CAUTION... CAUTION...
CAUTION... CAUTION... CAUTION...
STANDARD WARNING
This
story is of an erotic nature.
I wouldn't dream of telling
you what you can or can't read but if the law, in your part of the
world, says you must not read this sort of fiction then please go
read something that they'll let you read.
Don't break the
laws, change them!
CAUTION... CAUTION... CAUTION...
CAUTION... CAUTION...
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A Story in The Swarm Cycle Universe
A Piece of my
Imagination
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Swarm Cycle is a collection of stories manufactured
around a concept introduced by the Thinking Horndog positing an alien
invasion and Earth's reaction. The intent is for this to be a
multi-author universe similar to the popular Naked In School stories.
If you're a budding author of erotica or sci-fi and see something
here that strikes your fancy, pop over to the Author's
Page for more info on what's going on here and how to submit a
story for this collection. The rest of you are probably here to read,
so...
---oOo---
This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or
are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or
persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental
©
2007 Duke of Ramus.
All rights reserved.
---oOo---
The Swarm Cycle Universe
Copyright © 2007
The Thinking Horndog
---oOo---
I'd like to thank Mulligan for his assistance in turning
this into a better story than my initial effort, any errors remaining
are of course mine.
---oOo---
"Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!"
Crack!
"Come
on baby, stay in the air," begged John Harkness as he fought for
his life.
His A20 bucked and squealed its distress as bits
fell off and smoke belched out of the starboard engine. John had one
hand wrestling with the controls and the other frantically trying to
switch systems around to keep him in the air. 'Where's 'R2' when you
really need him?' thought the Star Wars fan hysterically as he
struggled to do too many tasks at once.
Boom!
John
flinched! It felt like something substantial had just fallen off his
Super Warthog; the resultant kick threw him fifty metres higher and
exposed him to the dickhead's anti-air systems, not a pleasant
thought. John cranked the control column forward; desperate to lose
the height he'd just gained and hoped that he wasn't being too
violent with his crippled aircraft. One thing was for sure, he wasn't
getting back to the Wake in this Hog, so he'd better find somewhere
flat to put his wounded bird down and then see about
surviving.
"Mudlark Nine, report your status."
The mission controller, who was sat safely aboard CSS
Wake up in orbit, whispered in his headset. The calm and professional
manner of the controller cut through the panic that John was starting
to feel. As his nerves settled down it dawned on him that he hadn't
been forgotten. There may not be a lot they could do to help but at
least he wasn't alone.
"Nine, I've taken extensive
damage," he reported, "and will be unable to return to
Mother." He paused as he checked the ground ahead of him. "I'm
going to be putting it down somewhere around here."
"Roger
Nine, We'll alert the Sandies," announced the reassuring voice
in his ear.
The Sandies, a name that was a hangover from
the days when the aircraft were propeller driven, were the Search and
Rescue crews who came looking for downed pilots.
'Oh
good,' thought John, 'all I need to do now is get down in one
piece."
The A20 was the perfect craft for the
position John found himself in, though he wasn't giving that fact
much thought. The Hog may not have been as flash as the various
fighters that the Confederacy were using elsewhere but it had been
designed following the same philosophy as the old A10 and could take
one hell of a kicking and still get the pilot down safely. It's only
shortcoming, and one that the Dash-3 model was supposed to overcome,
was the lack of a transporter terminus. The human designers hadn't
thought of it when they were developing the aircraft and there wasn't
sufficient space to cram one in after production had started.
In
an ideal galaxy production would have been suspended and the craft
modified but there was a war on and the ground pounders needed all
the help they could get. This meant that the first two hundred craft,
which had already been completed, had been shipped and those already
in production, call it another two hundred, would follow on before
the 'safety' modification could be implemented.
John gave
up trying to keep the craft in the air and started to look for
somewhere to put it down. His on-board map showed a couple of likely
looking flat spaces in the next few miles; all he had to do was pick
one.
"Well, Lady," he muttered to Lady Luck,
"It's all up to you now," as he drifted his wounded bird
through a very gentle turn and lined up with the longest flat space
he'd been able to find. He prepared himself for what was coming,
ensuring that his harness was done up as tight as he could get it. He
checked around the cockpit and ensured that everything was as secure
as possible, the last thing he wanted was to be decapitated by a
stray panel.
John kept the approach as slow and flat as he
could manage and prayed the whole way in but the ground still managed
to rush up to meet him. As these things went it was a pretty good
landing, the Hog kept itself flat and pretty much in one piece until
it finally ground to a halt, covering his cockpit with bits of flying
grass and the odd branch.
John sat there for a minute or
so let and let things settle down around him before he cranked the
hood open and took a good look around. Things didn't look too
inhospitable out there but he needed to get away from the wreck
before the dickheads showed up and dragged both him and the aircraft
away for examination.
Grabbing a few bits and pieces of
kit that he thought might useful he scrambled out of the cockpit and
tossed them to the ground. Standing on the wing root he turned back
to the cockpit and reached down to a bright red handle, "Bye
baby," he said quietly, "thanks for keeping me alive."
Then he twisted the handle, activating the A20's self-destruct
mechanism, which should deny its technology to the dickheads.
That
task completed he dropped down and collected his meagre items before
heading for the nearest tree line, hoping that the good guys would
get here before the bad.
---oOo---
In high orbit a message was passed from the Midway
class carrier CSS Wake to the Tarawa class assault ship CSS Bulwark
requesting assistance for a downed pilot. The message resulted in
another, shorter message, being passed to Gunnery Sergeant Paula
Wilson on the flight deck of the Bulwark. Paula was the commander of
the standby assault shuttle that Bulwark maintained and the message
she received was to prepare for an emergency tasking.
"Roger
Control," she responded, "state mission type."
"It's
a Search and Rescue job," reported the controller, "One of
the Wake's pilots has gone in and they're putting together a rescue
package now."
"Got you, I'll round up the people
I need," replied Paula.
"You heard the man,
Jamie, let's get sorted." Paula switched channels, "Keiron
confirm what ordnance we've got on the wings and let Jamie know, will
you."
The standard crew for a Panther Assault shuttle
was three, the Command Pilot, the second pilot, and an
Air-Load-Master who rode in the back. In the case of CSS Bulwark the
shuttles and crews were all from C company, Fifth Assault Landing
Battalion.
"Will do," came the reply from the
back of the Panther. "Do you want me to round up some ground
pounders?" asked the Air-Load-Master who'd been monitoring the
radio channels.
"No Keiron," replied Paula,
"I'll do that. What I want you to do is find me some sort of
medical team, just in case."
Gunnery Sergeant Keiron
Puddle, the Air-Load-Master of Bulwark 07, had been looking at the
short stubby wings of the Panther Assault shuttle while he'd been
listening to his boss. The inboard hard points had cluster bombs
mounted and the outboard stations had triple-racked stand off
missiles, the latest incarnation of the old AGM-65 Maverick. He
reported this to the Gunnery Sergeant Jamie Omi, the second pilot and
then he headed off to the medical bay to see what he could round
up.
Paula Wilson entered the Battalion command post and
looked around. It was a pretty frantic place with most of the
battalion already on the planet and fighting as part of the assault
brigade. The limited staff available was hard pressed to keep up with
the flow of information and demands for support coming up from the
ground. It took a couple of minutes before she spotted the S3, when
he stepped out from behind a display screen.
"Sir,"
she called, "I need to have a quick word." Paula moved
towards the harried looking operations officer before he could
disappear again.
Major Cavendish stopped, "What can I
do for you," he asked abruptly.
"I've been
tasked with a SAR mission and need at least a squad to support
me."
"Where the hell am I supposed to find you a
squad?" moaned the Major, which Paula took as a rhetorical
question and sensibly stayed quiet.
The Major got a
faraway look as he studied his options, which were severely limited.
"Staff," he called across the room, "how many odds and
sods have we got left up here?"
A Staff Sergeant
looked up from a screen he was studying, "Effectives here are
nine," he said, "with about another dozen sick, lame and
lazy."
"Who's the senior effective?"
"Sergeant
Young, he's helping out down in the armoury," The Staff Sergeant
looked at Paula and smiled, "Want me to get him for you,
Sir?"
"Don't bother bringing him here,"
replied the Major, "Just get him down to the flight deck with
the rest of the effectives." He glanced at Paula and then added,
"Tell them full combat rig." The Major grinned at Paula,
"May as well go prepared," he said.
Paula
grinned back, "My bird's tooled up as well, Sir. I'll get them
back as soon as I can." She saluted and turned away, surprised
at how easy that had been.
Which is the exact opposite to
what was happening down in the medical bay.
---oOo---
"It's simple Gunny, I don't have any Corpsmen
available so you'll have to do without," said the man in the
white coat adorned with a Captain's bars.
Gunny Puddle
looked around the medical bay and took note of the absence of
patients; "May I ask where they are, Sir?"
"They've
been deployed to the surface," said the Captain, "to assist
around the aid station that the Mary Seacole set up."
The
Mary Seacole was one of the Aurora colony transports that the Navy
had modified into the Nurse class hospital ships. Confederacy
technology helped a great deal when Marines were injured but it
wasn't instantaneous and the ships provided facilities that improved
the lot of the injured as well as giving immediate aid.
Half
a dozen women dressed in the grey smock that most concubines were
issued with and some wore long after their extraction were loitering
around the room. Keiron eyed them for a moment before asking the
stroppy Captain, "Who are those women?"
The
Captain glanced in the direction Keiron had indicated and shrugged,
"Just concubines."
"What do they do here?"
he asked.
"Help out," replied the
Captain.
"Could I take them with me?"
"Why?
They're just concubines?" said the Captain.
"If
I'm handling the shuttle I'd like someone to hang on to the
casualty," replied the Gunnery Sergeant getting just a little
peeved.
"I suppose they could do that, but you'd need
permission from their owner," said the Captain,
dismissively.
"Crap!" muttered Keiron.
"Excuse
me, Sir," said the woman nearest to the pair.
"What?"
demanded the Captain.
"Jane and I are with the Civil
Service, we don't actually have sponsors," she said, "I'm
sure we could go."
"It's up to you," said
the Captain to Keiron before turning away no longer interested. As
long as they did as they were told, concubines, other than his own,
were not his problem.
Keiron got on to the AI, "Put
me through to the Civil Service rep responsible for, Shit..." he
broke off his conversation with the AI. "What are your
names?"
"Jane Clark," responded the plump
blond.
"Christina Rodriguez," replied the
brunette who'd first spoke to him.
"AI, get me the
Civil Service rep in charge of Jane Clark and Christina
Rodriguez."
In his head Keiron heard, "The
representative you requested is not on the vessel. The concubines in
question were allocated to the ship before departure. They are part
of the ship's equipment."
"AI, transfer the two
concubines mentioned to the shuttle 07."
"Transfer
complete," responded the voice in Keiron's head.
"AI,
notify the concubines of their changed duty station."
A
speaker in the medical bay crackled and then a voice said, "Concubine
Jane Clark, you are to go to the flight deck and join the shuttle
Bulwark 07. Concubine Christina Rodriguez, you are to go to the
flight deck and join the shuttle Bulwark 07."
Belatedly
a thought crossed Keiron's mind and he asked, "Why did you want
to come with us?"
Jane looked at Christina, who was
clearly the spokeswoman for the pair. "We were nurses before we
were picked up. Going with you at least makes us seem useful,"
she glanced at the distant figure of the Captain, "rather than
just a scrubber."
Keiron looked the two women over
and contemplated the vagaries of the CAP system. Here were two women
who'd held responsible jobs back on Earth and hadn't made the cut,
yet he, a used car salesman, had. Maybe there was some truth in the
rumours that CAP testing was biased against the fairer sex. Still he
had a job to do.
"Fine, let's get out of here before
someone changes their mind." He started for the door but pulled
up short when Jane blurted out, "Shouldn't we take some kit with
us."
Keiron slapped his forehead, "Go on, you
know what's needed," he said feeling just a little stupid.
The
women dashed around for a couple of minutes, getting the odd scowl
from the Captain but ignoring him as much as possible. They threw a
variety of items into a plastic box and then crossed to Keiron who
led them off to the flight deck.
---oOo---
John Harkness felt a twinge from his ankle as he
scrambled around looking for a good place to hide that wasn't too far
from his downed craft. Thinking more of his time in the US Navy than
any survival training he'd received from the Confederacy he didn't
want to make it too hard for the search and rescue people to find
him. By the same token he didn't want to pick a place that would make
it easy for the dickheads, who he was sure were coming, to find
him.
In the back of his mind he was running a clock on how
long it was going to take for the Sa'arm to arrive and more
importantly, how long it would take the rescue team to arrive. Of
secondary importance at the moment were the possible actions that the
dickheads would take when they found he wasn't with his fighter.
His
thoughts were interrupted by the thunderous explosion as the A20 blew
up, it's self-destruct having given him its ten minutes to get away
before it unleashed its explosive might rendering itself into scrap
and hopefully destroying anything that may have been of use to the
Sa'arm.
Finally John holed up on a small rise, not the
largest around, but one that gave him a reasonable view of the crash
site without exposing him too much. Hopefully his green flight suit
would provide enough camouflage to render him invisible to the enemy.
It had been quite a while since he'd sent out his mayday
and he was getting nervous. How much longer was it going to take for
the good guys to turn up?
Fifteen minutes after he'd
settled into his hiding place the peace and quiet was disturbed by
the arrival of two squads of dickheads. They appeared beneath him in
two of the light armoured vehicles they used on just about every
planet he'd seen. John was a little pissed off as they'd gotten there
much quicker than he'd hoped for. As far as he knew they'd come from
his target area, which meant they'd covered thirty odd klicks in as
many minutes, not exactly hanging around.
A dozen
dickheads climbed out of each vehicle and formed a skirmish line well
short of the wreck. Without any verbal command the line started to
move slowly forward, scanning the ground as it moved. Every so often
it would grind to a halt as an alien would pick up something and
after studying it for a few moments would toss it down behind him or
stow it in one of the sacks that they all seemed to be
carrying.
John felt fortunate that the dickheads were
actually moving away from his present position, if nothing else it
gave him time to observe, and if necessary a head start when it came
to running. The fact that they weren't looking around led him to
believe that they were of the opinion that he had gone up with his
craft, another plus point for his survival.
Now if only
the rescue team would get here, he'd be happy to leave.
---oOo---
Sergeant Paul Young looked over the rag-tag collection
of Marines that staggered onto the flight deck and wasn't impressed.
Which, he admitted to himself, was probably how they regarded him.
Like the majority of the Marines they'd all received the standard
augmentation package so they all stood two metres tall and were
packed with muscle, but anyone with any experience with soldiers
could tell that these were not the pick of the crop.
Their
appearance was sloppy, even allowing for the speed with which they'd
been required to assemble; their equipment was badly fitting, or in
some cases missing and their whole attitude was slack.
Not
sure what to do he looked around and was pleased to see a woman
approaching in a flight suit. "Sergeant Young?" she asked
when she got closer.
"That's me," replied the
Sergeant.
"I'm Master Sergeant Wilson and this is my
bird," she said jerking her thumb in the direction of the
dropship. "You people," she raised her voice to include all
of the Marines, "are coming with me to get a pilot who's gone
down. Hopefully you'll just be along for the ride but if it's
required you'll be the ground element."
Wilson looked
around and was as unimpressed as Paul Young had been, "Get
aboard and get your kit sorted. As soon as the Load-Master gets back
we'll be heading out." Paula turned away and headed for her
position in the cockpit.
Paul Young looked around and
grabbed his pack, "Well you heard the pilot, let's get it
together," he said before heading for the loading ramp. Behind
him, amidst a fair bit of muttering, eight Marines picked up their
kit and shuffled towards the waiting craft.
As the last of
the Marines entered the Panther, Gunny Puddle and his two concubines
entered the Bulwark's flight deck carrying the medical supplies
they'd helped themselves to.
"Come on, this way,"
said Keiron heading for his bird. Now back in range, the low powered
communications gear he wore picked up the flight deck. "Skipper,
I've got a couple of nurses with me, we'll be ready to go in a couple
of minutes."
"Thanks Keiron," replied
Paula, "There's a bunch of ground pounders in the back, see what
you can do to get them sorted out, will you?"
"OK,
I'll let you know when things are secure," said the Load-Master,
mounting the ramp.
It was a good thing that the Panther
was a big craft as the Marines already in the cargo hold had spread
out in a very untidy manner. After kicking a couple of bits of kit
out of the way he led the two concubines to the front of the cargo
bay and helped them get secure before turning back to the rabble he'd
inherited.
"Right you lot, you can't be a s dumb as
you look, so think." He ignored the hostile looks various
members of the squad gave him. "Packs in the bins, belt order on
and secured, body armour secured and weapons upright and between your
knees." He glared around, "Does anyone need me to come
there and remind them how it's done?"
The Gunnery
Sergeant left no doubt in the minds of the troopers that they really
didn't want him to be explaining personally how they'd fucked up, so
things got done right in a reasonable amount of time.
"Skipper,"
he called the flight deck, "everything is ready back
here."
"Thanks Keiron, we'll be lifting in two
minutes. Grab a seat."
On the flight deck Paula and
Jamie completed their pre-launch checks and informed Control that
they were ready for tasking.
"Roger, Seven,"
came the reply, "switch to channel three-seven and join Skylark
One, He is the cover flight leader.
"Channel
three-seven, Skylark One, Roger Control," repeated Paula as
Jamie leant forward and changed the communications channel.
"Okay
Jamie, let's get this show on the road," said Paula, taking a
firm grasp of the controls and running her eyes over the instruments
one more time.
The two hundred tonne shuttle eased into
the air and rotated on its own axis until it was pointing at the
hanger doors. As soon as the shuttle had started to move warning
sirens had sounded throughout the flight deck and the ships' blast
doors had begun opening. By the time Paula Wilson had got the shuttle
lined up with the deck centre line the only thing between the shuttle
and space was the transparent force field that held the atmosphere
inside the ship.
Gently, thrust was applied, and the craft
eased forward, the force field wrapping around the shuttle as it
departed the hanger. Once it had moved clear the blast doors slid
back into place, protecting the flight deck from hostile
action.
"Skylark One, this is Bulwark Seven,
over."
"I see you Seven, upload your flight plan
and we will conform on you."
Paula nodded to Jamie,
who transmitted the data he'd prepared, and the shuttle started to
nose down. Behind and slightly to the sides four of the A20 craft
from CSS Wake adjusted their rate of descent and followed the
relatively huge shuttle towards the atmosphere.
"Five
minutes to crash site," reported Jamie as the first buffeting of
the atmosphere was noticed.
'Five minutes more, pilot,'
thought Paula, 'hang in there, we're coming.'
---oOo---
The dickheads reached the far end of the open area and
turned back towards their vehicles and the hiding place of one John
Harkness. They paused for nearly a minute and then began to move back
across the area they'd already swept.
Laid in his
depression John guessed they'd changed their search parameters and
didn't like the conclusion that led to, 'Oh fuck! They know I'm
here!' More worryingly the turrets on the two light vehicles beneath
him, which had been stationary since their arrival on the scene began
to scan the area.
The two dozen dickheads had began
closing on his position, hopefully not realising it, when a voice
whispered in his head. The AIphone relayed a message from the
incoming recovery team, "Thirty seconds, what's your
status?"
After a moment's hesitation John began sub
vocalising, "I've got twenty plus hostiles two hundred metres
North of my position and two units of light armour at 50 metres
North, so far I'm in the clear."
"Roger that,
fast movers in twenty, be ready for dust off."
"Got
you."
John, who was listening for them, was the first
on the ground to hear the approaching craft. They came in low and
slow in the normal attack pattern for Hogs, the lead craft lined up
on the light armour and John smiled as the twinkling around the nose
indicated when the lascannon began firing.
Unlike the old
GAU8 that the original A10 used for taking out armour the A20 was
fitted with an enlarged version of the Marine's standard laser rifle.
That is, much enlarged! The pulsed laser was generated by the craft
and since it didn't have to be carried around by a man, this unit
discharged its energy through a similarly scaled focusing crystal to
produce a blast that was capable of penetrating heavy armour.
The
light vehicles that the dickheads were using here didn't have a
chance when they were hit, which the lead vehicle discovered as the
first A20 passed over it, spewing the contents of its innards around
in a truly satisfying explosion. The second vehicle lasted five
seconds longer before the wingman walked the high powered flashes
across the rear decks, leaving it a useless pile of scrap
metal.
John felt like standing and cheering but he wasn't
that stupid, though a couple of his buddies in the squadron may have
questioned that statement. The second pair of A20s came in along the
line of the dickheads and unloaded cluster munitions along the entire
length of the line. A lot more ordnance than would normally have been
expended on such a small target but thankfully they weren't taking
any chances.
In the back of the shuttle Gunny Puddle was
doing three things at once, preparing the Marines to deploy, keeping
an ear on the communications traffic and watching the concubines
carefully. He'd spent the drop trying to make them understand what
was going on and had been a little frazzled by the way they just kept
nodding and smiling. If he'd heard them talking when he'd walked away
he'd have gone red with embarrassment.
"Not a clue,
has he Chris?" asked Jane.
"No," replied
her friend, "Then again I don't suppose anyone's told him that
we both crewed Air Ambulances back on Earth."
"True,"
agreed Jane with a grin.
"And he does have a point,"
said Christina, "as neither of us has been in combat
before."
Jane just grinned at her friend, "And
how does that affect sitting here and waiting for the casualty to be
brought to us?"
"I don't suppose it does, "said
Christina as she looked out of the side window at the rapidly
approaching ground.
Around her Marines were running
through a final check before they deployed. It had been agreed that
they would just spread out into a skirmish line and allow the pilot
to be recovered before getting back aboard with no need to engage
anyone - hopefully.
Sergeant Young looked along the line
at his mixed bag of troops and really hoped that nothing untoward
happened, he really didn't fancy having to face any real opposition
with these troops.
Everyone on board heard Master Sergeant
Wilson announce their arrival at the pickup point and then the rear
door crashed down.
"Move!" yelled Sergeant Young
as he led his Marines out of the back door.
Paula had
dropped the shuttle between the wrecked vehicles and the position the
dickheads had reached when they were strafed, about a hundred metres
from John Harkness. The pilot, as soon as he'd seen the shuttle
hover, had broken cover and started to run for the rear of the
craft.
The sprinting pilot was about ten metres past the
armour when the second vehicle that had been hit joined the first in
exploding, and hot metal fragments flew twenty or thirty metres from
the wreckage. One small fragment ploughed into the runner's right
knee and neatly shattered the patella, leaving him a floundering
screaming mess on the ground.
Christina, still watching
through the window was the first to see him fall and the first to
react.
Grabbing Jane, she yelled, "He's down, come
on."
The two concubines were down past the opening
and down the ramp before Keiron was even aware that they'd moved.
They'd disappeared from view before he could react. It took the two
women fifteen seconds to reach the wounded pilot and, dropping to
their knees beside him, they made a quick assessment.
In
the ideal world they'd have immobilised the injured limb and sealed
the puncture wounds. Set up IVs to replace lost fluids and even
administered something for the pain. Here they grabbed him and threw
him over Christina's shoulder, then Jane secured the leg above and
below the knee the best she could and the group headed back towards
the shuttle at a brisk walk.
Keiron, on the ground now,
saw them coming and informed the pilot of the situation. Sergeant
Young had been listening and had started to move his small group back
toward the shuttle bay, still keeping an eye out for any potential
trouble.
Christina, puffing like a locomotive, staggered
up the ramp and into the back of the shuttle. Jane guided her to the
stretcher they'd set up, never expecting to need it, and the two of
them lowered the now unconscious pilot onto it.
Behind
them the Marines came flowing up the ramp and automatically dropped
into their assigned seats. As soon as the last Marine was aboard
Keiron gave the word and Paula had the shuttle airborne and heading
for orbit as fast as it would move.
The two former nurses
set about stabilising the pilot as soon as they were assured that
there would be no violent manoeuvring.
Outside the shuttle
four A20s adopted a covering position and patted themselves on the
back for a job well done.
---oOo---
Two days after the dramatic rescue mission Paula
sauntered up the loading ramp of Zero Seven and was confronted by the
sight of Keiron and the two concubines. Frowning, the command pilot
asked, "Visiting?" with a raised eyebrow, as she looked at
the two women.
Keiron jumped in, "No boss, they...
'erm... sort of belong to us."
"They belong to
us?" asked Paula in amazement.
"So it seems,"
said Keiron. "When I grabbed them I had the AI transfer them to
Seven." He grinned, "It seems like they're ours until we
hand them back."
"It does, does it?" she
asked acidly, "And when, may I ask, were you going to tell me of
this addition to our manifest."
"Well..."
began Keiron before slithering to a stop.
Paula couldn't
keep her face straight any longer and broke down. "Don't worry
Keiron, it's great."
The two concubines, who'd been
getting steadily more worried as the conversation had gone on, sighed
with relief. Being a concubine on a Navy vessel was a precarious
place to be, being an unattached concubine could be downright
dangerous. Getting attached to Seven had been a stroke of good
fortune that neither woman wanted to lose.
The Navy
allowed each person to bring one concubine with them on any
deployment of over ninety days, for the Marines it was tough shit.
True, the company did have half a dozen slappers from the Civil
Service brothel attached to them but that didn't go round very well.
As Paula had noted on numerous occasions, 'you think that's tough,
I've just got you guys to choose from.'
The concubines
belonging to the Navy were pooled under the Chief Steward and did
menial tasks - food delivery, cleaning, uniform maintenance and
whatnot - which freed crewmen to do more combat-effective work. Jane
and Christina had been allocated to the ship and so were treated as
the lowest of the low. They'd actually been fortunate to be attached
to the med bay, as this was a permanent allocation and meant that
they avoided the worst of the jobs the concubines got.
"So,
where's Jamie?" asked Paula dropping into one of the canvas
chairs that Keiron had acquired.
"He should be here
in a couple of minutes," replied Keiron glancing at his watch,
"he's collecting some refreshments."
Paula
looked from Keiron to the two women and watched as they turned a
lovely shade of pink, she chuckled before asking, "And is this a
private party or can anyone join in?"
As Keiron
watched Paula start to strip off her flight suit he said, "Boss,
you are always welcome to join us," and reached for the
fastening of his own suit.
---oOo---