Sara woke up when her phone alarm went off and realized everything she’d been through must have been a dream.

  “Good morning,” Hammy said. “Breakfast?”

  OK, not a dream, Sara thought. Then all the other evidence mounted. She had gone to sleep in her clothes with no shower. She KNEW where Hammy, Bodran, Etta, and the wyrmcraft were, and in the case of the dragons, KNOWING the distance made her feel … she wanted to say ‘small,’ but that word didn’t begin to cover it. Small was a bacterium next to the ocean, but that was enormous compared to the kind of small she felt next to that amount of space. She started to feel dizzy.

  “You OK, Buddy?” Hammy said. He called her ‘Buddy,’ just like she did when she was reassuring him … which she thought was the sweetest thing ever. She scratched his chin and he purred.

  “Yeah, little one, I’m OK, I just … started thinking about all the changes and how big the world just got.”

  Hammy made a chirpy ‘mrreeep’ sound. “Changes are the worst, but sometimes they turn out to be the best. Like remember when you found me you were living in that basement apartment and I freaked out when you brought me here but then I got to see the sun and the windows and the birds and the asshole cat in the window across the way and now I hate the basement apartment and I never want to go back.” Sara got all that meaning from a teeny chirp.

  Hammy made another chirp. “Outside is really big, and I want to go there but then I get there and it’s too scary and I run and hide, but when you go with me it isn’t that scary. I mean it’s still terrifying, but you are there, and every time we go it gets less scary. Plus now you can tell me about things and maybe that makes it less scary too. Breakfast?”

  “Yes, breakfast, then you and me have some choices we have to make about the big scary outside.” She looked inside herself and activated her ‘hard to see’ ability.

  Hammy tilted his head. “You are learning the ways of a predator.” He sounded very proud.

  Once Hammy was fed and Sara had a shower, she sat down on the couch with her feet pulled into lotus and patted her lap for Hammy to join her. She sat the core they’d taken from Laugust’s body on the coffee table. Hammy jumped up and sniffed at it before he settled on her lap.

  “That is a core, like the one I absorbed. It will give you magic powers and it will make you even more connected to me, but it will hurt like hell if you absorb it.”

  Hammy’s ears pulled back and he stopped purring. “I don’t like pain. Pain is how you know to stop. Pain means it is bad.”

  Sara petted him. “Sometimes. But sometimes you have to go through pain for a good reason. Like when I bring you to the vet and let them stick you with the needles. Do you know why I bring you to the vet for shots?”

  Hammy stood up, eyes wide and dilated, “You mean you could have stopped them?”

  “Hammy, my beloved boy, the reason I let them is that those shots make you safe from getting sick. I get shots too. I hate them, but I let them stick me because it is less risk than the diseases they prevent. And here’s the thing, Hammy. You can speak now, and you are smarter. So from here on out, I let you choose if you want things like shots.”

  Hammy turned to look at the glowing core on the table. “So you want me to choose if I absorb the core.”

  “Yes. But we can ask the core I already absorbed anything you want to ask.”

  Hammy stared at the core for a few more minutes and said, “It worked out for you. I want to do it.”

  Sara laughed. “Well, I have some things I want to know first.”

  “Go for it,” Hammy said. “I need a nap anyway.”

  While Hammy napped and bathed, Sara closed her eyes and spent some time trying to figure out how everything worked.

  According to ESK1, an AI had been blended with the planetary ruling council of Eskil to create a hybrid biological machine entity to rule over both the biologicals and the sentient machines. That hybrid entity was ESK0. Over the next several thousand years, the living entities on Eskil evolved cores and the ability to access mana, but only very rare Eskilians could harness it without burning out their own life force. Over time, the AIs found ways to modify Eskilian cores so that mana could be used safely, and that fusion of biology and machine became the standard. Now Eskilians were basically cyberpunk machine hybrid beings, and Sara would have been lying if she said she didn’t think that was pretty much the coolest thing she’d ever heard.

  As for how the Princess Gorskaria got involved… she found Eskil while looking for worlds to conquer, and instead of telling the Empire, she started sneaking off to spend time there, studying their magic and way of life. She befriended ESK0. The Space Affinity didn’t exist among Eskilians, nor had they ever seen a species that could naturally withstand the ravages of magic on their body and soul. Gorskaria convinced them that the draconic race posed a real threat.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  ESK0 created ESK1 for Gorskaria, who insisted failsafes be built in so that magical means and torture could never reveal the secret of Eskil. Together they created a modified core for Gorskaria’s wyrmcraft and one for Laugust, and the three of them started the rebellion together.

  ESK0 had no way of knowing what the Empire had been up to since Princess Gorskaria’s murder, and that had been over five Earth centuries prior. In fact, until Sara had taken up ESK1, ESK0 had no way of knowing what had happened to Princess Gorskaria as the network was dependent on at least one of the networked cores being installed in a living being with a natural Space Affinity.

  As for how the cores worked, they were each AIs in their own right, each with potential to develop sentience. Sara’s was very close.

  Sara’s core was a master node over ESK1A- the wyrmcraft, and would also be over ESK1B, which would be Hammy’s core. This gave her several abilities on top of instantaneous non-verbal communication. Her stealth ability could be conveyed on Hammy and the Wyrmcraft any time she willed it, and on any wyrmholes she created to or from the wyrmcraft, she could see through Hammy’s eyes, and she could sense what was happening on the Wyrmcraft at any time.

  She told Hammy all about what the cores could do, but when it came to Eskil, she only said there was a secret and if they spilled it, they’d both die. He agreed wholeheartedly that he should not be told what it was.

  With all that out of the way, Hammy was ready … for lunch.

  Hammy stared at the core in front of him. Sara said all he had to do was put his paw on it and then say yes when it asked, then it would be a bunch of pain, then he would have to say yes to something about affinities. He didn’t see why it had to be so complicated. He had made up his mind and that was that. It was like jumping way too far. You had to commit and believe or you’d crash and end up on a video on the internet for Sara to laugh at. He put his paw on the core and said, “Yes to all the stuff you are about to ask me.”

  The core disappeared and he knew a bunch of stuff. Like he knew he had a luck affinity and a speed affinity.

  His luck affinity meant things went his way more often than they did for other people. Duh. That’s how he found Sara. There were a bunch of numbers that said how much they went better, but none of that mattered. Things either went well or they didn’t and whatever happened, that was what he had to deal with. Sometimes supper was on time and sometimes it wasn’t. You could yell all you wanted, but if Sara wasn’t there, there was no getting the can open.

  The other thing luck did was it stretched to other people. If he walked in front of someone he liked, he could make them lucky for a while. But his favorite part -- if he walked in front of someone he didn’t like, he could make them unlucky. His tail went up just thinking about it.

  His speed affinity made him faster. That made sense. There was a bunch of stuff about how his speed affinity was way better than anyone ever saw before. The only bad thing was it used up his magic pretty fast and he had to concentrate on being part of the universe to make the magic build back up, and he could only do that if he wasn’t doing anything else.

  There was another fun thing he could do, but he could only do it one time and then he had to wait a really long time to do it again. He could make time stand still for everyone except for him for as long as he could hold his breath. He was even allowed to keep Sara and the two dragons he met moving with him if he wanted. He might let the nice blue dragon, but no way he’d do it for the green asshole dragon.

  The best thing of all was the one called luck-speed synergy. If something was about to hurt him or Sara, he would somehow know about it right before it happened, and then he might have time to stop it. He could do it for the dragons too, but that wasn’t nearly as exciting.

  He kept waiting for the painful part, but it never happened.

  Sara was staring into space like she did when she was talking to her core. She kept smiling.

  “Oh, Hammy, you did so good. I can’t believe you got a spidy sense!”

  Hammy purred.

  *

  Etta opened her portal from Andonth right into the central plaza of the wyrmcraft. She and Bodran were the first through. She was angry at Bodran. He’d insisted on only bringing volunteers and on telling everyone they wouldn’t be back. Some nonsense about the best servants being willing servants. They’d only brought 23 people. That wasn’t enough staff to polish her scales much less take care of refurbishing her new eyrie. What’s worse, they seemed loyal to Bodran and not to her. She would need to do something about that.

  Bodran was already organizing everyone. Fine. As long as his orders continued to make sense, he could continue to serve as proxy.

  Now where were the Earth creatures? She extended her senses and felt… nothing. She cast a search spell. Still nothing. She turned to Bodran.

  “They’re gone,” he said before she could open her mouth to say the same thing. “I can still sense the connection between us, but I can’t tell anything about where they are. Whoever has taken them has a stealth affinity and they have absolute control over us until we can rescue them.”

  Smoke puffed from Etta’s nostrils as she fumed. “When we get them back, I’ll lock them up on the most remote planet I can find.”

  Sara, who was watching through her connection with the wyrmcraft core, paled as she saw Bodran nodding his head. She noticed the screen on her silenced phone lighting up. It was the Hardware store where she worked. She had no idea how to explain not coming in or calling, and she couldn’t even imagine trying to help customers given everything that had happened. She still needed to make up her literature exam, and she was missing another class right now.

  There was a knock on the door. “Sara. Sara! It’s Shayla. You were supposed to come to Joey’s birthday last night and you haven’t answered any of the million texts I’ve sent. They said you missed work. We’re all worried about you.

  Sara opened the door to let Shayla and her golden retriever in.

  Oh, god, it’s Max, Hammy said. He jumped to the top of his cat tower and glared at the dog. Max’s tail thumped as he whined up at Hammy. Why did you let them in? If he doesn’t stop breathing so loud I’m going to give him bad luck.

  Max barked. Hammy hissed. Shayla stared at Sara with her hands on her hips, eyebrows up near the ceiling. Somewhere, in a galaxy far, far away, a dragon princess threw a tantrum because no one had thought to bring tea.

  Sara felt a migraine coming on.

  There are no advanced chapters yet, but when I get some time, that is going to change. There is special Hammy tier to reward early support.