Chapter 15 - On The Road Again

We entered a room lined with black and white space suits hanging on one wall and two other walls filled with the requisite panels and instruments. What really caught my eye, though, was the fact that the whole wall directly in front of us was transparent and I could see out onto the surface of Charon. It looked pretty much like pictures I had seen of our moon, except the mountains were bigger and spikier. Far off in the distance, I could see what looked like a radio tower. It looked awfully tall, even from here, and I thought I better ask Lana if what I was thinking was true.

"Is that the antennae station out there?"

"Yes, that's it. Get into a suit and I will get the rover set up and make sure everything is functioning properly."

I turned toward the nearest suit and started unbuttoning my shirt. I was about to slip it off when Lana looked up from a panel she was studying and said, "What in the hell are you doing now?"

"Getting into the space suit, like you told me."

"You do not have to take your clothes off, Stupid. Just slip into the suit with all your clothes on. Even those gross shit-kicker boots."

I did as she told me, but I knew the truth. She knew if I took my clothes off that she wouldn't be able to control herself and we'd never get this repair done. What we had to accomplish was so important, she had no choice but to delay her needs and desires.

Just as I was slipping my hands into the gloves of the suit, part of the back wall slid open. What came rolling through the opening made me want to jump up and down with glee. It was the coolest looking little dune buggy I had ever seen.

"This is going to be a blast!" I whooped as I ran towards it.

How was I supposed to know the suit was connected to the wall by a long cord that had to be detached before I could go more than five feet? You would think I'd have been used to bouncing off things by now, but once again all I could say was, "Damn, that hurts!" as my head slammed into yet another rock wall.

Lana came over and calmly detached the tether cord from the wall, shaking her head and muttering the whole time. I know those mutterings I heard were terms of endearment, even if I couldn't quite make them out. Now I was free to go check out this new toy my love was giving me.

The rover was a beauty. It had almost as many buttons and levers as the cockpit of the space plane, but it had an accelerator and a steering wheel instead of a stupid stick between my legs. I didn't seem to be having much luck with those lately. I started to jump into the seat as I yelled, "Okay! I'm ready, Let's go!" Lana just gave me that look. The one I had gotten so used to by now and meant she was about to hide her feelings for me again.

"As much as I would like to see you drive that out of here and instantly be killed by the vacuum of space sucking all the oxygen from your body, I still need you to fix the antennae. So, it might be a good idea if you put the helmet on before you blast out of here."

I knew that, of course. I was only checking out the fit of the seat in the rover, but I didn't want to hurt her feelings by telling her so. So, I got out and went over to the wall that the suits had been hanging on and grabbed the nearest helmet, sliding it over my head as I ran back to the rover.

"Hold on a minute, Mario And-idiot. I have to seal your helmet and make sure all the suit seals are secure." I knew this was just another excuse to get close to me without it being obvious, so I let her do what she felt she had to. I stood still and let Lana have her way with me.

She ran her hands all over my body, pretending to check the seals on the suit. Her hands felt so damn good that I would have been more than happy to forget about the rover and the antennae if she would just keep it up. I was just about to take her into my arms and give her what I knew she wanted, when she stepped back and told me to get into the rover and sit down. She said I had to sit so she could lock my helmet without stretching up to reach it. Reluctantly, I did what she said. It was much harder trying to get my body into that little seat with the monster-sized erection I now had. Okay, maybe a little monster.

Then I realized why she wanted to do it this way. While she locked down my helmet and checked everything over, I had a great view of her boobs. They were right at eye level for me, since I was sitting in the rover. I'm sure she knew this. What a nice present to give a man before sending him out onto a desolate moon with no air of its own. My present ended far too quickly for me to have tired of the view when she stepped back and put on a headset that had been sitting on the nearest control panel.
"Can you hear me, Jordan?" came the sound of her tinkling voice, right into my eardrums. I shook my head up and down so she would know I heard her.

"You have to talk so I know if your microphone is working, Numb Nuts."

"I read you loud and clear, Sweetheart," I responded.

This earned me a slap in the back of the helmet. I could tell she liked me more all the time. These love pats were getting more and more regular. "When you get to the antenna, stop and wait for me to tell you what to do," she instructed.

"I will be able to see what you are doing via the camera on your helmet. That way you will not screw anything up while you are out there."

"There she goes trying to talk dirty to me again," I thought.

Lana stepped back and waved me on my way. With a stomp of my right foot, I was off.
Unfortunately, the hangar floor was a little on the slippery side, and the dune buggy had a lot more power than I figured it would have. The rear tires burned for a few seconds, then grabbed hold, launching me forward in the most awesome wheely I had ever experienced. As I flew through the atmosphere force field, I could hear Lana screaming in my ear, "Let off the gas, Leadfoot, before you kill yourself!" Women just don't understand a good time.

I decided I better do what she said, since her screaming right into my headset was pretty annoying. I let up on the gas and regained some control, correcting that rather fierce slide that the buggy seemed to have under hard acceleration. I spent the next few minutes checking out my new set of wheels.

It had a nice aerodynamic shape, which seemed rather strange for use on an airless moon. But, hey, good style is universal when it comes to cruising for chicks. Take this baby over to Salt Plains Lake and it would draw a crowd in a hurry. The rover handled like a dream and I decided to test the steering a bit. You know, just to get the feel of it. For safety's sake, you understand. As I was coming out of the final turn of my third lazy figure eight, the voice was back inside my helmet.

"If you are through playing, we have work to do. Now, head straight for the tower and I will tell you what to do when you get there. Jordan, please remember to brake as you approach the tower. We are here to fix it. Not knock it over."

Man, she didn't have any faith at all. I'm a man, and everyone knows men drive better than women. It was going to take me a few minutes to get to the tower, and since the rover didn't have a radio, I decided to entertain myself with a few tunes. I was on the second chorus of 'Feelings' when a piercing shriek cut through my helmet and my eardrums.

"Shut up!!! Shut up!!! Shut up!!! I can't stand it anymore. Did you forget about the microphone in the helmet?"

I didn't forget, Sweetheart. There's no radio on this thing and I thought you might enjoy a little music."

"Music would not have been bad. Listening to what sounds like a dying calf in a hail storm is cruel and unusual punishment. Jordan, even if the rover had a radio, what radio stations do you think it would pick up? And how would you hear it with your helmet on?"

"Oh. Never thought of that."

I was coming up on the tower, but enjoying talking with my honey, so I kept right on amusing her with my wit. "You know, these would sell really big on Earth I think we could get a lot of money for them. Everyone would - "

"Jordan, look out!!!"

At the same time her scream echoed inside my helmet, I felt the rover come to a sudden stop and my body start a forward flight over the steering wheel. Good thing Lana had strapped me in, or I would have become permanently embedded into the side of the tower. As it was, the strap across my stomach and the steering wheel in my chest were painful enough. And when my helmet impacted with the roll bar, it didn't hurt at all but the camera was kind of in the way. Guess they don't make them like they used to. I was hurting myself way too often on this trip. Right then and there I decided I had to stop letting that woman get to me or I was not going to live through this adventure.

"Are you alright?" Lana asked quietly. "I can't see you anymore."

I barely heard her through the ringing in my ears, but I unstrapped myself from the seat and stepped out of the rover to make sure everything still worked. "Yeah, I'm okay, Lana. It's nice to know you care. Everything still seems to be working; nothing broke that I can tell, except maybe the camera."

"Of course I care, you idiot. I do not have anyone else to send out to fix the damn thing if you kill yourself. But did you have to fry the camera? It would have been so much easier if I could see what was wrong."

"Gee, and I thought you were asking because you actually cared about me."

"Yes, Jordan. You may be a pain in the ass, but I would be upset if something I did caused you to get hurt. Now start climbing the antenna, and hurry. Those nukes are getting closer every minute."