Some star systems were barren, worthless chunks of life that could never benefit anyone ever, let alone support life. The Rinara system was not one of these.

Rinara was actually the second largest world in its system, circling an aging, but still vital star. Its people were an old race, known for being one of the first major powers in their region of the galaxy. They didn't achieve this status from military force, but instead used economic leverage to make themselves indispensable to the affairs of the star-faring peoples.

The planet Rinara was a very pleasant world, lush with vegetation and fresh water. Though there were some areas of temperature extremes, for the most part there were no inhospitable climates. The denizens of this world, the Rinari, were a very hospitable people, non-aggressive and generally helpful to other species. This made them well regarded in the galaxy and generally left alone when armed disputes occurred between neighboring alien governments.

The one thing that made them the force that they were was a substance called Anchro. Anchro was a naturally occurring liquid on the planet Rinara. It was spewed out of the under regions of that world in what seemed to be limitless supply. Even more, Anchro apparently existed nowhere else in any large quantity.

Anchro was the key ingredient in the faster-than-light propulsion system developed by the Rinari. In fact, Anchro was an incredibly efficient energy source that was now critical to the infrastructure of many technologically advanced civilizations.

Almost all societies, upon first contact with the Rinari, immediately recognized the superior nature of an Anchro-based power source. They paid handsomely for it, and kept paying, vaulting the Rinari to the top of the economic food chain in their area of the galaxy.

Further more, they were rendered near untouchable from violence or other harsh action. The Rinari were not without their own formidable defenses, should any one species think to invade the world and take the Anchro. Even more, the rest of the star-faring species would never allow such a thing, for their enemies might then deny them the precious substance.

Everyone knew the Rinari were fair and honest, a people without guile and ambition. Because this was their nature, they welcomed with open arms the strange ship that appeared without warning in their orbit.

*****************

Fom Ars had always enjoyed his job. As the Prime Mover of Anchro, he was the one who approved the sale and distribution of the precious substance.

His family had swelled with pride when they had declared him -Fom Ars! - as the new Prime Mover. Fom had always felt that he was truly helping the other races of the galaxy, allowing them the means to provide for their people and increase the welfare of all sentient beings.

Of course, his job was also to weed out those who wanted Anchro for nefarious purposes. That had happened less and less in the last generation. Fom Ars was convinced that most races in the galaxy were good, and that most strife had been eliminated.

Largely due to the plentiful power provided by Anchro, he thought pridefully.

Fom Ars shook himself back to the present. He had a job to do. These newcomers had appeared in orbit some time ago. They were not aggressive, but their ship was quite large, any bigger and it would itself be considered a celestial body. It was basically spherical and dark, quite unlike any ship ever seen in this sector.

What was most worrying was that none of their intelligence devices had been able to glean any information about the ship. Nothing other than its physical proportions...which were vast.

Suddenly, after a somewhat tense period of waiting, the ship had contacted the Rinari office of Anchro Affairs with a perfectly worded message in the Rinari language, thus involving Fom Ars.

Now, here were these aliens on his screen, the like of which he had never seen.

The one in charge appeared to be a male of his species. He was a pinkish hue and not the usual blues or greens seen in other races of the galaxy. His skin appeared quite soft, with no armor plating (vestigial or otherwise). He had brown strands of fur growing out of his head. His eyes were non-bulbous and very small, protected by some sort of constantly closing and opening flaps of skin. It was quite distracting.

Additionally, while there was indeed a mouth for eating and speaking, there was also some sort of hideous, open, lumpy protrusion in the middle of its face. Its face was not flat as was usually the case with most species of this sector. Fom Ars put aside the slight disgust he felt. Physical appearance was nothing. He wasn't exactly sure if he could accurately read the man's facial expression, but he appeared to be a friendly sort.

His companion, though...Fom Ars did not like the stone-still, dull expression on this ones face. Fom Ars supposed that this was a female. She(?) was standing behind the male, so he supposed she was a subordinate. Her skin was an angry red, and there was some sort of gill-like structure along the sides of her face, similar to the creatures that lived in their waterways. They way they kept pulsating was also somewhat disconcerting.

With a start, Fom Ars realized that the male had spoken. Embarrassed and shamed for doing his job poorly -especially during a first contact!, Fom Ars was forced to ask the man to repeat himself.

The man spoke in fluent, native-sounding Rinari. "I said, my name is Grant. I'm the Commander of this vessel." The words were spoken perfectly, but Fom Ars thought the tone was a bit mocking? No, perhaps their grasp of the language was not as good as they thought.

Fom Ars spoke. "Commander Grant, it is our pleasure to have you. My name is Fom Ars, and I am the Prime Mover of Anchro." Etiquette must always be observed, he thought.

"Thank you", the Commander said. "Behind me is my associate, Leen." The woman behind him made no move of greeting, nor did she speak.

"Again, it is my pleasure to make your acquaintance." Fom Ars directed to Leen. She did not speak or react in any way.

The Commander laughed. "She's very shy, this one!" His mouth quirked up on one side. Fom Ars supposed it was a smile.

"Well, Commander, let us come to our business. What can we of the Rinari do for you?"

"Fom, old boy, I'm glad you asked. We've come for Anchro." The small beady eyes held Fom Ars in their grip.

Disconcerted, Fom Ars ignored the insult of not addressing him by his full name. "Yes, of course! Of course. We can certainly oblige you. How much were you looking to acquire at this time?"

The Commander laughed again, though Fom Ars was not sure that there was anything amusing about selling Anchro. He decided to ask again. "Erm, Commander…how much Anchro did you want to acquire?"

The man stopped laughing. He focused in on Fom Ars again.

"All of it."

Fom Ars could not believe what he was hearing! "Did you just say that you wanted to buy our entire current shipment of Anchro?" This would be a sale beyond imagining, if they could afford it.

The Commander shook his head. "No, my friend. I said we wanted all of your Anchro."

Now the Prime Mover was at a loss for words. "…erm…", he tried to squeak out some words.

"Fom…?", the Commander prodded.

Fom Ars found his voice again. "My good friend. Commander…I'm sorry to inform you that I cannot approve a purchase on that scale. Not only is it not possible to afford that level of purchase, but it's not possible to extract all of the Anchro from the planet. And even if it were, Anchro is an integral and necessary part of our ecosystem, to remove it all at once would wreak terrible havoc on this world and its peoples!", Fom Ars heard his voice rising and cracking towards the end of his statements. He hoped he wasn't too rude.

The Commander turned and looked to his subordinate. Fom Ars was certain they were disappointed, but they had to understand it was just not possible.

"My dear Fom…I regret to inform you that it is not only possible, it is imminent."

Fom Ars felt his hearts start beating quicker, and his stomachs turned over.

"What do you mean?! What are you talking about?" Fom Ars demanded. He knew his tone was harsh, but courtesy be damned!

The Commander spoke, and this time Fom Ars could hear the cold amusement in his voice.

"I mean we came here for Anchro, but not to buy it. We're taking it. All of it. Now."

Fom Ars was impaled on the Commanders gaze.

"Now Fom, I'm not really a bad guy, if you make this go smoothly, and don't give us any problems, I'll give your people time to relocate. I don't think you'll want your people to be on this world once we start the extraction."

Suddenly, Fom Ars found his backbone. "You listen! If you think the Rinari will just lay down and allow you to ravage our world…we have our own forces, and we have allies!! We'll fight you! We'll destroy you!"

"Fom, please…that's all a bit over the top don't you think? I like you, so I'll let you in on a little secret. Neither you, nor any power in this universe, can destroy, or even harm, this ship. For the sake of your people, relocate to one of the other worlds in this system, or wherever you want, I really don't care. But make sure you're all gone by this time next cycle, because when that time comes, whoever is still on this rock will surely die."

"Goodbye, Fom.", and with that the visual feed went dead.

Still stunned, it took Fom Ars a few moments to pull himself together and contact the military authorities.

********************

After the call went out, the response was swift. The Rinari assembled some of their most powerful vessels and moved decisively to dislodge the alien ship from their orbit.

Attack after thunderous attack was unleashed on the black, spherical vessel. Weapons that the Rinari had never used in the history of their species were employed in increasingly more desperate attacks. Despair set in when they realized their assaults had not only failed to cause damage, but had failed to cause any discernible effect whatsoever.

Very soon, their allies in this part of the galaxy were called to arms. Since they, too had a vested interest in keeping the Anchro safe, they arrived with terrifying military warships that, frankly, dwarfed the weapons of the mostly peace-loving Rinari.

These other beings were much more aggressive, and had history of warfare. Never before had this much power been involved in one military action in the Rinara system.

Terrible energy weapons were directed at the alien ship, even those deemed likely to harm the Rinara atmosphere were used in their desperation.

All to no avail. Bathed in terrible arcs of destructive energy and radiation, the black vessel hung in orbit, silent and inactive.

Time was now running out. In less than one Rinara cycle, this sector of the galaxy had been turned inside out, and the future was very uncertain. Frantically, as the Commander's deadline approached, those in power tried to open communications, offer the aliens something, anything else.

They got nothing but silence.

Finally, with a very short amount of time left, the Rinari were advised to abandon their planet, while the other, more militarily powerful empires devoted their entire armadas to attacking the aliens. Reluctantly, the Rinari began their evacuation.

But it was too late.

The allotted time was not up, but suddenly, to the surprise of the Rinari and their allies, the ship burst into activity.

It dropped quickly into the atmosphere, causing dangerous weather effects over much of the planet.

Before the defenders could react, four titanic conduits launched themselves from the dark ship, quickly spanning the vast distance to the ground. When the tubes hit, they caused powerful explosions, throwing clouds of debris and fire into the air.

Within a very short time, a massive counter-strike was launched by the Rinari and their allies, but this time it was met by a very different response. Suddenly, from seemingly every surface on the ship, a burst of yellow energy pulsed outwards, creating a wide spherical sheet of energy that kept growing outwards.

Every ship it touched exploded into flames and melted debris, despite the advanced shielding they had developed over the years. When the energy wave touched the ground, the devastation was even greater. The ground was evaporated and burned, all structures were laid waste and millions of Rinari were atomized immediately. The only thing untouched were the metal conduits emerging from the ship itself.

Then matters got worse. The conduits hummed into life, and with a horrible wrenching sensation felt by everyone still alive, the steel tubes began suctioning the Anchro from deep within the planet.

Explosions wracked the planet, and the air itself became hot and caustic, suffocating and burning many Rinari as they tried to escape their home world. Geysers and giant waves of scalding hot Anchro erupted from the ground and burned people alive, eating through metal and stone alike.

Quakes and fires were already destroying much of the Rinari civilization when several more conduits shot out of the sphere and, with even more explosions, sunk into the ground in search of more Anchro.

They found it.

Huge miles-wide pits and sinkholes opened, sucking in the last remnants of the great society built by the Rinari. Giant fissures peeled themselves open, appearing to rip open the planet. As the relatively few survivors of the catastrophe fled into space, they could turn back and see what looked to be a giant parasite attached to their world, sucking the life from it.

Centuries later, this event would still be regarded with horror by the surviving species that lived in this area of the galaxy. Many of them would have descended back into barbarism, falling back to their own home worlds and losing their places among the stars, and some would lose even their knowledge of each other. But they would all know about the demon aliens and the round, tentacled ship that tore apart the lives of their ancestors.

There was a lot of luck in the universe, but it wasn't always distributed evenly.

********************

Grant sat leaning forward, attention drawn to his monitors, which he used to look down on the horrific destruction wracking the world of Rinara. He looked for escapees and he saw pitifully few ships flitting away out into the stars. He shook his head and smiled. As far as he was concerned, the near-genocide he was witnessing was all on the heads of the Rinari. He had warned them.

They never listened. When would the sentient races learn that this was his universe now? He sighed.

"They were a pitiful, lesser species.", a cold voice spoke from behind him. Leen, of course.

Grant didn't turn to look at her, but his mouth quirked up into a half-smile. "That's what you said about me when we first met."

"It's still true today, human." There was no humor in her voice. She turned and walked away.

Now Grant really did smile. Ahh, the hatred emanating from that woman. He loved it!

Swiveling in his chair, he thought of the ungodly price this much Anchro would bring him when he sold it to the Empire of Tengeren, on the other side of the galaxy from here.

Of course, they didn't call it Anchro, and they would have never heard of the Rinari, and if they had been in the neighboring star-system, would most likely have destroyed them -but it was no matter. Grant thought it likely that this sector of space would tear itself apart without Anchro.

He didn't think there would be much worth returning here for within a couple of years.

Still swiveling, waiting for the ship to finish collecting the Anchro, Grant wondered if Fom Ars had managed to escape. He had seemed like a good enough sort.