“The Belt is bad! But the Belt is just a tool, I realized, and tools aren't what one should be afraid of.”

-Jill

***Outer Rim***

***Antioch***

I try really hard to concentrate on the three-dimensional representation of our tactical situation, but the girl who is cleaning the intricate artwork on the walls of my throne room with a toothbrush keeps drawing my attention. “Jill? Would it be possible to... clean somewhere else? It's... distracting.”

“No. Mom said that she would check my work when I am done,” Jill answers in a hunched-over position, which makes her look like an old man.

I just can't look at her bruised body. Even though her hardware backup should have restored her completely, some of the bruises she received remain, a feature of my Belt.

“How long did you say until your body heals?” I ask.

Jill looks at the red stripes on the back of her hand. “They still have a Debuff-Timer of seventy-two hours.” She looks at the entrance to the throne-room as if fearing that Silith might make an appearance and find her slagging off. Then Jill quickly returns to scrubbing the artwork.

“You could use one of the drones? I promise that I won't snitch on you,” I offer, unable to look at the misery.

Jill doesn't look at me. “No, thank you. It's almost certain that you are just trying to be nice because my presence distracts you, but I can't take the irreducibly small chance that Silith told you to seduce me into trying to avoid my punishment. It already took me two weeks to regrow my body, thanks to the Hardware Backup. I don't want to die again, and I am afraid that Silith is still mad enough to kill me a second time.”

“Aw, don't say that. I think she cooled down... mostly.” Man... she was really mad that day. Mad enough that even I didn't want to go near her.

“Did she give the Belt back?” Jill asks, a little hitch in her voice.

“No.” She held onto the artefact since Jill made her confession. I probably should take it back.

“Then I'll accept my punishment.” She keeps brushing a very resilient spot of discolouration on the golden relief which depicts our first large battle with the Cyber. “A real mother wouldn't kill her daughter...” She continues grumbling some incomprehensible stuff.

I wince. “Okay. Let's not make Silith any angrier than she already is. Don't forget to clean my office when you are done out here. There are still some bloodstains on the ceiling.”

Jill shudders and increases the speed of her scrubbing.

Silith went a little overboard when she got worked up about Jill's web of lies. I think it's okay to give a misbehaving child a few light slaps, especially when it's about correcting an immoral character trait. My little Siegfried tends to learn quickly when he realizes that his behaviour was the cause of the punishment.

I shudder at the thought that there are currently three more clutches of eggs with real children in our hatching chambers.

Back to the matter of Silith's corrective treatment of Jill. I am not endorsing it, but I have to admit that Jill learned a lesson. I mean, she is an adult, and even death is just a matter of inconvenience for her. Who knows what's needed to get through to a Blue?

I have to admit that over the years we allowed Jill to do a lot of shit and no amount of yelling or trying to reason with her got her to cooperate with us for more than a few hours at most. Silith was pushed over the line bit by bit and the matter with Veronica was simply the end of her patience. So was the incident when Jill opened the colony's antimatter reactor to 'take a peek'. Or when she almost spaced Veronica because she needed additional server power and had her sister install a wireless connection module in the elevator shaft.

Hopefully, Jill realizes that Silith can't be pushed any further.

As if our discussion summoned the devil, I receive a mental connection request from my wife.

'Is she still working?'

'Yes, dear,' I answer.

'Good!' And the connection is terminated.

Phew! Seems like Silith is dead set on getting Jill to repent for real this time.

After letting out a long sigh, I force my attention back to what I should be doing. Namely, making sure that the war between the G.S. and the Cyber is progressing as we want it to. It wouldn't be in our best interest if either side wins the conflict too quickly.

In a best-case scenario, they will wipe each other out or weaken themselves to a point at which they no longer pose a threat, but I am not very optimistic that this will actually happen.

Turning my attention inwards, I connect to the colony's network and take a look at the various assets which are at my disposal. A thought is enough to conjure a map of the region in my mind's eye.

I highlight all the large colonies and make sure that they are well away from the front-lines. Our colonies are mobile fortresses which pack a serious punch, but they are also slow and house the majority of my people's population. A single colony has the ability to spawn more demons in a year than are necessary to crew all the ships in my fleet.

The colonies are also centres of production and research. With the growing population, my people thought out all kinds of ways to contribute to the cause of survival. There are colonies which are dedicated entirely to research, or the production of new prototype ships. Each generation of spaceships has some sort of improvements over the previous one.

Then there are the dedicated warships, ranging from huge behemoths down to smaller vessels. In the beginning, I had grand dreams of miniaturized warp-drives in fighter crafts which would overwhelm the enemy with numbers.

Yeah, turns out that wasn't the best idea I ever had. Although my first fighter-jet led to the development of warp-torpedoes, it was still not economic to put any vessel that's smaller than a hundred metres into the field, and I refuse to call such a large ship a fighter-jet, even if it needs just a crew of five demons.

The problem is that anything smaller simply doesn't have the size to put decent energy generation inside, and a warship has to be capable of long and taxing manoeuvres. The vessel needs to be capable of intercepting the enemy and it needs the ability to do serious damage. Even a few hours of operation time don't cut it in real space combat.

Any larger ship would simply accelerate away from a swarm of fighters until they run out of juice. Then the ship can return and pick off each fighter at its leisure.

Some might see the answer in building dedicated carriers, but that idea has also a flaw. If we put resources into a carrier, we have a large ship that's armed with many small fighters. And once the fighters are dealt with, the carrier is useless, so why didn't we invest the materials for the fighters into better armaments for the carrier to begin with?

No, unless we experience a large leap in technology, the fighter strategy which I imagined won't be a topic for a long time.

Which doesn't mean that we don't have small ships.

I shift my attention to the spying probes which are currently infiltrating enemy space. They belong to a small class of ovoid vessels, about fifty metres in length. They are basically the result of my first warp-experiments with my own fighter jet, although they don't have any weapons.

Instead, they are one-way probes which are packed with our best sensor technology and camouflage-tech. When they go dark, they are practically black spots in space. The only possibility to spot them is to have them pass in front of a star.

I snort in dissatisfaction when I realize that their slow progress through Cyber-controlled space will take them still several more days to reach the area where we suspect a direct confrontation between the Cyber and the G.S. to happen.

As long as they stay away from any stars, it's almost impossible to 'catch' a passing vessel by accident. Even a ten-kilometre long leviathan is less than a mote of dust on a road between two cities. Still, their progress has to be slowed down, or the warp-fields of their drives might give their presence away.

One thing I am very happy about is that one of our many research divisions managed to give us a very good estimation of what's necessary to detect a warp-drive from light years away. The act of warping space with a warp-drive has a very distinct effect on nearby tachyon devices, an effect that can be detected almost instantaneously and interpreted.

So, if a ship wants to move undetected past a star-system, it has to modulate its warp-emitters very carefully and limit its speed. A bothersome restriction which has to be adhered to for the sake of staying silent and undetected.

I zoom out of the starmap and back in to check on three locations far away from the space which is under demon control. Three isolated star-systems which seemed suitable for the project. I congratulate myself for the foresight I and my advisers had years ago to set this project into motion.

Over a decade ago, three of our very first colonies were sent on a long journey. Their only agenda: to get as far away as possible from the slowly expanding cloud of space which can be called our core-territory. For two full years, they just flew out into the void at the fastest speed, stopping for nothing.

Once they were far enough away, they searched for resource-rich systems and started building infrastructure.

The result are three enormous rings around local moons, which function as manufacturing lines for any ship-type we might want. Around them are drifting stockpiles of refined materials, the gathered materials of local asteroid belts and cracked-open planets. As soon as we know which tactics are viable for space-combat, the assembly-lines and matter-printers will start churning out ships and stockpile them for the coming war.

In the meantime, the majority of our population will watch and learn.

I zoom in on one of the rings and request a real-time update. One of the new concepts for a battle-cruiser is quickly taking shape, probably a test-run which was ordered by the local authorities.

The freely floating matter-printers are busily churning out parts, which are carried by drones and transports to the final assembly line, where a long, elegant inner hull is being constructed by a crawling army of drones and people in space-suits. Like ants over an anthill, they are all over the ship that's taking shape beneath them at terrifying speed as parts are integrated into the superstructure.

While they are still busy with the ship's innards, a second army of construction bots is assembling an outer hull around the five-kilometre-long giant. A modular group of matter-printers is building the hull of diamond armour as a single piece, more durable than any steel construction could ever hope to be.

I watch the process for a while, amazed that the involved facilities are capable of producing several ships of that calibre in just a few hours, given that the required resources are ready.

When I started my regular visits to the V.C. and began my general study of human culture, I tried to learn as much of human history as possible. It has to be said that I am more than a little frightened by the atrocities my people are capable of. The art of war is a finely honed art of my species and if it wasn't for the development of the V.C., I am not entirely sure that my people would have survived until the arrival of the G.S.

Earth didn't have any way to fight back when the starships arrived in orbit, but any troops who made landfall got their butts kicked. I just hope that my research divisions came up with enough weapons to make a difference this time around.

We are trying to win this conflict from as many angles as possible. I think that technological and industrial superiority is a very important point.

I suddenly realize that Jill is poking my cheek, so I turn my head to face her.

“I am done.” She points over her shoulder at the wall. “We should get going, or the moms will be mad if we miss dinner.”

“Oh! You are right!” I get up and follow her to the family's private quarters, where we usually eat together. Sadly, Samuel and Minerva are away on a mission to impersonate the leaders of demon-society.

When we reach the dining room, Silith, Lisandra, Fiona, and Veronica are already waiting. Fiona is balancing Siegfried on her knee. The boy grew up to the size of a seven-year-old child since I got my educational fingers on him, much to the dismay of his mother. I suspect that he will grow in leaps and bounds as soon as he is accepted by one of the new educational facilities which specialize in educating the natural children of parents who wanted the real experience.

Jill walks forward and sits down like a demure, young lady. “Good evening, I hope all of you are well.” She takes her plate and picks some of the various offerings on the table.

I also sit down and Jill leans forward to fill my plate with some fish and vegetables, while she is at it. “Here, Dad.”

My eyes almost pop out while Silith nods in satisfaction. Jill never behaves so nicely at the dinner table, and she certainly never saw to the needs of others. Could it be that Silith's methods are working on the Blue?

Then Jill glances at my Belt, which is slung around Silith's shoulder.

It occurs to me that having such a well-behaved Jill isn't a bad thing and I actually consider allowing Silith to wield the Belt for a little longer. But when I meet Jill's eyes, I realize that I can't do that. A promise is a promise, and I am sadly a real softy of a Dad.

Clearing my throat, I address Silith, “Sorry, but I need the Belt back. I think that Jill learned her lesson.”

Silith's face crunches up in dismay and she places a hand on the belt, holding onto it. “But what if she goes off the rail? Again!?”

I hold out my hand. “Like I said, I think that Jill understands that she stepped over a line. And the belt is a part of my nano-suit, a piece of my body. I don't feel whole without it.”

Fiona pops a small, boiled egg into her mouth and speaks with a muffled voice, “I am still curious about the reason for beating her half dead.”

“Dead!” Jill corrects.

Lisandra also intervenes, “Yeah! What did she do? Did she risk the colony again? From the way you act, it almost seems like she risked our species.”

Silith sighs and hands me the belt. “It's not important right now.”

“All will be revealed when the time is right,” I assist her and quickly glance at Veronica who is suddenly very interested in dissecting her salad. “Just let the feelings cool off a little, and we will tell you the story soon enough.”

“Just not right this moment,” Jill adds, her mood instantly increasing as soon as the Belt leaves Silith's hands. “Let's enjoy the dinner first, and not think about small details and physical ailments!”

My mate huffs and stands up. Walking quickly, she sashays out of the room, heading for the kitchen and leaving the surprised family behind.

Jill's eyes almost pop out of their sockets when her mother returns moments later, an oversized meatcleaver in her hand.

Smiling, Silith sits down and drives the cleaver, accompanied by a loud 'whack!', halfway through a melon-sized fruit which is intended as the dessert. We often eat those, and their shell is extraordinarily tough. So tough, that it often falls to me to crack them open.

“I was serious when I said that this was your last slip... and I don't need Antioch's Belt to deal with you!” She takes a fork and starts eating with gusto.

Jill gulps down what's in her mouth, her eyes locked on the kitchen-utensil while everyone sizes up the meatcleaver, which is just the right size to split heads. Red juice is spilling out of the hardfruit, a tough vegetable which is revered as a delicacy among demons. Although, to crack the hard shell, it requires an adult with strength enhancements.

“What are you waiting for?” Silith asks with a sickly sweet voice. “The food is getting cold. We can deal with family matters when everyone is satiated.”