Chapter 30 – Growing Pains

Allison's hockey career had started just after the Halloween party. Samantha was confronted one morning at breakfast by an uncharacteristically nervous and subdued Vickie. The Liverpudlian was clearly reluctant to ask this favour of her mistress.

"Mistress," she began formally, "you know that Allie wants to be like you?"

"A Civil Service officer?" Samantha guessed. "Pregnant? Bisexual? Horny?" She batted her eyes fetchingly at her senior concubine. "Cute?"

Samantha's guesses didn't make it any easier on Vickie, for both of her young charges had expressed interest in all of the above – except cute, which they both already were in spades. "No, a hockey player," she sighed, not really anxious to have her youngest charging around a rock-hard and slippery ice surface with others who bore large pieces of timber in their hands and wore razor-sharp blades on their feet. "At what age can she start learning?"

"'Tykes' starts at five, although basic skating can start as young as four. AI, do we have Tykes Level hockey classes?" Samantha hadn't paid a great deal of attention to the hockey set-up for the younger kids, as she was still more concerned about the Minor Bantams issue. Many Minor Bantams were now hard-charging two-metre-tall Marines, and had nothing "Minor" about them. Clearly, something had to be done lest the teens start smearing each other into strawberry jam whenever they did a legal, clean body-check into the boards. She herself was considered ineligible to play at the moment due to her pregnancy, and she was not the only girl player from the Tournament Extraction to be so blessed.

"Affirmative, Sub-Decurion Redburn. There is a class at fourteen hundred that has not yet filled up, at the Frank McGee Arena."

"AI, please register Allie for that class."

"Mother Sam, can I be a goalie?" begged Allison. Allison called all the women in the pod "Mother", as in "Mother Vickie" and "Mother Callee".

Samantha flashed a grin at Vickie. "Not quite like me, then." Samantha was a right-winger. "OK, Allie. AI, please replicate one set of goalie gear, Allie's size. Pink, please, she is a girl after all."

Vickie confessed, "I've been told she's been dragging the boys out to play 'road hockey', whatever that is." She looked at Samantha nervously. "That isn't anything bad, is it?"

"You have no clue?"

Vickie shook her head. She wasn't from a part of the world where hockey was part of growing up. She'd barely heard of the sport before becoming a Fille de Roi. "It isn't like this 'tonsil hockey' you've talked about, is it?"

Samantha snickered. "Not by a long shot. It's literally hockey played on the road, with a tennis ball, standard hockey sticks and something for a net. A real net if you've got one, they make road-hockey nets, but a couple of rocks or old tin cans will do in a pinch."

As Vickie said "Oh" as if she understood, Samantha saw she'd have to show the woman. "Come."

"I'm naked," Vickie protested.

"Yeah," Samantha agreed leeringly, then shook her head. "I mean, why yes you are, now that you mention it. So what? Come."

Moments later, a still-nude Vickie was watching her first game of road hockey. Samantha had used her communications implant to get the sponsors of several kids in the eight to ten year old age range to send their sprites out for a sudden, unplanned pickup game. Allison was delightedly between the pipes at one end of the makeshift playing area, determined to keep the puck – or rather, tennis ball – out of the net. Sergeant-Major Blondell's male concubine Greg held down the other end of the short stretch of road.

"I think she's got some talent there," Samantha observed to Vickie's dismay as the ratty old tennis ball made yet another beeline for the curb, deflected from the net by an eager Allison. Samantha had dressed Allison in an oversize T-shirt that bore the legend, "I'm not the girlfriend, I'm the goalie – and I'm going to shut you down!" So far, the youngster had lived up to the boast. "I can't wait for this afternoon's session."

"I can," Vickie reassured her sponsor, chewing nervously on her lower lip.

Five-year-old Allison stood bravely, covered in thick leg and chest padding and a pink and white hockey jersey. The goalie mask had the head of a growling pink wolf cub painted on it. She tried to look fierce. She managed to look cute.

She felt bewildered. The practise coaches were shooting pucks at her diminutive form as gently as they could, but the speed was still faster than she could handle. And as she had not had much experience skating, with neither her late mother nor her Aunt Vickie being skaters themselves, the little girl was using the goalie stick more as a prop to stay vertical than as a means of keeping the puck out of the net.

One puck gently nudged her stick's massive blade and rebounded, most of its energy absorbed in subtly but fatally changing the angle of the piece of hardwood that Allison desperately grasped in her right hand. She leaned forward a tad to examine the phenomenon of a black frozen disc of rubber slowly spinning in front of her.

"Dependant Allison Redburn has lost lateral stability," reported the calm voice of the AI.

Vickie stood up beside Samantha, who rapidly followed suit. Anxiously, the Liverpudlian vet grasped hold of Samantha's arm, squeezing as she watched her niece's remorseless loss of balance.

Glove hand windmilling in a vain effort to prevent the inevitable, the thickly padded youngster fell over into a perfect faceplant like a conifer felled by a woodsman's axe. The puck was smothered under her chest protector as if she'd planned it. Two Marines seated in the stands near Vickie and Samantha snickered at the sight.

"Dependant Allison Redburn has fallen over," the AI updated unemotionally.

"ALLIE!" yelled Vickie, distraught.

"Dependant Allison Redburn is undamaged," assured the AI, still as calm as if announcing the next selection of classical music. Samantha bit her fist to keep from laughing outright at the sight of the now utterly immobile young goalie-in-training, as the two practise coaches rushed over to help Allison back to her feet.

"Help up, please?" asked the polite little girl unflappably.

Meanwhile, in another part of the galaxy:

"It's a similar plan to that which gave Thule its first Marine draft, except about ten times the size" the Scottish-accented Marine major advised. "We should be able to top the colony off at one go."

Miles Chandler nodded and signed off on the document. Operation Bawdy Check would be the largest single extraction plan that the Office of Targeted Extractions had performed. It would also be the riskiest set of extractions, if word leaked out. Well, that would help the Marines train to fight the Sa'arm. The Earth First hazards were nothing for him to worry about.

The next morning saw Samantha standing before the Board of Inquiry once again, wearing her full-dress greys and holding her pace stick under her left arm. The queries this time were less about how she handled Sa'arm and more about how she handled sponsors – and their concubines and dependants.

They'd spent the last two hours grilling the girl. This, she reflected as they dissected yet another incident from her recent past, must be how a primate in a zoo feels, constantly under scrutiny.

"Now, Sub-Decurion, relax for a moment," instructed the Dux.

"Sir, yes Sir," Samantha replied, not relaxing one whit.

"You just recently had your birthday. If we could give you one present, what would it be?"

She blinked. The question came from so far out in left field, she had to think frantically for a moment to come up with even an unreasonable response. She then recalled a certain five-year-old, falling flat on her nose on the unyielding ice and still gamely carrying on.

"On-ice officials and goalie coaches, Sir."

One of the admirals blinked uncomprehendingly, but the Dux understood. "Hockey referees and linesmen? And goalie coaches?"

"I know that's three things, but when we were extracted the tournament was a sham, and they'd made no provision for officials. Plus, the specialist training staff hadn't been invited, as they wouldn't have been to a normal tournament. So while we're trying to muddle through as best we can, we could use the additional staff."

The Dux nodded mysteriously at his fellow Board members. "I don't think you need to worry about the on-ice officials. We'll ask the Office of Targeted Extractions about the goalie coaches."

Shortly after, Samantha found herself dismissed. Lieutenant Carruthers was in the hall when she emerged, but before they could get a word in wedge-wise his name was called.

After lunch, Samantha found herself in front of a class – her first remedial concubine class. There were twenty women there, all of them over 18 and all of them nervous. They were there because their sponsors had been persuaded to take this route rather than dump the dummies into the concubine pool. Samantha had very few unassigned concubines who weren't fostered out; the pool of Filles de Roi who had yet to be permanently assigned was rapidly dropping. Still, she'd rather ask for another Aurora-full of unassigned concubines than have any already here get kicked to the curb.

Just before entering, she turned to Callee, who with Vickie was accompanying Samantha. Both of her charges were dressed solely in concubine collars. "I want to make this clear: you aren't here as a student. I'm not upset with you."

Callee looked relieved.

"You're here as a training tool – they're going to learn to be horny little sluts, and they need a good example."

"Am I a slut?"

"Oh God, I hope so. You're showing great promise."

Callee was not reassured. Her mother had tried to raise a "good" Irish Catholic girl, by the standards of pre-Swarm society. That those norms had vanished was a lesson she had yet to completely absorb. Samantha hoped that exposure to this class would make her realize the nature of the society Callee now found herself a part of. Vickie was aware, but both she and Samantha were quite cognisant that the Liverpudlian definitely could use the reinforcement.

The twenty women who Samantha faced were all wearing concubine shifts and looks of fear. They were aware how close they stood to being whores, and most had no idea how to handle this life.

"Ladies!" Samantha announced at the top of her lungs, amplified by the AI. "Welcome to Remedial Slut-Craft 101!" She put her pace stick on the lectern at the head of the classroom. "And you're all overdressed!" She shot a look of amusement at her own two concubines, who smirked back.

She pointed off to her right. "Everyone, take off your shifts and hand them over to the girl at the far left-hand side of the row. Girls at the end of the row, drop the shifts into the recycler."

One "girl", about thirty according to her record but looking like she was almost a decade younger, started. "Do we get them back?"

"There will be replacements back in your pods... if your owner decides he'd like you in one. Otherwise," she waved at the nude forms of Vickie and Callee without finishing the sentence. The concubines got the message and swiftly divested themselves of their scanty attire. A few sat down.

"Did I tell you to sit?"

"No, Ma'am!" one exclaimed.

"Then why are you?"

They leaped to their feet.

"Better. Hands behind you – don't try to hide. Your sponsors gave you the bodies they found most appealing. Let them look. You're my class until you get back to your pods this afternoon. Tomorrow afternoon, you're my class from the moment you leave your pods. And for Slut School, the schoolgirl uniform is Nude."

She began pacing along the front of the classroom, stripping nude as she did so. "Why are we here? What is your primary job?" She looked at the now-naked women. "Well?"

The class looked at her uncomfortably, and not a few of the trainees with a look of incomprehension.

"Vickie? Callee? What is your primary job?"

Both had been drilled, and were prepared for the question. Vickie was bolder, however, and spoke up. "We're here to breed."

"Right. Your first duty is to bear young. Your sponsor's first duty, if male, is to impregnate females, and if female, to bear young. Vickie here has a second job: Thule's chief veterinarian. I have a second job: I'm the ranking Civil Service officer. Sergeant-Major Blondell has a second job: she's the senior NCO of the entire Brigade. We're up against this breeding machine called the Swarm, and if humanity doesn't breed faster than them, we lose. And that, essentially, means extinction. And extinction is for a very, very long time. Any questions?"

No.

"So, why are you here?"

One woman raised her hand gingerly. "To breed?"

"Exactly. Everyone?"

A few voices whispered: "To breed."

"Louder."

The voices were firmer. "To breed."

"I can't hear you!" she singsonged, cupping her ear.

"TO BREED!"

"Better! We'll work on that." She carried on with her lesson. "And who breeds more, good little virgins or wanton sluts? How many virgin births have we had in humanity's past? One, and that without reliable witnesses. So if we want lots of babies, we need lots of men and women who want lots of sex. And that's where you come in.

"You're going to learn to like sex. Lots of sex. Lots and lots and lots of sex. Look at the female sponsors. They're what you would have disparagingly called sluts when you were growing up – they like their sex, and most of them are bisexual. And why? Look at your CAP scores."

The AI showed Samantha's killer CAP scores on the "blackboard" at the front of the class.

"The CAP scores include scores for sex. How interested you are in sex, how uninhibited about sex you are. Sponsors have high scores for most things, and that usually includes sex. That's why they like lots of nookie. We're going to raise your scores there, or kill you trying." She knew it was possible they would indeed recycle some of these frigid little turkeys, but didn't let on that she wasn't speaking metaphorically. "Do you know what we out here call concubines who want sex frequently, who are willing to waggle their little butts in front of their masters to entice them, who don't complain when Master wants them up their cute little butts, who are willing to seduce their fellow concubines?"

"Your aunt," offered Vickie with a twinkle in her eye.

Samantha grinned at Vickie gratefully. "Close." She turned back to the class. "Anyone? Nobody? How about, 'well-adjusted'?"

Not everyone got it, but a few light bulbs seemed to be clicking on.

After showing them video culled from various different parties at the Beauty Salon including her birthday, she told them their homework: flirt shamelessly with their sponsors.