Chapter 60H
In high orbit of the frozen ice world of Gåëḻįxčûßṟæ, the armada of 5 Overlord class Battlecruisers and tens of Endurance and Endeavour class Light Cruisers sat uneasily, having heard terrible rumours about a Slaanesh aligned war fleet headed there way.
Gåëḻįxčûßṟæ was an ice world, devoid of any vegetation or native life, and heavily dependent upon food imports from the relatively nearby 109 moons of Vem Omicron approximately ten light years to the galactic east. The planet Gåëḻįxčûßṟæ had nothing but ice and air, no reachable minerals or rocks, no surface liquid water, nothing but a breathable atmosphere to attract habitation at all. The planet had so much water that the rocky crust of the planet was buried under over 200 kilometres of water.
The water surface was covered by kilometres thick ice sheets, below which was a chilly lightless ocean of lifeless barren water, the water going down for kilometres before the pressure got so high that the water formed exotic ice IV that could not be melted to liquid due to the pressures. This ice IV went down for over 100 kilometres before the first of the rocky crust was encountered, completely out of reach of mining, as any attempts to dig away the ice would result in more water flowing down to become new ice IV immediately. Water worlds like this were anathema to developing native life, the essential minerals like phosphorus drifting down to the ocean bottom to be locked away forever in ice IV, the sea floor trapped under high temperature stable exotic ice so that even volcanoes couldn't melt through from below.
Gåëḻįxčûßṟæ was a celestial oddity however, being a lifeless dead planet with an atmosphere that just so happened to be breathable by non living physical processes. The planet orbited a (relatively) cool puny red dwarf star, and orbited well outside the narrow tidally locked habitable zone of such a star, but the red dwarf star was also an extremely violent flare star with regular coronal mass ejections, the solar winds savage and the regular flares giving off vast amounts of dangerously intense ultraviolet light.
Ultraviolet light, when in contact with water molecules, tends to photo disassociate hydrogen atoms from oxygen atoms in the water molecules floating around in planetary upper atmosphere layers. The hydrogen atoms then generally float off into space, the gravity of a terrestrial planet not high enough to hold hydrogen, whilst the oxygen sticks around, gradually accumulating in the air. On most planets the ultraviolet light of the local star was not strong enough to make much oxygen this way, but a spectacularly energetic flare star produced far more ultraviolet light than the average star.
The planet had once had an atmosphere of only carbon dioxide and water vapour and nitrogen, but the carbon dioxide and water vapour had frozen solid in the cold, joining the other ice. The nitrogen had endured, the cold planet not cold enough to condense or freeze nitrogen gas, and it would have remained all that existed in the atmosphere if not for all the tiny comets that periodically hit the upper atmosphere of Gåëḻįxčûßṟæ.
The star system orbits beyond the frost line were thick with tiny ice balls, comets, most no bigger than a human head. Constantly these tiny comets fell into the upper atmosphere and burned up on entry, filling the upper atmosphere with steam and water vapour which eventually came down to freeze on the surface if it lasted long enough. But the violent solar flares kicked out enormously strong ultraviolet light bursts that reacted with much of this water vapour, turning it into hydrogen and breathable oxygen.
Countless eons of deep time had seen so much water vapour turned into oxygen that the atmosphere of Gåëḻįxčûßṟæ was now breathable. The chilly surface was still above the boiling temperature of liquid oxygen, and powerful magnetic fields from the planet's core protected the atmosphere from being stripped by the solar flare winds. Humans could breathe down on the surface, and this made the planet a suitable home for those desperate enough for somewhere to live.
In the Maelstrom all habitable worlds were precious, even ice balls with no minerals or food. If you were a traitor ship from the Imperium desperate for a base of operations, you couldn't always be picky. The nicest planets were invariably owned already by strong pirates and warlords who would kill or enslave uninvited refugees, so those seeking refuge were forced to make do with less desirable locations just to survive.
Gåëḻįxčûßṟæ was one such refuge, with ships turned traitor from the Imperial Navy individually coming here one at a time, each claiming a tiny part of the planet's surface as their own small nation, building cities under the ice to house new people bred from their original crew. Not one nation ruled, all were simply using the same planet in a loose confederation that united in defence against mutual threats.
Now according to widespread rumours they were staring down the barrel of one unimaginable threat, spooking all of them.
The self proclaimed "Sevenson Empire" was a large fleet of hundreds of ships that were conquering planets in a straight line, and Gåëḻįxčûßṟæ was directly in the path of this line of conquest and would almost certainly be the next planet to be attacked.
Gåëḻįxčûßṟæ was not a rich planet by any means, the nations having little but the individual ships they had taken with them when they mutinied from the Imperial Navy. The entire economy was built on niche manufacturing and odd industries, importing everything from food to many raw materials, with just a tiny bit of local asteroid and comet mining to give them some raw materials for their industries.
The 109 Moons of Vem Omicron were already a manufacturing powerhouse that manufactured all of the most common manufactured items that most customers wanted, with economies of scale to make these items cheaper than Gåëḻįxčûßṟæ could. They also mined more than the asteroid mines around Gåëḻįxčûßṟæ, and even produced deuterium and tritium cheaper than the ice rich Gåëḻįxčûßṟæ could compete with.
Trade demanded that both sides had something the other side wanted, and Gåëḻįxčûßṟæ had had to get VERY creative in finding some economic niches to produce something that other people didn't have.
Gåëḻįxčûßṟæ was a manufacturer of oddities and rare items that others didn't sell. If you needed a really weird type of screw that no one else seemed to make or sell, Gåëḻįxčûßṟæ would have a small factory that made nothing else but boxes of that weird screw you wanted. If you wanted engine parts for a type of engine that hadn't been produced in five thousand years, Gåëḻįxčûßṟæ would make that part. If you needed a really unusual caliber of ammunition that was impossible to find for a very rare gun, Gåëḻįxčûßṟæ would make and sell that ammunition. No matter what impossible to find niche component you were looking for, Gåëḻįxčûßṟæ was the place to go to find it.
This reliance on manufacturing extremely niche components and products was not very lucrative and did not make Gåëḻįxčûßṟæ rich, but it was just enough to give them enough balance of trade to import food and other goods from the 109 Moons of Vem Omicron. The customers who bought the products of Gåëḻįxčûßṟæ were few and sporadic, but they would pay somewhat handsomely to get that impossible to find component or ammunition that they had been possibly looking for for years. It was an economic niche that Vem Omicron didn't fill, giving Gåëḻįxčûßṟæ a way to economically survive in its huge economic shadow.
Life had been hard enough already, the endless pirate raids by the Blood Sharks attacking merchant shipping making it even harder to make enough profit to feed everyone, but then the petrochemical war had made it even worse. Vem Omicron had taken to converting huge amounts of the food they grew into biofuels to satisfy fuel demands, driving up food prices so enormously that the planet Gåëḻįxčûßṟæ was now starving. And now, according to the rumours and gossip of merchant ships from Vem Omicron, these starving people of Gåëḻįxčûßṟæ were facing complete conquest by a mighty war fleet.
The loose confederation of ships in orbit of Gåëḻįxčûßṟæ could stand and fight, they could inflict heavy losses, but they were impossibly outnumbered according to the rumours. Even if they won by some miracle, their ships would be so badly damaged in the fighting that they would possibly never be able to afford the cost to repair them, not to mention that they would lose many irreplaceable ships completely. This would RUIN them either way!
Instead of fighting, they could approach this Sevenson Empire with a delegation of diplomats and negotiate for their survival. The Slaanesh fleet might well wish to avoid the losses of a pitched battle against 5 very dangerous Overlord class Battlecruisers and tens of light cruisers, they might agree to a peaceful alliance?
In the central confederation chamber in the neutral subterranean ice city of Flüvęḻ Cracks, the representative delegates of every nation on Gåëḻįxčûßṟæ met to discuss their survival options in an official confederation conference.
Flüvęḻ Cracks was an entirely diplomatic city owned by no one, carved deep into the icy side of a massive crack in the thick icy surface of the planet, every room and corridor carved out of the raw ice and buttressed with huge pillars of imported metal and concrete. It was neutral ground populated by politicians and diplomats and their entourages of aides and assistants, the place where the representatives of the governments of each nation assembled to discuss international matters. The city was far deeper down than most cities on the planet, the massive ice crack it inhabited being over 3 kilometres deep, with the city of Flüvęḻ Cracks being right at the bottom, with a zigzagging maze of ice tunnels going further kilometres off to the side under the ice to protect the city from orbital bombardment.
The delegates were restless as they met in assembly, all responsible to only the government and politics of their own nation, the various nations having different views and opinions. The nations were not uniform in culture, religion or even in language dialects, coming from different mutinous crews of different ships from different original planets of origin, some even from entirely different original sectors. Some worshipped chaos undivided, others worshipped one specific chaos god, the political squabbles between the individual nations could be as exasperating and foolish as they were annoyingly frequent. It was like the ancient United Nations, only even more dysfunctional and fractious.
The meeting was very stormy the moment a peace delegation was suggested, the Khorne worshipping representatives offended by the mere notion of peaceful alliance with a Slaaneshi empire. The Nurgle worshipping representatives were less neuralgic to the peace suggestion, but they were still reluctant, bogging the meeting down with endless questions and procedures.
The Slaanesh worshippers were delighted to join a Slaaneshi empire, wanting not alliance but invitation to be completely assimilated into this empire, while the Tzeentch worshippers wanted an alliance without assimilation. The undivided nations had all sorts of different positions, so that even these could not be guaranteed to approve of a given policy position.
The conference broke down into bickering and fighting as the Khorne delegates got into punch ups with other delegates, and many delegates stormed off announcing that their own nation and ship would do their own thing. All hopes of unity dashed by the folly of politics.
The starving subjects of the respective governments were restless in their own ice cities, the planet on the verge of war with itself to kill over available food supplies. Things were really grim.
In the confusion of the conference some of the nations declared that they would make their own diplomatic missions to negotiate with the Sevenson Empire as individual nations, many of them with completely different and diametrically different demands. This Slaaneshi empire would likely become extremely confused with all the different messages they would receive, but that was just politics…
***…
Fusion Reactor Engineer Warrant Officer Tramzaka ShadowCleaver sighed contentedly, as she cuddled Assistant Pantryman Joey Abernathy in her bed. She was surprised by how comfortable she felt right now.
Tramzaka's underpants were… Somewhere?, But at least she had put the undershirt of her skivvies back on now. Joey's crew uniform and underwear was scattered across the tiny room where they had been hastily tossed aside, the half bald Down syndrome man currently completely naked but half covered by a bedsheet.
The grease paper packet of fish and chips lay half empty on the foot of the bed, the food forgotten halfway through the meal when Joey had suddenly started kissing Tramzaka, and the pair had made surprisingly passionate love in Tramzaka's bed.
Tramzaka hoped that she wasn't pregnant now, they hadn't had a condom and Joey had ejaculated his sperm inside her. She didn't think she was currently ovulating but she would take a morning after pill tomorrow morning just to be safe.
Tramzaka had never desired to have sex with someone with Down syndrome as a life goal, honestly she had never even imagined this being something that could happen to her. She hadn't planned this, it had just happened spontaneously, and the strangest part was just how much she had enjoyed it.
Joey wasn't especially attractive, but he wasn't exactly ugly either. He was a Down syndrome man with the facial features of Down syndrome, not repellent, just different. He was short and stocky like all Down syndrome men were, but his body was still the body of a man, with all the anatomy of a man. Tramzaka had been shy and reluctant, it had taken considerable foreplay first, but she had eventually gotten wet and in the mood…
Tramzaka blushed slightly at the memory of the sex, she hadn't meant to moan like that!
Joey had been all over her just as he had promised, he had put his face between her legs, he had played with her breasts with his hands and his mouth. Tramzaka had been blushing and shy, but then she had been less shy…
Joey had climbed on top of her, he had then been inside her… It had felt good… Really good…
And now it was over and they were cuddling in bed together afterwards, and Tramzaka felt amazingly comfortable and content.
Joey smiled and kissed her on the lips, and Tramzaka blushed but returned the kiss with a shy smile. Tramzaka was a Tzeentch girl, she didn't have that much experience with boys and sex. She hadn't been a virgin, but she had only had sex once before, back in her tribe on Stōørølø as a 16 year old girl with a 17 year old boy in her tribe, but she had been so drunk with wine the other time that she barely remembered the details of this casual encounter.
This was her first time sober, and she was extremely shy.
Tramzaka felt one of Joey's hands reach under her shirt and fondle her breast, and she blushed even more but she didn't resist, feeling safe and comfortable in this situation.
The hand kept touching her, and Tramzaka shyly enjoyed the touch, wanting even more. Joey suddenly kissed her passionately, and Tramzaka returned the kiss, enjoying this feeling.
Joey stopped touching her breasts and touched her between the legs, but Tramzaka resisted, not ready yet.
"Just my boobs for now.", Tramzaka said shyly, pulling off her shirt to make it easier for him.
"I like your boobs.", Joey said huskily and began fondling them with both hands as Tramzaka lay down in bed.
Tramzaka sighed softly as he stimulated her breasts with his hands, putting her stripy arms above her head receptively, enjoying this foreplay. Joey put his mouth on her nipple and sucked, and Tramzaka closed her eyes and breathed hard in bliss, loving the feeling.
The breast foreplay continued for long minutes, and Tramzaka grabbed his face and kissed him passionately, getting wet now. She kept kissing him as he played with her breasts for a long time, her shyness steadily fading as she got horny.
Joey broke the kiss with her lips and began to kiss and lick down her neck, stopping at her breasts for long wonderful minutes, then kissing down again, kissing down her tummy all the way to her rather wet vulva.
Tramzaka gasped as Joey's tongue went inside her, gripping her crazy tangle of hair in ecstasy as he did the most wonderful things to her.
Joey spent so long down there that Tramzaka had an orgasm very vocally, and she told him apologetically that she didn't want anymore stuff done with her vagina.
"That's ok, you can give me oral.", Joey reassured expectantly.
Tramzaka wasn't really in the mood after her orgasm, but she felt that it was only fair that she gave oral after receiving so much oral from him.
Tramzaka reluctantly put her face over his crotch and she held his erect penis in her hands, playing with it indecisively. She put her mouth down to it and tried giving head for the first time in her life.
"Don't bite it.", Joey said surprisingly calmly.
Tramzaka apologetically tried to stop biting, but she kept accidentally biting him until he was floppy in her mouth.
Tramzaka stopped sucking and apologised guiltily.
"What about your pussy?", Joey asked.
Tramzaka wasn't really in the mood, but she felt guilty enough to agree to try, and Joey played with her boobs again until he was erect.
Tramzaka rubbed herself as wet as she could manage, (barely even damp), and then she carefully guided him inside her, gasping and exhaling as she was penetrated.
Joey wanted to go fast but it hurt, Tramzaka begged him to go gently, directing his speed so that he was barely moving inside her.
Tramzaka kissed him passionately to get herself more lubricated, and after literally twenty minutes of kissing she was wet enough for proper sex, and Joey thrusted her so energetically that her head bumped against the headboard wall of her bed nook.
Tramzaka was sort of enjoying it but she didn't care if she didn't climax, she just wanted Joey to get his orgasm. Joey was extremely enthusiastic, just about giving her a concussion against the headboard!
Tramzaka's stripy naked body and crazy hair was jiggled back and forth energetically as she was ridden hard, she was getting really wet now and she wanted to climax.
Joey then let out a loud moan and Tramzaka faintly felt his sperm squirt inside her.
"Keep going, I am about to come!", Tramzaka urged him when he slowed down.
Joey kept going and Tramzaka desperately used his remaining erection to give herself a screaming orgasm.
The pair stopped, Joey still resting inside her, and Tramzaka kissed him intimately, feeling him inside her in the ultimate intimacy.
Tramzaka smiled fondly at him, wrapping her arms around him, and she softly whispered prayers to Tzeentch in her post orgasm bliss, her mind blazing with hope for the future of this sexual relationship.
Joey rested on top of her, still inside her, and he yawned and drifted off to sleep with his penis inside her, looking completely satisfied.
Tramzaka continued to whisper prayers of worship to Tzeentch for about half an hour as Joey grew first limp inside her, and then erect inside her from Rem sleep. Tramzaka sighed in bliss at the end of her prayers, feeling like nothing could hurt her with Joey in intimate physical connection on top of her.
The door then knocked loudly, startling Tramzaka slightly.
"Who is it?", Tramzaka called from the bed.
A key unlocked the door and the door opened uninvited!
The dim nightlights were turned to day brightness with a wall switch, and Tramzaka squinted in alarmed confusion to see the XO First Lieutenant Ahmed Muhammad himself leading another Stōørølø slave woman into the room!
The pair of intruders paused in shock at the sight of Joey naked on top of the equally naked Tramzaka with his penis inside her.
Tramzaka squawked in embarrassment and covered her breasts with her hands. Joey roused and squinted at the intruders, pulling out of Tramzaka and standing up with an uncovered morning wood erection, Tramzaka frantically covering her body with a sheet as the intruders gawked down at Joey's erection!
"Was this consensual?", The XO asked darkly.
"Yes it was consensual!, You shouldn't be in here!", Tramzaka exclaimed in utter embarrassment.
"Right. Open the door as soon as you are dressed then.", The XO said apologetically and led the other slave woman outside, looking like he was trying with all his strength not to laugh.
The door closed behind them, followed by muffled gasping laughter from the XO, and Tramzaka buried her stripy face in her stripy hands in mortified embarrassment.
Tramzaka got dressed as quickly as possible, Joey less quickly, and after a quick clean and tidy up Tramzaka opened the door, blushing scarlet.
"Sorry about bursting in on you before, I was in a hurry but it can wait. This is, well was going to be, your new roommate. I didn't know you had a boyfriend though.", The XO said awkwardly, trying with obvious effort not to laugh.
"Boyfriend?, Well… It's complicated. I don't know what our relationship is, we… We only just… Today…", Tramzaka stammered shyly.
Joey walked up beside Tramzaka and put an arm around her affectionately.
"This is MY girl, don't you be getting ideas.", Joey said warningly to the XO of the entire ship.
"I have Sharmaine and Deborah, I don't need to take your girl Joey.", The XO said warmly.
"Well the ship is filling up with people, we are getting a ten percent crew manpower surplus, skilled crew who don't belong in the slave pits. I gotta find quarters for everyone.", The XO said.
"My quarters only have one bed sir.", Tramzaka pointed out.
The XO walked inside, going to the wall that Tramzaka's bed nook was built into, he then patted the decorative wall panel above the bed.
"That's just a wall sir.", Tramzaka pointed out in confusion.
The XO gripped hold of a decorative wall feature like a hand hold, and he pulled up, the wall panel bending with surprising flexibility and sliding up inside the wall like a garage door, revealing a second bed nook that Tramzaka hadn't even known was there!
It even had a little ladder slide down out of a wall recess to reach this top bunk!
"I… I understand that you need the room sir… But your timing…", Tramzaka said shyly.
"Yeah, the timing was rough. Sorry about that again. If you prefer I could move Joey in here with you and give Joey's bed to someone else?", The XO offered.
"Tonight I would… Like him to stay the night with me… But I don't know if I am ready to move in with him this early in the relationship…", Tramzaka said shyly.
"I tell you what, for now Joey will sleep in your quarters, and if you want to change this later you just let me know.", The XO negotiated charmingly, subtly high fiving Joey just out of Tramzaka's view.
"I… Ok…", Tramzaka hesitantly agreed.
"You owe me big time for this one champion.", The XO very quietly whispered to Joey, Tramzaka only just hearing it and blushing.
Joey high fived the XO and the XO chuckled and mouthed the word "respect" to Joey, making Tramzaka blush shyly.
The XO and other woman left, closing the door behind them, and Tramzaka sat down on her bed blushing scarlet at what had just happened.
***…
