DARKSIDE STATION

DARKSIDE STATION-SEQUENCE THREE.

Sequence Three.

The Rising of the Calming Storm.

What did he just say. Garret broke from his holding pattern disconnecting the stunned autopilot mode. The customs and enforcement drone reading them in repeated the statement.

"Darkside Station is not property of, or Terran in manufacture, nor being intellectual property of, Terran design, or engineering." He ploughed through their many questions, marching over protestations this time, however.

"No frame organic or otherwise knows the origin of the Machina's exotic particles or the intricacies of the weavings upon her fabric, stitching her quirky fell. And no Lifebeam, synthetic or otherwise, other than the orphan kin, our Dollmother, has met the unknown progenitor architect or known the touch of the hands who birthed her." He visually loomed around the room, fixing eye contact with each confused team member left to right and then back again. Nodded. Returning attention to the briefing podium.

"So, you have been forewarned. From this demarcation," He gestured towards a circular, cerraform tattooed, portal behind him with one hand, while fumbling through a handful of old-fashioned pressed paper pages with the other.

"Ah here we go. You petitioners for permanent visas, from this point onwards and downwards are forevermore willingly entering the Empire of the Machine. So acknowledged is the successor, writ and reward built upon the Kingdom of man's rusty bones."

The incoming Terran administration shift skimmed wary skipping glances off of each other, obviously concerned at the non sequitur ramblings after the welcoming party had turned homicidal.

Herded and hustled out around their complaints, as the civilian cohort of their party entered, they exited. Transiting through the decorated portal into a long white circular hallway leading to a brightly lit, triangular, whiter sterile room focusing them on a pair of stern looking customs officers camped behind counter and glass.

The stereo sturgeons unfished lips and one gestured at them to take up numbers from an ancient, worn roller on a wobbly stand, the other signalling them to take one of the translucent plastic seats that had lit up with a number from a Fibonacci sequence in pulsing red characters on the rear of each. Presupposition mode was scrolling across the ticker fixed high on the wall above the tickets.

Frustrations bubbled at more delay mixed with confusion and conjecture at what non-Terran meant. The team's musings of concern rapidly dissipated when a woman walked in, followed by a man, both ducking a step sideways under the bulkhead the tallest of the Terrans had easily cleared.

Sensing them, the taller female's hair bristled, her companions flowing auburn mane bloomed rigidity, before relaxing in cascades from the tips of his bare shoulders, flowing along trapezoidal inclines, then steeply rising along the nape of his neck.

Shocked, the Terran tactical command, handover protocols forgotten, stood gaping and dumbstruck, every one of them caught lack witted, hesitated.

And when the towering pride queen smiled, revealing long slightly curving incisors. Hesitation, strategically leaving the field for a concussion or other physical lamentations.

As the creature stalked a looping, prowling circle around Allaria and her mother Cline Avery. They outright procrastinated.

When the bipedal lioness stopped sharp, looking confused before she sniffed each a sharp, barking draw, and started purring. Waiting and hesitating.

Still when the Lion King's cousin was looking back and forth between the pale, paling visage of Avery and the dark, paling complexion of Allaria before flashing a pulse of colour spectrums across the canvas of her exposed skin, settling on the darker tones of Allaria's temporal diaspora. They paused, deep in self-contemplation and analysis of their individual states of consciousness. Hesitation.

Ar'Ket'Tiana-Rayn was joined by Ka'Tet'Tiana-Ru as she roared a hearty welcome, followed by a growling prayer to the Arclight for those one's whose lateness of arrival through the storm reeks of grand happenings and tribulations after great and worthy trials of the essence.

Drawing down the Terran command snapped out of the stunned fugue state and exploded in a co-ordinated action that telegraphed a well-tested, blooded killing crew of cold-hearted operators.

A light flashed purple sparking tangerine tasting fizzy bubbles in nasal cavities. Yawning, they sneezed before laying down, the seasoned campaigners bivouacked in each other's arms, snuggling up together, immediately entering a deep, slack jawed, drooling sleep.

"Every time with these people." The induction Technics grumbled to one another, as they dragged their three feet walking around the customs counter to retrieve a Mecha platform trolly.

One of them stopping and helping the groggy Lioness Domina and her son to sit up, apologising for the friendly fire. Explaining how annoying it is every time having to load and deposit another batch of this rabble, this oblique detritus polluting, an otherwise cruisy, relaxing, darkness.

They always made a commotion, causing a splash, and the ripples of their shimmers had a habit of disturbing the natural order and flow of any and all in their radius. Good citizens of the Empire of the Machine trying to mind their own business voyaging through the Sea of the Eternal Night. There was no reasoning with Terrans.

END OF SEQUENCE THREE.