People were coming back to me? Well then, I'll give them a show.

It took a couple hours to set up, but that was fine, it took a couple hours for one of the Starjumpers to detach from 'my' new Shipyard and come down and dock on the Reach. I wondered how complete the ship was. If it was still in the Shipyard when they stole it, it's probably missing a lot of components and wasn't a comfortable ride. Earlier today I declared that the rest of today and all of tomorrow were holidays and everyone could take the time off work. Any one who wanted to keep working - food or craft sellers for example - could. Honestly, anyone who wanted to keep working could, I was not going to make them come to my little show off thing, but I did appreciate that everyone liked me enough to come out when I asked.

I had them bring out the platform we used when the Venusians came last, but this time me and my Builders were on top. We set it up a little way out from the umbilical so that as they came out, we could see them and they could see the crowds that have gathered. We finish as people start streaming in. It's a real festival atmosphere. I see food sellers walking the crowds, people offering little trinkets and toys for the children, and musicians playing. People seem to really be having a good time. I'm glad.

As we sat waiting, the Starjumper connected with a clank and a soft thud. The umbilical lights glowed purple - the color was actually really nice, it was so much prettier than the standard human green, yellow, and red - which showed a positive connection, and I raised my hands for silence.

The crowd stilled.

Earlier, Omar had explained to everyone - as we were setting up - that we were welcoming home people who went across the galaxy and delivered a shipyard and starships to us in my name. After more than seventy years of having no Builders, and then centuries of an Empire in decline, most everyone had been excited at the turn of events lately. Everyone liked being on the winning team, and it really felt like we were at the beginning. People for decades could talk to their friends and family about today. "I was there..." they'd tell children and grandchildren as they rolled their eyes and go off to play.

But they'd hear about it.

Even before the Heinlein and the Starjumpers showed up, Um'reli had been quietly asking around with local leaders. Most of them had said that there should be no shortage of volunteers to crew ships of conquest. - should a call go out. With a hiss and a pop, the door irised open, and a Venusian walked out. Lightly armed, he looked up in complete surprise to the silent crowd in front of him. When he was visible, the crowd roared. I saw how surprised he was by the wall of sound. I stood and waved to try and calm him. He cautiously waved back and rushed back inside. After a moment, more than fifty people were led out by armed Venusians, blindfolded, and with their hands tied. They were lined up before me at the front of the platform, 4 rows deep. Their blindfolds were the purple of Venus, and their hands tied with plastic straps. Behind them came two dozen heavily armed Venusians and yes... it did look like it was almost everyone from the Lavinia. I recognized faces from the interviews. A Venusian approached. He was wearing the purple and grey uniform of Venus, but there were no emblems or patches on it. He approached the platform and saluted. His voice clear, he says. "Captain William Pfenning reporting, Empress. As you have commanded, we have returned to you, bearing gifts. Three almost complete Starjumpers and the entirety of the Heinlein Shipyards, including the staff." He bowed low. Behind him, the Venusians all bowed.

At the mention of the starships, the crowd gasped. They knew that they were coming with ships, but the fact that it was a shipyard and three of the largest ships from that side of the galaxy was a surprise to them. I glanced back to Raaden and she was grinning from ear to ear. Ginny recognized people and was trying to surreptitiously wave to them. "Er, thank you for your generous gift Captain Pfenning. Please remind the crowd how I ordered you?

He looked at me, but was speaking to the crowd. He could really project! I think he had training. "When you declared that we belonged to you, we took the order to heart. When you sent us back to Venus in a stripped ship, we knew it was to send Venus a message, and also to embolden us to find our way back to you."

I inclined my head slightly. Here we go. "Thank you for your effort. These gifts you have brought us are truly special. You and your crew are invited to dine with me and my Builders tonight. I would love to hear more about how you managed to do this amazing thing."

Will bowed again. "We would be honored to come to dinner, Empress. But first..." He snapped his fingers. The assembled Venusians removed the blindfolds of the captured Shipyard workers. They looked around wide eyed and scared. Captain Pfenning looked at me expectantly. Oh, now what? Wait, that's right, he's going to want me to order them to obey. I wasn't expecting to deal with captives already. I didn't really want to compel people to work for me, but we also needed help to build Starships. I was going to have to do something. ugh. I felt so bad about this, it it'll be worse if I leave them. We really do need help too.

I stood up and faced the captives.

H̷͉͆ȃ̷̖v̴͖̈e̵̺̽ ̴̬͆n̵̲̓ơ̵̻ ̷̨̓f̸̧͒e̵̖̕a̵̞̍ȑ̴̳.̵͇̏ ̶̻͠W̴̠̿e̶̟̅ ̷̜̊w̶͍̕ĩ̶̗l̴͍̎l̴͈̆ ̵̘͠n̵̝̑ò̸̡t̶̪͠ ̷̮̅h̴͍̓ā̶̻ŕ̸̩m̵̂͜ ̵͇͋ÿ̵̞́ő̵̥ụ̸͊.̴͖̊

They relaxed immediately. That was good at least.

Y̶̥͑o̸̱͛ū̴͇ ̴̗͊w̴̬̔o̶͖͠r̶͎͝k̴͖͑ ̵̡͌f̴͔̅ǫ̸̈́ṟ̷͋ ̵̱̓m̶̙̎e̴͍̓ ̶̳͗n̸̡͆ò̸̯w̴̑͜.̴̛ͅ

"You shall be paid for your work, and housing provided. Once our important work has finished, you shall be freed and given the option to stay or return as you see fit. Tonight though, you shall dine with us as our honored guests."

B̴̻̭̫̮͇̿͛͠o̸̻͈̼͓̦͚̽́̒̋w̶̧̼͓̿́̈́̈́̌̚͘͝, and rise as subjects of the Holy Imperial Systems!"

It was awkward with tied hands, but everyone managed to bow. While they were down, one man stood early. He raised his hands, and the restraints fell from his wrists. "Tyrant!" he snarled. "You will never be able to stop all of us!" His right hand folded out of the way and in it's place was... a gun.

He was taking aim at me.

I felt my perception of time change. As the Nanites boosted my perception, I watched in slow motion as he raised his gun-arm, the black muzzle of the barrel in his arms a dark circle pointed at me. My first assassin, and he didn't seem to be affected by my Voice. Oh! I bet he's an AI. Well, here goes nothing...

Ṣ̵̜͐́̏̕̕͠͝ţ̴̣͌̄̑̃o̵͍̳̥̻͈̥̓͝p̶̛͓͇̗̀̓̓͘!̸̱̻̬̹͙̖̪̈́̐̚̚͝͠

He faltered. His face started to contort into a snarl of rage. Oh no, it's not enough. He can fight it. I tried again. I put as much into it as I could.

C̸̢͌̉ȇ̷̟̣ä̷̩͝s̵͉͚͘e̶̝̾̈ ̶̡̮̽͝t̷̰̚h̵̤̆i̴̮̐̄s̴̲̩̉ ̷̫̀͐a̷̝͝t̷̙̖̚ ̷̲̽̂ǫ̴̹̓n̴̘̔̽c̶̳̈́e̴̟͆͝ͅ!̵̢͕̈

He shook his head, confused. It works, but not enough. I was going to need help on this one. My hand swung up to point at him, so slowly. I flipped my perception back to normal, and shouted

Ī̴̟t̷͖̃'̷͙̕s̶͓̐ ̴̭̐a̶̤̚n̶̯̑ ̶̘͠a̸͑ͅs̷̼̄š̷̖å̴̖s̵̫̈́ṣ̵͌i̶͚͌n̵͕̽!̴̫̈ ̵͖͛S̶̖̆t̷̤͑ò̵̭p̶̲͌ ̷̜͗h̴̪̃i̸̟̒m̵̫̓!̷̟̀

In my panic, I didn't direct the command at anyone, so it went to everyone.

It was a bloodbath. Everyone within the sound of my voice, so... the Venusians, the prisoners, my Builders, and much of the residents of the Reach heard the command and descended on the would-be assassin. Fortunately, the sounds of shouting and yelling drown out the... other sounds.

After only a moment, the AI assassin was... gone. A stain of pale blue milky fluid was all that remains of him. Huh. I had no idea their circulation fluid wasn't red like blood. Well. That solved one problem - my immediate demise - but caused a whole new pile of problems because I didn't get a chance to question him. Also, it's worrying that my new Voice worked, but not well enough. I'll have to study AI brains more. I raised my hands and called for calm, and resumed the welcome. I took a breath to steady my voice. "Now that has been taken care of, Please come and join us at the Palace for a meal, and we shall celebrate." I gestured to the crowd. "Residents of the Reach! Please welcome your heroes!

Quickly, I got down from the platform and gestured to Ava and Raaden and the others. Raaden was still grinning. "Good work disposing of that assassin Melody, you not only eliminated a threat, but you showed the people from the shipyards what you can do. I swear, it was more of them than the Venusians tearing him apart."

"You couldn't stop him though?" Ava looked worried. "We could have used him to get more intel on what the AIs know about us."

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

"That's just it, I tried." I looked at my hands and then back at Ava. "It didn't work. He faltered at my new command, but it didn't stop him. I don't know if I need to learn more about AI brains, or if it will always be limited when trying to command them."

"Well it's not like he'll be reporting back." Um'reli shook her head. She had a better view of what happened than I did. Her expression was clear. She did not like what she saw. "We can only hope he was there to spy on the shipyard and took the imitative when he realized what was happening."

Raaden nodded. "That was probably it. Even if Far Reach reported to... whoever is in charge of the AIs - if they even have something like that - it would be years before they act. They like to take things slow and wait out trouble. They're so long lived that they would rather just leave a system and wait out someone they don't like rather than try and eliminate them."

Starlight's feathers rippled worriedly. "That was an AI? They looked just like people. I thought you said they pilot your starships?"

Omar shakes his head and gestured as he talked. "They do both. Some AIs are ships, some have bodies like people, and others swap between the two. Since AIs bodies are so divorced from their 'selves' they are effectively immortal. If their body or their ship gets old and run down they change it. There are rumors that there are AIs that are still around from when the first AIs were created."

Raaden frowned. "I don't buy it. I think it's just propaganda they use to try and bolster their numbers. If there are one hundred thousand AIs total I'd be surprised. I think they're much more rare than they let on. They love to let people think they're everywhere."

I wasn't so sure. I've met plenty of AIs. In bodies and in ships. I thought there were more of them than Raaden thought. There weren't any here... any more, that's a problem for Future Melody. We got to the Palace and entered. It's different than the last time the Venusians were here. This time, it's more of a party atmosphere. I had set up another banquet table for the Shipyard workers, and after I told them not to worry and that they'd be working for me they mostly rolled with it. Good food, no danger and the promise of pay took a lot of the sting out of "now you're stuck over here" and "by the way you're the subjects of an Empress and a sort of Galactic Empire."

We offered Captain Pfenning the opportunity to sit up at the head table with us, mostly because Raaden is dying to grill him on what happened.

"Okay. Don't leave anything out. What happened after Melody tossed the Lavinia into the Gate?" Raaden said, gesturing with her fork.

Will swallowed his tea. "We were able to Gate back to K'lax, but without a wormhole generator, we couldn't go any further. Luckily, the K'laxi linked a beacon back to Venus and the Frigate Liddy linked to K'lax with a spare wormhole generator. We spent a couple days installing it as best as we could and were able to link back to Venus."

Raaden grinned. "I bet the Emperor was... displeased."

"Oh boy was he. Incandescent would be too kind. When we told him that you and Emery were captured, he declared you both killed in action and memorialized."

Raaden stopped, her fork midway to her mouth. "He declared us killed in action? He wouldn't even try to negotiate?"

"No. Said you weren't worth the effort. He had 'too much to do' back home. He was getting on one of his kicks to attack Heinlein again."

"I... see." Helen put her fork down and looked ahead at the crowd for a moment. I thought she was sad to find out that she was cast aside so readily. She gently shook her head once. "What of Emery?"

"Same thing. Declared killed, official three days of mourning, painting put up in the Hall of Heroes, the works. Officially the successor will be decided 'at a later date.'"

"Cast aside so easily... It just reinforces that I made the right decision throwing my lot in with Melody. You'll do well here Will. We will need strong captains soon."

I looked over at Will. "He ordered you to attack Heinlein? That's how you got there?"

Will grinned. "He said it would 'help you and your crew redeem yourselves in my eyes and the eyes of Venus.' I think he was trying to give us a suicide mission to get us out of the way."

Omar looked up at the conversation. "Hasn't Venus been trying to attack Heinlein Shipyards for years?"

"Yup. Always failed before. Usually because they go in guns blazing and try and take it by force. We went in with the remains of the Lavinia and asked about repairs." Will said.

To the end of my days, I will remember the face Omar made when Will said that.

"They were going to refit Lavinia?" Um'reli was incredulous.

"If they knew what ship it was, no. We scrubbed the beacons and all identifying information. I said we found a scrap frame and were looking to refit it. As a crew came over to verify the frame's identity and work out the details of the refit, we overpowered them, abandoned the Lavinia and took the shuttle back to the Heinlein. They weren't expecting a guerilla mission at all and were completely taken by surprise." Will took another bite of food. "Then, once we had the station under control we loaded everyone into the most complete Starjumper, linked the wormhole generators together, overloaded the reactors - it was handy that Heinlein has such a large reactor, crossed our fingers and pulled the lever!"

At this point everyone at our table was listening intently to Will's story. "How did you get our address for the wormhole generator?" There was Ava with the smart questions.

Will shrugged with only one shoulder. "We got it from the navigation records of the Lavinia. We always take addressing measurements when we go somewhere new to update the records and make sure we are were we expect to be."

Raaden looked so proud of Will. I wondered if he was her protegé. "Excellent work Captain Pfenning. I'm so glad you made it back here. If everyone from the Lavinia who is here is willing to sign on wholeheartedly with Empress Melody, we could use the help. We're in the beginning states of planning to conquer things back home and we'll need all the help we can get."

Will blinked. "You're going to conqueror? The whole place?"

I shrugged. What else could I do? "Eventually yes. We'll start with Venus and the Sol system and work our way out from there. Since I have the ability to command anyone who is in the same room as me, my Builders point out that the governments back home probably won't tolerate my existence. The only solution is to take over or kill myself. I very much like being alive, so-" I show my hands "-I'm going to take over."

Raaden was animated as she explains it. "Don't worry Will, Melody is good people and a good Empress. She'll do well in charge. We'll get a chance to see some real change, help lots and lots of people and finally see a unified Sol and more!"

Will took a sip of tea. "You've already got our loyalty, so don't worry about that. If Raaden is this excited to work with you, then I'm excited to be a part of things. I trust her implicitly, and if she says you're good, then I know you are. The rest of the crew feels the same way."

Raaden laughed. "This is wonderful, Melody. We're growing by leaps and bounds. Let's finish the three Starjumpers and convert them to Builder operation and start on the first Calamity Class super Dreadnought. Omar can bring the wilds over and turn that into a shipyard too. With two of them, we can build a fleet that much faster."

Will raised an eyebrow. "Calamity Class?"

Raaden was animated as she explained, "You should see it Will! It's amazing. We took the designs from the Lavinia's database plus the designs the Builders had here and made a super dreadnought. It can even go atmospheric! Those colony worlds won't know what hit them. We'll be able to go in hot and fast and the battles will be short with a minimum of deaths. I bet we can conquer Sol in a month and the entirety of Human space in 2 years or less."

Dinner continued on into the evening with Helen excitedly telling Will and the others from the Lavinia our plans, with a little more emphasis on attacking than I liked. Still, I had never seen her this happy or animated unless she was talking about trains, so I let her go. If she gets people to sign on with us without me having to keep on ordering people, all the better. By the end of the meal, I noticed that a few of the employees from the Shipyard were listening intently as well. Interesting. That night, I drew a hot bath and climbed in. I needed some time to decompress.

As I lay floating, Ava came in. "Want company?"

"It's really hot, but if you can stand it, sure."

She smiled and stripped down. Only wincing a little, she climbed in.

She snuggled up to my side and put her head next to mine. We floated in the silence and dark for a little while, just being Ava and Melody.

"Oh Ava, what am I going to do?"

"About what, hon?"

"First Janais, now the Venusians and the shipyard. I feel like I'm being pushed into taking over and ruling a Galaxy."

"Well you are Empress."

"What if I don't want to be? What if I just want to be Melody, with her partner Ava?"

Ava sighed. "I'd like that too Melody. But, that's not our direction now. What's the old saying? 'Buy the ticket, take the ride.' You bought the ticket when you touched the directory stone and became Empress. Now, we're on this ride to the end. Unless you want to to get off early-" I stiffened. No, I emphatically don't want that. "-then we've got to see it through."

I thought about the AI assassin from earlier today. Just a stain on the floor, just like that Aviens back when we first arrived. "So many people are going to die Ava."

I could feel her nod. "Yes, they probably will. We will have to do our utmost to be as overwhelming as possible. If we can intimidate, we don't have to kill. If we can cow people, we won't have to destroy them."

I sighed and watched the waves from my breath spread out in the bath. "I suppose you're right Ava. I don't want to be killed. I don't want to kill people either. I wish this hadn't happened."

Ava sat up and looked at me. I could see her wet face and hair reflected in the lights from the windows. "But it did happen, Melody. Wishing won't change it. The only thing we can do is our best. We're given an opportunity here. Instead of lamenting the deaths that haven't happened yet, try and think about the good we can do here and elsewhere. Try and think how we can win with the least deaths and then you can be a just, fair, and most importantly, long lived ruler." She leaned back down against me. "Look at it this way. The only other Emperor is currently in charge of Venus, and he's loved by nobody. You'll be better than him without even trying. If you try, you could be beloved by everyone."

"Everyone? What about the AIs, Ava? I'm not about to do a genocide, I'll be no better than Venus then."

"Well... your voice works a bit. Maybe with practice and research it'll work more. More importantly, if we can convince them that you aren't a threat and aren't trying to eliminate them, maybe they'll leave you be."

"Yeah, maybe you're right. We have to convince them that we're not going to try and eliminate them." The water sloshed as I rolled and faced her. "But how?"

She put her finger against my lips. "Shh, we have time. We can figure that out later." Her hand slid down my body. "For now, we have other things to concern ourselves with."

The night was long and full of enjoyment.