"This way, please. Watch your step. And hurry."
There was an unusual sight when the submarine docked. It wasn't often that group disembarking from a Royal Navy submarine included two young women. Especially when one considered that there was a war going on and that all of the British Isles were in the war zone.
Precisely because there was a war going on, not too many people saw the two women. And of those few who did, even fewer knew that those two women were not ordinary women.
The two women, along with the Royal Navy officer who had accompanied them off the submarine, were quickly shown into a waiting car, which then quickly whisked them off to the north, to a top-secret Commando base.
When the car reached the base, the fighting capability of that Commando unit increased several-fold, though of course there was no way to tell by merely looking at those three people.
Certainly not from looking at the younger of the two women. She looked to be barely out of her teens. One could not tell from her appearance that even barehanded she was more than a match for an entire infantry battalion, or maybe even a tank company.
A young woman got up from her battered typewriter when the door opened and a man in uniform entered. "Good to have you back with us in one piece, Commander Sinclair."
"Thank you, Miss Roberts. It's good to be back home."
When the war had started, Vicky Roberts had volunteered for the Army, just like her two brothers who had both also joined the Army. Their father had fought against the Germans in the trenches of France in the previous war, and had been wounded. The previous war, the Great War, the 'war to end all wars.'
Both of her brothers had shipped out to France with the British Expeditionary Force. Only one of them had made it back from Dunkirk. She had been a file clerk when the Commandos moved onto this base shortly after the Fall of France the previous summer. Now, she also served as Commander Sinclair's secretary.
She maintained proper military etiquette, suppressing the urge to give him a hug to welcome him back after another dangerous mission on the Continent. She secretly longed to hold him in her arms, to show him how much she cared for him. She desperately longed for him to hold her in his arms.
She also longed to serve the tall handsome officer in another way. "Even if he is Navy," she kept telling herself. "After all, we're still on the same side." She knew that there wasn't a woman in his life, he was all but married to his work. It would take a special woman to be in his life, and she wanted to be that special woman. But he barely noticed her, except in her capacity as a clerk and as a secretary.
"Who am I kidding?" she asked herself. "He's an officer, and I'm just a clerk and typist. Officers just don't fall for clerks."
There were times she also sometimes wished that she could do more for the war effort. If she wanted to type reports and then file them, she could have done that just as well in a London office. Which was exactly what she had been doing before the war. Typing and filing just didn't seem that important, when brave young men were being killed every day. But what could she do? They were brave young men, and she was a young woman. A brave young woman, but still a woman.
She had just gotten her mind back on the business at hand when she was very surprised to see two young women following Commander Sinclair in. He then proceeded to ask Vicky to find quarters for the two women on the base.
"I'm telling you, Mack, she is that good," Commander Michael Sinclair said. "Even better."
Mackenzie would have none of it. "Nobody can be that good, Commander Sinclair. Especially not a mere girl!" He spat out the last two words.
Sinclair wouldn't give up, either. "Chirren could easily whip any two men here. Marlen's even better than that. She could take on an entire infantry platoon by herself." "An armed platoon, while she's unarmed," he thought to himself, remembering what she had done in that cellar in Norway. He also remembered what had happened to that German patrol they had run across on the way to the sub. Alone, Marlen had taken care of the four soldiers, and she hadn't even worked up a sweat.
She had also proven her abilities out on the training ranges. He wanted, no, he needed, Marlen on his team. And in order to have her, he needed Mackenzie's approval. He, along with himself and the doctor, had veto power over anybody's participation on the upcoming mission.
"She really is that good. But I can't have her demonstrate it to you. And I really do need her on this mission."
Lieutenant Donovan Mackenzie was the unarmed combat instructor at the Commando base. He was the undisputed base champion at all forms of unarmed combat, having spent two tours of duty in Japan, continuing his study of the martial arts. He looked at the two women again. "Women? More like girls," he thought. "Rather pretty girls, at that. Especially the one in black." He had met a few women who had thought that they could fight. He had never agreed with them. And he had been able to prove it to them.
Marlen turned to Chirren and spoke to her in Arion. "Chirren, why don't you show him?"
Chirren turned from the conversation between the men and looked up in surprise. "But, Marlen, I'm not a fighter," she replied in the same tongue. They still did most of their conversing in Arion --- it was easier for them, and there was absolutely no chance of anyone eavesdropping on them.
"Nonsense, Chirren. You've been trained, like everyone else in the Empire, practically from birth."
"But only the bare minimum, Marlen. You know I'm no good at it. I never could beat Tyree, or the other two men, when you had us practice at it. I'm trained for communications, not for combat. And he knows a lot more about hand-to-hand combat than I do. He's an unarmed combat instructor."
"And you're an Arion, Chirren. You should be able to take him with one arm tied behind your back."
"But, Marlen, I'm only a Beta, not a Prime, like you."
"You're still much quicker than he is, and you have five times his strength. Go ahead, give it a shot." Then she turned to Sinclair and switched to English. "Commander, how about a little sparring match between Chirren and the instructor here? Just a little exhibition?"
"That's a great idea, Marlen? How about it, Mack? You want to try it?"
Mackenzie gave a snort of disgust at Commander Sinclair's suggestion. "I don't want anybody to get hurt," he said, trying to give the girl a graceful out. Even though he hadn't understood the conversation between the two girls, he had sensed from her tone and her expression that Chirren was reluctant to face him. This would let the girl back out without losing face.
"Chirren will be careful not to hurt him," Marlen replied, continuing to face Sinclair, and with a smile just turning up the corners of her mouth. "Or is he afraid to face her?"
What? The girl's going to be careful not to hurt him? Him, afraid to face a girl? He couldn't back down from that. He accepted the challenge.
In the timeless tradition of soldiers everywhere, they started setting odds and calling out bets. But Commander Sinclair quickly squelched that, telling them to wait until they had seen her in action once.
They squared off and after bowing to each other, began circling around each other. Neither of them seemed to want to make the first move against the other.
"Quit fooling around, Mack," a voice rang out from the crowd. "Get it over with."
"What's the matter?" a second voice called out.
"Are you afraid of a girl?" rang out a third voice, this one in a falsetto, taunting him. Other taunts quickly followed.
The taunts finally did it. He wasn't going to let a girl make a fool out of him, no matter how beautiful she might be. He swung with his left, though not with full power or speed, just enough to test her. She easily parried with her right. He followed with a flurry of blows, but she blocked or evaded every one. Then she came back with a flurry of blows of her own. He managed to evade or block them, though some of them really stung his arms.
The crowd roared.
"That's it, Chirren, be gentle with him!" Marlen called out.
Gentle? She was being gentle? His arms were still stinging from some of the hardest blows he'd ever taken, and she was being gentle with him?
He went back on the attack. Try as he could, he just could not land a blow on her beautiful body. It was like sparring with a ghost. She was so quick, easily parrying or evading his every attack. He'd hadn't faced anybody this good in a long time. Maybe ever. He felt as if he was a raw student again, going up against his sensei.
Just like his sensei used to do, she didn't go over onto the offensive after her first brief flurry. She merely countered every move of his, as if she was simply testing him. And somehow, she appeared as if she wasn't even going all out.
Then she launched another attack of her own. It took every bit of his skill to parry her blows, but he managed to avoid getting hit. Just barely.
After her first attack, even when she had been holding herself back, Chirren knew that she could indeed score at will against the Terran, if this was the best that he could do. And from the expression on his face, she could tell that he was exerting himself to the fullest. She launched another attack, a little faster than before but still not going all out. She let him parry all of her blows, though she could tell that he was just about at his limits.
As she backed off, he went on the offensive again, swing again with his left. This time, instead of just parrying, she grabbed his wrist with her right hand. A simple twist brought the big Scotsman down to his knees.
She raised her left arm, preparing to swing at his unprotected and vulnerable neck.
"Stop, Chirren! That's enough! Don't hurt him!"
Chirren recognized Marlen's voice above the roar of the crowd. It took a bit longer for the words in Arion to penetrate. When they did, she stopped her blow short and looked down at her opponent. She saw that his face was contorted with pain. She twisted his wrist a little more, knocking him onto his side. Then she let him go of his wrist and backed up.
An awed hush fell over the room. None of the men had ever seen Mackenzie taken down before. Certainly not this easily. And certainly not by a girl.
Mackenzie struggled up to his feet, holding his wrist and shaking it out. He bowed to her, acknowledging the first fall.
The second round didn't last as long. As he went in with his first attack, she danced out of the way. Then, somehow, she pulled his legs out from under him, sending him down to the mat.
Neither did the third round. As he went for her again, she struck him in the chest, knocking the wind out of his lungs and sending him sprawling to the mat.
As Mackenzie slowly got back up to his feet, gasping for air, somebody started clapping. Soon, everyone was applauding. He knew that he could make no reasonable objections to either of these girls taking part in any missions with the team.
Though he still didn't think that the combat team was the proper place for these girls. Especially for the one in black. He could think of a much better place for her.
No, it was better not to think about that.
Commander Michael Sinclair had never been in this situation before. He had never been intimate with any of the women in his command. Oh, he'd had his chances. With so many men away from home with the war, the women seemed even more willing and eager than during peacetime. The way his own clerk, Miss Roberts, acted, he was sure that he could have had her any time he wanted to. He had always refrained, not wanting to abuse his rank and position.
But the situation tonight was different. Completely different. This was not his decision. He had not chosen her. She had chosen him.
It was with some trepidation that he went down the hall towards Marlen's room. He knew that this was not an invitation that he could refuse. The invitation had been phrased as a request, but he had caught the steely edge of command in her voice.
How do you refuse a request from somebody like her? How do you refuse a command from a virtual goddess... an alien? He had seen the easy way Chirren had defeated Mackenzie the previous day. Yet, from what Marlen and Chirren had told him, Marlen had several hundred times Chirren's strength. He had seen some of it in action. And he knew that he couldn't defeat Mackenzie in a fight.
Add to that the fact that the invitation was from the most beautiful girl he had ever met.
He again thought back to those American pulp magazines he had seen that showed aliens from outer space. Marlen was about as far as you could get from the green-skinned, slimy, tentacled monsters that they had pictured. No, Marlen definitely looked human. According to her, her people were descended from the humans taken from Europe thousands of years ago.
Of course, changes had occurred, to improve her race. Some process he didn't quite understand, though he knew that it wasn't the eugenics and the selective breeding that the Nazis were using to try to create the so-called Master Race.
If there was anything about her appearance that wasn't quite human, it was her supreme beauty --- she was almost too beautiful to be human. And her appearance gave no hint of the incredible strength she possessed --- more than the strength of a thousand men.
No, he could not refuse this invitation. He again wished that he had been able to find some flowers. At this time of year, and especially on a military base, flowers were a bit hard to find.
Again, he thought back to the bottle of wine he had considered getting. In the Royal Navy, wine was easier to acquire than flowers were. But he wasn't sure how she would react to alcohol. She was hard enough to control when she was sober, he knew that he didn't want to try to control her if she got drunk. "Soldiers and sailors can be hard to control when they get drunk. Marlen, if she got drunk, could completely destroy this entire base," he thought to himself.
Banishing the thought of total havoc from his mind and taking a slow and deep breath, he knocked on the door to Marlen's room.
"Come in, Michael," her voice rang out. How had she known who it was? "Of course, it's only a wooden door, she could see me right through it," he answered his own question. He had seen her demonstrate that ability before. It did make him a little uncomfortable, knowing that his clothes weren't hiding anything from her. At least, not if she cared to look. And if he had understood her request properly, she soon wouldn't have to look though this clothes to see all of him.
When he opened the door and went inside, he saw her kneeling on the bed. The room light behind her brought out the highlights in her dark glossy hair. The front of her uniform was pulled down just a bit, almost uncovering her nipples. The tops of her dark areolae were clearly visible.
She smiled shyly at him. "You know, I've never done it with somebody like you before." The steely edge of command was gone from her voice. Instead, she almost sounded like a little girl. A shy little girl.
"You've never been with a man before?" he asked, incredulous. She did look young, but not quite that young. And she certainly hadn't acted as if she was completely inexperienced. Certainly not from the way she had requested his presence here tonight.
She laughed, a soft easy laugh. "No, no, not that. I'm actually older than you are, we Arions live a lot longer than you Terrans do. I've been with men before, but they were all Arions. My type of men, with my strength. Men that I don't have to be careful to be gentle with." Well, that wasn't quite true. Many of the men she'd been with were Betas, and she'd had to be careful with them.
He suddenly remembered that time back in Norway, when she had broken out of her cell, bending those thick steel bars with her bare hands. And the way she had killed those four men. Alone and unarmed, against four armed men. And then she had taken care of that armed German patrol, during their trip to the rendezvous with the sub. She had been unarmed then, too.
No, he realized, she had not been unarmed. She may not have been carrying any weapons, but she most definitely had not been unarmed. She was the most beautiful girl he had ever met, and he now knew that even barehanded she was more than a match for an entire infantry company.
He had examined those steel bars afterwards, and seen the impressions of her fingers in the hard metal. If her fingers could do that to steel, what could they do to his body? What would they do to his body? To mere flesh and blood?
She patted the bed beside her. "Come here, Michael." Her words brought his mind back to the here and now. Hesitating for only a moment, he walked towards her.
Then he felt her around his waist, as she picked him up and set him down on the bed next to her. As she put her other arm around him as well and pulled him to her, he caught the scent of wildflowers and honey.
Suddenly, he knew that he was doing the right thing. He wanted nothing more in this world than to show his love for this girl. To show his love for the most beautiful girl he had ever met. For this girl from another world.
He almost had the wind knocked out of him as she held him against her body, her large breasts pressing almost painfully against his chest.
He found himself in a grip like that of a steel vise as she picked him up and began to undress him. Then she laid him down on the bed and stripped off her uniform. She lay down on top of him, her lips seeking out his.
He felt her tongue entering his mouth, even as her large full breasts pressed almost painfully against his chest. For long moments their tongues explored each other's. Then she rolled over onto her back, pulling him on top of her.
His hands found her large full breasts. The largest and fullest breasts he'd ever felt. And also the firmest. He began stroking and caressing them, as he would any another woman. He brought his head down to suckle at a large nipple.
He remembered the rumors he had heard, that their bodies were harder than steel. Yet, she didn't feel like steel in his hands. Incredibly firm, firmer than any other woman he had ever felt, but not steel.
"Harder," she whispered.
Putting both hands around one breast, he squeezed as hard as he could. He was rewarded with a low moan from her lips. Then he saw and felt her flexing her chest muscles. Her breasts, already incredibly firm, firmed up even more as the tiny muscles under her skin flexed, pushing his fingers outwards, even as he continued to squeeze with all of his strength. Now her body did feel almost like steel, or perhaps more like a marble statue, his fingers could only make the slightest dimples in her smooth skin.
He was already putting most of his weight into it as he pressed and squeezed her breasts, and he knew that he wasn't causing her any discomfort at all, let alone any pain. She could take all of his weight, and then some, on just one large nipple.
As she took a deep breath, her chest rose, raising his hands and his body along with it. Suddenly, he saw a ludicrous image forming in his mind, of Marlen completely lifting him up off of the ground using just the muscles of her chest, as he hung on to her breasts.
But perhaps, it wasn't so ludicrous after all. He had seen her lift a fully loaded lorry up over her head. If her arms could lift that kind of weight without any effort, then why should her breasts be powerful enough to lift his weight?
Then, through his eyes, he saw her stroking her other breast with her hand, her fingertips lightly brushing against herself. He was startled to see that her fingertips were dimpling her soft mound much deeper than his were, even though she didn't appear to be exerting any effort at all. But then, he remembered what those fingers had done to those steel bars. Briefly, he wondered if she was exerting as much force against her breasts as she had done to those steel bars.
Then she rolled him over onto his back. He briefly felt her lips against his before she worked her way lower, her lips and tongue then working over his chest. But not like any other girl had ever done to him before. He was sure that her tongue was pressing down harder on his chest than any girl's hand had done.
Marlen was careful not to press too hard against his broad muscular chest with her lips and tongue, using no more force than she had used against Betas. But apparently she wasn't pressing softly enough for a Terran, she heard him wince with pain. She stopped, lifting her face from his chest and looking down at his face. "Sorry. I'm going to have to be very careful to be very gentle with you. Even gentler than I would have to be with a Beta." She smiled at him. "But I want you to not hold anything back. You know you can't hurt me."
She decided to let him try to hurt her, or at least to use all of his strength. She had enjoyed his feathery light caresses on her soft breasts. She rolled over onto her back and offered him her breasts again.
Michael placed his hands on her large full breasts when she offered them to him again. This time they were softer than before, though still much firmer than any ordinary woman had a right to be. Knowing that he couldn't hurt her even if he tried, he squeezed those large feminine mounds with all of his strength.
"Don't tire yourself out too quickly," she whispered to him, as she rolled him off of her and onto his back. Rising up, she threw a leg over him and straddled him. She slowly lowered herself onto him, mounting him.
Capturing his hands, she brought them up to her breasts. He resumed squeezing them with all of his strength, as she began pumping with her long powerful legs.
That was only the first time. She took him again and again, never the same way twice. He was truly amazed --- he had never lasted this long before. But there was something about this girl, which brought out the best in him.
A couple of hours later, she finally stopped to let him sleep.
"This was what she meant by being gentle?" he asked himself as he drifted off to sleep. The roughest and the most physical sex Michael had ever experienced? He'd been in rugby scrums that hadn't been half this rough. Nor had he ever squeezed anything as hard as he had squeezed her large full breasts. If this was being gentle, what would it be like when she wasn't being gentle? "No, on second thought, I'm sure I don't want to know," he thought to himself as he remembered the impressions of her fingers in the steel bars.
"Marlen, you said that you and Chirren were with a communications section when you were with the Germans. I wonder if you'd be willing to talk with Captain Forbin."
Marlen and Chirren immediately agreed to Michael's request.
Captain Forbin was a white-haired man in a Royal Navy uniform. His portly body and thick spectacles gave the impression of a man who was fighting this war from a desk, not from the bridge of a warship. He stood up and shook hands with the two women as Michael reminded everyone that this discussion was Top Secret.
"I'm with the GCCS," he began. "Some of the local wags call it the 'Golf, Chess, and Cheese Society'. That's almost as descriptive as its real name, the 'Government Code and Cipher School'. In actuality, it's not a school at all. We carry out the decoding of intercepted German signals. I've been told you two are intimately familiar with German communications systems. I've come to ask whether you would be willing to help us. In particular with the Enigma machine."
As communications specialists, both Marlen and Chirren knew of the Enigma. The Enigma was a machine in a wooden box, somewhat resembling a typewriter, but with no paper. When a key was pressed, a lettered lamp would light up. Just which letter was controlled by three rotor disks. Each disk, about the size and shape of a hockey puck, had twenty-six electrical contacts on each side, wired to connect pairs of contacts in a carefully calculated pattern. The net result was a simple transposition cipher, in which every letter was replaced by some other letter.
If that were all, it wouldn't be a very secure cipher, as each letter would be enciphered the same way every time. But after each key press, one or more of the rotors would rotate one position, completely changing the transposition.
"The Enigma? We didn't use those," Marlen said. She shot Michael a questioning glance. At his nod, she continued on. "We had our own equipment, which we used for our own messages. Frankly, by our standards, the Enigma is rather primitive and crude."
Forbin coughed. "Ah, yes. However, by our standards, the Enigma is quite refined and good enough, thank you. Almost too good."
Marlen had the grace to blush. "No offence intended, Captain."
"None taken. I understand your technology is quite a bit ahead of ours."
"But surely, you know how the machine works?" Marlen asked.
Forbin waved a hand. "Yes, yes. We have captured several, with the rotor wheels."
"Then I'm not sure what help we can give you, Captain. The secrecy is in the keys, which they change periodically, and which we were not privy to. And even if we had been, they would be completely outdated by now." It was the selection and initial settings of the rotors that provided the Enigma with its effectiveness.
Marlen then turned to Chirren before continuing, "Did you play with it at all, Chirren?" Turning back to Forbin, she explained for his benefit. "She was the cryptography expert in my section."
"The principle is simple enough," Chirren began. "Given enough messages in the same key, and with some basic knowledge of German keying practices, it's not impossible to determine the key and hence decipher the messages. It would help if we had a computer, though."
"A what?"
Chirren remembered that these primitive natives hadn't yet developed the digital computer. They didn't even have solid state electronics yet, let alone the microelectronics that the Arions used routinely, taking them for granted. Roughly, she started describing a computer, using terms that she thought that Captain Forbin would understand.
He nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, yes. I understand. We call it Colossus."
Chirren stopped. "Excuse me?"
"Some of the people have started to draw up plans for a machine similar to what you're describing, but for breaking the Lorenz cipher. Something to mechanize the process. I don't understand the details, but they say that it will eventually do in minutes what a roomful of people would need hours to do. Would you be willing to meet with them to discuss it?"
Chirren thought that the armed escort was a little ludicrous. Whom were they protecting? If someone were to attack them, it was Marlen to whom she would look for protection, not the four Terran soldiers. And if Marlen were to attack somebody, those four soldiers wouldn't even slow her down one little bit in the least.
But she realized that their escort didn't know that. In their native Terran clothing, with the ridiculously long skirts, down well below their knees, there was nothing to give the two of them away as Arions. They accompanied Captain Forbin aboard a small bus for the trip to the GCCS.
The GCCS was located at Bletchley Park, north of London, just south of Milton Keynes, almost directly in the center of a triangle formed by London and the two university of Cambridge and Oxford. The administration was housed in the mansion that dominated the grounds. Most of the work was carried out in the hastily erected huts scattered throughout the grounds.
Chirren thought that the mansion was a rather ugly one. But then, she had noticed that the Terrans, unlike the Arions who designed their buildings strictly for functionality, designed for aesthetics. The problem was that one's sense of aesthetics did not always agree with another's, as evidenced by this particular gaudy structure.
Forbin got the two women through the security at the gate without any trouble. He gave them a quick tour before taking them into the mansion for a meeting with some of their technical experts.
Marlen only listened halfheartedly while they explained their techniques for breaking the Enigma cipher. She was familiar with the basics of cryptography, since it was required for all communications personnel, but she had never made a thorough study of the subject.
Chirren, however, listened intently, occasionally interrupting to ask questions. From the reactions of the men, it was clear that the men found her questions to be insightful. In fact, several times her questions and comments provoked heated discussions as she suggested new approaches that they hadn't thought of, or else they explained why they had rejected that approach.
Michael continued the mission briefing. "I would like to introduce Pierre Carlier. He will be our contact with the French underground, and our native guide. He knows the area very well. I will now turn our briefing over to him."
A tall sandy-haired mustachioed man got up from his seat in the front row. "Thank you, Commander Sinclair." He nodded to Michael, and then walked to the front of the room.
Turning around, he addressed the team. Every member of the team had been hand-picked for this mission. "Messieurs." He nodded to Marlen, "and Mademoiselle. As Commander Sinclair as told you, our target is the petrol dump, here." He pointed to a location on the map hanging on the wall. "It's the primary petrol dump for the U-boats in this area. Unfortunately, residential areas surround it on three sides, ruling out an aerial bombing attack. That is why we are going in."
"Pierre, you wanted to know why I want to bring her with us. Take a look at that."
Pierre followed Michael's pointing finger. He saw the men finishing up loading the supplies into the lorries for the trip to the range for the training exercise. He saw that it was taking two men to carry each of the heavy wooden crates. Then he saw the two girls walking towards the last three crates.
Bending down, the one in black put her hands on either side of a crate. Straightening up, she held the crate in front of her chest as she walked to the lorry. His jaw dropped.
"That's nothing," he heard Michael say to him. "Now watch this."
Squatting down, the one in red lifted one of the remaining crates up to her left shoulder, balancing it with her hand. Then, she lifted the last one up to her right shoulder. He continued to look on in amazement as she straightened up and walked to the lorry, as if she was carrying nothing more than a sweater draped around her slender shoulders, instead of two heavy crates that four men would have struggled to carry.
"Mon dieu!" he exclaimed, as she loaded the two crates onto the lorry. The way the lorry settled on its tyres told him that the crates were not empty. If anything, these might have been heavier than the others were. "I have never seen anybody that strong before."
"That's only a small sample of what she can do," Michael said. "She could carry that whole lorry, load and all. I've seen her do it."
Pierre could only shake his head in amazement.
Having just returned from another visit to Bletchley Park, Chirren had dropped in on the tail end of one of Donovan Mackenzie's unarmed combat classes again. Now that she had had actual experience battling Terrans, even if only in that one sparring session with him, she had gained confidence in her abilities.
And she did enjoy watching the classes. These people were pretty good, considering how weak and slow they were. Though today, there weren't as many people as usual, a good number of the men were off on a training exercise. A number of men, and Marlen.
She also enjoyed watching Donovan. The big black-haired man reminded her of Tyree, in a way. Not so much in the way he looked, he was a bit bigger than Tyree had been, and the face was completely different. But he moved with much of the same grace and economy of effort, almost like an Arion.
And it had been a while since she'd been with a man. Not since Tyree.
"No, don't think about that." Tyree was a soldier, just as she was. Soldiers, even those not directly engaged in combat, risked their lives every day. She'd mourned his death properly, but now it was time to move on. His death didn't mean that she died also.
She waited until the others had filed out. "If you're not too tired, do you want to spar again?".
Donovan had seen the last of his students out of the combat room when he heard the soft melodic voice. He turned around to see Chirren standing next to him.
He knew that he didn't stand a chance against her. Not after she had totally embarrassed him that first time. But still, this was an opportunity he couldn't decline. "Certainly, Chirren. If you promise to be gentle with me this time." He bowed to her formally. She bowed in return.
They squared off and began to spar. It went much like their first bout.
No, it wasn't quite like their first one. She was smiling at him the whole time. He knew that she was holding herself back, that she was simply toying with him, that she could easily put him down any time she wanted to.
He just could not land a single blow on her body, no matter how hard he tried, as she either blocked them or danced out of the way. He also couldn't stop her from scoring at will, though he knew that she was pulling her punches.
He went into another attack sequence, one that no one else had been able to block. But as he struck, she wasn't there any more. Suddenly, he felt his legs being pulled out from underneath him. He landed on the mat. He quickly rolled and sprang up to his feet, ready to defend himself, only to see her just standing there watching him, an amused smile still on her face.
He lunged at her again. Again, he couldn't get to her. And again, she somehow took his legs out from under him. When he got back up to his feet, he saw that her smile was wider than it had been before.
They circled around a little more. He then launched another attack. This time, she slipped inside his swings and wrapped her arms around his body. He tried to escape her hold, but he felt himself being lifted off of his feet, denying him any leverage.
Then he was being forced down to the mat on his back. But rather than slamming him down, she looked more as if she was merely laying him down. "Almost like I'd lay a lover down on a bed," he thought to himself, before dismissing that thought as being ridiculous. After all, they weren't lovers, they were simply sparring. "Still, I wonder what she'd be like in bed. Is she as good in bed as she is on the mat?"
"That was three falls." Her words interrupted his musings. She helped him back up to his feet, all but lifting him with one arm. "Was that gentle enough for you?" She reached up and stroked his cheek with her fingers as she smiled at him.
"No one's ever gotten three straight falls against me. You're easily the best fighter I've ever fought against," he said. He smiled. "And the most beautiful."
"Thank you," her smile widened. "But you've never gone up against Marlen. She could take me three hundred straight falls, with one arm tied behind her back."
He shook his head. "I find that hard to believe." He continued after her nod. "She may be a better fighter, but you're more beautiful."
Her smile widened even further. "Do you say that to all of the girls who defeat you?"
"You're the only girl who's ever beaten me." He tentatively put his arm around her waist. He was gratified when she leaned into his embrace as he led her out of the training room. "I thought I knew everything there was to know about unarmed combat, but there's a lot you could teach me."
"I don't know about that. I'm not really that good at it. I'm just quicker and stronger than you are. But Marlen is even quicker and stronger. And she's had far more training. I wouldn't stand a chance against her." She smiled at him and tightened her arm around his waist. "Even less than you stand against me."
At the end of the hall, he took his hand away from her waist before going outside. He stopped outside his quarters. "I've got to shower. Can I see you later? Perhaps after dinner tonight?"
"Certainly." She bowed to him. He returned her bow. Then he turned and headed into his quarters.
Going into his bathroom, he stripped down and turned on the water. With the falling water masking the sound, he didn't hear the door open. Suddenly, he felt a pair of arms around his body. Surprised, he looked over his shoulder to see the smile on Chirren's face. That was the only thing on her, she had removed her black uniform.
"It'd be such a shame to waste all this hot water on one person," she said, as she picked him up and moved him so that she could also get under the stream of water. Then she let him go to pick up the soap and began soaping him down. Afterwards, she handed him the soap so that he could soap her down.
This was the first time that he'd really felt her body. When they sparred, he could barely lay a hand on her. This time, she did not evade any of his attempts, letting his hands go wherever he wanted them to go on her body.
And what a body! He could see and feel her muscles rippling under her silken skin. And her large breasts were so firm! When she flexed her chest, her breasts became almost as hard and as solid as his biceps were.
Finally, after rinsing, he turned off the water and they stepped out. They toweled each other off. That was another enjoyable process. Then she bent down and got an arm around his legs. Straightening up, she carried him in her arms to his bed.
Chirren laid Donovan down on his bed and leaped on top of him, seeking out his lips with hers. His hands felt so good, caressing and stroking her body so lightly. Surprisingly good.
Oh yes, it had been a long time since she had felt a man. Felt a man in her arms. And felt a man in her, elsewhere. She had to make an effort to remember to be gentle with him --- even though he was bigger than Tyree had been, she knew that he wasn't as strong or hard.
Donovan did not see her that evening after dinner. That was because they skipped dinner, as she kept him in his bed.
If he thought that he had been helpless against her on the mat, that was nothing compared to being in bed with her. She was in complete control of the situation. There wasn't a thing he could do to stop her, as she used his body for her own pleasure. He had never felt so helpless before in his life as he did that night.
It was also the most enjoyable night of his life, even as he discovered that she was not as good in bed as she was on the mat.
She was better. Much better.
For her part, Chirren remembered to be careful with the Terran. She and Tyree, like all Arions, had always enjoyed physical, almost rough, sex. And they had been a good match. He could usually have his way with her, though she could make him work for it if she wanted to. Sometimes, though, he would let her have his way with him.
It was a totally different situation now. She knew that if she did the same with Donovan, she could seriously injure him, maybe even kill him. She knew that there was almost nothing he could do to stop her from doing whatever she wanted to do with him. He was completely in her power.
She discovered that she liked it, the feeling of being in complete control of the situation, giving and taking pleasure. "I wonder if this is what Marlen felt like, when she was with Tyree?" she thought to herself. "If so, I can see why she liked it so much."
She was also enjoying his light delicate caresses, so different from Tyree's usual, much more vigorous, caresses. She was amazed at how good his light caresses felt. She had always enjoyed being physical with her lovers, but now, she was beginning to realize that while she enjoyed being physical, she also enjoyed having her lover not be so physical.
No, that wasn't quite true. She could tell that he was being as physical as he could be. It just wasn't as physical as she could be, with five times his strength. "It must have been really wonderful for Marlen, with hundreds of times Tyree's strength. And it's probably even better for her with that Commander Sinclair, with even more of a strength differential. Unless she's so strong that she can't even feel him. Mmm, I can certainly feel Donovan."
Looking down at the large man between her legs, she could see that he was enjoying his place in their relationship. "Is he feeling some of what Tyree felt when he was with Marlen?" she thought. Tyree hadn't told much about his time with Marlen, but she knew that he had enjoyed it. He had always assured her that she was better than Marlen had been, but she'd had her doubts. How could a mere Beta hope to compete with a Prime in this most physical and intimate activity between two people?
After all, while she might be five times stronger than Donovan was, Marlen was several hundred times stronger than Tyree was.
As she held Donovan's sleeping body in her arms, she thought back to the start of their assignment in Norway.
Chirren had chosen to go into communications. She had shown an aptitude for it early on. She enjoyed working with technology, and with other people. And frankly, it had appeared to be a safer field than any of the combat services were, though of course there were risks in any field. It was a way to get into the fighting without actually getting shot at. Or, shooting at other people. Too often, the Primes treated the Betas as if they were supplies, not as people. Cannon fodder, to use one of the quaint Terran terms.
On this assignment, she could have had her choice among any of the Arion men in her section. After all, she was the only Arion female around. Well, except for Marlen, and she didn't count, she was a Prime and the rest of them were all Betas. While a male Prime might take a female Beta, female Primes just did not take male Betas.
At least, that was what she had thought. At the time, she didn't know that Marlen took all of the men in her section.
She wasn't sure exactly why she had been attracted to Tyree in the first place. He hadn't been the biggest of the group. Nor had he been the most handsome. There just was something about him that attracted her to him, something that she couldn't name.
And then, she had found out that he was Marlen's lover. One of them --- all three of the men were Marlen's lovers. Not only that, but Tyree had been her lover the longest.
She had lived in fear for a couple of days. Not only for herself, but for Tyree, as well. It was only a matter of time before he was summoned to attend to Marlen. Primes were well known for being jealous lovers. Marlen was their commanding officer as well as a Prime. High Command would not have asked any questions if a Prime had killed a Beta or two that had displeased her.
And then Marlen had called the two of them into the room that served as her office.
Both of them were absolutely terrified as they entered. The stern look on the Prime's face didn't make them any more comfortable. Per proper Arion military etiquette, she remained seated as they bowed to her and remained standing.
"Are you two happy being with each other?" she asked, skipping the preliminaries.
"Marlen, I, I...." Tyree stammered out.
Chirren dropped to her knees, bowing her face to the floor. "Marlen, it's not his fault. I asked him to come to me. If you must punish anyone, punish me."
Tyree was down on his knees next to her, putting his arms protectively around her. "No, Marlen, please spare her. I didn't have to go to her that night. I knew what was expected of me on this assignment. Punish me, not her, for failing you."
There was absolute silence in the room for a minute, as the two Betas knelt, holding each other. The next sound that Chirren heard, much to her surprise, was that of laughter, Marlen's laughter. Fearful, but also curious, she brought her face up to look.
"Punish?" Marlen said, between peals of laughter. "Punish you? For what reason? For doing what comes naturally to two young people?" She could see the effort as Marlen composed herself, finally erasing all traces of mirth from her face. "And get up off of the floor. You two are supposed to be standing at attention." Her voice was like steel.
Chirren and Tyree quickly scrambled up to their feet. They stood rigidly at attention, facing Marlen.
"I merely wanted to know if you two were happy when you were with each other, and wanted your duty shifts together as much as possible." She smiled and winked at them. "And your off-duty shifts, naturally."
"Marlen, I, I don't know what to say," she heard Tyree stammer out. She also felt him reaching for her hand. She pulled her hand back and resumed her stance.
"Answer the question, soldier," Marlen snapped out.
"Yes, Marlen. I cannot speak for Chirren, but I am happy when I am with her." He reached for her hand again. Again, she pulled hers back.
Marlen turned her face towards Chirren. "And you, Chirren. Are you happy with Tyree?"
"Yes, Marlen. I am happy when I am with him." This time, she reached for his hand.
"Very well, I see that I'm going to have to alter the duty shifts so that you two are together as much as possible. That is all. Dismissed."
"But I still don't see why you're going. It's not our war. Not any more."
They'd had this argument before. They usually had it every time Chirren was back from Bletchley Park. It wasn't often that Betas could argue with Primes, but Marlen usually treated Chirren as an equal, willing to listen to opposing views. Marlen had always won before, though sometimes she did have to pull rank, not as a Prime to a Beta, but as a section leader to a subordinate.
"I'm going because those Germans killed Tyree and the others."
"I want a shot at those bastards, too."
"No, Chirren. You're staying here."
"Please, Marlen. I want a shot at them."
"Absolutely not. You're too valuable at Bletchley Park."
"But...."
"No, Chirren. I've already lost three people. I don't want to lose you, too." Marlen's eyes sparkled as she smiled and lowered her gaze. "And I'm not going to risk losing Tyree's child. It's the only thing we have left of him to remember him by."
Chirren was stunned. She brought her hands up to her flat stomach. "What? But, but, how did you know? It doesn't show at all, yet."
Marlen's eyes sparkled again as her smiled widened. "Not on the outside, but it's definitely there on the inside. I can see it, though it's still too early to tell whether it's a boy or a girl."
And, as before, Marlen won the argument. Her final revelation ensured that there wouldn't be another argument. At least for the next nine months or so.
Chirren was spending more and more of her time at the GCCS at Bletchley Park. Her knowledge of communications and cryptography were of much more use to the war effort than her Beta muscles were. The baby growing inside her would have made her participation in combat dangerous to two people, not just one.
Though she did miss the sparring sessions with Donovan. And her stomach also made the other type of sessions with him difficult, as well. "Maybe it's a good thing I'm here and he's there," she thought to herself. "At least, it cuts down on the temptation when I don't see him."
But she did enjoy working with these people here at Bletchley Park. These people had quickly accepted her as one of their own. Of course, she had been careful not to show off her Arion strength. She had learned that most of these people did not come from military backgrounds. They were mathematicians, teachers, and chess players in civilian life. They had been brought together for the single goal of penetrating the encryption surrounding the intercepted German signals.
This, and not physical combat, was what she had been trained for. Let the Primes, like Marlen, do the hard physical labor. Betas, like herself, would do the mental labor. That was the way things worked in the Empire, it would work just as well here.
Though Marlen was unlike any other Prime she had ever worked with. While she delighted in her physical prowess, like any other Prime, she had also enjoyed the mental challenges present in running her communications section. As a Prime, she could have had her choice of postings, and had chosen the relatively backwater position of field communications.
It still amazed Chirren every time she looked in on Colossus. This late at night, there was only a single technician in there. She stood in the doorway and watched for a while as he attached some more wiring.
The computer had been designed to help break the Lorenz cipher. She wasn't directly involved with the Lorenz, but she had helped out some.
The Colossus still wasn't close to being completed, and already it filled a room. Without solid state electronics, it relied on relays and valves. Even when completed, it wouldn't match the computing power of the handheld computer she used to have, before the Germans confiscated their equipment and Marlen had been forced to destroy it all.
Still, she took some pride in it. More than a little. She had contributed many valuable ideas both to its design and to its construction. In fact, she felt some maternal pride. In a way, it was her baby as it much as it was anybody else's.
Her other baby, she realized, as she turned to walk out of the room and patted her swelling belly. She was wearing Terran clothes now, as she was much too big to fit into her Arion uniform. "You better not grow that big," she told Tyree's unborn child out loud in Arion as she looked again over her shoulder at the growing machine. She would have sworn that the baby heard her, for she distinctly felt a kick.
She remembered Marlen's offer to take a look inside and tell her whether it was a boy or a girl. But that would ruin the surprise. Whether it was a boy or a girl, it was hers. And Tyree's.
She had asked Marlen to see whether there was just one, or if there were more. She had been relieved when Marlen had told her there was only one, and that it seemed perfectly healthy. The Terran doctors who she had seen had agreed, though naturally they hadn't been able to see inside her.
Another room contained a machine with which she was becoming very familiar. This was the bombe, designed by a couple of Englishman named Turing and Welchman, based on earlier work by a Pole named Rejewski, who had also been responsible for naming the machine. She had met both Turing and Welchman a couple of times. They had been very helpful in explaining the concepts behind the bombes.
Each of these machines weighed a ton, and were over six feet long, towered a foot over her head, and were two feet wide. These machines were more mechanical then they were electronic. In operation, they sounded like a thousand knitting needles going berserk. Still, they reduced days of work down to hours.
Again, she wished that she still had her handheld computer. It could have done the same work in minutes, maybe even in seconds. But, as Michael had said, that was water under the bridge. She would have to make do with what the Terran technology could provide. Unless she could build such a machine. She knew how to use a computer, but building one was an entirely different matter.
Leaning back against a lorry tyre, Jim reached into his pocket and came up with a lighter. But with the steady wind off of the moor, the flame wouldn't catch long enough to light the cigarette he held between his lips, even when Harry, his squadmate and best friend, leaned in front of him to try to block some of the wind.
"Looks like you need a light." Suddenly, the end of his cigarette burst into flames.
The cigarette almost fell out of his mouth as Jim looked up in surprise. Standing above him and Harry, with a violet sparkle in her eyes, was Marlen, in her red dress as always. A dress that was far too short, even exposing her knees. Not to mention the rest of her long shapely legs. Not that he minded --- her legs certainly were worth looking at. So was the rest of her.
He had seen her out on the training range enough times to know that she was something special. Very special. She also wasn't bad looking. Not at all.
"So, are you two busy tonight?" she asked, smiling down at them.
He was too dumbstruck at having her actually talking with him to answer with words. He merely shook his head. He saw that Harry seemed to be having the same problem, as he also mutely shook his head.
"Good," her smile widened. "But first, you're violating blackout, aren't you? We'll have to do something about that." She looked around. "Why don't we get inside this lorry?"
Marlen bent down and got an arm around each waist. Straightening up, she lifted the two men up under her arms. Without bothering to lower the tailgate, she hopped up over it and into the empty lorry, under the canvas cover. She laid the two men down on the metal floorboards, on top of a tarp, and knelt between them.
The two men didn't resist as she quickly stripped them, not that any resistance would have slowed her down at all. She then quickly stripped off her own uniform. Reaching down, she got her hands on the backs of their heads and lifted them up to her breasts.
Under the influence of her pheromones, the two men didn't stand a chance. They began suckling and fondling and squeezing her breasts. She continued to kneel for a while, savoring their feather-light caresses. It had been so long since she'd had two men working over both breasts at the same time.
However, as good as it felt to have two men working over her breasts, she knew that she wanted more. Keeping one man at her right breast, she laid the other one down on his back. Throwing a leg over him, she straddled him. She lowered herself onto him, riding him as she continued to have the other one suckling.
As her powerful legs pumped away, she started shaking the man in her arms as if he was nothing more than a rag doll. When the man between her legs exploded with his climax, she swapped the positions of the two men. When he climaxed, she lay down on her back.
She guided their faces to her breasts, to let them suckle while they recovered and reloaded. She was careful to be gentle as she wrapped her arms lightly around their fragile male bodies.
When she sensed that the first man was ready for another round, she gently rolled him off of her onto his back. Still holding the other man to her breast, she got up and mounted the first man. When he was done, she swapped their positions and rode the second man.
When she started the third round, she noticed that the two men got a little more playful. They pretended to resist her attentions, trying to push themselves away from her. When they tried to protest, she simply smothered their faces against her soft breasts.
When they tried to push her away, she simply mounted one. The other one, she held across her body, holding his face to one breast while pressing his hard muscular chest against the other breast.
But three rounds were all these fragile men could handle. When she finished, they were both exhausted, on the verge of unconsciousness. She lay back down on her back, pillowing their heads on her breasts until they fell asleep. Then she carefully moved them off of her and got up. Moving so as not to disturb them, she put her uniform back on.
Before she left, she covered the two sleeping forms with their uniforms and another tarp that she found in the lorry.
She was still not fully satisfied. Thus, she went off to find Vicky. Since Marlen and Chirren had arrived, Vicky had also served as their clerk typist, in addition to being Michael's. Not that Marlen and Chirren really needed a typist. Now she also served Marlen in another capacity. A completely unofficial capacity. A capacity that nobody else on the base knew about.
