The outdoor bar was active, waitresses coming and going carrying platters of drinks along with rich salty food as they weaved around tables and patrons to place down glasses of brightly coloured liquor to the waiting hands of patrons. Music blared, not obscenely loud out on the patio but enough to make the patrons raise their voices over the mix of maracas and guitar with synth-pop. The sun was low on the horizon, making the world seem to be cast in just about every shade of colour as nearby trees swayed in the breeze, casting flitting shade across zeltrons, humans, and atorans alike as they tended to their drinks and chatted, joked, and flirted in loud voices that combined to make a din when combined with the pub’s soundsystem.
The atoran were the oddities here, relative newcomers to this galaxy and rarely if ever seen away from Zeltros. The humanoid aliens stood and standing an average of two feet taller than humans, with women having the height advantage over men and a typically sturdier build. Likewise their slippery blue to green skin set them apart, as did the five tendrils underlined with tendrils that hung from their head and down their backs. These giants mingled and associated with the red skinned zeltrons and humans, laughing and drinking, having as merry a time as any on the party planet usually did. All except for two, a pair of atoran women in flatteringly average clothing of bright colours and tied around the waist with with a sash above plain slacks, the duo otherwise unadorned as they sat apart from the crowd in the most distant corner of the patio bar.
Between the two were a pair of glasses half-filled with bright pink beer, or at least they assumed it was a sort of beer, and a basket of deep fried chips that were an odd purple. Neither had touched the meal, instead leaning back in their chairs and ignoring the commotion typical of pleased patrons around them to stare at each other with scarlet eyes and wait for the other to speak. Lokorri Tepemvanya broke the silence between the pair, the noise where they were quiet enough not to require shouting or exaggerated gesticulation like a pair of nearby zeltrons engaged in, “All because one structure is destroyed an alliance crumbles, tearing down the economy with it, and we must grit our teeth and bear the burden for the people of this galaxy.”
Across from her, Kaekuvvi Zorovic smirked and raised her drink to take a sip before placing it down and speaking smugly, “Of course, what else would you expect of extragalactics? Most can’t shit in a toilet unless you raise the lid for them first. I’m amazed it took this long for them to implode,” Kaekuvvi said, flicking a fry with a long finger before continuing in a droll tone, “besides, I don’t give a shit that the bean counters back home are pushing tax money down this place’s throat. From what I’ve been told it’s a piss in the river anyways, and they are buying up land, businesses, and everything else they can left and right while it is cheap and they have the good will of the locals. I intend on abusing my position to buy a condo.”
“So you can lift the toilet lid for these people?”
“Nah, Zeltrons don’t count when I said that. They’re pretty so they are excused.”
Lokorri laughed, closing her eyes and shaking her head before sighing, “Your tastes aside, at least this will work in our favour militarily. It looks like with the chaos that is occurring the foreign office has decided to relabel our expedition as a humanitarian and peacekeeping effort.”
“So much for the ‘fuck all of you we want your stuff’ casus belli then.”
Shrugging, Lokorri picked up her glass and sloshed the liquid around inside it while leaning back further, enjoying the last few minutes of her shore leave, “End result’s the same, just this way hopefully they’ll fall in line without putting up a fight and we can reap the spoils of grabbing a bunch of systems that are in the midst of economic collapse,” there was a pause in the conversation before Lokorri ran a hand down her face and said in exasperation, “And about that, sometimes I think the admiralty have no idea what they’re doing. What are we going to do, grab these planets and then watch them wallow in an economic shitpit? I get that we had a plan and all that, but that plan was meant to grab these systems while they had functioning economies we could exploit. As it is now-”
Kaekuvvi interrupted her compatriot, shimmying her seat closer to the table as the music and noise around them turned up a notch, “They’d already sent us here and you know the powers that be have been itching to expand out from here,” the atoran woman leaned an elbow on the table, “I’m just glad they spent enough time to change things up instead of rushing ahead with what we had. Means we can come back here that much sooner, I can get that condo, and you can continue to waste your time in shitty bars.”
“True that,” Lokorri grinned, raising her glass, “To shitty bars.”
“To shitty bars,” their glasses clinked.
Twenty Hours Later
Lokorri stood upon the bridge of her flagship, the dreadnought ISV Kalorak, looking over a holotank with Kaekuvvi standing beside her. Their attire vastly differed from the day before, clad in the white with black trim Imperial naval uniform, gold buttons holding their jackets comfortably tight over their MCP skinsuit underneath, the lip of the white suit evident around their necks where a bubble helm could be quickly attached. Everyone on the bridge was clad in the same, but their decoration of rank differed. Lokorri’s shoulders were adorned with golden epaulets with dark copper trim, while Kaekuvvi’s were solid silver, denoting them as Rear-Admiral Tepemvanya and Captain Zorovic respectively while the gaggle of officers around them varied in rank. All jostled around, bringing up notes and the latest details on the holographic display as the ship and the fleet it belonged to prepared for the first jump.
Numbers, trajectories, estimated local forces, all were presented in the display along with system details of the first stop of their little expedition. Rasterous was a largely unassuming system, the only real infrastructure of note being a shipyard owned and operated by Kuat, the rest of the local resources being the typical lot of commercial space stations, trade hubs, space industry, and planetary development that the local human populace had developed. None the less it was the local hub and an important stepping stone on the way to Commenor, so the fleet would stop there first, browbeat the locals and negotiate with Kuat, and then carry on. Likewise the two other fleets included in the plan were leaving in other directions, their own plans illuminated on the holo display with lines and dots that showed the two forces projected arcs towards Ambria and the Ghost Nebula. The former would pass through Merson and Taboon, subjugating the local military forces and conscripting their levies, before pushing onto Ambria. At the same time the latter fleet would claim Virujansi before moving on to the Ghost Nebula, seeking to dominate Umbara and Atoa.
The numbers floated in the display next to every fleets’ symbol. Each of the fleets was composed of ten capital ships, fourteen cruisers, forty four support ships, and two hundred sixty four drones slaved to half of those support vessels. Not a bad number, and a little under half the forces so far dedicated to this galaxy. Lokorri snapped her gaze to the estimates from the systems they were annexing, and found nothing too egregious. Albeit Umbara was an unknown, that region could be effectively scouted during the absorption of Atoa within the Ghost Nebula. Not that that branch of the expansion was under her supervision, but she was concerned regardless. Unknowns were always bothersome.
Lastly was the readout for their own departure time, the hours having past by to leave only minutes. A few final adjustments to the planning, a moment of conversing the changes with the shipmind of her dreadnought as well as Kaekuvvi, and everything was in order. She stood beside the display, pulling a security tether the the waistband of her MCP undersuit and lashing it to sturdy rail that circled the table, the other officers surrounding the display doing the same as the timer counted down to zero. As the activity aboard the bridge increased and final checks were finished, the fleets picked up speed in a tetrahedral formation, the collection of vessels pooling their FTL to create three large wormholes. Passing through, they would leave Zeltros in a blink and appear elsewhere shrouded in exotic particles as the seemingly spherical warping of space unravelled behind them. As the second and third taskforces deployed to Merson and Virujansi respectively, Rear-Admiral Tepemvanya left Zeltros and entered Rasterous’ space.
The sensors picked up the various basics of the system, the various merchant ships and freighters that lingered about loading and unloading, a few scattered ships in a defensive picket. There wasn’t too much in the way of a naval garrison, but there was a fair sized shipyard that was easily identified as Kuat’s property. That actually concerned Lokorri and her superiors more than the world below, the corporation that owned the yard holding decidedly more sway than the system they were now within. Blasting demands of surrender, the Imperial forces made overtures of goodwill even as their weapons beared down upon the locals who acquiesced rather than face a superior force without aid, albeit several merchants fled for fear of their goods being seized despite guarantees that their property would remain unmolested. It could not be said that similar occurred down the other routes, as Mersonian pirates fought against the Imperial taskforce and the Virujansi weighed the options of a guerrilla campaign. Yet eventually they would be undone and the fleets would carry on.
