Ice Commander

by Roger Frank Selby

Genres: Suspense

Synopsis

Deep space exploration might seem like a glamorous profession, but as Lieutenant Frank Carter knows all too well, it can be a lonely job which demands both discipline and instinct. Now, he faces his greatest challenge yet - three months working on one of Saturn's barren moons under the infamous Ice Commander. Just the two of them.

Renowned for her cold-hearted, no-nonsense attitude to the job, Carter knew Commander Hamilton put her trainees through their paces, but not all her 'tests' are strictly orthodox. Indeed, there are moments that the commander likes to be commanded, and with a firm hand! But this isn't the only secret Carter discovers during his stay, because it seems he and the Commander are not alone on the icy moon. Is the sexy woman, 'Laura', who'll only reveal herself to him, a clone of the commander, an extra-terrestrial or simply a figment of his imagination?

Carter is determined to get to the bottom of the mystery and he's willing to do anything - dishing out the requested pain and pleasure - to get some answers.

Release date: February 25, 2010

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 88

Sample

Ice Commander







At the base airlock, my sexy freighter pilot introduced me to Commander L Hamilton, better known throughout the Outer System Fleet as the Ice Commander. As we shook hands I glimpsed the movement of a full right breast in low gravity – but then saw cropped platinum hair and cold blue eyes that gazed right through me. She looked as hard as ice – and at two hundred below zero, ice is like steel.

‘Welcome to Saturn V, Sub-Lieutenant Carter.’

Ice in her voice, too.

I felt about as welcome as the outgoing sub-lieutenant. Avoiding eye-contact, he’d fled past me into the freighter as soon as the airlock cracked open wide enough for him to squeeze through.

‘Thank you, ma’am!’

My respectful, A-grade smile was not returned. My spirits plummeted.

Three months with this? What have I let myself in for?

‘That will be all, sub-commander,’ she said to the freighter pilot, ‘we’ll close up the personnel airlock now. You can transfer my supplies via the secondary outer hatch, replenish the liquids and be on your way ASAP.’

My God, she’s sending the pilot round to the tradesmen’s entrance!

She did have the grace to show me around the base – but then someone had to, there was only the two of us. A small base on an airless moon is just about as dangerous as any deep-spacecraft, so it was vital that I was fully briefed on the layout and emergency controls at the first opportunity.

There was no second chance in space.

I now looked forward to my stint at this icy outpost as a necessary evil – a swift way of earning the necessary credit for my promotion from the lowest officer rank of the OSF.

Ice was all around. Seventy-five per cent of the little moon is made of the stuff. Although small as bases go, the installation was very spacious for just two occupants, with all the usual facilities, including a fully equipped low-gravity gym.

‘And these are your quarters.’

Not bad – a dayroom with a beautifully bleak moonscape view and a bedroom with a comfortable single bunk. ‘Stow your bag and we’ll move on. Not much more to show you now except the Saturn Observation Dome.’

The SOD was a special mini-dome, right at the top of the habitat. No problem climbing up in the ultra-low gravity, of course. The ladder was more of a guide-way than a ladder, as we pulled up to the hatch and let ourselves into the small, low-ceilinged room.

‘Where’s the observation dome?’ I asked, hastily adding ‘ma’am?’ to the question.

Her eyebrows knitted together. ‘You haven’t been reading your Station Manual, Carter! The mini-dome is just above the head access hole – rather like a large space helmet. Allow me to demonstrate.’

She mounted the small stage in the centre of the floor and inserted her head through the self-sealing hole above, into the mini-dome. On either side she poked hands through similar, smaller apertures.

While my mind belatedly recalled the SOD details from the manual – the radiation-shielded bulkhead for access to the instruments and various gadgets outside that monitored Saturn’s shenanigans throughout the electromagnetic spectrum – I suddenly noticed something.

My commander is a woman!

OK, of course she’s a woman but I noticed her womanly shape moulding her flexisuit into those amazing curves. Noticed is the wrong word. My attention was riveted. Fortunately, she couldn’t see my ogling.

I was awed by it. Looking up at her body, with that intimidating face out of view, she had the body of an angel ... Well, quite a lot curvier than permitted on angels perhaps, but certainly a heavenly body!

A speaker in the wall burst into life, halting my rampaging thoughts.

‘Do you read me, Carter?’

‘Ah, yes, ma’am, five by five.’

‘So, Carter, while head and hands are sealed thus, we can still communicate on the base intercom. You will notice that there’s a flap in the platform I’m standing on. Below that there’s a seat that rises into position if required for long sessions. In practice, standing in this low gravity is no hardship.

‘Right, your turn now.’

Her head and hands re-emerged and she morphed back into the dreaded Ice Commander. The heavenly body was still there, of course; I noticed it now but the fearsome expression and the ice blue eyes chilled the effect.

I mounted the tiny stage, inserted my head through the aperture and immediately found myself looking out on a Saturn-dominated sky, the surrounding terrain and a row of mini data screens.

Rhea, better known as ‘Saturn V’ these days, orbits the giant ringed planet in her ring plane, so the rings can only be seen from this moon as a thin, dark line. Even so, I was not disappointed with the sight of the complex ring shadows that slashed across the looming, yellowish face of Saturn, filling a quarter of the black sky.

I felt the collar autoseal around my neck, no tighter than a comfortable wetsuit. My hands poked through each side – all controls within close reach. All activity around the base could be monitored from here, when there was any.

It was great! Just like being outside but with all the comforts of home.

I was suddenly reminded of home comforts by hands around my waist. I flinched at the unexpected contact. A speaker near my ear spoke up:

‘Carter, you need to be a little higher than you are ... More like this.’

Her hands raised me easily in the low gravity and I realised I’d been crouching.

‘Ah, right, ma’am. See what you mean,’ I replied lamely. Her hands lingered and then released me. I regretted the loss. I also felt my body responding. (Flexis can be very revealing for men, so I was glad that she seemed to be standing behind me.)

At that moment, I saw the freighter lifting roughly. She hovered briefly over the pad, turned and then pitched up her nose towards the stars, to depart with an unnecessary, burping flare of her thrusters. She’d finished unloading stores and, presumably, finished transferring all liquids. That pilot was pretty hacked off with her treatment – I could tell by the way she flew.

I watched the freighter dwindle out of sight, heading out for the lonely run back to Titan.

‘Freighter’s just departed, ma’am.’

‘Very well. We are on our own now, . . .