Transitions

Seeing other people again was strange for Sam Hayden. There were so many around him, and it made him feel paralyzingly awkward. It was the final medical evaluation before liftoff, and after this, back into quarantine. The medical staff were the only ones allowed to break quarantine at all, the rest of the evaluations had been ongoing since they arrived in Greenland. Having these people all around him asking questions and doing tests while he stood there in his underwear made him feel strange. The fact they were garbed in biohazard suits didn’t help.

The whole process felt so invasive. His first indication that something wasn’t normal was when the doctor reviewing his file mentioned the twisted ankle he suffered in the second month of the mission. Hayden had never had it looked at, and as far as he could remember, he hadn’t talked to Gabriel or Ilsa about it, even in passing. But it wasn’t so much the physical exams that bothered him those; Hayden expected as part of a space voyage. The psychological exams were much worse. They seemed to know everything, and they used that knowledge in the examinations. There was no conversation too personal.

“Do you miss Stacey Mr. Hayden,” asked one person, who had identified himself as Dr. Stevenson without specifying his role or specialty.

“Excuse me,” he sputtered.

“Your ex-girlfriend, Stacey. Do you miss her?”

“What do you… no not really I guess.”

“Because you have your new relationship with Ms. Smith, I take it, hm? I will take your non-response as a ‘yes,’ Mr. Hayden. Good,” he scribbled in his notes.

“How do you…” he started, but Dr. Stevenson looked up at him over his clipboard, glowered, and went back to scribbling.

The next interview had been even more strange. The interviewer, a guy named Andrews, was a corporate representative, not a doctor. He asked pointed and direct questions about Hayden’s specific tasks, accomplishments, and mistakes.

“According to the telemetry, when you were driving the rover on manual mode during the trip to the Pole, you hit a significant crevasse, causing severe vibrations, and some wheel spin. The danger of becoming stuck or rolled over was significant, and if that had happened on Mars, it could well be a fatal incident. What is your excuse for this error?”

“My error? It was a crevasse dude; you can’t always see them. The autopilot doesn’t even see em sometimes man.”

“You weren’t on autopilot,” said Andrews, without emotion.

“I just… I know,” he said, angry, trying to collect his thoughts, “look, my point is they’re not always visible to man or machine. We got out fine. There’s less gravity on Mars, so this wouldn’t have been a thing there at all.”

“That hardly matters if you drown in the Arctic Ocean.”

“I… look, I don’t agree with your assessment that I made an error that I need to excuse, but honestly, I didn’t see it. Probably because of the snow, contrasting white on white man, middle of the day it can be hard to see shapes on the snow.”

Hayden wasn’t lying per se; those issues had dogged their drive much of the way to and from the Pole. He was, however, leaving some key details out. Namely, that at the time of the incident, he hadn’t noticed the crevasse because he had just finished cumming on Tara Dayton’s face. She had been blowing him while Colby Smith fingered her from behind. Feeling Dayton gasp in orgasm with her mouth around his cock had sent him over one edge already, and he was looking down admiring the mess he made when he almost drove them over the crevasse edge.

The front two wheels on the left of the rover hung over the edge for a time, and only some very lucky reaction time from kept them from plunging in. It swerved the rover, and they felt the wheels on the right-side lift, hang there in the air, and slam back down into the snow. He jammed on the hand throttle, got the vehicle away from the crevasse, and then immediately engaged the autopilot.

“Nice driving stud,” said Dayton, her head still in his lap, his cum dripping off her chin and lips. They all laughed as the adrenaline wore off. He’d really only been driving to get some practice anyways, so he went back to what felt much more important at the time; fucking. He decided not to tell the interviewers any of that. As far as they were concerned, he wanted them to think he was a good, chaste, and professional guy, and so were his expedition mates. He thought it was interesting they knew so much less about that expedition than they did of time spent in the habitat.

Strange, he thought. Strange, and disquieting. He hoped the rest of lab crew didn’t contradict him. He supposed he could always say he was protecting their privacy and modesty if they caught him out, but it’d be better if they stuck to the same story, even if he hadn’t known going in that they’d need to tell the same story.

“What are your thoughts on Mission Commander Dayton?”

“She is a great leader,” he started, trying to think of adjectives that would be appropriate. He can’t say she’s a smoke show that fucks like she’s trying to win an award, but he wanted to. “She has a clear vision of the mission, communicates well, and is a good science team lead.”

“And Ms. Smith?”

“She is a great researcher, and she and I are becoming great friends. We’re close. I was really happy to share the voyage to the Pole with her and Tara, as now I feel like the laboratory team is closer than ever.”

“That’s very good,” he said, scribbling in his notes, “and the sex?”

“Excuse me?!”

“The sex. With Ms. Smith. Is it satisfactory?”

“I don’t think that’s any of your buisness, and frankly,” he started, but Andrews cut him off.

“Mr. Hayden, let me be clear, it’s all my buisness. Section 14.3A of your contract stipulates this.”

“I know, I just…”

“Do you wish to see the contract. I can have our representatives pull it up for you.”

“No that won’t be… fine, look, the sex is great, OK? She’s super hot and cool. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“Yes,” said Andrews, and started scribbling again in his matching company notebook. “Now then, why didn’t you find the spy?”

“What? The spy was a rumor, and it wasn’t my job to find him. Why are you asking me that?”

“Him?”

“Or her, I don’t know man.”

“And you didn’t spend much time trying to seek more information?”

“About a rumor?”

“About a threat to the colony Mr. Hayden. Espionage is as dangerous as it gets, yet finding this threat to the colony was out of your purview it seems.” He scribbled more.

“That’s fucked up man, I didn’t dig into my friend’s and coworkers files or sneak around because I’m not a fuckin spy, and as far as I know, there isn’t one, so what the hell man?” Andrews ignored the question. After some more very personal questions, the interview was ended, and the masked man departed. Hayden was sent to a small waiting room, joining some of the others who were also done. Nobody looked happy. He sat next to Colby Smith, and they exchanged horror stories about the interviews. Tara Dayton was the last person to see Andrews. She gave a small smile to Smith and Hayden when she was summoned, and walked into the room with a swagger the others didn’t have.

“She must know something,” Smith whispered into his ear. He nodded. The whole meeting had left him creeped out, and he didn’t want to talk about the interviews, especially what they knew, in a room he was starting to think might be bugged. Dayton was in the room longer than any of the others. It felt like eternity, and Hayden had no idea how long it all took, because there were no clocks in the room. He thought that was odd but kept it to himself. When she came out, unlike all the others, she was smiling.

“Listen up crew! Ilsa, come closer. Alright, so we’re done guys! The corporate guys say we’ve all passed medial and psych, so we’re done. We made it ya’ll!” The crew, exhausted and creeped out, gave a weak cheer. “Now we can make our last requests for personal items to pack and get ready for launch. We’ll be flying out direct to Houston in an hour. I’m so proud of this little crew guys, we did it.”

Hayden wanted to celebrate, really, but he was suddenly tired. The strain of the tests was the last in this long test of his will and determination, and now, here he was, done and free. He felt so relieved. The trip was a blur. They rode a quarantine bus with a HASMAT clad driver to the airport, boarded a small company Learjet, and were whisked away from their frozen home. They mostly slept on the flight. It was midday in Houston when they landed and were picked up in a bus direct from the runway. A crowd of people lined the streets when they left the airport, some holding signs with messages like ‘good luck explorers’, others blew kisses or pointed out the bus to their small children. It gave Hayden a feeling of pride that these people were all here to see them.

Hayden hadn’t been to Texas before, but to him, it looked the same as the rest of America: decaying. The long lines of people hoping for day laborer jobs, the homeless cities, the bad roads, it reminded him of better times for his country when he was a kid, and the nation was on the top of the world. The 2020s hadn’t been kind to the land of the free, and the 2030s weren’t looking so great either. He wondered if that’s why that little crowd was so excited; something they could be proud of.

They’d be in Houston for just under a week, while the last of their stores and affects were loaded aboard Hermes. A company bought out a hotel’s top floor for the colonists, and when Hayden finally arrived in his room, he collapsed heavily into the luxurious king bed exhausted. He heard a tap on the door a short time after arrival. He opened it expecting Smith, but she and Dayton invited themselves in.

“Oh, hi ladies, come on it. Come to check out my sweet digs?”

“Oh yeahhh,” sighed Smith, launching herself on the bed, “this is the shit.”

“Don’t you have one the same Colby?”

“Haha yeah, so? This is best bed I’ve had in months man.”

“Nice view you got here Hayden,” said Dayton, looking out the window at the city of Houston. “Pity we can’t get out and see the city.”

“No can do, my boss would be pissed,” he responded with a chuckle.

“She sounds like a bitch,” said Dayton, smiling.

“Yep,” chimed in Smith, smiling, “but she’s hot so we all put up with her.” They laughed.

“Tara,” asked Hayden, slowly, “what the fuck was that back at base? That was insane.”

“Ugh I know, look guys, that was fucked up, but it’s just… The company is investing a lot into us, you know? They’re just protecting their investments. It costs like, billions, this mission.” Hayden thought she looked nervous. In fact, he thought she looked more nervous answering his question than any time back in Greenland.

“It’s just… They know so much about us Tara,” chimed in Smith softly.

“I didn’t… I didn’t think it would be like that, guys, I would have warned you if I knew.”

“It’s not your fault Tara,” said Hayden, placing his arm around her shoulder, “we’re just… shook.”

“I get that. Listen, we have four days here and only a couple pressers to do in that time so chill, enjoy this. We did it guys.”

“Thanks Tara,” said Smith.

“I’ll let you two get settled in,” she said, heading for the door, “I’m in 15-10, so feel free to come by if you have concerns or just want to hang.” The door clicked behind Dayton, looked over to Smith, laying next to him on the bed.

“That was a little strange, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, maybe,” said Smith slowly. “She’s… I dunno Sam, fuckit, we made it dude.” She slid over to him and laid her head in the nook of his shoulder.

“We did. Holy shit Col, we’re going to fuckin Mars.” Smith giggled and looked into his eyes.

“Sam… I’m… I’m glad to be going with you. Like, with you, you know?”

“Me too babe, he said, giving her a soft kiss. He felt her hand drifted to the zipper on his jumpsuit, and delicately she unzipped him. He could feel his heart beating faster in his chest when, still kissing, he felt her warm hand slide into his underwear and start stroking him. He sighed softly. She broke the kiss, then gave him another quick one, and then leaned down to his body. Shivers ran up his back when he felt her warm, moist breath on his manhood. He groaned when she took him in her mouth and softly started sucking him. She lapped her tongue around in her mouth while bobbing slowly.

“Ohh fuuuck,” he groaned, his hand on her head, running his fingers through her black hair while she bobbed and slurped softly. She hummed softly, picking up the pace a little.

“Oh fuck baby I’m… I’m gonna cum,” he gasped. She hummed around his cock by way of response. He groaned loudly his orgasm rose to a crescendo and he felt his seed pump into her willing mouth. She moaned softly, her tongue working his shaft, cum dribbling from between her lips. She swallowed what was in her mouth and moved up beside him in the bed. He loved seeing his creamy white load on her dark skin almost as much as he loved putting it there.

“Do you want some too,” he croaked, still recovering.

“No I’m good hun,” she said with a smile, wiping the semen off her cheek and licking from her finger, “I’m tired, but I wanted to give you something.”

“You’re amazing,” he sighed, feeling that post-orgasmic sleep coming on. He realized just how tired he too was. Smith stood and made for the door.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, there is one last king size bed on Earth for me, and Imma use all of it,” she said with a laugh. She kissed him on the cheek and stepped out of the room. Hayden was asleep soon after he heard the door click shut.