Chapter 12
Gavin was excited.
He was in the cockpit of the of the interceptor as they approached their first planetary mission with Kittens team, continuing to scout the area surrounding their planet.
All three of them were onboard. Tinker was acting as a sort of engineer and Kazumi was pitching in with Terla in medical.
"I am reading a fair amount of tech on the planet." He told Kitten.
"That will be our landing location. It's best if we don't try and hide our presence even if they aren't answering our hails."
"You're the expert." He told her.
Both brothers were moving slowly in their relationships with the women they chose. Tinker because of her previous experiences and Gavin simply because he didn't want to make a mistake or rush anything.
They were moving slowly, but they were moving forward.
"Oh blast! We have a corsair lifting from the main city." Tinker called from his engineering station.
"Captain?" Gavin asked.
"It's not our place to start a battle. If they start one however.." She trailed off.
The team had no such luck as the pirate craft boosted out of atmosphere and headed directly for deep space.
They came in for a landing at roughly the same location the pirate craft had lifted from and placed the ship in standby for a quick departure.
"Rocker, Jazz, I need you two to stay on board with the medics while we check out the situation. I want someone in this seat monitoring the sensors and prepared to get my baby out of here quick."
"So you don't want us to wait for you to return?" Rocker asked.
"If this ship gets blown up we are stuck here waiting until Darby or someone comes looking. So no."
"Fair enough Cap."
The two brothers flanked Kitten, all in full armor, as they descended the ramp and stepped out onto the plain where the ship was parked.
The "city" they had landed in was entirely, as far as they could see, made up of ships. They stood waiting at the foot of the ramp as a human approached.
"Welcome to Malachai." He said. "How can we be of service?"
"We are traveling the area, looking into possible trade opportunities." Kitten responded.
"It doesn't look like you have much room there for freight." The man replied shrewdly.
"Our organization doesn't believe in using our freighter ships for first contact situations. We have found that it's safer to establish a baseline relationship first."
"And what organization would that be?"
"The Legion."
The man obviously tensed a bit at that revelation, although it couldn't have been much of a surprise. The Fury's were exclusively run by the Legion in this era.
"Ah, we have certainly heard of you. Took down Lief the pirate king, I heard."
"Yes, regrettably we found we couldn't work with him and he threatened our organization and those under our protection."
"You will find no such situation here on Malachai. My name is Garuth Burwan, please, let us have a drink and a discussion."
During the conversation that followed they discovered that Malachai had been "settled" by some independent freighters, smugglers, and yes, pirates. Over the years they had built up a fairly robust system based on trading, crop sales, and ship parts and repairs. True to her word Kitten faithfully took the flimsiplast listing the services and goods available and exchanged it for one the legion had prepared. They finished their conversation with an exchange of comm frequencies.
As they were returning to the ship Gavin asked the man why the pirate ship had fled at their approach. Surprisingly Garuth burst out laughing.
"Your group has gained quite the reputation for dealing with those men in a rather permanent fashion. Any prudent Captain would have done the same. I'm sure that ship is holed up nearby somewhere and is in touch with contacts here to find out if you are pursuing them or not."
The legionnaires chuckled. "We didn't come here for a fight. I am sure your customers will find that as long as everyone behaves we have a live and let live philosophy."
They asked Garuth about others nearby that may become trading partners or who he felt should be avoided. He pointed out several planets with populations that engaged in at least limited trade. Then he gave them a long look.
"This planet here." He told them, touching the small holo that Kitten was displaying from her wrist comp. "It's not a good trading partner. It is a horrible place and I recommend it be avoided."
"Can you tell us why?" Kitten inquired.
He sighed again.
"The locals call it Eros, the pleasure planet."
He looked up and met Gavin's eyes. "They call it that because it is a planetary brothel, the only one I know of."
"The entire planet?"
"Yes, almost the entire population is in the business of providing pleasure. Also, contraceptives are not legal there."
"Why not? That seems foolish."
"No one knows. Many visit the place a time or two but there is something basically wrong about it."
"I imagine that it is quite a stop for slavers."
"You would, and you would be almost completely wrong. Apparently the population is large enough to be self sustaining."
"You're right, that place sounds completely awful, we thank you for the advice." Kitten said.
They boarded the interceptor and blasted off. Once clear they entered the coordinates and followed the hyperspace route back to Nathea.
To say the discussion on the way back and with the rest of the exploration teams once they had returned was active would be an understatement. Everyone agreed wholeheartedly that Eros needed investigated but there were many forcefully pushed suggestions regarding exactly how to get it done.
It looked like almost an even split between those who wanted to infiltrate and those advocating an immediate invasion was divided almost down the middle. What no one disagreed on was that more information was needed.
The first thing the Legion did, therefore, was spread word out among their contacts looking for further information. They then sent numerous probes and sensor drones into the system containing the planet.
Considering the amount of efforts being put towards information gathering the return was less than satisfying. None of their contacts seemed to know any more than they did. None of the drones reported anything out of the ordinary about the planet or system.
Nothing abnormal, that is, until they observed two ships lift off from Eros and head to one of the other planets. A short while later a single ship lifted from the other planet and returned. When they got their probe in close to the location, they discovered a literal field of ships just parked on the surface of the airless world.
The ships were a wide variety of different types, from different eras. The only thing they had in common was that, with very few exceptions, each ship only
had need of a few crew members. Estimating from known ship classes it appeared the upper limit was a crew size around 10.
It was the number of ships and the ages that concerned them. Some had been sitting on the surface so long the dust nearly covered them. Whatever was happening on Eros had been happening, apparently, for centuries.
Yeneshan was the closest thing to a settled, steady government that the area had to offer so some inquiries were made there. It appeared that records of occasional ships going missing on or near Eros went back as far as the records were kept. Several investigations seemed to have been undertaken but no results were ever filed.
This situation just stank to high heaven. Something was going on there and nothing they could think of made sense.
The engineers called for a meeting with the exploration teams, as they were currently the only group working off-world. Since they were more or less cooling their heels on Nathea until a plan for Eros was completed they all attended.
What the engineers had come up with was pretty amazing. They had developed a completely internal comm system they could all use which piggybacked off the processing power of the learning chip they had all, by now, been injected with. It used comm frequencies and tech from Kitten's universe so there was almost no chance it could be intercepted.
By itself the device only had a few miles range, less if underground or somehow shielded, but, if within range of any ship they had equipped with a base station the ship would receive and rebroadcast. Putting a ship in the circuit meant at least planetary range.
This was common tech during Kitten's peoples war but had never really been used in this galaxy. It should provide them with a considerable advantage going forward.
Once everyone had the new comms and they were tested and proven they again took a look at the Eros mission. It was decided to send Kittens team in since it had both male and female members, was just about the strongest group in combat, and, most importantly, had Alpha to work on the cyber security side.
The team readied themselves and their equipment and then lifted for Eros. They were tailed by Darby and his team in their yacht. The plan was to drop a few inconspicuous comm buoys using their own comm tech to allow the two ships to stay in range.
The initial system entry and approach went smoothly, including dropping the buoys. They messaged for landing instructions and received guidance to a bay in the main city on the lightly settled planet.
When they arrived the team disembarked and were promptly met by a professional looking security team. Their credentials were examined and they were questioned about the purpose of their visit.
Kitten gave her usual answer about seeking opportunities for further trade and they were referred to a trading office. When they started to head off to the office they were stopped and informed that no droids were allowed on the planet.
It was an unusual restriction, but this certainly wasn't the only planet that didn't want droids wandering so Alpha was sent back to the ship. The armor they were wearing was also capable of boosting comm signals so it wasn't a major issue. Alpha set herself up to monitor the comms and ships sensors as the rest headed off into the city.
The team found little to be suspicious of in the negotiations with the traders. Several possible ventures were approached and discussed. Eventually they went out to a local eatery with them and shared dinner and a few casual drinks before heading to their assigned rooms for the evening.
The being was hungry. It was always hungry now, even as the soup was sucked from its hapless victim and the corpse tossed aside to be sent to the incinerator with the rest, it hungered.
When the creature had come to Eros, although that had not been the planets name at the time, it had done so with the intention of creating a safe haven for the peoples of the area. It had set up industry and infrastructure, had helped get an agriculture plan in place and working, and had even used its own funds to buy the seed animals for the farms.
In return, all that it asked was the soup from a few, and it had been careful to only choose the dregs of society, the unattractive, the unintelligent, those who were not to be missed.
Unfortunately, as was the way of its kind, as the Anzat continued to feed it became more and more addicted. Over time the entire society it had created was manipulated by it's mental abilities to be nothing more than a source of constant sustenance.
It made the world a brothel, to attract others to come and visit. It banned birth control to increase the natural growth of its prey. It cut deals for added slaves and imported different species. All the time it was doing so it continued to feed.