Founder's enigma

Chapter 1

Telaayah never ceased to be amazed at the vista displayed through the view screen in front of her. As a human who had grown up watching science fiction TV shows and movies, seeing the real deal was something else all together. The pure blackness of space was broken up the countless lights, some brighter than others of the countless stars that made up the universe, with the closest star growing ever larger in front of her and her last destination receding into that same blackness.

Moving from normal space or N-space as it was more commonly referred to and into theta space (or T-space) where the space/time continuum no longer applied to ships or anything within them (including organic beings) was just as dramatic regardless of the number of times she had already seen it. For the ship to enter T-space, it had to accelerate to enormous speeds, speeds which the all of the known technologically advanced alien species had yet to master without the aid of a star. The story or "breakthrough" went that some alien had decided to commit suicide by flying their ship into a star and so accelerated their ship to its maximum speed, only to have the ship continue to accelerate beyond that as the stars gravitational pull exerted its own force on the tiny ship. The result had been the would be suicide creating history by being the first ship to enter T-space. While the majority of the science was beyond Telaayah's ability she did understand from her time in high school that Einstein's theory of relativity was a universal law that could only be broken with the aid of a star. Once in T-space, the ship travelled in a bubble of its own time.

From the outside the ship would disappear next to one star and appear at another within seconds of each other making for instantaneous travel between the stars, while within the bubble time still flowed but at an accelerated rate. The greatest length of time that Telaayah had so far spent in T-space had been two weeks and each time she had entered T-space she was scared out of her wits by the sheer fact that she was flying directly towards a sun. That said transition into T-space was the smoothest part of the whole operation so far and now that the ship was safe from raiders and idiots who didn't know better.

Now the ship was safe in its very own bubble, Telaayah could finally change out of her gore covered body armour, have a soak in her decadent bath and try and figure what she was going to do about her unexpected passenger. Telaayah still marvelled at the wonder and splendour of the galactic society she had been thrust into and she wondered if maybe the other alien races were right in making Earth off limits. She was still trying to figure out why they had made Earth off limits, as far as she knew it was the only planet that had this restriction, furthermore, as far as she knew, she was the only free human in outer space.

Sure a handful of others had made it into outer space, but each one of those poor souls had done so as the result of illegal abductions, with the stolen humans being sold onto the galactic black market as slaves. Telaayah was anti-slavery, having growing up in some of the worst slums in third world countries and then fighting as a soldier in various parts of the middle east. Slavery was still a global concern even if the majority of people linked in to social media had no clue. And now Telaayah was the proud owner of her very own pleasure slave. Giving the ships co-ordinates a final check, Telaayah left the bridge and made her way along the gruesome corridors of her ship.

Apart from access ports or computer screens with associated data pads, the walls of her ship reminded her of the catacombs beneath Rome in Italy. She had visited the catacombs while on a trip with school and while the rest of the class had all freaked out about all of the skeletons, Telaayah had just found it interesting. Her ship on the other hand went beyond interesting, there were skeletons, skulls and bones from hundreds of different alien species, some of which were hideous and made Telaayah glad she had never met one in real life. The previous owners skull now took pride of place directly opposite the main entrance to the ship, a circumstance that made Telaayah both happy (because it meant she had survived) and bitterly sad at the same time as she had lost good friends to him, before she had been given the opportunity to avenge them.

As Telaayah walked the now familiar corridors on automatic, her mind wandered back to that fateful mission in the African country of Cameroon where she was given the opportunity of a lifetime along with what she had ended up paying to get it. That mission along with her squad would haunt her for the rest of her life (however long it might be), they had been deployed as a forward scout unit without any support into an area that had seen heavy poaching, their mission as outlined by VET-RANGERS's central command (with the express permission of the Cameroon Government) had been to hunt and execute the poachers. Telaayah, had be assigned to the commando unit, not because of her skill with weapons (which was formidable), or as an elite operator, but because she was fluent in a number of languages including; English, French and most recently Camfranglais which meant that she had become the go to person for everyone within the VET-RANGER's community currently working within Cameroon.

The operation had started off without any serious problems and it had started to look like the poachers had left the reserve. Then three days into their sweep, everything started to go seriously wrong. Firstly they lost their limited communications, followed shortly by the remainder of their electronics and then they had lost their first squad member. One minute they had be traversing a valley, the next their forward scout had simply ceased to exist from the middle of his chest down. The eerie thing had been the lack of sound as the attack took place. It had been so abrupt that the squad was frozen for a heartbeat and that's all it took for another member of the twelve man team to be taken out in a similar fashion.

The ambush hadn't been perfect, while the unit had been stunned by the loss of two members in rapid succession with a violence they were not normally accustomed too, they had started falling back towards the Rendezvous Point. The follow up attack didn't occur directly afterwards, but rather a few hours later. The first round missed Telaayah by a literal twist of fate, Telaayah stumbled on lose rocks, a combined result of fear and fatigue. The round that would have killed her in a similar manner to the two earlier members of the unit, clipped her shoulder as she fell. The burning sensation as the energy beam tore past her to explode on in the rocky gravel ahead of her didn't announce itself until she had been blown over backwards by the explosion.

Telaayah lay stunned on the ground, her ears ringing and her body aching from the explosive impact just in front of her. Giving herself a quick check to make sure she was still intact, Telaayah realised that she was partially trapped by gravel and rocks and covered in a fine layer of sand. It had seemed like time had stopped for her, everything was running in slow motion and her arm was hurting like a son of a bitch. Looking around she realised that the unit was only now reacting this attack, taking up defensive positions and laying suppressive fire in the direction they had been moving away from. It really must have been her lucky day in Hell, she was saved a second time when Richard's took the second round meant for her.

He had made it clear that he was really interested in her throughout her time in the unit and Telaayah had thought that there might have been a spark between them and had been looking forward to seeing where it might go, once the mission had been completed. It had been too much for Telaayah, lying there stunned and partially trapped, watching as Richard's sprinted towards her, one minute he had been there, the next she was covered in gore and bits of him, as the round that was meant for her hit him squarely in the back. As Richard's had almost been on top of her at the moment of impact the momentum of the projectile hitting Richard's body had propelled the remaining parts of his tattered remains with enough force to hit Telaayah. His M14A carbine clipped the side of her head, as she slipped into unconsciousness she had enough time to grasp that whatever had hit him was different from the previous attacks as she was covered in Richard's gory remains.

Telaayah had jolted awake hours later by a combination of the drop in temperature that indicated that night was on its way and the files that were crawling all over her. She tried to push the files away and that's when she realised she was still pinned under a weight. Lifting her head slightly she took in her surroundings, she now lay in a shallow depression surrounded by small rocks that were covered in flies as well as bits and pieces of discarded equipment. Looking down to see what was pinning her to the ground, she saw the lower half of Richard's body, all that remained of him pinning her to the ground, parts of his intestines lying over her chest. In that moment, everything came rushing back to her. As Telaayah pushed herself backwards and out from under the gory remains she became concious that the lumps of fly covered rocks were actually bits of Richard's.

Uncontrollably she vomited up the meagre bits of food and water that were all she had been able to eat as they retreated. Getting out from underneath Richard's remains, Telaayah realised that she was coated in blood and gore and that her clothes were stuck to her and were starting to hardened as the blood dried. In a moment of uncontrolled panic that wasn't normally like Telaayah, but fitting for this moment, she started stripping out of her clothing and didn't stop until she was completely naked. This had the effect of getting most of the flies to leave her alone, using some unblemished sand from nearby she was able to scour some of the dried blood off her arms and neck.

Telaayah had walked to the top of the ridge that the unit had been heading for when they had been ambushed and looked in the direction of the Rendezvous Point and in the distance she could see flashes as well as hear the distinct sound of automatic gun fire as it was carried on the cooling African desert winds. Gathering her thoughts Telaayah had gone back to where Richard's had saved her life by sacrificing his and started sorting through what remained of her meagre supplies. Looking at what she had, Telaayah was surprised to find an emergency homing beacon in Richard's gear.

The idea with the beacon was when activated, the beacon would bounce an emergency code off a satellite back to the unit's command centre which would then know they were in trouble as well as their exact co-ordinates as GPS co-ordinates were linked with the burst transmission. Telaayah, hadn't been able to bury Richard's remains as she didn't have the tools to do an adequate job, instead she had piled up all of the equipment that she couldn't use including his assault rifle and all of her clothes next to his body. The final step had been to booby trap his body by arming all of the grenades that they had both been carrying (somehow they hadn't detonated when he had been killed) and placing them under strategic bits of equipment and his body.

With that done she had gone about creating a hide in the side of the ravine about fifty metres away from where Richard's and the booby trap lap. Yet again Telaayah was glad her father an ex Australian SASR solider had taught her all the tricks of his trade. Her father had always wanted a son, but was extremely happy just to have her and a living reminder of his wife and her mother who had died in childbirth. With her place of concealment complete along with all of her stashed gear she made her way back over to the remains and activated the beacon, placing it on the ground next to one of the booby traps. Rushing back to her hide she concealed herself and waited to see who would come. Some might have called her paranoid, but she had always had a second sense about these things and knew when something was up. One of her friends going through military training with her had nicknamed it her spidey sense and while both had joked about it, it had saved Telaayah's life more than once.

The wait had been interminable and it was almost completely dark, Telaayah was drifting off to sleep yet again. With a start she woke herself as much as she could and went through the ritual of moving her toes and fingers, which was getting harder to do and a sure sign she was sliding into hypothermia. She was about to shake her head in self exasperation when all of a sudden the booby trap in front of her lit up the night sky. The concussive sound of the explosive was damped by the body that had been crouched over it and was now being thrown backwards through the air. Telaayah lay completely still and now fully awake, the body had not been visible seconds before the explosion and had literally appeared as it was thrown backwards to land on the ground unmoving. The inert body starting trying to move, but was clearly severely injured as it was dragging itself along the ground, Telaayah was impressed it was still alive considering the force of the explosion and how close it had been to the detonation of an M67 fragmentation grenade.

Pushing out of the sand that had hidden her from view Telaayah stalked towards the obviously wounded person trying to crawl away from the explosion. The adrenalin was coursing through her body, making it feel like everything was slowing down for the second time in less than twenty four hours and sprinting towards the downed enemy she became concious that she was charging butt naked with nothing but her Glock G18C Floral Patterned pistol in one hand and her Navita diving/combat knife in the other. Her assault rifle lay hidden in her hide along with the limited amount of food and water she had been able to scrounge up while the remnants of her first aid kit had been used to dress the burn that marked her arm for her first near death experience that day.

A manic laugh escaped her lips as she sped head onwards to what fate had install for her and in her headlong rush she almost tripped over a mesh bag. It was as she stumbled over it, that Telaayah realised that the bag was full of severed heads, in fact she knew each of those heads, for they belonged to all of the unit she had been sent on the mission with. While Telaayah had thought that seeing her friends severed heads would be the biggest shock, a bigger one was still to come. Having regained her balance, Telaayah had walked the rest of the distance to her deranged foe with a calmness she had never felt before. Upon reaching the still crawling foe, Telaayah was shocked to find that her foe wasn't a human poacher, but rather some alien species.

It was at least humanoid but at a good seven foot if not more it was far taller than Telaayah. Much of its body was exposed, the flesh a mottled grey colour. Its limited armour/clothing was restricted to a pair of boots, a loin cloth (that lay in shreds), an upper chest plate that covered the shoulders and wrist guards. There were smears of bright yellow blood all over its body and many of the wounds were still seeping. As she approached, it lifted one of its arms and tried to point it towards her and in a movement fuelled by both adrenalin and rage, Telaayah had raised her pistol faster than she had ever done before and snapped off a round that hit the alien right in the middle of its shoulder causing it to squeal as its arms dropped uselessly by its side.

As one arm was now out of action, it tried to drag itself along with just one arm and in a fit of anger, Telaayah fired a second round into the other shoulder essentially stopping its hopeless escape attempt. Taking in the whole scene, she recognised that it must have taken what amounted to lower spinal damage as both legs lay useless, as her eyes roamed upwards she noticed the number of wounds that still leaked blood and was glad that it was suffering pain considering what it had done to her and her friends.

Telaayah took its facial features properly in for the first time as she looked it in the eye and was repulsed by what she saw. It was longer than a human face, with a small mouth and what looked like it's nose was almost non-existent. Set above the almost nose was a pair of large oval shaped almost black eyes and a high sloping forehead. Framing it all was a mass of long black hair that had been tied into lots of small plaits, each adorned with small white beads. It watched her in fear as Telaayah stepped over its body so that she stood either side of its shoulder and looked down into that almost human face. It's high pitched squeals were cut short with an oomph as she dropped all of her weight onto its chest, which also had the effect of pinning it in place. Leaning forward, her naked breasts almost caressed its face as she gently placed her pistol on the ground next to its head.

The look of fear in its eyes was replaced with a look of questioning as it came to the realisation that she had placed the weapon which had caused it even more pain on the ground next to it. That look was quickly replaced with a look of surprise as Telaayah took her knife in both hands and rammed it into its throat. A gurgle was all that escaped as the blade cut deep, severing vocal chords. Telaayah worked in complete silence, with only a grunt escaping her lips as she tried to sever the spinal cord. With the grisly work completed Telaayah collapsed exhausted on top of the now headless body, the adrenalin had left her body part way through the grisly task and she had struggled to finish the job as her body protested the punishment she had put it through. The pervasive cold of an African night along with the physical punishment had finally gotten the better of her and she drifted off into unconsciousness. The last thing she saw as her eyes closed were more feet appear directly in front of her, clad in exactly the same boots as the cooling headless body she lay on top of.

---

Her reminiscing about that fateful night were brought up short when she reached the door to her rooms and palming her door open she walked inside, only to stop at the transformation of her main room. The room was only subtly different, the light colours that she had chosen to replace the dark brooding colours that Clovath had liked so much were still present as to where all of her furnishings. The differences were subtle and had more to do with slight movements in said furniture and the placements of objects, mainly trinkets that Telaayah had found interesting. Then there was the alien standing in the centre of the room facing towards her. As the door closed behind her, the alien dropped into what could only be described as a protestation, as it fell onto both knees and tilted its head downwards.

Telaayah, had been correct in assuming that her new companion/gift was indeed a member of the Vhelhase, the light blue tinge colouring of its skin giving away it's species. The Vhelhase were famous throughout all known space as the most heavily sought after sex/pleasure slaves and were seen as one of the most prestigious pieces of property that anyone could own. As it regained its balance and righted itself, Telaayah realised that the almost translucent robe it wore revealed more than it covered and her eyes roamed over its body quickly before being drawn back to its breasts. Telaayah was intrigued by the whole package standing before her, they were almost of even height but where Telaayah was muscular and well defined, the female in front of her was lithe, a fact that made Telaayah slightly jealous, as it was the sort of body that models and actresses worked hard for and one that Telaayah would never have. The alien had its hair done in an intricate set of braids that were piled up at the back of its head leaving its long sinuous neck exposed, its eyes were slanted almost like those of an Asian human but the eyes themselves were made of a multitude of yellows that somehow helped accentuate the high cheek bones. The nose and lips that made up the other features of its face were perfect, looking at that face, Telaayah came to the conclusion that she was in the presence of perhaps the most beautiful woman that she had even seen (of any race) in her entirely too short life.

While the face was breath taking in its beauty, that was not what had captivated Telaayah's attention. As her eyes roamed over the body in front of her, Telaayah recognised that the robe was not designed for modesty, but rather to accentuate the sexuality of the woman in front of her. The translucent material highlighted the largest difference between Telaayah as a human female and the alien female specimen in front of her, for where Telaayah had a pair of very nice breasts (as far as she and all of her lovers were concerned), the blue skinned woman in front of her had three perfectly shaped small breasts, in the centre of each breast was a dark blue erect nipple each of which had a rare metal ring pierced horizontally through it. While her eyes kept returning to the three breasts a bit like a person driving past an accident will always slow down to look, it didn't stop Telaayah from completing her once over observation of this intrusive alien. Telaayah, noted that like its breasts which were very clearly obvious, so to was its pubic region, which was clearly on display and Telaayah assumed available for her immediate use if she so choose to take advantage of the situation.

Something that she was sure Clovath would have done had he still be alive and taken possession of the alien in front of her. Luckily for the alien, Telaayah wasn't interested in females. Completing her detailed once over, Telaayah noted two other interesting titbits, that the alien had the longest legs she had ever seen on a woman, again where they would have seen odd and out of proportion on a human they suited the woman standing in front of her. The second titbit, was that the alien in front of her had small scales that formed mesmerising patterns over her body. The scales formed an arrow like pattern where pubic hair would be on a human, but were more intricate curling up around her hips, running up the sides of her torso and wrapping around and under those three perfectly formed breasts.

In a musical voice that seemed to float on the air as the words were spoken aloud, her guest with a smile on her face uttered her first words "three tits, awesome!" and then started laughing as Telaayah looked quickly back at the alien's face and blushed a bright red at having been caught staring at the other woman's breasts. "Sorry that was my dark humour and my love of earth comedy shining through, I'm hoping that you have seen the movie 'Paul'?" She smiled as she looked at Telaayah, which helped ease the crimson that had shaded Telaayah's skin at having been caught staring. As the alien glided elegantly towards Telaayah, a small smile spread across her face as she spoke again. "Where are my manners, I am called Sephrim, how may I provide pleasure for you?"

The combination of self assuredness that Sephrim exuded along with the look in her eye, caused Telaayah to do something she had not done in a long time, she took a step backwards. In fact Telaayah couldn't remember the last time that she had felt this intimidated by another person. Telaayah was pulled up short in her step backwards when her body came up hard against the closed bulkhead door to her rooms. Sephrim continued to glide forwards until they were almost touching, gave a sniff and wrinkled (what Telaayah hoped was its nose) and made a Tisk sound in its throat. Taking a step backwards, Sephrim looked Telaayah up and down, noticing the blood and gore that had dried on the glossy black armour that covered almost all of Telaayah's body. The fact that the armour was black and glossy helped conceal most of the gore that was a result of Telaayah having to fight through the numerous ambushes that had been purposefully setup in her path as she had made her way towards the meet to collect payment for the job that Clovath had accepted and that she had to complete when she took his life and replaced him within the clan.

Having looked Telaayah over once, Sephrim once more stepped forwards and this time she helped undo the concealed latches and catches that held the plates to the supple cloth under armour that covered all of Telaayah's body. Disconcerted, Telaayah stood there and allowed Sephrim to continue to strip off each individual armour plate while she tried to understand how Sephrim had figured out how it was all attached and let alone how it came off, just by looking at it once. Telaayah was so caught up in the moment, that she didn't realise that all of the armour had all been removed, piled up neatly next to her and that Sephrim was now crouched in front of her and was undoing the latches of her boots. In an unprecedented case of clumsiness, Telaayah stumbled forwards out of her boots and ended tangled up with Sephrim in the lush carpet that she had had installed when she took control of the ship. Telaayah attributed her clumsiness to the fact that she was essentially being undressed and administered to by a sex slave, which pushed all of her buttons, considering her family's history. Sephrim just lay underneath the struggling Telaayah and waited for her new master to get herself untangled, knowing that if she helped it would only make matters worse.

Luckily for both of the women, the cloth under armour was mostly clean and what blood was soaked into it, was now completely dry, the downside thought was that Telaayah still smelt worse than out outdoor toilet. As Telaayah got herself disentangled and moved backwards away from Sephrim, Sephrim noted the raw power and the severe power that emanated from the human in front of her. The lightly tanned skin and short cropped red hair only helped to accentuate the true beauty that were her eyes. They were the deepest and most amazing shades of blue. In fact, looking into Telaayah's eyes was like looking into a pool of clear blue water and seeing every shade of blue possible. If they human's saying that the eyes were the gateway to a person's soul was true, then Sephrim was in big trouble for she could foresee herself drowning in those eyes for all time and most frightening of all was the fact that she knew she would enjoy doing so. Giving herself a small shake of the head to clear her thought's, Sephrim slowly stood up, turned around and started walking towards one of the recessed doors that lead off the main room. Sephrim needed to put space between herself and the human (who truly was an enigma) in an attempt to help clear her head. If she didn't then the whole mission could be jeopardised and that could not be allowed to pass.

Telaayah watched as the blue skinned alien glided gracefully towards the door that lead to her bathroom, so caught up in her own thoughts that she barely registered the words "I will draw you a bath to soak in and relax, come in when you are ready" that drifted towards her over Sephrim's shoulder as she glided away. Once Sephrim had passed through the portal and the door slid closed behind her, Telaayah was finally and blessedly alone in her rooms. Shaking her head to clear out the cobwebs she felt were blinding her senses, she picked up her armour and carried it over to the receptacle in the wall designed for the sole purpose of cleaning and repairing it after use. That done, she stripped out of her cloth under armour layers as well as her underwear leaving her completely naked. Feeling slightly vulnerable and self conscious about being naked for the first time since she had gone off to boot camp when she had joined the military, Telaayah moved briskly across to where her cupboards were and removed a white kimono made from a silk like compound and slipped hurriedly into. Feeling slightly better and more comfortable, she picked up her dirty clothing and carried it over to the bio-reclamation chute.

One good thing about all the alien tech on this ship was the ability to replicate any sort of clothing she wanted, which meant that she never had to do laundry ever again. Sure there had been some mishaps getting used to it, but the kimono she now wore was physical proof that she had mastered it. Shoving all of her soiled clothing into the replicator she closed the latch and hit the button that would break it down into its component atoms and store them for the next set of commands within the vast storage tanks housed in another part of the ship. This included adding all of the organic material that had attached itself to her clothing during the course of her most recent adventure.

Shaking her head, Telaayah knew when she was procrastinating and decided that it was time to 'women up' as she was fond of saying and walked into her bathroom suite. Unlike her other rooms, the large bathroom suite hadn't changed much since she had become the new owner. In the very centre of the room was a large bath tub capable of hosting a small party. The bath was raised out of the floor with two steps that completely circled it. Telaayah had changed simply changed the toilet facilities to cope with the differences in anatomy between herself and Clovath's obviously alien physiology, added a shower (in one corner) for when she needed a quick clean and changed the god awful colour scheme from black to white. Stepping through the threshold, Telaayah noted that the bath was full of steaming water that shimmered with obvious additives. Telaayah was completely oblivious to Sephrim as she approached her, the warmer environment along with the heady aroma's rising off the surface of the water helping to numb and relax Telaayah's body as well as her brain. Sephrim slowly undid the sash that held the kimono closed at the front and then gradually peeled it off her shoulders until it pooled at Telaayah's feet. This was Sephrim's first look at Telaayah's naked body and she was delighted and yet horrified at what she saw.

Telaayah's body was the perfect example of what a well honed fighter's body should look like, it was trim and taught without an ounce of fat ruining the perfect plains. The muscles were well defined, yet at the same time Telaayah's femininity was still present. While there were only two breasts (a shock Sephrim knew was coming), they were perfectly formed, if somewhat larger when compared to hers and where Sephrim was completely hairless, Telaayah had a small strip of curly red hair in a neat line running down the middle of her groin which acted as a beacon highlighting her sex.

All of this aroused and pleased Sephrim, as did the number of tattoos that covered Telaayah's body. Telaayah's left arm was covered from wrist to shoulder in a floral pattern, that was truly amazing to look at, the artist had done a truly spectacular job of the tattoo, the colours were bright and vibrant and it was possible to get lost in the detail that had been added. While the arm was riot of colourful flowers with small animals hidden amongst them, what really grabbed Sephrim's attention was the tattoo of the large feline that appeared to be climbing down Telaayah's body. The cats tail curled around the top of the shoulder and her neck, while the actual cat itself moved diagonally down her back to cross over her hip, with one of its outstretched paws moving down her leg. The feline actually appeared to ripple and move over her skin as Telaayah was lead to the bath, again a sign of an exceptional artist.

Finally on the opposite thigh to the felines head and paw, were a series of names all inscribed in plain black ink. The tattoo's and the body which had acted as the canvas for them were all beauty as far as Sephrim was concerned. The thing that appalled her, were the obvious wounds that marred the perfectly smooth skin. These scars were obvious signs that Telaayah was a warrior and that she knew how to fight and while the scars themselves did not cause Sephrim distress (well much distress), it was the number of scars that suggested life threatening injuries that horrified her.

While Telaayah was aware of the scrutiny directed towards her naked body by Sephrim, she wasn't able to build up any sort of fight or indignation at the way she was being studied by the blue skinned alien. The soporifics that Sephrim had added to the bath water were doing their job exactly as planned, relaxing muscles throughout Telaayah's body as well as reducing Telaayah's natural animosity towards someone she barely knew. Before she could comprehend what was happening Sephrim had taken her by the hands and lead her up and into the bath. She stood with the water lapping around her legs at mid thigh height, the warmth of the water sucking the remaining strength from her legs, Telaayah slowly sank down until her whole body bar her head was submerged in the glorious strength sucking warmth. Sephrim moved around and behind Telaayah, slowly sliding into the water until she filled the space between Telaayah and the wall of the bath.

Unhurriedly and with skilled hands, Sephrim worked at easing the knots and tension bound up in Telaayah's neck and scalp. It wasn't long before Telaayah fell asleep a combination of the warmth, the careful ministrations of Sephrim's hands and the soporifics that had purposefully been used for this exact situation. As Telaayah slept, Sephrim had taken more of her weight to stop her from drowning and continued to enjoy the feel of flesh against her body. Looking over Telaayah's shoulder, she was deeply excited and couldn't help but stare at the tops of Telaayah's breasts which poked out of the water, the nipples hardening from the change in temperature.

Sephrim lost herself to the sensations of holding another in such an intimate way without there being any need to go further, a small smile lifted the sides of her mouth as she imagined the two of them together and she wouldn't have been Vhelhase if she couldn't admit to looking forward to the opportunity.

Telaayah was surprised when she was she was lifted out of the bath by Sephrim and gently carried back into her bedroom still dripping as they went. Once back in the bedroom, Sephrim gently placed her on the couch that sat recessed against one of the walls, before proceeding to softly rub Telaayah dry with one of the towels that had been waiting for them. Sephrim dried herself off in front of Telaayah, making a spectacle out of the whole affair with a second towel that had been stacked with the first. Telaayah, still feeling the effects of the bath along with the head and shoulder massage watched in a detached state as someone else dried her and then dried themselves in front of her.

Now both dry Sephrim picked Telaayah up effortlessly and carried her over to the large bed which dominated the centre of the room and lay her gently face down on the mattress. Sephrim knelt with one leg either side of Telaayah's body and started to gently massage her upper back, soon enough, While Sephrim was lightly tracing the tattoo of the feline predator that traversed across Telaayah's back she listened to the slow and light breathing which signalled that her new owner was deeply asleep. Happy with a job well done, Sephrim dimmed the lights and crawled into the bed and snuggled up against the warm body of the person who she hoped would help deliver them from the coming evil.

Chapter 2

In a species that were perpetually angry and never happy, Vlor-cthch was the apex representation of what his species was going to become. While Vlor-cthch (like his species) was considered a myth or a legend within the wider galactic community, those that knew of both him and his species still feared him the most. His rages were legendary amongst that small clique and so it came as no surprise when Mang Detsorld walked into Vlor-cthch's private chambers and found the remains of the courier as well as the two serving staff as nothing more than small piles of organic matter strewn around the room, along with three very large messy patches of blood where each of them had met their rather untimely and gruesome deaths. As the public face of Vlor-cthch's empire, Mang knew that theoretically he was too important for Vlor-cthch to kill when he was given bad news but a large streak of cunning practicality and self serving interest always made Mang get someone else to deliver the bad news in person. Mang was also adept at making sure that the person delivering the news was either someone that Mang disliked immensely or someone that he felt was a treat to his own power base. While Mang waited for Vlor-cthch to calm down enough to realize that he was no longer alone, Mang took in the state of the damages and started tallying up the costs to get it all repaired. Where others might complain about having to undertake such a menial job, Mang relished the opportunity, taking it as a challenge to outdo his last makeover, that said, having to do it three times over the past week was maybe pushing things beyond even his tolerance levels.

Realizing that it was no longer alone, Vlor-cthch turned it's beady red eyes on its underling. Vlor-cthch knew what Mang was doing, feeding him enemies and threats to his powerbase and was enjoying the game. But like all games that Vlor-cthch played it knew that the outcome was inevitable and that one day it would savor the utter destruction of the inconsequential being who thought it was smarter than it and would get to watch the dawning horror in its eyes as it realized that it had been dealt a losing hand from the very beginning. At the moment however, Mang was too important to kill and so Vlor-cthch used its limited powers of self control to reign in its temper long enough to start getting contingency plans rolling.

The high pitched voice that assaulted Mang's ears was in start opposition to the grotesquely corpulent body that belonged to Vlor-cthch, yet somehow when combined with the small beady red eyes suited the overall package. And that package was now directing all of its focused anger and rage directly at Mang, and Mang started to feel dread as that voice washed over him. Firstly there was the issue of Clovath being killed on Earth, what was the frecking fool thinking stopping to hunt members of the Enigma species for his personal trophy rack, although it was kind of ironic that he had been killed by an enigma he was hunting. It just goes to show you should never get too close to the ones you hunt, in fact as far as Mang was concerned it's always far better to sit back and let someone else do the hunting in the first place.

The elaborate ambushes that Mang had set up for when Clovath went to collect his payment for the contract should have worked, and had they worked as intended then a neat little war would have erupted between the Hunter Clan and Vesoig Cartel. It would have been a fitting way to divert attention away from the master plan and would have allowed him and therefore Vlor-cthch the opportunity to move on the Vesoig's home planet and be seen as the voice of moderation. Instead Clovath gets killed by a mere female of the Enigma species who then beyond all belief manages to kill all of those damn mercenaries that Mang had paid good creds for. If that wasn't enough, somehow Vlor-cthch's newest acquisition a Vhelhase pleasure (what an asexual organism like Vlor-cthch needs one for in the first place) manages to override all of the security systems and hitch a ride out with same damn female.

The diatribe was interrupted sporadically as Vlor-cthch watched the replays of the female Enigma fight through the ambushes that had been set up originally for Clovath. Vlor-cthch always enjoyed when violence was being employed, even more so when it was the one instigating and meeting out that violence. That said it was in utter awe of the violence that was being unleashed in the clips being displayed on the screen in front of it. The black clad female killed with a precision and lack of flair that it found both deeply erotic and deeply upsetting at the same time. Here was a being that killed efficiently with a number of archaic looking weapons. It had started out killing with a largish looking archaic projectile weapon, but after it had run out of projectiles it had attached it to a clip on its back. The female had then utilized a much smaller projectile weapon it removed from the side of its leg amour which it had returned to the same location it had come from when it too had run out. Only after this point did the female Enigma switch to the weapons that made the Hunter Clan fearful in close quarters combat and it was only then that the mercenaries had stood a chance, having been prepared for those weapons from the beginning.

This was the part that Vlor-cthch enjoyed the most, watching the Enigma close with the mercenaries and then stumble in shock as the mercenaries shrugged off the blows from the more advanced weapons. Instead of counting its loses and retreating, the black clad Enigma closed the distance between itself and the attackers and drawing a pair of small dull colored blades went to work up close and personal. Watching the Enigma work its way through the hired muscle with a pair of small knives was mesmerizing to watch, in fact the more that Vlor-cthch watched, the more it realized that there was a pattern to the way in which it moved. Always moving in circles, gliding between and around opponents and where it went another mercenary dropped to the ground. It didn't all go the way of the Enigma though and in a number of instances Vlor-cthch watched as blows got through its defenses only to be turned away by the amour that it wore.

Vlor-cthch enjoyed watching the Enigma carve through the mercenaries, even knowing that it was only able to do so because of the imitations that had been placed on the mercenaries in terms of what weapons they could use, after all the whole point of it had been to make it look like a pay back by the Vesoig. It still wasn't happy that it had lost the creds that had been paid to the mercenaries in advance as well as the creds that the Enigma had picked up on behalf of the Hunter Clan, but what infuriated it the most was watching its most recent acquisition saunter off with the Enigma.

How in all that was holy had the Vhelhase whore managed to circumvent the security systems and get out of her rooms, let alone wander through that half of the station without being killed? Vlor-cthch had paid good creds and called in allot of favors to get its hand on a member of the Vhelhase and it had been anticipating the slow and torturous death that had been planned for it and now his property was with a member of the frecking Enigma race....Unfrecking believable.

Drawing it's attention away from the screens once more, it noticed that Mang stood waiting patiently for more instructions. Vlor-cthch felt its ire rising as it caught the smug look on Mang's face and in a temper it lashed out with its prehensile tail and smashed the plexus-glass cabinet that stood next to Mang. The smug look was instantly replaced with a look of fear in Mang's eyes which pleased Vlor-cthch no end and as Mang dropped to its knees to abase himself, Vlor-cthch squealed out "find out how my whore managed to escape, and find out where they are both going. I want my whore back and I would like to add an Enigma to my collection. Dismissed."