Ice Commander Read online

  Hell, this explained such a lot, her personality, her anger with herself for making the human error that led to her more recent rescue. I guess after surviving the Betelgeuse disaster she’d driven herself too hard for years. Striving for an impossible perfection in her duties, she had become the Ice Commander, feared throughout the fleet. Beforehand she had probably been as warm as Laura.

  Suddenly there was a question I needed to ask. How could I phrase it? Not as a question, perhaps.

  ‘They say that a traumatic experience like that brings on physical changes, too.’

  Instead of looking through me, those windows of her soul seemed to hold me in their icy grip until I felt myself physically trying to wriggling free. The slight intimacy in her manner had now vanished. ‘Exactly what do you mean by that, Carter?’

  ‘Permission to speak freely, ma’am,’ I uttered, suddenly sweating.

  ‘You seem to have been speaking pretty damned freely so far, young man.’

  ‘Forgive me, ma’am. I simply meant, did the accident leave you with any physical damage?’

  ‘Apart from turning my hair white practically overnight – all my hair, as you may have noticed last week – my experience left no physical damage, I’m glad to say.’

  So that was it!

  Laura must be some sort of duplicate of the commander’s genome but naturally she would not carry the physical scars and changes wrought by life’s experiences – sexual and otherwise.

  But how had this come about? Had some alien spirit or influence made this duplication? Was Laura an alien soul, inhabiting a duplicated commander? She certainly had a totally different personality...if anything, a more human one.

  ‘Carter!’

  I snapped out of my reverie. ‘Ma’am?’

  ‘You have been behaving oddly since...since the events of last week. I regret very much my weaknesses in allowing those things to happen.’

  Does she mean the accident, her punishment or the sex?

  ‘I want to write an extremely good report about your conduct here on Saturn V. Maybe then you’ll get the Science Officer’s shipboard posting you desire. For that to happen, for the remainder of your time here, your conduct – and your relationship with your superior officer, must be exemplary. Understood?’

  ‘Understood, ma’am. It will be, I assure you.’

  ‘Now is there anything else you wish to tell me?’

  That there’s been another version of you inhabiting the base? – a revelation that would ground me permanently!

  ‘No, ma’am.’

  I missed Laura. I still do.

  I never saw her again after that day, and clearly the commander had never seen her at all. Towards the end of my time on Saturn V, I began to wonder if she’d ever existed; just as well I’d kept my silence.

  Time marches on. Although each lonely day stretched long without Laura, the days of my posting eventually ended, as all days do and it was time to say goodbye to the Ice Commander.

  The freighter had docked. My replacement had arrived and he was already making himself comfortable in my old quarters. The pilot, after initiating the robotic transfer of supplies was only awaiting me to board. She showed some signs of impatience, calling: ‘Ready when you are, sub-lieutenant,’ on the PA system in the airlock.

  But I had to say my proper farewell to my beautiful but severe boss for the last three months. We shook hands. ‘Goodbye, ma’am; thank you for that report and the four-star rating.’

  ‘You thoroughly deserved it, Carter. Thanks again for saving my bacon out there. I hope you get the deep-space berth you desire.’ The ghost of a smile crossed her face – the first smile she had ever given me. For a nanosecond, I saw Laura standing there, behind that smile.

  Now that the report was safely written and in my pocket, there was a final question I could risk asking. ‘No problem, ma’am...Ma’am, during the early part of my tour, I had the distinct impression that...well...’

  ‘Spit it out, man.’

  ‘Well, that there was another person around – apart from the two of us. Did you ever get that feeling?’

  She frowned and looked away. ‘You too, eh? I’ve heard this before. You remember the state of that officer who preceded you?’

  ‘I do, ma’am – he passed me on the way out when I arrived. He couldn’t wait to leave. Did he have the same feeling?’

  ‘More than a feeling. He hallucinated, actually saw someone, someone who looked just like me apparently!’ She laughed a short, harsh laugh, so different to Laura’s music. ‘It’s amazing what the solitude of this place can do to some people...’

  Finally she met my eyes with a searching gaze. ‘You didn’t get any actual hallucinations, did you?’

  I smiled reassuringly. ‘Of course not, ma’am – it was just a feeling. Not much at all, really. Probably the solitude, as you said.’

  ‘Solitude can do strange things, Carter.’

  As the freighter lifted away from the surface of that barren moon, I gazed for the last time upon the lonely, ice-bound outpost, particularly at the SOD perched on top of the habitat.

  What’s that? Has the Ice Commander got up to the dome to see me off?

  I looked again.

  No. It must have been a trick of the light.

  But, for a moment I thought I’d seen movement there – the wave of a hand, a smile and a glimpse of raven hair...

  Realm of Ice

  ‘Welcome aboard the Rigel, Lieutenant Carter!’

  I shook the captain’s hand warmly. ‘Thank you, ma’am!’

  She gestured for me to take a seat as she sat down behind her desk – a graceful process in Titan’s low gravity that required her shapely bottom to be lowered into position while her bosom lifted under her uniform. My new captain was an attractive woman. Already I was fantasising about how I could make love to such a woman – a natural leader and yet a natural woman with whom I could couple. That’s all it would be though – fantasy.

  ‘I understand you’ve just spent the past three months on Saturn V with Commander Hamilton?’

  I certainly had – all alone on the fifth moon of Saturn with the famous “Ice Commander”. Another incredible woman.

  ‘She sends her regards, ma’am.’

  She smiled. ‘Well, our forthcoming mission would certainly interest her. You probably know that she was the only survivor of the Betelgeuse II, an Orion-class ship very similar to ours. We will be surveying remote sectors of the Oort Cloud, including the region where her ship was lost. Now you are aboard, I can confirm that the rumours about Betelgeuse’s final mission were true – she was investigating a spurious signal, now thought to emanate from an unknown probe.

  ‘Another signal has been detected on an Oort Cloud Object. We are going in for a closer look – just like the Betelgeuse II.’

  She smiled again, obviously delighted with her dangerous assignment, but her words sent an icy chill down my spine. I knew a little more than my new captain about the survivor of that accident – but it was what I further suspected that frightened me.

  I wondered what extra precautions we would be taking that the Betelgeuse II – pride of the Outer System Fleet, with its ace captain and crew – had failed to take? OK, I was scared – but pretty excited too.

  As we departed through the Orange atmosphere of Titan, the sight of our voluptuous navigator calmed me a little.

  I’d first met the crew ‘ashore’, in Titan City, sporting around in the low gravity, high motion swimming pool and I’d already seen all there was to see of Master Navigator Natasha Lemanski. Swimming costumes were optional and she, like me, had decided that the very best way to enjoy those high, slow-motion water waves that rolled caressingly over one’s body, was in an unencumbered, natural state.

  Before she knew my lowly rank an
d who I was, I may have had a chance. She saw me looking at her body (who wasn’t?) but I saw her, with her perfect tits and her big, round, spankable bottom, glance at my body. She even returned my friendly smile on one occasion. I tried to move closer but, in that pool, she was under her heavy escort.

  With her high cheekbones, long, honey blonde hair and stunning figure, she was a feast for a man, probably the most desirable woman in the Outer System Fleet. But personality-wise...well, there were issues. I had to recognise the distancing factor of her rank – a grade or two higher than mine. Then, maybe because of her rank, she was slightly up herself. And finally she appeared to be an item with our handsome First Officer – Pete Steiner, the heavy escort, to whom I’d taken an instant dislike.

  Her creamy body shone faintly in the starlight from my cabin viewport. The exquisite curves I had known on Saturn V moved serenely in the micro gravity. They were mine to touch and hold.

  Now her raven hair cascaded forward over my belly, her breasts brushed my thighs as she took me in hand. I sighed while her cool fingers wrapped around my erection, felt the brief warmth of her breath on my cock, then the wet lick of her tongue before her lips enveloped the head.

  Laura. How she loved my cock.

  How I loved her body.

  I reached out to hold her swinging breasts. She turned her face up to mine for a moment...It was Laura, certainly, but it wasn’t her face!

  I awoke with a start. That dream again! Laura with the face of another woman – a woman I knew.

  It was two weeks into the mission and we were deep in the ‘Realm of Ice’ – that region of remote, icy bodies scientifically known as the Oort Cloud, that ultimate source of great comets that occasionally visit their beautiful sun-swept tails upon the inner Solar System and less occasionally, impact the Earth.

  I had settled in well with the crew – apart from First Officer Steiner and his navigator girlfriend, who seemed to treat everybody except the captain with a lofty reserve verging on contempt.

  I still lusted after that navigator horribly though, and although I tried to hide it, I think she knew. There was something about her smooth skin and the movement of her body in low gravity that stirred my own body every time I set eyes on the woman. The worst (or best) of times was when I would see her working-out in the low-gravity gym on the various machines that flexed our bodies and kept us in trim during extended spaceflight. Again, she would exercise nude when Steiner was around. On those occasions I usually had to leave ahead of time, before my arousal showed, grabbing a cold shower for the sake of my sanity.

  But her face – with its faintly self-satisfied expression – was now indifferent to me. I hoped it wasn’t personal. I guess she was genuinely attracted to that rat Steiner, with his good looks, rank and status.

  I lusted after Lemanski but I still dreamed of Laura.

  ‘Five hundred kilometres will be close enough,’ announced the captain. ‘After what happened to the Betelgeuse we can’t be too careful. Lemanski will take the shuttle in for a closer look.’

  We watched the feed from the shuttle’s cameras as our navigator closed with the dormant comet.

  At about one kilometre from the rugged surface we saw the grey device.

  ‘There it is!’ yelled Steiner.

  I felt the hair on my neck rise at the sight of real, alien technology – incredibly ancient technology, by the look of the battered casing of the crab-like machine that clung to the comet’s rugged surface.

  ‘Just look at that,’ breathed the captain, ‘older than the pyramids, certainly. Perhaps a thousand times older...’

  ‘It’s big...bigger than the shuttle,’ called our navigator, faint in the rising hiss of static.

  ‘Hold position there, Lemanski. That’s close enough for now.’

  No reply.

  Then I noticed my screen. ‘Captain! The probe’s signal is changing. It’s...evolving into something far more complex.’

  ‘Keep monitoring it, Carter. Lemanski, did you copy? Hold position. Get no closer!’

  ‘Captain, we are losing telemetry from the shuttle!’ warned Steiner.

  ‘I think I know why, Captain,’ I said, ‘the signal is vastly increasing its power...It’s swamping the shuttle’s circuits.’

  ‘Lemanski, if you read, withdraw immediately – get out of there!’ ordered the captain.

  Our main screen from the shuttle cameras went dead. And then, through the flight deck windows came the blinding flare of light – brighter than the sun.

  We found our navigator in her escape pod, mother-naked, apparently unharmed – but confused.

  Her arm went around my shoulder as I helped her out of the pod. Her soft breast squashed into my chest as I lifted her from behind the knees. Then Steiner arrived with a foil blanket, took her off me and carried her to the sickbay.

  Unharmed, yes, but the doctor was not sanguine about her mental recovery. Her recent memories had all vanished – along with the shuttle.

  ‘This is exactly how Commander Hamilton was found, Frank – but, in her case, the entire ship was lost. So far, we’ve gotten off very lightly,’ observed the captain quietly.

  We were alone together on the flightdeck, looking out at the stars – Steiner was still in the sickbay with Natasha. I was glad to have the captain to myself – and not just because I found her a desirable woman.

  ‘Skipper, there is something you should know concerning Commander Hamilton.’

  Her worried brow wrinkled a little deeper. ‘Spit it out, Frank.’

  ‘You will think I’m crazy, ma’am...I’ve kept quiet before because I didn’t know what you just told me – but now it all fits.’

  ‘Tell me everything.’

  I took a deep breath.

  Here is where I get relieved of duty for mental aberration...

  ‘I think some sort of alien presence rescued both women.’

  Her eyes narrowed. ‘Go on.’

  ‘It’s the only explanation that fits events. The next thing that will happen is that Natasha will go grey – almost overnight – just like Commander Hamilton did. All the hair on her body...’

  ‘All her hair? How did you know that?’

  ‘She had an accident out on the surface of Saturn V. After I got her back inside the base, I had to cut her frozen suit and clothing off her, then warm her up with my body, skin to skin.’

  She looked at me differently. Maybe seeing me as a young man who strips his superior officer bare-arse naked and checks out the shade of her pubic hair...

  ‘Right...And then what?’

  ‘Then she will be OK – although she will never regain the memory of what happened.’

  Shall I tell her the rest?

  The captain noticed my hesitation. ‘That’s not all, is it, Frank? Please level with me.’

  ‘I don’t know quite how this will work with a whole crew around, but when it was just the Commander and I, alone on Saturn V, there was a curious side-effect.’

  ‘Which was?’ she prompted.

  ‘I saw another woman...just a few times, when I was alone.’

  ‘What?’ her eyebrows shot up.

  ‘Yes. Someone exactly like the commander but not grey – as black-haired as the commander used to be. Someone the same physical age but kind of newly-made – and with a softer personality – the alien presence, I think. Maybe it took a copy of the commander’s genome during the rescue – when–’

  ‘Whoa! That’s enough speculation for now. That’s pretty fantastic, Frank. Did anyone else ever see this?’

  I searched her face for scepticism. ‘I was not hallucinating, ma’am. I er...touched her and spoke to her. A real woman. My predecessor – an earlier trainee on Saturn V – also saw the other woman, apparently. The commander thought he was hallucinating and had him gr
ounded. She saw nothing herself, so naturally I never saw the two women together.’

  I failed to say that I had made love to that enigma – Laura, of course – she’d taken the commander’s unused first name.

  And not just made love – I’d probably fallen for Laura, too.

  She pursed her lips. ‘OK, Frank, I’ll take this at face value. This doesn’t seem to be a hostile phenomenon – but it could cause chaos aboard, especially if I alert the rest of the crew. For the moment this is to remain strictly private, just between the two of us.’

  * * *

  The probe – if that’s what it was – vanished with its signal. I had a feeling it had fulfilled its ancient purpose. Our mission continued with the task of charting and plotting the orbits of other Oort Cloud Objects, making sure that none were intent upon mischief in the inner Solar System – our raison d’être.

  Thankfully, Natasha recovered well enough to resume her duties.

  The captain caught my eye with a significant look when the navigator joined us on the flightdeck. I looked again at Natasha – this time at her hair instead of her body. The roots were already showing through silver.

  One evening, when we were under low grav while the ship’s drive accelerated us to yet another distant region of the Oort Cloud, my door chime sounded.

  It was a little late for a social call but I was reasonably decent in shorts and T-shirt prior to turning in. I put my work aside and yawned. ‘Come in.’

  It was Natasha, in a flexisuit, her outstanding breasts almost horizontal.

  She looked absolutely fantastic.

  I stood up so fast I almost left the floor. I had never had a visit from her before – normally, we barely spoke to each other.

  ‘Hey, Natasha. What can I do for you?’

  ‘I had to come and see you.’

  ‘I’m so glad you did. You look great tonight.’ I noticed her perfect, shoulder-length blonde hair. I looked at the roots. No grey at all...

  I froze.

  ‘What’s the matter, Frank?’

  I got my voice working. ‘Who are you?’