Chapter Five

Heading back to his ship, Keenan was reviewing the information that the Preacher had supplied to him. Some of it had been sent through, and Poly had archived it for future studies. Checking with Poly, he found out that his friend Bruno was still out.

"The lady out too," Poly reported in her cultured voice but short sentences. Although Keenan appreciated the beauty of the teacher they had picked up, he hoped he never saw her again. But as long as they were near his favorite bar, a bit of good whiskey with a chaser and perhaps the help of a pro would ease his body.

Jumping off the moving tram, Keenan made his way through the dirty streets with intermittent lights. The shops, bars, and sex shops put out more light than the lamps or handing lights.

Walking into the doors of the bar with thick smoke and the smell of unwashed bodies and urine, Keenan smiled. He decided it had the aroma of fucking welcome. This room was full of thieves, whores, and drunks, his kind of people. The people he had hidden among for years before that Elder bitch had drawn him back into Veldan's business.

But where one Elder had done what he expected and insulted him to try to use him, another Elder surprised him. Elder Mar of the Veldan council had given him information on who had killed Keenan's family. Now, before Keenan went out on the hunt, he needed to get into a card game, drink too much whiskey, and sink deep into a female. Looking around this large murky room, this was just the hellhole for all three needs to be satisfied.

Going to the bar, the woman behind nodded and soon sat a short whiskey and a tall cold beer in front of him. Turning and leaning against the bar, he looked at the two tables full of players after chasing the whiskey with a slug of the beer. Both were full, but he did see one that would soon have an opening, as a drunk was down to a small pile and betting like the world was ending soon.

The drunk had tapped out before Keenan was done with his beer, and the seat was empty. That didn't mean the man left without needing help. It seemed that drunks who lost all their money also brought out their stupidity. This one screamed that the entire bar had cheated him, and he threw a chair before a couple of big guys appeared to escort him out the front door. The three disappeared, things were straightened up, and the music got louder.

Picking up the tossed chair, Keenan brought it over to the game and took his place in the game. He played slow, drank the beer the bartender sent over, and relaxed. After a few hands, Keenan had a small pile built up in front of him, and at a wink to the bartender, he felt the warm hands of a female on his neck.

Glancing up, he was sorry that it wasn't his favorite whore Bettae, but that lady had been killed in her room near this bar. It was an unfortunate fact of life for most of the people who earned their coin servicing others. Yet Keenan trusted the bartender and believed she would only send over one of the top and clean pros.

Fuck, this woman was good, as she had her hand down below his belt before he could play his next hand.

"Sweetheart, hold on. I hate to make my cards dirty by squirting all over them." Everyone at the table laughed at his words as Keenan threw in his hand and stood up, pulling her hand out of his pants.

"Let's find some privacy to finish this, babe." He was halfway down the back hallway to the alley when he remembered the last time he was there. It had been with Bettae, and he was going to fuck the pro with full attention when it was interrupted. First, there had been some humans who thought they could steal his winnings, but that wasn't bad enough. He never did finish the good action of the warm mouth of Bettae on his cock, as there were some males from his homeworld of Veldan.

Fuck no; he wasn't going out to that alley again. Besides, he had a hard-on now that was hurting inside his tight pants. He pushed into the restroom door, and fortunately, it was empty, so with the pro inside with him, he leaned back against the door. It was hard to believe that this small room with broken urinals and stained washbowls smelled worse than the front bar room.

Still, the pro got his mind off everything as she pulled the contacts apart on his pants and had hot hands on the most important part demanding attention. From her hands to her mouth and he was in heaven, as he locked his legs and tossed his head back with eyes closed.

This lady was down on her knees with one hand on his thigh and the other cupping his balls, and she was good. He moved his hips forward just as Poly chirped in his ear.

"Captain, trouble."

"Right now, there is heaven." Keenan could feel that roar building that all males had a different name for as balls tightened and veins swelled.

"Captain, important." Now there was a shrill whistle in his ear that hurt.

Jerking, Keenan accidentally pushed the pro across the small room, and he put a hand to his neck, right below his ear. "What the fuck, Poly? That hurt. I was in the middle of something."

"Problem with lady. Bruno missing. Go to Sele's."

"One minute." The two words was a grunt as Keenan took his heavy member in his hand and pumped a couple of times. The release was so close; those two movements were all it took as thick liquid spilled out to mix with the other undetermined items on the sidewall. At least he turned enough to miss the pro, who was trying to get to her feet.

"What the hell, big guy. I was willing to do that for you myself." The pro was thinking she was saying goodbye to her fee.

Grabbing a paper towel from the machine on the wall, Keenan spoke softly. "Sorry, honey. Don't worry. You'll get your coin and a tip for the shove across the floor. My fucking crewmate called me in my ear at the wrong time. I have to find a way to turn the damn thing off."

Cleaned up and pants in place, Keenan got some real coin from a pocket and, after kissing the pro's hand, dropped them into it and left her in the ugly room. He didn't know why they used the ancient term 'restroom' on these smelly places. No one rested in the fucking places.

Speaking out loud to Poly, he needed information. "Where is Sele's?"

"Two alleys north. Big sign."

Jogging through the dark of Morgan's Point, every corner looked identical to the last one. Drunks asleep or pissing on a wall with paper floating past and dust kicking up everywhere so that you never knew where you were without the signs that glowed in businesses.

There were some bodies lying on the outside of the door, with a couple standing by them as Keenan approached the sign that announced he had reached Sele's.

"Problem?" Keenan pointed inside as he looked at what seemed to be what was left over from a bar fight.

"Over now." One of the standing guys announced. "You need to stay out."

"Not likely; I've a friend in there." Keenan gave one of the glares that let a touch of flame show in his eyes, and neither male seemed about to stop him. He entered through the door to see a crowd around something on the floor near the bar.

The room was in shambles, broken glass and furniture everywhere. A couple of workers were trying to pick up chairs and set things upright. People moved out of his way as he walked towards the bar, and there on the floor was Thea.

"Fuck." He knelt on one knee to be close to her face. This was bad as she was in a restraint net. He had only seen one of these wicked controllers used once before, as they were unusual and dangerous. The restraint was a product that looked like a net in dark brown fibers that wrapped around an object to hold a person in place. What made them dangerous was that when you moved, it just tightened. Any movement made it tighten, and he had heard rumors of restraint nets tightening on fighting people and killing them.

This was one smart lady, and as she had felt the net enclosing her, she had brought her hands up to form a small tent with her elbows and hands from her chest to her nose. She was taking small shallow breaths to not give signals to the net to tighten around her diaphragm. There was no panic in those pretty blue eyes, just anger.

Looking up at the bartender, Keenan just raised his eyebrows.

"There was a fight at a card table. There were six, and she was one. They lost." The man brought out a rag and began to rub the counter in front of him.

"So, this is how you treat the winners?" Keenan still spoke from his position of sitting down on one heel.

"They were regulars. I asked my bouncers to escort her out. The two guys lying outside the door are my guys."

Now Keenan understood the whole picture. Thea had been playing cards with locals and won too much coin. There were objections, and that meant there was a fight. Unfortunately, the locals underestimated the shapely woman, and she had kicked ass. But the bar owner's problem was that the female was traveling through, and what she spent was probably just some coin for one night.

On the other hand, locals came in often and spent their funds on each trip, helping the owner cover his overhead. The locals were important, so the bartender and the bouncers put the visitor out of the bar to please the defeated locals. Except Thea had resisted, and now she was in a mess, and Keenan needed to get her out of here and back to the Adamant.

There were a couple of ways that Keenan knew to get a person out of a restraint net without having it start to tighten. One was to cut the different loops carefully from the outside. You couldn't pull on the strings or slip anything under any one of the knots, so you had to cut from the top. The idea was to cut the thread and stop before you cut into the person. It was almost impossible.

The other way was to cover the person in water. Toss a couple of buckets of water on Thea, and the threads would pull loose. Unfortunately, they were on one of the driest planets in the colonized systems. Water was not found here in a natural form, so people were able to reside on this large rock because they mined the rock. Well, they mined special rocks deep inside the earth that could be crushed and produce water.

This was expensive and made water precious and of great value to those living here or running a business on Grey's Corp. Any water came from the rocks or was purchased from passing freighters. They were not going to waste two important buckets on a person involved in a bar fight.

Deciding he was not letting anyone get near Thea with a knife of any kind, he needed to get her back to the ship. They had plenty of water on board that they recycled. But looking at the damage in the room, this was going to cost.

Keenan looked around, standing up with his fists on his belt, one above his holster with that obvious gun. "I need a floating board. I'm taking my friend out of here."