Through the Corridors

The hatch’s hiss bled into a hollow echo as the corridor sprawled ahead, a rusted artery of steel and sour air, thick with the sting of burnt wiring and the stale musk of unwashed metal. The hum of failing air recyclers pulsed through the walls, a restless thrum that shivered through the grated floor and sank into her chest. Bootheels clacked in front of her, a steady rhythm she couldn’t match. The man strode on, tall and swaying faintly, his orange flight jacket snagging the weak glow of flickering strips, its grease-streaked sleeves shifting with his broad shoulders. Beneath it, a faded green jumpsuit clung to his frame, creased with station grime, and smoke trailed from the cigarette pinched between his lips, curling upward in thin tendrils that dissolved into the gloom.

She followed, small steps quickening, her tattered leotard clinging damply to her slim frame, a frayed ruin streaked with grime. Her grey-blue eyes, large and steady, fixed on his back, tracing the faded logo stitched there: Tormen Ferry Services, the letters cracked and peeling under the dim light, some outfit she couldn’t place. His shaggy hair brushed the collar, a dark tangle above the jacket’s bold orange, and he didn’t turn, didn’t speak—just walked, a shadow pulling her through the station’s decay.

Her chest tightened—not just from the pace, but from the thought clawing free: she wasn’t in Gav’s hands anymore. Her mind slipped to that year with him—beaten near daily, **** under him night after night, his dreadlocks brushing her face as he spread her thighs, his broken-toothed grin splitting wide when she’d **** on a cry. He’d beat her bloody when credits ran dry, traded her body for fuel discounts, to settle bets, or just for laughs—passed her to his crew for a bottle once, their jeers her reward as they took turns. Before him, the trader who’d owned her—kept her in his ship’s cargo hold, a crate among the stock, his fingers grazing her now and then, too drunk to care more. He’d handed her to Gav to clear a debt, and her world had cracked—built for labor, specialized for tasks, her synthetic skin no shield against the hell that swallowed her.

Ownership. The word clattered in her skull, sharp and unmoored. Her new owner had torn her loose, but to what? Her eyes flicked to his jacket—Tormen Ferry Services. A ship, maybe, a way off this rock. The corridor widened, a bulkhead looming ahead, its panel hissing open with a groan. He stopped, and she drew beside him, her breath shallow against the cold grate. His nose wrinkled—quick, sharp, a flinch cutting through the smoke—as her smell hit him, the sour reek of filth baked into her after a year unwashed. Shame flared sudden and hot, a dark coil in her gut—her stench was Gav’s mark, a stain she couldn’t scrub, his refusal to let her wash a leash she’d worn too long. She dropped her gaze to her bare feet, toes wriggling faintly against the grate, and stood silent, then stepped after him as he moved through, the distant hum of engines swelling, a hangar’s edge drawing near in the shadows.

The engines’ hum sharpened as the corridor twisted, opening into a vast docking bay—a hollow sprawl of pitted steel and cluttered shadows. The deck stung her bare feet with cold, its surface gouged with burn marks and oil smears, the air thick with fuel bite and rusted decay. His orange flight jacket swayed ahead, a stark flare in the gloom, cigarette smoke trailing in thin wisps as he strode forward. The bay loomed wide—crates teetered in stacks, machinery hulked in dark corners, Henderson Station’s neon bleeding through grimy windows along the far wall, slashing the mess with fractured light.

She lagged a step, her grey-blue eyes snagging on one of those windows, its scratched pane framing a ship beyond. It crouched there, docked and mute—a squat, dented slab of steel, its blunt nose thrust out, rear swollen with four oversized thrusters, their casings patched and rust-streaked. Her gaze brushed a hull seam near the thrusters—a faint, silvery sheen of vapor, a leaky weld’s whisper, too subtle for untrained eyes, a reflex of her buried instincts flaring and fading in an instant. The hull glinted under the station’s glow, a scarred patchwork, and there—stenciled along its flank—the same Tormen Ferry Services etched on his jacket, cracked and peeling. Below it, fainter, The Drifter – DRT-09 ghosted in chipped white paint, a name and serial half-lost to wear. His ship, then—not a guess, a match. No sleek promise, just a battered thing tethered to the bay’s clamps, its viewport a dark scar staring blankly. Ownership rattled in her skull, sharp and unmoored—torn loose from Gav, but tethered now to this? Her breath hitched, a shallow catch against the cold.

He didn’t slow—boots clacked on, smoke curling, the jacket’s logo a fleeting echo of the hull’s mark. She hurried after, the drone pulsing louder through the deck as they approached a hatch in the bay’s wall—thick steel, chipped and grease-smeared, a faint hiss leaking from its edges. He stopped, broad shoulders squaring, and jabbed a code into the panel, keys beeping dully under his calloused fingers. The hatch shuddered open with a groan, peeling back to reveal the hold’s dark clutter, its air heavy with oil and dampness.

She drew up beside him, the sour reek of her own filth prickling sharper in the tight space. His nose wrinkled—quick, a flinch through the smoke—and a raw flicker stirred in her chest, a dull ache threading back to Gav’s leash, his refusal to let her wash a weight she couldn’t shake. Her eyes darted to the hold’s shadowed maw, then traced a faint seam in the deck—something to cling to as he stepped through, his silhouette framed by the hatch’s dying glow. She followed, small and silent, the hatch sealing shut with a hiss, severing the station’s hum as the hold swallowed them.