To the Moon and Back Ch. 02

The electrical engineer was Darryl. Darryl was a sweetie. He was kind, and not rough, but he talked a big game in front of the boys. I didn't mind. I know how it is with guys. So when he just grabbed me and threw me over his shoulder, I put on some damsel-in-distress theater, and the guys lapped it up.

"Good for morale", was the aim, after all.

Once we were in his quarters, though, he put me down gently, and touched me tenderly, admiring me, drinking in the sight of body, deliberately vulnerable as I had made it, in my inadequate clothing. He liked the 'girlfriend experience', so that's what he got. I snuggled, kissed, and allowed his touch to fire me up. I wasn't pretending, either. It was really nice.

I kissed him deeply, and his passion rose quickly. His hands began searching around the flimsy fabric of my little teddy, which was the sort of thing I flounced around in as part of my role, providing R&R for the men. My personal effects were more than half taken up with negligees, teddies, nighties, corsets, underwear sets, and every tight, short, flippy, or plunging garment I could fit. My criteria were that you had to be able to see up it, down it, or through it, and preferably all of the above.

Darryl's hands eagerly pushed their way around the delicate lacy knickers and matching bra, to find and caress my most sensitive parts. I purred and hummed in response, encouraging everything he was doing.

I unzipped his uniform coveralls and pushed them back off his muscular shoulders. All the men were incredibly athletic. It was part of their employment requirements. They spent an hour a day in the gym to retain their muscle tone while in the low gravity of the moon, and I made a habit of doing the same.

Under his coveralls, he wore just a cotton t-shirt and cotton boxers. I wondered if that was a uniform as well, because all the guys had almost identical kit. The one exception to the otherwise uniform outfitting was a locket he wore on a chain around his neck, normally tucked into his zippered uniform. Inside, it contained a picture of his mother on one side, and his father on the other. He had shown it to me previously, in a long chat after passionate lovemaking.

Darryl knew, of course, that this wasn't a relationship. I mean, I could just as readily be with any one of the other men, and I'd be just as inviting, and keen, and open. But he was happy to go with the fantasy. For the moment, I was his girlfriend.

Darryl enjoyed going down on me, which is lovely, but he had the habit of shaving only in the morning, and by evening his face was rasping sandpaper. That was something I had to get used to, and in a weak moment when I wasn't thinking ahead, I told him it was such a tease, and that I enjoyed how rough it felt. It was half true, but only half, and he often left me pretty raw!

"Oh, you're so scratchy!" I admonished him, stroking a hand down his stubbled cheek. "I hope you're not going to put that anywhere... soft..."

"I'll tell you what," he responded, sliding off my almost invisible knickers and effortlessly lifting me off the floor to put my legs over each of his shoulders. Bear in mind the very low relative gravity, making this not a very difficult thing. "I'll just do whatever I want," he said, and buried his scratchy face into my soft loins, eliciting half genuine squeals from me. Within moments, however, his tongue was in play, opening up the floodgates of my pleasure response. The scratching became merely a playful thing, a tease, as his delicious ministrations carried me to my happy place, and my giggling squeals gave way to luxurious moans.

Presently, he growled with carnal ardor, flipped me over and, encountering no resistance from me at all, pulled me back onto his impatient erection. He still held me off the floor, each arm hemming me in at the sides so that his hands could cup my breasts and he could bodily pull and push me to achieve his thrusting.

I will note here that you may be surprised how difficult it can be, at first, to get a good thrusting rhythm happening in low gravity. We take so much for granted on earth! Try just getting straight into it, and you'll find yourself bouncing around, falling off the bed, and generally failing to get a momentum going.

But being highly motivated, it didn't take me long to get things worked out.

I was fully in his hands, in every way imaginable. He had me held tightly, and was entering me from behind. If I struggled, I might be able to get away, but why would I do that? I let him set the pace, and he settled into a moderate cycle, but each thrust was strong, and accompanied with a grunt, as he plunged as hard as possible into my softness. I bucked and moaned in encouragement, but I wasn't contriving it at all. He was fixing to ring that bell for sure!

The pace predictably increased with his urgency, and I allowed myself to ride the wave. My grunts and moans gave a reply to his, signaling that he was taking me along, and I was willingly following. It was my siren song, calling to his mounting urgency to come into me and explode, to take possession of me, to fill me.

Presently, he gave his victory cry, and every muscle in his athletic body was tensed. It meant he was pulling on my breasts in a way that would otherwise have been painful, but as it was, his ferocity caught me and took me with him over the precipice. We joyfully climaxed together, and only after several long, deep thrusts with their accompanying groaning exertion, did he start to relax, and eventually let my head and shoulders sag downwards onto his bunk.

He stayed in me for at least a minute, and I waited patiently, enjoying the warmth and the closeness. He held my up by the hips so that he didn't slip out as he regained his breath.

Finally, he pushed me forward to crumple, curled up, on his bunk. I sprawled, the plucked flower, the tamed shrew. He stood victorious, reveling in his sense of power. I let him have his moment.

Presently, I felt his gift oozing onto my inner thigh, threatening to drip. "Pass me my knickers?" I asked. "I don't want this going over your bunk." He smiled, scooped them up, and tossed them to me. I slid them on, despite the squelchy mess.

I slid down onto the floor on my knees, "Can I clean that up for you? I wouldn't want you getting it all over your sheets..." I leaned forward and placed my open mouth around his rapidly deflating member, keeping eye contact with him.

Once I had it fully ensconced in the warmth and wetness of my mouth, I moaned loudly enough that he would feel the vibrations, and closed my eyes to fully savor the musky, salty, sweet mix of flavors of our lovemaking. I gently sucked, licked, and fellated him, and then went searching for extra drips and drops, licking the base, then down to the balls. I made sure I found every trace of the naughty love potion. Finally, I sat back and smiled, letting him see that I was pleased with my self.

"Ok, now you're good to go," I announced cheerfully, climbing to my feet. A small dollop of goop had squeezed through the silky fabric of my now sodden knickers, and was lubricating my inner thighs, but it wasn't going to drip on the floor, at least not immediately, so it was ok.

Darryl leaned in to kiss me goodby, but I pulled back. "Are you sure you wanna do that, after where I've been?" I figured I'd rescue him from making that embarrassing mistake. Guys don't want to get spunk on their mouths.

To my surprise, he responded, "Are you kidding? That was so hot." He then, to prove a point, licked from my chin up across my lips, swirled around my mouth, and dove into it. I didn't know if he would taste anything, because I had been pretty thorough, but it was a really nice gesture.

Finally, once I was outside Darryl's quarters, I didn't turn left to go to my own, but went right, and headed off to see what the captain needed. I figured she couldn't get too mad about me coming straight over in response to her clear instruction to see her "after", even though I really should shower first, given my state.

The captain was the most experienced spacer on the moon base. She was the leader of the team, not just because of her title, but because she had the respect of every man who worked under her. I got a chance to see why on our way in.

We had detached our lander from the orbiter, and we were going through what looked like it must have been a pretty routine descent. The pilot was in control, with our captain as copilot.

"Ground speed 5800 clicks. Altitude 103 clicks. Firing main thruster in 90 seconds," the pilot reported. The captain scanned all the readouts, monitors, and controls, and also kept a watchful eye above her, at the ground.

It was disconcerting being inverted like that, but apparently that's how it was done. In training they said it's so the pilot can see the ground. It made me feel queasy.

"We're rotating clockwise," the captain said.

"Roger that. Computer just caught it now. Counterclock retro fired. Rotation good," the pilot replied.

"Roger that," the captain confirmed.

Everything was still. The moon's surface above us was silently rolling, apparently very quickly, but it looked slow. Electronic clicks and beeps were the only sounds, other than the voices of the captain and the pilot in the intercom. We all wore full space suits, and we were all mounted at what seemed like an incongruous angle, strapped into full-body seating that would support us in the descent and landing.

"60 seconds," the pilot announced.

"Run the diagnostics," the captain requested, meticulously running the carefully trained and drilled routine.

"Motor diags, good. Life support, good. Electronics, good. Software, good. Comms, good. All good," the pilot read off the results from his screen.

Silence.

"Thirty seconds," the pilot announced.

"Prime the burner," the captain ordered.

"Roger that. Priming," the pilot responded, and then went silent.

"Twenty three seconds to main burn. Engine primed," he eventually said.

"How you doing, doc?" the captain asked.

"Um... I'm...," I wished she hadn't asked me anything. I was trying to imagine being back home, safely on the ground. I suddenly remembered my training, "Good to go," I blurted the trained response.

"We'll make a spacer of you yet. Hang on to your panties. We're about to make some noise," the captain happily teased me.

"Burn will commence in 10," the pilot announced. "9," he continued.

There was a loud bang. I felt it in my seat. My heart leapt.

"Tha fuck..?" one of the crew muttered.

"8 seconds to main burn. I've lost the console. Repeat. I have no console," the pilot was audibly agitated.

"What happened?" the captain demanded, pressing buttons and flicking switches. The console in front of her was dark, and all the computer screens were off.

"I don't know. I meteoroid? I can't run diagnostics. I don't know what's up or down," he was also stabbing at buttons and switches. "5 seconds," he added.

"We need that main engine to fire," the captain stated.

"I can't tell if the computer's still running. Maybe it's just the displays are down...?" the pilot was anxious, still pushing vainly at an apparently dead console. "Two seconds, 1, fire," he said.

And nothing happened.

"Fuuuuck!" the pilot started to lose his cool. He thumped the console with both fists.

"Shut up!" the captain snapped. "Open the access panel. Down there," she demanded.

"We're gonna miss the window. What do we do?" the pilot was starting to panic.

"I said shut up! You will do exactly as I say. Is that clear?" the captain went from an authoritative voice, suddenly to a compelling, irresistible force of nature. The pilot stopped his panicked flailing.

"Roger that. Sorry cap. This panel?" he fell back into his trained role, under the authority of the captain. He yanked the nondescript panel to pull it away.

Inside, there was some sort of handle.

"Pull it out and up. Do it now," the captain was not rushed, but her demands were crisp and precise.

He reached in and pulled, but it didn't budge. He pulled harder, but nothing. He wrestled around in his five-point harness, trying to get another hand to the handle to bring more force to bear, but wasn't able to get a good angle.

The moon continued to scroll by at almost 6000 kilometers per hour. That's about a mile per second. I wondered what was going to happen. If we landed at all, would it be thousands of miles from our destination? I decided not to think about it.

Suddenly, I noticed the captain was out of her seat. There was zero gravity in the shuttle, but she easily moved herself into position. She shoved the pilot out of the way, got both feet planted on the console, and grabbed the handle between her feet. She pulled with evident ferocity. For a moment, nothing happened, but then there was a bang, and the handle brought up a joystick with some old school dials and buttons on it. It was like something from the twentieth century.

The sudden release of the handle meant the captain was flung bodily, back across the cabin. She crashed backwards into the far wall with a grunt and fell silent.

"Shit," one of the crew members blurted. I learned later it was Darryl. He sprung his own harness and shot over to the captain. He opened her visor and his own, and called, "Captain! Cap!", shaking her several times before she apparently started coming around.

"I'm all right," she muttered, immediately indicating she would head back to the copilot seat.

"The fuck you are. You just got knocked out!" he responded.

Rapidly regaining her lucidity, she eyeballed him with determination. "You think you can land this bucket by stick?" she demanded.

He paused, apparently in disbelief, "That's impossible!"

"You better hope it ain't," she quipped, pushing past him to return to her seat. "Buckle up," she added, working her own harness back into place and fastening it securely before grasping the joystick.

"We're rotated anti, the attitude's off, and we've yawed left" she said. She began wiggling the joystick and playing over the buttons. I could feel the craft adjusting its heading, but I hadn't been able to tell that it was needed. What was she looking at to know all this?

"What's the count?" she asked cryptically as she made her adjustments.

"Burn plus about two hundred and ninety seconds," the pilot responded, revealing that he had kept counting the whole time.

"Starting burn in 5," she narrated, as she continued to adjust silently.

"That['s as good as we're gonna get," she said after five seconds. "Starting burn at 50," she continued, as she punched a button on the control panel.

Suddenly, I was heavy. The main thruster behind us roared to life, and the craft began to vibrate violently. Some of the fittings rattled. The consoles were still lifeless. The computer monitors were blank.

For several long moments the craft shook and roared around us, and nobody spoke.

"Cap?" the pilot ventured.

"I know," she responded, looking directly upwards at the moon's surface, making constant adjustments to the joystick.

Silence again on the intercom, amid the rumble, shake, and rattle of the burn.

"Ok. Burn at hundred percent," she suddenly announced, turning a dial that operated like a volume control, the main engine now roaring much louder, and the cabin shaking itself around. I struggled to see properly, my head being pressed into my vibrating seat, causing my eyes to shake about. I closed them briefly, but that made me feel sick.

The pilot again ventured, "Two ninety is gonna be outside the..."

"I said I know," the captain responded evenly, cutting him off. "Fuel reading," she added.

"Estimate 95 percent," he responded.

No response from the captain.

No further comments from the pilot.

A low muttering from one of the crew members that was impossible to make out over the din. It seemed frequently to include, "inshallah", or something like that.

And the moon kept scrolling by. I had no idea how much we had decelerated. I had no idea how the captain would know that either, but she kept looking directly up at the moon's surface like it was a computer readout.

I sent myself into a daydream to escape the awful, terrifying events around me. It was a long time. Maybe more than two minutes, before the captain spoke again, breaking me away from my little inner world.

"Fuel reading," she said evenly.

"I reckon 70 percent. We're still burning it flat out," the pilot responded.

"Priming the lifters," she responded.

"What??" the pilot objected. "We can't burn those. We'll need them!"

"They're no good to us if we're dead," she responded without emotion. "Firing the lifters in five," she continued.

"Holy shit," the pilot consoled himself with expletives.

Five seconds later, I felt a crushing force sitting on my chest. My face stretched backwards towards my pressure chair. It was almost as bad as the lift off from Earth, but this time we were hurtling towards, not away from, a vast ball of rock.

The craft was now shaking itself so violently I thought it must be going to rip itself to shreds. I could barely see straight, and how the captain was able to see enough to guide the hurtling craft was anyone's guess.

For another eternity, my teeth were rattled in my head, the engine noise thundered through my body, resonating with my internal organs, and throbbing in my throat. I wanted to cry, but I was too terrified.

Finally, after a couple of infinitely long minutes, the intensity of the thrust dropped away rapidly, and the volume decreased.

"Lifters are spent. Fuel reading?" the captain requested.

"Maybe 40 percent? It's getting harder to be sure," he responded.

Continuing to make almost constant adjustments with the joystick, she studied the moon's surface which, by now, I could tell was much closer.

"Attenuating burn to 80," she announced, and began turning a dial. The thrust eased perceptibly.

Seconds kept ticking. She kept giving no indication of what she could see on the moon's surface. The attitude of the craft was now half pointing upwards, away from the surface, as our trajectory was presumably arcing downwards.

After another long minute, she said, "Attenuating to 60". Again she dialed back the thrust, and it felt like relief as the noise and the violence receded further.

"Know where we are?" the pilot asked.

"Yep," she responded.

My heart leapt for joy. She knew where we were!

"We're in a crippled landing craft, plummeting towards the moon," she added sardonically.

In a glum acknowledgement, the pilot said, "Roger that."

"Ah, I'm just playing with ya. See the line running across that crater? That's the rail," she pointed with one hand, the other remaining on the joystick, still adjusting. "It's the Palmeadow Crater. See the north wall?"

"Oh, shit, you're right! The pilot responded excitedly. "What's that, couple hundred clicks west of base? We're close!"

"Fuel reading," was the captain's businesslike reply.

The pilot went quiet for a moment. "Maybe twenty? Maybe. Max twenty five," he responded.

The captain didn't respond immediately. Several seconds later, however, she said, "Attenuating to 15." She then rotated the craft somewhat more upright than it had been. I heard the pilot breathe in through his teeth in apparent anxiety, but he didn't challenge her decision.

The engine settled down into a comparatively peaceful rumble, and the cabin no longer felt like it was going to vibrate itself apart.

The craft was now facing almost vertically up, so above our heads we were looking at a horizon, and the surface of the moon was visible out both sides, seeming to hurtle past faster than ever. We just couldn't see in the direction of our feet. How the captain was navigating like this, upside down and facing the wrong way, was beyond me to imagine.