But he wasn't there for RnR. He checked his neural nanites to monitor the progress of his reconnaissance mission. The Elvii had built a space station in an otherwise unremarkable star system and somebody up the chain of command wanted to know why.
According to his records, the Elvii were a religious sect. It all started with the Aelfiin first contact. After a 250 year journey to colonize a world at Star 1472-2346-432-2-A-3466525, the Aeelfiin found humans had already been there for 129 years. After lots of hand wringing (and arm twisting), the politicians agreed that the Aelfiin "refugees" should be given "sanctuary."
Well, low and behold, humans did it again. It seems there isn't a space species that some human will not sleep with. Even the green sucker-faced monsters have groupies. So, some human colonists had sex with Aelfiin and made a little half-breed race called Aeltizos. After a time, the Aeltizos got tired of being treated like losers so they struck out on their own. They colonized a few moons in the system's gas giant and started a culture of their own, including lots of religions. And some of those religions have a tendency to get out of hand.
The most fascinating fact about the Elvii religion was the constant dancing, singing and getting jiggy.
So now Sergeant Thomas Garson of the 125th Mechanized Assault Recon Division (Pickled Punks) was hiding under the solar corona of Star 1472-2346-432-2-B-3466587 to watch a space station filled with wacky Elvii. If these religious nuts were planning to do something bad, it was his job to do something much worse to them first.
Not the most exciting job in the universe, but there were some perks. Besides, all n00b FNGs get crap assignments.
Fortunately, military life is all about routine. It kept him busy and active. His favorite was weapons practice. There was something incredibly gratifying about blowing holy hell out of a star! The best part is that you can't ever win. Not without some help anyway.
The Elvii wrote it off as "increased solar activity" and went right back to jiggling their hips, singing and chasing each other for sex.
When shooting into the star was over, he still had to monitor mission progress (automated at every 15 seconds), scan all data for keyed threats, perform system-wide sensor sweeps, chart and diagram everything larger than a golf ball, run diagnostic scans, monitor all quantum foam activity, perform routine maintenance and always with the damn reports! He even mapped the Hawking radiation to calculate the exact spacial dimensions of the nearby blackhole.
Year 1 was troublesome. All the Elvii on the space station were in combat training. An odd unarmed martial arts style they called Kingfu. This style seemed to combine a deep understanding of balance, leverage and dancing. There were never any weapons but some studied techniques for smashing stringed instruments over each other's heads. In either case, the Elvii are accomplished and capable unarmed fighters.
..... Estimated time to eliminate all Elvii on station: 1.2 seconds.
During Year 2 things started to get interesting. The Elvii stopped all formal unarmed training to start racing in wooden hovers! They built huge race courses all throughout the space station. Hordes of Elvii raced in hovers and inflicted untold damage. Afterwards, the Elvii would fist fight in bars and other recreational areas. Nevertheless, they still made time for singing, dancing and chasing one another.
It was like the Elvii went absolutely nuts! Running around wearing dark-colored animal hide jackets and beating each other up. Or rioting with hovers! He recorded the best races and brawls into his neural personal space. These flixs where going to get gazillions of Grid hits!
The only reason they weren't on the Grid already was because he was hard-wired for radio silence. Those damn engineers had literally removed his transmitters. He was completely mute. As far as MechSergeant Garson was concerned all engineers were the spawn of hell. It wasn't that he hated them. Far from it. Their skills and knowledge gave him a body for each mission. It was just that they seemed to hate him. Very, very much.
Time passed and he did as he was trained to do. He hid in the roiling flames of a sun and watched the strangest events unfolding on board the Elvii space station.
In Year 3, the Elvii changed out of the animal hides and put on colorful synthetic cloths. Floral motifs were very popular and it wasn't uncommon for the Elvii to decorate each other with flowers. There was a 26.5% increase in random outbursts of singing and dancing. Except now there was 3 times more sex.
Garson was convinced it had something to do with the females' outfits. He remembered sex well enough to know those ladies looked amazing. He filled the rest of his personal neural storage allowance with those flixs. These were going to get 100 gazillion hits and earn him a waterfall of cash.
By Year 4 they switched out of the flower shirts and put on long flowing robes. The only real effect of the change in clothes was that the robes caused a 8 second delay in getting naked. Otherwise, the usual festivities continued unabated.
At the end of the 4th year the Elvii gathered to host one last enormous brawl followed by a phenomenal orgy. The following morning everyone boarded starbuses and scattered to major, nearby star systems.
He waited an additional six months to make sure the station was completely abandoned. But all was quiet. His mission completed, he left the inferno and returned home.
During Year 2 things started to get interesting. The Elvii stopped all formal unarmed training to start racing in wooden hovers! They built huge race courses all throughout the space station. Hordes of Elvii raced in hovers and inflicted untold damage. Afterwards, the Elvii would fist fight in bars and other recreational areas. Nevertheless, they still made time for singing, dancing and chasing one another.
It was like the Elvii went absolutely nuts! Running around wearing dark-colored animal hide jackets and beating each other up. Or rioting with hovers! He recorded the best races and brawls into his neural personal space. These flixs where going to get gazillions of Grid hits!
The only reason they weren't on the Grid already was because he was hard-wired for radio silence. Those damn engineers had literally removed his transmitters. He was completely mute. As far as MechSergeant Garson was concerned all engineers were the spawn of hell. It wasn't that he hated them. Far from it. Their skills and knowledge gave him a body for each mission. It was just that they seemed to hate him. Very, very much.
Time passed and he did as he was trained to do. He hid in the roiling flames of a sun and watched the strangest events unfolding on board the Elvii space station.
In Year 3, the Elvii changed out of the animal hides and put on colorful synthetic cloths. Floral motifs were very popular and it wasn't uncommon for the Elvii to decorate each other with flowers. There was a 26.5% increase in random outbursts of singing and dancing. Except now there was 3 times more sex.
Garson was convinced it had something to do with the females' outfits. He remembered sex well enough to know those ladies looked amazing. He filled the rest of his personal neural storage allowance with those flixs. These were going to get 100 gazillion hits and earn him a waterfall of cash.
By Year 4 they switched out of the flower shirts and put on long flowing robes. The only real effect of the change in clothes was that the robes caused a 8 second delay in getting naked. Otherwise, the usual festivities continued unabated.
At the end of the 4th year the Elvii gathered to host one last enormous brawl followed by a phenomenal orgy. The following morning everyone boarded starbuses and scattered to major, nearby star systems.
He waited an additional six months to make sure the station was completely abandoned. But all was quiet. His mission completed, he left the inferno and returned home.
Mission accomplished. The next mission better be more entertaining than this or he was going to start killing engineers...
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