[M36.250.2]
Connect, damn you.
This was the 17th trial of what should have been a quick stopping-off point for the technology I was developing. Instead, it had turned into a massive rabbit hole that I had sunk weeks into. It should have been a simple matter of the receiver, right out at the edge of the stellar system, being picked up by the transmitter in my workshop.
Both were massive in size and shrinking them to actual useable sizes was my next task.
The pict-screen flashed, code scrolling rapidly past, only recognisable thanks to my implants, and then buzzed.
++Connection acquired.++
Yes!
Finally. I now theoretically had instant communication across the stellar system. A low bandwidth connection, true, but I could send a Morse code through it and now it was proven I could work out how to get more through it with the goal of being able to send high fidelity images.
I pinged Kellen and Lysa, excited to show them, then felt my heart tighten. Of course, Kellen wasn’t here.
It had been harder and I had missed him more than I expected. I don’t know if it was because I had effectively raised him from a scared child to the strong and competent young man he was today. Or he had become as good as my children, and as close as I was likely to get, in the last few decades.
Whatever the reason, the separation was much more painful and much harder than leaving the gang had been. As while yes, I missed them, it was a different sort of pain.
Lysa was devastated and had been beside herself for weeks. She had put on a front WHILE Kellen was leaving, not that it fooled anyone, and when he’d boarded, she fell to pieces. Thankfully, several of her subordinates, like Nyr Orvane and Seld of Tarsa, had picked up the slack. Both solid adepts who had been with us from the start.
Nyr Orvane I considered an administrator as while they didn’t have the creativity or mind for technology, they were a master of organisation. So much so, I made sure he was involved in my larger, more important builds. He just had a knack for it.
Seld of Tasa, on the other hand, was dependable. Not brilliant at anything, but was just a workhorse. Give them a job and you knew she would get it done to an excellent quality.
It had taken her months to even approach her normal levels of enthusiasm.
I tried what I could to cheer her up, but I wasn’t as successful as I liked. Still, she was in a better place now and, not that I would ever tell her, I think it was good for both of them. Allowing them both to grow apart. Kellen especially.
He was having an excellent time, or at least as much as you could in a planetary-sized war. He and his Ordinarii were proving themselves to be an effective force, with Solvexa showering him in praise in her messages. I couldn’t shift the knot of worry when I thought of him fighting, but I ignored it as much as possible.
With him away, it brought something into sharp focus. The lack of reliable communication and sensors. Sure, there were the astropaths, but they were far from perfect. Hence my new project of creating an effective communication system. I was using the very edge of my knowledge and pulling some information from the many STCs to kludge together something.
When done, it would be a comms and auspex system that would provide complete coverage to a star system. The auspex would be impossibly large for now, but it would be able to fit on large stations and battleships, and of course, on planets.
I had already achieved a real image from the edge of the solar system. It was a pixelated mess, but it was a working concept; now it just needed refinement. The other problem of communication between systems was still well out of reach.
My STCs hinted that there were ways. The STC network was proof of that. But that hadn't been an option. I mean, I hadn't thought to search for it at the time, but when I looked through the list of STCs they had stored, it wasn’t on there. It hurt my heart how much had been lost when the storage vault had been destroyed.
At the time it hadn't meant much to me, but now, knowing how many STCs had been in there…
Lysa called from the other side of the room.
“Hmm.” I said, blinking at her. Before grinning, remembering why I had called her. It was finally time. Something I had been working on for decades by this point. But I had cracked it and my god was I looking forward to the upgrade. My bionics were already good, don’t get me wrong.
Some of the best even. Able to put me on par with many of the archmagos or space marines in strength. Maybe not when the Astartes were in their armour, but even so, it was impressive. But this one. Well, let's just say I was looking forward to it.
Hurrying over to her, I pulled her into a brief hug, one she returned before looking at the equipment and components around us. "Sorry Lysa, was lost in thought. Yes. Let's get this done. Do you remember the process?"
She didn’t deign that with a reply and just threw me a look, which was fair. But I couldn’t say I wasn’t nervous about the operation. Effectively removing your brain and sticking it into a whole new body would concern anyone. Much of the work had been completed years ago. Like the vats of silvery liquid that seemed to move with a life of their own.
The biological nanites were crucial and a godsent. They had been straight copied from an STC as they were perfect, as it covered one of the largest problems of bionics and one rarely spoken of. It might sound obvious, but they weren't biological. Obvious I know. But that meant they didn’t repair naturally. That was where the nanites came in. They could repair even large-scale damage if given enough time and resources. So the constant wear and tear of life wouldn’t degrade my bionics and the nanites would keep them in tip-top shape.
We had already made good use of them, with all of the Ordinarii and many of my techpriests already having used them. That and the small gland that could produce them. They also served another purpose of being able to perfectly transfer resources around the body, like energy, behaving like superconductors, even at room temperature.
Best of all were their hardiness, with even extreme climates effectively ignored by the machines.
The glands were a pig to make, but with a fabricator in Atlantis dedicated to it, it didn’t take up any of my time. Of course the ones I would be using, as well as Kellen and Lysa, were custom-made by me.
Another component was the materials, something made significantly easier by the high-end machines in Atlantis. Otherwise I would have had to spend years creating them. But with them, I could create a metal that fit my need perfectly.
It was actually the metal Snuffles was made out of that inspired me. Unfortunately, I was unable to replicate the auramite exactly, but with a bit of tinkering got to something close enough. It didn’t quite have the properties; somehow the metal was locked down to a quantum level and instead of that making it useless gave it incredible psionic resonance.
I could have taken some from my best boy, but that just wasn’t going to happen.
So I settled with what I was calling Solarium. IT seemed appropriate considering everything. It came out in a rather pointed colour, almost as if it was taunting me, in white gold. But I'd found no way to change the colour and if I was going to wear it, at least it would look badass and thematically fitting. Not that many would ever see it.
The Solarium was stronger than auramite for the same weight but was far worse for psionic resonance. Not that that mattered, it was enough to help my Will, which was all I needed. Although I had confirmed auramite was a perfect material for my Will, seemingly absorbing it perfectly.
So you could bet I would keep looking to create it and then form my skeletal structure out of it.
Then there was the power source, an iteration on the fusion generator that I was still using. The major leap forward wasn’t a major improvement in design but being able to fabricate the specified materials. Mostly because who the fuck cared about heresy at this point.
If someone saw it, I would have slightly bigger problems on my hands.
This allowed me to create the generator as it was intended, which when combined with my Will created something truly special, further miniaturising it and ramping up the efficiency and output several times over what it used to be.
But all of that was beside the point. It was the final components and the heart of the design, that had delayed me so much. First needing the facilities to create it, as I hadn't seen evidence of the special manipulation anywhere else.
But also to reverse-engineer some of the emitters that allowed the manipulation of gravity and space in their area.
I'd kept it fairly simple, ignoring some of the cooler ideas, like manipulating space in front of me as a shield or moving faster. Mostly, as it was hard enough to create as it was. Besides, once set, it already made the material significantly harder than the base material should be, so it acted as a sort of shield without further complicating the design.
Most of my time had been spent learning how it worked, alongside miniaturisation and ruggedisation.
Each emitter that would run throughout my body created a field, twisting space to allow significantly more inside it than would be expected. This allowed me to pack so much more inside my new body, so for example, my arms had the strength of something many times their size and, best of all, looked completely human, at least in proportions.
If it wasn’t covered, it looked silvery, which would probably trigger some people's uncanny valley; not that it would be unless damaged, it would otherwise look like normal human flesh, appearing the same for any auspex scans made of it.
At least those commonly seen.
The other side of this was the gravity manipulation, which was crucial. Mostly so I could walk around without breaking things. Otherwise walking around might be a chore. A multi-ton entity could cause a lot of chaos if things weren't made for it.
It would also allow me to anchor myself to the ground, which would give me the leverage and purchase to put my newfound strength and speed to use.
I’d designed the system years ago; however, a glancing blow shattered the emitter broke the array and stopped them from twisting space to some unfortunate effects. Most of which would have ended up with me very dead. I'd since fixed that, as the ruined limb in the testing area could attest.
Even partially destroyed, the field still maintained its integrity.
The conversation wouldn’t be its final form; I was sure to improve it over time. With one of those hopefully being Lysa's discovery. While some of it was already integrated into the design, much of it wasn’t quite ready yet. At least not to house me or for me to trust it. It was years, maybe decades away from a final design, requiring huge amounts more testing. Not least as I didn’t want to disrupt my connection to my sparks of the Akashic Throne in general.
With a deep breath, I settled onto the operating table and disconnected from the noosphere, the first time I had truly removed myself from it entirely for well over a decade. We were deep within Atlantis, with it entirely on lockdown.
Only our most trusted subordinates knew anything was happening and that they wouldn’t be able to reach Lysa or I. Both of us needing our full attention for the operation to come. Well, maybe not needing but… I wasn’t going to risk it.
That left us the only ones in the surgery room except for the servitors and servo skulls that would be helping with the operation.
Across from me, resting in a kneeling position to give Lysa full access, lower extremities covered by a robe, was my new body. When fully standing it would come in 6,2 very similar to my natural biological height. I could have made it anything, but it felt right to set it to that.
It was also an optimal size. Increasing in size would see very little return, so overall it was perfect. Thanks to the adaptive metal coating, the outer layer was coloured to look human. It would also feel like skin as well, or close enough to fool most people.
The best part of the adaptive metal was that it could change… I know. A stupid thing to say, but it was. If my auspex picked up an attack, the metal would be able to shift to the optimal configuration to combat it, from lasers to slugs.
It wasn’t perfect of course, and it would only help mitigate the damage, but that was enough; I was mainly using it to maintain my human looks, which I had deliberately made as close to my biological body as possible. Although I couldn’t help the bit of vanity and give my skin colour a nice tan.
My bionic eyes would have been a muddy brown if Lysa hadn't badgered me, wearing me down until I agreed to make the irises an ice-cold pale blue, closer to white than anything else. I still don’t know how she got me to agree to it.
The rest of the face resembled me if slightly refined, I couldn’t help myself, with what might appear as a thick head of black hair. It wasn’t of course, but it looked to be.
I’d also kept my wedding tackle. It wasn’t needed; I'd never truly felt the desire for sex, but it felt weird not having it. Like I was missing something, or I was somehow less of a man without it. A stupid feeling, but not one I could shift, so it stayed.
I felt the injection that would put me to sleep and allowed the drugs to take effect. The last thing I saw was Lysa standing over me, her saw blade whirring to life.
---
"Aleric!" Skyla called from behind me.
Slowing down, I let her catch up before setting off once more for Peggi's room. It had been several weeks since the operation, enough time for most to get used to my new looks, not that I was that different from before. "How you doing?"
"Stressed." Skyla said with a laugh.
"Is it still that dog?" I asked
"Thankfully not. He has settled down. Just needed to be placed with another group and he calmed right down. No, it is a new litter. The bitch has become very ill."
"Need me to look at it?"
“Thanks.” She said, squeezing my arm. "But we haven't had your help for years; we don't suddenly need you to look at every problem now. We will survive."
I nodded understandingly. That was fair. I was pretty busy anyway. Apart from getting myself used to the new body, something that was taking far longer than I had thought it would.
At least I wasn’t putting limbs through walls or doors anymore. Although cups and cutlery still became casualties from time to time. I was also getting my wargear and servitor ready. I only had a bit over a year before the second fleet was due to arrive and I was determined to be on it. Not that I thought Lysa would allow me to miss it.
Or she may well ditch me.
The regiments were already training and more or less ready to go. Far more than I had been expected. Morwenna had managed to win some fairly large concessions for providing such a large force so close together. Better than I expected her to, if I was honest.
It allowed her to keep more of the resources they wanted to keep, like the materials to finish creating the wharfs to keep pumping out the patrol craft. The few they had made were performing as well as I predicted. There had been more pushback with the egalitarian design than I'd expected, but they were too effective to not use.
Falling into step beside her, I asked. "Did your kid get over their cold?"
"Yeah, just a sniffle." We walked in silence for a bit longer before she asked. "You're not going to vanish off, are you. You will say goodbye this time."
"Yes. I promise I will say goodbye. I won't be gone for another year at least anyway."
"A year will fly past. Anyway, good. I don’t want to have to beat you up if you don’t. You know I have a mean hook!" She said, raising her fist jokingly. Or at least I thought it was jokingly.
Grinning and sticking my tongue out at her, I turned onto the final corridor. "Speaking of leaving. Would you ever consider joining me?"
That brought her up short, stopping dead in the corridor. I turned to look back at her and raised an eyebrow.
She chewed her lip. "I don’t know Aleric. What about Merek or my kids?"
"I would offer them a place as well. Whatever they wanted."
"What would I even do?"
I shrugged. "Whatever you wanted. Maybe your dream of breeding more animals, even pets. I trust you, so I want your support. It won't be for years, so just think about it.”
"Thanks. I will. If it is safe, I am not against it. Nore will Merek." She said, giving me a quick hug.
"Yeah, no pressure." I said, delicately returning it.
I wave her goodbye before slipping into Peggi's new room. Lanto and Selina had beaten me there and were sitting at one of the tables, food already steaming on it. A quick scan showed Peggi hadn't cooked it; the kitchen was cold, not that I expected her to.
We already knew she couldn’t.
"Finally made it. We were about to eat without you." Lanto said.
"I got here the second we said." I said, sticking my tongue out at him.
"Ignore him, he has been salivating at it for hours." Selina said.
I waved to Peggi, who was in the kitchen popping open a bottle of some fancy wine and sat down opposite the couple. At least I assumed it was fancy wine, probably from one of the deceased nobles' estates.
Accepting the glass from Peggi, I took a sip. It was okay, I supposed. I had never truly understood the interest in alcohol. It all tasted like garbage to me, part of the reason I never frequented the pubs or the drinking and drug halls in the past.
We ate in silence for a time before Selina took a sip of wine and leaned back, cutlery still in hand. "So who do you plan to take with you when you leave Aleric?"
I finished my mouthful to give myself a moment to think, then copied her, leaning back in my chair. "Depends, I expect. Short term, the core of my faction will come with me to the warzone."
"So you won't be taking everyone?"
"No, of course not. It would be too many at this stage for one thing. Also, many of those I've recruited from the hive aren't ready yet and are still years away from being so. Better to leave them here to keep learning and growing."
I paused to take another bite of food. It really was very good. "I'll collect them on the way back from the war."
"And you still intend to go back to the forge world?"
"Yes. I have some unfinished business there and if my plan works, I will spend many years touring the other forges as well."
"That’s where you intend to trade some STCs, correct?" Peggi asked.
I nodded. "Speaking of me leaving. How are things in the Court?"
"Stable.""Great." Selina and Peggi said at the same time.
Selina waved for Peggi to continue and instead took another mouthful.
"Thanks to the network you’ve finished, we have instant communication across the planet and combined with the software you made for me, we are in a better position than ever."
"Not to mention the gear you've designed for us." Lanto said through a mouthful of food.
Selina shot him an unimpressed look. "Yes, thank you for those." She said, rubbing her ring, which I had improved upon. Mostly to make it more efficient and something she could use more frequently without worrying about it breaking or running out of charge.
I waved her away. "I needed to see how it worked anyway. And the gear was for my people as much as for yours."
"Even so, thanks. With the forges set up and run by our people, we have our own source of gear and vehicles, so thanks for that."
I grunted but didn’t comment further. They'd thanked me enough. Besides, I had other motives for doing so anyway. It allowed me to test some of my more ambitious people to see how they handled themselves. Something I was happy to say they did with flying colours.
Well, most of them anyway. There were a few busts, with a particularly notable one that let the power go to his head.
"Enough business. You promised not to bring it up." Peggi accused Selina, who raised a hand in surrender. "Have you heard that song they are playing on the vox casters—"
Hi just a heads up that next weeks chapter might be delayed. I am traveling, I would be back in time but I cant guarantee it. Regardless the chapter will come out the next day if I don't get it out on Monday.
Hope you enjoyed the chapter and as ever thanks for the support.