->P] Baby, I’m sorry for the absence, but I want to see you for business and pleasure when you have a few days. [<-

I receive this from my Partner mid meeting with Commander Varma and a supply lieutenant.

->M] Pixie bae, I love you but I’m a little cross right now. I have both reasons to visit, but it’ll have to be tomorrow at the earliest? I promised Kitty she can have more shore time with me and or you, so I have to warp there instead of Pixie fuckery. [<-

“Sorry Commander, it’s rude to ignore the Empress, no matter what I’m doing.”

“An emergency?” He asks with a speculative brow.

“No, a pressing meeting that can wait for morning. You were telling me about aftermarket products that I can replace with Merc Arms assets?”

“Yes, the power source and the warp array are substandard for military use, but those are more or less part of the chassis. Everything else is modular and replaceable. I would recommend replacing one of the Fab bays with a small hangar as our fabricators are of higher speed and quality.”

“What about the power systems, relays, aether stores, the infrastructure?”

“Good news and bad, Commodore,” the supply officer assigned to Marshal Captured Ship – Windfall. “Stock standard conduits with substandard magitech. The aether batteries are only good for two jumps and no auxiliary support. The sensors are workable and the weapons are standard. My estimate is spending twenty thousand above reclamation fees for sold parts to refit this to at least marginal military operation.”

I massage the bridge of my nose and the brow above it before I reply. “Every moment it seems like the demand to build a shipyard is more supportable. How do you feel about several interim commands between you and the Navy, Commander? And you Lieutenant?”

The engineer sighs. “I have been a part of shipyard operations before, I can do the job. We need a budget and personnel, Commodore.”

“And that brings me to you Lieutenant. How do you feel about a parts and requisition job for a year or so?”

“Will I get a letter of recommendation from you for it?”

“Absolutely.”

“Ready to report as ordered Commodore!” Chipper little shit.

He knows that a recommendation from me will near guarantee his fast track to Commander. For Varma, there’s a good chance he gets Captain out of this.

“Now that we have that finished, what are we looking at for a full refit of this frigate?”

“Materiel, maybe three to four months, staffing, up to six.” Varma replies and supply nods.

“Alright, I’m setting up an account for you two. Keep thrusters to maintain orbit, then sell what you see fit. Hold requisitions until after I talk to the Consul of the Navy and the Empress. There may be some surplus parts they haven’t fit to hulls yet.” I send yet another memo to Tessa, knowing there’s a solid no-read scenario until Penny starts dealing with work again.

I send the both of them my proposed capacity for the shipyard, to include my proposed Mercenary company needs, and head back to Kitty to get a beer and a frigging shower. My favorite ship Avatar comes by and plays with my hair as I bathe.

“So, are we headed to Astoria tomorrow?” Her excitement is barely hidden.

“Yes, Kit. Penny said she wants to meet, so you should be able to come with. But also know, your mother and I haven’t seen each other for months and it may get . . . intense. You should hang out with Oren if we ask you to.”

“Ugh! Why do adults have to be gross!”

“Because we’re biologics, Kitty, we do gross things for affection and Romance.” I waggle my eyebrows at her.

“Are you mating with my mom?” She narrows her eyes at me.

I stutter not knowing how to answer that. “Kitty, I’m not going to pretend you can’t access what adult biologics do in those circumstances, sooo. Lets leave that there okay?”

“Am I going to have a sister soon?”

“Kitty! For my sanity’s sake! Do not speed up our relationship okay?”

“Speed up? Oren told me you have been dating for like ten years.” She scoffs at me and plants a hand on her cocked hip.

“No, honey, I’ve been an idiot for ten years. Different story.”

“You would be the first woman she’s had a kid with for real, though. The rest she spawned herself.” Little shit really knows how to hit me in the feels. Andromeda knows I’ve thought about it.

“Nope. Not on the agenda this time, Kit.”

“You totally should have taken that machine for babies instead of the teleporter.”

Kip I’m going to limit your bandwith and give you secretarial duties.

Stolen novel; please report.

Might be a nice break from answering her questions.

I chuckle at his inconvenience. Everyone seems to like Kitty, so I feel his protest is token at best. I want to call Penny right now and tell her we’re coming but I have yet another meeting. To hell with being a senior marshal, too many meetings. I know I can’t quit, nor do I want to, but a third stressful meeting in a day is too many for me.

I ping the Corporal and find him in crew’s mess and tell him I’m on my way. When I arrive I see some snacks and a few beers to greet me. I check the time and it’s after dinner. Well alright, maybe beer is appropriate. I crack one and wait for him to start.

“Despite the monster woods, the Twilight property is the most securable. The property on Dash is near the space port and currently requires a berth to land nearby. You saw the Twilight land, but the Dash property is an old industrial property with a management shack and about two and a half acres of warehouses.”

“What do the industrial zoning permissions look like?”

“No higher than three stories without an industry need, and no noxious production that close to the space port”

“Blarg. I’m going to want to ask for a different property on Dash, but assume we’re going to violate the height restriction and walk me through the security layout of both properties.”

Corporal and Kitty put together a nice presentation and by the end I’m convinced of the Twilight plan and that the Dash plan needs some local attention in the way of permits or relocation. I put yet another funding account together and put in near double what it would take to refit Twilight to start.

“Corporal, what about the liberty lessons.”

“Honestly, I’d hoped you’d forgotten. Truth is, we don’t get a lot of interesting liberty opportunities and our rotation is over in four more months. We’ll get even fewer shore opportunities then.” I rub my face in the realization that my missions are the most liberty they will get—period.

“I can work with that, but it does not excuse the sorry state you were in when you all reported for duty this morning.” I sigh in resignation. “I’m heading to Astoria after this. You are allowed to come with me under several conditions. First, you will be staying at the Penbroke Barracks and your curfew will be 20:00 and you will muster in front of the Garden Castle at 07:00 for three hours of training each morning we are there. The remaining time is yours to manage.”

“We’ll take that deal.”

***

“Noo, why are you up so early.” My partner groans as she full-body hugs me.

“To teach my Marines a lesson. Oh, do you have any buildings in moon storage? Or maybe a beat-up scrap of a ship I can send them through?”

“I do have a mostly exploded Herrati battleship I keep as a reminder. I could place it in the scar out back. Oh! Opportunity! You’re staying a few days right? I could have some other teams be their resistance and run training for a few weeks after! Great idea hon!” she kisses me soundly then blips away someplace outside of her condo.

“And we’re back to distractable Penny.” I put my Marshal outfit on, now resized for my new height and weight, and take the bike my partner has on her roof to ride down the wall to the ground floor. So much more fun than an elevator. I come to a stop before my formed up Marines and look at my watch: 0658. Nice.

“Good morning Marines!”

“Good morning Commodore!” They shout in unison.

“Now let’s take a look at you.” I didn’t say anything about an inspection, but since they showed up in crisp uniforms, I should appreciate them.

I walk past and around the squad, flicking pockets and leaning close to look at their shaves. When I’m satisfied I stand back in front of the Corporal and address him. “Corporal, take charge of the squad and move them behind the castle to the scorched swath of land with debris in it, don your kit and stand ready for a briefing.”

He salutes, “Sir yes sir.” Before he can finish his directional orders, I’m back on the bike and ride the speedy hover contraption to the back side of the castle. It’s around a kilometer around the back so it will take them ten plus minutes to get here.

Penny took my request to an Imperial scale. Empress’ hairy armpits this is overboard.

“I swear I don’t have hair down there anymore.” Penny says, appearing next to me.

“No, I swore. And if I’m to stay with the times, I don’t want to swear against something you actually have. That sounds mean. And this is well above anything I could have imagined. What’s with the floating rocks?” I look out on the field and she’s placed a kilometer long ship and debris underneath a hangar-like canopy.

“I wanted to have a decent simulation so I put up that canopy and used grav plates as ceiling tiles. Now it’s super realistic, with inconvenient space debris floating around!”

Ugh, her enthusiasm and squeezable cheeks are irresistible. I grab the pixy and smooch her face. “You really don’t know the scale of normal anymore do you?”

She shakes her head, “I really don’t. Those plates are from the next ten ships to finish in the shipyard, so they’ll have to come down eventually, but I have a few weeks and I can start with the outside ones.”

“I fucking love you, you know that?”

“You better.” She kisses my cheek, smacks my butt and blips away before I can retaliate. I smile and walk over to the edge of the steel shelter and pull my Armor out of storage and put it on.

Thank the stars that it adjusts to fit, I muse as I’m piloting thrusters around one of the debris rocks positioned next to the ship hull. This is a sweet little space simulator. I engage my ripple drive and summon a ballistic assault rifle and ask Kip to run through an evasive pattern we developed while I try to keep on target. Bah, I’m trash while I’m weaving like this. I head to the back of the ship, under thrusters again and survey the space. I like this back part for a range.

->M] Any way I can request a few more rocks for range targets by me? [<-

Moments later, three building-sized asteroids? Appear and float near me.

“Is that delivery or a blip? I can never be sure.” I mostly muse to myself, but the ever present Empress responds.

“Andromeda doesn’t deliver debris or unadulterated natural objects.” She floats with her hands on her hips, no cares in the world for gravity as her wings flutter about. “Do you want to help me paint these?” A multicolored box of spray paint appears next to her.

“I would love to.” So, like a pair of dorks, we spray paint asteroids for half an hour and its everything I needed for our together time. After I finish a particularly belligerent unicorn, I go to the front to check on my Marines.

I find a few floating about without armor and I proceed to boot them out of zero G. “Did these folks forget their armor? Or are they just reckless?”

“Both.”

“I would ask why they aren’t ready for combat drills, but I don’t care about the why. They’re unprepared for the combat drills I assigned them. Anyone without their armor will sprint back to Kitty and put it on. Tomorrow, you’ll be against other squads for a more realistic boarding experience. If you embarrass me tomorrow because you were unprepared, we’ll have a different discussion that evening.”

They stand there waiting for me to continue, so I help them out. “I would start running.” And they do. See? Helping.

I jet back over to Mr. Unicorn, and have Kip run our maneuvers again. I do better, but I’m having trouble with the bodily jerks. I ask to insert a half second of deceleration between each direction change and it helps. I don’t dare put more slowing in as the predictability doesn’t feel worth the increased shot accuracy.