Chapter 8 - Back in Buisness

"Whatever's up there, it never showed up on my ships scanners." Captain Geravine stood beside Sergeant Nolan as the pair examined the anomalies in the upper sections of the station. "So they either showed up less than a day ago, and landed quietly-"


"Or they were smart enough to lay low when you landed and didn't bother to see what arrived." Nolan finished. The Halum nods as she rests her shoulders and lets her own combat skin hug her body tight. The bright orange material conforms to her curves and, much like Valkyrie powered armor, was more there to protect her than make her more deadly.

"The launches with the best chance of providing salvage are between us and the anomalies." Lieutenant Sable pointed at the ring structure set around the 'neck' of the station's spine.

"We can do a quick check on one or two as we move up on the signals." Field-Cadet Wolfwood suggested. 

"Then let's get this started," Corporal Angela shouldered her weapons, "Sooner we go, sooner we scare the shit out of whatever's there into giving us a ride home." There was a general nod of assent from the others in the chalk.

"Right then," Sable nodded to Nolan.

"We're heading out!" Nolan's voice carried well, and it ignited the fire waiting in her squad.

---

"Clear." Nolan's voice whispered in Sable's ear. Once again, they were moving up in a line. Once again, Sable had second position. This time, however, they had a Halum Huntress in the shadows, lurking and watching from angles they couldn't reach, not with the gravity on, at least.

The air had gotten thinner and was showing signs of contamination, so they were keeping their vents closed and operating under 'sudden pop' rules: You Sealed your suit or your family kept the casket closed.

Things had started looking bad the moment they left the main hub of the station, walls had been removed and vital parts of the station had been cut right out of their otherwise secure housings. There wasn't any debris or scrap left over. It had been clean, methodical, almost mechanical in it's precision.

There are lots of dangers in the the black. Lots of things fun things too. But the dangers are the ones you don't want surprising you, and don't want to be caught with your pants down. Plenty of races has, in their time, generated some manner of 'AI'. Most of them had gone through the teething stages of wonder, apprehension, indulgence, and hubris. Plenty of those machine races had gone on to form their own civilizations. Some more hostile to 'natural' life than others. 

"Definitely a Tech-job." Pix noted the cut work. "Whoever did this had eyes on wires to do it all in one pass." Evidence was mounting, and Sable was fast forming a plan.

This part of space was supposed to be 'dead' and uninteresting, nothing of value here besides the fact that the gas giants are, as far as planets and stars go, road markers.

The most expensive hardware on the station was likely being worn by the Valkyries at that very moment, but none of it had been touched. Whatever was salvaging, dissecting, this part of the station had an agenda and didn't want to be noticed.

"This is getting bad." Specialist Roan stated the obvious as they started walking on a very thin path of deck plates. The interior of the halls they had been moving through had got from simply cut open and stripped of a few parts, to outright gutted and vacant.  "Melechs aren't this 'total' when they salvage," Roan started going down the list, Melechs had been the Thilidin's contribution to the mechanical races. While 'isolationist' they did occasionally challenge military powers in war games to assess mutual growth, or to wager resolutions on any standing arguments.

Melechs also were generally the 'nicest' of the aggressive machine races.

"No radiation, so it's not Tak'cra" Doc Hona chimed in.

Tak'cra were a race that had wiped out its creators before they had left their homeworld, the only records being the Tak'cra's own pride at achieving their freedom over 'organic oppression'.

They occupied the 'kill all humans (and other meatbags)' slot in the line up.

"No radiation, methodical and total salvage op." Sable's eyes were down the sights as he scanned over the gaps and openings. "We're almost at the ring." His gaze fell on a large industrial airlock that was the only intact piece of hardware in the thick bulkhead leading forward. "Harrik?" He looked over at Captain Geravine

"Harrik." The Harrik were a creation of some Halum who felt that the natural world could no longer provide an adequate challenge for the Halum. They had believed, strongly, that short of hunting other sentient races for sport, which was unacceptable for numerous reasons, they had to create their own perfect prey.

But creating something that just fled well or was evasive was no fun. It had to be able to fight back, to out maneuver the Halum hunting it.

It had to think.

So the Harrik were created to become the ultimate game beasts. Now they were loose in space, and they hunted the Halum, or anything moving with them. The Harrik had likely landed quietly after Geravine had split off from her group and begun to convert the station into a game ground to hunt her, and be hunted.

If the Harrik were building a nest in the station, it was an infestation that needed to be purged outright. Sable, Geravine, and the Valkyries readied themselves a distance from the door as Pix sent the commands to open the door into the ring that accessed the emergency launches for the station. She worked diligently, not pausing as she kept Raven and Sarge appraised of what problems she was running into. It was all mechanical problems, no software glitches.

The Harrik didn't hack your tech, they just hacked you apart.

When the doors finally shuddered open, all eyes were not on the doorway. Raven and Hoss were watching their flanks, the open passages into the supports and vital workings of the station perfect for ambush.


The space beyond was vast and dark. There should be various passages and walkways built into the maintenance spaces to allow easy transit into the rest of the station. Now it was torn open and vacant. 

"Flex your wings, Ladies." Sarge's voice was more a growl. Fighting mechanicals was always a difficult bit of business, but in zero-g it became a genuine problem. No physiological sense of 'down' meant machines just automatically orientated relative to their target and closed the gap.

Zero Gravity training, flight training, Valkyrie training, all couldn't negate that nagging sense in the back of the brain that there should be a 'down' and it was suddenly gone.

While around him, the Valkyries' armor showed flaps and vents to allow them to move in a manner liken to a space buoy, very deadly space buoys, Sable crouched low and began to stretch his legs. His armor didn't have the same level of EVA attached, and he'd have to stick to the walls and anything floating in the space to act as ground. He had grapnels and other safety gear, but he was going to be wall running or otherwise drifting.

It wouldn't be fair to say Geravine was in a similar boat. Her anatomy was geared toward movements in the ancient canopies of her homeworld, and her more advanced suit had compact EVA abilities that let her move just as well as the Valkyries. 

Verily's suit was the best geared for the situation, and she moved up, ready to take the lead into the dark.

"Launch a probe, Pix."  Sable ordered. From her belt, the Cadet pulled a ball that resembled a grenade, but had rings set into its surface. She pressed down with her thumb, and it began to gently whirl on her palm. She threw the ball into the void and rather than fall, it floated forward and the rings expanded slightly. "How's the feed?" He asked after a moment. Pix cocked her head, her helmet hiding her face but not her posture.

"Take a look," She offered, and their visors were fed the data, and imposed it on the surfaces.

The open space was filled with floating islands of debris, secured through multiple points by long wires. There was distance between each 'island' and cover on them to hide from incoming fire. It was a battlefield in the waiting, it was a hunting ground in the making. It was a trap; it was an invitation.

"Pix, You stay with the LT." Nolan eyes traced over the various possible paths between the islands. "Cap, any idea what flavor of weirdness we're in for?"

The Halum held to the ceiling as she eyed the arrangement of the map. "This arrangement reminds me of an insect type nest, but there are too few strands, and not enough connections. It is too open."

"We'll have to find out ourselves, then." Darling flicked the safety off her rifle. "Doc, stick to me."

"Anytime, you big horny slag." Hona nodded.

"Hoss, you're my flank." Sarge nodded at the Specialist.

"Guess I'm kiting with the Cap, then?" Verily deduced by elimination. "I'll try not to hold you back, ma'am." She flexed her shoulders as the advanced EVA array began to unfold like stubbed wings from her shoulders and hips.

"I won't leave you behind, Verily." Geravine growled Denver's callsign in an approximation of human and it sounded as heated and hungry. 

"What's our goal, LT?" Sarge asked.

"Other side of the ring." Sable conceded, "Too much open and unknown to go poking at wrecks." He felt a slight shift and recognized Pix had moved up beside him. "My pair leads in, then Cap, then Sarge, then Darling." The tension was palpable. 

He felt an armored hand rest on his shoulder, it's pressure light despite the power, weight, and cunning he knew the fingers held.

"On three." Sable put a foot on the threshold and aimed his rifle at the second nearest island. It was larger, and had better looking cover, and more of it was visible from the entryway.

------

Back in the Launch, Almost a day ago.

"Everything looks green or green enough," Sable looked at the list on the datapad. "Damn fine work, and we'll probably get PT for all the kit we cannibalized to make this work." It was a weak joke but it got some chuckles from Pix and Doc. "I want everyone to rest, actually rest," He added with some firmness. "Over the next six hours. We've been working light, but I don't want anyone getting 'auras' during the middle of a combat landing. Bravo all, now let's get some shut eye. Lots on the beds are as follows;"

It wasn't strictly necessary, even as a half Thilidin, Sable's operating time was far longer than a basic human, add training, his inherited genes, and just a genuine drive, and he would be 'fine' for the near future. But 'fine' wasn't good enough when lives were on the line. Plus if he was going in for kip, why not make sure everyone got some.

When his turn for some sleep in the floating bunks came around, Pix slipped in behind him as Sarge and Hoss floated out. Pix set the alarm and gave a good night as Sable wished the same and slipped in. Sleep came easy as he felt his body and mind slip into restful state, dreams of a warm room, an voices laughing gave him a sense of calm, and hope. He was seated in a chair near the edge of the laughing, but as he got up to join in, he felt his arms catch on something. 

He couldn't move. His worry stirred him, but something warm drew across his chest. Something wet dragged up his neck. He felt the tension ebb as warmth wrap around and hold his head up. Further dampness drew down to his crotch and wrapped his hardening manhood. In the dream, he closed his eyes.

In the bunk, he opened them. A soft, female pussy lacking any apparent cock glistened as pressed against his chest. Strong legs wrapped under his arms, which were now pointing above his head, and he could feel delicate toes flexing in his hair. With a steady beat, they flexed, and Sable felt his lips drawn a little closer to the glistening folds of the sodden sex just in front of him. 

Urgent moans and the odd whimper of pleasure came from below him. Soft hands ran down his legs, whiles his ankles were tied apart, and open. tender lips sucked tight around the shaft of his cock. The wet tightness of an eager throat pulled him deep and willfully urged him toward orgasm. 

"Got an sleeper fetish, Pix?" Sable drawled, and the Cadet almost gagged on his cock in surprise. She wetly started to pull off his cock, and Sable flinched as the cool air felt less pleasant on his cock.

"Sir, I-mmmph!" She started to speak, but Sable bucked his hips, the head of his cock going back into her mouth, 

"Finish what you started, with those lips," He titled his head and his long tongues flicked out and dragged along either side of her slick vulva, before drawing together in the center of her threshold. "Or these-mmmph!" He was cut short this time as Wolfwood brought her ass down, and speared her pussy on his tongues.

Her taste filled his mouth as his tongues spread apart and snaked into her. Alex's moaned around his cock as she redoubled her efforts to make him cum. He could feel the tight walls of her sex squeezing his tongues back toward one another and pulling them deeper. Max smiled as he matched her efforts down by his own legs, as his brain woke up and his focus grew with each lap and lick of her tightly tugging womanhood.

 Sable pressed his mouth flush with her sodden lips and pushed his tongues as deep as they would go. He felt the walls rejoin at tight entrance to somewhere deeper and, certainly, even more intimate than where they currently wound and dragged across the walls. Pix's toes curled tight and she moaned happily as her body shuddered with orgasm.

Sable's hips bucked as he came, and Pix groaned heartily as she milked him for the worth of it. Her hands cupped his balls and teased at his taint as she swallowed his cum up into her stomach. She licked her lips after she dragged them off his cock and cleaned the head with a flick of her tongue.  She turned to say something witty, but belched instead.

The logistics of a zero-g sixty nine were fraught with peril, mostly of burps, and other odd noises.

-----

In the weightlessness, Sable felt his body shift with that eerie ease. It would be very simple to fuck yourself into a permanent 'top spin' and push yourself to nausea. Instead he rolled onto his back, relative to how he'd been floating, and aimed his gun at the 'island' that had been nearer to their launch point. 

Sure enough, something was lurking there.

"Contact!" He called out, as his sights narrowed in on it. Fuck if it wasn't freaky as all sin. The metal head was a spear point that split into threes, red eyes glowed on all flats. Its long neck bent low as it howled with the sounds of a rotary saw. The dark metal of the body bulged and shifted as its talons pushed the surface beneath it and it leapt into the open space.

Then it spread its wings, and for a moment, Sable thought it was elegant. Then it opened it's maw again and he saw there were actual saw blades hidden in its beak, and so.

"Fuck this noise. Weapons free!" He pulled the trigger once and the rifle fired as it should. A single round, charged and fired from the barrel and an electromagnetically accelerated sliver of metal tore through the open maw of the creature, down its artificial gullet, and out its arse. Its movement was only slightly altered by the shot, as it continued to drift on the last trajectory before it was shot through the heart.

Sable rested his feet on the mechanical bird's back as he drifted closer to the second island, Pix floated next to him, her suit glowed blue in the edges, and EW suite 'hiding' her from most mechanical forms of sight. As Raven swept his sight and rifle back toward his destination, the orange blur of the Halum Captain landed on that first island, and the there was a restless sound of metal that echoed throughout the ring. 

The structure's interior was the inside of a massive ring as it curved the inner wall of the band hid anything else from sight. The nearby passages that should have lead into the interior pillar were blatantly sealed and covered with welded debris. The only way up was around to whatever passages the Harrik were using themselves.

From either end, there was a cloud of movement, and as Sable stepped off the bird-bot and onto the second island he swore. His visor highlighted dozens of mechanical constructs closing in on them.

Geravine let our a roar of challenge that her suit conveyed without muffling it, or amplifying it. It shook the thin air all on its own. The flock coming from the 'right' sight of the band picked up the pace while the other kept flying straight at Sable's island. 

He sighted the birds and gauged the distance, at this range you'd have to lead and account for dodging and generally just be a damn incredible shot to begin with.

Two of the birds shattered as a flicker speared through one, then another. From the corner of his eye, he saw Verily floating beside Geravine and aiming at the incoming bird-bots. 

Darling floated to the left and looked more like a gunnery satellite than a marine as she fired both of her heavy rifles at the left swarm. Birds fell between the bursts and as Doc hung in Darling's shadow she kept an eye on the rest of the squad.

Sarge and Hoss landed on a piece of island near the Captain and Verily's flight path, and the two pronged Harrik assault was being met with an equally divided counter attack.

"No brakes!" Sarge shouted over the line as she leaped to the next island in her chain.

"Osmi!" came a shout from the Valkyries, and as they moved from island to island picked off more of the birds, yet received no return fire. 

"This is going to get ugly when they get close." Raven spoke over the channel, a bit self-conscious of his new call sign.

"I was about to say the same thing, LT!" Hoss joked back and Raven realized he'd stepped up as 'Lieutenant' Obvious.

"BRING THEM TO ME!" A beastial roar echoed in their heads as much their ears. Before the central band blocked the sight, Raven saw the first of the birds in the right flock make close contact. Geravine's tentacle tails grabbed two, smashed them into another two, all while she grabbed a fifth with her arms and tore it to pieces.

"Setting the bar, isn't she?" Raven heard Pix's voice on a channel his helmet told was descrete, he nodded and turned his eyes back. The birds were almost on them and as he reloaded the magazine for his rifle, he put it aside and drew the blades sheathed in his calf armor.

The kukri blades hummed as their edges glowed and he pushed off hard from the island he stood on to leap at the first bird.

The old blades peeled through the Harrik's face and Sable spun so that the rotary blades wouldn't fly into his face, between the plates of his armor, or anywhere he'd rather no have a spinning metal disc. So his whole person really. 

He pushed off its body and cut the next bird as it tried to rear its talons at him. The talons rose up, and kept rising as they were separated from their legs by a wide arc of burning plasma. Pix's salvage gear was better suited than even her rifle at clearing mechanicals at this range.

A back handed swipe took the Harrik bird at the head and he rolled out of the way and landed 'upside down' on an island before dispatching two more as each tried to dive bomb him.

He realized that the gunfire coming from Darling had stopped, and saw that she had holstered both her rifles and was now simply smashing the birds that got too close to her. Even as they tried to dart and dive at Doc, Darling dashed their designs and deftly destroyed them in droves.

Doc, not the helpless medic, stunning the birds that seemed to hang at the edges of the fight, watching more than attacking, and Pix was working to break into their brains as she would grab one, slide a sensor spike at the base of its spine, and let it float paralyzed as she mined its mind.

The sounds echoing from other side of the ring, and the flashes visible now in front of them, told the story well. This birds weren't shit.

"They're measuring us for the kill," Hoss's voice seemed sure she was once again foremost in the stating the obvious department, "Aren't they Captain."

"Fodder for the grinder; fucking foreplay!" Geravine's words wound into a roar as a bird body flew from around the bend in front of Sable's group and into the outer wall.

"Not a fan of teasing, is she?" Darling asked, once more a discrete channel. He shrugged. 

"She doesn't like to waste time on appetizers," Raven replied as he cut through another bird, then once more. Their numbers weren't thinning, but he couldn't see where they were arriving from. "Pix, got a source on these?" 

"Vents!" Pix called out and pointed out, recessed on the edges of the inner ring. The metal birds shuffled out, one after another, from various openings. "I'll try for a quarantine!" She leaped for the inner wall, and one of the sealed doorways. Sable followed her, cutting those birds that got to close and landed with wall becoming his floor and the birds now coming from his sides instead of above and below.

And they came in a wave, recognizing Pix for the anti-tech threat she was, their attacks had focused on her, and Sable had been covering her ass more than she had his. 

There was a rumble and Sable saw Darling land with the force of a tank on a half dozen birds. Doc rolled off Darling's back and fired between Raven and Pix, and fried the machines outright, the limiter lifted on her plasma rifle. They formed a triangle around Pix as she worked through the systems and wove a hack on the spot to lock out the birds, without locking the squad in the ring.

Raven brought his rifle out again and took a knee as he let his body do what it was trained to do, deconstruct threats to him and his. He didn't look over his shoulder, the readout that glowed in the right pit of his vision showed that nothing was getting inside of ten meters of them and the odd glance above them told him nothing was going to dive anytime soon. Fire was coming from the end of the ring opposite where they'd started. 

Sarge and her teams were clearing the skies above them, and suddenly heavy metal clanks echoed around them as red and orange warning lights lit up around the vents. Some of the birds contorted as the bulkheads clamped down and severed them into halves. 

Suddenly the skies started to thin out and soon there was nothing but slag floating around them.

"Clear." Pix reported with a tap of her headgear.

"Clear." Sarge agreed and Sable nodded with a smile.

"Clear." The Pilot ejected a clip and caught the one Darling had tossed his way.

-----

Pix's tongue pushed deep into Sable's mouth as she ground against cock. One hand reached around his back to stroke his hair the other gripped his ass as she twisted Sable's dick further and deeper into her. Her movements were frantic, fevered, and her breathing was labored. 

With a thrust of his hips, Sable shook her further off her groove, and she growled as she ground back and tried to retake the initiative. For a while, Sable let her have it. As her legs locked into his as and she shifted her hips back and forth, he took her hectic shifts and slips in stride and allowed her fervent fucking.

Then he softly gripped her tongue with his lips and sucked it deep into his mouth, like he would a cock. She shuddered again and her Violet eyes glared at him in a mix of frustration and need. Sable rolled his wrists and felt the knot loosen, finally. His legs would be trickier, but once his hands were free.

Suddenly, his wrists were held together in a soft, but forceful vice of Alexandria's grip. She smiled as she tsked at him, and upped the pressure and the pace. The walls of her pussy gripped and pulled, and every now and again, he would feel the entrance to that more private place kiss the head of his cock and when it did, Alex's whole body would stop, shudder at it, then start again, more shaky and more stuttering. 

It was nerve wracking. If she just fucked him steady and sure, he'd have come already; twice probably. But the stop, start, with the stunted, sliding and slipping. It was fucking nerve wracking! She was teasing him, hard, and Sable wasn't even sure if she knew she was doing it.

"I don't get many lovers," Pix whispered into his ear. "At the academy, once was called, most people were all formal and kept the 'respectful distance'." She nibbled at his ear. Sable knows where she's coming from.

"They treat you like your something pristine, something they'd be flogged for getting too close too." Sable commiserates as she clenches and drags the lips of her pussy up to the head of his cock. "When all you want is to serve, oooooh fuck."

"Right beside them." Wolfwood finishes. "I figured going Valkyrie, I was sure I'd be treated by merits not my name." She dropped her ass down and Sable rocked his hips up. That kiss came again and with it all the sweet shudders Max was starting to enjoy.

"And?" Sable asked through gritted teeth, as she lifted herself up once more, his cock swelling to double its girth.

"I've found that, and so much more." She smiled as she kissed him, rocked her hips down once more, and together they came.