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Cutout lifted a shoulder in an easy shrug. There was a clicking sound and the Wolves’ rifles clattered apart, seemingly sliced into tiny fragments. "Easily remedied. Take the hint, girl. You're here and talking to me, obviously I'm more interested in the first option."

Anna lifted her chin. "Right attitude. Wrong title. I am Annabella Besari, Queen of the World."

Cutout shrugged again. "Don't hold with royal protocol. Pain in my ass, girl. You fought Sylax and won. I figured that meant you were either lucky or good. I can see it was lucky, I'll take lucky. Your engines are trashed and your weight is down—you are missing hull. It's a good masking job, but it doesn’t hold up close. I guess she put up a good fight, before she ran off."

"Before she died," Anna said.

Cutout shook his head. "Afraid not, girl."

Anna turned to my drone. "You said you killed her."

I'd said no such thing.

"I detonated the equivalent of several nuclear bombs and dropped a mountain on top of her. Her survival seems unlikely, but powers complicate matters. This stupidly named little man may be right," I said.

"Does she want me to cut her in half?" Cutout asked.

"It’s not actually her body," Anna said. "And you move on my people, you move on me. How certain are you? That Sylax lives?"

"How many others do you think are offering big rewards for your head?" Cutout asked.

The Righteous probably were.

"So why aren't you taking it?" Anna asked.

"You're here and she isn't, and I'd rather not have power like that tromping around my home. So I really hope you'll be accepting my offer and that we're the dearest of friends," Cutout said.

It was manipulative, shady, and effective.

"What do you want and what are you offering, besides your discretion?" Anna said.

Cutout reached inside a pocket and extracted a small card, which he handed over. "You'll find details here on three Captains and their ships sailing out of this port. I want them out of the picture. In return, I'll supply materials in advance so you can make whatever repairs you require. You maintain salvage rights."

Payment in advance was generous. Too generous.

"What is the catch?" Anna asked.

"They're each well-connected. No local will take the job, and no one that wants to sticks around would be wise to do so. You're neither local nor staying for long," Cutout said.

"Send him the list of needed supplies. The full one," Anna said to me.

That would give them some idea of just how damaged we really were, but I had no choice. So instead I increased all totals by twenty percent. If we were going to jack up the price, we were going to do it all the way and have something to keep in emergency supplies.

Cutout extracted a remote terminal from his pocket and glanced over the display. "Is there a part of your ship she didn't destroy? Some of this will take some time."

"You're the one with a deadline," Anna said.

"I am, see that you meet it. You'll get your supplies in stages. Handle one of them after a week. Promise to take care of my problems and I'll take care of yours," Cutout said, and he jerked his head to his companions before spinning on a heel and leaving.

Anna waited until we were back aboard the ship before saying, "He can't cut his way out of one of your containment cells, right?"

"You haven't been able to grow marginally less useless because our test subjects escape. We held a teleporter. You are planning to betray him?" I asked.

"I want to be prepared to be betrayed. If these targets of his are as connected as he says, it would be wise of Cutout to dispose of the only link back to him once the job is done," Anna said.

That did make sense. I'd appreciate the chance to study his power firsthand, we hadn't observed anything quite like it so far.

12

A week passed and the condition of the ship was much improved. Cutout delivered the supplies as promised. The engines still had a lot of work to go, but with the repairs done we'd just about doubled our top speed and the ship would run far more stable. We had basic thruster operation again, although burn time remained limited. The hull was well and truly patched, although it would be a lot more effort to restore the missing armor plating.

The shields were more reliable, while main cannons and side cannons remained offline. Compared to where we had been it was a vast improvement, yet it still left much to be desired. We could fly, but we couldn't fight—and fighting was what we needed to do.

The time also let me finish my research on the viruses infecting Ophelia. I teleported Hot Stuff into her cell and let her do what she did best. When Ophelia healed from incineration I sent her to help Mechos, who was working on rebuilding the Espionage deck.

I began upgrading my other core systems, which were lagging behind.

Bicomputer

Level 5

At level five you can now create small scale copies of your mental patterns and install them in drones or agents. These are capable of acting independent from yourself and will contain limited variants of your own power. While this may result in a loss of a diversity of opinion, sometimes the only person you can trust is yourself.

A FOOLISH SENTIMENT, I didn't trust myself whatsoever. I was quite certain that if I ever created some poor copy of myself, its goal would soon be to overthrow and become the original—to replace me. I wouldn't be duplicating myself except under the most extreme of conditions.

BioReactor

Level 5

You and your systems can now gain unique status effects by the consumption of specific Biomatter by the BioReactor. Your existing research has revealed the following discovered possibilities.

Pistonweed

Pistonweed was discovered by your science drones in the jungles. It is a carnivorous plant that kills prey with a root structure that erupts out of the ground to impale them. While under its effects attacks on you or your systems will instantly result in a retaliation by nearby defensive measures.

Sparkseed

Sparkseeds are the nuts of a plant that contain a strong electrical element. While under its effects conductivity of your systems is increased and your reaction time receives a minor increase.

Wizooms

Wizooms are a highly hallucinogenic mushroom. While under its influences your sensors and espionage abilities receive a large penalty, but research speeds are increased.

PISTONWEED COULD BE USEFUL. I'd have to start integrating it into my defenses, and perhaps the others as well. The jungle really was a wellspring of botanical wonders.

Genetics Lab

Level 5

At this level you now have two options for two possible upgrades

Optimizer

The genetics lab will always be working to refine existing designs. Periodically, minor improvements to existing sequences will be discovered.

Randomizer

The genetics lab will always be working to combine random elements. Most of these will be horrific failures. Some will probably try to kill you. Some will be amazing. SCIENCE.

THAT WAS REALLY no choice at all. A slow steady improvement or the sheer unmitigated brilliance of SCIENCE. I selected the Randomizer and moved on.

Growth Vats

Level 5

The mass production abilities of this approach are really starting to pay off in terms of yields. Production of Biomatter is doubled.

Infirmary

Level 5