Making of a Starship Captain Ch. 21

The Making Of A Survey Service Captain

By Gary L.M. Martin

[Note: This Science Fiction story is an intense character study with occasional sex scenes.]

Cherry

Taylor was in his quarters when the holocall came in.

"Cherry!" he said.

He had lost touch with Cherry over the years, since she had gotten married to Bill, (whoever Bill was). He had logged into her World Government wedding registry and gifted the bride with some energy credits to offset harm done to the environment from the wedding, and that was last he heard from Cherry for some time.

But now her face, and only her face, was on his personal holoscreen.

"Mike, there you are!" said Cherry, and her smile still melted his heart. "I understand the Relentless is coming to Starbase Four."

"Yes, we'll be there in a few hours," said Taylor.

"I'm there too," said Cherry, with a sparkle in her eye.

"You are?" Taylor smiled. The Relentless was returning from a mission well done on Sheppard's Planet. Taylor had received a commendation for his work, and a little bird told him that Andrea would not be a Commander for much longer. And now, right after seeing Andrea, he was going to see Cherry! Tisson Crae indeed.

"Let's get together," said Taylor impulsively. It would be great to see Cherry again, after all these years. "How about tomorrow?"

Cherry shook her head. "By tomorrow I'll be gone."

"Gone?" said Taylor.

"On the Kady Rock," said Cherry.

"As Captain?" said Taylor.

"No. As a passenger," said Cherry. "It has to be tonight. You see, tonight is my last night in the Survey Service. Mike... this will probably be our last chance to see each other."

Taylor frowned, but nodded. "Of course, Cherry."

********

Taylor had screaned that something was wrong with Cherry, but his ability didn't prepare him for what he saw waiting for him in the Jupiter Lounge on Starbase Four that night.

He saw Cherry, giving him a worried smile... but then Taylor gazed downwards, and saw that attached to Cherry's head was... someone else's body.

The body of a pregnant woman. A very pregnant woman.

Taylor hugged her gingerly, trying to hide his emotions as he bit his lips.

"You looked surprised. I should have told you," said Cherry, as they sat down.

You should really have. Suddenly Taylor understood why her transmission had been tightly focused on her face.

"How, ah, long are you-"

"I just entered the fifth month," said Cherry. She smiled nervously. "It's strange for me too."

"You and, ah... Bill must be very happy," said Taylor.

"Bill?" Cherry's eyebrows went up. "Bill and I divorced after two years of marriage."

After only two years? Fuck! This was the man who came between him and Cherry! And Taylor didn't even know.

"So...."

"My second husband, Olaf," Cherry smiled. "This will be our first."

"Congratulations," said Taylor. He didn't know what else to say. He felt numb.

"I'm mustering out of the service tomorrow," said Cherry. "Really, I should have left two weeks ago, but I've been lingering here, waiting for... you."

"Me?" said Taylor.

"It's been years since we've seen each other or even talked," said Cherry. "I'm about to spend the rest of my life as a civilian, Mike. When I heard the Relentless was coming back, I extended things so I could see you... one last time."

Taylor nodded. And so they talked. Olaf was a landscape painter who Cherry had met while on leave on Earth, during a vacation in Denmark. Cherry was going to live in Denmark with a landscape painter named Olaf on a small island off the coast of Denmark. No matter how many times he repeated it to himself, he still had trouble believing it.

As Taylor talked with Cherry over dinner, he found his feelings changing. At first he had been repulsed by the idea of seeing his former lover while she was carrying another man's child inside of her. But it was still Cherry. Her beautiful dark, half-Chinese eyes stared at him longingly. Her even darker, wavy, silky hair was cut a bit shorter nowadays, but somehow it made her look even more attractive. When he looked at her thin red lips, all he could think about was how he had once kissed them, over and over.

Gradually Taylor's repugnance changed into something else: attraction. Even the idea of making love to Cherry when she was so heavily pregnant turned him on. Her breasts were bigger than they had ever been. And her belly... suddenly the image of him making love to her filled his mind. The idea of him thrusting into her, while her belly rocked back and forth. The idea of taking the place of her husband, Olaf, whoever the fuck Olaf was, and making Cherry his, one last time, even while Olaf's prized baby gestated inside her belly.

The thought excited him badly. He found himself getting aroused just thinking about it. He decided he had to have her.

"No! This would be the worst thing we've ever done!" said Morality. "We've fucked married women. But we've never fucked a married woman who's heavily pregnant, one who was once our best friend!"

"I don't care," said Lust. "I have to have her."

"Think about what you're about to do!" Morality pleaded.

Taylor thought about what he was about to do. And then suddenly he screaned her, and realized that Cherry wanted it too. To his surprise, he screaned that she had had other men. A lot of men. A World Government Ambassador... to somewhere. A gunnery officer she met at a Starbase gathering. A physicist she met at a conference. Even one of the Captains she had served under. Taylor couldn't precisely screan when all these events had occurred, but he sensed that at least some of them had happened after she had gotten married to Olaf.

Cherry, the shy girl he had fell in love with at the Academy, had become a very sexually active woman. Taylor once again screaned her, this time more intensively. There it was again. She wanted him.

Cherry had had all kinds of men in her life, bureaucrats, businessmen, ambassadors, even other Survey Service officers. But she had never had sex with a living legend, and that is what Mike had become after they had left the Academy. That's why she had extended the date of her departure from the Survey Service, and that's why she was sitting in front of him right now.

But as he looked into her eyes he sensed the final piece of it. Cherry wanted him, but she also wanted him to do all the work. She wanted to be seduced by him. She wanted plausible deniability for her own conscience, so she could tell herself that the deed she was about to do was more at Taylor's urging than her own.

And so at that moment, Taylor nodded to himself and agreed to do very thing he repeatedly refuses to do with Andrea Farber just days earlier. There were only three women he ever loved in his life, or possibly four, depending on how they were counted. Jennifer Hale was a dead squid in the year 500,000,000; Pam refused to see or speak to him; the other Pam had gone back to the year 1,000,000,000, never to return... and then there was Cherry. This was to be his last chance to be with a woman he loved, and Taylor had no qualms about taking her.

"So Natasha turned out to be a Russian spy," said Cherry. "Whoever would have known?"

"I regret having to shoot her," said Taylor. "But it was her life, or Andrea's."

"Did you see a lot of Andrea on Sheppard's Planet, Mike?" Cherry asked, ever so casually.

"So this is it," said Taylor's Lust. "A few more minutes of dinner, and we'll never see each other again.

"I guess so," said Cherry's Lust.

"And then you will board the Kady Rock and go back to earth and spend the rest of your life with O-Laugh," said Taylor's Lust. He put his hands on Cherry's Lust's shoulders and started to rub them. "And for the rest of your life, you'll have sex with one man, and only one man, O-Laugh. Are you prepared for that, Cherry?"

Cherry's Lust closed her eyes as she felt Taylor's Lust rubbing her shoulders. "I'm a married woman."

"Married to whom? Let's tap into your memories and see what we can find," said Taylor's Lust.

"Andrea and I worked closely together," said Taylor.

"Very closely?" Cherry asked, with a smile.

Suddenly an image of Taylor appeared side by side with an image of Olaf. Both were topless. Olaf was three inches shorter than Taylor, had a flat chest, and thin arms and legs. Taylor, by contrast, had a big, thick hairy chest and strong bulging muscles in his arms and legs. And Olaf was balding in the front, while Taylor had a big thick full head of hair.

"So let me see if I can wrap my mind around this," said Taylor's Lust, continuing to rub her shoulders. "You are giving up this... for that?"

"I love him," said Cherry's Lust.

"At times Andrea and I worked closely, yes," said Taylor. "Jealous?" he grinned.

Cherry blushed.

"One penis," said Taylor's Lust. "For the rest of your life, you will only feel one penis inside of you, having sex only one way. You'll spend most of the next few years spent catering to the whims of an insanely screaming baby. You will never again feel the way you felt when you had sex with Mike. You will have the same, thin, balding man, over and over, for the rest of your life."

Cherry's Lust grimaced, even as Taylor's Lust kept rubbing her.

Taylor changed the subject. "Do you remember the survival course?"

"Do I!" said Cherry, her half Chinese eyes becoming round.

"Do you remember how we ran in the forest at night, to escape detection?" Taylor asked.

"Do you remember how you came out of the river, all nude and shivering?" Taylor's Lust asked. By now his hands had moved further down, wrapping around Cherry's waist from behind.

"Yes" said Cherry's Lust.

Taylor's Lust's probing fingers found her clitoris, and started to gently caress it.

"Do you remember how you seduced me? Do you remember how you rubbed your pubic hair over my thing, to make me hard?"

"Yes" said Cherry's Lust, her eyes closed as she reveled in the sensation.

"Do you remember how you felt when you finally got me hard?"

"Glorious," Cherry's Lust, as Taylor's Lust stimulated her clit. "It was glorious."

"It was wonderful, being in the outdoors, just the two of us, wasn't it?" Taylor said, with a calm smile.

"It was, Mike," said Cherry. His smile seemed to burn into her. It was so intensely erotic. She felt her clitoris getting stimulated, even though no one was touching it.

"And do you remember when we were fucking, in the bushes, and those soldiers came by?" Taylor's Lust asked. "You told Taylor not to stop. Don't stop! You whispered. Remember the thrill of it? The fear of being discovered while we were making love?" His fingers were working tight concentric circles around her clit now.

"Oh... it felt so explosive.... So exciting... so thrilling... so woooonderfullll...." said Cherry's Lust who by now was totally engulfed by the memory.

"Even though the survival course was a stressful time, I really enjoyed being there, with you. It's one of the best times I ever had," said Taylor, still smiling at her.

Cherry shivered, as his smile continued to stimulate her. "Me too, Mike." Why was she feeling so sexually excited? It must be his smile. Mike's smile was driving her to madness, making her nipples hard and her clitoris tingle.

Cherry's Lust was on the ground now, her legs spread, her knees lifted, while Taylor's Lust plunged inside of her.

"Oh, Mike... this feels so good," said Cherry's Lust.

"My latest posting was on the Judicator, Mike, your old ship," said Cherry. She felt her heart pounding and didn't know why. "I was first officer to Captain Starnes. Sometimes I would walk around the bridge, or the Captain's Command Office, and imagine you sitting in one of the chairs. It made me think about regrets."

"Regrets?" Taylor smiled at her, and she shuddered with pleasure.

Taylor's Lust's large, thick organ moved in and out from between Cherry's Lust's nether lips. Cherry's Lust groaned with pleasure.

"I... I was always a first officer, or second officer, on a larger ship. I never got to command, like you did," said Cherry. There was something about Taylor's gaze; the way he looked at her. She was becoming so sexually aroused! How was he doing this to her?

His penis thrusting in and out, in and out. The feeling of being filled. The feeling of being rubbed, on the inside.

Taylor looked at her with large eyes. "So you have regrets? You wish you could go back and do things differently?"

"Don't... don't we all, Mike?" She stammered. She looked so helpless, so needy for what she wanted. But at the same time she couldn't ask for it. She was like an animal stuck with its leg in a trap, desperately needing assistance to get out, but too proud to ask for it.

"Well, I can't make you a Captain, Cherry," said Taylor. "But how would you like to at least see a Command Cruiser? I'll bet you've never been aboard one," said Taylor. His face was blank, his voice perfectly calm, like a Survey Service Captain in complete control of the situation.

"N-now?"

"Now or never," said Taylor, raising an eyebrow with just the slightest hint of flirtation. "Are you really going to give up your only chance to see a Survey Service command cruiser?"

They both knew exactly what the other was saying. There was no longer any pretense of a pretense. Cherry felt tremendously aroused. She had to get release. Something about Taylor's face, his eyes, his smile, had done this to her. He had acquired some kind of invisible power over women. She had no choice. She nodded. "Yes, Mike, I'd like that very much," she heard herself say.

********

When the shuttle landed on the Relentless, and Taylor gave her a hand down the steps of the shuttle, they were both startled to find the Sophie Astor standing there, apparently waiting for them.

"S-Sophie!" said Cherry, feeling extremely embarrassed. She tried to cover up her embarrassment by gently embracing Sophie. Sophie tolerated the gesture, but didn't reciprocate.

When Cherry pulled back, she stammered, "That's right, you're Mike's first officer, aren't you?"

"I'm surprised he mentioned it," said Sophie. "Usually after Yeomen King and Queen the Captain's knowledge of the crew roster becomes quite hazy."

Cherry looked at her oddly. "Sophie, have you gotten a sense of humor?" And then she looked again at her. "Sophie, has something else changed about you?"

"Nuclear breast implants," said Sophie. "While I see you decided to go bigger down there, I decided to go bigger up here," she said, indicating her breasts. "I find it a lot lower maintenance than being pregnant, and it has the advantage of allowing me to always be the first one to be called on during all-staff meetings." Sophie paused, as she enjoyed Cherry's shocked expression. "So, Cherry, I see you are pregnant. Congratulations. I presume this is not the Captain's work. He was only gone a few hours."

Taylor, grinning, shook his head.

"I'm married, Sophie. I'm leaving the Service tomorrow, and going back to Earth," said Cherry, feeling like a total idiot.

"Then I am... very happy for you," said Sophie, practically groaning as she said the trite line which was expected of her. "But tell me, how are you finding your pregnancy? How would you rate it on a one to ten scale of satisfaction, aesthetics, and mobility?"

Before Cherry could open her mouth to answer, Taylor said, "Sorry, Sophie we don't have time for this. I promised Cherry a tour of the ship."

"Ah, yes, a tour," said Sophie. "Ah, Captain, I have those overhaul projections you requested. Shall I drop by your quarters to discuss them after you are done with your... tour?"

Taylor shook his head. "We'll do it tomorrow."

"Yeomen King and Queen also wished to discuss the new menu rotations. Shall I send them to your quarters now?"

"No, Sophie, tomorrow-"

"Ensign Redding has also requested-"

"Sophie... tomorrow," said Taylor.

Sophie raised an eyebrow. "Tomorrow it is, then." She turned to Cherry. "I hope you enjoy your tour." She turned and left.

Cherry turned to Taylor. "Mike... I almost don't recognize her... when did Sophie develop a sense of humor?"

********

Of course, there was no tour. Taylor took her straight to his quarters. Once the door slid shut behind them, they were in each other's arms, kissing passionately.

But Cherry was crying even as they began. "Mike... I'm not sure I can do this," she whispered, as Taylor opened her shirt. He saw the large roundness of her belly. He gently palmed it, and felt it quivering with life.

Cherry looked at him with shock and surprise as he caressed her belly. "It's my baby, Mike. Mine and Olaf's."

"I know," said Taylor, and he reached up and gave her another strong kiss. As he did, Cherry felt his hands on her back, removing the magnetic clasp of her Survey Service bra. As the bra fell off, she protectively put her hands over her breasts. "They're ugly," she whispered.

Taylor shook his head and took her hands away. Her breasts had certainly changed. The old Cherry from years ago had small, pointed breasts that stood straight out. This Cherry had big, round, sagging breasts. He gently squeezed one of them. It felt caked with milk. Milk for another man's baby. The thought excited him and made him hard. He leaned down and put his lips on one of her teats. He sucked her gently, methodically.

Cherry groaned and threw her head back and closed her eyes as she wrapped her hands tightly around Taylor's back. When Taylor pulled out, with a popping sound, they both looked down and saw that her teat was tremendously elongated, like a giant red cow's udder. They looked each other in the eyes and clearly saw lust in their partner.

Taylor proceeded to take off Cherry's pants. "No, no, we shouldn't," Cherry babbled as she lifted a leg to help him get one pants leg off, and then lifted the other off so he could do the same. And then he removed her panties, but her belly was so large, that he still couldn't see what she had down there.

And then Taylor removed his own clothes, one step at a time. Cherry looked at him helplessly as he took off his shirt, revealing his hairy chest and broad shoulders. She watched as he removed his shoes, and his pants, and finally his underwear. She gasped as she saw his organ, which was already hard.

And then he hugged her, totally naked, and they both groaned.

"I can't do this, Mike, really I can't," Cherry insisted, as she let him lay her down on her back on his bed. Taylor simply nodded, and gently got on top of her, being careful not to put too much pressure on her belly.

Cherry felt his body against her and it felt glorious. She felt his hard thing pressing against his belly. He kissed and hugged her for a while, and then moved his hand down and grabbed his thing, probing with it, and aiming.

"Mike, I really shouldn't do this!" Cherry whispered, as she lifted her knees and spread her legs wide. Taylor nodded, and continued to kiss her. With Cherry's help he found the entrance he was looking for, and when Cherry felt the entrance of his head to her nether lips, she grabbed him tightly around the neck and kissed him furiously.

"Please, Mike. No. Don't do this, please don't!" she cried one last time, kissing him with abandon.

Taylor nodded again, and slowly but surely, he dipped his rod into her cove. Cherry cried out with pleasure and joy as her first lover finally entered her at last.