Book 1.
The Imperium.
Prologue
The Imperium was vast. Yet like all empires before and after, there had been a single kernel in the beginning. A Solitary solar system, a tiny grain of sand, lost on the infinite desert of the universe. A story born from a legend governed at the start by a small people's council. They had climbed out of their single blue green nest, to see what lay beyond. A people of crude ideas and narrow concepts, who would later in their snail like progress of discovery, find a concept so abstract, and alien to them they would not see its true potential for a further three centuries.
Some had called it the folding of the universe; others had loosely termed it the tearing of space. A few who could see the abstract perception called it the four dimensional hyper-drive. Where using the fourth dimension of time helped, to shorten the other three dimensions thus compressing the vast distances of space. The majority had gone for naming it the Star-drive. All of which could fill three books, where there anyone to read it, and then very few people who did, would ever fully understand it.
So they fitted it to their old space ships, and began to explore, discover, observe, and in doing this they met other races, other species. There in the beginning thanks in most part to the trader's guild of Mercantile Templars. The Imperium expanded ever outwards. Seeking new world's new knowledge, and so creating more wealth. Nevertheless when the power and wealth went far beyond the venerable to achieving the overwhelming, so had come from the darkness those malevolent ones, whose greed was everlasting and backed by a ruthlessness to match their drive for the ultimate power.
Already on the outer fringes of the periphery of the empire, the Primary Edict as it was called. The golden rule of non-interference in primitive planets was forsaken, and open trading in mostly female slaves kidnapped from backward planets, had become a lucrative business for the excitement of the jaded palates of the rich.
The Old Imperium, the Imperium of legend, where there was no need to note where it was in the scheme of things. Only to know that it was there, strong and omnipotent or so it seemed.
Therefore, it was with the Imperium at its height. Like the greatest of trees, able to withstand any external attack, the Imperium rotted from within, although the danger was not visible from the outside. The decay continued relentlessly aided and abetted by power-hungry individuals, who continued to drain the very strength out of the trunk.
Selenium the single planet that had been the birthplace of the Imperium had become the administrative centre of the Galactic Empire. Slowly as power and influence increased, it began to turn in on itself to preserve the status quo. Although outward looking with its substantial fleet of ships, which ranged over the Imperium to uphold the sanctity of the law and free trade. In reality with its dependence upon the outer worlds for food, and for the necessities of life, the fleet's secondary role was becoming the more important, and that was to protect Selenium's jugular vein.
1.
The grey lifeless moon showed a jagged landscape covered in dust. Craters ringed the plains between the broken escarpments. Apart from some litter left by the first explorers from the planet the moon orbited. There was no one to disturb them.
On the huge crater's jagged edge, the mechanical hand of an AdM43B mining android, adjusted the drill bit boring down into the rock. Around the drill head, another monitored the reading from the sensors packages placed, by his shorter companion. The repair droid, a squat, cylindrical and thick-clawed legged android nicknamed the boiler.
Around them the crushers, extractor, and compressors waited to isolate from the grey ore, the rare mineral Tritium, an essential component in the production of translucent steel. A transparent metal used throughout the galaxy for canopies and viewports in both star-ships, and on ground-based structures built on moons like this, where there was no atmosphere only the infinite vacuum of space, and only a sheet of translucent steel to protect the people inside.
The starship had no serial number or even a marque. Three Thousands had been built off these ugly workhorses, purely functional with no frills they could be seen all over the empire ferrying what ever was needed.
However this one, a concept of looks acting as camouflage, at a casual glance or a long range sensor probe, she was what its original builders had designed. Only this one had been modified to this high specification by its current owner. So it was one of kind and therefore carried no designation other than the name its owner had given it the Dark Star.
It was faster than an Imperium planet class destroyer, and armed with illegally acquired weapons that could take on the chaser and destroy it. Only the Imperium cruisers could match it for speed, and overwhelm it with fire power, and there the owner had installed special sensors to tell him when one was around. With only twenty in the entire Imperium, it would need a lot of bad luck to bump into one.
The extremely sophisticated and modified hyper-drive which powered it might have reached even greater speeds if a considerable fraction of its phenomenal energy had not been used for oscillation concealment. This meant no tell-tale trails of tiny distortion amid the space-time continuum to betray its position to other starships that might wish to hunt it.
Even now, sitting in the ship's clean hemispherical cabin the man moved casually to the high backed pilot's seat, strapped himself into his harness and scanned the instrumentation, with its coloured panels and 3D readouts. Forward scanners powered up and began searching ahead. On three screens above the pilots yoke, pages of computer graphics flipped through showing every interior and exterior detail of the Dark Star. From the complexity of its engines, life support, weapon systems, and even down to the interlocking valves needed to discharge waste into space, without leaving a tell-tale trail.
Satisfied he instructed the computer to go through pre-flight checks, and waited for the mandatory bank of green lights before engaging the engines. He laughed to himself, with all this technology, his boss who owned the Dark Star hated the bland voice of a computer to tell him everything was ready, had simply forgotten to install the voice synthesizers. Quickly almost instinctively, he looked across at the 3D representation of his surroundings out to three thousand kilometres. It showed empty space, as it should be. This was a backward planet with an unsolvable death wish. From its first tentative steps into space, the people of the planet had returned to fighting amongst themselves.
Quickly he switched on the four beams to illuminate the drilling site. Everything looked fine, he could leave the mining bots to get on with it, and in seven days, the hold would be full of the precious mineral. A nice little earner, but not the real reason he was here.
He laughed, that was on the planet. The green lights blinked down the three rows. It was time to pick up the next cargo, he felt himself push against the prison of his pants. A week here alone with the androids was making him stir-crazy, and in desperate need of something more pliable and soft.
Gracefully she turned and moved over the escarpment, accelerating to break the gravity of the moon.
2.
Nasim Habib looked at the ten young Nubian girls with the cold black eyes of a slaver. Naked they hung side by side on meat hooks, normally used for the carcass of butchered young lambs. Gagged and blindfolded, their wrists tied high above their heads; their legs splayed wide apart, ankles tied to metal rings hammered into the stones beneath them. They looked like meat hanging in a butcher's freezer. Slowly he walked around their stretched bodies.
His talent scouts had done well, this was prime young female flesh, bathed, oiled, waxed smooth, and hung for display. Their shiny ebony skins contrasting with the blood splattered grey tiles, of the slaughterhouse.
He moved to the heavy breasted girl, her nipples hard with fear. He stroked her back, so smooth and flawless. She would fetch a high price in any slave market. Nevertheless, he wanted this one for himself.
With a quick swing of his hand, he brought the hard palm down on the girl's firm rounded bottom. The girl screamed and he stepped back to watch the flesh obediently glow in a deep blood red. He smiled to himself as the girl jumped and gurgled through her ball gag.
Nasim Habib was at twenty-five, just over six-foot his lean hard body hidden by his black bisht. The long black hair covered by the white cloth of his utrah. For a moment, he studied the shape of the twin hemispheres, stroking the quivering flesh and noting the graceful curve of the girl's back. She would present her twin openings perfectly to the man, whether on her back, or on all fours. His hand remained for a moment feeling the warmth of the quivering cheeks. He looked down at the dial of his diamond Rolex. In half an hour, he would be flying back to Kuwait. The twins would be there in his private plane to serve him. He wondered about taking one of the girls, maybe this one in front of him, for those two Russian vixens to play their favourite game of cat and mouse. It would be worth watching them prepare her for him. He felt his shaft fill, and he looked at those large brown eyes filled with terror.
This was a good finish to his business in Morocco.
He stroked the flat plain of her quivering belly, sliding up towards the hills of her breasts. Indifferent to her needs only her reactions to his fingertips; he flicked the girl's right nipple hard. She spluttered in pain through her gag, her nipple turning deep chocolate red like her arse. Standing back, he watched her body trembling.
He smiled at her, and knew she was close to panic.
Satisfied with what he saw Habib returned to her. "Keep control of your bladder girl, the punishment for urinating on me will be death." Shivering on the hook, he moved his right hand back to the girl's quivering belly.
Cupping her smooth sex, he gently began to tease open the full dark lips, running a finger between them, he immediately became angry. "Slut we expect the desert to be dry, not our women." Moving to her clit, he watched her body tighten, her stomach tense, and her arse cheeks clench. Running the tip around the girls' vulva, he pressed a finger to her tightness and found it still resisted him.
He wondered would her eyes grow wider when he saw him naked, would they fill with fear. She was young but her body was ripe, and that was all that mattered she was ready to reproduce, and so she was ready to please. A simple philosophy he thought for any trader in flesh.
He push gently and felt the dampness come from her virgin opening. "Good girl, you are learning, maybe just maybe I will use you for one of my clubs." Pulling his finger away from her, he looked across at the huge gorilla of a man in a dirty grey ill-fitting suit.
Amar never flinched, only the young men under him, when he fucked them.
He laughed and moved away. Maybe he would give his next visitor to Amar; after all, there was a spare hook available.
He looked at his watch again, where was the flat toned stupid Englishman?
"Now my friend is the correct time," said the voice of the man filling the doorway.
Habib turned showing for a moment surprise then anger. How the hell did he get past his two men, standing by his armoured Mercedes outside? They were supposed to be the best. He would talk to them later.
The anger quickly turned to an artificial smile that showed no warmth.
