Stellarforged - Ch3 (Bastion+)

Note: In light of the recent Patreon update and the post-Mob hiatus, I'm posting these at the Bastion level. There won't be any new chapters past these first six for a while with the upcoming hiatus.

Ethan allowed Sai’s words to soak in. His eyes scanned the sterile room while he took a sip of his coffee. His noisy slurp somehow didn’t echo off the empty walls, indicating some sort of sound deadening technology was in use.

For her part, Sai leaned back and smiled at him. Those cold, slit eyes barely moved. Her tail flitted back and forth, as if taunting him.

The futility and isolation set in. Sai’s Faecrim soldiers had taken over the station, taking him to a section away from monitoring. She’d even blocked all external observation.

If he said no, she’d kill him and find a new puppet. Claim he reached for a weapon. A compact handgun sat on her trim waist, and he swore she shifted her body as if to push her impressive thighs closer to him when he glanced at it for the briefest of instants.

Obviously he’d agree. Then what? Go to the Rim and be instantly shot out of an airlock once his usefulness expended itself?

No. He needed to get help sooner rather than later. Which meant reaching out to the peacekeepers. They possessed the only force capable of helping. Except…

“They’re all too young to even think about disobeying me,” Sai said, her smile widening. “And now you’ve realized the real reason you can’t escape me. I can read your thoughts, Ethan. Yany and Euressa are nulls, but too weak to affect my abilities, even should you sheathe your cock inside one of them and the other rides your mouth.”

He scowled at her. “How long have you planned this?”

Everything began to come together in a way that felt too coincidental to be one.

The clones had been switched out recently according to Kaylee, the clone he’d spoken with yesterday. All the new ones were young and therefore lacked the will to recognize a suspicious situation like this one.

He’d been given an odd contract in Sol, which had then gotten him tied up in paperwork. Sure, Sai showed up the next day, but what if she’d been tied up in FTL? System-to-system travel took days. Ethan had taken a week to get to Sol from Yinil space, and the trip from Dominio took at least twice that long.

“Huh. You’re sharper than I expected. Guess you couldn’t manage as a privateer if you couldn’t pick out scams.” Sai tweaked the tip of his nose and he recoiled. “Yes, it was all me. I wanted somewhere isolated so that if you go missing, there won’t be anything to investigate.”

“How do you even have the influence to manage this?” he asked. “If the Rim is independent, how can the Union choose the next administrator?”

“Because the previous administrator and entire board of the Folimai Association died unexpectedly in a catastrophic attack.” Sai smirked. “Without an elected heir or any path to choose one, the agreement the Union struck with the Association 700 cycles ago took precedence.”

His analytics module handily converted that to 500 Earth years.

He narrowed his eyes. “I’m sure you had nothing to do with that attack.”

She laughed. “I didn’t, no.”

Ethan didn’t know if he believed that. But the fact the Union, or the Vaelix at least, had wiped out the board of the Association that ruled the Rim was clear.

“Then why sit on the Rim, leaving it rudderless, for fifty cycles?” he asked.

“There’s a peacekeeping fleet out there. A bunch of Taer clones, much like here.” She waved dismissively. “The problem is quite pernicious, unfortunately. The original agreement requires a male to become administrator, and the Rim is nearly bereft of them. Men are a rare commodity, as you well know. Male emigration is heavily restricted by every major interstellar power.”

He nodded. He rarely deboarded outside Vaelix space for that reason, as the Protectorate had strong laws to protect him and the Faecrim law enforcers happily blew away horny Taer on sight. The rest might forcibly claim him as a new male citizen the moment he set foot on a station and he’d spend the rest of his life in the palace of some rich Yinil or Taer.

Sai continued, “The problem is political. If any of the major powers got control of the Rim, they’d get a free slice of the galaxy. So the Union’s argued over it endlessly. Until now.”

“And nobody will object?” Ethan raised an eyebrow.

“Barely anybody will even notice. The Rim was suppressed in Union records so strongly some think we vaporized it entirely. A human administrator with Union support will be considered a return to business as usual.”

And Sai would get her own empire, and her own man.

Ethan at least knew he couldn’t be replaced too easily, if the Union had sat on the Rim for so long due to the male problem.

“Why me, then?” he asked. “To bring up the obvious. There are billions of idiots down there.”

“I needed somebody on the other side of the uplifting restrictions, for one,” the fox explained in an almost bored tone. “Preferably someone with a few brain cells. Young, decent to look at, no noted problems with non-humans—that part cut down the candidates the most. Humans still hold a pointless grudge over the peacekeeping intervention.”

“It’s almost like you blew up half the world, our governments, and basically an entire half of the political spectrum when you arrived fifty years ago,” he said.

“Your parents were teenagers then. More people your age should think of all the Vaelix and Taer pornography, spaceships, and space lasers, and forget about the wreckage.”

“You don’t have space lasers. Not good ones, anyway.”

Her tail swung around and batted him in the arm. It might have been the fluffiest thing he’d ever felt. As if a cloud made of fur brushed him.

“Ultimately, I chose you because you were convenient and the least suspect,” Sai said. “Precious few humans have left the Sol system, and there are a grand total of three human privateers active. It was easier to isolate a privateer than, say, an accountant working on Dominio. There’s nothing special about you, but that’s precisely why you work. The right human in the right place to make my plan work.” She tilted her head. “I guess that does make you special.”

Her eyes bore into him and she drummed her fingers on the steel table. For the first time since entering, she took a sip of water after pouring some into a separate glass.

Silence dominated the room.

Thinking didn’t really help Ethan. Any plan he thought up, Sai knew.

But once he thought about her offer, instead of his instinctive rebellion, it became more and more attractive. Ruling multiple solar systems. All the women he wanted at his beck and call. Entire fleets of warships. Wealth beyond his wildest dreams, instead of mounting debt.

And who knew what wonders he’d find at the edges of the explored galaxy. It was called the Rim for a reason, right?

“It is, yes,” Sai said, picking up on his thoughts. “It was given away by the Union for that reason. It’s as far from the edge of Vaelix space as Yinil space is. Over the past 700 cycles, the Taer and Yinil have crept closer, but it’s still the explored edge of that part of the Milky Way. It’s a big galaxy.”

“Back then, the Taer were on the verge of their civil war,” he mused.

“Indeed. They’d only been an interstellar power for three hundred cycles or so.”

They returned to silence. But not for long.

“I don’t really have a choice,” he said.

“Please. You have a choice.” She rolled her eyes. “If you truly can’t bring yourself to be my puppet, I’ll know. Don’t make this decision half-heartedly. I don’t want to go all the way out to the ass-end of nowhere, only to fry your mind the second you think you can have somebody shoot me for you.”

He hadn’t even thought of that. A shame she’d thought of it before him, as he couldn’t even blame her telepathy for ruining a good assassination plan.

“Make peace with the idea of being my partner, or don’t.” She stood up and straightened out her dress. “You’ll have a week to decide for sure. That’s how long it will take us to reach Dominio Hyrium. Yany will prepare your quarters aboard the ship. You’re not allowed to fuck her, but feel free to turn Euressa into a drooling mess if she shows interest.”

Without another word, Sai strode out of the interrogation room. Ethan’s senses cleared from a fuzzy sensation he’d almost forgotten about, and the lights flickered.

Yany and several of the Void Hounds led him to the ship. The Faecrim had cleared out of the station, and he saw the regular personnel bustling about as they strode along the corridors and concourses. Some openly gawked at them.

His quarters turned out to be the nicest room he’d stayed in… maybe ever. A small suite with a separate living space to the bedroom. Even the bathroom felt spacious when he glanced in. It had a fucking bathtub.

When he’d looked into buying ships, bathtubs hadn’t even been an option. They took up space, required huge volumes of water, and put immense pressure on the recycling systems. The tiny shower on Ethan’s ship only really ran for five minutes, but it was a blessing.

This suite felt like a five-star hotel room. Sai was buttering him up.

“Do all Vaelix ships have officer suites like this?” he asked Yany.

The Faecrim unicorn stood just inside the door. It was closed, but he knew a pair of guards stood just outside. The Void Hounds had peeled away, leaving the Faecrim crew and soldiers to take care of Ethan.

“My suite is similar. The Joint Protectorate can afford luxuries such as this for its officers,” Yany said. “As the USW Haeria was built for force projection, including troop transportation, it includes a larger number of crew quarters than usual.”

Fancy.

“Let me know if you need anything,” Yany said. She gestured to a comms device on the wall, which he recognized from his time on Dominio. “This will go directly to my module, although Euressa will also be aware. The ship has a staggered schedule for meal times, but the cooks can make anything at any time. There is no ‘lights out.’ If you wish to explore, let me know in advance, as the Void Hounds must escort you.”

“Is there anything I can’t do?” he asked.

She frowned and tilted her head. “The Void Hounds will prevent you from going anywhere restricted, and you do not have permission to enter other quarters. If you enter the bridge or engineering, you may only look, not touch. However…”

Her hesitation was unusual, at least from the little he’d seen of the unicorn.

“This a personal request?” Ethan raised an eyebrow.

Yany flushed and scratched her cheek, unable to meet his gaze. “It is. The Faecrim on-board are relatively young clones. They are following their training when it comes to dealing with males, but it will be difficult for them. I would appreciate it if you avoided the canteens and recreational facilities. If you wish to use any, I can make them available—”

“It’s fine,” he said quickly. “I can manage a week on my own without harassing the crew.”

She almost made him feel bad about saying mean things about the clones when they’d first met. It was unusual to meet someone who actually cared.

“Thank you.” She paused and then gave him an odd look. “Mistress Sailiferia gave ambiguous instructions, but I understand that… intimate requests are not off-limits. I would also hope you leave the Faecrim crew out of it. The Void Hounds may be more willing.”

“I think I can also manage a week without getting my dick wet.” Also, he wanted to be able to walk in a week. If he invited one of the Taer into his bed, he might find the rest of the squad following.

Yany nodded, but her blush increased. “I will leave you to it.”

The week passed quickly. In part because he spent the first couple of days out of it, as he travelled on a ship with its own psychic for the first time in years. Being in foldspace required constant effort from the Pathbuilder, and while the ship was shielded against psychic emanations, he felt the power being exerted by the psychic inside the ship.

Yany nursed him on-and-off until they reached Yinil space. He vaguely recalled her pouring water down his throat and making him taking some pills, although he also slept a lot. Probably on his pillow, as he suspected his dreams of using her lap to sleep on were exactly that.

Once in Yinil space, the pressure eased. They relied on foldgates instead of the ship’s pathbuilder.

Several new sets of clothing, almost perfectly tailored to his size, had been placed in his quarters. Black form-fitting clothing with red trims and little other decoration. They left little skin showing below his chin. He stood on the bridge, Yany, Euressa, and a trio of Void Hounds behind him. No Sai in sight.

The countless viewing monitors displayed a mixture of visuals of the system. Some used external cameras. Others maps created from various forms of radar, including IR and presumably the Pathbuilder’s sensors.

A bulky Yinil battleship shadowed them as they crossed the system. Like everything Yinil, it was huge, bubbled with strange pieces of glowing technology, and appeared more like a misshapen hunk of steel with engines and cannons attached to it. Ethan struggled to work out what were missile tubes, cannons, point-defense systems, and just random pieces of steel adhered to the gigantic hull.

The towering foldgate matched the aesthetic. Like every foldgate Ethan had ever seen, a pair of antennae shot hundreds of miles in opposite directions. Pathbuilders lived at either end to operate the foldgate. A space station bulged from the center, bristling with weaponry and a dock with many civilian ships. Numerous Yinil warships buzzed around, including several destroyers that joined the battleship.

“I had expected to be harassed again,” Yany observed aloud.

“Maybe the <dragons> used all those cybernetics they love to remember what we did to that <cutter>,” a Void Hound growled. She was the tall one from Ethan’s hotel room. He’d learned her name was Kiels during the brief times he’d been aware the past couple of days.

“It would be nice if the Yinil were capable of learning,” Yany said.

Ethan said nothing. While he had a lot of opinions of the various interstellar races, he certainly wouldn’t say that the Yinil were stupid.

If anything, the opposite. They devoured knowledge faster than they could properly use it. Their ships looked like technological abominations for exactly that reason. The Vaelix had spent millennia combining their advanced tech with aesthetics, while the Yinil did everything necessary to compete in an unfair galaxy.

It took an hour to use the foldgate. Negotiations with the station, plus positioning themselves correctly. Ethan felt it was odd for a warship with their own Pathbuilder to rely on the foldgates, even if it was technically more efficient. They could avoid the bureaucracy by simply creating a path directly from Sol to Dominio and fly there. The fuel cost would have been lower, too. They’d have to use at least two more foldgates, too. Yinil space was too far from Dominio to maintain a permanent direct connection.

Five days after the trip started, they finally made it to Vaelix space. Ethan had gotten used to the ship, and Yany visited him twice a day. Usually just to chat. Given he estimated her to be much, much older than he was, he suspected Sai wanted her to assess him. Yany focused too much on his past on Earth and why he chose to be a privateer.

“You could have made a fortune as an independent human male,” she said. “A privateer spends most of what he makes on expenses. Debt payments on the ship; fuel costs; FTL fees; food and water; taxes. The list goes on. It’s romanticized, but privateers exist to do the work companies don’t like paying the price they should.”

She sat cross-legged in his suite, wearing matching form-fitting clothing to his. Except it looked more indecent on her, with the way it adhered to her curves. She drank a milky but mildly sweet liquid common to the Protectorate. It was apparently a factory-produced liquid based on a now-extinct fruit from the Faecrim homeworld. Typhon juice or something, although it had a thousand brand names now. Ethan avoided it, as it was poisonous to humans.

“You’re asking why I didn’t wave my dick at a rich alien and live a life of splendor,” he said flatly.

“That is one way to interpret my question, yes.” Yany inclined her head. “I was born a null. It granted me opportunities denied to 99% of my race. The same applies to males of my race, and every other <humanoid> race. I don’t know any that denied what they were born with. Why make that decision?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “It, uh, didn’t feel that special. My dreams were to see the stars, explore a galaxy only described in fiction and smuggled vids played on badly reverse-engineered technology. I’ve seen enough of that that I want more, and sentencing myself to a life in a palace, even if it means endless blowjobs is… not my future.”

Yany blushed and tried to hide it with her cup. “I see. I assumed your resistance was cultural. But it’s personal. Do you think the Rim can offer that?”

“I…” He paused. “I bet it can, can’t it? There’s no precursor tech, or old AIs, or other crazy shit to be found in the middle of the most heavily colonized sector of the galaxy. But I bet the Rim isn’t like that.”

“I suppose we’ll find out together.”

A day later, Sai finally showed herself. She’d done her hair up in bun with oversized blue ribbons and wore silver earrings with blue gemstones the size of her eyes. They looked like sapphires, but obviously weren’t. Ethan knew too little about alien gemstones to know what they might actually be. Valuable, he guessed. She wore a skintight leotard with stockings, while frilly pieces hung from her body to cover the important parts.

“We’ll arrive in Dominio tomorrow,” the fox said as she strutted in.

Ethan caught a glimpse of her unicorn assistants outside of the door before it shut. A familiar fuzziness fell over his mind, and he poured some juice to shut it out.

“Do I need to ask what you’re here for?” he asked.

“It’s helpful if you get to the point. I’d hate to have to throw you away given Yany likes you. Although the puppies would appreciate getting bred, I suppose. I’m surprised you never tried fucking them,” Sai said.

“It didn’t seem wise.”

She snorted. “Wow. A male who doesn’t think with his dick.” She eyed him warily, and he noticed her demeanor was different. “Being around you in person is different than reading about you, I will say. Perhaps you changed the moment you knew your life would change. That’s not a bad thing. For reference, the Hounds were on orders not to fuck you. My threat to feed you to them wouldn’t work if they had access to you, and unlike the clones, they might disobey me.”

“And Yany?” he asked.

“Please. You already know she’s testing you.” Sai tapped the side of her head. “She’s been with me for nearly two hundred years. Faecrim are a short-lived species, so she’s had more than one brain transfer. We’ve long since solved their physical issues, but braindeath kicks in at seventy cycles.”

Roughly fifty years. That was rough. Although that likely meant Faecrim had a lifespan of up to seventy human years, given humans lived over a hundred years.

“I take it Euressa is young?”

Sai shrugged, clearly unwilling to give any potential weaknesses. “So?”

No point in beating around the bush. “You have a deal. But I won’t be a puppet.”

“You think you have a choice?”

“I think that you’ll need a willing partner once I’m in charge of the corporation that controls a slice of the galaxy.” He smirked at her. “But I’m willing to play ball. If you—”

“Finish that lewd joke and you’ll need a pair of cybernetic balls,” Sai growled. “Let me make things clear, Ethan. You’re not wrong. I do need a partner. A willing one. But things will go much more smoothly if you understand that I’m never going to be there to service you. You get the power, the harem, the opportunity to see the stars. And I get to be more than I’d ever be as upper-middle management in the Union. It’s win-win.”

He met her gaze. She straightened up, tail curling behind her, and stared at him. Her arrogance and coldness vanished for a moment, and he saw the raw, fierce desire she held.

Not for him, but the power and potential standing behind him, should he take this opportunity with both hands.

“Fine,” he said. “Just don’t ask me to polish your pearl without giving in return.”

“Excellent.” Sai clapped and smiled at him, her whole body bouncing.

She’d moved so energetically that he nearly missed the sigh of relief she released when he agreed.

A long crystal bottle appeared in her hand with a shimmer of air, and she grabbed two wine glasses. Ethan half-expected her to take both for herself, but she offered him one.

“To our partnership.” She beamed at him and held her glass up. “I believe it’s a common human practice to clink the glasses together, no?”

“It is.” His wine glass tinkled against hers. “To our partnership.”

They drank. The alcoholic drink tasted utterly unlike any wine he’d had, or other alcohol he’d had since leaving Earth. It tasted like happy memories, the ripe fruit he’d once picked on a trip to a real farm with his parents as a kid, the rush he’d received when pushed back in his seat when the shuttle took off from Space Station Renewal, the absolute joy of buying his own spaceship, of seeing that glimpse of precursor tech for the first and only time.

The glass ended, and he stared into it.

“To more happy memories,” Sai said, her eyes teary and voice a step away from a sob. Her tail hung low.

Before he could say anything, she swept out of the suite.

Ethan clenched his fist and hoped like hell he hadn’t made a mistake.

The next day, they left the empty, blank void of foldspace and appeared near Dominio Hyrium, the central station of the Interstellar Union of Cooperation.

Innumerable vessels floated around a space station the size of Earth’s moon. Several gargantuan Vaelix battleships swept an orbit in the distance, while patrol ships darted among the many queues lined up for the station’s docking ports. The station was broken up into multiple connected modules, but even the connector modules were colossal monsters.

Entire cities existed within the station, some dedicated to service individual departments of the Union bureaucracy. Ethan had once heard the shield generators of the station, which had been used once in its millennia-long history, took up nearly as much space as the docks. Numerous small thrusters dotted the exterior, allowing the station to slowly maneuver if necessary. But it relied on a constantly active fleet of drones to clear away asteroids, meteorites, and debris.

Some of the cargo ships near the station didn’t line up to dock. Instead, they sat in a special area designated for mega-freighters and unmanned drones and smaller vessels unloaded the cargo. These ships might spend months travelling to the greatest industrial and agricultural systems, often at absurdly slow speeds even in foldspace, and were large enough they could wipe out a planet if they crashed. Other freighters would take their goods and distribute them across the galaxy. Although some would be destined for the station itself. Entire factories larger than anything humanity ever created existed to feed, clothe, and entertain the inhabitants aboard the station.

Ethan watched all this from the bridge. He’d seen Dominio many times, but always appreciated its scale. It was the true galactic hub. The only one, to his knowledge, thanks to the Union’s protection.

This time, Sai joined them. But as the crew negotiated the lengthy bureaucracy, relaying comms back and forth, she grew more nervous. Yany was the first to notice, which caused Ethan to pick up on it.

“Mistress?” Yany asked quietly.

Euressa’s head snapped over to the fox, but she held a hand up.

“There’s a Folimai ship in system,” Sai said. She was about to bite her thumbnail, but stopped herself. “And there’s something on it that shouldn’t be there.”

“How can you…” Yany bit back her question.

Either Sai had used her psychic abilities to scan the system, or she’d been checking ship logs with her modules. Then again, that comment about “something” made Ethan suspect the former.

“Do you want us to inform them we’ve arrived with the new Administrator?” Euressa asked.

“No,” Sai said.

The helmets of the Void Hounds blinked red, but they remained silent.

As if realizing how suspicious that sounded, Sai elaborated, “I asked the Association to send their best ship to escort their new Administrator back to the Rim. That should have been a small battleship at least, not some random cruiser. We need to find out what this ship is doing here.”

Yany narrowed her eyes. “Understood.”

She began barking orders at the bridge crew. The ship didn’t change its path, but several officers began operating their consoles with renewed fervor.

Sai turned to face Ethan. “You’re familiar with Dominio. Even as a Union warship, docking will take hours. If anything, it’s harder for us. There’s paperwork to file before they’ll even clear a space in a Union bay for us.”

It said a lot about the size of the station that it possessed internal docking bays large enough to contain a warship of this size. Then again, anything smaller than a capital ship was “small” compared to Dominio.

“How long do we think we’ll be disembarking for?” he asked her.

“Assume a month. Maybe two.” She shrugged. “The Rim is two weeks away even with a fast ship and a good Pathbuilder, which I’m not. If a proper Association ship doesn’t turn up, I’ll need to requisition a real Pathbuilder. There aren’t any foldgates that go to the Rim.”

It took Ethan a moment to realize what she meant. “Wait, you’ve been the ship’s on-board psychic the whole time?”

She stared at him as if he was an idiot. “Obviously. I’m a Vaelix. Even if I’m not a Pathbuilder, I can still move a mere cruiser through foldspace. It’s just tiring.”

Now he knew why she’d vanished for so long. Her scowl suggested she’d read his thoughts and that he should drop the topic.

“I’ll pack my things and get ready to disembark,” he said.

“Don’t rush,” Kiels, the Void Hound, said from behind him. “Or at least join us for a drink in the bar once you’re done. Docking day is always the worst.”

That he agreed with. While he liked Dominio, he hated docking. Lining up for upwards of five hours with nothing to do while his ship’s systems slowly took him in. At best, he might get boarded by a patrol ship, but the Union officers were too closely monitored to do anything interesting.

He passed the next few hours in the brightly lit bar of the ship. The only bar on the ship. It served a wide range of non-alcoholic drinks—most of which were flavored varieties of water—and watered down beverages.

Ethan had discovered alcohol and caffeine were constants across the galaxy. Fermenting food creating alcohol, and caffeine existed in a variety of plants. What changed was how it was enjoyed. The Taer drunk thick, dark beer similar to dark human ales, except denser and often with a herbal taste.

Even watered down, he watched how much he drank. The Taer drank from huge glasses as big as a liter bottles. Even if it was piss-water, he’d be on the floor after a few of those in an hour.

He knew they’d landed because of a very subtle shift in the feel of the ship. A vibration he hadn’t noticed ceased and the engines stopped. The Void Hounds noticed instantly, even if the Faecrim didn’t.

“You got good senses,” Kiels said, slapping him on the back. “Need to drink more, though.”

Sai and the unicorns met him at the exit, which already stood open to the station’s docking bay. He stepped out of the door and walked down the ramp. Then nearly stopped dead at the sight of the Union bay. Kiels nearly bowled him over, as she followed him down. She broke out in untranslated curses.

The cruiser sat in a bay with two other vessels, both smaller. Missile destroyers, if he had to guess from the countless tubes along their sides. The void of space hung open behind them. That was normal, as they relied on a special sort of shield that normalized pressure to operate massive hangar bays. Internal turrets bristled along the interior.

A hundred armored soldiers patrolled the bay, split between Faecrim and Taer. Flags of all the major interstellar powers—all Union members—hung from the ceiling far, far above them.

“You’d think you’d never seen a ship hangar,” Sai drawled when he finally reached them.

“Not a military one,” he admitted. “This is absurdly huge. You could fit five of the civilian ones in here.”

“It varies by the class of ship they need to contain,” Yany said. “Not every military hangar can accommodate cruisers. There are corporate hangars this large, too. For freighters.”

“And corporate warships?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “Like the Association one we’re investigating. It appears to be a prototype warship developed between the Joint Protectorate and Hotumrun a hundred cycles ago. It was deemed a failure by the Union and sold to the Association.”

“The cats know how to make weapons?” Kiels joked. “I thought they just rolled over when people made aggressive noises at them.”

Yany glared at the wolfgirl. But Kiels shut up when Sai joined in.

“I shouldn’t need to remind you that the Hotum have been exploring space well before the Taer,” Sai said coldly.

The Hotumrun were the second-oldest interstellar power. They were, to put it bluntly, catgirls. Ethan rarely saw them, as the Taer had emerged and seized their territory closest to Sol and the Vaelix. He wondered if they’d be just as scarce in the Rim.

Leaving the hangar took longer than Ethan expected. Not because of security or customs, but because Sai apparently had to take care of some paperwork before they could enter the station itself. The Union security officers had little to say. Most of them appeared to be clones, and appeared intimidated by the Void Hounds. Even if the wolves had taken their helmets off and only carried sidearms now they were on the station.

“Finally,” Sai said with an exasperated sigh. “I’ve arranged for some nice accommodations for us.” She glanced at the Taer. “All of us. I’ll send you the schedule for bodyguard detail, but Ethan isn’t to go anywhere on the station without you watching him. It doesn’t matter if he’s in the bathroom or sticking his dick in the Taeran Empress. You watch him.”

The Hounds saluted.

They barely made it around the corner from hangar security when they stopped dead. Sai hissed and recoiled, and the Hounds reached for their sidearms.

Fifty armored soldiers in black and gold regalia stood across from them, fanning across the massive station corridor. Station security stood by their sides with tasers, unsure how to act.

A Faecrim unicorn with the longest, darkest horn Ethan had ever seen stepped forward. She wore a black uniform with gold trim and a large golden neckerchief. Unlike other Faecrim, she possessed an almost-human physique. No overly large legs and a normal height of maybe 5’7. Although Ethan did appreciate the plump flesh of her thighs peeking out being her skirt and stockings. She looked utterly beautiful, too, with purple eyes that were like staring into the void and long purple hair tied up in a ponytail.

Those eyes locked onto Ethan’s and a bright smile crossed her face. “Sovereign Administrator Ethan Folimai, it is an absolute honor to meet you at last now that you have ascended to your position at the head of the Association. I am your new steward, Heafi. I have come to speed your transit to the Rim so you can begin restoring the Association to its former glory.”