Heavy Load Ch. 04

He cracked open two protein packs as he heated up a few pats of fat substitute in a skillet on the stove, crumbling the contents of one pack and slicing the other into long, thick strips. With a little sodium, a yellowish vitamin supplement and some flavour synthesisers, he fried the crumbled protein up into something resembling scrambled eggs.

The protein strips got a heavy hit of sodium themselves, along with glucose gel that caramelized it into the closest thing he'd had to pork belly since he'd stumbled drunkenly into that Hubworlds ramen joint and blown all his credits on noodle soup and sake.

As breakfast sizzled on the stove, the scents of the artificial flavourings bloomed up around Cas. It was space chow, nothing fancy, but after so long out here in the wilds of the Cluster, it smelled like home. Three human trafficking victims --one of whom hadn't come up out of stasis yet-- and six days to go until he had to deliver them to Liberty Station or face the consequences. His stars hadn't exactly aligned in a fortunate kind of way.

The fact that he'd been getting laid enough to rob every brothel in the sector of their favorite customer was little consolation compared to what he was up against professionally at the moment.

He wouldn't dream of handing Roxy, Mercedes and the other girl over to whatever bastards were waiting for them on Liberty.

And he couldn't avoid pissing off said bastards when he failed to do so.

"Mm...what's cookin', Captain?" Roxy slipped into the kitchen, nude and perky as ever, with a spring in her step just short of a skip. She sashayed over to him, all jiggling tits and swaying hips, to pop up on her tiptoes and lay a kiss on his cheek. "Smells divine."

Mercedes followed in with a slouch, eyelids still heavy with tiredness. Her body slumped against his from the other side, breasts rubbing up against his bicep as she nuzzled at his neck, grumbling hopefully. "Coffee?"

Cas nodded to the kettle on the counter. "There's packets of freeze-dry near the water extractor. Nothing fancy, if you'll beg pardon, but breakfast'll be ready in a hot minute, if you gals are hungry."

"Starving." Roxy craned her neck around Cas to wink at the brunette. "Have a seat, baby. I'll make coffee while the Captain finishes up the grub."

Roxy served the coffee, into which she'd dumped glucose syrup until it was tangy-sweet, while Cas plated up the food. Settled down around the table to eat together made Cas feel a little like the three of them were a proper crew for a shake. A bit of a strange and rag-tag one at that, but he could appreciate the glow of camaraderie that washed over them as the girls scarfed down their meals, moaning and humming with appreciation.

"It's delicious, Cas!" Roxy sighed in between bites, her eyes rolling back orgasmically.

Cas chuckled. "It's just protein and flavourings, sweetheart. Nothin' to write home about."

He glanced over at Mercedes, expecting her to echo his sentiment. But the brunette only raised her green eyes gratefully, swallowing down a massive mouthful and licking her lips.

"Better than anything we ate out on deployment back before..." She looked away before she finished her sentence, turning her eyes back down to her meal.

Cas thought that was as good of an opening as any. "Right. About that. I've been plenty patient, but gettin' my dick wet's only gonna keep me distracted for so long. I reckon it's time that you two finally gave me an explanation as to how you got into those cryo-chambers and onto my ship, don'cha think?"

The women shared a meaningful glance.

The atmosphere shifted abruptly. It was one thing to be getting his dick wet and feeling like he had a crew around him for now, but if he had any hope of escaping this whole escapade with his hide intact and the girls safely in tow, he had to know what he was up against. Mercedes might have been tough, Roxy might have been cleverer than she looked, and he had his own suspicions about the girl in the third box based on the voice in his head, but he was the captain here and that meant that the buck stopped with him.

"I'm not all that sure about what happened to me," Roxy answered. "I was seein' this guy, a Navy officer from the Hubworlds," she paused, a twinkle in her eye as she locked her gaze on Cas, something like pride buzzing through her. "And, well, I was maybe seeing a few other guys, as well. His boss. His boss's boss..." She grinned mischievously, the same smile that she'd had when she'd caught him in bed with Mercedes, right before she'd jumped them both. Cas tried to remain stern and inquisitive and captain-y, but he struggled not to smile back. This was a girl who enjoyed getting into trouble. He liked that. "His brother."

Her smile faded as she continued her story, though.

"I dunno how he found out. I don't even know for sure that he did find out. But I guess he must have been pissed off something awful, cos one night I fell asleep in his bed and when I woke up..." She stopped, her gaze slipping to the floor. She hugged herself ever so slightly.

Cas wanted to reach out and hold her, but before he could move, Mercedes began to speak. "What do you know about the Company?"

"Only the same as everyone else," Cas replied, distracted from Roxy for a moment by what seemed an important question. "Commercial arm of our own beloved Commonwealth authorities. The blue caps might take your taxes an' give you a lotta false promises about what they'll spend it on, but The Company will claim they can sell you anythin' short of Sol itself and give you nothin' but a receipt."

"Exactly," responded Mercedes. "The biggest trade network in the Cluster, with a legally mandated monopoly on every big industry the blue caps would rather keep under their control. Weapons, fuel, cyb parts, stims... And girls. And there are certain girls that maybe their Commonwealth buddies want disappeared. And shipping them off is the easiest way to do that."

It dawned on Cas exactly what Mercedes meant. Given Roxy's story, given who Mercedes worked for, it was all fitting together.

"You're sayin' that The Company is doin' the Commonwealth's dirty work? Trading away girls who they can't send to those kangaroo courts of theirs in case they say somethin' no one ought to know about or embarrass some blue cap head honcho?"

Mercedes simply fixed him with a glowering look, as if he was an idiot for needing all of this spelled out to him. Who was he to blame for not having the resources of a goddamn mercenary company feeding him all his intelligence? He was a spacer. The limits of what he needed to know was where he was going, what he was towing and where the nearest patrol crew was stationed. Roxy, though, had pulled her gaze back to Cas. She nodded slowly, confirming his suspicions.

"OK, so Roxy got caught up with the wrong son of a bitch and he lashes out by having her shipped off to the Outer Rim cos if she goes to trial, it's his ass on the line."

And if Cas ever got his hands on the officer in question, he knew exactly what he'd do to the bastard for hurting someone as sweet as her.

He fixed his eyes on Mercedes. "Now. What's your story?"

Mercedes sighed. "What do you think?"

Cas had assumed that it was something to do with her profession, but he needed to hear the full story anyway. He didn't want to take any chances that Merc could still have some lingering loyalties to a well-paying client that might jeopardise the rest of their safety. Or worse, that she was a deep cover agent.

"I reckon I would rather hear it," he told her levelly.

She rolled her eyes. "Nova Company gets all kinds of jobs. Some of them involve seeing some pretty sensitive information." She shook her head, clearly frustrated at herself for her mistake even now. "I caught a glimpse of something, some manifests, showing that they were doing exactly what you just figured out they were doing: Smuggling girls."

Fuck. That was about as bad as Cas had been hoping his every hope against, then.

"My next deployment, guarding a convoy out of Belle Pierre, a patrol caught up to us. I guess they figured I couldn't be trusted to forget what I saw. They boarded, I refused to surrender. Got hit with some sorta tranq. When I woke up, I figured I'd been stuck on a Company ship and I just..."

"Attacked the first thing you saw," Cas completed the sentence. He could still feel bruises from her blows, the scratches and welts on his skin where she'd bitten and clawed at him. But judging from the way she had walked into breakfast, she was still feeling the after-effects of their first head-to-head, too, so he found it hard to hold it against her too much.

"Cas," Roxy said. "Knowing this... Being with us..." Her tongue darted out to her pink lips and she leaned forward in her seat at the breakfast table. Despite the severity of the situation, Cas couldn't help but watch the way that her body shifted hungrily. He hadn't fucked in hours. "You're privy to just about the most dangerous secret in the Cluster, you know that? These are dangerous people we're talking about here."

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that." It was that voice again, the smooth, posh one that had been interrupting his thoughts since he'd gone to right the pods after he first met Roxy. "You're just figuring out how to keep us all safe, aren't you, Captain? Such a big, brave man..."

Cas was sick of this teasing. He brought his hand down to the table, making the plates and cutlery clatter. "Fuck off out of my damn brain!" He cried aloud, forgetting to broadcast his thoughts due to the extent of his frustration.

"Er, Cas..." Mercedes began, but Cas spoke again, interrupting her.

"Oh." He felt a spike of embarrassment, both for having responded to the psychic taunting so obviously and for having lost his temper during such a delicate moment. "Nah, I ain't..." He tried to explain himself. "See, there's been this voice in my head, but I didn't wanna say nothin' cos I didn't wanna sound crazy, but..."

"No!" Cried Roxy, leaping up to grab his shoulder and turn him to face the door to The Adonia's galley. "Look!"

Cas turned. Stood in the doorway was a tall, stunning blonde. No, not blonde, thought Cas. Roxy was blonde. This girl's hair was pure silver-white, as pale as her skin, such that she seemed to glow when framed by the lights that shone behind her. Her face was delicate and elegant, with high cheekbones, a small mouth with full, deep pink lips and almond-shaped eyes. And what eyes they were; a vivid and impossible violet purple.

He had seen eyes like that before, but only on the kind of snob that tended to call the local patrol on a fella like Cas just for looking at them. They were the eyes of a member of the Cluster's social elite, a fashionable, expensive gene mod from generations ago that had come to serve as a class marker.

Though she was as naked as Roxy and Mercedes had been, she had had the presence of mind to find something to cover up with, wrapping a covering from the cargo hold around her shoulders like a shawl. Despite this, Cas could make out the shape of her body. She had long, long legs, tapering to a delicate point along sensual calves and thighs. Her hips flared out pleasingly, while her waist was obviously narrow from the way the cloth hung across it loosely while it clung to her curves otherwise. Though Cas couldn't make out the full shape of her breasts, the deep cleavage that protruded from the gap in the fabric as she held it across her chest was an indicator of their size and fullness: large and plenty.

"Well, hello, spacer," she said, and the voice that came out of her mouth was the same that had rippled through his mind over and over again. "Pleased to finally meet you."