Aftermath
Chapter 5

Copyright© 2013 by Frostfyre

Science Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 5 - What ever happened to Char and the other survivors of Quay? This story is the sequel to Acceptance.

Caution: This Science Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa   Ma/ft   Fa/Fa   Fa/ft   Hermaphrodite   Science Fiction   Mother   Daughter   Harem   Black Female   Oriental Female   Hispanic Female   Oral Sex   Anal Sex   Masturbation   Pregnancy   Science fiction adult story, sci-fi adult story, science-fiction sex story, sci-fi sex story

"Thank you all for being here tonight. In light of recent events, we have decided to put on this symposium for emergency preparedness for either natural- or man-made disasters or combat damage. Our first speaker tonight is Char. Please give her a warm welcome." I could not help but notice Dux Hansen had been deliberately vague as to who I was. With a grin, I decided it was probably done on purpose so I could spring it on them myself.

There was a smattering of polite applause that lasted a few seconds as I made my way up to the podium. Thankfully, hundreds of sales presentations had prepared me for speaking in front of important people. Sadly, Xifeng and the others could not attend, being nothing more than concubines. That reinforced just how much my life had changed. It also pointed out something I had not really considered, namely that sponsors lead two different lives. One life is as the leader of their harem, but the other life is their duties to the Confederacy that concubines are excluded from.

Most of the top level Central Command staff was sitting in the audience, as were many fleet admirals and some planetary governors. It was a Who's-Who of important people, especially the ones in the Earthat system. Taking a deep breath as I looked over the crowd, I began my speech, anger making my voice rather harsh.

"Greetings to you all. My name is Governor Char, and I'm from Quay." There were a few shocked gasps from those in the know; the rest just looked puzzled at the others' responses. "If any of you are feeling guilty right now, GOOD!" I said, glaring at anyone who did not look confused. "Before I begin, I would like to show you just why I am so angry, and why each one of you should learn to think requests through before rejecting them out of hand. This showing should also settle any questions you may have about the credentials that got me invited to speak here tonight." I ignored the angry buzz that had rippled through the crowd at my tone and attitude.

The lights dimmed and a projected image of Quay appeared on the wall. "This is the planet Quay as it was eight months ago. It was a young, boring planet with no native life forms, but it was our beautiful home. Here are recovered recordings from The Event three months ago. The recording device was gyroscopically stabilized."

A second display appeared, showing an outside video recording of late afternoon. The scene was of a few pods with a long, flat plain behind them stretching to the horizon. Suddenly the pods began to sway, and then shake violently. Flying dust revealed when the force fields for each pod snapped on. After two minutes of severe shaking, the landscape in the distance suddenly shattered, as massive chunks of landscape were thrust upwards into the sky, forming mountains. Massive cracks spider-webbed outwards racing in all directions, including through the colony. One of the visible pods disappeared into a widening crack. Billowing clouds of dirt and dust partly obscured the new mountain range, and an eerie red glow heralded the outpouring of lava from deep with the planet. There were many shocked gasps as the scene unfolded.

"According to the AI, the earthquake you just witnessed was, as humans measure them, a magnitude 11.2 on the Richter scale. It was far more powerful than any earthquake ever recorded on Earth. The only reason we survived was that the AI was able to activate the force fields and inertial dampeners in the pods in time to keep us from being crushed. That was our first 'subtle' hint something was terribly wrong. This next scene was recorded a few hours later."

It was another outdoor scene, this time from a different angle. The damage to the landscape around the colony was obvious and some of the pods showed damage. Suddenly, a howling sound filled the auditorium, and in the scene, the wind picked up. I shivered hearing it, but I was able to control my reaction otherwise. A counter in the corner showed the wind speed. At first just dust, dirt and bamboo leaves swirled by, but quickly the wind-borne debris got bigger and bigger, until massive rocks and fully-grown bamboo flashed by. They could be seen pounding into the forcefields surrounding the pods and in some cases smashing through them, destroying the pods entirely. Other pods were ripped out of the ground and flung like toys into the cliff on one side of the colony. The wind speed numbers shifted from miles per hour, to a single number followed by one decimal place. The number topped out at 2.6 then dropped quickly. Soon after the wind speed dropped down to zero, there was a bright flash and the display went black.

"The number in the corner was the wind speed of the blast wave when it hit us. After 600 miles per hour, it converted to Mach speed." The shocked silence that followed the video display was shattered by stunned gasps as the audience realized that the recorded wind speed topped out at Mach 2.6, or nearly 2,000 miles per hour. It was an inconceivable number. "The first and second videos I showed you were the result of an object approximately twice the size of the one that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs impacting on the far side of the planet. The earthquake and mountains were the result of the impact shockwaves circling through the planet's crust and smashing into each other. The windstorm was the atmospheric blast wave from the impact after it had circled the planet. The bright light at the end of the video was a small meteor, about a hundred feet across, exploding in the upper atmosphere, causing an EMP that destroyed all the electronics in the colony. I should also mention that all but one of the sponsors were gathered together for anti-Sa'arm wargames." I had to pause for a second as my throat closed up with unshed tears. "My master and the other 265 sponsors were less than a thousand miles from the initial impact, and were vaporized almost instantly because there was no forewarning." Another round of stunned gasps shattered the silence. "I led the survivors for over a month until we were rescued. These last images of Quay were taken by the rescue ship when it arrived."

A new projection of the planet appeared next to the initial one. Instead of a beautiful brown and blue planet with a clear atmosphere, this one showed a muddy brownish gray swirl with the planet being completely obscured by thick clouds of volcanic ash and ejecta debris twisting in violent storms. The image zoomed in on the twelve hundred mile wide crater that was briefly, but easily, visible from space through a hole in the cloud cover. The image then zoomed back out, panned around and zoomed in on the colony. The colony was destroyed. From above, the spider web of fault cracks running through it was easily visible, as were the overturned and shattered pods. Everything was half buried in the ash that was swirling around like a dark, poisonous snow.

"That is why I was asked to speak here tonight. I, though only a concubine at the time, managed to keep almost everyone alive in that environment, with no electronics, for over a month. The AI retested me after we were rescued and gave me a sponsor-level score and retroactively appointed me Governor of Quay in exile."

The looks of the audiences' faces had gone from angry, bored, indifferent, or at best, mildly interested, to shocked, awed and very focused. I had again gotten a twisted sense of satisfaction seeing their expressions change as I had recounted what I had survived. My face hardened as I remembered those dark times. The wounds from the ordeal that were left on my mind and soul would probably never fully heal.

"Here are some of the lessons learned from that disaster. The initial survey of the system showed no threats to the planet when it was filed, and we colonized it based on that initial survey. However, it was not until after the disaster that we realized the survey maps had been made by the Darjee two centuries earlier. Everyone just assumed they were recent by our standards and no one thought to verify. Make sure you do a new survey of any system you enter.

"The satellites we were using were conventional ones without shields. Since Quay was very metal poor, we could not replace damaged ones very quickly. Unfortunately, in the months prior to the impact, vastly increased meteorite activity destroyed most of our satellites. The late governor requested military-grade satellites with forcefields on multiple occasions, but Central Command, in its infinite wisdom, decided we were too far from the Sa'arm advance to need them. As a result, we were never given them or even the blueprints to replicate one or two. Apparently we were too low priority to rate them, when planets near the Sa'arm advance needed them 'far more'. They would have survived the meteorites and given us warning of the major threat, enabling us to evacuate in time. As far as I am concerned, the people who made that decision caused well over three hundred deaths and misery like no one should ever have to suffer." Another rounds of shocked gasps filled the room at my words. Some were outraged, others horrified, and a few, guilty. "In the future, when someone asks for help, they may actually need it."

"We have become increasingly dependent on the AIs and their nearly god-like intelligence and consider them miracle machines. Unfortunately, that dependence has weakened us in many ways. On Quay we only grew bamboo, since it was incredibly fast growing. We harvested it daily and fed it into a shredder which made it into an organic slurry that was mixed with elements from the soil and sent to every replicator in the colony to make food and necessities. Other than a few handicrafts, we had no ability to make anything without the replicators and the AI controlled nanites. Why grow multiple food crops, when anything organic could be converted from bamboo? Why have tools, when nanites reshaped or repaired the pods as needed? Why have digging equipment when nanites could function as boring machines and do the work much faster and more easily? Why put manual release handles on the medtubes when the very idea of a power failure is inconceivable?" The last elicited gasps of horror.

"Yes," I continued grimly, "all five of our medtubes were in use when the EMP destroyed our power grid and AI connections. Our medical personnel managed to free three patients at great cost to their hands, but the other two patients asphyxiated. The colony did not have any tools lying around they could use to pry the lids off except for their fingers. If our colony's electronics had been shielded like those closer to the front lines, the EMP would not have destroyed as much and dozens fewer people would have died.

"We were utterly unprepared for a no-tech, medical mass-casualty incident. There were no doctors, and almost no medical supplies, drugs, or surgical tools." I paused at the sympathetic groans. There were enough medical personnel attending for their reaction to be loud. They, at least, had a good idea exactly what we must have gone through without doctors or medical facilities. I sincerely hoped they were taking notes and planning changes to medical facilities in the colonies, maybe even on ships.

"Even worse was the following month, when over a hundred concubines went into labor and the tiny, ill-prepared medical staff had to assist them through natural childbirth, without drugs or training, using improvised medical instruments, in conditions that a fourteenth century mid-wife would have sneered at. We lost too many concubines and infants because of that. We were lucky, at least we had some concubines with medical training who could help, otherwise the death toll would have been much higher. Remember that, when you think of concubines as nothing more than breeders. Personally, I don't ever again want to have to watch an unqualified medic giving a screaming concubine a C-section with a sharpened piece of metal." This elicited quite a few gasps of horror, and I saw several of the medical officers looking both grim and thoughtful.

"The debris in the air was blocking the sunlight, causing the beginning of the equivalent of a nuclear winter. Temperatures dropped and we had no way of keeping ourselves warm, except for some salvaged bamboo we were able to gather right after the impact. The rain of fiery debris from the initial impact that set the world on fire destroyed the rest of the bamboo. We did not even have spare blankets, except the few we managed to retrieve from damaged and useless housing units. A cold bamboo soup was made from gathered sprouts and leaves and kept us from starving.

"The air was hazardous to breathe, but we did not have any air filters. We had a few oxygen cannula and tanks to help newcomers acclimate to the low oxygen atmosphere but that was all. They did not help us avoid breathing in the ash, which hardened in our lungs." The crowd was silent and riveted by my words. Having this many people waiting for me to continue with bated breath went a long way towards my forgiving Central Command in general, just not the specific guilty ones.

"We survived, but with inadequately trained medical staff of concubines with far less supplies than a small doctor's office would have. There was no heat, no way to grow food nor stores of preserved food, no tools to repair the damage to the structure we were using for shelter, no plumbing for sanitation, no clothes for many, or diapers for the babies and no creature comforts to lessen our misery. We had to jury-rig a connection from the water cistern that survived into the shelter we were using, since it was too dangerous to fetch water every day. Thankfully, we had a few lengths of hollow bamboo we could use to make pipes. We survived, but just barely."

I paused for breath, taking a moment to calm down. The presentation was harder than I had thought it would be. What happened on Quay was still extremely traumatic, and recounting it in detail stirred up some awfully painful memories. I looked out over the crowd, trying to gauge their reactions. They were almost universally shocked and horrified. I think they had been expecting some boring preparedness lectured and I had just attacked them with a verbal baseball bat. The fact that what had happened on Quay had been kept secret actually helped the shock value immensely. I could see a few coming to realize that if this had been kept a secret, what else were they not being told? I was fairly sure that the AI's were recording the lecture, so I could ask to see the audience reactions later. The AI could identify the individuals I pointed out who either looked guilty or were completely indifferent. I former I wanted a piece of, the latter I wanted to stay the hell away from. Taking another breath, I refocused on my speech and let the faces blur from individuals to a crowd.

"A few dozen concubines committed suicide despite my best efforts. They did it either out of despair, or the misguided idea that their sacrifice would save the rest of us. The result was usually even more traumatized family units and devastated children. One man even went so far as to start hoarding food and murdering entire families, thinking to increase his chances of avoiding starvation. I had no choice but to publicly execute him as an example. The hard truth is though, if the rescue ship had been a week later, most of us would have been dead, with only the children and the concubines with the highest mothering scores left alive. After all, the children are our best hope for survival and victory against the Swarm. I was ready to take that step if it was necessary. Pray you are never forced into a situation where you have to make that choice," I ended grimly, while the audience just sat there, stunned at my admission.

Taking a deep breath, I continued, "One thing that was very successful in staving off the despair was music. We had musicians play every night, sometimes singly or duets, sometimes concerts. It did not matter who played what, the time spent as a group at the end of each cold, terrifying day, helped us bond together and celebrate surviving another day. It lifted our spirits and kept us going. I do not know if it would have the same beneficial effect on a naval ship or with a stranded company of Marines, but I strongly suspect it would. There is a reason why military units used to have drummers and pipers in them, and it was not just to give them a marching rhythm.

 
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