A month. A whole unending month of some of the hairiest combat challenges Jerry had ever seen. A month feeling like they were at war with an entire world... and in reality they barely left the spire the Dauntless was docked on.
The beautiful part is that generally they couldn't be stopped. Not on most spires on Centris anyway. Each spire was an independent polity, and their grab bag of laws could vary wildly to the spires next to them. For example, it was legal to grow narcotic plants on one spire. It was legal to turn those plants into a refined narcotic on another, and then the shipments were 'lost', making the bulk of one organized crime group’s drug production had been almost entirely legal. At least till they started targeting humans for human trafficking. Now the operative word was most definitely ‘had’.
Their thin film of legal standing, something Admiral Cistern was working on changing. The kid gloves the galaxy treated men with, robust self defense laws that covered protecting your friends, and the utter mess that most spires were, meant that they could get away with a lot, and when they couldn't, plausible deniability operations using alien weapons were still on the table.
It was humbling to a degree, the sheer amount of work they'd had to put in on a single planet. Kidnapping attempts. Aforementioned moves by organized crime groups to target humans, including a few groups of very bad girls who were heiresses of an even worse organization called the Dark Cabal, who's mere name could make a lot of aliens shudder. There was always another challenge on the horizon, and challenges were a commando's bread and butter.
Jerry strides through the lounge that he'd taken over with his counterpart in 2nd squadron, a former Royal Marine turned SAS man named Commander Sir David Forsythe, to brief their elite special forces units prior to one of their most complicated operations since arriving on Centris.
Shore leave.
"Alright people we need to go over some things before we finally get out there for some liberty off the Dauntless. We've been on Centris for about a month and all of us have made combat excursions, but let's review before we actually start R&R... which I suspect's going to be more trouble than dropping a black ops team on a building."
"Point of order sir, why the heck are we going so late?" Asks one man, raising his hand like he's back in high school and not a highly experienced special forces operator in his early thirties.
Sir David chuckles as he takes a sip of tea. "Noblesse Oblige old chap, plus as Jerry just said we were working. We've had to do more black ops work in the last Terran standard month than I've done in a year back with Her Majesty's Special Air Service during a slow period."
"What Sir David said. Now let's go over some details about just how things work out here, and some notable incidents. Namely this latest event that's generated some work for me, nerd squad acolyte Vernon Shay marrying this princess of his. Then we'll review some basic biology related to that. Then we start talking about the op plan for our liberty."
"Not just turning us loose, sir?"
"Not this first time. I want us to roll as large groups. We've had some dangerous bullshit pulled recently. Incidents we've had to respond to as part of the Dauntless's special forces teams. To include that one terrorist group making a hit on Herbet Jameson and his wives at that night club because humans are 'abominations'. However, to make it up to you all, I have arranged for us to get a second liberty period off the ship, during which we can break into smaller groups or go solo if we're feeling confident.”
Jerry looks around, catching lots of appreciative nods. Morale was high, and a little limited liberty the first time out wasn’t changing that.
“It'll be a few weeks for us all to cycle through, but we will get it, and far sooner than our brethren. Noblesse oblige, but rank hath its privileges and the Admiral agreed that we've been putting in enough work we deserve to get cut loose once we're sure everyone is fit for the galactic equivalent of civil society."
First Sergeant Gurung nods solemnly. "Ah, thankfully all of my fine adopted sons and daughters have at last learned to eat with utensils, so there is little to worry about there, Commander." The Ghurka's eyes twinkle as the room breaks out in quiet laughter.
"Fair point Top. So. Back to Mr. Shay and his new wife."
An image displays two women walking through a well manicured garden in outrageously fancy dresses that, per earth fashion, were a few centuries out of date. They actually looked strikingly human. A blonde and a redhead, the latter with caramel skin. Both had bright, vibrant eyes, the redhead in green and the blonde in purple. Each was also wearing a silver tiara that sat daintily between their horns.
The blonde's horns were short, almost ox-like, coming out of where the temple would be on a human and pointed straight up, with a slight curve outward on the points. The keratin was a light color that seemed to match her hair.
The redhead's horns were dark and swept backwards at a bit of an angle to them before coming up into two delicate points. At the edge of their dresses, hints of their reptilian tails could be seen.
"The Apuk as a species are best summed up as a woman who's the knight, the princess and the dragon in a fairy tale simultaneously. They have a hard core martial culture very reminiscent of European knights in our own Middle Ages. They're just about as in your face as it gets in the galaxy besides Cannidor... but they also don't have the Cannidor's general love and desire to protect 'cute things', cute being everything smaller than they are. Which is admittedly a lot of stuff when you can hit twelve feet tall at maturity."
The image changes again to display a woman the room knew to be Battle Princess Miro'Noir in a brilliant white dress next to a gangly man in an Dauntless dress uniform that they similarly recognized as Vernon Shay, one of their wedding photos it seemed.
"Apuk Battle Princesses like Princess Miro'Noir are insanely dangerous in every possible way. Per galactic law it is legally suicide to attack a Battle Princess with anything less than a group of five. The only thing more dangerous than a battle princess per the Apuk is a sorcerer, an Apuk male axiom user that... we're trying to find out more about, but Vernon Shay became one on his honeymoon, which is how we just ended up with an alliance with the Apuk."
The image changes again, with an image of six women engaging in a brutal brawl, fire balls and other axiom effects going everywhere.
"Princess Miro'Noir was nice enough to do an interview with us before leaving Centris with Mr. Shay for their honeymoon. Then we saw the footage of the Apuk Shellcracker tournament. A high level grand melee with each round consisting of six women attempting to shatter the armor of their opponents. The rounds continue until there's a sole victor left, who receives the title of Battle Princess from their Empress.”
The scene switches briefly to a short video, showing a lightning fast round of axiom combat as the six combatants dish out brutal damage in mere seconds at each other.
“Standard combat maneuvers in the tournament involve punches that could cave in a tank, if the girl in question didn't just pick the damn thing up and chuck it, or throwing fire balls called warfire. Apuk are insanely tough, seriously strong, supersonic fast, and then there's the warfire I just mentioned.”
Jerry clicks again, and a video starts, an unseen Apuk, likely Miro’Noir, demonstrated three grades of warfire in short succession, with the last, the green flame, brutally melting solid blocks of metal in ways that just seemed nasty to everyone watching.
“Warfire comes in four grades, based on heat, red, which any Apuk can produce from birth, blue, the start of the true war flames, which can do horrendous damage to pretty much anything. Then green, the royal flame, and a signature of the battle royalty, which can slag entire battleships, as in the starship... and the white flame, which we have very little information on, but has been described as 'summoning the core of a star and beating something to death with it'. To be more explicit, the more potent stuff, the green and the white? Used with intent, a warfire wielder could slag the entire Dauntless, armor or no armor."
"So don't piss off any Apuk girls, noted."
Says one wag from Jerry's troops.
"Better yet, if you see one, find out if she's single! An entire species of mostly blondes and redheads with a warrior culture and the only really inhuman things about them is they're staggeringly gorgeous, generally clear six foot tall, and have horns and a tail? Money. Cash money."
Notes a former Delta force man from Sir David's troopers.
Jerry silences them with a sharp motion of his hand.
"Can it you jokers, this is serious. I bring them up not to give you clowns dating advice, but to point out that while we've been practicing basic axiom combat, to include bringing in civilian contractors pretty much since Franklin Smith found out about the shit, we are white belts in that particular dojo. So expect all manner of possible bullshit... and use our basic techniques like the shield rings and infusing your ammunition to pierce defenses so you don't end up on a coroner's slab."
Jerry paces through the crowded briefing room a bit.
"This is also to bring up galactic self defense laws. We have met the aliens people and they are apparently American, at least so far as their self defense and gun laws are concerned. So if you're attacked feel free to fill body bags as the situation demands. Stupidity can earn a terminal case of lead poisoning and no one will blink twice. However this entire world is nothing but a city, so just like when we went out for work, keeping collateral to a minimum is key."
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Jerry tosses a holo projector on the table and it brings up an image of an establishment called 'Bachelor Barn'.
"Which brings us to why we might be attacked. Gentlemen, not excluding you Petty Officer Ramos, ladies, but I think you're relatively safe from this risk."
Isabella thinks for a moment.
"Sir, I regret to inform you I can't think of a snappy comeback for that."
"Tell the class if you come up with one later Petty Officer. Back to it. With the odd gender ratio of the galaxy, we as humanity, and the male heavy military force that is the Dauntless, are basically a literal treasure trove, considering we're made up primarily of single adult males. We have drastically increased the male population of Centris just with landing the Dauntless. I have debriefed every team that has left the Dauntless on missions and just one of them over dozens of missions per week has observed a galactic male in public. He was with a dozen of his wives, and moved from an air car into a building very quickly.”
An image, clearly taken from concealment pops up, and shows exactly that. The most furtive glimpse of a somewhat slender Tret man, dressed in frills and escorted from an air car to the nearby building safely within a knot of no less than a dozen women.
“Males on Centris are rarely seen in public. The rich and powerful don't even keep their spouses on the planet, preferring to keep them safely aboard the orbiting habitats circling the world, which are significantly more secure. So I say this with absolute certainty. You will. We will. I will. All be approached by alien women. They will proposition you. Saying yes will be very tempting. However, there are some factors to consider here, that I want you to keep in mind. Because we're a higher quality of grunt, and need to set an example for our juniors."
Jerry presses a button on his little remote control and the holo projector displays a binary helix to the room, before focusing on a specific part.
"These are what we previously called the junk strands of human DNA. We now know that the galaxy calls them the compatibility strands of DNA. These are the portions of DNA that allow any of us, including you Ramos, to successfully interbreed with any galactic citizen. We know for sure this works, because almost all of our pirate boys running around with the freebooters we recruited into the Earth Foreign Legion are expecting fathers. One ship has literally every single female crew member expecting a child per their latest report. Generally girls will be the mother's species, and boys will be the father's, with some small degree of hybridization that does not extend past one generation."
Jerry changes the slide again, bringing up an image of several very different looking snake women. One had six arms and was decked out in heavy war paint, a Desert Nagasha, the more normally limbed Great Plains Nagasha, with two arms and the same long snake tail, and finally a Deep Craig Nagasha, which lacked arms on her otherwise normal torso, but had a rattle at the end of her tail that was apparently a massively potent channel for axiom.
"So one of the interesting notes from that is that if you hook up with an egg laying species and you win the 1 to 100 lotto and have a son born by her, your almost certainly human baby boy will hatch from an egg as if he was a Nagasha like his siblings, and there would be siblings. Many species tend towards larger pregnancies. Either large clutches of eggs like the Nagasha and Apuk, or live births via litters. Date a Lopen girl a little too enthusiastically and she will literally have a litter of puppies over it."
"Wait. Sorry. What's a Lopen again?" One man sits up, fumbling through his notes as he curses under his breath.
Jerry keys in a few commands and an image of a canine quadruped appears in the holoprojector, then rears up on its hind legs, walking forward like any other being.
"Lopen, also known as QMC 1/100 #17, they're nine foot tall canids that tend to move around on all fours, then go up on their hind legs for tool use. Yes I'm aware it's basically a giant dog with a porn star bod. No, we're not going to discuss it any further than it's been discussed."
The original questioner nods and takes some quick notes before looking up again.
"...Well, looking at that situation I don't think that's so bad sir, who doesn't like puppies?"
Jerry silences the man with a pointed glare.
"So. Back to the point. The aliens are apparently all Catholic, despite the four armed girls with human faces save for the bunny ears calling themselves Rabbis, and they seemingly don't do birth control. If a woman manages to get a husband, an apparent statistical improbability, I'll remind you all now that we have reports of multiple generations of different families with no actual male blood line members of the family. If a woman manages to get a husband, the answer to the question of children is generally 'early and often'. Further, the act of coupling itself is in fact recognized as de facto nuptial vows by a lot of species and systems."
Jerry clicks again and another part of the binary helix is highlighted.
"This is another thing that makes us damn dangerous to galactic women, and makes them damn dangerous to any bachelorhood you might want to retain. There is a natural bonding mechanism based on pheromones, generally called imprinting. Galactic citizens are very, very susceptible to pheromones, and ours are extremely strong. Usually it takes sex to promote a 'bond', where a woman biologically fixates on her 'mate', but the pheromones in our saliva are strong enough that the eggheads think a good kiss can bond a galactic woman to you. Suppressants exist, and can allow for things up to and including casual sex, but just like you talk about condoms on Earth before doing the deed, be up front, set expectations and make sure everyone's playing the same game."
A new image displays an alien woman with luxurious orange, white and black fur, the standard galactic curves and a look over all not unlike a fox on earth giving the camera a coquettish smile.
"To illustrate just how sensitive alien biology can be, this is a Volpir, BMC 1/100 #61. Look them up in the galactic directory if you want, but their sense of smell and pheromone sensitivity is such that they've formed bonds from the scents of women's husbands on their clothes. The man himself was not even present, or even anywhere nearby."
An image of a stick of deodorant pops up next, to laughter from the assembled special forces personnel.
"So. Make sure you're wearing the special new deodorant command has been issuing unless you want to be mobbed by horny bachelorettes. Now look, we'll fight to keep you out of any bullshit... but frankly I expect better out of you all. I expect every single one of you to comport yourselves as gentlemen and may Hel herself hold me back if one of you leads some poor girl on being a jackass.”
Jerry paces the room a bit, making eye contact with every man he can, to ensure his message is received loud and clear.
“None of us will enforce your marriage. We'll fight to get you out of it and keep it that way, but I'll have you peeling tubers in the kitchens for the next century, and considering we've learned that immortality is a lifestyle choice out here, you can consider that threat literal. So if you're going to get laid, either save it for a human woman like the Baby Jesus intended... or be ready to be a married man. The other way Baby Jesus intended."
There's a solid round of chuckles at Jerry's reference to the son of man, most of the unit's very aware that Jerry's a practicing heathen and it adds an edge of humor to the statement that is still very much a threat.
"Have no doubt gentleman galactic courtship tends towards the 'rapid' to say the least."
Sir David sits up a bit more, leaning in and getting the assembled troops attention. "That goes double for me chaps. You don't owe anyone love, or sex, or anything else, but you will comport yourselves as the gentlemen I know you are."
The 'or else' at the end of that statement wasn't voiced, but it certainly hung in the air long enough for everyone to be aware of its presence.
First Sergeant Gurung nods from his chair in the corner. "And your mothers would be disappointed in you if you don't. I'll be disappointed in you too, my fine adopted sons. Let us all conduct ourselves like proper men."
There's a general tone of agreement in the room at that, though one could wonder if disappointing their mothers, disappointing Top, or engendering the wrath of their commanders is what convinced everyone to play along.
Jerry clears his throat to regain everyone’s attention, then triggers the projector again. A new image pops up, displaying cartoon depictions of normal galactic marriages with stick figures. Universally the male figure is highly outnumbered, but the major variation seems to be the distance and grouping of the female figures from the male figure. Everything from more tight knit groups, to a tight core, to only the head wife figure being right next to the husband, with the rest of the wives orbiting at a distance.
"Marriages in the galaxy work more like clans back home, but with only one actual male serving as a husband to all first generation members. They get the marriage locked down first, and work the feelings out after the fact, because marriages are predominantly about security, economic, physical and otherwise. This is old school by our species standards, but not unknown to us. Communicate effectively and clearly and these girls will almost certainly be willing to play ball if you want to take it slow. As the man in the galaxy you have the power to control the pace of relationships, just like the girls do back on Earth. Outside of pirates and similar trash we've traded roles and are expected to be the soft power in any given situation, while Petty Officer Ramos should take my job."
There's some laughter, and Isabella pantomimes considering the idea and discarding it to some more laughter. Once everyone's settled back down, Jerry continues;
"Just remember getting to second base can be seen as a marriage proposal. We're also still processing what this is going to mean for our own fraternization regs... that discussion is ongoing, but I believe they will be loosened significantly. If that's of interest to anyone in this room."
Jerry and Isabella make a brief eye contact before his eyes shift over to Johnny. The Marine raider couple exchange a significant look of their own as Jerry moves on to finish the brief. They tried to keep it somewhat subtle, but Jerry knew they'd been dating for well over a decade, and was there when they'd started going out.
There were no secrets from the Skipper. Not in his Raider unit.
"Alright, so standard gear loadouts for this trip. Low profile armor, sidearm, boot knife, kukri, and a short carbine or SMG in an axiom pocket are the bare goddamn minimum for you jokers. This is a heavy urban environment with a lot of really out there bad girls that will gladly take a swipe at any one of us if we go to the shitty parts of the city. Isabella you're included this time. We're the new kids on the block so we are of interest and valuable, in addition to the majority of this room being rarer than hen's teeth. They also don't seem to understand we're a warrior species. People are only just getting the idea we're what's called an "Apex'' species, the 'on the ball' and aggressive part of the galactic hierarchy. We're also liable to be mistaken for our distant cousins the Tret..."
Another image pops up displaying a male and a female Tret side by side. Distinctly, familiarly, human... in shape at least. In reality of course they were as human as the four armed Rabbis, they looked comparable and that was about it. A surface level similarity only.
"Also known as BMO 1/100 #3 per galactic designation. One of the eggheads was telling me they think we actually evolved around the same time as the Tret, and obviously we followed similar paths of being tool using apes. Except they had axiom, we did not. So they were one of the first species on the galactic scene, we're one of the last. Biologically, the differences are pretty stark. So feel free to put people on notice. Thanks to the Shay incident we are being handled differently by law enforcement on some spires on Centris, and are in a similar category to an Apuk battle princess, namely anyone who's stupid enough to attack you committed suicide legally speaking. So feel free to enjoy that candy for your ego..."
By the time the briefing is finished, everyone is still bright eyed and bushy tailed, eager to get out and see an alien world without being behind a rifle, but the brief had the effect Jerry wanted, most of the men are taking this seriously.
Which meant Jerry's own secret mission could begin.