Chapter 45 - Old Friends Spark New Feuds

In the command post, everyone continued their frantic work to help save the ships and their crews. I could hear Ulla and Tiffany talking with Captain Travis and Captain Gates. Ulla was a bit confused at one point, but Tiffany's quiet confidence kept her at her post.

James had finally dragged Janice and me over to a padded chair. He flopped into the chair and I quickly pushed Janice into his lap. My sister concubine quietly held on to our master. I was looking around for another chair when Yvette strode into the command post.

She had a frown on her face, and the crease on her forehead showed a great deal of worry. Tamara and Tiffany called out to her, but she ignored their cries and walked up to James. "What do we do about Brad?" she spat out.

James waved at Timothy. The man was kneeling next to Veronica, offering support to his concubine. It took a few moments, but the man noticed James and walked over. "Yes James?"

"Can you go and find Terrence?" James asked. "I have a question for him, but I don't want to announce it to the whole colony."

Timothy nodded and then dashed from the command post. Yvette watched him go and then turned back to glare at James. "That doesn't solve a thing! What are we going to do..."

James pointedly turned away from Yvette and put a hand on my head. I looked up at him. "Little one," he said with a smile. "Do you think you can use the transporter to send Terrence to our visitor transporter room and then to transport Brad back here?"

Yvette gasped as I sat there in shock. I was trying to find the right words to say when Yvette pushed Janice away and threw her arms around James. She gave him a hard kiss on the lips. "You cad! You fiend!" she cried out. "You'll snatch Brad away and prevent our governor from doing a thing to him. I should have known you'd have a plan."

James burnished the fingernails of his right arm on his uniform sleeve. "I told you Yvette, I've got an angle," he replied in a bass monotone.

Janice and I burst into giggles as Yvette leaned away from James. She had a puzzled look on her face.

"Should we tell her?" Janice asked.

"No," I whispered back. "It's more fun this way."

Janice jumped back into James lap. "So master..." she began. "What other tricks are you hiding up your sleeve?"

"Private Rabb!" Colonel Johanes voice rang out. "Can you explain what your people are doing? It seems that despite your claim that this planet is here to fix broken ships, there are still three in the system and none are being repaired."

James shook his head. "Rome wasn't built in a day, and ships aren't repaired instantly. We have to have the ship at the repair docks first. Cancun has power and should arrive at Astarte soon. Xavier has already worked with the AI to review the scans. We'll begin repairs as soon as the ship is docked. But the other two ships have had engine failures so we have to use remote tugs to bring them in for repairs. That takes some time. Cabo should be in the dock in another half hour or so. I can't give you a time estimate on Pebble Beach. We are still waiting for Alexis to come back from her first trip over there. The ship has no working communications and hasn't given us a report."

"But earlier you said you knew it had gravity fluctuations! How can you learn that with no working communications?" Colonel Johanes snapped back.

"A little trick that was developed some time ago," Tiffany answered. "The transmitter that broadcasts as ship's IFF can be used to transmit a verbal message. Captain Toms used that and we picked it up."

"You did what?" Major Bonham shouted. "Why in the world would you pick that up?"

"That's part of why Admiral Himmel likes us," Yvette called out. "Our training might not meet your standards, but we are experts at what we do. When a damaged ship arrives, we do everything we can to fix it. So far, we've only had one ship we couldn't fix enough to allow it to jump back to Borneo."

"I still need to discipline that one citizen of yours. He assaulted a marine and must be punished," Colonel Johanes snapped.

"We still need him where he is," James said. "Major Bonham already made it clear that he has no troops with the training to replace him."

There was a moment of silence. James shook his head again. He was raising his right hand to his face when Terrence burst into the room.

"You needed me?" he asked.

James stopped his hand. He lowered it back to the armrest of the chair and looked at Terrence. "Yes. Brad has gotten in some trouble with the marines and I want to make sure he isn't arrested. What I thought of was that we'll have Meiko use the old transporter room to send you to our main transporter room and then you can teleport Brad out."

"Won't they notice and try to stop me?" Terrence asked.

Yvette snorted. "Are the marines smart enough? I heard tales that jarheads were less than intelligent. I always thought they were exaggerated, but these guys seem to prove the tales."

James shrugged. "Just make the switch quickly. And let the concubines there know that we can get them out the same way if we need to. Meiko knows how to do a transporter room draw."

Terrence looked at me. "We've only done that once before. Are you sure you could pull it off?"

I blushed. Janice jumped out of James' lap to give me a comforting hug. "I can," I whispered. "I've completed more than a dozen in simulations. And..." I paused.

I looked up at James. "I wouldn't really have to perform a draw will I?" I noted.

"What?" Terrence asked.

James laughed. "I didn't know she had guessed that. She's right. Both units can be run from the old station. Yvette suggested that a long time ago, but I wasn't sure Meiko was aware of that fact."

"I wasn't!" I snapped. "It made sense though. You've put all the controls you can on this side of the colony."

"If only we could turn off the air on that side," Janice whispered.

James reached out to smack Janice in the back of the head. "Don't think things like that," he hissed. "Our visitors might be barely human, but they are still citizens and we need to remember that."

Everyone sighed. Terrence smiled as my sister concubine rubbed the back of her head. "Let's do it," he said. "I wouldn't want any of us in the hands of that Colonel. He's definitely interested in the artifacts, but there seems to be another game being played."

"Any idea what it might be?" Yvette asked. "What did he reveal when you were his assistant?"

"That's just it. He was definitely interested in the artifacts, but he asked far too many questions about the colony and the people here," Terrence said. "He wasn't saying much either. His assistants seemed to be thinking that they might be transferring to a new research station in the future. One mentioned that Ishtar might be where that station will be."

"Now we have a motive," James sighed. "If our good Colonel can prove his research and make it seem like the colony is running smoothly he just might get promoted and end up in charge of a new research station on the planet."

"I'm betting he had no idea of how dangerous things are here," Yvette said. "But why would he not bring his concubines, and why the paperwork making him acting governor?"

"Politics," Bethany said as she joined us.

"What?" Janice said. "We don't have political parties anymore. What do you mean politics? It's not like the governor is an elected position."

"True," Bethany replied with a shrug. She reached down to pull me to my feet. "In the Confederacy, a governor is more like a viceroy from the age of sail. They are appointed to serve as the administrator of some place far from the center of government and then have complete control of the place they are given. However, in this case the problem is compounded because Admiral Himmel is the local viceroy. He should be the one to appoint a governor, not Central Command. So I expect the idea was to set it up so that Admiral Himmel had to accept the decision."

I nodded. "That makes sense. I'd love to hear more, but I should get the transporter panel up."

I started to walk from the room. Terrence and Bethany immediately joined me as I exited the command post and turned to walk down the hall. Neither said a thing as we made our way to the transporter room. But as we neared the door, Terrence stepped in front of Bethany and me.

"Thanks for doing this," he said.

Bethany giggled. "Why would we refuse such a reasonable request?"

"Because it's not your responsibility," Terrence commented. "We all understood that once you were off Earth, you were property with no rights or duties."

"Besides making sure that James is sexually satisfied," I observed. "Of course we understand that it's not our responsibility, but we see it as another way to help our master. And when he receives lots of help, he has more time to... I stopped talking.

Bethany laughed as we stepped through the doorway to the transporter room. She pulled me over to the control panel and then hugged me from behind. "You're just as randy as me," she whispered in my ear.

Terrence ignored our play and walked over to the pad. The panel was still cycling up when the speakers started to squawk again.

"James," Brad called out. "I've got Alexis back from her first run. She brought out two citizens."

"Good," I heard my master reply. "I was beginning to wonder what was taking so long."

We could hear someone taking deep, rasping breaths. The person coughed loudly and then took one more breath. "I was trying to find everyone and bring in the worst injured," Alexis said with a strained gasp.

"Alexis! How bad are things?" James asked.

"The engineering lieutenant must have pushed everyone out of the engine room before the leak. Of the twenty-eight crew, I found twenty-five alive. All the concubines are alive as well. All will need time in a medical pod. Everyone has broken bones," Alexis said. She sounded like she had just finished running a marathon.

"Private!" Major Bonham called out. "We have additional marines here! Why don't you wait and I'll send some with you."

"We have no time for someone to get into armor," Alexis said. "And with the current situation with the artificial gravity, anyone in there without armor will end up injured."

"What's it like?" Brad asked.

"Heavy," Alexis said. "The gravity in most areas is more than twice normal. Worse, it changes direction every five to seven minutes. If I wasn't wearing armor, I would have been getting bounced around. Fortunately, my boots can stick to the floor so I wasn't getting thrown around by the gravity changes."

"Do what you can," James said. "But you need to get more than fifty people off, are you sure you don't want help."

"I can't just wait. Some of the crew appear to have internal injuries. Several were having trouble breathing. I should get back right now," Alexis said.

"Go," James said.

I stood at the transporter controls. On one small screen I could see the power flow as Brad sent Alexis to the stricken ship to save more of the crew. The system quickly went into standby mode.

"Time to go," I called out to Terrence. He walked to the pad as I seized control of the unit and sent him to our main transporter room. The instant he was gone, I released my control so that Alexis could return if she needed to.

"And now we wait," Bethany said to me. Her arms remained around my neck as she rubbed her breasts against my back.

"Meiko," I heard James call out. "We need to bring the ship captains over for a briefing. Coordinate with Terrence on that please."

"Can do," Terrence replied. "I'll make sure it gets completed. Right now we're waiting for Alexis to return."

I pulled Bethany's hand from my waist and brought it to my lips. I gave it a gentle kiss. Bethany replied by giggling into my ear. "No foreplay right now," she whispered. "We need to help our master."

"I just call him God," I whispered back with a giggle.

The transporter room was quiet. Bethany had relaxed her grip and allowed me to concentrate on the displays. For the moment the only activity was the remote transporter, which was set to activate the instant any human stepped onto the pad. The atmosphere was tense and the intensity kept increasing as we waited for any activity.

The silence seemed to stretch out towards forever. Bethany had stepped forward to stand just to my right and was clutching my hand in a tight grip as we held our breaths waiting for news. Finally I could see the display panel change as someone entered the remote transporter and was whisked to Ishtar from the stricken ship Pebble Beach.

"I've got five more out," Alexis said with a gasp. "The engines are failing and the gravity has dropped down to about one and a quarter times. As it drops the few healthy crew and concubines are working to get everyone to the airlock. I should be able to bring everyone in two more trips."

I watched the display. Terrence cycled the system quickly three times and I responded by seizing control of the pad and setting it to send people to me. There was a momentary pause and then Brad appeared on the transporter pad.

Immediately, I switched control back to Terrence as Bethany rushed forward to pull Brad away from the pad. "What happened?" Bethany cried. "We were supposed to be avoiding conflict with the marines."

"He refused to allow me to run the transporter. Kept telling me that my use of the transporter would somehow jeopardize everyone on the planet. I finally had to put him in a sleeper hold until he passed out," Brad said with a shrug as he walked over to the control panel.

He looked at the controls. I had made sure that the pad was invisible to the control pad in our main transporter room. The displays showed that Terrence was in the process of connecting to the remote transporter.

"Sleeper holds work?" Bethany asked. "I always thought they were just part of that silly televised soap opera so many of my students loved to talk about."

Brad laughed. "Yes, if they are done right, they can be very effective. Although I think Ed might have had the medical units provide a syringe of something. He was standing behind both of us when the marine went limp."

Bethany and I giggled. Overhead, we could hear the speakers resume. "I'm sending Alexis back to Pebble Beach," Terrence called out.

"Wait!" the voice of Colonel Johanes called out. "Who is that! And what happened to your other man?"

"Other man?" James asked. I could hear the fake confusion in his voice, but wondered if Colonel Johanes would recognize the subterfuge.

"The man who assaulted one of Major Bonham's marines! I'm in the teleport room and the only man here right now is Private Truit. I thought you had no one who could handle the transporters other than who was it? Brad, I think," Colonel Johanes spat out over the speakers.

"Brad's shift was over," James said. "Terrence is almost as good as Brad. With the connection to Pebble Beach already stable, it was possible to have Terrence relieve Brad."

"Use last names and ranks!" Colonel Johanes shouted.

"Why?" Yvette asked. "We only have a few citizens here and everyone knows the others well. We've never had any problems with our current system."

"It's not military!" Colonel Johanes shouted. "You are military personnel and this is a military base. You must adhere to standard military practices at all times."

"He's just a little proud of his position as acting governor," Brad observed. "May he not be acting too much longer."

"I'm not sure we will survive a long time with him in charge," I admitted. "It's almost like he's trying to find reasons to condemn us."

I could see Brad nod, but before he could speak the speakers started to call out. "Cancun has completed docking. Captain Gates requests teleport to Ishtar so she can meet with the other captains and prepare a report for Admiral Himmel."

I turned to the transporter controls and started making adjustments. It took a few minutes to identify which dock was hosting the ship, but I soon was able to link the pads and activate them. Before I could speak out, Captain Gates appeared on the pad.

"Sorry," she said. "I was watching the power flow and jumped in the instant the pad activated. Did you need me to wait?"

"No," I replied. "James, Captain Gates is here, shall we have her wait for the others?"

"Terrence, how long until Captain Toms will be rescued by Alexis?" James called out.

"No idea," Terrence replied. "I'm expecting her back shortly, but Captain Toms could be intending to be the last man off his ship. One of the responsibilities of being a captain."

"Understandable," I heard my master say. "Cabo is close to docking. Once that happens, we can have Captain Travis and Captain Gates together and allow them to start the briefing."

"Where is Captain Gates?" Colonel Johanes spat out. "I don't see her in the transporter room."

"With all of the casualties moving through our main transporter room, it was decided to bring her directly to one of our briefing rooms," Yvette replied.

"Who's that?" Captain Gates asked.

"He calls himself Chief Scientist Colonel Clint Johanes," Bethany replied. "He showed up a few days ago with some orders proclaiming him acting governor. Since then, he's mostly just interrupted us when we try to do our duties."

"Johanes?" Captain Gates asked. "Any relation to Brett Johanes, the deputy director of colony research?"

"Who?" James asked.

"He's a sub minister in DECO," Captain Gates said. "It's hard to explain, but the way that Miles set up the departments, Brett's duties included some handling of colony setup."

"That means nothing!" Colonel Johanes spat. "And who the fuck are you to even know about that."

"Until just about a year ago I was part of DECO and in charge of colonist selection," Captain Gates replied. "And I remember how things were with the sub minister. Let's just say he fits the mold of a typical DECO bureaucrat. His attitude shows that he's more interested in pushing for saving of all high CAP people. He could care less about everyone else."

"I'll have you court martialed!" Colonel Johanes spat out. "You have no business getting involved in what's happening here on Ishtar."

"I've already been court martialed," Captain Gates said with a laugh. "That's why I'm out here on the back of beyond commanding a corvette. And you forget that you have no authority over people not in your direct chain of command."

"That won't matter in a few days," Colonel Johanes growled. "Now, I need you to report to me. What is happening and why is your ship ripped to shreds?"

"Meiko," Tiffany called out. "Cabo is about to dock. Get ready to teleport Captain Travis."

"Can do!" I said.

Captain Gates had been almost growling at the speakers after the last exchange with Colonel Johanes. Now she started removing her uniform. I could hear Brad and Bethany gasp as she stripped down to a lacy black thong and knelt on the floor right in front of the transporter pad.

"Captain Gates?" Bethany asked.

The only reply was Captain Gates slowly shaking her head from side to side. She remained kneeling as we waited for more information from the speakers.

"James," Alexis said. "I've pulled all of the concubines from Pebble Beach. I still have a dozen crewmen to rescue. Captain Toms is going to need a medical pod before he can give a report. Both of his arms are broken badly and he's starting to cough up blood. It looks like he has a punctured lung."

"Understood," James said. "What about his executive officer?"

"He's already in a medical pod. He suffered even worse injuries. They don't have anyone who can give a good report at the moment," Alexis said.

"Have you heard anything from the crew?" James asked.

"They got a bit too deep and found themselves facing a Sa'arm heavy cruiser alone. They ran, but took several hits to the engine compartment. One of their new engineering recruits noticed the power surge and the engineering lieutenant then ordered everyone out of the engine room. It was sealed just before the overload messed up the gravity system. The only person they lost was the engineering lieutenant."

"Tough little ships," Brad said quietly.

"Meiko, Cabo has docked," Yvette informed me.

I immediately began to cycle the transporter It took little time to determine which pad to connect with, but I soon had the pad hot.

"The Sa'arm are mostly using light weapons," Captain Gates said. "It's like they are more geared towards stopping comets and space debris than fighting ships. But they outnumber us by a lot and if they do enough damage they can destroy a ship."

"But they crushed us in the first few fights," I said. "Captain Travis, the transporter is live, just step onto the pad."

"Yes," Captain Gates replied. "I wasn't there, but they use those battles in training as examples. One thing I noticed was both fights occurred when there were newly arrived hive spheres in the system. I'm guessing the Sa'arm were still going about clearing the system of debris."

"What would you know?" Colonel Johanes spat. "You couldn't even stay in DECO. You're probably some barely qualifying hack who got forced on Miles."

"Actually, Captain Gates had a nine four when she was picked up," Captain Travis said. She had just appeared on the pad. As she spoke, she was looking down at the person she just spoke about. "I'm not sure what her score is now, but unless she was forced to retest it would still be above nine."

There was a long moment of uncomfortable silence in the room. Captain Travis stepped forward and held a hand out to Captain Gates. "What are you doing?" she whispered.

"I know I don't deserve it, but I'm begging for your forgiveness," Captain Gates said.

"Forgiveness? For what?" Captain Travis asked.

"Because I didn't understand," Captain Gates replied. "Dawn? Did you come along just to avoid dying or..."

"What?" Captain Travis asked. "I loved you Jen. You were the reason we all came. Zelda, Ally, Char, and I all came with you because we loved you. It hurt when..."

Captain Gates nodded, tears were pouring from her eyes as she continued to kneel there. Her arms were held straight out and away from her body. "That's why I'm like this. Dawn, I made so many mistakes back then. I was lost. My position in DECO didn't feel right, and Miles rarely offered much in the way of support for his subordinates. I concentrated too much on trying to impress him and his friends and..."

Dawn dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around Captain Gates. She kissed the woman and silenced the words she was about to say. "Say no more," she whispered. "I don't want a fight, and I still care for you."

"On that note, I'll lead them to the briefing room." Brad said. "They deserve privacy for the rest of this reunion."

Brad walked over and reached down to encourage the two ladies to stand. Both said nothing, but the tears in their eyes and the small smiles made it clear that they definitely needed more time and appreciated the gesture Brad was making. They followed him from the room, leaving Bethany and me alone as Colonel Johanes began to rant over the speakers.