When the cargo bay opened to space, Eyeball stood beside the internal airlock, looking out, feeling the faint wisps of vacuum blow by. The incoming shuttle was armed; but wouldn't shoot unless he shot first. Or, more accurately, unless he shot first in a way that was survivable; the tenner could just core the armored craft like an apple.

Which was a fair comparison; the thing was slightly rounded and a vibrant red, looking almost like it was grown, or carved out of a rock, rather than built. The difference between it and the rough, clearly freshly welded, hull plates of the Gaze was dramatic; he could barely make out the weapons blisters; lasers, not particle cannons, they were so seamless.

Ascension, in the form of a drone, was standing behind him, leaning against the wall... wearing a modified Republic power armor suit. The thing looked ridiculous; the arms and legs all with extensions in them to allow the taller, slimmer machine to fit inside it; but as Eyeball understood, there were at least a dozen more like this; or being made like this; in the event they decided to hide the fact Ascension was a machine.

Which... would last about ten minutes longer than one of the Forstager children started talking to the other side. The adults would die before revealing anything they were asked not to, but the children would probably tell the Republic anything they wanted in exchange for a piece of candy. He shook his head; no matter how cute their behavior, the kids were still hideous.

The air started to hiss back into the room after the door sealed shut... and when the pressure normalized, figures started emerging; first, four humanoid soldiers, species indeterminate, in heavy powered armor, a solid, dark blue, with an interesting squid-like symbol on their shoulders; followed by... two squids in what looked like floating armored bubbles, with an array of mechanical limbs and weapons blisters dotting them. The first four were exceedingly durable; and the following pair had ridiculously good reflexes. He could tell none of them would survive a round, no, but against a typical Republic strike team, they could undoubtedly mop up; and all of the four were tougher than their armor was. A shot to an arm would completely destroy the armor, but leave a partially-intact guard charging him, missing an arm. Those two floating bubbles would actually be firing at him even as they died! Not bad. Not enough, in the event he and Ascension had assassination in mind, but not bad at all.

What it would need to kill that team would also destroy both the shuttle, and the wall behind them.

Eyeball was watching them with curiosity, examining the various possibilities, and almost missed the duchess emerging; and blinked. She was wearing a skin-tight vacuum suit, complete with helmet, and she looked... he shook his head. Yeah. Aliens, remember. You're not Han Solo, you're not Captain Kirk, and you're not... who was that crewman that had almost been seduced by the greys... Fontaine? Fontaine would have loved to visit this species.

"Helmet, mute. What's the translator give for a standard greeting for these people?"

His HUD display gave him a few possibilities; pressing the head against the floor as a sign of obedience to royalty; crossing the arms as a salute; a brief nod, and offering one arm to press against the others, to represent a greeting to an equal.

"Thanks. Unmute." He stepped forward; gave a short nod; and extended his right arm, elbow bent, fist pointed at the ceiling.

The duchess looked at him for a moment. All of the guards tensed; and she hesitantly pressed her fore-arm against his own. "I am Qaki." One of the closest guards stepped forward. "Duchess of the Deschar system, Commander of her fleets, Chief of Knife-7, Destroyer of the 31st Republic Flotilla."

Eyeball glanced at the soldier for a moment. "And I am Jason Bennet." Moments later, the tall, gangly form of Ascension's nearest machine stepped forward, imitating the guard. "The Immortal Eyeball, Slayer of Titans and Emperors, Destroyer of Jotun and Republic fleets, Head Enforcer of La Famiglia, Liberator of the Forstagers, Captain of the Gaze of Wrath, Destroyer of worlds."

Both Eyeball and the Duchess glanced at the machine, his statements running through the back of Eyeball's mind. Most of those were more or less accurate, but... "...Emperors, plural? Did I kill more I didn't know about?"

The Duchess, on the other hand, simultaneously interjected with "Destroyer of worlds?"

The two glanced back at each other; and both chuckled. Eyeball slid his helmet off, tapping it against his hip, where it clamped on. "Some of that was an exaggeration, but he got the essentials. I destroyed an uninhabited gas giant to render an area temporarily impassible to Warp travel, in the hopes of delaying the Republic from re-invading the Forstager system long enough for me to gather resources, get back and put in a more permanent solution."

As Qaki slid off her own helmet; which compressed itself into a tiny orb at the back of her spine, she nodded. "Ahh. We've never done such ourselves, but it's been spoken of before. Some of my species have recommended creating a barrier zone between us and the Republic, using anti-matter charges to disrupt smaller stars and gas giants in the hope of slowing or stopping their advance. Never got past the planning stages. Now. If you wish me to believe you, I'll need to meet your crew, and see any evidence you have of this not being some sort of Republic trick. Otherwise, me and my men will be taking you with us when we go."

Jason laughed, slapping his thigh. "Ahhh, it's fun that you think that's an option. Still. I can take you to meet some of the Forstagers, or the Jernal. I've also got a couple of Republic prisoners, if you want to speak to them; one of their naval engineers, and one of their own prisoners who was in the same lockup I was."

Ascension interrupted. "Excuse me, sir. Nine Republic Prisoners. Seven of them from the Forstager system."

He blinked. "....From the Forstager system. Are they in any condition to talk?"

"One moment." Ascension stared at the wall for a few seconds, as Qaki looked on, curious at this strange exchange. "The first one I asked has begun begging to be terminated. While his current existence is already an intensely painful experience, the Jernal duo have been exacerbating this by performing minor actions to torment him and the other... similar prisoners since learning of his condition. He is currently welding a support strut on deck six."

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

Qaki raised a hand. "Hold a bit. I've never heard of these Forstagers. But that other name. The Jernal. That's the name that a species we encountered decades ago, that is now in Republic space, called themselves. Last I was aware, Intelligence indicated they had provided too heavy resistance to Republic ground troops, and there were difficulties in acquiring samples for bio-weapons, so they had resorted to wiping out all life on the planet. They're supposed to be gone."

"I've got two on the crew. I can ask them if they'd be willing to sedate themselves to drop down to a more comfortable speed to talk to you, if you'd like; otherwise they'd essentially just do a drive-by and leave you with some long rambling chat for them."

She smiled. "That sounds about right. Yes, actually. Whether simply to talk at us, or to slow down and actually speak, that would be the best place to start." She glanced back at her guard. "The Jernal are a non-Descendant race with extremely fast metabolism and reflexes. Be prepared for an extremely fast but probably non-hostile light brown humanoid."

Jason frowned. "If you'd met them before the Republic invaded, why didn't your people help? Even out of pure military expediency, people like them could be incredibly valuable allies."

The Duchess inhaled deeply, taking a more stern pose. "The decisions of the Queen and her Kings are not to be questioned." She glanced down, and took a more normal tone. "The truth, though? They didn't qualify to become part of the Confederacy. If we tried to defend them, we would be doing it on our own, with no outside help, until they did... and they lacked any single, centralized government to sign a treaty with, or sufficient space combat capability to join. No matter how deadly our troops, this war will be won, or lost, among the stars."

Ascension interjected once again. "Doshet and Doshiri have both agreed to sedate themselves to speak more slowly with us. Doshiri was already sedated, in fact; the two have been doing so quite a bit to try to minimize food consumption. We can meet them in the medical bay, if you'd like?"

Jason nodded; and stepped to the interior door, which immediately slid open at his approach. "Medical is as good a place as any to start our little tour. Of course. Any progress on the implants?"

Qaki nodded at her guards before following, listening in since Jason hadn't put the helmet back on. Three of the heavies, and one of the squids, remained with the shuttle; while the remaining two guards followed her into the ship, looking closely at the strange, almost improvised construction as they moved.

"Doshet volunteered to go first; all implants are deactivated permanently aside from the sedation one, and we have been slowly removing them. I can safely remove all of them, but he will need to eat an extremely high amount of food during recovery; the process would require two days of recovery, during which he would consume over twice his body weight. I would recommend securing a good food supply for them first, and, if possible, sending some to Forstage, so that my local drones can more effectively help the Jernal there; as well as, of course, make whatever experiments are being done there to produce more food for them unnecessary."

When they reached the medical bay, Qaki wasn't sure what to expect. Normal beds? Pods filled with restorative chemicals? She certainly wasn't expecting to see the strange devices running beside one of the two massive Jernal forms; long, lean, with rough, dark-brown skin; one mostly covered by a simple grey tunic down to her knees, while the other lay on a platform, with hundreds of tiny tendril-like wires dangling down, touching various parts of the flesh.

Another of Ascension's drones in the strange, elongated, modified light armor was standing beside Doshet as he pulled a tunic over his waist to cover himself; and the wires withdrew. The machine was speaking already when they entered. "The sedative implant will slow your recovery, as well as your hunger. Use caution, for now. I would recommend deactivating it soon; we just removed the last of the pain-inducers from your spine, and the area is still delicate."

As the group approached the bed, Qaki could see a diagram of a Jernal floating beside the bed; showing his internal anatomy, with a long series of implants highlighted in red; with one highlighted in yellow, and a variety of green highlighted ones down the spine. She looked at Doshet, then at the display. "What... is this?"

The Ascension pretending to be a doctor turned to Doshet. "Do you wish me to discuss this with her?"

The male Jernal looked her over for a moment; then at the female beside the bed. "Doshiri." He extended an arm; and the woman stepped up, embracing him. "Yes. You may. Speaking of it makes me.... angry. She is not one of the Marrick, but I saw her before; she is what we called the 'Borikarsi'. It's a type of small, plump, slow creature that populated the oceans of my homeworld, and only persisted because they reproduced in the billions. It was an... insulting term. Our only friendly contact with outsiders before you, and we insulted them."

Ascension turned to Qaki. "On Forstage, we discovered a lab where captured Jernal children had been raised in captivity, implanted with a variety of control devices, and were being trained in the hopes of using them as soldiers against the 'Swarm'. The primary means of control were a series of pain-inducing implants along the spine, which would paralyze the victim and send them into terrible pain until either the Marrick chose to stop the punishment, or the victim died."

Qaki stared at the display; then at Doshet. "You've been removing them?"

"Of course. A variety of implants were placed throughout the body, but most of those not along the spine were for paralysis or sedation purposes; and the ability to control them remotely has been disabled. The Marrick only kept about a year's supply of food on-hand for the Jernal; in the event they somehow broke free they wanted to ensure they would starve to death with no local supply of calories. We left most of the food on Forstage; food for these two is one of the things we are here to trade for."

Dorshet met Qaki's gaze. "We earned it. Saved many Forstagers, helped provide some of the cargo by looting the Republic armories and living spaces. Do you kill Marrick?"

Qaki nodded. "I have led a fleet to kill Marrick before, and Knife-7 supplies hundreds of ships that move out and raid the Republic at every opportunity, or hunt their scouts that move in our own space.

He nodded. "Good. is Eyeball trading us to you, so you can take us somewhere to kill Marrick?"

Jason raised a hand. "No trading, Doshet. If you wish to leave, you can. I promise you'll get the chance to kill more of them if you stay on the crew though; unless we somehow figure out a way to wipe all of them out without ever having to touch dirt, you and I will raise weapons together again."

Doshet squeezed Doshiri against him. She looked at Qaki, then back to Jason. "I think we should work with the silver-helmed one. He has a proper idea of how to deal with the Marrick. They suffer as we did. Or worse."

Her mate... or sibling? Jason hadn't actually checked.. kept looking at Qaki. "That he might, but you, blue one, are the one with food my people can eat, so it will depend on you. I must eat to kill Marrick."

Qaki smiled. "We'll get you enough food that all of the implants can be removed safely, if that's all you need. No charge for that, and enough stock to last a while." She glanced at Jason. "I'd still like to meet these 'Forstagers' of yours, and the prisoners. But... you can approach Knife-7."

She tapped her wrist. "Code Qaki Alpha, secondary. Escort us to the station. Keep us under watch, but assume non-hostile. They've given me enough evidence to assume they aren't Republic, even if they aren't necessarily allies. Have the station prepare a pallet of Jernal-compatible food; we should have what they need on file somewhere." She tapped it again, and glanced back at Jason.

"We can finish up your little tour; I'll reciprocate once we get to Knife-7."