*The Suite – Kira's POV*

I left Luciphene's office and headed towards the requisitions office that her assistant pointed me to. Entering the office, I was greeted by a giant man, "Greetings King of Hearts. What can I do for you today?" His voice was deep and he towered above me which meant he was fucking huge. I smiled and grabbed his outstretched hand, "I am here to pick up some equipment that I ordered through the Boss." He squeezed my hand hard but thanks to my increased strength I barely noticed it. I don't think he was expecting that because his eyebrows arched a bit. I smiled and gave his hand a small squeeze causing his eyes to widen a smidge as well.

I tried not to laugh as I spoke to him again, "You got my stuff ready?" He nodded and then pulled up a holographic screen with a wave of his hand. He entered some information and a massive list popped up in front of him. He whistled a bit at the sheer number of things I wanted. He looked over the list very carefully and then entered some more information before closing the screen. H jerked his thumb towards the back room. "We have everything you need on site, except for the damn planet destroyer that you ordered."

I furrowed my brows, "Planet destroyer?" He nodded, "Yeah, the really expensive and high-tech VTOL you ordered." I arced an eyebrow, "Why is it a planet destroyer though?" He laughed, "Because the damn thing has enough firepower to literally destroy a planet. That all depends on the defensive capabilities of the race inhabiting the planet though." I was a little shocked at that information because VTOLs weren't really all that massive. Most designs that I had seen were about the size of a small yacht at the biggest.

He laughed, "You will understand when you see it." I sighed and shook my head before following him back through the door. The room we walked into actually caused my mouth to drop open a bit. When we walked through the door the room widened out into a massive warehouse that was definitely bigger than what the outside showed. The big man grinned, "The Dealer knows a very powerful space mage who she commissioned to make a few rooms like this for us. It may look like a normal sized office building on the outside, but when we walked through the door, we walked into a warehouse that we have on a very remote planet. This particular warehouse is only about two square miles in size. The warehouse that we will go to in a few minutes which is on another planet is about thirty square miles in size. It's where we store all of our vehicles and heavy machinery."

I shook my head when he mentioned the size of the buildings. The sheer size of things should surprise me, but when you think about the fact that if you run out of room on one planet you can just build more on a different planet. With the way the technology is, planets that are light years away can be traveled to in a mere ten to fifteen minutes. If you know a teleportation spell of some sort you can cut that time down to mere seconds. I laughed, “So when will most of the smaller to medium sized items be gathered for me?”

He pointed to a sectioned off part of the building that was a good six hundred square yards in size, “Everything in that section is what you have ordered on this end.” I nodded and then waved my hand, causing all of the items to disappear into my dimension. I really didn’t need to wave my hand, but it would at least let people know that I was the one who caused the stuff to vanish and not something else.

He didn’t seem to really react when everything disappeared which was good. I didn’t really want to explain anything to him or anyone else for that matter. We left that room and then walked down the hall to another door. He opened the door and I was greeted with a frigid cold that blasted me in the face. I shivered a little, but my body quickly adjusted and it didn’t feel cold anymore. I followed him into the room and I saw a massive open hangar and out of the hangar, I saw nothing but white. There was snow coming down sideways and people running around in heavy coats.

Inside of the hangar were rows of aircrafts the size of an AC-130 from back on Earth. My face must have had a big ass grin on it, because... I just realized I never asked his name. I looked at him and after he stopped laughing, I spoke to him, “You know, I never did get your name.” He gave another small laugh before answering, “My name is Samuel Samisk, but you can just call me Sam or Misk.” I nodded, “Well Misk, why the hell are all of your machines on this godforsaken iceberg?”

He laughed, “We do a lot of weapon testing and this planet is a really weird one. It is constantly in the negatives where we are at now, but the other side of the planet easily hits in the mid-hundreds. It allows for us to test our weapons and vehicles in both extremes.” I nodded, I guess that makes sense.” He nodded, “We don’t really get to test our weapons in other harsh environments such as swamps and whatnot here, but we have other planets for that.” I nodded again and then stared at the VTOLs lined up throughout the warehouse.

They looked amazing, but I didn’t really know if they were mine or not. I looked over towards Misk, “Are these mine?” He shook his head, “No, yours are in the hangar on the opposite side of the planet. We will be taking one of these over there though.” I nodded and tried to hide the excitement that was undoubtedly trying to show on my face. He walked towards a VTOL that was near the exit of the hangar. There were people running all over the area around it and I saw a few men in armor load themselves into the back.

The aircraft was definitely about the size of an AC-130 back on earth, but it was sleeker in design. There was a cockpit on the front of the aircraft and I could see two seats inside. The wings stuck out and had giant rotatable thrusters that were vertical in orientation at the moment. The tail of the aircraft was folded up on top of its middle section. The giant opening in the rear had a glowing blue forcefield across the opening that I figured was used to keep external objects out such as the weather. What I could see of the tail was that it reminded me of a bunch of drop-pods. I didn’t know if that was what they were, but that is what it looked like.

I looked over towards another one of the aircraft and saw that it had finished loading up some troops and the tail was closing. It unfolded and covered the opening with a hiss. When I got a better look at the tail it did look like it had a bunch of pods attached to it. The airship’s thrusters fired up and it floated in the air a few seconds later. The landing gear retracted and then the thrusters rotated to a horizontal orientation. There were small thrusters on the bottom of the aircraft that was keeping it hovering.

The initial thrust from the main thrusters was probably just used to get the thing off the ground. The main thrusters activated again and the aircraft made its way from the hangar. What surprised me was how quiet the damn thing was. I could actually still hear the people around me talking when it flew overhead. There also wasn’t any disturbance in the wind when it flew by. I watched it leave the hangar and continue on its way. I saw that the snow was hitting an invisible wall that was about a foot out from the aircraft. I smiled at the thought of forcefields being available but then realized that maybe mine wouldn’t have a forcefield. What really shocked me was when the aircraft disappeared into thin air.

I whistled and Misk laughed again. We headed towards the VTOL that was assigned to us and I watched as Misk stepped through the forcefield and onto the aircraft. I reached out and touched the blue wall thinking that I would feel something, but my hand passed through it like it wasn’t even there. Misk laughed along with some of the men in armor. He grinned at me, “The forcefields have been programmed to allow any member of The Playing cards to come aboard.” I nodded and then stepped up onto the aircraft.

I walked through the blue forcefield and once again I didn’t feel a thing. It was like it wasn’t even there. The troops laughed again and so did Misk. I shook my head and then found a seat next to him. I honestly could have pulled rank and asked them all what they were laughing about, but I could understand. Hell, I would have laughed at the new guy as well. Nothing wrong with a little laughter and verbal banter between the men and women. I shook my head as I sat down in the seat.

The pilot and co-pilot stared their preparations to launch and after a few minutes, we were leaving the hangar. I didn’t even know we had taken off because the transition was so smooth. As we were making out way towards the other hangar, I noticed that the warehouse was indeed massive. I saw multiple hangar entrances as we flew. It only took us maybe a minute to hit the end of the hangar and we were out in open skies. I noticed that after we were a bit from the hangar the ground started to move by noticeably faster than before.

I arched an eyebrow and then looked at Misk. He smiled, “These puppies are pretty damn fast, but I will save you the time of trying to understand exactly why they can move so fast. I will tell you that at full throttle this thing can go Mach 35. My eyes widened at that, “That’s somewhere around twenty-six thousand miles an hour!” He nodded, “Yup, this aircraft could circle this planet in about two and a half hours.” I whistled, “That means this planet is at least twice as big as my home world.”

Misk laughed, “So that means you could be anywhere on your planet in a little less than an hour from takeoff to landing.” I was grinning wildly and trying not to drool at the same time. Misk smiled, “Compared to some of the ships I have seen this one is nothing. We once worked for a client that had a ship that could instantly teleport to any planet within two galaxies. It had a maximum range of twelve galaxies before it needed to be refueled.”

I gaped at him, “Instantly teleport across galaxies!?” He nodded, “Yeah, the client had contracted a Spacetime Mage to enchant the ship with the availability to fold spacetime. The Council of Mages has put a limit on what a Spacetime Mage can enchant though, which is why the ship has to unfold spacetime every two galaxies and why it has to stop every twelve galaxies to refuel.” I frowned, “What does a ship like that even run on?” He grinned, “Dark Energy.” I raised an eyebrow, “You mean the force that is causing this universe to expand?” He nodded, “Exactly. The client found an ancient engine that sucks in Dark Energy when you flip a switch. He was able to have a scientist build an engine to use the energy and also a tank to store said energy. The more expensive part was that he also had a Magical Engineer build a machine that was able to convert the Dark Energy into the energy required to fuel the enchantment. Magical Engineers are more expensive than even Spacetime Mages.”

I shook my head at all the new information being sent my way, “I honestly didn’t know that there were things such as Magical Engineers.” He smiled and we sat in silence for a little bit. I pulled up my system menu and looked for something that had to do with professions. I got a little notification when I found the menu I was looking for.

Congratulations on finding the [Professions Menu]. Unfortunately, you haven’t met the requirements to access this menu and it will be unavailable until those requirements are met.

Requirements to access menu: Find a teacher of the desired profession and you will unlock the profession along with the [Professions Menu].

I sighed and then closed the system menu. We sat in silence for a bit longer before I noticed that the scenery was starting to change. The snow was melting and leaving massive bodies of water everywhere. After a few minutes, we entered a desert and I saw another massive warehouse in the distance. Coming up on the warehouse is a different experience compared to leaving. The warehouse stretched on for miles in either direction and it was at this time that I noticed all of the fortifications. There were giant cannons of some sort every mile or so on the roof of the building.

I didn’t think that they would be so primitive as to be actual cannons, but I didn’t know what they were at the moment to call them what they really were. I had an idea and thought that they were either laser cannons or rail guns. Either one of them would cause some massive damage to anything that gets in their line of sight and I bet that more than one of them could hit the same target.

I raised an eyebrow and looked at Misk, "I didn't see the same number of turrets on the other warehouse." He smiled, "We really don't need a lot of them on the other warehouse because it is full of aircraft that could be launched to defend the warehouse." I nodded because it made sense, but I honestly would have still put the same number of turrets on that warehouse as well. Misk continued, "This warehouse does have some pretty important technology stored in it as well." I raised an eyebrow, "What kind of technology would require so much defense." He smiled but he really didn’t say anything towards my question.

I decided to push that thought into the back of my mind and decided that I shouldn’t really worry about it too much. If it’s something that I really needed to know then I think Luciphene would tell me about it. The warehouse opened up and we flew inside to land. There wasn’t any turbulence when landing either which impressed me a bit more than earlier.

The pilot tapped a button on his screen and the tail of the aircraft rose up. The blue forcefield was in place almost instantly when he pushed the button. The soldiers hopped out of the aircraft and Misk followed them shortly afterward. I jumped out and followed Misk across the warehouse floor. What shocked me about this warehouse is that the hangar we were in was completely empty. There wasn’t even a single box lying around anywhere.

I cocked my head to the side a bit and tried to observe everything closely. I didn’t know if maybe everything was camouflaged just like the aircraft were when they left the other hangar. I couldn’t see any subtle outlines of any of them, so I honestly didn’t think anything was in here besides us and the aircraft we arrived on. I looked over towards Misk, “Where is everyone and everything?” He smiled and then nodded his head at one of the soldiers.

The soldier saluted and then ran over to the far wall of the hangar. He tapped on a piece of the wall that slid back to reveal a keypad, a hole, and a fingerprint scanner. He typed a few numbers on the keypad before sticking a thumb on the scanner and another finger in the hole. A few seconds later and he moved his hand back and the floor started to shake. I stared in awe as the floor started to split apart and there was a giant ramp heading down into the depths of the planet.

Misk started to walk down the ramp and I quickly followed him. The soldiers all followed behind me letting the floor close behind them. When the floor shut, and we were left in darkness lights started to immediately come on lighting the way into the depths. Misk walked over to a wall and tapped on it. A few seconds later and another keypad popped out. He typed something into the keypad and a female voice echoed in the hall, “Welcome Captain Samisk. A car will be with you shortly.”

There was silence after that and he turned to me, “What you are about to see is to not be talked about to anyone below the rank of Jack. Doesn’t matter what suite they are from; this entire location stays a secret.” I nodded my head but something confused me a little, “What about them?” I hooked a thumb at the soldiers behind me.” He smiled, “They are actually an elite squad that is at a rank between the Ten Cards and the Jacks. We call them the Instructions.” I arched an eyebrow, “The instructions? Really?” He laughed, “Yup, you know about how every deck of cards has a card with the instructions on it right?” I nodded and he continued, “Well that is what we based their rank off of. The One card is honestly only a tiny step above the grunts. There really isn’t a One Card in a deck, but we decided to use it as a rank to choose the best four soldiers out of the Grunts.”

He checked his watch before continuing, “It is basically a placeholder for a future Face Card.” I nodded, “Well that explains a little bit about the One Card then.” He nodded, “The Instructions, on the other hand, are soldiers from the Grunts that are above the Number Cards but below the Face Cards. They are soldiers that we recognize as being the cream of the crop, but not having the qualities of a Face Card. There have been cases of Instructions moving on to a Face Card position, but it isn’t common.” I nodded but before I could speak, he continued again, “The Instructions are all voluntarily chipped and will be eliminated if they so much as talk about this place to anyone they aren’t supposed to.”

I arched an eyebrow, “Really? That strict about it?” He nodded again, “Yeah, but the chip is voluntary. If they don’t want to be chipped, then we understand. We won’t force them, but they won’t be able to access this location and they won’t get the hazard pay.” I frowned, “Is the hazard pay worth it?” Misk didn’t have to answer that question because one of the others did, “Hells yes sir. The hazard pay is actually three times our normal pay.” I whistled, “Damn. That would seriously tempt me as well.”

I looked over at Misk, “How does the chip determine whether someone is of the appropriate rank to talk about this place?” He smiled, “We actually programmed a specific passphrase that everyone above the rank of Jack knows. The Instructions just basically ask for the passphrase in a specific way that only the unit knows. We verify that the way they are asking is legit and then we say the passphrase. The chip is disabled until the person above the rank of Jack says another passphrase that turns it back on.”

I sighed, “Sounds complicated.” He shook his head, “Not really. It is a little bit tough to explain in an understanding way, but once you understand the process then it’s pretty simple. Oh, the chip is also disabled while on this planet.” I nodded my head again, it made sense. If you were already here, then what is the point of not being able to talk about the place. I heard a noise coming from down the hall and looked in that direction. I saw a set of headlights heading in our direction.

The vehicle pulled up in front of us and I was a little disappointed at how plain it looked. I mean yeah; it was hovering above the ground, but it looked just like a Humvee from back on Earth. We all hopped onto the vehicle and it started to pilot itself back down the direction it came. We rode in silence for a while and then the corridor widened out into a massive cavern. I couldn’t see the ends of the cavern and that was saying something because the damn thing had lights everywhere.

My vision was yanked away from the rest of the cavern and centered on the massive airship in front of me. I say airship because the damn thing was so many times bigger than the aircraft we rode in on. They were the size of AC-130s, but this thing easily nerfed them. I couldn’t see either end of the ship when looking down it. The only true way to really get the size across to someone is for them to imagine a Super Carrier from back on Earth and then double the size. That may come close to the size of the damn thing sitting in front of me.

I looked over at Misk, “What the fuck is that?” He smiled, “That is your planet destroyer.” My eyes were probably as wide as saucers at that point, “That’s mine!?” He nodded, “Yup, Boss Lady said we were to give you the latest ship that we have developed. It is the biggest ship we have made to this date. It is also the most advanced. I would go over the list of technology on the ship, but it would take too much time for me to verbally list them. When you get on board and access the ship’s main systems then you can go over the list.”

I nodded, “Okay, that sounds good. What’s the name of the ship?” He shook his head, “It doesn’t have a name yet. You will be able to name it when you access its main systems from the cockpit.” I smiled, “Oh man. I have the perfect name for the ship too.” He smiled, “You gonna tell us?” I shook my head, “Nope, you will have to wait for me to access the main system and figure out how to put the name in that way.” He smiled again, “Secretive huh?”

I shook my head, “No, not really. If you knew anything about me, then the name I’m going with would be pretty obvious to you.” He grinned, “Whatever you say.” We headed towards the ship and when we got to the side Misk put his hand on the wall next to the door. A flash ran across his hand and then a beam of light scanned his body from above the door. There was a feminine voice that spoke, “Welcome aboard Captain Samisk.”

The door didn’t move, but Misk did walk right through it. I immediately thought of the blue forcefield from the ship that we came on. The only difference that I saw was that this one was camouflaged. I followed him through the wall and the rest of the soldiers followed. I reached back and touched the wall after the final soldier stepped on and my hand hit a solid surface. I nodded my head and then followed Misk again. We arrived at an elevator and stepped on. Misk pushed a button and then I saw the numbers change on the floor indicator. The only thing that was weird was that we never changed floors.

Misk spoke up, “This elevator goes in all directions. It will take you up and down floors, but also across the ship from end to end on whatever floor you are on.” I nodded my head for probably the hundredth time and we stood in silence for a few minutes. There was a ding and the doors opened to reveal a massive cockpit. We stepped out of the elevator and Misk pointed at the captain's chair, “Sit down on the captain's chair and the ship will begin the process of registering you as its sole owner.”

I sat down as he said and there was a purple holographic woman that appeared standing next to the chair, “Hello, I am this ships Advanced Artificial Intelligence or A.A.I. for short. Please place your hand on the scanner on your right armrest. Also, place your left index finger in the hole on the left armrest.” I did as was told and a light scanned my hand and there was a prink on my left index finger. The A.A.I. spoke again, “Identification confirmed, welcome King of Hearts Scurra. Please register a name for me.” I nodded and then spoke the name out loud, “ArchAngel.”