Of Salt and the Seas of Titan

Alex knew he was in trouble. His ship, the elf-princess, really wasn't made for this kind of emergency. Nor, really was he, if he was being honest to himself. Sure - the ship had provisions for many more months, but he was only meant to be here surveying the moons of Saturn for two weeks, not months. He needed most of those provisions for the return trip. And this failure, if he couldn't fix it himself, would leave him stranded far outside the reach of most of the shipping lanes.

The failure had started small, just a tiny puff of smoke from the cockpit, while he was dozing and waiting on his current surface scan to complete. He wasn't sure where the puff of smoke came from, but it definitely seemed to have been an electrical short somewhere, because now the whole panel was dead. And that particular panel controlled the ship's navigation and astrogation controls, so he wasn't going anywhere for a while unless he could fix it. He thought he could probably fix it - he'd fixed wiring problems before, but should he take the risk in this case? This wasn't a simple holographic projector with a damaged power supply, this was his life, and a mistake could make that error permanent.

While he contemplated his situation, he decided to go ahead and activate the emergency beacon. The beacon was a small device, basically a rocket powered shout to anyone who might be listening. Hopefully, if anyone was listening, they would be not pirates, because pirates were known to get a bit lonely in the open void of space. Sure, they'd rescue him, but not back to civilization. Instead, they'd "adopt" him into their clan, with all of the "perks" that would entail, in the most literal of senses. Alternately, he might find help in an ice freighter, mining the ice mixed with the rings of Saturn, which would be fine; they'd probably tow him home, even if charging a hefty fee and taking months to do it. Hard to convince ice miners to hurry, they live and die by margins, and fuel costs being one of those. If he were lucky, he'd maybe get help from the Solar Federation Navy, they sometimes patrolled this far out. Well, not likely, because they too weren't that interested in engaging with pirates, so that was probably a lost cause.

As he contemplated the best way out of this new set of possible problems, he noticed a flashing red light on another panel, this one fortunately still working. This one, wasn't that familiar to him, though he'd been out in this ship many times before, but had never really looked at this alarm before. He had to wipe the slight grime off of the text underneath it, and as he did, he pulled back abruptly... "Radiation Leak Detected". And with that, his situation immediately devolved from bad to "definitely going to die" territory. He was so far away from the sun, that the leak wasn't likely from the sun's radiation, instead it must either be from Saturn itself, or his fusion reactor.

But it must not be that big of a leak, because the primary radiation detection alarms weren't going off. He spent a few hours troubleshooting - only to realize that he just didn't know the cause, but that it wasn't an emergency. Probably not good for his long-term prospects of having children, but that wasn't likely to happen anyway due to his preference for straight and unattainable men. But he'd have to take some anti-radiation meds anyway, just to be on the safe side. Those too had their own side-effects to consider - they were for "emergency use only" for good reason. People had been known to survive high radiation exposures due to these meds, but gain weird attributes due to the same meds that had saved their lives. They were only approved because they absolutely did work to save you from the radiation, even if you had to live with the consequences for the rest of your, now, saved life.

Alex decided that this would be a good time to take a shower and sleep - for real this time, if he could. His dozing earlier really hadn't helped, he now was tired from the combined stress and many hours of focused troubleshooting. The shower was refreshing, even if it lacked the water that would've made it perfect, substituting high-frequency sonic waves to cleanse the sweat from his pores where water would've felt much better. But, he couldn't afford the water cost, even if he could afford a real water shower. And his ship, while comfortable, wasn't very big - barely enough space for a cockpit, a workstation, and a small living area with a couch that became a bed, and a combined kitchen and bathroom. Big enough for one, but definitely crowded with two. This was fine for him, he was used to small spaces, and as he was alone, this worked out okay. The ship had more spaces, of course, but they were dedicated to being an engine room and workshop, and the fusion reactor spaces, and what amounted to crawl spaces around other systems in the ship. Certainly not livable spaces, but useful and required none the less.

As Alex showered - this time taking a little longer than usual, he noticed that all was not well after all. He was getting turned on - for no particular reason. Usually while out on exploration trips, he didn't avoid masturbation, but it certainly wasn't one of his primary activities either. He usually just had too much to do, and too much on his mind. But here, suddenly, his body was reminding him of his need, and maybe that it had been too long that he'd been by himself as well. He took care of his need, knowing that while the shower didn't include water, his offering would be broken down into it's constituent parts, and recycled into the water system that he'd be drinking later. As he came, he realized that he was thinking about pirates - like, they probably have some really hot ones, right?

They were usually all male crews, and they kept their girlfriends and wives in hidden bases where they'd be safe from attack. This resulted in a high amount of straight guys temporarily becoming gay while out in space on long voyages. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to be rescued by pirates after all??? As he was thinking about that, without really any strong visuals, he exploded across the walls of the stall, more so than even his fantasies usually caused. As he cleaned up - he started to wonder about the ferocity of that orgasm, and what had triggered that. He'd been tired, and not really in the mood - but yet, it had come upon him suddenly, and released even more quickly. As he considered this while dressing in clean underwear and a ship-suit, his stomach growled, reminding him of the many hours since he'd eaten. All sex thoughts put aside - it was time to get some protein and sleep.

Alex slept a fitful sleep, dreaming more than usual, or maybe just remembering the dreams more than usual. As he awoke, he noticed that another part of him had awoken first, and demanded attention. Way more than normal, if he was being honest here. He decided that taking care of that was the first order of business of the morning; and again, exploded quickly, this time across his bare chest, covering his tattoos. That, alone, was odd. Usually it was not so fierce, even when he's found someone at the bars during his infrequent docks at the orbital ring. This was definitely abnormal, but he chalked it up to high stress and needing release and relief.

Alex cleaned up, this time not using the sonic shower, but instead his underwear from yesterday, knowing that the automatic cleaner would recycle the excess as it cleaned his clothes, as it always did. As he made his morning coffee, which was only barely acceptable to be called as such, he started considering if maybe he could repair his ship or not. The repair would probably involve tracing down the failure, and re-wiring or bypassing the failure, but in doing so, he could also cause a larger failure if he wasn't careful. He'd taken classes in all sorts of topics over the years, including some on electrical engineering, but it wasn't really his primary area of focus, not by any stretch of imagination.

As he considered this, he checked on the previous scan results, and quite fortunately, they were intact. So whatever the failure was, it hadn't impacted the exploration and scanning functions of the ship, apparently. As he checked his orbit, he noticed that it had decayed slightly, but he was still on the right path to do further scans. While he wasn't sure that anyone would find the data from his ship, it just felt right to go ahead and continue his job, even if there was the very real possibility that no one would see his data until they were there to colonize or mine the moon. He went ahead and triggered the scans, as this would give him several more hours of solitude before he had to make a decision about repairing the panel or releasing another beacon.

Alex used this time to workout, working up a sweat, and mysteriously, got turned on by the process. And this was even more odd - generally, working out did not turn Alex into a sex fiend, and yet, it was happening again, he felt ready to explode yet again. This time, he did not indulge in the feelings that were overtaking him, and instead chose to meditate, with the hope that this would satiate whatever was roaring to life inside him. As it turned out, it really didn't help, an hour later he was taking another sonic shower, and coating the walls of the shower yet again.

Alex finished his shower, and got a surprise as he looked in the mirror while wiping himself down. His normally blond hair, seemed to be more yellow, or golden, even. Maybe a trick of the light? Or maybe the radiation, or the meds were temporarily causing his eyesight to be see things? He looked down, and it also seemed that his dick had gotten bigger. He wasn't a small guy to begin with, but now he seemed to be ready to compete for awards... and also, he was hard again. How even??? He'd never gotten this hard, this fast, this many times in a short time period. This time, he tried to ignore it, even as it threatened to tear apart his underwear in it's agitation. But he didn't really have time to take care of this, and this many times in such a short period - was making him a bit sore. His body just wasn't accustomed to getting hot and horny this many times so quickly. This rang minor alarm bells in Alex's head - what was going on here?

Alex put on the relatively simple auto-doc diagnostic cuff, and checked his temperature and blood pressure, and let the computer run its tests. Its result wasn't very helpful - it indicated only higher than normal readings - blood pressure, testosterone, heart rate, oxygen ingestion rate, etc. None of this really told Alex if this was bad or good. But Alex felt great, in fact, he felt amazing. More alive than ever, he could feel the blood pumping through his whole body, including one particular part that hadn't bothered to notice that he was trying to get work done. He decided that maybe if he took care of it, he'd have at least a few hours of focus - so moved into the shower and helped the recycler once again. This time seemed like the biggest of all, but he didn't have any way to measure this, it was purely a feeling.

The days continued on like this for a while - with Alex's need becoming more and more frequent. After a week, he was jerking off 5 or more times a day, and each time, creating a huge mess that was not in any way normal for him. And worse, his hair seem to be getting more and more golden as the days passed, to the point where it seemed to shine with it's own light under the weak ship lights.

It was on the 8th day, that a ship signaled that they were approaching. Alex was immediately overjoyed at the idea of rescue - he'd already decided that this was his fate, but had come around to the idea of hot and sexy pirates, because he wanted to live. He knew of course, that if it were pirates, it was just as likely that he'd encounter one (or a crew of them) that hadn't showered in weeks, and smelled like a pit of recycled bio proteins mixed with diesel fuel. Alex decided it didn't matter, he wanted to live, and maybe in a few years he'd get back to earth; any raft in a flood, right?

He signaled back to the ship that he was in distress and needed help. The ship didn't have video comms, unfortunately, only audio channels. The incoming ship indicated it was a rescue, but not much else. And, it did so in the robotic tones of an automatically generated text to speech message. At least he knew they were saying that they were here to help, even if he had no assurances from the captain of the rescue vessel. The last real message indicated that they were sending over a rescue shuttle, and that it would dock with my ship shortly.

Shortly turned out to be several hours - mostly of waiting, again with a hard-on that didn't seem to care about how in appropriate it was given the situation at the moment. Alex willed to to go down, thinking about the sexual mating habits of the 3-toed sloth, thinking this would help. It didn't. And now suddenly he had a vague fetish about 3-tied sloths that was definitely going to require expensive psychiatric help later. But assuming that there was a later - well, this was an acceptable price to be paid, as long as he stayed away from any zoos in the meantime.

As the hours drew to a close - the homing locator on the other ship negotiated with the one on the docking collar of his ship, and started a low drone at first, and later a higher and higher pitch as the ship drew closer to docking with his. He was saved! He'd get to go home, and maybe live to explore another planet if this ship could be repaired! The tones seemed to go slower and slower, as he waited patiently for his visitor and rescuer to arrive. As it creeped closer and closer, the warbling turned into rapid tones, indicating a successful docking sequence. Finally, with a slight thud, the other ship was docked with his, and there was a tone, indicating successful pressure equalization, and that his visitor wished to open the airlocks. He acknowledged the warnings, and triggered the cycle to equalize the pressure in the airlock between the two ships, and his visitor crossed as soon as the two airlock doors opened.

His visitor was hard to take in at first. He was a man, certainly, but seemed to be both older and younger at the same time. He appeared to be in his 30's or early 40's, but had a shock of silver hair, and a silver mustache and beard, neatly trimmed. He was in pretty good shape for someone in space, and weirdly chose to wear a leather jacket over his own ship suit. Alex had a moment of panic - was this a dream? Had he actually died, or was unconscious due to the ship failures, and was just imagining this? Part of him reacted anyway, unfortunately in the most visible way. The stranger either didn't notice this, or politely chose to ignore the obvious bulge in Alex's ship-suit.

After introductions, Alex learned that the stranger was known as Keen, and was an ex-Solar Navy officer, previously a commander. He commonly was called 'Commander Keen', even though this was more an honorary title more than reality, as he was only commander of his own ship now, instead of a battle group. But it'd stuck, and he'd embraced the title as it fit him well. He wasn't a big man, but instead was of medium build, and liked to workout and keep as fit as he could in the low gravity of his ship. The workouts gave him something to distract himself as he did his own mineral exploration work and designs for new ship prototypes. He wasn't really setup to do rescues, but his ship did have a smaller shuttle, which he used to connect to Alex's smaller ship after he'd received the emergency beacon.

Keen (who was also Sam to some, but had largely abandoned using his first name), wasn't sure how well this was going to work. His own ship had issues of it's own, and while he wasn't in danger, he didn't really have the ability to rescue anyone as he didn't have the fuel or provisions to help them beyond a very short period. But there were no other ships close by, and this beacon was a week old, so for all he knew, the occupant of this ship had long since expired due to whatever emergency had caused them to release the beacon.

Keen was somewhat of a private guy, and wasn't sure what this encounter would entail. He'd previously been married during his active duty service days, but apparently his long absences had been too much for his wife.

She'd first started with minor drugs to take her mind off of things, but this had quickly escalated to injecting compound SX, which was all the rage right now. Compound SX wasn't really dangerous on it's own, other than the addictive nature of it, and how it allowed for escapism in it's hallucinogenic properties for those who weren't capable of dealing with the problems in their lives. The problems, however, came from how many dealers were buying from cheaper and cheaper sources - many of whom were less concerned with purity and more concerned with profit. And as they cut and re-cut their product with more exotic drugs, each time it became more and more dangerous to the person consuming it. In the case of Keen's wife, she'd gotten it from a friend, who'd bought it from another friend, who had bought it while on vacation in Mexico.

The dealer that, her friend many steps removed, had bought it from - owed a huge debt that he'd was getting daily reminders of, in the most bloody form. First his dog abruptly died, then several of the neighborhood kids that he paid to keep a watch on visitors had disappeared, and then suddenly his girlfriend had abruptly died. This is when he knew he was being given a clear message; that he owed, and must pay. So while he knew that it was dangerous to cut his product even further - he reasoned that no one would take it in sufficient quantity and the heroin he mixed it with, would only amplify the effect for those that did. Thus he sold to a friend of a friend of a friend, and thought no further of it, nor never knew of the consequence of this choice. He wasn't able to pay off his debt, and was found dead 2 weeks later, of an apparent heart attack. (Later examination would prove that this heart attack, and many others, wasn't natural at all, but in fact was yet another new drug, this one previously unknown.)

Sam's wife, however, knew none of these things. Instead, she had gotten a little taste during a night out with her friends, and a friend had offered her some for later, which she accepted. Later, being Sunday night, she was alone, and missing Sam, who was deployed on a patrol; and decided to try it again. This time, it wasn't like the last time, it wasn't fun at all. A few seconds after injecting it, her heart began to race, and she knew that this wasn't like the the last time. She triggered the emergency mode on her watch, which tracked her heart rate as it rapidly climbed.

Emergency services were called, but even as fast as they were, they didn't arrive in time to save her - by the time they arrived, she was no more, her brain having been starved of oxygen for several minutes already. Sam Keen was duly informed of this during his patrol, which took him out past Mars from Deimos station. He had no choice in this case - he couldn't leave the ship, and he couldn't turn the ship around. He could only mourn, and from a distance. His parents and friends took care of everything, and when he returned home all that remained was a memorial and an urn.

This was the moment that he was done, both in his heart and in his service - he could no longer continue to serve the Solar Navy, even as much as he loved his service and doing his duty. He resigned his commission, cashed out his retirement, and bought a used mineral exploration ship; and swore off all love and attachment in the process.

And this brings us to why he was out in the orbit of Saturn - looking for unexplored crevices in moons and astroids, hoping to find something that no one else had yet found.