[color=gray]Perennial Introduction: Five Years Ago[/color]
[center][hider=Atmospheric Music][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-Fl6JwUrmI[/youtube][/hider][/center]
[color=gray][center][h2]Abandoned System[/h2][/center][/color] 
	An old dilapidated space station hung in the sky orbiting the local star in the habitable zone. It was one of only a handful of fixtures in this solar system that was habitable by human standards. That was because the sparse planets were bathed in solar radiation, and routinely bombarded by asteroids. The station itself was a heavily armored mining outpost left over from the Kegran expansion days, and as such all the valuable materials have been mined from the system. Since then it had fallen pray to scoundrels and pirates seeking to evade the grasp of the EOM or other factions.
	In the years it had taken to cause the stations painted emblems to fade beyond recognition the system itself became less and less strategically important. Paired with the dense asteroid fields, the violent star, and a nearby gaseous nebula it was a difficult place to reach and reinforce. 
	The system was home to a jump gate that aided freighters and cargo ships in generating a warp field larger than they could otherwise sustain, allowing them to travel to and from the remote system with significantly more ease. However, since the pirates took hold few ships come too and from the system these days and the mining trade has all but disappeared. That was also due in part to the gate being redeposited in a disadvantageous place to incoming travelers.
	Despite this, a few holdouts remain and mine base metals that have little value outside of being sold in bulk. A bulk quantity that simply is impossible to turn a profit on in cargoholds the size that pirate raiders have, and so they are largely ignored. 
	Near to and on the station itself, a new order of law has set in: a primal order. "Do not hunt from your own kind." It was a lesson new pirates frequently were required to learn the hard way, as one was about to do, when a derelict hulk started to slowly push out of a near solar orbit. It was an older ship. A science vessel struck down by straying too close to a solar flare. As such it had long since been picked clean by the system's scavengers and left to rot in the irradiat sun. But now that it began to move again—meter by meter toward the mining station—it was approached by heavily armed light corvette. 
	The hulk's crew was a motley few mercenaries hired to salvage the hulk itself, rather than stripping any remaining components, and they had set up in the astrogation section. The only section of the ship not so irradiated as to prevent environmental suits from sustaining their meager human lives.
	"Incoming hail," one mercenary said in acknowledgment of the light corvette's communiqué.
	"Well, don't just gawk at it," replied their bodacious brunet of an employer. 
	"I don't know by what power you got that thing moving again," barked the captain of the light corvette. There was no need for introduction because the circumstance spoke for itself. "but it's mine now." 
	Alalia Wallice brought one hand to her mouth as to mockingly laugh, whilst tucking the other under her elbow. Despite both being encased in a leaf green environmental exoskeleton she still managed to project an air of being dainty and proper. "I don't think you remember where you are, good sir. This is [i]Tortuga[/i]."
	The moment the light corvette fired a warning shot across the lumbering hulk's bow, as to demonstrate that he meant business, five pirates descended on him like a pack of ravenous wolves crippling the corvette instantly. 
	Alalia turned to her mercenaries, and laughed: "Shall we resume?"
	After an hour the ship had manage to limp its way to the station, and through docking procedures, while the corvette was sacked by raiders.

[color=gray][center][h2]Station 37 - 'Tortuga'[/h2][/center][/color] 
	The gravity on Tortuga Station was heavy—nearly fifteen percent higher than Earth Standard, but that couldn't be helped. Despite the apparent weight a spanner sailed fifteen meters through the air and struck a large metal sign that had been bolted above the cargobay's entrance. "No goons!" the sign read, and onto the deck plating below it the spanner quickly clattered to a stop. 
	"I thought you assholes learned your lesson last time," the young upstart mechanic yelled across the bay to a pirate, whose henchmen had days old bruising on their face: one in the shape of a wrench, the other the tread of her boot. "Get the fuck out of here!" 
	The feisty freckled redhead stood just over 150 cm in height and glared upward at a well built man 30 cm her superior, and his two even larger human escorts. Her loose attire of cargo pants, and an old tank top that lifted to reveal her midriff when she threw her tools, was an obvious contrast to the sharply dressed criminal enforces.
	"You've fallen behind on your protection payment miss..." the bruiser paused as he looked down at the young lady's name-tag. "Mac. We're simply here to collect."
	"Ya can't pour from a cup that's empty," Myriam Mackenzie paraphrased the ancient proverb both to summarize her financial situation, and their moral situation, as she prepared for a fight. Well, as far as a kick to the balls, a punch throat, and being taze'd with a cattle prod count as a 'fight'. 
	As Mac and the two goons lay on the ground, in various degrees of agony, the primary enforcer got low and threatened her again. "You've got one more day, Mac. Then we find... other ways for you to pay off your dept." The enforcer reached out at her belt loop, and give it a suggestive tug, before he himself collapsed to the deck plating in a bloody heap.
	"I hope that I'm not interrupting," Alalia said as she shifted her weight in accentuation of her hips. She turned over the recovered spanner in her hands while inspecting its one bloodied end before she spoke again. "I am in need of a mechanic."

[color=gray][center][h2]Tortouga I - Planetside[/h2][/center][/color]
	The surface of the first world that still remained intact orbiting this star was burned and scarred by stellar radiation. The atmosphere was thin, and large domed cities dotted the planet's pock-marked surface. There had been nearly a 150 year gap between the humans first appearance on this world, and their reassurance, as in that time the planets surface had been irradiated by massive stellar bursts. Their return, of course, heralded the fact that the technology of the age was now advanced enough to carve out a spot for humans on this otherwise uninhabitable world.
	What was once a mining colony, these domed cities have since been expanded to a surveillance outpost. Interestingly, however, the only significant feature of the system is its lack of significance to the Empirium of Man. Even still, if left unchecked the degenerates whom congregate in the area may eventually amass enough power to become an inconvenience to the EOM. The station served more as a reminder than an enforcer in the area. That was because the annalists stationed on this remote world have advised their leaders to not interfere too much, as doing so may galvanize the yet unaligned pirates to join the Free Planet Alliance, which would create a problem where one does not yet exist. As a result a tentative, unspoken, and informal truce has developed between the EOM colony and Tortuga Station. It was a manifestation of the second natural law: "don't shit where you eat."
	To suggest the EOM presence was a military one would be an erroneous for they were mere civilians contractors. As much as the humans considered the colony a forward reconnaissance station, it was more a minor line item than an actual bullet point, and the colonists were largely left to do as the please. Often what they pleased was experiment in fringe science out in their piece of frontier space. That science was in experimenting on the native flora and fauna that evolved under these conditions and exploring possibility of adapting them for terraforming. The extreme virulence of the life native to this planet was a cause for concern, however, as several earlier domes were completely overrun with them.
	In one such dome genetic researchers collectively scratched their heads. Two of which had all but pressed their faces to a hermetically sealed glass box. "Sensors aren't detecting the rat's life signs at all," one researcher said as he glanced down to a readout to confirm. 
	Another turned her head to confirm. "Are you sure you got it calibrated correctly?" 
	The first researched nodded and the two went back to staring at a lab rat that was running on a wheel. "Yes! All I'm getting is the background flora." the lead researcher shot back. 
	Her assistant peered back to her lunch and slumped into her chair. "I guess we'll have to scrap it and start again." 
	The rat stopped running on its wheel to watch the exchange.
	"There are no signs of illness in it," the lead researcher noted from a readout. "Decommissioning the specimen would be a waste. We'll observe it for now." 
	A ping from the assistant's computer drew her attention to a new correspondence from maintenance. "Oh, hey," she said while pointing to the screen, "the geothermal shaft is going to be complete any minute. We'll be switching of nuclear power in the next day or so." 
	"It's about time," the lead researcher said as she took a sip of coffee from her mug. "We always get stuck with the old tech," she said with a pointed stare at the rat who sat oddly patient staring back.
	The rat's sclera, iris, and pupils were all black: a new development to occur in the last few seconds. The researcher cocked her head and leaned in to get a closer look. As she did, so too did the rat, and the ground rumbled as elsewhere in the facility. The final layer of rock had been broken and a cavern exposed in the deep below which sent a minor shock about the facility. 
	At that instant the rat welled up and exploded into a cloud of spores in its sealed cage. The lead scientist nearly dropped her coffee as she screeched an obscenity, before reining in her nerve. "That scared the shit out of–" but before the sentence could be finished the entire a wave of spores washed over her from the open door. The entire facility had been filled with an explosion of spores from the deep under that so massively overwhelmed the security measures that it in moments the air was rendered breathable and emergency safeguards went into effect.
	The blast knocked the researchers to the ground and, as they gasped for breath, they scrambled to the big red 'lockdown' button, but collapsed before they could lift its clear protective cover. 
	Minutes later after after the air cleared and a thick coat of pollen and spores covered every surface Gretchen Gravage arrived on scene. Every precaution had been taken to ensure her arival would go undetected by the lab's equipment and all personnel had been incapacitated. She unceremoniously stepped over these unconscious, but otherwise undamaged, humans and inspected the area. [i]They are exposed and vulnerable,[/i] she internally conferred with the Great Web, [i]Are they to be incorporated?[/i] A chorus of emotion surged through and she replied [i]Yes. I understand.[/i]
	In following her orders she made her way to the main communications room to send out a message. The message was routine in nature, so much so that an automated version already existed in the system, and took little effort to mark up and send. The message indicated that a nearby ion storm would be interfering with communications, and none would be sent until its passing: an estimated two weeks from now. 
	In that time the researchers would be made receivers of the Great Web's seed, which nudged them away from studying The Spore's cognitive capabilities. [i]Yes,[/i] Gretchen confirmed her orders after initiating the automated message, [i]We shall observe them as they observe us, and[/i] the word was stressed in her mind [i]the manner in which they do so.[/i] These humans were not to be incorporated like the others as doing may threaten to raise awareness of the Perennial existence. As far as the humans were concerned, the Perennials weren't even sentient, despite having settled the Perennial home-world twice. It was best to bide their time for now and allow the humans their ignorance. 
	[i]What about the pirates?[/i] Gretchen internalized with the Great Web as she cast her gaze heavenward, allowing herself to see them as Alalia's did, and after a moment of silence she responded internally once more: [i]I see. No unnecessary complications. We leave them for now.[/i]