The Leak, Part IV

"Ingrid, I'm Captain Trivera. Please enter."

Ingrid stepped into the large cabin with tense shoulders. Ang stayed just outside the door.

"Thank you, Ang, please close the hatch now."

Standing in front of the Captain's desk, Ingrid felt her guarded stance melt in the presence of a senior female leader. Even though her own mother had died when Ingrid was a girl, years of socialization in school and in the Army were not to be forgotten so easily, even on a Fuel ship.

She took a moment to size up Trivera as she stared down at her desk console. She was older, perhaps sixty, with Ingrid's height but more curves. Her hair was bone white, long and curly, quite strange for a Captain in an essentially all-male vessel. She wore a version of the Fuel Orange uniform, modified to fit her frame.

Trivera looked up to catch Ingrid's gaze. Ingrid straightened herself and saluted. Trivera gave a loose salute back.

"So you're an Officer. Ang tells me one of our men found you floating in space."

"Officer, First Rank Navigation. Stationed on the Louisa before...before she was abandoned, ma'am."

Captain Trivera beckoned her to sit down.

"Well, Ingrid, I noticed your little incident down in the Mess hall on my monitor and I feel I should say first, I apologize for the behavior of my men. They get a bit frantic toward the end of the tour." Trivera smirked, as if resisting a joke.

"No apology necessary, ma'am," Ingrid replied. "The man who did it, he...he pulled me out of space, I believe."

"His name is Ogol, and yes, he did. But you can't believe that act exonerates what he did just now, do you?"

"No, ma'am, no, but... I suppose I'm just beyond the point of caring much."

"Ah, good girl. I like to hear that. You've had quite a ride I imagine. Please, tell me your story."

"Yes, ma'am. We had a simple craft-transport mission to bring the Louisa back to Verdian station. We were operating with a skeleton crew; I was acting Captain. Our ship's engines malfunctioned on Earth time three-twenty-one-dash-four-oh-six, resulting in an oxygen leak that forced...that killed several crew members. I jettisoned into space soon after in a pressure suit and was then, as you know, retrieved from space by members of your crew."

"I see. And what of the ship's complement?"

"Just the four of us, Captain. Two of our service crew died in the initial explosion, and another member, my husband, Peter...he died of oxygen starvation shortly before I jettisoned."

"Your husband? Oh I am sorry, Ingrid."

"Thank you, ma'am." Ingrid looked down at her hands.

"It must be hard to lose a husband. Though I really wouldn't know much about it," Trivera said. She looked at Ingrid and paused, then purred, "Peter, can you please come here?"

Ingrid's eyes widened and her heart began pounding furiously. Peter? A hand pushed back the curtain that separated the bunk from the rest of the office to reveal a young brunette man, perhaps twenty five years old, naked and exceptionally well-endowed. Ingrid detected a sweetish heady scent waft into the air. Her heart slowed; she looked away in confusion. What was Trivera playing at?

"Peter, this is Officer Ingrid Rogue. Say hello."

The young boy cupped his hands over his genitals when he spoke. He made a slight bow.

"Hello, Miss Rogue."

Ingrid looked sharply at Trivera, who was smiling at her little toy.

" 'Miss' Rogue? Do you train him to say that?"

The word "Miss" was not frequently heard these days; it had assumed derogatory connotations about a century ago, when the few women who had survived the Virus were first being kidnapped, sold, and forced to procreate by patriarchists determined to keep their family line intact. They were known in the womb trafficking business as "Misses". But all that changed after the Mother's Day Rebellion of 2212.

"Ingrid, Ingrid, don't be so political," Trivera clucked with exasperation. "Before the Virus, 'Miss' was simply a title for a young woman. I like Peter to use 'Miss'. Don't you feel sexy when he says it?"

She did not. The sweet smell in the air and Trivera's surprising penchant for subjugation were making her nauseated.

"Boy, you can call me Ingrid." Peter bowed politely. "Captain Trivera, if you would be kind enough to assign me quarters. I feel the need to rest."

"Yes, let's all get comfortable, shall we? Come now, Officer Rogue, sit down over here." Trivera glided over to her bunk area. Her large bed was covered in red velvet pillows and floral pattern blankets. Ingrid was surprised at this opulence; the rest of the office was spartan.

Peter climbed on first; he was developing an erection. Ah, he's well trained, Ingrid mused. Climb into bed with her equals get hard.

Trivera climbed up next to him. "Ah, they're so virile when they're young. If they don't breathe the dual, that is. I managed to snag him when he was quite new on the ship. No dual for you!"

In front of Peter's face she dangled a thick tube that had been patched through the wall by her bunk. Her hand had absentmindedly wrapped around Peter's penis.

"It's a direct line to the vacuums. I'm guessing the last captain installed it, clever girl. We have to collect the dual off the petrene for release into space...otherwise we'd all be loony onboard, wouldn't we Peter! Ha ha! But fortunately this little tube links us right in to the discharge chamber."

Ingrid slumped in her chair. She was still floating; still alone. Peter was dead.

"Oh, my dear, please come and rest with us. Take your mind off things. I promise we will be nice. And besides, I haven't seen another woman in so long, have you?"

Ingrid lifted her head from her hands and looked at Trivera, who stared back at her directly, white curls dusting her shoulders. The last woman she'd seen was on Omen Moon five months ago, and they'd only exchanged greetings. Ingrid moved to get up. It would be a distraction, anyway.

***

The taste of dual was slightly sweet with a bitter finish. Trivera coaxed Ingrid into taking three large inhalations from the tube.

Ingrid felt a calm energy throughout her body. Colors warmed slightly, and she felt herself smiling. Her eyes were focused but wandered lazily, gazing on the throbbing red of Trivera's plush pillows, Peter's flushed skin, Trivera's startling white hair. She reached out to stroke it; the sensation did not measure up to what she felt with her eyes.

Then Peter began to massage her shoulders.

The calm bubbling energy from before elevated into extraordinary hallucinations, accompanied by a delicious warm feeling under the skin being touched. The pressure from Peter's hands seemed to deposit heat into Ingrid's muscles, relaxing them. Now Ingrid understood more precisely why all the men in the Mess seemed to enjoy exchanging touches, mussing each other's hair, letting arms rub against each other.

"The trick with dual is to let others do the touching," Peter whispered by her ear. The rustle of his breath through her hair sent her reeling.

"What are you seeing?" Trivera wondered.

"These pillows are so beautiful. Red."

"No, I mean what are you seeing, in the dream."

"The dream," Ingrid repeated. Yes, there was something else, a concurrent narrative. She tuned into it without effort, like it was a screen playing out just above her eyes.

"I see...red. I mean, like conception. It's about a girl playing on a fence. It's spiking."

Ingrid heard a muffled giggle. Trivera was on top of the boy, her orange worksuit unzippered down to her navel. Her breasts were pressed up against his chest. Ingrid's eyes rolled back again, their focus content with the inner workings of her brain. Occasionally the sound of Trivera's moans or a wandering hand wafted through into acknowledgement, but they served to reorient the narrative nicely. It was like reading a book while dreaming; the words were always changing. An infinite sentence, constructed using fragments from other stories. Somehow, it was perfectly satisfying.

Ingrid felt herself diverted from reality, but nothing about the experience made her want to run from it.

Trivera and the boy were looking at her, smiling gently.

Tomorrow I'll worry, she thought.

The Leak, Part III.

"Look at 'er hair."
"Fuck her hair, look at them milkmakers."
"It's been a long fuggin' time, mates."

Lying flat on her back, Ingrid felt their gaze before she even opened her eyes. She was completely naked. Whatever had been used to cover her flesh before was now down at her feet.

Footsteps and a shaky voice: "Allright give the woman some rest, she has been through enough without having you sons of bastards peekin' up her skirt. Get on, there's work to be done, no?" The covering was pulled back up to her chest. Groans.

Voices fading: "And what would you know about work old man? Eh?"
"Yeah, get off it, Ang, you lazy bastard. Cut-up."

Ingrid felt a shiver of relief to hear them go.

"You can wake up now, love, it's all right."

She opened her eyes, sat up, and immediately examined her pelvic area. Felt her genitals, expecting blood. She looked up, saw a small crumpled man in green scrubs with his back to her.

"You still have your baby. I checked."

"How long have I been out?" she asked him. The room was narrow, just a couple gurneys pushed up against the long wall, and some shelves with medical equipment and supplies. Nothing looked very clean.

"Four days. You were in the oh-two chamber for a while. They don't pump much oxygen in these halls."

"You're a Fuel ship. I recognize the uniform. Not yours...the orange ones."

"Oh, you're an Army brat, are yeh?"

"I'm an Officer. But...yes, my mother and father were...were Commanders." Ingrid had forgotten what it felt like to be safe.

"Ah, well, your dad managed a high rank didn' he."

"Yes, he did," Ingrid replied automatically.

"Well, you must be wondering why I'm not wearing Oranges like the rest of 'em. You decent?"

"What?"

"You covered up decent? I'm gonna turn around. Not like I ain't seen it, but, yeh know, for your sake..."

Ingrid wrapped the rough wool blanket around her, tucking it in on top.

"Yes, ok."

Ang turned around. He held something in his left hand -- it was his shriveled right arm, which rounded off at the wrist with a white bandage. No hand. He held it out for her to see. The scars licked up his arm in angry pink flames.

"Burned in a fire, right here on this ship. Flesh all but melted off. Wasn't just my hand, neither. Scars go uh...all the way down."

"I'm sorry." Ingrid looked away. She rubbed her pelvis, fighting off images of Peter's blood splattered across her vision. She needed to eat.

"What's your name?"

She had to think for a second. "Ingrid."

" 'Tsa pleasure, Ingrid. I suppose I took over Med Bay, after the doc left. Just trying to keep my mind busy, now that I can't work. It's not so hard, we got burns and breaks mostly to treat, but...I never done a pelvic exam before. Had to look it up." He grinned briefly, to himself.

Ingrid hopped down from off the gurney. She broke Ang's distant gaze with a quizzical look.

"We been out for almost a year on supply missions. My god, you're tall," Ang started. He eyed her clavicle, a couple inches above his head.

"I need some clothes, please. And, do you have any food? I'm really hungry."

"Right-o, you got a bun to feed. Everyone needs fuel." He winked at her as he handed her a set of green scrubs, black socks, and grey slippers.

Ang pulled open the door with his good arm. The corridor looked bleak behind him. "I'll be back to fetch you in a minute," he said with a weak smile. Ingrid shivered involuntarily and when the door closed shut, she hastily covered herself.

***

The canteen was empty when they went in. Everything was fully automated; enriched protein and carbohydrate compounds of various disguising flavors were released from storage tubes that ran up the side of the wall. Ingrid gobbled down a double serving of spaghetti; afterwards she took the vitamins Ang gave her. Sated, she sat back to watch Ang manage a fork with his non-dominant hand. Just then, the Fuel Men switched shifts for lunch.

Ingrid had never seen so many males gathered in one place before. They were loud and boisterous. The first young man to see Ingrid shouted out in a strange falsetto, "Woooie, boys, the ship's serving pussy for lunch today!"

Most of them got in line for food first, then turned to look at her. A few stragglers walked right up to her and stared. Ingrid felt her face turn hot.

"Don't mind 'em. Most of them have balls the size of mine," Ang said quietly.

"How do you mean? Castration?" Ingrid asked. Some of the men who had their food sat down on either side of her.

Ang looked into her eyes for the first time. "No, that doesn't happen out here, love. I'm talking about the dual fuel. The petrene, it puts out some uh, real delicious gaseous byproduct, it's called dual, or fog. Heavy gas, sits right on top of the liquid. You inhale it, most times without trying. Rots the brain and the testicles, but...certainly makes a 12 hour shift and a year without a woman go by a bit easier. Am I right boys? Everyone needs fuel!"

"Go fuck yourself, Ang. I got a dick bigger than that stump of an arm you got," one man said.

"Yeah Ang, stop wasting air," said another.

Ang's smile went dark.

Ingrid stood up with her tray to leave. She felt a hand on her back. The man to her right was pulling her to him. Suddenly, he lowered his head and buried his nose in her crotch. He was rooting around and sniffing loudly as the whole cafeteria erupted into a roar. They'd all been watching, waiting for it. Ang was frowning, staring at this act, but did nothing.

Ingrid gasped and reacted. She threaded her fingers through his red hair and yanked his head down, then stuck her fingers into his nostrils and dug her nails into them. He squealed and snorted.

"Stay the FUCK away from me, pig! You got it?!" She felt hot tears form. The red-haired man grabbed her hand and pushed her body away with frightening ease. He stood up from his seat on the canteen bench and turned around to face her. He was easily six foot five and broad.

She stared timidly into eyes that held the color of a clear winter sky on the home world. His shock of greasy red hair stood up where she had pulled on it.

Ingrid's instinct to run froze. "You...you're the one who saw me. You saved me."

Somewhere a bell screamed out for a shift change. The men filed out of the door as noisily as they had entered. This red-haired man, her savior, left without a word. She watched his big pink hands swing back and forth as he walked away. A dozen guys rushed up to him excitedly.

Ang made her flinch when he came up behind her and touched her elbow.

"He's the one who saved my life."

"S'all right now, love. Let's go back to the Med Bay. We're to meet with the Captain."

"Don't touch me again...please," she added quietly. Her thoughts ran wildly.

Don't let anyone here touch you. That is how to survive. If they touch you, you burn up like they do. We must devour each other. So all things live. Be killed or kill. Don't have to try, because you will.

Only my baby may devour me. That is survival.

"Okay, all right," Ang walked next to her, respectfully. "Let's just get you some rest."

The Leak, Part II.

39 minutes.

Animal panic rose in Ingrid's throat the instant her feet left the chamber platform. The force of the airlock release sent her careening through blank space, spinning. She batted against the insulated walls of her suit, trying to swim.

She screamed, and screamed, and the tears ran down her face until her voice and her tear ducts and the strain in her head wouldn’t allow it anymore. Her brain decided for her that she must relax, and so she fell asleep.

Ingrid opened her eyes to black space. The moisture of her exhalation fogged the plate of her helmet and dissipated from it just as quickly. She heard the sound of her respiration from far away. In and out, life and death.

Breathing, she knew it was her only constant.

30 minutes.

In the blackness, without a single point of reference, it was impossible to determine her current movement. She tried to reason through it, to understand her position and direction upon release from the airlock, which was on the port side of the ship. Where were they when everything stopped? She tried to bring up the control panel on the back of her eyelids.

Ingrid had been sitting with Peter on Main Bridge adjusting their course, when they heard the alarm.

Peter was singing a melody with no words, the strains of his soft tenor voice bouncing around the metal walls. He stopped to speak.

“Let’s have a baby. Will you have my baby?”

Ingrid had smiled at this. It was the third time he’d asked that day, after bringing it up solemnly the night before. For Ingrid the request was amusingly redundant. But to him she said nothing, only smiled. She wanted to wait until they were naked in their bunk to tell him that she would, that she’d just found out she was. She wanted him to be able to kiss her stomach, express his joy directly in the presence of the little thing. Ingrid knew their little one would grow up well, with such a beginning.

She snapped out of the past and into her terrible present moment.

23 minutes.

And what of it all now. What of her child now. A life that ends with its beginning, no escape, no first bleating breath.

Keep breathing, she told herself. Go on for it a while longer.

21 minutes.

The blackness. Ingrid could feel her baby writhe within her womb.

20 minutes.

Impossible. She began to shake and wriggle, hitting her head hard against the faceplate, trying to pull her suit apart at the seams.

“Let me GO!” she screamed.

18 minutes.

Sweaty. Sweaty and exhausted. Ingrid decided to hyperventilate herself into unconsciousness.

10 minutes.

The air in her suit tasted thin.

8 minutes.

A beam of light in the distance. Ingrid saw her own hazel eyes in the reflection of her faceplate. A blood vessel in her right eye had popped.

What? Light? She held her hand up to shield her eyes and get a glimpse, but it bathed her and she was blinded.

6 minutes.

The light no longer shined on her, but Ingrid could see that a ship was approaching, another military vessel. She felt her true exhaustion at this moment.

4 minutes.

Her lungs gasped for the last of the oxygen, but her mind was silent and utterly fixated on the ship.

The ship floated by on her left side, just six or seven meters away from her extended fingertips. As it passed her, she saw inside the wide windows of the brightly lit canteen. A handful of men sat eating from trays. Ingrid recognized their orange uniforms. They were Fuel Men.

The Fuel Man closest to the window was the first to look up. After a second, he stood up suddenly to cup his hands around his face against the window and peer out.

His hair is on fire, she thought. Such nice blue eyes. Peter?

The Leak, Part I

THE LEAK, PART I.

One hour after the explosion and already down to 15% oxygen. Where was the goddamn leak?

It didn't matter, really. Peter and Ingrid had already resigned to the fact that they were going to die on the ship, out in the cold invading blackness of space, their young bodies all but immobilized, the numb blue entering their extremities and aiming for the heart. The only thing left to do was sit together.

The corridor on C deck was the largest single space on the ship and thus had the most available oxygen. They'd gathered some blankets and put on their suits, leaving the helmets off for now so they could commune for a time. Peter sat with his back leaning against the wall, staring up at the corridor's white light ceiling trying to detect any warmth radiating from it on his dry blue lips. Ingrid straddled his lap facing him, resting her head on his shoulder. The metal neck hole of her suit pressed against both of their clavicles, but there was no urgency at this point.

***************

"We could have sex, you know," Peter rasped into the silence. Ingrid felt the vibrations of his voice on her cheek.
"Don't use up the oxygen," she mouthed back, wanting to smirk.
"Just trying to think of things to do."
Ingrid pressed closer to him, readjusting her legs, wiggling for his benefit.

***************

Peter roused her from a dreamless doze. Touching her chin with his gloved hand, he took a big sip of air, pressed his mouth to hers and exhaled slowly. Ingrid felt her lungs fill, the cloudiness in her head clearing slowly. She pulled his air in, took more and more, felt blood return to her eyes, her ears, her lips. It only lasted a moment.

When she separated from him, Peter's head fell back against the wall with a thud. His eyes were empty and open. She saw the rounded vein in his neck sag, the blood flow subsiding.

She shook him gently, a rising panic in her limbs. "Peter."

"Peter, come on." The corridor lights flickered.

"If you come back to me, we can..." she spoke to his nose but couldn't finish.

"WAKE UP!" she screamed at his mouth.

"I'm pregnant." Blinked her dry eyes.

She shook his shoulders, smacked his face. The exertion was exhausting. He was gone.

Slowly, deliberately, Ingrid stood up from his lap and straightened the neck hole of her suit. She was panting lightly. Air too thin, air too thin, oh, air too thin. Peter's slumped body looked heavy, his eyes preternaturally blue.

He's still alive, she thought. He must be faking it. Playing games with me.

She straddled his body once again, pressing her forehead into his. He feels warm enough. He just needs...some encouragement, she thought. You wanna play, huh? She smacked him on either cheek.

Nothing. She reached down and punched his groin, then collapsed against him.

God damn him! Head resting on his chest, she pulled the knife out of her belt and held it tremblingly up to his neck. Her husband's eyes stared out past her, as if witnessing something shocking occurring just behind Ingrid's back.

"Wake up, you son of a bitch." She pressed the metal edge into Peter's stubbled skin. "I'll kill you for this, don't think I can't do it."

What black void he was caught in? To rouse him out of his state of shock, she would need to take drastic measures. She slid the knife lightly over the skin of his neck. A light stream of blood dripped out and soaked the collar of his shirt, then more poured out, thicker and faster.

"Come on, baby, time to get up," she cooed. She stood up to allow him room to rise. Was someone there? she looked around.

A loud clang of metal on metal came from the rear end of the ship, followed by a violent shudder. Slowly, Peter's blood lifted off his skin and drifted into the air in little red beads.

Ingrid found herself floating. She scooped up her helmet and placed it over her mussy blond hair, sealing it onto her suit. As the suit pressurized, the oxygen pack released and flooded her with air. She sucked it in through her nose, laughing and giddy. Memories of impossible happiness came back to her in flashes. Her first kiss with Rohan, the mechanic on her father's ship. Her officer's stripes. Running her hands through Peter's thick hair. She reached down and felt the soft bump of her abdomen through thick layers of the impregnable pressure suit. Succumbing to her exhaustion, she closed her eyes and treasured each slow, deep, vital breath.

***************

She opened her eyes as a single drop of blood landed on the faceplate of her helmet, then three more drops landed in succession. Then Peter's body floated by, and Ingrid screamed hysterically.

"Whaaat, no, no, no, no, no, no, no..." She flailed her arms and legs, hitting her helmet to the ceiling of the corridor with a thud. She scrambled to grab a hold of the railing, not daring to look back at the body of her dead husband, wrapped in their bunk blankets.

Ingrid had to get off the ship, away from the scene of this crime, not her crime. Couldn't be her crime. She pulled herself rung by rung up the main tube to Deck B and over to the airlock. She swung open the lock and closed the door behind her. The intermediate chamber was tight. Her eyes swelled with tears as she held her finger over the button to release the chamber.

With the 10-second countdown to airlock release playing over the speaker in familiar feminine neutrality, she read the gauge on her sleeve indicating her suit's status. She acknowledged it in horror -- oxygen time remaining: 39 minutes.

"Three...two...one, the airlock is released."