She falls into your arms

You could almost read the emotions on the young Ensign's face: pain as she registered the **** of her lover, her surprise at how well you handled the ship on your own and then the grim realization that she and you were trapped on Verdana with little hope for rescue from the badly battered Fleet. Distracted as she was by the overwhelming amount of information, Smith stumbled forward on the uneven sand of the beach and if you hadn't stepped forward to catch her would have fallen flat on her face. With your arms firmly around her slender torso her brave resolve crumbled and you felt her shudder in your arms as she wept.

You held her firmly for several minutes all too aware of her sweet-smelling hair, the warmth of her breath and the softness of her body. If it weren't for the circumstances, this would have been a dream come true, as it was you did not mind at all that you could at least offer this small amount of support to your crewmember.

"I'm sorry, Captain." Smith wiped the tears from her cheeks and smiled up at you with determination that made your heart swell with pride in this young engineer. "I'm sorry I doubted you, and I'm sorry we're in this mess, but I'm glad I'm in it with you."

"No, I'm sorry I let you down. My first command lasted for two days and in that time I've crashed my ship, and lost half my crew."

"Don't be too hard on yourself, Sir." Smith pulled free of your embrace and straightened her flightsuit, perhaps not aware of how good her breasts looked when she pulled the material tight. "I thought you were showing off when you insisted we fix that potential glitch in the shield software, but without our shields we'd be dead with no hope at all."

Smith's praise helped a little, but the fact remained that you are still stranded on an unmapped planet with only very limited intelligence about the indigenous races that lived on this prime M-class planet. As comfortable as you are with computers, mechanics and astro-physics, the closest you've ever been to this kind of wilderness is a trip to the Ophidian national zoo. To either side thick greens obscure your vision, in front of you is a panoramic view of the blue-green water of a pond and behind the ship is a kilometer long scar where the Gorgon tore through the jungle foliage before finally coming to a stop.

"OK, Ensign." You clap your hands in an attempt to dispel the doubt creeping into your heart as you remember the miles of unbroken jungle that your sensors had indicated covered this hemisphere. "Let's get some side arms and look around a little while it's still light."