Complications of Interstellar Dating - 1

Hello lovely readers! I promised more content, here it is. Just be forewarned I'm definitely not in any position to start putting out regular chapters of this one. I am very very set on telling this story as well and as correctly as I possibly can, and for that reason I'd like to write a few more pieces before tackling this one for real. That being said there are three current chapters ready and raring to be read, so lets dive right in shall we? I hope you enjoy!

Synopsis:

Ves, a jaded butch trans woman and small time black market dealer, lives a less than ideal life on a mismanaged space station in the not too far flung future. An unusual friendship leads to her being introduced to her supposed “perfect soulmate,” a spunky and excitable alien called Amaryllis, who’s obscure species possesses unusual powers. Ves, thoroughly charmed and eager to escape into the wild, fantastical lifestyle of Amaryllis’ home planet, happily abandons her old life. But when a cultural misunderstanding leads to Amaryllis reshaping Ves’ body to one she believes Ves would be more comfortable in, Ves is forced to confront her own assumptions about the way she sees herself, and wants to be seen by others. Meanwhile, the ugly consequences of a past job are brewing, dragging Ves into a dangerous double life, one which Amaryllis seems strangely connected to.

Chapter 1 - Let's Make a Deal

Khea’t must have had the absolute worst taste on the entire station, at least when it came to food. Always hated cooking for them, but apparently I’m the only vendor on the station who didn’t fuck up their cuisine. Maybe everyone else just had enough dignity to refuse to burn everything they cooked. Khea’t money was as good as anyone else’s though, and I was in no position to be picky. Not after being stuck on this damn station for five whole months. Though, Rebis-II passed well enough for home, I suppose. At the very least it’s where I always wound up when I couldn’t find spacer work. And boy, could I not find it. Apparently my rates were too high for short haul crews, and I was just too big an inconvenience for the long haul ones. The last captain I’d worked with had made sure to spread word of that. “Ves,” he’d said to me, “you’re a fine enough cook, and you’re easy enough to get along with, but we have protocol to follow. We can’t just stop at every other station or colony with a pharmacy that caters to humans so you can keep your hormone supply stocked. It’s just not feasible keeping you aboard.” Asshole seemed to have no issue stopping at every resort colony he passed for “shore leave” though. He didn’t like me pointing that out. Though it may also have had something to do with me threatening to tell his shipping guild about his tendency to “accidentally” wind up with contraband in his hold if he didn’t take me aboard again.

Comments like that are how you wind up practically blacklisted by every captain worth speaking to. It’s how you wind up stuck on the same station long enough for word to get out among the local Khea’t that there’s a human desperate enough for cash to actually cook the burnt slop they call food. They were good enough people though, more importantly they had connections. The sort that made affording my meds on the mismanaged clusterfuck of a space station that was Rebis much easier, so long as I was willing to soak my feet in a few less than legal affairs, that is. I guess having a human frontwoman made such dealings go a bit more smoothly. Khea’t tended to make folks uneasy, too many limbs, too many mouths, unsettlingly few teeth. 

For the most part dealings were slow, boring. Mostly stolen tech and unlicensed datarips that Khea’t smugglers were able to ‘acquire.’ They had a knack for it. Or rather, their coalition shared a border with an unincorporated sector full of smuggled goodies. Which was why when they dropped something wars got started over into lap my insides turned into the same sort of churning mess I’d expect from a poorly charted interstellar jump. And they told me I couldn’t get the spacer experience living on a station. From what I understood the fist sized gem was some kind of experimental energy source. I tried to get more info, but to be honest my supplier was definitely not keen on the thing. He clearly wanted to be rid of it and forget he ever saw it or me, barely even charged me for it. Hell, he probably would have paid me to take it off his hands. What I did manage to get out of him was that the species it originally belonged to was one I’d never heard of, and it had a name which I’d never be able to pronounce. Very helpful. Nevertheless when I asked around, at least to the best of my ability, they sounded like mean bastards. Mean bastards who probably wanted their weird rock back. Not that I was obliged to hang on to it for them. 

I wanted it gone asap, though I still intended to turn a profit. I wasn’t like my paranoid little friend, even if the damn thing creeped me out. The first time I touched it the surface was blazing hot, burned my hand bad. And yet, not a moment later it was room temperature, like the heat was a weird hallucination. I had to take a moment to reassure myself the burn was actually real, that’s how much whiplash I got. It was real alright, and for whatever reason my prize hadn’t heated up even once since, at least so far as I could tell. Spooky. It went without saying that an item like that was way too hot for a small time black market dealer just struggling to scrape by. There were definitely folks who would kill over it without a second thought. Lucky me, I knew someone who might actually be able to fence it properly, and who probably wouldn’t kill me in the process. Someone who could get it as far away from me as possible, and fast. Well, it was lucky he could do that for me, less lucky I actually knew him. Cairo was, after all, a bastard.

I had shot him a message that same night, obviously wasn’t going to give him exact details through the net though. Still, Cairo definitely picked up what I was putting down: this would be a big sale, and I would sell cheap if he could buy fast. I set my price and we set a day to meet in the maintenance corridors behind the market, just after my stall closed. I would bring the gem, he would bring a hefty credit chip and a year’s supply of the hormones he’d been “acquiring” for me. In hindsight the fact that I’d seen him loitering, watching a full half an hour early should’ve been a good indicator that something wasn’t right. Fuck you, past Ves.

That’s how I wound up in a maintenance tunnel, alone, and sandwiched between Cairo, and two of his goons. In holoflix they loved scenes like this. The badass lady criminal stands alone, a pistol in each hand, arms stretched in either direction along a narrow hallway. She would give a cocky smirk, the music would pick up and she’d probably do some wild flips or wall runs or some shit. I’d love to say I was the same way, but while I did the best to look the part of a proper badass punk butch bitch, I really was just some mediocre chef with a gun. Well, two guns, but one of them wasn’t even loaded, I just needed to keep up appearances. Though Cairo certainly wasn’t buying it, he seemed pretty sure he could talk me down. Not that he was wrong.

“Come on now Ves, I’m offering you a lot here. More than you’ve ever gotten on a single deal for certain. Hell this is probably more than you’ll make in your next five deals.”  His tone was almost disinterested, casual, the way he brandished his scattergun far too routine. Typical for proper syndicate goons like him though.

“I was expecting at least twice this. An entire species will be after this thing, hell probably more than that. I might not know much, but what I do know is this thing is dangerous. And dangerous means valuable. Hell I’d wager it’s worth more than this whole damn station, the price I offered was a fuckin steal and you know it.” I was trying desperately to keep my voice level and cool, but that was just about impossible. Fuck how was Cairo this low-key?

“You may be right about that, but that’s exactly why I’m underpaying you, just taking this thing off your hands is a huge risk on my part. Think about this for just a second would you? This thing is a hot commodity. You know everyone and their mother wants it. And I’d bet my lone remaining nut there are key players who already have its location narrowed down to a few possibilities.” I had no idea if he was bluffing or not, but just the thought of a Gthratti cartel or something nabbing me off the street to track down a sale caused my palms to sweat in a way that was certainly messing up my grip. Pistol would probably fly right out of my hand if I fired it at this point. “This isn’t just about greed this time Ves, I’m trying to look out for you here. Some random nobody on Rebus-II with black market ties striking it rich out of nowhere will absolutely raise eyebrows. You need to keep your head down if you want to live to spend this money. The guy you bought it from understood that, but you can’t seem to grasp it.” I exhaled slowly, in a mix of frustration and a feeble attempt to stop shaking, then gave him my best approximation of someone not thinking of all the possible ways she might be tortured if this went bad.

“Fine, credits need to be low, but I know that look in your eyes, you want this thing. Find a way to sweeten the pot.” He chuckled, grinning with what may have been actual surprise.

“That’s what I like about you Ves, you could be shitting your pants in fear and still trying to shake me down for every bit I’m worth. Now, I know the hormone supply is a bit lacking, but how’s this: you give me that crystal and once I find a buyer I’ll pay for your treatment til the day you die. Hell, if you want I’ll front the bill for a nanoclave, you can have whatever body you want. Deal?” I bristled, eyeing him up and down in shock. This was way too generous for Cairo. Dubious little sycophant. 

“What’s to stop you from going back on your word the second I hand over the gem?” I ask pointedly. 

“Absolutely nothing. Just like there’s basically nothing stopping me from killing you right now and taking it off your corpse. No offense, but I don’t think you have what it takes to shoot me.” Cairo was right too damn often. “I’m offering this ‘cause I respect you Ves, you’re useful. You’ve practically single handedly established a degree of trust and cooperation between Rebus’ human and Khea’t crime syndicates. You may think I’m just some greedy asshole, and you’re not exactly wrong.” He winked, brandishing his gold plated scattergun to drive the point home, “but I’m also a greedy asshole who rewards good service. I’m not gonna deny that I’m bending you over the table and ripping you off on this one, but this deal is just too big. Too big for you, hell, probably too big for me even. Can’t afford drawing any unnecessary attention. So what’ll it be? You walkin’ out of here 5 thousand richer, medical needs taken care of, or not walkin’ out at all?” That smug little grin almost made me want to say fuck it all and go out to a chorus of bullets. 

Something about his offer of a nanoclave rubbed me the wrong way too. Did he really think I’m the kind of girl who wants to be stuck in a machine and prettied up? Sure I didn’t have my ‘ideal’ body or whatever the fuck that meant, but nobody does, not even those rich assholes who could pay a few hundred grand to have their bodies match what everyone else thought looked best. Still, I was in no place to push Cairo any further than I already had. I knew full well what happened when he stopped being amused and started being annoyed. 

“Fine, but I-” I was cut off by my overlay chirping a message notification. Not the kind I wanted to ignore in favor of pulling more teeth with Cairo either. “God dammit. Fine just fucking take it.” I unceremoniously tucked one of my pistols away and tossed him the small brown pouch containing his prize, and with an almost lazy swipe he plucked it from the air, not taking his eyes off me, or shifting the gun away. He unfastened the drawstrings and examined it under the light. I groaned, every time I saw that damn thing it made me uneasy, it was dappled and opalescent, with a vibrant array of pinks, blues, blacks, greens and pearlescent whites that seemed to shift and change under the light. Yet somehow it was also this clouded, muddy thing. Ashy, and blotched with sickly yellow browns and angry blood stained reds. It was as though there were two gems, each facet containing a reflection of both, one always lurking just behind the other. 

“Unsettling.” He muttered. “Still, seems to fit the description. Did you know the Yshliknraox - or however the fuck you say it, nevermind - the species that’s after this thing. Did you know they never really gave things names of any kind until they were forced to for diplomacy purposes? Really show’s huh? Whole language is like ninety five percent nonverbal. Just concepts conveyed through body language and those funky little scent pods they have. Plus the occasional grunt or clicking sound.” He grinned, slipping the gem back into its pouch, his trigger finger seemed to relax, though he seemed insistent I drop my remaining gun first. “Anyways, point is trying to advertise this unnamed space rock wanted by a species nobody likes or fully gets how to communicate with is gonna be a bitch. Though I won’t hold it against you.” He winked, and tucked the pouch into his belt. Then, to my surprise, lowered his gun.

“Fascinating. Are we done here? I have somewhere I need to be.” I tried to lace every word with the sound of ‘your suave roguish criminal routine is making me want to pull the trigger.’ Nevertheless, I tucked away my remaining pistol.

“Oh? So sudden. You can go. Payment will come in the usual manner, but I simply must ask, where did this change of heart come from?” His blackened augmented eyes were somehow even more cocky than that stupid pompous face of his, losing their typical murky quality to a gleam of amusement. Bastard just had to ask, didn’t he? I tried, and failed to stifle a blush, don’t you dare break eye contact with him, a part of me hissed. Then I went ahead and looked down anyway. I tugged awkwardly on my collar and stammered.

“I uh, I think I might have a date.”