Landing on an alien world

Not for the first time that day Dustin shifted uncomfortably in his grav suit. The thing was an amazing piece of technology, a mobile gravitational adjuster that lowered the impact of any external gravity field on it’s wearer to around that of earth - but it was really, really uncomfortable to sit in for any length of time. He’d boarded the shuttle along with Meli ten minutes ago; they had another five before they’d be in a launch position to land on the Ressth home world and all he wanted to do was get this mission over with. “Captain” Meli said, dragging his attention from the discomfort of his outfit to the dark haired woman sat at the controls to his right. “I wish to discuss something with you regarding our next steps after this mission, and I feel this time would be appropriate.”

He tried to get a read on her emotions - her ears were moving slowly, but seemed to be floating around a combination of insecurity and irritation, so he replied carefully. “What’s up Meli? You know you can always discuss things with me.” For her part, the Velca stared at the console for a second before talking. “As you are aware, we have entered into a relationship. In Rabyth terms, you are my nest mate, in Velca my co-researcher and in Human I believe boyfriend is the applicable term. However, due to the amount of work our newest crew member has requested we undertake along with the pressures of planning and maintaining our mission schedule, we have had little time to be able to explore that relationship.”

Dustin nodded, slightly worried about where this was going - he wasn’t sure if he’d offended her somehow, but he’d had enough breakups early on in relationships in his life with similar “we’re not doing enough together” talks that it didn’t sound good. Fortunately, Meli silenced those thoughts with her next words. “This is on me as much as it is on you - we have both been far too keen to ensure the crew meshed well, and to not upset the feelings of Rye by being overly close during the early days of her time aboard. However, I feel we need to take some actions to progress with the situation. In addition…” at this point she was cut off as Sola chimed on the intercom. “We have reached a suitable launch position. Opening hangar and cleared for launch, shuttle one”

At the interruption, Meli’s professionalism kicked in. “We will discuss this on the return trip after completing our mission” she said, adding “don’t worry, my further comments would have been mutually beneficial. I will explain later.” The words were coupled with deft movements of her hands, and before Dustin could say anything he found himself pushed back in his seat as the shuttle cleared the hanger and curved into a steep dive towards the gigantic planet below.

The view out of the shuttle window was impressive - deep blue oceans and vast orange and green continents rushed up towards them before the heat shielding visor slid closed. With weaker engines than a full starship, re-entry for a shuttle would usually involve some form of friction heat, and Dustin watched as the shield slowly heated to a deep red glow as the systems diverted the **** of re-entry around the craft. A few minutes later, a series of bumps rattled the shuttle. “Deceleration shock” Meli commented, adding “the superheated air around the hull on a high gravity world like this can sometimes boil off around the grav thrusters when you slow to a point that the heat is no longer being maintained consistently across the shuttle.”

A second or two after she said that, the visor slid back up, revealing a wide open dirt plain below them, dotted with heavy set stone structures that looked more grown than built. “We will be arriving at their star port in a second captain. Please be ready.” Dustin nodded in response to Meli’s words, unfastening himself and scrambling back down the shuttle to the cargo bay at the rear. Checking his grav suit one last time, he slid the door between the cargo bay and the cockpit shut and thumbed the gravity control - stumbling slightly as the shuttle’s artificial gravity equalized with the outside and his suit took up the strain.

There was one final bump, and then the door at the far end of the small cargo bay blinked green before sliding open. Dustin was hit with a blast of what felt like warm summer air - the scent of dry grass and dust making him smile as he stepped forward and down the short ramp onto the landing pad. The pad itself seemed to have been grown out of some kind of dense rock or crystal rather than built - but that wasn’t the first thing that crossed his mind. What instead drew his attention was the pair of tall figures looking almost like stone cacti that stood by a large crate on a gravity sled on the far end of the pad.

As he stepped towards them, one raised it’s arm in greeting, a rustling sound like rocks being thrown around in a tumbler. The translator built into his suit chirped in Dustin’s ear. “Greetings, representative-biological of Earth. I am Xca, first fragment to these seedlings I trust to your care.” Dustin raised his own arm, trying his best to remember the little he’d been able to glean from the Solar Ascent’s data-banks about the Ressth. “Greetings, first fragment Xca from Earth. We will ensure they tumble safely.” The gesture seemed to be appreciated once the translator had turned his words into the strange bumping-pebble sounds of the Ressth. The second figure stepped forward at this point, handing him the control for the grav-sled.

The Ressth were in action far faster than Dustin had expected. From everything he’d read, he’d have thought this exchange would have taken hours, but it seemed it was only decision making in which they were slow. He pondered on that - how something that seemed to have so much weight could move under the strain of this heavy gravity almost faster than he could on Earth. Deciding it was just another example of how the universe was full of marvels - and that his thoughts would better serve him by getting this mission done so that he could turn his attentions to the marvel currently preparing the shuttle for launch, he guided the sled up the ramp and began the task of securing it in the hold.

After a thorough double check and hooking the containment system up to the shuttle’s power grid as a precaution in the case of a battery failure, he closed the door to the outside, strapped himself into the jump harnesses running down one wall and called Meli on the intercom. “We’re all secure here. Let’s get going.” A second later, he felt the rumble of the engines pitch up into a roar as the craft leapt skywards. From his ear-piece, Meli’s voice came through with only a faint crackle. “Launch successful - are you planning on staying in there until our arrival?”

Dustin pondered this as the rapid acceleration out of the planet’s grasp pushed him down in his suit. There were a few options; he’d need to lower the gravity down to that of the moon eventually, but a sudden shift would put a load on the containment field. On the one hand, he could change out of his grav suit sooner, which he’d need to do - there was no atmosphere on the moon, and the grav suit didn’t have any air containment capabilities. A standard vacuum suit would be needed. On the other hand, not risking the mission and the ship… he sighed and paged Meli back. “I’ll start the gravity cycle when we dock with Sola; forty-five minutes shouldn’t cause any issues for the containment while we’re flying to the moon, and will leave me fifteen to get changed. Do you want to have that talk while we wait?” Meli’s reply sounded playful - but with the Velca woman, Dustin could never tell. “No; nice as it would be to discuss things while you’re all tied up, one of us should really be on the bridge for the transit to moon orbit. Besides, I’d like to be able to observe your reactions face to face in order to improve my understanding of human relationships.”

Author's note: Wow. It's been a week since I first started sharing this silly smutty little space opera of mine with people and when I started I thought I'd maybe get one or two dedicated readers and a handful of views. Over 4000 views later and with 46 people (at current count) liking it enough to add it to their favourites - I'm so happy people seem to like it! I started writing this way before the point I started posting, and as a result I have a lot more written - about twice as much as I've currently posted as a buffer, so we shouldn't run out of content any time soon.

For those that are curious, the written stuff currently takes us up to the third haremette; I've got plans for introducing the next few after that but I write very much by the seat of my pants and my characters often run away with me and have their own ideas so who knows what of my rough mental notes will actually end up getting translated into the stuff you get to read. For an example of that - the trade with Flass for booze was originally going to be part of a dowry for haremette number 3. I like the way things have panned out better, Dustin and crew managed a much more wholesome setup which you'll find out about in around three weeks time, but Flass and Dustin haggling was not in the original gameplan for Rye joining the crew.

Finally - thank you all again for the likes, comments and views; checking in and seeing numbers go up (as well as flooding my notifications feed - seriously, I'm at risk of losing track of the stories I'm reading myself cos of all the pings which is awesome lol) has become a real highlight of my day.