To The Moon And Back Ch 07

I got myself a late breakfast, though it was after lunch time, and I devoured it ravenously, not having realized just how hungry I was. But after that, the rest of the day was peaceful. The guys were all at work, and the captain seemed to have cloistered herself in her office as well, so I just bumped around, did a bit of laundry, and resolved that I would ask permission to set up my equipment and get my research started.

At dinner time, I came to the refectory at the same time as the captain. I asked her, and she gave me permission happily. She said I would need to take one of the guys with me, but I was allowed out to the lunar surface to place my experiments, each of which was self-contained with its temperature regular and battery. It just needed to sit a suitable distance from the base and I would be able to monitor the experiments wirelessly.

I was excited that I was finally going to be able to get started, and super pumped that I was allowed to go out for a moon walk! I hadn't really thought about the logistics, but that's a huge deal and no wonder she required me to have one of the guys come along to make sure I was safe.

When the guys filed in for dinner from the workshop, however, they brought with them a somber mood.

"How did we go with the x-9 today?" the captain asked, hitting "go" on the fully automated galley that would serve up 8 nutritious, if slightly tedious, perfectly adequate hot meals. The captains was a "small" size, the guys all had "large", and I would bravely attempt an "extra small" one as usual, but I often failed to get through it. The meal dispenser had, after all, been designed for a working crew, predominantly of men, and they were literally one and a half to double my body weight. Despite the enormous difference in portion size, the men were always finished long before I finally either succeeded in eating the whole meal, or tapped out early, defeated.

"It's fucked," the exhausted reply came. Dexter Garton wasted no words on embellishment.

"Damn clutching system's a dud," Tiny chimed in. "Ran up fine on the bench, but it's glitching on reverse now that it's installed."

"Gotta strip her all the way back down again. It's gonna be a late night," Shaheed McMahon completed the assessment. He was a nerdy, computer type of guy.

"We need that repair bay tomorrow for the other big driller," the captain said.

"You'll have it. It's just a shit having to do the same job twice. It took half the day, and now we're back at square one," Shaheed explained. "But you'll have the X-9 and you'll have the bay. We won't let this put us behind schedule, cap'n," he continued.

The food was distributed to welcoming smiles from the exhausted crew, and they descended on it with vigor.

"I'll come down and help. At least I can stack the Lego," the captain offered before making a much more civilized start on her own dinner.

"Thanks, cap'n," a grateful Shaheed acknowledged her offer.

She explained afterwards why she offered, when it was a fairly trivial thing to make sure the machine's components were all stacked neatly during the disassembly. The guys had that all under control. They were professionals. But she liked to make a show of support when the crew had to go above and beyond, so she found a way to show up, be involved, and show that she cared, and that she was also missing out on sleep with the whole crew. There wasn't much she could actually do for them, but she could do that. She said she couldn't bear tucking herself into her bed knowing that the guys were laboring away in the workshop, stressed out about getting finished.

All the enormous mining rigs were, incredibly, constructed using components of no larger than what would fit in a 1m cube. They were all assembled using these parts that were shipped from earth in fully automated deliveries for the most part, and parts that were swapped out were repaired Moon-side or, only if absolutely necessary, shipped back to Earth. This system made for an enormous inventory in the warehouses, but ultimately was much more practical than trying to ship massive machines to the Moon and back.

I felt a little left out. "I'll wait up and keep your goodnight kisses warm!" I offered. It was all I could do, since I had no idea what went on in the workshop, and would surely be a pest down there, but when they got back, that was when I could make my contribution to the team effort.

"Ah," Aaron replied on behalf of all the others. "I wouldn't want you doing that, lass. It's gonna be so late, and we'll be cranky and tired. I think we'll have to take a rain check on the good night kisses," he spoke with genuine regret. The other men all muttered assent to his sad appraisal.

I made a slight pout in response, but if I tell the truth, an early night and a break from sex was probably exactly what I needed, and came as a private relief. The day, and especially the captain's costly game, had taken a huge toll.

"Oh, that's a shame," I lamented. "I was looking forward to showing you all these," I stood up and stepped back from the large round table. All eyes were on me. I had dressed in a simple summer frock, cut low enough for my gravitationally enhanced bust to produce a nice cleavage, and it darted into a flattering hourglass shape at the waist. It then fell gracefully around my hips to a short, but not indecent, cheeky and fun length, the fabric being light and airy.

Once I was sure I had their attention, I gave a sheepish, furtive look around as if anyone had made the 400,000km trip just to sneak in at that moment and, not finding any such intruders, lifted the dress high to show off the deeply reddish purple lacy knickers I wore underneath.

The knickers were pretty, don't get me wrong, but they weren't actually anything that Earth-shattering. Not even Moon-shattering. But I wanted to give them a bit of a flirty tease, since they were going to miss out on the main event. I bit my bottom lip and made like I was all self-conscious. I wasn't, of course. These were my guys. I felt safe with them. I even felt adventurous. But I figured they would have more fun if I acted shy.

I spun half way around and, looking over my shoulder as if to see the view myself, pulled the dress aside and up to imperfectly reveal the plunging thong style of the lacy piece as it all but disappeared between my cheeks.

I waited there for a long second, but then dropped my dress and made a show of smoothing it down as though it risked flying back up again as I turned back to face the table. I noticed all the boys had stopped eating, and were rapt. Suddenly, they all happily applauded, cheered, and wolf-whistled.

"Well, I'm sure the men", the captain side-eyed all of them in a sweeping arc. "... are grateful they haven't missed out on your... little show and tell, doctor," she admonished with school teacherly authoritative briskness. "Now, won't you finish your meal while it's still warm?" Her eyebrow was raised in disciplinary emphasis.

"Yes, Ma'am," I demurely obeyed, scurrying back to the table with pursed lips. I looked around to each of the men as though in some mischievous conspiracy with them, bugging my eyes open as though saying something like, "what was THAT about?", in naughty defiance of her authority.

Most of the men suppressed chuckles, hid grins behind a hand, or pursed their own lips to suppress a smile. The captain, herself much better at such duplicitous concealment than any of the men, had a twinkle in her eye but otherwise avoided showing her amusement. She had maintained a veneer of barely plausible deniability of knowledge about my role among the men, and was maintaining the pantomime even now, despite my rather obvious clue. I had arguably pushed things a little far this time, but she allowed it. It was good for morale, after all.

The men were actually a little more upbeat after that, and though resigned to a long night, dispensed with the gloom.

"Hey, what about in the morning," I asked. "What time can I come over? I'm not going to miss out on that as well, am I?"

"We'll be up for 6:30 breakfast like normal, luv, but... you might find we're a bit off our game, you know?" Tiny shrugged.

"Speak for yourself," Aaron retorted. "I'd love to see you in the morning, babe, even if I haven't slept a wink!"

Some good-natured chuckles reverberated among the men, with some brotherly shoving and playful ruffling of hair, the way guys do. Any idea why that's about? Never mind. It's just guy stuff, I suppose. Who can make sense of it?

I was grinning happily to know I'd be welcome in the morning. I was sure Tiny was the more realistic in terms of how much energy they all would have, but if I wore the tiny denim shorts and a tied buffalo plaid flannel shirt, I was sure Daisy Duke would be able to rouse some weary soldiers to attention. In fact, I would bring out the high red pumps to make sure everything popped just right.

After dinner, I stood at the door and kissed each of the men goodnight.

What? I mean it. I just kissed them, ok? Stop that! Anyway... Once they had all filed by, and I had sent each one off happy, the captain stood beside me watching Dex as he bounced happily away in the standard lunar gait. Finally, he disappeared through the door at the end of the corridor, onto the long ramp connecting the base to the workshop. The door, which doubled as an airlock in an emergency, swooped shut.

"If these boys get back on sched tonight, you can have Dex tomorrow afternoon to set your gear up," she said, looking at the airlock door where Dex had just gone.

"I really appreciate it, captain," I was genuinely grateful. "I guess I owe you one," I made every attempt to be as suggestive as possible.

"Hmpf," she responded ambiguously. Then she added, "Those panties you showed off were mighty fine, doc." She was still staring straight ahead.

I looked up at her with a smile, "I'm glad you like them."

"Give them to me," she replied, her voice level, her gaze not turning at all from her staring competition with the airlock door.

I hesitated for a moment, but quickly realized that was silly. I had no reason to resist or hesitate. As awkward and unnatural as it was to be ordered to disrobe like that, it was actually a bit of a thrill. I slid them down and off and, after taking a moment to unhook them from my mid-rise heel which had caught them on the way past, threatening to topple me off balance, I held them out to her.

She took them and stuffed them into her hip pocket.

"That's for being a salacious little showoff," she said, turning to look at me momentarily with a stern mouth but a twinkle in her eye.

"Yes, Ma'am," I happily acknowledged.

With slow deliberation, she turned and lifted up the back of my dress with her left hand. Her right came swinging in with a sharp smack on my naked bottom, which made me squeal.

Ok, it didn't "make" me squeal, but I squealed anyway. Don't judge me.

She slowly lowered the dress again and kissed me lightly on the cheek. On my face, ok? Gosh! Get your mind out of my knickers! She kissed me on my FACE cheek before striding away towards the workshop. I was left admiring the confident, cat-like fluidity of her gorgeous figure, even in the lunar low gravity which generally rendered everyone a comical bouncing teddy bear. Not the captain. She was magnificent.

And after that last thing with the knickers and the smack on my naked bottom? Yeah nah, I wasn't going straight to sleep that night. I started thinking about the toys I had stashed in my cabinet. What a naughty thought, I reflected, as I skipped back towards my quarters, perversely enjoying my lack of underwear even without an audience.