I came awake by slow degrees to the low reverberating hum of the medical pod. Several robotic limbs adjusted and receded back into units as I shifted to full awareness. I stayed stock still as a purple light on a track scanned me from the soles of my feet to the top of my shaven scalp.

Then a green hue emitted over the pods glassy surface and a second later a depressurised hiss escaped as the pod unsealed.

I sat up and probed at my gut feeling the slightly raised skin of the cross scar there. “Well damn,” I muttered gratefully and shifted to looked to the holographic display depicting that all of my vitals were fine. I reached out and pinched the area over my head and saw that my neural-implant had been fixed as well.

Blinking my left eye twice I squinted as the ‘head-ups-display’ or HUD, sprang holographically into being partially overlaying around the left side of my vision. I noticed that my mail box had several messages and a brief overview of them was mainly from clients who were unhappy with my lack of recent updates.

They could wait a little bit longer.

I had been working as something of mercenary for the past five years after being medically discharge from the military. This had come after my brief but incredibly violent stint on the Taurus colony. A collection of worlds between the Zarian empire and the Moshai territory. High Orcs had attacked the otherwise peaceful colony with an invasion force.

The smallish garrison on Minis -4428, the last planet in the colony I had been assigned to at the time had fought tooth and nail against the High Orc onslaught. The battle had been bloody and terrible and in the end after months of negotiations. High Command had ransomed the world off for a price. All of the still free citizens left on Minis were escorted to carriers and taken off the world.

Myself and three others from the garrison had survived after half a year of continuous fighting. One had lost himself in the bottle and drank himself to death, while another had become a cheating bitch. My friend had been promoted same as me, but unlike I, he had proper ties in the military. He climbed the ranking ladder as I was promoted to colonel and medical discharged, deemed mentally unstable.

So yeah the Zarian empire had fucked my life up.

Nikhara who is actually half-orc, half-dryad. Had told me how her people were escaping their dying world. That the Zarian high council had agreed to loan the worlds to them, without informing the colony. And that as they arrived to settle on their potential new home the deal was called off.

So I went from lonely orphan on a world whose populace had mysteriously died, to a soldier fighting an unstoppable force with minimal odds of survival. To a mentally unstable colonel. And now I was a mercenary, smuggler, assassin, gunrunner, and contractor for the right price.

I was also way happier than I’d ever been in my life.

I got dressed into my casual clothing, tight dark grey pants and a light grey top. I waved my hand over the DNA reader by the door of the med-bay and it swished open.

“God, I am starving,” I said and wound my way down the corridor until I came to elevator. This one swished open automatically without prompt.

The Erebus had four levels to it if you didn’t count storage, cargo-bay and the operations deck. The level I was on with the med-bay was level four. On this floor was also the armoury in which we kept our extra weapons and suit mounts, if we had any. Engineering that over-looked the cargo bay. And a recreational area, of which included various exercise equipment and an augmented reality room.

I past level three as the elevator lifted up through my ship. Level three held a mess area, extra living quarters, an extra armoury though it wasn’t stocked with anything. As well as the ships engine room and two airlocks.

Level two had the crew’s living quarters, though Nikhara and Andrea stayed in my room on level one. Crew kitchen, communal showers, primary armoury, brig, and two airlocks.

Then came the floor I stepped out on as the elevator door swished aside to level one. On this were my quarters, an observation platform, star and territorial map display and a small person-sized airlock.

I could hear that shower running and guessed that it was Nikhara using it. Andrea being an android meant she only took a shower for the sheer pleasure and normality of it.

The rest of us had to literally sweat for a living unlike artificially synthetic life. Still I loved the crazy blue haired android immensely. Going towards my wardrobe, my floor was really just one massive bedroom. Equipped with all the necessities one would in a home. I had my own kitchen, bathing areas, multiple showers. A lounge with a visual display mounted opposite it. I mean I even had my own bar.

Which reminded me of the whiskey Nikhara had mentioned planet-side and I immediately took a detour over to pull out a bottle of Bosan Blue whiskey. Pouring myself a finger of the stuff I drank it neat and hissed as it’s spicy warmth cascaded down my throat.

Like the coolest of fires. The liquor seemed to invigorate me.

“Really Marcus,” a voice chided from behind me and I spun to drink in Nikhara towel drying her hair. Even though the showers had dry-jets, she still insisted to towelling herself down. Not that I was going to complain.

“You inviting me?” I smirked and pointedly looked her up and down. My half-orc, half-dryad wife was a thing of athletic beauty. She was lean with muscle yet somehow retained all of her feminine curves. I guessed that to be related to her dryad half.

We had spoken of her dual nature a while back, not long after Andrea and I had saved her. Apparently her mother wasn’t able to leave her grove back on the dryad home world—which was a mystery to pretty much everyone—so her High Orc chief of a father had taken Nikhara from her mother and set off for the stars.

There had been no resentment between us, even after we had discussed the Taurus colony. The fighting between our people, the death of many of my friends at her people hands.

But I didn’t blame her for that. I blame the aggressive nature of the High Orcs and the snide schemes of the Zarian high council.

“I would offer more,” Nikhara smirked at me as she planted her hands on her wonderful hips, her high round breasts and dark green nipples standing proudly for me to ogle. “But I’ve just cleaned myself of filth.”

“Ouch!” I laughed at her comment and strolled over to wrap my arms around her waist and squeeze her tight firm ass. Her skin was still slightly damp from her shower and I relished the warm full feel of her pressed up against me.

“I’ll make it to you,” I told her quietly, and leaned in to claimed her mouth with my own. Her minty breath filled me, and I luxuriated in the pressure on my groin as she ground herself against my rousing erection, moaning heatedly.

“It- feels … wrong,” she said softly as our mouths parted.

“Without Andii?” I hedged and she nodded. “Well then I can wait.” Then I growled and roughly gripped her ass and hauled her up, so her legs wrapped around my waist and I rubbed my constrained cock against her mound. Being sure to gain some friction against her clit.

Nikhara gasped and moaned as she closed lavender eyes and bit her full bottom lip. I could feel the wet heat of her, and it was taking all of my effort to not tear my clothes off and have my way with her.

“Captain!” A voice chirped over the speaker and I gasped out in shock and jumped. I had released Nikhara in my startlement and the orc-dryad looked up at the ceiling annoyed and shook her head.

I blinked through my neural-implant and connected to the link we three shared. A partial holographic display of Andii’ face filled the top left corner of my vision.

“What’s up my dear?” I asked her and grinned.

“Oh- thank god you’re awake. This admiral asshole has been constantly pinging our communications for the last three hours. Wanting to talk to someone called, ‘Hazard.’ When I told him no one of ship went by that name, he told me to ‘tell the lucky fucker that own’s your ship then that his old friend Bill needs a word with him.’”

I blinked and grinned as she did an impression of a surly man, and squinted both of her eyes at me.

“I’ll be there right away Andrea. Just connect his call to the ready room on the operations deck,” I informed her, and she huffed in annoyance.

“Have you seen Niki by the way? she’s meant to be taking her watch right now. And I have a ton of shit to repair.” I glanced from the display to see Nikhara pulling on a black pair of tight mesh leggings and dark purple tank top over her similarly purple underwear. The orc-dryad shot me a wink and strolled for the exit.

“I believe she’s on her way to you as we speak,” I told my android wife.

“Okay—” she waved at me and without further words cut the feed between us. I shook my head and turned back to walk over to my wardrobe. Pulling the doors open I saw the varnished wooden box that contained my revolver. Opening it, I stared in wonder at the old model. It was blocky silvery grey piece, that though felt clunky in my hand was still the best sidearm I’d ever had.

The newer models had done away with the revolving cylinder, for the ease of a magazine. And the latest of weaponry to hit the market all used the same calibre of berinium rounds. The design of my revolver was a fixed cylinder single-action. The dark red hardwood handle gleamed like congealed blood at me as my hand hovered over its titanium frame. The BRZ-15 revolver was my gun, and unfortunately my weapon had fuck all ammo remaining for it.

I had eight .22 calibre rounds that fit the old model left.

Now a days everything was either Berinium standard fare rounds or Energy cartridges. The latter of the two becoming more accessible as beam and laser tech increased in development.

Withdrawing the revolver I reached up for my shoulder holster, already equipped with the eight rounds in a clip I could easily unload from. I rarely loaded the gun anymore, only doing so when shit really needed a good hammering.

With it comfortably by my side I strolled out of the room and back into the corridor to the elevator, the door sliding open before I even reached it.

Andrea bounced out happily and grinned madly, as her blue bobbed hair that framed jawline whipped about as she sprinted at me and leapt onto chest.

I coughed as I caught her and stumbled. The blue-haired, blue eyed-artificial woman pressed her plump blue lips against my own. She was always tasted like honey with a coppery undertone.

“Niki said you were fine, but I just couldn’t believe it,” she gasped out.

“We literally just talked a seconds ago, Andii. Now, get off me before we fall over,” I told her and decided not to point out that she was artificial and there for couldn’t believe. An android processed everything through data and observation, drawing technical and logical conclusion from that.

That was something the Zarian empire would tell you. Something they made the majority of people believe about androids. That they were simply machines following a process set in them by us, their creators.

I knew better than that though. I had helped to smuggle a few androids and spare part I’d salvaged to the artificial rebellion when it happened some years ago.

I had seen something that made us living flesh beings seem entirely unsympathetic. Every single android had fought for freedom and lost it all. Now they were hunted down and terminated on sight.

Andrea had stowed away on board a different ship I’d had at the time. A small junk loader I’d aptly named Dump. It was a bit of shithole ship.

“Have we entered Nexus-jump yet?” I asked her. The Nexus was a series of xeno structures strewn across the galaxy. They each opened a tunnel through which a ship entered and travelled through to arrive at around Nexus point.

“No,” she shook her at me, her slender frame cool to the touch. Andrea wore a tight white and pale-blue jumpsuit, that hugged her slim petite body like a second skin. “We should arrive in the next hour or so. The navigation points are already programmed into the flight terminal. So we should arrive and immediately jump back into Zarian space.”

I nodded, clutched her slim waist and pulled her off me. “So what’re up to?” I asked with a cocked eyebrow.

“Collecting Nikhara’s gear,” she sighed sadly. “It was pretty badly damaged. Berinium is just so shit yet everything better is privately owned or contracted. Did you like my new toy?” she jumped subjects.

“The drone? yeah is was pretty cool. Shame about the laser minigun though.” She just waved my comment off and reached behind me to smack my bottom.

“I’ll think of a replacement soon enough,” she informed me and strolled past to enter our room. I shook my head and moved into the elevator and pressed the key for the operations deck.

The door slid shut and before I knew it slid open again, emitting me out onto a small dais that overlooked the bridge. In front of me was my command chair, that rose several steps above the forward-facing terminals. Nikhara sat at the centre navigation terminal. Her legs propped over the arm of the chair as she read through a thin glass tablet, the words alighting on the display with a soft green glow.

To her right was the engineering and communication terminals. To the left-hand side was the tactical and security terminals. Right now only the navigation/flight terminal and communications were running as our crew was only three large. Where we could have a minimum crew of nine, we could accommodate up ninety people on the ship.

In front of the terminals and on a slightly lower platform was our manual weaponry system. That numbered eight in total. We really needed more crew members, but I liked the solidarity of our little family. On the wall opposite the bridge were three large display screens.

The centre display showed the darkness of space, and the distant specks of stars and planets. The right display shown our ships system, though the Erebus hull was at eighty-seven percent integrity. And the left display showed our communications which bleep with small muted alert.

The caller ID was Vice-Admiral William Hopkins.

Old friend Bill.

I smiled at the thought of my old friend. He was the only one between me and the cheating bitch still alive after Minis -4428.

“And the fucker is a Vice-Admiral now…” I whistled appreciatively. Then I frowned, the fact that this was a direct communication and he was displaying his rank could mean this was serious-legal business.

Which must likely meant it was going to suck for me, and just as likely have a huge pay-out at the end of it. Considering the last job I’d done for Bill led me to ‘acquisitioning’ the Erebus from an ancient xeno archaeological dig site. I would say I was of the mind in hearing him out.

Nodding at Nikhara as she glanced my way and smiled, I walked to the left side of the operations deck and into ready room. A large black oily table spanned for ten feet before me, with chairs dotted all around it.

There were only a few things left from whatever species had first built the Erebus. This table was one of them. Neither Andrea, Nikhara or I could figure out what made the table work. Except when a call was linked through into this room. The oily black grainy substance that was at once both perfectly solid enough to lean on and place your coffee mug, flowed fluidly into a portal-view like mirror. Through which a call could be made and accepted.

I had heard tales of magic, both dark and good affecting the world like karma. A necessary balance supposedly. A one such tale I heard was a table used to ‘scry’ distant places and people. A part of me hoped and wished this table was of a similar ingenuity.

Tapping my finger twice against its seeming oily surface. The grainy substance flowed and congealed, rising up until a obsidian oval glass display stood before me at the centre of the table.

“Connect call to Vice-Admiral William Hopkins,” I order aloud and an instance later, a slightly older man than I was displayed before me.

“Marcus?” Bill asked in surprise as he set his cup down. The mug marked with a white sword planted at the centre of a flat white star. The Zarian empire insignia.

“Hey Bill,” I greeted easily and waved to my old friend. He had his dark navy-blue long jacket on. The lapels decorated with the golden crossed swords that denoted him as a Vice-Admiral. His neatly cropped and shaven hair speck with grey. His left eye marred by a slim scar at the corner.

He smiled wryly at me for a second. “Holy fuck is it good to see you. Where the hell have you been Hazard? I’ve been trying to get in contact with you for weeks.”

“I’m at the outer rim,” I replied and grimaced a touch at the admittance. Only criminals, runaways, and pirates roamed the outer rim of the Orion galaxy.

“What’re doing all the way out there?” Bill frowned at me.

“Remember that fucker, Lee Petrich?” I asked him and he immediately nodded. “Tracked him down to a small fringe planet called Fasin -B2R9. He got the jump on me almost as soon as we touched down. I was his captive for two weeks apparently.” I shrugged mainly because for me it had simply been four days.

“Fuck, well that’s shit,” Bill said bluntly. “So you free for a job?” he asked, and I always appreciated Bills directness when it came to business and fighting.

“Maybe … what’s the job first?” I replied cagily.

Bill smirked and held his hands out flat. “Three planets on the fringes between the Zaria and the Yashrin systems. They’ve gone dark completely. We don’t know whether it’s the early stages of an invasion from the Yashrin confederation, considering we’ve always maintained a good relationship with our neighbours. We’re flying dark here Hazard.”

“Okay… That still doesn’t explain why you need me exactly.” I pointed out to him and he nodded.

“They’ve been dark for two months. No communication goes through or comes out of that sector. We sent a probing force to check of the condition of the three worlds, but now we’ve heard nothing from them either. Marcus… Jessica lead the fleet.” He sighed heavily and took all of my effort to not spit on the ground and stomp on it.

Jessica Linos, once Jessica Haze my ex-wife. The cheating bitch I aforementioned. She was a huge xenophobe, had a brilliant mind, a tactful leader, was a cock hungry bitch, and wasn’t at all stupid.

The callous bitch had taken everything from me, after my discharge and supposedly fucked her way up the ranks in the military. Not that I really blamed her. There was more dick than pussy in the armed forces, and some people used that to their advantage.

“Well as much as I dislike her, she’s not exactly stupid,” I ground out through my clench teeth.

“Dislike? Marcus, the cunt tried to have you committed while she fucked around! If I wasn’t certain of how many people she’s got backing her for Admiral, I’d be passing flyers out about the cold-hearted bitch.”

I smirked at Bill vehemence of the woman. Yeah we both hated her. At the time of my deployment, she’d been so sweet and friendly. Had a real loving and caring nature to her. Then it all just simply snapped, the mask falling away to reveal how cold and calculating she really was.

It was around the time; I was discharge of the military. The mentally unstable notation on my record was an effect of her persuasion apparently.

“So you want me to check out these three planets then and look for Jessica’s fleet?” I asked summarising our discussion.

“Yes. Look into their communication centres as well. Something must’ve happened. We’ve tried to get in contact with the Yashrin confederation but had no luck as of yet. I feel like something isn’t right, Haze.”

“Yeah… seems strange. Anything I should know about of the planets?”

“Hmmm, maybe. Check out Lios if you get the chance. Heard of some interesting research you could acquisition,” Bill replied, dubiously rubbing at his chin in mock thought.

“Sounds good. Link the info package through and we’ll read it over. It’ll probably take us a couple of days to get there though,” I warned him.

“That’s fine,” he waved off my concern. “Just drop me a call before you enter the sector though.”

“Will do. It was good talking to you Bill,” I smiled at my old friend.

“Same here, Hazard. Speak to you soon. You and the girls lookout for each other in the mean-time.” His image wavered with ripples like a pebble dropped through the surface of a still pond.

“Thanks,” I told the table as its surface slowly receded back to its normal state. A second later my HUD pinged with a message and I squinted to see that it was the information package about our mission, and the pay. The Zarian empire—whether the high council really knew it or not, or actually cared—were offering us three million Z-credits. I whistled and heard Nikhara gasp a minute later after I’d forwarded the message to both her and Andrea.

“Marcus!” I heard her shout in both excitement and alarm. I smiled and swivelled my chair towards the door.

This novel is the work of Rhys Thomas. If you are reading this and it has not been published by Rhys Thomas, then this work has been stolen. Please report this to Amazon and me at email: [email protected]