Author: Thinking Horndog
Title: The Chinese Obligation
Part: 1 of 5
Universe: The Swarm Cycle
Summary: Tom Porter was alone on his space tug, positioning mines out beyond
the orbit of Saturn, and he liked it that way -- but a disaster at his pickup
point left him with all kinds of responsibility...

Keywords: MF oral anal exhib ir rom ScFi

The Chinese Obligation

Chapter 1

	"Hello?  The AI says there is somebody out there in range..."

	Fleet Auxiliary Sergeant (Petty Officer on anything but an official
document -- and Tom wasn't the 'official' type) Tom Foster eyed the comm
console.  "What the fuck?"

	"Hello?  If you can hear me, I'm in trouble down here..."

	"Who the Hell is that?" Tom demanded of his ship's AI.  "Where is
that noise coming from?"

	<The communication is coming from the vicinity of the manufacturing
platform on the moon Rhea,> the AI replied.

	"Shit!"  The plant was Tom's destination -- he was headed there to
pick up cluster mines.  Tom was a 'positioner' -- every three weeks, he
picked up a dozen cluster mines -- sensor platforms carrying six hyperdrive
missiles, each with a small tactical nuke aboard -- and then he would locate
them in space as a part of a net to be used to protect Earth from the Swarm,
transporting them with his hyperdrive-capable tug, the Mississippi Queen.  It
had been decided that they would be more difficult to detect if the clusters
didn't have their own propulsion system -- they just had passive sensors and
IFF -- so they had to be positioned exactly, so they maintained their
position relative to Sol -- or Earthat, if you will.

	As it was, Tom was placing them such that their orbits would move
them into the cone that defined the expected trajectory of the first
anticipated Sa'arm incursion about a year and a half hence; luckily, Fleet
had discovered a Sa'arm colony that had just launched a hive ship.  We were
forewarned --  the scout vessel that made the discovery was unable to go toe-
to-toe with the ship or its escorts, so it got away into hyperdrive with the
news.  Just as fortunately, Sa'arm hyperdrive was about eight generations
behind what the Confederacy had bequeathed to the Fleet, so it took them
several times as long to get where they were going.  The depleted planet that
was the launch point for the excursion was just over six hundred light-years
away, and a Hive ship lumbers along at just a tad less than a light-year a
day (escorts did four or five times that), so we had some warning, given the
fact that the message drone from the scout covered the distance to Earthat in
twelve days.  Whether the minefield -- which was going to be about the size
of a postage stamp on a weather balloon against the total volume of the
sphere around the Sol system -- would be effective was anybody's guess.  If
the Sa'arm came in very far outside its boundaries for some reason, it was
going to be a waste of time.

	But it was deemed worthwhile to dedicate a certain amount -- a SMALL
amount -- of resources to the effort, and Fleet Auxiliary took it on.  Tom
was one of only a dozen positioners; the plant on Rhea (a moon of Saturn)
created the missiles, using replicators feeding on the raw ice and rock of
the moon as raw materials and cranking out about two hundred mines a month.
Tom had been at this almost from the first -- five runs worth -- but had yet
to actually have to TALK to anyone at the manufacturing plant; the AI had
handled communications and Tom liked it that way.  Now, it looked like that
was going to have to change...

	"Can you get me a visual?" Tom asked, thinking, 'I'm not gonna spend
the next three hours chewing the fat with some empty-headed concubine...'

	The screen lit above Tom's console displaying, well, booty.
Seriously plush, naked, milk chocolate booty!  Tom snorted a laugh.  "Hey,
I'm back here!  Hyperdrive tug Mississippi Queen, Tom Foster commanding."

	"Huh?"  The black girl looked back over her shoulder.  "Yeah, well,
okay, but the transmitter is over there..."  She turned around, displaying a
nice set of conical milk jugs, only mildly deformed by gravity.  "It took the
AI and nanites two days to put it back together.  Besides, things are kinda
canted.  You're more or less on the floor at this point."

	"So what's going on?" Tom asked.

	"Something happened," the woman said.  "Two and a half days ago or
so.  The AI thinks maybe it was a meteor strike.  Don and Barbara were out
checking the feed chutes for the missile replicator, and whatever happened,
it happened over near the manufacturing plant."  The woman looked sad.  "I
haven't heard from them."

	"What happened there?" Tom asked.

	"It was like something picked up the pod and threw it up in the air
and it came down on the airlock end.  It's standing up at about a sixty-
degree angle, it seems like.  You're looking at me from the comm console by
the door.  The AI has the transmitter more or less welded to what used to be
the floor."

	"Why?"

	"I think it said something like it had to use a floor strut for an
antenna.  The old one was broken and it's stuck in the ground, anyway."

	"Oh."  Tom mused a bit.  "So it's just you?"

	"Yeah, there were just the three of us.  Barb was gonna have her
first in about three months."  Suddenly, the woman lost it, bursting into
tears.

	"Uh, hey, hey..." Tom muttered.  He had NO tools for THIS situation.
"Look, I know it's bad, but you need to hold it together until I understand
EVERYTHING!  Come on -- buck up!  What's your name?"

	"Tania."  The woman made a visible effort.

	"Okay, Tania.  Why don't you, um, lay on the floor or something so
I'm not looking at your..."

	"OH!"  Tania knelt on the floor, which covered this and that from
Tom's angle.  "I can't even get at clothes!  They're in the bedrooms..."  She
pointed basically upward.

	"Why didn't you have the AI make you stairs or something?" Tom asked.
"Ladder impressions in the deck..."

	Tania covered her face.  "I didn't think of it -- but it probably
can't.  We're on emergency power.  The AI is only operating at maybe thirty-
percent capacity so we could save energy in the emergency systems for the
nanites to work on the radio.  We're disconnected from the power core and the
environmental plant and..."

	"How long do you have?" Tom erupted.

	Tania looked at a display beside the console.  "About two and a half
days of air and water and such -- but if I lose power before that, I'll be an
ice cube in no time.  The AI says the emergency systems took a serious hit."

	"I'll be in synchronous orbit in about ten minutes," Tom advised.
"I'll get a visual and sensor sweep from up here and put it in a drone for
Earthat Command and shoot it to Moonbase.  Then I'll come down and see what I
can do for you."

	"Thanks," Tania muttered.  "I was afraid that I wasn't going to see
another face or hear another voice..."

	"Hang in there -- Mississippi Queen out."  Tom cut the connection
before the woman could lose it again.

	Ten minutes later, he was looking at the devastation.  Tania wasn't
exactly correct -- the manufacturing plant was only a little closer to the
impact site, but it hadn't fared as well as the pod the trio had been living
in.  The impact had apparently made some kind of ground ripple; things looked
like everything had been on a blanket on the ground and then giant hands had
viciously snapped the ends up and down.  The missile pods, usually neatly
lined up in rows for collection by the tugs, were tossed about like broken
toys.  There were two replicators -- one was on its side, a few meters from
its original site, and the other was in pieces -- and, yes, there were pieces
of a couple of EVA exoskeletons lying about.  Part of one looked like it had
been fed to the replicator before it shut down.  There was a boiling lake
about a kilometer away -- the meteor probably hadn't been so much massive as
it was fast, or maybe the other way around.  In either case, it hadn't been
both.  Tania had been lucky that the energy release hadn't been further up
the scale toward the megaton range -- apparently, there was only enough
energy to rip the pod from its foundations and lean it against one of the
little ridges they'd probably placed it between for protection.  Tom took a
full sensor sweep and fired off the drone, then set up the tug for a landing.
Meteor impacts weren't exactly news on Rhea -- it was one of the most heavily
cratered bodies in the Earthat system.  "Maybe somebody should have given a
little more thought to protection," Tom muttered to himself, "This mess is
gonna put us months behind."  But they HAD been in a rush, after all...

	The Mississippi Queen settled to the surface and Tom got back on the
comm.  "What does the AI say about structural integrity of the pod?" he
asked, while taxiing the tug on its surface-effect thrusters.  "Can I pick it
up and put it back where it belongs without it coming apart?"

	"It isn't sure..." Tania replied, sounding worried.

	"Okay, we'll do things the hard way," Tom gusted.  This was tug
business; he sidled up to one side of the pod and cradled it in tractor and
pressor beams, then pressed the tug's docking collar against the side of the
pod.

	One issue that Confederacy equipment seldom had was bad seals -- if
you put some nanites to work on things, they would weld the two pieces
together -- and the docking collar had plenty of welding and cutting nanites
in it.  Five minutes later, the Mississippi Queen was sealed to the side of
the pod and a hatch was being cut in the side of the pod inside the docking
ring.  Two minutes later, with the cooperation of the pod damage control
nanites, the hole opened.

	The opening was still nearly five meters from the 'floor' of the pod;
Tom stuck his head through the hatch and looked down at Tania.  "Well, we're
getting closer..."

	"Yes..."  Tania stood looking at the gap.

	<Power transfer to pod in process,> Mississippi Queen's AI reported.
<Ladder design transmitted.>  A series of divots appeared in the bulkhead
leading up to the hatch, one by one, along with a pair of extrusions that
looked somewhat like railroad rails for Tania to hang onto.

	"Come on up," Tom invited.  "The pod is on ship's power.  We'll have
a repair estimate in a couple of minutes -- for this, anyway.  The facility
is a mess."

	"Ummm," Tania muttered as she climbed.  "Don and Barbara?"

	"I saw a couple of exos -- in pieces.  Sorry."

	Tania sighed as she negotiated the hatch.  "I figured as much, but
I'd hoped..."

	"It would have been nice, but after a couple of days, it wasn't
likely."  Tania moved forward and Tom found himself hugging a naked female.
He squeezed her clumsily, feeling embarrassed.  "Sorry."

	"Mmmmm."  Tania sniffled into his neck drawing comfort from Tom
despite the fact that she recognized that he wasn't comfortable himself.  She
sobbed a couple of times and got control of herself.  "What now?"

	"I dunno.  The habitat pod is drawing power from the Mississippi
Queen's power plant, so we will be able to reposition it soon.  The pod AI is
up and communicating with the Queen's.  But there is a bunch of work to be
done.  Let's get you a shift..."

	"Oh, sorry!" Tania replied.  "I'm used to this.  I almost don't even
think about it.  Ugh -- I don't have a sponsor now, do I?"

	<Recommend that you take the female on as a concubine,> the Queen's
AI fed Tom, privately.

	Tom stiffened.  'I don't do women!'

	<You are not homosexual.>

	'I mean I don't keep them.  They yammer all the time and...'

	<Still, she would be a convenience.  You can always trade her in at
Moonbase.>

	'A convenience...'  Tom shook his head.  'I was thinking
INconvenience!'

	<You do not have to claim her -- you could have ignored her
situation.  As it is, you have time and effort invested in her.  Why not
benefit?  It has been several weeks...>

	'No shit, Sherlock!'  Tom usually went out twice before shooting for
a weekend of R & R on the Moon.  He was at what would have been the mid-point
of a deployment, so Tania was the first woman he'd been close to in three
weeks.  He rubbed his face, thinking about it, then told Tania, "Look, I'm a
loner.  I don't do women.  Uh, scratch that -- I DO do women -- I just don't
keep them afterward, you know?  Cash and carry or the CS brothel -- no
bullshit entanglements -- that's how I do things.  I'm not likely to fall in
love with you or anything..."  He paused.  "In order to make the AIs happy
and keep things moving, I'm, um, willing to offer to take you on until we
return to the moon.  By then, you'll be fed up with me, anyway -- and vice-
versa."

	Tania blinked.  "Well, it's the best deal I've heard this week --
that's for sure!  I accept."

	<Registered,> 'Queenie' announced.

	"Yeah, yeah..." Tom groused.  Tania eyed him and he amplified, "The
AI is giving me shit.  It's thrilled to death that I finally took on a
woman."  He grimaced.  "Like I said, I'm not too tolerant.  Mostly, you need
to be seen and not heard."  Tania nodded, not speaking.  "You had anything to
eat lately?"

	"No."

	"Get the AI to rustle you up something.  AI, she needs basic
services.  Don't let her play with knives after she discovers how I really
am, but give her what she needs."  He eyed her.  "How much modification did
you need?"

	"Not a lot," Tania replied.  "Don likes -- liked -- his asses a
little bit plush, and these are natural," she displayed her breasts.  "I'm
nineteen, so regression wasn't required.  I had some acne scars and my nose
was a little bigger, maybe.  I was hairier, too."  Tania had a well-trimmed
triangle above her clit -- which was prominent.

	"You probably ought to throw something on so I don't spend all of my
time thinking about getting a piece," Tom muttered.  "We have other
priorities."

	"I think that was a compliment!" Tania smiled.  "I'm used to nudity
-- how far do I need to go?"

	"Eh, a bikini, I guess -- something that gives you a little support
and coverage."  He looked away.  "I'm gonna see what's next."

	"Main power and environmental?" Tania suggested.

	"Probably."  Tom had the AI give him a view of the pair of pods that
were the center of the facility.  They'd been further out in the open and
looked like they'd been tossed thirty feet in the air and dropped.

	<Both AIs report internal systems are functioning, but they could use
moving back onto the prepared pads and some assistance with hookups.>
nanites could eventually move the pads by moving the ground under them, but
that might take weeks.  Similarly, repairing breaks in things like power
couplings was a lot easier if the snapped ends were pressed together, not ten
feet apart.

	"Break out an EVA pod and start it warming up, then seal the habitat
pod, disengage, and prepare to reposition to the power core," Tom ordered.
He seldom sub-vocalized -- there was no need in his opinion, since it was him
and the AI.

	<Executing.>

	Ten minutes later, they were hovering above the power plant, hooking
up.  Tom 'drove' in that he handled controls and spoke to the AI as he did it
so that the AI could fine-tune things and avoid accidents.  They'd been
working together for months and the AI needed little in the way of sub-
vocalized instruction.  This was one time Tom DID sub-vocalize -- he just
thought about what he wanted and Queenie watched his back; it was faster and
clearer than speaking.  Tom jumped a foot when he realized that Tania was
behind him, watching -- and Queenie kept the tug from jumping with him.

	"Don't DO that!" Tom howled.  "I could have..."

	"Sorry!"

	Tom held up a finger and went on with making the connections to the
pod, then righting it and moving it to the original site.  When he was done,
he turned to snarl at Tania, but thought better of it.  She was standing
there in a yellow bikini -- modest for a bikini, not just three triangles and
string -- wolfing down a sandwich.  'Peanut butter and jelly?' Tom mused,
looking at it.  He hadn't had one of those in about ten thousand years...
"Bring me one of those -- on toast.  Try not to scare me in the process --
I'm going to start moving the environmental pod."  He turned and went back to
work.  The outfit really didn't help much -- she looked hotter than Hell in
it; the yellow set off her skin tones beautifully.  Somehow, it had never
occurred to Tom to take on a black woman when he visited the brothel --
somewhat like he'd never have thought to vary his diet with a peanut butter
and jelly sandwich.  Tania was VERY easy on his eyes -- and his cock kept
threatening to take control of him when he looked at her.

	The environmental pod was slower and trickier -- he had to wait for
the pod AI to use nanites to straighten some bent supports.  It was almost a
half hour later before he could look up from what he was doing.  Tania had
taken a seat off-side at the comm console, but slaved her screen to his.
When he looked up, she collected a plate from the desktop and brought it to
him.  "Here's your sandwich."

	Tom took it.  "AI, I need a soda."  He waved her off.  "It knows what
I want."  Tania headed off to the replicator to get a cold can.  When she
came back with it, he put down the sandwich, cracked the can open, washed the
peanut butter from his mouth, and asked, "Are you useful as well as
decorative?  Can you help?  There is outside work to do now."

	Tania arched an eyebrow.  "Decorative?  I can't remember ever being
called that.  I can run an exo -- we all did whatever needed doing.  I pretty
much know my way around the facility.  We took shifts lots of times -- one on
and two off to sleep -- or whatever."

	"Are there any more exoskeletons?" Tom asked.  "I'm more used to a
pod."

	"If standing the pod on the airlock end didn't smash it, mine is in
there," Tania replied.

	<The pod AI reports that it is severely damaged,> Queenie announced.
<It will take some time to repair, if left to the on-board maintenance
nanites.  Cannibalizing parts might speed things.  Currently, it is almost a
total loss and will probably require remanufacture, but if it were placed in
a replicator, there would be a considerable savings in repair time as the
original materials are present.>

	Tom grunted.  Tania cocked her head and Tom related, "It's smashed.
Ever use a pod?"

	"I had sleep training on one, but I've never used one," Tania
replied.  "It's similar -- you just don't have legs -- or not the kind I'm
used to."

	Somehow, that prompted Tom to look at Tania's.  Legs on a black girl
could be huge or skeletal, and sometimes the ankles looked sort of like
Donald Duck's -- but Tania had nice legs that showed some muscle definition.
Catching his glance, she said, "I used to dance.  It tore up my toes some,
but they're fixed."

	Tom rubbed his straw-colored brush cut and muttered, "Yeah, sorry."

	"Hey, if you like what you're looking at, that makes life easier for
both of us," Tania smiled ruefully.  "I was an afterthought for Don, I think;
I was always just okay -- nothing special.  I think I was an experiment with
him -- maybe not a real successful one.  You talk about not dealing with
women well, but you've complimented me a couple of times -- and I know you
meant it -- and your eyes say a lot."

	"You know, I never even thought to have a black woman," Tom grunted.
"It never occurred to me.  I'm sort of picky about them, when I look at one
-- too fat, too skinny, not enough calf, flat feet, wide noses, big asses,
bad attitude..."  He pursed his lips.  "You don't seem to have any of that."

	"... And you're wondering...  I bet the pod AI has the original me on
file..." Tania murmured.

	"Yeah.  Oh, AI?  Include Tania in conversations where she ought to be
included."  He turned to Tania.  "I call her Queenie.  She doesn't seem to
mind."

	"It is irrelevant."  A male voice erupted from the bridge speakers.

	"Queenie doesn't sound any too female!" Tania laughed.

	"There is a lot of stuff I just don't give a shit about, I guess,"
Tom grunted.  "Generally, I just call her 'AI' -- only when I'm dealing with
more than one do I differentiate."

	"Vocal registers can be altered.  Sex -- being male or female -- is
not an attribute that an AI possesses, but it is a convenience for species
that have such," the AI noted.  "Should the vocal range be altered?"

	"No, I'm used to you," Tom grunted, thinking, 'This crap wasn't an
issue six hours ago!  Women!'  Turning to Tania, he said, "Sailors, by
convention, call ships 'she' -- and it's probably not a compliment, since
capriciousness can be an attribute we're referring to when we do it.  I never
really gave the gender of the AI any thought, even though the AI more or less
represents the ship."

	Tania shrugged.  "So call him McQueen.  You can still do 'Queenie'
from there..."

	"Um, yeah..."  'How simple is THAT!'  Tom rubbed his brush cut again
in perplexity.  "Let's do the other thing."

	The AI threw up a visual of 'pre-alteration' Tania.  She was right --
not much had been done.  Her nose had been just a bit wider and just a bit
flatter -- nothing unacceptable.  She'd been furrier around the vagina -- her
pubic hair had actually extended thinly down alongside her labia.  A couple
of broken toes were apparently fixed.  A couple of acne scars had been
removed, along with an appendectomy scar. Tom eyed the image.  "You're right
-- not much here."

	"Don made a lot of modifications to Barbara -- sometimes, I think he
made a hobby of it.  He would back things out, too.  Not me, though.  I think
he would have traded me at some point, but for now, we were here..."

	Tom waved away the hologram, eyeing her.  "Sex?"

	Tania cocked her head.  "What about it?"

	"Do you like it?  Are you any good at it?"

	Tania nodded.  "I like it.  I think I get by..."

	Tom grimaced.  "You know, there are probably ten thousand things that
need doing worse, but..."

	Tania smiled a little.  "You want something?"

	"Yeah."  Tom was a little embarrassed, but...  "I need to be able to
concentrate -- and I don't see that happening until you take the edge off.
How's your head?"

	"I get by, I think," Tania replied, settling to her knees and opening
Tom's fly.  "You tell me."  She had him out at that point.  "Nice!  Did you
start out with this?"

	"I'm not a Marine," Tom grunted.  "No need to show off.  Ah, fuck!"
Tania's lips rolling over the tip of his cock occasioned that last comment.
Tom watched Tania's cheeks cave with suction as she worked the head of his
cock in and out between her thick lips.  "DAMN!"  Tom sat in his jacked-up
acceleration rest, his hands gripping the arms.

	Tania smiled around his cock for a bit while she sucked the tip and
teased it with her tongue, then backed off to say, "You own me -- you don't
have to ask permission to grab my head and poke my throat..."

	"It isn't nice..."

	"You don't have to be nice."

	"Fuck it!"  Tom grabbed her head in both hands and pulled her face
into his crotch, burying eight thick inches in her throat.  "Fuck, that's
good!"  He let up and let her breathe for a moment, then did it again.
"Yeah, shit!"  Tania didn't fight him and her lips and tongue worked him
along with her throat when she swallowed -- not to mention the pleasure Tom
got from pushing past the constriction at the opening.

	It didn't last long -- Tom was charged up and Tania had a hot, wet
mouth and she gave him full control and between the pleasure and the head
trip, Tom was ready to blast in under two minutes.  "Take it!" Tom howled,
"Take my jizz!"  He backed off so he could shoot into her mouth while her
lips and tongue teased half again as much out of him as he WOULD have blown
in her mouth if she hadn't been so talented!  "FUUUUCK!" Tom croaked, "If you
'get by' fucking the way you 'get by' sucking..."

	Tania rose and kissed him on the neck.  "You say the sweetest
things..."