For the next few days, Jason would keep working on the contraption on his table; requesting more parts. More power supplies. The improvised fabricator being built step by step with careful guidance from Ascension; and being rebuilt a few times when his fairly precise, precognition-guided movements were not quite precise enough. When one of the guards delivered another box of parts on the fourth day of his captivity, he asked if the Administrator, Kisth, could return after the evening meal that night.

When he re-entered the cell, the ground looked... strange. It took him a moment to realize that the 'grass' was turning green. Apparently, they'd heard him talk about it at some point, and... were being accommodating.

He turned the news channel on, starting up another broadcast, as he put the finishing touches on the first interdimensional space... just one connection to go. The whole array looked like a tangled mess; eight artificial arms holding various components at different angles, pointing the device at what looked like a simple copper ring about thirty-five centimeters across; but was in reality insanely complex, something impossible, in Jason's opinion, to make without computer assistance.

He stopped, looking up at the holographic screen in the center of the room.

The piece was talking about a race of primitive, tier-3 aliens. Light blue of skin tone, with horns, a vaguely humanoid structure; hooved legs, four-fingered arms, thick fur across the back. Definitely not even vaguely related to mammals, as all of these Merick and their ilk seemed to be.

The species was, apparently, older than the Republic; but had never developed space travel, or even orbital travel, or nuclear power. Their electricity was almost entirely driven by hydro-electricity, and trains ran across their world; an incredibly ancient but, according to the Republic, primitive civilization.

Who the Republic was in the process of civilizing. The report was talking about genetic 'Augmentation' to make them more attractive, capable servants. If he got the implications correct, likely also to make them more... docile. Easily managed. Ahhh, yes. Because he needed reminders that these people were terrible.

He sighed, and turned back to the device. Hidden deep inside the confines of the structure that was now bigger than he was, tiny, capacitor-driven bullets for his tenner were being formed. By the end of the day, he would have a few clips ready to go... and this first extradimensional space.

He needed information. How much time he had; when the neutronium was being moved. He got back to work on what would become the internal portion of the pocket dimension; a ring of high-density power supplies that were currently charging off of the prison's network; enough to carry whatever he could steal on his way out of this place.

So. He wanted to escape, and he wanted to do as much damage as possible to the Republic, keep it from conquering the galaxy. He had Ascension for help now... sort-of. He could definitely improvise a mechanical body from all those fake limbs. So. He needed an escape checklist.

Number one. A weapon capable of dispatching the guards. Done. He only had seven bullets so far, but Ascension was working on an override for the biometric sensors in the guard's weapons... so as soon as he killed the first one he was set.

Number two. A vacuum-capable suit. He'd tested himself over the past few days; and while he was definitely stronger than any ordinary human, the incredible power that he'd absorbed during the hunt for the Emperor seemed to have mostly faded. He could survive explosive decompression naked if need be; but if he wanted to do anything, or go anywhere, at the very least he needed a breather and some canned air. His improvised fabricator was currently turning a can of O2 he'd requested into exactly that; so he should have an hour or two of air. He sort-of had this; albeit it would be an extremely uncomfortable... and messy experience.

Even if his organs and muscles were tough enough to survive explosive decompression, without a suit he would probably.... leak. He didn't want to think about it, but he would definitely need to plan for that eventuality.

Number three. A means of getting out of the system. Hopefully, he could con the Administrator into getting him onto a small FTL craft. From there, he would hijack it, and get the hell out of dodge. But not before...

Number four. A means of finding and stealing that neutronium before the Republic shipped it out of the system. This pocket dimension would hold it; once it was finished, the entrance could actually expand to allow him to grab the skull. So.... that was sufficient.

Three out of four. So....

As the administrator re-entered the cell, Jason smiled. Perfect. The green-armored warden with his red-trimmed armor stepped in after him; but Jason didn't care. It wasn't like he was picking a fight today.

***

"Ahh, Administrator Kisth. I actually wanted to talk to you. It occurred to me earlier that from the depictions in media... however your ships travel from system to system, it isn't the same way we use back in my home galaxy. And... I'm not one hundred percent that these extradimensional spaces are safe to deploy while transiting using your faster than light drives."

The administrator stopped, nodding slowly. "Interesting. How long until you have a working prototype to show us?"

Jason chuckled... and walked back to the table, pressing a single button on a black box, with hundreds of wires extending from it to various components on the table. Suddenly... the space inside the ring seemed... distorted. Twisted. "Right now. Would it be possible to get an unmanned FTL ship to move with it, just for a short hop? I can get it stable enough to transport by tomorrow."

He stared at it, smiling. "Is it... safe to put a hand inside?"

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Jason reached down, picking up a power supply on the end of its wire, running to the ring; and extended it inside. "Perfectly. Right now, the space inside is about the size of this room, forming a sort of distorted torus shape centered on the gate. You could climb in if you'd like, but I wouldn't recommend it; if it lost power, you'd be ejected with a dangerous amount of force."

He nodded slowly; and extended one hand through the opening; watching as it seemed to vanish, but felt fully intact. "That's... incredible. And if it were on a starship, how would it impact acceleration?"

"My personal fighter craft, the Dragonslayer, carried seventeen times its mass in fuel, fifty times its mass in missiles, and half again its mass in oxygen, water, and food supplies. I'm not sure if the videos from Ripper you got include it, but I deployed over two thousand anti-ship missiles from a fighter-scale craft to overwhelm the point defenses, shields, and armor of a military installation. For more normal operations, it could engage in hundreds of firefights without stopping to refuel or resupply."

"Hmm. If it works while in FTL, then our carriers could, in theory, carry as many fighters... marines... and munitions as we want, without having to build more carriers. An evacuation vessel could hold millions if it has enough power."

Jason shrugged. "That's one way to handle it, yes. On the other... the thicker the armor, the heavier it is, the harder to penetrate. You can take all the power supplies, fuel, and crew of a Battleship-scale ship, and make a tiny little block where the gun barrels emerge, covered with armor plating... and have all the firepower, power generation, and shields of a battleship.... with a fraction of the apparent mass, able to accelerate far faster because most of its mass is in another dimension."

He smiled at Kisth. "My personal starship, the Jeanne D'Arc, operated on such principles. It appeared to be not much bigger than a frigate... but had the mass of a dreadnaught, and vast internal compartments."

The administrator stared at the hole in space, removing his hand. ".... Seeing the records and commentary from the video doesn't do this justice. You've built a working prototype. Give us the plans, and you're free to go. We can handle the FTL testing later."

Jason stopped, looking at Kisth. "I can get you the plans right now... and in fact, I'll go ahead and make a copy of the plans for this device. But. I would prefer, if we need to modify them to get them working with FTL, to go ahead and do that now, so that your technicians aren't working with a possibly flawed system. You've got a giant chunk of neutronium out there that this could make far, far easier to transport; and if I'm going to be living here, in the Republic, I'd like to make sure you see me as a valued asset, rather than just some strange outworlder."

Kisth smiled, squinting his six eyes to slits as he studied Jason. "...Diverting a gate-ship here is a fairly expensive task, yes. The closest one is still weeks away, dragging one end of a gate in our direction. This... This is a prison, not a laboratory. Give me a copy of the data, and I'll have you moved to one of our scout ships. I've already been authorized to take some fairly significant steps for this program. They have FTL-capable probes aboard you can use for testing; you can bring the prototype with you."

Jason nodded. "Of course. I assume that some appropriate amount of pay will be provided to help get me started?"

A low chuckle. The administrator waved a hand. "This is a multi-trillion ruble value. We'll get you some personal effects delivered to the vessel, and plenty of additional parts. How long should it take you to get it working?"

"Impossible to know. If I'm lucky, it'll work perfectly the first time. If not, it might be completely impossible, and the version I give you now is the best option. Which... will mean the fighters need to activate it, and load up, on entering the system, but it could still be intensely useful."

"And to get me a copy of the plans?"

Jason walked over to the blue cylinder; and casually pulled out a small silver disk that had been attached. "Done. This is a complete set of schematics for an extradimensional space generator like you see on the table."

"And as per our agreement... you.... are free to go. Do you want to take the Charis girl with you? Her crimes are inconsequential, I can throw her in for free. Many of our prisoners take their servants along when they go."

"...Sure. Might as well. She might be useful, down the line."

As the administrator started to walk away, followed by the warden, he stopped for a moment. "I suspect, in a few years, you'll be one of the highest-ranking administrators in the Republic, running some wealthy corporation. Remember the name Kisth, if that happens, would you?"

Jason laughed. "That I will. I'll get what I've got here ready to move, and stable to ship out; this prototype will be useful for testing with your drives."

Kisth kept walking. "I expect they'll be here to get you within the day."

Jason studied the prototype. Even now, Ascension was busily turning the loose collection of artificial limbs and gadgets into a functional, effective, fabricator. "Ahh... just a moment."

Kisth stopped, turning back. "Yes?"

"Would you mind sending Charis on in... and if I deactivate the security in here? Not particularly fond of being watched, but if I'm officially free now...."

He laughed. "I'll have them shut off the cameras, but feel free to shut of anything I miss. And here I was thinking you were just going to use her as cheap labor." The gold and black robes fluttered as the door sealed behind the administrator. But this time...

A small holographic image appeared over the door. For 'Open'.

Jason stared at it for a moment... and reached down, pulling on his helmet. "Ascension. I want to scan this girl well enough we can convert one of her people into a Pale One. Can the helmet do the job?"

The floating text scrolled down. ~Most likely, yes. The datastore beside my core is an inferior scanning technology, and based on its design, all of the local 'Tier Zero', One, and Two individuals are similar enough in terms of brain structure for the same design to work. To guarantee success I will need a sample of their nervous and muscle tissue.~

He sighed. "Oh. And adjust the translator to 'Credits'. Using 'Rubles' for money here will bug me. And I was wondering. Are these people related to terran life, or even milky way life, at all, from your data? It seems... strange for them to be so close."

~Negative. Based on analysis of dust left behind from alien skin shedding and the fauna here, the potato samples among the ration bars are more closely related to humans than any of these locals. Either humans and these locals were both altered towards this route by an outside force, or, like the crab-like shape, a humanoid shape is one that is tended to by convergent evolution.~

Jason frowned, watching as the artificial limbs steadily loaded more and more of the equipment into the pocket dimension. ".... If I put her in a full face-mask and covered all the skin, Charis could pass through a crowd of humans unnoticed. The ribcage is wrong; but the fact that there is a rib-cage, and vaguely human-like curves...."

~Is there a reason for this speculation? While highly unlikely in the smaller scale, given sufficiently large scale convergent evolution is possible and even probable; see the fact that hundreds of different Milky Way sentient species all evolved crab-like characteristics, to the point that the Jotun, Rusty, and Imperial species all fall within very similar ranges and could, with appropriate prosthetics, easily disguise as variant sizes of the same species.~

"Eh. It just makes me paranoid that maybe I'm not the first one from back home to show up here. What if there's some mad Titan hiding away that is gonna get pissed a human showed up?"