by Poppy Rhys
THE
KHYMA
TAKEN PART ONE
Erotic Science Fiction Romance
by
Poppy Rhys
Copyright 2017 by Poppy Rhys
Edited by Jessica Pennell
Beta Read by J.T. Wynne
Cover Art: Reese Dante http://www.reesedante.com
Cover content is for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted on the cover is a model.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
WARNING
This story contains explicit sexual content, graphic language, violence, and situations intended for mature readers
PROLOGUE
The year is 2517, four hundred and four years after Earth’s evacuation. When Earth was no longer habitable, help efforts from the Intergalactic Coalition relocated humans to planet Dor Nye.
Conservation efforts began, and the Milky Way was declared a protected galaxy. Earth was healed, its atmosphere altered to support the lives of endangered animal and plant species from around the universe.
With the advanced technology the Intergalactic Coalition shared, Dor Nye grew, thrived, and became one of the five trade planets.
CHAPTER ONE
Everything was filthy.
Sand and stray wrappers dusted the main floor of the colossal bay, tossing along, swishing around, with each brush of air as people of all races milled about to conduct business, or purchase illegal goods.
That’s exactly what she planned on doing. She was there to buy something illegal.
That little annoying conscience floating around her brain kept telling her it wasn’t just illegal, but immoral.
“Willa, I feel extremely uncomfortable about this.”
“Tosh,” she sighed. “How many times are you gonna say that?”
“Until we’re turning around and getting the hell outta here!”
“I told you, I’m not leaving until I get back what was taken from me.” She pulled her hood down over most of her face and reached over to do the same for Tosh. “And to do that, I need a Khyma.”
“A Khyma?” She snorted. “You’re looking for a pack… which is infinitely worse!”
“Shhhh!” Her eyes flickered to a couple fat, lumpy Pio’Ko’s that glanced their way at Tosh’s raised voice. “You’re going to bring unwanted attention, and if you needed yet another reminder, that’s bad. Bad,” she repeated.
“This whole plan is bad!” Tosh whisper-yelled. “And stop acting like the Wenden took your family’s necklace. You lost it, fair and square.”
Willa rolled her eyes, sighing. She was partly right, since the Wenden technically won the game of shelk.
“It wasn’t fair and square,” she argued. “He cheated.”
Tosh began to say something further, but Willa interrupted her.
“Can you just go along with me this once? Without ripping me a new ass?”
“That’s what you said about that back alley shelk game,” she huffed. “And the time you took off with that box of ginga’s on Vishik-”
“That shop owner was going to eat those poor, cute, defenseless creatures.”
“And when you pranked Mr. Topla-”
“But that was hilarious!”
“He’s the head of the Assembly’s council!” she said, incredulous. “You could’ve been imprisoned-”
“Okay, okay, I get it. I’m an awful, despicable, selfish, inconsiderate best friend.”
“Mhm,” Tosh agreed, somewhat appeased that she’d admitted her shortcomings. “I don’t even know why I go along with it.”
“Because you’re my best friend,” Willa answered simply, sidestepping an enormous, robed fella that reeked of rotting meat. Her nose wrinkled and Tosh gagged as they quickly padded out of his general vicinity.
“I’m starting to think this friendship is unhealthy for me,” Tosh coughed, shivering as the last tendrils of stench faded.
“Well, it’s about to get worse,” Willa whispered, her eyes roving over the digital marquee with blinking white and red lights and text that read, ‘Shad El’s Flesh Market’. Her lip curled, a tickle of apprehension and nausea causing her to hesitate.
Did she really want to go through this much trouble to get back a necklace? The disappointed expressions of her parents flashed through her mind. They’d be devastated that she’d wagered Violet, a family heirloom, carried all the way from Earth over four hundred years ago in a game of shelk, and then lost it.
No, she had to do this.
She tentatively stepped through the heavily curtained entrance, but stopped once she realized she was alone. She huffed, turning around and grabbing Tosh’s wrist with a gloved hand to pull her along.
“I’m not feeling this at all,” her best friend said. She had to, because she couldn’t just go along with something silently. Willa kinda loved her for it.
Their hooded black robes hid most of their bodies, just their shoed feet, and the bottom half of their faces were visible. It had to be that way because anything was allowed at Tor’s Black Fleet; a behemoth floating flat-deck freighter craft where any and all contraband could be found and just about every lowlife prowled.
Smugglers, criminals wanted by the Intergalactic Coalition, overlords, slavers, and on, and on. This was their playground. It was truly an intergalactic underground.
It never stayed in one spot more than twenty-four universal hours, which is why it was so damn hard to track down, and why the Coalition hadn’t dismantled it. It had taken her a shady deal with a Vinto on Bolnar Pan in order to get the coordinates. Greedy little bastard took half of her zill mineral shipment, and she knew it was going to come out of her pay, because she most certainly wasn’t going to tell her parents -the bosses- about it.
They’d entrusted her and Tosh to cover three trade routes, because they’d practically begged. No, they did beg. There was no getting around that one.
Their families joint owned a sizeable trade business, with over two hundred routes throughout a handful of galaxies, and contracts with just over a thousand planets. They’d grown up fantasizing about the day when they would run their own routes, and all the planets they’d visit.
One year, and a few months, that’s all it’d been since their parents gifted Pearly, the commerce ship, to them along with their assigned routes. It was a fantastic craft, if a little outdated with a shitty name. But it was theirs.
They’d hired a crew from the pool of company employees in record time, due to their eagerness to get out on the routes, and hadn’t been home since.
“Ugh, do you smell that?”
“Oh, the shit odor?” Tosh said lightly. “No, I hadn’t noticed.”
Willa shook her head, making sure Tosh kept pace with her and didn’t get snatched into a dark corner by the many nefarious looking individuals slinking through the indoor market.
“Why don’t you just get a nish beast or two?” Tosh pointed toward a platform enclosed in glowing white energy bars. The monstrous gray, hound-like creatures snarled at anyone that passed their cage. “At least they’re bred for pro
tection.”
“Too unpredictable,” she disapproved. They’d been known to turn on their owners, especially if their owners were smaller than them, which she was. The beasts were nearly as tall as her, but outweighed her by at least two hundred pounds.
“Besides,” she went on, “a Khyma is bred for protection too.”
“It’s not the same thing. It’s just wrong, Willa.”
“Here we go again…” she mumbled. “Listen, it’s just temporary. But I can’t walk up into the Wenden’s place and be like, ‘yo, give me back my necklace asshole’ and expect to walk out unscathed.”
“I have a bad feeling about this.”
“You always say that before the fun stuff starts,” she joked, patting Tosh’s shoulder.
They passed multiple energy beamed cages, stalls, and cells of various sizes that contained mostly animals, and less evolved bipedal species, until her keen eye spotted what she came for.
“There!” she pointed and began pulling Tosh with her.
They stopped in front a large cell with three roaming, bipedal males. Their candy red skin was stretched over lean muscle that rippled with each movement they made, and black manes flowed from their crowns to the backs of their necks and down their spines, the wild hair shortening in length until it ended at the tailbone.
“Christ, they’re naked,” Tosh stated as her eyes bugged when she lifted her hood enough to see.
“They don’t know any better,” she shrugged; though her gaze ultimately landed on their swinging cocks as they walked about.
Her lips twitched at the strange bumps dotted along the underside that she could see every time it swung. Pronounced ridges formed on the top, broken up by veins along the sides.
Weird was putting it lightly. It was interesting to look at, nonetheless.
She noticed how their feet only had two big toes, split almost down the middle, topped with black talons that released and retracted repeatedly depending on how they stood.
“Interested in purchasing protection?” a hissing voice assaulted her ears.
Willa turned, noticing a spindly, shelled individual who barely stood taller than them on all four of his oddly jointed legs. His three black eyes ogled them when they both pushed back their hoods.
“Yes, actually,” she replied politely.
“Then I think I can help you,” his gaze landed on the three in the cage. “Strong, obedient, very well bred stock. I can show you their pedigree, if you like. All come from champion lines,” he went on. “And while I’m not one to brag, Khymas from the same bloodlines guard some of the most respected great houses throughout multiple galaxies.”
“How wonderful,” she murmured, as she really couldn’t care less. “What commands do they respond to?”
“All of them,” he gleaned. “Let me demonstrate.”
She watched carefully as he withdrew a small glass control fob from the folds of his robe and began pointing to the different buttons and explaining their usage.
“This one will give punishment if they are misbehaving.” And then raised the fob, clicked the button, and the one closest to them yelped, going down to his knees, head bent forward in submission.
Willa flinched, noticing Tosh was deeply frowning, especially when the merchant chuckled. The Khyma were like giant puppies from what she understood; kind of goofy looking, and relatively innocent. The merchant basically just kicked one, and she wasn’t cool with that.
“And this button is to establish new control. Press, and simply say zok’ish. A chip is implanted into their necks at a very young age.”
“How much are you selling them for?”
“Two-hundred thousand a head.”
Tosh choked, and began coughing to cover her surprise. She quickly patted her best friend on the back, even as her own ire rose.
She didn’t have enough to purchase one, let alone all three.
“How about one-ninety?” she suggested.
“Each?”
“For all three.”
The friendly demeanor of the insectoid merchant changed in the blink of an eye. Suddenly, he was tucking the controller back into the folds of his robe, and scowling down at them like they were the bane of his existence.
“You insult me,” he seethed, spittle flying from his mouth. “Get out of my sight!”
A muscle in Willa’s cheek ticked, but Tosh was grasping her arm, urging her to leave.
“Come on, we’ll go somewhere else,” her best friend said.
Willa gave one last look to the males in the cage and exhaled. She was running out of time. She’d already spent a month tracking this market down, and a sizeable amount of credits in lost product just to get the coordinates. Where the hell was she going to find Khymas for sale elsewhere?
But she listened to her friend, and slowly turned around. She took two steps, heading the way back which they’d entered, and then the merchant’s voice pricked her ears.
“Human bitches,” he ground out in the trade language Za.
Willa froze.
“Goddamn it,” Tosh sighed.
She was all prepared to walk out empty handed, but then this asshole had to go and be rude.
“I’ll get the controller, you get the Khymas,” Tosh said wearily.
“Deal.”
Almost in the same instant, they unclasped their robes, letting the fabric pool to the floor beneath them. Their skintight white suits made for easy movement, and the black straps upon their thighs, waists, and slinging crisscross over their backs were armed to the teeth.
They weren’t about to just walk up into Tor’s Black Fleet naked.
Immediately, Willa’s hand clasped around the sleek, black and red plasma hand gun strapped to her thigh, her thumb flipping the switch. The high-pitched whine of the power charging was like music to her ears as she pointed it toward a power panel nearly hidden in the ceiling.
Sparks flew when she pulled the trigger, hitting her target. Instantly, half the lights in the place powered down. She turned just in time to watch Tosh dispatch two daggers into another panel.
The woman loved those damned things.
Chaos erupted around them, people running amuck, tumbling to get to the exits in their confusion. When shit went down on Tor’s Black Fleet, people didn’t stick around when the threat of death came knocking.
Not that they were planning on killing anyone, but no one else knew that.
The red, flashing backup lights powered on, the strobing causing even more panic. They both weaved in and out of rushing customers.
Creatures howled in their cages, and she was thankful none of the power panels were linked to the cells, because a Nish beast gnawing on your leg made concentrating much harder.
Willa slunk around the back of the Khyma’s cage, kicking the power panels cover with the heel of her boot multiple times.
“Sonuvabitch,” she ground out when the damn thing wouldn’t bust open. The three occupants hovered near the glowing bars, watching her. “Hi,” she grinned, stomping the cover one last time and it still didn’t open.
“Did you really have to call us bitches?” Tosh asked the babbling insect guy, flipping a dagger in her hand before she slammed it down into one of his twiggy legs. His screech made her wince, the pitch killing her ears.
“You should’ve taken the hundred and ninety thou’,” Tosh went on, shoving a booted foot into his chest as he went down on his knees. “But nooooo.”
“Please!” he begged. “Don’t kill me!”
She flipped another dagger in her hand, cracking him in the forehead with the butt of it. When he fell unconscious, she dug into his robes and triumphantly held up the controller.
Willa grinned, because while Tosh often talked her out of stupid schemes, her bestie was the one with the real temper, and she always had her back.
“This is why we’re best friends,” she told her.
“I did my job,” Tosh huffed. “What’s taking you so long?”
“Right,” sh
e stood back, waving her hand to signal the males in the cage back up when she raised her gun and flipped the charge. She closed one eye as she aimed at the hinges and pulled the trigger.
The cover blew off, twirling into the air before it clanged against the hard floor.
Quickly, she pressed the green release button. The energy bars of the cell disappeared, and Tosh handed her the controller.
“Zok’ish,” she pressed the button and said. Immediately three sets of almond shaped eyes pinned her with their stare. It was a little unnerving.
“Come on boys,” she beckoned them. “Lo,” Willa spoke the command for ‘heel’, yet it still surprised her when they all jumped from the platform and stood in front of her, waiting for further instruction.
“So wrong,” Tosh disapproved.
“Follow me,” she said with a wave, issuing one of the few commands she’d memorized as she and Tosh began running around to the front of the platform and heading for the exit.
In a matter of moments, they were whipping through the curtained exit and out into the fresh, well, fresher air of the freighter deck. Already multiple guards that kept the peace were rushing toward Shad El’s Flesh Market due to all the commotion.
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into another bad idea!” Tosh swore, her short blond hair bouncing with each footfall.
“Don’t give me that shit,” she laughed, breathing heavier as she continued to run and weave around people that didn’t move out of their way. “You stabbed that guy!”
“He deserved it,” she said, incredulous, like she wasn’t in the wrong at all. “And he’s got three other perfectly functional legs!”
“That’s beside the point,” she shook her head when Tosh looked at her blankly. “You stabbed him.”
“Why do you keep saying that?”
Willa just laughed, checking behind her to make sure the three naked Khymas were keeping up. She chuckled again at the sight of their dangly bits swingin’ in the wind.
“Stop them!” someone shrieked. “They stole my property!”