The Hierarchy of Now and Forever

The UNN

Calypso

hung somewhere between the second and third planet of the solar system LHS-228 and waited in the lower edges of the semi-real dimension that a 21

st

century physicist had exasperatedly called 'the bloody space opera field' - and unwittingly given a name for what would provide the future of the human race.

And their downfall.

Lt. Sheyshan turned from her console, looking right at Captain Tangent. "Sir," she said. "We're picking up a mass shadow in the deep SOF."

"Right." Captain Tangent rubbed his hand along his chin. "Got any shape for it?"

"No, but it's bigger than a Hylano worldship...and we're not in the right part of the front for any of theirs..." She paused, turning back to her console. Her fingers played along the controls - delicate, blue fingers that were more dexterous than any Terran might have been. Her brow furrowed and her purple eyes narrowed. She nodded again. "Definite shape coming into view. She's a Totality Warsphere."

"Red Alert," Captain Tangent said. The bridge shifted hues and the wailing alert started to echo through the

Calypso

. "Lt. Xao, I want a combat space patrol out there immediately. And-"

"Sir!" Lt. Sheyshan exclaimed. "We've picked up a second mass shadow, and a third. They're the same size."

Captain Tangent frowned. "On screen."

The bridge crew watched as the glittering starfield shifted. Space puckered when anything dropped into or out of the Space Opera Field. Distant light warped, blackness bulged with ultraviolet highlights as the barriers between this universe and another, more convenient one started to fray apart. The shapes were huge, even without a scale indicator, and space seemed reluctant to tear aside for the movement of the Totality Warspheres. Each one was the size of an old pre-UN aircraft carrier and had nearly the same number of crew - and almost as many fighter craft. Their green and black hulls glittered with alien script illuminated by their flaring radiators as they dumped waste heat into realspace, and their noses angled towards the

Calypso.

"They're charging their kinetics!" Lt. Moore shouted from his place in tactical.

"Shields up!"

"It's-"

The three warspheres' noses plumed with glittering blue smoke, providing both lubrication for their spinal kinetic weapons and to give extra time for the electromagnetic fields to conduct and push their payloads. The shields came up just in time as the

Calypso

dragged chunks of the SOF up into realspace and threw it ahead of her prow - like ducking behind a wave of water to block a machine gun bullet. The kinetic projectiles hit, slowed, and the entire light cruiser heeled hard to the side as her dorsal and zenith RCS fired at once. Tangent felt his blood sloshing in his brain as he strained against the restraint harness in his chair.

"We're between cycles," Lt. Moore said. "Fifteen seconds."

"We don't have enough time, bring us to second tier," Tangent said, nodding.

The

Calypso

hummed and the engines on her nose flickered, flashed, and stabbed a hole through realspace and into the shallow end of the SOF. The stars shifted subtly, their light growing brighter, and the whole ship creaked around the crew. Tangent felt gravity return. At this level of the SOF, light remained a barrier to maximum travel - but gravity started playing nicer for certain functions. It did make long ranged kinetics harder to use, as their acceleration was capped and the ability of any targeted ship to dodge got significantly increased.

The only problem was something else became a lot more useful in the second tier.

"They're launching fighters!" Lt. Sheyshen shouted over the grinding sounds.

The Totality Warspheres didn't bother to drop into the second tier. They just sat in realspace, punched a hole, and let their war-slaves do the work. The Totality's favored space superiority fighter was specially adapted to work in the second tier. Dagger shaped, with four bladelike wings coming from what would be the 'hilt', they had plasma beams at each tip and nose mounted flechette torpedo launchers. They were called, by the UNN-IAF at least, Blade class interceptors. Or, among the pilots:

Space Candy.

Sixty Blades came sweeping forward, met by the

Calypso

's relatively paltry compliment of eight Avenger class interceptors. Each Avenger was a two-tiered ship, able to work both in Realspace and in Second Tier. They shed their drop-tanks of reaction mass for Tier 2 operations, which let them carry disposable missile pods. Blooming flowers of contrails exploded from each and, within a few seconds, several dozen warslaves were immolated as their Blades were struck and detonated.

The Zemturga Totality didn't particularly care how many warslaves they lost.

That's part of the reason why Tangent and everyone else was aboard the

Calypso

.

"First, second and third waves are down, sir, but the Warspheres are launching wave four, five, six, seven-"

"Enemy X-beams and grazers are coming online-"

"I'm detecting mass mines, sir!"

Tangent scowled, then stood. "Bring us to bear on the forward Sphere!" He thrust his finger at Lt. Xao. "Triana, I want you to have your fighters punch us a hole right up to their flank. Moore, take us right down their throats. Yang, warm up the plasma casters and tell the point defense guns they're on mine popping duty. Lets get to work people!"

The

Calypso

screamed forward as her fighters dove towards the fourth wing of glittering Totality interceptors. Plasma beams and pulse guns intersected and star fighters started to explode - but for every five or six Blade that went down, an Avenger took a hit on the chin. Even with mass shields and ray deflectors, an Avenger couldn't take a beating forever. Alpha-2 went up in a flare of fusion fire, their scream echoing from Lt. Xao's console as Lt. Moore's fingers flew along his controls. The engines thrummed as the

Calypso

rolled to her port, bringing her belly armor to bear on the incoming X-beams as they bit through the second tier to slam into her and boil off ablative protection.

"We're at a hundred percent, sir," Lt. Yang said.

"There's a mass mine coming down right ontop of us," Lt. Sheyshen said, her voice tight.

Tangent felt his back tighten, like he could sense the mine creeping through the SOF to crash down onto his head. Throughout the ship, he heard the rumbling of the point defense guns. Railguns were a lot less effective in Tier 2 - but simple slugthrowers retained their ability to function all the way down to Tier 5. The Warspheres grew larger and larger and larger...and...

"Now, Albert!"

Lt. Moore slammed down on the upshift lever. The

Calypso

sprang out of Tier 2 and into Realspace as the three Warspheres tried to keep their noses pointed at them. The plasma casters broadsides on the light cruiser spat fiery and mostly impossible death, still riding high from their time soaking in Tier 2. Their beams scythed into the side of one warsphere, and into the belly of another. Blooms of secondary explosions rocked both ships and the bridge crew let out a cry of pleasure at the signs of destruction - but as they shot past the three warspheres, Tangent knew that their luck wasn't going to last. He turned, about to order them to drop to a lower tier, thinking of what he could do...

When Lt. Sheyshen groaned.

"Two more mass shadows, Captain!"

The two other warspheres emerged from the SOF right ahead of them, ripping through realspace like breaching whales.

Tangent sat back in his chair, his stomach flipping end over end.

Both Warspheres, their guns fully charged from their trip here, opened fire at once. Plasma fire swept over the screen.

Everything went very bright, then, suddenly, to infinite blackness.

And the simulacrum pod hissed open and John Tangent reached up to rub his fingers through his sweaty, bright blond hair, and scowled at the elderly blue uniformed Hylanosian peering in at him. Instructor Quee-Quep-Quendo clicked his tongue, shook his head, then held up his comp pad.

"You're dead, Ensign Tangent," he said as John hauled himself up and out of the pod, which bloomed off a stalk of complicated machines and wires and tubes, all leading into the colony's battlecomputer. From the other 'petals' of this metal flower emerged Ensign Eugene Xao, Sheyshen, Albert Moore and Triana Yang. The fighter pilots were a few pods away, and probably still high fiving over the number of times each had become a simulated ace.

"I see, sir," John said as he stood at attention.

"You all did admirably in the Line-Sim," Instructor Q3 said, his insectoid features shifting into what passed for a smile from a species that had more in common with the Terran praying mantis than anything else. "We'll be covering your command decisions later - for now, might I suggest a trip to the shower?"

The others nodded, Sheyshen stepping over to place her hand on John's shoulder. She squeezed, but John shook his head slightly, murmuring. "I'll catch up, Shey," he murmured. Sheyshen gave him a

look

that only someone who had known John since childhood could. But she let him follow after Q3 as the Hylano walked off with his comp pad. The door out of the battlecomputer mainframe opened and then shut almost immediately behind Instructor Q3, but John sprang through it and only nearly got his foot bisected for his trouble.

Like most rooms - like most

things

- on Zeta Colony, the battlecomputer was kept inside of an ancient Luciferian structure. The ancient black metal, as gleaming new as it had been when it had first been built ten thousand years before by the Luciferian civilization, was as pitiless as the doors, unyielding and nearly impossible to work with. Every wire, cable, light fixture and water pipe was either an already existing and repurposed conduit, or had required the expenditure of immense amounts of energy siphoned straight from Zeta Colony's prime reactor. It had taken three years of steady burning just to cut the one inch hole required for the battlecomputer's antenna in the roof!

To John Tangent, it was normal. He had never known anything but Zeta Colony and the immense Luciferian structures that made up their home.

"Sir!" he said.

Instructor Q3 turned to face him. Ancient Terrans might have quailed at that look. But the United Nations/Interstellar Alliance alliance (an alliance of alliances, as some liked to call it) had existed for four decades. He, like most Terrans of his age, was damned used to aliens. No, the reason John quailed had nothing to do with mandibles and glittering compound eyes and everything to do with the fact that Instructor Q3 was a hardass who might slap him with a dozen extra duty shifts for this. But...he had to know. He stood up a bit straighter, squared his shoulders, and said: "Respectfully, sir, I have a question about that sim."

"Very well, Ensign Tangent," Instructor Q3 said. "Ask."

"What was the intention behind the sim?" John asked, his throat drying. "I wish to know what lesson I was supposed to learn beyond...shit happens. Sir."

Q3 was silent. His antennas twitched. His mandibles opened, then closed in the Hylanosian version of a smile. "You have three days to determine why. Once you have, speak to me. If you have not, also. Either way would be relevant to your end of year assignments."

He saluted.

John saluted right back, frowning in thought.

***

Zeta Colony had four areas. The rooftop regions of the immense Luciferian megastructure that the colony was established on was dedicated to growing the food that the colony couldn't grow in vats, and to having some parkland for people to enjoy. The next two areas were the common areas of the city - rooms that had been repurposed for the motley collection of Allied species that had found their way to Zeta Colony and set up shop there. Below them was the industrial units that produced what few goods the colony needed to keep going.

And below them?

Below them was

The Facility

.

Normally, when the cadets in the modest UNN-IAF academy that the colony sported were finished with their coursework and their training, they went up to the gardens to relax, enjoy their dinners, and then begin the endless meandering discussions of the same three topics: The weather, social gossip, and

The Facility

. But today, everyone had something new to talk about. John laid with his head in Shey's lap as she teased her fingers through his hair, while Albert tossed a sportball up and down in the air. Each time he caught it, it was a different shape: Football, Gridiron Ball, Baseball, Basketball. Each time it hit the apex of its arc, it shifted with a glittering flash of light.

"Maybe it was to teach us how to deal with failing, ya know?"

"We don't need to learn anything about that," Eugene grumped as he did pull ups off a tree that grew in the center of the garden. The old tree had been brought and planted, twenty years ago when the colony had founded. Thanks to gently teased genetics and enhanced growth fertilizers, it was now the same size it would have been if it had been a century hold. "We're Zeta colony, we already know enough about failing."

"Says you," Triana said, smirking at him. "Come on, Shey, give me a chance to pet John's head."

"No, he's so exotic, I want to pet him more," Shey said, grinning.

John groaned.

"Blond isn't exotic," Eugene said, grunting as he pulled up again.

"It is on Zeta Colony," Shey said, shrugging.

"Our population isn't big enough to have anyone be exotic or not!" Eugene said.

"True," Albert said. "We'd need at least five thousand people for any ethnic group to be big enough to be statistically relevant."

Shey frowned. "I don't think that's how statistics work, Albert."

"Well, I think it was to teach us when to run the fuck away," Triana said.

"Yoo nerds!"

The last member of their friend group ambled through the grass. Delta Vee wore her uniform as sloppily as she could get away with, with her jacket slung over one shoulder, the blue collar hooked under her finger. Her features were pretty if battered - her nose had been twice broken, she had a scar on her jaw, and was missing a good chunk of her ear, all things that would have been fixed in a modern colony, but Zeta Colony hadn't had a shipment or supply from Earth in the past twenty years. She had a huge smile on her features as she walked up and kicked John in the shin. Gently.

"You left us to dry, Captain," she said, sarcastically.

"We were gonna swing back around to get you before the Zemturga blasted us to space dust," Albert said.

"Suuuuure you were, console jock," Delta said.

Albert caught the sportsball - which had shifted to a baseball again. He made as it to throw it at Delta's head.

"How much space candy did you get?" Shey asked.

"This bad bitch shot down thirty six simulated battle thralls for the glory of the United Nations Navy and her Intestellar Alliance Fleet." Delta put her thumb against her chest. Then, frowning, she crouched down onto the balls of her feet, peering right at John. "Yo! Yo! Zeta-1 to John." She snapped her free hand's fingers under his nose. John frowned at her.

"He's thinking," Shey said, her voice quiet.

"Well, I'm thinking we should get some vat-burgers and see if we can't bug Old Pham Trinly into telling us what his day job is," Delta said.

"That old coot will just tell us some new lies," Shey said, frowning.

"Yeah, that's the fun part," Delta said.

"Come on John," Shey said, joggling her thighs slightly to bounce his head. He blinked, then sat up, nodding.

"Right," he said, then felt his head go spinning. His nose flared, his eyes half closed and he felt the irrepressible animal urge to lean in and lick Shey's neck. His pants tightened and he felt his arousal ramp from the moderate levels he normally had - being a young adult male of the genus

Homo

and the species

Sapiens,

he had quote a lot of arousal to throw around - to a blazing heat. His nose flared and he leaned into Shey...then reached up, grabbing the necklace that hung around her throat, where the Pheremone Masker that all Sensuans had to wear in mixed company hung. He found the dial, then notched it up a few settings. The heat faded and his head cleared as he drew back, grinning. "Y-You were over emitting."

"Oh! Sorry!" Shey said, smiling at him.

Once John was standing, he adjusted his pants, while Delta grinned at him. "Should have turned it down," She said, her voice a playful croon.

"The gardeners have told us to not imprint any more ass marks into the grass," Albert said, dolefully.

"They should be thanking us!" Trianna said.

"Preach," Delta said, holding her hand out for a high five.

They headed down into the corridors of the megastructure. But as his friends conversation swirled around him, John kept thinking. He played the scenario over and over in his mind...and he placed it into context. He had been born on Zeta, but Zeta Colony had been established by the United Nations with a pretty hefty amount of support. It was why they had survived so long, despite being on such an inhospitable world.

The United Nations had met the Interstellar Alliance in the disastrous Battle of Cygnus in 2212. The primitive Terran starships, armed with nothing better than rudimentary SOF technology and nuclear warheads plundered from the Peace Vaults had run into a Sensuan-Qorr battle group that had mistaken the unidentified ships as Totality battle-thralls on the hunt. After three human ships had been destroyed by a single Sensuan Huntress class frigate, though, the battle group had pulled back and the Terrans had retreated to a nearby gas giant to lick their wounds. The Interstellar Alliance knew the capacity of the Zemturga and knew when they enslaved a species, they usually gave them enough tools to serve their masters.

So, a Sensuan had come to the humans under flag of truce. It was then that the Terran species had learned that they had near cousins in space, as the Sensuan had taken off her helmet to reveal her flaming red hair, sky blue skin, and smoldering purple eyes...and they had then learned that the Sensuan communication pheromones were extremely effective on the Terran nervous-system. The shipwide orgy and commensurate diplomatic talks had quickly brought the United Nations into the Interstellar Alliance with...ahem...open arms.

It was then that the Terrans had learned that they lived in an extremely

dangerous

galaxy. '

For ten years, the Interstellar Alliance, made up of the Hylano, the Omnidrones, the Sensuans, the Qorr, the Lithanods and the Yip-Yop-Lob, had been beset by the forces of the Zemturga Totality and their seemingly endless legions of enslaved warrior species. The ISA had only identified a fraction of the Zemturga's slaves and had never learned any of their names beyond those that the Sensuans had known from their time as Zemturgan Pleasure Serfs.

It was from the Sensuans, who had escaped from their enslavement thanks to their species' inherent psionic abilities - unsuspected by the Zemturga until their exodus, that the ISA had learned the true shape of the Totality: The Zemturga at the top and three kinds of slaves beneath them. Battle-Thralls, who fought their wars on the ground and in the depths of space. Field-Servants, who labored in factories, mines and fields to provide all that was needed for the Totality. And finally, and grimmest of all...Pleasure-Serfs, who existed only for the lewd excesses of the Zemturga and their chosen servants. If a warslave fought well and hard, he might return to his home to find a pleasure-serf from one of the most beautiful races in the galaxy waiting for him...