A few of my top military commanders had brought up a rather decent point to me recently, if something like a hostile alien invasion were to occur, the only real defense in space that would stand a chance against a species with energy shields, and energy weapons, would be the Crystal City, and to a lesser extent, the Crystal Lorenzo. As such I was having a fleet of 35 new starships produced, these would be fully automated with advanced combat AI, and the same size as the manned starships I recently had finished, once again a mile long, and 160 feet wide, I was having two types produced. One type would be what amounts to a huge assaultron laser in the nose of the starship which actually looked like the head of the ship, this starship would be long, tube like, round, unlike the blocky manned starships, the other variant would be the Plasma Beam version, which would use an Empire version of the Zetan Deathray, both of these had energy shields, anti gravity engines, point defenses and nuclear missiles as well, the same for any starship manned or not.

I grinned upon seeing a completed version of each starship, these where to be tested later in another solar system with no life, for now however, I closed the video feed, and looked at the crowed gathered for General Starlight Glimmer and Trixie Lulamoon's wedding, I would be making another marriage official, I liked doing that. In a rather adorable fashion, Starlight Glimmer was wearing a wedding dress the color of Trixie's fur, while Trixie was wearing one the color of Starlight's fur, Trixie had proposed to her less than two days ago, and due to Starlight's rank as Head General of my organic forces, per paycheck was more than enough to cover three weddings, let alone the fact I was doing this one for free, seeing as I helped set everything up. I stood at the altar with the two mares, and looked at Starlight Glimmer. “Do you, Starlight Glimmer take Trixie Lulamoon as your lawful wife, to have and to hold, from this day forth, for better or worse, for richer, or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish until death do you part?”

Starlight Glimmer's smile was ecstatic as she spoke, standing straight and at attention as if I had just walked in on her commanding soldiers. "I do."

I looked to Trixie, whom was almost as red as a tomato by this point. “And do you, Trixie Lulamoon, take Starlight Glimmer, as your lawful husband, to have and to hold, from this day forth, for better or worse, for richer, or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish until death do you part?”

Trixie looked at Starlight, and smiled. "I do." And thus I stepped back.

"Then you may kiss the bride." And they did, unlike the one at Sweetie Belle's wedding, this wasn't a long sloppy thing, just a short peck, and Trixie's horn lit up, before fireworks shot up from the stage, purple and blue. Starlight pressed a button on her phone, which was connected to the speakers around the area, and 'Ola I'm in love' began to play, I damn near laughed at that. The citizens in attendance clapped for the newly wed couple, even one of the androids did, I'd have to keep an eye on that one, now before they had gone through with this, I had told General Glimmer, and Trixie, how if Trixie accepted, she'd have to have her own personal guards 24/7 like Starlight did, and they both agreed, the guards were just Androids with AER-11's, using the new boosted fusion cores. I'd stay for the reception, but I had other matters to attend to, so I slipped away quietly rather than use the loud flashy relay to ensure the attention stayed on the newly wed.

I looked over the reports from the CEMRRAD, or the Crystal Empire Military Ration Research And Development, I had decided to order a pony, meaning hoof friendly, MRE be created for the field, since soldiers wanted more choices for foods to take into combat, what was created looked somewhat like an MRE and a TV dinner combined, a metal tray made of titanium, with foil over the top of it and a pull tab for easy use by hands, paws, or hooves, on the side was a small red gem which you pressed before opening it, which heated the meal and would fall out, you then pulled back and enjoyed, each tray had 5 slots, one for a main meal, 3 for sides, and one for a desert item, they had been termed MRE's as I didn't feel like thinking of anything else to call em, however normal canned goods still made up the bulk of the rations my troops ate for now, that would slowly change through the production of more MRE's, which had great reviews in the field.

Electric propeller planes and helicopters had become rather popular for civilian usage, so that was something interesting, for now however since I was away from the wedding, I relayed into RRAD, into the testing chamber and looked at Dark Sunrise. "You wanted to show me some things?" I asked, he hadn't really told me, other than he had a few important developments I had to see first hand for approval.

Dark Sunrise nodded. "Yes, I've taken notice of the Royal Assaultron guards whom guard your throne room and the room the other royals sleep in, and I've noticed they have a prototype weapon on their left arm, in place of a hand they have an automatic high power laser weapon for ranged combat aside from their laser, which is always charged, and I realized this would be rather useful for in combat to give assaultrons something besides their claws to use in combat once their laser is fired and recharging."

I raised an eyebrow at Dark. "Alright, go on then." Seemingly this was actually something important and not just some new robotic design he wanted me to approve for no reason other than to test it.

He saluted. "As I was saying, why not give the assaultron a secondary weapon? Our modern laser rifles are much more compact with their automatic function, unlike the first automatic laser rifles used, taking the miniaturized automatic components from what you called 'institute' laser rifles, as you know we've upgraded them and use them in the AER-10 and AER-11 with boosted power due to the components being upgraded and set to replace all older bulky automatic laser rifles by next month, I have developed several side weapons for assaultrons, such as the compact automatic AER-10, and a ten millimeter sub machine gun in the hand, I'd like to show you the prototypes, as by my own testing, they increase the assaultrons combat efficiency by an astounding 15%, it may not seem like much, but they already had a success rate of 75%"

I nodded. "Alright, show me these prototypes then." He bowed and pressed a button, two assaultrons walked out from an automatic sliding door that lead to the room the two had been in before, these had been painted black and yellow in stripes to indicate they where prototypes, one took aim at several moving targets, like you'd see in a gun range, and fired, its automatic AER-10 hand doing some rather decent damage, before it stopped and stood to the side while the one with the ten millimeter sub machine gun did the same as it had before, taking aim and shooting at moving targets with relative accuracy and ease, and I grinned rather happily. "I am proud to say I am happy I picked you to be the head of RRAD, your drive to innovate and improve already existing designs shows me you are the right stallion for the job, I'm giving full authorization to upgrade all existing assaultrons to these, since its just adding another weapon all we'd really have to do is replace their current left arm, which would be easy to do."

Dark Sunrise saluted once more. "Yes Your Majesty, I am glad you have deemed my research and work worth your time, and that you are happy to have me in my current position, I am going to issue the orders to have the assaultrons upgraded now." He walked out of the room, and I thought while I was here, I may as well visit Pam, she had wanted to speak lately but I had been busy and hadn't had the time, now I was free for now. With a blue flash I was in the center of the DIA, the very core of it being Pam, her assaultron torso half stuck into the floor, connected to the supercomputers beneath her which had the floor built over.

Pam's chassis turned to look at me, and if she had a mouth I'd assume she'd be smiling. "Lorenzo, it is good to see you finally made the time to visit, I may be able to communicate with you over the wireless network, but I vastly prefer face to face communication."

I nodded and sat on a couch that rose from the floor. "Alright, so what was it you wanted to speak about?"

Pam's happy tone went serious. "The Zetans, I recently finished going over the data recovered from the Storm Empire, and the data recovered from your improvised robobrain head using a zetan brain recovered, as it turns out that had been their Captain, a high ranking one within their ranks, and with the information taken from their computers I have estimated they have 17 million combat starships, each one armed with one deathray and energy shields, I estimate a 89% chance they will attack at some point after we return, if they have not done so already, and am suggesting you up automated starship production more than you have already, and to have units created with small plasmatic lances."

"Alright Pam, I shall do so, your normally right when it comes to these things." She normally was as well, seeing as it was what she was designed to do, a fortune teller thats actually correct most of the time, she was the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency for a damned good reason, robotic as she may be, she did the job well.

Pam nodded. "Good, and a bit of an update, Project Phoenix is going as planned, I estimate it will be complete by the end of this year, the automated factories and robot workers are going non stop, I am just glad no one has questioned where the largest chunk of raw metals being dragged in has been going to as I predicted."

I nodded once again. "Good....good, it is indeed fortunate that no has caught on, and only three beings know of Project Phoenix, one being you, me and Chrysalis, remember to keep me updated on that project, once its complete it would completely change how the Empire does things."

Pam saluted, and I relayed out into my bedroom to grab Moon, she had been a little mopey lately so I decided to take her on a short three day trip to Saddle Arabia, Chrysalis would watch things while I was away, and Rainshine would keep civilian matters running smoothly should something go wrong, Spring Dancer, was jus training in the combat arena for troops to get some exercise in. Moon was dressed rather casual, just a purple shirt and a pair of sweatpants.

"Ready to go?" I asked Moon as I simply changed into some jeans and a t-shirt, the wonders of my inventory shall never be underloved.

Moon nodded. "Yeah, I'm excited to see Saddle Arabia, I heard they have rather interesting foods." She wrapped a wing around me and thus, I relayed, within seconds we where in Saddle Arabia, I set a small relay beacon here in the ground so I could show up if I wanted without having to use a carrier or other transport.

Moon instantly wanted to shop after seeing the exotic goods such as fine silks and a cart filled with books caught her eye near instantly, so she walked over with me following, and purchased several books, one called 'The Road To A Happy Garden' being the one she seemed most excited about, and that made sense, she loved to mill about in the Crystal Palace's royal gardens and tend to the plants, even planted some of her own, it was one of her main hobbies. After several hours of shopping, we decided to go to a local outdoors type eatery and I got some Kofta, while she ordered some pita bread with hummus and chopped grilled lamb, she liked it, and the Kofta wasn't bad either. Midway through the meal a mare approached and poked moon before asking "Excuse me Miss, how much for the male?"

Moon damn near choked on her food, and so did I for a moment before I spoke up, an annoyed tone. "Excuse me but just who do you think you are? I'm not some piece of property, I'm not just a cabbage you can pick and then sell, now begone, we are trying to enjoy our meal."

The mare gave me a look like I had insulted her dead mother and looked to Moon. "Do you always let your male speak like that to others?"

Moon began to glare as well, but at her as her eyes began to glow white. "You will respect King Lorenzo, If you insult him or act like he is property one more time, I doubt you'll be anything but a red pile of paste once he's done with you."

The mare's eyes widened as she saw moon flare her wings, eyes glowing and fangs snarled into a scowl, before she looked at me, and I just grinned. "Indeed she is correct, I'm the ruler of what you would call the New Crystal Empire."

With a look of pure terror she bowed. "Accept my deepest apologies Your Majesty, I hadn't known you where a foreign ruler, and simply assumed you to be an exotic male."

I rolled my eyes. "Is this how males are treated around here?"

The mare nodded. "Yes, stallions are expected to cook, clean, do the house work, stay at home, if a stallion is caught wondering about without his mare, he is returned to their home, if caught more than twice, they are sentenced to a month of jail as punishment for breaking the laws repeatedly, a stallion may not work, own property or a business, stallions are property and can be sold on a dime for any number of reasons, does it not work this way in your Empire?"

I shook my head in disgust. "I'm going to have to have words with Queen Najam Alsahra about this disgusting lack of equality." The mare skittered off at the anger in my tone.

Moon nodded. "Yes I do agree, this is rather....disturbing."

Author's Notes:

OCO How did ya'll like this? lemme know! seriously comment what ya think, I like reading the comments and lately only a few have commented, make an effort to comment more, otherwise, hope ya enjoyed