(Note #1: All comments and constructive criticisms are welcome and appreciated.

Note #2: Those of you wishing for a quick story to wank to will want to look elsewhere. Although chapter  7, chapters 9 to 12 and chapter 16 of this story featured the characters fooling around, the next few chapters won’t see anybody getting their freak on. If you want to skip ahead, the sexual shenanigans will commence again in Chapter 20.

Note #3: Thanks to my friend Mark for his help with blood-types.

Note #4: The first illustration in this chapter is by Art Faerie. The second, fifth and sixth are by Faith Desky, and the third and fourth illustrations are by the Imagineart AI Art Generator.

Note #5: And finally, thanks to volunteer Literotica editor TheNyxianLily for her help with editing.)

Calley spent the next day hard at work replacing damaged power cables. It was a long process and sometimes disheartening. The more she was able to feed power to the ship’s systems, the more she was able to determine how many of them had been damaged by the asteroids in Tayoel. Even more worrisome, the more power she fed to the ship’s systems, the closer the space station’s fire-fighting robots hovered near the Ravenfang.

Alezanna came out of their bedroom to see how Calley was doing a few times throughout the day. The two spacers discussed the state of the ship and how the design of the dresses for the Madzens was going. The Bellixan admitted it was strange to be designing clothes for clients after so many cycles as a spacer.

As for Sal, he had left early after the trio had awoken to meet with the Palsidian trade delegation. He did not return until the evening and wasn’t in the best of moods when he did. The Palsidians, he explained, had kept him waiting for over two hours before arriving and had mostly ignored whatever proposals he’d suggested. “Typical power-play crap,” the captain had opined. “They must think I’m an amateur. And they’re real sticklers for diplomatic protocol. I’m not sure if I’m gonna fleece these bastards or start a war. Either way, it’ll be an interesting negotiation.”

Collondo had been invited to the governor’s planetside mansion for dinner, though he wondered aloud if Margraite wanted to discuss old times or get a report on how negotiations were going. Daznee Madzen, for her part, had contacted Calley during the day to invite her out to a night of exploring the system. The medic had agreed and made sure to get Alezanna’s advice on what to wear. The older woman had picked out her friend’s ensemble for the evening before a shuttle arrived to ferry her and Sal to the governor’s home.

Not long after they’d gone, Calley was in the cockpit, shutting down some of the ship’s systems when she saw three figures approaching. She recognized one as Daznee. The Vottonian was dressed somewhat conservatively in a plain pink blouse and dull red pants. Even her shoes seemed like plain brown loafers. Her hair was being held in place by a white headband. It was almost like she was trying to pass unnoticed in the cavernous hanger the Ravenfang was docked in.

Her two companions were of different sizes than the social planner. Calley mistook one for a little girl at first due to her size; she stood, as far as Calley could tell, around 120 centimeters tall. This was including black hair that stood straight up from her head in 10-centimeter-long braids. Her skin was reddish-white but she had dark circles under her violet eyes. It was her body that made Calley realize this was no girl but a woman. No youth could have, despite her small size, such a curvy figure. Her bust, concealed in a tight-fitting orange sweater, looked to be comparable to a normal woman’s 75D. As for her thighs, encased in hip-hugging dark brown pants, they were very shapely. Because of her smaller stature, she often had to quicken her pace to keep up with the other two women. It reminded Calley of how she often had to do the same when walking with Alezanna.

The other woman had tan skin, brown eyes and straight brown hair that reached the middle of her back. It wasn’t until she got close to the ship that Calley noticed the patterns drawn on her cheeks and hands. They didn’t look dark enough to be permanent art, but she didn’t know what sort of chemicals were used in this system. They did a good job of enhancing the woman’s jawline to make it more attractive. Her neck was long, hinting that there might be some non-humans in her ancestry somewhere. Maybe a Querakian, Calley supposed. Either way, she was a very pretty woman of about 170 centimeters with a small torso and narrow hips on slender legs. She was dressed in a short, strapless dark purple dress that ended mid-way down her thighs. It was the sort of dress that demanded caution, as sitting without it would expose your underwear to any and all observers.

Daznee caught sight of Calley in the ship’s cockpit and waved at her. Calley returned the wave and held up her index finger to indicate the trio wait until she could quickly join them. She was already wearing her outfit for the evening. A black, short-sleeved blouse with a green neckerchief that matched her eyes. Her pants were tight-fitting dark blue trousers tucked into her black boots. She quickly made her way outside where she retracted the ship’s gangplank and closed the hatch before entering a code into the ship’s entrypad to lock all the vessel’s hatches.

Once done, she turned to find the three had approached and Daznee stepping forward to give her a hug. She happily accepted the embrace. “Hi Calley!” the teal-skinned woman said. “Nice to see you again. Ready to get out of this hanger?”

“Gods yes! I love this ship, but I’m looking forward to getting away from it for a while,” Calley admitted. “Who are your friends?”

Daznee turned back to the smaller woman and said, “This is Yutag. She’s from Kutal. It’s a high gravity world but she moved here around the same time I did. She works in the system’s security services office.”

“Prophet’s breath, Daz!” Yutag exclaimed. “You gonna tell her my address and blood type while you’re at it? How ‘bout you let me tell her my story instead of you blabbing it all in five minutes?”

“O-Negative,” Calley said to the Kutalan.

The three other women stared at the spacer for a second before Yutag asked her, “How in the seven Hells did you know that?”

“I’ve been to your world,” the medtech answered before clarifying, “Well, your system, to be precise. A mining ship I worked on had to get a reactor overhaul and the facility was in orbit around Kutal. While I was there, I read the medical files on the system so I know that almost ninety-five percent of Kutalans have O-Negative blood. So I played the odds just now.”

The three women laughed aloud at Calley’s explanation and the tan-skinned woman told Calley, “Daz told us you were smart, and it looks like she was right. I’m Mix. It’s short for Mixanheenvaltoran. My last name’s even longer. Please don’t ask me what it is unless you have a couple of minutes to listen to me say it all. Most people get bored before I can finish.”

“Nice to meet you both,” Calley said. She supressed an urge to extend her hand. It seemed too formal a gesture for two women she hoped would become her friends.

Daznee took her by the hand and led her away from the ship. The two other women fell into step beside them; Mix to Calley’s right while Yutag shuffled quickly on Daznee’s left. The quartet quickly made their way out of the hanger to the interior of the space station. It was a very clean spaceport, much to Calley’s surprise. Most of the ports she’d visited looked far more worn. But, she reminded herself, this was a military docking facility. The wide, high-ceilinged corridors were used to seeing armaments, not cargo containers, pass through them. The area also wasn’t hurting for manpower to keep it pristine. And whatever the manpower missed was taken care of by maintenance robots. Calley saw several shuffling or rolling around. There wasn’t so much as a burnt-out light anywhere the spacer looked. Governor Madzen, it seemed, made sure her headquarters was kept in fine shape.

“Where are we going?” she asked the governor’s daughter.

“My shuttle’s docked in the executive hanger,” Daznee told her. “Not as big as the one the Ravenfang’s in. But it’s closer to my office. It’s pretty much reserved for the family. Oh, and Coslove too. He’s not officially family, but I kind of think of him like he is. I’ve known him all my life.”

“I don’t like that Coslove,” Mix declared. She spoke with a strange rhythm and intonation, as if speaking the words to an unheard song. “He scares me sometimes.”

“Why?” asked the Vottonian. “He’s just an intelligence officer. In all my life, I’ve never heard of him ever taking part in one of Mom’s operations directly. He leaves the fighting to those who have better training. So there’s nothing scary about him.”

“I still don’t like him,” Mix stated. “Remember that Miners guild party last cycle at Industrial Station 2? There was this lawyer hitting on Bulabie.” She looked at Calley to explain, “That’s another girl who used to go to parties with us. Well, she kept trying to keep away from him. Then I saw Coslove talking to her in a corner. I didn’t hear what they said but she looked upset. Then she spent the rest of the party with the lawyer she seemed not to like before. It was pretty strange.”

“Oh Mix, you’re always seeing things that aren’t there,” Daznee told her. “Coslove was probably just socializing. He’s not great at it, so maybe he made a bad pass at her and she decided the lawyer wasn’t so bad in comparison.”

The quartet reached a set of doors at the end of a long series of corridors. The social planner stood in front of a facial scanner that verified her identity. Once it had, the doors opened and the four stepped on to a large lift that began to take them upwards.

 “I dunno,” the tan-skinned woman continued on. “Bulabie never talked to me after that party. A week later, she left the system. I saw at work that she’d abandoned her domicile. It still had two sub-cycles of rent paid on it. And nobody ever heard from her again. Doesn’t that seem strange to you? It sure does to me.”

“For the love of the Gods, Mix!” Yutag exclaimed as they exited the lift. “Daznee’s right, you’re seeing things! Maybe she had a fling with the lawyer and it went sour. So she decided to get away from him real quick. Or maybe it went real good and she ran off with him. Did ya ever consider that instead of making up crackpot theories? This is like the time you tried to tell me space dragons are real.”

“They are!” Mix insisted. “Too many people say they’ve seen one for them not to be real.” She turned her attention to Calley again and asked her, “Have you ever seen one, Calley? You’re a spacer, so you must have.”

“Sorry Mix. I never have,” the Gynapsi answered. “But I’ve mostly stayed near civilized systems. The dragons are supposed to live in wild space.”

“Ah, that makes sense,” the tan-skinned woman conceded.

The hanger the group stepped into was far smaller than the one the Ravenfang was docked at. Calley doubted most of the cargo ships she was familiar with could have fit through its opening. It also wasn’t as brightly-lit as the one she’d come from. There were only four ships docked in it, none of them as large as the Ravenfang. Two of the ships, based on the raised cockpits and large entry hatches, looked to be assault shuttles. These weren’t graceful ships meant for clean, precise runs; they were designed to smash through barriers and discharge troops quickly. Another ship looked like a fancier shuttle, probably with a far more comfortable interior, Calley guessed. The fourth was either another shuttle or a small yacht. The ship had a long, smooth exterior connecting a round front and a similar rear engine section. Overall, it looked somewhat like a barbell.

She assumed Daznee would have chosen one of the more elegant ships, but instead she headed for an assault shuttle. The green-haired woman went to another facial scanner beside the ship’s front hatch and stood for a moment. Once the ship recognized her, its front end flipped upwards and the medtech realized this was indeed a socialite’s ship. Half of its loading area was filled with a powder blue gravmobile that looked brand-new. Most of the rest, save for a sliver of walking space, was filled with clothing racks, cabinets, storage units and dressing tables. There were numerous mirrors mounted on the walls. Calley had seen clothing shops with less inventory and changing areas.

 “Good Gods!” she exclaimed. “Do you carry all your wardrobe around in here?”

“Why not?” Daznee answered. “I never know where I’ll be going in a few hours so I like to be prepared for anything.”

“And here I was keeping my clothes in a bedroom,” Calley said.

“Bedrooms are for sleeping,” Madzen retorted as she walked up the wide lowered access ramp to enter the ship. Her three companions followed.

“I dunno Daz,” Yutag threw in. “I’ve been known to do some other stuff in bedrooms.”

“You do that stuff anywhere you can,” Mix chided her. “I remember the time you did it in a temple confessional.”

“That service was way too long!” Yutag declared. “I got bored.”

The three friends laughed aloud and Calley joined in. Daznee turned away from them and headed to a section of the lower hold that mostly contained dresses while Mix closed the ship’s forward hatch. Yutag, meanwhile, looked Calley over critically. “Your outfit’s okay, but I dunno about those boots. They’re gonna make an awful racket if we’re going dancing.”

“I don’t dance,” the Gynapsi informed her. “I never learned how.”

“Neither did I,” the Kutalan told her. “You just listen to the music and move to the beat. As long as you do that, you’re dancing. It ain’t complicated. What size shoe do you wear?”

“Thirty-nine.”

Yutag turned to the distant corner of the hold Daznee had disappeared to. She loudly asked her friend, “Hey Daz, you got any shoes back there size thirty-nine?”

The social planner, who had stripped down to her undergarments as she tried to decide what to put on for the evening, answered back, “No, that’s not my size. Why?”

“If we go dancing, Calley’s boots might break the floor. They’re heavy spacer boots.”

“Crap!” said the Vottonian. “She can’t dance in those! But all my shoes are too big.”

Mix had joined Yutag and Calley. She also had to raise her voice to ask Daznee, “What about sandals? You can dance in those and it’s not such a big deal if they’re too big.”

“Yes!” Daznee happily agreed. “Mix, you’re a genius! Take her to the shoe cabinets and I’ll be there when I find something decent to put on.”

“Cabinets?” Calley asked aloud. She wondered how many pairs of shoes her new friend needed to own. She was soon shocked at the amount.

Mix, Yutag and Calley all poured through the social secretary’s immense collection of footwear looking for sandals. As they perused the selection available, Daznee rejoined them. She’d changed into a sleek fuchsia sleeveless bustier and a matching pair of tight pleather pants. She’d lost her headband and her hair now had returned to its natural curly state. She slipped off her loafers and surveyed the exposed footwear her friends were looking through. She settled upon a pair of dark green high-heeled pumps and slipped them on as Calley put on a pair of her friend’s red open-toed sandals.

Once their outfits were finalized, the women got to work on their makeup. Mix had already put hers on prior to meeting up with her two friends (including, Calley learned, the facial art she’d noticed earlier) but both Yutag and Daznee sat at different tables and worked on prettying themselves up. Calley had no cosmetics of her own but Daznee’s ship seemed to have plenty to spare, so Mix sat her down and took charge of the Gynapsi’s appearance. Her eyes were shadowed, her eyelashes coated and cheeks were slightly rouged (well, more like oranged). Her nails were painted a shade of bright yellow. The tan-skinned woman even mused out loud about changing Calley’s hairstyle, but Daznee and Yutag both felt that aspect of their new friend’s appearance was fine as it was.

Once the four ladies were clothed and primped adequately, they made their way to the shuttle’s cockpit on its upper level. Madzen took over the controls while Calley sat in the co-pilot’s seat. Daznee deftly maneuvered the ship through the hanger’s opening and around the orbital traffic.

Mix and Yutag were sitting behind the piloting stations and the dark-haired woman asked, “So where we going tonight, Daznee?”

“I thought the Power-Kiss Lounge might be fun tonight,” the Vottonian answered. “The music’s good and it won’t be too crowded. We can dance there and ease Calley into the nightlife.”

“You don’t get out much, Calley?” Mix asked.

“I don’t have time, usually,” the spacer explained. “We don’t stay on any one planet long enough to really explore. I haven’t been to a bar in, like, over a cycle.”

“And she’s only nineteen,” Daznee pointed out. “So let’s try to keep an eye on her, okay? Her shipmates might not like it if she comes back blind drunk and naked. Calley, don’t try to match us drink for drink. Especially Yutag. She can really pack ‘em away.”

“Damn right I can!” the diminutive woman agreed. “Are the guys coming?”

“Not tonight,” the Governor’s daughter informed her. “They’re all on duty, studying or busy. So it’s a girls’ night tonight. Calley can meet the guys some other time.”

“Are the guys your boyfriends?” Calley asked her new friends.

“Not really,” Mix explained. “They’re just five friends who party with us. Sometimes we end up fooling around a little, but we don’t have anything serious happening with ‘em. No serious commitments in this group. Which is good ‘cause there’s five guys and only three girls. Well, four now that you’re with us. But if we started being exclusive with some of the guys, the others would feel left out.”

Calley wondered what Mix’ definition of “party with us” and “fooling around” entailed but kept the question to herself. Since the men wouldn’t be joining them tonight, she decided it wasn’t important for the time being. Better to discover the answer herself than to risk coming off boorish by simply asking. And the two new friends she was making seemed nice enough that she didn’t want to risk offending them with too personal a question.

As Daznee flew the shuttle to their destination over the next hour, the young spacer got to know Mix and Yutag a little. Mix talked a little about her work in the system’s housing ministry where she found homes for new arrivals. Calley loved listening to her beautiful voice as the brunette explained what she did and how much she loved her work. Yutag was a little more guarded about describing her job but seemed to warm up to Calley greatly when the Gynapsi complimented the dark pigmentation of her skin under her eyes. Although the dark skin there was a peculiarity of the Kutalan physiology, Yutag took great pride in it. Amongst her people, it was seen as a mark of status to have darker skin under your eyes than another Kutalan. Yutag’s clan, she boasted, had the darkest. This would have made her some sort of royalty on her homeworld, but a scandal had caused her family to move to Rangxu and find work in government service.

For her part, Daznee didn’t talk much during the trip, only throwing in the odd comment to agree with something Mix and Yutag had said. Calley wondered if she was doing it on purpose to give her companions equal time to befriend Calley as she’d done a few days before. Or it might have been because the heavy traffic of the spacelanes they were flying in made the woman concentrate on her piloting.

Eventually, the shuttle approached another space station. This one was maybe a third the size of the one the Ravenfang was docked in. Whereas Command One looked fairly new and had a uniform design, this one looked older. Furthermore, it was plain to see that it had started off as a central superstructure that had had many additions built onto it. Calley could see construction crews in spacesuits not unlike her own hard at work on a new section for the station. Daznee received clearance to land the shuttle in the lower hangers and expertly flew the craft there. “This is Habitat Station Three,” Mix informed Calley. “The second biggest habitat station in the system. Lots of homes here, and quite a few nice parks too.”

”And also some good clubs,” Yutag added in. “There’s always construction going on here, so it’s a good place to meet some construction workers. Hot guys looking to burn their pay by buying drinks for cute girls.”

The four left the cockpit and made their way out the forward hatch. This hanger was much more in line with Calley’s usual fare; not filthy by any means, but definitely more worn. This looked like a place that had seen a lot of traffic over the cycles. There were hundreds of small craft docked here, no doubt inter-system ships used by the locals to get to the other stations where they worked.

As soon as Daznee had locked up her shuttle behind them, Calley noticed a change in her friends. Before, on the other station, they had been walking around in a fairly standard gait. But now that they’d arrived at this new station, they were striding. Their posture was proud, inviting stares from those around. The Gynapsi thought they looked like holo-vid stars arriving at a ritzy premiere like she’d seen on the holo-net. She tried to stand and walk like them but wasn’t sure she was doing a good job. She no longer slouched as she’d done in cycles past, but this new way of moving was a little unnatural to her.

The quartet made their way to the bank of lifts leading out of the hanger, using one to reach the centre levels of the station. Once out of the lift, Calley saw that this area of the station wasn’t used for homes. Instead, it was filled with two-story buildings full of shops and markets. No gravmobiles were visible on the wide streets between the buildings. There were large overhead lights in the ceiling, but they were extinguished to give this area the illusion of nighttime. Despite this, the area was illuminated by the many signs for the theatres, restaurants and clubs open at this time. People surrounded Calley on all sides, some moving in a rush while others crowded to wait for friends or look through shop windows..

Calley went along as her friends seemed to know exactly where they were headed. A few minutes after exiting the lift, the spacer saw a sign on a building ahead that featured a large pair of red neon lips out of which emanated some small streaks of lightning. The front of the building had no windows but Calley could hear the thumping beat of music coming from inside.

As they approached the door, a large, brown-skinned burly man in a tight t-shirt with the club’s logo on it and tight grey pants stepped forward. “Evening, ladies,” he said before looking at Calley and asking “Who’s your friend?”

“Hi Garreg!” Daznee said. “This is Calley. She’s with us.”

“Gotta see her ID,” he informed them.

Having been to bars before, Calley expected this and handed him her datapad with her skillsheet called up. As he looked it over, Yutag told him, “Glad you’re not asking to see mine anymore.”

“Naah,” he reassured the woman with a smile. “I know damn well you ain’t no little girl. You’ve proven that often enough.”

“Treat me right and I’ll prove it to ya again!” said the dark-haired woman in a tone that left no doubt how she intended to provide that proof.

“Not tonight, Yutag,” Garreg said as he returned Calley’s datapad to the spacer. “You’ll wear me out. Had to call in sick the day after our last time together.”

“Wimp!” the Kutalan chided him as the four women made their way through the entrance. Yutag gave Garreg a playful slap on the ass as she passed him, and quickly dodged his half-hearted attempt to grab her as both laughed.

The room the four stepped into looked to be a weapons check vestibule, but there was no attendant. None of the four had brought (as far as Calley could tell) any weapons anyway. They made their way through a curtained doorframe to the inside of the club. It was very large and lit by a small number of wall-mounted fixtures that cast a soft glow. The centre of the club was a large dance floor made of a hard transparent material. It was lit from beneath by a variety of coloured lights that alternated with the beat of the music that was playing. The floor was currently occupied by about a dozen patrons dancing to a synth-heavy song that Calley had never heard.

To the right of the doorway was a bar with two robotic bartenders attached to anchors located on the ceiling. Behind them were over three dozen bottles of various liquors. There were barstools but no one was sitting at the bar. The patrons who weren’t busy dancing were sitting at tables on either side of the dance floor. There were also booths on the sides of the walls as well, with some patrons preferring their relative privacy compared to the tables.

The ladies made their way to the dance floor where they began to move to the beat of the song. Calley made little movements at first. She was very self-conscious about how inexperienced she was at dancing. But each of the other three women took turns egging her on and encouraging her to move more. Yutag, when it was her turn, took her new friend’s hands in hers and led her in more circular movements. “Move your hips, like this!” she loudly instructed the spacer to be heard over the music as she demonstrated what she wanted the medtech to do. Calley copied her diminutive companion as she rolled her hips in a circular motion. She was worried she might lose her balance but she managed to stay on her feet. Yutag repeated the motion but this time bending her legs and then straightening them again. She looked at Calley and waited for the neophyte dancer to do the same. Calley did, surprised at how easy it was to pull off these moves.

“You’re doing great!” Daznee told her as she stepped forward and took Yutag’s place holding Calley’s hands. She pulled on one arm and then the other to get Calley to twist her waist from side to side. The copper-haired woman started paying more attention to moving with the beat as the song started to trail off and another began. All the songs had a pulsating beat that Calley found easy to follow. Some songs had a faster beat, some a little slower, but she could follow all of them. She also realized that, as the lights were programmed to follow the rhythm of the songs, she could follow the lights to know when and how to move.

Song followed song and soon Calley had lost track of how many she’d danced to. Some men started dancing near them and soon, they were dancing among the four women as well. Calley wasn’t sure if they were dancing with her and her friends, but everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves regardless.

But then one song finished and the next one that started was much slower. Calley saw other dancers around them pair up and hold each other close as they swayed in time to the music. She suddenly realized that one of the men she’d sort of been dancing with was standing less than a meter in front of her. She didn’t know what to do about him. She looked around and saw her three other friends seemed to be in similar positions with three other men. Daznee looked over to Calley and motioned her head towards the bar. She, Mix and Yutag each headed there accompanied by a man.

Calley turned back towards the guy near her. It was hard to tell in the lighting of the dance floor, but he looked to be in his mid-twenties, with light-coloured hair and a sharp, angular face. He stood maybe ten centimetres taller than her and was dressed in a nice green shirt and black pants. He’d noticed the people leaving the floor to head for the bar and asked Calley, “Would you like a drink?”

She beamed at him and said, “Sure.” Relief flooded through her as she hadn’t been sure how to handle the situation if he hadn’t made the suggestion. He offered his arm and she held on to it as he led her off the dance floor. They headed towards the bar where there was now a line-up before each bartender. In the time it took the line to be served, Calley and the man introduced themselves and made some chit-chat. It turned out his name was Nerrum and he worked in one of the system’s financial institutions. He complimented Calley on her dancing and she admitted she was new at it. When they reached the bar, she didn’t know what to order so he suggested she try a Jerikel Starburst. She took a sip of it and liked the fruity flavour.

The two made their way to the tables where her three friends and their companions were sitting. Introductions were made all around and the group fell into various discussions about nothing in particular. Daznee asked Calley what she was drinking and approved of Nerrum’s choice. She suggested Calley keep drinking those for the rest of the night. When it was revealed that Calley was a newcomer to  the Rangxu system, everyone had suggestions about what she should go see.

Eventually, the group finished drinking and made its way back to the dance floor. For a while, the men danced with the women but eventually Calley noticed they’d drifted off to new dance partners. Likewise, she and her friends seemed to have attracted a new group of men. When the next slow song eventually started playing, her new dance partner likewise bought her a drink. He was a shorter, dark-haired man who danced more frenetically than Nerrum. He introduced himself as Pureel and wanted to stay at the bar with her but she led him to the table where her friends were entertaining a new trio of companions. Once again, the assembled group talked amongst themselves for a while and eventually went back to dancing.

Again the ladies found themselves dancing with new companions while song after song played. But this time, instead of waiting for the slow song to come along, Calley left the dance floor to go to the bathroom. She’d seen people heading to the back of the club and assumed that’s where the restrooms were. Unfortunately, there was a line-up to get into them.

“You don’t have to wait, you know,” said a voice behind her and she turned to find Pureel standing there. He leaned close and told her, “The club has a second floor they use for concerts on rest days. They don’t lock the door when it’s not used and there’s another restroom up there. All you gotta do is climb those stairs over there.” He gestured to a staircase at the end of a hallway leading away from the restroom entrance.

“Thanks,” Calley told him as she headed for the staircase. He followed her and they climbed the stairs together. They passed through an archway and Calley saw the entire floor was mostly empty. There was a stage on the far end of it and a long bar on the left side of the floor reaching halfway to the stage. The three bartending robots looked to be deactivated, and the barstools were all placed upside-down on the bar. The walls on the right side of this floor had similar light fixtures then the floor below but there was no lighting in the floor’s centre. It gave the floor an overall gloomy feeling. Aside from the sound of the club below coming from the staircase, there was no noise.

Pureel pointed to an alcove past where the bar ended. “Over there,” he told her as he led her towards it. As that side of the floor was away from the lights on the right side and the bar’s illumination was turned off, she hadn’t noticed it. “Any lights over there?” she asked him.

“They’ll turn on when we get close,” he assured her. She was feeling uneasy about being alone with a man she barely knew in a dark place. But as he’d promised, the lights in the alcove lit up as the two got close and she saw two doors past it.

“Hey, you were right!” Calley said with relief. The lights lessened her anxiety.

“Of course. It’s always real with Pureel. See ya in a bit,” he said as he ushered her towards one of the doors. She smiled at his pun but didn’t laugh. He’d already used it with her before and she had barely found it amusing the first time. She stepped through the far door and found a clean restroom beyond . She relieved herself in one of the stalls and washed up before returning outside to find Pureel leaning on the corner of the bar waiting for her.

“Thanks for waiting,” she told him, though, in truth, she was starting to feel a little uneasy again. Lighting aside, she was still alone with this man and she wished she wasn’t. He was dressed in a burgundy-coloured suit made of slightly shiny material that she found a little loud (In her mind, she could hear Alezanna calling it “vulgar”). He seemed a little overbearing, and Calley found herself wishing she’d never danced with him in the first place.

“Well, you’re worth waiting for, baby,” he said as he stepped forward, getting too close to her for her tastes. He leaned forward to kiss her. She tried to avoid the kiss by turning her head but his hand was up in a flash to keep her facing him. He was only partially successful, and soon they were locked in an awkward half-kiss.

Time seemed to slow as Calley was being kissed by the man. It reminded her of the incident on Palcon where the two roustabouts had grabbed her. But where she’d felt fear and panic then, now, she remained calm. She assessed her situation, her position with this man. He wasn’t all that taller than her, and his suit fit him loosely enough that he had to be on the skinny side. She doubted he was really a physical threat to her. Her eyes were still open, and she could see the bar nearby. She realized that she could use it to her advantage.

She broke the kiss but didn’t move away from him. She moved a little to her side, her right arm moving around his waist as she gave him a smile. It fooled him into thinking she liked his kiss and he was further deceived as her left hand caressed his cheek. He moved forward to kiss her again but she moved her right leg behind his and pushed his head sideways with all her strength. He tripped over her leg and his body dropped sideways. The top side of his head hit the bar and he let out a cry of pain. He then rolled away from the bar, ruining his suit on the dusty floor as he did so.

She didn’t think he was incapacitated and she wasn’t going to let him get up again. Instead, she stepped over him to get to the bar and grabbed one of the barstools with both hands. She held it high behind her head in case she’d need to bring it down on him.

It was at that moment that the entire floor lit up. The lights, from a ceiling rack, were mostly aimed at the stage but there were some pointed at other areas, including the bar. “That’s enough!” said a voice familiar to Calley. It was surprising she recognized it as she hadn’t heard it say all that much before.

Both she and Pureel turned to see Coslove standing near a booth in the corner of the far wall with what looked like a lighting board on a table in it. He was dressed in a very similar suit to the one Calley had first seen him in. This one was of a golden hue with a black shirt and matching shoes. The dark colour also matched the blaster pistol he was holding aimed at them.

“Look, I dunno what you think this is…” Pureel began from his spot on the floor. Coslove’s appearance, it seemed, had made him forget the pain of his head. Guns being pointed at you, Calley decided, could have that effect.

“I think you were about to be beaten to death by a bounty hunter,” Coslove told him. “Lucky for you, system security keeps track of dangerous women like her when they arrive in-system. Seven kills in one day. Tell me, Miss Calley, when the listings say ‘dead or alive’, do you ever consider taking someone in alive?” To further demonstrate the Gynapsi’s threat to the incredulous Pureel, Coslove was now clearly keeping his pistol aimed at her instead of him.

“Bounty hunter?” said Pureel in amazement.

Calley immediately understood what Coslove was playing at. She managed to keep a straight face as she put the barstool at her side and sat down on it, not even giving Pureel a glance. “When it’s dead or alive, it’s a lot less trouble to bring ‘em in dead,” she said coldly.

“Well if it’s all the same to you,” Coslove replied, “the authorities in Rangxu would prefer you not go on one of your patented murder sprees in this system. Whether it be justified or not. Is this man a quarry of yours?”

“He’s nothing to me,” the Gynapsi said in the same glacial tone, once again not looking at Pureel.

“All right sir, you’re free to go,” Coslove told Pureel while keeping his attention on Calley. “In future, you might want to be more careful who you choose to dance with.”

The dumbfounded man got to his feet and quickly made his way to the staircase leading off the floor. It was only when he was gone that Coslove slipped his pistol into a jacket pocket.

“Thanks, I guess,” Calley told him as she stood and returned the barstool from where she’d grabbed it. “Does Daznee know you followed us to the club?”

Coslove moved to the other end of the bar to slip behind it. “She doesn’t because I didn’t. I got here before you did. I own this club. My office is right next to the lighting booth.”

Calley looked over at where he was indicating and indeed saw a door in the wall next to the booth. “This is your club?” she asked him.

“Yes, I own several business ventures throughout the system. This just happens to be one of them. Would you like something to drink?”

 “Jerikel Starburst. Does Daznee know this is your club?”

“I doubt it,” Coslove said as he mixed her drink. “She mentioned the club to me last cycle in passing while we were at work. I figured she knew the trendy places younger people go to so the club might be a good investment. And it has been.”

He handed her the drink and she took a sip of it. She asked him, “Well this is just convenient, isn’t it? And you just happened to be up here when I needed help so you stepped in and gave that asshole a megakilo of lies.”

“I did no such thing. First of all, you needed no help from me. You had the drop on that man and I just didn’t want you to beat him half to death in my club. Everyone’s having a good time and it would be a shame if system security had to be called in to arrest you. As for lies, what I told that man was true. The Ravenfang is listed as a bounty hunter with the Mercenaries guild. You and your shipmates are thus allowed to hunt and collect bounties. Furthermore, a little over two sub-cycles ago, your ship encountered the pirates of the Crimson Clan. The battle report logged with the guild credits you with destroying seven of their fighters, thus killing seven pilots.”

“Is that what they were called?” Calley asked. “I didn’t look it up.”

Coslove looked at a small wrist-mounted receiver of some type and told the medtech, “You might want to head back downstairs and rejoin your friends. You wouldn’t want them to worry about where you disappeared to. Don’t worry about Mr. Pureel. He’s left the premises and, I suspect, the station.

“I wasn’t worried,” she told him truthfully. There was no doubt in her mind now that she could have handled the cretin. She added, “Thanks for the drink. I’ve gotten drinks from three men tonight but I think I like you the best. You should come dance with me sometime.”

He gave her a smile and a nod in acknowledgement of her compliment. She left him and returned downstairs. She saw her friends sitting at a table. Before she joined them, she looked around and noted several vid-scanners mounted in the ceiling. She was now certain that Coslove was using them to keep an eye on her group.

As she sat at ther table, Daznee asked her, “Did you get that drink at the bar? I didn’t see you.”

“I got it after I went to the bathroom,” Calley explained. It was the truth, though she omitted which bar she’d gotten it at, and who had given it to her.

“You shouldn’t go to the bathroom alone,” the Vottonian told her. “Always go with somebody. It’s safer. You never know who might try to hassle you.”

“Good advice,” Calley agreed.

NEXT CHAPTER: A starcred-making proposition.