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  Franx took in the sight of me and returned a wink. I think I understood. For Boren, the opportunity to have sex with a black-skinned man didn’t come every day or maybe hadn’t ever. I gasped as he lifted me clean off the ground, his mouth still around my cock. I laughed in fear of falling or whacking my head against the ceiling, but wrapped my legs around his neck while he took as much of me down his throat as he could and headed for the bedroom.

  He dropped me right onto the middle of the bed. I glanced around. The bedroom had a newer, tidier, cleaner sheen. Franx stood in the doorway as his lover lifted my legs into the air and plunged his tongue into my ass. Our stares stayed locked into each other as Boren lost himself with me. I wanted to say sorry to him.

  It wasn’t the first time this had happened, someone taking more interest in me than him, even for a moment. Franx was beautiful, no question. I’d watched bulky men fight over who got to fuck his skinny ass next. But out here in the Verge, where most systems were older and colder, a person with black skin like mine wasn’t so common. I’d been called many things in my time here, and maybe the word exotic was the worst. It reminded me that I wasn’t from here, not really. I didn’t look like the majority. I didn’t quite meet everyone’s expectations. I was an oddity, something new to brag about. There were many markers in the Verge, like this bedroom, which gave the subtle hints that I didn’t really belong here.

  Franx joined us on the bed, going under Boren to try to suck more of that monster cock. Two pudgy fingers pried me open. I grabbed fistfuls of the bedsheets, breathing deeply to work through the initial pain. It suddenly dawned on me what Boren intended to do with his cock. As awkward as this whole situation might be, it would be worse if I stopped it.

  His tongue worked all over my body, licking me from neck to nipple to cock to hole while his fingers slipped in and out of my ass. The ferocity of it alone would have been enough to make me come. Still, I wanted Franx to be a part of it. I sat up and rearranged us on the bed, pulling Franx close to me and having him lie beside me on his back. With the two of us side by side, Boren admired us with a huge grin and even bigger hard-on.

  He kept a finger working my hole but shifted over to Franx, lifting his legs together with his other hand and diving his tongue in. Franx and I looked at each other, our noses touching. I smiled at him. He didn’t return it but moaned as Boren slid a finger inside him too.

  We held our legs in the air as he gradually worked both our holes open. I turned away from Franx, not wanting to see him disappointed, sad, or whatever else he felt.

  “Get on top of him,” Boren said to his lover. Eager to please, Franx lifted himself on top of me, his back pressed against my chest. I kissed his neck while Boren leaned over and grabbed a bottle of gel from the table and sprayed it over his cock, making it glisten.

  Soon Franx gave into my kisses. I worked my hands all over his body, twisting his nipples and playing with his cock. We let memory take us to those days when we had turned men on to get what we wanted. It was hard to believe there had been such times.

  “Oh yeah.” Boren moaned. “This is what I like.”

  Franx squealed as Boren worked his cock into his ass. He turned and kissed me, long and hard, as Boren quickly pumped himself with full force into Franx. We kept on kissing, our mouths locked into each other, the muffled vibrations of Franx’s moaning coursed through me. Franx relaxed, moved his body in time with Boren’s cock. But all of a sudden something pushed against my hole.

  I tried to yell out, but Franx kept his mouth on mine as Boren now forced himself into me. My body aflame with desire and fear, but the part of me that wanted it overrode the part that didn’t. He pushed himself all the way in and my eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. He was huge. My breath escaped me, my ass pulsed, and I gritted my teeth hard against the sharp ache of pain that swiftly turned to groaning pleasure.

  Boren got into a rhythm of fucking us both. He thrust into me for half a dozen strokes, then withdrew and went straight into Franx’s hole, sitting snugly above mine.

  Franx squirmed on top of me as he got fucked, and I kissed him hard when I got fucked. My whole body tingled from the anticipation of when it might come next. Boren’s thrusts got faster. He moved between our holes, stroke by stroke. I felt it each and every time. Soon he groaned loudly inside Franx, who angled his legs upward to take him all in.

  A stab of jealousy cut through me. Why would he get all the reward when I’d done half the work? Boren moaned and slammed himself deep inside Franx’s hole. His eyes closed and his mouth hung open, shooting deep inside and groaning in satisfaction. A moment later, though, he pulled right out, hand squeezing his cock shut, and unexpectedly thrust right inside me. My insides expanded, pulse after pulse, and the deep satisfaction I craved washed over me. He’d given me the rest. Panting, Boren slid out and left behind an unfillable space in me. I’d travel for parsecs for even the suggestion that someone could make me feel whole, even if I knew that after each and every time, I would still be left empty.

  Franx slid off me. Boren gazed down at us with his hands on his hips, sweat glistening from every blood-pumping muscle as Franx took Boren, now soft but still meaty, in his mouth and sucked him clean. Furiously Franx worked to finish himself off, but I didn’t even want to touch myself. It would not even come close to filling the emptiness inside me. A hundred men could not do that, nor could one. I was broken inside and empty from the ache of sadness. Heavy from the lost burdens I still carried. I yawned and moved away from the two of them and their private ritual. I crawled under the covers and closed my eyes for a moment. Boren started to moan again.

  I must have fallen asleep, because the next moment, everything had gone dark and quiet. I wasn’t sure if anyone was in the bed beside me, but then I heard two voices from outside the bedroom.

  “He’s fallen asleep in there,” Boren whispered.

  “It’s only for a few more hours. He has a long journey. He won’t be hanging around.”

  “Yeah, but it’s our bed.”

  “Boren, it was his bed long before it was yours.”

  Footsteps approached, and I clamped my eyes shut. Someone slipped in beside me. His arm wrapped around my naked body, and his lips kissed my neck, like so many times before.

  “Sleep well, Ales,” Franx whispered to me.

  When I next woke, the light of morning filtered through the bedroom. I turned over to discover Franx sprawled across the other side of the bed, a small patch of wet on the pillow under his mouth. Silently, I got myself out of bed and stretched.

  I padded out of the bedroom. Boren lay across the couch naked, too, but with only a light sheet barely covering himself. He snored with all the force a man his size should. Thankfully, my clothes were piled on the floor so I didn’t have to disturb him. As I crouched, he snorted and turned around in his sleep. The sheet slid off and his cock flopped into full view. It smacked against his leg, practically halfway to his knee. I stared longingly, the mental image of that thing tearing into me last night could get me going all over again. Quickly, I grabbed my clothes and locked myself inside the bathroom.

  In less than two minutes, I was ready to go. One last time, I surveyed the place I’d used to call my home and swore then not to return, to let the past be the past. Franx asleep on the bed, Boren snoring naked on the couch. I couldn’t be happier they were both asleep. The only desire left in me was to get to my ship and count myself lucky that I had no ties to any man.

  Chapter Five

  “YOU’LL GET YOURSELF into trouble, so you will.” Franx glared at me over the cocktail glass rim. We were secluded in an anti-grav booth hovering high over the dance floor, one of hundreds firing neon lights to the hardcore clubbers below.

  “Please.” I laughed at him, “I live for this kind of trouble.”

  “I don’t trust him, Ales. And I don’t think you do either.” I took a long sip of my Lactarian malt. It was the cheapest they had but still better than the sickly sweet luminous syrup
Franx liked so much.

  “At least working for Javer, I won’t be stuck on this shit hole,” I replied, peering down from our floating perch, taking in the sweaty patchwork of naked torsos below.

  “If you think there’s something more interesting in the Verge than Targuline, then you’re wasting your time,” Franx said, burrowing his face in the cocktail glass. He’d been pissed ever since I told him I was leaving Galactic Shipping. He saw it as leaving him.

  “Come on, Franx. We’re here to celebrate. It’s our last night. Let’s go have fun.”

  He glared at me, but soon enough, that glare turned to a smirk, and then a smile. “Fine.” He fake-huffed. “Let’s go, though, before this lot hit the place.” Franx gestured with his drink to the dancing muscle men below us, spilling a dollop over the side of his glass. “I’ll never get any if that’s the competition.”

  The sex palace we went to wasn’t the best on Targuline nor the biggest nor even the busiest, but it was the right one for us. After we’d stripped off, the locked metal boxes to pack our clothes in also delivered a couple of vials of bright blue magic.

  “I don’t want it yet,” I whispered to Franx in the changing area. “Let’s go see what’s going on first.” Some palaces overflowed with waterfalls and hidden pools, soft lighting and mazes to explore. This one simply had a long dark corridor with nooks and crannies, leading to a large room, open but still dark, dotted with raised platforms and floating blue lights. People didn’t come to this place to relax. They came to take Kri and fuck.

  We crept along the corridor. Franx’s naked body pressed against mine. We wanted to stick together, at least for now. Loud moaning and sounds of fucking came from all over. The place was busy. Hands reached out from the darkness, trying to drag us in, but we pushed through the invisible bodies. The smell of men and sex guided us.

  I was glad to see even the faint blue lights floating in the main room. They gravitated toward the action. There were at least three groups of four or more men enthralled in each other. Touching, kissing, and fucking.

  “Come,” I whispered to Franx. I led us away from the frantic activity to a quieter side and a raised platform big enough for the two of us. “Here’s good. We’ll get all the action.” He smiled through the darkness. I knew how he felt right now. Excited, horny, nervous, ready for the night ahead. Like him, I would miss this. I would miss him.

  We opened our palms and the blue vials of Kri shone brighter than the floating lamps. We pulled off the needle caps at the same time. Putting out our arms beside each other, we used the glow from each other’s vial to find a vein.

  “One…two…three,” we whispered together, then pushed the drug into our bodies. It soaked into our bloodstreams, and our minds clouded with the desire for only one thing.

  “I’ll always have your back,” Franx said into my ear before he climbed onto the platform on his hands and knees. I followed, the opposite way. We gave each other a good-luck kiss on the ass cheek, as the men and the floating blue lights came our way.

  “WARNING, WARNING.”

  I woke with a snap. My captain’s chair returned to upright as I yanked my feet from the control panel.

  “Warning, warning. Planet approaching. Planet approaching,” the ship’s computer chimed again. I called her Miri, after the first four digits of her serial code. She spoke in my native language, Tevian. In fact, the whole ship’s controls spoke in Tevian. Being the only one left in the galaxy who could still speak it, and therefore control the ship, well, it was pretty useful for a smuggler.

  “Okay, okay, got it. Thank you, Miri.” I tried not to let her realize how pissed I still felt after wasting all that time with Franx and his stupid sexy boyfriend.

  “Any time, Ales. I know how busy you can get.”

  Sometimes, I wondered if she monitored my dreams. In fact, I’d bet on it, the slut.

  Jansen drifted into existence on the viewscreen, an orb of blue and white. This place would be cold. We were still an hour out. It really was the end of the galaxy. The slipstream had dissipated hours ago. If dark matter was the ethereal structure holding the universe and all its bits together, like a skeleton, then dark energy was the stuff that made it move, like blood through a body. Dark energy ran along those cosmic spines, creating the slipstreams that crisscrossed the galaxy and allowed us to travel and trade across the vastness of space.

  There was nothing after Jansen we could get to, though. No slipstreams had yet been discovered that led outside the galaxy’s structure, although many an explorer had disappeared trying to find one. The great empty distances of extragalactic space were too much of a barrier for any conventional technology. MAST drives needed proximity to stars to generate thrust, using the cosmic radiation to speed between massive bodies. So they only worked inside the ecosystems of the galaxy.

  In the distant past, civilizations had sent probes out beyond our galactic borders, most manned, some not, but none had ever been heard from again. No signal had yet been answered. We had no idea if there was life beyond our galaxy. Yet with enough strife and war going on inside it, few people really cared what might be going on out there. If there was life somewhere else, and I figured there must be, it was probably pretty similar to life here; nasty, brutish, and all too often, cut short.

  Miri gave me an onscreen rundown of the Jansen system. “The star’s a red dwarf, long burned out, but with enough residual nuclear energy to sustain a modicum of life in this resource-rich system,” she recited. “At least for the time being.”

  “No wonder there’s trouble,” I said to myself.

  “The system is composed of twenty bodies, all rocky, the products of frequent collisions from inside and outside the galaxy.”

  The ships of the blockade came into view. “But who the infinity is causing it?” I asked.

  Miri didn’t give an answer. “Jansen is the only inhabited planet. It supports permanent settlements and mining operations throughout the system under a theocratic administration headed by the high priest. Mining focuses on elements which are super rare farther inside the galaxy, but are in abundance here at its edge. Astro-geological analysis suggests this is left over from cosmic expansion or intergalactic asteroid strikes.”

  “Thanks for the history lesson, Miri.”

  I counted at least fifteen vessels in orbit around Jansen. Of varying sizes, from battlecruisers to atmospheric bombers. As well as dozens of single-person fighter ships darting about. Their hardware was by no means new, most of it likely rejects from outside the Verge, bought and refurbished, but it was still an armada to be reckoned with for a minnow like Jansen.

  “The fleet hails from the Union of the Outer Verge, Ales. They’ve laid siege to the planet, claiming the high priest Svandor is in breach of mining regulations. They’re demanding she secede control to the Union.”

  “The Union? Mining regulations? What the infinity, Miri. I’ve lived in this good-for-nothing Verge for six years. Ain’t heard of any damn mining regulations. Or Union. What do they think they’re doing?”

  “I don’t know, Ales, but they are asking us for a call sign.”

  I tapped on the comms unit and opened a link. “Uh yeah, this is Captain Ales of the transport vessel Loukas. I have a license to deliver medical supplies to Jansen on behalf of Javer’s Trading Company, based on Alverson moon in the Central system.”

  “Thank you, Captain. This is a restricted area. You’re going to have to turn around.”

  Miri kept quiet. Her AI knew from experience that someone telling me what to do, especially when they were wrong, was sure as stardust going to get me ready for a fight.

  “Listen up. I don’t know who you think you are, but there aren’t any restricted areas in the Verge. And unless you properly identify yourself…”

  In the background, voices mumbled and sounded like they were having a disagreement. I waited. A woman’s voice spoke next.

  “Captain Ales, this is Commander Zelo of the Union fleet, please state your bu
siness.”

  State my business? “Commander whatever, why don’t you start by telling me under whose authority you’re blocking access to a sovereign world? Have the rules changed and no one’s told me? And since when has anyone claimed jurisdiction to restrict the right to free movement and free trade in the Outer Verge?”

  She paused. I had her.

  “Captain, the Union is a private security company acting under the auspices of the Trades Council.”

  I blocked the comms for a moment. “The Union like who Boren was talking about?”

  “I don’t know who Boren is, Ales, but your other friend Ukko is employed by the Union as a security officer. You have not responded to his last message.”

  My heart jumped for a moment. Maybe Ukko was here, somewhere on this fleet, orbiting Jansen. Maybe he was watching me right now.

  “Sorry, Commander, I’m with you. Can you repeat that?”

  “Yes, Captain. The high priest of Jansen is harboring weaponized galinium in contravention of Trades Council resolution 3429. We have been instructed to remove Svandor and her government, and secure this dangerous material, by force if necessary.”

  “I see, and do those instructions also say to restrict the lawful delivery of medical supplies by ships with valid import licenses?”

  “No of course not.”

  “Miri, please send our valid import license across to the commander.”

  There was no way they could stop me. Not legally at least. Absolute freedom of movement was about the only thing the Outer Verge held sacrosanct. Although a worrying thought hit; they might not be so keen to let me leave again. There was little to stop Commander Zelo from shooting me out of the sky and calling it an accident.

  “Okay, Captain, that all seems to be in order. But be warned, you are advised to stay out of the way. If in twenty-four hours, Svandor has not surrendered the planet and turned over the weaponized galinium, there will be an invasion. Enjoy your stay.”