Collateral Damage

by K S Augustin

  She made a show of finishing her drink. “Look Waryd, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll go grab some sleep.”

  “Sure thing. I’ll call you again. Soon, okay?”

  She dug up a smile. “Okay.” And terminated the call.

  Not that she’d ever admit it to him, Meyal thought over breakfast the next morning, but Waryd was right. XeGeTech must think they employ robots. Not only was she forbidden to talk to anyone else who approached the orbital – unless they were of, or had been sanctioned by, the company – but her sector supervisor had told her, back at the start of her deployment, that there were no other occupied orbitals around Falcin V. Which had made Waryd’s initial ping a huge surprise.

  In the six weeks since they’d first made contact, they had moved from wary acquaintances to chat-sex partners. And now….

  Now, regardless of what she’d said the previous night, she wanted so much more. She wanted to feel Waryd’s muscles move beneath her fingertips, stroke the hair-roughened skin of his, breathe in his scent as she ran frantic hands over his body. She missed the sheer physicality of another person.

  Her fingers curled around the cereal spoon more tightly. When she had signed away twelve months of her life, it was with the strict understanding of one very important objective. She was buying basic financial and medical insurance for her family, and a future for them all. In return, all she had to do was lock herself away at the end of the universe for a year.

  In the beginning, it hadn’t seemed so bad. She had passed the psych tests with flying colours, religiously read and memorised the tips for surviving in extended isolation and, as the counsellor told her with a half-cynical twist of her lips, if things got difficult, all she had to do was think of the money – the big gleaming pile of credits waiting for her at the end of the XeGeTech rainbow, made even fatter with her accumulating mineral bonuses.

  With no chance of a visit from family or friends, and the prospect of entertaining company scientists a rare event, Meyal thought she could keep things under control. And yes, thoughts of the fortune waiting for her helped. Whenever she became lonely, she either dove even more deeply into work and put all thoughts of home from her mind, or imagined her ex, Shad, begging her to take him back once he found out how much she’d earnt, courageously working at the edge of space. Both distractions worked. In fact, they had worked so well that, over the past three weeks, she had been thinking of signing up for a second contract, maybe after splurging on a couple of months of hedonistic pleasures. That was what she hadn’t wanted to share with Waryd the previous night. The fact that, not only was she not thinking of ever joining a freelancer outfit, but that she was actually seriously considering staying on with XeGeTech.

  There was just one fly in her personal ointment. And that was Waryd.

  Just the thought of him made her groan, filling her with a yearning that made what she had felt for Shad a vacation-time infatuation. Not that she would ever admit that to Waryd. He already had too much sex appeal for his own good, without her flattering him with fantasies of what she wanted to do to him if they ever met face to face. In the final analysis, she couldn’t afford to be distracted by Waryd or by anything he had to say. There was too much at stake.

  Pushing her bowl away, she gulped at her beaker of juice. It was the good stuff, organic, freshly pulped and frozen at A-grade Earth processing plants before being shipped out with her to Falcin V. All her food supplies were top quality, no doubt harvested by serene monks on hillsides far away from the pollution of urban centres and seas of heavy metals that now afflicted Earth. She wondered what her family were eating. Even with the extra credit allowances, she knew it wasn’t close to what they needed to buy the kind of juice she was drinking.

  Heavy metal accumulation in the food chain, ever-present smog and acidic rain, the relentless waves of extinction sweeping the planet…. It wasn’t really a question of the people of Earth wanting to get off their benighted planet. The fact of the matter was, they had to. And, by pinpointing deposits of valuable ore, Meyal felt she was doing her bit to ensure that technology could be built fast enough to enable a choking population to leave their contaminated nest. If anything could make her feel better, that realisation should.

  So what if she’d chosen a megacorp as her employer, rather than a freelance unit? She had made her decision based on pragmatic factors. Factors that had nothing to do with Waryd’s so-called “romanticism”.

  Meyal pushed her chair back roughly and got up, taking the dirty dishes to the sanitation unit.

  “Sure. Join a freelance unit, maybe get more profits but leave my family to suffer in the meantime? I’d have to have rocks in my head.”

  She snorted at her own joke as she headed for the Analysis Room.

  Chapter Two

  The next three weeks settled back into their normal routine. Waryd didn’t mention the freelancers again and Meyal pretended that the conversation hadn’t taken place. After a couple of days of awkwardness, they even resumed their chat-sex sessions. Meyal hadn’t realised how much she’d missed them.

  “Your cock looks so smooth and lickable. Like a big tube of all-male goodness.”

  Waryd, kneeling with his legs splayed open before her, pumped his erect dick, his eyes closed. Meyal watched the way his balls bobbed up and down, in rhythm to his hand’s movements, and swallowed.

  “I can just imagine taking you in my mouth,” she told him, her voice husky. “You slide over my tongue. I’m hot and wet inside.”

  “Yes, yes,” he groaned. “You feel wonderful, Meyal.”

  “Can you feel yourself hitting the back of my throat? The head of your dick pressing against the slick softness?”

  “Yes, I can,” he said through gritted teeth.

  Meyal saw beads of perspiration form on his face and trickle down the taut lines of his throat.

  “I moan, but my cries are muffled. I’m stuffed full of your dick and all I can do is close my lips and try to milk it.”

  She watched as the moisture tickled at his chest. It vanished beneath a mat of dark, wiry hair, before appearing again as it tracked down the tight dips of his abdomen, then was swallowed by the beckoning triangle at his groin.

  “My hot mouth envelops you as I suck. I move in and out, in and out, as you feel pressure building in your sex. Your balls tighten and you feel an explosion coming from the back of your cock. I suck you once more, harder this time, and my teeth scrape against your delicate skin….”

  With a shout, Waryd came, his legs seesawing along the floor while spurts of white – tinged the palest of blues via the holo technology – erupted from the flushed head of his dick, splashing the floor in small thick pools.

  “I swallow your hot cum before letting you slip from my mouth,” Meyal finished, “and give your head a tender kiss.”

  Waryd liked it when she brought her stories to a conclusion, instead of stopping the moment he reached orgasm. He said it made him feel as though they were more connected.

  He continued rocking for another minute, his spasms gradually lessening. Finally, his legs were still and only his chest heaved. His head was angled down, his hair spiky with sweat, and the sound of his breathing echoed across both orbitals.

  Watching him, Meyal was once more filled with a wild yearning to touch his body and run her palms along his slick, heated flesh. Her desire was a physical thing, making her fingers itch and drying the skin on her lips so she had to lick them feverishly. He looked so masculine, so alluring, that she took an involuntary step forward.

  He looked up at that moment and the crooked grin on his face melted her heart.

  “That was, uh, incredible,” he said. “As usual. Did you, er….”

  “Just before you,” she assured him, with a smile.

  “That’s good.” His head sank once more onto his chest. “That’s good.”

  She could have kissed him. But she couldn’t.

  It was the unexpectedness of the incoming message that made Meyal frown. Her
last report had been acknowledged and she wasn’t due to receive another communiqué for a couple of weeks. So what was causing her board to blink like celebration lights when she walked into the Analysis Room the following morning?

  Sliding into her seat, she played the waiting despatch, coded Urgent for immediate consumption.

  The message began with the spinning XeGeTech logo, followed by a hologram of Faber Carven, the company’s founder and chief executive. He was a handsome man of middle age, with bushy eyebrows and a cleft chin. But his movie-vid good looks couldn’t hide the cold glint in his eyes or a pair of lips that always seemed stretched thin with disapproval.

  Today, however, he was smiling, an expression that made Meyal feel even more apprehensive. She was sure that a happy Faber Carven meant that a population of people somewhere in the galaxy were about to have a very bad time of it. She wondered if that included her, and swallowed.

  “Good day, valued employee. I am talking to you today as the bearer of good news. News that I hope you will celebrate, no matter where in our wonderful galaxy you may be.

  “As you know, XeGeTech began its business as a prospector of mineral wealth more than sixty years ago with my grandfather, Rollo Carven. When Grandad retired, he passed the torch to my father, Brown Carven who – seventeen years ago – passed control of the company to me. XeGeTech has always specialised in work outside of Earth’s solar system, leveraging creases as they’re found, and being at the vanguard of exo-geology exploration and exploitation.

  “In the past seven decades, however, we have not been alone in this venture. Our major rival, ExoSystems, has dogged us every step of the way, forcing us to be quicker, more efficient and more productive in all we do. While appreciative of the innovations that ExoSystems forced XeGeTech to develop, it was nonetheless my father’s wish to have the wherewithal to buy out our rival, and I am happy to say that the time has finally come for his wish to be fulfilled.

  “As of three days ago, ExoSystems has come under the ownership of XeGeTech. I’d like to thank all the ExoSystems employees for their trust and support in this time of transition and, as a special celebration, would like to award all outlying employees of both companies a twenty-five per cent raise in their bonuses, to run till the end of their contracts.

  “You will be notified individually of the particulars by your sector supervisors but, in the meantime, bask in the warmth of a job that’s very much appreciated by the board of our new company. Good bye.”

  The poke from Waryd came fast on the heels of the message and Meyal, dazed, answered the call in a distracted manner, not caring if he saw the previously sacrosanct Analysis Room.

  “Did you hear the news?” Waryd asked, not waiting to complete the social pleasantries. A miniature of his figure hovered over the rightmost console of her board.

  “We own you now, it seems,” she said.

  Waryd’s lips compressed. “I called this outcome months ago. I knew all this penny-pinching by ExoSystems would turn around and bite them in the arse.”

  “Penny-pinching?”

  He cocked his head, looking at her as if she was a naïf. “They haven’t upgraded their systems in more than four years. We’re still using outdated analysis algorithms and sub-par probe hardware. As a rule, broken drones don’t get repaired.”

  Meyal hadn’t known any of that.

  “On top of all that,” Waryd continued, “they’ve been—”

  Another incoming message blinked on her console. Two official messages in one day? That had never happened before.

  “Shush,” she said quickly, silencing him. “I’ve got another call coming in.”

  He grinned at her, a devilish tilt to his lips. “Can I listen in?”

  Meyal took a breath, then let it out. “Yeah, okay. Why not? But,” she warned him, wagging her finger, “be quiet.”

  He made a gesture to turn a lock against his mouth and flick the imaginary key away. “Mum’s the word.”

  Meyal swivelled her seat to the left. With the way the board was arranged, Waryd would be able to see the sender of the message, but that person shouldn’t be able to see him. Or so Meyal hoped. She quickly checked angles of sight, moved further to the left and, as further insurance, set up a blind-field to the sub-console’s right.

  Clearing her throat, she hit the comms button.

  “Meyal Lit here,” she said, as the figure of her sector supervisor, Lewaya Phoenix, appeared.

  “Meyal, hello. I was automatically notified when you played the message from Mr. Carven, and am contacting you to ask if you have any questions.”

  “Oh.” Meyal paused. “Well, it’s all a bit sudden, isn’t it?” she said with a laugh.

  Lewaya smiled in return, but quickly sobered. “The details are as Mr. Carven noted in his communication. You will receive a twenty-five per cent uplift on all bonuses owed to you during your current contract.”

  “That’s, er, very generous.”

  “Yes,” Lewaya nodded. “I thought so, too. Mr. Carven is a most benevolent employer.”

  Something green caught her eye and Meyal glanced right. Above Waryd’s figure, the words, “What about me?” blinked.

  “What about, er, the other employees?” Meyal asked.

  Lewaya stared at her. “What other employees?”

  “Oh, you know,” Meyal waved a hand in the air. “The ExoSystems guys. I don’t suppose Mr. Carven would want two people, for example, doing the work of one, would he?”

  “You mean, in systems where both companies have analysis rights?”

  “Yes. That’s exactly what I mean.”

  “As your situation is nothing like that, I don’t see it as your concern,” Lewaya told her bluntly.

  Meyal didn’t need to glance at Waryd to know he was going crazy on top of the little projection plate.

  She tried again. “Well, it’s just…during the pre-deployment sessions, I heard about…some exo-geologists were talking about other planets, where a number of companies—”

  Lewaya’s face cleared. “Ah yes, those would be the larger systems, with several planets of interest. Upon review of all outstanding operations, however, I’ve been told that there are no planets currently being analysed by XeGeTech and ExoSystems simultaneously.”

  Meyal frowned. “None?” The air seemed to have vacated the room, and she was finding it difficult to breathe.

  “Hard to believe, isn’t it?” her supervisor said with a laugh. “Maybe that’s what prompted Mr. Carven to take over ExoSystems now – a rare chance at a clean integration between companies, right across the galaxy.”

  Mini Waryd stopped jumping as the import of the words hit him too.

  “If that's all, I'll end the call now.”

  Lewaya reached her hand forward to something out of view.

  Meyal could only nod as the conversation terminated and she was once more confronted by a dark screen. She spun around to face Waryd and they stared at each other for a frozen moment.

  She was the first to break the silence, her voice full of horror. “You don’t think—”

  “The bastards,” he ground out. “They must be onto me. How else can you explain that comment about nobody else scanning Falcin V?”

  They were onto him? What was he talking about? “Waryd—”

  “Face it, Meyal. Out of the two of us, you’ve obviously been the better performer, so you're the exo-geologist they're going to keep on. You have better tools to work with, for a start. And you have fine instincts. I can pretend, but I don’t come close.”

  “But surely they wouldn’t—”

  He laughed without humour. “Of course they would, especially if they’ve done any digging into my past. In fact, I think the first thing they’ll do is—”

  His voice cut out abruptly and the figure of Waryd disappeared.

  Frantic, her eyes wide, Meyal scrabbled at the consoles, desperately trying to raise the other orbital. There was no response.

  Hot tears sprang to her eyes
as her fist thumped the board. “No! No! No!”

  Had one of the intervening satellites experienced a problem? Was that why she couldn’t contact Waryd? Meyal wanted to believe their conversation had been abruptly cut by a local technical glitch but, in her heart of hearts, she knew it wasn’t true.

  Then, in the middle of her panic attack, her message board lit up for an unbelievable third time. With an effort, Meyal blinked hard and tried to steady her breathing.

  “Yes?” she asked, attempting to appear unconcerned. Worry for Waryd started a buzzing in her ears, and she had to concentrate to hear what further information Lewaya Phoenix wished to pass along.

  “Meyal, there’s one other thing. I forgot to mention it earlier.” Lewaya cleared her throat. “We’ve picked up some recent…debris around Falcin V.”

  Meyal knew her supervisor was lying by the hesitation and higher tone in her voice. “Yes?” she said, breathlessly.

  What the hell was wrong with Waryd? Why had communications cut off so abruptly like that? What was Lewaya Phoenix about to say, and why was she lying to her?

  “We, er, think it’s a comet that was captured by the planet’s gravity a day or two ago.”

  “I hadn't picked up anything,” Meyal said carefully.

  “No, of course you wouldn't have. It's on the opposite side of the planet.”

  Lying.

  “We’re very lucky it didn’t vector to your side and hit you, to be honest, but it does pose an ongoing risk.”

  There wasn’t a comet. There couldn’t have been. Waryd would have picked it up, and told her about it.

  “And the last thing we want is to take chances with one of our best employees.”

  Meyal knew her voice was faint, but she couldn’t help herself. “Thank you.”