So with Generals Lorrin Aston, Caelan Lester Hart, Terrance Walter Harrell; Lieutenant P Swift; and August Allard, director at NASA, we head to mission control. Yeah, it’s a lot like what you see in the movies: A couple of huge screens in the front of the room, and a whole bunch of big desks with screens, keyboards, and tall backs.

Everyone stands and salutes when August walks in. He nods, and everyone gets back to what they were doing. August talks to a woman sitting at one of the computers with a headset that has both a microphone and ear covers, "Were you able to track that 'unscheduled launch' we discussed earlier?"

She presses a button before she replies, "Yes sir, but only just. I couldn't detect the launch like I would a missile or rocket and it doesn't have a radar profile, but the suit radios work. We've got a directional antenna on them, but… well, they just passed mach eighty, and they're still accelerating straight up. We had to redline the servos initially to keep it pointing in the right direction. What IS this thing? Does it just not care about gravity or wind resistance? Sir."

I jump in, "It's one of my servants, and basically consists of congealed magic energy… and no, she really doesn't care about gravity, wind resistance, or a great many other things. Should only be a matter of hours before she reaches the moon. Tell me, have you calculated an ETA?"

The woman looks at me - her nametag reads "B. Strong" - funny - and the stripes tell me she's a captain, "Only provisionally. It depends on when she turns, if she continues to accelerate, and a few other things we don't know because nobody filed a flight plan… but best guess at the moment is about eight hours or so."

That's within range… Starfinder uses 1d2 hours to reach orbit, and 1d8 to reach a satellite, so two to ten hours all told.

I shrug, "I don't file a plan when I'm driving to a friend's house," not that I've driven since the bet, "so why do I need one to visit our nearest neighbor?"

B. Strong opens her mouth to retort, but one of the generals interrupts, "Stand down captain. Mr. Chris Carlson, the goddess of Arcana - and yes, that's an official, accepted title - is graciously giving us a free trip to the moon and back as a demonstration of what his people can do, in preparation for leasing us their services. He is not military, and he doesn't act like it. He is a foreign ruler of what is effectively a nuclear power, and he is the only one who offers these services. You will accept his casual nature and will give him the utmost respect. IS THAT CLEAR!" No, that last sentence was not a question.

Her only retort is, "Sir yes sir!"

She is, however, grinding her teeth. She's clearly Lawful… am I chaotic? Hmm…. no matter, I'm myself. Alignment is descriptive, not prescriptive.

Director Allard speaks up, "Can we talk to the astronauts?"

Captain B. Strong seems relieved at that question, "Yes sir, the signal is strong enough. Here…" she pushes a few buttons, and we start to hear voices from the speakers on her workstation.

"… no, I didn't think to pack a deck of cards. When do you think we're going to launch?"

The director grabs the mic, "This is director August Allard at mission control, you have already launched, and are currently traveling at …" he glances at the screen, "...mach ninety three. How does the acceleration feel? Over."

"As far as I can tell, we're still standing on solid ground sir. Suit instruments say we have plenty of air around us, so we have the helmets open, but we can close them and switch to suit air in a jiffy. Can we pack a deck of cards sized for suit gloves next time? Over."

"Please confirm: The ride is so smooth you can't tell you are in motion? Over."

"Sir yes sir. We could use some windows, sir. Over."

"That's all for now. Maintain open comms for the duration, over."

"Sir yes sir. Over and out."

The director presses a button, and the speakers stop cackling. I take a moment to talk to my minion, 《Before you let them out, please flag me. I'll want to give them a little warning via their suit radios.》

《Certainly.》

The director opens his mouth, and it takes him a moment to speak, "So… OK, yes, that's impressive technology," he seems to emphasize that last word, "Do you have the lease contract handy? I'd like to have the lawyers look it over."

Oh, right. No big deal… Fabricate and Profession(Barrister) to the rescue… I hand over what looks like a contract prepared in advance, but I actually just wrote, "Here you go. one hundred thousand US dollars per unit per month."

"I'll need to crunch numbers with the project heads. But if you can consistently deliver…" he similes, "... you may have just handed Humanity the stars."

He turns to Captain B. Strong: "Page me when they're close. Interrupt me, even if I'm speaking with the president. Clear?"

"Sir yes sir."

The director shakes his head and whispers to himself, “It takes days to get there with a rocket, and we have to worry about launch windows for the angle, the weather, and a host of other things… and the little lady up there can do it in hours without worrying about such trivial matters… and no need for a launchpad, even.”

He then addresses me, “So yeah, once I confirm with her that she’s not a slave, I’m pretty sure we’re good to go. For now, though,” he gestures with the contract, “I’ll need the lawyers to look over this. Not that it matters too much - not like you can be sued. More of an expectations document, really…” he pauses, “Regardless, we now have a few hours to kill. I have some folks I’ll need to see, so …” he looks straight at Lieutenant P Swift, “Show him around, keep him entertained, take care of his needs. We don’t have anything that can match this kind of tech, so don’t worry about classified status; he gets to see whatever he wants, as long as it’s not classified for operational reasons and… well, this isn’t the NSA, we’re all about sharing science. Give him the full tour.”

“Yes sir.”

The director addresses me once again, “See you soon.”

We part ways, and the generals go with the director. That leaves me with just the guide in her too-tight uniform. Curious about that, I take a moment to read her ID cards… she’s got three, it seems, each of which has a different name. Also a commission card for the NSA, which doesn’t match any of the IDs. Heh, the director slipped up. Eh, that’s fine. Not surprising that they dropped a spy on me. I’ll just look through walls at anything I’m actually interested in… mind you, I can do basically anything with magic that they can do with existing technology, so… I’m really the one who’s showing things. And that’s OK.

We go on a tour, and I see a lot of the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. They’ve got the tourist areas, of course, with spent rocket engines from the early days, a retired space shuttle, missiles, launching systems, various missile components, capsules, support vehicles, antennas… it’s worth a visit to their museum, really, especially now that travel is cheap. We also go on a tour of the actual facilities; I get to see the rockets, the development labs, multiple control rooms… it’s sweet.

Eventually, though… I need to take a milk break. I set a Time Clone handling flight sales earlier, but… well, this I don’t outsource. I pull out a Keyhome apartment with a milker installed, and open it up… and the ‘lieutenant’ starts to follow me in.

“Ah… no, Lieutenant Swift. I need to handle this myself. I’ll be back out in a little while.” I really don’t want it being common knowledge. I mean, I carry the resource everywhere I go, and I’m pretty well defended, but everyone knowing my chest makes people stronger - potentially massively so… just no. Also, it’s kind of embarrassing.

She takes a breath… “As you wish, Mr. Carlson.” And waits at the door.
I close it behind me… and drop a Wall of Force in the way as well, and engulf the area in a Mage’s Private Sanctum. I’ll dismiss the Wall of Force on my way out, but it’s basically an impassible barrier as far as most people are concerned. Invisible, but the Private Sanctum spell will prevent anyone seeing or hearing what’s going on inside, even if they manage to get the door open.

This of course lets me do my normal milk routine in peace. So I send Milk and Minnie to more followers. I have a lot of wandering priests and priestesses at this point… and I’m getting thousands more every day.  It'll still be most of a year before I'm up to speed with major religions in terms of the size of my priesthood, though.

I clean up after, and head back out… shouldn’t be too much longer until my minion makes moonfall….