Pile of paperwork notwithstanding, my special place is all empty. Its borders are sort of amorphous, I try testing them by just walking and when I turn around no matter how far I walked there's the desk with all the paperwork less than 20 feet away.

Its not even either, its like there's a bubble that I am in and it just sticks to the bubble the papers are in. I may try leaving the papers like bread crumbs but it all absorbs into the paper bubble.

My plans are small for now, just a table with some burners and pans. I don't know how electricity is gonna work here so power appliances are just a nope. With no fridge or toaster my options are limited but that is not to say there are no options. Honey, water, vinegar, butter, flower and corn meal are all the stockings of my fledgling kitchen, or will be, once I figure that out.

Wi--oop, that is an anguish I haven't felt before, heeellllooo

Well now I know how the brain link works.

---

Teek should not be so surprised by it, the plans for the summoning are more intricate than those for its kitchen, by any standards. Its a given with how he seems content to cook merely for his own entertainment.

The world he's going into is one close in nature to his own, though farther along by a stretch. Where he is going requires a vessel. Something to contain him and fulfill his purpose there.

Summoning the body of one of my loyal would be pointless in the void of space. A suit is less expensive than the body it covers but does little. A craft requires consideration.

How intricate, what design language, what techniques and technologies are used, what constraints.

For this the summon tells me.

A frame of simple shapes pressed, folded and bonded threw the standard methods available. A skin of lacquered fibers tangled with brittle shards and woven around hardened metal. Internals interconnected and redundant, taken from the parts available to the summoning people or made with the same level of engineering if they must be made to fit. And ordinance.

It feels like an equation, with inputs and outputs filled in by omniscient knowledge. All making a window of acceptable craft that get narrowed down as he sifts threw the memory of his summoner.

The craft takes shape with ripples shattering its design for mere moments before solidifying again in a more optimized configuration. Removing artifacts and unnecessary elements, reshaping it over and over, until he deems it fit for purpose.

Its effort, but an expression is offered to soothe me.

I am just happy for the good value i will get for this small delay.

---

It seems I get a free trial of sorts. The people I am helping are already in "space" with their ships shooting at one another.

There's lots of fighting and all the lil dudes really have are piddly lil sensor boats, docking tugs and carriers. Lil desert dudes are fighting a vast interstellar empire and getting creamed, or more accurately, the empire came to creamed them.

Either way I can sort of feel anyone asking the proverbial religious character to drive for them.

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One pilot is scared pissless and I gently nudge his arms to shimmy shis ship around, the pursuing ship overshoots him and I clamp on the trigger. The slow projectiles are felt threw the saddle of the scout craft and the explosions almost bend the antenna sticking out the front but no more enemy fighter. I feel a flutter in his chest and cold start to take the pilot for a moment before adrenalin really kicks in and everything flushes with heat. Probing him to call a carrier for docking I take the ship in with whatever haste won't kill the poor guy, only letting go when i hear the clunk of the docking claw latch.

Next is a tug pilot, a construction or mining tug, it doesn't matter which when the poor lass is just trying to use the tools of the tug as melee weapons. It got a good five fighters before they started acting evasive, and now she's struggling to chase them down. But I look around and none of the tugs are really hurting, even under capital ship fire, and the tugs move faster than the capital ships. So pulling her attention away from the flock of faster nimbler ships I give her the idea to do something more impactful, crank the thrust and ram one of the big boys. She reorients and complies with malicious glee, pushing herself back against her seat as I leave her to her work. I don't know if its unwelding some panels or mining more refined metals than usual but there's more calling for me.

A leader for a wing of scouts is in need of instruction, I look over to the tug and relay the intent to screen fighters from them. Other tugs following the lead of the one forcing the capital ships to reorient or try back pedaling, while fighters nip at their heels. Before long chatter is to defend allies and avoid pursuits as more scouts form proper ranks. The first flight threw takes out only one fighter but the sheer mass of explosives sent them scattering, and so I lean back.

Another scout needs help, worried to death about the tugs currently bee-lining capital ships. I can see some nasty dents on a few of the others so I root around what he knows about sensor systems. The idea pops into our heads at about the same time and we test, blasting the enemy capital ship with the biggest broadcast of noise our lil power plant can muster. The turrets are blinded and seem to wander a bit while various subsystems flicker or die, coming back on eventually but by then the tug in on them and it doesn't matter.

A carrier captain needs guidance so I push him to make a decision, be there for your allies. He orders full speed into the enemy formation with as many other carriers as he can convince, a single freighter making the core of their formation as scouts make passes flashing and bombarding anything they can, still dying handily to the invading fighter craft. The tug ships show themselves to be the real power on the field as two capital ships are bored into, losing vast swaths of functionality and personnel as the tugs strip them to husks. I push on the captain again, getting him to order point defense target enemy fighters, helping more find cover closer to his hull, but now capital ships are shooting at the carriers. Flashes don't work well enough to protect the carriers, try as the scouts might. They've got time though.

I start pushing the engineers to make space in the huge shipyard structure for the exposed civilian transports, most of whom are dancing around the massive refinery/scaffolding structure. Most carriers not following our push are just protecting them while the few freighters try and interpose themselves between fire and all the more vulnerable ships. I poke anyone more aggressive into building longer ranged guns for the freighters since that seems to be their general behavior.

Medics, mechanics, flight controllers and pilots all reach out and all I can tell them is to force the capital ships to split fire between the carriers and tugs. At first they try doing it by going around the outside of the formation, taking the scouts farther away from their cover and lifeline. I try and direct them to run up the center but that gets the tugs knocked out, not enough to destroy them but enough that the carriers have to pick them up. Then the enemy column starts to spread out and I start to stress.

Then I hear a bell like a microwave ding, it is time. My own ship. My own reflexes.

I have to say it looks a little like a crab, cockpit above some grabby mouth parts covered by two strips of weapons, point defense guns from the carriers and flack from the scout ships. The body is mostly thruster and reactor to support it but an empty lil cargo clamp sits between the two main thrust clusters. The last bit of internals are gyroscopic stabilizers, taken from the tugs. They twist spinning flywheels to produce torque without thrust, good for rapid turning. This is a fighter hunter.

They still have range on us but we can work around it. As I open my eyes I yell my orders into the radio, "Follow the bastards, chase em out with an even split then pull back when they push the freighter, one tug per capital ship If you can help it!"

I settle in against my saddle and punch the thrust, getting an earful even as everyone follows the orders.