Space combat is generally a long drawn out process as ships detect each other and maneuver across the length of a star system. All that gets dumpstered when it comes to gate battles as twenty ships emerge from the same cubic kilometer of space. In such close quarters visible sensors become meaningful, armor becomes ramming tools, point defence clusters pivot into offensive missiles. Two systems human based civilizations specialize in. Singularity frigates rolled dumping munitions from every tube in a mad scatter. Smart missiles flew at maximum burn seeking targets and finding bioships. Chaff pods, counter mines, and the living ammunition of the biofleet countered with all tentacles, launching their own point defense pods in futile retaliation.

“Haime! We’ve got Azhurai missiles headed our way!” Jim snapped.

“Shut it greenhorn. Keep thrusting.” Yelled Haime, watching their velocity increase before glancing at the tactical overlay. “Oh thank the gods.” He whispered, visibly relaxing as a dozen nuclear missiles carved the space between Azhurai and Arship.

Jim leapt out of his seat grasping Haime by the collar. “WE ARE ABOUT TO DIE!” He screamed.

“Calm down greenie. You’ve never shared space with the Azhurai have you?”

“I swear to god i’ll cut your dick off if we die Haime!”

The older man laughed, knowing there was nothing left to do. “No shame in it. Azhurai shouldn’t be in this spiral arm at all. Anyways, look, the conglomerate is thousands of species working together in a sort of coerced union. But all ships and munitions are built to a strict standard, has to be, otherwise munitions won’t work in different ships. So they are predictable.” Haime tapped his neural implant, giving himself a direct slap of dopamine.

If he was going to die today, he would die happy. Jim strongly considered shooting him then and there. Hand touching his pistol. The shipboard AI projected itself behind Haime, taking the form of a human woman and shook her head. She didn’t need to say anything, they both knew Jim couldn’t fly the ship without her support. Furious he shoved the dope addict back into his chair.

“Then predict us a way out!”

Haime’s face slumped in the half open smile of an addict receiving their fix.“Planets orbit stars, doesn’t mean you can stop night from coming. Azhurai only use cloaked missiles, those are feints. Ha Conglomerate knows they’ve already won, ah and sent those missiles to cover our asses. Look, there.” He said, pointing to the tactical projection. A tiny ship, probably the first vessel of an enterprising new species was racing towards the arkship at full thrust, no doubt hoping to hide behind a neutral vessel or land on the moon and stake their claim. Two Azhurai missiles blinked away, cloaking devices activating before beginning their burns. A second later the vessel exploded, shields flickering away as it buckled and bent in half, innards exposed to hard vacuum. Then the second missile hit vaporizing what little remained.

Across the atmosphere the battle raged. Singularity point defense beams carved a bioship in half, burning through organic armor in a desperate attempt to divert its momentum. But the Collective knew the value of their ships and the value of a frigate, simple economics took control sentencing every lifeform aboard that bioship to death on the hope of ramming the frigate. A venture both parties were half successful in, as the bioship split, aft end spiraling into deep space while the prow connected amidship. Dropping its shields and puncturing armor. Bioforms would soon infest the human ship turning every hallway into a charnel field.

The other factions didn’t give them a chance. Nuclear warheads slagged the bioship into a jet of plasma that poured into the frigate melting the gooey human center. Gaseous steel slagged the reactor and the ship vanished as a second star was created.

Of the twenty ships who first transited the gate less than half now maneuvered. Energy collected around the Azhurai prism ship lancing forth to carve three bioships from stern to aft. Jim blinked as the AI classified that single shot as ‘point defense’. A system generally considered the weakest offensively.

“We’re dead.” He whispered.

As if to mock him the Azhurai ship rotated one hundred and eighty degrees firing their main array to bisect a dreadnought. He was familiar with the Technocracy design, blinking dumbly as the asteroid moon and her ten million crewmen -if you could call wet cyborgs people- died, gone in a second.

Then the Conglomerate vessel issued a message. As if firepower needed any commentary.

“Comply or be destroyed.” It read.

Ships continued rotating, but not a single missile or battery fired. A readout of the planet accompanied the message indicating the Azhurai’s plans for development. They would claim two of the surface gates, both located in Eurasia, everything else was free game.

Two Singularity frigates angled for the Americas, shadowed by the Technocracy dreadnought. While the injured bioships angled for the southern tip of Africa, clearly the loser of this engagement. Half their ships were gone, easy targets for the more advanced races of a hostile galaxy.

Jim and Haime lost interest after the Azhurai laid claim. Earth was going to be carved into pieces then farmed until everything of galactic value bled from the ruined husk.

“Poor bastards.” Muttered Jim.

“Never thought I’d see another Azhurai ship. Twenty billion habitable worlds and they cold dialed this one.” Said Haime, shaking his head.

“What are the chances four perennial enemies show up the second our gate goes live? Fuck this. I’m leaving. Get us through the gate before another one of the nameless’ clients show up. I get the Singularity and Technomancy monitoring this galactic arm for new worlds, but having two dreadnoughts ready to jump? Collective Bioships too? Hell naw. I’d rather shave my balls in lava.” Said Jim, standing and heading for the cryotubes.

Haime wore a lazy smile on his face, drugged out of his right mind, “As if you can count past ten! Ha! Azhurai own this system now. Ah, fine, I’ll warm up the engines. Mmmmm, I took too much. Take care of any cargo not worth its hold space and recycle them fatties. Maybe mind wipe one or two of the sweeter things for ourselves. You know what I like.” Said Haime, selecting a million cryopods and sending their obese occupants into the protein recycler.

“You old perve.” Jim sneered, clearing the cockpit as the ship trembled.

Emergency thrusters cooled as the main engines returned to normal operations, no longer sacrificing internals for a little more thrust.

“Give me gate statuses.” Ordered Jim.

“Eight gates are unpowered, with only the primary warp gate in orbit possessing the necessary energies.” Answered the ship’s AI program, codenamed as Felicia.

Jim grunted in acknowledgement. He only needed the warp gate to instantly move between systems. While faster than light travel existed on every Singularity vessel, most could only perform jumps within a solar system, and if a captain was fool enough to burn the fuel. Far cheaper to connect a few reactors and power the orbital gate.

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Which provided free travel to all species on the sole condition you feed it more power than the jump required. No problem for a starship and nearly impossible for these particular earthlings. Jim winced, one way or another the Azhurai will solve that dilemma, most likely by advancing their newest captives to the point of useful slaves. Within a year they’ll grow crystal mountains to protect their reactors and gate travel. Then the real conquest will begin.

At least that is what the Singularity would do. Establish a beachhead with ships then power the much smaller gates for mass transit of resources offworld.

“Sucks to suck earthlings. Sorry but you weren’t gonna survive either way. Aint no way to avoid getting fed into a recycler on Syrak-9. Not unless the heavens open and xeno-Jebus saves you. Or Kaalra thinks you’re cute.” Says Jim, shaking his head softly before flushing a few hundred thousand morbidly obese.

Massive recyclers would break them down into molecules, scrub undesirables like heavy metals, drugs both prescription and recreational, all non-human DNA –bugs or parasites– and then store the molecules in ready to consume bars. The fatties would never choke back another Twinky, but they would be choked back. Good riddance. A few of the women catch his eye, one has a golden ring hanging from her nipple, no tattoos though. Not good enough for Haime.

“You and your obsession with pierced nipples.” Groaned Jim, already typing commands to the ship’s AI. “Cycle all the skitzos to the back, rank them from least to most insane, then sort out any abnormalities.”

“Yes sir.” Answered Felicia.

Blast doors hissed open for him, cycling as he walks. Not paying attention as the AI sealed each door before unsealing the next, it was standard protocol aboard any ship. Just another part of life in hard vacuum. Besides the stroll gave him time to flush a million of the worst basketcases. Six intervening airlocks divided the freighter, preventing any one breach from killing every soul aboard. Still, the ship was larger than imagination, hundreds of billions fit inside each section on this arkship, adding up to the sum total of one trillion cryopods. Jim smiled at the sleeping audience. Occupants hanging on his approval for life and death. About half of those were currently full, but that was alright. You never wanted to be at 100% capacity, then every technical fault or power hiccup would cut into your profits.

“Faults detected, unable to access one hundred and four candidates,” Began the ship’s AI, “Displaying four million, eight hundred and–”

“Recycle any that have less than ninety percent compatibility with flash training.” Interrupted Jim, hoping to save himself some work.

Certain mental abnormalities would prevent the flash training from taking hold, and that would result in wig outs. People who remembered their lives on earth and their time in the tubes, as well as the flash training process. Aware of three separate lives which seemed to break people. Or maybe it was just the fact that aliens were real.

Schizophrenics were the worst. No matter how thoroughly you erased them, or how many times they underwent flash training it was only a matter of time before they went postal on the same people who paid good money for these draftees. As a freelancer it was easy for Jim to collect a few extra people, but this haul would set a performance record for the galactic quadrant. He’d HAVE to siphon a few million people off the top just to make this believable. Otherwise they’d have a dozen Singularity AIs crawling up and down his throat; investigating every aspect of his cover story. Jim activated his neural link, the -private- one, and sent a dozen messages to interested buyers in two dozen solar systems.

[Got extra merchandise, top quality, or in quantity. Need to offload quick. Discounts for purchases exceeding a million.]

Jim Sent the message, smiling as buyers lined up. With the numbers they were offering him, the feds wouldn’t be able to touch him. Hell, two crazy aliens were offering him planets! Most likely they were dead worlds stripped of resources, but it was the thought that mattered.

He laughed. Hooting with joy for long minutes before returning to work, tablet reading millions of schizophrenics on board. All of them liabilities.

“Aw hell, revise ninety percent compatibility with ninety five percent. Loop in the other harvests too. Lets deliver triple-A goods and keep the wig outs to a minimum.” Said Jim.

“Ten million candidates fall below that threshold.”

Jim pressed the button to recycle them. Seconds later a message appeared.

[ERROR: Recycler is full.]

“Oh baby, a hold full of rations and a billion person bonus haul? Yes please, ice my birthday cake some more.” Said Jim, casually flushing the remaining nine million people into space. They died without ever feeling a thing. A mercy that Apollo Finley would soon come to dream of.

The AI dutifully aimed each person on a collision course with the nearest atmosphere, a standard practice meant to burn up on space debris. Over the next few weeks Earth would be treated to countless meteor showers as millions of their draftees returned home.

Five minutes later the AI spoke again, “All nine million vented, approximately two hundred thousand anomalies remaining. One urgent fault.”

Urgent faults included many things, from someone who could not be flash trained all the way up to psionic boarding parties or a -nameless- ambassador.

“Teleport me.” Snapped Jim, reaching for his sidearm.

Cool Vanadium alloy brushed against his fingers. The simplest solution to an ‘urgent fault’ was a bullet between the eyes. Energy weapons like beamers or lasers or phasers were more effective, but this was a ship. Frangible slugs were safer, poking less holes in things you didn’t want to depressurize. Like the outer hull or your cargo. Loose crazies aboard a spaceship could get them all killed. Blue light flashed once, fading as he appeared in front of a man’s tube. He jerked in surprise at the arrival, feet kicking as he aimed some kind of pistol at Jim. Security shielding blinked into life, surrounding Jim and the man frowned.

“Is that weapon dangerous?” Asked Jim.

“Slug based, self contained chemical propellant, with expanding ammunition. Only effective against unshielded soft targets. No ability to penetrate cryotube.” Said Felicia. Jim let out a whoosh of air. Moving his finger off the trigger.

He glanced up and down the corridor, seeing everyone else asleep in their tubes, including a thicc woman, curled into a ball, arms covering double Ds. Attractive, but not Jim’s type, nor was she Haime’s. That pervert spent too much time in simulations, nowadays the only thing that could provide suitable stimulation came from impossible amalgamations. Things nothing other than a customized robot could provide.

“Ha, after this payday, maybe I’ll buy the jackass a few catgirlbots. At least then he’ll leave the merchandise alone.” Jim laughed, jabbing a finger at the man’s nameplate.

“Apollo Finley” appeared on it.

His barrel poked the readout, opening a communication link into the cryotube.

‘Suitability with flash training, 500% match.’ It read.

“Five hundred? What the hell? Felicia! Run some diagnostics! Aint no way. What kind of cyber crack are you smoking– Ah, the brain scanner fell off.” Jim said, fear turning to humor as he realized the tube was suggesting cryogel was the perfect match for flash training.

“As if. Ha, we’d clone people if that worked. Hey! Apollo Finley,” Said Jim, tapping against the cryotube’s glass, “put that crown on or I’m gonna flush you into deep space. You’ll freeze to death mighty fast, but it’ll be a painful few seconds. Bad way to go.”

His eyes shot wide, mouth opening as words were translated. Jim rolled his eyes, ignoring Apollo’s sudden wet screaming. Classic hysteria. He held up three fingers, counting down.

“Flushing in three, two–”

Apollo scrambled, hands grasping in the viscous fluid for the neurallink. It slid onto his bald head, soon inserting itself into the brainstem and linking Felicia, the onboard AI directly with his consciousness.

“Anomaly, compatibility rising to three thousand percent.”

“Link in cryotubes until compatibility equalizes!” Snapped Jim, his mind working as he leered at the readouts.

Three thousand percent was impossible for a baseline human. Usually indicating some kind of trauma induced schizophrenia event. Or some abnormality. Except there was a one in a million chance that kept him anchored, staying his itching fingers from disposing of Apollo. Two cryopods added their onboard processing forming a three way linkage. Compatibility lowered to 1000%. A near perfect specimen. Young, intelligent but not cynical, cooperative yet independent, that left two remaining questions. Jim’s tongue ran over his lips, working the spit around his mouth.

“Analyze ESP potential.” He whispered.