Untold Stories of a Galaxy - Kysaek: The Beginning

Looking around and getting acquainted on Themis’ streets, looking around and getting acquainted - those were most of the highlights in the last three days, as far as Kysaek and Thais were concerned. The source of the slave transports had been pinpointed after just one day, but that had taken the situation to a new level, as Tavis had described it. Roskor Reed was the target, one of the bigger heads in the Maw and for some time now on his way to becoming one of the strongest. As a connoisseur, Tavis had wondered what had given the crime boss such a huge boost in the last year. In the context of PGI, however, it made sense to him. If Reed was doing business with Peeks, it was doubtful that there wasn’t more to it and that the company was supporting him in other ways. It was, however, an explanation for Reed’s rapid rise. The extent to which this was true, however, was secondary for the time being. Tracking the slaves himself was a priority and Tavis devised a plan to do so.

Stealing information about the business again, or following that trail directly in a similar fashion, was a huge risk. Instead, the Palanian’s idea envisaged a raid on a soon-to-be drug deal, with one of Reed’s smarter heads in attendance: an accountant, named Arolac, who, though not ruling right next to the crime boss, was still far enough up the ladder to possibly have information, if only because he had an insight into Reed’s figures, and figures could tell a lot. Besides, no one would probably suspect that the raid was anything more than it would be - a daily raid on Themis where one gang steals or sabotages the fruits of another. The constant struggle for power in the underworld, a plan that had the group’s approval and was still being refined.

“That went pretty well,” Thais commented as she returned to the hotel room with her leader. The Talin had found an ambitious group of petty criminals in her tours of a few bars, absolutely fitting for the boss’s kidnapping. “Though I didn’t think they’d be satisfied with so little until you mentioned the drugs thing.”

“It was pure greed,” Kysaek replied calculatingly, taking off her helmet. Here in their hotel room, and without Tavis, she and Talin were themselves, but outside, the two of them always moved about hooded: Kysaek in a full helmet that wasn’t exactly battle-hardened. “And they were literally shouting it out, with their constant questioning of how much we were going to pay them. So I thought to myself, ‘Put them on notice that they can grab the drugs after the robbery.’ If Reed’s people are dead, the goods will just sit around anyway until someone finds them and steals them, and on Themis that won’t take two minutes.” Not that she was suddenly the expert par excellence, but looking around had done some good for her too, and she’d realised that a lot of people on Themis were always looking for the biggest, most profitable advantage for themselves and for opportunities.

“Aren’t you actually worried about Tavis?”

“Worried? In what way?” retorted Kysaek with gallows humour. “Didn’t you tell me the other day to shake off those thoughts?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Thais said, though her body language suggested uncertainty. “Or I do. I’m talking about the fact that he’s backed off and we’re in the firing line. Actually, he’s the expert, isn’t he, and he should be guiding us through Themis?”

Kysaek understood the Talin’s doubts, but she trusted the Palanian’s plan. “That’s what he does, don’t you think?”

“If we do the dirty work and take the risk? No, I don’t quite think so.”

“But it’s true what he said: if we go about the raid in threes, we could be blown quickly, despite stealth and even if we succeed, simply because we arrived together as a group and have been together for the last few days,” Kysaek repeated that explanation of the Palanian, in her words. “As he said - all it takes is a stupid coincidence, a drunkard who remembers us and may hear of the approaching raid and then tell the story of the Palanian and the two women. Now, however, Tavis is collecting debts for someone in another corner and who would link him to this robbery?”

“Mhh,” Thais murmured, circling her finger in the air. “That’s why you extended the plan?”

“I like making plans, doesn’t everyone?“, Kysaek lifted her shoulders innocently, but she smirked. “There’s always a tweak in there and I found that the two of us on our own were just as conspicuous. With our eager raiders though, we can attack undisturbed from the background and get what we need in the fog of chaos.” Despite the smirk, Kysaek was serious. There would be many deaths again in this fight, but she felt no sympathy or doubt. She literally looked down on the hoodlums and felt morally superior. “Each side will attack each and I’m sure there won’t be many to tell. As it is, we are on the safest side.”

“Don’t imagine this is too easy,” Thais cautioned, striding over to the mirror that hung above the metal dresser. She looked at herself in the reflecting glass and seemed to predict what was coming. “So far, it’s been pretty easy. PGI butchers and criminals don’t make it hard to choose when they threaten, attack or hunt you and yet such characters have their faces and their stories too. So when we grab the accountant in the robbery, be prepared to hear his story, his evasions and his pleas and whether he is telling the truth or lying doesn’t matter - he will make it difficult for you.”

To this Kysaek strongly objected, for she did not want to let any possible qualms get to her and to be a strong role model. “I’m not interested in what this guy has to say if it has nothing to do with the slaves.”

“Wait and see,” Thais merely said and disappeared into the bathroom.

That gave Kysaek food for thought as she grabbed a cool bottle of water from the small fridge and drank from it. Was this harder than she thought after all? Was she on the way to becoming jaded, after a few months on the run? And why did Thais necessarily have to talk about such things now? That was no help to Kysaek. I can’t let myself get flustered before the raid. Instead, she tried to take her mind off Themis and wondered how things were going at Central, since she had given Re’Lis a few things to do before leaving. First and foremost was a possible escape from the main world, as it was uncertain how it would all turn out on Themis and there might not be a new pursuit.

There were also the beggars, whom Kysaek had not forgotten and to whom she had advanced a not exactly small sum. After all, that had almost broken her and the group’s necks and since the elimination of Jason, the beggars had disappeared from the face of the earth. It would have been a lie if Kysaek had said that she was only interested in the well-being of these people and that that was why she wanted to track them down. She felt that she owed the beggars a debt because of the trouble they had caused her and that it was no longer just about the deal she had made with them. Hopefully they were not cheats. That would not be at all palatable to Kysaek, but there was a worse problem she had entrusted Re’Lis with.

At first, it had only been fleeting rumours in and around Capon, but before Kysaek had started her journey to Themis, it had become more. For some time now, children of all kinds had been disappearing, and not in short supply and despite the protection of the new militia. This hurt Kysaek, although she still did not want to interfere in the affairs of the inhabitants. She had enough trouble of her own. But when a Palanian mother appeared before her in person and told her heartbreakingly about her missing daughter and begged her to help her, Kysaek could no longer ignore it. She promised the mother to send out her people and to take care of it herself as soon as she returned from her short journey, the destination of which she concealed. She didn’t really have people to send, but it would bring the Mother some peace and until then Re’Lis should at least ask around and see what she could find out or perhaps enlist the help of Prax and his brothers if the situation of the Galig did not allow her to wait for Kysaek’s return journey.

The signs, however, indicated that the action on Themis was not going to be done with a snap of her fingers and time was not exactly on Kysaek’s side. At least that’s what she originally thought. For some time now she had been wondering and outside the hotel, Kysaek broached the subject. “Every now and then, everything seems a bit strange to me.”

“Everything? Everything what?” asked Thais, looking up at the sky in passing. She and Kysaek were incognito on their way to the raid, walking in an undeveloped crevice that was just below the surface.

Only a translucent, shimmering blue atmospheric shield separated the women from the deadly flora and fauna, in the form of the gigantic, hellish sun and a raging sandstorm.

Kysaek, however, was more focused on Thais because of the conversation and because all the colours were playing a colourful game with Talin’s fair skin. “We are refugees from PGI, right?”

“We’re living as refugees on Central and walking through the dust of Themis right now. Still feels like escape to me, yes.”

“Yes, but it’s an escape from PGI, one of the most powerful corporations in the galaxy. Skarg Peeks even has a small private fleet of warships and thousands, oh what am I saying, tens of thousands of soldiers.”

Thai’s throat slits widened and suddenly she expelled a not inconsiderable amount of dust from them, like a sneeze. “Argh, the damn dirt gets into every gap.”

Kysaek smirked in surprise. “You all right? Are you clogging up right now?”

“Not funny,” Thais replied, holding her nose and blowing another load of dirt out of the crooks of her throat. “Ah, much better.”

“You’re not getting sick, though?”

“No, it’s just the environment. Dry worlds with lots of sand or dusty earth are not places for the Talin.”

“Then I’m reassured.”

“But not as far as PGI is concerned. What are you getting at?”

“Skarg Peeks has quasi-unlimited resources, no matter what it’s about - why can’t he get on our trail?” asked Kysaek. This seemed illogical to her. “He could probably hire the best Seekers, bounty hunters, assassins, or start yet another smear campaign to make us look even worse, and that’s nothing to a man like him.”

Thais screwed up her face indecisively. “So you’re basically complaining that we’re doing reasonably well and we don’t have half the galaxy right behind our backs?”

“Well, when you say that, it sounds crazy ... I’m not crazy, am I?”

“Let me look at that,” Talin said, deliberately exaggerating at first. “Trusting a complete stranger Palanian? That’s a risky game and comes close to crazy. But to consider the situation and realise that one of the biggest corporations with all its power can’t get to us? That’s rational and has justification, but there are possible explanations.”

“You have explanations? Then you have already thought of that as well.”

“Actually, it was Re’Lis,” Thais asserted. “A few weeks ago she came up with it too, only she didn’t ask me if she was crazy. In fact, she told me not to be so careless.”

“And what conclusion did you come to?”

“Underestimating and overestimating was the first. Either Skarg is underestimating us or we are assessing the situation worse than it actually is.”

“Underestimate?” repeated Kysaek, slightly horrified. “PGI cut us off from everyone and sent an army into Auranis, murdered dozens of your sisters and reduced the Disciples’ base to rubble. From my point of view, that was playing it safe.”

Thais was sober in her assessment and had apparently continued to process her losses. “This was more like a good fighting force and not an army. We were right on Peek’s doorstep and of all his resources he is no longer without? No, I’ll stick with underestimating.”

“I don’t like it,” Kysaek replied equally soberly. Was her little troupe really that good? Was it luck so far? Or were they all vermin in the end, not worth it to Skarg? No, that didn’t make sense to Kysaek, she considered the smear campaign in the public news, the attack on Cipi, and the appointment of Phonor and his hunting party. “Whatever all this is, I think we could kick up a lot of dust here on Themis.”

Again Thais knocked some of the actual dust off her clothes. “’Humans and their figurative proverbs,’” the Talin said with amusement. “In any case, we seem to be on the trail of something big, and who’s to say it won’t raise more questions than answers.”

“A lot of things don’t make sense right now. I mean, why would a successful mega-corporation like PGI be researching with banned technology? Profit motive?”

“Profit, power, superiority: sounds like the Solaris dream to me,” Thais recalled of the war. “Nothing else was at stake then. A company that saw itself at the top and wanted to conquer the galaxy with found, far superior technology. Not every motive is complex and full of grey areas. Often such desires are simple.”

“I would find that ... unsatisfactory,” Kysaek weighed the interjection and saw another snag. “And the many slaves, of Roskor Reed. Why the expense? Slaves are allowed in the lush expanses, with contracts signed voluntarily. So why does PGI need to resort to such means?”

“These slave contracts are the last option for some, with high debts and other problems” Thais explains knowingly, as if she had once had such a contract herself, or because she saw it as a more extreme form of insolvency. “You cede a lot of your rights and commit to someone for a certain number of years. In return, they take over your problems and at the end you are completely free. In my eyes, that’s fair and not entirely comparable to the theft of freedom from real slavery and apparently PGI has greater need, of real indentured labour.”

“There are really only more questions coming,” Kysaek sighed in frustration, kicking a stone away in front of her. “I want to know why we’re having this trouble.”

With her next step, Thais paused and looked first to her companion. “Let me give you some advice, from someone who has lived a long time,” she said, and having Kysaek’s attention, the Talin stared up at the blue shield. The sandstorm swept across the barrier and the hellish sun blazed in the sky as Thais shared life wisdom. “Don’t look too hard for the why. Time is on the universe’s side and infinite, yours is not.”

“Is that just your view or of all Talin?” asked Kysaek. After talking to Thais, her sister Dilén, and scattered alien Talin, she was sure that was more folk wisdom. “Your people can live close to two thousand years, after all, so you have plenty of time to search for whatever.”

“And even we don’t find all the answers. It reminds me of a story from the Temple Lesson that fits the theme. Would you like to hear it?”

Was Thais a priestess, that is, a real one? Temple Lesson sounded very religious to Kysaek, but she preferred to let her comrade-in-arms tell her story. “Let’s hear it.”

“An old legend says that long, long ago there were as many male Talin as female Talin and we didn’t have to guard our men like treasures, but they were sadly tormented by the lust for blood and waged war after war. This slaughter and waste of life enraged the Nubius to the utmost and in their rage they called every temple servant to them, no matter how insignificant their rank and name, and for the first and only time in the history of my people, the Nubius spoke personally to the Talin.”

“And what did they say? Put your guys in shackles or castrate them?”

Unmoved, Thais continued. “They put the fate of our people in the hands of all the temple servants. Whatever they decided, the Nubius would do, and so the servants all consulted, for years, centuries even, and this while their world was going up in flames more and more and there was less and less to preserve all the time.”

“Centuries, the Talin really have too much time on their hands ... but since you are travelling around in space now, I assume the servants came to an answer?”

“Yes, and it reshaped our society from the ground up. The servants found that the men were guilty and would lead our people to ruin, but they still granted them a chance to escape their curse. The servants appealed to the men’s reason to lay down their arms and live in harmony. The men refused and so they continued to slaughter each other until there were only a few left and so it remained for all time - the Nubius had cursed them at the behest of the servants, that they might not multiply too much and so be no danger.”

“As i said, castrate.”

“It’s not so much about the punishment in this story,” Thais admonished politely. “Because to this day there is no answer to whether it was just, whether it was good, and whether it ensures our eternal existence. Henceforth, we women took over not only the spiritual leadership of our people, but also the all-encompassing one. Many scholars claim to know the answer and say it was right because the Talin still exist today. For them, it is proof that this is the answer.”

“So I don’t misunderstand,” Kysaek murmured. She tried to follow. “The servants spent ages looking for an answer to the man problem and when they thought they found one, they found it wasn’t?”

“Partly true. The lesson is that you can spend your life looking or waiting for an answer, but it may never come and you can only try to make the best of what you are given.”

This legend and Kysaek’s current situation were not comparable for her. “But the difference with the servants is that they knew the reason,” she said with conviction. “They knew the why. They knew why they judged the men, while we have a hint of nothing. The fact that you Talin still wonder today if it was such a good thing is another story altogether.”

“You don’t quite grasp the lesson that way,” Thais noted, but she was not disappointed. “It’s not about how, where or why. It’s about living with the circumstances and drawing potential from them.” Following this, The Talin raised the prospect of an uncomfortable fact. “Have you considered the possibility that we may never know the reason for our pursuit? What Skarg Peeks is up to? Or that it may be years before we learn the truth and that we must now simply accept many things as they come to us? Who knows what else is coming that we don’t have an immediate answer to.”

“If that’s the case and we don’t find out, ever, we’ll have to live underground forever,” Kysaek gritted out. That was definitely not on her five-year plan. “That means we would have failed and I don’t feel like that at all. Our goal is clear and we’ll make the best of it.”

Resolutely, Thais nodded. “Apparently you do understand the story a little, but I suggest we deal with the accountant and finding the slaves now. After that we can go back to puzzling over the situation.”

“What else can we do?” winked Kysaek. Serious and a little fun, that was how it could go on for her. For a long time she had grown accustomed to Thais and the rest, but still there was the feeling of being a stranger and that there was a chasm between them, the chasm of expediency. However, Kysaek knew that this did not diminish the strength of the group and did not change the care and loyalty to each other, because if something happened to one, it would weaken and endanger the rest.

Kysaek did not suspect such qualities in criminals, certainly not in those in the upcoming deal. Two gangs who stood by each other for the moment for the sake of currency and power alone, and each saw his neighbour as expendable just so that the cake could turn out bigger for him at some point.

At an old, unkempt and abandoned mine platform, the respective parties met and Reed’s followers were not only better armed, but outnumbered the vendors two to one. However, this did not bother the outnumbered and they appeared quite relaxed as they waited at a tunnel on the tracks.

“How long are we supposed to stand here?!” asked Arolac. He was a small Davoc, with shaggy orange fur and a broad nature, characterised by more meat on his ribs than muscle. “If there’s one thing I hate, it’s waiting.”

“A break between meals is good for you,” said a Talin whose voice was as young as her defiant appearance. She apparently knew the monkey business and didn’t hold back. “You are fat enough.”

Both the Talin’s companions and parts of Arolac’s own people laughed dirtily and it annoyed the Davoc “And you’re a little whore, like many Talin! Just because you have good drugs and we made some deals doesn’t mean I won’t put holes in your face if you don’t have respect!” he incensed, looking sharply at his henchmen. “And you shut up!”

“Keep quiet, Arolac,” a Galig thug of the Davoc retorted. “We all know how smart you are, but you’ll have to admit she’s not wrong. When we’re not on business, you sit a lot, crunch numbers and eat and drink like a greedy negdrog.”

“So I’m a fat, stupid negdrog? You’d better not be, or I’ll be rolling the numbers later and all of a sudden your share has mysteriously been halved.”

“You are and will always be a dry-skin,” the Galig opined. Dry skin was his species’ way of saying someone was a whiny whiner.

“So far, everything is true,” Kysaek said quietly. Her place further up, in a deserted office, gave her a good overview of the cramped area. “But the drugs should be there by now.”

Thais patted her leader on the shoulder. “Well then, let’s hope your eager friends understood the meaning of -don’t attack until the drugs are handed over- and thgat they dont get tempted with their highly praised greed.”

“How likely are they to be that stupid?”

“If we are dead, the probability was high,” Thais said sarcastically, shifting her position as she cut Arolac off. “I’ll go around to the other side, then we can heckle him.”

Kysaek nodded silently as it grew increasingly noisy in the vendors’ tunnel and she briefly feared her aides were arriving too soon. She noticed, however, how calmly the criminals remained on the platform and realised that the goods she had hoped for were finally arriving.

A row of five narrow goods wagons was being pulled in by a train wagon on the tracks and on each wagon were metal suitcases and boxes, locked and of various standard sizes, which seemed a bit like a waste of space, given the volume of the wagons.

“The number is right,” Arolac commented as he walked off the load and had a synthetic protective glove handed to him. “Let’s see what the contents are like.” He did not bother to open one of the thicker and radiation-marked containers himself. One of the vendors did that for him, and out of the box shimmered a soft aquamarine glow to Arolac. “I like the colour.”

“It’s from a clean compression,” the Talin saleswoman mentioned, grinning roguishly. “At least that’s what the ones we took it from said.”

Arolac was more than indifferent to the fact that the goods had been stolen. “Almost looks like industrial processing to me,” he said, covering his fingers with the protective glove. It was the only way he could safely retrieve a glowing square from the box. “This really deserves the name Pure Cube.”

Kysaek was fascinated by the colour. She had never seen Pure Cube or also called Drug C up close and in real life. She read once about how the drug was extremely expensive and you were never allowed to touch it without safety gloves, as you could suffer very painful or fatal damage if it came into contact with your skin. However, if you brought it into a gaseous state, you could smoke Drug C without any problem and experience an extreme high.

“Do I need to check on the rest?” asked Arolac suspiciously, putting the cube back into the container.

“Do it or don’t. I’m not your nanny,” the Talin saleswoman replied sternly. She knew how this went. “I know for myself that I’m not stupid enough to fuck with Reed or give him shit. Because I like living a lot and I deliver what I promised.”

“I’m glad we understand each other,” Arolac nodded and climbed heavily onto the Loren’s train wagon. “Give her the foreign currency badges.” While he recovered from the few steps and took a breath, two of his men handed some safe boxes, whose codes they visibly entered, to the sellers and, unlike Arolac, they checked each badge for its value.

“We’ll get more at the next deal, though, or this will be our last transaction,” the Talin saleswoman warned.

“The price is right as it is. If you can’t do math and don’t know the principle of supply and demand, that’s your bad luck.”

“Explain it to me ... Why does some of the merchandise not fetch me what it is actually worth?”

Arolac was not inclined to justify the prices, but he did so anyway. “I’ll explain in simple terms, sweetheart: since the Echo Cartel was broken up, there is no one on Themis to control the flow of certain drugs. It’s a free market now and it’s flooded with loads and that lowers the value, even of high quality - get it now?”

“Is that any way to treat good business partners?!”

Now it was up to Arolac’s henchmen and him to laugh amusedly at the Talin. “I hope you’re not screaming for fairness like a little girl, because then I doubt your sanity.”

“Oh, fuck you!” replied the Talin bad-temperedly, waving him off contemptuously. “Take your goods and get ou-” Suddenly a shot rang out and pierced her back, causing Arolac to wince and fall out of the tractor.

Even Kysaek was startled, but she caught herself immediately and remained mistress of the quickly turning heated situation. She could not say the same for the gathering on the platform, however, where everyone was frantically searching for the source of the incipient attacks and only found it when more than half of the vendors were already on the ground. Finally, Kysaek’s reinforcements had arrived and they had really approached silently, and from a very narrow side shaft to which neither she nor anyone else had given any importance up to that point.

But now Reed’s people and the last vendors did, but in the chaos they did not find each other - they turned on each other. “You betrayed us, you bastards!” one of the vendors shouted indignantly, firing wildly. His sense of betrayal was understandable, for after all, many of his companions were dead or injured, and there were almost no casualties among Reed’s people before they were attacked by the raiders and the vendors.

“Filthy parasites!” countered Arolac, crouching in the shelter of the tractor, protected by a couple of his henchmen. “I’ll stuff your Pure Cubes down your throats!” In terms of numbers, his men easily outnumbered even the attackers who had appeared, but the ongoing unrest didn’t exactly play into their hands, driving a breach between Reed’s pack.

Nevertheless, Kysaek was still looking for a way to get to Arolac without anyone noticing or getting in her way. Besides, with every passing second, the likelihood that the Davoc could be killed by the hired force increased, and even if Kysaek had explicitly forbidden it - in the heat of battle, anything was possible. “The fight is still too dangerous,” she murmured to herself. “And I’ll never get the hunk away fast enough. They’ll shoot me before that.”

Finally, Thais made contact over the Frequenzy. “What’s taking you so long?!” the Talin asked. She had found herself a safe corner and secretly stopped some of Reed’s men cold. “The longer we wait, the worse things are for us!”

“I’m looking for the right moment, after all!” replied Kysaek, having to duck away from some ricochets. “There are still too many guards and Arolac isn’t moving, but I’m open to ideas!“”If there’s nothing else, we’ll have to get right into the fight!” suggested Thais, but there was little more inside for her. Despite hiding, bullets and plasma charges were hitting close to her and this was also driving new crooks from Reed towards her. A situation in which she could not possibly continue to maintain contact.

Kysaek’s hands were also tied, however. The plan did not call for her or Thais to interfere and it was far too risky to actively intervene in the shooting that was becoming more intense, but the turmoil showed her one thing. Arolac was a coward, through and through. Every bang made him fidget restlessly back and forth and that gave Kysaek an idea. She didn’t have to take action, but threw one of her incendiary grenades into the confusion and the soundless toss didn’t give away her position. The fierce stabbing flame decimated Reed’s men at one point and Arolac was startled by it, like a wild animal. “Yes, yes!” grinned Kysaek to himself.

At first the Davoc ran away from the lorries at a snail’s pace, but he would never make it across the open space and hastily turned back. He climbed onto the tractor. “You come with me!” he ordered a few hoodlums, and to the rest he gave other instructions. “And you finish off those sneaky traitors!”

The lorries slowly started rolling away and Kysaek’s face wrinkled as she was really smeared. “No, no, no!” , she shook her head and stormed out of the office. It was impossible for her to stop the mini-train, so she unceremoniously decided to sprint to the railway tunnel overpass. “This can only go wrong!” she said to herself and took the plunge.

Just barely and very ungently, the stowaway landed on the last trolley, between the boxes and both Arolac and his few goons looked back perplexed. “What branch crashed?!” the Davoc asked, upset. “Go see what it was!”

The Train wagon was not exactly a maglev and its speed was moderate, but it still shook vigorously. It was not so easy for the three crooks to climb over the trolleys and all their loads in the process. “Slow down or I’ll fly off this thing!” shouted the galig who was close to the third wagon.

His wish for less speed did not come true, however, but when Kysaek emerged from the crates and fired, the Galig’s fears came true and he fell wounded from the lorry. “Who’s next?!” she asked, full of adrenaline, swaying with the sway of the ride.

Her other counterparts, however, were not as careless as the Galig and were forewarned. Besides, they quickly drove the cheekiness out of their fellow passenger by bringing their considerable plasma rifle armament to bear and it melted everything it hit, which included the drug charges.

Filled injectors, green dust and Pure Cubes were torn out of their holes by the rough ride and Kysaek was glad to be wearing a full helmet. The dust alone would have rendered her completely useless from one moment to the next.

“Are you stupid?“, Arolac was annoyed. “Stop destroying the goods now! Do it the old fashioned way and beat the shit out of the bitch!”

Reluctantly, his henchman gave in to the Davoc’s urging and they fired only to protect themselves from counter-attacks and succeeded.

Kysaek’s pistol was hit and she had to drop the melting, glowing hot piece immediately. However, she possessed a similar, burning substitute and it was called Pure Cube! Gloves she didn’t have, but Kysaek didn’t have to touch the glowing solid herself thanks to her prismatic powers and hurled some of the drug cubes at the opponents. Concentrating her powers was difficult in the jerky ride, though, and the narrow objects made it a real feat. However, Kysaek managed quite passably and managed hits, just not good ones. They were either on synthetic material or parts of protective armour - until a Calanian henchman struck at one of the Pure Cubes and caught him with a bare backhand. Instantly he doubled over screaming like hell, like someone burning alive, and Kysaek was able to ignore the hit man as she began to grapple with the last thug on the second lore.

He was human and her physical equal, but the man knew some tricks and gave Kysaek real trouble. “I’m gonna fuck you up, you piece of shit!” he railed at her, knocking her to the ground.

This, however, was a welcome position for Kysaek. “Not today!” she sneered back before kicking the guy between the legs and knocking the almost paralysed criminal off the lore.

Now there wasn’t much standing between Arolac and his pursuer, who picked up one of the plasma rifles. Only a lorry and a brawny Talin in the tractor were the last protection for him. “That’s it, Arolac!” he heard the stowaway shout. “Stop or I’ll shoot!” The Davoc even thought of something similar. “I’d better throw you out!” he retorted, and made a proper full stop.

Because she was caught off guard and unable to cope with the resulting force, Kysaek thundered into the first lore and sailed off the transporter. Her body screamed with every fibre and she writhed on the dirty track bed in physical agony. Getting up was out of the question for her just then, even though she stretched out her arm as the drug train also picked up speed again.

“Tough luck, bitch! You’ll have to get up earlier! Ha haha!” laughed Arolac spitefully. He was out of reach of his pursuer and kept giving her victorious looks. There was no chance now that she would catch up with him. “All over these blowhards,” he snorted to his stalwart Talin protector. “Who are you anyway?”

“I’m with the bitch!” the hooded Thais replied, delivering a knockout blow to Arolac. After that, it was easy for her to stop the Mine Train and back up.

Kysaek was still on the ground, stunned by the Talin. “Where did you come from now?” she asked strickenly, squinting her eyes. Had this been a dream? Had she hit her head when she fell?

“I was there the whole time,” Thais claimed as if it was nothing. “When things got really hot, I snuck in between the ranks of Reed’s people. It’s really an advantage that criminals don’t wear such clearly recognisable signs as PGI.”

“What if I had shot you in the heat of the moment?”

“I don’t die so easily Kysaek. After all, I’m standing here, aren’t I?”

A little snivelling with bitter humour, Kysaek pushed herself to her feet.... “And it never occurred to you to help me?”

“You did quite well, didn’t you?”

Her fall was the opposite for Kysaek and she only recovered from it step by step. “Doesn’t feel like it though.”

“I was about to when you put him down, but his full stop was unexpected.”

“Sure thing,” Kysaek smirked wanly, but she didn’t hold it against the Talin. “Next time you do anything, I’ll take the comfy seat and you can fall off the wagon.”

“Fine by me. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve fallen off a vehicle,” Thais said, and though the henchman with the Pure Cube wound on the trolley didn’t budge, The Talin played it safe with a shot to the head.

Kysaek was not amused by the brutality. “Couldn’t get any deader, could you?”

“Do I hear pity there? I thought those who were a danger to us were something else when it came to killing.”

“He was no longer a danger,” Kysaek clarified. However, she did not forget that this was neither the time nor the place for discussion and accepted it for the time being. “But we have other things to do now.”

“Yes. Let’s get the fat ass out of here or we won’t get anywhere,” Thais agreed. She ripped Arolac’s vortex cuff off his arm and smashed it.

Nothing spoke against it for Kysaek, but she did one more thing. “Wait,” she said, destroying the coupling of the second lore. “More loot for our robbers, or they’ll resent us.” She was going to park the train wagon, including trolley number one, far away from here. “Full speed ahead.”