I nodded, the motion grim. “Yes, Ma’am. I only escaped because I was a late bloomer, and have bigger than normal ears because my great grandfather was a batkin. They thought I was a goblin and threw me into the meat grinder instead of taking me to one of the neutral worlds to sell.”

  I touched one of my prominent ears self-consciously. My greatest insecurity had been my salvation. The irony was not lost on me. “I imagine that attractive women, guaranteed loyal, with traits like true healing and the ability to hack into nearly any system or build almost any tech would be in pretty high demand on the slave markets of certain United Planets.”

  She sighed, a sound of profound disgust. “And you want a ship so you can start a crusade. You know, as many times as it’s been stomped out, slavery always comes back, right?”

  I nodded. “Of course, Ma’am. But if I get the right path, I can, at the very least, protect MY world, and punish a lot of those who have been destroying them. I cannot kill every slaving bounty-hunter scum in the galaxy, but I can kill a lot, and terrify the rest.” My voice was low, but it carried the steel of absolute conviction.

  I was not going to add the rest. Not the real prize. That with the right ship, the right firepower, I could rip the pulse generator out of Korse’s atmosphere. That monstrous artifact, a leftover from some forgotten war, was the reason my world was vulnerable. It suppressed high-level energy signatures, making planetary defense impossible and leaving us prey to any passing slaver with a disruptor and a dream.

  Without it, in just a generation or two, we would be able to protect ourselves perfectly fine, even against the UPF. After hundreds of years, that one big surprise was still haunting us. It was the cornerstone of my entire, secret plan.

  She sighed, and nodded, as if coming to a difficult decision. “Well, the rest of your UI, is it correct?” The subject change was abrupt, a tactical shift from the personal to the professional.

  I smiled, a real one this time. “Mostly, Ma’am. I am still technically a Gremlin for… I am thinking a month. My traits and attributes are correct, though, but my physical is liable to increase, and I have been...ahh… eating like an orc trooper because of it.” My metabolism was a furnace, burning through calories to fuel the rapid changes wracking my body.

  She nodded slowly, her eyes scanning data only she could see, probably on a retinal display. “Your attributes are incredible for your age and lack of development. Is this usual?”

  I shook my head. “No Ma’am. All Maenads breed true for females, and the father’s race for males, but a lot of genetic traits get passed. My great grandfather was a batkin, my grandfather was a gnome, and my father is a sorcerer. I didn’t get the sorcery affinity, but it did allow me to get cross-discipline sorcery as a tech trait, but nerd runs in the family… I am scrawny, though.” I gestured to my thin frame, all sharp angles and lean muscle under the ill-fitting uniform.

  She nodded. “Some of these traits are very odd. I understand that Multidimensional Trigonometry is needed for both hyper and warp engine navigation, and quantum milling and remote node allow you to assemble drones on the fly without tools, both incredibly useful for a drone fighter, but not necessarily officer material. But what are Cross-discipline sorcery, and micro-active swarm?” She was drilling down now, into the mechanics of me. It was unsettling and thrilling at the same time.

  “Cross discipline sorcery allows me to… sort of enchant, software,” I explained, trying to put the arcane into words. “It allows me to use software and hardware glyphs to allow drones, or any computer, really, to hold and controllably disperse energy. I don’t know many spells, since they are different for an SI without a soul or a computer, but right now it allows me to set up a database, such as a control drone, as a temporary control node. That means that with the right kind of drone, I could remote from… very very long distances away.”

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  “How far away and how many?” Her voice was intent, focused.

  “If I can set it up in advance, and have enough energy? I could control, and even assemble from scratch or parts, up to six full-sized battle drones through the controller. In fact, if I had a smart enough control drone and a decent raw material, like an asteroid belt, I could build them given a few hours… I know a lot of drone designs,” I shrugged, trying to sound casual about what was, essentially, a terrifyingly potent ability. “Up to about 2 AU’s, or farther with a custom-made control drone with its own SI.”

  She whistled softly, a low, impressed sound. “That’s way outside of standard engagement range. It’s just too bad you can’t control more. Six drones is enough for a smaller fight, but not a big one like a tyrant.”

  I shrugged again; it was becoming a nervous habit. “I haven’t finished training yet, Ma’am. I am only tin. With the right path that could expand enormously. On the simulators, with higher rankings, I was able to drop a drone fleet and multiple auto-dreadnoughts.” I left out the part where Warrant Officer Wasserman had nearly blown a gasket analyzing the logs afterward.

  “So what about micro-active swarm?” she pressed.

  I sighed. “That’s a weird one. It doesn’t work on drones larger that 15 microns, but it was a trait from my father’s sorcery that I was able to apply to tech, like cross-discipline sorcery. That’s how I can build a drone from raw materials, really raw materials. I can create, and control, up to six billion separate drone-like entities.”

  I paused, letting the scale of that number sink in. “The problem is, right now, it takes me a very long time to do anything with them… even building a swarm could take me a week if I used decent materials, like buckyballs and nanofragments.” It was a god-like power with the practical speed of a tectonic plate.

  She nodded, her expression thoughtful. “I could slide you into engineering OCS even faster than medical. But again, that wouldn’t lead you to command. You know, when you opt out, you could always go as an independent delver to try and get a ship reward or earn enough for one.”

  I nodded. “But if that happened, and I wound up fighting a bunch of bounty hunters, the fleet would consider me a pirate.” It was the eternal dilemma. To fight the system’s monsters, you often had to operate outside the system.

  She nodded slowly, conceding the point. “I might be able to get you on the Nav track. How does that relate to the cross-discipline sorcery thing?”

  I shrugged. “It’s just something that helps with my control. Remoting across several AU’s has massive signal loss and degradation, as well as delay. With the right frameworks, it lets me send my signals bouncing through the closest branes and back into the real world at its destination, so no signal delay or degradation.” I said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world, a simple hack.

  She looked surprised, her eyebrows rising. “What branes?”

  I shrugged, feeling out of my depth. “I don’t know… I haven’t studied enough of them yet. I know it can use hyperspace and warpspace, as well as the null, and I know it CANNOT use the Chaos Realms. Nothing can survive there.” The very thought sent a primal shiver down my spine.

  “So if you had a drone that could go into warp, you could still control it in real time?” she asked, her voice sharp with interest.

  I nodded. “Yes, but it would be a really short trip. I mean, I could control it to its destination, since warp space doesn’t have a distance, but once it got there, if it was more than a couple of AU’s, I’d lose it the moment it exits.” It was a neat trick, but of limited tactical use.

  “Can you push through, say, a rift’s horizon?” The question was quiet, but it landed like a thunderclap.

  I blinked. I’d never considered it. “I have no idea, but it could work. I have never been close enough to a rift to try.” The implications were staggering.

  “If you could, does that mean you could run exploration drones through a rift without having to enter it yourself?” she pressed, leaning forward, her earlier calm replaced by intense focus.

  I shook my head, reining in the excitement. “No. Rifts would absorb a drone instantly. That’s why SI’s can’t do it. Without a sentient presence, a rift can suck up anything that enters it. But I could certainly stay in the safe zone, if it has one, and send out drones to chart it or maybe handle threats up to their combat rating.” I paused, then added quietly, “That was actually an important part of my plan.” To scout the monster’s lair without ever setting foot inside. It was every delver’s dream.

  She chuckled, a dry, rasping sound. “In that case, I do have an OCS path offer for you. Fair warning, it’s a command track, but it’s literally the hardest command track possible. I think you might be capable, but it’s also dangerous, lonely, and is likely to kill you some day.”

  My heart hammered against my ribs. This was it. The door I needed to be opened. “Oh? What Path is it?”

  She smiled, a thin, sharp expression. “The stellar explorer branch.