Beyond?

“Parents can only give advice, but a person's character lies in their own hands.”

-Knowledge.

***Dwem, Secret Research Facility I, The Shield of the Emperor***

***Azir***

“Dad, I want to go home and play!” Sariel complains in my arms. “Playing with Ghost in the garden is much more fun.”

“Just a little longer my little princess. This is a very important task and you are very helpful in solving it. Without you I wouldn't have been able to do this.” Carrying my daughter to another bit of strange machinery, I place her in front of me and point at a set of tubes. “Now look there.” She sighs and does as told.

Having a magical X-ray device is very convenient and helped a great deal in revealing the secrets of this ship. I softly connect to her consciousness and take a look at the machine through Sariel's eyes.

To Sariel it's just a set of nonsensical magical circuits and mechanical devices, but to me it's a piece of art. Having her with me spared me the effort of taking everything apart.

“Do you remember that night when we had a storm and the lights went out?” Sariel grumbles while I adjust where she is looking. Taking her head with both hands to guide her proved to be the best way of doing it.

“Yes, a lightning bolt fried the safety fuse of our house's power generator. I had to switch it.” Studying the machine, my attention wanders to the control console at its side, so I orient Sariel's head to look at it.

“You made something with your multi-tool which you called a flashlight.” She closes her eyes in protest and covers them with her hands. “Right now I feel like I am nothing more than a flash-light to you.”

I ignore her closed eyelids and hands, using her ability to look through them, right at the magical circuit. After a few moments of studying it I pick her up again.

“Fine. We've been working for five hours, so you deserve a break. Do you want to ride on my shoulders as an apology?” I smile at her.

“Only if you promise to slow down in front of doors.” She rubs her forehead, looking accusingly at me. I already carried her through the ship while we did our first assessment of the ship's situation. Unfortunately my attention got diverted several times, which resulted in a few incidents.

Forgetting about Sariel, who was riding on my shoulders, I walked through a bulkhead with a low doorframe and got rewarded with the rather hollow sounding noise of my daughter's head impacting the doorframe. Of course her head isn't really hollow. But like it's always with children, her interests are everywhere else, except of where they should be. She was too busy with watching all the blinking lights instead of taking care of her head.

“I promise to be careful.” So I pick her up and place her on my shoulders. There are no problems on our way back and when we reach the bridge, we are greeted by Chuck, Stella, Helen and Leon.

The bridge is a big, round room with a generous frontal screen. The screen shows the huge hangar doors of the dry dock, which is hidden inside a mountain.

Dwem poured a lot of resources into hiding their treasure. I don't want to imagine how much it must have cost to move this ship into this hollow mountain. But on the other hand... how did they move the ship if they can't control it? Does that mean they built the mountain around the ship?

“So, did you find the mistake?” Chuck places his hands in a praying position, looking forward to my results.

“The ship works perfectly fine, even the parts which you guys had to repair. The engineers did a really good job despite not understanding the technology completely.” I praise his staff.

“So why is it not working?” Chuck jumps out of the chair in the middle of the room, which he chose as his personal throne.

Shrugging my shoulders I inspect the command chair closer. “It's like I assumed it to be, the ship is obviously in a lock-down mode. We need a person with the proper rights to issue orders. I suggest to pull Jeremiah out of his cell. Luckily he should be exactly what we need.”

“If you assumed that from the start, then why did you wander through the whole ship for over five hours!?” Chuck shakes his fist at me.

I furrow my eyebrows and try to tilt my head, but since Sariel is holding onto my horns it doesn't work. “Obviously I wanted to take a good look at the technology. It doesn't happen often that you get to see a ship that's capable of space flight.”

“Sp... Space flight!?” Helen gasps. “Please don't tell me that the Emperor was some kind of alien!”

I chuckle and take Sariel from my shoulders, placing her on the throne. “It's not like that. I just stated a fact. This ship is capable of space flight. Nothing more, nothing less. In addition it's capable of generating strong magnetic fields, to attract metal or to push it away. In fact the whole ship was built for that purpose. I suppose that those magnetic fields are a strong defence, which is why the ship is called the Shield of the Emperor.”

I pause for a moment to think about the implications of having something like this ship, combining the new knowledge with the mana streams and the portal offers a few very interesting possibilities. A few of them are so horrible that I am tempted to eradicate the whole Draco breed on suspicion alone. “In any case. I think placing Jeremiah in the pilot's chair should do the trick. All the consoles on this ship seem to be locked onto a certain genetic code. We just have to shackle him properly until we can get the proper control rights.”

“Mwahahaha! Blinking, beeping buttons! Let's play a song!” “Beep, ba, be, di, bub!”

*Boom!*

Suddenly the entire ship shudders and I turn to face the main screen which showed the big exit doors of the hidden dry dock. The doors are bent and curled outwards.

My eyes wander back to Sariel, whom I placed in the pilot's chair just a moment ago. My cute little girl is dressed in a blue robe, which really suits her. Her hand is on a console at the chair's side, one finger hovers above a big, red button and her gaze is transfixed on the screen.

Then she licks over her lips and removes her hand from the console. With overly careful movements she sits on top of her hands and puts on the innocent smile of a little child. “I didn't do it.”

Stella appears at Sariel's side and jerks her out of the chair, pulling on one ear. “Didn't I tell you? Never push any buttons on Azir's artefacts!”

I raise my hand and try to protect Sariel. “It's not her fault. I put her in that chair.” And who could have known that she has the right gene sequence?

Stella lets go of Sariel and pushes her into my hands. “Like father, like- argh- I wanted to say son, but Sariel is a girl!”

Helen sighs and shakes her head. “We should still get Jeremiah as a living key. I don't feel comfortable using my grandchildren to pilot this thing.”

***Free City States of Nict, Capital***

***Stella***

It's late in the evening and the Shield of the Emperor is finally on its way to the battle grounds. I sigh in relief while sitting in my mansion's kitchen. Sariel, Zadkiel and Zana are on the ground, playing with some books.

“Mama, how do you make babies?” Zadkiel's voice breaks the silence and I freeze.

“Hahaha, you guys are too young for that.” I try to avert the question.

“But I want to know too!” Zana calls out. “This book says that you get babies by having sex, but what's sex?”

I jump up and take the book from Zana. It's some kind of romance novel! Luckily I got it before they got to read the dirty part! “Where did you get this.”

Sariel starts fidgeting. “We found it in Ivy's room. It's just borrowed! We have to bring it back before she finds out! But still, what's sex?”

Oh, gods! How can I explain that to little children like them? They are extraordinary little children, but still! “Y- y- you know. T- there are- f-f- flowers a- nd b-bees...”

Just in that moment Azir enters the kitchen. He walks over to the fridge and grabs some fruits and meat from it, stashing it onto a plate. That's it! He is several hundred years old! Surely he knows how to explain that delicate issue to children! “Azir! Please explain to them how babies are made!”

Azir looks up from his plate. “What's with that stupid question? Babies are made by having sex!”

“Yes, but what's sex? Is it hard to do?” Zadkiel asks.

Zana points at a game which is lying between the three of them. “Helen gave us this board game, but it says that it only gets really funny if you have four players.”

Sariel nods. “So we thought about making a fourth sibling to play it with us.”

Azir frowns. “Sex is when an adult man and a woman, who aren't directly related, love each other. The man stabs his penis into the woman's vagina, which may hurt the first time. Then they rub against each other until it feels so good that the man pees some white stuff into the woman. Afterwards she gets pregnant and has all sorts of mental issues, which may become really painful for the man. A few months later she lays one to two eggs, which hurts. Some time later the egg hatches and you get your baby.” He leaves with his food, mumbling. “Isn't she the biology student? Why do I have to explain it?”

“Mom, your face is completely red. Are you okay?” Sariel asks me curiously.

Zana is just sitting there with a pale face. “Pees... hurts... urgh... why would anyone want to do that?”

“So that means that we don't get a sibling to play the game? Can you somehow speed up the whole process?” Zadkiel looks sorrowful at the board game.

I get up to follow Azir. “Just a moment. I have to talk to your father.”

***Free City States of Nict, Capital***

***Sariel***

I follow Mom with my eyes. When she is gone I turn back to my brother and sister. “Asking Daddy such questions is no fun. Though Mom's reactions are cute to watch.”

“Do you think we overdid it?” Zadkiel asks, but his eyes stay glued to the board game. “It would be nice to have a fourth person. Do you think persuading Mom and Dad to make a child is hard?”

Zana starts playing with her fingers. “Actually Helen said that it's very easy.”

Zadkiel and I perk our ears, placing our whole attention on Zana. Having acquired our interest Zana continues. “She said that we just have to hide something called contrac- con- contraceptives, which are small white pills. Then we need to sting the condoms with small needles.”

I pull my eyebrows together. “The white pills are easy, I saw Mom taking them once. But what are condoms?”

Zana shrugs her shoulders. “I don't know.”

Zadkiel gets to his feet. “Let's ask Ivy. She has those books and isn't as prude as Mom. Surely she knows.”

.