Chapter 36H
The Slaanesh fleet used the established pattern of fortifying the orbit of the Fate-Clock before they left, filling the orbit with weapons batteries and space forts and floating hive cities and orbital minefields. The colonists and custodians of the planet and its orbit had a lot of work ahead of them salvaging all of the floating ork wreckage and repairing the Fate-Clock, but this wasn't the fleet's problem to deal with.
The fleet waited just long enough to receive fresh supply ships from Stōørølø and Štękżå'räšh, (Štękżå'räšh mostly just exported eggs, which was one of the few things Stōørølø didn't produce). The fleet then went to warp again heading in a straight line towards the edge of the Maelstrom until they once more happened upon a daemon world.
The journey was surprisingly short, the warp transit *greatly* accelerated thanks to the good favour of Tzeentch after liberating the Fate-Clock, and in less than two sleep cycles the fleet entered the outer orbit of a sickly yellow looking star, finding many planets.
The fleet cautiously remained in the outer orbit and sent out a single very brave corrupted Claymore Class Corvette, a (relatively) very small ship (1.4 kilometres long) with a powerful engine and high manoeuvrability for scouting missions. This Claymore Class Corvette, a Slaanesh dedicated vessel named the "Unexpected Sodomy", then performed a carefully calculated warp micro jump to get closer to the nearest planet to accurately scan it with sensors.
The fleet waited anxiously, and received an astropathic psychic message from the Unexpected Sodomy that the first planet was just a lifeless gas giant with lifeless rocky and icy moons, no hostiles and no life of any kind detected.
The Unexpected Sodomy then performed a calculated micro jump to the next planet to perform yet more scans.
The Unexpected Sodomy found a number of lifeless planets and moons in the outer orbits, just gas giants and dead icy rocks, and then headed fearfully into the inner orbits to continue searching for hostiles.
At first the Unexpected Sodomy just found more lifeless planets and moons and some asteroids, until it found just one planet with life, and a LOT of life at that!
The space around the planet was completely deserted with no ships or orbital infrastructure of any kind, but the planet itself was a teeming tropical jungle on it's land surface, with a sickly yellow-brown sea that looked unwholesome and disquieting. The jungle vegetation looked a sickly mouldy blue-grey, and a closer scan showed that the foliage was all diseased and covered in disturbing looking mould…
The more they scanned the more clear it became that the entire biosphere was profoundly sick, and lesser daemons of Nurgle were seen shambling on the ground through telescopes. The seas themselves looked putrid and were filled with horrid pestilential things swimming in the bacteria choked waters, just nasty.
The Unexpected Sodomy then detected the first signs of humans on the planet, noticing decaying wooden sailing ships in the coastal waters, crewed by hideously bloated and diseased men in decayed Iron Age clothing, holding spears and shields and swords and bows and slings, not a single firearm present.
More scans revealed cultivated agricultural fields and villages around the coasts and inland along the sides of rivers, complete with mouldering small Iron Age cities and the fortresses of many modest local empires in different regions of the planet. The scans revealed pyramids in places, some grand arch bridges of blighted stone across rivers, and impressive stone temple complexes bearing the symbol of Nurgle…
The Slaanesh fleet paused at this information, and then very gradually and hesitantly performed warp jumps to a very high orbit of this unknown Nurgle planet, not wanting to get too close.
There was much debate about what the fleet should do. In normal circumstances it would be beyond easy for the modern military forces of the fleet to conquer these Iron Age primitives, but a Nurgle planet was by its very nature a dangerous biohazard that promised sickness and death to any soldiers of other gods who invaded.
The fleet could easily just nuke the entire planet from orbit to burn away all of the infection, but this would also burn away the entire biosphere and all the people, making the planet far less valuable to possess in the aftermath. Also this would likely piss off Egg, who was at present hanging around in the Sevenson Empire without hostility, they didn't particularly relish the thought of turning her hostile by nuking a defenceless Nurgle planet that was just minding its own business.
But there was a third option, (apart from simply leaving), and that option was to come in peace and try to bribe some or all of the locals into joining the Sevenson Empire willingly without a fight. The fleet might be Slaanesh ruled but it certainly still *had* Nurgle worshippers amongst their motley crew and population, and some of these could quite safely go down to the surface of a Nurgle planet without instantly dying of disease and these people could act as ambassadors for the fleet.
Nurgle might currently be allied to Khorne in the Great Game, but that could easily change in the future, Nurgle's current loyalty to Khorne was very fair-weather and mercurial. With a little bit of subtle diplomacy Nurgle might be persuaded to become neutral or even to join Tzeentch and Slaanesh against Khorne in the ever changing politics of the Great Game. A little bit of mercy and diplomacy here might turn an enemy into a friend, there might potentially be enormous gain from not deliberately antagonising Nurgle right now.
The fleet consulted the gods themselves before doing anything at all, they asked both Slaanesh and Tzeentch for their will on this matter. Slaanesh was deeply indifferent, not caring either way so long as his interests were served and it didn't antagonise Tzeentch. Tzeentch was in favour of this peaceful approach because it increased the possibilities in both the mortal universe and in the Great Game. This verdict from Tzeentch settled the matter, they would go for peaceful diplomacy.
***…
Chaos Champion of Slaanesh Wendy Sevenson felt *insanely* itchy under her body paint as she squatted on the tips of her toes at a meeting table, sternly shouting at the head of the janitorial department Chaos Champion of Slaanesh Candy Johnson.
"This ship is fucking FILTHY down on the public corridors of deck ten!, And don't even get me *started* on the public crew toilets down on deck five!, What the FUCK are you and your layabout janitors DOING all day!, You certainly aren't cleaning!", Wendy snapped as forcefully as she could without smudging her body paint, feeling extra irritated because she was so itchy.
At the table around Wendy sat Cartel Sanitation Chief Jenny Sevenson, and a handful of Jenny's direct underlings who actually ran the individual sanitation departments like janitors and garbage collectors and the like. All of them were here to personally explain themselves to the extremely pissed off Wendy.
The people sitting around the table were very far from the best and brightest. Sanitation by its very nature was highly unglamorous, and anyone with any real ability would avoid it with the same energetic enthusiasm with which they would avoid a berserk rabid dog that was loudly barking and biting people. The raw turnover rate of staff in these departments was mind boggling, with the jobs mostly being a temporary form of part time employment for teenagers fresh out of school to give them an income as they looked or studied for something better. The people who tended to hang around long enough to get more senior positions were those people that none of the other jobs wanted to employ, namely the bunch of idiots currently sitting at this table.
Most senior of this collection of imbeciles was Jenny Sevenson, (notably NOT a Doctor of any sort), a lazy idiot who had been bullied into running sanitation because no other Sevenson woman wanted the job. She was listless, lazy, unmotivated and irresponsible, barely intelligent enough to get a degree in sanitation and waste management, (having to repeat years twice in a row during her degree), and basically just parked in a job that no one else in the Cartel wanted to touch.
Jenny was pretty but dumb, with long hair that was currently dyed bright fluorescent pink, big fake tits, and dressed in a bright pink lingerie teddy with impressive cleavage that would be completely inappropriate to wear to a meeting in any non-Slaanesh workplace, (though Wendy wasn't one to talk, wearing only body paint). Jenny was a woman who seemed more concerned with the state of her highly manicured painted fingernails than with the state of her job, just a barely employable bimbo really.
Below Jenny was, as mentioned, a collection of imbeciles even dumber than she was, most of them female and most of them unemployable in any other industry. These underlings were not even Sevensons, their jobs too unglamorous for that, but as a strict policy all of them had to worship Slaanesh to be in these positions of (petty) power and they had to be free people rather than slaves, but this was still a pretty low fucking bar of criteria!
Stupidest among these idiots was Chaos Champion of Slaanesh Candy Johnson, head of the Janitorial Department, a woman who was in no way qualified to hold her current position but for the fact that she was a Slaanesh Champion.
Candy had long platinum blonde hair and was either chubby or fat depending mostly upon how charitably you drew the line, with the face of a well worn but still pretty woman in her forties, lacking access to rejuvenation drugs and not having been in the warp long enough to slow her aging alternatively by prolonged warp exposure. She was a working class woman with a working class face, the sort of face you would see anywhere where a lot of working class women were found, the kind of face you might find in the queue at a really poor neighbourhood grocery store.
Candy had a glowing pink mark of Slaanesh on the back of one of her ears showing her to be a Chaos Champion of Slaanesh, and her stupid slutty eyes had the jaded glaze of such a champion, her chubby pretty face looking pleasure blasted and sex addicted, but not ugly.
Candy was currently wearing a slightly too small faded white Tee shirt with the words FUCK ME printed in badly faded black letters, and she wasn't wearing either bottom coverings or even underwear, her eternally wet sex addicted pussy dribbling fluid on the fabric of the office chair under her widely spread legs.
Candy blinked stupidly at Wendy's rebuke and strenuously replied: "I have been working *flat out* to clean every dick on the ship with my vagina!, If I had *more staff* then we would have the time to clean all that other stuff as well!"
Wendy just stared at Candy in silence for a moment, in all her years never having heard THIS excuse for poor performance at work. It was a "remarkable" answer, just so astonishing that Wendy was briefly lost for words.
"My female staff and I have been rubbing ourselves RAW every single day to give the crew clean dicks, how DARE you say that we 'aren't cleaning'!, My gynaecologist BEGS me to give my pussy a rest but I don't because I CARE about doing my job!", Candy protested with jaded debauched anger.
Wendy just stared at the stupid slut in wonder, stunned by this unapologetic "interpretation" of what sort of "cleaning" janitors were *supposed* to be doing!
"Oh fuck my life!, WHY do I have to deal with you people?", Wendy groaned in self pity.
"You are supposed to mop the floors and clean the toilets before you fuck people.", Jenny indifferently informed Candy.
"But Slaanesh is happier when me and my female janitors clean every dick we can find. All that other cleaning was boring Slaanesh!", Candy protested stupidly in a jaded voice.
Wendy wasn't sure if she wanted to laugh or cry or shout abuse or perhaps do all three things at once, so utterly sick of her work life right now.
Wendy was not happy right now for all sorts of reasons besides just work, she was SO ITCHY all over!, Mistress Lash was steadily increasing Wendy's discipline, deciding that the early normal body paint wasn't enough and adding the most aggravating skin itching chemical to the body paint, painting this substance all over every inch of Wendy's skin except her fingertips and toe tips and demanding it not be so much as smudged!
Wendy was SO itchy that she couldn't even describe how BRUTAL this itching was. It was a thousand times worse than scratchy sweaters, worse than any insect bites, worse than crawling ants, worse than any skin allergies, worse than any other itch in existence, and it covered ALL of Wendy all day long EVERYDAY!
Wendy was so itchy that she wanted to cry, but she couldn't cry because her tears would run the paint. She was DESPERATE to scratch, but she couldn't without smudges!, Wendy was in an absolute HELL of itches and she couldn't scratch them!
On top of that Wendy hadn't eaten anything but some small amount of orange juice each breakfast for the last 72 hours, only having water to drink. Every time she smudged her body paint she was punished by not being allowed to eat her next meal, and she had just kept SCRATCHING, losing meal after meal until now she hadn't eaten in 72 hours and was getting desperate!
Mistress Lash made a point of visiting Wendy just before her every meal break at work to check the paint, and every time she found so much as a smudge Wendy was ordered to skip that meal and spent the entire meal period having Mistress Lash repaint the smudges with more horrible itching body paint!
Wendy was so hungry that she felt a gnawing pain in her stomach, and she was steadily losing weight and feeling ever more desperation. All of this in turn made Wendy angrier than ever to everyone at work, her hunger and itching and desperation making her want to explode at everyone who slightly added to her irritation.
Wendy was SO close now to making it all the way to her lunch break without any smudges this time, and she savagely resisted her urge to punch Candy with iron discipline and self control.
Wendy took a deep breath and looked at Candy as calmly as she could.
"Why are you even working as a janitor Candy?, Is this REALLY what you want to be doing as a career?", Wendy asked as reasonably as she could.
"I'm a janitor because I don't know enough maths to work in my dream job of being a professional prostitute.", Candy sadly admitted.
Wendy just stared at her in silent amazement for a moment, not even mad but just… Impressed, by this remarkable statement. This woman wasn't even smart enough to be a *whore*, so she had instead become a *Department Head*!
"How *exactly* did you become a Slaanesh Champion Candy?, Please remind me.", Wendy said, slightly stunned.
"I have made it my holy quest in life to have sex at least once with everyone in the galaxy who wants to have sex with me, to serve Slaanesh. I'm not even *close* to finished yet, but Slaanesh was like, so happy with me for how hard I'm trying that he rewarded me by making me a Champion after only my one *millionth* guy who fucked me. Apparently very VERY few women my age have already been fucked by a million different guys, even most full time prostitutes get fucked by less guys in a year than I do.", Candy happily explained proudly.
"You fucked your way to Champion, damn…", Wendy murmured, unable to not be at least slightly impressed by such extreme amounts of sluttiness.
"But I have not given up hope, I just have to keep trying and eventually I'll fuck everyone in the galaxy.", Candy said with resolve.
"That's mathematically impossible, there are more people than there are seconds in a lifetime, even if you live forever and fuck a different person every single second, the other people will die of old age before you get to them.", Wendy informed the dumb slut.
"In that case I will have sex with their adult children or grandchildren, I will at least fuck every bloodline in the galaxy if not every person.", Candy insisted.
"I… Guess that's possible, maybe…", Wendy allowed dubiously.
"This is all missing the point!", Wendy snapped back to topic.
"The job of a janitor is to clean the inside of BUILDINGS and SHIPS, NOT "cleaning" people's genitals with your genitals!", Wendy snapped at the stupid nymphomaniac.
"We DO do that too, we have to sacrifice SO many uncleaned cocks just to do all the floor cleaning and toilet cleaning we do already!, This place would be FILTHY if not for the sacrifices we make!, You just don't appreciate all our sacrifices and take it all for granted!", Candy protested stupidly.
"I hate all you people so fucking much…", Wendy sighed, just having so many other problems already and having no strength or energy left to deal with these imbeciles.
"There's no need to be rude Wendy!", Candy protested.
"We PAY you people to CLEAN THE SHIP!, You can have sex on YOUR OWN TIME!", Wendy shouted at Candy so loudly that she feared she might have smudged the paint on her face.
"But Slaanesh wants us to have sex at work, Slaanesh is DELIGHTED with my tenure as the head of the Janitorial Department, he said that if I keep this up he might make me a daemon princess!", Candy protested in her own defence.
"I'm not SURPRISED that Slaanesh is delighted!, But I still need you to keep this ship CLEAN!", Wendy exclaimed.
"I keep all the important bits clean, I make sure that all the most high traffic areas get mopped at least once a month.", Candy soothed, mistakenly thinking that this would placate Wendy.
"Once a MONTH?!, Those areas should be mopped no less than once a DAY!", Wendy exclaimed.
"But I don't have enough staff!", Candy protested.
"You have over TWENTY THOUSAND janitors under you, which is more than TWICE as many as you need to keep the entire ship spotlessly clean!, They just waste their time having sex and flinging literal shit at each other!, Do you have any IDEA how many times we have gotten complaints about teenage boys in janitor uniforms using dust scoops to fling literal FAECES at passing members of the public!", Wendy exclaimed furiously.
"Those teenage boys are always a pain in the ass, I can't control them.", Candy dismissed her responsibility.
"It's your JOB to manage your staff or to at least make sure that the people under you manage them!, I know that teenagers will lark about a BIT, but flinging shit at people is COMPLETELY crossing the line!", Wendy exclaimed.
"But I can't fire them, they are the ones who do most of the actual cleaning of the ship as we women clean cocks…",
"I hate you…", Wendy said simply in exasperation.
"I thought we were friends?"
"You are OCTAVIA'S friend, I just want to fucking PUNCH you!", Wendy snarled at the aggravating slut.
"That really hurts my feelings!", Candy protested.
"I'm itchy, I'm hungry, I'm fed up and I just want you to DO YOUR JOB!", Wendy begged her in exasperation.
"Why is it even so important all of a sudden?, This ship has been a pigsty for years now.", Candy asked.
"It's a problem you dumb slut because we are currently in orbit of a potentially hostile NURGLE planet and I don't want Nurgle to have a lot of filth to work with onboard!, Even you must know that Nurgle is able to make existing harmful bacteria and other unclean microorganisms multiply and mutate into new pandemics!, Those floors and toilets need to be CLEAN, clean enough to eat off, otherwise the entire crew could get sick and start DYING!", Wendy shouted at Candy.
"That doesn't sound good… I think I can easily get the ship clean as you wish… (I just need more staff)."
Wendy threw a ring binder folder at her, thankfully hitting her in the head and doing no damage to anything important like a functioning adult brain. Candy moaned in masochistic pleasure from the pain of the impact, which only pissed Wendy off even more.
Wendy was amazed when she got all the way to her lunch break without either smudging her itchy body paint or murdering anyone, and she sighed in relief when Mistress Lash arrived to inspect her body paint for smudges before lunch.
Wendy submissively held still at attention, finding the dominant presence of her Dominatrix deeply soothing, and Mistress Lash sternly inspected her entire body for smudges.
"Not a single smudge… You finally are achieving some good old fashioned discipline Wendy.", Mistress Lash said in strict approval.
Wendy almost cried in relief when she got to eat for the first time in 72 hours, ravenously eating as much as the strict Mistress Lash would let her. It felt SO good to have something in her empty stomach once again!
Wendy was still hellishly itchy, but she was so highly disciplined that she just endured it for her beloved Mistress Lash, wanting to be a good girl and please her Mistress like this.
Mistress Lash dominantly observed Wendy with open mouthed sadistic awe, empathically sensing Wendy's torment and getting off on it sexually. Mistress Lash smiled cruelly at the perfectly submissive Wendy, obviously desiring to torture her even more with this intolerable itching.
Wendy gazed back at Mistress Lash with submissive awe, amazed at her own discipline and feeling a growing sense of completion. Wendy couldn't imagine any harder discipline training than this and yet she was (finally) succeeding in maintaining her discipline. Wendy felt like she had almost… Arrived, at some milestone, like she was almost at the top of a mountain that she had been climbing for 300 long years. Wendy wasn't sure what she would do when she reached the top of this peak, but she got a deeply spiritual pleasure from being this close.
Wendy basked in the dominating presence of Mistress Lash for her entire lunch break, feeling emotionally recharged by her presence, (though this might also be from the food). Wendy felt so calm around her dominatrix, finding her proximity and attention deeply soothing and satisfying.
Mistress Lash was just so beautiful in her elegant kimono with her face and neck painted mysteriously, her hair done up so elaborately. Her face was getting younger and more beautiful now, the rejuvenation drugs having had time to show noticeable effects now, and every day the woman got slightly more beautiful as her past youth recharged, revealing the exquisitely beautiful woman she had once been.
Wendy admired her beautiful girlfriend adoringly, in love with her and addicted to her, finding her beauty and extreme elegance intoxicating. Few women were so graceful, and fewer still so dominant yet so caring at the same time. Wendy was completely smitten.
Mistress Lash smiled, empathically sensing Wendy's feelings, and blew her a kiss without touching her, not actually kissing her because of the itching paint.
Wendy submissively told Mistress Lash that she loved her, and Mistress Lash dominantly reciprocated her own love, making Wendy smile romantically and feel special even through her hellish itching.
Mistress Lash took her leave and gracefully minced away elegantly in her kimono, Wendy gazing at her in awe as she left.
Candy then hesitantly returned to Wendy after lunch.
"If you ask for more staff one more time then I will give you ten thousand Tzeentch worshipping Stōørølø slaves but I will also fire almost every fucking one of your current staff. I don't want ANY more excuses, I want you and your twenty thousand staff to clean this ship COMPLETELY in the next 24 hours, or I really am going to start replacing expensive layabouts that I have to pay with cheap slaves who do the same work better for free. What's it going to be Candy?", Wendy asked her sternly.
"Now wait just a minute, I don't mind if you fire some of the teenage boys, but the Slaanesh worshipping women janitors are doing important work for Slaanesh…", Candy unhappily began.
"The teenage boys are the only ones I WON'T fire, they are the only ones who do any work!", Wendy snapped.
"But Slaanesh…"
"You have 24 hours or I am going to start firing huge numbers of people and replacing them with Tzeentch worshipping slaves. I'm being generous even giving you this last chance. The only reason I haven't fired YOU yourself is because I CAN'T fire you without the permission of my mother the Matriarch!, This ship WILL be clean one way or another!", Wendy warned sternly.
Candy tried to protest but Wendy ordered a Night Lord to drag her out of the office and back to her own facilities, Wendy feeling slightly better the moment she was gone.
***…
"Oh my goodness Candy that sounds awful, I can't believe Owner Wendy said that.", Octavia said sympathetically from the straps of her X frame.
"I KNOW right?!", Candy replied from the loudspeaker mode of the mobile vox phone Chaquille had placed on the floor in front of Octavia's X frame for her.
"Um, well she has a point, have you SEEN how dirty that tube train is?", Fhimra opined from her own X frame a few meters away.
"It's a BIG ship to clean with so few janitors.", Candy replied defensively from the vox loudspeaker.
"You have twenty THOUSAND people working for you, and they only have to clean the PUBLIC areas of the ship!, Back when I was a labour hire slave I worked nonstop cleaning privately owned parts of the ship, and we kept them MUCH cleaner than that tube train!", Fhimra exclaimed.
"The ship is twenty kilometres long!", Candy defended herself.
"That's still like one person for every meter of the ship.", Fhimra pointed out.
"The ship has a lot of decks and is wide.", Candy insisted.
"More than half of the ship is like deserted ammo storage and fuel tanks and engines and stuff, you could at least keep places like the train and the main corridors and the public toilets clean.", Fhimra insisted.
"That train is hard to clean, it's always full of people who distract me with their dicks.", Candy explained reasonably.
"Wait, are those skanks who have sex with men on the tube train the CLEANERS?!", Fhimra exclaimed.
"Yes…"
"By Tzeentch!, No wonder it's so filthy!, How the heck aren't all of you fired yet?!", Fhimra exclaimed.
"A lot will be fired tomorrow.", Candy said sadly.
"Only if they don't get cleaning. You have 24 hours to get your staff to clean the ship, what are you doing to get started?", Fhimra said seriously.
"Nothing yet, I'm too upset. I just called Octavia to vent my feelings.", Candy explained unhappily.
"Well get off the vox and go get started, you don't have time for this!", Fhimra exclaimed.
"But I'm upset and it's really hard!", Candy whined.
"You are twice my age and a chaos champion, stop being such a baby and do your job!", Fhimra exclaimed unkindly!
"Fhimra!", Octavia protested.
"She is the head of the entire department, not a junior janitor. She shouldn't even be in charge if she can't do the job.", Fhimra insisted adamantly.
"You're right!, I have no idea what I'm doing!", Candy lamented over the vox in a tragic panic.
"Then try to get a different job.", Fhimra urged without sympathy.
"But I don't know enough maths to be a prostitute.", Candy lamented.
"How much maths is that?, You only have to count money and give correct change to be a hooker.", Fhimra said in surprise.
"I get too confused.", Candy said sadly.
"How do you even buy anything ever then?", Fhimra asked incredulously.
"I constantly get ripped off by shops because I can't count the change properly.", Candy tragically explained.
"Oh you poor thing. Well you DEFINITELY shouldn't be the head of a department then!", Fhimra said sympathetically.
"But Slaanesh wants me to be in charge, he keeps saying that he is delighted with the work of the Janitorial Department under my leadership. We feed him so much worship energy every day.", Candy explained.
"You could be a Slaanesh priestess if you want to worship for a living, I think that would be better for everyone.", Fhimra suggested intelligently.
"But I already lead thousands in worship at a time when they would otherwise be doing really boring things, Slaanesh is happiest with me in my current job!", Candy defended herself.
"I'm only trying to help…"
"I didn't ring up to vent my feelings to get ADVICE!, I just want to talk about my feelings so I can feel better!", Candy protested.
"No wonder straight men get the shits with women!, This is ridiculous!", Fhimra exclaimed in exasperation.
"That's not very nice Fhimra.", Octavia said disapprovingly from her X frame.
"She doesn't have time for this, Wendy is going to fire over ten thousand people if Candy doesn't get off the vox right now and do her job!, Candy can vent about it LATER, AFTER she solves this mess!", Fhimra insisted.
"Fhimra's probably right, I don't want all those people to lose their jobs.", Octavia reluctantly agreed.
"I will call Labia instead then.", Candy said and simply hung up…
"She's going to get her entire department fired…", Fhimra sighed in frustration.
"Yeah…", Octavia agreed sadly with a sigh.
"How do you know Candy again?", Fhimra asked curiously from her X frame.
"She's my former roommate. Back when I was a hard labor slave before Owner Wendy bought me I didn't have a slave cell and I instead shared a crappy single room apartment with Candy and her girlfriend Labia. They are both free people, born free in the fleet and never slaves, they were fun roommates.", Octavia explained fondly.
"They just let slaves billet with the crew back then?", Fhimra asked in surprise.
"Oh yes, it was essential back in the early days when the fleet was much smaller and crammed with millions of slaves. It was either share lodgings with the lesser crew or sleep homeless in the filthy corridors with the chaos spawns who might eat you in your sleep!, It was a privilege for good behaviour and reliably showing up to work consistently, it helped motivate the slaves to work harder if they feared losing their nice lodgings with the crew.", Octavia happily reminisced.
"She was always a janitor?", Fhimra asked.
"Yes always, but she only recently became the leader of all the janitors, she was just a normal janitor back then.", Octavia explained.
"Is her girlfriend a janitor too?"
"Tech priestess.", Octavia replied.
Fhimra laughed.
"No seriously?", Fhimra giggled.
"Seriously. Her now wife is Magos Technicus Labia Johnson of the Dark Mechanicum, but back then she was just an apprentice, well she was a plumber first but then she got a scholarship thing to become an apprentice by being really clever and making friends in high places. Labia is a genius and she used her intelligence to get herself an apprenticeship.", Octavia said honestly.
"Not just a tech priestess but a *Magos*!?, Candy who we just talked to is the WIFE of a Dark Mechanicum MAGOS?!", Fhimra exclaimed in shock and disbelief.
"That's right, Candy and Labia and Jessica are a lovely throuple…", Octavia began.
"Wait, who's Jessica?", Fhimra asked in confusion.
"She's a Tau woman, but she's also a computer or a cogitator or whatever they are called. She is a Tau man of Iron but with no body, just her mind. Well she can control machine arms with dildos and things…", Octavia tried to explain.
"Wait a minute, you DON'T mean that batshit crazy super artificial intelligence running havoc in all the cogitator networks do you?!", Fhimra exclaimed.
"Jessica, yeah. She is the girlfriend of Labia and Candy, well of Labia really, I think she just tolerates Candy.", Octavia explained happily.
"A Dark Mechanicum Magos is FUCKING that dangerous thing?", Fhimra exclaimed.
"If they can fuck a toaster then why not a sexy Tau computer waifu?", Octavia retorted.
"Um, well yeah that actually does sound like something a tech priest would fuck…", Fhimra conceded awkwardly.
"Like… *How* do they, you know, fuck her?", Fhimra added with embarrassed curiosity.
"She has an 'orgasm button' that they press and it makes Jessica have an orgasm. They just push the button over and over again as she makes all these weird Tau sex noises.", Octavia explained.
"That's so weird…", Fhimra opined in wonder.
"Jessica seems to enjoy it.",
"I still can't believe that a tech priest actually succeeded in seducing that insane thing!", Fhimra exclaimed.
"I think that Jessica is just broken or something, when she's not glitching she is a lovely Tau woman.", Octavia replied.
"I have so many questions, but I can't get over the fact that they press a button to have sex with her.", Fhimra said in wonder.
"She uses dildos on them with machine arms that she controls while they press the button.", Octavia elaborated.
"That mental image is so weird!", Fhimra exclaimed with a giggle.
Octavia giggled.
"Candy is going to get everyone fired.", Fhimra said after a pause.
"Totally!", Octavia agreed with a sigh.
"So tell me more about this button…"
***…