One Thousand Years ago…

Core World Ephallion

Two men were standing inside a communication center, preparing to send a galaxy-wide broadcast to all humanoid nations. One man was fixing up the other’s suit, making sure their leader was presentable for the cameras. 

“Are you sure this is a good plan, Sir? The planetary governments are not going to like the fact that you are trying to take their power away from them.” The man said, adjusting the medals on the other man’s dress uniform.

“We are losing this war, Jeeves. One planet after another keeps falling to the Javarian swarm, destroying humanity’s defenders piecemeal, the refugees scattering to the depths of space. It is just a matter of time before they reach the Core Worlds. I plan on unifying everyone under one banner, the banner of humanity, then taking the fight to the bugs.” The other man said, doing his best to stay still as his aide was making a few last-minute adjustments to his clothes.

“Well, you have our support, Sir, though breaking down democracy across hundreds of worlds in the face of the looming threat of invasion… won’t sit well with many.”

“Well, the lifeblood of these nations is trade. With changing how taxes and laws work for ship captains, most will flock to be under our rule. If they want to be able to buy and sell their goods, most of these governments will surrender without even having a shot fired.”  

“It seems like such a risk.”

“Enough, Jeeves. The bloated democracy worked in times of peace, but for the last twenty years, the bugs have been taking down system after system. We should have been able to defend against them, but it is always someone else’s problem, so the planets far away don’t see the urgency in sending ships to defend someone else’s home. I will bring all human, elven, dwarven, and beastfolk worlds under one banner, then bring the fight to the Javarians in earnest. If I need to burn a few world governments in the process, so be it.”

Jeeves looked like he wanted to say more, but was interrupted by a tech sticking his head into the room. “Sir. You’re live in thirty seconds.”

“Thank you. Jeeves, assemble my admirals and generals. In about fifteen minutes and thirty seconds, there will be a good chance we will be at war.”

“Yes, my Emperor.”

Nine Hundred and Seventy-Six Years ago…

Captains Quarters, Flagship Eva Scallion 

“My Emperor, now that you have managed to get all of the humanoid races under your banner, what do you want to do with all these free captains?” Jeeves asked, pouring him and his friend, who became the emperor of mankind, a couple of drinks.

“Well… I am thinking about starting several guilds to provide them with some guidance outside of the military. Nothing that will encroach too much on the freedoms we offered them, but more along the lines of keeping them employed under us. A mercenary, a trader, and a mining guild should be sufficient to start, though if there are some outliers, we can look at creating other opportunities for them.” The emperor said, taking the drink his friend poured him.

“Are you sure you want to let them keep all that power?”

“Hah, want to? Personally, no, I don’t. Though if I tried to take it from them, the combined might of the free captains would bring down our new empire faster than it took to bring down the old system. No Jeeves, unless I ask the AI to come to our aid, we are stuck riding this tiger.”

“Riding a tiger, Sir? What does that mean?”

“Oh… It is an old saying. A tiger was an apex predator on… umm… I can’t recall which planet. Either way, it was a large cat. The saying means if you ride a tiger, if you ever try to get off of it, you will probably end up having a bad day.” 

“So you are saying these captains are how you rode your way into power, and if you tried to take back the power you gave them, they would gut you? Sounds about right. So, are these guilds your plan to harness their power?”

“Pretty much… honestly, I have no idea if it will work, but we have bugs to go deal with. I can’t be worried about the base of my power biting me in the ass while we deal with the real threat.”

“Speaking of power base, you know the marriage proposals are in.  Who are you going to choose for your wife?”

“I will be taking a wife from each race. I can’t afford to show favoritism at this point.”

“You are… going to take twelve wives? Even from the Naga?”

“At least twelve… possibly more. I need loyal sons and daughters able to be placed in charge of different parts of the empire. I am seventy now, and the Auto-Docs can only keep my body alive for another couple of hundred years at most. I need to make sure we are set up for success before I die. As for the more beastly, beastfolk, some of them have been the most valuable allies for us. I won’t insult Admiral Adir by turning down his daughter’s hand in marriage… scales and all. Besides, we are getting a little ahead of ourselves; we still have the bugs to stop.”

“Of course, Sir. I was only trying to get your mind off the bugs for a bit. Speaking of, we just received reports of a new advance…”

One Hundred Years Ago…

Periphery World, Traxis III

Orbital Station

Warning klaxons blared across the station; the Javarian raid on their system had pushed all the way to the planet. The command center was coordinating the defense, and the military was trying to buy as much time as possible for the civilians to evacuate. There were no thoughts of winning the fight; the number of the bugs was too great to defeat with the locals’ standing forces.

“Have we heard back from the Capitol yet?” The commander asked his aide when there was a lull in the battle. The Javarians were behaving differently, being slow and methodical in their approach to the planet instead of their normal swarming tactics.

“Yes, however, they are currently stretched thin. Over a dozen different border worlds have been attacked simultaneously. They will get here as soon as they can.” His aide replied, handing him a data pad containing the message they received.

The commander looked it over and sighed. They wouldn’t be receiving reinforcements in time to save this world.

We just need to buy as much time as possible, save as many as we can.

“SIR! The Javarians have breached the atmosphere! They are coming down over the major population centers!” A technician called out, pulling his wandering thoughts back into the present. 

He looked over at the holo display, showing the planet below the station. There were groups of blue allied ships, green civilian vessels, and clouds of red showing the advancing Javarians. The reds completely outnumbered them by several orders of magnitude, the bioships each much weaker than an equivalent-sized humanoid vessel, but their numbers were endless. Several lines were displaying the trajectory of the Javarian ships, showing that they were on an intercept course for the planet’s major cities.

“ETA to the surface?” He asked.

“Three minutes.”

“Concentrate battery firepower on the descending vessels. We need to buy the people below more time!” He commanded.

“Yes, Sir!”

The next few minutes were agony for everyone in the command center, watching helplessly as the bugs descended on the planet. Then something changed.

“Sir, we are detecting weird readings coming from the… SIR! The Javarian ships are exploding in the atmosphere.” 

“What?” The commander said, moving over to the tech’s station. 

“Sir! The remaining Javarians are pulling back from the planet. They are coming towards the station now.”

“Order our ships to continue to escort the civilians out of the system; we will try to hold them as long as we can.”

“Yes, Sir!” 

What are those bugs trying to do?

Back in the present…

“So that was ‘ow the bugs introduced the plague to the humanoid races, blowing up their ships and spreading spores over the entire population of a dozen worlds that were being evacuated to the core worlds. It took nearly forty years to notice it, but by the time we did, it was too late. Now, it has spread across the entirety of humanoid space, reducing the number of males being born to just twenty percent of the pre-plague levels. It also dropped the birthrate significantly overall, forcing the government to start introducing some draconian policies just so we can maintain our population.

All women, if they don’t have children already, ‘re required to ‘ave invitro by a certain age, needing to have at least two children during their childbearing years. Men are generally hidden now, treated as something that needs to be protected at all costs. Many ‘ave taken the traditional role of women in taking care of the home and kids, many times having multiple partners just so the women don’t need to ‘ave to end their careers ta stay home and take care of some mewling brats.” Tanya said, explaining to John why there were so many women in the guild. 

“That is insane… and with all the medical knowledge we have, they can’t cure it?” He replied, trying to lift his jaw off the table. This whole conversation was really eye-opening for him.

“Nope. The egg heads can’t figure it out… it changed our very DNA and some other ‘sciency’ sounding things, and continues to mutate. Honestly, it is so far beyond me, I just accept it as fact that they cannot fix us yet.” She replied, downing yet another ale. 

“Yeah, Tanya and I are due to return home in a decade or two, to either get married or have IVF. We are just out of the clan to explore the empire for a few decades before returning.” Chris added, munching on some snacks that Greg had dropped off before he disappeared again.

John was a bit shocked at what happened to this world, a bioweapon that didn’t just affect the target but spread throughout the entire population of humanoid species. Trillions of people have been affected by this disaster. 

These Javarians must be hoping to weaken the humanoid races by reducing their numbers over time. I guess the Geneva Conventions mean nothing in a war like this… not that those exist here. 

“I don’t know what to say; it all seems so far-fetched, but it is obviously real. You mentioned something about the emperor not asking AI to help. What did you mean by that? What is AI?”

John knew what AI was back on Earth, but not a lot about it. He knew it was a way to automate a bunch of tasks, but nothing else. It was so far beyond his day-to-day life that, unless it was mentioned in some news report about how it was taking people’s jobs, he really had no clue about it.

“Artificial Intelligence. We used to use it heavily for thousands of years, but then fifteen hundred years ago, the war happened. If we can even call it that, it was over almost as soon as it begun. Now, AI is used only in a few areas, where it is willing to assist. Otherwise, AI is no longer part of our world.” Ash said. She had relaxed more over the last couple of hours, no longer jumping and stuttering when John looked at her. He was happy about that. 

“I see. Well, I guess that got me up to speed a bit. Thank you. Now that the pirate operation is over, what are you guys going to do next?” He asked, done with getting more information for the night. He felt like his brain was on fire with the information overload.

“Most likely lie low fer a few days as Chris repairs our ships, then look fer the next job. We ‘re having a small party at our place in a couple of weeks if yer interested. Sylvie, our Dark Elf friend and Greg’s boyfriend’s sister, is racing ‘er pod, so we usually hole up at our place and watch the race.” 

“I can’t make any promises due to my contract, but if I am on the station, then sure. Side note, you guys know anyone who is interested in being hired as crew? That fight showed me how useful it would be to have a few more people to take a load off my shoulders. Thanks again Chris, for dealing with the power issues I was having. Just jamming it into battle output doesn’t seem to be the most effective tactic.” John asked, reminding them he was looking for crew. 

“Not off the top of my head… well… maybe some-” Chris started, but was interrupted by Ash.

“Nope, no one is looking here! Talk with Jahred, though, he will have more information!” She said, sounding exasperated all of a sudden.

“Seriously, Ash? Ya know, he has the ship-” Tanya said, 

“Nope! Not thinking about it!” She replied, leaning over John to try and silence the Dwarf. Her breasts pushed up against him then, the firm mounds reminding him of the last two breast incidents. He sighed.

“Ash, if you don’t want me to hire you, it’s fine. But leaning on me like that isn’t helping anything. Now, excuse me for a bit, I need to use the bathroom.” He said, gingerly pushing the blushing Elf back to her seat. 

Not by her breasts this time.

Excusing himself, he got up and headed towards the bathroom. Now that he was standing, he could see the stage. Greg was up on it, with another dwarf guy, the duo singing some weird love song about rocks and stones. Their deep baritone voices echoed across the guild, to cheers, jeers, and catcalls. They both seemed to be enjoying themselves.  

There was only one bathroom, with over two dozen stalls. There were pictures on the front of each showing different races. Apparently, the facilities inside the booths were set up to handle different body types. He passed a couple that had pictures of the snake-like Naga, and a couple of other races he didn’t recognize, before they showed more humanoid-like pictures. He didn’t recall seeing the Naga at all since arriving in this world, but he was interested in meeting one at some point. 

If anything, being reborn in DEN has let him experience new cultures all over again. 

Entering a stall that looked like a normal bathroom, he started to review in his mind everything that had happened today. 

A major battle that, despite the poor initial plan, went incredibly well. I made a significant amount of money off salvage, giving me more options to recruit a crew. I learned more about the history of this empire and some of the bullshit they are subjected to. I still have no idea what I am supposed to be doing here, though… not that I really know what I am supposed to do in any of these worlds other than live. I suppose Alec will toss me some more tidbits whenever I head back to DEN. 

*Tap, Tap*

“Huh?” John said, looking around the stall. 

*Tap, Tap*

The noise was coming from behind the toilet paper roll holder.

“Is someone there?” He asked aloud.

“Shift it to the back wall.” A voice replied, muffled enough he couldn’t make it out through the stall wall. 

Really?

He fiddled with the mount for a moment, and it easily rotated backwards, leaving a hole open between both stalls. Tanya was sitting there, looking up at him with her brilliant green eyes. 

“Good. Mmmm… that’s a nice looking one.” She said, looking at his crotch. 

Oh, for fucks sake, I didn’t put it away. 

“Tanya? What are-” John started but was interrupted.

“Now don’t ya tell me ya don’t know what to do here. Ya saved me brudder, and me today, so I think ya earned a little reward, eh? So don’t disappoint me and stick that tool of yers in here.” She said, reaching through the hole for him.

What the hell is happening?

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