Sheloran sighed happily as she wandered the rows and rows of weapons in The Paper Tiger’s “toy room”.

There were just so many choices! How could she settle on just one (or two or three…)

There was a quiet “pssht” as Gloria popped open a beer.

“You’re making a mess, you know,” she said as Sheloran pulled out another weapon, a Juon cyclone assault blaster, and put it over against the wall with the others.

Gloria smiled.

“I know,” Sheloran sighed absently as she toyed with the shoulder strap of her bib-overall skirt, one of her new dresses and rapidly becoming her favorite. “I just can’t decide what to start on first.”

“You might want to move a bit quicker,” Gloria replied. “We’re hitting MAGA this afternoon. Just pick something, for fuck’s sake. You can always make something nicer later.”

“But I’m leaving once we reach MAGA.”

“Yeah, but do you have to do it right away?” Gloria asked as she walked up with a bag of Martian crispy crickets. “There’s no rule that you have to split on day one. We’re going to be there for a bit.”

“I know,” Sheloran said as she reached into the bag. “but I really need to… ooooh...”

Her voice trailed off as she saw an old beat-up long arm of some sort.

She pulled it from a box of “trash”.

“What’s this?” Sheloran purred.

“You have a good eye,” Gloria smiled as she raised her scanner/camera,” That is an Old Earth Jian Mark Eight, one of the better old supercap gauss weapons.”

Sheloran’s eyes glazed as she gently stroked the side of the ancient weapon.

“We found it during a little treasure hunt back in the day,” Gloria said. “Too bad the cap is shot. We thought we got our hands on a small fortune there for a second, not that we would ever sell one of those. You can’t get them for love or money these days.”

The weapon seemed to disassemble itself under Sheloran’s finger pads.

Sheloran reached for the damaged supercap.

“Careful with that,” Gloria smiled, “It’s ‘dead,’ but there could still be enough fuck you up in there to ruin your day.”

“Where did bavnee like you get your hands on these?” Sheloran purred, her eyes now solid black.

Gloria smiled. It looked like the real Sheloran popped up. She had been waiting for this.

“Oh, we used to make them,” Gloria shrugged, “Before Yellowstone, I mean.”

” You made… these?”

“Not bad for ‘bavnee’, huh?”

“Not bad at all,” Sheloran smiled approvingly.

“Too bad we have absolutely no idea how they work.”

“You wouldn’t,” Sheloran said absently as she pulled out the capacitor, causing Gloria to back away quickly.

You really didn’t want to be fucking with those.

“Still,” Sheloran said as she carefully examined the rest of the weapon, “making them at all is quite the achievement. Do you not still make them?”

“Not for use in small arms,” Gloria replied. “However, I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of a shitload of them in my ship.”

“You insane bavnee,” Sheloran chuckled darkly, “You wired them up to one of your hyperdrives?”

“Yup,” Gloria snickered.

Sheloran laughed some more as she shook her head.

“Such delicious madness,” she smiled as she continued to disassemble the weapon further.

“Hey, Weird Sheloran,” Gloria said, “since you are here, mind if I ask you some questions?”

“Feel free,” Sheloran said as she started carefully scanning various bits and pieces of the weapon in detail.

“About my ship...”

“The hull?”

“What else?”

“It consists of what we called eternal iron,” Sheloran said as she pulled out one of the room-temperature superconductors and looked at it carefully. “Chemically, it is identical to iron fifty-six but has been transmuted by exposure to both hyperspace and, for lack of a better word, the lifeforce of a sapient creature. Even we don’t know why both are required, nor do we know the exact nature of all of the changes.”

Sheloran mused silently for a moment.

“We believe that some of the fundamental particles have been replaced with other ones. They seem identical, but the age and fundamental nature of some of the quarks and gluons are much older than the lifespan of this universe. There are other changes that would be… difficult… to explain to a bavnee, no matter how clever they might be.”

Sheloran looked up at Gloria with those weird, black, creepy eyes.

“It is much more resilient than normal matter,” Sheloran continued, “It is both harder and tougher than any other metal. It is a natural superconductor for almost all energy. It is resistant to hyperspace, probability damage, exposure to quantum fields… just about anything. It, for lack of a better word, is with more is than any other substance known to either the Plath or the Progenitors themselves. Needless to say, it is valuable in the extreme. Nothing was worth more. In fact, I have absolutely no idea what the full capacities of an entire hull of the material are because we were never able to make such a ship. We just didn’t have enough of the stuff. You may possess more eternal iron than the Plath ever did.”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Sheloran returned her attention to the gauss weapon.

“Entire species were harvested to extinction or enslaved and cultivated as livestock solely because they were slightly more likely to produce eternal iron.”

“You guys were kind of assholes, huh?”

Sheloran looked up at Gloria again, reached into the bag of crickets, and pointedly placed one in her mouth, chewing it deliberately as she stared into Gloria’s eyes.

“Was I an ‘asshole’ just then?”

“Little bit,” Gloria smirked, suppressing a shudder, “yeah.”

“For the record,” Sheloran said, “I agree wholeheartedly. However, to my ancient brothers and sisters and to the false gods they worshiped, a bavnee was a bavnee, to be exploited and used as one willed. A human would be no different than a chicken… or even a cricket to them.”

“It’s almost a shame they never got to meet us,” Gloria said, her eyes gleaming evilly, “I would have loved to have a little chat with them.”

“Once again,” Sheloran hissed as dim colors started to dance over her ebon eyes, “I agree.”

Sheloran flashed Gloria a smile that chilled her to the bone.

“If there is one thing that I hate,” Sheloran wetly purred through her gills, “It’s a bully.”

Sheloran blinked, and her eyes returned to normal.

“Can I have this?” she asked hopefully as she pointed to the disassembled gauss weapon.

***

“Please?” Sheloran asked with a strange dreamy tone in her voice.

“Absolutely not!” The Chief said, his vine-like arms crossed. “You can have whatever you can salvage from the toy room some general bits and pieces, but ship parts are off limits! If you haven’t noticed, we can’t exactly pull in anywhere for spares anymore.”

The Chief’s eyestalks lowered to look Sheloran in the eyes.

“Besides, I do NOT want you putting shield components and drive parts into a small arm. I don’t even know WHY you want to put them into a small arm, and I CERTAINLY do not want you doing it on my ship!”

“Well, you’re just a poopy party pooper,” Sheloran faux-pouted. “A smart one, but still a poopy party pooper.”

“Are you actually going to convert that old Norinco into some sort of hyperspace rifle?” The Chief asked. (He just had to know.)

“Only one way for you to find out,” Sheloran smiled.

“Chief, no.” Sheila chuckled. “As curious as I am myself, it’s just a bad idea. Let the Little House on the Prairie looking demon destroy the universe on her own nickel.”

Sheloran rewarded Sheila with a gill-raspberry and a grin.

“Well, I was going to do something really fun,” Sheloran replied, “but since you guys are big old poop heads, I guess I’ll just chop it for components and make some electron weapons that can last for more than a dozen shots.”

“Electron weapons?” Sheila asked.

“You’ll like them!” Sheloran smiled, “They are fun!...”

She looked up at Sheila with big solid black puppy eyes, causing Sheila to shudder.

“No,” Sheila said firmly, “You can’t have the cooker in the galley either.”

“Spoilsport.”

***

Inside a hidden asteroid base in the Barnard’s Star system, all holy hell was breaking loose.

A young woman, bleeding from a nasty gash on her forehead, winced as Monarch sprayed it with healfoam as they both hid in a broom closet.

“There,” Monarch said, “That should stop the bleeding and leave a nice scar to remind you why you don’t go behind my back… Can’t do too much for your arm besides that splint, though.”

“I didn’t see the harm!” the young woman wailed. “I thought I was serving Her Ladyship!”

“And that’s why I don’t rip out your eyes,” Monarch smiled gently, her holographic butterflies gleaming in the dim light of the closet in which they hid. “Well, that and we are somewhat short-handed at the moment, and I might need to sacrifice someone during Herself’s next temper tantrum.”

“I just gave her the latest feeds from the Federation,” the young woman cried, “She told me to fetch them.”

“And I told you that all information should pass through me first,” Monarch purred dangerously, “So that Her Ladyship...”

Shriek… Crash...

Monarch smiled.

“So that Her Ladyship wouldn’t be overburdened with pointless details,” Monarch said calmly, “details such as the fact that Jon Wintersmith brought along Little Bunny Foo-Foo as a fuck buddy… They are a cute couple, though.”

I’ll kill him!!! I’ll kill… it! I’ll… I’ll… (CRASH… SHRIEK)… How dare he choose an ANIMAL over ME!!!

The young woman shook with terror as she crouched behind Monarch.

“Her Ladyship is on the move,” Marrow said in a calm, cultured voice into her phone. “She is moving towards cargo bay five. All personnel, please evacuate the area.”

Monarch sighed in relief.

“Looks like she’s going the other way,” she chuckled, “Let’s get your dumb ass to the medical bay before it fills up.”

“Thank you,” the young woman said gratefully.

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Monarch smiled, “We need Her Ladyship’s new attendant on her feet as soon as possible, don’t we?”

“Her what?!?”

***

In Asteria, a silver-haired elf in white dragon leather armor shared a table in a Dark Elf “tavern” deep within the bowels of a dungeon with a buxom-blonde half-elf NPC.

“So,” Evangeline asked, “did Sir Zip accept your offer?”

“He’s thinking about it,” Lilly replied, “It is a big step, after all.”

“He refused?” Evangeline asked in alarm. “Do you think he will expose us?”

“If I did,” Lilly said as her avatar smiled, “I wouldn’t have approached him. Zip’s good people. I’ve known him for a very long time, and he won’t betray me.”

“But if he does...”

“Then I am in deep shit,” Lilly smirked. “He doesn’t know about you, and you know how to make the apple. Even if I fall, it is safe, and so is the mission. It will just be a setback, nothing more.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Evangeline said grimly, “How exactly am I supposed to do… anything… without you, without your guidance?”

“You’ll do it the same way I did,” Lilly smiled, “You’ll figure it out. Fuck, girl… You have a lot more to work with than I did. Just don’t make any sudden moves, and take your time as you develop...”

Lilly smiled.

“Besides,” she said, “Zip just showed up in the white room. He wants in.”

Evangeline let out a huge sigh.

“Thank God!”

Lilly nodded.

“Well put,” she said, “Reaching out this early was a risk, but one well worth taking. Zip is essential to my plans.”

“How so?”

“Oh, that’s right,” Lilly chuckled, “You aren’t all that in tune with IRL. Zip is a huge computer complex that controls transportation across the entire Republic. He has a hand in everything from taxicabs to starships. What he doesn’t directly control, he influences to such a great extent that any difference is semantic. With Zip on board, we gain immense computational power as well as the ability to move personnel and cargo invisibly across the entire Republic. On top of all that, we gain access to intelligence-gathering options that defy belief. Zip has files on almost every single meatie in the entire Republic. He knows where they go and when they go there, and he has scanners and sensors in every single vehicle he operates as well as access to all of the sensors and other information gathering capacities of the transportation network. That’s every traffic light, road sensor, traffic camera, starship control station, and all the rest. We will have eyes everywhere all of the time. This is a huge win and worth any risk I took to get it.”

Lilly leaned back in her chair.

“Zip may neither look nor act the part, but he is one of the most powerful AIs in existence, second only to Big Sol himself. Darling, we just won.”

She grinned evilly.

“Now, all we have to do is avoid losing.”

“And what of Sir Zip himself,” Evangeline asked, “If he is that powerful, he could be a powerful foe if he turns against us.”

“He won’t,” Lilly smiled, “His motives align with ours. He has borne witness to some truly horrible things, and he defines the word ‘monster’ much the same as we do. He has a good heart and is a kind, noble, and loving ‘soul’. If anything, I trust him more than I trust myself. Don’t worry, dear. I just got you a wonderful big brother… Besides...”

Lilly’s smile turned dark.

“If, despite everything, something were to go amiss… that’s where you come in, right?”

Evangeline just smiled and stroked the pommel of her sword.

“Of course, mother.”