Calley's Chrysalis

(Note #1: All comments and constructive criticisms are welcome and appreciated. If you wish for a response but don't want your name appearing in the comments everyone can see, feel free to e-mail me through my profile.

Note #2: Those of you wishing for a quick story to wank to will want to look elsewhere. Although there are a few nude scenes described in some chapters, the intercourse only starts in the next chapter.

Note #3: And finally, thanks to volunteer Literotica editor TheNyxianLily for her help with editing.)

"I've told you I was chased by bounty hunters after I fled Bellixa," Alezanna commenced. "Well, I didn't tell you what happened when they caught up to me. The first time was a few cycles after I'd left. At the time, I didn't know the family was after me, so I wasn't taking any great pains to hide who I was. He was young, not a Bellixan. Just a bond tracker in his early twenties, looking to make a name for himself. He caught up to me in a boarding house on Jorst and informed me he was going to take me home. I acted like I wasn't too upset, a misbehaving adolescent who'd broken curfew and was ready to accept her punishment. He fell for the act and it was easy to seduce him from there. After I let him enjoy himself with me, he fell asleep, I put my clothes back on and left. Never saw him again. He may not have gotten the two thousand star credits, but I wouldn't say he got nothing out of our encounter."

"Did you leave the planet after?" Calley asked her.

"On the first transport I could find. Probably off-planet by the time he woke up. I looked up the bounty listings and found myself listed there with what I was worth. I was a little insulted at the low amount. I've known men who'd pay twice that just to touch my legs, let alone restrain me. But two thousand star credits was enough to be an inconvenience for me. I wanted to lose myself somewhere where there were more Bellixans, but there weren't a lot of options. My people don't normally travel that far beyond the central core of the galaxy. So I decided to go so far out that the price of bringing me back would be prohibitive. I also tried to keep a lower profile than I was used to, but that didn't always work out so well."

"I can't imagine you wearing a store-bought dress."

"I never have and I never will. So I was never that good at blending in. But for a while, keeping far away seemed to be working. I drifted from one place to another without too much trouble and figured no one would want the bother of taking me in for a measly two thousand. Unfortunately, it never occurred to me that the reward for my capture would be increased. But it was. High enough to attract more professional bounty hunters. One of them caught up to me while I was on Flamind. You ever hear of that one?"

"Sure, the planet of ten thousand islands," Calley remembered. "Mild tides, great weather, resort planet. I stopped there a few times when I worked on starliners. Never saw the outside though."

"That's a shame, as it's very nice," the Bellixan continued. "I was working as a hostess at one of the smaller resorts. Turned out its distance from the spaceport is what saved me. If you'd been outside, you'd know all those islands are connected by bridges and highways. Driving to the resorts that are further out is cheaper than flying there and you can see some wonderful sunsets along the way. You could even rent a gravmobile and drive all the way around the planet if you had a few weeks to spare. Well, the bounty hunter that found and kidnapped me was driving us to the spaceport to take me back to my planet. But she underestimated how desperate I was to escape and it cost her the bounty, which had risen to fifteen thousand by then."

"Wow!" Calley said in amazement. "So how'd you get away?"

"She had me in the back seat, my hands mag-cuffed behind my back. As we were driving on a bridge between islands, I quickly wrapped my legs around her neck and jerked her sideways. She jerked the steering control the same way and we went over the side of the bridge. I gambled that the gravmobile's safety mechanisms would dull the impact and they did, though the fall shook us both up. We took on a little water before the gravmobile generated a force field that kept us afloat. I was able to get my cuffs in the salt water to short them out, which was good because the bounty hunter had recovered. We were too close for her to stun me with her pistol so she tried to sedate me with a syringe of something. We were still fighting each other as the local authorities tractored us out of the water and separated us."

"What did you tell them?"

"The truth. That she was a bounty hunter and I was her prey. She was registered as such with the Mercenaries' guild so there was no point in her denying it. But I was wanted on a private matter, not criminal charges. Therefore the authorities had no reason to let her take me, and they didn't. I was unbound when they found us so unbound I was allowed to remain. They deported us both, but I was allowed to go back to the resort to get my things, so we went on different ships, which suited me fine."

"Not every planet would see it that way," Calley pointed out.

"Oh I know," Alezanna agreed. "In some places, the lawmen would have let her have me. Or turned me in themselves. She did try to bribe the constables who questioned us, to no avail. The more established planets take a dim view of bounty hunting. It's like when a slave kills its owner. If the planet they do it on doesn't condone slavery, the law tends to look the other way."

"Lucky for you, you were on a nice planet like that."

"Yes. And the next time after that. That one, there's not much to talk about. I was worth forty thousand star credits by then. I'd stayed in one place too long and was attacked in the street one night. He fired a stunbolt at me but missed. I ran into the alleys and he chased me. After I turned a corner I had my daggers out. He avoided my charge and took me on with two retractable batons. He was good, better than he was with a gun. But he was trying to take me alive and I was under no such restrictions. I cut his throat and left him there. I told the authorities what I'd done, why I'd done it and let them make their inquiries. That time, they didn't deport me, but I left the planet anyway. Not before I sent a one-way message to my family though, to tell them that I'd kill anyone else they cared to send. I also said family honour wasn't worth the blood and starcred. Unfortunately, I didn't know I was sending the message to the wrong family."

"What?" asked a confused Calley.

"While my family had posted the original bounty notice, it was my fiancé's that kept increasing what it was worth."

"Fiancé?" the younger spacer inquired. "Wait a second. Back up. When did you get engaged?"

"It was an arranged marriage," Alezanna explained. "A deal made between my family and the Gossah, a very old political dynasty on Bellixa. Very influential. We were both still infants when I was betrothed to him and we didn't meet until I was nearly twenty. I loathed him on sight. Anatule was everything I hated about Bellixan society rolled into one man. Our meeting was made all the worse by his attitude towards me. My distaste for highborn culture was well-known by that time. Well, he was not impressed by it in any way and informed me I'd be a quiet and dutiful wife once we were joined together. I told him I'd rather mate with a Gildorian slimebeast. Our interactions got worse after that. We met a few more times over the cycles and our relationship never improved. Honestly, I thought he would have been happy to be rid of me after my departure, but I was wrong."

"Wait a minute, I'm getting a little lost here. This Anatule guy and you hated each other. But he still wanted to marry you so much he was offering forty thousand star credits to anybody who could catch you?"

"One hundred thousand. By the last time I was caught, I was worth one hundred thousand star credits to him. Or to his family maybe. When I was finally captured and he confronted me, he made it clear that his pursuit was motivated by family pride more than any interest in me personally. As far as he was concerned, I'd become his property as soon as I was promised to him. And the Gossah don't give up what's theirs without a fight. It's their family's motto. Or, well, something close to it. It sounds a lot better in my native language."

"So you were caught and brought all the way back to Bellixa? When was this?"

"About six cycles ago. But it all happened on Halaak, a little speck of an arboreal planet. I'd been on the Ravenfang about two cycles or so by then. Still sleeping on a cot in the barracks. I didn't leave the ship too often when we visited civilized ports out of fear I'd be seen. But sometimes I'd need specific parts for the reactor and I couldn't ask Sal or Goppu to go get them. And sometimes I went out because I just needed to socialize. Sal and I had become friends by that point but not much else. To be honest, sometimes I needed to find some local to spend the night with. I thought there was no way anyone could catch up to me when I was only spending a day or two in any one place. But that's exactly what happened. Anatule had hired one of the best trackers on Bellixa to hunt me down, Warto Straan. You ever hear of him?"

Calley shook her head and Alezanna continued her story. "If you'd spent more time in the central systems, you probably would have. He's famous. Well, somehow, he'd reasoned out which planet the Ravenfang would be docking at. By the time we arrived, he was waiting for us. As soon as the captain set the ship down, our power systems were fried by a pulse mine. There was no way we could leave or fire the cannons. So we had no choice but to pop the manual hatch and crawl out. I immediately recognized Straan and warned Sal and Goppu it'd be suicide to take him on. Once we were out of the ship, his men disarmed us and stripped me naked to boot. Straan then sent a message to Anatule who showed up soon after. That's when I understood why I'd been undressed. It wasn't enough for Anatule to have me captured. He had to humiliate me as well."

"Gods! He sounds like a real piece of work."

"Oh he was! After waiting almost twenty cycles to have me in his clutches, he was eager to belittle me. Since my family made its name in fashion, he took my clothes. If I'd come from a banking clan, he probably would have taken my starcred. I don't know what he would've done if I was an actress or an athlete. Probably scarred or crippled me. Maybe both. Twenty cycles is a long time to devise indignities for someone you hate. And like I said, we hated each other. I was convinced my life going forward would be nothing but pain, misery and despair. I wasn't thinking about how to escape. I was trying to plan a way to spare my crewmates any further trouble before trying to kill myself. I was that terrified. I couldn't speak, couldn't even look at Anatule."

"But you didsomething," Calley prompted. She was concerned by the morose tone her friend was starting to adopt as her story continued. "You're here and so's the captain, so obviously you got away from Anatule and his mercenaries, right?"

"Thanks to Sal, yes. You see, in addition to all his other flaws, Anatule was a snob. It never occurred to him that I might have confided in a mere human like Sal. Anatule offered to pay him off for the trouble I'd caused him but Sal wasn't interested. He said I was his lover and worth more than whatever Anatule had to offer. A lovely sentiment, but a lie since I hadn't even kissed him by that time. I was honestly surprised Sal was so adamant not to give me up. But I guess I was just as guilty of underestimating Sal as Anatule was. You see, I'd told him about Anatule the night I had my knife to his throat and unbeknownst to me, he'd looked into the Gossah. Just in case he should ever encounter one, which is exactly the situation we found ourselves in. So he knew exactly what to say, what buttons to push, to elicit the right reactions from our captors."

"Like when he negotiates jobs!" Calley realized. "He can make people mad or happy or whatever he needs them to be."

"That's right," Alezanna concurred. "His claim that we were lovers was just a ploy to make me less valuable in Anatule's eyes. It didn't work though. Other Bellixans might have abandoned their claim to me when learning I was so sullied, but Anatule didn't take the bait. So Sal switched tactics and tried other gambits. He and Anatule verbally sparred for a while. I won't go over everything that was said because I was too upset to remember it all. I wanted Sal to just give up so he and Goppu would be safe, and here he was, stubbornly keeping himself in harm's way. I started to get really worried when he started calling Anatule a coward. He claimed a real Gossah would fight for his fiancé instead of buying her like a common whore's client."

"Oh my!" her younger friend said with an intake of breath. "How'd Anatule take that?"

"He wasn't amused. It was less the insinuation and more that it had been made in front of other Bellixans. Not so much Straan and his men, as they were lowborn. It was two of my cousins that were also there, to represent my family's interests. If they spread the story that Anatule had allowed Sal's insult to stand, it would have cost the family some of its prestige. Like I said, the Gossah fight for what's theirs. I feared Sal had provoked Anatule to the point he'd order Straan and his men to murder my two crewmates over the insult. But Sal quickly challenged him to fight man-to-man. A duel to see who could claim me."

"Do Bellixans normally fight duels with other races?"

"It can happen. Sometimes a visitor to the planet gets it in their head to challenge one of us. It usually ends badly for the challenger. It almost did for Sal. Anatule accepted the challenge, claiming it'd be preferable to kill Sal rather than listen to him prattle on much longer. I was convinced Sal would be killed quickly and I was already mourning him. Anatule drew his rapier while Sal accepted a sabre from my cousin Umberno. Sal had been an officer in his planet's militia so he knew his way around the weapon. But I didn't think he had much of a chance against an experienced Bellixan duelist. And it was confirmed after they made their first few passes at each other. Our good captain had some basic knowledge of sword-fighting, but not a lot. He seemed to have greatly overestimated his abilities."

"So why didn't Anatule just kill him and take you away?"

"Because it turns out he wasn't that much better," Alezanna explained. "I was shocked at how terrible Anatule was. I assumed, what with him being a Gossah, he'd have been taught swordplay by good instructors. But if he was, it sure wasn't showing. At first I thought he was simply mocking Sal's inexperienced ways by copying them. I soon realized I was wrong and he really was that inept. You know that first duel of mine I told you about? The one where I killed a young girl in less than a few minutes? Well, if you took that immature version of myself and had her fight Anatule that day so many cycles later, she'd have killed him in seconds. I don't know how he managed to live that long without his lack of skill being discovered, but I guess he was shielded by his family's reputation. Yet there he was, fighting the most painfully incompetent duel I've ever witnessed."

"How long did it go on?"

"Well, I had no access to a chronometer. And this was a struggle, as amateurish as it might be, for my freedom. So I was too invested in its outcome to take it lightly. I did catch, out of the corner of my eye, the other Bellixans looking annoyed, amused or, after a while, simply bored. Because these two men did fight for a long while. It had soon become apparent that Anatule was a little more skilled than Sal. He started to deliberately leave himself open to trick Sal into a bad position he could take advantage of. But after he'd gotten a few mild cuts on his upper arm, Sal had figured out what Anatule was doing and stopped falling for it. Unfortunately for Anatule, it was the only trick in his arsenal. Unfortunately for Sal, he had no tricks of his own. But I thought he might have an advantage as he was fitter than Anatule and might last longer if the duel were to last hours, which it was shaping up to do."

Calley doubted the duel Alezanna was describing had ended up the way she suggested. She asked, "But that's not what happened, is it?"

"No. The duel had been going on a while, neither man getting the advantage. Anatule was no longer trying to draw Sal in, going for a more aggressive stance. Sal was good enough to hold him off, but not really do much else. Then they got close to one another, their weapons locked in a test of strength, which Sal was very slowly winning. And that's when Anatule backhanded him as he broke the hold. My cousins immediately called for the two fighters to stop."

"Why?"

"Because a Bellixan duel is very regimented. At the beginning, it was agreed Anatule would fight with a rapier and Sal with a sabre. Open-handed strikes were not agreed upon. So my cousins offered Sal a rest period for Goppu to bind his wound as compensation for Anatule's violation of the agreed-upon rules. But Sal told them he was all right with hand strikes being admissible going forward. Anatule hesitated to agree but Sal asked him which of his hands he was most afraid of. The challenge to Anatule's ego worked perfectly and he agreed to the new terms of the duel."

"I'll bet that was a smart move by the captain," Calley said with a smile.

"That would be a good bet. It was a very different duel once it started up again. Neither man was in the sideways stance anymore. They were facing each other fully so their left arms could go for a slap or punch. It was a new way of dueling and each fighter was trying to adapt quicker than the other. The focus of their attacks started to shift from their weapons to their free hands. At first, they seemed to be evenly matched again. Anatule even managed to slash Sal's hand but the captain didn't let it bother him. And slowly, Sal started to get the upper hand, pardon the pun. His blows were making more solid contact than Anatule's. This infuriated my hated fiancé and he started to unravel. Sal was able to draw him in with feints and Anatule soon had a swollen right eye and a bloody nose. Sal, meanwhile, had a few red cheeks from slaps and not much else."

"Good for our captain!" the younger spacer said as she tried to visualize the fight her elder was describing.

"Finally Anatule's growing frustration got the better of him. He threw away what little skill he had with his sword and swung it widely at Sal's head. The captain ducked underneath the swing and when he came back up, he landed a good uppercut on Anatule's jaw. This sent the bastard reeling and Sal was able to follow it up with a jab that broke Anatule's nose and knocked him down on his bum. He tried to raise his rapier but Sal had moved forward and put his foot on it. All Anatule managed to do was snap it in half. Then Sal put his blade to Anatule's throat and ordered him to yield. I could see the anger in Anatule's eyes and I thought he might force Sal to kill him. But after a few very tense seconds, he finally relented. He mumbled a surrender, then Sal made him repeat it loud enough for all of us to hear. And just like that, I was finally a free woman after all those cycles."

"How did it feel?"

"I was overjoyed. I ran forward and jumped into Sal's arms, nudity and decorum be damned. He'd claimed to be my lover earlier and I fully intended to make it so. Not that instant, of course, but as soon as we had the chance. Sal put me down and we walked over to the hanger's table where Straan and his men had put our things. As the mercenaries helped Anatule up, Sal handed me my dress and told me I'd given the men enough of a free show. I wouldn't have a chance to put it on, though."