CHAPTER 2
Back in the main colony circuit, I did okay on legs. I found a NovRos transport heading back that way paying M3000, good enough for the trip, then M1000 for an in-system leg to planetary orbit. It was the Sorokin, and I’d crewed on her a couple of years back. The owners remembered me. Two of the crew thought I looked familiar. One of them hit on me and I politely told him I wasn’t available until I debarked.
He wasn’t bad, but I could probably find someone closer to what I needed. He was on the “maybe” list.
My only issue was they liked their ship cold. I wore a liner over my briefer and under my suit, and an ear band. I had lightweight gloves but couldn’t wear them much.
They had valuable indoor cargo—wine, liquor and caviar that had come from Earth. It had to be checked every few hours. I’m not sure why. The hold container was conditioned, but I had to eyeball it, and once a day the purser did as well.
They also had a passenger pod. I helped the cook with labor and delivered it to the passengers.
The cook was fantastic. Iliana actually had attended a formal school in Italy on Earth. She was taller than me, very solid, and could chop food by hand for hours, it seemed like. She never got tired.
“Food is art and science,” she said. “Getting it all ready at once is science. Making it good is art. So stir this.”
I did. She had two pans stirring themselves, me stirring another, while she hand chopped herbs and tossed them into the gravy she had me holding.
She even had a chicken stroganoff aside for me and another crewmember who didn’t like beef.
She reached past me and swapped pans, replaced a cutting board, grabbed a different knife, and just moved nonstop, items going past me and into serving containers.
The containers all went on a rolly, which I hauled down to the pod. There was a housekeeper assigned to them who took it and thanked me.
It was fifteen days from station to station and then in-system. NovRos has one of the spacewheel transfer stations the Freehold has. We dropped down in-system, latched on, and it threw us down the gravity well. We spent most of the trip at low-thrust retro to brake. I’m told you don’t use any more fuel, you just arrive faster since all you’re doing is braking, not accelerating.
“We’re legging out in three days,” Captain Mirovich told me. “Back to Caledonia. I can take you on standard pay for the jump transit, deadhead from here to there.”
“Okay,” I said. I wanted to look about their orbital station. I hadn’t been there in four years, and that had been about three days, too. I didn’t have a reason to stick around, so back out was fine. I stamped a contract, left my work gear aboard, and took my personal bag stationside.
I had friends here, but I got a message that they were both away on contract. Bob and Ray were my go-tos in this leg. I’d hoped to avoid lodging and have fun with friends. No luck, and it was a short turnaround.
Instead I found a lead on a place with roomy bunkies. They were actually almost bach rooms. Private bath, bed and chairs, and a unitized kitchen machine. It was slightly larger than a crew stateroom. They cost about twice what a bunkie does, but I could get spread if I wanted to.
I figured to try the Ice Palace, so I used blue and white makeup down to my collar, glitter out from my eyes, a long ice-white wig with blue ticking, and a blue unitard. I found a store with a white icicle skirt and paid to have it delivered by tube to the kiosk in the lobby.
Like a lot of older stations, this was an inflated planetoid. They have open trains because it’s only three kilometers in diameter and length both. It’s not quite a cylinder, but close enough. There’s a raised “hill” on one side and a lake on the other. They’re okay recreation, but more for families.
I took the train down the axis and out between the lake and hill. That’s where the Ice Palace is, across from the Sun God.
I really did dance, with Electroade cocktails in between. Blueberry Electroade, a splash of vodka and a dusting of Sparkle, over a solid cone of ice. It’s refreshing, and I got into a great dance trance. I could feel the music and rhythm, and just gyrated with it. Inside I felt like I was squirming. It’s hard to describe. If you’ve sparkled, you know what I mean.
Then it all overlapped with the music and low G and I got dizzy. I ordered a hit of straight O2 to clear my head.
The bar had some snacks, so I grabbed a chicken beet salad and some vat-raised roe on toast. I watched the other dancers from a corner table.
There was one amazingly fiery couple. They both had olive skin, ripped muscle and moved in perfect synch. I’d swear they’d had years of practice, but they were young. Back, forth, angles, sides, turn, hands on hips, step, twirl out. He was amazing, and if he’d been alone . . . then I wondered about the two of them. I knew I’d enjoy it, but I had no way to know if they went that way, or if I could fit into their mix well enough.
But it wouldn’t hurt to ask. If not them, who else?
That was when a handful of uniforms came in.
Military, UN, undress, which they wouldn’t do in Earth but I guess would here. Most of them were pretty average. It’s not just the difference in gravity. They just don’t push fitness in the UNPF the way we do. Three of them, though, were in good shape.
I stepped out and smiled at one of them. I gestured, he nodded, and we got to dancing. He was nice to look at, definitely showed interest, but his rhythm was only okay. He had olive skin that shaded well with his uniform shirt.
His buddy was a bit better. He was gorgeously coffee-hued with a very sexy grin full of naturally perfect teeth. I worked between them, let them get on either side and guided their hands in so they knew it was okay to touch me.
That was possible. I thought I might do that as a second option.
I smiled my way out from them, and turned to where that couple had been. They’d moved over a few meters, so I jig-stepped that way. The lights kept shifting, the bass rumbled and some sort of waveform whooshed in and out of phase.
They were still moving back and forth, sometimes locking eyes and grinning, sometimes watching their feet, sometimes closed and arching. They were just perfect. I can do a woman if a man is involved, and he had a great ass and shoulders.
I got alongside, waited until they noticed me, and open-handed to them.
She gave me this gorgeous smile, and it was such a beautiful turndown I couldn’t even be disappointed. She was amazingly expressive.
That one look said, “I’m so sorry, but we’re alone this evening. You’re definitely pretty and interesting, but I can’t share. He’s got to do some serious work on me before I sleep. Another time perhaps.”
Actually, I could have done her alone, based on that smile.
I bowed back and turned enough to show I understood and would move away as the dance took me.
But my soldiers were still free. They were dancing with a couple of other girls, who I could tell were only there for the dancing. I moved around the outside, until the flow of the floor moved the girls a bit back.
I ran fingers up each of their spines, smiled and shimmied back between them. Dale and Jacques, I found out, and they each had a hand stamp showing an infection test. They were looking, I was looking, and it didn’t take long to convince them I was interested, and of course I was fine with both of them. I was pretty sure it would be tag team, not sandwich.
I was close. Two hours later I was on tight all fours with my mouth and my cooze full, and then very full. Hands ran over my back, belly and breasts, and I rode the waves as they shuddered and throbbed, and I was still just sparkled enough to feel like I was tumbling. Orgasm and euphoric is an amazing combo, if you get the dose right.
I was glad I had the large room.
Dale had come in my mouth. He wanted to fuck me, so I rolled back and pulled him on top while Jacques took some time to recover. An hour later, I got them both off again, in a sort of reversal.
I was stiff when I woke up the next morning, but I felt great. A little naughty hedonism is great for my mood.
There were a lot of troops around the station, mostly in small groups. I wondered what was going on. It was the War, of course.
There’d been talk of a UN mission to the Freehold. What we found out was that it had been an actual attack. They’d gone in with ten drop landers, and pretty much lost a chunk to Orbital Defense. Then the rest had been captured and held for repatriation.
The troops here were because the UN had planned on a larger mission, with these guys staged to be support.
I’d invited what were basically two enemy soldiers into my bed last night.
That took some of the buzz off.
I saw troops everywhere. Doc, clubs, shopping. I think they were billeted in pods in a load bay.
I wasn’t able to catch back up with that amazing couple. I was at Ice Palace all three nights, and nothing.
But I still had most of my funds in my pocket when we boosted out, and I’d been very well spread. I’d look in the same club if I legged back soon.
I didn’t see any troops in Caledonia, and two days after docking, I pulled out doing intra-gate work from their JP2 to JP4 to get around the bottleneck going through the Freehold, on a volatiles hauler, the Wheezer. Instead of attached pods and a towed train, they had a fixed tanker frame. I had to monitor Temps and Press, and keep the crew fed around the clock. It was twelve days transit, with lots of routine and nothing else.
That put me close to Ramadan, of course, and I had to juggle to avoid Arabish ships. Some of them are really pushy and abusive of female crew, and you won’t find a court to help. There’s no clubs, either. Or, there is, but the dress code makes dancing pointless.
There were troops there. I took a count. They’d arrived just after the ones at NovRos, which made sense, given transit time.
It matched up with that botched assault.
Three jumps and a month later, I was back in Caledonia. No troops there. They were pretty close to independent, and I thought that mattered.
Interesting.
It was then that the real attack took place. The UN used kinetic weapons to smash our ground bases, which was odd. Space assets are a lot more important. I had no idea why they’d chosen that approach. I never studied tactical or strategic calculus. I couldn’t figure it out then, and I can’t now. I’ve had people tell me it’s an institutional mindset that can’t adapt, but it’s so ridiculous I can’t see it even with that.
They landed and started moving in, and then spread back to some of the habitats. I didn’t know that then, though. Just that they’d landed and occupied and called our government a “junta.” I had to look that word up. They lied outrageously that our government was a military government, and they claimed to be liberating our residents.
People believed it, even in Caledonia. Apparently, on Earth they ate it up. It was complete vent waste, but people would believe it for years or ever.
The biggest thing I noticed about the War was shipping stopped dead for a week.
The news from the Freehold was limited. At the time, I could tell the UN had moved in and had control of media, but all that means is they controlled the Jump Points, or at least some Jump Points, since news has to go through shipboard and be recast on the far side.
I was glad I had Caledonian ID. I might not be going home for a while. I sat around the station, and there were ships to Earth, a few back to Govannon, some going through-system for Novaja Rossia. Nothing was going to Grainne.
Then flights resumed, with stringent examinations.
The good news there was that the backed-up ships had lost some crew to other transits or routes, and wanted to unload in a hurry when they got there. There were support materials for the war they wanted to haul.
I got on a large tramp—the Ronson, 500K tonnes, with a crew of fifty. We loaded in a hurry, then spent the trip tetrising stuff around in the holds, so it could be unloaded in proper order. That saved time on loading, would save time on unloading, and kept us busy meantime. It meant they were short on mass, but I guess the time saved made it worthwhile. That’s a purser problem, not a cargo-handler problem. I got paid Freehold Cr5000 for the trip, and damn, I earned it.