She buried her husband on Boris Yeltsin's birthday, in the year of his lord, 2100. Every day was somebodies birthday, and while Jasmin hadn't an iota who Yeltsin was, she could appreciate his powerful, sustaining moniker. So, along with a crew of one, second captain Bill Green, Jasmin wrapped Alex in a space sheet, tied loosely but tied all the same, and jettisoned him gently toward the sun. They watched from the cramped cafeteria on a standard digipost wall board. The camera zoomed in and as the sun grew larger, the shrouded body dimmed in resolution, finally disappearing from view altogether. Jasmin and Bill sat close on the couch watching, their thighs touching, separated only by thermaline morning wraps, wondering how close Alex would get to the flaming ball at the center of Earth's system. But if, or when, it happened, they could never know. She only knew that as Earth's premiere big-burning-orb scientist, Alex would be happy knowing he was vaporized by father Sol's long reach.
This had been Alex's seventh tour in close orbit to the sun, all previous tours with an odd assortment of personnel. Alex had been classified as Captain always, though the duties of piloting and controlling the ship always fell to second captain. Bill Green was on his third tour with Alex, and there had always been a female scientist along too. Alex finally brought his wife along, Jasmin, though she had little knowledge in the workings of Sol. She was touched he wanted her close, Alex called her his goddess. Green had called her the seventh goddess, and he winked.
The sun burned hugely on the screen, orange and yellow. Alex was a memory. Jasmine shed a single tear. Bill Green brooded over the loss of a precious heat absorbing thermaline sheet and the synthetic binding they used to tie it. Everything else they kept - Alex was naked as the day he was born under the sheet, which Jasmine insisted on because she thought the images of his arms and legs flopping around in the vacuum of space might be thoroughly undignified. They filmed the entire episode.
Green leaned forward and flipped off the camera and monitor. Then he squeezed Jasmin's arm and let his fingers trail down the side of her stiff wrap, against the curve of her breast and lay it on her thigh.
Jasmin sighed and shot a look of disdain at the second captain. "Really Bill?"
"Too soon? Okay, I really should get started on the paperwork anyway. And you might want to edit that footage and contact CASA." Bill stood stiffly and yawned. "I'm taking work into the slerve. Gotta loosen up some, what a downer."
She stretched out along the unoccupied portion of the couch and close her eyes. "You realize that we'll have to rendezvous now sooner than we thought. Of course without Alex I don't know what kind of mission we can sustain."
Jasmine listened to his voice trail off as Bill rounded a tube corridor. His words faded out, "They'll probably send up another sun guy," something unintelligible, "...have some time until.." something, "...get back to work for now...."
part 2
