Chapter 16

The crew assembled in the mess hall of the Stardust Drifter, each of them filtering in from different parts of the ship. Zlara had arrived back at the ship just minutes before the ninety-minute mark, slipping aboard with the quiet grace of a woman who had just sucked and fucked three powerful men and looked like she’d merely been out for a stroll. Clessa and Alexa had returned covered in dust and grease, Clessa buzzing with the kind of energy that only came from either a really good orgasm or a really good hack. Zynphoria materialized through the floor of the mess hall, her translucent form dimmer than usual. Kayden stood at the head of the table, Rina leaning against the wall behind him with her arms crossed, trying to look like her usual bored, unimpressed self but failing miserably. She caught him looking at her and quickly glanced away, the faintest hint of a blush visible on her cheekbones.

“Alright.” Kayden said. “Everyone’s back. Let’s go around the table. What did we find?” He looked at Ayumi. “Kid, you’re up first.” Ayumi sat cross-legged on her chair, her sheer micro-dress barely covering anything, her single eye bright with a mixture of accomplishment and residual discomfort from being back on the planet she’d escaped.

“I found the club I used to work at.” She began. “It’s called ‘Tiny Tit Temptations’. The bouncer, Franklyn, recognized me right away. He remembered the night I disappeared.” She paused, her cheeks colouring slightly. “He wanted something in exchange for information.”

“What kind of something?” Clessa asked, leaning forward with her chin in her hands.

“The kind where he picked me up like a doll and fucked me in the alley between his club and a place called ‘Cum Quarters’ while Rina watched.” Ayumi said it plainly, the way she said most things about her sexual past. “He’s huge, by the way. Like, legitimately the biggest cock I’ve ever taken, and I’ve taken a lot. It went past my belly button when he laid it on my stomach. He had to go slow or he would have split me in half.” She looked down at her own tiny frame as if still marvelling at the physics of it. “But he was always gentle with me, even back when I worked there. He’d take me into that same alley between his shifts, lift me up against the wall, and fuck me slow and deep until I came before he did. He was one of the only men on this planet who ever cared if I finished.” A small, complicated smile crossed her face. “He fucked me for about ten minutes. Rina watched the whole thing. He came inside me, a lot, like an obscene amount, it was leaking out of me for a solid minute afterward. But while he was inside me, I got him talking.”

“Multitasking.” Clessa said approvingly.

“He told me about a man everyone in the lower districts calls ‘The Shepherd.’ He’s a recruiter who works the clubs in the deeper parts of the city, always hunting for young girls. Most of the girls he takes come back eventually, but some of them, like me, just vanish. Franklyn said he’s seen The Shepherd thousands of times and that he was the last man I left with before I disappeared.” Ayumi looked at Kayden. “That was our lead. That’s the man who recruited me into the SGC.”

“She did great work.” Kayden said, smiling at her. “After Ayumi got the name, I needed to get it to Zlara since she was already embedded with some high rollers at The Obsidian Rose. She was ... already working them pretty hard when I found her.”

“How hard?” Clessa asked, her eyes gleaming.

“She was on her knees in a booth between two men, one of them had his cock in her mouth and the other had his fingers in her pussy.” Kayden said. “She’d been at it for about forty minutes by the time I got there. Three men. A human club owner named Harlan, a Vallorian investor named Greyn, and a younger guy named Dorian who works in what they called ‘talent acquisition.’”

“So how did you deliver the intel?” Rina asked from behind him, her voice carefully neutral despite knowing exactly how.

“I told them I wanted a turn with the Zorphan.” He said. “They said go ahead. Zlara played along, put on a show of being interested in the new arrival, got my cock out, started working me with her mouth, then she climbed on top and rode me in the booth while all three of them watched.” He cleared his throat. “While she was riding me, I whispered the name into her ear. She whispered back that Dorian, the talent scout, was the one to press. Then we ... finished. I left her with them to keep working.”

“You finished.” Rina repeated flatly from the wall. “Inside her?”

“Yes.” He said, not flinching from it. “It was part of the cover.”

“Just making sure everyone knows.” Rina stated, her golden eyes flicked to Zlara briefly, then back to the far wall.

“Moving on.” Kayden said. “Z, what did you find after I left?” Zlara sat at the table with her hands folded neatly, her aqua-silk dress reformed and pristine, her composure fully restored. If she had spent the last hour sexually servicing three strangers for information, there was no trace of it on her face. Only the faintest darkening of her cerulean skin around her neck, the ghost of a Zorphan blush that hadn’t fully faded, betrayed anything.

“After Kayden left, I continued to work the table.” She said, her voice measured and calm. “I focused my attention on Dorian. Harlan and Greyn were happy to drink and watch, so I positioned myself between Dorian’s legs and gave him my full attention. He’s a man who likes to talk about himself, especially when a woman is looking up at him with his cock in her mouth.” A thin smile crossed her lips. “I asked him about the talent pipeline on Sloo-gata. How the recruitment worked, where the best girls came from, who the major players were. He was very forthcoming. He told me about the various tiers of recruitment, from the amateur scouts working the lower districts all the way up to what he called the ‘institutional channels.’” She paused. “I then mentioned the name. The Shepherd. I asked if he’d heard of him, casually, as if it were just another piece of gossip.” The table went quiet.

“The reaction was immediate. Harlan and Greyn both went still. Dorian’s hand tightened in my hair. There was a silence that lasted approximately four seconds, which is significant when you are in the middle of performing oral sex on someone. Then Dorian laughed. He said, and I quote, ‘You’re looking at him, blue.’”

“He’s The Shepherd?” Ayumi whispered, her single eye going wide.

“He is The Shepherd.” Zlara confirmed. “He admitted it freely, almost proudly. He said the name started as a joke among the club owners because he ‘tends his flock’ in the lower districts and ‘leads the lambs’ to greener pastures. He views himself as a benefactor, not a predator. He believes he’s giving these girls a better life by placing them in higher-end venues. But when I pressed gently, asking about girls who never come back, his demeanour shifted. He said, and again I quote, ‘Some lambs get picked for a different flock. That’s above my pay grade.’ He would not elaborate further.”

“A different flock.” Kayden repeated. “The SGC.”

“That is my assessment.” Zlara nodded. “He feeds the pipeline. He finds the girls, evaluates them, and the ones who meet certain criteria get passed up the chain to the SGC. He may not even know the full extent of what happens to them after that. He’s a middleman.”

“Did you get anything else out of him?” Kayden asked.

“I got a date.” Zlara said. “After I finished with him, and I did finish with him thoroughly, he asked me to meet him in three hours at a private club on the upper east side of the crater called ‘The Gilded Cage.’ He said he wanted to introduce me to some associates who would, and I quote, ‘love a Zorphan with my particular set of skills.’ He believes I am a freelance escort looking for steady, high-paying work. I accepted.”

“You think these associates are SGC?” Rina asked.

“I think they are the next link in the chain.” Zlara said. “Dorian is the recruiter, but someone above him decides which girls go to the clubs and which girls go to the SGC. If I can get into that room, I may be able to identify who that someone is.”

“That’s dangerous, Z.” Kayden said.

“Everything we do is dangerous, Captain.” She replied with a serene smile. “I will be fine. I am quite good at it.”

“Alright.” Kayden turned to Clessa. “What did you and Alexa find?” Clessa practically launched out of her seat, her amber eyes blazing with the manic energy of a girl who had just spent ninety minutes doing the two of the things she loved most in the universe without an engine being involved: breaking into things and talking about breaking into things.

“Oh Captain, where do I even start, okay so first of all the network infrastructure on Sloo-gata is an absolute joke, I mean we’re talking pre-quantum encryption protocols with rotating keys that cycle every forty-five minutes which sounds impressive until you realize the key generation algorithm is based on a modified Fibonacci sequence that any first-year comp-sci student could crack in their sleep, so Alexa and I found the main data trunk behind Digital Desires, which by the way is not a club about digital anything it’s actually a very graphic live holo-sex performance venue that was projecting a full-sensory orgy right above our heads while I was elbow deep in their server rack which was incredibly distracting but I powered through, and Rusty actually helped by chewing through a cable housing that I couldn’t reach because my arms were too short, good boy, anyway we got into the spaceport docking logs and I pulled everything from the last sixty days and BOOM, there it was, the Obsidian Serpent, docked at Bay 7 eleven days ago, stayed for forty-two hours, departed with destination listed as ‘undisclosed’ which is suspicious as hell but also kind of standard for this planet since half the ships that dock here don’t want anyone knowing where they’re going.” She took a single, gasping breath.

“The fuel consumption data was interesting though because it didn’t match a long-range departure, Alexa ran the numbers and the amount of fuel they took on was only enough for a short-range trip which means they didn’t leave the system, but here’s where it gets frustrating.” Her face fell for the first time. “I tried to pull more from the Obsidian Serpent’s registered data, crew manifests, cargo logs, communication records, anything that might tell us where the SGC is actually based on this planet, and it was locked down. Not like Peptos 3 where someone half-assed a deletion and left fragments everywhere, and not like Rosalia where a friendly little robot just handed us everything on a data slate. This was military-grade encryption, Captain. Multi-layered, self-rewriting, with active countermeasure protocols that almost fried Alexa’s left hand when she tried a direct interface.” She held up her own hand as if it had been the one at risk. “Whoever set up their security on Sloo-gata is leagues above what they had on the other planets. They know this is their home turf, and they’ve locked it down accordingly. So we confirmed the ship was here, but we cannot pinpoint where the SGC operates from based on the ship’s data alone. We need another way in.”

“Thank you Clessa.” Kayden said into the brief silence that followed. “Alexa, anything to add?”

“Clessa’s summary is accurate, though delivered at approximately three hundred percent of the optimal information transfer rate.” Alexa stated. “I would add that during our time at the terminal, I conducted passive scans of all encrypted communication frequencies within range. I detected one recurring signal on a frequency that is not used by any known civilian or commercial communication protocol. It broadcasts in short, coded bursts every twelve minutes from a source somewhere in the northeastern quadrant of the crater. I was unable to decrypt the signal in the time available, but I have recorded seventeen bursts for later analysis. It may be SGC operational communications.”

“Good. Keep working on that.” Kayden said, then looked at the shimmering form hovering at the edge of the table. “Zynphoria?” The Phanso’s translucent form flickered, her usually serene expression carrying something he hadn’t seen on her before. Frustration.

“I have failed you, Captain.” She said, her voice a soft, mournful chime. “I entered the city with every intention of drifting through walls, through offices, through every hidden corner of this dark place. But when I approached the first establishment, I encountered something I have never experienced before. A barrier. Not a physical one, but an energy field woven into the walls of every club, every lounge, every building I attempted to enter. It repelled me, pushed me back like a hand pressing against my chest.”

“A Phanso barrier.” Alexa stated. “I have read about them in advanced mechanical databases. They are rare and expensive energy fields specifically designed to prevent spectral, ethereal, or phase-shifted entities from passing through solid matter. They were originally developed to prevent corporate espionage by Phanso intelligence operatives.”

“Whoever runs this city knew that ghosts might come snooping.” Rina said.

“It would appear so.” Zynphoria’s form dimmed with what could only be described as shame. “I spent the entire ninety minutes attempting to find a gap, a weak point, any opening in the barrier network. There were none. Every building in the city is shielded. I could move through the streets, observe from outside, but I could not enter a single structure.” Her voice dropped to barely a whisper. “I am useless here. Perhaps on the next excursion, it would be better if I remained on the ship. I do not wish to be a burden.”

“No.” Kayden said firmly. “You’re coming with us.” Zynphoria’s form brightened slightly, her translucent eyes finding his.

“But Captain, I cannot...”

“You can observe the streets, watch the alleyways, track people moving between buildings, follow anyone suspicious without being seen by anyone who isn’t a Phanso. Just because you can’t walk through walls here doesn’t mean you’re useless. You’re still invisible to ninety-nine percent of the population of this planet. That’s an asset. You’re coming. End of discussion.”

“Thank you, Captain.” Zynphoria whispered, her form shimmering with what could only be gratitude. “I will not disappoint you again.”

“You didn’t disappoint me the first time.” He said. “Knowing about the barrier is valuable intelligence in itself. It tells us the people running this city are serious, well-funded, and paranoid. That’s good information.” He looked around the table at his crew. Ayumi, small and scarred and brave beyond her years. Clessa, vibrating with restless genius. Zlara, serene and sacrificial. Alexa, clinical and unwavering. Zynphoria, ethereal and determined. And behind him, leaning against the wall, Rina. His pilot. His challenge. His choice.