Chapter 12: Beach Barbeque

The next morning, Simon dove into work. Laying aside the user documentation, he looked into the Palladium's operating system manuals and began studying how he could disable it for General Manlius. He quickly rejected any idea of trying to figure out the complex application and decided to focus his energy on the operating system, one of the many mutated strains of the old POSIX system.

Delving into old administrator manuals, security analyses, and hackers' guides Simon devoted his time to the arcane specialty of "distributed multiprocessor parallel operating systems." Wading through the dry and boring guides, Simon spotted a common thread running through the system design. Although each remote site was capable of engaging targets on its own, they all relied on the central processor to identify their targets by asking a second site for confirmation. His goal was to have one of the tributary sites request a confirmation from the central processor on a target that didn't exist. By continually re-requesting this non-existent target he hoped to cause the system to "hang" - waiting and not doing anything productive such as processing sensor information or engaging targets.

During the calm evenings, he relaxed in the Q, talking with Alex and Patty. With nothing to do but study, Simon was eager to see Arabella again but Patty reassured him that what they were enjoying wouldn't last much longer. Her boat had been on patrol for the last few days, chasing smugglers north of Tangier. As they chatted, Patty told Simon that she felt that the Shoremen couldn't possibly hold out much longer.

"They are getting desperate," she said, "much more so than I've ever seen before."

"So why does that get you down?" Simon had thought that she would be happy to see the end of the rebellion.

"'Cause it means that things are going to get nastier before they get better." She looked up into his eyes. "And it means that people will go back to their other lives."

Simon hesitated in asking what she meant by the last remark. Trying to make her feel better, Simon offered to take her out to dinner. Rather than dressing up and going to the Officer's Club, Simon suggested that they go down to the beach and have a cookout by themselves.

Sheltered between two sand dunes, they shared a blanket, relaxing before starting the grill. Patty lay on her stomach, soaking up the heat from the white sand. Simon knelt beside her and rubbed oil on Patty's back. Simon untied her bikini top and massaged her back. Working slowly, he spread a thin coat of tanning oil across her skin. When he reached the bottom of her back, he brushed the top of her ass with his fingertips. Deciding to continue, he untied her bikini bottom and massaged the globes of her ass.

"Now I'm going to burn," she murmured.

Working on the boats had given her a deep 'farmer's tan' on her arms and face. Even though she sunbathed as often as possible to even out her tan, the skin of her ass was pale as porcelain.

"I'll have to make sure you get plenty of lotion down there." Simon slid his finger through the cleft of her ass and she spread her legs in invitation.

Rubbing his greasy hands all over her ass, Simon teased her anus and pussy with the oil and his fingertips. He could see that her pussy lips were starting to puff up and glisten with juice but he continued only enough to make her purr before sliding his hands away to massage her legs.