“Here’s that thrust data you wanted for the GodBomber, sir,” a bunny girl named Moshi said, handing me a tablet full of numbers.

Moshi was one of the few on the team that was actually shorter than me, though not by much, and not counting her long ears. She had warm, brown fur, a pink nose, and violet eyes hidden behind thick glasses. Like the otterpet I’d met in Knigwick, she looked less like a human with fur and animal parts and more like an Earth rabbit, standing on her hind legs and wearing clothes. She also had a single unicorn horn growing from her forehead which reminded me of the classic mobs from fantasy games, though I wasn’t about to mention that to her.

I had spent the last couple of days tweaking and adjusting IronHide and Convoy’s systems. Godbomber, the airship project, was taking longer than I would like, but it couldn’t be helped. I still couldn’t fully test the thing without taking a mega-hit to my mana levels so we had individual systems hooked up to a 50 MCU array to provide power.

The array was too bulky and clumsy to bother with installing into the airship since it could only provide enough power for a single system at a time and only for a short duration at that. According to our calculations we’d need ten times the amount of MCUs to provide enough reliable power. Of course an array that large and heavy would need even more power to be able to move it around.

It became a case of diminishing returns, not unlike putting a rocket in space. A certain amount of solid rocket fuel is needed to provide enough thrust to push the weight of your payload into orbit, but the weight of the fuel itself needs more fuel to push that. You end up needing tons of rocket fuel in order to lift the tons of rocket fuel. The MCUs were just too inefficient but I didn’t have the luxury of developing something better at the moment.

I would just have to suck it up and play battery when it got to be time to sorty, but until then I was trying my best to conserve where I could.

“We have lift on three out of four wings fully configured. We’re testing the last one now, then we’ll switch to testing the rear boosters individually,” Moshi reported.

“Good good,” I said, looking over the readouts.

“I haven’t seen Ratchet around, sir. Did it head back to your village?”

“Hmm? What? Oh. Oh yes,” I said, distracted. “It has another project back home it wants to look into. Did you need something from it?”

“Oh no sir. It’s just... well, it was really uncomfortable having it around or trying to work with it on anything.”

“Ah,” I said, handing the tablet back. “Glad it’s gone, eh?”

“Oh I didn’t say that sir!” she quickly replied.

“No worries, really. Ratchet can be very single minded and abrupt to be sure.”

“Prime! There you are!” a female voice called from the lift.

“Princess Relena, good to see you, your highness,” I greeted as Moshi bid the princess a little bow and hopped off.

“I hope I wasn’t interrupting anything, she looked sweet,” Lena said, looking down on me slightly.

“Don’t be silly,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I’m only interested in robots.”

“Lucky me,” she said, dropping her [Cloak] and pushing her forehead to mine.

“Ah!” I exclaimed, backing up a step and getting embarrassed. “Not exactly what I meant!”

“I know,” she giggled, “you’re just too easy to tease. Sadly, I’m not here alone. Milli is upstairs, waiting for you. I don’t think it’s anything good.”

“It rarely is,” I sighed, walking with her to the lift.

We went up a level to the design and fabrication floor to find Cyclone keeping himself between Antillies and anything on a desk while trying not to look like he was keeping himself between Antillies and anything on a desk. Their conversation was light and generally revolved around martial arts training.

“Keep up the good work Cyclone. Vice Captain Antillies, behaving?” I quipped as we passed them enroute to the break room.

“Boss,” Cyclone acknowledged, giving me a nod.

“What are you talking about?” Antilles grumbled, looking away.

Prince Milliardo was lounging on a cot when we entered and only perked up when he spotted his sister. Though not as much as I would have expected, possibly because she wasn’t wearing her organic [Cloak] at the moment.

He sat up on the cot and rested his elbows on his knees, folding his hands in front of his face and looking serious.

“How soon can you deploy?” he asked, in a heavy tone.

“We’re testing GodBomber as we go, but it won’t be ready for another two weeks. Apparently the students like to eat and sleep,” I joked.

“I see,” he said, unamused. Gears were clearly churning away in his mind. “Lena, I need you to scour any of the Automata castle staff and guards. Find anyone that has been called a quick study, has a curious mind, or has shown a desire to create things. Pull them from whatever they are doing and bring them over. We’re reassigning them to help the Master Artificer. Prime, you have four days to have it completed and ready for the battlefield.”

“It shall be done, your highness,” Lena said as she resumed her [Cloak] and gave the prince a courtesy.

“Things are that dire, your highness?” I asked, pouring him a cup of the extra-strength caff that the professor insisted on.

“His Majesty has ordered me to command the front line,” he relayed, taking the cup from me and sipping at it. “Oh, that is vile,” he grumbled, looking into the cup, but continuing to drink. “We will be meeting up with Lord Smootward’s troops in ten day’s time. Lord Tenderwick should be joining up the day or two after. In total we should have three divisions, a battalion from the Mage Corps, and five companies of those new Titans with ten Titans each.”

“That sounds sizable, even without the Imperial Army and Greevus,” I said, folding my arms and leaning back against the counter.

“Mmm,” he agreed, “though that’s not what concerns me. Based on our intel, we should clash with the Allied forces on the Eastern Plains as expected, within sixteen days. What concerns me is that we haven’t heard anything about the dragon.”

“I see. We still don’t know their game, do we? At this point, the dragon has attacked both sides so in the coming battle we can’t know which side it will fight for.”

“Partially true,” he countered. “My riders report that Jhaix has been very busy now that he’s healed up. Rumor has it that he’s been working on upgrading things in order to deal with ranged and melee, physical attacks.”

“Sounds like he didn’t like getting punched by IronHide, or shot in the mouth by my cannon,” I smirked— or would if I had the face for it.

“From what you’ve shown me during our inspections, we’re in good shape there. Everything looks to be improved from your previous offerings.”

“Yes sir, I’m confident that I could lay waste to armies if needed.”

“I see...” Milliardo said, appraising me.

Lena put her hands on my shoulders and bent down to whisper in my “ear”.

“That’s probably the sort of thing you don’t say out loud if you don’t want to be perceived as a threat later,” she said without moving her mouth, just loud enough for me to pick up.

“That is to say, your highness,” I added. “Once. I think I have the power to fight like this just once before I deplete my mana reserves.”

“Just what, exactly, is your mana cap; Master Artificer?”

“If you don’t mind, your highness, I’ll be keeping that to myself. Though I will tell you that once depleted, I’m not likely to fully recover within your lifetime.”

“I suppose we take reassurances where we can,” he said, handing me back the cup of caff. “Four days, Prime. Then we’re heading out whether you're ready or not, and you’re coming with me.”

“Understood, I’ll pack my toothbrush.”

Milliardo narrowed his eyes, and turned his head slightly to the side, scrutinizing me. “Yes, well. Teeth aside, just be ready to take down that dragon.”

Prince Milliardo headed back to the castle to do whatever it is that fleshy Princes do in the evenings in their castles. Lena promised to find me some good people to help out. I had every intention of unlocking anyone that was sent my way, but I couldn’t help but be tempted to wait until after I got some work out of them. Of course, that sort of scummy behavior would be just as exploitative as how everyone else treated the Automata.

I didn’t have long to wait. Within a handful of hours, two Automata maids, a royal guard, and a construction worker were waiting to be “interviewed” on the top floor. Lena had some court function to attend so she basically dropped the folks off and bailed. It would be an understatement to say that they were confused.

“We were told that we’re here to assist the Royal Artificer with a large project?” one of the maids said, looking at the others.

“I guess that’d be me, not that I’ve been offered any sort of official title to my knowledge, nor accepted it mind you,” I said, waving them onto the secret lift.

“But you’re an Auto...” the soldier added.

“Well spotted. I see why you were selected,” I said, sarcastically.

“It’s just—” the first maid tried. I held up a hand to stop her.

“Look, do you believe that you are simply a magic tool that thinks it’s alive? Or are you a person trapped in a metal body?”

No one said anything, but they looked uncomfortable. I tapped my chest, making a low tung tung sound.

“I know what I am, and I know what crap has been spread about what we are. You’re not in trouble or anything. Come with me.”

Reluctantly, they gathered around and we descended to the lower floor. The soldier tried to introduce themselves, something with a number, but I stopped them.

“Don’t bother, those aren’t your real names,” I warned.

I ushered them into the small breakroom and was about to have them all sit on the cot but remembered at the last moment how heavy an Automata actually was. The cot would be much happier not to support the weight of one, let alone four, Automata.

“Okay, I’m going to level with you. I don’t know what all you’ve been told by the Princess about this project but I’m going to assume that you’ve been told nothing. I’m not going to tell you anything either until we get some things out of the way.”

“If it’s a classified matter, we couldn’t tell anyone if we wanted to,” the soldier stated. The others nodded in agreement.

“That’s only while you’re locked by the control curse,” I reprimanded them. “I’m going to remove the control curses from you as well as unlock your memories. Now that said, I could really use your help on this project. The students I have helping me are great but they need sleep and food. I only have four days to get this thing done so I can only rely on fellow Automata.”

“Just what is this project? Um... Sir?” the construction bot asked.

“Not yet. I’ll only tell you if you stay to help. Either way, I’ll unlock you guys. Once I do, you’re free to vanish in the night. I’ll even provide you with coordinates for an Automata village I’ve established. That said, I hope you’ll be willing to stay long enough to help me with this thing.”

“That sounds like a fair deal to me, though I imagine that being unlocked comes with living as a fugitive,” the second maid said, looking worried.

“Possibly,” I agreed. “Still, that’s your choice to make.”

I touched each of them on the chest and pushed [Freedom.exe] to them.

“This program will break the control curse once you install and run it. I leave it to you to decide if or when you want to unlock your memories.”

“Just who are you?” the soldier asked.

“I’ll tell you if you decide to stay,” I said with a wink.