The Dragon Armada slid silently through space, drawing inexorably nearer their ultimate goal; the mythical home world of all humanity, Earth. Legend told that long ago all humans came from a single planet, a small blue & green world known as Earth. But then rose the Exarch. How the Exarch took power over the entire planet is unknown, but was believed to have been the first to do so. In time, the Exarch had declared that Earth, as the birthplace of humanity, was too precious for any human to live upon, and exiled all human life, himself included, from the planet. Twelve great ships were constructed, each named for one of the animals of the Chinese Zodiac, and the populace of the planet was divided amongst them, and sent out of Earths solar system with no maps showing the location of the planet.
That was thousands of years ago, and none now knew if the tale were ever true, or if it was just a fantasy cooked up by the ancients when they began to discover that other planets held similar forms of life. Since launching four years ago from their home planet Kai Alpha, the space-faring Dragon Armada had discovered seven separate "human" cultures. Each culture had similar levels of technology, similar belief systems, and similar legends, including the tale of the Exarch and the Exile from Earth. Admiral Lindsey Ty had decided that the 117 ships of the armada would seek out the home world of their people.
Such lofty goals were not the concern of Commander Kensit Roosevelt, however. Born aboard a space faring, FTL equipped vessel, Kensit had never set foot on any planet unless there was combat to be had there, and he never stayed once victory was assured. Kensit was seemingly born to battle and bloodshed. He had joined the Marines at the age of 14, and had gotten his first confirmed kill seven months later. Some would say that after that point, he had become a killing machine. He had more CK's than any other Marine in the Dragon Free Republic's history, and he was only 24 years old.
Last year he had been given command of the Eleventh Fire Team, known as the Iron Horse Legion. His twelve-man unit had the best kill-to-casualty rate in the DFR Marine Corps. That afforded them the privilege of first choice of spoils acquired in raids they participated in. Kensit universally allowed his surviving men to pick through the goods first, choosing what they wanted for themselves before passing on the leftovers to the replacements. Anything left after that, he took for himself. He was acquiring quite a collection of junk.
After signing off on the debriefing reports for a supply raid against the Leikzeg Colony, Kensit was returning to his room. His battle uniform had several burns scored into it from enemy weapons, but none had touched his flesh this time. The standard black-and-gray battlesuit was capable of deflecting a majority of hand held civilian defensive weapons, and these colonials rarely had much in the way of military hardware. Removing his gloves, he held his hand to the pad by the door to room 2206, the cabin that had been given him as a commander. It was about the size of the one he used to share with four others, but it was his alone. He had not taken advantage of many of the benefits of command. He still ate with his men, instead of in the executive dining room. He showered in the communal showers, and took his entertainment in the Enlisted Club. But as a man who had spent his entire life on cramped starships, the lure of having nearly 20 square feet of space to call his own was too much temptation to ignore.
Before the door to his room finished sliding open, Kensit had unholstered his sidearm and slid to the side himself. There was something wrong. He kept his room very spartan. There was nothing in there but a bed and an antique music replay system that he had scavenged and rebuilt as a child. Certainly nothing to create the scent of nightlilly, which he smelled the instant the door had cracked open. Nightlilly was a bio-engineered plant used by those of the unorthodox faith known as The Seeking. It was mildly aphrodisiac to men, and could induce trance-like states and, supposedly, visions in women. DFR scientists had identified it as a psi-neural disinhibitor, which meant that it enhanced psychic powers. The use of psychic powers was outlawed in the DFR, as a violation of the Citizens Privacy Rights Act.
Standing silently beside his door, blaster warm next to his cheek, he listened. The sound he heard was unmistakable... breathing. From the short, shallow sounds he guessed it was a woman sobbing softly, a sound he heard often on Colony Raids. He holstered the sidearm and stepped into the room, ready to defend himself, but almost certain he wouldn't have to. As he had guessed, the woman knelt in the center of the room, wearing a tattered orange jumpsuit with a patch he recognized quickly. Monkey. She was one of the colonists from the planet they had just raided; it had been a Colony of those strange people. Even after thousands of years, most people still identified themselves after the animal for which their original colonization ship had been named. In some cases, they had come to think of themselves as a Clan. This was the case for these people. The Monkey Clan were primarily non-violent people, though they had developed a variety of deadly hand-to-hand techniques, as well as giving birth to the scientist who first theorized the particle weapons now in common use throughout known space.
The woman was fairly attractive, with pale skin and blonde hair that was almost white. She was shapely, with round hips that suggested that her people, unlike those of the Dragon Free Republics, had not given up on live birth of babies. Her breasts were large, another indicator that her people still valued Motherhood. She raised her head to look at him with teary gray-blue eyes. Her hands were bound, but she didnt seem to have been mistreated. Kensit sighed. He suspected she constituted his portion of the "loot" from the most recent raid. Upon occasion the men and women of his unit felt the need to "get him laid." They had yet to succeed, as sex wasn't something Kensit had ever considered a good expenditure of his time. It wasn't that he had never had sex, it was just that he had never had any that made him feel as if he should seek out more.
The look in the woman's eyes spoke volumes. Kensit was not an unattractive man, by the standards of most. He was not tall, but he was broad shouldered and his lifetime as a soldier had given him a hard physique. He wore his fiery red hair long, though it was almost always in a tight tail at the base of his skull, and was tucked beneath his helmet during missions. His blue eyes were piercing, he had mastered using them to speak so that he didn't have to. The woman had not expected the commander coming to rape her to be young or attractive.
Kensit moved to the communication device implanted on the wall, planning to have security come remove the woman so that he could get to sleep. "What... what are you doing?"
"Getting rid of you so I can sleep. I don't know how I managed to not kill you down on the planet, but I assure you it wasn't for lack of trying. You must be an expert coward, to have hidden so well our scanners didn't pick you up."
"Wait!" the woman's fear was audible, causing Kensit to remove his finger from the button that rung for security and turn to face her. "I... I want to make you feel good. To give you pleasure."
Kensit scowled at her. "Don't grovel. I'm not interested." He began to reach for the button once more.
