Author: Thinking Horndog
Title: The Chinese Obligation
Part: 5 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 5

	"Rhea Base, this is the Uffington Castle, over."

	"Uffington Castle, this is Rhea Base, over."

	"Rhea Base, we will be entering parking orbit in three zero mikes --
sitrep, over."

	"Situation is nominal at this time, Uffington Castle, there is no
expected inbound traffic and none outbound.  You are cleared to park, over,"
Tom replied.

	"Roger.  Marine deployment will take on the form of an airless
assault and securing and preparation of the drop zone as an assembly area.
Platoon leader will contact you when he is grounded on this frequency for
recommendations regarding the emplacement of fortifications, over."

	"Roger that.  Tell them not to shoot up or break anything -- we just
got this place operational again, over."

	"Roger, Rhea Base.  Uffington Castle, out."

	Thirty minutes later, McQueen reported, "The Marine assault force and
six grav sleds are in free-fall from the Uffington Castle.  Estimate arrival
on the surface of the point man and flankers at ninety-three seconds."

	"Tania!" Tom yelled.  "Get into that bikini of yours and prepare to
receive visitors!  The jarheads are coming!"

	The platoon leader WASN'T a 'he' -- and Sheila Patterson didn't take
any shit; that was clear from the moment she hit the airlock.  "Permission to
come aboard, Sir!" she asked, rigid in her pressure suit.

	"Granted.  Welcome aboard, Ensign!"

	"Thank you, Sir.  I understand that you had trouble."  The ensign
pulled off her helmet and gauntlets to shake Tom's hand.

	"Mother Nature, or what passes for her out here," Tom related.
"Meteor strike shook up the whole place.  Two casualties, and most of the
base was off-line for a week or so."

	"Well, when we're done -- which had BETTER be ninety minutes after we
get done talking -- you'll be able to stand off Sa'am scout craft, let alone
anything of reasonable size that Mother Nature might throw at you.  Also,
anything sizeable enough to cause an event should be detectable in plenty of
time for you to request evacuation," the ensign replied.  "Now, from my
preliminary scan, we should place the scanners here and here..."

	She was gone in twenty minutes -- and Tom never saw her again.
Ninety minutes later, they had shields and standoff capability well above
that required to handle the event that had led to the disaster.  The sergeant
and the corporal who brought the control consoles into the factory control
center for permanent hookup explained that the outer shield layer was more
for detection and breakup of incoming high-energy particles than anything
else and thus had wide coverage but a low detection probability.  The outer
shield extended for miles in order to provide the necessary 100 picosecond
response time for the close-in inner shield to snap on and destroy or deflect
whatever was left after the particle breached the outer shield.  Since light
would have traveled all of three meters, the response time was more than
sufficient to protect the base.

	"You'll have to shut down the shield to allow ships to land or to
cross the shield boundary in suits," the sergeant instructed, holding up a
small remote.  "We'll be using these controllers to transit the shield and
you should carry one or have one integrated into your suits and equipment.
In periods of high meteor activity, you can leave the inner shield on until
someone approaches the boundary, while the outer shield remains off.  The AIs
can handle transitions without difficulty.  We're not doing permanent siting
per se, but have left nannites to lay foundations for the equipment.  Once
they're done, the power draw will drop by twenty-five percent or so as the
grav stabilizers will shut down."  They gave a period of instruction on
operation and maintenance of the equipment that lasted all of thirty minutes
-- mostly for the missile launchers which deployed missiles similar enough to
the ones being manufactured at the plant to make the instructions easily
understood -- and moved out, over the horizon.  Tom and Tania never saw THEM
again, either, and the Uffington Castle displaced in orbit to provide top
cover and wasn't heard from again until they briefly announced their
intention to break orbit.

	In the meantime, Tom and Tania worked on Replicator Three and the
rail system and the missile pod retrofits and awaited the arrival of the
Queen of the Nile.  They made love every night, and that's what it was --
making love.  Tom wasn't sure when, exactly, Tania became his woman instead
of a temporary convenience, but it happened and while he was reluctant to
admit it, she knew it anyway.  By the time the Queen of the Nile made orbit,
Replicator Three was working on Miner Two; the fact that the Marines had
taken a lot less time than anticipated doing defensive installations allowed
Tom and Tania to get almost two days ahead of schedule.

	Chief Hu, the 'skipper' of the Queen of the Nile, got the station
status squirt when he was a light-minute out, so he'd had plenty of time to
absorb it when he made orbit.  McQueen announced the ship's arrival and Tom
accepted a video signal while still tearing at his most recent problem,
distractedly mauling one of Tania's breasts with one hand as she sat on his
lap while drawing pictures on the console with the other.  He glanced up at
the monitor and said, "Rhea Base."

	"Queen of the Nile," Chief Hu responded, amused.  "Request landing
clearance."

	"Roger.  Have your AI link to the site AI to coordinate the shield
passage and dock at Pad Three.  Do you need anything in particular?"

	"Negative.  Baxter and his Number One are gone, huh?"

	Tom switched gears.  "Yes.  They were caught outside."

	"I can see the hot spot on sensors.  Things look pretty good,
though," Hu offered.

	"Baxter was underachieving," Tom grunted.  "Seems like he couldn't do
two things at once."

	"That concubine of his kept him busy," Hu grunted.  "That one taking
care of you?"  He nodded at Tania, who had gotten up.

	"Yeah, very well, in fact.  She doesn't mind getting her hands dirty,
either."

	"You're a sight better off with that one than the blonde.  Congrats
on your promotion.  I guess you're the Commodore of our little fleet now," Hu
grunted.

	"I guess.  Cheney is enjoying himself, sticking it to me, but at
least I get to improve things around here."

	Hu nodded.  "I'll be down in thirty minutes, then.  Should I present
myself formally?"

	"If you like.  If you understand your orders, we can dispense with
it, but I'm told that it is a social occasion and I need to be more social,"
Tom replied, eyeing Tania.

	"Sixteen-thirty then?"

	"Fine."

	Hu did it up when he arrived, executing the complete set of
formalities, then settled in with Tom and allowed his concubine -- a little
wisp of a thing whose name Tom never took in -- to wander off with Tania.

	"When do you get to go back out?" Hu asked, sitting back with his
tea.

	"In another couple of weeks," Tom replied.  "New staff is supposed to
arrive in one week, then I plan to take one week to train them and evaluate
performance -- which is a helluva lot more time and instruction than I got!"

	"I got the notification on the missile pod modifications," Hu noted.
"They're a good idea."

	"Chief Leitner helped me with them," Tom replied.  "Problem is,
they're not going to be there in existing pods.  We don't have the time or
resources to fix them individually and one in eight launchers could be a
dud."

	"Well, maybe for one missile..." Hu muttered.

	"Per pod!" Tom retorted.  "What if six aren't enough?  The pods don't
talk to one another..."

	Hu nodded.  "We could get one shot and fuck it up."  He thought for a
moment.  "Is this something nannites can do?"

	Tom shrugged.  "Dunno.  It's simple enough.  AI?"

	"Affirmative.  Some matter would have to be delivered for integration
in the switch upgrade and there would be a time for each missile launcher
when a missile would be off-line."

	"How long?" Tom asked.

	"Approximately six hours per missile," the AI replied, "plus transit
time from launcher to launcher on a pod."

	"We would still have to make delivery," Tom mused.  "That is time-
intensive."  He sighed.  "We're sticking them out there, but we don't EVEN
have the resources to go back and do system checks..."

	Hu nodded.  "They don't talk to us -- or each other, for that matter.
No way to get a status.  Half of them could be down..."

	"Exactly!" complained Tom.  "We need to be able to do maintenance and
upgrades and system checks -- and they need to communicate.  If a hive ship
and its escorts show up in zone for one cluster, the theory would be that
nine would be available to attack from within a light-minute -- but there is
no coordination.  We're only one layer deep -- if there are six or eight or
ten ships..."

	"Exactly," Hu muttered.  "We're missing some capability for time on
target.  We're also not going to get notification -- just the signature from
the explosions.  Then we're going to have to follow up with sensor drones..."

	"... While they get farther and farther from the minefield..."  Tom
sat musing.  "Wait a minute!  Drones!  Plant AI, how big of a drone would it
take to deliver the materials and nannites for one pod?"

	"This would be a small cargo," the AI replied.  "Perhaps one cubic
decimeter.  This is well within the carrying capacity of current long-range
communications drones."

	"What about diagnostic equipment?" Tom asked.

	"Missile diagnostics, as you are aware, are accessible via the
diagnostic transmitter below the warhead," the AI replied.  "Pods are
hardened and do not have such ports -- as you are also aware.  A port would
have to be designed and implemented."

	"How long would THAT take -- and how transportable would the
materials be?" Tom asked.

	"Unknown.  It is design-dependent."

	"Posit that the diagnostic port will accommodate a drone nose-cone.
We want to minimize the detection radius of the drone, but it needs to be
able to carry on diagnostics of both pods and missiles and be used for short-
range communication between pods and tugs and/or this station," Tom said,
seeking to define parameters.  "What is the detection radius for standard
drone hyperdrive?"

	"With military-grade sensors, three point one two six light minutes,"
the AI replied.

	"And for Swarm sensors?" Tom pressed.

	"Current intelligence models call for fifty percent of that."

	"Drones will be used in-system.  Shrink the drone and optimize for
size and minimized detection while being able to carry the required payload
of materials and diagnostic gear.  The drone need not do anything except
collect status reports, but then the diagnostic gear must be planned for in
the upgraded pod design."

	"Working."  The AI took a minute, which said loads about the
complexity of the task.  Then it began displaying a schematic of a
foreshortened communications drone with a two-centimeter probe jutting from
the nose-cone and a pod with a five centimeter circular port in it between
missile launchers four and five.

	"Why is the port sited where it is?" Tom asked.

	"That is the location closest to the most critical systems," the AI
replied.  "It is not optimal during a launch from Launcher Four or Five, but
it is assumed that all missiles will launch more or less simultaneously,
which makes the site irrelevant.  Siting the port on the top cover, for
instance, requires a critical increase in the amount of material to be moved
to conduct the upgrade, which increases drone size unacceptably.  The drone
is sized to create a hyperdrive envelope detectable at one point nine four
light minutes for Confederacy military-grade sensors -- which puts it at
point nine seven light minutes or better for Sa'arm sensors.  Further
reductions in drone size affect payload negatively."  After a pause, it
added, "New pods can accommodate an alternate design -- this is for in-place
upgrade only.  Smaller working drones can be deployed after the upgrades, but
changes in the hyperdrive envelope size and its effect on detection
capability become irrelevant on a hull length under one point seven meters.
At that point, the hyperdrive field generator is over fifty percent of the
hull capacity, even under extreme miniaturization.  Power plant and impeller
take up another twenty-two percent, even making allowances for short jumps.
The current design represents a thirty-two point seven percent increase,
largely payload and increased drive component size for increased reliability
as it is assumed that the drones will be re-used regularly."

	Tom nodded.  "Would the drones be able to modify the pods and
missiles in one pass?"

	"Negative.  This is beyond cargo carrying capacity."

	"How long would a pod be off-line?"

	"Dependent upon process flow, as little as twenty-three minutes while
diagnostic circuitry is connected to the functional components.  This assumes
that diagnostic circuitry has been constructed over the previous thirty-four
hours, and assumes that the physical materials displacement for the port
takes place over nine hours before that.  The pod will be fully functional
during all preparatory work."

	"So, two trips," Chief Hu muttered, "after which we have full
diagnostics and repair capability via nannites."

	"And near-instantaneous communication across the minefield, the
squadron, and the base," Tom agreed.  "AI, have Replicator Three create a
prototype drone and a prototype pod for testing.  Have it create a pod with a
drone dock along the pod axis, too -- we will want to test the design and
start deploying them instead of what we have."

	"In process," the plant AI intoned.  "Recommend, however, that
manufacture of Miner Two continue and Replicators One and Two handle this
mission, as they may be turning out both in quantity."

	Tom eyed Chief Hu, who nodded.  "Concur," Tom agreed.  "Execute."


	Manufacture, testing, and fine-tuning of components took another five
days.  Chief Hu took a prototype drone with him, purely for communications
purposes, as it was a prototype.  Ports were set in the Mississippi Queen and
Queen of the Nile to receive the smaller drones.  As a result, Tom and Chief
Hu spoke daily.

	By the time the Queen of the Amazon arrived from the Moon with
Sergeant Mike Pendleton and his four concubines to replace Tom and Tania,
Replicators One and Two were manufacturing Mark II pods and communications
and maintenance drones as well as missiles -- and manufacture was at full
bore.  Tom and the plant AI had created a status screen displaying the extent
of the minefield -- most of which was yellow to represent pods of unknown
status.  Seven pods along the near perimeter were red, indicating that
repairs were under way.  There was one lone green light along the near
perimeter, but three more along the far perimeter where Chief Hu was
deploying the new Mark IIs.

	Things got off to a rocky start, though.  The Queen of the Amazon
arrived at nearly eleven p.m. local and Tom and Tania were off shift -- and
busy...

	"Signal from Queen of the Amazon," McQueen announced.

	"What?" Tom puffed.

	"OH, GAAAWD!  DON'T STOP!" Tania wailed.  She was up on her hands and
knees, head down, running a vibrator over her clit while Tom pumped her
asshole.  They'd been gearing up for this for a whole week...

	"Shit!  Tell 'em to park and we'll get 'em down in thirty minutes!"
Tom gasped.  "Fuck!"

	"Damn, Tom!  What you got there?" Rod Nutter, the skipper of the
Queen of the Amazon, erupted over the console in Tom's quarters.  "I always
figured you for vanilla!" he chuckled.

	"Not since I tasted chocolate!" Tom puffed.  "Go 'way, Rod -- I'm
busy putting in the filling!"

	Rod, who had been known to go on R&R with Tom, laughed uproariously.
"It wouldn't be anything I haven't seen!"

	"I don't think you've seen me do an ass," Tom puffed, "because this
is my first!  Go 'way -- you're distracting me!"

	"Awright -- yell at me in thirty.  Amazon out."

	"Goddamn!" Tom swatted Tania on the ass and savored the resulting
clench of her sphincter.  "Goddamn!"

	"Fuck me!  Fuck me!  Shit!  Shit!"  The vibrator was good, but her
ass wasn't complaining about Tom's cock in the first place and Tania's clit
was getting regular impacts from his swinging balls.  "Do me!  Fuck!  I'm
gonna CUUUUUMMMM!!!!"  Tania threw her head back and howled and went
absolutely nuts under him as each component added itself to the pile and the
score got to be too big for her to handle.  "FUUUUUUUCCKKK!!!!"

	"HOLY SHIT!"  Tania's ass got so tight that it was like a fist!  Tom
pulled back until the flange of his glans was wedged inside her anal ring and
just rocked there, unable to move much in any direction while it pulsed,
milking him -- and the pleasure became too much to bear so he started
painting the inside of her colon with his seed!  "YAAAAAHHHH!!!!"

	Tania took a few moments to get past her peak and back to the land of
the living.  "I'm gonna hurt for this, but it was GREAT!" she gasped.

	"It damned sure was!" Tom puffed.

	"That's a good thing, I guess," she gasped.  "I'll need something I
can do for you during the final weeks..."

	"Final weeks?"

	"Uh huh."  Tania eyed him over her shoulder.  "Before I deliver."

	"Deliver?  Deliver what?"

	"Your son," McQueen interjected.  "The concubine Tania is pregnant."

	"WHAT?  Since when?"

	"I think it was the night before the Queen of the Nile arrived,"
Tania replied diffidently.  "You aren't mad, are you?"

	"When were you gonna tell me?" Tom howled.

	"I only just found out today!" Tania insisted.

	"Oh."  Tom thought about it.  There didn't seem to be a damned thing
to say...

	"Are you mad?" Tania asked tremulously.

	"No.  It's what you're here for.  It's what we're SUPPOSED to be
doing.  I've got kind of used to you helping out with things, though..."

	"I still can.  We'll be off this rock and in space soon, anyway,
right?" Tania said brightly.

	"So we will.  So we will," Tom muttered.  "I'm gonna be a daddy.
Man, THAT'S scary!"


	Rod insisted on giving him shit.  "I never thought I'd live to see
the day when you got enough imagination to go putting babies into black
women!  Wait'll I tell Myra!  She'll laugh her ass off!"  Myra was Rod's
concubine -- one he'd picked up at the Civil Service cathouse on the moon.
He and Tom had both tried Myra out, but Tom had still been convinced that
women weren't something he wanted to have around on anything resembling a
permanent basis, so Rod had picked her up.  "Of course, she gives me shit
regularly about how she's just with me until you come to your senses."

	Tom grunted.  "Looks like she can kiss THAT idea off..."

	"Unless she wants to play second fiddle," Rod retorted.

	"You don't want to go through all that shit again, do you?" Tom
asked.

	"A different piece every night?" Rod chuckled.  "It's a tough life,
but someone's got to do the deed..."  He eyed Tom.  "You're due two..."

	"Four," the McQueen announced.  "One component of the decision to
promote Lieutenant Foster was the increase in his CAP score brought about by
his dealings with the concubine Tania."

	"F--Four?" Tom gasped.

	"You will do your duty to the Confederacy," the AI declared in a tone
that sounded suspiciously complacent.  "It is in your nature to do so."

	"One woman is plenty!" Tom insisted.

	"When she has four children and her attention is directed almost
totally in their direction, you will find that it is time to look again -- if
only for a helpmeet for her," the AI retorted.  "You will see.  From there to
four will not be a huge leap."

	"Four kids?" Tom rubbed his face.

	"In the first wave," the AI predicted.

	"I don't think I want to hear any more!" Tom croaked.  "Let's just
surprise me, okay?"  He shook his head, muttering, "Four kids..."

	It took Tania a while to calm him down that night.


	It seemed to take Pendleton and all four of his concubines to keep up
with Tom and Tania.  Replicator Four was under construction and Replicator
Three was manufacturing drones and launching them at a rate that was three
for one to new pods.  Both mining robots were going full bore, delivering
materials.  A week after Rod lifted the Queen of the Amazon back into space,
Tom and Tania launched the Mississippi Queen back into space, leaving
Pendleton to service the Yangtze Queen after providing her commander a quick
briefing, with a cargo of a dozen Mark II pods mounted on her for delivery to
the minefield.

	The dozen ships of the original squadron got near-instantaneous
communications via the maintenance drones, and Commander Cheney started
getting daily updates -- often from Tania, as Tom would be busy directing
this or that.  Another dozen tugs were dispatched to Tom's little flotilla
when it became apparent that transport and siting of the pods was the choke
point in the system.  Tom's field display went from predominantly yellow
slowly to green -- and then reached the point where if a pod's status marker
turned red he could dispatch a ship to make what had to be a major repair.
That only happened a couple of times over the next few months, but every once
in a while an energetic particle managed to collide with a pod...

	Then the Hive ship arrived.


	It popped out of hyperspace within fifteen light-seconds of pod AG
171 -- and upon detection, the pod deployed missiles, but did not fire them
off.  Pod AF170 was the next to detect the intruders -- there were six escort
cruisers -- and it, too, deployed missiles and began to calculate the number
of seconds to launch.  AF171 was beyond one light-minute -- and as soon as it
detected the Hive ship, it launched its drone at the next pod over, which
launched its drone at the next...  Then the drone in question headed for Rhea
Base, while the next drone in line, once it had alerted a sister pod, re-
oriented on the last known trajectory of the Mississippi Queen.

	Once well outside the envelope of the Sa'arm flotilla's sensors,
drones shot every which way, jumping to the entire tug flotilla.  Meanwhile,
twenty-five pods in a square around the newly-arrived Sa'arm task force
executed timed launches of their missiles integrated by the pods' ballistic
computers to provide an exact time on target...

	The Hive ship and the cruiser escorts had virtually no warning.  One
hundred and twenty-five missiles converged upon them, if not from all
directions at least from all points of an extremely wide cone,
simultaneously.  A light-minute is a barely measurable interval in
hyperdrive, so the missiles arrived virtually unannounced, multiple missiles
to a target!  Unable to maintain particle shield integrity in the face of
multiple nuclear explosions, the ships were virtually reduced to dust in
place!

	Drones that went in with the missiles delivered the good news -- and
the bad.  The flotilla had launched a scout ship in the interim, and it was
not in the target area!  Drones picking it up shifted out to alert missile
pods in the next square, but they were three light-minutes away at a minimum,
and even a couple of seconds was too long...

	The mini-gestalt piloting the scout, ripped suddenly and
traumatically from its parent by the ravening explosions in the kill zone and
thoroughly terrorized, instinctively did the right thing for its own survival
-- it jumped the scout ship to hyperspace!  There being nothing in position
to follow its wake effectively, the scout escaped.

	Thus ended the first battle of Earthat.

	It was a tactical victory -- but from a strategic point of view, it
left something to be desired.  Clearly, the minefield had been effective --
but just as clearly, there was neither time nor resources available to place
minefields like that in a sphere around Sol.  That the Sa'arm didn't know
that was the good news; the bad news was that the Sa'arm would undoubtedly
deduce that such a well-defended system was probably the home of their
pernicious new enemy and come loaded for bear next time.  Nothing less than
one hundred percent annihilation of the inbound Sa'arm fleet brought Earth
relative safety -- and they had failed to produce that.

Tom was beside himself over his failure to plan for that contingency and
leave a reserve of missiles operational in the kill zone looking for
secondary targets.  Hindsight was twenty-twenty, and it now seemed an obvious
move -- and the fact that he had increased the effectiveness of the minefield
by orders of magnitude was irrelevant.  The fact that he left the Fleet
flotilla in orbit around Titan awaiting the Sa'arm with nothing to engage was
also irrelevant to him -- although the naval personnel on those ships were
more than happy not to have gone to battle!

	Tania was more philosophical about the whole thing -- but then,
having your firstborn at your breast giving suck provides a different
perspective on most things.  As far as Tania was concerned, they'd survived
and the Sa'arm threat was gone for the moment and all was right with the
world.  Tom took on the long-term worry regarding what kind of universe their
son would grow up in; Tania was content to handle the day to day requirements
of providing food and shelter and love to her family -- the future would
reveal itself in due course...