Free Prisoner of Earthside: A Novella (STRYDER'S HORIZON Book 2) by Daniel J. Kirk

PROLOGUE: THE EXPECTED END
     
     
     
    Moonday celebrations were always a riot. Cam was wearing the biggest sunglasses Thom Crisp had ever seen and there was sweet Jimmy DeCamino trying to be as cool as possible with something low key and unassuming.  He even added swagger by pretending not to notice the massive sun blasting everyone with ultraviolet rays.
    The gray rock that was the Moon of Echoearth had become a nude beach and Thom appreciated the mounds of breasts adding lineless tans. The women who capped their eyeballs so as not to burn out their retinas, well, they never complained about his stares.
    Perhaps from a satellite the scene looked a bit more morose as bodies lined every inch of ground not overtaken with the industrial complex of the KorCorp drilling firm.
    It didn’t seem peculiar at the time, but Thom wondered if that day would be the day the Red Empress came, and when she spotted everyone laying like ducks in a row she would claim victory and fly back to whatever black hole she’d escaped.
    “You’re gonna get some nasty tan lines,” Cam grazed her lips against Thom’s ears, it was a bit much given his current field of stimuli and he almost forgot they were just friends.
    “Won’t matter, the tan will only last three days and then what good does it do me? I’ll be the pasty ghost I am for most of the year,” Thom said.
    Cam twirled around him and sat Indian style at his feet. She was all lenses and a big smile, like some happy insect.
    Thom looked up over her and spotted Jimmy fighting off an officer with a newly acquired tan. Jimmy didn’t tan, he was born dark and athletic but he didn’t like being idolized for it. He was too cool for that, and for anything really.  The only thing he didn’t seem too cool for was Cam and Thom. Even then he was still a snob half the time.
    Cam only put up with him because they were both born on Albion and enlisted together.  Thom put up with Jimmy because he usually delivered some pretty ruthless commentary on events and people and that to Thom was worth the price of admission. It also helped to remember everyone here is just full of shit. It kept Thom sane. He really didn’t know how many more years he’d be stuck on the moon.
    Cam looked over her shoulder and chuckled. “What do you think he’s saying?”
    Thom shrugged, the words that came from Jimmy were like poetry, they spoke to one’s soul, or maybe not.
    “I bet she’s offering a month’s worth of credits?”
    “Is he really all that handsome to you ladies?”
    “A Nubian god.” Cam winked. “He’s all eye candy. I feel like it’d be by the numbers, afterwards I’d have to crawl out of bed and go fuck a real man.”
    “That’s a bit harsh. You don’t know. He might have some nice moves.”
    Cam stretched and Thom watched the fullness of her breasts rise and fall so perfectly in the stilted gravity of the moon. He couldn’t read her eyes, but the grin on her face was the pride of knowing Thom enjoyed the view.
    “If you’re not out here for the tan, what are you out here for?”
    “Boobs,” Thom said.
    Cam laughed, “You’re a pervert.”
    “The uniforms don’t do you ladies any favors, sometimes I forget they exist, they’re what keep me drill-running.”
    “One Moonday a year?”
    Thom shrugged. She made a good point, one day of breasts a year was not worth the routine, regime, and near death experiences that drill running provided.
    “To be honest I wish this was the last Moonday.” Cam’s smile didn’t break. It should’ve had it been a real smile, but it held like deep down inside she was defeated, like she’d given up and wanted to die next time she went on a run. “They used to let us leave, I bet you’d love that. See that pretty girl you left behind. Maybe I could find a better class of man down there.”
    Thom didn’t bother continuing the conversation. He just returned his view to the fields of mammary glands. Had the universe created a more beautiful