Traitor

“We spent the time in transit considering tactics. We reached our intended destination, some distance from their cruisers so that we could reconnoiter the area and see if it would change our options. We did two things. We sent intelligence people to the planet and planned our attack on the cruisers and frigates. We considered a few options but considered a surprise long distance missile attack followed by the battleship jumping into range and firing while the missiles were penetrating the shields looked to be the most successful approach with lowest probability of damage as estimated by the AI. The cruisers are of Mob origin and are the size of small battleships. They are hiding close to an asteroid belt that protects them from behind. They are close to each other to facilitate transport and communication between the ships and allows easy passage from one ship to the other by shuttle. They are within weapons range of where they expect the battleship to appear,” said Phoebe.

“We have discovered that it’ll be five weeks before the fleet will arrive to transport the clones,” said Connie, “the third planet from the sun is the clone planet,” she demonstrated on the hologram the location of the planet and then expanded the view to show the facilities on the ground.

“The fighters don’t see any other ships other than shuttles flying around the clone farm,” Phoebe added.

“We have all modeled the situation and attempted to make use of your methods. We have even been through some more of your previous simulations which Patton was happy to supply to us, with situations analogous to what we are facing. We have a bet with Patton that you won’t be able to plan an attack with a lower risk then our lowest risk strategy,” said Janet Malone.

Jason closely looked at the hologram map and asked for the AI to increase the size of the image of the asteroid belt near the cruisers. He looked at the situation pensively for a few moments as they all looked at him. He experienced a mild wave of nausea. His thinking felt different and he couldn’t put his finger on why that was so. He had a fleeting thought that he would easily show these feeble-minded people what he could do, and they were primitives that he could bend to his will. His thought shocked him and he wondered about its origin. He had never thought that way before and he had the greatest respect for the people in front of him.

“You may well be right, as you guys have more experience than I do, but I’ll do my best not to disappoint Patton.” Jason nodded and blinked twice, the Empire equivalent of a wink and a nod.

Malone asked, “What do you think of our plan?”

“You’ve worked out a good plan,” Jason remarked as he asked Patton to play through the proposed plan and looked at the damage estimates along with possible casualties.

“I’m going to think about this for a few minutes and re–consider the options considering some of the simulations that I’ve played. I’ve had the opportunity to attempt a considerable number of unorthodox strategies in situations where I had no other way to succeed. Please bear with me while I suggest and work through options that you may have already considered and thought unworkable or less tenable than the major strategy that you’ve come up with. ”

Jason sat and looked at the holograms for a few minutes then spoke.

“Patton, please create a model as I speak.

“What I’d like to do, would be to move to the opposite end of the asteroid belt, so that their sensors are blocked. It’s possible that they may have sensors on that side, but I think it’s unlikely. If they do, we block them. Let’s consider what would happen if we commandeered several moderate size asteroids, fit them with missiles and propelled them towards the cruisers using big missile engines and power plants.” They watched closely as Patton demonstrated what Jason was describing.

“The asteroids are constantly in motion. We pick some that already moving towards the enemy ships. The Mob or priests are aware of the asteroid movement and I’m sure are monitoring asteroids for possible damage to their ships. We move the asteroids so that they head towards them, but their trajectory will clearly miss the ships. Patton isolate yourself from the ship system and please comment on the strategy that I’ve suggested,” asked Jason.

“Colonels, I did include the use of asteroids in simulations amongst the many that I provided to you,” said Patton attempting to emphasize his fairness. He then continued.

“In view of our current position and established missile loads, and reserves of missile motors and current resources, it would take twenty-two hours to prepare the asteroids. I’ve been mapping asteroid movement as you spoke and have selected three possible outstanding candidates that won’t need much power to move and are on close to perfect trajectories. There are sixteen other possible candidates that could be reasonably easily prepared and moved. The subsequent time to suitable missile launch would be 16 hours. The time to replacement of our existing missile stock would be 14 hours. The risk of discovery is approximately 0.001%. The chance of success if success is regarded as critical damage to the cruisers, is seventy-six percent and to the frigates 96 percent. The risk to us of the strategy if it’s incomplete is approximately 14.3%. The risk can range to as low as 0% if the asteroids perform as expected and are not intercepted. The high-risk estimate is based on the early discovery of two asteroids, and their destruction, requiring us to direct the battleship into battle, before all the asteroid missiles have been fired, and therefore sustain some damage. I’ve not detected scanning in this direction and none was detected when the fighters were behind the asteroid belt. Jason, you may not know but some of the fighters navigated the asteroid belt as it’s reasonably widely dispersed.

“Ladies you might as well pay up now, I told you that there was a very high probability that Jason would find a strategy with a low potential for damage to us. He does have a number of other possible strategies that he could have used with equal facility but with slightly less chance of success.” Patton gloated.

“We concede, Patton,” said Phoebe laughing. ” No doubt, Jason, once you’ve a few minutes more to think about it you can reduce the risk even further using those strategies that Patton said that you still have available?”

“Jason, you also might not know that during the time you were incommunicado, the marine information technology specialists, along with the communications group have been through Ship’s systems and have removed a considerable number of further impediments to her adequate function. They have also blocked the information getting back to the saboteurs by diverting the program that they were using to collect information. We can get onto any intrusions into the ship software system in microseconds. They know we are on to them. Our people have also commenced work on the medical AI software and have found a number of programs that have interfered with processes much as you explained they would be likely to do.

“The poison has now been identified as a male gene toxin that has a slow onset of action so that the person isn’t aware of change. It only affects the Y chromosome. The technology isn’t from this galaxy. Its operation is beyond our capacity to counter.” Maj. Constance Ross noted.

“We have also been working on preparing the case against the patriarch. The lawyers are busy analyzing all the information that’s available on the ship and are documenting everything including each and every programming intrusion and every software aberration.

“Shall I plot a jump to a suitable point behind the asteroid belt?” Stan asked after Jason connected to him.

Jason looked at his team. “Shall we proceed onward, ladies?” They nodded at him and he said facetiously, “XO engage warp drive. Move to warp five, as convenient.”

“Warp drive engaged Sir, we’ll move quickly to warp five as you command,” Stan replied using his Star Trek imitation voice.

“Jason, you are clearly a very bad influence on this ship! What the hell is that garbage that both of you are sprouting?” Phoebe asked grinning.

Jason and Stan both laughed. So much for Stan not having a sense of humor thought Jason.

Fifteen minutes later they heard Stan’s voice again.

“We are in place; the engineers are preparing missile platforms and preparing to modify missile engines for pushing. I’ve shown them the hologram of the discussion and the proposed plan. They have suggested as follows: each asteroid will have its own control system to prevent interception of communications, however they can be controlled from the ship. Initial control will be from the ship until the risk of interception exceeds the benefit, at which time, control will shift to the asteroid.”

Stan looked at Jason through the hologram.

“You’ve indeed turned out to be a remarkable young man and I hope that you will continue to develop and fulfill your expectations, whatever they may be. I suspect you don’t know what those expectations are, either!” Stan said and chuckled.

“Hear, hear,” replied Janet. “Jason, that was indeed a remarkable plan considering you made it on the fly and so quickly! It has turned out to be so viable with such a low risk!”

“The engineers want to talk to you; I’ll patch them through, if I may,” requested Stan.

They turned to the hologram to greet Jacobo Lengling the chief engineer, and his deputy John Vesa.

“Can I suggest that we also consider adding a substantial explosive charge to each asteroid? Let’s fire the missiles, and point and accelerate the asteroids at the ships, jettison the engines and power supplies, so that we can save them and reuse them later, then allow the asteroids to continue onwards to an optimal close point to the cruiser’s and then explode,” said Jacobo Lengling.” Jason, if you’ve any further screwy ideas let’s know as soon as you can.”

“That’s an excellent idea. It’ll force them into evasive action at that point and if we are lucky do some more damage,” said Jason.

“Shall we adjourn for lunch as I’m famished and I’m sure that you’re ready to eat by now?” said Jason rubbing his stomach. They laughed and walked to his canteen. They then adjourned to the conference room next to the bridge to continue to discuss their plan.

“I have another idea,” said Jason as he established a connection to Engineering. “I was thinking about this over lunch and my suggestion is another technology that I recall discussing with Patton, and you guys ages ago, and lately with Stan.

“Jacobo, I have a series of questions. How many of the mines, if any, have you guys built and tested? Can they be disguised to look like asteroids? What I’m thinking of doing, is adding to the same idea, but sending mines into the area that we deploy before the asteroids arrive and get as close to the ships as possible. They can explode just as the missiles get into range. I’d program them to hit the engines, but also block escape pathways. Mines were very much part of our warfare.”

“We played with some designs after we spoke to you. None are built, but we can prepare some quickly if you wish?” Jacobo answered.

Jason went on to explain the history of mines to the others and how he considered that a mine could be a resurrected concept particularly if it could be also propelled into appropriate positions as part of an elaborate trap. He suggested they could be thought of as if they were slow small missiles. The small size and slow speed wouldn’t trigger automated ship defenses, nor alert sensor operators.

“The enemy would be at a low level of alert and we could then move mines disguised as small slow-moving asteroids reasonably close to the cruisers. They would need to move at a speed that would make them nonthreatening but be in positions where they could rapidly be close to both of the cruisers as they moved. They would continue to move too slowly to alert the sensor systems until it was too late.

“Jason,” said Jacobo earnestly, “I’ve been working on cloaking technology for the missiles which could work for mines and do believe that this is achievable and is a very low risk strategy particularly as the mines will be well in advance of the larger asteroids. The size of the mines won’t alert the sensor operators and the cloaking would work well enough to allow them into a short enough range that they could do serious damage. Because of the cloaking constraints we couldn’t get more than three into the appropriate range in the first instance, but if they trigger at or around the time that the missiles fired they could provide a substantial diversion that will delay identification of the incoming missiles by overloading the sensors.

“Not only that, I do believe, if we then sent in more mines there would be a short window when they wouldn’t be detected. I’ll soon have a reserve of close on four hundred of these mines but I estimate that approximately forty or fifty would be more than enough for the purposes that we are considering. The replicators spit out one every ten minutes and we have ten of our small replicators making them. They all do have shield penetration capacity. They’ll need some more work after replication. I’ve also been able to implement the double charge concept, where they explode against the hull and send, using the power of the explosion, a trans-dimensional shaped charge inward that would explode within the cavity of the ship. We have seen that the optimal position for these explosions is where we can damage the bridge, communications, weapons control and engineering. This often leads, as we’ve seen with the Frigates, to a very repairable asset. It won’t take us long to complete these mines, particularly as we’ll cannibalize existing components from missiles of different sizes. The cloaking works and all we really need to spend a bit of time doing, is to either disguise the mines as asteroids, or simply bore out some of the smaller asteroids and use them. We’ll test out both concepts. Colonel Malone, I wonder if I can borrow some of your Marine engineers with their AIs to help?” Jacobo Lengling asked. “We need to do some experimenting to get the variants we use, right.”

She nodded and said she would get onto it, and briefly communicated with her engineers before Jason resumed speaking.

“Let’s aim at disabling the ships in the most effective way if we can. If we disable them with the mines we stop our missiles,” said Jason. “Perhaps we can also be sending some of the cyberwarfare satellites to listen in on the ships?”

“Jason there will be too much activity if we do that along with the mines and all the rest we are trying to do. The more we do the more likely they’re to get on to us. Two or three objects floating around isn’t something that people react to, but more than that and someone will start target shooting,” said Phoebe. Jason nodded his head.

“Janet I’d suggest that we consider boarding the ships if we possibly can, however I do think that we need to be aware that they may have the potential for fighters. They are very large cruisers. To me it looks like these are fighter ports,” Jason said as he Janet and Phoebe pored over the hologram of the ships enlarging it in front of them. They stood close to him looking at the ships. “I seem to recall that Connie may have mentioned that they had fighters.”

“Jason there’s no doubt that those are ports for the fighters. Historically ships of that size could field up to thirty fighters or twenty missile bombers. We have ten of those missile bombers aboard, though our fighters can carry one anti-ship missile. The missile bombers can carry six anti-ship missiles. We could hide fighters and missile ships along with our boarding shuttles just out of sensor range behind these two large asteroids. We can begin moving them out soon and it’ll then take them three minutes to get to the ship. It would be good to arrange for mines to explode in or around the following likely fighter assembly points here and here” Col. Phoebe Harris suggested as she pointed at two areas reasonably close to the ship where she said that squadrons of fighters were likely to assemble before proceeding to attack.

“Jacobo, do you remember us discussing mines with explosive ordinance which fires all in one direction?” Jason asked, “How long would it take to prepare some of those?”

“I can make nearly twenty of those and have the components to build another twenty, Jason, within the time we have available. I’ll give that job to your Marines, Colonel Malone. I’ll set them to trigger either by command from the ship or to identify a specified number of fighters in reasonable proximity, say three fighters. They can be arranged in series and are quite maneuverable. I did research the concept of the Claymore mine that you told me about, Jason. The engineers thought rather than ball bearings, they would put in individually targeting missiles, at twenty per mine. We use them for close-in defense, so we have many of them made, already. We’ll ensure they have enough explosive for a fighter. Will this be satisfactory?” asked Jacobo confidently.

Jason thought that Jacobo was a great asset and a superb engineer. He was very creative and seemed to have a superb talent for new munitions.

“Proceed and launch as able,” ordered Jason after glancing at Harris and Malone who were looking at him incredulously.

“For someone from a backward planet you’ve added some remarkable concepts. Your strategic concepts must come from a highly warlike people. We have been highly disciplined as a culture, but I suspect that after so many years of workable and effective solutions that we have advanced more slowly over time. We also were of the mistaken belief that we had eliminated the Mob as a threat. We have had so much weaponry and even now we have such a huge population and so much industrial capacity that people and ships are expendable. Your concept of almost surgical warfare is interesting. We have been very good at targeting communication and control, but the solutions you propose are very different and quite refreshing,” remarked Phoebe. “I’ll go and brief my pilots in a couple of hours and spent some time with them looking at the specific tactical elements. Janet can come along with me as we’ll need to talk about loading Marines to take over the cruisers and frigates. I’ll be very interested to see how these mines work and if it’s a viable concept. If it is we’ll have ships to board, and more ships for our developing fleet.”

“Then we are going to have to plan on how we deal with the clones. It’s too much to consider now and I think we need to do one thing at a time. For the time being I have fighters mapping the planet, determining communication and control systems, investigating defenses and looking at the infrastructure. We have launched close to a thousand probes that are cloaked and are moving on the surface. Connie has a few operatives on the surface in preparation for whatever approach we may adopt. They are coordinating and analyzing the information as it’s collected. We’ll have a considerable amount of information by the time we bring this engagement to its conclusion.”

“Jason, let Phoebe and me join you in a couple of hours in your wardroom. When all is in motion let’s have a drink and relax. We would like to talk to you about you and the grieving process, and also your societal sexual beliefs. There are very few both interested and fertile men that we know, so you know you are a marked man.”

“It’ll be painful to talk about my wife and uncomfortable to talk about sexual beliefs, but I’ll do my best. It’s strange coming from a very different society to the Empire. Very few men would have relationships with many women, which often seems to happen in the Empire. Even fewer men would have children by many different women, unless divorced. Women and men in our society are much more jealous than appears to be the situation in the Empire.

Let’s talk about it, later. I’ll ask Robert to supply us with some snacks and drinks,” said Jason thinking deeply.

Jason returned to his quarters after a brief visit to the canteen. He’d had a wash and had changed his clothes. Two and a half hours later he was joined by Janet and Phoebe who cheerfully entered the sitting room adjacent to his wardroom. It had comfortable lounge chairs with a faux leather beige covering, placed symmetrically around a low table which was now replete with snacks and food. Jason rose to greet them and indicated to them to sit down. They sank into their chairs and smiled at him.

“All has been organized, and our teams are preparing what we have discussed,” said Phoebe.

“Before we get going, have some of these small snacks Marie has kindly prepared for us. They have a seafood in them called prawns that are being grown on the ship. This is the first batch. We also have some others with a variety of vegetables. Help yourselves. We can share a little wine, and we also have a fruit drink called sparkling apple juice that I brought along with me. Try it.

Marie is an artist with her snack creations; I’ll definitely thank her for this great effort. She does so much so graciously, and with good humor.”

“Let me begin before I avoid the issues. I was born at a time when our society was very conservative, during a period of great economic disaster followed by a world war. My wife is the only woman with whom I ever had a sexual relation. She was adventurous and fun loving, and we had a good all round relationship. She was very upset that she lost sexual interest during her menopause and we both missed the change in our intimacy. A few years later I had a major accident, with spinal damage, and I lost my sexual capacity. I became a little weak on my right-hand side. That was twenty years ago.

“I have two adult children and four grandchildren.

“My wife’s suicide was a great shock and I’m very sad and guilty about it. I know I shouldn’t feel guilty but I do and I still think about what I could or might have done to prevent it. I think I’m slowly getting over her death, but I’d feel disloyal if I had another relationship. I know it’s irrational but it’s how I feel and very much how I was brought up. I don’t know if I’ll feel differently in the future, nor when that may happen.”

“The issues that you face are not issues that many have to deal with in the Empire. Dementia is unheard of other than in history books. We are well aware of what you’ve gone through via our spies as your counterintelligence has no doubt told you, but the experience of living with someone who is developing dementia isn’t something we can imagine. Facing a suicide is a very rare experience in the Empire.

“Jason, we faced serious problems with our declining population, and with a rapidly aging population replacing them. The Empire made great efforts to ensure that every viable sperm is utilized. As very few women fell pregnant, in some sections of society, it has become an even greater problem over time. We have test kits that show pregnancy the instant it happens. The woman quickly goes to a medical facility to share any available viable sperm. The pod transfers viable sperm to other women’s eggs. She does this for women in her extended family or even close friends. It’s rare for more than two women in a family to fall pregnant. There was much futile research looking at the problems but it didn’t go anywhere. In retrospect, we can understand why that all happened, thanks to you.

“You are aware that we have transporter technology at a macro level. Ship moves you from place to place in emergencies. We also have it at a micro level, but much more easily and efficiently. The medical pod can do complex operations using that technology and can even move a single sperm into an egg. The pod can manipulate DNA using a slightly different variant of the same technology. In our women, the egg only becomes available when a viable sperm presents itself. This allows women to become pregnant into advanced age. We can also create more eggs from other ovarian tissue. Our gene technology allows gene repair, so that if a baby is created its viability is guaranteed. This has allowed us to survive. Our population is now aging quickly and declining at a very slow, but increasing rate. Men who are fertile are greatly sought after, and most of them are happy to share themselves around.

“The rate of fertility decline isn’t uniform throughout the population. It’s much less in the royal family and many of the nobles. Wealthier families tend to have done better. We now know why. Wealthy families have their own chefs who prepare the food and are less likely to get exposed to replicator food. Most of their attitudes are similar to those of Robert.

“You’ve the most viable sperm we have ever heard about from the medical AI. You produce billions of viable sperm. That will make you very popular. It’ll also be a very beneficial situation from a financial point of view when you finally adopt the necessary ‘promiscuous behavior’ of the Empire! The Empire rewards fathers very well for impregnating women. It supports pregnant women very well. We wanted you to know that you have two willing and demanding women in front of you. We want children badly, and you are our best prospect. We would like to have the first opportunities when you are ready.

“Can you tell us a little about why your society has such beliefs.”

“Most couples are fertile. Our scientists tell us that the fundamental drive of men may well be promiscuous and they wish to spread their seed. Women want a man to support them and their children. As society evolved and people needed to cooperate, they develop rules. The view of the established religious groups has been largely towards stable marital groups, composed of one male and one female. There are less frequent other patterns. Another influence was a queen called Victoria who had very rigid ideas about marriage and childbearing. I was born just after the end of her era.

“Even so, there have been very significant changes in these beliefs. The society now has contraception which led young people to have a very different attitude, at least prior to marriage. Marriages have also become less stable. Marriage and monogamy remains very much part of religious teaching and beliefs, but the influence of religion in many societies has diminished. Much of that has broken down, but I guess if one was to contrast our society with that of the Empire, many couples have the capacity to have children and monogamy made life more predictable. Extramarital relationships have tended to destabilize marriages. In my generation, extramarital relationships did happen but not frequently. I was very happy with my wife, and even though I may have seen others who were tempting it was not difficult to resist. I do recognize that I’m now in a different situation, but I’m fighting against a lifetime of beliefs, and I still feel very sad about my wife.

“I must confess that I’m also terrified of the whole sexual act, as I’ve been sexually incapable for over twenty years and didn’t have a lot of practice for nearly fourteen years prior to that. I’ve also only had one partner, and I fear the embarrassment of performing poorly, with very much more experienced women.

“If, theoretically, I made both of you pregnant I’d at least want to be involved in the life of the child. How does the responsibility for the child work out in the Empire?” Jason asked.

“For each child, the father is rewarded financially very generously. The mother is supported during the period of her pregnancy and is provided with an allowance. The father has full rights to be involved and participate in the upbringing of his child along with the woman. Alternatively, the mother can continue with her career and the Empire or the husband and his family will take responsibility for the upbringing of the child. The Empire takes care of all childcare in other cases to help the mother continue with her work.

“In the case of the military the situation is very different. The medical pod will remove the fetus and protect it for the mother and bring it to term. It allows the mother to continue with her activities. The military will bring up the child as is appropriate with the mother’s full involvement; and, if the father wants to be involved, with the father’s views taken into consideration. The father can be involved as much as he likes, or as little as he likes. Unless he’s abusive, he has full rights for involvement and participation in the child’s life. Let’s say you had ten thousand children by passively contributing your sperm. You could take as much or as little responsibility as you wished, but you would be rewarded financially for all of the children. Very few men have fathered more than three children, but in your case, you have an opportunity for great wealth in fathering many children,” said Phoebe.

“That’s all very interesting but I’m not sure that the financial incentives are the major issues as far as I’m concerned. I had this view of myself as a very old man and the last thing I intended to do was become a father. That view is changing, but very slowly. I can’t remotely imagine myself as a father of one more child, never mind ten thousand! I can see the needs of the Empire, and I can see that I can simply contribute sperm as a moneymaking exercise, but I’m not sure whether that’s the way that I want to go! All of this is a bigger culture shock for me than the educational transition that I needed to make,” Jason said thoughtfully.

“Somehow, I feel quite upset with the discussion and I’m not sure why. At an intellectual level, there’s no reason that I couldn’t do what you guys wanted, but at emotional level I realize I’m afraid of having an emotional relationship with another woman, and remain even more terrified of starting a sexual relationship. The women of the Empire are assertive and strong; and they terrify the daylights out of me,” stated Jason articulating his thoughts with great difficulty.

He looked at both of the women that were visiting him; Phoebe Harris was a delight. She had a superb figure, tight body, and firm breasts. She smiled often and had a very pleasant personality that appealed to him. He found her very attractive. She was intelligent, decisive, quick thinking and had a warm friendly manner. Janet was a little smaller but more strongly built. Her muscles were well defined and her legs shapely and she had an attractive bubble butt. Her breasts were high on her chest and firm. She was very much more obsessional and exacting in what she did but he also found her friendly and of a delightful personality. Janet was very friendly but she could also be reserved. She was very cautious and careful with her planning. Both of them appeared to be well respected by their respective group of marines or pilots, and she and Phoebe looked as though they were in their mid-twenties.

“Perhaps you need to move very slowly, Jason. I’m sure none of us would willingly embarrass you, and as you know: ‘practice makes perfect.’ We all need a bit of a break. How about we just take off our footwear and have a nap with you, on the bed?” Phoebe suggested carefully.

Jason nodded and began taking off his shoes.

Jason simply went with the flow as they moved to the bed. Phoebe commanded the bed to enlarge and it grew to larger than king-size. They then fiddled with controls that he had never noticed, but as he climbed onto the bed he noticed that he felt almost weightless. He realized the bed was not just a bed and recognized the boardroom chairs also had gravitational controls.

Both women took off their shoes and outer clothing. They had what looked like a lighter version of gym clothing, consisting of an integrated T-shirt and boy shorts. He couldn’t see any fastenings.

Janet moved to his right and Phoebe to his left. They alternatively began to gently stroke him and when he relaxed began to gently kiss him. He felt very embarrassed to feel aroused to a level he could only recall from his teens. They gently continued to kiss and caress him and then suggested that he undress as they had done. They helped him remove his outer clothing and as he and they became more inspired they very gently removed his underwear. Everything was done very slowly allowing him to relax.

“Resistance is futile,” giggled Janet as she kissed his ear and then raised herself up and sat on his legs, then leaned forward and continued to kiss him, while Phoebe propped herself up on her side smiling and stroking Jason. Janet felt very light lying on him. At first, he panicked, but his arousal began to overwhelm his feelings of anxiety. He found himself enjoying the intimacy enormously, and was delighted in the enjoyment of a body that didn’t have aches and pains. In particular, he was glad he had no pain in his back and neck.

Janet looked at him and raised her eyebrows. He smiled at her. He felt the hormonal driven lust of a teenager and he decided to try and enjoy it, despite his reservations. She raised herself up and impaled herself on him. He felt panicked. He had to work hard to not push her off. He relaxed far quicker than he expected. He had an ephemeral thought of betraying his wife. ‘It’s ridiculous,’ he said to himself, ‘get with the plan. There’s no place for that morality here.’ Sensations overwhelmed his thinking. She began to move slowly, then very gradually sped up. Then she just went crazy! He couldn’t believe that anyone could move so quickly. She had orgasm after orgasm. She screamed, froze, moved again quickly, shouted, bit his shoulder and finally screeched long and loud, nearly deafening him and Phoebe, then froze pushing down on him. Jason finally began to move tentatively, half expecting to feel pain in his back and hip. His body felt as good as it ever felt. He pushed up further. Janet began to synchronize her movements with his. He pushed against her firmly and slowly before speeding up. When he finally had his orgasm, she collapsed on him, held him tightly for a moment, then fell to his side.

He said to Phoebe, “Next!”

Jason was surprised that he didn’t lose his erection.

Phoebe was more energetic initially, but after a few minutes slowed down her frenetic pace and the lovemaking continued languidly for some time. She kissed Jason passionately, and repeated over and over how turned on she was and how much she was enjoying herself. Soon she was shaking her head and moving rapidly, then shouting and calling out his name and demanding that he cum. She licked his ear and he exploded as she blew hot air into his ear while whispering in her husky voice demanding his sperm and her pregnancy.

Phoebe slowly climbed off Jason. She kissed him gently and hugged him. Janet turned him to her side and kissed him very gently.

“How are you feeling Jason?” Phoebe asked.

“You guys are certainly fast workers. I thought we were simply going to lie down and relax. Then before I knew it, I was seduced. I was initially reluctant, but then I got into it. I feel like a young man again driven by lust and hormones. Of course, you needed to become pregnant and someone had to do it.

“I was there and I guess I’ve done my job. I’m a bit tired, so now I can now take a break for another twenty years,” Jason said, grinning. “I feel less guilt than I expected and of course how could I resist two such fine specimens of womanhood? The rational side of me understands the Empire morality, but I have a lifetime of beliefs and loyalties to change. I find myself thinking at least once daily that I wonder what Sarah will think when I tell her about one thing or another. I never cheated on her, despite temptation and some surprising offers over the years. I’m feeling renewed on this ship. It’s almost like I’m another person with some old memories stuck on.”

Jason had to admit to himself that he found these women delightfully gorgeous and responsive. If he survived his trip to the Empire and the obstacles he expected when he got there he might even enjoy the new life he had unexpectedly been given.

“Today I didn’t feel like an old man. I’ve the emerging body of a young man, and a lifetime of experience. It’s a good day.”

Both women sat cross legged, naked, and sweating on the bed, grinning at him.