down to the lower level to cavort among the masses. They drank, brawled, and fucked indiscriminately. As long as no one got too seriously hurt, a blind eye was generally turned toward such behavior, despite the complaints.
Sector Head Mathews was among the worst the residents of the lower decks had to worry about on a regular basis. Tall, muscular, and as mean as a rattlesnake, over the last three years he had made an active pastime of the lower decks. Not for the first time, Charlie was thankful for Doug’s towering presence and mean mug that discouraged the sector head from noticing her petite 5’3” frame. For now, anyway.
She couldn’t depend on anything forever. The wellbeing of a non-gratas didn’t mean shit in space any more than it had on Earth. Charlie wasn’t holding out hope for the colony being any sort of opportunity, despite the lies fed to them about seeking out a better future. Better future, my ass. Never once had a new colony government offered citizenship to the non-gratas workers who founded it.
Everyone on the lower level knew they were nothing more than the destined pack-mules and labor for the scientific teams and military. Once the planet opened for colonization, they would continue to be worked. Charlie wasn’t a sucker. There was no gold star to reach for. She was going to be a grunt just like she always had been—just with different scenery and nothing familiar around her.
“I see suck-head Mathews is really feeling his oats tonight,” Ben snorted.
Charlie squinted up at the sector head. The smug look on the man’s face and the way he puffed his chest out with authority confirmed Ben’s observation. Sector Head Mathews was very pleased about something.
“Good evening.” His voice rippled over the crowd by way of the vocal amplifier pinned to the collar of his TRS.
Jace snorted, and Charlie felt her own lips curl. The day cycle was barely distinguishable from the night cycle at their levels for the sake of preserving power for the rest of the ship. It was obvious from the healthy color of the sector head’s skin that he had access to UV lamps. After three years confined to the darkness of the lower level, Charlie’s skin was so sallow that she looked like a ghost. Her friends looked no better, nor did any inhabitant below the main decks.
Though they were provided with minimal amounts of light and heat to make sure that their workforce stayed moderately healthy, and plenty of cheap, low-quality foods so that the entire population didn’t become sickly and thin, no one looked like the picture of good health. Few complained because the food was filling, but everyone knew that it wasn’t healthy by any stretch of the imagination.
Without room to freely exercise, only the most determined—like Doug—ran exercise drills in their cabins. He had pushed Charlie to do so as well. Not that it helped much with what little space they had. Charlie also had the misfortune of having genes that hoarded every calorie so that it stuck to her ass, giving her a plumper appearance no matter how many stationary exercises she did. Paired with new pallor, she was certain that at times she resembled a walking lump of dough.
Staring at the sector head, she scowled at his perfectly tanned face. She couldn’t help the burn of resentment at the thought.
“I have good news to report. Delta Stargazer 28754 is entering orbit around the classified planet codenamed Turongal. As many of you know, this planet is named after our benefactor David Turis and the discovery team Onward Galaxy who took the initial spaceflight and reported back their findings. They sacrificed years for the mission and wait for us below even now. Because of their efforts, we have the distinct honor of being the first colony on Turongal. That said, each of you are an important and valued part of Delta Stargazer colony settlement.”
“Yeah, yeah. Valued serfs, that’s us,” Jace mumbled to his twin. “Work ‘til we die, and then still working when they run us through the organic distributor to provide fertilizer for their crops.”
Ben chuckled under his breath.
Charlie rolled her eyes at the pair. They weren’t wrong, though. Burial was outlawed over a hundred years ago and replaced with organic distributor programs that converted human bodies into natural fertilizers. It was considered revolutionary in human history. Few could afford the cremation services offered for those families who wished to keep their dead. It involved not only buying back