CHAPTER I: THE TRILANCER

Papa Dargo’s Den of Inequity

Planet Roost — Platinum Accords Quadrant

December 13th, 2771 — 20 years later

Warm, gold-yellow tubes lit the lounge, their hum drowned out by pumping synth music. Long, furred sofas lined the concrete walls and glowing bead curtains outlined massive circular beds in the heart of the space. Pleasure lounges were nothing out of the ordinary, but Papa Dargo’s Den of Inequity was renowned as something of a ‘classic.’ Like people who favor a vintage dive bar over a zero-g dance club. It’s what people pay for on on a planet in the Platinum Accords. Letting commerce planets operate without United Planets oversight from the United Planets started out as a means to nurture cultural exchange after all, and Papa Dargo’s Den certainly catered to all comers. In practice, of course, this also meant it was a transactional sex club without regulation. A logical person might cite the need for nuance between the extremes of federal control over sex work and a zero-accountability free market, but logic didn’t make those billions.

It must’ve been a theme night at Papa Dargo’s; its cavalcade of courtesans of innumerable genders and species were wrapped in burlesque corsets, fishnets and masquerade pieces. Ravenous clients sprawled over the couches and beds — diplomats, merchants, irrelevant royals, the like. The blend of species mingled without much visible preference: slick, amphibious Neumerians slid between partners, greenish-gray humanlike Aksani practiced their famed chi massages to make people melt in their hands, and a cadre of humanoid Junovians were enjoying having their elk-like antlers licked. Some liked to watch while flicking paper and metal currencies, others were locked in embraces that one could mistake for either fevered coitus or Greco-Roman wrestling — or maybe both. For all the crime that Roost was infamous for, it was certainly not a place of judgment.

Distant from the revelry, in the corner with a shoulder touching each wall, sat the Trilancer. Unlike the lavish formalwear of the clients or the lingerie or bold-faced genitalia of the courtesans, he was dressed functionally: black boots propped on a table, gray tactical pants, an anachronistic flight jacket of faded brown leather. The furred inner color framed the sharp jawline of his metal helm: a lantern-jaw mouth plate shaped like the shovel of a plow truck, a dark, narrow two-prong visor obscured the upper half of his face and led up into the one stylish flair: a flat cap, the same dark shade of brass as the helmet and the chiseled, angular breastplate on his upper torso. In his Anthium alloy plate armor, he was the odd man out in this harlequinade of odd. Behind his visor, his heads up display outlined a specific figure.

The toned woman in a vintage flapper dress reclined, her legs and shoulders being massaged by clients who no doubt thought they were rocking her world. Naraami was clearly enjoying herself, but the Deputy was also multitasking, eyes constantly scanning the crowd. She occasionally gave a pat-on-the-head smile to her masseuses, then her gaze locked with the Trilancer, followed by a subtle pointing with her chin. The Trilancer followed her gesture to a weasel-like human slinking out of the room. He looked back at Naraami, who shrugged slightly, as if to say ‘Off you go.’

The Trilancer sighed, pushing himself up from the couch and straightening his already straight attire. His gait and build stuck out as well: his 6’2 height was not abnormal given the variety of species around him, but the rigid posture and coiled strength he moved with were at odds with the otherwise relaxed environment. A slab of marble among sculpted busts.

He strode in a grid-like line past the rapidly expanding orgy. Two courtesans, one male, one female, each wrapped around his thick arms. He waved a hand, politely but curtly declining. They seemed to take this as a challenge, the female stopping in his path and walking her fingers up his abdomen, while the male stepped behind and draped his arms around the Trilancer’s shoulders, locking hands over his chest. Staring forward, the Trilancer swatted the male’s hands with enough force to kill a family of hummingbirds. The male recoiled, the female took a step back. Unperturbed, the Trilancer drew two silvery tokens from his pocket and flicked each to the courtesans and resumed his walk. He stole a glance at Naraami, then picked up a bit of pace to find the Weasel Man.

EUGENE ELLIS PADDED DOWN THE DINGY HALLWAY LINED WITH SLIDING metal doors. The Self-Pleasure Wing of Papa Dargo’s was just a little less polished than the central ‘Shared Carnaltorium,’ to incentivize clients to take part in the more expensive ‘group activities.’ But not Ellis. As a man of his stature — scrawny, balding with stringy trails of hair enhancements and a failing goatee — shame was something he was well used to.

He clutched a keycard, scratching at the blue light of a subcutaneous implant flickering within the skin of his right wrist. The skin around the implant was still red and raw, but that wasn’t about to distract Ellis from his well earned reprieve. He came to one of the doors and swiped his card at the console side it. The handle blipped green and with a hiss, the door eased open.

Within the 7x7 self-pleasure room were two blank walls at the left and right, the door to his back and a 2x2 monitor on the adjacent wall. Beneath the wall monitor sat a waist-level opening with an artificial pink interior. Ellis thumbed in a few commands on the monitor.

SPECIES: HUMAN

SEX: FEMALE

ETHNICITY: SOUTHEAST ASIAN

AGE:

It was at the ‘age’ bracket where Ellis slid a secondary keycard from his pocket and inserted it directly in the port below the monitor. The numbers then became changeable per his wish. With the age restrictions removed, he entered a number just young enough for his personal taste.

The monitor’s voice emitted as a tinny echo,

"Hey there, big boy. Anything special I can do for you?"

Ellis giggled nervously as he leaned into the microphone, "Yeah, can you…can you call me daddy?"

"Sure thing, daddy!"

Without further foreplay, Ellis thrust himself into the hole and moaned. A knock at the door interrupted him, a groan of annoyance between his moans of pleasure.

"Occupied!" He resumed thrusting, only to hear another insistent knock. He growled, "Someone’s in here, asshole!" A demanding third knock. He grunted in frustration and turned to the door.

"What’s wrong, daddy?" opined the monitor.

Ellis ignored the monitor as he hastily fixed his pants, "Can’t a guy just get his slaggin’ rocks off in peace?"

Both his tirade and his fumbling hands halted as the door opened. The Trilancer filled the frame, unmoving faceplate looming down at him.

"Hi, daddy," the Trilancer’s distorted, mechanized voice sawed into his ears.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

HE CRACKED ELLIS ACROSS THE JAW, SENDING HIM DOWN TO THE FLOOR, pants falling to his ankles. The Trilancer shut the door behind him as Ellis scrambled to get up, only for the Trilancer to stomp on his chest. In the process, he got an eyeful of Ellis’…Forbidden Zone.

"Oh, for—" he covered his view with a gloved hand. He rolled Ellis over with a boot, then knelt down and twisted the wiry man’s arm as Ellis flailed in panic.

"Afternoon, Mr. Ellis," the Trilancer nodded, casual as a cubicle worker.

"Look man, there’s—my personal digipad is in my back pocket, it’s got 450 credits on it already, just take it and—"

With a swift crick, the Trilancer broke one of Ellis’ fingers, eliciting a yelp. "Don’t interrupt," he chided flippantly, glancing up at the monitor, helmet concealing his disgust. "Lucky for you, my personal foibles with your preferences aren’t important."

"Wh-what do you want, man?!"

The Trilancer sighed and produced a vibrant silver card of his own. He dropped it beside Ellis’ head, the tink sound it made showing it was metal, not plastic like the cards of Papa Dargo’s. A Contract Card.

"Oh, frack…"

"I get that a lot."

"You’re a Trilancer…"

"Yep."

"Okay, okay, just hold on a sec—AGH!" he cut himself off as the Trilancer broke another of his fingers.

"There’s a lot of red tape and even redder flags you have to ignore before somebody puts out a Trilancer Contract. I think we passed ‘hold on’ a while ago."

"Just get me a holo-disc with a good signal, I can talk to Titus and straighten this whole thing out!"

"Glad I don’t have to brief you on who you screwed over."

"I didn’t! This is all just a big misunderstanding!"

The Trilancer sighed as Ellis trailed off, when a blue light bounced off his visor. His heat tilted as he spotted the biotech implant in the very wrist he now held in a twist.

"Hm," the Trilancer nodded, drawing a knife, "No worries, Mr. Ellis. I used to know a great field medic. I picked up some tricks before…well, he died, but that wasn’t my fault," He snatched Ellis’ belt from his pants and held it to the man’s mouth, "Might wanna bite down."

With that, he dug the blade into Ellis’ wrist.

NARAAMI LEANED ON THE WALL OPPOSITE ELLIS’ DOOR, TAPPING A FOOT amid muffled screams. She still wore the flapper dress, her body language much more casual and bored. After a minute, the screaming subsided to low whimpers, and she heard the familiar bass of her Captain’s voice inside.

"Thank you for your cooperation," he muttered as he emerged, puddle of a man behind him trembling as he held his bloody wrist.

"Got what we came for?" she asked. In response, her Captain waved a biotech implant wrapped in a bloody cloth like a victory flag. She smiled and pushed off the wall. "So how was my disguise, Captain?" she questioned impishly.

"Effective," he answered, heading down the corridor. She trailed behind with a raised eyebrow.

"That’s it?" she pressed, enjoying getting under her friend’s skin. "How did I look?"

"With your eyes, I imagine."

She chuckled and knocked into him. "When prompted, Captain, it doesn’t make you a licentious pervert to compliment a lady’s fashion."

"Hm," he grumbled, ignoring her sarcasm as he tapped the comm on the side of his helmet. "Chief," he hailed, "Package secured, bring ‘er around and—"

BANG

Gunshots and a wave of screams rode down the concrete hallway as the pair approached the Carnaltorium. The Trilancer held up a hand, but Naraami’s instincts snapped ahead of his, reaching an arm across his chest and bracing them both against a wall. The Trilancer leaned forward, getting a look around the corner as Naraami drew a digital command pad out of her dress and slapped it around her wrist. Another gunshot from the lounge quelled the screams.

"Lords, Ladies, carnal organisms one and all…" declared a smoky, self-assured voice, "I hope you’ve enjoyed your indulgences. If you cooperate with us now, this won’t be but a memory. ‘The time we were ransomed,’ you’ll call it," the voice went on, announcing his intent. "We’re giving you a great story!"

The Trilancer pressed himself to the opposite wall and waved Naraami over. She obeyed as he crept to the corner intersection, at the turn that led into the main lounge. He slipped a clear disc out of his gauntlet and slid it across the floor, to the other end of the intersection. The Corner Eye unfolded, a small device made of reflective alloy designed to give view around walls and corners. She watched as he gently moved his fingertip over controls on his gauntlet, tilting and focusing the mirror device to give a proper visual:

The shaking clientele of Papa Dargo’s huddled in the center of the massive lounge. Several courtesans and clients lay dead, wounds from kinetic weapons. Though she didn’t get as good an angle as her Captain, Naraami was still able to make out the aggressors: one purple skinned Ulishar, three humans and two Gex, squid folk whose boneless bodies operated humanoid exosuits.

The ringleader, the Ulishar, looked over his trembling captives. "Now, I’m not a gambling man," he said, "But I think it’s a safe bet that many of you are here on your mommy, daddy or trade partners’ coin. I hope, for your sake, that you kept your location to yourself. Both out of common decency, and so they don’t send any pigs on your trail. If nothing else, you can at least count on us to keep your dirty little secrets, right?"

As he gestured theatrically, Naraami spotted the most disconcerting feature, one she assumed was the same on each of them: a tattoo. It was a blood red circle with two concentric rings around it, like a 45 degree angle of a ringed planet. She nudged her Captain.

"Zolara Clan," she whispered.

The Captain looked down for a minute, even his featureless faceplate still displayed a warring conscience. He fiddled with the Corner Eye’s angle again.

Hesitating at his lack of response, especially with her mentioning of one of the most infamous crime syndicates in the Skyfield, Naraami took initiative to get them out of here. Their job was done, no need to get dragged into a hostage crisis. She glanced the other direction, "I clocked a back-up exfil point when we got here, shouldn’t take long if we’re quie—you’re already gone, huh?" She looked back, her Captain nowhere to be seen. She sighed wearily.

THE MOST EFFECTIVE TACTICS OFTEN PROVED THE SIMPLEST. AS THE Trilancer had followed Papa Dargo’s Den’s policy of no firearms, he lacked the tools and the numbers for a standard breach-and-clear, but simple tactics made up for it:

He hit the light switch.

Commotion broke out as the hostages screamed, while the Zolara Clan snapped to high alert. The Trilancer flipped on his helmet’s night vision and strode out of the hallway. The Ulishar was the only one to look around without alarm, as they had perfect vision in darkness. Perks of having a homeworld with yearlong night cycles. Accounting for this, the Trilancer snatched an abandoned drink tray from a table and flicked his wrist, sending the dish hurtling directly into the bridge of the Ulishar’s nose. He howled and grabbed the gushing wound.

The first Gex looked around frantically, his back to the Trilancer. He knew a chokehold would do no good — Gex were just squid heads in a jar piloting robot bodies, there was no airway to constrict. Troublesome thing about the Gex, glass heads meant there’s no such thing as a quiet kill. The Trilancer adapted, walking up behind him and kicking out the back of the suit’s knee, buckling the artificial joint and sending the Gex to the floor. He followed with a stomp through the protective glass and splattered the cephalopod’s head.

His position given away, the Trilancer moved quicker, it was only a matter of seconds before the kidnappers panicked and fired wildly. Counting the next hostiles, two of the three humans, he grabbed the dead Gex’s pistol and — beep beep — the trigger wouldn’t budge.

Zolara weapons, he chided himself. DNA encoded. Great.

The noise of the disobedient weapon alerted the other assailants and they opened fire, muzzle flashes briefly lighting the room. Luckily, the hostages were still prone, keeping them out of the field of fire while the Trilancer shoulder rolled to the next hostiles. He sprang up between them, elbow the windpipe of the human on his right and swatting the left one’s rifle away right as it fired. A hail of bullets arced safely away from himself as well as the hostages, but pelted the third human gangster. Pulling the rifle from the criminal’s grasp, the Trilancer cracked the stock across the remaining man’s head, forehand and backhand. He turned back to the one he’d elbowed, only to see him choking to death on the floor, windpipe completely collapsed.

To his relief, the hostages seemed to realize the window they were given, as he heard them scrambling out the door as he thrust his fist through the other Gex’s dome and dragged its shrieking squid head out of the exosuit. In one swift movement, he aimed the Gex’s head at the just-now-recovering Ulishar and squeezed, crushing its brain and squirting thick, syrupy ink straight into the Ulishar’s eyes. He hissed and staggered back, wiping at his eyes as the Trilancer grabbed the exosuit body, pistol locked in its grip. He squeezed the suit’s finger with a satisfying bang as the weapon complied, dropping the Ulishar ringleader with a bullet in the throat. He waited until the gangster’s gurgling and choking subsided, kill confirmed. The Trilancer looked back one more time to see the last hostages flood out, then strode out the way he came in, flicking the lights back on.

There’s no shortage of mercenaries in the Skyfield, but there’s good reason Trilancers cost as much as they did.