Ganymede Station Pt. 01

"No." I answered flatly.

"Come on Cheyne, you think I brought you on board just so I could ferry you where you want to go?" He asked nastily.

"Not for free! Come on, aren't we friends?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

Carson pulled his boxers back up to his waist, tucking his dick inside. "We get along, I don't think I would have said friends." He was more delicate than I had expected.

"Maybe I should leave." I said, considering my options.

"No!" He responded quickly. "Look, it's not a big deal, I was just hoping we could fool around that's all."

"Just let me give you some credits for the trip, okay?" I asked.

"Six hundred. That's fair, it's half of what the transport shuttles cost, and you can share the food in the galley."

"That sounds fine, thank you Carson." I agreed as I got up to grab my jeans off the floor and began stepping into them. "I'll pay you on arrival, yeah?"

He scratched his chest as he often did when he was thinking. "Yeah, that's fine. I'd still rather have a piece or two of that ass though. If you change your mind, let me know."

Carson dressed, put on a movie and I stayed and watched it with him, even though the mood now felt strained. Would it be weird between us all the way to Prometheus? I hoped the atmosphere would improve now that sex wasn't on the table. When the movie was over Carson informed me he was heading to his cabin for the night and I might want to do the same.

The bed in the storage room wasn't very comfortable, it was much too hard. I wondered if I would be able to sleep regardless. So many things swam around in my head. I chewed anxiously on the short claw of my thumb. The room was not well heated so I dug the heavy warming blanket out of my box near the bed and fastened my jacket closed. In the darkness of the room I killed time on my smartscreen. I thought about reading or playing a game but nothing piqued my interest. I found myself absently browsing into the pictures I had taken on my device and immediately felt a catch in my throat. Most of the pictures I had taken in the last few months were of Henry. Some were while he was asleep on the couch, one was of him in his marshall uniform wearing a goofy expression. When I found the one I had taken of him sleeping next to me in my old bed on that last morning, I began to softly cry. I pulled the image into a hologram that hovered above the device. I set it on the mattress next to me and beheld it wistfully. I wished it could have made me feel like he was here next to me. I had wanted nothing more than to sleep in his arms for the rest of my life but was still grateful for the one night I had been granted.

The next day Carson met me in the galley where we had instant breakfast patties. He also had coffee and offered me some which I politely refused. I had never developed a taste for the stuff, it seemed like a uniquely human indulgence. He made sure that I was ready to leave, had everything I wanted to take and was prepared for a long, uneventful journey. I assured him that I had been ready to put Ganymede Station behind me for most of my life. He reminded me that once we left the artificial gravity of Ganymede I would have to get used to the complete lack in space. He pointed out the railings that lined the ceiling and walls that I would need to use to propel myself around once we passed through the energy shield that enveloped the station.

When the dock workers had finished loading Carson's freight he took me to the bridge and asked me to sit to the side, making sure not to touch anything. I buckled myself in across the waist to a seat under one of the large sloped windows. After preparations were complete and the airlock had been disengaged from the outer hull door, Carson started to ease the ship away from the dock, backing slowly through the immense energy shield that kept the gravity and oxygen inside Ganymede. My heart caught in my throat, this was finally the moment, I was escaping my past, leaving everything behind. This was what I had wanted ever since my father left me all those years ago.

From the windows, even while the ship had been in dock you could see space above, through the beams and open architecture of the spaceport. But now, as the Comet Chaser pulled away from the station, I learned how narrow my view had been, just how small I was.

"Look at how many stars." I said in awe, pressing my nose and hands to the window closest to where I sat.

"There's a lot of 'em." Carson agreed.

As we moved further from Ganymede I finally saw the station in its entirety. It was just a drab, metal grey with some openings in its sides and some blinking lights at the edges. Vaguely it reminded me of an oversized walnut hanging there in the blackness. My insides quivered and felt uncomfortable as my body began to feel complete lack of gravity for the first time. I struggled to keep from feeling sick, although Carson had provided me with a barf bag if I had a need.

Carson began to turn the ship around, setting it on the course for Prometheus. I watched Ganymede disappear at the window's edge with mixed emotions. Believe me when I say I was reconsidering my plans. That space station had been my home for nearly my entire life. Everything I knew, all the people I had ever met, my only love, it was all wrapped up in that station, that tiny grey dot in the cosmos. In spite of how I felt, I didn't voice any of it to Carson. It wouldn't be fair anyway, he had a schedule to keep and I was just along for the ride. The feeling was fleeting in the end.

That first afternoon in space I spent most of my time glued to windows throughout the ship, watching for meteors, comets, planets, anything that I could make into a memory. It was beautiful out here, I only wished I could have reached the stars sooner. I wondered if I had enough credits to start taking pilot lessons. I at least looked presentable these days, and I think I remembered reading a long time ago that Prometheus had a pilot academy. This had been the first time since making the decision to leave that I thought maybe, this was the right decision.

I pulled out my device and began writing a message to Chief Holden: "Chief, thank you for taking a chance on me but I'm leaving Ganymede for Prometheus as of today. I am going to try to become a pilot. I learned much while I was in your employ and will miss you and the rest of the precinct. Take care, Cheynex."

I tapped send and leaned back against the window with a heavy sigh. Satellites had incredible range, she would get the message in no more than a handful of minutes. From the center of the bridge in the captain's chair Carson regarded me.

"Hey Cheyne, you can't be using your device to send messages or anything while we're in flight. It can mess up communications with the ship. You should probably just give it to me for the rest of the trip."

I gave him a cautious look. "Really? That's sort of hard to believe, wouldn't any satellite nearby cause the same disruptions then?"

He shook his head. "It's something about having them on the ship, at least turn it off for me, alright?"

"You're the boss." I replied before powering off my smartscreen and stuffing it into a jacket pocket.

Over the next several days Carson mostly kept to himself, checked his ship's computer periodically to ensure no obstacles happened into our path and that autopilot was still functioning properly. We would both have meals in the galley a few times a day, watch programs on the galley screen sometimes or even play magnetic board games. Without use of my device I had to find ways to keep myself entertained, and when Carson was busy I became downright bored. The freighter pilot still solicited me for sex but I just couldn't make myself interested. During dinner we had more instant type food from packets and drinks which had to be slurped carefully through special straws. While we were in zero gravity, crumbs and liquid droplets could become a nuisance.

I had downed about half of my drink when I started to feel unexpectedly sleepy. It wasn't really drowsiness exactly, it felt like my body was going numb.

"How you doing, Cheyne?" Carson asked from the far side of the room where he floated, holding himself in place by a rail in the ceiling.

"I feel strange." I said, anxiety creeping into my voice.

"Well that would be the sedative, paralytic actually." He responded, watching me closely.

"P-paralytic? What's going on?" I demanded. To my horror I tried to reach down to unstrap myself from the chair I was in but my arms and hands stayed motionless on the table.

Carson pushed himself over to where I sat and floated beside me, holding himself in place by the table edge.

He looked me in the face. "Thanks Cheyne, you ended up being my biggest score in more ways than you know." He leaned in and kissed my forehead.

"Tell me!" I was just able to croak the words.

He gave a nonchalant shrug. "You deserve that I guess. You pissed some influential folks off back on Ganymede and believe me they wanted you gone. You defied Tetha to the end, didn't you? Got some of her boys sent off to a penal colony, started dating the marshall, what was his name? Oh right, old deadeye Deacon."

Hearing his name caused my heart to flutter even more than it was already.

"Well, you were pretty safe while you were with him, but once Tetha found out you were back in your apartment all alone and heartbroken, it was a pretty simple plan to get you out here, with me." He gave a wild grin. "You should have let me fuck you, Cheyne. I might have just sold you as a sex slave on Prometheus but now, I know the organ doctors pay a hell of a lot more. Shouldn't have pissed me off either."

There was a wildness behind his eyes that I had never seen before. It terrified me to see it there.

My throat and tongue were almost completely paralyzed, like the rest of me, but I managed to say, "Please."

Carson cocked his head to the side and blinked at me. "Please?" He echoed. "Please what? Please don't? Cheyne, no one's ever given a shit about some scab whore until now. You have no idea how much that lady is paying me to make sure you disappear. You should be flattered, I mean, she really hates you, it's pretty impressive."

He unbuckled me from my chair and easily tugged me into the air beside him. My body was limp, unresponsive, I was hardly sure if I was even still breathing. Carson dragged me down the corridor from the galley, heading toward the cargo hold. I knew my heart was still beating fast in my chest, it was the one thing I could feel. When we reached the bay doors He accessed the panel at their side and they moved apart with a loud hiss. He tugged me inside and pushed off from the wall, halting himself and me near a long metal box on the far side of the mostly full hold. I recognized the rectangular container as a stasis pod, often used for induced hibernation on long deep space flights or occasionally in hospitals for terminal patients.

"This is your home for a little while, hope it's not too cramped." Carson giggled as he began stripping me out of my clothes, beginning with my heated coat. The fear had overtaken me completely and there was nothing I could do. The freighter pilot seemed to sense my feelings.

"I ain't gonna rape ya, Cheyne. It doesn't do much for me when there's no response from the person I'm fucking. Just getting you ready for stasis. We're arriving on Prometheus tomorrow and I need to make sure you stay nice and fresh." He explained.

Though I couldn't feel it, I knew without my jacket the temperature in the cargo hold must be intolerably cold. If I was exposed for long I wouldn't survive, being unable to move or feel though, I suspected I was dead already.

Carson finished removing every last stitch of clothing from my motionless body and pulled me into the stasis container, ensuring I was lying the proper direction on my back. He reached down and fastened a few straps over me around my chest, stomach and thighs. He pressed some buttons on the side and I could hear a low humming from the machine. The confines, the size of the box, this must be what lying in your own coffin felt like. The man leaned over me and gave something of an apologetic shrug.

"Sorry Cheyne, you really were the only thing to look forward to on Ganymede. At least you get to go out in your sleep, that's more than most people." He said nothing more as he pulled the heavy lid closed over me.

Darkness descended around me once the cover was secured and latched. All I could hear in the box was my own shallow breathing over the mechanical hum of the pod. My eyes were still open, unblinking in the black that surrounded me, it was a living nightmare. I wondered how long it would take before the hibernation gases slowed my breathing, my heart rate, and put me to sleep, the last sleep I would ever take. The anesthesia began to take its toll forcing my eyes to roll back into my head as my eyelids finally closed, pulling me under. I wanted to fight, I wanted to live, but my body remained still and very nearly lifeless. The terror left me then, replaced by an unexpected, blissful acceptance. In those final moments before my world disappeared I thought of my marshall and found peace.