The mists were rolling thick around him and despite his stolen clothes and his battered thermalwear suit, it was very, very cold.

Teeth clenched painfully tight to prevent them from chattering and giving away his position, Eric Rama forced himself to crawl on his belly through the inch-deep snow, his elbows taking a beating as he tried to keep his rifle from getting wet, his mind occupied with thinking calmly to avoid alerting any latent espers that may be among the enemy patrol he was stalking. His stomach growled, more as a reminder that it still existed rather than in any expectation of being filled. Eric’s frost-rimed face twitched into the ghostly semblance of a smile at his little internal monologue of a joke, which seemed to take up all the energy he could spare.

He cautiously poked his head over the crest of the snow bank, revealing the small group of enemy soldiers he had been trailing all morning, representing what could be his last chance to gather food and supplies to continue his small private war. Dizzy with relief that he had not lost his quarry, Eric’s grip on his highly-modified rifle tightened as he carefully moved it into position to fire, his hyper-aware mind immediately assessing the threat levels of everyone in the group, looking for an initial target.

The big, heavily-armored Urgan was obviously the greatest threat, though the tall, dark-skinned woman arguing with him looked to be deadly competent with the huge hammer she handled so casually. In comparison, the pale, heavy-set man beside them looked somehow softer, though the huge cannon barrels poking out of the heavy-looking oversized backpack he carried showed that he was not someone that could be discounted easily threat-wise.

As Eric watched, the wind picked up beyond the three soldiers, sending sheets of ash-streaked snow swirling into the air. Eric suppressed a shiver at the sight, noting with envy that the three soldiers would likely be unaffected even when the freezing wind reached them.

As the wind touched them the Urgan bellowed loudly in pain, startling Eric, and in the blink of an eye all three figures were writhing down on the ground and covered in bright red blood, steaming in the cold air.

What had happened?

The wind swirled, creating a twisting sphere of snow and ash and blood, pulling the soldiers of their feet and intermittently carrying the anguished screams of his enemies to where Eric lay in ambush.

Suddenly, he was among them, almost blinded by the whirl of blood and ash and snow, holding a three-foot sword instead of his rifle. Squinting, Eric could make out shapes in the snowstorm, snarling dragon heads and bulky armored shapes, clawed hands and viciously-edged weapons reaching for him. The enemy woman appeared briefly airborne through the swirling chaos, only to be slammed into the frost-hardened ground in front of Eric, the crack of breaking bones audible over the howl of the winds. Her blood-covered face turned towards him, screaming for help, and despite himself Eric lurched forward, fumbling at the potion pouch at his belt.

Potion pouch?

Confusion stopped him in his tracks, his mind trying to grasp everything that was occurring. The hideously injured woman howled at him through broken teeth, and this time Eric could make out a bit of what she was saying.

“They are coming… No Time…”

Eric shook his head, barely noticing that everything had gone stark white and quiet. He moved as if in slow motion, every gesture taking several minutes to complete. He looked down at his now empty hands. What was he doing?

There is no time.

A heavy weight pressed down on him, shoving him down to his hands and knees. All around him he heard the ominous tick of a timer counting down.

Time.

“It is time, Sir.”

Eric surged awake from his bed, his limbs entangled in the thick sheets, sweat all over his body, a hoarse cry still echoing through the chamber.

“My apologies, Captain Rama,” Pig, short for Pigafetta, Eric’s personal AI persona said from within Eric’s head, sounding uncharacteristically worried. “I did not mean to be so abrupt with my alarm.”

Eric murmured something reassuring as he ran his hands over his sweat-damp hair, needing some time to get himself back into the proper frame of mind following the strangeness of his dream and his sudden awakening. Pig, whose artificially-crafted personality had been undergoing some profound and fundamental changes ever since they had arrived in this place, fell silent, waiting for Eric’s command to continue.

Concentrating on his breathing to get his heart rate down to more normal levels, Eric instinctively sensed the strands of unaligned aether cycling through his Gens channels, moving in soothing patterns through the thicker, wider main channels, around and through his two imbedded cores, dividing and recombining along the fine networks of smaller, almost microscopic channel tendrils, very much like human capillaries, that was laced through the bones, organs, and tissues of his actual physical body.

Naturally, almost automatically, Eric’s mind switched into a deeper meditative state, sinking down into the calming, familiar rhythm. Gradually his breathing became deep and measured as he mentally began directing the aether flows along the ritualized steps that characterized the Serene Void Soul Breathing Technique, a helpful aether cycling exercise engine that he had received from a System reward ticket during the hectic first day of their arrival in this Universe.

Eric’s amusement rippled through the calm state he had just recently achieved, threatening to burst it before he got the stray thought under control. Arrival was the correct word though, since Eric and the two other Terrans who had arrived with him were all aliens within this current Universe in every possible sense of the word.

Originally, Eric Rama had been a relatively normal, albeit heavily combat-augmented, Terran mercenary originating from what could either be an alternate Universe or at least a region of infinite space very, very far from where he was now.

Having arrived through a unique set of events into the interior of a massive constructed vessel called the Obsidian Moon, Eric and his two companions; the corporate soldier Serra Jakobin and the scientist Cid Arth-Veda, had had to battle through near-crippling injuries and deadly encounters in order to survive. Fortuitously, they met and eventually teamed up with the Urgan ex-Imperial Legionnaire Osar Baratuu, who had helped them not only to secure control of the Command Level of the Obsidian Moon but also guided the trio through the mental and practical hurdles they had to overcome in order to embrace and adapt to the new reality that they had found themselves in. It took some time and a lot of mental adjustment but eventually Eric and his companions had been forced to accept that in this Universe the physical and metaphysical laws that they were used to were either slightly different or at least easily malleable to certain people, collectively called Adepts, with the capabilities to use and modify the apparently ubiquitous energy source that the natives called aether.

Despite the needed adjustments, their newly-forged team had not remained idle; Through their concerted actions they had gained nominal authority over the Obsidian Moon, securing the services of the Moon’s Vessel Interface in the process. The Vessel Interface, who Eric had dubbed Luna, had then directed them through several trials, all with the goal of returning her and the Moon to its full capabilities. Although by no means an easy task, the team had, after several months of fierce battles, finally ended up clearing most of the moon’s surface settlement, called the Stage, of most of its most obvious and dangerous threats. Over the course of their activities they had gained two captured voidships, several prisoners and potentially new companions, as well as several key components they needed in order to make the Moon a secure base of operations and at the same time create a new home for themselves.

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It had been a journey fraught with the constant threat of death and actual dismemberment but, with every member of the team determined to support each other adapt and grow stronger, they had all managed to make it through so far.

Keeping that thought in mind, Eric found the residual effects from his dream melt away as he lost himself to the mesmerizing, invigorating flow of aether cycling through his Gens. Finally, after a good fifteen minutes, Eric was centered enough that he was able to open his eyes and take a deep, measured breath.

Pig, sensing Eric’s better state of mind, spoke up. “You arranged to meet with the others at the mess hall, sir. I believe Osar pledged to prepare something he called a Legion Quick-Spread for breakfast.”

No rest for the wicked, eh? Eric thought resignedly, though he did feel some excitement at the prospect of sampling something new and relatively foreign for breakfast. He went through the room’s clothes closet quickly, eventually settling for a simple white t-shirt and black triple-weave cargo pants tucked into high-laced military boots. Over the several months of their residence Cid and Luna had done wonders programming crafting templates onto the Moon’s activated auto-manufacturing facilities, and with the raw and processed materials they had accumulated, read looted, from defeated foes and found in hidden caches and storage rooms all over the Stage, getting serviceable everyday clothing for casual wear was now one of the least of their problems.

However, as Eric performed the routine movement of pulling his shirt on over his head, he felt an errant twinge along the nearly straight band of lighter colored skin that circled his left upper arm, reminding him not so subtly that one of the more recent casualties of their many, many battles had actually been his arm, cut off while fighting against an alien bounty-hunter. It had been a potentially devastating injury, which in normal circumstances, would have at least rendered him combat-ineffective for months. Eric shuddered, remembering the loss and near-despair he had felt once the adrenaline rush of combat had receded and he had found himself staring at the stump of his arm. Miraculously, Cid and Serra had worked together to come up with a successful reattachment procedure using unconventional ideas, experimental tools, reckless confidence, and an over reliance on blind luck.

If only the rest of their dilemmas were so easy to solve.

“Luna, what’s our schedule?”

With a momentary flash of aetheric conversion and fractal cohesion, a tall, statuesque being appeared to walk beside Eric. It was the projected avatar of Luna, the Obsidian Moon’s Vessel Interface, her triangular face appearing smooth and untroubled, with two pairs of eyes, one pair set above the other, softly glowing with violet light as they turned attentively towards him. Interestingly, Eric noticed that Luna had opted to project her form as wearing a blue-black uniform that hugged the lines of her humanoid body, instead of the Aetherian robes she usually preferred.

[Breakfast with the core team at the mess hall, Commander,] Luna’s voice was a pleasant, modulated contralto, the low tones conveying both weight and substance to her words. [Followed by a general meeting at the Fortress with the Sworn and the first five bounties that were selected to be freed.]

As he walked down the short corridor from the cluster of rooms that contained the Command and Officer’s Quarters, Eric recalled the discussions he, his team, and the rest of their newly-sworn comrades had had regarding the disposition of the captives that the Bolseq bounty-hunter Nurixan had been so busily collecting for his Clan.

A thorough review of Nurixan’s personal journals, flight plan and Clan directives, as well the records found aboard the Issurath had clearly shown that although Nurixan was not averse to taking the odd opportunistic bounty, most of the prisoners that had been found in stasis aboard his ship were taken because they were part of a comprehensive list, a Target list, that the elders of the Giboga Clan had drawn up for him. It was a wish-list of sorts, a grocery-list of professionals and technicians that the Clan planned to turn into slaves and put to work for their own unknown plans.

Now that the Issurath had been taken by Eric and his crew, they unwittingly had come into control of a group of people that could maybe be persuaded to join their growing community and contribute to the rehabilitation of the Obsidian Moon.

The reality of course, was that the choice was far from simple.

Based on the personal histories compiled by Nurixan while he had been tracking down his targets, along with input from some of the newly Sworn, specifically the Immuran mercenary Jurub and the pilot Er-Ra-Lo, many of the prisoners had extensive contacts, businesses, and essentially a life out there in the wider galaxy. Naturally, once freed, those people would want to be returned to where they belonged. Unfortunately, that option was something that Eric and his crew could not provide.

The Obsidian Moon was an Aetherian Ark-Ship, a priceless relic left from a legendary age before the galaxy-wide Scaled Empire was even established. Even with just the Command Level and Stage under their control, Eric and his original team were already very much aware of how valuable their current residence was, and that even those colossal areas contained only a bare fraction of a fraction of all that they would potentially gain if they managed to clear all the Floors, discover all the Moon’s secrets, and rehabilitate the Vessel. Hellfire, but there were buildings and structures on the Stage itself that they had not yet even entered that Luna had already designated as priority targets for exploration! Letting the prisoners go with the knowledge that something like the Obsidian Moon existed somewhere in the Region, even if they swore System Oaths against doing so, would be a horrendous risk of the news inevitably finding their way to the Empire’s rumor mill, attracting hunters and adventurers with personal power levels capable of single-handedly destroying worlds.

Eric and his team, newly-arrived and still pathetically weak by Imperial standards, would be swept away like flies.

And so, after much discussion, they had all arrived at the consensus that as cruel as it seemed any prisoners that refused to join the group would have to remain on the Moon. They would be unobtrusively monitored by various means of course, but were otherwise free to find a place to live, explore the Stage, and generally live their lives as they wished as long as it did not endanger the Moon or the members of Eric’s growing group.

It was a generous compromise given the stakes, but Eric had felt firmly that it was the best they could do short of just killing any dissenters. The newly-Sworn Shander had been the first to put murder forward as a possible solution, but was thankfully immediately shouted down. Serra had also put forth the idea of telling the potential recruits that limited communication with the outside world, possibly even brief visits, maybe with the aim of collecting any family members, loved ones, or small groups to actually take up permanent residence on the Obsidian Moon could be placed into consideration, especially when the notion of actually starting a society aboard the Moon was becoming more and more viable as the days went by.

The meeting had broken up after reaching that consensus, although Eric was fully aware that sooner or later problems regarding new members and integration would inevitably come up in the future.

Taking a deep breath to clear his head of the suddenly dark thoughts that had come up, Eric extended his hand to push open the large doors that led into the central room that they were now calling the Forecourt. This area of the Command Center had once been the temporary lair of a Sesang Broodmother, one of the first monsters he and his teammates had faced and killed. The large space had been cleaned and redecorated since then, Luna’s army of drones working tirelessly to remove all signs of the conflict, and was now a brightly lit, high-ceilinged atrium with neutral grey-toned walls and a soft, thick carpet covered in a fractal pattern of white, gold and black squares.

“How are our new people doing?” Eric casually asked as he strode towards the smaller doors that led into the kitchen and adjacent room that the core team had collectively been calling the Mess Hall.

[All six of the newly Sworn have received personal quarters at the first level of the Fortress, although, as you predicted, the two Mayarad decided to share a room together.] The Issurath, one of the two voidships the team had captured, had been owned by a bounty-hunter and slaver returning from nearly a full year out on the fringes of the Empire. With the slaver dead and his passengers sworn to Eric, he had decided to designate berths for his new people at the Fortress instead of having them stay aboard the captured voidship. [Everyone except the Jakkata pilot Er-Ra-Lo has settled in.]

Eric’s brows furrowed at that last statement, and he stopped just in front of the door to the mess hall. The metal-encased Er-Ra-Lo had been the Issurath’s pilot under the former owner, and though he had sworn the Oath of Loyalty to Eric, the xenoform had remained withdrawn and averse to any form of socialization. “Did he say why?”

[He has not Commander.]

“Perhaps his species requires certain special accommodations?”

[He has indicated that the rooms themselves are satisfactory, but that he had some concerns that needed to be addressed to you personally.]

Curiouser and curiouser.

“He may have important information, sir.” Pig chimed in within the privacy of Eric’s head. “Or it may be something personal. I suggest a conversation with him before or after the general meeting.”

“Luna, please inform him that we can talk over his concerns before we convene everyone later.”

The Vessel Interface’s lower pair of eyes closed for a moment, and then she looked up and spoke. [It is done, Commander.]

“Very well,” Eric said excitedly as he walked through the automatically cycling doors and into the mess hall, his stomach giving a growl of anticipation as noticed several loaded dishes on the table top around which his three other teammates were clustered.

“Let’s see what Osar has whipped us up for breakfast!”