I try not to glow at the attention Andromeda gives me, but it’s hard not to. Roughly a hundred trillion sentients in her Matrix, and personal attention feels pretty good. Suddenly a feeling of guilt hits me as well: I hunger for attention, but I don’t really give it do I. Oof. I’m not to the level of thinking I deserve what my past loves have done to me, but I can see why some trouble has come up. I start thinking that those women should have talked with me about it more, but for all I know they did and I had my head so far up my ass that I didn’t remember hearing it.

Self doubt is fun after elation. Like being punched in the gut after being handed a cone of Shave Ice. I haven’t had a Shave Ice in six years. List of things I need to do just gets fucking longer. I shake my head as I blip to my teleporting office. I’m searching my menus as I exit and find that some beautifully enterprising human is selling Shave Ice via the Exchange. It even comes with a paddle spoon and ice cream at the bottom. You glorious purveyor of treats.

“Empress, sad you couldn’t join us for lunch.” Meeker states at a table full of trainees.

“Knife fighting trainer beat my ass. I needed a minute. I look forward to seeing your training sessions, Mr. Meeker. Keep it to non-lethal contact. If I have to break out tier 3 healing for a training session, I’ll space you.”

“Awfully heavy handed, don’t you think?” A woman sitting next to Meeker says.

“Nah. Man has a problem with me, didn’t know that until he arrived. If he takes it out on my citizens, he gets summary judgement as a terrorist. As one of Humanity’s best aether users, I’d hoped he’d help for the benefit of us all.”

“You claim to care about all of your citizens, but you can’t foot the meal bill for your trainers? For shame Empress. You have the money don’t you?” He gets a few others to snicker.

I breathe deeply, and calm my rage, “You have declined citizenship several times, Troy. You are not owed. You, as a contractor are bound as well as I to the contract. You did not barter for meals. So you must pay for them. Under the good graces of the Empire, I was going to provide you lodging. But if you insist on the Letter of the Contract. You will be billed for lodging due to your irreverence and lack of attention to detail.” I turn to the rest of the table, “I wish you the best today trainees. Let me or Lieutenant DeGurgis know if you need anything.”

After that disgraceful display, I walk away ready to destroy another moon. Instead, I walk toward the waterline and set up my bench. Jenna comes over gives me a quick hug and chastises me slightly.

“I know you’re supposed to have your EVA on.” Jenna says before kissing my cheek.

I open my mouth to tell her to suit up too but she’s already prepared. I nod and transport back to the apartment to put what’s left of my EVA on and teleport back to the lake. “Alright lady, thanks for the backup, but Meeker crawled up my ass about not paying for shit he didn’t ask for. Katie’s a shrewd miser, so that doesn’t surprise me. But he confronted me in front of all he trainees! AAAAH! I want to murder his face.”

“With his current level of tact, it won’t be long, baby. Let him walk into it.”

“But honey, I want to blow up a moon now!” I fake a tantrum and stomp in my EVA with a dumb smile on my face.

“If I hadn’t heard the story of you actually blowing up a moon, that would be cute. Poor little Mercy used to have a sister before the big, bad Empress caught a case of the angries.” She’s making a cutesie parent face and me so I teleport her over the lake with a hand to the face.

Now that I’ve bought myself a minute, time to delve back into my construct. I polish off the old engravings and modify the power that the aether conduits can handle. That may not be the solution to the actual problem, but it addresses the symptoms. I’m halfway through the second engraving when Jenna flicks water in my face. I have a quick chuckle and then stand on my toes for a kiss.

“For the record, I will take a forceful teleport out of line of sight as a personal slight and a dismissal from your service.” She says it with love in her voice, but a warning about how she can’t keep me safe from afar.

“If I have to save your life, I hope you can forgive me.” I say non-chalant, when two burly arms pick me up and smash her lips to mine.

“No promises. Don’t go anywhere I can’t follow. Okay?”

“I’ll do my best, love.” I smooch her one last time before getting back to work.

Throughout the process, Jenna is a gem. She suggests that I add components to test if or when the power might overload a component. I add a limb at a time until the troublesome left arm is added. It trembles furiously as the newest engravings are brought within effect range. To my great surprise, after the full body shutter, the construct goes rigid and its head snaps up to stare at me with its oversized corundum lenses.

Stolen novel; please report.

“I am ready to serve, Empress.”

“Holy shit” Jenna and I say simultaneously, wile Jenna drops the construct. It falls into a crouch, none of it’s parts dislocate.

“Fuck yeah! Construct, report status.”

“This construct is Operating at 90% power with 74% structure stability. Combat action not recommended. System seeded by Intelligence Tessa. Request service parameters.”

“Is your programming enabled to copy modules?”

“Yes Empress. My current maximum is two intermediate modules.”

“Alright Oren, Codify new monicker: ‘Oren’; I’m sending you the intermediate equivalent of Piloting and Jenna will send you the equivalent of safety protocols.”

“Monicker codified. Orders understood. Awaiting module equivalents.”

Oren was not built with an appropriate interface as I never intended him to be an autonomous model. Tessa obviously thought I was being dumb and set his processing array up for it anyway. I love you Tessa, thank you.

Oren acknowledges his orders and his downloads and follows me with an armload of supplies while I summon my shuttle. I instruct him to familiarize himself with the controls and any emergency procedures and he concurs and sets into some menus with his knobby-ass fingers.

“Jenna, is that level of detachment weird or is it just me?” I say as we walk away from the ship.

“He’s what I expect a robot to behave like. Did you want something else? You know that they’ll never be like Tessbot right?”

“Never is a strong word love. My aim is to make alternate forms for personal AI’s. Tessa just got lucky that Andromeda loves me and my Tier 2 gift was the best ship that ever was.”

“Don’t they just get better every ascension?” She’s close to me still, my body tingles when she puts her hand on my hip as we walk.

“Yes and no. The gifts really depend on what you’re doing and how invested you are after your mid-mark award.” I think for a second then chuckle. “I say that, but I’ve been given ships both times. Hah. I wonder if Andromeda is paying attention to me because I’m the first primus in a thousand years, or that I committed to her service so early.”

Jenna turns to hug me. A quick diversion. “I’ll get mushy tonight, but stop this public moping hon. Put on your bad bitch, moon-destroying face and be constructive. You have a knife to make me after all.”

I hand her the knife that I already finished. She hugged me appropriately and then asked me to have a titan-steel saber made and to then enchant it to plasma. I tell her I’ll place an order with Beecham when he gets the time, but I’m no elemental smith. I can make base level Titan steel, but nothing master grade like Beecham. If I’m giving my girl a bladed present, I want it to be expert plus for Andromeda’s sake.

Beecham approaches us later, asking for me to help imbue one of his projects and he’ll make the test case a saber for Jenna. I agree immediately. Experiments? Yes! Product for my girl? Yes please.

“Send me a setup and I’ll build it here. We’re accepting trade development for aether training as well.”

“You got it Admiral, I’m sending the specs of my Mercy setup.”

“You’re sending me a ship forge . . . holy crap this is cool. I am totally building this. Like on the landing in the other side of the mountains. It’ll basically feed itself. What are we trying to make?”

“Astral Titanium, I’ve only been able to make ruined versions. I need an aether specialist and you’re the only one left in Humanity. I could hire an alien, but the price for succeeding is ruinous. It’s like forging regular titanium, just more temperamental and angrier.”

I can’t help but make a disgusted face: I fucking hate titanium. Like fictional Adamantium it is temperamental as all get out and a stubborn ass once it’s forged. “Dude, if we’re making space titanium, I get a saber too.”

“Ten projects. You get a prototype and two finished while I get the other eight.”

Ugh, that’s not bad. I just don’t want to be on the hook for the metal. He agrees immediately and I suddenly feel as though I’ve been had. I pulse Naomi and she confirms that I’ve been had. Fucking fuck. I check for a moment how expensive an Astral Titanium saber would cost and I almost cough out credits.

“Beecham, you’re a bastard. And if this works, our deal will change if you come to me again.” Fucker grins at me and salutes as he jogs back to the training circles. Gah, I suppose I can’t expect the Empress treatment if I don’t act self important all the time.

I spend the rest of the afternoon gleefully building a forge for the training facility, but far enough away that it could have a catastrophic failure and not kill any of the other trainees. Jenna laughs at how happy I am to build stuff that makes science things.

“Baby, I love experiments and discovery! Don’t laugh!”

“It’s just so nice to see you like this. You deal with so much and these moments are rare. Let me engrave them in my memory.” The statuesque guard tells me and all I want to do is hug and smooch her resplendent face.

Some decidedly delightful shenanigans later, we join the rest of the trainees for an afternoon session with Meeker. Mother pussing hose beast picks me out immediately.

“Empress, care to show the trainees how it’s done?”

“Instructor Meeker, I am merely a beginner in in the Bladed arts, I’m positive that your trainees are better at sword play than I am. Carry on with your session.” He understands that I’ve given him an order and decides not to press it. Good thought, fucker. I relinquish the thought of pounding him into paste and get back to the idea that my lady Adonis will be provocative with me again after dinner.

“Attention Candidates. At the end of the week I will be hosting a barbeque lakeside. I will be roasting an Aether infused beast and have sides and beverages. Attendance is optional, but I killed this beast and I intend to enjoy it.” I push the details to everyone and make sure we have enough of the Gessek to feed the group.

I laugh at the face Meeker makes and strut off toward my office with my lady guardian in tow. We teleport to our room and we are both so happy with the day that we have an impromptu brawl training session instead of a vigorous sex encounter. Jenna is still pretty firm on the no sex front, but I got me a topless snuggle session that put me to sleep just fine.