Chương 491: Limitless Path Chapter Five Hundred Thirteen

"Do you have more than that?" Selene asked.

"No, that's everything," Sera said as Beth made a motion like she was dusting her hands off.

"Good, because that's all we can handle right now," Selene said with a sigh.

"We'll store this stuff for you and sell it as we can, but we can't accept anything else. The fighter alone is going to be a massive headache, not to mention all the rest of this junk. It's going to take months to handle all of this."

"Didn't mean to put you out," Beth said, surveying the stacks of things in this end of the warehouse with her hands on her hips.

"It's no trouble," Selene replied, wrapping an arm around Beth's waist.

"Let's not focus on that; that'll be my job over the next few weeks. Let's distract ourselves with more pleasant topics." That discussion of more pleasant topics took the three of them all day… and all night… and some of the next day. When they were finally done, Beth had to admit it was tough being with an Exalted, even with Sera working with her to constantly tag-team Selene. The greater demoness did mention that she had just undergone her ascension to Exalted, and she meant just, and that had…

affected her a little more than she had thought it might. Luckily, Beth and Sera were able to keep up with her, and it wasn't exactly as if it were a real trial to keep the needy demoness satisfied.

"We do need a ride, and not that kind," Beth said in the afternoon, the three of them sitting around and having a drink of their choice.

"Well, we could arrange both," Selene said with a raised eyebrow.

"Relax," Sera murmured, caressing Selene's leg with her tail.

"Right, well," Selene said, shaking herself out of it.

"What do you need a ride for?"

"We don't have a starship," Beth said.

"Our ride took off for parts unknown. We need a ride back to the ship we're taking apart. We need those parts, first."

"Don't worry; you didn't ask for anything unique, even if a few parts were pricey. They'll all be ready by tomorrow morning," Selene said, waving a hand casually.

"By tomorrow? So, we have another night we have to pass in some way?" Beth asked in a light, teasing tone.

"There's only so much I can do to hurry things along," Selene replied with a wicked grin. A day, and much effort on Beth and Sera's part, later, they had all the materials they needed, which they collected from the Seven Light's building before teleporting away. It was a bit odd, going through the teleporter like that, though Beth was used to going through with groups. She wasn't used to traveling with Selene, even if she had traveled with Exalted before, which very few living people could say.

She did think of the greater demoness as someone that she saw occasionally, a bit of a fling for her and Sera both, but not as a traveling companion. It made the trip feel a little bit odd, though it wasn't a bad feeling, and Beth thought she might get used to such a thing if more chances came up in the future. They used the CRA network for the couple teleports that they needed to get to Earth, and they were met in their home Hall by a rather tall, rather annoyed ogre.

He glowered at them before looking Selene over, the demoness being demure for the first time Beth could remember. She supposed that Baelvyr's legend preceded him even among those at the level of Exalted, and doing something that caused him annoyance was a cause to walk very softly. Beth, however, had no such compunctions.

"Shouldn't you be out, you know, click-click," Beth said, making a snapping sound with her tongue at the end.

"No. And, no," he said gruffly, finished giving Selene a side-eye and also checking their emblems.

"I shouldn't, and ya shouldn't mention it, and ya shouldn't wander around with strange Exalted."

"Hey, I wander around with you," Beth fired right back.

"You also spend time with Jaq," Baelvyr immediately pointed out, which had Beth frowning but she couldn't find a good retort to that.

"Just keep yer head screwed on straight," Baelvyr said, giving all three of them a glare before he disappeared, simply ceasing to exist in the room.

"Well, that was…something," Selene said, placing a hand to her rather ample chest and exhaling dramatically.

"He likes to make sour faces, but he's not that hard to get along with," Beth said as they left the teleporter room.

"The Adamantine Colossus 'is not that hard to get along with,' " Selene repeated with some wonder in her voice.

"Exactly what I said," Beth said with a nod, grunting when Sera flicked her ear hard enough to produce a loud bang. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

"Enough," said the dragon, though her tone wasn't annoyed, just slightly exasperated. They made their way back to the suite, Beth fondly remembering the days when spending a few silver a day for a room was outrageous; now, she rented more expensive rooms for months at a time and didn't even think about the cost. Blood and Val were currently in the suite, in the living room on the couch smoking and talking.

Val glanced over when they walked in, doing a double take at seeing Selene with them, but she didn't panic, though she did try to hide her pipe for a moment.

"Relax, Vallenna, I'm not going to run to the press," Selene said with some amusement in her voice, sitting on the couch across from the other two.

"Thank the stars," Val muttered, pulling her pipe back out and starting to smoke again.

"I can't tell you how nice it is not to have those vultures following me around everywhere, always getting underfoot, asking me a thousand questions.

'Vallenna, why is Andryn always wasted?' and 'Oh, Vallenna, why isn't the team leveling faster?' and my personal favorite, 'Why are you spending so much time discussing strategy before a fight? And, follow-up, do you expect the others to actually follow the plan this time?' It was all so fucking insufferable."

"Well, tell us how you really feel," Beth muttered, sitting on the couch.

"I take it we're waiting on somebody else?" Selene asked, looking around at the group before leaning back and draping an arm across the back of the couch behind Beth.

"We've got two more that are out and about," Beth answered.

"They're on the way back in now, and once they're here, we'll move."

"I'm in no rush," Selene said with a massive grin.

"Don't you have plenty of work to do?" Val asked her in a slightly accusatory tone, pointing her pipe stem at the greater demoness.

"I'm a branch manager, not a front desk worker," Selene replied with an slightly condescending tone. Seeing several of the blank looks, she explained, "I'm not needed for day-to-day operations. When you ladies come in with your group, I make a special exception to meet you and help handle your business. The branch has plenty of people that can handle requests, buy and sell, appraise items, handle contracts, and even run the auction, including oversee the items and act as auctioneer.

There's always more paperwork for me to do and more requests for me to approve, but I don't need to be there constantly. That's one of the reasons I'm even doing the job in the first place."

"Oh. That explains a lot," Beth said with a sage nod.

"Also, it's hard to command an Exalted to do anything, even if you have another Exalted doing it," Sera commented, causing Val to choke on her pipe stem.

"An Exalted?! You hit Exalted?!" Val cried out.

"Well, you could just put out a Net notice and get less attention than screaming that loud," Selene answered, rolling her eyes at the excitable young woman.

"But yes, I did hit Exalted recently and would ask you to keep that tidbit under wraps. I don't need your Ancestor digging into my business, either, and you know what I mean."

"Yes, yes, I understand perfectly," Val said, shaking her head. At the others' looks, she just waved it away, saying, "Some old business. It's nothing to worry about."

"Well, if you say so," Beth said, giving both Val and Selene suspicious looks, but the two remained tight-lipped on the issue. Bjorn and Kris showed up a time later, having been off doing their own thing again and having returned at a moderate pace once they received the call that their break was over. Beth didn't plan on them staying on the derelict for all that long, but it wasn't going to be fifteen minutes or something, either.

They were there to do some more salvage, as Beth had plenty of space in which to store parts, though she wasn't sure if she could fit the whole derelict in what she had available. She would rather have the ship in pieces and those pieces very firmly in their control rather than just sitting out there. One day soon, more and more people from Earth would get the capacity to head out into the solar system, which might happen sooner rather than later.

There had always been quite a few people on the planet that had looked to the stars and dreamed of journeying among them, and some of those people weren't just going to be satisfied teleporting on pre-arranged pads on someone else's network. No, she could imagine a scenario, as Earth became more popular, and the natives acquired more wealth, knowledge, and equipment, that somebody would get their hands on even a modest spaceship.

Not even something capable of interstellar flight, but something that could be used in-system to fly around to the various planets and maybe even orbit the sun at a rather close distance and do a bit of heavy science. Star-lifting would still be off the table for somebody like that; that took large, powerful, specialized ships, and all of those monikers meant expensive.

Even so, there would likely be other people than the long-time Senior Enforcers and other CRA members that would be getting some star capable, and after that, it was only a matter of time. Even a spaceship with crummy sensors could pick up something off if they sailed close to Jupiter and did plenty of scans. She didn't anticipate that something like that would be happening in the very near future, but it seemed like a year passed every time she blinked these days, so it wouldn't be all that long, either.

When everyone was there, and briefed, and all other business had been taken care of, they moved out to a remote area, much easier to find these days, considering how people had bunched up in cities and towns. Selene deployed her ship, which was a very large and impressive model, something that she clearly had a bit of pride in. It wasn't anything like the size of the derelict; in fact, it would still quite easily fit in one of the derelict's hangers, but it was an impressive piece of kit.

The thing had a vague kind of X-shape about it, with the engines as two separate sections at the end of large, cylindrical pieces of hull attached to the central section. The front of the ship was then two thicker, shorter cylinders that protruded forward from that central section. It did give the whole thing a bit of a stubby look, but it was still sleek enough that Beth found it rather impressive and cool, all the same.

The ship was also much faster than Jaq's, though Beth suspected the commissar had been sandbagging, considering how fast he had gotten them out of the derelict and back to Earth when he had what he needed. Selene's ship got out past Luna in barely the blink of an eye and initiated a jump not long after that.

They emerged from the jump practically in Jupiter's outer atmosphere, with Selene looking cool as a cucumber the whole time, though the very small smile curling her pretty lips did give away to Beth that she was showing off. She followed their coordinates to find the derelict, frowning a bit at the ship when it came into view, though she kept her piece, maneuvering into a different hangar than the one Jaq had parked in.

They wanted to get direct access to the cruiser that they had claimed, and Selene's parking job allowed them that. She didn't just jet off, either, which was rather considerate of her. She stuck around for the next couple days as they worked on the cruiser, quite surprised when several peak Ascended appeared next to Beth and quickly moved into the partially repaired ship.

Beth was turned into a gopher and parts supply depot, running around between the various people or groups working on the ship and delivering on thing or carrying off another. She didn't really mind the work, and her efficiency and alertness allowed the group to make very rapid progress. She had to dump some materials in the drive room, leave Zelmainne to it for a few hours, then stop by again and drop off more parts for the drive.

The man worked, quite happily, without rest or break for four days to get the Skip Drive operational again, but declared it very fine work after he was done. In the meantime, the others had been either working on other parts of the cruiser or had been going through the derelict. Selene had taken an interest in the old dreadnought, professing that she would be little help with the cruiser, though Beth got a feeling that wasn't entirely truthful.

Still, the greater demoness was invaluable in exploring the ship, and not due to her strength. The team was more than powerful enough to deal with all the beasts still roaming about, but they came to greatly appreciate Selene's insights into what did what and what was truly valuable.

The Exalted had centuries of experience appraising and analyzing just about everything under and over the sun, and she was able to walk down a hallway in the old ship while throwing out labels and notes on a three-dimensional overlay that she shared with the whole group. It really helped greatly in identifying what to salvage first, and the group was also able to learn quite a lot from studying what she labeled and her notes.

The biggest surprise, at least to Beth, was that Selene was also rather knowledgeable about the Seven Sigils Empire. Apparently, for a lost and dead empire, they had left plenty of remnants and had a well-documented history, which Selene knew quite a bit of offhand. This provided color commentary more than anything else, but her knowledge was quite helpful in identifying a few quirks of how the empire constructed their ships, explaining some of the stranger parts of the layout the group had encountered.

That same knowledge also helped them identify a few more rooms of interest, including a storage room for spare gun parts that they hadn't found yet which proved a moderate, but still lucrative haul. Selene was also much more interested in certain items and pieces, stating that now that she could view the origin of the goods Beth had brought up close that there were several things that she wanted them to prioritize and get to her ASAP.