Vandergast (4 of 10) - A Maiden Trip

Thanks for your help Tomken.

It was four o'clock in the morning. L'ielit was already awake, lying in her bed on board the Mammoth-1, the first 450 meter transport ship of Vandergast. Her position was Chief of Extraction Operations, Civil Service, not slave. Sometimes she had to remind herself of this fact. L'ielit reached out and playfully caressed her male concubine's short hair. Ho, a slender Vietnamese man, groaned and snuggled against L'ielit's naked body. L'ielit still loved Joacim and they had a shared household back on Vandergast. But another four females was beyond his sexual capacity and so L'ielit had selected one male and three female concubines. Ho was a nice, quiet guy. Back on Earth he had been a waiter in an upper class restaurant. He knew how to behave and followed orders. His first sponsor had died three years ago and so he ended up in the concubine pool. There were few requests for male concubines and he was glad when L'ielit showed up and selected him.

L'ielit looked at Ho in the dim light of the night hour illumination. She remembered how her first years of slavery had been back on Earth. For the millionth time she swore to herself that she would never treat people like that. Ho was almost too obedient in L'ielit's opinion. L'ielit tried to overcome the temptation to push him around even though he would comply. She would hate herself if she ever became like one of those Arab human traders she had suffered under. It helped that Ho had basic kung fu skills and helped L'ielit with her physical training, where he was sometimes forced to show opposition.

Her thoughts drifted to the near future. In a few hours the ship would leave hyperspace near Earth. Their mission was to get in contact with Einherjar, those people who had decided to stay and fight for their home planet. Of course, a lot of them had little choice since they had a CAP score below 6.5. But there were quite a number with higher scores, so she had been told. L'ielit and the project management had a rudimentary plan for how to handle those people. It was her responsibility to make the plan work. But the very first problem when leaving hyperspace would be the first contact with the Earthat Confederacy Administration. That would mainly be the Captain's business but L'ielit would be the one who had to work with the Confederacy people when they had been convinced that the actions of the Vandergast project would not interfere with the main extractions. L'ielit was hoping for good cooperation. Without Confederacy Intelligence, their task would most likely fail.

At five o'clock, L'ielit gently freed herself from the embrace of Ho without waking him and dressed. She slipped out of her cabin and walked the ship. The night shift crew already knew her well. She was one of only three sponsors on board. Unfortunately for the crew, she was an early bird and her normal walk was noiseless. Most people jumped out of their skin when she suddenly appeared behind them, asking if everything was alright.

At six o'clock, L'ielit visited the mess for breakfast. There she met Ho again. He looked a little bleary-eyed and got himself a pot of strong black coffee from the replicator after he had served his sponsor. A few minutes later, Captain Timothy Redcliff and Lieutenant George Arnhem entered the mess. They looked almost like Ho and each ordered a big pot of coffee.

"Hi Tim, hi George," L'ielit greeted the two men.

"Good morning L'ielit. Early as always," the Captain smiled.

"Well, today I finally have a reason. How long until re-entry?"

"Two hours," George answered. "I'll go check all stations."

"George is still a little nervous," Timothy said after George had left. "Well, I don't blame him. It's the maiden voyage for the Mammoth-1."

"It is for all of us," L'ielit replied.

Captain Redcliff and Decurion Debir were waiting in a small office on the Confederacy space station. They saluted when Centurion Arida entered the room.

"Relax," the Centurion said, "this is not a tribunal and I'm as civilian as possible under the given circumstances. You have quite an impressive ship out there."

"Thank you, sir," Captain Redcliff said.

"The AI told me about the Vandergast Project as far as it knows. So you are here to make your own pick-ups?"

"Not exactly, sir," L'ielit answered. She started to explain the plan to the centurion. An hour later they were quickly passed-through to Tribune Whitefeather, Chief of special extractions, and his team. There they got intelligence support and several leads. Then they were on their own again, free to follow their own plan.

"That was easy," Captain Redcliff said. "And with the names and addresses of those three supposed Einherjar leaders we have excellent targets to seek for a serious contact. Somehow I think the next steps will not be that easy."

"I'll take Gabrielle and Heidi with me for the first contact," L'ielit said. "I'll visit Mr. Adam Swenson first. According to the intelligence he has refused to be a sponsor two times, while having a CAP score of 7.4. I've read his file. He's a commander for sure."

A late November evening can be damn cold in Malmberget, North Sweden. A steady wind was blowing from the north-east, freezing the last remains of autumn. The land was powdered with the first layer of snow.

L'ielit and Gabrielle weren't used to such a climate. They were wearing the thickest lined parkas available. Heidi didn't seem to suffer that much from the cold. L'ielit knocked on the door of the house.

A medium-sized man in jeans and short-sleeved shirt opened the door. "What can I do for you?" he asked.

"Sorry to disturb you sir, are you Mr. Adam Swenson?"

"Yes," the man said.

"My name is L'ielit Debir Zelle and these are Gabrielle Webber and Heidi Åskväder. We are from the Confederacy. May we come in? We have a special offer for you."

Adam sighed. "Come in, even if I'm most probably not interested. You know that I refused to join the Confederacy two times already?" He led his guests to the living room where a fireplace was emitting comfortable warmth. The women doffed their parkas and Adam admitted that the confederacy was becoming better in attracting him. "So you have a special offer from the confederacy? I feel honored, but why me? There are plenty of sponsors waiting to get collected out there."

"We have an offer for Einherjar," L'ielit said.

Adam froze. Being a member of the Einherjar could be dangerous in a neighborhood like the one he was living in. "Can I please see your ID cards?" he asked. The women did as asked. Adam had seen the ID of a Confederacy Marine during the last pick-up. The ID of L'ielit looked pretty much the same. But the cards of the two other women were a surprise. They showed their CAP scores of 6.3 and 6.4 but they also showed their position as Civil Service Crewmen. "You are concubines?" he asked.

"Yes sir," Heidi answered. "It's a little complicated but you'll understand when you've heard the offer."

"Okay then, yes, I'm a member of Einherjar. What's that offer you are talking about?"

"We have to be sure about that. Could you please look at this?" L'ielit handed a hypnotic device to the man.

Adam took the device that had the size and shape of an iPod. He felt a sting in his thumb. He didn't notice that he looked at the display for several seconds. "Okay, what's this?" he asked, giving it back to L'ielit.

"It's a little hypnotic device that prevents you from talking about us to other people and it allows us to check if you are telling the truth to us. So you are a member of Einherjar?"

"Yes." Adam wasn't pleased that they used a lie-detector on him but could understand their reasons. He would be very careful about what information he would reveal.

"We come from a colony named Vandergast and we want to train you and other members of Einherjar for the fight against the Sa'arm. This is not an offer for an extraction. You will not become citizens of the Confederacy by visiting our training facility. You will get knowledge about the best equipment available for those who stay on Earth."

"Sounds interesting," Adam said. "How many of us could take that training? How long will we be away? Did I understand it correctly that we will visit your colony?"

"We can easily handle four thousand trainees per month. Unfortunately, we don't have the transport capacity for that number yet but we are working on it. We can take four hundred people in one transport. Eight hundred if you accept two people per cabin. Including the travel time where most of the learning will be done, you will be away for fourteen weeks."

"That's beyond what I can decide alone. And I already see a little problem. Most of us have jobs. We can't leave for nearly four months," Adam said.

"We have a cover story. There will be a camp in Canada where you will officially be during that time," L'ielit said. "As far as I understand it, your government supports the mobilization against the Sa'arm. It shouldn't be that hard to get a few months of unpaid vacation from any company."

"It's a little more complicated than that. The Conservative Party is currently dominated by Earth First. Those idiots are stupid enough to sabotage the defense of Earth. So any connection to Confederacy people is dangerous for us."

"Is Earth First opposing Einherjar even without Confederacy connections?" Heidi asked.

"Earth First opposes everybody who's not Earth First. CAP-testing and the imminence of the Sa'arm coming is radicalizing a fair portion of the population world wide. Here in Malmberget Earth First sympathizers hold the majority since last year's big extraction. There are few families that haven't lost members to the Confederacy and it doesn't help that a lot of beloved wives and teenage daughters have left the planet as slaves." Adam looked over the women in his living room. "You don't look that much enslaved, I must say. But I am not Earth First."

"Thank you sir," Gabrielle said smiling. "So in Sweden Earth First is currently on top while Einherjar is hiding? Why don't you build a militia, join forces with the army and exile Earth First to the North Pole? They don't do any good for your country or any other country. Their weapons are propaganda based on stupid lies and brute force."

Adam sighed. "You are talking about a revolution, a coup at minimum, but most probably about a civil war. We don't have time for that. We have even less need of a civil world war."

"How about leaving your old hometown and move to somewhere else with a few months in-between and a new identity maybe?" Heidi asked. "Would that solve our problem of keeping Einherjar underground and safe from Earth First? Getting a new job shouldn't be that hard if you are not that picky."

Adam looked at Heidi and thought for a while. "That's really good. A lot of people move these days, especially when their family is broken up by an extraction. I think we are at a point where we should discuss this with somebody else."

Ten minutes later they all left the place using Adam's Volvo. They were heading toward Gällivar, the next village south of Malmberget where Thor Järnberg lived. They were passing the last buildings of Malmberget when they heard the roar of a hard-pressed engine and the Volvo was hit hard in the side. They were pushed off the road and into the ditch.

"Damn. Anybody injured?" Adam asked. Then he noticed that they were trapped. The doors at one side were blocked by the slope while the other was blocked by the truck. "Oh fuck."

A man appeared in the headlights of the car. "Now is that not our dear friend Mr. Swenson? With three little chicks? Isn't that a little selfish of you? You know we are short on women."

"Ragar, is that you? Come on. Set your truck back a little. You had your fun."

"That was fun???" Heidi asked from the back seat.

"No it wasn't," Adam whispered.

Ragar took a close look at the passengers of the car he had hit. "They look beautiful. Where does someone like you get girls like them?"

"Internet," Adam shot back. "If you have the money..."

Ragar laughed. "To me this looks like a pre-pack. I knew you are not one of us. You have tainted our town long enough. You know what? You are dead and we take the chicks. Isn't that fair?" With that he drew a handgun and took aim at Adam. In the very same split second Ragar crumbled to the ground twitching.

<Isn't it nice to have a stinger mounted on a drone for backup? The second man is out cold too. I'll send in a cleaning team with a shuttle get rid of the car.> George informed L'ielit through the AI link.

"We are safe for a while," L'ielit informed the others. "I fear your time in Malmberget is over."

"Yeah damn it. I didn't expect them to be this violent." Adam tried to kick out the front window but a Volvo was a robust car.

"If you can open the hatch door we can climb out there," Heidi mentioned.

Adam looked back at her. "I watch too many stupid action movies it seems." Two minutes later they were all out of the car, checking for injuries. Ragar was lying on the street while another man was sitting in the driver's seat of the truck. Adam took the pistol and checked for signs of life on the two men.

"They are only paralyzed," L'ielid said. "But that was a serious attack on a Confederacy citizen. They will not survive the night and Earth First will find no corpses. We can take their truck. Is that OK with you?"

"Mmm, hmm," Adam replied. He pulled the second man out of the driver's seat. They were already a kilometer away when one of the shuttles of the Mammoth-1 landed silently with its antigravity engines only. Five Concubines armed with heavy stingers and two drones watched the surrounding area while four others brought the paralyzed men on board. When they started again, they pulled the damaged car to orbit with a magnetic stay.

Four people in the driver's cab of the truck was a little cramped, but the ride was short. They parked the truck under a bridge and walked the last hundred meters. Adam learned from L'ielit that the Confederacy had ways to clean out his house and get rid of the stolen truck and to make him vanish from the scene. He also learned that the Confederacy's AI had been able to track back the phone calls that led from one of his neighbors, who had seen the foreign women entering his house, to Ragar. But he had already suspected that his neighbor was a member of Earth First.

They reached the house of Thor Järnberg. There were no lights that could reveal their arrival to anybody without night vision gear.

"Thor, we had an incident on the way. I have to submerge and leave Malmberget, but if you hear what these ladies offer to us that doesn't matter."

L'ielit explained the plan including the previously discussed improvements. It turned out that Thor Järnberg was a sub-chief of Einherjar, responsible for Sweden, Norway, Finland and Iceland. Before the night was over the big plan was set in motion.

'Now this is my new home,' Adam thought. He surveyed Camp Valhalla from a nearby hill. The scruffy buildings and the surrounding land had been a Russian military base in Latvia. It had been abandoned after Latvia had split from Russia. The people of Vandergast had brought down a big replicator from orbit that was currently eating one of the buildings. While it slowly moved forward it constructed a new building out of the debris. It was strange to watch this. The new building looked like the old one from the outside. But he knew that the inside would be completely different. The building turned into a bunker with comfortable apartments. The whole complex would later be able to house more than a thousand families. Adam knew that they were planning another base in Canada, but this one was the first. In a few days, people would start to flow in from all over Northern Europe. His job would be Chief of Valhalla, manager of the facility. He would have some support from the Confederacy. They expected some trouble from Earth First but hoped to sort them out. Earth First had a bad standing in Latvia. His personal goal was to let not a single Earth First member get his foot on a Confederacy ship.

Heidi approached Adam's position and greeted him. "Hello Adam! You are hard to find." She stood beside him, looking over the place. "It's not looking like much but it's an important step."

"Yes it is. I noticed you following me. Are you my new bodyguard or something like that?"

Heidi laughed. "No, nothing like that. It's a little more personal..."

Adam looked at her and she blushed. "So?"

"I don't know how to say it... You know I'm a concubine."

Adam looked at her and waited.

"Well, I currently have no sponsor. I'm owned by the Civil Service. On most colonies that would mean I would offer my body to the Marines in a brothel. You already know that Vandergast is different from that, but still... I need to get pregnant and I want you to be the father." Heidi's face was bright red.

"What? Hey, I don't want to take advantage of you. I'm respecting you as a person, I don't see you as a slave or concubine or whatever."

"That's not the point. Concubines leave earth to breed. Increasing the population is important in the long run. So concubines must breed once in three years at minimum. My youngest son back on Vandergast will be one year old soon. I have some time left. However, in my opinion, I could not do much better than asking you to be the father of my next child. I will not stay on Earth if you impregnate me. I'm not in love with you. I just like you."

"Normally I would not refuse an offer for free sex, but, you know, the circumstances are a bit weird."

"Yes I know. The social conventions here on Earth make it a little bizarre. On Vandergast it's a pretty normal way to get a baby."

"L'ielit is your Civil Service Officer, so technically she owns you. What would she say?"

"Ask her yourself. She's standing behind you, wildly gesturing to encourage me to get over my shyness," Heidi said blushing again. Adam jumped and turned around.

"I'm perfectly fine with Heidi's offer. I thought of asking you myself. Maybe your bed can hold three persons?"

With mild resistance, L'ielit and Heidi dragged Adam to the recreational vehicle that was currently his domicile. While the women were pushing, Adam felt them up and he got a good impression of the women's qualities. Adam concentrated his efforts on Heidi since L'ielit's size was intimidating him a little. Once inside the bus, the women stripped in front of Adam, giving him a good show. Then they helped him out of his own clothes. The bed wasn't really made for three but it didn't matter. They caressed and licked each other's bodies to the point where their desire was almost unbearable. When Adam penetrated Heidi's pussy with his cock she sighed and locked her legs behind his back. He fucked her good and soon they peaked in their first orgasms. Then Adam took L'ielit doggy-style while L'ielit was licking Heidi's soaking wet pussy. For the next two hours Heidi and L'ielit were demanding everything from Adam in turns. He finally fell asleep totally exhausted, sandwiched between the heated bodies of the two women.

"It's a shame Adam refuses to volunteer for the Confederacy," Heidi whispered. "He's such a nice guy. I would happily be his concubine."

"I agree with you, but it's his decision," L'ielit whispered back. "We are here because there are a lot of people like him who think that Earth is as important as the survival of the human race. My own bonds to this planet are weak but I can understand him."

Thor and the sub-commanders had managed to send nearly one-thousand people to Camp Valhalla within two weeks. That was the first contingent. The next would be ready within two months. They had decided to keep the camp full and do some military practice while waiting for transport. Every arrival was health-checked in a med tube and the hypnotic devices were used on them. That had helped to protect Einherjar and the camp already. There had been two Earth First spies among the arrivals of day five. They kept a low profile for a week but when they learned about the real plan and the spaceship in orbit they tried to contact their people. They didn't manage to say a thing due to the hypnotic block. The AI monitoring all communications alerted Adam and the security guards. Adam handed the spies over to the Confederacy in orbit.

At the end of the two weeks, eight-hundred Einherjar members boarded the Mammoth-1. It was a little cramped but the voyage was not meant to be a junket. The cabins offered two bunk beds mounted on one wall, a small table, two chairs and two lockers. L'ielit had worked out a two-shift routine so one person would be busy while the other had a free shift. Between sleep-learning, military training with new technologies and discussion periods there was still enough time for a soccer game or other more recreational and social activities.

Ninety percent of the Einherjar were males of all ages between fourteen and seventy-five. Only ten out of eight-hundred had a CAP score higher than 6.4 but none was below 5.0. The Einherjar were obviously the elite of those left behind by the Confederacy. L'ielit found out that working with them was relatively easy. They already were semi-militarily organized and they all had the same goal. Nevertheless the climate in the ship was strained. While ninety percent of the Einherjar were men and most of them had lost parts of their families to the Confederacy, sixty percent of the ship's crew was pretty women.

Two weeks after they had left Earth, half the Einherjar men tried to seduce concubines in their free time. Fortunately none had tried to rape anybody yet. Captain Redcliff, Lieutenant Arnhem and Decurion Debir talked about this situation when a concubine that served them with refreshments asked for permission to talk. A sign over her left breast showed her name, Rebecca Mordred. "Why don't we create a ship brothel? That would take off the pressure of austereness and it would solve another minor problem. There are several concubines that need to get pregnant within the next year. And it would not only be them who would volunteer to spend some hours of their free time there."

"That's an excellent idea. But we have to keep in mind that we don't want to lure the Einherjar to stay on Vandergast just because they are short of women." Captain Redcliff said.

"I don't think that that will be an issue. How many of them would be willing to become a concubine?" Rebecca asked.

Decurion L'ielit sub vocally asked the AI for the status of concubine Rebecca. She learned that Rebecca was one of the concubines that were sent by their sponsors. Her sponsor's orders were to come back pregnant and learn as much as possible. Rebecca's CAP score was 6.3 and she was the head bitch of her sponsor's household. "Rebecca, are you already pregnant? I just checked your sponsor's orders."

Rebecca lowered her head. "I don't know exactly. The ship's AI is not able to tell me without a visit to the med bay. Four days ago Bjorn ran into me in the corridors and he asked me to his cabin. Since I have explicit orders to get a bun in the oven and Bjorn seemed to be a nice guy I spent the night with him. It was the first opportunity to follow my sponsor's order."

"Okay then. Let's change one of the dead end corridors of the concubines' quarters into a red light district. We have to temporarily put some of the remaining concubine quarters to a rotation with three concubines using two beds. We'll fix that when we are on Vandergast. All unassigned concubines are free to volunteer for the brothel during their free shift. Can we use the big replicator to create more comfortable beds and some decoration?"

The next day, L'ielit and the concubines that acted as the instructors for the Einherjar people spread the word about the new brothel. In the first three days there was a crowd in the corridor that never dissolved. Concubines organized a rotation with four-hour shifts. They didn't allow a customer to stay more than one hour. After that the situation visibly relaxed. The learning curve of the Einherjar even went up a little.

Another two weeks later the Mammoth-1 swung into orbit over Vandergast. Within one hour, all of the Einherjar people went through one of the transporters down to the planet's surface. They appeared in the new suburb Bilskirnir. The quarters in the apartment buildings were only a little more comfortable than those at the pool of unassigned concubines, but they were still as good as a medium quality hotel room back at Earth. One block contained thirty-six flats, a lobby, a cafeteria, a gym and a room called the library with lots of computer terminals. Four concubines shepherded the guests in turns. The suburb had eighty of those buildings already and a colony replicator was currently creating another one-hundred-and-sixty units.

L'ielit put the Einherjar people in the custody of Major Sanchez and her training ground trainers. Then she and Ho returned home after her three month trip. Joacim and all the concubines awaited them at the pod's entrance. Joacim hugged L'ielit tight and whispered, "Oh god, I missed you so much. Welcome home L'ielit." Then he hugged Ho and said, "Man, I'm glad you are back. Nine concubines is definitely a challenge. Could you please distract them for a few hours?"

"Of course, sir," Ho replied. "I'll do my very best."

Joacim led L'ielit to the porch where the concubines had prepared two deck chairs and a cooler with drinks. They talked and watched the sundown, holding hands. Then they went to L'ielit's bedroom and had some very passionate sex.

At five o'clock in the morning Ho woke up as usual. He wasn't an early bird but three months with L'ielit had implanted a routine. He found himself trapped in a pile of female bodies. It had been a game for the concubines and a welcome home party when all nine of them had dragged Ho to Joacim's master bedroom. For the first time of his adult life he thought he had to skip his morning shadow fight because he felt he barely could walk straight. Irene was spooning him from behind. Her nipples were poking in his back and her right hand rested on his hip. Sabine spooned him from the front. His cock was trapped between her legs. Prudence was lying across their legs. Thanks to the magic mattress of Confederacy beds this wasn't all that uncomfortable. Hilda, Henna, Carmen and Miranda were leaning on Irene and Sabine's bodies and made sure that they couldn't move easily. The others were out of sight. Maybe they were lying on the thick carpet. Ho remembered last night. He had serviced everyone. He had lost count of how many times he came in a pussy or mouth. Most probably more often than ever before in a single night. Even with the stamina augmentation more than four or five shots in a row were the maximum. He had come but the ejaculation was only a trickle after the fifth shot.

Suddenly Ho heard L'ielit's voice over the AI link in his head. "Good morning Sweetheart. Tin told me that you seem to be looking for a way to stand up without waking the whole harem." She giggled. "Just relax. I'll stay in bed for another hour or two."

"Thank you, L'ielit," Ho replied. He relaxed and fell asleep within several minutes.

"Ladies, Gentlemen, can I please have your attention?" Joacim stood before the eight hundred Einherjar members that L'ielit had brought from Earth. The murmur died down. "Thank you very much. My name is Joacim Zelle and I'm the head coordinator for equipment development for this project. At the end of your visit, you will get special memory sticks. They can be connected to a standard food replicator back on Earth. Those sticks extend the replicator's menu by all the nice items you learn to use here. The groups visiting us later will get updated versions. If you connect an older and a newer memory stick to a replicator at the same time, the older one will be updated. As long as there are no Sa'arm at Earth, the weapons and armor that can be created will be training versions. They will shoot with paintballs and harmless light beams. Once the Sa'arm have arrived the AI's will trigger a global signal that arms the memory sticks, NOT the training weapons. So any new replicated weapon will be a live weapon. Training versions of armor are not completely useless against the Sa'arm but the real ones will protect you about four times better than the training versions. However, you can speed up the production of a life weapon if you feed a training weapon to the attached recycler. On your trip you already learned a few things about the Confederacy database that's available at Earth. It's almost useless for the fight against the Sa'arm without further work. Fortunately for you we have already done some of that work here at Vandergast. You learned about the availability of body armor, enhancements to human weapons, vehicle improvements. In the next four weeks, you will learn to use what we have invented. But since nobody is perfect I have a big request. If you find any quirks in your equipment, please inform us. Just tell the AI, it will direct the message to me and my team. If you have an idea about a new useful item, do the same. I encourage you to scan through the database. Here on Vandergast you have the advantage of an AI helping you. Back on Earth you'll need fifty times longer to do the same just because the computers and the networks back home are so slow. Everything you suggest here will hopefully be on the memory stick, ready to be replicated. For any further questions please contact the AI. Thank you for your attention."

Meeting at the Governor's office.

"The Einherjar are performing well," Major Sanchez told the Governor. "They have absorbed a lot of knowledge on the trip and now they perform well in the training scenarios. They were two percent ahead of our own Marine trainees in the beginning at making quick decisions, leadership and group work. Our Marines are only superior in situations where the augmentations count. But their learning curve is less steep. They fell back behind the Marines after one week. As a pre-organized group, they start at a higher level than a random group of Marine recruits."

Centurion Evans Benish spoke up. "In town we have little problems caused by the Einherjar. There are several that tend to get drunk and start brawling. But the Marines can easily handle them and bring them to their quarters. We have several who try to seduce concubines, but the brothel helps. I have ten concubines playing easy target for those Einherjar who seem to need sex but don't like to go to a brothel. We have had no rapes so far. Since we did not stir up their social behavior they behave as their moral code guides them. Of course they know the sponsor/concubine concept but since they decided to stay on Earth they don't let that concept disturb their sense of wrong and right. It helps that the Einherjar group leaders keep their men together. We had one serious fight of a married couple. In my opinion they should divorce when back on Earth. They are currently imprisoned separately but will continue their training in three days. That was a decision of the Einherjar tribunal that was organized by their group leaders after the incident. As long as no Vandergast citizen is seriously damaged I support the idea of letting them handle matters of discipline by themselves."

Decurion Fish continued the report. "The rearrangements of the Mammoth-1's interior are complete. We split a storeroom in half and placed the ship brothel there. Our need for storage room is less than expected anyway. The blueprints for the Mammoth Class already reflect that fact. Mammoth-2 will be ready in nine days. The replicator will start with Mammoth-3 immediately after that."

"The crew for the Mammoth-2 will be ready in nine days too," Decurion Debir filed in. "Thanks to the project we had eighteen concubines re-testing their CAP score. All of them have improved their score. Seven managed to become sponsors. Three of them joined Fleet Auxiliary, three joined the Marines and one joined the Civil Service. We have one little problem though. With three Mammoth class ships launched we have reached the limit of concubine resources. The pool of unassigned Concubines will be empty. Most assigned concubines that are not busy raising children will have a part time job. Most Marines are working somewhere in the industrial facilities. We earlier discussed a possible solution. We could make our own extractions. There are several colonies out there that are mainly breeding colonies. They started with several ten of thousand sponsors and were left alone by Headquarters. Now a few of them send their own ships to get more colonists from Earth. So we won't be the first ones who do so. We just need a decision to do so. An early decision would have the benefit that we could change the interior layout of the Mammoth-3 to match the needs of an extraction."

"Thank you for your reports," Governor Culhane said. "As much as I'd like to see my boys kicking some Sa'arm's asses, I have to accept the fact that we are out of battle range for a Marine base. You are right. More colonists will add to the mix. In a year we could be ready to send fully manned naval ships or Fleet Auxiliary. This will add more to our potential to the fight against the Sa'arm than anything we did before. Permission granted to change Mammoth-3 into an extraction ship. Decurion Fish, prepare to create a colony ship manned with our own Fleet Auxiliary employees and Marines for extraction support. No technology limits. This ship will run under normal Confederacy rules. We need maximum capacity for our new colonists. Anything else on the agenda?"

"Sir, we need to decide how far we will go with augmenting the Einherjar. It's clear that the Marine package or AI links are not available. But where is the limit on body modifications and rejuvenation? I practically promised them new identities for hiding in Earth First territory," Decurion Debir asked.

"We talked about med tube use when you were in transit, Decurion." The Governor smiled. "Melanie, would you please?"

Major Sanches looked at her notepad. "We decided that we will flush any long term health problems but no permanent health nanites remaining in their bodies. Rejuvenation is limited to ten years back, less for young people. We didn't talk about false ID's by using body modification but we decided that moderate modifications like a few centimeters more or less, up to ten percent strength and flexibility, complexion, hair color and the like are acceptable. No hair growth control though, or anything else that would be a noticeable difference to ordinary humans. I see no problems in adding new fingerprints and retina patterns. Their CAP card will store their old identity in a hidden area, unreadable for anybody except Confederacy authorities. If we want to give them more cover, we need something that injects a new background story in earthly databases."

<An AI could do that. I will talk this to the AI's at Earthat. Earth Command has an interest in Einherjar too, so they will help.>

"Very good," Major Sanchez continued. "As planned earlier, the Einherjar get their augmentations during their trip back or at Camp Valhalla. With eight-hundred people and the limited med tube resources on a Mammoth that will exceed the travel time of four weeks, so we have calculated."

"Anything else?" the Governor asked. "No? Well then I want to thank you all for doing a remarkably good job."