Chapter 10:Sickness

-- March - Week 10 --

Rodger was worried about them going to either planet.

He had been told not to let Lee step foot on the planet. His uncle wouldn’t be happy if she did. The problem was that he didn’t know which planet, as he hadn’t been told that there was two. He was also having trouble finding Lee alone. Nor had he come up with a good way to get rid of her.

Rodger wasn’t game to go for a frontal attack as he didn’t think it would go well for him, not after the last attempt. There was no way he wanted to end up dead like Syd either. He knew he was lucky to be alive as it was.

He still couldn’t believe he had thought that Lee was a target for his affections. He had thought if he could convince her that he loved her, she would give up the Army jerk and realise she was supposed to be his. But even his twisted mind, couldn’t reconcile an elbow to his testicles or a busted jaw as signs of affection.

Rodger’s desire for a woman had deluded him in the past. His first infatuation hadn’t turned out well. The stupid bitch had died when she had fought his advances. Why she couldn’t accept that she was supposed to be his, he still didn’t understand either.

Joy had been beautiful, and he still missed her. Their relationship had started so well. She had responded to his overtures and had enjoyed their dates. It wasn’t until he had got her to bed that things began to go wrong. The bitch had laughed at his lack of ability to perform.

She had told him, not to bother her anymore and had kicked him out of her apartment. He had pursued (stalked) her for weeks trying to get her back. One night he had convinced her to let him in to talk. When he had tried to kiss her, she had pushed him away. He had gotten furious and had hit her.

Joy had tried to get away from him, so he threw her to the floor. Her T-shirt has ripped, and the sight of her lovely breasts had him drop on her. He pinned her to the floor with his knees, so he could kiss and fondle them. The more she fought him, the more she excited him.

Man, it had been the best sex he had ever had. He had fucked her so hard that his pelvis felt bruised afterwards. He tried to apologise for being a bit rough, but she just cried and told him to get out. Joy wouldn’t let him explain that his harsh treatment was her fault for making him mad.

He found her spare key and a week later let himself back into her apartment. Again, she tried to fight him, and he had fucked her until she submitted to him. He had stayed at the apartment for the weekend and had screwed her as often, as he could get it up.

Initially, he needed her to struggle to excite him. However, as the weekend drew on, he found the fact that Joy showed that she loved him also turned him on. He told her he would back, as he loved her too and that she was his. A twisted part of his brain saw her fear as love for him. He had convinced himself that she loved him taking her roughly.

He came back two nights later and let himself in. Joy was in the kitchen when he entered. She had warned him to go away with a knife in her hands. He’d had fun when he had wrestled the knife off her. She had him so excited he had fucked her for ages until he finally came. He liked their games.

He visited her every couple of nights for several weeks. He loved to see the love (fear from her point of view) in her eyes when he turned up. He loved reminding her that she was his and what would happen if she rejected him again.

One night when he had turned up, she pointed a small handgun at him and told him to get the fuck out. She had him hard in an instant. He tried to cajole her into giving him the weapon. He didn’t really like guns, even if he liked the other games. Joy had fought him before, but she went wild on him this time.

Rodger was very distressed by her screaming and that she wouldn’t give him the gun. He tripped her feet from under, and as they fell, he had twisted her wrists so that the gun wasn’t pointed at him anymore. The loud bang as the weapon went off and nearly deafened him.

He rolled off her, and he then sat just looking at her sprawled on the floor for several hours. The blood fascinated him. There was so much of it. Finally, the rational part of his brain kicked back in, and he realised he was in serious trouble. He called his uncle to help him.

Ever since then, he had been indebted to his uncle. He had no compunction doing little jobs for his uncle. He had even introduced him to a wonderful club where all the girls loved him. He wasn’t as happy about this assignment though, plus he missed the girls.

The fact he hadn’t had sex in ten weeks and the women on this ship treated him like dirt, annoyed him no end. He only saw contempt for him in their eyes. He hadn’t worried about it so much at first because he had still wanted Lee.

His uncle had put him on the construction crew to keep an eye on her, and for Rodger, it had been lust at first sight. However, whenever when he tried to approach her during the construction phase, she had played games with him. He thought she wanted him to chase her harder, and the aloofness was her just playing hard to get.

He tried to find her when they were off duty, to convince her he was sincere, but that turned out harder than he expected. It took him some time, but he learnt that he couldn’t find her because she kept disappearing to do all sorts of courses with her poofter buddy, Kyle.

He thought of joining them, but Rodger didn’t like all the physical stuff that they were doing. He had begun to wonder if Lee was worth the effort and why his uncle cared. Plus, he could still visit his club to relieve his frustrations.

Then his uncle told him that Lee had applied to go on the trip to Delta Pavonis. He was supposed to scare her off, so she didn’t make the trip. He had thought if he convinced her that he loved her, she would stay behind with him. Lee had, however, done everything to avoid a direct approach by him.

So, he started setting small traps to discourage her. Every time he tried something, Lee managed to sidestep his trap, or someone else got in the way. The electrical board that blew up and injured Armid had been meant for her. She was supposed to be working on that board that day.

Rodger had later learnt that Lee had received a call to go to a committee meeting that day. His uncle had gotten the committee to reject her application. Armid had thought that he could do the job as well as Lee and had taken over.

Rodger was surprised by how hurt Armid had been, but he believed that Armid was an idiot and that had deserved what he got. The fact that Lee would have been the one so seriously hurt never entered Roger’s head.

Rodger had been even more upset when that bloody Army jerk had pushed Lee out of the way when he tried to hit her with the linger. He was really pissed off at the time it had been his last window of opportunity before the Fortune left.

If he had succeeded in stopping Lee from boarding the ship, his Uncle was going to let him stay behind to peruse her at his leisure. His lack of success meant he had to embark on the bloody ship to finish the job.

The day Rodger took Lee at the replicator, he had hoped that he could finally convince her to be his, so he didn’t have to kill her. The fact he hadn’t succeeded so far, made him think he wasn’t supposed to; that she really was his.

But no, he now knew that the bitch didn’t return his love, she didn’t want to be a good woman or his woman. He still didn’t know how she had gotten out of the storage room he had locked her in the first time. He had planned to do a dramatic rescue, but somehow, she got the damn door to open.

He was even less happy when she emerged from the other one, he had left the cargo robot in. He needed to find another way to take her out. He was starting to get desperate. His love had turned to hate, but his genuine fear of Lee and his uncle’s instructions were messing with his head.

Now they so close to a destination a deep compulsion was pushing Rodger to find a way to get rid of Lee.

Rodger was wandering around the ship, racking his brain for a solution to his problem.

He came upon Syd’s empty Lab. One of the other scientists was supposed to have cleaned the lab out. When Rodger entered the room, he found that this hadn’t happened. In fact, he didn’t think anyone had been in here since Syd had died.

During his time working on the construction, Rodger’s Uncle had given him a master over-ride keycard that let him into any place that he wanted to go. Even better, the key didn’t register in the system as to who was actually using it. It picked a random name out of the list of people in the system.

The keycard even worked the same in the replicator. Ben was the only one who knew Rodger had the key. It was why Ben had him replicate some of the parts for the still, even though Rodger didn’t know what the bits were for at the time.

Rodger giggled to himself. He bet it pissed Lee’s boyfriend off when the records came up with people’s names, who couldn’t have possibly used the replicator because they weren’t even on the ship anymore. He wasn’t smart enough to realise that the bogus names were a red flag to Sean.

Rodger entered the lab and found all of Syd’s specimens were still in his fridges. He picked up a pad that listed the samples and grinned. Rodger picked his poison of choice out of the refrigerator. He had no idea why Syd would have spider and snake venoms in his specimens, but he did.

Rodger thought it would be ironic to kill Lee with Redback spider venom. He deleted the venom from the manifest. Now all he had to do was work out how to give it to her. He smiled and giggled again as a diabolical plan came to him.

‘Her bloody horrible goat’s milk would do the trick,’ he thought with glee. He had seen a bottle with her name on it in the fridge in the cafeteria. Dave left it there for her when he filled the refrigerator. He had seen Lee pick up the bottle in the afternoons when she came up for her snack.

Rodger wasn’t sure how much was venom was required to kill Lee. He had read from the pad that the venom from several bites, could take days to kill a person, and the death was excruciating. He didn’t mind her suffering the painful part, but he didn’t want it to take days.

While he only had about 1ml, he was sure that using that much should be deadly in far less time. The spider was only as big as pea after all. He didn’t want the doctors working out what was wrong until after Lee was dead. So, he decided to pour the lot into the milk. If Sean was poisoned as well, it wouldn’t be a loss as far as he was concerned.

Rodger also assumed the doctors wouldn’t be looking for spider venom to start with. There wouldn’t be a bite mark, and their ship didn’t have any spiders running around on it. If Sean got sick too, it would confuse the issue.

He checked his minder and found it was 15:00 hours. If he hurried, he should be in time to put it in the milk, before Lee arrived. He arrived in time to see Dave filling the fridge. Dave put Lee’s bottle in the front, so you could see her name.

Impatiently, Rodger waited for him to leave. Finally, he was able to approach the fridge. He removed Lee’s bottle and then tried to remove the stopper on the small, slim vial. It was wedged in hard, and he had trouble getting it out. He damn near dropped the vial, when the rubber plug, finally came clear.

He tried to pour the contents carefully into the milk, but it was harder than he thought. The clear venom was thick like jelly from being refrigerated. Rodger had to shake and tap the vial several times, to get most of the contents into the milk without getting any on himself.

Rodger then tried to put the stopper back into the vial, but it had expanded, and now it wouldn’t fit. He hadn’t thought to grab a syringe and needle, or gloves, nor did he realise that the stopper wasn’t meant to be removed and put back by human hands.