I pointed a finger gun at Sillicia in the back of my mind, visualizing the targeting reticle appearing right at the end of it. I mimed a mental recoil. Bang.

  Hook, line, and sinker.

  My front mind maintained the Emperor's stoic mask, watching the Wendigo Commander practically vibrate with post-scary-movie endorphins. Or whatever the Wendigo Omnids had instead of dopamine.

  My back mind was doing victory laps around itself.

  The movie theater gambit worked way better than expected. Who knew that combining crowd-sourced fear with romantic tension and pizza would be more effective than any military strategy?

  "What kind of price?" Sillicia let out, sounding slightly breathless.

  "The fun kind! Not the boring fleet kind with paperwork and O-bux transfers." Shady laughed, tail swishing. "More like... mutual cooperation. Reciprocal appreciation. Symbiotic arrangement!"

  "She means," I added, "that if you want to continue experiencing Earth's delights with us, there needs to be an understanding. A... full partnership."

  Sillicia shuddered visibly, opened her mouth and closed it.

  Shady leaned towards the other Wendigo. "Come on, what do you want? Like, actually want. Not what High Command expects. Not what your ranking requires. What makes your fractal engine heart sing?"

  "I..." Sillicia faltered. "That's not a fair question."

  "Why?" I asked.

  "Because I've spent my entire life not asking it!" Her voice cracked slightly. "You don't get to be successful Commander of a Division by wondering what you want. You get there by wanting what you're supposed to want. Rank. Status. Resources. Power."

  "And how's that working out for you?" Nexxali asked, with the blunt honesty only a cat could deliver.

  Sillicia glared at her former Marshal. Traitor. Her expression implied.

  Nexxali stretched languidly. "You know what I realized? That having a fancy title made up for having no home, no family, no one who actually gave a shit if I lived or died… Sux big-time."

  "So you just... abandoned your duty?" The Wendigo asked.

  "Nu! I upgraded," Nexxali corrected with a claw out. "To a job that comes with pasta, horror movies, and people who pet me without expecting endless servitude in return. Highly recommend."

  "Go on, Sillicia…” Shady encouraged. “Say it. My hooks have been in your head all night. I know what you want."

  “...”

  The Wendigo Commander swallowed. “Hearth Keeper.” She whispered quietly.

  “Louderrr,” Shady purred.

  "I..." she mewled then stated with greater conviction, "I want to be your Hearth Keeper!”

  Shady nodded sagely.

  “I want to come home to people who are glad to see me. I want to watch horror movies with humans and eat weird Earth food and feel what I felt tonight every night forever. I want to be part of your Omnid Clan, Princess. I want—" She choked. "I want to matter to someone! To not feel being constantly despised by my kobolds! I want to help run this strange, wonderful Earth full of humans!”

  The silence that followed was the kind of awkward that made you want to check if reality had buffered. Sillicia stood there, breathing hard, looking like she'd just confessed to a murder instead of basic emotional needs.

  Just one problem there. We already had a Hearth Keeper. The back of my mind noted. Galateya. Who was currently back at my house probably reorganizing my spice rack by atomic weight or something equally dragon-like.

  I glanced at Shady.

  Shady's skull-face was the picture of serene contemplation, completely ignoring my pointed stare. Her tail swished in that particular way that meant she knew exactly what I was thinking and had chosen violence—or in this case, strategic avoidance.

  "Such is… possible," Shady announced.

  "Really?" The Commander's voice cracked with hope that was honestly painful to witness. Like watching a rescue dog realize it's not going back to the pound.

  "Of course!" Shady beamed. "But..."

  Sillicia's ears drooped at the cruelty of the metaphorical ‘but’ knife pressed against her neck. "But?"

  "Such things will take... time," Shady explained, sounding official and Princess-like. "Auntie Evely needs to piss off with her Earth-grabbing paws first. Can't exactly have a nice cozy household situation while she's threatening to carve up continents for decorative purposes."

  I nodded sagely, like I had definitely been part of this plan all along and wasn't just learning about it in real-time.

  "Additionally," Shady continued, "you're still Commander of Division 881. That's kind of important? The whole 'maintaining your cover' thing? Can't have you suddenly abandoning your post to become my full-time household member. People would ask questions. Questions like 'why is our Commander suddenly obsessed with Earth pizza' and 'should we be concerned that she's hanging out with the Emperor of Mankind.'"

  Sillicia deflated slightly, but nodded. "I understand. Operational security."

  "But," Shady said, and this time it was the good kind of but, "you could help us. Be our inside woman. Keep pretending you're super loyal to the Admiral's plan while secretly... not doing that?"

  "That's a dangerous game to play with Elders who can read minds," Sillicia said.

  “You’re a top tier Commander,” Shady said. “Surely you can manage to hide the truth behind a mental layer of 'business-as-usual'.”

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Sillicia exhaled deeply. "Fine. Yes. I can do that. I've been hiding my… thoughts from the Elders anyway."

  "What kind of thoughts?" Nexxali asked.

  "The kind where I imagine throwing them all face-first into a black hole," she said flatly.

  There was a beat of silence.

  "You don't survive in fleet command without developing elaborate revenge fantasies," Sillicia explained. "It's basically a requirement."

  “Ah!” Nexxali nodded sagely. “Yes. I approve. She's perfect for our dysfunctional circle already."

  "Speaking of which," I said, smoothly transitioning into the actual trap we'd been setting all evening, "there's something else we need to discuss. Something that could really help cement your position with us."

  Sillicia's ears perked up. Literally. Like a dog hearing the word 'walk.'

  I felt like a manipulative bastard. But also, you know, trying to save humanity from eternal enslavement, so... moral gray area, yay.

  "The vampire compound you destroyed," I continued. "You’ve collected plentiful crystalloid materia from there, yes?”

  "Yes,” Sillicia said, “Seeker Alpha has approximately forty-seven tons of processed crystalloid biomass currently in storage."

  Forty-seven tons. Jesus. I guess that's what a century of human harvesting is worth.

  "And what exactly are you planning to do with it?" Shady asked innocently.

  Too innocently.

  Sillicia should have noticed. Anyone with functioning paranoia sensors should have noticed. But she was still riding the high of potential Hearth-Keeper acceptance of the promise of more horror movies.

  “To invest it all in improving my division,” Sillicia said. "Get more seekers, more guns, improve my warship. The usual."

  "Hmm." Shady tapped her claws against her chin in an exaggerated thinking pose. "You know what would really show us you're serious about joining our circle? That you're committed to being my Keeper?"

  "What?" Sillicia asked.

  "Give it to us," Shady said simply.

  Sillicia blinked. "The... all of it?"

  "Yep! All forty-seven tons. Consider it a... gesture of good faith. A tithe to your future Prima!" Shady's smile was radiant.

  “But…” Sillicia clearly didn’t want to give up valuable materials.

  “No buts,” Shady said, glancing at me encouragingly.

  “I made sure that stuff ends up in your storage and now we want it back,” I added.

  "You... the vampire compound..." She looked between us. "You wanted me to destroy it?"

  "Let's say my people... strategically positioned information in a way that made certain outcomes more likely.” I stated.

  The Commander stared at me for a long moment. Then at Shady. Then back at me.

  "You… played me." Sillicia let out. "The whole thing? Stormy-o-Lyx meeting Alpha Linari at that pub. The 'intelligence' about vampires. The convenient location data. You... you orchestrated my entire operation?"

  I spread my hands in a 'guilty as charged' gesture. "I prefer to think of it as collaborative problem-solving where one party didn't know they were collaborating."

  “Don’t I have the cutest and cleverest little kobold Administrator?” Shady smooshed my face from behind.

  Sillicia pursed her lips.

  Shady giggled. "No frownage, Sil! You got a spectacular orbital strike out of it. Very cathartic, I bet. Plus you impressed Auntie Evely and got top ranking. Win-win!"

  "Except now I'm supposed to just... hand over forty-seven tons of military-grade crystalloid biomass to you?" Sillicia crossed her arms. "What if I wasn't interested in you? What if I decided your pizza and horror movies weren't worth becoming a traitor to the fleet?"

  Shady's smile didn't falter. "Then we'd have had to use Plan B."

  "Which was?"

  "Theft," I said matter-of-factly.

  Sillicia stared at me. "You were going to steal forty-seven tons of secured military materials from a Frontenachii Alpha-tank? How?"

  “Nexxali obeys Shady as our Knight,” I pointed out. “She can make anything disappear with the power of her voice. If you didn’t work out as a collaborator, we’d tank 881’s ratings. This is my planet. I can make you the luckiest Commander on the fleet or the most cursed one, Sillicia.”

  "So," she let out, "the entire time I thought I was executing a brilliant tactical operation..."

  "You were executing our brilliant tactical operation," I corrected. "With your name on it! Very generous of us, really."

  “Slayer damn it,” Sillicia covered her face with her dark hands sliding onto the crystalline couch, black and gray striped feathers fluttering.

  “Don’t fret, Sil,” Shady slid over to Sillicia. “You already made your choice. Right?"

  Sillicia's claws flexed. Her ears flattened. For a moment, I genuinely wondered if I'd miscalculated and was about to become a cautionary tale about overestimating one's manipulation skills.

  Then she laughed.

  It wasn't a nice laugh. It was the kind of laugh that comes out when you realize you've been checkmate'd three moves ago and the only option left is to appreciate the audacity of it.

  "Forty-seven tons," she muttered, leaning into Shady’s embrace. "Do you even know what you're going to do with that much crystalloid mass?"

  “Nice things,” I said. “Things that’ll propel your Division even higher in rank and make it stay there. I obviously have more vampires working for me. We’ll make various new thralls and artifacts out of it and give them to you.”

  "You will have fun destroying many sudden armies of thralls!" Nexxali nodded.

  Sillicia blinked.

  “Then you’ll give it back to us and then 881 will find more magical stuff!” Nexxali laughed. “A loop!”

  “What?” Sillicia’s mouth fell open wide. “What the fuck?!”

  “Kawathra will make sure nobody notices anything,” I said. “But yes, essentially, it's an endless ranking hack using the same 47 tons of crystalloid materia moving between you and us.”

  "This is the stupidest plan I've ever heard,” Sillicia let out.

  "Will it work?" I asked.

  "...Yes. Probably,” she said. “As long as completely new artifacts and thralls are made each time, it’ll work. The only problem is that I need to pay ten percent to the fleet from each harvest in O-bux or crystalloid strata.”

  “That’s fine,” I said. “We’ve got vamps that’ll slowly make the needed ten percent difference.”

  “Okay, but what if a pesky Datamancer eventually checks that the physical params don’t match the Division’s weapon growth?” Sillicia asked.

  “I'll organize vamp attacks on Division 881,” I said. “Which you’ll valiantly repel. Attacks that will perma-kill symbiote guns which you’ll need to replace.”

  "With Kawathra makin' new guns that consume crystalloid biomass," Nexxali nodded. "The accounting will show steady material expenditure matching operational tempo."

  "You basically want to launder the same vampire corpses through my division," Sillicia said flatly.

  "Establishing a circular economy!" Shady giggled. "Like paying a credit card with a credit card to get bonus points of ranking!"

  "Still laundering." Sillicia huffed.

  “Aliens have laundry?” I interjected. “And money laundering?”

  "We invaded a… Laundry-themed dungeon-consumed Earth a few years ago," Nexxali revealed, fur puffing out. “Learned way too many awful laundry metaphors from the washing-machine Sentinels. Also, I got washed far too many times for reasonability. Bleh.”

  Sillicia shuddered visibly at the mention of the Laundry dungeon then relaxed as Shady offered her more pets.

  “That’s a yes on vamp laundering then?” Shady licked Sillicia’s cheek.

  “Yes,” Sillicia sighed.

  “Yass,” Shady smiled, squeezing the other Wendigo.

  “Just one potential problem,” Sillicia said. “Legate Ixthia assigned an annoying, suspicious, extra-honest dragon to my division. I suspect she’ll be a thorn in my side.”

  “Not a problem,” I said. “Galateya works for me.”

  “What?” Sillicia blinked at me.

  “Galateya works for me,” I repeated. “She’s my pawn.”

  “Seriously?” Sillicia asked.

  Shaddy nodded.

  “When did you even… okay fine. Do you have a plan for meeting your Aunt tomorrow, Princess?” She asked after a deep, pregnant pause turning to Shady.

  “Why?” Shady asked.

  “Tomorrow, the Admiral is going to kill you,” Sillicia revealed.