Electricity hissed and popped, dumped into the lock, and disengaged the magnetics holding it shut. Before it could reboot, I hooked it with that finger, and pulled it open, my second hand darting into the side of the partially-ejected safe to sever the power feeds to the electromagnets there.

“Nice!” Briggs complimented, as the concealing door on the safe opened up.

We both studied the stasis-preserved contents with great interest. There was also the glitter of Energized materials, mostly gemstones, a tidy personal fortune of sorts, and finger-bars of precious metals of various sorts were stacked up in the back of it. With the obfuscating material of the safe out of the way, they sang with some impressive melodies in my Tremble.

“Whoa... is that Void Osmium?” The glittery black bar was piled back there with the rest. It was used in very high-end spatial stuff, and incredibly valuable. The only way known to artificially Energize it involved irradiating it at the event horizon of a singularity!

I pointed to the left, at the hand-tall cube of coppery metal there, and he whistled. “Unshaped Orichalcum?” he murmured. It was in a crystal holder, carefully not touching any other metals, which it would absorb.

“And Scarletite there.” The fiery red alloy of Earth, Fire, and Light Energized metals almost seemed to be simmering in its own holder. Like Orichalcum, it was a TL 17 metal, and basically nobody alive made any anymore. The Emperor’s burning sword was supposedly made of it, and it was reputedly the perfect metal to make a Mindblade Focus from. Such weapons were ancient treasures passed down for millennia, usually held by Chapter Masters of the Coronals, or figures of similar status... as well as in the private collections of nobles and the ultra-wealthy for ego gratification, of course.

There was also some twinkly jewelry, Energized gemstones in piles, along with the low glow of sets of data crystals.

“Those don’t belong...” I reached in and fished out a large, ornately carved amulet on a fairly heavy golden chain, and a large ring with a Fire ruby flashing brightly on it, both of them rather too ostentatious to wear. They’d literally been tossed on top of the other stuff, nowhere near as neatly placed.

I handed them to Briggs as I bent down to fish out some of the wooden coffers and leather bundles from there. He studied the two items in the flickering light from the shining gems and metal, and clicked his tongue after a moment. “Corunsun?” he repeated aloud, and something flashed and crackled on the carved metal.

I glanced at him sharply as he froze in place, looking back at me. “It’s the name on the back of the pendant!” he stated, turning it over for me.

“Huh,” I said, reading that in archaic script. It was done in an alternate metal, not engraving, so I hadn’t seen it without looking closer. I looked at the indent on the front of it, and asked, “Does the ring fit you?”

He gave me a funny look, then realized that if it did, it was definitely an Empowered item. His gauntlet hissed and released from his armor, and he hung it on his girdle as he carefully fit the big ring onto the meaty ring finger of his left hand.

“Damn.” He lifted the gaudy thing up closer to his eyes. “I wonder what it does?”

I slapped the pendant down upon the ring while he was still holding it, and there was another crackle and hum, both items lighting up with psychic power, waves of it rolling up and down him as if scanning him closely.

He looked down at me in surprise, and the paperwork laying out on my hair I had opened and gone through quickly. “Congratulations, Duke Corunsun. You have been accepted by the Ancestral Pendant and signet Ring, Your Grace! How does it feel to be High Nobility?”

He blinked at me. “You-!” he grunted in consternation.

“Sources are Kings Among Men, but you’ll have to settle with being a Duke for now,” I went on, scanning through the paperwork quickly, and glancing at the data crystals there. I held up one folded leather binder. “This is a record of your predecessors, Your Grace. No doubt you should memorize it. The last page is the last will and testament of your immediate predecessor. You should probably peruse it.” I indicated one of the open coffers floating on my hair, a gilt-edged scroll in platinum laying within. “That’s the original Writ of Nobility right there. It’s dated before the Empire, so I don’t know how legit it is, but I am sure there are a lot of noble families that go back that far or farther.

“My guess is that the data crystals hold the records of your holdings. Oh, and you are the owner and captain of the Colony Ship Celestial Tribute, in all her glory and silence.” I indicated a commemorative plaque in diamonds and gold.

He took a deep breath, and looked away from me for a minute. I closed up a lot of the paperwork and slid them into my Masspack. The Ring and Pendant, he kept.

“So...” he asked, “why’d you give it to me?”

“Sources are meant to rule. Nulls are meant to get things done. Being The Duchess would get in the way of what I have to do.”

“We don’t even know if this is valid,” he reasoned, waving the two things at me.

“You have a ten-mile-long, mile-high starship here which is amazingly intact, all things considered. It will cost much less to repair it than it will to make something similar, and the tech here is very, very good, indeed.”

He grimaced. “Except for the psychic pressure.”

“One vivic purge, and what do you think happens to all that ambient psychic energy?”

He glanced towards Engineering far below. “Granted,” he agreed after a moment. “You really think we can get this to fly?”

“Since when is a Source asking a Null what is and is not possible?” I snorted back at him, and he grinned fiercely.

“It does sound like a remarkable thing to do. Kind of a Rogue Trader thing? My realm is my starship...” He was getting into the feel of it already.

“We’ll go through the data cores later. I think the Twilight Dukes will be able to give you some guidance on the true power of your legacy.” I pointed away, towards the bridge. “I am glad we went here first. I have the feeling one or both of those will be needed to command the ship.”

He slung the heavy Pendant around his neck, but put his gauntlet on for now. “There’s digging for gold in an abandoned ship, Sama, and then there’s this...”

“Yes, Your Grace,” I consoled him. “You can salivate over your new wealth and riches later, when they are actually yours.”

He just grunted. “Happen to know the laws for successorship and properties like that?”

“In passing. Inherited titles do depend on the regalia. If there are cash accounts, they would be locked until the true heir comes forth, although the interest would be available to maintain the estate. So, the funds likely haven’t grown much, as all the earnings would be siphoned away, although the underlying investments may have appreciated considerably.”

“And they won’t like it when I come calling to reclaim them,” he mused.

“No, I imagine they will try to kill you by any means possible,” I agreed heartily.

“Ah, nobility. Just another incentive for assassination.”

“You’re getting right into the heart of it already!” I agreed. “Imagine an Ancient Warlord blundering right into their cocktail parties and poisonings in power armor with a hammer!”

He stroked his rock of a chin. “That sounds very entertaining...”

“It does indeed. Social censure and everything.”

“Alas, I’ll never get to do it.”

“Why?” I asked archly.

“Because I’m sure that anyone dumb enough to try and poison me would get some visits from some Ranthas with pointed questions eager to test out just how good their assassins are.”

“That is true... and just imagine the havoc your lads would wreak on anyone daring to do that to their dad.”

His face kind of distorted. “I keep forgetting how many sons I have. They are so independent, after all...”

“Doesn’t matter. You’re still The Dad. They’ll come running for their brothers or their sisters, what do you think they’ll do for us?”

He was silent for a moment. “They’d conquer the galaxy,” he admitted.

I beamed. “You say the SWEETEST things, Duke Briggs Corunsun!”

“You know, I am still going to need a Duchess,” he mused.

“You know there’s an endless number of empty-brained big-chested and absolutely ruthless high-bred women willing to jump into bed with a Duke,” I rolled my eyes and reasoned aloud.

“Damn right there is. I’ll settle for big-brained, empty-chested, and terrifying fated partner, how about it?”

“Is that a marriage proposal, Your Grace?”

He went smoothly down on one knee, grabbed my hand in that huge paw of his, all them calluses and that ticklish Source field and so strong, rarrr... “Hells, no. THIS is a marriage proposal! Marry me, you fickle little hag!”

I rolled my eyes around once, licked my teeth as I looked at him. “You big dumb ape, how am I supposed to say no to that?” I reclaimed my hand, wrapped both arms around his neck, as he was as tall as me kneeling down, and put my nose to his. “You only ever had to ask, you know.”

“I knew that the moment I first saw you,” he mumbled back, looking into my eyes. “That aura like a polished sword... I was going to pick you up and carry you across the galaxy.”

“You are getting even sexier, monkey-man! How do you do it?!”

“A nagging old hag!” he exclaimed properly, and the probing for one other’s tonsils commenced promptly.

-------------

It was a dark empty ghost ship beset by the horrified psyches of a hundred million dead colonists, and waves of Warp-tinged Throne interference surging through it, with not an ounce of biomatter left, only cold, hard metal and crystal.

It meant we didn’t break anything, although there might have been some dents and scratches, and it certainly wasn’t very quiet...

All in good fun, however. We had been doing a lot of work without play, time to let loose some stress.

And hey, the next batch of Briggs boys had to come from somewhere.

So ticklish! Who needs a soft mattress. I had Fuzzy and a 50 Might and a Source Sun pouring over my Null with all them fiery fingers of his soul.

Mwahaha!

Oh, right, we still had to reach the bridge...