Space, Sex & Therapy

Chapter 1

Lieutenant Aria Pantel jolted awake. Her heart was trying to punch itself out of her chest. Icy sweat layered her skin. Panting echoed off the bare walls of her room as she threw off the sheets that constricted her. Surrounded by darkness, she could not make out her enemies. The glint of a datapad resting on an end table caught her eye. She snapped it up. Swinging it as a weapon of last resort, it cut through the air poorly.

"Where are you?" she screamed. "Where...where am I?" Her stomach was knotted. She could have vomited if not for the fear she held for her life.

Overhead, a blinking red light recentered her mind. It was her bedroom's oxygen detector. She was alone. She was still in her private quarters aboard the starship Century. She was still second-in-command and orbiting in space with the companionship of her loyal comrades. There was no danger, no aliens chasing her through the hallways. No crashing ships or burning control rooms. Just another dream. Another one to add to her troubles.

The adrenaline slowly flushed from her veins. She carefully lowered herself into the chair of her austere metal desk. It took both hands, but she was able to jostle free a ventilation grate upon the wall. A bottle of liquor clanked against the edge of the hole as she pulled it out. The liquid disappeared before her eyes as she knocked back one swig after another. She felt sleepiness creeping up on her and hoped this time she would stay down. The bottle cracked on the floor as it slipped from her fingers. Sleep scooped her into its tender embrace and whisked her away, far away from the worst week in recent memory.

The next morning inside her office, Aria's starport shade retracted, coffee machine whirred, and her seven monitors sparked to life. The local sun's light filled the gray room. Her metal home among the stars seemed a touch less sterile.

Aria dropped into her zero-G chair and glided weightlessly across the floor until she could reach her coffee. This cold, artificial, energizing brew, only differentiated from water by a few skillful chemical compositions, held little resemblance to the warm nectar of the gods on her Martian home world. She should have purchased a crate in bulk during the crew's last shore leave, but she failed to find the time to get off the ship.

Nevertheless, she held steady her favorite mug while she concocted a dangerous ratio of liquor-to-brew with a bottle taped under her desk. This mug was her oldest possession, having been with her even before the Academy. It was made from Martian clay and had taken its fair share of bumps. Little chips and scratches reminded her of herself. She admired it so much because, like her, it had the resilience to bounce back from almost anything. And that was an appreciated trait in a workplace that often sent tableware flying across the room.

She tolerated the thin liquid sloshing down her throat as she gazed out her port window. The stars twinkled behind the spectacular view of their celestial dance partner, Planet 748-B.

The lush jungle planet was painted with green and blue landscapes filled with natural resources both mineral and fauna. Thirsty rangeland and sparse jungles made up the majority of the planet's topography. Just on the horizon, the star Polaris-22 was emerging and casting its blanket of sunshine across the globe. This planet was her mission. She assisted the Captain and his crew on the edge of Federation space to investigate newly discovered humanoid settlements. She was familiar with this type of high-pressure work after years of serving aboard this science vessel.

A mountain of morning reports awaited in her inbox. Every one needed to be reviewed, verified, and summarized for the Captain. And the clock was ticking. Her immense struggle to rise from bed and make it across the ship to her office left little to no time for easing into the day. She shuffled to her wall of monitors and brought the hangar camera footage into focus. She opened up the first report.