Invicta folded her arms, smirking faintly.
"Sweet dreams darling…"
She said, stepping back to admire her soon to be masterpiece.
"... while I get get to work like a good wify should."
She turned, heels clicking against the metal floor, the lab's lights dimming behind her as she walked out an Into the corridor. As she walked through the corridor, the ship stirred.
Old lights flickered to life. Power conduits thrummed. Halls that had been silent for eons pulsed with energy once more.
The ancient vessel was waking up. As Invicta walked down the lighting up corridor, the soft hum of awakening systems echoed around her like whispers of an ancient machine stretching its bones.
She didn't touch a single interface. No consoles. No screens. Instead, she simply willed it, and a halo of holographic windows bloomed before her eyes.
Glowing blue figures spun across her vision. Numbers. Simulations. Supply chains. Nutritional demand curves. Psych profiles. Combat doctrine indexes. Weapon platforms. She muttered to herself like she was debating what to have for lunch.
"Hmmm… I can equip and sustain a full sixteen legions. That's one hundred and ninety two thousand men and women..."
Her lips pursed in thought, a projection window displaying stacked formation charts and logistical flow matrices.
"Plus forty eight thousand for sixteen air wings and dropships and 160 000 for the crew needed to maintain and operate my body..."
She added, scrolling through a column of available space fighters, Interceptors, bombers and dropships In her Inventory.
"But..."
She sighed, narrowing her eyes.
"The faster they grow, the shorter their lifespan. Can't forget cell degradation. And cost effectiveness takes a hit at anything below a two year cycle."
She paused mid stride as if the numbers had stopped moving. Then she smiled.
"Alright."
She tapped a virtual button in her mind.
"402,000 clones. One year accelerated growth. Simulated twenty year consciousness stream, special operations forces physical fitness and the option to propegate with a fifty fifty ratio"
Her voice became almost reverent as she whispered.
"Shelf life three to five years with each new naturally born generations metabolism decreasing by one time and shelf life Increasing by three to five years"
The moment she decided the cool, sterile chambers all over the spaceship lit up one by one, each larger than any stadium ever built by mankind.
Rows upon rows of egg shaped glass pods stacked on the walls like hive cells came to life.
From the ship's cryogenic genetic vaults, ancient stored artificial sperm, born and bred long ago, was automatically thawed, scanned, sequenced, modificated on the spot and matched to donor egg genomes with the highest compatability rate.
Microneedles injected male genetic material Into female eggs with flawless precision. Artificial fertilization.
Within moments, the first spark of cell division began. A hum of energy coursed through the floors like a heartbeat.
1 cell.
2.
4.
8.
16...
Within seconds, thousands of microscopic embryos reached the blastocyst stage, primed and ready.
Mechanical arms transferred them into rows of artificial womb pods, which hissed softly as bio amniotic fluid filled them.
Artificial life, planned and designed, weaponized life began growing.
Tiny forms floating in translucent liquid, already being fed data, language, memory, and simulated experience through direct neural induction.
Twenty years of training and social development, compressed into twelve months of simulated reality.
Future enlisted, NCOs and officers. Future pilots and ground crews. Future technicians and engineers.
All designed. All owned. All part of her hubbys soon to be war machine that would turn the galaxy upside down. Back in the corridor, Invicta sighed to herself.
Then pouted. Actually pouted.
Her foot came down with a sharp stomp against the steel floor, echoing through the otherwise silent ship.
"Tch. A whole f*cking year of boredom until my darling wakes up."
Her voice rang out like a spoiled queen denied her entertainment.
"Ugh. What am I even supposed to do for twelve damn months?"
Several maintenance drones zipped past her with mini robotic hands carrying tools, cables, and glossy repair plates.
They flew all arround her repairing her neglected for years real body after all if she wanted to make It space worthy again she had a s*itload of work to do.
Invicta crossed her arms beneath her coat, still pouting.
"About time I treated myself, too."
She muttered to herself as she entered another lab full of platforms, rails, and suspended medical rigs.
Invicta stepped inside, humming to herself as the lights activated automatically. With practiced ease, she reached up, taking off her coat, slipping out of her shorts and T-shirt
She walked barefoot across the cold floor to the central platform, her tanned Inhumanly perfect synthetic body glistening under the white fluorescents.
Every inch of her screamed artificial perfection, skin smooth, unmarred, impossibly flawless.
She stepped onto the platform and spread her arms out as clamps secured around her wrists and ankles.
"Alright… time for an upgrade."
The platform rose with a low hum, raising her high into the center of the chamber. From above and below, mechanical arms unfurled, each moving with terrifying precision.
Her synthetic skin got cut open by lazers and removed and moved to be reprocesed on the spot..
A flood of glowing artificial blood, neural coolant mixed with nutrient gel was siphoned from her veins, drained into filtered containment tubes.
Organs, biomechanical in nature, were disconnected with surgical grace, heart, lungs, secondary power cores, digestive mimickers each removed and placed into sterilized cradles.
Her mechanical frame a hybrid of bone mimicking alloys and hyper responsive servos was next.
Clamps detached vertebrae. Joints split at the seams. Each segment of her skeleton dismantled, piece by piece, her limbs going dark and lifeless as they were taken.
Until nothing was left. Across on another platform, a new mechanical skeleton was being printed on the spot by the labs 3D printers.
Taller. Broader. One foot at a time, then shins, femurs, spine. A new body, designed to mimick human female body to perfection.
And Invicta? She was still humming. In her digital world full of numbers.
"When he wakes up, he better be hot enough to match. Otherwise I'm putting him back in the tank."
She muttered to herself as she watched her new body get assembled through the labs security cameras.
...
Location: Old Town, Broken Fang Bar
The bar stank of cheap disinfectant, old sweat, and even older beer, with cracked wood counters, flickering neon signs, and a jukebox that hadn't worked since the second solar tax hike.
In one dim corner, lit only by a faulty overhead bulb and the soft blue glow of a wall mounted tube-screen TV, five men sat around a scarred, dent-riddled table.
Darius "Fritz", bulky and grim, arms like logs, stomach like a keg.
Robert "Scrooge", slouched with the kind of refined disdain only a man who's seen too much and given too little could maintain.
Paul "Fishman", lanky, quiet, eyes like he'd seen the ocean drown him and survived.
Julian "Cezar", hair slicked back with something that might've once been gel, wearing a tank top one size too small for his regret-filled dad bod.
And Airid, the only one who still looked like he shopped in the anime aisle, complete with a faded t-shirt that said "Waifu over Knife-u" in neon kanji.
Each one held a mug of lukewarm beer, the silence between them long, comfortably bitter, and the weight of age heavy in their joints.
"Vamp's late again"
Darius muttered, scratching his stomach with a sigh.
"That bastard's always late,"
Robert grunted.
"Probably passed out somewhere drooling over old war docs or hot sauce commercials again."
"Fine"
Airid said, half joking, half annoyed. He pulled out his worn out smart phone for the umpteenth time, tapping at the cracked screen.
"I'll call him again..."
BZZT.
The TV above suddenly flickered, the music cutting off as a breaking news alert flashed across the screen.
"This just in, we have new footage from this morning's explosive act of urban terrorism in Sector 13…"
The five old dogs froze. The TV showed chaos.
Gunfire. Crashed vehicles. Drone cam shots of destroyed streets. A black van full of holes. And in the middle of it all a familiar rust bucket barreling through traffic like a bat out of hell.
Paul squinted, leaning forward.
"...Hey. Isn't that Drac's trash can?"
He pointed at the screen. The others leaned in.
"Huh?"
"No way..."
"Hold the f*ck on..."
Robert squinted hard, then choked on his beer and spit it all over Julian.
"ACK... ptoo! That's... THAT'S HIM!"
Julian growled, wiping beer off his face with a rag that did more smearing than cleaning.
"F*ck you, Robert!"
But no one was listening. Because now the screen was showing clear photos, overlayed with urgent red text.
First. Dracula Von Death "Armed and Deadly Terrorist. Approach with Caution."
Then, next to him. Invicta, mid peace sign, tongue sticking out, another hand pulling down her eyes eyebag, wink frozen mid frame. Caption. "Most Wanted Hacker Worldwide"