Another day at the office

The unnerving night eventually came to an end.

"Wake up, lover boy," Lucy said, rolling over and patting He-Man on his bare chest.

Not for the first time, she marveled at his healing factor as the many, many marks she'd left on him the night before had already healed. She grinned, thinking about the many more she would leave on him tonight. But knowing the monotony of the day to come quickly washed the expression from her face. She was once the undisputed leader of an entire planetary rebel force. Now... now she was a switchboard operator on a ball of recycled, floating metal in space.

"Mmmm...," He-Man moaned through the ball-gag in his mouth.

Grogily, his eyes opened and he looked up at her. Once the pinnacle of 1990's morality, now he was an unskilled dock worker with substance abuse issues, tied to her bed.

Gingerly, she unbuckled the gag and removed his restraints.

"My lady, good morning," he said, once free.

"Yup... another day. Hurry up and go cut on the food synthesizer," she said, rolling off the bed.

"What troubles you, Mistress?" he asked, noting the melancholy in her voice.

She let out a long sigh, "Just... don't want to be late, is all."

He had enough on his plate. No need to further burden him.

"Forgive my presumptiousness, but I know when my lady is troubled," he persisted.

"What do you know? You're a lowly man," she replied.

"...A man who knows his mistress," he reported.

She growled at him but had to concede, "I feel like a prisoner on this station. We make enough to survive, but we'll never squirrel away enough to book passage out of this god forsaken system."

He-Man frowned. He couldn't exactly argue otherwise. The man slaved all day long for barely anything.

"Something will come up," he said but his words rang hollow.

In short order, the two eat and left for work. No sooner had she slid into the well-worn seat of her work station, then the first call of the day came in. She tapped a few buttons and dawned her headset.

"Station V3, what can I do for ya?" she said, not really giving two shits about what they wanted.

"My name is Laurence Miller, Captain of the Event Horizon. I bid greetings...," the dumb fuck started rambling on.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah... But what do ya want?" she said, annoyed.

"Very well. My scans show that your facility is capable of performing repairs of the type my vessel requires," the spacer said, finally getting to the point.

She tapped a few commands into her console and took a quick peak at the ship. Jesus! What a pile of junk!

"Yeah, well my scans show you're flying half a ship. We ain't no charity, pal. Whatcha got to offer?" she spat out.

There was a pause and then a surprisingly lengthy list of trade items came through. The station's AI immediately flagged most of it as Imperial tech.

"Shit! Vrox! You might wanna take a look at this," she called out.

It took a minute for the overweight lizard-man to waddle his way over.

"What is it?" he bellowed, his sagging throat wobbling as he spoke.

But when she showed him the list, he took on an altogether less annoyed appearance. He plugged his own headset in and took over.

"This is Station Administrator Vrox. Where did you get all this Imperial equipment?" he asked.

Meanwhile, Lucy listened in with slight interest. There was something interesting about this ship. She wasn't sure exactly what, but she had a feeling. And her feelings never lead her wrong.