by Purple Hazel
She’d already showered earlier—just in case her plan worked, so she smelled much like fragrant dish soap—still a far cry from the stink everyone had become accustomed to up on the command bridge. Then she looked at him with a devilish grin and could see: Luigi was smiling contentedly.
“Well, Signora,” he chuckled, “you seem to have something in mind, do you? Where are you taking me? Realizing you must, of course, that I still have a colony to run, I assume?” But B.J. was fearless. She patted him on the thigh and returned to fluffing her hair, saying, “Oh yes, my good man. Somewhere. Anywhere. Nowhere. Non ti dispiace...vero?” To this he rolled his eyes with amusement and replied, “No, I don’t mind. Please proceed. Only to have me back for chow-line later, of course, will you?”
At that point she knew she had him. Her sparkling eyes and feminine scent were melting his heart. She reached over and grasped his wrist then squeezed. “Ooooh. Havin’ lasagna tonight, Signor?” she asked playfully.
To this he merely made a “pffffft” sound then said humorously, “Oh no, bella ragazza. That’s for tourists. Fegato al Veneziana tonight! You try some, no? Calf’s liver fried with onions. Served with Risi e Bisi...rice and peas in a cream sauce. Moto delizioso.” He said this while placing the tips of his fingers up to the transmitter on his helmet lens and making a kissing sound, then splaying his fingers the way B.J. had often seen Italian chefs do in old films. “Deal!” replied B.J. as she replaced her helmet and twisted it into place before locking it—which made a brief hissing sound.
“Ah, si...safety first,” he then observed, “you must wear your helmet at all times when outside the ship, mio giovane amico. It can be very dangerous outside.” As he said this, he held up an index finger and waggled it a bit as if giving her a stern fatherly warning. Nevertheless, she could see she was breaking him down.
“Not to worry, Signor Comandante,” responded B.J. “You’re safe inside with me...I promise.” After that, she engaged the solar battery system and the vehicle took off with a lurch, kicking up a cloud of dust as it rumbled and whined across the dusty surface…
Oh, how they talked that afternoon. Of course, it was pretty much always “afternoon” on Kapteyn B. The planet rotated so slowly on its axis that the habitable side of the planet remained in constant sunlight year-round. It rotated around its red dwarf sun every forty-eight Earth days or so, but to those crewmembers living on the planet surface, all they saw was a dancing fireball in the sky which never ceased to light up the landscape in all directions—yet never seemed to give off much in the way of heat.
To some, it was almost like a freezing cold desert right after sunrise out in southern Nevada or the African Sahara. Workers performed exhausting six hour shifts, then limped back to the mother ship for chow each “day”, only to dive inside of a sleeping birth to catch some much needed shut-eye. The oppressive gravity was only slightly offset by their gravity boots, and at the end of most work shifts their bodies felt like they’d been beaten with a rubber hammer.
Meanwhile the two of them talked and talked as they rode across the flats. Talked about their lives back on Earth. Luigi seemed to want to know everything about her, and she gladly told him, too, limiting her answers to one or two sentences in hopes that he’d tell her more about himself. This she’d learned to do with boys over the years. Men only want two things, she’d found: to talk about themselves...and screw. That’s about it. They make conversation just long enough to figure out how to seduce a woman, then they make their move. It was always the same with guys and she’d known this since high school.
She never redirected questions. Simply gave brief but enthusiastic answers and then paused to see if he’d feel inclined to speak of his own past, his family, his home, and his favorite things—besides his career in Space Programme which she couldn’t really give a shit about, to be honest.
He’d occasionally do that. Tell her about his meteoric rise in rank after he’d finished college. Tell her about his old office back in Darmstadt. His old friends in Space Programme who’d urged him to apply for the mission. But sensing that she wasn’t terribly interested, he’d then return to asking B.J. about herself. What she liked to do for fun, among other things—that’s what he’d often return to as a topic for discussion. That’s when she knew she had him in her clutches.
They toured the work-sites. Drove around essentially incognito. That was B.J.’s idea, of course. She wanted him to see his colony transforming around him. Let him see what he’d been in charge of creating all this time. Sure, he’d notice things out of place, and orders not being followed according to his directives. Yes, he’d tirade about it occasionally, but by now B.J. found him to be adorably comical. Didn’t fear him at all.
She’d reprimand him in a motherly tone and tell him, “Now, now, Comandante. You selected these people and put your confidence in them. Let them bring your creation to reality in their own way, adapting as they need to...to the conditions they’ve encountered, I mean. It’s all to your credit, Signor. Don’t you see? Just look at how hard they’re working for you!”
The first time she said something like this Luigi twisted his head inside his helmet and leaned back so he could look into her face. A vicious retort was forming in his mind, and he could literally feel it gelling inside of him. Yet it never surfaced. All he could say was, “Oh? How is it you see this...this thing of which you speak? You seem so accepting of this flaunting of my orders by my subordinates, no?” However, B.J. knew by now she was wearing him down. She needn’t worry herself about his foul temper.
“Because, Signor...you are their great leader,” she replied patiently, with sparkling eyes that diffused and relaxed him. “You are the commander of the first-ever Earth mission to an alien planet outside our solar system. A pioneer. A man that history will remember. Veramente! You’re the first human to ever set foot in the surf - the man who discovered the Great Kapteyn Sea.” And that’s when the little man’s chest swelled with pride and satisfaction. No one had ever said something so wonderful to him. Not that he could readily recall. Not since his dearly departed wife had mouthed, “ti amo” to him as she slipped into unconsciousness years before and passed away later in the night. He could only pause and sigh longingly.
Yes, he still remembered that awful night. How long had it been now? In reality, about seventeen years—in Earth time that is. And yet here was this lovely young woman telling him just what he longed to hear. Truly, he’d abandoned all hope of being appreciated for what he’d accomplished. Yet here, sitting right next to him, was someone who finally understood him. Someone who understood his awful pain. Like an angel from heaven.
He looked out the windshield of Rover Five and remembered his past. He’d wanted to die that day—that morning when the doctors pulled him aside and told him his wife had passed away in her sleep. Wanted to join her, frankly. She was everything in the world to him; and her steady decline, then agonizing last few days, had left him drained of all direction and motivation.
For nearly a year he’d wandered aimlessly through life, showing up to work in a daze, not even remembering the daily train ride into Darmstadt. He’d been but a shell of a man. A ghost floating about the living world, not knowing or understanding who he was anymore. Only the urgings of his colleagues at Space Programme to apply for the position of Colony Commander served to bring him out of his malaise. It would do him good, they’d told him.
Perhaps they just wanted him to go away. “And who could have blamed them?” he’d often thought. Maybe they felt he was an unbearable burden upon their lives. He’d never sorted this out in his mind, frankly. But he’d turned in his application nonetheless, just like they’d suggested, and no doubt due to his good connections he’d made it into the final rounds of interviews for the big promotion.
Only then did it dawn on him that he could still make something of himself. Do something his wife would be proud of. All these memories and feelings came gushing over him once again, and as he put it together—fina
lly—after nearly nine months struggling to command those whiny crewmembers and colonists, he was filled with a renewed sense of purpose.
“Si! Ora lo vedo!” he thought. This lovely young woman had reaffirmed what he’d been struggling to believe in his own self. Deep down inside, he truly was the man he’d wished to become, or at least nearly so. She had inspired this in him once again, and his heart swelled with sincere gratitude.
“Giusto...I mean you’re right, Ensign,” he replied, switching back to English.
“B.J. please. Call me B.J. won’t you?” she interjected, “I like that much better.”
At this he chuckled and choked back his emotions for a moment. She’d now given him such an immense feeling of joy. He was ever so thankful too. A weight was being lifted from his heart that had been dragging him down into depression and self-recrimination.
Yet he began to see everything quite differently. Here was a person–a lovely female at that– who was just the presence he needed to cleanse his soul and free him from his despair. Not just temporarily, maybe permanently! And if he requested it, she could also be under his direct command for at least the next three Earth months. That thought also lingered in the back of his mind.
And he began to realize he’d need her by his side or nearby him constantly now, however he could find a way to justify it. He had limited power, after all. Couldn’t simply replace a junior officer on his command bridge and have an inexperienced Ensign take over their position. No one would buy into that and the other staff would resent her immediately.
No, what he needed now was a girlfriend to go see regularly, hang out with at the end of each duty shift perhaps—if not more often, God willing. She was exactly what he needed at just the right moment in his life. She was like a wonder drug that was being pumped into his veins intravenously. Breathing in her breath. Inhaling the aroma of her body and her lovely brown hair. That would suffice and send him into a euphoria that would cure him of his troubles. He could see it unfolding already.
Yes, she was quite correct. His dedicated staff and subordinates? All those hardworking scientists and engineers out there in the dust and dirt, struggling with the heavy gravity, moving about like zombies in their pressure suits: these were good people that he should cherish for their devotion to duty and determination to make this colony a reality.
“Then you shall call me Luigi,” he answered. ”Per favore. Only when we’re in private of course. Outside you know—around the crew, I mean…,” and to this B.J. interrupted by waving him off and rolling her eyes. “Oh yeah, I know. You’re still my superior officer, of course.” Then she winked; and on the drive back to B-lander, without anyone knowing he’d been inside that surface rover with Ensign Ariel, he finally began to open up to her.
He was tentative about it, at first. Baby steps, initially. But within an hour of driving he began to gush almost uncontrollably. “I have been a rude man to everyone,” he confessed. “Difficult and unyielding. This is much to my discredit. It is not who the man I once was.” B.J. remained silent and let him rattle on. No priest to go see for Holy Confession. He might not ever see one again for years, either. She was all he had now. And by the time they neared B-lander and the mother ship, the poor fellow was practically in tears. Only then did B.J. interrupt.
“Luigi...honey...it doesn’t matter. What you do tomorrow…that’s all that matters,” she said with the wisdom of a mature woman. It was something like a caring mother would say, and Luigi responded immediately. “Si, tomorrow is what matters. You are wise, B.J., like my Nonna. Always telling me what needs to be said. Always so gentle. Yet so beautiful and radiante.” At that point his eyes widened and B.J. could see as well as sense the feelings of lust boiling up from within his long-dormant libido. She figured it was as good a time as any to move in for the kill.
“Yeah...I know,” she casually quipped, and Luigi scoffed at her boastfulness. She then giggled through her transmitter. “And while we’re at it,” she continued, as she noticed him reaching over to place his hand on the thigh area of her pressure suit, “how about we meet up later on—after chow, I mean—after you get your uh...shower.”
He patted her thigh lightly and gaped with a look of curious delight. “Oh? Do you not have further duties to perform this day?” B.J. slowed the surface rover to a more manageable speed and let it coast to a stop. “Sure. But I was just thinkin’...maybe I could show you around some more? Talk some more, you know? Whatever…”
Luigi was beginning to get the picture. Shower. Dinner. Another ride around the foothills with her in Rover Five. Then it occurred to him, what if they got stuck somewhere? Rovers were supposed to travel in pairs after all. Going off completely alone—which was what she was implying—that was highly inadvisable if not downright reckless.
Of course, surface rovers did transport workers out to the irrigation line and back. He knew that as well. Those vehicles didn’t have to go in pairs, like procedure dictated. They’d carry out four fresh workers and ferry exhausted crewmembers and colonists back from the site at the end of their duty shifts. But was B.J. suggesting they go on a “private” exploration junket—out into the wilderness or down to the ocean cliffs where crews of engineers were designing and surveying for the ocean food processing plant to be constructed there?
That would seem almost logical really. Each surface rover carried its own “jiffy pop” tent for exploration teams to pile into for rest breaks. The teams working down by the ocean used several of these in fact. Knocked off work to sleep inside of them whenever they’d become too tired to function. Is that what she was suggesting?
Most certainly she was. Those tents were plenty large enough for two people to get quite comfortable inside of, she pointed out. She’d experienced this many times with Captain Stehter, although she refrained from mentioning that handy bit of information.
“You mean perhaps we could go down to the ocean together, you and me?” asked Luigi timidly, hoping he wasn’t rushing things when in fact he was merely being snared by B.J.’s carefully developed plot to entice him. At this point she merely needed to clarify she was indeed a “sure thing”, leaving no further doubt in his mind that lovemaking was indeed in the offing.
“Yeah, tesorino. Ya’ wanna? They’ve already got tents for themselves. Maybe we could, you know…take a little break and get out of these damn suits for a little while. Pressurize the tent. Get a little relief from the cold for a while? Warm up together inside? Whaddya say to that?”
Luigi squeezed her leg and sighed happily. “Oh yes, Signora...penso che sarebbe meraviglioso.” She’d done it. All that was left was the sex itself, but that was a foregone conclusion by now. In a few hours, she’d make a new man out of him.
Chapter 15
To the Surprise of Everyone
Over the next few weeks, just like B.J. promised, Luigi became a changed man—perhaps even more so than she’d ever assumed he was capable of! He quite literally transformed into a kind, benevolent leader during that time: a strict but fair manager and even exhibiting both patience and generosity on occasion. He also paid compliments to subordinates—which no one had ever seen him do before.
The first couple of times he did so it was on the command bridge, and the staff wondered what had happened to him! The change was so dramatic and immediate, it baffled them. They were the very first to see his happy transformation and frankly...they didn’t know what to make of it. To say it caught them off guard was an understatement to say the least.
In fact, the first time it happened he amazed them when a staff member sent him a report to view on his computer screen which detailed the latest results from sea life samples taken by the marine processing plant design team. This group worked in a make-shift lab located down by the seaside and was responsible for projecting food yields as well as devising a system for harvesting plant life from the ocean floor. It was an ambitious project, fraught with danger because they’d often have to venture out into the sea in those flimsy rafts they
’d brought from Earth and dangle fish nets over the side to haul in sea creatures. These were then dissected to determine what they ate, and reveal what sort of plants might be growing down there.
The news was quite good this time. However, Luigi typically required all daily reports delivered promptly by 18:00 hours. Unfortunately, this one had been overlooked, saved into a temporary folder by mistake, and forgotten until much later in his duty shift. The poor staff member could only fear the worst when she’d discretely forwarded it to his computer inbox. She could only hope he’d overlook the timestamp on it for once and simply read the information. It was great news after all; but this was just the type of thing that would often set him off on a tirade about not following his orders.
Indeed, Luigi had always been the type to overlook any positive to point out a minor flaw. That’s basically what aggravated people about him. In the past, it had always seemed like practically any form of error, or breach of procedure in this case, was a sure-fire way to get screamed at. However not this time—not like folks would have normally expected.
Luigi opened the electronic file sent to him—it was about 19:23 at the time—and muttered something like “Che cazzo...Madre di Dio,” then cleared his throat as if to compose himself and suddenly exclaimed with a big smile, “Ah...Lieutenant Cho, this is good tidings...buona novella! You saved it for me to read later, eh?” Then to everyone’s relief, he laughed joyously and reached over to pat her on the back. “This is wonderful, indeed. All of you gather ’round will you...per favore?” He actually said please for once!
After that he proceeded to surprise everyone there by pulling them together around his captain’s chair and reading it off to them like some proud uncle viewing a Christmas card sent from his favorite niece. “See? We’re making fabulous progress with our testing down at the marine lab,” he began. “Just look at these results, would you?! Guarda questo!”