Chapter 1

'So this is it, ' Kyle thought sadly.

The air was hard to breathe and stunk of burning plastic and superheated metal. Screams from the wounded filled his ears and an ominous hiss of escaping atmosphere made it very clear what his fate was most likely going to be. It had apparently been their epic bad luck to jump out of hyperspace almost next to a Sa'arm scout sphere. The unarmed and unarmored Aurora had been no match for the heavily armed ships journeying with the Sa'arm sphere. Only launching hastily evacuated pods at the enemy to give some cover had enabled them to last as long as they had. They were too far in-system to jump to hyperspace but too far from the colony for the single military vessel stationed there to get to them in time. That is assuming they even tried. The human warship would be heavily over-matched by the Sa'arm sphere's firepower.

He tried to move away from the fire burning near his head, but the agony was too much. Something had impaled him and he was pinned to the floor like a bug. He could see his concubines' unconscious bodies scattered around the shattered remnants of the pod. The amount of blood around them frightened him and he prayed they were all still alive, although he was fairly sure being dead right now was a better fate then falling into the hands of the Sa'arm. Looking the other way, he saw Jen laying on the floor near him. Reaching out slowly, he took her hand and started whispering reassurances to her, and telling her how much he loved her.

After the crewman had parked some of the displaced sponsors and their concubines in his pod to keep them out of the way, they had been as quiet and unobtrusive as possible. Now mostly they were either adding to the din with their screams of fear and pain or were overwhelmed and collapsed. A few, however, were up and about, trying to treat the injured and control the fires.

Smoke and sizzling showers of sparks obscured his dimming vision and he felt so cold, even the agony of his wounds and his failure as a sponsor to keep his concubines safe ebbed in the face of such overwhelming cold. He hoped the rest of the militia fared better and wished he could say goodbye. The AI had stopped responding after the first few hits, so he could not even relay his goodbye messages to them.

As the light in his eyes dimmed, his mind wandered back to the worst day of his life, which had become the best day imaginable. Images of the wonderful women in his prepack who had finally been given the opportunity to officially agree to come with him to the stars, as well as the last addition to his harem, flashed through the darkness encroaching on him.

The thick fog made driving extremely difficult. Trees loomed out of the mist and vanished just as quickly. Oncoming cars were little more than brief, blinding annoyances as their headlights lit up the mist, making it even more opaque. Both the stress of the fucking horrible day combined with the squinting to see through the fog was giving Kyle an epic headache. Beside him, Jared sat slumped in his seat, depression weighing as heavily on him as it was on Kyle. His face was dimly lit by the ghastly green glow from the instrument panel, making him look sickly.

After a long drive made longer by the damn fog, the bar finally loomed out of the shadowy mist, being obscured until the last moment. With a curse and screeching tires, Kyle braked hard and swerved into the parking lot, just missing the "plow-proof" steel post the mailbox was mounted on. That would have been a perfect cap to an awesomely bad day. Jared was so sunk into himself that he did not even notice the close call. Only the door opening and the interior light coming on broke him out of his introspection. Both men climbed out of the car and stumbled into the bar. Their usual self-confident stride was gone, destroyed by the shock of the day.

Kyle and Jared sat slumped in their usual booth. Soon after they sat down, a zombie shambled towards them! For a heart-stopping moment both men froze in shock, hearts hammering wildly. It took them a few seconds before they realized it was actually just their usual waitress. She looked like hell!

"God, Jen, what happened?" Kyle asked. "No offense, but well... ," he trailed off, not knowing a tactful way of asking a beautiful girl why she looked like shit.

Her blonde hair was straggling all over the place and she was not wearing any make-up, which made her unusually pale face look even more sallow. Looking at her blue eyes, he saw they were completely bloodshot. The skin around them looked bruised from lack of sleep as well as being puffy and red from crying. She had even lost her usual bounce and flounce that got her best parts moving in ways that definitely increased her tips while making other women jealous.

"Sorry," she replied, "I'm not doing too well today. You remember Rache, the waitress?" Seeing their nods, she continued, "She was killed here last night."

"Oh shit," Jared said, "I'm so sorry." Kyle added his condolences as well.

"Could you just hook us up with a couple of beers then and with a pitcher as well? I can guarantee we are not going to be able to improve your mood after the day we had. They say misery loves company, but I think people who are miserable should just leave each other alone since they are having a bad enough day already."

That was probably when their rumpled clothes and dour expressions really registered with her. "You too, huh?" she asked dully. "Seems like it's an epidemic today." Turning away, she shuffled off to get their beers.

Giving Jared a disgusted look, Kyle said, "You realize you basically just told a beautiful girl who is having a shitty day to fuck off and leave you alone, right?"

His only response was a disinterested grunt. Apparently, the Fitzsimmons deal falling through had hit him far too hard for him to care what others thought. Not that Kyle could really blame him, feeling pretty much the same way himself. Losing a $10 million deal hurt a lot. It was especially galling considering the amount of wasted work and unpaid overtime they had put into it. They were both also still smarting from the reaming that their asshole boss, Fred, had given them. Like it was their fault he had borrowed money against the bonus he would have gotten from their work. After that, there really was not much to say to one another, so they had skipped out early and taken the afternoon off to drown their failure.

When their favorite craft beer finally arrived, they just grabbed their glasses and drank. The bitter taste of failure made the craft beer taste even better than usual, or maybe they just needed it far more than usual. Starting to rally slightly as the alcohol hit their system, they began to notice the bar around them. The employees were obviously still stunned and grieving for the waitress that had been killed in the bar fight the night before. They overheard conversations and comments from the staff and regulars, and were able to piece together what had happened. The worst part was that she had not even been directly involved. Some new guy got in the face of a regular who was a friend of Rache's and punched him out. As she moved to catch her friend as he fell, he knocked her over. The back of Rache's head had connected wrong with the corner of a table and she died instantly.

Needless to say, it would be weeks before the stranger got out of the hospital to face involuntary manslaughter charges. Being just outside city limits, the bar was under the jurisdiction of the county sheriff and he had a bit more leeway to ignore the "accidental" and "unavoidable" damage the guy had suffered when the regulars took him down. While they had vented their anger the night before, it would take a long time before the shocked sorrow faded. It would also be a long time before a stranger was welcomed into the bar.

The sadness of the staff was incredibly contagious. Their mood, combined with the number of sour faces among the patrons, made the atmosphere in the bar pretty dark. There was none of the usual laughter, flirtation and shenanigans going on, instead everyone was getting straight to the business of drinking. Into this bleak, depressed atmosphere walked eight very large, grim-looking men. Kyle noticed them first and, with a curse, grabbed his phone.

Hitting speed dial, he only had to say, "Code Red, Fieldstone Bar." He then hung up and quickly called two more numbers and said the same thing.

"What was that all about?" Jared asked, not having noticed the large men.

Jerking his chin at the group, Kyle said, "Looks like a pickup."

"What? Shit!" Jared swore and grabbed his phone. He also called two numbers, each time he simply said, "It's happening at the Fieldstone bar."

"Ok, it's done," he said to Kyle, "Now all we can do is wait and hope they get here in time."

The excitement of the moment drove away their depression. However, as the time passed, doubts started to enter their minds. All the big men were doing was sitting there drinking. They were not paying attention to anybody, nor did they seem to be waiting for anyone else. Kyle and Jared looked at each other and shrugged, not having any idea what the men were waiting for, but glad of every minute that elapsed without an interdiction field going up.

In less than ten minutes, Sven raced in. He had been the second person Kyle had called. Four women came in with him, but sat across the room from them. One woman was keeping her hand in her purse which she had resting on her lap. Without acknowledging anyone, Sven came over and dropped a small backpack on their table.

"Loaded?" was all Jared asked.

Sven merely nodded and continued walking.

"So far so good," Kyle said, surreptitiously handing one of the pistols in the bag to Jared.

"Yeah," he replied, "It looks like all the work we went through to set up the network is going to pay off."

Over the next few minutes, almost two dozen people came into the bar. Kyle and Jared knew that each person was carrying a gun. The militia members nodded to them as they came in, but did not sit with them. Many of the militia members sat near the big men, the rest scattered themselves through the bar, making sure every section was covered. The moment the interdiction field went up, they would be ready to act.

"Ok, looks like everyone is here," Jared whispered, "Now all we can do is wait for them to make their move."

Suddenly, from the booth behind them came a loud, "Holy shit," followed by a loud female squeal of pleasure. Two teen girls zipped past Jared and Kyle and went straight over to the table the large men were sitting at.

"What the hell?" Kyle asked.

Another teen, a boy this time, leaned around the corner of the booth. "Sorry," he said, "the girls recognized them from the wrestling event we went to yesterday and wanted their autographs."

"Wait, they're wrestlers?" Jared asked in growing dismay.

"Yup, they're professional wrestlers." The boy proceeded to rattle off the men's names but they just bounced off Kyle and Jared. The next thing they registered the boy saying was, "I'm not sure why they are still around. I figured they would have moved on after the event last night."

Turning his attention back to the girls, he sighed jealously as they exchanged kisses for autographs with the wrestlers. It looked like the wrestlers were having a better night suddenly. There was a sudden disturbance at the wrestlers' table. Looking to see the source, Kyle saw a huge man who actually had to duck as he came in the door. Several of the wrestlers made a hasty departure as he came in. Kyle noted that as they passed the huge man, none of the wrestlers came higher than the newcomer's chin.

"Holy shit," the teen whispered again, "That's the new wrestler, Titan. He's 7'4" tall and weighs like 380 pounds."

"Yeah," the other teen added, "He's a real monster, dumb as a post too. He likes to tear apart the turnbuckles and eat the stuffing after he's done throwing his opponents all over the place."

That description rang a faint bell in Kyle's memory from watching wrestling as a kid in the eighties, but he could not remember the details. Besides, this guy looked much too young to have been wrestling way back then. Not that it mattered. They now both looked like idiots for calling in the militia for no reason. Over two dozen people armed and ready to rock and not a Marine in sight.

The luminous mist was so thick that no one noticed the gray interdiction field going up. Nor did either Jared or Kyle pay more than passing attention to the six large men and women who came in a few minutes after Titan, thinking they were simply more wrestlers. No one was looking when they unbuttoned their coats to reveal Confederacy uniforms underneath.

Suddenly, a strong, amplified voice cut through the dim, "Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please? This is a pickup."

"Oh hell no," a voice screamed out, "You ain't stealing all the purdy women."

Jared and Kyle's heads snapped around when they heard the drunken yell. Zack was a failed football player who had come back to the small town to specialize in beer and stupidity. It was no great surprise that he would be the one to fuck up their careful planning. Seeing him standing there, gun in hand, they knew they had to act immediately or the plan would fail. Immediately, around two dozen other people, including Kyle and Jared, also jumped up, drawing their guns. The alert Confederacy Marines were fast, but they had no chance to get even a single shot off before they were surrounded.

"Zack, you fucking idiot, drop it!" Kyle yelled, "We've been waiting for a pickup for years and there is no way we are going to let a piss-ant like you fuck up our chance to go to the stars."

All the surprised Marines were able to see were the backs of a bunch of people who had jumped up and moved to protect them from the lone idiot. As soon as Zack started to lower his gun, he was hit by a taser and then tackled by several guys who quickly handcuffed his twitching body. The Marines just stood there, fully alert with stingers in hand, watching with bemused disbelief as a bunch of civilians tried to protect them. Successfully, as it turned out. It was a surprisingly nice change for them.

After Zack was safely subdued, Kyle yelled, "Is there anyone else who wants to try and fuck up our chances to get off this planet?" Unsurprisingly, there were no takers. Seeing all was secure, Kyle and Jared carefully approached the wary Marines, holding their guns by the barrels with their CAP cards in their other hands.

"Sorry about that," Kyle said, "My name is Kyle and this is Jared. We are members of a pro-Confederacy militia that formed after we started hearing about idiots interfering with pickups. Our goal is to stop trouble before the pickup team decides it's too hostile a situation and heads out, never to return."

They put their guns on a table near the Marines and Kyle stepped forward. He handed his CAP card to the squad leader, making sure the 8.1 was clearly visible. The others headed over the same way, guns held by the barrel and CAP card in hand. Marissa, an older, plain-looking woman, topped out the group with an 8.4.

"So you're a PRO-Confederacy group huh?" the squad leader, Sergeant Taylor, asked, still unable to believe it.

"Yes sir," Marissa replied, "We are all volunteers and prepack concubines. All of us have had small arms training and taken either close combat bodyguard classes or martial arts classes to ready ourselves if a situation like tonight arose."

As she was talking, Marissa started unbuttoning her shirt. Sergeant Taylor's eyebrows rose as she revealed not the expected pair of breasts, but instead the Kevlar body armor she had on under her clothes. It was pretty easy to tell from his expression that he was amazed by the turn of events. Encountering a well-trained, armed, armored and dedicated group that was not trying to kill the Marines must have been a nice change for them considering how powerful and prevalent the anti-Confederacy groups like Earth First were becoming.

Gathering his wits, Sergeant Taylor detailed someone to guard the table with the weapons on it and then finished the routine pickup speech he had memorized. Slowly the sponsors, would-be concubines and those not interested or who were ineligible sorted themselves out as he had directed. He had asked the volunteers to gather near him and present their CAP cards for verification.

"Here you go sir," a deep voice boomed.

Startled, the sergeant spun around and looked up and up some more. At 6'7" tall, he had not had to look up to meet someone's gaze since his enhancement. Taylor barely came up to the nose of the man who had addressed him and probably weighed a hundred pounds less. Suddenly feeling small, it took him a moment to register the tiny CAP card dwarfed by the huge paw offering it to him. The teenaged wrestling fan, who had turned out to be a volunteer with a 6.6, gasped when he saw the number on Titan's card.

"Holy fuck! An 8.2? I thought you were just a moron who liked to eat turnbuckle stuffing. Err, um," he actually slapped his hands over his mouth and both blushed and cringed when he realized what he had blurted out to a guy who could literally throw large men around like toys. Luckily, rather than being offended, Titan just laughed.

"It's ok," he said, "Titan is just a persona. When I was recruited by the wrestling organizers after winning the world strongman competition, they decided I would make a great bogeyman that both the 'good' guys and 'bad' guys feared. They revived the George 'the Animal' Steele character archetype from the eighties and updated it for me. Interestingly, both of us are actually highly-educated teachers. He has a Master's and taught high school and I put my dual-Doctorates of organic chemistry and genetic engineering to use teaching at MIT. And yes, my students get a kick out of having 'Titan' as their teacher, although I do ask them to keep it quiet so my wrestling persona isn't shot." Seeing their looks, he shrugged and added, "Hey what can I say, it's a little extra money and fame, as well as being remarkably fun."

Sergeant Tyler was still off-balance because of the proverbial curve-balls being thrown at him. First the PRO-confederacy group, and now he had a monster looming over him. He prayed fervently that there would not be any other shocks. He turned to Corporal Harris to give her an order, only to have the words die in his throat.

The extremely tall, aloof, dark-haired, dusky-skinned Marine corporal was staring at Titan with a look of pure lust on her sexy face. The look was so hot that he felt himself harden while a worm of jealousy flashed through him. He had never been able to elicit a look like that from any woman, not even his concubines. She was actually panting and her nipples were tenting the front of her uniform.

"Corporal!" he snapped finally, his mouth dry and his pants uncomfortable tight.

Her head slowly turned toward him and she blinked a few times, suddenly refocusing on her job.

"Personal time later," he said to her quietly, "I need you to focus right now, ok?"

Blushing bright red, unable to even look at Titan, she nodded and whispered, "Sorry about that."

"It's ok," he said, trying not to sound jealous, "I want you to take the female volunteers in hand and help them choose. Don't force them, but try to encourage them to make wise decisions."

With a deep breath that strained the already taut front of her uniform, she gave herself a quick shake, which did nothing for the composure of the males who witnessed it, and turned to the female volunteers. With a smile, she beckoned them to follow her. Titan sighed as she walked away.

"Wow, that is some woman. I've rarely seen a woman as hot as her, and the fact she is tall enough not to look ridiculous next to me... ," he trailed off wistfully.

"Don't worry," Sergeant Taylor said, "You can modify your concubines to make them as tall as you like. Besides, I'm pretty sure she'll find her way into your bed. That was the hottest look I've ever seen."

"I hope so," Titan said, his eyes glued to Corporal Harris' ass as she walked away, naughty thoughts clearly displayed on his face. Almost as an afterthought, he asked, "By the way, what's her name?"

The sergeant chuckled, "You've got it bad for her, don't you? Her name's Rana Harris, and as I said, I'm sure you can look her up once we get you guys settled in on the transport."

Kyle lightly slapped Titan's arm, "Come on big guy, you have a bunch of sex slaves to pick. Don't worry, she isn't going anywhere."

With a last lingering look at Corporal Harris' perfect ass, Titan allowed himself to be led over to the would-be concubines with the other male volunteers. More than a few of the women and girls suddenly looked nervous when they saw him looming over them by as much as two feet or more. A few looked down slightly instead to see the very large bulge in his pants that they would barely have to bend over to kiss. Just as things were getting back on track, Sergeant Taylor realized that Kyle was the only militia member who had gone over with him to the women.