Sexbots in Space

Abstract: Flight Engineer Meghan Rafferty joins an off-world mining shaft crew working in the asteroid belt, but no one told her about her real job.

*

"Why the hell does my spacesuit have high heels?" asked rookie Flight Engineer Meghan Rafferty.

The din of alarms prevented nearby Asteroid Miner Technician Lori Brower from understanding the question. The technician yelled back as her visor locked into place, "Get your helmet on! We might have a breach!" Half of what she had yelled was audible across the room until her visor closed. The remaining half came through the comm system screaming from Meghan's own helmet held in the rookie's hands.

Meghan took a deep breath. Patches of sweat made her shear silky bodysuit undergarment cling to her skin around her chest and back. She set the helmet down, finished getting her hips into the bottom of the questionably rigged spacesuit then reached down inside the front to make certain her bodysuit's rubber crotch access point lined-up with her spacesuit's connectors. Quickly she raised the hard front panel of her oddly slender spacesuit and covered her torso and chest. She snapped on the locking back-to-front shoulder flaps and felt the suit motorize and squeeze around her body.

It was then she noticed the suit was tighter than any another spacesuit she ever wore.

Damn it! Was it the wrong size? There were no other spacesuits and if she couldn't fit in the thing, she was screwed. It was too late to run back into the shuttle. The pilots were probably prepping for an emergency separation.

She tried to peer over the metal ring surrounding her neck. The shiny ring served as an interface to join her suit to the bottom of her helmet, but right now it only blocked her view. She tugged down on the ring with her gloved hands, all standard procedure to visually check that a suit had properly closed. The tightness of this suit certainly concerned her. She pulled again. The neck ring was smaller than normal. It wouldn't budge. She couldn't see over the obstruction like any normal spacesuit.

"Fuck!"

Higher pitched alarms sounded. The room shook again from another asteroid quake.

Looking at a semi-clear reflection in a polymer glass airlock door behind her, she did a visual check of her suit. What the hell? The view was blurry, but the damn suit had breast forms. She had been in such a rush, she hadn't noticed the hard domes encasing her boobs and it wasn't a smaller neck ring preventing her from looking down, it was a stiff collar that the front and back panels had formed around her neck. Normal spacesuits had a wide neck ring resting on the shoulders to interface with a large spherical helmet.

What was this thing?

She looked around and saw that the other asteroid miners had all left. The prep room to the airlock was empty now and there just wasn't anymore time.

A computer voice began detailing issues between alarm bursts. She didn't have time to listen to the words. No mater what the cause, she had to don a suit now.

The only technical issue with her suit's design was its thinner more form-fitting construction. It wasn't regulation with its thin hard shell and certainly not as rugged as the typical spacesuits she had trained in. But she was wearing it now, she did fit inside, and it did seem to have properly sealed. There was no choice. She had to get going.

"Damn it!" yelled Meghan as she pushed the snug helmet around her head. It snapped tight around her cheekbones, pressed her ears down and finally clicked onto the metal neck ring. She breathed in forcing the click of the air regulator. Air flowed. Inside pressure increased. The articulated joints powered up. And thankfully, the alarm noise now resonated at a fainter volume through the closed helmet.

She could finally think.

"Where's the rookie?" said Commander Ann Bruno's voice from Meghan's helmet speaker.

"She's bitching about her suit," said Lori, sounding out of breath from a fast sprint.

"I'm coming," radioed in Meghan wanting to rush out into the mineshaft. Another quake hit. She knew that the shuttle had to break contact with the asteroid and at that point the pilots would follow standard procedure and just leave if the mining base could quickly resolve the problem. Such alerts either got fixed in minutes or never, requiring a total evacuation. Asteroid miners had to be tough. There was no coddling out here in space.

She took a step and almost fell. Luckily she grabbed a wall. It was hard to look and see, but lifting her right foot up in front of her and pressing the bottom sole against the wall, she could quickly make out the narrow solid heel. She had noticed odd heels a few seconds ago, but these were even taller than she had thought, at a minimum four inches high! What the hell did she encase herself inside? Who designs something like this?

"It's just a bad sensor," yelled Commander Ann. "Reset the alarms." Another quake hit. "We're OK here. The shuttle can go."

Meghan took several more steps and finally got out into the mineshaft. The large white metal door closed behind her. Her actions had delayed the shuttle and proved herself totally useless to the crew. On top of that, she walked like a newbie on ice skates. This was not supposed to happen this way. She was looking like an idiot in front of everyone. She saw the asteroid mining crew heading back. She had missed the entire event having spent the time dealing with her stupid suit.

The women asteroid miners each intentionally bumped against her as they passed. She deserved it. She let them down. Her new coworkers' faces were hard to see under their visors. Only their nametags on top their helmets clearly showed as they all passed: Miner Lori, Miner Tingting, Minor Teresa, and Payload Specialist Deb. Their reinforced mining suits gave even petite Tingting a large stature compared to the taller Meghan, encased in her silly thinner form-fitting spacesuit.

Commander Ann approached, stopped and faced the rookie. "I expect a faster response from you. I'd have you do donning drills with your new suit, but the ship is leaving now and with the hazards here, its standard operating procedure that we stay in our suits for the remainder of our tour."

"I'm sorry Commander, but this suit isn't regulation. I mean look at this thing. It has boobs! High heels!" Meghan said all that while grabbing her enhanced chest and then pointing at her feet. She then lifted a foot by folding her leg behind her to show the underside of a supposed pressure boot with its absurdly narrow wedge heel and outrageous height. She blinked when she saw the heel. The thing even had a two-inch platform under the toes that she hadn't noticed until that second. She wasn't on high heels. She was on platforms with high heels. So it wasn't just four inches. It was actually six! She scoffed while standing on one foot grabbing her ankle with one gloved hand and gestured to the raised boot with her other. Both her gloves were slender with wimpy motorization that barely had any of the normal torque levels. The legs didn't either. In fact, normal suits had too much infrastructure to even allow her the leg flexibility she had just shown. Power in a miner shaft was more important than contortions.

"Look at this heel," she added, "the legs, the arms." She lowered her leg. "We're in a mineshaft, not a bordello. Who got me this suit?"

Giggling came over the intercom. Meghan had forgotten to limit the scope of her helmet mic communication system. She should have set a proximity limit so only her and the Commander would be talking to each other.

"Little whinny bit..." said a cut-off voice as Meghan changed her comm settings. She had thought her way through the menu system of her suit's computer and narrowed the comm to 'local.' She wished she had heard the rest of that statement so she could recognize the voice and later deal directly with the offending asshole. She wanted to punch someone. Was this some hazing ritual for rookies? Was it a prank?

"Flight Engineer Meghan," said the Commander Ann, "we have been off world for almost a year now and I requested a capable and willing addition. This mineshaft isn't the bordello. Your suit is. I expect you to fulfill all your obligations. You'll learn about them soon enough." The Commander in her husky spacesuit brushed passed Meghan, who had to throw her arms out to keep standing. Meghan's tall slender suit just didn't compare to power backed movements of a regulation asteroid miner suit.

Meghan looked at herself like someone had just spilled coffee in her lap. The suit was certainly provocative in its design. Her legs were tightly wrapped down to high heels that made them look even longer and lankier approaching the look of a runway fashion model. She had heard of the miners bringing in "entertainment," but normally such stories only came from the all male stations, and even then, never from a government-run station like this one. She had trained for years to get here. She was top in her class. This was not the crap she had signed-up for.

She rethought what she had just heard. Did the Commander actually assign her to be a whore? It must have been a statement said in anger. Any other trained rookie would have handled the alarm better. Still the suit was outrageous. Come on. Why have this kind of spacesuit available here?

"Wait Commander!" said Meghan, trying to catch-up, but forced to slow down once again because of the heels and rocky terrain.

"Mic is off," said her suit's computer.

"Well, mic on." The suit ignored her. "Mic on!" Nothing. She thought her way through the menu systems like before, but the options had moved for some reason. It was right there a second ago. Where was it now?

Helmets could read only general thoughts and gradually trained themselves to be more responsive to its wearer. She thought vague notions like 'up' and the menu system highlighted different text. Another page of options displayed in front of her eyes across the inside surface of her glass visor. Through the glowing green translucent words drawn on her helmet display, she saw Miner Lori waving angrily off in the distance.

"My mic is off," said Meghan then realizing no one would hear her. She started to run and then switched to a careful almost toddler-like walk. The blasted high heels were not meant for walking in rocky tunnels. She also wasn't very adept at handling the precarious height even if given a flat smooth floor.

As Meghan got closer, her helmet speakers tuned to Lori's radio transmitted voice.

"You stupid cunt," said Lori, "you left your suit's comm on local. No one's going to be able to talk to you from a distance."

Meghan shrugged. It probably wasn't visible under the rigid suit with its Joan of Ark breastplate, but it was the only thing she could visually convey -- aside from doing a vulgar hand gesture, and that would get her into more trouble.

The tunnel shook again. This time it wasn't the unstable asteroid. Through the white metal frame of the airlock door's window, the space shuttle could be seen pulling away. Good or bad, the suit she was in was going to be her home for the next week. Then she would complain to Section Command and report this Commander Ann to them. She did not sign-up to be looking like the village slut. In the meantime, if this was someone's idea of a joke, she was going to find them, throw them into a pressure tube, climb in with them, and change suits. Surely even this mining operation had at least one pressure tube or an air locked maintenance room. For asteroid mining, a suit was required at all times, even in a supposed safe room. Everyone lived in their suits.

She felt her waist. The suit really did a number around her torso. It felt like it squeezed her boobs up into the large hard cups jetting off her chest to the point she couldn't see over them. She had to turn sideways to see her ridiculous high heels.

"Stop preening girly girl. Come-on," said Lori.

As Meghan followed her senior crewmember down a tunnel and around turn after turn, she mentally controlled the menus on her helmet display. She thought 'up' and 'left' and 'down' and finally found and selected the mic options. The damn suit's menu system wasn't meant for fast comm switching like normal suits. The freaking computer was making her look like a moron. She turned her mic on.

"Mic option disabled," said the suit's computer.

Meghan screamed inside her helmet and then noticed Lori looking back from her more capable and larger spacesuit -- which looked very comfortable and roomy to wear since it didn't cinch so tightly.

"We're at a normal status now, not alert status," said Lori's voice. "You don't have permissions set for talking unless there is an emergency and even then, we really don't care to hear it. This is your station. It's a stable area here in the tunnels -- as stable as it gets. We don't dig here, so you and that sissy spacesuit of yours won't get hurt. Your daily job is to unpack the food cartridges, deliver them, and answer calls. Even a bimbo like yourself can handle that."

"Fuck you. I'm Engineer level," said Meghan inside her helmet.

Lori just laughed. "I don't need a comm to know what your saying in there. Look, Commander Ann has power in the Mining Corp. We make so much money for them, they let her do anything she wants. If you fuck things up for us, you're not getting home. I'll flush you out into space myself. So enjoy the next six months."

"We get a ship in a week," said Meghan. "And I'm certainly writing a report."

"I don't know what your mumbling in there, but you probably think you're here for a short jump, but we're long term. Yesterday on the shuttle was the first time I've been out of this suit in months. We don't even have pressure tubes. If your suit needs a new part, we use pressure bags around the leg or arm or whatever and let you change the part in there. It's all field conditions from here on out. And don't try to doff your sexy little suit in any safe rooms. This rock we're on is just too unstable."

Lori's large electrically powered gloved hands tugged and pulled on Meghan's slutty spacesuit. Something was being adjusted and Meghan didn't know what. She should have pushed the hands away, but Lori was the superior here. Meghan knew she would regret it, but she simply stood there holding her hands out of the way as Lori adjusted yet another thing on the suit. What the hell was this bitch doing anyway?

"This," Lori said, holding up a little computer pad, "will probably help you cope with your new situation. I would have put it on you sooner, but the emergency call got in the way." The little terminal snapped into a dock inset at Meghan's waist like a large Texan belt buckle. Her helmet display began flashing through menus and several lines of commands that her suit was executing without asking for her permission first. Her suit suddenly stiffened leaving Meghan standing there like a mannequin.

"Welcome to the Alpha Dogs" said Lori banging her fists down hard on Meghan's shoulders like a Frat boy ritual. Thinking about it now, Lori did look like a tough bitchy lesbian. Lori gave a dog howl and added, "We're the most productive mining crew in the entire Corp. We're actually contracted out to the private sector now. The Corp doesn't tell anyone that. And neither will you. By the way, Tingting, won the draw, so she gets you first. Your calendar is pretty full tonight."

Lori left Meghan stuck and helplessly frozen in her sexy spacesuit, standing there in a dark mine shaft tunnel alongside a portable food center -- an asteroid miner's equivalent to a taco truck.

Meghan thought through the menu controls. There had to be a way out. The panel's of menus and commands continued to flash. What was happening? The flashing gave her a headache, but she had to think and control it. The words 'domination' and 'submission training' caught her eye. If someone had watched her face, they would have seen her eyes dilate at what she saw flash by.

Meghan knew she was in trouble.

Pressure inside the suit changed. Her helmet grabbed her scalp tighter than any other helmet she ever wore. Her rigid suit held firm applying full pressure on all joint flexers, normally used to help add strength to a suit's movements, but instead now fought against her body's struggling muscles. Her hips, legs, ankles, elbows, neck, and shoulders were surrounded in unmoving form-fitted bulletproof airtight space age material. Every joint of her suit was locked. The suit was so tight, it corseted her and she couldn't even wiggle enough to rock back-and-forth and maybe force herself to fall over -- although, she didn't know how toppling herself would help.

"Welcome to the crew," said a woman's voice. A video was now playing in Meghan's head. It wasn't on the helmet's display. It was in her mind. Blinking and closing her eyes made no difference. The woman stayed in view wearing a kinky spacesuit like Meghan's. The only difference was the woman held her helmet under her right arm like a pornographic version of the Right Stuff. The arrogant bitch talked like an airplane stewardess describing seatbelt buckles.

The presentation continued, "Special options have been enabled to train your brain waves to correspond to your new job requirements. You may not be a willing participant in this, but you will comply shortly enough." The smile on the bitch's face really pissed Meghan off.

Meghan squeezed her eyes shut, but the image persisted. The stewardess walked casually across a white floor in an all white sterile world to a white table. What was on the table frightened Meghan. There was a two-headed dildo and some various pump looking contraptions.

"First," said the stewardess, "as we access your inhibitions and melt them away, let's discuss your toolset. Rarely used options of lesbian love have been initiated for you." The woman paused to smile or, maybe, smirk. "This part is still in beta testing right now, but I will try my best to convey the techniques assuming you were heterosexual and therefore inexperienced. If not, this maybe rudimentary for you, but please be patient as we'll reach more advanced techniques later in your brain wave reassignment phases, so bare with me." Another pause with a smile followed.

Meghan's suit stood motionless in the corner of the mineshaft. The lectures continued, hours of orations. There was no sleep, no ignoring, no escape. It was morning and her first appointed task would be that night.

No one else was there. Her eyes darted around in their sockets, but the view in her mind didn't change. She watched as the stewardess casually discussed seduction and submission and bondage. Meghan was alone stuck in a suit with a computer playing a horror movie into her brain.

Dust created off in the distance floated down the tunnel and passed by her feet like fog, but she didn't notice. The mine was returning to work. A dozen women had begun to switch from their brief day of R&R to diligently digging rare heavy metals under Commander Ann's ruthless rule of the Alpha Dogs Miners.

*****

Meghan walked down an endless tunnel sporadically lit with a few LED lights. She had lost track of time. Her suit wouldn't even show her a clock and out of nowhere she suddenly felt an urgency to find section A3B5E2. She knew it was her first appointment and from what Lori said, it was with Tingting.

Each letter and number of the section code represented a way to divide the endless maze of mining shafts with a regular grid. Knowing the layout made the system easy to understand, but Meghan's damn suit wouldn't give her access to a basic map -- despite her actual rank, she was treated as no more than a Spaceflight Participant -- basically a nobody. Even a cook had more access than she did.