Roxie is in the position she hates the most. NOT in control. How will she survive hours trapped in a tiny space pod?
Read the previous chapters here!
Chapter 1- A Teenage Roxie and Viper
Chapter 2 - A Drunk and a Cadillac Trunk
Chapter 3 - The Louisvile Low Docks
Chapter 4 - Doubling Down with a Damalian
Chapter 5 - Blast Off & Betrayal
Chapter 7
Ether Bliss
by Angelique Fawns
The space capsule rocketed toward the polluted brown ball of Oberon while Roxie gripped the handles of her jumpseat. She could hardly believe that she’d started her morning snug in her bed in Kentucky. Now, she was pummeling through space in what was little better than a metal coffin.
By her calculations, which weren’t much better than a guess, there were at least three hours before her pod reached the planet known for suckers. There was a reason the most infamous casino in the galaxy made its home there.
A reason, folks like Dana made it their home base for business. No taxes, almost no regulations, and the intergalactic cops gave it a wide berth. Roxie let out a shuddering breath. At least she was used to hanging out with underworld types. Being raised by Buzz, who preferred to live his life in a legally grey area, meant she was used to drinkers, gamblers, and petty criminals.
What she wasn’t used to was being alone in the quiet. The TV was always blaring with an off-track gambling feed at home, and her father had dragged her with him to every drinking parlour and shady deal he was involved in. He didn’t trust leaving her at home alone in their bad neighborhood.
But nothing was as noisy as her own thoughts in the silence and dark of this space shuttle.
How was she going to survive this trip while visions of her father being tortured to death by the Black Hole Sons tortured her? Minus the pliers, fists, and blood, of course. It wasn’t equal to the real thing, but worrying about him was painful nonetheless.
There was nothing she hated more than feeling powerless, and Dana held all the cards at the moment. There was no way she could sit alone with her brain for hours.
She looked out the viewport, unclipping her seatbelt and rubbing on the window, which had fogged up a bit with her breath. She saw the gloomy, disgusting pinprick in the distance that was Oberon. Nothing like the beautiful blues and greens of Earth. The smoggy, dark planet was perfect for what it was—a hideout for sin and sinners.
And she’d heard her Dad and friends talking about deals when they thought she was asleep in her tiny bedroom. If a dirty deal was going down, it was often at Dana’s Big Rig Oil & Casino. Roxie’s new place of employment. Buzz would be in heaven if he came to visit her. All those feeds from the galaxy’s race tracks on big screens around a smoky bar…
Tears filled Roxie’s eyes, and she gasped with agony. Suppose he was even still alive. She had to find a way to clear her mind and get some rest, or she wouldn’t survive this trip.
She tried counting sheep… Which all became little biker ewes with leather vests and demonic eyes.
She tried meditating… But her monkey mind was up to all the tricks. No zen allowed.
Instead, she was getting more and more wound up.
She knew she’d chosen to leave her father’s fate in Dana’s hands. But that didn’t mean she was happy with it. She should have stayed. She should have fought. Buzz had taught her some fighting moves. Roxie bit her lip till it bled a little. But her small fists were no match for the guns and knives of the Black Hole Sons.
Of course, getting killed herself wasn’t going to help anything.
Roxie shut her eyes and concentrated on the sound of blood rushing through her veins. There was no steady rhythm, instead it felt like giant waves crashing against the side of her skull. Memories of her youth came on like a flood. Growing up without a mother had been tough, and her dad had done his best, but it’s not like he was perfect father material. He had a gambling problem, a drinking problem, and liked to spend most of his hours at the track with Roxie close at his side. She learned to pick winners and play the odds before she was even six years old.
Whenever she’d asked about her mother, he would just shrug and get a dark look on his face.
“We’re better off without her.”
“So she’s alive?”
He’d scowl and not meet her eyes. “She’s dead, Roxie. She’s dead.”
“Is she really dead? Or just dead to us?”
“It’s the same thing.”
Her chest tightened like a vise was squishing her heart till it bulged. This was going to turn into a full-fledged panic attack. Tripping down memory lane wasn’t helping.
She started looking around at the switches of the ship, wondering if there was something she could do to make it go faster. She flicked one switch, and immediately, the temperature in the capsule dropped. She shivered as her breath turned to plumes of vapor. Quickly, she toggled that switch back off.
As soon as she saved enough from her gambling winnings, she planned to go to pilot school and learn to captain a space ship. It was common sense not to hit switches in a space contraption you’re not familiar with. She was liable to eject herself into the dark void of space, or alter her course to some planet even worse than Oberon. (If there was such a thing.)
When she was frustrated at home, she’d head out for a walk, striding past the homeless tent camps, and the barbed wire fencing surround the race track.
But she couldn’t do that in this tiny space capsule. Roxie checked her watch, hoping that she’d at least wasted an hour or so going through this process of trying to calm down. With a sinking sensation, she realized exactly five minutes had gone by.
Five minutes. That was it. Her brain was going to blow itself apart long before she reached Oberon.
What did she even know of Dana? Why had she let Viper rush her out of there like that? And would she have been better off in Simon’s hands? She shuddered thinking of the burly Oberian who chased her though the Louisville Low Docks with her old school friend.
But the slimy Oberian had been giving her serious creep vibes. And she no longer knew Viper very well. He’d chosen to join the Black Hole Sons, which meant he had a record of making poor choices and being a bad judge of character.
One thing she’d also learned from her father was to trust her vibes. They’d been on the run when he’d made dodgy bets a few times and gotten in over his head, and she had learned to see a man who was dangerous and meant her harm. And Dana—she couldn’t get a reading on Dana, but she’d been the least awful choice at that moment Roxie was running through the space port. Now, she wasn’t so sure.
She checked her watch, seeing if these thoughts and contemplations had taken much time. Ten minutes. Ten minutes had now gone by since she had been launched from the SLZ spaceship in this jelly bean of a jail.
Taking a deep breath, she started exploring the cabin as far as she could reach from the jump seat. As she felt under the chair, her fingers wrapped around a little baggie, which she pulled out. She opened the bag and sniffed it. It had this lovely smell, like cherries and cranberry potpourri. She knew immediately what it was from some of her dad’s wilder house parties.
Ether Bliss.
The number one, most popular drug in the galaxy. Very expensive, very addictive, but very effective. There were entire rehabilitation centers for Ether Bliss addicts. And she wondered if this was Dana’s personal stash, or a remnant from some illegal delivery.
Roxie dipped a finger into the bag and rubbed a little of the powder on her gums. Sheer immediate relief. Panic dulled, her breathing slowed down, and the pressure on her chest evaporated. Bliss.
In general, Roxie didn’t use drugs. Not that she hadn’t attempted it a few times, especially when there’d been a bit lying around at one of her dad’s parties. But she’d never snorted a full line. Or done enough to truly get high.
But this was a different circumstance, and she thought she might actually explode. The last fifteen minutes had felt like a lifetime of torture. This was survival. That one drink Dana had given her had long left her system and needed to be numb.
She held the bag of Ether Bliss with trembling fingers. She was on a precipice here. Should she jump and snort more?
The adventure continues next Wednesday. Does she zone out on Ether Bliss? Or find another way to pass the time? (Roxie is known for making poor decisions sometimes.)
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