Untold Stories of a Galaxy - Kysaek: The Beginning

“This must be expensive,” Kysaek said in wonder as she walked along the paths of a double-storey corridor in a neighbourhood dominated by Davoc culture. Clear, translucent water, as if from a fresh stream, bubbled through a man-made canal and almost every steel surface was overgrown with a yellow, lush vine of climbing flowers: a veritable little jungle near the middle levels that was, despite everything, neat and clean.

“Expensive is not an expression at all,” Tavis commented, feeling a little uncomfortable. As a member of a species that belonged to the reptiles and came from a rather arid homeworld, the swelling, humid atmosphere made him uncomfortable, but it didn’t hinder him. “Central is basically like a space station and whoever can use plants and water as decorations on space stations must be able to afford it.”

“The shops here are busy, after all,” Kysaek noted. She always saw a handful of customers in each shop, which was usually marked by a large sales window. “So it’s no wonder to me that there should be one of the most sought-after mercenary and bounty hunter haunts here.” She also noted that the Davoc had a penchant for dark, bronze-coloured wood, which they used to display busts of their kind and elaborate wooden plaques in particularly busy places. The grimaces, however, were completely alien to Kysaek and although she found the fine outlines of the plaques, which depicted interlocking monkey paws, pretty, it was impossible for her to read what was written on them. The biochip in her head made her understand the acoustics of each species, but visual things, like the screwy, all-Z variant Davoc script on the panels, she would have had to learn herself.

“Yes ... the bar,” Tavis noted queasily. There was noise around him, but he kept a low profile in the conversation. “I would have been in favour of letting an anonymous negotiator handle it. If Reed’s already done it, I don’t even want to know how much of a bounty he’s put on our heads, and we’re running to a shop of all places where the collectors for such jobs are. They wouldn’t even have to work for it. We’re practically handing ourselves in.”

Kysaek was unusually relaxed. She wondered if it was perhaps because of the beautiful surroundings? “May I remind you that you and Thais sent me half-naked into a death trap?”

“So you’re just trying to get revenge on me?”

“No, I’m merely creating a level playing field.”

“Elegantly put, but I’ll take it. Apart from that, it’ll be fine or I wouldn’t have agreed.”

Melting, Kysaek grinned inwardly at herself, but she didn’t want to ridicule the situation too much. “And what makes you think so?”

Leisurely, Tavis made the suggestion of finger guns. “More likely they’re all more likely to kill each other because they’d fight over the bounty.”

“You’re really relying on that scenario?”

“I’m relying on the greed and competitiveness in the galaxy,” Tavis replied with satisfaction. “You saw on Themis, after all, that that helps.”

“Pragmatic, but I see it similarly, though from the cultural side,” Kysaek nodded. She was sure, however, that her true intentions would not meet with enthusiastic approval . “However, whenever we recruit - I want people to know our true identity and situation.”

“Nh,” Tavis merely murmured and stopped. From his reaction, as expected, it didn’t seem to hit him too hard. However, he gave one of the wooden panels a rather long, thoughtful look.

“I expected a lot of things, but a nh was not one of them. Are you reading what’s on the board right now?”

Although it could be mistaken for biting humour, Tavis was anything but in a joking mood. “”No, I’m thinking if the Davoc would be pissed if I borrowed the wood and wrote on it shoot me.”

“Yeah, I think they’d be pretty angry if you fiddled with it.”

“Perfect, so the Davoc kill us outright instead of the mercenaries,” Tavis said angrily before marching straight into a dark and silent cul-de-sac.

“I rather expected that reaction,” Kysaek muttered to herself as she hurried after the Palanian, trying to placate him. “I know it’s daring, but I think it’s better this way.”

Tavis moderated his level, but that did nothing to change the man’s obvious annoyance. “Daring?! That’s not Daring! Daring was personally wanting to go to a mercenary and bounty hunter bar, but I could live with that! However, blowing his cover is unnecessary and insane! What are you thinking!!! I hate being kept in the dark!”

Kysaek reminded her comrade-in-arms matter-of-factly yet steadfastly. “You haven’t forgotten where and with whom you got involved, though, have you? The whole thing is many things, but uncomplicated most definitely not.”

“It has nothing to do with avoidable dangers! And it would be more than desirable if you included me and the team in your decisions!”

“I thought about it and decided against it,” Kysaek replied. She had already thought about it. “I guessed how you would react, and I’m sure the rest, apart from Dorvan perhaps. No one should be burdened with this.”

“Your ambitions in all honour, but I am strongly against it. What is the point of revealing yourself? We are mere days away from discovery anyway - why risk and probably sacrifice that precious time? What mercenary or bounty hunter will be loyal to us, please?”

“Counter-question: how do other hunted people manage to gather allies around them?” countered Kysaek forcefully. She hadn’t just played out this scenario in her head at the last moment, but before, and one point was crucial to her. “And Tavis, you know the truth and yet you are still here. Why shouldn’t that be possible with others?”

The Palanian had not been with the group for long and yet so far he had countered Kysaek well and even left her speechless, but this time the experienced Tavis was the one taken aback. “Yes ... I am true to my word and yes, other really bad characters find their allies too. However, that’s usually a mixture of good pay and a considerable mortal fear of betrayal from one’s leader. Is that who you want to be?”

Kysaek was clear. “I prefer to be me, but what others achieve through fear, I want with respect and clarity. Never did I intend to go to the bar and proclaim it aloud. I want to talk to possible, future companions and what happens then is their decision. Those who want to kill us have only themselves to blame if we turn the tables on them. Those who want to help us, to them I say welcome.”

“I’m beginning to see your thinking behind this. I’ve probably been around the underworld too long and seen too many bad things. I just find it hard to imagine that there should be such a thing as loyalty anymore, but nonetheless, I’d prefer the last days of stealth to this risky game after all.”

“If saving Dorvan has reminded me of one important lesson, it’s trust,” Kysaek mentioned. Yes, their hard work and trust in Dorvan had paid off for everyone. “And that doesn’t mean we’re going to be careless or that we can’t be stabbed in the back, but I’d rather get the circumstances straight right away. I don’t want to keep switching between the wrong and right names until I slip up, or for a mercenary to realise who he’s actually working for in the middle of a hot pursuit. From recent events, I’m sure you can relate.”

“You make it hard to say no,” Tavis retorted. No, the Palanian still didn’t like the taste of it all and he paced restlessly from wall to wall. “Why don’t we wait until after the ship is stolen, when we have all the time in the galaxy? Then we can pick people at our leisure, in every corner of the galaxy.”

“But we need reinforcements now Tavis and I’ve already seen on Cipi how one person can make all the difference,” Kysaek recalled as she told of her Talin friend. “The surprise was clearly on Thai’s side, but even when the moment had passed, she tore everything and everyone apart and saved us.”

“I have no doubt about that and I certainly know how one person can make all the difference. Still, I don’t like it. I won’t be able to change your mind, right?”

“No, my mind is made up,” Kysaek replied clearly.

Tavis acted cautious... “Very well, then, I’ll come to terms with it, for the time being. I’d be interested to know, though, how do you know these aren’t just empty words from me?”

“Because I trust you,” Kysaek answered frankly as she left the alley. However, she showed the Palanian with her perky manner that she just didn’t trust blindly. “And you have a reputation to lose.”

“Reputation, you’ve got that all figured out,” Tavis sighed, but he stood by his code and followed the woman. “One condition for me to go along with this.”

“Yes?”

“I pick the candidates.”

Kysaek grinned in approval. “You’re the expert.”

“Yes, I am,” Tavis nodded firmly. “And as an extra, buy me a drink.”

“Tough negotiation, but just one. We’ve got work to do.”

“I can’t wait,” Tavis remarked wryly. He then kept his right hand near his shotgun holster at all times. “There’s one question still bothering me, though: what did you mean by cultural earlier?”

“Ah that, well,” Kysaek smirked as her hands swung loosely, not constantly near her weapon. “Perhaps I should have said that first, but I was thinking of the honor of the Davoc first and foremost, not the greed of the bounty hunters.”

"The honor of the Davoc,” Tavis guessed with gallows humour. “You mean whether we may face death or turn back?”

“Yes ... yes, that would certainly be a possibility too, but I’m talking about our request. We come to the bar as guests, looking for warriors, and we do so openly and honestly. How dishonourable would it be for the other patrons in the bar to attack us?”

“That’s pretty conclusive and reassuring - you really could have said that in the first place.”

“That would have been far too easy,” Kysaek fibbed. In truth, this argument had just occurred to her. “And a little heart attack keeps you on your toes.”

“If anything, I’ve aged a few years,” Tavis sighed. “All the more reason I need this drink to fix that.”

Kysaek made no reply to that, but merely smirked.

The mercenary hangout was a real change of pace, as was the Davoc neighbourhood before. Almost everything in the bar was clad in crisp brown wooden facades and boards, and after all the dirt and squalid and junky areas on her journey, Kysaek would have even willingly eaten off the floor here. She was hardly used to such normality, despite the many mercenaries and bounty hunters bristling with considerable combat equipment and behaving halfway decently while a slow, drumming beat of music flowed from the facilities.

“Does good,” Tavis said more loosely as he was treated to his Gamma and shuffled. “You don’t want anything?”

“No thanks,” Kysaek declined jokingly. “I think the Satios cloud from the Black Hole is still in my head.”

“At least that would be a good excuse for your daring plan and I could later claim I was too drunk to stop you.”

“From one glass?”

“After all, no one needs to know how much it was. If I say I’ve been drinking, that’s enough, isn’t it?”

“But then your professional reputation would be ruined.”

“My reputation again?”

“You’re making it too easy for me right now, too,” Kysaek teased, without overdoing it.

Tavis took it sportingly and continued to drink. “These are signs of fatigue.”

“And that’s where you’re going to pick candidates now?”

“I don’t rely too much on myself there, but the one who know´s best,” Tavis mentioned before he went with Kysaek to the bar counter and the two sat down. The Palanian’s intention was crystal clear, but when it came to service, for him it was not a man of confidence, but a woman. “Excuse me my dear?”

“Let’s stick to Nuka,” the Calanian barmaid replied directly. Much like the Hishek or Palanians, she possessed no breasts or anything close to similar curves, but still had enough distinctive features to stand out as a feminine version of the sea species. Nuka was slender and her invitingly soft, hairless and pale green skin was dotted with blobs of blue colour. Instead of six, a full ten slender tentacles dangled from her hip, but she still couldn’t do without two sturdy, mechanical legs. What she could do without, however, was caution with heights, for unlike the Calanian men and their long, high conical heads, Nukas disappeared out the back and curled in to the top, much like a snail shell. “What can I get you?”

“I still have, thank you,” said Tavis, raising his half-full glass. “But perhaps you could help me in some other way.”

“And how could I?”

“Have you worked here long enough to know your way around mercenaries and bounty hunters?”

Nuka knew immediately where this was going. “I am nice and kind, after all,” she said sweetly. “But I expect the same from my counterpart. So if you want to know who’s any good here and who’s less so, fill up the launch.”

Slowly, Kysaek had to watch where the foreign currency went, for any one could count. “Are we talking a few hundred or a thousand?”

“What, are we in the maw here?” outraged Nuka calmly. “I’m talking about decency and you come up with this.”

“But you ...”

Tavis jumped in quickly. “Nuka said I should order something Nora. That’s all.”

While Kysaek was overcome with aha, Nuka stepped in a little. “Let me guess - you’re the leader of an expedition for valuable goods and she’s the rich, clueless patron?”

“She didn’t mean to offend you,” Tavis nodded. A residual risk remained, yes, but he repeated Kysaek’s soon to be useless alias. “Foreign currency just doesn’t solve every problem, my dear Nora.”

Rich and unsuspecting patroness? Is that what I give off despite being armed and clothed? Kysaek had to control herself not to laugh, but on Themis she had already been at the mercy of Tavis’ role-playing. She saw the time for a little payback. “Just do your job,” she admonished rather exaggeratedly. “I want that valuable salvage by tomorrow or you’re fired.”

“Eh...“, Tavis bristled for a moment. That had caught him cold and he was th eobsequious journeyman. “Yes, of course. Everything will be done as you wish.”

“As I thought,” Nuka said with satisfaction. At the same time, she noticed the strange eyes from the pub that had scurried to the bar after Kysaek’s last statement. Some of the bar visitors must have perked up their ears and Nuka reprimanded the well-heeled lady. “It’s your foreign currency and basically I don’t care, but if you don’t keep a low profile and keep talking about valuable things, they’ll all get horny and then there’ll just be trouble here - and I’ve only just renovated.”

“Then you should shut my patron up and tell me what I want to know,” Tavis retorted, but although the situation was on his side and he might not have to now, he maintained decorum. “While we drink two new Gamma, of course.”

“You know what’s proper, they’re on the house,” Nuka said as she finished the drinks and then went through the bar. “Your job is difficult, right?”

“It doesn’t get much harder than that.”

“Then only two options come to mind for me,” the Calanian barmaid said expertly. Nuka’s first suggestion involved a group of four people, men and women and all belonging to different species. “They call themselves the Stone Brawlers. They’re not cheap and they’re constantly renegotiating their contract when they think they should get more, but they have an iron will and are only too happy to get their hands dirty.”

Kysaek and Tavis drank their gamma, but the Palanian carried on the conversation as usual. “A strong will is what we need, but the renegotiating thing sounds so unreliable ... who else do you have?”

“You think that’s unreliable?” laughed Nuka spitefully. The Calanian’s second, scaly option was lying on his back in a half-open separee, surrounded by a Galig and a Talin women, having a good time - it was a Hishek. Because of the caring women and the squirm of the separee, though, you couldn’t see much of the lizard, but it was swinging its tail slowly over a soft cushion and had its clawed feet stretched up in the air like a dog that had just had its belly patted. “That’s Vorrn. I’ve heard some history of him and know him slightly. He’s a real fighting machine, a little one-man army and you’d have to invent a new word for him, because rough or unfriendly hardly sums up his manner.”

“The typical Hishek, then”; Kysaek commented, unimpressed. “And I suppose he’s even more expensive?”

“Hard to say. Vorrn doesn’t take every job - no matter how much you offer him. It’s not a question of foreign ecurrency.”

“Of what, then?”

“That is the question,” Nuka replied, perplexed. “I don’t know and he never told me. Vorrn doesn’t like to gossip, especially anything that concerns him and frankly I’ve never dared to probe further. He’s done a few of my guests nasty or maimed though. I’m not keen on that.”

All this was reason enough for Tavis to sort out the lizard. “Incendiary ... I don’t know if we can handle a hishek like that, and it seems to be the really bad kind. This venture is already causing us a lot of problems.”

“Are you shying away from the challenge?” asked Kysaek, but it was more to annoy her Palanian rogue than she preferred Vorrn to the stone wranglers.

“We’ve only had the madness thing ...”

“Sounds like a really lousy recovery,” Nuka said forebodingly, but that was where the formalities ended for her. “Excuse me, but I have other guests.” Loud commotion was brewing between several guests at one of their tables and quickly a punch was thrown and weapons were taken up, but Nuka smothered the fight mercilessly. Her black eyes began to glow white and her tentacles soared into the air before she suddenly unleashed a single, powerful prismatic blast, sending her previous interlocutors reeling back in their seats. Nuka didn’t care about her own furniture and she smashed the disputants against the nearest wall, where she held them for a moment. “Not in my bar!” shouted Nuka rigorously. One or two of the bar patrons were startled and even fell off their stools, but many were calm and watched the bar owner playfully toss the unwelcome squabblers towards the exit with her prismatics. “Now get out or I’ll get really uncomfortable!”

Kysaek and Tavis were no longer of interest as they paused at the bar, surveying the beaten, exiled patrons as they hurriedly stalked away. “And that explains why there’s no bouncer here,” Kysaek opined. “And this is her bar? A Calanian, with a Davoc flair place? I must have missed something.”

“The galaxy is just big and maybe we should just hire Nuka ...” interposed Tavis, finishing his second glass in one draught at the shock.

“You’re welcome to ask. I keep a wide berth, two street corners or so.”

“That would be rude, though, so to Nuka ... And do you realise that this takes your argument about Davoc honoor off the table again?”

“Is it?” doubted Kysaek, folding her arms. “Nuka wants order here, apparently. So for me, everything remains the same.”

“Maybe, but it’s the same now anyway. Let’s do what we’re here for and focus on the suggestions Nuka made.”

Kysaek raised her glass. “Your choice. You wanted to choose the candidates, after all,” she said, taking a sip to be polite. Her Palanian partner was less happy about his decision, but he got to work and Kysaek stayed with him.