The remainder of our dinner was kept to increasingly inane small talk, and with growing durations of awkward silence in between. She helped me clear a...ay the dishes and load up the dishwasher but collectively the evening didn’t seem to be heading anywhere for either of us. I’d always been attracted to her, physically anyway, and she was only a year older than me ... but I was determined to not screw up a good friendship by making what would probably be (from my viewpoint) another unwelcome. "It's alright. Back in my rookie year there was a rumor that the fog would eat away at our suits like acid..." Of course we would have years to learn the truth about the planet before we were sent down there " ... but anyways. We should probably go over this from the beginning."The screens blinked to life, and Jane forced the doubts and reservations down into a hard pit in her stomach, pulling the image of the strict Captain around her like a protective shield."A planetary run consists of two. I had to crush that hope. I had to hurt her all over again. At least maybe I could spare her the big hurt. ***** Finally we separated, pulled back half a step from each other, our hands finding each other and holding on. Elizabeth was looking up at me. I think she expected us to kiss, but I had to resist or I couldn’t go through with it, and that would mean stringing her along. I had to cut the string. The light was on my face now. She could see my face was wet and, thinking of these things. He said,“You will know. Do not worry, darling. This will be only among the three of us. We assure you about that…not that, let us know what the name of our beauty queen is”He made me blush in shyness with his compliment. I shyly said, even though I had fine through enough to lose all my shyness,“Fareeda”“Wow…nice name! You know, our dream is to sleep with a woman of your religion, and surely, today is our lucky day! Well at least we are halfway there, because there are two of us and only one of.