Eve and I didn’t have much free time as we were called to another meeting just a couple hours later. We walked through the halls together on our way to meet with the agents who would help establish our cover stories.

  “Do you think it will be difficult?” Eve asked mildly.

  “What?”

  Eve gestured around vaguely, “Having to pretend we’re a couple on vacation, acting like we’re in love or some nonsense.”

  I let out a sigh and shook my head slowly, a grave expression on my face, “I don’t know how we’ll ever manage…” I said somberly.

  Eve giggled and leaned over like she was going to grab my hand but pulled back when we passed by a couple marines. She watched them go, then turned to me with a mischievous glint in her eye, “Maybe we should sneak off real quick for some privacy, get working on our own cover story before we even meet the agents.”

  I just laughed at that, “Eve, we can’t be late to every meeting just because we want to fool around.”

  Eve made a cute pouty face, “Why not?” She whined.

  I turned away, acting like I was in great pain, “Do not tempt me again woman!” I called dramatically, then relaxed to normal, “Let’s just hurry up through this shit so we can head back to the apartment—no need to sneak around there.”

  Eve nodded along, “That’s true; while I enjoy the thrill of misbehaving, I’d rather just have more time with you overall.”

  I rolled my eyes at that, “Like you don’t misbehave with me either…”

  We made it to our meeting without significant distractions. The room was just a standard conference room with a wide table, a few chairs and a couple clandestine agents waiting to greet us.

  “Welcome Agent Adam, Eve, good to finally make your acquaintance.” The male agent offered. I knew he was Agent Vinnago from passing, one of the agents who would be accompanying us on the mission—must be the training agent too. He was clearly revoran just like Tillia, and if she thought I was a pretty-boy, this guy had me beat by pretty much every metric. He was tall and slender like a male model, with a sculpted face I could only describe as beautiful—made me jealous just looking at him. He had the same kind of red skin as Tillia, even some dark purple markings or accents too. He had antenna as well, though his were longer and thicker than Tillia’s. He had silky black hair that was groomed like he just got out of a photoshoot, but no facial hair or shadow I could see. He smiled pleasantly, every bit as bright and energetic as Tillia even. Apparently the revorans were all just cheery and friendly.

  Beside him was his partner, Agent Lobae. She was definitely as beautiful as Vinnago, but a complimentary opposite; she had pale blue skin, long dark violet hair, and very tall blue feline ears on top of her head that curled in a little. She was slender, with mild curves and rather wide hips. She had a tail that was swishing back and forth that had a dark violet tuft of fur on the end. Her face was cute, but she wore a rather sever expression with her bright red eyes narrowed—as though looking around for potential threats.

  “I’m Agent Lobae, and this is my partner, Agent Vinnago.” Lobae introduced in a cute squeak of a voice, “We’ll be on the mission team with you, and our job specifically will be to help all the pairs maintain their cover during the mission.” She said earnestly.

  Vinnago waved it off as though it wasn’t that serious, “It really won’t be difficult; people on vacation won’t be scrutinizing us or anything. Basically, we just need to figure out a reasonable role for the two of you to play together so it comes off as natural.”

  Lobae looked down at her hologram tablet and started shifting through information, “We understand Eve harbors some kind of…romantic attachment to you Agent Adam, is this true?”

  “Adam’s fine.” I said, then sighed, “And yes, Eve believes herself to be my mate or something.”

  “I’ve evolved to be his perfect mate.” Eve offered cheerfully.

  Vinnago smiled brightly, “To be honest, we’re going to want to lean into that for your cover roles. All the teams are going to have roles established as couples; people are less likely to get suspicious of a romantic pairing, plus it will offer an easy alibi in case you ever get caught up in a situation where you’ve broken Glorva Corp guidelines.”

  I quirked up an eyebrow, “We’ll be breaking Glorva Corp’s rules during our investigation?”

  Lobae nodded, “For the investigation we’ll probably need to go to restricted areas on the stations—maintenance zones, crew quarters, supply holds, wherever our search for Gamma-12 takes us.”

  “And if anyone gets caught, they can just offer the excuse the pair snuck off for a romantic tryst or something.” Vinnago offered mildly.

  I nodded along, “Makes sense.”

  Eve leaned towards me, “We could make it a real tryst.” She said boldly.

  I acted like I ignored her while thinking we were absolutely going to have real trysts in restricted areas, “So since we’re going as six couples, are we going to act as though we know each other too?”

  Lobae nodded, “Yes, you’ll be in a group package together; we’re thinking work colleagues at some remote conglomerate no one has ever heard of—a paid company retreat.”

  “Six coworkers, six romantic partners that won’t need much of a connection or cover, it will help prevent too many inconsistencies.” Vinnago added.

  “Alright cool, what kind of work is it?” I asked.

  Vinnago shrugged, “Some automated workforce management and maintenance team, we’re still working on building the shell company, so details will be filled in more when that’s properly established.”

  “For now, we want to work on you two.” Lobae confirmed, turning to me, “We understand the two of you have grown a lot closer ever since your time on Entana; do you think you’ll be able to play the role of Eve’s lover?”

  I had to force myself to keep my face neutral, “Shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Can we be newlyweds? People are always wildly uncomfortable around PDA, so if I’m all over Adam it would be a great deterrent so people leave us well enough alone.” Eve offered giddily.

  Vinnago smiled, “That would be perfect actually; this role isn’t easy for everyone, but with the chemistry you two share, whatever you can put into the role to keep your cover would be very beneficial.”

  I crossed my arms on the table, “Yeah, how are the other pairs going to handle this? Are we just going to be a team of lovey dovey weirdos on vacation together?”

  “We haven’t talked to the other pairs yet, but we do expect a little…resistance; not everyone has the aptitude to put on an act like this, but again we’re acting as passengers on a vacation system tour, won’t really need to get too crazy with our acting.” Lobae said, then gestured to us, “We wanted to talk to you two first since Eve’s role in the investigation, as always, will be absolutely vital, and we didn’t want either of you two to be uncomfortable.”

  I shrugged, “We shared a hotel room together on Entana—live together on The Radiance now. This should all be rather easy for us.”

  “Oh, I plan to make things hard for you.” Eve giggled to herself.

  Lobae seemed rather no-nonsense, but Vinnago laughed at Eve’s antics, “I’m sure you two will be fine. I know some people have expressed their concerns over your teamwork, but the results can’t lie; the only reason we were successful on Entana was thanks to the both of you.”

  I gave Eve a small smile, “We do get along really well.” I offered, wanting to walk the careful line of admitting we were close, but hide the fact we were in a real relationship. It was a tightrope I hated and couldn’t wait for the day we could just be together.

  Actually, if we were pretending to be together for our cover, that meant we could act like we were together—which would basically be like being together, at least while we were on the mission.

  “So is there anything specific you need from us to establish our cover? Do we need to run through drills or something?”

  Vinnago shook his head, “Nothing like that; we can take the next few days to help you fill in some believable details, but you should work together to create the story of your cover—makes it more authentic that way.”

  “Aside from the cover story, we need to make sure we have all the proper Imperial identification. Luckily, we don’t really have to forge documents or create aliases or anything…” Lobae nodded towards Eve, “Except when it comes to you.”

  Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

  Eve nodded along, “Ah yes, I’m technically not an Imperial Citizen.”

  “Oh shit, how are we going to get around that?”

  Lobae waved it off, “We can easily cook up a false identity for her; the benefit of being part of an Empire that spans thousands of worlds and has trillions of citizens is how easy it is to create people from nothing.”

  Eve crossed her arms in a huff, “Couldn’t create me into a real citizen…” She pouted.

  Vinnago chuckled and shook his head, “Well this false identity won’t be a real citizen either, not really.”

  I held a hand up and started ticking off fingers, “Eve and I are going to pose as newlyweds, she’s going to need a false identity, and then everyone on the mission team will be working together for some fabricated shell company.” I looked at the agents, “That about it?”

  Vinnago nodded once, “Pretty much.”

  Lobae shook her head, “It really shouldn’t be that complicated; take the next few days and work together to create a believable fiction that’s easy for you two to share, but nothing so outrageous it will be seared into the minds of everyone you tell—easy to remember, easy to forget, that’s what we’re looking for. We’ll continue meeting like this over the next cycle to help you solidify your cover, and eventually we’ll bring the whole team together for the backstory on our employment and the fake company we work for.”

  And with that we were dismissed, so Eve and I returned to our apartment, working right away on practicing out the sex-life part of our newlywed story, unsure if we’d ever get around to working on any other part.

  ***

  Over the next few days Eve and I had quite a bit of fun working on our newlywed backstory—more than just the sex part. Although that was, obviously, a very large part of it. For our cover and Eve’s fake identity we decided she would come from Entana, and that’s where we supposedly met. Entana was a very populated planet, and quite the average Imperial core world, so nothing about it would be memorable to anyone else. Plus, we both had first-hand experience living in the capital, so that would make it all easier to sell. Our story would go I was visiting Entana for business reasons when I met Eve who was living as a starry-eyed college student working on her business degree for her dream job working in the fashion industry. Our relationship was a whirlwind romance, and we got married after a year of long-distance dating and frequent returns to Entana. We moved back together to whatever world would be decided as our fake-company planet, and after just a few cycles being married we would be going on the company retreat together—our first fancy trip together as a married couple, almost like a honeymoon. Eve found the whole thing wildly entertaining and was constantly adding more details to have fun—I worried it was too much for me to remember, but she said that was the point; the husband usually forgets those little details. She said it would be the perfect excuse if she even needed to pretend to be mad at me for some reason.

  Working our cover story out with Vinnago and Lobae, there really wasn’t anything for them to add. Both complimented our creativity and said we worked really well together, but to me it was so obvious it was easy to play pretend love because we were actually in love with each other. Really, I felt like the agents knew the truth—being spies and all, but I wondered if it really wasn’t that big of a deal, so long as we never made anything official—so long as we were both still productive and useful to the mission.

  Maybe it was more like a don’t ask, don’t tell sort of thing? Maybe they didn’t care what the human and the Predazoan did, so long as we were both still so properly caged? Still no reason to risk it if that wasn’t the case.

  A few days later Eve got her fake Imperial identification. Her home world was listed as Entana just as mine was Earth, and it said she was 20 years old (Entana) while mine said 32 years old (Earth); I didn’t know if the distinction of planet years mattered that much, seemed to make it hard to gauge anyone’s age compared to your own. Of course you could still measure things in Imperial years, in which case I was only 29 Imperial years old, meanwhile Eve would barely shift from 20 Entana years to 21 Imperial years. There seemed to be so many extra added details on the Imperial identification profile I thought were mostly unnecessary, but when you live in an Empire spanning over thousands of planets and systems, there were bound to be all kinds of redundancies or even inconsistencies. But really it seemed like it hardly mattered at all; when people can live for several centuries thanks to scientific innovations, age suddenly became way less important.

  “Wait, what’s this ‘augmented sapient’ thing it says for race?” I asked the agents, looking at Eve’s identity profile.

  “Oh, that’s the official designation for altered clones whose genetic material has been significantly manipulated so it remains vastly distinct from any known Imperial race.” Vinnago explained—though I understood very little of his explanation.

  It must’ve shown on my face, “Think of it like a hybrid clone with extra genetic material to create an original lifeform.” Lobae added.

  “That’s allowed?”

  The agents exchanged a look, “Why wouldn’t it be?” Lobae asked.

  “Aren’t there like cloning regulations or something to prevent the creation of, well…” I let the question drop, and we all turned to Eve.

  She just rolled her eyes, “The creation of dangerous Outsider old god abominations?” Eve said, clearly amused.

  “Well yeah there’s strict cloning regulations across the Empire, but nothing to prevent the creation of hybrid races. There’s lots of mixed-race couples out there who aren’t biologically compatible who rely on cloning for children, and if they want to combine their genetic material, a lot of work and gene-manipulation needs to take place to stabilize the new hybrid lifeform—thus, an augmented sapient is born.” Vinnago explained.

  “It’s not just a matter of mixing mom and dad DNA then?”

  Lobae shook her head, “No, and sometimes it’s mom and mom or dad and dad, sometimes it’s people that are some third, fourth or fifth gender specific to their race, sometimes they don’t have any gender at all. Point is with all those factors it can be a very difficult and delicate process that can lead to the creation of unique new lifeforms.” She gestured to Eve, “Like Eve here.”

  “Are they that common?”

  Vinnago looked down at his tablet, “Looks like…0.000008% of the Imperial population.”

  I crossed my arms as I thought it over, “Well that’s not much at all.”

  “With an Empire as large as ours, that’s more than Earth’s entire population.” Lobae countered.

  Eve giggled and nudged my shoulder, “And then there’s just one human out in the Empire now.”

  “Oh yeah…”

  The details on our fake company had been properly established too; on some distant planetoid named Exo-Cordeggo, there’s all kinds of factories that manufacture automated workforces—robots and the like. The planetoid is popular among start-up companies due to being out in frontier space with minimal safety regulations, allowing companies ample opportunity to grow without much Imperial oversight. Thanks to whatever clandestine nonsense those agents are up to, apparently we bought some small section of factories on the planet to properly sell our cover, hiding behind several other layers of shell companies to show we’ve changed management and ownership a few times now—and that’s going to work for part of our cover too; after yet another change in ownership, our company decided to send upper-management (our infiltration team) on a company retreat to reward us for sticking with the company during the changeover.

  “So what’s the name of this company we work for?” I asked.

  Lobae rolled her eyes, but Vinnago looked like he could barely contain his excitement, “You’re going to love this.” He held his hands out in a presenting fashion, “American Automations.”

  Hilarious.

  We got the background on the planet and the company, seeing the planet was rather barren with all those factories the work itself was mostly managed remotely from a nearby moon that was much more habitable—where we would be living for our cover story. We had pictures doctored of our daily lives, documentation with extensive work records established, it was all wildly thorough.

  “Don’t worry, I know it looks daunting, but you’re not going to be telling other passengers every little detail of your lives; remember, you’ll all be on vacation together, you’ll be in the mindset of wanting to get away from work.” Vinnago confirmed.

  “This is just your information base so you have common ground with the other members of the mission team; details might be vague, but when the stories mostly line up, no one will ever think to question if it’s a fabrication.” Lobae added.

  From there we started meeting up with the rest of the mission team getting the story working together as a collective. I would be a junior executive manager of distribution, and Eve would be my beautiful, newlywed bride of just eight cycles—still a college student, working on her business degree. Zyno looked rather nervous over the whole thing—probably because he was paired up with the beautiful Doctor Yun, and he admitted himself he was not good with women. Zyno would be another junior executive in charge of technical queries, while Yun would be his girlfriend of three years; the two didn’t live together as she lived on a research station in another system—a little reality thrown in to help sell the bit. Doctor Gorgam would be a senior executive while his wife, Doctor Sorra would also work for the company as an administrative manager in charge of payroll accounting. Doctor Kianna would be another junior executive in charge of research and development, while her new boyfriend Doctor Densdor would be a college professor at a small technical university—the two met just 15 cycles ago at some automation resource conference in a nearby sector. Agent Roote would be the failsafe securities manager for the robots, while Agent Uinda would be his recently out-of-work artist girlfriend. And then finally Agent Vinnago and Agent Lobae would be another married couple, Vinnago being the resource management executive, while Lobae would be part of some deep space freighter crew; she spends dozens of cycles away from home transporting goods across the Empire, causing a strain on their marriage, so both are hoping to rekindle the romance with this trip—all extra details added to help make their story more authentic.

  Despite the serious mission, we were all having a bit of fun building up these cover stories, sitting around the table as though part of some writer’s room for a sitcom. We established how long we’d all been with the company, how many new owners we survived, who got along with whom, which partners or spouses people have met. It was almost the same as with Entana, heading down planet-side and feeling like we were on a vacation, but this time around we really would be on a vacation. The retreat-package ‘Bliss-Indulgence’ was all booked, and we were given a daily itinerary; unlike on Entana, this time we would be able to participate and enjoy ourselves, otherwise we would all look weird if we just never did anything on vacation. We still had a plan to set sensors around the stations, but we would be much more limited this time around and needed to be extra careful due to the tight Glorva Corp security. We would be going on one of the tour trips that would have us move around the many stations frequently, orbiting different gas giants regularly. It was the best option to be able to spread our search out to as many stations as possible; we’d be staying at a station for one cycle before moving onto the next, and we would rotate through 30 different cycles—an entire Imperial year of vacation. I asked if that was normal, but again when technology allows citizens to live several centuries, taking a year for a vacation was nothing; apparently the longest trip available in the Holistia Nebula lasts 50 years and goes through every single space station in the sector.

  At first, I was going to say how crazy that was—who could just stay on vacation for that long? But forgetting the financial logistics of that, I realized I would absolutely love to do that, so long as I had Eve with me.

  A cycle came and went just like that, and in no time at all our team was prepped and ready with an established backstory, detailed covers with some fake documentation, and a plan in place to hunt down our next target, Gamma-12 in the Holistia Nebula.

  ??? GOBLIN SMASHING ???

  by CSN Publishing

  GOBLIN SMASHING

  Tokyo, 2045. For most, a future costs more than they’ll ever earn. For Rin Kazehaya, it costs everything his family’s home, his mom’s life in a hospital, and debt collectors closing in on his siblings. The only thing that pays is hustle and hope.

  When Hero’s Glory Online launches its Crystal League expansion, a single tagline is everywhere: “Bring your business here.” One week. Discounted entry. Real cash for every match, every territory won. Anyone can play but not everyone survives.

  Rin gambles the last of his savings on a shot he can’t afford to lose, logging in from a battered first-gen pod built by his father. But a glitch locks him in as a Goblin the weakest, most-mocked race in the game. No reset. No second chance.

  Now, every victory means cash, every loss risks everything, and every move is broadcast to millions while Tokyo’s most ruthless family closes in on his real life. If he fails, he loses more than a game.

  But Goblins don’t know when to quit. With nothing left but his wits, a gambler’s instinct, and a dream nobody believes in, Rin’s about to find out what happens when the underdog brings his business and his fight to the world’s biggest stage.

  New chapters every Friday at 8pm Central Time.

  Goblin Smashing comes from someone who’s lived the grind as an esports organization owner and competitive MOBA player. If you love siege games, high-stakes MMOs, and underdog stories, you’re in the right place.

  This story is only published on Royal Road.

  If you spot it anywhere else, it’s fake, please flag and report.

  ?? Listen to the Official Goblin Smashing OST ??

  

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