“Twit,” Kitty said. She elbowed me hard enough to hurt. “Get that uniform off, mister.”
She pulled me down on top of her and into her. I pushed deep inside her, feeling closer to her than ever before, and started to move. I was moving faster and faster when my terminal bleeped, announcing an incoming message.
“If you stop now,” Kitty panted, “I’ll cut off your fucking balls.”
I couldn’t have stopped if she’d told me to stop. I kept moving, feeling the orgasm building up inside of me, until it burst out and we came together. She shuddered endlessly under me, gasping out loud, until we finally subsidised.
“You’re magnificent,” I breathed. It was true. Naked and dishevelled, her long red hair hanging down over her breasts, she was beautiful beyond words. I wanted her so much it hurt. “I wish… let’s get married, now.”
“You’re being silly,” she said, after kissing me. I felt rejected, even though I knew better. Lieutenants couldn’t get married until they were assigned to a permanent station. It was almost worth doing just for her. “We can’t get married and you know it.”
I pulled myself off her and sat up, reaching for my terminal and opening the message. I had to read it twice to confirm that I had read it properly. It offered me the post of Lieutenant on the old Jacques Delors, under Captain Harriman. I yelled aloud in delight and threw myself at her. It was nearly another hour before she picked up the terminal and thumbed through it herself. I didn’t begrudge her the chance to look at it. If nothing else, we could compare postings.
“John,” she said, carefully, “have you read this bit here?”
I checked. It was the list of service periods for the four other Lieutenants. I blinked again. “That can’t be right,” I said, puzzled. None of them had a service period over a year. “What happened to Lieutenant Hatchet?”
“I don’t know,” Kitty said, “but reading this… you’re First Lieutenant. You will be the second-in-command of the entire ship.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Officially, the UNPF bans personnel associations of any kind, apart from those funded and operated by political officers. Unofficially, there are hundreds of little groups within the UNPF, mostly involving classmates at the Academy or officers who have shared a term of service together, or a common interest. The UNPF Chess Club has over two thousand members and organises tournaments as often as it can. The vast majority of such personnel associations are harmless and the UN has learned to turn a blind eye. Even so, some of them have operated against the UNPF and UN interests.
It had been nearly three years since I had set foot in Luna City, but little had changed. The massive dome covering the Sea of Tranquillity still allowed the unblinking stars to glare down on a scene of debauchery that would have shocked the early Romans. I had fond memories of my visits to Luna City while I’d been at the Academy and, looking around, I could see other Cadets staring around, wondering if they dared seek entrance to some of the strip bars or brothels the Outfit ran. Others walked hand in hand with girls they’d picked up, enjoying their company before taking them back to their hotel rooms to complete the bargain, or even not waiting that long. I saw, in a dark corner, a Cadet making out with a woman who looked old enough to be his mother. He wasn’t the only one either. Luna City had very little in the way of laws.
I’d read two versions of how Luna City and the Lunar Authority came into existence. One, the version I’d been taught back at the Academy, had had the United Nations running the entire Lunar settlement program from the beginning, carefully settling the moon so that everyone had a share in the resources there. The other version, the one I’d read in the Heinlein books, suggested that the moon had been settled from different nations, eventually united into a government that then fell under the sway of the United Nations. The Luna-born were largely trapped. Unlike me, or anyone from Earth, they couldn’t survive for long in a high-gravity environment. There were some asteroids that had Luna-standard gravity, but they were rare.
In theory, Luna City was responsible to the Lunar Authority, but in practice it tended to go its own way. I hadn’t understood why the UN hadn’t done something about it until I’d studied it more carefully. Luna City had nothing worth the taking and provided an excellent distraction for the cadets on their off-duty hours. They could take the monorail from the Academy and be in Luna City in a couple of hours, then spend a week in some prostitute’s bed. The Outfit kept the entire place under very strict control. It might have been a den of scum and villainy, but the Cadets were fairly safe in Luna City. The last thing the Outfit wanted was to do anything that the UN might feel obliged to take notice of, or react to. A missing Cadet would be a serious problem for them. Luna City was, in effect, a grey colony in the solar system.
I smiled to myself as I passed a set of Japanese-looking girls wearing nothing, but translucent underwear. The thought of seeking their company — and they would be willing, if I paid them enough — was attractive, but I had another destination. I gave the girls a wink and passed onwards, trying to ignore their perfume as best as I could. I’d seen Cadets lose themselves completely in the fleshpots of Luna City, or accidentally overdosing themselves on something they were sold in a bar, and I couldn’t afford the distraction. I passed the Hub bar, where many Cadets used to go for drinks, and smiled again, remembering the many good times I’d had there. The hotel loomed up in front of me and I paused. Did I dare go through with it? It would be so easy to make a single mistake and lose everything.
The interior of the hotel was surprisingly low-key, but then, the Casa Carola had always prided itself on a more upscale clientele than the more average hotel in Luna City. The receptionist, wearing a modest outfit instead of the more spectacular lunar outfits, smiled at me and asked where I was going. When I answered, she pointed me towards the right room, without even checking my ID. That had astonished me when I’d first visited — on Earth, you couldn’t go a week without an ID Card — but now it was a relief. I didn’t want anyone having a record of who’d joined me.
“Hey, John,” Lieutenant Rolf Lommerde shouted. “Long time no see!”
I smiled back at him and the others in the room. We’d all shared classes together at the Academy and we’d agreed, when we graduated and were assigned to different starships, that we would keep in touch. I’d had to be careful who I invited — several of my classmates hadn’t made Lieutenant yet and I couldn’t socialise with them — but it was good to see them again. I was just glad that Roger was still back at the Heinlein System. I didn’t dare invite him.
We spent the first hour chatting about old times, sharing Academy yarns and tall stories about what we’d been doing on our first starships. Rolf, of course, had served with me back on my first starship, but Lieutenant Darryl Farnan had been posted to a survey ship and told lies — at least I think they were lies — about discovering the remains of an alien civilisation on a distant world. Lieutenant Bruno Lombardi had a fantastic story about a team of blonde swimmers from New Scandinavia, a vat of custard and the Captain’s daughter. Halfway through the tale, I realised that I didn’t believe a word of it…and it didn’t matter. I had almost forgotten what it was like to laugh.