Chapter 1

Sarah Miller went in for CAP testing, finally, after her return from a special medical mission to the Middle East. Since the threat of a Sa'arm invasion, most people had already been CAP tested. However, Sarah had been in a base camp somewhere in Dubai at the time that testing became a prerequisite for evacuation from Earth.

The problems began when the Middle East was removed from the potential evacuation list by the Darjee. Sure, the threat of annihilation by an alien race cooled the tempers of most countries, but the Darjee's announcement, against the advice of all human governments, had made it nearly impossible for Sarah and her co-workers to get out of Dubai.

The US government finally removed those workers by doing some old-fashioned horse-trading. The Saudi prince wanted a few "key advisors" returned to his country. In order to get those advisors, he allowed the US citizen "guests" to return to the United States. It took nearly two years of negotiations for the trade to be completed.

During that 2 year waiting period, many things about the testing process had been changed. In order to improve the Confederacy's image among those who would remain Earth-bound, all test subjects would receive nanobots to control, or cure, diseases like diabetes, HIV, and cancer.

Sarah's test took nearly four hours, although she was unaware of the passage of time. Four hours was still an unusual amount of time for an AI to run a CAP test, though. When she emerged from the testing room, a large man in a gray uniform was waiting for her.

"Sarah Miller?" he questioned. "I'm Jonas Reed, from the Confederacy Civil Service Corps. May I have a few moments of your time?"

Sarah's surprise must have been evident on her face, because Reed continued "If you could just step into my office for a moment, I have your CAP score here".

She followed the giant man into the next room and took a seat where indicated. "What is my CAP score? And, why do you wish to talk to me? I thought the procedure was to be tested and then, if one's score is high enough, wait to be extracted?"

He passed her a card, about the size of a playing card. "As you may know, it has become more dangerous for those holding CAP scores above 6.5. Yours is an 8.2 and, as such, will make you a target. Terrorists have been targeting people with such high scores and the Confederacy has taken to removing those with scores over 8.0 immediately after testing."

He continued, "However, the AI has identified a small problem with you".

Sarah said "A problem? I'm not aware of any problem, except that I don't want to fight. I'm a healer, not a soldier!"

Jonas raised his hand, "Please, let me finish." Seeing that she was waiting, "I see that you desire to be a non-combatant, but you have high leadership skills. The AI believes that the Civil Service may be an ideal posting for you."

"What is the Civil Service?" Sarah asked. "I didn't know there were any options except the Navy and Marines."

After explaining that the Civil Service group handled such issues as concubines whose sponsors had died, along with working to help Planetary Governors develop other services to back up the soldiers on the outlying planets, Jonas asked her directly if she would be interested in becoming part of that branch of the military.

Sarah thought quietly for a few minutes and then asked if her medical training would be useful in the new service. Jonas's answers reassured her.

Jonas led her to a transporter and asked her to step through the doorway. The ship she stepped onto was relatively calm since the crew was preparing for an extraction. She met CPL Pete Taylor, the man in charge of the next extraction. Taylor, like Reed was nearly 7 feet tall and, to Sarah's eye, huge. His shoulders, she thought, were more than twice the width of hers.

Jonas Reed, who Sarah quickly learned outranked many of the crew aboard the Challenger, asked Pete to take Sarah down once the extraction got under way. Pete looked distinctly pissed until Jonas showed him Sarah's CAP card ... and explained that Sarah would be a Centurion, the equivalent of a Major.

When Sarah arrived in the diner where the extraction was taking place, she immediately thought of the bazaars she'd seen in Dubai. There were people talking everywhere and everyone seemed to be wheeling and dealing. Women were half-naked, or completely naked, and were doing anything they could to convince someone to take them off the planet. Sarah wasn't truly surprised, just somewhat startled because CPL Taylor had only been in the diner ten minutes. She noticed that there were several men heaped in a corner of the room who obviously no longer needed medical attention and, as she looked around, she saw another man fall from a stinger blast.

Taylor spoke to her. "You're entitled to pick 6 concubines from whatever's here, so long as another volunteer hasn't picked the person first. You probably don't want all men or all women, since you're going to need someone to impregnate your other concubines. I recommend you pick at least one woman with strong maternal drives to take care of the kids, one person with strong sub-scores for leadership and a couple of men to keep you from getting bored with only one dick to play with." He handed her a device designed to show her a potential concubine's sub-scores. "Go pick yourself a family, Centurion."

Sarah looked around and decided that choosing her males should be first priority, although it appeared that all of the other volunteers at this extraction were men. One of Taylor's cohorts trailed along beside her as she walked toward the group of men at the side of the restaurant. She asked them if any of them had women in the groups that had already been chosen. No one did, apparently, so she asked them if any had women in the diner who wanted to leave the planet. Two men raised their hands and Sarah stepped to the first man, a black man who was somewhat overweight and appeared to be in his early 50's.

The man, Leonard Johnson, or Lon, had great sub-scores for paternity. His downfall was his easy-going nature. Lon was the type of man to sit back and take orders. He'd do anything you asked, but he wasn't big on taking action without some leadership. The CAP card said he had great scores for being inventive in the bedroom, though, which Sarah felt might prove invaluable in the days to come. "So, Lon," she said, "which woman over there is yours?" Lon pointed out a tall, dark-skinned woman who had that elegant look and ageless face that so many black women are known for. She also appeared to be nearly in tears because none of the male volunteers had looked twice at her since she was thin to the point of emaciation. Sarah told Lon to bring his wife, Carlotta, over to her.

When they returned, Lon looking eager and Carlotta looking as if she was about to lose her last friend, Sarah asked them if they had any problems having sex with others. Carlotta's eyes showed that she'd be open to the idea and Lon said "Hell No!" Sarah checked Carlotta's card and found the leadership skills that Lon was missing, along with the marks of a very hard-working woman. "The two of you can go over there by that soldier. You're going with me." Both smiled until Sarah said "However, your clothes must be left here. None of the other volunteers are wearing clothes, and you won't be either."

Sarah waited until both had dropped their clothing, then turned back to the group of men and asked the other man who had indicated he had a wife in the diner for his CAP card. His sub-scores, however, showed that he had a tendency to beat on women. She asked him to bring his wife to her and, when they arrived, had both strip immediately. The man, John, dropped his clothing in record time. His wife, Amy Franks, took her clothing off very shyly. Sarah was appalled at the number of scars on the woman's skin. There were a number of round burns, some healed, and quite a few scars from stitches, in various states of healing. Amy told her the scars were from "cooking". Sarah took her card and looked at it. The sub-scores showed her that Amy had a 3.2 score, with a strong tendency to be very submissive.

She decided fast. Looking over at the soldier, she said "I want the woman, not the man." John Franks began protesting loudly and moved towards Sarah. "You can't take my..." The soldier dropped him with one quick stinger burst.

Sarah sent Amy to join Lon and Carlotta.

She turned to the next man, who introduced himself as Charles Fralex. While Sarah looked at his CAP card, he shifted from foot to foot and looked extremely nervous. "What's the problem, Charles?"

"I don't want to take my clothes off in front of all these people." He said.

"That's non-negotiable. Is there a specific reason you don't want to be naked here? If it's a problem with equipment size, remember, I can fix that once we're aboard the ship."

Charles looked over his shoulder at three kids sitting in a booth on the far side of the restaurant. "Those are my step-kids. I don't wanna embarrass them."

Sarah's answer was "Do you want to get them off this planet instead of letting them become Sa'arm food? Then you'd better strip."

Charles removed his clothes while trying to stay out of the kids' line of sight. "If you don't take us, my wife's gonna kill me for doing this."

Sarah motioned for Charles to come closer. "You'd better start showing me a good reason to take you with me then, hadn't you?"

For some reason, this seemed to be Charles' trigger to turn on his charm. After making sure Sarah was agreeable, Charles slid an arm around her, burying his face in her neck. The other hand slid down her zipper so that he could work a hand into her jeans. Charles turned out to have magic hands and had Sarah cumming in minutes. When she got her breath back, she pointed Charles to the rest of her group. He asked if he couldn't help her pick out the other 2 women she needed and Sarah agreed.

The soldier stepped in and whispered to Sarah that Confederacy rules wouldn't allow them to take the step-children unless Charles had adopted them formally. Charles actually smiled at this, "Yeah, I adopted 'em the same year I married their mom. They're mine legally." So Sarah had her first children for her new family. Under the new rules for extraction, Sarah could have opted to have Charles' wife extracted as well. When she offered this option to him, he made a pained face and said, "Why, so I'll get to listen to her constant bitching up there that my CAP score wasn't high enough to get out on my own? No thanks!" A quick consultation with the escort soldier confirmed that Charles' wife, Melinda, was very high strung and prone to be overly critical. Sarah decided she didn't want to deal with those qualities while trying to put together her new family.

While the kids headed over to join the soldier, Sarah and Charles spent some time looking over the group of women still waiting to be chosen. Almost every woman in the diner was naked now, except for two sitting in a booth in the corner. Sarah moved over to that group and asked for their CAP cards. Both women had them, but weren't overly excited about having to "perform like trained seals in public" in order to get off the planet.

Louise Martin was 35 and had been divorced since her early 20's. She had one daughter who was 15, so an adult under the new rules, and her daughter wasn't with her today. Louise wore her dark brown hair long and straight, with glasses covering her dark brown eyes. If she'd worn braids and buckskins, she'd have passed for an Indian squaw. Something in Louise's eyes made Sarah ask for Louise's card instead of turning her back.

According to the CAP card, Louise had a hell of a sex drive, but hadn't had an opportunity to put it to work much while raising a kid. Now that the kid was technically grown, she'd been working on expanding her lifestyle. Then the Sa'arm had decided they were going to visit and Louise found herself either having to chase some geek who had a 6.5 or listening to some dork rattle on about how his CAP score should have been higher.

She herself had a 6.3, but knew that wasn't good enough to get off the planet alone. She'd decided that she'd volunteer for whatever group started a 'defend the planet' movement.

It hadn't been Louise who made the trained seals comment. That came from Betty Alderman, an over-50, over weight, heavily made-up officious secretary type. In Betty's world, everybody was out to get all they could from others and no one did anything out of kindness. Betty's 2.1 CAP, lack of interest in sex (from the sub-scores) and overly critical nature earned her a pass from Sarah. Charles privately thanked Sarah for that one later.

Sarah asked Louise if she really wanted to stay on earth and fight, or if she'd rather go help insure survival of the human race somewhere else. Louise's smile told Sarah that survival was a little higher on her agenda than defense. Louise also looked pretty excited when Sarah asked if Louise would have any problem sharing a bed with either Lon, Charles, or herself -- or all three. Louise offered to demonstrate her abilities right there on the table.

Sarah told Louise to strip and head over to the soldier. Louise dropped her clothes beside the table, revealing a decent set of breasts over heavy legs and ankles. Sarah watched as the other woman walked across the diner with her head held high. "No embarrassing that one!"