“Adapt. Evolve. And assimilate.

When man looked out onto the world, he did not question how he himself belonged to it - he asked how to make it belong to him.

We walked our planet, discontent with what we had. We adapted to the harshest of environments, living in places the non-humans would deem "unlivable," and doing it with the crudest technologies. We evolved to this task further, to walk across any land and live. And we assimilated. We were not nurtured by our planet, but instead nurtured it. We taught our crops to grow according to our whims. We allowed the animals to learn how best to live in servitude under us, so they might advance their own destiny aside ours, by our wishes. Even in our religions, we forged gods not of the plants, but of ourselves. The oldest religions claim we were made in God's image, but now we know the truth - we made Him in ours.

Remember this, soldiers, when you leave this academy. This is our heritage. This is what it means to be human. The other races are content on borrowing their planets. We own them. That is our destiny - to walk alien lands, and tame them.”

-

Kad took a drag off his cigar. He tipped his head back, rolled his eyes into his skull, and let the smoke rise out of mouth gently, savouring the delicate creaminess of the tobacco, relishing the subtle flavours infused within the leaves.

His mouth curled into a smile. Such were the minute pleasures of life.

Shifting. The hum of activated power armour. Several clicks.

“Yeah.” Kad replied. He didn’t know what the words meant, but could guess along its lines, and those lines were related to the burning cigar between his fingers.

Kad tapped his foot against the durasteel floor out of habit, filling the silence with a steady rhythm.

Several more clicks.

Kad cocked his head. He actually recognised several bits of that. Gas. Poison. Crazy ape.

“Yeah, that’s us.” He replied. He curled his fingers around the handle of a single green plastic cup, brought it to his lips, and sipped some of the coffee.

A long drawn out series of clicks, followed by a hiss.

The human placed the cup back on the table, and ran his hand through his thick, black hair. His brow furrowed, wrinkles showing on his forehead. He held that pose for about two seconds, before shaking his head, and bringing his foot tapping to a complete halt.

“Nope, didn’t catch that one.” he replied, reaching for his helmet.

He touched the cold metal of his helmet, danced his fingers across the cold transparisteel that is his visor. A three fingered hand touched his outstretched arm. He froze.

More clicks.

She told him to forget it.

He retracted his arm, and returned it to his cup of coffee, wrapping his fingers around it, trying to absorb the heat before it could escape.

He heard what resembled a sigh. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the alien lift itself off its multiple legs, making quick pattering sounds as she made her way to leave. The door opened, her footsteps several more pattering sounds, and then the door closed.

Kad took another drag and puffed it out. He laid his head down onto the table, resting it gently between his bicep and forearm. He balanced the cigar onto the rim of the cup, careful to keep the ashes from dropping onto the table beneath.

He watched the cigar burn, marvelled at it. The Kondar was right. The gas was poison. To her,it must seem bizarre for someone to not only inhale addictive toxic fumes willingly, but also to do it recreationally, to derive pleasure, and to even relieve stress from it.

He thought of ways he could explain it to her. Along with the alcohol and the marijuana. About the stupid, risque things humans do just for fun. But he couldn’t. After all, how could you explain something that you don’t entirely understand yourself either?

He stole a glance at his watch and spied that he had only about 20 more minutes of dally.

Fuck, he thought, the cigar’s gonna go to waste.

-

“There she is,” Merlin muttered. His eyes set on the two red blips on the radar detector. According to Darwin, the guns were already prepped and aiming at their targets. He fired up their thrusters, making fine trims to maximise the chances that the proton torpedoes would hit.

Their targets are two small Gox freighters. The Crimson Sabre had given them their plotted paths about a week prior, along with a few others in the dossier. Although the information of bigger and more valuable shipments had been offered to them, the choice of which ship to attack was clear.

Gox traders don’t carry much in terms of credits, and even their cargo aren’t worth much. Mostly perishables or construction materials. Their entire ships aren’t worth much in the market either, being too small and underpowered to garner some actual value. It was almost as if their biggest deterrence towards pirates was simply being to not enough value to rob.

But that was the thing. The Ave Maria didn’t need a large shipment. All they needed to hit the monthly quota was a thousand credits more. It was not worth hitting a large human tradeship, and risk the risks that would entail in doing so. A single Gox ship would have more than a thousand credits, securing the month. The ship doesn’t cost much to maintain, so the crew would have more than enough spending money leftover.

And besides, the Gox are always punctual. Right down to the millisecond. They also followed their plotted routes. Human ships may divert from course just because the captain had a ‘bad’ feeling. The Gox however, prefer to have things planned out, and then to execute that plan down to the finest of detail.

Therefore, it was a boon, for the Ave Maria. The thousands of credits might as well already be in their accounts.

Merlin exhaled, there was a lump in his throat. As is always. He uttered a quick prayer, and steeled himself. He reminded himself that this was all just routine, that they had done this a thousand times. He turned around to face his companion, who was equally as transfixed by the big red dots on the radar detector.

“Kadriel, it’s on you,”

The man behind him didn’t seem to be worried in any way. His composure was slack, relaxed. He towered over his own control panel, but his face was turned towards Merlin’s own.

“Make radio contact.” Came a quick reply. The voice was that came was twisted, dark and guttural. Evil, if he may so choose to describe. Looks like the voice changers are working perfectly.

Merlin nodded, and turned on radio communication with both ships. As soon as a stable frequency was found, a loud burst of jabbing filled the room. The Gox seemed to be a little more than unhappy by the incursion.

Kadriel however, wasted little time.

“Two thousand credits from each ship into this account.” He spoke, his voice reverberating around the walls of the bridge. He watched Merlin punch a few more buttons into the console with rapid fire succession, and then giving him an affirmative nod. “Any form of retaliation will be dealt with lethal force.” he continued, keeping the act up. Now all they had to do, was wait.

Silence. It had been about five minutes. So far, everything had come to a standstill. Accounts show that the funds had not been transferred, and the microphone on the side of the traders had been disconnected. Kadriel was getting impatient.

“Kip? What are they doing?”

A familiar clicking filled the room.

Nothing. Nothing’s showing up in all the frequencies. I think they’re sending a cloaked distress signal. Kadriel clenched his fist, and bit down hard. Those had been his suspicions too.

Suddenly, sound was coming in from the traders. “Humans, we mean no harm,” the voice said, according to his translator. “But we are currently not in possession of four thousand credits. Perhaps, we can work something else out?”

Kadriel shook his head. This is stupid. They are just trying to buy time.

“Darwin, fire a torpedo at ship at location  04058a.” He spoke, not bothering to mute communications with the Gox.  Darwin responded with an ‘aye aye cap’, on his end. Almost instantly,the ship shook a little, as the inertia of the self propelled torpedo pushes against the main ship upon exit. A second later, Darwin’s confirmation of the launch came through.

It took about the same time for the Gox to realise what was going on. A loud scream rang out, and panic dripped wet from their transmissions. Above all the chatter, the voices of the captain could distinctly be heard, trying to regain control over their men. Kadriel laughed a dry laugh, before signalling Kip to turn off all communications.

“Bring us closer to that one,” Kadiel said, leaning a hand against the back of Merlin’s chair, using it to support his weight. Merlin didn’t even flinch. He nodded an affirmative, before piloting the ship starboard of its target.

“I’m boarding.” Kadriel announced, making his way onto the airlock. He could feel Kip’s eyes on him as he left the bridge. He wondered if she had anything to say. He brushed it off. If she had anything to say, it would have to wait until the end of the run.

He picked up the breaching shotgun he’d placed against the wall. He muttered a prayer in his head, before opening up the hatch to the airlock.

Get in, get the credit transfer, get out.

He worked the locking hatch of the airlock, locking himself in completely. He flipped a switch at the side, and watched as the vapor seal locked down the hatch. He checked his suit vitals for a last time, setting it to spacewalk. He grabbed the railing by the side, and braced himself.

“Kadriel, this is Merlin, we are starboard of the Gox trader, in position to drop you in.”

“Ready, open breaching port.”