RS, Author, Novelist, Prosaist<p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Writever" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Writever</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/Mars" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>Mars</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/SpaceOpera" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>SpaceOpera</span></a></p><p>The greenish pressure suit the man had stripped out of hung on a peg under his helmet. <em>He'd had clothes underneath,</em> she told herself repeatedly, trying to calm down. The sounds of the spring door on the loo and the personnel entrance banged in her memory—repeatedly.</p><p>Shaking, she pulled the latter door open centimeters, then gently closed it, but recalled Reina's hair flying as she shook her head while hearing him say, "I won't pick the Onēsanue," reverberating like violence.</p><p>She. Faced. Violence. When had she become a bodyguard? She hated women pushed around; she equated it with self.</p><p>Cargo boxes! The task!</p><p>A shorter spring door on the opposite side latched open when she pulled. She rotated the release ticker to max. <em>Vacuum Cargo Only</em> read the warning sign. A red kick lever read, <em>Emergency Release.</em> She tossed a box; it slid away.</p><p>The pressure suit, an elastic jaunt without excreta connections, smelled of gym socks. Air at 9, power at 10, comms green. She preflighted it.</p><p>She jerked around when she heard a thump in the loo, then noticed the deck camera. Yep, a black decal over the lens. Reina hacked cams; it was a thing.</p><p>He wasn't watching her!</p><p>She could run; he might chase her down, but what could she do, hide? Ask the farmers for help? Couldn't hide in the cargo room wearing the suit; he'd figure that out.</p><p>"Are you working?" he shouted.</p><p>She tossed a box, then another down the chute, making sure she hit the sill.</p><p>If she could find the husbands who'd been herded off... Would Randy and Rod protect her, protect Reina? Against this man's authority?</p><p>She moaned. They were men. Of course not.</p><p>What if she was wrong about him and innocently wanted a helper? She'd be tarred as hysterical, for over-reacting, her word against a man's. She threw more boxes, sliding them loudly, thinking...</p><p>She donned the suit, thanking goodness she'd gotten suit-qualified. She got her legs in, threw boxes clearing the bench, slid then stacked them in the corridor, threw more boxes, got her arms in. Zipped them, zipped it all. She piled boxes blocking the personnel door (an air supply), making it look like she'd run out of space to maximally prepare to rapid-fire toss boxes down the chute like a perky overachiever trying to super-please her new boss. She twisted the helmet on, visor up, and held a box at the cargo hatch.</p><p>Waiting...</p><p>"Better have cleared that bench..." He backed out of the loo. He didn't wear the jumpsuit. He did wear the synth-silk Martians wore, not to scare her immediately, but what the lax fabric outlined in the shorts—all the hirsute man wore—did.</p><p>His eyes went to the bench, cleared now and he smiled. Maybe because the jaunt suit color matched her jumpsuit's, he took a few steps, the loo spring door banging behind him, before he saw her, the boxes blocking him, before blue eyes saw her snap down the visor.</p><p>She stuck out her tongue.</p><p>Screaming expletives, he launched toward the barrier.</p><p>She'd already dropped and held down the box in the hatch, kicking the emergency release. It took two tries, the spring door nearly hitting her foot as the chute unzipped in a long <em>zzzzit!</em> Her fist tightened on the handhold as air roared out.</p><p>He yelled as she sat on the box, pushing the door all the way open with her legs.</p><p>Shoved boxes flew and tumbled from the barrier, him yelling all the while. Wait...</p><p>He could have dodged back into the loo or the pilot bay! <em>Idiot man! Thinking with his hangers-on!</em></p><p>Chest laboring against thining air, gasping, he broke through the barrier sluggishly, reached for her, and collapsed on his face. She imagined the sound of his nose breaking in the newly airless silence. He reached, then stilled. If she didn't want to kill him, she had seconds. She waited. Blood pooled under his face. She waited, closed the cargo door, pressing the chute reconnect button. The pinnace would repressurize, but she opened the personnel door, pulling air in explosively. When her outdoor air light turned green, she stripped the suit, hung it, dashed into the loo, first peeling off the lens decal.</p><p>She rushed out, <em>acting</em> surprised he'd collapsed, turning him over. Hoarse gurgling greeted her. She left, seeking "medical" aid.</p><p>She later learned Reina was embarked on a cargoon. The EM director had lied. Of course he had, but was also unconscious. He later slipped into a coma.</p><p>His loss changed everything. Other directors commed in, countermanding his directives. His men got deauthorized and locked in a dome. A bored man on Deimosbase took her deposition.</p><p>Two days later, the men got shipped away, their leader still in a coma. Two months later, she married Randy.</p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSMarsNeededWomen" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>RSMarsNeededWomen</span></a> 14</p><p>[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]</p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/BoostingIsSharing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>BoostingIsSharing</span></a></p><p><a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/gender" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>gender</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/fiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>fiction</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writer" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>writer</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/author" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>author</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sf" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>sf</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sff" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>sff</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/sciencefiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>sciencefiction</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>writing</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writingcommunity" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>writingcommunity</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writersOfMastodon" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>writersOfMastodon</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/writers" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>writers</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSdiscussion" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>RSdiscussion</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/RSstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>RSstory</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/microfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>microfiction</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/flashfiction" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>flashfiction</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/tootfic" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>tootfic</span></a> <a href="https://eldritch.cafe/tags/smallstory" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>smallstory</span></a></p>