Somewhere in the Milky Way Galaxy, enroute to the Mezotis System
Jonuth Kidravia’s Ship - Abi
September 5, 2019
03:30 Ship Time

I awoke to a gentle chime that turned off the moment I got up from my bed. After stretching, I made my way to the bathroom and took a quick shower. When I was done, I made my way to my closet and got my armor out, rather than my regular clothing. Once I was geared up, sans helmet, I made my way over to the bed where Vixa was still sleeping.

“Are you getting up?” I asked, scratching between her ears.

She batted my hand away with one of her front paws and curled up tighter, blocking her eyes with both of her tails.

“Oh, so you don’t want any beef then. I’ll see you later,” I said, turning and walking towards the door.

She made an excited little bark and then ran over to the bathroom. A minute later she came barreling out and jumped up on the door.

I laughed and opened up the door. She squeezed through the small crack and then began running down the hall. She quickly ran out of sight, but I found her waiting in front of the teleporter. She barked a few times as I approached, almost as if telling me to hurry up.

“So demanding...,” I said, as I opened up the door so she could step inside.

I followed after her and then hit the twelfth deck as our destination. She bolted out of the teleporter and I lost sight of her again, only seeing her again when I finally arrived at the mess. She was sitting on the floor staring up at the huge pile of beef. I called her over to me and she obediently followed me as I got my own breakfast. As soon as I was done, I headed over and put a bunch of beef on the smaller plate I had grabbed for her.

She was hopping up and down as we made it to a table, and started absolutely devouring everything on her plate the moment I set it down on the bench beside me. I ate much more sedately, not being in any real rush. I still had about thirty minutes until we would be arriving in the Mezotis system, so I spent some of that time checking up on things on my phone.

The deck got louder and louder as more people woke up, trying to get some breakfast before their busy days began. I looked at Vixa beside me and saw that she was stretched out with her eyes closed, resting after such a delicious meal. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, which ended up being my friends, sisters and Tessa.

“Good morning,” I said as they all passed.

Some of them returned the greeting, though others, like Mason, just grunted in reply and continued walking over to the buffet line. I went back to what I was doing, only looking up again when people ended up sitting around me. It would be a tight fit, so I ended up having to pull Vixa closer to me so everyone would be able to sit down.

Once we were all finished with our breakfast, we began making our way to the bridge to wait out the remaining nine or so minutes. The bridge already had more people on it than there were the day we saw the nebula, and there were likely to be more people showing up before long. Not a single member of the dragon council was present, though I knew they would be on their way to see their new home.

“Where are your parents?” I asked my friends.

“On one of the observation decks,” Ben said. “They got up a bit earlier so they could make it there before the rush.”

I nodded and continued to stroke Vixa’s fur as we waited. My mom and dad showed up only a minute or two after we did, with all eight dragon council members in tow, along with Selalea’s son, Ilnod. I saw his eyes light up when he saw Vixa, so I made my way over to him, kneeling so that both he and Vixa were at the same height.

“Hello, Ilnod. Have you met Vixa?”

He nodded and reached out to pet Vixa, who leaned into each pet.

“Oh, I’d say he knows Vixa pretty well,” Selalea said as she kneeled down as well. “He and some of the other kids have played with Vixa and Imuna in the mornings and afternoons. He’s been bugging me for one of his own.”

I nodded. I knew Vixa went with my mom when I was busy doing other things, but wasn’t aware that she had been playing with kids for a good portion of the day. It explained her lack of energy in the evenings.

“So are you going to?” I asked.

“I’ve been thinking about it. I have to admit that I am intrigued by their abilities. It seems like they would be very good for security. I’m surprised your people don’t use them in that way.”

“We don’t need to,” my mom said, entering the discussion. “As long as a Scyftan has scanned a Phenidae, then they are able to scan their surroundings themselves. The only difference, really, is that Phenidae do it subconsciously while we have to consciously activate the ability.”

“Wait, you can do that?” Ben asked. “We thought that Jonathan would have to switch to his Scyftan fox form or create a new form with Scyftan fox tails.”

“Not at all,” my mom said, shaking her head. “Some abilities do require shifting into a specific form, or taking on aspects of the species that have those abilities, but some just require some slight brain modifications in order to function.”

“Kiri didn’t tell me that,” I said. “She did show me a way to modify my brain so I would be able to process images from eyes different from our own, but nothing like a Phenidae’s ability to scan their surroundings.”

“It must have slipped her mind,” my mom said. “You’ll have time while we’re enroute to Veria, so she can teach you how to do it then.”

I nodded, just in time for Abi’s voice to come over the speakers.

“Good morning! We are just over two minutes from arrival in the Mezotis system. I will orbit Mezotis 4 to scan the surface before moving over to Mezotis 3 and repeating the process. That will only take thirty minutes or so. Those of you who will be working on the ground please be ready to disembark by 04:45. I will be taking us down through the atmosphere at that time. Thank you.”

“Are you ready to see your new home?” my mom asked Selaea.

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” she laughed.

“How about you and the other dragons go stand at the front. You’ll be able to see a bit better from there,” I said.

“I think I’ll take you up on that, thank you.”

I put Vixa down on the floor, allowing her to follow Ilnod and the other dragons as they made their way up to the front of the bridge.

[Have they arrived?] I asked Abi.

[About an hour ago. I received a message stating that they had secured the system but were going to remain shrouded. The remainder of the fleet and engineers will be here in roughly four hours. You know some members of the dragon council won’t be happy about this, right?]

[But the important ones will. It will allow them to be much more relaxed, knowing that their offspring are as safe as we can make them.]

[Well I don’t know about ‘as safe as we can make them,’ but it will take multiple fleet groups to crack the defenses in place when we’re done.]

I nodded, which was something that didn’t go unnoticed.

“What are you nodding about?” Ben asked.

“You’ll see.”

“Thirty seconds,” Abi said, only speaking to those on the bridge rather than the entire ship.

She started counting down when there were about ten seconds left. When we finally exited hyperspace, there were many gasps throughout the room. The two planets were absolutely massive, taking up the majority of the forward screens. Using the roll controls she rotated the ship while simultaneously throttling forward, taking us closer to Mezotis 4. Once we had speed, she rotated the ship one hundred eighty degrees and proceeded to slow down just a bit, so that we would be captured by the planet’s gravity, rather than just fly on by.

Once a stable orbit had been achieved, she pointed the front of the ship towards the planet and then waited. It didn’t seem like it from our perspective, but she was actually making micro adjustments as we moved around the planet. Suddenly there was a force that gently shook the entire ship, and a long crystalline rod could be seen moving away from the ship at a decent pace.

A portion of the screen changed to follow the object down, which quickly entered the atmosphere.

“What are you doing?! What did you fire at the planet?!” Bonanem screeched.

“Relax, Bonanem,” Selalea said. “Nothing was fired at the planet. Abi released a subspace transmitter that will allow us to maintain contact with those down on the planet, and those down on the planet to maintain contact with those on Earth. You can see it starting to slow down already. It will gently land on the summit of the tallest mountain where it will anchor itself down. There are hundreds of these transmitters placed on planets, moons and asteroids all around the galaxy. They are what allow nearly instantaneous communications across vast distances. One will be dropped on Mezotis 3 as well, just so there is a backup if one of them is destroyed or begins malfunctioning.”

“My apologies,” he said, bowing his head.

Everyone watched as the transmitter slowed down until it gently contacted the top of the mountain. As soon as that happened, four crystalline ‘arms’ folded out from the top, rotating almost one hundred eighty degrees until they were pointing down towards the mountain. Suddenly they shot forward, embedding themselves several feet into the rock.

It didn’t move after that, but below the surface something similar to a root system was being created, connecting each of the four supports to each other. By the time the process was complete, it would take the top one hundred meters of the mountain being utterly pulverized to destroy the transmitter. If even a sand-sized piece remained, it would reform, given time.

She began her scan of the planet immediately afterwards, making sure that there was no intelligent life already living there. The two planets had already been scanned, but the sensors used didn’t compare to the ones that Abi had. If there was a species living at the bottom of the ocean, or some object was down there, she would know about it.

The first scan took about twelve minutes to complete and then she broke orbit of Mezotis 4 and was captured by Mezotis 3. There were no outraged shouts as the second transmitter was launched, and the second scan was over just as quickly. With that done, she immediately slowed down the ship further, until we were steadily losing altitude.

She turned the ship until we were perpendicular to the direction we were traveling, just to slow down as much as possible as we traveled through the atmosphere. Most ships the size of Abi would be torn apart if they attempted a similar maneuver, but for Abi it was a walk in the park. There was a brief moment where our view was obstructed by flames on the outer hull, but by the time they disappeared we had a great view of the planet below.

Abi used the pitch controls again, this time pointing the nose of the ship back down while activating the reaction controls to continue to slow down. It took a few minutes and us traveling about a third of the way around the planet before she started maneuvering, flying us over to the first of the locations that Olmith had chosen. It had looked fine from her scan, but Olmith would need to look at it first hand to know if it was suitable.

We were about two minutes from landing when I called Vixa over to me. She arrived fairly quickly, allowing me to pick her up.

“Do you want to go explore the planet?” I asked her.

She immediately yipped and began licking my face.

“I guess that’s a yes. You can’t go outside like that, though,” I said. “There is a chance that you’ll get sick, or you’ll make other animals sick, which is why you’ll need to be wearing a special suit. Ready to try it on?”

She barked this time, clearly the least bit unafraid.

“Alright then,” I said, kneeling so I could place her down on the deck.

I took a cube out of my inventory identical to the one that Tamara displayed with Gurok, it was just a lot smaller. Placing it on her back, I pressed the button and watched as it spread over her fur. She turned her head to watch it, but didn’t move away, trusting that I wouldn’t hurt her. She did close her eyes when it formed over her head, but opened them a few seconds later when the process was done.

“How’s that?” I asked. “Go run around and try it out.”

She bolted in less than a second and ended up running into Imuna who had the exact same type of suit on. The only difference was the color, with Imuna’s being black and Vixa’s being white. They played around for a few minutes before the majority of the occupants of the bridge began filing out, heading down to the lower decks so they could disembark.

[Send a transmission to Tala Telar, requesting that her fleet stay shrouded until the remainder arrive. I’ll try to meet with the dragon council within the next two hours, and I’ll let them know what is going on then,] I sent to Abi and Tich as I exited the bridge.

[What about Xigios and his daughter?] Tich asked. [Do you want them to wait until you give the word?]

[Yes. We might end up hopping around the planet if this location isn’t to Olmith’s liking. I’d like to wait until they choose a location before he comes down here. Besides, we just spent nearly two weeks cramped up. Anyone that showed up before I had a chance to speak with the council would stick out like a sore thumb.]

[Alright, then. I’ll leave you to it.]

There was a long train of people behind me as I led the way to the teleporter. After picking up Vixa and stepping inside, I hit the button for deck two, which is where we would be leaving from. There were people standing in the hallway when I arrived, but they all moved off to the side as I made my way to the airlock.

The airlock opened as I approached, but I didn’t head through it immediately. Turning, I gestured to the council members that they should be the first one down. They all spread out upon stepping off the ramp, and one by one began shifting into their true forms. Within thirty seconds eight massive dragons and one smaller one were standing next to the ship. They immediately stretched out their wings and jumped into the air.

Once they were all airborne, the rest of us descended the ramp as well. The forest around the first location was quite dense, so Abi had actually flattened everything beneath the ship as she landed. I placed Vixa on the ground who instantaneously teleported to another location, sniffed a tree and then teleported again. Imuna ended up following her example, and the two of them made a game of it.

After a few minutes of waiting, Bonakr landed and shifted back into his human form.

“Ah, it is good to finally be able to stretch my wings,” he said as he approached. “Olmith has deemed this site suitable and asks that no one leave this spot. We’ve got some work to do, but it should take much time at all.”

There was a loud roar and then massive trees began being ripped out of the ground as if they were nothing. They fell as soon as they were out of the ground, at least until there was an area big enough to stack them. The moment there was, Olmith and Shaemu flew overhead, each of them picking up one or two trees at a time with their telekinesis as they stacked them dozens of meters high.

As they continued to stack them, Selalea and her son flew over and unleashed their fire breaths on the trees below. While the wood was still wet, it caught fire like it was the driest of grasses. Linvalma was the next dragon to fly over, though she hovered in place, rather than just fly by. As she flapped her massive wings, the air around the trees began to swirl.

Within a few seconds there was a huge fiery vortex. As the vortex rotated, it kept the fire inside, while also injecting massive quantities of oxygen, ensuring that the fire burned extremely hot. Just to make sure there wouldn’t be any accidents, Pharomna flew around the vortex shooting a jet of water that completely soaked the soil around the massive bonfire.

There was another roar, and this time dragons and dragonkin began filing down the ramp behind us. They all shifted into their respective forms and then spread out to help accelerate the process. The Black and Chromatic dragons went around and carried fallen trees over to the bonfire, while the dragonkin focused on the smaller plants and moved rocks out of the way.

Those of us who stood back watching were speechless, never imagining that they could clear land so quickly. Within a five minute period, an area the size of a football field was cleared of all plant life, leaving only heavy stones dotting the surface, but not much else. Within ten minutes there wasn’t a single tree or shrub within two hundred meters of Abi.

Selalea and her son landed a few minutes later, quickly returning to their human forms before walking over. “So what do you think?”

“Very impressive,” my mom said. “I thought we were pretty good at clearing land, but I’ve never seen it done that quickly.”

Selalea nodded. “We haven’t done it in thousands of years, but it’s no different than it was on Earth. I don’t think we would be able to do it nearly as quickly without being able to harness the weather, though. The inside of that vortex is so hot that trees burn up in minutes, rather than hours or days.”

“So you’re happy with the location?” I asked.

“Very. The ground below our feet transitions from soil to granite after about ten feet, and it’s all extremely solid. We’ll probably excavate a large area inside the mountain for storage before setting up the teleporters. Speaking of which, Olmith will be ready to take a team to Zokyrth in fifteen minutes or so.”

“Zokyrth? You named them, then?”

“Yes. Yrranth and Zokyrth, named after the mother and father of all dragons and dragonkin who live today. We thought it fitting.”

“I like it. I’ll let Abi know so she can get the new shuttles ready. I do need to meet with you and the other council members as soon as possible, though.”

“The only one that is busy right now is Olmith, so we can meet at the shuttles as soon as he is free.”

I nodded, just as there were multiple crashes. Looking over to the mountain I could see a plume of dust and shards of rock flying in all directions. A second later there was another crash, the source of being one of two large Black dragons. They were each taking turns hitting the side of the mountain with their bulb-like tails, crushing the rock into much smaller pieces and forming the beginning of an entrance.

“That doesn’t seem very efficient,” Ben said. “It looks like it would take them days to excavate an area big enough to hold all the eggs doing it that way.”

“You’re right, but they’re just getting started. We don’t use explosives, so it’s just a more involved process. Watch.”

The two dragons continued to strike the side of the mountain with their tails a dozen more times before they walked away and two Blue dragons replaced them. They both fired a sustained jet of water for a good minute or so, before they moved off to the side and let two White dragons take their place.

Breathing in, the two White dragons projected a huge cloud of frigid air towards the mountain that got bigger by the second, eventually obscuring them from our sight. They didn’t walk away when they were done, instead leaping into the air and using their large wings to fan most of the cloud away.

The dragons weren’t done, apparently, as yet more dragons replaced the two that just left. Purple dragons this time, the two of them opened up their large maws, immediately firing a sustained beam of purple energy at the rock. As we watched, the entire portion of the mountain that they were working on almost exploded, sending rocks flying all over the place. By the time they closed their mouths cutting off the beam of energy, a neat entrance, perhaps fifty feet in length and diameter was carved into the mountain. There was still a lot of pulverized rock that needed to be excavated, but they were well on their way.

“We have a few tools to help with what you just saw, but we haven’t unloaded them from the cargo containers they’re in. In tighter spaces we use diamond-tipped drills that are rotated by Black dragons or dragonkin using their telekinesis to bore holes deep into the rock. When they’re done, Blue dragons or dragonkin replace them and fill each of the new holes full of water.”

“When the White dragons or dragonkin go in, they rapidly freeze the water, forming cracks as the water turns into ice and expands. Then it’s as simple as hitting the now weakened rock extremely hard, crushing the rock into smaller pieces or vaporizing it, like Purple dragons and dragonkin are able to do. Working together, a team of ten dragons or dragonkin can make a tunnel about five hundred feet in length every hour. Dragons usually take the big jobs, and dragonkin the smaller ones.”

“I assume you use portals to move the leftover rock?” my mom asked. “We use explosives, but need to use a bulldozer or another piece of heavy machinery to push the rock through a portal whenever we build underground.”

“We do, yes. You can see them doing that now, actually,” she said, pointing over to the hole in the side of the mountain.

The Black dragons had moved in again, and were moving large quantities of rock through a portal that was created by one of the Purple dragons. The portal’s exit was only around twenty meters away from the hole into the mountain, which meant that they likely needed the rock later on.

“That’s pretty damn cool,” Ben said. “I can’t think of a better way to do it if you don’t use explosives, even using abilities. Earth-based abilities might work, but I’m not sure how accurate they would be.”

“Not accurate at all,” my mom replied. “We tried using skills like Fissure, Tremor or Earthquake to break up rock when we were building the base, but they just created more work for us. We had to put up far more supports to prevent rock from caving in on us as we worked, because the vibration created by those skills sent a lot of cracks through the rock.”

“With the way we do it, cracks only form where we want them to form. We had to make sure of that when creating large cavernous areas to store our eggs. One unnoticed crack could grow enough to eventually collapse, sending millions of tons of stone crashing down on our eggs,” Selalea explained. “Anyways, we’ve done about as much as we can do now. Can you ask Abi to open up the cargo bay so we can begin unloading the tools we need?”

“Done,” I said.

A moment later a large opening in the side of the ship began folding open, forming a ramp. A bunch of Black and Purple dragonkin immediately ran up the ramp to get started. The reason they cleared such a large area was so that they could unload all of the containers. Abi would be leveling in a few short hours, which meant that everything would need to be unloaded before then.

With everything well underway on that front, Abi disconnected the Grasshoppers and piloted them over to the side, out of the way. I headed over there with my mom and dad in tow, as we waited for Selalea to round up the remaining council members. Chasing after us were Vixa and Imuna, apparently tired of teleporting around. They both ran into my Grasshopper and lied down, taking a quick nap.

“What are you up to?” my mom asked.

“Giving the dragons left on Earth, as well as the council members returning with us peace of mind. I’ve been working on something with Tich and Thomas for the past three weeks or so. By the time we leave Veria on the way back to Earth, Yrranth and Zokyrth will be extremely well protected.”

Before I could elaborate further, Selalea and the other dragons arrived, back in their human forms.

“So what’s this about, Jonathan?”

“Me making sure that your people are well protected,” I answered, taking a tablet out of my dimensional storage and handing it to her. “There is a strike wing of fifty ships currently in orbit, along with two hundred and fifty additional ships that are on their way, escorting Pygmaean workers here. When they arrive, they will immediately be assembling a planetary defense shield that will be entirely under your total control.”

“Along with the planetary shield, they will also be setting up over sixty-six hundred orbital defense platforms, which will, again, be under your total control. Within two weeks, it will take multiple strike forces working together to breach the defenses that will be in place here. There will also be a pair of Pygmaean mobile shipyards towed into orbit of Yrranth. You’ll be able to work with Ercan Warvyn’s daughter, Oya, on designing your first space ships. As soon as the first design is finalized, workers aboard the two mobile shipyards will begin construction.”

“All the details are on that tablet. If you don’t want the help, then let me know and I will direct them to turn around,” I finished.

Selalea and the others hadn’t even looked at the tablet, they just looked at me with open mouths. Bonanem was the first to respond, though it wasn’t with the usual venom.

“How are we supposed to pay for all this? And how do we know that everything will be under our control like you say it will be?”

“The details are all on the tablet, but this system has an abundance of metals that are worth quite a bit. You’ve met Thomas, so you might know that he owns a rather large mining company. If you sign off on everything, his mining company will move into this system and begin mining operations, with sixty percent of all profits going to your people. Those profits can be used to pay my sisters and I back, though we aren’t in a rush,” I smiled.

“As for the guarantee that they are under your control, a Pygmaean team will need to construct a small control facility where all of the defense platforms and the planetary defense shield will be controlled from. They will walk you through setting up secure codes for each council member, and when everything is set up, Abi will comb through the system and make sure that there are no backdoors into the system. If you have any computer specialists on hand, you can have them look through all the code at that time. Again, if you don’t want the help, let me know and the ships on their way will turn around.”

“We’ll need to discuss this,” Olmith said. “When do we need to give you an answer?”

“There isn’t a big rush. The three hundred ships I mentioned will be defending this planet regardless of the answer you give me, but everything else is entirely up to you. I would prefer an answer by the time we leave for Veria, but I understand if you can’t come to a decision by then.”

“I think I can speak for all of us when we say that we’ll be giving it some serious thought,” Selalea replied. “We’ve got something for you as well, though.”

She handed the tablet to Olmith and then a thin square box appeared in her hands. Opening it, she revealed seven orange Skill Gems laid out on purple velvet. They looked like a hexagon with the way they were displayed, with a row of two on the top and bottom, and a row of three in the middle. Each one was also individually labeled, allowing me to easily see which was which.

“Who told you?” I asked, surprised.

“No one, I overheard a discussion about it. We brought tens of thousands of Skill Gems with us when we departed Earth, so it was as simple as finding who had which Skill Gem so we could gather them all.”

“Thank you,” I said, reaching out and accepting the box from her.

“You’re quite welcome,” Olmith said. “Without you, we’d have never gotten here.”

It wasn’t time to learn the Skill Gems yet, so I put them away as a group of dragonkin ran up, carrying a number of long tubes, approximately five inches in diameter. Each of them had points on the end, which I assumed were the drills that they were talking about. They were too big to fit inside the Grasshoppers, but not too big to fit inside of Abi’s dimensional storage, accessed through my Beacon. It seemed like that was all they needed to store, as they all ran into one of the Grasshoppers as soon as the drills disappeared from their arms.

A few dragons ran up as well, easily distinguishable because all of them were in their human form. All of the council members aside from Olmith decided to check out what was on the tablet rather than come over to Zokyrth, so he followed me, along with my parents, into my very own Grasshopper. With everyone loaded up, we lifted off and headed over.

The original site selected wasn’t to Olmith’s liking, so we checked out two more before he finally found one he was happy with. It was much closer to the oceans than the other ones were, which would undoubtedly make the Blue dragons quite happy. After we had landed, Olmith and the other dragons and dragonkin got started on clearing the area around the mountain, while my mom and dad each created portals back to the landing zone on Yrranth. The rest of the workforce who would be excavating on Zokyrth ran through, helping to clear the land.

After the trees and other plants were out of the way, Olmith got started on making the entryway. Tails weren’t used this time, instead they used the drills that were brought along with us. Rather than drill parallel with the ground, they were drilling at a downward angle, presumably to prevent water from immediately pouring back out. It was pretty weird seeing the drills spin on their own, but they had drilled through ten meters of rock in less than two minutes, allowing them to move onto the next stage.

Once the six drills were extricated, a Blue dragon approached and projected a jet of water at the wall. I couldn’t tell if it was male or female, but they definitely weren’t going for accuracy, instead just spraying at one of the holes for a couple of seconds before moving to the next one. When they were filled, the Blue dragon backed off and allowed the two White dragons to do their thing.

Just like the previous time, the side of the mountain exploded as the Purple dragons fired off arcane beams from their mouths. When the dust settled it was clear that they hadn’t dug in as far, but it also didn’t take nearly as long. After doing it one more time, Olmith returned to his human form and talked to a female Black dragonkin. When he was done saying what he needed to say, he walked over and joined my mom, dad, Vixa and Imuna and I.

“Everything is well on its way here. Can you assign a few Spectres to assist us with traveling back and forth between planets until we get our own portal up and running? Our Purple dragons tried to open a portal back and they were unable to.”

“Absolutely,” my dad answered. “I’ll assign a team as soon as we get back. Are you ready to go?”

“Indeed,” Olmith nodded. “I’ve got a big job ahead of me, the sooner I start the sooner it will be finished.”

Rather than travel through space to get back to Yrranth, my mom opened up a portal wide enough to accommodate each of the Grasshoppers. Abi piloted the three ships back, while the rest of us simply walked through. Before the portal closed, a team of four Spectres was running through, which would allow them to open a portal to either planet at will.

We had only been gone a short twenty minutes, if that, and when we arrived we saw that all of the shipping containers had already been unloaded. Many of them were open with dragonkin going from container to container, making sure that all of the eggs had made it in one piece. The seven council members who had stayed behind were all huddled together, splitting their attention between what was on the tablet and what was going on in front of them.

There wasn’t much for me to do at this point that wouldn’t be getting in the way, so I let Tich know that Xigios and his daughter could make their way down. About fifteen minutes had gone by by the time a sonic boom made everyone look skyward. The spacecraft was easily visible as it descended, but the fact that none of the Spectres were bursting into action meant that the dragons and dragonkin all went back to their work.

The black shuttle was bigger and much more imposing than the Grasshoppers, but I knew that looks weren’t everything. Any of the Grasshoppers could easily take out the shuttle that was landing in front of us. The pilot spun it in place before touching down, with the rear of the shuttle facing us. The ramp quickly descended and four people made their way down. They were all in their Scyftan forms, with two of them equipped with weapons and full suits, while the other two were in their service uniforms.

I was happy that none of them kneeled when they got close, Xigios simply walked up to me and offered his hand.

“Nice to finally meet you in person,” he said.

“Likewise. How was the trip?”

“Uneventful, though I do miss my own ship. You’ve already met my daughter.”

“Briefly. It’s good to see you, Esriro.”

“Sir,” she nodded.

“You’ve met Tich as well, obviously. These are my adoptive parents, Tesze Inolgeth and Utych Hios, sisters Leenah, Lucia and Leksi Kidravia, and friends and teammates Mason, Benjamin, Anja and Sonja,” I said gesturing to each as I said their names. “Everyone, this is Xigios Dryth, leader of The Indomitables, and his daughter, Esriro Dryth.”

The new arrivals were in awe of the massive creatures flying overhead, and we watched their progress as we got to know each other a little better. Stuff was still being carried out of the ship, including everything that was needed to cook for a few thousand dragons. It didn’t take long at all before the amazing smell of beef was floating through the air.

After grabbing a few plates for myself and my guests, I decided to take them on a tour of Abi. Unfortunately Vixa had smelled the cooking meat and wouldn’t let me leave until she got some of her own. She got her wish, inhaling the small plate I put together for her before following the five of us as we made our way around the ship.

Esriro was particularly excited about being aboard Abi, asking all sorts of questions about her. She didn’t notice as we put a little bit of distance between her, so we could actually have a conversation. Abi would be able to watch over her and direct her so she could catch up with us again.

“So how did the interrogations go?”

“Most are over, though some are still ongoing. We’ve found out that there were more parties than just Dhir who had people placed in our organization, but their orders weren’t nearly as nefarious. Most were just keeping track of what we were doing so they could avoid us as needed.”

“The ones that are ongoing are those who were forced into their current predicaments. They have information, but they won’t tell us what they know until their families are safe. We’ve been working with Pygmaean authorities to help with that, but it’s been slow going. It’s unlikely that Dhir knows that we’ve captured all of his agents either, so we’ll need to move on every site where they’re holding prisoners at once. We’ve found some of them, but not all.”

“Keep me in the loop, especially if you end up finding the location of Xorin Nydror’s daughter. What about the work that’s being done on your ships?”

“That’s going much better. They’ve already completely repaired the damage to the bridges of the nine ships we had to fire at, and have also refitted fifty or so more. The ones in orbit are most of our newer ones, and ships will end up being switched in and out as they’re upgraded. The Harbinger wasn’t commissioned that long ago, so she’ll be in orbit here at least until the planetary defense grid is active. The Harbinger’s strike group may stay until we’re ready to move on Dhir, but I haven’t decided on that. We’ll definitely want Tala Telar there, she’s one of the best captains in my entire fleet.”

“She’s a Dvergr, right? On my planet they’re called dwarves, though they’re fantasy, rather than reality. It’s said that they’re masters of the forge, live primarily underground, drink a lot, take great pride in their beards, and their women are hairier than the men. Is any of that true?”

He laughed. “Everything is pretty spot on, except for their women being hairy. They’re no different from the human women I’ve seen here, besides being shorter and a little stockier. Nowadays they’re known for their mechs. Not even the Pygmaeans or Kobaloi come close in that regard.”

“Mechs, huh?”

He nodded. “Tala walks around in her mech most of the time, partly because she’s Dvergr royalty, but also because she’s able to walk around quite a bit faster. She’s also ready in an instant if shit hits the fan, especially since they’re capable of both atmospheric and space flight.”

“Royalty? What is she doing working as a mercenary?”

“She doesn’t like getting into it. The only reason I know she’s royalty is because of her last name and the fact that her mech is embossed with her family crest. She’s been with us for over three hundred years now, and is damn good at what she does. I’ve respected her privacy. Besides, there is no way that her parents don’t know where she is. It’s not like The Indomitables have been hiding for all that time.”

“Interesting…”

Xigios continued to fill me in on some things I was interested in, and his daughter eventually caught up with us. Both of them ended up staying around to see one of Abi’s growths in person, before heading back up to their ship. While Xigios was here, he still had a lot of work he needed to take care of.

---

With Abi’s twenty-third growth being complete, my friends and I gathered so we could see how much my stats went up when I used the seven Skill Gems that the dragons had gifted to me. I started with two-hundred eighty Strength, sixty-seven Agility, sixty-seven Intellect, one hundred seventy-nine Constitution, and fifty-nine endurance. By the time I was done, those had increased to one thousand ninety-seven Strength, five hundred forty-eight Agility, five hundred forty-eight Intellect, eight hundred thirty-eight Constitution and five hundred thirty Endurance.

At that point, my maximum mana had increased by nearly twenty six times, while my mana regeneration increased by over seven times. Both of those stats would increase by a staggering amount, as I hadn’t even spent the attribute points granted by Legendary Jack of All Trades.

“Alright, are you ready?” I asked, my hand hovering over the ‘Accept’ button on my phone.

All of my friends were hovering around Ben as he held his phone out so all of them could see. They had our team page up and were currently viewing my own profile page, which showed my estimated stats.

“We’ve been ready! Go ahead and do it already.”

“Okay, here we go!”

I hit the button and then looked up to my friends. It took a moment for it to register, but each of them quickly had shocked looks on their faces. They looked up at me, but they couldn’t find their words. I looked down at my own phone and my face probably looked a lot like theirs.

“Holy shit!”

“That’s fucking insane!” Mason exclaimed.

“Uhh, yeah.. I think we miscalculated,” Ben said.

“No kidding,” the twins replied.

My Intellect was now at two thousand nine hundred seventeen, thanks to the six hundred thirty points I had just added, and all of the multipliers that were involved. In a second my mana had increased from thirty-six thousand eight hundred six up to eight hundred eighty-six thousand ninety-three, and my mana regeneration from three thousand four hundred twenty-seven up to fifty-one thousand six hundred ninety-six. Doing some quick math, I realized that Arcane Bolt, my only damaging spell would now deal around two thousand four hundred damage. At our current level, that was enough to one or two shot many of the enemies we faced.

“Umm.. so should we be expecting all of our stats to increase that much when we get our own set of Skill Gems?” Sonja asked.

“No, we’ll get an even bigger increase. Remember that his stats are lower than they should be because of Abi’s bond and how stacking works. It’s when Abi reaches her fiftieth growth where things will start getting insane. They did wisely exclude two Skill Gems that would have lowered his stats though.”

“Which ones?” I asked, looking up from my phone upon hearing that.

“Legendary Lightning Reflexes and Legendary Night Hunter. The first one increases your Agility by fifty percent, and the second increases all of your attributes by fifty percent, but only during the night. So for the second one you would see massive drop in stats during the night, because of the way stacking works. It would be exactly like it is for Jonathan right now, but it would remain permanent.”

“So stay away from those two perks, got it,” Mason said.

“Aww, damn it,” Sonja complained. “I’ve got the Tier C version of Lightning Reflexes. There’s really no way to remove the perk?”

“I don’t think so, but let me do some checking,” Ben said, going quite for a moment. “Sonja, do me a favor and see if Lightning Reflexes has a slider beside it like Insight does.”

“Give me a sec,” she replied. “It does! It’s the only one besides Insight that has it. Do you know why?”

“I only have a guess, and that is that it is toggleable because it improves your movement speed as well. There might be circumstances where the perk could get you severely injured or killed, because you move too quickly and move further than you intended. You have the Speed perk, right, Anja? Does it have the slider beside it as well?”

“Yup!” she replied.

“It looks like my guess was right then. Anja should be able to keep hers on, but you should probably toggle yours off as soon as you learn your set of perks, Sonja,” he said before turning to me. “Do you have an idea of when that is going to happen? I know you weren’t anticipating being given the full set of perks from the dragons.”

“I’ll be talking to Ercan about it when we arrive. If he sells me them for a decent price then you’ll each have a set while we’re there, otherwise you’ll need to wait until we get back to Earth.”

“I don’t mind either way. So how long until Abi’s next growth with your current mana regeneration?” Ben asked.

“I’m not sure, let me check,” I said.

I exited out of my profile page and then opened up the app made for me by Abi. My jaw dropped at such a low number, and I flipped my phone around so they could see it.

“Four and a half hours, seriously? What about if you switch to either your dragon or dragonkin form?”

“Let me check.” I handed him my phone and then began shifting into my dragonkin form. About a minute later the process was done, and I looked at Ben. [Well?]

“You cut about thirty-five minutes off the time while in that form,” he answered. “Not bad, that’s a pretty big increase. Your mana regeneration went up seven thousand eight hundred thirty with the change.”

[Cool,] I said, switching back to my human form. “I guess people will have to stay clear of Abi in four and a half hours. I think she’ll be close to fifteen hundred meters long at that time as well. She was under twelve hundred meters when we arrived here, that sort of growth is insane.”

“And she’ll grow a few more times while we’re here,” Ben said. “She’ll definitely break the two kilometer mark while we’re in Pygmaean space, right?”

“Yup,” I nodded. “That will be the twenty-eighth growth, I believe. Anyways, we wanted to do some exploration while we were here, how about we hop in my Grasshopper and go take a look?”