Chapter 3 - New Home

The pod gently settled into its new home, a ditch on the northwest side of the dome. As soon as the pod confirmed it had successfully mated with the cradle that would support it in place and had connected the utilities to the base facilities, an action that took a mere matter of minutes, the engineering vehicle began to bury it and the other four pods beside it deep beneath the frozen soil of Thule. Within hours it would be connected to the primary tunnel at its front and the secondary tunnel to its rear. Up in Kilo-class colony transport CSS Grey Goose, the next pod left as excited families prepared to leave their temporary home of the last three weeks for their new permanent base.

The first of the new troops had arrived.

In the pod that had just settled down, Bob Redburn lay on the bed, cradling the naked forms of his former wife Monica, and her sister Alice Munroe, now his concubines. Snuggled up tight to Monica was her nervous and equally naked daughter Samantha, 13.

They had been extracted at what they and their daughter's teammates had thought to be just another hockey tournament in northern Ontario, Canada, along with all the other members of her Peewee AA hockey team. Since then, Bob had enforced a "concubines nude" rule in the pod, although they were permitted to wear shifts outside. His daughter had felt that to be a fine rule for dependants to follow as well, except instead of a shift, she wore her hockey jersey. Several of her equally underage teammates had almost gotten neck strain trying to see if she were wearing panties, to no avail. The boys on board were still trying to unlock the mystery when the CSS Grey Goose arrived at Thule.

"Private Robert Redburn, your pod has successfully landed," the AI announced. "Utilities have been connected. There will be two hours while the end hatches join with the primary and secondary tunnels."

"Thank you," Bob responded politely.

"Private Robert Redburn, there is no requirement to thank the AI," the AI reminded for the umpteenth time.

"AI, there is no need to address me as 'Private Robert Redburn' every time. If I'm the only 'Private Redburn' in the room, that will do."

"Very well, Private Redburn."

"And my mommy raised me to be polite, and any intelligence, artificial or otherwise, deserves to be treated with a certain degree of politeness, and that includes yourself. Thank you, AI."

"You are welcome, Private Redburn."

Bob shot his amused concubines a look of triumph. "Now, what do we do with the next two hours?"

"There's always sex," Samantha suggested, causing both her mother and aunt to blush.

"Did you have any couplings in mind?" enquired Bob, raising an eyebrow. "Remember your age, now. There are some things you're allowed to do, but some things you aren't."

"I can watch..." Samantha suggested mischievously.

"That's true," Bob agreed, and felt his ex-wife stiffen in his arms. He looked Monica in the eye, and saw her plea reflected in her irises. "What? Your daughter may be sponsor-track, but she still has to learn how to create babies."

"She's still my baby," she muttered into his ear. "I'm uncomfortable enough with her just lying naked next to me."

In response, Samantha hugged her mother spoon-like, her tiny breasts digging into the older woman's back. It wasn't uncomfortable physically, but it was emotionally. Monica found herself being forcibly reminded by those soft A-cup breasts that the little girl who she'd brought into the world, whose diapers she'd changed, whose meals she had cooked, who she'd played road hockey with and taken camping and canoeing, helped with the doing of homework and the figuring out of life, had begun growing into a woman. Monica smiled as a happy memory flitted across her memory.

"Remember when you got your first period, Sam?" All four clearly did. "Your Dad agreed it was a monumentally important occasion in a young lady's life, and took us out to an expensive restaurant to celebrate. The waiter couldn't serve you Champagne, so the sommelier gave you a glass of ginger ale in a champagne flute."

Bob reached his right arm behind his ex-wife and gave his naked daughter a hug, squeezing Monica in between him and Samantha.

"All right, then, it's time to get some work done!"

"Daddy? No sex?" Samantha was disappointed.

"There's a time for sex, and a time to ensure that the pod came down all right. Let's check everything for breakages. Samantha, top floor. Monica, kitchen. Alice, front half of the pod."

As there were only the four of them in the pod, the top floor was still largely unoccupied. One bedroom held Samantha's hockey bag and equipment, and was nominally her bedroom. In fact, she had yet to sleep there, making outrageous use of her status as a 13-year-old to sleep in the master bedroom with her father and both his concubines. Other than changing the colour from the hideous grey to a pastel shade and installing an entertainment centre on the one wall of the common room, they hadn't done much to the upstairs at all, although they'd pencilled in a nursery.

On the main floor, each concubine had her own relatively tiny bedroom where she stored what little in the way of clothing Bob permitted them. At one side of the front door, Bob had an office/den and on the other was a little alcove for greeting guests. Across from the set of bedrooms was a large bathroom which Bob had ordered modified so as to include a large whirlpool.

As she put away her hockey gear into the special closet that the AI had carved out of her bedroom space, Samantha found herself growing bored. "AI, random pop tunes, please. Volume level three." The upper floor of the pod filled up with the utterly addictive sounds of the Demeter Drones singing "Extraction Distraction".

Bob's taste ran more toward country twang. Hearing through the between-floors hatch the catchy tune, he battled back with the Swarmettes' heart-felt ode to a lost truck, "Picked up Without My Pickup."

It didn't take long to assess the status of the pod, and fix what little was out of place.

Bob called for a family conference. "Idle hands are the devil's playmates," he reminded the trio of naked women.

"Oh, beauty!" his daughter exclaimed, leering at both of the now-nervous concubines. "I'll take off your hands whichever one you're not going to be rubbing your hands all over."

"In a second, my overeager young padawan. First, your mother and aunt need to determine what they'd like to do outside the pod to help the colony, and then we need to contact the appropriate Civil Service officer and offer their services when I'm on duty."

Samantha screwed up her nose, but could see her father's logic. She just didn't feel at that moment like postponing pleasure that much longer.

"Private Redburn, excuse me," piped up the AI. "There is a difficulty regarding that plan."

"Oh? And what would that be, AI?"

"This colony presently has no Civil Service officer."

Everyone was startled at that. They knew well that the Civil Service officer was the one responsible for assisting with any and all problems the sponsors and concubines had. They backstopped the field units back at their home colonies, so they didn't have to worry about their families. If a sponsor died, it was up to the Civil Service officer to ensure the deceased sponsor's concubines and dependants were cared for and if possible, distributed. They ran the brothels, they supervised the dependants' education, in short they did practically everything that the planetary governor and military commander (frequently one and the same individual) deemed "not military".

For a colony to not have a civil service officer was a serious issue.

"What is the colony doing about no civil service officer?"

The question might not have been worded the best way, but the AI gamely did its best to give an intelligent answer. After a pregnant pause it came back with, "There has been a request from Ensign William Barker to meet with Colonel Michael Deschenes on the topic of 'Civil Service Officer - alternate planning,' but other than that I find no plans to provide the colony with a Civil Service officer. The meeting is scheduled for 14:00 today."

Bob sat back and thought. It was 10:00 now. "I should go through the chain of command, but I don't even know who my corporal is yet."

"Your corporal has not been assigned. Your sergeant is Kenneth Kowalski, and your assigned unit is the 1202nd Infantry. Corporals will be promoted from the highest-scoring Privates during Basic Training."

Bob nodded. "Thank you, AI. Please notify Sergeant Kowalski that I would like to participate in the Civil Service planning session if that is permitted."

"Daddy..."

"Acknowledged, Private Redburn. I am notifying Sergeant Kowalski now."

"Daddy..."

"Yes, Princess?"

"Daddy, I'd like to help out too. I'd like to volunteer to be the Civil Service officer when I get CAP scored."

Her mother was shocked. "Oh, dear, you don't want to do that!"

Bob was looking at his daughter with a mixture of pride and horror. "Honey, I'm proud of you for even suggesting it. But it's a lot of work, and as the CS officer told us on the ship it's a thankless task. Are you sure?"

Samantha did give it a moment's thought, and then nodded firmly. "Yes, yes I am." She looked at her father right in the eyes. "It's something that needs to be done."

"We'll talk more about this later," Bob advised his utterly serious daughter.