The hot water was a benediction, a scalding sacrament washing away two days of grime, exhaustion, and the psychic residue of a copper-tier rift. I stood under the spray, my forehead pressed against the cool composite of the shower stall, and let the steam soak into my bones. A profound, soul-deep weariness had settled into me, a fatigue that went beyond muscle and sinew.

  It was the drain of channeling immense power, of holding a miniature army of drones in my mind’s grasp, of the constant, low-grade terror that came with knowing a single misstep could get someone killed.

  And I was a little ticked off.

  My body had decided to use this moment of supreme exhaustion to remind me of its new… architectural plans. Yes, the transition to Copper had come with a suite of welcome upgrades: enhanced senses, a core energy pool that felt like an ocean compared to the puddle I’d started with, and a mind that could process information at a frightening clip.

  It had also, apparently, decided to finish the job of puberty with the frantic, over-engineered enthusiasm of a goblin mechanic hot-rodding a shuttle engine. Maturity was supposed to plateau at Tin. My biology, it seemed, had not read the manual.

  The rapid advancement, the sheer volume of pure energy I’d processed in the Kalisti rift, had kicked my system into overdrive. It was a mixed blessing, to put it mildly. I was now leaning exhaustedly against the stall, hyper-aware that my old strategy of throwing on a threadbare tee shirt, a pair of practical boyshorts, and a set of loose coveralls was about to fail spectacularly as a primary wardrobe.

  I wasn’t competitive with other women—how could I be? I was a genetic patchwork quilt. Even as my system purged impurities, flushing out the green-tinged copper saturation from Korse’s toxic food chain, my baseline was… unique.

  I had stupidly floppy, oversized ears that could probably pick up stray fleet communications if I twitched them right, gigantic, luminous eyes that made me look perpetually startled, and a face that belonged more in a pre-Collapse anime than a Fleet roster. One of those old, frenetic ones where spiky-haired protagonists screamed unintelligible power words before throwing planet-cracking punches.

  Dirk’s good-natured, if clumsy, commentary aside, I wasn’t exactly sculpted according to standard human ideals. Lindsay, for instance, wasn’t as flawlessly engineered as the ethereal Princeton, but she possessed a kind of gravitational pull. When she walked through the mess decks, male heads—and more than a few female ones—swiveled on a collective axis.

  The human term “stacked” came to mind, a succinct and vaguely architectural description for a form that was both weapon and artwork. I envied it, not out of vanity, but out of a longing for normalcy, for a body that didn’t feel like a constant work in progress, a science project I hadn’t signed up for.

  The victory over the rift boss, a chittering nightmare of chitin and mandibles, had been the easy part. The aftermath was the real trial. The haul was, by all accounts, monstrously profitable. Even Commander Taera, whose default setting was composed austerity, had admitted it with a flicker of what might have been satisfaction in her eyes.

  But that wealth was locked in the walls, the very floor, the mineralized veins of the rift itself. It had taken Dienne-Lar and me, working in brutal shifts, nearly forty-eight standard hours of solid, unremitting labor to extract it.

  We’d become conductors of a symphony of drones and golems, directing them to cut, haul, sort, and transport. I’d slept in four-hour chunks, fueled by combat rations that now tasted like ash and desperation, my dreams filled with the whine of diamond-tipped saws and the glow of uncut mana crystals.

  Power work was its own special kind of exhausting; it didn’t burn muscles, it drained your soul’s battery, leaving you feeling hollowed out and starved on a cellular level, no matter how much you ate.

  I finally shut off the water, the sudden silence ringing in my ears. Wrapping myself in a towel that felt blessedly abrasive against my sensitive skin, I padded out of the head and into the female pilot’s berthing, beelining for the sanctuary of my cubicle. The air was cool, carrying the faint, clean scent of recycled air and ozone.

  Exhilaration and exhaustion warred within me in equal measure. The triumph of success was a bright flame, but the cost of it was a heavy weight. I almost found myself hoping our next target was a derelict hulk—something The Crow and its drones could pick clean on the fly, without needing a two-day archaeological dig under the threat of residual rift-spawn.

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  Sitting at my small desk, the cool composite a relief against my thighs, I called up the ship’s store interface. The screen glowed softly in the dim light. It was time to surrender to the inevitable. My coveralls were a lost cause. They’d become highwaters, riding up my ankles, and were now performing a frankly heroic and losing battle against my chest and shoulders.

  Good coveralls were supposed to be loose, a second skin of practicality, not a garment that announced the room’s ambient temperature.

  I navigated the menus with a sigh. Undergarments. Ugh. Bras. The word itself felt like a betrayal of my formerly simple life. I selected six, in a B-cup, the act feeling like signing a treaty with an occupying force. They were necessary, a piece of tactical equipment for a new kind of battlefield.

  Panties and boyshorts had also gone up several sizes, my hips deciding they needed to get in on this expansion project. I needed a new formal uniform measured, but fortunately, I’d been putting that off. One minor blessing.

  Casual uniforms, check. My head, thankfully, had remained its same size, a small island of stability in a sea of change. I added hair ties to the order, a commitment to the idea of growing my hair out long like my mother’s, a small, silent tribute to a memory that was both painful and precious.

  Rank insignia, check. I was eternally grateful the store would attach them; my attempts at sewing usually ended in bloodshed and profanity. With my new, unexpected wealth from the rift shares—Braxis had said each of us was walking away with thousands of credits—I added a silver crow pin for my working and formal uniforms. A mark of belonging.

  I was also closing in on several ship certifications. Might as well order the Space Warfare Boat certification badge now. I’d earn it soon enough. Braxis wore his with palpable pride; it shouldn’t be weird for a droner to want one.

  The rest of the order was mundane: standard toiletries, a new data-slate stylus. The only indulgence was a box of lightly salted sweet caramels I’d discovered in a previous order. They were a tiny, perfect miracle of sugar and fat, a sensation my Korse-refined palate was still learning to process with joy instead of suspicion.

  I finalized the order and requested a callback for expedited processing. Almost instantly, my terminal chimed with an incoming trace.

  I quickly tightened my towel and flipped on the screen. Carmez, the ship’s store operator, blinked into view. She was a lovely woman with rich brown skin and dark hair shot through with subtle silver threads, her face kind and perpetually amused. She’d been a patient guide through my… morphological upheavals.

  “Uhh… sorry, I didn’t realize you were taking a shower,” she said, her eyes taking in my damp hair and towel-clad state.

  I shook my head, sending droplets of water spattering on the desk. “It’s fine. Just got out. I was hoping you had something that could fit in an emergency. My armor still fits, sort of, but I think this is the last clothing emergency. I was hoping you could maybe send Selvie with some underclothes and a set of coveralls, even if they are a bit big. I’m currently a prisoner of my own cubicle.”

  She nodded, a sympathetic smile playing on her lips. “Umm… yeah. I just saw your order, and uhh… there’s a complication.”

  “Complication?” A knot of anxiety tightened in my stomach. The last thing I needed was a logistical nightmare.

  “Yes. Umm… there’s going to be a meeting tomorrow morning for all hands. Clearing a copper rift with zero casualties is a really big deal. A really big deal. All four of us in stores are working our behinds off on updated uniforms and prepping for the captain’s address. I will definitely get your working blacks ready for you by tomorrow, but I’d like to make a strong recommendation.”

  “Oh?” I asked, curiosity piquing.

  “I am going to send you two pinned crows tonight. Use one on your hat and one on your undress blacks. I’ll send the rest of your kit tomorrow night. I mean, except for the underclothes, of course. You haven’t had a problem with them before, but the ship’s stores underthings are… very workmanlike. Functional. When we get to port, you and I can hit the town and get you something better. Something that doesn’t feel like it was designed by a committee of bored orcs.”

  I nodded, the idea of a shopping trip with someone who actually knew what they were doing sounding both terrifying and wonderful. “Alright. Shopping trip scheduled. Can you get me at least a pair of coveralls and undies tonight, though? I am sort of trapped here with no fitting clothes, and I am starving. I swear to Earth that if I show up on the mess decks like this, Dirk’s gonna spend the entire time joking about how… strained my current outfit is. I am totally wiped and not in the mood for verbal sparring. I am liable to just spread his nose a little, even though I consider him a friend.”

  Carmez laughed, a warm, rich sound. “Yes, Selvie’s already on her way with clean grubbies—sort of undress coveralls with actual seams, believe it or not. Is the new biometric scan for your size correct?”

  I nodded. “Yep. Did it while I was in the shower. The scanner probably got an eyeful of steam, but the numbers should be right.”

  She chuckled. “Oi. No problem. I am going to have to modify your undress blacks a bit, your measurements are… nonstandard.”

  I sighed, the familiar refrain. “Tell me about it. I look like a bad manga.”

  She laughed again. “Well, whatever it is, it’s not bad, believe me on that. Princeton’s going to scrot sideways.”

  I blinked. “I’m not sure what you mean by scrot sideways. Is she okay? That sounds… painful.”

  Carmez waved a hand, her laughter bubbling over. “I mean… nevermind, it’s not important. It’s a stores thing. An old saying. It just means she’ll be surprised. We don’t get many elves outside of Dienne on board, and your measurements are a hell of a lot more like an elf than a baseline human. All elegant lines and… well, you’ll see. But hey, that’s what my gift is for. Turning fabric into something that doesn’t look like a sack.”

  I nodded, only half-understanding. “I’ll take your word for it. I need to get dressed. See you later?”

  “Later,” she said, and her image winked out just as a firm knock sounded on my door.