I start with my magic com, sending a message out: “Let’s all meet up on Stephanie quickly; there’s plans to make,” I include Cowbird for this message, although the why might not be readily apparent: As she’s caught, there are pretty good odds her com is compromised. I mean, I’d see about hacking the coms if I was kidnapping someone: Why wouldn’t you? I mean, you have the person’s com RIGHT THERE with them. So you’re absolutely going to get as much information as you can from it, and possibly use it to try and compromise their contacts, too. So after this is over, I’m going to need to go over all our coms in detail; I should hit up our ships’ computers too… but that's for later. For now, if they have a bug in our coms, it would tip them off if I didn't include Cowbird, and saying we're meeting up on Stephanie is normal enough.
So I head to Stephanie, and meet up with everyone; the Keyhome network is very convenient for that… and something else, which I'll get to.
We meet up in the Engineering zone for Stephanie's unused power core mount (there's plenty of room for us, and she's docked, so it's not like anything is happening… we're not even in the way of the summons I keep on standby just in case).
Once everyone I actually expect is in, I give a few orders for theater in case anyone's listening in, “Okay everyone, coms off, we have business to discuss… and my chair is running late; pity, but not a big deal for this.”
I wait as everyone complies… then I collect the coms, set them outside of the room, and close the door, “Okay, now that the theater is out of the way: Cowbird has been kidnapped.”
After a few seconds of silence, Euler speaks up, “And?”
Ah. She's apparently not well liked. That's okay, “I feel something of a sense of responsibility for her well-being, she potentially knows things that would be awkward in others’ hands, and I don't want her spoiled by professional torturers. So I want to organize a rescue.”
“Yeah, sure,” Linda seems… not so gung-ho, "That makes sense, I guess."
Hmm. “Okay, maybe we need to clear the air a bit… mind telling me what y'all have against her?”
Euler answers that one, “She’s… creepy, Admiral.”
“Very,” Stephanie chimes in, “Seriously, if my little body steps on her toes accidentally, she SMILES and says ‘Thank you’.”
“Who does that?” Linda's up, “she skips protective gear whenever she can, and smules when the tools burn or cut her. She gets blood all over workspaces….”
“Does she clean it up?” I interrupt.
“Well, yes,” Linda continues, “but she's so HAPPY every time she gets hurt.”
“It's unnatural,” Euler adds, “gives us all the willies.”
I pause a bit to make sure they're done, and sigh, “You’re right. It IS unnatural. Before encountering me, Cowbird was a male pirate with a kink for torturing others; he attacked me, I defended myself. You all have experience with the side effects of my power; a desire to hurt others became a desire to get hurt… and she is far, far deeper into the side effects than anyone else here. She has no control over the fact that she gets off on getting hurt, just like,” I turn to Euler, “you have little control over your desire for a bigger chest,” and to Stephanie, “or your desire to obey,” and to Linda, “or your original desire to be a woman.”
I pause, “It's just how she is, and I'm the one that made her that way. No it wasn't really my goal: I was defending myself. And after, I wanted to keep an eye on her and take some responsibility… just like I do for you.” I look at Stephanie, and she lowers her eyes. I switch to Euler, and she does the same. Linda, likewise.
Ocean and Star meet my gaze just fine; they weren't complaining.
I keep going, “So I'm going to retrieve her. If you're willing to join me, great! I don't really want to do this on my own,” for two very big reasons that are always right in front of me, and more behind, “If not… oh well. I can do this on my own if necessary.”
I look around the room, “Who's in?”
Some have a bit more delay than others, but ultimately everyone nods.
“Great!” … that that's settled, “Okay, so: I expect things will get a LITTLE hot, so Stephanie: I'm putting you in charge of evac. We'll need you undocked, synced with the other ships, and a Drift course plotted to, oh, let's go with Eox; if we get separated, come find me in Orphys, I'll probably beat you there.”
Euler raises an eyebrow, so I add, “I don't actually need a ship for Drift travel, but it makes it a lot more pleasant.” Speaking of, I should maybe copy some of the entertainment archives onto my com... later.
“As for transport,” I continue, “I figure they're keeping Cowbird's stuff close by. So most of us are going to use the back door to her Keyhome.”
“Ahh,” Euler objects, “There's no door there when they're closed, and I don't imagine they’ve figured out how to open it; sticking a key into empty air isn't exactly intuitive… and even if they've figured it out, they'd hardly leave it open.”
I chuckle, “Don't forget the side effect that goes with all the magic equipment my minions make,” women only for my gear, “but it's not fully sealed from the inside, even when the door isn't summoned… I can buff you up to be able to slip through trivially, although it does mean a slightly bigger bust.”
“Perfect!” Euler exclaims.
Yeah, I figured you'd like that, “and of course, once one person is through, it's easily opened from the outside for everyone else that's going that route… which won't be everyone.” I pause, “I don’t want to advertise that any of us can be near any of us within moments if needed, nor how, so I plan on sending a bunch of summons loudly at the front door while I go in the side door quietly, planting signs of my passage as I go. I’ll want everyone else using the Keyhome entry. Whoever gets to her first calls off everyone else, and we evac. A basic three-pronged assault. Thoughts?”
Euler speaks up first, “So you want to go in alone? Shouldn't you have backup?”
I chuckle, “I'm a big boy,” biology and appearances aside, “I can handle myself. Keep in mind, the power that makes you all basically immortal is the power I've lent you. Also, I don't plan to get caught…” I cast Invisibility, and vanish from sight… including the special senses I've loaded them up with… walk across the room, and dismiss the spell, “Over here.”
“Yes goddess,” Stephanie admits… huh, when did she catch that nonsense?... “You are very capable… why the redundant approaches?”
Why indeed, “Because while I may be good… there’s always someone better. They may have a surprise waiting for me, they may have a counter to the tactics I'd use on my own, they might be expecting me and arrange for something nasty. By throwing a bunch of disposable summons at their front door, and having two teams go in the back, we will hopefully keep them off balance, and add some insurance against such things. Also… my power does have a cost when I use it on people, and I'd rather minimize the expense.”
Linda digests that, “But the summoned creatures are basically free, as are the effects you have already doled out?”
“Right,” I pause, “also, other than Ocean, more effects on you only cost you at this point.”
Euler perks up, “Does that mean if I want to be bigger…”
I cut her off, “You’re effectively addicted; my methods for increasing your chest size also increase your desire for a larger chest; you're unsatisfiable… so no, I’m not going to just arbitrarily apply more to you. Eventually you won't fit through doors, so I want to only add when there's a reason… although I will start with you whenever I need to add a utility effect to someone, so there is that.”
Euler takes a breath like she's about to object, then pauses, and simply responds with, “As you wish, my goddess.”
Hmm. I expect we'll need to come back to that later. For now, though… “Is everyone on board with the basic plan?”
I get a series of nods as I look around the room, “Okay, now let's check out details….”
I have the address, so we look up official station records for the area, spend time discussing likely places where they might be hiding Cowbird, the kinds of countermeasures we reasonably expect them to put in place, where we'd post guards if it was our structure, and other details.
Eventually, we set a time for the main event, and go to our places….
I start with my magic com, sending a message out: “Let’s all meet up on Stephanie quickly; there’s plans to make,” I include Cowbird for this message, although the why might not be readily apparent: As she’s caught, there are pretty good odds her com is compromised. I mean, I’d see about hacking the coms if I was kidnapping someone: Why wouldn’t you? I mean, you have the person’s com RIGHT THERE with them. So you’re absolutely going to get as much information as you can from it, and possibly use it to try and compromise their contacts, too. So after this is over, I’m going to need to go over all our coms in detail; I should hit up our ships’ computers too… but that's for later. For now, if they have a bug in our coms, it would tip them off if I didn't include Cowbird, and saying we're meeting up on Stephanie is normal enough.
So I head to Stephanie, and meet up with everyone; the Keyhome network is very convenient for that… and something else, which I'll get to.
We meet up in the Engineering zone for Stephanie's unused power core mount (there's plenty of room for us, and she's docked, so it's not like anything is happening… we're not even in the way of the summons I keep on standby just in case).
Once everyone I actually expect is in, I give a few orders for theater in case anyone's listening in, “Okay everyone, coms off, we have business to discuss… and my chair is running late; pity, but not a big deal for this.”
I wait as everyone complies… then I collect the coms, set them outside of the room, and close the door, “Okay, now that the theater is out of the way: Cowbird has been kidnapped.”
After a few seconds of silence, Euler speaks up, “And?”
Ah. She's apparently not well liked. That's okay, “I feel something of a sense of responsibility for her well-being, she potentially knows things that would be awkward in others’ hands, and I don't want her spoiled by professional torturers. So I want to organize a rescue.”
“Yeah, sure,” Linda seems… not so gung-ho, "That makes sense, I guess."
Hmm. “Okay, maybe we need to clear the air a bit… mind telling me what y'all have against her?”
Euler answers that one, “She’s… creepy, Admiral.”
“Very,” Stephanie chimes in, “Seriously, if my little body steps on her toes accidentally, she SMILES and says ‘Thank you’.”
“Who does that?” Linda's up, “she skips protective gear whenever she can, and smules when the tools burn or cut her. She gets blood all over workspaces….”
“Does she clean it up?” I interrupt.
“Well, yes,” Linda continues, “but she's so HAPPY every time she gets hurt.”
“It's unnatural,” Euler adds, “gives us all the willies.”
I pause a bit to make sure they're done, and sigh, “You’re right. It IS unnatural. Before encountering me, Cowbird was a male pirate with a kink for torturing others; he attacked me, I defended myself. You all have experience with the side effects of my power; a desire to hurt others became a desire to get hurt… and she is far, far deeper into the side effects than anyone else here. She has no control over the fact that she gets off on getting hurt, just like,” I turn to Euler, “you have little control over your desire for a bigger chest,” and to Stephanie, “or your desire to obey,” and to Linda, “or your original desire to be a woman.”
I pause, “It's just how she is, and I'm the one that made her that way. No it wasn't really my goal: I was defending myself. And after, I wanted to keep an eye on her and take some responsibility… just like I do for you.” I look at Stephanie, and she lowers her eyes. I switch to Euler, and she does the same. Linda, likewise.
Ocean and Star meet my gaze just fine; they weren't complaining.
I keep going, “So I'm going to retrieve her. If you're willing to join me, great! I don't really want to do this on my own,” for two very big reasons that are always right in front of me, and more behind, “If not… oh well. I can do this on my own if necessary.”
I look around the room, “Who's in?”
Some have a bit more delay than others, but ultimately everyone nods.
“Great!” … that that's settled, “Okay, so: I expect things will get a LITTLE hot, so Stephanie: I'm putting you in charge of evac. We'll need you undocked, synced with the other ships, and a Drift course plotted to, oh, let's go with Eox; if we get separated, come find me in Orphys, I'll probably beat you there.”
Euler raises an eyebrow, so I add, “I don't actually need a ship for Drift travel, but it makes it a lot more pleasant.” Speaking of, I should maybe copy some of the entertainment archives onto my com... later.
“As for transport,” I continue, “I figure they're keeping Cowbird's stuff close by. So most of us are going to use the back door to her Keyhome.”
“Ahh,” Euler objects, “There's no door there when they're closed, and I don't imagine they’ve figured out how to open it; sticking a key into empty air isn't exactly intuitive… and even if they've figured it out, they'd hardly leave it open.”
I chuckle, “Don't forget the side effect that goes with all the magic equipment my minions make,” women only for my gear, “but it's not fully sealed from the inside, even when the door isn't summoned… I can buff you up to be able to slip through trivially, although it does mean a slightly bigger bust.”
“Perfect!” Euler exclaims.
Yeah, I figured you'd like that, “and of course, once one person is through, it's easily opened from the outside for everyone else that's going that route… which won't be everyone.” I pause, “I don’t want to advertise that any of us can be near any of us within moments if needed, nor how, so I plan on sending a bunch of summons loudly at the front door while I go in the side door quietly, planting signs of my passage as I go. I’ll want everyone else using the Keyhome entry. Whoever gets to her first calls off everyone else, and we evac. A basic three-pronged assault. Thoughts?”
Euler speaks up first, “So you want to go in alone? Shouldn't you have backup?”
I chuckle, “I'm a big boy,” biology and appearances aside, “I can handle myself. Keep in mind, the power that makes you all basically immortal is the power I've lent you. Also, I don't plan to get caught…” I cast Invisibility, and vanish from sight… including the special senses I've loaded them up with… walk across the room, and dismiss the spell, “Over here.”
“Yes goddess,” Stephanie admits… huh, when did she catch that nonsense?... “You are very capable… why the redundant approaches?”
Why indeed, “Because while I may be good… there’s always someone better. They may have a surprise waiting for me, they may have a counter to the tactics I'd use on my own, they might be expecting me and arrange for something nasty. By throwing a bunch of disposable summons at their front door, and having two teams go in the back, we will hopefully keep them off balance, and add some insurance against such things. Also… my power does have a cost when I use it on people, and I'd rather minimize the expense.”
Linda digests that, “But the summoned creatures are basically free, as are the effects you have already doled out?”
“Right,” I pause, “also, other than Ocean, more effects on you only cost you at this point.”
Euler perks up, “Does that mean if I want to be bigger…”
I cut her off, “You’re effectively addicted; my methods for increasing your chest size also increase your desire for a larger chest; you're unsatisfiable… so no, I’m not going to just arbitrarily apply more to you. Eventually you won't fit through doors, so I want to only add when there's a reason… although I will start with you whenever I need to add a utility effect to someone, so there is that.”
Euler takes a breath like she's about to object, then pauses, and simply responds with, “As you wish, my goddess.”
Hmm. I expect we'll need to come back to that later. For now, though… “Is everyone on board with the basic plan?”
I get a series of nods as I look around the room, “Okay, now let's check out details….”
I have the address, so we look up official station records for the area, spend time discussing likely places where they might be hiding Cowbird, the kinds of countermeasures we reasonably expect them to put in place, where we'd post guards if it was our structure, and other details.
Eventually, we set a time for the main event, and go to our places….
