Breakfast service was about to start but, despite her stomach’s protest, Aria still had to confirm planetary surveillance reports. She could not perform this work in her office so she trekked across the ship to the Advanced Viewer room.
A tall wall of screens cast a cold, blue glow across the white floor. This room always felt sterile. Many did not like it, but she did. It was in great contrast to the inside of her head and the feelings of her heart. Her psyche was a battlefield as of late and this room, void of decoration, seemed to temporarily starve her inner demons. This reprieve, after her last battle, was exactly what she needed to help her get through the day.
She used her datapad to access hundreds of images and video feeds. She sent them to the screens. Hours of surveillance from the planet below flashed before her. Her trained eyes darted dizzyingly between the typed reports in her hand and the screens. She did not perform this exhausting and time consuming supervision because she did not trust her subordinates. Rather, this was a required safeguard mandated by the Federation of Planets, the governing body of the Terran dominion.
Terrans, what any Earth human or Earth-derived descendant called themselves, were naturally distrustful of their fellow people across the stars. The vast galactic empire of Terrankind, stretching across a quarter of the Milky Way, was not built on trust and cooperation, but on cunning and subterfuge. It was this competition, to reap as much of the open and bountiful galaxy before them, that fueled the Terran spirit. This fire was good for colonization and domination. It was not so beneficial for the galaxy and its countless, simple non-Terran lifeforms.
Aria may have lost a part of her morning, but she quickly whipped up a flow and burned through her work at a swift pace. Maybe she was just excited to get to breakfast, or perhaps it was the only thing she could do to avoid thinking about her earlier frustration, but regardless, by the time she looked at the time she was just about done and breakfast had not yet concluded.
“Snausage sticks, clucker omelets, and fruit cups!” As she powered down the screens, she was salivating just imagining these synthetic foods dancing into her mouth. However, even the intense allure of sustenance fell second to her favorite show playing on the very last monitor.
Far below on a barren plain of the planet, a primitive man’s amber hair cascaded down his shoulders as he brushed matted, sweaty locks out of his eyes. He grasped his hoe and plunged it into the soil with two weathered hands that had seen more hard labor this morning than all of her aristocratic fingertips to date.
She noticed a tenseness in her chest, like a moon tugging upon the tide, ebb and flow with every quickening breath. The air puffing from her mouth was hot and energetic with a rhythm she reveled in. Her mind began to cloud. She knew what this was. It was another one of her escapist vices. Self pleasure had grown into another way she kept her mind occupied from the triggers around her. This desire had grown into a somewhat troubling habit, calling upon her at increasingly inconvenient times. It was as if her body was upping the ante to produce a bigger rush each time she got away with it.
This extraterrestrial caveman, who resembled the men she fancied back home only twice their size, had been the one responsible for rushing the blood to her cheeks, around her chest, and the space between her thighs for weeks. She could not get enough of him. Glowing before her in the dimly lit room, the flickering screen could not possibly do his bronze, muscular physique justice. She knew this as a scientific fact because the color of the rising sun behind him was only displaying as red hue #2011 and not its mechanically verified shade of #2015. When something was this important, minutia mattered.
Toiling away in the dirt, this man’s name was Chron, or so she named him in the secret notebook she kept in her bedside drawer. He was the boldest of his tribe and the first to rise each morning and to take the initiative in any task. These were traits they both shared. She knew if she could only meet him and attempt a conversation, she could find a way to connect the galaxy of neurons in their heads and finally feel what it would be like to be swept off her feet engulfed in his massive arms. She longed for this type of contact which she had rarely indulged in since the Academy.
Feelings deep within her stomach boiled over. She wanted to climb through the screen and scrape her nails across his iron chest. She slapped her sweaty palm against the screen and zoomed in on her favorite parts. His toned muscles and his loins, bound just enough for practicality’s sake, made her blue military uniform feel like a sauna. A pressure building up inside of her was about to boil over for a third day in a row and she was losing control over her rational thought.
The last bastion of reason, a solitary neuron in the back of her mind, raised a red flag and reminded her that she was smart enough to know that this was all a coping mechanism for something far more sinister inside her. But the coursing hormones were effective enough to make her temporarily forget about her troubles. Compartmentalizing that last reservation and chucking it into oblivion, she no longer minded. She desired this release. She needed it. She deserved it!
She ran her slender hand down from the collar of her jacket, past her modest bosom, and wiggled back up from under her shirt. She cupped the bottom of her breast when...
“Aria! What are you doing?” Navigational Officer Tinsdale Brown slammed and locked the door behind her. “Are you insane? I thought you promised me you’d never do something this unprofessional again!” Her face was a mixture of horror and disappointment.
Aria terminated the viewer application and swiped programs away to feign a more intricate project, but it resulted in an error screen. Her glistening neck and untucked shirt broadcasted her runaway actions. Her face was still flush, but it no longer had anything to do with the heat in her slacks and everything to do with the mortification across her face.
“It’s not what you think,” she floundered. “I was just verifying the daily survey summary and…”
“And making sure all the local creatures were accounted for?” Tinsdale shook her head. “I know what you were doing...”
Aria winced as Tinsdale finished.
“...ogling the natives again.”
Tinsdale was Aria’s oldest and closest friend since after the Academy, but Tinsdale had harped on her for years to get her head examined. Tinsdale meant well, but Aria still found it insulting. There was nothing wrong with her that could not be managed with a little determination. She just had not committed herself to it yet. She was a very busy career woman.
Aria turned her palm toward herself and stared at her naughty hand. Tinsdale was at least a little right. She should not have been doing this in the public viewer room. And now, with her heart beating out of her chest and her skin tingling with anticipation, the longing inside of her was at risk of exploding. She needed to release that pressure. She took a step toward Tinsdale.
“I need to get laid!” Aria screamed. As the words escaped her lips, she immediately clasped her mouth with both hands. Expressing herself so candidly was not her style.
“Aria!” Tinsdale stepped back with a hand on her chest. “Wh-what are you saying?”
Their eyes locked. Neither knew what the other was thinking.
Aria's eyes grew wide. She leapt back. “No! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it like that!” She sighed and took a seat at a table. She waved for Tinsdale to join her. “I can’t believe you walked in on me just when I was about to finally feel something.”
“That’s what you’re worried about?” Tinsdale pulled up a chair. “Not the fact that you were doing it?”
“I know! Oh my god, I know!” She hid her head in her hands. Sweat dripped down her black hair just as she began to cool down. She was fighting a desperate struggle inside between melt-worthy embarrassment and soul-crushing disappointment in herself. Which one would finally do her in? The race to the bottom would be a photo finish.
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“For goodness’ sake, Aria. You need help.”
She peeked through her fingers. “And then what? Open a Pandora's box and risk my entire career with some quack’s label of insanity on my record? No thank you. I just need to relax and let go every once in a while. I’m too strung up.” Her stomach growled so loud that it could no longer be ignored.
Tinsdale walked to the door. “Come on. Let’s get breakfast.”
“You haven’t eaten yet?” Aria followed her out onto the main concourse. There were hardly any people this far back in the ship and that was a relief. There was less of a chance that someone may have heard her panting. They began walking.
“No. I got to the cafeteria a little late and didn’t see you there. I knew you’d probably lost track of time, but I thought you were just running behind on your work. I would never have guessed…” Tinsdale did not finish that thought. “I don’t know what you’re going to do. You say you just need to get laid? You know you can’t just get your freak on with anybody aboard the ship? You supervise like ninety-nine percent of us.”
“I am well aware of the rules and regulations. You don’t think I’m painfully aware?” She twirled as she walked. Her hands waved with whimsy. “I’m a beautiful bachelorette barreling through the cold, lonely stars of space in a super colossal ship filled to the rivets with eligible bachelors.” She came to a stop in front of Tinsdale. “And yet, my role. So what if I want to fantasize about one of these big, strapping men on the surface of just one out of hundreds of our exoplanets?”
Tinsdale shook her head. She pushed Aria aside, grabbed her hand, and pulled her forward. “Aria, this isn’t about your unusual predilections! You’re acting completely unprofessional and one day it’s going to get yourself discharged or worse.”
Tinsdale twisted the wheel on a maintenance door and yanked it open. They slipped into the tight passage, a shortcut that not many people knew about, and cut through several parts of the ship. “Yes, I’m personally a little creeped out that you're thinking of these proto-human creatures in that way. Our job isn’t to fawn over them. It’s to document them and hope to help in protecting them from extraterrestrial cleansing. If anything, they are more akin to animals than appropriate objects of your affection. You should think about that the next time you fire up your lust-o-screen.”
Aria recoiled at the comparison. “That’s…no! Don’t be disgusting. They may technically be alien, but they’re functionally a 99.9% genetic match to us. Just because they don’t dress like us or share our language doesn’t mean they’re sub-human.”
“Uh, that’s exactly what it means, you space case. Remember Phrenological Evidence 350 at the Academy? There was that article we had to read, I think it was in the Spacer Times. Terrans and Sub-Human Cousins: Our allies if done right?”
Aria used her hand like a talking puppet and blabbered with its mouth as Tinsdale spoke.
“God, you are incorrigible! The point I’m trying to make is that until we find one of these creatures sending a text message, I’m inclined to support the many reasons Galactic law forbids interspecies romance.”
Aria opened the next maintenance door. She waved for Tinsdale to exist first. “Name one.”
“Okay. Well how about we start with physiology? How exactly are Terran men supposed to compete with hulking beasts like your pet down there? The playing field isn’t even. That’s a long-term threat to our genome.”
She imagined what other hulking assets Chron was hiding under his loincloth. Distracted by her fantasy, she almost walked into a wall. “Huh? What?”
“You’re not even listening!” They stood outside the cafeteria. Tinsdale waved his ID.
The double doors opened and Aria followed Tinsdale inside. The cafeteria was an unpopular but necessary part of the ship. Many of the poorly reconstructed dishes were the same as their inspirations in appearance only. For reasons only explained to Aria and the Captain as ‘concerns about aerodynamics’, no space in the hull was afforded to authentic ingredients.
Instead of real food, Aria walked past canisters hanging upon the back wall behind the serving line. They were filled with the fundamental elements of foodstuffs, essential building blocks like proteins and minerals. Like an anagram, one just needed to arrange the individual pieces in different patterns to create an infinite variety of edibles.
Some crew members were adverse to this type of science sorcery, but Aria actually did not mind it at all. She actually sampled the technology’s prototypes years ago when she was a student at the Academy. Volunteering for extra credit in the cooking labs meant one was to be used as a guinea pig. Maybe because she knew how far the food had come, this was the reason she was an enthusiastic cheerleader for it.
This reaction always surprised Tinsdale because Aria was not generally very open to new things. Tinsdale picked up a serving tray. “What’s on the menu today? Soy juice, soy circles, and soy squares? Hooray…”
Aria rubbed her palms together. “Oh boy! Grape juice, baked beans, and bork chops! Come on. You gotta call them by their names.” She scanned the entire line and her eyes lit up when she spotted the desert. There was a single plum gelatin cup remaining. She reached for it but bumped hands with her boss. “Oh. Good morning, Captain. Please, go ahead.”
The coarseness that rubbed against her hand was a souvenir of the Captain’s early Federation career. He arose through the ranks in one of the most inspiring stories among the cadets of her generation. He was someone she greatly admired for much the same reasons as her current planet-side obsession. The aura that she detected off of him, one of uncompromising strength that denied the frivilosity of play, was of a romanticized world that she strived for herself. She imagined that he believed that with hard work came all things. Even the healing of your wounds.
“Hm.” The Captain took the cup. “I’m still waiting on that daily summary. I want it in my inbox by the time I get back to my office.”
“Sir, yes sir.” Aria saluted until the Captain proceeded down the line. Once he was out of sight, she sighed and picked up a blue bag of nutrient paste.
“What? But the bork chops,” Tinsdale said, surprised.
“No time to enjoy it. I’ll be working through my breakfast.”
They took their seats at their usual table. She propped up her datapad and immediately resumed her daily report. She suckled the paste pouch dangling from her lips. Not one to care much for etiquette, she said with her mouth full, “God. So much work to do.”
“What’s new planetside?” Tinsdale asked.
“Well, Chron’s settlement is still missing one of their female children. I keep checking in, but...”
Tinsdale shook her spoon. “You named one of them? Aria. Come on. What are you doing?”
“Nevermind that. Do you think the little girl is okay? I keep worrying about her.”
“It’s been two days,” Tinsdale said with a protein drumstick in her mouth. “S’prolly got eaten by a predator at this point.”
The thought of that brought Aria great sadness. “Perhaps. They’re numbers are dwindling by the week. I’m afraid this planet and its people will be lost to us in a year’s time.” She swiped past datapad photos of the rudimentary settlement. “All over the planet, clans are losing territory to the wild creatures. They don’t have the tools to fight back against the aggressive plant growth that’s seemingly blossomed in the last decade. If only…”
Tinsdale spit out the calcium rod that was supposed to simulate a bone. “Stop it. Don’t say whatever it is you’re about to say. We’re observers. We document and report. That’s all. Finito. End of story.”
“I’m not suggesting we break E-1 protocol. But we should do something. This planet is special.” Aria turned the screen toward Tinsdale. The breathtaking view of liquid mercury waterfalls splashing upon diamond rocks always took her breath away. “If we could simply launch a drop pod with a few tools here or there, maybe soften up the natural resources for harvesting, then perhaps we could speed up their development and initiate trade relations at a fraction of the time. Imagine, they could help supply the Federation’s reconstruction efforts from the war.”
Tinsdale looked completely unconvinced. “Is this really about the Federation effort? You’re not just leaning in hard on this because you’re absolutely hellbent on getting your dirty fix on the surface?”
Aria smiled broadly. She hoped to maintain her facade, but she could not keep lying to Tinsdale. “Okay. You got me. I got my rock-bashing boyfriend on the brain. So sue me.”
“The Captain will do more than that if you let your stupid stunts jeopordize this mission. Please, Aria. You need serious medical help. Why don’t you ask the doc to write you a script for mood levelers? Or even some type of behavioral treatment?”
Therapy? Aria did not believe in that kind of stuff. She shook her head and slumped over the table, her head buried in her arms. “God. As if it’d be that easy. I got a lot of problems now that aren’t just because of the war. I...sometimes…” She peeked up and looked around. No one seemed to be paying attention to them so she whispered, “I feel like I can’t control myself. Like, sometimes I get…I get really horny. Or drunk. Sometimes I drink too much.”
“I’ve noticed,” Tinsdale said unamused.
“So? You can’t tell me you don’t sometimes just long for the warm, tender hands of another human being drawing you close and carving their fingers across every curve of your body?” She raised her voice. “I do! I intensely do! It makes it so I don’t think about all the other crap going on in my head. That isn’t normal, is it?”
To her horror, a low tone boomed behind her. “No, that doesn’t sound normal, but I make it a general rule not to judge people based on their bed habits.”
Aria stiffened up when she felt the Captain’s firm grip on her shoulder. “Captain!”
He shook his head. “I came over to ask you a question and now I see you two are busy embarrassing yourselves in the very public cafeteria.” He pointed to Tinsdale with accusatory intent. “Is she making you say these things?”
“No!” Aria waved her hands vigorously. “It’s nothing like that. I...I just got a little excited and forgot where I was. Officer Brown is completely normal.” She paused. “At least compared to me.”
“Hmph.” The Captain tipped his hat in apology. He knocked upon the table. “For what it’s worth, I think the Officer has a point. You should head to Doc today and get your head examined. I need my Second as fit in the head as she is in the gym.”
“Ye...yes, sir.”. She had just messed up. The Captain was now aware she was struggling. This was surely the beginning of the end of her career.
“Good. And I want that daily summary like yesterday, Pantel!”
She fumbled with her datapad and pressed a button. “On its way, sir!”