250, but no electronics, no charges.”

“Well, I hope they have a good magitechnician, because those charges have a shelf life.” I add.

“Well, our organization has a passable team, but not on par with you and Katie. However, while I was there, I heard alarms at the crystal factory and saw something curious when I investigated.”

A video pops up of a human scientist being carried out by some burly cat people with others loading crystals into an Empire shittle.

“Fuck me, the Herrat are already here?!” the panic engine spins up inside my head. I knew they were cheaters, but hells.

“With the level of integration with your tech and our infiltration teams, I’m not sure they ever left.” She brings up another graphic showing the surface of Atropos and Clotho. “These are the properties we’ve purchased of late in red, and the older properties up to a year ago are in blue.”

I see a number of large blue buildings and the red locations are smaller but more spread out and numerous. “Wait, is that an orbital refinery in blue?”

“It is, and I suspect it’s one of the places that are hiding Herrat shipping. We made a mint helping the original owners exit the system.”

“Which also means you assumed their old contracts and Visas and forged all of the paperwork since then.”

“Hey, I thought they were still mining, Penny. I don’t have purview over everything.”

Ugh, I though I had my Empire interface tracking all non-resident and un-contracted personal.

You only queried where they were, not to maintain a track on them.

Fuck. Alright, show me non-resident and non-contract personnel currently in Imperial or Empire related space. Red marks flood my vision across my systems and I can even see blips on the outskirts of the frontier line. The horrifyingly bright red glow is coming from Hades and Moiriax—mostly Moiriax. If even half of these are Herrati, there are still thousands here.

“Everyone out. I need to talk to Ivanka and Petra alone.” Half the people in the room reach for their guns. Ivanka shouts at them in Russian, telling them that if the Empress wanted to, she could kill them all before they drew a gun. I grin with my terrible shark teeth at the end of her statement. I think my friends forgot I speak Russian fluently.

Everyone leaves but my two friends and I erect a void shield around us before continuing. “How many non-citizen immigrants do you have in the Empire without being contracted?”

“Several hundred. Why?”

“Because there are more than seven thousand on my interface. It won’t let me differentiate species. I’ve Been waiting for more ships to arrive, but the war has already begun.”

“You can’t blanket blame our organization for this, Penny. Most of them had no idea this was happening,” Petra pleads.

“Anyone I find in the presence of Herrati, will die. I think the vast majority of those in Moiriax are forfeit. Hades is a different matter, there are more than a thousand in this system and I have no doubt I will find your people nearby. I even see people on outer moons and inner planets with undocumented ships near my Ganymede shipyard. Take the people you care about to Bikini Station, or a facility on Astoria until the war is over.”

“How much time can you give me?” Ivanka asks, smartly avoiding any requests to not massacre the shadow organization that kept the Herrat invasion secret for months.

“Until I get to them. If you can get to Atropos and leave before I get there, do. If not, I may not know in time to save you. I would focus on Asphodel if I were you. I’ll spot you two hours. I have some other things to take care of before I let the rage monster loose.”

“Two hours is not enough time!” Petra asks.

“There are THOUSANDS of Herrati with 250 antimatter grenades that could flatten a city running around in my Empire! I don’t have enough time either! If they get those grenades to Astoria, I will raze organize crime from the Empire. Repeatedly. Until it fucking sticks. It usually serves a needed purpose in a nation, but if that branches out to leading barbaric slavers into my cities? I will be a calamitous nuisance forevermore.” I start growling at some point. I shut down the shield and collect the void aether. As soon as I do, I am fired upon by ballistic weapons. My shield ring reacts in time and I reach for my crystal crown from my bag.

My crown is in place as the ring shield cracks, giving me extra time to pull out my pulse pistols. Gun-fu engages and the goons have light highways through their domes before the first one hits the ground.

I look over to my shocked friends and let my aether flare.

“Tell everyone that a Queen of Faerie comes to collect. They will feel my madness, my power, and my resolve before war’s end.”