Two Jupiters

“Where?” Marius looked out, blinking the fog from his mind. He was in his EVA suit? Right, they’d put them on. A precaution Capitan said. Marius remembered that. Right before the gravity assist.

But what he saw now: “Jupiter…” 

The planet. Enormous. Filling his entire field of view. It was right “below” him. And not out of the window of his craft. Not in orbit.

He was floating. In space. Alone. 

“That is a who.” A voice said, seemingly from inside his EVA suit. “Not a what.”

Marius looked down at his HUD, at his comm display. It was off. “Who said that?” He twisted, slowly. Not wanting to induce an uncontrolled spin.

 A woman drifted into his view. Not a member of his crew. Where was his crew? Where was he? No time to think of that. The woman. She wasn’t wearing an EVA suit. But they were in hard vacuum and…

“You’re naked…”

“No.” The woman drifted lazily as if floating through the hard vacuum. “Like I said, I am Jupiter.”

Marius blinked a few more times but the nude woman remained. 

“And soon you will be inside of me.” 

“I beg your pardon?”

The naked woman twirled a length of multi hued red hair. “In 19 hours, I will complete my embrace of you. Then there will be the pressure.” 

“My… ship.” 

“That exploded. Sorry about that.”

“Then why am I here?”

Jupiter blinked at him a few times, like he was an idiot for questioning the logic a naked woman floating through spaces.  Maybe he was?

“So I’d have someone to talk to. For the next 19 hours at least. It gets very lonely out here.”

Marius looked out towards the stars. Sol burned distant. Other than that, and the gigantic planet (also known as Jupiter) below him, nothing was recognizable. He imagined he could see earth but stellar cartography was never his strong suit. There was just billions of stars. And him. And the two Jupiter. “Yeah… I bet.”