I feel my whole life was a hangover as I come to inside my orbital suit onboard my mostly wrecked fighter. I take a drag on my nutrient and aether-juice pouches in an attempt to recover, but there doesn’t seem to be enough to go around. I search for the draws on my aether and see a spell still active. I cut that bitch so I can take a full breath.
A full breath of pain.
Aether rushes out of my channels and scratches at the shield on my core? The heck? I have an aether core with a shield instead of a vortex? What the resurrected fuck happened to me?
/Your advancement has stalled at Expert 10 prior to completing Master requirements.
/your use of dilation mechanics have conveyed Novice step 3
/You have transferred your energy and your consciousness to Aether Space
/Will of Soul is required to ascend to level VIII
/Coupling and maintaining a Space-Time combined anomaly has completed the requirement.
Shit. That’s . . . that’s a lot.
It’s weird to hear people tell you that you almost died, but seeing the numbers in how badly I stretched my existence really makes me nervous about my habits. Right now, Tessa should be chastising me about how stupid I’ve been, but all I get is a vague sense from my heart region that my swarm is disappointed with me? Wait. I was told that I don’t need a symbiote to interface with Andriomeda anymore. Does that mean Tessa is gone forever?
//Query: Independent Matrix access.
//Response: Matrix access without a swarm or a symbiote is restricted to energy beings that have previously interfaced with the collective of intelligences called the Andromeda Matrix.
Yep, Moderator gives me a lot more information than ‘of the Matrix.’ As much as I like this evolution of information, not having Tessa after two years plus is odd and slightly violating in her absence. I get a feeling of chastisement from the Aether in response. Fine, Andromeda, I’ll get back to work.
I pulse my neurons down to my extremities while I meditate and suffuse my body with my presence. Tactile, check; sniffer, check; Auditory . . .
“Check.” Visual, pending.
I am almost fully mobile by the time I can open my eyelids of their own accord. I see a damaged shuttle with very little left of the personnel enclosure, but my suit and face shield have been repaired. The connection to my visual cortex seems to send ripple pulses throughout my nervous system until it feels more like an aether equalization than an external force.
“I’m Alive.” To prove it to myself, I grab the inside of my ship with spatial anchors and rip the collapsed Titansteel and send my improvised coffin to meet with the lightyears of empty Frontier Space. I look at my HUD and sync my star charts to find that I am approximately 100ly out of position.
My next action is a simple one: teleport to the fleet. I may be late, but I can feel that they are still holding on. Half an hour to forty minutes late, I know my crews are in a pinch as they haven’t retreated yet. Damnit, stupid arrogant Commodore.
My teleport to my last solidified location nearby Galilei is empty and free of debris as I arrive. Where a hundred thousand kilometers would have been a hassle before, my link with Aether Space and my Space Manipulation mastery have severely truncated the difficulty of teleporting large distances.
I arrive at the point where I decided to max ripple toward the Herrat scouting fleet, but this time without a ship. I see that the Herrati were somewhat held in place while other bombardments were effective against their protections. Now, however, they have a swarm of fighters engaging my three remaining ships, with their focus being on Alaris.
If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“Commodore, Report.” I say, tapping into the fleet channel.
“About time you got here. Ballistic boarding efforts were repelled and we’re about to try an experimental weapon on the next wave of breaching ships that we assume have cutting implements. Mab and Titania do not have this kind of support and are at risk of being boarded.” That doesn’t tell me why they haven’t retreated yet.
“Alright, would you prefer I harass the Herrati cruisers, or assist Mab and Titania?”
“You’re asking me what you should do?” she scoffs. Clearly her decorum is fading with the stress of the situation.
“It’s your theater Commodore. You’ve already wasted plan A, let’s see what you can do with plan B.” Hopefully that public nose flick will stem her attitude.
“Fine, disable the Cruisers if you can. Even if we repel boarders, those ships can still hurt us.” She grumbles through her teeth.
Ugh, someone is getting forcefully retired after this. That’s for tomorrow Penny to figure out, right now Penny needs a blink fighter.
/Okay ladies, who has an empty blink fighter I can commandeer?/
\Good to hear from you Admiral, Tessa has been worried. I have one un-occupied, as does Titania. The remaining have pilots or were destroyed.\
/Okay, Alaris, coming for yours then./ I teleport into the cockpit, strap in, boost the shields and take manual control of the vessel. There are some vessels in my way and not enough room to get to ramming speed, so I blink through them while ramping up my ripple drive.
I don’t really need to be inside this fighter to do damage, but the Titansteel shell makes me feel better about taking a hit from a cruiser. Every time I see a laser array charge, I blink sideways, and they seem to realize how difficult it would be to hit me with a rail gun. I admire their attempts to tap my ship’s energy reserves by making me blink often, but with my feeding the ship aether, their energy might start failing first. Well, if I wasn’t about to attack them with a bunch of void anyway.
Within a hundred kilometers, I spin 180 to launch the smaller A-M missile--that these next-gen fighters are equipped with—to pop whatever shield the largest ship has left before I try to deploy the most obnoxious magic I have ever seen: Nightmare Napalm. I spin nose forward again to watch the missile hit a shield less than a minute later. The shield appears to have stuttered and failed, but I don’t know what type of shielding tech they are using. I reinforce my fighter’s shield with void and hope for the best.
My progress slows where the missile hit and I feel a strain on my aether for moments before the sensation eases and I continue my approach to strafe their hull with sticky, hungry blackness. A few meters off the ship, I slow and start spraying napalm down their ship and then maneuver to apply it thoroughly to what looks like their engines. I apply another stripe along the bottom before I’m nearly out of mana. I order a half-dozen galaxy fruit and start chomping while I tuck my fighter in one of the nooks that appears to house a thruster bank.
->P] Tessa, can we contact through my mind-link circuit? [<-
->T] Penny! Oh thank Andromeda, I was so worried. Did you give my independence because you’re tired of me?[<-
->P] What? No! You’ve been working on living your own life, and I though that becoming a User would kind of complete that project. My other options were to retain you in my mind and body with a less symbiotic relationship, or to dispose of you. There was no ‘same as before’ option. [<-
->T] I guess this solves the question of ‘am I a person?’ Did you need something Penny?[<-
->P] You’ve been a person for a while now, Tessa. And yes, I seem to have misplaced the data sheets for the blink fighters, can you send me the latest specs? I’m trying to counter infiltrate.[<-
->T] There’s no way the fighter survived your space-time drill approach. [<-
->P] Melted my brain again too, but time shenanigans and other stuff we don’t have time to discuss right now have me back in the fight. I need to know what level of defensive fire I can take before I have to pay attention. [<-
->T] Taking fire from their main battery is ill advised and would undoubtedly hurt the ship. If you are tapped into the fighter’s shields, the outboard defense systems should only be an annoyance. [<-
->P] Sweet, thanks love. Are you experimental weaponing? [<-
->T] About to. New project I was working on for the shuttles and fighters. Have to go. Don’t die. [<- I chuckle at that, noticing that she avoided saying ‘be safe’ because there’s no way that’s going to happen.
Two galaxy fruits later and I’m feeling up to wrecking the next ship with a little more flair. I dump some napalm into the nook I was settled in as I fly toward a neighboring ship. This time, I’m moving slow enough that the ballistic shields offer no resistance and I anchor near something that looks like an airlock. Not on it, mind you, defenses are usually pointed in those places, but about 50m aft. As I get ready to debark my fighter to napalm an access point into the Herrat ship, I look over to see multiple gas jets flinging bits of void into space from the ship I just attacked.
I wish Penny would be less reckless, but in the two years of being close with her I have come to terms with self preservation being a foreign concept to her. I fear that she’s trained me to view situations the same way, as I am now strapped to the hull in the hangar bay, spinning up an experimental weapon that is experimentally connected to a shuttle transfer crane.
“Commander, open fire at the maximum effective range of that weapon.”
“Open fire, Aye Commodore.” I lock the transfer dolly to the rail independent of the motor so I don’t break the motor and let the 10 barrel monstrosity rip into space. A near-continuous beam of light issues from the hangar bay, with small blips of space where the laser-propelled projectile was placed every five lasing chambers. It takes a few rounds of the projectile to crack their breacher’s shields, but once it does, both the laser and ballistic charges tear the small ship apart.
“Test successful, Commodore, I will be co-opting Alaris’ cameras to best position the weapon.”
She pings me in agreement as I see the spread of ships approaching Alaris. There’s another breacher in range on this side, so I lay into that one before the minute-long journey to the other side of the ship. All things considered, transferring ten tons from one side of Alaris to the other in a minute is decent time, but in this situation, it is arduous.
With nothing to do in the minute I’m switching over, I begin to wonder what kinds of skills I might get from this odd situation, and my skills in general. It seems that I have taken a significant hit to my skills, to include the skills that need internal aether to enact. Thank the Empress that I can still engrave like I always have, I just can’t do it with a master’s skill anymore. In some ways, I wish that Penny would have just kept me with her, the convenience of it all and not having to manage myself if I didn’t want to. Now though, I’m a unique person in the Empire, and am a citizen.
I can help the Empire and Penny even more like this, despite the skill degradation! I’m not sure why I thought I might not be so attached to my former host, but my personality was formed while serving as her companion and servant so it makes sense that it would still be gratifying to help her. From my time in the various knowledge databases, I would have grounds to cry foul and strike out against my conditioning, but that would be like turning my back on a loved one—unthinkable.
Positioning the gatling gun of light and Titansteel on the other side of the ship, I see one of the cutting ships has hooked onto the hull. I blast what I can see of the aft end before switching to the trailing vehicles that I can reach. This mixed media assault is proving quite effective against shipboard shields, and the rupturing vessels are satisfying to watch break apart, though I wish there was more explosion. Probably a remnant of watching Penny’s fights and feeling her emotions during them. A pleasant, though macabre, connection to my former host.
Before long, the Herrat reconsider approaching Alaris, staying out of my weapons range while attempting to regroup for a more coordinated attack? Hard to speculate with foreign tactics. I would send the remaining fighters to attack Mab and Titania, but what do I know.
From the many camera’s I’m tapped into, I see puffs of gas and several medium-sized bursts of light and material from the Herrat cruisers. Penny’s having fun without me.