Midshipman Gerry Brill jolted awake and squinted into the gloom. The stata-luminous walls provided the young man enough light for him to make out the interior of the escape pod and the shapes of the four other crew members that had joined him in their hasty exodus from the ship. However, the lack of brighter illumination meant that the powered lights weren't working for whatever reason.

"A.I.L.A.?" he called out, but the Artificially Intelligent Learning Agent didn't respond. With a click, he unfastened the restraints holding him in place. Suddenly his world turned sideways and he fell into one of the other crew members, his hand squishing into a large breast before he was able to regain his footing. "Sorry," he offered the woman.

"Uhh..." she moaned. "Wha'hoppen?"

Now that he was closer, Gerry realized that this was Midshipman Natalie Morris, who had trained him in his duties. She was a couple years older than him but pretty, with brown hair and large boobs that were always distracting in her tight Astronaval uniform. "Um, looks like the pod lost power and we came down hard. A.I.L.A.'s not responding."

"Shit," she responded to the news.

"Yeah, shit."

Gerry turned to the new voice. Another woman across from them was extracting herself from her crash harness.

"Wait!" Gerry rushed forward, but with a click, the crew member slipped out of her seat and fell toward him. The two of them went down, Gerry's body taking the brunt of the impact.

"Fuck!" the woman growled and pushed off of him, unmindful that Gerry had just saved her from a possibly bad fall. As she reared back, her knee swooped low and glanced off of his ballsack.

"Urgh..." he moaned, doubling over as the woman righted herself.

"Fucking useless engineer," the woman spat. "Pick yourself up."

Natalie helped Gerry to his feet. "Be nice, Olive...we're all members of the same crew here."

Gerry squinted. His clumsy, hopefully accidental assailant was Midshipman Olive Piker, from the security division, with an athletic body and her short dark hair in a severe cut that swooped across her forehead.

"Hmp," was Piker's only reply. Then she turned. "Chief!" She rushed forward to one of the other crew members who sat unmoving in their harness.

"Could you please assist me, Midshipmen?" came a soft request from the other direction. "My harness is not unfastening."

Gerry rose with a wince and he and Natalie stepped forward to pull at the latch keeping Midshipman Bo in place. The hairless, androgynous, and singularly-named alien seemed unperturbed, as they usually were, patiently waiting as Natalie finally pulled her multi-tool from her belt and cut at the restraining belt.

This time Gerry was ready, and caught Bo as they tumbled sideways. In the dark, all bundled up by the safety system, it was hard to tell that the pod was lying on an angle, but Gerry had his feet under him now. He had always found the otherworldly crew member Bo intriguing, with their human-ish face either handsome or pretty depending on the angle.

Bo stood up, their hands on Gerry's upper arms. "I thank you, Midshipmen Brill and Morris," they said, their head turning to each in turn, and then they looked past them. "How is Chief Warrant Officer Helmuth, Midshipman Piker?"

"Not good," the angry woman responded. "I think he hit his head harder than the rest of us." She huffed. "The air in here's getting thin...is the atmosphere breathable outside?"

Gerry, Natalie and Bo looked at each other.

"Jesus, you fucking useless twats!" Piker railed. "A.I.L.A., report on the exterior of the pod!"

"A.I.L.A.'s down," Gerry replied, "you heard me say that earlier."

He heard beeping and turned. Bo had found a hand sensor.

"An oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere, with a higher balance of oxygen than we're used to...relatively warm, 22 degrees celsius. Gravity is 0.7 of standard, which explains why we didn't hit harder, and...hmm..." Bo folded up the device and powered it off.

"What?" Natalie asked.

In the dim light, Gerry noticed Bo's face crease with confusion. "Something was draining the power in the sensor while it was in use. I have powered it off to conserve its charge."

"Help me here, Bo," Piker directed, and Bo stepped forward under one of Chief Helmuth's arms while Piker took the other. "You pissants open the door."

Gerry looked at Natalie and then they worked at the manual controls of the pod's door until it popped open. A gust of slightly warm wind blew in and Gerry realized that this was the first non-artificial atmosphere he'd breathed in months. He closed his eyes and took another deep lungful.

"Move!" Piker shoved him out of the way and stepped out with Chief Helmuth and Bo. It was light out, which as Gerry stepped out he saw was coming from a small blue sun in the sky. The ground was purplish...Gerry realized that it would probably be light red or pink without the blue overlay of sunlight, which seemed a strange color for ground, but he hadn't been in the Astro Navy long enough to see many planets firsthand himself. The surface underfoot seemed to be stone or clay, and was mostly smooth, except where it had broken up around where the pod had impacted.

Piker and Bo were about to lay Chief Helmuth onto the ground. "Wait!" Gerry called out before dashing back into the pod. There, he unfastened a seat cushion, brought it back out, and then manipulated some fasteners to unfold it into a makeshift bed.

"You remembered your drills," Natalie commented with a cute smile.

Gerry smiled back. "I had a good teacher. Nice to have an engineer along?" He directed that to Piker.

"Yeah, that's fine, Brill," Piker said as she and Bo gently lowered the Chief to the padded surface. "Bo, can you tell how hurt he is?"

Bo examined the Chief's head. "I am not in medical, but I see blood coming from his head. Midshipman Morris, will you please...? Ah." Natalie held out the medical kit she'd grabbed as she left the pod.

"Engineering's on it!" Gerry commented as he held out his fist to Natalie. After first making sure that Piker wasn't looking, she bumped him back.

Bo pressed a stick patch to the Chief's neck and waited.

After a moment, Piker stood up. "Why isn't it working?"

Bo examined the patch and frowned. "I think that the medical nanobots have had their power drained as well. We will have to wrap the chief's head and hope that he recovers on his own."

"FUCK!" Piker shouted up at the strange alien atmosphere, and then her face went slack. "Oh...fuck..."

They all looked up to where she was staring.

"What...is that?" Gerry asked. A small patch of the sky looked like a piece of cloth that someone had torn a hole in. What should have been light blue atmosphere was black, with a scintillating red edge. It looked...wrong.

Natalie stepped up next to him. "That's what happens when a fold engine overloads. The ship's gone."

---

They took shifts, one of them staying with Chief Helmuth while the other three fanned out to look for shelter, water, food, or other survivors. They had rations in the pod, but that would only last a couple of days, and without power, the pod's water recycler, which could have kept them living off of their own urine indefinitely, was useless.

Gerry stepped lively in the lower gravity. He saw clouds in the sky, which raised his hopes for finding water, but he found no lakes or streams, or any other meaningful body of water, not even a puddle. The surface wasn't entirely flat, but the tallest features seemed to just be small rolling hills.

The lack of trees and other vegetation didn't bode well for finding food. There also didn't seem to be any other life forms, not that he was relishing the idea of eating another living creature. His great-grandfather had talked about eating cows back in the day, but the concept turned Gerry's stomach. Farmed proteins and greens were just fine, thank you very much...not that he was likely to find anything like that here.

After what he guessed was a few hours, he returned to the crash site. Natalie didn't seem to be back yet.

"Nothing?" Piker asked Gerry, eyeing his half-unfastened one-piece uniform as it gathered at his hips. With all the walking, it had been too hot to keep done up. He shook his head and walked over to Bo, who was sitting on top of the pod.

"I am contemplating the sun," they said as he approached.

Then he realized Bo was staring up at it. "You shouldn't look right at it!"

Bo turned their head and Gerry started at the sight of their eyes...they were fully white! Then he saw the pallid shade slip down, a membrane that disappeared under their eyelids so their gray irises were visible again.

Then he remembered. "Right, your people are very, um, adaptable."

Bo held out their arms and slipped down the rounded surface of the pod toward him. Gerry caught Bo's arms as they landed in front of him, but he bet that their people, whose name he could never pronounce correctly but were sometimes referred to as 'Adaptans', could have handled the fall just fine without his help. Then, realizing that he was still holding Bo's hands, he let go and stepped back. "So, you mentioned the sun?"

"Yes...blue stars are the hottest in the universe, but that one is very far away. The warmth of this planet doesn't make sense." They knelt down and placed their palm on the flat surface. "I believe that the heat may be geothermal. However, without being able to use the hand scanner, I will be unable to prove that without direct knowledge."

"Direct...?"

"If we can find a way underground. The lack of mountains indicate that this planet has not experienced geological upheavals typically associated with molten cores, though. It is a conundrum."

"Huh...not really my forte," Gerry responded.

They bunked around the pod. As the blue star faded from view, Gerry realized that night wasn't much cooler than during the day, which gave Bo's theory some weight.

---

The next day went much the same as the first: no food, no water, and no shelter, and without water it was getting really uncomfortable. As he headed back from his second foray that day, Gerry gave his dry lips a lick.

He looked up at the wormhole that had destroyed the ship. It seemed smaller. As he approached camp, he saw that the rest of them were folding up their makeshift beds, other than the one holding Chief Helmuth. He hurried forward.

Natalie gave him a dazzling smile. "Olive found a cave with a spring!"

He beamed back. "That's great!" He grabbed his stuff and they headed off, Bo and Piker holding the Chief up between them.

Gerry stepped up beside Natalie as they walked. "Hey, does the wormhole seem smaller now?"

She looked up and squinted. "Yeah, it'll collapse soon enough. The universe doesn't like imbalance."

"Do you think any other ships will come looking for us?"

"Maybe," she responded. "We would have transmitted the coordinates of our next jump to central before opening the fold, but it'll take a while before anyone realizes we didn't send the all-clear upon arrival."

Bo called back, "We also don't know why the ship's engine overloaded. If it was caused by something environmental, another ship may also explode upon arrival."

"Fuck," Gerry exclaimed.

"Indeed, Midshipman Brill." The androgynous crew member turned their bald head forward again.

The cave was about a half hour away. The entrance was large enough for two of them to use at once, and the interior high enough that they didn't have to duck down while being wide enough that they could spread their beds out without bumping into each other in the night. A spring burbled away in the corner, its runoff going back into the strangely smooth rock. It seemed perfect! There was also a tunnel heading further in, but it was too dark to see once you left the main area.

Bo used a test from the medical kit to determine if the water was safe to drink. Like the stata-lumininous treatment on the inside of the escape pod, it was chemical-based rather than electronic, so wasn't affected by the strange power drain. After a few seconds, they gave everyone a thumbs-up.

"Water and shelter," Piker nodded, satisfied with herself. "With luck, we'll find something to eat tomorrow, before we run out of rations." She looked out the entrance to see it getting dim. The planet's day seemed to be about 16 hours long, so they only had about 8 hours of light. "For now, though, we should rest. I'll take first watch."

"Why?" Gerry asked. "There's nothing living on this planet but us."

Piker glanced at the still-unconscious Chief Helmuth and then turned back to Gerry. "Why don't you leave security up to the person who actually works that department, nerd?" Then she stomped out of the cave.

"Oookay, fine."

They tried to get some sleep, but the shorter days messed with that concept. It would probably take a while to get used to 'the new normal'. Gerry rolled over to see that Natalie was looking back at him from her own bed. "Oh, hey."

"Hey."

"When you said the ship was gone, for a moment I thought you meant it had left," he asked. "I didn't work with the engines much."

She frowned. "The ship would have been torn apart by the dimensional stresses of the wormhole the engine overload created. At least it would have been quick for the rest of the crew still onboard."

"Unlike us," he replied despondently. "I'm not looking forward to starving." The rations were almost gone and his stomach grumbled at that thought.

Natalie slipped from her bed to take his hand. "We found water and shelter. I believe a higher power's looking out for us, Gerry...just you wait."

He twisted his mouth. "What...like God?"

"Whatever you want to call it. 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.'"

He sighed and pulled his hand back. "We're not on Earth, and this is definitely not heaven, Natalie. Also, Hamlet dies at the end, remember?"

"Oh no!" Bo called out from the next bunk over. "I was going to read that next week, once I finished Romeo and Juliet. Hm...I guess I won't have a chance to finish that, either, without a working computer. Such a romantic story."

"They die too," Gerry informed them before turning over with a harumph.

"Oh..."

---

"Feeling a little better today?" Natalie asked Gerry when he sat up the next morning.

"I guess," he responded, looking about. Piker was napping. Helmuth was still laying in his bunk, though Gerry could see that the man was still breathing. Bo was at the entrance of the cave, looking out, their slim form neither manly nor womanly.

Gerry got to his feet. "I had an idea about checking out that tunnel, if you could both help me with cannibalizing the pod."

It was a bit of a trek there and back, and some hard work gathering what they needed, but they returned with strips of the stata-luminous treatment from the pod's walls. Ripping some of the sticky, plastic-like substance up, the three of them fastened bits of it onto the tunnel walls as they moved deeper into the dark.

"Very clever, Midshipman Brill," Bo complimented him. "This should allow us to go a ways in, though our distance will be limited based on available material."

"Hopefully it's not too deep. Wait, do you hear that?"

"What?" both Bo and Natalie responded.

"Shh..." he shushed them and listened intently. "Is that another spring?"

Natalie cocked her head. "That bubbling noise? Sounds different."

They headed deeper, leaving luminous bits on the walls like breadcrumbs behind them before stepping into a small alcove. The sound was louder here, and lower, near the ground. They knelt down.

"That's...a smell," Natalie commented.

"What are we looking at?" Gerry asked. He put some more luminous bits around what seemed to be a semi-solid substance sliding along behind a gap in the wall. It moved like lava but wasn't hot. It was hard to tell the color but his mind suggested a pinkish-green with the limited input available to him.

They heard a beeping and turned to see that Bo had activated the hand scanner. "Amino acids, proteins, vitamins and minerals, and...hm."

"What is it?" Natalie asked.

Bo closed up the device. "It ran out of power before it could give me the full results. Even so, it appears that we have found a source of food."

"Did you say food?"

They all jumped as Piker came up behind them. "Nice job with the glowing trail, crew...now let me see what you found."

After getting caught up on the hand scanner's findings and its final status, the security woman stood back up. "It sucks that the scanner's useless now, but I agree with you using it here, Bo...we only have another day's worth of food. Still, we don't know if that's safe to eat."

"The scanner indicated nothing hazardous..." Bo began, but Gerry knelt down, grabbed a handful of the strange substance, and shoved it into his mouth.

"Gerry!" "Brill!" That had been Natalie and Piker.

Gerry chewed and swallowed, finding the sludge going down his throat easily. He stood back up.

"That was so..."

"...brave!" "...stupid!" Natalie and Piker looked at each other.

Piker harrumphed. "Well, what's done is done. Now we keep an eye on you to see if you die a horrible, painful death or not. In the meantime, the rest of us now have more rations to share, no matter how it turns out, even if it's just another half-day's worth each." Then she turned on her heel and walked back to the cave's main area.

Natalie and Bo closed up with Gerry. "So how did it taste?" Natalie asked.

"Actually, not bad," Gerry responded. "The, um, sludge has the consistency of a banana, maybe? Can't tell if it's savory or sweet, or if salt or sugar would help, not that we have either of those."

"And you feel well?" Bo asked.

"Yeah, fine."

Bo remained behind to observe the sludge while the rest of them headed back to the main cavern. Piker was pressing a cool, damp cloth to Helmuth's forehead.

"Any change?" Gerry asked. Piker shook her head.

Bo returned a little later, their dark pupils unnaturally wide as they emerged from the dim tunnel. As Gerry watched, those wide dots contracted in the brighter common area until they returned to normal. "The 'sludge', as you call it, seems to be a constant flow through that part of the rock. Like the spring," they gestured to the burbling pool in the corner, "I don't believe that it will 'run out' anytime soon."

Piker stood up. "Okay, some good news, then. You still copacetic?" she asked Gerry.

He nodded. "I'm feeling a little queasy, but I'm chalking that up to nervousness."

---

At nightfall, Piker crushed some of the rations to feed Chief Helmuth with some water and then went to hand the rest out to the others, except for Gerry.

"I'm good," Natalie told her. "I, uh, went and had some sludge."

"WHAT?! Morris..." Piker began.

"Gerry's fine, Olive," Natalie told her. "It's been hours...if it was poisonous, it would have done something to him by now. I'm feeling fine too."

Bo spoke up, "I concur. I should probably have sampled it first, with my more robust physiology, but it seems it is safe. I will have some tomorrow." They accepted their portion of the remaining rations.

"If you'd eaten it first, that still wouldn't have confirmed it was safe for humans," Natalie informed the alien.

Bo considered. "That is an excellent point, Midshipman Morris."

Natalie sighed. "Given that we'll most likely be stuck here a long time, Bo, and we're all the same rank, you should probably call me Natalie."

"Um...yes, Natalie. And...Gerry?" Bo tilted their head to regard him.

He nodded.

They all looked over at Piker, who sighed. "When the Chief wakes up, the ranks wake up with him, but don't call me Olive...other than Natalie." Then she sat to eat her rations.

"Why are you so special?" Gerry quietly asked Natalie.

"Sorry, Gerry," she responded with a wink, "what happens at the Executive Officer's bachelorette party stays at the party. Oh..." she frowned, realizing that the woman she referred to was now probably dead.

Gerry noticed. "How many of the crew do you think made it off?"

She considered. "The five of us were already close to that escape pod when the alert sounded, and it launched automatically once we were all in the seats. There was that big shudder a few seconds later that might have been the engine going up...I think we just made it out of the gravity well. There's a good chance that we're the only ones."

Gerry moved forward and gave her a hug without thinking. She hugged him back without delay. Gerry could feel her large breasts pressing into him. Ugh, stupid man, he chastised himself, can't even take a moment to be supportive without thinking of his dick.

---

Gerry opened his eyes to regard his work screen. The thrum of the ship's engine indicated they had opened a fold and were about to slip through to their destination. He had heard it a few times already on this, his first deep space probe.

His screen looked strange. Instead of the normal readouts, there were 2 pulsing lights, one red and one blue. What strange objects are these? he wondered to himself. Suddenly, a klaxon rang out. "Abandon ship! Now now now!" he heard the captain's terrified voice ring out through the speakers.

Gerry remembered his emergency training and wasted no time. There was an escape pod just down the corridor from his station. He took off running. The ship shuddered, throwing him to the side...

Gerry opened his eyes again. He had fallen off of his makeshift bed. He was on the planet with the others, the dream fading from his awareness. The sun was just rising, and he looked over to see Natalie turning from the cave entrance, her curvy form framed in the morning light. She gave him a warm smile and he realized that she was absolutely beautiful.

---

After some sludge for breakfast, Gerry went outside with a stick he had created by rolling up the last of the stata-luminous material. When he came back in, the stick was glowing brighter. "Ready to go spelunking?" he asked Natalie. Piker was outside exploring and Bo was still asleep.

"How did you do that?" she asked, goggling at the brilliance of the stick.

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Um...I wrote a thesis in university on how stata-luminosity can be increased, at least temporarily, by the addition of uric acid."

"You PEED ON IT?"

"Yeah...you coming?" He headed toward the tunnel and then turned toward the spring. "Oh, I'd better load up in case it dims while we're down there." He knelt and took several gulps of water. "Okay, let's go."

The makeshift torch actually gave off almost as much luminescence as if they had lit it on fire, though it was a constant output and a lot safer. He held it up between them, but sometimes the tunnel got a little tight...at one such point Natalie bumped into the light source.

"Ugh...don't touch me with your pee stick!"

"Hehehe..."

"Jerk."

"Oh, wow!"

The tunnel had been getting warmer as they went, and then they stepped into a side cavern that held a pool with bubbling water.

"It's a hot spring!" Gerry exclaimed. "I need a bath like nobody's business!" He put the chemical torch at the edge of the pool and began to disrobe.

"Um..." Natalie ummed.

"Turn your back if you want," Gerry told her, "but I'm getting in. You're welcome to join me."

Natalie couldn't believe her eyes. Meek Gerry had completely stripped down and in the dim light she couldn't help but notice some definition on his slim form before he stepped into the pool, which seemed to be large enough for two.

"Oh yeeaahh..." he moaned as he sank into the water up to his hips. "I needed this." He turned to her. "You coming in?"

"Um..." she ummed again.

"C'mon! Live a little...I think I might be agreeing with you about a higher power providing for us." He held his hands out, his fingers beckoning.

She sighed and unfastened her one-piece uniform. "Okay, but turn around."

He humphed but did as she asked. Unlike him, she kept her undershirt and panties on before slipping into the warm water. "Ohmigod..."

"Right?"

Gerry had turned back to her and Natalie quickly crossed her arms over the thin fabric covering her breasts.

"Aahh..." Gerry sighed and lay back into the soft curve of the hot spring pool, causing his leg to rub against hers. She didn't move away.

"Gerry, did you mean it when you said that you believed that a higher power is watching over us?"

With his eyes still closed, he smiled. "Yeah...now that we've found shelter, water, and food, I've relaxed a lot, so my mind's not stuck in emergency mode. Sorry for being such a downer lately." His hands moved into the water, taking hold of one of her feet.

"Gerry? Oh..."

He started to massage the ball of her foot. When she didn't pull back, he moved to the arch and then her toes. Natalie lay back herself, her breathing getting heavier. He was really good at that, and she didn't realize how much tension she'd been carrying in her feet, what with all the walking in the last few days.

He took her other foot, dropping her first one between his legs as he did so. She was beyond caring as his magic fingers worked away.

"Everything's connected, right? I'm feeling it lately...this planet..." His voice was soft, compelling. "...you..."

"Mm hm...I feel it too, Gerry."

Then her foot felt the hardness between his legs. She tentatively flexed her foot, uncertain of what she was feeling. Yep, that was definitely a hard cock. "Gerry?"

"Yeah?"

She reached up and pulled her top off, freeing her D-cups. "Do you want to come over here?"

"Oh, hell yeah."

---

Bo woke up and took care of their full bladder before looking around for the others. Piker came in from an early scouting foray and went over to check Chief Warrant Officer Helmuth. No change.

The alien sniffed the air. The crew members hadn't bathed in a few days, so their scent lingered. It appeared that Midshipmen -- no, Natalie and Gerry, they reminded themself -- had gone into the tunnel. They followed, soon ending up at the sludge hole. 'Well, I am hungry,' they noted, and took a handful of the semi-solid substance, pausing only a moment before consuming it.

'It is like agashool,' they thought, remembering a porridge-like staple of their childhood back on their home planet. It made them miss it a little, but only a little. They chewed and swallowed. 'Definitely doesn't taste like agashool.' However, it wasn't a bad flavor.

They ate some more, moved away from the strong, strange scent of the sludge, and sniffed again. Natalie and Gerry had gone further into the tunnels, but there was not enough stata-luminous material that way, so how were they seeing? Then they smelled the faint scent of human urine. "Oh, very clever, engineers," they commented before following after, their pupils and ears expanding to compensate for the lack of light.

After a bit they heard something strange...a grunting sound? Were their crewmates in trouble? They hurried forward, but paused at the entrance to a warm side cavern. Bo had investigated human sexuality, of course...how could they not, serving alongside humans? Part of that research had involved pornography, and it was now obvious what they were hearing.

---

"Fuck, Gerry...you're so deep..."

Gerry thrust into Natalie again and again, sloshing the warm water about them as he nuzzled at her pronounced nipples.

Natalie could feel an orgasm welling up inside her. It had been a while since she'd last had sex, but Gerry had seemed irresistible with his newfound confidence. Nothing like an emergency to rile up someone's sex drive, she mused. "Ohh...ohh, Gerry...ohhhh..." Then she came, an explosion of pleasure radiating from where his cock penetrated her, rolling through her clitoris and up into her nipples as he continued to suck on them. She could feel the hairs on her arms standing up as her body stiffened in orgasm. "O-hhh!"

"Mmm!" Gerry moaned, and Natalie felt him cum inside her, the warm throbbing of his seed making her orgasm ramp back up.

"Fuuuck!" she cried out as she wrapped herself around him, a primitive instinct causing her to pull him as deeply as possible to give his sperm the best chance to impregnate her...not that that would happen, she realized as her orgasm abated. Like every woman on their ship, she used the latest in modern technology to moderate her cycle so that there would be no unintended side effects of their coupling.

She heard movement in the tunnel. "Is someone there?" she called out as Gerry pulled out, making her gasp.

"We have the only source of light," Gerry reminded her, picking up the noticeably dimming luminescent torch. "Looks like I'm going to have to 'recharge' it, but I think it'll take a few minutes before I can do that." He stood up in the water, making sure she knew what he was talking about as his partial chub looked her in the eye.

---

On the way back to the main cavern, Gerry asked Natalie, "More relaxed now?"

"Oh, hell yeah," she responded, and took his arm.

"Do you think Piker might need a good foot rub? She seems way too wound up."

She let go of his arm. "Olive? Um..." Then she thought about it: they had never discussed if they were going to be boyfriend and girlfriend after this...maybe he was just trying to relax her and it was just casual sex? "Well, if you're gonna take your shot at her, mister, you best not miss. She might rip your dick right off." She lightly bopped his arm with her fist.

"Ha, yeah. What do you think about Bo?"

"Bo? For sex?" She snickered.

He turned to her. "What?"

"Gerry, Adaptans aren't hermaphroditic...they don't have sexual organs...at least until they're paired with another Adaptan to have children. Then one turns male while the other goes female, but clearly Bo's never gone through that."

"Oh."

They stepped out of the tunnel to the suspicious narrowed eyes of Piker. "And where have you two been?" she asked, her arms crossed over her toned chest.

"We found a hot spring!" Natalie responded, hopping up and down and making Gerry's eyes boggle.

Piker's face rearranged itself into a configuration Gerry had never seen before: a grin. "Really? Ohmigod, show me!"

Natalie grabbed the luminescent stick from Gerry. It had noticeably dimmed on their way back. "Okay, but first..." She pulled Piker over to the cave entrance.

"I have to WHAT on it?"

Gerry headed over to Bo, who was feeding some crushed-up rations to the comatose Chief Helmuth. "Hey, Bo."

Bo wouldn't look at him. "Hello, Gerry."

"Followed us to the hot spring, huh?"

The alien's face reddened. "I..."

Gerry squeezed their shoulder. "It's okay. How was the sludge?"

"It was...good."

Gerry stood up, inadvertently putting his crotch at Bo's eye level. They blinked at the man's noticeable bulge, barely restrained by his uniform.

"Yeah, I should have some more...I worked up an appetite earlier. Seeya later." Then he headed back into the tunnel.

---

As the sun began to set, Gerry and Natalie stood outside the cave and looked up at the darkening sky. The wormhole was almost closed now.

"Gerry?"

"Yeah?"

"Can we do that again sometime?"

"Anytime you want, Nat." He put his arm around her shoulder and she leaned into him.

---

Gerry opened his eyes to regard his work screen. Now there were 3 pulsing lights, the original red and blue ones, and a new one that was a kind of grayish purple. He experimented with the new light, moving it here and there, before placing three fingers onto it and twisting his grip clockwise. The light began to turn red. He didn't like that, so twisted counterclockwise until it was blue, like the second light. Yes, that seemed right to him.

His back was bothering him so he stood up. He saw Natalie walking down the hallway and waved to her. Though she had been his trainer, she was always personable. He knew from previous misunderstandings with other friendly women that that didn't mean anything, though he wished it did.

His back was still bothering him, as if someone was poking it.

He opened his eyes to find himself laying in his makeshift bed. Someone was poking him in the back. He turned over to find Natalie kneeling there. "Hey, what's up?" he asked quietly.

"I'm on watch but bored...come join me?"

"Oh, sure."

They headed outside. There was a slight cooling breeze but otherwise it was just as warm as during the day. Bo had already claimed victory on their geothermal heat theory, as the floor of the cave was just as warm as the ground outside, not to mention the presence of the hot spring. The Adaptan was already working on ideas to somehow tap into the heat as a possible power source. Gerry was once again impressed by them.

"Hey, where's your head now?" Natalie asked him, her eyes narrowed.

"Sorry, someone woke me up before I had my full rest." He gave her a sardonic grin.

"Jerk."

"You love it."

She turned him toward her and kissed him. His arms quickly hugged her close as they made out. Soon, their clothes were off and she was riding him on the clay-like ground.

"You're gonna have to be quiet, or you'll wake Piker," Gerry chided her. "She'll come out here and then I might have to take my shot to save us."

"Ohh, don't talk about her right now, Gerry," Natalie moaned as she finally got the angle right for his cock to rub along her g-spot. She ground upon him, her own pleasure ramping up.

Gerry gazed up at her in the dim light, amazed. Her beautiful face was screwed up in concentration as she chased her orgasm. As he watched, he saw her features relax and then bloom into a smile as he felt her vagina grip him.

"Yesss..." she moaned, and then she reared up upon him. "OH-HH!"

"Shh..." he pulled her down for a kiss, silencing her orgasmic cry as he felt her insides squeeze his member again and again.

"NH! NH! NH!"

He broke the kiss. "My turn..." he gasped, and shot his load deep inside her.

"Ohhh..." she moaned, her mouth agape as she felt each spurt penetrate her depths. Her orgasm plateaued. Her body shook and she felt like she was flying in space, weightless, without a care in the world. Finally, she collapsed upon him.

"Not that I'm complaining, but now I really need sleep, Nat."

---

Gerry woke in the late morning. Piker was feeding the last of the crushed-up rations to the still-unconscious Chief. Both Natalie and Bo were gone.

Piker stood up and stretched. Gerry admired her toned form, even as it was somewhat hidden by her AstroNaval uniform, but made sure to turn his head as she sighed and relaxed.

"Well, time to eat some sludge, I guess," she commented, and headed into the tunnel.

"Want some company?" he offered.

"No." Then she was gone.

She came back a few minutes later, wiping her mouth. "That stuff is so weird. What do you think it is?"

"Bo thinks it's possibly a fungus," he replied.

"Yeah, but what do YOU think?"

He pursed his lips. "By the way it moves, it's more like a spring, except it's a semi-solid." He saw the look of impatience on her face. "Xenobiology's not my strong suit, sorry."

"Ugh...I'm gonna reconnoiter." Then she headed out.

"Gerry, I am requesting your assistance."

He turned toward the dark tunnel. "Bo?" Their voice sounded different somehow. He saw the alien turn away, beckoning him to follow. "What's up?" he asked as he caught up.

"Please follow me," Bo asked, and moved toward the depths of the tunnel.

"It's dark, Bo...my eyes can't adjust like yours. I should grab the stick..." He felt Bo take his hand.

"I will guide you. Do you trust me, Gerry?"

He felt the warmth of the alien's hand on his. "I...yes."

Bo pulled him after them. "Did you know that my people don't generally look like me?" they asked. "Our natural form is closer to what humans originally thought aliens would look like, spindly, with larger heads. I like humans, and am the first of my kind to live among you. Over the last few years, my physiology has adjusted itself based on my surroundings and...personal preferences. You and I are now more alike than unalike."

Gerry followed, completely blind now that they had moved past the luminous section. He didn't answer, figuring that Bo's question had been rhetorical.

They continued, "My people -- what you call Adaptans -- can adjust their physiology based on need or desire. We're not shapeshifters, but in times of extreme stress our bodies can undergo a kind of metamorphosis to ensure survival."

The air was getting warmer. Then they turned and he was pretty sure that they had entered the cavern with the hot spring.

Bo let go of his hand. "That is the only explanation I have for this."

Gerry heard some movement and then Bo took his hands, pulling his palms up to...breasts.

"Uh..." He reflexively gave those mammaries a squeeze...they were maybe an A cup. But Natalie had said that Adaptans didn't have sexual organs until...

"Mmh..."

"Bo...?"

The alien stood back and Gerry heard them removing the rest of their uniform. "Gerry, I have somehow become female."

Gerry realized that Bo's voice was higher now, less androgynous.

"As you are the only viable male present, I need you to help me, Gerry. Come here."

Gerry moved toward their voice and his hip bumped up against theirs. His hands moved forward to find that Bo had bent over against the wall. His hands moved along their form...a rounded butt and hips, their waist curving inward and then their chest expanding out to those small breasts...their formless body had indeed experienced a total transformation.

"Huhh...Gerry, please fuck me like a two-dollar whore."

Gerry stepped back and unfastened his uniform. "Sure, but do you know what a dollar is?" That method of currency hadn't been used in hundreds of years.

"I do not. Some of the human pornographic archives have confusing idioms."

Gerry was rock hard. He had been fascinated by Bo, but never dreamed that he would be able to do this with them. He moved his hands down between their legs to find a hairless pussy that was extremely wet; no foreplay would be required. He bent a little, lined his cock up, and then pushed inside.

"Ohh!" Bo moaned. "So strange, but it feels good..."

Gerry agreed. Based on Natalie's description, Bo's vagina just hadn't been there before, so they were more virginal than any human could ever be. They were tight, but he was able to make progress due to how wet they were. It seemed that Bo didn't have a hymen, though, which was good. He continued to thrust, and soon was all the way inside. Then he started to thrust.

"Yes...yes...yes..." Bo moaned as he took them from behind.

Gerry stopped thrusting. "So you chose me because I'm 'the only viable male', huh?"

"Please...don't stop...I need it..." Bo started to push back at him, but Gerry held their hips, waiting. "Uhm...I am glad it is you, Gerry, instead of Chief Helmuth."

"Good enough." Gerry reached up and palmed their breasts, using that grip for leverage to thrust into them again.

"Uh! Uh! Uh! Ohh, Gerry..."

After a few more minutes of vigorous sex, Gerry could feel the telltale tingle in his loins. He used one hand to turn Bo's face to kiss them before he grunted and filled their newly-female body with his semen.

"HH! HHM!" Bo gasped into his mouth as they came with him.

Gerry felt Bo's insides grip him, practically sucking his cum out. His pleasure ramped back up, giving him a rare second orgasm as he filled the alien's reproductive system with more of his sperm.

Shaking after his intense release, Gerry carefully pulled out and groped his way to the edge of the hot spring pool.

Bo sat down beside him and caressed his cheek. "Thank you, Gerry. For lack of a better term, I am 'in heat', so will need you to do that often. Once my body realizes that it can't get pregnant because you aren't of my species -- perhaps a month -- my estrus should calm."

Gerry remembered Bo's comment that they were more alike than unalike by this point but didn't mention it. Bo was the smartest person he knew, so surely they would have taken that into account. "So...should I call you 'she' now?"

"No...that doesn't feel right...for now, please keep referring to me as 'they'. Also, don't tell any of the others. I am not ready to reveal my change yet. My uniform is loose enough to hide...these...unless they get bigger."

"Okay."

"Gerry, can we kiss some more?"

"Oh, hell yeah."

---

"Where have you two been?" Piker demanded when Bo and Gerry emerged back into the main cavern. Natalie looked up from where she had been ministering to the Chief.

"Exploring," Bo answered.

"Find anything interesting?"

"Unfortunately, no. We will continue at a later time."

Later, Natalie and Gerry went for a walk outside. She turned to him. "You going to tell me what went on with you and Bo earlier?"

"We were exploring."

She crossed her arms across her chest. "You left the pee stick behind."

"Oh. Bo needed my help with something but I promised not to tell."

"Something that required you not being able to see?"

"Sort of? Sorry, Natalie...I'll ask Bo if they're okay with me telling you."

---

"Well, here we go..." Piker commented before dripping some of the sludge into Chief Helmuth's mouth.

The man's throat reflexively swallowed it down. They repeated the process a few more times.

"I'm thinking that the Chief may never wake up..." Piker began, and then Helmuth sat straight up, the sudden movement causing her to fall back on her ass. "FUCK!"

"Ehr...Piker?" The older man blinked at her.

"Chief! You're okay!" She got back to her knees and looked like she was about to hug him, but instead gripped his shoulders.

"What happened?" he asked.

They took turns explaining: the crash, the power drain, the lifeless surface and the strange sludge that they were now dependent on for their food. The man shook his head. "Well, you've done very well considering, Midshipmen. Thank you for taking such good care of me." He lay back. "Ugh, still very tired..."

"It's probably time for us to get some shut-eye anyway," Piker commented.

"I will take first watch," Bo offered.

---

Gerry opened his eyes to regard his work screen. Five lights danced on his screen, 2 red and 3 blue. He didn't like the look of the new red one. As he had done with the purplish-gray one, he pressed three fingers to it and twisted counter-clockwise, but it stayed firmly red. Frustrated, Gerry pinch-zoomed out on it, causing it to reduce in intensity. Then he did it again and the light winked out.

All that was left was 1 red light and 3 blue ones. Yes, he thought, that looked right.

"Chief!"

Gerry woke to the shout, the memory of his dream shoved aside by adrenaline as he saw Piker pressing repeatedly on the unmoving man's chest. She switched to breathing assistance while Bo took over chest compressions. They worked on the man for almost a half-hour before they had to call it: Chief Warrant Officer Helmuth was dead.

There was no way to dig a grave but they placed the broken ground created by the escape pod's crash around the man's body to make a cairn.

"Using the debris was a good idea, Brill," Piker said softly next to him as they paid their respects.

"It was the least I could do," he replied. Something was bothering him about the chief's death but he couldn't put his finger on it. The man had woken up after eating the sludge, inferring that it had healing properties, but then he had died that very night. Nothing had indicated that the sludge was bad for them...in fact, Gerry felt incredible, better than he had in his entire life. He reached over and put his arm around Piker's shoulder. He felt her reflexively stiffen, but then she relaxed and leaned into him.

---

Bo entrusted Natalie with their secret, with her agreeing to keep it from Piker. She knew Olive would just be a 'stick in the mud', though she couldn't explain the source of that saying to Bo when asked about it.

Natalie ran interference with Piker when Gerry went off with Bo to help them with their new bodily needs. Their estrus tapered off earlier than originally thought, giving Natalie more time with Gerry, though not before they managed to get a threesome going while Piker was off on an extended scouting foray. Gerry felt like a king that day.

Unfortunately, too much of a good thing lent itself to laziness. One day, weeks later, when Gerry and Natalie emerged from the tunnel after having fun in the hot spring cave, Piker was there.

"Are you two fucking?"

"Olive!" Natalie admonished her, "That's none of your business."

"It is if you get pregnant! Or didn't you notice your period start back up? Mine hit soon after the crash, the first time in over a decade since I started on prophylactic nanobots. They lost power just like the medical ones did."

Natalie looked confused. "But I haven't had a period since we got here."

"Oh, fer fuck's sake! That means you're pregnant, Natalie!" She turned to Gerry. "You just couldn't keep it in your pants, Brill?"

Bo strode over. "My estrus was over weeks ago but I did not have a menstrual event either. I think you have impregnated me as well, Gerry."

Piker goggled at Bo. "WHAT?! You...what? Wait...are you female now? I thought something was different about you. What the fuck is going on here?!"

Gerry closed his eyes. Discord, division...this was unacceptable. He opened his eyes. "That's enough, Olive."

Piker turned to him. "That's Midshipman Piker, fucker!"

"Quiet." He concentrated and she closed her mouth, her eyes goggling. "Get on your knees, Olive." She dropped to the floor, as directed.

As one, Gerry, Bo, and Natalie began disrobing. Piker couldn't keep from staring at the alien's now obviously female body...how had she missed that?

"Open that big mouth," Gerry commanded her, and Piker's lips parted to accept his hard manhood. He thrust into her mouth while she was unable to do anything but take it.

After Gerry's member hardened, the two others unfastened Piker's uniform and laid her back on Gerry's bed. "It feels so good, Olive," Natalie told her, "it's like we're all connected through Gerry...connected to God."

Bo added from beside Piker, "I am unconvinced about the presence of an all-powerful deity, but I agree about the pleasure and the feeling of connectedness. You need to relax, Olive. We accept you."

"Nngh!" Piker struggled against her own body, but it knew what it wanted: Gerry's hard cock. He knelt between her athletic thighs and guided his manhood between her somehow very wet pussy lips. With a few thrusts, he was all the way inside her. "Oh God..." she moaned.

"Exactly," Natalie responded.

---

Deep inside the planet, the massive creature exulted. It had lain there a millenia, tended by small, animalistic beings that could survive the heat of its body. They reproduced, their offspring consuming the creature's excretions, and all became part of its biochemical network.

Though it had created several caverns to support life on the surface in preparation for such an eventuality, it had been surprised when Gerry had first joined the sacred connection. It had learned so much from him and, impressed with the man's intelligence, had decided to allow him the latitude to do as he wished with the rest of his group. Gerry's mind was strangely fragmented, but the appetites of his hidden self were strong, and only became stronger as he took each of his crewmates. Now that version of Gerry was in charge...strong, powerful. The creature watched through Gerry's eyes as he dominated the last member of his group, overwhelming her mind as he pleasured her body.

The women would bear his children and the cycle would continue, as it did with its underground attendants. The one called Bo, whose people had relatively fast gestational cycles and multiple children per birth, was already working on utilizing the geothermal heat of the planet to improve their existence. Perhaps they would even be able to figure out how to disable the energy suppression field keeping the creature separated from the rest of the universe.

One day, it mused, Gerry's children would bring the sacred connection to the entire cosmos. It sat, patient and inevitable, and waited.

---

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