Spatial Disorientation

"T -60 seconds for deorbiting maneuver, thrusters are...go, reorienting-"

Something bounces against my head in the small cockpit of my craft.

"Ouch...Where were we...Oh right T -45, 10° off of target vector."

The craft aligns itself along the preset flight path. I watch as the maneuvering fuel crosses the 50% mark.

"T - 20, main engine warm-up, Aligned with target vector, T -15 thruster shutdown, craft stable."

I watch as the time clocks down towards 0, mentally preparing myself for the intense acceleration to come.

The countdown reaches -5, the engine starts to roar as the pumps try to move the fuel towards the combustion chamber.

-1, the autopilot takes over.

Zero. I groan as I suddenly have to fight my own weight. From next to nothing to 5, 6 or 7 times my weight on earth.

I can't move, I am pressed against the seat and suddenly I feel light again. It was just a short thrust, luckily, because my body isn't used to be accelerated anymore.

I look out the window and see the small dot that's home to us, mankind, glistening blueish on the darkness of space. It's so serene and beautiful, at least from afar.

It could still be of course, if you think smog, extreme weather and a way too high ocean level is serene. But there's always this feeling of being home when you watch earth spinning below you.

Or, if you are actually lucky enough to have a home on earth that's safe to live in, when you're walking along the beaches and look out over the ocean.

But what remains of our presence on earth is ruins, a ruined environment and some facilities for traffic control and refueling.

On that note I need to check in with earth traffic control.

'Earth traffic control, here's the freighter Io, please confirm contact.'

A few seconds later, due to the speed of light being finite, a response.

'ETC to freighter Io, contact is a go, please transmit your ID and flight path.'

'Io to ETC, ID is 42-16-Apollo, flight path is ECC 1.1, PE 267km, INC 0.4°.'

'ETC to Io, confirmed, what is your target?'

'Io to ETC, Target is the Aurora orbital refinery, I've got 1500 metric tons of hydrogen aboard. Requesting transfer maneuver at PE.'

'ETC to Io, confirmed and approved as requested, have a nice flight.'

The comms channel closes with a crackling sound and I am alone again, thousands of kilometers away from the next human being.

Some people might be afraid of that, some may go mad in the months of travel between the few outposts of humanity that remain after the ecological collapse.

But I, I find the dark expanse calming, alone on my ship drifting through the solar wind. Of course it's dangerous, one leak and I suffocate in the vacuum of space. One malfunction and I might be stranded on an unreachable orbit. One wrong calculation and I'll plunge to my death. But if I am ever unable to get away from such a trajectory, well, I lived a good life.

But anyways, I unbuckle my seatbelt and float away from the pilots seat, zero g is after all the best thing about space, I grab a hand rail and 'climb' towards my bed, the scheduled transfer maneuver is set to be in 17 hours. Time to grab some sleep.

'Computer, set up a wake-up call in 14 hours.'

A beep confirms the call and I go to bed. I quickly find sleep.

I wake up, with the usual annoying beeping and booping sounds of the computer alert system. Something seems off. Looking out the windows, earth is closer now, but not close enough.

I unbuckle myself from my bed, a daunting task, especially if you're tired and in zero g, but I got fairly efficient at it. I float up and through the bulkhead connecting my living quarters with the cockpit.

I float to a console and open up the alert window.

It's a message. A message from James Hanson. The CEO of Aurora Refining Inc. He's my boss.

I open up the message. It reads:

'Io,

I hope your voyages have been safe up until now, but I must ask you to meet me on the Lunar colony. It's a matter we can't discuss via direct transmission.

Sincerely,

James Hanson

Aurora Refining Inc.'

I am alarmed and delighted. Usually if the CEO of Aurora calls you, you either get a promotion, a huge load of money or a nice deep breath of space. Out of an airlock.

Fuck. I might be dead. Or lucky. But possibly dead.

I know Luna is on the other side of earth of my perihelion, Aurora Orbital Refinery is about 10° away from it. The most efficient way to get to Luna is to dock at Aurora, unload the Hydrogen, get my 120'000 Dollars for the shipping, refuel and then go to Luna.

Yes, that's the plan.

In the remaining time until the maneuver I'll sleep, eat 'breakfast', or rather some not so tasty cubes of protein and sugar, and then wash myself.

I strap myself in 10 minutes early and call Aurora Orbital Refinery.

'Aurora Orbital Refinery, this is the freighter Io, Commencing rendezvous maneuver in T-10 minutes, do you copy?'

'Io, this is AOR, Commencing maneuver in T-9:45 minutes, confirmed.'

I go through the checklists and realign the spacecraft. Autopilot takes over the maneuver as usual. The distance drops to about 1500m away from the station and the remaining velocity is canceled out.

Everything is as usual.

'AOR, this is Io, requesting docking permission to port 7.'

'Io, permission has been granted.'

I realign my craft, the earth on my left, yellowy white clouds indicating traces of sulfuric compounds and nitric acid in the air.

I fire the maneuvering thrusters. The computer voicing the distance in ever growing intervals.

1000

I align the craft in the roll axis, the pitch slightly below what it should be.

500

I finalize the alignment and correct the velocity vectors.

250

The docking ports open up and I gently accelerate towards the port.

100

Everything is perfectly aligned, port to port. Except for the distance between the ship and the station.

50

I decelerate a bit and wonder, what the CEO wants from me.

20, I am slowly getting closer and closer to the station. The gray metal reflecting the sun.

10

5

Contact.

We're docked. The maglocks engage with a loud thud.

I unstrap myself from the seat and let myself float upwards towards the airlock. I press the buttons to cycle it, so it's pressurized and open the inner door.

Because I am docked to station the outer door opens too, along with the station airlock.

On the other side waits a security officer. A Taser on his hip, because shooting is greatly inadvisable aboard a ship or a station, he greets me.

'Good day, sir, is anything wrong?' I ask. Usually company freighters aren't checked.

'it's just a minor problem, your cargo, what is it?'

'1500 metric tons of hydrogen, to be refined into fuel, what is the problem, may I ask?'

'Oh just some minor issues with the purity of the goods.'

That's weird, usually they'd send a scientist or an engineer if that is true.

'May I ask for the papers, please?'

'Of...Of course.' I answer as I grab them.

'Here.' I say and hand them over. A loud thud echoes through the ship as the first container is undocked and moved to the refining area.

'Ok, everything seems by the numbers, please excuse my disturbance, I'm sorry.' He says as he hands me the papers.

'You've been given Luna Colony clearance.' he whispers into my ear as he shakes my hand. 'Be careful.'

I nod and two more thuds echo through the ship.

He floats off, and closes the airlock. I open my side and float back to the flight seat. I plot a path to Luna. About 15hrs from low earth orbit. Transfer window in 2hrs. Plenty of time to check out, undock and prepare. I go through the usual undocking proceedings, undock and let my ship drift towards the transfer point. I pass my time playing some silly games.

And I think.

I think about how we've ruined it. Why didn't we do anything earlier? Earth is lost. It's a false jewel. It's beautiful, but deadly. We couldn't stop burning fossil fuels, we couldn't deal with the broken environment we were creating. We couldn't stop the end. Just delay it.

Now earth's atmosphere is 19% Oxygen, 70% Nitrogen, 9% Argon, 2% CO2 and 1% various Nitric and sulfuric compounds. Utterly unbreathable, deadly to humans within 45 minutes without protection. The average temperature has risen from 15°C to 21°C and it isn't the end of it. The climate hasn't restabilized yet.

Now 150 years after the ecological collapse, humanity hasn't recovered either, we're 1 billion at best. Before the collapse we were 16 billion. We colonized Luna and Mars as desperate measures, with Luna the biggest human population, of 600 million. 350 million live on Mars and 50 million on the various stations and colonies in the asteroid belt, the Jovian system and the Saturn system.

After a while the ship reaches the maneuver, I float into my seat and strap in. I correct the alignment and execute the maneuver, a short and uncomfortably hard acceleration later I am on my way towards Luna.

Which means, again, lots of time to pass. Though I'll spare the details of my thought processes this time. I don't think people would find reading maintenance logs, manuals and processes of a Mk. II Solid Hydrogen Fusion Drive particularly interesting.

During that my craft slides along its trajectory, Luna, or the moon as it was once called, becoming bigger and bigger by the hour. It's about 300 years since humanity first set foot on it and now it's the closest we have to a home world.

The soil may be gray, the atmosphere...well... nonexistent and the gravity a sixth of earths but at least it is a world to live on.

The craft slowly slips into the Lunar sphere of influence and I float up into my cockpit to check in with the traffic control.

'Io to Lunar-' I get cut off by the operator mid sentence.

'Lunar Traffic Control to Io, you're already cleared. Proceed into parking orbit Zero-Niner-Two then land on Pad Four-Two.'

'Thanks, LTC.'

The comms shut down with a crackling sound once more. Usually, you need to get hundreds of permits to even be allowed into an orbit. But I am precleared. Which means it's very important for me to land as soon as possible.

I leave the autopilot for the violent maneuvering necessary. It's unlikely that I'd be able to pull it off on my own, especially considering my weakened bones from the long exposure to zero g.

I strap into the pilots seat and take a pill to prevent unnecessary pain.

Suddenly the craft pushes me up and against my seatbelt as it aligns with the maneuver vector.

The engines roar up and I get pressed into my seat. I nearly blackout from the immense g forces as the autopilot cancels out most Orbital velocity, leaving only a precise amount for the craft to be carried into the assigned landing pad.

The craft floats downwards, entirely on autopilot now. Thrusters firing up to realign the vectors automatically.

The descent feels like hours, but it takes 20 minutes at best. The craft finally touches down, gravity takes a hold of me and the landing pad descents into an underground hangar. The ground crew attaches the walkway onto my ship, the door opens up. I unstrap myself and fall down, I barely catch myself.

A young woman helps me with walking and keeping me upright. I'm getting the VIP treatment. Every single step along the way I become more and more nervous. She feels it. And tries to calm me.

'Martin, it's fine, Mr. Hanson would have vented you already if he wanted to.'

I try to answer but the gravity takes its toll on me. I am barely conscious.

'It's fine, you're going to get rest before he'll receive you. I'm Jayne, by the way, your new assistant.'

I nod, somewhat in confusion, but I just wish to get used to the gravity now.

She carries me towards the elevator and we go up onto one of the higher levels of the colony. We get out and I begin to panic, I the black expanse of space. I can breathe though and I realize, it's a window. She carries me through two more doors and gently lays me down onto a bed.

She begins to undress me, seeing as I am unable to move properly, and gently pulls off my shirt, my pants and my underpants. I lay nude before her and she notices that I start to become hard.

Chuckling, she notes: 'He doesn't seem to mind gravity, does he?'

Gently she moves her hands along my body. Her mouth close to my ear.

'I will take care of everything, even that, just...enjoy.'

She sultry breathes against my neck as she ends her sentence.

She grasps my hardening cock, stroking it softly as she undoes her blouse with one hand.

It pops open and her large boobs spring into view. She slides so her chest is just below my cock, engulfing it in between her soft mounds. The tip just barely poking out.

I moan as she extends her tongue and licks along my tip. I moan again as she engulfs my cock in her mouth. Her fingers fondling my balls and probably in between her own legs. Her tongue masterfully playing along my length to give a maximum of pleasure.

My precum begins to flow as I start to twitch. Her efforts now doubling. I moan again and again as she brings me to an orgasm, I begin to cum, she lets me out of her mouth and I spray over her face and tits.

'Thanks you master.' is the last I hear before the darkness of sleep engulfs me.

As I wake up, I realize I'm not in an apartment, but a hospital. And, who I presume is Jayne, though I never really got a good look at her, gravity incapacitating me and such, sits on a chair next to my bed.

I also have one hell of a headache.

Like, really, my brain is about to explode.

I groan and Jayne, I'm still unsure of that, looks at me in surprise.

'I didn't think you'd be awake yet.' Is all she says.

'Wha-'

She interrupts me: 'You're going to get a couple of mods, that's why you're in the hospital.'

'Why? Which?'

'Well, orders of Mr Hanson, he said you need to be at peak capacity for your next assignment. It's just a muscle and bone growth enhancer, a neural computing chip, a visual implant and a controller. Of course free of charge.'

'But...but...'

'Shhh, you can't do anything about that now, but in return you get a personal assistant. For every single task.' She says the last sentence extremely sultry and naughtily so it's clear she means everything.

I finally look at her, she got gorgeous blue eyes, blond to red hair, a small and cute nose and full, red lips. Her boobs are big, hard to say how big, but they must be fairly big, considered they're pushing out even with the extremely tight blouse she wears.

Her legs are long and slender from what I can see.

'Hmm, do you like what you see?' she says, realizing that I stare at her body.

I nod and add: 'You must be Jayne then, right?'

She nods in return and then a doctor enters the room and darkness engulfs me once more.