Castaways of Space

James Abraham Carter

The passengers aboard the Stellar Queen, blissfully unaware of the callousness of fate and the proximity of death, were on their way to an important industrial fair on Paylos IV, where the latest spaceship technology would be showcased in gleaming testimony to the power of human ingenuity. The sleek vessel cleaved through hyperspace, elegant and swift and fully automated, a marvel of advanced 24th century engineering. But man, with all his genius, is not God, for nothing wrought by human hands is foolproof. And so it was that sudden doom came upon the hurtling ship. It shuddered violently, frightening in the way that only truly unexpected things can be. Warning lights flared across the instrument panel, a chaotic discord of red and yellow that shattered the illusion of control and further startled the craft’s two occupants. 

James Mason, the ever-stalwart personal assistant to Victoria King, was instantly on his feet, his rugged but not unhandsome face a study in alarm. The 31 year old former Space Marine could feel the ship’s quantum drive fluctuating erratically, its usual hum now a dissonant wail as the malfunction threatened to tear the very fabric of the Stellar Queen apart. Victoria, a beautiful blend of African-american and Middle Eastern ancestry, lounged in her luxurious seat. She glanced at the warning lights with a flicker of concern that quickly morphed into arrogance when she saw the worried look on James’ face. “I can fix it,” she declared, her voice steady and dismissive. “Sit down, James. You’re acting like a frightened child,” she added, her tone laced with disdain.

James clenched his jaw as he reined in the rising tide of anger. Victoria was the CEO of Cosmodyne Industries, the preeminent spacedrive manufacturer, and also a skilled engineer in her own right. But standing where he was, he had a better view of the readouts and could see that the damage was beyond repair; the drive was spiraling into a catastrophic failure that the ship’s AI couldn’t stabilize. Time was a luxury they didn’t have. “We need to evacuate now, Victoria,” he urged, his voice low but insistent.

As the warning sirens blared in confirmation, James made the decision that would alter their fates. There was no time to argue. He seized Victoria by the arms, his strength surprising her. “Come on, we have to go!”

With a mix of determination and panic, he lifted her from her seat and began the wild race to the escape module. Victoria fought against him as he rushed down the gangway, her legs kicking wildly and her voice rising in a flurry of curses as he carried her.

“Put me down, you muscle-bound fool! It’s vital that I arrive at Paylos IV. You’re making a mistake!” She shouted, but her protests were drowned out by the blare of alarms, stridently warning of the ship’s impending doom. As they reached the module, the Stellar Queen began to disintegrate around them, the runaway quantum field distorting the very atoms that composed the vessel.

Air was rushing out of the crumbling hull as James, breathless, his heart racing from a mix of exertion and fear, slammed the module’s hatch closed and punched a button. The lifeboat ejected with a violent lurch, its repellers a brilliant flare of energy as it tore free from the disintegrating mothership. James crashed painfully against a bulkhead, his body turned to protect Victoria as he held her. Outside the viewport, the once-majestic space cruiser exploded in a dazzling burst of blue and white, its quantum core unraveling in a final, devastating blast that bathed the module in actinic light. Debris from the explosion flew wildly. A fragment struck the module’s side. It shuddered slightly as the glare of the blast faded, and the view expanded into the inky blackness of space. Then came the swift plunge toward an unknown world as the two survivors struggled into their safety harnesses.

The module’s repulsion field flared to life, creating a shimmering wall of energy that pushed against the gravity of the planet below. Sparks danced across the module’s heat shield as it fought against the friction of entry. James gritted his teeth, his fingers clenched around the shuddering safety harness of his seat as the lifeboat trembled under the strain. Victoria sat beside him, tense and pale. The gyroscopic stabilizers whined to life, their whirring intermingling with the howling wind outside.

Then came the parachutes. The first split the air with a violent tearing sound, followed by a second as it deployed in perfect synchronization, slowing the module’s wild descent. The small craft’s fall stabilized, the violent shaking easing into a steady drift. An unknown world revealed itself beneath them—a vast, emerald-green jungle stretching toward the horizon, smothering the planet’s only continent, which was surrounded by deep blue seas.

After what seemed like an age-long descent, the module jolted as its parachutes caught on the limbs of a mighty tree and hung there, swaying a good ten feet off the ground. Slowly, the motion settled, and with it, the terror of the sole survivors cocooned within gradually abated. Shortly, the analytical sensors pinged their confirmation that the atmosphere was breathable and free of dangerous pathogens. As the silence settled in, James turned to Victoria, his heart still pounding. She was okay, thank God. They had survived the destruction of the Stellar Queen, but the unknown awaited them now.

James cautiously opened the module’s hatch; the thick, humid air rushed in around him. Behind him, the alien jungle was an impenetrable wall of emerald green, with towering trees whose canopies intertwined in a dense, living ceiling. The air was thick with the scent of damp earth and blooming vegetation, the distant calls of unseen creatures echoing through the undergrowth. In front of him was a sandy beach, the azure sea lapping at its shore. James dropped to the ground and then helped Victoria descend, catching her and easing her down with his strong arms. Her face was still pale with the remnants of fear, but her posture remained rigid, her jaw set in simmering displeasure.

But before she could exercise her caustic tongue, the whoosh of flames made both turn. James swore. Tongues of crimson fire were leaping from the module’s open hatch. He remembered the pod vibrating under the impact of debris hurled by the explosion. He grabbed Victoria, flung the startled woman across his shoulder, and ran like the devil was on his heels. James dropped to the sand, covering Victoria with his body. No sooner had he done so than a terrific series of detonations shattered the silence as the damaged power cells exploded. Debris rained down around them in a smoking patter. The noise of the explosions faded, and quiet meekly crept back in. James rolled off Victoria, and she sat up, disheveled but unharmed.

“Brilliant,” she said with cold sarcasm, her voice sharp as a blade as she looked at the shattered module and the primitive wilderness bereft of all civilized comforts. “If I had been allowed to attempt repairs on the Stellar Queen, we wouldn’t be stranded. This is your fault.” She turned to face him, her dark eyes burning with accusation. “You were afraid. You panicked, and now we’re stuck on this barbaric ball of mud for God only knows how long.”

James exhaled slowly, resisting the urge to snap back. He had spent a decade in the Space Marines, had seen far worse than this—deaths that had haunted him for life. Yet he had no desire to rile her further. “We’re not in immediate danger,” he said instead, concentrating on the positives. “This Earth-like world can support human life.” He turned his gaze back to the jungle. “Water, food, shelter—those are what we need to focus on.”

Victoria scoffed, her voice tinged with growing alarm. “How can we survive? The ship has gone. The module is ruined along with its survival kit. You act as if this planet is a grocery store.”

“I served in the military on worlds like this,” he said, attempting to reassure her. “I lived in the wild when I had to. I can find shelter; I can find food.”

Her expression firmed. “All right, James. I’ll take your advice. But remember, you are not my superior. If you expect me to blindly follow your orders like a private in the military, you will be sorely disappointed.”

James clenched his fists. The woman was difficult and infuriating, but he had no desire to humiliate her or prove her wrong; his only motive was to keep them alive. As the steamy jungle air swirled around them, he knew they had to set aside their differences—if they wanted to survive.

“You are the uncontested master of the boardroom,” he forced himself to reply calmly. “But your corporate and engineering skills are of no use in this situation. This isn’t about taking command and ordering you around, Victoria. It’s about staying alive.”

His words struck home, but Victoria, rather than acknowledging that he was right, turned on her heel, sulkily kicked off her shoes, and walked away angrily, heading down the beach. James watched her go. He had been working for her for a little over a year. She had a brilliant mind but also serious flaws in her character. Chronologically, Victoria was 50, but physiologically she was half her age and looked it, thanks to the expensive cellular rejuvenation treatments that only the very wealthy could afford. Arrogant, overconfident, and privileged, she looked down on those who didn’t occupy her exalted position in the social hierarchy.

The industrial fair on Paylos IV had been very important to her, with the potential for lucrative business deals on the sidelines worth millions of credits. Her driving ambition to succeed had blinded her to the extent of the danger, overriding common sense. He suspected she now realized this but was too proud to admit that she had been terribly wrong, and so she was doubling down defensively, attempting to aggressively project strength to bolster her ego in a frightening situation she was ill-equipped to face.

James turned away from Victoria’s simmering departure and took in the surroundings with a professional eye. The jungle was dense, teeming with life, but also hidden dangers. If they stayed on the shoreline, they would be exposed and vulnerable. He pushed aside his worries about Victoria and followed the treeline along the beach in the opposite direction. Leave her alone, and she’ll eventually come to her senses, he thought hopefully.

The humid air pressed against his skin, thick with the scent of the sea and greenery. The sound of the surf hissed in his ears. He moved with the ease of a man who had spent years living in hostile environments. The beach curved around the base of a weathered cliff face, and his keen gaze was drawn to a cave nestled high among the rocks. A small waterfall tumbled near its entrance, feeding a shallow pool on a ledge below; the overflow then cascaded onto the sand. It was a perfect refuge.

James smiled with satisfaction. The cave would provide shelter, and the cataract a source of clean water. Also, there were flint deposits in the cliff that would provide the material from which he could fashion stone tools. James could already picture the fire pit he’d construct and the barrier of sharpened stakes he could make to ward off dangerous creatures. The cave was an asset to their survival.

As he was about to ascend a rough trail to explore the hollow, Victoria’s scream shattered the stillness. He turned sharply, his heart leaping into his throat. A monstrous alien creature had emerged from the surf, its reddish, spiky, chitinous hide glinting in the bright sunlight. Multiple insectile legs supported its globular body, with evolution modifying two into clawed arms. Victoria was frantically running from it, her clothes torn where the creature had grabbed her, the cloth ripping when she jerked free of its vice-like hold. Its pincers snapped sinisterly as it pursued the terrified woman. It was no ordinary example of local wildlife—it was an apex predator, and Victoria was its quarry.

James grabbed a thick piece of driftwood from the sand and charged, instincts honed by years in the Space Marines taking over. The cave had just become the only place they had left—now he had to make sure they reached it safely.

Victoria stumbled and fell. The thing, sensing victory, rushed at her. James, sprinting madly, vaulted over her prone form. He met the charging horror head-on and slammed his makeshift club against its lunging claw, battering it aside. James dodged another darting limb and struck a savage blow that pounded the man-tall monster’s domed carapace. The fight descended into a wild dance - the monster lunging, the desperate man leaping aside with the agility of a tiger. A final, terrific blow sent the creature staggering. It turned drunkenly and stumbled into the sea, vanishing beneath the waves in defeat.

The battle with the amphibious creature had left James panting, his hands white-knuckled, still gripping the heavy length of driftwood. Victoria crouched behind him, her breath coming in shallow gasps, her usual composure shattered. Once the beast had retreated into the sea, vanishing beneath the waves like some primordial nightmare, she slumped to the sand, her hands shaking. James looked anxiously around. No further danger presented itself to his steady gaze, and so he moved to help her stand. In silence, he led the quiet, unresisting woman to safety.

**********

The cave was cool and dry, a small sanctuary carved by Nature into the cliff face. Outside, the night wind whispered through the alien trees, the jungle alive with the sounds of nocturnal creatures. Three moons illuminated the primordial scene with their pellucid radiance. Inside, behind a line of defensive stakes at the cave mouth, which James had sharpened with the flint hand axe he had knapped, the former Space Marine had built a modest fire, its flickering glow barely touching the walls of the cavernous shelter. The evening meal was over. The nuts and berries he had found proved safe to eat. He set the uneaten portions aside for tomorrow’s breakfast, then turned his head toward Victoria. “It’s going to be cold tonight,” he said. “We’re not wasting wood maintaining a large fire.”

She stiffened, realizing the implication. “That means we’ll be sharing body heat,” she said, as if it were an irksome thing.

“This is survival, not seduction,” James replied, trying to keep the edge from his tone. “It’s about staying warm. It’s not about anything else.”

She glared at James, the firelight revealing a flicker of uncertainty in her expression. “Don’t flatter yourself,” she muttered before moving several feet away from him.

James exhaled, relaxing his tense limbs. He wasn’t here to play games. The jungle was hostile, the night was cold, and they both knew it. As the temperature dropped and the embers of the fire waned, he found himself increasingly thinking about the warmth her curvaceous body radiated. When she finally relented and came to him, lying beside him on the soft bed of fern-like leaves he had gathered—her arms instinctively wrapped around him. However, it was not out of affection but out of necessity. And that difference, to James, felt like a chasm.

James remained unsettled as the night deepened, his hands curled around his knees as he stared into the dying embers of the fire. Victoria’s body pressed against his, the warmth of her presence almost intimate, but not in a way he wanted it to be. She was simply reacting to survival, and he had no expectations beyond that. Despite all her faults, he had fallen in love with her and knew how true the old saying was that even the wise could be made foolish by desire. Still, the way she had come to him—reluctantly, with a huff and a muttered curse—lingered in his mind, a silent admission of defeat. He drifted off to sleep, nursing his frail dreams.

**********

Morning came. A shaft of sunlight penetrated the cave’s mouth, and the beam levered open his eyes. Victoria lay next to him, still asleep. During the night, her clothes, already torn by the monster, had frayed further when she moved in her sleep, exposing her large, firm breasts to his gaze. She came awake suddenly, as if his longing eyes had in some way conveyed his emotions to a feminine sixth sense. Their gazes met, and a current of raw sexuality, like a leaping spark, passed between them.

Victoria gasped in shock. She covered her full, firm breasts with her hands, which only served to accentuate her feminine attributes as she scrambled to her feet and hurriedly backed away from him.

At the moment she was too flustered to be angery, and the feeling she’d experienced made her hotly blush. She stood at the cave’s entrance, her body framed by the light of the rising sun. For a moment, silence. But then she spoke, her voice tight, brittle.

“I need to bathe,” she said. “There’s a waterfall.”

James looked at her as he half stood, half crouched on the bed of leaves. “Let me come with you,” he said without thinking. “This world is dangerous.”

She turned to face him fully, her eyes blazing. “Haven’t you seen enough of me?”

The accusation hit him like a slap. “You think I’d try something like that?” he snapped, his voice lower but edged with real fury.

“You’ve been waiting for the perfect moment,” she hissed. “You’ve been making excuses—helping me, protecting me. But it’s always been about seduction, James. I’m not some naive virgin. My despicable ex used the same low tactics.”

He clenched his jaw. “We’re alone on this alien world. Just the two of us. No police, no prisons. If I was the brute you think I am then I’d have raped you by now. I’m not your ex. But if you don’t believe that I’m a decent person, then believe this: I’m not interested in your fat arse.”

That did it. Victoria’s eyes widened, then darkened into something volatile. Without a word, she turned and stormed from the cave, her bare feet thumping angrily on the hard rock as she slipped between the line of stakes. James exhaled and unclenched his fists, guilt gnawing at him. Her figure was shapely, not fat. He shouldn’t have insulted her in such a cruel way.

But he barely had time to process his guilt before a bloodcurdling scream split the air. His heart lurched. That was Victoria. Without a second thought, he grabbed his driftwood club and bolted from the cave, his boots pounding against the rocks. He surged out onto the ledge in front of the hollow and raced to the waterfall’s pool at its end. But Victoria wasn’t there. Only a pile of discarded clothes remained. Frantically, he called her name as he looked wildly around. At the jungle’s fringes by the beach, he saw a flash of movement followed by a piercing cry of utter terror—an ape-like humanoid was carrying Victoria, the screaming naked woman slung over one massive, hairy shoulder, her long legs kicking wildly.

James's eyes blazed with fury. Ignoring the danger of a fatal fall, he sprinted down the narrow path leading to the beach with breakneck speed, then raced across the sand and plunged into the savage jungle. Leaping over gnarled roots and dodging thorny undergrowth, he pursued the creature, his breath coming in ragged gasps. The hairy brute moved with surprising speed and agility. Despite James’ frantic efforts, it outpaced him and vanished into the dense undergrowth. He followed, relentlessly tracking its path using all the wilderness skills he possessed, noting the disturbance in the undergrowth and the distant, fading screams of Victoria.

His instincts warned him that time was of the essence. James pushed forward through the thickening jungle until he found the village. A half-dozen crude huts encircled a central clearing. At the center of it all, Victoria was bound naked to a stake, struggling furiously as the alien savages circled her in a wild, frenzied dance, their voices raised in an eerie rhythmic chant.

James’s jaw clenched. The hairy brutes were working themselves into a manic state in preparation for something horrid. Then it happened - one wild savage rushed forward, flint knife raised to hack Victoria’s breasts away in a frenzy of brutal violence and raw cannibalism. There was no time for strategy—only action. James surged forward, club in hand, and struck Victoria’s attacker with a devastating blow. A second howling savage leapt at him, but didn’t stand a chance. Chaos erupted as the tribesmen recoiled, their chants turning into screams of terror. Within seconds, three more apish brutes fell beneath his vicious onslaught. The rest fled into the jungle, wild fear a hot spur to their hairy hides as they ran, never to return, for they thought that what they faced was a strange and fearsome demon; such was the hellish violence of his ferocious attack.

With his pulse still pounding in his ears and exhaustion heavy upon him, James stumbled to Victoria and cut through the ropes binding her ankles and wrists with one of the savages' discarded flint knives. As she slumped into his arms, a single, raw word escaped her lips—his name. “James.” Then she fainted from the stress of her horrendous ordeal.

**********

Victoria regained consciousness in the cave. Her eyes opened, disoriented and full of panic. James was kneeling beside her on the bed of ferns. Her eyes focused on him, on his comforting familiarity. Victoria sat up, the shirt he’d draped over her nudity sliding off. She flung her arms around him. Her fingers trembled against his shoulders, her breath coming in uneven gasps. She looked up at him, a shaft of sunlight piercing the cave entrance and illuminating her dusky, beautiful face like a halo. For a moment, words failed her—perhaps because she had been so close to death, or perhaps because the fire she had tried to extinguish for so long was finally blazing out of control. She had spent months pretending she didn’t care for him, convincing herself that love was a distraction and a weakness, and that he was beneath her. But now that the accident had stripped everything else away - class, wealth, priviledge - all she could think about was how he had risked his life many times over to save her.

“I don’t know how to say it,” she whispered, her voice raw, uncertain. “I think… I think I’ve loved you for a long time. I’m so sorry I treated you so terribly. It was my misguided attempt to deny my desires.”

A wonderful feeling infused James like a warm glow. He had known in the quiet corners of his mind that she felt something for him. Even when she had treated him like a low-born peasant who was never good enough to serve her exalted state, he had loved her, returning her hidden emotions. And now, as she looked at him with that vulnerable, honest gaze, he let the truth slip free.

“I’ve loved you too,” he confessed, his voice thick with emotion, “for far longer than I’ve ever let myself admit. I, too, have said unkind things for which I’m very sorry.”

Victoria reached up, her fingers brushing against his cheek. A single tear slipped down her face, but it was not from fear or pain. It was something quieter, something deeper. A moment of release, of surrender.

And then, unconcerned by her complete nudity, she kissed him—fiercely, passionately, with the kind of death-defying, desperate hope that only comes in the face of the unknown. The alien jungle whispered around them as they embraced, their desire leaping like the flames of a bonfire. And outside, mirroring the rising heat in the cave, the alien sun shone upon this undiscovered world as two souls finally found the beginning of something far more real than the studied artificialities of what passed for so-called civilization.

The End