“I said, you aren’t a droner. Sure, you have Technology Affinity. But you don’t have a trait for technological control. That requires Machine Affinity, like me, or Technopathy, like Andrea. You can enchant a drone, which is a hell of a trick with that Cross-Discipline Sorcery of yours, but despite what your fake node readout claimed back in the 128th, you don’t have Drone Control. Not in the way the System defines it.”

  I shook my head, completely lost. “I don’t follow.”

  He sighed, searching for the words. “You are brilliant with tech. Innovative. Creative. But you can’t… link with machines. You link with nodes. You use those nodes to transmit and receive data faster than anyone I’ve ever seen. But when you’re piloting a drone, can you feel the stress on its servos? Sense the heat bleed from its power core? Control it like it’s your own hand, without having to consciously reprogram its every twitch?”

  “No,” I said, frowning. “That’s not how drones work. That’s… magic.”

  “That’s technopathy,” he corrected. “That’s how I knew you were faking it. Drone Control lets you treat the drone like a simple, stupid pet. You project your intent, and its programming adapts. A higher-ranked droner’s drones aren’t running better code; the droner’s gift makes the existing code perform better. It’s empathy, not engineering. Nobody writes copper-level code. Above wood rank, it’s all… intuitive. A form of applied will. The few people who can actually understand high-rank code are savants with minds like quantum supercomputers. Asking someone to create it without the right affinity is like asking a fish to design a bicycle.”

  He peered at me. “Offended yet?”

  I swallowed my initial pride. The analysis was too precise, too accurate to deny. “Yes,” I admitted. “But that doesn’t mean you’re wrong. So what paths, what affinities, actually allow someone to improve processing ranks? To make a drone think faster?”

  He shrugged. “Not paths, really. Affinities. Machine Affinity can, because it’s about empathy with the machine’s 'spirit.’ Technopathy obviously does. A super-high Linguistic Affinity paired with Tech Affinity might let you literally speak to machines in a way they understand. There’s probably some corporate-owned ‘Coding Affinity’ out there, locked behind a patent and a million-credit paywall.” He looked thoughtful. “So, in a rift, facing enemies that operate on a higher cognitive tier… you’re struggling.”

  “So I’m useless in rifts,” I concluded, the weight of it settling in my gut.

  He barked a laugh. “You don’t remember the part five minutes ago where they gave you a medal and a full share? But no… see, you’re looking at it backward. You build magnificent drone bodies. You’re already working on copper-tier material science. And you are more than capable of directly controlling golems.”

  I winced. “So you think I should just abandon drones and focus on golems? But they’re so… unpredictable. Illogical.”

  He grinned, a sly, knowing look. “I think you’re still thinking about this the wrong way. I’m not going to give you the answer. But I’ll give you a hint. What’s the fundamental difference between a golem’s core and a drone’s brain?”

  “A golem core is a captured or constructed spirit. A living mind, however simple. I can interface with it directly using my Spiritual affinity. A drone brain is a synthetic processor running code.”

  “And you don’t like your Spiritual affinity much, do you?” he observed.

  I sighed, picking up a hydrospanner just to have something solid to hold. “It’s not logical. You can’t debug a spirit. You can’t predict it with certainty. For healing, it’s intuitive, amazing. But for engineering? I hate the idea of creating half-living cyborgs… things.” A shiver went down my spine at the thought of shackling a consciousness to a metal shell.

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  I turned the idea over in my head. “You’re thinking I should start building higher-tier drones… with golem brains?” The concept was horrifying. And fascinating. And blasphemous. And… potentially brilliant.

  He grinned. “Way to go out into left field. Not a bad idea—and you might be the only one who could make it work, given your affinities—but think simpler. Who else is fighting in the rift besides you?”

  “The Marines,” I said automatically.

  “And what’s the biggest thing that will get a high-ranked marine killed in a low-level rift?”

  “Bad tactics? Arrogance? Ignorance? Distraction? Poor gear mainten—”

  He cut me off with a glare.

  “What?” I asked, genuinely perplexed.

  “You have Enchanting now. Copper-rank Enchanting. How can you, personally, help the meat-shields you dive with?”

  “You think I should focus on enchanting their gear? Would the Captain even support that? The energy costs, the materials…”

  Braxis groaned, running a hand over his face. “Okay, are you actually not getting it, or are you messing with me? I’m trying to be all wise and mentor-like here, and you’re determined to take the scenic route.”

  I shook my head, feeling utterly lost. “I’m not, Chief, I promise. I’m from a backwater tin-rank world where the peak of technology was probably a fusion reactor and a decent mag-rail. This is all… beyond me.”

  “Oh. Right. Okay.” He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial level. “You created a functional replacement for Chief Wasserman’s Caliban implant, right? The thing Fleet surgeons said was irreparable?”

  I nodded cautiously. “Sort of. It doesn’t have the full functionality of a real Caliban—I’m not a silver-rank enchanter. But for what he uses it for, motor control and energy transfer, it works better than the original did. It’s more efficient.”

  “So,” he said, drawing the word out. “Could you, in theory, create a… vessel? A shell that a marine could control, that responds to their neural feedback and martial gifts as if it were their own body? But one that uses standard, cheap, replaceable drone power cells and components instead of draining their personal essence reserves like a vampiric sieve?”

  The pieces clicked into place with an almost audible snap. My mind, so stubbornly stuck in the drone/golem binary, exploded into a constellation of new possibilities. Schematics, energy flow diagrams, material stress tables—they flashed behind my eyes.

  “You mean like a… drone suit?” I whispered, the concept feeling both alien and inevitable. “An exoskeleton that amplifies them? Not a cyborg, not undead, but… a platform. A tool. An Exo-suit that responds to their talents, rather than being just a vehicle with gun mounts?”

  He nodded, his smile triumphant. “Exactly like that. That’s why so few of our Marines use enchanted armor. True empowered warplate has built-in essence stores and costs more than a shuttle. Or it drains the user’s own energy so fast that only someone like Wasserman—a walking silver-rank power plant—can use it without passing out after three steps. But technology? Drone tech? It runs on standardized, cheap, wood-rank power cells. The Old Terran Federation used exosuits. They were clunky, couldn’t channel affinities for shit, but they let an unranked grunt keep up with a copper-rank warrior.”

  “That actually worked?” The strategic implications were staggering.

  “Hell yes, it worked,” he said. “A copper-ranked exo-suit could make a wood-rank soldier punch far above his weight. Now imagine what you could do. With your Tech Affinity to design it, your Spiritual Affinity to maybe… smooth the interface between meat and machine, and your new Force Affinity to maybe harden the damn thing against incoming fire…”

  I was already there, mentally drafting prototypes. “So I could still be a droner in void combat—my current skills are more than adequate for that. But for ground-side rifts, I could shift to a support role. Building, maintaining, and maybe even field-tuning these… exosuits. Mecha.” The word felt good in my mouth. Powerful.

  A wave of excitement washed over me, so potent it made the tips of my fingers tingle. This was a path forward. A way to be useful, to contribute, without being hamstrung by my own unusual development. Then a practical, chilling thought doused the enthusiasm.

  “One problem, Chief,” I said, my voice sobering.

  “What’s that?”

  “Who in the nine hells would we get to test them?” The idea of handing a volatile, experimental piece of overpowered machinery to one of the Marines was a recipe for a spectacular, messy disaster.

  Chief Braxis’s smile turned wide and deeply, profoundly malicious. His eyes gleamed with unholy anticipation.

  “Oh,” he purred. “I have a few ideas.”