《Reborn as a Goddess' Space Summoner》 Chapter 1 The sound of gunfire roared across the trees. The sound was deafening, making it virtually impossible to hear voices over communications. My name is Staff Sergeant Celestia Nadir, and I cursed as I used a thick tree for what little cover it provided. The rest of my four person base-of-fire element were posted at their own trees, attempting to keep the enemy¡¯s ambushers pinned while the second five person team of my squad maneuvered into a flanking position, led by my second-in-command. This was only supposed to be a routine patrol; command hadn¡¯t been able to confirm if enemy forces had managed to occupy the forest. A single negligent discharge from the enemy¡¯s side was the only thing that saved my squad from the well placed ambush. The enemy had managed to get one burst of gunfire off before my squad returned fire with tenfold fury. My machine gunner had immediately proned out a little ways to the left, raking the area opposite with controlled bursts. Every bullet the big man fired now was less weight he would have to carry back towards base later, and I was sure he wasn¡¯t going to stop firing any time soon. As I fired from my rifle, I continued to keep an ear out for confirmation from the maneuver element that they were in position and engaging the enemy. With the foliage in the way and under fire, I had no idea where the rest of the platoon my squad was a part of was currently located. It was extremely frustrating. I was unable to call for possible air support or any other aid from the squads that should have been nearby, and all I could do was hold out in the hope that help was definitely coming. The most worrying thing was that enemy fire was increasing. They were either being reinforced or they now had a better idea where my fireteam was located allowing more accuracy by volume. Several bullets slammed into the thick tree trunk I was using as cover and ricocheted off into the distance. Wood splinters left superficial scratches on my cheek and I ducked down with a growl of annoyance escaping my throat. Suddenly, the cadence of incoming fire shifted. At the same time I noticed this my second, Sergeant Millie Mirium, spoke over the headsets in her usual poised tone. ¡°Celestia, we showed up on their flank and are engaging.¡± I bit back her sigh of relief. ¡°Any sign of the rest of the platoon?¡± ¡°Negative. For all intents and purposes, we¡¯re alone out here. I should have ran into elements of at least one other squad, but they¡¯re not where they should be.¡± I frowned. That wasn¡¯t good. A platoon¡¯s squads usually kept within line of sight with each other for easy communication and the general location of the entire platoon. The other two squads being completely missing would be impossible if it wasn¡¯t currently happening. The ambush happened so quickly I hadn¡¯t even noticed that the rest of the platoon was absent. If I didn¡¯t know any better¡­ I cursed as soon as the thought crossed my mind. "We¡¯ve been betrayed.¡± My voice was cold, devoid of emotion. The sounds of combat seemed to fade away as the squad registered my words. ¡°What?¡± That came from the machine gunner. ¡°No way. Why would they attack their own?¡± I fixed a glare on the back of the man¡¯s head even as he kept firing. ¡°Your guess is as good as mine. But nothing else makes sense. The rest of the platoon is completely missing. Command was being awfully catty about whether or not enemies were even here. There¡¯s no way I¡¯m going to believe that satellites or drones were incapable of performing proper recon. Millie ranged a good half-mile out from our position to flank and she encountered no allies that should have been there. Either the rest of the platoon deliberately pulled back because they knew that enemies were setting up an ambush, or the rest of the platoon are currently trying to kill us.¡± ¡°Damn. Hard to believe after years of service this is how they repay us.¡± ¡°We¡¯re mercenaries.¡± Millie shot back. ¡°It was only a matter of time before someone decided to toss us to the wolves. No amount of pretending to be a regular army unit is going to change that.¡± One of the other riflewomen chuckled lightly. ¡°End of the line, huh? Thanks for everything you''ve done for us, commander.¡± She paused her firing, ready to give up then and there. ¡°Oi, none of that shit!¡± My slight accent came out during my outburst. ¡°They''re not going to get an easy meal of us! Fucking fire until you run out of bullets!¡± ¡°Rah!¡± The squad cheered, momentarily drowning out the gunfire. I slotted another magazine into my rifle with practiced movements and brushed the traces of blood from the wound on my cheek. Most others wouldn''t be able to tell, but I had been doing this long enough to determine that the volume of incoming fire was decreasing. Millie¡¯s arrival in the flank had clearly resulted in enemy deaths, and now they couldn''t decide who to shoot at first. This also suggested that their foes weren''t a regular army unit and were instead fellow mercenaries. Unfortunately, this also meant that their attackers were elements of the platoon we had been a part of. Struck by a sudden premonition¨C a tightening in my guts¨C I started barking orders. ¡°Millie, disengage. You''re making a lot of ruckus over there and you''re far enough away for the rest of our former platoon to pinpoint your general location. The rest of you, we''re going to link up with her.¡± There was a moment of silence. ¡°Good call, Celestia. We disengaged fast enough to catch a couple of them trying to flank us. We killed them, but we''re down a rifleman. I took a round to my arm.¡± An icy fist closed around my heart. If I had been just a little later in issuing that order, I would have lost my closest friend in the world. Yet, before I could give more orders, a sudden chopping sound interrupted all other noise. I glanced up in hope that was quickly dashed. Those were helicopters, all right, and they were coming from the front. Not behind. They weren''t here to help. ¡°Sorry, Millie. Looks like we''re not going to get the chance to finish saving up money for that house we wanted.¡± Those were the last words I was able to speak to the one who had been by my side since childhood. In the heat of the moment, that was what I was most worried about, and I started to flush from embarrassment. I still had the pleasure of hearing my best friend chuckle one last time. ¡°We had a good run, you and I.¡± Millie dropped her poised manner of speech, her voice filled with far more warmth than the squad usually ever heard from the second-in-command. ¡°Guess now would be the only time I''ll get to tell you that I love you.¡± My entire world went crystal as I heard the words I¡¯d always longed to hear. But I never had the chance to reply. With a burning fury, the approaching helicopters released their rockets. I never even got a chance to cry out before my existence was replaced by a cold pain and burning numbness. When the world stopped tumbling, I realized that I couldn''t feel the lower half of my body. I was too terrified to look down to find out why. Instead, I kept my eyes aimed above. Everything was on fire. I had been tossed against a large boulder, and as I laid there tears started to fall from my eyes, unbidden. It was getting so hot that the salty tracks on my cheeks began to evaporate as soon as they formed. There was no further communication in my ear. That initial volley of munitions had likely decimated my squad. There would be no further survivors, and the fact that I was still alive, still capable of drowning in sorrow, was a very cruel twist of fate. Against my better judgment, I glanced down. My entire body below my torso was missing. Every moment that passed caused more of my lifeblood to seep into the uncaring ground, but the helicopters were already moving away. There would be no second attack, as nothing should have been able to survive for this long. I knew that I was already a dead woman, but the end was approaching far too slow for my liking. I wasn¡¯t about to spend the last minutes waiting for either the fire or the blood loss to kill me. Fumbling around a bit, I managed to find my sidearm. The weapon had landed right next to me, thrown free of its holster when I landed. I gripped it with my dominant hand and brought it to the base of my chin. ¡°Fuck you all,¡± I rasped. ¡°Whoever betrayed my family can go rot in Tartarus.¡± I rested my finger on the trigger. Even though I knew I wasn''t long for this world, I hesitated. No one ever wanted to die, even if my profession carried the expectation that it might happen. Yet in the end, I was going to go out on my terms. ¡°Hang on, Millie. I¡¯m following after you.¡± My finger tightened as a half smirk decorated my lips, and then there was no more. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. *** In a completely different plane of existence, two figures sat facing each other at a round table. One was a man, only discernible as such by his overall stature and build. His entire being was cloaked in shadow, courtesy of a full body robe with hood. His head was oddly shaped, almost like a snake¡¯s head, and a forked tongue sometimes darted out to taste the air. The second figure was a gorgeous, svelte woman. Her hair was a rich lavender tied into a ponytail and she was on the tall side. Her outfit was a white tight tunic and skirt combo, with boots laced up to her knees. A crescent bow and a quiver of arrows sat off to one side. Her blue eyes studied the man opposite her intently, and one got the sense that they were in the midst of an intense discussion. ¡°Are you sure about this, Artemis? As the God of Fate I am more than capable of¡­ stacking the deck, as the mortals say, to give you a fair chance in the game the other gods are playing. But there has to be balance. This task you¡¯re asking of me is going to handicap you, up to and including being unable to interact with whoever answers your call.¡± Artemis, Goddess of the Hunt and the Moon, sighed slightly. ¡°I¡¯m aware, Shai. But I¡¯m tired of being relegated to a two-bit goddess with no champions and few followers to my name. My last several champions ultimately ended up dead or betraying me for a different god. So when the announcement of this annual game of ours reached my ears, I sought you out. You play a role in the final judgment of departed souls. I figured that you would be able to help me find a soul that isn¡¯t going to end up making me even weaker in the eyes of the other gods and goddesses.¡± There was a long silence as the God of Fate studied the goddess opposite him. He never would have expected Artemis to come to him. Most deities were content to ignore him. Shai cocked his head slightly. ¡°Tell you what, Artemis. I¡¯ll help you find a suitable champion. You will be restricted from interacting with them outside of an official shrine or temple; this means you won''t be able to whisper hints and suggestions into their mind. In addition, since the soul I have in mind is exceedingly compatible with you and your current situation, you are forbidden from contracting any other champion for the duration of this soul¡¯s tenure as your champion. This is as far as I can help you. I¡¯m already bending quite a few rules here. Any more than this and the deities that oppose you will find out and complain.¡± Artemis bowed her head. ¡°This is acceptable. Are we going to meet the soul now?¡± In response, Shai turned his head. Artemis glanced over and realized that they were no longer alone. A soul hung in the air, appearing as a ball of flickering flames. The soul itself was a brilliant silver color and was easily one of the most beautiful Artemis had ever seen. Despite the fact that the soul had no face or even eyes, the two deities had the distinct impression that the soul was looking around the flat, nearly featureless space. ¡°Where¡­ where am I? Fuck! Millie, where are you?!¡± The voice was definitively feminine. Artemis held out her palms towards their new guest. ¡°Easy, there. I¡¯m afraid that you died years ago, by my understanding. You were¡­ betrayed by your organization? Is that correct?¡± ¡°I¡­ yes. But, I¡¯ve been dead for years? It feels like no time has passed at all. Who are you, and how do you know what happened to me?¡± ¡°I suppose introductions are in order. I am Shai, the God of Fate. She is Artemis, the Goddess of the Hunt and the Moon. I believe that the fact that we are deities should tell you how we know what caused your death.¡± ¡°Time flows differently after death,¡± Artemis added. ¡°Without a proper body, time becomes rather meaningless.¡± ¡°I see.¡± Those two words held an ocean of melancholy. ¡°I¡¯ve never been a particularly religious person. Still, I had hoped that whatever awaited me after my death I would get to walk besides Millie.¡± Shai studied the soul for a moment before coming to a decision that he hoped wouldn¡¯t tip the balance too far. ¡°Millie Millim, correct?¡± The soul seemed to perk up, the ghostly flames flaring brighter. ¡°Yes! Can you summon her?! I want to tell her I¡¯m sorry!¡± Shai shook his head. ¡°I passed the Final Judgment on a soul named Millie Millim, yes. All I can tell you is that she was summoned by a different goddess. You may or may not be able to see her again in the future.¡± The soul deflated slightly. ¡°Damn. Okay, no use dwelling on it. You obviously know who I am, but I still feel as though I should introduce myself. Staff Sergeant Celestia Nadir at your service. Though, I suppose my military rank is pointless, eh? Its been a part of my identity for so long I just use it. If I can be frank, why am I here?¡± The two deities shared a look. ¡°Well, you¡¯re here because of me.¡± Artemis began. ¡°Currently, I am a goddess with little power in comparison to other gods and goddesses. I don¡¯t have a whole lot of sway in governing the vast universe. I don¡¯t even have a single planet to my name, and thus few followers.¡± The soul shifted slightly, causing Artemis to pause. ¡°So wait. You¡¯re Artemis, right? I was never particularly good at mythology, but you should represent things like hunting and stuff. How do you not have followers? Don¡¯t you just automatically have followers everytime someone hunts animals? Or are there just not enough animals to hunt considering the vastness of space and the different planets?¡± Artemis chuckled a bit. ¡°That¡¯s not how it works, I¡¯m afraid. If a kill is not made in my name, I cannot claim them as followers. In this case, hunting in my name requires the hunter to own a temple or a shrine dedicated to me. If there¡¯s nothing for potential followers to pray towards, I don¡¯t receive any power or recognition. All deities are governed by these rules. Faith doesn¡¯t just appear out of thin air. To answer the second part of your question, there''s nothing in the rules that govern deities that states I have to specifically hunt animals. I gain power from the thrill of the hunt and the act of hunting; there are plenty of things in this universe that can help me regain power.¡± ¡°Okay, makes sense. What does this have to do with me, if you don¡¯t mind me asking?¡± ¡°Feel free to ask whatever is on your mind. In answer to your question, I¡¯m specifically looking for a champion. Hopefully one who won''t get themselves killed before accomplishing anything in my name or betray me for other deities. Champions are the primary way for a god or goddess to start to obtain faith from the masses. They perform an action in the name of their deity, the masses take notice, then they start building shrines, praying, and mimicking the thing the deity likes as thanks. Or at least, that¡¯s the super simplified version of it.¡± There was one word that stuck out to Celestia. ¡°Betrayal, huh. Sounds like you and I have something in common. But what exactly can I do? I¡¯m only a single¡­ uh, being. A soldier at that. Or, I used to be. Wouldn¡¯t you have been better off with say, a game hunter or something?¡± Artemis giggled. ¡°Not likely. You were chosen because your skillset from your previous life will lend itself well towards hunting my new prey: criminals. I want someone who will do their best to help me grow my power, and space is full of the scum of the galaxy that no one will begrudge me getting rid of. And if Shai says you have a high compatibility with me, then I¡¯m going to trust him. So basically, it''s like this. The universe is vast. That means plenty of space that has the potential to provide faith. It''s a constant sort of game between deities, attempting to undermine each other and sway more planets over to their alignments, except my faith will come from you and your allies putting down scum. Every decade, gods and goddesses are allowed to summon forth a champion to carry out their will, but I don¡¯t possess a whole lot of power. What power I do have I wanted to save in order to give my champion as strong of a start as possible. If I¡¯d needed to summon a soul myself, I wouldn¡¯t have been able to provide good aid to my champion. So, I turned to Shai. He¡¯s at least kind of sympathetic to my plight.¡± ¡°Indeed.¡± the cloaked god spoke again. ¡°The rules binding the deities are centered around balance. Artemis gave up quite a few of the usual boons that champions receive in order for me to call upon the most powerful soul I could find that fit her criteria. All that¡¯s really left is for you to accept, if you wish to do so. You will be crafted a new body and entered into this game as Artemis¡¯s champion.¡± ¡°Wait, I¡¯m allowed to refuse? I would have figured you¡¯d just force me into being a champion.¡± ¡°The choice has always been yours,¡± Artemis shrugged. ¡°I¡¯m not about to force you to do anything, regardless of my own rather sorry state. If you refuse, Shai will send you to the eternal rest you earned in your previous life.¡± Celestia was silent for a long, long moment. She sighed. ¡°Y¡¯know, I kind of see a little of myself in you, Artemis. Betrayed by those you had thought allies. Straining against the current status quo relegating you to a weaker existence. But I¡¯ll be damned before I don¡¯t at least try, and I¡¯ll be damned before I get the opportunity to see Millie again. I accept. What do I need to do?¡± Artemis flashed Celestia a beaming smile. ¡°All you need to do, little huntress, is sleep. When you awaken, you¡¯ll have work to do.¡± Chapter 2 When I next became aware, I was delightfully cold. During my time in the army I had taken an extreme cold weather course and this was even colder than that training had been. For a moment I simply basked in the ability to feel again, eyes roving over everything before me. I appeared to be seated in some sort of strange mashup between an aircraft cockpit and a tank¡¯s driver position, except it was situated smack in the middle of a navy vessel¡¯s bridge. An array of screens were mounted across my vision, showcasing various readouts and information panels. These screens were attached to my seat via an array of arms made of a metal that wasn¡¯t familiar to me at a glance; everything appeared to be touch screen activated. A pair of pedals jutted from a control column attached to my seat, and the armrests each held what seemed to be hi-tech bike handles accompanied by even more haptic interfaces. The rest of the bridge was bare, although there were several coverings that looked like they could be removed to hold more seats. The far wall in front of me consisted of a half circle of windows that currently gave me an excellent view of the blackness of space. I then experienced a sensation I hadn''t in a long time: a shortness of breath that came before suffocation. A synthetic voice blared in the cockpit. ¡°Warning: Oxygen levels are dangerously low. Recommend bringing life support systems online.¡± Scanning the panels before me, I selected the largest, most central touch screen. With a few taps I found the life support controls and moved them to max. Immediately warm air began to be belched into the cockpit, and I sighed in pleasure. I sat back in the pilot¡¯s seat while gathering my bearings. Almost hesitantly I lifted a hand to feel the bottom of my chin. I half expected to feel the bullet hole where I had put myself out of my misery, but naturally there was nothing there. Patting the rest of me down, I confirmed that the rest of my body was in one piece and in working order. It was at this point I really took stock of my body. I was extremely lean, even more so than I had been previously. My muscles were a little more prominent, but in a way that felt natural. My breasts were a pleasant handful that complimented my compact frame. My skin was also a very pale tone, a far cry from the tan I was used to. Filled with sudden curiosity, I scrambled around for a reflective surface. I found a curious rectangular device that resembled a large tablet with a currently black screen and studied my reflection. The most shocking thing was the long, spiraling horn jutting from my forehead. It was as white with pink grooves and almost looked to be deliberately filed into a wicked point. My eyes were a brilliant, glowing sky blue framed by luscious lashes. My face was perfectly symmetrical, and my hair simmered a shocking white with neon pink undertones. It also hung down to my waist. Triangular horse ears jutted out from the top of my head, also with the same pink coloration of my hair on their insides. Holding back a sudden giggle at the absurdity, I twisted in my seat to confirm that yes, I had a tail and yes, I had cloven hooves. I was a fucking humanoid unicorn. Not exactly furry anthropomorphic, but human-like with unicorn features. I couldn''t hold back my giggle at the absurdity of the situation this time. The tablet in my hands suddenly chirped at me and its screen lit up, notifying me that I had a message waiting. Pressing my finger over the biometric scanner, the screen unlocked and I tapped the notification. The message had no sender listed, but it only took a moment to realize who it was from. Celestia- I hope this message finds you well. As you might have surmised by now, yes you are a unicorn. They are a race whose magic will serve you well now and into the future; the only downside more or less is how exceptionally rare they are. Shai decided that his own gift to you would be a race that would help ensure your survival until you''re strong enough for nothing to be capable of hurting or killing you anyway. My own gift to you is the spaceship you woke up in. Remember when I said I was going to devote what little power I have in order to get you a strong start? This ship is that. I''m not going to spoil all of its secrets, but rest assured that it is completely unique. There will be no other ship like it in the vast galaxy. The downside to such a gift is that outside of this initial message, I''m not allowed to have any contact with you outside of official tasks you can receive by praying at a shrine dedicated to me, and those can only happen once every few months. Shai assures me that as you earn me power, this restriction will slowly start to fade. Be sharp out there, Celestia. Other Champions are not under the same restrictions I am, and many of them have constant, direct communication with their patrons. Some of them may end up as allies, as not every deity can be considered an enemy, so to speak. But just as many would love to either kill you or seduce you to their side. Don''t be afraid to make friends with the locals, though. You''ll need them and their strength if you''re going to accomplish anything. The above also ties into the class I''ve chosen for you. To make things a little more familiar for Champions, many things follow a format similar to a role-playing game. To that end, your class is Summoner; your terminal can provide more information. Find allies you trust. Bind them to you. Create a force that spans the stars. Create an everlasting familial hunter lodge in my name, and as I gain in power so shall you reap the rewards. -Artemis I huffed out a breath of air. There was a lot to unpack here. I was very obviously in space. With my own spaceship, which apparently would have no other similar ship in the universe. Also, I was almost literally playing a real life RPG. I stood up and stretched, grabbing the terminal as I set off to explore the ship. Even though I had no real basis to compare to, the ship didn''t disappoint. It was huge. According to my terminal it was a mother ship, designed as a homebase for smaller ships. The four hangars I found supported this claim. It seemed to be a size somewhere between a cruiser and a battleship; it was a fair bit larger than a cruiser yet not quite as big as a battleship. Amusingly, the terminal listed the ship as an Artemis-class. Then I found myself in the engine room and was promptly stunned at what I found. Instead of a regular ship generator that I would expect to find in a weird sci-fi universe, the ship had a damn moon that seemed to be powering everything. The thing was huge, spanning from the floor all the way up to the ceiling dozens of feet above and taking up a good three-quarters of the rather spacious room. Three rings were rotating around the pseudo-moon with each on a different axis, and it regularly pulsed with energy like a heartbeat. I should have felt some sort of gravitational pull, but there was none. If I had to guess, those rotors contained the miniature moon. Almost in a trance, I tapped at my terminal until I brought up the ship schematics and found the engine room. I tapped it and the view on the terminal zoomed in. Lunar Core: A unique generator characteristic of all Artemis-class ships. The Core generates as much power as the strongest military generators and will grow in strength the more Faith Artemis receives. The Core also serves as a foci of prayer, allowing followers of Artemis to receive the goddess into their home. I briefly considered trying to contact Artemis through the Core if only to thank the goddess for this second chance at life, but remembering that Artemis¡¯s message mentioned only being able to do so once every few months caused me to reconsider. It would be better to wait until I had a better grasp on things and was ready for a task. I instead rifled through the terminal some more, discovering that many aspects of running this ship were automated. This meant that I could basically fly the entire ship by myself with no need for a bunch of extra crew. Then I stumbled upon a section that showcased what my current RPG stats were.
Name, Class Celestia Nadir, Summoner
Race Unicorn
Age 153
Level 1
Sex H
Strength 165
Agility 171
Perception 278
Willpower 282
Endurance 162
Libido 71
Traits Unbound Lifespan, Champion
Titles Champion of Artemis
Trying to ignore the fact that my sex drive was apparently also a stat, I long pressed each one to get a better idea of what I was working with. Strength aided my proficiency with melee and aided my ability to lift and carry things. Agility helped with ranged weapons and general reflexes. Perception aided my ability to multi-task and fly. Considering this one started at 278 I was more or less born to pilot ships. Willpower was a cool 282, and this one increased my magic potency and how often I could cast. It made sense, considering Artemis had mentioned that unicorns were powerful mages. Endurance was definitely my lowest stat, and it was a general idea of how many injuries I could survive. Libido was literally a number assigned to my sex drive and didn''t seem to provide any benefits at all at first glance. There didn''t seem to be any sort of stat caps, so I wondered if my stats would just scale into infinity. My sole trait was certainly interesting: I wouldn''t age at all. It wasn''t something ridiculous like immortality, but provided I didn''t die I would always be 153, which was apparently just after adulthood for unicorns. I had been 37 in my previous life, so apparently 37 in human years translated to 153 in unicorn years. The Champion trait simply added 100 to every stat and 200 to my primary stats, which meant that as a unicorn Summoner Perception and Willpower would default at 278 and 282. My title was exactly as it sounded: it marked me as a Champion of Artemis, providing me with the Unbounded Lifespan and Champion traits. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. The most confusing aspect was the H next to my sex, but after long pressing it I understood. I was a hermaphrodite. I supposed it made sense considering how rare my race was; a part of my edict from Artemis was to create a family, and having kids was obviously a part of that. My Libido being quantified as a stat was also explained this way. The next page on the terminal was dedicated to my summons and bonds. There didn''t seem to be a limit on either, and with nothing under either tab I didn''t have any clue how either system worked. I browsed further on my terminal and found information on the ship.
Name: Yunik¨­n
Classification Artemis, Gunboat Mothership, Summoner
Hangars 4
Hardpoints 24 (Doesn''t include anti-air and point defense cannons)
Weapon Load 15 Heavy Pulse Lasers, 3 Railguns, 6 Autocannons
I snorted at the name. At this point, I was pretty sure Artemis was just trolling me. If I remember correctly, Yunik¨­n is Japanese for unicorn. As befitting a ship designed to be in the back supporting other craft, nearly all of its weapons were designed for long range engagements. I had taken a peek at the hangars on my way to the engine room, and each of them contained a handful of round repair drones. I doubted they were capable of performing their work entirely autonomously, so if I ever did get additional pilots and their ships I''d probably have to get engineers for the hangars. Equally interesting was the classification field. Artemis obviously referred to the series the ship belonged to, while gunboat mothership was the role performed. But apparently ships also came with an RPG class. Perhaps ships that matched the RPG class of its pilot received additional bonuses? But, all of this was in the future. For now, I needed a plan. And if there was one thing I knew, it''s that combat capable folks were always in demand no matter what the local governments wanted to claim. And in the vastness of space, these fighters would be among the primary peacekeeping forces for any system. Large police and military fleets would be unwieldy and would only be capable of taking on larger criminal elements. Space being infested with pirates would be a safe assumption. Criminals were kind of like cockroaches, and trying to hunt their bases down without any sort of hints would be impossible. As I was lost in my planning, the support AI came to life over the intercoms. ¡°Alert: unidentified ships approaching this vessel. Ships are not broadcasting any IFF tags.¡± I wasted no time and made a mad dash towards the cockpit, my hooves pounding musically upon the hull and the thrill of potential combat already rushing through my veins. I took a moment to marvel at the fact that I was moving far faster than I ever remembered doing in my old life. I reached the cockpit in seconds, and wasn''t even winded. I barely had time to throw myself into the pilot seat before the AI blared again. ¡°Warning: unidentified craft have brought weapons systems online and are scanning this ship.¡± I danced my gaze across the controls available to me until I found the one that controlled the ship''s generator output. I was operating under half-remembered tropes that dictated a ship''s generator had multiple different levels it could run at. I raised mine to be battle-ready and felt the Yunik¨­n thrum under me. That Lunar Core certainly felt powerful. A coarse voice crackled over short, wide range communications. ¡°Well, lookie here. Ain¡¯t never seen a ship like that one.¡± I took a moment to observe the models of the other craft. They were all rather small, not even approaching the size of a standard corvette. These were just personal, small ships then, on the level of a frigate. There were ten of them in total, and they all looked distressingly shabby. Their plating was buckled in places. Their shields flickered constantly, and looked as though they wouldn''t stop a handful of rocks let alone a high output laser. What weapons I could see left me wondering if they were even capable of being fired. I decided to at least be polite and offer a warning. ¡°My name is Celestia Nadir, ex-soldier. You get one warning. Do not attack me if you value your life.¡± ¡°Wowie, not only do we get a nearly fangless mothership to repurpose, we even get a woman to enjoy!¡± ¡°Not just any woman, boss!¡± A second voice chimed in. ¡°Thermal signatures indicate she''s a unicorn!¡± ¡°Ha! We''ll be rolling in it after we sell her, boys! Now, Miss Unicorn, I would suggest you surrender quietly. Your point defense cannons aren''t going to do more than tickle.¡± For a brief moment, I considered letting them get close enough for the point defense cannons to shoot at them. Their shields did not look like they''d survive such a confrontation. In the end, I decided to play it safe in my new life. I flipped my Lunar Core from battle-ready to max all at once, then activated the weapon systems. A couple of screens showing a model of my ship revealed why the pirates had assumed the Yunik¨­n didn''t have weapons: they were hidden. Panels slid back seamlessly, revealing the twenty-four weapon hardpoints loaded to bear. The Yunik¨­n might have been partially classified as a mothership designed to support smaller craft, but in reality it still a gunship carrier. ¡°Oh shi-¡± I didn''t give the pirate a chance to finish his exclamation before my heavy pulse lasers completely obliterated his ship. My auto cannons punched holes into another ship that was slow to move, causing it to combust from within. In the span of seconds, the pirates were down two ships. ¡°Damnit, take her down!¡± The pirates fired their own lasers and I launched the Yunik¨­n¡¯s side thrusters by pulling hard on the two control sticks on the armrests. The massive ship smoothly dodged to the right, racing far more swiftly than a ship of its size had any business moving. The incoming lasers went wide, and I retaliated by more precise laser fire. It was astonishingly easy to pilot the ship, and I had an inkling that it might be my high Perception at work. I kept strafing sideways, and as I did so I discovered the unique layout of my weapon hardpoints. I had eight hardpoints apiece on the starboard and port sides of the ship, with the final eight up top. Each weapon was staggered enough to prevent them from interfering with each other''s firing arcs. This meant that I could aim the top weapons and the port weapons on my current flightpath, which was a full two-thirds of my total firepower. Each section of weapons consisted of five pulse laser batteries, two autocannons, and a railgun. One pirate at least proved he wasn''t entirely useless and managed to score a direct hit on Yunik¨­n''s shields. I flinched slightly, but the laser dissipated harmlessly. The shields didn''t even so much as flicker. I didn''t know the overall power structure of weapons of the new universe I found myself in, but a faint tickling from my teenage years told me that the pirates were likely using Class I weapons. Powerful enough against their usual civilian prey, but against what appeared to be military grade hardware they were woefully inadequate. The pirate didn''t even have time to realize that his laser fire had done nothing before he was reduced to atoms. The two remaining pirates attempted to flee. Unfortunately for them, they did so in a straight line one after the other. I lined up the railguns and fired. The gunship shuddered for a moment before the stabilizers could compensate as the massive rounds left their barrels. They tore through the first pirate ship with plumes of flame as the generator failed. The second ship fared no better, getting cleaved in twain as the shoddy frame broke apart. And just like that, the battle was over. I sagged against my harness as the adrenalin began to ebb away. All in all, I felt I had acquitted myself well. Piloting a spaceship was incomparably different compared to being a foot soldier, but with enough practice I was sure that I would be fine. I lowered generator output back to normal and surveyed the wreckage of the pirate ships. It looked like the carcasses could be salvaged for food and other goods, but I wasn''t entirely sure how to go about the task. Maybe the terminal could provide additional info? I fished the little device out of one of the pockets of my surprisingly sturdy pants. At some point I''d have to properly get dressed, only just now realizing I¡¯d been topless ever since I awoke. In my defense though, a lot of stuff had been going on. The terminal proved to have a nifty little search function, in addition to entire libraries of downloaded information. Looks like I could research common knowledge without having to connect to whatever counted as the internet in this universe. I quickly typed in my query and discovered that all ships came with tiny drones specifically designed to comb through the wreckage of ships and asteroids. With a few more taps on a console, I managed to find what I was looking for and send a small army of drones out to the destroyed craft. I scanned through a readout of the loot. Looks like some water, some alcohol, and something called a low quality food cassette. Obviously it was some sort of food, but cassette? Really? It sounded like I was going to plug it into some sort of music player instead of eating it. Among the loot was something called void alloy. Another search into the terminal revealed that it was a fairly uncommon metal alloy used in the construction of spaceship weapons and other subsystems; apparently it originated from star systems with a black hole, hence its name. It sold for a tidy sum of credits and even though my terminal didn''t explicitly say so I could read between the lines: in this universe, everything was handled electronically. No one actually carried credits on them because it was a digital currency. Digital currency left an easy to follow trail, so the fact that void alloy was a tangible good that could be sold for a good chunk of credits made it desirable for unscrupulous types who didn''t want to be digitally tracked. Still, it was good that I''d gotten my hands on something I could then sell. Owning an entire ship was likely a very costly expenditure, especially if it became damaged. Add in stuff like ammunition and basic maintenance and I was going to need plenty of credits. Among the spoils of my battle was what looked like some sort of data cube. It was black and oblong, and it had blended in with the darkness of space until the drones had come into contact with it. After studying its model on a screen, I concluded that it looked almost like a black box, like one you could find after an aviation or seafaring accident. As soon as a drone carried it back, it seemed to just disappear. Almost immediately afterward, my ship''s navigation chimed, alerting me to a new set of coordinates received. After studying the coordinates and the area around them, I concluded that they were pointing towards a pirate base. The coordinates were out in the middle of nowhere with nothing else of note nearby, while according to the terminal the nearest colony was roughly three days of faster-than-light travel away. I tapped my chin in thought with a delicate finger. On one hand, I wasn''t entirely sure the Yunik¨­n had enough firepower to deal with an entire pirate base. On the other hand, I could potentially earn more money. The terminal informed me that the pirates I had just destroyed had been tagged as killed by the mothership, which meant that I could go to a mercenary guild building on a colony that had one to collect their bounties. Those ten ships were worth 30,000 credits each, which meant I¡¯d have 300,000 credits to my name once I collected their bounties. I had no real idea how much that was right now, as I had nothing to compare it to. Considering how little of a fight they had provided me, I figured that they had merely been small fry in the grand scheme of things. More importantly right now, the notification about the bounties suggested that the Yunik¨­n and the terminal were connected in some way. A few taps later and I discovered this was true, as I could also turn the shields of the Yunik¨­n on while it was docked, preventing unauthorized access. There were also a myriad of other notifications about my ship that I could receive, including ammunition levels, food and water levels, and even movement detected in areas I could designate as off-limits if I ever had a reason to take civilians on board. My mind made up, I set the targeted destination to the possible pirate base. The ship took care of the rest, including the jump to FTL travel. The vessel hummed again as its Lunar Core shifted up to cruise output. The engine roared most gleefully as nearby stars began to turn into streaks of light. I paused for a moment to admire the phenomenon, understanding that I was currently traveling extremely fast. Chapter 3 I didn''t stand in the cockpit for too long, however. The navigation systems would keep the ship on its course, which meant that I could explore the rest of the ship and perform some additional research on my terminal. The terminal¡¯s schematics of the Yunik¨­n eventually led me to the captain¡¯s quarters, located at the rear of the ship right above the engine room where the Lunar Core resided. The Yunik¨­n actually had two levels, with the top level entirely dedicated to living quarters. The bottom level consisted of the four hangars, the engine room, ammunition storage, and a mysterious chamber the schematics simply labeled ¡°spell array¡±, whatever that meant. My terminal mentioned that many ships piloted by spellcasters possessed such a chamber, and the spell array was what allowed them to channel magic through their ships. With no real idea behind the magic I was supposed to have, I merely made a note of it and moved on. There were actually enough rooms for maybe a hundred other crew members, not counting the captain, although I couldn''t imagine all rooms to be in use at once. My own quarters were stupidly huge, dominated by an equally bafflingly large bed. Against one wall rested a mini armory of sorts, and it was here where I finally found more clothes in addition to various weapons and devices. The bra I found was a simple sports bra, which caused me to let loose a sigh of relief. Standard bras were entirely too uncomfortable for any girl who was regularly active. I also selected a pair of cargo pants with many pockets to replace my leggings, and a lightweight blouse. What really caught my attention, however, was what appeared to be a choker with a gem embedded in it. The gem shone with its own light in a rainbow of colors just like my long hair, and the band seemed to be made of some sort of white, synthetic material. It captivated my attention like nothing else had since I¡¯d woken up in this strange new life. I reached out with slightly trembling hands. The choker was fastened around my neck before I¡¯d even noticed what was happening. For a moment, I admired the choker in the mirror off to the side. Then there was a slight tingling in the horn on my forehead which quickly grew into a burning sensation as something seemed to drink from something deep inside me. I dropped to one knee and grunted in pain as the gem pulsed with an even brighter flare of colors. The next instant, I was covered in armor. It was stupidly svelte, clinging to me like a second skin. It was definitely some sort of armor, though, as evidenced by a pleasant sort of tinking sound as I rapped on the chestplate. It wasn''t segmented, yet somehow gave me a ridiculous level of movement, almost as if I was wearing nothing at all. The armor itself is white, the same shade as my skin, with pastel rainbow accents. It also had some sort of long, pale gray cloak attached at the back, and as crazy as it sounded the cloak seemed to be regulating my body temperature inside the armor. I should have started to feel slightly warm by now, but instead I was extremely comfortable and the cloak had almost imperceptible heat waves emanating off it as it shunted my body heat into the surrounding environment. Then the visor activated, flashing across my eyes from the left by a thin tendril of armor and leaving the rest of my head free. The only thing I could find to say after the heads up display activated was: ¡°Oh. Here''s the rest of my game stats.¡± And honestly, I wasn''t far off the mark. There was a bar for both my health and mana, although there were no actual numbers associated with them. My mana bar was far longer than the health bar, however, and I assumed it was due to my higher Willpower compared to Endurance. My mana was also reading at half empty, although it was regenerating at a surprisingly quick rate. I assumed that the uncomfortable feeling of having something sucked out of my horn was the armor¡¯s doing. There was also a little reticle that followed my gaze around, although it was surprisingly unobtrusive. That would certainly prove useful in combat. Off to one side more information was listed, stuff like heart rate, atmospheric contamination, etc. I once more took up my trusty terminal to see if it had any additional information. And sure enough, there was an entire new section that hadn''t been there before. Armor of the Unicorn Magus This armor is as much a status symbol as it is a protective piece of equipment. When a unicorn first comes of age, they will spend up to an additional fifty years crafting the armor of their station. During this time period, unicorns are more vulnerable than at any other time during their long lives, as a unicorn with a completed armor set is exceedingly difficult to either kill or capture. Once they reach the appropriate age, unicorn adolescents will lose the magical protections preventing others from harming them they''ve had since birth, necessitating the creation of such armor. Slavers and exotic collectors are well aware of this pattern and as a result unicorns have been hunted to near extinction in spite of the punishments for enslaving a unicorn being extremely severe. A Unicorn Magus is one step down from Unicorn Royalty and is considered to be of similar rank to Duke within other empires. This armor belongs to Celestia Nadir. Huh. So assuming that being a Summoner was some classification of Magi judging by how the armor was named, I was technically some form of nobility. I could already see how this could help me in the future. Being decently high on the society ladder should open up a few doors otherwise closed had I been just a grunt. I continued to read the manual on the armor. It didn''t make me completely invincible in a universe full of lasers and monomolecular blades, but it did make me more resistant to them, likely dependent on their power classification. If the ship exploded the explosion itself would likely kill me if I got caught in it, although if it didn''t I could actually survive in the depths of space in the armor for a short time before it would eventually fail. The gem had apparently bonded itself to me when I had put it on, draining enough mana for it to do so. This basically meant the choker could never be lost or stolen, as it would just summon itself back to its user after moving a short distance away. I reached up to tap the rainbow gem, which I hadn''t even initially noticed was still around my neck, and the armor retracted. It really was magic. Not having the armor deployed now made me oddly feel naked, so I redeployed it again. If what my terminal told me was accurate, unicorns were quite literally unable to be harmed until a certain age, at which point they lost those protections. Enslaving a unicorn for its magic capability was something many unscrupulous types would literally kill for, so the armor creation was like a rite of passage ceremony designed to recapture at least some of those early year protections. This had me then wondering why unicorns didn''t just start their armor early before they became so vulnerable. If they knew it was going to happen, it made sense to start the armor before reaching the threshold where they lost their invincibility. Perhaps there was something that prevented them from doing so? Thoughts for later, I decided. What I really wanted to know is how the summons worked. Unfortunately my terminal had no real information outside the fact that Summoners were a type of mage who made pacts with other creatures in return for aid and power. I also had no idea how to even use magic, let alone if my body already subconsciously knew how to cast spells. Considering my terminal kept updating itself with relevant information, I assumed that I would eventually have more to study later. The rest of the journey to that pirate base was spent trying to get used to my new body. I was far more lithe than I''d ever been as a human, and as a result my center of gravity was a bit off. The medical pod on the Yunik¨­n assured me that I was at an exceptional level of fitness and weight, but I still felt entirely too light on my hooves even when equipped with my armor and a full battle kit of laser rifle, laser pistol, and a monomolecular blade. This was likely the high Agility offering this benefit, but what was more surprising was how slowly I tired. With an Endurance of only D, I expected to become exhausted rather quickly. However, since Endurance specifically said that it was a measure of how much damage I could take, I assumed that my overall stamina was an average of my total physical stats. Since I had fairly high numbers for two of the three physical stats, that would explain the almost boundless stamina I seemed to possess. I went to bed later almost eager to see what tomorrow would bring. And really, who could blame me? I had been reincarnated into a sci-fi universe full of stuff to do. It certainly beat being dead. The only thing that could bring me down was that Millie wasn''t here to enjoy this, too. I could only hope that one day they would be reunited. I woke up several hours later when Yunik¨­n''s navigation alerted me that the ship had arrived near the coordinates. I felt extremely refreshed, even despite the fact that I had apparently been so excited I had fallen asleep with the armor on. Instead of being in pain, however, I felt great. This armor of mine was really something. Before I left my quarters, I decided to take a moment to properly arm myself. My terminal surprised me yet again because it also apparently functioned as some sort of bottomless bag. I couldn''t help but watch in fascination as my rifle, pistol, sword, and several spare energy packs all glowed with a violet light and disappeared. My terminal had yet another tab simply listed as ¡°Inventory¡±, which showed everything I had stored. It was kind of clunky to remove stuff since I had to pull the terminal out and select what I wanted to remove. It prevented me from just swapping around weapons while in combat, but another feature of the armor was magnetic clasps specifically designed to hold the weapons. My laser rifle slotted into a clasp across my back, my pistol fit into a magnetic holster on her thigh, and the sword slid into a sheath at my hips. I quickly made my way to the cockpit, kind of surprised that nothing was shooting at me yet. The reason for this quickly became apparent: navigation had dropped FTL right behind a large asteroid, of which there were several dotting the space around me. Since the coordinates I inputted had been an unknown location, the navigation system wasn''t going to drop me within range of possible defenses. With a few twitches of the controls, I deftly maneuvered around the asteroid and discovered that the pirate base was a fair distance ahead. Perhaps more worrying was the fact that there were no pirate vessels moving to intercept the Yunik¨­n. The ship wasn''t exactly stealthy even when attempting to hide behind an asteroid, so the fact that the pirate base wasn''t spewing out pirate ships suggested one of two things: the anticipated pirates were hiding behind asteroids of their own in small ships that my own sensors couldn''t pick up, or the pirates were instead raiding somewhere else and the base was only going to be defended by turrets and a small garrison. I had no real idea which scenario was true, so the only thing I could do was proceed with caution. But even as I got closer, no pirate ships jumped out to accost me. So it was starting to look like the second scenario might be true, which had me further scratching my head. Having multiple raiding parties out at once and leaving no ships to defend the base was just poor tactics all around. These pirates were being extremely careless, which suggested that they may have been terrorizing this sector of space for a while if the military hadn''t located their base yet. They were overconfident being on a hollowed out asteroid in such a remote location compared to this star system¡¯s primary colony. Even if local military fleets had the personnel to regularly conduct sweeps in seemingly empty sectors of space in an effort to locate pirate bases, those sweeps weren''t likely to stretch to areas five days of FTL travel away; those efforts would instead be focused much closer to the colony. Ultimately, the only thing I could do was press onwards. I was already here, after all, and if nothing else clearing out this pirate base would net me some more credits from bounties. Although¡­ In an effort to be prepared for anything, I decided to use my terminal to designate a few areas of the Yunik¨­n as off-limits. Now that I had considered the thought, it was extremely likely that the pirate¡¯s loot would be soon-to-be slaves. I wasn''t exactly a bleeding heart by any stretch of the imagination, but saving a few folks from slavery would undoubtedly net me some more credits. It sounded harsh even to my own ears, but the Yunik¨­n was my lifeline right now. If I didn''t have my ship due to damage or a lack of maintenance I would have no way of performing my duties as Artemis¡¯s Champion. I eased up on my forward momentum when the base finally got within the range of my weapons. There were a handful of what appeared to be automated laser turrets dotting the entrance to the crude hangar, but none of them had enough range to threaten a long range ship like the Yunik¨­n. I paused for a moment, considering my options. My pulse lasers would likely produce less noise when striking the turrets, possibly allowing me to dock and move throughout the base without potential pirates knowing I was here. Yet in the end, I was a woman who liked to make an entrance. To that end, I opened up with my autocannons. The kinetic artillery shelled the hostile turrets with a roar, and for a brief moment I wondered why I could hear them through something that had no medium through which sound waves could travel. There must be some sort of sensor or other technology in use that allowed me to hear the deep belch of my cannons. The enemy laser turrets were destroyed in short order, and I wasted no further time, squeezing the Yunik¨­n into the woefully small hangar. And it truly was a squeeze. Sensors indicated that there were mere feet between the top of the hangar and the bulges created by the weapons after they had slid back behind their concealing panels. For a brief moment I panicked; I had no idea how to properly dock the ship, and even though I had slowed down as much as possible I was still going fast enough to cause serious damage to the Yunik¨­n if I ran into something. The next instant, however, put these fears to rest as the navigation¡¯s autodocking feature kicked in, smoothly guiding the massive mothership into the docking clamps. Huh. That was handy. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. I rushed to the airlock, as time was of importance. As the airlock cycled the pressure to match the interior of the hangar I double checked my gear. I decided on carrying the laser rifle to start with simply because it would have more stopping power and range. With a thought, the visor my armor provided morphed into a full face helmet. The helmet tingled a bit as it formed an opening that my horn jutted out from, hugging the appendage snuggly. That was going to take some time to get used to, and not for the first time since waking up I wished I could learn to cast magic with it. If the thing was going to insist on camping on my head it should at least start paying rent. I stepped out onto the platform that slopes down to the hangar floor, the pale blue light from the hangar¡¯s atmospheric shield casting a baleful glow on my white armor. For a brief moment as I looked behind me, I was in awe. The Yunik¨­n was just as impressive outside as it was inside. It was painted in deep violets with flicks of white outlines here and there, resembling the vastness of space and stars. I also discovered that the ship did have a prefix, for upon the ship¡¯s side was emblazoned in white the words ALS Yunik¨­n. Judging by the theme of everything about the ship, the ALS likely stood for Artemis Lunar Ship. It had a nice ring to it, although considering the fact that there was such a prefix I had to wonder if it was possible to obtain more of these spaceships powered by a Lunar Core. It didn''t really make sense to prefix the Yunik¨­n in such a way if there were no other ships to be obtained. But again, these were questions for later. For right now, I had a pirate base to raid. *** Sophie de Casteinau certainly hadn''t expected her life to go like this, even taking into consideration that her House was an old guard of the Imperium of Cevanti. In a galaxy who refused to forget the atrocities committed by the ancient Cevantian Scourge, the eldest daughter of the de Casteinau House was expected to remain silent and obedient so she could be married off to some other noble from a neighboring galactic neighbor in a political marriage that was supposed to bring the Imperium of Cevanti more respect while in reality not changing much. Her sisters were expected to do the same, as was every young noblewoman of the all female cevantian species. Sophie had been told her entire life this was all she would amount to. It was bad enough that the old civilizations had utilized powerful curse magic to ensure every cevantian was born female. But Sophie was expected to bring more into the world to further pay for the sins of their forefathers. Everything had gone sideways with her life''s expectations when the de Casteinau triplets ended up caught by pirates. Some well thought out sabotage had ensured that the de Casteinau fleet was crippled before the battle with space pirates had even begun. The triplets were supposed to have been on their way to a neighboring nation to meet potential suitors. Someone else had different plans, according to the pirates who had slaughtered the de Casteinau fleet. They were to be sold to some human nobleman who wanted some pets that resembled angels from ancient human mythology for his exotic collection. Infuriatingly, the pirates were very careful to never mention his name. Once the sale went through, it was very unlikely the sisters would be able to escape his grasp. He would outfit them with slave collars, make them enjoy what he turned them into, and that would be the end of it. Antonietta and Edelguard huddled up to their sister on either side, their pure white wings and golden halos creating a dazzling background. Even despite the grime that streaked their skin, all three were visions of loveliness with silky smooth skin, piercing green eyes, and golden locks. It was impossible to tell the three apart usually, so they had taken to wearing different colored ribbons through their hair. Sophia sported lavender, Antonietta¡¯s were a pale blue, and Edelguard favored a pale pink. Their dresses and dowries had long since been confiscated, likely to be sold by the pirates after being sold into slavery. Instead, the triplets were dressed in little more than a cloth sack that reached down to their knees and little else. They were huddled together with several others waiting to be sold; some humans, a couple of kitsune, and even a siren of all things. They had all been brought in at the same time, and it had already been a few months. Everyone knew that they were already slaves, even if by some miracle they were rescued. Sophia''s ears suddenly picked up new sounds. There was a commotion outside the room they were being held in, and it was growing closer. It sounded like laser fire and panicked, shouted orders. Sophia had been in this cell for too long to hold out any hope for this to be a liberation. It was likely that the nobleman planning to buy the sisters had decided to not play nice with pirates. Their jailors abandoned their card game to scrabble for weapons. One of them, an absolute unit of a human, scrambled into the rusted frame of a heavy power armor suit. It stood twelve feet tall, and even despite the obvious lack of maintenance it could still crush anyone under a single foot. The other pirates rushed up onto the cat walks on the edges of the warehouse turned jail cell, weapons pointed towards the opening. Sophia had a couple of expectations on what would come through the entrance to the jail. The mysterious nobleman¡¯s private army, perhaps, planning to claim the triplets without paying the pirates who''d kidnapped them. Maybe another band of pirates had gotten wind of the massive amount of riches tucked away by the kidnappers, and they were securing the base and spoils for themselves. What the young cevanti didn''t expect was a fucking (pardon her crass language) Unicorn Magus to come barreling into the chamber. And for a moment, everything stilled at her entrance. Obviously the most glaring way of realizing the stranger was a unicorn was her stupidly sharp horn jutting from her forehead. Traces of blood spotted its length, suggesting that at least one pirate had been gored by the appendage. The second thing to catch the eye was that white armor. Unicorn armor was extremely distinct, and even though Sophia didn''t have magical senses as fine as what Antonietta possessed, the armor was emitting so much magic it was almost able to be tasted. The unicorn¡¯s long, white on pink hair and tail was absolutely mesmerizing. Unicorns generally had hair that grew lighter the more powerful they became, so the fact that this one had the brightest coloration she had ever seen spoke of a high level of magic. Time seemed to suddenly return to its normal flow, and as it did Sophia caught the gaze of the Magus. Her eyes were a piercing, glowing blue behind her helmet¡¯s transparent visor, and that single gaze made her feel as though the unicorn understood every single hardship and insecurity the angel woman had gone through in her rather short life. The pirate in the heavy power suit couldn¡¯t bring one of his lasers to bear on such a close target, so the thug swung one of his metal arms at the newcomer with a grunt of exertion. Sophia gasped in horror, sure that she would see the unicorn splattered all over the walls. What actually happened almost defied belief. The unicorn caught the impossibly heavy limb. With just her bare hand connected to a dainty limb, the one not clutching the laser rifle¡¯s receiver. Steam hissed from the joints in the suit as the pirate attempted to push through the resistance and crush the interloper through brute strength. Yet despite his efforts, his arm refused to move any further. ¡°Damnit! Kill her already!¡± A storm of laser fire answered his call, and even despite the red flashes of light it was all too easy to see that there was no visible effect upon the unicorn¡¯s armor. Then the unicorn spoke, and her voice sounded amused. ¡°Hey now. Y¡¯all are scuffing my armor. That¡¯s not very nice.¡± Edelguard giggled despite herself, and the newcomer flashed the prisoners a grin. Then she promptly raised her laser rifle in one hand and started firing back; the beams of light were blue, and Sophie could only raise her eyebrows at the use of a Class III weapon. The unicorn¡¯s shots didn¡¯t miss. One-by-one, she dispatched the fifteen or so pirates that continued to shoot at her despite the lower output lasers obviously having little noticeable effect. And she did all of this while still holding up the arm of the heavy combat suit. The pirate in the suit finally found his brain and attempted to back away to drag the unicorn off balance. With a resounding shriek of metal, however, one of the legs of the suit failed. This resulted in the Magus practically holding the combat suit up by its arm she still had in her grasp. The pirate within tried a last bit of desperate threatening as the last of his comrades fell. ¡°You have no idea who you''re messing with. Our benefactor will find you, and they''ll kill you.¡± He swung his other arm around, trying to use his hand to grip at the unicorn''s hair. The look on his face was priceless as his hand went right through the magical strands. The Unicorn Magus turned her head to look directly into his eyes. ¡°Kid, I''ve been doing this for longer than you''ve been alive. If your benefactor is going to insist on getting in my way, I''ll kill him like the animal he is.¡± Before he had a chance to say anything else, the unicorn slung her rifle across her back, grabbed her pistol in the same smooth motion, and put a laser shot right in between his eyes. Casually, as if the weight of the combat armor was a mere afterthought, she tossed it aside where it crashed into the ground. She then stretched with a dainty little yawn, and the way her lithe body was displayed in that moment made Sophia feel things she''d never expected to feel towards anyone. After resecuring her pistol to its holster the unicorn approached the sturdy bars of the cell. Once more, Sophia had the distinct impression that those beautiful eyes were observing her straight to her soul. ¡°Well, what do we have here? A few cevanti, a handful of humans, a couple of kitsune, and even a siren. I certainly wasn''t expecting this when I decided to raid the base.¡± ¡°Please, miss. Will you get us out of here?¡± Edelguard attempted to appear as fearless as possible in the face of a being that could kill them with but a thought. The unicorn let out a musical laugh. ¡°Hey, gorgeous, don''t call me miss. Makes me feel old. Name¡¯s Celestia. Celestia Nadir, I suppose, if you''re getting fancy. I won''t bite. While I didn''t really expect to find a bunch of civvies here, I can''t just leave you to fend for yourselves. It''s not like my ship doesn''t have the room at the moment.¡± As she spoke, the Magus¡¯ helmet collapsed down to her neck, leaving only a thin visor across her eyes. She was devastatingly beautiful, and Sophia faintly wondered what a being such as her was doing raiding a pirate base. The unicorn studied the digital lock holding the cell closed. ¡°Huh. I don''t have the time nor the inclination to hack this, so time to bust out the old reliable.¡± Saying thus, their savior unsheathed her blade. It was certainly a fine weapon, if a bit plain, and its monomolecular edge promptly made short work of the bars of the cell. ¡°Um¡­ thank you.¡± Sophia stammered with a blush dusting her fair cheeks. Gods, why did this woman make her so tongue-tied? Celestia flashed a half-smirk at the cevanti. ¡°You''re welcome, cutie. Now, can you guys walk under your own power?¡± There were a few noises of assent. The pirates had at least kept them fed and watered. ¡°I think so,¡± Sophia said, speaking for the whole group. ¡°Good. So, here''s how it''s going to go down. I''m going to leave your hands manacled together. While I''m sure you could loot the pirates for a few weapons for self defense, I''d rather not have one of you get shot in the back by some unsalted civilian. Getting shot in the back isn''t likely to do much to me, but it''s a different story for the rest of you. While I cleared out any pirates I encountered along the way here, it''s possible there''s still a few hiding out somewhere.¡± This sounded fairly reasonable to Sophia, but she did have something to add. ¡°Please, if it''s possible could we try to find where the pirates were stashing their loot? Many of us have personal objects we would like to reclaim, including the dowries of us three sisters. Those are yours if you can find them.¡± Sophia was a burning red as she finished her sentence. Gods, what was she even thinking? Offering those dowries was basically the same as proposing to this mysterious unicorn! Celestia didn''t seem to pick up on this, however, and fell silent as she thought. Her sisters likewise didn''t offer any protests, and Sophia wondered where this unicorn was from if she didn''t realize what offering those dowries to her meant. After a moment of quiet deliberation, Celestia agreed. ¡°I originally set out to this base to see if the pirates had anything worth taking from them. Stay a short distance behind me and stay alert. If I present myself as the first target, the chances of you guys surviving will be higher.¡± Without waiting for an answer, the unicorn re-engaged her full helmet and began trotting off at a steady pace. Her hooves tapped out a constant beat, and Sophia found the sound rather soothing. The rescues followed after their savior in a ragtag group. Sophia definitely noticed that Celestia certainly moved like a soldier would. Her posture was loose yet alert, sweeping her rifle from side to side whenever they encountered a side room. ¡°I already cleared those rooms on the way down this direction,¡± she explained. ¡°But can¡¯t really be too careful in an enemy base. Their spoils are likely going to be in the opposite direction I took after arrival.¡± After passing the corridor that led towards the hanger, the party soon came upon a right hand turn. Celestia raised a hand in a wait gesture, then whipped out a terminal from its holster opposite her pistol. Its screen was dark as it was in sleep mode, and Celestia cautiously slipped a tiny portion of the screen around the corner, angling it towards her. Sophia realized that she was using the dark, reflective screen to check out what was behind this ninety degree turn. It was really ingenious, as inside the asteroid she wouldn''t have a ship and its sensors above feeding in tactical data. This cemented the fact that the Unicorn Magus had likely spent most of her life in some form of combat like she had told the pirate in the heavy suit. ¡°Looks clear,¡± she announced. ¡°There''s another warehouse up ahead, with few adequate hiding spots for an ambush. Let''s get this done and get off this miserable rock.¡± Chapter 4 Internally, I was jumping up and down like a kid. Not only had I rescued a bunch of civilians who were going to be sold into slavery, there was a bunch more loot to be had. I normally wasn''t such a¡­ loot goblin, but this was a fantasy world with RPG mechanics. I felt I was absolutely justified in being excited; I was getting a massive payout for very little work, as far as I was concerned. Those three triplets alone surprised me, offering what was originally a dowry for potential suitors as a reward. In addition, I had discovered that my armor¡¯s visor came with some sort of identification function. It didn¡¯t tell me someone¡¯s name, but it at least told me what race they were. That will be unimaginably helpful in my journeys. Still, as I led the group towards the new warehouse, I tried to maintain my veneer of professionalism. It wouldn''t be good to have the rescues be killed because I wasn''t paying attention. And yet, despite my caution, there was no ambush waiting for us as we moved into the room proper. Unlike the warehouse that had been turned into an impromptu jail cell, this one was still a warehouse. And it was absolutely full of the pirate¡¯s ill gotten gains. Most of it resided in some sort of round container with magnetic lids. Off to one side rested a fair number of tool belts with a dizzying array of tools strewn about. The gaggle of humans all let out pleased exclamations before swarming over those tools. ¡°I take it you guys are technicians?¡± I inquired bemusedly. ¡°Yes, miss.¡± One of them, a redheaded woman, spoke up. She was fairly scrawny with fire engine red hair and silver eyes. ¡°We are¨C were, I suppose¨C ship technicians from Westfallen Armories, one of the largest ship manufacturing firms in the Termia Empire.¡± ¡°Interesting. I might have to seek your company out for ship maintenance.¡± It would be nice to see if I could secure some discounts after saving some of their technicians. The human technicians glanced at each other briefly before the same lady spoke up. ¡°If you''ve got a ship that needs maintained, why not just hire us?¡± I paused, not expecting the offer. ¡°Surely Westfallen Armories has a clause that prevents you from going freelance in your contracts.¡± ¡°They do,¡± came the agreement. ¡°But we were kidnapped to be sold into slavery, and we''ve been in captivity for three months. Those contracts are now void. Technically we could return and work our way back to our old positions, but realistically Westfallen has no shortage of technicians.¡± ¡°I might take you up on that offer.¡± I was pleased. ¡°I''m flying what amounts to a gunship carrier with four hangers. I can''t imagine there''s going to be a shortage of work. We''ll work out salaries when we''re not in the middle of a pirate base.¡± One of the kitsune also spoke up. ¡°If you''re going to be taking them on, why not add us to the mix?¡± I held up a hand, forestalling additional offers. ¡°We should really not be having this discussion in what amounts to enemy territory. Let''s get you folks clean, clothed and safe first.¡± Despite my wishes, one of the cevanti still spoke up; this one had a pale pink ribbon in her hair as the only way to tell her apart from her sisters, though I still didn''t know any names. ¡°Are you sure this is wise? The nobles who wanted us aren''t going to let us go so easily. They will come after you.¡± ¡°So I''ll kill them.¡± I stared them all down with a piercing look I had been told I was really good at in my old life. ¡°Not to toot my own here, but I am the equivalent of Unicorn Nobility. Only the greatest of fools would dare decide to covet what is mine and then try to take you from me. As far as I''m concerned, you are now a part of my retinue. I will hear no more protests. Clear?¡± A chorus of affirmatives answered back. I grinned at them beautifully again. ¡°Great. Now, let''s pack all this up and get out of here. My intuition is rarely wrong, and I''ve got a nasty feeling that the maggots who were planning to buy you lot are almost here.¡± The cevanti with a lavender ribbon started to move forward, like she was going to start lifting containers despite her manacled hands. I could tell she was a bit malnourished, but her and her sisters thought they would likely be able to help carry some things. But before she could take more than a step, my terminal glowed and started sucking the loot into itself. The cevanti woman stopped with wide eyes. ¡°A codex?! Those are incredibly rare!¡± I didn''t have the slightest inkling what a codex was, but I rolled with it. It wasn''t very safe to reveal the fact that I was a Champion of a goddess. It was better to wait until they were back on the Yunik¨­n to drop that bombshell. ¡°I feel like I''m going to have a lot of things that''ll surprise you. For now I''m just storing all this stuff until we''re safe enough to go through all of it.¡± Even as I said that, there was something that caught my eye as the terminal (codex?) sucked up the items like a vacuum. Specifically, there were four things. I tapped on them on the interface of my codex and a window popped up. Ship summoning token: a token capable of summoning a ship of a certain classification. The summoned ship will feature characteristics based upon the pilot who summons it. Huh. I finally had something that seemed to tie into my Summoner class. I briefly wondered if this was more of Artemis¡¯s guiding hand. It seemed almost too convenient to find such tokens in a random pirate base. I wasn''t sure if Artemis had the power to set up this entire venture just for her champion, but it was likely that Artemis knew that I was going to end up taking down this pirate base eventually and so slipped these tokens into a place to be found. I quickly flipped over to yet another new tab that had appeared in the codex, and this one detailed a little more about summoning in general, in addition to the role spaceships apparently played in magic. Summoning was more or less a contract between two parties that provided benefits to both and allowed the summoner to call upon their summons to help in combat. The data entry wasn''t super detailed, and I resolved to learn as I went. The one thing the codex did mention was that summons obtained extra stats based upon the level of something called the Summoner¡¯s Bond, while in return the summoner obtained a selection of skills and spells based upon the summon¡¯s class, in addition to a percentage of the summon¡¯s overall stats. This also seemed to confirm that the native residents of this world also made use of the same stats as the champions did. Interestingly enough, spaceships acted as conduits for a pilot¡¯s skills and spells. Nearly all ships had spell arrays designed to harness the mana from the pilot or crew and manifest the effect into a much larger spell or skill to be used on a ship. As an example the codex gave, a mage type cruiser would have five mages more or less captaining the ship while other crew positions would be filled with those who didn''t have a class designed for combat. When the RPG class of the spaceship matched the RPG class of the person using the skill or spell, the potency of the effect was doubled. Now that I had this explanation, I realized that the pirate who had successfully hit the Yunik¨­n¡¯s shields had probably used some sort of ability that guaranteed a hit. A skilled pilot would have been able to score a hit regardless of my evasive flying, but I wasn''t confident that a pirate would have had enough experience to predict exactly where I was going to end up. This would also explain how the pirates had been so successful; civilian ships weren''t likely to have a crew with a combat oriented job, and a guaranteed hit skill would be hard to counter with just standard civilian shielding. I was pulled from my musings by a sinking feeling nagging at the edge of my thoughts. It was time to go. My combat instincts had been honed over a decade of combat situations, ever since I''d turned seventeen and volunteered for the military. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that danger was approaching quickly. I estimated we would have just enough time to reach the Yunik¨­n and get back out into open space before the danger would be upon us. The codex finished storing the loot with a cheerful beep. I rose back to my hooves fluidly. ¡°Let''s go. Now.¡± I barely waited for my new companions to organize themselves into a group before I was taking off back down the corridor at a swift trot. ¡°What''s going on?¡± the third cevanti, the one with a pale blue ribbon asked, puffing slightly. My reply was decidedly clipped, but I didn''t have time to be polite. ¡°Danger approaching. A good soldier trusts their instincts. If we don''t get to my ship now, this place will be our tomb.¡± The group needed no further prompting and raced to keep up with me. We reached the hanger that housed the Yunik¨­n, and despite our hurry there was a smattering of awed gasps. ¡°I''ve never seen a spaceship like this before,¡± one of the technicians breathed. She had stopped, staring at my lifeline in this strange new existence. ¡°Beautiful, isn''t she?¡± I remarked proudly as I used my codex to lower the shield preventing unauthorized entry. ¡°Come on. You''ll find the crew quarters on her bottom deck. I would suggest hunkering down in those rooms until I can get us far enough away from here. Heading to the nearest colony isn''t likely to be a smart idea if there''s going to be slave buyers hovering somewhere in this system. I''m going to try to hyperjump a couple of systems over before we stop and take stock of everything.¡± Our group scrambled up the ladder to the ship. I darted past them as they stopped to stare at the rather spacious interior, heading to the cockpit. It was a little rude, but I simply didn''t have time to give them a tour or help them settle in. I threw myself into the captain¡¯s chair and engaged the auto launch portion of the navigation system. Piloting the ship was starting to get easier and easier the longer I remained in this life. The docking clamps disengaged as soon as the request for launch was sent, as there was nothing like a port authority on this asteroid to control the flow of ships. Ever so slowly the Yunik¨­n eased herself back out into open space. A moment later, the Yunik¨­n¡¯s sensors picked up a sea of red dots. The awareness monitor was almost a solid red color with how many enemies were exiting FTL into the space surrounding the asteroid. This was certainly far more than I could handle just on my own. For the first time since my awakening, I keenly wished that I had an entire mercenary company at my back to even the odds. I began ramping the Lunar Core up to battle mode. A voice crackled over short-range communications. ¡°To the unidentified ship: you have several somethings that belong to our lord. You have one opportunity to fork them over to us and walk away.¡± Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. I frowned. It was obvious he was referring to the civilians I had just rescued, and I didn¡¯t much care for the insinuation that they were mere commodities to be bandied about. The Yunik¨­n indicated that these ships belonged to a House Orion, of the impossibly huge Termia Empire. I didn¡¯t have the luxury of digging around in my codex for possible additional information, but I surmised that this noble house was a fairly large one if they were sending an entire fleet of ships into a completely separate space empire to collect would-be slaves. My visor had notified me that the trio of cevanti were natives of the Imperium of cevanti, which suggested that I was somewhere in cevanti space at the moment. Maybe I was more of a bleeding heart than I had thought I was, if I was so keen on keeping my rescues away from House Orion. ¡°Yeah, I don¡¯t think I will. Finders keepers, right?¡± The man sighed. ¡°We gave you the choice. Kill her.¡± Space came alive with a multitude of green beams of death seeking to turn me into space debris. Fortunately for everyone on my ship, the Yunik¨­n was no longer where it had been previously. I had reacted before the officer had even finished his sigh. I sent the gunship carrier into a downward corkscrew pattern to avoid the worst of the incoming fire. A few lasers still glanced off my aft shields, which shimmered briefly before stabilizing. The damage readout suggested my shields could take several more strikes of that caliber before failing, which told me that those were likely Class II weapons. They were definitely a step up from usual pirate fare. The Lunar Core roared proudly as the ship continued evasive maneuvers, but then I discovered the first limitation of my ship: the turrets housing the weapons weren¡¯t designed to rotate a full 360 degrees. It made sense now that I thought about it, as firing those weapons behind a ship could potentially interfere with the ship¡¯s engines. With a grunt of annoyance, I flipped the attitude control thrusters from automatic to manual. With a sublime grace that the large vessel should not have been capable of, I rotated my ship until it was nose up to the still relatively stationary private army above. The thrusters continued to drive the Yunik¨­n backwards as my own Class III weapons opened up. Blue heavy pulse lasers tore through shields to boil the armor beneath while my autocannons punched holes through shields and armor alike. The private army was slow to break formation and return fire, still reeling from such a comparatively small ship deciding to take on battleships and cruisers. Still, I knew that I had to get out of this sector of space. There were entirely too many enemies for me to take on with just one ship, and even now lasers were trying to box me in during my erratic patterns. I didn''t even notice as my horn lit up a soft lavender and punched in coordinates for an emergency FTL jump. The nearby colony, Jinkath Prime, was a dangerous prospect at the moment. Instead, I found a colony three systems away named Laloria Prime. That one would have to do for now. I reoriented my ship towards the direction it was still flying in as the automated voice announced: ¡°Emergency jump to FTL in three¡­ two¡­ one¡­¡± With a muted boom, the Yunik¨­n entered FTL travel. The ship raced towards the nearest hyperlane, which was situated halfway between Jinkath Prime and Jinkath Secundus. I let out the breath I¡¯d been holding. Now that we were in faster-than-light, we were decently safe. It was always possible that my enemies could pick up my trail and follow, but I still had a head start. I was pretty sure the Yunik¨­n was slightly faster than most of the enemy¡¯s cruisers judging by how quickly I was able to flee, meaning the only ships that might have been able to catch up would have been corvettes and destroyers. But by the time the private army would manage to regroup and try to give chase, the Yunik¨­n would have already entered the hyperlane and be long gone. Even if they moved directly towards the entrance of the hyperlane I would still beat them there. I paused in the cockpit for a moment, just to make sure that there were going to be no sudden alerts. Satisfied that the navigation would get to Laloria Prime without any further incidents, I left to go see how my passengers were settling in. The ship was suspiciously quiet despite the fact that I had ten new souls aboard. I figured my best bet would be to check each of the crew quarters first, and the first of my rescues that I encountered was the still-silent siren. It was then that I realized that somehow, my codex had transferred all of the pirate¡¯s spoils to the Yunik¨­n already. I knew for a fact that the crew quarters had no clothing or other necessities, but somehow the beautiful siren in front of me had ditched the dirty rag she had been wearing for new digs. For the first time, I really took a moment to glance over one of my new charges. The siren actually came up to about my chin, which was astounding seeing how tall I was at 6''3". Her eyes were heterochromatic, the right a soft lilac and the left a deeper violet. Her hair fell gently to her shoulders in lilac tresses with streaks of the deeper violet like her eyes. Her face was finely angular with traces of lilac scales around her eyes and high cheekbones. She was clothed in a simple, sturdy tank top and pants combo that showcased her sizable breasts and curves of her ass. The unflattering black of the clothes somehow managed to compliment her rather pale complexion, although her skin still wasn¡¯t anywhere close to my own snow white tone. The only thing that seemed out of place was the strange blood red choker around her throat. I tilted my head as we studied each other. ¡°Are you able to speak?¡± I finally broke the silence. The siren shook her head, gesturing at the choker. I frowned at the odd accessory, before reaching a cautious finger towards it. There was a sound like shattering glass as I just barely brushed the thing, and it split into two pieces before disintegrating. ¡°Oh!¡± The siren breathed, then paused, like she was astounded at the sound of her own voice. Honestly, I was astounded too. That single syllable held me spellbound. It was, without a doubt, the most beautiful sound I had ever heard in my life. It was lilting, almost like bells, and a brief moment of heat suffused my body. ¡°What¡­ was that all about?¡± If I was being honest with myself, I had asked the question primarily to hear the beautiful creature before me speak again. ¡°My lady,¡± the siren murmured, inclining her head. ¡°My name is Naida Shadowrose. That abhorrent device you broke was what they call a Collar of Silence. A siren is capable of charming someone with just their voice alone, and so my captors forced it upon me to ensure I could not escape. Normally only the mage who originally used it would be able to remove the collar, yet it would seem that a Unicorn Magus is powerful enough for that stipulation to not apply.¡± The siren had a rather formal way of speaking that I found unexpectedly cute. ¡°Why did you call me your lady?¡± Naida blinked at me owlishly. ¡°You are nobility, are you not?¡± I snorted, though I was careful to not reveal that I wasn''t from this universe. ¡°It¡¯s been years since I¡¯ve considered myself nobility; I don''t even have a planet to govern. That being said, what do you bring to the table? Everyone seemed pretty thrilled with the idea of working for me, so now that you can talk, do you have plans to also stay?¡± ¡°If you''ll have me, I''d love to work for you. Not to toot my own horn, but I started flying spaceships almost before I learned to walk. Granted, I haven''t seen a whole lot of combat myself, but my family as a whole has. I¡­ kind of ran off on my own because I wanted to see if I could do something other than take over the family business.¡± I arched a fine eyebrow. ¡°Do I even want to know what your family does?¡± Naida emitted a tinkling giggle. ¡°The Shadowrose family are well known private contractors. Or smugglers, to use the less polite term. We generally try to operate within the confines of the law, though, so the term smuggler isn''t entirely accurate.¡± ¡°I see. Well, welcome to the team.¡± Naida opened her mouth to reply when we were suddenly interrupted by something that resembled a terminal screen, hovering between us. Naida had a better time reading it since it was facing her, and her eyes widened while her mouth formed a little ¡°O¡± of surprise. ¡°And suddenly, everything is starting to make more sense!¡± She was so shocked that her stiffer way of speaking lapsed. Contract of Summoning This is a contract offered from Celestia Nadir to Naida Shadowrose, whereby the receiver agrees to become the summoner¡¯s summon. This is a basic contract designed to only establish the Summoner¡¯s Bond between two willing parties and is the basis upon which the Bond grows. Accept? Yes No Without an ounce of hesitation Naida selected yes. Something snapped into place between us, and I was now a little more aware of the gorgeous siren standing before me. I could pick up hints of excitement and even what she thought was infatuation, but the feelings were muted. If I wasn''t so sensitive towards the body language of others I might have missed the feelings entirely. Well, there went keeping a low, guarded profile. Before I could comment, I was distracted by yet another window. This one detailed Naida¡¯s statblock. ¡°Oh wow,¡± Naida breathed, and I glanced over to discover that the siren was also reading over a statblock, this one detailing myself. I noted with interest that my own trait and title was not hidden. ¡°You are a Champion?! I mean, there are stories about Champions carrying out the will of the gods and goddesses, but to think that I would actually meet one¡­¡± ¡°Why are your stats all 100?¡± For some reason, that was what caught my attention the most. ¡°They got reset when I agreed to the Summoning Contract. The only way for the people of this universe to increase their stats is to follow whatever deity they feel the closest to and pray at one of their shrines. When I agreed to the contract I was automatically registered to Artemis from Apollo. Do you have a shrine to pray at?¡± "The Yunik¨­n has something that acts as a Shrine to Artemis. After I get everyone else settled in I''ll introduce you to my Goddess. But yes, I am Artemis¡¯s only champ¨C¡± Whatever else I was going to say was cut off my Naida. The bombshell of a siren had closed the distance and kissed me, stunning me into silence. The kiss was tentative yet full of passion, and before I could even register the soft pecks at her lips I was returning the favor. We seperated a moment later, a string of saliva connecting us. Naida¡¯s heterochromatic eyes were studying my luminous blue orbs tentatively. ¡°What was that all about?¡± The siren grinned impishly. ¡°Staking my claim while I have the chance to do so. You will grow to become immensely powerful, my lady. I do not know you very well yet, but the fact that you were willing to rescue a handful of would-be slaves tells me everything I need to know: you have an exceptionally beautiful personality despite your insistence that you are a soldier. So, I''m tendering my claim to be the first of your soon-to-be harem.¡± I prided myself on being well put together. But the last sentence caused my mind to skip off the rails and crash into the next zip code. ¡°Wait, what?¡± Naida emitted that tinkling laugh of hers again. ¡°I think I broke you, hm? But yes, your harem. You''re basically already married to those cevanti triplets. I am simply¡­ Cutting the line a bit.¡± For the first time, I understood what those three angels had done. ¡°Ah. So them offering their dowry and me accepting was a promise to take them.¡± Let it be known that even I am a colossal idiot sometimes. Naida¡¯s eyes crinkled as she grinned. ¡°That''s the long and the short of it. Now, shoo. I am going to make my way to the mess room and start preparing a meal. Stale bread and water is not much to subsist off of. When you''re done talking to each of the others, send them my way.¡± I could only watch as the siren swayed away. I wasn''t afraid to admit to myself that I enjoyed the view, but I had the distinct impression that I was no longer entirely in control of my own life. Chapter 5 With a small sigh, I went to go hunt down the triplets next. Unsurprisingly, I found them in the captain¡¯s quarters. This was the final piece of evidence I needed to know that Naida was correct in her assessment. The three were already practically moving into my own quarters. Like the songstress before them, I took a moment to study the three intruders before they realized I was watching them. They were completely identical, down to their leggy figures and buxom chests. Their eyes were a startling bottle green framed by soft lashes and gentle cheekbones. Their hair was the same lustrous golden blonde that curtained just shy of their upper backs. Their wings were held close to their body, white soft things that looked like sleeping in them would feel amazing. For some strange reason my armor¡¯s visor actually listed their names, and while a part of me was wondering why this had changed a more primal part of me was too busy staring. Like Naida, they had also managed to discard the rags they had been originally dressed in. Sophia had managed to squeeze herself into a pair of gray leggings that looked like they had been sculpted upon her nautical miles of legs, with a blue button up blouse that strained to constrain her chest. She almost looked like a tempestuous valkyrie. Antonietta was the polar opposite, favoring a muted yellow dress that ended just above her knees with a cut low enough to showcase hints of glorious cleavage. I was reminded of spring blooms as she watched. Edelguard seemed to be trying to be a mixture between her two sisters. This cevanti favored a blouse with a connected skirt combo, done in cool pastel colors like the dawn before a storm. Spats protected her modesty beneath her scandalously short skirt. ¡°Y¡¯know, if you''re attempting to get in my pants only to later stab me in the back, it''s working.¡± The matching squeaks of surprise from the cevanti women had me doubled over in laughter. Sophia puffed up her cheeks in mock anger while her sisters flushed a handsome red. ¡°We wondered how long it''d take before you figured out what accepting our dowries meant.¡± She took a breath, her nose twitching cutely. ¡°Ah. Looks like our siren friend beat us to it. I guess I''m not really against her being the first. How did you get that Collar of Silence off?¡± I shrugged. ¡°I touched it. It went snap. That aside, what exactly are you three doing?¡± It was Edelguard who answered. ¡°Moving in, silly.¡± She chirped. ¡°In cevanti culture, we''re already married. The cevanti are all females, you see. So when a suitor is either given or claims the dowry of a cevanti woman, in the eyes of the law they''re wed.¡± ¡°You do realize I''m a woman too, right?¡± Even as I spoke the words, I remembered that they weren''t technically true. ¡°No you''re not,¡± Antonietta shot back. ¡°We can smell it. I''m not entirely sure what you are, but you smell like both a woman and a man.¡± I couldn''t even believe we were having this conversation. With a sigh, I focused on that same feeling I had when Naida¡¯s Summoning Contract had appeared. With a muted flash of light, three contracts appeared before the cevanti. ¡°Look, I''m not opposed to the idea of being wed to you three. You''re exceptionally lovely. All of you. But I''m also in a situation where I''m potentially surrounded by enemies everywhere I turn. I''m not going to force you to accept those contracts. But if you don''t then I think it''s better to let things progress a little more naturally before I bare my heart and make myself vulnerable.¡± I had barely even finished speaking before the three angels accepted the contracts, becoming three more of the unicorn¡¯s summons. To be honest, I was slightly flabbergasted. Naida was one thing, seeing as I had returned the use of her voice. I hadn''t really been expecting the same reaction from the triplets, who were even now pouring over my statblock. The sisters had a block similar to Naida, their stats reset now that they were under Artemis¡¯s banner. Sophia''s class was listed as a hurricane, Edelguard as a paladin, and Antoinetta as an archangel. ¡°A Champion,¡± Sophia whispered a little reverently. ¡°One of Artemis¡¯s, of all things. I''m not sure how I feel about that.¡± ¡°Why? Is that a problem?¡± I tilted my head again. It was Edelguard who answered slowly, as though trying to gather her thoughts. ¡°It''s not a problem in and of itself. But Celestia, hundreds of years ago the cevanti spanned a stupidly huge empire. It was a Champion of Artemis that led us. The cevanti were so powerful, so vast, that our ancestors actually believed that they were the universe¡¯s chosen race. They were uplifted and aided by Artemis¡¯s champion at the time, assuring them that Artemis approved of the cevanti being at the top. ¡°Eventually the Great Imperium of Cevanti, as it was called, came to believe it was their divine right to cleanse the galaxy in righteous fire. The other races would either kneel at their feet or be slaughtered. The Cevantian Scourge, is what the other races named our ancestors. The war was so encompassing it was literally the entire galaxy versus the Scourge, and the Scourge was still winning. It was a crisis so large that the other deities had to band together to deal with the problem. Their champions came together, defeated Artemis¡¯s chosen, stripped the cevanti of most of their power, then caused our males to become sterile. The cevanti were cursed to seek the seed from the men of other races to survive, and all of those offspring are always female and always cevanti.¡± ¡°Phew,¡± I sighed again. I seemed to be doing that a lot lately. ¡°That''s a lot to take in. If it helps, I''m not really planning on galactic domination. I was reincarnated to be Artemis¡¯s Champion because she basically has no power anymore. She had to ask another god who is sympathetic towards her plight to even summon my soul, because what little power she did have she wanted to use to give me as much of an edge against her possible enemies as she could manage. The Yunik¨­n is the only gift she was able to give me, and having that other god reincarnate me means that she is unable to have any contact with me outside a place of her worship. If that wasn''t bad enough, I can only contact her through prayer once every few months right now.¡± The three cevanti were wide-eyed. ¡°That sounds like Artemis is attempting to make amends.¡± Sophie sounded hesitant. ¡°I don''t know. I haven''t heard her side of the story. I do know that she is lonely. I could feel it. Any gods that might be allies are afraid to offer companionship for fear of being censored by the gods who stripped her of most of her strength. However she is the Goddess of the Hunt, and there are plenty of things in the galaxy for us to hunt. Restoring at least some of her power shouldn''t be too hard.¡± Antonietta glanced at her sisters and giggled. ¡°I can''t speak for all cevanti, but for us at least, we''re in this for the long haul.¡± I shook my head and grinned. ¡°Okay, enough serious stuff for right now. Considering everything that''s happened, we''ll have to have a chat with Artemis soon. And you three should really find your own rooms. I''m flattered that you want to make what we have going on official, but I still think it''s a good idea for you to have your own space. We''re going to be stuck together possibly for months at a time while in space, and I''d rather not have beauties like you three getting tired of me.¡± ¡°I don''t think that would ever happen,¡± Sophie said softly. All three sisters gave me a chaste kiss before heading off to settle in their own quarters. I took a moment in the peace of my room to wonder how in the hell this was my life right now. In my previous life, I¡¯d never really had much thought for romantic entanglements. Sure, my goal had been to eventually save enough money for Millie and I to get a house together, but that was merely a plan on my part to eventually get closer to my best friend. I¡¯d had no idea that Millie had loved me, although looking back on it now I had to admit I might have been a bit dense. Millie¡¯s feelings at the end finally clued me into why my childhood friend had followed me into the military, and then later the mercenary life. Millie had been a fantastic soldier, one I would have trusted my life to. But I had never been able to figure out why Millie seemed determined to follow me around. Remembering Millie caused a pang of sadness to lance through my soul. I did love Millie. More than I¡¯d ever thought possible. But these other new women in my life were starting to effectively worm themselves into my affections. Millie wouldn''t begrudge me loving other women. Thinking about our lives together, Millie had always played second fiddle to me. She had enjoyed doing so. Where I went, Millie would inevitably be nearby. It was just a fact of life, no matter how many men or even women tried to date the girl nicknamed ¡®Celestia¡¯s Shadow.¡¯ More than anything in that moment, I wished I had my best friend next to me. Not having Millie there was an open wound I hadn''t even realized was present until now, and I desperately prayed that Shai was correct that Millie had also been brought into this universe. Eventually the two would find each other. I was sure of it. With a force of will, I shook off my melancholy. I still had members of my new crew to get settled. The four ship technicians were clustered in the center of the corridor that housed the four Hangers. That same one with fire engine red hair was the first to notice my approach. ¡°Ma¡¯am,¡± she saluted, tapping her closed fist to her chest. The others gave the same salute as I got closer. ¡°How are you ladies holding up?¡± ¡°Very well, actually.¡± Red hair said proudly. ¡°Oh, I''m Eve. That one¨C¡± she pointed to a carrot orange ponytail with gray eyes ¡°--is Sensa, that one¨C¡± a burgundy bob cut with teal eyes ¡°--is Clara, and our final member¨C¡± a black haired pigtail with brown eyes ¡°--is Spirit. We were a part of the same technician team at Westfallen Armories. It''ll be nice not having to compete against my friends anymore.¡± I chuckled. ¡°Was Westfallen that bad?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Spirit said emphatically. ¡°It was everyone''s dream to move up far enough in the company to get their own hanger bay to work out of. Run-of-the-mill technicians like us would almost never raise that high without inside connections to the top brass or sleeping around, regardless of how talented we were. Even worse was the pay; we would only earn a flat amount of credits as a commission depending on the size of the ship we were working on, while the lead technician of the hanger would earn 60% of the commission and the rest would go to the company. So if we were working on a large ship and the commission offered was 100,000 credits, the lower rung technicians would earn maybe 1,000 credits while the lead would walk away with 60,000 credits and the company would get the remaining 40,000. It was a never ending cycle of barely being able to afford daily living expenses because the basic wage was also a pittance.¡± ¡°I''m not exactly a business oriented person, but even I can see that''s a pretty lousy model. So, here''s what I''m gonna do. You''ll earn a base 3% from every job I get paid for. You''ll get this from every job, regardless of whether any of my ships take battle damage. I''d like you to be maintaining my ships every time they return to their hangers, or in the Yunik¨­n¡¯s case every time it docks. Any enemy ships that aren''t too damaged and can be recovered, repaired, and then sold you''ll earn half of what it sells for, while the other half goes to me to help pay for any components you need to repair said ships. Sound good?¡± ¡°Uh¡­¡± Sensa said hesitantly. ¡°That sounds too good to be true. But your hangers are equipped with basic repair bots, so each of us should be able to keep your hangers running around the clock if that''s what''s required.¡± ¡°I''m not going to work you to death, but sure having my hangers ready around the clock will be nice. Welcome to the team.¡± As I finished speaking, four more contracts appeared before the technicians. I really needed to sit down with my codex and figure out if it had any new information for me. I hated the feeling of being left in the dark; so much was being thrown at me so fast that had I been anyone else they would have already snapped under the strain. ¡°A Champion of Artemis, huh?¡± Eve had a thoughtful look on her face. ¡°That would explain what a unicorn is doing all the way out here in cevanti territory.¡± At this point, I wasn''t even surprised my new technicians had accepted. Their classes were each listed simply as engineer. ¡°This will eventually put us at odds with the Termia Empire.¡± At my curious look, Clara elaborated. ¡°The Termia Empire were the primary empire arrayed against the Cevantian Scourge of old. It''s a predominantly human empire, and they used their significant galactic voice to persuade other empires to sterilize cevanti males in order to ¡®prevent such a tragedy from happening again.¡± The air quotes the slight girl used spoke volumes to how much she disagreed with such a punishment. ¡°When it comes out that Artemis has a new champion and that you''re tossing your lot into the cevanti, the Empire will mostly view you as a threat to their power. They currently hold even more power than the old Cenvantian Scourge did.¡± ¡°Okay, one gigantic galactic empire is now my enemy. Sure, I can roll with that.¡± ¡°You''re taking this awfully well.¡± Spirit commented. ¡°I''m a soldier. Or, an ex-soldier, at any rate. I''m used to having all sorts of enemies. If they come for what''s mine, they''re dead. What are the chances that the nobles who planned on turning you into slaves are a part of the Empire?¡± I already knew this thanks to Yunik¨­n''s sensors, but I wanted to hear someone else''s opinion. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. ¡°Almost guaranteed. It''s basically a well known secret that the Empire partakes in the slave trade. But it''s not all black and white. The Empire isn''t as united as they want everyone else to believe. The current ruling family despises the slave trade. They''ve spent decades fighting against slavery, but they''re stymied at every turn. The inner circle of nobility, those who don''t rule over planets on the outskirts of the Empire, have been trying to strip the Emperor of power because he doesn''t differentiate between inner nobility and outskirts nobility. The inner nobility basically want more power and money because they see themselves as superior to the nobility ¡®out in the sticks¡¯.¡± ¡°And what side of that argument do you support?¡± I was curious to know how my new technicians thought. Eve shrugged. ¡°We''ve been outside of the Federation¡¯s politics and sphere of influence for years now; the Westfallen Armories branch in cevanti space has kept us secluded from nearly all of that infighting. That being said, I speak for all four of us when I say that we''re on the side of everyone getting along. There are enough problems in life without fighting with each other.¡± Clara spoke up next. ¡°However, we''re all throwing in our lot with you and Artemis now. You''re in a unique position to do some good in the galaxy, and I think we''re all looking forward to the future.¡± ¡°You don''t even know me. That''s some confidence you have in me.¡± All four women leveled a glare at me. ¡°We can count on one hand the number of people who''d decide to offer would-be slaves a place on her ship and work if we want it. You can pretend to be this hardened badass all you want, but those you''ve rescued aren''t buying it.¡± I threw my hands in the air and started to walk away amidst cheerful giggling. I desperately needed a moment of quiet, so I headed back towards my quarters. A flick of my wrist closed the bulkhead behind me and I meandered over to the frankly way too large bathroom suite. I stepped into the shower, which automatically turned on. The water was already at the perfect temperature, and I started scrubbing the gore off my horn from when I¡¯d stabbed that one pirate. He had gotten the jump on me and had attempted to hack at my horn with a rusted machete-type blade. My armor had no traces of the laser fire I had taken, so I assumed it had some sort of self repair capability. The water still turned brown as the accumulated grime of combat sluiced down the drain. With a tiny nudge of my mind the armor faded back into its choker form, causing my clothes to instantly become soaked. I shucked them quickly before just enjoying the soothing heat from the water. I admired my head of rainbow hair; it was astounding that I could touch it and it felt like real hair, but the pirate hadn''t been able to grasp it and it seemed to be unaffected by the water from the shower. +1 for not having to wash my hair and tail? In my more relaxed state, I wondered if it was technically considered hair or a mane at this point. It hung all the way down to my butt, and I was already taller than the average woman in my old life. I then took a moment to really take stock of my new body. I wasn''t covered in fur, for which I was grateful; fur just sounded like it would ruin everything about how I looked. I did have a little tuft of chest fur right between my breasts, and toying with it felt calming. The rest of me was just that same pale, milky white skin. It was almost albinism but not quite. I had traces of a six pack above my taut tummy and my limbs had the same pleasing muscle definition. I wasn''t bodybuilder type of muscular, but I was incredibly fit despite my leanness. My breasts were capped with dime sized nipples. Below my waist, I did have a cock and balls. It was an odd feeling, having a new appendage where before I didn''t. It wasn''t quite the same feeling as my new tail, which was swishing gently under the spray with a mind of its own. I then discovered that I did have a little more fur, in a ring around where my ankles met my hooves. I stood there for a moment longer, just staring at my hooves. For all intents and purposes, I shouldn''t have been able to stand upright on my hooves, let alone all the running and walking I had done. My tail obviously helped with balance, but that didn''t seem like enough. But then as I shifted slightly, I realized what was going on, and I lifted a hoof to press on its inside to confirm my theory. The bottoms of my hooves were like suction cups. The only hard part of the hooves was the outer section, or the wall. The rest acted as a suction cup, and as I shifted I could actually see additional muscles in my ankles extending and retracting to apply more or less suction pressure to the area of the hoof that was bearing the most weight at any one time. I wasn''t generally one for the sciences, but my new body seemed to be a wonder of biology. Deciding I¡¯d cleaned enough of the grime off, I stepped out of the shower. I fished the codex out of my leggings, which seemed to be no worse for wear despite being soaked. With a relaxed hum, I eased myself into the massive bathtub and began filling it with water. The tub could likely fit half a dozen people, so I took the opportunity to stretch out. I felt much better now that I had the opportunity to just think and do research. I knew that I had two final members of my new crew to check in on, but I hoped the kitsune wouldn''t begrudge me taking a moment for myself. I unlocked my codex, and unsurprisingly there was another new entry on the device. Summoning Summoning is a type of contract between two willing parties. A summoning contract carries with it a few quid pro quo expectations. The Summoner promises safety and stability to the summoned entity, while the summoned entity offers additional expertise and new spells to the Summoner. A summoned entity is unable to directly or indirectly harm their Summoner, nor lie in any shape or form. A Summoner¡¯s Bond is formed upon the acceptance of a contract, and Summoners are rare enough that almost nothing is known about the different ranks of the Bond. The lowest ranking of the Bond is rank D and offers a flat 200 to all stats for the summoned entity, while the Summoner obtains one spell or ability from the entity and 50% of the entity''s stats. The next rank is C, followed by B, A, then S, with each ranking providing additional benefits. The more the entity trusts the Summoner, the higher the rankings. I tabbed over to the information on my new summons. The technicians were all at rank D, while my¡­ Harem hopefuls? were at rank C already. It looked like rank C of the Bond offered 400 increased stats to the summon, then two spells and 20% stats to the summoner. It was as I was futzing around on these menus that I found a level up notification. Curious, I pressed it. Congratulations! Your recent activities have increased you to level 33! Each level offers 5 stat points. These stat points can be spent in any one stat, and sleeping allows the allocated stat points to go into effect. I tapped a dainty finger upon my chin. I had a total of 165 stat points to implement after my level increased. I didn''t recall any notifications telling me that I¡¯d earned experience, so I had to assume that killing those pirates had netted me new levels. It was likely that I would have to periodically check and see if I had any new levels throughout my adventures. I tapped on my stats to place the new attribute points, and the end results looked thus: I couldn''t help but roll my eyes at myself. My OCD was showing again; there was just something pleasing about most of my stats being whole numbers baseline. The parenthesis seemed to be my total stats with modifiers taken into consideration. I hadn''t really expected my summons to add so much more to my attributes, and I still had the two kitsune that were likely going to add to those numbers. As if summoning them, a chime echoed through the captain¡¯s quarters as someone triggered what appeared to be a doorbell, causing one of my ears to twitch in that direction. It still felt weird to have ears on top of my head that moved independently of each other. The sensors being fed into my codex confirmed that the visitors were the two foxy ladies I had just been thinking of. I remotely triggered the door allowing them access. It wasn''t long before the two bemused women were standing at the entrance to the bathroom, running their eyes over the form of their new captain. ¡°I¡¯d get up to greet you properly, but I''m currently too busy being a liquid.¡± I said dryly. ¡°I wondered how long it would take before the final two of my motley crew would track me down.¡± I took a moment to study the two. One of them looked to be a bit older, just judging by the way she carried herself. She had that effortless grace that spoke of being a couple of decades older than her compatriot. She was tall and willowy, with silver eyes. Her hair was a beautiful pastel pink, styled in ringlets that framed her flawless face. Four fox tails in the same color as her hair waved gently behind her back, and she was dressed in a cheongsam that matched her eyes. The second one came off as a little more spunky. She was shorter than the first kitsune, for starters, and her chestnut hair was cropped short in a bob around a bronze skin tone. Flickers of red highlights decorated the ends of her hair, like flames. Her eyes were a startling gold, and she wore a more traditional red and white kimono. Three chestnut colored, red tipped tails flicked eagerly behind her own back. ¡°I am Orochi Inoue,¡± the one with pink hair spoke. Her voice was a clear bell. ¡°It''s a pleasure to meet a rarity such as a unicorn.¡± ¡°I''m Chie Kawasaki.¡± The younger one introduced herself. Her voice was peppy, as befitting her spunky appearance. ¡°Don''t worry about Orochi¡¯s way of speaking, she''s always super formal.¡± ¡°Yes, and you''re a meathead.¡± came Orochi¡¯s rejoinder. Chi puffed her cheeks in annoyance as I chuckled. ¡°You two sound like good friends.¡± Chie shrugged. ¡°Three months in captivity will do that. We kept ourselves from going insane, at least.¡± ¡°I take it the secret is out, then?¡± ¡°More or less,¡± Orochi inclined her head. ¡°For a Soulmancer such as myself, falling under the banner of a Champion is a dream come true. I am young by the standards of similarly long-lived races, but even I have been inundated with requests from other Champions to join them. I have refused all of them.¡± ¡°Until me, apparently. Why?¡± I ran a hand through my magical hair in slight frustration. ¡°What makes me so different, as the sole champion of a forgotten goddess, compared to a deity who has legions of Champions?¡± Orochi maintained eye contact with me, as if trying to convey the seriousness of her words. ¡°Your soul. Magically-inclined kitsune often have a specific domain they specialize in. Nearly all of us dedicate ourselves to magic, but there are a handful that go beyond just magic. Some possess the domain of emotions. Even fewer are capable of detecting thoughts, which is a primitive form of mind reading. However, I specifically specialize in the soul. I am so rare that anyone would be willing to kill in order to chain me to them. ¡®Tis how I ended up captured by those ruffians. ¡°Believe me when I tell you that your soul is one of the most beautiful I''ve seen in my short life, Celestia. I see a person''s soul in colors, and those colors represent various things. The color gold is reserved for deities, for example, while red could signify betrayal and black could symbolize pure evil. My ability can be blocked or tricked by anyone who''s skilled in magic, but you''re not doing so. Your soul is a gorgeous, pure silver. You''ve spent your past life killing, yes, but you''ve never killed just for the sake of killing. I didn''t believe it was possible for anyone to have such a soul, yet here you are.¡± ¡°Artemis said something similar,¡± I said slowly. ¡°Told me that my soul had a high compatibility with what she was looking for in a Champion.¡± ¡°I am not surprised. The goddess Artemis has not been active since the Cevantian Scourge threatened the galaxy all those centuries ago. There is a certain poetic justice to the fact that Artemis¡¯s first new Champion since her downfall is in cevantian territory.¡± I arched an eyebrow, ears pointed at attention. ¡°Is working with the cevanti going to be a problem?¡± Orochi raised her palms in a placating gesture. ¡°Not at all. What was done to the cevanti was barbaric, and you''ll find that many of the demi-human galactic empires did not agree with the Termia Empire¡¯s judgment. Unfortunately the human and humanoid nations had far more power than demi-humans after the end of that Galactic War. It was easier to go along with the judgment instead of further fighting over it.¡± I turned towards the other kitsune. ¡°You''ve been pretty quiet over there, Chie. What''s your opinion on everything that''s happened in the past few hours?¡± The younger kitsune frowned for a moment. ¡°I''ve spent much of my life as a bodyguard to Orochi, yet it''s only recently I''ve actually considered her a friend as opposed to my job. Before, I had never wanted anything outside that. My family has an extensive history of protecting kitsune who will one day become a leader of our people, and guarding a Soulmancer is the pinnacle of honor. It''s funny that you''re repeating the same question Orochi has posed to me on more than one occasion.¡± ¡°You are your own person,¡± Orochi spoke next. ¡°Being my bodyguard is important, yes, but that shouldn''t be the only thing you want to do. Besides, I''m not really a pilot. The Yunik¨­n has an expansive spell array, which means I''ll be spending most of my time on this ship and using that spell array whenever the need arises. I can''t imagine that I would be safer anywhere else.¡± Chie was quiet for a moment, thinking. ¡°Well, I''m an Enforcer. You don''t have any ground forces yet, but you will eventually. A few of the crew¡¯s quarters could be repurposed into bunks for groups of marines, right? And combat automatons would only take up space in the cargo hold if you wanted to use them. I could be your captain of ground forces. This way I can do something that meshes with my class while still being there for Orochi.¡± It was pretty obvious that this was the biggest concession Chie was willing to make. But if it made the younger kitsune happy, I wasn''t going to force the issue. I stood up, feeling far more refreshed than I had half an hour ago. Both kitsune were staring at me, but it didn''t really bother me. There wasn''t a whole lot of modesty in the military, afterall. A cloud of what appeared to be white mist engulfed my form, and when it disappeared I was completely dry. ¡°Huh. That''s different.¡± Orochi chuckled. ¡°There''s going to be a lot of those types of reactions, isn''t there? Was your old world not as technologically advanced?¡± ¡°It wasn''t,¡± I replied bluntly. ¡°We hadn''t even managed to send people to the fourth planet in our solar system, let alone create spaceships like I''m encountering in this life. I''ll tell you more sometime. For the moment, we should get together and map out a plan. I managed to outrun your captors for the moment, but I can''t imagine they''re going to give up easily.¡± Chapter 6 The two kitsune followed me out of my bathroom. I snagged a simple shirt and leggings and then promptly deployed my armor over them. It was kind of strange how naked I felt without the armor considering I wasn''t born as a unicorn and never experienced the protections that young unicorns had, but it made me feel safer so the armor got deployed. The Yunik¨­n seemed to be pretty well furnished, although I didn''t really have another ship to compare it to. Still, when I thought of the interior of spaceships I imagined bare metal walls, cots instead of beds, and cramped living conditions. The Yunik¨­n was anything but. Even the corridors were brightly lit and spacious, and the furniture was a far cry from the uncomfortable fixtures I was imagining. Stepping into the mess hall really drove home how big the ship was. Even when it had been squeezed into that tiny hanger on the asteroid I hadn''t really paid attention to the ship¡¯s size. But the mess hall was absolutely huge, taking up the middle of the top level. I could probably fit at least three of the captain¡¯s quarters into this space. It was here that I found the quartet of engineers still gobsmacked over the Yunik¨­n. ¡°This ship is insane,¡± Spirit informed me, her pigtails bobbing as she shook her head. ¡°The fact that so much of it is automated makes this vessel nearly priceless.¡± I arched an eyebrow. ¡°Aren''t other large ships in this universe automated?¡± ¡°Not even close,¡± Eve interjected. ¡°Training the AI of bots and drones is a ridiculous expense. No ship is going to handle the exact same way as the next, so the artificial intelligence for each ship would have to be trained and coded manually. There''s no one size fits all that a ship builder can just download into a shell. For that reason alone even nobility, who can often just flush away oceans of credits, never bother trying to fully automate their biggest ships. At most they''ll automate the waste management systems. ¡°But the Yunik¨­n? You have everything automated. Your waste management system, your ammunition systems, your fire control systems, the fire suppression¡­ it''s all handled by machines. You being a unicorn just makes this entire thing beyond broken. Once you''ve learned telekinesis you won''t even need an operator helping handle radar adjustments and defensive measures. Any space farer out there is going to be willing to either murder you or just straight up steal the Yunik¨­n out from under you if you let them.¡± ¡°So don''t go anywhere without activating it''s shields,¡± I nodded. ¡°I can do that.¡± ¡°That''s going to be your best bet,¡± Sensa agreed. ¡°Ground based weapons aren''t going to be able to pack the punch required to get through the shields while it''s sitting in a port.¡± I accepted a plate of some sort of meat from Naida. I thought it might be steak, and it tasted similar, but I had too many things to think about to ask where she had even got it. ¡°What shall our move be now?¡± I paused, considering. The cevanti triplets were digging into their own meals, but they paused to hear my answer. ¡°Well, our long term goal is to stay alive. To that end, we''re probably going to have to deal with House Orion sooner or later. I''m assuming that having such a large fleet in cevanti space is illegal?¡± I directed this as Sophia. She shrugged slightly. ¡°Technically, yes. Unfortunately, the Imperium fleets aren''t in any position to do anything about them. The Imperium is limited to roughly a quarter of the total fleets that the Termia Empire possess, per the treaty they basically forced our ancestors to sign. The Imperium relies heavily on mercenaries and local police forces to keep its colonies safe, while the fleet is mostly forced to safeguard the Core Worlds.¡± I hummed. ¡°So it''ll be up to us to take care of them. How much trouble will I be in if I just completely dismantle his House?¡± ¡°You''re nobility yourself,¡± Edelguard¡¯s voice was muffled around the rim of her drink. ¡°Nobility is basically the judge, juror, and executor in this universe. The Yunik¨­n will have battle data pointing to the fact that he attacked you unprovoked, so under the laws of most space empires you''re free to attack him in return. However, doing so would likely drag any allies he has into the issue. You''d need a lot more evidence of his indiscretion to get those allies to back off, especially since Termia is split between nobles who support the Emperor and those who support Houses like Orion.¡± ¡°In my experience, bullies like him don''t know how to handle prey who''s not scared of him.¡± I began pacing a bit, another old habit I turned to whenever thinking through a problem. ¡°It''s likely he''s got informants all over the place, but we can''t exactly just never set foot onto colonies. We won''t put ourselves into a position where he can just attack us easily, but even if an informant on the colony alerts him of our presence trying to hunt us down in the space around a colony will still be almost impossible. He''d need to dedicate a lot of resources to any endeavors like that, and if he''s actually stupid enough to try we can tie up quite a bit of those resources into hunting us down. ¡°We¡¯re going to need to get used to fighting as a crew, and Artemis also needs power. I saw we should dedicate ourselves to hunting pirates and the like for right now, until we''re able to challenge Orion directly. To that end, what authorities do I need to be in contact with if I''m looking to start my own fleet to hunt down the scum of space?¡± This time it was Chie who answered. ¡°Well, it depends. There are generally two factions attempting to keep sectors safe: knights, and mercenaries. The only real difference between the two is that knights are often considered honorary nobility but on the very bottom of hierarchy. Knightly orders are usually headed by nobles, so that''s probably going to be your best bet.¡± ¡°Okay, so then the plan is to start my own knightly order. I''m under no illusions that we can do everything ourselves, so having more allies will be important. We''re going to be pretty busy here soon, so if you''re done eating let''s go pay Artemis a visit. I''d like to see if she has any other suggestions.¡± We all trooped down to the Lunar Core, and for the first time since I''d met them all ten of my new crew were completely stunned into silence. The Lunar Core was still just as impressive as the last time I had seen it, and this time I noticed that it seemed to be just floating within its containment gyros. It also seemed to be thrumming with just a bit more power than it had been before my misadventures with the pirates. Naida was the first to find her voice. ¡°Celestia, are my eyes deceiving me, or is that a fucking moon powering the Yunik¨­n?¡± I laughed at her lapse into crasseness. Clara had her own terminal out and appeared to be studying a readout of the Core. ¡°This is beyond anything I''ve ever seen. I take back what we were talking about earlier. This is beyond merely priceless. I doubt the entirety of the Termia Federation has enough wealth to even buy half of a single Yunik¨­n.¡± ¡°Wow, seriously?¡± That sounded impossible to me, but I also understood I wasn''t a native. ¡°Seriously. These readings suggest that this Lunar Core could power an entire fleet of superdreadnaughts with power to spare. You never even see more than maybe five of those classification of ships in a single fleet because of their gigantic power requirements. And it''s only supposed to grow stronger? This is beyond even a national treasure at this point.¡± ¡°Huh. Wait until you hear that I''m likely sitting on four more similar ships.¡± Eve¡¯s head snapped towards me so fast I thought she''d broken it. ¡°Four?!¡± She repeated, incredulous. ¡°The hangers are empty. Where in the universe are you hiding more ships with Lunar Cores?¡± I shrugged. ¡°According to my codex, among the items I picked up in the base were four Ship Summoning Tokens. The item description implies that if I use them they''ll bring forth more Artemis class ships, and I''m assuming they''ll also be equipped with Lunar Cores.¡± This time it was Chie who frowned at me. ¡°Ship Summoning Tokens? There shouldn''t have been anything like that among the cevanti dowries and our personal belongings.¡± I sighed. ¡°Well, that''s one of the reasons why I''m wanting to talk to Artemis. Consider, for a moment. I get reincarnated into a brand new life serving under a Goddess who''s still being punished for stuff that happened thousands of years ago. Somehow, I ended up in a sector of space belonging to the same Empire who used to follow Artemis before becoming the entity known as the Cenvanti Scourge. I''m immediately beset by pirates, who have a nearby base that I just so happened to discover coordinates for. ¡°Inside that base I find the ten of you and four items that could produce more Artemis-class ships while simultaneously making an enemy out of a faction of nobles belonging to the same space Empire that fought against the Scourge. I don''t believe in coincidences. If Artemis didn''t have the Faith to do more than give me the Yunik¨­n, who else is pulling the strings to ensure I ended up in my current situation?¡± Deafening silence answered my thoughts. A slow, weak clap finally broke the tension. When I turned to look at the noise, I found Artemis standing before the Lunar Core. Yet, she wasn''t the Artemis that I remembered, brief as our interaction had been before my reincarnation. She looked like she had aged several centuries. She had a bit of a stoop, crow¡¯s feet crinkled her eyes, and her once vibrant hair was a sickly white. Despite her appearance, she still carried her bow slung over her shoulders. ¡°Holy shit, my lady.¡± I breathed. ¡°What happened to you?¡± My goddess chuckled weakly. ¡°This is what was left of me after giving you the Yunik¨­n. Believe it or not, I was even worse off before you hunted those pirates. But enough about me. I''ll be fine soon enough. I''m far more impressed at your deductions, Celestia. I didn''t expect you to be more than a musclehead.¡± She grinned at me when I huffed at her. ¡°Still, you are correct. There''s another deity involved. I don''t know who, but someone else has certainly been pulling some strings. Part of me wants to claim that they''re benevolent, considering they just made it easier to obtain some of my ships. The larger part of me wants you to be cautious. Someone wants you to revitalize the cevanti. I don''t know what their endgame is by doing so.¡± I shrugged. ¡°Well, that''s about what I expected. I''ll proceed under the assumption that this other God or Goddess doesn''t have my wellbeing in mind.¡± ¡°Either way, this was beyond my expectations. I never imagined that you would come into contact with my old chosen race so early.¡± Artemis glanced at the triplets, tears in her eyes. ¡°For what it''s worth, I''m sorry.¡± This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. Sophia was the one who frowned. ¡°I don''t know what to feel. On one hand, you''ve put my people through a lot of pain. On the other hand, you''re a Goddess.¡± I broke in. ¡°What happened, Artemis?¡± My goddess sighed. ¡°I''m not going to use the name of my old champion. He doesn''t deserve the recognition saying his name brings. He was the greatest champion that I''d ever had, yes, but he was also a zealot. I knew this, but turned a blind eye. Thanks to him I was one of the most powerful deities; I didn''t care that he took things to the extreme. I only cared about the Faith he was providing me. ¡°Ultimately, that was my greatest mistake. He took my unwillingness to reign him in as a sign that I approved. By the time I tried to get him to simmer down, it was too late. He and the cevanti were so strong that I couldn''t stop him directly. Still, the others took that as a sign that I was growing too much. It didn''t matter that I was just as powerless against him as they were individually. What mattered was that I allowed this to happen in the first place. ¡°Prometheus was the first to condemn me for harming his precious humans. Many deities flocked to him, just as eager to put me down as they were to stop my champion. My allies also didn''t provide much in the way of help, as they understood the threat my champion had become even if they disagreed with what Prometheus was doing. I honestly don''t know how many of them I can even consider friends these days.¡± Antonietta spoke up next. ¡°But you''re trying to fix things, aren''t you? Isn''t that why you have Celestia now?¡± Artemis shook her head. ¡°I''ll be blunt: I had no plans for Celestia to end up here. She''s the only champion I''m allowed to have for the entire duration she remains my champion. My only concern is keeping her alive, and having her try to uplift the cevanti again is counterproductive to that desire. And yet¡­ here we are. Whatever plans I had are now ashes. Right now, I don¡¯t even have a directive to give. Thanks to whoever is meddling in my affairs and Celestia¡¯s own accomplishments despite having been reborn for all of a day and a half, I¡¯m basically stuck in limbo. I¡¯m going to have to be reactionary in my planning for now instead of proactive. I can¡¯t keep this up for much longer, so my only directive to you, Celestia, is don¡¯t die.¡± I saluted my goddess even as she faded and then popped out of existence like a soap bubble. Silence fell between us, broken only by the thrum of the Core. Sophia was the first to speak. ¡°She felt kind of abrasive.¡± ¡°She¡¯s worried,¡± Orochi countered. ¡°Celestia is her lifeline. Do you know what happens to a goddess who drains every ounce of her faith? They fade away completely. It''s the only way a deity can die. Artemis spent almost everything she had left on the Yunik¨­n. If Celestia hadn¡¯t happened upon those pirates, it''s likely that Artemis would have vanished. This is also why Artemis can¡¯t say for certain whether or not whoever is meddling is helping. On one hand, they saved the Goddess of the Hunt from death. On the other hand, they¡¯re deliberately twisting things to put Celestia into harm¡¯s way.¡± I was still staring up at the Core when I interjected. ¡°Honestly, this is better for me. Fighting is all I¡¯ve known, and I¡¯m a woman of action. It would have killed me if I had been dropped in a quieter section of the universe. Besides, I¡¯ve met you all. I can¡¯t say it''s all bad.¡± Nadia came up to hug me on one side, while the triplets took the other. The kitsune came at me from the front, and even the engineers joined in from my back. ¡°Just don¡¯t forget to slow down every now and then. There¡¯s no need to burn yourself out.¡± I considered her words as I brushed one of her chilly scales with my lips. ¡°You have a point. In my old life, I was always rushing forward with little regard for anything else. Maybe that¡¯s why I failed to anticipate the event that ultimately killed me.¡± I could sense that my new crew wanted to hear more details, but in the end they let me go. The Yunik¨­n was still in FTL and would be for another couple of days before it would hit the hyperlane. Despite the advancements of technology in this universe, space was unimaginably huge. Even with the Lunar Core providing a stupid level of power, it simply wasn¡¯t possible for the Yunik¨­n to condense that travel any more than it already was. I asked the engineers to keep an eye on things while I retired to my quarters. I had just spent the past several hours in a state of heightened awareness, and I was quite honestly exhausted. It was kind of strange, because my tiredness was more emotional than it was physical or mental. It seemed my new body was handling the rigors I was putting it through quite well, but my emotional state hadn¡¯t quite caught up yet. To that end, I decided a bit of a nap was in order. As Nadia had mentioned, there was no point in just moving ahead full steam. I had time to unwind a bit during the month it would take us to complete our journey, and with ten souls now depending on me it was my duty to ensure that I was in the best form I could be. This time I disabled my armor before flopping into my surprisingly comfortable mattress. I had considered changing into proper nightclothes, but now that I was on the bed I actually didn¡¯t feel like getting back up again. I stared up at the ceiling for a few minutes before I closed my eyes in preparation to drift off into sleep. The lights of the room somehow sensed my intention and turned themselves off. I woke up an unknown time later, clammy and drenched in sweat. Phantom pain lingered upon my lower jaw, and I darted a hand up to futilely press against a wound that wasn¡¯t there. My heart hammered in my chest and my breath left me in panicked rasps. A hand with flecks of lilac scales entered my vision and rubbed against my side soothingly, and it took me long moments to remember where I was and who that hand belonged to. My heartbeat finally began to slow and my breathing evened out. I turned slightly to see Naida watching me with gentle concern. Apparently she had slipped into my bed while I napped. ¡°Are you okay, Tia?¡± I grinned weakly at the nickname before blowing out a breath. ¡°Just a bad dream. I had thought I was handling things well, but apparently there are some wounds that are too fresh for me to forget.¡± The siren¡¯s heterochromatic eyes glimmered. ¡°What happened to you, captain? What caused a reaction like that?¡± I sighed again. ¡°I¡¯ve hinted that I was first a soldier, then a mercenary, right? That was my entire identity in my old life. I grew up a military brat¨C that¡¯s a phrase generally used to describe kids who''ve had one or both parents in the military while growing up. So naturally I followed in the footsteps of both my mom and my father. I was driven. Almost too driven, maybe. I strove to be the best all the time. As a soldier in the military for my nation, I quickly reached the first lieutenant rank and led my own platoon. It was at that rank where I kind of stagnated. ¡°Ranking too much higher would eventually have me behind a desk more often than being out in the field. So when my second enlistment I was up, I allowed myself to be honorably discharged and I instead joined a mercenary group the military had worked together with occasionally. The plan was to save up enough money to buy a nice house with my childhood friend, Millie Millim. That all changed when my squad was betrayed by my mercenary organization. I won¡¯t go into details, but I was already dying when I decided to put a bullet right through my head to hurry it along faster.¡± Naida was still rubbing my arm. ¡°You need something else to distract you. Tell me about this Millie Millim you just mentioned.¡± I grinned, more than happy to. ¡°Millie and I grew up together. She was a military brat like I was, but initially didn¡¯t seem to have much interest in joining the army¡­¡± *** Valentina Corjax sipped tea from a cup daintily. The room she sat in was decidedly minimalist. It was large to be sure, but it still had nothing more than the table she sat at and a few chairs. Once upon a time, this room had been excessively lavish. Rare paintings, the busts of famous cevanti, the exotic throw rugs¡­ All of it had been sold over the years to help provide reparations for the sheer amount of damage the old Cevanti Scourge had caused. And while the Imperium of Cevanti had finally gotten to the point where the nation as a whole was no longer operating in the red, the Empress had never decided to refurnish the Imperial palace with its lavish trappings. Empress Valentina herself was an absolute vision, marred slightly by the stress of running her diminished empire. She had faint wrinkles around her gold eyes and her dark hair had lost a bit of its luster. Every day that she woke up and saw her reflection she frowned. She was barely into the middle of her long life, and she looked like she had aged several centuries over the course of only a couple of years. A light application of makeup and tasteful dresses (today was a gentle maroon number) allowed her to cover some of the signs of stress, but as a young woman it still bothered her. A gentle knock rapped at the closed door to the sitting room, and it opened without waiting for her acknowledgement. Another cevanti stepped in, this one definitely older than the Empress. Her hair and eyes were both black, and her white wings were hidden by an illusion. Her halo was also black, although it was slowly shedding its own illusion and returning to its typical golden hue. This was one of Empress Valentina¡¯s spies. ¡°What news do you bring me?¡± The spy knelt. ¡°My Empress, they¡¯re gone. Not just the triplets, but all of the ten slaves the pirates were holding are also gone.¡± Valentina frowned mightily. Naturally, she was too late. She had scrambled a task force of her own Royal Guard to hunt down the de Casteinau sisters and figure out where they had been taken. It had taken a month, but one of her Royal Guards had managed to locate the pirate base and had infiltrated it from the shadows. The guardsmen had been able to confirm the triplet¡¯s whereabouts, in addition to several other potentially high value would-be slaves. Yet sometime after the discovery and leaving to await further orders, the captured slaves had been collected. Valentina tried hard to compose herself, ignoring the tears that threatened to fall. Once again, she was too late. ¡°I have additional news, Empress. The slaves weren¡¯t collected by their new owners. They were rescued by a third party.¡± Valentina¡¯s head snapped up. The spy had a terminal in her hand, and she pressed a button. A hologram sprang to life on its surface, depicting a unicorn of all things. Her horn was sharp and her hair was an interesting two tone white and pink coloration. That hair alone would suggest her insane magical potential, but the stranger was also decked out in a complete suit of Unicorn Magus armor. She carried a Class III laser rifle in her arms and the image was captured with her midstride. Her eyes were an almost eerie, luminous blue. Valentina studied the image intently, trying to memorize every single detail she could see. Finally, she spoke. ¡°Who is that?¡± The spy shook her head helplessly. ¡°We don¡¯t know. The pirates were slaughtered to the last, and they had no time to destroy their security footage. The running theory is that the unicorn attacked so swiftly the pirates never had enough time to muster a proper defense. This suggests that she is no stranger to the battlefield, although the fact that she apparently rescued ten kidnapping victims also hints to a kind disposition. Security footage shows that she arrived in a strange ship that none of our experts have ever seen before. Judging by its size, it''s a mothership of some sort and the weapon bulges we could see confirmed that it''s heavily armed. The prefix was ALS, which is one that no other ship in the universe seems to possess. ¡°The more worrying thing was that House Orion surrounded the pirate base right as the unicorn and those she was rescuing were leaving. There was only a single recording device pointing towards the entrance of the base hanger so we don¡¯t have the full picture, but that ship was able to completely break a destroyer and cripple a cruiser before presumably escaping. House Orion grunts proceeded to sweep the base and found nothing; no prisoners, no loot, it was all gone. We¡¯re lucky that they didn¡¯t think to check to see if the pirates had destroyed security footage, otherwise we wouldn¡¯t even have this information.¡± Valentina leaned back in her seat. This news was equal parts relieving and troubling. She was glad that House Orion had been denied valuable slaves and that three of her most influential nobles had survived, but she also now had an unknown unicorn flying a never-before-seen spaceship in cevanti space. A ship that sounded like it could potentially challenge an entire fleet. Unicorns in general had a reputation for being whimsical at best and outright teasingly malicious at worst, and now she had one who was basically nobility with no entourage that she had to deal with. ¡°Any other information to go off of?¡± ¡°Judging by the mangled remains of a heavy power armor we found, the unicorn is capable of overpowering just about anything we could throw at her. A one-on-one confrontation isn¡¯t advisable.¡± Valentina snorted. ¡°Make sure the entire military knows this: Do not antagonize that unicorn. For now she has done us a major favor by getting rid of pirates colluding with Orion, and she¡¯s saved three of our own in the process. Dedicate what available resources we can spare towards finding out who she is and what her goals may be. If she¡¯s aware that Orion is going to be after her, she¡¯s not going to go anywhere near Jinkath. The next closest colony is going to be Laloria. Have the mercenary and knight guilds keep an eye out for her or her ship, and spread these orders to other colonies further out from Jinkath. Until she gives us a reason to believe otherwise, we¡¯re going to believe that she means us no harm. Clear?¡± ¡°Crystal, Empress.¡± The spy saluted before leaving. Valentina rubbed the headache she now had forming between her brows. What a pain this day was turning out to be. Still, this could be an unexpected boon for her ailing empire. If she could manage to persuade that unicorn to stick around, provided that she wasn¡¯t an issue¡­ The Imperium might finally claw back some of its authority on the galactic voice. And so Celestia carried on about her best friend, all while unaware that the first of many potential enemies and potential allies were starting to take notice. Chapter 7 The journey to Laloria Prime felt like the calm before the storm. The Yunik¨­n entered the hyperlane with little fanfare outside the dizzying kaleidoscope of colors rippling past the cockpit windows. Eve had enthusiastically attempted to explain what was going on when a ship entered a hyperlane with the hyperdrive, but it honestly went in one ear and out the other. I''m simply not a science girl, and I didn''t need to understand how something works in order to use it. Hyperlanes acted as highways that allowed me to travel between sectors of space far faster than standard FTL and that was all I really needed to know. I spent a decent amount of that month preparing myself to slip back into the role of a platoon leader. Obviously commanding an entire mercenary company wasn''t going to be exactly the same as leading a platoon of soldiers, but I could certainly apply the lessons learned in my first life to this one. Edelguard had warned me that as a unicorn I was likely to naturally attract plenty of folks under my banner simply because I was the only one of my kind in cevanti space. The unicorn¡¯s tiny sector of space was almost clear across the galaxy, so many lightyears away that it would take decades to arrive without making use of a gateway. The most exciting part of the trip was finally using the Ship Summoning Tokens. It was pretty unanimous that I would try to summon more combat ships. Logistics were going to be important if my order ended up growing quite large, but logistic ships could be brought on from those I recruited. If these new vessels I was going to summon came with lunar cores like I suspected they would, they would increase our combat power exponentially. And if what Edelguard mentioned was true and my company ended up quite large, the triplets plus Naida would make good lieutenants with higher spec Artemis ships. After a bit of deliberation, I decided to do the summonings one-on-one with the future pilots. I really needed to take a moment and get a better grasp on their various classes and what they would offer in battle. Nadia ended up being first primarily because she arrived at one of the hangers first after I¡¯d sent the four of them a message. The siren glanced around the spacious chamber curiously. The human engineers had already each claimed a hanger they would work out of. To that end the rest of us were mostly banished from those areas of the Yunik¨­n as the excitable girls prepared the spaces to their liking. This one was apparently Eve¡¯s, as she stood against a workbench to eagerly watch. I removed one of the tokens from my codex and actually studied it up close. The thing was shockingly unremarkable, roughly equal in size to a half dollar coin from my old life. On one side was featured some sort of strange snake woman. She had the upper body of a gorgeous and well developed woman, but the lower body of a giant snake. A handful of what appeared to be much smaller snakes formed her hair. I didn¡¯t know what the woman was supposed to represent, so I ended up flipping the coin over. The backside was fairly worn, although the indentations told me that there had been writing there once upon a time. Only three letters were still legible: d, n, and a. Nadia was looking at the coin over my shoulder. ¡°What do you suppose those letters mean?¡± ¡°I have no idea. All four of them are the same. Artemis might know, but it''s going to be several months before I can contact her again and ask.¡± I snapped a few holograms of both sides of the coin to show my Goddess at a later date. ¡°Are you ready?¡± Naida nodded resolutely. ¡°I am ready to be able to help you in your endeavors, captain.¡± ¡°Well to start, tell me about your class.¡± When I heard the term Songstress, I imagined a singer or performer. I wanted to see how close my guess was. ¡°So remember how I told you that all sirens are capable of charming with our voice? Well, a Songstress takes that to the extreme. We can hum or sing even simple notes to provide buffs for our allies or debuffs for our enemies. The ship of a Songstress amplifies that ability, allowing us to project our voice much farther than one might expect. The only real downside is that our songs don¡¯t work if they can¡¯t be heard. As soon as an enemy or an ally closes their close range communication channels, our effectiveness is basically gone. My class is a fairly common one among sirens, but I¡¯m the first of the Shadowrose family to have it. Thus, I decided to try and strike off on my own instead of helping my father with our private contractor business.¡± ¡°Fascinating. This universe seems to blend magic and technology together fairly well.¡± Then, with a quick smile, I activated the ship summoning token. I was almost expecting some sort of fanfare. Maybe a cheerful noise, or a flash of light. Instead, the new spaceship was suddenly there. It faded into existence like it had always been there, and despite being a small personal craft I felt that it was just as majestic as the Yunik¨­n. It had a slight triangle shape to it, narrow at the cockpit before widening gradually about its body before reaching the engines. It was pretty clearly built for agility, and it held the same dark violet and white color scheme as the Yunik¨­n. At least the coloration was going to be uniform between the Artemis class ships. As Naida excitedly made her way towards the boarding ladder, I checked the ship¡¯s stats with my codex.
Name Sorderil
Classification Artemis, Support Craft, Songstress
Hardpoints 3
Weapon Load 2 Continuous Lasers, 1 Chaingun
Traits Heavily Shielded, Lightly Armored
I felt like this might be pretty standard for a supporting ship. They weren¡¯t going to have a whole lot of weapons since their job was to provide battle support for their allies. I was pretty intrigued by the traits; the Yunik¨­n¡¯s stats didn¡¯t have anything similar at the moment. Heavily shielded meant that the ship¡¯s shields were going to be much harder to shatter with both lasers and kinetic artillery, but lightly armored meant that once those shields were breached there wasn¡¯t going to be much in the way of additional defense against attacks. The Sorderil¡¯s weapons were pretty nasty, too. Continuous lasers fired a beam of light and heat designed to overheat an enemy¡¯s generator and systems and cause them to fail. They weren¡¯t particularly good at piercing shields unlike the Yunik¨­n¡¯s own pulse lasers, but for disabling ships there weren¡¯t a whole lot of better weapons. The chain gun was rather short ranged, and would likely only be utilized against foes that managed to get too close. I followed Nadia to the cockpit and received another shock. It was full of water. There was a forcefield over the entrance to the cockpit to prevent the water from flooding the rest of the ship, and unlike the Yunik¨­n there were no windows showcasing the outside. Instead, there was a great number of screens that appeared to be hooked up to photographic devices on the outside of the craft, as the screens were currently showing the hanger in great detail. I wasn¡¯t entirely sure how the screens were unaffected by water until I stared at one long enough to pick out a faint shimmer. More forcefields seemed to protect the electronics from the fluid. My vision was suddenly interrupted by a changed Naida as she came to a swimming halt in front of the cockpit entrance, and she took my breath away. I knew that she said her race was a siren, and she had the scales dotting her body to prove it, but this was the first time I was actually seeing the fact that she wasn¡¯t completely human. Her lower half had transformed into a giant fish tail, complete with two massive fins where her feet would normally be. Her scales had grown, now covering her in such a way it was almost like she was wearing a bodysuit of them. She no longer had her clothes on, and I could see how the scales wrapped around each breast to preserve her modesty. She looked absolutely radiant in all that water, and I unexpectedly found my mouth extremely dry. I was rather at home with the fact that I found the female form attractive, but this was such an entirely new level of infatuation that I felt like I was going to swoon. Nadia grinned at my stunned ogling, and she glided forward until she passed through the forcefield. As she did so she was completely dry, and her scales started to recede. Her fishtail separated into legs with a swirling mist as she approached me. Her lips met mine in fiery passion and I didn¡¯t even resist before I was kissing her back. It was a long time before we finally separated for air, and I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. ¡°You are exceptionally beautiful.¡± She emitted that tinkling laugh that drove me crazy. ¡°I¡¯ll take the compliment. So, what do you think?¡± She gestured at the ship around us. ¡°What¡¯s with all the water in the cockpit?¡± It all felt kind of strange to me, as I also failed to spot any sort of captain¡¯s seat or other instruments I would expect to find in order to pilot the ship. Naida stretched. ¡°Siren ships are fairly unique like this. Despite being in space, we are often still more comfortable in an aquatic environment. So our ships have a cockpit that reflects that. There are hundreds of sensors that follow my movements, so that when the generator is in cruise, battle, or max we can control the entire ship by swimming. Sirens don''t get tired in the water, meaning I can keep flying my ship with little loss in effectiveness compared to another pilot who''ll eventually feel exhausted.¡± ¡°What happens when you hit one of the walls, though? If there are sensors translating your swimming into movement, as soon as you hit one of the sides of the cockpit and have to swim the other way the ship is going to follow you. That sounds like it runs the risk of moving back towards enemies you were flying away from.¡± Naida giggled. ¡°We use spacial magic to solve that issue. As soon as I hit one of the sides it''ll drop me on the opposite side using the same angle I was already swimming in. That''s one of the reasons there''s no windows. Windows that can stand up to laser fire are definitely capable of withstanding a bit of water pressure, but the cockpit is surrounded by a spell array that channels spacial magic. Windows would provide unnecessary weak points.¡± I shook my head. ¡°That almost seems like a pointless waste of technology. Clara was going on about how advanced the Yunik¨­n is, but to me the Sorderil is the bigger marvel of engineering. Let¡¯s go check out the rest of the ship.¡± The rest of our exploration was done in companionable silence. The Sorderil was up there with the Yunik¨­n in terms of comfort, with bright lighting and roomy hallways despite being a small craft. It only took us fifteen minutes of simply walking before we had traversed the entire ship. The rooms were much smaller, but Nadia still had a captain¡¯s bedroom with an attached bathroom, a kitchenette, and another room for a second crew member. The cargo hold was also non-existent compared to the Yunik¨­n, which had a gargantuan hold capable of carrying several hundred tons. That didn¡¯t really bother me, though. I wanted a combat craft and that¡¯s what I got. Thanks to the Yunik¨­n, the Sorderil didn¡¯t need a cargo hold capable of holding plenty of supplies. Having a mothership was going to be really handy. The Sorderil did, in fact, have a lunar core. This moon generator was much smaller than the one on the Yunik¨­n, and as such only had a single containment ring lazily spinning around its equator. Still, if what Clara was telling me about the Cores was true, even this small one could likely power dozens of small craft similar to the Sorderil. It was still mind-boggling that I was going to have five of these ships powered by miniature moons. It also got me wondering if other champions would have similarly crazy powerful ships. It seemed pretty likely. I hadn¡¯t yet ran into another champion, but if I kept making waves sooner or later one would find me. I would have to make sure I was as prepared as possible. ¡°What do you think?¡± I turned to face my companion. The normally reserved siren jumped into my arms and seared my lips with a kiss. ¡°It''s fantastic. It''s even better than the ship I was piloting when I was captured by those pirates. With this, I¡¯ll be able to support you even more.¡± I rested my forehead upon Nadia¡¯s, mindful of my sharp horn. ¡°I¡¯m glad you like it. Why don¡¯t you start a simulation to help get used to how Sorderil handles? I still have three more ships to do.¡± With a quick nod and another peck on the cheek, Nadia darted back toward the cockpit. I had discovered last week of our long journey that I could call up simulations designed to mimic how the Yunik¨­n felt to fly, allowing me to train myself even while my gunship carrier was in hyperdrive. I had spent all of the past week training myself into exhaustion to ensure I could pilot the Yunik¨­n to the best of my ability, and as a result I had neglected the girls a fair bit. They understood how important this training was, but I still told myself to be better at the social aspects of my new life. The only way we were all going to make this work was if I made sure to put in the effort. After the trials those women had been through, if they were going to be happy following me around the galaxy then I was going to reciprocate. I left the Sorderil and passed Eve. She gave me a distracted finger wave as she studied whatever readouts the Sorderil was sending to her tablet. Undoubtedly the redhead was going to be busy acquainting herself with the new ship that was going to be her charge. I strode over to the next hanger, my hooves tapping an ever pleasant rhythm. I never expected to enjoy the sound of hooves, but something about the way I walked just ticked the acoustic lizard part of my brain. The next hanger contained Sophia and Sensa. I quietly gigged to myself at the two ¡®S¡¯ names ending up in the same hanger. If I recall correctly, Sophia¡¯s class had been listed as a Hurricane. Nadia¡¯s Songstress I was able to at least guess what it was, but Sophia¡¯s didn¡¯t sound like an RPG class I would be familiar with from my teenage years. I gave the cevanti woman a hug. ¡°So, Hurricane? I¡¯ll admit I¡¯m a bit lost on its capabilities.¡± Sophia giggled behind a refined hand. Yup, she was definitely a noble. ¡°A Hurricane is considered a damage class. Our ships generally prefer fast firing weapons and our magic consists of lightning. We really specialize at disabling or ignoring shielding; electrical currents as powerful as what lightning consists of really don¡¯t play nice with shields. Only battleships will have the power for the shield hardening required to withstand my attacks; others will fall prey eventually. Hurricanes are mostly limited by their total mana pool, and once that¡¯s exhausted our effectiveness diminishes quite a bit. Naida being a Songstress will help alleviate some of this issue, as she will be able to help replenish our mana without needing to eat or sleep.¡± I held her gaze for a moment. ¡°Are you sure this is what you want? I can still return you to the planet you¡¯re supposed to be governing. I can¡¯t promise that cruising around the galaxy will be very safe.¡± Sophia shook her head gently, and then sighed. ¡°No, my future wife. I¡¯m right where I want to be. We are going to destroy House Orion, and then we¡¯re going to help the Imperium of Cevanti become a power again. Besides, my replacement has likely already arrived in my territory and started governing it in my stead. Any wealth outside my dowry would have automatically been claimed by the Imperium after the first month of my disappearance and will be used to make the lives of my citizens better. At the very least I do not want to return until we have triumphed over Orion.¡± ¡°I can respect that. You have a beautiful drive, Sophia.¡± The angel blushed slightly as I went to trigger the next token. This next ship was very clearly meant for speed. The Sorderil had favored maneuverability with its triangle design, but this one seemed to have one aspect: fast. The main body was oblong and streamlined. It had a pair of wings outfitted with an additional two engines for a total of three, which was overkill for a small personal craft. At the very tips of those wings sat a linked pair of lasers and autocannons. Autocannons and the like were generally never mounted onto small craft, as the primary foe a personal craft was going to be fighting would be another personal craft. Kinetic artillery flew far slower than a beam of laser or plasma fire. But if you were fast enough to fly circles around other ships, kinetic artillery could still pack a punch.
Name Thunderbolt
Classification Artemis, Interceptor, Hurricane
Hardpoints 4, internal weapons bay
Weapon Load 2 plasma cannon, 2 coilguns, anti-matter torpedoes (8)
Traits Balanced, Speed Queen
I chuckled a bit at the ship''s fitting name. I was a little more interested in the weapons, however. While I had assumed they were just lasers and autocannons, they actually weren''t. Plasma cannons basically used a variant of shielding technology to encase a ball of plasma in a magnetic bubble and launch it at very high velocity. They were extremely short ranged weapons, but were absolutely devastating against lightly shielded targets and armor. The coilguns had a much larger range than the plasma cannons, while also firing much faster than their railgun counterparts. They also used less power and generated less heat, perfect for small craft. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. The real interesting thing was the internal weapons bay. Anti-matter torpedoes were rarely used even on small ships, as they traveled extremely slowly. But their warheads included a shield attenuation device capable of completely demolishing any shield it came into contact with, regardless of hardening. A single torpedo could split a battleship in two, or severely cripple it otherwise. It looked like the Thunderbolt could potentially take down large vessels instead of having to rely on the Yunik¨­n¡¯s proportionally bigger weapons. True to its tags, the Thunderbolt had balanced armor and shields. It probably wasn''t a good idea for a ship designed for heavy frontline use to have either weak armor or weak shields like the Sorderil; to that end, Sophia''s vessel was more of a generalist ship as opposed to being heavily specialized. The major drawback of the Thunderbolt was its Speed Queen trait. I didn''t have a good frame of reference to determine how fast the ship could actually move, but Speed Queen doubled the ship''s movement in a straight line. The downside was that the ship was more sluggish than most other small craft while turning. It also didn''t have much in the way of thrusters, meaning the primary way the ship was going to fly was from its three massive engines. Most ships used thrusters to fly about in standard space, otherwise known as sub-light flight. The engines were mostly reserved for FTL and Hyperspace travel, usually because of generator constraints. Ship engines were just too powerful to justify wasting generator energy in such a way. With a lunar core, however, most of the conventional ways of powering ships flew out the window. The interior of the Thunderbolt is fairly cramped, as the body of the craft was basically an oblong tube with a pair of wings attached to its sides. From the cockpit back it was just one long hallway interspersed with a kitchenette and captain¡¯s quarters and ending with the lunar core at the tail end. It didn''t even have a small lounge or mess hall. Everything unnecessary had been cut to streamline the craft as much as possible. The cockpit wasn''t all that different from what was in the Soderil outside of the distinct lack of water; after Naida¡¯s ship I had almost been expecting something outlandish, but that wasn''t the case. The only real difference was the massive spell array on the ceiling of the cockpit, as the Thunderbolt didn''t have a dedicated spell array room given its size. The cockpit was so tiny that if Sophia stretched out to her full wingspan they would be brushing the walls. I glanced over at the cevanti expectantly. She gave a soft smile, understanding my look. ¡°The Thunderbolt seems almost custom made for me and my class. I wonder how those coins manage such a feat?¡± I could only shrug. ¡°I don¡¯t understand much of this universe. Asking me that question is almost as pointless as asking me why our ships are powered by miniature moons.¡± I reached out and gently patted her head, and as I did so I really appreciated how absurdly tall I was. The three sisters barely came up to my chest. They were the perfect head pat height. Sophia blushed bright red and swatted me away as she turned to move back towards the cockpit. I chuckled a bit and went to go find the second sister. Edelguard was waiting serenely in Clara¡¯s hanger, the latter of whom was bouncing on the balls of her feet impatiently. Paladin was another class that was fairly easy to figure out, but I still asked to confirm. ¡°I take it you¡¯re the protector of the group then.¡± Edelguard inclined her head politely. She was certainly more serious than her sisters. ¡°My job is to attempt to take attacks meant for my allies, yes.¡± Her halo glowed a brighter yellow for a moment before a transparent, hexagonal shield appeared in front of her face. I walked up and rapped a knuckle against the barrier; it certainly felt solid. ¡°How does that translate to space combat?¡± I asked, curious. ¡°The spell array in the ship I¡¯m piloting amplifies my magic, allowing me to project a shield several times larger than this one anywhere in my line of sight. A Paladin¡¯s ship also has its own shield that it can deploy for allies in its immediate vicinity.¡± That sounded extremely powerful, but I still had to voice the question. ¡°What are the limitations?¡± Edelguard smiled slightly, showing that she approved of my desire to understand her power. ¡°Line of sight and size. The farther away or the bigger the shield, the more mana it''s going to consume. My current mana pool is nowhere near enough to shield a broadside battleship, although shielding the Yunik¨­n should be within my capabilities.¡± I nodded, pleased. I then had a thought I wanted to voice since I was right here. ¡°I realize that Sophia basically forced you and Antonietta into this entire thing, but I would be remiss if I didn''t ask you for your own opinions, Edelguard.¡± The cevanti across from me studied me for a moment before offering a slight smile. ¡°Please, just call me Eddie. Edelguard is too much of a mouthful. That aside, you''ve done something that I never expected to have in my life.¡± Clara, off to one side, stilled her impatient bouncing to listen. It was obvious she was curious. I raised an eyebrow, prompting the Paladin to continue. ¡°Paladins are often the militaristic arm of whatever deity they follow. Whereas priestesses are the civilian side of the temple, Paladins are the¡­ more brutish muscle. Imagine my frustration when I discovered my class was a Paladin, yet the cevanti haven''t had a god or goddess since the Scourge.¡± I made a noise of understanding. ¡°You felt like you didn''t have a purpose.¡± Eddie inclined her head. ¡°Yes. Paladins receive bonuses to their spells and stats based upon their devotion to their deity. I''ve spent the past fourteen years with half a class. Then during the darkest hour of my life, you showed up out of nowhere and offered me something no one else could. As far as I''m concerned, you could be the most evil woman alive and I''d still be inclined to follow you.¡± I snorted. ¡°I''m not going to pretend to be a paragon of virtue, but at the very least I''m not about to set the cevanti back on the path of the Scourge.¡± Eddie¡¯s grin was much larger this time. ¡°That''s what makes you worthy of the House of de Casteinau.¡± Anything else she might have said was lost as I used the third token. The new space ship was definitely more bulky than the previous two, and larger as well. Its overall shape reminded me of the head of a maul. The entire thing was a long rectangle shape with the cockpit area being pretty narrow and short, then flaring out into two boxy wings. A single absolutely massive thruster sat on each wing, and the overall housing of those thrusters made me assume they could rotate a full three-sixty degrees. The thrusters were so large they took up half of the surface area of the wing. A barrel of a railgun peeked out from the nose of the craft, and an array of missiles were mounted upon each wing. I took a glance at its stats.
Name Shimmerene
Classification Artemis, Defense Craft, Paladin
Hardpoints 3
Weapon Load 2 Missile Pods, 1 Railgun
Traits Fortress, Stability
In addition to looking as though it could take a beating and keep flying, the Shimmerene was certainly designed to be a defense specialist. Its weapon loadout suggested a focus on longer ranged combat against large ships like cruisers, battleships, or carriers. Fortress provided a durable shield and tough armor while slowing the ship¡¯s overall ability to fly. Stability provided an anchorpoint by reducing physics exeterted upon the ship while its large thrusters were active with the drawback of being able to move. I assumed that this would mean incoming attacks wouldn¡¯t push Shimmerene around as much while trying to shield its allies. It was definitely a unique vessel, but my mind was already attempting to design strategies around Paladin-class ships. My personal experience as an army grunt suggested it was better to simply not be hit by an attack in the first place. But that wasn''t really applicable to space combat. Much like ships traversing the seas, most spaceships couldn''t just accelerate to get out of the way of a laser attack that was traveling at light speed. Even kinetic artillery and missiles traveled fast enough to hit a large target like a cruiser or a battleship before the said ship could avoid the impact. This was where the tank class ships would come in. Whichever side of the conflict had better (or more of) tank class ships would inevitably have an edge. The implications were interesting. Just throwing a higher number of ships at an opposing force wasn''t instantly going to work. But it also suggested that lives in this universe were fairly cheap. Remove tank ships from the equation and the surefire way to win was to just toss lives at the problem until you won. Tanks couldn''t be everywhere at once, so if you overwhelm them with numbers there wasn''t much they could do. All of this was also before taking stats into consideration. With just the stat boosts from my new allies, I could already feel an improvement to my ability to fly that went beyond just training for a few hours every day. I was brought out of my musings by Eddie already clambering up the ramp to her new ship. Despite myself I couldn''t quite manage to keep my eyes off her bubble of a butt. This moment of weakness also allowed me to discover that while the triplets did have roughly the same figures, Eddie was assuredly more muscular. It was subtle, but the Paladin¡¯s arms and legs were more defined compared to her sisters. I found myself wondering if this was a result of differing stats. Sophia and Eddie were both strength based classes, but Eddie had a higher endurance as befitting a defender. My own body didn''t look any different from my Summoner Bonds, but I could definitely feel the effects. I felt like I could ruck march a hundred miles and not break a sweat. I had always been fit, but this new body was insane. Shimmerene initially felt more roomy than the two spacecraft before it, but this was mostly attributed to how wide its footprint was. In fact, I could see the lunar core from the cockpit. This one was much larger than those found in Sorderil and Thunderbolt, and had two containment rings. The cockpit was also heavily armored. I still wasn¡¯t entirely sure what material made up the spaceships in this world, but it was several inches thicker than even the Yunik¨­n¡¯s bridge. The lips of a bulkhead protruded slightly from the top of the cockpit¡¯s entrance, obviously designed to seal the entire cabin in the event of a catastrophic failure. The spell array rested right before the lunar core¡¯s chamber, and both wings held massive compartments that allowed easy access to the oval shaped thrusters taking up each wing. I turned to Eddie as we met at the ramp again. ¡°I¡¯m glad that this one seems to place pilot survivability so high. Ships can be replaced. You cannot.¡± Eddie blushed shyly at my words. ¡°Thank you, Celestia. It¡¯s¡­ strange, to have someone outside my sisters that cares.¡± I snorted hotly. ¡°What the humans did to cevanti was barbaric, and I¡¯ve seen some nasty stuff in my day. I¡¯ll spend the rest of my infinite lifespan convincing you that I appreciate you, if that¡¯s what it takes.¡± Eddie brushed my cheek with the ghost of a kiss before retreating back into the Shimmerene, and as I moved to visit the final sister I realized that I had started talking like I wasn¡¯t even human. I slowed my stride and then paused for a moment. I stared at my pale hands, then reached up and tapped on my horn. Technically I¡¯m not really a human any more, despite what¡¯s on the inside. It was a disquieting feeling, to realize that I¡¯ve already started to see humanity as an enemy. But it also felt¡­ right. There were plenty of nasty individuals and organizations in my previous life, but I also couldn¡¯t imagine those same people deciding to magically neuter an entire species and then treat them as little better than livestock for the past thousand years. Still, as much as I might have subconsciously wanted to, I couldn''t just assume the worst of all humans. After all, the four Westfallen Armories technicians seemed to be decent girls. The Empire¡¯s Emperor also wasn¡¯t likely to be an enemy at this point in time. Anyone who dislikes slave trade is okay as far as I¡¯m concerned. My bit of self reflection over, I moved over to the last hanger. This one contained Spirit and Antonietta, both of whom were huddled over one of the many workbenches lining the walls. ¡°So you¡¯re saying those containment gyros are what¡¯s keeping those lunar cores from overwhelming us with their gravitational pull?¡± ¡°That¡¯s exactly it, Toni!¡± Spirit exclaimed excitedly. ¡°The Yunik¨­n¡¯s moon generator is so large it has to have three of them. The first two are the primary containment rings that keep it suppressed, and they¡¯re always rotating in opposite directions to each other. The third one is the final safeguard, designed to speed up if the system detects that one or both of the others have failed. Initial scans suggest that the third and final ring can keep the lunar core suppressed for up to six months by itself before the stress becomes too much and it tears itself apart. Six months isn¡¯t a whole lot of time when we¡¯re talking about space travel though, so if the other two are inoperable we might not even have time to make it back to a dock.¡± ¡°What happens if all three fail?¡± I asked, making my presence known. The two looked back at me in unison, soft smiles lighting up at my approach. Spirit answered my question almost hesitantly, like she didn¡¯t really want to answer. ¡°It''s impossible to know without it actually happening, but current readings suggest the Yunik¨­n¡¯s lunar core has enough gravitational pull to completely implode the ship in less than a second. None of us would even have time to register it, let alone feel it. I¡¯m not even confident your unicorn armor would allow you to survive such an event.¡± I huffed out a breath. ¡°Okay, so let''s make sure the lunar core never gets hit.¡± Toni shrugged a delicate shoulder. ¡°The lunar core seems to be the most heavily armored part of the ship. Unlike other large ships that use standard generators which can be taken out by skilled attackers, damaging a lunar core would likely take at least three antimatter torpedo equivalent weapons in the exact same spot. That¡¯s not something our enemies are going to be able to accomplish without extreme sacrifice.¡± I rubbed at my chin, considering. ¡°Maybe, maybe not. With how priceless the Yunik¨­n is I could imagine some nutjob of a commander deciding the sacrifice is worth it. Particularly if the only other option is to let me keep the ship in one piece. Still, at least I know a little more about the cores. Are you ready for your own ship?¡± Toni bounced excitedly, causing her bust to perform some really distracting movements. Judging from her knowing smile, she knew exactly what she was doing to me. For the first time in both my previous life and this one, I was starting to lament the fact that I was gay. These women were going to be the death of me long before any other champions would have their shot. Attempting to maintain my veneer of professionalism, I activated the final ship summoning token. The resulting ship that emerged from the light was huge. So huge, in fact, that it barely had enough room to fit into the hanger. It was the largest personal craft I had yet seen. Generally speaking, spaceships in this universe had a couple of size classifications: personal, small, medium, large, and captial. Personal ships came in a variety of sizes from small ones like Sorderil to large ones like this new ship. Small ships included Corvettes and Frigates, both of which performed different roles. Corvettes were more maneuverable and excelled in fighting in asteroid belts while Frigates traded maneuverability for more staying power. Medium ships consisted of destroyers and cruisers. Destroyers boasted sturdy defense and armaments, and were almost always accompanied by at least two cruisers, as cruisers were the dedicated spell ships of a fleet. While every ship had spell arrays to cast spells and abilities, cruisers often had more than half of their crew as mages. Battleships and battlecruisers took the large classification, with battleships taking the role of long range bombardment and battlecruisers being the large class spell ships. Then finally, capital ships were either dreadnoughts or carriers. The Yunik¨­n was fairly unique in that it had the size of a cruiser, the firepower of a destroyer, and could be flown by one person like a personal ship. Considering how much power the lunar core was outputting and the fact that as Artemis grew in power so too would the core, I could probably even upgrade the vessel to have battleship levels of defenses and firepower. The new craft was an oblong rectangle similar to the Yunik¨­n, but that was where all similarities ended. It had a total of four engines, two on either side of the cockpit and two more at the every end of the craft. The center was the most interesting, as it was basically a long tube just big enough for a single person to walk back towards the engines. On the sides of the tube were six repair arms, three per side, and each arm housed a dizzying array of gadgets that I assumed would be capable of providing emergency repairs on a ship without requiring the damaged ship to be docked. The arms emerged from what looked like fairly bulky boxes, leading me to believe they could be retracted out of sight while in spaceflight. I turned at Toni¡¯s gasp. ¡°Six repair arms? That¡¯s practically unheard of for any ship.¡± ¡°I take it you already like the ship?¡± I couldn¡¯t stop my own half smile at seeing her giddy excitement. ¡°By Artemis, yes! Most Archangel ships¨C or any healer type ship, really¨C Will generally have only two repair arms at the absolute maximum because of power constraints. A single repair arm takes up so much power from a generator that there¡¯s never enough power left over to operate any weapons on civilian ships. Military grade generators produce enough output that they can support two arms, but any more than that is impossible. We¡¯ve established that lunar cores produce insane amounts of energy, but to be able to support six repair arms at once¡­ it''s unheard of.¡± I checked the new ship¡¯s stats while Toni explained.
Name Dawnbringer
Classification Artemis, Repair Craft, Archangel
Hardpoints 5
Weapon Load 5 Heavy Pulse Lasers
Traits Aura of Healing, Artemis¡¯ Shelter
So this repair ship had some bite to it. Five heavy pulse lasers didn¡¯t seem like much for a ship of its size, but at the very least Toni wouldn¡¯t be completely defenceless if enemies managed to get too close. The listed traits were easily the most powerful out of all four of my new ships. Aura of Healing caused Dawnbringer to exude a field of nanites, slowly repairing all ships within a hundred mile range. The description didn¡¯t give me an actual number, but the slowly part was emphasized. If I had to guess, the repair was only enough to keep a ship from further falling apart if the repair arms were busy with other ships. Artemis¡¯ Shelter on the other hand, doubled the repair rate of the repair arms as long as Dawnbringer was completely stationary. Toni and I walked up the ramp to her new vessel, and as I did so I asked for more details on her class. ¡°So the Archangel class is a type of healer. How does that work with space ships?¡± Toni giggled. ¡°I use my mana, of course. Few ships are going to have a cargo hold big enough to host all of the materials required to repair a ship the non-magical way. The repair arms will steadily consume my mana to form the required components to patch up damage. I should caution you that such a patch job is only temporary, and the more stress you put onto a ship that I¡¯ve healed the more likely for my work to become undone and then evolve into an even bigger problem. Ships should still return to a drydock as soon as feasible to do so for more permanent fixes.¡± ¡°So your class isn¡¯t just an ¡®I win¡¯ button if we can keep you alive and healing ships. I was starting to wonder how fleets could ever be destroyed if they just kept returning to the repair ships.¡± Toni dipped her head. ¡°Think of me as a finite resource. I can keep forces fighting long past when they should have retreated, but only to a certain point. I also can¡¯t do anything if an attack completely destroys a ship.¡± ¡°That¡¯s fair. I would suggest getting familiar with your new ship. I have a kitsune to go track down; I need to see if she can teach me a little bit of magic before we hit Laloria.¡± Toni wrapped me in a hug. ¡°Thank you for everything you¡¯ve done for us. When I think of what our future would have been like if you hadn¡¯t come along¡­¡± I returned the hug as her words caused her to shiver against me. ¡°Hey, none of that now. Don¡¯t get hung up on what could have been. Focus on the here and now. We¡¯re going to get stronger, and then we¡¯re going to take the fight to the bastard who tried to enslave you. Okay?¡± The slight cevanti nodded, and I kissed her forehead as she finally pulled away. She stood a little taller, as if to show me that my presence and my words helped. I watched Toni as she moved up the ramp to Dawnbringer, making sure that she wasn¡¯t just putting on a brave face. I clapped Spirit on the shoulder as I left, and she gave me a warm smile in return. I exited the hangar and then moved towards Orochi¡¯s quarters. The spiritualist enjoyed meditating in her free moments, and I was pretty sure I¡¯d find her in her room.