Chapter Text
Charlie had always wanted to be an astronaut, ever since he was a little boy. He had dreamed of nothing else. He still had drawings from when he was six where he had drawn himself going into space in a big rocket ship. When he had heard about the mission to go to the outer ring of planets, he had done everything in his power to be a part of that mission. He had trained for years, had done the simulations, and now he was strapped into a ship about to head out, and away from Earth. He wouldn’t be back for a few years at least. Despite advancements in technology, they still hadn’t managed to completely eliminate the time it took to cross space, but it was a hell of a lot better than when space travel first started.
His copilot - Peter - was babbling away about something or other. The man never stopped talking. Charlie was only half listening, as he looked back at the Earth. They were above her now, and she was beautiful. There was so much blue, even more than in the old days. Water levels had risen a lot, but it was still breathtaking.
“Hey,” Peter said, waving a gloved hand in front of Charlie’s face. Charlie blinked, and snapped back into the conversation. “You think we’ll make it? No one’s ever gone out this far before,” he said. That was true, and Charlie knew there was a lot of opportunity for things to go horribly wrong once you were in space.
“Of course! I promised your wife I’d bring you back, didn’t I? And if not then at least we got to be a part of the coolest expedition in history,” Charlie said.
“Dude, that’s not actually reassuring,” Peter said, letting out a nervous laugh as he shook his head. Charlie sighed.
“I can’t actually promise everything will be fine, but I know we have one of the best ground teams, and we have the safety pod which can sustain us for a few months while they try to figure out a rescue plan if we get stuck. Like sure, we might die, but I might die crossing the street to get my mail. If I’m going, I’d rather it be out here,” Charlie told him.
Peter just laughed, shaking his head again.
“You’re so weird,” Peter said.
“There are worse things to be,” Charlie said, shrugging. He was fine with being weird. It had served him well throughout his life.
They chatted for a while, and then it was time to head to their sleep pods. Charlie set their ship to auto, the coordinates already punched in. An alarm would warn them if they were on route for a collision. In the meantime they needed to sleep. They would be out for a few days, and as they got closer they would be woken up for a while, and then go back to sleep, and repeat the process until they arrived.
Charlie made his way through the ship, and into the small sleeping quarters. He took off the suit they had needed for take off, and switched into sleep clothes. He cleaned his teeth, and face, and then got into the sleeping pod. The lid descended over him, blocking out the light of the cabin, and he closed his eyes. He hoped for sweet dreams.
A siren blared, and Charlie bonked his head as he tried to sit up in the pod. Peter was running around in the red light of the emergency signal. Charlie pushed open his pod, and scrambled out, falling flat on his face. How long had they been out?
“What is it? What happened?” Charlie barked as sparks flew near his head.
“We got hit by something! Why didn’t the sensors warn us before we hit?!” Peter yelled over the groaning of the ship. Charlie sprang into action, and bolted for the cockpit, with Peter on his heels.
The view outside the window was chaos. Massive rocks were pelting the ship, causing damage, and destroying the hull. One was heading straight for the viewing window, and if it hit with enough force, it might crack it. They would die before they could reach safety.
“Fuck -” Charlie swore. “Escape pod - now!”
He grabbed Peter’s arm, and pulled him along behind him as he rushed through the corridors. The ship shuddered, and the artificial gravity gave out. Charlie was running one second, and floating the next.
“Shit!” he yelled, as he swam through the air, pushing himself down the corridor. They were close. They just needed to get in, and then they could eject and hopefully clear the rocks. If they were lucky, they’d be able to repair the ship once they had passed by.
They were almost there when the lights flickered, and then shuddered off too.
“Dammit -” Peter growled from behind him. He paused, and looked out the view port, and his eyes went wide with horror. Charlie looked out, and all he could see was a rock that was about to hit them. “MOVE!” Peter screamed.
They forced their way through the last stretch of ship, and Charlie had to use the manual override to open the escape pod door. He scrambled in, and held out his hand for Peter. The rock hit the view port, and Peter shoved Charlie into the pod, and slammed the button to close the door, a moment before the view port gave way and Peter was sucked into the vacuum of space. Charlie screamed, banging on the escape pod window, but Peter was long gone, and their ship all but destroyed. He had to eject the escape pod or he would die too.
Trembling fingers flicked all the switches to bring the pod to life, and then he slammed the ejection button, and the pod rushed into space. The universe spun around him, and he strapped himself into a seat, and held on for dear life. He looked over at the empty seat next to his - Peter’s seat. Charlie broke down in tears, sobbing. He couldn’t see except out a very small window. There, amongst the rocks, and the wreckage of their ship was Peter’s broken body. Charlie yelled and screamed, but no one would ever hear him. He had promised Peter’s wife he would bring her husband home, but now he’d be lucky if he even made it back himself to tell her what happened.
He needed to signal for help. He could grieve after. If he died then so did Peter’s story, and all they had worked for. Charlie looked around, and sure enough there was an emergency beacon. He steered the pod away from the rocks and the wreckage, and got into clear space. He had no idea where he was in relation to where they were going. How long had they slept? An hour? Two days? A week? He sent out the distress beacon, and sent a prayer to anyone who would listen that he be rescued before he starved to death or ran out of air.
Charlie leaned back in his seat. How had things gone so wrong? The censors should have awoken them long before they were hit. Had the system worked properly, the would have been able to maneuver out of the way, easily avoiding the rocks, and -
The ship shuddered. Charlie frowned, and unbuckled himself, running over to the small port. He couldn’t see anything, but then he fell forward as the ship was dragged upwards.
“What the fuck?” he demanded of the air as he tried to stand up. Did something have him? There weren’t any of the rocks near him except a few small stray pieces, and there was no way anyone from Earth had picked up his signal yet. So what was it then? Charlie grabbed one of the space suits off the wall, and pulled it on as fast as he could. The last thing he needed was to get launched into space without a suit…like Peter had.
He had just finished locking his helmet into place when the hatch was opened. Charlie looked up, and screamed. There was some sort of creature covered in thick, black fur staring down at him, with far too many eyes. Was- was that an alien? Had he just made Earth’s first contact with aliens?!
The creature made a strange clicking noise, and Charlie felt an awful pressure behind his eyes. He felt like he couldn’t breathe. He stumbled forward, and long arms caught him, holding him upright. Another arm moved, and slid off his helmet. Charlie gasped, but the air was...fine? He could breathe!
“Oh thank God,” Charlie panted as he tried to calm his racing heart. The creature had something metallic in their paw-like hand, and brought it close to Charlie’s face. He tried to back away, but the creature’s arms were very long indeed, and he felt something cold and hard touch his forehead. He grabbed his head, and leaned forward, wincing as pain lanced through his skull.
When he opened his eyes, he was standing in a large hangar, and around him were hundreds of vessels - space crafts. Charlie stared in awe. How was this real? Had he hit his head and started hallucinating? Was Peter still alive, asleep, and it was all a stress fueled dream?
“You - hurt?” the weird clicking of the creature suddenly made sense. Were they speaking English? Charlie blinked at them. No...they were still clicking, but Charlie’s mind was supplying him with a translation of sorts. How in the world -
The creature shook him, a gentle back and forth, and asked again, “You - HURT?”
Right. Charlie needed to answer.
“My uh - my ship was destroyed...my copilot is dead...I’m stranded out here...I don’t think I’m hurt though,” he stammered. The creature made a small noise that didn’t translate at all, and then said. “Good. No hurt.”
Charlie wondered if that was how the alien spoke, or if it was that the technology translating didn’t understand English enough to give him a better translation. The creature picked him up, and it took all he had not to struggle.
“Clean time, then I sell,” the alien said.
Wait. What? Did they say sell? He was going to be sold, like livestock or something? No, no, no! That wasn’t okay. Charlie started to struggle against his captor, but he felt so dizzy, and his head was aching, and their arms were so long.
“No fight!” they snapped, smacking him on the back of his legs. Something sharp pricked him, and he heard a small hiss, and then felt a cold something or other rushing into his system. Charlie felt a swell of panic as the world swam in his vision, before going dark.
When Charlie awoke, the first thing he noticed was that he was tied down, and very naked. He felt a moment of panic as he realized that he was naked as he was never naked in front of others unless he had to be, and even then it was under duress.
“I can’t sell ‘em if they’re hurt,” the fuzzy, black alien said. “They said they weren’t hurt, but who knows if that’s even true. They were barely making sense, even with the translator.” They were speaking to another alien with soft pink skin that seemed to almost glow faintly, and large bulbous eyes.
Charlie realized two things: one was that the translator was working better, and the second was that they didn’t know what he was. That meant they wouldn’t realize he was different. He let out a small sigh of relief, and regretted it instantly as too many eyes turned to look at him.
“Look at ‘em, no hair, or claws...how the -” the next word fuzzed out in Charlie’s mind. Clearly there wasn’t a good translation for every word. “Does a creature like that survive? I’m hoping -” clicking noises, maybe a name? “Will buy ‘em. I know I don’t want ‘em. They’re so ugly…,” the alien said, shaking out their fur in a full body shiver.
“You’re not too pretty yourself, jackass,” Charlie snapped without thinking. Shit. Inside voice was the best voice, he reminded himself.
“Looks like the translator has absorbed more of the subject’s language,” the other alien said. “Interesting. This species must have latent telepathy.”
That one was taking notes or something on a pad, it’s tentacle like fingers pressing against a screen that would beep periodically.
“I’m Doctor -” the name refused to translate, and Charlie could tell that he was going to get tired of that real fast. On the other hand, Doctor Squid there seemed to make a weird humming sound when they spoke, and he was pretty sure that there was no way he’d be able to replicate that even if he tried. “What do they call your species where you’re from?” they asked.
“Human?” Charlie said.
“Interesting,” Doctor Squid said, tapping away at the screen in their hand. “And how are you classified?” they asked.
Classified? What did that mean? He must have looked confused, or else they assumed a translation error, because they reworded the question.
“Are you a male or female of your species?” the Doctor asked.
Oh. Charlie wasn’t sure how to answer that. True, he was male, but he had been designated as a female at birth. Then again...they had never seen a human before. He didn’t have to explain fuck all! He could say whatever he wanted to, and it would be the truth as far as they were concerned. He could rewrite history! Charlie smiled to himself. He was male after all.
“Male,” he said.
“Fascinating,” Doctor Squid said, still tapping away. “How does your species reproduce -” they started.
“Doc, we aren’t here for this. Is the ‘human’ fit for sale or not?” the other alien asked.
The Doctor made a sound that was very much a sigh, even if it was in the unusual humming sound. Charlie knew exasperation when he heard it. The Doctor handed the fuzzy one a small chip of some kind.
“Yes. Take him, and go,” Doctor Squid said.
“Finally,” the other grumbled. The fuzzy one pushed a button releasing Charlie from the bands that had held him down, and replaced them with cuffs around his wrists and ankles. The cuffs were too big at first but quickly adjusted to fit him.
“Let’s go. The sale is starting soon, and you still stink,” the alien said.
Charlie was walked down a long hallway, and brought into what could only be a bathing room of some sort. There was a chemical being sprayed, and people walked through it, and as they went through, the floor would become dirty for a moment before the mess was cleared away down a drain. Charlie was shoved into one of the misting spots, and he felt something cold and scentless touch him. He looked down, and sure enough all the dirt was off his body too. His captor grabbed him, and pulled him into the next room.
There was a counter with a gruff looking alien, with huge muscles, and an angry scowl with tusks. Their yellow-gold skin shimmered beneath the lights, and they glared at them with his one, large eye.
“What’s that?” they asked.
“Calls himself a ‘human’. You got anything for them?” his captor asked.
“Hmm, let me run a scan. Don’t think I’ve heard of ‘human’ before, but maybe they’re close physiologically to another species,” the one behind the counter suggested. They pulled out a small device that looked oddly enough like a tube of lipstick. They ran it over Charlie’s body, and finally touched his finger with it. He felt something sharp, and he could see that he had been pricked for blood. A moment later the alien grunted, pushed a button, and down came a large column made of what looked like glass that was full of little vials. They spun it around, and plucked out the one they were looking for.
“This oughta do,” they said. Charlie’s captor cackled, and thanked them before dragging him off once more.
“Now, we gotta get your pheremones going to see if there are any takers out there. I personally don’t want to see a human aroused, but I’m sure someone will, and then I can make all the chips off of selling you,” the alien said with sadistic glee.
“Aroused?” Charlie asked. He didn’t like the sound of that. He tried to pull away from the vial, but his captor wasn’t interested in letting him get away. They pressed the vial against his neck, and he felt a small prick before everything turned to fire in his veins.