The Haul

Content warning: This story is smut, and contains graphic descriptions of sex, as well as trans people just existing like they were all normal or something

The message came in while I was sleeping. Technically, I was mining, or at least the ship was, but I was asleep. It's not like it's dangerous, the ship will stop if anything goes weird. But the message. Not what I expected to receive.

There was no video with it, just a voice. "Hey Crystal," it started. That's me. "You should know that Handor has been talking shit about your last haul. Seems you brought in some junk that was being tracked by some Daddies, she claimed you did it on purpose to screw her. Didn't want you to get back to base and have that sprung on you like a chump. Don't say I never did anything for you."

I checked the sender. Unlisted. Weird. I mean, the words made sense, I did bring in some junk and sold it to Handor, but I had no idea the Daddies were looking for it. But who was sending me anonymous love notes warning me of a frosty buyer waiting for me?

I said, "Weird," and checked on the mining progress. When you spend as much time alone as I do, sometimes you say shit out loud just to hear a voice. The asteroid I was attached to was mostly rubble by this point as the processing equipment stripped it of anything interesting. It wasn't a big haul, just a few tons so far, but it looked like I got some unusual ores in the mix, so it'd probably pay for the trip, at least. Always nice to not actually lose money on a trip.

Now, you're reading this, so you have some idea what's about to happen. What's a story without conflict, right? Fuck me sideways, conflict incoming.

"Unidentified miner, you have intruded on Patriarchy, Inc space and illegally harvested Patriarchy, Inc assets. Heave to, and maintain your position." Hah, dumb shits, "heave to" and "maintain position" mean the same thing. Ugh. God dammit, those daddy-fuckers were going to screw me out of this haul. Not like it was a big one, but I did the work, not them. Fuck.

I glared at the panel for a minute before I could think what to say. I calmed my voice down, because Daddies tend not to be shy with the Big Fucking Guns when they get annoyed, and I didn't need to spend the rest of my life as a diffuse cloud of pink ice particles. "Patriarchy ship, this is the miner Flaming Lips." "As my beacon clearly states, motherfuckers," I didn't continue. Calm. BFGs. "I was unaware this was Patriarchy space. Please send an updated chart, mine must be out of date, and this is listed as unclaimed space. Pigfuckers." I carefully released the transmit button before the last word, but it was still satisfying to say out loud. Those pigfuckers were always claiming new space as theirs. I knew I was close to a recent claim, but I was still at least a million clicks anti-spinward from the most recent border.

"Mining ship, what did you just say?"

My face flushed cold, then hot. That godsdamn button has been sticking lately, hasn't it. Oh, you're just so clever, aren't you, little missy.

I hastily jammed the button down, but all that came out was a kind of senseless stammering. After a solid 20 seconds of making a fool of myself, I lifted my thumb, and watched as it took the twinkling red "transmit" light an extra 3 seconds to go out after I released the switch. Mother. Fucker.

"Prepare to be boarded."

There's no point fighting the Daddies if they take it into their head to board your ship. It was just me and a geriatric mining rig, and they sent over four people with daggers. One of them had a breaching tool (a desperately bland term for the reactor-powered recpirocating drill-saw used to enter a spaceship quickly and catastrophically) in case I decided not to cooperate. Technically, I could have probably taken most of them out with the mining rig before they got to me, but overriding the "don't kill all humans" failsafe systems is tedious, and this didn't seem like a life-or-death situation. I figured I could talk my way out of it.

I opened the lock to them, rather than have them damage my ship, and they bustled me out and back to their ship. I'd already suited up before they got there. No point making things worse.

To a spacer, either Belter or Daddy, a dagger or a sword is the most logical personal weapon to have. You can fuck up a suit with a blade, you can fuck up a human with one. You can't generally puncture a pressure hull. I guess on Earth, slug-throwers are all the rage, but that's just a suicide waiting to happen in space. I love watching the old films about the far-off future in space, where everyone has laser guns, they're so unreal. Like anyone wants to carry a whole backpack reactor just to gently heat someone. Those old films didn't understand the idea of beam spread or something.

Anyway, they got me on the ship, which was one of the bigger patrol ships, the kind you actually get gravity on, and that usually have at least enough people for a good orgy (not that the Daddies are cool enough to have orgies, buncha stuck-up prudes). I spend fairly little time in gravity, even the 1/3 G they were running, so it had me winded before we'd gotten to the interrogation room, and I slumped gratefully into the chair they waved me into.

The woman across the table from me was imposing. Tall, almost as tall as me, but solid like she'd spent time in full gravity, with a shock of raven-black hair that cascaded over one shoulder. Her eyebrows made perfect arches over her shockingly blue eyes. She looked back down at the screen in the table.

"What's your name?" She was talking to the table, as far as I could tell, but I answered anyway.

"Christy van Hoop. Look, I'm sorry, you just shocked me, is all. My chart shows this as unclaimed space, go check it yourself if you want."

She looked up at me again. Those eyes. Damn. "What?"

I paused. "What what? I'm trying to be good, I really am. I was apologizing for my language."

She glanced down at the screen again. "You're here because your ship was spotted collecting Patriarchy, Inc materials. I don't care what you call us."

"Yeah, I said, this wasn't Patriarchy space when I left Charvis like, four days ago."

She looked up at me, and a cold grin spread across her face. Damn, that jawline was like a razor-blade. "Ok, look, Hoop."

"van Hoop," I interrupted, perhaps unwisely.

"What?"

"My name. It's van Hoop. If you're going to give me the imperious stern talking-to thing, at least get my name right. van Hoop." I gave her my most snarky lop-sided grin.

"Right." A brief look of annoyance flitted across her face. "van Hoop, if you think I'm talking about your mining activities, you're thinking wrong."

It was my turn. "What?"

Her little smile was back. "Your ship, the, uh..." She looked down again, "Flaming Lips, was spotted collecting debris from the wreckage of a Patriarchy ship 17 days ago. That was not your material to collect. You will return it to its rightful owner, which is to say, us."

There was a clashing of mental gears in my head, and I felt something strip out. "I'm sorry, you what?"

So, here's the thing. Random debris, drifting in space, is no one's property. Like, you can claim it, but if you want to make that claim, you need to be standing over it like a jealous kid with a new dinosaur toy, warning everyone away while you pick up all the bits you give a shit about. There was no one guarding that debris.

"It was Patriarchy, Inc property, which needs to be returned."

"It was debris, drifting in space, with no one around for a couple million kilometers. It was legit salvage." I felt my face getting hot.

"Look, van Hoop, I'm not here to debate maritime salvage law with you. We want our shit back, and you were the last person to have it. Do you have it with you, or do we have to go retrieve it from somewhere?" There was no longer any trace of a smile on her face.

I was feeling totally blindsided. The Daddies are usually on board with the whole Laws of Stellar Space thing, which includes salvage laws. The idea that they might be willing to "retrieve" it was like completely opposite-town.

I stammered again. Good going, brain. "I-I-I-I... Wha... But..."

"You've admitted you retrieved it, van Hoop, so give it back, and we can all be on our way. I don't want to be here talking to you any more than you want to be here talking to me. Cut the shit."

I set my hands on the table, hoping the physical contact would ground me. Also, it was an effort to wave them around like I was trying to do, and resting them felt good. I looked back up at her. "I don't have any of that crap. I sold it on Charvis more than a week ago. I have no idea where it is now. I sold it for scrap value, it was just a bunch of steel and titanium. Why do you care about random twisted wreckage?"

She closed her eyes for a moment, then said, "We just want it back. None of your fucking business."

"I don't have it."

"Guess we're going to Charvis!" She stood up and glared at me. "And you're going to the brig."

So, I found myself in the brig. Which, on this particular ship, was basically a coat closet. When you're a 2.2m tall, 72 kilo woman who's lived her life in zero gravity, no matter what you were born as, fighting back against people who grew up on Mars, much less on Earth, is just no contest. So I went meekly, and wheezing slightly. The woman who was asking me questions, whose name I didn't catch (that is, she never fucking said her name), followed along, apparently to make sure I was properly slammed in the slammer.

After the door was locked, and her helpers had vacated back to wherever they docked into their charging cradles or whatever, she asked another question. "Who'd you sell that 'scrap' to on Charvis?"

"I don't see why I should tell you. You're just gonna raid them. You know how much trouble you're borrowing, right?" Belters and Daddies are not what you might call "friends."

"None of your fucking business, van Hoop. Who was the buyer?"

"Uh, that would be 'none of your fucking business,' whatever your name is."

She visibly restrained herself from reaching through the little meal window we were talking through, then subsided. "Look, you little shit, just tell me who has that wreckage, and quit being a pain in my ass."

Now it was my turn to smile. "Looks like you're not the only one with some power, honey."

Her face did this fascinating angry-flare thing where her eyes got wide, and her lips kind of disappeared as her mouth compressed, and two little roses of red appeared on her otherwise pale cheeks. That only lasted for a few seconds, and she seemed to get control of herself again. She huffed out a breath through her nose, looked at me again, shook her head, and strode off.

And there I was stuck. I don't know how long it actually was, they took away all my shit, presumably so I wouldn't, I dunno, nefariously record myself making weird animal noises or something. The ship was following a reasonably normal day/night cycle judging by the lighting system, but there always seemed to be someone moving around. I tried to get their attention a couple times to ask about my ship, or what time it was, or that I thought one of them was cute. What can I say, I was bored senseless on a ship full of dickhead soldiers. I think I was there through a full day/night cycle, but I was asleep for part of it, so who knows.

What I do know is that I was lying on my little fold-out cot, and opened my eyes to realize it was a lot darker than it had been when I'd closed them, like, 5 minutes before. The door made an exciting clinkity-clank sound, and then opened and closed. I couldn't see anything clearly, but I could tell by the faint outline that someone else was here with me.

"You here to beat it out of me? I'll tell you for free, I like that shit, go kink-shame someone else." I tried to roll back over to face away from whoever it was, but they grabbed my shoulder and yanked me around.

"Stand up, you piece of shit." It was the woman's voice, she of the stunning blue eyes and black hair. Something felt different, and I felt a tingle low in my belly.

"Or what?"

"Or I really will beat it out of you. Don't think I won't." Her voice was off. I couldn't tell if she was just like differently mad, or maybe a little high, or quite what it was.

I looked up at her face, though the light was so low I couldn't tell if she had any kind of expression, or even see her eyes. I was tired and sore, and annoyed at being held in this tiny cell. I didn't feel like being cooperative or friendly any more.

"Like I said, you cunt. Give it your best shot." I laid my head back down on my arm. They hadn't even given me a pillow, in this oppressive gravity.

Suddenly, there was a pressure around my neck and through my chest, and I dimly understood that I was being hauled upright by the front of my shirt. "Hey!" I said, trying to bat away her arm. I might as well have been batting at a robot's arm. My back hit the wall, and my legs were awkwardly pinned against the edge of the cot as she leaned in. After a moment of strained silence, the cot folded up like it was a prop in a comedy routine, fetching against the back of my legs as it went. Her face got very close to mine, and I could smell the scent of something on her breath, which was suddenly mingling with mine.

"You have no idea what you're up against," she said, intensely but quietly, far too close.

I've always been a bit too smart for my own good. I replied, "Sure I do, a repressed bitch, licking out of her daddy's hand..." I would have kept going in this vein, but the wind was crushed from my chest as she slammed me back against the wall. I made a pathetic "huh" noise instead of carrying on about her patrophillic tendencies.

"Listen, smart-ass, I'm sick of your shit. I don't care about you, or your little free-love buddies on the asteroid, or your stupid fucking ship, or any of that shit. I care about me, and what I need. And right now, I need..." She stopped talking because I was kissing her. Probably mostly shock on her part, but maybe a little bit because I was hot and she knew it. Because she didn't do that thing where you break contact and say "knock if off." No, dear reader, she leaned into it.

I don't know what made me do it. I mean, in that moment, I wasn't thinking about any of this, but since then I've wondered. I think her body was just really close to mine, and I wasn't kidding, I do dig it when chicks get rough with me, so I was kind of fighting this weird battle -- should I be scared, or turned on, and what really was the difference? The fact that she had a ship full of idiots who'd probably love pummeling me into jelly before they flushed me out the nearest airlock just made it that much more intense. So I kissed her. And she fucking kissed me back. Vindicated. I was smirking so hard on the inside.

She was strong, though. Like, probably one gee strong, not a whisper of a girl like me. So it's not like I was compelling her to do anything with my sheer brawn. Hah.

"What is wrong with you, you weird piece of shit?" she whispered, as she pulled back for air. But her body stayed pressed against mine. I could feel her heart beating through her chest.

"Not just me, honey," I whispered back. I reached up to her hair and dug my fingers in, pulling until her head was tilted back. She could have resisted a lot more than she did, and she let me bury my face in her pulse at the side of her neck. Suddenly, I snarled and made as if to bite her. I think I was testing? Test came back all green, though: she made a little gasping noise and held me closer rather than trying to get away from this mad Belter making a bite at her neck. "Gotcha," I whispered, before I finished and bit down firmly on a cord of muscle I knew would be there. Her body clenched up a little bit, but in a good way, and she made another little noise with her breath.

"I don't..." she said, but her voice was high and uncertain, nothing like the deep, authoritative tones she'd had in the interrogation room. Then she seemed to come back alive, and pushed my head back against the wall. I think if I'd had any hair, she would have grabbed it in turn, and now it was my neck exposed.

Part of me wanted to fight back, and she must have felt me tense up. Her grip tightened, and it was like being caught in a machine. There was no way I could resist, but I tried anyway. She seemed to like it.

My arms wrapped around her head and pulled it down to my neck, almost of their own volition, and a gasp burst out of me. She pulled back long enough to growl, "If you make enough noise to attract anyone, I will fucking destroy you." Damn, lady, how not to turn down the heat. I bit my lip, screwed my eyes shut, and nodded silently, urging her head back down. By this point my crotch was on fire, and my hips were urging toward her, also of their own volition. I woulda been embarrassed, but I was too turned on.

She grabbed a handful of my ass, and pulled me closer, so clearly I wasn't the only one who was into it. In my best stage whisper, I said "Yes" and pushed myself closer. It wasn't possible to get much closer, but still I tried. Her mouth was working down my neck, and another hand grabbed a second handful of ass. I couldn't figure out where I wanted my hands to be, so I ended up with one on her ass, and one on her head. Her butt was like steel, and I had a momentary vision of her crushing my head between her thighs. This seems to be a recurring theme.

She pulled back again, and said, "Take this shit off," in a fierce whisper. She had me pressed against the wall, but somehow, I managed to get my zipper down, and tried to work the jumpsuit off my shoulders. It's usually just me in the ship, so I don't dress for fashion (different question when I'm at Charvis, of course). A long-sleeved jumpsuit is my usual choice, and honestly I mostly wear that so I don't have to clean the pressure suit as often. Now I was regretting my choices, though really I was regretting gravity, which made everything so much harder. She made a disgusted noise, and tugged at the cuffs of the sleeves. The top of the jumpsuit was suddenly free, and I was just as suddenly aware of my nipples brushing against her uniform. Like, really aware.

She pulled fully back and there was a moment of cool air between us. I was afraid I'd done something wrong, and I was already in that headspace where I needed, needed, to keep her happy, but before the panic could fully develop, she was back, only without the uniform. She growled "Down" and pushed me down until my face was in the middle of her chest. It was only a moment later I had her nipple in my mouth, face buried in her right boob, and an approving breath huffed out of her nose. I sucked more enthusiastically as she shifted her stance. My hand traveled down to cup a now-bare butt cheek. Still steel, but warm steel, and it flexed slightly under my hand as she shifted.

Traveling further of its own volition, my hand found not the dripping wetness that I had expected, but smooth, undifferentiated skin between her legs. I felt her tense up, but c'mon, you're the one who took your pants off, lady. Don't get all shocked when I find out you've got a girldick. And there it was. I moved my hand back around to the front and grabbed hold. She hissed, "Not a word, scum!" Girl, I don't need to say anything. Mouth and hand swapped places, and I rolled her mouth-slick nipple between my fingers as I licked up the shaft of her gridlock and found her clit. There was another huff of breath, and her body stiffened -- this time from anticipation, not from fear. I grinned around my extended tongue, which is a good trick when you think about it.

Her hands came down and gripped my head, firmly guiding me down and over, until I had the length of her pushing against the back of my mouth. I've been pretty pleased with my lack of gag reflex in the past, but this chick was pushing the limit. But, I mean, getting all rough and making me do things? I was getting pretty damn wiggly.

She stiffened, and I felt her body start trembling. Girl, you need to get more action more often, I shouldn't be able to get you off after a mere five minutes of attention. Still grinning to myself, I worked my tongue over her g-spot and followed her guidance for the in-and-out she seemed to like. She made these little escaping-breath noises, and long experience in crowded, not very private spaces where we were trying not to wake anyone else gave me ample experience to know what was happening. I waited for the wave to crest, and when I felt her start to collapse a little bit, I awkwardly maneuvered her to the cot, barely remembering to fold it out before her weight collapsed downward. She was still trembling.

Now, I'm not usually the one taking care of someone after this kind of thing, so I wasn't sure what to do. I leaned over and whispered in her ear, "What a good girl," petting her hair gently. I thought about getting out, but figured there was probably nowhere I could get to. Anyway, now that she wasn't actively being an asshole to me, she was kind of cute in a really bulky, butch way.

With our positions were reversed, I could see just a hint of her face. Her eyes were closed. After a moment like this, she whispered, "Fuck." I instinctively replied, "Yeah, we just did," before I could hold my tongue. Her eyes opened, and she looked at me. "Listen, asshole..." But she trailed off, and I could hear her heart wasn't really in it.

"Look, tall dark and gruesome," I said. "I can see the deal. They don't know, do they?" She gave the faintest shake of her head. "And now that I do, you either gotta kill me or trust me, right?" Her eyes opened again. I couldn't tell what her face was doing, but she didn't respond verbally. Her hand did reach out and rest on my arm, just for a moment, though.

"Did you know that we're actually welcome in the Belt? That I can just be my fucking self, and no one cares? I'm just another woman. No one looking down at me, no one telling me I'm not a real person just because brain and body didn't match when I was born. I chose to keep the original equipment, girl. Guessing you didn't have a choice, though. Here, hold on." I grabbed her clothes and draped them over her supine body. She'd started shivering, though it wasn't cold.

"I'm not gonna tell anyone your secret. Maybe try not to be such a massive dick to me, though? When we get to Charvis, I'll help you slip away if you want. Try it out. Get some normal-person clothes and hang out. You might like it. I'm not telling you who has whatever scrap metal you're after, but that's my price for silence. I don't rat out my friends. I also don't rat out you. Maybe later we can be friends."

She finally responded, whispering back, "You have no idea what you're asking me to do."

"Yeah, that's probably true. Who knows what those Daddy goons have on you that you're willing to stay here and pretend to be whatever fucked up image of 'woman' they have in their creepy little heads." I smoothed back her hair, and bent down to kiss her mouth. She responded, gently, almost all trace of the overbearing Daddy commander drained from her.

"Lie flat," I said, and then I crawled on top of her. I was a good head taller than her, but she out-massed me like two-to-one. I curled up against her side, nestled in the non-existent gap between her body and the bulkhead. I kissed her forehead, just a whisper of lips against skin, and said, "Try not to wake me up when you go, yeah?"

We got to Charvis Base a couple days later. She didn't visit me again, and the only reason I knew we arrived is some guard with a receding chin opened the door at me and marched me out the open airlock into a docking tube, where I saw the sign saying Charvis on the far side. He subsided a lot once we got into the tube. Daddies aren't popular on Charvis. They're tolerated, but I think he knew that marching a Belter into the base like I was his prisoner wouldn't go well for him.

It was two weeks later when there was a knock at my door. I lit up the viewer to see who the fuck was knocking on my door before noon like some kind of cop. It was her. She was wearing civvies, or what I'm guessing she thought civvies should look like. She looked damn stiff and uncomfortable. "Crystal," she said into the mic. "I'd like to take you up on your offer. From the ship." Her face looked pensive. I almost didn't recognize her.

I grinned to myself. Converting the Daddies, one at a time. "Yeah," I said back. "Lemme get some clothes on, and tidy up a bit," I said, as I rapidly shoved piles of random shit around to make things look less chaotic. I tugged a robe around my body, and hop-floated in Charvis's 1/10th gee back to the viewer.

I cycled the door, and there she was, tall and broad and looking like she could break me in two. "Come on in, I have so much to tell you."