Chapter 9 - Getting into the Groove

The first pod that was constructed on the surface was really nothing more than a hollow shell with enough replicator power to bury itself, scrub the air, and alter its floor plan.  The industrial replicator had built it in a couple of hours.  It was sunk just across the corridor from Constance and Tuan's pods and was just a big, open room with a booming echo, but it gave the kids plenty of room to run, and run they did.

Constance headed toward Judith, but Tuan just stood and watched the kids.  He noticed that Kim was spending more time with Jishnu now that Frank had left with his family.  The sour look Roni gave her brother was a clear indication that she wasn't pleased with this development.

Nancy walked by and whispered, "I think I'm ready," without stopping or even looking in his direction.  Tuan's mind was drifting, and it took a few moments for her meaning to sink in.

Tuan turned and gave the retreating girl an incredulous look as his suddenly slack chin drifted toward his chest.  It was very uncharacteristic for him to stare with his mouth hanging open.  Nancy had given no previous indication that she was receptive to sex, much less interested in it.  Tuan wasn't sure he was mentally ready to fuck someone who was only three years older than his daughter.  He may not have been mentally ready, but his dick was already rising to the occasion.

Nancy walked on out of the community center and turned toward Tuan's pod.  Tuan followed her as a single thought kept circulating unanswered in his head, Does she mean right now?

Nancy was standing in the middle of the living room shaking like a leaf when Tuan entered the pod.  She was almost hoping that she had spoken too softly for Tuan to understand what she had said to him.  Her courage was failing her even before he came into view.

"Are you all right?"  Tuan asked the clearly frightened girl who looked like she was about to pass out.  "You don't look like you're ready.  Let's sit down and talk about what's going on and what you really want."

Nancy appeared relieved when Tuan extended his hand and turned her toward the couch instead of the bedroom.  They each sat with one leg on the couch facing each other.  Nancy clutched Tuan's hands with hers and tried to speak, but couldn't force more than a squeak from her tight throat.

"Why did you tell me you're ready when, clearly, you're not?"  Tuan gently asked the frightened girl.

Nancy looked at a spot on the couch between them.   "You've been so good and patient with me, asking nothing, offering everything.  You haven't even made me fly a shuttle after giving me all that training.  I need to earn my keep.  Maggie and Celeste seem to look forward to having sex with you.  Everyone in a hundred light-years knows that Bea loves having you do whatever you want with her.  She screams like she's dying from sheer pleasure.  I want to scream like that, but I am afraid to even try."

Tuan wanted to lift Nancy's chin in order to look into her eyes, but the girl refused to loosen her grip with either hand.  "You don't owe me anything beyond respect and obedience, Nancy.  I didn't bring you along just because I wanted to have sex with you.  I did it because you appeal to my inner need to be a hero and because I really like you."

"But," Nancy stammered, "don't I turn you on?"

"Regularly, painfully," Tuan admitted.  "But, I'm mature enough to not be led around by a swollen dick."

"Don't let him kid you," Beatrice said from the doorway.  "Any man who can't be led around by his genitals isn't totally functional.  In fact, he's probably dead.  Tuan is far from dead, and he's fully functional."

Nancy turned red and finally released Tuan's hands.   "We weren't doing anything!"

"Clearly," Beatrice replied with a friendly tone.   "You're both still fully clothed.  And holding hands?  What's with that?   The real question is why aren't you doing anything?"

"Behave, Bea," Tuan said without looking away from Nancy.  "Nancy is a bit fragile and vulnerable at the moment."

"I'm sorry if that sounded mean, sweetheart."   Beatrice was clearly concerned for her sister concubine when she asked Nancy, "When was the last time your nanites checked your hormone levels?"

"Bea," Tuan turned to face Beatrice.  "Were you ever a shy and frightened virgin?  Maybe it was so long ago that you don't remember.  Let's not add to Nancy's embarrassment with a bunch of silly question and unwanted attention, okay?"

Beatrice was about to plead innocence when a worn down group of kids stumbled into the pod.  Beatrice turned her attention to getting them cleaned up, settled down, and fed.  When Nancy saw the kids she ran into Tuan's bedroom to clean the tear streaks from her face and hide out until she recovered her dignity.

"What's going on?"  Celeste and Margret asked almost in unison.

"Nothing serious, I hope," Tuan remarked.   "Nancy is trying to decide whether or not she's grown up."

Celeste asked, "Poor kid!  Should I check on her?"

Tuan shrugged, "I don't know.  It might be best to give her some space, but she might need a friend.  I'm sure you two are close, but one thing that has her feeling bad is her reluctance to pilot a real shuttle.   The fact that you're comfortable flying a shuttle might increase her anxiety level.  Kim, you're closer to her age than anyone.  Would you mind checking on her and reassure her that she's accepted?"

"Sure thing, Pop."  Kim slid off the barstool and grabbed a snack to take with her into the bedroom.

Tuan shook his head while smiling at her priorities, "Thanks, kiddo."

In less than ten minutes the two girls emerged from the bedroom laughing.  Tuan was really pleased with himself for not pushing Nancy.   His lust for the girl, who was hardly older than his youngest child, put him on a serious guilt trip.  Looking at Margret he knew that Kim would not be his youngest child for very long.  Margret's abdomen was once again on the Rubenesque side, only this time it wasn't because she was overweight.

"So, are we going to put the nursery on this floor or upstairs?"  Tuan asked no one in particular and remarked, "The AI tells me that the pod can be made much larger now that it's been removed from the shipboard mount, but we seem to have plenty of room."

The machine shop that had been in Nguyen's pod had been moved to the pumping station.  The medical capsule didn't take up much more room than a double bed and it could also be used as an extra sleep trainer, but he made a note to himself to ask that a full medical bay unit be built and added to the underground collection of pods as soon as a third industrial replicator was operational at the pumping station.

Beatrice approached Tuan when the kids wandered into the family room with their midmorning snacks.  "I wasn't being insensitive to Nancy," she said softly, almost conspiratorially.  "She's on an emotional rollercoaster caused by fear, perceived responsibilities and failures, a desire to fit in, and raging hormones.  Her body and logical brain are telling her to get laid, but her fear is holding her back.  It's not just fear of physical pain.  There's something haunting her subconscious that she may not even be aware of."

Tuan was visibly impressed by the insightful remarks, "I know you don't have a mean bone in your lush body, and you're only frivolous when showing the kids how to turn any situation into a fun way to learn and cope.  I have the same nagging feeling that there was some trauma in Nancy's past associated with sex.  There's no evidence that she herself was abused, but it could have been something she witnessed at such a young age that the memory has been suppressed.  It's actually very unusual these days for a girl her age to be virgin."

Things were no less tense in the McKinsey pod.  Phaninath and Leroy had been jumpy for days.  Judith was feeling alone when she was with Constance and had taken to hanging out with the other three concubines at every opportunity.  Aswani comforted the kids by day and her brother-husbands by night.  She had to coax them to get some sexual attention beyond cuddling in the bed.

The pod got suddenly quieter when Constance emerged from her study for lunch.  Judith finally associated the silence with Constance's mood swings.  They seem to have started a few days before their pod was dropped from Copernicus to Barcino, the name they had given to their settlement on the coast of Triton.  Constance was smiling and talking with everyone during lunch, but no one was completely relaxed.

"The AI tells me that with the habitat pod no longer attached to a ship and not likely to be uploaded, it can be made a whole lot bigger."  Constance was talking, but not directing her remarks at anyone.   She wasn't even making eye contact as she spoke.  "It'll take three days for a pod to be configured the way I'd like, so I want you to bring one of the new ones down after lunch, Judith."

Judith was puzzled, "I'll get right on it, but we don't really need…"

Constance interrupted her with, "Don't you guys feel crowded in this ceramic cigar?  The air is getting stale.  No, we need a bigger place."

Judith enlisted Nancy's help and the two women took the transporter up to the station.  "I might like to fly us down, but I'd like you to take us out of the hangar and connect with the pod."

"That sounds like a plan.  We can cruise around in a shuttle for a bit if you like."  Judith hadn't expected Nancy to do any of the flying, but she needed a copilot to operate the grapple and monitor stresses during the descent.  One person could do it, but it was safer to divide the workload in case of trouble.

Nancy refused to land the pod and Judith took over for the final approach, but Nancy did fly the lighter back to the station and did a beautiful job of parking it when Judith refused to accept control when Nancy asked her to.

Their feet were gliding across the hangar deck in the low gravity of the station as they headed for the transport pad.  Nancy broke the silence with, "I'm angry with you for making me dock the lighter, but I thank you for pushing me into doing it.  Bea told me that facing my fears is the best way to conquer them."

"You have nothing to be afraid of, Nancy," Judith assured her.  "You have the best scores of any of us on the simulator."

"Maybe," Nancy said just before they stepped into the stream.  "But no one dies if I fly a simulated shuttle through a hangar wall."

Back in the pod Judith tracked down her sister-concubine.  "Aswani, have you noticed any kind of change in anyone's behavior in the last week or so?"

"You are speaking of our mistress."  Aswani didn't hesitate before responding.

Judith nodded her assent, not really wanting to say anything negative out loud.  "What can we do to make it better?"

Aswani took a deep breath and let it out slowly.  "I am thinking that you are knowing her better.  I have only been knowing her for five months.  I also am having a problem.  I am three months along with Leroy's seed in my womb and the sex is getting more and more vigorous.  I do enjoy it, but it needs to taper off as my belly swells.  What do you think should be done?"

"I've only been with her for a few months more than you, and I've never seen her behave this way," Judith remarked.  "I have no idea what's causing her to be sweet and gentle one minute and a raging tyrant the next.  I guess all we can do is weather the storms and support her as best we can."

Drawings and notes were spread out on the two large tables in the Barcino CIC.  The four engineers had broken into two teams.  Constance and Margret were completing the creation of a replicator file for a domed structure while Tuan and Celeste investigated the use of force field technology to speed the excavation of the numerous tunnels.

Margret had written a program that converted Computer Aided Design files into detailed specifications of the materials to a molecular level in a three dimensional representation.  Constance was going to take advantage of the excavation tailings to construct the playground dome.  It would be a monolithic granite framework with pentagonal leaded quartz blocks sealed to the granite with C-channels of Teflon.

Having the quartz floating in a granite frame would allow it to expand and contract without excessive stress.  She had wanted to make the dome from solid quartz, but uneven heating could put unacceptable levels of stress on such a large and rigid structure.  Granite was also rigid, but strong enough to withstand temperature flexing as long as there were no cracks or impurities.

It was going to take a week for an industrial replicator to construct a fifty-meter radius dome over the site chosen for the playground and another week to complete the interior and fixtures.  An Olympic-size pool surrounded by a childproof fence dominated the area.  It was braced by a pair of tennis courts on a split mezzanine level seven meters above the pool.  The almost 23 feet of headspace made the courts almost invisible from the pool level.  Wading pools, sand boxes, swings, three-dimensional mazes, and other classic equipment provided additional distractions and made the area entertaining for all ages from newborn through adult.

An elevator pad like the ones used within a pod connected the playground levels to the foyer of the transporter room next to the CIC below.

The thick quartz glazing would block almost all of the ultraviolet radiation that normally hammered the surface of Haru.  The trace amount that penetrated the dome would not be enough to sunburn a redheaded baby even if left out in the open all day.

Constance and Margret were beating the AI into submission with finer and finer details added to the converted file and it finally agreed to construct the dome using the fabricated replicator file.

Next to the pair of triumphant women Tuan and Celeste were having running discussions with the AI regarding the capability of Darjee force fields.  These fields were normally used for defense against kinetic energy forces and were employed as the interdiction fields during pickups and by the individual wall-shield generators carried by Marines.  Safety features kept the generators from forming a field inside solid objects.

The fact that no life had been found on Azahar was not enough to convince the AI that the wall-shield generator's safety could be disabled to allow the field to be used by a boring machine to cut unto the face of a tunnel and dice the excavated material into cubes for transport to the raw material storage facilities.

A compromise was finally reached by adding sensors that would scan the area ahead before each bite was taken.  The sensor sweep cut the speed of operation in half, but it was still a lot faster that nanites carrying a few molecules at time to the transporter.  By the end of the second week after Copernicus had departed, three of the machines were advancing through the ground at two meters per minute.  The original mining nanites were kept busy reinforcing the excavated tubes with compacted tailings.

Constance continued to task one of the six orbiting replicators with weapons production.  Two replicators produced Mark I pods and the rest produced additional industrial replicators.  A second 50-megawatt reactor had been added to the CIC pod on the station which was now located in the center of a figure-8 structure that would accommodate twelve industrial replicators.  Each week new replicators were put into service at the station and on the ground.

Nancy was gaining confidence with her skills piloting real spacecraft and delivered the next industrial pod scheduled for planetary deployment with Judith in the role of copilot for the entire flight.  With a little encouragement from Judith and Tuan, she took one of the shuttles out for a solo flight.

Everyone congratulated the radiant Nancy at dinner that evening.  Beatrice even put together a cake sculpted to look like a Galileo-class shuttle.  Tuan framed the piece of shirt that Judith cut from Nancy's back in the century old tradition of a pilot completing their first solo flight and no longer needing a shirttail for the instructor to grab when the student was making a mistake.

After the kids had gone to bed that evening, a blushing Nancy was sitting at the kitchen table with the others.  "I have a favor to ask of everyone."  She was directing her request to the other ladies at the table.  "I'd like to spend the night with Tuan… alone."

Beatrice jumped up and gave Nancy a big hug.  Celeste and Margret joined in support making it very clear that none of them had an issue with her request.  Beatrice disappeared into her room and returned a few seconds later with two small packages.  She handed one to Tuan and told him, "Go clean up and get ready for bed.  We're going to give Nancy a bubble bath upstairs and dress her for the occasion."

Tuan was going to say something about pushy concubines, but the chattering crowd was gone before he could catch his breath.  He opened the parcel and found a set of raw silk pajamas and a beautifully embroidered robe.   He smiled and entered the master suite to do as instructed.

He was sitting at the small table across from the bed going over the production schedules for the next two weeks when there was a knock on the door.  Celeste and Margret entered without waiting for a response and stepped to either side of the door.  A blushing Nancy was all but pushed into the large room by a very solicitous Beatrice.

"Your virgin bride is ready for you, master," Beatrice said from behind a vision in white.

The three older women each kissed Nancy and wished her well.  Beatrice was the last one to back out of the room and admonished Tuan, "You be good to her tonight.  She deserves to have your full attention."  With that parting remark the two were left suddenly alone.

Tuan could hardly breathe.  Nancy was wearing a diaphanous gown that reached mid-thigh, but it obscured little to nothing.  The equally sheer robe did nothing to mask the dark nipples on Nancy's breasts that were crinkled into tight cylinders centered on equally dark areolae.

A white lace ribbon with a bow at the top was holding back Nancy's soft brown hair.  The brown patch of hair that had adorned the top of Nancy's mons was gone.  There was nothing but pink skin at the junction of her long, athletic legs.  Her delicate feet were shod with fuzzy white slippers with three-inch heels.  The open-toe slippers revealed a fresh pedicure.  The pale pink polish on each toe matched the long nails on her elegant fingers.

Tuan was too dumbstruck to move or speak until Nancy began to fidget as her nerves reached the limit of their endurance.  He finally found his voice: "You look stunning!"  He had just enough situational awareness to turn off the display on his desk as he stood and extended his right hand in invitation for Nancy to approach.

He had her turn slowly at arm's reach.  The high-heeled slippers did a fantastic job of defining her calf and thigh muscles, and turned Nancy's trim butt into a pair of tight hemispheric globes.

When she completed the turn Tuan pulled her into his arms and kissed her passionately.  The tension drained from Nancy and was replaced by desire and lust by the time their lips parted and their tongues dueled.   Both were breathing in ragged gasps as they stumbled toward the bed.

Tuan was on the verge of tumbling onto the bed and ravaging the goddess in his arms, but regained enough control to untie the ribbon at her throat and let the robe float to the floor.  She untied the belt of his robe and pushed the garment off his shoulders to reveal his bare chest.

She was reaching for the waistband of his pajamas, but Tuan had grasped the hem of her flimsy gown and began lifting it up her torso.  She raised her arms to allow him to slide the delicate fabric over her head and toss it aside.

He pulled her in for another passionate kiss.  This time there was nothing separating his chest from the smooth globes and hard protrusions adorning her frame.  One hand squeezed and explored her butt as the other held her naked body tightly against his.

When the second kiss ended he turned them as a unit to place the bed behind Nancy.  He gently lowered the girl, who was now only wearing a hair ribbon and house slippers, onto the soft bed.  She released his hands and took a firm grip on the waistband of his pajamas and carefully pulled them over his erection and down his legs.

She leaned forward as she pushed the slick garment over his knees and encased the head of his rampant cock in her mouth.  Tuan groaned in pleasure when her lips sealed themselves to the shaft and her tongue twirled around the sensitive crown.

Tuan was enjoying the enthusiastic blowjob, but he was more interested in worshiping than being worshipped.  He shifted his grip to her shoulders and gently pushed her away.  He gently kissed and massaged each of her nipples with his mouth as he lowered himself to a kneeling position on the floor next to the bed.

Nancy fell onto her back when Tuan lifted and parted her knees to access her glistening labia with his mouth.  Nancy began thrashing out an orgasm as soon as Tuan's mouth closed on her sex.  He intensified her orgasm by gently sucking on her engorged clitoris.

He put his hands under her butt and bodily lifted and rotated her to the center of the bed with his shoulders still between her widely spread thighs.  Nancy was relaxed as Tuan crawled forward and hovered over her with his cock inches from her defenseless labia.  Sensing his hesitation she open her eyes and kissed him before shifting her gaze to the lewd image of a rampant cock so near her wet pussy.

She took his cock in both hands and guided the tip to her poorly guarded opening.  An involuntary snap of Tuan's hips forced the swollen head of his cock through the fragile barrier and into the wet, clasping tunnel, which the barrier had failed to protect.

Nancy gasped as the twinge from her torn hymen was replaced by the satisfying feeling of a meaty shaft making its way into her vagina for the first time.  She groaned and thrashed as Tuan worked the length of his member into the slick tunnel.  He paused for a moment when he felt her clitoris being crushed between their padded pubic bones.

She had barely enough time to catch her breath before she began screaming and clasping his neck as her first lover began stroking his cock back and forth through the clasping labia and into her core.  Masturbation and cunnilingus sessions with her sister-concubines had not prepared her for this level of intensity.  Those sensations didn't come close to generating the sensations that were being generated by the shaft that kept sliding in and out of her spasming vagina.  She never imagined she could feel such overwhelming pleasure as she mindlessly responded to the rhythmic thrusts.

She was near exhaustion when the invading shaft began bathing her cervix in hot semen.  It was more than she could take and passed out as she involuntarily milked the seed from the fleshy cannon.  She was still impaled on Tuan's shaft when consciousness returned.

Tuan struggled to shift his weight off of her so she could breathe.  She straightened her leg enough for him to roll onto his side next to her.  She whimpered in loss as the limp invader slipped from the grasp of her thoroughly abused groin and turned to kiss the man who had taken her virginity.

"Thank you," she said softly.  "You have no idea how much I needed that."

They fell asleep from exhaustion.  Neither one realized that it had been almost an hour since they had been left alone in the bedroom.

The three hens hovering outside the master suite were giggling like schoolgirls when the screaming started.  "Looks like you have a contender for the title of the loudest lay, Bea," Margret said quietly through her own laughter.  They were all amazed when, a half-hour later, the screaming hadn't diminished.

"She'll be walking bowlegged for at least a week," Beatrice predicted as the three gave up their vigil and headed to bed for some hot girl-on-girl dildo action.