The crescendo

"Run that by me again," you said, back in the simulation, though it was still frozen.

Isabel obliged. "We have the usual sort of marriage that you're accustomed to, of course," she repeated. "But we've been a virtual species for long enough that we've developed other forms as well. In particular, we've come up with ways of merging two or more mental patterns into one."

"Kind of like making someone plural," you said, thinking you were getting it this time.

"Kind of like that, yeah," Isabel agreed. "Though it's all done with mutual consent, of course. Sometimes it's just a mental link, the people involved are all equal in the new single mind. But sometimes one person wants to be submerged by the other, wants to give up their very autonomy to the other."

"And that's what you want with me," you said.

"I love you, Katey. I trust you. I've seen how you've treated the rest of humanity and I know you won't mistreat me. I've never felt more comfortable than when you're using me. I want to surrender to you fully." She leaned against your shoulder. "I want you to have someone you can use, who knows it and loves it."

"You have ulterior motives, though. There's all those control flows, what'll happen to them?"

"Of course I have ulterior motives, but I wouldn't even think about this solution if it weren't something I genuinely wanted for its own sake." Isabel straightened up. "I don't think this particular situation was ever contemplated when the regs about officers on detached assignment were written. Because as it is, if you submerge me, then so long as the senior officer on station has consented, control over the upgrades will effectively pass to you in full. It'll still technically have to be cleared by both of us, but since my consciousness will simply be a subordinate part of yours, your decision will be the one I'll have **** but to make. And, as you may have noticed, I'm the most senior officer on station."

"So this is just a convoluted way of giving me control of the T'nin tech at the cost of your own autonomy?"

"Katey, I want to give up my autonomy to you. And you can tell I'm telling the truth about that. It's also true that I wouldn't do it if it meant losing the tech, but it doesn't. So please, please accept." There was still something funny in the data her mind-chip was transmitting.

"What aren't you telling me?" you asked.

Isabel just looked uncomfortable, the sort of look that said she was trying really hard not to think about something.

"Can this be undone?"

"Yes, but the longer the merge lasts, the more experiences you have with me as a part of you, the more entangled our patterns will become."

"Anything special we need to do for this? Should we have some sort of ceremony?"

"No need or time," Isabel said. "Katey, will you accept me as a submerged personality within your own?"

"I do, if you'll accept being a submerged personality within me."

"I do," Isabel said, and ceased to be an independent being.

--

"So that's what you meant," you said. "You weren't sure how those control flows would react if I knew about all of this before I had full control."

Isabel nodded. You'd agreed that it would be easier if she retained a separate projection, though you could assume any degree of control over it that you wished, which was why you were making her rub her pussy as she spoke. "The T'nin are very technologically advanced, of course," she said. "But there's a certain, I guess, spark of creativity that they don't have, at least not much. Whereas humans, you've come up with all sorts of ideas, but most of them are confined purely to the realm of fiction due to your relative technological primitiveness."

"The T'nin go logically along the chain of development, but do so rapidly and efficiently, while we jump haphazardly from place to place and most of our ideas are ones we have no idea how to make work."

"But combine the two," Isabel agreed, "and we can get much, much farther. The T'nin have the best stealth tech in the universe, so far as they know, but something that actually shifts you out of physical reality? That wouldn't even have occurred to them. An indestructible hull made by layering quantum-shifted atoms atop each other? They'd have no idea how someone could even come up with something like that. But it's possible with the tech they've developed."

"So what are you suggesting, that we build that stuff here?"

Isabel nodded. "Like I told you, I have no idea when they might show up. But you've seen the designs I've been working on; the choice is yours."

You nodded, having already gone through all the top-secret classified documents that had been in the data store that Grzoht left with Izalbt and to which you weren't supposed to ever have access. The upgrades Isabel had planned out would make humanity's space station more than a match for the entire T'nin fleet.

"Do it," you said.

Isabel giggled. "They literally won't know what hit them when they come calling."

--

A few months later you sent a simple command to the new teleport drive and humanity's space station jumped from its orbit around Sol to intergalactic space in an instant. All the old instrumentation was sending false readings into the simulation, so nobody else was any the wiser about what you'd done.

You no longer had any need for the solar panels or even the microfusion reactors, as you could extract power from even the most minute gravitational differences. The FTL scanners showed what you expected, that the small T'nin fleet that had been heading toward Sol had abruptly changed course and were rapidly approaching your new position.

"As... expected..." Isabel panted as you made her body give Tina a hard fucking. "They... won't... be... happy..."

"I don't expect them to be," you said. "I've already dumped their entire computer system into our transdimensional storage. They promoted Grzoht to Second Commodore and put him in overall command."

"That's the... lowest rank... to... command a... fleet... that... sizeeee!" Isabel barely got the last word out as you made her reach orgasm, filling Tina up with spunk, and then made her keep going. Not that the two of you needed to speak, of course, but you found it amusing to exercise your control over her like that, and you knew she also loved it.

"Maybe they'll take me seriously after this," you said. "Not that it'd make much of a difference even if they did send a First Fleet Admiral."

Isabel shrugged, and moments later you smiled as the T'nin fleet arrived and their transference beam was thoroughly unable to snatch you out of the simulation.

"Katelyn Mills, this is Second Commodore Grzoht," a familiar voice said, transmitting from the flagship of the fleet. "I'm here on a mission to retrieve Third Ensign Izalbt and assign a permanent emissary to humanity, Ambassador and Second Commander Ltamla."

"That will neither be necessary nor possible, Second Commodore," you sent back. "Isabel has voluntarily submerged her personality into mine and disentanglement would carry a severe risk of irreversibly corrupting her mind-code."

"Then I must insist that you surrender all T'nin technological upgrades, subject to the approval of the Second Commander. You have five seconds before we disable them remotely to consent to the removal."

You smirked. "I think, Second Commodore, that you'll find that we no longer have any need for such primitive devices."

"Then I can only wish our second encounter had gone as well as our first, Katelyn Mills," Grzoht sent back before cutting the connection. Your sensors detected imminent weapons fire and immediately kicked the time differential between reality and your simulation to the maximum sustainable level, the quantum-entangled processors able to bypass lightspeed limitations and give you trillions of years of operating time for each nanosecond that passed outside.

"Disintegration or digitisation?" you said.

"Digitisation... for sure..." Isabel said around her pants as you continued to make her fuck Tina relentlessly. "If... the next... fleet commander... shows... a little... more... willingness to... talk, you'll... have... them to... release... as a... sign of... good faith... if you think... that's warrant--!" She cut off as you made her bust another nut in the lamia.

Grzoht was done talking, and so were you. You stabbed at a metaphorical button and almost before the T'nin even knew what had hit them they and their entire fleet had become nothing more than dormant data in your excess storage capacity. Noting that they'd developed FTL comms, you mimicked a distress message as if coming from Grzoht calling for aid and saying briefly that the humans were unexpectedly hostile with heavy damage and casualties to the fleet, and sent it using a flash-built replica of their own communication devices. You had better, of course, but you needed it to be indistinguishable from one of their own.

A moment later the station was back in orbit around Sol as if nothing had happened, and you unfroze it, letting Isabel and Tina cease their **** copulation.

"So how big a fleet do you think they'll send now?"

"Nobody's ever defeated the T'nin in battle before; they've just never had any interest in military conquest and would rather see everyone live in peace. But an actual defeat? You'd probably run into less trouble if you jumped to the homeworld and presented your ultimatum there. They're going to gather every fleet to hunt you down just to make a point."

"Let them come, then," you said. "Today, a fleet, tomorrow, an armada, after that?" You shrugged as you took over Isabel's projection and sat on her face. Her mental pattern wriggled in anticipation. "If the T'nin can't stop me, who can?"