Crashed

The stellar cruiser Sylvian Ephimenco is carrying more than twenty thousand colonists en route to HD 72505, an orange giant where the European Union has founded a new colony on one of its planets.

At the star Copernicus they are suddenly attacked by ten hostile destroyers. The cruiser is on a peaceful mission and not prepared for hostilities. One of the two reactors is under overhaul and the deflector shields are therefore at half power.

In a coordinated attack the ten destroyers simultaneously fire ten torpedoes that strike the cruiser full on.

The torpedoes explode and the deflector shields groan under the force but hold, though they are now severely weakened.

The cruiser’s point-defense guns destroy six destroyers, but the four remaining attack again and each fire two torpedoes.

The cruiser maneuvers sharply and of the eight torpedoes six miss, but the other two slam the deflector shields down to zero percent.

The cruiser is still intact but now a sitting duck.

The point-defense guns destroy the four remaining destroyers but one of them still manages to fire its last torpedo.

Commando Harry Schuur is in his company’s dojo. He is the only one left behind. During combat training he injured his ankle and cannot take part in the training now.

Suddenly the decompression alarm goes off and containment doors close everywhere to trap the dwindling air.

Harry goes to his PSU locker, pulls on his commando combat suit and puts his helmet on.

At that moment one of the doors opens and a lieutenant walks in.

He is also in a spacesuit.

Harry switches his com to channel seven, the general channel.

“Harry Schuur here,” he says into his microphone.

“You coming, soldier? We have to go to the shuttle deck. We’re abandoning ship.”

“Soldier—I’m a commando, not an ordinary soldier,” Harry thinks to himself.

But there is no time for such trivialities now, so he goes with him.

They run to the shuttle deck.

The shuttle-deck doors are wide open and every shuttle except one, and also the landing craft and the two destroyers, have already departed.

They run to the remaining shuttle and board.

The lieutenant takes the pilot’s seat and checks the systems. Everything is in order. Only the “battery level low” warning worries him. He goes outside and plugs in the charging cable. There is still power; apparently the reactor is still running.

“Stupid civilians, no discipline—use the shuttle and then not plug it in after use,” he grumbles over the com.

“We’ll wait as long as possible, soldier. Maybe someone will still come, and as long as the reactor is running I want to keep charging.”

“Okay, lieutenant, but if we have to go then we have to go,” I say.

After an hour the shuttle-deck doors suddenly begin to close.

“Take the shuttle off the charger, soldier,” the lieutenant calls.

He starts the shuttle’s engines.

I jump aboard the shuttle, close the door and lock it while the shuttle is already lifting off. The lieutenant angles the shuttle on its side and with a minimal margin we escape death.

Now we can see the other shuttles and landing craft parked in an orbit around Harriot. Harriot is the fifth planet of Copernicus and a large gas giant. The two destroyers have SDL capability and have already left to fetch help.

“We don’t have the capacity to hold a parking orbit, soldier; we’re going to land on one of Harriot’s moons.”

The nearest moon is a white sphere and looks unpromising, but we have no choice.

The lieutenant puts the shuttle into a glide approach to the moon’s surface. He uses minimal engine power and, because the atmosphere resists our high speed, the shuttle’s nose begins to glow from the heat.

When the shuttle finally skims above the moon’s surface the lieutenant brings the engines to full power and lands in the middle of an endless white snow plain.

It’s snowing and hailing.

Ice-balls as thick as fists batter the shuttle windows.

It’s deadly outside, so they stay inside. But the heating has failed and it’s getting colder and colder inside the shuttle. I switch on the heater of my commando suit but the lieutenant’s suit doesn’t have one. I see him shivering with cold.

We can’t stay here because we’ll freeze, but where should we go?

The hailstorm passes and now we dare go outside.

The lieutenant opens the shuttle door and signals me to follow.

We walk ten metres and then suddenly sink through the snowpack and tumble down.

Dazed from the fall I look around. I’m cringing in pain. My ankle took another hit.

We are in some kind of cavern, I make out in the dim light.

The lieutenant landed badly and there is a hole in his helmet.

“Shit, he’s dead,” I think.

But he moves and takes his helmet off.

Apparently the air is fine and I want to do the same.

“Don’t do that, soldier,” he snaps at me.

“Why not, lieutenant?” I ask.

“It doesn’t matter for me anymore but it does for you—you never know which toxic elements might be in the air that will kill me later but leave you alive.”

“We have to get out of here, soldier.”

He begins to take off his spacesuit.

The lieutenant turns out not to be a man but a woman.

She stands before me in her military dark-gray underwear.

A pretty woman, slim, a little fragile but also quite athletic, with nice firm full breasts. Not like the commando women he’s had a lot of sex with, but fairly large.

“We’ve got underfloor heating, soldier, it’s quite pleasant in here.”

“But if we have to get out of here you’ll have to put your suit back on, lieutenant.”

“I don’t think so, soldier, how do you think we’ll get out of here?”

I look at her questioningly.

“I’ll stand on your shoulders, soldier, and then you grab me by the ankles and flick me up through that hole, do you think you can do that?”

“Lieutenant, I’m not a soldier, I’m a commando. My commando suit has an exoskeleton for muscle augmentation; if I want, you’ll be flung right through that hole up there to the outside.”

“My spacesuit weighs fifty-two kilos, soldier, do you think you’ll still toss me outside if I put it back on?”

I give her a deadly look.

“Shall we then, soldier.”

“Goddamn it, lieutenant, if you don’t want to call me soldier, call me Harry.”

“Noted, soldier, and come on now, get under that hole.”

I clasp my hands together, she puts her foot into them, bounces onto my shoulders and a moment later she’s standing there on my shoulders.

“My respect — this pussy is fit,” I think to myself.

“Come on, soldier, throw me up.”

“Goddamn it, lieutenant, I am not—”

I grab her by the ankles, push her up and let her drop, and then I catapult her through the hole.

“Goddamn it, I’m a commando,” I shout after her.

A little later things rain down: blankets, emergency rations, bottles of water, a first-aid kit, a roll of tools, clothes — you name it.

A moment later I hear a tapping and then a rope drops down. She slides down the rope in a commando survival suit, an analyzer in one hand.

“Turn around, soldier.”

“Goddamn it, really, lieutenant, this is getting boring, I’m not a soldier, I’m a commando. We commandos don’t treat each other so distantly; we’re friends and we trust each other unto death and we call each other by our first names. I’m Harry, and you?”

She looks at me; she’s clearly startled by my sharpness.

“I’m Marja, Marja Pals, Harry.”

“Well then Marja, that sounds a lot better already.”

“But will you turn around now, Harry?”

“For what, Marja.”

“I want to put my suit on, Harry, and you know, you’re naked under that suit.”

“Commando women never make a fuss about that, Marja.”

“But I’m not a commando woman, Harry, I’m a lieutenant and your superior.”

“Well, Marja, rub that in for a while.”

“Hop hop, Harry, turn around, that’s an order.”

I turn around; she wants it and yes, indeed she is my superior.

A little later she stands in front of me in all her glory.

My God, that suit looks good on her. It fits like a second skin and she has a beautiful body and then her breasts with those large nipples that prick through the thin fabric.

My God, what a delicious pussy.

That morning I wake up but she’s gone.

I climb up the rope and walk to the shuttle.

She’s inside in the pilot’s seat talking to command.

“So you’ll pick us up in two months,” she asks.

“We can’t do it any faster, Marja.”

“Really not?”

“No, I’m afraid not, girl.”

“So I’m stuck for two months with such a horny commando.”

“Ha, ha, ha, commandos make fantastic lovers, Marja — enjoy it. Two months’ vacation with a handsome man.”

With the back of my hand I stroke her neck and give her a little kiss on the cheek.

“That’s absolutely right,” I whisper in her ear.

Blushing heavily, she turns to look at me.

“Where are you from?” she asks.

“From our little nest,” I say.

“Oh, how corny,” she says.

That morning I wake up. Marja is sitting on the pile of blankets and looking at her smartphone.

I sit down next to her, put an arm around her and pull her against me. She allows it. Slowly but surely the strict lieutenant begins to thaw a bit and we become friends.

“What are you doing?” I ask her.

“I’m reading a book.”

“On your phone — doesn’t that take up too much memory?”

“Not at all, I have a thousand books on my phone, don’t you read?”

“Reading is fun.”

“Really?”

“Yes, come on, take your phone and put it against mine.”

I take my phone and press it to hers.

She performs a few actions.

“There, now you’ve got a thousand books on your phone too.”

“Thank you, Marja, that’s sweet of you.”

I want to kiss her on the lips. But she still refuses that.

The next morning something has changed. Copernicus’s sun shines and the snow begins to melt. A week later all the snow is gone and green buds and shoots sprout everywhere. It all happens incredibly fast and before another week is gone everything is in bloom in a palette of colors that touches all the hues of the rainbow.

In that week we fall in love with each other.

In that same week the moon comes to life. Life crawls out of every nook and cranny. Beetles, bugs, ants — you name it. Bees buzzing everywhere, wasps, whispering hoverflies, predatory dragonflies, fat gorged spiders lazing in their webs and butterflies, each with more beautiful color markings than the last. The two lovers watch this miracle unfolding before their eyes in wonder.

Dopamine and cortisol tear through the bodies of the lovers, putting them in a state of extreme euphoria, resulting in wild lovemaking in the sultry open air of the moon.

When the sun sets and the gas giant Harriot rises above the horizon in all its beauty accompanied by her three other moons, when the red dwarf with her ghostly light illuminates the fields, the lovers fall asleep in each other’s arms.

And two weeks later everything changes again: the flowers wither, the foliage yellows and dies. Life crawls away into holes and hollows. The cycle of being born, living and dying is almost complete.

When the first snowflakes fall, the E-tanker of the hyper-cruiser Hyperion lands next to their shuttle to recharge the battery.

But by then the lovers have made a pact.

They promise each other eternal fidelity.