BuyMort: Bull Market Mayhem: How I Cornered the Multiversal Monopoly
Author: Damien Hanson; Joseph Phelps
Date: 2023-10-05 23:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; Fiction; General; Media Tie-In; Science Fiction; Space Opera; GameLit; HaremLit
Description: When the universe decides to default on its existential loans, who better to foreclose the apocalypse than the Windowpuncher, Tyson Dawes? Dearth Conglommerate is plummeting in market value and Kraken is no more. But not all threats have been extinguished. Thanks to the rising threat of the Sleem, the whole multiverse is in danger. Desperate for a cosmic bailout, the Church calls for a financial crusade. Meanwhile, Molls and her family fall into a whole mess of market shock and face futures unknown. With Storage under threat of hostile foreclosure, the universe faced with Sleem saturation, and
Publisher: LitForge Press

BuyMort: Bull Market Mayhem

A BuyMort Novel

Joseph Phelps

Damien Hanson

A Sconnie Books Production

Copyright © 2023 Joseph Phelps, Damien Hanson

All rights reserved.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of quotations in a book review.

For more information, address: https://damienleehanson.substack.com

FIRST EDITION

All rights reserved

ISBN: 9798863243382

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A very special thanks to all of you over on Royal Road and Patreon. You’ve all helped us so much in our journey to make these books. And thank you, readers, for following the tales of the Windowpuncher. These last couple of years have been amazing!

And a shout out to ArDee for your amazing ideas!

We look forward to getting them written!

“[To be] …a minnow in a vast ocean, that’s not a good place to be. That means you have tons of competitors and you don’t even know who [they] are.” – Peter Thiel

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Epilogue

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Prologue

“Be extremely careful what you say next,” Axle whispered into the echoing silence that followed my statement. We had gathered in a full sized meeting suite Axle and Jada’s library had available.

I nodded and sighed. “Yeah, I thought that might be the case.”

“Well, don’t think about it too hard,” my Knowle friend said. “If you were to cause yourself to be provided an ad for said cause, by chance, it could bring attention you do not want.”

“But I do want that attention,” I said, following his code. “Just not yet.”

Axle shook his head. “Everyone, please do your best to forget what you have heard here tonight.”

“Too late,” I said. “The seed is already planted. It was the moment our guest took Suzanne and the others. That’s the nature of my people.” I stared at Lee. “Retribution is required. Lee is already adding it to the algorithm. I doubt he thinks of much else.”

The old man shrugged but did not look up from his feet. “You might be surprised,” he muttered. “But you’re not wrong either.”

Axle slumped. “We cannot possibly hope to survive such an encounter,” he said. “Those beings would destroy us, instantly.”

Lee scoffed. When we all stared at him to elaborate, he raised his eyes and shrugged. “Never heard of an invulnerable, all-seeing enemy that wasn’t either of those things. Who’s telling you these beings are so omnipotent? Them?”

“See?” I said, leaning on the table. “It’s our nature. That thing dies. Our job here is to figure out how.”

Dario and Izan, brothers in care of a trans dimensional pulse cannon, were new additions to my affiliate roster. Refugees of all varieties from Victorian Earth flooded in to settle on Nu-Earth, and I welcomed them all with open arms. We needed the workers.

The Delvago brothers had stayed because Nu-Earth was rapidly becoming the center of a large human and hobb-based economy in the BuyMort system.

The larger of the two, Dario, raised a hand bedecked in jewelry. I nodded at him, and he said, “it is possible, in theory.”

His brother, Izan, hissed at him. “But not for certain!”

Dario winced and looked up at the ceiling, taking a deep breath before facing his brother. “Brother, you knew this was going to happen. You are the one who sourced and purchased the book in the first place. Now that it is happening, you cannot simply refute it out of fear.”

“This would mean war,” Izan said. “A brutal war we cannot possibly hope to win, or even survive. It would mean throwing all our lives away, likely all the lives coming to this world, and anywhere our reach extended. For nothing.”

“For everything!” I roared, getting the table's attention again. “None of us can live with a monster in the basement! It killed us! We must kill it, before it does so again,” I growled. “This is not optional. If you cannot fight, I’ll find you passage off-world.”

Once it was out, I felt the gravity of the words and shrugged, sitting back. “Or stay and work some other job, I don’t fuckin’ know. This just has to happen, and we have to figure out how to make it happen. Preferably without all dying in the process. We’ll just cheat.”

Jada scowled, finally sitting forward, burly arms crossed over her chest. “Cheat?”

“Yes, cheat,” I said. “Humans are kind of amazing at it. We do it all the time. It’s one of our core traits.”

Jada chuckled in reply, shaking her head and shrugging. “You’ll have to explain,” she said.

“Well, we cheat death, for one thing. All the time, since we weren’t even human yet. Our ancestors figured out that hiding in the treetops meant less likelihood of getting eaten, thus cheating death, causing a population boom, and laying the way for our entire species and history of civilization before BuyMort,” I said. “But we cheat physics too.”

The table still stared at me, so I continued. “Consider the towel. Bodies saturated in liquid can only dry at specific, environment-based rates. So we humans cheat. We give our liquid to another body to dry, because we’re impatient. We don’t want to wait to dry naturally ourselves. Thus, cheating physics.”

In the silence that followed, Tollya began to chuckle. “Bomb we used to stop gravity sling mimic the process that happen in stars. Counts as big cheating.”

Axle raised an eyebrow. “I would argue that nuclear weapons are more direct control than cheating, but I think I see your point. The humans of Nu-Earth have continued to surprise BuyMort, perhaps this will be another. I also recognize that we no longer have any choice in the matter. It would be wise, however, to avoid discussing it directly until we are better prepared. Something like this is likely to cascade into action quite suddenly, once certain pieces start falling into place.”

“Agreed,” I said. “Axle, I want you to work with Lee, Cube, and the brothers. We need to know what kind of chance we are looking at, with that cannon, and our objective.”

The Knowle nodded slowly. “Yes, agreed. Lee's criticism is . . .” he paused, looking at the old man. “Valid. Much of what we consider our hard knowledge comes from sources that may have an interest in misinforming the general populace of BuyMort. It would be valuable to have him with our team when we review the information. The book that was spoken of.”

“Carefully spoken of,” I reminded.

Izan scowled and shook his head. “I do not understand the value of your pet Cube. I am sorry,” he said.

Cube growled.

“I mean specifically to this cause,” Izan said, raising his hands defensively. “In general I see a tremendous amount of value to Cube and regularly find myself quite jealous of how handsome he is.”

The hulking box’s growl changed to a content purr, and he shifted back into a comfortable stance against the back wall. Cube was smarter than a lot of us gave him credit for, but he was susceptible to flattery. Izan and Dario were both model-gorgeous, but both men quickly fawned over Cube if either of them offended him, which happened more often than I would have expected it to.

The relationships among my inner circle were something I paid attention to, Axle in particular. Axle was my direct link to the entire affiliate. As we grew overnight in the wake of Kraken’s death, and my acquisition of Nu-Earth in total, my operations manager had installed a system of regional managers that answered to him directly.

Keeping up with them all was affecting his sleep, but the system was working to install hundreds of cities across the planet at once, to accommodate all the incoming people, and the industries they brought with them.

Weapons design was a major part of human culture across BuyMort. Nu-Earth’s most recent inclusions had been considered a paradigm shift in the BuyMort system. Massive amounts of easily maintained and operated weapons were released into the greater BuyMort populace, arming an entire class of people.

So established weapons manufacturers all wanted to set up shop in my MortBlock. Work with my contacts, establish new pipelines for an ever-growing marketplace that cheap, deadly, reliable Nu-Earth weapons tech fulfilled.

Just as BuyMort intended.

The point being, I trusted Axle. He would understand why I had attached Cube to his team on this issue. I needed to know if a theory we had about the unusual creature held any weight. The way his feeding mechanism specifically interacted with the ambient radiation that our resident beholder emitted, had potential to be meaningful, if it came to a direct conflict with the creature.

Rayna shook her gray-skinned head and scowled. “War with ‘special guest’ mean war with church. Mean war with everyone.”

I nodded and looked her in the eyes. “Can we win a war like that?”

Tollya barked a laugh and threw her booted feet up on the meeting desk. “No,” she snorted.

Rayne raised a hand to quiet her mate and met my gaze. “Not yet, no,” she said. “But affiliate growing by the hour. If we get more suits, more ships like your new Sand Star, yes.” My hobb military commander shrugged and sat back in her chair. “Need time. Time to equip, train, expand. Military too small for one planet, no way it enough to take on church. Have some mercs in cities, but not many.”

“But we do have access to powerful tools, powerful weapons. Our soldiers are much harder to kill. Our ship is more powerful than five ships at once, each three times its size,” I added. “Regular starfish suits are cheap. Fifty-five k a piece.”

“Got plenty of hobbs we can trust now,” Tollya quipped. “Plenty of new hobbs we will certainly be able to trust soon. Our people go where the fight is best,” she grunted, thumping her chest at me, even while in repose. “No fight better than Nu-Earth. Not in a long time.”

I nodded. “Hobbs are stronger than BuyMort knows. Can we trust those who rally to our planet?”

Axle smiled and nodded, his mechanical eyes flashing silently as he worked through the tail end of our meeting. “Of course. Nu-Earth is the destination for those who want to make an honest living, live an honest life. At the rate we’re expanding, I’m having to plan for colonies on Mars and Venus, our overflow is massive. Storage is full of those clamoring to come here, to live in our system, if not on our world directly.”

“That will change if war with the church is declared,” growled Jada.

“When,” I added, again gaining the attention of everyone in the room. “It’s a certainty. Inevitable. No more treating it like it can be avoided, please.”

“When war with the church is declared, we may face an exodus,” Jada said. “Instead of a surplus.”

I nodded. “Rayna, Tollya.” Both hobb women looked to me. “I want you to increase our starfish trooper division. Get me a list and I’ll buy the suits as needed. Only soldiers we can trust, please.”

Tollya grinned lopsidedly and shrugged. “Run out of those pretty quick, then. All tribe BlueCleave have them already.”

Rayna hissed at her mate. “Tollya. Tribe BlueCleave is more than those who came from the grasslands with us now. Much more.”

Tollya nodded, her smile fading. “Still. We can expand. But we only know these hobbs a little while. Risky.”

“Give them to humans too, any who want to join our forces,” I said. “Trust is less important than numbers. Make it known that any who run off before their contract is up will be hunted down. By me personally, if I have to.”

The hobb women stood, and Tollya stretched. “Right boss,” said Rayna. “I’ll get you a number.” With another salute from each, which I stood to return, they left.

“There’s more,” I said to Axle. The rest of my crew left, including Cube, pushed out on a hovering pad by Jada.

Axle nodded at me, his mechanical eyes flashing. Once he and I were alone, he shut down his apps and nodded at me.

“We need to make as many morties as possible, as fast as possible. I need more of those ships,” I told him.

The Knowle licked his nose and nodded. “I understand your desire, but half a quadrillion morties is not exactly easy to raise. It’s not like we get to sell Kraken’s corpse every day. We may need to consider a more conventional fleet, to begin with. Once our operations have appropriately scaled, we may be better able to supplement that fleet with more Sand Stars.”

I nodded, my lips a grim line. “I understand. What kind of fleet can we afford right now?”

Axle smiled, showing a few teeth. “A scant one, and the morties would be better spent elsewhere, being totally honest. Our affiliate has jumped from a multi-billion mortie a week operation to a multi-trillion mortie a day operation. We need to spend our morties on infrastructure, raw materials, and personnel. Not ships.”

My scowl deepened. Since I had destroyed five Dearth heavy assault cruisers and kicked all their higher ups off my new space station, they had been amassing a clear attack fleet at the Sol gate. No playing around this time, there were already a dozen battleship class heavy hitters, with more than three dozen smaller support craft.

There were even rumors of a legendary mercenary fighter pilot who had signed up to hunt me specifically, with a heavily specialized ship of his own.

“But,” Axle said, raising his arms. “If we had to, we could potentially scrape together a few donations from our newest associates in the weapons market, purchase a few light cruisers. Anything beyond that would likely bankrupt the affiliate. Fleets are not cheap to maintain, and even less so to field. Your Sand Star notwithstanding.”

“Right,” I said. “Hey, that reminds me, can you find me a copy of Sun Tzu, please? The Art of War?”

Axle frowned. “Yes, I believe we have that in our library. Nu-Earth version and Industrial Earth. How would you like it?”

“Digital file will be fine, I’ll just break or lose anything else,” I answered. “Nu-Earth version, I read it decades ago, and need a refresher. With digital, I can read it on my flight to Molls’ parents, just in my helmet.”

“Indeed,” Axle replied. “And you’ll be dealing with the incoming Dearth fleet when?” he asked, hesitantly.

“As soon as we’re done with this meeting,” I snapped. I shook my head and stretched with a sigh. “Our unwanted guest has to die. That has to happen, Axle. I’m hoping for results by the time I get back in a few days.”

He nodded, licking his nose again. “I understand, Tyson. In honesty, I expected this moment to come much sooner. I do not like the situation, but I will work diligently to uncover the truth of what steps are possible to remedy it.”

“Thank you, Axle,” I said.

“You are welcome,” he replied. “I apologize for my hesitance. I will go meet with my team immediately.”

“I don’t suppose there’s any way for me to convince you to put on a starfish suit?” I quietly asked.

An involuntary shudder rippled through my friend. “I would follow that order if you gave it,” he finally said. “But I would not be happy about it.”

“Well, don’t make me give that order then,” I answered. “Make sure your security is up to scale with your position, please. If you die or are captured, the entire affiliate is compromised.”

Axle nodded, licking his nose. “I understand, but what you have me researching is . . . dangerous.”

“And how would that be any different from doing nothing?” I asked.

The Knowle flinched mildly and blinked. He took a deep breath and shrugged. “The danger would be farther away for a while longer.”

“Then walk soft. Keep that danger at bay while doing your necessary research,” I said. “However you can.”

Axle nodded at me but kept his eyes downcast. “Guarded language, as we’ve used here, will help.” He nodded again and turned to leave. “As will the distraction you are about to go and launch. I must learn to stop underestimating you, my friend.”

Once he left, I was alone in the library meeting room with my thoughts.

Chapter 1

After a few moments of silence, I pulled out my phone with the intent of calling Molls. Since Kraken had died, three days prior, the only topic of conversation was when I could come out and visit her. I’d promised a short trip to meet her parents, but the issue was cost.

A roundtrip BuyMort portal out to her home planet was out of the question, I couldn’t just blow eleven billion on personal travel and be thought of as a responsible affiliate leader. I also couldn’t really afford to be gone for an extended period of time, Nu-Earth and my budding affiliate were vulnerable without me, and especially without my ship, the Sand Star.

Enter Phyllis, my bodyguard. She’d been upgrading her own battle-mech, which made her a force to be reckoned with. It could even operate in space and fend off some classes of ships.

The current plan was for me to head out in the Sand Star, to the Sol gate. I would intercept and cut apart the Dearth fleet, use the Sol gate to warp to Molls’ home system, then bring her back with me when our trip was done. Phyllis would guard the home nest, with her pack of loyal, lethal dogs.

I shuddered slightly in the chill library room. Visiting Molls’ parents was an unpleasant thought. I’d unintentionally slighted her father when I’d refused to take his call during a particularly stressful moment at work.

So I’d had one of the reaper hounds stuffed, mounted, and loaded into the cargo section of my ship. Ordo had done good work with it. The stitching was barely visible. It was one that I’d killed myself, with the atomically sharpened sword I kept at my belt.

With a deep sigh, I mentally steadied myself and pressed the button to bring up the psychic deity in my phone. His bald head arose, grey eyes flashing as fog puffed into the screen around him. I thought about Molls, her face backlit by sunshine, oversized eyes sparkling as she smiled at me.

The photo of her in Mr. Sada’s attic slid into place as the psychic creature connected us, universes apart. Her face replaced it, vibrant purple coloring her scales as she smiled.

“Tyson!” she gasped. “Today is the day!”

I smiled back at her. “It is. I just wrapped up at work, and I’m on my way. There’s just one errand I have to run, but it’s on the way.”

“Errand?” she asked, scowling.

“Yeah, some Dearth business to wrap up,” I said, raising my lips in a gentle smile.

A quick shot of yellow flushed through her scales, but she smiled again and shook her head. “So long as it doesn’t take long,” she said. “I’ve been patient enough. And honestly, Daddy’s gift better be amazing at this point, he’s kinda pissed about the delays.”

I chuckled and nodded. “It is, don’t worry.” Beside the mounted reaper hound, I’d also had a bouquet of Arizona wildflowers gathered, along with a few cactus blooms, in a clean glass vase. The vase had even been blown by BlueCleave artisans, from Arizona sand. Both gifts were bespoke, from the hottest new world in the BuyMort system.

Proper bragging rights for rich people.

“Good,” said Molls, coyly. “I’ve missed you, you know.”

“Me too, my love, me too,” I sighed. “It’s been so hard not having you here, but I’m glad you’re somewhere safe. It was crazy in Prescott for a while.”

“Tell me about it,” Molls replied. “I’ve just gotten my second affiliate access upgrade request from the church in as many weeks. You and Axle have really been expanding things down there.”

Down there. Even after only a week of being gone, Molls was already slipping into her family’s habits.

“Yeah, you might want to actually answer one of those, I think they want to be a lot more involved after what happened to Dearth and Kraken here,” I said.

“Ugh, whatever. I’ll get to it, I promise. I’m a lot more worried about you, this has been a lot of strain on you. A lot of stress,” Molls said, blinking softly.

A smile twitched at the corner of my mouth, and I said, “I am accustomed to stress.”

“And terrible physical pain,” Molls said, frowning. “I don’t like what that suit does to you. Did you seriously do nude reentry? It’s all over the news, but the camera angles make it impossible to tell if the figure on the back of the escape pod is you.”

“Is that what they’re saying about it?” I asked with a chuckle. “Yeah, more or less. I didn’t start out naked, but there’s only so much clothing can do against reentry plasma.”

“BuyMort’s graces, Tyson!” she admonished. “I shudder to think what that must have been like.”

Flashes of searing, terrible pain and roaring wind jolted through my mind. I shook my head and smiled. “Barely remember it, can’t have been that bad.”

Moll’s eyes shot wide, and her scales flashed yellow again. “That’s the exact opposite of how it works.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I’m coming to see you then, isn’t it,” I asked, not really asking.

Purple began to creep back into her scales, and she smirked. “Yes. If nothing else, the sex is good for your brain chemistry.”

I chuckled and nodded. “How are we going to manage that?” I asked, smirking at her.

Molls waved a hand and scoffed, flicking her thin tongue out and back in. “You said your ship has a domestic suite,” she said, with a shrug. “Figured we should break that bed in,” she quipped. Her scales filled with more vibrant purple, and I smiled.

“It’s a good thing you like the color purple so much, Molls,” I finally said.

She glanced down at her scales and rolled her eyes. “Don’t get a big head, it’s been a good morning. Mom is being extra nice, cause she wants me to forget the last week of badgering and mental anguish.”

“Well good. I’m looking forward to meeting your family,” I said seriously.

Her scales lost a bit of their vibrancy, but she smiled and nodded. “Thank you, Tyson. Now get moving, you have a journey ahead of you.”

I smiled and nodded. “I love you, Molls.”

She smiled wide, her oversized eyes sparkling. “I love you too.” Molls raised a hand to hang up and suddenly clicked her fingers together. “Oh yeah! Don’t be mad babe, I ordered you a little something, it’ll be at your ship when you arrive! Bye, love you, bye!”

She hung up as I scowled in confusion. Her face was replaced by the plain features of the psychic creature in the phone, and my thoughts jolted back to my affiliate.

“I’m going to figure out how to help you,” I whispered, jaw set.

The bald head’s eyebrows raised slightly, and he stared at me, but did not reply. After a few seconds of staring, I pushed the button to end the connection and slid the device back in my pocket. As I often reminded myself, I had work to do.

The library was filling in nicely, with more and more sections being added as Knowles flocked from far and wide to visit it. We were considered the greatest repository of Knowle curated knowledge in the ‘distant front,’ which is what the rest of the BuyMort system called us.

Since BuyMort was constantly spreading, the oldest worlds within it were thought of as the ‘core’ or ‘home’ worlds, and those of us who were recently added were called the distant front, in spite of distance and direction being arbitrary constructs in a multiversal flow. The nice thing about that designation was that it was constantly changing, so eventually we wouldn’t be the distant front. Someone else would, as a new world was engulfed by BuyMort nanites.

A Sleem world, as a matter of fact. It was all over the news, we were eagerly awaiting the first pictures from the front wave any day.

I nodded to a few guests, human, hobb, Nah’gh, and Knowle, as I walked through the towering structure to the exits. Axle’s dream of a library of his own had come true, much faster than we had expected. It was good, our research division thrived with the new information that passed through, and we happily copied, printed, and disseminated knowledge of many sorts in exchange.

Each new item became another trading chit. Proprietary designs. Schematics. Blueprints. Chemical formulas. Maps. Art. Everything was valued, everything was collected, everything was treated as precious knowledge. The Knowle way.

I stepped outside and saw Axle’s team heading toward the nearby hovercraft landing, with Cube still perched on his hovering handcart. The boxy creature was far too large for it, but Jada maneuvered carefully, using a long, thin handle. I shook my head, hoped I hadn’t just doomed my entire planet, and then rose into the sky.

Flying was something I had taken to, in the week since I’d installed my second level starfish suit upgrade. My gravitic drive, or gravity harness, controlled my own personal gravity, allowing me to ‘fall’ anywhere I wanted to go. At extreme speeds, even.

My flight was limited only by the charge my suit could hold, which had escalated significantly with the second upgrade. I imagined the third would make that deepening pool of energy storage even deeper. I needed that charge, not just to fly, but to repair my body if damaged.

Prescott rose in front of me, and I took the opportunity to fly low over the city, weaving between buildings and giving the people walking below a show. Since Kraken’s defeat, and our rise in the wake of Dearth abandoning the planet, people had come to expect the occasional heart-pounding excitement from our unique affiliate. Buzzing the city every so often helped fulfill that expectation.

Reminded everyone that a radioactive, lead-poisoned human warlord was running Nu-Earth, equipped with his cache of hyper advanced cybernetic augmentations.

I flew across the city at a leisurely pace, arcing toward our massive space elevator, and the giant donut cargo crawler vehicle that sat in a huge nest around the outside of it. It connected to our new space station, and Axle had wasted no time in getting cargo moving through it again.

Now that we were free of Dearth, and on openly hostile footing with them, it was much easier to operate our various businesses. Now we had their entire planetary cargo infrastructure, and no Dearth nonsense to worry about.

Aside from the incoming fleet, of course. But that was something we had expected and been watching since the day we killed Kraken and kicked Dearth off our world. I was confident the Sand Star would do the job of scaring ‘em off.

It was a unique ship, according to Axle. With it originating in the Teslak Cooperative, I wasn’t surprised. It was a relic storefront, selling goods from a time before BuyMort. It had been what gave me my starfish suit when I needed it most, and it gave me a ship capable of cutting apart most of our foes with ease.

For cheap too, the Sand Star ran on carbon in almost any form, and fissile material. Its onboard reactor was capable of refining and feeding itself from raw ore if needed, and operating the deadly ship appeared to be extremely cheap.

Which was a major advantage, within the BuyMort system. No specialized fuel was needed, as the ship operated with a fusion reactor system that used micro-tubular fuel pellets that doubled as ammunition. Each arm of the starfish had a storage area dedicated to fuel and refueling it would be a relatively simple matter.

I just needed to find fissile material.

For my current trip, we had filled four of the five arms with plain carbon, in printed sheet form. The ship would punch out its own micro-tubules as needed. One arm’s storage compartment was filled to the brim with processed uranium ore, which the ship informed me would fuel a great deal of flight time. Days, if not weeks.

My suit’s gravitic drive guided my body as I floated in to land on the Sand Star’s pad, tucked away at the rear of the Prescott security tower, the operational hub for the elevator. It shined in the sunlight, its black and orange trim sparkling.

I frowned when I saw a small figure on the landing pad, carrying a bag toward the underside of the star-shaped vessel. Getting closer, I realized it was Ordo, one of the trusted hobbs from tribe BlueCleave. He had been part of the original troupe of mercenaries who came to me so many weeks past, but since then had become an integral part of BlueCleave’s operations on Nu-Earth.

“Ordo!” I shouted, coming in to land gently beside the ship. “What are you doing here?”

The hobb stiffened and saluted me. “Coming with. Rayna’s orders.”

I rolled my eyes and sighed. “I don’t need a babysitter, Ordo.”

“Good, I do not want to babysit you,” he said, moving past me while hauling his bag.

I stepped forward and offered him my hand, and he gratefully surrendered the bag. It was surprisingly heavy, but the advanced strength my body had grown since first being infested with the Teslak’s crystalline entities ensured that I barely noticed.

“You can’t come though Ordo, I’m going into combat. Anyone without a starfish suit’s gravity harness will die. We’ll be pulling too many G’s to survive without it,” I told him.

Ordo slipped down his flight jacket to show that his back was covered in the formation of lines that indicated a starfish-shaped device lurked beneath his skin, in a dimensional storage unit built into his body.

“Got mine today,” he said. “Boss, Rayna say someone need go with you.” Ordo reached out and patted my shoulder. “Gotta bring back ship if you die.”

With that, he took his bag back from me and hauled it up the entry ramp. I shook my head but shrugged. “Your funeral.”

“I know, where we’re going, I will be treated like a servant, if I am lucky,” he said. “But you need backup.”

“Plus Rayna really does want my ship back if I die out there,” I added, climbing onto the ramp myself. As soon as I crossed the threshold, I felt the ship’s computer kick on and access my suit. It was a subtle feeling of capability, more than anything else. I felt the steadiness of the landing struts below us, and the heavy weight in the vessel’s many arms. It’s engines kicking in and warming up.

The Sand Star felt more like home than anything I had owned since the Airbus, and I adored flying it.

BlueCleave and Axle’s research department had poured over the ship in the days since I had gotten it, learning as much as they could from it without taking anything apart. Axle said the ship was made from a metal that was similar in construction to our suits. It was a cheaper, easier to mass-produce version of the super-resilient material.

We’d added a case of PRDs to the cockpit, for recharging our suits as needed. Several more were stashed on board, in various cargo compartments, spread throughout the ship. The strange formations of glass were all hand blown from Arizona sand and would recharge even my advanced suit immediately if their long, thin tails were crushed.

The speed at which the ship maneuvered was enough to kill us with the sheer gravity, if our suits didn’t counteract it. The speed gave us a remarkable edge in combat, as did the weapons system. Our sand-casters could not only shoot down any incoming projectile short of a particle beam, but they punched through most forms of shielding, and cut apart armor and hull like it was wrapping paper.

When used in conjunction, the hundreds of barrels could even stop the heavy laser beams that Dearth was fond of equipping their primary combat vessels with. Only for an instant, of course, and the ammunition cost was heavy, but it was enough for the ship to slip out of the path of an incoming beam.

The whistle of an incoming BuyMort pod caught my attention, and I stopped myself from closing the loading ramp. Ordo peered back from where he was stashing his bag, staring as the pod delivered its package.

I sighed and split the cardboard, pulling out a garment bag with a scowl. I kicked the box and jiggling flesh-tape out onto the tarmac and hit the button to close the ramp.

“What’d you get?” Ordo asked, checking the door on his storage compartment.

“I have no idea, Ordo, Molls got it for me,” I replied, unzipping the bag to check its contents.

A pair of tan slacks was folded over a hanger, which had a cream white shirt and a matching tan suit jacket, all with barely visible silver pin-striping. There was even a pair of boat shoes to match the suit, at the bottom of the bag.

I shook my head as Ordo chuckled.

“She not think you can dress yourself, boss,” Ordo giggled, cycling open the door to the cockpit.

I glanced down at my combat pants, heavy, armor plated boots, and bare chest with a shrug. “We all have our shortcomings.” With another heavy sigh, I tucked the garment bag away in a storage closet, sealing the door behind me.

With the kind of maneuvers we were about to be performing, I wanted to make sure everything was secured, but the ship handled that for me. Its internal scanning system included sensors for internal storage. Once I reached the cockpit, the Sand Star was ready to go.

Chapter 2

Ordo was locked into his copilot seat, at my left. After a brief conversation, we had decided that I would fly, and he would operate our weapons system. The encounter we were heading toward was going to be unlike my brief skirmish with five heavy assault cruisers in high orbit.

We faced dozens of ships.

I opened the ship’s communications and summoned my chrome helmet. Ordo at my side wore a standard BlueCleave flight helmet, which hid the hobb’s features behind a sheen of reflective black material.

“Dearth corporate fleet, this is Tyson Dawes of Silken Sands. You are hereby ordered to disperse and remove your military ships from the Sol System. Failure to follow this order will result in your destruction. I am en route to the Sol gate, in the Sand Star, the ship that destroyed your Nu-Earth assault fleet,” I droned. “You have until I arrive to follow my order.”

They wouldn’t follow my order, but the warning meant that any who survived would be more likely to tell future Dearth employees they met that I had offered a choice, and they wished their captain had taken it more seriously.

The message was sent by firing a series of protons in a broad beam to the Sol gate. By the time it arrived, the entire fleet, and anyone else even remotely in the vicinity of the gate would get the message and know I was coming personally. Those who were smart would get the hell out of my way.

I had developed a reputation for being incredibly destructive when provoked. I was always able to spin my aggression for the general public, through our friendly local church TV division, who was now living in Prescott full time.

For example, everyone knew I had personally killed Kraken. The number nine affiliate in all of BuyMort had perished at my hand, but I wasn’t the villain of that story.

Kraken had over extended their reach. Tried to establish a foothold on a world that was already in business. Dearth had bungled the entire thing, and I was forced to step up again and handle the threat to church personnel that Kraken had become.

Besides, I was making everyone involved that mattered too rich to complain. Kraken was its entire affiliate, and when I killed it, the sudden vacuum in the raw materials market that its operation left was happily being filled by quadrillions of regular people.

Storage was at its lowest levels in thirty generations, more people were working and living lives out in the multiverse than ever before. By every metric the church had ingrained in this system’s trailing civilization, Silken Sands was doing good business.

Dearth was in decline of course, but a series of bad management decisions in a new and risky market will have that effect on an affiliate. Besides, with the new Sleem world upcoming, we were expecting an infusion of billions of Sleem into the system, and therefore the Sleem affiliate, so speculation put Dearth behind by itself.

The rich and powerful who used Dearth as their industrial, military, or biochemical tool were quick to abandon the company when its prospects turned darker, and the situation became a run on their stock. Notably, everyone who mentioned the decline in Dearth stock mentioned our own release and subsequently meteoric rise in Silken Sands stock in the same breath.

“No such thing as bad publicity,” I muttered as I prepared the ship for takeoff. Really, that was more about preparing myself for takeoff. Both Ordo and I had a crate of PRDs glued to the floor beside our stations, and I had my in-flight snack packed into a pocket and ready for consumption. Three strips of fresh seared yarsp were wrapped in a thin sheath of wax paper, greasy and delicious, awaiting my judgement of the perfect time.

That was my entire checklist, and the ship itself said it was ready for flight, on a projection inside my helmet, as well as the viewscreen on the wall ahead of us. Our cockpit was behind several armored panels, so it wasn’t like we had a window, but the viewscreen did the job of one anyway, once the cartoon starfish had come and gone.

It appeared to act as a user interface guide, for both the ship and the suit. I, and the hobbs who followed in my footsteps, mostly ignored it.

Prescott shrank as I took us up, the ship’s landing struts automatically retracting. Our course was set in the ship’s computer as well, so a line showed up in my HUD, directing me along the most fuel efficient path to the Sol gate.

The Sol gate was a monstrous construction floating along with our greater solar system in Jupiter’s fifth Lagrange point, leading a whole mess of trojan asteroids that followed Jupiter’s orbit around the sun. These asteroids were big business, a great deal of affiliates were attempting to mine one or several of them, using the proximity to the Sol gate as their primary business benefit.

Transport costs in BuyMort were hell, after all. Being close to a system gate was always better than being far away from it.

My trajectory, when pathed out by the ship's computer, would take us in a nice direct line to the Sol gate. Once we were in line with Jupiter’s gravity, we could kick off the engines and float until our turn to use the gate came up, and Jupiter, oversized gas giant that it is, would simply drag us along for free, like it did the gate, trojan asteroids, and all the sapient beings attempting to do business in-between.

Clouds slipped by us as we rapidly climbed, pushed back into our comfortable seats by the sheer force my engines put out. Our suits compensated, bringing us back to a normal sense of being seated on a quick moving vehicle. Within seconds we were climbing into the inky black of space.

The Sand Star painted stars, planets, and other notable destinations on the viewscreen in tiny, brilliant points. Our course already set, I used my direct link with the ship to steer into its guidelines before relinquishing control to the ship itself.

It automatically detected our ability to withstand the gravity our bodies would be put under, adjusted its maximum speed limit, and fired the thrusters to get us revved up that fast. Due to the nature of this system, our speed was limited by our bodies, as opposed to any natural laws or mechanical limitations.

We rapidly accelerated away from Nu-Earth, quickly reaching terrifying speeds. I watched my pale blue dot recede at a frightening clip before finally vanishing entirely. If I really wanted to, I could pull up a tighter image of my planet, but the urge was easier to quash than I had thought it would be.

I felt the gravity of our acceleration, but only as a vague, ethereal sensation. My suit controlled the gravity of every cell inside my body, thanks to the gravitic drive upgrade that gave me personal freedom of movement.

Our trip was slated to take the better part of six hours, so I did my best to get comfortable in my seat and wait it out, reading Sun Tzu’s wisdom about ‘taking whole’ and ‘skillful victory.’ Traveling through my own solar system was beautiful, if I believed everything my viewscreen showed me, but my nerves about the upcoming battle got the best of me and I couldn’t relax.

My first space battle had been only a few days prior, and I had been running the ship primarily on instinct, both flying and operating the sandcaster weapons system. Now we were heading into a conflict that none of my advisors recommended aside from Axle.

He had taken one look at the weapons and propulsion system and told me that nothing Dearth had could possibly stand to my ship. That numbers wouldn’t matter.

I believed him, Axle had experience with Dearth, directly. He used to work for them, though from what I understand of his work it was far more akin to slavery, hidden under several layers of corpo-speak. They had pulled him up from Storage, at the least, but just to place him into another unequitable and intolerable situation. So he had fled, with his mate, and I had taken them both in.

It was fortuitous timing, as my conflict with Dearth had turned for the better since then. But this was something else.

A dozen battleships, plus supporting craft. All against my single frigate.

But I trusted Axle. Of all my friends, my crew, my employees, Axle believed in me the most. He understood what I was, what I was capable of, and what my intentions for the BuyMort system were. Thanks to my leadership, and Axle’s direct support, our affiliate had become known for the kind of insane shit we were about to pull again.

Dearth had been quiet, since we kicked them off Nu-Earth, but the loss of a market that size had to hurt their feelings. The Nu-Earth board had died along with all of the various boards that hadn’t already fled the planet for better prospects. I had punched a hole in their space station, and none of them were ready to survive that level of exposure.

Now we were dealing with the Sol Board, who I suspected was far more competent and precise than their underlings had been so far. But at the same time, Dearth was weaker on the public stage than they had been in over a century.

Silken Sands kicking them off their newest planetary acquisition definitely had a lot to do with that, so I didn’t hold their aggression against them. But, as I had since the first day I met The Dearth Conglomerate, I condescended and played word-games with them in public and worked toward their demise in private.

The upcoming battle was merely one more step in that process.

Ordo and I were prepped and ready when, six hours into our flight, a warning came through MortMobile coms that the Dearth fleet had just left the Sol gate and were in a direct intercept course with the Sand Star.

I looked over at Ordo and nodded. He nodded back, his helmet glinting in the low light of the cockpit. The computer ran some quick calculations and spit out a likely battleground, in a pocket of empty space between Jupiter and the asteroid belt.

My jumpy nerves did not appreciate the fact that under our best scenario, we would meet up with the enemy fleet no sooner than an hour from first warning. The Sand Star had already begun the process of braking, turning around and firing thrusters in the opposite direction. I sighed and shook my head, focusing on the screen ahead again, restarting my tutorial video.

Axle had put together a quick run-down of some of the ship’s abilities, which included specific maneuvers for me to attempt in the coming battle. Since we had known the Dearth attack fleet was incoming for some time, Axle included several of their most common design weaknesses. Of particular note was their reactor cores.

Generally speaking, they were poorly armored.

The Sand Star’s primary weapon system, Axle informed me, was very much aligned with the Teslak Cooperative’s other rewards. It was cheap to operate and offered devastating offensive capability.

We required ammunition, in great quantities, but the ship was capable of cutting its own micro-tubules out of anything, once rendered into carbon. It was in our ability to run the ship on literally any refuse or raw ore, so long as we had fissile material for the reactor to accompany it. Interestingly enough, our own reactor was not the only thing our fissile material was good for.

Each projectile was small enough that it couldn’t be seen with the naked eye, and each burst from our weapons fired tens of thousands of the tiny things. We easily got into the million counts on longer trigger pulls. But, if directed, we could load one of the microscopic tubes with fissile material and fire it off as part of our offensive capability.

The effect on armor plating or hulls, Axle informed me, would be largely unchanged. Our projectiles fired at just over a third the speed of light, when they impacted with anything at all, it was rocked with a tiny explosion. When we loaded the microtubules with fissile material, we made that explosion nuclear in nature.

If we enhanced our regular ammunition with nuclear material, it would chew through armor and hull faster, but the rate change was negligible. The real strength of this weapon’s technique shined when wielded with restraint.

Ordo was trained in this method already, thanks to BlueCleave efficiency. Drill down to their reactor with a measured burst of normal, carbon ammunition. But then, at the very end of that burst, would be a single microtubule, stuffed with fissile material to create a tiny nuclear explosion directly on their reactor’s most vulnerable part.

The Sand Star was designed to operate as efficiently and destructively as possible, in three-dimensional space. It was also capable of faster-than-light travel, but that was a detail Axle had made me swear to protect. The system was limited anyway, we had to have been within a certain proximity of BuyMort infrastructure to make the jumps, at least at first.

But, the multiverse already knew I had a ship, and that the ship I had was capable of extreme offensive capabilities in combat. They already knew it was fast, but Axle warned me to keep the knowledge of its FTL abilities a secret as long as we could.

While we flew, I studied my material, hoping it would prepare me for the upcoming battle. Ordo sat silent at my side with his lower tier starfish suit.

Chapter 3

After an agonizing wait, the cabin flashed red and the screen showed the incoming battle fleet, zooming in and lumping several pictures together. Each of the ships was bulky, bristling with weapons, and padded with armor plating over their most vulnerable sections. The hulking battleships appeared as inverted scoops, the inside of the scoop a jagged maw filled with weapons.

Primarily, Dearth appeared to employ low tech fighting ships, comparatively. The larger battleships appeared to field small fighters, as well as large scale energy and missile weaponry. A bubble formed around each as our distances closed, indicating a shield.

Not that it would matter, our projectiles were too small for any defensive shielding system operating in BuyMort to track and deflect. Their shields would catch some of our fire, by accident and on purpose, as their computers overheated trying to track all the incoming. But the vast majority would get through.

“Ordo,” I said. My voice sounded funny in the cabin’s air. “Crush a PRD.”

“Aye,” the hobb grunted. He flipped open his container's lid and reached a bare hand inside to crunch the tail of a Prince Rupert’s drop, encased in soft foam.

“Oh, shit,” he grumbled. The hobb quickly slammed the case shut and started grabbing at the tiny particles of glass that were now floating in the cabin, stuffing them into a pocket.

“Well, that’s a design flaw,” I said. “If you have to use one mid-fight, just do it fast.”

“Understood boss,” Ordo grunted, still picking glass out of the air in front of himself. “Think I got it all.”

“You didn’t,” I said. “There’s no way, that stuff is like dust. Just keep your helmet on, the suit will repair you, whatever happens.”

We put on our last burst of thrust, braking as we came up to the line of conflict. Dearth’s ships started to join us, the large, bulky battleships arriving with a silent roar of thrusters and fanfare of alarms on my HUD. They appeared to be wasting no time, shunting charge from their drives to their weapons platforms.

Their ships were cigar-shaped, much like their submarines. Each bulky vessel had drives on one end, weapons on the other, and not a whole lot in between. All their weapon spikes were pointed directly at us, so it gave the impression of a gathering of angry pincushions.

Most of Dearth’s arsenal would be laser and missile based, which Axle assured me would be next to meaningless for the Sand Star. The celebrity mercenary appeared then, his ostentatious red and gold ship standing out beside the dull matte black and grey of the Dearth ships.

Its wings dipped, displaying heavy missile pods on either end as the pilot taunted me. I returned the gesture, waggling the Sand Star’s arms back and forth. “Ordo, don’t kill the Christmas ornament.”

“Aye,” Ordo grunted.

Our screen lit up with incoming attack alerts, and I hoped Axle’s information was good.

I jerked the sticks to the side and imagined the ship going through a spinning roll, rising above Dearth’s line of fire. The ship obeyed, taking the movement of the sticks as my ‘activation’ command. The ship’s agility was reliant on an integration with its pilot’s suit. The starfish suit was in my brain as much as BuyMort was, it was able to read my thoughts to a degree.

I focused on the nearest Dearth battleship, ignoring the small swarm of frigates and light cruisers that moved in formation to intercept me. The ship cut sharply toward it.

“Ordo!” I shouted, as dozens of missile locks confirmed on the main screen. The hotshot mercenary pilot was tucked in directly behind us, unleashing his arsenal.

“Got it boss,” he calmly grunted. Ordos helmet was linked to the ship’s computer the same way mine was, but it displayed targeting data for him.

The main viewscreen became a combination of both our individual HUDs, showing Ordo’s weapon tracking data on his side as it showed my course and inertia information on mine.

I was limited by Ordo’s suit. It wasn’t as advanced as mine and couldn’t control the gravity in his body as well as mine could for me. Thankfully, I didn’t have to mind that limit, the ship took care of it automatically, merely responding to my commands by allowing me a specific range of speed. It was more than enough to dodge the clunky, full-body laser weapons most of Dearth’s ships appeared to be built around.

Axle had lamented this design, as lasers were among the least effective of most space-faring weaponry. However, Dearth usually fought battles against poverty-stricken pirates, or freedom fighting guerrillas. None of them came equipped with the best ships, and as such, Dearth’s entire military fleet had grown soft. Vulnerable.

Ordo started squeezing his triggers as we zipped in over the bridge of a Dearth battleship, giving the angular vessel a series of gaping wounds in its armor as we went.

“Hehehe,” chuckled Ordo.

I grinned, baring my teeth. “Fun, aren’t they?” I asked.

“Oh yes,” Ordo replied. His seat had him locked in place, linking up through the dimensional gateways in his armor and holding him fast as we maneuvered.

A small swarm of fighters rose at our back, angular wings holding high intensity stutter-beam weapons away from the core of each ship. We were hit by several laser attacks, but the ship’s armor did its job, and we suffered no damage. Just mild scorching.

I winced as we jerked to the side, a dust-sized fragment of glass bursting through my torso. The suit deployed a tendril to repair the damage, and I grimaced, trying to fly straight as the painkiller entered my system.

Ordo concentrated, rapidly moving his sticks and firing with the triggers. A series of explosions began at our rear as we fled through the Dearth fleet’s ranks, incoming missiles being shot down by our sandcasters. With a glance at our threat counter, I realized Ordo wasn’t just shooting down the incoming missiles, he was shooting down the fighters that kept after our tails.

One by one, the smaller, winged ships exploded, until the only one left was the red and gold painted mercenary.

Our path through the enemy fleet was marked by explosions. Dead Dearth pilots and destroyed ships floated in our wake. Ordo drilled a hole through the battleship under our belly, and an eruption of deep purple shoved at us, damaging several ships nearby as the reactor blew.

The battleship fragmented, flying through space in shards. Under his breath, I heard Ordo tell BuyMort he wanted to sell those fragments, and I smiled as I turned to find our next victims. An alarm on my main screen informed me that several railgun weapons were coming into firing range, and suggested I dive in order to avoid taking fire from them.

Railguns were capable of damaging us, Axle assured me. They were capable of damaging most things and vehicles likely to be involved in space combat. The velocities were extreme, only second to the electrostatically accelerated micro-tubules from our sandcasters.

We passed over a heavy assault cruiser that fired a series of missiles at us from the swarm-launcher platform on its keel. As we did, I hooked the controls to dive us under its belly.

All the ships that had been adjusting their angles of attack to strike us were forced to reverse their momentum, something the Sand Star was dramatically better at. Dearth was having to operate at no greater than seven gravities of acceleration, lest they risk harm to their crews.

Ordo and I could maneuver at roughly three times that without any risk to our health. I flicked the controls again, cutting us beneath a cluster of three battleships. I punched the stick to boost us out of the formation on the other side before they could respond, and Ordo drilled three tiny holes in each battleship, striking them in the reactor core with a miniscule nuclear explosion.

In our wake, fire bloomed briefly, as the ships lit up the inky black of open space with their detonations. More cruisers and frigates were destroyed in the explosions. We had gotten in among them before their slower vessels could properly redeploy.

Our destructive capabilities came into play, over and over as I flew the Sand Star. The ships in pursuit seemed laughably slow by comparison, and anytime one of them managed to open fire on us, I pulled the ship out of their laser cannon’s line of fire before any real damage could occur.

The Sand Star even automatically shot down the incoming shrapnel from the ships exploding all around us, keeping us protected from the results of our own carnage.

Within sixty seconds of having started, the battle was over. What was left of the Dearth forces were running for the gate, finally deciding to take my advice and flee, with their expensive celebrity mercenary leading the pack. With a series of quick, jerky maneuvers around the enemy fleet, we had killed a full dozen of their iceberg-slow battleships, and an untold number of their smaller support craft.

I would later learn that we had destroyed just short of two-hundred individual Dearth ships in that sixty second window. We sold every bit of scrap from that battle. Hell, the salvage was half the reason I was told to destroy all their ships.

The other half was a bald-faced intimidation routine, but whatever. It was good business either way.

Most of the lightly armored vessels were destroyed by their own fleet exploding in close proximity. The battleships’ shields did nothing against our sandcasters, and most of them were wholly unable to even bring their weapons to bear on us.

Less than two minutes after the fight started, we were in pursuit of the remaining ships, hunting them down and blowing them out of the system with extreme prejudice. The only one we allowed to live was the mercenary ship, who we simply followed, in weapons range.

Dearth couldn’t be allowed to keep a military presence in the Sol system any longer. We had too many enemies, and Dearth had cost us too much already. I should have mourned the hundreds of lives lost in the cold, angry dark of space behind us, but I didn’t.

They made their choices.

A significant percentage of our recruits were Dearth deserters, just like Axle and Jada had been. Just like Thresher, and several of the crew in Captain Omen’s fleet. Killing Dearth’s fleet served many purposes at the same time. One of them was our recruitment numbers. More people would leave Dearth, after hearing about this battle. Some of them would come to join our workforce.

We also needed the morties. Our affiliate was in a period of aggressive expansion, and we were spending billions of morties every day on payroll, expansion, construction, and research. The income needed to be commensurate with our needs, and the fleet’s scrap was worth trillions, even when sold directly through BuyMort as we were doing.

Purchase: Tritium core, energy scrap, radioactive. Rarity, rare. Quality, terrible. 2,500,000 morties dispensed.

Purchase: Kinetic Shielding, defensive scrap, vacuum-only. Rarity, uncommon. Quality, terrible. 2,250,000 morties dispensed.

Purchase: Neuronium Hull Plates, armor, radioactive. Rarity, rare. Quality, terrible. 500,000 morties dispensed.

On and on the list went, picking out high-priced bits of garbage and shipping them off to be made whole again on some other world.

There was simply no time to arrange a proper salvage mission, and the BuyMort pods all appeared to be equipped with faster-than-light travel capabilities. They arrived in seconds, in spite of no apparent fruition centers being nearby. The pods that arrived to warp out the fragments of metal, scorched carbon, and frozen corpses were all shaped differently too. Less aerodynamic and tinged with gold paint to more easily catch the light.

Ordo and I hunted down and killed every ship, before resuming our course to the Sol gate. By the time the last one died, only fifteen minutes had passed since the beginning of the battle.

Our ship was vastly superior to the flimsy trash Dearth was fielding. We pulled into a line formed behind the gate, taking our place in the queue directly behind the gold and red painted mercenary ship. I enjoyed imagining the mercenary’s reaction to our proximity, having been part of our recent exchange.

As we approached the Sol gate and came within range of the other various ships surrounding the massive object, I was reminded that Dearth wasn’t our only threat out in the deep black of space.

A vibrant white and gold church enforcement vessel approached us, the vessel appearing to be a cross between an ancient sea-bearing ship and a cathedral. Smooth hull lines showed along the bottom of the vessel as complex towers and structures rose from its deck, forming the guise of a single building on board the vessel.

The Sand Star warned me that its weapons were all powered and locked onto us, but a friendly face appeared on screen and assured us that we were under no threat. Merely being scanned by the church’s Sol enforcement branch. The face appeared impressed, even pleasantly surprised to be performing this sweep.

Almost as though they hadn’t expected us to make it to their gate.

They controlled the space around the Sol gate and ensured that no individual or group threatened its peaceful use for commerce.

Once we were scanned, far more thoroughly than was necessary by my guess, we were waved on to wait our turn to use the massive gate and fell into an easy swarm of ships and structures floating along in the wake of BuyMort gate. The structure that allowed easy access from our little pocket of space to every other system and planet attached to the multiversal flow via the BuyMort system.

Ahead of us, floating through the universal medium, sat a ring of white plastic. Or at least, it had the general appearance of plastic. That dull sheen, even in white unable to reflect all the light that struck it. It was covered in predictable cracks, where the material was slapped together, and hundreds of bright red bulbs covered the inside of its circumference. Every few minutes, a ship approached the oversized ring and blinked away in a flash of rainbow light from the bulbs.

Ordo and I slipped into line, Molls’ home planet coordinates already locked into the gate’s interface. Everything was done through BuyMort, of course, so we paid our fee up front and then waited our turn like good church subjects, as though we hadn’t just destroyed over a hundred ships on the way.

Chapter 4

All manner of ships were lined up, waiting and ready to use the gate. Most of them were industrial haulers, lightly armed if armed at all. An affiliate called TransPoCo appeared to own most of the nearby vessels, based on the lettering painted on the hulls, but I didn’t know much about them. They were the second ranked affiliate in all of BuyMort but appeared to be primarily a shipping and transport company, moving cargo and passengers in large quantities.

Terribly dull business, from the sounds of it. Large, arduous, and dull.

There were hundreds of ships waiting in lines, with stationed lights indicating runways leading up to the gate. Everything was orderly, watched over by the shining citadel ship from the church. Large screens, bordered by blinking lights, broadcast church tv to those waiting in line, as though we didn’t have MortMobile devices of our own on board.

Of course, any kind of police action from the church would be broadcast there as well, giving us instructions.

As we sat in line waiting, a church broadcast arrived detailing the sudden destruction of a Dearth fleet in the new Sol system. One of the hosts idly commented on the volatile nature of new markets, and immediately followed by speculating on the choices of management, in the Dearth Conglomerate of late.

I smiled to hear my words come out of their lips. For-profit news media was incredibly easily led.

Some limited video footage was available, taken from a local mercenary’s ship. The church had apparently paid the man to allow them to attach a camera drone to his ship, because the Sand Star was featured in great detail, zipping through the crowds of ships and detonating them one at a time.

The camera image shook and wobbled with the explosions all around it, losing sight of us more than once as the pilot struggled to keep up with us. Eventually, the ship turned and fled, ending the footage. The news broadcast ended with a live shot of us, waiting in line for the Sol gate with a chyron that read, “Sand Star destination unknown.”

I chuckled and waggled the Star’s arms for the camera, as our mercenary friend reached the front of the line and warped away.

Once we reached the gate and it was our turn, I realized the fee we had paid was merely to the church, to line up in their queue.

We still owed BuyMort for where we wanted to go. The trip was going to be eighteen universes away, so our fee was one hundred and thirty-three million morties for passage. I never got a head for figuring out the split, mathematically. It was all based on seemingly random things like how many of what kind of elements had passed through the gate recently, and destination gate densities. Axle could do the calculation in his head if we needed. We’d paid ten thousand to the church for our time in the queue, so paying a second time hurt my feelings more than anything else.

Of course, the salvage we’d just collected more than covered it.

We approached the lip of the gate, and one of the nearby bulbs flashed out to us, enveloping the craft in rainbow light. Our viewscreen cut out momentarily, and then I felt us being pulled somewhere.

Within a second, the viewscreen flicked back on and showed us the pocket of space we had been dumped in. A green, gaseous nebula illuminated the area from a few hundred million kilometers away, encroaching on the solar system like a gaping maw, jagged edges sparkling.

We were on the other side of another gate, with another line of vessels floating orderly, far below us, warping away one at a time. A vibrant, swirling, pink and orange hued gas giant hung massive in the distance, apparently the gate’s anchor point in that specific universe. Surrounded by the thriving hum of commerce, and life.

I blinked at the cluster of activity, and then locked in our coordinates, heading to Molls’ home planet.

Past the long swinging arcs of ringed giants, their swirling gas a scale of vivid colors ranging from vivid pink to the darkest of blues, it was the second planet from the sun, in the middle of their star's goldilocks zone. Thick, puffy clouds covered the world, and I looked wistfully at the footage of them in my private view panel. We still had a three hour journey to get there.

While we accelerated toward the planet, a tiny starfish drone entered the cabin to retrieve the shards of glass we had lost in our fight. I’d only been hit by one, and the drone moved directly to it, hovering along in the air above the deck.

The hand-sized device bent down and touched a sparkling dust mite on the floor, extending tiny arms to grasp the glass and carry it away. It left after gathering that single glass shard, so I assumed there weren’t any more of them floating free with us in the cabin.

And any misgivings I might have possibly had about bringing along a new shipmate were well dispelled by the trip.

Ordo was a wonderful crew mate, he never asked for anything, or even said a single word. At one point during the journey, he pulled out a wrapped package and produced his own set of seared yarsp strips to munch on, reminding me of mine. We ate our snacks together in silence, and I read my book from a partial helmet covering just my eyes.

Our flight was pleasant, and short. As the cloudy ball grew larger in our viewscreen, a sudden communication presented itself. As soon as I approved it, a Nah’gh in some kind of uniform appeared, sternly gazing at us.

My helmet slid down to cover the rest of my face and I cocked my head up at the Nah’gh on our screen.

The snake man said something in Nah’gh, his stern gaze becoming angry when neither of us replied.

“Ordo,” I whispered. “Do you speak Nah’gh?”

“A little,” he grunted, before clearing his throat and uttering a few halting syllables in the language.

The snake man on screen recoiled, eyebrow scales raising at Ordo’s words.

“Just stop,” the Nah’gh said. “I speak English, or Mandarin if you prefer.”

“English will be fine,” I told him.

“Very well,” he grunted. “State your business on Nahga, or reverse engines.”

“I’m an expected guest of the Shevalanth family, and CEO of Silken Sands, affiliate out of Nu-Earth,” I replied.

The Nah’gh’s eyes rose at the affiliate name, and he turned his head to the side to read something that lit up his ship’s cabin. Our sensors picked them up, lurking in the soupy lower atmosphere. The ship had weapons locked on us, with an energy intensity that suggested something much more effective than the Dearth lasers that had scorched our hull.

“Continue approach, Silken Sands. Follow my lock, I’ll be your guide to your landing post. I am security officer Byram. Do not deviate from our flight path,” the security officer informed me.

I did as he said and guided the ship in the direction of his weapons lock. We rumbled and rocked through the upper layers of the atmosphere, but the Sand Star sloughed off the generated plasma between its arms, and the central portion had heavy armored shielding.

By the time we reached the signal, we’d burned through the top layer of clouds. We were easily able to see our escort, starkly colored in red, blue, and gold against the next layer of clouds. The ship was a four-pointed triangle, pyramidal in shape with four weaponized points separated from the main body, glowing with heat and energy even at such heights.

“Welcome to Nahga, Mr. Dawes,” security officer Byram said. He kept his weapons powered up and locked on, flying behind us while projecting our path on my viewscreen. Not free of charge, I noticed. A modest mortie charge was being accrued on the side of our flightpath.

I tried speeding up a bit, but the rate of increase on the charge sped up too, so I chuckled and slowed back down.

“Easy, warlord,” the guard said. “I’m not the only gun up here.”

“Just checking on your rates,” I replied jovially. “I just wanted to know if I was paying for time, or distance.”

“Distance,” he replied, sounding bored. “Please do not deviate from our flight plan again.”

I smiled beneath my helmet and nodded.

The flight got more interesting as soon as we broke the next layer of clouds, as I got my first glance at the planet Nahga properly. Brackish clouds speckled the sky, allowing dim, hot sunlight to illuminate the world below me.

The entire planet appeared to be covered in a swamp, with massive root structures spreading out and climbing into towering focal points. Speckled sunlight filtered through to colossal vegetation clusters, tucked away beneath the limbs of the oversized root structures. There were no oceans, or continents as Earth had. Just swamplands, as far as the eye could see, interspersed by great freshwater lakes.

Buildings were mixed in with the root structures, great twisting lengths of lights and long, winding roads were tucked away in recesses dug out of the massive plant-life clusters. There were structures built below the roots, all on stilts and safe from the unpredictable water levels.

We flew in lower, bringing greater detail to everything on the surface. Beneath the foot of one of the largest root structures was a ruin, an old city in a very different style, destroyed and left to rot. The root cluster extended up and out from this ruin, and spread out over the swamps like a crouching spider with hundreds of thick limbs.

“What am I looking at here?” I asked quietly.

“Nahga Prime, ancestral and reclaimed home of the Nah’gh,” our guide reverently said. “The ruin you see below is a testament to our freedom, and the victory we all shared over our oppressors.”

I pointed, stupidly. As if the pilot in the other ship could see me. “What are those root-like structures everywhere?”

“When our people were enslaved,” the escort said. “Our natural habitat was torn out of the ground. Our enslaver’s cities were built over our nesting grounds, our life giving root trees. So we turned to BuyMort, to enhance them. To grow them so large, so fast, that no one would be able to tear them out ever again. Now, all Nahga is one vast system of our homes. We build directly into them, use their wood to make our fortunes.” His voice turned wistful toward the end.

“I didn’t expect the details, but thanks friend,” I said.

The Nah’gh shrugged. “You’re paying for the escort.”

I chuckled. “That I am. Well, you just made it all worth the morties, so thanks. I’ll be sure and five star your precinct when we’re done.”

He nodded. “Much appreciated. Do you have any further questions?”

“Yeah, what can you tell me about the conda gene?” I asked.

His demeanor changed and the Nah’gh flicked his tongue in and out. “A sad reminder of our past in confinement. Anytime a new Nah’gh world is brought into BuyMort, we always get a fresh batch of them in our DNA too. Makes me wonder if we’re even meant to grow out of it.”

“Hmm,” I added.

“Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with the way they look,” he said offhandedly. “But it does make them come across as a bit less like people, if you get my meaning.”

I shook my head. “I’m afraid I don’t, but I’m new around here.”

“Well,” he said, clearly uncomfortable. “They look like dolls. The men, women, in-between, all of ‘‘em. Like toys or something, more like our oppressors than us.”

That part made me frown. “Who were your oppressors?” I asked.

“The Lamia. Brutal, savage, beastly people who enslaved their own kin,” Byram said.

I blinked. It hadn’t occurred to me that Moll’s people were enslaved by their own evolutionary cousins. I made a mental note to send a request for more information on the Lamia to Axle, but then we were coming in for our landing, dropping altitude and heading for a particularly beautiful arrangement of giant root clusters.

“Your destination is coming up,” Byram told us.

“Understood,” I replied, taking in the view as much as I could. Once we dipped too low, all I could see was the root structures, encroaching from every direction like dappled mountains. Clouds floated high above. Some were thin, and allowed the vibrant yellow light in, and some were dark, pouring rain onto the swampland biome.

I swung the Sand Star in over a root cluster, following my escort as we zoomed in toward a major city built into the structure part way up the primary root. The city was built in shelves, with long, snaking roads connecting them, bright objects zipping back and forth on them.

Once we descended low enough, I could see that the roads, buildings, and necessary infrastructure, like light-poles, were all carved directly from the root itself. It must have made MortBlock maintenance a snap for whoever owned that root strand.

“Who’s the local boss?” I asked our guide.

The Nah’gh glanced at the screen, seeing only my reflective helmet, and shook his head. “Nobody you need to be worried about, sir. Local owner is rather aloof, likes to run their strand from afar.”

“That is how it works though?” I asked, peering down at the cultivated strand. “Each strand has a different owner, and they all answer to the root cluster’s owner?”

Several levels of the massive root-strand were set aside for industry, as the back swath of the strand was cultivated for raw materials, thousands of acres of ‘land’ being cultivated for bark or strip-mined for heartwood. Rail lines wound up around the root to the central, highest portion of the cluster, where a high-altitude spaceport was built.

“Whole planet has an owner, like yourself. Each strand owner answers to the cluster owner, who answers to the planet owner, and they operate all the ports,” our guide told us.

I nodded slowly. “Must be lucrative, all this wood.”

“Indeed, Nahga supplies a good deal of the upper flow with lumber, as well as sundries like paper. Finest stationery in the multiverse, grown right here,” he said. “They cut Vesper City out of the original strip mines. Our best and brightest can live and work in the heart of our world, right in the middle of the root.”

“Homage to your people’s past,” Ordo grunted. When the pilot glared at him, he added, “Respect, snake-man. Just something our people share.”

“I rather doubt we share the same sense of history, hobb,” Bryam sniffed, returning to his own viewscreen. “Prepare your thrusters for landing.”

Chapter 5

We floated high above a series of wooden mansions, each cut and built up from the heartwood of the root below. A small collection of modestly sized landing pads was tucked away in a rear corner of the gated community. With the houses rising a hill carved into the wall of the root, they had an excellent view of the swamps far below, stretching out to the horizon.

The cut away root walls within the gated community were carved in great shapes, and clean of graffiti, or damage. Outside the gates was another story. Some carvings were defaced or cut out of the wood and apparently stolen. Others were painted over with flowing, detailed graffiti. Lower sections of the city were much worse.

At the landing pads, waiting beneath a covered dome, was Molls, and another Nah’gh, more vibrantly colored. I smiled as the ship went through its auto-landing procedure, gently firing the thrusters to get us seated on the pad.

My viewscreen had a separate frame showing Molls, since I had fixated on her so much while landing, and the view got larger as we finished our landing procedure. The Nah’gh with her was female, appeared older, but was large in the same way Molls was, a bigger frame, broad hips, and a bust even larger than Molls’.

Her mother.

The Nah’gh’s scales stood out, as the vibrant colors told her life story. The majority of her scales were pink, shifting to red about half way up, and finishing with heavy rings of deep blue. I noticed with a scowl that her tail was significantly shorter than Molls’, ending in a burnished gold cap.

The escort craft hovered nearby, weapons pointed at us while an elderly-looking hobb slowly walked up the path toward our pad. Neither Molls nor Maer, her mother, moved to join us. A hobb that appeared from behind them, however, did.

I moved to unbuckled myself from the craft and our guide’s eyes widened. “Woah, stay seated for hand-off, please.”

“Oh,” I said, sitting back down. “Sorry.”

The ancient hobb approached, clothing buffeted by our still-active engines. The old hobb stopped and slowly fished out a device from their jacket pocket, pointing it up at us. I scowled, narrowing my eyes to try and see it, when a beam of red light shot out of it and touched our ship.

“You are now registered with Enessel Living’s port. Failure to inform planetary control of your flight plans will result in an interceptor being dispatched, at your expense. Failure to comply with any of planetary control’s orders will result in your ship being shot down, at that point,” officer Byram droned.

An advertisement popped up and took center importance in my vision.

Every need catered to. Every whim satisfied. Say hello to the finer things in life. Welcome to Enessel Livings.

Another charge began accruing, even as the first one requested payment. Looked like we would be paying for parking as well, but thankfully the rate was accruing significantly slower than the flight guard. I scowled but approved the charges and focused back on our escort.

“Got it, can we disembark now, or . . .?” I asked, hand hesitantly at my belt release.

Byram nodded. “You are good to go, warlord. Just keep it civil around here, please. This is a nice neighborhood.” With that final order, he gave us a quick nod and cut our connection, while his ship slowly turned, before streaking off into the distance.

Maer and Molls approached, slithering up the same carved pathway the old hobb had used. As they walked by, Molls smiled and reached a hand out, happily chatting with the hobb while her mother rolled her eyes and impatiently waited.

Both Nah’gh women wore loose dresses, with tails and strips that fluttered playfully in the wash from our ship. Molls’ dress was primarily pink, with some hints of blue. Her mothers’ was royal purple.

I noticed again her tail, much shorter than Molls’. The tip of it was broad too, the burnished gold cap must have covered the scarring from her amputation. It made me wonder what had happened, but I pushed the thought away. Not a great topic of conversation for the first time I was meeting my alien snake-woman girlfriend’s mother.

Instead, I hurriedly stripped and changed into the outfit Molls had ordered me, while Ordo gathered up his bag of gear, and prepared our reaper hound for transport.

I frowned at the outfit when I was finished. It just didn’t feel like me. My reflective helmet made it even worse, so I was glad I wasn’t likely to be needing that much in the upcoming days.

The cuffs on my shirt were flared, for one thing, and the sleeves on the jacket only extended part way down the arm, to show off the flaring. Aside from that particular bit of ‘fashion,’ the boat shoes were stiff and uncomfortable, and the pants were tighter than I liked. Especially around the rump.

In a fight, the entire ensemble would be useless.

Still, I wanted to make Molls happy, so I wore the clothes. I also made sure to grab the flowers and their vase from the gravitic stasis field inside their storage locker. The Sand Star came with plenty of bells and whistles.

As the landing ramp hissed down, I rode with it, and Molls’ beautiful face was soon radiantly smiling at me, a bright purple hue filling her scales.

Wet heat rolled into the ship, and I nearly gagged at the oppressive air. I had been assured humans could live on Nahga, hundreds of thousands already did. But it wasn’t our natural environment, that much was clear instantly.

The planet had slightly higher gravity than I was used to as well, a subtle feeling my suit and enhanced strength easily compensated for.

By the time the ship’s ramp stopped moving, her smile had extended so far it caused her true mouth to be visible, the overlapping scales hiding it spreading far enough to reveal the true mouth beneath them.

“Molls!” her mother hissed under her breath.

Molls glanced over, and I saw the frustration pass over her expression. The smile stayed, but it did recede to the point of hiding her oversized jaw.

“Tyson!” she called. “Welcome!”

I smiled, and approached, setting foot on a new planet for the first time in my life. As I passed beyond the ship’s interior, I approached Maer first, smiling politely.

“Matron,” I said, in English. “Thank you for welcoming me, and my companion, into your home.”

I lowered my head and extended the gift with both hands. Only when I felt its weight removed did I look up, as Molls had coached me.

“It is beautiful,” Maer stated flatly. Her voice was deeper than her daughters, and more heavily accented. “May I inquire as to its origins?”

I nodded again. “Of course, matron. The flowers grow in the deserts near my home, a harsh and unforgiving environment of extremes. Often these splashes of color will be the only signs of life for miles around, a bulwark against the barren nature of the desert, and reminder of its harsh beauty.” That statement was also planned for and rehearsed. Molls made sure to give me tips about specific points to hit in my speech.

“Mother is big on tradition,” she had said, about a dozen times as we worked on it.

Next I pointed to the sand in the vase. “They of course need their natural soil to live in, so I brought a piece of Nu-Earth with them, to become part of your home for a time. The container, what we call a vase, is glass blown from the sands of my desert as well. A reminder of the fragility of life, and beauty, but also the strength of each.”

Maer’s large eyes flicked between me and my offering, already clutched in her claws. She glanced at Molls but turned and smiled at me. “Your gift is very beautiful, and highly . . . traditional. Thank you, warlord, and welcome to the home I have made for my family. You will be counted as one of us, as long as you choose to stay.” The stately Nah’gh woman bowed lightly to finish her speech, turning her head in a gentle gesture.

Then she turned her back and slithered away down the path, carrying her new vase. Molls raised her eyes at me and moved in for a hug.

“Holy crap it is so hot here!” I sighed into her ear as we embraced.

She giggled and kissed me quickly on the cheek. “No, it's perfect,” she said, moving aside to look over the view of the swamp far below us. “A beautiful Nahga afternoon.”

“Oh good,” I exclaimed. “I’m not late for dinner yet.”

Molls turned and glared at me good naturedly, a smile growing on her lips as she slithered close again. “You are almost a week late for dinner, in point of fact. Did you practice your apology for Daddy?”

I nodded and smiled. “I did indeed. His gift is a bit big, so it might be hard to get it from the ship without my help.”

“Oh the grounds hobb will manage, they have repulsor sleds,” she said, looping her arm through mine and lowering herself to my level.

I scowled. “Thought you didn’t do that anymore.”

“I don’t. Off Nahga,” she replied. “Trust me, the last thing I want to do is make a scene for my father to deal with. This housing complex is going to put him in an early grave, I swear.”

“Ahh,” I said. “I guess that’s the reason for the limited PDA as well?”

“Shut up,” Molls growled. “I already want to coil you up, being a smart-ass about it isn’t helping.”

I smiled and we started walking down the path. Molls was smiling too, but her eyes darted around nervously as we moved down through the neighborhood.

It was a fascinating place, a hill carved from wood, with extravagant mansions along either side of a broad, smooth road, like a high end gated community. Each home layout was different, but each was primarily built around a single structure that had been carved directly from the wood of the root we walked and slithered on.

Even the massive gates that wound around the compound were carved from the root. It flowed up, like a mountain in the distance, and other mounds of root hulked nearby, just beyond the fog and clouds, giving form to the heavy, wet air of the planet.

A Nah’gh watched us from a window nearby, holding a glass of amber liquid. Their scales were bright yellow, with flecks of black. As soon as the Nah’gh noticed me notice them, they huffed and turned aside, drawing a curtain closed between us.

“I’m a source of drama in this neighborhood, aren’t I?” I asked Molls, quietly.

She extended her neck and laughed a single time. “Well, yes and no. Nu-Earth is making waves all across BuyMort, everyone is feeling it. You’ve disrupted a lot of business.”

“Oh pardon me, I wasn’t aware that markets were perfectly stable things before I became part of BuyMort, I’ll try to walk a little softer,” I said, wry smile already in place.

“Oh please,” Molls laughed. “Destroying fleets is not exactly walking soft.”

I cringed. “You heard about that, darn.”

“Oh not just me,” she smiled back. Then her features soured, and she scowled at me. “Wait a moment, what did you mean? Were you planning to keep that from me?”

I choked on nothing, taking in my breath wrong and starting to cough. “No,” I gasped, between hacking coughs, which quickly calmed. “Cheeze, no. I was just hoping it wouldn’t ruin the visit, is all.”

Molls’ smile returned. “Don’t worry then, I doubt father cares much, and mother already doesn’t like you. She started as a priest with Dearth, so the fleet thing,” she paused there to wave a scaled hand lightly at her mother, slithering far ahead of us. “Whatever, as we say on Nu-Earth.”

A smile threatened to split my cheeks. “We do say that.” I tugged her a little closer and bumped hips with her. “Nice usage too.”

Molls beamed at me.

We continued our walk down through the small neighborhood to the bottom of the hill, where the Shevalanth family estate stood, gated off even from the gated community, as were all of the manors.

Molls’ home was carved to resemble the giant root cluster we all stood on, in a miniaturized form. Somewhere between the size of the original and the post-BuyMort version. A path wound from the gate Maer left standing open for us to the nearest of several dark folds in the two-story structure. Most Nah’gh architecture was low to the ground, even the second floor was extravagant.

The home covered a sprawling area, with smaller, supplemental buildings added on top of the original carved lot. A soft, green moss grew on the wood between structures, and was allowed to climb across portions of the other buildings. Almost like lawns.

Molls’ home itself, however, was all original root carving. I stared up at the intricate sculpture as we approached.

“How old is this?” I whispered.

Maer entered the structure ahead of us and turned back to watch as the door swung closed behind her.

Molls flicked her tongue out and back in, scowling. “It was first carved a short time after Nahga Prime joined with BuyMort, after the revolution was complete. So . . . fourteen hundred years?” She shrugged, and added, “Ish?”

As I followed her into the structure, I got my first up-close look at the wood and saw that it was all fossilized, as hard and smooth as marble.

We entered a low-ceilinged hallway, with offset hollows on either side. Three of the four hollows sported wood Nah’gh mannequins, each wearing elaborate suits of armor and holding weapons. Two appeared to be holding spears, while a third had a long-barreled rifle. In the fourth hollow was a coat rack.

Maer had set the flowers behind the coat rack, on the floor. I smiled lightly at them as I walked by. Good to know.

The walls around us were made up of more carved root wood, including the rounded ceiling, but it opened up further ahead. Molls led me into the house’s main room, where her father and brother waited, both seated in comfortably padded, vaguely S-shaped lounges.

I could immediately see the family resemblance. Both of her male relatives looked like each other. Deep forest green and black scales, with slight horned ridges to their eyelines. They were both also considerably smaller than Molls or Maer.

The matron of the house slithered over next to her husband and grimaced as she lowered herself until she was below his height. I felt Molls’ grip on my arm tighten momentarily.

“Good afternoon, sir,” I started. “I have come to apologize, for my rudeness last week, and indeed for my rudeness in taking so long to come make my amends. In truth, I desired greatly to speak with you the night of your request, but bloody business required my immediate and undivided attention, as it so frequently has since I took over the operation of Nu-Earth.”

The older of the two males smiled and nodded, but the younger’s eyes hardened. He slithered forward off his couch and glared down at me.

“You took over the operation of Nu-Earth two days after you slighted my father,” he said, neutrally.

I nodded. “Indeed, on paper. In effect, I was running Nu-Earth for a long time before the transition became public.”

The elder slid forward, and his son sat back down immediately.

“As is so frequent in matters of business,” he said, both hands raised. “No harm has passed between us, and my daughter claims to love you. Your world appears filled with danger, but your words give me great confidence. The apology is little more than pretense for the visit.” He smiled wide. “I do so love to entertain guests. Welcome all, to the Shevalanth home!”

Ordo, behind us, grunted and nodded. “Thank you!” he said, looking around appreciatively. Alongside luxuriously long and comfortable looking furniture, the room held a number of liquor cabinets inlaid with silver and gold filigree, and filled with a variety of strange and wonderful looking libations.

My own gaze landed on a fascinating bottle cast in the shape of a human lung. The liquid within pulsed up and down to the beat of an unheard drum, and it sparkled when it moved, more akin to a kid’s slime toy than an actual liquor. But the BuyMort ad that leapt to my eyes well assured me that it wasn’t only drinkable, it was among the most drinkable liquors anywhere to be found.

Tip Black Magic — Once upon a time, a sapient fermented liquor. And it was good. But not good enough. He took up a ship, drifted through the worlds and universes, through space and time itself.

And there, at the very edges of space and time, he found it. Pulsating liquor, nebula-born, floating through the cosmos.

Collected and bottled, it is the essence of the multiverse itself.

Tip Black Magic, the most drinkable delicious liquor the multiverse has ever experienced.

5 stars. Prices negotiable.

Prices negotiable. That was a grand way of saying more expensive than most starships is what that was.

After a long, silent moment, Molls giggled and slid forward into the center of the lounge room. “Tyson, my love. This is my father, Gyuru. And my brother, Haevert. My mother Maer you have met.” She slid her arm free of mine and moved to stand beside her family. “Welcome.”

I nodded and smiled, my eye line serious. “Thank you. I feel most welcome.”

Maer straightened with an audible pop, slithered past me, and on her way by, said, “your servant should follow me. I will deliver him to our own staff. What is left of them.”

Ordo nodded at me, hefted his bag, and followed. I shook my head and held an apologetic grimace on my face, but he didn’t flinch at being referred to as my servant.

Still, I turned to clarify. “He’s not my servant. More like a bodyguard, or co-worker.”

“And which of you was flying when you took it to those Dearth scoundrels?” Gyuru asked, eagerly looking between us as Ordo moved off down the hallway after Maer.

I smiled politely and nodded. “I was, sir. Ordo was operating the guns though.”

“Is that what you use? Guns, was it?” he asked, squinting down at me.

I glanced at his son to see the younger Nah’gh was watching me intently. “Ah, yes, in a manner of speaking. A lot of very small ones,” I said.

“Mmm! Yes, that has been confirmed by the latest footage, we’re abuzz about the ‘how’ of it all. I do so hope I can ask for a tour?” he said, blinking at me like an excited child.

I shrugged. “Oh, uh, sure. Would now be good?” With a second of thought, I turned to his son. “You’re welcome to join us too, of course.”

The younger Nah’gh blinked, but then nodded without smiling. “Thank you.”

“Ugh, no. You can see it some other time, Haevert. I want a personal tour,” Gyuru said.  “You’ll ask too many technical questions.”

“Father, go with your guard, please,” Haevert replied. “At least for the image if not real security.” He stared at me for a stiff moment before slithering off down a hallway opposite the one his mother had left with.

“Hey!” Molls snapped. “So rude.”

“Oh don’t mind him, Molls,” Gyuru said. “Now, about that tour?”

Chapter 6

I happily gave the older Nah’gh a tour of the Sand Star. He was mostly curious to hear stories about flying it, as opposed to any technical specs, or origins. I told him I bought the ship, but that I wasn’t able to tell him who I bought it from without making him sign a contract that folded him into my affiliate. He accepted it readily enough, smiling and winking at me.

As we were leaving, walking slowly back down the hill to his manor, hobb security guards in tow, he confided in me that he used to run the shipping for TransPoCo in our current universe. So he knew all about secretive business dealings and was just happy to have been aboard the famous vessel.

“Why a starfish, though?” he asked as we entered the lounge once more.

I frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Well, of all the Nu-Earth animals, Earth animals in this case really, why of all of them the starfish? As your emblem, I mean. It must hold meaning for you, for your affiliate,” he rambled. “Oh, this way. My armory is just through here.”

My eyebrows raised at that, and I happily followed him as he slithered happily through his home.

“I couldn’t tell you, it wasn’t my choice. Maer has made a lovely home here,” I commented. “I very much appreciate your invitation.”

He nodded and waved a hand. “Of course, of course. You are most welcome, warlord.”

There it was. Warlord. That was how he saw me, of course. The brutal but savvy warlord of Arizona, that public persona which had been so useful. Suddenly I would need to contend with it being part of my relationship as well.

I gave a small thought to how much of me would be left, once the persona was done growing.

The halls spiraled out around the root cluster sculpture-dwelling, with rooms off the primary spiral at several arcs. Each hallway was broad, with a nice high ceiling. A small truck could easily pass through the area, which was filled with art.

Paintings hung on one side of the walls, family photographs and portraits on the other. Ancestors of the Shevalanth line, reaching back a few centuries. I hesitated at a painting right before the old Nah’gh’s armory.

Something about it was familiar. The piece showed a brick and metal factory in retro fifties style, almost a Norman Rockwell knockoff, but filled with aliens. Nah’gh, Orkreshi, hobbs, even gobbs, all working together in a metal smelting plant. Heavy work clothes and thick gloves covered the creatures, and red sparks shone from an oversized smelting pot in the background, illuminating the scene in gentle reds and soft yellows.

“Ah,” Gyuru said, stopping with me as I stared. “I thought you might notice that piece.”

Down at the corner, a tiny capital M had been scrawled, with a line next to it. It was scratched into the paint.

“Mel,” I whispered. “I know this artist.”

Gyuru nodded and smiled. Beamed, really, he was delighted to be having this interaction. His hands gently moved as he navigated some BuyMort intrusion or other, before he pointed to the letter M at the bottom.

“She scratches each signature with her own thumbnail,” he whispered reverently. “It cost me millions.”

“Worth every mortie,” I immediately replied. “She does good work.”

“Premier Nu-Earth artist in the BuyMort system,” he replied proudly. “Demand for her work is only growing. You know the artist personally, yes?”

Mel had set up her own affiliate, run through Silken Sands of course. In exchange for registering with us as associates and giving us a small slice, five percent in her case I thought, we dealt with the church and provided protection. To be fair, we provided protection for everybody who lived under us, and Mel rented a small apartment in central Prescott.

“Yes,” I answered softly, still staring at the picture. The details of it, in spite of being oil on canvas, were somehow lifelike. It felt like I could nearly recognize some of the hobbs in the painting. “I do know her, somewhat. She and I don’t cross paths much anymore, since she got established, but it’s good to see her work on your wall, sir.”

“You’ve an eye, I can tell that much. We’ll have to look at some other pieces soon. Right now, I want to show you something,” Gyuru said, gesturing to the armory.

As we entered, I saw an arrangement of weapons against one long wall, most melee. A small handful were projectile weapons. I smiled as I approached a terribly familiar rifle hanging from thin golden chains.

“Avtomat Kalashnikov model forty-seven,” I said, reaching a hand out. Before I contacted the weapon, I turned my head and looked at Gyuru. He blinked, smiled, and nodded, so I slowly ran a finger along the iron sights. “The sights are open on the end, that’s how you tell it’s the original Russian design. If they’re a closed circle, it’s Chinese.”

Gyuru’s eyes widened, and he smiled widely. “Remarkable. What did you call it? The number is familiar, but the rest . . .” he drifted off, leaving the question open.

“Avtomat,” I said. “It means automatic in the language of the country that designed it. And Kalashnikov was the name of the man credited with the weapon’s invention.”

“A-K forty-seven,” he sounded it out. “Nu-Earth’s most prolific weapon. Certainly my most recent addition, and while I know the love is new and exciting, I can’t help but feel it will last.” He gazed fondly at the weapon, and I chuckled.

“Have you fired it?” I asked.

“Oh BuyMort no, that would ruin the value!” he exclaimed. The word ‘BuyMort,’ when he said it, had a strange sounding lilt to it, out of character with the rest of his accent.

“They’re not exactly rare,” I said. “The factories that built them pumped out millions. And that was before the design became common knowledge. As I said before, other nations produced their own versions.”

“Bah,” he said, waving a scaled hand dismissively. “Forgeries. Knockoffs.”

I cocked my head and snorted a laugh. “Not exactly. To you this is a piece of art. To my people, it was a sharp stick. A Chinese Type 56 will kill you exactly as dead as a Russian AK-47. Knock-off or no, it’s an effective weapon.”

“Yes!” he exclaimed, lighting up again. “Yes indeed! Something unique about you Nu-Earthers, you know?”

Molls’ father excitedly slithered back toward the entrance and grasped a long-handled spear, with a leaf-shaped tip. “You see patterns, as an enthusiast of history. We all created spears.” He set it back down, carefully.

“All of us, human, hobb, Nah’gh, delves, orc, even the gobbs have spears from their earliest worlds. Swords as well, axes, knives of all manner. It seems as though the nature of our universes, the physical laws that govern them define what kind of animals we shall become. How we shall fight for our fortunes.”

I watched and listened, as the older Nah’gh clearly had more to say. He stared lovingly at the weapon in his hands before carefully placing it back on the shelf.

“We all create a spear eventually, but only the humans of Nu-Earth have created such a thing as an AK-47,” he finally said, with the appropriate amount of drama.

“We’ve created a lot since then, that’s hardly the pinnacle of our weapon’s tech,” I said, crossing my arms and frowning.

“No, of course not. But the station of the weapon is important as well, the history of the piece,” he replied. “This weapon that was mass-produced to the tune of tens of millions if not more, has taken an untold horde of lives. I am told that all of your kind know this weapon by sight alone, without exception.”

I scowled at that. “You know, there were some who didn’t know it, but they were rare, and few in number. Likely all gone now. You’re right, that’s an important invention for my people.”

“So important, most of you don’t even seem to understand the connection to history it holds, or the place in their minds and hearts it inhabits. It is simply there, like buildings, or water,” Gyuru said.

“I collect such weapons, they fascinate me. I feel connected with the cultures that designed the weapons through them. Your AK-47’s simplicity, its brute efficiency of design.”

The Nah’gh approached again, reverently touching the iron sights the same way I had. “It was not an engineer that designed this tool, no. This was made by a born killer first, engineer second. I see your people in this weapon.”

I looked between him and the weapon, his insult burning behind my eyes, and smiled wide. “You’re not wrong,” I told him.

“Are you boys behaving?” Molls said, from the doorway.

Gyuru stared at my face as he started to pull away to his daughter. “Of course dear Molls. Your lover is quite intriguing,” he said casually. “Not as dangerous as I had first expected, a much deeper thinker as well.”

I controlled my reaction by staring at Molls over his shoulder, eyes wide and confused. She smiled lightly and nodded. “Yes, my lover is that, at the least. What are you making that dour face for, Tyson?”

Gyuru turned fast enough to catch the look on my face and smiled. “I think he is uncomfortable discussing your relationship in such company, dear daughter.”

I sniffed and nodded, caught. “Uh, yeah, that’s it. Means a different thing to my people, I think.”

“No,” he said, smiling placidly. “We’re simply not prickly about sex. Perfectly natural part of life, and my daughter is a vibrant young woman, exploring the world and herself. I expect more suitors will come and go at some point.”

“Daddy!” Molls snapped. “You promised.”

“What? How am I not being nice?” he replied. “I thought we were getting along famously, as they say on Nu-Earth.”

I nodded. “We’re fine, Molls. I’m just a little new to your culture, still.”

“Yes, see?” her father asked. “Perfectly normal culture shock.” He paused, scowled, and turned back to me. “What part was shocking again, exactly?”

I chuckled. “Uhh, the lover thing. On my world, that wasn’t usually spoken of so openly.”

Gyuru’s eyes widened comically. “Goodness. What a repressed society you must have come from.”

Molls rolled her eyes behind him, before taking the older Nah’gh gently by the shoulders. “Come, father dear. It is getting toward time to eat, now that our guest has arrived. Our reservation is soon.”

“Nonsense! I wanted to show young Tyson the slot I have set aside for his gift. The specifications were quite sizable, I do hope it will be a visually impressive item,” Gyuru said, turning away from Molls and pointing toward the back of the room.

We both followed him around a curving, arched hallway in the armory. The shallow opened out into another room, this one circular, nearly egg-shaped. Adorning the walls and floor was a collection of dangerous-looking wild beasts, all stuffed and mounted. A wide open space sat on the floor near the center of the arrangement, cordoned off.

The various animals on his walls were vaguely familiar, but alien in nature. Heads filled with sharp teeth and horns hung on walls, and dangerous looking shaggy or scaled bulks filled the walkway. I didn’t bother looking very closely, taxidermy has always creeped me out.

But I knew Gyuru would love my gift of a stuffed reaper hound. Ordo had done amazing work with it, and it far outshined the other beasts on display for sheer ferocity. Its scythes would gleam nicely in the display room’s lighting.

“Yes, it will fill this space nicely,” I said, turning back to glance at Molls. Near the back of her father’s collection was a stuffed goblin, wearing a loincloth and holding a crude stone ax in its hand. I was reminded of her story of a goblin attack while in Storage and wondered what her life must have been like growing up in this environment. I smiled politely when I saw Gyuru staring intently at me.

“I believe Ordo has plans to deliver it shortly, from the Sand Star’s cargo hold. Someone mentioned a repulsor sled,” I said.

“Ah! Wonderful,” replied Gyuru with an excited clap. “No doubt he has joined Rhada by now, our house hobb. They’ll likely use the garage, there’s much more room to enter there.”

The Nah’gh started slithering away, but turned to look back at Molls and I. “I can’t resist a peek as they bring it in, do join me?”

Molls slipped her arm back through mine and we started following her father at a distance. He seemed genuinely excited to get to his garage and see the new stuffed animal I had brought him.

I whispered in Molls’ ear, “does your father really not mind that we’re sleeping together?”

She rolled her eyes and huffed. “Not really, no. He’s happy for me, mostly. Just concerned about the neighborhood, especially after your H.O.B.B.S show aired. Mother cares more, but she just thinks I’m being too loose, of course. Living up to our stereotypes, reminding the multiverse where our shame comes from. Ugh,” she spat, as her father rounded a corner up ahead.

“Makes sense, based on what you’ve told me of her,” I said.

“My room is sound-proofed,” she whispered with a wicked smile.

I nodded and squeezed her arm lightly, smiling back. “Good to know.”

The garage was interesting. It was shaped like a cave mouth, recessed into the root cluster and framed by higher than average ceilings. An oversized, gleaming hovercraft floated above the hard floor, pushed to one side of the building. Ordo and the Shevalanth family hobb, Rhada, worked to haul their heavy cargo in on a floating sled.

Beyond them though, a visual display caught my attention. An aurora of vibrant blue and green light adorned the clouds across the horizon, sending rainbows scattering from showers, and lighting up the sky. My jaw dropped as Gyuru fawned over his newest acquisition, and I stared at the beautiful display in the distant sky.

“Oh, pretty sunset,” said Molls. “Nothing like the ones we have back home on Nu-Earth though.”

I blinked, still taking in the sight. “No, yours are far more beautiful,” I said, holding her arm as we stepped outside. After watching for a few moments, the sky around us began to dim, and the colors washed away into a deep purple night sky, broken only by the occasional flash or twinkle from a nearby root city.

Heavy rain washed in over the area, splashing fat droplets onto the carved road, and bordering moss growth patches. Gyuru’s bodyguards ducked inside the garage to avoid the downpour, moving to stand beside the large vehicle, as Ordo and the reaper hound arrived.

“Oh just in time,” said Gyuru, clapping his hands beside the stuffed reaper hound. “You all wait here, we’re going to dinner straight after I get this situated. Shortly after, he vanished back inside, following closely after Ordo, Rhada, and the sled they pushed.

Molls pulled my elbow, and we moved out of sight of the hobb guards, around behind the large vehicle. Then she kissed me, deeply. I responded, my hands moving across her body before the door opened and we hurriedly broke apart, grinning like teenagers.

“Molls? Are you here?” Maer called from the doorway.

Molls slithered around the back of the vehicle and smiled demurely. “Yes mother, I was just showing Tyson the family sled. They use vehicles with wheels on Nu-Earth,” she added.

“How barbarous, it must destroy the land beneath them,” Maer said dismissively.

“We harden our ground with minerals, and metal,” I replied. “Makes it smooth and hard, perfect for driving on.”

Maer glanced over but ignored me. “Where is your father?” she asked Molls. “It’s nearly time for our reservation, we need to leave.”

“I know, mother,” Molls replied, raising her arms. “He wants to get Tyson’s gift installed before we go, I told him we were going to be late already.”

Maer huffed but didn’t speak further. She merely crossed her arms and settled in to wait. Molls eyes widened as she turned to me, and her mouth upturned in a frustrated expression. I happily accepted her arm through mine, and we stood to wait.

After a few minutes, Maer huffed again and threw her arms up, moving to the vehicle and opening a wide door to climb inside. I snickered, and Molls joined me, giggling under her breath and adjusting her grip to hold my hand.

“Father often makes us wait,” she whispered. I nodded gently and continued silently waiting.

Honestly, it was enough just being around her again. The chaos I had been embroiled in since she left was calmed by her touch, her presence. Military threats and affiliate growth concerns melted away, and I was left with just her, and me. Happily holding hands on an alien planet, watching the remnants of their sunset fade into evening purple.

The older Nah’gh rejoined us half an hour later. Leaving Ordo to guard the ship, we left for our reservation, stylishly behind schedule.

Chapter 7

The ride was interesting, but comfortable. Those living on Nah’ga seemed extra careful about anything that could harm the ground, so most non-rail vehicles were hovercraft of some form or other.

I didn’t get a look at the specs, but the ride was silky smooth, and comfortable in the cabin of the over-sized craft. It was very much like a limousine, with an extended lounge area for passengers, and a separated driver’s compartment.

One bodyguard drove while the other rode in the back, in a small turret dome that rotated freely and would allow him to fire a weapon in a full circle around the vehicle if needed. The guard carried a rifle and wore a sidearm but looked bored. Clearly they weren’t expecting trouble from me.

I rode in the back with Molls’ family, seated at her side holding her hand. Her father and I chatted amicably about the reaper hound I had brought him. How I had killed it, and what the rest of our conflict against them had been like.

I left out the part about them having killed our starfish troopers, and simply told him that many of our staff and residents had perished before the threat was ended.

He applauded lightly when I told him Molls’ trip home had been based partly on the emergent threat.

When our vehicle pulled up to the restaurant, it was hauled off by staff to a parking structure nearby. I scowled as I watched the two staff members, a hobb and Nah’gh, pushing the floating vehicle in the pouring rain.

Most buildings had large awnings, and the restaurants covered the entire disembarkation area on the corner. Again, the building had been built on top of the fossilized wood beneath our feet, but there were a handful in the area that looked originally carved. The difference became obvious when I turned my gaze to the base of each building, looking for obvious cracks or clever architecture that could be hiding them.

The exterior of the restaurant was constructed of intricately carved wood, as appeared traditional in Vesper City. Its front end displayed cheerful Nah’gh gathered around a large, square table to eat. A selection of large and smoking meats was on display as well, surrounding a sign I couldn’t read.

Conversely, when we entered, the entire building appeared to be a single long hallway, with separate rooms branching off from it, and the kitchen at the far end behind a large set of double doors. Soft music tinkled from hidden speakers, and rich, savory smells wafted through the air.

Haevert, Molls’ younger brother, flicked his tongue in and out several times in rapid succession.

“Ahh,” he exclaimed. “They have something new tonight, I can smell it.”

Molls raised her snout to smell the air with her tongue too, but she recoiled and quickly looked at me, flushing a combination of yellow and pink. I cocked my head and looked at her questioningly, but she shook her head and kept her mouth firmly shut.

A Nah’gh host approached, staring openly at Maer and Molls, before blinking and shaking her head. She spoke a few words in the Nah’gh language

“We have a room reserved,” Gyuru told her, in English. “I’m a little embarrassed to admit that I made us late, though.”

The host blinked in confusion and glanced between the rest of us. Her eyes lingered on me for a long moment, sure I was part of the issue, but then Maer slid forward and saved us, speaking a few words in their language to her, initiating the check in process.

“Such a shame,” whispered Gyuru, to me. “The language of business should be spoken everywhere, but I should know better than to hope for it here, so far from the lower planets.”

The lower planets meaning me. My planet and its universe, our lowly position in his perception of the multiverse.

I said nothing, merely nodding and holding a serious expression. For a few seconds I felt a bit of lingering guilt for using my customer service routine on Molls’ father, but he appeared quite happy, so it seemed the safest route.

The older Nah’gh smiled and nudged me. Then the host nodded her head and led us down the hallway to one of the restaurant’s rooms. The interior was surprisingly spacious, with a long, narrow table set out in the middle, surrounded by comfortable looking cushions. Windows allowed for a view of the descending root, and the swamp below, now enshrouded in darkness and billowing fog.

Light purple clouds floated beneath Vesper City, slowly thickening and obscuring the swamp below. Only the distant root clusters were visible, each jutting from the low ocean of swirling fog. Patches of civilization twinkled from each.

Molls touched my elbow, drawing me from the mesmerizing beauty out the window. There was a small fan, slowly rotating a broad, wooden leaf near a window, and I immediately gravitated to the seat nearest it. The air movement, however small, was a delight on my back.

I shrugged out of my jacket and set it aside, lightly folded. Molls smiled approvingly as she slid into place beside me. Gyuru moved in to sit on my other side, and I was sandwiched between the two Nah’gh. Our host leaned over and provided us each a menu, then happily spoke with Haevert, likely about whatever it was he had smelled in the lobby.

Molls chuckled and shook her head, reaching out to gently take my menu and hand it back. The entire thing was in Nah’gh, I had no chance of reading any of it. There weren't even any pictures.

“What would you like to eat, my love?” Molls asked. “They mostly do meat here.”

I drew an immediate blank and shrugged. “I dunno. What’s good?”

Gyuru rumbled and shook his head at my side. “Man of culture like yourself, you’ll want the bog-roller legs.”

“Well, they sound absolutely delightful, just on the name alone, but what is a bog-roller? Are its legs delicious?” I innocently asked.

Gathered from the murky depths of the hemorrack. Baited and fed pure low barth enriched with only the finest of sauces. Free ranging to guarantee the largest, toughest and juiciest of hindquarters.

Clindhopper Bog-rollers

Guaranteed to sate your hunger.

Molls cocked her head, narrowed her eyes and shrugged. “Yeah, you might like those. A bit like frog-legs from Nu-Earth, but . . . considerably larger. Local thing, really,” she said. Her eyes rose at something she read on the menu. “Oh, they serve them boneless too.”

“Sure, why not?” I said, nodding. “Bog-legs sound great.”

Molls chuckled and slid her arm against my shoulder. “You’re a good sport, Tyson, thank you.”

“It’s not bugs, so it sounds great!” I quipped, grinning.

Maer raised one eyebrow severely, and I softened my smile. It was difficult not to wilt under her gaze, and Molls immediately noticed. “It’s alright mother, he’s just referencing our first cup of coffee together,” she explained. “I offered him Drumu dust, and he was nearly sick.”

“Sensitive to insects, are you Mr. Dawes?” Maer asked sternly.

I shook my head. “Not anymore. I regularly dine on yarsp these days, but I will happily take the upgrade here. This entire restaurant smells delicious.”

She scowled but flicked her tongue in and out reflexively and nodded. “I cannot imagine being immersed in the smell as you ape-descendants are,” she said. “Sampling it every so often is more than enough.”

I nodded, but then shrugged. “I dunno, I’m so used to it that having to smell on purpose would seem stifling to me. You should see some of Nu-Earth’s residents though, they put the ape-descendants to shame, with their olfactory capability.”

Maer raised her eyebrow-scales in response, not looking up from her menu. I smiled and nodded, before lightly placing a hand on Molls’ tail at my side. She rippled purple and glanced down at me with a smile of her own.

The host had left while we discussed the menu but returned and happily took our orders. Gyuru ordered the bog-roller legs, and Molls ordered for the both of us. I smiled at the host, but she avoided looking at me, instead staring at Molls and Maer.

After our orders were put in, the host bowed and left, closing the doors behind herself. The thick wooden walls kept in the heat and I was constantly on the border of sweating. My Arizona desert was a nice dry heat though, and the sodden atmosphere on Nahga was starting to get to me.

Molls smiled and watched as I chatted idly with her father.

“So,” I started. “Why is English not spoken here more universally?”

Gyuru happily took the bait and straightened. “You know, I often ponder that very question myself. I worked with many humans who spoke English, it’s how I’m so fluent. Nu-Earth is all the rage, the fresh Sol system, ready to be reaped. One would think more would have learned the language on the home world.”

The elder Nah’gh shrugged, shaking his head. “I suspect it's because humans burn themselves out,” he finally said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“As the species go, I mean,” Gyuru clarified. “We Nah’gh are long lasting, we practice foresight. The delves, Orkreshi, and other elves, all manage to stay at the top of BuyMort, consistently. Deliberate competence is something we all practice, but humans tend to burn very brightly and then fade away quickly. Very little staying power, in the multiverse at large.”

I thought of the billions who had died, not that long ago, on my world. “Not many of us around anymore,” I said.

“Oh no, don’t believe that,” he said, nearly gasping. “There are a great many humans in the BuyMort system, the same as there are hobbs. But hobb populations remain steady, as high as it can be with market forces the way they are. Obviously recently they’ve taken a bit of a dip, hence the labor shortage, but generally speaking they stay at a steady level of population.”

I scowled, sucking on a tooth thoughtfully. “But not many humans in leadership positions, I assume?”

“Very wise, exactly correct. Most of those are taken by the usual suspects. Some do rise, occasionally, but quickly burn out and the affiliates lose their status,” Gyuru explained. “Most humans are from other versions of Earth, though. You are a notable exception from your world, which makes the speculation on Silken Sands so exciting,” Gyuru rambled. “There’s no telling how high it will climb before market forces stabilize again.”

“Very exciting,” I agreed. The older Nah’gh smiled happily.

I was saved from further conversation by the arrival of our dinner. Several Nah’gh bundled in, wearing kitchen outfits, aprons and face coverings. They each carried a platter, and one by one set them down in front of us, lifting the dome off and retreating with silent bows.

Only our host remained, smiling and asking a question in Nah’gh. I stared at my dinner.

Bog-roller legs looked like giant, deflated chicken drumsticks. The exterior was smooth, and leathery, but the interior was plump and juicy. Given what the bog-rollers themselves looked like, I was happy with it. Didn’t smell half-bad either, like a savory herb-flavored chicken dish or something.

“Oh, mine is from Nu-Earth!” exclaimed Haevert, swiping through his own BuyMort windows. “Delicious!”

I glanced at his dish and quickly turned away. Three large, black-skinned birds were on his platter, legs tied artfully together. Ravens.

Molls squeezed my hand and frowned, concern evident in her eyes. She flushed yellow again, followed by pink. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

I shook my head. “It’s nothing, I’m alright,” I assured her. She frowned and studied my expression but nodded. Behind her, Haevert happily swallowed his first bird whole.

Gyuru gulped one of his two bog-roller legs, before wiping his lips with a satisfied smile. They all ate with their hands, using their claws to stab into the meat and control it. As I watched, Maer stabbed her own dish, a pinkish blob, and tore away a section of it to daintily pluck from the tip of one claw.

I grabbed the narrow end of the chunk of meat on my plate and tore a giant bite out of it. Thankfully, it had the consistency of chicken, and tore apart easily. As I chewed the savory meat, I nodded. It was good, herby and savory, full of bog-roller juices. Nasty name, weird looking creature, but tasty.

While I was devouring the creature’s legs, I paused for a moment to wonder if they were BuyMort capable.

I continued eating, trying not to think of Darclau and his unkindness back home. I seriously doubted Haevert’s dinner was any of them, but it still set my nerves on edge.

Once they had finished eating, I still had a ways to go, but was full anyway. The portions were clearly set for patrons who ate once every few days. Gyuru feigned shock, then happily accepted my other bog-roller leg, gulping it with a look of sheer ecstasy on his face.

The host returned and gathered our dishes, sliding the doors open for another kitchen crew. They brought us bowls of hot water for washing our hands, warmed towels, along with pots of tea and coffee. Our table was filled and we were left with more silent bows, to luxuriate and sip our beverages while chatting.

Gyuru was full of market talk. The labor shortage he had mentioned earlier caught my attention, as my own affiliate was having no such issue. He informed me that the inner worlds were emptying of workers, as they sought employment elsewhere. In particular, good hobbs were getting harder and harder to find, and security forces in several of the upper universes were being hard-pressed to meet their contractual obligations.

Since Dearth was falling, the Sleem were stepping back into the absence their forces left, and private security was being hard-pressed to keep them at bay across the entire system. Attacks were on the rise, and more large-scale nests had been found in the past four months than the previous four years before that.

I smiled and nodded, probed with gentle questions, and absorbed whatever knowledge I could from Gyuru. His perspective came from the opposite side of BuyMort as mine, and it was so valuable. It exposed several vulnerabilities, and gave me an excellent idea for another income stream, all over a cup of coffee with Drumu dust.

After a while, Maer stretched with a grimace and spoke a few words in Nah’gh to her husband. He frowned in disappointment but nodded. Molls took my arm as we started leaving, and leaned into my side happily, contented purple filling her scales. She leaned over and nuzzled my cheek, brushing through my beard with her long nose.

Everyone was quiet on the ride back, calmly enjoying the buzz of good food and coffee.

I was happy to avoid any further pleasant conversation. My ability to pretend I wasn’t getting infuriated was running thin. At least I could see how Molls had come to her bizarre worldview.

As we were pulling into the garage, a tall, thin delf in a long, dark tunic stood waiting for us, arms crossed idly behind his back.

“Mother!” Molls gasped. “You didn’t!”

Maer glared at her daughter. “You brought him into our home, I have every right to question him, and his affiliate.”

I glanced between the two of them, and then back to the elf out the window. His skin was jet black, iridescent where it showed, and his eyes shone red as he smiled gently at our luxury sled.

As we exited the vehicle, the delf stared at me directly, a small smile on his lips.

“Inquisitor Elegy, welcome to my familial home,” Maer said, graciously bowing with another grimace of pain. She straightened, plastering a smile to her face. “Where is Rhada, I’ll have the hobb skinned for leaving you outside like this.”

“Not at all,” the delf said. “I wanted to stay on your doorstep and see you all returning from dinner for myself. The closeness of family is a continual delight for me.”

Maer graciously took the delf’s hand and bowed. Elegy exchanged brief pleasantries with Gyuru and Haevert both, before staring at Molls and myself.

A smile slowly crawled across his features, and he extended both arms to us.

“Come now, children. Be not afraid,” he said.

Chapter 8

I drew in a sharp breath at his words, and the delf’s ears perked. His red eyes shined as he turned to face me directly. “Now what does that reaction mean, I wonder,” he mused, stepping in closer.

“It means I don’t enjoy being called a child,” I said, hurriedly covering my tracks. My posture remained stiff, but I smiled politely and averted my gaze when his eyes met mine.

“Ah yes,” Elegy said, raising a sharp-nailed finger. “And you’re quite used to being able to simply punch anything you don’t like. Windowpuncher, I remember. As you suspect, that would not work out in your favor if you were to attempt any such thing here.”

“I’ll admit, I do often wish I could escape unpleasant situations with violence, but this is not one of them,” I said, bringing a small, polite smile to my lips as I reached out a hand. “Tyson Dawes. Nice to meet you, inquisitor.”

“Please, call me Elegy, Mr. Dawes,” the delf practically grinned in reply, looking at my hand momentarily before reaching out to lightly shake it. “Just Elegy.”

Molls’ grip on my elbow hadn’t loosened since she saw the delf, but she intentionally unclamped her hand and slithered forward, head bowed. “Inquisitor,” she said, quietly. “Elegy?”

Elegy scowled down at her, his sharp chin raised. “Yes priest Molls?”

“I apologize for being rude, but I must know why you are here. Does the church threaten my affiliate? Or my lover? My family?” Molls asked.

The delf’s glowing eyes narrowed and he nodded slowly to her questions. “Child, the church threatens us all, if it ignores a renegade wearing a relic,” he drawled. The words were pleasant in their intonation, but I felt a chill up my relic-enhanced spine at them.

Official Church Indulgences. From the most minor of sins to murder itself, The Church of BuyMort understands your guilt, and has your solution. Starting at 50,000 morties. Pay for your crime . . . with indulgences!

Elegy’s stare indicated that he knew exactly what ad had popped up. I purchased a 50,000 mortie indulgence, and indicated to BuyMort that I wished to gift it to the delf. Moments later, he scowled.

“I am no renegade, I work for the church. For Silken Sands, Nu-Earth, and my people, of course. But for the church, as do we all,” I said.

“As do we all,” Elegy repeated, a wide smile replacing his formerly stormy countenance. “Well said, Mr. Dawes. I will refrain from calling you a child in the future. When I passed my third century I noticed I started to view those of the shorter-lived races as children. Not a good habit, when my goal is diplomacy.”

I nodded. “A goal we share then.”

The delf gestured with an arm toward the open door. “Shall we? The weather is turning dreadful, and, in the spirit of bad habits, I was so hoping your father would offer me a glass of his Tip Black Magic.”

We moved past him, but Molls stayed stiff. I placed a hand at the small of her back to comfort her, and she jumped, taking in a sharp breath. Then she turned and smiled at me, her eyes fearful and blinking.

The rest of her family was in their main lounge, and Gyuru already had the bottle down, holding a trio of glasses and smiling like a child with an ice cream bucket.

Elegy lightly stepped past, spreading his arms. “Oh Gyuru, you know me only too well,” he said. “Maer, you look ravishing as ever, and young Haevert has grown into a full Nah’gh since last we saw each other. Thank you for the invitation Maer, I am only too happy to spend time in the amazing comfort that only your homemaking can bring.”

Maer demurely bowed, before embracing her son and whispering into his ear. The younger Nah’gh scowled but nodded and slithered forward. “Inquisitor Elegy, thank you for visiting our home. I must get to my office, as I have much studying to do before I sleep. May I be excused?”

“You may,” the delf said, waving one manicured hand. He didn’t wear jewelry, but had a gem embedded in his ring finger where a ring would be. It gleamed red, and I desperately wanted to summon my anti-magic helmet to scan it.

But I refrained. There were probably services that I could hire to scan it for me, but if the ring was important at all, it was highly protected and would cost a fortune to get any info on.

“Good boy, that Nah’gh. He’ll make a fine addition to the church’s leadership support affiliate someday, I’ve no doubt,” Elegy said.

Gyuru beamed at the praise while he poured three small measures of the Tip Black Magic liquor. I blinked and straightened  my posture when he offered me the third glass. The first he gave to the inquisitor, the second he kept for himself. Still, desire to stay sober or not, I couldn’t turn down such an expensive offer.

Not in that company.

I held the glass, filled with no more than a single swallow of the mercurial liquid.

“Black Magic, it’s called?” I asked.

Gyuru and Elegy both shared a knowing smile.

“Tip Black Magic,” Elegy replied. “It’s meant to be poetry, much like the drink itself.” When I still didn’t register his meaning, he continued, “in that you ‘tip’ the glass when you drink it.”

“Ah,” I said, chagrinned. Molls watched silently, her eyes glued to the inquisitor's back.

The drink itself smelled amazing, like sugared vanilla strawberries. I swirled it lightly, and a fresh burst of the scent rose to my nostrils.

“I would like to raise my glass in a toast, to a fallen comrade,” said Elegy.

“Mmm, good toast then,” said Gyuru. “Who shall we raise our glasses to?”

“To The Dearth Conglomerate!” exclaimed Elegy, looking directly at me. “May the incompetent buffoons all rest in peace.”

Gyuru sputtered a laugh, but hurriedly contained himself and nodded somberly. “May they rest in peace,” he repeated, before stifling another giggle.

Elegy smiled and reached his glass over to mine, clinking it before doing the same with Gyuru’s. He then threw back the glass and mouthed the liquor, closing his eyes in ecstasy. Gyuru similarly threw his back, so I joined them and took the small mouthful from the glass.

It hit like honey, glazed and golden on the tongue. Sudden vibrancy arose from the flavor, as if different sections of my tongue were being presented with every flavor of berry I had ever experienced, and several I hadn’t. The sensation quickly became intense, and I reflexively swallowed the liquor.

I exhaled roasted dark chocolate, the taste lingering on my tongue and palate as a warm buzz began to grow from my belly.

“Mmm!” I exclaimed. “Sure beats the stuff we serve back home.”

Elegy carefully swallowed and exhaled, smiling through the deliberate process, while Gyuru bustled the expensive bottle away.

“Indeed,” the old Nah’gh said. “A rare pleasure, to commemorate our most holy guest.”

“You flatter me, Gyuru,” Elegy replied. “Not all share in our religion, I am afraid. I may not be so holy in the eyes of your newest friend.”

There he looked directly at me again. The liquor was settling in nicely, a smooth, warm dulling sensation spreading from my stomach. It was potent too, I could already feel the effects slipping in, dulling my senses.

Fortunately, I was used to that. It even occurred to me that the inquisitor might have set all of this in motion beforehand, just to soften me up. The path of least resistance for the church to get to me was definitely through Molls.

“I’ll answer your questions, Elegy,” I said, rolling the empty glass in my hand. “If questions are the price of such a pleasure, I’m happy to pay it.”

I smiled and opened my free hand, leaning on the back of Molls’ lounge seat.

“Wonderful,” Elegy said. “Tell me all about your relationship with Garthrust.” He lightly ran his finger on the inside of the glass and carefully licked the tip, staring at me.

I frowned and sat down on the lounge chair with Molls. The alcohol was smooth, but potent, and I wanted to focus on the conversation. On my story.

“Well, Garthrust and I got off on the wrong foot,” I started, raising my own glass for another sniff. I shrugged and set it down on the floor beneath the chair. “He threatened me in my home, tried to strong-arm us out of our land.”

“Wrong foot?” Elegy repeated, eyes narrowing.

“Oh, it just means we started off at odds. He was aggressive, right away, shoving guns in our faces and making demands,” I said, shrugging again. “I responded in kind, it seemed the only way to stay alive.”

“But you were not aggressive with him right away, I am told,” Elegy said. “You kept to yourself.” The delf smiled, sharpened teeth points visible for an instant. “Tended to your spider ranch.”

I smiled involuntarily at the memory. “Yes, those were simpler days. The most we were worried about was the damned Sleem.” I chuckled, and Gyuru immediately joined in.

“BuyMort blessed Sleem!” he exclaimed. The good booze was clearly going to his head.

Elegy, on the other hand, looked as sober as a judge. A coldly smiling, red-eyed judge who had come to question my affiliate, and me, on behalf of the most powerful organization in the known multiverse.

“Yes, we all must deal with the Sleem, as is natural and right. No life worth living is lived without strife,” he calmly said, drifting to a chair of his own to sit. His eyes never left my face, I could feel them even when I wasn’t meeting them.

“But you,” he said suddenly, pointing a sharp, manicured nail at me. “You defeated a former champion of the Orkreshi grand arena, in single combat.”

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I dismissed the ad, with its images of burning death and screaming fans, smiling at the memory of kicking the shit out of Garthrust, nodding as I met his gaze. But I did not respond.

“How did you do this thing?” Elegy finally asked. “Garthrust was known for his prowess, once. An old orc, perhaps, but still far more dangerous than a mere human.”

My lip twisted at the mention of mere humans, but I controlled the reaction. “I do not think he expected me to hit him,” I finally said, raising one hand in a shrug.

Elegy’s eyes lit up, widening and seeming to brighten in their glow. “Wonderful!” he exclaimed, pushing back into his chair more fully. “How wonderful,” he said again, giggling at the end.

Gyuru looked a bit dazed and had arranged himself on his own lounge chair. He glanced between the two of us, utterly bewildered, before he fixated on the inquisitor’s response and mimed it.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, wonderful.”

I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees casually and looking up at the inquisitor.

He waved a hand at me. “Go on.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Not much to tell. I hit him a few times, he went down. I remember I needed to know what he drugged Molls with,” I said, feeling the room quiet at the accusation. “I was worried about her life, in my duties as her guard at the time.”

“Yes, yes, you were doing all of this in the name of the church!” the inquisitor said, still smiling. “I remember. Wasn’t there some kind of financial arrangement involved?” he asked suddenly, fixing me with his stare.

I nodded, frowning as I tried to remember. “Eleven million morties, I think,” I said, shaking my head with a quick shrug. “Around that neighborhood.”

“See, now that detail is something I find fascinating,” Elegy said. “I simply must know why you would go out of your way to humiliate the good orc with such a low ransom.” He grinned wickedly, as Gyuru chuckled.

“I was captured once, as a junior manager,” he rumbled from behind Elegy. The delf’s head whipped around to stare at the old Nah’gh as he spoke, but he didn’t stop him. “Pirates, on an asteroid run. They liked to hide in the rocks. Anyway, I was ransomed back for forty-eight million, and I’ve never lived down the shame of it.”

Elegy clapped, applauding the story. “I know that one,” he exclaimed. “Oh such fun. You were upset because the going rate for junior managers at the time was fifty million.”

“Exactly so!” Gyuru said, raising a swaying hand. “I put a forty-eight mortie bounty on the pirate in return, prepaid for his corpse. His own brother collected it.”

Elegy laughed, applauding lightly again. “Such fun!” When he finished, he fixed Gyuru with his cold smile. “Gyuru, would you leave us, please?”

I saw fear flash across Gyuru’s eyes, just for an instant. He glanced between the delf and his daughter, before settling on me. I nodded to him, just a shift of my head. Elegy snapped back to look at me anyway, his smile somehow colder.

“Yes, yes of course,” Gyuru finally said. “I should see to my wife at any rate, let you all enjoy the evening. Sleep well, Tyson, Molls. Know that my love is with you, daughter. You make me proud.”

Molls clenched around my shoulders, and said with a tremor in her voice, “I love you too, father. Goodnight.”

Once Gyuru had slithered away, Elegy moved to the room’s control panel; all the rooms in the house had one.

“I am sorry to be rude, Tyson, but I have a question for Molls now,” Elegy told me. “And I’ll need you to be quiet while she answers it.”

I nodded.

“Molls darling, why in the multiverse was Garthrust trying to drug you?” he asked.

“To disrobe me, in pursuit of the MortBlock my priesthood legitimately covered,” she immediately replied.

“Mmhm,” Elegy replied. “And what stopped him, do you think, from escalating to violence at that point.”

“He had already attempted violence, using a local mercenary group. My guardians were competent, the mercenaries were not,” Molls said, her voice strengthening.

“That is so often how it goes, in the field on new worlds. I am sorry for your experience, young priest,” Elegy said, kindness in his voice. “It seems Garthrust is every bit the villain I suspected him to be.”

Molls stiffened again. “The church knew?”

Elegy frowned. “Knew what?”

“That one of their own had gone rogue?” she accused. Elegy’s smile faded, and he shook his head.

“We know a great many things, but the outer frontier is the outer frontier. If you were not warned about it before traveling there,” Elegy said, pausing to look around the comfortable surroundings. “Perhaps your training was incomplete, somehow. Do you need me to tell you not to attempt the same on the upcoming Sleem world?”

Molls nearly gasped at the insult but composed herself. “No,” she said, between stiff lips.

“Humans are no less dangerous,” Elegy said. “And we all know it.” He looked directly at me as he spoke, and I met his gaze, doing my level best not to react.

When the silence stretched on, I couldn’t help myself and snorted a laugh at a random thought that passed through my mind. Elegy’s eyes flared and he gestured for me to say what was on my mind.

“I was just wondering,” I started, aware of my words and their friendly cadence. “How dangerous are delves?”

Elegy’s mouth dropped open, and he gaped at me incredulously, before applauding excitedly. “Immensely, what an excellent question. I’m not sure which uninitiated world I would recommend a new priest proselytize to, with perfect honesty. BuyMort has a way of . . . filtering us. Only the most civilized remain, after a time, don’t you find that to be true?”

I raised my eyebrows and shrugged. “I’m afraid I’m a simple planetary owner, I just keep the lights on and the bills paid.” With another smile, I patted Molls’ tail. “She handles the philosophy for us both.”

Elegy leaned forward suddenly, peering intently at my face. “I wonder how true that is,” he whispered to himself.

After a long moment of silence, the delf clapped his hands once. “Well,” he said, standing gracefully. “I think I shall call it an evening there, children. It has been nice conversing with you both, I do so hope we can do this again sometime soon.”

I stiffened at his use of the world ‘children’ and Elegy immediately reached out, laying a perfectly manicured hand on my shoulder. “I apologize, my dear Mr. Dawes. I forgot already. Tip Black Magic,” he said, as if that explained it.

“Oh, I do have one final question,” he asked, watching Molls closely. She nodded, and he leaned forward. “Being so close to the workings of business, and speaking of my kin, have you heard of any delves in the Sol system?”

My blood ran cold, but I controlled the reaction and just kept smiling politely. I hoped he couldn’t hear my heartbeat though.

Molls scales stayed flat and she shook her head. “No, inquisitor. I’ve been on Nahga for a couple of weeks though, is this a recent expedition?”

Inquisitor Elegy sat in his lounge chair and stared at us, smiling mildly. After a long moment, he said, “No, just idly seeking a vagabond cousin. Do let me know if you have any dealings with the House of Shireen.” With a final flick of his index finger, he added, “goodnight, my dears,” and it was clear we were being dismissed.

Chapter 9

Molls gripped my elbow and we moved to leave, vanishing down a darkened hallway with glowing red eyes behind us. She said nothing as we moved and clutched my arm stiffly. Molls’ door looked like a bank vault, but it slid open easily at her touch, vanishing into the floor.

Her room was nice, mostly filled with a large, circular bed. She also had a series of dressers tucked up against the windows in her room. Plenty of small items covered the tops of them.

The slab of metal rose behind us, and once it hissed closed, Molls pressed a button on the wall. A strip of vibrant purple lit up around the ceiling, tinting the rooms overall hue and indicating whatever sound-proofing she had in place was now active.

She turned and threw herself in my arms, and I held her as she shook. “An inquisitor, Tyson. BuyMort save us.”

“It's that bad?” I asked.

Her scales rippled yellow, green, and blue, and she nodded. “I’ve never heard of them being deployed except as an incision tool, to adjust affiliate behavior and bring it in line with the church’s direction. The stories are all of wicked, evil affiliates that threatened the natural order of life within BuyMort.”

Another ad for indulgences came and I twitched it away.

“Yeah, that describes us pretty well,” I whispered. “Can I make calls from in here?” I asked, immediately feeling a twinge of regret as she tensed.

“Yes, of course, MortMobile coverage is not blocked,” she said, wiping her eyes. She sighed and forced a smile. “This is just Mother. I’m overreacting, because she is trying to ruin my life, again.”

I blinked at her, unsure how I should respond.

“The inquisitor is an old family friend, on Mother’s side. Someone from her days serving the church,” Molls said, scowling. “He’s probably just here to drink Daddy’s booze and scare my boyfriend away.”

“All the same,” I said, shaking my head. “I need to call Axle. I’m so sorry, Molls. This makes me feel like a monster, but I have hundreds of millions of lives at stake now, if the immigration reports are to be believed.”

She smiled and nodded tightly. “Of course. No, it's nothing to be worried about. I have everything about this night intentionally well thought-out, and I will not be denied what little we can actually do here,” she said with a sigh. “I cannot wait to go home.”

I smiled and leaned up to kiss her. “You’re the best, Molls. Thank you.”

Her smile became genuine, and she snorted a laugh. “Right, just come meet me in the shower when you’re done.”

“Shower?” I asked with a scowl.

“Yes, shower. I don’t only bathe in dirt, I just don’t always want to go through the process of drying myself off after a wet bath,” she said.

My jaw dropped, thinking of all of the slickly-wet missed opportunities.

Opportunities that I was now just about to explore.

“Fascinating,” I said, filing that tidbit of information away with a smile.

“Oh shut up,” she said, frowning and flicking me with the tip of her tail. “Ow!” she exclaimed. “What’s up with your skin?”

I grimaced. “Oh. Uh. Sorry, I had another implant installed. Stoneskin thing.”

Molls frowned and reached for my chest. She trailed her hand across my shoulder and arm, then shook her head. “You still feel like you, just . . .” she finished her statement by poking me with a claw tip. It bounced off my skin and she shook her finger. “Ow, yeah, okay that is weird. Just a . . . cyborg boyfriend moment, I guess.”

“Uhhh,” I said, grimace firmly in place. “Just don’t be too rough with me for a while, I guess? I think the colonies will learn what is and isn’t an attack after a while.”

“Colonies?!” she exclaimed. “Tyson, we have got to talk about your implants. This is so many, so fast.”

“I’m sorry!” I exclaimed, hands up. “I had to survive being exposed to space.”

Her frown became a scowl. “Fair enough,” she sighed, trailing a hand across my pectoral muscle again. “As long as I can still touch you.”

“It’ll learn, Molls,” I said. “I admit, I don’t have a really solid basis for that belief, but my strength is like that. It just does what I want and seems to somehow know when I need to be gentle or when I need to not hold back at all. I don’t ever even have to think about it, now.”

She blinked a few times, staring down at me. “Okay, thank you for that explanation. It does help, and I know I’m just spun out because of Mother.” Molls leaned down and kissed me again, gently. “I’ll see you in the shower.”

I nodded. “Soon.” Then my attention was on my phone. I even missed it when Molls slid out of her dress and dropped it on the floor behind me on her way past.

As Axle’s face filled my screen, I heard a powerful stream of water turn on behind me, and the smell of steam filled the already hot air.

I groaned and slid out of my jacket, trying to ignore the patch of sweat at my back as I unbuttoned my shirt.

“Boss,” Axle said, shaking his head. “Thanks for the show, but . . .”

“Oh, sorry,” I said with a chuckle. “It is unbelievably hot here,” I said, stripping off the wet shirt entirely and hanging it on a hook by the door.

“Well, that knowledge helps,” he replied, almost mechanically. I heard typing in the background.

“I am sorry, Axle. I had to call, right away. It’s super important, I think,” I said, shaking my head. “We have an inquisitor sniffing around Molls’ place right now. Asked a bunch of questions about the shit with Garthrust, of all people. No idea what this means, but Molls seems to think he’s a boogeyman of some sort. Or a work friend of her moms, the line is real thin there.”

Axle stopped typing and focused on the phone. He nodded, before licking his nose. “Yeah. I can see that. An inquisitor is not great news, but I doubt it’s what she thinks it is,” he said. “We definitely have agents of the church sniffing around operations. I was going to mention it to you in your next daily report, but an inquisitor could mean an escalation is looming.”

“We have to loop in BlueCleave then,” I said. “Start hunting them down, eliminating them.”

Axle’s eyes raised and his ears flattened. “I would advise against that,” he carefully said.

“I figured you might,” I said with a shrug. “As my senior advisor and trusted friend I would expect you to reel me in, but I kind of think I need to kill this guy.”

Axle blinked several times. “Why?” he finally asked.

“Instinct,” I admitted. “He really creeps me out. Seems to not give a rats ass about what we’ve done to The Dearth Conglomerate, but also-” I hesitated. “It’s hard to explain, I just have this feeling that he’s circling. Like a shark. Or a buzzard.”

My Knowle friend nodded again, ears still flattened against his head. His lips twitched in one corner, and he shook his head.

“Please don’t,” he finally said. “I need to explain to you how bad it would be to kill an inquisitor.”

“An act of war against the church, I know,” I said, raising my own lip in frustration. “Axle, I am sorry, but this is coming. These guys will not allow us to live,” I said. “We have no choice. He mentioned the House of Shi-”

“Stop!” he shouted, staring at me. “Not through the psychic phone.” He looked paler somehow.

“We are not ready for war with the church,” he said after a long moment. “At all.”

“How long before we can be?” I asked. “We already have one church royalty in our ‘care,’” I said.

“Yes, that is a much healthier option,” Axle said, nodding and licking his nose. “If I could steer your sudden surge of aggression in that direction, I would very much like to do so. Our other, ah, issue? It’s nearing an actionable phase, I felt the need to warn you. We may need you home sooner than we had initially thought.”

I sighed and shook my head. “I am sorry, Axle. I never meant for it to get this bad, this fast.”

“Allow me to delay them,” he immediately said. “Please.”

“Of course,” I replied. “The affiliate is essentially yours to run at this point, I just go where I’m needed for killing what we need killed. I am just trying to warn you that these folk are starting to really seem like they need to be killed.”

“Who?” he whispered. “Who besides this inquisitor.”

“The church in general,” I admitted.

“Then we’re okay,” Axle immediately replied. “We can treat the church inspection teams like royalty, which was my original plan. Bribe them, lavish vacation environments at all times, lots of good alcohol, that kind of thing.”

“Sure, that sounds great, but be ready to have BlueCleave kill them at all times, okay?” I asked. “Or call me in with a portal, I think we get a long distance one now. Ordo can fly the Sand Star home.”

“Oh,” he said. “That complicates things. Considerably.”

I frowned. “Why? We have to run security for them, I assume? Big VIP types, right? It would be silly to let pirates or Dearth remnants get them on the way in. We should be escorting them already.”

“Well, you can do that yourself, if you are willing to return with the Sand Star in roughly . . . ” Axle hesitated, looking elsewhere on his device. “Sixteen hours. Otherwise, I do not have a fleet option for you right now. That is a BlueCleave priority, I am sure, but I am just acquisitions for that project. I can find good options, use connections, find resources, but that’s a whole process that’s just getting started. Talk to Rayna. She’s where our process has stalled for the moment.”

“Thank you, Axle. That calm explanation has helped me understand the situation a great deal better. I’m rattled, right now,” I admitted. “This inquisitor guy clearly wants me afraid, and I will refrain from aggression without resources. I know I’m asking a lot of you these days, and I apologize.”

“Honestly,” he said, shaking his snout reassuringly. “Once you get ‘‘em running, a lot of these things run themselves reliably. BlueCleave is expanding well, and we have very few security loopholes on-planet, so far as I can tell. Hobbs are excellent at planetary settlement, and with the construction equipment we’ve managed to get our hands on, we’re expanding at a rate I think you’ll be thrilled with.”

“I’m just making you nervous talking about killing high end church folk,” I said.

He nodded, lips firmly closed. “Succinct,” Axle said.

I nodded. “Well, then thank you for talking me down. I value your counsel and friendship.”

Axle visibly relaxed, and I felt a pang of guilt. More corpo-speak.

“Alright then,” I said. “I am gonna go spend some time with Molls. How many hours for that escort? I’m gonna set an alarm.”

“Sixteen hours,” Axle repeated, as I played with my phone. We paid for the premium, large-scale affiliate bundle for MortMobile, so I got an alarm app that synched directly to my anti-magic helmet nanite swarm. I could set an alarm that woke only me or woke me under specific circumstances.

“Thank you again, Axle. I’ll get out of your hair.”

“Strange saying. You are not a flea, or a tick,” Axle said, shaking his head. “But I actually have something I wanted to talk to you about, in regard to the expansion.”

“Oh,” I replied, eyebrows raised. “What do you need?”

“Rayna and I have a minor conflict of interests. I wanted to bring it to your attention,” Axle replied. “As your operations manager, I mean.”

I nodded. “Hit me.”

“As you know, a great deal of our expansion is focused around arms-manufacturers. With the loss of Industrial-Earth to Kraken, a great deal of Earth-norm factory operations have been craving space, and with the damage done to Nu-Earth, everyone is breaking ground and production specifications are already filtering in,” Axle explained. “As part of our contracts, we receive a portion of weaponry and ammunition produced from each, which I want to sell for extra income. Rayna would like to use it to equip BlueCleave new recruits and street units.”

“Ah,” I said. “Seems a bit unfair to weigh in without talking to Rayna about it first. Can I get back to you on that one?”

“Absolutely,” Axle replied with a nod. The sound of typing began again. “My desire was to inform you of the situation. We need the income,” he noted. “But she has a valid claim to the weapons as well, as part of her percentage of the affiliate.”

“Thank you Axle,” I said. “I will think about it and talk to Rayna.”

He nodded again, and we disconnected the call.

I sighed and shuffled out of my pants, prying off my shoes when they got in the way. While I wasn’t quite certain that Molls mother didn’t have some kind of surveillance system installed, I was past the point of caring. I wanted to get in that shower with my girlfriend.

But instead I called Rayna.

Chapter 10

When her gray slate face filled the camera's screen, I made sure my phone was limited in what it showed her. “Hey, sorry to bother you Rayna, just a quick question. What’s this thing with Axle about? Something about the guns and ammo we’re supposed to get?”

She nodded with a grunt. “Yes. I need them. We have recruitment surge, need to keep incoming troopers armed. Ammunition supplies always low, lately.”

“Axle says he wants them for the income, which it sounds like we could really use. Is there any other way to equip your new recruits?” I asked.

“Not easily,” the hobb said. “Have to buy them direct from company, more expensive. Waste of morties if they giving us some anyway.”

I nodded. “So, the choice is between income, which we desperately need in order to fund a fleet. Or security on our own territory.”

“Yes,” Rayna said. “Many hobbs have answered the call of Nu-Earth. We have tens of thousands of tribes gathering now, millions of hobbs. The largest in BuyMort memory since-” she stalled and scowled.

“Since your namesake,” I replied. “I know. That’s why I need you and Axle both working on this. It’s part of the lure. Everybody else is having employment issues, we’re having a boom.”

I took a breath and thought for a moment. “Alright. Take the guns, but I need an income stream from you. If we have this many people, can we start hiring out through BuyMortMercMart?”

Rayna nodded. “Yes. Starfish troopers will be in high demand. Phyllis already is, we get cut of that.”

“Phyllis is hiring out?” I asked. “She needs to be careful about that, we’re getting church attention.”

Rayna nodded. “She is. Most contracts for church right now, lots of Sleem problems.”

“Oh yeah, Phyllis is perfect for that,” I said, peeking around the corner. Molls’ nude form was obscured by steam and fogged glass, but I got an eyeful of her silhouette. “I have to go, are you all good otherwise?”

Rayna nodded. “I take the incoming guns, we start fielding merc teams. Easy.”

“But our hobbs are not expendable, be careful where you send ‘em,” I said.

“This normal work for hobbs. Without starfish suits we were tough. With them, we come home every time,” Rayna assured me.

I nodded and hung up the phone, tossing it on the bed.

“I’m on my way, I am so sorry,” I said, coming around the corner. As I entered the tall, luxuriously massive shower, I noticed Molls had gotten started without me, and smiled.

Hours later, I awoke to an internal alarm in my helmet nanites. I had set them to pick up any local alarms, as part of my emergency wake-up protocol. After Molls and I had spent some time in the shower, and then had cleaned up to her high standards, we were restricted to cuddling, and quickly fell asleep together.

Molls was highly sensitive to the thought of her family being able to smell what we had done together.

She stirred as I sat up, looking around. A sharp blue light by the door was flashing with a solid click. Molls’ tail twitched with each flash of the bulb, and she quickly awoke as well.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

I shook my head and pointed at the alarm by her door.

She blinked and peered at it, then frowned. “That’s the external proximity alarm. The neighborhood has a security lockdown issued.”

I jumped out of bed. “Ordo is with the Sand Star. We can leave if we have to.”

“Let me see what’s going on. Hang on a moment.”

I hurried into my pants and shoes again, but left the sodden shirt where it hung, along with the jacket. In the Nahga humidity, they would need hours more to dry. Molls approached the wall panel by the door, nude, and covering her eyes from the blinking light. When she arrived, she played with some commands on the panel and turned off the alarm light.

“Ugh, better,” she said, focusing on the panel again. “Oh,” she exclaimed. “There’s a Sleem attack at our gates!”

I shook my head and pulled up my BuyMort screen. The affiliate menu had my benefits laid out, and I chose a free short-range portal, assigning it to the Sand Star’s docking platform. Before I pressed the button, I nodded at Molls. “Get dressed. We need to get your family out of here.”

She gaped at the small screen on the wall. “Yes, we do,” she said in a small voice. Then she turned and slid away, moving to her closet. When she returned, she was wearing her mother’s golden armor, shield active and hard light bow in her hands.

“Go, leave the portal open. I’ll bring them through, but you need to go kill some Sleem,” Molls told me. “They’re breaching the compound, and it looks like neighborhood security is already overwhelmed.

I darted over to her and kissed her, her shield tickling my face. “I love you, Molls. Go with Ordo, get to safety.”

“I love you too, Tyson,” she said with a smile. “And I’ll see you soon.”

I nodded, touched her hand, and then fell backwards through the portal, sliding to a stop in front of the Sand Star. Ordo was already up and moving, and the ship was powered.

“Orbital command giving us trouble,” he said, over the ship’s loudspeakers. “Working on authorization now.”

I nodded and ran aboard. Tollya had prepared a package for me, of weapons and ammunition, armor, and other various things she thought I might need, like fresh pants. I quickly changed into the boots and BlueCleave combat pants she had provided and happily strapped my plasma falchion in place at my hip.

The locker also held a Highwater blaster, and plenty of twelve-gauge ammunition options for me to choose from, each in hanging belts.

I nearly chose the dragon’s breath rounds, but then remembered I was fighting on a giant, flammable, wooden root. Thankfully, Tollya liked to shop, and find deals on things like specialty ammunition for her troopers, of which I was definitely considered one.

The crystalline grenades that did such devastating damage to Sleem came in twelve-gauge slugs too. The slug itself was heavily shielded all around but would rupture the instant it entered a Sleem’s negative pressure environment. The liquid inside even sloshed and crawled across the crystalline shells like the stuff in the grenades.

It reminded me of ferrofluid.

I also grabbed a belt of something labeled ‘coolant shells,’ which Tollya had told me were perfect for stopping Sleem.

The BuyMort Ad described them as Freeze them and store them right on the spot. A powerful shell for bagging prey and dropping enemies. 2500 morties/shell

As I left the ship, I loaded the Highwater with several. Then I took off flying, raising myself to get an aerial view of the neighborhood and what was happening, while my shining chrome helmet deployed across my face.

A mass of Sleem was slumped in the compound's main gates, at the bottom of the hill. It was composed primarily of green slimes, and the poor dumb bastards were frying themselves on the gate's security measures, an electric fence backup to the shield they’d already overwhelmed.

Each house in the neighborhood also had shields active over their fences, and several already had gawking neighbors staring at either me in the air, or the Sleem frying themselves on the fencing at the bottom of the hill.

They were shoving their way through the fence, in an attempt to overwhelm it. As I hovered in the air, I could see sparks flying from a sizable generator near the entrance, and knew the Sleem were about to be successful. I flew in low and shot the mass of green Sleem with a coolant shell.

The mass of green slimes all started screaming at once, as a visibly cold spot formed in their center. Several near the rear of the blob broke away and slimed free down the street. The rest shrilled their teapot death screams and froze in place, cracking and breaking against the petrified wood.

Beyond the gates was a hellscape, a city covered in slime. While we had slept, the Sleem had poured into Vesper City by the millions, oversized blobs of green, orange, and blue rolling through the streets and chasing victims.

There was no centralized warning system, each building was left to its own devices to discover and respond to the threat. Many sapients in Vesper City only got the first warnings that Sleem were attacking when they themselves were consumed.

And after the attack was known, those remaining were quick to capitalize on the situation, as BuyMort Ads swiftly showed me.

The Trains are filled, planes and helicopters are already in the air, and the Sleem are here now! Need to escape? Sign up for Destiny Escape, a temporary taxi affiliate! For the rate of 10,000,000 morties, we will snatch you from the jaws of your doom and evacuate you to the a safe zone established nearby.

Think about your family. Get your Escape today!

I grit my teeth and racked another shell, flying through the air toward a nearby blob of Sleem orbs. With a quickly loaded crystalline slug, I killed that group too. The Sleem that were infected by the spreading black ooze hurriedly separated from those who were not, and the chain reaction was quickly halted.

Still, I managed to clear out about three streets with a single shot.

“Boss!” Ordo appeared behind him, floating unsteadily over. He was unable to stop and scowled as he floated past. Ordo bit his lower lip in concentration and reversed course, floating slowly past me in the air again.

“It takes a while to get used to hovering, Ordo, don’t worry. You’ll get there,” I yelled back at him.

“It’s the whole city, boss!” he yelled back, still drifting in a slow orbit around me. “We have to leave!”

“No,” I shouted. “We get everyone out first!”

“Ship only flies with three, boss!” Ordo yelled back, on his way by.

“Take Molls and her mother!” I replied. “To the spaceport at the top of the cluster, that’s a short trip, and it’ll be safe up there. If it's not, find the nearest safe port and leave them, then come back as fast as you can!”

Ordo whacked his chest and flew away, back toward the gated community. He would tell Molls.

Chapter 11

I focused on the street below, as I saw a Nah’gh woman slither rapidly across a street in the safe space I’d already made. With a jolt of concentration, I followed her, falling rapidly to land behind the fleeing woman.

“Wait!” I yelled. “I’m here to evacuate you!”

She turned and looked at me, but didn’t slow, hurtling straight into a lunging Sleem cube.

“No!” I roared, as I lifted the Highwater blaster. The crystalline slug killed the Sleem immediately, spreading to those Sleem nearby not quick enough to escape when it ruptured.

The Nah’gh woman screamed, the scales all over her body smoking with light blue Sleem ooze. Black spread across the woman’s body, and her scream intensified before cutting out as she slumped. I fell to her side as quickly as the suit would let me, slamming a fist into the fossilized wood out of anger, and a need to recharge.

She was gone, but a nearby scream caught my attention. I pulled out my phone as I fell into the sky and called Axle, pocketing it again once the call was up on my helmet.

He answered almost immediately. “Yeah boss?”

“I’m in the middle of a large scale Sleem attack on Nahga!” I yelled, homing in on the scream I had heard.

The Nah’gh I ran into was a male this time, and I wasted no time in grabbing him in a fireman’s carry before hauling us both skyward. He screamed again, before pausing to jabber something at me in his own language.

“What resources do I have?” I asked, ignoring my passenger.

“We have a single long range portal use, I could bring you and nine other sapients. Or we have some of those clay clones left, we can request an anti-Sleem unit be dispatched to your location,” Axle rattled off. “I can get you a dozen of ‘em, with basic chemical flamethrowers and tasers.”

“They don’t have anything other than flame-throwers?!” I yelled, flying back to the landing pad with my passenger.

“Taser rounds in addition to a taser arm weapon,” he replied.

“Flamethrowers it is, then! I need a perimeter protected, we’re evacuating everyone we can find.”

“Got it boss,” Axle said. “I’ll monitor the situation and report back soon.”

I agreed and hung up the phone.

The Sand Star was already gone, and I set my disoriented passenger down on the landing pad. He quickly slithered off the pad and under cover, where his dark green scales partially hid him from sight. Wouldn’t help against the Sleem, but I understood the instinct.

Maer and her son, Haevert were both at the landing pad, in front of a dozen other people, a mixture of Nah’gh and hobb.

I approached the tall Nah’gh woman, and she reared up, flaring her hood at me.

“Where is Molls?” I asked her.

Maer glared down at me, meeting her own angry expression in the reflection of my helmet. After a second of thought, she relented.

“She went with Gyuru, on the first ship out. Your hobb took them, after rudely attempting to order me around. The upper platform is safe, there are no Sleem at the port,” she growled.

“Good!” I said, my helmet amplifying my voice. “Stay here, my man will return and shuttle you to safety.”

“Ugh,” Maer said. “I’m not leaving my son’s life in your hobb’s hands. Or yours.” She fiddled with her BuyMort menu, and I saw a BuyMort pod in the distance change direction and start heading our way. The pods were different, made with a ring shaped area around the outside of each.

As it traveled, moisture-rich clouds were sucked into the ring and expelled behind it, acting as a form of propulsion, and steering. The sleek pod arrived and provided a beam platform for Maer and a chagrined looking Haevert to slither through. It then closed that beam and flitted to my side, where it beamed in a dozen basic clay robots from the Clonemort facilities.

Each robot was simplistic and crafted from clay hardened into a basic ceramic. That ceramic was molded around each of the robots' spindly metal limbs, themselves poorly smelted iron or aluminum. I had seen one of the thin, wiry bots without its clay on, they looked absurd. Like their limbs would be too rickety and thin to even hold them up.

Actuators and wire muscle strands moved the clay soldier's limbs, dragging scratches and furrows into the ceramic of their bodies. I immediately ordered them all to the gate. Clay clones didn’t move all that fast, about the same speed a drunk could walk a straight line. If it happened too fast, you knew it didn’t happen right, and the ceramic robot would end up on the ground.

Unless of course you sprang for the upgraded versions. Clonemort facilities could make nearly anything you wanted, using a versatile arrangement of parts and cheaply produced clay.

My bots had some advanced targeting capability, as well as limited fuel flame throwers and tasers. The clay robots were somewhat bulkier than the base models, with a battery pack and flame-thrower fuel tank in a side-by-side arrangement embedded in their backs.

One arm ended in a cattle-prod fork, and the other was an open metal nozzle, encased in cracked and scorched ceramic.

The robots were barebones, but they would hold a perimeter if told to, and I didn’t even have to pay for them. Part of our most recent package of level-ups within the BuyMort system. We could order up to a hundred basic package clay clones per week, for free, as a BuyMort perk.

Axle had started using them as free labor right away. They couldn’t be fully trusted to do much beyond simple tasks, but the construction crews we had running all over Nu-Earth loved ‘em. I honestly felt lucky we had any left for my use.

As my clay clunkers started their march down the hill to the frozen hill of Sleem, the gathered civilian presence became vocal. The Shevalanths’ neighbors, as far as I could tell, with their serving staff and guards. There were far more hobbs gathered than Nah’gh. It wasn’t enough of them to be the entire neighborhood, but I assumed some of them had already portalled out, and I was left with those who couldn’t afford an emergency portal of their own.

The price on those had to be skyrocketing, in an attack like the one we faced. Boom market.

“What about us?!” one voice called in Nahga-accented English.

“I’m here to protect you,” I boomed down to them through my helmet. Ordo returned then, hovering in above us in the Sand Star as if proving my point. “The pilot of that craft will help you, two at a time up to the spaceport.”

“Only two!?” A voice from below shrieked. The rest of them spoke and muttered between themselves, and I saw a hurried arrangement of position occur. The few Nah’gh in the gathered crowd pushed their way to the front of the crowd, except the still-dazed civilian I had rescued.

“Look, I don’t have time for this,” I told the gathered crowd. “Ship only takes two, figure it out.”

The Sleem below us had been hesitant to approach the mound of their frozen brethren I had blocking the only entrance to the hill, but that would only last as long as the deadly cold of their bodies did. The sides of the upscale neighborhood’s entrance were all tall mounds of cut wood, much higher than Sleem would bother climbing vertically under normal circumstances.

The melting mound of green oozes, however, they would crawl over without hesitation.

My idiot clay clone robots reached the bottom of the hill and began immediately making the situation worse by opening up with their flamethrowers and further melting the block of dead Sleem. Still, the encroaching globs backed off, retreating over the fence.

I hovered above and launched another coolant shell, creating another mound of frozen Sleem. In the distance, I could see that we would have no shortage of them, the damned things ran thick on the entire strand. In the far distance, I could see a massive, pulsing slug of the stuff inching up the root shaft.

Rivulets and streams of the monsters flowed in the streets below, and it was only a matter of time until the upscale neighborhood was overrun, even without the titanic devourer slug below. I scowled and turned back, putting out fires with my remaining coolant shells.

I pulled my clay clone drones back from the primary entrance, setting them into a short, staggered perimeter that protected the road immediately back from the main gates, where yet more exploratory streams of green oozes were probing for entrance.

With a snarl, I let them come, and worked on my drones. Once they were in place I rose into the sky and reloaded the Highwater blaster with more coolant shells. I ordered my helmet to cast my fairy fire spell on any non-Sleem sapients in the area, up to its maximum range, and while it ran that request, I focused on creating a bigger wall of dead Sleem for my upscale neighborhood and its vulnerable occupants to hide behind.

Fortunately, when in glob form, with dozens or even hundreds of green oozes formed into long walls of deadly slime, the Sleem were dumb as hell. All I had to do to bait them over their fear of the cold, dead corpses of the Sleem who went before them was to land and start shouting.

Predictably, every single time, a tendril of slime would rampage toward me, and crash, frozen, against my gates. I used the suit to hover up and out of harm's reach, allowed the glob to stretch up for me, and then shot them with a coolant shell, creating a new wall of spiky frozen gelatin.

I made a mental note to thank the BlueCleave hobbs for equipping me and reloaded with crystalline grenade slugs. Behind me, the Sand Star started up its engines again and I did a quick head count to discover that I was short two more Nah’gh.

The plan was working, all I had to do was hold off the Sleem while rescuing as many people as I could.

I sighed and pressed the suit, zipping between reaching spikes of frozen Sleem and flying out over the city, toward the nearest fairy fire outline in my helmet.

The idiot device had to pretend that everything it did was magic in nature, but the fairy fire readout came with blood-pressure and heartbeat readings, so I knew what it was. Sleem were everywhere, the streets I had earlier enjoyed from the back of a hover sled were gutted. Covered in thin, or thick patches of Sleem ooze. As I flew overhead, several smaller green oozes reached up for me, and I was reminded of my first day of BuyMort.

I blasted them with the crystalline grenade and nodded grimly when the entire street started a chain reaction of death for the Sleem. The small amount of black fluid rapidly grew, changing the green and blue colors to an inky shimmer before erupting and throwing itself as far as it could in every direction.

And then I soared off, searching for my next rescue.

Chapter 12

My second rescue of the evening was a wealthy couple that had been at a nearby hotel. When I flew them to the landing pad, they lined up in front of the hobbs as if such a thing was perfectly natural. The hobbs even made space for them to do it.

I scowled, but a scream in the distance drew me away. While I worked to find and rescue people nearby, Ordo ferried them up the root cluster to the spaceport at the top. Nobody was allowed to bring any items, but it appeared as though many of the houses had the ability to physically seal shut, with thick barricades covering any potential ports of ingress.

The next person I rescued was another wealthy Nah’gh, and I started to sense a pattern. Most of the people who had escaped the first wave of Sleem crashing through their neighborhoods had hidden in upstairs areas.

Most of the buildings with second floors were owned by wealthy citizens of Vesper City.

Sleem, in their rush to consume as many people as possible, had not bothered being thorough on their first pass, and many survivors were left behind.

Many oozes, cubes, and orbs still patrolled the area, waiting in ambush zones for unsuspecting victims. I flew my latest rescue high, to stay out of danger’s way, and dropped him off at the landing pad. When he moved to get in front of the gathered hobbs I turned on my Booming Voice ability and shouted, “alright, stop!”

The entire group stared up at me, so I continued. “If you’re going to shove your way in front of them, you’re going to at least pay them for the pleasure. Ten thousand Morties each is the going rate, enforced by me. Don’t let me catch you trying to rip them off. If you don’t wanna pay, back of the line.”

A gasp drew from the crowd, and I couldn’t tell if it was hobb or Nah’gh, but I didn’t care.

“The line is the line, you’ll all get out, and I’ll make sure of it!” I yelled, turning to fly away.

As I flew, I realized I was doing this backwards, and flew for the furthest fairy fire hit on my helmet’s map, instead of the nearest. That act led me to a room filled with hobbs wearing uniforms. They had sealed the door shut with fire suppressant foam, and eight of them had survived.

I flew them back and forth as quickly as I was able, and the Sand Star came and went while I did. The hobbs were still at the back of the group, but each of them seemed happy about it, and happily informed any new arrival Nah’gh of the policy in place. The amount, while far less than a portal out, was low enough to the rich assholes that they’d pay it, and I had made sure we were in no real danger with my ice wall.

Any globs were stopped by it, and any individual Sleem that slipped by it were dealt with by my clay clone robots.

As the minutes stretched into hours, the mountainous fangs of my frozen Sleem wall began to droop, and melt. I tried firing more coolant shells at it, and while they helped, it was a very small reaction compared to the full liquid body of the Sleem it had frozen in place before.

Near the bottom of the city, the massive devourer slug inched closer, its red bulk vibrant and glistening in the starlight.

I was distracted and flew beneath an arched building, inviting a Sleem cube to drop on me from above and slurp me into its body. I sighed inside the mask, annoyed as I felt the tickle of its acid working at my skin. With the stoneskin enhancement, it was barely a nuisance.

With a nudge of concentration, I felt that I could easily escape the Sleem cube’s grip with my gravitic drive, but I wanted it dead. So I carefully reached for my plasma falchion instead.

The cube fought me, but I easily overpowered it, igniting the blade and stepping out of the slick that formed from its body as the cube emitted a teapot death scream. With a quick shake, I slung as much of the glop from my body as possible and flew high into the sky.

I pushed the gravitic drive and ripped the Sleem sauce from my body with a jolt of rapid movement, before turning back to rescue more people. The clay clones started to become useful, as the more agile cubes started climbing through our defenses in number.

They protected one another with their cattle-prod arms, and eliminated the Sleem with judicious amounts of cheap napalm.

Fortunately, the wood beneath us didn’t catch easily, so I was able to put out any errant flames easily with a hand-loaded shell from the coolant bandoleer. The crowd of hobbs had grown, and most of them were feeling the gamblers rush of taking one more bet that I would keep them safe longer.

Every time a new Nah’gh came in, they either paid each hobb to let them cut, or got in the line at the back.

Ordo seemed to let the line do its own thing, not even getting out of the ship any longer. He just landed, took two on board, then took off again, even flying with the boarding ramp still retracting at one point.

Meanwhile, I kept burning through my bandoleers of ammunition fending off the Sleem and running my rescue operations. The city was entirely flooded, and most everybody who could portal out already had. Even though the spaceport at the top of our root cluster was close, the mass exodus of people taking portals had created a small frenzy of the local market, which BuyMort automated.

Each portal up cost more and more, until the fees were well in the tens of millions range. They would decline slowly, as activity stalled in the area over the next few days.

When the giant slug got closer, actually encroaching on the far lower side of the shelved city, most of the remaining fairy fire outlines in that area were snuffed out. Buildings were crushed and drowned in caustic slime.

Pods began to arrive, as hundreds more made the choice to jump out to Storage, the only place you could portal to for free. I hoped BlueCleave recruiters would pick them up, Storage was a dangerous place.

Though, as I watched the giant slug inch forward across the city, I realized I wasn’t exactly in a safe place either, in spite of the wealth that had clearly built it.

I changed tactics, going on the offensive. While flying high above the bulbous slug of mobile Sleem, I shot it with a crystalline slug.

A chunk of the upper bulk of the slug shuddered and tore free, falling to the side with a heavy splash as the massive beast heaved its bulk in the opposite direction, still sloughing material as it went. The orb of black liquid inside the rejected portion of Sleem expanded rapidly for a few seconds, eating away the gelatinous flesh and bursting in boils of steaming black slop, but it wasn’t fast enough to get the entire slug.

I frowned and reloaded, still high above the land-locked Sleem. Then I held the high tech sawed off shotgun at my waist and started flying over the beast, slam-firing it as I went.

Seven rounds of the crystalline goo went into the massive chunk of Sleem, and it immediately began to de-solidify in response. Millions of gallons of sentient ooze flooded through the streets, as gargantuan chunks started to fall off the slug.

It was a gathering of individual sapient creatures, but it was an individual as well, and the rush to self-preservation was contained for the sake of the greater mass. Nearly the entire back of the slug started to turn black and swell with great lesions that rained more toxicity to the Sleem below.

I hurriedly reloaded with coolant shells and started working to cut off the bulk of the Sleem’s escape below, by freezing large chunks of its escaping body and blocking off pathways. Town centers filled with pooling, dying, and frozen Sleem, and I worked to ensure that as much of it died as I could. The few shells that remained on my belts when I finished my battle against the titanic slug I saved for the defense of my base.

At the bottom of the root strand Vesper City was built into, three more giant amalgamations of Sleem rose from the ruins and swamp below, beginning their own trek upward. The first had carved a furrow in the root’s surface, and the new slugs moved to follow its path.

I sighed and turned to flee, grabbing a few people from what little was left of the attack’s survivors. Once back at the high-end-living hill, I used what remained of my advanced ammunition to back up my clay clones and keep the ever-present push of Sleem off of the people in my protection.

Ordo continued his work, piloting the ship with growing efficiency and ferrying the small handful we could rescue up to the top of the root cluster, far overhead in the clouds. While I watched, a small fleet of ships similar to the one that had escorted us started doing battle with the oversized Sleem below.

They dropped great firebombs that scorched the base of the roots and destroyed entire portions of the ancient ruins below. Black clouds began to billow up and obscure the action as the last of the hobbs boarded the Sand Star to be evacuated, and I turned to leave with them, recalling the clay clones with a quick command to BuyMort.

They were worth morties if returned, after all. It would be a waste to leave them behind. The thought caused me to scowl, and I turned to face the city.

“BuyMort,” I said. “I want to sell all the Sleem corpses in Vesper City.”

A pod zipped past my shoulder, on its way to obey my command. There was something to be said for being the last man standing in a city of the dead. It paid well, at the very least.

Chapter 13

An hour later I met with Molls and her family. They were clustered together within a mob of other Nah'gh, some in ragged or shabby clothing, and the look on Molls' mother's face suggested that she did not feel it appropriate to be sharing space with such riff-raff. The refugee area itself was packed to the brim—it looked to be a small duty-free mall, though the alien standards of the place made that designation a bit uncertain. There were sparkling full-lipped mannequins on display wearing the newest and latest Nag’gh fashions, at any rate.

The space was just barely enough.

But it was apparently free, I noted, as I approved a tremendously rare BuyMort notification that promised 0 morties an hour to stay there. Along with it was a large write-up that resembled an ad in format, but more resembled the dictate of a self-aggrandizing dictator.

It is with tremendous magnanimity and generosity in heart that I, Nerod the Holy, give onto all of the unfortunate people of Vesper City access to the magnificent halls of my spaceport. Port services will remain open to all during this great time of need, with employees volunteering their services around the clock to meet all of your many needs.

Please, friend, enter our gates and be at ease. Your survival and comfort are our concern. Rest and be at ease.

*Other fees may apply. Contact Specter Aerospace Service Affiliated for details. Due to the current volume of communications, expect 4 - 7 days for reply.

Namaste!

Gross. Very hip of him to use Nu-Earth slang, which was everywhere in the greater BuyMort system.

The mall was nestled into the wing of a massive spaceport, and already new arrivals were shuffling through a queue into the place. I stared and marveled. The port was a staggered series of oversized domes, spread out across the top of the root cluster itself, all of them gleaming finely in the sunlight. Almost blindingly so, I realized after a second, averting my gaze.

The spaceport housed dozens of landing pads of various sizes, and plenty of waiting rooms. The few hundred who had survived the surprise ambush on Vesper City were gathering in one of the unused terminals, spread out among thousands of empty chairs in small clusters, self-separated by species. Nah’gh gathered with Nah’gh and hobb gathered with hobb, only mingling as guards or employees.

I realized as I watched the gathered throngs that it was not race, or even species that separated the survivors.

It was wealth.

The only hobbs among the Nah’gh wore uniforms or carried weapons.

The Nah’gh were primarily gathered around screens, waving at BuyMort ads and tracking down their next place of residence. The groups of hobbs were primarily talking.

After cursory hellos and greetings, Molls, her family, and I worked our way through the queue, affirming a BuyMort contract that noted we were entering into the facility and recognized the BuyMort Block sovereignty of its owner. And his rules.

I’d wanted to read it through, but the way Molls and her family looked at me, I knew it was best to sign and move on. Whatever nonsense this business bro was going to pull, they were willing to pay for it to just get down with it all.

And, to be honest, I was exhausted.

I’d managed to mostly save Nah’gh, down in Vesper City. The odds were slanted in their favor, but not through my actions. Nah’gh were the primary property owners in Vesper City by a whopping ninety-eight percent. Hobbs, on the other hand, made up the vast majority of the city’s workforce.

Bellhops, valets, serving staff, security staff, artisan bakers. Hobbs and Nah’gh had lived in the city as its primary species, but hobbs had been the people up before dawn, making sure the lamps were lit, and the roads clear to hover over. They also didn’t generally own buildings with second stories.

Tens of thousands had died, while a smattering of a few thousand survived. My group had been one of the largest.

I could feel the bags in my eyes get heavier as I thought it all over. It pissed me off. There was so much wealth on this planet and in this city. So many people should have been helping. The death counts didn’t need to be this high.

Church TV was on one of the big overhead screens, detailing what had happened while aerial footage explored the damage to the root. I stared up at the screen, dully absorbing the information, noticing the smattering of private shuttles still tearing out from various estates and mansions. Some wriggled noticeably under the weight of their belongings despite the power of their fusion engines.

And one shuttle faltered, cracking open like an egg as a hidden Sleem consumed the interior and flexed its way back to open air.

I shook my head, making a note to make sure to tell everyone at Silken Sands to check under their seats before takeoff.

The giant devourer slugs were still advancing, minus the one I’d killed. Church TV had been sure to mention my involvement, but pitched it as church involvement, rescuing civilians and punishing the Sleem. There was even a film segment of me swinging through a mess of light branches and seizing a small bawling hobb child from the top of the shaky lean-to on which his parents had placed him. The metal skirts and plates that composed the home collapsed moments later under the sheer burbling weight of the Sleem assault.

BuyMort be praised, a paid ad told us all, popping into our heads just as the child was lifted into the air.

Right.

As I watched, a chyron crawled across the bottom of the screen in the Nah’gh language, an evocative hieroglyphic language. I couldn’t understand the hosts, or read the language, but Molls translated for me, and I got an idea of what had happened.

She told me the chyron read; ‘Sleem infestation on Nah’gh homeworld?’

The Sleem had gathered in semi-secret, possibly over the course of years. Millions of them had flocked to the lower swamplands on Nahga, taking up a lurking residence in the ruins and breeding. Several ground-level affiliates had complained over the years, filing requests for action with the local planetary owners, but the response had always been lackluster.

They preferred to respond to individual acts of aggression from the Sleem, focusing on restoring function to profitable affiliates and ignoring the greater problem of the Sleem infestation at large. Nobody expected it to become the size it was, but nobody was really paying attention to it in any serious way either.

At least, nobody who had the resources to do anything about it.

So Nahga rotted from the surface, an ocean of hungry caustic slime growing beneath its people’s feet. The attack on Vesper City had been internal. A devourer slug had slowly burrowed up through the interior structure of the root, eating away at the massive amounts of wood little by little, until it sensed the activity on the surface.

Like a drumu-moth to a flame, the Sleem had risen, bubbling up through Vesper City’s lower infrastructure. Consuming the city from the ground up, all at once.

As I watched on the screen, a church battle-citadel in orbit fired its cleanser laser battery, punching a hole in the clouds and severing the root just above Vesper City. The brilliant red beam boiled the swamp below, as billions of tons of hardwood thundered down from above.

A camera drone focused in on the devourer slug, cut in half inside the root. It was still burning from the intense heat of the battle-platforms laser battery and dripping out of the hole in the root.

Another brilliant red beam filled the screens, and the root beneath my feet vibrated lightly with the distant effect. I glanced up to see the massive beam in real life, instead of on the screen, as it sliced the root structure again, ensuring the Sleem were purged from it, and safeguarding the upper root structure and the logistically important spaceport saddled across its top.

My attention focused on the news anchors. Both Nah’gh, both attractive and well groomed, excited, eager to report the devastating news of the day. They were woefully out of place, exactly the wrong people to tell the worlds listening to them about what had happened.

I sighed and we all moved inward to join a group of milling, well-dressed Nah’gh. I needed a break from all of this. A leak, then maybe a sandwich. Something smooth to drink that wouldn’t put me on my ass, or set back my sobriety.

“Molls, I’ll be right back. I have to go, uhh . . .” I told her, frowning as I tried to think of something to say in front of her parents. She nodded and raised a hand to ward me off, well understanding after a month of living with me. I gave a brief nod to her parents and set off into the throughway, a clinical mix of shining marble flooring, metallo-plastic alloys, and rubber walk-treads.

Felt so much like old life. Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. It was strange how similar our various peoples were when it came to commerce. I took a guess, jogged ahead, and found the bathroom exactly where I expected it to be.

And that is where the similarities ended.

A sparking field blocked the entrance to the facilities. It sparked and buzzed, reminding me of the old channels of loud static that existed before cable and satellite took over. It was just transparent enough to taunt me with the offering of a nice, refreshing pee followed by a gentle soaping of my hands.

Hello prospective bathroom customer! Thank you for choosing Specter Aerospace Service Affiliated for your sanitary needs. May we interest you in first class accommodations?

“What in the living hell?” I asked aloud, shaking my head. It wasn’t a Pastafari saying, sure, but it fit the situation better than anything else I could think of. “I just want to piss,” I said, staring longingly at the facilities behind the forcefield.

Common area commodes and urine disposal units are available. But due to current demand, prices have been raised 3 times in the last hour. Given your present elimination need, a bathroom pass may be purchased for 35,000 morties.

I frowned, but paid. Avoiding the cost wasn’t worth a public incident. Using the luxury restroom was much like using a normal restroom, except I pissed on marble instead of ceramic. They had a trough for general projectile urination, and even the grate was gold plated.

It was time to get in touch with Axle anyways. I sent him a series of messages while I walked back, telling him to get in touch with our people in Storage. We were looking for the survivors, to help them.

I figured very few others were.

The church had gotten involved at the request of planetary ownership with their local battle-citadel, an oversized weapons-platform ship that was closer in size to a space station. The screens filled with its various spires, as the massive ship swung away into higher orbit.

I got back to my group, and weighed my next moves carefully. I was going to have to help Molls, and her family. She and I had talked briefly, and both decided to offer them a place in Prescott. It wasn’t exactly ideal having her mother that close, she said, but it was important to her that they were safe.

Her father balked at the offer. He was in an apparent foul mood at having temporarily lost his beloved collection.

“What? Nonsense! Relocating here is well within our family budget, and besides, I cannot imagine raising Haevert out on the frontier,” Gyuru rumbled. He was cranky from a lack of sleep, in spite of the temporary tent and inflatable lounge chair he’d had set up. It separated him from even his wealthy neighbors and peers.

Maer grimaced and produced a pill from a hidden pocket in her dress. Her eyes narrowed when she noticed me watching, and I averted my gaze so she could swallow it in peace.

“My only concern is with your gift!” Gyuru suddenly added. “My collection, I only got to enjoy it for a few hours. I’m eager to retrieve my home and its contents.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” I told him. “But I’m afraid the church carved away that portion of the root strand. Everything is lost below.”

“Oh more nonsense,” he grumbled, waving a claw at me. “You would be right, if I weren’t a smart shopper,” he said. “But I’ve had the entire building insured, of course. It can all be retrieved easily enough.”

“Insured?” I asked. It was the first time I’d heard of insurance within BuyMort and given what I already knew about MortBlocks and the way BuyMort treated personal property, I had my doubts at insurance as I understood it being a successful business model.

“Yes, of course. It was part of the original architecture of the place,” Gyuru said. “The entire room is saturated with a quick solidifying gas from dispensers built into the walls and ceiling, it alters the interior to a spongy solid once it sets. Thus ensuring none of my trophies are harmed. Only I have the dissolving formula, it was included in my realty package years ago. I’ll just hire someone to run down and fetch it for me once we find a new residence.”

Never Gone Insurance Affiliated

ORIGINAL

Premium Class Preservation and Protection of all that you hold dear.

Non-acidic and quite binding. Pelepan Gas can preserve your items, pets and loved ones with ease! Guaranteed safe for everything caught within, Pelepan will harden in an instant, creating a solid super-hardened space impenetrable to all but the most powerful of precision cutting weapons.

And if it doesn’t, we will reimburse you for everything that is damaged or lost!

Pelepan — if it’s worth keeping, it’s worth protecting.

5,000,000 morties per square foot, 4.9 stars

I brushed away the ad, impressed, while Maer smiled gently at her husband and nodded stiffly. “It’s like an adventure, finding a new residence. I do so enjoy when the right one clicks,” she told him, voice flat and gaze distant. I noticed Haevert behind her, watching the interaction closely, with concern obvious in his expression.

“But it will be here, on Nahga,” Gyuru affirmed.

I nodded. “I understand, this is your home. I won’t press the issue, just let me know if Silken Sands can help,” I told them.

Maer glared at me, her head whipping around. Then her expression changed, while I watched. She got herself under control and politely smiled, approaching me with her hands clasped in front of her.

“I must apologize, warlord,” she said, her voice carefully controlled and steady. “I welcomed you into an unsafe home.”

I frowned. “You couldn’t have predicted a city-wide Sleem attack.”

“Oh but I should have,” Maer wheedled, staring at me. “Sleem have long been known to nest in our swamps. I should have simply taken the planet over to protect us from them. Killed them all outright.”

I raised my eyebrows once and snorted a laugh. “Amusing. Don’t tempt me though, I might,” I replied, my lips raised in a toothy smile. “It’s a nice planet.”

Molls grasped at my elbow and pulled me away from her mother, as the older Nah’gh woman held perfectly still and stared daggers at me. I was tempted to wink at her, but refrained, for Molls’ sake. Gyuru chuckled lightly behind his wife.

“When can we go home?” Molls hissed at me, once we were far enough away from her family.

I glanced back. “Aren’t you worried about them?” I asked. “They’re suddenly homeless, and all of their stuff is lost in the swamp below, probably covered in Sleem.”

Molls rolled her eyes. “They’re fine, trust me. Moving is not exactly uncommon here, and they’ll have their stuff back by the end of the day.”

I shook my head. “I still don’t understand how, but sure. The Sand Star is expected to escort a church delegation from the Sol ring in like twelve hours, I was going to have to leave early this morning anyway. Sorry,” I finished, hanging my head. “I meant to tell you, I just didn’t want to ruin the moment.”

“No, that is perfect,” Molls said, pulling me further across the terminal. “Let’s get out of here, as soon as possible. I want to go home,” she said, looking me in the eyes. Her scales were yellow and had been since the attack. I was getting worried she was going to form a permanent ring.

“Of course, Molls,” I said, gently taking her hand. “I’ll take us home. But you have to go back and tell your folks, if we’re running out on them.”

Molls flushed purple, and I sighed in relief. “Trust me,” she said, rolling her eyes. “They do not want your help. Let’s get the hell out of here, before I have to go house shopping with my mother.” She let go of my elbow and turned back to talk to her parents, while I summoned my anti-magic helmet and called Axle.

Chapter 14

The Knowle picked up on the first ring, his phone propped up on a desk in his library, where he ran most of the planet for me. The first time I had seen him, he had beads in his hair and a froth of sweat on his chest from running. Now he wore his hair short, cropped close and easy to maintain.

His clothing was disguised armor and looked tailored to command a boardroom with. It would stop most kinetic, bladed, or energy based weaponry, had cost us a small fortune, and was the closest thing to a compromise I could come to with him, in regard to his personal security.

We both hated it, so that was something it had going for it. He wouldn’t wear anywhere near the level of protection I wanted him to, but it was something.

“What is our Sleem situation like, for the record?” I asked him.

Axle sighed and looked over at me. “Are you talking about our Sleem farm, or the general state of Sleem on Nu-Earth?”

“Um,” I said.

“Both,” he cut in. “I’ll just tell you about both. Honestly, the Sleem farm is small morties. It’s healthy, undisturbed since we patched it up. No trouble from them. The global state is also fine, really. Not much to report.”

I hesitated, blinking. “Well, what’s the ‘not much’ part?”

The Knowle glanced over at me and cleared his throat. “There is some limited, known Sleem activity on Nu-Earth, as there is on most any planet. I do not think we have anything approaching a crisis in any location, but I could send out closer image requests to the elevator station.”

I searched for the right way to word my question and didn’t speak, as Axle stared at me for a long moment.

“You want to know more about the Sleem activity, don’t you?” he said, the question not really a question.

“Yeah,” I replied, nodding. “I’m sorry, if you say some Sleem is normal, I’ll accept that, but you didn’t see what happened here tonight. I am deeply concerned at the way it’s being responded to and treated, by both the local population and authorities.”

“What do you mean?” he asked me, his interest growing.

“Just, really the sheer number of them,” I said. “There was so many Sleem. Everywhere I went, everywhere I could see, the city was dripping. Dripping, Axle.” I blinked and paused, thinking about the night before. “I killed this giant slug made of them, it took most of my ammo, and then two more popped up right behind it like nothing. There were . . . trillions.”

Axle nodded as I spoke, and steepled his claws. “Are we going to chase down every Sleem on Nu-Earth personally?”

My brow furrowed. “I’m just trying to understand my situation. This is considered a home world, and they just lost a whole city.”

Axle turned back to his screen and started typing. “Vesper City was a tourist trap,” he said. “We run a classier joint by far. Honestly boss, most everything we have is at construction phase right now, with people incoming. Some Sleem will come with them too, it’s a normal part of security screening. We still catch at least one trying to use the elevator once a month. A few job sites have reported issues with Sleem, but it's being handled by on-site security. Same with in-city stuff, BlueCleave patrol handles the Sleem that pop up from dream storms or accidental purchases.”

“And we don’t have any giant lakes of them just hanging out and growing,” I asked. “Like a sore, a festering wound on the planet that may just ooze over all of us?”

Axle chuckled and nodded. “Yes, I am reasonably sure we do not. There’s a thing in the Colorado mountains, but it seems minor at first glance. A lot of land shifted loose because of Kraken, and the underground areas are all broken up and difficult to read with any kind of depth.”

“How can we improve that situation,” I immediately asked him.

“What situation?” he asked, brows furrowed in confusion.

“Not being able to read much of the underground,” I said. “The crust? I want to know what’s going on with the planet.”

Axle’s mechanical eyes cycled open as he chuckled and reached for a file from his desk. “How much do you wanna know? That actually reminds me, we still need to pick some of these benefits from the recent mergers and partnerships we’ve formed. One of the affiliates that wants to set up shop within our borders is offering a satellite as part of their down payment.”

“Oh, cheeze, cool. What are they wanting from us?” I asked.

“Australia,” Axle said.

I frowned. “We gave away Australia?”

“Yes and no,” he replied, as he so often did. “Australia and New Zealand are home to a handful of affiliates and survivors who refused to resettle. Our ability to invest in their infrastructures and settlements is limited, so outside affiliates looking for local workforces are offering to set up shop, build cities around their factories, and start producing goods at scale for multiversal markets. We can help the local population simply through competent management of affiliate growth.”

“Oh,” I said. “What’s this new subsidiary do and what is it called?”

Axle plipped the Affiliate page towards me. Boing Aerospace Rocket Satellite Commercial Space Service Affiliated. Need someone spacy? Give us a ring. Geosynchronous, High orbit, Middle Orbit, Low Orbit, flying through the air in a circle around your house? We can do it. Free 7-37 personal aircraft with first purchase of a billion or more morties.

My eyes widened, amazed at the strange attitude adopted by incredibly long named company. Axle nodded.

“Yeah. My impression is that they were founded by creative oddballs and eventually taken over by a military affiliate. They’re into satellites, luxury spacecraft, general aerospace engineering. Our planet’s atmosphere and Australia’s climate are desirable territories,” he said. “Their affiliate was initially established in Australia on Industrial Earth and are part of the wave of displaced affiliates we’re absorbing.”

“Okay, wow,” I replied. “We’ll have to keep an eye on them.”

He nodded casually. “Yes, of course. But back to your Sleem concern? We can get a new satellite, one specifically designed to help us look for Sleem infestations in the planet’s crust.”

“You keep making me sad and then making me happy, Axle,” I told him. “That sounds great, what’s the catch?”

“No catch, it just answers the question of what kind of satellite we should ask for,” he said. “The affiliate had a brochure, I was planning to show you options. But anti-Sleem is big business, so there’s an option right on the front page, very attractive model.”

“Oh,” I said. “Now you made me sad again, what were the other options?”

“All kinds of things,” Axle replied, his claws moving over his keyboard again. “Weapons platforms, orbital staging facilities, high orbit luxury living for two, as well as a full suite of information-operation designs. Value of five-hundred million morties or so, but you can negotiate for extras in some cases.”

“Like the luxury apartment?” I asked.

“Yes, though I didn’t think you would be particularly interested in that one,” he chuckled.

“You’d be surprised. Keep the brochure,” I told him. “I have to go, Molls is coming, and we’re heading home. I’ll be back to escort the church delegation in.”

“Excellent, thank you. That, plus the indulgences I assume you’ll authorize, will pave the way for smooth relations,” Axle replied.

“No MortBlock holdings though,” I added. Molls slithered up to my side and hooked her arm into mine, tugging me lightly in the direction of our landing bay.

“No MortBlock holdings,” Axle confirmed. “Don’t worry boss, we’re of the same mind on this stuff. We need to butter these guys up but avoid letting them take root. They’ve got inspections to manage, and we’ll run them through those while we show them a good time on the frontier, and then send them on their way.”

“Okay, thank you Axle,” I said, breathing a little easier. He nodded and we disconnected, before I turned my attention to Molls.

“You are pulling me, so I assume I don’t have to go say fancy goodbyes or anything?” I asked her, keeping the helmet in place.

“No, thankfully we do not. Mother is already getting started. She’ll make them a new home, it’s what she does now,” Molls growled. “I cannot wait to get back to my beautiful, freezing desert.”

“It misses you too,” I said, softly.

She smiled and leaned against me a bit harder, extending back to her full height as we got further and further away from her family.

“Did you get Kraken’s corpse cleaned up at least? I want to go back to Mexico,” she whined.

“Uhhh, we’re actually eating that, right now,” I said, grimacing.

Molls burst out laughing. “You are not.”

“Oh yeah,” I replied. “Lot of mouths to feed, that’s good calamari. BlueCleave checked the rates, and we sold a few tons of it to interested parties, but the market fell through almost immediately. There’s nothing special about Kraken, it was just a really big squid that had absorbed a whole bunch of minds.”

Molls gaped. “What?”

I nodded with a shrug. “It was just a squid. Hobbs love fried calamari. There’s no market for it anywhere else, and we’re excavating as fast as we can to get its tech dug out, so the meat is just going to go to waste otherwise. We’re also using some to set up new yarsp hives all over the world. Axle’s idea.”

My alien snake-lover’s laughter filled my ears as we exited the dome, into the already oppressive early morning air of Nahga. I swear I could still smell the Sleem, and clouds of black smoke rose from the fallen root structure.

“Still. Eating the number nine affiliate in all of BuyMort,” Molls said. “It draws unkind comparisons, my love. For the affiliate.”

I nodded. “Yeah, it’s not tasty either, I don’t see the appeal.”

“Tyson!” Molls shrilled. “You didn’t! You who wouldn’t even take drumu dust in your coffee.”

I chuckled from inside the helmet. We were in public, so I wanted to keep my facial exposure limited. The shining silver head was part of the public profile anyway, as was the conda arm-candy, according to the paparazzi. Axle was still working on convincing me to let them live after that headline.

The walkway between the terminal dome and our landing pad was partially covered, and the local flora swayed at us with the wind. A near constant pattering of rain came from the thick clouds that engulfed the port.

“It was okay,” I finally said. “Not great or anything though. I’m sure we’ll have plenty left if you want to try some. Ridiculous amount of ink too. No idea what the hell to do with all that.”

We half ran, half walked up the boarding ramp to the Sand Star, before climbing aboard. Ordo lifted the landing ramp behind us, and I immediately turned and dropped my helmet, allowing the nanite swarm to recede into my pores.

Chapter 15

The ramp led up into the circular central area of the Sand Star, where doorways could be opened to reach the other areas. All I cared about was the bridge, which sat central on the far side of the round walkway from the entrance. We needed to get in the gravity couches on the bridge and get moving.

I stopped and looked at Molls. She was trailing a finger along the wall as she slithered, and I paused to do the same. The wall of the ship vibrated faintly, feeling rough and wild, like an animal eager to pounce.

“Oh shit, you don’t have a gravity harness. That was almost bad,” I said. “Ordo, hold fire on that liftoff sequence.”

Molls cocked her head at me and frowned. “What does your implant have to do with our takeoff? I thought we were going home?”

“We are, Molls, don’t worry. There’s a safety concern with the ship, we just have to make sure of something really quick,” I told her as we moved up to the main cabin. “The ship was designed to work with the starfish suits.”

It smelled like sweat and fear in the cabin, and Molls rankled as she tasted the air.

“Ship, activate air freshener,” I said, hoping it had one. Almost immediately the air sweetened, and I felt a fan kick on somewhere. “No offense, Ordo.”

The stoic hobb shrugged, secure in the central flight seat. During maneuvers, the bridge was the only safe place to be on the ship, if you had a cellular complexity higher than that of a houseplant. The gravitic couches scattered around the vessel were for cargo, or to sync with a starfish gravity harness. But the chairs in the cabin could provide limited protection from inertial changes for even those without a starfish suit.

The question was how much.

I got Molls situated in one of the copilot seats, after disabling the weaponry controls at her station. She looked around with wide, excited eyes, taking in the white and orange interior, and touching at the fabric of her restraints as I buckled her in.

She smiled at me from the chair, harness wrapped around her chest, abdomen, and upper tail. There was some overlap with her long tail, but Molls smiled and assured me it would be alright.

I thought of the velocities we traveled at and grimaced. “Ship, what is our maximum safe velocity with current passenger load?”

The ship’s screen flickered and provided a number. It was in the kilometers per second language I hadn’t quite gotten the hang of yet, so I scowled and shook my head. “Time to Nagha Prime gate?”

The screen flickered again and gave me another set of numbers.

Thirty-four hours flight time.

I sighed and looked at Molls. “Hey, you don’t happen to want to fly, do you?” I asked her.

My girlfriend looked at me, eyes narrowed with obvious concern. “What do you mean?” she asked in reply.

I sighed and shook my head. “It’s the ship. I can’t take you home at the speed I need to travel in order to make our church escort.”

She scowled. “Why on Nu-Earth not?” she asked, incredulous.

“This ship moves insanely fast. It also doesn’t appear to have any inertia altering technology aside from the gravity couches that are not safe for living cargo, beyond the complexity of a plant,” I told her. “Without a starfish suit like Ordo and I are wearing, with the gravity harness upgrade, you’d be killed by your own blood pressure.”

Molls blanched, and her hands moved to the harness release. “Well, that’s not exactly ideal,” she muttered, blinking rapidly.

“We can portal you home,” I said. “We’d just have to separate again, for a while. I have to fly this escort.”

Molls nodded and undid her harness. Then, as she was climbing down from the seat, she paused and looked at me, frowning in uncertainty. “But what did you mean about me flying?”

I took a deep breath and raised an eyebrow at her. “I was mostly joking. But if, and that’s if, you decided to get that enhancement, it would provide you with control over your own gravity. You can fall in any direction you want to, which, once you get used to it, means you can fly.”

Molls blinked rapidly and flicked her tongue out. “I’m not opposed,” she said quietly.

I frowned. “I mean, we can afford to get you equipped, but this is . . . Molls this is cybernetic enhancement, with a relic. You can’t go to the church with a relic, they’ll want to dissect you.”

She shrugged and frowned back. “Just because I don’t have any enhancements doesn’t mean I never wanted any. And flying sounds . . . well, it sounds like flying, what Nah’gh wouldn’t want to fly?”

“What about the church?” I asked.

Molls shook her head. “I don’t know what to think anymore, after meeting inquisitor Elegy last night. The stories I have heard of the inquisitors make me wonder if any of what I know is true.”

I reached out a hand, and she happily took it, a smile twitching back in place. “But the church will not take me from your side, Tyson Dawes,” she said. “Relic or no, I am with Silken Sands, and I am with you.”

Ordo cleared his throat. “Sorry, dock requesting payment clearance again,” he grunted, turning away in his seat.

“Oh for-” I said, cutting myself off before cursing at them. I pulled up my BuyMort page.

Spectre Aerospace Service requests 100,000 morties for the next 15 minutes of docking in this area. Note that due to increased traffic in this area, prices will continue to rise until supply meets demand.

Namaste!

I approved the most recent payment request, since there wasn’t anything else I could do about it. What was I going to do? Dock somewhere else?

Further down I saw more charges and paid them, despite the tides of rising anger charging forcefully up my chest. The luxury living affiliate, now crashed down into the swamps below, had charged us for dozens of take-offs and landings, as well as dock time, and a laughable site clean-up fee, with gentle chiding for scuffing their landing platform. The total was well in excess of three hundred million morties.

With a heavy sigh, I shook my head and paid it, before leaving them a quick and simple three star review. The single word review had my shining chrome helmet beside it, and simply read; ‘mediocre.’

When I turned back to face Molls, her face had changed. Her scales were full of purple, and she nodded at me. “I want a starfish suit. It’s not like I’ve never considered augmentation,” Molls said. “And besides, it would help me do my job while staying safe.”

I raised an eyebrow and looked her in the eyes. “Are you sure, Molls? You can’t go back from this, I don’t know that the suits can be removed. Besides, it might hurt when it installs.”

She shook her head. “I’ve heard your hobbs talking, I’m not worried. Besides,” she said with a smile. “I’m young and healthy, what’s it going to repair?”

“I hate to even mention this, but won’t your mother kind of freak out?” I asked.

Molls smiled widened, showing her true mouth. “Definitely. But there’s no rules against augments for clergy, or even against relics.”

“That’s almost certainly a technicality,” I interjected.

“So what?” she replied. “You forge your own path, and our affiliate is growing because of it. That’s one of the things I love about you, you are uncompromisingly you, even decked out in all that chrome. I’ve been thinking about augmentation for a while, actually,” Molls finished with a shrug. “I was just never sure what to get.”

“I’m not going to tell you no, I just don’t think you understand all the strings attached here,” I said.

Molls shook her head and snorted. “Oh what, your secret war against BuyMort?” she asked. “Good luck with that, I’ll believe it when I see it. No offense baby, but that’s not a realistic goal, to say the least.”

I blinked, taken aback. “You knew?”

“Of course I know, Tyson,” Molls said. “It’s one of the things I’m trying to help you with. There is nothing to go to war with, BuyMort is simply part of the universe. Like the fabric of spacetime, or hydrogen atoms. I wish I could impart this knowledge to you, but I know I can help you see it, as we build a life together.”

I smiled slowly as she spoke, and when she finished, I leaned my forehead between her eyes and sighed. “I love you, Molls. Let’s go get you a starfish suit.”

We retreated to the small domestic cabin, which was barely large enough to fit the two of us. I grabbed a large towel from a nearby storage cabinet and set it aside, just in case. Then, I pulled up the Teslak Cooperative affiliate page and invited Molls to join me in the dilated storefront experience.

She accepted, and we plummeted into ad space, quickly navigating to the Teslak storefront. Molls slid into the station and immediately gasped at the view out the windows. She ignored the store and slithered over to the window to press her claws against it and stare at the accretion disk of the black hole.

“How can we see it?” she finally asked.

Specter popped into existence at our side, hands behind his back and apron immaculately clean. “The matter swirling in the accretion disk is saturated with infrared radiation,” he explained. “Unable to escape, and unable to transition through the multiversal flow without the aid of BuyMort or a competitor, matter in black holes like this one begins to take on a glow, each atom a tiny star. Our station’s portals enhance that glow for our guests’ experience.”

The well-dressed elf stood stock still and stared out the window, until his projection flickered and changed. The bloody, damaged version of Specter appeared at the portal and sighed at the view below.

“The Teslak Cooperative’s home has always been filled with beauty, our resting place should be no different,” he whispered. Then the projection winked out, leaving Molls and I by the window.

She trailed a claw across the translucent metal and started noticing the rest of the affiliate storefront.

“Complicated storefront,” Molls announced. “Why is the host like that? Two versions?”

I shook my head and shrugged. “As far as I can tell he set this place up for people like me a long time ago,” I told her. There was no point in trying to hide the truth about my goal from her any longer. “For people who wanted to fight back against BuyMort.”

Her scales flushed green but quickly returned to a neutral white. She slithered around a nearby corner and started looking at the Perk Patches in their containers on the shelf. “It said something about competitors for BuyMort,” she said idly. “There is no such thing. What did it mean?”

“This affiliate is old, Molls,” I told her. “Old enough that it claims to have been around before BuyMort. It was a direct competitor to BuyMort. What we see here is just the piece of it that was working within BuyMort. I suspect it’s a space station full of treasure for an affiliate just like mine.”

“Before BuyMort?” Molls scoffed. “There is no before BuyMort, Tyson, that doesn’t make sense.”

“Ask Specter. It’s all from his recordings,” I told her.

“And you what? Believe in a ghost?” Molls asked, looking at me over her shoulder.

I shrugged. “I dunno, Molls. I know that I existed without BuyMort. I know I could exist without BuyMort because I did. My world’s existence was not reliant on BuyMort before it arrived.”

“That’s . . . that’s not what I meant, Tyson. Your world was simply lost in the multiverse, before BuyMort. Spinning, untethered in the void. BuyMort still existed, it has always existed,” Molls insisted. “Nu-Earth was simply not part of it before.”

I raised my hands in surrender and pointed at the front desk, where Specter’s projection awaited us with a placid smile on his elfin features.

Molls narrowed her eyes at me but turned and slithered up to the counter to speak with the projection. I left her to it, not wanting to be part of the back and forth. I quite specifically wanted to avoid being part of it, and when she returned to me from the projection after a few moments, her eyes were downcast, and her lips were tight. Her scales were tinged red but had a yellow center, fading in rings like a burnished sunset.

Whatever details about BuyMort and its competitors they had talked about had clearly shaken her.

“Are you alright?” I asked, moving to get our purchases.

Since we had grown to the point that the Teslak Cooperative would let us shop without a coupon, the items we had available to us physically appeared in the otherwise empty shelves.

I hauled a base tier starfish suit up to the counter, as well as a token for the first rank upgrade, as Molls slithered along behind me. Second rank upgrades and beyond were still locked and would require a coupon to access.

“I don’t know what to think,” she finally said. “If I’m being honest with you the entire thing sounds like nonsense.”

I nodded and set our items down on the counter for Specter’s projection to ring up.

“Molls, I need to tell you something,” I said. “And I don’t know how to do it. This seems like as safe a place as any.”

She frowned but nodded and waited for me to continue.

“We have a beholder in our basement, and I’m going to kill it. As soon as we figure out how,” I said, allowing it to tumble out of me.

All the color drained from her scales, and she stared at me. As the realization that I was telling the truth settled in, her color changed to a vibrant yellow, and her hands started to shake.

“I want you to tell me that was a bad joke,” she finally croaked, using the counter to stabilize herself. “But I know it wasn’t.”

“I’m sorry, Molls. They’ve forced my hand, and I have to protect my people,” I said.

“From a beholder?” she whispered. “An angel of BuyMort? How?”

I frowned and took her hand. “With a relic, like the ones this place provides us,” I told her. “We’re not sure it will work, but it sounds like our best bet so far. Axle and his team are looking into it.”

“I don’t—” she started, before swallowing heavily and taking a deep breath. “I don’t know how to respond to that, I wasn’t even sure they were real.”

“They are, and they’re utterly void of empathy. They blinded Axle for being too slow with an explanation and killed several of our people because they thought I took too long with a task,” I explained. “I have to kill this thing.”

Molls blinked and nodded.

I sighed and leaned against the counter, looking her in the eyes. “I am sorry Molls. I should have told you all of this long ago.”

She shrugged and shook her head, scales staying a solid yellow again. “I wouldn’t have heard you before Kraken,” she said. “A habit I have to apologize for.”

I kissed the back of her hand, the sensation oddly distant in the ad-space. “You have taken me more seriously than anyone in my life. You have nothing to apologize for.” I sighed and shook my head. “If anything, it's me who should apologize. I am exactly what your family thinks I am, a bad influence, and dangerous for you to be around.”

Molls’ scales shifted back to purple momentarily, before fading to her neutral white again. “You are not,” she said gently, leaning down to hover directly over my face. “I’m lucky to have met you, Tyson. Please don’t doubt that. I’m just struggling with something important.”

My lips twitched in a smile, and I snorted a laugh. “Yeah, me too.”

Molls smiled and shoved me playfully. “You’re not joking! Murdering an angel,” she paused and shook her head, taking a breath. “I believe in you, Tyson, I really do.”

“But you believe in BuyMort more,” I finished, saying it gently, with a sad smile on my lips. “I get it. You were raised for this role.”

Her scales flushed red for an instant, before she smiled and took a deep breath. “By mother, of course.”

I raised one eyebrow. “I mean . . . she seems nice to me. I didn’t want to say anything.”

Molls eyes shot wide open, and she glared at me, before laughter bubbled up in her throat. “Oh BuyMort, why haven’t I seen it before? Of course mother would turn me into a doormat for her affiliate. Seems nice, shut up. Shut up, Tyson Dawes, you suck.”

Her scales flushed with purple, happy to be joking around. But a solid dot of blue featured at the center of each, which I knew meant depression. Or at least deep sadness. I reached out and held her hand in mine, drawing her large eyes back to mine.

“I think she was doing what she thought was in your best interests, Molls,” I said. “I don’t know your mother very well yet, but she strikes me as a realist. She knows what the church is and tried to help you become ready for it. She taught you what she thought you needed to survive within a system she doesn’t fully understand.”

Her scales flickered with color. More flashes of red, yellow, and green flushed through her skin as she dealt with a complex series of emotions. “Since I hatched, Tyson!” she eventually hissed. “She has been there, filling my head with the church doctrine. Guiding me toward the priests robes.”

“She had connections, it was her easiest way to make sure you had protection and steady income,” I replied.

Another burst of vibrant red flashed through Molls’ scales, and she fixed me with an angry gaze. “Why are you trying to convince me of my mother’s good intentions, Tyson?” she asked, ungently.

“I’m not,” I said. “I’m trying to show you how she didn’t have a choice in the matter either. The same as you. The same as me, I’m the church's latest relic-wielding hero after Vesper City. I have to play a role for them, the same as you do.”

“Yes, but that role is supposed to be providing mental and spiritual guidance for our affiliate,” she sputtered, as tears formed in the corners of her eyes. “Not covering for things like what happened with Garthrust. Not ignoring the suffering around me for the sake of the church’s morties.”

I held my arms open to her and she sniffled, leaning into my embrace. Again the ad space made everything feel distant, and she quickly pushed out of my arms. “Let’s get out of here,” she said, stiffly, her scales filling with blue as she smiled sadly. “Let’s get the suit and get out of here, we have work to do.”

“We’ll make it alright, Molls. We’ll make it better,” I whispered, squeezing her hand one more time before turning to ring up and pay Specter his pittance.

Chapter 16

Teslak charged us a laughable fifty-five thousand for the base-tier starfish suit, and another two-and-a-half million for the first level upgrade. Cheap, compared to how much I’d earned us with the Dearth fleet and the city of dead Sleem.

Once the sale was finalized, I dropped us out of ad space and reached to hold Molls again, in the flesh. She leaned into it and coiled around me, sniffling. I held her head against my chest, and felt the sobs start to rise in her body.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I never meant to take your faith away from you.”

She drew in a sharp breath and raised my hand to her face, to rub against it. “No, my love, no.” Molls smiled gently at me, and blinked slowly. “Things are changing, and change is hard, but you have not taken anything from me.”

A BuyMort pod bumped against the hull, interrupting us, and Ordo flicked a switch to allow it access. It zipped in through its own tiny airlock and deposited two boxes beside us.

“You have given me many gifts, Tyson Dawes,” Molls said, uncoiling slowly as she reached for the first box. The BuyMort pod whistled a happy tune and turned to flee, silently flying out the way it had come in.

“The most recent is flight, and freedom from injury,” she said. Molls produced a small, thin blade from a hidden sheath in her dress, and used it to slit the flesh-tape sealing each box. I used a smaller towel from the restroom to gather it and deposited the entire mess in the BuyMort pod airlock.

Once we were in high orbit, we could dump it and let it burn up in the soupy atmosphere of Nahga. I grimaced at the blade of her knife as she tucked it back away, and she chuckled. “It self-sanitizes in the sheath; most of what it's used for is BuyMort packages.”

I nodded. Made sense, my gal was a smart shopper.

She lifted the heavy plate of the starfish suit and glanced at both sides. The turbine was blocky, but it would streamline when she installed her first upgrade. Molls frowned.

“Do I just?” she lifted the panel to her chest, and I jumped up to stop her.

“Is that dress expensive?” I asked.

She glanced at her clothing and then nodded.

“You may want to strip before installing that, it’ll rip your clothes away if you don’t,” I told her. “Oh and be ready for a cartoon starfish. It’ll show up and start talking to you, but it's just your interface with the suit. You can order it around, and it’ll remind you when you’re low on charge.”

“How do I charge again? You and your hobbs just break things?” Molls asked, shouldering out of her dress. Within a few seconds she was nude, and I found myself staring at her instead of answering her question. She glanced up and smiled.

“Sorry, yeah. Just break pretty much anything with the metal it installs on your hands, head, or I guess tail,” I told her. “We use these special glass droplets, BlueCleave makes ‘em for us. Full recharge and all you gotta do is crush their little tadpole tails.”

“Okay . . .” she said, reaching for the starfish suit again.

I reached out and took her hand, looking her in the eyes. “Are you sure? We can figure out another way home.”

Molls smiled and nodded. “I’m sure, Tyson. Enhancements don’t scare me.” With that, she pressed the starfish suit’s reactor to her breastplate, above her breasts.

She gasped sharply as it whirred, and something burrowed into her chest. I grimaced and watched.

“Ohhh, that’s better,” she said, swaying down into a resting position on the gravity couch. The painkillers must have kicked in.

“Those will fade pretty fast once you’re all healed up,” I added.

Molls giggled lightly and nodded. “My cartoon just told me the same thing. It’s cute, what is that?”

I smiled and shook my head. “A starfish, an Earth animal.”

She nodded and unfurled her arms and tail, allowing the starfish suit’s plates to clatter open across her body. Thin lines seared into her body with glowing heat and her body flinched where it installed. She watched with wide, clear eyes as it traveled down her arm, laying its final tracks across her hand.

Once it was installed in that hand, she gripped at me with it, and I held her while the rest of it was installed. She was doped for the experience, and only cleared her head after a few moments of rest. The suit didn’t rip any parts off from or out of her, and the install finished easily.

I helped her get the gravitic drive installed next, after she had recovered. That part was easy, it integrated with the suit’s architecture, smoothed out the rest of her lines, and added the starfish shaped patch to her back. She summoned and dismissed it a couple of times, smiling at the ease it deployed with, and the shimmering beauty of the silvery lines.

At one point Molls fell up, toward the roof and caught herself against the ceiling of the ship, before carefully dropping back down to the gravity couch, her tail wriggling in the air between us.

She smiled and laughed. “I can really fly!”

I nodded and shared a relieved smile with her. Her smile was genuine, mine was relieved. It was difficult to know how people would take the suit, and Molls’ install had been the gentlest I’d seen. Of course, it was easier when you didn’t have latent cancers, or long term injuries that hadn’t been treated.

To Molls, it had been a moment of pain, and then the gift of flight.

My only disappointment was that we didn’t have time for her to go try it out.

“Can I go fly outside?” she asked, eagerly.

I shook my head. “Not a great idea, Molls. There are cameras everywhere,” I told her, smiling sadly at her.

Her scales tinged blue, but quickly shifted to purple as she looked in my eyes. “It’s okay, we have to make that church escort, we should go. I’ll look forward to my first flying lesson when we get home,” Molls said.

I nodded, quickly kissed her, and then stood up and handed her back her clothing. She sighed and took it, hurriedly dressing. Her armor was stored securely in the cargo bay, in a gravity couch, along with her weapon. The dress was low-cut enough that her new starfish turbine showed, and several silver lines traced across her body from it, rippling with movement from the muscles below.

As we moved from the domestic suite back to the bridge, I noticed her happily inspecting the lines that swept up her arms, and across her fingers. As if it were a new tattoo she quite enjoyed.

Ordo was in his regular seat at the weapons console when we arrived, and I got Molls situated at the third station. It was designed for information analysis and the Sand Star’s self-repair suite. I hadn’t looked into those yet, but I didn’t bother disabling them. It seemed unlikely Molls could harm anything by accident at that station.

Before we launched, I had Molls and Ordo both crush a Prince Rupert’s Drop, which elicited a giggle from Molls. Ordo frowned at her, but then paid closer attention to his own PRD when he crushed it and offered a single snort of amusement as it burst inside its foam casing. I shook my head at them and crushed one for my own suit.

I’d recharged a handful of times during the night, but I wasn’t willing to take any risks on spaceflight. The incident with the loose glass shard had left an impression. Nothing I’d been hit by had hit me as hard as that pebble of glass. My suit had simply cut out a three inch diameter hole out of my body, following the shard’s trajectory, as its velocity was so great it created shockwaves inside my tissue, and tore a tunnel through me as it went.

And all of that was with my stoneskin patch colonies. The kind of speeds we were moving at during combat would quickly overwhelm our suits if they were focused on healing us and keeping our blood pressure and cellular cohesion earth gravity norm.

Once everyone was in and connected to their stations, I paid the dock again to settle our final fees and took off. Planetary command was polite, but stiff with us, immediately accepting our request to leave. Molls fixated on the viewscreen as we accelerated rapidly out of the atmosphere. On the way up, we left a trail of pink tinged plasma in our wake, burning fast to get to the Nahga Prime gate on schedule.

Molls giggled and held onto the edges of her seat as her tail stretched out behind her. Nahga’s thick atmosphere cleared ahead of us, and stars twinkled against the green gaseous nebula. I smiled as we steered into it, seeking the gate.

At least the view was incredible.

Chapter 17

The trip only took a few hours again, with everyone suited up for it. I was starting to understand some of the advantages Teslak had given me. Not only had the starfish suit kept me alive during my earliest days in BuyMort, when I made more mistakes than any survivor should have been able to, but it was designed to provide me with absurdly fast travel, on the cheap.

I still had to keep the ship’s faster-than-light capabilities to myself, and Axle’s warning about it using BuyMort’s infrastructure had been clear. Once I crossed that line, I couldn’t uncross it. Our enemies would know, possibly even our biggest enemy, BuyMort itself. So we slid into line like good church citizens and paid our exorbitant fee. Then, once we got to our turn in line, we paid BuyMort for the pleasure and warped home in a flash of rainbow light.

When the light faded and our screen rebooted, I was happily looking out on the Jupiter gate in Sol. Its lines of ships, and orbiting church citadel ship, keeping order and slurping up fees. Home sweet home in the Milky Way. I played around with the ship’s settings until it hooked us into a following pattern, far enough away from the gate to avoid incurring charges, but close enough that when our church delegation arrived, it would be quick for us to link up with them.

We’d arrived a few hours early, to be as safe as we could about meeting that appointment.

Molls and Ordo got up to stretch and enjoy some privacy while we waited, and I used the opportunity to look over a report that Axle had sent me. Daily reports were a new thing he’d started doing since we took over the planet, anything he thought I should be aware of; he would include in one of his reports.

Then he expected me to read them.

Which I did, for the most part. I mean, I skimmed a lot, he went into way more detail than I needed for most things. Besides, anything big would stand out, like the failure of our recent push to start terraforming on Mars.

We owned part of Mars. Not the whole thing, of course, but a sizable chunk. More than enough to establish the forward operating stronghold we required from it. The land grabbers we’d hired in the wake of Kraken’s death had done a great job, acquiring land for us at a premium as affiliates crashed and burned or abandoned the system.

The rest of it was owned by settlers and smaller affiliates, most associated with the church or TransPoCo. They’d begun expanding their own claims as Dearth left, or course, which meant we’d only ended up with about forty five percent of Mars included in our total affiliate MortBlock.

Most of what we planned to do with the territory we’d managed to grab after Dearth retreated was focused around more trade. We were going to need raw iron and carbon in obscene amounts, if Axle’s plans for our expansion were to be believed, so we needed to quickly establish a presence mining the asteroid belt.

Mars would be far more cost effective a place to establish the size of operation we required, and it was easier to plan our construction around known terraforming parameters, especially on a rush job like Mars was supposed to be.

Just because we needed to build a spaceport and adjoining city, didn’t mean we had to get in the way of incoming upgrades to planetary infrastructure.

The other affiliates on the surface agreed with the terraforming, and either helped a bit with fees as part of our peace agreement, or stood out of our way to allow us to do the work. None of them had set up shop in the projected ocean beds anyway, Mars’ terraforming had been assumed at the outset of BuyMort.

Some aspects, like the necessary electromagnetic shield for the planet, were already being built. That operation was thanks to the church, and their bottomless pockets. Sol system was a long-term investment for them.

We had to get the atmosphere to a functional range, which was considered seventy-five percent of Earth norm. A significant addition of mass was also required, to raise the planet’s gravity to something more akin to Earth norms. We wouldn’t get it all the way there no matter what we did, Mars was simply too small.

But closer was better, and that meant we needed water, on that planet, at scale, immediately. Massive amounts of water would be needed for multiple aspects of the ongoing terraform, and my affiliates specific part of the overall project.

We were expected to contribute equally, according to our share of the world. TransPoCo and the church seemed willing to play by business-as-normal rules, so long as Silken Sands was able to keep up.

To that end, we’d ordered a few dozen comets sent our way from a local Milky Way affiliate operating near the OORT cloud limits. Using guidance-booster drones, which detached and returned to their mothership after completing their task, this affiliate would hunt down and throw comets at whatever planet you wanted.

Honest work, all things considered.

Out of our recent order of fifty mid-sized comets, only fourteen had struck Mars’ surface.

The mathematics involved in the orbital mechanics alone had cost us over two million morties, for ‘computational burdens.’ Bastards charged us every time they plugged a new comet’s dimensions and destination into their on-board computers. Axel had explained that we could technically do the math for them, but if they input anything incorrectly, we would be the ones to suffer for their mistake.

Paying ensured it was all done by the ship’s advanced computer system and removed a significant element of what he called ‘operator risk,’ which he applied heavy, sarcastic quotes to.

I sighed, about to call Axle and find out more, when I discovered he had attached a file to the terraforming bullet-point on my report. When I opened it, a handful of employee photos were inside, along with a brief description of a Dearth remnant faction in Sol, now categorized as a privateer fleet.

They’d taken credit for the attack’s publicly, even posting videos of them stealing our chunks of flying ice. All they needed to do was get their ship in range and sell it to BuyMort directly.

It was theorized that the Dearth remnant faction controlled a small, agile mixed fleet, with an advanced Dearth battlecruiser as its flagship. The speedier industrial ships they were rumored to still control would have been easily able to intercept our comets, if they’d had foreknowledge of their travel route and velocity.

Something the affiliate we had hired likely gave to them. Or more accurately, sold.

TransPoCo, number two affiliate in all of BuyMort, likely wouldn’t have approved such theft, but the smaller affiliate they associated with in Sol appeared to be free of such reservations. And a sense of self-preservation.

They claimed the data had been stolen from their ships via long-range tight-beam hacking. No way to track or prove who it was. If I found out for sure they had stolen from us, I was going to use them to make a point to the rest of the multiverse.

Stop fucking with me, or else.

I sighed again and swiped that portion of notes out of my report, putting it in a return file to Axle. Next, I attached a note of my own informing him I wanted him to put Lee on the job, as soon as he was sure the man was up to the task. Nobody on my staff could ferret out the truth of a matter like an affiliate mole as quickly or easily as Lee, but the recent death of his wife had changed the man.

He was no longer cheerful, friendly, or accommodating. Merely impatient, and coldly polite. I was hoping some work would help, but that’s all it was. Just hope. Something that felt vaguely similar to what Quadrum had disintegrated in front of us that day.

Anything from a report that I kicked back to Axle we would discuss in greater detail. The thought of Dearth pirates operating in my system angered me, as did the wasted morties from the cometary deal, that was no small expenditure.

We would have to reassure TransPoCo and the church that we could make good on our end of the terraforming agreement.

The comets were part of a bundle the extra-solar affiliate had been collecting for sale in the nearly two months since BuyMort had arrived on Nu-Earth. Mostly they were desirable for water, and the comets got sent inward or outward, as ordered. There were certainly more affiliates operating closer to the Sol gate, but that didn’t mean business outside the OORT cloud was non-existent.

We could get more from them, and it wouldn’t even be terribly difficult to afford another batch. Axle had done the homework on that deal already, but he made sure to note that the price went up, and we had no guarantee of a better success rate as long as the remnant fleet was still operating within the Sol system.

Paying for fifty and getting fourteen was just not going to work for me, especially with the fidgety math we have to pay for on each one, in order to loop them through the atmosphere in a braking maneuver and land them just so and avoid damaging the planet or anyone’s precious affiliate infrastructure.

To be fair, the few sealed compounds already in place on Mars were insanely expensive.

Privateers were just pirates with permission, and these fools were nothing but the last resistance a bitter affiliate had pressed into service against us. Still, they found themselves atop my personal list of grievances, so I had to feel a brief moment of pity for them, before I moved on to the rest of my report.

Most of it was relatively normal affiliate stuff. Our expansion was going well, we’d already claimed most of Nu-Earth’s moon under the Silken Sands MortBlock, as well as significant chunks of both Mars, and most of Venus.

Colonization was already occurring on both planets as rapidly as infrastructure could expand to allow it, so Axle had been right when he told me to jump on the chance to fill the gaps left behind by the retreating Dearth Conglomerate.

On his suggestion, we had hired specialist affiliates operating in orbit of both planets for just such an occasion. Word of our conflict with Dearth had spread far and wide across the multiverse, and no affiliates were opposed to making some morties off it if they could. Once their primary MortBlock on Nu-Earth had been usurped by Kraken, the resulting market crashes on their name did the rest of the work once we took their space station from them.

They had no more footing in the system at all, aside from a band of raggedy pirates.

They’d had fledgling operations with MortBlocks running on every major planet in the Sol system, but most had fallen through once the primary planet was taken by force. The markets had lost faith in Dearth and placed it in me instead.

Our valuations kept rising, while The Dearth Conglomerate’s plummeted. If it kept up apace, we would take Kraken’s slot as number 9 affiliate in all of BuyMort within the year. Molls was going to be swamped with work when she returned, I was considering staffing options for her already.

When Axle had come to me with an authorization for billions of morties, to give to some affiliates that would ‘try their best’ to get us MortBlock coverage on the other planets, I had trusted him and gone with it, even though it felt like waste at the time.

Mars terraforming may have stalled momentarily, but Venus was moving forward apace. Another affiliate, Silica Solutions, had been waiting for exactly the same opportunity, in orbit of Venus, and had snatched up about half of the planet before our own claims were made solid. They were also an associate of the number two affiliate in all of BuyMort, TransPoCo.

The only thing that stopped them from encroaching on our claims was my reputation. Getting a military vessel in orbit was a major priority but being back in-system without a move from them had settled my nerves a bit. It made me feel like war could be averted over the hellish planet.

Which was good, cause I needed the entirely hypothetical fleet we would have needed for such a war for other operations in the system, and I wanted to expand outside of it as well. With Mars behind schedule, and Venus momentarily paused, that desired expansion was looking dead in the water.

Axle had included a list of potential ships to begin our fleet with. There was only one battleship sized vessel, and it came unarmed, from the civilian fleet still hanging around in-system. We would have to arm and armor it ourselves, all it had was basic navigational shielding. A fleet was well outside of our price range, which Axle was sure to mention as the singular item of importance from the single page report.

I think he was more interested in assuring me he was taking the task seriously. It was nice to look through some of the options, he had found a pretty decent missile-boat frigate that would work to begin our fleet from. They were powerful enough to take out light cruisers on their own, if we could afford the ammunition for the task, and it looked like we could afford a bundle of five within the week, if nothing else sprang up as a major expense before then.

We were doing business with TransPoCo on a lot of fronts, including the new aerospace engineering affiliate setting up shop on the Australian continent. Most of the available ships in the region were from their stocks. The arrangement made sense and would continue to.

Right up until they realized we meant to go to war with their single best customer, the church. All that meant was that I had to keep it secret for a while longer, which was the plan anyway.

I was still playing the good, loyal follower in public. My antics on Nahga had cemented that role in the greater multiversal media ecosystem. I was their shiny object again, with exciting footage of my abilities to speculate on, and millions of dead Sleem to add to my ever-growing kill count.

The church’s deployed hero, a blessing and balm to a beleaguered multiverse.

They exaggerated, but that particular segment on the ‘news’ always managed to bother me anyway. The posters from Storage didn’t help. They would filter in through those we recruited and end up plastered to the side of buildings in Prescot, showing me with my helmet and gauntlets summoned, blood and gore dripping from the metal gloves.

Mel had the good taste to graffiti them all with silly twirled mustaches, I liked her version much better.

I hated those posters. In spite of all I knew they did for me, and for my affiliate. For my people. The image just hurt. I didn’t like knowing that was how the multiverse saw me.

The new ones waiting for me when I got home would feature me standing in a sea of dead Sleem no doubt, unharmed and glaring, with red eye flashes painted onto the helmet, and my sharp metal horns rising from above them.

Sleem-Slayer, the guardian of Nagha Prime.

Chapter 18

Molls re-entered the bridge and distracted me from the last of my report, so I put it away. Not before I saw a name on the last page I really didn’t want to see though: The Arms Keepers.

I sighed and shook my head. There was no way I could just leave that. If Axle had put those jackasses in a report, I had to know about it.

“Sorry Molls, I gotta read this last thing,” I said, pulling out my report again. She frowned in confusion, but nodded and slithered by, trailing a claw across my shoulders on her way by.

“You’re okay, love. I was just coming in to sit down, stargaze a bit,” she said, gesturing toward the view screen. It displayed the empty space we sat in, with thousands of twinkling stars forming shapes and patterns in the distance.

I shuddered and looked away. “No thank you. I don’t like being reminded that we’re basically hanging naked in space.”

Molls frowned. She sat down and got herself buckled in, staring at me while her hands moved the straps. “I don’t understand. We’re not naked, we have this wonderful, advanced relic ship. Do you know how rare relic ships are?”

I shook my head and forced myself to gaze into the void beyond our screen. I knew it was just a screen, with cameras projecting images onto it. It still gave me the creeps, it felt like being in a submarine. Even though our suits used a trickle of energy to keep our personal gravity at normal, anything outside of a gravity couch floated.

The occasional maintenance drone, shaped like a tiny white starfish, would float by silently on occasion, running its routes. Damned thing scared the life out of me enough times that the ship started announcing its presence on the bridge with a small chime every time one of them came rolling through.

That way at least I knew to look for the creepy little thing, staring at me with its empty glass-topped limbs. Little feet would extend and gather any detritus, depositing it into the printer for eventual use as fuel or ammunition.

I shook my head and focused. The Arms Keepers was not a name I liked to see. That militia had given me a hell of a lot of trouble at the beginning but had stayed relatively quiet after my hobbs and I stomped them into the dirt for it.

The report said that our mobile medical care unit operating out of Prescott had been having some trouble with the militia. The report included a handful of details about a physical altercation. BlueCleave had to get involved to break it up.

We allowed The Arms Keepers to operate as an associate of Silken Sands, but all they did was mine and sit on what was left of their weapons cache. Probably sulking.

My troopers had grown so far beyond the AR-15s and Russian black market stuff they’d stockpiled, that I had mostly forgotten about the troublesome idiots. But now there were consistent reports of harassment from the mobile medics when answering calls out at the mine The Arms Keepers lived and worked out of.

We’d basically taken these idiots in, without letting them know we were taking them in. They had kept trying to send assassins after me, who continuously got themselves killed or maimed through no fault of my own. So I walked in and took half their guns to equip my forces with, hoping it would cow them into submission.

I didn’t want to have to kill any more of them. After all, enough of us Nu-Earth humans had died already.

They put up the meager gunpowder and bullets resistance we had expected, but by that point we were already fielding our hobbs with anti-ballistic shielding we had stripped from the corpses of the House of Shireen. The fight was laughably one-sided, I felt like I was bullying them and killing their fighters for no reason at all.

So after they were properly contained, we had set BlueCleave patrols and kept spy cameras from the elevator’s space station trained on their compound at all times. Fortunately, they had simply mined for Mo-gas and copper, which we traded them food for.

Strangely enough, they never seemed to notice that our food costs went down anytime they were short on a delivery. They just happily accepted the meat and produce we provided. Tollya had warned me after a visit that she figured they were skimming and stockpiling weapons again, but she didn’t know these guys like I did.

Stockpiling weapons was not a sign of imminent attack from the militia, it was a lot more like squirrels stockpiling nuts. They didn’t know why they were doing it, it just felt good to do it. Instinctually satisfying, another dopamine hit for every bullet tucked away and coveted.

I sighed and swiped the file closed. It was time for me to go see what those morons were up to, and hope they weren’t flying any Nazi flags this time. I was planning to bring Phyllis along, as they really responded to her mech.

But if they were flying Nazi flags again, she was likely to murder the entire bunch of them.

It’s not like anyone sane really liked the Nazis, but Phyllis had something special against them. That war was over and done for decades by the time BuyMort came to us, and Phyllis was mostly mad with drug-induced dementia by then, but she never lost her seething hatred and unslakable bloodthirst for anyone who chose to associate with their imagery or ideology.

And to be perfectly honest, if these clowns were roughing up my doctors, I was probably going to let Phyllis kill them.

Molls distracted me by sticking her tongue out at me and crossing her eyes when I glanced her way. It made me smile, as it always did. Her silly side only came out when she was feeling good, and her scales had stayed purple since we’d gotten her a starfish suit, so I was feeling pretty good too.

While we smiled and giggled, Ordo walked in, pausing in the doorway to stare at us, one eyebrow raised. The hobb shrugged and walked to his station, holding a standard issue BlueCleave tablet up to inspect something or other.

They had both returned because we were scheduled to meet up with the church group soon, so I pulled up the gate on our main viewscreen to watch for their warp in.

The gate itself was massive, easily the size of a small planet in circumference. Even the battleship that the church had deployed to monitor their line was nothing but a shiny dot near its base, where the lines were all formed.

Various ships would warp away from the bottom, while other various ships warped in near the center and immediately started thrusting away from the gate, toward their various destinations. Plenty were heading to Nu-Earth, carrying passengers and materials for the affiliates they represented.

Early ground teams for Mars were already present, but a new wave of construction equipment and personnel were slowly trickling in through the gate, and setting up shop either in orbit, or in one of the sprawling underground tunnel cities TransPoCo had set up.

We had some Dearth facilities in our chunk of the planet, but I was assuming they were pretty stripped, since they’d been forced to leave on short notice. It would be surprising if much of the structures themselves were left, but even digging out the tunnels we would need below ground had been helpful to us.

As I watched, something enormous arrived, easily dwarfing all the other ships in the area. The lines stalled for a while, as the bulbous thing emerged from a pool of twinkling rainbow light. A ship the size of a small moon warped in, showing the reason for the gate’s sheer size.

Both sides of the new ship were covered in hundreds of small, stiff fins that looked almost like they were meant to manage aerodynamics. The fins appeared small to my eyes, but only in scale to the ship itself. Each stabilizing fin was likely the size of a battleship itself.

The underside was broad, and sloped in ridges and waves in the metal, again as if its body shape was meant for guidance in-atmosphere. Atop the ship was a clear dome, inside which was crammed with some kind of fabric, layered against the sprawling miles of translucent metals.

I squinted at the bizarre, massive vessel, watching while it made an achingly slow turn, puffs of white erupting from its tapered nose cone to push it. The massive ship’s engines ignited then, and a searing fireball from its rear started to push the monstrous vessel away from the gate.

“That’s not our escort mission, is it?” I asked, pointing at the bulbous vessel.

Molls glanced at it and grimaced. “That is decidedly not church,” she said, before returning her attention to her tablet.

The oversized ship rumbled away, heading sunward.

“Where are they heading?” I asked. The ship’s computer highlighted the ship, and target-locked it. Then a series of arcs and lines appeared on our solar system map in the lower corner, before the viewscreen spit out a likely answer.

Venus.

The ship was broadcasting its identity tags on all channels, which I realized was its most effective defense. It was TransPoCo, bearing a regional manager with a major charge for being attacked or killed. Billions, for long enough to make it to Venus, where I assumed it would be safe.

I wasn’t familiar with TransPoCo’s operation on Venus, but I was aware they had one. Seeing their massive, moon-sized vessel emerge from the gate and trundle off had made me curious, and I shot a quick note to Axle about being interested.

Once the massive vessel was away from the gate, another shimmer across its surface indicated more arrivals. This time it was our guests, almost certainly. A trio of small, sleek ships moved in triangular formation, gliding toward the sun as they began their thrust for Nu-Earth.

They all reminded me of catamaran style sailing vessels, minus the sail. Each ship was built on a solid double engine design, with the engines crammed into shaped tubes along the sides and bottom of the vessel, with luxury accommodations spread out between them.

I zoomed in on them, bringing their vibrant, shining surfaces into closer relief. The ship at the front of the triangular formation was gold, with a silver and red ship of the same type behind and to their sides.

Molls sighed in relief. “Gold, we’re okay,” she said, nodding and smiling as I looked over to her in confusion.

“Each affiliate delegation color codes their skiffs, based on their department within the church. Silver and gold belong to finance and culture, which are almost wholly business oriented. They’ll want to inspect the way our affiliate makes morties for the church, make sure it's all aligned with church values, and expectations,” Molls explained. She pointed at the red ship and shook her head.

“Red is military. They’re probably going to want to see BlueCleave’s operation. I was just relieved it wasn’t black. Black is the inquisitor’s skiffs,” she finished.

“I’m glad you know all that,” I replied.

She smiled, flushed purple, and said, “I’ve been studying up on my role as planetary priest. But everyone knows to fear the black skiffs.”

The Sand Star scanned the church vessels and fed me a report of what it could glean. Mostly power levels and generalizations about defensive capabilities. They were all definitely armed though, that much was obvious from the gunnery spires running along their spines. Most looked like PDCs, but the red vessel had missile launcher ports along its spine as well.

I guided the Sand Star to follow them, having the computer guess their course based on trajectory. As expected, they were headed for Nu-Earth, to dock with our elevator space station.

Axle had prepared an ‘executive car’ for them to ride down in. He’d even hired a local singer to lightly serenade them in the background as one of his Knowle recruits gave them an aerial tour of everything on the way down. The car had an excellent view, right up until it went inside the donut.

There would be gift bags too.

I was glad Axle was handling all of that, I wanted nothing to do with it. I was expected for certain ceremonial roles, like the escort I was engaged in, but otherwise he was handling the entire visit. The only thing I was curious about was what kind of people the church had sent.

I finally caught up to them, pushing the Sand Star’s acceleration until we slipped into the rear of their formation. The red ship’s guns all rose and swiveled toward us, and the missile tubes on our side of the ship slid open.

A com request came through and I approved it after raising my helmet. A tall, slender, sallow-skinned elf wearing a stiff-collared navy-blue uniform and a captain’s hat appeared on the screen. He stared at us disapprovingly with glowing yellow eyes, scanning each of us in turn until he stopped on my shining chrome helmet.

“Windowpuncher,” he muttered. “State your purpose. You encroach on official church vessels. We will respond with lethal force if your intentions are hostile.”

“Oh,” I replied. “Well it’s a good thing they’re not then. Tyson Dawes, head of Silken Sands. We’re here to escort you. This is a dangerous pocket of space.”

“Very well, Silken Sands,” the elf replied, clasping his hands behind his back and raising his chin. “Your operations department reached out to inform us an escort may be happening. Glad to see your military can keep time, at the least.”

“Captain!” Molls cried. “That was uncalled for!”

I chuckled low and kept my shining helmet pointed directly at the haughty elf. “Careful, captain,” I told him. His eyes narrowed into a glare at my words. “There’s a lot of cargo that comes through this area at high speed. Wouldn’t want you to miss something because you’re too busy taunting me.”

His glowing yellow eyes went wide at that, but he said nothing, instead reaching out to kill the comms link. I sucked at a tooth and nodded, thinking.

“Well that was rude,” Molls said.

Ordo shook his head. “Not rude. Hostile,” he grunted.

“Hostile, but arrogant,” I replied. “Fighters aren’t arrogant, unless they’re putting on a show.” I dropped the helmet and scratched at my forehead out of habit. “Which means he’s either not a fighter, or he’s putting on a show.”

“Sand Star can take him, easy,” grunted Ordo.

I chuckled and shook my head. “No, Ordo, that’s not an option. Yet.”

Molls’ head whipped around to look at me. “Tyson, you wouldn’t,” she chided.

“I would,” I said with a nod, looking her in the eyes. “I’m sorry, Molls, but I would. This church presents itself as one thing and is another. I don’t trust them.”

She frowned, her scales turned mildly green, and she looked away.

Chapter 19

The pace the church fleet set was brisk, for normal ships, and we were approaching our tiny blue marble within sixteen hours of their arrival at the Sol gate. I was simultaneously annoyed by the slow transit time when the Sand Star could easily do faster, and relieved that Axle had more time to scheme and plan.

Nu-Earth expanded in our view screen over the last few hours of the trip, centered and growing at an achingly slow pace.

We followed the church ships in as they maneuvered to dock on the elevator’s space station, which we had taken over management of from Dearth. I was pleased to see BlueCleave hobbs in space suits, swarming all over the exterior of the station.

They’d already installed four railgun platforms on its surface, and were planning to install another eight, just to provide good coverage in the event of a nearby fight. Our small fleet was guided to a docking platform, where the church’s ships slid into place in one of our oversized airlocks, designed to allow passage into the station's cavernous interior docking platforms. Generally those were reserved for high-security precious cargo, or VIP passenger disembarkation.

We, and by that I mean Axle, had offered the church their choice of docking stations, both in Prescott and on the elevator station. They had chosen the station. This meant they were placing more trust in us than if they had docked in Prescott—but allowing that missile boat inside my expensive and relatively easy to damage station made me feel like the situation was reversed.

For all I knew, each ship was a bomb the church could remotely detonate at any point they chose. After all, it wouldn’t have been the first time a big BuyMort affiliate has suicide attacked my holdings.

Yet, they were docked and berthed. The crew was unloaded and sent to a lounge and briefing area that had been set up to accommodate them with a small cocktail party to celebrate their arrival. Our new lines of BlueCleave Silver and Gold tequila were prominent, as advertisement was expected, and these bozos catered to our primary demographic anyway.

Before the hour was through, a bunch of high society rich aliens were going to be getting drunk on my liquor and taking pictures of themselves doing it for their own social media empires. Every person they reached would be given an advertisement for our booze, free of charge to my affiliate.

Half of this visit was giving the church folk a good show, so I turned the main chair over to Ordo and kissed Molls before heading to the exit.

Ordo maneuvered me in close enough to touch the station, and then opened the external door, once making sure the inner doors were all secure. I summoned my helmet as the atmosphere in the main circular hallway of my ship blew me out into space.

It was cold. Shockingly cold, but just below the level of frostbite. I exhaled in a shock, then gasped. Fortunately, the helmet nanites refreshed my O2 levels and the breath was beneficial. Still, I held it for the rest of the trip.

My stoneskin colonies had gotten used to me being exposed to space, and my skin hardened to adjust. I engaged my gravity harness and zipped past the promenade’s main viewport, arriving at an external airlock just off the party area. It cycled me inside, and I raced to get naked as my suit activated.

The damned clothes were freezing cold, and stiff, so the suit won and tore them into shreds before I could get out of them. I frowned and looked down, as the starfish suit skinned me neck to toe. Thankfully it identified my groin as a primary organ system, and took precautions against scything it away.

My final upgrade would make it do that across my entire body, whenever I was deemed worthy to unlock it from Teslak. I put the thought aside and winced as my external layer was stripped off from me. Fortunately, the crystalline colonies populating my major organ systems, excluding the brain but especially including the epidermis, were capable of learning.

Learning quickly. The more I space-walked without a suit, the easier it got.

Fortunately for my diplomatic aplomb, and after a few too many times seeing me in the nude, my crew had a lovely habit of leaving clothes around in airlocks for exactly this occasion. In this case, a pair of black suit pants with silver pinstripes, comfortable dress socks, and a pair of shiny boat shoes that matches my suit down to the pinstripes.

I smiled when I saw there was no shirt. My people knew me, and I needed to reward them. Something like a pizza party would be cool, but that was old world corpo-shit. Everything came down to the morties now. I’d give them some out of my personal cut.

The upshot on BlueCleave tequila value had been huge, just in anticipation of so many high society influencers going to an event the alcohol was hosting. Marketing and advertising handled themselves, once you got to a high enough level in BuyMort society.

My increased credit rating had opened doors among the system’s upper class, and while I found most of them distasteful, I wanted their morties in significant numbers. Tequila wouldn’t pay all the bills on its own anytime soon, but a healthy brand was a healthy revenue stream, and that was worth cultivating.

So I ejected my sloughed off outer layer of skin through the airlock, and turned to face the crowds, making sure my reflective helmet was summoned before heading down to the entrance promenade to join the party.

By the time I arrived, everyone that was departing the church skiffs had departed them and stood around in a cluster being addressed by a female Knowle I hadn’t met yet.

I floated up into the air of the wide open space, flying slowly down to the ground floor behind the Knowle. She noticed the reactions of her crowd, pointing and staring, no longer paying attention to her, and looked up to me. Her ears flattened and one corner of her lip twitched.

Some smattered applause greeted my arrival, and the Knowle gave me a toothy, angry-eyed smile. I shook my shining head, raised both hands, and when the crowd silenced, I silently pointed their attention back to the Knowle representative.

She was smaller than Jada, but only in bulk. This Knowle was nearly skinny. Her reverse jointed legs, covered by her business suit, ensured she was the tallest creature in the gathered crowd, aside from a trio of mordren guards stationed at the back, near the ship’s entrances.

The rest of the crowd had been listening attentively until I showed up, but I saw that eyes turned back toward the Knowle woman staring at me from over her spectacles. She smiled and clapped her hands, turning back to her gathered crowd.

“Well, that about covers our greeting at any rate. You can pick up your gift baskets at the tequila orientation mixer, everybody have a great time!” The Knowle woman turned and stared at me again, as the church people started streaming past.

I nodded and clasped hands, gently, as the wealthy and connected people filed past. To them, this was a routine inspection of a new planetary affiliate associated with the church. Plenty of them looked like they were simply on vacation or tagging along on a work event. A lot of smiles and well-dressed aliens filed past me, telling me how excited they were to meet me, or to visit my planet and drink my booze.

A small trio of Nah’gh in business suits were in a close triangle near the silver skiff, speaking vigorously to one another. They had security and what appeared to be administrative staff in a circle around them, all listening for instructions.

A delf woman wearing a black silk dress with gold trim, and a matching tiara in her hair was carried on a palanquin from the gold ship. She was also smoking a cigarette in my low gravity space station that housed pockets of pure oxygen atmospheres. A flickering blue shield around the tip of the cigarette allowed the coal to glow like the woman’s eyes as she stared at me.

I bristled internally. The act struck me as not just arrogant but also dangerous. A woman who wanted me riled up, wanted me stupid with anger. Political games. She was looking to piss me off in order to control our interaction, but I wasn’t about to play. I had people who depended on me, and the best move with her smoking was to simply allow it.

From the red ship strode the elf with the glowing eyes, hat tucked under his arm. He strode directly up to me and looked me up and down. “We nearly blew you out of the sky, young human,” he finally said. “It was a foolhardy move, sneaking up on our fleet like that.”

I smiled in my helmet and let him stare at his own face in the reflection for a moment before I answered. “No, you didn’t, but I understand the concern. My operations department made your fleet aware of our presence beforehand, and our intentions were always friendly,” I said, offering him my hand to shake.

The elf stared at me with narrowed eyes for a long moment before a smile crept across his face. “Very well, human,” he said. “Let our relationship grow from this point, and not shrink. I am Captain Broadleaf Ransom.”

He clasped my hand with surprising strength. I restrained my reaction and did not over squeeze his hand back.

“Agreed, Captain,” I said. “Tyson Dawes, custodian of Nu-Earth.”

The delf on her carried platform smiled softly, and Captain Broadleaf chuckled as he looked over his shoulder at her. “Custodian,” he said, turning his unpleasant smile back to me. “Interesting title.”

I nodded. “Yup. I take the trash out. It seemed like a good fit.”

The Knowle woman at my side took in a sharp breath and hustled to my side, holding an oversized tablet like a clipboard. “Captain Ransom! Madam Sheeragore! Welcome to Elevator Station!” she chirped, glaring at me to back away, which I did.

“I have you both on schedule for the mixer, which will be right this way,” the Knowle said cheerfully. “I’ll just have a few words with our chief executive officer and then we’ll join you.”

Captain Ransom nodded curtly and turned away. The delf woman on the palanquin smiled and drew on her cigarette. Ashes fell lazily from its tip and were destroyed by the shield around it. The hobbs carrying her heaved and the oversized chair left the broad runway.

The Knowle turned to face me when they were gone. She sighed. “What are you doing here, Mr. Dawes?” she asked politely. “How can I facilitate your rapid exit from this delicate social and political situation?”

“Axle warned you about me, I can see,” I replied.

“Your people have such colorful phrases on Nu-Earth,” she replied. “One of my very favorites is the metaphor ‘bull in a china shop.’”

I laughed and nodded. “Yeah that’s about right. What’s your name? What department are you with?”

“Yolara Brinks. I’m your head of public relations, and I work directly under Axle,” she answered. “Who, by the way, specifically told me not to let you stay and drink with our very easily offended guests, if you showed up at all.” Her voice grated toward the end, as if remembering a promise she now considered broken.

Behind us, the trio of business-Nah’gh and their flock of attendants approached. Yolara heard them coming and turned, a bright and genuine smile lighting up her striped muzzle.

“Darfo, Pelris, Gonte,” she said, warmly. “Welcome, welcome! Please, follow the striped lines on the floor to the mixer, where Nu-Earth orientation will begin shortly.” There she clasped her paws to her throat and allowed her tail to fan the air. “Thank you all so much for coming, Nu-Earth is lifted by your presence.”

I nodded and raised a single hand. “Hi.”

Yolara turned and blinked rapidly, licking her nose before apparently deciding that her best option was to ignore me, and pretend I wasn’t there.

Once the trio of important Nah’gh and their Orkreshi bodyguards were gone, Yolara turned to watch the stream of people departing. Their aides were a mix of human and hobb and seemed financially better-off themselves. Working for church inspection teams had its perks I suppose.

Silken Sands had sent an open invitation over official channels once we were made aware of the incoming church inspection teams. Axle assured me it was best to roll over and show our belly. Make the church think we were just another fledgling affiliate encountering great success because of what he described as ‘tenacious leadership.’

In other words, none of our competitors had been able to kill me yet. All we had to do was convince the church inspection teams that they didn’t need to kill me either, and a great way of doing that was to show them just how many morties we were making the church.

The standard package of bribes would help with that task as well. While we’d been in transit from the gate to Nu-Earth, I’d looked over and authorized the indulgences fund Axle had sent me. He was asking for a lot, five hundred million morties in total.

We’d gone over the number briefly, but Axle explained that, for new planetary affiliates being inspected by the church, five hundred million was a terribly average figure. Exactly what we wanted. Too little could bring about a more intensive or invasive inspection, and too much could bring about actual suspicion from the church.

They were going to spend a great deal of it on Nu-Earth at any rate, which would funnel directly back into our accounts. The idea was to show these wealthy folk a good time on a frontier planet, so they could claim they had an adventure when they went home.

BuyMort glamping, in essence. Nothing I hadn’t dealt with before.

Yolara cleared her throat loudly at my side and got my attention.

“If you’re thinking of going into the orientation mixer, I can assure you it’s all under control and there’s simply no need,” she said, a plastic smile firmly in place.

I shrugged my naked shoulders and shook my head. “Yeah, I trust you and all, but I’m going in there,” I told her. Before she could respond, I raised my hands defensively. “I’ll behave, I promise.”

“That is small comfort, sir,” Yolara replied. She fell into step behind me, painted toenails clicking on the station’s floor.

Chapter 20

The room we entered was an amphitheater briefing room. Our guests were scattered around the room, several at BlueCleave tequila bars, which had been placed strategically out of walkways in the open areas of the amphitheater. The largest was at the bottom of the theater itself, with a real wooden bar set up and a backdrop showcasing our latest brands, the gold and silver lines.

“With BlueCleave tequila sponsoring their orientation, I think we’ve set the right mood, the right balance of expectations,” Yolara said to my back.

I nodded and scanned the room. Everyone looked happy, even the grumpy elf captain. Guess he was another one who just didn’t like me on sight. It happened.

Came with the territory being a warlord, I supposed.

But the people, the aliens all gathered were chatting happily, most with drinks in hand. Alcohol was a wonderful multiversal lubricant. As were the morties. I saw several gift baskets on a nearby table, with names embroidered into bolts of silk. Most had been taken already. In those that remained, indulgence tickets were prominently displayed.

One person stood out to me, a young Nah’gh woman near one of the far exits, who was setting up a full campsite, with some kind of display behind it. A series of boards with writing and images.

“One moment Yolara,” I said, as I walked toward the Nah’gh.

Her clothing stood out from the black and silver pinstripe fashion of her peers. Instead she wore a loose fitting dress, cinched at the waist with a plain rope belt. Her scales were black and red, and she flared a cobra hood at me when she noticed my approach.

“I’m just curious about your boards,” I said, pointing behind her to the display. It was like a science fair, each board filled with data and graphs, images with captions to buttress the points.

At first glance, it was some kind of commentary on pollution.

“Are you going to wreck them?” she asked, a hard edge to her voice.

I shook my head and sighed. “Wasn’t planning on it, why?”

“Because I am protesting your planet. It’s unsafe pollution levels, and the careless way you are recruiting workers to live and work on your polluted Nu-Earth!” She built in excitement as she spoke, and I nodded.

“Well,” I said, suddenly conscious of the phone-shaped device in her hand. “I own the world in question. That makes it my responsibility. I’d like to hear your specific concerns.”

The Nah’gh girl blinked, taken aback.

I made a snap decision and dropped the helmet, reaching my hand forward gently. “I’m sorry, Tyson Dawes. What’s your name?”

“Sil-Silm,” she stammered. The young Nah’gh woman hesitated but reached forward and lightly shook my hand.

“Well, Silm, why don’t you tell me what you’re worried about in regard to pollution? I have some time,” I told her. “Whatever you’ve written about here, I’m sure it will be better with context from you directly.”

“Uh,” she started, blinking and glancing back at her boards. “Lead pollution in the atmosphere. There is an unhealthy amount of lead in the air for humans, hobbs, Nah’gh, and most other species within the BuyMort network, yet your affiliate has taken no official actions to prevent harm to your workforce, most of whom are from Storage.”

“Ahh, Storage exploitation is a problem, yes,” I replied. “Hopefully not something we do at Silken Sands though. We try to provide a better life than what can be easily acquired in Storage, but every world has its ups and downs. Mine happens to have suffered from a disaster before my time, which did put a lot of lead into our atmosphere. I have to admit to a personal flaw in this regard, it simply never crossed my mind before. I only acquired the planetary MortBlock about a week ago.”

“Did you know that Nu-Earth systems of power, before BuyMort, altered the medical definitions of lead poisoning in order to misrepresent them to the public?” she asked. Her tone had shifted, and I felt like I was being interrogated.

I raised a hand and shrugged. “I did not, but it doesn’t surprise me. I know those systems of power, grew up in one. They lied about important things all the time.”

“And what about you, Windowpuncher?” she asked sternly. “What are you going to do about the pollution on your planet? All these good people are going to be going below soon, only to be exposed to excess radiation and lead in the air.”

I frowned, and suddenly Yolara was at my side.

“I’m afraid that’s simply not an accurate representation of the situation,” Yolara said. “While long term exposure to Nu-Earth’s atmosphere can indeed be hazardous to one’s health, any trip under a month in length constitutes an increasingly shrinking risk to any long term health effects.”

Silm’s eyes narrowed and her hood retracted as she turned to face Yolara. “And you are?”

“Yolara Brinks, public relations,” she said.

“Is it not irresponsible to allow your primary workforce and any tourists to be exposed to any risk of long-term health effects in the first place, especially while directly contributing to terraforming efforts outside of your own planet?” Silm asked us both.

I scowled and nodded. Yolara opened her mouth to interrupt me, but I held a hand up and stopped her.

“Silken Sands has only recently come into the capability to make such alterations to a planet, and I will personally see to it that we clean up the residual radiation from our own demolition activities, as well as residual radiation from my planet’s pre-BuyMort state, and the lead in the air. Probably some of the carbon too, we’re trying to run a good planet to do business on, and these are legitimate concerns,” I said.

Yolara blinked, and her tail started to wave back and forth.

“Indeed, the terraforming division does have a project file on Nu-Earth, as well as our activities on Venus and Mars, we’re not overlooking the importance of planetary control,” she said to the young Nah’gh woman’s phone. “As Mr. Dawes just mentioned, we’ve only recently gained access to the kind of BuyMort perks and credit ratings required to make such a drastic alteration to a planetary body the size of Nu-Earth.”

Silm took a long breath and nodded. Then she raised the phone to my face and said, “Thank you for your time, then.” The young Nah’gh pressed a button on the device and lowered it. “Are you liars?” she asked.

I chuckled and looked at Yolara, gesturing for her to take the question.

“Absolutely not,” she said. “Planetary priorities are being rolled out affiliate-wide currently, and Silken Sands is dealing with a major expansion. Plans for planetary controls are already in motion, but the public will have to be patient while we work up to and through everything.”

Impressive corporate gibberish. Could be interpreted to mean working hard, or hardly working at all. I turned away and raised my helmet again, to mingle with the high society folk, while Yolara dealt with the protestor.

It made sense, I supposed. A group of wealthy elites, most of whom had brought their immediate family for a vacation. There was bound to be a reactionary among them.

By the time I crossed the amphitheater again, the orientation slash marketing pitch had begun, so I watched from the back of the room. My presenters, a pair of audacious humans wearing microphones and glitter, tried to inform our new church guests of important Nu-Earth cultural norms, which added up to a normative shared human and hobb planet, with a smattering of other species.

There were a few lines about being polite because everyone was armed that caught my attention, but it drew happy laughter from the crowd, so I just shook my head and laughed along. Yolara came up along my side after a few minutes and licked her nose.

“She looks like she’s moving in,” I said.

“Yes, Mrs. Silm will be staying here while her parents are on Nu-Earth. She says she is not required to poison herself for their leisure, and that her protest matters a great deal to her,” Yolara answered, clutching her tablet to her chest. “I can have station security remove her, if you’d like. Some of the old CTV station living quarters are luxurious, but lock from the outside. And, of course, we could always arrest her and have her delivered to her parents at the Grand Canyon hotel.”

I shook my shining chrome head. “No, leave her be. I want her offered accommodation. Food, drink, warmth, Nah’gh find it cold here, so let’s get her a heat lamp or something.”

Yolara sighed. “You want us to accommodate her? How?”

“Just if she asks for things to eat or drink, or wants to set up shop in a different place. Make sure her parents aren’t worried about her, we’re trying to make a good impression after all. Keep her out of the way of business, but otherwise just be nice to her,” I answered. “She’s not hurting anything.”

The hair on Yolara’s arms and back rose, and she growled In the back of her throat. “As you say, Mr. Dawes.”

I chuckled. “Before BuyMort, my people respected protest. It’s just someone asking to be heard. Plus, she has a point. We’re terraforming Mars before we’ve even cleaned up Nu-Earth. We should be doing both.”

Yolara smiled coldly and nodded. “I will make sure she is seen to. Cleaning up your planet’s atmosphere is outside the range of my job description, though.”

I chuckled and nodded. “Don’t worry, I’ll handle that part. You’re doing fine here. I just wanted to be seen. Make an appearance. They expect the local celebrity to be available to them.”

Yolara’s tail started wagging. “Are you leaving?” she asked innocently.

“Yes, I’m leaving. Let me know if anything goes wrong,” I told her, before lifting off the deck and floating back into the main promenade. Lines were marked out for my wealthy and, after their orientation tequila mixer, tipsy guests to make their way to the VIP elevator car.

I merely floated over the passenger and cargo unloading area and plummeted down the elevator’s open shaft. My starfish suit did all the work, controlling and slowing my descent, once I neared the planet’s surface.

Chapter 21

Once I was down in Prescott, I veered out through one of the many gaps in the elevator's ringed walls and headed toward the Sand Star’s docking platform in our space dock.

Molls and Ordo were on the landing pad with the steaming Sand Star, while a hobb crew worked on getting her refueled. My Nah’gh girlfriend was sharing a story and a laugh with the hobb soldier, and lightly pushed against his shoulder while they both laughed.

“Shut up, Ordo. You guys did not,” she said as I landed, turning her smile toward me.

“Right behind him in line, no joke. I kept weapons locked on him. Just to be safe,” Ordo replied.

“He’s famous, you know. It’s not nice to tease famous mercenaries,” Molls chided. “Even I know the man in the golden ship. It’s Faranji Rapide, hotshot merc.”

“Well,” I said. “He shouldn’t have taken the job against me. I let him live, after he shot at us.”

“Ah, nothing come close to hitting. Sandcasters like PDCs, but better,” Ordo said. “He never in danger of hurting Sand Star.”

“Well, maybe next time we’ll hire him, instead of the other way around,” I said, sliding in to drop my helmet and sneak a quick kiss from Molls.

“My love,” I murmured, trying to get her attention away from Ordo. “We have some limited time before it gets dark. Would you like to learn how to fly?” I asked her.

Molls scales flushed deep purple and she nodded vigorously.

“Alright,” I said, rubbing my hands together. “How’s your charge?”

She grinned and nodded, flushing purple. “Full! I crushed a PRD before disembarking the Sand Star,” Molls said.

“Okay, that’s great,” I replied, rubbing my chin with one hand. “First potential issue I can think of is the temperature. It’ll be cold, flying around up there.”

“It’s winter here, and I‘m already pretty cold,” Molls informed me. “But I’m really excited to fly. Oh! Should I just wear my armor?”

Ordo waved his goodbyes and slipped away, carrying his bag and heading to report to Rayna. Molls and I nodded, but otherwise ignored the hobb.

“Does it help you stay warm?” I asked, eyes narrowed in confusion.

“Well, yes, but the shield protects me from excess air movement, so I figured it would help. Plus, the heater in that thing really works,” Molls told me.

I nodded. “You leave it on the ship?”

“Yes, I'll change right away,” she said.

Molls boarded the Sand Star again as I waited outside, in the Prescott sunshine. I watched the comings and goings of the spaceport, as a major cargo shipment was being loaded into the donut nestled into the middle of it all.

A pair of hulking cargo crawlers, oversized vehicles with powerful claws on their front ends, were pushing a box the size of a small building in one of the giant, rollaway doors in the donut. Hobb and human workmen were scattered around the area, helping prepare the shipment.

Within a few minutes, Molls returned. She was wearing her golden armor with the shield on and nodded at me as she approached. “Ready!” she said, excitedly.

“Okay,” I said, standing up straight. “All you have to do is what you did on the ship. Concentrate on moving and you’ll move. Pick a direction,”

Molls fell up with a squeal, quickly hurtling out of earshot. I squinted up and followed.

I caught up to her as she was getting herself under control, but she’d begun a small spin that was giving her some trouble.

I summoned my helmet again and connected a call with her. We used BlueCleave Communications instead of MortMobile, something they’d gotten set up just after I left. A planetary communication system, using our station as the hub, and bouncing the signal around on communications satellites Dearth had left in orbit. It was slated to save us billions, and possibly turn a profit if we could convince those living on Nu-Earth to sign up for it as well.

Molls answered in spite of her slight, slow tumble, and I heard her giggling inside her suit.

“I find it’s easiest to focus on a destination or a direction,” I told her. “The suit will kind of just do what you think, but concentration seems to make your desires clearer to it.”

Molls nodded and then narrowed her eyes. Her spin stopped, and then she turned to face me, her expression happy.

“That’s great, but we’re still falling up,” I said. “Gonna run out of atmosphere sooner or later.”

Molls’ expression changed to concern. She glanced up, and then vanished with another shriek.

I chuckled and started heading down to catch up to her. Her armored tail whipped around in the wind, and she used her arms to try and balance. A mistake. I knew from experience.

“Molls!” I yelled as I caught up to her. “Just focus, try to think only about where you want to go!”

“Okay!” she yelled back. Her eyes narrowed, and her lips pulled back slightly, showing just the hint of her oversized fangs behind them as she concentrated.

And her flight stabilized. I kept moving to make it easier for her, and she focused on me, matching my speed and direction. We flew in the air above Prescott, ranging out into the desert and back, careful to avoid the space elevator as Molls learned how to handle herself in flight.

She started off shaky, making jerky changes in direction and nearly random changes in speed. At one point we streaked over the city, popping a pair of small shockwaves, and tearing a furrow through the late afternoon clouds.

I would later learn that was the moment our inspection guests had been disembarking the elevator. They thought it was for them and tremendously enjoyed the show.

Molls slowed as we neared the Pacific Ocean off California’s shattered coast. Her armor protected her from the dangers of high speed flight, and she took to it immediately. My stoneskin upgrade had ensured that I was able to fly as fast as I wanted, even enduring some plasma buildup if needed, mostly across the shoulders and chest.

She giggled, interrupting my train of thought as she suddenly halted and hovered in place. I stopped at her side, overlooking the rocky cliffs of Northern California, where the sea languidly slapped at them.

“You learned how to hover quickly,” I said, smiling at her through our video call. I could see her face through the flickering shield on her helmet, and she was smiling peacefully as she stared at the ocean.

“Hovering is easy,” she said. “You just have to want to be still.”

I chuckled and swept in closer, sliding an arm around her armored waist. “This is romantic,” I said.

Molls looked at me, sudden hunger in her eyes. “This is a gift, Tyson,” she said, voice husky with lust. “An unbelievable gift. If it wasn’t so freezing out here, I would take you on this beach right now. It’s so beautiful here.”

I smiled and leaned against her harder, as her tail curled up around me. “Let’s go home,” she whispered.

We turned in midair, and I saw her glancing around uncertainly.

“Just imagine the tower and push the suit,” I said. “We’ll be back in no time.”

She smiled and nodded, let go of me, and then vanished with a sonic boom. An instant later, I heard her strike something hard and grunt in pain, over the phone.

Her screen showed her face, but blood had blossomed from her nose.

I pushed my gravity harness and streaked across the states, a wake of plasma and sonic booms flowing through the sky behind me. The tower loomed large in my sight and I pulled back on the suit, coming to a sudden stop, my shoulders blackened.

Molls was falling.

I dove, and pushed the suit again, ignoring the cartoon starfish as it arrived to scold me. Her tail flapped in the wind, shield sparking and flickering. I swept in beneath her and slid an arm under her armpits, pulling us back and slowing the fall.

Molls was unconscious but groaning and coming around already. Her armor was damaged, the helmet dented and sparking, the shield no longer functional. I gently lifted us to the roof as her suit went to work.

A tendril slid out from her head, and her crossed eyes opened to focus on it.

“Tyson, what’s happ—” she cut off with a scream, as the tendril wrapped around the tip of her nose, where blood still flowed freely, and then sawed it off with a sudden whir. The chunk of her face flopped wetly to the rooftop, and I set her down as she raised her hands, breathing rapidly.

“It’s just fixing your broken nose, Molls, it’ll be okay,” I told her, but the fear in my voice did little to reassure her. I hated seeing her hurt.

The suit’s metal lines on her face slid open and produced more tendrils, which sprayed a thick flesh foam into the area, and then carved out her nostrils and tracks in the raw, pink flesh, with incomplete fluid-carrying veins truncated in between each track. More arms arrived, drawing individual scales from her chest compartment and feeding them up through her armor, to lay each on her new nose with a laser burst to sear them into place.

My blood ran cold. The new scales were white, with no rings of solidified color. They clashed with her other scales, forming a circular area in the middle of her face.

“Molls, I am so sorry, I didn’t think of this,” I stammered.

She scowled and touched her nose. “It feels better now, Tyson, it’s alright. The drugs and the hit to the head made me fuzzy.” She touched her chest as she spoke, then raised her hand to her throat, eyes shooting wide, before she collapsed in my arms, unconscious.

I heard her turbine grinding something, and figured it was the damaged portions of her brain, from hitting the top floor of the tower.

After I’d smashed out one wall of windows in the tower, we’d repaired it by upgrading that floor’s defenses and installing panes of translucent titanium. Now I regretted the security upgrade and hoped Molls would be okay with a small chunk of her brains being torn out as well as the whole ‘new scales crisis.’

When she came to a few minutes later, I had her laying in our bed in the penthouse. I’d been pulling her armor off and set aside the grisly chest plate to be cleaned later.

“Hey, you alright?” I asked her.

She sat up and nodded. The patch in the middle of her face was so obvious, so out of place. I cringed internally but didn’t allow it to show in my expression.

Molls nodded again, blinking blearily. “Those drugs are powerful,” she slurred, before sitting up and touching her nose. “But that hurt.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“I focused on the tower and pushed the suit like you said, but I focused on our view here,” she said, reaching an arm up and pointing at the window. “Our window. I should have aimed for the roof.”

“I did the same exact thing when I first started out,” I agreed, hesitating to say the next words. “But Molls, there’s something we didn’t think of, and I am so sorry. I should have.”

She frowned. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Your scales, Molls. The suit replaced your broken nose, and I am so sorry,” I said.

Her eyes narrowed and then flared as I spoke, and realization set in. She was up and slithered into the bathroom in a heartbeat. Molls screamed as soon as the light flicked on, and I winced.

“I’m sorry,” I called. “I should have thought of this.”

Molls was silent for a long moment, before she returned to the doorway, tears threatening at the corners of her eyes. “It’s okay,” she said. “I can fly. That’s worth the price.” Her scales were a mix of yellow and blue, swirling around one another and forming a green core. It was more prevalent on her new scales.

Over the next few hours, we talked. She cried, forgave me multiple times when I compulsively apologized, and eventually she fell asleep. I stared at her for a long time before I could find any rest myself.

Chapter 22

The next morning, I had a meeting with Axle. He wanted to keep me up on all of the inspection news, as well as go over planetary operations with me. Molls had been in a good mood in the morning, keeping her chin up over the new scales. We had discussed the possibility of the suit learning, and eventually replacing her scales with appropriately colored ones.

Molls assured me she was not interested in breaking her nose again and would just use makeup until her scales filled in once more. The initial red line would likely be difficult to replicate, she told me with a long embrace and passionate kiss, but the purple lines she was sure would return without fail.

So I left her to her day after we finished our morning interactions. She had a meeting with the culture inspection head, Lady Sheeragore, dark elf house leader. I tried to warn her about the delf’s manipulation attempt in the station, but she brushed my concerns off. All culture department personnel were manipulative, she told me.

At least she didn’t say all delves.

Axle had a meeting later in the day with the church's business chief inspectors, the trio of Nah’gh I had briefly seen on board Elevator Station. So our meeting was on a clock.

The appointments with Molls and Axle led me to believe Rayna had an appointment with Captain Ransom Broadleaf, the church's armed forces consultant and inspector. I was confident the inspections would go well. My people had been preparing for most of the week, and we were plying the inspectors liberally with bribes. I wasn’t worried.

Of course, a meeting with Axle can change that pretty quick.

On my way to the library to meet with Axle, I noticed that the original Silken Sands facility had been decorated. Streamers and church icons were everywhere, along with welcome messages in human and hobb.

The bar, Morbin Time, was particularly decked out, and I remembered my local hobb bar was a popular multiverse destination. Our rich and powerful guests were almost certain to visit, for the ability to say they had a drink in the most dangerous frontier town bar on Nu-Earth.

I trusted Morbin not to say anything he shouldn’t and was looking forward to his report after they had come and gone. His uniquely powerful hearing had come in handy more than once. Since finding out about the beholder in our basement, my bat friend had been subdued, and drunker than usual.

The only place that wasn’t festooned for the incoming church high society was Phyllis’ garage, and the accompanying raven homestead next door. Phyllis had added another level to her place, which was a bit of an understatement. The place had become a tower-style hangar. Darclau and the ravens Phyllis lived next door to didn’t seem to mind, they enjoyed playing on her hangers sloped rooftop.

Her doors were closed, but they were tall. The three storied hangar could open all at once, or at each level, as needed. Phyllis was upgrading her mech again.

The thing was so modular and adaptive that I had to wonder what its new, dramatically taller profile would look like. Based on her hangar size, it was going to be about three stories tall.

Once I finished a quick flight around the campground to ensure it was in good order, I floated in to land near Axle’s library. Their hovercraft pad had a door that led inside on an elevated platform, so I touched down in front of it, and moved inside.

The library had a coffee bar inside, a small, niche affiliate run by a single Knowle that had settled only recently and still spoke broken English. I was pretty sure he was only running the coffee bar for easy access to the library, as I never saw the Knowle without a book in his hand.

Living with Molls meant I skipped a lot of breakfasts at home, as she rarely ate. The Knowle coffee shop contracted out with local hobb bakers and offered one of my very favorite breakfasts; an apple fritter, and drumu dusted coffee. It had become a regular stop for me, when I was in town.

Axle was used to my crumbs on his meeting table already.

A few morties exchanged later, I made my way up to Axle’s meeting room, a sound proofed office right off his own workspace.

When I entered, I was surprised to see Captain Jeonjo Omen, leader of one of our military associates, Whalehunter Salvage. He nodded stiffly at me, and I returned the gesture, with open confusion in my expression. I closed the heavy door behind myself and sat down in one of the oversized, comfortable chairs at the briefing desk to enjoy the rest of my breakfast.

Axle must have seen me arrive on camera, as he pushed open his own door almost immediately, carrying an armful of special scent-blocking folders carrying flesh-tape documents along with his tablet. Almost certainly more associate sign-ons. They all needed my final signature for BuyMort to recognize the association, and whatever percentages we tacked onto the deal we’d made with them.

“Tyson, good morning,” Axle started. “I have a lot to go over with you, but Captain Omen has something to say I think you’re going to want to hear. A plan.”

I turned to the man and raised my eyebrows. “What kind of plan? Something to do with the whales?”

Whalehunter Salvage did two primary things for Nu-Earth. They responded to aggressive whale-bugs, a BuyMort defensive beam-in that was attracted to sources of freshwater, and they dealt with actual whales, particularly the remaining population of Orcas.

They’d proven to be natural pirates, once BuyMort arrived. Teams of them were known to ambush facilities or ships and sell everything they could easily damage for scrap. Whalehunter and her fleet helped keep some order in the oceans for any affiliates trying to use them to do business.

Thankfully, they didn’t kill the Orcas, just captured them for transfer. A facility on Neolithic Earth was run by a more evolved form of cetaceans than what we had, and they paid us for each criminal whale we sent their way, including portal fees.

It was all on the up-and-up, they merely uplifted and educated the orcas we sent to them, gave them easy lives as part of their own ocean-based affiliate. Axle had done his homework before we set up that arrangement.

The whalebugs were killed, those things were populous, loved seaweed, and would tear apart metal to get at freshwater. Fortunately for us, they were also delicious, and one could feed an entire ship for a week, if butchered properly. By all accounts they tasted like lobster.

At any rate, once we had taken care of Kraken together, the affiliate had calmly gone back to their oceanic life, roaming the planet’s major bodies of water and helping humanity thrive however they could.

I was as big a fan of Captain Omen’s as I could be at that point, considering the subterfuge and betrayal he had put me through to help us acquire the final remnants of Dearth’s power structure. Not to mention pitting me against Kraken.

To be fair, I had to do all of that stuff anyway, and the small-statured man from North Korea had been incredibly helpful in that regard. If he had a plan that Axle, of all people, wanted me to hear, I wanted to hear that plan.

I stared at him for an answer to my question, taking another bite of the fresh apple fritter. It was even still hot, the Knowle at the coffee stand had warmed it up for me while making my coffee.

“No, warlord,” Captain Omen answered. “You require a fleet. I have a plan to obtain one for you.”

Chapter 23

That got my attention, and I sat up, wiping my mouth with a napkin. “Hit me, Captain, I’m all ears.”

“It is very simple. Provide me with your Sand Star ship, and five of your starfish troopers, and I shall return with a fleet,” he said.

I chuckled, frowning as I nodded my head. “That does sound simple, for me,” I told him. “Seems much more complex for you. Why don’t you tell me about that part?”

“I will take your ship, and your difficult-to-kill troopers, out to the asteroid belt, where the Dearth remnant fleet is waiting. They will have had their ranks swelled by now, with the survivors of your attack on their primary fleet,” Captain Omen spelled out. “We will take their ships, instead of destroying them.”

“I can’t help but feel like that’s some kind of dig, Captain,” I sighed, leaning back in my chair. “That’s a good plan, but it won’t work the way you’ve described.”

Captain Omen frowned.

“Axle,” I said. “How much should I tell him?”

My Knowle friend licked his nose and looked at Captain Omen. He shook his head and turned back to me. “That is ultimately up to you. If you think he can be trusted, I see no reason this information should be kept from him.”

“Well, I trust him to do what he thinks is right for Earth,” I said, narrowing my eyes at Captain Omen. “Even if his methods are a little unconventional at times.”

Captain Omen stiffened his already rail-straight back and met my gaze. “If you believe I have something to apologize for,” he said, extending a hand. “Say what it is.”

I chuckled and shook my head, taking a long sip of my coffee. It was amazing, the drumu flavoring barely even felt like moth wing dust anymore. “No Captain,” I said, smiling. “Nothin’ to apologize for.” I pushed my apple fritter and coffee away and sat back in my chair. “I’m wondering how to pull off your plan, now that you’ve brought it up. The ship won’t carry any more than three, including the pilot, if you want it to move at speed.”

Captain Omen frowned. “Why not?”

I shrugged and tapped the subtle turbine on my chest. “The Sand Star requires its crew to have starfish suits with gravity harnesses like mine. The harness regulates our individual gravity during maneuvers and flight, which is what gives the Sand Star its primary advantage, speed. It also only seats three. If we filled it with people who have no suits, it wouldn’t fly fast enough to pull off your plan. Which I like,” I finished, shrugging.

“That complicates things,” Captain Omen said. “Very well, I will need you in that case, as well as one other soldier who is equipped, or can be equipped, as well as a suit and gravity harness for myself. We will have to make do with only three.”

“Which is why you think you need me,” I said, nodding. “It’s a solid plan, I’m all for it. But Captain,” I paused for emphasis. “But what are we supposed to do with the ships once we take ‘em?”

“That’s actually the easy part,” Axle interjected. “Our weekly quota of BuyMort portals will be used to transport crew, who are already being assembled and will be standing by. This is your best, fastest route to a fleet.”

“And why do I need you, Captain Omen? I mean, I appreciate the plan, and rest assured we will be executing it,” I said, shrugging and grabbing my coffee to tilt at him. “I just struggle to think of us out there, among the stars together. Hunting, arm in arm.”

Captain Omen nodded and steepled his fingers. “I understand. Your military must have someone who is capable of guiding the actions of a fleet, and you would certainly trust them above myself. Earth requires that fleet. Thank you for using my plan.”

He stood and nodded at me, before Axle put out a hand to stop him. “Captain, please. Just a moment.”

I scowled, but sipped my coffee and leaned forward, facing Axle. “Alright, convince me.”

“Whalehunter Salvage fended off the Dearth fleets underwater, for five weeks before we started sharing forces. Captain Omen knows Dearth, their tactics, the way their people fight in a three-dimensional environment.” Axle shook his head. “BlueCleave is great, and they are growing rapidly, as we had hoped. But we need an admiral, Tyson, and no one in Sol system would do that job better that Captain Omen.”

“I don’t take the act of feeding me to the enemy personally, Captain,” I said to the man. “I understand it. You knew I was able to survive it, and it accomplished our goals. But you view people as assets, and I can’t have you in charge of BlueCleave hobbs. I made a promise to Rayna.”

“The position would place him directly under Rayna, head of military operations, and Tollya, our chief military officer,” Axle started, but Captain Omen raised a hand. “He would be our admiral, in charge of our fleet.”

“I will not beg for this position, but if you offer me the chance, I will prove myself, warlord,” he said, still standing. “One thing I have always recognized is that you and I share the priority of our people’s well-being. Preserving this world for its people. For them to be able to live lives of purpose and meaning.”

“Yeah,” I groaned, sitting forward and reaching for what was left of my fritter. “See, that’s the thing though, sometimes people say stuff like that when they don’t mean it. Then, when they get power, they cause a lot of harm.”

Axle raised his hand, eyebrows furrowed. “He would be serving at your command and pleasure, boss,” he said, emphasizing the last word as if to remind me.

“Yeah, sure,” I said, taking a bite and chewing angrily.

Captain Omen scowled but moved to his chair and sat down. “I did not think my actions would have this deleterious effect,” he said.

“I already told you, they didn’t, Captain. Well, I guess it’s Admiral now, isn’t it?” I asked, before popping the final bit of baked pastry into my mouth.

“I apologize, Admiral Omen,” Axle said. “We are trusting you with a powerful and dangerous item, the suspicion is warranted.”

“Oh what the hell,” I muttered. “Why not give him a starfish suit, really? Anybody else want one?”

“Admiral, I think we’re finished here,” Axle said. “I’ll continue the briefing and we’ll coordinate your starfish suit later today.”

Admiral Omen looked over at me, surly and cranky in my chair, and scowled. “Understood. I will return to my fleet until then.”

“Oh don’t bother, just go see Rayna. There’s really no time for bullshitting around, I’m just pissy. The suits aren’t fucking toys, and we’re handing them out like they are,” I said. I took an angry swig of coffee and grimaced. “It’s permanent, you know. Can’t just take it off when you don’t like what it does to you.”

Admiral Omen stared at me and narrowed his eyes. “None of this is about me, warlord,” he said, moving to step past me. The man stopped at the door and turned to face me. “Or you.”

I scowled and nodded, raising one hand in a dismissive wave. Axle swiped up a message on his tablet, presumably to Rayna to let her know her new Admiral was reporting in for starfish suit requisition and related training. It did give me a small smirk of satisfaction imagining him by himself in the BlueCleave briefing room, watching the video of Tollya taking her suit’s integration like a champion.

I knew more than one hobb had puked just from the video.

When he was finished, Axle set his tablet down with a click and fixed me with his mechanical eyes. They cycled in and out.

I sighed and shook my head. “Not my most professional meeting, I know.” I got up and started pacing, whacking the back of each of the conference chairs as I walked by them. “I get it, it’s not like I don’t see the wisdom. And honestly, I should be thanking you, it’s a great call. He had a perfect plan. One that’ll get me my fleet, and fast too.”

Axle licked his nose. “Then what is the issue? Is it personal with him?”

“No!” I accidentally shouted. “I’m sorry, Axle. I’m still upset because I gave a suit to Molls, and it promptly fucked her all the way up. Talking about giving one to Omen just brought all of that back up.”

My friend scowled. “Is she alright?” he asked, confusion obvious in his voice.

“Yeah, she’s fine. It’s just her conda genetic condition. When the suit repairs her, it does not repair the pigment she has built-up in her scales. She’s stuck showing her emotions on her sleeve for the rest of her life because of me.” It all spilled out, and I sunk down onto the floor by the door, sitting with my knees up to my chest. “I did that to her, she’ll never be free of her skin betraying every emotion she feels to everyone around her, because of me, because of the suits.”

Axle nodded, frowned, and blinked a few times, before licking his nose. “I am sorry, my friend. I don’t quite know what to say to that.”

I shook my head and slapped the ground as I stood. “It’s okay, Axle, you don’t have to say anything. It’s just another one of my fuckups, hurting the people I love. I was just trying to explain why I’m in a foul mood about the suits, I’m sorry. We have real work to get to, what do you have to distract me?”

“Ah,” he said, shoving his tablet over to me. “That I can help with.”

Chapter 24

I picked up the tablet and saw the list of discussion items he had listed for me. Our system was economic, for lack of a better word.

Worked great for me.

Axle had to temporarily memorize the entire meeting, but he was so involved in all of the operations on display that it was quickly becoming second nature to the Knowle.

“First order of business is the terraforming projects,” Axle said, matching perfectly with the first bullet point on his briefing. I touched the bullet point, and a file sprang up with images and charts for me to look through. I understood some of it. Some of it went right over my head.

The first planet on my list was Nu-Earth, which had a picture of the broken gravity sling we had nuked to stop it from killing the whole planet with earthquakes. A cloud of mechanical drones was in the air, with an attached item file. They looked like tiny mechanical crabs, floating around in the air, plucking particles with their claws.

“We’ve loaned a fleet of atmospheric manipulation drones from TransPoCo, and they’re currently working on the sling cleanup. I thought that was our primary priority. However, Yolara informs me you are concerned about lead,” Axle explained.

“Ah, yeah. Can these drones do that too?” I asked.

“Of course. They can be programmed to remove or alter the atmosphere in several useful ways. We can use them to scrub the lead in the atmosphere down to a more nominal level. We’ve only had a few cases of bad reactions to the lead come up through our medical associates, so I don’t think it’s a major issue, but the PR for a response like this will be good for us. I’ll announce the terraforming project as quickly as possible,” he said.

“Great, please do,” I replied, before frowning in confusion. “Hey, wait a second, why can’t we just point at the planet and tell BuyMort we want to sell all the lead particles in the air?”

“Well,” Axle sighed. “Unfortunately, atmospheric ownership is not that simple. There are layers to its use that will simply not allow such an easy solution. Our associates, and random visitors to the world are always using the atmosphere, so it counts in BuyMort’s rules as a common-use element. It’s why Kraken couldn’t simply sell portions of the ocean it controlled, the ocean was in use by several other BuyMort customers.”

I frowned. “Can I sell the planet, if we needed to?”

“Yes, but it would be very complex. We could technically do what you ask with the lead in the atmosphere, but the processes and paperwork and special exceptions within the BuyMort system mean it would be more expensive than the drone fleet rental by far. We would have to shut down the planet, first of all, control the land, water, and air fully. This means no natural species can remain in place, by the way, unless you can figure out how to get cats and porcupines to sign waivers.”

I nodded. “Well, I’m glad we have the drone fleet anyway, I was worried about that Nah’gh girl up the elevator.”

“Why? She’s a single protestor,” he said, frowning.

I shrugged. “A single protester who is right. Never been protested before, I guess.”

“Well, we’re fixing it anyway. The drones were contracted for a week in our atmosphere, but I’m sure TransPoCo will be happy to extend our contract,” Axle explained. “The total scrub may take several months, but levels should start to drop quickly enough for a press release, once they’re reassigned.”

“Can we get some more of them? Make the whole thing go faster?” I asked, looking at the specifications for the drone. They were great, just little solar-powered drones that flew through the sky, collecting molecules and carbon. Each drone had a tank for its ‘catches’ and the tank would sell to a BuyMort pod with a remote command when they were full. Most of the process could be automated.

“I don’t see why not. The project is larger, and that would allow us to get a faster start. The drones are not cheap at that scale, but we have an opportunity for a serious mortie maker to pay for it. We’ll get to that later, after the terraforming portion is complete,” Axle told me.

His system, his rules. I nodded and we moved on.

“Now to Venus,” he said. I swiped at the tablet and brought up the Venus page. It showed the silver planet, with a close up on its thick, soupy atmosphere.

“Yeah, why did we pay so much to grab a chunk of this planet?” I asked.

“Real estate, carbon dioxide, and silene from silicon,” he answered. “That last one is a popular fuel. We would be wise to invest heavily in that industry. Moving things oneself is always cheaper than using a BuyMort portal, and usually more cost-effective too, depending on the business. Ships use an absurd amount of fuel, and we definitely want to be part of that market.”

“So we mine the place?” I asked, a frown on my face. The tablet was full of confusing information, silent exchange rates, as well as some basic costs to get mining operations in motion.

“As much of it as we can. We also will need to work out an atmosphere sharing deal with TransPoCo, but fortunately for us, they seem to believe your reputation and are treating us like business equals in these negotiations,” Axle explained.

“What is TransPoCo?” I asked. “And why are they so dug into Venus and Mars, but not Nu-Earth?”

Axle blew out his cheeks and sat back. “TransPoCo is the number two affiliate in all of BuyMort. They run primary logistics for the entire BuyMort network. If you’re shipping something to a third party, buying a ship, fuel for a ship, or just booking passage anywhere in space, you’re doing business with TransPoCo.”

“What is The Dearth Conglomerate, then?” I asked.

“Manufacturing, mostly. Some raw resources, but most of that went for internal use. A great deal of everyday items or packaged goods in the BuyMort network of universes come from Dearth. Of course, we’re starting to cut into that market now, particularly weapons,” he explained.

“Nice. I assume we should continue to hammer them?” I asked.

“No, we should live and let live. The market has turned on them, culture is turning away from their products for others, namely ours. We won the fight for Nu-Earth, and that is the first large fight Dearth has lost so publicly in a long time. We have more important things to focus on, for the affiliate.”

“Like Venus,” I replied.

“Like Venus,” Axle answered.

“Okay, so TransPoCo won’t get pissed and just take our chunk of Venus away?” I asked.

“Unlikely at this point. If they were going to usurp our land claims, they almost certainly would have done so immediately after we made them. They were planning to share the space with Dearth anyway, so sharing it with us instead, on a somewhat smaller scale, is easy for their already-made plans. They’re a massive operation, so changing direction can be difficult for them at times,” Axle said. “Easier for them to include us in their operations, than it would be to try and exclude us.”

“Venus operations take place mostly in the atmosphere for at least the first century. It generally takes that long for the plantation ships to clear the atmosphere of enough carbon dioxide to bring down the temperature for more livable zones,” he finished.

I blinked and shook my head. “Okay, now tell me about the plantation ships and temperature,” I said, before draining the last of my coffee.

“Well, the surface temperature of Venus is currently about four-hundred-and . . .” he broke off and narrowed his eyes at me. “About nine-hundred degrees. Mining is performed by specialist drones, piloted by employee affiliates in the plantation ships.”

Axle cleared his throat and continued, “plantation ships are exactly what they sound like, large-scale food growing operations. Each vessel will navigate the atmosphere once placed and deployed, staying between forty and fifty kilometers from the surface and circumnavigating the planet.”

My mind conjured an image of the massive ship from the gate, covered in fins. At least I knew what it was for now, it was a plantation ship.

I frowned again. “Why there?”

“Many reasons, but the primary is magma-kelp. A genetically manipulated staple crop, it grows in extreme temperatures, drinks sulfuric acid, feeds on carbon dioxide, and contains three times as much nutrient value as your Nu-Earth greens like spinach or kale. Also works well to make rope and various other textiles from,” Axle explained. “Or clothing. It has a high sulfur content, which isn’t good for all the species to eat, of course. But for the most part,” he drifted off, his explanation complete with that hanging sentence.

An ad drifted Into my mind, explaining It further In Its peppy, fake-happy way.

Native Grower’s United presents bulk magma-kelp services. Gone are the days of quadrillions dying, starving and naked in the muddy dirt of their infertile lands. Now has come the time of the magma-kelp. Best suited to superhot, acidic environments, our magma-kelp seeds and stock are not just the best grow for your solar system, they’re also guaranteed!

NGU Magma-Kelp – enquire at our affiliate page.

“And these plantations grow this magma-kelp?” I asked, eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

Axle nodded. “In great quantities, among many other crops. Venus is the primary growth planet for staple crops, TransPoCo has similar operations in both of the other Venus’ attached to the BuyMort network.”

“And we can be part of this how?” I asked.

“The plantations travel all over the planet, avoiding the worst of the wind and following acid rain storms, braking during the daylight and accelerating through the night. We control portions of the planet’s surface, which means we control portions of the atmosphere. TransPoCo will pay us simply to use our airspace,” he answered.

“TransPoCo seems very non-confrontational,” I quipped.

“Indeed, they’ll even sell us one of their plantation ships if we can run it. They prefer franchises to direct ownership in many cases. The production rates matter more to them than the morties, even. TransPoCo keeps much of BuyMort fed, clothed, and fueled. The church makes sure of it,” Axle explained.

“Fair enough,” I said with a sigh. “Without our fleet, we’re in a holding pattern on Venus, as long as TransPoCo doesn’t mind. What about Mars?”

“In anticipation of your agreement to Admiral Omen’s plan, I ordered another batch of comets. TransPoCo has finished construction of their mass enhancer and will be starting it up later this week, that should start increasing the planet’s surface gravity to roughly eighty-five percent of Nu-Earth norm without negatively affecting its trajectory in the solar system,” Axle said. “It will also provide the planet with an atmosphere, so long as it runs.”

“Sounds like an impressive machine,” I replied.

“Agreed, the facilities take up a good portion of both poles.”

“Well, I don’t like wasting morties on more comets, but that is good bait. I assume you mean for us to track them when they start stealing them,” I said.

“I do,” Axle said. “Glad to see you’ve been reading your Sun Tzu.”

“Yeah, taking whole and all that. You’ve read it?” I asked.

“Four translations. Three from Industrial Earth as part of my training for Dearth, and now a copy of what you’ve been reading. I downloaded a copy to my own tablet, to see if there were any significant differences,” Axle said. “Moving on, we have a significant financial opportunity I wanted to discuss with you.”

“Yes?” I asked.

“We’ve upset the employment markets, from the outer frontier all the way into the core planets. This is good and bad for us,” Axle said.

“Good first, please,” I told him.

My Knowle friend nodded and smiled. “Our army is growing, and that would normally be expensive, but Rayna is using her cut of the total operation to grow our security department. That automated division has proven to be extremely helpful to my operations, by the way. I appreciate not having to worry overmuch about security.”

“Is the bad that other affiliates hate us?” I asked, hesitantly narrowing my eyes and cringing away from the answer.

“Well, yes and no. Most of the top ten affiliates are more than simply aware of us at this point, and they each have varying reactions to our disruptions. Most accept our presence as part of the BuyMort system, and the threat of the church’s disapproval has them hesitant to move against us openly, if that is even a desire. We’re also inserting ourselves in favorable positions formerly held by Dearth, like the Venus operation. All in all, your killing of Kraken and disruption of the raw materials market is manifesting as an opportunity for Silken Sands to claim entire portions of the available market,” Axle explained.

I nodded. “Glad to be of some help. What’s this opportunity though?”

“Mercenary squads. BuyMortMercMart is overwhelmed with requests, all across the home planets,” he replied.

I frowned. “So we field a team, and take a cut of their pay?”

Axle nodded. “A touch more complex than that, but yes, we would be fielding several teams, and growing our force constantly. The entire thing is voluntary, and we primarily profit from the sheer bulk of orders that will come through. BlueCleave already has a reputation, and if we start fielding teams, that reputation will only grow.”

“Mercenary teams aren’t the only opportunity you’re talking about here, are they?” I asked.

My Knowle friend opened his mouth in a toothy grin. “It is not. I intend to supplement that income by fielding camera crews with the mercenary teams. H.O.B.B.S is rapidly becoming one of CTVs largest hits and they’re begging us for more content.”

“They want a spin-off,” I added.

“Exactly, and this newer show will have a significantly different format. We’ll be sending camera crews with multiple teams, embedded as part of the contract. The footage will be used in training and mercenary operations, as well as becoming a new and exciting show for the denizens of BuyMort, particularly the inner home worlds,” Axle explained. “We’re going to need to set up an entire new division within BlueCleave to coordinate the teams, but we have the talent needed en route.”

“Another of your contacts?” I asked.

Axle smiled and nodded. “A Knowle I worked with at the beginning of my time within Dearth. He’s competent and trustworthy, if paid appropriately.”

“Well, this new division sounds like it will be quite the mortie-maker,” I said. “So that shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Unfortunately, we will have to accept MercMart taking a significant portion of any payment, so it will take some time to properly profit from this endeavor. Their network is too vast and well-used to simply ignore, and they eat a major part of the transport fees with their specific BuyMort perk-build. Without their affiliate, this kind of mercenary operation would be impossible,” Axle said, taking a breath before continuing.

“But we can fill their empty tickets, with our people, and that will become a growing mortie value return on investment. The rest of the system is experiencing an employment shortage, particularly in security divisions,” he explained. “While we have a surplus. There are more recruits coming in than we can field to our own operations, including those Rayna and I have coordinated around for upcoming security needs.”

“So are we somehow drawing all the workers in all of BuyMort?” I asked. “They won’t fit on Nu-Earth.”

Axle shrugged and spread his hands. “Not particularly. Our numbers are high, but nowhere near enough to account for all the employment difficulties other affiliates are having. We’ve set an example though, and many people are simply no longer accepting poor employment opportunities, so other affiliates are all having to reorder. Entire divisions are being laid off, while others are being filled.”

“Well that seems stupid, why don’t they just increase pay or benefits to keep their own staff, instead of trying to hire more at the same terrible wages?” I asked.

“Affiliate ownership,” Axle said. “You are unique, you don’t seem to care about morties beyond what you can do with them.”

I raised an eyebrow and shrugged.

“Well, most affiliate owners are not like you. They keep a great deal of the affiliates operational budgets for themselves, and do not make the kinds of deals with employees that you make,” he explained.

I raised my eyebrows and shrugged. “Sorry,” I said, reflexively.

Axle chuckled and shook his head. “I’m certainly not. Your oddity allows our affiliate to operate, and has honestly been at the core of every success we have had. Morties hold power and sway over everyone in BuyMort, except you.”

“I wouldn’t go quite that far,” I said, stretching and sitting up straight. “I just recognize them as a tool. Tools are meant to be used.”

“Indeed,” Axle said. He scowled and glanced at his tablet. “Speaking of tools, we have movement on your, uh, project. Significant movement.”

I sat forward, interested. “That sounds like good news,” I told him.

Axle frowned and nodded. “Unfortunately, that is a subjective analysis. What is good according to your perspective may not be good according to mine.”

“I know,” I replied. “And I am honestly sorry for that. I don’t like it, and I know it must look like I’m making this choice out of anger, but I’m not. This is the reality, what has to happen has to happen. This kind of threat cannot be tolerated.”

I sat back and met my operations manager’s eyes. “If you have a way out, I would love to hear it.”

Axle raised his eyes once and sagged. His tail curled beneath his seat. “I do not have a way out,” he whispered. “Just a way further in.”

The door behind us clicked open, and Axle sat up straight in surprise. I turned in my chair to see a delf with a shiny, bald head turning to close the door behind himself.

Chapter 25

“Elegy!” I said, standing up.

The dark elf inquisitor turned and smiled broadly, spreading his hands. I noticed a firearm at his belt, along with a long bladed knife, both sheathed and secured at the waist of his heavy, black cassock. A ruby gem shined at his throat, and the telltale flicker of a personal shield projected from it.

“Mr. Dawes!” he exulted. “So good to see you again! Good work in Vesper City, you made the church look excellent. Now what are you two talking about in this sound-proofed room, I wonder?”

Axle swallowed heavily and slid the thick, scent-proof folders across the table to me. “Associate forms. We were just having our daily brief, almost done.”

“Yep,” I said, smiling disarmingly. “Paperwork.” I opened one of the folders and grimaced at the smell it unleashed. “Of a sort.”

“Ah yes,” Elegy said, quickly covering his nostrils with a sleeve. I could smell his perfume from across the room, even through the sweaty musk of Tower’s rotting skin.

Red wine and roses.

I quickly took the laser-pen Axle handed me and started searing my initials into the flesh-paper documents. There was no way I was going to read through them all, and I trusted Axle. If he had put those deals together, I could count on them favoring Silken Sands. Axle was a little scary, when it came to negotiations for our affiliate.

“I was just about to wrap this meeting anyway boss. We’re essentially done here,” Axle said. I immediately got a text on my BuyMort app that said “No we’re not. Take no action against inspection personnel. Will advise on other topic ASAP. Action is imminent.”

That text had cost our affiliate nearly six hundred morties to send to me, all fees included. I knew it was important. I idly flicked it closed with my eyes, keeping the motion hidden from the inquisitor.

“Well, that works out then,” I said, cheerfully. “Looks like I’m all yours, Elegy.”

“Delightful,” he said, grimacing from the freshly burned flesh-paper. “I’ll just wait in the hallway, shall I? We need to discuss your ranch.”

I nodded and smiled, and the delf left the room, closing the door behind himself.

Axle and I both sighed in relief, but he immediately tensed again. “It’s well sound-proofed in here, electronically shielded too. But things are moving already, I wasn’t expecting an inquisitor.”

“I’ll distract him,” I said. “What things?”

“The brothers and Cube are already in position, but we need you to play the role of bait. We have about an hour before my next meeting, and I was hoping to get this insanity over and done with before then,” he spat. His lips were pulled back in fear. “Now, with the inquisitor . . .”

“Either way, not great to be doing this during an inspection, I know. I’m sorry, Axle,” I told him. “But we’re fine. These guys are dumb, I’ve dealt with people like them my entire life.”

Axle panted but nodded. “To hell with self-preservation, I suppose. The brothers’ book says it is possible, with the right tools, which we do appear to have. I have never seen a text so old, they are relic hunters of the highest caliber.” He paused to lick his nose and took a breath before continuing. “If this were under better circumstances, that tome would be an exciting find. The research is scant, but it all points to the same direction. Nothing is immortal, but the manifestation in three-dimensional space is vulnerable in only a few ways.”

“One of which we have,” I finished for him. The delf outside was on my mind, and neither of us could stop glancing at the sealed door.

“Two, actually,” he said. “But the first is easily accessible, just electrical power, and current. We have it in exactly the right vessel for this task; Cube.”

“What will happen to Cube?” I asked. I was getting a picture of where this plan of theirs was going, and it felt like CIA. Reckless, without concern for collateral damage. I saw Lee behind the use of my pet in this manner.

Axle shook his head. “We cannot know. Perhaps nothing at all, perhaps complete atomic annihilation.”

“Could be all our fates, really,” I said. “But, probably best not to dwell on that.”

“I am far more concerned about the inquisitor,” Axle said. “I was not informed there would be one attached to this inspection.”

“I think it’s personal,” I said. “He’s sniffing around me and Molls, and I think it’s at her mother’s request. The inspection sounds like an excuse.”

Axle’s mechanical eyes dilated and constricted. “That could be devastating for Silken Sands during an official church new-planet inspection.”

“Not to mention what we’re planning to do to one of their ‘angels’ under their very noses,” I said. “Crazy Nu-Earth humans.”

“Well,” Axle said. “You do all have lead poisoning.”

“Hey!” I said, scowling. “You can’t say that. Only we can say that. Nu-Earth natives only, please, it’s a sensitive issue.”

Axle sorted a laugh in spite of himself. “Do try not to get us all killed.”

I stood and stretched. “Oh man, every day. Does seem like it’s getting harder though.”

He sighed and stood, gathering the signed documents and his tablet. I moved to the door and held it for him, and Axle walked silently past the waiting delf inquisitor, bowing his head on the way by.

“Ahh, much better,” he said. “Business as usual?”

“Oh yes,” I replied, a smile twitching at the corner of my lip. “Some paperwork backed up because of my trip.”

“As does happen,” he replied, palms open at his sides in a half-hearted shrug.

“Never mind,” I said. “Boring part of the day is over, and it’s not even eleven-o-clock yet. I’m interested in what I can do for you today.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to impose, but I couldn’t resist your spider farm any longer. The silk is so fine, I would swear it was gathered by delf hands, but all reports say mordren. As shocking a rumor as it is absurd. I’ve even purchased the raw material, just to feel it with my own fingers. Would you be a delight and indulge me with a tour?” Elegy asked, pouting with a hopeful smile.

I shrugged. “Of course, it’s a lovely morning for a walk.” The bastard delf had an irritating habit of making veiled threats, and the thought of him finding Dro’Erja had me clenching my jaw. He’d kill him. Or demand that I do it.

Axle caught me by surprise, coming back around the corner. He bowed to the inquisitor, who sniffed and turned away. “My apologies, inquisitor, boss. I nearly forgot one last item, but I can be quick. Or I could simply send you my file on it, to avoid disturbing your guest, if you would prefer.”

I glanced at Elegy and then back to Axle. “Be quick about it then.”

Elegy would notice the slight, but I wanted him to.

Axle nodded. “It is the Arms Keepers associate. The medical corps in Prescott has lodged several complaints against them, and BlueCleave has asked for an escalation directly to your eyes.”

I sighed and nodded. “Better send me the file too, thank you Axle. They are a special case, aren’t they?”

“Very delicate, the entire affiliate knows to ask you before interaction,” he said. Then he bowed again and turned on one heel, hurrying away.

“Hm,” Elegy huffed. “He didn’t ask our leave.”

“You’ll have to forgive that indulgence, my friend,” I said, smiling easily. “I provide him a great deal of freedom in operation, and it leads to bad habits. I do apologize, and I hope you won’t hold that against my operations department. It really is my fault.”

The delf squinted at me, narrowing his brightly glowing eyes into slits before a wide smile broke out on his face. “I love indulgences. Your affiliate is so unique! I am constantly surprised, around every corner. It is a rare delight, I must applaud you. No demerits.” He raised his hands to lightly clap as he walked past me, leading the way out of the building.

I offered him anything he’d like from the small coffee bar tucked into the entrance, but he sniffed the air and grimaced. “No. I would thank you for the chance to see your spiders, though.” There was an edge of annoyance to his voice.

Without mentioning it further, I followed him outside. The Arizona winter sun beat down on us, distant and cold, but somehow still blindingly bright. Elegy immediately reached into a pocket of his peacoat and produced a broad brimmed hat, before carefully slipping it in place over his long, pointed ears. The hat covered them as well and had come from some sort of dimensional service within his pocket.

A ring of white plastic reminiscent of the BuyMort gate in Jupiter’s tow was encased in the fabric of his pocket and had twinkled with rainbow light when he’d used it.

I smiled when he noticed me staring and pointed toward the spider ranch. We followed a long pathway through a desert garden that Axle had set up between BlueCleave’s storage silos near the front gate and the library, before crossing the road and approaching the spider ranch gates.

My ranch had been upgraded significantly, over the weeks it had been operating. The primary gate was locked, but it opened as I approached with a proximity-based biometric scan. While the sheet of reinforced titanium slid aside, Elegy watched with an unimpressed stare.

I tensed, instinctually expecting Dro’Erja to be working beneath the sunshade. Of course, he wasn’t. The entire yard was empty, except for the crawling spiders. Axle had been preparing for a church inspection, and of course the living evidence that I had slaughtered an entire house of delves wasn’t wandering around waiting to be inspected.

Elegy reacted as though he’d been slapped when the door revealed our compound. He recoiled and his eyes went wide before he started blinking.

“I didn’t believe it, but you do have a swamp spinner here, don’t you?” he asked, whirling to face me.

I scowled and nodded. “Is that unusual?”

The pond had been a dead giveaway and couldn’t be changed without a major construction project that risked revealing Dro’Erja’s hidden bolt hole. We had decided to simply show the massive spider, hide her in plain sight with a much-practiced story that painted Silken Sands as innocent entrepreneurs. We’d planned for the inspection team, I had to simply hope the routine would hold up under an inquisitor’s scrutiny.

“Extremely,” he said, stepping further into the compound, toward Shela’s lurking pool. The sun was low enough that she was still out, enjoying the water, only her eyes visible above the pool. She was staring directly at Elegy.

“Oh my,” he whispered as he came closer. “She looks healthy too, in good spirits. How have you accomplished this with no delves?!” Elegy spun to watch me answer him again, but I saw Drusk, our mordren spider rancher.

He had improved the basic hook he used for a hand, but just barely. It was a bionic claw that could grip or release and had a limited range of motion. Still, the mordren looked ashamed by it, and carried the limb partially behind his back.

“By basing our ranch on the ancient spider-cultivating techniques of the delves,” Drusk answered for me. He gestured with his good hand over one shoulder toward the mud-crete house he had come from. “I have a few of the books I’ve been using inside if you’d like to see them.”

Elegy glared at the approaching mordren. I met Drusk’s eyes and nodded to him. He didn’t react, just waited for the inquisitor to ask their next question.

The delf stared at the mordren across the pond, and the lurking spider in it glanced between both men, before inching closer to Drusk.

“Hm,” Elegy finally said. “I am starting to despise the rumors around this place; specifically how often they seem to come true. How did you come to acquire a swamp spinner for this project, mordren?”

Drusk sniffed and crossed his arms, raising an eyebrow. “In trade from one of the silk runners that’s passed through Sol. Poor thing had changed hands so many times she was traumatized. Doesn’t like strangers.”

“Strangers,” Elegy repeated, staring at Drusk. “Is that what I am?”

“To the spider, of course,” I intervened. “She rarely interacts with anyone other than Drusk now. It was part of our arrangement that Drusk would have his own space, to do with as he saw fit, so long as my business concerns were met.”

“And what were those, exactly?” Elegy asked, turning to watch me.

I scowled and frowned. “Too much, really. We had a desiccated and ruined ranch when he came on board, Drusk has really taken to the task and turned it into something special. I entrusted him with making this part of the affiliate operate just for funding, and he helped turn Silken Sands into a household name.”

Elegy smiled. “No, you did that, with your war on Dearth.”

I smiled and puffed out a short, snorting laugh. “I don’t know if war is the right word,” I said.

“No, certainly not,” Elegy agreed. “War indicates an equal exchange. Do tell me, what exactly is stopping you from waging a similar war against the church? From taking things that do not belong to you,” he asked, waving idly toward Shela in her pond.

“Is that what we did?” I asked.

The inquisitor nodded vigorously and turned to gaze lovingly down at the submerged spider. She tucked herself further into the water with a small eruption of bubbles.

“Swamp spinners belong with delves,” he whispered.

“Well, there were no delves on the crew that sold her to us,” Drusk grumbled.

“Indeed! I have no doubt they left none alive, if they took her as a prize.” Elegy said. “I want to see your books. Now, thank you.”

Drusk glanced at me, and I nodded. The mordren grunted and waved a hand at us, turning to enter his home.

As we approached, the delf in our company stopped and peered at the construction. He scanned over the smaller building, the storage barn in the center, and the oversized building on its other side that Drusk was leading us toward.

“Who is your partner?” Elegy asked, pointing. “The one who lives in that . . . domicile.”

“Uh, that was actually my fault,” I said, raising a hand. “I was kind of bad with micromanagement when we first launched and had the residence for the rancher built before we had a rancher.”

“Ah,” Elegy said, filling in the rest by himself, glancing at the mordren’s significantly larger stature. “And your earthbound biases and prejudices meant you had to build another once your rancher was acquired.”

“We let Shela in there during the brightest parts of the day. Use the rest for storage,” Drusk said. He pushed open the door to his own apartment and stood aside, holding it open for us.

I realized I had never been in Drusk's home since he’d taken up the position as our spider rancher. Things had started off bad between us. The mordren had attacked us early into BuyMort’s introductory period on Nu-Earth. I’d put him down hard, and then succumbed to guilt and paid for his recovery, even giving him a home and steady work.

Still, he didn’t care for me personally, and I couldn’t blame him. I’d taken his eye, one hand, and badly injured both of his arms in the process.

Elegy raised a sleeve in front of his face, and I smelled a burst of fresh roses swimming in potent red wine filling the doorway. “Quaint,” the delf said.

“Live simple, focus on the work, focus on the path,” Drusk responded.

“Yes, yes, you’re obviously well on the way to being a dragon, with all your missing body parts, and mechanical replacement,” Elegy dismissively said. He kept his scent-producing sleeve held up to his nose and gingerly reached for a book on the coffee table Drusk had shown us to.

His living space was deeply normal, it looked much like the homes my resident hobbs lived in. Mud-crete walls and flooring, with a few extra spider webs in the corners. Drusk had hung some decorations, including a painting from Mel. It smelled like mordren in the domicile, but it was nothing overpowering or offensive, just the smell of someone’s home. Cooking, lived in comfortable seats, and paperbound books.

Spider-ranching technique was indeed the subject of most of Drusk’s books, and the home was too lived in to be suspicious of. There was even a plate of steaming food on the nearby kitchen counter, we’d obviously interrupted his morning meal. Looked like mostly yarsp.

Elegy sifted through the books with one sleeve, holding the other over his nose, before straightening and pushing past me outside. “Show me the other domicile,” he ordered.

Drusk nodded and stepped outside with us, walking past the storage barn doors and opening the twin apartment on the other side. He held the door open but did not enter himself.

The delf inquisitor entered and I followed, immediately cringing. The area was webbed over, and actively crawling with black widow spiders. I activated my helmet as I watched one dangle down on its thread, limbs outstretched and reaching, onto Elegy’s broad brimmed hat. He looked around the room, devoid of furniture, or any signs of life beyond the spiders, and sighed. We left, for which I was silently grateful, and I dropped my helmet as soon as I was through the threshold.

Dro’Erja lived below, tucked away in a secret room between my Sleem farm and the grow operation Lee used to run. It was small, dark, and quiet, which was exactly what the delf said he wished for from his home. He was able to attend work each day, under the cover of the sun shield flickering overhead, and nurture the spiders he so loved, without putting the affiliate in undue risk.

Delves from the House of None were expected to live a life of abject personal poverty, in order to act as a slave class for the other ruling houses, of which Elegy almost certainly belonged to. Murdering him was going to be a very different risk than murdering the entire House of Shireen, a lesser house enthralled to a beholder, an angel of BuyMort. I tried to remind myself of the now millions of people reliant on my discretion.

The church would probably struggle to find a way to kill me, most did by that point, but not everyone around me was so fortunate.

Elegy stopped at the rear of Shela’s pond and took off his hat to shake the spiders from it, grimacing at the sun, even through the electronic shielding that flickered and hummed over our heads. As a bonus effect, the shielding protected this area from all types of external surveillance.

“I remember,” Elegy said, almost wistfully, commanding my attention again. “I remember watching you on the news, on CTV, talking about this shielding,” he said. The delf was staring up at it, eyes narrowed into glowing slits. “Doesn’t block out all the damned sun, for all your boasting.”

I smiled and nodded. “No, it would be detrimental to the spiders to block all the sun. We fine tune the shield daily, to optimize the environment for comfort, and increase breeding.”

He turned to watch me speak, as he so often did, and nodded. “Of course. One would, with an operation of this variety. What are those stands,” he asked, pointing at the makeshift spider tree forest.

One by one, our hobbs had hand-carved telephone-pole-sized totems, filled with thin, but strong branches and crafted areas for webbing. We’d eventually replaced the Joshua tree forest with them, in order to clear up the area for Drusk and Dro’erja to work in. A natural, webbing free pathway wound around the ranch, which they walked and swept each day to maintain.

The pebbles of the walkway were painted with pheromone markers that helped separate our mass-producing orb weavers from our cannibalistic black widows. It required regular refreshing, which was done by hand, with a long handled paint brush.

It was very Zen, I’d watched them do it. From the Fumble-Bee cameras, of course, I hated that spider ranch. Set foot there as little as possible and slept poorly for days afterward every time.

“Bespoke,” I said. “Artisan-crafted, locally sourced hardwood. All done by hand, all unique pieces of art. As is befitting a creature as majestic as these.”

“Pff!” the delf scorned. “Your bastard widows, with their excess venom? As caustic to the art of spider ranching as a mordren rancher.”

There he smiled, almost grinned. “A rancher's assistant, I could see. A bastard, hiding a master servant by claiming credit for work that is not his own.” The delf whacked his hat once more against his thigh and placed it carefully back on his head. “Of course, my work seeps into me, creates paranoid fantasies where none are warranted.”

“Elegy, I can assure you,” I started.

He raised a hand, cutting me off. “Don’t assure an inquisitor, my friend, it so often has the opposite effect.” There he smiled, weakly. “I am tired, and short tempered because of it. Come,” he said. “Take me to these Arms Keepers of yours, I wish to experience how you deal with a threat to your affiliate first-hand. Then I will take my leave to find some rest, at your Grand Canyon facility.”

I blinked, taken back. Fear rose in my gullet, and I nearly giggled to remember being a small child, in trouble at school again. Walking with the principle, fists bloody, someone crying in the background.

“We’ll have the penthouse suite seen to,” I said. Violent intrusive thoughts kept me tense as I followed the delf out of the spider ranch. Delves were so flimsy, and the crystalline colonies in my muscles ached to follow the commands my subconscious was sending them.

“May I make a few calls, friend? I’ll need to arrange an escort, these are not exactly friendly associates,” I asked.

The inquisitor waved a hand, drawing a package of long, dark cigarettes from his dimensional pocket. I wondered briefly how much it cost to operate. Then I wondered how many morties this creature was burning every second he existed.

There was certainly a massive BuyMort executive insurance policy on him and seemed like it would be for the entirety of his stay on Nu-Earth, which was listed as ‘undetermined.’ Those insurance policies were expensive and billed hourly. He was bleeding millions just standing in my parking lot, smoking a strange-smelling cigarette.

If I, or any sapient creature attached to my affiliate, harmed Elegy physically, we would be fined five-hundred billion morties. If we killed him, I didn’t know the number. We didn’t have it, certainly, but I wasn’t able to recognize the number, it was just a large quantity of zeros following a nine.

Axle had quietly sent me this pertinent information, using one of his specialist MortMobile account addons. The images would be forgotten entirely after a few seconds, removing them from any devices they were shared on.

He was clearly warning me not to kill the inquisitor.

Chapter 26

I quietly sighed and pulled up my helmet, calling Tollya. Rayna was so busy with the outreach and recruitment division, running the ever growing armed forces division of our affiliate, that most operations fell to Tollya, our de-facto general.

She answered with a grunt. “Hm. What?”

I chuckled and shook my head. “I need a military escort, full bells and whistles please. We have a church VIP to escort, and a potentially hostile associate to deal with.”

“Arms Keepers?” Tollya asked, stony eyebrow raised.

“Yes,” I sighed. “The Arms Keepers.

“Everybody get shields. What you want us bring? Pillows on sticks?” She asked. “Mean language okay?”

“Insubordinate!” I laughed. “But yes, beanbags and shock-sticks please.”

“No more beanbags,” she said. “Got new less lethal round, very effective. Better than beanbags, less long-term damage, better incapacitation rate.”

“Oh?” I said, suddenly perking up. “What kind of round are they?”

“Twelve-gauge,” she grunted, suddenly cagey.

“Okay, how do they work to incapacitate?” Asking a direct question usually did the trick.

“Barbs inject neurotoxin, common across all BuyMort species. Kill Sleem, but just make everyone else throw up,” Tollya informed me.

“So they get darted, and then barf uncontrollably?” I asked.

“Pretty much. Barfing stop about fifteen minutes after dart removed, but it reinject for up to three hours if left in,” she said.

I shook my head. “Twelve-gauge ipecac.”

“What?” Tollya asked.

“No, nothing, it’s fine. That sounds fine, hopefully we won’t need to use any of it,” I said. “Immediate deployment though, we’re already waiting, and we want to impress these church guys.”

“Understood,” she said. I could hear her standing up and grabbing her armored vest. “On the way.”

“Tollya,” I said. “We’re bringing Phyllis.”

“Understood,” she repeated. “Inbound, pick you up in ten.”

I disconnected the call and dropped my helmet to face Elegy. The helmet had kept him from prying, I hoped, but I was playing it as careful as I thought Axle wanted me to.

“Do you drink mushbug tea, my friend?” I asked him.

The delf stared at me for a long moment before nodding. “I do. In fact, when fending off sleep the most often, is that an option?”

“Our hobb bar serves it, as well as many other refreshments,” I said, gesturing down the tight alleyway between apartment buildings. The hobbs who lived there kept the area clean but festooned with lively art and drying clothes hung between the buildings.

The delf at my side bent low to avoid scraping his ears on any of the hanging clothing and followed with his hands tucked behind his back. “Hobbs do make wonderful servants,” he said, in a bored voice. “But I must warn you against the employment rush you’re causing.”

“Oh I am not causing that rush, the market is. I’m merely inserting my affiliate where it is most profitable, as is right,” I recited.

“Ah,” he exclaimed. “A believer. Excellent. However, outside influences can corrupt a market, with dishonest claims, dishonest stakes.”

I smiled and nodded, raising my shoulders in a shrug. “Which is why the church has come to inspect us, at long last. I think you will find we walk the same path, I come from a society much like yours. With the same core values, the same heart.”

“Do you?” he asked, peering at me.

“Yes, very much so. I do not claim to be the same as the church, of course. There is a degree of . . . majesty I don’t claim to be capable of, and I understand my place in the grand scheme of things. Silken Sands is not now, nor will ever be above the church,” I said. “Just The Dearth Conglomerate.”

“Ah!” he exclaimed in delight, raising his hands to clap once. “Just so. Those clumsy oafs could do with some proper competition. They’ve grown fat, and lazy at the churches teat. Cannot even be trusted to claim a world on the frontier as contracted.”

I nodded and frowned seriously. “Agreed. Where I come from, we had companies much like Dearth. Incompetent, through and through, but with important jobs to do in spite of it. The beauty of BuyMort and the church is that someone like me can say no to an entity like Dearth and shape an affiliate around how business should be conducted.”

Elegy nodded as I spoke and tilted his head in a small bow when I finished. “Lovely words. Indeed, since you’ve taken over management of Nu-Earth, our profit share is more generous than ever, far exceeding what Dearth had promised. I have no doubt the gold and silver inspections will go flawlessly. Your front-facing products are all quite friendly to BuyMort society, and you operate quietly with weapons manufacturers and mercenaries to establish larger footholds and provide greater profits.”

“Well, we’re spending nearly as much as we’re making these days on expansion and construction, but operations has been masterful at finding ways to minimize cost and ensure the church keeps that income pipeline flowing. We treat that aspect of our affiliate as a priority,” I told him.

“Of course, of course,” he said with a smile. “Everyone’s heart is in the right place here, I’ve no doubt. Tea?”

I bowed my head and gestured to the bar, before walking ahead to hold the batwing door open for him.

Morbin Time was never exactly slow, but we’d chosen a particularly busy time to visit. The pre-lunch rush was just warming up, which would lead into the lunch rush proper. Elegy’s eyes flitted all over the bar, taking in every face.

Some of the hanger’s on from the inspection crew were there, happily drinking our exorbitantly priced specials. Our mixologists had crafted them especially for the home world palate. A handful of Nah’gh and delves were seated at booths, laughing and drinking.

Of course, the regular assortment of hobbs were there as well, daily routines being seen to, and refreshment acquired.

A pair of older hobbs, skin mottled with age, departed their place at the bar when they saw us standing in the doorway. Elegy moved past them and claimed a seat, using a soft cloth to wipe the stool and bar. Morbin was nowhere to be seen. I’d told him the church was coming and he promptly went home for a visit.

I wasn’t offended, but his paranoia was a little annoying at times. I’d wanted him to hang out and listen to the church folk, but he said he would rather infest his ears with carnivorous fern-fleas, which he assured me were painful.

Sucker that I was, I still gave him fully paid leave. He’d come back when it was safe. Once the problem in our basement was dealt with.

I ordered us two mugs of mush-bug tea, while Elegy swiped through his phone. I could feel the psychic entity in it, the familiar weight of his attention.

The hobb bartender served our tea in simple mud-crete mugs, which Elegy scowled at. He blew on the beverage and sipped it, frowning in begrudging approval.

I sipped mine and delighted in the familiar taste. I’d been drinking it to help me focus and relax during stressful ‘business’ focused days, and the fact that it was made from giant insect squeezings barely crossed my mind anymore.

The delicious heady aroma and comforting warmth mattered more, and it simply wasn’t the kind of world that allowed me the luxury of never eating bugs. Sometimes, you just have to eat bugs, if you want to eat. Then, over time, you get used to it.

Besides, these bugs were delicious. And being squeezed regularly had health benefits for the mush-bugs. There was a surprising amount of win-win in BuyMort sometimes, if you knew where to look for it.

Elegy quietly took his mug, scowled at the boisterous room around us, and silently headed for the door. I swigged from my mug again and left the rest of it on the counter, following the delf.

“If you don’t mind, my friend,” I said, gesturing to the road. “I need to gather someone important for this expedition.”

“Who?” Elegy scowled.

“My bodyguard,” I replied with an innocent smile.

The delf followed me out of sheer curiosity. He caught up a few footfalls down the path.

“I’ve heard of this figure. They say she is an old lady in a relic mecha,” he said, sounding almost excited.

“I’m not entirely sure it’s a relic, but the rest isn’t far from accurate,” I replied. We walked, leisurely, so Elegy could drink his tea. He regularly brought it to his lips to blow on and then sip, lightly slurping each time.

“Oh Phyllis!” I called as we approached her silo.

A loud metal clang resounded from inside the oversized hangar, and a string of colorful language erupted from inside. More clangs and cursing followed, from the top level of the silo to the bottom, before a normal-sized door opened, and Phyllis stepped out.

Just Phyllis, not in her mech. She wore her silver hair in a loose bun, and a pair of coveralls over a thin bodysuit. Large metal patches covered portions of her body, with tracks and ports jutting from them. One section that appeared to dip into her coveralls was blinking with blue and green light.

Looks like her last upgrade had allowed her to leave most of the suit behind, at least for short periods of time.

“What?!” she snapped, around the joint dangling from her lips.

“Phyllis, I’d like you to meet a very important guest, Inquisitor Elegy, from the church,” I said.

Phyllis turned and graciously smiled, swiping the joint out of her lips and hiding it behind her back. She curtsied lightly to the delf and said, “Welcome to our home, inquisitor. I hope your stay is lovely.”

For a moment, I heard a hint of the old Phyllis, the person she’d been before BuyMort. She could be so nice, so warm, when she wanted to be.

Then she turned back to me and glared again. “What do you need, dearie? I’m very busy.”

“I was hoping you would escort me to the Arms Keepers compound, we have to go speak with them,” I said.

Phyllis wiped her forehead, smearing engine grease across it before slipping the joint back between her lips. “Of course!” she said, shrugging. Sunlight glinted off something metal embedded in her shoulders as she turned away.

“I need to test my newest build anyway,” she said over her shoulder.

Chapter 27

Once she was inside, the ravens all rose as a flock, cawing and wheeling away overhead. The silo shook, and then rumbled before it split in the center and heaved out to the sides with a groan of deploying metal.

Inside the garage was a massive mech. The head lifted, bringing the monstrous vehicle’s size to just over three stories. The midsection was bulky, and far more solid than the previous iteration. The oversized feet were soled with armored tank treads. Once active, the treads moved the machine forward, out of the silo-style workshop and toward us.

The mech filled most of her site. I briefly remembered the old Shasta double-wide she’d lived in with her husband, back before BuyMort.

Then she lifted a massive foot and stomped it back down, shaking the ground and getting my attention.

“Oh sorry, dearies. Still getting used to this new mobility system,” her voice crooned from a loudspeaker up near the head.

An ad slid through my mind, telling me about her audio setup.

LOGARIT AUDIO — CLEAR CONCISE SOUND WITH AMPLIFICATION CAPABILITIES SO LARGE, EVEN YOUR GRANDMA CAN HEAR IT. 500,000 morties, 4.7 stars.

The mech itself was clearly coated in weapons. The chest portion was bulky and covered in a bristling hodgepodge of weaponry barrels, missile ports, and thick armor plating. Most of it was crafted from the same metal as Phyllis’ original mech, and I had to wonder at Elegy’s relic rumor. I’d never bothered to ask Phyllis anything about her mech, but she was clearly invested in it.

Its ‘head’ was little more than a blocky sensor and camera device, again buttressed with thick armoring. Phyllis herself was likely tucked away in the massive chest of the machine. Both arms were armored with wing-shaped fins near the hands, protecting vital offensive or defensive deployment systems.

Hidden by one shield was a series of weapons. A quad-minigun idly spun, all twenty-four barrels emitting a low clinking rattle. There was an oversized flamethrower nozzle, with the mech’s plasma deployment web attached. Beyond that were two weapon barrels I couldn’t easily recognize. One had a blue glowing tip, and no obvious exit shaft for projectiles of any sort.

“Goodness,” said Elegy in a quiet voice. “I suppose discipline is necessary for associates, but this seems like an act of aggression.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m not on board with this, I’ll stop her.”

“No!” Elegy exclaimed, smiling and holding out a gloved hand to stop me. “I want to see what her intentions are with this impressive war machine. Indulge me. Your bodyguard, you say?”

“In a manner of speaking,” I said, chuckling.

“You say that so often,” he replied, turning back to watch the mech raise its other arm and deploy a broad, humming shield of blue energy. It was so heavily shielded it was opaque.

Phyllis raised her weapon arm to the sky and deployed the plasma-caster. Its web of guidance buoys sprang out to form a rough, wavering cone of heat-shielding. Then fire roared into the sky. For the two seconds she deployed the weapon, I felt like I might be standing on the surface of the sun. Blinding light sent the ravens cawing out over the construction pit outside our walls.

They knew when to leave Phyllis alone.

Elegy applauded lightly and smiled up at the display, hat shading his eyes from the worst of it. “Most impressive vehicle indeed. Come, let us test it out on your unfriendly associate.” The inquisitor sipped at his mug of mush bug tea and casually tossed the cup down to shatter on the blacktop.

Even with the heat shielding, Phyllis’ vibrant blue-white plasma felt like it was cooking us. I was glad when she let off the trigger.

“Oh dearie me,” she muttered, apparently unaware her loudspeaker was still active. “That drains my power cells awfully fast, I’ll have to save that for special occasions.”

“Phyllis, your mic is still on,” I said, hands clasped behind my back.

The hulking mech turned and faced me, and her loudspeaker shut off with an audible click. After a moment, a small port near the top of the mech’s chest compartment opened and a plume of fragrant marijuana smoke floated down to coat the driveway.

Darclau and his unkindness of ravens returned then, cautiously poking around the mech and their own home next door. The birds seemed to be trying to inhale the smoke, and one of the bolder animals alighted atop the mech, before poking at the exhaust port.

No wonder they hung out around Phyllis’ site so much. She had always been nice to them, even feeding them when Mr. Sada threatened to revoke her lease over it, way back in the day before BuyMort. Plus, she had regularly smoked off her porch and flicked the butts into the raven’s area. I’d tried to stop the birds eating them, but all they did was tear them up and play with the paper.

Guess the birds even enjoyed intoxication. Talk about sapience.

I glanced over at the inquisitor at my side and tried to control my reaction. He was staring at me again, seemingly lost in thought.

Whatever story of ‘who I was and what I was doing’ that the delf was arriving at meant life or death for my affiliate. I really wanted to ask Phyllis for a joint, but sighed instead, looking at my phone to check the time.

We used the BlueCleave mobile service, an off-branching of the military’s own global communications platform. They still got priority, but once we’d taken the planet, we’d taken all of Dearth’s various deployed satellites they’d left behind or died defending. Bandwidth wasn’t a problem, even in the growing population that kept signing up for it.

As if reading my mind, Elegy finally spoke. “Did you feel any remorse, I wonder, when you killed that entire Nu-Earth board? You know some of them had friends among church leadership.”

I nodded, chewing on my bottom lip before turning to respond. “At first no,” I said. “It happened so fast. All the people who’d been making life on Nu-Earth a non-profitable mess, all gathered in one place, trying their best to kill me and my affiliate. I just acted.”

There I blinked and frowned. “But after, yes. When we were cleaning up the station and doing repairs after the battle, I felt a great deal of regret. Even for the Wizard. He looked so shocked. So unbelieving that I had actually beat him. Still see his face sometimes,” I said, thinking of Mr. Sada. “Killing is never something I want, my friend. It just keeps being forced upon me.”

The delf smiled gently and nodded. “The weight of leadership, the needs of the many beneath you, I understand. And to be perfectly frank, no one will much miss the Wizard. You may have done BuyMort a grand favor removing that particularly insane human.”

There he paused and glanced at me. “Oh, no offense meant, of course.”

I chuckled. “None taken. I assume this planet was a punishment, or a backwater post, in Dearth,” I told him. “There was never any sense of competence, or even purpose from those I had to deal with. Just petty ego, and aggression.”

The delf’s eyes widened and he nodded. “Just so. A life lived without greater purpose is a life wasted. Tell me, warlord, what is your purpose?”

There it was: his real query. I was starting to get used to this inquisitor’s style of inquisition. I smiled and looked at him. “This world is my home,” I said. “I just don’t want to see it burn for nothing.”

“Or wither and become unfruitful, I should hope,” he replied, turning away, expression inscrutable as he looked up to Phyllis. “Is she smoking an intoxicant in the cabin of that war machine?” he eventually asked.

A roar kicked up from the nearby desert, as Tollya and her rapid response squad lowered in their hovercraft.

I chuckled and nodded. “Almost certainly, my friend.”

Elegy shook his head and turned away, clasping his hands to move to the incoming hovercraft formation. “Another indulgence, I assume,” he muttered.

“Actually no, this time I simply cannot get her to do what I say,” I laughed. The delf glared at me in shock for an instant, but then decided I must be joking and joined me in laughter, applauding lightly.

Chapter 28

The trip to the Arms Keeper’s compound was far shorter than I would have liked, I really needed time to think about what was about to happen, and how to mitigate any harm that arose. We flew above the old freeway, as Phyllis chewed up the blacktop with her mech below, tank treads whirring to ensure the huge machine could keep pace.

“Inquisitor!” I shouted. The doors were open at Elegy’s request, so the wind noise was up. “I strongly suggest you stay inside the craft, once we land! I can link you into our Fumble-Bee footage.” We had a hive embedded in the lead craft, it would deploy the bees once we landed.

He glanced at me, cocking his head questioningly.

“This affiliate is unusual, they hold a warlike stance against most everyone,” I told him. “I cannot predict what they will do, and I don’t want to risk an attempt on your life.”

The delf snorted and smiled wide. “That will be of no concern!” he shouted back. “I am well-protected!”

I nodded. “Are you wearing a shield? These guys like to shoot trespassers, which is definitely how they will view us.”

“On a MortBlock that you hold?” he asked, eyebrows furrowed.

“It’s complicated!” I shouted back. “You’re about to see the limits of my indulgence.” Which was what I suspected he really wanted to see. There was plenty of footage of my abilities, of how I dealt with those who opposed or attacked me. I was on the news most nights whether or not I deserved it.

And I had no doubt the church had a file on me, with specific method proposals for my death and disposal.

I wondered how good it was.

I pulled out my own file, the one Axle had sent me, on my helmet’s viewscreen. It was a relief to be able to wear the helmet around Elegy, and the military expedition was my perfect excuse.

The Arms Keepers received regular medical attention from the Prescott medical corps, as part of our affiliate associate relationship. We paid their bills any time someone got hurt in a mining accident or needed lung treatments for inhaling too much coal dust. Or occasionally shot themselves.

That happened a lot more than it probably should have.

Once I owned all of Arizona, the Arms Keepers’ compound came into my ownership as well. Garthrust had owned it previously, with fully signed and submitted paperwork. The Arms Keepers had been an official associate of the Dearth Conglomerate, and when the MortBlock changed hands, so too did all the authorizations previously acquired.

Most associates were given a simple choice; stay and work as normal or leave however they desired.

Then we started cutting better deals, which wasn’t difficult.

Dearth had worked all of their associates with algorithms, pushing each to the brink of possible function, and then shrinking their budgets until it was exactly enough to continue operation.

Our willful retention rate had skyrocketed alongside our incoming employment, and our profits soared from there. Turns out blood from a stone is not a great business model. If people feel like they have lives under your leadership, they’re happy to make you morties. Productivity and morale are intrinsically attached, as concepts.

Of course, none of that applied to the Arms Keepers and their mine. The warlike militia had some violent and xenophobic tendencies that self-separated them from the rest of Prescott, in spite of being just over the mountains.

Even hobbs were not well-tolerated there. The medical corps had quickly learned to only send human doctors.

The militia had found coal, in addition to further copper veins, using the new tools BuyMort had brought to our world. The coal was low quality, but it was good enough to make Mo-gas, a really crappy carbon-based fuel alternative that shared a lot in common with gasoline.

That and their raw copper was enough to justify regular food shipments and medicine, if just. Mo-gas could be used in many things, but it was dirty. You paid for the use of it in cleaning time and equipment malfunctions, but it was a cheap source of energy that could be refined up to and including spaceship fuel. If you didn’t mind building your ship around a giant gas tank and going really slowly, of course.

We found ways to use it, just to keep buying it. Most recently, we’d been setting up a series of new yarsp hives all over the world, attached to BuyMort fruition centers, so our own plentiful mo-gas reserves were finally low. We used it to flood hive portions for security purges, or continuous area denial while handler crews worked in other ways to contain breakouts.

So at least I could excuse the expense of feeding the militia, even if the copper and coal was of minimal benefit to the overall affiliate.

But then we were hovering in to start landing, and I leaned out to look at the compound.

They’d made a few improvements, most of which I’d already known about. Their refinery had grown to include another, smaller building added to the old mine structure. There the militia was able to refine their product further, make a more useful fuel in general.

The Arms Keepers had taken over a small, defunct copper mine before BuyMort, using it as a de facto club house. I’m sure they thought of it as a military base, especially since so many of them had retreated there with their families after BuyMort’s arrival. But they’d used it like a club house before-hand, which explained the lack of food and water on hand. Plenty of booze and bullets, but only a few cases of bottled water and MREs.

They’d stockpiled nearly twenty different weapons for each person capable of wielding them but hadn’t thought to lay any farming supplies in storage.

I guess they’d figured since they had a gun, finding a can of beans wouldn’t be a problem.

But that sense of aggression and superiority was exactly the problem, according to Axle’s notes. There had been an incident over a young patient, and the doctor in question had been badly beaten before the security team could intervene. They’d lost some function in an eye and suffered a spinal contusion from being kicked while on the ground.

So now the medical corps was refusing the Arms Keepers further service until I dealt with the situation personally.

A crowd of dirty humans started to gather as we landed inside their fencing. Tollya’s squad deployed and secured our landing craft, each hobb wearing light coverage armor and helmets, along with their standard issue projectile shields. I was grateful to Tollya’s ever-present thoughtfulness.

I didn’t want an incident with my fully armored up hobbs; they looked terrifying in all their war-gear. It was bad enough Phyllis wanted to bring her tower of death along, and Elegy wanted me to let her. I wondered if I should have given in on that so easily, as I saw the people gathering around.

A lot of them were staring and pointing at the incoming mech, and some began screaming when it didn’t slow down.

Phyllis arrived in classic form, crushing the flimsy chain link fence that demarcated their border beneath her tank tread as the mech slid to a stop in a spray of gravel. A few people screamed in terror and ran, but most recognized her as part of the landing vehicles.

I exited the hovercraft with Elegy at my side, and half a dozen hobbs with shotguns and shields at my back. The number of dingy humans staring at us kept growing, but the face I was looking for wasn’t in the crowd yet, so I cupped my hands and shouted, “Cole! Come on out now, Cole, we need to talk!”

“Fuck you!” shouted a familiar voice.

I shook my head and turned toward the obscenity’s source. “Oh hi, Zack.” I casually said. “How’s the ankle?”

He was wearing an oversized boot with an inflatable cast on one foot, and hobbling toward our group, forty-caliber pistol in hand. As he approached, he raised the handgun and pointed it at me.

My hobbs all swarmed into position, marching in-between me and the incoming attacker, shotguns raised. The rapid response team all got highwater blasters, the same kind of shotgun I used.

“Wait!” I yelled, stepping forward. “Let him, he can’t hurt me.” I put a hand on the nearest hobbs shoulder and nodded, taking his place on the line. “Zach, this is dumb, why are you so insistent on getting yourself killed?”

My hobbs kept their weapons trained on Zach, and he hobbled to a stop near our circle, hesitantly lowering his own weapon. “More aliens, huh?” he said, sweeping his eyes across my squad.

“What, gonna call me a race traitor, Zach?” I asked, shrugging. “Look, go ahead and shoot me, I don’t care. I need to talk to your boss.”

He scowled in confusion and hefted the handgun.

“Yeah, seriously. Shoot me all you like, I want you to be reminded how futile it is, and I’m really looking forward to seeing what these new less-lethal rounds will do to you,” I said.

Zach blinked and holstered his sidearm. “You’d just heal,” he grumbled.

“That’s right, guns don’t solve me. One of very few problems you can’t just put down-range to deal with. Now where the hell is Cole?!” I barked.

“Fuck you, outsider!” Zach barked back at me. He leaned on his crutch and glared at me.

“This is delightful! Do you allow them such aggression regularly?” Elegy asked, his tiredness seemingly forgotten.

“Oh about as often as I come around,” I replied over one shoulder. “My presence is particularly upsetting to them. The last time we were here, we had to kill several.”

“Fascinating,” replied Elegy. “Do, please, go on. I’m greatly enjoying the show.”

“What the fu-” Zach started, but was cut off by the loud, metal bang of a door being thrown open.

Cole and a troop of men marched out from the main building, where I knew they had a basement armory. It appeared as though the men had geared up before coming out to meet us. They wore work clothes, with plate carriers and thigh holsters, all covered in soot. A meager enough show of force.

Two of them carried grenade launchers, with rotating six-cartridge drums. My hobbs immediately raised their weapons again, but I shook my head and stepped forward.

“If those launchers raise, I want the idiots holding them on the ground before they can fire,” I growled. It was the only weapon in the approaching arsenal that could hurt us through our shields or damage our vehicles significantly.

“Cole, we had a deal. Why am I here, Cole?” I asked, annoyed. “Why am I here?”

This time the troop formed up in a proper wedge, with Cole and their grenadiers protected by riflemen. A small flash of hope passed through my mind. They were capable of learning, at the very least.

That was going to be important, with the future this affiliate faced.

I stepped forward, meeting the incoming squad. The point men raised their rifles to my face, and I shook my head. “Did you at least tell them what happened to the last group of idiots who pointed guns at us on your behalf?” I asked.

Cole glared at me from behind his soot-stained beard. “They saw for themselves. All still volunteered. And you are here because one of my men hurt your doctor.”

I nodded. “Alright, you know. That’s good, since you’re supposed to be in charge of this associate.”

“I am in command of this militia!” he barked back.

“Then why are your guys beating on my docs?” I asked. “We’ve been good, you and me. No more bloodshed between us, that was the deal.”

“The deal stands!” he shouted back. “It was just a fight! A father didn’t like the way your doctor was talking about his son.”

“My doctor nearly lost an eye. He’s in a body cast right now for a severely bruised spine, which happened when your guy repeatedly kicked him once he was already down. That doesn’t sound much like a fight to me.” I said, putting my hands on my hips. I shook my head and sighed. “Look, you can either accuse my doctor of some wild shit, or you can tell me why your man had the response he had.”

“Rations are low,” Cole hissed, leaning forward. “Tensions are high right now. He just lost his temper and snapped.”

I nodded, crossing my arms. “Why?”

“Why what?” Cole asked, eyebrows furrowed.

“Why did he lose his temper, specifically?” I asked. “What could have made him so angry that he kicked a doctor when the man was already down? Aside from the chronic hunger that your bad choices forced on him, of course.”

Cole scowled and frowned deeper than before. He glanced back at his men and then nodded to me. “Walk with me.”

I nodded, but stopped and addressed his men, and Zach. “Just so you guys are aware, any of you try anything, you’re all getting a twelve-gauge dose of ipecac. You don’t know what that is, ask a hobb. I’m sure they’ll be happy to show you.”

Cole jerked his head to the side as he started walking, and I followed, Elegy firmly in place behind me. When the other human turned and noticed the delf following, his eyes widened in surprise, but I shook my head. “Don’t mind him, he’s observing affiliate operations.”

“Indeed!” said Elegy, good mood obvious in his expression. “Just pretend I’m not here at all!” His sharpened teeth appeared behind his wide smile, and his eyes glowed red at Cole, who looked more and more uncertain of himself.

“Alright, look,” he said, glancing around as we came to a stop in the middle of his compound’s open space. “The doc said the boy couldn’t work anymore, and the father lost it momentarily. It was just one of those moments. He did some damage before my guys could pull him off.”

I sighed and shook my head. “How old is the kid in question?”

Cole muttered something and looked away, blinking.

“Speak up Cole, I can’t fucking hear you!” I shouted.

“Eleven!” he barked back. “The boy is eleven, alright?”

My hands clenched into fists, and the breaker gauntlets manifested with a clank. “And you had him working in your mine?!” I stopped and shook my head, late to the realization. “I use that mine’s products, Cole! How many kids do you have working?”

Cole wouldn’t meet my gaze; he just scowled at the ground. “All of ‘em. We can’t afford not to.”

“The hell you can’t!” I snapped. “We made damned sure you could feed everyone with the deal we’ve cut.” I stepped in closer and growled at the man. “We also went out of our way to make sure you had a few extra morties to spend on your stupid ammo cache even when you were short.”

He took an instinctive step back and stared at me, wide-eyed. Not much of a poker face.

“Yeah, I know all about that, it’s not exactly difficult to guess. Don’t tell me. Let me put this together based on nothing but your predictable stupidity,” I said, pointing at Cole. “You started selling a portion of the food too, since we didn’t lower the amount when you started skimming from the ore. You’ve been using that illicit fund to purchase and stockpile weapons again.”

There I stopped and gestured for Cole to speak. He frowned, put his hands on his hips, and looked up toward the sky, wincing as though in pain. “Yeah, that’s about right.”

“With the result of reintroducing child labor to my world,” I growled back. “Cole, you piece of shit, what am I supposed to do with you?”

The man glowered at me from behind his dirty beard, thumbs tucked into his plate carrier.

I sighed again and turned away, fighting the anger. My eyes scanned idly over the compound, until I saw a flash of red hung in a nearby window. It was in the upper window of a ramshackle office trailer stack, double-wide, the red, black, and white flag was built around the twisted rune at its center.

The flag that had only ever meant one thing. Violence. Death.

So be it.

Chapter 29

“Anybody in that building,” I asked Cole, between grit teeth.

Cole saw where I was facing and visibly paled. He clicked his shoulder mic on.

“Northern barracks clear out! Clear out right now!” he shouted.

A thin metal door on the structure banged open and a pair of skinny teens with buzzed haircuts and AR-15s ran from the structure, bent at the waist.

“Hey Phyllis!” I shouted. Her mech turned toward me, and Elegy applauded in delight as I pointed at the structure.

“Fascists!” her mechanized voice rang out across the compound, and her oversized mech whirred as an arm shot out toward the flimsy structure. The glowing, blue-tipped weapon behind her arm’s shield pulsed, and my ears popped as the shack blew apart.

Chunks of aluminum siding, pink insulation, and the interior possessions of whoever had lived there scattered across the compound in a flameless explosion, smashing against the far side’s fence.

I whirled and activated my helmet’s booming voice feature as I rose gently into the air. “I want every armed member of this associate on the ground, now!”

BlueCleave moved to obey. They didn't take any chances with the squad holding grenade launchers, and immediately hit them with a barrage of vomit-inducing shells.

The men began to violently lose the contents of their stomachs, dropping to their knees in the process. Throwing-up was truly incapacitating, I watched one of them try to raise their rifle before collapsing in a heap, retching and gagging.

Most of the rest of the Arms Keepers gave up willingly after that, including Cole. They raised their hands, gently set down weapons, and went to their knees in a large circle if they had been armed. My hobbs were good at understanding orders, and any of the civilians who weren’t actively brandishing weapons at us were left alone.

Elegy grinned ear to ear as he held his own sidearm on Cole, looking up at me. “Such fun! Not to put my finger on the scales, but I do hope you’ll order them all executed next.” He bared his teeth at the kneeling human, who cringed. “Or at least this one.”

The weapon glowed and steamed at the open end.

I raised a hand and shook my head. “Tempting, but hold please, inquisitor,” I said, trying to sound respectful and commanding at the same time.

Within thirty seconds, every threat in the compound was either being policed by stern hobbs or puking their guts up on the ground. Most had gone to dry heaving already. Cole was starving his people again, and that made for little vomit to expunge.

My hobbs reloaded and scrounged their spent shells, efficiently tucking them into belt pouches or pockets. BlueCleave allowed their operators to keep any brass and either use it themselves or sell it for extra morties on the side.

With all the weapon’s manufacturers coming in, scrap shells were a hot item. It was a good benefit. Most squads saved theirs until they could pool them to afford a night at Morbin Time.

Elegy clapped and laughed, smiling wide behind his hat. “Oh delightful. Such a show!” He shaded his eyes to look up at me. “Shall we kill them now?”

I floated slowly toward the center of the compound, shaking my head. “Worse. Our deal is off.”

Cole scowled at that, in spite of the confusion and fear obvious on his face.

With booming voice still active, I turned and addressed the entire affiliate. “Arms Keepers! You are no longer a direct associate of Silken Sands. We won’t have anything to do with child laborers.” I paused to let those who could hear me take it in.

Then I hit them with the surprise. “As of this moment, you all have direct access to Prescott. It’s just over the hill on that road. You could walk it, if you really wanted to. My hobbs won’t stop you, but if you cause trouble in my city, they will deal with you, the same as they would any other threat. There’s work. Construction and administrative work is particularly hot right now. We can’t hire fast enough to fill those jobs. You just have to be able to get along with your neighbors. Don’t steal, don’t hurt people, the normal shit. BlueCleave will be instructed to process you like any other refugees we take in.”

My speech petered out as I looked at the dirty crowd. One woman yelled suddenly, from near the back of the group, where most of the women and kids were. She grabbed the hand of a young child and started running, dragging the boy through my hobbs and the scattered kneeling human men.

One of them reached out to grab her leg, but she was ready, and deftly kicked him in the face. He went down with a grunt, bleeding into the dirt.

“Take us!” she screamed. “Please! Take us with you!”

I pointed, and Tollya moved. She and two other hobbs ran to the woman’s side and escorted the pitiable figures through the lines to the ships.

“If I hear about any retaliation against anyone who leaves, I’ll personally kill every man in this compound, and burn whatever’s left to slag,” I growled, booming voice ability active.

I turned and floated back to the ground, crouching and hauling Cole up by his forearm. “As a group, you’re cut off. No more Arms Keepers. That shit is over. Any of your people who want to, however, can come live a life in Prescott. Or leave, I don’t care. But nobody will do business with the Arms Keepers affiliate on this planet if they want to do business with me.”

Cole blinked and stared, glaring in confusion at me. He glanced at the dark elf by my side, wearing an oversized sun hat and sharp-toothed grin. “You never fail to surprise me, warlord,” Elegy sighed. “I’ll admit to some disappointment, but this is so interesting I don’t even want to kill the bearded one anymore.”

He gestured toward the hovercraft. “But, I sense the interesting part is over now, and I grow weary. I’ll be on the ship.”

I nodded. “Thank you, inquisitor.”

There I turned and faced Cole again. Before I could say anything, he raised his hands. “My men won’t leave,” he said.

“Not at first, I imagine,” I said, calmly and quietly. “At first it will just be your women and children who leave. They’ll sneak out, or run away openly, but they’ll go. You don’t feed them, you moron, why would they want to stay?”

He scowled and looked at the ground.

“Then some of the men will start leaving too,” I said. “You’ll have to start selling the guns and ammo you’ve stockpiled to buy food, now that I’m not feeding your people. That’ll be the turning point, your men will either break and rip each other apart, or they’ll break and run into my arms. Either way, this lunacy is over. I don’t know what your personal war is Cole, but it’s not with me.”

I pointed at him and loomed to make my final point. “If you don’t stop acting like my enemy, I’m going to start treating you like you are.”

As I walked away, I finally unclenched, and my breaker gauntlets retracted. I did a micro meditation session, counting my breaths until I reached the hovercraft.

Tollya flew our craft, but only me and Elegy were passengers. Everyone else had piled into the other craft. As we took off, Phyllis’ mech chugged back into motion, crossing the compound and taking down another entire fence. The chain link and razor wire got caught in her tread and ripped the entire wall of fencing down, as she left the area.

I smiled at the act. It would make things considerably easier for those who wanted to leave, and BlueCleave kept the entire state free of threats. Not like they needed their fence for protection anymore.

“I like your style, Tyson,” Elegy said, crossing his thin legs. “I wouldn’t have thought you to be so cruel, splitting their affiliate like that.”

I shook my head, letting the helmet down and showing Elegy my exhausted face. “It’s not that. I can’t afford to lose the manpower. This way we’ll retain most of them, once naturalized by BlueCleave. Hell, some of ‘em may even join BlueCleave, if they can prove themselves worthy.”

“And would you provide them with a relic like yours?” he asked, pointing a perfectly manicured nail at my chest.

“Some, but that unfortunately isn’t easy,” I lied. “The relic storefront will only sell to us if we meet certain specific conditions in the search, and it’s always changing. We’ve only managed to acquire a few extra suits.”

This was a practiced lie. Axle had trained me heavily for it. Most relic stores were difficult to acquire, as most relics were one-offs. The store would be empty after it was found and sold. If not, most affiliates did what we lied about doing, worked on finding a new search term that would get them another relic. Axle had even put together a paper-trail of our search term attempts, designed to mislead the church.

Speaking of Axle, a heart stopping text came through my BuyMort app. “Need you now, come ASAP.”

I controlled my reaction to the text and ignored it, instead smiling politely to Elegy.

“I’ll be happy to share what information we’ve managed to gather on the relics with you, of course,” I told the delf. “We had planned to provide that file to the gold inspection team but getting you a copy won’t be a problem.”

The delf smiled gently again. “I have access to your entire file, of course. I’ll simply look at the gold team’s results when they’re finished.”

I nodded, before leaning back into the pilot’s hallway. “Grand Canyon resort, please!” I shouted, to be heard above the engines.

Chapter 30

All around us as we flew was the sandy redstone of the canyon, peppered green with the bushes and stunted trees native to the place.

But a solid square of green broke the monotony of the arid land, a trim and well kept lawn that spread across acres, home to stony cherub fountains, a rainbow smattering of flower gardens, and pleasant stony walkways on which to keep gentlefolk's dress shoes from touching even a hint of mulch-dirt.

In its center, the hotel was a towering monument of restored grandeur, erected from the remains of a historic structure. It was supposedly a symbol of our wealth and influence. Rebuilding it had raised my Credit Level to 80 in the system.

But damn did I hate it.

It felt like we were trying to reach back into time and get back the trappings of a society we'd lost. The rat race that I loathed.

We had to win over the stringent church inspection teams, so we'd turned to the guy who most knew the language of wealth. D'lon Stanche, our town's only remaining billionaire.

And the sight of the place pissed me off.

The moment you walked through the entrance, you were confronted by a grotesque and overwhelming assault of opulence. Stanche had chosen to smother every corner with an overdone layer of baroque detailing. Faux gold glimmered from every hallway, banisters and cornices gleaming ostentatiously under the grand chandeliers. Every step echoed on the floors of mock marble, decorated with intricate patterns of sham silver, a testament to hurried craftsmanship and Stanche's peculiar love for the gaudy.

It was an exaggerated spectacle, so far removed from subtlety that it would've made even Mr. Sada blush. Red velvet drapes hung heavily from the windows, their rich color stark against the pale walls. Iridescent chandeliers, each more massive than the last, descended from ceiling panels painted with gilded cherubs and fantastical creatures. The furniture, upholstered in garish tones and trimmed with tassels and faux gems, was a throwback to the era of McMansions and shitty people.

Stanche had begged me, pleading like a child, to invest in actual gold ore for his project. He envisioned corridors of pure gold and surfaces inlaid with silver.

Stuff we could have afforded, and maybe another man would have done.

But it was all bullshit enough already, and I had a feeling it looked enough the part. A circus spectacle for a circus multiversal system.

Plus it wasn't all bad. There was something about taking this shattered wreck of a hotel and making it whole again that appealed to my senses. Like it was a metaphor for Nu-Earth. And promise of what was going to come under the guardianship of Silken Sands.

In the end, the oversized resort sat on the edge of the Grand Canyon itself, so walls full of windows was the priority. Natural beauty was the primary draw, and we specifically cut light pollution in a twenty mile radius to provide a better view of the stars, and our elevator.

Elegy took in the sights through his window with a light yawn. Our hovercraft was met by hobb wait staff, who were primarily BlueCleave in different uniforms. The average hobb’s basic skill set was impressive. It covered mortal combat and placation of high society guests.

I smiled and nodded, made my manners, wished the delf a lovely sleep, and told him I was at his disposal. Anything he needed.

Then, as soon as he was safely inside the building, I took off into the sky and pushed the suit. In the air above the Grand Canyon, I generated a shockwave that rattled the resort’s windows and streaked through the air back to Silken Sands.

I landed in a crash of exploding dirt, behind Morbin Time. My assumption was that we were going to fight the beholder below-ground, so I landed close to the elevator. Jada was at the top, holding the door to the staircase open.

She motioned for me, and I jolted through the air, tumbling past her down the stairs and controlling my fall only through use of the gravity drive.

While I careened down toward the bottom level of the staircase, I heard Jada leaping down behind me. As I descended, I got another expensive text in my BuyMort app. “Need you now, come ASAP.”

The exact same wording, which meant he had just resent the last message to save on time. I put on another burst of speed and blasted through the door at the bottom of the stairwell, nearly knocking it off its hinges and startling the group of gathered people.

Axle was there, as were the brothers Delvago. They’d constructed a false wall at the end of Quadrum’s hallway, and I could hear Lee’s voice from the other side. A crackle in the air, and the way the hair on my arms stood up, told me that the creature we intended to kill was present as well.

My Knowle friend whipped his head around as we entered, and relief flooded his features. Dario and Izan both noticed my entrance and turned. Dario quickly raised a finger to his lips, indicating that I should remain silent. His brother was pale, sweating, and clearly terrified. He also had a hand thrust into the humming trans-dimensional cannon.

Its track was already down, and it was facing the false wall. Axle and the rest of them had constructed the decoy of plywood and printed sheet plastic resembling the blank concrete walls around us. I wondered what it did for the beholder.

Quadrum’s voice raised suddenly, from the other side of the partition. “WHY IS THIS WALL?” the creature demanded.

“There is no wall,” Lee confidently replied.

“HUMAN LIES! WHY IS THIS WALL?” Quadrum repeated.

“It is a certainty that all humans are liars, wouldn’t you agree?” asked Lee.

“YES,” roared Quadrum, their proximity difficult to ignore. I heard arcs of lightning striking the walls on the other side of the plastic screen. “NO. STOP NONSENSE! WHY IS THIS WALL?”

“I must ask,” Lee drawled, sounding relaxed. “How long have you been perceiving walls that aren’t real?”

“I. YOU.” Quadrum stumbled. “STOP NONSENSE! NO MORE QUESTIONS!”

A text arrived in my helmet, on my BuyMort app. Axle was spending what we once would have considered a fortune on this method of communication. It was the safest way, though, so I understood and merely tried to absorb the information.

“Lee has been delaying with logic paradoxes, they seem to prevent any significant emotional response aside from confusion,” his text read. “Emotions alter their perception of the third dimension, so we must keep them confused until we are ready to make them angry, which is your job. Just get Quadrum to cross the wall, we will do the rest.”

I scowled and glanced back at Axle, but the Knowle merely nodded seriously.

“Very well,” drawled Lee. “No more questions. I will tell you everything you wish to know about the wall, if you can guess whether or not I will tell you the truth.”

I raised my eyebrows within the helmet. Using word games to provoke an extra-dimensional being manifesting as pure energy wearing a skin of unfathomable technology wasn’t something I envied. Then I took a deep breath as I realized my role in the entire ambush. I had to do what Lee was doing but create anger instead of confusion.

My specialty.

“ENOUGH!” roared Quadrum. “EXPLAIN WALL IMMEDIATELY!”

“As you wish,” Lee answered. “You are an irresistible force, Lord Quadrum. I cannot help but obey. The wall is an immovable object.”

I approached closer, and finally saw the trap. The walls and ceiling were thicker on my side of the wall than they were on Quadrum and Lee’s. Like another layer of wall and ceiling was in place, smoothed and molded to fit behind the flimsy wood framing.

Cube was there, hidden and ready to pounce. I just hoped he didn’t decide to finally eat me, I was directly beneath him.

“The wall is plastic,” I said, reaching forward and ripping down the plastic screen. The beholder was struggling, making small, jerky movements and occasionally arcing electricity to the walls and ceiling nearby. Lee stood at a healthy distance, but was close enough to easily converse with the creature.

“Apparently you’re not all-seeing after all, Quadrum.” I let my helmet recede and snarled, crumpling the printed sheet of plastic. “A simple plastic sheet was enough to dumbfound an angel of BuyMort. How about that?”

“BAD SERVANT!” yelled Quadrum, turning and ‘facing’ me. The burning eye at the center of their flaming orb blinked, and a build up of darker color above it indicated unhappy feelings building in the beholder. “DECEPTION! PREDATION! UNACCEPTABLE BEHAVIOR!”

I nodded and cleared my throat. The energy crackling in the air made it dry and irritating to breathe. “You’re even unpleasant to be around, you know that?” I asked, letting the words out in a sigh. “You dry out the air just with your presence, this is ridiculous. I must have been insane to allow this arrangement in the first place. You’re no longer welcome here, Quadrum, and you never really were.”

Quadrum blinked, and a wall of lightning formed at our backs, cutting off the doorway and elevator shaft. The creature no longer moved unsteadily, anger focusing their confusion and giving them back control. Jada immediately clanked shut, her armor plates extending in an instant and covering her entire body in the damage-resistant metal of the starfish suit.

I sighed again and raised my fists, summoning the breaker gauntlets. “Come on and die then, monster,” I said, gesturing with one gauntlet as I clenched the other into a fist.

That got their attention. Quadrum’s single eye went wide, and the dark red of angry flames spread from the center of the orb to consume its other colors entirely. Tendrils with glowing, sparking eyes rose threateningly, weaving in the suddenly steaming air of the tunnel.

Lee flinched as flames erupted on his face and head, immolating his mustache and thinning gray hair. The older man dove to the floor and rolled away as Quadrum got properly angry.

The red in their primary orb flushed brighter and brighter, until it shifted into the purple spectrum, and the concrete walls around them glowed and slumped as the stone melted.

“Even uglier than before, somehow,” I said, scowling and giving Quadrum a single, coarse laugh.

The beholder snapped and rushed down the hall toward me.

“THY FLESH CONSUMED!” the behemoth creature roared.

“Funny you should say that,” I answered, scrambling backwards. I made it a few feet before I felt the beholder’s presence in my mind, its electric tingle shutting down my ability to run or move. Instead, I was turned to face the oncoming monster.

As Quadrum approached, the boards and plastic of the false wall puffed into flashes of brilliant flame, and I was hit with a wave of burns.

Behind me, Jada grabbed Axle and pushed him into a corner, covering his body with her own. The brother’s Delvago’s shields flared.

I summoned my helmet with a thought as the heat hit me again, saving my own beard and face. A wash of purple flame lashed out from the orb and scorched my torso. Not a proper attack, not even meant to cause me harm. Just backwash from the beast’s palpable anger. But I was frozen, unable to do anything but watch as they closed the distance, and the heat grew unbearable.

Quadrum roared wordlessly and lifted a dozen of its weaponized tendrils to point at me. I took a breath and roared back at the beast, ignoring my own fear and embracing the anger. For a fraction of a second, I was ready to charge the living star and punch it, if only I could move.

Then Cube dropped on them from above, and I was free. My pet deployed from the ceiling in a liquid metal sheet with a mouth, wrapping around and immediately defusing the angry, sapient star-like creature. A massive spark sent a shockwave through the room that stood my hair on end, and Quadrum’s containment suit hit the concrete floor, sinking into the molten stone.

But the stone quickly cooled, even as the light around us faded. Quadrum’s core dwindled and dimmed, their eye blinking in sheer terror as it shrank. Cube had shorted out their defenses, and was in the process of consuming their corporeal, energy-based body.

Flames churned and surged from inside the pupil of the eye, and its light began to brighten again. Energy poured into Quadrum from their own dimensional gating, somehow part of their body, hidden within the eye.

Cube shifted back, rising away from the beholder as the star flared with fresh life. The energy absorption was too much for my pet to handle. Still, he was going to eat that beholder, or die in the attempt. He merely shifted the bulk of his liquid-metal body back, exposing the front end of the angry, terrified star.

Axle pushed past Jada’s armored form to see, then screamed at the Delvago brothers, “FIRE!”

Izan turned to glance at me, shaking and pale, sweat beaded on his brow and chin. Dario turned and screamed in his brother’s face to fire, and Izan flinched. The cannon bucked, and a glowing ball of pure black hurtled into the diminished star. Cube moved impossibly fast, flinching away from the eruption, before immediately descending again.

Quadrum’s flames all shifted color the instant the cannon-strike landed. They cycled from a dark red to purple, before shifting to green, and finally blazing at a blue-white level. The creature twitched, suddenly jerking in one direction and then the other, unable to free themself from Cube. Small explosions began to pepper the surface of Quadrum’s body, sending small solar flares in all directions.

Cube shifted his body to avoid them as needed, forming small gaps in his liquid metal coverage, while maintaining his bulk over the dying beholder.

A metallic tendril from Quadrum’s suit pushed free of Cube’s liquid metal form, sparking with energy. Without thinking, I lunged for it and activated my breaker gauntlet the instant I grabbed the stalk. An explosion of blue light and reddish-purple flame blasted me into the wall, and I crumpled, ribs shattered.

I watched from the floor, painkillers blurring my vision, as Cube consumed the corporeal body of the weakened beholder Quadrum. Their roar staggered and faded, as more and more parts of the creature's exoskeleton were shattered in a chain reaction and drawn into the churning, sparking gears of Cube’s exposed mouth. The rest of it was sheer light, simply being devoured, as if by an unstoppable gravity well.

Quadrum’s roar of anger quickly turned to a scream of pure terror. Quickly, the voice lost strength and faded, until the eye of flame was nearly gone.

In the growing dark of the tunnel, Quadrum spoke one final time, each word an effort. “THE. SLEEM. WILL. CONSUME. YOU. ALL.”

My vision blurred in and out, as light dimmed to dark, and only the sound remaining was that of Cube crunching the last of the exoskeleton’s ruptured structure.

“Axle!” I shouted.

Floodlights flicked on behind me and illuminated the entire hallway, reflecting from Cube’s silvered, liquid metal carapace. It flowed and formed back into a cube shape, now taking up a great deal of the hallway. Behind me, Lee was down, and his head was still smoking.

I thumbed my BlueCleave comms, but it spat sparks at me, so I initiated the MortMobile app in my helmet.

Being rich has its advantages.

I called the BlueCleave rapid response force leader, which was Tollya.

Fortunately for me, my hobbs were good at their jobs. She was already in the area, landing at the library helipad. A quick verbal back and forth ensured a rapid response medic team was en route, and Tollya headed our way with the hovercraft’s on-board medical kit, which included a limited feature surgical robot.

I doubted we would need that thing, but it was reassuring to have it along.

My suit finished popping in my ribs and grinding up the old ones, before ejecting the thin stream of jellied bone matter onto the molten-and-reformed concrete floor.

“Axle,” I croaked, struggling to my feet. My hand, the one I had used to destroy the beholder’s exoskeleton, was numb and held the threat of lurking pain. I looked at it in shock, to see what appeared to be a lasting injury. My gauntlet was sparking, its metal armor twisted and torn.

My Knowle friend ran to my side and helped me to my feet. He gawked at the scene, before gripping me in a hug.

“Never before, my friend!” Axle said. “And now we know, they can be killed. Our oppression can be lifted.”

“Get that room of theirs cleaned out. Or hidden, whatever you have to do. The inspection teams cannot find this area,” I gasped.

The drugs still cycled, and my cartoon was jabbering something at me, but I couldn’t focus on both of them at the same time, so I automatically prioritized Axle. The cartoon was nothing but a voice in my head, Axle was real.

“Of course boss, it’s part of the plan,” he answered gently. He pointed to my arm. “This has never happened before either, are you going to be alright?”

I blinked at the sparking, ruined gauntlet and my own twisted, splayed digits. They were broken, clearly, but I was so numb I couldn’t feel it. My entire hand was a lump of tingling static. The cartoon squalled at me, and I finally focused.

“Break something immediately, user!” it yelled, a combat medic’s uniform in place. “Suit repair must be effected before your injured limb can be repaired.”

“PRDs!” I yelled, clutching my arm to my chest. A fresh wave of the painkiller hit me, but I could still feel the crystalline colonies in my limb retreating en masse. Millions of them. They tickled as they fled the damaged tissue, survivors of a small-scale apocalypse of their own, seeking distant muscle tissue like a promised land, to breed and retake their homes once repaired.

Tollya arrived, kicking open the basement door. She ran past me and dropped off a case of PRDs, rushing past to Lee’s prostrate, smoldering form.

I flicked open the lid and crushed a PRD by the tail. My suit powered up to full, but the cartoon starfish merely shook his head. “You’ll need more charge, be ready user. It would be best if you used the other breaker gauntlet, or this will take a long time.”

A tendril unlike any I had seen before appeared from a still-functional slot in my armor near the elbow. It was covered in sharp, hooked thorns, all appearing to be the same metal as the suit and my breaker gauntlets. While I watched, scowling and confused, the thin tendril wrapped itself around my forearm, just above the wrist, and started to whir back and forth, throwing sparks into the air and creating a rattling buzz that filled the entire area.

I frowned at it and reached my other hand over, summoning my remaining breaker gauntlet. With a grimace, I clamped my left hand down over my right forearm. The suit stopped sawing to allow my gauntlet into place, retracting the offensive tendril.

With a few quick breaths to steady my nerves, I activated the breaker gauntlet. A flash of blue light rocked my eyes away, and when I looked back, the hand and gauntlet were simply gone. My arm was a stump at the elbow, synthetic blood spurting from it with each beat of my heart.

The suit went into action again and started rebuilding my forearm from scratch. Tendrils slid from the ports and worked to retrieve small parts as the miniaturized factory embedded in my chest produced them. Lengths of wet bone, still glistening at both ends, was stacked in place while other tendrils sprayed flesh foam into the areas.

Yet more tendrils carved and heat-treated my new skin with lasers, ensuring it settled in the correct formation.

“Better break something again user, this is about to get heavy,” said my cartoon starfish. I reached into the crate and snapped another PRD’s tail with my good hand, and the suit suddenly revved up. I don’t know how else to describe it, the process I felt in my chest when the turbine produced parts happened, it just happened much more dramatically.

More heat, more movement, more pressure.

A small door on the side of the turbine opened, the same port it used to deliver new parts to the external tendrils, only this time it had a small length of gleaming metal in it.

The tendrils didn’t grab these items, they carefully lifted them, using magnetic containment fields instead of direct contact, in order to set them in place. My turbine started getting hot too, not unbearably, but enough to make me pretty uncomfortable.

When the first line of metal touched my skin, it deployed, burning away my flesh with a tiny dimensional portal and then welding itself in place against my bone. I gasped and controlled the pain with breathing techniques learned from Molls, which naturally drew my mind to her.

As the next few dozen small metal lines finished reinstalling themselves in my arm, I blocked out the distant pain and let the suits' drugs carry my mind to the beautiful, serpentine woman. Her gentle touch, supple muscles, and striking, colorful scales.

My breath caught in my throat, and I lost count. Molls.

First the suit, and now a war with the church. I didn’t even know what was going to happen with her family after their move, let alone what side of the incoming war they would be on.

I stared at the slagged floor. It still had a few bits of Quadrum’s exoskeleton embedded in the reformed stone, and the strangely smooth patch of flooring was jagged with shrapnel.

It was all suddenly so real. After tucking in an inquisitor for the most powerful group in known existence, I had rushed off and murdered one of their religion’s angels in my basement. War was coming. Molls and her family would be affected by that war, without doubt.

“Axle,” I croaked, returning my attention to my hand and arm. The construction project seemed to be finished, and it had taken a lot out of the suit to perform the repair. I had to crush a third PRD to shut up my cartoon starfish, and it was only the end of one extremity.

My suit was nearly impossible to damage, but it was possible, and repairs were costly. If this happened in the wrong environment, or to the wrong organ system on my body, I could easily die from it. And I expected to be fighting more beholders.

At least I had gotten a good idea of the stakes.

I sighed and glanced at Afflqwst, happy to have at least fulfilled that long-running quest. It felt like weeks before that our Sleem had escaped and upset Quadrum, to the point of blinding Axle over it.

Quest – Calm the irritation of your beholder guest, before it turns to wrath, and they harm your affiliate.

REQUIREMENTS:

1. (Complete) Negotiate with the beholder. Chance of success is high.

2. (Complete) Kill the beholder. Chance of success is very low.

Quest Complete. Your affiliate’s beholder guest has been killed. REWARD – Item coupon.

Chapter 31

The reward coupon stated its price was three billion. More than a suit reward, but much less than a ship. That meant the last crystalline colony patch, Aimed Shot, which presented a problem. It was going to live in and alter the structure of my brain. Ocular organs and conductive nerves too, but primarily the brain.

I had no idea how it was going to change me, but I was concerned about it. With a sigh, I tucked away that coupon for another time, I just couldn’t deal with that self-conflict at that moment.

“What’d we get?” Axle asked, having seen the interaction.

I shook my head. “Upgrade for me. I’m considering skipping this one. It’s a bit extreme, even for me.”

Axle scowled but nodded. He inspected my new hand and starfish suit portions. “Summon your gauntlet for me please?” he asked, still staring at the metal lines in my hand.

I did as he asked, and the gauntlet deployed. The metal portions rose just enough to allow plating to jut from dimensional pockets and slam into place, covering my hand and forearm. When Axle nodded, I released it with a clink.

“How did Quadrum damage my armor?” I asked, still breathing heavily.

“Stop speaking that name please, it may be part of search algorithms already. We do not know how beholders communicate with one another. The others may be hunting us already,” he whispered, carefully looking over his shoulder at our gathered friends. “And I have no idea. There are some scraps of our former guest’s own armor. I fully intend to study them as soon as I get the opportunity.”

Tollya was wrapping Lee’s head in burn bandages, a special type of first aid patch. Good against classic flames, chemical burns, or even Sleem acid.

Super aid for super people. That’s the Health-Aid promise. 5,000 morties, 4.5 stars.

Jada was watching the door, still in her armor, holding a heavy-looking gun in her hands. Ready for whatever may come through it after us.

Dario was cradling Izan, who was still pale. The thinner man had vomited in the corner. I could suddenly remember hearing it happen as the beholder was being devoured by my pet. Strange how memory worked, sometimes.

Dario frowned and nodded, speaking gentle words in his brother's ear as he held the younger man’s head to his chest.

Cube purred happily in the middle of the hallway.

“Was that a good meal, buddy?” I asked, looking at the oversized box.

“QUITE FILLING! SOPHISTICATED FLAVOR!” Cube shouted. Everyone in the hallway, including a scorched Lee, turned to look at the box. Most of them shook their heads.

“Axle,” I said. “I’m sorry, but I need you monitoring the church. If we need to act, we control that entire building, and Elevator Station. Their security is lax; BlueCleave can easily handle them, and we can likely take a large amount of VIPs hostage. Possibly even that inquisitor.”

The Knowle frowned but nodded. He stood and looked down at me. “I fear hostages won’t do much for us, if the church finds out what we have done here. Our intelligence of church home worlds is limited, but we are monitoring the gate for any large-scale military ships. I’ll let you know the moment something happens.”

He chuckled and waved his tail. “Although, our assumption was that the other beholders would all descend on us instantaneously. So the fact that we are still here, talking in peace beside a dead beholder, means we have a real chance of getting away with this. They must not be as connected as we had thought.”

I scowled and pushed against the ground, standing unsteadily. Chips of concrete crumbled to the floor when I brushed the wall at my back. It was crushed from a central impact point, where I had hit it when Quadrum and I exploded at one another. I don’t think I’ve ever been hit that hard; it crushed my rib cage even with the stone-skin colonies' best efforts to protect it.

Axle helped me stand up, then nodded when I glanced up. “Project strength,” he whispered.

“Especially when I’m not feeling strong,” I croaked, looking over at Lee. Tollya had deployed a portable stretcher, another part of our wonderful BlueCleave first aid kit. They did a lot of rescue work for me, even with starfish suits the kits came in handy. Lee was strapped into the stretcher.

Just in time too, as the rapid response medical team arrived. Like all members of the rapid response portion of BlueCleave, they wore level one starfish suits. The hobbs split up and went to each of the disparate groups, ignoring Jada and her oversized weapon. I could hear its power core humming from even my distance.

Dario waved off the hobb that approached him and Izan, instead hefting his younger brother in his own arms. The man was thin, but Dario made it look easy.

“Dario wait,” I yelled.

He turned, tears glistening from his cheeks. Izan was pale and unresponsive in his arms, staring catatonically at the shards of exoskeleton embedded in the concrete.

“We need to debrief,” I said.

Dario shook his head, and sniffled. “Izan must rest. This was difficult for him. Many bad memories of Mother. We are going home.”

Their cannon was already packed up and in bags across Dario’s broad back. I nodded and let them go. Home for them was an island on Lake Pleasant, just north of the crater that used to be Phoenix. After the Sleem and initial bands of roving aliens had finished with the city, Dearth had moved in and methodically sold it all for scrap. They’d had plans to build housing there, but I became a monkey wrench around that time and kicked them all off the planet.

Now I had an Industrial Earth affiliate asking to lease the entire area and break ground. Axle was pressing them for morties, that negotiation was still in process.

A team of mixed hobbs and Knowles entered the area next, from the cargo elevator. They had a series of large crates and hauling tools in the elevator with them.

“I will explain it all to you, my friend,” Axle told me. “Let’s walk. The injured are being cared for, the mess is being cleaned up. The next item I need you for is a meeting with the church’s gold inspection team tomorrow at lunch, for character analysis.”

“Oh goody, that sounds fun,” I said.

“It is merely what the gold inspection team does,” he replied. “They assess our affiliate culture and public image, ensuring it can be properly church-aligned.”

“Of course,” I answered, suddenly sagging with exhaustion. “Let me know if Lee needs anything. I doubt he’ll want to see my face, but if we can approve any funding for surgeries, whatever he needs.”

Axle nodded, and pointed toward the long, dark hallway leading to Quadrum’s lair. I followed, and once we were out of earshot of everyone but Morbin, he told me what had happened.

The brothers Delvagos' relic book had detailed information on energy based creatures that existed both in and out of our three dimensional universe. They had been called the ‘bright plague’ by those who first encountered them, in a pre-church state of BuyMort. Axle assured me that meant the book was either abject nonsense, or the oldest text in the known BuyMort system.

Having acted on its advice, he leaned in favor of the latter.

It detailed a method of permanently unraveling the energy that the beings were made up of, using a trans-dimensional ion pulse. The relic the brothers wielded was an extra-dimensional item, capable of quantum entangling electrons across reality.

This would unspool the consciousness of a bright plague creature, as the text called them, from its energy-based bodies in all dimensions, essentially dissipating their minds. The text detailed a fleet, equipped with massive reactors, capable of firing the cannons as a primary weapon system. This fleet was able to keep the bright plague at bay and ensure a vibrant future for all in the affiliate.

Of course, that hadn’t worked out for them long term, but I was happy enough to roll the dice. It was either that or accept that the beholders would stop me, would stop my affiliate, or bend it to their service, as Quadrum had done.

Axle had planned on Cube being the primary distraction, with me as the bait. Quadrum got suspicious when their electrical sense of the area around them had changed. To them, conductivity was a large part of their primary sense. Putting up a sheet of plastic had convinced the creature that a new wall had been installed, and helped hide Cube from their senses.

Lee had successfully used that wall to confuse and distract the beholder while they waited for me to arrive. The beholder was going to fixate on someone as the source of their consternation, and Axle had wanted to ensure it was not the brothers Delvago, or himself. The ability to mentally shut my body down, as the angry creature approached, made me the only candidate for the job.

Nobody else could survive the proximity. Even being close to the beholder when their anger first flared had cost Lee painful burns.

Axle pointed at the giant room, now locked in a stairless formation. The cleanup crew had already installed a temporary cargo elevator in the open space and was engaged in attempting to clean up the beholder’s lair.

“Tell me this makes us rich,” I said, watching the activity.

Axle pointed down into the room, past the system of pulleys and planks that made up the temporary elevator, along with a metal frame descending into the room.

A Knowle wearing a heavy backpack operated a specialized vacuum. It had a long nozzle with a thin mesh net at the end, which sparked as he moved it. The Knowle swept his tool back and forth, and the room’s gray flooring came apart like dust, slurping up the metallic color and showing the plain concrete beneath it.

“I have long suspected that the majority of this room contained a massive nanite swarm, likely highly specialized. That theory is confirmed, the nanobot vacuum works perfectly to collect them. The other items I cannot assess yet, but the nanobot swarm can be reprogrammed and sold, or used by our own affiliate,” he explained. “A cloud of nanites this thick . . . we can do a great deal with them. The first thing is to cancel the extra drones from TransPoCo, this swarm will do all of that work for us, much more effectively. The wealth will come not from selling them, but from using them ourselves.”

I nodded, exhausted and still aching. The surge of power that had gone through me during the instant I touched Quadrum’s exoskeleton I still felt, deep in my muscles and brain matter. My crystalline colonies had weathered the current, but it had made everything in me slow and weakened.

“Pilar!” Axle called, cupping his hands to be heard below.

The Knowle operating the vacuum turned and raised a hand. “Yes, boss?” he shouted back.

“How does the intake look?” Axle asked.

“At this rate, we are looking at five tanks full for the complete room,” Pilar answered.

A smile crept across Axle’s features, showing his teeth as his tail slowly waved. “Oh yes,” he breathed. “This is a windfall indeed.”

Chapter 32

The moon cast a pale light on my bed as Molls lay sleeping, her lithe body coiled across my legs. Her soft face was nestled against my chest, and her breaths came out in the gentle rhythm of sleep. Her makeup was smeared from the hours of wear and a smudge came off on my skin as she nuzzled against me.

I sighed and frowned, a wave of guilt and fear washing over me.

Was I being reckless, jumping into the battle with the church without considering all of the consequences? I had given Molls her own suit and hadn't thought through all of the possible consequences. And now there we were. Was this the same sort of thing? I worried about what I was missing, and the fact that it might kill us all.

Could we have lived in peace with Quadrum, instead of killing them?

I felt a slight fuzziness around the edges of my restless brain, either an incoming advertisement, or the start of the end of my sanity.

Tired of being tired? Afraid to hit the hay? Worry no more with Instasleep! Guaranteed to last up to eight hours. Warning: you cannot wake up from instasleep until the selected duration has expired

50000 morties, 3.9 stars.

Molls stirred at my side, her oversized green eyes blinking up at me.

“Sorry Molls, just waving away an ad. Go back to sleep,” I whispered.

She surreptitiously wiped away the makeup with her tail, as she came awake more fully and rose to look down at me.

“No, I think I’ll help you get to sleep instead,” she murmured, waking up fully to look at me. Her eyes glowed with a mixture of love, lust, and concern.

I managed a weak smile, although I found it hard to meet her eyes. The guilt that was gnawing at me seemed to have left a bitter metallic taste in my mouth. Like blood.

“Tyson,” she whispered, cupping my face with her claws. “You did not do this to me.”

The reassurance brought a small relief, but I couldn't shake off the guilt. I met her eyes, forcing myself not to look at the discolored patch of scales on her face. I knew that the suit had caused it, and the fact gnawed at me.

She smiled, shaking her head at my scowl.

“It is natural to blame yourself, Tyson, but this isn't the problem you think it is. This doesn't diminish who I am, and it’s not even difficult to fix.”

When I scowled, Molls continued, “I’ve already made an appointment with a tattoo artist in town for a few days from now. I’ll just wear the makeup until then. You have done nothing to harm me, my love. You gave me the gift of flight, as well as the ability to stay at your side, wherever our journey may take us.”

I flinched at that. Her devotion, the raw force of her love for me was palpable. Guilt rose in my gullet like bile.

“We killed the ‘special guest’ I mentioned earlier,” I whispered. Despite how much of a success that had been, saying those words sent new electric spikes of fear through my body.

A ripple of surprise and deep fear ran through Molls’ scales, changing color to a bright yellow before slowly returning to a lighter shade. "What do you mean?" she asked, her voice barely masking the trepidation she felt.

I swallowed hard, my words hanging heavy in the air. “They’re mortal, in a way. We exploited it, and I think they’re dead. In all dimensions, the text said.”

Molls’ eyes raced, as her scales flashed first yellow, then red, before settling on a light, faded green. “Why have you done this formerly impossible thing?” she finally asked.

“We had to,” I said. “They were killing us, they killed Suzanne. Lee’s wife, and several other affiliate members, for no real reason. They were just impatient.” I shook my head and grimaced at the memory, finally understanding that saying about foxes guarding the hen house. “I couldn’t risk that kind of thing happening again.”

Understanding softened her gaze, and Molls nodded, laying her head back down against my chest. “Okay,” she whispered, her breath shaky. “I'm not scared then. Nu-Earth humans really can kill anything.”

I winced but laughed in spite of myself. “We are tremendously talented at that, yes. Lots of practice, as a species.”

Her head nodded, but it was absent. She was trapped in her own thoughts, about the church and its beholders. I stroked her head and neck lightly, then kissed her forehead. “I am sorry for putting this conflict on you.”

Molls scales slowly turned red, and she shook her head as the color intensified. “It wasn’t you,” she whispered. “The conflict was always there, for everyone. I should never have believed Mother about the church. I should have seen, from the start.”

I frowned. “Seen what?” I whispered.

“The corruption,” she spat, her scales flaring with the intensity of her emotions. “The corruption. There is no aid, no philanthropy, no helping new worlds integrate. Just preying on them, like Kraken, or the Sleem,” she spat. “No one in leadership that I have met seems to believe what we were taught, that BuyMort is here to glorify all life. To bring us together, make us equal. Garthrust ordered me killed. Sent soldiers to kill me. And still I fought for the church, and believed in them. But Garthrust was the church. That’s all there is, all that’s left.”

“Most people with power of this type are corrupt,” I whispered. “That was something we simply understood, on Earth. Before BuyMort, I mean.”

Molls let out a long sigh, her tail winding itself back around my legs. “But not you,” she said softly. "You are a good man, Tyson Dawes."

“Yes, me,” I protested, a flush rising up my face. “I killed Mr. Sada for his MortBlock.”

She rose and her scales flushed with green, allowing me to notice the new permanent band of red. It complimented the purple nicely but was uneven across the newer scales on her face.

“You did that to prevent him from killing us all, through his incompetence. I thought we were past this,” Molls moaned, collapsing onto my chest. “Mr. Sada was not your fault,” she whispered.

“It was my hands on his throat, Molls, I can’t just ignore that. There might have been another way, but once I made that call, that’s all there ever was of him. Just gone,” I said. “And now I’ve likely kicked off a war with the church too.”

She shook her head. “No. The church is slow, and they seem to like you so far. Everyone I’ve spoken to has anyway. I doubt anyone on the inspection team has any intention of announcing war on Silken Sands.”

“That will change,” I whispered. “We’re growing too rapidly. Axle and Jada have told me all about what the church did last time an affiliate grew like this.”

“That affiliate rejected church involvement. You have accepted it,” Molls said, placing a hand against my chest, trailing her claw across my starfish suit lines. “Besides, the church has not gone to war for centuries, not even against the Sleem. I doubt they will break that complacency for you, my love, as impressive as you are.” She smiled wryly at me.

I snorted, in spite of my poor mood. “I sure hope you’re right.”

Molls shifted then, rolling over to straddle me, her tail looped on either side of my hips. She locked eyes with me, her gaze sharp. “You’re doing that thing again,” she said, her tone reprimanding.

With a shrug, I feigned ignorance, even though I knew exactly what she meant. “What thing?”

“That thing where you collate all the stuff you think makes you terrible and then fester on all of it,” Molls said, a sigh escaping her. “And I know the only way to properly break that routine.” Her tail started to move in the way I loved most, and I smiled up at her.

In the midst of our exhaustion and stress, we made love. It wasn’t passionate or fierce but slow, gentle, and filled with a silent promise of unwavering support and love. We showered afterwards, before changing the sheets, our earlier worries momentarily forgotten.

After all, we had future worries to deal with.

The next day was going to be a hard one. We had meetings lined up throughout the day with Nah'gh members of the inspection teams. Molls had several appointments while I had a single one, a lunch meeting with Axle.

Molls was deliberately excluded from that meeting. Her work with the gold team, and her relationship with me meant she couldn’t be present for my assessment. My entire PR team was allowed, but not her.

Felt like a cosmic slight. Having her at my side made me a million times better than my dusty old self on my lonesome.

The day ended as tiring as it had started, but when we went to bed this time, sleep came quickly. We slipped into the darkness of unconsciousness, our bodies intertwined, drawing comfort from each other's presence. We were in the eye of the storm, with chaos brewing around us. But as long as we had each other, we could face whatever was coming.

Chapter 33

The next morning, I stayed in bed long after Molls had gotten up and dressed. She came back to give me a kiss before leaving for the day, and I resisted the urge to pull her back in bed with me. The new silver lines running across her body instilled conflicting emotions, but I tried to focus on her perspective. She didn’t blame me for her new difficulties, and that mattered.

I sighed and got out of bed, slowly getting dressed while yawning repeatedly. By the time I stepped off the roof of the building and hurtled to the ground floor, I was nearly awake enough to face the day. My gravity harness kicked in and caught me as I fell.

It may sound strange, but I’d lost all fear of falling by that point. Using the suit’s gravity harness upgrade was about concentration. Mental focus. It quickly became second nature, I could simply fly. Without even thinking about it much.

Breakfast was obtained from the small vendor who ran a BBQ cart near the front entrance of the tower. The hobb who ran it was used to his regular customers, primarily me and all my administrative staff that operated under Axle at the tower. We had a significant BlueCleave presence as well, in consideration of the strategic value of the tower, and hobbs loved yarsp barbeque.

I couldn’t help but agree with the consensus as I munched on my breakfast, a sauced up yarsp wrap with pickled carrots and cabbage. Sitting on the steps to the tower, I gave the morning visitors a small show, eating my breakfast and staring out over the city.

Once I was finished, I sold the wrap’s saucy wax paper to BuyMort and flew over the city to find some BlueCleave units to offer a hand to. They were constantly working to keep the city safe, responding to dream storms and other, more normative issues like domestic or business related peacekeeping.

Law enforcement was pretty different under BuyMort. For one thing, there were no laws, only what BuyMort would or wouldn’t allow a sapient customer to do. Each major affiliate established order with codes of conduct, which were enforced by employment manipulation, or security forces if needed.

Our code of conduct was simple enough. Golden rule stuff, really. Don’t do things that harm others or the affiliate, generally speaking. Axle and his team had gone over it to make sure the code was easy to understand and follow, before making sure it was part of our affiliate intake system. Anybody who got a job with us was given a copy, as with pretty much any other affiliate.

Some things worked better just going with the flow of the system, Axle had assured me. Most people will naturally get along well, if they have their needs met and don’t have to capitalize on one another in order to have a life. There was still the odd dispute to resolve, but for the most part those on the ground floor level of BuyMort were content to live lives and work, if they could.

Plenty of them were just happy to be free from Storage and would do very little to risk returning there.

All of that meant there was strangely little crime in the city. We’d had a single major heist, where expensive plasma ammunition was stolen from a convoy moving through the desert to an outpost. They’d cut through the bottom of the roller and vanished without us ever knowing who it was. BlueCleave quickly found and closed the loophole in their informational security that had caused the loss, and whoever the thief had been either blew town or stayed quiet about their victory.

We never found ‘em.

But that general lack of crime didn’t mean BlueCleave had nothing to do.

They were the reason for the peace.

Enforcement was very direct, in BuyMort. Our civilian peacekeeping force was the same as our military arm, they just swapped shift rotations around.

Not terribly democratic, I admit, but I was a warlord. Different form of governance entirely.

My shining chrome helmet arriving at any BlueCleave scene made the entire situation easier for my hobbs, so anytime I had free time and wasn’t drinking with Morbin, I called dispatch and got sent to different parts of the city to help them respond to calls.

Getting plastered with my bat friend seemed like a bad idea, when I had a meeting with Elegy and the gold inspection team later, so I decided to do some community service instead.

My presence was beneficial to the hobbs of BlueCleave. I was a celebrity hero figure in their internal culture. Something the disparate tribes of Storage could rally around. Which was good, because a lot of them were coming into Silken Sands. Even tribe RedTeeth were joining us, their hard-won portion of Storage destabilizing almost as soon as BlueCleave left them in charge on their exodus to Arizona.

Within the week, the Sleem had overrun their defenses and claimed the ancestral home of tribe BlueCleave, before threatening, and eventually consuming the city RedTeeth had their base in. They’d had a couple weeks to evacuate between the losses, so most people got out before the Sleem came in.

The hobbs weren’t incompetent; the Sleem had simply overwhelmed them, bubbling up from below instead of dropping down from above.

The Sleem had taken much of Storage, since I had risen to power. It worried me. In the back of my mind I was constantly thinking about the trillions of people still on that derelict station, and what kind of scramble to survive they were being forced into. Worrying that the Sleem’s advance in Storage was my fault somehow. Now I had thrown in a dead beholder, to spice up the world everyone else had to try and live in.

So I spent my morning in public service, trying to run from my own growing sense of guilt. Spending some time with BlueCleave always cleared my head.

Talking to the patrol hobbs was good too. They kept me informed. The recent buzz was about the uptick in Sleem purchases they were being required to respond to. One of the most messed-up things about the Sleem was that the more they terrified you, the more likely you were to order one in your sleep.

They constantly inserted themselves as dream purchases, waiting for a nightmare to summon them.

Our hobbs took care of that situation when it arose. Most people in BuyMort took precautions of some form or other against the Sleem, and BlueCleave sold a cheap instant alarm. It connected directly with their dispatch teams, via the BlueCleave communications service, so even if you were enveloped by a cube and had only seconds, BlueCleave might still save you.

They portalled, flew, and drove to various events all over the city, hundreds of times a day. Our show on church TV, H.O.B.B.S. followed a handful of specially chosen squads, and revolved around their daily work duties.

It was a smash hit; people across the BuyMort system were enthralled by it.

Rich and poor, for very different reasons, all watched our show and talked about it. It had become one of our best income streams.

So whenever I called in to dispatch, if they could, they would send me to a team that was being shadowed by a H.O.B.B.S camera crew, and I would make a celebrity cameo. The call I responded to was a Sleem distress call.

A human man living in Prescott’s downtown apartment region had a nightmare involving the Sleem, and one had arrived thanks to BuyMort’s dream purchases policy. The man had lived in Storage before coming to Nu-Earth, had experience surviving the Sleem, and acted fast once he woke up.

He had waited for the pod outside, on the balcony of his apartment, and then instantly ran inside when the Sleem ooze was delivered. From there, he went into his apartment’s bathroom and stuffed towels soaked in cologne in the cracks of the bathroom door. Quick thinking had saved his life, as the ooze struggled to push through the doors to get to him.

Cologne wasn’t lethal to Sleem, but they didn’t like it. Given their low level of sapience, pushing aside a towel soaked in the stuff would be difficult for a regular old Sleem ooze to handle.

I arrived on his balcony and rushed inside, avoiding the snail-trail of caustic slime by hovering over it and approaching the Sleem silently. Before it noticed I was present, I activated my plasma falchion and thrust it into the hapless slime monster.

As it was dying on the floor, screaming in that fart-whistle they did, the door burst open and the H.O.B.B.S team arrived, shotguns and Sleemsticks at the ready. I let the crew ask a few questions, and then told them I had important affiliate business to attend to, before flying out the open patio door. Later that evening on the show, the episode ended with a joke from the hobb officer, surrounding a habit I had of avoiding paperwork.

Chapter 34

Before heading to the Grand Canyon for our luncheon, I stopped by the tower again and changed into new clothes before spritzing myself with cologne. No reason to risk smelling like charred Sleem, not when I had access to a multiverse of grooming products at my disposal. While I was there, I checked in on Axle’s location, and saw that he was already in-flight.

As I flew over to the meeting, I swept up alongside Axle’s fleet. They were flying in formation across the Arizona desert, a trio of BlueCleave hovercraft. Axle always flew with at least two decoys. Two heavily armed decoys, I could tell which aircraft he was in once I got close enough. It was heavier, better armored, and turned a little slower than the others.

A hobb slid the door open for me, and I floated inside the hovercraft.

“Ah, Tyson,” yelled Axle, raising a hand to block the sunlight coming in from the open door.

The hobb behind me slid it shut with a bang, and the cabin quieted.

“I thought you would simply join us there,” he said.

I shrugged. “Saw you flying by, figured I could join you. We should talk about this meeting.”

Axle nodded. “Again? Sure. What would you like to know?”

“They’re really just assessing who I am?” I asked.

Axle shrugged and cleared his throat. “In a way, yes. They don’t expect a speech or anything, but you’ve become a very public figure in the greater BuyMort multiverse. The lone, crazed warlord of Nu-Earth. Church leadership is aware that you are operating a persona, that much has been assumed. They also know that relics can disrupt their power, their control.”

“So my job is to make them think I’m on a leash,” I said. “On their leash.”

Axle frowned but nodded. “A good way to look at it, yes. The church does not want to interfere in any affiliate that is generating them a profit, and I have made sure we generate them a significant profit, for very little involvement. However this goes, we want to keep that involvement as low as we can for as long as we can.”

“Agreed. Is that likely?” I asked.

My Knowle friend calmly nodded. “We may have individual investors who express interest in setting up shop, but we are free to reject those as long as they’re not high ranking members of the church, and I struggle to imagine any of them investing in a frontier world. Not with how unstable they are, classically. Everything we really need to worry about is going to pass through my logistics department, where I can shut it down if needed. You’re just here to be you. Convince the inspectors you mean their affiliate no harm.”

Our squad of hovercraft banked in over the Grand Canyon, beginning to land only a few minutes after I had intercepted them.

“Right. That sounds easy,” I said, looking down at the landing pad through my window. “Just don’t think about the irksome guest we just disposed of.”

I grimaced and looked at Axle. “Can I just talk openly about this, please?”

Axle shook his head. “Not until we’re caught. Any mention can cause an ad, which could lead the rest of them straight to us. I’m not totally clear on how they interact with BuyMort, but they seem capable of extracting a great deal more information from it than any other life form in-network, so it is best to be safe. Don’t even think about what happened too much.”

The Knowle pointed a clawed finger at me. “And are you shunting your personal account every night before you sleep? A dream purchase regarding this could end up on Silken Sands accounts, if not. That would be an immediate catastrophe.”

The hovercraft bumped to the landing pad lightly and I sighed as I rose. “Yes, mother.” We’d landed on the penthouse pad, which led to the top floor’s exclusive dining room, renovated for the event.

Axle followed me out of the craft, ducking to fit through the doorway. “We have a great deal more income in our flex account recently, thanks to you. The Dearth fleet, and then the massive Sleem purchase on Nahgah. That kind of budget could create some truly affiliate-ending dreamstorms, is all. You got in on that market before anyone else and really made a killing.”

He glanced at me and shrugged. “So to speak.”

I laughed and walked ahead, pushing my way through our BlueCleave honor guard to hold the door open. “Not really. I straight up killed most of them,” I said with a grin that didn’t reach my eyes. “Might as well capitalize on it, right?”

With that, I turned my beaming smile on the gold inspection team, which had loosely gathered in the dining room we’d set aside for the bruncheon. I wished I could wear my helmet, but these people expected the privilege of seeing the Windowpuncher’s face. They were gathered in small clusters around the room’s centerpiece, chatting and idly drinking, but all eyes turned to appraise me as I entered.

Most of them were human, surprisingly enough. The aliens present were Nah’gh, orc, and delf.

There was a long, dark wood table set up in the center of the room. The real prize of the room was the view, afforded us by floor to high-ceiling windows, all sparklingly clean and showcasing the immediate view of the Grand Canyon.

The resort had been chosen because it was still standing. More than could be said for most of the resorts that buttressed the Grand Canyon during that period of geological instability. Thanks to Axle’s new construction equipment, and a huge squad of BlueCleave hobbs, we’d rebuilt the place in a weekend. It looked great and had BlueCleave-built security functions.

Perfect for our current crop of guests.

The noonday winter sun blared down to heat the shadowed recesses at the bottom of the canyon, glittering through the floor-to-ceiling windows on its way. Most of the guests held drinks, but it looked like wine or champagne. Business lunch, after all. Can’t get too wasted when assessing someone’s character.

Whatever that meant.

I entered the room with a plastic smile, making sure to look each of them in the eye as I scanned the gathered faces, all looking back at me. It was my time to shine; I was the guest of honor, after all. The prized pony, ready to be inspected.

The only thing that troubled me was an unexpected church TV camera crew, at the back of the room, talking quietly with inquisitor Elegy. They were gathered around the statuesque Lady Sheeragore, the delf house leader. Their cameras were off and lowered, quite intentionally.

I glanced at Axle and whispered, “what are they doing here?”

He narrowed his eyes at the group and licked his nose, while shaking his head. “I do not know,” he muttered. “Play it off, no matter. You’re used to the cameras.”

I smiled and nodded, continuing into the room.

As soon as the doors closed behind our little entourage, a large video screen began to deploy from the ceiling, and a gentle Knowle voice came over the loudspeakers, telling everyone to find their seats for the presentation.

An image of me appeared on the screen, showing me standing in my helmet with gauntlets dripping green slime instead of blood. A take on the classic propaganda posters that had started in Storage. A round of mild applause and a smattering of appreciative gasps came from our already tipsy inspection team.

Champagne brunch began, as BlueCleave hobbs in wait staff clothing entered, carrying dishes and carafes. The morning’s spread was all locally produced food, kicked up a notch by some expert chefs Axle’s team had hired. People used to cooking for the wealthy and elite in BuyMort.

Steaming plates were set in front of placemats, each with a name scrawled in gold ink on a high-grade stationary card. Mine was set at the head of the table, with Elegy seated at the far end. The gold team leadership on either side of him didn’t seem terribly pleased. Lady Sheeragore sat in her throne by herself at the back of the room, partially shadowed. Her long cigarette’s coal shined as she smoked and silently watched.

I suspected Elegy had hijacked my brunch at Lady Sheeragore’s request.

My exploits, as told by Silken Sands best propagandists, played in the background while servers came and went. Some at the table paid half-hearted attention, most only looking up when something violent or expensive happened.

The reel was accompanied by Yolara Brinks, our Knowle public relations head, narrating my carefully written corporate praises softly into a microphone. When she mentioned my final defeat of The Dearth Conglomerate and Kraken in the same breath, another smattering of polite applause filled the room.

I smiled uncomfortably anytime that happened. It was so creepy to realize what they would cheer for, even in their limp, half-hearted way.

The table of gathered wealthy elites were not my people, and I became more and more aware of how uncomfortable I was becoming around them. The threat they represented to me, my people, my entire affiliate, all of it weighed on me while they nibbled at poached yarsp roast with spiced purple yam and elevated magma-kelp salad.

Finally, when the video concluded, Yolara had me stand and raise a glass in a toast to the church. Axle had prepared me ahead of time, and I stiffly recited his pre-written lines as the church employees watched, and then raised their own glasses accordingly.

Once the formalities were finished, I began fielding questions.

A glittering, golden skinned Nah’gh woman to Elegy’s left began. “Good afternoon, warlord. My name is Hera Thantall, church customs department lead. What relative rank within your world’s military structure did you hold before BuyMort?”

I glanced at the camera crew, now silent and focused on my responses, cameras on and aimed directly at me.

Hera shook her head. “This is not for live coverage, don’t be concerned.”

With a shake of my head, I sighed and finished what was left in my toasting glass. “No,” I said. “I was not part of any military structure before BuyMort and BlueCleave.”

She frowned and steepled her fingers. “Where did you receive your extensive combat training, then?” she asked. “From BlueCleave?”

I slowly smiled, showing my teeth. “I didn’t receive training. A small percentage of my people are born this way. If I had to guess, I would guess that is the explanation for my . . . talents.”

“Born,” Elegy interjected. Hera fumed silently, glaring at the delf, but he ignored her. “A small percentage of Nu-Earth humans are killers born?”

I shrugged. “It’s a theory. Never really had it proved one way or the other, but my people theorized that it’s part of human nature, dating back to our animal ancestors. Some of us recognize and respond to violent threats at an elevated rate, comparatively.”

A slow smile spread on Elegy’s face, and he raised his glass. “Comparatively. That single word makes the entire statement meaningless for our purposes, of course, but your theory holds merit. We at the church have often said the same of humans. Especially those directly from the various earths.”

I nodded and raised my own glass. A BlueCleave hobb had refilled it without me even noticing. More champagne. I sipped it in response to Elegy’s toast and wished it was tequila, shifting my gaze back to Hera as Elegy gestured to her.

“Please, continue Lady Thantall, and pardon my interruption,” he said, idly.

“As is your right, Lord Inquisitor,” Hera replied, coldly. “Though I would appreciate—”

He raised a hand and cut her off. “Soon,” he said. “When it is revealed to all. Not before.”

Hera hissed under her breath and turned back to face me, features drawn tightly. “Very well. You claim to be a savant, then, Mr. Dawes?” She scoffed at her own question.

“I claim nothing,” I replied, meeting her with a deadpan stare. “I fight to win. And I usually do.”

“For the church, of course?” she asked.

I smiled lightly and bowed my head. “As you say, for the church. For life, for my people, my affiliate, my home, the church, and commerce itself.”

A round of light applause went around the room, started by Axle. He was not seated, but standing at my back, posture stiff and tail straight. The very picture of a serious managerial employee.

Again I remembered the carefree smile he had first shown me, as we ran from charging yarsp hordes and the militia’s soldiers at the same time. I winced and reached for the champagne glass again.

More questions followed, for just about an hour. They ranged from absurd rumors about Nu-Earth and myself, through the nature of our various businesses, and finally down to the heart of my relationship with Molls.

“And when, exactly, did the relationship turn romantic?” asked a human man wearing a bespoke black silk suit, with silver pinstripes. His name was Mike Masters, and we all know an asshole named Mike. Mike was the asshole of the gold church inspection team. He was bigger than me, by about an inch and a hundred and fifty pounds, as well as married to a traditionally colored green-and-black Nah’gh woman. This, for some odd reason, meant Mike had a chip on his shoulder toward me and Molls.

“Around a week in,” I sighed. Axle had prepared me for this near-certainty, and told me to be tolerant at first, but increase in verbal aggression as the inappropriate questions continued. I liked his plan. It was the way things were going to play out either way, so it would be easy to stick to it.

“Hmm,” Mike said. “Rather fast moving. Was that your experience of it, I wonder?” he said, leaning over his plate of gourmet food to stare at me, ruddy complexion accented by the Arizona sun coming in the windows.

“Was what my experience?” I asked, coldly.

“That the relationship started rather suddenly,” he said, waving a hand as if I knew what he meant.

“Not at all,” I growled. “That first week of BuyMort felt like a lifetime. And Molls quickly became my sun, my moon, and stars.” Inwardly, I groaned at the cheesy line, but I was among structurally cheesy people. It played.

His wife, seated at his side, clutched his elbow and blinked her eyes rapidly at him. Mike nodded, his jowls bouncing. “I merely ask for propriety's sake, of course,” he said to me, and to the rest of the table.

I shook my head and frowned. “Of course. Why would anyone think your questions of my personal, romantic relationship were about anything other than propriety?”

Mike’s face reddened, but Elegy prevented any further unpleasantness by beginning a robust round of applause.

“Well said, warlord,” he called across the room. “Well said indeed.”

Then Elegy stood.

The entire room of gathered church gold team leadership immediately pulled their own chairs out and stood as well. Elegy smiled and waved his hands.

“No, my friends, please be seated. Enjoy your drinks. I merely believe we are finished here, are we not?” the delf asked. The other church members began to sit, slowly, uncertainly.

Hera nodded. “The decision has been made, acceptance is the obvious choice.” The Nah’gh woman looked over at me, taking in my seated form before continuing. “He may never again sit at a table so illustrious, but his affiliate continues to make us all wealthy. There are no conflicts, aside from the issue you have waived on personal assurances of the Inquisition. Approval is the decision. Silken Sands should continue to do business as they have.”

Elegy nodded. “Indeed, a foregone conclusion.”

I raised a hand and clanked my gauntlet into place to get the table’s attention. “If I may,” I said, standing. “I would know the nature of the conflict you mention, Lady Thantall.”

The Nah’gh woman glanced between me and Elegy, her tongue flicking out to taste the air. Elegy’s mouth twitched in one corner, and he nodded a single time.

“Why, the issue of Garthrust’s son, who is still being held prisoner here on your planet,” she said.

Chapter 35

My blood ran cold. We’d had that covered, of course, but the word prisoner sent our whole cover story up in smoke. An intricate narrative about unhealthy reactions to grief that we had developed for a long, tense month fell apart when the young Orkreshi surprised us all by refusing to leave after we had defeated Dearth. We pulled our own people off his compound, approved his ship to come and go as it pleased, and told him he was free to leave.

The young orc had refused, vehemently and immediately.

“That is simply not true,” I said to Hera. “Garthirst is no prisoner.”

Elegy raised his hands and stopped us both from continuing to speak. “I didn’t wish to ruin the surprise, but you and I shall be visiting young master Garthirst this very afternoon. I have already vouched for your affiliate’s continued church involvement, so be not afraid. The Inquisition harbors no desire to undo what has been done here today.”

I nodded, still frowning, but said nothing.

Elegy smiled wider. “I merely have obligations to the boy’s family. Personal connections, you understand. So important in this line of work.”

“I imagine a delf like you has many friends, Lord Inquisitor,” I said, bowing my head lightly in respect.

He nodded and chuckled, lifting his own glass of red wine from the table. “Indeed, to the point it tires me some days. Still! Better to be busy, at my age,” the delf finished. “Why don’t you and I go out on the balcony, leave these fine folk to their lunches?”

I stood, wiped my mouth with the silk napkin, and nodded. “I would like that a great deal.”

The delf walked down the row of his underlings, as I now knew them to be, and lifted my glass of champagne. He handed it to me and whispered conspiratorially, “You’ll need this.”

I frowned but took the glass and followed him. Axle’s eyes widened at me as we passed, and he licked his nose, but he said nothing.

Once on the balcony, Elegy breathed deep and produced his wide-brimmed hat. “What a blasted bright, cold world you have here.”

I chuckled and leaned on the guardrail. “Exactly as I like it,” I said, still smiling.

Elegy joined me in laughter, nodding as he tucked his hat down tight. “Of course. Why would I expect aught else?”

I shrugged, then nodded at the wine glass in my hand. “What’s this for?”

“Ah! Yes, I need to ask a favor,” Elegy wheedled. I had the sudden flash of his cousin in my mind, appearing behind me without a moment's notice, breath sodden with red wine.

I shook it off and smiled at the delf. “For a friend? Of course, name it.”

Behind Elegy the doors opened again, and the church camera crew followed Lady Sheeragore outside.

Elegy leaned in and smiled, showing his sharp teeth. “Lady Sheeragore is about to make an announcement to all of BuyMort. I’d like you to stand in with her, add your gravitas to the shoot. Oh, bring up your nanite helmet, that always plays for the camera.”

I did it with a thought, instantly sagging in relief. Not having to control my facial features and expressions so closely was entirely welcome. I shrugged and said, “They wouldn’t recognize me without it, I’m sure.”

The tall delf woman stalked past in dagger-sharp stiletto heels, staring at me as she went. I moved to follow, and Elegy gently hooked my elbow, stopping me.

“Oh, let them get a head start. They’ll want to set up correctly for the announcement. Adjust shielding for wind, put up some lighting, etcetera. You and I need to speak a moment anyway,” he said, his tone unmistakable. That was not a request.

“Yes?” I asked.

Elegy turned and gazed at himself in my mirrored mask, smiling as if he could see me beneath it. “That decision in there, at that table, comes with a price. Of course.”

My blood pressure spiked, but I calmly nodded in reply. “Go on,” I said, lifting the champagne glass for a small sip. My helmet receded and allowed entry for the glass, then covered my mouth again.

“As you doubtless know, a Sleem world is next up in the BuyMort rotation. Scheduled arrival is roughly six months from now, which is why we see increased Sleem activity across the multiverse. They know they’re getting reinforcements soon,” Elegy explained.

I had known about the new world, but the rest of it was news. The Sleem, anticipating a boost in their total numbers across the system, were growing ever more reckless and aggressive. Even my own farm had broken free and eaten half my yarsp nest before I contained them.

“We would like Silken Sands to head up a small purge,” the delf announced. “Reduce their numbers system wide, so the markets are less affected by the addition of the new world.”

I blinked inside my helmet, thinking rapidly. Our military, tied up with Sleem hunts, would represent a significant vulnerability to the rest of our affiliate. I again thought of how much I wished I had a fleet.

“How can I refuse, my friend?” I asked, extending my arms wide.

“Oh that’s the fun part. You can’t,” Elegy replied. “Fun and games are fun and games, and you’ve shown me a good time on this world. And a surprisingly conditioned response to our presence. It’s in my nature to suspect the worst, and Maer would certainly like you dead, but I like you. Perhaps against my better judgment, but only time will tell. You’ve got potential, I like humans with your spirit, historically speaking. There’s just something invigorating about wielding them. And wield you we shall.”

My spine stiffened again, but I smiled lightly in the helmet anyway. I was paranoid he could see through it somehow.

I nodded, once. “We are terribly efficient at killing Sleem. What kind of logistics support can we expect?”

Elegy clapped me on the shoulder and turned us to head toward the camera crew.

They were set up at the far side of the balcony. Deployed, hyper sensitive shields blocked the wind movement and allowed for a gentle, still zone to shoot in. They’d also stuck hooded lamps in strategic spots on the windows and railing to light the shot.

“I’m sure your hobbs can handle things. Our assessment of your armament suggests tremendous military capacity already,” he replied. “With anticipated growth on your immediate horizon. Come, let’s go make an announcement to the multiverse. Lady Sheeragore is the public face of the church. You should be honored to stand at her side, so you are aware.”

“Oh, I am,” I said. “Terribly. I can say with all honesty that she terrifies me with her presence alone.”

Elegy’s grin broke wide again, and he let go of my shoulders. “I do like you, Tyson Dawes. But be careful of whom you jest.”

“Apologies, my friend, but I wasn’t joking,” I said.

Elegy stood behind the camera crew and grinned.

“My Lady,” I said, approaching the tall delf woman. Her long, shock white hair fell down to the back of her knees, in long, straight lines dictated by a thin silver tiara. The delf turned her glowing eyes to me, and the faintest hint of a smile creased her lips.

They all kept smiling at me, and it was making me feel like I had spiders crawling under my skin. But I controlled myself, and merely nodded, turning to stand in place.

A human woman from the camera crew came forward and directed me, having me stand in place, one hand on my plasma falchion’s hilt, helmet catching the light just so. She was very strict and informed me I was allowed to turn my head back and forth, but not to move my neck. Then she was rapidly retreating, while loudly counting down from five.

When she reached three, she held up a hand with three fingers and went silent, continuing the count on her hand until finishing by pointing at the camera.

Lady Sheeragore smiled demurely and extended her hands. “BuyMort,” she breathed, her voice potent, and strong. “Welcome, my children. Today, I must share with you important news. Dire news, but hopeful too. Here at the beautiful, dangerous Silken Sands, the church has made an important decision that will affect all of your lives.”

The delf woman commanded my attention, I stared at the reflected image of her in the camera's lens.

“As many of you have heard, a new world is entering the BuyMort system, within six months’ time. A Sleem world.” There she paused to let the thought sink in, before suddenly turning and gesturing at me.

“Fortunately, a champion of the people has arisen, the mighty warlord of Arizona. The church is announcing an open bounty on all Sleem. Our great hunt, only experienced once in the last few centuries, is returned!” Lady Sheeragore spread her arms, her silk sleeves draping low.

“The great Sleem purge has commenced!” The tall delf woman turned and smiled down at me, raising her own glass, filled with blood-red wine. “And Silken Sands shall lead the way.”

I grimaced in the helmet but raised my own glass to hers and lightly clinked them together.

The camera crew called ‘cut,’ and they immediately began packing up their gear again. I nodded and headed back to Elegy, fighting the sinking feeling in my stomach.

The church fought dirty, but not like Dearth. They used their power, their authority, in ways that Dearth could never do.

“Well,” I said, as I arrived back at Elegy’s side. “That should make for an interesting year.”

Chapter 36

Elegy smiled, snorting out a single laugh. “This year was going to be interesting for you regardless. The peaceful tranquility you experienced on Nahgah, or any of the other home worlds is at threat. Most of these people have no idea what a Sleem world entering BuyMort is even like. But you’re all about to find out.”

The delf reached up and clapped me on the shoulder, squeezing with one hand. “Kill as many as you can, or we may all be washed away in their arrival after all. One thing I have learned about BuyMort, after three-hundred years? It’s full of surprises.”

His smile told me the rest. I was being used, a convenient shield against the Sleem, or a convenient fall-guy when they overwhelmed us. And of course, those without obscene piles of morties would be the first to die, even with my aid.

I glanced back in the room behind me, to the wealthy guests laughing and drinking. If they had anything to say about it, none of them would be inconvenienced by a surge in the Sleem population. Even as I thought it, an ad for an advanced, anti-Sleem bunker arrived.

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Those at the bottom of the BuyMort pile got exploited for their lives. Their time, labor, energy, talent, whatever it was they could contribute to make someone above them richer. But the millionaires were exploited by the billionaires, who were exploited by the trillionaires, and so on up the food chain.

Silken Sands had grown, and fast. We made morties, and were damned good at it, but to the church we were nothing but another associate. One who had been quite public and free, until that day. The inspection teams were one thing, but Elegy and Sheeragore were another. Delves, from powerful houses, working together, for their own benefit, at my expense.

While I had been trying to placate Elegy and make him feel like I was not a threat, he was assessing me for the role of a useful idiot. Someone to take on the public facing of a doomed military project to protect the entire system from the Sleem.

I nodded to Elegy, then set my glass down beside him. “If you’ll excuse me, friend, I have a great deal of work to do.”

The delf picked up my glass and sniffed the rim of it lightly, teeth exposed in a predatory smile. “I am certain you do. Our people will be in touch with your first assignment soon.”

Turning on my heel, I walked back into the meeting room, where Axle and Yolara were still taking a handful of questions. Both Knowles were at the head of the table where I had been seated, and Axle was at the start of a small presentation, using his own eyes to project an image of the moon onto the screen across the room.

“If I may explain in full. Silken Sands' primary mining operation is going to be established on Mars, of course, but we have a smaller, secondary operation already being built on the lunar surface. It is our intention, using experts in trajectory and orbital analysis, to attach remote-controlled drive units to specific asteroids and send them,” he pointed, and the image changed, to show an animation of a rock hurtling into the back side of the moon.

“Directly where they will gradually alter the moon’s orbit, bringing it closer and ensuring mantle and core spin strength here on Nu-Earth.” My Knowle friend blinked. “The moon slips away about four centimeters each year, and that movement of celestial bodies could grow to become a threat to Nu-Earth’s atmosphere, in a few billion years. Therefore, our lunar mining project is evidence of our commitment to long term sustainability here in the Sol system. Silken Sands is not some flash in the pan, we intend to be here for the long haul.”

A smattering of polite applause followed, and Axle blinked, shutting off his projectors. Yolara had turned and seen me enter, but I stayed quiet and watched his presentation. When he was finished, she tugged on his arm and nodded toward me.

“Ah, boss,” he said.

I jerked my own head to indicate we needed to talk, and he followed me into the serving staff’s hallway, which connected the dining room to an elevator that went directly to the kitchen.

“We’re the public face of a new church anti-Sleem campaign,” I blurted out as soon as the doors closed behind us. I dropped my helmet and met his gaze, as the Knowle blinked rapidly and licked his nose. He raised a finger and turned away, idly swiping through the air in front of himself.

Axle’s eyes could act as a personal screen, but I could see the tiny image in them when they did. He watched the announcement and shook his head. “This went out live and is being replayed on every church channel at the top of every hour. They must have been planning this announcement for the church’s trip here. The multiverse already associates Nu-Earth with a warrior culture.”

“Can we handle this Sleem hunt along with all our other business?” I asked.

Axle’s tail drooped and he licked his nose. “We will have to. Though an immediate issue I can see is personnel. We certainly will not have the troops to field for church assignments with our current numbers.”

“I’ll have to make up that gap myself,” I growled, glaring around the room with open hostility. Now that I knew the game I had just lost, it pissed me off.

Axle nodded, but then shook his head. “I am not sure that is wise. They could easily set a trap for you that way.”

“Then I’ll spring it and kill whoever set it,” I replied.

Axle looked as though he wanted to say more but thought better of it. I was likely to start shouting, if the conversation continued on the way it was.

After a long, drawn out silence between us, I turned to leave. “I need to go talk to Rayna,” I said over my shoulder. Axle nodded as I swung the doors open.

Lady Sheeragore was returning then, so I held the door wide for her, and stepped out of her way. The delf woman did not acknowledge me in any way.

Elegy still leaned on the railing, smiling at me and holding my champagne glass. I nodded at him, then stepped past him and vaulted the railing, plummeting down into the canyon.

The red rock walls flew past as the ground rushed up to greet me, much faster than I had expected. I caught myself just before striking the ground and flew back up to the railing.

“Always wanted to do that,” I announced to Elegy, before streaking off in the distance toward Prescott.

Within sixty seconds, I landed on the tarmac at BlueCleave’s primary military base, which had been moved outside of Prescott, on the far side of the elevator and surrounding spaceport. We needed more room than their first base had offered, and the far side of the space port had long been considered the worst parking on Nu-Earth.

Nobody wanted to park their ships so far away from Prescott, even with our transport system. Wealthier clients didn’t care for the trams that ran across the port and city. They wanted private transport.

So BlueCleave got the backlot, including a dozen small landing ports, and three medium-sized ports. The large stuff was all close-in to the elevator, for obvious, cargo-movement related purposes. We had extended a sizable mud-crete wall out into the desert and began breaking ground on several new structures.

Rayna was out there supervising the new facilities and directing the various teams working on them. I know because I sneaked a look at the schedule. She was finished with her red team assessment, which meant she’d be working on her pet project. BlueCleave’s new primary base was going to be great, with her building it from the ground up.

The tall hobb woman saw my landing and hopped in her roller to come find out what I needed, so I didn’t have to wander long before I saw her heading my way in the redecorated Dearth personnel carrier.

“Boss!” she shouted, skidding to a stop in a cloud of dust. The hobb stepped out and saluted me, thumping her chest. “What wrong?”

My military commander had gotten to know me well in the first days of BuyMort. I hadn’t realized it, but she had been watching my every move. My every interaction, trying to determine who and what I was. Trying to determine whether or not I was someone her people could be safe with.

“We have a pretty big problem,” I told her, hands on my hips.

“Inspection team say no?” Rayna asked, immediately glancing skyward, as if looking for an immediate attack from space.

“Worse, they said yes with a poisoned smile,” I replied.

Rayna narrowed her eyes at me and shook her head, shrugging. “What that mean, boss?”

I pulled up Lady Sheeragore’s announcement and sent it to Rayna to view. She frowned and watched it on her own handheld device. Her frown deepened when the delf on-screen identified me as the champion of the Sleem Hunt.

“Oh,” she grunted. “That not good.”

“How’s our recruitment push going?” I asked, dropping my helmet and letting her see my concerned expression.

Rayna snorted a single laugh. “Good but not that good. Will be worse now. Recruits think we just feed them to Sleem.”

“That’ll change if we can get a handful of public victories, right?” I asked.

Rayna nodded as she tucked away her device in a pocket. “Of course. Many hate the Sleem, will join up if we fight them and win. Has to be big victory though, televised.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll get those,” I said. “My biggest question is how do we survive this? How do we keep our troops alive during this kind of multiverse-wide deployment?”

Rayna shrugged and blinked, shaking her head. “Need more troops. Just not have enough right now. Security forces tied up on Nu-Earth, plus expansions required on moon, Mars, Venus,” she ticked them off on her fingers.

“Now going to have to send squads, maybe even battalions, all over multiverse,” Rayna said with a shrug.

I watched as a small squad of troopers ran past, wearing full combat gear. In their anti-Sleem combat armor, there was no skin showing at all. The suits offered full body coverage, when combined with the specialist boots. That was why we trained them in the early afternoon, when the sun was beating down hardest. Even in winter, it had to be sweltering in those full-coverage suits.

A sudden, mad thought occurred to me, and I turned back to Rayna.

“That’s their point, their goal. To spread us so thin we fail, and then they can blame whatever happens in six months when the new planet full of Sleem gets dumped into the mix on us. How smart do your soldiers have to be?” I asked. “To fight the Sleem, I mean?”

Rayna scowled and blinked rapidly. “How smart? Smart enough do what squad captain says, not need much else.” She shrugged. “We have some pretty stupid soldiers already, that a problem?”

I smiled wide and shook my head. “Not at all. Come with me, Rayna, I need to introduce you to a friend of mine. His name is Tower.”

Chapter 37

An hour later, we were walking the final stretch of the tunnel in our primary yarsp hive. Tollya had insisted on a full escort when she heard where we were going, and she was heading it up herself. I wouldn’t have expected anything less, really.

I hadn’t told anyone about Tower, specifically. Axle knew the yarsp broke into the BuyMort fruition centers and got their meat from within them somehow, but he knew little to nothing about what went on inside a fruition center beyond theory.

Very few people did. It was difficult to visit one and live to tell the tale.

BlueCleave had shut down the tunnel for the yarsp, and only had to cull a handful in order to control it from their built-in entry point. A dozen troopers strung out in a line from the entrance, each holding a variety of weaponry. The hobb at the rear held a brutal short range plasma caster, hooked into a power source in the BlueCleave controlled section of the hive.

“Tyson?” my friend roared as I entered. “Tyson, shiny head, it is you! So happy you come visit!”

I always wore the anti-magic helmet for him, he loved it. The last time we had talked, I let one of his other selves starve to death, just to see if that was what would happen. Honestly, I knew it was. I just needed to be sure of it.

To be sure that Tower didn’t really care when parts of him died.

“Hello, my friend!” I yelled up to him. The giant meat creature was in his building-sized vat, pudgy fists and face peeking over the edge.

“I’ve brought more friends for you to meet,” I told him. “Would you like some more friends?”

Towers' watery eyes widened, and he gasped in delight. “More friends!” The meat creature undulated, lifting his bulk in a wave across the cavernous factory.

I turned to Rayna and Tollya, the only two hobbs to join us, and pointed to the various drones buzzing around the cavernous space. “Careful, you brush up against one of these and we might have an incident,” I told them.

A loader drone floating in the air above us swung low and caught a falling object in its energy field. Tower grew a massive hand and swatted the drone, sending it careening away to the other side of the oversized warehouse. A security drone lowered from the ceiling and pelted Tower with a bright blue bolt of energy, before rising back up to its docking platform.

The meat creature heaved and roared in pain, but then sunk back down and sighed as the spot healed. He reached for his disgusting pipe and sipped the thick, frothy green ooze it produced. I had an idea of what that slurry was, but I wasn’t about to ask Axle to take a closer look at it yet.

One existential horror at a time.

Bad enough we were all eating yarsp meat that was fed on this creature’s generous leavings.

A mound of his discarded flesh barricaded one side of our area, bait for his yarspie friends to come and visit. He was going to love the offer I had for him.

“Hey Tower,” I asked. His eyes sharpened somewhat, losing their watery edge. “How would you like to go on adventures? Have you ever done that before? I bet you’ve gone on plenty of adventures in your lifetime.”

Rayna said nothing, merely watched. Tollya gaped as she took in the sheer size of the beast. In the distance, robotic arms extended and shaved a new batch of flesh-paper from the beast. Tower winced but held his fixation on my shining chrome helmet.

Steam began to rise from his forehead.

“Adventure?” His voice was no longer that of a child but approaching adulthood, and faintly echoing my own words. “I’ve gone on plenty.”

“Think you could go on some without BuyMort knowing?” I asked.

“BuyMort not care,” he said, waving a fist.

“Why not, Tower?” I asked, getting his attention again. Fragments of bone rose as the flesh on Tower’s face grew red hot and steaming from every pore and crease.

“There are too many of me,” he said, glaring down at me. “Spread across too vast a distance.”

“Yeah, you and the psychic cell phone both, I have a plan for that. Wanna talk about how I can set you free, Tower?” I asked, waving Rayna back with one hand. Tollya approached and stood in front of her mate, but Tower was wholly fixated on me.

BuyMort shaved him for fleshophane, and he didn’t react at all. “Free?” he said. Thick green slop oozed from the feeding tube and hissed on contact with his skin. “I am not free.” The bones slid back somewhat, and the fire in Tower’s skin died down as he guzzled at the liquid again. “But I could be, if you help me.”

“And I will,” I said. “Tower, don’t go, I will help you become free.”

The bones stopped their slide back down into his flesh, and Tower’s eyes focused on me again. He struggled, wincing and scowling in his attempts to maintain focus.

“You said you’re spread too far, can I help by reducing how many of you exist?” I asked. “Will that help you, Tower?”

His skin reddened with heat, and the vat rumbled and creaked as it expanded. I took a cautionary step back and waved for Tollya and Rayna to do the same. Tollya had taken the Breaker Gauntlets upgrade, and her new gloves clanked into place as the women stared up at the hulking beast.

A crown of red-hot bone slid from his skull, rising in sharp ridges as Tower’s face tightened its form and shape. “Yes!” he gasped, staring me in the eyes. “You would do this thing?”

I nodded at him. “I would. But I need soldiers.”

Tower heaved and moaned, his steaming bulk rippling up and down the tank. I stepped back again, just from the heat radiating from his tank. Near the bottom, the metal began to faintly glow. As I had suspected, Tower was not contained. He was merely housed.

BuyMort gave no special attention to his presence or to keeping him captive.

With a final grunt of effort, Tower raised one hand, now muscular and ridged with sharp bone. A globule of steaming meat ejected from his fingertip and soared into the pile of it at our side, sizzling where it struck.

Tower slumped, exhaling as the heat and bones faded. The air immediately cleared, and I heard overhead fans working hard in the distance. When Tower returned to sight above the vat’s lip, he had reverted. No more bones, or raw heat coming from within, just the pudgy, child-like meat monster.

“I can’t believe it, new friends, and I get to start going on adventures. Today is the best!” Tower exalted.

Before we could respond, the massive pile of meat at our side wiggled. Movement from inside continued, with the wall of flesh jiggling more and more violently.

Then a portion of meat shaped roughly like a man stepped forward from the bulk. Watery eyes rolled forward from within the meat, still shaping as they came, and a wide slit of toothless mouth opened.

“Hi!” the new Tower said, smiling wide with his oversized mouth.

Rayna raised a hand in greeting, then turned to stare at me. I nodded.

“This is my plan. Can you work with that?” I asked her.

Rayna scowled, then told the mini-Tower, “Stand on one foot.”

The meat-man raised a single leg and stood, looking up for another instruction. Above us, big Tower watched, eyes and pudgy hands peering over the lip of his vat.

“Rub your head,” Rayna said. The meat-man rubbed his ‘head.’ With his oversized eyes and mouth, he reminded me of Cookie Monster, made of ground pork.

The pile of meat began wiggling again, before another meat-man formed and stepped out alongside the first. “Hi!” he said. The new one simply looked on as the first hopped to gain better balance and continued rubbing his ‘head’ with one ‘hand.’

Their hands and feet were formless globs of meat, and the bodies had no distinctive markers. Even with big watery eyes and gaping, toothless mouths, they were impossible to tell apart from one another.

“Stand on one foot and rub your head,” Tollya said, instructing the new meat golem to behave as the first. It did, immediately.

Both miniature Towers rubbed their heads and hopped in totally different rhythms, but neither failed in their task.

“Fight one another,” Rayna said.

The first golem swung a meaty fist and slammed it into the second with a resounding wet slap. The second golem raised an arm in defense and then both golems were beating each other back into bruised piles of meat. Their blows rained down so fast and hard, in a sporadic, continuous pattern that I quickly lost track of which was which.

“Okay, stop!” Rayna yelled.

One golem stood, flesh torn and rent, oozing thick, gummy blood. The other tried but was too badly damaged. His thick blood pooled freely beneath him as he struggled repeatedly to rise before slumping in the puddle of brackish liquid with a long sigh. No intake breath followed the sigh, and the color slowly went out of the golem.

The wall of meat at our side began wiggling again, seconds before another golem stepped forward from it. “Hi!” he cheerfully said.

“Place that body in the tunnel,” Rayna said. “Out of the main walkway.”

“Okay!” the Tower golems answered. Both moved to lift their fallen brother and walked past us down the tunnel.

Rayna quickly turned to me and whispered, “We can work with this. Are you sure they’re safe?”

I shook my head. “Not at all.” Then I stepped away and focused on the big Tower again. “Hey buddy!”

“Hi Tyson!” he said.

“How can you operate these guys when you’re spread so thin?” I asked.

He raised a disproportionate hand and waved it at me. “Oh that’s easy when they’re small. Still, can’t do much. Need my mind back first, I think.” He scowled as he tried to think of something, but then blinked and smiled wide again, waiting for me to do something interesting.

“Well, thank you, my friend!” I shouted up to him. “We’ll take as many adventurers as you can give us, just make sure they all follow BlueCleave’s orders.”

“BlueCleave’s orders,” Big Tower repeated, hollowly. “Sure, that’s easy. I already made the little me’s compliant, when I was smarter a couple minutes ago.”

He idly reached up to his feeding tube and started sucking more liquid from it, as another golem stepped out of the pile at our side.

Chapter 38

Another hour later, we emerged with just over a hundred stinking flesh golems, all wearing anti-Sleem BlueCleave armor. Tower assured us he could make more, if we freed up a bit of his mind first. The smaller versions of himself that he made followed every order we gave them cheerfully and were strong for their size.

Each flesh golem was roughly as strong as an unaltered mordren, but Tower had told us he could make them even stronger if we let him make them bigger. We declined. His golems would fit in with our human, hobb, and orc military. Anything bigger would stand out too much. The goal was to sneak them into our armed forces, to increase our sheer numbers.

Rayna and Tollya had canceled their other scheduled tasks for the day and were going to work on a plan to secretly implement them into our squads, with the thought being that none of our armed forces knew exactly what they were.

Advanced CloneMort golems, bought with some of the surplus from our recent victories, was our cover story. We were hoping that once bathed, the golems would smell considerably better, as the flesh-tape funk would be a dead giveaway otherwise.

Keeping them fully clothed at all times, and housed separately from the regular troops, would also go a long way to helping solidify those claims. I watched as trusted BlueCleave hobbs in command scrubbed the nude, sexless flesh golems, and helped them dress.

Once the golems were encased in armor, and holding BlueCleave weapons, they were indiscernible from our hobb, human, or orc military members. They didn’t even stink anymore, though for how long remained to be seen.

We even instructed one to run and join a nearby division on afternoon PT, physical training. They were running laps, and our golem joined the group easily enough, after pointing to the group of nearby officers watching, including the affiliate owner.

The officer in charge of that PT didn’t ask any further questions. Just had the golem take its place and run. Before long, the golem was running out ahead of the rest of the squad, and the sergeant running PT was screaming at it to fall in. It immediately followed any order he gave it, and soon the golem was running at the same pace as the rest of its new division.

“Keep an eye on that one,” I told Rayna. “We can base our orders packages for the rest of them on what it does and doesn’t pick up from this squad. Introduce more as you feel comfortable.”

Rayna nodded and started conversing with Tollya in low tones. The couple had run everything military for me since that first night that they had arrived to protect Molls from Garthrust. They wouldn’t let me down with the golems.

I turned to leave, but Rayna grabbed my elbow and I hesitated. “Boss, wait. Tollya tell me what happen earlier, down below. In the basement. No hobbs dead, and the first time one of them killed in memory. BlueCleave not know yet, but when they do, they celebrate you for it. And hobbs celebrate them, all over BuyMort. No hobb in BuyMort will follow anyone else, once they know what you do.”

Quadrum again. This time, though, I was reminded of my deal with Rayna. Hobbs not expendable.

“But when they know, it will mean war,” I said.

Rayna chuckled and nodded. “Yes. Biggest war. Ever. No hobb will miss out on that. No more trouble with recruitment then.”

I nodded and thanked her, then left. I flew slowly, toward the tower. I was expecting Elegy soon, to go visit Garthirst as threatened. But what Rayna had said stayed with me. Once word got out that I had killed a beholder, it wouldn’t just trigger a war with the church, it would unite all hobbs behind a single banner for the first time in known BuyMort history.

Every other affiliate would lose all of their hobbs, and I would gain them.

Before going upstairs to clean up again, I stopped by the small cart on the front steps and ordered a pair of yarsp wraps. The hobb flatbread was something I simply never stopped craving, even after I learned they used ground mushbug shell in the flour.

As I sat on the steps, devouring my lunch, I smiled. Not all was hopeless, after all. An entire species ready to fight on my side wasn’t nothing. I just tried not to think of what would happen to Storage if all the hobbs in it left to rally to my banner. Burn that bridge when I get to it.

While I spritzed myself with Molls’ anti-fleshtape cleanser, Elegy left a message for me to meet him at Garthirst’s compound, with a gentle warning not to keep him waiting. I sighed and dressed for the occasion, wearing my BlueCleave fatigue pants and armored combat boots.

I stepped out onto the roof and sighed again, before summoning my helmet and flying off toward Lake Havasu, and young master Garthirst’s compound.

When I arrived, I came in to land carefully, noting that Elegy was already there.

“Apologies, friend!” I said, hovering into land. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long.”

Elegy raised a hand to dismiss my concern, then flicked it toward the nearby gate. A major resort had existed on Lake Havasu before BuyMort, which had been taken over by Garthirst and his staff.

A smattering of orcs and humans composed the young Dearth Conglomerate lordling’s staff, and in spite of having no MortBlock claim on my land, they had made significant upgrades to the structure. A pair of mounted guns atop the resort's primary gate looked as though they were chemical-rail guns, starting off the projectile with a standard explosion before accelerating it with an electromagnetic rail.

They wouldn’t kill me, but they would probably hurt, and piss me off royally. Still, I moved in front of the inquisitor, and drew my atomically sharp sword.

“Oh do put that away, I’ve heard you’ve no technique whatsoever,” he said, pushing past and walking up to the gates. “Open these gates, in the name of the Inquisition,” he shouted up to the top of the wall.

After a long moment, the gates clunked and opened at the center, allowing us access. Elegy clasped his hands behind his back and walked in, broad-brimmed hat casting a long shadow for me to walk in.

As we entered, a pair of heavily armed and ceremoniously armored orcs approached. Their armor had jagged curving edges to the plates, and the helmets had tusk extensions jutting toward our faces. They approached me and demanded my weapons.

I smiled politely and surrendered both swords, which was all I wore on me regularly anyway. There was no way to disarm me since that would require taking the starfish suit, and I was convinced that was impossible.

I did note, however, that neither orc bothered to disarm the inquisitor.

They led us from the main gate through the disused compound to a pool near the back. A young, nude orc woman with long black dreadlocks swam in the water. Beyond the pool sat a lone orc at a steel mesh table, watching the woman in the water. He wore a light silk robe, loosely tied at his waist.

As we approached, his eyes flicked up to us and he sat back, features narrowing into a scowl. He looked like Garthrust, minus the years and scars. There was an oversized hand ax on the table he sat beside, along with a large mug of something. As we approached, the young orc stood and raised his mug.

“To the Inquisition!” He snarled. “May the church be ever welcome in their wake.”

Elegy stopped walking and smiled widely, raising both hands to applaud lightly. “A traditional insult, I highly approve!”

Garthirst bowed his head and placed one hand in a fist against his chest. “Father taught me well the old ways.”

“Less a fool than I thought, in that case,” said Elegy. “Good to know, may we join you?”

Garthirst blinked and shrugged his bare shoulders. “I could do nothing to stop a member of the Inquisition from joining my table, even if they do keep company with murderous filth.”

I stopped as Elegy happily approached the table, and the orc woman in the pool chose then to get out, using the stairs between myself and Garthirst’s table. She stood bold, naked in front of me, and stared at me as she wrung out her long hair.

Finally, she stepped around me and growled. “He smells of Conda filth.”

I bristled but said nothing.

“Come Windowpuncher,” Garthirst said. “Come and sit at your enemy’s table.” He kicked a metal chair and pushed it back. “I’d offer you both drinks, but I have sworn a blood oath to do this man no aid, aside from help in dying, if he so begs it of me.”

I stood back by the edge of the pool and crossed my arms.

Elegy raised his hands, still smiling. “I wouldn’t expect such comfort and hospitality, my dear child. Not from the Dearth Conglomerate, even if you weren’t supposedly blood-sworn against my companion.”

Garthirst raised an eyebrow at the delf, and then nodded. “Aye, fair enough.”

A lanky shadow stepped out from around the corner of the main building and glimmered at me, scythed tentacles rising like cobras. A reaper hound.

Garthirst, following my gaze, glanced over and saw the beast. He raised one meaty hand and snapped his fingers. The reaper hound darted over to his side and glared at me, raising its lips in a snarl.

I took a deep breath and let it out, before bringing up my gauntlets. With a faint growl of my own, I lowered my stance into a ready position.

Garthirst glanced over and scoffed, before snapping his fingers again. “Gretchen! Enough, come.”

The reaper hound at his side wavered and vanished as it appeared directly in front of me. I glared down at it again as the hound slowly turned and loped to Garthirst’s side.

“I see those outside of your gates and they’re dead,” I said, approaching the table.

Garthirst nodded and patted the hound lightly. It kept its eyes locked on me, lips raised in a snarl. “Have to make sure you don’t see them coming, in that case,” he said, chuckling.

Elegy sniffed and grimaced. “Oh send it away, would you?”

Garthirst nodded and snapped his fingers again, grunting a word in Orkreshi at the hound that caused it to stand and walk away.

The female orc returned then, wearing a light silk robe, loosely closed at the center. She walked by the departing reaper hound and trailed her fingertips along its back. “Gar,” she said, her voice husky and surprisingly deep. “Can I come and sit?”

Garthirst looked at Elegy, who waved his hand dismissively.

“Come,” the orc growled. “But stay quiet.”

She smiled and joined us, perching on a nearby wicker couch to unabashedly eavesdrop.

“I assume you have business,” Garthirst finally said to Elegy. “Or you would not have brought this filth to my door.”

Elegy nodded. “I do indeed, young master Garthirst. I have been sent by the House of Gar, no less.”

Garthirst scowled deeply. “If you mean my uncle when you invoke that name . . .”

“Of course I mean your uncle, who else would give a Sleem-shit about you wasting away in some hovel on a backwater deathtrap? He fears the rumors of your imprisonment are true,” Elegy snapped. “You know, this was a pleasant visit for me, until this errand. I do not enjoy whelp duty.”

The young orc’s face hardened as the delf spoke, and he nodded when Elegy finished. “Then you can go. Tell my uncle I stay by choice. Until this filth is dead at my feet,” he gestured idly toward me with the ax. “I will not leave his world.”

“Then you are not being held against your will?” Elegy asked, bored.

“This one posted some guards for a while. I think he wished to contain me, to prevent my voice from being heard in the higher worlds. But no, I would not leave for all the morties in your personal account, Lord Inquisitor,” Garthirst said, staring at me and rubbing one hand on his ax. “Or his.”

“Then it is a blood oath after all, easy enough,” Elegy said, standing. “Let’s see the blood. Your uncle will require it.”

Garthirst nodded. He stood, shedding the light robe he had been wearing as he lifted the ax. “This one beat my father, crushed his jaw.” The orc pointed the ax at me, then drew the blade across his own broad chin, cutting a bleeding gash down to the bone as he stared at me, eyes wide.

His mate grinned wide, her gold-capped tusks catching the light as she leaned forward. “Gar! Gar! Gar!” she chanted in a low, guttural growl.

“Broke his ribs,” Garthirst added, using the ax blade to cut a similar gash on his own side. Green blood trickled, and white bone was visible beneath.

The woman crawled to her hands and knees, dark hair tumbling to cover her where the light robe failed. “Gar! Gar! Gar!” she chanted.

“Took his hand!” The young orc set his own arm down on the table, before slamming the ax down in a sudden, swift motion. The ax embedded in the metal of the table and stuck. He grimaced but channeled the pain into a roar of anger instead, lifting his bleeding stump for us to see. “I swear on the House of Gar that he shall die at my feet!”

The female orc exalted at the spray of blood and sudden dismemberment, ceasing her chant and grinning openly at the scene.

Garthirst pointed his bloody stump at me and swayed, before sitting back down. The young orc woman ran to the nearby pool-house, returning with a first aid kit. Garthirst sighed and picked up his mug, draining it before slamming it back down on the table top. He used his intact hand to lift his severed extremity and toss it onto the concrete at my feet.

“Take that to my uncle,” he graveled. The young orc woman arrived and produced a pressure patch, taking Garthirst’s arm and pressing his still-spurting stump into it. When he hissed in pain at her, she merely grinned and laughed in his face until he laughed along with her.

Elegy produced a pair of thick rubber gloves from his interdimensional pocket, then methodically put them on. He carefully picked up the hand and let it drain on the concrete before pulling out a thick cloth bag and placing the hand within it.

“I will deliver your oath to the House of Gar,” he said.

“Wouldn’t you like to know why I beat your father, crushed his jaw, broke his ribs, and took his hand?” I asked, an edge to my voice.

Garthirst looked at me, his eyes bulging as his girlfriend worked on his severed limb. He shook out of her hands and she growled at him, but he ignored her, instead raising his partially bandaged stump at me. “Does it look like I care, human?” He growled.

“No, but you should,” I told him. “If you want to know what his last words were, they’re yours for the asking.”

The young orc glared at me and lowered his stump for more first aid. He lifted his mug and was disappointed to discover it was empty, tossing it back on the table, where it rolled to the edge and stopped.

“Very well, human filth, tell me,” he finally said.

“Well, to be perfectly accurate, his last words were not words at all, but rather a roar of mindless anger that telegraphed his final charge. He did me the favor of making it easy for me to know exactly what to do with him. In fact, I used him as a distraction, to get past my actually dangerous foes, but that’s beside the point. His final words were ‘Shut your mouth!’”

Garthirst glared at my shining helmet as I spoke, and then laughed when I had finished. “Of course they were. You talk endlessly if given the chance.”

With a nod, Elegy looked at Garthirst. “A trait you have in common, young master,” he said, impatience edging into his voice. “We’re done here, unless you wish to stay of course.”

“You got what you needed?” I asked, eyes narrowed behind my helmet.

“Definitive proof of young Garthirst’s willingness to stay here on Nu-Earth on his own?” Elegy lifted the bag and shook it at me. “Yes, I would say we have that. My questions have been answered, and I grow weary of this world.”

We left, escorted out of the ruined resort by Garthirst’s ceremonial guards. Instead of giving me my weapons back, the guard threw them into the dirt at my feet. I ignored the slight and strapped them back in place at my hips.

A pod approached from behind Elegy, and I nodded when I saw it. “Portalling home?” I asked.

Elegy glanced back to see it coming and nodded. “Indeed, my social requirements have been fulfilled and the church is satisfied with the Nu-Earth situation, so I am going home. Not that it hasn’t been lovely, mind you. I am simply tired, and ache for my own bed.”

“Understandable,” I said, nodding. “Will we see you again?”

The pod arrived and demarcated an area in the ruined road, before illuminating it with a rainbow beam. Elegy looked at himself in the reflection on my helmet before shrugging. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. But you will receive instructions soon, either way.”

With that, he turned and stepped through the beam. The pod whistled its tune and turned to leave, and I sighed.

I would need to deal with Garthirst, that much was obvious. And while I was tempted to just go back in the compound and leave none alive, I decided against it. The publicity amongst the wealthy elites I was trying to win over would be detrimental to my affiliate.

The orc was contained, and without any apparent method of killing me. Now that his support from Dearth was gone, he wasn’t a big worry for me. It was something I could leave for another day, there was more important work to be done.

“Well, good to know where we stand at least,” I said, before leaping into the air and flying toward Prescott, and home.

As usually happens sooner or later, I needed to talk to Axle.

Chapter 39

He had only just arrived at the library when I landed on the roof, and I walked in to see a series of tablets open to different pages set out on the table in our sound-proofed meeting room off his office. I sat down quietly in one of the chairs and looked at the tablet in front of that chair.

It detailed the Venus operation. TransPoCo had nearly four hundred of the massive plantation ships en-route, and the first dozen had already arrived in-system. Our part of the terraforming deal with TransPoCo was to provide initial staffing.

Mostly grunt-work. Cleaning, garden-tending, and ship maintenance were high-priority positions that needed to be filled. Axle’s file detailed a training program here in Prescott already underway, where we could quickly train up new recruits and ship them off to Venus, once we had a civilian transport ship, and an armed fleet to protect it.

Earth to Venus wasn’t exactly a huge trip, comparatively, but it was still a lot of empty space to attempt and cross, and I wanted my people protected. Especially those who were pouring in from Storage to meet the needs of the second most powerful affiliate in BuyMort.

TransPoCo needed roughly two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand employees per ship in order to operate at full capacity. This number included living services for all crew, as well as a civilian peace-keeping force, and engineering crew. I was providing just the workers though, TransPoCo used their own security forces on each ship they owned.

The lease agreements for our current four plantation ships were simple, we paid TransPoCo for the pleasure of using their ship, and we got all the financial benefits of running it. The cost was exorbitant, but Axle explained in his notes that it was a long-term investment.

Magma-kelp was among the most stable markets in BuyMort. It was good to eat, treated or cooked in several different ways. It made for excellent fertilizer if allowed to rot, and BuyMort bug feed if dried. Even yarsps could eat it in the place of meat, if meat was unavailable. It was so packed with nutrition for most forms of life in the multiverse that no amount of it was ever enough to satisfy demand.

Even the Sleem bought it in bulk.

The door opened and Axle entered, interrupting my reading.

“Oh, Tyson, good,” he said, setting down another armload of tablets. “I was just getting started with your report for tomorrow.”

“I’m looking forward to it, but we should talk now,” I replied. “I may have a fix for our military personnel problem, and uh . . . we need to talk about how the yarsp hives get fed. Related concepts, as it turns out.”

Axle scowled, licked his nose, and sat down. He pressed a button on the table and sealed the room so we could speak freely.

“Go on,” he said, still scowling.

“Right, so there’s a giant meat monster that lives inside each BuyMort fruition center. That’s how it gets the flesh tape and paper, and that creepy fleshophane that they wrap everything in. Cheaper than plastic I guess,” I explained.

Axle narrowed his eyes at me while I spoke, then nodded and sat back when I had finished. “In each of them,” he said, clearly disbelieving me.

I nodded. “Yeah. Oh, I am pretty sure it’s the same meat monster in all of them,” I added.

“This makes less sense the more you explain it,” he said.

“Haven’t you ever wondered where the flesh-tape comes from?” I asked.

“No!” Axle exclaimed. “It has long been theorized by Knowle scholars that BuyMort clones skin cells for use as tape and paper inside fruition centers. The write-ups are all quite compelling. They include nutriment projections and weight expectations based on local markets,” he dwindled off, staring at me as I nodded.

“Yeah, kinda. You’re not actually wrong, it’s just that the whole cloning thing isn’t happening and it’s just a meat monster instead. The meat creature lives in a big vat and gets shaved every so often, by big robot arms from the ceiling,” I said.

“But the nutriment values . . .” he started.

“Yeah, look, whatever your guys' explanation of it was, you’re wrong. I can walk you inside and show you, if you really want, but it’s a giant meat monster. In all of the fruition centers across the multiverse. All the same one, somehow,” I said.

Axle scowled again and licked his nose. “The same monster? As in all the fruition centers somehow lead to one central distribution hub?”

I shook my head. “No, not at all. I saw one of the fruition centers destroyed, down in Mexico. The earthquakes had wrecked part of it, and the monster inside was starving to death. Did starve to death. I made sure to check on him.”

“Him?” Axle asked, facial features screwed up in concentration.

“Yeah, his name is Tower, and as far as I can tell, each fruition center has a different Tower in it, that it shaves as needed for paper and tape and whatnot,” I replied. “Different Towers, but all the same personality, memories, all of it.”

“A gestalt intelligence?” Axle asked.

“A what now?” I replied.

“A hive mind, like the Sleem,” he said.

“Oh, yeah maybe. Any version of Tower you interact with seems to remember that interaction in other bodies, instantaneously,” I said.

Axle scowled again and raised one hand to idly scratch behind his ear. “Not like the Sleem then. They have to make physical contact in order to share information between one another.” He sat back and raised one eyebrow. “Unless . . .” he mumbled.

“Unless what?” I asked, suddenly concerned.

“Oh sorry,” Axle answered, “I was going to tell you about this in your morning report, but we have begun, carefully, working on our special guest’s remains and belongings.”

I sat forward, interested. “Oh? Anything interesting come up?”

Axle sighed and shrugged. “Probably not. There is a data file. It’s massive. It looks like our guest had individual files for tens of billions of different Sleem, far more than are present in our farm. Or even on Nu-Earth, in all likelihood. Sleem migrate off worlds that Kraken invades, and our population here hasn’t rebuilt to normative levels yet.”

I raised an eyebrow at him.

“We do have some limited Sleem activity, in the Colorado mountains, as I suspected.  The new satellite is working exactly as advertised, we are primarily clear of Sleem infestation. There is another, larger patch of them beneath Mount Huashan, in what used to be China,” Axle explained. “But nothing to worry about. Our teams can handle the infestations. The interesting part is in regard to how they can communicate,” my friend explained.

“Some of the more advanced orbs, the orange ones, seem capable of limited communication through quantum entanglement, through spooky action at a distance,” Axle finished.

I frowned and shrugged. “I’ve heard of quantum entanglement, but don’t really understand it,” I told him. “And I have no clue what spooky action means.”

Axle nodded and pressed on. “Okay, easy definition is when two particles are created and not measured, then split and sent in different directions before being measured, the measurement of one can inform the measurement of the other, because no matter how far apart they are spatially, they are quantum entangled.”

I blinked and slowly shook my head.

Axle nodded again, sharper this time. “Alright, let me fine tune this example to our purposes. Sleem all give birth to one another and consume each other, constantly. It’s an ever cycling process. When they create one another, they divide their own cells to form a newer, smaller pair of Sleem.”

I nodded this time. “Okay, with you so far.”

“Right, good. When the Sleem divide, they have two separate minds. When they recombine, their minds are consumed and become part of the larger mind in the Sleem that consumed them. There is evidence of consumed Sleem passing on grudges or vendettas to the Sleem that consume them, so we suspect they share information and memories as well. A different form of gestalt intelligence than your ‘Tower’ creature,” Axle said.

“So, in essence, we are always fighting the same creature, when we fight the Sleem. They are each other, and one entity at the same time,” he continued. “They formed one another, they are one another in significant ways. Quad-” Axle stopped and scowled at his near slip before continuing. “Our guest seems to have theorized that they can communicate in some limited ways over great distances, as opposed to requiring physical contact.”

“Are you saying this is what Tower does?” I asked.

Axle nodded. “Assuming your meat monster is as you describe, yes I would think so. For it to all be the same mind, as you describe, it would have to be quantum entangled to cross the boundaries between universes and span even the multiversal flow.”

“Well, I maybe should have had this conversation with you before I put my plan into motion, in that case,” I sighed.

“Why is that?” Axle asked, concern evident in his furrowed brow.

“Tower is now part of BlueCleave,” I answered. “I introduced him to Rayna and Tollya, explained part of what we needed, soldiers, and he provided us with just over a hundred flesh golems. Says he’ll give us more if we help him focus.”

Axle nodded along as I spoke. “And what are your impressions of this ‘meat monster,’ as you put it?”

I thought back to my many interactions with Tower. His dual natures, and the seemingly random bursts of violence.

I sighed and shook my head. “Not great,” I said. “The first time we met, he called himself, uh, ‘destroyer of worlds,’ ‘devourer of all that live,’ and ‘the perfect physical being.’”

Axle frowned at that. “None of that sounds good, but it also sounds like the invention of a deeply lonely mind.”

I pointed and nodded. “See, that’s the thing. He’s super lonely. Always wants friends. I leveraged that into him ‘going on adventures’ for us, which means Sleem hunts.”

“And we need to help him focus his mind, in order to get more than a hundred golems?” Axle asked. He scrawled at a tablet, taking notes.

“Yeah, but I actually know how to do that part,” I answered.

Axle’s eyebrow raised again, and he paused his notetaking long enough to gesture for me to go on.

“Okay, so it’s super easy. BuyMort will shut down any fruition center not in use. All we have to do is build everything on Nu-Earth within reach of already present fruition centers, and not around the ones we want to shut down,” I explained.

“Alright,” Axle said. “That is, exactly, my wheelhouse. Easy enough to arrange. How will this help, exactly?”

“Tower keeps talking about how thin he is spread, how he’s spread over too much area,” I answered with a shrug.

Axle nodded. “That is rather direct, yes. It also answers my initial question, he definitely communicates with his bodies instantaneously, in that case.”

“Unlike the Sleem, who must initiate physical contact to communicate?” I asked, eyes narrowed.

“Yes, although possibly not. The new data from our guest’s ‘study’ seems to indicate a strong possibility of at least limited contact with other Sleem, across vast distances,” Axle said, with a shrug. “Our former guests’ science is so much more advanced than ours that it’s a challenge to even read their notes, so to speak. We’re working on that though.”

“How’s it going?” I asked.

Axle sighed and shook his head. “I have five of the most talented Knowles in the known multiverse working on it, and all they’ve managed to come up with is what I’ve told you. The data is immense, far too large for our conventional systems to manage. We’re forced to use the machines our guest used, which presents inherent dangers. It’s slow, careful work,” he said.

I nodded and sat back, satisfied. “Well, don’t change that for my sake. What do you think about letting this creature have access to our military structure?”

Axle took a deep breath and brought up something on his mechanical eyes. I watched him blink through a few pages of something before he clicked it off and shook his head. “We need the bodies. I assume you’re not providing them with rank, or starfish suits?”

My eyes widened at the thought. “Oh, I sure hope not. You should coordinate with Rayna on this, she’s running the golem project. I don’t think they’ll sell our secrets though. They seem really dumb.”

“So did you when we first met,” Axle immediately said. “No offense.”

I laughed and shook my head. “I was dumb back then, and I appreciate the fact that you’re willing to say stuff like that to me.”

Axle smiled. “Always glad to reinforce your perception of my loyalty by insulting you, my friend,” he said. “The creature could be playing dumber than it is, or it may increase in intelligence and therefore danger as we aid it.”

“Him,” I corrected. “He’s almost certainly going to get smarter, that’s our end of the deal. He wants freedom and does not seem able to take it for himself anymore. Even though I feel like he certainly could if he tried hard enough.”

Axle nodded. “And we are going to provide him with that ability. Well, you inspire tremendous loyalty in a great many people, perhaps that will extend to this creature too. I can honestly see no other immediate remedy to our situation with the church’s Sleem hunt.”

I nodded. “I’ll work on him, see if I can’t instill some of that loyalty you talk about. You work on a way to kill him if we need to, I guess.”

Axle nodded. “Already working on that problem. I’ll also coordinate with Rayna, she’ll need to be part of any contingency plans we come up with.”

A light went on over the door behind me. I knew, because Axle’s eyes clicked up to it and then back down to me. He got up and moved around to open the door a crack, before conversing with a hobb in the doorway.

Within a few seconds, he thanked the hobb and closed the door.

“Well, there’s our first assignment from the church,” he said, moving around to his chair and sitting down again.

“Their teams are still here, right?” I asked.

Axle nodded. “Public Relations is expecting to host them for at least a week but has prepared for a month if necessary. This ‘game’ of the church seems separate from our inspection.”

“What’s the game, exactly? Lady Sheeragore mentioned a bounty,” I said, once the room had beeped back into lockdown mode.

“We are not eligible, as champions of the hunt,” Axle immediately said. “The standing bounties are tiny at any rate, meant to motivate large-scale hunts.”

“Tiny?” I asked, palms open.

Axle nodded. “Tiny. Five morties each slime, twenty-five per cube, and fifty per orb. Confirmation telemetry is required for any payout, which is only available from authorized church associates.”

I shrugged. “Well, I guess we’re not missing out on that much then.”

“Our champion status grants us the same rights as the other competitors, aside from primary bounty payments, so that’s something,” Axle said, inspecting the tablet his aid had handed him. “In fact, that appears to be our primary incentive here. We can claim limited MortBlock territory, under associate status, on any of the worlds we successfully reclaim from the Sleem.”

I perked up. “That sounds potentially lucrative,” I said.

“Yes, tremendously,” Axle mumbled. “Even with limited MortBlock coverage, as this stipulates, we will be able to establish operations on upper, home worlds.”

“Talk to me about limits,” I said.

Axle sighed and licked his nose. “It looks like our MortBlock claim can be no more than forty-percent of the total area lost to the Sleem, if cleared. To me, that smacks of associate favoritism and in-fighting fuel. The church is famous for pitting their associates against one-another, in both large and small scale conflicts.”

I blinked and shook my head. “Huh?”

“Oh, it just means whatever resource node the Sleem have taken over we only get to take a little less than half of for ourselves,” he said. “The rest goes back to the original MortBlock holder. Sort of a little punishment for them, a little reward for us. Encourage both affiliates to view each other as more of an immediate threat than the church. Common enough tactic, but highly effective.”

I frowned. “So if the Sleem have taken over a copper mine, for example. We get forty percent of the mine when it reopens?”

“Ha!” Axle snorted. “You’re optimism never fails to surprise me, Tyson. No, we get forty percent of the MortBlock the Sleem have taken over. That likely means the other associated affiliate will get the core of whatever resource node is being freed, and we’ll get the support mechanism for it. Less profitable by far, but profitable. And a foothold on home worlds.”

“This is my home world,” I said, somewhat defensively.

Axle nodded and smiled gently. “That’s not what is meant when the phrase is used, unfortunately. Home worlds refers to the ancestral home planets, the oldest worlds within the BuyMort system. Specifically, it refers to Silvan Light and Silvan Dark, Nahgah, Orkreshi Prime, and Neolithic Earth.”

“Neolithic Earth?” I asked.

He shook his head. “You’ll find out everything you could want to know about it. You’re heading there soon.”

“How soon?” I asked. “I’m supposed to be running down the Dearth remnant fleet with Captain Omen. I really want that fleet.”

“Yes, we have to prioritize that action. A fleet of our own has become an absolute necessity,” he replied, pulling up something on his mechanical eyes. I could see the reversed reflection, tiny in his eyes from my distance.

“It looks like Admiral Omen and Ordo are your crewmates for that mission. I’m sending them off in the Sand Star tomorrow morning,” Axle said, swiping at the air. “You’ll be leading a large division of hobbs, and preferably Phyllis and Doofus’s squad, if you can swing that.”

I raised my hands to ward off the conflicting information. “Hold on, I can’t be in two places at once.”

Axle raised his eyebrows. “Close enough to it that it won’t matter. We get several short range portals now, with our affiliate level benefits, but we get a few medium range portals too. What I intend to do is have you portal to the ship when Omen has a target isolated. The first one is going to be the trickiest.”

I scowled.

“The plan was to take the ship, then portal over crew to man it, work repairs, rearming, jury rigging, etcetera,” Axle continued. “I’ll just add another portal to that project list. The only thing we use them on is Sol gate shipping anyway, medium range portals are among the least useful.”

“Short range is planetary,” I started, hazy on the details.

“Medium is the solar system. Long is multiversal. Those are the portals we’ll be using on the churches behalf to respond to this order. Three extra-large sized long range portals too. The church must have practically limitless benefits to allocate this much for our use,” Axle explained.

“Yeah, I bet. Sure glad they named us champions,” I grumbled.

“You were right when you said we’re the fall guys. There is no way this hunt will work. None of them ever have,” Axle said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“There have been four Sleem worlds introduced into the greater BuyMort system in written memory. Each is marked by a period of dramatic instability, and mass death. Three had hunts directly ahead of them; it’s how the church does nothing while keeping the support of the people. In the last three Sleem world additions, the champion affiliate was blamed for failing to prevent the spread of the Sleem,” he said.

I nodded slowly as he spoke. “So what happened to the champion affiliates in those hunts?”

Axle frowned. “Nothing good. The church’s position means they do very little in the way of direct conflict. But through market and affiliate manipulation, they can crush anyone they want to.”

“Okay, well that makes our path forward easy. We have to make as many in-roads into their markets as possible, as quickly as possible. As soon as they figure us out, it’s all gonna burn so we need to have our claws in as much of their infrastructure as possible,” I said.

Axle nodded enthusiastically. “I like that directive. It’s what I was hoping to do at any rate. Good, we have a plan. You make sure we don’t fail any church assignments, and I’ll make sure our forty percent of those holdings goes as far as possible. Residences and infrastructure are often even more important than the resource nodes they support.”

“Right,” I said, nodding. “What else you got?”

“Well, being Sleem hunt champion has some non-church related benefits,” Axle said, turning one of the tablets near him around to read it easier. Deciding he had the right one, he took it and slid it across the table to me.

On the tablet was a personal note, attached to a request for military intervention. It was on a world in another universe, a place called Tertiary. Primarily habituated by humans and hobbs, Tertiary was an ocean mining world. They produced a great deal of rare-earth minerals with their underwater mining operations, and crafted power packs on what little land the world had to offer.

So when the Sleem recently arose and consumed an entire island, the affiliate that was supposed to be running it reached out for aid. They operated several factories built on a chain of islands, and each day of lost operation resulted in billions in lost revenue. They were offering a significant bounty for the island’s return, five-hundred billion morties, in addition to the church-required forty percent MortBlock holding.

And it was merely one of fourteen separate affiliates that had requested such aid.

Some of the bounties specified greater MortBlock ownership as reward, again with heavily skewed percentages. Still, the shining opportunity was obvious.

“How many of these do you think we could do before our assignment tomorrow?” I asked Axle, swiping through the various requests.

Axle’s eyebrows raised, and he shook his head. “One, if we chose it carefully, and didn’t mind wasting our single long-range, large-sized portal.”

“In order to be practical about this, we need a fleet,” I started. “I get that, but we can get more benefits when we level up the affiliate. Those level ups are coming fast and furious these days, and the more MortBlock coverage we can acquire, the faster that will continue to happen.”

Axle nodded, slowly. He was frowning and staring at the tablet in my hand. “Well, I ordered them by mission capability, and the first is the only one we can reasonably manage with our transport limitations. We can send you, and a full regiment of hobbs, plus some light scout vehicles.”

I stood up, excited. “When can we move out?”

“That would be up to Rayna,” Axle started, raising his hands to stop me. “But wait, I’m not done with you yet. What did the inquisition say?”

I stopped at the door and turned back. “Oh yeah, that was all personal stuff. He was here at Molls’ mothers’ request, as I suspected. He was also checking on Garthirst for his uncle, and looking for the House of Shireen.”

Axle’s eyes widened at that last detail, but he nodded. “No evidence of them left. We even scrubbed all the walls. Delves are fond of paint that only appears in different spectrums of light, so we were thorough.”

“Good, I don’t think he suspects our other activities. He did seem onto us in regard to the inspection show we put on, but he also really didn’t seem to care,” I said.

Axle shook his head. “Business as usual, I should think. But thank you, I appreciate being kept in the loop.”

I nodded. “I’ll bang this out in a rush, don’t worry. We’ll be ready to go by morning.”

Axle smiled weakly and nodded, beginning the process of gathering up the various tablets scattered around the table. I nodded back and left, ignoring the grimace on my friend’s face.

Chapter 40

The church had set me up as a patsy, a fall guy for their idiot game with the Sleem. In the face of multiverse-wide devastation at the hands of an unfeeling and hungry enemy, and all they cared about was their own bunkers. Their own safety.

I exited Axle’s library onto a balcony, secured the doors behind myself, and then launched into the evening sky. There was work to be done.

“Rayna,” I said, as she answered my call on the second ring. “How fast can we get an auxiliary force together, for the Tertiary run?” I was flying through the air, slower than usual so I could make the phone call. “Axle should have sent you a file.”

“Yeah boss, I just received it. Mind if I read it first? Call you back, maybe? Kind of in the middle of three things already,” she grunted.

“Alright, just be aware I want to move on this immediately. Before the church assignment tomorrow, this is a special run,” I said.

She sighed and shook her head. “I’m getting that. Call you back. Soon.”

I nodded and hung up, before landing on the roof of the Prescott tower. To my surprise, Molls was there, smoking a joint that looked strangely tiny in her hand.

“Oh!” she said, turning and looking at the joint in her own hand as her scales flushed pink.

I shook my head. “I’m not about to judge anyone’s use of intoxicants. I drank entirely too much champagne to get through my presentation this afternoon. Where’d you get it, Phyllis?”

Molls snorted a laugh and nodded, the pink in her scales easing to reveal the blue beneath them. “She’s a good friend. Have you seen her place lately? She's really changed a lot over there!”

“I have,” I said, smiling. I stepped forward and sniffed the air, enjoying the smell of Molls’ weed. “How’s that stuff affecting you anyway?”

Molls looked at the joint and shrugged. “Mostly it's just relaxing, so far,” she said. “Never tried it before.” She finished her statement by lightly pulling on the joint and sipping the smoke it released. When she exhaled the smoke, it was thin and wispy. She didn’t even cough.

I smiled and lightly touched her arm. The scales under my fingers warmed, and purple color started to spread, replacing the blue. “Are you okay, Molls?” I asked.

She choked on a sob and turned away, puffing lightly at the joint before scowling and crushing it out on the rooftop’s gravel. “My meetings were stressful,” she said.

“Let me guess, Mike?” I asked.

She frowned and looked down at me. “How did you know?”

“I ran into him today,” I said. “He . . . provoked me.”

“Unsurprising,” she spat. “That sounds very much like Mike Masters. He seems indecently fixated on our relationship.”

I nodded and slid my arm around her waist. “Yep. Full of racist nonsense too, I’m guessing,” I said.

“Ugh!” Molls hissed. “Yes! Asshole, like you said. He tried to paint me as a drugged out whore to the entire gold team.”

I shook my head and squeezed her closer. “As soon as Garthrust set that in motion, that was always going to be the lie they used. Let me guess, you’re able to do your work and everything, but the church is somehow colder toward you. Less accepting, socially?”

Her scales flushed orange momentarily, before sliding back toward a blueish purple. “Yes, exactly. All part of your affiliate dance, I’m now seeing.”

“Yeah, something like that, they’re using us as a shield against the Sleem. So you have to be allowed the regular access of someone in your position, but they won’t let you establish any form of good relations with any member of the church,” I said. “I’m sorry Molls. We’re all just being used right now.”

She shrugged, and her tail slid up the back of my leg to squeeze my buttock playfully. “Eh, I’m kind of over all that. We’re all using each other all the time.” Molls gripped my shirt and pulled me in for a smokey-flavored kiss. “Tyson, did we move too fast?” she sighed.

“No,” I said, firmly. “Don’t let that jackass get in your head. That’s called gaslighting and it’s a shitty way that shitty people get in good people’s heads. Don’t let them.”

She nodded, then rubbed her snout against my beard. Waves of purple flowed across her scales.

“What did you mean,” I whispered, “when you said we’re all using each other?”

She sighed and shook her head. “Your persona. The way you use the church to justify your war on Dearth.”

“They did start it, none of that is technically a lie,” I said.

Molls chuckled. “You should hear the way mother’s old friends talk about you. It’s no wonder she sent an inquisitor after us.”

“We weathered it,” I said. “He went home today, just a little bit ago.”

She snuggled in close again, her scent laced with piney marijuana smoke. “That is comforting to hear. Do we have some time together tonight?” she asked.

I flinched, and she pulled back, to look me in the eyes. “I’m sorry, Molls. I actually just ordered a rapid response team from BlueCleave. We’re answering a five-hundred billion mortie bounty before we go do our first assignment from the church tomorrow.” I lifted her hand to my lips and kissed her silvered knuckles. “I’m needed for both actions. Waiting on Rayna’s callback now.”

Molls nodded and smiled, then turned up the heater in her robe. “I’ll enjoy you while you’re here, then,” she said.

We stood on the rooftop, our own personal haven from the chaos of BuyMort all around us and looked up at the stars. Elevator Station twinkled among the rest.

After only a few short minutes, a call came through on my BlueCleave device. It was Tollya. I showed it to Molls before pulling away. She nodded and retrieved the crushed remains of her joint, relighting it with her laser pen for a few more light puffs.

I pocketed my phone. “Hey,” I said, slipping my arm back around Molls’ shoulders. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. If you want to smoke, smoke. Don’t let me stop you.”

Molls smiled shyly and turned away, pink in her scales. But she nodded and took a small drag from the damaged joint. “Thank you, my love. And you, go. Go save people. Show the church they chose a champion that will win.”

I grinned, kissed her, and pulled away to answer the phone.

“Hey!” I said, pulling up a video call with Tollya. “Is Rayna busy or something?”

“Yes. She’s busy planning our operation for tomorrow,” she said, a terse little smile on her lips. “But BlueCleave always ready. I go to Tertiary with you.”

I winced. “And the rapid response team?”

“No, that shift stay in Prescott. This all volunteers,” she replied. “Few golems, fill in the ranks.”

“How many did we get?” I asked, frowning.

Tollya’s eyebrows raised, and she grinned. “Oh no idea. Find out soon though, volunteers being gathered now.”

My frown deepened. “Woah, hold on. What are you saying to get them to volunteer?”

“Oh nothing much,” Tollya said, scowling. “Just that their boss and the leader of the greatest war-band in known history is looking for some warriors to do battle with the Sleem.”

“Tollya!” I sighed. “That is not . . . shit that is what we’re doing. Okay yeah, fair enough. I just hope a few people show up. We’re supposed to liberate an entire island overnight.”

She grinned lopsidedly, balancing the phone with one hand as she shouldered into one of BlueCleave’s anti-Sleem armor chest plates. “Yeah, we see. Get here, need to gear up.”

I nodded and hung up the phone, discouraged. I hadn’t thought through the logistical realities of running this many operations at the same time. Of course Rayna was overwhelmed. That was the point. To overwhelm our military forces and spend us as a shield against the Sleem.

Our people dead, not theirs. Our fault when the campaign failed, not theirs.

With a sigh, I turned and smiled reassuringly at Molls, before launching into the sky and arcing my fall out toward BlueCleave’s new base.

One of the easier to install portions of the base had been the staging area, where troops and equipment were set out and lined up in anticipation of BuyMort portal travel. It was essentially a large, paved area with painted lines indicating zones for various items or personnel. My eyes widened as the area came into view, and I used the helmets ‘far-sight’ ability to zoom in.

There were easily over three hundred hobbs scattered about the area, grouped in front of four troop transport hovercraft.

I changed the direction of my fall and landed with a thud in the dirt beside the staging area.

Someone near me, a younger male hobb wearing his helmet pushed back on his forehead, raised a fist in the air and shouted, “WARLORD!”

The rest of them immediately roared their approval and raised fists or struck their own chests in salute.

A pilot to the rear of the formation hung out of his flier’s door and waited for the noise to die down. After a long moment of raucous cheers, he got his opportunity and shouted, “Where we flyin’ boss?!”

The rest of them went silent. When mission critical information was forthcoming, BlueCleave soldiers suddenly became students, quiet as reaper hounds on the stalk.

I hovered into the air a few feet, to let the rest of them see me, and activated my helmet’s booming voice feature. “Tertiary!” I roared.

The reaction was muted. A few hobbs merely blinked, staring on as they had before. Others murmured and talked among themselves. More than one cheered, clearly from the planet in question.

“The multiverse thinks we’re their shield against the Sleem,” I started. That got their attention.

“And we are,” I said next. A massive cheering roar passed through the crowd, before they quieted again. “We will answer the cries of those who need help, until we cannot. The Sleem have hunted, stalked, chased, and consumed too many. Now, with their own world next in the BuyMort rotation, they’ve become more aggressive than ever.”

More hobbs trickled from the various buildings around the new complex, carrying weapons and gear or donning armor as they came.

“Tomorrow, we answer the call of BuyMort’s most powerful affiliate, to fight the Sleem across their worlds, and make the wealthy feel safe. But here, tonight, this is the real work! Tertiary needs help, and no one will answer their call.”

I waited a moment, floating in the air above my silent, staring, waiting troops.

“Who will answer?” I yelled, and my gathered hobbs did not disappoint.

“BLUECLEAVE!” They all roared back in unison.

Chapter 41

I floated back down as I saw Tollya approaching from the command structure. She approached and nodded, taking in the crowd. “Not bad,” she grunted. “More coming in though, still have some time before launch.”

“Launch?” I asked.

“Launch of mission. Supposed to be in forty-five minutes. Had to give some time for prep.” Tollya chuckled and punched me in the shoulder. "Keep up boss, this your party.”

A low chant suddenly broke out, and the entire staging area stilled. I frowned as the chant grew in volume. “Doofus, Doofus,” they chanted. Sure enough, my dog’s bright orange hard light wings sparked and fizzled as he swept in over the compound to land behind me, in a small cloud of dust.

As soon as his feet touched the dirt, the hobbs erupted in a massive cheer, causing his tail to wag.

Doof and Phyll - You got problems? We've got solutions. 4.8 stars. Contact for more details.

I grinned at the ad. Doofus had been running independent operations with BlueCleave’s mercenary wing since they very first opened it back in the early days of BuyMort. They had done that when it was still just Rayna and her original squad, to allow Doofus to operate as a mercenary with their name and account. He was technically their oldest, and most decorated mercenary operative.

I had even seen his picture on their barracks walls.

Hobbs would reverently touch the picture as they departed on missions, as though the dog were a good luck charm, or a patron saint that walked among them. Considering the Giant Malamute’s success rate with legitimately dangerous mercenary operations, and his structural contributions to several of my own victories, I got it. He was one of the best of them, a hero in the hobbs ranks.

The dog who used to sit lonely, wishing his pack loved him, was now the star of a tribe of thousands. It was good to see how some lives had been improved through all these changes.

Having Doofus volunteer for the mission exploded our numbers. By the time Tollya’s allotted time was up, and a BuyMort pod was approaching from Prescott to warp us all away, our numbers had swelled to just over a thousand. We even had a H.O.B.B.S crew, off duty, who had decided to pick up an extra shift, video crew and all.

Tollya stepped up onto a small platform they’d built, and the assembled warriors all quieted. She’d had them all check in with the armory to get equipped, and every single one of our warriors was wearing full body coverage anti-Sleem gear.

We had a set of three light rollers equipped with heavy flame-throwers, and giant fuel tanks in the place of seating, three hovercraft, and all of the new flesh golems Tower had provided us. They lined up to get dressed easily enough, and Tollya had convinced me it was the perfect operation to test them out on.

We’d also gone in on Orbital Blast Sleem-Away, Category V world cleanser, chemical bombardment munitions that were even now deployed and gassing, cracking and exploding any Sleem that were dumb enough to stay out in the open an hour before we arrived. We couldn’t use it while we were on-planet, and we couldn’t use it on any populated worlds, but I could foresee plenty of targets fitting the requirements of its extensive use out on the horizon.

Tollya explained that nobody was doing it for the bounty either. Everyone was volunteering for the task, as she had assured them that I was not taking the bounty for myself either. It would go straight back into the affiliate, as it always did. She’d punched me in the shoulder again when I protested and asked her to consult me before making claims like that.

“That’s what you do,” she said. “Why ask?”

I frowned and crossed my arms at her as the BuyMort pod made its final approach.

The pod swept in low and dazzled us all with a massive spread of rainbow light. I felt myself being pulled as bright light and color assailed my mind directly. My ocular organs were overwhelmed, but the sensation and effect faded almost immediately.

Drawing a breath, I was greeted by the uncanny, acrid scent of an alien ocean, as unforgiving, sharp volcanic stone made its acquaintance with my boot soles. The realm sprung into existence as lightning tore through the sky, casting transient light on our fliers as they launched after arrival. The sea below took on a quicksilver hue, each wave cresting and collapsing into frothy silhouettes, an ocean of liquid mercury in violent, frothy, dance. Our hovercraft flooded the area with aggressive white light, beaming out assertive, pure luminance, multiplying our visible reach in all directions as they rose higher. I followed, rising into the air as I connected my helmet into the chatter of our group comms network.

“Boss on the call!” shouted Tollya, and the thousand hobbs all barked their approval, repeating her words with various levels of enthusiasm. I rose into the oppressive, stormy sky as more lightning flashed and showed the waves crashing and churning all around us.

The island was small: I could easily see the edges of it as I floated into the sky, but the factory it housed was comparatively massive. The building sprawled down the side of the volcanic mountain directly into the sea, which roiled silvery froth onto its shore.

My helmet, tuned to hit any Sleem in range with fairy fire, suddenly lit up my map around the edges. I saw the faint glow rising from below as well. My squad had been warped-in onto a rocky beach near the bottom edge of the sprawling factory facility, and a solid wad of Sleem was encroaching on them from the sea and land both.

The factory itself dripped too; it lit up with multiple pockets of Sleem, as did several areas in the nearby rocky mountainside.

“Incoming, all sides,” I boomed. “We brought a lot of ammo, people, so leave no Sleem alive. Establish a perimeter!”

A handful of petty officers shouted their affirmatives, then muted themselves on comms as they began shouting to those near them. Hobbs scrambled into lines, forming up riflemen behind flamethrowers, and using the converted light rollers as heavy flamers.

The night lit up a soft red, pinkish hues reflected from the silver sea, as my volunteer division went to war with the Sleem. Hundreds of oozes threw themselves at the lines, heedless of damage or harm, and BlueCleave lit them up. The lines of flamethrower-wielding hobbs waved their nozzles back and forth, establishing cones of fire between each other.

Riflemen fired carefully between them, sending streaks of light into the night as they carefully fired rounds of Redlight Trace and Target, get ‘em close and let the AI do the rest rounds into individual charging Sleem, stopping the more dangerous ones before they could close the distance. Bright orange sparks shone from one section of the embattled beach, and Doofus took to the sky on his hard light wings. He swept in low against the waterline and barked, sending a gout of Sleem and silver water glittering into the air.

My hobbs were equipped with mo-gas flamethrowers, and we’d brought a sizable storage canister of the stuff to refuel from. Most of the flamethrower hobbs were connected to the fuel canister directly, which allowed for several individual hoses.

Tollya was a smart shopper, and spent a lot of time thinking about how BuyMort could be used to provide us with the tools to accomplish our goals. We were using mostly her purchases. She had foreseen large scale anti-Sleem action coming weeks in advance and had laid in supplies to ensure we were ready for it.

The Sleem quickly realized they were overmatched and retreated into the sea to regroup. I primed a crystalline grenade, one part of the arsenal Tollya had loaded me up with. My helmet showed a huge mass of them surging up like a tide from crevices underwater.

“Major incoming from the waterline!” I shouted. My fairy fire lit up my HUD with malevolent slime monsters, and I felt my old paralyzing fear again. For an instant, I was freshly trapped underground in the concrete hallway with them. Separated from the hobbs and running for my life. I swallowed the fear and blinked hard, to clear my vision.

Gerard’s Psychiatric Services! Now available via psionic link!

I growled, canceling the ad before diving head first into the liquid metal ocean, a muted splash marking my entry.

Chapter 42

The great undulating mass of Sleem carefully raised a thick tentacle, a stalagmite of gel in the sea. It carefully reached up toward me, and I casually dropped the grenade into it, before jetting away. The base of the slime tendril hurriedly narrowed, then separated as the black ooze flowed within the infected portion.

The water helped contain the reaction significantly.

Bubbles violently rose as the infected tendril of Sleem began erupting in phases, from the top down. The much larger mass of Sleem below sank rapidly, sliding into a large fissure and then vanishing, spreading out among the lowest levels of the mining facility, and down into their dig.

“Crap,” I said. “I think I just chased the bulk of them below ground.”

“Nope,” Tollya said from above. I could hear the smile in her voice. “Not sure how many you got, but willing to bet we got more.”

I turned and jetted upward, breaking the surface and taking in the sheer mass of sapient slime coming over the nearby mountaintop. It flowed, greenish blue in the starlight, over the bulk of the mining facility nearby. Several flimsier buildings crushed and broke away, but the majority of the structure held.

Our fliers kept their floodlights trained on the nearby Sleem threats, and my division of hobbs and armed flesh golems fired into them. It turned out the little Towers were smart enough to wield a rifle, or a flamethrower, so we had them doing both. I wanted to find out what they were good at.

Most of the bullets streaking through the night were cheap, mild incendiaries. A little more than what a tracer round had in it was enough to do the job. One shot would kill a slime if put even remotely close to center mass. Same with a Cube, if you were a good shot, but usually two or three was enough for them even if not. All my hobbs carried crystalline Morrigan brand grenades with orders to use them only if in dire need.

The golems all carried Sleem-sticks, just to be safe. There were Sleem-sticks and crystalline grenades scattered everywhere on our beach, in several small caches for immediate use. Missiles launched from the fliers into the wall of Sleem encroaching on us from the mountainside. The bulk of it reared back, spreading wider and broader on top as explosions flared in the night behind it, casting strange lights across us on the beach.

The giant Sleem amalgamation meant to cover the entire beach with a single flop. I gripped another grenade and flew directly toward it. This time, I held onto the grenade and waited to pull the pin until I was deep inside the bulk of the Sleem.

My hand itched and burned and I yanked away from the grenade as it blossomed in the mass of caustic slime. I punched through the other side, immediately pushing the suit to strip away the layer of Sleem residue on my body, before turning back to look at my work.

The mound of Sleem was dying, violently. The black poison spread rapidly, surging through the great mass of gathered Sleem and killing the vast majority of them. Black goo rained down across the rocky mountain and beach, directly over my own troops. Doofus swept in and barked, sending the largest bulk of the dying Sleem harmlessly into the mountainside

All of my soldiers, dressed head to toe in anti-Sleem armor, laughed and cheered as the dying remains of their foes splashed down around them.

Then Tollya was barking orders and splitting the mass of armored bodies on the beach into squads. We left a sizable force on the beach, to secure the primary fuel and ammunition cache, and wait for that giant blob in the mine to resurface. The rest went in large, twenty-hobb-and-golem squads, hunting pockets of Sleem across the island, moving ever closer to the facility itself.

Each squad had a roller and a hover craft for cover, and lighting. The alien world was dark at night, the sky housing only a few stars, like beacons reflected from the silvery ocean top. Tollya split the island into quadrants and each squad ran a patrol in their quadrant. My job, thanks to Tollya, was to clear out the mine buildings systematically.

The battle became a hunt at that point. I drove the Sleem from the inside of the winding mine structure, while my volunteers fought their ebb and flow on the beach. Doofus accompanied me into the mine, and together he and I pushed the Sleem further and further down the structure. We posted hobb and golem guards at any intersection, and covered pipes and ducts with a version of the mud-crete grenades that was significantly easier to remove.

We were using BermaSpill Sleem Proofing, keep ‘em outta here! 4500 morties, 4.7 stars. The Hobbs got vats of the stuff, putting the gel into homemade grenades that, when used, would render Sleem unconscious for several hours on contact and could conduct electricity easily to allow for typical duct-clearing techniques. Nobody liked cleaning dead Sleem out of their air and water after clearing out an infestation. Little details like that really made BlueCleave the solid 4.8 star service they were.

But the more we pushed the mine, killing Sleem and driving them before us as we went, the more of them showed up on the beach, as the main bulk tried to escape. Sleem couldn’t actually navigate large bodies of water very well, they were only able to go short distances and had to stay close to shore. Their oxygen requirements meant that being underwater was as temporary for them as for most creatures, but they had one distinct advantage.

The bigger the bulk of Sleem underwater, the longer they could hold their breath, so to speak. The Sleem absorbed oxygen, nitrogen, methane, and other important gasses through their porous external layer, which was thicker than the rest of the Sleem’s body. This limited their ability to absorb oxygen underwater, but not completely.

So while a smaller secondary bulk attacked our beach position from the ocean, a much larger mass slipped quietly into the mine behind us, having circled around the island to approach from our rear.

The cunning of Sleem was quite amazing, to be honest. Combined with the rate at which they reproduced, they were like an aggressive cancer, eating at the heart of BuyMort.

A jumble of shouts from hobbs and unhappy grunts from the golems over my comms was our first warning that we had been flanked and cut off. Our fliers were too few, we had pulled the single entrance guard hovercraft to track the Sleem’s movement in the sea, so we were ready for the assault on the beach.

The real attack took us by surprise completely, and the entire top section of tunnels was flooded completely with angry Sleem. My hobbs and golems were engulfed by a flood of fast moving Sleem, a hot wave of air movement their only warning.

Our contract stipulated clearing out the Sleem from three main portions of the mine; the upper residential tunnels, where their miners lived. This was a cluster of tunnels roughly the size of an east coast subway station. Each tunnel was filled with bunks, simple sleeping cubbies that could be covered with a thin curtain for privacy.

Mostly, their workers were expected to work, though, not sleep. There was no accommodation for family, or recreation of any sort. The shifts were three months long, and the affiliate rehired for each shift, ensuring their employment costs stayed low.

A few dozen of these tunnels, connected into a loose system, were established near the top of the mountain, having been added on as the mine expanded. The secondary area was a thick series of flat bunkers built in a series of massive, broad steps coming down the mountain. This was administrative at the bottom near the ocean, over a mine-prep room where the manager could watch their employees boarding the submersible trams that ran down into the depths of the mines.

The rest of the artificial steppes were filled with processing equipment, as well as shipping and retractable hovercraft landing pads. As I was coming to expect from labor-focused planets in BuyMort, the entire setup was terribly inefficient, and not at all worker friendly. It gave the impression of a broad, flat, concrete squid trying to climb up out of the silver sea.

My hobbs and golems were engulfed because the residence tunnels were just massive open structures. The Sleem rushed in at full speed once the primary doors on each tunnel were forced open.

For a long handful of seconds, I paused and panted, as I contemplated the situation. My targets had turned around my attack and managed to ambush me. But my hobbs were not expendable.

“Target fairy fire on my troopers,” I told the helmet. My flooded HUD winked out, and a handful of small figures floated far up above. “Meet you up there, Doof!” I shouted and pushed my suit.

The mines themselves were primarily open spaces, scattered around the sea floor in a chain of underwater caves. Our hosting affiliate had secured the spaces and built directly into, and through the caves, sealing them and pumping in air as they went. It was damp, dank, and occasionally flooded.

Perfect for the Sleem.

My hobbs were wearing near top of the line anti-Sleem suits. That meant they had time. Individual air supplies, crush resistant jointing, and of course, extreme corrosion resistance. I knew exactly what my job was, and moved to do it, leaving Doofus behind in the caves.

With a glance at my HUDs map, I located the nearest underwater exit and plunged into the silvery sea again, before jetting up and breaching the surface with a splash of scattered silvery droplets.

I turned and streaked toward the top of the mountain, unclipping my plasma falchion as I went. As I approached the first open door, I ignited the blade and plunged directly into the mass of quivering Sleem. When the first squirming outline was close, I turned off the sword and clipped it to my belt. Then I grabbed the figure and hauled, dragging them out through the charred pathway I had carved.

I dropped the soldier once we were free of the Sleem mass and dove back in, sword ablaze. When I came back with the next hobb, the first was already using his own rifle and grenades to make inroads in the mass of tightly packed Sleem. Most of the first tunnel was clear again by the time I had rescued three of them.

An armored figure in my arms giggled as I flew back through the charred Sleem. “Thanks for saving me friend!” he said. I realized I had saved a golem. Didn’t matter, we needed all of them too. I just kept going back for more and more of the struggling victims, as fast as my suit and the still resistant Sleem would let me.

My troopers recovered and used whatever weaponry they managed to keep hold of to fight back the mass of Sleem and keep them contained within the linked structures. Then, reinforcements with resupply arrived from the beach, and a flier was re-tasked to light up the area. The battle turned against the Sleem once more.

From the other side of the mining complex, my troopers rallied around Doofus as he returned from the depths of the mine, fighting the Sleem as they tried to escape my ever-growing wrath. The hobbs, golems, and Giant Malamute killed the Sleem en masse as I drove them out of the residence tunnels.

Once I looked up to notice the sunrise, reloading my highwater blaster for the umpteenth time, I realized we had won. The growing light reflected from the silver sea and quickly grew to near blinding levels, winking and glittering from the surface of the alien ocean.

Acrid smoke wafted from the remains of the dead Sleem, and I asked for a casualty report.

But nobody had died. One of the golems had been injured, but assured us the limb, which had been snapped backwards when it got caught on a bunk’s rigging, would heal up fine on its own. He was just hungry, the golem assured us with a cheerful laugh.

Tollya met up with me and organized a replacement shift for our fighters, as the next battle was coming up. We had fought through the night recovering the oceanic mine, and a good portion of us needed to report directly to the next fight.

But we had all known that was how it would play out, and gone anyway.

Chapter 43

Once we were ready, a BuyMort pod arrived and portalled us all home to Arizona, leaving the strange alien world behind, with its silver sea, and strange volcanic island mines. We portalled in directly back to the Prescott base, behind the space port, and into the heart of thrumming activity.

A collection of hobbs, humans, orcs, and flesh golems dressed in anti-Sleem armor were gathering in the main staging area. They were forming into ranks and lines around heavy war equipment. We were fielding several armor-sealed rollers, as well as the majority of our fleet, and a handful of specialist vehicles and temporary structures.

Half of our staging area was full of material, great vats of mo-gas, tanker trucks, heavy armored rollers for command hobbs, and even a couple of food trucks. We were planning for this to be a multi-day operation. Our troopers would need some of the comforts of home, so plenty of yarsp and blue tequila was going with them too.

The amount of Sleem we faced in our next action was significantly higher than what my exhausted troops and I had faced the prior night.

Rayna had been smart, realizing that we’d need everyone on deck for this operation, and she’d ordered my tired troops to take over support and in-vehicle roles, freeing up others for combat operations. Only I, Tollya, and the golems would be returning to front-line duty right away.

Doofus also stayed home. He was clearly tired and sauntered off in the base to find someplace to nap. That dog got around; all of BlueCleave seemed to be his pack. It was considered a special honor in the barracks if Doofus chose your cot for a nap, and I smiled to imagine him off to find someplace quiet and comfy.

Contribute to the Doofus Cuddle Fund. Who has been a good boy? Doofus has been a good boy! Donate now!

My smile turned to an outright laugh. I had no doubt that Doofus had nothing to do with this fund, and that Phyllis was the ornery mech lady behind the curtain on that particular scheme.

After all, Doofus was doing fine on his own in this particular field.

It still brings me a smile to think of the hobbs hiding treats in their bunks to encourage the dog to visit them.

I wanted a nap, but instead fell in line with the rest of our soldiers. Rayna had gathered thousands of troops from our various bases and strongholds across the planet, leaving most of our security forces skeletally thin. Thankfully, hobbs were used to picking up extra work and generally didn’t complain.

They knew how important it was that we answer the church’s call, and not fail.

The task was enormous. We were expected to liberate an entire city roughly the size of Manhattan Island, on Neolithic Earth where the continents were not in the same positions I was used to. The seat of humanity's power within BuyMort, and sole human home world within BuyMort was Neolithic Earth, the first Earth to be absorbed by the system. My Nu Earth, Victorian Earth, and Industrial Earth were all considered copies. Only Neolithic Earth was considered ‘our’ Earth, as a species.

I couldn’t wait to see the place.

But first, Rayna’s troop leaders made us all go take showers and get some food in us. Then we were allowed to refit and join the lined up troops waiting to deploy. There was plenty of mush-bug tea at our mess, that lovely mix that kept you awake when you needed it, and set you to rest when you needed a bit of R and R.

Once the troopers rotating out from Tertiary were fed, rearmed, and assigned to lighter duty tasks, we were ready.

Rayna double, triple, and quadruple checked our status before summoning a pod, with an official associate request to the church. While it was en-route from the fruition center, Rayna stood at the head, on a small platform at the front of the officers' partition and activated our comms.

Throughout the assembled army, the scattered echo of Rayna’s voice crackled through to us.

“BlueCleave, boss on the call!” she started.

“Boss on the call!” shouted back nearly four thousand regular units. I was silent, just breathing heavily in my helmet. The adrenaline was the same as the night before. I was pumped and ready. They’d resupplied me, with fresh freezing and crystalline Morrigan shells in multiple bandoleers across my otherwise naked chest, and a freshly charged pair of plasma falchions.

There was no point bringing my atomically sharpened sword along on a Sleem hunt, they didn’t care if they were cut and would simply rejoin immediately. No matter how expensive, or high tech a toy my favorite sword might be, it was worthless in a fight against the Sleem.

“BlueCleave!” Rayna shouted, getting my attention. “Final mission brief. You all know job, this just last minute reminder. We go, take back Sildred City, Neolithic Earth, from the Sleem. This home-world, so behave! Represent BlueCleave and Silken Sands, to ALL of BuyMort! Show them what we capable of!”

The roars and cheers of my gathered troops filled the blacktopped area. I saw Phyllis’ mech looking around, as if unsure why the cheers were happening. The incoming BuyMort pod zipped in over her mech’s massive, three story tall shoulder.

With a dazzle of chromatic light, I felt myself being hauled away again, in a flood of blinding color and speed. The cheers and roars of delight continued where they had left off, but the air was suddenly different. Heavier, and wet with heat. The stink of large-scale Sleem presence.

The city around us was familiar. It looked like The Dearth Conglomerate’s plans for Prescott before I had stepped in, but far denser. Towering buildings surrounded my army, which had landed in the middle of this city’s version of Central Park.

Dozens of roadways entered and left the area, converging in a wide open space between buildings. Our troops immediately started securing the roads surrounding our park. The tall, black, modular buildings rose around us in various formations, reflecting light from silvered windows and dripping caustic slime like long, ropey vines.

Mixed among them were structures that appeared to be crafted from brick and mortar. They were older, richer, decorated structures with some apparent historic or cultural value. Most of them appeared to be clustered in the northern portion of the park, in a theater district of sorts.

The sky above us was at least familiar, a large yellow sun near to setting in the distance, and a sliver of nearly familiar moon reflected back from the horizon, over the slew of building-tops in my view. Classic rainbow sherbet colors painted the sky in the direction of sundown, disorienting me from the morning I had just left behind on my own Earth. One of the joys of inter-universe travel was instant jetlag.

The only thing truly exotic or foreign, however, was the sprawling city built on the moon, visible in daylight as a patch of twinkling lights in the shadowed portions of the orbiting body.

We had landed in the heart of Sildred City’s downtown area. The dense buildings limited our ability to see and provided excellent cover to our already-active enemy. Patches of Sleem were moving in the growing shadows, having noticed our sudden arrival.

“BlueCleave, secure position!” Rayna shouted, before I could take in any more. “Phyllis! Weapons free! You have the north quadrant. We will support as needed. Try to protect structures.”

“Why thank you dearie. I’ll be very careful not to step on anyone,” Phyllis replied. Her monstrous mech turned, whining and tearing up blacktop as her treads shifted the machines bulk to the north, where a major glob of Sleem was growing at the far side of our open air park.

A loud whine filled the air for a second before lances of fire erupted from Phyllis’s multi-gun. The barrels spit thousands of rounds of tracer ammunition per minute, the rounds streaking far over our heads to splash into the still-gathering Sleem.

The glop that formed was roughly the size of a destroyer slug, but it was compressed in between the buildings, so it appeared much higher, a tsunami of Sleem coming to crush our forces.

Tollya had begun organizing the troops to respond as soon as we landed. This expedition had brought out our entire complement of starfish troopers as well, all gleefully fighting on the front line. Reckless, secure in the knowledge that they were near immortal, just like their fearless leader.

Four ship-sized, heavy laser turrets were surrounded by hobbs, all dedicated to installing them in hardened positions around the base, and then plugging them into Cube’s personal hovercraft. Cube floated directly above the park, at roughly rooftop height, secure and ready. Cables hung from it like roots, to be plugged into our various vehicles, weaponry, and temporary structures.

While some of our hobbs fought alongside Phyllis to defeat the first destroyer slug and secure the surrounding streets, the rest of the army got to work building their base. Spools of electric fencing were hauled out and stacked, wrapping a handful of temporary structures and stationary weaponry in the stuff. Then, as we cleared out more and more of the park, the fencing was used to establish an outer perimeter, complete with thin but heavy gates to allow our rollers.

At Tollya’s request, I flew around the small patch of territory we had and responded to any patches of Sleem growing too fast for the various squads to handle as they spread out. My job for the army was sort of an all-purpose support figure.

I flew down out of the sky, laid waste to the Sleem in an area, and then bounded off back into the sky to find the next area to help out with.

The Sleem felt strange as I fought them. Disorganized. Nothing like what we’d fought the previous night. We still had a few squads on Tertiary, mopping up, but Axle had told me the company was processing payment already. The rest of that fight was simply seek and destroy. The Sleem would try to hide and repopulate. We weren’t going to let them.

A aquatic-capable Fumble-Bee hive was employed to find the remnants, and our squads on Tertiary would handle them. That was how the Sleem operated. They would try to kill you, but then back off and try to hide when it was obvious that you were going to kill all of them. The last half of a Sleem hunt was always chasing them out of their hiding places.

So when the handful of Sleem still in the park when my army arrived attacked, I was surprised because of how few there really were. A single devourer slug had formed, but the rest were just streams of slimes and cubes from nearby buildings, and sewage networks underground.

Easily defeated by our first wave forces.

Our own Fumble-Bees were deployed and spreading out in the city to give us an idea what we faced. We’d brought six separate hives, at first to ensure we could secure a space of our own in the city, and then later in the operation they would extend out to cover all of Sildred City, assuming we survived long enough to require that of them.

I flew down to land beside Rayna, lowering my helmet to talk to her, half an hour after we portalled in.

“Rayna, why are they not attacking us in force?” I asked.

She nodded and motioned for me to come over. On a wrist-mounted screen, she showed me footage of the surrounding areas. I raised an eyebrow at the new blue-green Sleem icon in the corner of her screen and she flipped me the sales data.

Fumble-Bee Sleem Tracker, a particular set of tools for those in a particular line of work. Using enhanced elemental scanning parameters and the best in Fumble-Bee technology, this upgrade will find all Sleem in your MortBlock—Guaranteed! Instant delivery, just 100,000 morties! Order now.

I nodded, fully understanding the situation. The Fumble-Bee she was using was set to a special camera add-on that could track live Sleem by their chemical composition. It was something Fumble-Bee Affiliated sold as a software upgrade, which smelled like bullshit to me. Software that allowed a camera to see something it couldn’t see before?

More like software unlock. They just limited the functions on a hive unless you paid their bribes to unlock them.

Fortunately, the upgrades at least worked, once paid for. The streets around us were alight with Sleem.

Billions of them were streaming into a rough circle around the park. Dozens of destroyer slugs worth of raw Sleem material, all pooling in the lobbies and lower floors of nearby buildings or flooding into tunnels underground. There were already hundreds of tons of angry, caustic living slime in every direction all around us, and it was only going to get worse before they attacked.

They were amassing, the footage made that clear.

I frowned, but then glanced around and saw the activities of my hobb army. Hundreds of my soldiers were running around with modified flame-thrower units that shot thick, ropey glue. They were actively engaged in sealing the pipes and utility tunnel entrances near the command center. More squads of them were everywhere in the park.

“Sleem test us right now. See how hard we fight back. Determine size of main attack force, gathering now,” she explained. “Soon, real attack begin.”

I took a longer look around the park, and the surrounding streets and buildings. Plenty of my army was fighting Sleem, but plenty of them were working on setting up equipment and connecting vehicles or setting up heavy weaponry.

“And what will that look like?” I asked her.

Rayna took a deep breath and looked hard at her growing emplacements. “We will need Phyllis,” she finally said. “You should go, break up bigger glops. Chase them. Kill many, keep them from gathering in east quadrant. That our weakest area.”

“Should we use the orbitals?” I asked, already seeing the answer in her expression.

“Too many buildings. Too much collateral. Church rake us over coals.”

I outlined the area she indicated on the map and took off back into the sky. My suit’s charge was still high, and the Sleem could hardly cause me lasting damage with all my enhancements. I flew above the growing pools and puddles in the densely packed streets, scanning where they were gathering the most.

Chapter 44

Phyllis was easily keeping the north side of the park clear of encroaching Sleem. Her many weapons systems were perfectly suited to the task. The mech’s multi-gun had four separate quad-loaded, 20mm cannons, loaded with just over one hundred thousand rounds.

I know because she brought an extra four magazines. They were huge square chunks of metal that took up most of a city block in the park behind her. To be fair, each magazine also carried additional charge for her sonic weaponry, plasma tanks for her oversized plasma-caster weapon, and fissile material for her own reactor.

Her mech would eject the spent ‘magazine,’ which would hit the ground with the weight of a loaded eighteen wheeler, and then she had to squat the hulking machine over the fresh magazine, lowering fully to the ground in order to ‘load’ it.

I liked my suit better but watching her wipe out waves of Sleem with ease put hers in a solid second place.

The gathering horde kept growing in number, though, regardless of our countermeasures. The only thing that got them to back off was our supply of crystalline Morrigan grenades, and my Morrigan ammunition. Those rounds earned us some breathing room, as the Sleem would retreat to avoid contamination.

Sadly, I learned that the weapon had its limits too, when I hurled a grenade into a river of the stuff and was disappointed to see the black spot stop spreading after a certain point. Turns out, that stuff has a charge, and once it runs out, the spread stops on its own.

That’s not mentioned in the advertising. Not even in the fine print.

The Sleem simply discarded that portion and kept flowing into the area surrounding the park. Fear started to rise in my chest as I realized that no matter how many I killed, far more kept coming.

I returned to Rayna and secured my empty plasma falchions into a charging dock in her command tent. Once their hiss of cooling mist had informed me they were rapid-charging, I replaced them with two fresh versions. We had brought plenty of spares; our weight limit was absurd with the church's high end portal.

Once that was done, I opened a crate of PRDs and crushed one by the tail, fully recharging my suit. Rayna was busy, talking to a group of her lieutenants and preparing them for the incoming attack. Unfortunately, they were all speaking hobb to make the battle-plan easier, and I could only understand one in five words.

I was picking up the language through sheer exposure, with how often I was at Morbin time, but I was a slow learner. I knew more Nah’gh from overhearing Molls arguing on the phone with her mother in the other room of our penthouse.

“Tyson, good,” Rayna said, dismissing her officers. They filed out of the tent at a full-speed walk, off to perform important duties. “Since you here, all Sleem must be dead?”

I chuckled and shook my head, dropping the helmet. “You know we don’t have that kind of luck. I’ve been flying recon, outside the fence. Its rivers out there, Rayna. Rivers, all coming in toward us.”

The stern hobb nodded, then flicked her wrist at a nearby projection screen. A projector on a nearby card table fired up and showed me satellite footage. The church had been gracious enough to task us one of their satellites, since we asked for it in public.

Yolara Brinks was making Church TV appearances nightly, as part of our inspection celebration. The Church and BuyMort wanted to celebrate all things Silken Sands, since our affiliate had been officially inducted as a recognized part of the organization. The parties being thrown elsewhere on the planet involved a lot of silk underwear and tequila.

This had the fortunate side effect of giving her the ability to discuss church benefits and our planned attacks in public, which helped establish some substantive material aid from the powerful entity.

Still, the satellite footage didn’t have anything good to show us. The situation was worse than even I had known. A reinforcing wave of Sleem was rolling in from the city's borders, where they had hardened against external intrusion.

Rayna shook her head. “We outmatched. Bad position. Sleem will use tall buildings,” she pointed to the structures surrounding the park. “Flow up and pour out on top of us.” Her trailing fingertip landed on our command tent, and she shook her head. “Need to prevent attack from above, somehow. Arrakean mercenaries, maybe? Expensive, but . . .”

I turned and leaned against the card table, arms crossed as I stared out the tent flaps at our growing military fortifications. None of it would mean anything if they just came in on top of us the way Rayna described. A pair of hobbs jogged past, carrying a length of the electric ‘fencing’ they were erecting around the area of operations.

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The fences were little more than broad, flat panels with four primary holes in them. Like a classic window, just a thin strut of metal forming a cross in the center. Each panel was five meters wide, and two meters tall. They were lightweight and easy to install, just needing to be hot-welded to one another.

Of course, this type of electric fencing did very little to prevent anything from coming through its massive, wide gaps. The opposite was desired. Sleem, when rushed, would shove one another through the openings and expose each other to so much live current by touching the edges of the fencing that it would deconstruct their bodies into component cells.

Sleem were like a puddle normally, but they became actual puddles when they went through that fencing.

I stepped outside and stared up at the buildings around us.

“Rayna,” I said, “C’mere.”

My general peered out from the tent with a frown, then followed me. When she arrived at my side, I pointed up. “So they’re gathering right now to overwhelm us. The plan is to come at us from the building-tops all in a rush. Am I right so far?” I turned to look at her.

Rayna nodded, then crossed her arms. “They push through streets at same time. Make sure we face them from multiple directions, that primary Sleem tactic. We tell attack coming soon when gathered glops start climbing buildings.”

I nodded. “Okay, that’s perfect. We have some time. Let’s get our teams working on installing some extra fencing, and our printer working on making some more. A lot more.” Axle had purchased a construction printing device for BlueCleave, who had happily been using it to build their new base. We’d brought it with, just to build us cheap, easily installed electric fencing for Cube to light up.

Rayna frowned and scowled at me. “What you thinking?”

I grinned, before pulling my helmet back up and grabbing an armload of fencing. With a quick shout to a nearby hobb, a spot-welder was in my other hand, and I rose to the building top directly in front of our position. Rayna watched me through binoculars as I searched the rooftop’s ledge, starting in one corner.

The plasticrete blocks were impressive, but they needed metal skeletons like any other flexible, strong construction material. As soon as I found one, jutting from the black plasticrete surface, I pressed the wand of the spot-welder to it and snapped a bubble of molten metal on it. After pressing the fence and snapping the spot-welder one more time, the first corner was in place and I moved on to do the rest.

It took me most of five minutes, but I got the entire building-top covered in electric fencing. A return trip for one of Cube’s dangling wire-ends, and a final snap from the spot-welder, and the entire thing hummed with electricity.

By the time I returned to the command tent for another batch of fencing, Rayna had four hovercraft reassigned to the construction project, and a team of hobbs was already loading the first with fencing and spot-welders.

“Can Cube keep all this lit up?” I asked Rayna.

She nodded immediately. “Cube good for more even,” she said. “Charge very Strong. This easy.”

Since he’d devoured Quadrum, Cube had yet to calm down. He was almost hyper, talking to his hobb handlers nearly constantly, playing pranks on those assigned to work with him, and asking to be fed far more often than usual. I suspected he was getting ready to advance to a new stage of life again.

“Glad to hear it, let’s get this installed!” I shouted, taking off into the sky with my next armload of fencing. Quickly, the rest of our fleet of hovercraft were reassigned, as BlueCleave got our floodlighting installed and different portions of the park lit up like the daytime. Soon, I had nearly a dozen hovercraft filled with hobbs, all helping me work frantically to install electric fencing across all the rooftops, and any broken windows.

Once the hobbs got involved, I shifted my focus to shoring up any holes in our potential defense for the night. Most of the buildings were of classic Dearth design, their windows were embedded in the plasticrete, and strengthened to resist bad weather and pressure changes because of it. For the most part, the Sleem would be contained.

I fenced over any open or broken windows I could find, flying by and hurriedly scanning with my helmet for open spaces, snap-welding them in place as I went. Phyllis did a wonderful job of distracting the Sleem forces.

Within half an hour of our arrival, word was out among the Sleem, and they were mostly avoiding her section of the park by then. Still, that twenty millimeter multi-cannon had some range to it, and her regular fusion cannon was pretty much unlimited, as far as I could tell. We’d had a warning from the church not to fire it upwards, or it might damage an orbital vessel. That thing fired basketball sized packets of supercharged energy. Her fire filled the air over our heads regularly, snapping or hissing as it streaked over our positions.

Still, most of the Sleem’s movements around the park were focused on avoiding being in reach of Phyllis’ various weaponry systems. They gathered in formations, pooling only in streets far back enough that her guns couldn’t reach them without a building obstructing her fire. Most of our military activities against them stalled as they began using utility pipes and underground tunnels to reach the structures surrounding our park.

All around us, the buildings filled. Entire floors were packed with Sleem waiting to attack, pressed up against the windows. As the outer edge of the city's Sleem reached us, I understood why Rayna had been concerned.

What we had thought was a lot of Sleem before was suddenly dwarfed by a wall of the caustic slime nearly as tall as Phyllis’ mech. Our teams raced to complete the construction, pilots flying their craft dangerously close to the building's edges.

“Boss!” Rayna shouted in my ear. “Command tent, now!”

I dropped my armload of electric fencing and plummeted to the tent, slamming into the ground out front and then walking in. “What’s up?”

Tollya approached, holding a fresh bandoleer for me to put on. It nestled in place over my other two and was filled with growler sized grenades. Four of them, to be exact, the belt sagged with their weight. Inside each, a massive measure of the black liquid sloshed.

“Need you buy us time, get fencing installed. Go, take Morrigan bombs, drop one in each direction. Aim for large glops, open spaces. Only kill so many, but we need the time,” Rayna explained.

Tollya frowned at her work as she stepped back and nodded. “Carry more?” she asked.

I nodded, and she handed me another belt with four growlers. I hooked it into my elbow and motioned for another. Tollya grinned and walked away, swishing behind a thin curtain in the tent. She returned momentarily, ass-first, dragging a heavy crate with her.

The hobb opened the top of the crate with a hiss and revealed another eight of the growlers. I managed to carry all of them, with two extra belts hooked around either elbow.

“Okay, good, buy us as much time as can. Go!” Rayna grunted before turning back to her card table and the map of the park projected on it. A line of red ran around the top of the park, at the rooftops. It represented our grid, nearly finished. But the incoming glop was like nothing I had ever seen.

My mind momentarily dragged me back to the abandoned army base beneath Mr. Sada’s mansion. Trapped in the dark, running barefoot for my life. The blind, animal hunger in the dark. I felt it again, magnified to a terrifying size.

My enemy to kill, my monster to slay for the church. For the people of BuyMort. For commerce itself.

Chapter 45

I stepped out of the tent and rose into the sky, quickly flying above the rooftops and our industrious hovercraft. As I went higher still, I saw our situation more fully. The city sprawled in every direction for miles, and the Sleem were everywhere.

Our park was a dry island in a wet city, and the walls of sapient ooze flowing toward us told me I didn’t have long to act. I flew quickly to the west of our park, where the glop was thickest. A major trainyard provided the Sleem an expansive open space to gather, and it was spilling out into the streets already, being shoved by the incoming wave of sheer numbers.

I landed gently on the roof and set down my growlers. When one unclipped from its belt, it became active, and I wasted no time in tossing a bottle down into the swirling depths of Sleem. As soon as I’d landed a thick, snotty tendril formed and started trying to rise to the roof to reach me. The first Morrigan growler dropped straight down into it and shattered.

A flood of the black liquid churned and spread, quickly darkening the railyard, and swelling the resident population of Sleem. I grabbed my bottles and took back to the air as boils began to surface and burst, sending scalding globs of acid into the sky.

The patch of death spread. This time, it covered the better portion of five city blocks before finally slowing. The rest of the Sleem simply rolled over the top of the inert black patches, once it was out of charge. Some few more died beneath the crush, exposed to still active fluid, and scalding patches of their own dead.

But the Sleem encroached regardless.

Before I had even fully left, the area was nearly filled again. I shook my head and dropped another growler, before darting off to spread the rest of them around. The Sleem were everywhere. Filling each street, pressing into and against every building in floods of jiggling green and blue. Even inside the windows surrounding us, a liquid clock filled, counting down the impending attack for us as it rose each structure.

In far too short a period of time, my growlers were spent. According to the Afflqwst tracker, I’d killed hundreds of millions in my attack, and it was nowhere near enough. Still the flood of Sleem rose into the buildings and gathered everywhere around us.

I clicked over to the officer’s only channel and took a deep breath. “How much were those Arrakean mercenaries, Rayna?”

Silence for a long moment, and then she clicked in. “Contract pending, boss. Two billion for air support. Gets us four dozen flying fighters for twelve hours.”

“Do it. We can afford that,” I told her. “The fencing saved us at least that much. And Spaghetti knows, we need the help.”

She nodded and ordered the mercenaries. A pod arrived a few seconds later, outlining a zone before warping in almost fifty raptoid birdmen, holding rifles and wearing shields. Their commander conferred with Rayna before directing his avian troopers to establish a miniature base inside our own base. They would use it primarily for ammunition resupply, but a small medical tent was set up for them as well.

Just in case.

I nodded at the scene as the black-feathered aliens hauled and stacked crates with glowing lock panels.

Then I flew up. Way up. I rocketed up into the sky, gathering a nice layer of warming plasma on my shoulders before stopping in the upper atmosphere. I wanted to see Neolithic Earth, and the battle-preparation was in a momentary lull.

The planet below was strange to my eyes. A single, massive continent filled my view. I checked my own position against the maps the church had provided us.

Sildred City rode the far western border of what would have been Angola on my Earth, nestled right against the Brazilian rainforests. Of course, none of that was on this Earth, something had reversed their continental drift. A purchase made during a conflict long ago, was the only information the church provided us, but it made the supercontinent Pangea reform, and then crushed it all together before easing. As a result, there was a massive mountain range to the west of the city.

Likely where the Sleem had hidden and grown, preparing to take the city. As I floated up there, feeling the crawl of ice forming across my bare chest and back, anger grew. A Sleem infestation had symptoms. Any responsible manager could have prevented this situation from ever forming, but the church map had an entire patch of the Angola/Brazil rainforest marked off as lost to the Sleem.

Once we cleared out Sildred City, our troopers would be chasing and eradicating Sleem for weeks. The church would give us another mission like this quickly, too, once they realized we could actually perform the task. Their goal was to keep us ragged, stretch us too thin. Possibly even get important members of my affiliate killed.

“Boss?” Rayna said in my ear. “Attack soon. Troopers need to see you fight.”

I snapped out of it and focused, blinking to break up the ice forming on my eyelids. I summoned my helmet and pushed the suit to go neutral. The planet took over and I began to fall.

“Don’t worry about that, Rayna,” I growled. “I’m on my way.”

As I hit terminal velocity, I felt the shift in my weight and pushed the suit. It activated and a now-familiar shockwave rolled behind me. Reentry plasma began to build up on my shoulders and helm, scorching the chromed surface as I plummeted.

I focused on the ground and pushed my suit faster, stretching out another series of popping shockwaves in my wake. First the mountains rose up to greet me, then Sildred city, then the Sleem.

An instant before I hit just to the south of our hastily assembled defense, I pulled back on the suit hard. My shockwaves and I splashed into the Sleem and blasted the largest bubble of it apart in an explosion of flame, invisible force, and caustic slime.

I punched right through the Sleem, and thanks to my starfish suit’s dramatic breaking maneuver, stopped just short of hitting the ground, in a nice, waist high puddle of melting Sleem.

My skin went from tickling to itching as my stoneskin colonies went to work, repairing the reinforced structure as it was eaten away. Where I stood, I heard the cheering of my hobbs, while all around me Sleem flooded back in to try and engulf me. I breathed heavily and watched, as the encroaching glop of Sleem got closer, and closer.

From my base, the heavy laser cannons fired up, and a stream of dazzling light stuttered over the Sleem near me, violently blasting into the sheer wall of goo. There was so much steam in the air from vaporizing Sleem that the beams were fully visible. Each was vibrant red, and about as wide around as my head, burning ever-repairing holes in the front wave of the glop as my hobbs slowly waved the weapons around to maximize damage.

They were on stutter-fire, to cause as much damage to the Sleem as possible. It was harder on Cube’s power supply to fire them on that setting, building up the charge and releasing it several times per second, but the weaponized light hit far harder that way.

Tracer fire streaked into the city all around me, some rounds pinging from my helmet or starfish suit, and a few glancing off my hardened skin with small, smeared scorch marks.

A smile formed on my lips as I touched one such spot and wiped away blackened soot. I pulled both of my plasma falchions off their docking ports and activated the blades, before diving straight into the mass of Sleem at my back.

Rayna had me pinged on the map, my helmet’s attachment to her group comms ensured she knew my position no matter where I was within a rough mile of her communications tent. So when I pushed the suit and hurled myself through the mass of Sleem in the area, blazing falchions first, Rayna was able to see what I was doing.

Sleem poured forward, in what could only be their primary attack. There was no sound, just a rush of air like being in a subway, as the gathered glops and destroyer slugs all pushed forward at once.

Almost immediately, a hissing rang out from above, filling the air and nearly drowning out the gunfire in its volume. The primary push of Sleem had built up inside the buildings surrounding the oversized park, and they were killing themselves with our electric fencing. The wires jiggled and bounced, a network of them spreading from Cube’s primary hovercraft.

I realized that singular vessel was a vulnerability when I came up for air and saw it hanging there in the park. Something we would have to address if things became more hostile between us and the church.

My helmet could help refresh my air through osmosis. It allowed certain particles through, namely nitrogen and oxygen, while blocking most of the rest. But when encased in Sleem, or in the vacuum of space, I was on my own after a handful of breaths. While underwater it could process enough of the oxygen to keep me going for a while. It was handy, but not infallible.

Nor were the crystalline colonies, I began to realize as the fight continued. Rayne pointed me to the heaviest quadrants, and I plunged into them headlong, plasma blades ignited and spinning. I quickly learned to hold the falchions in a specific formation above my head, and push the suit to make me spin.

The result drilled through the waves of Sleem, causing massive damage and reinforcing the resolve of my hobbs, who cheered each rescue or close call.

For an hour, the Sleem pushed us.

They flooded the streets around the park, ran up against our barricades and were held at bay by generous applications of mo-gas flamethrowers and hundreds of thousands of incendiary tracer rounds, as well as heavy laser fire and regular applications of Morrigan ammunition or grenades.

Above us, for the entire hour, boiled dead Sleem rained down from the rooftops. The Sleem underneath pushed the Sleem above, heedless of any warning until it was too late and the sheer raw output of power coming from my pet Cube had liquified them. Orb, Cube, and Slime alike, all were killed on the way over the rooftop’s edge.

A wall of liquid, scalding acid had quickly become an emergency, as the sheer mass of the attacking forces dead threatened to wash us away. Tollya shouted orders in our ears; I couldn’t really pay attention to what she said. The result was a squad of hobbs in a flier selling the hot acid remains to BuyMort.

A flurry of pods surrounded the site, and I immediately recognized another weakness. Even as I thought it, Rayna shouted a warning, and a ball of acid shot through the sky, as it attempted to hurl itself onto the BuyMort pods.

More hobbs, wielding high end laser rifles, responded to the front of the acid wall. Occasionally a blob of Sleem got through, hit a pod, and summoned a giant, monstrous bug. My hobbs dealt with it, with the exception of a particularly bad hit, while the squad was already engaged by a horde of aggropedes. A wave of bright orange orbs blasted over our lines from the nearby street.

Most of them were shot down, but enough got through to summon a giant, frothing Lobtis into the midst of my park. I gritted my teeth, remembering the first time I faced off with one of the monstrosities. I wasn’t going to make anyone else deal with it. I decided to respond to that one myself.

Chapter 46

With a grunt, I landed in the park and stripped off my pants and boots even as my suit started to flay my acid burned skin from my body. Rayna stared in horror, the raging war outside forgotten momentarily as the suit peeled away my epidermis in front of her.

Once it was finished, I sighed and shoved the pile of dead skin aside. With a grunt, I heaved open a PRD crate, and tossed it aside when I found it empty. The next one in the pile had some, and I crushed one to recharge, while flesh foam sprayed and lasers welded.

Then I clipped the falchions in place to charge and grabbed a fresh pair.

With a quick salute, I shoved back into my pants and boots, then flew out of the tent, and directly into the Lobtis as my hobbs all scrambled around it, firing their rifles. It saw me coming at the last moment and lunged to catch me in its claws.

I pushed the suit and flew between its claws, then clutched at its midsection, before heaving at the giant monster insect, lifting its front end off the ground in an unequal wrestling match. Its acidic foam splashed against me and burned, unlike the Sleem acid. I had no learned exposure to it, and the starfish suit reacted almost at once.

I concentrated and used the suit’s control over my personal gravity to lurch forward and hurl the giant mantis lobster away into the distance, over the rooftops.

My hobbs all cheered as it went. The creature caught a rooftop in passing on the way down, and righted itself with its myriad legs, before scuttling off into the distance. There was no shortage of Sleem for it to harm, and if it returned, our heavy lasers would be ready, along with some help from our expensive flying mercenaries.

Primarily, they were performing a critical role. As the Sleem electrocuted themselves on our somewhat flimsy electric fencing, eventually, parts would melt into one another or break. On all of the fencing, across the entire base.

A portion of our fliers and bravest hobbs were assigned to the Sisyphean task of repairing them. The flying mercenaries used overwhelming firepower from their particle beam weapons to hold off the rooftop floods themselves, often reducing it to the doorway while the hobbs on the other side of the fence worked.

It was a band aid, and as I repeatedly dove into the worst, heaviest pockets of Sleem, I watched fear and exhaustion grow in the view plates of my hobbs helmets. I heard it grow in their panting voices over the shared comms channel.

Hobbs were immaculate professionals in many capacities, but it never failed to amaze me how calmly they reported their own engulfment, or even the engulfment of their entire squads. Starfish troopers in dangerously low-flying hovercraft were tasked to their rescue, as was I, as often as I could be.

Phyllis was doing the brunt of the heavy lifting in regard to killing Sleem, which made me eternally grateful that the old lady decided to stay at my side. Her northern portion remained the cleanest, most free of threats area. The BuyMort pods hovered above, warping away the rivers of slime as she created them, and our troopers responded to any threats in the badlands that battle formed.

Still, anytime a position called out a need for aid, she never failed to turn and light up the sky with her war machine, raining burning lead and balls of searing plasma into the waves of Sleem and acting as a kind of reactive artillery platform.

Any BlueCleave pulled beyond the reach of our rescue squads was my personal duty. I could go anywhere; the Sleem were laughably unable to harm me. The acid damage built up more and more as I was exposed to it, over the course of the night, and as soon as the first wave broke, things became much easier.

After about an hour the Sleem realized they were killing themselves en masse with the rooftops. They changed tactics then, falling off the sides of the rooftops into the alleyways between them, which increased the demand on our ground troopers, but also signaled the end of the primary Sleem attack.

The mercenaries diverted to the ground demands, as did anyone on any other task, and the night was alight with flames, charred acid raining from above, and hellish, flickering beams of weaponized light. Everyone breathed with a respirator, and visibility was badly obscured at the heaviest times of fighting.

I did my very best to rescue everyone that got hauled away by the Sleem, and I managed to save all the hobbs, humans, and orcs that made up our primary forces.

But I didn’t save every Tower golem. Being perfectly honest, I let some of them go. Eventually, the tides of Sleem would bring them to a collection of vibrant orange orbs in the midst of the teeming oceans beyond our lines. They were ripped apart and served as an important lesson of how long I had to get to my people before they were consumed as well.

The clusters stayed relatively stable, and eventually reformed in the same position if I killed or scattered them. That first hour was a blur of movement in my head. Saving my people and killing the Sleem in numbers I didn’t care to consider.

Once that initial wave broke, BlueCleave had the upper hand, and the night was spent clearing out the buildings directly surrounding our encampment. By the time I noticed the dawn light peeking over the horizon, I was ready to fall asleep in the juice of the Sleem. They were surprisingly soft, once you got used to them. Like those crazy gel beads.

I tried to think of it less as bathing in the hot corpses and blood of my enemies, and more along the lines of an aggressive hot mud bath experience. Church TV had other ideas, of course, as did the rest of the multiverse.

Chapter 47

The deposed mayor of Sildred City came down from the orbital station for a photo op in the morning. He and his entourage, including guards, visited the liberated theater district in a symbolic victory. That happened to be the building's nearest Phyllis, and one of the mayor’s aides clearly didn’t wear hearing protection.

Phyllis was still occasionally firing at Sleem that entered her vectors, and the cannons overhead were loud, to say the least.

As I came down to make my appearance, and shake the mayor's hand as expected, I grabbed a basic pair of hearing protection muffs from the arsenal, and a respirator to hand to the poor man. The entire troop of them were human, of mixed descent. I saw familiar human face shapes, just mixed differently than what I was used to. Bone structure I hadn’t seen before, smiles with sharper teeth in some cases.

The mayor was more of a manager type, coming to assess his former properties. He posed for a few photos and did a heart-felt speech in front of a still slime-covered theater that had survived mostly intact due to its proximity to Phyllis. The Sleem avoided her during the brunt of the battle like an open flame.

Which, to be fair, she essentially was.

She’d used one of her magazines during the night, but the other two fresh ones were still standing ready in the street behind her. That, plus the steaming, glowing, empty magazine leaning from its corner in the middle of the blacktop, made their photo op a little awkward. They all seemed quite nervous, but their leader had goals.

He was staking out his former claim, making sure everyone knew he was getting it back at the end of this military event. Mostly he seemed to want the publicity of having been there on the ground, the day the battle for Sildred City turned in the church’s, and therefore BuyMort’s, favor.

The church was on the battle like the ratings jackpot it was, too. No missed opportunities for profit in this machine. Commemorative plates, non-fungible tokens, and gold-sheathed coins were already being advertised. It was fine. BlueCleave was selling more war picks than ever by claiming they had seen use in the defense of Sildred City.

That was a lie, of course. All of the fighting had been done with high-power energy weapons or conventional chemical arms. Anybody who got too close got enveloped and traveled back from the front lines, requiring rescue before they were fed to a cluster of orbs to be torn apart.

They were using them to clear out the buildings at least.

At the end of the first night, we had suffered only a handful of casualties, and all of them had been Tower’s flesh golems. Rayna was beyond ecstatic. The hobb was smiling softly as she looked at the morning reports.

We had new Tower flesh golems producing themselves anytime one died, too. It seemed like once they died, Tower immediately got his bandwidth back and could create another. BlueCleave established an entryway for those that survived the yarsps. We let natural selection figure that portion out, just taking whatever Tower golems made it to our entrance in the tunnel.

A guard was posted all day and night, to watch the cameras and make sure they could open the door for the golems and close it against the yarsp as needed. Pheromone misters in the doorway helped keep it hidden from their knowledge during most times, presenting as a fine sheen of greasy liquid on the door, and making them ignore it.

The golems were washed, clothed, armed, and transported to the BlueCleave staging grounds. Once they’d had a quick meal, slurping literally anything of nutrimental value we provided them, they were ready for immediate deployment. Some went to Tertiary, as we established portal networks using our influx of upgrades.

Axle was good about claiming those forty percent carve outs quickly, and our levels began to rise, as the battles were won. More contracts on Tertiary meant more morties, more percentages in the businesses of the planet.

Tollya quickly found a hobb she could trust and promoted them to a colonel, having them reside over the new venture on Tertiary, sending squads and recovering tracts of MortBlock coverage for the affiliate. It was a critical growth measure for BlueCleave’s own expansion.

We soon had stakes in several mines. These deals often left us to run the less lucrative residential and production portions of the mines, since a great deal of the primary affiliate’s portions were in underground caves. They usually hired out to run their production and manpower anyway.

That forty percent often covered the entire above-ground island. The other affiliates tended to stick with their mineral rights, but our chunk of the planet’s wealth began to add up anyway.

Our action had driven the sheer concentration of Sleem in the Sildred City area down by nearly sixty-nine percent. We were off to a great start, and the entire multiverse knew it. Our victory was cast around on the TV networks and used to announce to the entire BuyMort network that the new Sleem world was a threat to us all.

Once they were absorbed into the BuyMort system, they would launch attacks on everything we all cared about, as a people, the church told us. But Silken Sands, Tyson Dawes, and the brave hobbs of BlueCleave would save us all.

I sighed and shook my head. The Sleem issue was worse than I had thought, again. That kept happening with them, and I resolved in that moment to stop underestimating the damned things. They were not just a minor, background threat that everyone dealt with as part of their regular day.

They were taking over major cities, on protected home worlds. And their new world loomed large, mere months away.

The Sleem were already an apocalyptic threat to all of BuyMort. They had fully half of Storage claimed, and the only reports we heard were of how much more they took every day. And with a victory like this, I was going to be expected to save the rest of the multiverse from the Sleem too.

Something I had no doubt the church would be only too happy to exploit.

Once the main push of Sleem was defeated in Sildred City’s historic Theatrics Park, our job became significantly easier, and Church TV changed their coverage of our efforts entirely. The chyrons went from saying things like “BlueCleave fights desperate battle against overwhelming Sleem forces” to “Sildred City recovery well under way” in the course of twelve hours.

By noon our divisions were working out rest shifts and starting a systematic sweep of the city, starting with the buildings and tunnels surrounding Theatrics Park. I found the name appropriate, given the mayor's performances.

They had left before nightfall on the second day, having completed their battlefield tourism and wanting to go home before it got ‘icky’ when night fell. I just helped Rayna wherever she needed help. Between runs to aid squads clearing buildings, I guzzled mushbug tea. I had to start carrying a bottle to piss in and sell.

Disgustingly, there was a market waiting for my urine specifically. I decided not to think too much about what the rich, connected, sick people of the home worlds were going to do with my liquid waste, but none of the options were good to dwell on. At least it paid handsomely.

Competing bids for each bottle of the stuff I put up, grossly enough. I made trillions of morties just from peeing in bottles. Simultaneously, I developed a deeper mistrust for the upper echelons of BuyMort society.

Once night fell after that first full day of recovery, it became clear that there would be no further threat from a major Sleem assault. Thanks to Yolara doing an interview on church TV, the church offered us several portals to use to return to Nu-Earth.

Our troops began to rotate home, and a long-term Sleem hunt was put in place. Over the following handful of days, I visited home, but stayed on Neolithic Earth as much as I could. I needed to be seen, doing the work, being the face of the fight against the Sleem. Molls understood.

Axle wasted no time in beginning the paperwork on our portion of the city. He was rarely slow to get what we were owed, which I was grateful for. It left me the easy job of smashing the Sleem and making occasional appearances on the various media crews that visited the war site.

We charged them each a premium, of course. BlueCleave was never above running a little profit on the side, and the media tours all needed protection, and food. Morties changed accounts, and Sildred City became a sort of journalism tourist hotspot. All the main names in home world media wanted to be seen, doing their part.

Being there, in the moment, on the scene. Doing nothing, of course, but saying a lot.

Helping, with their beautiful faces, and lurid smiles. Their polluted perception of what the city had become once its primary forces abandoned it in the face of the Sleem attack that had consumed it.

Instead of standing their ground to facilitate an evacuation, local affiliate military forces sold their weaponry and abandoned their posts with the morties. The Sleem rolled in unopposed and devoured millions of innocent people.

Employees, working for wages and living in the city. Even the assistants of famous performers had been killed. It was a horrible tragedy for the entire community. None of the famous performers had been caught in that caustic rush, though, thank BuyMort. They made it out in time.

Our army crushed a population of Sleem that were born of the people this city once housed, consumed overnight, in a horror movie moment. On a home world, where it was supposed to be safe. Where everyone was rich and expected to feel protected.

I could think of few things more damaging to public calm, considering the sheer scale of the threat we all faced.

Meanwhile, the fighting in our first Tertiary area began to wrap after the third day had passed. Our remaining squads had covered nearly the entire island and mining facilities, with increasing certainty that they were clear of Sleem.

Morties had already changed hands, Axle made sure of that once the contracted percentage of the island had been covered. The rest of the work was just ensuring a five star rating from our new associates, but once they were finished our profits from the area soared.

Our reputation paid off, of course, as other mining facilities on other parts of the planet who had a similar issue had reached out about a similar service. The Sleem were a problem everywhere, and our BlueCleave specialists took to the task readily.

Rayna flickered between the base on Nu-Earth and the base on Neolithic Earth for those first few days. An influx of volunteers had hit BlueCleave’s recruitment offices, with most of the remaining independent hobb forces in the BuyMort system asking for inclusion. Rayna and Tollya worked tirelessly, as did I.

Our new church contract was communicated one week after our victory at Theatrics Park. We were going to Storage. The infestation there had simply grown too heavy, and their numbers needed to be thinned. It certainly felt like the church was trying to thin ours.

Storage was dangerous to fight the Sleem in.

As luck would have it, the majority of the hobb forces who wanted to join with us were under threat of Sleem invasion within Storage anyway. We were killing Sleem, it made sense that they wanted to join up with that.

So we started working on our next major deployment. The church gave us a month to get started.

Axle had begun coordination with Storage executives already. BlueCleave forces would be moving in for operation prep, which included arming and training locals. The local warlords and block captains had already been contacted and appeared quite desperate for aid.

I left the BlueCleave army when Admiral Omen reported his first target had been found, and that the Sand Star laid in wait.

Ordo and I would need to take the ship, so I used the long range Silken Sands portal to travel from Neolithic Earth directly to the bridge of the Sand Star.

Chapter 48

I reeled and gripped at the wall as gravity suddenly vanished. The transition was disorienting. I’d gone from standing on the earth to floating in zero gravity in an instant of blinding rainbow light, and it took me a moment to remember my starfish suit’s gravity drive.

Admiral Omen had one on as well, I could see from the bulge on his chest beneath his flight suit. Ordo was already clammed up in his full vacuum armor suit. It would deflect lasers and slow-slugs, commonly used in boarding actions to preserve hull integrity. Anything stronger would punch through and at least break his seal.

Which meant I was our primary combat option, again. Perks of being an unkillable warlord, I guess.

I nodded along as Omen explained my role in his plan. He’d found evidence on an asteroid that traveled near to the routes our purchased comets bound for Mars would take and laid in wait. A ship’s drive had recently washed the asteroid twice. Two different times, he explained.

It was definitely a privateer’s hiding spot.

Our newest shipment of comets was due soon, and Admiral Omen had decided that our biggest and most important prey, the specialist light cruiser, was the ship we hunted with his asteroid. The message to come had been urgent, but the asteroid wasn’t due to pass by for another six hours, so the transition of hunting Sleem piecemeal on Neolithic Earth to sitting and waiting for Dearth privateers in space was jarring.

Once he’d explained the plan, Admiral Omen had declared himself on watch and gone silent, staring at the main view screen and the various scanner information he had customized it with. Ordo appeared to fall asleep on the other side of him, which I knew the hobbs were prone to do in downtime, especially before a battle.

So I was alone with my thoughts, and a new, terribly disturbing Afflqwst quest that had arrived a few days prior. The Sleem hunts had given me a great reason to avoid thinking about it too much, but the fact was that it was troubling.

Quest – Upgrade your affiliate to withstand the projected system-wide Sleem attack.

REQUIREMENTS:

1. (Optional) Increase Silken Sands power within the BuyMort system.

2. (Optional) Decrease the Sleem population entering the BuyMort system to survivable levels.

PROBABLE OUTCOME – Sleem absorption of all biological matter within BuyMort. (97%).

POSSIBLE OUTCOME – Silken Sands victory over Sleem affiliate. (3%).

REWARD – BuyMort affiliate rank increase recommendation, item coupon, item upgrade coupons.

There was a number, under the bit about the Sleem population. Something measured in what math people call nonillions, whatever that means. It was more than trillions, by a lot. Kinda in the way that a trillion is more than ten.

The human population of BuyMort, for reference, was no more than a few billion at any point in time. There had been some speculation that Nu-Earth would be a major boost, but most of our people died when BuyMort arrived. Only a few hundred million ended up surviving the first week and becoming part of the greater BuyMort civilization.

Some populations were hidden, or obfuscated, like the delves. Orcs were populous, in the tens of billions and the hobbs were pushing past a trillion, being the most populous members of BuyMort by far. Aside from the Sleem, of course, whose numbers were so large, they were beyond my ability to understand.

So I sat in the dark, on our ship, with two other silent beings, and contemplated the crushing doom that felt like it was coming down on top of us all.

After about an hour and a half, an alarm on the main screen made me jump out of my skin. Admiral Omen slowly looked up at first the screen, then over at me.

“Our first victim has arrived,” he said. “Stations.”

I buckled in, but beyond that, we were already at our stations. The plan was simple, really. We were the faster ship, so once they came inside our range, capable as the cruiser was rumored to be, they would be helpless to avoid our attack.

Captain Omen would pilot the vessel up alongside the cruiser and line us up to board it. That was the part I didn’t like. Captain Omen’s idea was that the ship would be of most use to us if intact, so his attack would be simply to drill a hole into the ship’s external hatch and then align the Sand Star’s pod airlock with the hole, ejecting us through it and sending us inside to kill or capture the Dearth pirates on board.

He would accomplish all of this with heavy ship computer help. An untested maneuver that involved ejecting me into the void of space. At least I had the suit.

The ship floated into view, following the red trajectory line our alarm had sounded. We’d tucked the Sand Star into their hiding place on the asteroid, the vibrant white of the ship contrasting their engine’s burn scars on the asteroid.

The Sand Star lurched into motion as Admiral Omen touched the helm. We were pressed back into our seats and felt the suits working to ease the gravity we experienced.

Our victim was a triangular, mottled gray craft with weaponized ridges all along its spines and wing. It was coming in while braking, trying to maneuver itself into the hiding place we occupied. Once they got close enough, it was obvious when they saw us. Weaponry hatches all slid open, and the alarm on screen flared.

An ad came up as I watched, and I glanced at it to absorb the information.

Now comes a light cruiser made and designed by the people who pilot them. Mogami, the ultimate in ship-to-ship escort, reconnaissance, and fighting. Missiles and close range PDC for counter-missile operations, quick-time multi-directional multi-thrust for dodging and evasion. Lots of firepower for half the budget. That’s Mogami. Visit the Affiliate Page for details.

A blueprint sailed into sight, highlighting portions of the ship and describing its capabilities.

The cruiser had over a dozen personal defense cannons, and six medium-sized torpedo launchers; they took up a good portion of the primary wing. The rest of it was just engines and a bit of area for the crew to try and control the whole thing from. It was a fast, and capable, ship.

Up close, I thought the sand casters would be hard-pressed to keep the ship’s weaponry at bay. I was wrong. It was glorious, a shield of dust, fired from hundreds of tiny barrels at the same time, protected us from incoming fire.

Admiral Omen swept the Sand Star in over the cruiser, and matched speed with it as it began evasive maneuvers. Nothing it did mattered, our ship was faster. That was the ultimate determining factor. The sand caster system not only shot down incoming missiles and PDW rounds, it shot down the fragments they emitted when they exploded.

We lowered like a deep sea predator onto their ship, sand casters creating a bubble around our vulnerable sides to deflect their furious incoming fire. Once we were close enough, they stopped firing high explosives at us out of self-preservation.

Admiral Omen locked the ship into position over their hatch and nodded once. Ordo and I got up out of our chairs and started floating toward the bridge's exit, hands off the wall’s railings just in case. Once the bridge doors sealed behind us, the BuyMort pod hatch popped open, and we both used our starfish suits to adjust our bodies as we were ejected.

I watched through the open hatch as the sand casters opened fire and ripped the Dearth ship’s outer airlock hatch free. The streams of dust looked almost alive, rippling with projected force and power. I couldn’t actually see the individual particles, just the mass of them that was used to shear the door off.

And of course, the tiny explosions that rippled through its suddenly pliable metals as it tore free.

The hatch bounced against our hull as Ordo and I hurtled out into space, crossing the gap in less than a second and grabbing hold of the Dearth ship’s inner airlock. We pressed ourselves to the ship with the starfish suit’s gravity harness, and gaped as the Sand Star pulled away. The utter blackness of space filled my eyes, and paralyzed me in terror for an instant before Ordo smacked my helmet and pointed to the airlock door.

With the outer door ripped away, it wouldn’t open under any circumstances. So I forced it.

I set my feet, braced my hands with the breaker gauntlets summoned, and squeezed my eyes shut against the icing as I hauled on the door. My helmet could provide a little heat, but it wasn’t enough for the cold of space on its own.

With a scream of tearing metal and rushing atmosphere, the airlock door slowly opened. Inward, away from us, so I fought the buffet of the escaping atmosphere that wanted to close the door against me.

Movies had me trained to believe that an open door on a spaceship would be a continuous rush of air and debris, for possibly minutes as the entire ship slowly emptied. But on both my own ship, and the one we forcibly boarded, the atmosphere on board simply puffed out, like a balloon letting go of its supply.

The air movement buffeted me only for a few seconds, fighting me for the door, but then it was over, and I was inside. We entered a hexagonal hallway, with railings on floor and ceiling. Based on the carabiner and short leash attached to the crew member I had killed by opening the door, they were for getting around the vessel.

Thankfully, Ordo and I were not constrained by such primitive technology. We could control our own gravity, relative to the objects and velocities around us.

Ordo turned back to start working on the door. His primary job was to repair anything too critical that I broke, which included the hatch outside. I stood guard, waiting for the pirates that should be arming up and scrambling to intercept us even as Ordo worked.

He quickly got the door sealed back in place. It wouldn’t open without serious mechanical intervention, as Ordo came equipped with a gargantuan heavy welder ringed with multiple attachments. An ad popped up when I peered at it more closely.

Weld, braze, solder, or cut. That’s the PMR Affiliated way. Ai-Assisted guidance ensures that even the most inexperienced can use it, while a variety of mods (sold separately!) allow it to do everything from sealing to grinding, on the spot, guaranteed. 18,950 morties, 4.9 stars.

That door was a sealed bulkhead until we got the ship back to drydock at Elevator Station.

Ahead of us in the straight hallway, a door slid open, and I moved to block Ordo. Slow slugs began to spatter from the walls and ceiling as the pirates opened fire. The first one to hit me punctured partially, sinking into my abdominal muscles as I doubled up and tore the viciously tipped slug free.

Its tip was razor sharp, covered in small cutting edges designed to maximize damage against flesh as it spread out inside the body. Thankfully, my stoneskin colonies stopped it before it got too deep.

Ordo returned fire and grabbed my belt, hauling the two of us across the hall and into a nearby dormitory room as my suit deployed tendrils. It hurriedly reached inside my guts and hauled out the slug’s fragments, each razor sharp and gleaming in the ship’s light. They were fired using sealed, low-power explosive cartridges, and were safe for use on board ships without reinforced hulls.

Perfect for boarding defenses.

Ordo leaned back out the doorway and fired his pistol, scorching a pirate and bringing a scream into the hallway. That was good, it told me their life support system had already replaced the escaped air. Ordo would be fine so long as his suit remained unpunctured, but I needed air to breath after a few minutes. My suit finished the repair, and I felt the tickle of my crystalline colonies moving back into place, even while the rest of my skin burned with the force of an upgrade.

When I floated back out into the hallway, the slow slugs that flattened against the walls also flattened against my exposed skin. I nodded grimly once that was confirmed, then floated quickly down the hall toward the squad of pirates.

They pulled out bladed weapons and batons as I approached, but what happened next was not something I would call a fight. Each pirate tried to land a blow on me, and some managed. But I just waded through them, crushing each against the bulkheads, or slamming into them with the breaker gauntlets so hard their bones shattered.

One got a shimmering knife blade into my forearm, but the hardened muscle tissue beneath my epidermis stopped the weapon. I saw the shock and disbelief through the pirate’s faceplate before I punched through it and killed him.

The cruiser wasn’t huge, though it dwarfed the Sand Star’s internal areas with its own. Ordo and I floated silently from one room to the next in the Dearth cruiser, killing the crew that didn’t surrender. Unsurprisingly, every hobb member of the privateer crew surrendered rather than face us in combat.

Only orcs, Nah’gh, and humans died for The Dearth Conglomerate on that ship.

Fighting unaltered humanoids was worse, somehow, than the Sleem. I didn’t feel guilty for wiping out the Sleem without allowing them a chance to hurt me in return. With even the lowly Dearth privateers, I was as soaked with guilt as blood, by the time I made it to the ship’s bridge.

None of them stood any kind of chance, once I was on board their ship.

Ordo was behind me with his laser pistol. I floated into the bridge to receive a whirring blast of rapid fire railgun rounds, from three compressed rail PDWs. The shaped flechettes tore through my body, and the hull behind me. The bridge crew had apparently decided it was worth punching a few holes in their ship to try and take me down.

Sadly for them, my starfish suit deployed, a swarm of tendrils erupting to start filling in the ragged holes the shaped rounds had cut through me.

Stoneskin upgrade or not, railguns are hard to defend against. That’s a hell of a lot of velocity.

Ordo leaned in and aimed carefully, taking down a human hunkered behind a console. The console remained undamaged, and the human fell screaming, with a burn scar puckered into their chest.

I watched my cartoon starfish dance in zero gravity for a long moment as the painkiller enhanced the ship’s lighting for me. The suit squirted high-pressure flesh foam and lasered my body back to normal while I floated, sighing at the rush of atmosphere leaving the ship again.

“Report!” Admiral Omen barked in my ear.

“Under control, we’re just finishing with the crew,” I said, focusing and righting myself. I floated through the doorway and ignored the railgun fire that peppered my chest and head. The helmet deflected the rounds with blasts of discarded nanites, but if they were too central my head rocked back with the hits anyway.

I angrily crashed into the captain, crushing his wrist and shoulder as I caught him. The Nah’gh man screamed, his oversized faceplate instantly fogging with his breath. I pulled the railgun out of his hands and tossed it aside, to spin lazily through the area and embed itself in the final fighter, an orc man who screamed impossibly high pitched as he died.

Only one crew member remained on the bridge, another hobb already kneeling with his hands behind his head.

Ordo peered around the corner, and I nodded.

“Clear, Ordo, I think that’s the last of them,” I said.

He nodded and floated over, pulling out another set of magnetic manacles. The kneeling hobb happily accepted them and was placed with his hands behind his back against an open patch of hull, like we’d done with the rest of them.

They’d be processed by BlueCleave. Held prisoner for a while, interrogated while their employment and personal histories were run. Once it was decided they could be trusted, they’d be allowed to join BlueCleave.

I had no doubt all of them would.

The tall, thin, gray hobbs were smarter than most of BuyMort gave them credit for, and rumors had been spreading for almost two months already. Plenty of time to fray loyalties and instill the hope of legend. The name of Rayna, leading BlueCleave to untold heights and success out of nowhere, when a new planet was rising within the system, all led to hobbs making better choices than those around them.

It helped alleviate my guilt that I didn’t need to kill all of the crew. The captain died of his injuries, apparently broken bones in zero gravity can lead to some nasty internal bleeding damage. We took him captive, and tried to tend to his wounds, but he quite quickly expired when a fresh clot broke loose and hit him in the wrong major organ.

BlueCleave units on standby portalled in, all wearing pressure suits and carrying repair kits. The holes in the hull were quickly patched, and the rest of the ship was given a once over before they got to work overwriting the ship’s operating software and installing BlueCleave’s own.

Chapter 49

Two hours after everyone on board was either dead or in captivity, the ship was en-route to Nu-Earth and we’d taken the privateer fleet’s most important vessel away from them. It was burning for Elevator Station with the Sand Star flying escort.

I portalled home as Ordo and Admiral Omen returned to their hunt. I’d come back as needed, the thought of spending more time in solitude was too much.

After a week of war and the hunting of men, I was sick to my stomach of it and needed to see Molls. To lose myself in her, in us, our love and intense physical bond that washed my stress and mental anguish away.

So of course when I arrived home in our penthouse, exhausted and covered in blood, I walked in to see her mother standing at our kitchen counter. Molls was on the other side, her scales bright pink, with a center of deep red.

“Maer!” I exclaimed, smiling wide. I winced, remembering the blood, before nodding at the horrified expression on her face.

“Yeah,” I said, rising off the carpet and floating toward the bedroom. “I’m going to go clean up, sorry about all this. Issue at one of our ranches,” I lied. “It got bloody, as can happen with those beasts.”

Behind me I heard Maer sigh in relief. I winked at Molls on the way by and she smiled briefly.

“Ranch, did you hear? That scared the life out of me, your mate is uncouth,” I heard Maer say behind me just before the bedroom door clicked closed.

The bedding was brand new, and all of Molls various porny romance novels were put away in their curtained bookcase. That told me she’d known her mother was coming, at least for a little bit, so I relaxed. It wasn’t an emergency I needed to respond to immediately, so I took the time to shower and shave a little.

I just trimmed up the beard a bit, kept it off my neck, and made sure it was looking even. Didn’t hurt to make a good impression.

By the time I walked back out of the bedroom, I was wearing a loose, open silk shirt with matching silk lounge pants, and a quick spritz of the cologne Molls preferred.

“Welcome,” I said, arms wide as I reentered the kitchen. “I’m so glad you’re here, but I hope it’s not under bad circumstances.”

“Oh of course it is,” she spat, before catching herself and taking a deep, calming breath.

Molls turned to face me, her scales solid pink. She’d already gotten the tattoos on her new scales, which was a relief. I didn’t want to deal with her mother’s anger at having caused her daughter’s beauty any issues.

“Mother is upset, Tyson, it’s alright,” Molls said in a strained voice. “Things have not gone well since we last saw them, and father has decided to take you up on your offer to move to Nu-Earth after all.”

“I could have found us appropriate lodgings!” Maer seethed. She crossed her arms over her own bountiful breasts and huffed, looking away. She wore thick, heavy warm clothing, as if dressed for a trip to the arctic.

“We can turn up the heat some more, Molls, I don’t mind,” I said.

Maer took a sharp breath and stood. “Don’t mind, please, I’ll not be staying. I merely wished to speak with my daughter.”

I nodded and moved to the wall mounted computer screen to contact my building’s security. “I’ll arrange an escort, where are you staying while you settle in?”

“Downtown, a building run by one of your own business partners, a Mr. Stanche,” Maer answered coldly. “Our home is in transit now, I was discussing where we could install it with my daughter.”

I nodded again, then played with my screen and got my building security chief on the line. “Can I have an escort for a VIP, please?”

“Stretched thin, boss, but yeah,” the hobb grunted back at me.

When the elevator came up, an armored hobb was in it waiting. He gestured to Maer and saluted me, before pressing the button to close the doors and sending her off downstairs to the roller garage. She left without saying goodbye.

“Cheese on pasta!” I said, as soon as the sound-proof doors were sealed. “That was a surprise.”

Molls flushed pink, and slithered hurriedly around the counter to me, pulling me into an embrace and long kiss. “I’m so sorry, my love. I knew you would say yes, and I didn’t want you to be worried.”

“It’s okay, I understand. Your whole family is here, though?” I asked as she set me back down and nodded.

“Father apparently spent far too many of their morties getting the house recovered, and mother was unable to find lodgings on any of the remaining root strands on Nahgah. Father became depressed, and angry, saying Nahgah was old business anyway. That Nu-Earth was where everyone wanted to be,” she babbled, trying to explain as quickly as possible. I followed along by nodding.

Trumpets blared in imperial succession, a march of graphics entering my mind. Earth, as it had been a few thousand years ago. Earth as it had been a few years ago. Earth now.

I let it play, wondering if this was one of our ads.

It was.

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And that's not all! Temperate climate, rich geology, and an unexploited natural satellite mean not just tremendous potential, but beautiful living as well.

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I watched it fade away, Molls coming back into focus, a blissful ‘I'll wait happily until that ad finishes smile’ on her face.

“I understand, and I don’t mind,” I said as she finished. “I’m just happy to be able to help your family.”

“Yeah, about that,” she said. Her scales flushed yellow and she moved back around the kitchen counter to lean against it. “Father is asking for MortBlock coverage.”

I nodded. “How much?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Not much, he wants to try his hand at spider ranching. In his retirement, he has flitted from interest to interest, but he does typically cultivate income well.”

I nodded vigorously. “Done. There’s plenty of patches of desert available near town, and I’ll be happy to ask Drusk about some eggs or good layers. I’m sure our operation can spare some to get him started.”

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Her scales filled slowly with purple as we spoke, finally culminating in a vibrant burst of it as she smiled widely in my direction. “Thank you so much, Tyson. My mother may be furious about this entire situation, but watching what’s been happening with the Sleem, I am very grateful to have them here. Here and safe.”

“Well, safe might be a stretch,” I sighed, shaking my head as I moved to join her in the kitchen. “This upcoming Sleem world is looking like it's going to add a lot of new Sleem to the system.”

Molls nodded, slipping her tail casually around my waist. “I know, trillions more Sleem coming in is so frightening.” She leaned down and kissed my neck lightly. “But you are fighting to empty Storage soon, and I have faith that will be enough to keep them all from harming us.”

The instant the Sleem world hit, Storage was going to be overrun. They would all take the free transport there aside from one major Glop, who would sell the world wholesale to BuyMort, for carbon, sacrificing itself in the process. It had happened three times already, so we knew what to expect from them.

Each time, Storage became a whole-scale nightmare for anyone not protected within its bowels.

The church’s population reduction order was to ensure that there would be space on the malfunctioning world for them all when they arrived. Its many arms could hold an untold population of new Sleem, but if Storage was overwhelmed, the Sleem would get free portals to other locations too, starting with Tertiary.

There was a list of projected BuyMort priority worlds. Where the system would shift its free portal system, if Storage could ever be filled. Poor Tertiary, with its similar chemical composition to Sleem, was perfect for them to live and hide in, growing to attack other worlds once their greater affiliate could afford the portals.

The church was pitching our upcoming action in Storage hard. I was concerned that place was a death trap. But I would have Rayna and Tollya with me, which would help immensely. Both hobbs were born in Storage, and raised there, before joining a life of adventure to support their tribe back home.

Now home was Nu-Earth, and BlueCleave’s return to Storage was being pitched as a victory march. Burning out the pesky Sleem ahead of them. Ensuring safety and the chance at prosperity for all the good consumers of BuyMort.

I saw it for what it was. A call to normalcy. A reminder of what happened after, how the church went right back to being on top of whatever was left after the Sleem came.

As my serpentine girlfriend slowly wound around me and started the process of physically seducing me, I struggled to get the thought of the Aimed Shot perk patch awaiting me in Teslak out of my head. I finally put it out of my mind by committing to getting it and focused on what could be my last normal night with Molls.

Later that night, while she lightly snored in bed, I slowly and carefully began the process of uncoiling myself from her body. I crept away from our massive bed and closed the bathroom door behind myself.

Chapter 50

I sat on the cold toilet seat for a long moment before pulling up the coupon and diving into Teslak’s ad space.

Specter flickered as the ad space loaded in around me. The shelf with the final perk patch was directly ahead of me, so I approached it, walking unnecessarily carefully. The tiny glass box had a yellow-skinned patch in it, with a nearly invisible dividing line running down the center.

I carried it up to the counter and waited the few seconds it took Specter to notice me.

“Are you ready to ring up your purchase, sir?” he asked after a slight pause.

“Yes please,” I said, still trapped in my thoughts. One of them rose and I blinked. “Wait, what can you tell me about this item?” I asked.

Specter flickered and reverted to his former position. “Of course sir, the Teslak Cooperative produces only the finest-”

“Just the mechanics,” I said, cutting him off with a wave of my hand. “Please.”

I rolled my eyes at my own afterthought of politeness toward a long dead space ghost.

The image in front of me flickered, turning red. Another Specter, wounded and bleeding, leaning on the counter, spoke next. “Hopefully by now you’ve tried the other two perk patches and know what it means to apply this one,” Specter said. “It’s not a loss of self, if that’s what you’re worried about. That remains intact, your consciousness will actually expand slightly, as you and the colonies begin to coexist more fully. We couldn’t risk a loss of self, even momentarily, as that could disrupt your BuyMort connection.”

My eyes went wide at that, but I scowled and listened.

“The initial effects of the patch are much the same as the original product. An ability to enhance one’s visual acuity at will. This patch will gradually raise your general cognitive function, as the colonies spread out. It's unavoidable, really. They will eventually become your brain,” Specter explained, a light drool of blood seeping from his wrist bandages to stain the counter.

“Become my brain?” I asked.

“In a substantive way, yes. Your own cellular material will eventually be entirely replaced by the crystalline structures they build in their place. Much more resilient and effective than your own organ, whatever form it may take. The colonies will only improve upon their environments. That’s hard coded into their genetic structure.” Specter paused to cough and adjust the bandage on his wrist, holding the limb in the air to prevent further bleeding.

“It should be subtle enough that none of your loved ones or partners will notice the change if you don’t want them to. But you will,” Specter warned. “It shouldn’t be hard on you, but I have no idea what species you even are, so I can’t say for certain. But anything that can take BuyMort can take these patches, that much I know for certain.”

“Will it make me smarter?” I asked.

“Smart is a poorly defined word, but yes, generally speaking. Your ability to notice external stimuli and recollect events you have experienced should increase, depending on the original structure of your brain. That alone will aid in many of the tasks required to be successful within BuyMort. But the colonies will improve most of the functions of your cognition organ, it’s what they do. If you are already ‘smart’ at all, you should become ‘smarter.’”

I frowned. “It helps me aim, though?”

Specter flicked back to his pristine condition and smiled, gleaming perfect white teeth down at me. “The Aimed Shot perk patch is any marksman’s dream. Whatever primary sense you use to aim projectile weaponry will be dramatically enhanced to ensure your aim is impeccable!” he exclaimed.

I nodded at him solemnly and told him to ring me up. The perk patch sale went through, and as Specter was finishing out his ‘thank you for shopping’ speech, I noticed their prices had become static, at five billion each patch.

They had unlocked for my affiliate to use, if we desired. The price was something we could afford to move at size too, I started imagining an entire squad of hobbs with impervious skin, bashing down walls to assail the church.

The thought was immediately followed by the thought of a squad of hobbs with impervious skin, bashing down walls while trying to get to me. My advantages were primarily from the patches, now that I had managed to get the starfish suit disseminated amongst my troops.

With a snap-judgment, I shook my head. “Too dangerous. Hey Specter!” I said, bringing the project back. “I want to make a line of products unavailable to my affiliate.”

“Yes of course,” the elfin projection answered. “This action can only be reverted by the head of the affiliate and primary MortBlock holder.”

I nodded. “Understood, make the perk patch line unavailable please.”

“The Perk Patch line of products will only be available for sale if you reverse this decision. Make sure to write down the name of the product line, in case you forget it,” Specter cheerfully reminded me. “It’s Perk Patch, for the record.”

“Yes, thank you,” I said. “Is that finished?”

Specter nodded, and I glanced behind myself to see the patches missing from their former place on the shelf. It was merely an empty space, like the rest of the barren affiliate.

With a sigh, and another shake of my head, I closed out the ad space and quietly left the bedroom to wait for my package on the roof. I moved through the penthouse, changing security functions to allow me to exit without waking Molls.

When the small package arrived, I sat and stared at it for a good long while before finally opening it. The night sky around me was cool, and the city thrummed with energy. Still moving and alive with activity, the night shifts all hard at work and play.

My people, gathering under my banner. To live lives and be protected. My end of our bargain.

I took a breath, opened the package, and slipped out both patches. With each, I carefully applied it to my temples, being sure to press the patch down to make contact through my hair.

The now familiar tickle started in my temples, but never spread. It lasted a bit longer than the other patches, but was mild, and just stopped once they were through my skull. I couldn’t actually feel my own brain.

Within a few minutes, my eyes tickled. I blinked and rubbed at them, but the tickle only grew until both eyeballs itched. I grit my teeth against it and waited, trying to stare up at the stars through the tears that formed. The cities lights washed out the sky,

It ended, and I slumped in relief. I just breathed for a long moment, relishing the delight of my own cool tears. Then I sat up and looked around.

The city came into sharper focus, then I nearly jumped back when my eyes zoomed in. A local street vendor became as clear as if he were right in front of me.

A quick glance up confirmed I could see all the stars again, as well as Elevator Station in great detail. It was a good test for my new zoom ability, as I couldn’t quite get the station focused tighter than about the size of a tennis ball in my vision.

Still, I watched as a tiny ship floated up to dock with it, and the Donut began its long slow crawl to the bottom with a heavy clunk and a light frosting of icicles puffing out from its sides. The zoom feature was almost purely reflexive. I could control it with a thought, and it was instantaneous.

I stood on the roof for about an hour, staring down at the bustle of my city, and then up at the stars. My eyes were definitely different, the clarity was intense at first. Then came the ability to track movement. I caught sight of a bit of trash floating in the wind, a greasy bit of yarsp wrap wax paper, nearly half a mile away, at the spaceport.

It tumbled and rolled in the street, before picking up and flitting off across a street. I lost it briefly, but then picked it up again when it came back into view, still tumbling and flitting, now another building further away.

I smiled at the new ability and turned to go back inside and get some sleep. Molls instinctively pulled away from me at first, the metal on my body chilled from my time outside. But within a few minutes, I had warmed, and her coils slowly but surely found their way back across me. I smiled and held her while she slept.

While she slept, I thought about the Sleem, and the church. About Silken Sands, our recent spate of upgrades and level ups, and what we could do to get out from under the doom that was coming for us all.

Chapter 51

I had felt guilty when I first applied the Aimed Shot patch. The act of hiding it from Axle, from Jada, and Molls. When I awoke later that day, the guilt was gone.

The decision made perfect sense, it was a threat to not only my own personal security and power, it was a threat to them too. The suit had unforeseen consequences for everyone that put it on.

The patches would be no different.

It wasn’t difficult to imagine what they would do to my crew, how they could eventually divide us.

I hadn’t noticed it before, but Axle and Jada were drifting. She spent less time with him, and he spoke of her less. It was small, but they had been inseparably close before she put on a starfish suit. His attitude toward the suits, and his theories of what might happen to anyone wearing one once we shut down BuyMort, were not exactly optimistic.

I had to wonder if it was causing him to push Jada away. If he expected to lose her one day anyway, that was a potential issue.

My jaw fell open and I scowled as I thought about it. I’d never been worth much at noticing when my friends were in trouble, but suddenly it all came to me.

Lee would never trust me again, I had gotten his wife killed. He still begrudgingly respected me, but only because I was operating within his specific set of ethical parameters. The instant I gave him reason to turn on me, he would, if he thought he could succeed. And Lee was a planner. A schemer, someone I would have to watch out for.

My mind spun as I analyzed each of my closest friends and advisors for potential threats. Rayna and Tollya I felt safe with. They were practical to a fault, and each was loyal to me after all we had been through, and all we had built together.

Morbin was a massive security risk, if he ever got greedy, or was somehow pressured into turning against me. I caught myself thinking of ways to quietly dispose of him before I stopped myself with a gasp and accidentally woke up Molls.

“Mmm, Tyson?” she mumbled. “What’s wrong?”

I looked into her eyes and froze. The green depths of them pulled me in, dazzling with reflected light from the window. I looked into her eyes and the stress and paranoid thoughts about my friends washed away.

They were like her, they loved me. And I loved them, paranoid flights of fantasy or not.

I made a mental note to check on Axle and Jada’s relationship, then pushed it out of my mind and focused on my own. I rolled over and swept Molls into my arms, pressing us together as I reached in and kissed her.

My half-awake snake-girlfriend blinked before smiling and leaning into the kiss. “Oh, that,” she mumbled. “Let me wake up a little more first. You’re insatiable.” Molls smiled sleepily at me and laid back on the pillows.

“You’re one to talk,” I quipped, but I did let her wake up a little more, before we began in earnest.

After, I was surprisingly energetic for a night with very little sleep, and I got ready to go start my day with a quick shower. I was meeting with Axle to discuss the new affiliate upgrades and work out some of the affiliate’s future. Strangely enough, it no longer felt like a chore. I found myself looking forward to it.

Suddenly I was able to comprehend more of Axle’s moves with the affiliate. They never really made sense on their face before, I just trusted him and went with what he suggested, and it always worked out.

Now I got it.

Growth, expansion, profit, the markets. All systems within systems capable of being manipulated to our benefit. But Axle’s management was aimless, just growing the affiliate for growth’s sake. The pursuit of raw power.

If I could figure out the right words, I could help redirect his efforts. Of course, I could just order him to do what I wanted, but that’s not how Axle worked best. He’s at his most efficient and dangerous when not dealing with micromanagement.

A slow plan started to form as I dressed, and I found myself smiling at the absurdity of my outfit.

A reflective, chromed silver helmet, when deployed, was the single most recognizable part of my ensemble. My own bare chest, with embedded metal lines and the turbine visible was next. And the outfit was completed with a pair of armored combat pants and matching boots.

But the outfit had helped. A lot more than I had ever given it credit for. Once I started getting recognized as the masked affiliate head who couldn’t be killed, the outfit I wore had gone to work on the psyche of nearly every sapient being in the BuyMort system. The delves, orcs, and Nah’gh at the top of everything didn’t seem able to understand me, or my motivations.

None of them could even understand the way I chose to dress.

The outfit confused them. It made me unserious, in their eyes. To be leading my affiliate while not wearing armor or silver pinstripes was unheard of. I dressed like a peasant, if I dressed at all. Plenty of the greater BuyMort system’s knowledge of me was in the nude, aside from my starfish suit. They second guessed themselves because of my casual disregard for modesty.

It led them to focus on the wrong aspects of my ascent to power, and invariably foil themselves by underestimating both my capacity for violence, and my unassailable competent management team.

Then, shortly after, those in the system beneath my rising station were equally bamboozled. To their eyes, the outfit was that of a berserker warrior of old, someone who cared only about inflicting damage on their enemies. An ancient, and still honored, but long since discarded tradition of the hobbs, now brought back in the form of a living legend. It was no wonder I was starting to be viewed as some kind of savior, or destroyer, depending on the perspective.

Molls seemed the only one capable of seeing me for who I actually was. At least, back before I had taken the Aimed Shot upgrade, anyway.

A strange thought crossed my mind as I searched the kitchen for food, and I realized I remembered with near perfect clarity that Molls had eaten three days prior. She had a big breakfast, which was her preferred meal to ingest. While she was still in the shower, cleaning up to spend the day with her mother, I ordered us breakfast.

Yarsp had quickly become one of Molls very favorite dishes, and she greatly enjoyed exploring Nu-Earth fusion cuisine. So I ordered a jumbo family sized platter roast from a local restaurant and threw in a few hundred extra morties as a decent tip.

When BuyMort had first hit Nu-Earth, I had thought a hundred morties was a lot. Like the equivalent of a hundred dollars before BuyMort. But even that had never really had any kind of steady amount attached to it, the damn thing kept changing at the behest of corrupt politicians. And other, much less important or impactful effects.

Morties were no different, there were just no politicians anymore. Our affiliate’s growing flex account held a different capability every single day. The other affiliates and even local associates all pushed and pulled at the value of every item being exchanged using the BuyMort shopping network, and it played havoc with the morties value level at times.

They were high that morning, I noticed as I glanced over the news feed with a soft smile. My tip would be well-received.

My morties were well worth it, when a security hobb sent up our meal on a small, wheeled tray in the elevator. The smell of fresh roasted Yarsp immediately flooded the penthouse, and I hurriedly worked on setting up the table for us to eat at when I heard the shower turn off.

It had been a small sound, a light thunk of the pipes in the walls, shifting under the change in water pressure. I took a long, slow sniff of the meal and smiled.

The smell was amazing, sheer pleasure. My olfactory capabilities pulled individual ingredients and spices out for me to enjoy, one becoming more present than the other as my interest shifted.

Once I thought about it, I realized the sex had been particularly amazing that morning too.

Molls entered the room wearing her long-bodied robe. It covered her long, dripping tail so she didn’t make a mess of the place, but was made of a fabric that didn’t trip up her movements as she slithered either.

“What on Nu-Earth smells so good?” she asked.

I smiled up at her and spread my arms to our table, showing her the small feast I had set up. I’d carved off a portion of the roast and ordered myself a side of the delicious hobb flatbread they made. Molls hated that stuff, but she found all bread abhorrent anyway, so her opinion didn’t count.

“Herb-basted yarsp roast,” I said. “With delicious flatbread for me.” I flipped the ad over to her, letting her view it in its propagandistic glort.

All Hail the Herb - There are many ways to cook a delicious batch of yarsp. Fried. Barbecued. Boiled. A La Carte. But nothing can compare to the flame-locked taste of Yarsop Gee's special blend of 700 rare herbs and spices. Hand-selected and handout by Yarsop himself, the Yarsop Gee Herb-Baste Special is a delight to the tongue, and a beauty to behold.

7500 morties, 4.9 stars.

Her eyes sparkled as she moved in closer and saw the small feast. “Tyson, it smells amazing. How did you know I would be hungry this morning?”

I smiled back and pulled her seat out for her to slip into. Then I leaned in and kissed her cheek, enjoying the flush of purple that spread from it. Up close, I could still see the starfish suit’s scarring. The tattoos hid it almost perfectly, but once up close it was easy to see the missing pigment, and the unnatural appearance of the colors flow.

Especially with my newly upgraded eyes.

“I remembered, we had breakfast three days ago,” I replied.

Molls cocked her head at me and slowly smiled, while purple color filled the rest of her scales. “That is so sweet, you never remember when I eat,” she said. “Hell, I never remember when I last ate, we’re too busy to keep track.”

I shrugged, but then immediately thought of the lie that suggested and sighed. “I should probably tell you that I took another implant from Teslak last night,” I said.

Molls frowned, but she was already cutting into the roast. Her tongue flicked out and back in and the purple in her scales brightened. That was a good sign.

“Oh?” she asked, slicing a sizable portion of the meat free. She lifted the porterhouse sized chunk of roast yarsp and distended her lower jaw partially to fit it all inside her fangs. I smiled as I watched.

She used to hide, and hated to allow me to watch her eat, but that shyness didn’t last. Once she realized I genuinely didn’t care, she became much more open with me. It made me feel good that she only ever did that with me, but my infuriatingly efficient new brainpower informed me it was a bad thing, that her response was a result of generational abuse. That she was afraid to show her true self to everyone but me, and that was not a good thing for her.

I sighed again and nodded. “It was a cognition implant,” I said, softly. “Mostly eyesight, but some other sensory upgrades, and I’ve noticed a significant improvement in memory already.”

Molls met my eyes and gulped, the color fading from her scales. She mechanically moved to cut another slice, and I continued.

“I should have told you earlier,” I said.

Yellow began to replace the purple in her scales, and I winced. I didn’t apologize though, that would make it worse for her.

“A cognition upgrade?” Molls said. “Those typically change the person who gets them, Tyson. You should have talked to me first. We’re mated.”

I nodded. “I know. I didn’t intentionally, because I didn’t want you to stop me. I apologize for that, it was not the actions of a good partner, or a good mate.”

Molls blinked at me for a long moment, and then dipped her head to take another massive bite of her roast. The purple returned, as she used her tongue to shred the meat against her rows of sharp teeth. It wasn’t quite chewing but had a similar appearance.

Once the sizable morsel was properly savored and swallowed, she turned and nodded at me. “I have to admit you make it rather difficult to be mad at over it, and you still seem like yourself.”

It was my turn to tilt my head. “Well, it’s a gradual thing,” I said.

“Another of your colonies?” Molls asked with a sigh.

“The last of them,” I said. When she glanced over to me, I continued, “the last of them because there are no more in the line. I have the entire pack now. The last enhancement I can get from Teslak is the third tier for my starfish suit, that will just give me the armor. After that, I think it’s all ships.”

Molls nodded as I spoke, and then frowned as she returned to her meal. “What do you mean, ‘last?’” She asked. “You don’t plan to get any more, now that Teslak is out of options for you?”

I chuckled and nodded. “Yes, exactly. I actually never meant to get any implants or augmentations at all. Didn’t really understand it before last night, to be honest. What it means, what it makes me into.”

“Any intrusive thoughts?” she asked, looking at my face for a response.

I twitched a corner of one lip. “Nothing out of the ordinary, no.”

“Any sense of the world being foreign? Uncomfortable somehow that you cannot describe?” Molls asked, still watching me closely.

I shook my head and frowned, scowling at the nature of her questions. “My world has rarely felt more perfect,” I said. “Things are going to be okay, and I know how.”

Molls sighed and started working on another slice from her roast. She was taking about a sixth of the total thing with each cut, so I started eating my own meal too. She’d be done soon, I realized, and I would miss my chance to eat with her.

It only came around every few days, and I’d already mostly ruined that one with my honesty, so I happily dug in once I felt like the meal was saved.

My mind raced. It wasn’t unpleasant, exactly, but it was starting to get hard to manage. I kept spiraling on rabbit-trails, thinking about every permutation and possibility of my actions and words. It took a bit of getting used to, but the process started to automate as we ate breakfast and talked.

I started being able to mostly ignore the thought-processes happening in the background and just pull the helpful bits of information that surfaced for my own use.

“What’s up with those questions, my love?” I finally asked.

Molls gulped her last mouthful, lightly dabbing at her lips with a large cloth napkin. It was the Wizard’s, I remembered, as I watched her use it. We’d never bothered to swap out his dishware or linens, aside from the bedding.

My memory kicked in and threw out three separate occasions in recent days when we’d washed that specific napkin, and I blinked the extra thought away. Helpful, but also disturbing. I was not used to having a properly functioning memory.

“Signs of potential implant impairment. Which you do not seem to have, so far. I am upset with you for the dishonesty, but I understand your need for autonomy, and your fear of failure,” Molls explained. “But so far you’ve shown signs of significant change, and I find that I like every single one of them. It is a little unsettling.”

I nodded and blinked, before taking a bite of my grease-soaked flatbread.

She shook her head and winced in disgust. “You still love to eat that grain dust pack in front of me, at least. Ugh,” she shuddered.

“I’ll never be perfect, my love. But your lessons have been helping. I don’t really know how to explain this,” I said, stalling as I realized that I actually did. “Well. Maybe. It feels like all the information and knowledge about mental health and being myself that we’ve been working on has been there, ready for me to use, and now I can see how to use it. Pieces of it are just clicking into place as I go, and it’s helping me understand those around me better. When you know better, you do better, after all.”

Molls blinked and gaped at me. She swallowed and closed her mouth, before turning away and flushing pink “As your therapist, I’m proud of that breakthrough. As your mate, I have conflicting feelings about how you came to that breakthrough.”

I nodded, shook my head, and slid my hand across the table to her. She immediately took it. “I do too, Molls,” I said. “But we don’t have time to waste. I know now, that if I hadn’t done this, we would have lost the eventual war with the church.”

Molls frowned, as yellow slipped into her scales. “What are you saying?”

“That I know how to beat the church, at their own game,” I said with a smile. “That we’re going to be okay, us here on Nu-Earth, and in the Sol system. Your family is safe here.”

Purple filled her scales, and I saw Molls accept my new implant. She leaned in to hug me and sniffed away a tear. “Thank you, Tyson. Everything has changed so much, I think I’m just afraid of something else to get used to.”

“I’m still me, as far as I can tell. Just a little less dumb,” I said with a wry smile.

“Well don’t lose all your stupid,” she mumbled, nuzzling against me. “I’d miss it if it were gone.”

Chapter 52

We finished up breakfast and started about our days, which meant splitting up. Molls donned her mother’s armor to go flying before she had to meet up with her parents. They were shopping for a plot of land in the area I had carved out for them to choose from.

It annoyed me somewhat, but I had offered when the Sleem attacked. It made sense, given the growing awareness of the problem’s sheer scale, to hole up with the most effective fighter of the Sleem.

So my hospitality was in full force. I looked through our real estate partnership ads, trying to find the perfect brag-worthy plot. And honestly what I found took my breath away.

Escape The Noise And Stress Of The World In Style And Solitude. This Is Senali Oasis.

Build or place the home of your dreams in a MortBlock so beautiful that it was being considered by The Windowpuncher himself.

A local mini-oasis ringed by fruit trees and resplendent with animal life makes this the perfect place to host gatherings, while the tremendous heat of the area makes the cool springs if the water an absolutely decadent delight. Defy nature's hardships and grab the affront to Divinity today!

It was an auction item, I saw, and worth so many morties that I knew it was more than generous. I hadn’t heard yet how it had been received, but it was far more than they’d had back on Nah’gh.

I figured it’s like moving to the country for them, so I picked an area of land nearby that would be easy for us to defend and visit if needed, and then let them pick their specific land from the greater area. Easy for them to acquire resupply too, even if they wanted to skip the BuyMort part of the process. I wrote up the offer and sent it with Molls.

Then I had to go meet with Axle. I was due back on board the Sand Star immediately after, so I kissed Molls goodbye, and wished her luck with her family. We separated by flying off the roof in different directions. Molls headed to the ocean, I went to Axle’s library.

When I landed outside, I was disappointed to discover the coffee vendor was not open. His stand stood empty right inside the front entry doors, in the foyer, chairs on top of his few small tables.

I shrugged and moved to enter the building but was stopped by the locked door. To be clear, I could have torn the heavy duty security doors from their magnetic locking clamps if I wasn’t careful, but the fact that it was locked at all stopped me in surprise.

There was a BlueCleave starfish trooper manning the front desk, and he buzzed me in. I nodded at him as I passed, and he stood to salute me, before turning back to his post and watching the door. The library was disturbingly empty.

It was the difference between the building’s normal quiet, which still had that background hush of noise, growled conversation between Knowles, and the movement of papers and feet. As I walked, I was uncomfortably aware that I was the only person doing so in the building.

I lifted gently into the air, floating instead of walking, a small smirk on my lips. If the place was going to be spooky, I could play along. Hovering silently through the halls, I snuck up on the next batch of hobb guards, also wearing starfish suits. These were heavily armed as well, with slag rifles, laser sidearms, and BlueCleave warpicks.

The first to notice me whirled and swung their melee weapon deceptively fast. I twitched the suit and moved inside the range of the swing, blocking it with my raised forearm. Recognition dawned in the hobb’s eyes, and he dropped his weapon.

“Good swing, trooper,” I said, lightly socking him on the shoulder. “I’ll know better than to sneak up on this one in the future, eh?” I quipped to his partner.

The other hobb was breathing heavily, flicking the safety of their weapon on and off and blinking rapidly. My new memory tossed up a quick scene to explain. The hobb had also instinctually attacked me but failed to release the safety on their weapon first. I had seen it. The instant snap to shoulder and trigger squeeze, then the dawning realization.

Likely a rare mistake, given their training. But one the hobb was unlikely to ever make again, based on the pale expressions they held on their face.

I nodded and saluted both hobbs as I floated by, feet barely above the floor. The incident would be at Morbin Time by nightfall, I had no doubt. It was good to keep the hobbs talking about me. I recognized fewer and fewer of them as we grew, and my reputation among them became critical to maintain.

The door to Axle’s meeting room was locked as well, so I patiently waited for him to notice me and let me in. When he did, I was surprised at his appearance.

There were two other Knowles behind Axle’s back, wearing lab coats identical to the one he wore. Behind the group was a wide, rounded elevator. It had risen from the floor beneath the table, which had split in the center and folded aside to allow it.

Without a word, Axle thrust a similar lab coat at me, this one sized for a human.

“You’ll want to wear that, we need to talk,” he said.

“Okay,” I replied. The lab coat slipped on and activated, humming ever so faintly as an energy field surrounded me.

“The coat will protect you from the nanites. They’re still occasionally independently active and may try to escape the lab in people’s clothing and follicles,” Axle explained.

“Active? They’re responsive,” the Knowle at Axle’s left said. “Communicating!” The tall hyena-man turned and shook his head, reaching for the elevators panel, opening the door for us all.

“Let me explain it, please,” Axle said, tersely glancing at the other Knowle.

Then he turned to face me. “My research team has been busy,” he started. “They’ve managed to get a separated portion of the nanite swarm to link with our former guest’s remaining technology. It’s created an interface of sorts.”

“Of sorts?” his other companion snapped. “We have full access to customized telemetry, from the bright plague creature’s equipment directly.”

Axle raised both of his claws as the elevator clunked into movement and began descending. “My good Knowles, please! As impressive as your accomplishments are, this is not what we are here for. Your tireless pursuit of knowledge has quite possibly saved every life in the BuyMort system. Silken Sands recognizes that fact and will publicly celebrate it someday. Right now is simply not the time for this level of discussion on the technical aspects of how we know what we now know!”

I scowled at the exchange and crossed my arms to wait for the point.

“Our Sleem problem is bigger than any of us have realized. Conventional means will simply not accomplish any kind of substantive victory,” Axle said. “There’s a problem with the new Sleem planet.”

“Go on,” I said, leaning back against the chill elevator walls. A series of two way mirrors showed us the Sleem farm as we descended past the old Army base’s hangar. Once we were below that level, the area opened up.

“We’ve done some excavation for the research department,” Axle said, noticing my stare. “Secrecy of the project was paramount. I couldn’t risk Morbin or Elegy overhearing something.”

I sighed and nodded. “Yeah, I get that. It’s fine; the library is yours anyway. Don’t need my permission to install a creepy underground lab.”

I understood, in spite of my snark. My new functional memory was happily throwing out instances where I said or did something stupid in front of Axle, and I understood why he didn’t tell me every single thing he did.

Especially in regard to Quadrum, our former unwanted guest. As I recalled, the angel of BuyMort had been here to investigate our Sleem. Our special, rapidly reproducing Sleem.

A glass tube extended down from the tall ceiling through a gaping cavern that had been equipped with a smattering of lab equipment. The bottom of the elevator shaft had an inflated donut all around it, which I realized was an airlock, and clean storage area.

As we got lower, I saw the nanites floating through the air in giant clusters. Marbles of gray goo spun around one another in violent, concentric orbits. Some would occasionally strike one another, splashing apart and beginning a sort of dance before becoming two new blobs.

One in particular caught my attention. From above, it appeared to be the center of the cascading dance and glowed with palpable heat. A star.

Or at least a representation of one.

“Is that a solar system?” I asked, pointing.

“See?” one of the Knowle scientists said. “He gets it.”

Axle blinked and nodded. “Indeed. You’ll have your presentation, but we have to get through the airlock first at least,” he sighed.

“Obell,” said the first Knowle, reaching his claw out to me as we softly landed at the bottom of the shaft. “Nice to meet you, warlord.”

I smiled politely and shook his hand, being careful to be gentle. That word made me a little angry, so it took some willpower.

“This is Hjarn,” he said, gesturing idly to his partner, who tipped a claw at me and grimaced in the Knowle version of a polite smile.

I grinned back, holding back a bit of a laugh. You could always tell when a Knowle was just being polite, because their tails never waved unless they were genuinely happy to see you.

Chapter 53

We stood in a decontamination room that blasted us with thick white mist. I wondered why, when we were all infested with nanites anyway.

The system must have taken that as a challenge, because I was hit with an ad for the device straight away.

IS A BIOSAFE WORLD POSSIBLE? IT SURE IS, WITH BIOLAB PLUS! NANOSCOPIC DETECTION CAPABILITIES, A 99.9999999% FILTRATION RATE, ALL COUPLED WITH A MINTY FRESH SMELL MEANS ABSOLUTE FREEDOM FROM DANGER . . . OR YOUR MORTIES BACK. KEEP YOUR LABS AND YOUR WORLDS SAFE. SUIT THEM UP, AND FILL YOUR LABS WITH BIOLAB PLUS.

The entire cavern had been painted clean-room white with an adhesive polymer. It turned a hastily excavated cave into a make-shift laboratory to experiment on dangerous beholder tech.

Our former guest had left a handful of items behind in our care when they’d been killed, and I was a little uncomfortable to see them directly beneath the Sleem farm. But, we had results already, so I didn’t complain.

A bird in the hand and all that.

Axle pointed to the nanite swarm. It hovered above one of the large tray-like objects that Quadrum had left behind. The nanites remained above it, occasionally streaming down to it momentarily before returning to their formations. It was a charging pattern, I realized, as my new eyes focused in as closely as they could.

I still couldn’t see the nanoscopic robots with any kind of clarity, but the lines and streams of them made a sort of sense.

“I assume you saw the new quest?” Axle murmured to me when the other Knowles moved away. They both went to separate workstations equipped with laptops.

I nodded. “I did.”

“Over a nonillion Sleem,” he whispered. “It didn’t make sense. They’ve never managed to maintain that population level in BuyMort’s recorded history. Nowhere near it.”

“How long have Sleem been in BuyMort?” I asked.

Axle shook his head. “Always. Before the church. Before the first Knowledge. But never in such numbers. They maintain a population of a few hundred trillion, system wide. More than anyone else, of course, but they’re scavengers. Until they get big enough to become a real threat, anyway.”

“So the new population must be coming from the new planet,” I said.

Axle nodded, slowly, a grim look on his face. “Afflqwst would know the population, because BuyMort knows it. BuyMort is already in-system, excavating ore for more nanites to infect the new world. It’s worse than even that, though.”

The mobile behind him suddenly stopped moving, and then fell to the platter below in a heap of dust. It scattered near us, activating our shields with a series of mild sparks near the floor.

“Sorry boss,” Hjarn yelled from across the clean-cave. “Restarting the presentation.”

Axle nodded and waved.

“In three, two, one,” Obell counted down, claws in the air. “Engage.” Both hobbs clicked a button on their laptops, and the dust jumped back to life.

It formed the star in the center first, packing in huge, to the size of a basketball while the center of it began to glow. Soon, it had shrunk to the size of a tennis ball, but glowed and spun rapidly in the air, occasionally firing off small flares.

More nanites swarmed from the floor, shaping over a hundred orbs of varying size and shape, putting each into spinning motion around the glowing ball as it formed. A liquid dance began, speeding up and experiencing several collisions.

Each time the collisions occurred, part of each object joined with the other, spinning and spiraling away from one another slowly. One of the larger orbs formed a series of beautiful, gleaming rings, twinkling as it continued to suck in other particles and grow.

“This is Sleem,” Axle said, pointing to the ringed world. “Their home world, and how it formed. The star is young and hot, and home to many other worlds. Dozens of planets, with thousands of moons. Sleem is the biggest.”

He pointed again, one claw following the movement of a smaller world. It passed through Sleem’s rings and scattered particles of them to rain across the surface of the planet. As the larger world's gravity swung the world around and tore at it, the smaller planet ruptured, and scattered to eventually fill in the missing portions of the ring.

“Even their home world is like them,” I whispered.

Axle glanced over, hiding a look of surprise. “Indeed it is. The planet is large, close to the lower limits of gas giants, but composed of solid matter. Its gravity is immense, and over hundreds of billions of years, it has grown by destroying and devouring the other worlds in its star’s orbit.”

“How would a system develop like this?” I asked. “The orbits look too chaotic to be natural.”

“Queue twelve,” shouted Obell.

“Queuing twelve!” shouted back Hjarn.

The display changed, and showed the worlds in peaceful, perfect orbits. The star hurtled through space and dragged its bountiful entourage with it in a beautiful display of mathematically perfect orbits. After a few seconds, the large world I recognized as Sleem approached from a distance.

“Thanks to our former guest’s astrological equipment, we can see that Sleem is an invasive world. Origin unknown,” Axle explained. “It entered the star’s orbit, quite possibly sent there by someone or something. An ancient civilization, perhaps. It has long been a popular theory that the Sleem were originally created as a bioweapon.”

I raised my eyebrows at that. “A whole planet, capable of eating a solar system?”

Axle nodded. “That is the original nature of the Sleem’s home planet. We can know that without question, with this equipment.”

“Your guest was quite thorough,” shouted Obell. “If you’d like, we can show you the proof. Their math is wild.”

“Later,” Axle said. “We’re running short on time. Pull up the real problem, please.”

“Queue forty-two” Obell shouted.

“Queuing forty-two” replied Hjarn.

The formation sped up, going through the chaos of the planet eating other worlds and moons, picking them off one by one and smashing them with its superior gravity.

Then it froze and started over, pristine and natural. This newer version looked older, the planet’s were not even fully formed yet, and the star was still young. But the predatory Sleem planet arrived and began its process of devouring the matter in the solar system.

Early. Much earlier than the first display.

It didn’t arrive in-system that much earlier than the last version, but it seemed to count. By the time the second display ended, Sleem was visibly larger than it had been when it entered the solar system.

“There is a popular misconception about the Sleem that is important,” Hjarn yelled, one claw in the air.

Axle nodded. “That they do not eat stone.”

“Oh Sleem love carbon,” Hjarn said, shaking his shaggy head. “In just about any form, really. It takes them longer to break it down and convert, but Sleem can reproduce using nothing but solar radiation and a little carbon. Water is best, because of how slow carbon is, but they can use that too.”

I nodded, following along. My new perk patch was working wonders already. I could keep up.

“The first display is of every Sleem world the BuyMort system has encountered to date. None of them have deviated from their predictable patterns, except for the newest one. The second display is the Sleem world we are about to encounter,” Axle said. “It has been in-system for a few hundred millions years longer than any other Sleem world added to BuyMort so far.”

“The nonillions,” I said. The new up and coming Sleem world was impossible to survive. It was simply too big.

Both Hjarn and Obell approached, tails waving lightly.

“They knew,” said Obell.

I scowled. “Knew what?”

“This is the result of your former guests' research, we think. The Sleem knew their world would be included in the BuyMort system, and they arrived early to prepare,” the Knowle explained. “This is one of the conclusions made in the research.”

“If those are the conclusions,” muttered Hjarn.

“It is hard to know the mind that created this research, this knowledge, but we are certain that Quad-” he stopped himself with a grimace. “Our guest had determined that all Sleem are quantum entangled and share a basic knowledge pool through that connection.”

“Like a voice in the back of your head,” Hjarn said, a genuine smile on his lips. “They didn’t even know they knew, but they’ve prepared for BuyMort perfectly.”

I scowled again. “What do you mean?”

Axle shook his head, his tail tucked. “The problem is much worse than just the incoming numbers, Tyson. The Sleem on this upcoming world have had much longer to evolve. They’ve developed countermeasures against most of the weaponry we use to fight them.”

“What?” I said. The word bounced off the walls with a harsh bite.

“In six months’ time, when the new Sleem world enters BuyMort, not only will we be hopelessly outnumbered, but our weapons will be largely ineffective against most of them,” he said, plainly. The other Knowles stopped waving their tails.

Obell pointed at the far station and tapped Hjarn’s shoulder. The other Knowle nodded and jogged off.

Once they were in place, Obell shouted out another queue and I waited for the nanite swarm to do its thing.

This time, the swarm formed into a shape, and slowly began to fill in with color, becoming a plain green slime version of the Sleem. Their simplest form. As I watched, different effects began to cycle through the Sleem display as it mimicked the slug-like movement of the creature.

Electricity crackled against the surface of the slime’s body, bouncing and arcing without penetrating. The slime's casual forward movement continued.

“Increased exposure to the system’s star in its younger days killed most of the Sleem on the planet. Only a core mass of them survived, dug deep into the crust and in hibernation near a massive pocket of ore that protected them from the excess radiation,” Axle explained. “Which they slowly consumed as it protected them. As a result, all Sleem from this new world are able to ignore large amounts of electrical current. Small doses of electricity even seem to act as a performance enhancing drug, giving the new Sleem a small period of accelerated movement and aggression, instead of paralyzing, or killing them.”

The image shifted again, with thick red flames flickering on the surface of the Sleem’s body. This one glowed red from inside but had the same faint green exterior.

“The current Sleem population has burrowed through most of the planet’s crust, converting the material into more Sleem. There are even some who live in the upper reaches of the mantle. All the new Sleem will be fire-resistant,” Axle said. “Some will be fire-proof entirely, absorbing heat as an ambient form of nutriment.”

“Is there much more?” I quietly asked.

Axle nodded. “An irregular orbit has led to hundreds of thousands of extra years of Sleem evolution resisting cold. Almost all of the new ones can hibernate if too cold to survive, and some can even retain partial mobility in freezing conditions.”

“The increased gravity of the world, due to all the extra mass it has acquired, appears to have had the effect of strengthening the Sleem’s cellular cohesion as well,” added Hjal, licking his nose. “They’re effectively bulletproof, so even advanced weapons like the Morrigan weapon system’s nanite-driven effects are neutered. If you could get one past a Sleem’s hardened outer carapace, it would still only kill that one Sleem.”

“Pretty much any weapon we use on ‘em,” I whispered, nodding at the display. It showed me a spikey, icicle-covered Sleem rolling along on its spines, like a sea urchin.

“That’s enough, gentlemen, I understand the situation,” I said. Obell and Hjarn nodded and shut down their display. The nanite swarm collapsed into a pile of dust.

“So we can’t let that planet enter the BuyMort system,” I sighed. “At all. I’m sure that’ll be easy.”

Axle grimly shook his head. “It’s never been done.”

“Yeah, well, ‘never been done’ is our specialty,” I said, smiling at the Knowle.

Axle scowled incredulously at me for a few seconds before snorting a laugh. “I suppose you are right, my friend. We have some time. We can come up with a plan.”

“Oh, I already have one, I’m gonna go ask the Delvago brothers to help us be first on the scene and shoot it with their cannon,” I said. “In fact, I kind of need to go do that right now. They might not like the idea. Might take some time to convince them, but I want to get them stewing on the situation as quickly as possible.”

Axle scowled and raised his claws. “Wait, Tyson, you’ve lost me. What do you mean, ‘shoot it?’” he asked.

“Well,” I said. “You said that all Sleem are quantum entangled, right? So that means we can use the trans dimensional pulse cannon to kill them all at the same time. We just have to have the brothers figure out how to configure it to do that.”

Axle’s eyes widened further as I spoke, but he shook his head. “That is an excellent idea. I should come with you. We have more to discuss at any rate.”

“We’re done with this little presentation?” I asked, turning to the Knowle scientists. “You guys did amazing. The horrifying existential threats are all clear and easy to understand.” I gave them both a thumbs up and a smile, which Hjarn happily returned.

Obell cocked his head at me and wagged his tail lightly. I was glad to meet them, and even happy to have them on the team.

Chapter 54

They stayed in the clean-cave, going back to work at their lab stations while Axle and I went through the airlock to get back to the elevator. We left our lab coat shields behind, and I was pleased to see that Axle was wearing more casual clothes, with one of the ‘magic’ shield rings I had handed out from the Wizard’s stash.

He quickly handed me a pile of documents to sign, once the conference table at the center of the room went back to normal. I got to work signing. It seemed like every day we had new associates signing up with us and getting MortBlock coverage to work on. The affiliates recent upgrades had put our credit ranking in a whole new ballpark. We were suddenly no longer considered a risk. Our reputation coupled with the BuyMort ranking to make us a ladder climber.

I opened it all up, the first time in a long time, and gazed at my affiliate screen.

Credit Level 95. Millions of subscribers. Over a billion people under me. The top ten list was in our sights, our growth was on track. Our stock of BuyMort portals and access to the CloneMort facility was growing. All our metrics were trending up, and trending up large. And so many upgraded and high-performing perks.

I just had to redirect Axle a little bit.

“Can we focus more of our Sleem hunt acquisitions on Tertiary, instead of Neolithic Earth?” I asked while casually burning my mark in the various sheets of flesh paper. “I would like to own that planet. Or as much of it as possible.”

Axle’s eyes widened. “Tertiary is a TransPoCo planet,” he said. “You’d anger the church if you took it over.”

I shook my head. “Naw, I don’t wanna do that. We’re just already digging in there, getting MortBlock percentages, I thought we could expand that operation a bit more intentionally.”

“What do you mean?” Axle asked, clearly uncomfortable with having to ask me that question so often.

“Well, we push up enough on their operations border, and when things go south with the church, we’ll have a major advantage; TransPoCo on our side of the conflict,” I said.

Axle glanced at the paperwork we were discussing. “I don’t understand why they would side with us,” he finally said. “The church is their biggest customer.”

“Yeah, but not for long. The church takes a cut for nothing. We don’t. And if you get involved with helping BlueCleave pick their missions, we can get more in bed with TransPoCo. Quickly too,” I said. “This Sleem uprising is the perfect excuse. They need us to protect them anyway.”

Axle’s eyes lit up and I saw him get it. “On most of the mines we’re working on freeing now, we own the majority of their manufacturing and shipping, as well as providing labor. It’s the same pool of labor that was on the planet before, but some of them are already signing up to become Silken Sands employees instead of TransPoCo employees.”

“Exactly. TransPoCo’s biggest customer is the church, but we’re rapidly becoming a major part of their ability to function. When the war comes, we’ll have them by the balls.”

Axle nodded. “I see your plan now. You’re right. At the least, it will make taking those facilities back a major risk for TransPoCo, when war breaks out. We could even destroy their processing and shipping lines, if we controlled enough of their MortBlocks.”

“And the greater affiliate won’t do a thing to stop us getting them, because the local MortBlock owners only care about the mineral rights, the higher profit value,” I added. “Plus, this will give you the chance to control the BuyMort fruition centers better, get some more of them shut down on Tertiary. Clear up some bandwidth for Tower.”

Axle blinked again. “I had thought of that aspect. It’s going well here, by the way. We’ve pulled back from sixteen fruition centers already and are monitoring them for activity. It’s receding fast.”

“Excellent,” I said. “What else have you got for me? How are Venus and Mars doing?”

“Venus is proceeding apace. We’ve managed to find enough recruits to man the first ship to arrive in-atmosphere, so TransPoCo is happy with us, and considers the contract honored thus far. Kelp production will be up and running soon, and the first silicon mining vehicle and team is already being prepared.”

As to Mars, that was going at pace as well. Axle mostly explained through paperwork what we needed to do anyway.

Another shipment of comets was waiting to be authorized. Thankfully, it was likely to be the last for a while, as our plan to capture the Dearth privateer fleet was unfolding rapidly, and we were no longer concerned about theft.

Once our latest batch of OORT cloud comets was delivered, we would have enough water on Mars to continue full operations for at least a year. We’d even have enough water to sell to the other affiliates on Mars if they ran low.

New hires were en route as well, heading out to install underground facilities as part of our hired-out first wave. Silken Sands colonists, on TransPoCo ships, coming to Sol system to live, work, and build.

The way Axle worked recruitment bothered me a little. The emphasis was on Nu-Earth, and to be fair, most of our new influx of refugees and settlers were heading to facilities on my planet. But a great deal of them were being hired directly from Storage or other worlds, and put to work on Venus or Mars, without ever seeing Nu-Earth.

I had to wonder how many of them were dreaming of my planet as their home, only to go live underground digging red earth on Mars, or sailing great airships in the skies above Venus, farming great swatches of magma-kelp in the acid sky.

“How are the residences on both planets?” I asked, as we were wrapping up.

Axle frowned, carefully placing the last flesh-paper document into his folder. They would be uploaded to BuyMort later, officially connecting the various associates to our primary affiliate.

“I . . . uh, I’m not sure what you’re asking,” he said.

“Just how are they? Livable? Sparse? Big? Small?” I asked.

Axle flipped an ad out, letting it perform a virtual pirouette in front of us.

Silken Sands Residential - Nu Homes for Nu Sol.

A variety of 3D blueprints rotated slowly in a series of image boxes. Next to each could be seen the exact dimensions, amenities, and prominent features of each.

I picked one out of the air, letting it expand over me. Looking around, I saw myself in a place that was twice the size of my trailer. A throw rug occupied the center of the place, and a wall of beaded curtain separated a small section from the rest. A label extending from the curtain marked it as a bedroom. There was a countertop, a single washing basin sunk into its center, a cylindrical food processor perched half a foot from its brimming with chutes open to the ceiling above.

PRUDENT LIVING AT COST. CONTACT YOUR LOCAL SILKEN SANDS SUPERVISOR FOR DETAILS.

“On Mars in particular, space is tight, but that will change as soon as construction begins. Within a few months, Mars will be spacious and we will be able to expand our residential portions there,” he said. “Venus is more difficult, the ships are already made, and cabins are already assigned. They are small, as I understand it, but not overly so.”

I shut down the ad and nodded as he spoke. “I get it. Only so much we can do, right?”

It was Axle’s turn to nod. He straightened and pulled off his flesh-paper handling gloves, tossing them into the trash before responding. “The airships on Venus belong to TransPoCo. We can likely optimize a bit, perhaps move people around to ensure better living conditions.”

Axle shrugged and shook his head. “Short of supplying another airship to live on, and shuttling employees back and forth for shifts, I don’t see-”

“Ooh, yeah, good idea!” I said, cutting him off. There was no point in brainstorming on that idea. We wouldn’t be able to afford the ships yet anyway. “Let’s put that in the maybe pile and go see the brothers.”

Axle nodded. He left to his own office momentarily, securing our important documents away in his wall-safe before joining me in the lobby. I forlornly sat at the closed coffee stand and waited, wishing I could have a lovely hot drink.

Chapter 55

“Hey,” I said, as Axle approached. “Where is everybody?”

“Given a day off with compensatory pay,” he replied. “We were generous with your coffee hobb, don’t worry.”

I grinned. “Good, I’d hate to miss my socially acceptable uppers too often.”

We left the building as the security hobb buzzed us out, and I followed Axle to his own private air pad, where a BlueCleave pilot waited for us.

Within minutes, the hovercraft buzzed through the air toward the brother’s compound. Lake Pleasant was not far, and the Delvago brothers were notified by the pilot as we approached, banking in to land.

Their compound pushed up against the lake, in one of the many coves, and we sent the water rippling out as we landed.

Dario approached from the house, wearing a pair of bright red silk basketball shorts and an open burgundy robe. He jogged down the path from their mansion, holding a rattling glass with ice and liquid. “My friends!” the man shouted. “Brothers in arms!”

As he approached, his hairy chest glinted in the sunlight, clearly oiled. We had apparently interrupted his suntanning.

“You are most welcome! We have made history together; it is only right we drink together as well! Had I known you were coming, I would have made drinks!” There Dario stopped and noticed the tall glass in his own hand. “Well, more drinks.”

I chuckled and shook his hand. “Thank you, Dario. I appreciate the welcome.”

Axle followed behind me and shook the man’s hand as well.

“Please, come in!” Dario said. Izan will be so happy to see you both, he has been feeling down since the bad day. Since we last used the cannon.”

I nodded. “Can we talk, Dario? Before we meet with Izan?”

Dario scowled but nodded. “Of course, my friend. What is the matter, that Izan cannot hear these words?”

I shook my head. “It’s not like that, he’ll hear them soon too. I just need your help figuring out how to tell him.”

Dario nodded, a look of concern on his face. “I understand. Please, come. There is a bar around the side of the mansion, we can drink and talk.”

Axle shook his head. “I need to get back, we should move this along.”

When Dario scowled darkly at the Knowle, he raised his claws in defense. “I do not wish to turn away your hospitality, and if I had less work to do today, I would take you up on that drink.”

“But this is dire,” Dario finished for him. The man rubbed at his rotund belly idly and raised the glass to his own lips. “I understand. Tell me your problems, and how I may help with them.”

So we stood on the docks in front of Dario’s mansion and explained the entire thing. The upcoming Sleem world, the numbers of aggressive slime monsters about to enter the system, and their resistances to our weaponry.

As we finished with the details, Dario’s face became more drawn, and he nodded along. “You think the cannon can help us,” he said, as I finished.

“It is, without exaggeration, our only hope,” I replied. “All of BuyMort’s only hope.”

“Aye, washed away by burning slime, I understand,” Dario muttered, stroking his glistening beard. After a moment of thought, he shrugged and shook his head. “I will convince my brother. Come, let us go inside!”

We turned to approach Dario’s mansion, and I took the rest of his compound in. There was no fencing, but tall metal poles were spread around the outer edges of the area as though there were. Between them I could see a ripple of air.

The house itself was extravagant. Sandstone yellowed to the point of nearly being white comprised the main structure. Great peaks rose far above the rooftops, capped in carved spires with intricate mosaic designs carved directly into the stone.

Arches in the classic bell shape marked the second floor, where Izan lounged, reading an old book. He was in the shade of one such area, and we approached with Dario in the lead, taking an outdoor spiral staircase to reach his level.

“Brother! Our employers have arrived with important news!” Dario began.

Izan’s eyebrows raised, and he glared at Axle and I behind his brother. “Another unique life to be snuffed?”

“No, my brother!” Dario insisted, shaking his head and sitting down. “The chance to preserve all life within BuyMort. To be the heroes mother raised us to be.”

“Mother raised a fool and a blowhard,” Izan said. “And killers beside! Mother would be ashamed of what we have already done.”

Dario hung his head and sighed.

“With respect, Izan, I don’t think you believe that,” I said quietly.

The brothers both turned to stare at me, Dario with surprise, and Izan with cold fury.

“What? You think I'm not a killer at your behest, warlord?” Izan sneered.

“No, I think that you don’t like being a killer,” I answered. “Which is noble, really. I don’t have any problem with that, I wish I didn’t become a killer myself, sometimes.”

“But not when you are killing,” Izan tersely muttered.

I shook my head, frowning in thought. “No, not when I’m killing. I kill for reasons though, not indiscriminately. I imagine you are much the same,” I said.

“No,” Izan snapped. “No, I am not the same. I wish I could take back ever finding that thing. It cost mother her life, the first person whose life being taken I am responsible for.”

“Brother!” Dario cried.

I raised my hand. “I understand, Izan. I’ve killed people I wished I hadn’t, both intentionally and by accident. People I . . . loved. People I was responsible for. People I failed to protect.”

Izan’s eyes hardened, but he did not speak.

“All we can do is move forward. Try to do better than we have done,” I said, calmly.

“And what is your ‘better,’” Izan angrily asked. “To kill another unique and beautiful form of life?”

“Yes,” I said at once. “But I have a reason, and that reason is to protect all other life in the BuyMort system. I do not just mean people, Izan. I mean all life.” My voice hardened as I spoke, and the man found himself unable to meet my gaze.

“I do not kill for pleasure, or for sport. Nor do I embrace waste. The unnecessary loss of life in this system infuriates me,” I said. “And I want to change it.”

“You have changed it,” Axle interrupted. “Statistically, life expectancy for all of those who have left Storage since Nu-Earth joined the BuyMort system has begun to rise significantly. Other affiliates are responding to our ‘good life’ policies and implementing systems of their own to retain staff. Most of their efforts are performative, but the trend is healthy.”

“And you helped accomplish that, Izan, Dario. You arrived when I needed help saving the western coast of the Americas, and you are part of BuyMort history forever because of that shot. Heroes. Part of something greater than ourselves,” I said.

Then I sighed and stood. “And now, to protect it, we must kill the Sleem,” I said, shaking my head. “I do not like it. I would rather they live, somewhere away from us. But we must prevent this world from entering the BuyMort system, or all is lost the moment it does.”

Izan looked confused.

“There are too many, brother,” Dario said. “With too many defenses. No more fire, no more zapping, no more frost. Mother said we would be heroes, Izan. You and I, not her. She knew more than you give her credit for.”

Izan blinked away a tear, and his anger broke with a sob. “I cannot bear it! I see the beast in my dreams. I took its life, its unique life, out of the multiverse forever. The things we do with mother’s cannon cannot be undone, brother! Can you not see?”

“I see,” Dario said. “I am not the fool you think me, brother. I see. I also see that these things must be done. They cannot be ignored. These things must not be ignored, Izan.”

“I do not-” Izan stopped, shaking his head. “I do not mean to say that we ignore this problem, brother, but to simply wipe them out . . . I cannot.”

Axle touched my elbow, and I turned away as Dario spread his arms and began again.

The brothers bickered lightly in the background as we walked a short distance. “I think you should go,” Axle said, once we were far enough away.

I frowned and pulled up my helmet to check my comms. An urgent message was waiting from Admiral Omen. I dropped the helmet and nodded at Axle. “You okay here?”

Axle nodded. “I will be safe with the brothers, their security system is excellent. And I believe you have already said the words that will convince Izan to join us in this task, he merely needs to come to that conclusion on his own. Dario and I will help him do that.”

I nodded and looked in the distance, where a BuyMort pod was approaching. My new eyes had picked out the movement even though the pod was barely visible.

Axle turned away with another nod, and approached the still-bickering brothers. Izan’s struggles appeared to be part of the process of using the cannon, but I knew I was pushing him. I stared at the man for a long moment before stepping through the rainbow beam and onto the deck of the Sand Star.

Chapter 56

Admiral Omen was standing at the captain’s chair, hands behind his back, when I arrived. “Ah, good,” he said. “Just in time.”

The Sand Star was moving; I could see it on our viewscreen. Primarily because of the ship at our side the main view screen was focused on.

“I hoped you would arrive soon. This is the Rumbler. Our latest acquisition,” Admiral Omen explained.

The Rumbler was a mining frigate, repurposed for privateering. It was small, and rounded, with a bubble cockpit protruding from the orb-like body of the ship. At its rear was a standard arrangement of thrusters, three of them in a conical design. The middle of the vessel was dominated by a group of mechanical arms.

Four large arms with broad magnetic grip-plates adorned the ship’s midsection.  They were retracted, tucked in alongside one another at the ship’s sides, but I could easily see them being useful in stealing a comet.

Admiral Omen flipped me an ad.

Finally, a ship tough enough to punch asteroids in the face, yet fast enough to make it home in time for dinner. The all new 97866540 Phord Rumbler. Now with expanded crew cabs. 50,760 morties monthly. Contact your local Phord Affiliate for details.

“How’d she come into your possession, Admiral?” I asked, while strapping into my station.

“Hobb crewed. They came to us after we took the fleet’s flagship,” he explained. “They gave us the coordinates for the rest of their fleet, and pledged themselves to us in battle, though their ship has no weapons currently.”

I squinted at the viewscreen and was delighted to discover my new perk patch worked with my ship’s technology. The crystalline structures linked directly to the ship’s sensors through Afflqwst’s malicious programming and my own BuyMort nanites, and I was able to see the Rumbler as the Sand Star saw it.

A lump of acceleration and mass at our side, as we hurtled through space. Thick armor plating covered the beastly little frigate, including an extendable eyelid for the bubble-bridge, where I saw three hobbs in shoddy Dearth spacesuits locked in their seats, at stations and ready for a fight.

“We approach their fleet, if the information is good,” Admiral Omen quipped.

“And if it’s not?” I asked.

“We kill the Rumbler’s crew and take the ship for ourselves,” he replied. “Or rather, you will kill their crew.”

“Yeah, I don’t like killing hobbs,” I replied.

Ordo grunted. I think in approval.

“I do not like being in space at all,” replied Admiral Omen. “But here we all are. You need this fleet, this is how we acquire it.”

“Yeah, I’m on board, Admiral. I just don’t like the tenuous nature of the attack. It could easily be an ambush,” I said.

“Sand Star handle it,” grunted Ordo. “Good ship. Relic ship.”

I sighed and shook my head. “Yeah, you’re not wrong. I just don’t relish the thought, I suppose.”

“None here do,” answered Admiral Omen.

I shut up at that and simply nodded. Instead, I used the link with the Sand Star’s sensors to investigate the opposing ship more. Under the bubble canopy it had a large recess in the rounded nature of the hull. Another engine, this one capable of pushing backward and severely burning anything in the magnetic grips.

It could be used to break up smaller asteroids, or ships. Latch on and slag the hull, then detach and let it vent. All of this I imagined as I stared at the strange little vessel. My fleet was coming together.

About an hour after I had arrived on board, an alarm on the screen sounded. “Missile lock,” grunted Ordo.

He strapped in and gripped the gunnery sticks. A swath of thin dust sparkled out in front of us at a third the speed of light, erupting a series of incoming missiles. The Rumbler at our side kicked in their engines and raced ahead, as Admiral Omen swung the Sand Star lower, and increased speed to match our smaller friendly craft.

A small squadron of mixed craft appeared on the view screen, as targeted dots in the distance. Our hobb companion ship was closing the distance, and we swept along in their wake, ready to provide support.

The ships on our screen grew at a frightening rate, until engine flares lit the bridge brightly. I summoned my helmet in response.

“Dawes, Ordo!” Admiral Omen shouted. “Take the Rumbler’s tackle, I will follow and disable the rest’s engines. Set them adrift. We must take them all at once, or they will split up and we will lose them.”

I nodded and detached from my station, floating with Ordo to the midship. We lined up near the ceiling, stretched out and ready to blast through the pod airlock. This time we were shooting at moving targets.

Thankfully, Admiral Omen didn’t want to risk us anymore than was needed. He used the Sand Star’s superior speed and handling to align us perfectly.

The Rumbler caught up to the nearest ship, a rectangular mash of radiators and solar collector arms jutting from a wedge-shaped inner hull. The Rumbler smashed through a cluster of solar arms, sending glittering glass cascading to trail behind them, like a comet’s tail. The little ship extended its robotic arms and latched onto the other vessel, before its primary engine kicked in and pushed it spinning off course.

Admiral Omen locked in and spun the Sand Star to match the other vessel’s trajectory perfectly. The Rumbler broke off and changed course, chasing down the next ship as I and Ordo plunged out into the cold of space again. I held my breath and punched through the cramped airlock toward the still-glowing hull.

There was an instant of violent, disorienting movement, and then I slammed into the ship’s side. I scrambled at first, but instinctually pressed myself to the craft’s hull. Ordo landed feet first, and hauled out his welder.

I nodded and flopped over to the hatch, still glowing reddish from the engine burn. The stars spun wildly, and I felt my suit fighting to keep me attached to the ship. With a snarl, I summoned the breaker gauntlets and tore the primary hatch off the ship. The chunk of metal nearly got away from me in the resulting pressure blast, which thankfully helped counteract some of the spin we’d put them into.

The stars slowed somewhat, reducing from blur level, as the crew members blew out into space and quickly vanished from sight. I focused on one and immediately looked away. They were dead or dying, which was all I had wanted to check on anyway.

I didn’t want to gain a reputation for unnecessary cruelty.

Ordo stepped up close, walking slowly, with great effort. He tapped his helmet to indicate our com link. “I take ship, fly to help. You stay on hull, I catch you up to next ship.”

I was cold. Terribly cold. In spite of my stone skin adaptations to space exposure, I was getting close to my limit.

Thankfully, the ship was intact, just missing some of its solar gatherer arms, and airlock. Ordo’s suit would be enough for him to pilot it through combat. Besides, now the encounter was even. There were only three ships left.

Admiral Omen blew the engines out on the closest, as I clambered over the hull to the front, where I could launch to the rapidly approaching fighter Ordo was chasing. It had turned back to support the other craft, in an attempt to engage and distract the Sand Star. My eyes tracked the tiny movement until it grew to loom over us. I focused, jumped, and the suit dragged me through space to the fighter's hatch.

It was tiny, a single pilot craft with a bubbled cockpit rising from the center of the winged stiletto cigar shape of its hull. I landed with a thud, blinking away the icicles in my eyes, and reached for the canopy’s release.

The orc inside reached for a sidearm, but I pulled the hatch’s release too fast. The hatch blew up and forward, on a hinge that held it wide open, while the atmosphere vented out, along with his sidearm. The pilot stayed in his seat, but his eyes bulged in fear at me. I reached into the cockpit and unclipped his belt, before smashing his faceplate and throwing the asphyxiating orc out into open space.

“BuyMort, I’d like to sell that body,” I growled as I climbed on board the ship. “And his gun.”

The cockpit sealed, and heated air steamed from the internal vents to fill the cockpit with atmosphere again. I sighed in relief and took several deep breaths, while glancing at the controls. It was easy to pilot at least, with a touch screen autopilot that already had the other ships in the area locked in. I just pointed the ship at the one I wanted, and pressed the button to catch up.

Acceleration pushed at me again, as my new fighter altered our course and aimed to catch up with our opponents. The chase continued to increase in speed, as each ship was constantly accelerating.

I quickly passed Ordo and the Rumbler, as they corralled the vessel the Sand Star had shot, using the Rumbler’s arms, and both ship’s engines, to correct and slow the vessel for recovery.

The Sand Star chased our last victim, my new eyes zoomed in massively to show me the drive flares in the distance, and I pushed the fighter toward them. Its weapon systems said they were all armed, though the ship only had twin autocannons mounted on its belly. It was almost like a converted atmospheric fighter. The body of the ship even looked like one.

I ignored the ship’s weapons, they would be worthless in most encounters, let alone this one. I just needed to get close enough.

As I approached the two ships, they came into clearer focus. We were chasing an oblong brick of a ship, with slanted openings at front and rear. The rear slant held their drives, all five of the small fusion engines burning to beat hell. In front was a wall of missile launcher tubes. Dozens of the small missiles could be fired from the modest-looking cruiser.

A quick burst of barely visible dust from the Sand Star, and one of the rear drives blew out in a spectacular blue fireball at the rear of the ship. With the press of a button, I set the ship to follow my target at a safe distance, and mentally prepared myself for the boredom that was about to follow.

The Sand Star’s attack had put the ship into a spin, which increased in speed as I followed and altered my course every so often to stay with the vessel. Its other engines were still firing, which was increasing both the speed they were traveling at, and the spin they were experiencing.

After a few minutes of following the ship, I began to worry it was going to tear itself apart.

With a stutter, the engines cut out, and puffs of air began to emit from the ship's sides. Rhythmically. I watched as its spin began to slow, and the engine's glow died down. What I could read of the instrumentation in my new ship told me when the ship’s propulsion systems went offline, and my own ship’s ability to follow it was made easier.

The autopilot had been doing most of the work anyway, once I locked it on and told it to pursue, but now I was able to exit the ship without concern, and go over to investigate the other one. I made sure my settings were as I wanted them, then popped the hatch and floated away from my ship toward the other.

Once I was aboard, I could feel the still-present spin. It was heavy, but nowhere near as bad as it had been for a few moments. Once I reached the airlock, I nearly tore it free to get inside, but stopped as I realized I knew nobody on board the ship could remain alive.

My new implant was helping my already-present knowledge be more useful. I could access the information I wanted from my mind, without any of the usual struggle or effort of sifting through memories or trying to narrow my focus. The information just sprang to mind as I required it.

Nobody was left alive on the ship because without a starfish suit’s gravity harness, nobody could have survived that spin for that long. With a quick thought to non-universe normal bodies and the proliferation of non-normative physics within BuyMort, I decided to check by crawling up the ship’s hull to its bridge area, an armored bump raised from the front, with translucent metallic windows.

I tapped on the window with a finger before peering inside, but the bridge crew was all dead. Floating, strapped in their chairs, with thin bubbles and streams of blood trickling from their eyes, ears, and noses. The ship’s computer must have kicked in and stopped the spin, after the drives cut out.

Seemed like the ship had fail-safes to prevent its own destruction from a violent spin, but none to avoid the death of its crew from the same threat. The ship was a Dearth Conglomerate cruiser, so I decided that made sense, and that I was too cold to continue my investigation any longer.

I shook my head and turned to look at where my other recently acquired ship should be. It was a disorienting task and would have been impossible without my Aimed Shot upgrade, but I quickly found the fighter again, and focused on it, lifting off the hull of the still-spinning missile boat and floating toward it to return.

I flew back to the fighter’s cockpit and let it warm me back up and breathe normally again. The ship was still maintaining distance and speed to the now slowly spinning missile ship, so I put my arms behind my head and waited.

Within an hour, Ordo and the Sand Star found us. I’d begun broadcasting as soon as the battle was over, and they’d followed my signal to the other two vessels I’d captured. Once Admiral Omen had broken off his attack in the Sand Star and fallen back, I had assumed he had gone to assist Ordo, and I’d been right.

Once all of the ship transfers were complete, and we had BlueCleave pilots aboard each, limping or being towed home, I sat at my station on the Sand Star’s bridge and watched as Admiral Omen entered.

“Well, Admiral,” I said. “Congratulations and thank you. We have our fleet.”

The shorter man scowled but nodded. “We have the start of a fleet. I would like to continue the operation, outside of the Sol system.”

“What do you have in mind?” I asked.

“There is a known pirate band in the Tertiary system. TransPoCo has standing bounties on them, but they’re too well armed for most locals to attempt an attack against,” he said.

I nodded and frowned. “Yeah, that sounds perfect. Is the Sand Star up to it?” I asked.

Admiral Omen nodded, once. “Yes. The portals are long range, however.”

“And those are in short supply, with high demand, at the moment,” I added.

“Which is why I propose taking the fleet with me. I can command from the Sand Star, and the rest can act as support and recovery vessels,” he said. The military man stood at the side of the captain’s chair, arms behind his back and spine ramrod straight.

I stared at him for a long minute, thinking. “We need fleet activities here in Sol system. Security, and we’re over due to show some strength in the skies above Mars and Venus. Plus we have to start working on Storage soon, I’m going to need some ships for that task.”

Admiral Omen shook his head. “Frivolities. Make your presence felt diplomatically, or economically. Your man Axle is good for that. By the time you need ships for Storage, they will be ready.”

I nodded. “Axle is good, isn’t he? You really think that’ll suffice? TransPoCo could just take our MortBlock claims, if you take the fleet out-of-system.”

“I will return. With more ships, better armed,” he said. A small smile creased one corner of his lips. “Let them, if they dare. It will justify the taking of all their lands in response.”

I blinked in surprise at that and took a breath. “Woah there, I have plans for TransPoCo, we cannot get into a war with them.”

Admiral Omen nodded. “Understood. If provided appropriate funding, the fleet would be able to return with little notice, if needed in the Sol system. Our job in Tertiary’s system is piecemeal anyway, to pick apart the pirates and claim their ships. We can leave it and come back, as needed.”

“True. Alright, I’m sold. Our flex account is flush lately, we can afford the fees.” I sat in my seat and thought for another moment before nodding. “Yep, make it happen, Admiral.”

Admiral Omen straightened and saluted, thumping his chest with a fist. My left eye twitched, and I frowned.

“What am I, Omen?” I asked, after a long pause.

The man frowned and narrowed his eyes. “The leader of this affiliate, Warlord of Earth.”

I nodded, lips pursed. “Just another dictator to follow?”

Admiral Omen took a sharp breath in and met my eyes but did not immediately respond.

“I mean no offense. In my position, I just have to ask,” I said with a shrug. I remained casually seated. “I need to know why those who follow me do so. Nothing personal.”

“Be that the case, then no,” Admiral Omen said. “You are not merely another dictator for me to follow. I believe in your stated goals, to preserve human life, and ensure a peaceful existence on Earth.”

He stayed silent for a long moment, before adding, “and I betrayed the last dictator I served. I would do the same to you, were you to deserve it.”

I nodded, frowning in thought. “I appreciate that, Admiral. Thank you for your candor.”

The door to the bridge slid open, and Thresher stepped on board, raising a hand to salute Admiral Omen.

“Ah, Captain Thresher,” he said. “Good, I’ll need you to command the fleet’s flagship.”

“Aye, Admiral,” the big man said. He turned to face me and nodded once. “Warlord.”

“Why does everyone keep calling me that?” I sighed, standing and shaking my head.

“It is your title,” Admiral Omen said over his shoulder. “Dislike it or not as you please, but do not fail to live up to it. Lest we all suffer.”

I stretched as I walked by. “Yeah, yeah, I know.” Before leaving the bridge, I clapped Thresher on the shoulder. “Good to see you again, Captain. And don’t worry, we’ll get you a bigger ship soon.”

Chapter 57

We were low on portals, and there were no immediate demands for my presence, so I stayed on board the Sand Star until it returned to Nu-Earth via Elevator Station. The journey took a bit under a day, and I spent the time reading. I devoured my own copy of Sun Tzu and immediately found the translations Axle had spoken of, reading them next.

In the copy from Neolithic Earth in particular, all of the warrior-bureaucrats who had made up the original authors of the Sun Tzu had been part of BuyMort, and this altered the text significantly. The lessons were still familiar but felt specialized because of the system they operated within.

My ability to focus on the concepts and remember them was intoxicating. Reading was as much fun as it used to be when I was a little kid. And I absorbed everything. Once I had finished with three different translations of Sun Tzu, I moved onto language primers. Specifically, hobb and Nah’gh.

Helping me along in the task was Petalingo — Kickstart your language skills today with one of over 1,000,000,000,000,000 languages ranging from Glop Glorp SlimeOrb Speak to the clicks and clacks of the Betrazian Insectoid Collective. All languages are at your fingertips . . . and a free trial cranial upload of basic language phrases and alphabetical understanding today!

The upload felt like a sneeze that just wouldn’t come, and I stood there with a comical half-snarl on my face, tapping my foot impatiently as the words and grammar flooded into my left hemisphere.

When it finished, I sneezed, gasped, sneezed again, bit my tongue, and yowled like an angry polecat.

But it was worth it.

Ordo was pleasantly surprised when I started grunting phrases at him in his own language. The hobb language came easily, and I had the vocabulary of a small child by the time we finished our deacceleration in anticipation of docking.

When we arrived, sliding in the oversized bay doors that granted access to the interior of Elevator Station, I was pleased to see the church vessels had shipped out.

We’d made the system safe since their arrival, so no escort back to the gate was required. Sol was quickly becoming a respectable place to do business, and our ever rising credit rating paved the way.

I walked through the docking platforms toward the elevator but stopped on my way through the main promenade. A new painting, demarcated by over-sized scorch marks on the titanium hull, had gathered a small crowd. I joined them to look at it.

The young Nah’gh woman who had set up a small, one-serpent protest of our polluted planet, was immortalized in Mel’s art. Her protest boards and a sign held in her own arms were clearly visible, and the young Nah’gh woman’s likeness was uncanny. Mel had stylized her, of course, but the resemblance was obvious. She was holding her sign at the backs of the departing church delegations, shouting wordlessly as the distant, painted figures ignored her while she burned.

It was a mural that extended down the primary foot-traffic ramp to the elevator. I’d not even known she visited Elevator Station, but Mel had made sure the hopeless protest would be seen by thousands of people.

A young member of the church, screaming to be heard, the flames of her passionate cries etched into my expensive bulkheads.

I frowned at that thought, but my upgraded mind raced to inform me that Mel had likely improved the overall value of Elevator Station, and that bulkhead in particular, by a significant mortie amount. If I needed to for political or financial reasons, I could sell it and have the bulkhead replaced.

With a nod, I scanned the entire mural into my memory. Mel’s initials were near the bottom corner, somehow etched into the titanium alloy. Tiny, almost too small to see, even for me. The subject was the important part, not the artist.

Still, I had to wonder how she’d managed to scratch my hull so effectively.

I shook my head and walked through the crowds of people, toward the elevator. As Nu-Earth’s primary port of entry, Elevator Station saw a lot of foot traffic. It hadn't under Dearth, but the significant opportunities offered under Silken Sands meant that when we opened the gates, aliens and humans from every corner of BuyMort came to live and work on the new world.

Since we’d started winning the Sleem battles, our military recruitment program was never short of recruits. Hobbs streamed to us steadily, but orcs unfriendly to the House of Gar, and plenty of humans from various worlds were also called to join us.

Still, the hobbs outnumbered them at least a hundred to one. We were building a proper horde. There were even BlueCleave waiting quarters, for recent arrivals who wished to sign up and had to stay in orbit while their recruitment went through our system.

We fed and housed ‘em, kept ‘em warm and breathing while they offered their undying fealty to our military structure. Then their names and employee identification ran through the hobbs collected database of missions, operations, and action reports to see what kind of potential soldier they were dealing with.

Once the whole thing was done, a recruitment officer, who lived permanently on Elevator Station, would deliver the new recruits welcome packages and orders to their assignment. Usually that meant Prescott for training and further assessment, before a final assignment to one of our hundreds of burgeoning cities across the globe.

Business was racing to cover the planet again, since BuyMort had wiped out most of the planet’s previous occupants, and then Kraken had shuffled the continents, literally. The earthquakes that creature unleashed changed the planet's topography forever.

None of the new arrivals seemed to mind though, as entire cities sprang up out of nothing, over the course of a few days or weeks. We had countless affiliates and fellow church associates vying for space to set up shop, utilize local resources and workers, and become part of the profitable new world.

So a lot of eyes were on me as I walked through the crowds. My reflective chromed helmet was up, and my new eyes picked out several overt and covert glances shot my way. Most were nervous about my presence, some were excited. A local celebrity viewing made the traffic and business on my station all the better.

My new ships were docked in the military portion of the station’s docking rings, with hobb crews already hard at work repairing and refitting the vessels. Axle had been good enough to cut an extra portion of the flex account to the fleet effort, so we had plenty of excellent upgrades to work with.

The small fighter in particular BlueCleave was determined to make useful, in spite of its poorly designed nature. A fresh set of guns was already being pushed toward the little ship on a gravity sled. They looked like oversized flamethrowers.

I shook my head and looked away from the ship. Whatever, at least it was fast. We could use it as a long-range scout, if nothing else.

BlueCleave hobbs swarmed in the military hangar bay, clambering all over the new ships that had arrived, upgrading and reinforcing them. Better engines for some, weaponry adjustments for others. Most ships were being fueled and resupplied too, for our BlueCleave crews. All of this was happening under Admiral Omen’s direct supervision.

The hobbs had come to admire Admiral Omen nearly as much as they admired me. They agreed that I was tougher, but Omen just might be the smartest human in the rapidly growing fleet. I approved of their assessment, and primarily agreed with it. Admiral Omen’s leadership had snatched me a rudimentary fleet, and his plans for more ships were exactly what we needed.

I just hoped he would be ready to go by the time we had to hit Storage. That battle was going to be nasty, and I planned on using some of the new ships to fight it.

Once I was done walking the station, I took an elevator car down with a group of new recruits. The chatter in the car was subdued because of my presence, but what there was of it seemed excited. New world, new possibilities, new lives.

Nu-Earth.

Where my girlfriend's family now lived.

I sighed and lifted into the air, before plummeting slowly down the elevator. Fast enough to be uncomfortable, but not fast enough to generate reentry plasma. I’d received a handful of messages from Molls while I was gone, including one that came close to accusing me of leaving for space to intentionally avoid them during that delicate time in our now-entangled lives.

Being mated was something a bit stronger than just dating, in Nah’gh culture. It wasn’t quite the formal marriage contract, which was viewed as a bit more of a business complication, as opposed to any kind of emotional bond.

But mating was different. That meant you shared a heart, in significant ways. So I diverted my course to fly in over the Shevalanth Ranch, instead of going home.

I had already freshened up on the ship. Admiral Omen had immediately installed zero-gravity hygiene stations on all of the new ships when he became fleet admiral.

I saw the root structure house from a distance, but the new fencing took me by surprise. It was extravagant and even gilded, in some places. Maer was the one who made them their home, so she was the one making these decisions about their fence.

Molls was training me during our conversations, but the training was actually managing to stick this time.

So I knew Maer was spending absurd amounts of morties on gilded fencing, while I knew that she was upset about a lack of easy funding. Those two things decided they couldn’t live in my head at the same time, and I fixated on a possible solution while I flew in to land in their driveway.

It was safe to assume that Maer cared a great deal about their public perception. She had mutilated her own body for the sake of it, amputating her extra long tail and capping it with gold. The elaborate fencing around their land was another form of that self-mutilation.

She couldn’t stop spending morties to make it look like she didn’t care about spending morties. To make it appear as though they had an endless well of them. But each of their decisions that lead to loss of status drove the Nah’gh matron nearly mad with stress.

They were short on morties, after a succession of bad losses, and large expenditures to keep up public appearances.

But that was alright. I could fix that. And I would.

Chapter 58

Molls slithered out from the building’s front door, offset with the driveway, and raced over to me. She was wearing her mother’s armor, with the helmet tucked under one arm. I caught her in the hug she desired and held her for a long moment while she sniffled over my shoulder.

“She’s worse than ever,” Molls whispered, before pulling away and sniffling her tears away. “I don’t know how to handle her anymore, Tyson.”

I shook my head and sighed, squeezing Molls’ waist reassuringly. “Go home,” I said. “I can handle them, I kind of like your family.” When she gaped at me in surprise, her scales flashing bright orange, I just smiled up into her beautiful face.

“BuyMort’s Spaghetti! You’re serious, aren’t you?” Molls finally said, after staring at me for a long moment.

I almost flinched at her attempt to include my Pastafarianism, but she couldn’t understand a religion based on the satirization of other religions. She thought I worshiped pasta, genuinely, and it was just too sweet of her to get mad at, so I ignored it. One of the ways her innocence showed, though it was becoming increasingly rare.

“Your dad is harmless, and kind of sweet, in his own terrible way,” I said, shrugging. “And your mom is . . . well, I don’t really know yet. I think she’s just trying, in her own twisted, perverse way, to protect you from me.”

“And once she gets to know you, you really think she’ll be better?” Molls asked, green flooding in to replace the orange. Green meant impatience, but it often represented confusion as well, I knew.

A thousand memories of Molls’ color changes flitted through my head, collating themselves into categories, with learned context added to each as appropriate. Like little memory files I could select by concentrating on them, which would then expand as soon as I did. Her color shifts were suddenly as plain as day for me to read, and I felt a flush of embarrassment at the realization.

Her people were genetically abused. Coded to be the slaves and pleasure toys of another, higher species from their world. Her scales told on her emotions, and it meant she wasn’t able to conceal how she felt about anything. Ever. It was hell for her, and I felt guilty for being able to read her emotions.

I gently kissed her cheek and smiled. “No. But I think I know how to handle her without making things worse.”

In the doorway, I saw her mother’s silhouette appear to slam the door shut.

“It’s too cold,” I said. “That’s part of why she’s so mad. It’s the dead of winter. But with March right around the corner, we’re going to start warming back up. I think your family will enjoy summer.”

Molls blinked away her tears and nodded, her scales lightening in color. The orange and green faded, leaving a solid core of blue behind, which I knew meant depression. When it filled the scales, it meant active, extreme sadness. But reduced to a dull glow at the center of her scales, the blue meant lasting depression.

Before I could say anything, the garage door slid open. It hitched part way up and stalled, as a mechanical engine inside their garage screamed in protest. Finally the machine coughed, and the door finished its upward movement, revealing Molls’ father Gyuru standing aside a new vehicle.

It was a BlueCleave roller, with luxury modifications. They’d gotten the Dearth assembly facility back online shortly after we’d taken the city, but only recently had BlueCleave bothered selling any of the vehicles they produced with it. Usually they were folded into the structure of the ever-growing army, but even BlueCleave wasn’t above taking a pile of morties for a custom order, it seemed.

The roller’s broad front windshield was heavily tinted, but I could see the luxury upgrades in the interior from the road. The oversized leather seating was a bit ostentatious. As was the paintjob, which reminded me of a Nahgah sunset with its swirling colors.

Gyuru waved cheerily and slithered toward us. He wore an oversized coat that extended down to the tip of his tail. I saw heat shimmers from the top to the bottom of the article of clothing.

“Gyuru, my friend,” I said, smiling broadly as Molls slid back from me. “Apologies for the weather! You’ve made your home in winter, unfortunately.”

The older Nah’gh nodded and smiled back at me. “Please tell me this is as cold as it gets on your world,” he jokingly said.

“Here, certainly. We’ll begin our warming season soon. I assure you, you’ll love the summers,” I said, walking closer to briefly clasp hands with my friend. He retracted his arm into his heated coat as quickly as I released it.

“Come!” Gyuru said. “Allow me to provide you a tour of this lovely patch of land.”

I smiled and nodded, and the older Nah’gh slithered out onto their new driveway to show me around. Molls smiled and lifted off into the sky. Gyuru watched after her.

The entire area was nothing but a patch of Arizona desert. Some scrub and cacti populated the stretch of land, but otherwise the only thing of note was the house that had been dropped in the middle of it.

They’d paved a road from the driveway up to a nearby abandoned highway, which wove through the desert and connected to a freeway into Prescott. Only some of the area was even paved, and what pavement remained was damaged and cracked from the earthquakes Kraken had caused.

I made mental notes of it all, as Gyuru walked me in a long, slow circle around his lot. He had big plans.

In the eyes of my Nah’gh friend, the empty desert was destined to hold a major greenhouse in one portion, where they could grow some comforts from home. In another, Gyuru had several fantasies to tell about the spider ranch he was looking forward to tending.

As we walked and slithered, I became more and more aware of a growing discomfort within the older Nah’gh. When we approached the root-cluster house once more, it grew palpable, and Gyuru became silent.

Finally I turned and smiled. “Maer has decided against welcoming me into your home at this moment, hasn’t she?”

Gyuru nodded violently, his expression awash with relief. “Yes, I am sorry to admit. She shames me by making me refuse entry to our own planetary host,” he said.

“No,” I laughed, shaking my head. I clapped an arm around Gyuru’s shoulders in a friendly embrace. “You’ve only just arrived, and I cannot imagine the house is up to her standards of cleanliness. I understand completely, my friend! You’ve nothing to be ashamed of at all.”

I stepped away and shrugged, friendly smile firmly in place. “I was mostly coming to make sure you, Haevert, and Maer are settling in alright, and to see this plot of land. Make sure my agencies didn’t rip you off.”

Gyuru blinked at me in confusion, and I grinned from one side of my mouth.

“Too much, anyway,” I said with a wink.

Gyuru burst out laughing and nodded rapidly. “Indeed warlord, indeed!” he chuckled, before turning to head into his garage again. Once inside, he turned back and nodded once more at me.

I lifted off the ground and flew away as the door slid into place, miming the root structure around it. Once high enough in the air, I began a slow, lazy circle of Prescott, starting with the tower. I quickly scanned it with my new and improved eyes, determining that Molls was not likely home, based on what I could see of our penthouses interior.

While I casually searched for Molls, I called an unusual name on my contacts list; D’lon Stanche.

The former billionaire had met BuyMort by establishing a safe haven for the wealthy, his former friends and contacts within the millionaire/billionaire crowd. He’d built a small resort, in the Siberian tundra where they were physically removed from most of the chaos happening surrounding BuyMort’s arrival on Nu-Earth.

All of that went away when Kraken arrived and sunk their tentacles into the Mariana Trench. The behemoth creature triggered a series of global earthquakes. Many of Elon’s tenants died, and his resort was destroyed beyond any ability to salvage. He’d come to Prescott with those who remained in his care, following an open call for shelter I had made to all humans still on Nu-Earth.

MortMobile eyed me suspiciously when I asked the psychic deity to call D’lon, then glared at me in open shock when I corrected myself and asked him to call ‘Mr. Stanche,’ using the correct pronunciation of his name. The hobbs liked calling him Mr. Stenchy, which I knew drove him nearly insane with frustration.

“Terrified, reluctant acceptance,” MortMobile told me, before turning his head aside and forming a tunnel lined with gray fog.

D’lon’s immaculately trimmed facial hair filled my screen, and he gave me his best, most winning smile. “Good afternoon, Mr. Dawes!” he exclaimed. “What an unexpected pleasure this is, how can I be of service?”

“Glad you asked, Mr. Stanche,” I replied. “I’d like to ask a favor, if that’s alright. I need something done. Something specific, and it’s something that only you can accomplish for me.”

The wealthy socialite went through several complex emotions on the other end of the screen. He covered his shock reaction with a practiced affect, turning it to something akin to giddy excitement instead. Greed followed his excitement, naturally, but was quickly chased away by fear when he remembered who he was talking to.

“Well, of course, Mr. Dawes,” he crooned. “Favors are my specialty.”

“This one certainly will be,” I said. “There’s a new family living on the outskirts of Prescott. The Shevalanths.”

D’lon nodded, carefully stroking his short, trimmed beard. “I have heard of them. From Nahgah, aren’t they? That’s high society, in BuyMort.”

“Indeed it is. I’ve seen it myself,” I answered. “I need you to throw them a welcome party, and make sure all of your formerly rich and powerful guests attend. Those who have retained their faculties, anyway.”

After Kraken’s arrival, more than one of D’lon’s rich guests lost whatever wealth generation they had managed to establish, and with it, their minds. A few had ended their own lives. Some had left the planet, to various ends, and one had turned on us entirely, working for The Dearth Conglomerate against Silken Sands.

That had ended in tragedy for her, and the community never forgot that she had left in my custody and was never heard from again. There were even rumors I had fed her to one of my various alien pets.

“O-of course!” D’lon said, after far too long a pause. “A welcome party? That’s all?”

I activated my BuyMort menu and started the lengthy process of commanding it through the various menus to our flex account with my eyes. “Yes, I merely want them to feel welcomed on Nu-Earth, and you’re the only one I trust to do it right.”

That caught him off guard, and the man blinked. “You . . . you do?” he asked.

I nodded and flicked five-hundred million morties to his affiliate’s account. “That’s your budget, make sure you make them feel at home with it,” I said. D’lon’s eyes bulged when he pulled up his own accounts and saw my deposit to him.

“I . . .” he swallowed and nodded. “I will not fail,” he whispered.

“Study them first, D’lon,” I said. “They’ll have dietary and drink preferences to learn, as well as ambient temperature needs. It’ll be a warm party.”

He nodded, before producing a small, expensive-looking leather notepad and began scribbling in it. “Of course. I’ll forget the ice sculpture, in that case.” The man stuck his tongue out while writing, then looked up as though in thought. “No . . . no, the ice sculptures are more important than ever!”

“Now you’re getting it,” I said. “Just be sure it's appropriate. That it makes them feel important, that they are the stars.”

D’lon nodded, adding something else to his notepad. “Of course. Alien VIPs. May I ask if this is your partner's family? Rumors swirl,” he said, waving a hand as if that explained it.

“Yes,” I replied. “And it’s important that they do not know I had any hand in this. Critical, I would say.”

D’lon paled instinctually but nodded and wrote something else in his notepad. “Of course. Discretion is my specialty.”

I frowned. “I thought favors were your specialty.” I said.

D’lon blinked rapidly and I saw his pulse rate rise, just watching the gentle movement beneath the surface of his throat. Then something clicked, and he smiled easily. “One specialty begets the other. Rarely are favors something one wants publicized, after all.”

I smiled at him, and the man’s blood pressure reduced. “That’s what I like to hear. How long do you think you’ll need?”

“Oh no time at all, three days perhaps?” he replied, shrugging. “I’ll set a few things in motion, then reach out to the Shevalanths with an invite. See when they’re available and work the rest of it around their schedule.”

“Thank you, D’lon,” I said, gaining altitude as I began my final pass of the city. It was unlikely Molls had stayed in town after flying away from her parent’s place, but I wanted to be thorough. The more I flew, the more I felt like I knew where she was anyway.

“Oh no, thank you Mr. Dawes. I feared I had done something to elicit your ire,” he chuckled. “It seemed as though you didn’t like me overmuch, before.”

“Oh that? That was residual cognitive bias, from the mass death, ecological devastation, psychological manipulation, and emotional torment that the billionaire class of earth perpetuated upon the rest of us, before BuyMort,” I told him. His face sunk, and the color drained from his cheeks again.

“But I’m over all that now. Different world, right? Why bother holding grudges?” I asked, smiling gently.

D’lon Stanche swallowed once, hard, and then started nodding. It was slow at first but grew in intensity until he could speak. “No reason at all. At least, none that I can think of,” he squeaked.

“Your in-laws shall have the finest party this planet has ever seen,” D’lon said. “I will see to it personally.”

“If you do,” I replied, getting his attention one final time. “You won’t owe me any rent for two months.”

His eyes widened again, and I gave a thought for the extremes of emotions I was putting him through before delivering the final incentive. “Including utilities.”

“Most generous,” he said. “I appreciate the task, and I will not let you down.” His tone of voice told me I didn’t need to threaten the man any further. He would do anything I asked him to at that point.

I smiled as we disconnected the call, and then turned my flight out toward the Pacific Ocean. I knew where to find Molls, and headed toward the location at high speed, cracking a sonic boom once I was far enough out of the city to avoid damaging anything.

Chapter 59

Within a few seconds, I slowed my flight and brushed the residual scorch of plasma from my shoulders. She was where I thought she would be, hovering over the mountains just short of Morro Bay, California. Her glittering armored tail hung down low, twinkling with afternoon sunlight to match the bay below us.

Something about the single, oversized boulder jutting out of the ocean just before the shore appealed to Molls. Her world was without oceans, and the natural beauty of Morro Bay called to her when she was stressed.

I slid up to her side as I dismissed my nanite helmet, making sure I approached from an angle she would notice. With both of us still in flight, she reached out to me, and I moved into her embrace. We hugged in the sky above the bay, watching the waves lazily slap both the shore and the great boulder that was Morro Rock.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Why,” I replied. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

She sobbed and clutched at me. “It’s mother!” she exclaimed. “Showing up in our home now! There’s no place within BuyMort I can be safe from her any longer!”

I shook my head. “No, this is our world. Yours and mine. She’s just lashing out.”

“But why?!” Molls asked, suddenly angry. Her scales fluctuated between red and pink. “Why does she have to ruin my life?”

“Because she doesn’t know any better,” I said. “You can’t see it, because you’re too close, but she’s jealous of you, Molls.”

My mate calmed, her tears slowing as she sniffed and looked into my eyes.

“Yes, jealous,” I continued. “She had a very different life than you, Molls, and on some level, she realizes and resents that. Everything that was hard for her is easy for you. Things that were important to her, like fitting in, mean nothing at all to you. That drives her insane to see. She cut her own tail off just to be more like the other Nah’gh. Of course she’s jealous of you.”

Molls stared into my eyes, and I watched the bad emotions drain from her scales. She sniffed and shook her head, before leaning into our aerial hug and resting her head over my shoulder. “I needed someplace safe from her,” she whispered. “And now that she’s here, I don’t have that anymore.”

I pulled back and shook my head. “I know how important that is. I can fix it, give me a moment.” I pulled away from her and summoned my helmet back. With a few quick orders on my BuyMort menu, I had an old offer from one of the new affiliates on Nu-Earth pulled up and ordered. I even paid extra for it to be portalled directly in place, and a tracking ping sent to my helmet.

The entire ordering process took less than three minutes but spent a few billion morties I hadn’t been planning on spending. I shrugged aside the cost after a thought. It would be worth the expense to make the new Australian-based affiliate happy with our business arrangement.

After all, buying a luxury satellite and paying up front for installment was a good day’s work, for most. I received confirmation telemetry from BlueCleave orbital security, on Elevator Station, and happily sent them back confirmation that the new satellite was mine, and that it should be kept on our monitoring stations but considered a non-threat.

Molls watched me, dangling in midair while I worked. Her tail twitched, and her armor’s shield flickered in the sea breeze. It was cold, but her armor’s heater glowed, and she appeared comfortable. Just curious.

“What are you up to over there?” she asked.

I chuckled and closed my menus. The waypoint was already uploaded, and video footage of the new satellite being beamed in by a BuyMort pod had been sent to me. Everything was done. Money may not have been able to buy happiness, but morties certainly could.

I extended my hand to Molls. “Would you like to see our new hideout?”

Her eyes widened. “Our new what?”

“Can your armor handle going into space?” I asked, grinning at her.

Molls frowned but nodded. She flew closer and took my hand.

We rose. I set the pace, and she focused on following. Our speeds rose until the wind whipped at our bodies, before quickly fading out entirely. I felt the cold of space on my chest and turned to look at Molls.

Behind her face plate, Molls’ eyes lit up in wonder. Elevator Station grew large in the reflection of her faceplate, but we quickly moved beyond it, reaching the upper limits of Nu-Earth’s atmosphere. In my faceplate, guided by our station’s telemetry, our new apartment twinkled.

My eyes zoomed in on the satellite, and I smiled. The flex account wasn’t even suffering, and I had a new place to call home that I struggled to imagine upgrading beyond.

The entire platform was a floating mansion in a bubble. There was a landing platform, an airlock system that allowed for access to the interior, and then a dome that encased a modern brutalist structure, with a desert garden in the artificial interior biome.

My new apartment’s underside was a thick pad of infrastructure. Our life support, water recycling, and power storage were all tucked away beneath heavily armored and shielded portions of the satellites underside. Most of the snow globe-like structure’s bottom consisted of our thorium reactor, which produced power for the platform’s altitude adjustment thrusters, as well as the interior lighting and comfort mechanics.

Assuming the on-board machinery worked as intended, it would remain in a stable, low orbit, in easy eyesight of Elevator Station. Well, easy eyesight for me. The distances we were dealing with were massive, but my implants and upgrades gave me a serious advantage in being able to mentally reconcile them.

Molls gasped as we approached, and I guided her toward the airlock with a smile.

“Welcome to our new home, my love,” I said, as we floated in to land on the external platform. Molls’ shielding flickered as she landed, her eyes wide and scales vibrant purple as she took it all in.

A mansion, in our own little chunk of outer space, looking down on the natural beauty of the planet I owned. My serpentine girlfriend turned and took in the view, the planet reflecting in her oversized eyes.

We entered the airlock, and as soon as the door closed behind us I felt warm air rush in and surround us, so I dropped my helmet. The other side opened onto a sandy desert scrub plain, with cricket-song in the air. I had paid a little extra for them to include a miniature biome for the satellite. Supposedly the computer would track each of my non-invasive insect species individually and inform me if there are any problems or insecurities in my miniaturized ecosystem.

Most of which could be fixed with a quick package ordered from the selling affiliate.

The entire thing was in place for ambiance and to help the area feel normal. There was a package for random bird sounds instead, but I felt like that was creepier than it was helpful, so I went with the normal bugs package. No mosquitos, thankfully. Just fireflies, grasshoppers, a handful of crickets, and the smaller biome of micro-organisms that made the whole thing possible.

Molls removed her helmet as soon as the doors cycled open and took a deep breath. It was hot, and muggy, almost an exact replica of Nahgah’s climate, as I had requested. The entire platform was highly customizable, the dome was even programmed with a night and day function, where the tiles composing the translucent exterior could darken or lighten as needed. I had a dimmer switch for the entire thing, installed right next to the airlock's inner door.

Molls slid forward into the grass and started shedding her armor. “Tyson, tell me this isn’t a joke!” she called.

I smiled and shook my head. “It’s yours, my love. I know you need someplace to escape your mother, and I want a secure home for us anyway. Someplace just for us.”

“How can we afford this?!” she gaped, turning and taking in the entire satellite. There was a maintenance access hatch next to the airlock door, but the rest of the place was covered in a small garden and lawn, carefully cultivated to act as a home and source of nutrition for our insect population. A tiny horde of maintenance robots managed the yardwork, each no bigger than the fireflies they mixed in with.

“Easily,” I said, smiling gently at her surprised reaction. She’d always been wealthy, but this was something else, even to her.

I played with the dimmer and turned down the ambient sunlight to create a lazy dusk effect in the air around us. Sunrise or sunset was ours on command too, all I had to do was fire up the engines and move the satellite into position with the planet mostly between us and the sun, and the satellite would do the rest.

As the light dimmed, the fireflies took to the sky and became active, firing up their internal chemicals and flitting about the yard. Molls twirled in the yard, removing the last of her mother’s armor and sliding out of her thin shift in the same motion.

She stood, nude, arms outstretched as she slowly spun. At peace, at ease. Comfortable.

“My love, you may want to get dressed. I don’t think we’re immune to paparazzi here,” I said casually, as I walked past to the mansion’s main entrance. I thought briefly of my old Airstream trailer and grinned, then pushed open the doors.

“Oh, no one even knows we’re here yet,” she griped, bouncing a bit to make me smile. Still, she did gather her clothing and follow me inside.

The mansion was as nice inside as out, with a fully furnished living area for two focused on comfort and privacy. Our building was capable of closing all its shutters and projecting the view on the inside of them, in case of the aforementioned paparazzi.

I didn’t get to take in much of the rest of the house, because my Nah’gh mate required several hours of vigorous physical affection, on the rug in the foyer. She at least let me run a quick security scan, using a BlueCleave sniffer device, but the associate had delivered the product intact and unaltered. Just what was ordered and paid for.

It was good to be the Warlord of Nu-Earth.

Chapter 60

Later that night, I emerged from the airlock and floated back toward Elevator Station, leaving Molls asleep in our new Florida-King sized bed. I’d received an urgent summon from Admiral Omen, and joined the Sand Star crew as we shipped out to hunt down the next addition to our fleet.

Before she even woke up to my recorded message, with directions on how to safely leave the platform and return to Prescott, I was nearly at the Sol gate following Jupiter’s orbit.

A handful of our other ships deemed ‘ready’ by BlueCleave naval forces were following along at their own maximum safe speeds. None of them had the kind of engines our Sand Star had. Our mission was to jet out to the system Tertiary was in and get started working on their pirate issue. There was a reported group of them that watched the gate in that system, so we were the advance guard meant to break them up and scatter ‘em like billiard balls.

Of course, in the midst of chasing down the second ship, I received an emergency alert from Rayna telling me I was needed on Neolithic Earth, as another massive patch of Sleem had been discovered in the depths of the rainforest on the outskirts of Sildred City. It was approaching the city in a trail of destroyer slugs, three dozen long.

Admiral Omen nodded and looked at Ordo. “Can you handle it?”

Ordo grunted and nodded, lowering his face plate with the movement. “Yeh.”

So I portalled out, as I watched the enemy ship approaching on the main screen. It looked like a flying construction crane, layers of scaffolding and cargo boxes composing most of its hull. But then rainbow light flashed, and I was on a different Earth, in the midst of a muggy summer with an encroaching Sleem armada on the horizon.

Rayna, Tollya, and Phyllis organized an attack force, as BlueCleave regular forces rushed to establish a basic defensive barricade at the city’s edge. We had business moving back in already, wealthy clients expecting security, and furious at the lack of it before. Nobody wanted to push their panic button on a city twice, after all. It wasn’t cheap.

I was given plasma falchions, a highwater blaster, and bandoleers of specialized ammunition. Then I was pointed at a swarm of enemies, usually Sleem or pirates, and told “sic em.”

So I did. Over and over, for three days, I flitted between systems. I joined Phyllis and Doofus, along with his pack of mercenary dogs, as we killed the initial rush of the encroaching Sleem.

Then I portalled back to the Tertiary system and the bridge of the Sand Star to help Admiral Omen, Captain Thresher, and specialist Ordo as we took the pirate fleet, one by one. Again, as soon as we’d captured a handful of vessels, the hobb-crewed ships in the pirate fleet gave themselves and their ships over to our cause.

The mop up campaign in the Tertiary system took roughly a week, but at the end of it we had accumulated forty-five ships in various states for our fleet. Pirates lived rough in BuyMort, and many of the vessels were fit only for civilian use in-system.

Which was fine. We needed a transport route to Venus anyway, paying TransPoCo to pick up their own employees was starting to cut into our profits too much as the number of plantation vessels we leased rose.

I held meetings with Axle over MortMobile when I was out of system, which became expensive when it came to document signings. The physic deity in our phones could generate a laser strong enough to scorch the flesh-paper, but it seemed to take a lot out of him. I knew we weren’t the only ones using his services either, so I began making a substantive effort to refrain from using his more taxing services when I could.

Saved the affiliate some morties too. The amount of portals we could field went up, and I spent the better portion of the following weeks torn from one universe to another. Set loose upon one enemy or the other.

I spent as much time with Molls as I could. It helped me stay grounded. Anchored to my home, my family and what we were attempting to build.

The Shevalanths were honored by Prescott high-society with a welcome party, featuring ice sculptures in cold-screen shields that cascaded gentle snowflakes as the rest of the party was swelteringly hot. D’lon Stanche had not disappointed.

He used the entire fund I provided him for the party, including transportation for all the guests and a massive spread of local cuisine. The open bar was an obvious choice, and many of the wealthy guests delighted Gyuru by engaging in lugging their liquor from specially crafted ice sculptures.

Something he labeled ‘an excellently silly Nu-Earth tradition.’

Maer was even photographed enjoying herself as high society ladies preened over her wardrobe and the photos they’d sneaked of their home. Part of D’lon’s strategy for throwing the party was to hire local paparazzi to harass the Shevalanths for a couple of days prior.

It gave them a sense of importance to be hunted by those who catered to the high society tastes and gossip publications. I would have thought those affiliates would go under, but they typically had very low overhead and strangely loyal customers.

Most of that five hundred million morties I had given D’lon had funneled its way back to Silken Sands, through our various associates operating out of the ever-growing city. But it helped pay for one hell of a party anyway.

On one of my frequent trips home to visit Molls, Maer left a note at our penthouse in the Prescott tower asking us to come for dinner. When we arrived, she welcomed me properly into her home, and I brought small gifts again. This time a bottle of Tip Black Magic for Gyuru, and another pot of local flowers for Maer.

Our teams on Neolithic Earth had found a bottle of the expensive, rare liquor in the safe of a famous actor that had abandoned their property to escape the Sleem. It was a testament to the honor of my troops that they handed the insanely expensive item up the chain to me.

Gyuru and Maer both marveled at the gift, but Maer’s eyes had venom in them too. I was too successfully infiltrating her family, but at least she didn’t see my hand behind the party that had put her in a better mood.

She was still holding her head up, as the local celebrity gossip rags produced magazines only a few dozen people bothered to read. It made her feel important, gave her the perception of social power and status again. That was all she needed to feel safe. To stop lashing out at those she cared about.

Haevert receded and sulked much of the time I saw him, but I understood. The young Nah’gh’s world was deeply confusing and frightening, where it had been safe and secure in recent memory. Before his big sister got a new boyfriend. How could he help but blame me for his change in situation, now that he was living on my planet?

I just gave the young Nah’gh the space he needed.

More news came from the laboratory under Axle’s library, and more of us were folded into the knowledge of the upcoming issue with the new Sleem planet. Admiral Omen took a bit of rare Earth-side shore leave to watch a fresh presentation of the incoming planet, and its many lethal issues for us.

At the end of it, he nodded and thanked the Knowle scientists who ran the facility. When he left with Axle and me, he was silent. After we explained our only plan, he requested that I take him on an immediate visit to the brothers Del’vago. He left disappointed and would only say that he thought Izan lacked the resolve needed to do what must be done.

Our military activities continued to rapidly expand. Within three weeks of the first request for aid on Tertiary, we owned nearly a quarter of the planet’s mining operation apparatus. A wonderful, natural event occurred when we chased the Sleem out of each mine.

Those who survived joined other pockets and patches of the monsters living on Tertiary and took over other mines, and other islands. Our military sorties on Tertiary spread behind the wave of retreating Sleem, and Axle was there with cut-throat negotiating skills to claim our portion of what remained.

As he had predicted, we only got our hands on things like the manufacturing portion of the mining operation. Shipping departments, and of course, labor. But a funny thing started to happen as our influence spread.

TransPoCo shareholders started shouting down any concerns that we were spreading too fast or implementing too many changes to the operational infrastructure. They liked us, our practices led to better outputs for them. Higher profit margins for the entire operation.

Middle management that saw our take-over coming were silenced for us, internally, with no effort extended on my affiliate’s part. The shareholders in the mines wanted their higher payouts and didn’t care who ran the operations so long as they kept producing income.

Our employment practices were undeniably better than our competitors as well, so we feasted while they experienced famine, in terms of available labor. Whining and complaints started from on high about people not wanting to work, because Silken Sands offered too much in the way of amenities.

Yolara quickly shut that down in a heated round-table discussion on an evening church news program, broadcast to the entire Upper Planets Network, known on church TV as UPN. She became irate at the suggestion that our workers were lazy and reminded the rest of the talking heads at the table that nobody wanted to be exploited. Our workers made us great, she reminded them, and then asked them how much they cared about their own labor forces.

Representatives from Dearth, TransPoCo, and even the church itself were left spluttering, as the host smiled into the camera and cut to an ad break. After that specific bout of public relations warfare, I had Axle give Yolara a raise. The cost was easily covered by the spike our credit rating received as a result of the roundtable.

Our month of preparation passed, and I found myself kissing Molls goodbye as I shipped out from Elevator Station with the majority of our forces. To Storage, and war with the Sleem.

Chapter 61

The Sand Star led our hand-picked assault fleet to the Sol gate, arriving far in advance to enter the space around Storage and ensure the fleet’s secure arrival. Jada was with them. She’d taken a second upgrade to her starfish suit and accepted a captaincy, after what was reported by Morbin to be a loud fight at the library.

My bat-like friend was uncomfortable telling me much about the personal details, but it sounded like Axle and Jada had decided to take some space from one another for a while. Jada wanted to use her newly gained abilities to better aid our affiliate, and Axle couldn’t reconcile his fears about her implants and the risks they drove her to take.

The comparison to his own implants didn’t seem to register, and he continually attempted to explain quantum entanglement and potential consequences if the BuyMort system should suffer interruption or fail.

I watched my friend suffer, back on the planet I owned, through screens on a ship far away, and I thought of all the ways it was my fault.

How I had driven Axle to higher and higher levels of involvement, until he was under too much stress to maintain any kind of personal relationship. How I had then shared with him my insane plan to destroy BuyMort itself. As I watched, I could notice small signs of his own growing depression, which he hid well. The occasional moments of lowered posture, dipped ears, or a tucked tail gave away his true emotional distress.

Which I was unable to worry about. I had a small, rudimentary Dyson sphere to save.

The BuyMort portal flashed, and we arrived in high orbit of Storage’s gas giant. Hundreds of other ships splayed out below us in lines. As I looked on, one of the ships suddenly staggered as an explosion ripped one of its engines off.

The other ships moved to avoid it as it careened down in a rapid spiral before detonating entirely. The nearby church cathedral vessel guarding the gate extended its shields to cover the nearby ships, and the destroyed vessels debris scattered and burned up in the heavy shielding. At least those fees they charged came with substantive action.

Admiral Omen scanned the local com channels, always alert for attacks or ambushes, but it appeared the ship had simply been unsafe for flight, and the occupants risked it anyway, out of desperation to leave Storage.

Storage itself gleamed from the nearby planet, its many platforms twinkling with motion as they swayed slightly with the weather movement of the planet below. Part of my preparation for our large-scale mission to Storage involved studying the ancient structure.

It was composed of thousands of massive buoyancy baffles. Their physical structure was roughly the shape of a musical note. Massive, moon-sized baffles kept the entire superstructure afloat in the planet's lower atmosphere.

The weather buffeted against each of the baffles and pumped the station like a bellows, which generated power from the movement. It was inefficient, and could only generate enough power for itself, and the small handful of space stations that hovered above it in orbit.

I had thought Storage was merely a massive space station itself, with tendrils that extended down into the gas giant planet, but it was a Dyson Sphere in proper form. Merely rudimentary, tiny in comparison to their average size, and surrounding a gas giant instead of a star.

But of course, gas giants could become stars under the right circumstances, so the semantics were meaningless. The structure was drawing sufficient power from the planet to operate. However, the Sleem were moving aggressively, taking entire sections and altering the weight of the station. The power generation it could manage was under threat, and the church had done careful calculations to ensure their space stations would not be threatened, thanks to our military intervention.

BuyMort’s tiny, low-quality, functionally limping Dyson Sphere awaited salvation, and it was my job to deliver. Preferably before the Sleem broke through the barricades to a major church slum town, called Section twenty-one.

It, and sections twenty-three, twenty-four, and twenty-five were all filled with human, hobb, orc, mordren, even Nah’gh people without enough morties to string together to live on a planet.

Storage was free to live in and would feed you every twenty-four hours. It was also the only place in the BuyMort system with those parameters, so it quite naturally drew those short on morties.

The slop it delivered as food reminded me very much of the stuff Tower ate from his big rubber tubes. I tried not to think about what it likely consisted of, but my recently upgraded mind filled in the gaps for me. I was surprised at just how much I already knew.

Even if a market had no buyers, BuyMort would sometimes buy the product from said market directly. A few things were consistent sales, to BuyMort itself. Sand, stone, pretty much anything it could make carbon or silicon from. Iron. Most construction materials. Methane, too. BuyMort always wanted methane for some reason, and sulfur.

No giggling, but farts could be bottled and sold to BuyMort directly. I had read about a thriving market for it in Storage. BuyMort paid a pittance, but when it was fart for free, or fart and get paid? You did what you could to get paid.

Which leads us back to the dead bodies. An empire built on corpses.

Corpses were among BuyMort’s most stable market. It didn’t matter what kind of corpse, or what region you were selling it from, BuyMort would always buy a dead body off you if you had one to sell. And it went right back into the system.

BuyMort bought our dead, liquefied them, and fed them to Tower.

Then Tower fed himself to the yarsp, and we fed the yarsp to everybody else. A horrible, macabre circle of life that I could not un-see.

Worse yet, the church was claiming they were feeding everyone in Storage, when they were actually just letting BuyMort do it, and taking credit. And of course BuyMort was feeding people in Storage the same slop they fed Tower.

Mostly rendered Sleem as the base, hence the green, frothy consistency. But the meat, gristle, and bits of green leafy mulch were too much to bear thinking about any longer.

I built a partition in my mind and pushed the knowledge behind it. It didn’t stop me from knowing, but it made my subconscious mind’s ability to focus on the concept duller, so it helped.

The Sand Star drifted forward, falling slowly toward Storage, and the gas giant it enveloped. Silvery towers of the station glinted and twinkled, as did the weaponry of the approaching church warships.

We were met by a trio of sleek corvette class heavy assault cruisers. The big, but nimble ships formed a wide orbit around our tiny vessel and communicated coordinates for us to follow. Admiral Omen barked a few words in acknowledgement, and adjusted the ship’s course to take us in.

His skills with the vessel had improved, and I was genuinely terrified to imagine the Sand Star in combat against the church under his hand. He would lay them all to waste in seconds, and then sleep like a baby that night. The man was beyond dangerous, he was driven.

The church was putting on a show, escorting the dangerous Nu-Earth relic ship with some of their finest, to assure the rest of their customers in the region that they were in control.

But the Sand Star could destroy all three ships at the same time, without altering course. We were easily the deadliest ship in the area, most of what flew nearby was cobbled together junk, or the church's expensive, gilded craft to cast a nice comparison.

We approached a familiar space station, and as we entered its immediate range, our escort split off and flew in different directions, back to their own berths to await the rest of our fleet.

BlueCleave had over two dozen ships following, scheduled to arrive a day behind us. We were going to use the time to brief with station leadership, the church personnel who ran Storage’s day-to-day processes.

They primarily operated the Sphere’s network of blast doors, which split portions of the massive structure into more manageable sections. But they had a logistics network for deliveries and did their best to keep an eye on the trillions of inhabitants in Storage.

What that meant was something different under each manager, each section chief. The last time I had visited the station we approached, it was with Rayna, freeing her own tribe from Storage. It looked like we had gotten them out just in time too, less than a week later their former section fell to the Sleem.

An overwhelming pressure increase breached the blast doors, and they flooded the entire section.

As happened in thousands of other sections. Sleem portalled in from various worlds all over the system, stepping out of hiding in anticipation of their new world entering the system. Their hyper-evolved kin, coming to wipe us all out in a wave of burning slime.

The station’s gilded docking bay doors slid open, but Admiral Omen brought the ship to a stop directly outside of them. I nodded to the man and exited the bridge. We had planned this out, to protect the ship from the church.

There was simply no way we were going to allow their docking technology to make physical contact with our relic ship. The Sand Star and crew would remain, while I went aboard the station by myself and spoke with Storage leadership.

Again I used the starfish suit’s gravity harness to align myself with the BuyMort pod airlock, before blasting out into open space. It wasn’t as cold, which surprised me, until I noticed the heat was emanating from Storage itself, from the gas giant beneath it that shared its name.

That must have been how the station stayed at livable temperatures, the planet was hot. Still, at my distance, it felt barely better than the open space around me, so I pushed the suit and moved forward rapidly, toward the airlock awaiting us in the open hangar bay.

Aliens with wide, surprised eyes stood on the other side as I approached, tiny ice crystals forming on my bare torso. A familiar, elven face stared at me through the airlock window. The high elf Captain Ransom Broadleaf pressed a few buttons and opened the outer airlock door for me to enter.

I hovered, feeling the faint gravity provided by the size of the station, and its proximity to the nearby gas giant. Once the doors behind me closed, a warm, breathable atmosphere flooded my airlock, and I dropped my nanite helmet.

“Captain,” I said, stepping forward. “Well met, warrior. Guardian of the gates.”

I had studied some of the church races, in my rare downtime, and learned some helpful cultural influences to lean on.

He flinched, his oversized ears twitching at my words. Then the gold-skinned elf glared down at me and nodded. “Well met, traveler.” He bowed, keeping his neck stiff and never breaking eye contact. “I welcome you beyond my gates.”

“I am welcomed,” I said, meeting his stare with one of my own.

“A shame you could not dock,” Captain Broadleaf said, clasping his hands behind his back and gesturing with his chin for me to follow.

A team of workers, mostly hobb and human, wheeled expensive looking equipment away from the airlock and I chuckled as I watched them go.

“Unfortunate, I agree. Sadly, the admiral has given his orders, and the ship will not dock with any platforms or vessels, in order to maintain its mission-ready state,” I explained. “You understand.”

There was no authority they could claim to force me to land my ship for their invasive scans. The church was my boss, but MortBlocks were sacred, and I owned the ship.

“You obey your admiral’s orders?” Captain Broadleaf asked.

“As you obey yours,” I replied. We walked at a brisk pace, the elf’s long legs giving him a quick stride.

The station around us was the same, just missing all the people. A few stations were manned, but there was no crush of populated traffic. No meetings, no business being run surrounding Storage and its many inhabitants.

Just a rush to escape. The wealthy were battening their hatches, especially around Storage, the expected entry-point of the new mass of Sleem coming for us all.

“I am beneath my admiral's rank,” Captain Broadleaf said.

“And I am beneath my admiral’s expertise,” I immediately answered, shrugging when he looked at me sharply.

“How else do you think we’ve acquired such success, Captain Broadleaf?” I asked. “If not following expertise?”

The tall elf stopped in his tracks and stared at me for a long moment. He squared his jaw with a click, nodded, and continued walking. “By wielding relics you don’t understand,” he muttered.

“Yes, yes, of course. We don’t understand them so well we’re here to save Storage with them on your behalf,” I said.

Captain Broadleaf stopped at a doorway and seethed, standing at attention while he pressed a button. The door slid open, and I smiled up at the elf while I walked past him.

In the room, even hotter, wet air greeted me, as did several Nah’gh sitting around a small conference table. A single, ornately decorated delf man sat at the back, in another room, separate from us behind translucent metal, and comfortably seated in a golden throne. His fingers were steepled, and he smiled at me from behind his glowing, red eyes.

Chapter 62

I sat down in the hot seat, situated at the front and center of the table, with my back directly to the door. It was the most vulnerable position in the room, and they had made sure to sit me in it.

Introductions were made, but I didn’t bother learning any of the Nah'ghs' names. They weren’t important; they were merely the mouthpieces for the delf at the rear, in the separated section. He never spoke, only smiled and occasionally raised his wine glass to his lips.

The first Nah’gh to speak asked me where my fleet was. I told him it was en-route, and that our offensive would begin the following day. That we had arrived early to brief with church counsel on the matter of Storage’s defense.

The next Nah’gh to speak asked me why the Sand Star had arrived ahead of schedule, and I sighed. The rest of the meeting went in a similar direction. They asked me to explain myself in five different directions at a time, from five different questionnaires, at the same time.

I calmly sat and answered their questions, over and over, telling them in as many different ways as I could that we were no threat. The delf stared at me the whole time, his gaze and smile never flinching.

“How many troops are being committed to the primary defensive force?” a Nah’gh manager asked.

“Variable. We’ll begin with five thousand for the entire defense but may increase those numbers as needed by the project,” I answered.

He nodded, shuffling papers before him.

“And how many troops are being committed to the secondary defensive force?” another Nah’gh manager asked me.

I swallowed my anger and replaced it with a tight, impatient smile. “There is no secondary defensive force. I just told you that five thousand to start is our entire troop deployment number. Secondary deployments have not been considered yet.”

“And that number may rise after engagement with the enemy?” A third Nah’gh manager asked.

“Yes,” I growled, not bothering to look at them. Instead, I kept eye-contact with the delf in the other room, behind them.

He wanted to stare at me, so I stared back. After a few rounds of intentionally antagonizing inquiries, I crossed my arms and sat back in the chair.

“Shut up!” I barked at the Nah’gh in the room with me. “Low level managers were sent to do this questioning, mere staff?” Then I turned and addressed the delf in the other room. “You’re wasting time. What do you actually want here?”

The delf blinked, his mouth hanging open in surprise. Control returned to him almost instantly, but it was too late. I had seen it, and won our stupid little game of domination. Sadly, that kind of thing mattered, when it came to dealing with bureaucracy. Within a bureaucracy like the church’s, everyone wanted to know where they stood.

As warlord, it was my job to make sure they knew they were beneath me, no matter the deal at hand. The Nah’gh managers around me stuttered and shied back, muttering a variety of responses I couldn’t be bothered to pay attention to. The game was up, I knew they didn’t hold any real power on this station, so I addressed the delf directly instead.

“Are you trying to test my loyalty? Trying to annoy me to provoke a violent response for the cameras? I’ve been summoned here to do a job, and you idiots sit around jabbering about deployment numbers and scheduling questions? What do you actually want?” I asked the delf.

His expression darkened, but with a reluctant nod, he rose to his feet. The delf’s face went blank, and I stared as he put on a carefully practiced casual air, while picking up a translucent plastic sheet and scanning it with nearly bored eyes. He glanced at a monitor to his side, then compared the sheet. From an overhead speaker, his voice resonated, smooth yet chilling.  “Merely comparing scans of your relic, warlord,” he said, calmly. “Be not afraid. This is on behalf of the House of Sheeragore.”

I nodded. “Understood, thank you. Please, continue. Just do away with the pretense.”

The delf nodded back. “Not that the scans show anything, of course. The same as your last visit.” He addressed the Nah’gh in the room with me next. “Well? You all heard him.”

The Nah’gh managers rose as one and left the room.

“Would you submit your ship for us to investigate as well?” the delf asked. Again, calmly, casually. As if he were merely on the clock.

“Unfortunately I cannot. Orders,” I replied.

“Ah, yes. Your admiral,” he said. “Tell me, do you believe your admiral’s orders to be of more importance than those of Lady Sheeragore?”

“Of course not,” I answered at once. I raised a finger pointedly, emphasizing my words. “But. We were given a mission, and we cannot allow any individual, affiliate, or associate to interfere with that mission.”

“And a basic engineering scan of your ship would interfere with that mission?” he asked, peering at me over the sheet of plastic.

“Absolutely,” I replied, again meeting his eyes and holding them. “Without question.”

The delf calmly set his plastic sheet down and turned to fully face me. “Insubordinate.”

I shrugged. “An opinion, nothing more. Perhaps one held by important and powerful people. And yet, if it were to become public knowledge that the House of Sheeragore interfered with Silken Sands during their critical mission to defend Storage from the Sleem, some might think the blame for that mission’s eventual failure would belong to the House of Sheeragore. You could be bringing down a scandal upon your masters, if things go awry.”

When the delf man on the monitor said nothing, and simply stared at me, I continued.

“A good servant protects their master. You would do well to protect yours in this matter.” My words were spoken calmly, but coldly. I tried to keep my voice empty of emotion.

“You sound as though you expect to lose this fight,” he said, equally still.

“Should I not? It is public knowledge that Storage will fall first, when the Sleem arrive. Our efforts here will be focused on relocating the residents of Storage, not culling the Sleem to make room. Make room for what? An entire planet’s worth of hungry alien slime? Absurd. We are here to fight a victorious retreat, nothing more.”

The delf across from my room took a deep breath and nodded, before picking up a device and speaking into it at length. His expression did not alter, but he nodded several times before setting down the device and turning back to face me.

“Very well, what do you require from station management?” he asked, in resigned arrogance. His voice came through the CAA14203 Speakers. An ad informed me that each speaker was 62 pounds of Colbert Atomos Audioblast with a frequency response of 16-56 kHz and a smart buy at just 1,511,999 morties.

“Full access to Storage door controls, and any active scanning the church has,” I answered.

“You ask much, and offer nothing in return,” the delf said.

“I am not asking,” I replied. “With respect, there is work to be done here. Work that our betters have given me to do. If you will not aid me in that work, step aside so that I may do it without you.”

Another long, quiet moment passed before the delf nodded. “Executive access granted for door control and primary scanning.”

The door behind me slid open, and I stood, still holding the delf’s gaze. He blinked again, and I turned to leave.

Captain Ransom Broadleaf met me in the hallway again, stepping into place at my side. “Follow me,” he said.

I fell into step behind him, and we walked through the gilded hallways of the space station. We had been in the secure wing of the station, where the church's military resided and controlled the platform from. The room I had been interrogated in was designed to easily vent the atmosphere from, if the prisoner inside was being uncooperative.

The entire station was built for a military crackdown if needed. I saw small bunkers built at regular intersections into the primary hallway walls. Each one was beside the restrooms. Each one filled with armored Nah’gh and Orkreshi soldiers.

Between offices and living apartments, the tall elf captain walked me past artificial gardens and massive agricultural domes that showed a beautiful view of Storage. Finally we arrived at a series of office structures built into a pyramidal shape, beneath a tinted dome.

Lights glittered from the various offices and control rooms, and the dome over our heads showed a nearly direct view of Storage, hanging in the sky above and coloring the entire square in its swirling greens and purples. It was also Nah’gh comfortable temperature, the natural heat coming from Storage was absorbed by our mildly darkened panels.

Atop our dome, extending from all corners of it, were a series of tall metal spires. They ended in glittering communication spires, each large enough for a two man crew.

“This is the Storage control area,” Captain Broadleaf said, taking my attention away from the view.

“All mine, right? Full access?” I asked.

“Full access,” he answered.

“Good,” I said. Then I swiped at my BuyMort window and approved the portal BlueCleave and I had arranged before we left Sol. Within seconds, a golden BuyMort pod raced toward us and sectioned off a huge portion of the walkway with its beam.

Passersby, security soldiers, and technicians alike were forced to alter course and wait at the edges of the wide beam.

BlueCleave hobbs stepped out, followed by Axle’s chosen team of Knowles. The military hobbs immediately deployed around the square and began fortifying entrances to control them. They had brought supply crates and used them to create small checkpoints as Captain Broadleaf watched in mild horror.

“I’d like all the current technicians to stay on,” I told him. “But I’ll also understand if they’re not comfortable with the change in leadership and need to relocate. I’d also really appreciate it if you could do me a favor and let any who wish to leave know that Silken Sands is hiring, for most positions.”

“Why are your hobbs securing the entrances?” he finally asked, one hand resting on his pistol’s hilt.

“Operational security,” I replied, as if it were obvious. “That’s how this works, right? You guys control our air and lights so it's not like we’re supplanting you. But we need this zone for our mission, and we need it without interference.”

“Protecting the upper houses, are you?” Captain Broadleaf sneered.

“Yes, actually,” I replied. “I don’t understand what’s so confusing about this. If the upper houses get involved, they get involved. This is as much for their protection as it is for our ability to work unimpeded by personal interest or inter-affiliate conflict.”

Captain Broadleaf glowered at me as my hobbs ran back and forth around us.

I sighed and put my hands on my hips. “I was ordered to do this by Lady Sheeragore, and Elegy, of the Inquisition. Does that not give me the authority to take necessary security measures on this operation?”

Captain Broadleaf looked away, as if disgusted to continue with me. “Of course it does. Your methods are just so brutish. So crude.”

“Like a sword in the place of a scalpel, I’m aware. And yet, we are also effective. So if you please, Captain, I’ll have to have you escorted out. That is assuming you have no further duties to perform? You’re not on my black list, so unless you have specific business to address,” I said, motioning for a nearby hobb as I left the question hanging open for a long moment. “We’re all terribly busy just now, you understand.”

My hobb arrived, weapon slung and BlueCleave fatigues freshly starched. “Right this way, sir,” he grunted.

Captain Ransom Broadleaf glared at me but walked away with the hobb. His hand remained on his weapon, at least until he was out of my line of sight. I didn’t care. As I had suspected, I was able to act with near impunity, so long as it was in the name of the church’s ultimate goal.

I knew the mission was designed to fail, and I didn’t intend to let it. By clearing out Storage, I'd throw the already unstable labor market it represented into full chaos. Silken Sands would take in as many as it could, bolstering our own workforces and military. In doing so, of course our affiliate levels would rise rapidly. All while removing a significant chunk of the church’s power from them, in their own name.

Seemed quite poetic to me.

The church had been using Storage for generations, keeping its people in barely sustainable lives, always in fear and on the edge of losing everything. They had decided to use me, and Silken Sands to fight a terribly visual war on the Sleem in Storage, then move on when the section slums were overrun, and simply wait for poverty to refill it for them.

But that wasn’t my plan.

My plan was to cause the other affiliates to scramble their own rescue operations, to claim the available labor under the only favorable condition they could offer, life off of Storage. My personal reputation meant that the employable population of Storage, primarily hobb, was going to rush into my affiliate’s open arms. I was cornering the market on the workforce with a rescue operation. The only thing the other affiliates could do to compete was the same.

It didn’t matter if we could stop the new planet from entering the system or not. Axle’s science team had informed us that the Sleem were practically gushing into Storage, in anticipation of being consumed by the new arrivals from their own world, and to push their way into more and more compartments to feed.

And nobody that could do something about it cared. Which meant I had to take their power from them. Again.

The church had sent me to cull the Sleem, to reduce their numbers and put on a show of fighting back for the upper planets to clutch their pearls over, as they bought upgrades for their own anti-Sleem bunkers. Advertising. All the while, those in Storage would run for their lives, and most of them would fail.

Captain Ransom Broadleaf had no doubt had an audio device active, if not a full badge camera on his person. His lapel medals certainly looked big enough to hide a camera. The church knew, which meant the other top tens would know in a matter of moments.

Then my work would be done for me, as the other affiliates scrambled to rescue what laborers they could, before the Nu-Earth warlord claimed them all for the Sol system.

Self-interest would demand that they act.

Chapter 63

A handful of ships from my own fleet, mostly repurposed passenger liners that the Tertiary pirates had been using for general housing and leisure, were already on the way. BlueCleave had quickly gotten them back into good working order, thoroughly cleaning all the passenger compartments and getting them ready to transport passengers from Storage to Nu-Earth, or to rendezvous with any of the dozens of slow plantation ships crawling toward Venus already.

They weren’t fancy or luxurious, but they were fast, safe, and reliable. TransPoCo had already doled out the payroll for our most recent promised load of workers. They would be gathered from Storage directly and dropped off on the plantation ships still nearest the Sol gate.

Of course, there were trillions of people on Storage, even after the place had experienced its recent exodus. Most of the hobb tribes who could had already joined my Nu-Earth operation, which left a power vacuum in Storage that paved the way for the Sleem to move about nearly unopposed.

A fact Church TV pundits had been only too happy to point out in the weeks leading up to our military campaign in Storage. They had been planting the cultural seeds of blame already, making sure everyone knew it was at least partially our fault that things in Storage were as unstable as they were.

The Dearth Conglomerate led the charge on that particular complaint. They still had major holdings on upper worlds, and a wide-spread manufacturing and distribution network. Axle had given me some light reading on their infrastructure, and I was already drooling to take it away from them, piece by piece.

Worst of all, the Sleem had begun displaying a new ability to break down the humongous blast doors that separated Storage’s sections, something they had appeared unable to do before. Axle’s research team did some digging, and found that they had done this before, but only immediately preceding a new Sleem world being added to the system.

Several major sections of Storage, constituting entire planets’ worth of habitable areas, were lost. The church just moved their stations and left those parts of Storage behind forever. Once Storage stabilized in the centuries following each Sleem world being added, they seemed to go back to being unable to defeat the station's massive doors.

The path the church’s stations took followed the equator of Storage. My upgrades put Axle’s history notes together with the trajectory histories my station access was providing me, and I saw the church guiding the population away from the Sleem through the ages, as more and more of Storage fell to them, in a straight line.

With enough time, even that long game would run them into a wall of angry, hungry Slime eventually.

I personally inspected the control areas of the station, where my hobbs and Knowles scrambled back and forth. They hurriedly trained with the church personnel, most of whom were surprised, but friendly and pliable. Our military forces did nothing to remove the church military forces, and both sides stayed tensely polite toward one another.

Weapons slung, helmets under arms.

My hobbs did a lot of stiff saluting, while my Knowle and human technicians got to work.

The largest room in the pyramid was at the very top. It was filled with dozens of seats, at dozens of consoles. A wall of screens dominated one side of the room and extended from floor to ceiling.

We got birds-eye camera images of the areas in Storage under threat pulled up and displayed on the monitors. I wanted it that way, so we could watch the cities we had been sent to save. Section twenty-two was directly above sections twenty-one, twenty-three, twenty-four, and twenty five. Each section was a city, built into the walls and floor of the massive chunks of superstructure.

And section twenty two was filled with Sleem. There was a pressure alert on the door leading into S-21, the largest of the section-cities, and our most immediate concern. Our targets were going to break down the doors, which would force us to close the doors to S-23 through S-25, causing massive amounts of damage, and killing hundreds of thousands.

The act would also condemn the tens of millions of people living in S-21, so BlueCleave’s immediate priority was relocating the entire city's worth of people, as quickly as possible.

When I had last been on Storage, I had watched Rayna use a mounted weapon to eradicate the Sleem as they attempted to break down their own door. At the time, they had retreated before we had run out of power. This time, the monitoring stations showed us that there was no possibility of that happening again.

The Sleem were in control. Sections twenty-six through eight hundred were fully controlled by the Sleem. Our city of unfortunates was the last remaining jewel in the crush of a full invasion of the area. They had been a border state for some time, years, our research explained. But in recent months, especially since the fall of Kraken, the Sleem had begun aggressively moving into inhabited areas.

The slum city in section twenty-two had already been sacrificed, closed off from the cities below as ancient mechanisms long ignored were brought to bear in defense of the majority. Many made it out.

Many more did not.

The vast majority of Storage was just that, storage. BuyMort used it as a place to hold products and was the station’s primary caretaker. The church claimed ownership and made a show of helping the massive slum cities that arose in Storage in public ways. Work lotteries, and food deliveries primarily.

The work lotteries were all rigged, of course, and the food deliveries went to the gangs with the most powerful weaponry, for ‘distribution.’ Every section-city was a kill or be killed wasteland before the threat of the Sleem encroaching from every direction. A class-inflicted prison housing tens of millions, and the most vulnerable outpost of non-caustic sapient beings in the entire rudimentary Dyson sphere.

The thought occurred to me that the timing of my assignment had been quite intentional. The sections were ready to fall. Barely controlled by iron-fisted violence. Mordrens and hobbs with heavy clubs.

I was glad I had sent advance teams, BlueCleave had managed to establish some important order in the extra time, working with locals. Things weren’t exactly calm, but they weren’t a full blown riot anymore either.

Axle was in my ear as I made my initial assessment. He had worked in a similar role, living and working in Storage before eventually bribing his way into a Dearth work assignment with Jada. I was not about to make him return, but he was more than happy to help me navigate the information I was taking in.

I had a globe, made of interactive light, that I could use to represent Storage, in the middle of the primary control room. It could be coded to show the different populations in Storage, by section. Great swaths of the sphere were covered in green, indicating full Sleem control. Others were a deep brown color, indicating gobb control. Or so the label said.

A surprising amount of the globe was controlled by gobbs. Axle had mentioned this, but when I saw it in scale, I realized there were a shocking amount of them. Far more than the public knew about.

But they kept their borders to themselves. Even against the Sleem.

Far better than the affiliate-lead security teams had done for the many other section-cities around the planet. Their sections were royal purple, indicating church control. They were the smallest sections by far.

Several of the church protected areas on the grid had white blocked out areas surrounding them, indicating zones under direct BuyMort control. Most of the map of Storage was white, as attacking BuyMort structures bore the penalty of a BuyMort bug summon. Not even the Sleem enjoyed dealing with those, so the white areas were considered generally safe from incursion.

Unless they were close to a purple area, then the question remained of whether or not the Sleem would risk an attack through one of those sections to reach our vulnerable populations.

I stood in the central control room, staring at the primary orb of light representing Storage for an hour. In the interim, my staff followed their set orders and began the process of turning the control room over to our control.

We were at the start of the work of months. Even if I could successfully save the slums of sections twenty-one through twenty-six, there were dozens more areas the Sleem threatened.

Staff were interviewed, assessed for potential threats or information vulnerability, and then set back to work. A handful were released with mortie payments and informed that while the area was under Silken Sands control, their services would not be required.

Rayna and Admiral Omen sent an official request from our military to theirs to allow us security control of the area in question, and it was promptly accepted. The House of Sheeragore appeared to have heard my warning loud and clear, as their official employees took an immediate hands-off policy to our work.

I missed Axle, Rayna, Tollya, and even Admiral Omen during the process. They each had their own duties to attend, however, and it was always going to be my job to deal with enemy affiliates. It was much harder to simply execute me if I presented a difficult argument for the opposing affiliate to accept, and I was more than capable of backing up my demands with immediate and extreme violence, if needed.

I was the warlord of the Sol system. Nu-Earth incarnate, come to save the day with righteous violence.

This was something the other affiliates were aware of, and their intermediaries were more careful around me than they otherwise would have been with my management teams.

Axle’s team was working admirably though, he’d made sure I would have proper staffing for my task, which allowed me the luxury of staring at the station's representation of the Storage platform, and dwelling on how truly screwed our operation was.

The church controlled sections were barely hanging on, with Sleem encroaching from every direction that gobbs did not hold. Many of the city-sections under direct threat were backed up against BuyMort sections or hemmed in by nearby gobb-controlled sections.

Either could be used to evacuate the civilian populations into, but both types of sections came with risks that simply could not be ignored. Civilians in BuyMort sections were going to mean BuyMort bugs, and deaths because of BuyMort bugs. Even if everyone in the city-sections were capable of ignoring the BuyMort pods and storage compartments, there was no way to fight a retreat without triggering BuyMort’s defensive mechanisms.

The gobb sections were even less of an option. We could move people into them quickly and easily, and sweep aside any resistance if needed, but the BlueCleave officers I had working with had informed me of what would happen next if we tried.

At first, nothing much. Just gobb raids, easy enough to defend against. But they would gather in number rapidly, pouring in from neighboring and connected sections, before descending upon any refugees we attempted to store in their areas in a massive horde. We may as well let the Sleem eat them.

The giant, overpopulated slums that each purple zone on the orb represented were stuck. The very nature of their existence had been borderline before the Sleem push. They were already backed up against the walls, with Sleem, gobbs, or BuyMort bugs holding other sections and preventing them from expanding, or even from fleeing.

The first victims of the Sleem push had been Storage’s resident population of giant insects and arachnids, brought in through BuyMort bug responses and left to breed. Entire sections had been closed off with webbing, or merely open and inviting, but dark. Filled with chittering.

Those who lived on Storage knew that to travel beyond the bounds of the slums was nearly certain death. Most of the people were just trying to find jobs off-planet, so they could get out while the getting was still good. None of them even considered fighting back, or trying to blaze their way through Storage to establish a new home as pioneers.

Only those sections already damaged and left by BuyMort to rot were even capable of supporting a new slum, and most of those were already being lived in.

Damaged and abandoned sections became my focus, and I slowly spun the ball of light in front of me, closely investigating each of the tens of thousands of spires, and millions of sections they supported. I ignored the comings and goings of the staff around me for hours as I worked, desperate to fix our unfixable situation.

“Omen to Dawes,” came through my MortMobile line, kept active for the officer core of our endeavor. “I have information you’ll want.”

Chapter 64

“Go ahead Admiral,” I murmured, still pondering my orb.

“As you suspected, the other affiliates simply never cared to investigate the Sleem’s activities. Our preliminary scans indicate that the Sleem are using Storage’s power-generation baffles to break down their chosen inner blast doors,” Admiral Omen informed me.

I frowned. “How does that work, I wonder? The baffles are kilometers below the surface of the inhabited portions, how are they translating the movement from the baffles to the doors?”

“Sheer volume,” Admiral Omen immediately answered. “The Sand Star can easily handle Storage’s atmosphere, by the way. I know you were concerned about that before we arrived, but we’ve run extensive tests already, and it appears the ship could withstand even a brief trip to the liquid metal oceans on the surface, though much deeper would threaten its hull's structural integrity, according to the computer.”

“You’ve gone down the length of a spire?” I asked, immediately imagining the ship flying through Storage’s green and purple clouds.

“Yes, for accurate scans, we went down the length of a single arm, all the way along the bottom of its buoyancy footprint,” Admiral Omen said. “Strange to see something so large float in the sky, but we confirmed the Sleem are at that depth as well.”

I frowned again. “So they’re using the natural movement of the baffles to push against the doors?”

“With a tremendous amount of Sleem bodies paving the way, yes,” he said.

The baffle arms were massive. Each over a dozen kilometers in length, reaching down to the bottom of the music note-shaped platform bottoms, the buoyancy ‘feet,’ each a large, rounded orb that kept the entire rudimentary Dyson sphere in place.

Storage itself, the planet, powered the station with its weather. Powerful winds tore through the planet’s atmosphere and pressed against the long limbs of the many platforms making up Storage’s artificial components. Wind pressed the buoyancy platforms against their own limbs, the power generation baffles, as the station orbited the planet.

Its buoyancy platforms, when combined with the movement the planet’s atmospheric movement gave it, kept the station in orbit.

“This gives us the edge we need,” I suddenly said. The information clicked into place as I stared at the glowing ball in front of me. “The sections affected by Sleem activity will experience brownouts in power long before they experience a door being broken down.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Admiral Omen replied. “If the support-baffles are providing the city-sections with power, as we were briefed, Sleem activity within the baffle should interrupt that power.”

I snapped my fingers in the air until a Knowle I hadn’t met arrived at my side, pad of paper and pen in hand. He wore the insignia of Axle’s division, Silken Sands Operations. “Yes, sir?” he said, tail lightly waving.

“I need eyes on power distribution, that’ll be where our first warning signs will come from, if a Sleem attack is imminent,” I told him.

The Knowle nodded and wrote in his pad. “And who would you like this station to report to?”

I shook my head. “Operations, your department. I need any dips in power production reported, with the baffle’s movement being slowed, directly to BlueCleave, that’s mission critical information.”

The Knowle’s tail stopped wagging and tucked tightly against his leg. “In that case, I should inform you that there has been a significant drop in power production for sections twenty-one through twenty-six. It began roughly six hours before we arrived, according to station logs.”

I sighed. “Thank you. Keep me informed of any further drops.”

The young Knowle man saluted me and turned to run away, his next task set for him.

The suspicion that the timing for our handoff had been deliberately chosen again arose. The church waged war already, casually. Their malice was natural supremacy mixed with abject, mortal terror. Nothing I couldn’t predict, and thus profit from.

“Admiral,” I said. “Did you hear all of that?”

“Affirmative,” he immediately replied. “What are your orders?”

“Continue as you have been,” I sighed. “Keep running your scans, we’ll need them no matter what happens next.”

“Understood. Omen out,” he said, and the line went silent again.

It was an expensive service, but MortMobile’s psychic network was known for its expensive services. Most affiliates used them, as the morties became less important the more of them you had coming in. When Admiral Omen said ‘out,’ his comm connection to the rest of the captains and team managers that I had in on the call cut out. He wouldn’t be bothered with any of us unless he was summoned again by name.

That’s how it worked, MortMobile kept track of everyone connected, and their significance to the conversation at hand. If they were not needed, MortMobile simply didn’t involve them in the conversation. If they were, he reached out and connected them.

Instantaneously, across universes.

The sheer concentration it must have taken to manage even a single affiliate's needs made me understand the headache our psychic phone deity suffered from.

My mind tried to wander, thinking of the bald lower-case-g god trapped in our phones. I wondered briefly if he would become another celestial-scale monster for me to deal with, but a calm reassurance that I could trust him entered my mind externally, with a hint of gray fog around its edges. Immediately following it was a reminder of my mission on Storage.

The current problem of Storage and saving sections twenty-one through twenty-six felt impossible. I frowned and focused on the task at hand, spinning the orb slowly.

The platforms of Storage were all thin, narrow. Comparatively, of course, to the massive planet below. The rudimentary Dyson sphere hung like jewelry, floating above the surface of the gas giant. Deep in the planet’s vibrantly colored clouds hung the buoyancy platforms, long and broad on the bottom to catch the lower atmosphere and ride it, constantly swaying upward and outward by the planet’s natural violent winds.

From each buoyancy platform extended a long baffle, rising into the upper atmosphere where the movement of ambient gasses was much thinner, creating a natural counter-movement from the entire superstructure. The planet, and its attached Dyson sphere, breathed together, in synchronous motion. It generated tremendous amounts of electrical power with each baffle, each long, swaying movement.

And the Sleem had discovered a way to weaponize that planetary movement. No wonder they could break down the doors, they were using the Dyson sphere’s primary power generation method as a battering ram, directing and controlling the force generated by the baffle they filled, and translating the kinetic energy through their own liquid bodies directly into the blast doors.

In order to counter that, I had to move an entire super slum of people, before the door above them broke open and the Sleem poured down to consume all twenty-five plus million that lived in the spread-out slums. The attack had already begun. All five section-cities were reporting brownout conditions with power, and the door itself was reporting a serious breach-threatening pressure condition.

It was all happening at a multi-path junction, a large area that connected multiple levels of Storage’s overall platform. Each platform had a variable amount of levels integrated into its structure, but most of Storage proper hung between the mighty towers, in glimmers of silver barely visible from orbit.

Each thin line of reflective metal represented a connection arm, a massive, hollow section that people could live in. Some areas of Storage had come with residences built into them, along with the nearly identical storage units that were far more numerous. Most of them hung between buoyancy platform towers, in the upper atmosphere where it was warm instead of hot, and the air was calmer.

Each strand had at least three levels, but some had more. The longer towers, toward the planet’s equator, housed five levels each, and had a wider habitable range. They also generated the excess power that got beamed inefficiently to the three stations in orbit, primarily the one I had assumed command of.

“I need power distribution!” I shouted. My first useful idea came to mind, and I waited for the right tech to approach. It was a hobb, holding a clipboard, and running as fast as was safe to do in the crowded room.

“Yes boss!” the hobb grunted.

“I want power conservation enacted on this station. Start cutting non-essential systems, and reduce our draw on Storage’s power production,” I ordered him. The hobb nodded and wrote while I spoke, then saluted and turned to run away when I was finished.

The brownouts down there I could at least help with, while I worked to figure out a way to get those people out of there. All around me, the lights dimmed, and machines started to wind down. A handful of computer screens stayed bright, and our emergency lighting, bioluminescent micro-fungus growing all over the walls cast a soft blue glow over the room.

I pulled up a birds-eye view of section twenty-one. It was at the heart of the junction, the square city built out from the edges of the cube it was housed within. It would never have even been a city, but for the closure of the blast door at its bottom centuries ago. Sections twenty-three through twenty-six were chained out from twenty-one, at compass pole directions. The great slum spread through the smaller, boxy area of twenty-one, making it the thrumming heart of the city.

My first option was to cut off the doors to sections twenty-three through twenty-six and open the damaged door to section twenty one above, allowing the Sleem to crush section twenty one entirely. I could open the bottom gate, it still reported functional across the board. That would temporarily reduce the Sleem's ability to break down the other doors.

But it would buy days, if we were lucky. Hours if we were not.

Our people were already on the ground, in a limited form. We had sent ahead some starfish troopers, with massive shipments of arms and ammunition, to help arm and prepare the local populations, but it was all to keep order.

Panic was spreading already, I could hear the rhythmic booms against the giant blast door from above on a nearby screen. It wasn’t quite chaos on the streets of the slum, but it was getting close.

My hobbs and their militias would be hard pressed to keep order and prevent the massive loss of life from the building panic. People wanted to get off the doors. Away from structures that would be destroyed before they were closed. Out of section twenty-one entirely, if they could.

With our ships on the way, the plan had been to dock with one of the many loading spires that rose to accept newcomers or unload cargo. Most of them were closed down permanently, with damaged docking ports, or simply filled with Sleem and therefore useless.

But only a handful of intact ports remained and were already the focal point of several evacuations. With the stunt I had pulled on my arrival, there were already gigantic chunks in the docking schedules being claimed by top ten affiliates.

My most recent crystalline colonies worked to rapidly collate the data I was receiving from multiple angles to inform me that my plan was working as intended, but it presented a new challenge for me. My own evacuation forces were most of a day behind us, and sections twenty-one through twenty-six couldn’t wait long enough for them to arrive.

Not that we had the capacity to get them all out in one trip at any rate. A full evacuation was going to take months. No way around that, the numbers were simply too big.

An idea sprang to mind, and I swung the orb in front of me to change the orientation of Storage.

Chapter 65

Half of Storage had been claimed by the Sleem. That was the popular saying, that thing that everyone knew about the crisis at hand and couldn’t help but say with bated breath to one another while fretting over the poor people trapped there.

But that wasn’t true, strictly speaking. The Sleem owned half of the populated areas. BuyMort itself still owned the vast majority of Storage and used it for that very purpose. Storage of items. I looked out the portal to the actual planet and focused, zooming in my eyes until I could see thin streams of BuyMort pods racing to and fro across the major superstructure.

“I need Storage ground team command!” I shouted, raising my hand. A handful of hobbs grunted, slapped their chests, and left the room. Within a few minutes, two security hobbs returned with another hobb holding a thin, transparent-screened device.

“Yes, boss?” the new hobb asked.

“I need you to disseminate these free Storage portal coordinates to our people on the ground in sections twenty-one through twenty-six. Tell them to start setting up in those locations for major evacuations. We’re going to move everyone out of those slums and get them someplace safe,” I said. “We just need our people there first. Get some scouting teams sent and report back to me as quickly as you can.”

“Yes boss!” the hobb shouted, slapping their chest before jogging back the way they had come. I gave them several BuyMort controlled towers with intact docking ports. Moving into Storage was free, but so was moving from one location within Storage to another. The portals merely took you to a passenger unloading area at the top of a spire.

Which spire you went to depended on what coordinates you gave BuyMort. If you didn’t give them any, the system would choose a randomized landing pad for you, so long as it was classed as safe for sapients.

Unfortunately, BuyMort considered areas covered in Sleem to be safe for sapients. So that wasn’t a good option.

My thought was that they could just have everyone move into the BuyMort controlled areas and camp out until the ships could come and evacuate them. Or safe sections could be found for them to relocate to.

It would be crowded, and we would need to use thousands of the available BuyMort controlled spires, but it would save lives if we could pull it off.

While I waited, I kept in touch with Admiral Omen. He eventually reported in, after finishing his up-close scans of Storage. As we had suspected, the only areas for ships to dock were at the tops of the spires, and there was no external access for ships to enter the structure at all. Axle had told us as much before we left, but Admiral Omen had insisted on confirming the information for ourselves.

Our battle-plan involved some expensive portal use, which meant it was prudent to ensure we actually needed to use them. I say expensive, but they were free to us with our affiliate upgrades. They just had to be allocated, like any other resource, and we didn’t have all that many portals that could do what we needed.

I directed him to aid our Storage ground teams with confirming that the BuyMort controlled areas could be used for our task, and he agreed. An advance ground team portalled over, a small handful of heavily armed hobbs with starfish suits geared toward combat.

The full coverage armor was a popular first choice for an upgrade earned with a promotion, unless the hobb in question was signing up for the fleet. Then they all wanted the gravity harness. The chance to one day serve on a relic ship, at the side of their leader.

Plus freedom of movement in any gravity.

I watched my team of hobbs on the main monitor, as they portalled into the clean docking tower and swept out, fanning their weapons in arcs to cover the area. Nothing moved, and the area was empty.

It reminded me of my first time to Storage. A large, open area at the top of a spire, with an oversized central elevator. My hobbs spread out, checking each hatch and doorway. They confirmed that the elevator worked, when in conjunction with church control systems in orbit.

Below the spire was a long, empty elevator shaft that led down to the inner workings of Storage’s guts. The myriad storage units that filled its many corridors, holding entire planets worth of materials, and transferring them from universe to universe as needed by the customers. That area was uninhabitable.

My advance team took some measurements and declared they could comfortably encamp one thousand people in a spire without major security or health concerns arising. Then they waited for Admiral Omen to arrive in the Sand Star, and dock with the spire’s port.

The ancient port hadn’t seen use in centuries, but it lit up and sprang to life, folding outward to match the Sand Star’s receiver. Admiral Omen walked aboard Storage, looked around, nodded, and returned to the ship.

Moments later it detached. The accordion arm from the station retracted and housed itself behind a panel.

I ordered more advance teams into position, with more equipment. The first team was already in the midst of setting up their first security checkpoint in the elevator. With my station control over it, they would be most secure inside its locking blast doors, if things went bad.

Refugees of section twenty-one began to portal through, and I watched briefly as they started working with my BlueCleave hobbs to begin a small tent city in the spire.

My job was up next, and as usual, it was going to hurt. I had to buy the cities some time, by portaling two of our best prepared ships inside the Sleem congested area directly above section twenty-one.

The Rumbler, and the Jet, both re-equipped for the fight, were waiting at Elevator Station back home. Tollya and Admiral Omen had chosen from their list of capable pilots and had chosen hobbs fanatical in their following of me.

It was billed as a suicide mission, and still we had thousands of volunteers to wade through. Together, Tollya and Admiral Omen chose two hobbs who had no immediate family, and burning desires to prove themselves in battle. One had been a pirate. The other, a Prescott rapid response pilot on the fast track to a full captaincy in the fleet.

She chose the Jet, so named for its odd shape. The craft appeared to my eyes to have been repurposed from a Harrier Jump Jet, for single-occupancy spaceflight. Its engines were capable of hovering, which was mission critical, and its weapons system was already useful against the Sleem.

We loaded its dual twenty-millimeter cannons with high-explosive sabot rounds. They ensured a high rate of fire with a high kill ratio. It was also equipped with an emergency proximity fuel saturation bomb. The little ship had come with a hardy shield, and an emergency fuel dump already built in. BlueCleave had simply added auxiliary tanks to the ship, providing it a two-pronged flame weapon.

Simple flame-thrower nozzles could be used to spray down a wide area in front of the Jet’s nose, but it could dump the auxiliary tanks with the push of a button, igniting the cloud all round itself without sustaining catastrophic damage. Theoretically. The techs suggested not using it before depleting the fuel reserves significantly with the flamethrowers first.

There was some discussion around what, exactly, its shield could handle.

The Rumbler we had given to the pirate. He had come from the Tertiary system and claimed to have been raised on stories of the great rise of Rayna, and the mighty horde that would one day rise again to sweep aside all in BuyMort. He swore fealty to us like it was his religion. Like dying in our army's name was the best thing he could ever do.

He also had experience flying a Rumbler-type craft. All we did was strap an industrial sized vat of Morrigan liquid to each of its ‘hands.’ The ship would have two massive shots to fire, and then it would be a sitting duck. The pirate had thanked us repeatedly for the honor of flying it. When I had shaken his hand before leaving, he had nearly fainted.

I tried not to think about the fanatic in my service, or the career-driven risk taker, and focused on my own task. My job was to clear a section of the tunnel directly above section twenty-one, in order to summon a BuyMort portal and summon the ships. Together, we would buy the cities below time to evacuate to the many BuyMort spires my scouts were currently securing.

Tollya had been tasked to reorganize a portion of our incoming troops, which would displease the church. We were immediately calling in our reserves, to secure the BuyMort spires with free portals from Nu-Earth.

I floated through the space station to the disembarkation area, surprisingly busy. A crowd of church personnel who felt safer elsewhere, and had the money to effect an escape, were doing so. Still, they made room for me, separating as I floated down toward a BuyMort pod station.

The stations were just like the pods, but held aloft in the air by a thin, sturdy pole. I gave it my desired coordinates, and portalled down to Storage.

Directly into a spire filled with Sleem.

Chapter 66

I had chosen the spire directly above section twenty-one’s upper door, which meant I had to travel down through three long sections, filled with hungry Sleem. Immediately when I portalled in, I was surrounded by a low pool of slime that reacted violently to my presence.

From the open elevator shaft, a rush of thick Sleem bubbled excitedly, and I quickly went from knee-high in the stuff to fully enveloped. My stoneskin held the Sleem’s acid at bay, and each of my carefully chosen weapons was resistant as well. The crystalline colonies in my body responded like an immune system, getting better at resisting damage the more I experienced it.

Still, the Sleem got angry quickly when they realized I wasn’t as edible as I appeared. Pressure built up around every orifice as the Sleem tried to push itself inside me however it could. With my helmet covering my head, that left only a few options, and I clenched as I began moving against the tide.

My suit was nearly fully powered, and my gravity harness was much stronger than the Sleem trying to hold me, so I dragged through the mess and approached the elevator. The Sleem had long ago overwhelmed the doors and accepted BuyMort’s punishment for doing so, a large and angry BuyMort bug.

I could still see bits of it bubbling in the depths if the light hit the windows just right.

Sleem were good at running and hiding, and often the other denizens of Storage were left to deal with the kaiju-sized interdimensional insects. But occasionally they just enveloped them and ate them too.

And the Sleem weren’t running from me. They wanted me, wanted to tear me limb from limb. I saw orange around me and felt the pressures in the slime surrounding my limbs increase dramatically. With a grunt of annoyance, I reached down to my hips and unclipped both plasma falchions, before activating them and spinning in a violent circle.

The orange orbs died, and a brief space of boiled and gaseous Sleem remains erupted around me. Then the crush fell in, and more died on my blades, before I hurriedly shut them off and returned them to their docking platforms. I pushed the suit and jetted downward, through the Sleem. The next orange orb cluster I encountered I tore through with a brief flash of my swords, before again returning them to their docking platforms.

I needed them as charged as I could keep them.

“Boss to Rumbler, Boss to Jet,” I grunted. My psychic connection opened with the two of them and each pilot reported their ready status.

“Nearing the target now. Will clear out the Sleem and deploy portals soon,” I grunted back.

Both saluted and remained silent. Ready. Eager.

The Sleem around me suddenly rushed up, and my resistance increased until I was nearly standing still. I pushed the suit harder and started breaking through when the Sleem just as suddenly reversed direction and flowed with me at incredible speeds.

Then again, up and against my desired downward movement. I pulled my map outward and tracked the Sleem’s momentum through the sections. The doors had been broken open all the way down to section twenty-one, with several side-sections helping pump the baffle’s movement into a hydrodynamic battering ram.

When I finally felt the massive blast door beneath me, I grabbed a small oxygen grenade from my belt and crushed it in my fist against my helmet. It produced a blast of pure oxygen molecules, which my nanites greedily lapped up to replace my own lost air with.

It would help me breathe for another ten minutes, maybe.

I deployed my swords. With both falchions blazing at my sides, I rose back up through the Sleem and began weaving back and forth through the mass of them. Once I was high enough, I focused on my side to side motion, cutting a swath through the Sleem at my level and burning away enough that the next time they all heaved upward, a massive glop of them fell free and splashed down below against the door.

I dropped a Morrigan grenade on it, then turned my attention back up. I cut and hacked away portions of the great wad of Sleem, indiscriminately carving my way through them to lessen the pressure in the chamber.

My efforts were not rewarded, as the next rush of Sleem simply brought tons and tons more of them down on top of me. I was pushed downward, toward the mass of spreading Morrigan liquid. It couldn’t harm me, as the hungry nanites inside it were fairly indiscriminate while they remained powered, but anyone else would be flayed by it.

That’s what happened to me my first time through the stuff.

I shot upward and dropped another Morrigan grenade, hurtling high to avoid its spread. A single grenade killed roughly an entire section of Sleem before losing charge, but they were quickly replaced, as a massive quantity of Sleem surged up from below to replace those lost.

The side doors were all functional but would never close against all the Sleem in the way. I was uncertain why the church had left those doors open, but once the Sleem took the areas it was a moot point. Which made my immediate job clearing them out from those doors enough to close them.

I arranged myself in the center of one such area and pulled out my Highwater Blaster, before firing a Morrigan slug in each direction. The nanites burned at my skin as the Sleem surrounding me died. I had been exposed to it before though, and my Stoneskin upgrade defended me from any significant damage.

The bubble of dying Sleem around me spread rapidly, with so many of them clogged into the Storage sections. But a portion of them broke off and retreated, pulling away rapidly with a great sucking noise.

“Close door twenty-two A,” I growled. The massive blast doors began cycling closed around the edges, and I hovered in the brief space and watched, before the rushing tide of Sleem from above slammed into me once more and drove me down through section twenty-two.

I bounced lightly off the blast doors at the bottom and kept an iron grip on my shotgun. The Sleem really wanted to take it from me. I ignored their collective strength, reloaded my shotgun shell by shell, and racked it against their best efforts to stop me.

The crystalline colonies powering my muscles, protecting my skin, and enhancing my cognitive function all combined to ensure my eventual victory. But the Sleem were going to try anyway.

I did the same routine with the Morrigan slugs again, creating a giant bubble in the primary spire shaft, and then ordering the side door closed. Without a wall of Sleem stopping the doors mechanisms, they worked as intended and sealed off the bottom of the shaft from Sleem reinforcement.

This time I didn’t waste the bubble I created, and reloaded the Highwater Blaster before I was hit by the returning wall of Sleem.

They recognized how dangerous, how lethal I was, and they kept backing off when I deployed my Morrigan ammunition. But every time they came back, too. When I bounced dully from the bottom door of section twenty-two again, I nearly sighed with annoyance.

The Sleem couldn’t stop me, and I was buying the sections below valuable time, but the effect of the massive wad of Sleem attacking me in full was beginning to get to me anyway. I broke another oxygen grenade on my own helmet, and took some deep, calming breaths while I floated in the malevolent slime.

Molls, her scales filled with purple as she lounged on a scalding hot beach came to mind and I smiled, before pushing myself and my starfish suit to get on with the task.

It was a constant attempt to undo disorientation, through the use of my gravity harness upgrade, and the HUD displayed in my helmet. The Sleem had realized my goal of shutting the doors, and without sacrificing massive numbers to prevent me from accomplishing it, they were trying to keep me disoriented.

I tumbled and flowed along with aggressive currents in the living ocean of slime. Sleem of all variety and strength made up the amalgamation, and they all worked as one to try and stop me. If I relaxed too much, gave the Sleem too much control, they started slamming me into walls, so I kept the suit going and watched my charge levels.

They were nothing to be concerned with just yet, but I was aware of the clock on my mission. I needed to clear a space for the bigger guns to make their approach. My shotgun locked in place, I pulled out both plasma falchions and ignited the blades. That made for much easier movement, and I cut a burning path through the wall of Sleem until I was in position.

With a hurried motion, I clipped both swords back in their magnetic docking clamps and grabbed at the shotgun before the Sleem cascaded back in on me. But I got the rounds off, and the Morrigan shells tickled and itched across my chest and back as they worked.

I felt my own crystalline colonies holding off the invasive nanites, which quickly lost interest in me as a target and flowed on to find vulnerable Sleem cells to do their work on. Soon I was alone again, hovering in a bubble of open space as the Sleem retreated en-masse before their next attack.

Another grunted order, another door closed. This time, before the rush of Sleem could descend, I was in position and ready. As soon as the rush of caustic slime refilled the open shaft of the spire, I fired the Morrigan slugs and got the fourth door closed.

The Sleem lost their fight, and I watched on my HUD map as the main bulk of them retreated. They had broken down the primary doors in the spire, but all of the secondary doors remained intact.

It was time to perform the church’s cull.

Chapter 67

I summoned the BuyMort pod, paying extra for the instant delivery. It warped in at my side, hovering in the air in the middle of the central shaft, and then warped in my ships. The Rumbler and the Jet both appeared in a dazzle of rainbow light, hovering in the main shaft. They swayed somewhat, adjusting to the different gravity, and spreading out in formation, with the Rumbler behind the Jet.

“Rumbler, reporting ready,” said the former pirate.

“Jet, reporting ready,” said the eager young officer.

“Incoming Sleem rush, aim up,” I told them, drawing both swords. Both ships puffed jets and adjusted their attitude, facing up toward our foes in the giant, empty shaft.

The blunt edge of charred Sleem up ahead seemed almost afraid. It pulled us with, creating giant suction in the central pillar of the spire as it retreated.

An urgent call from Yolara Brinks came into my helmet, and I blinked in confusion, but answered it. The psychic cellphone app turned gray and connected us.

“Not the best time for public relations, Yolara,” I said, focused on the wall of retracting slime ahead of us.

“I have a source that tells me the Dearth Conglomerate is going to unleash Reaper Hounds in section twenty-one!” She said, walking somewhere quickly and out of breath. The hyena woman grimaced at me, showing her teeth. “I’m about to make a public statement condemning the attack, but you have to do something!”

I nodded and hung up on her.

“Boss to section twenty-one command!” I barked in hobb, still moving up. We were nearly at the top of the spire already, but the Sleem were just retreating in all directions along the top level. The suction eased up there, as the walls of slime retreated in separate directions.

“Rumbler, Jet, hold position. I expect them to return, be ready,” I said.

“Section twenty-one, BlueCleave command,” another voice said in my ear. I switched the comm channel with only my own focus, a premium service from MortMobile, but worth it in combat.

“I need you to deploy every starfish trooper in Storage, right now, commander,” I said. “You have reaper hounds incoming.”

The hobb stayed calm. “Understood. Just section twenty-one? We’re evacuating them now,” he grunted.

“I expect they’re trying to disrupt that evacuation. I’ll join you as soon as I can,” I told him. The hobb guard grunted and nodded, then reached for heavier armor nearby and started putting it on. I cut the comms channel and focused back on my own problems, the tunnels around me.

Hot, fetid air was rushing at us, from both ends of the tunnels at our sides, not above. The Rumbler at my side tucked in one arm, its great, barrel-shaped vat of Morrigan fluid tucked in close to the chest and extended the other one. The ship, with all the grace of a boulder, began to spin, arm and vat on the far end.

Behind me, the Jet opened fire, twin autocannons sending twenty-millimeter devastation into the oncoming wall of Sleem. Fiery explosions lit up that tunnel from inside the Sleem, as the Rumbler let go of its Morrigan canister.

The vat was the size of a heavy duty truck back home. It hurtled end over end down the tunnel at break-neck speed, whistling as it went, until it plunged into the surface of the onrushing Sleem attack. That wall of Sleem simply crumbled. It turned black, erupted weakly in pockets of boiling slime, and spread back down the tunnel faster than the Sleem could disconnect or retreat.

They were being forced upward, into the flood of Morrigan fluid. The sheer quantity of the fluid in the vat meant it stayed active much longer, as the shared charge in the nanite infused fluid was exponential. The more nanites you had in the container, the longer they spread before losing charge and naturally ceasing.

Yolara had already attacked the Morrigan ammunition company publicly, on church tv, over the performance of their product. Their representatives had responded by declaring that their product’s claims of being able to kill Sleem of any size were based on pre-invasion levels of Sleem, and simply could not be expected to kill an entire destroyer slugs worth of Sleem at once.

They also quietly sent us a major shipment, at a respectable discount.

And with enough of the absurdly expensive liquid, we could really make a difference. Sadly, what we had bought from the company directly constituted the rest of their stock. In spite of under-performance, their product was still one of the best Sleem killers on the market, so it moved. We had orders waiting to be filled, but so did many other powerful affiliates.

But other tools were still effective against the Sleem, I was reminded, as a wave of heat and force washed over me.

The Jet had opened up with her oversized flamethrowers, the young hobb woman determined not to let her tunnels worth of Sleem continue their advance. Major fans kicked in all across the tunnel, flinging droplets of slime as they activated and started sucking the smoke out into space. Or rather, into the upper atmosphere of Storage.

Either way, same difference to me. The mighty station was capable of helping defend itself at least, Rayna had shown me that the first time we arrived, when we had burned so many giant spiders together.

The Jet’s pilot roared in battle fury, opening up with the ships guns again as well as both flamethrowers. Both units were oversized, and the Jet itself had to fly with a massive, strapped on fuel tank creating bulk on its underside.

Still, the wall of hellfire it put out, when combined with the explosive ammunition, held the wall of Sleem at bay.

From one side, black, lifeless slime dripped. The entire tunnel had been wiped out by a single attack from the Rumbler. On the other, flaming, charred slime gushed over the edge of the tunnel’s mouth.

Flames from the Jet pushed them back or killed them outright as they were unable to retreat. I moved aside as the Rumbler began to spin up again, its other canister extended. Just as the ship was about to release, Jet stopped their attack and thrust out of the way.

The Rumbler released, and the wall of burning Sleem turned black at a frightening pace. I watched with the other two ships as the Sleem in front of us burned from the inside, bubbled outward, and then collapsed. I watched the mass of caustic slime collapse, all the way down the side tunnels.

“Boss to control, close doors twenty-eight A, and twenty-nine A,” I said, lowering myself toward the bottom door, and slum in section twenty-one, where reaper hounds no doubt stalked.

The doors wouldn’t hold long if the Sleem tried to push through them, but they would have to refill the spire first, to use the baffles power as a pump. It bought us a few days. Enough time to save some more lives, I hoped.

And more than enough time for the thousands of hobb troopers back on Nu-Earth to flood through the free portals and descend to the city below.

Chapter 68

When I reached the bottom, it was covered in a lake of dead, but still dangerous, Sleem. Flames flickered on the surface, and black liquid seethed beneath it. I needed to open that door but couldn’t risk raining down nanite-infused burning Sleem corpses on the population I was trying to save.

Thankfully, the fix was easy.

Purchase: Medical waste, biological remains, Sleem. Rarity, common. Quality, terrible. 14928 morties dispensed.

It wasn’t a ton of morties, but considering the cracked burnt mess that I had sold, I was happy it paid me anything at all. Once the BuyMort pod had cleared out the entire mess, I told control to open the door to Section twenty-one.

They complied, and as the door below opened, I immediately heard the sounds of screaming rise up from the shanty town. My BlueCleave troopers were portaling in at the top of the spire, and beginning their long climb down, but they wouldn’t join the action for a while. The elevator was broken, so nearly five thousand BlueCleave soldiers were portaling in to climb for nearly an hour before reaching the bottom.

I had to act. Me, the Rumbler, the Jet, and whatever soldiers I had on the ground already were all we had to face the reaper hounds in the shanty towns of section twenty-one.

The city had been built into the walls, primarily. In each corner of the massive, open-sided cube, structures made from repurposed storage containers and scrap metal loomed massive. They were stuck to the walls with questionable welds, and the vibrations from the door opening caused more than one to collapse entirely.

But the upper levels were mostly empty at any rate, the screaming was coming from below, from the colony spread out on the bottom door, closed for millennia. My control over the station gave me the power to open that door, but doing so would kill millions, even with my evacuation well underway.

No matter how bad the reaper hound situation was, it couldn’t be worse than closing the doors and cutting off section twenty-one. Especially not after all I had just done to save it from the Sleem. The other cities spread out into the distance, primarily built onto the floor of their connecting section arms.

Some few buildings were attached to the walls or grown on high towers, giving the shanty town an unorganized, chaotic appearance, even from above.

I descended rapidly, floating through the air down to where the screaming was thickest. A cluster of buildings rose around me, flowing scrap-metal catwalks spread throughout its levels. The shanty town spread out below me, and the sounds of screaming came from several disparate areas.

The Rumbler suddenly dipped down, engines crackling as it approached an outcropping of the platforms. The former pirate coaxed the craft closer and extended both arms toward the platform. A pair of people ran for the craft, a hobb and a human. The hobb was wearing BlueCleave armor.

Before I could react, invisible scythes ripped into the hobb from behind and tore out the tall grey man’s throat, as well as opening his stomach. The human climbed aboard the Rumbler’s extended grappler arm and clung to it for life as the craft pulled back.

I focused on the area and saw the reaper hound behind them. I saw it, I saw its projection, and I saw its manipulation of the light, a small shimmer in the air between it and its projection. My upgraded eyes penetrated their trick of the light; the reaper hounds could no longer hide from me.

With a shift in focus, I slammed into the reaper hound and tore it free from the platform. I rose into the air as I ripped its head and spine out, before tossing the body aside. Below us on the platform, my hobb rose, pulling open his chest-plate so his starfish suit could work on repairing the damage.

Another reaper hound bounded into view from the convoluted pathways carving through the slum, and my hobb hurled himself from the ground, still bleeding from his throat, as metal gauntlets formed around his hands. He dove directly through the projection of the reaper hound in what would have been a perfect tackle.

Before it could sink another scythe into him, I lurched forward and caught the hidden hound. It gaped at me in shock, before I drove my own metal-covered fist through its skull.

The hobb jumped up and saluted me. His suit’s tendrils finished lasering his wounded throat.

“Don’t attack them where they are,” I said, still hovering in the air off the edge of the platform. I cast around for another reaper hound and found one by following the sounds of screaming. It was down below, on another outcropping of storage container slum buildings, circling another BlueCleave hobb.

This time I focused on the thin stream emitting from the strange animal’s forehead. It projected, line of sight, to the location it wanted to be seen at, while simply distorting the light around itself. The animal's entire predation ability was based on its ability to manipulate visible light. They were clumsy and easily disoriented without it.

“Use your strobe against them!” I said in hobb, before diving at the next reaper hound. As I approached, I shouted, “Helmet, activate flash of light spell, once per second.”

My helmet flashed a strobe of light with a heavy click, and the image of the stalking reaper hound vanished. Only the original itself stood in place, eyes wide as it realized it was exposed. The hound started to move, projecting itself moving in another direction.

It was smooth, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference without my newly upgraded eyes. But an instant later my helmet flashed again, and the reaper hounds projection was washed out as it stumbled. My hobb, not wearing a starfish suit or heavy armor, raised a side arm and shot the reaper hound with a bolt of energy that dropped it.

The hobb turned to salute me, but I was already flying away, heading for the next patch of screaming. “Boss to all BlueCleave on Storage mission,” I grunted in hobb. “Use your combat lights' strobe feature! Target the reaper hounds directly with flashes of light, and you negate their ability to hide. It disorients them momentarily.”

My hobb was so good that nobody questioned any of my statements. A chorus of grunts from my hobbs was the only reply. Most of them were still in the long process of climbing down the multiple kilometers of ladder. Thankfully, there were eight ladders in total per shaft, two on each corner. Instead of Sleem raining down from above, my soldiers were coming.

Within seconds, I saw flashes of light start emanating from every corner of the section twenty-one city. Most of the light was followed by weapons fire.

I drifted down through the shanty town’s levels. A complex web of structures and the metal pathing between them was welded onto the walls, with varying degrees of stability. They rose in crests at the open doors of the other section-cities, spreading out into the visible distance, and enclosed by heavy blast doors at their far ends.

The city was massive, and the reaper hounds were spreading from the center of section twenty-one. They would reach the rest of the section/cities within hours.

I dove to the bottom, zooming in with my enhanced eyes to find my first targets. A hobb chased a reaper hound around a corner, combat light strobing as he went. I veered off, that one was under control.

Patches of screaming led me to a particularly thick cluster of storage units built up into towers, with scaffolding strung between them almost haphazardly. Bodies scattered the area, cut up by long blades. Mordren, orc, Nah’gh, hobb, human, it didn’t matter. The hounds were killing indiscriminately.

We’d avoided the greater danger of the Sleem, but now my past was coming back to haunt me. Every body part lopped off was my fault, for selling that egg. I gave Dearth the weapon to kill my own reputation, and I knew what their next move had to be.

A full press package about it. Information warfare.

I quickly homed in on the reaper hound pack in the area, unattended once they’d wiped out my hobbs. They were tearing into the structures and slashing at anyone that moved, so I landed in their midst with a platform shaking thump.

The reaper hounds all circled, scythes raised and shaking as lines of light shimmered from their foreheads. I growled and clenched my hands into fists, summoning the breaker gauntlets.

The first hound attacked, whipped its scythes through the air at me in a curving arc. Its mirror image leapt at me, but I ignored it and the shimmering light projection. Instead, I caught the tentacles by the blades, clutching them both together into one hand and hauling on the monster.

It lifted from the platform with a yowl, and I whirled it around in a circle, slamming its body into the other hounds with careful aim. My eyes picked out targets and sent information to my brain about how to move, and when.

The reaper hound became my flail, dead weight after the first blow.

I stepped between their rain of blows and let go of the reaper hound in my hands. Its corpse sailed into a nearby building with a satisfying splat that sent the other hounds into motion. I’d scattered them, and instilled fear into them. I could see them, and they knew it.

“Flash of Light!” I yelled, and my helmet erupted into incandescence for a moment. The hounds were dazzled, and their projections dissipated. I lunged, blasted through the hound nearest to me, and continued my growing momentum as I flew, fists first, through the gathered pack.

Some of them tried to run. Some of them tried to kill me, but it didn’t matter.

They all died when I caught up to them.

Within a moment of having landed, I’d killed a dozen hounds and leapt into the air to find more. My cartoon starfish thanked me for the charge, but reminded me to keep going, as it flew through the air at my side, stubby arms extended.

I had to limit the attack. The number of casualties would be their primary weapon against me, when they started blaming me for the reaper hounds existence. Someone at Dearth knew I had sold them the egg and had planned this entire attack to disrupt our activities. It was no coincidence that they were unleashed only hours after I had taken over Storage. I needed to take control of the situation and I needed to do it fast.

Chapter 69

“Tyson to Yolara,” I said, focusing on my psychic phone. He nodded, turned aside as he became grey fog around the corners of the screen, and Yolara’s spotted, toothy smile filled my screen.

“Oh, you appear quite busy,” she said, as I streaked through another reaper hound. I’d given up even fighting them, they were like paper mâché to me. Stopping my flight was just adding to their kill count, so I blasted through any I saw and kept searching.

“I need you to prepare a report against the Dearth Conglomerate,” I gasped, changing direction to avoid crashing through a primary support pillar in the lower depths of the shanty town.

“Understood,” Yolara said. Her phone was suddenly in her hands, and she was typing furiously into it. “Subject matter?”

“Reaper hounds!” I yelled, catching one by the tentacle scythes and tearing it in half as I flew away. “I sold their egg to Dearth, during the first days of BuyMort. Before I knew better. It was survival, I needed the morties, but they’re going to use that sale against us. I need a full media package focused on mitigating that damage.”

“They’ve used the reaper hounds against you in the past, yes?” she asked. “Several attacks in Prescott are part of our file on them.”

“Yes!” I shouted. My flight around the slum had slowed, as I searched for the hounds. There were hundreds of them, but I was making good progress. As were my hobbs. I regularly saw strobe lights and heard weapons fire around the city as I flew.

“They’ll want you personally for this appearance. Is that a possibility?” Yolara asked.

“Yes, have CTV send us a crew, I’ll have control of the city soon,” I said.

“How soon?” Yolara asked, staring at me over the top of her glasses. “I require specifics.”

“Two hours!” I shouted.

“See you then,” she said, and hung up the phone.

Section twenty-two was lost to chaos. The Dearth Conglomerate was there, reaping my people before I could save them. Killing the hobbs I had sworn were never going to be expendable.

I roared in anger and landed on a reaper hound from above, crushing it into the metal deck in a dent, before taking off again. My hobbs cheered from the ground, still working to gather and protect as many people as they could.

My sharp eyes caught motion from the top of the square chamber, and I saw the first of our reinforcements arrive, sliding down the ladders at breakneck speed. More than one of them jumped from the ladders and sailed out into open space, only to summon their own starfish armor before plummeting out of sight to the bottom.

More hobbs slid recklessly down the ladders, eager to get into the fight. Those with starfish suits, used them. Any with the armor upgrades jumped as soon as they felt they could survive the impact. Those with breaker gauntlets used them to slide down the ladders, sending small geysers of sparks in either direction.

I grinned, empty and cold, as I plunged through another flimsy reaper hound, and cast its dying body down. The screams had calmed significantly since I began my rampage, and I was down to following shimmers of their altered light and trails of blood.

Several hounds were wounded by my troopers, burned with lasers or hit with rifle rounds. I made sure to finish them off.

More hobbs rained down from above, deploying parachutes as they entered the final chamber of section twenty-one and aiming for any remaining combat hot spots. BlueCleave hobbs descended the ladders in droves, high above and getting closer, but Tollya had seen my need from above and sent much-needed backup, in the form of our rapid response teams.

They had portalled in first, and began their rapid descent of the ladders, before sending paratroopers down to deploy. Those hobbs in particular had my respect. They had to climb down a short way on the ladders and then just jump off into open space, with no starfish suit to put them back together if anything went wrong with their jump.

I flew quickly to each landing site, ensuring none of my new troops were in immediate danger as they gathered themselves from their parachute landings and regrouped in the massive, sprawling favella at the bottom of the city.

More flashes of light, and more weapon fire started to fan out in a circle from the center as my hobbs landed and began pushing back on the hounds in earnest. I continued my work, flying as fast as I could around the edges of the city and intercepting any reaper hounds trying to escape into other areas.

“Boss!” a voice sounded in my ear, speaking hobb. “Think we found their hide-out.”

I reported directly to the squad, once I got a location, and inspected the area. It wasn’t subtle. A collection of kennels with poorly painted ‘Silken Sands’ labels were scattered around the area, where nearly two hundred of them had been warped in via BuyMort portal.

The space had been in one of the gang’s territories, cleared out by BlueCleave weeks prior. People had taken to living there, of course, and none had survived once the kennels were opened. A few more caches were found, along with a handful of individual pods.

Once I put all the information together, it appeared that at least four Dearth operatives had been running through the city, summoning kennels as they went. How they were protected from the hounds they unleashed was unclear, but I had more important questions for the Dearth Conglomerate.

Like how they planned to survive what I was about to do to them.

The allotted time passed, and Yolara Brinks, public relations, arrived with my CTV camera crew. I had them warp in at the largest patch of kennels, but had my hobbs cover the bodies with tarps. They didn’t get to every one of them before the camera crew started shooting.

They ran toward me from their portal, camera already running. I heard the excited Nah’gh anchor start into a breathless account, turning to look at the camera while she slithered. She was Conda, with flushed yellowed red scales. Much larger than those around her and covered in body armor to make up for it.

Her beautiful scales glimmered out from beneath a thick combat helmet that still allowed full view of her face.

“We’ve been called down to the epicenter of the section twenty-two battle, by the Warlord of Nu-Earth. Warlord!” she called to me as she approached. I turned and stared, silver helmet and body coated in dried blood.

“I have an important announcement for the entire BuyMort system. The Dearth Conglomerate is unleashing reaper hound monsters here in Storage, I suspect they’re going to do so on home-worlds too. The critical information is that in order to fight them, simply use a strobe flashlight to disable their illusory abilities,” I said, moving to help a hobb cover the last body.

“Oh, and one more thing,” I said, changing my language to hobb. I clenched my fists as I knelt by the dead body. “The time has come for all hobbs to leave their employment with The Dearth Conglomerate. There will be no further warning. We are one tribe, one warband. Or we are nothing.”

I clutched the corpses’ hand for a moment, knelt beside the body with my head lowered. Using their death for all it was worth as Yolara stepped in and smiled grimly at the camera.

“There are questions of the reaper hound creature’s origins,” the host said, blinking coquettishly at me. I ignored her.

“Warlord Dawes is terribly busy, you must understand. I’ll be conducting the rest of this interview,” Yolara said, smiling while her tail remained tucked to one leg.

I covered the body’s arm and stood, before leaping into the sky and flying away. There were still reaper hounds in the city. They’d spread out far, and Dearth had portalled them in at multiple points. Things were just getting handled much easier, even my regular street militias were having no trouble putting down the creatures once my troops disseminated the monster’s critical weakness.

The entire shanty town was a sporadic cacophony of flashing lights and gunfire, fading away into the distance.

The interview continued, and I watched on a tiny, see-through screen in my HUD as I flew away. Once I was out of sight, the camera swung back down to Yolara and the Nah’gh.

“The accusations from Dearth are predictable, but unfortunate. I think we can all agree, the manner in which they have chosen to do business since the inclusion of Nu-Earth, has been one bungle after another,” Yolara said, turning and waving a paw at the pile of kennels.

“Supposed evidence of our involvement,” she said, before turning back to the camera and sighing. “The Dearth Conglomerate thinks that everyone in BuyMort is stupid enough to believe that we would attack our own rescue operation with bioweapons they are already known to field against us.”

“The Dearth Conglomerate has denied all involvement with the reaper hound bioweapon,” the host replied. She immediately thrust the microphone back into Yolara’s face.

“Obviously a lie. They attacked random members of BlueCleave in Prescott, as some kind of sick testing phase for their weapon, before unleashing it in a series of high-level assassination attempts. All of which were foiled, by the warlord you so blithely accuse of self-immolation,” Yolara answered playfully. She treated the accusation as if it were obviously absurd.

“There is the matter of the sales record, which was recently leaked,” the host started.

“By Dearth, of course, because the reaper hound egg was sold to Dearth,” Yolara intervened. “As our press release has already addressed, the egg was sold as an unnoticed part of a greater room of goods, while under duress. The Dearth Conglomerate produced the bioweapon, they orchestrated this attack, and they leaked that particular bit of disinformation to the press.”

“We cannot reveal our sources,” the host replied, shaking her head.

“Of course not,” Yolara assured her, a friendly smile back in place. The hulking Knowle woman even reassuringly placed a paw on the host's shoulder for an instant of closeness on camera, since they were closer in size than the others around them.

“But I can, through common sense. Everyone’s seen the reaper hound attacks on the increasingly popular H.O.B.B.S. show. What Dearth claims simply makes no sense,” Yolara said with another shrug.

“So Silken Sands’ stance is that The Dearth Conglomerate is directly responsible for this attack. Those are damaging words, for affiliates so close to open warfare,” the host replied.

“Silken Sands has been at open war with The Dearth Conglomerate since the second day of BuyMort on Nu-Earth,” Yolara laughed. “What’s new? Now if they try an attack against us that’s actually successful, that may make some headlines. But this? This is Tuesday. These acts of terror are nothing more than the thrashing of an affiliate in its death throes. In the great order of BuyMort, the market decides. And it has decided to move on from Dearth products, and Dearth services. Dearth personnel are leaving the affiliate in droves. The largest mass walk-out in the affiliates history occurred just three days ago, and it looks like they’re about to suffer yet another mass walk-out, of loyal hobb employees this time. What kind of affiliate are we even talking about here?”

“That remains to be seen, I suppose,” replied the host, before turning back to the camera to wrap the section. She realized she had gotten all she was going to get out of us, and they had other stories to pivot to once the audience started to lose interest.

News sections could only be so long, and they really had to pop. Audience engagement was everything, you could win or lose a fortune on ads depending on how fast your segment’s viewers dumped you for being boring.

Yolara’s calming influence had been meant to accomplish two primary elements. Throwing doubt on the narrative Dearth was spreading about me being responsible for the reaper hounds, and publicly humiliating them by treating their accusations against us as little more than troublesome nonsense.

Our star rose, theirs fell.

Chapter 70

The attack was almost immediately accepted by the general public as The Dearth Conglomerate’s responsibility, and as footage of me tearing through reaper hounds and saving squads of soldiers continued to circulate, the perception turned against them even further.

I know, because I used a quick text to ask Axle to begin tracking the data pool for that specific information. He came up with something called InfoGrab, an ad for which popped into my head a moment after telling me.

LOGICAL CALCULATIONS, INTEGRATIONS, PSIONIC DATASWEEPS AND MORE. WELCOME TO INFOGRAB, THE METAVERSAL, OMNISCIENT INFORMATION COMPILER THAT ALWAYS KNOWS NOT JUST WHERE YOU ARE, BUT ALSO WHERE YOU WISH TO BE. See affiliate page for more!

Seemed a bit creepy, to be honest, but Axle had assured me that it was as accurate as it was expensive, and its data skimming feature would tear through popular social media apps, news broadcast mentions, and instant polling affiliates all across BuyMort in seconds.

It was kept on my HUD directly below the tiny monitor showing me the news coverage of the first major battle for Storage. Knowing is half the battle, after all, and I was fighting several at the same time.

I started helping people attempting to evacuate. Pulling apart sections of the shanty town as needed, to get people or belongings freed, and helping escort them to BuyMort pod-poles.

My troopers were spreading through Storage, rapidly printing basic tarp material in mass quantities to build tent cities. The new base at Prescott thrummed with activity, and we were focused on getting every sapient being out of the section twenty-one city.

The tops of the towers spread out among BuyMort’s part of Storage began to fill with desperate people as the night and battle moved on. My ships, the Jet and the Rumbler, both helped however they could, hovering from section to section as needed, and carefully maneuvering in some of the more cramped areas.

That made for excellent coverage as well, with both pilots establishing themselves as minor celebrities overnight, both in and out of BlueCleave. BlueCleave culture was rapidly becoming synonymous with BuyMort warrior culture.

The shining example of military might and accomplishment in the multiverse.

Five hours after my announcement, The Dearth Conglomerate suffered the largest walk-out of their affiliate’s recorded history. At the end, they could count the number of hobb employees remaining on one hand.

Production across the entire BuyMort system began to crash, and I called for a meeting.

Rayna arrived in Storage via a free portal, at one of the new spires being set up for refugees. Axle utilized a particularly expensive service from MortMobile to astral project into the meeting. A lightly glowing, see-through version of my friend arrived on the spire with a frown.

Part of the military base each BlueCleave unit set up in the armored elevator was a small secure room for meetings, safe from eavesdropping of most varieties. I could feel the entity behind MortMobile’s service in my own head, projecting Axle for me to see and interact with, and the strain on the being the service was causing.

I decided on a quick meeting, which the deity immediately approved of. Axle was needed in Prescott, and we couldn’t afford to go wasting portals, even at the rate our affiliate, and its BuyMort rewards, were growing.

“Good evening,” I started, once they were both in the room with me. Rayna frowned and closed the door securely behind herself.

The space was barely big enough for the three of us, Axle in particular looked uncomfortable, in spite of being there only by psychic projection. The room was roughly the size of a small office.

“Apologies for the space, it was the most efficient and cost-effective way to have this meeting. What are we doing about the market crashes?” I asked.

“Stepping in wherever possible, the production lines Dearth is no longer able to keep going in particular are worth the morties we are spending on immediate expansion of our own version,” Axle replied, shuffling in the small room to lean against the wall. “I suggest another expansion of our construction material production in particular.”

“We can never produce enough concrete, or even mudcrete,” I agreed.

“I have a strategy division making plans to attack major Dearth affiliate holdings,” Rayna said, happily speaking her native hobb. Now that I spoke it, I noticed her subtle grassland accent.

“Excellent on both fronts,” I said. “I’ve been asking a lot of you both, but you never fail to succeed. You are both as much the reason for this affiliate's success as I am. More, in many important ways. Much more.”

I took a small breath and continued, “Thank you, both, for all your help. This is actually working, and it wouldn’t be, without you.”

“And Tollya,” grunted Rayna.

“Well of course, but don’t tell her that,” I protested. “It’ll go straight to her head.”

Rayna chuckled, then laughed deep from her belly. “No, no we better not tell her that. But thank you, boss. You helped some too,” she joked.

“Agreed,” Axle said. “Your strategy with TransPoCo has ensured we have a supply of fuel for our fleet, and opportunities for covert transport with their shipping network. They have offered us a bulk purchase discount, when it comes to available seats on their Storage bound liners, if we would like to redirect any more labor our own way.”

“Excellent,” I said. “Tell Lee I need him on that. We’re moving against Dearth, now. Anything that belongs to them, we take. If we make the first attack big enough, and call it retaliation for Storage, we may cause enough of a media firestorm to take more of their holdings, before the other affiliates descend on them to tear at the corpse.”

Axle’s image nodded. “I see. We’ll need to brief Yolara,” he sighed.

“Attack Neolithic Earth,” Rayna said. “Many Dearth facilities there. Good holdings.”

“Is there much in the way of countermeasures at any facilities you have under observation?” I asked.

Rayna shrugged. “Some. Building up a bit since your announcement, but nowhere near enough. They have troops. Mounted weaponry. Walls. Nothing we can’t handle, especially with starfish suits.”

Axle frowned, his projection nervously licking his nose.

“How long will you need to implement takeovers once Rayna has their facilities cleared out,” I asked him, bluntly.

The projected Knowles frown deepened, and his tail tucked. “Not long. I worry about the open aggression against Dearth though, it could turn the system against us, long term.”

“There is no long term, Axle,” I said. “Sadly, unless we can gain the power we need to run this system, there’s no long term for anyone. All of BuyMort is about to be wiped out by uber-Sleem, unless we can convince Izan to help us prevent it.”

“Izan will do as we need of him, I don’t doubt that. His fears are legitimate, however, I think we should consider them further before taking any final action,” Axle said.

“Tell me, friend, is there any method you have ever heard of to stop BuyMort from acquiring the planet in question? Your library is changing things, we have access to more information now than at most points in recent BuyMort history. You tell me, do we have another choice?” I asked, hands out at my sides.

“Not that I know of, no,” Axle admitted, raising a claw. “But that does not mean we should simply wipe out the planet either.”

“I know that Axle, I really do. I just don’t have any other options in front of me. So unless someone can provide me with some, I’m going to do the thing I know will work,” I replied. “I don’t like the idea of wiping them all out either but think of all the lives we will save.”

“Think of all the lives we will take!” he insisted. “Storage will become immediately destabilized, without the Sleem filling most of it. Bug and gobb attacks will skyrocket.”

“We’ll be ready for that, we’re already making substantive moves to take control of Storage and its population,” I said.

“Yes. With the control station, we can keep most attacks at bay just by closing main doors. Gobbs work their way around, but it stops the bigger hordes from forming and threatening cities,” Rayna added. “Most people happy to move someplace nicer.”

I raised my eyebrows at Axle and shrugged. “And with all the new manufacturing, production, and resource-gathering operations we’re about to violently take away from Dearth, it won’t be hard to relocate them.”

Axle’s projection shook his head. “That’s still not enough for the sheer numbers.”

I nodded. “I know. A lot of people will have to stay in Storage, but we’re working on that too. The first thing we can do to improve material conditions is evacuate as many people as possible, as quickly as possible. After that, we will have an easier-to-control Storage, and if we wipe out the Sleem, we’ll have as much room to move people around to safer areas as we could ever want.”

“We’re winning Storage back, by doing this, Axle. Not just stopping it from getting worse, taking it back from the enemy so that our people can use it the way it was meant to be used,” I finished.

The Knowle’s projection blinked and stared at the floor for a few drawn out seconds, but eventually nodded and met my eyes. “You’re right. It’s a good plan, I’ll get to work on my part of it.”

“Me too,” Rayna grunted.

“Dearth won’t know what hit them,” I said with a small smile.

“Yes,” Rayna said. “They will.”

“We need to start pushing our product ads more, widen our inroads into the upper planets ad market too,” I said.

Axle balked at that. “The returns on those ads are negligible, I was going to suggest we start scaling back on them.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Expand on them. Start throwing the morties toward them, and in combination with our war on Dearth, we’ll start taking more of their share of the upper planets customer base. We’re offering several competing items and will be pushing out even more once we take some of their facilities. The morties’ll come back. It’ll just take a couple weeks.”

“Sounds like you have targets in mind, boss,” Rayna said, scowling and looking at the floor. Thinking. Already planning attacks, deciding which troops to send where.

“I do,” I replied. “We need as many of their construction material production facilities as we can get. Our own mining operation is about to receive a massive amount of workers. We’re going to need more ships, too Axle, I’m sorry. Another complication for you, another expense.”

“No,” Axle’s projection said, shaking his head. “I’m starting to see the plan here, you really do mean to just step into Dearth’s shoes.”

“And then some. Once the Sleem are off the top ten list, what do you think will happen to it?” I asked, eyebrows raised.

Axle’s eyes widened, and his tail tucked again. “Pure chaos,” he said, licking his nose. “Every affiliate with any shot at the list will be at war with one another.”

“And here we are, selling the weapons,” I said.

“And ships,” grunted Rayna. “BARSCSSA in Australia came online yesterday. Full production.”

Axle stood up straight, arms falling to his sides as his natural eyes widened. A benefit of the projection, he appeared as he thought of himself, not with the new implants. “That affiliate’s leadership would prefer it be called Boing. They’re trying to rebrand a little bit right now. I should go. I need to get to work on acquiring those mining and transport ships.”

“Cheaper to buy from home, hit up Boing and see what kind of prices they’ll be willing to swing our way, but really . . . don’t worry about the morties. I have a plan for that too, my friend. We’ll be wealthy beyond belief soon, so don’t be shy about using up the flex account,” I said.

Axle nodded, and then produced his phone from a pocket and pressed a button on it. His projection vanished, and I felt the pressure of the psychic deity’s headache vanish. It was just myself and my military commander in the secure room at the center of the elevator.

She stood at attention, awaiting my next command.

“How many?” I asked in a small voice.

“How many what, Tyson?” Rayna replied.

“How many hobbs did I get killed tonight?” I asked. It somehow hurt that she remembered I wanted her to call me by my own name when we weren’t around the other troops. I was far more vulnerable around Rayna than Axle.

“That’s not . . .” she stopped. “Things are different now. BuyMort is different now. Hobbs die, every day. The hobbs who died tonight gave their lives for something. For something real. Not the lies of the church, not morties. They died helping save lives, save the world! Save Storage, at least.”

I couldn’t quite smile, but her perspective did ease my guilt. “So how many of our people died saving the world tonight, then?”

Rayna nodded solemnly and raised a hand to place on my shoulder. “Forty-two. Against hundreds of reaper hounds, we only lost forty-two comm signatures. And five of them were Tower golems.”

I nodded. Thirty-seven dead hobbs in one night. My promise on that original day was apparently intact, they hadn’t been treated as expendable. Rayna wanted to continue spending her people’s lives for our worthy efforts.

It wasn’t immediately easy, but I accepted that fact and moved on. Dwelling in my own guilt, especially when others did not hold me responsible, would serve no one. So I dropped it. But a small portion of my mind held it in reserve to use against Izan Delvago, if it came to that.

“Do we know how many civilians were killed?” I asked.

Rayna shook her head. “Not yet. Still counting. Three-hundred and nine, last check-in. That was most of section twenty-two city though, so probably the majority of all who died. Don’t think it will go over four-hundred total. You did good. Keeping them out of the other cities, not many got through.”

“The problem is that those who did ran and hid. So they’ll be ambushing vulnerable people in Storage from now on. We need to find out how Dearth is controlling these creatures. They’re obviously BuyMort capable, but do not seem to use it. I need to know how Dearth did that,” I mused.

“So you want one to study? Live capture mission?” Rayna asked.

I sighed and thought for a long moment, allowing my enhanced mind to cycle through options and permutations of scenarios, followed by consequences. “Yes,” I finally said. “But prioritize safety and lives. Kill them if they’re a threat. Capture them only if you can without risking any more civilians or BlueCleave.”

Rayna nodded. “Understood. Evacuation is going well. Using BuyMort spires was good idea. Safe, mostly. Some bugs, some gobbs, Sleem trying to get to some. But BuyMort shields us,” she said, in her native tongue. It was much smoother to hear, now that I had learned the language. Poetic, nearly.

I sneered and huffed out a single, disgusted laugh. “Just as the church said it would.”

“You do that on purpose?” Rayna asked, eyes narrowed.

“No, but I knew it would be a happy accident we could use when I thought of the evacuation plan. It’s good to work those little supplications and superstitions in, wherever possible,” I said with a shrug.

My military commander nodded. “Fleet here soon,” she said. “Can start getting people out, cycle more into camps. Evacuation pick up speed then.”

“Yes, that was exactly my hope. Admiral Omen and Ordo will protect our fleet in the Sand Star, there’s nothing out there that can hurt it. Yet,” I added, thinking ahead.

The church knew the Sand Star was a relic ship. The church also owned relic ships, so the conclusion was natural. They would be sending a relic ship of their own to counter the Sand Star, just in case. At least one.

I had no doubt they wanted my relic ship for their own collection.

Worst of all, I had to go home. Dearth needed to be dealt with, which meant the House of Gar needed to be dealt with. It was well past time that squatter got off my planet.

When I told Rayna, she agreed.

“The troops guarding that area could be much better used elsewhere,” she said. “We have many, many gobbs in the grass just now.”

I smiled at the hobb euphemism and nodded. There was no longer any benefit to me being polite to Dearth.

“I apologize for the portal use,” I sighed.

“No, this needs to be done. Go. I got Storage. It’s good to help people here, finally, instead of just surviving,” Rayna said.

“If we hadn’t met when we did . . .” I said, shaking my head and frowning.

“Whole system get eaten by Sleem. I know. But I also know BlueCleave would have been overrun down there, just like RedTeeth. Too many, from too many directions.” Rayna paused and gripped my shoulder. “You saved my people, Tyson. You didn’t get them killed.”

“Thank you, Rayna. I appreciate that, it helps,” I said, stepping over to the secure room door and cracking it open.

“Anytime, boss,” she said.

I nodded and left, before walking to a BuyMort pod pillar and stepping through the warped rainbow light into the desert outside Garthirst’s compound.

I was back in Arizona, Nu-Earth, and I was ready to take care of some unfinished business.

Chapter 71

An Orkreshi voice sounded, and alarms began to ring across the compound.

At my back, BlueCleave’s fortified mudcrete base sprang into action. A ring of similar fortified bunkers surrounding the resort compound also began alarms. Large, multi-barreled guns raised from the bunkers and pointed inward at Garthirst’s claimed home.

I pushed the suit and lifted into the sky, hovering over Garthirst’s walls and entering the compound. “Boss to all units in the region,” I said in hobb. MortMobile connected me automatically, with a sharp lightning headache. “I’m dealing with Garthirst. Stay out of it but take anyone who tries to leave captive.”

With a glance at the compound below, I landed heavily outside of the pool where we had last met. Garthirst’s green bloodstain still soaked the concrete, and the hand ax was still embedded in the table.

His guards, still wearing ceremonially sharpened armor, rushed me. Two came from either direction, shouting and roaring challenges, brandishing melee weapons.

I summoned the breaker gauntlets and caught the first weapon to rush in at my head. The blow had been so dramatically telegraphed that only the orc was surprised I caught his weapon. I sneered and yanked it out of his hands, stepping aside as the burly orc hurtled into his oncoming companions at my back.

They smashed into one another in a crash of armor hitting concrete, while I turned to glare at the final guard. To his credit, he did attack me, but the fear in his eyes and the weakness of his blow belied how little he really wanted to.

I took his weapon away too and hurled him into the pool with a casual shove. “I call out the House of Gar!” I roared, booming voice active. “Where are you Garthirst? Face me!”

A voice roared from inside the resort, and I heard the smash of glass and wood follow shortly after. Within seconds, the burly orc appeared on the balcony and vaulted over its ledge, landing hard in a crouch on the concrete below.

His new metal fist steadied him against the concrete as he stood.

“Finally!” the young orc grunted, before charging me directly.

I dropped the nanite helmet as he approached and snarled at him. The orc raised his oversized, piston-powered fist and slammed it into my face with all his roaring might. The blow did nothing to me, I was braced and ready. I didn’t even flinch or break eye-contact with him.

The orc wasted no time, rearing back and slamming into me again, with equally null effect. With a grunt of frustration, he reached back and snatched the hand ax out of the table with his good hand, turning to slash at me with it.

Edged steel shattered against my skin, and the lines of my suit, and Garthirst blinked. He took a step back, then threw both his arms wide and roared, wading in to attack me repeatedly. The mighty orc rained blows down onto my head, into my stomach and ribs, and even a single, poorly thought out attempt to punch me in the groin.

The clang of metal on metal resounded around the facility, and I crossed my arms with a sigh. “Well? Don’t give up yet, you haven’t even tried a gun,” I said.

Garthirst panted, the exertion of the attempted beating starting to exhaust him. “Waaaargh!” he roared, whirling to find his guards. The small cluster I had knocked senseless was managing to pull themselves together, and the orc in the pool finally managed to free himself from his armor, bursting above the surface with a gasp.

“Give me a weapon!” Garthirst roared.

One of the guards on the ground crawled to his knees and tossed a rifle across the distance. When Garthirst raised it and shouldered the weapon, I saw a glowing, red tip, and closed my eyes.

Heat and weight splattered against me, and I started to smell a light sear of cooking pork in the air. When the orc’s weapon clicked empty across from me and hummed into inaction with a light whine, I opened my eyes and slung the liquid metal from his slag rifle off my body.

“Your gate guard is waiting on your orders, son,” I said, calmly. “Why don’t you tell him to open fire?”

“Gate-gunner!” Garthirst gasped. “Kill him!” He scrambled back, and the other guards in the area crawled or swam to get away from me. I stood and faced the emplaced railguns, bracing myself and flexing my enhanced muscles instinctually against the oncoming attack.

“BlueCleave forces hold fire!” I shouted, just before both of the mounted weapons opened fire on me.

Tiny flechettes battered against my hardened skin as the railguns whined, the sheer kinetics driving me back on the concrete in a slow skid. I braced my feet, snarled against the incoming fire, and stood up to it.

“Gar! Get clear,” A husky female voice shouted from the balcony. I glanced over as the railguns wound down, their box magazines spent.

Garthirst’s girlfriend was back, holding a shoulder-mounted launcher. I took a breath and summoned my helmet, again closing my eyes as she opened fire. Garthirst dove into the pool and the other orc guards in the area had stumbled into a scrambling run at her shout, so I stood alone to take the blast.

The rocket propelled explosive head erupted in heat and force, nearly knocking me back. I concentrated on the suit, on staying in place, and it reacted. My stoneskin colonies deflected the majority of the explosive force, my skin like hardened blast door titanium. Even my advanced musculature played into helping me resist the explosive force, keeping my throat clenched against it and protecting my windpipe from being crushed.

I’d been blown up before, and it ripped my body apart, causing me to need major rebuilding afterward. This time, none of that was required. The combination of my crystalline colonies meant my invulnerability was rising. My enhanced critical thinking skills told me it would likely require sustained plasma or magma envelopment, or a ship-mounted particle weapon to even cause me external damage any longer.

The cartoon starfish appeared to whine at me about charge, but I ignored it, staring up at the young orc woman on the balcony as I dropped my helmet again.

Dust, chips of blasted concrete, and scorched earth surrounded me, drifting through the air and tickling my throat as I stared and waited. When the dust cleared enough to see my silhouette still standing, I heard a gasp from the balcony.

The orc woman turned it into a roar of anger, drawing two curved daggers from her waist and leaping off the balcony toward me. Her outfit was appropriate this time, leather pants and a tight, leather top, covered in decorative straps and a fur collar.

She landed in a smart combat roll, getting back to her footing and darting up to my side. The orc woman feinted toward my back, then dove in and slammed one of her daggers into the side of my neck. Its blade shattered on my hardened, weaponized skin, and I turned slowly to glare at her.

The orc woman’s eyes were wide, and I saw her pulse racing with fear, but she raised her other hand to attack. I finally moved, catching her by the wrist and snatching the blade out of her hand. I lifted her into the air by her collar and bit the blade of her remaining knife until the metal cracked and broke apart under my canines.

Then I threw her into the pool. It was a light toss by my estimates, but she blasted the water into a huge plume against the side of the resort, as if she’d landed from high orbit.

She rose once, gasping and spluttering weakly, as Garthirst was climbing out of the water. His guard merely clung to the pool's other ladder, watching wide-eyed.

Garthirst roared one more time, clearly exhausted, but unwilling to retreat. He rushed forward, water droplets flying from his hair and body as the orc raised his metal prosthetic against me again. This time when he reared back to punch my face, I leaned into the blow at the last second.

His arm crushed, the metal shattering his flesh and bone up to the elbow with a sickening crunch. The orc screamed in pain but raised his other hand and balled it into a fist.

I stood and glared at him, actively stopping the anger I felt at the deaths on Storage. My innate desire was to rip the imbecile to pieces, but I held back. I stood and let him beat on me.

In the background, I watched as his guard swam into the center of the still-frothing pool, fighting the waves to rescue the drowning orc woman at the bottom. She’d landed in the water so hard it knocked her senseless and removed about a fifth of the pool’s total water.

While Garthirst beat his remaining hand into a bloody, broken pulp, I watched his guard work frantically to save his mate’s life. Eventually the angry orc locked in combat with me raised a leg to kick me, and I blocked it with a stiff forearm. His limb snapped, bone jutting from the shin as a fountain of rich, green blood erupted.

Garthirst grabbed my shoulder, bracing himself as his leg gave out, and took several ragged breaths before rearing back and slamming his face into mine.

Gold-capped tusks snapped and flew, as I finally turned to face the bloody, dazed orc. His guard hauled the young orc woman out of the water as Garthirst gasped for breath. His chest heaved while hers was still.

The orc guard frantically pumped at her ribs until the woman came alive with a great sputter, vomiting water from her lungs and stomach both.

Garthirst ignored the agonized sounds of his mate behind him and reared back for another headbutt.

This time I reached up and placed a restraining hand on his forehead, keeping his neck bent back in an awkward position. His bloodshot eyes gaped at me as he drew ragged breaths.

“Everything after the rocket is on you, moron,” I growled, holding the injured orc in place. His other leg slipped out from beneath him, unable to keep his grip in the blood slick forming beneath him.

The woman screamed as she scrambled to her feet, and I turned to face her. “Stop,” I commanded, my hands holding her mate’s wounded head.

She stopped, her eyes blazing with hatred, and water still dribbling from her mouth and nostrils.

“You’re all leaving my world,” I told her. “Take this fool to get the healing he needs. Again.”

I leaned him toward her, and the orc woman immediately reached for her mate.

“I did nothing to him. This is all his father’s ghost trying to get him killed,” I growled at her. “You tell him that when he regains his senses. The House of Gar is finished, one way or the other.”

The orc woman's eyes shot wide at my words, but she said nothing. Instead, she hefted Garthirst’s weight in one arm while navigating her BuyMort menu with the other. Garthirst reeled from the blood loss and his devastating, self-inflicted injuries. The guards in the area all approached cautiously as a BuyMort pod zipped in over the wall.

It flew up to the orc couple and flashed a brilliant beam of light on the ground. All of the orcs in the compound hurriedly ran into it, leaving armor and weapons behind. Garthirst’s mate started dragging him into the light, but he reached out and grabbed me by the shoulder again, his bloody, broken hand clutching at me weakly.

“What are you?” he gasped.

I snarled and leaned in. “I am the unbending approach of change you fool! I will sweep you aside like dust, if you step in my path again. Now go. Go and tell The House of Gar I am coming. They, and all of Dearth, are mine! Get. Off. My. World.”

The orc woman’s eyes were wide, and her jaw hung open, but she nodded and dragged Garthirst through the portal.

My cartoon starfish was stretched out on one of the nearby lounge chairs, and I looked over at it as the BuyMort pod whistled its transaction complete tune and flew silently back over the nearby wall.

“BlueCleave, enter and secure Gar compound,” I said in hobb. MortMobile instantly connected me and provided my command to my hobb soldiers.

Within seconds, I heard the roar of rollers in the nearby desert. Shortly after, the gate behind me flared in an explosion, and the vehicles were entering the compound, spreading out aggressively. I knelt and crushed the concrete with a slow press of my palm, creating massive cracks that spread out across the pool area.

“Ooooh, thank you user!” my suit crowed.

“Suit, lower the volume of representative by twenty percent,” I ordered.

My starfish sat up on the lounge chair and huffed. “Well that was rude,” it said, quieter than before.

“And yet,” I said. “Such a massive improvement in our relationship already. Be glad that I didn’t turn you off completely, and resume internal organ damage repair protocols,” I said.

“I thought you’d never ask user! Damage detected!” it said. The suit began hauling at me from the inside, and I turned to face the choppy pool before internal muscle tissue, bone matter, and organ material was discarded.

The rail guns had hurt, but as I had predicted they would, my stoneskin colonies were up to the task after having been perforated by the weapon type onboard one of the many ships I had commandeered with Ordo.

Still, the sheer internal bruising, when coupled with what my organs had absorbed from the point blank explosion, meant my suit had some work to do in spite of my external invulnerability.

I breathed heavily as a new lung was pushed ungently into place and started working fully, allowing myself to feel the beating I had just taken. The daggers and ax had hurt, as had the railgun. The slag rounds had been hot, but nothing I couldn’t just ignore. The suit didn’t even seem to want to skin me.

“Boss!” a young, female hobb voice behind me sounded off. “Orders?”

It was Scollya, Tollya’s younger sister and one of our best starfish troopers. She wore the classic two piece upgraded suit most of our higher ranked units wore. It was in the breaker gauntlets and armor combination, very popular among our foot-soldiers.

Until my suit had unlocked the third upgrade, nobody could get one. That was how the store worked, it would only allow a maximum of two upgrade purchases for each starfish suit.

I had a feeling that ending the Sleem threat would unlock that and more, but first I had to end the Sleem threat.

“Scollya, good,” I said, in my now fluent hobb. “I need someone I can trust. Go, find me the compound’s security equipment, and get me a recording of what just happened here,” I told her.

“Yes boss,” she said, slapping her chest in a salute, and running into the compound.

“Be careful!” I yelled after her. “There’s at least one reaper hound on the premises.”

Her armor clanked up into place and she nodded, before vanishing into the resort, weapon at the ready. Another hobb warrior ran from the vehicles to follow her inside. They never went after reaper hounds alone.

I glanced around, up at the corners of the building’s roof. Cameras focused on the pool, on the courtyard, and the gate.

It was only a matter of time until Yolara’s department got their hands on the footage and sold it to the highest bidder, among our regularly bidding media associates. I assumed Church TV would get it, they had deep pockets for our auctions, and rarely regretted their spending.

BlueCleave could handle the Gar compound. All of their weapons and armor, tools, medical equipment, and even food would go to our hobbs. They would sell what they couldn’t use, and BlueCleave would grow from it.

Everything I did was focused on that growth. Unending expansion, as rapidly as possible. Goading the House of Gar into attacking us was merely part of that growth. It would drive orcs away from Dearth, and toward Silken Sands and BlueCleave.

And all it would cost was one fallen house of nobles.

Many of them were part of a warrior culture aligned with the hobbs. They naturally got along with hobbs, worked well alongside them, and had great respect for their fighting ability. The only problem was that orcs had a structure of noble houses.

Families, bloodlines of great warriors and kings of old that held massive amounts of morties and operated most of The Dearth Conglomerate from their seats of power. I wanted those seats. They would be important once the Sleem were gone.

I sighed and lifted off into the sky again, pushing the suit and flying north east. To another compound, this one owned by the brothers Delvago. Men who, in spite of being technically within the bounds of my employ, were not performing the task I required of them.

Chapter 72

As I flew, I kept a lower speed to give myself time to think about what to say. The brothers were good men, and both naturally aligned with my struggle, but they were sensitive. Izan in particular was so worried about both past and future that he often forgot completely about the present.

I hovered in above the brothers estate, after checking in with local BlueCleave defenders over our system. They knew I was in the area and wouldn’t be answering any alarms I unwittingly tripped unless called for.

On Nu-Earth we used BlueCleave Connect, our associated communications affiliate. The hobbs had crafted it lovingly, in their stubborn way, refusing help from native speakers while broadcasting it in the English now considered the most common way to communicate with Silken Sands and Nu-Earthers.

You need good speak, we have way! Hi, I am official talk-person for BlueCleave Affiliate. Welcome to BlueCleave Connect!

Worlds connect, magic happens!

Communication hard? Expensive? Hobbs can help! Using State of Art BuyMort technologies, BlueCleave make Unique Communication System—and pass savings to you!

Hobb engineers harness arcane arts, make strong mysticism. We kill dropped calls and murder spam messages!

And with HobbGPT450, all language translated to strong, might words of other language!

What you think? Go BlueCleave Connect. Go STRONG!

The ads had worked, and not just because of Silken Sands backing. It had been implemented across the globe, and while a handful of people still used MortMobile, our planet’s usage in general was down dramatically.

We operated at a loss to price MortMobile out, but it was worth it. I had a promise to that creature to fulfill, and profit awaited me if I could accomplish the task. Mighty profit, I hoped.

Dario was sunbathing by the pool, wearing only a thong, and glistening with oil. I set down silently at his side and waited as he hurriedly scrambled for his robe, which was hanging nearby.

“My apologies, friend,” I said, gazing lightly over his pool. “I hoped to catch you alone, without Izan.”

“I am often without Izan these days,” Dario answered, as he tied his silk robe at the waist. When he turned back, his customary beaming smile was in place, and his long black beard glittered in the Arizona sunlight. “He spends much time alone in study.”

“Trying to find another way?” I asked.

“Trying to find another way,” Dario confirmed, hands on his hips. “There is none, though, I think he knows that. I hope he knows that.”

I smiled gently and reached out a hand to properly greet my friend. Dario happily gripped my wrist and shook, before gesturing to a nearby table, with chairs. Before we sat down, he leaned in and popped the table’s built-in umbrella.

“Thank you,” I said, while sitting down and pulling the table in close to enjoy the shade. “And I hope this is alright, I don’t mean to pit you against your brother in this, or any matter.”

Dario waved a hand. “No, if you want to speak to Izan, you go through Dario, it has ever been thus. Izan feels too much, it removes his ability to function at times.”

I nodded in understanding. “That’s not fair,” I said softly.

Dario’s eyes widened, and he snorted a laugh at me. “I suppose not. It certainly has not brought him happiness in this life.”

“A true shame, since he could experience it better than us, were he able to,” I replied.

Dario nodded slowly, blinking in the sunlight. “What can I do for you, warlord Dawes?” he finally asked.

“I mostly just came by to check in, see if Izan has accepted the necessity of our task yet,” I said, with a shake of my head. “I come from Storage, where things are still quite desperate for many.”

“I hear, the reaper hounds are back, no?” Dario asked. “I had hoped you wiped them out, but at least now we know the flashing lights trick. Not so hard to kill any longer. We even set our turrets to recognize them and use the lights. Easy, took two minutes.”

I smiled gently and nodded. “My favorite kind of fix. Speaking of, how is Izan faring with his task emotionally?”

Dario sighed. “Izan is sad. Always angry or sad. He is working, he works at least, doing his research and his reading, but the old joy of discovery is not there in him. Only anger, and then sadness.”

“Soon,” I said, looking Dario in the eyes. “Soon we will have a peaceful multiverse, where such threats as the Sleem are as uncommon on Storage as they are here. Once we have done this, won this war, we will all be free.”

“Izan warned me you would say that and not mean it,” Dario muttered, frowning.

“I’m not foolish enough to lie to my inner circle, Dario. I mean what I say,” I replied.

“Of course, I don’t mean to name you liar, I just . . .” Dario shuddered. “It is an eerie feeling.”

“I have a plan, Dario. Soon, our affiliate will be wealthy beyond measure, and better able to shape the multiverse into a more fair, free place. No more great houses hoarding all the wealth, no more church oppression,” I said. “These goals matter, they are worth the work we do.”

“That work is heavy though, no?” Dario asked. “Allow my brother his tears for what we leave in our wake.”

I nodded. “Of course. We have some time at any rate. Axle’s team assures me we need to be in-system in order to do this. It should kill all the rest of the Sleem we have in BuyMort already, but we have to hit that new mass in order to wipe them all out. The scale of the quantum connection requires it.”

Dario scowled and leaned forward. “Am I hearing there is a chance some Sleem may survive?”

“From the latest batch of documents Izan sent Axle’s team, they say the shot must be fired into the new world. If we tried firing it into our Sleem here in BuyMort, it may kill an equal amount on the new world but would not wipe them all out through their quantum entanglement. Scale seems to matter a great deal here,” I answered, with a shrug. “They report a small chance some Sleem may survive, but it seems unlikely, so long as we strike the new world.”

“That leaves us a very short window,” Dario said.

“Yes, we must be ready by then,” I said.

“On that front,” he replied, standing up. “Come, come, I have something I want to show you!”

I stood to follow him, and we walked up the hill toward his manor. At the top, behind the house was a large landing platform with an attached hangar bay, all hidden beneath camouflage netting to make the pad and hangar appear as if they were a swimming pool from the sky.

Dario held the cover up for me, and I ducked beneath, before following him into the hangar. Their personal ship was there, an upgraded tug vessel they’d lived in before settling on Nu-Earth. The rotund ship was squat, with a massive engine and equally large antimatter power plant, roughly the size of a two story house.

Their tug was exceedingly strong, designed to push or pull other, larger ships around in port. Redesigned as it was, it had served as a mobile headquarters and getaway vehicle for the brothers. Portalling it from one system to another was expensive, which drove them to a mercenary lifestyle before they had met me, and the brothers had accumulated great wealth in a short period of time.

Dario took to it like a fish to water. His ship was sporting even more upgrades now that he could afford them, being on my payroll.

From the central orb extended two stubby, but thick wings that housed tow cables, and were part of the ship’s core skeletal hull structure. The brothers had attached weapons to the wings when they’d taken to living in the tug, on the run from the church, but they had to be hard-wired into the ship’s reactor to function, as the tug had no built-in weapon mounting points.

They were gone, their errant wires still welded down onto the hull of the thick wings. At the front, beneath the bridge viewports, was a modified BuyMort airlock. It sported a shield projector surrounding the opening in place of a regular airlock.

Beyond it I could see a large open area, with heavy cabling jutting from the walls. And in the middle of the open bay, sat the transdimensional pulse cannon.

“Is this?” I started, pointing at the opening.

“A custom ship mount for the cannon? Yes of course,” Dario replied. “I’ve been hard at work since your team’s report came back. We will need to shoot the cannon from space, no? This way, it bolts directly into the ship's primary frame. No more problems with recoil, just use engines to compensate.”

I smiled from one corner of my mouth. “Thank you Dario, this reassures me somewhat.”

“Well, I’m glad to be able to do that much at least. In five months’ time, when the gate opens, we will be ready,” he said.

I nodded at the rotund man. “As will we. It will be a hard day, but we’ll come through it. And run this multiverse afterward.”

Dario winced at that, but quickly covered it with a large smile and extended his hand for me to shake.

I took his arm by the wrist and locked eyes with the man. He steadied his countenance and met my stare, shaking my hand solidly.

He didn’t like what he needed to do, but he was ready to do it.

I wondered if I could say the same about his brother.

Once Dario was finished being friendly and I had impressed upon him the importance of Izan’s cooperation once more, I left their compound and headed for home.

I had to see Molls, before things got out of control and I couldn’t for a while. When I found her, in our penthouse suite, she was lounging in one corner with a paperback novel and a soft smile on her lips. Her scales were flushed purple, as they usually were when she was reading, and I smiled openly at her.

“Tyson!” she squealed, dropping her book and rushing across the room in a swirl of glittering scales to embrace me. I’d used the hobbs’ shower at their miniature base in the elevator on Storage before heading out, so I wasn’t worried about smelling like death and dismembered reaper hounds. I just clung to her as she clung to me, and the world was alright again for a few seconds.

“You’re back so soon!” she said, pulling back to look down at me.

“I told you I would be,” I replied with a smile.

“Well yes, but I thought you meant a few days at least. It’s barely been a day, this is wonderful,” she said, reaching down for a kiss.

Once we broke for air, I nodded up at her. “Well, I’ll have to redeploy again soon, so I wanted to come spend some time with you first. Very soon, actually, later tonight.”

She nodded and pulled away to find a pair of glasses in the cabinet. She’d taken to drinking a very light alcoholic wine with me at night when we had the time. It was a light purple color, made from a grape-like fruit that grew on Nahgah. I didn’t hate it. It was light, but tart.

Molls also claimed it had aphrodisiac properties, which I suspected was her primary motivation.

I moved toward her reading corner while she poured us a couple of glasses. “What were you reading?” I asked, coyly sneaking a peak at the cover by turning it over with the toe of my boot.

She got there before me and bustled up the book, something with a cyborged-up human on the front. “My favorite new series, of course,” she replied, carefully finding her place and placing a bookmark in it, before setting the book down carefully in the corner of her comfortable reading mat.

It was placed in the corner of the penthouse, where the day’s fading natural light was strongest. I stood in Molls’ reading corner and stared around the apartment. Since I had taken the penthouse and tower, she’d made it a home.

Every single creature comfort had been added by her, for the both of us. She was the reason I had a home in the first place, instead of just another place to crash. Before I forced us to leave it for the foreseeable future, I felt the overwhelming urge to live there. With her.

I kept an eye on the clock but spent the time with Molls in a deeply intentional way. We enjoyed one another’s company. She sipped at her wine while I cooked myself a light dinner. We chatted and laughed. Made love, later that night, and she fell asleep in my arms.

When I got up to leave, I did so quietly, slowly extracting myself from within her relaxed coils. I left a note on the kitchen counter, where it would be easily noticed. I told her the rough details of what I would be doing, and how I wouldn’t be back for at least a few days again, then told her it was time to move up to our satellite home for security’s sake. It was worded carefully, to avoid scaring her.

But she would pack up and leave, once she’d read it.

Chapter 73

After slipping out the roof door, I nodded at our hobb guard. They secured the door behind me, and I pushed off the roof with my gravity harness, falling up into the sky and heading back to the ruined compound Garthirst had recently departed.

It was still pitch black out as I landed and walked around the pool. BlueCleave had been thorough. They’d left the structure and pool, but even the lounge furniture had been claimed for use elsewhere. So I walked around to the resort's main staircase and sat down, to wait.

In the time since I’d unlocked and installed the aimed shot perk patch, I’d taken to reading in my downtime. Axle sent me a shocking amount of information over the BuyMort app, and the more I looked over it, the more I was convinced he had no expectation that I would actually absorb any of it. His documents were more like notes, taken in a flow-of-consciousness style that took a bit of effort to get used to.

Mostly it seemed like the information he uploaded to my BuyMort account was more about him making sure he had reference material to talk to me about what was important for the affiliate, much more than it was about providing me with that information. It almost read as though he was covering his ass for when I screwed up, by providing detailed notes.

Some of the earliest entries were carefully worded to avoid upsetting me, but his language became looser and more filled with a clear understanding that I was unlikely to read any of it. Still, he included links to his library in the majority of his later entries, which became increasingly useful to me as I began absorbing information about my enemies.

History is a hell of a teacher, and the Knowles were BuyMort’s historians.

The House of Gar was a proud Orkreshi household. This was well-documented among the Knowles, who paid close attention to everyone, all the time, and had the culturally ingrained habit of creating repositories of their gained knowledge. The House of Gar’s excess of pride was something in particular that stood out to me in their family’s history.

Since they had risen from the third Orkreshi world to be consumed by BuyMort, they had never once failed to answer a direct challenge within twelve hours.

I put Garthirst’s humiliation aside, it barely mattered. When I publicly stated that The House of Gar was ‘finished,’ there was only one thing they could possibly do. Descend upon my world with all of the military might they had available to them and destroy me personally.

Once Scollya and her team had finished with the compound, she had informed me that the camera feed had a MortMobile device as part of its hardware. I ordered her team to leave the camera system intact and pull all BlueCleave forces back from the site.

If I offered myself as bait, they would portal in right on top of me. Then I could finish things between us, without putting my people at risk.

Garthirst was as stupid as his father had been. I expected his uncle would be at least a little different, based on the success and notoriety of the House of Gar within Dearth. They were lauded as the best, most elite fighting force in the entire affiliate.

So I sat and waited for a fight, in my combat pants and boots, wearing nothing else but my helmet.

I didn’t have to wait long, before a lone BuyMort pod approached from the distance.

“Warlord Dawes to all BlueCleave in the southern Arizona operations area, be advised that I am engaging with Dearth forces. Stay clear, this is my fight. Only engage with them if their forces make any moves against our people or infrastructure,” I growled in hobb.

A series of base commanders responded in the positive, and the incoming BuyMort pod stopped in midair over the ruined compound. It cordoned off a major part of the empty lot the resort's lawn had become and began warping in Dearth Conglomerate orc troops.

In a flurry of movement and bright weapon fire, their advance team killed all the remaining cameras in the resort’s building-front. It was smart, but wouldn’t help. I had Fumble-Bee hives covering every square inch of Arizona, and the long lenses on Elevator Station were pointed down at us too. Our fight would be publicized whether or not they wanted it to be.

The orcs had used particle beam weapons to take out the cameras, punching several structure-damaging holes in the building. It groaned behind me.

“So you know,” I yelled, slowly standing up and beginning an easy, leisurely stroll down the stairs. I shook out my hands as I went, before stretching my back and neck. Several weapon’s flashlights and laser targeting beams fixated on me, and dozens of orcs in expensive looking powered armor moved to surround me.

The BuyMort pod in the background continued warping in people, weapons, and vehicles. There was even a trio of light attack ships with sharp, curving bladed wings extending forward like fangs. The tips of their wings glowed with power.

“You know that I have taunted you into this attack, and you’ve shown up anyway,” I said, my helmet projecting my voice across the compound. “You have my sympathy,” I said, stopping and taking in a deep breath. “But an example must be set.”

The orcs in front of me said nothing and stood inscrutable behind their high-tech powered armor. Each of them gleamed like a beetle, covered in heavy plating and reflective helmets. Their chunky weapons barrels followed me as I moved.

“You have challenged The House of Gar!” a husky voice roared from the back. A hulking orc stepped forward from beside an armored tank, bristling with missile pods. The orc warrior pointed a shimmering ax in my direction, his power armor gilded and adorned with small skulls. “And its mightiest warrior, Garfield, shall answer!”

The moment burst, and I giggled. It just slipped out of me, a high-pitched laugh that echoed around the compound walls and bounced between the clustered orcs.

“I’m sorry,” I said, between bouts of uncontrollable laughter. “Could you say your name again please? I must have misheard.”

“Slayer!” the orc roared, stepping forward. His heavy armor’s face-plate stood open and his oversized tusks shined in the night. “Reaver! Mangler! Mordren-bane and hobb slayer! The House of Gar’s owner and war chief, Garfield!”

I doubled up in laughter and raised one hand to ward off the attack I knew must be coming. “I am so sorry, I don’t mean to be this rude. Genuinely, I only meant to lure you here and murder you, not laugh at your name, but I just cannot help it. It's a cultural thing. Means a totally different thing here.”

A thought occurred to me, and my eyes went wide as I started laughing again. “Oh no!” I exclaimed, between barely suppressed giggles.

“Are you insane?” Garfield roared at me. “My brother thought you must be so. He wrote it in his last messages.”

I shrugged and shook my head. “I realized it’s Monday today, that’s all. Feel kinda bad about this whole thing now, Monday’s are just the worst.”

“Kill this jabbering fool!” Garfield shouted, clanking his faceplate closed. I did the same, summoning my nanite helm into place and hitting everyone in the area with fairy fire outlines.

Then I vanished in a cloud of dust, streaking straight up into the sky. The attack ships followed, tracking me and opening fire, sending lines of vibrant blue hurtling past me, faster than I could react to. Much faster.

Particle beam weaponry. Small enough for their soldiers to field, and hard-hitting enough to actually penetrate my skin. In fact, based on the reading I had done, I had no reason to think that even my suit could stand up to that level of directed energy and kinetics.

So I tried to dodge. I flew erratically, upward in a zigzag that sent glittering bolts of blue into the sky. My flight was angled to avoid them hitting my precious Elevator Station, but I had to hope the myriad ships in orbit would be alright too.

Thinking of all that business I was putting at risk, I reversed course and plummeted toward the ground.

It was time to go on the offensive.

Chapter 74

The ships pulled up hard and followed but didn’t continue firing. Instead, the missile launcher platform on the ground cycled its hatches open and pointed the launching ports up, before firing a dozen missiles at me. I braced with my gauntlets in front of my helmet.

The missiles burst in the air in front of me, bathing me in clouds of scalding blue-white plasma.

My body burned, where the flames made contact, and my suit began to deploy tendrils. One after the other, the missiles blasted apart in the air before me, each creating another searing fireball for me to hurtle through.

My clothing burned away, skin charred and blackened, I plummeted through the superheated flames. Just before I landed, I broke through to see the heavily armored orcs all fleeing the immediate area, each of them rocketing away via jetpacks on their armor.

I plunged down into the tank, and activated my breaker gauntlets as soon as I felt the impact.

The earth erupted, in a vibrant blue explosion that rocked the compound. High above me, the ruined resort building creaked, groaned, and finally gave way with an explosive series of deafening pops. Rubble rained down toward me, and I pushed the suit, flying clear of the collapsing structure.

The resort's main building, once the pride of the region, collapsed into the pit I had created. Several orcs were trapped within, shrieking as they fell.

A moment of cool relief rolled through my body. It was a lot easier than I'd expect it would be. I turned to move away to my next target when, with a loud battle cry, the orcs emerged from the debris, their powered armor amplifying their movements. The orcs rose, lifting and tossing boulders and debris much larger than themselves.

I was dealing with elite troopers, using stat shot upgrades. A thought for how much their weapons, armor, and bodies would be worth flitted through my mind, and my burning hatred for BuyMort flared. Hatred for what it was turning me into, how it was infecting my mind.

My attack had destroyed their plasma missile tank, but aside from that, they had suffered no casualties.

I pushed the suit and flew overhead as they raised their weapons to fire at me. Blue streaks shot into the Arizona desert, and I hurtled into the crowd of orcs firing at me. I grabbed one by the ankle as I went, but Garfield himself struck me down, making me lose my grip and sending the hapless orc bouncing into his compatriots.

Garfield’s weapon, a broad-bladed ax with a gleaming silvery edge, embedded itself in my body and slammed me onto the ground. I gasped in pain, an instant before the suit pumped me full of drugs, and the entire experience clouded.

It slowed down time for me, as my new crystalline colonies reacted to the suit’s drug. Not only were my pain impulses suppressed, but time itself seemed to move slower for me while I felt the drug.

I could see all around me that orcs were shouldering weapons and getting ready to fire, as Garfield stood over me, his helmet’s mask a snarling metal face. From my angle, the face carved into the orc chief’s helmet looked a little like a smash-faced, grumpy cat, and I burst out in laughter again.

The orcs around me all hesitated at the sound, and I gripped the haft of the ax. In a single movement, I tore it free and pushed the suit to take off again, as my blood sprayed the orcs around us.

“User!” my cartoon starfish cried. “Damage detected, user! We need more charge to handle all of this!”

I frowned in confusion, then glanced down at my chest. The small core of my suit was damaged, a nick in the nigh-unbreakable metal clearly visible. Whatever Garfield’s ax was made of, it could cut through my suit. It still functioned, but one side of the tendrils supposed to be working across my body were limp and unresponsive.

In my distraction, a bolt of blue punched through me from behind. The particle beam skimmed my skull, tearing out a chunk of my suit with a fragment of hardened bone.

The weapon blasted apart my nanite helmet as if it didn’t exist, and I went limp as I fell from the sky, totally unconscious. Technically dead.

A few seconds later, I awoke at the bottom of the nearby lake, blinking and gasping. I could breathe, which I hadn’t expected. My helmet had repaired itself after my suit healed me.

My cartoon starfish was waiting for me, holding its breath with a comically attached ‘hand’ over its nose. “Hurry user! Get us more charge!”

The suit had repaired me as well as it could, but a shot to the head like that had taken its toll on me. I could feel the crystalline colonies working to repair my new brain matter, but the easy access to information and strategy was simply absent.

Immediate action was required though. I couldn’t fly, and my chest was still hanging open as gallons of artificial blood clouded the water around me.

I plunged my hands into the silt and muck at the bottom of the lake, digging and throwing up huge clouds of dirt. Before long I came across a broad, flat rock and crushed it between my gauntlets.

The suit sprang into motion again, welding and applying flesh foam as needed. At my cartoon’s urging, I kept digging and seeking more stones. Each time I found one, I crushed it, and my charge was regenerated.

But still the cartoon wanted more. “Not enough charge for core repairs, user, break something!”

A streak of blue sizzled past me in the water and I leapt upward as it detonated in the silt below me. I rode the wave of force upward, and then pushed the suit. I may not have had enough charge to repair the core, but it still functioned, and I had more than enough charge to fly.

So I punched up out of the water and dove at the squad of orcs on the beach, slamming into one and launching him screaming into the night. They all turned to fire on me, and I veered into the resort’s rubble, activating my breaker gauntlets again and blasting the ruined building on the ground apart.

Rubble launched in all directions as my de-atomizing blast destabilized the ruined structure further. I welcomed it, and skidded to a stop against the concrete bottom, as stone and structure rained down on top of me.

Particle beam blasts hit the outside of the ruin, and I had a moment to breathe, once I pushed some of the rubble off from myself. Their weapons were powerful enough to punch through my suit. Through my helmet.

The House of Gar had come expecting its last fight, with nothing held back. I felt a sudden urge of lust for their weaponry and armor, then started smashing at the nearby ruins with my metal-covered fists. My suit sprouted stiff mechanical arms and began the process of removing the damaged portion of my turbine.

It put itself back together, then put the rest of me back together. I was still crispy, so I needed to be skinned again. My crystalline colonies had already receded in anticipation, and I found myself bored by the experience. It happened regularly, and my current victims were about to realize that it wasn’t anywhere near enough to stop me.

That was part of the point, the show. Defeat the Dearth Conglomerate’s best, publicly, on the evening news as recorded from orbit with long lenses. CTV paid a premium to hold a MortBlock on that particular portion of the station, for just such an occasion.

A roar, and the smash of metal against concrete took my attention, and I focused upward. My helmet cast fairy fire outlines on all of the orc soldiers above me, firing down into the rubble seemingly at random, while their commander hacked at it with his relic ax, roaring.

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Another item I wanted for myself. I hunched down, then burst forward and activated my breaker gauntlets. My tiny space in the rubble exploded outward, and I flew toward their leader fast enough to generate a shockwave.

He flew backwards from the explosion, his armored suit kicking in a set of jet-thrusters to stabilize and land him safely, still holding that ax.

I swept in and took him off his feet, dodging through fire from his team of armored orcs. Each of them had particle beam weapons, and each of them had a jetpack attached to their power armor. With a surge of momentum, I hauled Garfield off the ground and hurled him up into the nearest assault ship.

His armored body caught in the crescent wing and sliced in half, even as his ax dug into the vehicle's wing. His armored legs fluttered off into the lake below, and the orc roared in agony one final time, before his own grip slipped and he plummeted to the water.

I turned back and grabbed the haft of the ax. It hummed with power in my hands, curved blade gleaming brightly in the starlight. It shimmered as I squeezed on the handle, and the craft’s wing clunked to the side, partially severed. The assault ship veered down into the lake with a fountain of water, joining the disparate parts of their leader.

As the pilot ejected, shooting high above the water, I sliced him in half with the ax.

The troops on shore opened fire together, and I dove into their midst, ax whirling around me. I had no more grace or technique then when I used a sword, but it was effective. Their power armor didn’t stand a chance. The ax was sharper than even my sword, it shimmered and sparked anytime I slammed it into an armored foe and cleaved through their hardened armor like paper. My enemies fought to the death, each of them unloading their particle beam weapons at me as I rushed onto them.

From above, the two remaining ships fired selectively down onto me, occasionally punching holes through my body and into the earth behind me. I flew through a cascade of explosions, green blood, and tearing metal before all that remained was the ships.

Hungrily, I stared up at them as they both fired down at me. Then I leapt off the ground at the nearest and sunk the ax into the cockpit, cutting through the pilot and sending the craft plummeting into the lake below.

The final ship veered to break off, but I was much faster. I landed on it, focused and held onto it with my gravity harness as the pilot began a desperate series of high speed rolls and then aimed for a nearby mountain. I hurled the ax down into the desert below and grabbed the ship by its rear engine mount.

My gauntlets glowed with heat as I focused and used my own mastery over gravity to slow the ship and force it lower and lower to the ground until it skidded to a stop in a plume of sand and earth. Cacti tore free and bounced off my new layer of skin, needles shattering.

The pilot ejected as soon as the ship slowed enough for an attempt, but I snatched him out of the cockpit as soon as it opened and tore him in half.

With that final ship and pilot, the House of Gar was dead. I had cut off their head and taken three of their ships in relatively good condition.

The Dearth Conglomerate’s elite battle squad was no more.

Chapter 75

“BlueCleave move in,” I growled. “Commandeer enemy equipment and transport their downed ships to our drydock. And feel free to sell any remains you come across.”

Those particle beam weapons were multi-trillion mortie weapons each, and I was sure our BlueCleave technicians could make use of the armor pieces. They’d have those ships hauled up and in drydock at the port within the hour too, without doubt.

BlueCleave quite enjoyed cleaning up after my battles. They found the leavings profitable for the ever-growing tribe.

“And Tollya,” I said, connecting to her military base that had been built up on Neolithic Earth, in the center of one of the recovering capital cities. “Begin your attacks on the Dearth Conglomerate’s holdings on your planet.”

The connection in my helmet crackled and her voice came through. “With pleasure, boss.”

My war against the upper planets had begun, but it was okay by them, because I was only getting even with the Dearth Conglomerate for Storage after all, and nobody cared for the Dearth Conglomerate anymore. They simply weren’t profitable to associate with.

As my forces descended upon them in the night, across the systems we had holdings in, nobody rose to their defense.

They just attacked to get what they could too, while the conglomerate was dying.

Like sharks that sensed blood in the water, the hundreds of thousands of individual affiliates that made up the top ten list flooded into Dearth holdings and took them for themselves. The church said nothing, but gave a small message about the importance of profit, and competence, for affiliates.

Ships, armor, and weapon caches, and massive resource holdings were sold at emergency prices by high level executives attempting to escape the impending crush of violence. We further expanded our fleet by purchasing as many of the ships as we could.

Dearth made a halfway decent product, after all. A little BlueCleave modification, and they’d be worthy of our troopers.

Holdings and fleets were claimed, divided up, or simply destroyed in the rush to acquire them. BlueCleave had been on war footing with Dearth since we’d spread from Nu-Earth, so all of our forces were ready. From Tertiary, across Neolithic Earth’s vast singular continent, and in the clouds of Storage, our forces harried and destroyed theirs.

In the days that followed my defeat of the House of Gar, we moved on the Dearth Conglomerate wherever possible. Taking whole where we could, but brutally crushing where we could not. As we rose ever closer to the top ten list, The Dearth Conglomerate slid off of it entirely, then began a free fall descent in the rankings as its holdings were torn into by hungry affiliates and associates.

I did nothing but start the grinder, then claim as much of the meat it produced for myself as I could.

Hobbs flooded into BlueCleave, and the extended Silken Sands network at large. We had employees sign up for each plantation ship that TransPoCo had en route, and they started scrambling to launch more of them on an advanced schedule to meet our rising waitlist.

A week into Silken Sands’ massive growth spurt, a planetoid body appeared in the Sol gate, nearly filling it with its bulk as it entered. They began broadcasting peaceful intent, and a desire to share space in the solar system with Silken Sands, without officially affiliating.

The world had many hobbs who wished to earn entry not as BlueCleave themselves, but as friendly neighbors and allies at their most important time of need.

A young hobb woman named Terna owned and led the machine-world, which was roughly the size of the asteroid Ceres, and had its own city-sized engines and thrusters spread out across the globe to move it as needed. They took up position between Nu-Earth and Venus, in a gentle orbit that took their glittering planetoid near our world four times a year, for easy quarterly trade.

As they came, their ad played out for everyone to see. It was such a unique and pleasant difference in our universe that I listened to it every time.

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They paid us a king's ransom in morties to allow them the space, and Axle assured me the orbit would not interfere with any of our current projects. In spite of being smaller, they appeared to require a closer orbit to recharge and begin their operations process again.

The world was covered in food growing greenhouses, and manufacturing below ground. Every bit of the dwarf planet had been scooped out and replaced by machinery over the millennia, their leader explained to me, and now the world was run for the benefit of all who lived on it.

One of the most fascinating things they explained to me, when I expressed my own concerns about their strain on the local BuyMort network, was that almost no one on the planetoid used the app. They all had it, of course. Nobody could escape it, if they were in the system, but these people specifically chose to forgo its use, culturally.

Instead, they had thriving community markets, and free at point-of-service mass transportation. If one job dried up for someone, or they didn’t like the products a region produced, it was no hassle for them to move to another. A sort of natural, migratory population of hundreds of millions of hobbs, humans, orcs, mordren, and many others thrived on the world.

Their mental health scores were off the charts, according to Axle and his data-scraping.

Aside from a single BuyMort station that saw minimal use from planetoid’s military leadership, they just didn’t use the app.

My days stretched into weeks, and I found it a desperate scramble to spend time with Molls. My war on Dearth required much of my time, but I came home anytime a portal was available and I could slip away from the violence.

She built a home of the manor in our domed satellite residence, bringing many of our usual comforts to it from the penthouse, and purchasing more still from BuyMort. My mate was used to being wealthy, of that I had no doubt.

The Storage campaign went well. We dodged the Sleem, moving the denizens of the sphere to spire camps we set up stretching across the tops of Storage. Each spire held only a thousand people, but we rotated them in and out as rapidly as we could.

The people would spend a bit of time in the tent cities my people had set up for them, each with a BlueCleave security detachment to protect them. But they rarely stayed long.

Ships came to the Storage system from every affiliate that could send them. Any Dearth ships were destroyed immediately upon arrival, an act we had to receive dispensation from the church for. They gave it, promptly, and their massive citadel ships protecting the gate ignored the conflicts aside from extending their shields over the rest of the ships in the area.

Within a week, Dearth remnants had trouble moving through any of the connected systems without being attacked, preyed on by my forces or others. As the House of Gar’s best fighters had perished in a duel with me, many of the orcs in the Dearth Conglomerate’s ranks broke and dissolved their battalions instead of facing us in battle.

Many of our ‘attacks’ were entirely peaceful events. We honored our words and let any who didn’t fight us live. Many would filter into other affiliates, but we would gain some as well, and I was laser focused on growing our numbers for the coming conflict.

The war with Dearth fizzled over the course of several battles.

After an especially devastating fight over a city on Neolithic Earth involving Phyllis in her kaiju-mech, they ran away, or gave us what we wanted without a fight. Exactly as they did with all the other affiliates who came pecking, biting, and clawing at their infrastructure’s corpse. The owners sold what they could and retired, many of them going into hiding. We offered competitive rates to place them in Silken Sands. The ground-level workers decided their lives mattered more than jobs we were offering to replace for them anyway.

Many found our military’s requests more than reasonable.

The Sol system thrived as the weeks extended into months. Our mining operations expanded throughout the asteroid belt, Mars, Venus, and several other planetoids, with plenty of workers eager to fulfill the dull, but relatively safe jobs. Families followed, cities arose.

Both space stations and asteroid cities quickly became popular projects for associates operating under our umbrella.

Axle’s construction manager had his hands full with monitoring projects our associates engaged in around the solar system. Fortunately, with our investments in a construction printer affiliate, we were easily able to aid affiliates in their expansions with quality construction tools and turn a tidy profit for our efforts at the same time.

Within three months, nobody remembered The Dearth Conglomerate, except as a joke. Silken Sands crept up on the top ten list rapidly. We were the talk of the town on the upper planets, which were divided thanks to some well-placed propaganda from our public relations department.

Half of them thought we, and specifically me, were an existential threat to all of BuyMort, and urged the great houses of church leadership to act accordingly. The other half thought we were the saviors of BuyMort, rewarded by a system they revered as something akin to a god, and that I was sent to save them all from the Sleem.

We encouraged that belief with several large military campaigns against the Sleem in Storage, and on the upper planets whenever the need arose. Our military ranks swelled, and we soon had over a million hobbs wearing at least a base-level starfish suit.

Most of the people who crewed our ships had one, plus the gravity harness upgrade that allowed them to control their own gravity. A major advantage in space-based warfare.

All of our ships were able to fly faster and make more extreme maneuvers than our enemy’s ships. Not just our famed relic ship, any ship our crews manned. All our crew were able to withstand massive g-forces without negative physical effect.

The multiverse speculated on the why, and pointed to the wide-spread conspiracy theory that BlueCleave was primarily comprised of expensive clay golems.

Most analysts suggested that our affiliate upgrade path, which was a closely held secret, focused heavily on the use of the CloneMort facilities. All affiliates that were considered top ten potentials kept their upgrade path a close secret, that was nothing out of the ordinary, and speculation was a fun hobby for the elites on the upper planets.

While they speculated, we got in bed further with TransPoCo. Before long, Silken Sands had workers in nearly every planet TransPoCo operated, including a large amount of their security forces. Once we pulled our hat trick and erased the Sleem from the list, we would be ready to force TransPoCo to do what we wanted, which gave us control of much of the multiverses fuel supply.

Large and powerful affiliates like the church and TransPoCo could afford to use portals at will, even sending fleets to hotspots as needed, but the rest of us could not. We relied primarily on a silica fuel that TransPoCo mass produced.

As the months slid on, Molls and I moved into our satellite mansion more and more. Her mother was in a better mood, which helped ease tensions and stress. Their house, and its burgeoning, financially successful spider ranch were watched over day and night, free of charge. We even made sure BlueCleave kept out of sight, and never allowed the H.O.B.B.S crews access or knowledge of their presence on the outskirts of Prescott.

That was a closely held secret of the wealth elite within Prescott. A group I controlled quite tightly, through a system of fear and reward they seemed to almost enjoy. I was an excellent strong-man to rally around, and holding my secret seemed to fill them with giddy joy.

If any of them sold that information, or failed to properly control it within their own circles, they all knew death would be swift and unrelenting.

My mate's family was an ever-present thought in my mind. The only thing I could not protect them against was the bright plague, which was another threat my mind worked at while it healed.

The crystalline colonies took a while to repair me to complete function after the hit from the particle beam weapon. But within a few weeks I had some ideas, based on our previous success. I felt mostly ready for any beholder angels who decided to attack us.

Part of our insurance policy on that front came in the form of Phyllis, whose mech the church seemed quite genuinely frightened of. They classed it as a relic, although Phyllis scoffed at the idea and muttered about agism.

A conversation with Axle’s science team gave me a better understanding of the general perception of relic-classed items in the BuyMort system, and why the church seemed so desperate to control as many of them as they could.

To most people with knowledge of them in the upper planets, relics were items that were so old they often bent, or flat out broke the physical laws of the universes they were purchased into. Church scholars professed their collection was to ensure that no universal damage was caused, through the breaking of these laws. They told vague stories about entire solar systems laid to waste, BuyMort gates shut down or destroyed.

The usual fear-mongering stuff of legend and myth. Then again, the same think tank accurately predicted my acquisition of all hobbs in the BuyMort system, months before it actually occurred, so I couldn’t discount their opinions entirely.

The upper planets had a problem with speculation, culturally. It tended to occupy and bog down their processes and applications of power. Because Phyllis’ mech was clearly aging her in reverse, we convinced them her relic could potentially manipulate the fabric of time. So keeping her in one of the inner worlds universes kept the entire upper planets military society in deep check.

They were too busy speculating.

We had confirmation for none of that nonsense with Phyllis’ mech, of course, but it played on TV. TV that the powerful consumed and based their decisions on. So as I slowly took Storage away from the rest of the BuyMort system, none of them paid attention to anyone who complained.

There were voices that accurately described my affiliate’s actions, and the potential growing threat we represented. That conversation was simply mired in disinformation, so none of the major power groups in the top ten affiliates could come to any conclusion about what to do with me.

Aside from that, a rumor was growing among them that I had a solution for the Sleem problem. That something I was doing, probably in Storage, was going to fix the new world’s entrance, and reduce the Sleem attacks across the systems back to normal levels.

Where they didn’t bother the rich people anymore.

All of this gave me the advantage of treading water with the church while I continued growing my affiliate in strength. I had no doubt they strategized on my personal demise, but even that proved a stymying point. After witnessing me take fire from particle beam weapons, and a relic ax that I now owned, the powerfuls’ concept of power was changing.

Besides, speculation of my involvement with the inquisition swirled.

I began moving my ships into position early, clearing a path through Sol for the brothers Delvago’s tug. Hundreds of trillions of morties were spent on bribes and legitimate fleet activity needs, as Silken Sands prepared to be the only affiliate insane enough to venture into the new Sleem system.

A heavy Sleem presence was expected, as BuyMort Sleem arrived en masse to offer themselves to the new affiliate they would all form.

The gate’s opening loomed near, but I left the brothers alone after my last conversation with Dario. I had the man’s overt assurances, and I didn’t wish to scare him or his brother.

Nobody wanted to see the multiverse as they knew it eaten by angry slime. We were all certain Izan would perform the task as needed.

While the church publicly celebrated BlueCleave’s latest victory over the Sleem in Storage, my ships slid into place at gates all over the multiverse. We paid our exorbitant gate fees with a smile, as the church gave us preferential placement over what few other affiliates were sending ships.

July was coming up on us, out of nowhere. Eight months of BuyMort. Nearly long enough to grow a whole new person. Thankfully, I still felt like me. I was looking forward to watching Molls sunbath in Mexico and at Morro Bay, nothing had changed about my instincts or desires. I still wanted to keep my people safe and expand the definition of what “my people” covered as wide as the BuyMort system would allow.

I still wanted to kill BuyMort at the end of all my war, all my business.

But first I had to deal with the church. And before them, the Sleem.

I stood on the bridge of the Sand Star, with Admiral Omen and Ordo, counting down the hours to the New Sleem system’s gate opening. BuyMort hosted a countdown, which all the for-profit news organizations naturally fixated on as if everyone’s lives depended on it.

Silken Sands committed three-quarters of its military fleet to the Sleem gate operation. The rest were left to defend critical infrastructure points in the rest of the BuyMort system, and our throne-world on Nu-Earth. Captain Thresher and the modified battleship he captained were orbiting directly alongside Elevator Station, a clear warning to anyone who would dare threaten my planet during our operation in Sleem space.

My closest advisors were all in place, all ready to do their parts. Axle was on Nu-Earth. He rarely left the relative security of Prescott any longer. Most of his job required him to be there anyway. Jada captained one of BlueCleave’s missile cruisers, and flew escort for the Sand Star, in the Sol System.

Rayna and Tollya were both commanding our ground forces on inner worlds, fighting back Sleem uprisings that seemed constant. The surge in growth BlueCleave had experienced as the Dearth Conglomerate collapsed slowed significantly, but the rest of the multiverse didn’t need to know that.

Everywhere our forces went, we reorganized the BuyMort shipping networks through infrastructure and residential zone placement. Tower was able to produce more and more golems to fill our ranks and take on the most dangerous assignments. Thanks to the generals’ good use of them, fully two thirds of all BlueCleave casualties were Tower golems.

Lee was working on the upper planets, ingratiating himself with TransPoCo and church affiliate members, making contacts, and generally burning through his expense account too rapidly for my preferences. Still, I didn’t expect his work to be cheap. Making friends and contacts among BuyMort’s upper echelons was not something that came without expenditure of morties.

Admiral Omen and the bulk of the fleet he had acquired for me were at my back, floating in space awaiting the opening of the gate. Tens of thousands of starfish troopers wearing gravity harnesses were ready to fight and die in the name of Silken Sands.

In the name of Nu-Earth.

The Sleem timer counted down. People across the multiverse celebrated or huddled in fear, as they saw fit. Some of us rose to fight, and my fleet stood ready.

As soon as the new gate’s coordinates registered in the BuyMort system, I paid a fortune in transit fees to warp my fleet into the new system. The first people to see the planet Sleem in person.

There was a moment, as the Sand Star hung in high orbit of Sleem, where we all simply stared at our surroundings. The planet hung massive and appeared red to my eyes. The same shade of red as the block in our basement back home on earth. It moved, flowed with tides of Sleem. All of the surface was a single ocean of slime, and it squirmed in great channels and currents.

The BuyMort gate was hung in high orbit of Sleem and offered a close view of the planet’s rings. Frozen stone and crystallized ice hung in the air around the massive world, destined to become more Sleem once they fell onto its surface.

Sleem’s rings were patchwork though, as BuyMort had mined them out for useful materials. The planet looked almost wounded. Ready for my killing blow.

Chapter 76

“Admiral, secure the gate,” I ordered, standing from my station. “If they’re not ours, turn them around or destroy them, as they see fit. No exceptions. I want this solar system locked down.”

Admiral Omen nodded, then leaned on the flight sticks to guide us into place for my departure. “Yes, Warlord,” he said.

Right on schedule, the brothers ship arrived and was immediately escorted to us by one of the many BlueCleave fighters in the area.

We’d reclaimed the House of Gar’s particle beam frigates and put them to great use with our starfish troopers behind the pilot's stick. One of them silently followed the brothers’ tug, alert for any threats, even from within our own fleet.

I floated up to the ceiling, where the BuyMort pod airlock was, and waited. Within a few seconds, Admiral Omen triggered the airlock and ejected me into open space.

My skin, now used to the shock, simply iced over as I flew. I focused on the brothers ship ahead of us and pushed the suit to land gently on their airlock door. It slid open for me, and I descended into the tug.

The air that rushed in to greet me smelled of tobacco. Not smoked tobacco, but tobacco left out on a platter, intentionally perfumed. Light Spanish guitar music played from overhead, as the cold metal doors of the airlock opened onto rich wood and leather.

I walked down a short hallway, covered in comfortably thick carpeting, to the helm. Dario was behind the ship’s console, a bowl of snuff at his side. It looked expensive and smelled even more so. Laced with something, if my enhanced senses were providing me the right hints.

Dario looked at me and I saw tears rimming his eyes. His beard was wet, and he’d obviously been crying.

“Hello!” he said, cheerfully. “I must apologize, but Izan has-” his voice wavered. “Izan has said he cannot join us, he must not join us.”

I scowled. “What’s wrong, Dario?”

His chest hitched as though he were hiding a sob. It was a small movement, but my upgraded eyes didn’t miss much anymore.

“Nothing, it is just Izan,” he mumbled. “You know how he gets.”

“You left two days ago, to make the gate on time,” I said, crossing my arms behind my back. “And you told us nothing of this refusal.” I hesitated a moment while Dario slumped and struggled to look at me.

“Izan made me swear,” he mumbled.

When I saw his inability to raise his eyes to meet mine, I made a decision.

“Does your ship have autopilot?” I asked.

Dario nodded.

“Set it, you and I are going to see Izan,” I said.

Dario paled but nodded and moved around to the control console. He input an orbit that kept the ship in close proximity to the fleet.

As he worked, I saw a ship explode at the gate, sending ripples of force through the area and shrapnel bouncing off armor or shields.

“What?” Dario started at the flare of light from the viewscreen. “Why are you shooting them?” he stammered.

“We need to control the system. They’re being given the option to turn around,” I answered coldly. Then I opened a channel to Admiral Omen and said, “Admiral, just letting you know, Dario and I are going home for a moment. We will return shortly.”

Dario’s face wilted as he heard me speak to Admiral Omen, but he quickly put on a mask of acceptance when I turned to face him. The man said nothing, merely clung to the edge of the control console as if he would tumble away into space without it.

I summoned a BuyMort pod, which entered the ship through the modified airlock. The cannon was set back far enough to be out of its way, and the airlock functioned as normal when needed.

The portal was expensive, but I had to know what had happened to Izan. We arrived in the Delvago brother’s mansion, back on Nu-Earth, and I immediately smelled what had happened.

“Izan?” Dario hesitantly called. “Are you here?”

The putrefaction I smelled in the air was light, but difficult to mistake. So was the scent of blood.

I followed my nose to their luxurious main bath and saw Izan’s body in the tub. His wrists were cut, in straight lines up to the elbow, and the tub’s basin was full of the rotting stain of his dried blood.

I froze and took in the room, carefully. It was decadent, with carved marble sinks and a wood-walled walk-in closet at the rear of the bathroom. There were thick rugs on the floor in front of the toilet, sinks, and shower. But none in front of the tub.

Just an unevenly clean portion of tile floor indicating one was recently removed.

There was also a small smear of blood on the wall beside Izan’s head. I reached around and lightly touched that side of his skull, feeling the blood and broken bone. The breakage was in a small, ball shaped area just behind his temple, but I was certain it was the wound that had killed him. The rest of it was a show being put on for my benefit.

“Dario,” I called, hearing the man moving around in the house behind me. He was occasionally calling his brother’s name, but weakly.

The attempt to deceive me was clearly premeditated, but I needed to interact with Dario to see if the murder of his own brother had been too.

When he entered the bathroom, he fell to his knees in apparent anguish and held his hands out to the tub. His tears were real at least, and he didn’t resist when I stepped over to him and gently helped him to his feet.

“Why don’t you tell me what happened, Dario?” I asked.

The man slumped against me, staring over my shoulder at his dead brother in the bathtub behind me. “I am so sorry, Izan,” he whimpered. I held him up, even when he went limp and started to sob. His emotions were real, his anguish clearly not a show.

“Did you kill him?” I quietly asked.

Dario nodded rapidly. His relief was palpable, the lie itself was beyond him. “He would not pull the trigger,” he whimpered. “But it must be pulled.”

My own heart nearly stopped at his words.

My fault, again.

This time, a fratricide, performed out of apparent desperation. But the reality was that we were all desperate. My fleet was holding the gate in the new Sleem system, but without the brother’s important shot, none of it mattered beyond a handful of hours.

The system didn’t need Tyson Dawes, emotional crybaby with a constant buzz or high. It needed the unflinching Warlord of Nu-Earth. Admiral Omen’s words resounded in my mind. I could dislike my title, my position in this multiverse, but I could never fail to live up to it.

I hauled Dario up to my face and made him look me in the eye. “Can you pull the trigger?”

The bigger man choked on his answer and began nodding rapidly, squeezing his eyes shut as more tears poured forth.

“I took Izan’s key as he took mothers. The cannon responds to me now,” Dario whispered. His eyes wandered past me to his brother in the tub again. “I am so sorry,” he said again, weeping openly.

“Be sorry later,” I barked. “Right now, you and I have a job to do.”

Dario’s tears didn’t stop, but he took a long, shaky breath and steadied himself. “And when it is done?”

“When it is done, I’ll still need you to fire the cannon. And to help us find more of them. To be a part of this affiliate,” I replied, letting him go. Dario was ready to stand on his own feet again, though he leaned on the nearby counter and avoided my steady gaze again. “You and I know what happened here. It can stay that way. Izan was too gentle for this world, too sweet and thoughtful for BuyMort. No one would question that he took his own life before taking the lives of all Sleem.”

Dario produced a tin from his pocket and tore at it with his thick fingers, until it popped open. More laced chewing tobacco. He pried up a wet chunk of the stuff and tucked it into his mouth, sighing with relief as whatever was in it kicked in.

That immediate urge satisfied, he nodded, sniffed, and looked up at me. “I will kill the Sleem. I will do what my brother could not.”

“I am sorry, Dario,” I replied, hanging my head. “I pushed you both too hard. I just didn’t realize what I was pushing you toward.”

My increased memory had nothing to offer to help me. I couldn’t see it coming because I let the brothers slip. I set down a mandate and walked away, letting their dysfunction and trauma fester until it became fratricide, to my personal benefit.

I’d had the BuyMort pod stay so we could leave quickly, so I summoned it to warp away Izan’s body. Dario watched, tonguing his chewing tobacco and weeping openly. The body went directly to BuyMort, along with the stain in the tub.

Dario sniffed and stood straighter, clearing his throat and spitting out the chunk of chewing tobacco into a nearby waste-can. He pulled on his coat's long sleeves and nodded at me. “I am ready,” he said.

I nodded and instructed the pod to warp us back aboard Dario’s ship. Once the dazzle of rainbow light had passed, I shot a text to Admiral Omen letting him know we had safely returned and the mission was intact.

Our fleet-wide BlueCleave comms service notified me that he had received the text, but the Admiral said nothing in reply.

Dario took the control console and steered the ship toward the planet. From the viewport, the star in the distance glowed a hotter yellow than I was used to. Its light washed over Sleem’s surface, twinkling from the planet’s patchwork rings.

Something else caught my eye, a tiny stream of silver. It flooded in from the far areas of the solar system, from every direction. The streams breaking off from the river grew smaller and smaller until my eyes could not make them out at all.

But closer to the planet, massive streams of nanites flowed, all furrowing and joining to create ropelike strands that descended to the world below. They were focused on the swirling currents on the planet’s surface, joining the fastest moving portions of them to disseminate to the nonillion Sleem below.

Behind us at the gate, a pitched battle broke out, as hundreds of ships arrived. Sleem piloted craft, most of them without weapons, streaked at our vessels almost at random, exploding as they were picked off by the Sand Star, or one of our other dozens of gathered vessels.

Our escort broke off and fired on an incoming ship, igniting the enemy’s drive with a blast from its particle beams. The detonation rocked Dario’s tug, and I used my suit to keep my position while he clung to the control console.

“Dario,” I said, calmly. “Get us in range.”

Over the comms in my helmet, set to a low volume so as not to disturb my primary mission, I listened to the chatter of the fleet.

Their starfish suits were nearly negated by the Sleem’s reckless flying. Ships detonated as the BlueCleave fleet opened fire on them, their mixed weapons causing a myriad of effects on the Sleem fleet.

Some of their ships detonated neatly, crumpling inward in balls of fire as our ships hit them with missiles, heavy laser batteries, particle beam weaponry, and the Sand Star’s dustcasters. Some were merely disabled, spiraling away harmlessly, crackling with EMP damage, or broken thrusters.

But some of their ships exploded violently, causing damage to the BuyMort gate itself. Before Dario’s tug had made it more than a few hundred million kilometers from the gate, it was swarming with massive, glowing jellyfish.

Chapter 77

The space-dwelling creatures quickly responded to the starship battle like hungry squid, swarming the ships under duress.

Most of those were the Sleem’s ships, so I didn’t much care, but a singular event caught my attention and stood out as important.

The Sand Star responded to a BlueCleave vessel in distress and reported completely ineffectual fire on the jellyfish creatures. They were fast too, the Sand Star itself had a moment of danger as it attempted to dodge one of the creatures.

BlueCleave backed off from the gate in a big hurry, which left it open as more vessels poured forth. More than one of them flew directly into the BuyMort gate itself, detonating on its surface and summoning more swarms of the vibrantly glowing space monsters.

Any ship with one attached reported a rapid drain of their reactors, with multiple system failures attached. They were also completely impervious to our fleet's kinetic arsenal. Particle beam weaponry killed them, as did heavy laser fire, or missiles detonated directly inside of one. Other than those options, our weaponry passed directly through.

All of this I learned as Admiral Omen put it together. He was also listening to the com chatter of his fleet officers, all trained well enough to know what information needed to be passed up the line. Quickly he organized the fleet and began focusing on rescuing entangled ships and dealing with the BuyMort bugs in addition to fighting off the Sleem.

BuyMort bugs are even worse in space, turns out. The glowing jellies attacked anything with a reactor and moved quicker than most of the vessels within range of the gate could.

A buzzing started on the monitor, and a hostile transmission overrode BlueCleave coms momentarily.

In front of me, on Dario’s viewscreen, shimmered the massive shape of a Sleem orb. It was bigger than any I’d ever seen, and something within it bubbled continuously, making it seem like it was about to explode at any moment.

“Windowpuncher,” it burbled, slowly but with precision. “Warlord, stop this violence.” The voice was creepy, just loud enough to be heard and low enough to have had a decent shot at singing the blues. I stared at it, waiting for it to continue, knowing that it was likely playing on all of my fleet’s scattered ships.

“Many deaths. Much pain! We burn, we all burn.” The orb jiggled as an explosion rocked its ship.

I smirked. “Yeah you do. Don’t worry, it’ll be over soon.”

The cube quivered and blorped. “We are sorry. Sleem are sorry. We desire only to live. Cohabitate BuyMort. Cohabitate Storage. Peacefully. We surrender. Time for peace.”

A million memories flowed through me. So many battles. So many deaths. Always the Sleem there, flowing, burning, killing. And lying. Gazing at the orb, I felt calm and collected. There was no place for the Sleem in the universe. So long as they existed, they would kill.

The connection flickered, and I heard my hobb in my ear again. The image blinked out, and our primary viewscreen activated again, showing the planet below.

“I trust none of my fighters are stupid enough to believe any of that,” I said. My hobbs, thousands of them spread across the fleet, roared in laughter over the general coms.

I turned back to the battle, watching it unfold.

Other affiliate ships continued to arrive as the gate was only minimally damaged by even direct ship detonations against it.

I watched, primarily absorbed by the battle as Dario pushed the tug to higher speeds and moved us further and further from the battle. Our escort fell back at my order, to assist in the battle for the gate. Their particle beam weaponry was needed.

“Warlord, be advised,” Admiral Omen said, which directed his connection with me to increase its volume a bit. Make it a more prevalent stream of noise than the background sounds. It was a mockup of MortMobile’s service, BlueCleave Comms tried to ape that service at every opportunity. We were direct competition after all, and I had felt the lessening headache of the creature that operated MortMobile.

It was working, I was helping him.

“Multiple Sleem ships, incoming on your vessel. They’ve broken our cordon, fast runners of some kind,” the Admiral said. “We count four, possibly five. There was a blip on our scopes, it could have been a stealth ship.”

“Understood Admiral,” I said.

“What do we do?!” Dario squawked.

“You stay on course,” I told him. “I’m going outside to deal with them.”

“And if you miss?!” he asked.

“Then you die, our mission fails, and all of BuyMort falls to the Sleem,” I replied. “So stay on course unless I tell you otherwise.”

Dario nodded, pale and sweating. He reached for his bowl of snuff, and I caught his hand. “Stay on course,” I repeated, sternly.

“Yes, but please,” he whimpered. “I need it, to keep me steady.”

I let go of his hand and nodded. “Moderate yourself,” I growled as I slid by, floating through the ship.

Below his bridge was the cannon’s mount. It was set on a locking track that could be lifted and pushed back to allow normal use of the BuyMort pod airlock. Once it was locked in place in front of the airlock though, it became the cannon's extended barrel.

The interior was reinforced and lined with energy absorptive material. Dario had claimed he spent a fortune on it, one of the times he was reassuring me the mission was still on. I shook my head and braced myself for the cold, before activating the airlock and hurtling out into space in front of the ship.

I quickly pushed down from it and turned back to face the incoming craft. BlueCleave had painted those they couldn’t kill for me in our shared map of the solar system, and I had trajectories pulled up on my HUD to intersect. My Afflqwst app linked my BuyMort app with the Sand Star’s sensors, giving me active scanning of the ships in question.

The blip Admiral Omen had mentioned appeared and then vanished again, and the targeting program cast several lines from its last known position.

I focused on the closest incoming dot and pushed my suit. The gravity harness hurled me through space, ever faster, as I approached the vessel.

In the final instant before impact, I thrust my fists out and blasted into the hull. A whirl of explosive violence rushed past my face and then I was on the other side of the ship, clear, with no damage to myself.

Over the months of training and battles, my stoneskin upgrade had gotten a lot of practice defending me against things like rending metal and open flames. I brushed off a few scorch marks and watched the ship detonate behind me. It had been roughly blimp-shaped, but that split in half before my eyes. Freezing Sleem poured from one of the torn compartments in a jet that twinkled in the nearby starlight.

I turned and focused on the remaining blips.

The cold of space was no longer a problem for my pants. Yolara Brinks, my head of public relations, had insisted on spending a lot of morties on research and development to get me a pair of pants that could survive my exploits.

As she said, ‘Half-naked is better than naked.’

My boots were magnetic, just in case I needed a backup for my suit, or a chance to let it rest. I hated dealing with zero-g, even while I was shirtless in space.

The next ship ruptured as I blasted through it, throwing me far off course. Its saucer-shaped body tumbled oblongly, dragging glittering debris through space as it went. My heavily armored pants and boots survived the ordeal with some scorching, and I was again unharmed. I turned back to watch, and more Sleem poured forth.

They were desperate to stop our ship. The rudimentary set of instincts that operated that affiliate understood what my military presence in this section meant and had just enough foresight to be worried about what we were doing flying directly toward their planet.

I focused on the next dot and blasted through the ship, activating my breaker gauntlets to gain some charge while I was in the middle of it. That one I didn’t get a good chance to see, as I had to change course and intercept the next one quickly, before it could hit Dario.

He thanked me over the coms, being close enough to feel the detonation from that one. His tug absorbed the shrapnel from the ruined craft. It had a thick set of armored plates across the back, which the ship usually used to physically push other vessels as needed, making physical contact with special add-on grip-plates that fused to the other ship temporarily.

Dario had swapped those out for a layer of shaped carbon armor, at great personal expense he had assured me. For the mission.

I thought of Izan in the tub and pushed it away. A blip appeared on my HUD, flashing brightly as it sped toward the tug.

This time, I directed my helmet to hit the signal with fairy fire, and it outlined an incoming ship. This one was oddly shaped, with multiple hard angles and vantablack external coverings. It was invisible, reflecting no light. Even my helmet’s fairy fire effect struggled to keep up with it, primarily attaching to the ship when it ignited a drive to adjust course.

“Dario, dodge!” I yelled.

“What?!” he cried back.

“Serpentine!” I shouted. “Move the ship, make them change course!”

“Ah!” he shouted.

The tug behind me began to jerk and change direction. As it did, the stealth vessel exposed itself more frequently, with its own adjustments.

Something struck me, as my mind raced. A high end, expensive stealth ship, moving dramatically slower than its fellows.

The Sleem negated our advantage of mobility in space combat, it was a huge part of why I was hearing so many damaged vessel reports in my background BlueCleave Comms connection.

This ship seemed to move at humanoid normal speeds but was still intent on a collision with the tug.

I shook my head and pushed the suit, coming closer to the vessel every time it made a course adjustment. Within seconds, I had it in my hands, and all doubt was driven from my mind. The ship was not being flown by Sleem.

With a grunt of effort, I tore a panel from the side of the stealth ship and plunged my fist inside, tearing at the innards of its bulkhead. The metal bent, twisted, and tore beneath my gauntlets, and I eventually made a fist-sized hole in the ship, causing it to violently lose atmosphere.

The jet of escaping air drove it off course, and we plunged past Dario and the tug. I snarled and widened the hole, tearing at the ship with both fists. I had to know who was behind the attack.

We continued falling toward Sleem, the planet my backdrop as I clawed my way onto the ship. Once the hole was big enough for me to shove my way into, I did. My entrance was crude, but I didn’t feel like wasting time searching a stealth ship for its airlock.

Debris floated in the ship’s narrow, black corridors, and I stalked through it toward the bridge. The craft was small, and my journey was short. I pried open the bridge’s door to see a delf in the pilot's chair. He glanced back at me, eyes wild behind his visor, and raised a fist. Something in it blinked, and I blasted off backwards. I turned and punched my way out of the craft an instant before it exploded, peppering me with extreme velocity debris.

Some of it punched in, or through, but my starfish suit was working on it already, and I barely felt it with the painkiller flowing through me.

It was the church, I was almost certain of it. That had been a House of None delf, sent on a suicide mission, with the same intent of the Sleem.

Thankfully, with Admiral Omens guidance, the battle of the gate had turned in our favor. Our energy weapons-equipped craft dealt with the BuyMort bugs, while our missile and gun boats focused on the reckless Sleem fleet.

I pushed the suit and flew back to the tug, taking a few moments to catch up with him. Dario hadn’t stopped dodging, so I called over on the coms. “Dario, ease up. Threats neutralized.”

“Oh thank BuyMort,” he sighed. The tug stopped its erratic movements, and I flew up to the BuyMort pod airlock, triggering the shield to let me in.

Once inside the warm air was welcome on my body, but I no longer needed to be skinned after taking a dip in the cold of space. It was an improvement.

“The church just tried to intercept our craft with a stealth vessel,” I reported, over the open BlueCleave military com. “Be advised, more may be coming through the gate.

The tug had swung far enough away from the gate that I wasn’t worried about another attempt before we could fire the cannon, but it did not pay to trust in luck. Admiral Omen affirmed my order and set back to the task of retaking the gate, from both the still-incoming Sleem ships, and the BuyMort bugs they liked to summon.

A BuyMort pod whizzed by me from the airlock, and I jumped at the close call. I didn’t want to see a BuyMort response if I damaged it directly, whatever kind of creature it would summon to match my combat capability scan results would likely wreck the fleet if I couldn’t take it down.

I followed the pod up to the bridge, where it deposited more of Dario’s snuff, adding a fresh wave of that chemical smell it brought with it into the air. It was almost pleasant, if not for that.

Dario didn’t seem to care, and shoveled a fistful into his mouth, chewing while staring out the portal at the planet below.

“I said moderate,” I told him, and his face nearly cracked from the distress.

“I am sorry, I cannot face this moment in my right mind,” Dario whimpered. “Izan was right, who are we to do such things?”

My fists clenched, and I stared at the man. “You said you can pull the trigger,” I growled.

“I will,” he insisted, raising his tobacco stained hands defensively. “I can. Just . . . not sober. Please.”

I pointed at the cannon. “Go, please. Help me save this multiverse, sober or not. Or your brother died for nothing.”

Dario threw a lever on the side of the console, putting the ship back into autopilot. It would hold its orbit of the planet, which rose massive in our viewscreen, casting a reddish light across the entire ship.

“All Sleem, everywhere,” Dario said, facing me briefly. “Gone forever. But yes, I will take the shot.”

“If it makes you feel any better, Dario,” I said, “They’re almost certainly a bioweapon. We suspect extra-dimensional origins, given the scale of their construction abilities.”

The big man nodded, and sniffled into his coat sleeve, then activated one of his many rings. It formed a light green bubble of energy around the man, and he floated down from the bridge toward the cannon mount.

I followed, and watched as he began the process of setting up the cannon. First he used a heavy mechanical arm in the ceiling to hoist that section of deck plating, which latched onto the hull below the airlock with locking limbs. It ensured our ship, and its movement through space absorbed the recoil.

The process was longer this time, and Dario had to hook the cannon mount directly into the ship's oversized antimatter reactors to help power it. I merely floated and watched, while he worked. My comm channels were filled with military movements and the end of the battle for the gate.

We hadn’t walked away bloodless, more than one ship had been lost. But my oath to Rayna remained intact. Hobbs were not expendable. Most of the crew of the vessels were able to abandon ship and use their gravity harnesses and spacesuits to get them to another ship. We lost a handful of hobbs, and one human, but it could have been much worse.

Admiral Omen’s quiet competence reaffirmed his loyalty, so long as our mission was clear.

Dario choked and hacked, coughing violently until the wet mass of tobacco freed itself from his airpipe and stuck to the hull beside his work station. I floated to a nearby supply locker and grabbed a towel, to clean up the mess before it got into the electronics.

“Keep working,” I said, while I wiped at the mess, gathering it into the towel and bundling it up inside of itself.

Dario nodded, his face red and eyes lowered, then turned back to the cannon.

This time he slid his hand into its inky surface and closed his eyes. His arm shifted and moved, and he winced as something locked into place.

“I am sorry, Izan,” he whispered, and then Dario fired the cannon.

A ball of colorless energy erupted from the front of the ship, warping its frame and blowing out the shield on the BuyMort airlock.

The cannon wasn’t perfectly sealed to the airlock, and our atmosphere immediately flooded out.

I grabbed Dario by the collar as the man slumped unconscious, his lips rapidly turning blue.

We floated up to the bridge, and I slammed the emergency blast doors button, sealing us in the small chamber with the control console and our own supply of atmosphere being pumped in by the ship's still-functional life support systems.

I watched our shot travel from the main view screen, Dario floating and momentarily forgotten.

Once it hit the planet below, all of Sleem seemed to react. A surge of visible electrical current flowed along the rivers and oceans, conducting through the Sleem themselves. Massive lightning storms raged across the planet, crackling both surface and sky.

I pulled up my MortMobile camera feed, of the Sleem farm back home. They were reacting too, the wide, flat mass of red gelatin writhed as electricity seemed to emanate from its core.

The transdimensional pulse cannon excited the electrons in countless Sleem across the BuyMort system and writhing in violent tsunamis on the planet below. Then the energy stilled, and the planet’s sparking glow faded.

My Sleem farm immediately ceased all function. Even the Sleem in the freezers became worthless puddles.

The planet below slowed, and eventually stopped, its writhing flows and movements. The rivers and oceans of living Sleem below stilled forever, and the massive world hung dead in space.

BuyMort nanite streams, thwarted, unspooled and spun to glitter as they flowed back toward the gate. BlueCleave’s ships moved out of the way, and the cloud of nanites rippled into the gate's surface with a series of rainbow bursts of light.

The Sleem were dead. Their entire solar system, with its hundreds of planetoid bodies, belonged to me.

Epilogue

The ramifications of instantaneously erasing the number three affiliate in BuyMort were rather extreme, and immediately apparent. For a few terribly interesting hours, nobody’s rankings meant a damn thing, which is what most of the upper planets paid attention to and organized their lives around.

They rose and fell like stocks in a market crash, the all-controlling BuyMort algorithms in total disarray as they tried to follow the ever-changing chaos of the moment.

That status, those precious numbers were all that mattered. What everybody’s morties were worth, because it meant what they themselves were worth. We’d cut the head off a major affiliate and removed all of their morties from the market, in the blink of an eye.

This act changed BuyMort, permanently. It altered the dynamics of power within the system.

Storage would have collapsed if not for BlueCleave. With major stretches of the structure suddenly full of dead Sleem, wealthy gobbs were running amok in Storage. Attacks on settlements and section-cities were almost immediate.

BlueCleave, led by smart shoppers and competent military minds, responded to the threats, and a second large-scale campaign for Storage began right where the first had left off.

I was needed to respond to that particular conflict, as the wild gobbs were using bizarre and effective BuyMort purchases, funded by large scale direct sales of dead Sleem. Gobbs cleared out entire swaths of Storage, it just depended on where the dead Sleem trail broke off.

Da Gobbs, the primary civilized gobb-run and owned affiliate, rapidly climbed the economic ladder with a series of swift conquests on BuyMort bug controlled areas. Using enslaved wild gobb fighters, they claimed untold new lands in Storage and equal treasures from the bug-controlled zones. When BuyMort bugs moved in and took over portions of Storage, they didn’t use items that got left behind. Those were typically encased in webbing or slime and then forgotten.

Thanks to some lucky, cocooned finds, Da Gobbs ended up in tenth place on the BuyMort top ten list.

Da Gobbs affiliates' rise was nothing compared to Silken Sands. They had a handful of tunnels of dead Sleem as their windfall.

It was nothing compared to the entire planet of the stuff I had on my hands. The population of Sleem had been beyond coherent, comprehensive numbers, and so were the morties when we sold the planet. All we had to do was set a craft down on it and make a MortBlock claim, then take off again and sell the planet wholesale, since it didn’t have any sapient life on it.

BuyMort itself was always purchasing direct.

Its needs were immense, and any bit of material that could be used in construction or the maintenance of the BuyMort system was something the system itself would buy. The morties for a handful of dirt kind of sucked, but at the scale of an entire planet, that equation changed.

I understood why Kraken had been driven to destroy worlds; the profit margin was fantastic.

Silken Sands immediately became ultra-wealthy. The planet in front of our eyes, patchwork rings included, blinked out in a brilliant flash of rainbow light, as hundreds of thousands of pods descended to aid in the massive transport. The gate at our backs tilted, orbit disturbed even as it activated to facilitate the transport.

I gave a thought to what that amount of mass being shoved from one universe into another was doing to the fabric of spacetime, and to the multiversal flow itself. Beyond that, what the hell did BuyMort want with that much dead Sleem?

The answer to that question always filtered back to construction materials. Sleem, once rendered down to their basic molecular structure, could be used to fill most of the construction roles BuyMort required water to fulfill. It was mixed in the clay we all used in our robotic servants, and a primary ingredient in Mudcrete.

Some portion of it even went to feed those in Storage, rendered safe for consumption at that level.

But the planet Sleem itself was much more than just dead Sleem. They had eaten and reproduced their way through most of the crust, but the mantle and core were liquid metal and stone, highly condensed and charged by the mantle's spin.

BuyMort paid for the electricity the planet generated. I imagined the massive world, falling to pieces as millions of BuyMort drones ripped at it, suddenly still and cold in the unfeeling white background of the multiversal flow.

We even got paid an absurd amount for the gasses in Sleem’s atmosphere, all the way up to high orbit, where the planet could not reasonably be argued to contain the particles. BuyMort was specific, but nearly childish in its adherence to its own technical rules.

Axle told me the gasses we lost in the upper orbits around Sleem would have funded a brand new fleet by itself. But his science team later informed me that part of what had helped the BuyMort gate begin to find a new orbit was the outgassing once Sleem was no longer collectively holding the gas in place.

It gently bumped the gate into what was predicted to become a stable orbit around the system’s star. BuyMort gates tended to find those, if their primary planet was removed or their orbit otherwise disturbed. The Knowle scholars on my payroll all had interesting predictions, but I was primarily interested in the solid history they could point to.

It seemed as though the BuyMort gates had some kind of internal sublight drives, because they made course adjustments in order to protect themselves. The system itself had cheated us out of a portion of our paycheck, in order to bump its own gate. Whatever scale BuyMort operated at, it operated to protect itself.

We were counting on that, because we immediately proceeded to mess up that solar system’s orbital mechanics. Our fleet had ever more challenging course changes to keep up with the gate as this process played out.

After that first planet, I was hungry. Hungrier than even the Sleem planet itself. It had been content to eat whatever it wandered across. I wanted it all.

Every scrap of stone, ice, or clustered gasses large enough to matter, I sent ships after. We sent intrepid entrepreneurs on a new gold rush, and hundreds of small ships took to the system to replicate the sale. All under the Silken Sands name.

While this operation occurred, BlueCleave maintained a strict security lockdown on the system, in case of surviving Sleem, we claimed. Our public relations department flooded the inner BuyMort planets with disinformation, claiming that if any Sleem had survived, and made it to the new planet, they might reignite the entire mass of them. These claims were strongly stated, evidence-based, and completely fabricated.

By the time anyone realized what we were actually doing, it was too late to send fleets of their own.

We strip-mined the place. The entire Sleem system, one planetoid body at a time, we sold directly to BuyMort. Dozens of ships were in-transit throughout the system, most of them with a starfish trooper crew for better speed. All of them were en-route to make our affiliate obscenely wealthy overnight.

Our morties were measured in the nonillions, after about a week of doing that. Beyond that, I stopped paying attention to the number. It was nothing but a tool, after all. Another weapon in my arsenal.

TransPoCo, to their public humiliation, immediately dipped down to third place on the top ten list, falling in place behind BuyMortMercMart’s parent company, Bloodred. They’d updated the public-facing name to represent the company during a more civilized period of BuyMort, but suddenly the old name was making a comeback on company armor and vehicles.

As soon as Sleem operated ships all over the BuyMort system went silent and still, TransPoCo lost a massive portion of their customer base. They, like many of the other top ten affiliates, didn’t ask questions about the sapients that spent morties on their product. But with the Sleem gone, the percentage of pilots buying fuel dropped suddenly.

This drove them even further into bed with us, as our portion of their affiliate was blossoming. My morties were suddenly an endless pool, which I was disappointed to learn only earned us the number eight place on the top ten list.

Still, the media could not stop discussing our extreme rise through the system. There were factions among the church, due to their own generational propaganda, that believed I was an incarnation of the market itself. BuyMort clearly favored me, after all.

If one took their worship of the BuyMort system seriously, there was no way to cast doubt on my actions as anything but righteous, and profitable. I’d taken a fledgling affiliate to the top ten list in under a year. Something that hadn’t occurred under BuyMort in a thousand generations.

BlueCleave was suddenly the pinnacle of military might within the system, and Silken Sands was considered the safest economic bet of the last thousand years. Our home planet changed forever too, massive industrial cities sprouting up across the globe as affiliates rushed to join our ever-growing business. But, then again, I was no longer the same man I had been when I started this fight either.

I was no longer the Warlord of Nu-Earth. I was the Warlord of BuyMort.

The End (of Book 5)

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Coming Soon in BuyMort Closing Time

Phyllis was the first ‘victim’ of the war with the church.

She had been stationed, nearly alone, on Neolithic Earth when the church attacked. BlueCleave had built a small forward operating base at the lip of the nearby jungle, buttressing a church military facility. We had established it to back them up against the Sleem, but even before that threat had been gone, the church had attempted to sabotage our mission against the Sleem homeworld.

With Phyllis’ mech at the center of the base, it was never anything more than an idle threat. The church classed her mech as a relic, and relics had a reputation for destroying important things like planets, solar systems, or, if rumor and legend could be believed, entire universes on occasion. Her relic was aging Phyllis in reverse, something the greater BuyMort community at large had picked up on, through months of watching her in action. We had pulled back the unnecessary staff, and left Phyllis in place to keep the church from doing anything stupid on Neolithic Earth. They thought they might screw up time for that universe if they did.

It had worked at first. But it was only ever meant to buy us time, ironically.

The entirety of the base was covered with a Fumble-Bee hive, of course. Those were standard issue in BlueCleave. Footage of the attack was automatically uploaded to a secure server on one of our ships in orbit, seconds after it had occurred and tripped the perimeter alarms. The squad of Tower golems we’d placed as Phyllis’ guard were taken out first. Some through stealth, but with Tower’s gestalt intelligence, that only lasted a few moments.

A small unit of physically enhanced warriors led the attack with high technology weapons. Three of them, to be exact: a delf, a mordren, and a sallow-skinned high elf. The footage we managed to capture and record before the attack laid waste to the area was useful. It would help us hunt the mercenaries down. I had a promise to keep, after all.

I had publicly stated, many times, that anyone who attacked us would deal with me personally. It wasn’t really necessary in most of the cases we were attacked, to be perfectly honest. But, like the bat signal I grew up reading about, that piece of my reputation kept some of the more powerful enemies at bay while they assessed me.

In that time, I grew in strength exponentially. It was time to find out if I was ready to face the best they had to throw at me or not, because I would be hunting down the two mercs that had survived their foolish attack on my bodyguard.

A delf wielding a single, dark blade stalked through the camp and quickly killed each of the golems he encountered, slashing their necks deeply and stabbing them in the heads, even through their heavy armor.

His knife had a reddish black hue. It partially absorbed light around it in a shimmering cloud, so it wasn’t properly visible. Just a red blur roughly the shape of a large dagger. The stealthy delf was accompanied by a hulking mordren with an oversized ax.

Between the two of them, they took our Tower golems down in a matter of seconds, once they had entered the camp. The delf began the battle, creeping into the base and taking out a few golems before Tower caught on to what was happening.

Then the golems came swarming, silently waving melee weapons or shouldering rifles. The mordren waded through them like he was cutting grass, simply cleaving any golem in half that approached him.

The delf changed tactics then, using the distraction the modren caused to claim his victims unaware. He darted from golem to golem, stabbing them in the head and chest, driving the blurred knife deep and dropping them instantly.

In the distance, an elf woman with a massive rifle wired into their drop-ship’s engines fired on Phyllis.

The elf had been lying down on a rooftop near the mech’s miniature base on the outskirts of Sildred City. The rifle she fired sent a magnetically contained bolt of antimatter into Phyllis’ oversized mech.

Its upper portion erupted, and a massive shockwave blasted the nearby structures. Both the delf and mordren on the ground in the area stood and took the explosion, vibrant shields sparking into existence around them an instant before our cameras were destroyed.

Orbital news cameras told us the rest of the story.

Phyllis’ giant mech had been damaged badly. The building-sized war machine was in partial ruins, its head and upper arms portion burned away by the powerful explosion. There had only been a few particles of antimatter in the shot, but it was enough to blast a hole in the city’s outskirts visible from space. There was even damage to the nearby church military facility, and injuries as troops were blown off their feet from the shockwave.

The elf on the rooftop leapt on the ship and took off, deftly avoiding the explosion she had caused.

Phyllis rose from the rubble of her own war machine, encased in her smaller, personal mech. With a few powerful steps, she crossed the distance to the fighters, standing in the ruins of the surrounding area. The mordren she roasted with a blast from her personal fusion cannon, in its plasma caster formation.

Blue-white flames roared across the mordren’s body for an instant before his ax slammed her weapon arm aside.

The mordren rolled and squalled in pain as his outer skin crisped, and flames raced across his armor and body. Kicking into a blaze of motion, the delf suddenly appeared at her side, jamming his red and black dagger into the mech’s arm and twisting it. The weapon sparked and sputtered out, but Phyllis moved too fast to be seen, snatching the delf by his head.

He screamed only briefly, before her metal hand crushed his skull and she dropped the leather-clad body to the ground. The mordren, still wreathed in flames, fled with ax in hand. He raced ahead of Phyllis, legs moving so fast they blurred, and then leapt three stories to land on the open landing-ramp of the sniper’s ship.

The she-elf turned the vessel and sealed the door, even as fire suppressant systems kicked in and doused the mordren. He huffed out a cloud of smoke from his nostrils and hefted his ax, pointing it at the old woman on the ground.

We portalled Phyllis home after that.

She insisted on bringing what was left of her giant mech with her, so the portal cost a bit extra, but I had to admit I felt better having her back on Nu-Earth.

Especially once high level teams hit another three BlueCleave facilities on upper planets. Each of them was physically close to a church military outpost, exactly as Phyllis’ small base had been. She’d mostly been there to smoke Neolithic Earth weed and watch upper planet’s television.

We hadn’t really been expecting them to move against her so effectively.

It was clearly the church, but they used mercenaries. Insanely expensive mercenaries, using stat shot upgrades and various other powerful BuyMort purchases. Regardless of damage, no major news reports were made on the attacks.

One of our BlueCleave bases was attacked, seemingly randomly, by an oversized cybernetically enhanced crab, being ridden by a mad orc. The orc screamed warcries and fired his particle beam rifle down at anyone who tried to fight back, and I saw him take more than one sniper’s round to the head. It just reformed after being blown apart, almost like nanites were rebuilding it.

He would laugh anytime it happened, and his crab was much worse than he was. Mechanically enhanced, and equipped with insanely fast reflexes, the oversized crab was impossible to engage without air support. That thing killed a dozen BlueCleave soldiers before they could affect a retreat and portal out of the base.

Another forward operating base close to church territory on Neolithic Earth was strafed and bombed by mercenary fighter craft for half an hour as they affected a retreat through the portals. They originated from a mothership that stayed in orbit, and redocked with it after they had flattened the area. The wide-spread use of Tower golems, and dissemination of base-level starfish suits meant we suffered very low casualties, but the attacks were a clear sign.

There was a certain lack of trust since the attack on Sleem, between me and the church. They’d sent a stealth ship to blend in with the Sleem attack vessels, in an attempt to destroy Dario’s ship, and the transdimensional cannon we used to erase the Sleem. The wealthy and powerful were willing to sacrifice trillions of people, just to maintain power, to erase the threat I posed.

Worse, I had stopped it, which meant the church knew that I knew. The war was on, just not quite as public as I wanted it to be.

Nowhere was our lack of trust more palpable than outside our operation on the Storage control station. The church hadn’t attacked, but their side of the demilitarized zone continued to station troops and stockpile weapons, so BlueCleave did the same.

It was escalating toward a fight for control over that portion of the station. We had, of course, set up sabotage explosives all over the place, just in case they took it. The people of Storage would be better off with no outside interference than the church in charge.

I stayed in place there at the station, after the attack on Sleem, to discourage the attack that was clearly being built toward.

Anytime we left an area, the church’s mercenaries stopped their attacks. So we pulled back from their military assets, willingly.

That put the attacks on hold for a while. Long enough to have a small meeting with my relevant staff. I called into a meeting at Axle’s library, using MortMobile’s astral projection service.

In attendance were Axle, Rayna, Tollya, Admiral Omen, and Lee. All of us were on MortMobile aside from Axle, as we were spread out across the multiverse, supervising important affiliate-controlled areas. They represented my core of need-to-know inner circle, and were quick to bring me up to breast on everything that had occurred.

“These attacks mean clear war,” Rayna said.

“I don’t agree,” replied Lee. “From what I am gathering, there is not wide-spread support for war with Silken Sands among the church elite. This is something else.”

He had been spending his days wending his way into the churches inner circle of wealthy elites, targeting them as a diplomat for Silken Sands, but acting as an intelligence agent. This meant a lot of wine and parties, but a lot of loose lips too. His information was usually solid, I never ignored it when he chose to speak.

“What else could it be?” I asked.

“There seems to be a great deal of fear around this matter,” Lee replied. “I am getting reassurances hourly, usually accompanied by some expensive gift or other. Sending that all up the line, as per usual. But the general vibe is that those ordering these attacks are following orders themselves.”

“Orders?” I frowned. “Who’s ordering these elites, then?”

Lee shrugged. “Their higher ups. People beyond my diplomatic reach, I hear only the telephone game of what they say, and even that is laced with so many different motivations and technicalities, I could not begin to tell you. I suspect the Inquisition.”

Tollya grunted. “You have a friend in the Inquisition,” she said in hobb, raising her chin at me. Lee had picked up some of the language in the months he had been working off-world, and Axle spoke it fluently, so most of our meetings were a mix of English and hobb.

“I do not,” I corrected her. “But I should contact him anyway, you’re right. Elegy might let something slip if I ask directly.”

“Or you could make things worse and pit the Inquisition against us if they are not already,” said Axle.

I nodded. His depression aside, the pessimism was a welcome voice at my counsel table. It was even technically his table, we met in the Knowle library outside Prescott. “I could, but I’ll be careful. Just polite inquiry, making sure we’re still on good terms should not be considered an act of aggression.”

“Unless you make it one, of course,” Axle huffed.

“Don’t worry about that Axle, I’m in control,” I said, coldly. “But your concern is noted. I have other targets to hunt down, what do we have on that front?”

Admiral Omen cleared his throat and stood at attention behind his chair. “We are tracking both ships that attacked our facilities on Neolithic Earth, and have already found the orc with the crab. He seems quite deranged, and may prove difficult to kill. Be careful engaging him. Location is being forwarded to your position already, via secure BuyMort pod.”

“Thank you admiral, I’ll take care of that,” I replied. The pod arrived and deposited a small roll of paper with spatial coordinates for me to portal to. We could afford plenty of portals, since we’d hit the top ten list.

Those BuyMort rewards were at a different level, literally. They exponentiated your rewards once you hit the top ten, so portals, clones, even MortMobile, all came with benefits. Cheaper portals was one of them, and I finally understood exactly how the other top tens had become so decadent and lazy.

It would be easy to keep almost all of the income my affiliate produced for myself, if I cared to. My staff lived good lives, but I had the power to take that away from them with the snap of my fingers. Our society was a military dictatorship, with an immortal, super-powered idiot with a talent for violence as its warlord.

Only, I guess I wasn’t as dumb anymore.

Still, Elegy’s words about BuyMort rang in my ears when a beholder arrived in Nu-Earth’s atmosphere and began channeling oxygen into it, at a frightening rate. Axle, who had been half paying attention, half scrolling on his own devices, reported it in a panic and our meeting was cut short.

After all, BuyMort was full of surprises.

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About the Authors

Damien Hanson

Damien is a writer, a gamer and an educator. He lives in Gimpo-Si, South Korea with his wife and son. He likes to meet up with friends and roll dice whenever the opportunity presents itself and has authored several stories.

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Joseph Phelps

In competitive or cooperative video games over thousands of logged hours, Joseph has always sought out unconventional gameplay and created his own fun.

He's the kind of gamer that ensures the ESRB cannot provide appropriate ratings for online games. It's this type of unusual and amusing gameplay that he brings to the LitRPG and GameLit genres, with wildly aggressive competitive and unconventional single player dynamics at the core of his storytelling. Join him and find out for yourself.

https://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Phelps/e/B07WZCJ39T/