Chapter 1

Everything was going right for recently promoted Captain Irys Kerrigan. He had just been promoted to Captain by his clansmen on the planet of Barydose. He had also heard while he was practicing about some new captain that had just been promoted was in fact going to be getting a ship that was coming in soon.

Everything that he had been praying for was finally coming true. He stared absently around his room, his long, black and red hair flittering into his eyes as he walked, causing him to contemplate cutting it all off. He checked his uniform again as he walked up to a far viewport. He was instantly able to tell where he was. Even though he didn't know about it at the time, he was now standing over the new clansmen barracks. And here he was, with his office and room right above them.

The clan of Meardith was one that he most DEFINITELY wanted to join, what with their renowned training programs and their doctorate of 'First to fight, always there for the finish.' He had joined when he was a child, thankfully with the help of many higher up people who had said that he was more mature than most. Eighteen years, and he was FINALLY where he wanted to be; at the rank of Captain with a prospective ship coming into dock soon. He watched as the men and women moved around the barracks room, some hitting the rack between training sessions, other moving about, cleaning.

"Commander?" he heard someone ask from behind him. It wasn't a soft, normal voice of most people who talked to him. Hell, most people who talked to him weren't even HUMAN! He had the uncanny knack of pissing people off and it didn't help his career. Thankfully, most of his instructors hadn't been human.

"Yes?" he asked, turning around slowly, waiting to be berated for something that he didn't even do. As he turned around, he couldn't help but see that the person that was looking at him, that was in fact talking to him in a non-threatening way, was in fact a female, but she didn't look like a human. In fact she looked like she was a hybrid. As he looked at her, he saw a longer than normal nose, almost a snout of some sort, long green hair with blue highlights, at the moment pulled into a ponytail. Pale almost blue skin complimented her to the utmost. She surprisingly held the rank of Naval Gunnery Lieutenant, which was one of the ranks that he had considered taking for himself. As he looked into her eyes, he was shocked to see that her eyes were slatted like a cats eyes. He couldn't imagine looking at anything more beautiful than the woman that stood in front of him.

She on the other hand looked like she had just been kicked in the gut. She saw his rank and immediately stood at attention and saluted. "Sorry sir." She shouted, her eyes darting back and forth as if waiting for a firing squad of Terra Troups to come in blasting her ass into the hanger bay and turning off the artificial gravity field. "I was informed that a Commander Irys Karrigan was to be in here at this time and to report to him about assignment." She explained.

"Wow, okay," he stammered. Not exactly sure why she had such a demeanor check, until he remembered that he wasn't a Commander anymore. "Everything is okay. I just got promoted yesterday so you can stop all that nonsense." He said, saluting back so she would relax from hers. "Orders?" he said, reeling back a little as she flipped out the green card that would be containing her orders. Flipping it through his wrist-mounted datapad, he saw that she had been in fact been ordered to be under him and work as his arms man and when on ship, she was gonna be his gunnery chief, which by the look of her marksmanship scores, was a VERY good thing. Looking up at her, he was only mildly surprised to see her almost sweating in nervousness. "Everything is in order. Now, did you receive any other instructions for when you were going to arrive?" he asked.

"I was already in-processed for going into Beta Company over on the other side of the station. But they… didn't want me." She hesitated, looking down on the ground.

"Didn't want you?" That's a bunch of bullshit if you ask me." He growled. "Did they give you billeting?" he asked.

"No sir." She replied. "I had billeting arranged for me when I was on the other side of the station."

"Now see, that won't do." He smiled, causing her to snap her head up. "I can't have you late reporting for launches or anything like that." He explained.

"But sir! I have tried already to find billeting in the section in the station and they're not allowing anymore rooms." She grumbled, shaking her head.

"Lieutenant, do you realize that this room is bigger than THREE of those 'billeting' scraps people keep fighting over? I have a side for me, an XO, and the office that you're standing in. I am sure that you can handle having a roommate right?" he asked.

"But sir, what about your XO?" she asked, trying to fight down the expressions racing over her face. "Won't he get mad about that?"

"Lieutenant, I have no XO." He smiled. Looking at the lieutenant's bag at her side, he asked "Is that everything that you have?"

"Yes sir." She sighed, hanging her head down in defeat.

"Okay. First things first, give me a list of all that you do have, and then we'll go from there. Oh, and Asynari. Is that how you spell your name?" he asked politely. Or at least he HOPED he asked it politely.

"Yes sir. Everyone on Eylos just called me Chelle." She replied with a blush. "Even my mother's people can't say it correctly."

"Well, I am glad that I can say it correctly Asynari, and please, when we're in here, just call me Irys. I like it when people say my name instead of my rank." He smiled. "Now, I have a meeting to attend to, and you have to go move into your side of the room." He said, pointing to the area with the double bed. "That's my side." He said, shocking her. "Yes, Lieutenant." He said, shutting her off. Pointing to the other side, he smiled as he looked into her eyes. "That means the big shit is yours now." His smile grew as she fought back the happiness in her eyes before it spilled out. "Get unpacked, get some chow. And Lieutenant," he said, walking out of the room, but not closing the door yet. As he heard her response, he looked back into the room. "Until I get an appropriate XO, you're in that spot." He explained, closing the door. He instantly heard screams of joy.

As he walked down the hall to the briefing room, Irys could only hope that they had a ship for him. It was quite easy to stay on an orbital ring like he was, but he didn't become a Captain just to sit around. He now wanted to be out there, to explore the galaxy, and defend his own clan from any kinds of trespassers. His only hope would be a good ship that was well armed. Hell, he thought. I don't even need it to be well armed. A good beam cannon would be good for enough damage against some damn pirates. He smiled, looking around. He saw a mirror in the hall, which he took a look into. He saw that his eyes were the same blue black color, his hair was still the same silver and red colored, even through the ponytail that he had to keep it in. He looked in disgust as the scales on the side of his jaw and right above his eyes shown through. Turning away from his reflection, he moved to the next room, where he was told he was to be attending a briefing. He knocked on the door calmly, hoping that things weren't about to hit the fan.

One could not get all he wanted. As he heard a familiar voice tell him to enter, he opened the door with a slight frown to see six people standing around the central table. Two Captains, and three Generals stood behind the seven chairs. He recognized the Generals as General Vaylez, General Lyobenai, and General Poryas. He silently clenched his hands. The story behind all three of these men were that they hated half-breeds and if you tried to put full aliens into the clans fleet ops, they would be shoved out of an airlock or blown up by the three Generals own Dreadnaught class cruisers. "Come in Captain. Please, sit down." A new voice entered his ears. As he looked to the voice dreadfully, he was shocked to see none other than the commanding officer of the entire defense fleet, Supreme Admiral Bayrette Samponazia, standing before him. It made him happy to see the man again, if you consider a male Traydugarian a man anyways. He was a blue furred Lupine with some grey around the tips of his fur. A long brown snout seemed to almost be non-existent when you looked at him from the front. It always seemed to Irys that the man was more imposing in his holo pictures than anything. As he stood before the man and threw up a salute to him, Irys found that the man was more potent of a being than anyone would have thought. He only fractionally relaxed as he saw the Supreme Admiral smirk and return the salute. "Now, please, let us all be seated. More and more urgent press down on us than you think at the moment and we need to get prepared." He explained.

Asynari looked around the area she was in. But from the look from the outside, she was unable to see the extent of the size of the rooms. She looked at the room she was in now and realized that she must have died and gone to heaven. The room was fucking HUGE!! Dimensional manipulation was used in all higher up rooms on space stations, even though scuttlebutt said that it happened on starships as well. She selfishly hoped that the Captain would never find a more suitable XO than her. But then she thought of the repercussions of such a thing. She would need to endlessly prove to him and to others that she was XO material. As she made plans to do that, she saw her back at the foot of her new king-sized bed. She almost cried out as she realized that the assholes in her billeting had grabbed her other bags and tossed them in the incinerator. Then she did cry when she remembered the kindness that the Captain had already shown her. He had said that he would help her get the stuff that she would need.

She got the data pad out of her pocket and began to right down all the stuff that was in the bag, cursing a Lieutenant Commander Lyoben Christovery for doing something that he shouldn't have done: forgotten to file reports like required.

Lieutenant Commander Lyoben Christovery suddenly felt a shiver run down his back as he typed away at his screen. The subject he was writing on was of a certain half-breed that, according to him, had tried to seduce him, knowing that he was married with a wife on Traxus. He hated to write up the report, but if he didn't, that half-breed would no doubt go to the security about his secrets. One that he didn't want them to know about was his treason with the Ankurain Pirates Guild.

He absently looked around his small office, hoping that his jamming device was working for his room. "Stupid bitch wants to try and blackmail me." He growled, his fingers tapping angrily on his keyboard. "Its time to fix that bitch, AND her whole fucking kind once and for all." He growled maniacally. "Stupid half-breeds." He muttered. Thinking back some more, Lyoben could remember exactly what happened, what with all of the commotion outside now distracting him.

He had been at the stations recreation room, doing one of his work outs, when Lieutenant Asynari walked over to him, half naked from the waist up in a smaller than needed sports bra that seemed to accentuate her bust size. She had walked up to him and simply sat down on his hips, almost seeming to grind on his groin. He had tried to get her off of him, but she had been more than sized up as trying to get him engaged in shit with her. He pushed her off and told her that he was happily married. As soon as he was able to get to his office, he wrote up a request for her to be transferred to a less important job with some kind of looser Captain.

Shaking his head heavily, he focused on the screen, to find out that the computer seemed to die out on him, not saving the report before he could send it. He quickly began wondering what would happen if Asynari found out that he didn't have a report against her. She would surely tell her fucking half-breed supervisor all about what she had seen one day on his computer. She had seen transmissions galore about everything that would be needed to literally end his career. Treason charges would be more deadly than most ship battles.

In the solar system of Agamemnon, coming close to being at the far edges of any of the clans, Slevarius Stane Governor of the Ankurain Pirates Guild and Admiral of its Fifth Fleet smiled as he watched his fleet. Over thirty capital ships floated in the weightlessness of space in front of his Dreadnaught. The newest acquisitions of the fleet, five Atlantis ~ class Frigates, stood closer to him than he ever thought possible for ships their size, waiting for orders from him. He scrubbed his chin lightly as he looked at his crew, all of them except one wondering what he was up to. The only one other than him that knew stayed by his side. Commander Beltyos Vadaradyn, formerly of the Meardyth clan, stood at six foot tall in a black fleet officers uniform, a scatter rifle at his side. He looked down at him and asked "Are you ready for jump sir?" he asked.

Slevarius could only laugh at him. "Send out the scout frigates first. Tell them to get into the appointed systems and send us back intel. Usual procedure my boy." He said with a grunt, his blue hair falling around his eyes again.

The Commander was so quick in his duties sometimes, that Slevarius could only hope that he actually had given out his orders. And as he watched the vortex open for his scout frigates, Slevarius' usual evil grin appeared, waiting for the word to jump into the system to destroy the Meardyth clan, once and for ALL!