She certainly made a statement.

That was Jerry's first thought as he considered the very large, very curvy Horchka by the name of Ghorza. He found himself surprised at how dolled up and feminine by earth standards she was. She wouldn’t have looked out of place in a human city. Save for being well over six feet tall and green any way. The Horchka warrior woman looked resplendent in a rather conservative dress, tight enough to be decent for fancier parties that aren't full black tie, but with a cut that made it fit for a board room.

Her tattoos peeking from her collar and the incredible muscles displayed on her arms and legs are the only things hinting at her profession of violence. The Horchka's tusky smile had an edge to it. She was clearly trying to smile as sweet as can be... but there was an animal fierceness behind her smile there that made Jerry shiver.

Ghorza was a skilled mercenary and the leader of a fairly large merc company. She wanted to bring her entire company over into Undaunted service. While the pipelines for training and recruiting were coming into being, they didn't quite have the facilities for it here on Centris, and the Admiral directed his staff to send Ghorza over to Jerry, who could easily put a few hundred hardened troopers with void experience to work on the double.

His eyes flick down to the pile of data pads before him, reviewing the strength of women at arms being more or less handed to him on a silver platter.

Ghorza offered two hundred standard women at arms, all blooded with combat experience, a further eighty mech troopers, all with their own kit and again, and finally, twenty elite power armor wearing veterans, not including Ghorza herself. He flicks through to the set of dossiers again, reviewing them quickly.

"Well, I think I'd be a fool to refuse such a skilled body of fighting women wanting to come work for us, and being put under my command specifically. You're on Ghorza. Send whoever works as your right hand to see the quartermaster so we can get detailed dossiers on your people and start doing up all the paperwork to make your Horchka Undaunted. We'll also start out rank transfers with the Undaunted Marine Corps."

"And what about little old me specifically?"

Ghorza flutters her eyelashes and plays the question off coquettishly, an affection that must have taken a lot of practice for a Horchka. Her flirty smile once again ruined, or perhaps “enhanced”, by her impressive tusks.

Still there was an edge to the question that Jerry caught loud and clear. She had a lot of pride, and Jerry considered his words carefully.

Many Horckha had a strong honor based culture. Far different from the benevolent supremacy a lot of Cannidor had, the Horchka instead cultivated themselves as warriors, and more or less worshiped the profession of arms. The main line of the species looked down on the members of their species that became thugs or bandits, though certain linguistic nuances made them a bit more affable to full on pirates for reasons too culturally complicated to be explained. Sell swords were about the lowest tier of Horchka warrior society, but they were still warriors.

If Jerry gave her too much in the way of rank, she'd potentially see it as a slap in the face because he's trying to butter her up or salve her ego. Put her too low and he's insulting her abundant experience in a century of armed conflict.

"Ghorza I'd like to make you a Major. I don't have a commander of my ship's troops right now, so you'll be in command of that department, both the Marines aboard, and the actual military police detachment who will provide law enforcement services. Your current second will become the mech armor company commander or power armor company commander as a captain. We'll get you a human XO, a fellow Marine major, who will also teach you how to do things Undaunted style. While you're all already trained... but we need to get you trained up on our weapons, tactics, language. We will also have to work something out for you all to be made Marines."

"I know the word marine, but you're putting an interesting tonal emphasis on it." The green woman seemed quite pleased with what she'd been offered, accepting with a simple nod and a request for more information, but her posture relaxed considerably with that test of their newfound professional relationship settled.

"On our world, to be a Marine means something a bit more than just a job. It's a title. Something that has to be earned. The hard way of course. There's no easy way to get a truly worthy honor, as I suspect you and your girls know. For centuries the Corps I joined has maintained a reputation as the premier assault troops of our world, specializing in doing more with less on the nastiest jobs available. All while developing a unique cultural identity that sets us apart from even our own countrymen... and once you become a Marine, the change is forever. The only way you stop being a Marine is getting the title stripped for dishonoring yourself. The Undaunted Marine Corps has a lot of members of the United States Marine Corps in it, along with a bunch of guys from other global Marine Corps they trained. Like the Republic of Korea Marine Corps."

"Are those tribes?" Ghorza inquired, she's leaning in now, clearly extremely interested in rare tidbits on the mysterious planet in deep null straight from the horse's mouth.

"Full on nations. We also have a few Royal Marines in our complement, but they're with the special operations division, once we get your girls in place and trained up, they can test out for special forces if they want to."

Jerry straightens his collar and gestures to the Eagle Globe and Anchor insignia that glittered there. "This is the emblem of the US Marine Corps. The UMC doesn't have its own emblem yet, but I am sure it'll be quite similar to this. I earned mine in a place called Quantico, as did a few of my officers. Knowing what I know about aliens... I suspect we'll be able to give you girls an appropriate challenge."

"Sounds interesting. So we're being inducted into a warrior cult..." Ghorza grins, all bright white teeth and tusks. "I knew I liked you humies. We're in. What happens to girls who flunk out?"

"Well you're already trained soldiers, so we'll send them to either improve physically or mentally till they do pass. Worst case scenario they join the Naval troops. Nothing wrong with them... but they're not Marines, and I figured your girls would be more in the mood to drop onto planets and be the Undaunted's iron fist than just defending the ship."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Jerry grins, clearly challenging Ghorza in the most gentle of ways.

Ghorza barks with laughter.

"Oh hot damn I really like you humies! Alright boss man, you send us where you need us. You got a deal... but I want one more thing before we cut palms or however you humies sign your contracts."

Jerry arches an eyebrow, inviting her to continue with a nod.

"I want a piece of you."

"I'm sorry?"

"What, you think I went through a couple hundred gigs of human culture and got all dressed up like this for nothing? I want to face off with you in the squared circle, and depending on how that goes I'll either propose marriage like a blushing school girl or I'll throw myself at the feet of your first wife and beg to be let in."

Jerry considers the green skinned beauty across from him and mentally shrugs. She was pretty, intelligent, and had some interesting things going on with her personality for a Horchka.

"Well that's all pending approval from Sylindra, my first wife and the others, but I'm open to the idea."

The fact that he'd adapted to the galaxy so readily in this regard was probably related to his dirty little secret. Jerry had always enjoyed harem animes, and while he was far happier to have a group of mature, intelligent women around him than Herbert Jameson's high school class of a marriage, he had to say he didn't mind this one bit.

"Just for you right? I'm not marrying your entire band."

"Just me. The rest of my bitches can find their own husbands. They're big girls. Hell that's half the appeal of the Undaunted. Tough, feminine men who can fight like demons and fuck like gods? Shit. Sounds like a particularly hot porno. The type of stuff aimed at Horchka, Cannidor, Snict and Apuk among others. I hope you boys know you're moistening some of the most dangerous panties in the galaxy... I'm sure your own Cannidor has told you, her people are developing all kinds of new fetishes at the thought of "tiny" males who have the sheer level of insanity humans seem to bring to the table as a matter of course.”

"Granted on the Cannidor in particular... they're not used to being surprised by things smaller than they are. But I thought Apuk girls were all about tenderly jilling off through silk sheets to the idea of rescuing a handsome prince from a tower or some shit instead of actual beef cake and violence with their smut."

The green beauty nearly chokes with barked, hyena-like laughter.

"Hot damn I knew you boys could fight, but I didn't expect you to banter like a chick! Damn. Some Apuk nearby's tail must be burning up at that one. Yeah they really do all go for that stuff huh? Cultural thing. Makes for fun movies though. There's a new one out, The Tale of Varg’Terra that I hear's good. One great thing about the rest of the galaxy compared to your movies? What is a ‘special effect’? Well. Some makeup and costumes, but with axiom on hand, especially for the Apuk, you get some high quality battle scenes. In one movie they actually had two real battle princesses go at it, no hold barred! It ended in a draw and both women apparently needed a minor healing coma in real life, but in the actual flick they both kinda do this knightly salute thing, recognizing each other as worthy opponents and stagger off. Good shit."

"Wait wait, you've been watching human movies?"

Ghorza's smile is all fangs now as she leans in a bit more. "Yippee Ki Yay Motherfucker." She intones in passable English.

"You've seen Die Hard? Fantastic, that's a classic, and a favorite winter holiday movie where I'm from. I..." Jerry's face goes through a series of contortions as he realizes what the hell he'd just heard. "Wait you speak English?"

"Oh no. The Gravia have been dubbing human movies and stuff with subtitles. No idea if they're accurate, but for one liners that don't really need translation they tend to emphasize them and let it speak for itself. The Die Hard movies are fucking great. If this Bruce Willis guy's still around and wants to get up to his neck in warrior puss he can leave Cruel Space at any time."

"Your type of guy huh?"

"Nah, never been big into actors, I like guys who can kick ass for real. Kinda unique, and an under-served fetish till you boys turned up."

Ghorza all but licks her lips, her eye contact with Jerry going from intense to scintillating. He didn't have to be a mind reader to guess the identity of at least one human she was into more than Bruce Willis.

"Back to the Tale of Varg'Terra though. Admittedly, it's long, probably better as pay per view. Assuming your wives are fine with me joining and you give me a good show in hand to hand, movie night could make for a good date or some family fun."

Jerry nods, the heat under his collar dissipating for a second. Apuk sword and sorcery flicks admittedly sounded like a good time.

"We do have the space for it, and the entertainment system. Wichen likes to tinker with. Well. Everything."

"Wait. Wichen. Like... Feli weapons engineer? Likes to stab things when she needs to make a quick buck? Shit I thought she died in a shootout on some spire! And you married her? Nice. Guess you have plenty of brains in your marriage as well as brawn if that Cannidor out front's anything to go by."

"That was me on the spire actually, I almost killed her but managed to save her life. Some dumb gangster snake wanted to avenge her sister after she died in a robbery gone wrong. So she ambushed me and my pregnant first wife coming back from the hospital."

"Fuck me they attacked a pregnant woman!? Shit and you fucked'em all up good too. Didn't get all the details on that, but yeah sub clan of the Seven Tails of the Nagasha right? Apparently the mother got her daughters corpses back from the meat wagon and put their fucking heads on a pike in her headquarters. The Seven Tails are okay as far as stupid powerful criminal organizations go, civilized to an extent, but their boss doesn't take kindly to failure, especially from her own kids."

"Yeah she paid significant blood money for saving her having to either hire someone or dispose of her wayward offspring herself."

"Word on the street says she's got kids to spare. She's very old, like hundreds, if not thousands of years, very happily married and is pregnant often enough you'd think she was part of an extremist gravidist sect. Not all her daughters go into the family business either."

Ghorza shrugs.

"Not the type of folks my crew does business with normally, but it pays to know who's moving and shaking in your area. Plus, if the Seven Tails wanted us for a legit contract, say pulling security for some of their above board enterprises... well. As long as they're above board with us, I'd have at least considered dealing with them. No need to worry about that any more though! Assuming you kick half as much ass as you say you do."

"Shall we go find out then?" Jerry extends his hand to Ghorza and she takes it firmly, turning what had been intended as a hand shake into some open hand holding.

"Let's."