“Life is easily replaceable. It takes just a few months to hatch an egg, but it takes years of labour to build a colony ship.”

-From: What Demons find important.

***Outer Rim***

***Antioch***

I lean back in my office chair and study the screen in front of me. Nowadays, I only rarely bother with doing any experiments on my own. It's enough to tell my staff what we need. Occasionally, it’s necessary to dive a little deeper into the subject, but we employ very good people. Some of them have hundreds of years of experience. Not everyone who lives in the V.C. is spending his or her time in debauchery and the people who join us are all proficient at one task or the other.

Honestly, as the demon-king, I barely know what to take care of myself, and which jobs I should better leave to others.

There is still the ongoing project with the warp-missiles. Their development is in the final stages, but we are still holding them back as a secret trump card. I am sure that they will rewrite the laws of space battles, but I prefer to stockpile a decent amount of them before we show our hand. It takes time to manufacture something as complicated as a warp-drive and using them as they become available would be the wrong move. At some point, the enemy will catch on and develop countermeasures, so before that happens I want to get as much use out of the weapons as possible.

Then we have the issue of our insufficient fighting capabilities.

I instruct the screen to show me one of the videos which were taken during the boarding action of a Cyber vessel. We thought that our people were sufficiently prepared for the task, and the ones who we sent in were equipped with our best weapons. Not only did they have their own natural nano-armour, but additional armour plating as well. We also made sure to send people who have at least a hundred skill points in body enhancements.

Watching the video, I grimace as one of the ground troopers is ripped in half by a mechanical monstrosity which isn’t even remotely humanoid. If one would mix the appearance of a spider and a crab with a squid, one would roughly arrive at what a Cyber-drone looks like. A hideous creature which was only designed for a purpose and not for anything else.

It's a mystery to me why someone would choose such an existence willingly.

More soldiers storm the corridor in which the battle is taking place, swarming the drone without any regard for self-preservation. The drone’s armour is strong enough to withstand the small arms calibres which were brought to this boarding attempt, so our people have to get close and personal, chopping off mechanized legs and tentacles to immobilize their opponents.

The Cyber utilize all forms of shapes and sizes in their culture. Whatever does the job best, but their average warrior-type and starship operator looks like a horror with uncountable legs and tentacles, perfect for manoeuvring in a zero-g environment.

They are twice as large as the average demon and have the strength which can be expected of machines. That’s something an even remotely organic organism can’t keep up with.

In a boarding action, our soldiers have to rely on guns and other ranged weaponry. We really need some form of power armour if we want to challenge the Cyber on this playing field.

Of course, one could argue that boarding an enemy ship in the days of energy rifles and lasers is stupid, but there are always reasons for doing strange things in a war. In this case, we had the Cyber ship immobilized and it seemed like their self-destruct system malfunctioned. That’s why we tried to get to their ship’s data-cores, hoping to steal important information.

Unfortunately, the Cyber realized what we were after and destroyed the vital systems before we could get to it in time. That’s why stronger ground-troops would be a huge boon in the future.

My attention wanders to the next project, and then another, as both of them don’t seem as important to me. The random inspection of our research stops abruptly when I reach what’s labelled as ‘The Final Solution’, the icon showing a stylized bowl.

The G.S. would freak out if they would find out that we are working on such a thing, but I don’t want to fight the whole galaxy in a battle which would take hundreds, maybe thousands of years. There is a limit to my patience, and despite everything I did so far, I am no warrior at the core of my heart. If attacked, I will fight with teeth and nails, but given the choice, I would like to simply live and let live.

After I kill Ouluk! That one comes first. I know that this way of thinking is a little vain and double-sided, but the bastard had it coming. I had already given up on taking my revenge, thinking that he would die of old age before we would ever meet again. To show up out here, practically on my doorstep.

I fume silently and continue on to the next important item on my list. On one side, it’s the most important task of all, finding out what the nano-tech inside my body is capable of. On the other hand, I direly need to understand how nano-machines work. It’s a requirement of my new ability, Nano-Design. It practically allows me to do anything to the nano-tech inside my body, just like Silith’s designer class allows her to edit abilities.

The problem is that without an understanding of what I can do, the whole ability isn’t worth much. I already learned the hard way that upgrading my mental abilities could end all too easily in a pitfall of my own creation. Before I do something as drastic as making changes to my own body, I need to understand all the implications.

After Jill saved my ass, I noticed that aside from the mental upgrades, my improvements also enhanced my physical abilities. I can also direct the nano-tech inside my body towards certain tasks, like concentrating available resources towards healing a wound.

So far, I have observed only one major drawback, and that’s my increased need for energy. The power-cell upgrades are no longer enough to sustain the increased energy consumption of my body. This means that I need to recharge regularly.

Mumbling, I call up the latest research results of my experiments.

It takes a while to get into the mood, but as soon as I start working in earnest, I forget about my office and the world around me in general.

Though, that doesn't keep me from complaining. “Man, I really wish that Silith didn’t have so much to do and could put all of this raw data into perspective for me. It’s hard to interpret all these measurements without proper statistics.” And most importantly, doing the statistics myself is boring.

“I can do that!”

My heart almost stops when I hear Veronica’s voice right next to my ear. Turning around, I find her standing right behind me. “How did you get in here!?”

She wets her lips, looking guilty. “I kind of let myself inside. The door wasn’t locked.”

“That doesn’t explain how you got right behind me!” My office is small and the office desk is facing the entrance, which is the only entry to this room. I was absorbed in my work, but I should have noticed someone opening the door.

Veronica fiddles her thumbs and tries to look as innocent as possible. “I have a skill that’s called Sneak. It allows me to turn invisible for a few seconds.”

I want to point out that this doesn’t explain how she managed to materialize behind me, but she continues before I can stop her. “Anyway, you sounded like you need help. I want to help! So, where do we begin?”

Where do we begin indeed? First of all, I would like to know why my somewhat special daughter is suddenly so interested in helping me. “Do you even know statistics?”

“Statistics, programming, quantum theory!” She raises her hand for a fist-pump. “My body may be slow with growing up, but that doesn’t mean that I am mentally retarded!”

I furrow my forehead. “I think you mentioned something about being a scientist in your previous life. Why the sudden change of heart? Did you get bored of playing the child?”

“I was bored with playing the child since I hatched, but it seems like I am simply not a good gamer. Takes forever to get a skillpoint. So, how about me being Dad’s personal assistant?” She points at the screen with my work.

That’s when the door to my office opens and Silith steps inside. “Sorry for being so late, but there were some organizational problems with the colony that needed solving.” She notices Veronica. “Oh, V, what are you doing here? Normally, you and Jill are joined at the hips. Please tell me that my adopted daughter hasn’t done something outrageous. Did she try to enter the antimatter reactor? Again?”

She did what!? I was never told about something like that happening. We really should put more supervisors on the Blue's heels. What if she blows up the colony?

Veronica shakes her head, remembering that she is the one who normally looks after Jill.

“Nothing like that,” I answer for Veronica. “It just seems like she is bored, so she offered to help with my work. To be honest, I have no idea how good she is, but why don’t we give her a chance?” She looks way too fired up about this idea, so I would feel bad for not giving her a chance.

Silith claps her hands together and sashays over to us. “That’s a brilliant idea. It may even help you to grow up!”

Veronica looks immediately put out. The fact that she seems to be stuck as a teenager is a sore point for her. “Yes, Silith.”

“Oh, dear. I didn’t mean it like that.” Silith bends down to hug Veronica. “And haven’t I told you more than once to call me Mom? You may not have hatched from one of my eggs, but I think of you just like any of my other children.”

Veronica pales even further. The poor girl is way too hung up on her unique situation, so I try to reassure her. “Don’t worry, Veronica. Depending on your skills, I am sure that you can find a way to help us. All this stuff is top-secret, but you are family. I am sure that you understand what it means to work on these projects.”

The blood drains from her face until she looks like a ghost. She tries to straighten herself. “O- o- o- of c- course! I won’t let you down.”

Silith grabs Veronica at the shoulders and turns her around to massage her. “Girl, you are way too stiff about this. It’s not like there are G.S.-spies in the V.C. Just relax.”

Veronica is now as pale as a sheet of paper. One might think that she was just thrown into a pit with Cyber spy-drones. She really can’t deal well with responsibility, so maybe an assignment like this one is exactly what she needs to grow up.