Chapter 10 – Cheetah

The weekend might include a day or two of rest to most of the cultures of the Earth, but out in the Diaspora no such luxury existed. This particular Sunday morning was no exception.

The shuttle prototype sat in the hangar bay of the orbital fortress, waiting for the ground crew to finish flight preparations. The Marine crew of one sergeant pilot and one sergeant loadmaster were running through an extensive pre-flight checklist. This checklist was longer than the version used with the production model would be as they were flight testing new avionics and looking at effects of the hypersonic flight on the airframe. The XV-42 Cheetah looked like a demented cross between an American A-5 Vigilante bomber from the 1960's and a German Horton 229 flying wing from the Second World War. It had the Horton's curved fuselage, which merged into the sharply raked wings seamlessly. Like the Vigilante, the two crew sat in a tandem arrangement, the cargo being carried in a round tube that exited directly out the stern, abaft the engine exhaust ports.

Off to the side, mounted vertically in racks, a line of Kitten self-transporting nexuses waited to be loaded into the Cheetah's circular “bomb bay”. The Cheetah would not slow down over a landing zone. Instead, it would drop a stacked string of Kittens which would decelerate faster than anything organic could survive and land, ready to instantly disgorge a squad of Marine infantry at a time. According to the designers, the time from when the Kittens dropped to when the first squad of Marines were ready to fire could be less than two seconds.

Looking down into the two-storey hangar bay from a second-level observation gallery stood a pair of high-ranking Marine officers, both dressed in armoured battle suits, their helmets clasped in their left hands. The higher ranking of the two stood glumly, not really taking in the ballet of carefully controlled chaos below.

“Your mind is not on the approaching test,” Chaz Desrochers ventured.

“Indeed not,” Michael Deschenes admitted. “It's on that conversation yesterday, on board the Clarke.”

Chaz didn't reply, but merely waited for his superior and old friend to gather his thoughts.

“Did you ever think, when after that Average Joes show they announced the Swarm was on its way, that it would come to this? That someone, somewhere, would take the skills we're developing here and the knowledge those scientists on the Clarke are gleaning, would make the decision that might just kill the last remaining humans on Earth?”

Chaz was startled. “Surely by the time they launch this Operation Foxhound of theirs, the last humans will be dead?”

“Possibly, but... I think it's unlikely.” Michael stared down at the long, thin shuttle below. “When they do touch off this non-nuclear winter, it will almost have to be before the Swarm find a deposit of uranium. If it happens before they can fuel their reactors, then the only Swarm colonies that will have even a chance of survival will be those in geologically active areas, restricting where you can find them. That means that not long after they land, if Central Command even waits long enough for them to land, we'll be forced to trigger the ice age. It'll take a while, maybe a few years, before the ice sheets cover the whole planet.” He turned to Chaz. “That means a lot of people are still going to be there, in small villages scattered around the globe. They'll freeze to death, if they don't starve to death first.”

Chaz nodded in comprehension. “And a lot of those left on Earth will be senior citizens, a part of the population less able to handle this worsening weather.”

“And in addition to the seniors in the Western countries, and children, you'll have those people used to tropical and sub-tropical weather, without replicators. Many countries in those parts of the globe just don't have the numbers of volunteer-level people to make extractions practical, so the populations there are, if anything, even greater in number than their pre-Swarm levels. And outside of the West, much of the world doesn't use Confederacy fusion reactors – they're still using coal, hydro and natural gas to generate their electricity. When the artificial ice age hits, there go the hydro generators. They don't run well when the water is frozen and doesn't flow through the turbine blades. Getting gas and coal at that time will be very difficult too. A lot of people could end up freezing in the dark.”

Chaz easily called up mental images of what life would be like in, for example, tropical Africa: shivering in dark, powerless towns whose poorly-insulated buildings had been designed with little or no call for heat, starving because their crops had succumbed to this new experience of frost, wearing insufficient clothes, and dodging Swarmtroopers day and night. The fortunate wouldn't last long before becoming Dickhead Delights.

“And we all still have relatives living on Earth,” Michael continued. “Unextractable relatives. Grandmothers and mothers who are past menopause. Low-CAP-score parents and siblings and cousins and aunts and uncles. Even, for many, technically adult offspring.”

“Do you have any relatives on Earth, Sir?”

Michael nodded. “My father's dead, a hunting accident long before Average Joe's. My mother, though, is alive. Too old to extract, unfortunately. She's running the family farm as best she can. I've got a cousin that Confederacy Provost Marshal is keeping an eye on – apparently he's Earth First through and through, thinks I never should have left. Has a couple of teenage boys who are complete gits, scoring something around three some odd like their twit of a father.” Michael shifted his stance. “Penny's parents are back there, and a sister who is married with a couple of kids – her mother's like mine, too old. Her father's got the scores and like me and my Dad has the military experience, but he's volunteered for that Home Guard thing they're creating. He doesn't want to leave Penny's mom all alone.”

“What about Penny's sister?”

“She'd make a good concubine for someone, and her two daughters are dependant aged, like Diana. But you need to be lucky to get off Earth. Your chances are fewer in rural areas, and since her divorce from Liver Lips, they've been living with Penny's parents in Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, which is a fairly rural part of Quebec. It's not big, maybe ten thousand total population, so there aren't a lot of sponsors – and so there aren't a lot of pickups.”

“I see,” Chaz said. Then, “Sir, who is 'Liver Lips'?”

“Her ex-husband. Loser like you've never seen. Never met a job he really liked. Amazing his girls are as nice as they are – at least, the two I know about. He's suspected of having fathered other kids.”

“And if you had to, could you give the order to launch Operation Foxhound, Sir? Knowing you would kill civilians by doing so? Including your own kin?”

“I'd like to think I could, Chaz. After all, we've got to stop the Swarm, and if we don't, then even the evacuated humans of the Diaspora are dead. As are the rest of the Confederacy races and the AI. I wouldn't like giving the order, much as I doubt 'Bomber' Harris liked sending his crews against civilians, but you do what you can with the technology you're given.” He shrugged sourly. “Life sucks, sometimes.”

Before Michael could quiz Chaz on what family he had left behind, a voice came over their implants. “Sir, the XV-42 is ready for its test run. I recommend you relocate to Martello One One Nine.”

Michael and Chaz looked down at the Cheetah. Its engines were “spooled up” to full power, purring excitedly. Only restraining force fields were keeping the eager feline on the deck. “Very well, as soon as it launches, we're away.”

With the aid of a force-field catapult, the thin shuttle bolted out of the hangar bay as if ambushing a gazelle, clawing for space. The two officers turned from the now-empty view provided by the observation gallery window and strode purposefully for the nearest transporter nexus.

The scene that greeted the General and his second-in-command at Martello One One Nine was far less confusing than the one in the hangar bay in orbit. A squad of Marines calmly stood in sealed matte-white battle armour in a sub-surface bunker. The battle armour was just in case anything went wrong with the Kitten drop test, so that the squad would not be exposed to the inhospitable atmosphere of Thule for even a second.

The objective of the test was to see if the Kittens would land properly and still be fully functional after such a bumpy ejection and rapid deceleration. Rather than testing anything organic, the plan was to use something they could afford to lose: 40-centimetre-tall test dummies. Each Marine in the test squad stood in front of a nexus with three of the dummies on a table in front of him. When the nexus glowed green, he would pitch all three test dummies through as fast as he could.

The General hefted up one of the test dummies. For its diminutive size, it was quite heavy. He cocked an eye at Lieutenant Carruthers. “This must weigh at least twenty kilos.”

“Just under that, Sir,” confirmed Carruthers. “We didn't want them to blow away in a wind storm. The on board sensors actually only weigh a few milligrams.”

Michael nodded at Carruthers and replaced the test dummy on the table. He decided to avoid commenting on the exterior design of the thing until after the test was concluded – Carruthers obviously had given the construction careful thought. The duty controller from Martello One One Nine's Combat Information Centre chose that moment to announce, “General, Sir, One One Nine CIC. Test pass is on schedule for twenty minutes from... mark. Per standard protocol, all humans in this martello are to don battle suits.”

As Carruthers ordered the squad to lower their visors and go on internal atmosphere and power, the General placed his helmet over his head, secured the collar ring and lowered his visor. Beside him, Desrochers did the same. On the wall beside the two senior officers, a display appeared, showing the black dot that was the approaching Cheetah, with the range in the foreground.

The Cheetah raced for the landing range, her engines howling. Behind her, fur flew in the form of snow, scattering every which way as the vortexes curled off the wing tips. The sergeant pilot was pushing the craft to battle speed.

As the craft crossed the range outer boundary, the cone covering the cargo exit popped off. Instantly, the stack of ten Kittens was ejected and almost as instantly slowed down to a more sane subsonic speed. They landed gracefully on their feet, in two lines of five. The time had been less than a fraction of a single second.

In the bunker within Martello One One Nine, ten nexuses suddenly glowed green. Instantly ten armoured pitchers tossed thirty identical, 18-kilogram, 40-centimetre-long teddy bears into their nexuses. Each plush bear was dressed in a teddy-bear-sized sealed battle suit, coloured day-glo orange to make finding the little beast after the test possible in the event the tracking device malfunctioned.

A display on a wall glowed with thirty green indicator lights, showing the teddy bears had all survived their valorous encounter with research glory. Carruthers pumped his fist triumphantly. He took a second to compose himself, and turned to Michael.

“General, Sir, I would like to report that this phase of the test has concluded successfully,” he formally advised.

“Very good, Lieutenant.” Michael continued to regard the display with some disbelief. “You gave each his own name.” It wasn't a question.

“Yes, Sir. We wanted to be sure that if any nexus didn't survive, we could identify which one. That was easiest if we assigned each test dummy a unique identifier tag.”

“And numbers were not creative enough.”

“Sir, no Sir.”

Michael's only reply was to roll his eyes to the ceiling and order, “Carry on.”

“Do we have to put the teddy bears in the report, Sir?” Chaz asked amusedly as the pair headed back to the CIC to review the video one last time.

Michael's face took on a pained look. “I'm afraid so, but I see no need to mention them in the executive summary. We'll put the technical specs for the test dummies in the appendix, including the list of 'unique identifier tags'. That ought to give the engineers a chuckle when they dissect the results.”

Melodie and her daughters were quickly getting the message: the Beauty Saloon was more than a family restaurant, and more than a brothel. It was the place for celebrations on Thule.

Right now, a squad of Marine infantry, some engineers and aircrew were celebrating some successful operation or other in one of the Saloon's party rooms, hosted by General Deschenes himself. All of the officers and men were dressed in their daily duty dress, kepi rolled up and stuffed neatly under the left epaulet. They merrily belted back cocktails and congratulated Lieutenant Carruthers, the General himself leading many of the toasts.

Mysteriously, thirty teddy bears, each wearing a green daily uniform which bore a different name from the others, sat at a nearby table. Nobody seemed to feel the reason for the cuddly little toys' presence worth mentioning to Melodie, nor the reason why each plush creature wore a tiny medal of valour pinned to its duty jacket.

Lieutenant Simonetti, the Admiral's aide, arrived to represent the Navy. “Gentlemen, the Admiral sends his regrets, but he finds his attention elsewhere. One of his concubines has gone into labour.” The good-natured crowd raised a cheer and called for a toast to the soon-to-be new father.

Melodie and Candy stood in the doorway of the party room with a handful of other nervous concubines, all kitted out in Chinese style dresses slit up the sides up to their waists. Melodie had a pageboy haircut, chosen years ago as easier to deal with while whirling around the ice training goalies. On the other hand, Candy normally wore her straight hair long, about halfway down her back. At the moment, the dark tresses were swept up and secured using combs. It gave the girl an exotic attraction to the men in the room.

Samantha appeared behind the nervous knot of concubines as waitress concubines prepared to serve platters of Govyadina V'smetane, Russian steaks in a sour creme and cheese sauce. “Go on in, everyone,” she urged in whispered tones. “Make yourselves pleasant. Help them enjoy their steaks.”

Collectively they took a deep breath, and joined the overworked waitresses in helping serve the General and his guests.

Candy found herself being directed to one corporal, the lowest-ranking member of the celebratory party. As she fed the lad bite-sized pieces of cheese and sour creme glazed beef, she chatted the young man up.

It turned out that young Corporal Paul Covington was the same age as her, fifteen, and had two concubines back in his pod. He was already a father of two, and expected to conceive two more before his next trip to Hesperus. “Hopefully in time for the pole dancing exhibition. I'd like to see both of them up on the stage, looking at me and making me proud.”

Candy didn't understand the implications of the exhibition, except that it meant dancing naked around a stripper pole. Crouching beside his chair, she felt his hand reach through the slit in her dress to her bare buttocks. As he gave them a gentle caress, she found herself getting wet with sexual excitement.

In response, she dabbed at a nonexistent drop of food in his lap. Hard already, the well-endowed Marine corporal was soon much harder. He returned the favour by reaching between her legs and playing with her labia from behind.

Somehow, Candy and Paul made it through the entrée. As far as Paul was concerned, he was having some Candy for dessert. He half-carried the weak-kneed but willing teen concubine over to one of the couches set against the wall opposite the teddy bear table and drew her dress up to her waist.

Candy ran one hand along Paul's jaw and fondled his brush cut with the other, staring lustily into his eyes. Rendered completely uninhibited by the sensations flooding her brain, she drew him into a deep French kiss, trying to intertwine her tongue with his.

Paul, for his part, used both of his hands to play with her bottom, occasionally moving one forward to lightly flick her clitoris. Under the erotic assault Candy soon forgot that they were in the middle of a crowd of over twenty sponsors and a like number of concubines, including her own mother.

Melodie, meanwhile, had made to go and interrupt her daughter before things got too out of hand. Fortunately she was thwarted in her efforts by the big Marine flight sergeant who placed his massive arm around her waist and whispered in her ear, “Goin' somewhere?”

A shiver of excitement raced down Melodie's back, but her duties as a mother commanded at least a modicum of her attention. “That's my daughter Candy over there.” She was having trouble focusing at the task at hand for some reason.

“Kinky,” the massive sergeant breathed back. He had no problem whatsoever focusing on his task at hand, which was to mate with this interesting woman whose neck he was nuzzling. “So you want to join them? Candy is dandy after all.”

“Yes,” Melodie agreed, adding, “but sex won't rot your teeth....”

Melodie's consciousness was becoming somewhat fuzzy. What was the question? Something about her daughter? Oh, yes, this tall stranger wanted to know what felt good to her. “That feels good. Right there.” The sergeant began rubbing her labia a little harder, with occasional side excursions to her by-now delightfully sensitive clitoris. “Yes.” And harder. “Yes!”

Melodie temporarily forgot about Candy's amorous adventures on the couch over to the side, as her sergeant gave her a toe-curler of a kiss. As easily as if he were lifting a water goblet, Melodie's sergeant lifted her up onto his lap, undid the seal on his trousers and settled her onto his erection.

Melodie was in no condition now to witness her daughter in action. Candy had lifted her dress over her head, having decided the silly goddamn thing was just getting in the way. She was now lying on her back, stark naked and in thrall to yet another orgasm, having wrapped her loving legs around Paul. For his part, Paul was definitely enjoying himself as well, his eyes soon rolling back as his orgasm overtook him.

All around the room, other concubines had also rendered themselves or been rendered clothes-free, most wearing just flat-soled Chinese slippers. They were sitting on the laps of the sponsors, some facing their mounts, others facing the same direction, bouncing on the Marines' enhanced poles. The air was thick with the musky aroma of sex.

In another room in the Saloon, four giggling girls and two snickering women chowed down on burgers and fries. The display on the wall of Samantha's office showed the action in the party room. Clarisse was amused by her mother and sister's actions.

Samantha leaned back in the chair behind her desk and, taking a slug of her milkshake, addressed her newest dependant. “There's one big reason why I wanted you to see this.”

Clarisse ventured a guess. “Entertainment?”

“No.”

“Blackmail material against Mom and Candy?”

“No.” Samantha took another sip of her shake. “How could you blackmail the two of them?”

“By threatening to tell everyone I'd seen them having sex in the same room together.”

Samantha turned to the younger two girls. “How many times have you seen any of the other adults in our family have sex? Allie? Mickey?”

“Tons,” confirmed Michelle matter-of-factly, as Allison nodded in agreement.

Samantha's gaze returned to Clarisse, who was freaking that this conversation was taking place in front of a five-year-old and an eight-year-old. “It's to show you that you've got zero privacy. The AI are everywhere, and they see everything. You get the hornies before you turn fourteen, don't try to put any boy's Tab A into your Slot B. We'll stop you before you succeed, and if you've isolated yourselves somewhere, you'll be waking up with a killer headache from remote-controlled stinger fire.”

Clarisse blanched.

“From your thirteenth birthday, if you don't mind that cute boy playing with your boobies, that's OK, oral action's OK, anal action's OK, masturbating in public is OK, but you even try to steer anything up there,” she gestured to Clarisse's crotch, “and you'll be punished. Especially because, as I'm the senior Civil Service officer and all, my family needs to set a good example.”

“Oh. Punish, how?” Clarisse wanted to know.

“Depends on how masochistic you are,” Samantha replied with a wolfish grin. “If you try to get frisky before you turn fourteen, you'll end up wearing a chastity belt. I've seen some of the replicator patterns. There are several types that look most uncomfortable.”

“You wouldn't...” Clarisse began.

Samantha's response was to look to the ceiling. “AI, can you connect me to Julienne, please?”

The picture on the wall changed from the orgy in Party Room Five to that of a girl just Clarisse's age. When the girl saw who it was, her face clouded. “Yes, Decurion,” she growled.

“Ah, Julienne. I have a young lady here who needs confirmation that girls who don't want to wait get help. I assume you're wearing the belt?”

“Yes. Sir.” Her voice was clipped. Obviously she was most annoyed about something. “You want to see, I suppose?”

“Might be good for Clarisse. If you'd be so kind.”

Blushing and clearly irked, the girl lifted her skirt to display the leather-like band that ensured her virginity for a few more days.

“Don't fret too much, Julienne. Your fourteenth birthday will be here before you know it.”

The girl sighed theatrically. “Thank you, Decurion,” Julienne said, the tone of her voice clearly implying that thanks were the last thing she intended to communicate. With that, the link was cut.

As her harem laughed at young Julienne, Samantha made a subvocal recommendation to the young lady's father, that he submit a request to the AI to grant an exemption to the 13-year-old restriction for his daughter.