Chapter 46 - Visiting Captains

Bethany walked forward once Brad had left the room. I was puzzled by her action until she reached down to pick up something. It took just a moment for me to recognize that it was the uniform Captain Gates had been wearing when she first arrived.

"We definitely should return that to her soon," I said.

Bethany nodded, but made no move to exit the transporter room. Instead, she walked over to stand next to me at the control panel. I turned to ask her a question as the speakers started to squawk.

"James! I demand to listen in on any reports made to Borneo. As governor I need to know anything we are reporting," Colonel Johanes shouted.

"If we decide to send a report, we'll inform you," James snapped. "Right now the only issue we are sure of is that Cabo has lost a few crew and will need to stop at Borneo or Kelor and pick up some replacements."

"You don't have any here?" Colonel Johanes asked.

"Please tell me he's volunteering," Bethany muttered.

"We don't exactly have extra people," Yvette reminded the governor. "And contrary to whatever you appear to believe, we are valued by Borneo Command."

There was a flashing light on the control panel. It indicated that Terrence was trying to activate the unit's intercom. I switched the system on. "Yes?" I asked.

"You can shut down for now," Terrence said. "I"ll escort Alexis back to our side of the colony once she's done. See if James has anything more for you to do."

I did not reply, but began working at the control panel. The first thing I activated was a transporter block, which would prevent anyone from sending someone to the pad. Then I put the system into standby mode so that the block would be maintained. Bethany watched me work and, when the last display faded to gray, nodded.

"Shall we check on our lord and master?" she asked.

"Definitely," I said. "And you can return the uniform at the same time."

"It was nice to see. If I understood it, Captain Travis was originally a concubine and belonged to Captain Gates," Bethany said.

I shivered. "You couldn't get me to train and retest. I want to stay with James."

Bethany gave me a hug. She bent down so her lips were right next to my ear. "Want to know a secret? So do I."

We left the room and started the short walk back to the command post. As we approached we could see Brad pinned to the wall by his two concubines. They had their hands on his shoulders as he held his two children. The expression on Brad's face was a combination of pride and anxiety. Bethany and I did not stop, but from what little we overhead, the two ladies were quite upset at the danger Brad had accepted by attacking the marine.

We entered the command post to discover that Brad's actions were the main topic of discussion. James was standing calmly in the middle of the room and glaring at one of the ceiling speakers.

"I don't know how you spirited that man out of the transporter room, but I want him," Colonel Johanes said.

Bethany moved away from me, heading for the briefing room and carrying Captain Gates' uniform. I headed over to James. As I reached him, Janice reached out to give me a hug.

"He's important to the work we do," James said. "From what I have been able to determine, he only did what was necessary to allow him to complete his assigned tasks."

"He assaulted a higher ranking marine!" Major Bonham snapped. "If we are going to keep order and discipline on this planet, he must be punished for his actions."

"Look," James said. I could hear the strained patience in his voice. He sounded more than a little annoyed at the situation. "No one is denying that Brad got into an altercation with..."

"Corporal Schmidt!" Major Bonham roared. "A man with more than two years of service. Your friend is nothing more than an untrained private."

"Really?" James asked dangerously. "So your man was trained and qualified on transporters and in specific the remote platforms we use?"

"You know that we haven't had time to do that!" Major Bonham shouted. "But your man could have worked with Corporal Schmidt rather than attack him. The attack was completely unnecessary."

"Your man interfered," Yvette replied. "When a ship arrives we don't have time to explain how things work. I've talked to Brad. He ran into the room ready to take control of the transporter and your man refused to allow him to power up the console. He demanded that Brad explain everything."

"I ordered him to do that!" Major Bonham said. "You had made it clear that you weren't going to train anyone."

"When?" James asked. "You've only been here four days, and we've had more than one ship arrive with damage. You never requested training for anyone. If you were to ask, we can set up a training session for him."

"But that will be a private session in a visitor briefing room," Yvette said. "We need to keep training sessions concentrated on training."

"He should bring one of his concubines," Colonel Johanes offered. "It will be a good way to relax and make sure that the trainee isn't worried about unimportant things."

"If it's unimportant," James said in a near monotone. "Why are you bringing it up?"

Major Bonham rallied. "The whole idea behind having concubines was to keep the military from forgetting why they fought. Why can't you just help us out?"

"Because that isn't how we do things here," James said. "Our concubines are valued members of the community. What you keep demanding goes against the traditions we keep on Ishtar."

"Who cares about traditions!" Colonel Johanes shouted.

"We do," Yvette responded. "Now, I know you want to talk more, but right now we have two ship captains here and need to prepare a report for Admiral Himmel."

"I want to be part of that meeting!" Colonel Johanes screamed. "I should be part of preparing any reports."

"There won't be that much to say," Tiffany responded. "All we will be reporting is the arrival of each ship, the damage, and the time to get them back into service. We also let Borneo know how many casualties each ship has suffered so that replacements can be readied. The whole goal here is to turn the ships quickly and allow them to stay in the fight."

"What? That makes no sense. This is a research station!" Colonel Johanes screamed.

"Who told you that?" James asked. "We were never told to do research. The discovery of the artifacts was because we tried to do some scouting of local systems in support of Borneo. Our original mission profile was that we would be a repair and refit station for naval units. Remember that we are inside the Sa'arm sphere of influence. None of the people dropped here would have been high on anyone's list of scientific or military minds. We were all considered expendable."

"I'm not expendable!" Colonel Johanes screamed. "I have some skills vital to the research and development of new weapons."

"It's a bit hard to develop weapons when you spend hours pretending to administrate a planet," Yvette muttered. It was so soft I barely caught it, but I could see James nodding.

Bethany put her hand on my shoulder and whispered. "Let's go check on the captains. It sounds like Colonel Johanes is being useless again."

"Can he really be useful here?" I asked as Bethany walked past me and toward the briefing room. She did not stop so I scrambled to join her. My sister concubine smiled as we made our way to the door. Inside the briefing room we could hear a very happy conversation.

"I can't believe we are both now at Kelor!" one of the two ladies screamed. It sounded like Captain Travis, but I could not be sure. I paused to check, but Bethany swept into the room.

"I thought you might want your uniform back," my sister concubine called out as she entered.

I heard the two captains giggle. Worried, I followed Bethany into the room. Inside I found her holding the uniform in her arms and looking at the two captains.

Captain Gates had claimed one of the chairs and was sitting down. She had her arms around Captain Travis who was sitting on her lap. It was clear that the reunion was going well, as Captain Travis' uniform was open to her waist and Captain Gates' right hand was underneath the cloth.

"I think we interrupted something," I said to Bethany, hoping to get her to move.

"Don't worry," Captain Gates said. Her right hand was clearly caressing Captain Travis. "We wouldn't be quite that blatant. We were just getting reacquainted. It turns out that we are now stationed on the same planet. But Dawn's ship was not home when I arrived and was given command of Cancun. Now I get a chance to try to correct a horrible mistake I made."

"Not that horrible," Dawn said. "I have to admit that I don't regret leaving Earth with you."

"I left you alone and refused to see the love you had for me," Captain Gates said. "We did do a quick debrief first. We agreed that the Sa'arm have started to figure out a way to strike back when we stage a raid, but we can use our maneuverability to avoid many of their attacks."

"But both of your ships were so damaged," I said. Immediately I dropped to my knees and covered my mouth with my hands.

The two captains both laughed. "That's going to happen. The Sa'arm do tend to fire a lot of weapons. Even with the best possible crew, your ship takes hits. The goal is to dodge enough so that no attack makes a direct hit," Captain Travis said. "When you can manage that, you do take damage, but your crew survives. Patrician class ships are tough."

"Are we winning?" Bethany asked.

"No," Captain Gates said. "We don't have enough ships to really win. The Sa'arm control at least seven planets in the area. Two are the ones we keep fighting over."

"The Ursus and Wolf systems?" Bethany asked.

"Yes," Captain Gates replied. "Those are the two we are fighting over at the moment. But just recently we lost two planets in a neighboring district. And the Sa'arm also seized three systems that no one expected them to be interested in. I've talked to Colonel Charles about it."

"Who?" I asked.

"Colonel Jason Charles," Captain Travis replied. "He was recently placed as the commander for the corvette flotilla based out of Kelor."

Captain Gates smiled. "He arrived on the same colony ship I did. But he ended up on a command and training track. One of the things he did during the journey out was to examine the status of the planets in the area. The two taken from Leo district are rich in organic compounds, but don't have the material for shipbuilding. Ursus and Wolf have the resources, but are very inhospitable. Analysis shows that the Sa'arm won't want to live there. The other three are a mix, but definitely will produce their own hive spheres eventually. For now the goal is to try to break the Sa'arm's hold on Wolf and then Ursus. This won't stop them from multiplying, but we might be able to force them away from Borneo District."

"We can't stop them?" I asked.

"We're outnumbered too badly," Captain Travis said. The woman stood up and walked over to me. She put a hand on my chin and forced me to stand. "But if we can slow them down and get them away from the two resource rich systems, we can probably force a stalemate for a generation or two. By then hopefully the Sa'arm on Tufts will have starved to death."

"Tufts?" Bethany asked as Captain Gates stood up to claim the uniform.

Captain Gates put the uniform on. Impishly she turned so that her ass bumped into Captain Travis as she slid her feet and legs into the uniform. Once it was pulled up to her waist, she stood up and looked at Bethany. "Tufts is one of the planets we lost in the Leo District. It"s so light on metals that it looks like the Sa'arm won't be able to build any hive spheres there. They can definitely survive there in large numbers for years, but if we can cut them off from the materials from Wolf and Ursus, they won't be able to expand from there."

"So that's the plan," James said as he walked into the room. "Makes sense. Do you need to place a call to Borneo?"

"Not really," Captain Gates said. "Just get my ship ready and we'll return to the fight."

"I will need to jump to Borneo or Kelor for replacement crew," Captain Travis said. "But that would be the only issue. I do have a question for you."

"We can always answer questions," James said. I noticed that Yvette slipped in behind him.

Captain Travis dithered for a moment. She seemed far too nervous considering that she just wanted to ask a question. Finally she took a deep breath. "I've heard that your concubines perform an amazing show."

I froze. James walked into my sight. He was rubbing his chin and shaking his head. Finally he looked back at Captain Travis. There was a worried smile on his face as he spoke.

"They did perform a show for us a few weeks ago, and then performed for Captain Gates and her crew. Unfortunately, with the current situation, I don't believe I could allow them to perform at this time. We need to allow Colonel Johanes to calm down," James said.

"What's up with him?" Captain Gates asked as she walked up and put her arms around Captain Travis. "I mean, I could understand someone being a bit put out by how things run here. You are less military than the DECO eggheads." Her eyes fogged for a moment. "Only I don't think you have the orgies."

"Orgies?" Captain Travis asked. "You never talked about any orgies when you were with DECO."

"I didn't know about them," Captain Gates replied. She leaned forward to kiss Captain Travis' neck. "I was so miserable in DECO that I left the instant any meeting officially ended. It wasn't until I was charged with having assisted in the creation of this colony that I found out that the meetings were always followed by..."

Captain Travis spun around, breaking the hold Captain Gates had on her. "What? You mean prissy men like that worm Miles Chandler was engaging in orgies?" She turned back to look at James. "And from your lack of reaction, you knew about this!"

"Jen told us the last time she was here," Bethany replied. "Funny thing is that none of us holds it all against her. Living here works for us. It's one of the few times I've heard of it happening, but sometimes doing the wrong thing works out."

"And from what Jen said it wasn't her fault," I said, defending her. "She was just a convenient scapegoat."

James was shaking his head. "Never mind," he commented. "Now as to your request. The best I can offer is a promise that, if you come at a time that Colonel Johanes isn't looking to skin someone, I'll ask the concubines about performing."

"You won't order them?" Captain Travis asked.

Bethany and I jumped forward. We seized James and moved our hands until they hovered over his stomach. He looked down and shivered. "No," he said firmly. "If I tried to do that, they'd see if death by tickling really was possible."

Bethany and I relaxed. "And don't you forget it," Bethany said as she bumped James with her hip. The two captains giggled at our antics.

"So your concubines would refuse?" Captain Travis asked with a giggle. "I didn't think a concubine could refuse anything."

"Oh we wouldn't refuse," Bethany said in a smooth and silky purr. "We love James far too much to refuse him. But that doesn't mean we can't remind him just how we feel about some demands."

"And the truth is that we enjoy performing. We did it first as a labor of love. It was a gift we could give the citizens. Something the replicators couldn't produce," I added.

"Like that tapestry," Captain Gates said with a nod. "I remember hearing that a concubine make that."

"Its hand-weaved?" Dawn said as she spun around to stare at her fellow captain. She raised a hand as if in shock.

"Tina made it," James said with a shrug. "She's one of my concubines. I think she was out in the control room a short time ago."

Everyone turned to look at the doorway, but before we could move the speakers crackled to live. "James!" thundered the voice of Colonel Johanes. "I've just been informed that the last of the crew of that corvette have been brought through the transporter and are in medical pods or resting in the transporter room. I understand that your people want to return to their homes." The final word came after a long pause.

"They do have things to work on here," James replied "Why are you asking?"

"Because you have someone on your side of those doors who should be under arrest. And you clearly are going to harbor him. So, unless you send him out, the three citizens here will not be allowed to return home," Colonel Johanes said.

James just shook his head. I watched as he let out a long sigh full of suffering and then looked up at the ceiling. "I'm not even going to start to argue with you about this one. I am pretty sure that what you are doing is in violation of several tenets of military justice. That said, we are not going to tolerate this kind of bullying. AI, please let Ed, Terrence and Alexis know that we will make sure their children are safe and hope they can come home soon."

"That's unacceptable!" Colonel Johanes screamed. "I am the governor of this planet and you must respect my authority. Private Brad Bostock must stand trial for his assault on another marine. I expect him to appear at the doors to your housing units within the next hour. And I demand that you open up your barracks areas for a proper inspection by Major Bonham."

"Not going to happen," James replied. "And while you might be officially the governor, that doesn't give you the right to bully and insult us. We have lived for a year on this planet and done a great job every time. Now you are saying that an altercation caused by one of the marines you brought requires that you arrest and punish one of the only two fully trained transporter operators we have. I'm going to put my foot down this time. No, he's not part of your chain of command."

"What!" Colonel Johanes screamed. "I'm the governor of this planet, all citizens on this planet are under me. Of course he's part of my chain of command."

"Actually I took the time to review your orders," James replied sharply. "Your orders gave you the position of acting governor, but said nothing about taking command of our unit. We are part of General Montgomery's Marine Division based out of Borneo. I guess we'd be a detached company. For you to have command, you'd need transfer papers from either General Montgomery or Admiral Himmel."

"Don't you dare play political games with me!" Colonel Johanes ranted. "I have far better connections than you might believe. I'll have your head and that of all the citizens here if you defy me! You will turn over Private Bostock to me today or there will be consequences!"