Anatilophas System,
TCS Space Station Graceful Delight
The space station was one of many that Tenebavnya Corporeal Services ran, a mixture of mercantile trade and brothel. Externally it was much like a metallic spindle with many spines and spires jutting out across its form, freighters and other vessels attached to them like birds alighted upon the tiny branches of a small and frail tree. Some detached, laden with stock, while others bloated with resources or seeking to stock up attached themselves to the docking spines that were made vacant. It was a busy place, filling the local radio chatter with advertisements for new trade goods and the other more carnal services that the station offered.
While the exterior appeared much like one would expect from any trade station, the innards of the place were far more lascivious. The freight storage was about as dull and clean as any sapient expected, but the true heart of the place was lit with colours and activity that would bring a blush to most. Lights yellow, blue, and red lighted the halls, gardens, and stores as well as the station’s occupants. Stores sold snacks alongside aphrodisiacs, and hotels offered further services and the option to hire a courtesan from one of the many such services on the station. Further compounding the effects of the lighting and stores, the place smelled of the acts that were carried out within. It was an intoxicating blend of pheromones, fruit, and sweat that set the primal brain of near any sapient being down libidinous paths.
That was what the place was designed for after all, making men and women give into their baser urges and get tangled up in the arms and legs of the corporation’s employees. Pumping pheromones into the ventilation and oxygen recycling centers helped with that, and it was delightful to watch merchants and tourists pour all their hard earned money into repeated visits. The prostitutes kept a cut sure, but the corporation didn’t have to pay them. It worked out for everyone, or so the corporation liked to think; their employees made good money, the customers were more than satiated, and the company made a pretty penny that more than covered the costs of the station’s upkeep and permits. Everyone was pleased with the situation, especially Director Ivilli Evetinya.
She had the best chambers in the station of course, a penthouse suite that overlooked the blue-light district and the fields of alien foliage that filled its gardens, and it was within these that she resided. Ivilli was an atoran businesswoman, one of many, seven foot ten inches tall and wearing a skin-tight crimson MCP suit under a golden sari that covered her chest and looped over her left shoulder from the front and only managed to enhance her sensuous form. A silver armlet was upon her left arm, and boots of the same material hugged her legs up to her knee with carbon muscle and plating. Only her head was exposed, pale blue skin smooth and shiny with body slime. Her ultramarine lips were set in a smile, cherry red eyes staring into a park as men and women walked, and did other things, within it. Her five gill stalks, arranged over the crown of her hairless head, flowed down her back and over her sari to twitch and tap the bottom of her waist.
Behind Ivilli, standing in the center of her luxurious and decadent living room, was a man. He was an atoran and half a foot shorter than his host. The atoran man wore a black labcoat with a blue circle pattern over his heart, hiding all but the black gloves and silver boots of his own MCP suit. He held his arms behind his back, standing away from the leather couches, crystal tables, and furs that covered most of the marble floor.
“Director Ivilli,” the men spoke, his voice frigid in its composure, “if you would be so kind as to give us your attention.”
Ivilli chuckled, turning around slowly and staring the man up and down before stepping towards him, speaking as she moved in a feminine voice that was both deep and yet sweet as honey at the same time, “I am sorry to have kept you waiting boys, I find watching that station’s inhabitant from high above helps me think,” she stopped before the man, looking down at him with her little smile, “What do you want? I didn’t think Novalisk cared about this particular region of space.”
“It didn’t.”
“Something change then?” Ivilli chuckled, “Did the Novalisk head honcho finally realize the profits and want more of a cut or something?”
The Novalisk messenger looked up into Ivilli’s eyes, “Or something. Novalisk has noticed something about the pirates in the region and wants the Tenebavnya Corporeal Resources corporation to expand into one of their species’ worlds.”
With a little laugh the director stepped away, walking to one of the many bottles of wine left standing upon end tables within the room, “And how do you expect us to do that? We have resources sure, and enough forces to make sure that any pirates that threaten our trade our trussed up and dropped into atmosphere, but not enough in the region to capture a world violently without leaving our defences weakened elsewhere,” she grabbed a bottle and a large glass from near it, pouring the dark red wine into the glass, “Besides, why come to me? The board would have been the better place to go.”
“Because we don’t want to deal with the board, you are near to the target we have selected, and we want someone ingratiated directly to us governing the system,” the messenger watched Ivilli take a long sip from her wineglass, her smile having given way to incredulity, “You will find we have already given your accountant a blank check, use it to secure the funds necessary to hire a Horizon Risk Management planetary invasion package and then Iron law security forces. Feel free to give yourself ten billion marks, consider it an advance.”
Ivilli wasn’t stupid enough to question the reasoning behind this, she knew too many questions would have them going to someone else, but she had a hard time biting her tongue, “and what about the board?”
The messenger simply stared at her for a long moment, “Hopefully nothing will change in regards to the board, do not worry of them. Simply do as we ask and you shall be amply rewarded.”
Director Ivilli drank the rest of her glass of wine in one gulp, putting the glass down with a sigh as the atoran man watched her every move, “Sounds good to me, I always wanted to run a world anyways.” She smiled, and for the first time so did he.
Two months later,
Horizon Staging Ground Theta,
HMC Pitlord
The bridge of the Pitlord, a custom made battleship, was alive with noise as the last preparations for the taskforce were being settled. Men and women of a variety of races worked tirelessly at their consoles, others manually checking systems as they took off and replaced panelling. They varied in height, skin colour, and even number of limbs. The vast majority, however, were humans: blonde, tall, with athletic or muscular physiques and all clad in the black and yellow MCP suits of the company. They were Razonites for the most part, humans from the Imperial north, Germanic in heritage and more than hardworking. They did well in the business of blood, even if they had to do their duty from the bridge of a space vessel.
The commander of this force was one of them, Alexei Koenig sitting rear of the bridge and going over last minute reports on the holographic display at his fingertips as his sub-commander, an eight foot tall, green-skinned, and strongly built atoran woman, spoke endlessly.
“I am telling you,” Sub-commander Milstti spoke from her seat to the left of Alexei, face level with his despite the height difference in the chairs, “I’ve read the reports on these aliens we are fighting, and I am for the first time glad we got the Novalisk upgrades. Having this synth-body will finally come in handy.”
Alexei only half listened, indulging her only partially, “Why’s that?” he had switched over to reading a report on weapon calibrations, his voice distracted.
She laughed, “Well, for one the cyberbrain aug things or whatever the hell you call them have improved my reaction time. And it doesn’t absorb toxins.”
For a moment that threw Alexei off. Sure that was good, who wouldn’t like to be able to walk through nerve gas? But that was only truly important in battlefield scenarios, where the combat-forms were used and the synth-bodies less so. Unless she was meaning something else entirely. It only dawned upon Alexei when he took the time to glance over at his sub-commander and saw the devious smile upon her face. He sighed, “By god, is that all you atoran think about? Life isn’t just fighting and fucking.”
Milstti shrugged, “I won’t disagree there, but it certainly is what is best in life, and this body will let me touch ‘em without my brain rotting inside my skull. I’m telling you, I will have one on each arm and another in-between my legs an hour after we are done shooting at ‘em.”
“Suit yourself Milstti,” the Commander turned his attention back to his reports, all of them being the all-clear at this point, and began to type his orders into the holographic console, “I just want to get paid.”
She nodded, “Still, if you have the body you might as well use it. Others won’t be so lucky, they’ll get caught between the Ty’s thighs and never get out.”
Giving Milstti a small incredulous glance, Alexei shook his head and sighed before opening the general communications between his flagship and the rest of the fleet, “Invasion Force Theta, this is Commander Alexei, the attack in exactly seven minutes. The landing force shall follow once we give the all-clear.” He closed the channel and looked at his report screen once more, further all clears coming in. At the same time he could hear the familiar hum of the ship’s singularity reactor vibrating as it was fed neutronium. Soon they would be in the system, fighting to claim some alien rock for a callous corporation. At least they paid well.
Isa’ana System
Roughly one AU from the terrestrial world of the system a wormhole cracked and swirled into existence, pouring forth light and exotic particles in equal measure as two points in space were bridged. It started small, not even the size of a pin’s head, but quickly grew to several kilometers in diameter over the space of a minute. Over that time the light and particles pouring out turned from a stream to a flood until, in but a blink, space filled with the forms of a fleet. A moment later the wormhole sealed shut in a most insignificant manner, only a final spray of exotic particles announcing the return to normalcy.
The ships, however, remained.
They were eighty eight in number, three hundred and eighty four robotic drones floating around them like a swarm of smooth metal bees. Of the eighty eight proper vessels three were battlecruisers, each a kilometer long and thin, eight were cruisers and appeared much like downsized versions of the battlecruisers, and twelve were armour cruisers. The armoured cruisers were wider and bulkier than their normal counterparts, covered in heavier plating as their name implied. Thirty two of the vessels were destroyers, screening vessels for the most part, and an equal number of frigates were present. The frigates had no weapons of their own, but the drones were slaved to them in a ration of twelve drones for each frigate.
The last, and largest, vessel was the []Pitlord[/i]. It was easily one and a quarter kilometers long, its hull composed of massive plates of riveted metal and bristling with massive turrets. The vessel was in the shape of a knife’s handle, bulky and with flat planed edges, and a central spinal barrel dominated the heart of the vessel and protruded from its bow roughly a dozen meters. It headed the tetrahedron formation that quickly took shape, the other three capital ships taking the other corners as the remaining vessels filled the bulk of the formation.
All the vessels emanated heat and active sensor pings, the destroyers most actively scouring the system with their sensors as they attempted to identify any threats. The vessels ploughed towards the world, their gravity wells held as close to the tips of their vessels as was possible.
