With the addition of Ratchet, Ram, and Rom helping out, as well as the three castle Automata, and all of the students and the professor, we managed to get GodBomber completed in time. The sun was just setting and the Prince had ordered me to leave when the first moon came out. I felt bad, not being able to tell Lena I was leaving. I also couldn’t tell any of the people that were helping me to build the thing, just that the schedule had been moved up. Those kids worked their tails off and I would be forever thankful for them.

Ratchet headed back to AutomaTown via the Shipping Network, but Ram and Rom were intent on going with me on the assault mission. I put both of them into [Storage], which forced them offline and into the HeadSpace. The new bodies were ready so I powered them up and connected to them, allowing the subRoutines to take over control of the proxies.

Their eyes flared to life in the bright green glow I associated with my proxies and looked at each other. The models were intended to be “twins” and so were very similar, though Rom still had blue trim while Ram had red. Instead of the bob haircut that their old bodies had, they both now sported long hair, tied in a thick braid that draped down their backs. Their coloring was mostly silvers and brass, and a mirror of each other, though with Ram having brass hair and Rom having silver.

Both of them made use of the [Swap] technique to change out hand configurations as needed for different tools. They each looked at their hands as they swapped out different ones, settling on elegant, human-style hands. Rom reached up and touched her face as she tried out different expressions. When she smiled, she absolutely beamed, crushing Ram in a hug again.

“Ah, you’ll probably want these,” I said, pulling the glasses from her old body out of [Inventory] and handing them to her.

“Yes! Thank you!” she said, taking the glasses and giving me a low, but quick, bow.

“Alright Ram, let’s see the gimmick. I believe you once told me together, we are Solus,” I urged.

“Yes,” she said, as deadpan as ever.

Ram switched out her hands for her large, forging ones and clapped them together then slapped the ground. Her arms split open, extended and adjusted, and snapped closed again as the rest of her body vaulted up into a handstand. Her head, shifted along a hidden track and vanished within her shifting body mass.

Rom grabbed a hold of anchor points that presented themselves from Ram’s body as her own form split open and started shifting. Her lower body formed an upper torso with her legs splitting to the sides and reconfiguring to become arms. A new head flipped out from within and snapped into place.

When they were finished, a seven foot tall amazon of an Automata stood before me. She was gleaming in silver and brass with red and blue trim accenting her lower and upper halves. Parts of her armor, as well as her facial guard were recycled from Elita’s old armor; the set that she had when I first met her, before I gave her the orc disguise configuration. We weren’t able to collect anything left from her body after she was killed by the dragon, so I was glad that I at least had this old armor of hers to remember her by.

Flowing out of the armored headdress, the girls’ braided ponytails had come undone and hung to the amazon’s waist as twin tails. One silver, and one brass. Ram’s massive forging hammer materialized in her hands, though it didn’t look nearly as big or bulky now.

I was chuffed, they looked great. “I dub this combined form Solus Prime,” I said, clapping and rocking on my toes.

She— they? — looked embarrassed, but happy, and looked away, scuffing her feet on the floor.

I could almost feel Cyclone getting jealous though. I couldn’t really think of anything to really upgrade him with, beyond power enough to access all of his abilities, which was why he was low on the priority list. Sorry guy. I had finished building him a MCU array that should fit inside of the space that I normally took up. He only had the space for three MCUs, but it would be better than nothing.

I left the array where he could retrieve it and headed to the hanger floor with Solus. The GodBomber was completed and mostly tested— that is to say all of its systems had been tested individually. It was easily the largest thing I’d ever built. We’d torn apart two perfectly good destroyer class airships and built what could now be described as a battleship.

It had a black underside for blending in with the night sky and cobalt blue upper. Four massive, articulated, bat-like wings projected from its hull, each with a massive propulsion drive engine to provide lift as well as nimble maneuvering. Four pulse jets on the aft would provide forward thrust and its deck had four repeating magic-cannons.

On the underside, there were bay doors that could be used for dropping anything I wanted, but also housed a prototype railgun that used parallel lines of magic crystals instead of electro magnets to propel the ammunition. I had rewritten each one with a variant on the [Blink] spell that would basically blink the ammo just far enough to get picked up by the next pair of stones, and so on. By the time the ammo was released from the “rail” it should have a considerable amount of velocity.

Naturally, this was mostly untested as I didn’t have a safe means of doing so. Still, even if it didn’t work, I had plenty more tricks up my armored sleeve.

I told the students that this was going to be a maiden voyage test for GodBomber, and no they couldn’t come to collect data as they couldn’t be put back together like I could. Solus, naturally, drew a crowd with several of the students wanting to study her. I think all of the attention was a bit too much and she split back into Ram and Rom. The two then ran and hid on board GodBomber.

I boarded the vessel, myself, and found my place in the control room. I had a captain’s chair that was sized for someone that was only four feet tall and positioned to have a clear view of all directions, though that was mostly for looks. As soon as I sat in the chair, steel plates swung out and clamped my hands and feet, then a harness flipped out from behind the chair to secure my torso. An interface module swung up from the floor and attached to my chest.

Ram and Rom vanished into [Inventory] as the rest of my proxies, with the exception of Cyclone, either shipped themselves into [Inventory] or found a quiet place to shut down.

Connecting...

Connected to proxy: GodBomber(15)

Oof. That was a heavy connection, but expected.

Prime.Rom:// GodBomber charging up lift engines

Prime.Ram:// Lift engines charged. GodBomber has lift. Lift engines consuming mana at a rate of 250 per second, each.

Alright, Miss Rom, take us out.

Prime.Rom:// Aye Captain. Thrust at minimal output.

Prime.Ram:// Mana reserves at 2.087 billion.

I was glad that I’d given a key token to the Professor, who opened the large hangar doors for us. My senses had become the senses of the ship so the delicate movement and positioning to exit the hangar wasn’t any problem, though I didn’t have direct access to all of the ship’s systems; it was simply too large and too much to handle on my own. So by designating subRoutines to handle tasks like a crew, I could act as a captain and handle the control intent while they handled the fine details of realizing that intent.

I was told to follow the chasm upstream, so we carefully navigated the crystal illuminated caverns until we reached the underside of a massive waterfall. I hadn’t considered having to navigate through tons of falling water when I’d designed the thing, but thankfully there was enough of a gap for me to skirt around the torrent without having to go through it.

Beyond the caverns, we rose, gaining altitude and I could see the city in the distance; the castle standing like a jewel against the night sky. Seeing the stars stretch out before me, it hit me how little geography I knew. Thankfully, I was able to use my [Search] function to provide a basic map of the area, though I had to travel a distance and compare my position on the map against where I had been to tell what direction I was headed.

I made a mental note to look into developing some sort of compass function. Did compasses in this world function the same way in regards to the planet’s magnetic poles? Did Arpigea have magnetic poles?

Prime.Alfred:// Course set for AutomaTown.

Prime.Rom:// Thrust increased from quarter speed to cruising speed

Prime.Ram:// GodBomber consuming mana at a rate of 2000 per second. Mana reserves at 2.086 billion

The thought of how rapidly I was burning mana was frightening; and this would be considered casual. Sheesh. Once again, like in my CloudBurst armor, I had no indication of how high I was or how fast I was traveling. Since Automata eyes can see light outside of the visible spectrum, maybe I could design some sort of system to transmit a radio pulse and determine distance based on the reflection? The idea of doing those sorts of calculations manually made my head hurt though.

Following a straight line, we arrived over AutomaTown in an hour and twenty minutes. Granted, it cost me nearly 10 million mana, but I wish I’d had access to this sort of travel several times since I’d arrived. It was super tight, but I was able to just barely set GodBomber down on The Range. I considered getting relatively low and then just [Inventory]ing it, but that would have made it hard to board passengers.

A crowd of Automata were heavily armed and waiting at the edges of the clearing near my workshop. I lowered the rear set of wings to act as a boarding plank and disconnected from GodBomber to meet them on deck.

Unlike the destroyers that had been sacrificed in GodBomber’s construction, it didn’t have much by way of accommodation for passengers or crew. The originals had an eight person bridge, gunner pods, crew quarters, a small galley, troop transportation seating, as well as a cargo area capable of storing two Titan mechs. GodBomber, on the other hand, had a bridge large enough for six people other than myself, four gun pods, and that was about it.

Remi stood waiting where the wing tip touched the ground, overloaded with various arrows and three types of bows.

“Permission to board, Cap’n,” he said, giving me a lazy salute.

“Aye, welcome aboard Mister Remi. I hope you packed well enough,” I joked.

“Aye, me too. Sentinel outlined the mission parameters. We’ll make it up as we go,” He said, holding out a forearm for me to clink against.

Unsurprisingly, he was followed by his former squad mates, Rebecca and Prowl. They each clinked my forearm as well when they boarded. Behind them boarded Koji and the former royal guards. The heavy sword users, Voltes, Mazin, and Koji had all been reinforced with heavier armor and two fantasy hero swords each. The ballista users, Aster and Deen as well as Rebecca, had their massive weapons slung across their backs while [Inventory] storage had been added so that they could carry hundreds of ballista bolts each.

Standing at the tip of the wing, looking hesitant and nervous, was Shiro. Sentinel had told all of the warriors in our village of the mission and they all had jumped at the chance to put their skills to use against the Factory. Most, if not all, of the non-combatants would likely feel the same but I was worried that they would end up getting themselves or someone else killed since they lacked the training or weaponry.

I walked down the wing to meet him and got slammed into by Yani and Baju. Their father, Teddy, looked like they had thrown him off and was scrambling to reign them back in.

“We wanna come too!” Baju yelled.

“Yeah! We’ve been practicing!” Yani followed up. “I can take down a thornelk in a single shot now!”

I quickly did a [Search] for “thornelk” and got an image of a creature that resembled a cross between a deer and a moose but with nastly looking rose bushes for antlers and fat spikes jutting out of its spine.

“Impressive,” I praised, “but rather than come with us I desperately need someone that I can trust to protect this place like you guys did back when those Factory jerks tried to attack.”

“That’s true...” Baju agreed, putting on a thinking posture. “Remi and them are running off leaving all the work here to Kull and Mara. They’re clearly going to need us to show them what to do.”

“See?” I said, putting a hand on their shoulders. “Jayce and Carmen will be hanging back too along with that big sword guy, Victor, though they aren’t happy about it. Think you could check on them to make sure they see how much they’ll be needed?”

“Yeah, we got this,” Yani said, confidently.

“I knew I could rely on you guys. When I get back, there are some kids at the Guild in Urd that I think could use your help getting used to things.”

Baju gave me a playful punch to the stomach and ran back to her dad while Yani gave me a quick hug, whispering “crush them.” He then ran off before I could answer.

“I think I should go... to thank you for all you’ve done for me,” Shiro said, timidly. “You even gave me claws to fight with...”

“Don’t be silly,” I countered, “I gave you those claws so you can defend yourself in an emergency. I hold no expectations for you to use them in a military assault like this.”

“But still!” he started to say, getting emotional.

“Shush,” I calmed, placing a finger to his mouth. “Your parents just got you back after fifty something years. Enjoy your time with them. Besides, I don’t think Elita would look kindly on me if I let you get involved in this battle.”

Shiro placed a hand on either side of my face and pulled me close, kissing me on the mouth— or where one would be, if I had one. I wasn’t sure what to do; I lacked the ability to kiss him back so I placed my hands on the cheeks of his lion face and gently squeezed them. He held the kiss for longer than I would have imagined for a being without proper lips, then tapped his forehead to mine. Lena would be ballistic if she saw, I was sure, but that was potentially a future-Prime problem.

“Be safe,” he whispered, “you have to come back, okay?”

“I have to admit, this surprises me. If anything, I would have thought you would have gone after Alfred.”

“Now, who’s being silly?” he chuckled. “Mister Alfred is my best friend.”

“Yes of course,” I laughed.

I clapped him gently on the cheek and headed back up the wing to see Victoria and Reinhart Greywind already on deck and waiting.

“Oh you two are going now, eh?” I asked.

“We, um... Didn’t want to interrupt...” Victoria said, looking embarrassed. “Lord Fen— I mean, Carnivac will be fighting, right?”

“He will,” I said, folding my arms and trying to hide my amusement.

“Then as his chief priestess, I must bear witness as my solemn duty,” she said in all seriousness.

“We won’t get in the way, sir,” Reinhart added.

“You’re the only non-Automata on this mission,” I warned Victoria. “This ship isn’t designed with your kind in mind.”

“I went just before you arrived,” she replied with confidence.

I stared at her for a second, as did her brother. I laughed and walked past her to the bridge.

“Come with me Vicky. Since you’re squishy, I want you on the bridge. You’ll be a bit more protected. Remi, Rebecca, Aster, Deen; you guys can help yourselves to the cannon gun pods. Everyone else, find somewhere to hold on where you can.”

I got to my position and plugged in, my “crew” ready and waiting. As I took off, the rest of the village waved and cheered, giving us a spark warming send off. Next stop, Trone.