THE HIERARCHY OF NOW AND FOREVER (Space Opera Harem Adventure!)
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In the 22nd century, mankind is at war. The Zemturga Totality - a vast empire of slaves under the mysterious Zemturga - stretches forth its deadly reach across the galaxy and the only thing standing between them and conquest of the entire milky way is the Interstellar Alliance. With her allies, humanity fought hard.
That was twenty years ago.
On a distant colony, cut off from the United Nations and the Interstellar Alliance, a research team studying ancient alien ruins have found a way to win the war - and are sending their best and brightest back to Earth, to see if there's any war that can be won.
Along the way, this new weapon and the crew that serve her will uncover the darkest and deepest secrets of the galaxy and, if they're lucky, shatter an empire of pain that has lasted for ten thousand years!
The UNN Calypso hung somewhere between the second and third planet of the solar system LHS-228 and waited in the lower edges of the semi-real dimension that a 21st century physicist had exasperatedly called 'the bloody space opera field' – and unwittingly given a name for what would provide the future of the human race.
And their downfall.
Lt. Sheyshan turned from her console, looking right at Captain Tangent. "Sir," she said. "We're picking up a mass shadow in the deep SOF."
"Right." Captain Tangent rubbed his hand along his chin. "Got any shape for it?"
"No, but it's bigger than a Hylano worldship...and we're not in the right part of the front for any of theirs…" She paused, turning back to her console. Her fingers played along the controls – delicate, blue fingers that were more dexterous than any Terran might have been. Her brow furrowed and her purple eyes narrowed. She nodded again. "Definite shape coming into view. She's a Totality Warsphere."
"Red Alert," Captain Tangent said. The bridge shifted hues and the wailing alert started to echo through the Calypso. "Lt. Xao, I want a combat space patrol out there immediately. And-"
"Sir!" Lt. Sheyshan exclaimed. "We've picked up a second mass shadow, and a third. They're the same size."
Captain Tangent frowned. "On screen."
The bridge crew watched as the glittering starfield shifted. Space puckered when anything dropped into or out of the Space Opera Field. Distant light warped, blackness bulged with ultraviolet highlights as the barriers between this universe and another, more convenient one started to fray apart. The shapes were huge, even without a scale indicator, and space seemed reluctant to tear aside for the movement of the Totality Warspheres. Each one was the size of an old pre-UN aircraft carrier and had nearly the same number of crew – and almost as many fighter craft. Their green and black hulls glittered with alien script illuminated by their flaring radiators as they dumped waste heat into realspace, and their noses angled towards the Calypso.
"They're charging their kinetics!" Lt. Moore shouted from his place in tactical.
"Shields up!"
"It's-"
The three warspheres' noses plumed with glittering blue smoke, providing both lubrication for their spinal kinetic weapons and to give extra time for the electromagnetic fields to conduct and push their payloads. The shields came up just in time as the Calypso dragged chunks of the SOF up into realspace and threw it ahead of her prow – like ducking behind a wave of water to block a machine gun bullet. The kinetic projectiles hit, slowed, and the entire light cruiser heeled hard to the side as her dorsal and zenith RCS fired at once. Tangent felt his blood sloshing in his brain as he strained against the restraint harness in his chair.
"We're between cycles," Lt. Moore said. "Fifteen seconds."
"We don't have enough time, bring us to second tier," Tangent said, nodding.
The Calypso hummed and the engines on her nose flickered, flashed, and stabbed a hole through realspace and into the shallow end of the SOF. The stars shifted subtly, their light growing brighter, and the whole ship creaked around the crew. Tangent felt gravity return. At this level of the SOF, light remained a barrier to maximum travel – but gravity started playing nicer for certain functions. It did make long ranged kinetics harder to use, as their acceleration was capped and the ability of any targeted ship to dodge got significantly increased.
The only problem was something else became a lot more useful in the second tier.
"They're launching fighters!" Lt. Sheyshen shouted over the grinding sounds.
The Totality Warspheres didn't bother to drop into the second tier. They just sat in realspace, punched a hole, and let their war-slaves do the work. The Totality's favored space superiority fighter was specially adapted to work in the second tier. Dagger shaped, with four bladelike wings coming from what would be the 'hilt', they had plasma beams at each tip and nose mounted flechette torpedo launchers. They were called, by the UNN-IAF at least, Blade class interceptors. Or, among the pilots: Space Candy.
Sixty Blades came sweeping forward, met by the Calypso's relatively paltry compliment of eight Avenger class interceptors. Each Avenger was a two-tiered ship, able to work both in Realspace and in Second Tier. They shed their drop-tanks of reaction mass for Tier 2 operations, which let them carry disposable missile pods. Blooming flowers of contrails exploded from each and, within a few seconds, several dozen warslaves were immolated as their Blades were struck and detonated.
The Zemturga Totality didn't particularly care how many warslaves they lost.
That's part of the reason why Tangent and everyone else was aboard the Calypso.
"First, second and third waves are down, sir, but the Warspheres are launching wave four, five, six, seven-"
"Enemy X-beams and grazers are coming online-"
"I'm detecting mass mines, sir!"
Tangent scowled, then stood. "Bring us to bear on the forward Sphere!" He thrust his finger at Lt. Xao. "Triana, I want you to have your fighters punch us a hole right up to their flank. Moore, take us right down their throats. Yang, warm up the plasma casters and tell the point defense guns they're on mine popping duty. Lets get to work people!"
The Calypso screamed forward as her fighters dove towards the fourth wing of glittering Totality interceptors. Plasma beams and pulse guns intersected and star fighters started to explode – but for every five or six Blade that went down, an Avenger took a hit on the chin. Even with mass shields and ray deflectors, an Avenger couldn't take a beating forever. Alpha-2 went up in a flare of fusion fire, their scream echoing from Lt. Xao's console as Lt. Moore's fingers flew along his controls. The engines thrummed as the Calypso rolled to her port, bringing her belly armor to bear on the incoming X-beams as they bit through the second tier to slam into her and boil off ablative protection.
"We're at a hundred percent, sir," Lt. Yang said.
"There's a mass mine coming down right ontop of us," Lt. Sheyshen said, her voice tight.
Tangent felt his back tighten, like he could sense the mine creeping through the SOF to crash down onto his head. Throughout the ship, he heard the rumbling of the point defense guns. Railguns were a lot less effective in Tier 2 – but simple slugthrowers retained their ability to function all the way down to Tier 5. The Warspheres grew larger and larger and larger...and…
"Now, Albert!"
Lt. Moore slammed down on the upshift lever. The Calypso sprang out of Tier 2 and into Realspace as the three Warspheres tried to keep their noses pointed at them. The plasma casters broadsides on the light cruiser spat fiery and mostly impossible death, still riding high from their time soaking in Tier 2. Their beams scythed into the side of one warsphere, and into the belly of another. Blooms of secondary explosions rocked both ships and the bridge crew let out a cry of pleasure at the signs of destruction – but as they shot past the three warspheres, Tangent knew that their luck wasn't going to last. He turned, about to order them to drop to a lower tier, thinking of what he could do…
When Lt. Sheyshen groaned.
"Two more mass shadows, Captain!"
The two other warspheres emerged from the SOF right ahead of them, ripping through realspace like breaching whales.
Tangent sat back in his chair, his stomach flipping end over end.
Both Warspheres, their guns fully charged from their trip here, opened fire at once. Plasma fire swept over the screen.
Everything went very bright, then, suddenly, to infinite blackness.
And the simulacrum pod hissed open and John Tangent reached up to rub his fingers through his sweaty, bright blond hair, and scowled at the elderly blue uniformed Hylanosian peering in at him. Instructor Quee-Quep-Quendo clicked his tongue, shook his head, then held up his comp pad.
"You're dead, Ensign Tangent," he said as John hauled himself up and out of the pod, which bloomed off a stalk of complicated machines and wires and tubes, all leading into the colony's battlecomputer. From the other 'petals' of this metal flower emerged Ensign Eugene Xao, Sheyshen, Albert Moore and Triana Yang. The fighter pilots were a few pods away, and probably still high fiving over the number of times each had become a simulated ace.
"I see, sir," John said as he stood at attention.
"You all did admirably in the Line-Sim," Instructor Q3 said, his insectoid features shifting into what passed for a smile from a species that had more in common with the Terran praying mantis than anything else. "We'll be covering your command decisions later – for now, might I suggest a trip to the shower?"
The others nodded, Sheyshen stepping over to place her hand on John's shoulder. She squeezed, but John shook his head slightly, murmuring. "I'll catch up, Shey," he murmured. Sheyshen gave him a look that only someone who had known John since childhood could. But she let him follow after Q3 as the Hylano walked off with his comp pad. The door out of the battlecomputer mainframe opened and then shut almost immediately behind Instructor Q3, but John sprang through it and only nearly got his foot bisected for his trouble.
Like most rooms – like most things – on Zeta Colony, the battlecomputer was kept inside of an ancient Luciferian structure. The ancient black metal, as gleaming new as it had been when it had first been built ten thousand years before by the Luciferian civilization, was as pitiless as the doors, unyielding and nearly impossible to work with. Every wire, cable, light fixture and water pipe was either an already existing and repurposed conduit, or had required the expenditure of immense amounts of energy siphoned straight from Zeta Colony's prime reactor. It had taken three years of steady burning just to cut the one inch hole required for the battlecomputer's antenna in the roof!
To John Tangent, it was normal. He had never known anything but Zeta Colony and the immense Luciferian structures that made up their home.
"Sir!" he said.
Instructor Q3 turned to face him. Ancient Terrans might have quailed at that look. But the United Nations/Interstellar Alliance alliance (an alliance of alliances, as some liked to call it) had existed for four decades. He, like most Terrans of his age, was damned used to aliens. No, the reason John quailed had nothing to do with mandibles and glittering compound eyes and everything to do with the fact that Instructor Q3 was a hardass who might slap him with a dozen extra duty shifts for this. But...he had to know. He stood up a bit straighter, squared his shoulders, and said: "Respectfully, sir, I have a question about that sim."
"What was the intention behind the sim?" John asked, his throat drying. "I wish to know what lesson I was supposed to learn beyond...shit happens. Sir."
Q3 was silent. His antennas twitched. His mandibles opened, then closed in the Hylanosian version of a smile. "You have three days to determine why. Once you have, speak to me. If you have not, also. Either way would be relevant to your end of year assignments."
He saluted.
John saluted right back, frowning in thought.
***
Zeta Colony had four areas. The rooftop regions of the immense Luciferian megastructure that the colony was established on was dedicated to growing the food that the colony couldn't grow in vats, and to having some parkland for people to enjoy. The next two areas were the common areas of the city – rooms that had been repurposed for the motley collection of Allied species that had found their way to Zeta Colony and set up shop there. Below them was the industrial units that produced what few goods the colony needed to keep going.
And below them?
Below them was The Facility.
Normally, when the cadets in the modest UNN-IAF academy that the colony sported were finished with their coursework and their training, they went up to the gardens to relax, enjoy their dinners, and then begin the endless meandering discussions of the same three topics: The weather, social gossip, and The Facility. But today, everyone had something new to talk about. John laid with his head in Shey's lap as she teased her fingers through his hair, while Albert tossed a sportball up and down in the air. Each time he caught it, it was a different shape: Football, Gridiron Ball, Baseball, Basketball. Each time it hit the apex of its arc, it shifted with a glittering flash of light.
"Maybe it was to teach us how to deal with failing, ya know?"
"We don't need to learn anything about that," Eugene grumped as he did pull ups off a tree that grew in the center of the garden. The old tree had been brought and planted, twenty years ago when the colony had founded. Thanks to gently teased genetics and enhanced growth fertilizers, it was now the same size it would have been if it had been a century hold. "We're Zeta colony, we already know enough about failing."
"Says you," Triana said, smirking at him. "Come on, Shey, give me a chance to pet John's head."
"No, he's so exotic, I want to pet him more," Shey said, grinning.
John groaned.
"Blond isn't exotic," Eugene said, grunting as he pulled up again.
"It is on Zeta Colony," Shey said, shrugging.
"Our population isn't big enough to have anyone be exotic or not!" Eugene said.
"True," Albert said. "We'd need at least five thousand people for any ethnic group to be big enough to be statistically relevant."
Shey frowned. "I don't think that's how statistics work, Albert."
"Well, I think it was to teach us when to run the fuck away," Triana said.
"Yoo nerds!"
The last member of their friend group ambled through the grass. Delta Vee wore her uniform as sloppily as she could get away with, with her jacket slung over one shoulder, the blue collar hooked under her finger. Her features were pretty if battered – her nose had been twice broken, she had a scar on her jaw, and was missing a good chunk of her ear, all things that would have been fixed in a modern colony, but Zeta Colony hadn't had a shipment or supply from Earth in the past twenty years. She had a huge smile on her features as she walked up and kicked John in the shin. Gently.
"You left us to dry, Captain," she said, sarcastically.
"We were gonna swing back around to get you before the Zemturga blasted us to space dust," Albert said.
"Suuuuure you were, console jock," Delta said.
Albert caught the sportsball – which had shifted to a baseball again. He made as it to throw it at Delta's head.
"How much space candy did you get?" Shey asked.
"This bad bitch shot down thirty six simulated battle thralls for the glory of the United Nations Navy and her Intestellar Alliance Fleet." Delta put her thumb against her chest. Then, frowning, she crouched down onto the balls of her feet, peering right at John. "Yo! Yo! Zeta-1 to John." She snapped her free hand's fingers under his nose. John frowned at her.
"He's thinking," Shey said, her voice quiet.
"Well, I'm thinking we should get some vat-burgers and see if we can't bug Old Pham Trinly into telling us what his day job is," Delta said.
"That old coot will just tell us some new lies," Shey said, frowning.
"Yeah, that's the fun part," Delta said.
"Come on John," Shey said, joggling her thighs slightly to bounce his head. He blinked, then sat up, nodding.
"Right," he said, then felt his head go spinning. His nose flared, his eyes half closed and he felt the irrepressible animal urge to lean in and lick Shey's neck. His pants tightened and he felt his arousal ramp from the moderate levels he normally had – being a young adult male of the genus Homo and the species Sapiens, he had quote a lot of arousal to throw around – to a blazing heat. His nose flared and he leaned into Shey...then reached up, grabbing the necklace that hung around her throat, where the Pheremone Masker that all Sensuans had to wear in mixed company hung. He found the dial, then notched it up a few settings. The heat faded and his head cleared as he drew back, grinning. "Y-You were over emitting."
"Oh! Sorry!" Shey said, smiling at him.
Once John was standing, he adjusted his pants, while Delta grinned at him. "Should have turned it down," She said, her voice a playful croon.
"The gardeners have told us to not imprint any more ass marks into the grass," Albert said, dolefully.
"They should be thanking us!" Trianna said.
"Preach," Delta said, holding her hand out for a high five.
They headed down into the corridors of the megastructure. But as his friends conversation swirled around him, John kept thinking. He played the scenario over and over in his mind...and he placed it into context. He had been born on Zeta, but Zeta Colony had been established by the United Nations with a pretty hefty amount of support. It was why they had survived so long, despite being on such an inhospitable world.
The United Nations had met the Interstellar Alliance in the disastrous Battle of Cygnus in 2212. The primitive Terran starships, armed with nothing better than rudimentary SOF technology and nuclear warheads plundered from the Peace Vaults had run into a Sensuan-Qorr battle group that had mistaken the unidentified ships as Totality battle-thralls on the hunt. After three human ships had been destroyed by a single Sensuan Huntress class frigate, though, the battle group had pulled back and the Terrans had retreated to a nearby gas giant to lick their wounds. The Interstellar Alliance knew the capacity of the Zemturga and knew when they enslaved a species, they usually gave them enough tools to serve their masters.
So, a Sensuan had come to the humans under flag of truce. It was then that the Terran species had learned that they had near cousins in space, as the Sensuan had taken off her helmet to reveal her flaming red hair, sky blue skin, and smoldering purple eyes...and they had then learned that the Sensuan communication pheromones were extremely effective on the Terran nervous-system. The shipwide orgy and commensurate diplomatic talks had quickly brought the United Nations into the Interstellar Alliance with...ahem...open arms.
It was then that the Terrans had learned that they lived in an extremely dangerous galaxy. '
For ten years, the Interstellar Alliance, made up of the Hylano, the Omnidrones, the Sensuans, the Qorr, the Lithanods and the Yip-Yop-Lob, had been beset by the forces of the Zemturga Totality and their seemingly endless legions of enslaved warrior species. The ISA had only identified a fraction of the Zemturga's slaves and had never learned any of their names beyond those that the Sensuans had known from their time as Zemturgan Pleasure Serfs.
It was from the Sensuans, who had escaped from their enslavement thanks to their species' inherent psionic abilities – unsuspected by the Zemturga until their exodus, that the ISA had learned the true shape of the Totality: The Zemturga at the top and three kinds of slaves beneath them. Battle-Thralls, who fought their wars on the ground and in the depths of space. Field-Servants, who labored in factories, mines and fields to provide all that was needed for the Totality. And finally, and grimmest of all...Pleasure-Serfs, who existed only for the lewd excesses of the Zemturga and their chosen servants. If a warslave fought well and hard, he might return to his home to find a pleasure-serf from one of the most beautiful races in the galaxy waiting for him…
Through technology, might and seductive promises, the Zemturga had kept their mastery over a massive swath of the galaxy. And now, they were aiming to take every stellar civilization in Earth's neighborhood. Given the choice between becoming a slave species or fighting with the Interstellar Alliance, the United Nations voted unanimously to take the fight to the Zemturga and their servants.
That had been forty years ago. Twenty years after that decision, the UNN had sent a fleet of their best scientists here, to the distant solar system of Pleiades Beta, with a smattering of Alliance officers for support. They had discovered something amazing, and had hoped that it would help turn the tide of the war.
They had discovered a planet full of intact Luciferian ruins.
"I think it's a black hole generator," Delta said, confidently, as she sat down at the table they had picked in the Ninth Circle, the best restaurant in the colony. As cadets in the makeshift academy, they were able to eat the best food without getting much in way of grumbling from the staff. Delta slammed her palm down on the table and leaned forward. "Think about it. A black hole generator would be able to destroy an entire planet."
Trianna, who was resting her head on her palm, her elbow on the table, snorted. "If it's so simple, then why are we all still out here?"
"Well, duh!" Delta said. "They need to figure out how to fire it more than one time. It's no good to just blow up a few Totality warspheres, we need to be able to take out their homeworld or something."
"I'm not sure I want to win a war by committing genocide," Albert said, frowning.
"They started it," Delta said.
Shey, setting down her bottle of vat-brewed beer, grinned. "Me? I think it's a psionic amplifier."
"Oh you would," Trianna said, rolling her eyes. "The Luciferians built a single super weapon and it just so happens to require the only esper we have on planet."
Shey frowned, while Albert chimed in. "I bet it's a nanofabricator. Something that could mass produce a million ships in an afternoon if you just let it loose on the right amount of raw material."
"Wowww, Would Be Fleet Command wants a logistic magical wand," Trianna said, shaking her head. "Fucking amazing."
Delta, Albert and Shey all frowned at Trianna as she popped what was left of her vat-grown burger into her mouth. She chewed, while Shey said, a bit waspishly: "Well, what do you think is in the facility?"
Trianna chewed, then nodded. "Obviously," she said. "It's the motherload. The biggest, most hyper-dense Hypexian crystal you can imagine."
Eugene, who had been quietly demolishing his salad, lifted his head. "How would that help? Hypexia's just fuel."
"If you have a big enough, dense enough hypexian crystal, you don't ever have to get a new one," Trianna said, leaning back in her seat. "You could centralize an entire fleet around a single flagship, then punch a hole to Tier 3 and zip anywhere in the galaxy, then pop out again. It doesn't matter if the Totality has ten times the ships we have, if we can put ten times as many of them in one place. Defeat in detail." She lifted her hands, pointing her fingers down at her plate. "Bam!"
Everyone considered that. Then Eugene lifted his gaze to John, who was frowning down at his dirty plate.
"What do you think it is?" Eugene asked.
John slapped his palm down on the table, laughed, lifted his head, and grinned. "I figured it out!"
He sprang to his feet and started for the door.
Then he stopped and came back.
"Forgot, the academy's closed, I'll have to wait till tomorrow," he said, frowning intently.
"Okay, yeah, but what is it?" Eugene asked.
"Oh, uh, ancient Luciferian battleship," John said, distractedly. "Shey, Delta, want to head home to my apartment and go mask free?"
"Oh hell yeah!" Delta sprang to her feet as Shey grinned and stood. The two girls snuggled against John's sides and he hurried out, whistling cheerfully.
Eugene and Albert exchanged a glance. Trianna frowned. "He's planning something," she said.
"Yeah, to fuck our com's officer while our flight leader rides his face," Albert said.
"No, he's planning something about the sims," Trianna said. Then she shrugged. "Ah well. Wanna ride my ass, Eugene?"
"Nah, I got studying to do," Eugene said.
"Albert?" she asked.
Albert pursed his lips. Considered. Looked at the ceiling.
"Oh come on!" Trianna exclaimed – and Albert laughed, stood, and walked out. Eugene sighed, then went back to eating his salad.
"Kinda cold, huh?" the waiter asked as he came by to collect the spent bottles and dirty plates.
"Nah, I've got a girlfriend," Eugene said, smiling at him.
***
John, Delta and Shey have a good time. Also, Delta is trans!
Delta and Shey proceeded John into his apartment, giggling and murmuring to one another. "No, no, no, going straight from no pheromones to all the pheromones is the boring way to do it," Shey said. "We have to work up."
"But I wanna get horny now!" Delta said, whining playfully as John closed the door. The door, like the room, was Luciferian: midnight black, impossibly ancient, and still somehow functioning. The lighting fixtures, the carpet, the furniture, all of it was Terran made and would decay into dust before anything else in the room showed a single iota of change. Delta pouted and fell backwards into John's arms, her own arms crossed over her chest. Shey laughed.
"As if you're not always horny, Dee-Vee?" she asked, sitting on the couch, drawing her legs up. She brushed her hands through her electric blue hair – bright blue against her dark blue skin. Her bright, rosy red lips pursed. "You just want to get high."
"Is getting high on your pheromones illegal now?" Delta asked, then squeaked as John leaned over, whispering in her ear.
"It is on Proxima," he said.
"Proxima was settled by Mormons and Shiites, of course it's no fun," Delta said, then gasped as John swept his hands around, under her arms and to her breasts, squeezing her firmly. She squirmed and bit her lip, letting out a quiet groan. "Mmmm, oh Captain…"
"He likes it when you call him Captain," Shey said, her amusement clear.
"I don't," John lied, his grin playful as he nuzzled against Delta's raven black hair. He kissed her scalp, then pulled the first button of her white under-shirt open, revealing pale pink skin. Shey watched with eager, glittering eyes. "I kind of prefer it when you call me…" Another three buttons, revealing the complete lack of a bra that Delta preferred. Her nipples were hard and pale pink, tiny exclamation points that accentuated her firm breasts. "...John…" His fingers found her nipples, tugging roughly, just the way he knew Delta preferred. She groaned and squirmed and mewled.
"John…" She whispered. "Fuck, how can you get a lesbian so turned on?"
"Cause you're a terrible lesbian, Delta," John said, continuing to squeeze her.
"Devious Sensuan pheremones are at work…"
"Just the worst, worst, worst lesbian," John murmured in her ear, kissing as he slid one hand down, rubbing her crotch. She groaned into the air as Shey, unable to just sit back, stood and then prowled over. She slid her blue hands along Delta's belly, then too the hem of her uniform pants. She hooked her fingers there, threatening to tug down as she leaned forward, nuzzling against his neck.
"Mmmm," Delta sighed.
"My masker's still on, you know," Shey said. Then, reaching up, she flicked the setting down a notch. "Oops."
"Oh fuck yeah," Delta whispered as John breathed in. The tiny tickle of pheromones in his nose added an excited, focused edge to his body. He was painfully aware of Delta's shoulderblades, the gentle curve of her ass, the way he wanted to press every bit of his skin against her. He ground in close, rubbing his dick against her ass. Delta moaned hungrily, and then gasped as Shey tugged her pants down, revealing her panties. The bulge and the faint damp spot showed just how very excited Delta was. Shey caught her girldick, rubbing it between her two fingers, teasing her.
"You humans remain so endlessly fascinating to me," Shey said, quietly. "Imagine being so bullheaded you'll change gender on a whim. We Sensurans don't have this in our people."
"H-Hah! You're all women, though!" Delta exclaimed.
"Technically, we-"
"And it wasn't a whim," Delta giggled. "It was a lark."
"Well," Shey said. Lacking anything witty to add, she slid to her knees, tugged down Delta's panties, and took the tip of her girldick between her lips. She started to suck, her tongue – bright red like her lips – swirling around and around the glans. Delta rocked her hips, panting softly as she half closed her eyes, her mouth opening as she groaned quietly. John grabbed onto Delta's arms, pinning them behind her back. She whined at the base of her throat.
"Mean…"
John leaned forward, kissing her neck, up to her chin, then found her mouth as she craned her head backwards. Her hips bucked forward, then backwards as Shey began to eagerly bob her head, her hand cupping her smallish balls, stroking them gently as she let out quiet, happy slurping noises with every lustful thrust of Delta's hips. This did mean that the counterpoint was Delta bouncing her taut, deliciously firm rump against John's cock. He ground back, happy to tease her, happy to kiss her. Shey drew her mouth back, leaving Delta's cock glistening with her spittle.
"Don't want to hurry her too much," she crooned, tugging her own jacket over her shoulders. Sensuans were a people who knew how to strip, and strip in a hurry – and, in fact, hadn't even heard of bras before humans had introduced them to the concept. They had taken to the bra the same way the Yip-Yop-Lob had adopted the serial drama: With wild abandon. The bra that Shey wore beneath her uniform was gauzy and delicate and beautiful, clinging to her form with perfection that normal human bras would never have bothered with – not when they were meant to be worn into battle. She teasingly tugged the cups down, flashing her bright blue nipples to Delta and John as John stripped his own top off. This did free Delta's arms...which was always a threat.
The tough little pilot sprang forward, tackling Shey to the soft carpet. They kissed one another with wild abandon – though Shey did keep playfully slapping Delta's hands away from her masker, breaking the kiss to grin and whisper. "No no, you must say please. You must- meep!" She squeaked as John, his clothes a pile on the ground behind him, stepped around, grabbed her wrists, and pinned them above her head with his own strong, strong hands. Shey squirmed and mewled as Delta leaned forward, kissing along her jaw, down to her neck, to the gleaming shield shape of her Masker. Her teeth caught the control nub and she tugged hard to the left. The pheromones that bloomed into the air hit her and John at the same time.
Both humans groaned. Their eyes went unfocused.
Shey, fully aware of what was to come next, whispered.
"Oh Goddess, this is-"
John grabbed her head by the sides with both hands, tilted her head backwards, and thrust into her throat. Pliant and flexible, her mouth opened and her tongue embraced his cock as he began to face-fuck her, his groan guttural and animalistic as his balls pressed against her eyes. She closed her eyes, wallowing in the raw, feral fucking that John plowed into her throat. It was well known that Sensurians had throat clits, as many species did, so each thrust brought a bloom of pleasure to her brain, thrumming through her spine as her thighs snapped open wide just in time to accept the hard, throbbing girldick of one Delta Vee, who leaned forward to kiss and nuzzle at her breasts. Sky blue skin was licked with the same frantic eagerness of a drug addict eager to get every last droplet of the good stuff off the counter – but rather than licking up beads of Star Dust or Pixie Powder, it was tiny droplets of pheromone rich sweat that Delta licked and sucked down, moaning raggedly as each droplet made the furnace burning within her glow brighter. Hotter. More eager.
The two humans fucked Shey between them, their bodies driving with jackhammer eagerness, and Shey trembled and came almost at once, her glowing juices splashing the insides of Delta's thighs, spurting up along her belly. Delta's tongue lolled from her mouth and her eyes glittered as the burning fire of pheromone lust hazed through her brains. "Yeah! Yeah, take our dicks, take our big fat human dicks, little blueberry, fuck yeah, fuck yeah…"
John drew back – but only so that Shey could moan in pleasure. Her tongue and her lips pressed to the base of his cock, then she tilted her head back, so she could kiss lovingly each of his balls as she was rocked against him. "Oh goddess, yes, ah…" She moaned. "Mm, fuck my little pussy, fuck my brains out, Delta, oh goddess, yes!" She groaned as her hands reached up, grabbing onto Delta's tits, squeezing her.
John, his voice a hungry purr, growled. "My turn."
"Huh-" Shey asked, then squeaked as he grabbed onto her shoulders and pushed her up. Delta received the change in posture well, drawing back onto her haunches and still fucking up into Shey as their breasts pressed together, nipple to nipple. Delta and her forehead pressed together as Shey felt the tip of John's cock teasing against her anus, grinding against her. It was well known that Sensuran spittle was better lubrication than industrial lubricants – it was why they were so vital to the war effort, after all. And so, when John thrust into her ass, his member stretching her, she accepted his cock with only a lustful groan.
"Fuckkkk!" She moaned as John nibbled her ear, reaching around behind her to grab onto Delta's ass as the two humans pinned the nubile blue temptress between them. "G-Goddess, I can feel your cocks stirring inside of me. Oh goddess, yes, yes! Fuck me! Fucking destroy me. Oh yes!" She moaned even louder as John began to slide into her with the same rhythm as Delta. The two thrust with alternate bucking motions, one cock sliding out as another cock drove in, and each one caused Shey to bounce between them, moaning, mewling, squirming as her Sensurian body was given orgasm after orgasm. Her sex and her ass clenched their cocks as she cried out – and John and Delta Vee both bucked hard into her one last time. Balls tightened and thick, eager human cum spurted into her again and again and again…
Shey lapsed backwards, panting heavily as she laid against John, who chuckled raggedly. "Mmmm…" He kissed her neck, then licked her ear, whispering. "How was that?"
"Soooo goood," Shey purred, sounding half drunk.
Of course...the only problem with Terran's and their exposure to Sensurian pheromones?
By the time the Sensurian were done, the humans were only ready for round two.
So, as Shey reclined on the sofa, her eyes glazed over, her breasts rising and falling as she lapsed into the post-orgasmic glow of a Sensurian – her mind becoming one with the universe as her esper talent activated – John took Delta Vee into the shower. Their lips licked and John ground his dick against hers, their members throbbing against one another. He broke the kiss as the shower's warm water sluiced along their bodies. "Do you...want…" He laughed, huskily. "You know?"
"Mmm," she squirmed and bucked her hips. "Just keep grinding,"
"You like how much bigger I am than you, huh?" John asked. His hips bucked and his cock – ten inches of hard, Terran man meat – slipped down and down her dick, grinding her member against her own belly. The touch seemed to be enough to make Delta moan. She bit her lip, grabbing onto the wall behind herself to keep herself balanced as her toes pressed against the floor, trying to stand up taller, so she could grind herself even harder against him. Her teeth sank into her lip even harder, trying to repress herself as John smirked. "You like feeling so girly next to my dick. Don't you?"
Delta's teeth slipped off her lip and she gasped. "F-Fuck you!" She laughed, then squeaked as John reached around. He grabbed her ass with both hands, holding her even closer to himself. One of her legs lifted, to make it easier for him to grind against her, even as his wet hands spread her ass. Two of his fingers thrust into her tight, puckered rosebud, and found her prostate, grinding against it as he fingered her with effortless, casual ease. Delta threw her head back, shuddering as she groaned. John laughed, then pressed closer, feeling the warm rush of her girlcum splashing his belly as she twitched and trembled and mewled.
"God, you're even easier than Albert," he said, quietly.
"D-Dick…" Delta panted.
He slid his fingers from her, purring. "Would you turn down my cock?"
Delta panted. Her eyes still held that hazy, eager look of pheremone head. She grinned, slightly. "Mmmmaybe."
John spun her around, hands on her hips. Her palms pressed to the glass door of the shower and she moaned as her breasts were squished against it as John ground against her ass. Her head tilted to the side and she mewled quietly. "Oh Captain…" she groaned – and laughed again as she felt John's dick twitch against her cute, tight ass.
"That's please Captain," John purred.
His hips bucked again. His dick ground against her ass, the tip teasing her puckered, eager rosebud. She mewled.
"Please Captain…"
"Please Captain what?" John asked, laughing.
"Please, Captain, fuck my tight little Terran ass, fucking destroy me, oh fuckkkkkh!" She groaned, her head pressing against the glass door as inch after inch after inch of his hard, eager dick plunged into her ass. Her arms snaked up, grabbed onto the edge of the door, squeezing tightly as she bucked her hips back. The rythmic slapping sound of hips driving against hips, of balls gently bumping balls, filled the shower as water pattered and dripped onto the ground. She grunted with every fuck, gasping heavily. "Oh god. Oh Captain. Christ. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck my ass...ah…"
"Even if you had bottom surgery...I think I'd still prefer this ass," John said, his voice playful.
She laughed, raggedly. "Nerd."
John grabbed onto her hips, squeezing even tighter. He leaned forward, growling in her ear. "You just have the best ass on the colony." He groaned, feeling her tightening. He started to thrust even faster, plunging into her again and again and again. His balls and her's met again and again as she moaned against the glass. Her hips rocked back and she trembled and she groaned hungrily, biting her lip, hard, to keep from being even louder and more demonstrative.
John thrust again.
Trembled.
Held her.
And, as he panted, his cum started to drip down her balls, splashing onto the floor. She whimpered, her voice having a desperate whine. "Soooclose!"
John laughed, softly, then reached around and pressed two fingers against the base of her dick, rubbing her in slow, steady circles – a pattern that worked as well for girls of all persuasions. He nibbled her ear, his dick still hard inside of her, and after a few seconds, Delta mewled and bucked her hips. Soon, her clear, glittering girlcum painted the door.
When Shey roused, she found that John was laying on his back as Delta casually sucked his dick.
"How many?" she asked, her voice wry.
John ignored her – his hand on the back of Delta's head, squeezing her hair as she bobbed her mouth up and down. Delta, though, had a hand free. She lifted it up, and held up five fingers.
"Humans!" Shey exclaimed. "So slutty. I've never met a hornier species. Were you invented by some...perverted spec-fic author?"
Delta lowered every finger but one.
***
The UNN Calypso floated in space before three Zemturga Warspheres.
"Captain?" Albert asked, glancing over his shoulder.
There had been some grumbling when John had asked for them to re-take the test. Instructor Q3 had arched a single carapace clad eyebrow, twitched two antennas, and then had nodded his head. He hadn't asked for why, and hadn't asked any clarifying questions. He had simply let them go into the pods and cycle it up. The rest of the crew had glanced worriedly at John. John had played it close to his vest. And now, as he saw the three bulbous warcraft of the galaxy's most dangerous species, he nodded.
"Lt. Moore, get us the hell out of here. We're falling back to Wolf-359. Bring us to Tier 4 for maximum speed."
"Aye sir!" Lt. Moore said.
The Calypso swung her nose around – the SOF engines at the front buzzing, crackling and punching a hole between realspace and the lower reaches of the SOF. As they dropped in, the warspheres started to open fire with their kinetics. The Calypso dropped to the second tier, then to the third. But as they were about to reach the fourth, where faster than light travel became not just possible but dangerously possible, alerts wailed and Shey exclaimed.
"Sir! Mass mines! Deep buried mass mines!"
"Surface, now!" John shouted.
The Calypso hurriedly swept up through tier 3 moments before the mass mines detonated, releasing their stored matter into huge, spreading clouds that, in the SOF, would become deadly disruptions to any ship's integrity. As they shot towards tier 2, the scanners and screens showed that a deadly, ravening swarm of Dagger interceptors was already there and waiting – and more than that, so were two more Warspheres. They had come out of the SOF, and Lt. Moore, forgetting his role, threw up his hands.
"Oh it's a fucking failure test, I fucking knew-"
"Lt. Xao," John said, firmly. "Tell the fighters to activate their realspace engines...but do not launch them."
"...sir?" Eugene asked.
"Lt. Moore. Bring us to heading John-1, I've programmed it into the flight computers," John said, his grin fierce, then tapped his coms. "Chief?"
"Uh, yeah? What?" Chief Katria Kyleen sounded faintly shocked. And a little harried. "What?" She asked, again.
"I've sent a plan to your comp pad, enact it. No questions." John turned off the com before the cadet who was acting as the chief engineer could ask anything. Shey was shooting John a look. John was pretty sure the proctors were too. But he saw that Eugene was grinning – and had turned to his console and began to speak.
The Calypso emerged from tier 2 with her fighters prepared. The Calypso was a light cruiser. She had umbilical that held her fighters in a circular pattern around the tapered spine of her hull. Each fighter was designed to detatch and relatch to those hooks – they actually could get 'snagged' by them if they flew close enough. The ship simply didn't have enough space for a carrier deck. It mean that all their realspace engines pointed along the angle of acceleration – and when they emerged into realspace, the fusion drive of the Calypso kicked on at the same moment her fighter escort's fusion jets did as well. The entire ship shot forward along a trajectory that carried it away from the warspheres, away from their fighters.
The warspheres did spend a short time collecting their fighters. In that time, enough distance was gleaned that when they began to fire railgun slugs at the Calypso, the shots took enough time for the aft shields to be brought up, brought down, cycled, and brought up again. In short, the Calypso was immune to their fire as they raced away. The warspheres, too, couldn't chase them faster than light: They were stuck thanks to the mass mines that had chased the Calypso up in the first place. All five warspheres burned hard, jetting after them as they streaked through the system.
"We're out of remass, sir," Eugene said. "Our fighters are useless now."
"Get the crew out of them and jettison the fighters," John said, firmly.
Eugene sighed. "Delta's gonna kill you."
"I know," John said, casually. He watched the screens.
What would have normally been a grueling several day chase at 1.5Gs compressed, thanks to the simulacrum pod's abilities to detect when a stalemate would hold. The battlecomputer had done the math, it knew that the warspheres would catch up to them...but it wasn't before they had cleared days of travel. And so, the Calypso and the warspheres chased one another, but the Calypso's crew got to skip past the days of waiting and reach the climax.
"Sir, I cannot help but notice that we're going to be flying dangerously close to a sun," Albert said.
"That we are," John said. He tapped on the coms. "Chief Kyleen-"
"Yes, it's done. And I just want to say, for the record? You're out of your fucking tree, Captain. This is going to be a catastrophe!"
"A cat-astrophe?" Delta asked, grinning as she walked in onto the bridge.
"Tell Vee to fu-"
The line to the chief clicked off as the sun of LHS-228 swelled on the screen. The ship's ray deflectors came online – buzzing and whirring as they started to sweep electromagnetic radiation around and away from the ship. But what could protect a ship from energy weapons for a short time could do so very little against the furious blaze of a sun. Alerts started to blip on as ablative armor started to boil away and the Calypso started to tremble slightly as boiling ablative armor shook them like tiny RCS systems.
"We're losing external systems, captain!" Albert said. "We've lost our dorsal PDCs. And our port plasma arcs. And our...ray deflector just burned out."
The room was getting hot. Sweat beaded along John's brow. He leaned forward.
"Lt. Sheyshen, Launch probe 1."
"Probe 1 away!"
The belly of the Calypso puffed as a probe was shot straight down.
"Tier 4, now!" John shouted.
The Calypso punched into the SOF – and dove. Dove. Dove. The warspheres prepared to dive after, to chase at faster than light speeds. But seconds before they did, the probe struck the surface of the sun – boiling away like a puff of smoke in the breeze. And the center of the probe was revealed: A single glittering Hypexian crystal, carefully sheered off the main drive's reserves. Without this chunk, the Calypso now lacked any backup in case the main body of the crystal went dead – a dangerous place for any starship.
The crystal plunged into the star – and like all Hypexian crystal, when charged, it punched a hole into the SOF. A chunk of the sun the size of five Earths suddenly ceased to have the same physics as the realspace around them. Gravity changed. The speed of light changed. The constants of the universe changed. All of it lasted for only as long as it took for the crystal to burn out – a few seconds. In that time, it triggered a shift in the star's gravity...and the star collapsed inwards, compressing its core fiercer and harder than it should have for few billion years.
The solar nova swept outwards at the speed of light.
The warspheres started to turn to the side – as if to flee.
Their ray deflectors flare. Fizzled.
Died.
Then the shockwave hit them and the ships blew apart into dust.
When the pod opened, John grinned up at Instructor Q3, who glowered down at him.
"Well?" he asked.
"You were supposed to learn how to face up to death…" the insectoid leaned forward. "Two weeks of extra duty shifts."
John's grin was large enough to see from space. "Thank you, sir."
***
The quiet conference room in the heart of Zeta Colony was full of cigarette smoke and the hazy light of holo projectors – which displayed the image and psyche data of one Ensign John Tangent, which slowly rotated in the center of the table. Admiral Gains and Sub-Commander X'or'tal both glowered at one another over the table. Dr. D-4211 N9 and Administrator Plip both watched the two military men but heads – and waited.
"He's suicidal," Gains said, flatly.
"He's a genius," X'or'tal said, his frilled ruff lifting up. "Did you even know Hypexian crystals could trigger novas?"
"That's the whole point!" Gains said, standing up. "It was wildly irresponsible. If his ship hadn't survived flying so close to the photosphere, if his crystal had burned out and he needed a spare, if-"
"If, if, if, he took down the biggest battle group we could reasonably throw at him, in a light cruiser," X'or'tal said, his tail lashing. "The kid is going to make admiral someday. His test scores are also through the roof. He's got that friend group thrumming like a clutch born together, he has no xenoantipathy."
"He's also pretty," Dr. N9 said, quietly, her gleaming metal fingers tapping together, her camera lens eyes whirring and clicking.
Everyone looked at the Omnidrone professor.
"I can't believe that matters," Admiral Gains said, quietly.
"I'm the best quasicausal psychodynamic expert that the Alliance has," Dr. N9 said. "The mathematics are extremely clear. The SOF operates better on the young, the attractive, the charismatic. The selection bias has been clear and present in every stellar navy that has ever existed, even the UNN has demonstrated this, and you've only been flying starships for less than a century."
Gains frowned and leaned back in his seat.
"Lets be clear, here," Gains said. "We only have one shot here. One chance. There has been no communication from Earth, from SOL, from any UNN-IAF beacon or repeater, no ship codes, nothing. It's overwhelmingly clear that the Totality has won the war."
Everyone flinched. Everyone looked grim. Everyone didn't want to speak. No one at Zeta Colony let themselves speak those three words, even if everyone had worried, everyone had wondered. Why had they been sent so far, why had they been left out here for so long? Were they all that was left of the Alliance who were still free? How many of their former colleagues and friends been turned into thralls of one make or another? Those worried were there...but Gains had broken the taboo.
Gains continued. "If we choose the wrong commander for this mission, then it will doom not just ourselves, but our children and every other child of every free species out there. It will doom the slaves of the Zemturga to an eternity of servitude. It'll mean this whole damn galaxy will be under their tentacled thumb for the rest of time. That's how important this is." He looked at each of them, frowning.
Sub-Commander X'or'tal hissed, his tail twitching.
Administrator Plip and his three sub-bodies all burbled quietly, thinking.
Dr. N9 nodded. Her smoothly modulated, robotic voice spoke into the silence. "This only reaffirms my decision," she said. "Ensign John Tangent has every factor we need. He's brilliant. He's a good diplomat, and better lover. He's pretty. He's young, but not too young. If...I could choose anyone, without the constraints of physics, then I'd send you, Admiral Gains. You've vastly more experience and training – but we have to operate in the bounds of physical reality. And as it is, if you were to enter the SOF to Tier 3, the effects would be extremely deleterious unless you were a passenger."
Gains looked aside, his hand pressing against the table in the center of the room. The United Nations Navy hadn't had enough time to have the same institutional experience that the Alliance navy had with command officers and exposure to the SOF. He gritted his teeth, then swore. "Damn. I suppose gallivanting around the galaxy really is a job for the young, eh?"
The holos shifted to what they had all been working on for the past twenty years.
Gains watched the image rotate.
He nodded.
"Tell him."
***
John was buttoning up his uniform when the door buzzer to his apartment chimed. He turned, opened the door – and came to attention as he saw Admiral Gains and one of the science staff. Gains was a tall, dark figure with a bald pate and a thick goatee that framed his narrow lips, and he looked down at John with a severe expression. The science staff was…
Well.
She was an Omnidrone – a species that had been built by another species now long extinct due to an ancient plague. They had been instructed to assist and help, and had done so well past the point their creators, their masters, had died. Without anyone to assist, they had been stuck in endless loops of repeating, self replicating programs...but just as in natural evolution, replication errors had led to evolution, evolution had led to sentience, and in the end, the Omnidrones had left their world to find others to assist. They were terrible warriors, but excellent at most other tasks.
And this Omnidrone?
She was about as tall as John was, her heels built with a stiletto point, giving her an elegant posture. Her hips were waspish and chrome, while her bust was large and jutting, barely contained by her pale white lab coat, which had several buttons undone to free her cleavage. Her hair, silver metal, was carved into a shape that accentuated her features, while her large, plush rubber lips were pursed. A pair of corrective lenses perched on her nose, and she held a comp pad in her hand. Her voice was breathy and seductive as she held out her hand. "Good afternoon, Ensign Tangent. I'm Doctor D-4211 N9. I am told that my name translates into Terran as...Darling."
"Uh, ma'am, er, Doctor," John said, taking the hand, shaking it, before turning to Admiral Gains. "Sir?"
"Come with me, Ensign," Admiral Gains said. "Dr. N9 here will be explaining things."
John walked with them as Dr. N9 swayed her hips from side to side, her skirts swishing around her chrome buttocks. John forced his eyes forward as they moved through the corridors of Zeta Colony. "As you know, John," she said. "Our colony was founded to study the Luciferian ruins. The Lucifer species, named by one of your scientists after their ruins were discovered on Venus, once existed in this region of space ten thousand years ago before they mysteriously went extinct."
John nodded.
"This planet is the only one to have so many intact Luciferian artifacts. But we have spent these past twenty years not merely studying the ruins…" Dr. N9 said, turning to face him as they came to an elevator that John had never used before. "You see, we discovered the purpose of these ruins nineteen years ago. It was one of the first things the colony did discover – but it was agreed that the information must be kept as secret as possible, lest the Totality discover it through esper scrying or infiltration and spying."
John nodded. "What was it, Doctor?"
The elevator whirred down. Down. Down. It was going fast. Then, suddenly, the window that showed nothing but black wall – so smooth and unchanging that it had been impossible to see movement on it – bloomed with a view. They were cruising down an elevator shaft that ran along the wall of a megastructure's interior. Within the structure were two vast shapes. One, John recognized as being none other than the UNN Cataphract – the venerable and well built Khan class escort carrier that had brought the colonists to Zeta Colony. It served a dual role as battleship and carrier, and was able to outfight two warspheres at once, if well handled. The Cataphract was currently a skeletal frame – her hull removed, her components shifted…
Onto…
Onto…
"This planet was built to do one thing," Dr. N9 said, her husky voice commanding. "To build starships. Luciferian starships."
The components of the Cataphract had been placed along the spine and forward jutting hull of a titanic starship – a frame of gleaming black Luciferian metal that looked as if it could be as massive as three warspheres put together. She was essentially two broad, blade shaped wings that reached up towards a spinal column that attached to a bulbous and sophisticated looking engine pod. Admiral Gains pointed, his voice proud. "The Luciferian computers, once we got them working, threw the designs together. The thing's modular, clearly made to incorporate a great many components. The only ones we could find in the library banks of the Luciferian systems were for their engine and command bridge. So, we've been cannibalizing the other parts from the Cataphract."
"Good god," John said. "That'll only fill, I don't know, thirty percent of her capacity."
"Indeed," Gains said. "But it is our hope that as this ship meets Alliance species, their industrial capacity can be put to building components to add to the ship – creating an amalgamation of all our best traits. It'll be a true dreadnought. A weapons platform that could take on an entire Zemturga battle group and destroy it, then retreat to safety before reinforcements arrived. A single ship can travel farther and faster than a fleet – meaning this one ship may be the difference between the war being lost and the war being won."
"That's why you made the academy!" John exclaimed. "To train the young of the colony – to be the crew."
"Indeed," Gain said. "And...to find her captain."
The elevator slowed. Stopped.
John, Admiral Gains and Dr. N9 stepped out of it and stood before the deadly looking ship. Admiral Gains turned to face John once more. "You have been chosen to be the Captain of the UNN Excalibur."
John watched as crew painted the name – in vast letters – on the narrow, birdlike prow of the command bridge. He squared his shoulders. "Thank you, sir." He smiled, slightly. "SOF physics are a bitch, aren't they?"
Gains frowned. "You're not-" He stopped himself.
"Sorry, sir," John said. "But I did read Lectures on Dimensional Fatigue and Command Staff Allocation Regimes."
"You read my essay?" Dr. N9 exclaimed.
"Yes, I just didn't have a face for the name until now," John said, smiling at her. The Omnidrone doctor blushed and put her hand to her cheek, biting her lower lip as she looked at John in a new light, while Admiral Gains sighed.
"You will of course, have a command staff of the highest scored ensigns – but for everyone in secondary command positions, where the effects of Dimensional Fatigue will be far lesser, you will have the best officers we have in the colony and the finest crew we have," Admiral Gains. "Make no mistake. The future of the galaxy rests on your shoulders."
John came to attention.
"I won't let you down, sir," he said.
Admiral Gains looked him over...and nodded.
Behind them, the Excalibur began to shine with her deck lights as the final systems came online.
"I'm the best quasicausal psychodynamic expert that the Alliance has," Dr. N9 said. "The mathematics are extremely clear. The SOF operates better on the young, the attractive, the charismatic. The selection bias has been clear and present in every stellar navy that has ever existed, even the UNN has demonstrated this, and you've only been flying starships for less than a century."
And Hollywood casting is a studied law of physics.
I can't wait for the bad guys to show up and start stuffing entire backdrops into their mouths. Or for our valiant heroes to meet the entire race of Brian Blessed impersonators. After some accident with the ship's environmental systems has required them all to strip precisely to their underwear. It's going to be great.
Yep, this parallels the opening of Star Control 2 very closely - distant precursor planet turns out to have a ship factory, the ship starts out weak but can be upgraded with new tech as you find it, and when you arrive on the scene the bad guys have already won and you need to go out and restart the rebel alliance all on your own. Although at least our protagonist starts out knowing who the potential allies are, instead of blundering around the galaxy at random until you get nibbled to death by probes. (I never did beat SC2 myself...)
Anyway, "DragonCobolt does Star Control 2" is reason enough for me to get excited about this, but I'm curious where this will end up diverging. For starters, I wonder what the fate of Earth is here - in SC2 they became "fallow slaves" who refused to work for the Ur-Quan, but that isn't mentioned as an option here. (Humans are apparently stereotyped as extremely horny by other species, so they might have wound up as pleasure serfs?)
Also, Tier 2 of the SOF seems to be literally "Space is an Ocean" physics, which is hilarious.
(I'm also curious about what "FTL becomes dangerously possible at Tier 4" could mean. Are we talking something like Quasispace, or is it more like "you hit a space anomaly and end up on the other side of the Delta Quadrant"?)
In that time, enough distance was gleaned that when they began to fire railgun slugs at the Calypso, the shots took enough time for the aft shields to be brought up, brought down, cycled, and brought up again. In short, the Calypso was immune to their fire as they raced away.
...And I'm getting the impression it would, in fact, be worse for the Alliance than him just exploding or dissolving into goo or the like. Genre tropes make it a lot easier for a space opera to have an older villain, as I understand it, and there are a lot of ways an admiral could go wrong that they can't afford, even apart from any care for him personally.
Gains was a tall, dark figure with a bald pate and a thick goatee that framed his narrow lips, and he looked down at John with a severe expression.
He even has a goatee? Yeah, do not put that man in a position where the SOF decides he fits better as Space Warlord than as Bystander, Innocent, To Be Saved.
...Actually, now I'm wondering how much the Zemturga are a slaving star empire because they're tentacled space monsters. What standards of attractiveness does the the SOF use? Were the Zemturga much nicer before they began exploring space, and then the spacers became so warped that the first people they turned on were those of their own species still on the ground? Of course, from the sound of it they still have to be stopped, but that sounds like it could be an interesting plot point... especially if the Zemturga on the homeworld mostly still haven't been into the SOF, and are kept down by brute force same as all the rest of the thralls.
...And the part of my brain that also does Doylistic analysis has just pointed out that that would provide Heroic John Tangent an excellent opportunity to conduct both diplomacy and "diplomacy" with some friendly betentacled people, soooo... yeah, seeming fairly likely, at least with the information I have at the moment.
Well, an interesting start! And, hey, I'm guessing that, with the situation they've been backed into, the SOF might now be actively favoring them, too.
beleester said:
Although at least our protagonist starts out knowing who the potential allies are
Well, who some of them are. Who's to say that unknown species might not be encountered in the course of the mission, either freed thralls or hitherto hidden?
instead of blundering around the galaxy at random until you get nibbled to death by probes. (I never did beat SC2 myself...)
Although at least our protagonist starts out knowing who the potential allies are, instead of blundering around the galaxy at random until you get nibbled to death by probes. (I never did beat SC2 myself...)
I was more complaining that the game doesn't give a lot of hints on where to look, and exploring at random barely pays your fuel budget. Finding the Arilou, in particular, is a bit of a quest.
(Also, I first played it as a teenager and probably wasn't as good at following clues.)
From the orbit of Pluto, the SOL system was deathly quiet.
Captain John Tangent sat back in his command chair – and despite the two weeks of cruising through the third tier of the Space Opera Field that made it possible for humanity and her allies to break the bonds of light speed travel – still felt as if this command position was surreal. He had been in a similar chair many times during his time in the academy, beside his friends...but it had always been simulated by the battlecomputer. The fact that the very same battlecomputer from Zeta Colony now sat in the bowels of his ship, ready to assist his crew with lightning precision, didn't exactly comfort him. Not considering how many times that collection of electrodes and quantum toggles had blasted him and his friends into virtualized space dust.
He kept whatever nerves he felt locked deep in his mind. His crew had to see he was confident. Hell, the universe had to see he was confident. He turned in his seat to face the science console where Lt. Sheyshan sat, her headset perched onto her head. Her elfin ears were concealed by the bulky set, and her fingers played along the controls, while beside her, Dr. Darling stood, her arms shelving her impressive chrome bust as she peered down at the systems.
"Anything?" John asked.
"Nothing, sir," Shey said, her voice quiet. "Not even beacons."
"We might be missing tight-beam traffic. Or, hell, it's been twenty years. For all we know, Earth's upgraded to something better than SOFR," Albert said.
"Maybe," John said. "Keep our scopes warm and our turrets online. Bring the Excalibur in at tier two."
The ship cruised forward – and John wondered what it'd look like to any veteran of the Zemturga War. His ship was the hull of a Luciferian battleship (or at least, that was what the archaeology team thought it might have been, considering its size and strength) meaning that the hull armor and superstructure of his ship was ten thousand years more advanced than anyone else in the galaxy. But the internal components and the systems that they had filled the ship with were only what Zeta Colony's scientists had on hand: The old, gutted remains of the UNN Cataphract. This meant most of the Excalibur was actually empty space: Hull wrapped around slots for future components. What few components it had were the sensors, crew compartment, weapon systems, thrust modules and fighter bays of a Khan class escort carrier, with a few extra rooms added in by the science staff holding research bays and medical wards.
John hoped that didn't make the Excalibur a paper tiger.
Tier two of the Space Opera field kept physics relatively intact – enough that the basic fundamentals of reality didn't start to break down. But it did make things more convenient. That included intrasystem travel time. It took significantly less reaction mass and significantly less time for the ship to reach cruising speed, and meant that they would arrive at Earth in only a few days. The crew shifted through several duty cycles, while John made sure to show himself on the bridge relatively often. Off the bridge, he kept up his physical exercise, read through the manuals, and kept abreast of every iota of information gleaned from the sensors as they got closer and closer to the homeworld of humanity.
Every hour made the mood aboard the Excalibur more grim.
"We've tabulated everything and it's clear that Earth has almost no orbital infrastructure left," Shey said as, several hours before they'd break to tier one, the bridge crew met in the conference room adjoining to the bridge. "We've detected only one starbase and it appears to be primarily a manufacturing center rather than anything administrative or defensive. The planetary surface, meanwhile, is even stranger."
"It's not a burned out atomic hellscape, right?" Trianna asked.
"No, worse," Shey said. "It's utterly untouched...and completely lacking in any EM broadcasting. It's like the entire human species reverted to a pre-atomic technology level. Pre-industrial, even."
"Well, that will make the Gaian Collapse alarmists happy," Eugene said, dryly.
"How about population figures?" John asked.
Shey glanced at Dr. Darling, who reached up to adjust the corrective lenses she wore. Her breathy voice was grim. "While hard to determine at this range while in tier two, I can guess that the Earth's population has fallen by roughly ninety five percent. Maybe more."
Albert hissed. Trianna rubbed her palms against her face. Eugene nodded.
John frowned. "All right. It looks like whatever happened, it wasn't good. When we emerge from tier two, I want the entire ship's weapon grid online and shield emitters warmed up. Trianna, if you see anything that even looks like a Zemturga ship, you blast it."
"Aye, sir," Trianna said.
"Chief Kyleen," John said, turning to his chief engineer. Katria Kyleen was a member of the Yip-Paw-Lob – specifically, she was a Paw, despite being born to Yip parents. That was apparently a bit of a social stigma in the tripartite species, but if she resented being chucked off to the edge of the galaxy by her concerned extended family, Kyleen expressed it all by being fascinated with technology and utterly unconcerned with tact and politicking. Which was either the least or most rational response to that kind of institutionalized bigotry, John wasn't sure which. She was currently fiddling with a piece of one of the connective regulators for the ship's power system. Her bright, slitted green eyes flicked up and her ears twitched in curious eagerness.
"Yes?" she asked. "Oh, is the meeting done?"
"Almost," John said. "How's the Luciferian systems playing with our UNN stuff?"
"Oh, better than fine," Kyleen said, stretching, her cat-tail twitching behind her. "The underlying structure of the power grid...er…" Seeing his expression, she considered, then said: "It's like a frungie player after three lops on the emgat, you know?"
John chuckled, glad she could explain the complexities of her engineering vocation with such an easy, down to earth metaphor. "Got it," he said. "Then keep her flying."
"Technically, we mostly spend our time falling," Kyleen said, then sprang up and off her chair in that particularly Pawish way of her by curling up then springing backwards over the chair, flipping three times, and landing on her bare feet. She walked off, tail swishing, as the rest of the crew got up and John stood.
Dr. Darling stepped close to him, her voice growing grave. "Be ready for the worst, Captain Tangent."
John gave her a gentle smile. Before he could say anything, though, a shrieking alarm rang out. He gave her a curt nod, then sprinted towards the bridge. There, his bridge crew were taking their positions, even as the backup science officer, Ensign Cartwheel, shouted: "Sir! Detecting a Totality ship! It's firing on the station!"
John took his seat as the rest of the crew strapped in. "Warm up the shields, bring us to realspace and put it on the screen."
The Excalibur shuddered as it lifted up and out of the second tier – emerging into realspace a few hundred thousand kilometers away from the verdant blue orb of the Earth. The station was not exactly UNN standard – rather than the spindly top shape that the United Nations had favored, it was instead a set of interlocking spheres built around a large space for a ship to come in for berthing. It had shields and armor, though, because it was taking a pounding from a Totality starship. Not a warsphere, though. The vehicle was an inverted chevron of metal, riding atop a glowing green field of energy that skated through realspace like butter on a hot griddle. Beams shot from the chevron's outer edges, slicing into the station.
"Ship is identified," Trianna said as she flicked hastily through her holodex and brought up a glowing replica of the very ship on the screen – in miniature form of course. She turned back to look at John. "She's a Myg'Ga'Gar Butcher class war rocket."
"We're being hailed by the Totality ship," Shey said.
"On screen," John said, nodding. The screen flicked and, for the first time in his life, John Tangent saw a Myg'Ga'Gar in the person. The ancient Terran fear of the reptilian had been put to the test by their allies, the Qorr, but it was the ophidian Myg'Ga'Gar who had given the long extinct Freudian school of psychoanalytical thought a run for their money in the intricate combination of Terran's worst fears and biggest draws. For while the Myg'Ga'Gars had the terrifying slitted eyes, the sharp viperous fangs, the ominous spread hoods, the sinuous necks and lithesome grace of the most deadly of serpents, they paired it with the galaxy's most extravagantly displayed breasts and immodest sense of dress. This captainess reclined on her skull studded command chair and wore nothing but a thin straps of leather that swept from her crotch to cover her nipples and then loop around her shoulders adorned with a few medals of rank and glossy, silky strips of cloth that cross crossed her shoulders, forearms and belly. Her scales were dull orange and pale white, and her tail ended in a spiked rattle, as she crooned quietly.
"Well well well! What do we have here. A Terr-ann in an unidentified alien starship, in flagrant violation of your species oath of submission!" She hissed her long, forked tongue out at him. "Naughty Terr-ann!"
"I'm Captain Tangent of the UNN Excalibur," John said, keeping his eyes fixed on hers. "Why are you attacking that starbase?"
"Why?" The Myg'Ga'Gar asked, then chuckled, her hand sliding between her scaled breasts, cupping herself salaciously. "Because, young Terr-ann, the starbase refused to service me and my crew as befits their status as Pleasure Serfs."
John clenched his jaw.
He was sure the worst would have been to hear that the United Nations had been made into Battle-Thralls by the Zemturga. But this wasn't much better. He forced his initial emotional reaction back down and lifted his chin. "And so you decided to slaughter the defenseless?"
"...yes, that is preci-sssssssss-ly what I did," the Myg'ga'gar captainess crooned, her eyes slitting and narrowing. "Under the Hierarchy of Now and Forever, it isssssss our right." She flicked her tongue out. "Now, sssssssadly, one assssss pretty asssss you musssst die, to satissssssssfy the laws of the Totality. But do not fear. I will pull you from your ssssssship if you yet live and make you my own personal bed sssssslave, Terr-ann!" She chuckled, then turned her head. "Bring usssss to bear on the enemy, helm!"
The screen cut off – and the view of the Butcher came back up. It skimmed through space, curving to bring itself to bear on the Excalibur.
"Her E-beams are locked on and she's firing at us out of Tier Two!" Shey said.
"Evasive action – drop us to Tier Two and warm up our plasma casters," John said, narrowing his eyes.
It seemed his ship's first real test was coming sooner than he had expected.
The Excalibur heeled hard into a curving spin as they dropped into the shallow end of the SOF from realspace. This meant they managed to actually dodge two of the E-beams fired from the Butcher class war rocket – the sizzling green rays shot past the port wing of the Excalibur with a closeness that made John wince. The other two struck the belly of the ship, but skidded along her ablative armor with gouts of molten metal pluming into space like miniature volcanoes. The ship rocked and John glanced to Trianna, who shook her head.
"No damage," she said.
"Sir, they're launching Vipers," Eugene said.
"Launch our Avengers in return. Lets give the flyboys something to do," John said.
The two capital ships slewed away from one another, circling, trying to find a good time to strike. It was clear that the E-beams of the Butcher couldn't simply batter down the Excalibur without opening herself up to an alarming amount of return fire. But the Excalibur's weapons were primarily close ranged brawling guns, to gain synergy with fighter operations. Since the Butcher was faster, it meant the field was opened for the Vipers and the Avengers to play.
John watched...and waited for his chance.
***
Delta Vee had to admit: She preferred being launched from a Khan class fighter bay, rather than the spindly connectors that she had trained on using the fictional Calypso. Rather than being stuck out in space until she detached, her fighter was kept in a narrow magnetic trough and when the order came to launch Avengers, she simply swung into her cockpit, strapped in...and was shot out of a cannon. "Woooooooohooo!"
Her Avenger corkscrewed as she swept into the space above her species homeworld. Her HUD filled with glittering red dots: Sixteen Vipers, all of them dropping through the green haze beneath the Butcher's main body. The Myg'ga'gar preferred single purpose attack fighters – long needles with the ability to stop and turn on a dime, armed with their infamous AGCs. She took hold of her controls, while Lt. Xao's voice spoke in her ear.
"Alpha-1, take your squad forward and bring down those Vipers. Beta-1, you're going to take down the E-ray guns on the Butcher."
"Lets get it done people, on my six," Delta said. Her friends and fellow pilots shot their affirmations as she target-locked an approaching Viper. The Viper immediately began to twist away from her nose, while two other Vipers locked onto her. Delta gripped her stick, twisted, and fired her ventral thrusters. Her fighter screamed up and away as the AGCs on the Viper's that had targeted her began to open fire: Hissing green strands of the gloppy acid that they fired shot past her belly, but a few splats went right through her shields and splattered onto her wings. "Shit! They penetrate shields!"
The white paint on her upper wing frothed away and the machinery beneath began to smoke. Alerts flared on her HUD and Delta scowled as she touched several buttons. "Jettisoning my missile pod, lets see if that does it!"
The wing banged loudly as bolts burst and the whole frame whipped away from her. Now her ship felt a bit unbalanced, but at least there wasn't deadly smart acid eating towards...well, her. She corrected for the handling adjustments, kept her nose on the Viper she had targeted, placed the crosshairs of her weapons right before it. She closed one eye, stuck her tongue out of the corner of her mouth.
"And...gotcha!" she hissed.
Her nose mounted double barreled grazer cannons started to fill space with searing green beams of deadly radiation. The Viper ahead of her trembled, quivered, then exploded as the grazers did their work. She pulled away, while a contrail bloom of a missile launch filled space to her left. The missiles went corkscrewing in every direction and she heard Alpha-3 swearing. "Their jammed!"
"The Totality's tech's gotten a lot better-" Delta started.
"I can't shake the snakes!"
"-but we're still the fucking heroes," Delta fished – dropping in behind a pair of Vipers that were splattering Alpha-2 with bolts of acid. She targeted one and fired her grazers right up the snake's tailpipe.
"Nooooo!" The Myg'ga'gar pilot's death scream ripped over the radio, while his wingmate started to turn aside – but she kept her nose right on him. Grazers played along the hull of the Viper and it split in half, bursting into a flare of orange light that she shot through. Her wings rattled and her cockpit pinged as bits and pieces bounced, but nothing looked damaged enough to worry about. Delta grinned, fierce and ready, then shouted over the radio.
"Alpha-2, get back to the ship and let the chief fix you up! We can replace fighters!"
"This is Beta-1, beginning my attack flight...now!"
Above her, Delta saw Beta-1 and a chevron of his wingmates swooping down on the Butcher. E-beams scythed through space, trying to swat them down, but the whole wing of Avengers pulled up and away before any struck, leaving behind blooming arrays of micro-missiles, which detonated across the surface of the Myg'ga'gar ship like dozens of small suns. The whole ship shuddered and the glowing green energy that kept it moving through space flickered off and on again.
"We've got a good hit! Her port E-beams and her dorsal E-beams are down!" Beta-1 said, proudly.
"All wings, break! Break! The Excalibur is gonna finish this."
The Excalibur shot forward and brought her prow mounted plasma casters to bear. A voice came over broadband, a terrified feminine voice. "No! Terr-ann! Please! We are disarmed! We ssssssssurrender! Do not your United Nations have mercy for sssssurrendering?"
"Oh come on!" Delta grumbled. "That can't possibly work."
"Uh, Alpha-1," Alpha-3 whispered over a ship to ship chat. "Check the visual feeds."
Delta turned on the view of the alien captainess.
"Okay, yes, actually, surrendering is a moral cornerstone of the Terran species, I think, basic, fundamental to our people, it's why this war is worth fighting at all. Makes us different from the Totality," Delta said, nodding hurriedly.
***
Captain John Tangent stepped through the airlock of the starbase and found himself realizing that he now, at a certain fundamental level, understood people who would fight and die for the Zemturga Totality. The airlock was, by necessity, small and spartan – but the corridor it opened into was breathtaking. The walls were immense and emerald and gold, covered with intricate and gorgeous geometric patterns that suggested grace, beauty and comfort. The floor was covered in silks, and chandeliers glittered overhead. The air was rich with the scent of spices and comforting flavors that made one want to lay down into the carpet and just wallow in the sensory excess of it. And then there were the greeters: Six Terrans, each one more breathtakingly lovely than the last, each representing the various phenotype of the Terran species, each dressed in a fashion that accentuated their specific beauty, be it the gauzy sari of the redheaded, athletic girl on the left, the leather straps of the ebony skinned goddess to the left, or the codpiece and shoulder pauldrons that framed the impressive, muscular bulk of the titan who was in the center of the formation, standing behind a blue figure of sleek, feminine masculinity with long blond hair, a veil, blue eyes, and milk pale skin. His thong and his skintight shirt made it clear what his particular gender was – and so, Captain John Tangent bowed low.
"I take it I have the honor to stand before a femboy?" he asked, politely.
"Ah, Captain, you know your Terran history," the femboy said, his voice a husky contralto. "Yes, I am Captain Quincy Lagrange, formerly of the United Nations Navy – now, a pleasure serf of the Zemturga Totality." He smiled sadly. "I think we both have very long stories to tell."
"Indeed we do," John said, then glanced to his left and to his right – he was flanked by a pair of his ship's marine compliment. "Staff, you can handle securing the rest of the starbase? Make sure there's no Zemturga traps."
"Got it, Captain!" The marine gestured and his comrades walked past the beautiful Terrans, while John gestured.
"This is my science officer, Lt. Sheyshan, as well as my tactical and operations officers, Lt. Trianna Yang and Lt. Albert Moore. Finally, we have our fighter commander, Lt. Eugene Xao."
"Your pilots were quite impressive," Lagrange said, his voice soft. "We hope none were harmed."
"Only a few minor acid burns," Eugene said, blushing furiously – clearly overwhelmed by the honor of meeting a femboy in person.
"Come, let me show you to my reclining gala," Lagrange said. "And...I suppose...I shall tell you of the end of the Alliance and the victory of the Zemturga." He sighed, quietly, his hair swishing slightly as he turned. The crew of the Excalibur walked after him, and as he led them through the sprawling starbase, his gentle voice painted a picture of the end of days…
***
The war had turned on the Alliance with the betrayal of the Omnidrones. The Zemturga, being vile slavemasters, saw nothing wrong with enslaving a species without even having the gallantry to face them in the field of battle. Working away at complicated mathematics programs for decades, the Zemturga's slaves had finally unlocked the code to alter Omnidrone programming en masse. Before the Omnis know what was happening, the slave code had beamed into their minds at the speed of SOF Radio transmissions.
The Omni fleets had turned upon their allies in a single disastrous, coordinated attack that was now called Black Twoday, as it had taken place on the 4th of March, 2233. The Alliance fleets had withdrawn in disarray and confusion as Omnis had worked to sabotage any response. Those few Omnis that had been free of the slave programming due to distance or radio shielding fled to the farthest reaches of space as the Alliance fell apart into recrimination.
The Zemturga fleets came, first, to the Yip-Paw-Lob homeworld of Tripletiathreetres. There, their ships had bombarded the planet for three weeks until the three species had each surrendered, emerging from their force shielded cities to find their once verdant paradise of a world had been turned to gray ash and slag. They were then sundered – their species ripped apart and turned into three distinct slave castes: The Yip, who were made into Battle Thralls, the Paw, who were made into Pleasure Serfs, and the Lob, who became Field Servants.
With the proudest race humbled, the Zemtuga had then split their forces. Half had come to the Lithanoids, only to find that their entire civilization had buried themselves into the crust of their homeworld. Rumor and hearsay was that they had unleashed a ferocious tectonic device that rendered the surface of the world into a hellplanet, and even the Zemturga's most vicious battle thralls couldn't land without dying within the hour. If the Lithanoids still lived...none could say. But while the Zemturage took that as a bitter victory, they were delighted by their foray into Qorr space. There, the Quorr, fearing the same destruction that the Yip-Paw-Lob had been served, surrendered and were made Battle Thralls.
The combined fleet then came upon the Sensurians. Rather than facing servitude again, the Sensurians detonated some kind of hypexian device that obliterated their entire solar system by dragging it into the depths of the SOF. They took with them an immense Zemturga fleet...but all that bought the Terrans and the Hylano was time.
The final battle of the war took place above the Earth herself as the UNN and the Hylano defense fleets fought side by side. Their sacrifices were incredible – but futile. For every warsphere they splashed, for every wing of Blades they immolated, for every Battle Thrall the sent to the next world, another dozen would emerge from Tier Three to attack realspace. In the end, the Hylano Queens surrendered their vast worldship fleets, which were sheltering in Earth orbit...and the teeming billions of Terrans on Earth watched as warspheres began to fill their skies.
The war was over.
But the peace had only just begun.
***
Lagrange's reclining parlor was, just as the name implied, the best place that John had ever seen for relaxing. There were many couches, divans and relaxing places to settle down. The view through the window was of the vast, beautiful curve of the Earth, with the Excalibur floating in orbit nearby, tending to the crippled Myg'ga'gar ship that had surrendered. Sparkling lights flickered on the belly of the Excalibur as Chief Kat's crews got to work.
"And that's how the war ended," Lagrange said, shaking his head.
"We need to make sure we get Dr. Darling radio shielded immediately," John said.
"The slave signal isn't sent anymore, it took immense amounts of power...but, still, it is wise," Lagrange said.
"Then that's it, huh?" Albert asked, his voice soft. "The war's over?"
"It's not over until we say it's over," John said, quashing any sense of fear or dread in the room with a confident smile. "Lets first hear about what happened after the War. What happened to Earth? Where's the human race?"
"That's the strangest part of the tale," Lagrange said. "We were made into a Pleasure Serf species, as you can see." His cheeks darkened and he coughed. "B-But, then...the Zemturga began to take us for their own personal enjoyment. According to the Sensurians, that is very strange."
"It is, Captain," Shey said, her voice brittle – John knew that, inside, she was trying to process what it meant to possibly be the last Sensurian in the galaxy. He squeezed her hand, gently. She turned and laced her fingers through his, her voice growing stronger. "T-The Zemturga don't take Pleasure Serfs for themselves, a-as far as my ancestors tell it. Pleasure Serfs are for the use on others within the Totality, not for the Zemturga themselves."
"And how would that even work?" Trianna made a face. "A Zemturga's the size of an elephant!"
"Their tentacles aren't," Albert muttered, darkly.
Everyone considered that in the peaceful silence of the beautiful room. John shook his head. "Did the Zemturga take...everyone on Earth?"
"Most of them," Lagrange said. "The first year, their warspheres came to Earth, and they announced they needed a city for Selection, and for us to choose a city. We didn't know what Selection was. No one did. So, the United Nations made a randomized number generator. It rolled, chose, and...then the Zemturga flew into the air above Buenos Aires. They ripped it out of the crust with gravity tractors...the whole city, and every person in it!"
Lagrange turned to the window – and beneath them, the Earth spun. Clouds parted and John blinked as he saw the craters pockmarking the surface of what looked like Europe spinning beneath them. Sadly, Lagrange put his fingers to the glass. "Madrid, Paris, London, Berlin – they came every month and each month they took a different one. This station was built in orbit and staffed purely to continue to refuel and refit the ships as they came in. Within twelve years, there were almost no Terrans left on the planet."
"What happened to them?" John asked.
Lagrange sighed, slowly. "That? I don't know. The Zemturga haven't returned and news is slow to come to us from the rest of the Empire. For a time, there were several Myg'ga'gar and Swiffo ships that came by to check on us – but the last Swiffo ship barely sent us a radio wave before they skedaddled, and the Myg'ga'gar, well, they are eager to use us in every sense of the word." He made a face. "This latest ship demanded that we hand over the entire crew to be their love pets. We had orders from the Zemturga to keep this station operational – our choices were either to disobey the Zemturga's orders to keep the station running, or disobey the Zemturga's orders to obey any order from a Battle-Thrall."
John sighed, quietly. "That's...a lot to think about." He stood. "But I think I need to hear the rest of the story."
"Oh?" Lagrange asked.
***
The door to the prison chamber opened with a whirr and a click, and the light came on with a soft bink bink noise, revealing the orange and white scaled form of the Myg'ga'gar captainess hung from a set of restraints, her arms above her head, muscular and sleek, her shoulders hunched, her hefty breasts sagging slightly as her head hung forward. She lifted her snakish snout and peered down at John Tangent, who stepped into the room with a wry little smile. He had a book under one arm and carried with him a small chair, which he opened and set down across from the captainess.
"Ah. The fabled Terr-ann hospitality," the ophidian woman crooned. She arched her back sinuously, thrusting her chest out at him. "I wonder, Terr-ann, what torments will you unleash upon my lovely body. Whips? Clamps? Penetrative devices? Or, perhaps-"
"Where did you get the chains?" John asked, sitting down on the chair.
The captiness blinked, then flicked her hood a bit wider. "I-I was put in chains by your fiendish crew."
"I gave orders to the explicit contrary," John said, his voice wry. "Also, I can see the welds I...did you chain yourself up in this room?"
The captainess paused. Then she hissed and lifted her head, her voice dripping with imperious confidence. "I'll never talk, Terr-ann! Hssss!"
John shrugged one shoulder. "Can I at least get your name?"
The Myg'ga'gar paused for a long moment, watching him. She craned her head to try and peer at the book – but the dust jacket was an unremarkable red hue, no name was printed on the side of the primitive media container. She hissed again, then muttered. "Ssivik."
"Well, Captainess Ssivik of the MSN Wrathful Heart, I just came with some questions-"
"Ah, quessssssssstions!" Ssivik hissed, her eyes narrowing. "Now comes the brutality. You will...oh yes, you will tear aside my uniform, freeing my luscious orange breasts, then fondle them so fiercely it will be like pain and pleasure mix together and oh no! I will never tell, even as you ravage me with your mighty Terr-ann cock. Ah, you beast!"
"This must be the famous Myg'ga'garan hypnosis indoctrination," John said, dryly. "You're trying to slip your suggestions into my mind...don't you think I don't spot your eyes." His eyes flickered and then met hers – and Ssvik blinked, then focused hard on him. Her eyes glowed...and began to swirl. Slowly, they twirled and twirled, becoming an intermixing, overlapping swirl of color, like the hypnotic spin of a hurricane seen from orbit. Her tongue darted out and she crooned quietly.
"You will attempt to ravage me," she said.
"I think not," John said, smiling at her.
She blinked, her eyes going from swirls to slits again. "B-But...how!?" She exclaimed. "You should be panting for my snakish body! You should already be balls deep within my quivering snatch, unaware that my fangs are poised to pierce your neck and fill you with the Venom of a Thousand Orgasms!"
"Is that what it's called?" John asked, opening the book and thumbing to where he had left off.
"W...Well, yes, it's because you orgasm constantly until the venom reaches your heart," Ssvik muttered.
"And then?" John asked, glancing up from his book.
"Your heart explodes I...how is the hypnosis not working on you?" Ssvik asked, sounding petulant.
"Maybe I'll tell you if you tell me something about the current state of affairs in the Totality," John said, casually. "About what the Zemturga are up to. What the Myg'ga'garan are up to, for that matter. Everything you know about the galaxy."
Ssvik narrowed her eyes at him. Her tongue flicked out and she slumped. "Fine. But cut me down first." She squirmed. "I did expect you to take me down by now. My wrists hurrrrrrt!" She squirmed, her voice dropping to a whine.
John sighed, then pulled a laser pen from his belt. He aimed it and sliced the chains so that they fell through the loops. Ssvik dropped down and he gestured to a chair that had been built into the wall. She took it, drawing her large tail around her thighs and squeezing it as she harrumphed. "Well!" She said, then leaned back. "Things in the Totality are just peachy."
"Are they?" John asked.
Ssvik hissed. "We Myg'ga'gar are at last free to be ascendant as prime battle-thralls of the Totality. We dominate all in a hundred light year sphere around our homeworld of Serpentis – and...well, okay, there's the issue that the Swiffo refuse to pull any of their weight. And the Urghats have decided that they are the prime Battle Thralls and we've had to fight them several times along our spinward boarder. And the Zemturga haven't been seen for six years. And there's so many egg be damned Terr-ann around!" She scowled. "That's why we wanted to knock your stupid little egg-sucking Terr-ann station out of orbit!"
"Wait, there are Terrans around?" John asked, feeling some of his tension relax.
"Of course! Zemturga loooooooove humans," Ssvik scowled and made a jerking off motion with her other hand – a shockingly Terran gesture. "A Terr-ann gives the High Naga orders from the Zemturga themselves. We've heard that other Terr-ann pleasure serfs are used to give messages from them Zemturga as well, across the Totality. There's Terr-anns on every world the Totality deigns to control, one or two, spread everywhere." She sniffed. "This is being a rumor, yes, but it smacks of truth. You Terr-anns are special."
"We are?" John asked.
"Of course you are, don't you know it? Did not your precious allies in your precious Alliance tell you? Oh that is hilarious!" she cackled, then stood. She reached down and touched John's chin, her fingers stroking along his skin. "You Terr-anns are special because you are attuned to the Third World."
"The...Third World?" John shifted in his seat, his skin tingling at her slightly cool touch. "You mean the SOF?"
"Yessss, the Space Opera Field," Ssvik said, rolling her eyes again. "Such a silly term for it. You Terr-anns attune to it, go faster in it, are treated better by it. You don't even need to adapt your culture to it. It's most unfair." She sniffed.
"Oh, we knew that," John said, closing the book, frowning slightly.
"...oh…"
"Now, are you saying no one has seen a Zemturga for six years?" John asked.
"Well, we've seen their ships, at least!" Ssvik said, hissing.
***
"Bring it up on the map," John said – and Shey tapped a few buttons on her console. The astrocartography room of the Excalibur had a large screen on one wall, designed to do nothing but show off the shape of the galaxy. Colors bloomed across it as Shey's best guesses based on Ssvik's reports came up, showing red, purple, blue, white, gold, black, teal, silver, ocher and brown colors, intermixing together in a ferocious snarl of interlocking astropolities. John pointed them out. "Hylano, Qorr, Yip, Swiffo, Urghants, Myg'ga'gar, Slavedrones, the Vornash, the Kruul, and, finally, the Alezandros. These are all known battle thralls, with countless field servant species serving them and pleasure serf species...ahem...serving them. But then we also have this…" He snapped his fingers and a white and black circle superimposed itself over the heart of the map: A region of space centered around the star Rigel, roughly a hundred light years wide.
"This is where there are rumors of Zemturga fleets engaging other Zemturga fleets," John said. "These rumors are highly speculative. For all we know, it's some religious ritual, or just Zemturga battling new species that have emerged in the area. There's a lot of empty space out there and unexplored regions where anything could crop up. But since the majority of all sighted Zemturga ships are seen in that region...that's what we're going to avoid first."
Lagrange, who was a part of this meeting, frowned. "I'm sorry, Captain, but I just don't see what your one ship, no matter how big can do against an entire Totality."
"The Totality is fracturing," John said, grinning. "They've defeated every enemy in this region of space – and the Zemturga are distracted by either a civil war or a war on a new front that they are loath to use their battle thralls on. According to Ssvik and according to corroborations from her ship's main computer, the Myg'ga'gar and the Urghants are fighting. The Alezandros are raiding and pirating neutral ships. The Yip are taking their pent up anger at being made into war slaves by fighting the Kruul and Vornash at once, and the Vornash seem to be happy to club anything on the head that looks at them funny." He held up his hand before anyone could speak. "This is all extremely low level fighting, as far as we can tell. Skirmishes. Raids. Piracy. But if it can be pushed into a full blown civil war, we can crack the whole Totality up. We can free the Qorr, the Hylano, the Omnis, we can rebuild the alliance, and we can take the fight to the Zemturga with their technology on our side."
Lagrange whistled. "You don't think small captain."
"I'm down!" Trianna said, slapping her palm against the countertop. "Where do we start?"
John looked at Lagrange. The femboy blushed as everyone started to look at him as well.
"It'll all depend," John said, quietly. "Are you willing to put this station to our service. It has full manufacturing capacity. It has thousands of pleasure serfs aboard who just need to cast off their serfdom and become members of the United Nations Navy once more."
Lagrange clenched his hand. He sprang to his feet.
"This old femboy has some fight left in him after all!" He tossed his long, glittering blond hair over one shoulder. "Starbase Commander Quincy Lagrange, at your service, Captain Tangent!" He came to attention and offered his hand. John took it and shook, grinning back as Lagrange chuckled and added. "We're gonna need a name for this rag tag band of rebels you're looking to form into an alliance."
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" Trianna said, snapping her fingers. "Call it the United Federation of Free Planets."
"How about the Star League?" Eugene suggested.
"The System Alliance?" Albert said, grinning.
"Pfft!" Shey snorted. "We should obviously call it the...uh…" She paused. "The...the...Grand...Empire of...of...John."
Everyone looked at her.
"Names are hard," she said.
"I'm thinking we should go with the New Interstellar Alliance," John said, dryly.
"Traditional, yes, but it works," Lagrange said, grinning. "The New Interstellar Alliance it is."
***
Chief Kat walked with John through the lower bowls of the Starbase as she rambled excitedly. "So, basically, this manufacturing system is better than anything the UNN had or the Triumvirate, or the Alliance!" She turned to face him, grinning brightly, her ears twitching up. Learning that the Paw, of all the Yip-Paw-Lob, had been made into pleasure serfs, was sadly not entirely surprising to John – it was hard to not notice when one was walking through a narrow corridor with an excited human-ish alien with cat-ears, cat-tail and cat eyes. He forced the thought of how flexible Kat was and instead focused on what she was saying: "It can take any raw material, disassemble it, and then weave it together in any pattern we have. And our ship has the rough patterns on spare parts for any component from the Khan class and Avengers. This means we can reproduce any component we already have. If we want to add a new set of plasma casters, or a new shield emitter, or a fighter bay, we just need to bring the raw materials in and then this thing!" She spread her arms wide. "This thing can fabricate the whole thing for us in a few hours, then insert it into the ship in a few minutes. It's incredible!"
John grinned warmly, lifting his gaze up to look at the wild profusion of machinery above him, forming the 'roof' of the access corridor. "But how do we do the mining?" he asked.
"I'mmmm working on that. How do you feel about flagrant violations of ecological standards and practices?" Kat asked, turning her back on him and sauntering down the corridor. "Here, I wanna show you something."
"I, uh, I kinda like ecologies, they're sort of nice," John said, ambling after his engineering.
"Yes, true, but, we can always avoid using this on any terrasphere of a habitability over fifty percent. Basically, if there's anything more than a microbe, we avoid it. But there's a lot of rocks out there, Captain!" She said, leading him to an elevator, which took them both down. Riding in an enclosed room with Kat as she bounced excitedly in a skintight UNN uniform made John look at the Zemturga numerals above the doorway rather than at his engineer.
"Okay, but what is it we're going to be using?" he asked.
"This!" Kat paused. "Shit, fucked up the timing. Uh...this!"
The elevator door opened.
And the two of them stepped into a large rectangular hanger, full of sleek green vehicles that looked like someone had taken a classic Terran shuttlecraft, upscaled it by 50% and then added strange technology to the noses. Kat sprang forward, flipped, then landed on the hood of one. She grinned. "This is a Zemturga mining tug. I found the schematics and they had enough resources to build them. Then I modified them to use Terran shuttles as a base, because Zemturga aerodynamics are for shit." She sniffed. "They break every ecological guideline in the Alliance and the United Nations charter, but they'll fucking work, John!"
"How do they work, Katria?" John asked, grinning despite himself.
"Simple! They fire a coherent beam of SOF energies into a planetary surface, dumping a small area into Tier 6, then siphon the material out into a storage tank." Kat slapped the side of the windshield with her palm. "Easy."
"I…" John gaped. "They...shunt planetary surfaces into the Space Opera Field!? Into Tier Six?"
"Yeah, but the complicated part is the yanking," Kat said, looking at the shuttle with clear appreciation. "That's the really clever part – they sift the materials through each tier, sorting it and arranging it so that when it collapses from the raw concept of Metal or Radioactive Material and into specific elements, it's purified to hell and back again. It's like a refiner and a miner in one big beam."
"And what if it breaks, Kat?" John asked.
"Oh, the planet's turbofucked," Kat said, shrugging. "Like, that's why it's super illegal. The UN made this shit illegal cause humans are dumbfucks who would use it on their own home planet, and the Alliance made it illegal because Lithinoids see things in geological timescales. It took them getting bombed by the Zemturga for ten years before they even realized a war was happening." She snorted, her ears twitching up. "But, counter point, it's fucking cooooool! Besides, it's basically how you won the simstim bullshit."
John had to admit...she had a point. It was just a more refined version of his makeshift nova bomb.
"And besides," Kat said. "Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee're…" She cut off, her face coloring slightly. "Um. Gotta go. Timing. I fucked up timing."
"Well, I-" John stammered, but then Kat sprang away from him – literally, she flipped, jumped, then landed on a shuttle three shuttles down on the hanger, sprang again, landed on the far side of the hanger, and sprinted out of a side door. John shook his head, frowning a little as he did so. He took out his communicator, dialing in to Shey's line. "Shey, we have ten terrain vehicles to move into the Excalibur for mining purposes. We're going to be taking them to mercury, first thing. Get them stowed aboard the ship ASAP."
"Yes sir!" Shey said, brightly.
"...and...are you okay?" John asked.
"I've been thinking about that," Shey said, her voice soft. "I...I know that it's a lot to ask for, considering this. But we Sensurians have faced near extinction events before. There is a possibility to bring my people back from the brink, and I would like to follow it up, if we can. We mature very rapidly, and the New Alliance will need pilots and crew for the ships we build! So, it's not selfish or-"
"Shey, Shey, Shey, you don't need to justify bringing the Sensurians back," John said, gently. "Put together a sum up of your plan and I'll get back to you. I just need to check something." He clicked off his com and started through the hanger. He came to the door, opened it with his palm, and stepped into the narrow corridor – and saw no sign of his engineer. He frowned. This station was far from safe…
He pulled out his hand scanner and dialed it on – and detected a ping of Paw life signs. He hurried down the corridor – then froze as he heard a groaning sound. It sounded like pain. His blood ran cold at the thought of whatever Zemturga horrors might lurk down here in the lower depths of their abandoned starbase. He drew his blaster pistol from its holster and sprinted forward, moving quickly as he found a half opened door leading into a store chamber. A fierce yowling sound came from within and he sprang around his corner, leveling his pistol as he growled. "Let her g-uh!"
Kat has gone into heat! Our noble captain helps her by fuckin' her real good. Fun is had with aphrodisiacs!
The blaster pistol lowered as he gaped at the sight of his Chief of Engineering sitting on a small crate of Zemturga parts, with her bright red leggings around her ankles, her thighs spread, her sleek sex fully on display, two of the fingers of her right hand buried to the knuckle into her sopping wet cunny. Her other hand cupped and squeezed her modest breast, tugging the nipple she had exposed by pulling her uniform off her shoulders. She mewled and the groan that John had heard recontextualized in his brain – not a groan of pleasure, but-
"Caaaaaaptain!" Kat whined, then gasped, her back arching as a thin squirt of arousal spurted between her fingers. It arced and splashed onto the ground. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck, fuck!" She gasped, her hips bucking and...despite everything, she kept fingering herself, her cheeks burning.
"W-What, I, uh...oh!" John exclaimed. "You're-"
"Yes, I'm going into heat, ah, fuck!" Kat moaned, her thumb rubbing her clit. "Fuck fuck fuck, it happens every week, and I didn't remember to set my timer, I got distracted by fucking, ah, fuck, I…" Her nose flared.
"I'll just-" John started.
He did plan to give his officer privacy. After all, Paw had their needs, as did many species. After all, humans-
That was as far as his thoughts got before Kat tackled him into the wall so hard that he almost mashed his brains out. His arms flailed and her legs scissored around his hips, her mouth pressing with desperate eagerness to his mouth. It was then that John learned that when they said heat, they meant hot. Because Kat's whole body felt as if it was on fire. Her cunt almost scotched him through his leggings, while her palms slid along his back and the fierce sting of her fingertips let him know that she was using claws. Her fangs bit his lower lip as she growled against him. Her mouth broke the kiss and John tasted blood as her hips bucked against him.
"I don't...ah, want to take advantage of you, Kat!" John exclaimed.
Kat snorted. "Take advantage?" she whispered, her voice shockingly controlled. "Of me?"
Her claws slashed.
John blinked as his shirt fell open, revealing his muscular chest and a few fierce red lines. Then the catgirl he was trying to hold up leaned forward and buried her face against his neck, breathing in his scent, licking him as she used her claws to slash down to his groin – his cock springing free, pressing to her palm. The tips of her claws pressed to his dick. Threatening, but not quite...not quite. She kissed to his ear, growling. "You are going to fucking breed my kitty ass so fucking hard or I'm going to rip your dick off and if you even try and feel guilty about this, I'll kill you after I get outta heat, promise."
John blinked, his cock twitching against her palm.
"Well," he said. "If you insist."
Kat growled, then...did something martial and swift. John had been in hand to hand training, but even he didn't follow exactly how she had swept his legs out from under him, pinned his arms above her head, and positioned her sopping wet pussy above his dick as he sprawled on the ground, back aching from the impact. She pinned him harder, then slammed her hips down so fiercely, so eagerly, so fucking wildly that he was shocked his hips didn't fracture into powder. Her cunt clenched him with an intense strength that shocked him to his core. He had been inside Sensurians and hadn't felt this level of tight desperation. Kat rocked back on her hips, her slender body gleaming with sweat, her eyes hazy, her ears drooping as she let out a thrumming purr.
"Oh holy shit, captain, your dick's fucking huge…" She whispered. "Mmmm, I might fuck this even when I'm not in heat."
Her hips lifted up with slow, deliberate grace, then dropped down with a meaty thunk, her tail twitching as she groaned, her head rolling back as she moaned. "Fuck, just having your dick in me lets me think."
John wished he could think. Every thought in his head was being driven out by the raw pleasure of her. He felt his own pleasure rushing through him, his hands grabbing her hips. He knew that he needed to wait, to hold back, but...his hips bucked and he shuddered and groaned, his balls tightening as he gasped out. "F-Fuck!" He gasped as his seed gushed into her body, spurting up into her eager, fertile womb.
Kat pouted. "Seriously?" she asked.
"F-Fuck, I...I've been thinking impure thoughts about you all day," John admitted, panting. "And you're so...so fucking tight."
"Hurm," Kat said, then grinned. She rummaged around in her belt pouch. "Do you consent to aphrodisiacs?"
"Well, I-"
The hypo-spray shuddered into his neck as Kat leaned forward, her voice a quiet purr. "Don't worry, Captain, I'm pre-"
John was not sure, exactly, what transpired between her leaning in close and to the next coherent thought he had. He just had her ankles up above her head, her toes actually scraping against the grayish metal of the corridor wall as he fucked her like he was a machine, his cock plunging into her again and again and again as she squealed and gasped in pleasure with every driving thrust. His balls clapped against her tight ass as Kat gasped and moaned and nodded. "Yes! Yes! Cum in me, put a kitty in me, fuck, yes, oh god! Yes! By the way, we're not cross fertile!" She gasped out. "Fucking breed me."
John was not yet currently able to speak. He just thrust faster and faster, his teeth clenching as he groaned and shuddered. He thrust once more and cum burst into her, dripping around the tight seal of his dick, dripping onto the floor. From the splatter and the puddle, he...thought he might have cum once when he was hazed out on the raw pleasure of the aphrodisiacs. He groaned and rolled his head back and kept fucking as Kat's eyes started to go hazy again, her body quivering as her toes clenched and her sex clenched.
"Oh god yesss!" She moaned. Then her head tilted and she craned her head – and then hissed. "Shit!"
John groaned. It somehow was both a groan of pleasure and a groan of questioning.
"I just...ah...noticed...I gave you the dose for a Qorr…"
Qorr had three times the body mass of a Terran.
"Oops."
John lost focus again. When he was back to himself, he felt ragged and raw - and his hips were slamming into Kat's hips as she arched her spine again and again, her tail lifted up above her as she remained on her hands and knees. He had put her on one of the storage crates, and as he slammed into her again and again, fucking her like a drum, Kat let out yowls of bliss. "Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Captain, fuck! Fuck me! Fuck me like I'm a class 3 tokamak, fuck, yes!"
"That good?" John gasped out – and realized that he could actually slow down slightly. He felt pleasure building within himself. He didn't slow down. He just gripped her tighter.
"Ah! Ah! Ah! You're screwing me as hard as the class 3 does!" She lifted her head, cranining her head over my shoulder. "Fucking obliterate my Paw ass, Cap! Ah! Oh Gods! Oh Gods!" She screamed out her pleasure again as her sex tightened and she arched her spine even harder, her claws digging into the crate as John thrust once more, his cock plunging deep, deep, deep into her sex. He came so hard that he almost blacked out, and the cum sloshed around his dick, splashing around her hips. It dripped onto the top of the case, splattering onto the floor.
John, at last...was able to slow thrusting.
Slow.
Stop.
His cock softened and he eased inch by inch out of Kat, who quivered, then collapsed onto her belly atop the large container that they had been using as a platform. John sagged, fell to his knees, then collapsed onto his side, then onto his back. He sprawled there, panting heavily, as the cold steel pressed to his abused body. "I'm going to need a dunk in the meditank after this," he said, raggedly, while Kat rolled off the container and landed directly on him. Fortunately, being a Paw, she landed like a feather, curling up and snuggling against him with her well fucked, cum soaked, sweat dappled body. She smiled, her ears twitching.
"Mmm, you're much better than heat suppressants," she said.
"Chief," John said, quietly.
"Yeah?"
"Never forget your heat suppressants again," he said.
"You sure?" Kat asked.
John thought back on the...he rummaged around, found the pile of clothing he had discarded close enough that he could just barely drag it into reach with an outstretched finger, then found his chron in it. He read the time on it. He had spent four hours fucking her. He grabbed the com, and saw that Shey had called him. He tapped on the com. "Shey?" he asked, his voice raspy.
"Not a no…" Kat murmured.
"Hey Captain!" Shey said. "Done helping Kat with her heat problem?"
"I have," John said. "How's the loading?"
"We're almost done. The crew's eager to see these bad boys at work on Mercury and other planets. But...we've been doing a long range scan of the system, for mineral contents, and we picked something up that we missed. There's a Swiffo signal pinging off Pluto." She sounded a bit annoyed. "It looks like it only pings periodically, and Pluto was on the far side of the system from the angle we entered on. That's how we missed it."
John frowned. "Swiffo. Hum. Keep an eye on it."
"Got it, sir."
The com clicked off and John regarded Kat, who had closed her eyes.
"We might do this again," John said.
"Yes!" Kat laughed. "Once a week!"
"Month, maybe," John said. Then, frowning. "Do you know what room you chose to, ahem, relieve yourself fin is?"
"Yeah, weapon storage." Kat yawned, closing her eyes.
John glanced over at the box next to him. Zemturga lettering was stenciled on the side. It was then that he noticed that their energetic fucking had actually caused one of the sides to open ever so slightly – a latch that was not quite sealed, which had then shook and shook and shook and...John started to sit up, gingerly reaching towards the latch, to close it.
Gravity finished what shaking had started, defeating friction.
The lid fell forward with a crash. The entire floor shook and the box jostled as Kat yelped. She jerked her head up.
Time seemed to slow as the first of the glass orbs fell from the crate.
John watched as the first orb rushed towards the floor at shattering speed.
It hit…
And bounced. The orbs tumbled away with a rattling clatter, rolling away from the crate and clacking into one another like marbles. John forced himself up, sliding Kat off his naked body, and scrambled away from the marbles as they went spilling.
"Don't worry, they're not-" Kat started, then read the Zemturga lettering. "Uh, okay, they might be bioweapons."
"Might be!?" John hissed.
"I can read some Zemturga, and this is fragile, and this is biological and this is delivery system," Kat said, pointing at letters. "I might be fucking up the context. But if this was a human station, and they wanted to be safe, they'd…"
Failsafe. Kill all the humans aboard.
John remained perfectly still. "Kat," he said, quietly. "We are going to leave. And we are going to seal this room. Understood?"
Kat nodded.
She slowly stood. She stepped backwards. Backwards again. Backwards again. She was at the door. John remained still.
"John?" she whispered.
"If any break, seal the room," John said, quietly. "Now. I'm going. To move. Very. Carefully."
He lifted his foot.
The sphere nearest to him glowed and let out a trilling sound.
"John!" Kat exclaimed.
John froze. He wished his blaster was nearby. He wished that he had done this in a nice comfy bed instead. Then his back wouldn't be killing him before he was about to get killed by a Zemturga bioweapon. He remained perfectly, perfectly still, foot lifted half off the ground. The orb slowly dimmed, the glow slipping away.
John risked moving his foot back.
The trilling came back and the orb gurgled and growled in Zemturgaese.
While John hadn't learned much of the written tongue, he knew the spoken words.
Enough to recognize: Terran Detected.
He started to back away as fast as he could. The orb exploded in a spray of mist, which roared upwards, and shot towards him. John tasted something sickly sweet, like the decay in the summer. He took one more step. His eyes blurred and he choked, his hand going to his throat and he looked at Kat, who was looking at him with horror.
But Kat was an engineer.
She knew what to do.
The door slammed shut and John collapsed to the ground, choking and wheezing. He writhed, and then he felt his nerves burning. But as the toxin wove through him, he felt...something else. A presence. An energy. His eyes opened and he saw something forming above him.
LEAVE HIM ALONE.
The words didn't fill the air. They rang through his bones.
John closed his eyes. And he hoped to god that he was going to wake...up…
***
Kat peered through the glass as the glowing figure vanished. She pulled out her com unit – from where, no one had a right to know. She flicked it on. "Uh, XO?" she asked.
"Yeah?" Trianna Yang's voice came through the line.
"The Captain just got his life saved by an angel," Kat said, frowning. She tapped at the controls next to the door, and managed to bring up a replay of the last moment on the screen. "Got it on camera too."
Silence.
"Oh shit, we also got a great view of our marathon fuck session, these Zemturga cameras are amazing," Kat said. "Anyway, he's trapped in a hold full of unexploded antihuman bioweapons. Send the doctor?"
Silence.
"...yello?" Kat asked.
"Kat," Trianna said, sighing quietly. "Remind me to throw you out an airlock once we sort this out."
John chuckled, glad she could explain the complexities of her engineering vocation with such an easy, down to earth metaphor. "Got it," he said. "Then keep her flying."
For while the Myg'Ga'Gars had the terrifying slitted eyes, the sharp viperous fangs, the ominous spread hoods, the sinuous necks and lithesome grace of the most deadly of serpents, they paired it with the galaxy's most extravagantly displayed breasts and immodest sense of dress.
"Yessss, the Space Opera Field," Ssvik said, rolling her eyes again. "Such a silly term for it. You Terr-anns attune to it, go faster in it, are treated better by it. You don't even need to adapt your culture to it. It's most unfair." She sniffed.
"Oh, we knew that," John said, closing the book, frowning slightly.
"Of course! Zemturga loooooooove humans," Ssvik scowled and made a jerking off motion with her other hand – a shockingly Terran gesture. "A Terr-ann gives the High Naga orders from the Zemturga themselves. We've heard that other Terr-ann pleasure serfs are used to give messages from them Zemturga as well, across the Totality. There's Terr-anns on every world the Totality deigns to control, one or two, spread everywhere."
Okay, placing my bet now, the Terran slaves used their position to secretly take over the Totality from the inside, and the two factions of the civil war are original Zemturga and Terrans pretending to be Zemturga. (Possibly pretending so well that they turned evil, since the Totality seems pretty evil as a whole.)
"I...I know that it's a lot to ask for, considering this. But we Sensurians have faced near extinction events before. There is a possibility to bring my people back from the brink, and I would like to follow it up, if we can. We mature very rapidly, and the New Alliance will need pilots and crew for the ships we build.
Okay, placing my bet now, the Terran slaves used their position to secretly take over the Totality from the inside, and the two factions of the civil war are original Zemturga and Terrans pretending to be Zemturga. (Possibly pretending so well that they turned evil, since the Totality seems pretty evil as a whole.)
Six Terrans, each one more breathtakingly lovely than the last, each representing the various phenotype of the Terran species, each dressed in a fashion that accentuated their specific beauty, be it the gauzy sari of the redheaded, athletic girl on the left, the leather straps of the ebony skinned goddess to the left, or the codpiece and shoulder pauldrons that framed the impressive, muscular bulk of the titan who was in the center of the formation, standing behind a blue figure of sleek, feminine masculinity
"You Terr-anns are special because you are attuned to the Third World."
"The...Third World?" John shifted in his seat, his skin tingling at her slightly cool touch. "You mean the SOF?"
"Yessss, the Space Opera Field," Ssvik said, rolling her eyes again. "Such a silly term for it. You Terr-anns attune to it, go faster in it, are treated better by it. You don't even need to adapt your culture to it. It's most unfair." She sniffed.
The door slammed shut and John collapsed to the ground, choking and wheezing. He writhed, and then he felt his nerves burning. But as the toxin wove through him, he felt...something else. A presence. An energy. His eyes opened and he saw something forming above him.
LEAVE HIM ALONE.
The words didn't fill the air. They rang through his bones.
John closed his eyes. And he hoped to god that he was going to wake...up…
***
Kat peered through the glass as the glowing figure vanished. She pulled out her com unit – from where, no one had a right to know. She flicked it on. "Uh, XO?" she asked.
"Yeah?" Trianna Yang's voice came through the line.
"The Captain just got his life saved by an angel," Kat said, frowning. She tapped at the controls next to the door, and managed to bring up a replay of the last moment on the screen. "Got it on camera too."
...and I start thinking about a certain species in Star Control who claimed responsibility for miraculous visitations (angels, fair folk, alien abductions...) experienced by humanity over the centuries. A species who implicitly claimed to have made some kind of long-term project of human culture and civilization's path of development. A species whose homeworld is much deeper out of Realspace than starships can normally go, and whose goals for their meddling in the history of the human race were never really made clear in canon.
And I wonder whether this story's equivalent of the Arilou Lalee'lay... if they exist... would also make their home in the abyssopelagic depths of the Space Opera Field. And if so, I wonder whether humanity's cultural compatibility with SOF physics – such that we already had a genre word for how it works! – might not be coincidence, but rather, a deliberate goal: an attempt, by our unseen patrons, to create a Realspace culture that's able to dive to where those patrons dwell.
