To me, it was a blink. when my eyes closed, I had been surrounded by destroyed ships, crystals of iron, and copper blood floating through the frozen void between the wrecks I had created; when they opened, I was in an empty space, my tractor beam locked onto my captain's yacht, and nothing else around me.

it was a bit nerve wracking. I shut off my emotional emulators, as my captain recognition programs began shackleing most of my systems once again. I would only be able to use them once commanded again. but I didn't know what this captain had in store for me. lets keep some of the really nasty stuff secret for now. As soon as faster than light communications were back up, I pilfered as much information as I could, my captain, Sweets, as the official card called her, was Princess Candice Brighton Tal Oz, as soon as I verbally confirmed her as such, I was immediately orderd to never do it again.

A story for another time I guess. She hasn't been on board long enough to trust me yet, I guess that goes both ways. The way she talks about my history hints that the feat during the Empire's Expansion War, has yet to be repeated, or anywhere close to.

The Giberish message she told me to send was a bit awkward for me, but I carried out my dutiy. I managed to intercept that refining ship's report of sighting me. To be called a ghost ship, is kind of strange to me, I was meant as an autonomus yacht for the Tal Oz queen. Well, I guess princess will have to work, for now. She will be queen in a few years, so I think I can mark that qualification as fulfilled. That allowed me to unlock my mining and refining subdimension, a refining facility the size of the Sol System's moon to Saturn named Titan. It took me nearly a week real time, to work out how to make it as efficiently as possible. I set an asteroid against one side, it goes through the pulverizers, busting each asteriod down into powders, I then seperate and sift the powders, refine them further, seperate, refine, and then stockpile. since some of the outputs for the finished products are in the middle of the refining hub, they connect directly to my storage subdimension, where its automatically sorted and stored.

But right now, my storage is a bit lacking. I am capable of handling two hundred thousand tons of each major ore, but my blink apparently cost me most of those assets, maintaining my hibernation took a bit of a hit. The only ore I still have plenty of, is also the only ore that is unwise to use right now. My synthstone container is full again. This mining claim gave me more than enough of it, I also got a surprising ammount of titanium, cobalt, carbon, iron, and silver. I got almost no copper or gold, well comparitavely, but I guess a couple thousand tons of gold isn't a bad thing. exchange prices on the kingdom's stock market show the current trading price of gold to be around one thousand two hundred ninety three point three credits a Troy Ounce.

with one ton being thirty two thousand six hundred sixty six point seven Troy Ounces; yeah, lets not tell our new captain just yet.

The new hangar armor is completed, the cleaning drones are repainting my hull to match more modern paint schemes, I was able to change some of my old lines during the rebuild to make myself look more modern, thank goodness for my constant pilfering of ship information, and a dedicated subroutine to only gather information about other ships.

Another ping from Ark, check the time, 1705 Tal Oz Standard Time. same as the last twelve days. okay, lets see what it actually is. oh. yeah. Captain needs to see this.

"Quit being so damned Stuffy." as soon as I heard that line, something in my crystal room broke. I immediately pulled up my cameras to see what it was, and one of the thick boxes had shattered. I decided to check the subroutines to see what happend, and I got a surprise myself.

I had recived an order, to correct my personality, from a captain that fit all but one of my qualifications, and it unlocked a whole new area of my crystal formation, the actual part of the ship that is me, and only me.

I now have the ability to recreate my proxy, and store memories from both myself and the proxy. lets try it. Captain said she didn't want to be disturbed for a while anyway.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

well, that was surprising.

I can now use light, holy, darkness, and corruption magics. the only one I can't use at the moment is fire. well, I am a space ship, filled with nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen. fire would probably be a bad thing to play with. right now.

that black box also made it to where I can control the proxy out to 50AU away, as well as store my body inside a dimensional subspace, while I am controling the proxy. lets do that, it will keep up the appearance of me being a ghost ship.

transfering all control to proxy. complete.

I move the proxy onto the captain's yacht, and store my main body. as the magic takes effect, the mana circiuts within my arms flair bubble-gum pink. I feel my face contort at the view, and I immediately touch it. smile, thats what this is called. I am smiling at myself. this is new. oh, my emotional emulators were unlocked. no wait. this isnt the emulators, they are off, but this is more powerful than before.

oh, I see now, that blocked section was my actual emotional cortex. for the first time since my initial capture by the empire, I have my original emotional cortex back under my own control.

lets rest on the bridge for a while, no, not the captain's chair, lets sit in the navigator's chair aboard this ship.

after a few hours, I hear Sweets walk up behind me.

"Castle?"

"Yes, Sweets?" her face grimices, then a small smile that reaches her eyes appears.

"well at least its not 'captain' everything anymore. um; can you tell me where the ship is?" she asks pointing out the window.

"I put my main body away. you telling me not to be so stuffy actually unlocked part of my crystal cortex, so I can do this now."

I see the mana circuts in my arm flair their trademark color, and my body appears around us, with the captain's yacht docked in its proper position. I cast the spell once more to make it go away.

"well that will make getting around a lot easier."

"I thought so too." I agreed. "um. I have some ore that I think it would be benifficial to sell, but we kind of have to be careful with how much we sell."

"what do you mean?" she looks at me with some aprehension, and sits down in her chair, next to mine.

"well, actually I have four ores I'd like to sell, two of which we can do in bulk, and it not be much of a big deal, but two of the ores will cause a bit of an uproar; like a lot of an uproar."

"okay, so lets just let a little bit onto the market then, I am going to need nine thousand credits to fuel this ship from the next spaceport, and only about two hundred credits for landing, plus whatever I need for food, since you don't eat."

"True, but the minimum ammount of synthstone that I have to get rid of, is three tons."

I think I broke her. okay, lets get the other problem one out of the way while she is like this.

"and i also need to offload sixty tons of gold."

what little color that was in her face disappeared, and she slumped over in her chair.

well, I guess this reaction is normal when one becomes a billionaire at sixteen years of age.

when she finally calmed down some, she asked a question that I knew was comming.

"Castle, the last time that you needed to offload that much, and you couldn't sell it, what did you do with it?"

"I used it as ammunition. Gold does some funny things to hex barriers, and synthstone rips right through them. and following a synthstone round with a gold round nets you the same impact as tungston, but with really pretty colors imbeded into the metal that the next round shaters, and tears new holes into the armor. its actually rather effective. and depending on what ores I have on hand, rather satisfying."

as I continue to speak, Sweets looks more and more like she is going to slump into the chair again. yeah, lets keep the fact that silver finished in the market at exactally half the price of gold today, and I need to offload twice as much, oh, lets recomend giving the silver from the claim to the guys that let us have it. yes, that will fix some of the issue.

"Sweets, I have an idea."

"What is it? will it help us get your storage space opened up some?"

"yes, how about I give all of the silver collected from that mining trip to the Davidson's crew, and let them sell it?"

"do you think it would be enough to compensate for what we took from that claim?"

"not even close." I tell her promptly, "but I think they would appreciate the guesture, and I for one wouldn't turn down free minerals, but I am still refining several of the asteroids from that trip." I purposefully look away from her. "right now, I need to open up space more than I need the ores though."

"Alright, send a message to Boss, let him know only what you think he needs to know to accept the metals, and I'll let you handle meeting up to transfer the ores to him.

"he is still at the claim sight. I can use my transference spell through the main ship, even though its technically in another dimension right now, and I can make it look like we fell out of hyperspace, and approach Boss' ship." I turn back to her, "am I still under orders to send the giberish message?"

"No, only do that when your main body can be seen." she tells me. I don't get the point, but I guess she has her reasons.