Marshmallows

I have nothing to say for myself on that title.

This has been proofread, but not heavily edited.

As always, feedback and votes are greatly appreciated. Enjoy. :)

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"I hear you can get anything if someone can pay enough," a rough voice said from behind me. I finished my glass of whiskey and motioned the barkeep bot over for another round.

"Depends what you want," I turned to the.... Man. It was a human man and I groaned inwardly. He was rugged and not even remotely handsome, but it had been a long time.

"I need some of the marshmallow plants from Yeanope."

I laughed and turned around to grab my whiskey, waving off the bot when it flashed that I was near my limit. Damn dirty bots never let a girl drink her fill. "You can't afford my rate for that."

"You don't know what I can afford," the man growled and I spun around on my seat again.

"You know what? You're right. I charge fifty thousand up front, another fifty thousand on delivery."

"Done," he started tapping at a thin device, but I stared at him until he stopped. "What?"

"My pilot charges three hundred thousand just to land on the planet. Up front. Four hundred thousand total between us."

"Why don't I just go to your pilot and you don't have to go?"

"Good luck with that, she's a bitch," I threw back the last of the whiskey and scanned my wrist over the screen on the bartop. I walked out of the bar and into the mall lift, hitting the button to the hangar level and the man followed me.

"I'll pay it," he grumped. "But this is spaceway robbery."

"Oh boo hoo," I pulled a face at him. "If this was easy to get you'd go and do it yourself."

"I'll pay your pilot directly," he tapped at that device again.

I held my wrist out, "You could have said that in the bar and saved yourself a trip to the hangar."

"I'm not paying you the entire sum," he sneered.

"Actually, you are. I am my pilot and my crew. If you don't like it, best of luck to you finding someone to go out to that planet."

The lift stopped and the doors slid open onto the noise of the hangar. I strode to the gravity pad and punched in the code for her bay, groaning when the man stepped on with her.

"When will you head out?" He had to yell to be heard over the hangar noise.

"Soon as I'm stocked for the trip. It takes a month to get out to that quadrant. Are you wanting a quick turn-around on this? I've got other stops to make out there."

"I want to go with you, take possession and finish the transaction at the first port."

I looked at him and paid attention this time. He was fit enough, wearing the standard drab brown coveralls with patches I didn't recognize. "I travel alone."

"See something you don't like?"

"Yeah," I turned back around and watched as the bays changed from the smaller skiffs to the larger intergalactic ships. "There's another person on this gravpad with me."

The gravpad stopped at my modest hopper and the station crew working on the repairs and restocking looked up and catcalled as I walked to the panel. I punched in the code, and nothing happened. Clenching my fist, I punched the panel and the hatch opened and the steps lowered.

The man cleared his throat and held up his device when I glared at him. "Four hundred thousand, up front, and one one-way passenger."

I held out my wrist and he held his device over it. I felt the zing that said the transaction was done and rubbed my wrist on my coveralls. "Come on up, then."

My hopper was small and while it had two berths, I would need to clean the second one out for a passenger. He climbed up behind me and looked around. "Not much, is it?"

"I don't need much when it's just me," I tapped out orders to make sure there would be enough food and water to get me to the station closest to Yeanope. "I'll clean out the second berth and then you can have it for the trip."

The berth was full of plascrete crates that I moved down to one of the small holds. I might need to purge some of the stuff at the next station if this guy wanted a lot of the plants from the planet. I finished moving the crates and left the hatch open then moved up to the bridge to put in my flight plan now that I actually had one. Paying for supplies and the repairs already underway was less painful than it would have been a couple hours ago.

"Why do you travel alone?" I jumped and spun around to find the man in the hatch to the bridge, looking around at all the screens.

"Because it's quiet," a heavy hammering drummed up through the open hatch from the hangar. "Usually." I hit a button to retract the stairs and shut the hatch, and the whole ship seemed to sigh in relief from the noise.

"Where's the berth?" I pointed in the general direction of it and continued to tap out orders for things that would be loaded here and some to be loaded at the next station.

"It has a head of its own," I called out as he thumped around through the ship. A message came through from the next station, confirming my bay number for a month out and requesting board for a criminal from the station. I let my finger hover over the decline button, but then shifted and tapped to accept the passenger. I walked out of the bridge and toward the berth where I could see the man poking around. "We'll leave in four standard hours," I pulled a screen out of the wall near the hatch. "Hatch codes and everything is in here, if you'll just put in your info so it will recognize you."

The first week on the ship had me on the bridge a lot. I had to log the intent to travel to Yeanope and why, get the appropriate approval, and how many passengers would actually be landing on the planet itself. I didn't care if the man wanted to go to the surface, but he was staying in the ship. Thankfully, the ship systems were easy enough that the man wasn't asking me questions the entire time.

I was curled on one of the couches that were spread around the ship, reading some fluffy romance book I'd picked up at the last station when the man came around one of the bulkheads. He had taken to walking around without his shirt and I wasn't complaining about the view. "Not much to do on the ship, I guess."

"Which is why I don't need a crew, they'd die of boredom," I went back to my book, but then set the screen on my chest and stared at the ceiling. "Why do you want the marshmallow plants? You can get Yeanope marshmallows on the stations around the planet."

"I actually just want the flowers," I looked over at him. "I'm a confectioner, and believe it or not paying to have you go to the planet for them is cheaper than buying them through a supplier."

"That's a lot of money for a candy," I said.

"People will pay a lot more for them, too. Cutting the supplier out raises my profit margins. So, what do you do when you're not trying to ignore a passenger on your ship?"

"Peacekeeping," I said simply. He didn't need details, and wouldn't like them if I told him.

"In this?" He gestured around at the small space. "You've got two berths here. What happens if you have to arrest someone?"

"Cargo holds are pressurized," I shrugged. "But I don't do the kind of peacekeeping that involves many arrests. Species pacification is more along the lines of what I do, and it's really hard to explain."

"I don't think I've ever met a Peacekeeper," he rubbed his chin, scratching at the thin beard that had started growing.

I tapped out a few things on the screen before going back to reading. He hung out for a while before heading back to his berth. There was a clunk when he turned on his shower, and I made a note to have that checked at the next station.

His hatch was open as I walked to my own berth and I glanced in, then stopped in my tracks. He was naked on the bed with one foot down on the floor and the other knee bent up and resting on the bulkhead, with his head on the end of the bed toward the hatch. His cock was hard, but he only idly stroked himself while he read something on the screen he had out. I stood there like a dumbass, watching the head of his cock slide slowly in and out of his foreskin, wondering what it would feel like to slide him into me like that.

I must have made some noise, because he stopped and twisted, looking up at me from the bed. His eyes were hooded, though, and he smiled as he watched my eyes move back down to his crotch. "There's room in here for two, if you want to join me."

I took the couple steps into his berth and paused for a second before pulling the shirt I was wearing over my head. My nipples hardened in the cooler air, and he shifted on the bed as I got out of my pants. Two more steps to the bed and I sat on my knees next to his hips. "Do you have protection?"

He grunted and shifted his balls away from the very top part of his thigh, showing the slightly darker spot where an implant had been injected. "You?"

My own implant was on my hip, and I pointed it out. Satisfied this would just be fun, I reached out and wrapped my hand around his shaft. He had softened a bit in the time since he had invited me in, so I stroked him until he was just as stiff as he had been when I first saw him. He slid his hand over my hip and up to my pull at my nipples, but moved when I shifted and bent to wrap my lips around the head of his cock.

"Oh, fuck yeah," he moaned and relaxed into the bed, trailing his hand over my back and ass where he could reach. I stroked and squeezed his shaft, teasing the head of his dick when the skin slipped back off it. I had to move a bit more to get more of him in my mouth, and he pulled my legs over his chest.

He tasted salty, but with a sweetness I hadn't been expecting. The head of his cock was unbelievably soft and smooth under my tongue, and the foreskin sliding back and forth was such a fun texture. I was enjoying myself, making him jump and twitch in my mouth with different swirls of my tongue, when he grabbed my hips and pulled me back along his chest. He was too tall for this, though, so I stroked him as his tongue split me.

His tongue slipped from my opening and down through me to my clit, making me moan and rock my hips. He wrapped his arms around my hips, keeping me still on his mouth. I distracted myself by stroking and squeezing his cock, trying to delay the orgasm I could feel building. Once, I squeezed and slid my hand down, twisting gently and he came away from my core with a wet smack, "Fuck, don't do that."

I looked back at him and pulled away, turning to face him and straddle his thighs. I watched his face as I did the same thing again. His head fell back and his abs tensed as he moaned and thrust against my hand. "Don't do this?" I did it again, twisting on the upstroke this time. His hips bucked off the bed and his hands went flat against the wall above the bed.

"Fuck, that's going to make me cum," he groaned. "Where did you learn that?"

I shrugged, stroking him much more gently now. "I made it up." I waited until he calmed a bit more, just playing with his dick and balls. When he nodded that he was fine, I moved up his legs, dragging my wetness over his shaft. I teased us both like that for a few minutes before he grabbed my hips and took over, pushing into my body in a smooth motion.

I rocked my hips, shifting my knees to get him as deep as possible, before reaching between our bodies to run my fingers over my clit. He moved slowly, pushing into me with a steady rhythm that contrasted with the furious movement of my fingers over myself. I came, gasping and fighting not to take my fingers off too soon. He held my hips as I rode the orgasm, and then started grinding into me when I moved my hand.

He was growling softly as we fucked, and his hands were tight on my hips. I leaned back slightly and started riding him harder, and he lost his control. He lifted my hips and held me in place and rammed into me, fast and hard. His eyes were locked on our bodies moving against each other. Seconds passed and he was saying, "Fuck" with every thrust. His breaths were ragged, and his thrusts slowed but didn't stop when he came. The extra wetness made him slide even easier, to the point where he slipped out of me and thrust along my slit a few times.

I turned and stood from the bed before he could try to cuddle or anything, but he didn't seem to mind. I watched as he grabbed his shirt and cleaned himself off before tossing it into the laundry processor, and I walked across to my own berth to clean off.

I slept off the afterglow and he found me on the bridge a few hours later, handing me a mug of coffee. "So, do you always have sex with your passengers?"

"I don't take on many passengers, so it's never come up," I sipped the coffee and grimaced, reaching over to the food slot and dialing up some cream and adding it in. I motioned to the second seat and he took it.

"Must be lonely out here," he said.

I shrugged, but he couldn't see it. "It's peaceful."

"The two are not always mutually exclusive." They sat in silence for a while before he asked, "Can you see out of here?"

"Have you ever seen deep space?"

"Once, but it's been a while. Why?"

"Some people don't handle it well is all. Hang on and I'll get the big screen going." I flipped some switches and part of the bulkhead across from us started to glow. Then a couple taps on the screen in front of me brought up the camera view of space.

We weren't traveling faster than light for such a short distance, the nuclear drive enough to get the ship easily between the stations. All we saw were stars and some dusty nebulas.

"Huh," he grunted. "I thought it would be more colorful."

"I can fix that," I tapped out the command to add a filter to what was being sent through the cameras. The nebulas lit up with bright colors, looking like the holos kids bought in malls. "The colors aren't really there. This is something the old NASA scientists used to do to make space prettier for the general public."

"Why do you have the filter? I mean, I know they use them on the big cruise liners, I just can't see why you have it on such a small ship."

I tapped a screen and took a shot of the nebula, and then fiddled with the filters and colors. "People still buy this as art, and I go to some fairly remote areas. Peacekeeping doesn't always pay well, but shots of seldom seen things in space can pay to keep me going out for months."

"That makes sense."

"There's not much else to do on these trips, to be honest."

"I can think of a bunch of things to do out here. None of them include watching these screens."

"I should probably take the chance to say I'm not looking for a relationship," I reached out and turned off the big screen.

"I'm not either, but we're both adults all alone in the middle of nowhere. We might as well have fun out here." He stood and took my coffee mug and put them in the slot to be cleaned and then pulled me out of my chair and off the bridge. We stripped on the way to the nearest couch.

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I tapped on the hatch to his berth, "We'll be docking in an hour, and I have to pick up someone who's been convicted. They'll be staying in one of the holds, I just don't want you to freak out about it." The panel turned green to indicate he'd gotten the message and I went back to the cargo holds.

I had been sorting through the various crap in the plascrete crates and had a large amount of it that could be purged. I shoved it all into a metal tube to be jettisoned from the station. The rest went back into a crate and was strapped under one of the couches.

There was a slight tremble through the ship when the docking tugs latched on, and I went to the bridge. The beauty of these temporary station stops was the ease of docking and undocking. Tugs are wonderful.

There was a request for a visual, so I reached back and shut the hatch and turned on the big screen. A craggy, brown visage came up and I had to fight to keep my face straight. The vegetative species always tended to make me giggle.

"Alpha-five-nine-two, you have accepted the transport of inmate seven-one-three-triple-zero-point-two-two, is this correct?"

I glanced at the transport orders to confirm the number he'd just rattled off. "Yes, I have."

"Do you have sufficient space for a humanoid prisoner on your vessel?"

"The prisoner can safely stay in the aft cargo hold."

"Given where your flight plan is taking you, read through the orders on this carefully."

The flight tech signed off abruptly, and I snorted. I felt like I should watch Lord of the Rings now, but then the magnetic hum of the docking equipment started and I powered down as far as I could. As soon as the ship was docked, I went out to open the hatch. The man started to come out of his berth, but I shook my head and waved him back until he went back into the room.

I stepped down onto the deck and immediately saw the guard. They were walking in a cluster around a small man chained so heavily he had to shuffle, and the guards around him couldn't walk any faster without either dragging him or picking him up. From the looks on their faces none of them would object to dragging the man.

"Aft cargo hold, guys," I motioned for the captain. "There's sufficient security there that you can use the bots to take the chains off." The captain nodded at the guards and they shuffled around.

"You read the orders?"

"I'm going to Yeanope," I waved my wrist over the tablet he held out, and he grunted. "I'm pretty sure they flagged me for this as soon as I put in the flight plan and started requesting landing permissions."

"You'd be right," he tapped a few things on the tablet and held it back out again. "Fair flying, Peacekeeper."

His men had come back around and I hated the look of awe on some of their faces. The hangar foreman came along right after the guards left for me to sign off on the supplies I had requested, but they couldn't do any kind of repairs on the water system for the second berth until I had finished this assignment. Basically, he all but told me to get the hell off his station with my cargo. Yippee. My favorite part of the job.

The man was sitting on one of the couches when I stepped back up in the ship and went to the bridge. He followed me and I wanted to snap at him to just go away. I'm not really sure why I stopped myself other than he wasn't the reason for my ire.

"Can you explain any of this to me?"

"Not really," I motioned to the second seat since he wasn't acting like he wanted to go away. "They'll top up our supplies and make sure my surface skiff has fuel, then we need to undock."

"No skin off my back," he raised his hands up.

"Do you want to return to this station, or do you need to go to a different station after Yeanope?" I watched as several lights turned green as the restock went incredibly fast. They really wanted this cargo off the station. As soon as the skiff was fueled, I got the green light to start undocking. Which really meant I got to tap a few more spots on the screens and then the tugs did all the work.

"I've actually been setting up a rental on this station, so if returning is an option that would be nice."

"Heard," I was falling back into old speech patterns from when I flew with a partner. It wasn't the first time I'd noticed it happening, but this was the most obvious. He looked at me with raised brows and I waved him off. "I haven't put a flight plan in for after Yeanope, yet. I'll put it in now."

"I thought you didn't want a relationship," he seemed to mean that to be teasing, but I just looked at him and the look left his face.

"I don't want a relationship. I have to fly a surface skiff down to Yeanope and that's not always the best idea for a person to have. If I don't return to the ship within four standard days, it will continue on to my next planned stop."

"What do you mean, if you don't return?"