Field Captain Strechen, Means of the Way Intelligence Direct Action Services, had an impressive service record. She had rooted out Grenklakail Empire and Strevik'al Dominion spies and saboteurs, exposed and terminated Dra.Falten Empire heretics and those disloyal to the Emperor, the Empress, and the Empire. She had led troops in glorious combat nine times, each time achieving victory. In her hardest pressed victory, she had only lost four officers. Three times, she had not lost a single officer or female. She had taken part in reconquering Sh-Lamatka from the Strevik'al Dominion after those vile aliens had managed to take it over by guile and treachery.
Now, she found herself aboard a fast military transport, capable of traveling the upper reaches of Transit Space. The Transit Space shields flickered now and then, allowing thin threads of silvery material to leak through the hull. She had asked what it was the first time she had seen it and told it was the energies of Transit Space bleeding through to the interior spaces of the hull. It would dissipate and vanish in mere moments.
The vessel she was on was traveling so high that the inside bulkheads often became frosted with Transit Space matter.
It unnerved her.
More than just the Transit Space effects.
Her mission unnerved her.
She had been taken from an important assignment, finding out who was running the black market node on Krrk
Of all of them, it was the escapism materials. The idea that there was anything they needed to escape in the Empire.
After all, they were born to serve. It was the highest duty of any male to serve the Dra.Falten Empire.
Except, this mission...
...it unnerved her.
It only cost us millions of males, she heard Tawtchee's voice in her mind. Once they get a DNA sample, the body goes into the incinerator. Once they catalogue the DNA and our file, the sample goes into the incinerator.
She had family. Her mother had successfully completed mandatory pair bonding, resulting in Strechen and her three sisters. Her sisters were all loyal servants of the Empire, just like their mother. Their deeds and accomplishments praised, awarded, noticed, and recorded.
We cease to exist.
She had friends. She had even had approved lovers. Two years ago she had finished a five year mandatory pair bonding that had resulted in a licensed live birth where she had successfully conceived and carried to term four squirmlings. Her children went to the best creche and would have lives of privilege in accordance to her service to the Empire and what their genetics stated they would be most optimum at performing.
We cease to exist.
Strechen knew many females who had children. Who lived in domiciles that were stand alone, with a small yard for their children to play and grow.
If it wasn't for her current assignment, she would be at home with her children, with servants and nannies to help her care for her four daughters. She would be teaching them to revere the Empress, the Emperor, the Empire. To be guardians of the Empire, thus safeguarding their family and the families of all the Empire.
We have no families.
Her accomplishments were logged and recorded by her clan, whose glorious history predated even the Empress breaking the chains of servitude that had bound the Dra.Falten to an endless spiral of expand and overpopulation.
We have no clans.
She served the Empire.
Long. Live. The Empire.
She rolled over, kicked her feet, and then sat up, bruxing her back teeth.
She had seen the long line of wounded and battered males marching back to the Massive Active Operations Base. How the line has stretched for miles. How trucks and armored vehicles had constantly driven by, the pristine ones heading for the front, the battered ones heading back to the MAOB.
The trucks full of the dead males. So many that blood trickled down off the bed and into the mud.
Where it had been splashed on her.
We cease to exist.
Field Captain Strechen, Means of the Way Intelligence Direct Action Services, got up slowly and dressed in her exercise/relaxation clothing. She went over her uniform, making sure the auto-laundry had gotten her creases just right. Ensured there were no loose threads, that her awards and patches were just right.
She went to the gym, trying to work out her stress.
Laying on the pad after she had finished her press reps, she stared at the ceiling of the small fast craft.
We live six to twenty an apartment...
Again, that annoying voice. Empty of anything but sardonic nihilism.
She got up and used the rowing machine, then ran on the treadmill, gasping and choking when she had finished her mile run.
The fresher did nothing to soothe her nerves. Usually the ultrasonics soothed her skin, relieved any remaining anxiety that the exercise did not relieve.
They just wanted it more. We threw thirty million into the grinder, they threw fifty.
She closed her eyes and her brain helpfully conjured up the image of a pile of dead in uncounted numbers. Her PoV drew back and she could see a scale, where the Empress was shoveling the dead onto the Dra.Falten side of the scale while a shadowy Strevik'al shoveled Dominion dead on their side.
the low low price of only nineteen million
The city where her children were had a population of ninety thousand.
Females.
The rest was populated by the vast number of males, over two hundred and eighty million, the majority of them performing necessary jobs to keep the Empire running. The majority of the city was hab blocks. Skyrakers and massive apartment buildings that the Empire provided the males, free of charge, to live their lives.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
The Empire even provided basic sustinence allowance for food and clothing over the last ten years.
Captain Strechen could remember being outraged at how the males were being given food, clothing, and living quarters for free.
She remembered the video of the males living in four or six bedroom apartments that were crammed with luxuries. 2.5D trivee, a kitchen, living areas. They collected their food from markets, for free, and returned to their homes where they made fancy meals.
The males received that in addition to their high pay from their jobs.
Jobs that were vital to the Empire.
The males were coddled and treasured. She'd seen the videos herself.
we cease to exist...
She growled and stomped back to her living quarters.
They were small, barely big enough to fit the desk, the wardrobe, the bed, and the comfortable chair. She took ten paces, turned at the bulkhead, and walked ten paces back.
It was a small cabin.
Bruxing her back teeth she put on her uniform, adjusting it carefully, then tabbed the communications tab on the communicator in her room.
Once she got an answer, she asked to meet with the Captain.
Perhaps the Captain knew what the mission was and what was so important about a scruffy, nihilistic, borderline heresy spouting little male that she would be pulled off of an important mission, sent to contested space, to retrieve him and him alone.
The Captain agreed to meet with her in the sole briefing room of the small fast transport.
Captain Strechen checked her uniform one more time, then went to the briefing room, naval personnel getting out of her way as she moved through the corridor.
we cease to exist...
The Captain, Lady Captain of an Empress's Vessel Ckrik'cha, was sitting at the table already, with two of her officers. Mistress of Intelligence Vay'chrk and Mistress of Mission Command Krk'Achtik. Both of whom had good, solid names, with a proper grinding of the back teeth.
Noble houses, all three of them.
Strechen sat down.
"You wanted clarification, Field Captain Strechen?" the Captain asked, brushing at her whiskers, each of which had a tiny gem on the end to reflect colors.
"My charge," Strechen said. "What is so important about him that I would be tasked to retrieve him from a battle for the very possession of the planet?"
Vay'chrk examined the hologram in front of her, which was tuned in such a way as to make it so that anyone else viewing it would only see sprays of color and tangled lines of hologram.
"A cursory examination of his record shows little. He has been wounded many times," the Intelligence Agent said. "Hmm, severe injuries suffered during a bad Transit Space trip, he somehow broke his back, fractured his skull, and suffered severe damage to one arm. Other than that, only battlefield injuries. Many of those. Several times he has been hospitalized with injuries taken on the front."
She looked up. "I cannot see why he is of such interest."
Strechen frowned, grinding her back teeth for a moment. "Who has requested him?"
Krk'Achtik examined her hologram.
"The order comes from a most high office," she said. She tapped a few holographic keys. "The highest levels of Imperial Science Division. Interesting, his test scores were high for logic, science, analysis. If his physical test scores had not been above the 85% median, he might have been put in the science caste. However, there was a massive military draw at the time he was nearing his majority, so he went directly from basic schooling to the military academies."
Strechen frowned again. "No special training? No political connections?"
Vay'chrk examined the hologram again. "None. Basic military skills training. Advanced Infantry School. Nothing afterwards. No political connections," she examined it again. "The only thing that might be a connection is his first posting. He rescued scientists and their families when a colony expedition suffered a terraformer failure."
a Terran robot broke my back...
Krk'Achtik swept her hand through her hologram to reset her view. "We are meeting up with the Office of Science and Technology. We have been currently tasked to that same office. Perhaps one of the scientists that he saved wishes him to be part of the expedition?"
if he hadn't have dragged me onto the vessel I'd have ceased to exist...
Vay'chrk nodded. "While most scientists avoid personal relationships to the point that they must be forcefully reminded that it is their duty to the Empire to procreate to continue genetic lines of high intelligence, occasionally they form personal attachments. This could be merely an extremely high ranking scientist wishing for a body guard."
in 48 hours we were all dead...
That made all four of the Dra.Falten nod, combing their whiskers.
"Well, we will see when we arrive," the Captain said.
-----
The vessel came out of Transit Space easily, slow stages down to prevent the energy transfer from blowing apart the engines.
During the seventy hour trip to meet up with the space station and the vessels around it, Strechen found herself watching her charge.
He did little but eat, sleep, and stare at holocubes.
She had to admit, she had been startled the first time she had seen him without his top, not even a modesty shirt.
His torso was covered with scars, discolored fur that had grown over injured patches. He had a bare spot on one shoulder where there was a faded tattoo of Pratty-Chan dressed in a male's combat uniform, with a floppy hat and an e-rifle, her eyes wide and had once probably sparkled. The borderline illegal tattoo no longer moved, multiple thin scars through her. On his back, down his spine, were thick surgical scars.
When she saw him without lower modesty clothing, watching him through the ship's security systems, she was startled at how his legs were criss-crossed with scars, with patches here and there of fur over scar tissue.
it only cost us nineteen million...
When the ship docked with a vessel the size of a super-heavy battleship, Strechen had to admit she was startled that the male showed up at the docking bay with a uniform that was clean and pressed, his boots shined, his fur groomed.
For some reason, she had honestly expected him to show up in a rumpled uniform with mud and blood streaking it, his fur dirty and greasy.
Now, he looked like just one of the tens of thousands of male troops she had overseen.
The pressurized tube made contact and Strechen watched as the telltale lights went from red, to amber, to green.
A Way of the Means Senior Special Agent stepped through the airlock in full dress uniform, with a half-dozen Way of the Means guards.
"Field Captain Strechen and Male-9912743?" she asked.
"Here," Strechen said.
"Excellent. Both of you follow me," the Senior Special Agent said. She looked at the vessel's Captain. "The Empress appreciates your service."
The Captain nodded. "I live but to serve."
Strechen followed the Senior Special Agent.
It bothered her for some reason.
Tawtchee hadn't been referred to by his rank, or even his name. Just 'male'.
Thinking back, she realized that was how most males were referred to in official documents or when being dealt with.
we cease to exist...
The Senior Special Agent led Strechen to a simple berth. It was slightly larger than the one she had been occupying on the fast transport for nearly a month and Strechen appreciated the luxury.
"9912743, you will follow me. Captain Strechen, you may accompany if you wish," the Senior Special Agent said.
Tawtchee just nodded, keeping his head down and not looking the female Way of the Means agent. "As the Empress commands," he said softly.
we cease to exist...
"I believe I will accompany him," Strechen said.
She followed as they showed Tawtchee his berth. A small bunk set into a bulkhead and assigned a single underslung drawer set into the bulkhead of the three underneath the inset bunk. Tawtchee just put his duffle and ruck into the bunk space, making sure to attach the shoulder straps to hooks so that the two bags wouldn't go flying if the ship had to perform evasive maneuvers.
Strechen was suddenly very aware of how the males in the bunks peeked out to watch.
"You have a senior male's bunk, 9912743," the Senior Agent said. "There will not be another two males sharing your bunk when you are not on your assigned sleep period."
"The Empress is generous," Tawtchee said. "The Emperor provides."
Strechen noticed that Tawtchee's voice was just as dead and empty as it had been when he had been telling her about his first three postings.
"Remember that, 9912743," the Senior Special Agent said.
They were led to another briefing room.
The first thing Strechen noticed was how the pair at the far end of the table were large.
Not just slightly larger.
But very large.
The male, who had mechanical replacements for eyes, was her size, only heavily muscled, his bulk barely hidden by his science coat. The female was at least a head taller than Strechen, her arms as thick as Strechen's thighs.
Both had patches of fur that spoke of scars. The male, oddly enough, had lines radiating from his eyes.
The male stood up, moving around to Tawtchee.
"It is good to see you, Tawtchee," the male said.
"Senior Experimenter Hrekkel," Tawtchee said. He looked around. "Why?"
Hrekkel reached up and tapped his eyes. "I have seen where the Dra.Falten Empire must brave if we are to survive the upcoming storm."
Tawtchee narrowed his eyes. "Where?"
Hrekkel gave a smile. "The Path of the Traveler."
"Well... shit."