Stephanie's pregnancy doesn't change much immediately: I add ‘checking in on the baby’ to my daily task list, of course, but Stephanie is still a starship, we still make a living hauling cargo, we still avoid fights like the plague, we still entertain all the loaders.
But I'm making future upgrade plans, now.
I mean, I don't exactly have a budget, yet… but faster engines, a stronger power core, and stronger shields top my list. Possibly a bigger hold. And with baby ships… ugh. Hangers and shuttle bays are expensive, require very plus-size ships, and those require an associated larger crew. Hmm. Well. That's for later when I actually know how much I get for the silly thing. I mean, I really wouldn't mind having Stephanie as a bulk freighter with a shuttle bay, but those are extra expensive, and where would I get people I trust to run her?
I do the same with my money that I've been doing: Investing. I don't really need much in the way of stuff, due to simply having spells to cover most utility effects and being unable to use armor while my eidolon is out… although I do pick up a pair of sidearms: a Chorister Warbler (it deals sonic damage and can knock folks over) and a Micregate Acid Cannon (t shoots a small amount of acid that keeps burning for a little while). I can keep them charged up away from Stephanie with the Recharge spell for ‘free’... but it slowly makes the two guns look like adult novelty toys (although illusions can fix that… ish), so I mostly charge them in my ship. I can do far better with spells, but sidearms are expected around here… yay for life on the frontier, I guess. I also integrate some light armor into my normal illusionary disguise (specifically, “graphite carbon skin”): Again, it's expected that I'll have something like that.
Stephanie's belly grows, though. At about the four month mark, people start asking questions… which I lie about: “It's an expansion bay. I put in a gym for long trips.” Most buy it, and the few who don't also don't press.
At about the six month mark, Stephanie starts getting hard to steer… at which point, I put Stephanie on leave. I rent out an entire shuttle bay in a station, park her there, scout the place for spy equipment, and get a simple engineering job to cover the rent (with my eidolon suit, I am a VERY skilled engineer… and there’s a nifty little discharge spell called Divine Insight that grants a handy dandy eleven point boost to a skill check when I want it… so I make credits pretty quickly with an effective engineering skill of plus thirty-two: Taking ten, I get eighty-four credits a week). And yes, I spend several hours a day checking up on Stephanie, the hangar, and her growing golden egg.
At eight and a half months, the sonogram says the baby ship is about ready, so I take Stephanie out, fully cloaked, we land in a cave on a small moon orbiting a gas giant, shut down the engines… and we wait.
It's a nice, peaceful place. There's not a single sound (there's no air and nothing here but us… I checked, we have really good scanners). I have Stephanie keep her scanners in passive mode, watching for anything coming our way, of course, but we selected this place because there's nothing. At least we have the entertainment archives and each other to stave off boredom.
Stephanie goes into labor at nine months, two weeks. Her outer hull stretches to accommodate the fighter, while the fighter's wings wrap around its body to accommodate Stephanie. Ultimately, all I end up actually doing during the birth is suspending the computer that is Stephanie's ‘brain’ so she doesn't have to remember it. Her outer hull continues to respond anyway, and the fighter wheels itself out… slowly. All told, it takes about eight hours before I boot Stephanie back up.
I then watch as the fighter makes its way to Stephanie's chest… and suckles. Which is really strange to watch… the fighter looks like a simple fighter: It's a fifty foot long vehicle with an organic spin to it (there's no welds or bolts: It grew, so it's all one piece). What looks like it's supposed to be a decorative mouth is apparently real, and it's sucking on my ship, instinctively. Which is fine, really.
Stephanie certainly appreciates the attention, “Hmm… that feels nice…” I listen to her coo over the coms while I start checking out the new ship.
I walk over to it, and look at the canopy… bioships are odd. Everything looks mostly normal: It's a fighter cockpit, a two seater variety: The pilot looks through the canopy itself, with an overlay; the gunner sits behind and looks at screens... except I can't see any screens there. I was expecting clearly labeled buttons everywhere, comfortable looking seats, fancy joysticks, and so on.
It doesn't have those. I mean, the comfy-looking seats, yes, and I was expecting the missing seams with nary a bolt or screw head in sight (because this ship wasn't built, but grown), but otherwise it's just boring paneling and … aha. The screens on Stephanie are holographic, I probably just need to figure out how to turn everything on. Which probably means I need to get in.
It takes me a few moments to find the outer hatch controls, but after I finally find which section of the hull I need to touch before it starts showing the actual data and “buttons”, at which point the ship shows me there’s not currently air inside the canopy, and lets me open it up without issues…I climb inside, close it, and spend a minute switching my flexible skill over to piloting.
Oh, that's how this works.
It's easy. I just swipe my hand over the panel, and… yep, it comes up defaulting to a pilot’s interface, and lets me switch to several others as well (engineering, science, gunnery, whatever). I spend some time going through everything while the ship… sucks on the singularly biggest set of hooters I've ever seen. Seriously, Stephanie is a hundred feet tall, and those hooters stick out on her sides… and right now, they’re RIGHT in front of me. Hmm….
But I have work to do. OK, so… the fighter is fueling up, getting its initial reaction mass. Onboard power is live… this is actually a decent tier-2 combat setup. I mean, the Drift engine is… not so great on a ship with no crew quarters: It takes days to go anywhere outside of the current system, and there’s nowhere to go and nothing to do but sit in the cockpit until you arrive. That’s NOT going to be comfortable for most people. But it's a ship. A working, viable, starship, with a power core, engines, shields, weapons, sensors, armor, countermeasures, drift engine, a computer… the works. And it's all mine.
It should sell well. Just to double check, though; Patricia?
“Still no soul. You’re conscience can be clean,” She’s… rolling her eyes? Eh, I suppose her ‘birth’ didn’t exactly leave her with parents to teach ethics. But I’m in charge, so… that’s fine, as long as I remember to try and be a good person.
I run the ship through diagnostics… everything is in order… huh, it lists the manufacturer as “Absalom Station”... weird. Wait… that big data dump, maybe? I never did track down where it went… well… if this is it, I’m going to need to load cargo there more often. I watch the reaction mass gauge for a little while, and once I have a good feel for how long it'll take, I exit, and head over to check up on Stephanie. She's doing less great, but it'll be fine. There are some tears in the outer hull, and a bit of bending on the inner hull… all fixable for cheap… fairly quickly, even, with some skill boosting spells, which I use (Divine Insight rocks).
I get to work while I chat with her: “The fighter is… healthy. No damage, you’re currently feeding it reaction mass for the engines. You need a bit of work, but I’ll be done fixing you up in a couple hours. You’re going to be fine.”
“Will I have stretch marks?” Heh. Concerned about your appearance now, Stephanie?
“Not at all,” I reassure her, “I am quite skilled at my craft,” magically so, even, “so there will be no visible trace of what transpired,” I want to be VERY sure of that. After all: if someone figures out exactly how that ship came into existence, someone might try to steal the golden goose from me. I really don’t want that, so I need to be careful to remove all traces of what happened.
“That’s good… hmm… feels nice…” sounds like now’s the time to ask…
“The ship probably won’t need to be fueled up this way again… and we’ll be selling him so we can upgrade you. How do you feel about doing this again?”
Stephanie considers for a moment, “I miss that warm glow in my belly. Yes please….”
Perfect!
Stephanie's pregnancy doesn't change much immediately: I add ‘checking in on the baby’ to my daily task list, of course, but Stephanie is still a starship, we still make a living hauling cargo, we still avoid fights like the plague, we still entertain all the loaders.
But I'm making future upgrade plans, now.
I mean, I don't exactly have a budget, yet… but faster engines, a stronger power core, and stronger shields top my list. Possibly a bigger hold. And with baby ships… ugh. Hangers and shuttle bays are expensive, require very plus-size ships, and those require an associated larger crew. Hmm. Well. That's for later when I actually know how much I get for the silly thing. I mean, I really wouldn't mind having Stephanie as a bulk freighter with a shuttle bay, but those are extra expensive, and where would I get people I trust to run her?
I do the same with my money that I've been doing: Investing. I don't really need much in the way of stuff, due to simply having spells to cover most utility effects and being unable to use armor while my eidolon is out… although I do pick up a pair of sidearms: a Chorister Warbler (it deals sonic damage and can knock folks over) and a Micregate Acid Cannon (t shoots a small amount of acid that keeps burning for a little while). I can keep them charged up away from Stephanie with the Recharge spell for ‘free’... but it slowly makes the two guns look like adult novelty toys (although illusions can fix that… ish), so I mostly charge them in my ship. I can do far better with spells, but sidearms are expected around here… yay for life on the frontier, I guess. I also integrate some light armor into my normal illusionary disguise (specifically, “graphite carbon skin”): Again, it's expected that I'll have something like that.
Stephanie's belly grows, though. At about the four month mark, people start asking questions… which I lie about: “It's an expansion bay. I put in a gym for long trips.” Most buy it, and the few who don't also don't press.
At about the six month mark, Stephanie starts getting hard to steer… at which point, I put Stephanie on leave. I rent out an entire shuttle bay in a station, park her there, scout the place for spy equipment, and get a simple engineering job to cover the rent (with my eidolon suit, I am a VERY skilled engineer… and there’s a nifty little discharge spell called Divine Insight that grants a handy dandy eleven point boost to a skill check when I want it… so I make credits pretty quickly with an effective engineering skill of plus thirty-two: Taking ten, I get eighty-four credits a week). And yes, I spend several hours a day checking up on Stephanie, the hangar, and her growing golden egg.
At eight and a half months, the sonogram says the baby ship is about ready, so I take Stephanie out, fully cloaked, we land in a cave on a small moon orbiting a gas giant, shut down the engines… and we wait.
It's a nice, peaceful place. There's not a single sound (there's no air and nothing here but us… I checked, we have really good scanners). I have Stephanie keep her scanners in passive mode, watching for anything coming our way, of course, but we selected this place because there's nothing. At least we have the entertainment archives and each other to stave off boredom.
Stephanie goes into labor at nine months, two weeks. Her outer hull stretches to accommodate the fighter, while the fighter's wings wrap around its body to accommodate Stephanie. Ultimately, all I end up actually doing during the birth is suspending the computer that is Stephanie's ‘brain’ so she doesn't have to remember it. Her outer hull continues to respond anyway, and the fighter wheels itself out… slowly. All told, it takes about eight hours before I boot Stephanie back up.
I then watch as the fighter makes its way to Stephanie's chest… and suckles. Which is really strange to watch… the fighter looks like a simple fighter: It's a fifty foot long vehicle with an organic spin to it (there's no welds or bolts: It grew, so it's all one piece). What looks like it's supposed to be a decorative mouth is apparently real, and it's sucking on my ship, instinctively. Which is fine, really.
Stephanie certainly appreciates the attention, “Hmm… that feels nice…” I listen to her coo over the coms while I start checking out the new ship.
I walk over to it, and look at the canopy… bioships are odd. Everything looks mostly normal: It's a fighter cockpit, a two seater variety: The pilot looks through the canopy itself, with an overlay; the gunner sits behind and looks at screens... except I can't see any screens there. I was expecting clearly labeled buttons everywhere, comfortable looking seats, fancy joysticks, and so on.
It doesn't have those. I mean, the comfy-looking seats, yes, and I was expecting the missing seams with nary a bolt or screw head in sight (because this ship wasn't built, but grown), but otherwise it's just boring paneling and … aha. The screens on Stephanie are holographic, I probably just need to figure out how to turn everything on. Which probably means I need to get in.
It takes me a few moments to find the outer hatch controls, but after I finally find which section of the hull I need to touch before it starts showing the actual data and “buttons”, at which point the ship shows me there’s not currently air inside the canopy, and lets me open it up without issues…I climb inside, close it, and spend a minute switching my flexible skill over to piloting.
Oh, that's how this works.
It's easy. I just swipe my hand over the panel, and… yep, it comes up defaulting to a pilot’s interface, and lets me switch to several others as well (engineering, science, gunnery, whatever). I spend some time going through everything while the ship… sucks on the singularly biggest set of hooters I've ever seen. Seriously, Stephanie is a hundred feet tall, and those hooters stick out on her sides… and right now, they’re RIGHT in front of me. Hmm….
But I have work to do. OK, so… the fighter is fueling up, getting its initial reaction mass. Onboard power is live… this is actually a decent tier-2 combat setup. I mean, the Drift engine is… not so great on a ship with no crew quarters: It takes days to go anywhere outside of the current system, and there’s nowhere to go and nothing to do but sit in the cockpit until you arrive. That’s NOT going to be comfortable for most people. But it's a ship. A working, viable, starship, with a power core, engines, shields, weapons, sensors, armor, countermeasures, drift engine, a computer… the works. And it's all mine.
It should sell well. Just to double check, though; Patricia?
“Still no soul. You’re conscience can be clean,” She’s… rolling her eyes? Eh, I suppose her ‘birth’ didn’t exactly leave her with parents to teach ethics. But I’m in charge, so… that’s fine, as long as I remember to try and be a good person.
I run the ship through diagnostics… everything is in order… huh, it lists the manufacturer as “Absalom Station”... weird. Wait… that big data dump, maybe? I never did track down where it went… well… if this is it, I’m going to need to load cargo there more often. I watch the reaction mass gauge for a little while, and once I have a good feel for how long it'll take, I exit, and head over to check up on Stephanie. She's doing less great, but it'll be fine. There are some tears in the outer hull, and a bit of bending on the inner hull… all fixable for cheap… fairly quickly, even, with some skill boosting spells, which I use (Divine Insight rocks).
I get to work while I chat with her: “The fighter is… healthy. No damage, you’re currently feeding it reaction mass for the engines. You need a bit of work, but I’ll be done fixing you up in a couple hours. You’re going to be fine.”
“Will I have stretch marks?” Heh. Concerned about your appearance now, Stephanie?
“Not at all,” I reassure her, “I am quite skilled at my craft,” magically so, even, “so there will be no visible trace of what transpired,” I want to be VERY sure of that. After all: if someone figures out exactly how that ship came into existence, someone might try to steal the golden goose from me. I really don’t want that, so I need to be careful to remove all traces of what happened.
“That’s good… hmm… feels nice…” sounds like now’s the time to ask…
“The ship probably won’t need to be fueled up this way again… and we’ll be selling him so we can upgrade you. How do you feel about doing this again?”
Stephanie considers for a moment, “I miss that warm glow in my belly. Yes please….”
Perfect!
