Untold Stories of a Galaxy - Kysaek: The Beginning

Jason and the other robbers had left Capona and packed more than half of the newcomers onto trucks as slaves and sent them somewhere. After the gang disappeared, it became clear that harvest time was a regular occurrence and those who knew about it were not allowed to say anything to the newcomers. Those who did were at best new slaves themselves, but death was the most common consequence and often the inhabitants betrayed each other.

It showed Kysaek that pure fear prevailed, in a well-woven web of Vincent Luan. People were lured towards Capon with false hope, settled there and integrated into the system with harvest time before it started all over again. A good tactic, Kysaek had to admit, and she had fallen into the trap unsuspectingly, but was still alive and had her work cut out for her. Not only did she want to free Re’Lis as quickly as possible - she wanted to smash Luan and his gang so that the people would finally get their peace.

“I thought he wanted to come?!” asked Thais, upset. She’d been irritated since Re’Li’s abduction, and she wasn’t just taking it out on Kysaek. Dios and Kuren were also getting the obnoxious side of the Talin, which reflected more than her anger at Re’Li’s disappearance. Thai’s body suffered equally in agony and she often trembled and sweat stood on her face as if the most important thing she possessed had been taken away from her.

Kysaek could not find words for this deep attachment, as the Talin’s body and mind were affected when she otherwise seemed so strong. “I’m sure he’ll be here in a moment.”

“In a moment is not now!”

“You’re welcome to explain that to Prax when he gets here.”

“I will!” said Thais, folding her arms behind her head in perplexity. She couldn’t stop blurting out accusations “No one here warned us! Such a cowardly lot and I didn’t see it coming, like I’m only forty years old!”

Among the long-lived Talin, people under the age of a hundred were not always taken in their stride, as Kysaek had heard. “I think it’s really bad too and I’d like to punch some of them here,” she said in frustration. However, she could at least understand the villagers’ actions. “But what makes us so different? We are on the run, hiding and keeping quiet about many things out of fear. The people in and around Capon are no different.”

“Well, our situation is entirely different!” retorted Thais bitingly. “Everyone here is oppressed by a small bunch of criminals, but they don’t have to hide from half the galaxy! They could just go somewhere else or fight, but I guess they like to be comfortable and crawl!”

“Comfortable? But when we arrived on Central, you said something different. Do you really think many like to live like that?”

“Honestly, I couldn’t care less right now! All I care about is how we get Re’Lis back!”

She was preparing to reply when Kysaek heard the door buzzer. “I’m sure it´s him,” she said, anticipating her guest. “Come.”

Together Thais and Kysaek opened the door where Prax was waiting. “You’re still here,” the Hishek grinned. He was accompanied by his two henchmen. “That you haven’t run away speaks well for you.”

Prax too was about to become a target of Thai’s pent-up feelings, but Kysaek did the talking. “And that you came says a lot, though I don’t know what to make of you ...you could have warned us.”

“Calm down,” Prax replied on a much more personal level of language. “Let’s discuss what’s going on inside. There’s too many miserable bastards and traitors on the streets to rat you out for a handful of foreign currency.”

“Oh yes, that’s right!” nodded Thais, who was glad of Prax’s attitude and at least relaxed a little. “Come in.”

One of Prax’s henchmen murmured. “I hope you have something decent to eat here. Having vegetables in front of me all day is upsetting my stomach.”

“We have something,” Kysaek replied. At the dining table, she and Thais had made provisions and dished up plenty of meat. The inviting feast, however, was no reason for Kysaek to hold back as her guests ate. “I would love to know what sets you apart from the rest of the villagers - you three have been just as silent.”

“I have helped you,” Prax asserted. He gulped the least of the three Hishek. “I told you not to tell anyone about our business, and since Jason only wanted me to do the usual, I guess you took my advice.”

“I did. The bastard already punched me in the face just because, in his opinion, we didn’t have enough by our standards.”

“If you hadn’t given them away, Nora ...” interjected Thais.

Prax shook his head. “Jason would have taken your Galig friend either way and found another reason to bully you. Even in the old towns of Sector Seven, there aren’t many doctors or hospitals. The Galig is pure gold.”

Thais seemed aware of the fact and she threw herself onto an armchair. “I know, but I’m still angry that Nora gave away our finances and that despite me warning her strongly about scammers.”

“It was an investment and how do you know they are fraudsters?” asked Kysaek. “They might as well be the best workers we hired.”

Thais rolled her eyes. “Sure.”

“Investment? Workers?” inquired Prax brightly. He pushed the food aside with his muzzle and there was the businessman in him again. “What are you planning to do and how can I get involved?”

The complete and true situation Kysaek didn’t want to explain and after the appearance of Jason and his gang, she wasn’t sure about Prax anyway. “Whether you can participate, we don’t know yet,” she said. However, she had invited Prax precisely to get information about Vincent Luan and she had told him that before. Therefore, it was essential for her to know where the Hishek’s loyalties lay. “You talk of bastards and traitors and I and Pashalia are honestly anything but happy with the way people are behaving. You may have told me to keep quiet about our arms business, but still, what exactly sets you apart from the rest of the villagers?”

“I’m sitting here, aren’t I?” replied Prax harshly. “Many wouldn’t have even listened to you or dared to come. However, I am here because you wanted to know about Luan.”

That Prax was sitting here spoke for him in a way, but it was no guarantee for Kysaek, because after all, every good trader checked his options and she could only guess what else the Hishek was up to. “Tell me about Luan.”

“He’s in charge in Capon and the surrounding area, but I’m sure you already know that much,” Prax said. He reported nothing that sounded extraordinary. “Luan doesn’t command more than that, though. There is too much competition for that and hardly any organisation can hold a large territory down here. Only a few can do it, and they’re far away from us.”

“And you pay protection to him?”

“What else? He earns well from me and I do not live in poverty, but it could be much better,” Prax growled and he pressed his sharp claws into the wooden table so hard that the surface curled like paper under the claws. “That’s why you should keep quiet about our gun business, like I did to Jason, because if you hadn’t, they would have beaten us up.”

“Or killed you,” Kysaek agreed. She considered Prax’s point of view, who had really taken a risk and risked the wrath of Jason or Luan with the clandestine arms deal.

“I find this conversation too one-sided,” Prax complained. “Why do you want to know about Luan? Are you planning to kill him?”

“First and foremost, I intend to free our friend Alra’Ta,” Kysaek said. If she wanted to move forward, and not just in terms of freeing Re’Lis, she had to take certain risks. “But apart from that? No one has fought back yet and people are living in fear. They are being blackmailed, enslaved, assaulted or killed and it has to stop!”

“How heroic. You do realise though that even if Luan was gone, the next scum would just take his place?”

“Someone has to make a start and when people see that it doesn’t have to be that way ...”

Prax was surprised, but at the same time it was not new to him. “You wouldn’t be the first to want to clean up down here, Nora. In some places it even works, but most of the time it either ends in disasters or the liberators become the oppressors.”

“We don’t want to oppress anyone,” Thais agreed, following her leader’s risky example. “And we need to take out Luan in any case because he stands in the way of our plans.”

“Plans mh?” murmured Prax. “So nothing heroic after all, but pure self-interest?”

“It’s not like that!“, Kysaek shook her head. Her first intention had really been without ulterior motive, even if she realised now that Thais was right. Luan and his gang - they had to go. “It’s true that we’re up to something important and if we get fleeced, it could take forever or never happen. But until just now I hadn’t even considered that and it doesn’t change the fact that I’m all about taking out some crooks! It’s the right thing to do!”

“I believe you,” Prax replied with amusement, since he didn’t care why anyway. “I honestly don’t care. I want to trade and you are a good way for something to come of it.”

“And Luan?” questioned Thais. “Who’s to say he won’t become a better option for you?”

“Believe me, I tried to do good business with him in the past, but to him I am nothing more than a negdrog ready for slaughter and I don’t want to be that anymore.”

Kysaek was now convinced that Prax wanted to help her and it was worth a try. “The way you talk, you’ve thought of Luan’s elimination before,” she said directly. “How big is his gang?”

He didn’t know exactly either, but Prax had a good idea. “In terms of numbers, the Scyth make up the bulk of Luan’s people. I counted about thirty at the harvest, but I think in Capon Luan has as many again.”

“That would be quite a few.”

“And add to that a dozen people who aren’t Scyth.”

“How do you know how many there are?”

“I was in Luan’s betting shop a long time ago and saw the bunch,” Prax replied. He knew more about the dozen. “They do the important business in and around Capon.”

Thais asked an important interposed question. “What does he make the most profit on?”

“Isn’t that clear?” retorted Prax, pointing with his short arms first at himself and then at Kysaek and Thais. “With us, with the harvest. When Jason’s done, he’ll be carrying a fortune.”

“Mhpf ... If we could grab the profits.”

Kysaek guessed what Thais was getting at. “So we can move our plan along faster?”

“That too, but I thought you must have learned such in your time as a soldier, Nora.”

“I wasn’t a model soldier. What should I have learned?”

The war and the years with the disciples had burned it into Thai’s brain. “If you want to defeat an enemy, you have to destroy their resources. The Harvest is Luan’s big business and the Scyth are his authority. If we take out both, the criminal can’t hold on or threaten us.”

Numbers were not the only thing Prax was good with. He demonstrated cunning and good powers of observation. “A former soldier and a battle-hardened Talin, yes? Do you also have any idea yet how you will take out the mass of Scyth?”

Thais shook her head and Kysaek didn’t know either. “It won’t be easy, but if we decimate the Scyth and have Luan’s fortune at the same time, it will be hard for him to replace the losses any time soon. And if he can’t pay the rest of the thugs .... ”

“Yes, you’re right, Nora,” Prax nodded with conviction. Even cheap cannon fodder, as some Scyth were, did not work for free. “If you two can fight, you have a good opportunity right now.”

Harvest time was a repetitive cycle that always followed the same sequence of events, so Kysaek was good at planning for it. “What are you talking about?” she asked, wanting to know why now would be a good time to attack.

Prax looked at his henchmen, who were not only his thugs but apparently his family. “Before Jason and the gang left, my brothers overheard that Nimble Leg and half of the Scyth were to head east to the only lake in the Angles.”

One of the brothers puffed with his mouth full and spat out chunks of meat as he spoke. “They raid travel groups trying to get to Capon from somewhere else. They do that a lot.”

Immediately Kysaek spoke her thoughts. “We have to stop this!” she said. If the gang was attacking innocent people, that was reason enough to go. Plus, it made the criminals an easier target and their fighting strength was halved by Jason’s split. “We’ll use their tactics against them and ambush and wear down Nimble Leg’s group,” Kysaek said. A little of her time as a soldier was paying off after all. “And when Jason comes back in a fortnight, we’ll take care of him. That way we would have damaged Luan several times over. His right hand would be dead, his foreign currency gone, and he’d have lost a lot of minions.”

“If we’re lucky, Jason will still have Alra’Ta with him and we’ll get her back,” Thais said, because unlike all the slaves, Re’Lis hadn’t been shipped off on one of the trucks and had stayed by Jason’s side.

“You just have to make sure that no one knows who killed Nimble Leg,” Prax advised. He knew how things worked in Sector Seven. “Attacks happen all the time, especially by other gangs, and if Nimble Leg dies without anyone knowing who did it, Jason will fall into the trap unsuspecting. But it could also be that Luan sends reinforcements to Jason if he thinks there is danger. On the other hand, Luan is an arrogant guy. I suspect he’ll be more likely to send his minions to the Angles to find the attackers.”

“And if he reinforces Jason’s group?” asked Kysaek.

“Then you must pay him and hold still for the time being. If your attack on Nimble Leg goes undetected, the advantage is that we could continue to plan in peace, but at least we would have dealt Luan a first blow.”

“That’s what I wanted to know anyway,” Kysaek said, because although Prax was passing on information, most of the work was left to her and Thais. “Will the three of you be involved if it comes to a fight?”

“No.”

“No? Then what exactly are you contributing, other than what you told us about Luan? We do the work and you benefit from it? That’s not how it works.”

The calculated Prax grew grimmer and his brothers reacted equally as he did. “And how will it go?”

“Fair!” clarified Kysaek. She reminded Prax of the arms deal. “You said you wished for more, good business with us, but if that is to happen, you will do your part to fight Luan!”

Thais backed up her leader. “Unless behind your pointed teeth are only empty words and you are no better than the other villagers who prefer to submit,” she said, lifting one corner of her mouth. “Tame Hishek, that one may see such a thing.”

Prax’s brothers were less interested in talking and fully conformed to the image of blunt problem solvers as they tossed the chairs and covered table aside. The threatening stance remained, however, as Prax intervened. “Calm down you two!” he restrained his brothers and compromised. “Tell you what, Nora and Pashalia - if you manage to take out Nimble Leg and his marauders, we will help you when Jason returns to Capona with his smaller force. Then you will see that my brothers are anything but tame when I dont stop them.”

Cursorily, Kysaek looked to Thais and she received a curt nod from the Talin. She probably couldn’t get a better agreement and accepted Prax’s offer. “Deal. Bring us some of the weapons and we’ll take care of Nimble Leg.”

“Excellent!” replied Prax with satisfaction. He immediately set to work, taking his brothers with him. “We’ll be back soon!”

The return of the lizards took longer than expected, however, which was surely due to the fact that the brothers could not simply walk through the streets with a few weapons without attracting attention. The long wait at least gave Kysaek more than enough time to prepare for action and that meant, above all, disguising themselves well with cloth, leather and synthetic material. Combat gear in the form of armour, suits or shields would have been more clearly preferable, but she made do with what she had and wanted to see how far along Thais was.

The Talin had gone to her own room to change and was taking her time, which at one point made Kysaek wonder. Since Re’Li’s abduction, Thais had been off the rails and perhaps that was the famous straw that broke the camel’s back. It hadn’t been that long since Cipi’s disaster and now Re’Lis was in danger, whom Thais had known since the war or even longer. Kysaek didn’t know that for sure until today, but what she did know was that the Talin and the Galig shared a deep connection. She didn’t think Thais would harm herself because of it, not intentionally, but emotional stress was a sharp, invisible weapon and it could bring anyone down. Now, however, Kysaek needed Thais’ full strength by all means and knocked on her door. “Are you done?” she asked, getting no answer, and knocked again. When silence continued and Kysaek realised that the electronic door was unlocked, she cautiously peered into the room. Thais, however, did not find her here. Is she downstairs already? I didn’t notice that she had left her room. On the ground floor, however, Kysaek found Talin just as absent and wondered even more. “Thais?! Where are you?!” she called out from within the safe walls. Actually, Kysaek could have just tried via the vortex cuff, but the house hadn’t been that big. Besides, that still left the small warehouse for customers’ goods, though she wondered what Thais would want there right now. “Are you here?” murmured Kysaek just before she was in the warehouse, where there were many, open metal shelves, which were preferably stocked with small packages and boxes.

There, Thais stood leaning against a shelf. The Talin had a stiff posture and seemed rather tense. Her pain seemed considerable, as Thais clenched her fists and bent her arms as if she had to divert her agony somewhere.

Kysaek wondered what was wrong, not to mention her concern. What’s wrong with her? Should I talk to her? A thought that seemed more than necessary, but at the same time she realised that Thais was certainly hiding for a reason and didn’t want to be seen that way. However, Kysaek didn’t want to leave her companion to her complaining and retreated to the door of the camp where she pretended to come in first, only this time she announced herself more clearly. “Thais?! Are you here?” ,she called out, certain that the Talin had overheard her earlier because of her suffering.

Thais jolted her body and a metallic tinkling sound came. “Y-yes, yes I’m here!”

“Are you ready?” asked Kysaek, walking slowly between the shelves. On her way to Thais, she heard a rolling sound, but then it abruptly stopped. “Because I think our weapons should be here soon.”

Thais had her arms wrapped tightly around her torso, hiding the previous pain as if it had never existed. “I’m ready,” she replied. That she had bent her knee and pressed her foot firmly against the wall, however, was impossible to miss.

Kysaek, however, pretended not to notice. “What are you doing here?”

“Nothing in particular. I just needed to rest for a while and you should get the same.”

“Pretty hard to give yourself rest right now,” Kysaek admitted. That Thais was deflecting directly from herself to her reinforced her feeling that Talin was in a bad way. “All I can think about is getting one over on those rotten bastards and having Doctor Askar back with us as soon as possible.”

“Re’Lis has been through worse. Don’t worry about that.”

“You know her better than that. How long have you two known each other, exactly?”

“We met in the middle of the war - over forty-seven years ago.”

Kysaek knew that the Solaris War had ended in 2270, but the exact duration was no longer ingrained in her mind. “The war went on for three standard years, right?”

“A little more than three, yes,” Thais recalled. “Re’Lis treated me then and we’ve known each other ever since.”

“Treated? Were you injured?”

“It was war, of course. Apart from that, what does the reason matter?”

“Not a big one, I don’t think. I think when you hear something about treatment, you usually ask why,” Kysaek opined, quickly realising that war was a hot potato for Thais, if that’s what it was about. Friendship with Re’Lis seemed to her to be the better approach to the just-closed Talin, though Kysaek still wasn’t sure if it wasjustfriendship. “Has she accompanied you since then?”

Thais smiled wanly. “Almost constantly, even when I joined the Disciples and she wasn’t too pleased about it.”

“Amazing really.”

“What?”

“Well, you two,” Kysaek affirmed. “Forty-seven years you’ve been making your way through the galaxy together now. Even with modern medicine, that’s almost half a human lifetime.” Perhaps her thoughts on this were too romantic, but Kysaek smirked. “Is there more?”

The memory of her friendship with Re’Lis gave Thais a little joy, although she sounded dry. “I won’t say there weren’t certain, crackling tensions at the beginning .... .”

“Would you want that, then?”

“Under no circumstances. My friendship with Re’Lis is more like my love for my sisters.”

Thais was talking about her biological sisters, not the disciples, Kysaek realised. “That sounds like a unique bond and I would understand if you are concerned about it.”

“Of course I’m concerned. What are you getting at?”

“What I meant was that you don’t have to hide it if the situation creates you.”

“I appreciate that very much, Kysaek,” Thais replied gratefully. She pushed herself firmly away from the wall and walked abruptly towards the exit. “That’s unnecessary though ... I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

Thais persisted. “Yes, and now let’s go. I’m sure our Hishek friends will be here soon.”

Kysaek thought the Talin’s sudden abandonment strange and she looked after the disappearance before kicking one of the shelves in frustration and a small package fell to the floor as a result. The contents must have been sturdy because there was no breaking, cracking or anything like that from damage and Kysaek picked up the box again. Meanwhile, she glanced naturally at Thais previous stand and took note of an empty injection vial. It lay poorly hidden under the shelf, behind one of the support legs, and was definitely not part of the stock. The twins had tidied up too thoroughly for that when they moved in. Since the ampoule was empty, however, Kysaek could only guess what had once been in it. She looked at the vial and pondered until a thought occurred to her. Now the jingling from before made sense to her and considering that the Talin’s body had suffered agony before and those were gone now, and that such injectors were used for either medicine or drugs, Kysaek pondered. Is Thais ill and in need of Doctor Askar? ... or is she perhaps a drug addict and in need of her source? Whatever was the matter with the Talin, Kysaek could not force her to talk and hoped that Thais was now fully in the loop.

The journey to the Angles would normally have been a march of many hours on foot, but the three Hishek brothers had not only delivered weapons for the raid. Well sheltered,, among junked machinery and outside Capona, was a hover wheel they had provided. It wasn’t exactly new and of high quality, but the flying vehicle saved Kysaek and Thais a lot of time. The price was that they were easier to spot, because hover wheels were not exactly common in the airspace around Capon and its environs, and even Luan’s gang only used ground vehicles. According to Prax, this was because flying machines in those areas were readily shot down by scavengers, and since almost no one flew there, it was easier to track down potential targets.

With a little skill in the moderate darkness of the sector, lights off and Thais at the helm, however, Kysaek was confident it would go well. “There, that’s the lake,” she commented as the large and only lake of the Angles appeared. It was wide enough that one could not quite see the distant shores. The water was murky and didn’t look very drinkable, not uncooked, and at the same time it was amazing that the liquid wasn’t completely filthy. Endless piles of rubbish sprouted up around the artificial lake. The rubbish was the main focus of the angular moves and the decisive name-giver in this confusing landscape. Path after path stretched through the mountains of dirt and not losing one’s bearings there was a feat.

“Do you have any idea where we should look yet?” asked Thais aside as she flew lower.

Kysaek had thought of SOMETHING. The idea had come to her during the flight when she saw the lights of the major cities of Sector Seven on the horizon, so beautiful and clear, like a streak of hope in the darkness. “A camp,” she replied. “I’m sure we can spot a lighted camp from the air. I’m sure there aren’t too many in this miserable area and we’ll either find travellers to warn or Nimble Leg’s camp.”

“I like that, but I think Nimble Leg and his people are unlikely to be there if they are on the prowl.”

“Yes, but they won’t be that far away either. That narrows our search radius considerably.”

If Thais had been less happy before, now she at least lifted a corner of her mouth. “Why did you never make it to anything more at PGI?”

“Convenience. If I want to, I can. I’m sure that’s true of a lot of people. Amusingly, when I wanted to, they declared me a supervillain.”

The Talin preferred that. “Better for us, or you’d probably be on the wrong side now.”

“I don’t know about that,” Kysaek huffed. If that were really the case, she would have had to serve under a certain man. “Under Douglas Phonor, I’m sure I would have deserted pretty quickly. He’s a thuggish curmudgeon.” As she had learned on the news, her former security chief had been elevated to command a special PGI unit tasked with tracking down Kysaek and her allies. “Besides, he has something against aliens.”

“Oh yeah, a xenophobe?”

“I wouldn’t say that ... but I once heard him call a Talin at PGI a white snowflake who surely hasn’t seen a drop of blood in her life, even if she was bleeding between her legs.”

“Creative man. Insulting, but creative. I haven’t heard anything like that in centuries.”

“And how about the following: He once told a Davoc that he was a walking fur and even if he shaved his whole body, Douglas would still be prettier.”

“Many of Davoc are not known for their patience and strike quickly.”

“Yeah ... he tried that too, but Douglas finished him off.”

“That sounds like an unpleasant contemporary we should avoid meeting if possible.”

“Better not,” Kysaek nodded. However, outside the lush expanse, it was merely a side note, one of many, and almost lost among other reports. I wonder if this was due to the reach and thus the dwindling influence of Skarg Peeks.

For example, it was reported that there was just a great deal of seething among the great powers and that meant that it was primarily about the original governments, the pure species, and not powers that had broken away from their peoples and gone their own ways. Since the war, there had been a galaxy-spanning treaty by which almost all were allied and that treaty was now in danger of collapsing as each had demands on the other and few were willing to make concessions.

It was galactic politics at its best, but this was not Kysaek’s world and she never wanted to enter it. Her world was dangerous. Her world was full of shadows and lies. Her world was decision upon decision and that made her grumble. I am closer to politics than I care to be. Against that statement, the sheer violence that would soon follow seemed like a gift, though Kysaek never enjoyed cruelty. The thought of taking out Nimble Leg and his criminals, however, set her heart aflutter, only she didn’t know how to interpret it. Why do I feel so good? Have I tasted blood?