Comrade Astronaut

On Mars approach without warning Chang Lee’s head explodes and you think that’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen – or not, because you don’t have time to worry about it. You’re suddenly facing a ship that seems to want to bury itself into the Martian landscape rather than gracefully land on it.
Sofia, your Russian counterpart, stoically sits station and holds the co-pilot chair despite the fact that she may be the first piece of organic material to meet the red sand of Mars in violent fashion.

Unflappable. It’s her metier.

You marvel again at Sofia’s calm, the equanimity that has marked her demeanor throughout the trip – except in private – and then she was like a Siberian Tiger clawing your back, marking her territory with her feral passion to the unending embarrassment of little Chang who tried to ignore the sounds of raw sex coming from the back bunk. What most of you is doing is what you’ve been trained to do – fly this thing – but a small part of you is remembering those breasts, that ass you could bounce pennies off of, the soft insides of her legs and the folds of her –

The AI makes a point again – you’re not trimming according to a maximum optimized entry profile and the failsafe system will take over and correct your human failings. Yeah, you think, you’re good at flying a ship, you mess of spinning electrons – but can you hold a woman like Sofia in your arms? Can you make her cry “nana” – Russian, oddly enough you discover, for daddy. Smugness over this seems to keep you level – keeps the panic you feel inside from boiling up over into screaming like a demented cowboy riding a bucking bronco. Wahoo and wah-you.

Mars has always been a viable space target although the Moon has likewise always made more sense. But then the New Soviet Union, primarily the former republics of Russia, Kazakhstan and Georgia put aside their political differences in 2015, formed a new U.S.S.R., and immediately began sending unmanned probes to Mars. People took notice; people like the war hawks uncasked from their blissful sleep in political oblivion.

It got the immediate attention of the U.S. and U.N. and a deal was quickly made to mount an international mission to Mars. The Russians chafed at the idea and privately called the proceedings “blackmail” but in the end the old/new Soviets had no choice. They might have the name of a former superpower but the group in no way matched the economic, political or military might of the reigning superpowers – yet.

Three astronauts were chosen, one from China, the U.S. and The New Soviets; two men and a she-bitch raised on the brutal steppes and steeped in Mongol traditions of sound mind, sound body and constant manipulation – and that is “man-ipulation”. She successfully pitted Chang and you against each other and then opened her suit to the “winner”. To the victor goes the spoils, her internal philosophy demanded. Sonia liked to be mounted, rode hard and conquered, not made love to. Any hint of softness was met with an agonizing bite of your skin between perfect, full lips that housed an equally perfect set of functioning teeth. Teeth that you imagined could sink as deep as necessary into your flesh to make her point. More than once you were nervous during the oral portions of her program.

And now you sit covered in Chang Lee’s congealing brains and blood riding an out of control craft that went haywire as soon as you hit the Martian atmosphere, praying that you get just one more chance to put the flesh to Sofia before you die, and thinking stupidly to yourself that this is the coolest thing since you fell out of a twenty-foot tree when you were ten and somehow survived with only a broken finger – the one you had stuffed in that little girl while you were playing doctor away from prying eyes in the summer foliage in her backyard. God’s justice apparently. Wahoo, indeed.

Sofia begins the countdown. You’re eight clicks from either instant death or instant hero – the suspense is almost killing you. But the ending truly might.

When you wake up you realize that you’re on the red sand, outside in a enviro-suit. The mangled ship is nearby – it’s not going anywhere soon. A quick, unsteady check of the inside of the ship shows that Sofia is gone and so is Change Lee. Odd. But the rover is gone also. Sofia took it. Where? Why? There are not AAA outposts on Mars to go to – there’s not even a Starbucks. Where would she/could she have gone?

You try the radio gear and get nothing. Maybe Sofia went nuts. Ran the rover off the shelf on the Ganges Chasma. Something hurts. Something is bleeding. If you don’t find shelter soon, you won’t be making any future plans. The only shelter left is in the rover – you need to find it quickly no matter what shape it might be in.

Stumbling over the Martian landscape you realize that the tracks you’re following end abruptly. The sandstorms on Mars are more massive than anything imagined on Earth, sometimes lasting for years and covering half the planet. This is a slow period, storm-wise, a reason why a manned mission felt plausible. But there are still enough sand blasts to take the paint off a ‘69 El Dorado, your car of choice restored to a cherry-red gleaming exterior and soft, black leather interior. Guys admired it and women got moist enough over it to – enough of that. Focus. Where did the damned rover go?

One direction being as good as the other, you move forward in a straight line. If the sand that gets into everything that moves on Mars doesn’t foul your rebreather and breach your suit, and if your suit can recycled enough piss to drink, and if you can manage to live on limited MRE’s for the foreseeable future and…you smile. The tracks have picked up again. Damnable hope. Maybe it would be easier just to vent your suit and breath in the below zero cold that will freeze your lungs before you can exhale – maybe later when your hope meets the reality of the situation and gets gut punched for being such a tool.

You’re not a quitter anyway. You wouldn’t have been sent on this mission if you had that in you. And then there’s Sofia. In the shelter, with certain death facing you both, you can certainly convince her to open that suit once more before you die of thirst, malnutrition or exposure. Once more. Once more before you go. One more ride on that magnificent Russian mare. Giddy’up.

The thought of her pushes you over the unending sand miles. Tall like a goddess, she walked with a grace that belied her hard-packed, muscular body. Round, full breasts that made one imagine that anti-gravity was possible even outside of a vacuum. The smell of her light sweat would get you instantly aroused. Clean, musky, rich and sweet, especially between her –

A sight that make you freeze dead in your tracks greets you as you find the resting place of the rover.

Below is an actual encampment. Buildings with the Soviet Star prominent on the side. What the hell? Then you see the suited figure to the right. She’s prefabbing another one. It goes up like a stiff balloon as Sofia activates the automatic mechanism that will make the building into something beside a packing crate.

It’s unbelievable. It’s unreal. It’s a miracle. It’s…damned suspicious.

Why didn’t Sofia mention this before? It’s not like you didn’t have time to talk about it even though she did have a tendency to fall asleep after sex. Your initial reaction to running down there is now moderated. You need to think about it. You roll back down the hill a little and try to fit the pieces into place. In the process, the fatigue and injuries overwhelm you and you fall asleep.

The boot kicking you awake is Sofia’s, of course. She’s got a gun pointed at you. Now where do you suppose that came from, you wonder idly. Of course. They were all allowed some personal weight that no one checked. Sofia, the she-wolf, that sentimental fool brought her favorite Shipunov Gsh-18 supergun. Half the weight of a standard pistol – important when ounces count on a Mars mission – its rounds could easily penetrate 18mms of steel. It made a bloody, good mess of Change Lee’s head. She also had a specially modified cold-weather AK-47 slung around her shoulder. Probably un-crated from the dozens of packages the New Soviets shipped here before they were forced into accepting a “cooperative” alliance with the United Nations.

“I should have killed you when I killed Chang,” Sofia said.

“Funny how I missed that,” you say. “I was too busy saving your worthless ass.”

“I will remedy that now.”

The gun rises just a bit but then lowers. She’s thought of another way to torture you apparently. Maybe zip a plastic stay around your hooha and do a slow strip tease.

“You can stay alive if you can behave.”

“Why would you do that?”

“I might need help – my arm is broken.”

Now you notice her one arm hanging funny in her suit.

“You have medical training,” she logically concludes.

“What if I refuse to help you?”

The gun rises in response.

“Ask a dumb question… All right, I’m you’re prisoner.”

On the way down to the shelters you talk.

“So the New Soviets are claiming Mars as theirs is what I’m guessing?”

“Correct. A ship from Kazakhstan officially listed as a supply ship is actually carrying colonists from Georgia. They will be here in one month more. In plenty of time for me to activate the missile defense systems that will keep Mars free from invaders.”

“Like Americans.”

“Like you,” she agrees.

“Why did you take Chang Lee’s body?” you ask, wondering at this anomalous behavior.

“Food,” she replies. “Protein. I might need it.”

“Good idea.”

You’re disgusted but impressed. She always said she hated Chang Lee – eating him would be an exercise in massive self-discipline for her.

So. A month to figure out a way to kill this bitch. That’s if she even lets me live that long after I set her arm. But look at it this way; any day is a good day on Mars if you’re still breathing. You seem to have nine lives and you’ve only used up two so far – one when you fell from that tree and one when you fell from the sky. And both somehow involved a female.

Besides, you figure. Maybe I can get her to open that suit and put the flesh to her just one more time.

“What are you smiling about,” she asks.

“Nothing. Just happy to be alive.”

The New Cold War appears to be heating up. In more ways than one.