Untold Stories of a Galaxy - Kysaek: The Beginning

Two days after the discovery of the special bot, Thais sat with the others in the safety of the rented hotel room. “And we’re quite sure that wasn’t a machine? Not a hoax?“”

“Either an artificial intelligence or a man and I’m leaning towards man,” Kysaek replied with a clenched fist. “Although he sounded like he’d just got up or was all messed up.”

“If he really is Reed’s prisoner, you can’t blame Dorvan for being done,” Tavis agreed. Like Kysaek and Thais, he too had read the data packet a few times: It was a telling text about the unknown prisoner’s situation and wishes.

Dorvan claimed he was an extremely good hacker and would be forced by Reed to decipher encrypted information and develop ID crackers for hard-to-access accounts, but without a connection to the Virtual System or any other link to the galaxy. However, Dorvan had an emergency implant that allowed a one-to-one mental link with the reactivated bot. However, because too long a connection could have attracted attention, the prisoner could not say much and instead created a considerable text on the fly.

Tavis had checked its content yesterday. “He wasn’t lying, moreover - the Black Hole is apparently a disguised Reed transshipment point, the front of which is an animation club with lots on offer.”

Kysaek was more specific. “Sex, drugs and gambling.”

“There are definitely exotic dancers there,” Tavis agreed. He had been there as a guest one evening and made no secret of such a spicy subject. “But to equate that with sex.”

“Come on. The text clearly said prostitution. You don’t want to have seen that?”

“If you’d given me some extra foreign currency, I might have spied the back rooms,” Tavis gave out, but was clearly fibbing. “Although no, that’s not my cup of tea, but I guess the back area is oh the rest: drugs and gambling are normally reserved more for select circles, it seems to me. I couldn’t find out anything more about that, or I’m sure I would have stood out.”

“That means we go through with it and free him?“, Thais made sure . “And the rest of the prisoners too?”

Dorvan’s wish was simple: Kysaek should rescue him and in return he would tell her what he knew about the slave trade, but the man was not thinking merely of himself. In the break-in, she was to save Dorvan’s suffering fellow prisoners just as much. Kysaek wondered, however, if that was even possible and if it wouldn’t cause new trouble with Thais. She didn’t exactly want to test that so soon after the affair with Arolac. “We’ll definitely help him, though I’d like to protest again about my role in this game.”

Thais smirked meanly. “Everyone plays their part, and you heard Tavis.”

“Yes,” the Palanian said emphatically, exhilarated. “The one at the bar was clear. The club has enough plump meat. For a regular model, though, they might have use.”

"Model - am I a ship to you?” retorted Kysaek, pursing her lips.

“At least I didn’t think they were that sensitive, and it was the barman’s words, not mine,” Tavis pointed out. Besides, it wasn’t his or Kysaek’s idea to sneak someone into the club.

Thais had made the suggestion and the Talin didn’t fit into the scheme for a new dancer.

Kysaek, on the other hand, did. “I can dance, but will it be enough?”

“Our aim would not be for you to dance well anyway. We want you to look good and attract a customer to take you to one of the back rooms for a private dance.”

“But to get that far, I have to impress the owner of the club?”

“That or would you rather we storm a club full of people at gunpoint and fight our way into the safehouse?”

Dancing half or fully naked in front of a large crowd and luring a guest in formoreor a fight to the death. Kysaek pretended to think it over carefully. “Come to think of it ...”

Tavis went up to her. “You’d rather expose us to a bloody skirmish just so you don’t have to expose your body?”

“But so what,” Kysaek smirked.

“She’s kidding,” Thais agreed, reassuring her Palanian companion. “So leave the gun in your pocket.”

“She was convincing,” Tavis retorted. “How could you even think of that?”

“Counter-question,” Kysaek countered sceptically. “Would you rather go bare or to war?”

That had sat with the Palanian and the Talin. “Ehem,” Tavis cleared his throat. “We’d better discuss the various steps of the liberation.”

“Thought so,” Kysaek grinned, but there was one question more urgently troubling her than rescue. “I’m just worried: won’t it attract attention if you show up at the black hole now and introduce a new dancer there? I mean: Arolac’s death and then the disappearance of the camp master - won’t people put one and one together?”

“No,” Tavis shook his head. He was used to this sort of thing. “It’s a normal day on Themis. The organisations here are constantly assassinating each other or kidnapping important heads, and people like the warehouse foreman disappear because you flee, go into hiding or die. Arolac’s body has also been found in the meantime and word of his death is spreading, but everyone just talks about gang warfare and theft. Officially he didn’t know about Warehouse Three anyway, so I think we’re on the safe side.”

“I guess Dorvan was right then and it was better to leave his bot in the box.”

“Yes. The disappearance of the warehouse foreman and the machine at the same time would have been obvious. Everyone would have been alerted and putting you in the club would have blown our cover straight away.”

So there had been a way for Kysaek after all. “Too bad,” she laughed, “I really could have avoided the dance number and we’d be fighting.”

The stiff corners of Tavis’s mouth twitched up. “Too late. Let’s talk about the dancing ...”

Dancing, however, was not enough. Even when she arrived at the Black Hole, Kysaek wore a charming outfit, but she hid it under a dark coat. Formerly, the club had been an industrial slaughterhouse and Kysaek marvelled at its chic exterior.

The sleek surface was covered in a holographic display, showing bright stars, blue planets, just everything the beautiful galaxy had to offer, but none of it remained. It was drawn to the pitch black entrance of the building that led like a devouring abyss into the interior, a black hole that sucked in every object and even the life giving light.

“I thought Themis never slept?” asked Kysaek, because the gate to the club was unguarded.

"The Sleepless Counting House never sleeps,” Tavis corrected. “Most of the time, at least. The club is resting right now and they’re getting everything ready for the evening opening.”

“And that’s called a transshipment point?” muttered Kysaek.

Tavis lowered his voice “Such a place is rarely recognisable as such. That’s why it’s a normal club on the outside, after all, but it’s often in the back rooms that the important things happen.”

From those areas, Kysaek should let Tavis and Thais in at another point. “I would have liked to have taken the injector at least.”

“You can do it without weapons. I’m convinced of that.”

“That motivates me immensely now,” Kysaek said less seriously, giving her thumbs up. “Next time we’ll swap roles and you’ll be half naked and at our mercy. Helps turn your thoughts around, I’m sure.”

Tavis let that go unanswered, but his look betrayed that he shared the statement.

In the black hole, under ordinary lights, silence reigned and nothing created the impression that there was still a prison. A handful of employees and house bots were mainly taking care of cleaning work, and with a room several storeys high, that was certainly a lot of work.

Meanwhile, the owner of the shop, a poison-green Hishek, made himself comfortable in his office among a good layer of seat and couch cushions, welcoming his guests to soft music from the sound systems. “Tavis Ciran, how are you?”

“I’m slightly tense,” the Palanian nevertheless admitted nonchalantly. Kysaek kept in the background as he spoke. “I was away from Themis and the Maw for a few weeks. It was like a holiday and it’s easy to forget how things are here.”

“Yes, I know the feeling, even though I haven’t been away from here for a long time,” the hishek said. There was a spongy cloud of red smoke in his office and it smelled of the unmistakable scent of Satio’s herb, which the lizard man inhaled and exhaled over some kind of bubbling water pipe. “So what was there, outside the maw?”

“Bureaucracy and a few private matters. Nothing worth telling.”

“Try me.”

“That’s just the Satios herb talking.”

The hishek looked bored. “True, I suppose,” he said, blowing out a long pale red cloud of smoke. “Perhaps the reason for your unexpected visit is worth a few sentences, after all.”

“Easily earned foreign currency,” the Palanian replied, leaning against a finely crafted wooden office desk. “I hear you’re looking for a certain kind of dancer, and I’ve got this gal who needs work.”

“A placement job, then?”

“Right.”

“Sounds really easy for you,” the hishek commented. The Satios herb and its smoke, apparently made him see poorly, as he had not yet noticed Kysaek. “But it doesn’t always have to be a dirty job, hehehe. At least not a bloody dirty one. What and who is she?”

“A human,” Tavis replied, beckoning Kysaek to join him. “I brought you directly.”

The hishek continued to lie comfortably on one side of his stomach, being a sociable lizard. “Human, you say,” he murmured inebriatedly, narrowing his eyes. “I can’t see you properly. Come closer, don’t be shy.”

Kysaek tried not to take too deep a breath. “Hello,” she greeted curtly. Satio’s herb was not her cup of tea, and for humans, even small amounts guaranteed a soft head.

Davoc, Salika, Palanian and Hishek tolerated the stuff much better. “I guess she doesn’t talk much what?” the owner asked, stretching his long muzzle eagerly. “Is she shy then? Is she inexperienced? Is she even untouched?”

“If she wasn’t shy and inexperienced, she wouldn’t need me for placement,” Tavis replied, earning an implied - yes yes - from Kysaek. On question three, however, the Palanian passed. “As for her integrity ...” he murmured, and the woman’s folded arms were message enough for him. “No. I don’t know how exactly that works with humans, but she told me someone was already with her.”

“That would have been too good to be true. Untouched ones on Themis are as rare as a sunstone and I know many who would pay millions for a human virgin,” the owner sighed disappointedly, but he didn’t close his mind. “Still, she would be something new: I have Salika, Talin, Human, Galig, Hishek and that in multiples, but the combination of taut, agile and shy is less represented in my mammals. Besides, people have exhausted their curiosity in grabbing flabby breasts and other flesh ad nauseam.”

“A win-win for each side, then,” Tavis said serenely. “I get a commission, the Little One gets work, and you and the rest get a new piece of meat. Are we in business?”

“Easy, easy. First I want to see what I’m getting,” the hishek replied, turning his attention to his potential new stripper. “Take off your coat and show me your swings.”

Before, it was because of the herb that Kysaek came across as inhibited: But now it was actual shyness and she had to overcome herself to drop her coat and present herself stiffened in front of the stranger - dancing this was not. Her whole outfit was made of synthetic material and covered by a dark purple. Long stockings went down to Kysaek’s knees and while the front between her legs was well covered, she had only a thin thong between her buttocks. Otherwise she wore full coverage only over her arms and with her breasts encased, there were slits on each side.

“Shy, toned and agile she seems,” the hishek nodded, half-convinced. “But you can’t be a statue with us, sweetheart. I’ll play one of our standard songs and you show me some moves.” He changed the soft music in favour of a piece with more rhythm and tempo.

This was how Kysaeks knew it from her own club nights and felt more comfortable as she began to dance slowly. She still had nothing of an experienced erotic dancer, but her tense posture faded with each swing and she at least tried to incorporate her body insinuatingly into the dance.

“Well, she’s getting there,” Tavis encouraged the little show.

“At least she’s moving like the guests,” the owner recognised. “And combined with the rest of her body and the inexperience, we’ve got something unusually new here. People might like that, or they’ll laugh their heads off and go mightily on my scales and then I’ll bite someone’s head off. That would be fun.”

“Who would dare laugh at a hishek?”

“No one in their right mind,” the owner replied as he stuck out his big tongue and licked around his mouth. “I think I’ll take her, but first it would be appropriate for me to try her. I haven’t had a human woman in a long time. They’re good to press down on, even though they’re so fragile. You really have to be careful there.”

Never would Kysaek have done that, not for all the foreign currency in the galaxy, Dorvan’s help or her freedom, and suddenly her tongue sat habitually loose as she danced on. “It wouldn’t be good for business, though.”

“A proper induction wouldn’t be good?”

“Only if I’m to be drained later. I’ve heard about the gluttony of the Hishek. It won’t bring you any foreign currency if you take me on now with your raw and endless power.”

At this, the owner laughed. “Maybe you just had to warm up, but I like you girl and Tavis will vouch for you. I’ll take you on trial,” he offered. “What’s your name?”

“Nora Faith.”

“Nora, the more you bring me, the better off you’ll be here.”

“I’ll take my chances!”

“Glad to hear it, you can stop now,” the club boss said, becoming a little more serious towards his Palanian guest. “You’ll vouch for her, won’t you?”

“She’s a dancer,” Tavis returned simply. He didn’t want to make a big deal out of this. “She asked me for help and I brought her here. You hired her and that’s my job done. Everything afterwards is none of my business if there’s any trouble for any reason.”

“Yes, I’ve heard about that,” the lizard nodded, sinking more between her mounds of pillows. “You have principles and know how things work. Not a talker, but someone who does his job and knows his place - we’d need a lot more of that on Themis.”

“Work is work and I stick to my agreements and I stay away from the top. It makes life easier in the maw.”

“Good intentions, I like that,” the lizard murmured sleepily. “But now you two get out. Tavis out and Nora, get yourself admitted downstairs. I ... nhhrr, want rest.”

By the time the club opened, Kysaek had been briefed by some strippers on the owner’s instructions, shown around and she was given at least a crash course in lascivious dancing without having to undress herself. However, on stage, in one of the glass cages or on the poles scattered around the club, she would have little choice and she was quite nervous. In her head she had imagined it to be much easier and she now wanted to be far away when she finally came out of the dressing room and the bass vibrated through the floor and the music made her heart beat faster. I wish I’d taken deeper puffs of that Satios mist. Yes, a broader and more composed head might have been good for Kysaek, but she picked herself up and climbed out of an alcove hidden in the wall to her perch. To make it easier on herself, she imagined that she was here partying normally, like before.

The mood of the people definitely matched Kysaek’s memories and was familiar to her. There was plenty of drinking and dancing and many were minding their own business, so she almost felt ignored as Kysaek began to dance close to the pole, peering through the throng of customers. She was certainly not a good stripper, but playing something promising to a man or woman and offering herself was something she could do. It didn’t happen overnight, though, and Kysaek noticed the strain of dancing after well over an hour, and at one point she casually dropped her top layers, but one of the Davoc chaperones at the club finally redeemed her. “Hey Nora,” he said. “I’m supposed to take you to room five. Customers are waiting.”

“About time,” Kysaek sighed wearily, her arms and legs like pudding. Dressing again, she escorted the overseer away from bustle and into quiet corridors she had not entered on the tour.

“Here we are,” the overseer said in front of one of the many doors. “He’s already waiting inside. If he gives you any trouble, press the emergency button next to the entrance or by the bed.”

“I ...can manage, but thank you.”

The chaperone grinned stupidly. “All beginnings are hard. The boss told me everything.”

Kysaek rolled her eyes but said nothing back and walked into the room. Her client was a finely dressed Palanian, a man with greying dandruff. Such a one, of all people. If I’m not careful, he’ll slash me all over with his sharp skin blades as soon as I try to knock him down or he gets in my pants.

“Come more into the light,” the Palanian asked kindly. His voice was raspy and he rested in an armchair. “Don’t be shy.”

The owner, the minder and the customer thought Kysaek was shy and she accepted the role. “Hello,” she smiled and stepped into the dull blue light of the room.

The room had a large bed, a narrow separee with a dance platform of fluffy fabric and everything was invitingly furnished. A brothel with class.

“I’m Serus,” the Palanian introduced himself, enjoying a dark wine on the side. He seemed to be in no hurry. “What is your name?”

“N-Nora. It’s my first day in the black hole.”

“Yes, I thought so. I’ve never seen you here before, because something so lovely, I would have noticed and remembered you immediately.”

“You are too kind. I hope I don’t disappoint you,” Kysaek said. Actually, she had expected a young guy who wanted to hop on her quickly, but this was the opposite. “Shall I dance?”

“Everything in order. I’m enjoying the sheer sight of you right now, but you could turn,” Serus instructed, looking very pleased when his dancer showed herself as requested. “Do I see muscle insertions there? You look like you exercise every now and then.”

“A little practice I do, yes. A woman must know how to defend herself on Themis, after all.”

“Sadly yesl,” Serus sighed sympathetically and offered his hand. “Who would dare harm such a delicate lady?”

“None so far, but I see the eyes of many upon me,” Kysaek replied. As she approached incrementally, not daring to take the Palan’s hand as she searched for its small, sharp ridges of skin. “Are you going to hurt me?”

“Hurt you? What makes you think that?” asked Serus, taking note. “Ah, that. No, don’t worry. I’ve had interspecies contact before and I know we Palanians aren’t too fond of softer flesh. That’s why I took precautions.”

A soft, blue yet firmly attached paste had been drawn over the man’s pointed mini-saw teeth. It was probably the Palanian way of contraception, protection or whatever you wanted to call it and Kysaek smirked at the blue lumps as she clasped the man’s hand. “May I ask why you chose me of all people?”

Serus gently pulled her onto his lap and stroked his dancer’s belly and every bare patch of skin in fascination. “Apart from your loveliness?” he murmured charmingly. “I have a weakness for humans and admire them because of their skin and because they are delicately built.”

“Oh. Are we that special?” murmured Kysaek sweetly. She had to lull the guest into safety first and stall for time so she could be quite sure the minder at the door was gone. “You don’t like Palanian women?”

“Indeed humans are and of course I like my own kind. However, I must confess that I prefer to feel graspable and malleable things in my hands and on me, plus the different varieties of skin colour ... it’s hard for the women of my species to keep up with their angular and hard bodies.” The talk got Serus going and the old Palanian clutched his paid lady tightly.

“That’s yes, eh,” Kysaek stammered helplessly. She desperately needed to curb the man’s appetite or she would be in the awkward position of having to perform the sex. “It sounds like you’ve had a rich and long life.”

“A life of duty and adventure,” Serus replied nostalgically, but that only slowed him down so much and he slowly slid his fingers under the woman’s top. “I used to be a prefect and now I’m enjoying my retirement.”

“Prefect?“,Kysaek deflected, trying to stop the Palanian’s hand as she slid her free finger along the bony ridges of the man’s face. “That sounds like someone who led armies.”

“Part of a legion. That’s what we Palanians call our army,” Serus explained. The shy yet trusting slant was to his liking and he didn’t take a brash approach. “Does that interest you? The old stories, of an old soldier?”

“I’ve never had an exciting and thrilling life and I’ve never known anyone to whom that applied until now,” Kysaek cajoled, even though that was fully true. Before PGI, her life was nothing special. “Now I have the opportunity to be a part of an experienced life and I want us to take it slow ... I want to enjoy it. Don’t you?”

It was then that the old Palanian was taken in and Serus laughed heartily. “Oh my tender being,” he said empathetically. “You are wonderful. I will take my time with you all. We’ll talk and then I’ll take you and tell your boss later how good you’ve been to me and spring something extra.”

“It will be a lovely experience,” Kysaek breathed, but gradually she had to stop that and sought closeness with the Palanese. “So what was that like? What does a prefect do? Did you fight wars? Were you a hero?”

“Highly decorated,” Serus replied. Revelling in the past, he was putty in his whore’s hands as she, unnoticed by him, reached behind his back and made sure he didn’t look back or move with her tight physical contact. “I still enjoy a lot of prestige in much of the Legion today, and I won many Battles in the Solaris War, and after the war I helped stop the Ghalaj attacks. Do you know what happened in those attacks?”

“Wasn’t Ghalaj a famous pirate?”

“The most famous. He was the terror of space, raging in the outer systems for almost five years and was known for his audacious schemes.”

Carefully, Kysaek took the floor lamp from behind Seru’s back. “Wow,” she groaned artificially. “And you helped stop him?”

“As sure as I’m sitting here.”

“Incredible,” Kysaek murmured. The Palanian seemed nice and didn’t deserve it, but she had to do it. “Sorry.”

“For what?”

Suddenly Kysaek banged the lamp against the Palanian’s head and he stepped away completely. She saw no blood or serious injury, but Kysaek made sure he was still alive and he was. How long Serus would be in slumber land, however, she could not estimate and could only buy herself as much time as possible by locking him in the bathroom and rendering his vortex cuff harmless.