Gloriana

A Pilot Joins a Very Special Twelve Mile High Club. What happens at 65,000 feet can’t stay at 65,000 feet. But will– or can– test pilot Colonel Harold Hammen ever tell what actually happened when he met Gloriana.

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The XF-139 was a very special type of plane, but then Colonel Harold H. Hammen was a very special type of test pilot. The plane was an SRA, a “Slingshot Response Aircraft” capable of responding anywhere in the world in just minutes when carried aloft by a special UTV, an “Ultrasonic Transport Vehicle.” The docked pair could be kept anywhere in the world and respond instantly to anywhere in the world when a situation arose. Both the two-pilot transport and the single pilot response aircraft would need mid-air refueling and perhaps mid-air towing to return to base, but the incredibly short initial response time meant that there was nowhere in the world that US air power could not appear in the sky within minutes of an incident. Or, at least that was the design theory that Colonel “HH” Hammen was trying to prove out in this test flight.

Twelve minutes ago, the docked pair screamed off a runway from a secret base in the British Isles; one minutes ago, they separated high over the skies of Montana; and one minute from now, the SRA would make a strafing run and fire two test missiles at simulated targets off the coast of the state of Washington, just as it had successfully done in four previous tests.

So far, the SRA/UTV combination had proven successful in every anticipated battle and weather condition from Arctic to desert to jungle. This was the final test before moving on to the next level of prototype. But test number five would not be as successful because HH Hammen was about to encounter some very un-anticipated weather conditions. He was at 47,000 feet and dark thunderheads loomed in front of him.

“Climbing to 50 to avoid weathertops,” he calmly radioed as he pulled back on his controls. But when he reached 50,000 feet, the storm clouds were still above him.

“Initiating weather avoidance,” he reported as he began a climbing turn. He was not expecting a response from ground control, but even if he had expected it, there would have been none because the violent electrical activity of the storm was blotting out all communications.

Ground control had been screaming at him to abort since shortly after separation. “Mother of God,” one of the weather trackers had yelled. “Those are over 60,000 feet. Get him out of there.” The command to abort was immediately given, but HH never received it.

As Colonel Hammen continued his turn, he realized that not only were the thunderheads above him, they also encircled him. The storm had closed in around him. He was in the eye, a large clearing in the very center of a record-breaking violent storm. He was fairly sure that he could fly through the storm, but he would be tossed around quite a bit, and he was flying over mountains. Thunderstorms sometimes had extreme updrafts and downdrafts and a downdraft over mountains could easily mean trying to fly through granite.

His only safe option, and the suggested procedure in this situation, was to “top the storm” and fly over it. He put the SRA into a steep climb and tightened his circle. The climb became steeper and the circle tighter as the clouds continued to close in rapidly around him. As he passed through 65,000 feet he saw it. It was something few people have ever seen, even in photographs– a hail outflow. And this one was gigantic.

Hail is created when rain is repeatedly carried to high altitudes by the violent updraft/downdraft combinations within thunderstorms. The rain freezes at the high altitudes, and when the ice particles get big enough they drop out of the storm, or they are thrown clear at the top of the updraft and fall to the ground below.

Hail outflow at the top of a storm is somewhat like a waterfall, except it is pieces of ice. The more violent the storm and the higher the top of the updraft, the larger the pieces of hail. This was an extremely violent storm system and the tops were at near-record heights. The hailstones in the outflow were the size of baseballs– or larger– and there was no way that the SRA could avoid them.

Only a seasoned test pilot could calmly announce, “Catastrophic failure of both engines” as the two GE turbines ingested the huge ice particles and exploded, effectively shredding his wings. In an equally calm voice he added, “Structural failure to pilot compartment” as the canopy shattered around him. From that point on he acted instinctively, grabbing and pulling the ejection handle located between his legs.

His last conscious thought was, ‘This wasn’t the record I was intending to try for.’ No one had ever successfully ejected at this altitude with a standard ejection system.

Ground control watched silently as the debris field flashed brightly on their tracking screens. One of the officers in command softly said “Damn,” before asking “Do we have a tracking beacon?” His question was answered with silence from the ashen-faced support crew.

***

Colonel HH Hammen woke slowly and looked around him. He was in a bed of some sort, naked and covered with a warm sheet and blanket. ‘Intensive care of some sort,’ he thought to himself. Then he added aloud, “I’ll be damned. I actually survived.”

“That you did... for now,” answered a soft feminine voice. “But I am probably in a lot of trouble.”

HH looked over toward the source of the voice and suddenly the calm voice of an experienced test pilot was gone, to be replaced by a loud exclamation, “Who in the hell are you?!” That was followed by an equally loud “And just where in the hell am I!?”

The woman– if you could call her that– stepped over to the foot of the bed. “I am Commander Gloriana,” she said firmly. “And you are on my ship.”

Commander Gloriana was a little over two meters tall and very thin. She had very small breasts and almost no hair on her body. HH could tell that because she was totally naked. He could also tell that her skin was a grayish-green except on the palms of her hands where it was a much lighter green and the area around her crotch which was a greenish pink.

“Am I hallucinating?” asked the Colonel.

Gloriana laughed and answered, “If you were, your hallucination would tell it that it was real. But I am not an hallucination. I am a forward scout from... well, you wouldn’t understand that anyway. We have been studying your planet for many years. I was supposed to observe the tests of your latest war machines to evaluate if you were yet a threat to other planets.”

“You’re a spy,” HH said abruptly.

“Yes, I am,” she answered with a smile, “but we mean no harm to you or your people or your planet. We are only supposed to watch events unfold and report back. We are absolutely not allowed to interfere in any way. That is why I am probably in deep trouble. When your planet reaches a higher level of development– if it does not destroy itself first– we will make official contact.”

“So why did you transport me here when my plane disintegrated?”

She answered with a laugh, “Oh, I wish we could do that. It would eliminate long, boring missions on tiny ships like this one. Physical teleporting or bodily transmission is still beyond even us. But we can transmit or receive a life essence over short distances. Your physical body is trapped in a vertical wind cycle in a severe thunderstorm. It will be some time before it reaches the ground.”

Her laugh deepened and she said, “In the meantime, it has been a very, very lonely tour of duty.”

“Is that why you’re naked?” HH asked.

“No,” she replied, “that is why I am horny. I am naked because lint from fabric tends to clog air systems in small ships like this one and plastic or artificial leather tends to chafe after a while.”

She smiled and continued, “Besides there is usually no one here but me.”

HH still looked confused and asked, “Then why this bedroom? And aren’t these fabric sheets? Isn’t that a waste of space in a small ship? And wouldn’t the fabric clog your air system?”

The green woman looked slightly embarrassed. “Spoken like a true test pilot,” she said. “And yes a bedroom like this would be a waste of space and the sheets would clog my air system... if any of this were real.”

“What!” exclaimed HH. “Then this is all an hallucination.”

“No,” she countered. “It is real... sort of. It just is not substantial. This is all within my mental recreation area. It is all computer-generated... but it is real!”

She reached out and stroked his arm. “You can feel that, can you not?” she asked.

“Yes,” he answered.

She took his hand and put it on her breast. “And you can feel that can you not?”

“Yes,” he answered once again.

“So can I,” she sighed.

Her shoulders slumped slightly and she said, “I guess I should be totally honest with you. There is almost zero probability that you can survive the destruction of your aircraft. You were not significantly injured when you ejected, but your ejection system– I think you call it a parachute– is trapped in the storm vortex. Your air supply is running out and it is below the temperature where your species can sustain life.”

“Then I’m dead.”

“Not yet,” she added with a partial smile, “or you would not still be here. You are still alive, and because you are still alive, I was able to draw your life essence into my mental recreation area. I used to have some very enjoyable programs that I could enter in this area, but just before my departure, some up-tight asshole censored all my sexual relief programs.”

She looked HH in the eyes and continued, “I figured that since you were dying anyway, I could give you some final moments of pleasure... and I could record things for interaction later. We both benefit.”

She raised her dark green eyebrows, “Besides, it would give you a chance to test out sex with an alien life form.” She smiled again, “Test pilots have died testing out much less.”

“I guess it’s better than enduring the pain of freezing to death at high altitude.” HH replied and again reached out to touch her breast.

Gloriana climbed into the bed with him and lay on top of him. She pressed her mouth against his and he returned her kiss. He tentatively slid his tongue to the edge of his lips and she parted hers to allow him entrance. ‘This is like being a teenager again,’ he thought. ‘I wonder if they call this French kissing on their planet.’

There was an urgency for both Gloriana and HH, and yet at the same time they moved slowly to explore each other’s body. She was surprised to find that the foreskin of his penis had been surgically removed. He was surprised that her breasts swelled considerably as they rubbed against his body.

“What is your customary position for intercourse?” she asked breathlessly. “For us it is male on top with woman facing him or turned away from him.”

“Let’s start with old-fashioned face-to-face,’ he replied between gasps as she slowly stroked his penis.

She rolled over onto her back and HH pulled himself on top of her between her legs. “Are you sure this will work?” he asked, immediately feeling stupid for asking the question.

“According to the internet ads, dildos on your planet are the same size as on ours, so it should work, but we will be the first to actually try.”

He pushed forward slowly and Gloriana reached down to center his member on her opening. ‘She smells slightly different,’ HH thought. ‘But then, I probably smell different to her.’

He started thrusting slowly but soon she was frantically thrusting up to meet him. Her moans as they approached orgasm were not unlike an earth woman’s, but there was a higher-pitched almost whistle that accompanied her groans and got louder and louder as she approached release.

Suddenly she wrapped her legs around the back of his legs and pulled him tightly into herself. She screamed as he spurted inside her, and continued to thrust up against him for a few more moments until she shuddered and fell silent.

A little while later she gave a soft, “Mmmmmm,” and said, “I needed that.”

They lay there on the bed together until HH said, “I think I’m crushing you,” and slid over to lie alongside her.

After several minutes of silence, Gloriana asked, “Do males on your planet ever use the other openings?”

“Other openings?” he asked, obviously bewildered.

“On our planet, some females like to use their mouths to bring a male to climax. And some males like to insert their penises in the waste opening.”

“Oh,” he replied with a huff of laughter. “You mean oral and anal. Yes, those are popular on our planet. If you do all three in one night it is called ‘going around the world’ because regular sex is usually referred to as English, anal as Greek, and oral as French.”

Gloriana raised herself up onto HH’s chest and asked with a sly grin, “Want to go around the galaxy?”

She then turned and lowered her mouth onto his penis, which had started to come back to attention. After licking and sucking for a few minutes, she turned even further and straddled HH’s face. Her smell was slightly different than an earth woman’s but it was definitely a female in a high state of sexual arousal. Her clit was engorged and a bright red. Against her green skin, it looked almost like a holly berry on a Christmas wreath.

HH raised his head slightly and tentatively gave that bright red nub a flick of his tongue. Gloriana responded by sucking harder and moving faster on his prick. ‘Must be what she wants,’ he thought and began licking and sucking at the bright red female fruit.

Soon he could once again hear that shrill whistling sound as her movements got more and more frantic. He felt himself arching upward and spurting into her mouth. A moment later she crushed her cunt against his face as something sweet smelling spurted from her bright red clit.

Again they lay together for a few moments. This time it was Gloriana who broke the silence with “I think I am smothering you,” and she moved back to once again lie alongside of him.

Gloriana laughed, and HH asked, “What’s funny?”

“I was just thinking about how I could possibly include in my reports the fact that intercourse is possible between our two races.” she replied.

“Or the fact that our sexual odors are different,” he added.

“What do I smell like?” she asked. It was apparent that she was worried that he had found something to be unpleasant.

“You have a slightly sweeter smell than a human female,” he replied.

“And you taste slightly more sour than males I have... Frenched.” she said. “But I have no idea how to include that in my scouting reports either.”

HH suddenly became very serious. “I must still be trapped in the storm vortex,” he said gravely.

“Why do you say that?” she asked.

“Because I am apparently still alive,” he answered. “When that storm finally spits me out, my chute will be covered in ice. It will probably collapse and drop me a couple thousand feet to the ground.”

“There is still time to complete our trip around the galaxy,” she replied. There was more than a touch of sadness to her voice.

“Don’t turn this into a pity fuck,” he said flatly. “Does this mental mind fuck machine of yours supply lubricant?”

“Of course,” she answered. “That part of my old programs evidently wasn’t considered inappropriate, though what they thought I would need lubricant for if all my sexual machines were deleted is beyond me.”

A small tube appeared on the bed next to them. Gloriana squirted a small amount of it onto her hand and began applying it to HH’s prick. It stiffened rapidly under her touch.

“Now you get me ready,” she said and handed the tube to him as she turned to present her ass.

“The moon really is made of green cheese,” he said with a laugh.

She looked back at him over her shoulder with a look of total confusion. “Your anus is dark green,” he said. “There’s an old children’s fable on earth that says that the moon is made of green cheese.”

She still looked bewildered. “If you bend over and show someone your ass– especially the dark ring around your anus– that is called ‘mooning’ them,” he explained. Then he added, “Your moon is dark green.”

“Earth people are weird,” she replied.

“So says the girl from wherever who pulled me into her spaceship to have sex with me before I died.”

“I guess we have a lot in common,” she said. “We are both weird. Maybe someday we can actually meet, planet-to-planet.”

“If we don’t destroy ourselves first,” he answered and slid one lubricated finger into her ass.

She took a deep breath and then sighed, “That feels good.”

HH worked the one finger in and out until he felt resistance fading, then he added a second finger. Again Gloriana gasped and then sighed. She did the same when he added a third finger.

“I think you’re ready,” HH said softly as he centered himself behind her. He reached under her and began to fondle her breasts as he pressed lightly against her nether opening. He tweaked her nipples and she pressed back sharply against him, driving him into her slightly.

He continued to rub her breasts as he slowly pushed the rest of the way in. Then, after pausing to let her become accustomed to his size, he began moving in and out. She was amazingly tight, but at the same time he had no real problem pumping into her. She was responding by ramming her ass back against his prick.

HH was afraid that Gloriana wasn’t really enjoying this because she was mostly silent, but just as he reached his limit and began to spurt into her, she suddenly screamed out and clenched her anus tightly around his shaft. She then pulled her arms under herself and massaged her clit a few times before throwing herself flat onto the bed and pulling HH down with her.

“Oh, I will miss you, Colonel Hammen,” she said throatily as he lay on top of her. “Try to remember me,” she added. Then suddenly everything was cold and dark and full of pain.

***

Colonel HH Hammen woke slowly and looked around him. He was in a bed of some sort, naked and covered with a warm sheet and blanket. ‘Intensive care of some sort,’ he thought to himself. Then he added aloud, “I’ll be damned. I actually survived.”

“That you did... that you did,” answered a gruff voice that he recognized as General Morris. “But how you did is a mystery to everyone. You were in that damn cloud for over two and a half hours. You were damned near frozen solid. The doctors say that the cold triggered the drowning reflex or whatever they call it and you went into something like hibernation.”

A second voice that HH recognized only as one of the ground controllers added, “Even then, you would have been a dead man because your chute wouldn’t have functioned when you came out of the storm, but for some reason you were still in your seat with the seat chute deployed. When the storm finally spit you out at 43,000 feet, the seat chute collapsed, but it detached like it was supposed to and your main chute deployed.”

General Morris continued, “One of those crazy storm chasers saw you coming down out of the sky and put it on live television. We had a medi-vac chopper there by the time you actually landed. You’ve been in a special ICU thawing out for the last two weeks. They just stopped the medically-induced coma.”

A doctor stepped over into HH’s view at the side of the bed. “They recovered the telemetry from your ejection seat,” he said solemnly. “Your body did something absolutely unheard of. Somehow it brought itself out of the deep hypothermia for a few seconds on three different occasions. Just before each occurrence you were right on the edge of death. If it hadn’t happened, you wouldn’t have survived. But we can’t explain what triggered it.”

‘I can,’ thought Colonel Hammen, ‘but I’m not going to.’

“What’s so funny?” asked General Morris.

“I’m just remembering some strange dreams I had on the way down,” he answered. “It’s funny what your mind does when you are dying.”

“For now, you need to concentrate on building yourself back up,” said the General. “There are a bunch of TV news shows that want an interview. We’ll work out what you can say and what you can’t. The news media knows you were testing a new fighter plane, but nothing about the slingshot program can go public at this time.”

“And you have a huge pile of get well cards,” said a female voice. HH turned to see a nurse holding a large pile of envelopes. “Hospital procedure in circumstances like this is that all cards are opened to insure that there is nothing improper or harmful to the patient.”

She held up one of the envelopes and said, “There is one card that I’m not sure was intended for you. There’s no return address, but it has your name on the envelope and again on the inside.”

She shrugged her shoulders and handed him the envelope. “ It’s not really a get well card. I’m not sure what it is.”

Inside the white envelope was a green card. On the front of the card was a rural scene of some sort with a full moon shining in a dark green sky over what appeared to be the silhouette of a house and barn. The moon was obviously a wheel of green cheese. Inside was a message written in green ink. It said simply, “Until we meet again, Colonel Hammen.” At the bottom of the card it was signed, “Gloriana.”

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END OF STORY
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19.11.14