Chapter 8: Work, Work, Work

I woke to the smell of fried protein strips and an empty bed. It would appear that the women in my life wanted to give me a proper send off. I smiled and stepped into the bathroom to take a quick wash and take care of the other necessities. I was going to be on board the ship for an extended period and I wanted to ensure that I was as clean and cleaned out as I could be.

When I got to the kitchen, though, I found only Mary there. She had been the primary cook for us these past several weeks and so the fact that she was in the kitchen wasn’t much of a surprise. I was surprised that the other two weren’t there.

“Good morning, Sir,” Mary said when she saw me enter. “I’ve got your breakfast ready.”

I took a seat at the table and was treated to a meal of oatmeal, fried protein strips and blueberries. I was excited to see the blueberries. The bush had first produced fruit last year and I had been able to barter some of them for strawberries that one of the other settlers grew.

Fruit like blueberries and strawberries were vital for our survival here on the moon. While we had a good supply of daily vitamins that covered all of our recommended nutritional needs, fresh fruits were not only loaded with vitamins and minerals, but also full of antioxidants.

“Yum, blueberries!” I said when Mary set the plate down.

“Yes, Sir, Xina picked them this morning and thought that you would enjoy them. There weren’t many yet, but enough for you to have some for your breakfast.”

“Where are Xina and Karen?” I asked as I ate.

“They are working in the greenhouse. We wanted to let you sleep as long as possible before you need to launch today, and they wanted to see you off, so they are trying to get the work done in the greenhouse.”

I nodded. It was a practical approach and I knew that they all had this deep seated need to ensure that I was cared for fully and not just from a sexual perspective.

I finished up the meal, thanked Mary and headed up to the office. I needed to check for new job postings and to check the solar flare forecast. I also reviewed the Any Known Hazard list to check against my planned flight path.

One of my jobs when I was out there was to try and remove any of those known hazards if possible. The challenge with these objects was that they were usually in odd orbits and moving at high speeds. The only thing we could do was nudge them into a decaying orbit and hope they burned up in the atmosphere.

When I was done, I closed down the computer. I was reasonably confident that the women weren’t going to try and sabotage me, giving away their location. We had discussed how to communicate over the radio with clicks and beeps but no voices. It would let others know that I was communicating with someone, but not give any confirmation as to where they were or who they were.

Once all the computer equipment was locked down, I grabbed my data-pad and headed down to the main living area for one last look around, then headed out to the airlock.

When I arrived, all three women were naked and kneeling in a line on the way to the door.

As I approached Mary, she grabbed my hand and squeezed it tightly. I pulled her up and gave her a hug and a tender kiss.

“Please be safe, Sir,” she begged and then dropped back to the floor in a prostate position.

Xina copied her actions, except her parting words were “We’ll be waiting, Master.” Then she too dropped to the floor in a prostate position.

Karen was already crying when I got to her.

“I don’t want you to leave, but I know you need to go. Just remember that we love you!” she whispered fiercely and then she too dropped to the floor.

I finally made it out the airlock, but the memory of the three of them prostate on the floor, the three of them in a line in the perfect pose of submission, their three asses all lined up and ready to be taken would certainly keep me warm on my trip.

I got through the preflight checklist and got the ship started up, going through a thorough system check. Once I was ready, I hit the sequence for launch and took one last look at the porthole to see three beautiful faces peering through and waving at me.

I hoped they would be alright. I wasn’t too worried about them running into trouble within the habitat, but rather I was more worried about someone finding them and doing them harm. Mostly I was worried about the State, but even other Lunars might want to take advantage of the presence of three attractive women alone on the lunar surface.

---- The first few days went as expected. I even managed to grab a high value piece of space debris on my first pass, a rarity in this field!

The junk was valuable for two reasons. First and foremost, it earned me credits with Space Command, credits I could use toward launches, either for myself or for resupply missions. It wasn’t cheap to use the giant catapult they built in the Nevada desert, but it was a lot cheaper and safer than using the chem rockets that they used for missiles.

The second reason was that just about anything was valuable in space and on Luna. Even junk like depleted batteries had valuable resources contained within. It was the third piece of space debris I grabbed that was going to be the most valuable to me. It was a wing of solar panels that had broken free from a communication satellite. This would give us even more energy once I rehabbed it. It even had a couple of battery consoles attached.

I had racked up a few other valuable find as well. I was now working on a much easier, and of course less valuable, job. I was getting ready to try and repair a satellite that just needed a refill of its booster rockets. Space command made sure we had plenty of thruster fuel just for situations like this.

It was a military satellite and they were paying a nice premium for the service. I only expected to see payments rise as there were now fewer lunars around to do these repairs and refueling.

As I was finishing up, I noticed I had a priority transmission from Space Command. I entered my decryption key and listened to the message.

“Skimmer-7, this is Space Command. We have a high priority mission that we would like you to accept. The State has launched a rocket that we believe has offensive capabilities to take out other satellites and spread debris. We’d like you to capture or destroy this object, reporting back to us it’s details.”

I reviewed the details of the mission and I could easily get there. And they were offering a free launch for successful completion, a virtual fortune these days! Signaling my acceptance, I wrapped up my current job and went about programming in the details of the satellite they had launched so the flight computer could calculate the most efficient flight path.

I also sent a microburst to my habitat on Lunar, just letting the women know I was well and would be home soon. They were under strict instructions not to respond unless there was an emergency.

I started moving away from the satellite, using thrusters to increase my altitude, and put me on course to intercept the State rocket. It took a bit more thrust than I would have liked to get there, but this was a mission I wanted to do, even more than just for the pay.

I also spent some time making sure all the emergency equipment was in good working order. I fully expected this thing to be booby-trapped or for them to try and use whatever offensive capabilities it might have against me.

However, I had a little surprise in place that I intended to use. I had picked up an EMP device a while back to give me some offensive capabilities in case pirates ever tried to mess with me.

And yes, there were pirates. There were mostly two groups. One group was thought to be funded by the State. They would launch and try to capture satellites and ships in orbit. This was expensive, however, and the State had generally quit doing this.

The other group had an unknown base, but it had to be in outer space somewhere. Some of the Lunars thought they were a group that had launched for Mars a decade or so earlier, and now just lived aboard a ship somewhere beyond sensor range.

Hence, why I had an EMP.

The thing about an EMP is that it can absolutely fry any electronic device that has current. But they were harmless to everything that wasn’t conducting current.

I planned to eject the EMP in the direction of their satellite and trigger it when I had all systems on the ship shut down and the battery inside my Faraday cage.

Soon enough the object appeared on the horizon, just where it was supposed to be. I rechecked that I was on the correct path and launched the EMP before shutting down the ship systems. In moments, I was drifting powerlessly through space. It was absolutely silent around me, and that absolute silence was always a bit disquieting!

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A man, nearly broken by loss, lives a solitary existence off planet earth in a small habitat he has constructed on the moon.

Skimmer

Lorn Skye

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