by Simon Archer
I also confirmed what I had gleaned from my initial scan of the system. The core of the planet was dead, and I knew why. The dynamo inside where the core had been didn’t have a high enough concentration of platinum, iridium, and osmium. I shut my eyes and reached out with my Sense ability, and as I did, I turned on my Overdrive. It worked better than I’d have imagined since it stretched out pretty far from where I stood, but not nearly far enough at the same time since it barely went beyond the planet where I stood.
No, if I wanted to know more, and find more, I’d have to find it myself. That was fine, though, because I had space ants.
“Queenie,” I said as I got to my feet and turned to face her, “can you do me a favor?”
“Yes, master?” she inquired, practically bubbling with excitement. “What is it you desire of me?”
“Actually, let’s take a step back,” I said with a laugh, and at her confused look, I just shrugged and continued. “So, if I wanted to find certain kinds of metals and whatnot in the surrounding area,” I gestured around us, “and by area, I mean the surrounding space.” I paused for emphasis, but when she just stared at me eagerly, I let out a small sigh and forged ahead. “What would we need to do to get it and bring it back here?”
“Hmm…” she mused and tapped one slender finger against her cheek. “That is an interesting question.” She glanced around. “Simply taking ore from a planet would not be terribly difficult as the ants you currently have in your army are perfectly capable of doing that…”
“I’m sensing a but?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Yes, well, the problem is logistics.” She huffed out a breath, and I could tell she was frustrated. “I am not sure how to get the metal we mine out back to this place easily.” Her shoulders slumped. “I fear that even if you were to give them power such as you gave me, it would not be enough to make the trip quickly enough to be worth it.”
“Oh,” I said as I scratched the back of my head. “That is a doozy…” Only as I thought about it, I realized it wasn’t that big of a problem. “What if your ants just dug it up and put it in a pile? Then I could transport it. How about that?”
“It would definitely be easier, but it is not your place to do things like that.” She touched her breast with one hand. “We are your servants and should not require you to lift even a finger.” She frowned. “While your help in this way would greatly increase our efficiency, it would signal a failure for us.”
“Nah, we’re a team,” I said as I put my arm around her shoulders. “And there is no I in team.”
Instead of immediately responding, she just flushed bright red, which was cute given her inherent shade of green. “As you wish, master.”
“Okay.” I clapped my hands together. “What do we need to do for you to find things?”
“It is easy enough,” Queenie said, her face screwed up in concentration. The look sort of reminded me when someone tried to visualize something in their mind to walk someone through it. “Simply deploy your Scouts and tell them what you wish them to find.”
“Oh,” I said with a smirk. Then, with a wave of my hand, I summoned Scout and fed him a bit of godly power through the tether that attached him to me.
The little ant twitched, and I heard the barest word of thanks echo in my mind from the creature.
“Okay, Scout,” I said after shooting a quick glance at Queenie. “I need you to find sources of iridium, platinum, and osmium. Actually, get gold and tungsten too. Those are probably more abundant and almost as good.” It was true. While iridium, platinum, and osmium had densities above 21,000 kg/m3 and were optimal for the task at hand, both gold and tungsten had densities over 19,000 kg/m3. “Also, frozen CO2, oxygen, nitrogen, and water would be good. We don’t necessarily need to mine those last three out right now because it will be for the atmosphere, and we won’t need it until after we restart the dynamo, but I’d like to know where they are, anyway.”
Scout bobbed his head once, and a half a second later, I saw the mini-map of the planet as well as the area about the range of my own Sense ability light up showing the items I’d requested. While the ones on the planet and its moon didn’t really help, the ones in the immediate area did.
“Queenie, can you coordinate the retrieval and scouting of the things I asked for if I give you access to the summons?” I glanced around the area. “I’d like to prioritize asteroids over planets and moons if possible, but at the same time, we need approximately 4x10^21 kilograms total so whatever works, really.”
At least I hoped that was true. I hadn’t actually looked at the core of this planet in detail. From here, it seemed like it would be enough, but once I got down there, I might need ten times that much material. Still, my godly powers told me I was pretty close.
That, in itself, was pretty cool because before I would have had to do a bunch of complex calculations spanning numerous spreadsheets to figure out how much material to add to the core to restart the planet’s magnetic field, but now? I just thought about it, and the math just happened in my head, which was pretty fucking sweet.
“It would be my pleasure to coordinate this task for you,” Queenie said with a nod. “As Queen, coordinating your army is well within my abilities.”
“Excellent,” I said as I swapped over control of the summons within my storage to her. I also gave her the ability to access my ability to create new ones and put them away if needed. I could always override her if needed, but I didn’t think that was going to be necessary.
She wasted no time either. I’d barely given her control when she began summoned fifteen Scout Ants, and the strain on my power was immediate but less than I’d expected it since Queenie was fueling their creation from her own Aura pool.
I watched as the green ants rose from the ground like zombies clawing free of the earth. Like Scout, they were all greenish and had a small tether of godly energy tethering them to me and, now, to her. Then she marched over to them like General Patton and stood over them. She didn’t speak, but her antennae twitched intently for a few moments.
One by one, green, glowing fireballs began to envelop the Scout Ants, and as they grew so bright that I couldn’t actually look at them and see detail despite my Godly vision, they leapt skyward with enough force to crack the earth beneath their feet.
I watched as they soared upward and into space, and it was then that I realized I could feel their journey through the tether as they passed through the upper reaches of the planet’s weak gravity and burst out into the vast emptiness of space.
As I watched them go, I rubbed my face as I thought over what we needed to do. It seemed pretty overwhelming because we had to start basically from scratch. We needed to open up the planet’s core, melt down what was there, and add enough heavy metal so that when the planet’s natural rotation started to move the newly molten core, it would create a proper dynamo and restart the planet’s magnetic field. Then, and only then, would the planet have enough of a magnetic field to keep the star’s radiation from stripping off an atmosphere. Plus, we’d have increased the gravity of the planet enough to keep most of the atmosphere from reaching escape velocity and venting itself into space.
That was when we could start introducing the necessary components to make that atmosphere.
It was a lot of work, and now that Queenie was going to start the scouting and retrieval process for the indescribably huge amount of rare metals we needed, I had my own share of work, so I turned my attention back to the planet and rubbed my hands together. It was time to get busy.
21
As I walked around the planet so I could get my eyes on every inch of the crater-pocked surface, I was glad I had taken the time to level both myself and my ants as high as I could. The strain of having almost fifty ants was taking a toll on my godly abilities even though some of the ants, like Queenie and One, were strong enough to not really require a lot of energy. If I’d been weaker, this part would have been that much more difficult.
I was
still incredibly fast and powerful, but I was a lot less so because I had to feed my army power constantly, especially as they got farther and farther away from me. Still, there was nothing for it.
After I completed my first couple loops around the red planet, I realized two things. First, the planet did have a magnetic field, it was just weak as hell. Second, I’d definitely have to sculpt the surface a bit once I started adding liquid water to it because aside from a pair of huge craters on the northern upper quadrant of the planet, the surface barely had a thousand foot of variation. That wouldn’t really work because it meant the whole planet would either be underwater or at sea level, and that would limit the types of biomes I could create.
After all, how was I supposed to snowboard without mountains? Or have wooly mammoths?
And I needed to have wooly mammoths. And a mastodon. And a tyrannosaurus rex…
I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. I wasn’t that far yet. My planet couldn’t even support bacteria, let alone complex organisms, but it would be able to soon.
Satisfied that I’d sufficiently mapped out the surface of my planet, I headed south until I reached the location of the magnetic pole. Then I looked down at the red dirt. It was a relatively unspecial spot, so I was glad I’d gone ahead and marked it on my mini-map.
“Well, let’s see what this title can do,” I said to myself before kneeling down on the surface of the planet and placing my hands on the ground. Then I took a deep breath and focused my Aura.
I wasn’t a master of earth magic by any means since I had only been granted the power via the ‘of the Cold and Dark’ title, but in my godly state, that still meant I was a lot better at it than I had been in the dungeon where I could hardly do a damned thing with it.
Trust me, I’d spent a good forty minutes fashioning a bowl out of a chunk of clay, and even then, it was pretty ugly looking. So, yeah, transforming the surface of the planet was probably out until I got much stronger, but for now, that was okay because I didn’t need to do anything so technical.
Instead, I just reached out with my power, and as I felt it flow into the ground, I realized there was a strange resonance within the planet’s crust. It sort of thrummed along in a way that reminded me of a drum beat, and before I knew what I was doing, I found myself humming along.
The odd thing was that as my humming continued, and my body began to sway with the beat of the planet’s natural resonance, I found it easier to push my Aura down into it. Before long, I’d shut my eyes and just let my power flow. It was still hard because I could feel the forty-plus connections with my ants spread out all over as well as Queenie’s quick, efficient commands, but it was all background noise in my mind. Instead, I just felt the planet beneath me.
It slumbered and had done so for billions upon billions of years. So long that it had nearly forgotten what it had been like to be alive, and because of that, it was slow to wake to my call.
Yet it did, little by little. The planet slowly woke, and as it did, I let my earth power tell it what I wanted. Only what I wanted wasn’t simple. Still, I pictured it in my mind and began to project it into the long-dead earth, anyway.
I focused on the image of a cavern that led all the way down to the planet’s core. On other worlds, ones that were less dead, it would have been harder because there would have been molten rock down below, and I didn’t have liquid mastery of any kind. If I’d have done this there, I’d have basically created a volcano.
This planet, for better or worse, was dead, so it was nothing but solid earth beneath my feet.
That didn’t mean it was easy, though.
Strain racked my body as the ground beneath me began to give way. First an inch, then a few more, then a foot. I pressed on, gritting my teeth as sweat beaded on my brow before evaporating away into the atmosphere. I know, I could have stopped it from doing so if I could have spared half a thought, but I just couldn’t.
The entirety of my being went to pushing down into the planet’s surface, and with each and every inch, the entirety of the planet seemed to shake.
“What are you doing, master?” Queenie’s voice hit me like a sledgehammer after I had been at it for more than an hour. My body would have been drenched in sweat, but it had all evaporated away, leaving me feeling a crazy kind of dirty.
“Digging a hole,” I managed to say without diverting my attention to her. I worried that if I did, I’d just collapse because my muscles were so sore, I could barely think.
“Would you wish aid in your task?” she asked earnestly. “I could direct some of the ants to help you. We are, after all, quite efficient at this sort of thing.”
“No.” I took a huge gulp of not air. It was weird because I knew there was no need to breathe and no air to breathe even if I’d needed to, but I still found myself going through the motions of the thing. Guess that was a perk, or a flaw, of being human.
“Why not?” she asked, and I felt her hand on my shoulder. It was comforting in a way I couldn’t quite explain.
“Because the distance to the center of the planet from this spot is around eight thousand kilometers,” I began to explain, “and in the last hour, I’ve managed to dig nearly forty kilometers. Any second now, I’ll reach the end of where the crust would be. Then I’ll have to dig another three to four thousand kilometers to get through the mantle. After that, I need to get another probably three thousand kilometers through the outer core. Only then will I reach the inner core, and I estimate at my current rate, it will take around a hundred and seventy-five hours of work to get there.” I turned to look at her, which, yes, caused my concentration to falter a bit. “How long will it take your ants?”
“Many times that, master.” Queenie didn’t look convinced. “And--”
“And that entire time you won’t be finding the metals we need for the core.” I smiled despite the strain. “So, that’s why I’m doing this part.” I patted the ground. “Let me do this, and you work on your thing.”
“As you wish, master.” Queenie’s face flickered with displeasure. “But perhaps you should rest a moment?” She touched the spot on her body where the thin trail of godly energy tethered her to me. “I can feel your strain.”
“That’s probably not a bad idea,” I said as I turned back to my work. “Once I get through the crust, I promise that I will take a break.”
“Thank you, master.” She paused a second. “You may be a god, but even gods can die, and without you, we would cease to be.” She bit her lip. “We need you more than you know.”
I hadn’t really thought about that, but she was right. They would probably all die if I ceased to be, and from my experience in Terra Forma, I knew that while dying in a dungeon wouldn’t kill you, a death while in your god form was the end of things. I’d only done it a few times, but I’d certainly ridden the line more than once.
It was a line that I was fast approaching.
“You don’t need to worry,” I said as I felt my power break through the crust. It wasn’t really any different in terms of composition than the rest of the planet at this point because it wasn’t molten, but I definitely knew, somehow, that I’d done it. I also knew I was in for quite the slog.
Still, I had promised her I would take a break, and she seemed inclined to stand there until I did it, so I pulled my power back, and immediately, I felt a lot better. It sort of reminded me of working out. My muscles had burned and strained in a way that let me know I was getting a good pump, but at the same time, I knew that I couldn’t keep up that tempo forever, and even a little bit of rest would help me to maximize the weight and reps for my next set.
“So,” I said as I got to my feet and turned to face the Queen Ant, “what’s the status of things?”
She gave me a look that said ‘don’t you already know?’ and while I sort of did, in that I had access to the information, I’d always found I liked when people just told me the highlights in situations like this because then I could more easily brainstorm anything that neede
d, well, brainstorming.
“It is going well,” she hedged, suddenly unsure. “We have located several deposits of tungsten on nearby asteroids as well as trace amounts of gold, platinum, and iridium.” She frowned a bit. “And while we still have a great many asteroids to look through, we have found some relatively easy spots to mine on a couple of the non-gas giants.”
“Ah, so you wanted permission to begin excavation of those planets?” I asked and then feigned mock horror. “So, you weren’t actually concerned about me?”
“I am very concerned about you.” She frowned deeper than ever before. “Have I done something that would make you think you are not the most important thing in the universe to me, master? Because whatever it is was, I definitely did it unintentionally.” She took a huge breath of non-air. Guess it wasn’t a human thing, after all. “Please accept my most humble apology.”
“I was just making a joke,” I said, suddenly feeling bad.
“It is no joking matter, master.” She met my eyes. “You are my sun and moon and all the stars between.”
“I apologize too,” I said because I couldn’t think of what else to say. “Anyway, you have permission to excavate the planets. I just don’t want to start hollowing planetary cores if we don’t have to.” I scrubbed my grubby face with my hands. “After all, that might completely destroy those planets, assuming we want to deal with ridiculously huge amounts of hot liquid magma.”
“Understood.” Queenie nodded. “Would you like me to include excavation of this planet as well? There are numerous pockets of those metals near the surface.”
“Not as of yet.” I spread my arms wide at the planet. “I know it doesn’t much look it, but one day, this place will be home to all sorts of life, and some of that life will be intelligent enough to need those materials. I’d rather leave it for them, if possible.” I smirked. “Besides, do you want to go out to the far reaches of the galaxy every time someone needs some metal we mined out because it was easier now?”
