Chapter 3: Getting There

The first jump was tedious for everyone from the Commodore down to the concubine of Private Smith, the newest crewman aboard the Sir Galahad. Not even Colonel Murphy had ever been in hyperspace for three straight months. Each ship was in a universe of its own, completely out of touch with everything beyond the FTL bubble that surrounded each ship.

Routine became ritual as the individuals, partners, and crews fought boredom.

Aboard the Sir Galahad Lieutenant Geraldine Timmons was getting irritable, mostly from an itchy clit.

"Carson!" Lt. Timmons shouted at the retreating marine. "Get your squad ready for descent and ascent drill in the central column, five minutes."

SSG Carson turned and saluted, "Yes, Ma'am."

Timmons returned the salute. She felt bad about taking her frustrations out on Carson. It wasn't his fault that she was the only Marine officer aboard this tub, except for that goofy egghead Wallace. God, she really wished she could have brought a second stud along on this stupid outing. Rush Katchka was good, but she was used to more variety. She longed for a threesome with two studs, but wasn't about the bed any of the squids on this boat. Maybe she should try to develop an interest in that geeky astronomer after all?

The astronomer in question, Ensign Mark Wallace, had been almost comical when he'd reported to Timmons and given her his card. She was the senior Marine officer on board and it was customary for newly assigned officers to leave their card at the residence of the commanding officer. It was a tradition so old that Timmons wasn't even aware of its existence.

Carson banged on the hatch at the entrance of the enlisted quarters for his squad, "Let's go, ladies! Down and up the Swarm hole, five minutes." No one knew what would be found underground on a Sa'arm world. The self-tunneling penetrators rarely got around a set of blast doors before being cut off by Sa'arm and forced to self-destruct. They figured the worst-case would be a hole that went straight down; so, the squad was getting into shape to repel down a well and climb back out again.

Aboard the Hurst Castle Sgt. Adams looked into the startling blue eyes of Hanna, or was it Janna? The two were physically identical and only slightly different in personality and preferences. "How about you and I go somewhere quiet and practice making babies?"

Hanna asked, "Are you sure we need to go somewhere?" She reached for the closure in Adams' trousers.

Janna asked Mathews as she reached for his groin as well, "Can we practice with them?"

Adams intercepted Hanna; "We might put someone off their appetites if we fuck in here. How about that game you invented for the weight bench, Hanna? Let's go see if the gymnasium is available."

Both Hanna and Janna jumped up and down and clapped. This would give each of them a chance to have two cocks at the same time, and maybe a third depending upon who was in the gym.

Similar distractions of a sexual nature were being played out in the other three ships during the boring three-month voyage deep into Sa'arm-controlled space.

None were more creative than the ones dreamed up by the Marines aboard the Sir Galahad.

They had rigged a variation of 'The Singapore Sling' in the gymnasium.

Corporal Ralph Sewell's concubine Thi Mai is the undisputed champion of 'sit-and-spin' forcing Sewell to spot others as much as two-and-a-half rotations.

The woman would don a fall-arrest harness with the elastic line attached to a pulley in the overhead. The pivot-man would lie on the floor and the suspended woman would be lowered onto his fleshy lance. The elastic shock cord made it real easy for her to bounce straight up and down with a hard cock in her twat.

The supine contestant got one shot at spinning the girl on his slick shaft. The number of revolutions without losing contact determined the winner. Mai could tuck in tight and grip the flare of Sewell's cock with the muscles at her entrance and typically make eleven revolutions. Fourteen and a half was her personal record with Ralph.

Thi Mai was a hundred-forty-seven centimeters tall and looked like she was about twelve-years-old, but she could manage to take Sewell's thick, twenty-three centimeter shaft in all three of her holes. She had a flat chest and hairless body. The dark, almond shaped eyes on her pixie face could penetrate any defense. Her hair was such a shiny black that it had a violet sheen.

Tucking in tight with the vagina the center of rotational mass is not as easy as it sounds. But Mai and Sewell had countless hours of practice and the contestants fell to them one-by-one.

Their closest competition was Corporal Walter Fitzgerald and his blonde gymnast Betty. At a hundred-sixty-eight centimeters, Betty was considerably taller than Mai. And her proudly protruding B-cup breasts threw her center of rotation off, forcing Betty to arch her back and not tuck quite as tightly as Mai, but she could get ten revolutions on four out of five attempts.

Betty loved to be the center of attention and was very proud of her trim, athletic body. She would flash her thick, honey-colored bush every chance she got. Her pale blue eyes would absolutely sparkle when she could best Mai at 'sit-and-spin'.

But even this game was getting old by the time the ship finally emerged from hyperspace. There wasn't much to look at even when the FTL fields collapsed. They emerged from the shimmering warp field into the deep black of nowhere. The nearest star to any of the ships was three light-years away.

After the Farnham Castle emerged from being in hyperspace for three months Commander Sandra O'Donnell took a reading of the ship's position using the navigation telescopes; then took another hyper-accurate sighting of three stars with unique spectral signatures and verified that the Farnham Castle was three light-months out of position. This discrepancy would not look good on her resume, but before digging into the how and why of it, she reported their actual position to Lieutenant Colonel Delano.

"Navigator to bridge," O'Donnell said to no one present where she sat.

"Go ahead, navigator," Came the equally nonexistent voice in her head.

O'Donnell took a deep breath, "Captain, we're way out of position coming out of that long jump. Along with giving the adjusted position to the sensor array, we need to recalibrate the FTL drive before the next jump."

"Damn," Delano muttered, not intending the AI to forward that to O'Donnell. "Very well, navigator, make it so and follow up with how we can avoid this in the future."

"Aye, Captain," she replied cursing to herself.

Fifty light-years away Col. Murphy smiled when Commander Brenner confirmed that the Hurst Castle was twenty-seven minutes out of position. "Add our position fix to the supraluminal message drone and dispatch it to Sir Galahad's scheduled position," Murphy ordered.

Two-and-a-half days later the drone was back, not only with confirmation of their orders, but also with messages that the Sir Galahad had received for the fleet from Dothan. Personal messages from home were typically a morale booster for every member of the crew.

The next day Colonel Murphy ordered that the data collected so far be packaged up and retransmitted to the Sir Galahad with the 'failure to deliver' return address their next scheduled position.

Things were not quite as relaxed aboard the Lancaster Castle and the Sir Galahad when they emerged from the three-month trip. Each ship was a bit over six hours out of position. It was not enough to be at risk of running over something or missing contact with supraluminal drones, but enough to generate frowns on their captain's faces when their positions were reported.

Everything was progressing as planned through the next two stops. None of the ships emerged from the next set of short hyperspace transitions so much as a light-minute out of position. The sensors aboard each of the corvettes were gathering and recording information from scores of stars at each stop. As the Sir Galahad prepared to enter hyperspace for the fourth time since leaving Truman, they had collected observations from at least two angles for each of the hundreds of stars in their new database.

Aboard the Sir Galahad Commodore Jason Achord had joined the captain of the flagship, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Collins, in the CIC. The two men were reviewing the data that had been collected so far.

Collins was briefing Achord; "We are currently located here, about 120 parsecs, or 390 light-years from Earth near the central core of the Orion Spur. We've collected data on several hundred stars that have planetary systems. We may still be on the edge of Sa'arm space, we may be at their core, or we may have possibly gone right through to the far side of their domain. Our AI's have no data to support or dispute any of the three hypotheses. We've seen no evidence of movement, but we've stayed too far away from planetary systems to detect Sa'arm ships entering or leaving hyperspace."

They were on their third 'skip' within Sa'arm space, not counting the long jump from Truman. They were headed for their fourth stop within what was believed to be Sa'arm territory. "Show me our current positions on the hologram." The star chart seemed to rise off of the table into the air above the flat surface. Four bright green dots flashed in the center of the map. "Now highlight the stars that have at least a ninety percent probability of planets with heavy metals that are within fifty light-years of our next stop."

Forty-seven dots began flashing. "Let's trim it to ninety-five percent, if you please, George." The ship's AI, George, updated the display using the new criteria, and the two men studied the pattern of dots for a moment.

Lt-Col. Collins pointed to systems that were along their general course, "These twelve are within thirty parsecs of each other. Unless something better presents itself, I suggest we cruise through them and see what we can see."

Commodore Achord sighed and nodded agreement, "It's as good a place to start as any. Let's have Farnham take these four." Achord pointed to a progression of stars. "Send Hurst to these four and send Lancaster to investigate this grouping. Will you please communicate the appropriate instructions along with our projected normal-space drifting coordinates and schedule for the next four periods to the three ships, George?"

The ship's AI replied. "The instructions will be forwarded as soon as communications are established in normal space."

"Thank you, George," Achord replied. "I'll be in my quarters."

Frieda greeted Commodore Achord as he entered his pod. She brought him a dry vodka martini with three olives and knelt at his feet. Frieda looked like a Nordic opera singer, only not as heavy. She had a golden blonde braid that reached her coccyx and a thick trapezoid of blonde curls above her plump labia. She was completely nude and displayed her D-cup chest and flat abdomen proudly.

Achord took a sip of his martini before leaning forward to kiss Frieda. He put the long stemmed glass on the small table next to his elbow and nodded at Frieda. She smiled as she reached to unfasten his trousers and retrieve his swelling cock. She leaned over his lap and began bobbing her mouth up and down his length, taking him into her throat on every third stroke.

Achord sighed, picked up his drink, and took another sip as he watched Frieda work her magic on his shaft. He had enough control to remain detached but interested for the next thirty or forty minutes while he watched her. Frieda had tremendous stamina for cock sucking. She didn't start breaking into a sweat until she had been hard at it for thirty minutes or more. Achord wasn't going to make her work that hard this evening. He drained his glass and set it aside. Frieda was watching and knew what he wanted. When he leaned back and closed his eyes, she dove on his cock and swallowed repeatedly until she felt the head swell. She then backed off enough to be able to swirl her tongue around the tip until she felt the first blast hit the roof of her mouth. When she had milked that last feeble spurt, she let her lips slid off the tip, and sat back smiling.

"Very nice," Achord complimented her. "Now, help me up from this chair and out of my clothes. I think we'll have a nice fuck and a shower before we eat dinner." Frieda sprang to her feet to happily comply with his instructions.

Lieutenant Timmons had finally given into temptation and began spending time in CIC or the wardroom where Ensign Wallace could typically be found. Over coffee one day she finally lost patience and asked, "Why are you always avoiding the Marine areas of the ship? Are you too smart and sophisticated to be hanging out with us grunts?"

Wallace blushed and had trouble speaking, "No, I ... I don't fit in. I have no combat experience and only the minimum combat training. Why would any of you want to socialize with the likes of me?"

"Are you avoiding combat situations?" Timmons knew Wallace was timid, but didn't think he was a slacker.

"No," Wallace replied. "In fact, I was in line for command of a combat platoon when I was diverted to this mission. I'll never get rid of this gold bar on my collar if I can't get a combat assignment." He looked pensive and finally worked up the courage to ask, "What's it like to work with 'real' Marines?"

Timmons stood and picked up both of their coffee cups and returned them to the recycler for cleaning. "Come with me," she told the confused geek as she left the room.