Garan gave me little choice but to leave for the hall when he shooed me away to carry out his check up on Trey. The glint in his eyes when he looked at Trey gave me a bad feeling.
With any luck, Trey won't turn into a raving lunatic upon my return. Last thing I needed was him to ramble more nonsense non-stop.
Especially about his 'game'.
I dragged my feet behind the exiting prisoners pouring into the hall.
Groups of prisoners formed quickly amidst the greetings yelled across from one end of the hall to the other. Or the occasional insult flung.
A few sat on the cold, hard metal floor of the hall, marking their reserved spots. The rest, mainly smaller groups, mulled around.
Same rules applied as the bars in any shady planetary systems like the Narakan system. Never take a claimed place by a group.
Territorial instincts exist in every species and those instincts seemed heightened for the hall space. Almost juvenile-like.
No one took the empty corner right of the hall, nearest to the prison cell quarters. I remembered Zhiva and his space pirates hung out in this part when I first arrived.
Zhiva's group with three Thorians, including Thrain, jogged past, doing their rounds around the hall for exercise. Zhiva himself paid me no attention, much to my relief, as the space pirates stopped jogging and started their push-ups, all in synchronous action, like military troops.
Anyone not in Zhiva's gang was a neutral.
The neutrals came from the Great Swirl Council's more insignificant humanoid bipedal members, content to huddle together for protection.
They too separated into one large group and a few smaller groups scattered near to each other.
The large group, still smaller than Zhiva's, settled on the other end while the smaller groups formed near them.
Despite their insignificance, those species also displayed territorial aggression.
Two or three small groups began to push and shove the other in the competition for the corner spots. One might think a scuffle might break out. With no guards around, it would be a free for all.
A fist thrown here and there at faces. Bodies of two males with puffed chests slamming each other. And the face-to-face stare downs trying to intimidate the other.
The other uninvolved neutrals who secured their claim unchallenged to the space began egging the smaller groups to fight in a full tussle with their rancorous whistles and cheers.
The first group to back down was the loser.
I waited for an empty spot by pacing around until the groups settled on their own in their previous commodity of space. Just to avoid trouble.
Finally, I took a lonely spot no one wanted and sat down, leaning against the wall to watch the surroundings.
The Durgian women made their rounds flirting with the males, who whistled in appreciation as they ran their fingers through their hair, while the two Hamazans avoided the Durgians.
Only them, five females, other than me.
Most kept their eyes to themselves except for the three Durgian women, who kept looking my way while talking to each other. I averted my gaze.
Those three women are not here without a reason. They were more likely to be trained Durgian assassins, nicknamed beauty traps.
Their kill number would be over ten each to qualify for the Ultramax.
The Durgian assassin's favorite method is seduce and slaughter by poison, an easy mess-free way of ending someone's life. However, their training included close combat fights. Males underestimated them because of their demure appearance.
From the corner of my eye could see Garan's Durgian woman sashaying towards my direction after a few words with the other two, from the corner of my eye.
I pretended to stare at the metal cage-like walkway and the firmly shut entrance door, hoping she was aiming for the small neutral group sitting a few arms length from me. Better them than me.
Her hip movement exaggerated with her shoulders back to emphasize her large mammary glands. The tits and ass swagger did her no favors if she tried working on me. To me, her actions were big red flags.
In Narakan, I would have snapped her slender neck.
Zhiva and his group already started watching her move in my direction with keen interest. If her actions get back to Garan, I might be in for a lot of hurt and derail my plans.
Other than being a temporary ally, Garan fought dirty, which makes him the worst opponent to get.
The way Garan took down the Satesian made me warier of him. Straightforward fights are easy for me because of predictability. However, a dirty fighter made their movements unpredictable with their cunning. Dirty fighters used everything around them as a weapon.
'Taking a squeeze' as they called flirting with someone's lady caused a shit load of bar fights in the fine establishments of Narakan system. Not really fine, considering those sleazy pubs matched their equally shady criminal owners.
Females, for most species, are like territories, and no one liked to have someone encroaching on their territory. Territorial aggression over the taken females fell under another name - jealousy.
Even talking to a female may end up in a punch. Garan may not take it lying down with just one punch.
"Hey there," she spoke softly in that sickly whiny voice with a smile as I stood up to move away.
If she was trying to act cute, it failed. I rolled my eyes and started walking away from her.
"What's wrong, honey?" She slid to the side to block me from leaving.
I dodged again as she attempted to sidle up to me, almost nearly falling if she didn't steady herself by placing her hand on the wall.
"Go away." I stared her straight in the eye.
Instead of giving up, she parted her full lips, just enough to slip her pink tongue out, and slid the tip of it slowly across her lips. Those same lips went down on Garan.
With my optical implants, I could spot the permanent artificial fillers within her lips to plump them up. Females in certain species like to make their lips resemble their external structures of reproductive organs engorged with blood when sexually stimulated.
Plump lips acted as a subliminal visual to signal to the males about their readiness to mate.
Some went overboard and ended up making their upper and lower lips look more like two fat pieces of Velesian short sausages stacked on top of each other.
"You look lonely," she winked, taking a step closer to me while I retreated, careful not to corner myself into the wall.
Her fingers twirled her long, dark, curly hair playfully while she leaned forward to highlight her round bosoms to me. A thought of cutting them off popped into my mind, but alas, no knife. Even if I held a knife, the option of injuring her placed me at a disadvantage.
How can I destroy Garan's toy, or rather his squeeze, without incurring his wrath?
The only way left is to retreat from her presence. Instead of letting me go on my way, the damn sticky bitch refused to give up and pulled my sleeve persistently while following me.
I turned around suddenly to get her hand off my sleeve, before increasing my pace to keep a distance from her.
The woman signalled trouble.
"Leave me alone," I raised my voice near Zhiva and his space pirates milling about, hoping to signal my disinterest openly.
Little did I know how Zhiva would react. He leaped forward and grabbed her long hair, yanking her head back.
She yelped.
"What're you doing?" Zhiva asked her.
He lifted her head with her hair bunched up in his hand while she clawed away to struggle free.
His gang immediately moved away to give us space, as though they knew his next action.
All the prisoners in the hall went silent with all eyes on the three of us.
"J-just making a n-new friend," she whimpered.
Zhiva took in a deep breath and threw her by her hair across the metal floor. Strands of her dark hair remained in his hand and some scattered over the floor.
"FUCK OFF," Zhiva growled at her as she scrambled with her bleeding head towards the other two Durgian women who stood afar, refusing to move and help their friend in need.
I raised my hands in surrender when he faced me with his head shaking.
"Those damn cybernetics really dulled your senses…," he mumbled, and walked back to his waiting group of space pirates.
On the bright side, he didn't pester me like he usually did.
Right now, my priority was the planted droid. I needed some way to find out if, when, and how I would be released.
More importantly, where.
For a moment, I wondered how Arabaki was doing with my war cruiser and if I would ever get out of this hellhole of a prison. On a second thought, the droid swarm may never return for me if I'm released.