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not-trannydurden · 2 months ago

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STARSHINE FANG-GLINT

PART ONE, CHAPTER ONE

"HERE COMES YOUR MAN"

WARNING! NSFW! SMUT! SEX! GORE! DUBIOUS CONSENT!

ALIEN PARASITE x SPACE TRUCKER!!

Photocredit to H.R. GIGER (WATCHGUARDIAN and RUSTY FEMALE TORSO) and NASA

Having never mastered faster-than-light travel, our ambitions far overestimated our ability to tame physics. So now, if you want anything shipped from point A, to point B, then you are going to need some lowlifes that don't mind giving you forty, fifty, seventy years of their lives to sleep frozen in zero G for a good paycheck and dental. This is why PV2 Camuth Syntrax has been in this business for a very, very long time.

She used to be a girl with stars in her eyes and ambitions. Hell, the whole reason she signed up for this job was to pay for her HRT and tits. She wanted to be whole, at some point in the future.

Now? Well, now she's just a miserable asshole trucker. Who happens to have big tits.

During a routine operation, their freighter is flagged and deployed for a shady Hazmat job. This was supposed to be like any other shady, high paying freight job. Make that top secret military budget money, and only have to shift your morals to the side a little to do it. A trucker is a trucker. They don't control whats in the bay.

Hell, she could hardly tell the difference. Camuth was drunk for most of her waking hours, or balls deep in a stow-away or hitchhiker. This leap's flavor was a peppy biologist with a sadistic streak.

She couldn't begin to understand how ignorant this assumption was.

WARNING: This series will eventually contain Gore, Violence, Cannibalism, Body Horror, and Vore. This chapter will contain: Mild misogyny, A lot of sex scenes, mild mentions of gore and political violence, and some non-consensual flirting.

Also, here's a playlist link ^^ i'd like to thank anyone who may of helped my write the first draft of this; it would not exist without you.

In every star-freighter there is always one pod that leaves you feeling extra sick. It's kind of a running joke amongst truckers; of course, that being a colloquial term. An homage to societies of the past. No matter what, every voyage, you are gonna have one guy say it;

"Looks like I got the bad pod."

Bleary eyed and shivering from the thermaebath still. Can't stop getting the bends. Dizzy.

When you are in thermae, the ship doesn't produce artificial gravity. Why would it? Saves a lot more power this way.

So that spinning feeling you get when you are trying to take you first few steps; it's the fluids in your ears adjusting to the presence of any gravity.

So picture this; 14 runs, back to back; almost 3 years spent on jumps from system to system, taking advantage of a Cerebrachem shortage that was sweeping the same direction we are; then, on the way back you deliver beef for a chain of Corpo airlock-exchange fast food restaurants.

Teiren/Max Corp was meticulous with these sort of long hauls; they had to be worth the costs that it takes to pay experienced Truckers to waste 4 years away from home.

Lucky for me, the wages are great. The ship mates are fine, a couple of pretty girls, an android that you could swear was modeled to be a milf on purpose, and besides that; a few men.

Men who were smart enough to mind their business. Women in this industry had a nasty habit of mutilating the uncouth that came onto them.

Prison rules. Pick the biggest guy. Grab him by the nuts. Set an example.

Every 5 months you wake up for a few weeks; exercise, socialize, repair the ship and check on the precious cargo. This free time is perfect for when you want to smoke a cigarette or stare at a wall, or eat out that cute biologist tagalong that came to study blah blah blah blah blah blah...

What? Listen, if you saw this girls hips you'd understand. Hard to focus on much when you are wondering how her jumpsuit fits on, zips up in the center. Conceals all... that.

Maybe not though, because I can't remember why she's here, and we've spent the last 3 years having casual sex together. Watching horror movies and painting each other's nails. She compliments my bone structure a lot. I think she's weird, but in a hot way.

Dr. Leerson. Doctor Amelia Leerson.

Imagine that you are almost home when everyone, yourself included, is shot upright like frankenstein movie monsters; albeit almost 4 months early.

"We're not even close to schedule." Captain says. Cap's a big brawly man, pale, malnourished skin with a handlebar mustache. He's older than all of us, but he's healthy enough. Used to be a marine.

Still built like one, and even though he was a brick-shithouse, a lifetime of protein paste and nutrition gel had left him looking like a strung out corpse all the time.

He's already dressed and dry, meanwhile I'm still on hands and knees letting fluid pour out of my sinus.

"What doya...?"

He points to the automatic calender on the wall.

"Oh, uhuh...." I rub my chin, apparently deep in thought.

I couldn't remember the depart date.

A fat grey tabby goes waddling out of Leerson's pod. Pets didn't do good alone floating in zero g. It was wise to carry them with you. Picture egyptian burial rules. Anything you want when you wake up, make sure it's buried with you.

"We're gonna have to ration," Captain mumbled, rubbing the stubble on his chin. Cap was constantly talking about rationing, re-using, recycling. I don't think I'd ever eaten a fully allocated meal on this ship. The man was paranoid as all hell about something, anything, going wrong. Getting stuck out in deep space with a fuel injector malfunction, or a buggy navigation algorithm. So they saved old O2 filters. They distilled runoff from their engines into new fuel. They didn't eat enough.

"You'll thank me when we run out of fresh filters one day." Captain would always say, and we knew better than to argue.

"You're always saying that," said Leerson, who had been around just long enough to notice the pattern. Her voice was casually musical, almost teasing. "We're four months out, Captain. What's the worst that could happen?"

Cap just grunted and turned to go towards center command, the defacto meeting room and geographical center of the ship. In ancient history, all roads led to Rome. In the age of modern space freighting; all roads lead to the center command.

Despite still being nude from the Thermae process, I roll over and stare at the ceiling. Leerson just watches and laughs, before throwing me a towel.

"Camuth, get dressed and get ready for briefing." He paused and looked over his shoulder at Leerson. "And don't let them keep me waiting too long, Doctor."

Leerson smiled, faux innocent. I grazed my tongue across my teeth, hard, before finally heaving myself up off the ground next to my pod, towel still half clutched around me. I panted, my arms trembling slightly from exertion. My teeth chattered slightly, and I leaned my forehead against the frosted over metal of the pod, feeling the bits of sweat and thermae fluid freeze upon contact with each other, making my forehead buzz.

"Poor thing," Leerson teased, close enough that I could feel breath on my ear. I shivered in a different way at that. Leerson had a superpower that let her walk around noiselessly on metal grates. I felt her fingers wander around my midsection, spider-like in the way they dance between the folds of the scratchy orange towel and find their way to my cold pale flesh.

"I...- I gotta get dressed," I say, failing to fight back a sigh, halfway between contentment and unadulterated need. A half-whine.

"That's what we're doing," Leerson purrs. She was such a fox, and I meant that in the predatory sense. I meant that with flashes of broken necked bunnies and eviscerated squirrels in mind. Terrestrial viscerality, or sexuality. It all came from the same need.

"I'm helping you get dressed, Second Private."

Leerson said as she flicked a cruel nail once, letting the towel drop to the floor, exposing me.

"Now," she said, in tones that made me pissed and weak in the knees, "Just where did I put that jumpsuit..."

My head was spinning, and it was only half from the teasing. I really did feel like shit.

"Get a room, dykes!" Someone shouted as I tried my best to not make a face at her touch. There were no rooms on a freighter. Just notches in a wall big enough to fit a twin sized mattress.

For this reason, it was not uncommon to find your crewmates fucking on top of the coolant pipes, or on the cargo. You don't want to see what sort of use a hauling strap will find during one of these sessions.

Imagine every fast-food burger you've ever eaten, and imagine backshots being blown on cargo containers of every single of one of them.

"Yeah, fuck off, you're welcome." I say throwing up a middle finger to our electrician, Peter Schulzbern. We just called him Berns. He already has a baseball cap on. One from the tail end of the petrol-industrial era. When we still knew where Earth was. It reads: "I ❤️ NYC"

Leerson giggles, knowing that she's brushing up against my dick as she pulls my jumpsuit over me. Best part is that she's still halfnude, her jumpsuit only on like a pair of pants. Revealing two beautiful tits and a long neck. Biologists. It made sense. She was an animal. Better-yet to study them.

"I'm gonna go debrief honey, make me some coffee would ya?" I asked, and Leerson rolls her eyes.

"Oh yes sir Mr. Syntrax, right away." She says in a fake receptionist voice, making fun of me.

"Please, honey?" I ask, genuine vulnerability in my voice. She bites her tongue and smiles at me.

"Good girl." She says, and I shutter.

"You fuckin..." I'm whispering to myself as she walks away. Giving the whole crew a view of her tits as she stepped past the Thermaebay. Only once she reaches the door does she zip up her jumpsuit the rest of the way.

I'm staring, houndlike, at her ass with each step as I work to button my cuffs and adjust my collar to standard.

"Why do you always get the girl?" A voice asks, coming close behind me. I don't look. I know that it's Ricky Raffington. James Raffington legally. We just called him Rat.

"Because I am a girl. You think a piece like that isn't gonna want something soft and homely like me over some washed up Navy piece of shit like you? Ever?"

"I don't have nothing you don't have." Rat scowls, unable to stop himself from glancing at the strain I'm currently placing on my jumpsuit, specifically in the crotch area. I'd blown out the zippers on these things before. I was kinda proud of it.

"Besides game, you mean? An extra 4 inches?" I grinned, doing the final button that keeps my collar sinched with a satisfying snap. Berns, over in the corner and already working on touching up some corroded wiring, snickered.

"Fuck you," Rat spit, literally spit on the floor near my boot, before clomping away to go join in on briefing.

"Four inches my ass..." He mumbled as he went.

"Yeah, yeah, we've all been in the showers together, jackass!" I called after him. I sat there, feeling pretty good about myself, before-

"Get your ass in here, Private! What is this, a fuckin' pool party?" There was the captain, head and insanely wide shoulders poking their way into the cryo chamber, too impatient to spend the extra few seconds walking into the room proper.

I hurried up and over to central command, nearly tripping over myself as I went. The captain scared the shit out of me when he got loud like that...

Central command worked as a sort of secondary helm. The main helm, located towards the front of the ship and attached to the pilot's cockpit, was a fairly small room meant for just the captain and an attendant or two, and almost never saw any use during freight operations like this. Most functions on the ship were automated, anyways.

Central command was like the living room of the ship. It was in the exact center of the vessel, and all hallways eventually led back to it. It was located directly above the commons areas. This was the most important room in the vessel, the meeting place, the heart and mind of the freighter vessel.

Gathered in the room was nearly the whole crew. Leerson was off getting coffee, supposedly, and as a tag-along her presence was not required.

The engineers like Berns, about a half dozen of them, had been woken up first along with the captain, debriefed, and sent along to check vital components and fix the worst of the damage.

That left about a dozen of us left, gathered in various chairs and on desk or railings around the circular room. All shivering and weary from wake-up still.

Everyone here was someone who preferred to sit in a corner, with a back to their wall, and you could tell. Even after years (or more like a month) of travel together, everyone was cagey. No sets of fingers and eyes rested easy, everyone sizing each other up. I had gotten over that paranoid shit long, long, long ago. I just sighed and leaned up against the nearest wall, nodding at the Captain as I did.

"Thank you for joining us, Private." Captain said, smiling sardonically. "Do we have your permission to begin?"

Everyone snickered, especially the Rat.

"At 07:00, Yesterday morning we received a subcontract from upstairs. This isn't a freight contract. It's a Hazmat job. It'll take at least 4 Biomat Certified Technicians, and 2 Hazmat Certified Haulers."

He pauses for a moment.

"Raise your hand if you are Biomat Certified."

I raise my hand, a waifish fellow with long soft arms raises one of them, and so does my beloved... My one and only;

Minerva.

She stood at around 5'8, with milk tallow pale skin and black hair. Gleaming blue eyes; literally neon blue LEDs. She was my white whale. I would never get to her because she wasn't human. She was an android. Soft, plastic soft, skin like pleather seat cushions or latex condoms. Her blood was milk white, which for some reason did things to me.

"Great, so we're short a Biomat."

I think for a moment, then raise my hand.

"Second Private?"

"Dr. Leerson is Biomat Certified." I say, and a few people in the room whistle.

The captain ignores it. As long as the trains arrive on time, so to speak, he could care less what we get up to. I watch him think for a moment, star maps, navigation routes, and fuel costs flashing behind his eyes. Weighing the pros and cons, like he always did. After a moment, he nods.

"It'll save us a trip or two, then." says the Captain after a moment. I let myself feel a little proud and useful for a moment, before the feeling fades. Rapidly.

"And I believe most of the rest of you are Hazmat certified." A few murmurs of assent. A couple of nods.

"So. Onto the next thing..."

The rest of the briefing passes by normally. Captain reiterating that, yes, we will be rationing our food and other supplies until we touch down after the Hazmat job, and the usual groans that accompany that.

Only Minerva, me, and a couple of other old star-dogs don't complain. You'd think after the first dozen or so wake up cycles they'd learn, but, apparently not. I couldn't help but get a little nostalgic- or was that the right word?- had I been so slow to learn, too? So terrestrial?

Terrestrial was an odd word these days. It meant a lot of things. It was used to describe everything from nostalgia, familiarity, immaturity, primal emotions, and a lack of space legs. People had a lot of complicated feelings about where we'd started.

The homeworld, Earth, had been lost for ages now. No one knew for how long, or exactly when it had happened, just that one day, Earth was gone. Not destroyed, or crumbled, or uninhabitable, but actually lost. Amongst bureaucracy and papers and legalities and name changes; we couldn't find the birthplace of our species anymore. Among all other stars, planets, satellites, moons, and generation ships-

Earth was lost.

At least, that's how it was phrased. That's how people interpreted it, and I couldn't blame them. When you'd never even seen the damn thing, never felt fresh green grass between your toes or breathed in oxygen that wasn't filtered, well, it was no wonder they didn't realize the truth. That it wasn't Earth that had strayed too far from the porch and gotten lost in that deep, dark forest, never to return.

It was humans. They simply lost themselves.

One day, thousands and thousands of years after we scattered our terraformers across the stars, we built our cities. We turned the void of nothing between stars into our freeways.

Then, that old house Earth simply disappeared into that cosmic infrastructure. A grain of sand in a silo of gravel. Surely, it was out there, and there are even a few theories of which planet it could be, or where it went.

One day nobody knew where Earth was. It only existed in stories. Very, very few had ever been there and known it.

Anyway, I got over that existentialism a while ago. Personally, I'm grinning like an idiot with my dick bulging out as I stare at Leerson.

Debrief was simple.

It was a biological sampling, taken from a jungle planet that was only a 2 month detour from our route. And right now, with how much it paid; we could eat all this random beef byproduct and pay back the Krueger Deli Co with plenty to spare. I'm talking retirement money. Go get on a tropical island planet and jack off into a coconut all day money. Or, whatever rich people do.

Leerson came back with two mugs of coffee, ceramic and plain, with the company's logo on the side. Terrestrial. Quaint.

She sidled up next to me and passed me one without saying anything, a cream and three sugars in it without me having to ask her. Leerson could be a real sweetheart when she wanted to.

"You're Biomat Technician certified?" the Captain asked, eyeing the cup of coffee jealously. Everyone on this ship subsisted fairly heavily on the cafeteria coffee, and the Captain was one of the worst caffeine addicts aboard. Coffee beans were one of the few things we were allowed to be liberal with.

"Yessir." she replied, smiling politely. I scowled back at all jealous glares I was getting as I sipped my delicious fucking coffee.

"We'll go over what you missed later." Cap grumbled. "For now, the usual game plan goes: repairs and maintenance. I want extra effort out of all of you, too. We're adding an extra 2 months to our route and I don't want any busted filters or malfunctioning rods, am I clear?"

"Yes, sir," came the weary reply from the crew. The Captain's eyebrow twitched.

"Say it like you fucking mean it."

"Yes, sir!"

The captain smiled, just a little.

"Dismissed." He said, and everyone made a beeline for the cafeteria. After a moment of storming footsteps, it was just me and Leerson left in command. Sipping our coffees in tandem. She took hers black with a lot of sugar.

More on some days, less on others. I smiled at her, but I had to mostly force it.

"What's all the commotion, then?" She asked, a Neuvian accent. Neuvian sounded like old world British, with a slowness and methodicalness that sounded almost Japanese in nature.

The only reason I have any context to old-world accents is because of the stash of Westerns and Samurai movies the captain kept on-board. Old-world media is always in high demand; and companies make billions simply finding and restoring old vinyls.

"Some new contract sent down from management. Biological sampling. Hazardous materials, so it's pay is insane. I'm sure cap will give you a cut for helping out."

I say, trying to delay another sip of the bitter coffee. It was so dark today. She's grinning and munching on a tin-foil wrapped coffee cake. I wanted to taste her coffee breath in that moment.

"Oooh, exciting. Think it's an alien?" She said, giggling. Uhg. I wanted to swim laps in her. She was fucked the second we docked somewhere.

"No, probably just a bio-weapon or Malaria or something."

I take a long sip of the warm coffee.

I am a comms technician, besides just being a hauler and a decent repairman. So, today, my jobs included sending out our status report, getting in contact with the jungle planet's SatComms, to establish a timeline, and hopefully getting head from Leerson under my desk at some point.

I'm writing up the first status report when Minerva enters the room. She has that pleasant grin, like a cat's or a crocodile's. Always sly and a little smug. She knows something you don't.

"Good evening, beautiful." I say as she steps in, squeezing in a few looks over her amazing frame between looking at the screen I'm typing on. It was all analog here. Digital wasted too much power. Digital wishes it could have double-D tits on a shortstack body.

She laughs gently, covering her grin with a dainty hand, before carrying over manifests and maintenance reports to my desk to be bounce-faxed.

"Here you go, Camuth. Those reports that you requested."

"Thank you, ma'am."

"Please, Minerva will do fine."

"What about goddess?"

She lets out a long, playful sigh.

"It's flattering, sweetheart. I'm not that kinda synth though." She says shaking her heard slightly.

"When we touch down, can I buy you dinner sometime?"

"When we get back, I will be put back into company assets."

"Can't have shit in space." I whisper to myself.

She rolls her glowing eyes, turning on her heel and honest-to-god sashaying away. I could swear she's putting extra swing into her hips just to fuck with me.

I sigh and roll my eyes towards the ceiling.

She could crush my skull like a fucking melon and I'd tell her thanks.

Or I'd try to. It'd probably sound more like "hoouggchhh" to be honest.

"Such a greedy little thing," said Leerson between sips of coffee.

I had almost forgot she followed me to my office.

"The heart wants what the heart wants, honey." I said.

"And the cock wants what the cock wants." She said, voice flat. She let a manicured hand rest on my inner thigh. Leerson had long, sturdy arms that let her reach over counters and on top of high shelves. They were just a little too long for her body, which did something for me. She took another long drink of her coffee, not breaking eye contact.

"That too, yes." My voice came a little hushed.

Siiiip...

"You always go still." She sets the coffee down behind her without looking. Ka-thunk. "Like you're waiting for a storm to pass."

"I'm just... taking it in." I say. My eyes dance over her. Her lips, her eyes, the zipper that's starting to undo itself from her tit's sheer mass. Lord.

"I think... you're just," Leerson steps into my space, facing me, pressing me up against the desk I'm half sat on and staring at me.

"A scared little creature..."

I lick my lips.

"Like... a squirrel?"

Her eyes curl into a look of confusion, and she giggles before she pounces on me. Lips and tongue way too eager, parting mine, spreading me open, invading me. Her teeth scrape, not sure if she's just that reckless or if she has to draw blood every time we make out. A fistful of my hair and my jumpsuit.

"I dreamed about this in cryo," she pants, wrenching my hair back so she can breathe into my ear. I stare at the floor and rut my cock against the tight spot in her jumpsuit between her legs, growing tighter as I get close to fucking her, abusing the plyable space-suit.

"Y-You can't dream in cryo, your brain-" I start to speak.

She kisses me again, filling my mouth with her spit.

I can't really recall what happened next. At one point she was licking the inside of my ear. She made me say "I'm your dog." over and over again, until she punched me in the stomach. Before I knew it, I was laid out across my desk, with my head awkwardly pressed against the terminal that was hard-wired in.

We both moan as I enter her slightly, her hips working as she stands above me and the desk. She had just finished sucking my dick; biting my thighs and ass hard enough that I'm sure I'll be bruised.

My cock twitches, and Lord, I'm about to ruin both of our suits and really give the Captain something to bitch about when-

She throws my head and body back, away from her, by the tangled grips of hair and fabric she was just holding onto like a lifeline. My head bangs against the wall, my breath coming in quick and panicked, and she unsheaths herself from me. My ears are still ringing by the time her jumpsuit is back on. I didn't cum. She might have.

Dr. Leerson smiles at me, spit still glistening around her mouth, hair messed up.

"See you later," she wiggles her fingers, and turns to go. But not before I catch a glimpse of how soaked through the crotch of her jumpsuit is. Lord. She turns and leaves, walking almost as magnificently as Minerva had just a few moments ago.

She's a memory, just the smell of sex in the air and your dick still refusing to give up. She was going to walk all the way to her lab like that too, the absolute animal. She's lucky everyone knows what I'd do to em' if they even looked at her funny.

I lean my head on my desk for a second to re-cooperate myself. She was absolutely hungry, absolutely cruel. Nothing but absolutes with this girl. No middle sliders. I've shared bunk with a pantheon of freight-hiking hobos and hippies, lots of girls of the night and girls of the street and girls of the whatever the fuck else.

No one had ever been nearly as insatiable as Dr. Amelia Leerson.

I think I'm in love. Or pregnant, I don't know, anyway, I scoop myself up off the desk and try to focus on the papers. Try is the keyword, because I have to shamefully jerk off twice to even muster half focus; after all of that.

Our next destination is nicknamed Osiris. It's designation is P-333, and It's Planetary consultant sounds half drunk when I call.

"Calling 16-43, This is Starfreight Demeter."

"Mmm what?"

I sigh.

"Starfreight Demeter, Calling in a land notice for... 43 days from now. Do you copy?"

"Copy... Watch out around landing time. That's monsoon season."

I yawn, this man's exhausted energy like a contagious flu.

"Copy, Thank you PlaCo."

Next, is to bounce-fax our reports to central command, or CeCo if you are feeling frisky. To bounce a fax is to send it careening through a semi-privatized string of local satellites until it reaches it's destination. You "bounce" it from satellite to satellite. It takes a while, but is incredibly cheap.

After that, I smoke a cigarette while reading the last chapter of some fantasy novel. The dragon was actually the wizard all along, by the way.

After that, When its around 14:23, thats Camuth's Special Hour. I setup my vinyl player, and plug it into the mic port. It plays it over the intercom. I keep all my old world vinyls under my desk. Today, I'm playing Talking Heads: 77 by Talking Heads, then it's The Doors by The Doors. Old worlders were incredibly creative when naming records.

After that I turn on 10 minutes of Thelonius Monk, and then I finish it with Califronia Uber Alles by Dead Kennedys, and then some old nations national anthem. The American One, not the canadian one; although that was equally funny.

Halfway through, I take a coffee and smoke break in the cafeteria.

"You're such a freak," said a voice from one of central's many, many entrances.

I turned in time to see a pale figure dragging a chair towards me. It was Sierpinski, one of the clones on crew. They were lanky, pale, with clear signs of clone degeneration tearing through them.

Besides the normal space-freighter paleness, Sierpinski was albino, with long fine hair, almost no body hair, and wine colored eyes that shined red when a bright light was near. They never removed their helmet on sunny planets.

Sierpinski, who didn't have a first name, had dodged the worst of the potential degenerative cloning symptoms. Excessive or misplaced facial hair. Various types of baldness. Increased risk of cancer, which Sierpinski did have, but at least they weren't sprouting tumors yet.

All things considered, Sier looked more like a beautiful wax figure than a half-baked copy of some old fuck's genetic code, sold off to a company for half price and high profits. Now, like most sold-off clones, they were used for dangerous and cheap labor, usually doing the jobs that were deemed too risky for normal workers.

"You ever gonna play normal music for us one day, Cam?" asked Sier, sitting backwards in the chair and grinning cock-eyed at me.

"You call that corpo synthesized trash you play 'normal'?" I grin back, and we trade a little handshake we made up together. Just a short thing. Sierpinski is one of my few other friends on this ship, and the only one of those that I hadn't fucked.

"At least the rest of the crew doesn't want to, uh, dig my eyes out with a spork."

"And how long you think that'll last when you keep hanging out with my ass, hmm?"

"Hopefully not much longer," Sier's grin turned positively shit eating. "I'm getting tired of visiting you."

We both chuckled as Sier rested their cheek on top of their arms, on the back of their chair, looking at me.

"So... whatcha think about this hazmat job?" They asked after a second, faux casual.

"It's weird, so I'm leaning towards military subcontracting. If I cared I would research the corpo that handed it down the line to us, but I don't. Jobs a job."

They sigh a little, and look over their shoulder for prying eyes.

"Listen, I got something I need to show you."

"Oh yeah?" I ask.

They sigh.

"Alright so I'm a bit of an eavesdropper right?"

They hand over a small camera. Mini-digi. About as small as a digital camera could get, and it was still viewfinder sized. I look into it's port at the loaded picture. It's of a monitor, in Minerva's lab. That lab doubled as Leermans at the moment. The screen was a readout, order from command that Synths practically absorb like scripture. It simply read;

PROTECT CARGO AT ALL COSTS

ALL OTHER PRIORITIES WAIVERED

CREW EXPENDABLE

"Huh."

That's all that leaves my lips as I stare at the picture in mild bemusement.

No. Befuddlement.

"Weird right?"

"I'm sure it's fine. The contract is bloody expensive."

Long sip of coffee. Pause. Both of us ponder the other alternatives.

"So why is it Biomat and Hazmat?"

"What do you mean?"

They sat upright in the chair, stashing the camera away in a satchel.

"Thirteen parsecs ago, a few crews before this one. I ran a militarized virus cargo. We only needed Hazmats. Biomat is usually reserved for..."

They sip their coffee, puff on a cigarette.

"Live Animals." I finish for them, realizing what they were panicking about.

"Okay, that one is pretty weird. Maybe the virus is in a monkey." I say, laughing a bit.

They smile, but it's weak. Wracked with concern.

"Something else." They say, Cylav accent shining like an old 80s communist bad guy.

"Uhuh."

"On the Buzzers. Talking with loved ones. I tell them 'we're going to Osiris.' They think it's strange."

"Why's that?"

"Osiris has been under quarantine for the past six months. They refused emergency landing to three separate vessels. That's illegal." They say.

"Huh..."

"So you see where I'm going with this?"

"Yeah, it's sketchy, but-"

"But what? We cannot take on this job."

"Oh, so what, we just quit?" I felt my eyebrow twitch in frustration. Sierpinski had a nasty habit of thinking they were always fucking right.

"We just go home, yeah? Take one of the shuttles and a paycut to fuel it and call it a day, yeah? Maybe we can share one and split the costs."

"Fuck you." Sier sighs, leaning away from me and sitting up straight in their stupid wide legged stance, the back of the chair like a wall between us.

"C'mon, Cam, you've been around longer than any of us. Even longer than Cap, depending on how you count it. You know this isn't right. I can see it in your eyes." Sierpinski sounds defeated. They stare at the floor.

"And what do you want me to do, Sier? You're my friend, but we're powerless here. You know that too."

"Sure, but we could talk to the Capt-"

"Who would say exactly what I'm saying. And then if- if we got him on side, what would he do? Talk to some lackey of the boards, and up and up and up-"

I sigh.

"It's too late. We'll never climb that ladder in time. Don't you see?"

I wait for Sier to look me in the eyes again before I finish.

"It's already too late."

...

"So we may as well do damn good job of it, yeah?" I propose.

"Yeah," Sier sighs, not meeting my gaze anymore.

"Listen," I grab their knee, my squeeze going straight from gentle and reassuring to manic and panicked. "It's just a hazmat. We follow protocol, we play it careful, and we're fine. Like any other job."

Sier stood up and left in a hurry, pausing once they hit the entrance to the nearest hallway.

"Our job," they said the word like a swear, "has a 63.9% mortality rate. That's not even counting the clones."

And then they were gone, and I was alone again.

------------------------------------------------------------

Me and Leerson bang a few times, dinner, sleep, breakfast; maintenance, and then after dinner that night, we all toast with some of the last vodka we have onboard.

Дай Боже! God help us.

We all get drunk, and myself and Leerson sloppily give each other head in the cryo room ten minutes before nap time.

Then, we all lay down. We all sleep. The big sleep.

....

Two months later, the routine happens. This time, I get the bad pod. Or I'm just hungover, because when I wake up my brain is broiling practically. I groan loudly. You weren't supposed to get in these things drunk.

Something Something average freezing point of your blood. Something Something brain damage.

Whatever, I'd done it plenty of times.

And I was perfectly fine.

Coffee, Even Cap is quiet as we all shuffle to the main quarters. The center table is a circle, a huge one that fits all 26 crew members. Leerson practically sitting on my lap as we both chug coffee and eat tin-foil wrapped cornbread. She snuck Elysian Honey in her carryon.

Having a huge dick really has it's perks. Like honey on cornbread.

I'm putting on a pressure suit; Replacing an antennae.

Something dinked us while we were asleep and almost gave center command a heart attack. Leerson corners me in the airlock bay and kisses me deeply; before plugging in my larynx-chord, and helping me with my helmet.

"Stay safe out there."

"Oh honey, don't worry ... ... ... Done thousands of these." I say, through the oxygen injector cutting my sentence in half and forcing my breath back down my throat.

She nods, and I step into the airlock. She closes the door, and suddenly in my ear, I hear Sier's voice.

"Alright, let's do this nice and safe today, ja?"

"Who let an alcholic cloned ... ... commie monkey ... ... operate CommSat?"

"Eat shit, Cammy."

"No thank you, but ... ... ... maybe piss if I'm drunk enough."

This makes them laugh. The suspense of the wait. You gotta time things well in these suits.

The airlock depressurizes, and suddenly I'm living life in a ziplock bag. Void pinching around me.

I actually love this feeling, once my eyes and the rest of my body adjust and I can stop squinting.

Spacewalks were peaceful, to me. I didn't really fear for my life or get wildly anxious about falling out into space like some of the more terrestrial crew members. It was like any other job. Just do it right, and you don't get any problems.

And there was the tether besides. Motherfuckers always forgot the tether.

So yeah, Cap usually gave me this job, which suited everyone just fine. The rest of the crew probably would have drawn and quartered me by now if I wasn't the designated Space Walker™.

I take a deep breath of filtered air, my favorite, and let my gaze sweep out over the fields of stars. There was nothing out here, no suns close enough to hurt my eyes through my horrifically thick and deeply tinted helmet visor.

I turned- the automatic air jets in my suit activating in tune with my muscle movements and responding to me, allowing me to move in Zero G.

I'd used far, far clunkier suits, heavy things that controlled more like tanks with too much momentum and often led to first time space walkers splattering themselves on the hulls of their ships.

Even though the suits were far sleeker and almost completely automated these days, that imagery had never left. People still had images of splintered bones and mangled metal, burst O2 canisters sending tiny beads of blood out, out, into space, forever drifting with the inertia of a wasted death.

Couldn't be me. Skill issue to be honest.

There, past the helm of the ship, was one star that was maybe five times larger than the pinpricks around it. A small ink blot of white light that shone through the darkness like a beacon. Our job lay there, more or less.

I whistle a workman tune, comedically interjected with the oxygen tubes forcing my lungs to expand, while I kneel in position, starting to unscrew the original antennae, and getting the new one ready. The old one's tip is broken off and melty. Poor thing.

I tuck the scrap metal into my pack, and then get to work rewiring it's base, making sure everything is still steady.

I could practically tap dance out here if I wanted to. The artificial gravity always made these things a cake walk. Just don't be an idiot.

And pray a meteor too small for your radar to pickup doesn't come.

"Hey, Cam, You hear the Ceruvian Civil War ended?"

"No shit?"

"Mhm, The rebels won too. Silicosteel Corp made some deal with them and now have mineral rights."

"Huh. Well ... ... ... I guess it's better than ... ... ...nothing."

I'm stepping back to the hull but... I turn back and look at the ink blots. I grab my view finder and look out. At the speed we were going, we'd be arriving in 26 hours. I zoom in.

Osiris. The planet is covered in dense storm clouds. It sits grey. It looks sickly. Doesn't help the pit in your stomach as you watch hurricane clouds swarm and swirl.

"Cam?"

I jump and little, and grip hard on the viewfinder.

"Everything good?"

"Yeah, sorry, I was... starspotting."

"Mhm, well c'mon cowgirl, you are wasting o2."

The airlock hisses and pressurizes behind you. The room fills with matter. You swim in it again as you start to twist your helmet off.

On the other side is a short, tiny femboy.

He would punch you if he heard you say that, but he was. Cricket is what everyone called him. Everyone also made him clean the vents for that reason. He was holding a clip board, and looking up at me.

"Hey, cutie."

"Don't."

I snicker, and start to zip off the pressure suit. Cricket was the ship's Nutrition Officer. Basically, he handled the food, cooked and freeze dried everything between wake-ups.

He actually wakes up three days before us to make sure all of our food is up to code. Which is why he always looked exhausted.

One time he had fallen asleep on my chest while we were watching some alien movie on the television.

To over exert my point, Cricket had never even let our hands touch when he handed me food. Still, he worked harder than most of us.

"I need you to authorize the credit charges for rations."

"Oh, ... ... ... and what if I don't?" I ask, and then finally rip the tubes out of my nostrils, with an unflattering gag.

"Then I'll feed you the leaking xerox gel out of the radiator."

I laugh, and took his papers. End of shuttle shit. Everyone for the next few weeks was going to need their papers signed and faxed. Papers they were supposed to do months ago.

"Okay honey."

"Thanks." He said, eye twitching ever so slightly.

I couldn't help it, really. It was compulsive. I'd told him so before.

He'd said I should kill myself about it. Once, he'd threatened to call HR on me. I just laughed and told him to go ahead.

I laughed even harder when the Captain told Cricket to, and I quote: "Suck it up."

So good.

I looked down at the shortstack and smiled my best crocodile smile. The one that drove him crazy. Cricket's nose wrinkled and he made a noise of disgust.

"You are an animal, you know that?"

"We're all animals baby," I replied, leaning forward. "Lemme show you what animals do-"

WHAP

Cricket slapped me in the face. Full palm, hard. Hard enough that I knew my face would be red for a few minutes after. I blinked in shock and rocked back on my heels.

Ah, my old friend... 'Did I just get hit?'

Cricket is already stomping away in his chunky space boots by the time I'm back to my senses. I let out a low whistle.

"What a woman," I say to no one in particular.

"That 'woman' is a 5'4" man who could kill you with his bare hands if he wanted to."

I jump, forgetting that my headset isn't attached to my spacer helmet.

"I'd rather he break my neck with those thighs of his. Mmmh." I pause after a moment.

"So you heard that, huh?"

"Ooh yes. A real solid one, eh? Your mic peaked." Sierpinski replies.

"I think I'm in love."

"I will never understand you."

"He has hips that make me wanna get him pregnant. Simple biological urges, Sier."

"You are a fucking idiot."

"I know, I know. You better not be recording this session."

"I already deleted the archive."

I grin and put a cigarette to my lips. Face still stinging. I'm about to go rail Leerson over her little research table, maybe even make Minerva watch for as long as it takes her to leave the room. But then;

"Second Private Syntrax, Please report to garden bay for rewiring duty."

I grit my teeth. That's Nutritional Officer grounds. I bet Cricket was thrilled to hear that announcement.

I have one of those changes of hearts that come with really not wanting to push someone to the actual point of murder. Last couple of jumps. Then we're all home.

I pickup a toolbox on the way over, and slap Jameson's ass as I walk past him. He's one of two physicians onboard. He laughs, and points a meaty finger at me.

"See you on the court tonight, bitch." He says.

"You'll wish you hadn't when I'm done porking your shit."

I turn the corner and the shit eating grin turns sour.

I punch in access to the greenhouse. This part of the ship was very important. So, I get misted with sterilizing agent and then step through a tent flap, after putting on a clear plastic body suit. I have to put all the tools through a wash too.

Cricket is sitting in the corner, by a access panel next to a display.

"Hey, I wanted to apologi-"

"No." He says.

Cricket sighs, and shakes their head. Speaking delicately and angrily in a way that made my head spin.

"No, just... I shouldn't of laid hands on you. It was unprofessional." He says, crossing his arms.

I shrug, sorting my toolbox back together as they all come out of the sterilizer.

"No, It's okay, I get it. I've been chasing you for a while now, you are straight and I'm sure i-"

"What? I am not straight." He says.

A moment of quiet sits between us as I move closer to the wiring.

"Why do you hate me so much then?"

"Because you are persistent and annoying. And greasy. and an alcoholic. Not to mention, even if I were straight, you are a girl, no?"

"Well... You got me there." I say, sighing. We both sit in silence for a second.

"I'm... I'm sorry. This detour has just got me all frazzled. We were barely gonna pull through our original course there, with half rations. We're going to be down to... Spirulina pucks and Protein paste, disgusting." He says, sighing.

I'm disconnecting some faulty wires, and reattaching new wires while I listen.

"You are a really good chef. I'm sure you'll figure something out." I say, absent mindedly as I work.

He sighs a little, and looks up at the UV lights that were currently awake.

"Why did you start working freight?" He asks.

"Paying for my surgeries and hormones. After my first few runs all my friends were dead. Figured I just keep doing this."

I spark a soldering iron a few times, testing it's battery pack, before sitting back and looking at the wires as if they were a beautiful art piece.

"What about you?" I ask.

"It started with a way to see the worlds. See other culture's cuisines. But... I don't really even know anymore. At a certain point it just became cornbread and diet schedules..."

He laughed a little, but it's sour. A heavy silence. I close the panel, and stand upright.

"We still have all that synthyolk from that misdelivery right?"

"Mhm, Why?" He asks.

"And plenty of flour, right?"

"Always."

We step into the sterile-locker room and put our used jumpsuits in the dirty bins.

"Well... Maybe tonight you could whip up a pasta. Watch one of those Ceruvian monster movies you like so much?" I ask.

He's quiet, thinking as we walk out of the green house together.

"Leerson stowed away some Elysian Prawns in the freezer. I think she forgot about them." I say, maybe sweetening the deal.

"You aren't going to try to fuck me the whole time?"

I scoff a little.

"I'll do my best not to be a horny weirdo."

He grins a little.

"It's a date then." He says, squeezing my hand. I can still feel the outline of his slap and for some reason those two combined stimuli make my dick throb.

"You sure you wanna use that word with me?" I raise an eyebrow.

Cricket half shrugs, clearly trying not to get pissed at me again already.

"Just be good. Please?"

"Oh, I'll be sooo good."

Cricket drops my hand like a sack of bricks and walks away. Not quite storming off.

Me and my big fucking mouth. But hey, I still had a date for tonight. His words, not mine. I try to muster up the energy to feel bad about it and find myself coming up short. Oh well.

Right before the short... man? walks out of sight, he turns back around, face is that familiar annoyed mask that I'm used to again. He opens his mouth once, twice, then closes it again.

"I'll see you later," he says finally, and leaves.

I sigh, and barely have enough time to oogle him before I'm tightening connector-pins again.

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