Sobon found her-self ac-tu-al-ly com-fort-ed, in a strange way, when the first "fa-vors" of the Base Com-man-der in-volved what should have, by rights, been me-nial tasks--if, that is, there was an ed-u-ca-tion sys-tem in place that turned out peo-ple with good knowl-edge of in-scrip-tions, which this world def-i-nite-ly did not have. Rather than ask-ing her to de-sign de-fens-es, churn out weapons, or ex-plain the deep na-ture of the cos-mos... Com-man-der Rai asked Sobon to han-dle "a few main-te-nance tasks."

  A flawed en-er-gy con-duit. Glitchy pri-va-cy wards. A wa-ter heater, of all things, whose out-put wasn't prop-erly con-trolled. A med-ical di-ag-nos-tic tool that had been dam-aged. A num-ber of train-ing items that were worn past their us-able life-time. A launch plat-form for pa-trollers, which was es-sen-tial-ly an aether cat-a-pult that also briefly keyed open a sec-tion of the de-fens-es. A cleans-ing sta-tion that re-moved dirt and grime--but which, Sobon's friend-ly guide sug-gest-ed, had been trashed in the night some-time af-ter it had stripped rather ex-pen-sive dyes from a no-ble-woman's dress.

  Most of the qi that Sobon en-coun-tered, she could read and un-der-stand even if she couldn't have made them from scratch--or wouldn't have done the same way, at the very least. It felt good to be us-ing Sobon's aether tech train-ing, even with the need to walk it through the Ri'lef notes on qi and qi in-scrip-tions. While very lit-tle of Sobon's ac-tu-al job as a Ma-rine was cre-at-ing or even main-tain-ing aether scripts, they were re-quired to un-der-stand aether scripts in-tu-itive-ly, de-tect any flaw in a run-ning pat-tern, and if nec-es-sary, in-sert their own spir-it into a dam-aged ma-trix in or-der to pre-vent the worst pos-si-ble out-comes.

  As Sobon fixed one of the last of the small bits, her mind went back to the troop car-ri-er that had al-most sur-vived the end of the Rapi-er, and the Ma-rine--Sobon chose not to dwell on her name or face--who had sac-ri-ficed her own body to tele-port the boat clos-er to home. It was a raw wound, still, and not the first. It was just one of a great many things in life that re-mind-ed Sobon that best ef-forts were not enough, not with-out strat-e-gy, sup-plies, and as-sis-tance.

  And how much of that did Sobon have? When pit-ted against a world-span-ning em-pire with the great-est war-riors on the plan-et? Here in a mil-i-tary base--one that might be his en-e-my some-day, but for now was friend-ly--some part of Sobon's mind fi-nal-ly re-laxed and be-gan rolling for-ward. Sobon's knowl-edge was valu-able, and the Djang would have en-e-mies. The base that Sobon had set up was too close to the bor-ders of the Em-pire, though, far too close to be used as a mil-i-tary stag-ing point. By the time Sobon had gath-ered any sig-nif-i-cant force, she would be on their radar.

  What Sobon had seen of the world at large, though, pro-vid-ed con-text, if per-haps not in the ways the lo-cals--or pos-si-bly the Ri'lef--would have liked. Star-beasts were, some-how, a glob-al phe-nom-e-non--and yet the Coro-na was the source of all of them. That meant that the world was spa-tial-ly linked to-geth-er. In the back of her mind, Sobon be-gan putting to-geth-er a plan, and col-lect-ing ques-tions for the Ri'lef--but didn't send them, not from here.

  In the end, Sobon oc-cu-pied a full day, and two nights rest, on the "few main-te-nance tasks" that Com-man-der Rai had se-lect-ed. In that time, Ki'el had im-proved great-ly, al-though she and Sobon didn't have any pri-vate space, noth-ing that ei-ther of them felt com-fort-able dis-cussing more than her health in. Dur-ing her free evenings, Sobon also did some re-pairs to her ri-fle rods and mod-i-fied her flight kit, as well as re-pair-ing the bar-ri-er blade rod that she had used to block a strike. She did her best not to work on ei-ther when she sensed any-one around, though that might still have been too lax, if they had stealth spe-cial-ists here; still, Sobon was con-cerned about hav-ing them ready should there be any need.

  The fol-low-ing morn-ing, Sobon was es-cort-ed again to Com-man-der Rai, but not in her of-fice. In-stead, Sobon was brought to the oth-er end of the base, to a naval dry dock where a... Sobon would call it a mid-sized war-ship, was in for re-pairs. That might have been too cyn-i-cal, or per-haps too gen-er-ous; the naval ves-sel could sup-port dozens, and it had mas-sive plates in-side and out-side full of qi scripts. From what Sobon could see, there were per-haps three or four to-tal in-scrip-tion-ists do-ing the ac-tu-al work of main-tain-ing those scripts, and they looked ex-haust-ed. Sobon imag-ined that, mil-i-tary pri-or-i-ties be-ing what they were, they had nev-er had a mo-ment to spare in their du-ties.

  Sobon glanced side-long at Com-man-der Rai as she came up along-side her; even hav-ing been in-vit-ed in, Sobon knew what she was be-ing shown. The girl-ish woman was stand-ing in front of a set of boards on which the script schemat-ics were laid out, though at a glance, some of them were miss-ing. It was an ex-haus-tive plan, Sobon thought as she let her at-ten-tion drift to the ver-i-ta-ble wall of blue-prints.

  An ex-haus-tive plan whose ma-jor flaw, at least as far as Sobon could see, was lack of a ded-i-cat-ed pow-er plant.

  "I be-lieve you see it," was the first thing that Com-man-der Rai Su Anin ac-tu-al-ly said, most like-ly be-cause she sensed Sobon's anx-i-ety as she stud-ied the scripts. "And I imag-ine you're won-der-ing if I ful-ly un-der-stood your tech-nique. I imag-ine that I know what it does, but no, I didn't un-der-stand it, and I still do not. And I do rec-og-nize that you won't will-ing-ly share the de-tails, es-pe-cial-ly not for as small a price as pass-ing freely through our ter-ri-to-ry." The woman took a deep breath, and fi-nal-ly turned to look at Sobon. "Un-der very dif-fer-ent cir-cum-stances, I might have tried a num-ber of tricks. In-stead, with the hopes that we may work again in the fu-ture, I will sim-ply re-quest an-oth-er fa-vor, one I hope will be sim-pler, and less... ob-jec-tion-able."

  Sobon met her eyes, find-ing the Com-man-der was her-self at least a bit ner-vous, in spite of her much, much high-er qi lev-els. That was good, in Sobon's es-ti-ma-tion--it meant she wasn't ex-pect-ing to solve her prob-lems with brute force. "I ap-pre-ci-ate your for-ber-ance."

  Sobon's choice of words must have been odd, be-cause the woman was mo-men-tar-i-ly sur-prised, but cov-ered it with a smirk. "Don't ap-pre-ci-ate it yet. I'm hop-ing that you can help us solve one par-tic-u-lar prob-lem with this de-sign. Here." She tapped a fin-ger in the mid-dle of one of the script sheets.

  In Sobon's first re-view of the doc-u-ment, she's as-sumed it was a main en-er-gy dis-tri-b-u-tion cen-ter. And func-tion-al-ly, it was. The scripts were com-plex, and took some re-view-ing, but it was all set up to take en-er-gy from a num-ber of sources, com-bine them sta-bly, and then redi-rect them to a few out-put chan-nels ac-cord-ing to cer-tain log-ic, some of which was clear-ly miss-ing. Not miss-ing from the de-sign, ex-act-ly--there were notes sug-gest-ing that they were on oth-er doc-u-ments, which were not pre-sent.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  "Some of what you are see-ing should in the-o-ry be tight-ly con-trolled se-crets," Commander Rai said, "and they most cer-tain-ly would be, if they were work-ing prop-er-ly. I have it on the high-est au-thor-i-ty that dif-fer-ent lev-els of qi can be com-bined us-ing this de-sign, tak-ing only as much from our sailors as they can give, but eas-ing the strain on our great-est war-riors. And yet..." Com-man-der Rai made a face, which end-ed up look-ing like a pout on her child-ish fea-tures. "And yet, in spite of every-thing we have set up to pre-vent ex-act-ly this prob-lem, every ad-di-tion-al source or qi in-creas-es the strain on the great-est war-rior. I have been at the cen-ter of this for-ma-tion be-fore, and I have felt it my-self. It is like..."

  Sobon was al-ready trac-ing the de-sign in her mind. "I imag-ine it is like feel-ing every-one else's qi be-ing cir-cu-lat-ed through your own body, and war-ring with you for con-trol over the ship. A dan-ger-ous and un-pleas-ant feel-ing, even when it is your own al-lies."

  There was a mo-ment of si-lence, as Sobon ex-am-ined the sheets of pa-per. There were two main prob-lems here--one was ex-plain-ing what she knew in a way that wouldn't give the lo-cals any greater in-sight into qi than they al-ready had. And the oth-er... was try-ing to fig-ure out a way to ac-tu-al-ly fix the de-sign, giv-en the qi in-scrip-tions that Sobon knew. It wasn't ac-tu-al-ly a triv-ial prob-lem, not giv-en how the sys-tem was orig-i-nal-ly de-signed.

  "You are right, of course. I am be-gin-ning to think that I have un-der-es-ti-mat-ed you, Lady Shi-va."

  "Alas-si, please," Sobon cor-rect-ed idly. "Some of my knowl-edge is greater than my-self, Com-man-der Rai. And I do not in-tend to give away such se-crets, not for any price. What I can tell you is that your de-sign is fun-da-men-tal-ly flawed." Sobon con-sid-ered two or three dif-fer-ent ways of ex-plain-ing, frown-ing heav-i-ly, be-fore fi-nal-ly try-ing some-thing much sim-pler. "Your de-sign com-bines pow-er and con-trol in a way that makes the prob-lem in-evitable. Qi is both pow-er and con-trol, but they can be sep-a-rat-ed. It would be eas-i-est if it were done from the very be-gin-ning. Pa-per."

  Al-though Com-man-der Rai could have eas-i-ly passed the task to an-oth-er, a quick touch of her qi made a table, pa-per, and some-thing like a pen-cil ap-pear from her space ring. Sobon sketched out the con-cep-tu-al ba-sics, a num-ber of lines and log-i-cal con-nec-tions be-tween them, and tried to phrase what she was about to say next very care-ful-ly.

  "I trust at your lev-el, Base Com-man-der, you un-der-stand that qi na-tures, while they try to repli-cate nat-ur-al phe-nom-e-na, are very much per-son-al to the user. They are cre-at-ed, not nat-ur-al them-selves."

  "A strange way to say the ob-vi-ous, but yes."

  "Then it should be pos-si-ble to cre-ate ar-ti-fi-cial qi na-tures."

  "It has been done. Forg-ing qi, for in-stance, was ar-ti-fi-cial-ly made."

  Sobon nod-ded. "The ide-al way to sep-a-rate pow-er and in-tent is to cre-ate and use some oth-er form of qi, call it Com-mand Qi, to com-mand the ship, while all oth-er qi pressed into the chan-nels is con-vert-ed to en-er-gy, and all com-mand and con-trol is stripped from it. Com-mand Qi would have, for ex-am-ple, lay-ers of au-thor-i-ty, such that the high-est ranked of-fi-cer is al-ways in com-mand, even over the great-est strength of qi, should you have an ex-em-plary cap-tain but a stronger war-rior aboard. And it should rec-og-nize spe-cial-ists, so that a gun-ner or sailor can com-mand their scripts with only per-mis-sion from above, and not re-quir-ing ac-tive per-mis-sion."

  "Com-mand qi..." Some-thing in Com-man-der Rai's voice was sud-den-ly very alive. Sobon looked up from her pa-per to see the girl, and she did still look like a teenag-er to Sobon's eyes, with such a deeply ex-pres-sive look on her face that she looked pos-sessed. Sud-den-ly, the face that nor-mal-ly seemed like a po-lite mask worn by some-one shal-low and na?ve looked more like an adult face strain-ing to push through a ny-lon bed-sheet, dis-tort-ing the mask and re-veal-ing that some-thing was al-ways fun-da-men-tal-ly wrong un-der-neath.

  [ And this is the prob-lem with look-ing for-ev-er young, ] Sobon groused to Alas-si, who was suit-ably dis-turbed her-self. [ Youth is the time be-fore you're done grow-ing. Peo-ple are al-ways sup-posed to look their age, or at least, they should look close. That face would look nor-mal on an adult. ]

  [ I'm not sure it would look nor-mal on any-thing, ] Alas-si re-turned, dis-gust-ed.

  In re-turn, Sobon framed up a men-tal pic-ture of an adult ver-sion of the Com-man-der with the same look on her face. It was an in-tense look even then, and if Sobon pre-tend-ed that she had been wear-ing a po-lite mask pri-or, she could imag-ine that drop-ping the fa?ade would still be some-what dis-turb-ing. But it was, fun-da-men-tal-ly, a per-son re-con-sid-er-ing decades of ex-pe-ri-ence. It was a look that fun-da-men-tal-ly didn't be-long on a child's face, but on an adult, it was mere-ly rare, and per-haps sur-pris-ing.

  "I see," said Com-man-der Rai af-ter a long mo-ment of con-tem-pla-tion. For whichev-er rea-son, her face didn't re-lax back into a child's, al-though it did smooth some-what. "In truth, Lady Alas-si, I was not pre-pared for an an-swer so... en-light-en-ing. Com-mand qi would be an an-swer to a great many dif-fi-cul-ties, would it not? Its use here is sim-ply a per-fect en-cap-su-la-tion of the con-cept." She swept her arms, sum-mon-ing a num-ber of swords into the space be-fore her, and con-cen-trat-ed. Sobon could see that the blades them-selves could float or move--and Com-man-der Rai was try-ing to iso-late the very con-cept of com-mand-ing the swords to do her bid-ding, to cre-ate a pure Com-mand Qi.

  Sobon stepped back, tak-ing his in-com-plete sketch of the com-mand rings, as sud-den-ly the Base Com-man-der found a way to touch those swords with this new, in-com-plete form of qi, and then in-ex-pert-ly and hap-haz-ard-ly swung them around, do-ing dam-age to sev-er-al of the blue-prints and far more of the walls and floors. But with each sec-ond that passed, with each swing of a blade, her form and tech-nique im-proved.

  There was a lot that Sobon want-ed to say. About com-mand, and how it was dif-fer-ent from dom-i-na-tion. But she held her tongue; she per-haps had al-ready said too much. In truth, Com-mand Qi as a con-cept was close to raw aether--pu-ri-fied of all oth-er con-cerns, re-spon-sive to will, but also, if done prop-er-ly, it would pass in-for-ma-tion back up the chain of com-mand. If Sobon were to give odds, though, she didn't ex-pect any-one on this plan-et to get the con-cept right, least of all an im-pe-r-i-al mil-i-tary that was al-ready dom-i-nat-ing much of the world. She imag-ined it would quick-ly be-come cor-rupt-ed, no mat-ter what she said.

  The less she at-tached her-self to the dis-as-ter that came from this, the bet-ter.

  Still, Com-man-der Rai's in-tent look was sat-is-fied, when her swords stopped swing-ing. "Com-mand. Right. Pow-er and in-tent, sep-a-rat-ed. This is..." She shook her head. "This is a greater gift than some lit-tle fa-vor, Lady Shi-va. I feel that I owe you some-thing sub-stan-tial, now. With this..."

  Sobon could feel the woman's Sap-phire Qi ex-tend-ing out from her body, across the en-tire mil-i-tary base. Al-though there were oth-er qi sources near enough in strength to con-test hers, Sobon imag-ined that like any spe-cial na-ture of qi--once she fig-ured out how to use it--Com-mand Qi would ex-ert even more force than usu-al when used cor-rect-ly. Sobon watched it flow, care-ful-ly hid-ing her con-cern.

  Af-ter a few mo-ments, how-ev-er, the girl re-tract-ed her qi, and Sobon didn't sense any-thing gone ter-ri-bly wrong. Sobon raised her eyes, but Com-man-der Rai's face had cleared, and now showed a much clear-er and younger look on her face again, if one that still showed traces of hid-den mal-ice, and deep-er thoughts that didn't be-long on a child.

  "Yes, this is a great gift. Your debts are now ful-ly dis-charged, and I be-lieve I owe you at least a few things. Shall we start with din-ner, tonight? Your dis-ci-ple is, of course, in-vit-ed."