A scout rushed into the throne room and bowed before her Empress. "Your Majesty, I've scouted the southern lands and have found something highly disturbing!" She produced a rough piece of parchment that had a crude drawing on it.

Empress Vodain looked down from her throne, taking the paper from the scout and carefully inspecting it. A monster was drawn with as much detail as one could hope to produce while on the move constantly, and using flowing ink rather than a thin writing stone. Large, a long tail with spikes on the back two massive horns, and very large clawed hands. Empress Vodain's eyebrows shot up at the sight of what looked to be a strange musket drawn next to it as well, nothing like what her guards used except perhaps vaguely in shape, she saw no matchlock mechanism for it to fire, so how it could possibly function was a mystery. "This is indeed startling....what have you observed?"

The scout produced another sketch, this one of a tower standing taller than anything seen before, tall and menacingly stretching towards the sky. "They seem to stay near this structure, it's likely their castle or palace Your Highness, I have yet to see them fire their strange muskets, however I have seen dozens of strange craft of the likes I've never thought possible." Another sketch was set before the Empress, this one a strange boxy shape, two wheels clearly not made of wood from the designs etched into them shown, then another sketch that showed the front of this craft, a strange four wheeled carriage without any beasts of burden to pull it. She didn't even see a place for such beasts to be latched to it.

The Empress hummed to herself. "I want someone to make contact with these beings, clearly they're intelligent if they have weapons, if they turn out to be hostile have them dealt with, our matchlocks should be more than enough to deal with them." She stated with confidence. Her empire was the only one to have such weapons after all, these couldn't be any better than those her troops used. And if matchlocks failed, bronze cannon would finish the job easily.

The scout bowed low. "Yes Your Majesty, at once Your Majesty." The scout stood, quickly leaving the throne room as a servant brought her Empress a large wooden cup filled to the brim with a bright green liquid. The Empress took the cup and drank deeply, enjoying the wine.

Waving the servant away she spoke to a guard. "Allow the court to begin, I hope someone has something interesting enough to catch my attention today." Vodain said with a sigh, the guard bowed deeply and did as she was told.

Governess Vadhan was shown into the throne room, bowing before her monarch while her robes, bright red in color remained bland and boring compared to those of her Empress, whose green and purple robes shined with elegance. "My Empress, I am here to report that the tribes to the west have submitted, we've taken minor casualties. Now that I control that area, what do you desire done with it?"

Empress Vodain grinned, her teeth pearly white. "I want several new mining operations there, we require more tin and copper for our cannon, as well as iron. Afterwards we can begin the construction of more permanent settlements and roads there."

Governess Vadhan bowed deeply. "Yes My Empress, what do we do with the captured tribals?" She asked raising one of her eyebrows.

The Empress smirked. "The men can be divided among your own forces, I know how desperate some of your warriors can get, the children and women can be divided for the pens, any male children being the exception of course, those will go to a reeducation school to help teach them proper ways of living, after they become of age their wives shall be chosen for them as is tradition."

Governess Vadhan's eyes lit up like fireworks, another recent invention. "Yes My Empress." She once again bowed deeply before making her way from the throne room.

The Empress looked to a guard. "Inform the rest that I am canceling court for today, I have other matters to attend to." The guard bowed and did as she was told once more, anything less and the Empress would have ordered her shot. She stood from her throne and walked down the hallways of her palace to a large room that held a bath, naturally heated from a nearby hot-spring. With a snap of her figures several servants disrobed her and she sank into the warm water with a happy sigh. Then servants began to grab soaps and silky cloth rags to wash their monarch. Before they could finish however the Grand Priest barged her way into the room, past the two guards holding their matchlocks.

"Your Holiness I must deeply apologize, but I bring dire news!" She ignored her monarchs nudity, as well as those of her servants, they where all women after all and it wasn't something she hadn't seen before, regardless she kept her eyes trained on that of her Empress.

The Empress glared while adorning her royal robes, unhappy at having her bath interrupted. "What is it Musne? You may be the Grand Priest but you damn well know I don't like having myself interrupted just as I begin to enjoy myself."

Grand Priest Musne bowed deeply in apology. "I am sorry, Your Holiness, but the Goddesses have seen fit to strike me with another vision!"

Empress Vodain's eyes went wide and all anger was forgotten as she spoke. "What did you see? Tell me this instant!"

Musne did as ordered, describing in great detail the vision she had been struck with that very morning, and the Empress swore. "Brotherfucker! Another attempted rebellion? We'll have to ensure it's snuffed out before it happens, damned cunts can't understand we're doing them a favor letting them live and work in the mines rather than just killing them and taking the men alone!"

------------------------------------------Crystal Empire Offworld Colony--------------------------

Dave looked down at the dead alien, the animal hide it wore not doing much to hide it's body, since it would pretty much be a fur 'bikini' he thought it would be called, he only vaguely remembered what a bikini was after watching a video explaining swimwear. Turning to his friend he spoke. "Well, I didn't expect sentient life here, then again throwing a stone spear at me shows it can make tools and use them. Clearly female too, if the tits are anything to go by, mammals are fuckin weird." He took a puff of his cigarette, offering one to Tulip.

Tulip rolled her eyes, pulling off her combat armors helmet and accepting the cancer stick. "Let's take this to those bigwig doctors up in the command tower, I'm sure they'd love to dissect this thing, rather stupid of her to try and just attack us without a nice amount of firepower, skin looks nice though, reminds me of some gold colored paintings I've seen." Tulip looked down at the alien, lighting her cigarette poking one of its limbs, a clean hole shot through it's face. It's skin was dark golden in color, while the eyes forever stuck open were dark green, two small white tusks poking out from the bottom of it's mouth. The bloody hole in its head showed it's blood to oddly enough, be a light blue color rather than the normal red or green. "It looks startlingly human."

Dave nodded, pulling out a large biohazard bag from his pack. "Yeah I noticed that as well, very odd, even it's feet look human, and most species have a different way to structure their feet, I mean ours don't exactly look like a ponies, or Akun." He carefully slid the corpse as well as the spear and primitive animal hide pack it had with it into the bag before zipping it up and carefully picking it up in his arms. "Alright you keep guard, If any more of those things show up try to talk to em first, but if they attack you can kill em, gonna take this to the Doc."

Tulip saluted, putting her helmet back on and her shotgun off her back, it was a Minotaur sized weapon, meaning a nice automatic 15 millimeter shotgun that could fire a few dozen shells in one shot, enough to turn anything hit to paste, Dave's weapon was a 5.56 millimeter long rifle, automatic fire was an option but it was better with single shot, more for sharpshooters.

As Dave set his new cargo into the bed of the military truck he couldn't bother remembering the classification for, he hopped into the drivers seat ensuring to fit his tail in the mold that had been fitted for his species, it wasn't fun to hit a big bump and have your tail feel as if it was being yanked off. Not that it was likely he'd encounter any sort of bump, the command tower was surrounded by pavement and properly marked roads, impressive since it had only been a few months since they set up shop here. It only took five minutes to arrive at the building, he nodded to the guards whom nodded in return before going still as stone once again.

Stepping into the elevator with his cargo, Dave selected the third floor and waited, ten seconds and the doors opened with the chime of a bell. Grabbing a medical stretcher on wheels he plopped his cargo, bag and all onto it and wheeled it over to the Head Doctor and Xeno biologist Doctor Ember Flames. "Doctor, I believe I have something that'll be of great interest to you." He carefully unzipped the bag, and the Doctors eyes lit up as she stared at the new subject.

With a grin that could rival Pinkie's Ember Flames turned to Dave. "You my friend just earned yourself a bottle from my personal rum stash for this delightful little gift! Go enjoy the celebration, it is Liberation Day after all." This made Dave smile, he quite enjoyed rum. Thus Dave went back outside, a bottle of rum to share with his friend as fireworks began to fire from the tower in the traditional blue, white, and purple.

-------------------------------- Ss'ket Homeworld Hh’keta, Lorenzo's POV------------------

A heavy four engine vertibird landed on a designated pad set aside for it and it alone. And I stepped out as normal, I was glad to have allowed this Enclave aircraft to make a resurgence, it had become a popular form of private travel for civilians who could afford to purchase one and afford to pay a pilot. It was also used for military service, being armed with several dozen point defense lasers and two gatling lasers in the nose and missile pods. I strode with two Ss'ket guards in full body combat armor carrying weapons that looked a lot like a Kalashnikov. I was sat within the same meeting room as before and gave the two monarchs before me a small smile. "Hello fellas, today's the day eh?"

Shihezz Skim nodded with a grave look upon his face, his brother remaining quiet. "We owe your Empire a Warriors Debt for helping us advance so rapidly in our technology, and for helping us with several deadly diseases we could not prevent without your medical technology being so freely given to us, the destruction of the five ships we sent is unacceptable. Those scum will know no happiness within the afterlife, may the Goddess shun them for their crimes against sentients." His brother nodded before he continued. "We are going to full wartime production, and beginning a draft. You will not be in this fight alone, you shall have our full support."

Hituzz Skim nodded his head as well. "Civilians are enlisting by the dozens to help our allies, I expected nothing less. We shall not stand by idly as the atrocities those vermin have done come to the light."

I grinned. "You will be happy to know that the DIA has gathered a lot of information that shall be useful, I sent you a copy a few days ago of the information in question, hopefully it's been useful so far?"

Shihezz grined. "Quite so, we know the location of their homeworld, it's time to give them a taste of what they have done to others, and save those whom refuse to follow the folly of their rulers."

Hituzz smiled. "Well said Brother of mine." We all smiled at the little red dot pulsating on the holographic map. Malice within our eyes.

Author's Note

Hallo all! Hope u like dis! Remember comment comment comment! I very much enjoy reading your comments, we got 119 likes, let's see 119 comments! XD

here is what the vertibird looked like for those who wonder, because I suck balls at describing shit.