Vivid Stars Online

After the big meeting, the rest of the day passed with the actual boring peacefulness I’d been expecting. I first spent a few minutes thinking over the interaction and confirming that I had actually gotten what I wanted, and then I moved on to my reports.

Those were impressive, despite the lack of sensitive details and having read them before. The town's population had grown substantially over winter with increased jobs and available accommodation.

Moving out to the countryside on Altheias usually required building your own accommodation once you'd leased the land. While we still had that as an option for those who were interested, the apartment-style buildings that the Mayor had designed and built had proved extremely popular.

It gave the growing town much more of a small city feeling, which was ideal since that was the eventual aim. Given the lack of land taxes for the first three years, you could move to my town or villages for no initial cost, with years to build up an income before it started to get expensive.

This had drawn a large population, much of which was comprised of eager young adults looking to build a life for themselves. At this stage, the population even exceeded the available jobs, which was just what we needed with planting season just around the corner.

The reports didn’t have the full details of how David, the player I’d hired to work on agricultural research, had been going with his experiments, but they did say that our special project had significant results.

I’d almost glossed over it in my first reading, as it was what I expected. That was another indication of how much I’d ignored my duties back home. What did significant results mean? Were we even ready to begin a full season of planting? Or would this spring be a larger-scale experiment?

Those details were crucial to seeing how much income I would have to invest in my ship and armed forces, and yet it was something I’d almost ignored. I was going to need a full debriefing when I returned tomorrow.

While forgoing the land taxes aided the growth of my lands, it left me largely dependent on the goods tax I could levy on the produce from our farms and other enterprises.

By the time Linnea returned hours later, I’d only just finished the reports for the town itself and had started on the military ones.

She was practically bouncing between steps as she darted into the room, a broad grin on her face. “You won’t believe what I managed to get out of the armory,” she said in greeting, letting out an uncharacteristic giggle as she slid into the empty chair by my bed.

“Oh?” I responded, raising an eyebrow as I closed down the report. Not only was I interested in seeing what she’d managed to pick up, but I also wanted to spend some time with my girlfriend after pushing myself on the reports.

She pulled something up on her watch with a smirk before swiftly interfacing it with the larger projector I’d been using to read my reports. The smooth action reminded me that she must have picked up some tech skills from her sister as a three-dimensional image of a large rifle appeared with a page of associated information.

“At first, they didn’t want to part with anything too special,” she began before I’d even had a chance to peruse the information. “But when I name-dropped the mighty Count Hope, they were only too happy to oblige,” she laughed.

“Apparently, the Duchess has been down in the Captial for the last week. No one would tell me what she was supposed to be there for, but one thing they couldn’t hide is how much gear she’s been sending back.”

“Enough general gear to arm a small army and enough upper-end stuff to outfit an elite unit. Of which I managed to snag a few pieces for us, including that beauty,” she finished with a wave at the hologram.

That was a very interesting clue as to what the Duchess was up to, but I filed it away for now as I focused on the readout before me. It was nice to see that she'd put effort into setting this up; I’d half expected her to dump the actual gun into my sick bed.

It was a plasma rifle, much like most of my soldiers used, though far more powerful and considerably larger. “I don’t want to sound skeptical,” I began cautiously as I pictured the thing in my hands. “But isn’t that going to be a tad heavy for me?”

“I don’t have your physical strength,” I continued, careful not to say the word attribute. Based on the dimensions, it was more than half as large as my Psi rifle, and it had already taken a lot of training to learn how to use it properly.

“That might be a problem,” she acknowledged with a nod, “Except for the next piece of equipment I managed to pick up. Whereas that lovely gun came from the capitol, this came right from our own province.”

“You might remember how Elana was working on that mech with the palace researchers? Well, they're not nearly at the point where they can reproduce it, but they have been able to reverse-engineer some of the technology.

“In particular, the armor plating, joints, and artificial muscles it used. Then they incorporated them into a locally produced version of what I’m using,” she finished with a flourish that changed the hologram before me.

The image that appeared looked like a bulkier version of her armor. “The miniaturization isn’t as good as the off-world tech,” she continued, pointing at various places on the armor. “So it's a lot less agile, but given the size, they’ve been able to offset that with additional armor plating.”

“So it should be exactly what you need,” she smirked. “Tough enough to keep you alive without any powers and with enough strength boost that you should be able to use the new gun.”

I nodded absently as I considered what she was saying. It sounded like it could work. This new heavy armor wouldn’t be ideal for a more agile fighter like her, but it would be great for someone with my style.

Based on the specifications I could see in front of me, it would provide me almost as much protection as my Psi armor with a shield power running through it. That was exactly what I needed in my current state, and whatever limitations it put on my mobility would be worth it.

“Great work,” I said at last. “You're right; that should be perfect for me,” I continued as I leaned in for a hug.

Now that she was back, we had a late lunch together before I sent her off on another task before she could get antsy again. This time, it was to refill our supplies, including ammo for my new gun.

The rest of the day passed like that, with me working through my reports while ensuring Linnea kept busy. I was sure she knew what I was doing, but I could also tell that she was thankful for the excuse not to stay cooped up.

The military reports were full of interesting details. I'd been much less worried about people spying on my patrol routes than my secret farming experiments, so I'd asked the Captain to send more details. The training we'd put the recruits through had paid off; we'd only had injuries over winter, no deaths. He also hinted at some special training he'd been doing, though he did leave the details out of the report with that.

By the time I finished, I felt like I had a better grasp of what was happening. I would at least know what I was talking about during the debriefing. That night, I convinced the medical staff to let us move out into a guest room in the main palace. Given that I’d shown no negative side effects, it wasn’t too hard, and it got us a much more comfortable king bed we could share.

There, we were finally able to reconnect in private as we began to work through some of the terrible memories from our near-death experience. Linnea had it the worst, having seen me nearly die and go berserk, but I had my share of trauma as well.

The next morning I was given a clean bill or health, or at least as much as I could be. It came with several stern reminders to leave the Psionic suppressor on, to which I agreed wholeheartedly.

I’d had enough time to process what had happened now and realized how lucky I’d been. The risk I’d been taking wasn’t just to my body, or even my psionic ability as I’d assumed, but to my very sense of self.

I couldn’t keep risking that unless the circumstances became far more dire than they were. So I only nodded and promised to leave it on, even agreeing to monthly checkups to ensure the condition hadn’t worsened.

Then we were free at last. With Linnea handling all our business in the city the day before, nothing stopped us from leaving straight for the town. Home, it's home, I reminded myself. I had to start thinking of it as mine if I was ever going to take responsibility for it.

We were met at the gunboat by a pilot whose name I didn’t know. I recognized him from our last few supply runs but realized I’d never asked his name. I quickly rectified that, finding out that Andrew was one of ten young pilots we’d hired straight out of the fleet academy to fly our array of small craft.

That would give us two shifts to cover the four fighters and the gunboat. Twelve hours on and twelve hours off was a long shift, but we should only see combat rarely. Those hours would cover training and enough rest to ensure they didn’t become overworked.

Since Linnea would likely be piloting the command fighter, we might have been able to get away with one or two fewer people, but we couldn’t always rely on her being available. There would be times she would be needed elsewhere working with me.

And this way, we had people to take over if any of the other pilots were injured. Or dead, I thought grimly as the engines kicked in and we shot into the sky. I’ll have to do everything possible to ensure that doesn’t happen.

Without access to my powers, I couldn’t intervene directly as I’d been planning; there would be no training to try and place a shield power on an engaged fighter. Instead, I would need to focus on something else I’d been putting off.

I was woefully under-educated and under-trained for my position as a landed noble and a military commander. While I’d become passable at small squad tactics after all my experience in that area, tactical space command was an area I knew nothing about.

I’ll need to get a tutor for that, I realized, pulling up a screen on my watch to take notes. Better make that a whole set of tutors. I’ll have the time, and there are any number of subjects I need to catch up on.

Space combat, leadership, land management, diplomacy, and negotiation just off the top of my head. Thinking about it now, I felt rather silly. I’d been ignoring so much because I didn’t know how to handle it when the means to get that knowledge was so easily available to me.

I could handle paying for a solid amount of tutoring with my own funds, and training was also something I could draw from the funding my lands generated. When combined, it would barely be a strain at all, and the dividends would more than pay off.

Once I’d finished writing my notes, I began pulling up system screens. Now that I was finally in the privacy of a place I owned, I felt safe enough to begin looking them over. Sure, I might not entirely be able to trust the pilot, but he was busy enough flying the ship that I doubted he would notice.

First, I pulled up my character screen, only to curse in surprise as I saw the two levels pending at the top of my screen.

Just how many of those bloody spiders did I kill?