I’ve been preparing for a war for nearly a year and unknowingly left thousand of militaristic cat people, called the Herrat to infest the outer planets of my Empire. When the Herrat gave us a year to “consider” surrendering into slavery, I was under the mistaken impression that they would do something like a debilitating strike before the time was up and force us into a compromised position. There were several warnings I should have considered but haven’t though about until now.
The Andromeda Matrix, a collective of sentient artificial intelligences that conveys access to a community development that motivates with numerical representations and assistance for aether and technology, does not facilitate wartime activities. Most germane to my circumstance, the Matrix won’t assist in relocating or warping ships, war-machines ore troops larger than a squad. I hadn’t thought of the repercussions of that, as they gave a warning which was not technically war, I declared war, which should have disabled their Matrix assist to warping their ships from Andromeda to The Milky Way. A year is not enough time through t-3 magic or technology to warp that far—meaning they were already in-transit, or they are already here.
Through some fun loopholes in running an Empire, I found that there are at least seven thousand Herrat on my planets, and a moderate fleet between my sensor network and the frontier line of the Matrix patrolled section of the Milky way. There is some honest tom-foolery going on that is allowing me to see the ships, but I’m going to try and verify the info.
/Alaris, DE Empress. Empire interface reports seven to twelve Herrat ships at a location I am sending. Recommend new fighter for recon. Break. Seven thousand ground troops in multiple systems also detected. Massive antimatter load meant for mines stolen, will self destruct in two hours. Refer to Commodore and respond with planned action. How read?/
/Empress, copy Herrat dangers on multiple fronts and refer to area commander for response planning, noting two-hour time frame for blind action./
I ping affirmative and start thinking about how to go about murdering these tricksy felines enmasse. First though, I need to determine if I can sense the bombs I made. I know I can detonate them, I just have to release the shield magic that I’m holding. I’ve never tried to track my magic back to an instance of aether I’ve applied, but it’s worth a shot. I also have a solid chance to detect annihilation energy, but I refused the title “of the void” which would have allowed me to manipulate it directly. Instead I have “of the Matrix” which allows me some very neat commerce benefits, but the synergies with my Insightful Calamity class cannot be denied.
The class lets me get full refund on my expenditures on destruction if that destruction aids the Andromeda Matrix. Combined with free transfers (goods teleportation) and reduced Gateway fees, I basically have cart-blanche to be a menace. Though I didn’t try to get a warp assist for a full starship, I can confirm that a shuttle that fits through a Gateway that I’m piloting does get an assist to the Andromeda Galaxy. The magitech that makes this possible is arranged by relaying from System Hosts containing a portion of the Matrix, Sector Hosts, and Core hosts that lie near the gravity center –and thus the aether center—of a galaxy. Sector hosts can help with transfers up to about 3-5k lightyears, which is what we have around Astoria. Core hosts have an indeterminate assist distance, confirmed several million lightyears as Andromeda Galaxy is capital ‘F’ far.
I long since left the meeting space where I met Ivanka and Petra and currently pissed-off in orbit around Asphodel, a large moon orbiting a gas giant about 1.5 times the mass of Jupiter. Meditating is not easy for me, but I have gotten used to relaxing my mana control, flooding the environment with companionable energy and just flowing on the waves radiating from me. I get significant rebounding from the hull of the shuttle so I blip to the outside of the ship and try again.
Though I can cancel aether I’m supporting, I cannot tell which amongst the shields I’m maintaining should be cancelled. I use the feeling of enacting the spell to try and find it to mixed results: I can only see a few traces that are directly below me. I think it’s a proximity issue, but I can do it. It sucks that some major companies are going to get leveled, but I can try to find the few that I sensed while I’m waiting for Alaris or the Commodore to get back to me.
Or I can be a responsible damned parent and check my largest populated planet right now instead of dicking around on what is largely a trade and research planet. I hop back inside the shuttle, energize the short and the long-range warp circuits to get the max range of this little beastie and pry a tear open in space-time and traverse non-dimensional Aether Space back to Astoria (planet) in Astoria (system) in the Empire of Astoria.
My home planet now has warp lanes because our mining traffic, and our actual space mines so I can’t just arrive in low orbit like I used to. Since warping in atmosphere is a bad choice, time to do this the fun way. I step out of my shuttle, store it in my spell rune I received for my t-1 upgrade and aim my t-3 orbital assault suit at the ground and use my space-manipulation My to really slingshot me through the atmosphere. My minor command on wind aether allows me to fly above terminal velocity toward Summer station, where I dropped my daughter Zia hours ago.
Superhero landings are super sweet to watch, but a hassle to clean up after. I like Francesca better than to visit that destruction on her.
“I thought I saw a familiar fireball. Are you ever going to get tired of that?” Francesca asks.
“Flying and five minutes of roaring isolation? Probably not. Though with the new skimmers, maybe.” I take a quick look around, because some toddler artifact in my brain thinks I’ll spot a cat of some kind. “I have some news, and I need to make it quick. Is Jenna with Zia.”
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“Andromeda, they’re a menace together. They’re harassing the murder chickens right now, trying to joust on them or something.”
“Sadly, that’s less dangerous than my news.” I step inside her house and put up a void shield.
“Oh, it is serious. Make with the news.” She says, handing me a bottle of strawberry shine.
“Thanks,” I take a drag. “There are 7k Herrat on ground in my Empire, and they have 250 antimatter grenades. I think I can locate them, but I need to be within 50-60 miles?”
“What are you waiting for then? Get to locating!”
“I’m checking here, the Castle then whatever else I have time for. If you can empower your shields, do so. War starts today.”
“Today? You shit. How bad!? Wait, antimatter bad, ships bad. Fuck, Penny. Some time would have been nice.”
“I found out half an hour ago. We have an hour and a half before the grenades auto detonate. Just, do I need to take Zia with me?”
“Just go! She’s in her suit, she’s under the station’s tier 2 shields.”
“You could take her back to your villa?”
“Clear the fucking castle then maybe I will!!”
I growl at her, sit on the floor and release my hold on my aether. As it floods the space I reach out to find Summer Station ostensibly clean of anything I’ve made. Who knows what else is here, bit nothing tremored in the etheric, so I’ll go with it.
“Alright, this place seems safe, thanks Frannie.” I say, looking at my friend slumped on the couch, delirious and searching the room slowly with her eyes.
Oops. I forgot how strong my unrestrained aether is to others. I kiss her on the check and thank her for looking after Zia. My teleport to my vagina-shaped garden castle—my ex wife’s AI built it as a f-u before we split—is instantaneous. The view from the 48th floor with my aether infused fruits looks out over Capitol Square in the distance. I repeat the same flooding of aether plus searching tendrils and find some glaring damned problems: there are three devices in my Castle, and a three more in the Capitol grounds. There are enough in Aelea that I can’t pinpoint them, and each of the boroughs have one. The City of Ash is too far away int the new Duchy, and so are the adventurist communes on the other side of the planet.
“How the fuck have they had time?”
The timelines are consistent with a small, dedicated shuttle fleet, only 3-4 would be necessary.
Yeah, yeah. They stole two shuttles so that makes sense. Any half-capably technician would be able to change out an aether crystal to skip the recharging process for back to back warps. DAMNIT! Tessa, can the symbiote estimate how many Galaxy fruit’s I can slam before I mutate?
Assuming you have tasks in-between bursts, you are not at risk of mutation. If you decided to slam them, 12-15 depending on how full you get.
Okay, well, having aether destroy me twice definitely made a mark, didn’t it. Ah well, time to start the War I suppose. I lock on the closest location I can sense, to some energy-based spatial math and use my force of will to teleport to the nearest shield I maintain. There’s a man sitting next to a case, I don’t ask questions put three shots into the chest and head and search for the grenade. I find it inside a stack of towels in the housekeeping locker or the dignitary floors, 20-30 of my castle. I teleport the grenade into deep space, not wanting to mess with collecting and re-structuring the shields to refresh them.
I only see a pair of Herrat in Aelea and they are in the Governor’s Mansion. I’ll visit that after this. The next two bombs did not have custodians, but were adequately hidden buried in a tree pot on a veranda, and hidden inside a first floor shop space that hadn’t been filled. I wasted precious minutes searching for both of them.
I blip to the Governor’s Mansion, still property that I own, and find a Herrati talking with the former Governor, the current governor dying on the floor. I blip and put a hand on the grenade and space it, kick the Herrati warrior so that I move back over the desk, summon a tier 2 med boost for the Governor, and shoot on the Herrati while tumbling back.
Shit. I hope he’s important, or my planet is screwed. If the average Herrat is tier 3, the Empire has no chance because the damned cat reflected a plasma bolt with his fucking swords. They look singed but damn! This of course had me spring to my feet and blast the former governor at the sacrifice o my position—‘cause fuck that guy.
The Herrati throws a blade at my face, I push on space to give me more room to maneuver around it, and try to make it subtly stretch instead of one big movie dilate. While I duck the round I pulse two more rounds at the stupid cat while pulling my plasma saber. When the bolts are about to singe his whiskers, he smiles and his form shudders.
Tessa flaring my aether sight is the only reason I’m not dead. I only have my reactive shield on, not my crown shield and the Phaseblade used aether to transposition himself to the knife he threw. I blink a meter and spin to shote more rounds but he now wields two scimitars, one following through with the decapitation attempt and the other shuddering to block the pistol shot. He’s grinning as he has a better mastery of swordplay and half of my advantage is negated via his ability to track my plasma bolts.
When my plasma sword energizes and I slide to the end of my space dilation, make I sigh heavily, anticipating the suck. The dilated space snaps back in an instant. My blade is rising, his stabbing blade is falling and his blocking blade is counterpoint to cross execute my head off or block my saber, either way it’s a bad place. Luckily, my saber gets in place first and starts sparking and welding his swords together. His eyes widen for a second, but pierce my soul with some sort of analysis skill. He tears his swords apart vertically as I pump plasma into his groin.
He successfully parries my pistol, taking a few fingers with it, but the tilt the plasma bolts put in his body bothered his instincts enough to lower his other arm to correct his balance. I use the distraction to slice off his hand and upswing through his face. He leans back enough to miss my blade through his skull, but I let go of my sword, teleport my pulse pistol to my sword hand and blast his face and then his hand that’s attached to the sword. When he phases to avoid the first pair, he eats the second pair, his mouth and eye smoking as the bolts pass through his skull.