Adrift Collection Read online

  A NineStar Press Publication

  www.ninestarpress.com

  Adrift: The Collection

  Copyright 2016 T.J. Land

  Cover Art by Natasha Snow ©Copyright 2016

  Edited by Raevyn

  Published in 2016 by NineStar Press, New Mexico, USA.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, places and events are from the author’s imagination and should not be confused with fact. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, events or places is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher, NineStar Press, LLC

  Warning

  This book contains sexually explicit content which is only suitable for mature readers, including interspecies sex and ménage.

  Adrift: The Collection

  T.J. Land

  Table of Contents

  The Captain's Men

  The Captain’s Encounter

  The Captain’s Calamity

  The Captain’s Promise

  About the Author

  Other books by this author

  Dedication

  To Kim, Layla and Bianca, with my love. Also to Mark, with something else.

  The Captain’s Men

  Chapter One

  The captain hated masturbating.

  Although, that statement needed a few qualifiers. He didn’t hate touching himself. Sliding his hand down his shaft the way he liked it—slow and tight—feeling himself thicken, knowing he had complete control over how long his pleasure lasted—no, he didn’t hate that at all. And God knew he didn’t hate coming. In the last few years, those perfect seconds—when his grip tightened, his body shook, and he didn’t have to think about anything at all—had become the best part of each long, tedious day.

  No, what he hated were the moments afterward, when the haze of orgasm was just starting to fade, and he needed a lover to give him a deep kiss to ease the transition back to reality, but no one was there.

  “Ah, God,” he grunted as he thrust into his hand one last time, finding release. His body had been uncooperative today, and he’d almost given up halfway through. But his erections always took ages to subside, and they expected him on the bridge in ten minutes. Moreover, to start the day without at least one orgasm was, for him, worse than foregoing breakfast. He’d have been in a filthy mood for hours. As it was, the white streak now staining his sheets brought him, if not pleasure, then at least a workmanlike sense of satisfaction. That’s over with, then.

  With quick, efficient movements, the captain cleaned up and finished dressing. To his irritation, one of his boot laces snapped when he pulled it tight, and as he looked around for a replacement, his eye fell on the calendar.

  Oh. I almost forgot.

  It wasn’t a proper calendar. He’d finished that one off years ago, although the twelve glossy portraits of shirtless firemen remained in the drawer beside his bed. This one was far simpler—a broad sheet of paper with the days numbered and ticked off in a manner not dissimilar to the sort of thing one would expect to find on the walls of a prison cell. Beneath it, there was a small desk, on which lay a copy of Lysistrata bearing the battle wounds of a text that had weathered seventeen re-readings over the course of four years. There was also a pen and a framed photograph of himself and a thin, dark-skinned man with the words Mon Bien-Aimé scribbled in the corner. With movements made mechanical by habit, he picked up the former, and on the calendar, he drew a little line next to the one thousand, four hundred, and fifty-three other little lines he’d drawn so far.

  He then made the mistake of staring at it for a bit too long. A lump formed in his throat. Swallowing it down, he scolded himself. Come now. If you’re feeling this battered, imagine how the others must be struggling.

  As always, it felt grubby to use the unhappiness of the crew to distract himself from his own encroaching despair, but it worked. While he scanned the room once more for replacement bootlaces, his mind returned to the list of ways he could improve morale he’d been compiling.

  One idea occurred to him. It made him smirk and then chuckle, and he dismissed it as ridiculous. But it wouldn’t quite go away, instead hovering in a corner at the back of his mind as though waiting patiently for the next opportunity to spring forward.

  At last, he abandoned his quest for laces and thought, Oh, to hell with it. He kicked both boots off, and then, thrilled to be doing something uncharacteristic for once, he tugged off his socks as well. It wasn’t as though it made any difference in the long run.

  Barefoot, the captain made his way out of his private quarters and towards the bridge.

  ✩✩✩

  The captain isn’t wearing any shoes.

  Thomas had developed a crick in his neck from craning his head back for glimpses. As luck would have it, his chair was positioned farthest from the captain’s because God hated Thomas and didn’t want him to have even one thing in his life that didn’t suck.

  But Thomas didn’t care, not today, because he could see the captain’s feet. They were long, with high arches and short toes. His toenails were impeccable and even, as if he’d filed them with a ruler and a magnifying glass. Just below his left ankle, there was a scar, like an old burn, and Thomas wondered where it had come from. On the whole, they were much better-looking feet than should have belonged to anyone who’d spent the last four years of their life stranded in deep space, trapped on a ship with twelve crewmembers and one shower.

  What made it even weirder was that this was the captain. Not quite a month ago, he’d raked Rick over the coals for arriving at his station without having shaved. If Rick, or any of them, had showed up without their shoes on, Thomas had little doubt the captain would have had them shot.

  “Thomas!”

  Thomas jumped and knocked over the mug of synthesised nutrients that were supposed to be his breakfast. Shit. Fuck. He’d been so focused on the captain’s feet he hadn’t noticed the captain’s head swivelling in his direction, like a periscope on a nuclear submarine.

  “Yes, sir,” he said, swallowing.

  Anyone who looked at the captain for long enough would eventually realise they were staring at one of the most handsome men they’d ever seen. However, if they only eyeballed him for a few seconds, the dominant impression would be one of severe austerity. With slightly sunken cheeks and a thin, prominent nose, the captain’s face was almost sinister in its sternness, particularly given that the expression most habitual to it was a dark scowl. He had a small, impeccably neat beard, more grey than black, and when you fucked up—and you would fuck up—he’d rest his chin in his palm and tilt his head in a way that made you feel like the worst human being alive.

  Not only was he doing it right now, the captain was also giving Thomas that rare look he wore when he’d had to say someone’s name three times to get them to answer a question. Shit. “Tell me, Mister Meléndez; did you, by any chance, have a catastrophic aneurism before arriving at your post this morning?”

  “Uh…no. No, sir, I did not.”

  His liquid breakfast had now spread across his station and was beginning to drip onto the floor, each wet plink louder and more embarrassing than the last.

  “Truly? Is there, then, some problem in your personal life you’re working through at the moment?”

  “No, sir.”

  “No, I didn’t think there would be. Because you don’t have a personal life; do you, Thomas? You barely have a life, in all but the most purely biological sense of the word.”

  The captain had been born in Cairo—one of the only things anyone knew about him—and his first language was Arabic. When he was pissed, he got
a bit of an accent, which Thomas thought was supposed to sound menacing, but it just sounded sexy. He shifted in his seat, hoping the captain wouldn’t notice how turned on he was.

  Everyone had swivelled around to stare at him with either pity or amusement. Assholes. Like they hadn’t all been gawking at the captain’s feet right along with him a moment ago. Because, of course, no one had any real work to do. Every single screen on the deck was saying the same thing it had been saying for the last one thousand, four hundred, and fifty-three days, which amounted to a big, fat You’re all fucked, boys.

  The captain was now leaning on his chair’s left arm, his chin still in his palm. “So what could be the problem, then? After all, no one else seems to be having any difficulty demonstrating a basic level of workplace competence. Let me consult the crew to make sure. Ricardo?”

  “Yes, Captain?” said Rick, smirking like the little asshole he was.

  “Are you finding your duties particularly onerous today?”

  “No, Captain.”

  “Excellent. Echo? What about you?”

  Echo didn’t speak—whether he could speak was something none of them had yet figured out—so he replied with a languid headshake.

  The captain sat back in his chair. “It seems the only person unable to avoid fucking up my morning is you, Thomas.”

  Thomas hung his head. “I’m sorry, sir. Won’t happen again.”

  “If I throw you out the airlock, it won’t,” agreed the captain. Not for the first time, Thomas reflected that the captain was sort of a massive prima donna. “Now that you’ve rejoined our ranks, would you be so good as to check whether we’ve had any communications in the last twelve hours?”

  The captain, of course, knew what the answer to that would be. Thomas knew, without even looking. Every single person in the room knew. But they still did this every single day, every single morning, because as long as they did, it meant they hadn’t completely given up. So, dutifully, Thomas turned to his screen, ran his fingers over it, and said, “There are no messages today, sir.”

  Except, perhaps, some tiny stupid part of them was still intent on deluding itself, because as Thomas spoke, he watched disappointment flicker over every face in the room. Even his own shoulders had slumped just a fraction when he turned away from the screen.

  The captain’s expression, of course, hadn’t changed one iota.

  “Thank you, Thomas,” he said with a touch of sarcasm and then ordered Rick to read out his report on the status of their oxygen garden.

  Consumed by embarrassment, Thomas forgot to wonder where the captain’s shoes had gone.

  ✩✩✩

  They still didn’t know what had happened.

  Four years ago, The Prayer had been a licensed merchant ship transporting a cargo of building equipment and food to a new settlement on Pluto. The problem was, by the time they got to Pluto, it was a war zone. The enemy—yeah, they had a real name, but you needed mandibles to pronounce it—had arrived. Thomas was one of only one hundred or so humans alive who had seen the enemy close up, and he knew three things about them: they were smarter than humans, meaner than humans, and some could teleport.

  He didn’t know for sure, but he suspected that last fact had something to do with The Prayer’s current predicament.

  Long story short, The Prayer had found herself surrounded. If it wasn’t for the captain, they’d probably all be dead. He’d known what to do, and for a few moments, Thomas had thought they were winning. But the enemy ships had done…something. There’d been a flash of blue light and a noise that almost burst his eardrums, and then everything had gone quiet. A second later, with his ears ringing and spots dancing across his field of vision, Thomas had looked around the bridge, where everyone had the same “did that just happen” expression.

  Then, the navigator had said, “Er…captain?”

  It had turned out that whatever the enemy had done had transported The Prayer to a part of the universe so remote that, even after four years of trying, they had no idea where the Milky Way was. All their attempts to contact Earth, Pluto, or another vessel had failed. If there were any other life forms in this galaxy, they hadn’t seen them yet. And so, barring a miracle, none of them were ever going to set foot on Earth again.

  Considering that mind-numbing horror, the captain’s absent boots shouldn’t have been a big deal. But Thomas couldn’t stop thinking about them or about the captain’s beautiful ankles. He felt like a dork, but it wasn’t as though he’d had any fresh fantasies to fuck his fist to in four years.

  And, by lucky chance, today it was his turn in the shower.

  The Prayer had been an ancient monster when first they’d set out on what was supposed to be her last voyage before being consigned to the scrapheap, but she’d been good to them. All twelve crewmembers had everything they needed to survive however many more years they were alive. The antimatter generator was working fine, so they weren’t going to run out of fuel. The medical pod was fully functional. The garden kept them supplied with oxygen and fresh food, although to get sufficient protein they had to supplement their diets with the nutrient shakes and chewable bars that had originally been intended for the settlement on Pluto. Her water recycling systems were still operational, but the plumbing needed work in a few places. The showers were the most prominent example; there were three stalls, but they could only use one at a time. Repairing the problem wasn’t difficult in the technical sense—three members of the crew had advanced engineering degrees—but it would require cannibalising parts from elsewhere on the ship, and the captain hadn’t authorised that yet. So they had a roster, and the stream cut off after two minutes.

  Thomas learned years ago how to get himself off in one minute and thirty seconds.

  On the way in, he bumped into Echo, whose upper half was obscured by a stack of towels—washed, ironed, and folded with meticulous care. All Thomas could see was the top of his wispy blond hair.

  “Thanks, man,” Thomas said awkwardly, taking one. After all, taking care of his laundry wasn’t Echo’s job. Though, to be honest, Thomas didn’t know what Echo’s official job was, and neither did anyone else; he seemed to do all the chores the rest of them couldn’t be fucked to do themselves.

  Echo hung the rest of the towels on a rail and left without saying goodbye. Once he was sure Echo was gone, Thomas stripped, dumping his clothes in a heap to one side. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of his body in the mirror and flinched. He’d been pale and freckled when they’d set off, but four years without sunlight had turned him into a fucking ghost. It had also stripped all the fat off him. Most days, he had his nutrient cup for breakfast, a strip of chewable nutrients for lunch, and for dinner, a bowl of something fresh from the garden—usually beets, cabbage, or spinach. All of which he hated—his palate was still tuned in to burgers and beer—so he didn’t eat much. Enough moping. Sighing, he made his way over to the shower. He really wanted to jerk off.

  So he was really pissed when he found someone was already showering. In his time slot.

  “Rick, if that’s you, I am going to break your fucking…” he began, kicking open the door, and then froze.

  “I’m almost done,” said the captain, without turning around.

  Every curse word Thomas had had lined up on his tongue withered and died because…Jesus Christ.

  The water in the showers never got hot, so there was almost no steam. He could make out just about every inch of the captain’s body, and fuck. Thomas knew he should look away. He didn’t. Instead, his brain started soaking in as many random details as it could. For example, the captain cleaned himself with the same brisk, efficient movements they all did, but he managed to make it look elegant and—fuck it—sensuous, like he was in a gay shampoo commercial. Also, wow, he was tall. Had he always been so tall? And broad? He’d always loomed over Thomas on the bridge, but now he looked huge, filling every inch of Thomas’s vision. Ooh, and then there was his hair. Thomas already had a salt-and-pepper fetish, bu
t now it was soaked and plastered to his scalp, and… His feet. His motherfucking feet. They were right there, and they were clean and wet, and…and…

  Thomas’s brain did a record scratch as the water stopped flowing.

  “Your turn,” said the captain, turning to face him.

  Fuck. The thing was, he said it in the same commanding voice he used on the bridge, and he had on the same permanent light scowl Thomas had spent four years crushing on. And…ah, hell. Had he caught him staring at his feet? Again?

  “Th-thank you, Captain,” Thomas said, averting his eyes. Hell if he was going to ask why the captain was showering in his slot. Not after the fiasco that morning.

  But the captain didn’t step forward to retrieve a towel. Instead, eyes narrowed, he said, “Mister Meléndez, are you a fetishist?”

  “Sir?”

  “You’ve been bestowing an inordinate amount of attention on my feet recently,” said the captain. “Both of which are, to my mind, unremarkable—unless there’s some particular peculiarity about them that you’ve noted?”

  “Um.”

  “A growth?” the captain pressed. “Or a fungus? Or…”

  “You’ve got nice-looking feet, Captain,” Thomas blurted and then wanted to die.

  The problem—the real problem here—wasn’t just that Thomas was, at heart, a gibbering moron. Nor was it the fact that the captain was gorgeous, brilliant, well read, ruthlessly efficient, and had a sexy, sexy accent. The real problem was that Thomas liked him. A lot.

  Thomas wasn’t much of a rebel, but he didn’t usually like the guys he worked for. He did as he was told and kept his opinions to himself. But from the moment he’d been introduced to the captain, he’d been impressed. For all that the captain was a sarcastic prick and would pretty much rip out your liver if you fucked up in front of him, he was the most decent employer Thomas had ever had. Sure, he was mean, but he treated them like they were a pack of prized hunting dogs he’d hand-reared from birth—who, every now and then, needed a kick to keep them in line—instead of just a bunch of random assholes thrown together by bad luck. So, yeah, somewhere along the line, Thomas had gotten himself a touch smitten.