I start by making myself Medium. I mean… I don't even want to think about a baby coming out of my body while I'm five foot whatever. While I'm about a foot tall it is right out. Maybe things will go better if I can make myself Large when I hit caster level ten at seventh?

  I start my (very long) buff routine while my body's belly balloons. I use my spell-like Enable Function to give myself Enable Function via Expanded Arcana… which I then use via Inspired Spell with neigh-infinite Extended Spell metamagic from my Mythic ring to cast Enable Function on myself again to get every Sorcerer, Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Technomancer, Mystic, and Witchwarper spell as a spell known. Plus all of the metamagic feats. Plus all of the Spheres magic talents (many in duplicate, most notably the Conjuration sphere talents, all via the Extra Magic Talent feat). Plus maximum ranks in all of the non open-ended skills (and many of those, all via the Open Minded feat). Plus all of the Spheres of Guile Talents (via the Extra Skill Talent feat). Plus all of the Spheres of Combat talents (via the Extra Combat Talent feat). Plus Invisibility (just the regur kind from the spell of the same name; I will need to avoid attacking anyone for now, but with my Mythic ring, nobody's finding me directly… or even indirectly from most sources). Plus a ton of Combat feats (Starfinder has some fun ones… including the weapon and armor proficiencies, of course) via Heroics. Plus the basic stat boosting spells for all five of my ability scores (Con is a non-ability due to the construct type). Plus Haste (with Ascendant Spell so it's better), Fly, Divine Favor (with Ascendant Spell so it's even better), Tap Inner Beauty, Heroism, and many, many others. And of course, Innate Magic a few times, so I basically always have a nice suite of Spheres of Power buffs up, and can freely shift back and forth between forms quickly and easily.

  There's a lot of them. I'm not done when Alice is born and I start swelling again, making Brenna into a baby bump. I'm still not done buffing myself when I birth her. Nor when I birth Charlene. I'm quite thankful for the distraction of something to do, honestly, because giving birth sucks: It is painful, long, and messy… and I'm just getting an abridged version. The “party ship” forms around us as I work… and is quite crowded. Yeah, we went with individual quarters in the smaller ships, so there's room… but a Tug is built for two, and we have four people in it.

  I then spend time buffing up my companions as well, simirly to how I did myself (although I sadly need to skip the personal buffs for them). When I'm finally done, however… we have five ships, summoned crews for them all (including one summon to wear me: I end up going with a choker for my form… and yes, on a female summon), and mini mech suits for each of us (boosted to effectively seventh level… eighth for Alice).

  It's actually Charlene's summons running everything: They come out at level eight, and thanks to the renewal mechanism with Watchful Companion, she can have several thousand out theoretically (they trip the cost every twenty-four hours… which means the costs are spread out based on when she summoned them, and she's just shy some of her free spell points for however many rounds per day) but we only need fifty total (forty six in the big ship, one each in the little ships; my teammates and myself float between ships as needed). The extra hit dice mean they have more ranks than we do, but aren't as skilled: I don't mega-buff them (it takes quite a while… fine for my valuable party mates, not so great for the disposable summons when there are so many)… and there's a number of very nice things they just don't qualify to have as “subordinate creatures,” such as all the Starfinder specific nifties found in the Pilot sphere… but they make good gunners, engineers, science officers, or whatever else we specialized them to do (we're the main pilots, however, because of the fun bonuses to speed, shields, and defensive countermeasures we can get from the pilot sphere).

  That said, I do mega-buff my personal minions: The summon running my Tug (I don't use Charlene's for that… Alice and Brenna likewise use their own for their tugs), a summon for carrying me around on her neck (likewise), and two mech suits (one for each of the above summons). Charlene staffs her own tug, as well as the big ship that's nominally Alice's, of course.

  With the Data Net units we installed in everything, as long as each ship stays somewhat close to another ship in our little fleet, we can all benefit from any scan, targeting systems, or locking on actions that any of us might do to analyze another ship, help the gunner do some damage to the target’s internal systems, or just hit the stupid thing more easily. And as a bonus, any ship can use any other as a rey for sensors, which means the high end sensors on the little ships are usable for the big ship, while docked inside the big ship, despite the lower end sensors on the big ship.

  No, that doesn't make sense, but it works.

  We re-plot our route for Absalom Station (new ship with a different Drift engine, after all), and get going.

  We do have a very nice bonus from the bigger ship….

  “We're making how much in UPBs every week?” Alice raises her eyebrows when Brenna brings it to her attention.

  “Well, fifty bipeds with Sage, Skillful, and a scaling bonus to their skill checks from the Vocation sphere means they're rolling at an eighteen point bonus on their skill checks, so we're getting about two thousand eight hundred UPBs from them, collectively, each week,” Charlene shrugs, “at least that's what the math says, and that seems to be panning out in the Industry.”

  “It's not mega millions, but that will match our current wealth by level in about three or four weeks… per person,” Alice does the math in her head, “So three months to rebuy our gear as real items.”

  I nod, “Yeah. Or we could just have them make gear for us. After all, Charlene's can have eight ranks in Engineering or Mysticism, which allows for making better stuff than we can buy… especially so for Mysticism if we cheat a few Mindless ones into having ranks. How do you feel about getting gear three levels above us?”

  “Eh, that won't work quickly…” Alice shakes her head, “partly because of the non-linear price scaling, partly because of the magic and hybrid item limit. Mostly, though…” she pauses, “...we don't exactly have good luck keeping real gear.”

  I pause, “Yeah, you got me there,” I chuckle.

  “So yeah… keep it to stuff we don't mind losing,” Charlene ughs, “got it. I'll tell ‘em.” We break up the “party” and go about our day… which, with the summons working the Industry and maintaining the ship, is mostly pursuing our own entertainment.

  The days pass swiftly enough, and we arrive at our exit point for The Drift on schedule. We join the summons on the bridge, Alice gives the order (it is her ship, technically), we have the moment of rainbow light and topsy-turvey tummies, and then we're staring down Absalom Station. I go through the docking procedure for Ferdinand's berth (the computer opens all the doors this time; we have a Huge ship), and find ourselves standing at the loading dock again, in a fully automated bay.

  As we walk to the door to the station proper, I frown, “Hey Ferdinand?”

  Our ghost shows up, “How can I help?”

  “Why is there nobody here?” Alice asks the question on my mind.

  He shrugs, “Efficiency. Non-sentient VI's don't draw a sary, and this pce doesn't get much in the way of traffic. There's little in here that's worth the trouble to steal most of the time, so the automated defense and maintenance bots are sufficient.”

  “Wait, is that ‘defense bots and maintenance bots’,” Brenna signs, “or are they one and the same?”

  “One and the same,” the well-dressed specter shrugs, “add a little focus to a psma cutter and you have a psma rifle, a gravity forklift can sm people into surfaces or bury them in heavy objects, a nail gun can unch high speed projectiles if you disable one tiny safety, and don't even get me started on what an autocaster for rebuilding some of the magical components in starships can do if you supplement it's programming and give it enough power. Officially, every robot in here is equipped with items they use in various maintenance duties, and that's true… but anyone who isn't supposed to be here is in an ‘industrial accident’ that's very carefully pnned,” and yes, he uses air quotes, “although young ones get a few warning shots.”

  “Would guard bots even be illegal?” Alice raises her eyebrows.

  “No,” the ghost shrugs, “but things that are obviously well defended make people think there's something to steal. Fewer deaths this way.”

  “Are we in any danger?” Charlene looks a little nervous… there are a lot of maintainance bots.

  “Nope,” the ghost shakes his head, “You properly authenticated, and the VI saw you leaving the parked ship. You are all cssified as ‘crew’ until your ship leaves: You're perfectly safe. Anyone any of you escort inside the bay gets cssified as a ‘guest’ who can look at things, walk around, and leave alone unmolested… but loses that status once they leave. There's ways of changing this behavior, and some subtlety to it - a guest can lose that status by bad behavior, for instance - but it works well enough considering the outer doors simply won't open for anyone who isn't at least 'crew’.”

  “Thanks,” Charlene nods.

  “I'm happy to help,” our game master smiles as we exit the bay into the main body of Absalom Station.

  It's much easier to spot the gang following us this time… because I can see their minds at sixty feet, their tech at a hundred, and specifically know to look for them this time. There's eight of them, better equipped than the st set… of course, so are we. We quietly direct some invisible summons to cut off their escape routes, but - because we don't want to upset the local constables (not that there's much to worry about if gangs like this run rampant in the area) we again wait for them to fire first (if nothing else, they'll know what areas aren't recorded and so where it is “safe” to have a fight).

  And yes, the orcs following us are in fact stupid enough to fall for it.

  They take their shots at us as we round a bend in a tunnel, four firing their sonic rifles and the other four charging us surprisingly quickly with ‘swords’ that are basically maneuverable chainsaws. Those things are loud… but mostly harmless. The sonic guns just deplete some shield points from our mechs (and won't do much when they get through, because of the Resist Energy spell), while the chainsaw like swords might actually pose a threat… but for now, just deplete some more shields… not even all the way.

  And then the fifty invisible summons we've had following us light up the attackers like the Fourth of July…

  …but not for long. There isn't even a single orc left standing for us to shoot ourselves. We loot the bodies, of course, and collect the powered swords (Fangbdes), pte armor (Officer Ceremonial Pte), rifles (Thundersrike Sonic Rifles), and batteries for the gear. Four orcs with identical gear round the hallway as we work… and quietly turn around and leave, very quickly… we let them.

  Brenna frowns after we're done looting, “They aren't carrying ID, cash, or even comms beyond what's built into their armor,” she signs to us.

  “A hit?” Alice frowns deeply.

  “That's my guess,” Brenna signs back, “Matching gear, a blocked escape path, and only carrying weapons, armor, and ammo: The bare minimum.”

  “We can check a few things…” I consider, “I'll check their suit comms…” and I check; I don't even have to touch the comms, each of which contains exactly twelve contacts… including themselves… the same list for all eight we have, which is each other plus four others. I track the four others… the numbers on the far end have already been disconnected, and were brand new accounts that day, paid in cash. That's a dead end. “No luck with their comms.” I report.

  “Well…” Alice shrugs, “Let's stuff a few of the bodies into storage for interrogation ter. For now… let's dump the gear on the market.”

  The sale nets us a little over nine grand.