Chapter 47 - At a Standoff

James waved at the ceiling. "End this call," he muttered.

"The communication has ended," the AI replied. "Please note that Major Bonham is looking for ways to conduct surveillance of this side of the colony. Do you wish to block his attempts?"

"I should," James replied with a snarl. "But if he only sees rooms and not the hallways it shouldn't matter too much. Just make sure he doesn't find out about our little hold out tunnel. I'm beginning to fear we might have to use it someday."

Yvette gasped as she entered the room. "James you are talking about taking on trained marines. We don't have the training to do that."

"Tell me something I don't know," James growled. Bethany and I threw ourselves at James and pushed him down into a chair. We covered his face and neck with kisses as we tried to calm him down. Behind us I could hear Yvette inviting Captain Gates and Captain Travis an opportunity to return to their ships. The repairs were ongoing, but it sounded like Cancun was going to be able to leave the system in less than a day. Both captains quietly agreed and left the room, but Yvette remained behind. She came over and put a hand on James' shoulder as Bethany and I sat on his thighs and pinned him in a chair.

"That wasn't very wise," Yvette said quietly.

"That man isn't here just to study the artifacts," James replied. "If this was just a research mission he wouldn't need four dozen marines. And he spends far too much time trying to tell us what to do. Something isn't right."

Yvette reached out to stroke my cheek. I leaned into her arm. "That's a reasonable explanation for why we have an unreasonable idiot pretending he's in charge," Yvette said with a sigh. "But that doesn't mean you should be antagonizing him. The balance of power does favor him at the moment."

"We still have our doors," James replied. "And for now at least the AI appears to support keeping the doors closed unless we order the doors to open. That prevents the man from doing too much."

"Alexis, Terrence and Ed are on the far side of the doors right now," Yvette pointed out. "And the governor has already threatened to hold them until we give them Brad."

"Won't happen," James said. "We can't allow him to believe he is in command. He hasn't shown any interest in helping us run the repair depot. That is our main goal and the real purpose of this colony."

Yvette nodded. "True. Now, you've been dealing with this crisis for more than eight hours. You should take a break."

James pushed me off his knee. Bethany scrambled to stand as well just before our master stood up. He put his arms around us. "I do want to spend time with my children and my ladies, but first we should find out what's happening with Pebble Beach. The last thing I need is for our good governor to claim that I wasn't doing my duty."

"But master," Bethany said in a little girl voice. "You have three children waiting for their father to hold them for the first time."

Yvette and I burst out laughing. The merry sounds must have carried through the open door because Marie, Tina and Janice dashed into the room. Marie just looked at James who joined in the laughter after a moment, but my sister concubines charged into his arms.

"Master!" Tina cried. "It's so nice to hear you laugh."

"What makes him laugh?" Marie asked. "All I'm hearing is that everyone is stressed and that our new governor is a problem."

"Bethany found a great way to break the tension in here," Yvette said. "Now why don't you drag James out to the command area so we can find out how long all the repairs are going to take?"

Tina and Janice immediately started pulling James from the room. He leaned away from them for a moment, but allowed them to drag him from the room. Bethany and I stood there with Yvette and Marie. I was going to follow James, but Yvette held out her hand and prevented us from leaving. "Wait for a moment," she told us.

I paused. The woman who was James' unofficial second in command had a worried frown on her face. She waited until the door closed and then waved towards the chairs. Bethany immediately sat down in the chair that James had been using. I froze for a moment and then climbed into my sister concubine's lap. She put her arms around me as I shivered.

"Oh, it's not bad," Yvette informed us as she sat down and pulled Marie into her lap. "I just wanted to hear what you know. Especially what you thought about Major Bonham when he visited the lasers."

"Did Tina not say anything?" I asked. "She was there as well."

Yvette laughed. "Tina was, and I've talked to her. But she wasn't really paying close attention to the man. She admitted that she doesn't know what to say. She doesn't have much experience with men like Major Bonham."

I shrugged. "He seemed interested. Yet, he didn't really look too closely at anything in the rooms. I would have expected him to take a much closer look at the controls, but Tina got closer to the unit than he did."

Yvette nodded. "Tina mentioned that as well. I suspect he was more interested in trying to look around this side of the colony. He did have his minions move forward when the final door opened upon his exit from our area."

"That's going to become a problem," Tif said as she walked into the room. She found a chair and sat. Jillian quickly ran into the room and jumped in her lap, kissing her face before anyone could say anything.

"Not really," Yvette responded when the kiss ended. "We still have the other three routes and if we absolutely have to we can use the transporter system to bypass the doors. It does show that we can't trust the man, but I think we already knew that."

"I just don't understand why they are making some of the demands we are hearing," I said. "I mean why arrive with no concubines and then demand that James allow them access to...well..."; I stopped and hid my face in Bethany's chest, holding her as I shivered.

"Something that you don't seem to want," Marie observed. "Not that I really want it either. I agree the situation doesn't make much sense."

"The reason they brought no concubines is because this is officially a temporary assignment," Tif said. "The captain of Sir Paridell told me that his original orders were that the scientists would only be here for a few days. He was very surprised to hear that our visitors had paperwork declaring the good Clint Johanes as the acting governor."

"Acting shithead," Jillian said with a pout. "He's got you so stressed you haven't been around to play the last three nights. Whitney and Claire are nice, but we want to have you and Tam to cuddle with."

"I know," Tiffany said with a sigh. "Tam and I wish we could spend every night with you." Tiffany paused and looked at the floor. I could see a blush spread up her face. Soon her cheeks were bright red. "I miss you so much. It's funny, the Tradition that James established would seem to completely violate the spirit of the concubine system. When I was in school everyone talked about how the citizens would have the concubines as nothing more than sex slaves. I watched in school as the few students with good scores created little harems. Many treated the girls they chose poorly, but the girls accepted it for the chance to get off the planet. But now, I know that loving my concubines gives me a reason to strive harder for the Confederacy and everyone here."

Yvette laughed. "I think we all found that. It does seem rather strange. I knew that I'd love Philipe even though he was going to be my concubine, but I never expected to find so much love with everyone. Marie and Esther are family."

"Family you tie up and make lick you until you scream out multiple orgasms," Marie quipped as she twisted around and placed a passionate kiss on Yvette's lips.

Jillian immediately twisted her own body and started to cover Tiffany's face with kisses. Bethany and I giggled. "Reminds me of how we are with James," Bethany whispered into my ear. She followed those words with a teasing nibble of my earlobe. A sound that was a cross between a sigh and an orgasmic moan erupted from my lips.

The other two couples both stopped their kissing. I could see Tiffany and Yvette gazing at me. "Sounds like a good one," Tif quipped. "But I don't think that we're here to have a lesbian orgy."

"No," Bethany replied as she moved her lips away from my neck. I leaned back into her. Her right hand reached up to hold my body away from hers. "I'm fairly sure Yvette wanted to talk about something a bit more important."

"I do," Yvette said. "We just need to work to keep James and that colonel from talking. It seems that our good visiting scientist likes to try to antagonize James."

"The colonel will just try to aggravate you," I whispered. "I don't think he's going to stop. As we've already observed, he's after something. I'm surprised he hasn't ordered James to make all the pods on this side of the colony open for inspections."

"Could he do that?" Tif asked.

"He could tell us he was giving the order," Yvette said calmly. "But one of the things James and I discovered is that technically Colonel Johanes has no authority over us. The orders that moved him to Ishtar could only make him 'acting governor'. However, everyone on Ishtar from the start was part of a maintenance unit under the command of General Montgomery. We report to Borneo and only an order from Borneo could give the colonel command over us. He is merely responsible for the administration of the planet."

"Will he accept that?" Jillian asked. "I've been chatting with Marilyn. She compared what is happening here to colonies established back on Earth during the days when ships used sails to provide power. She was a history teacher and told me that back then governors had absolute power in the colonies."

"They did, but their authority had limits. They couldn't take over standing military units. In fact many had no military support outside of militia units or mercenaries they hired," Bethany said. "I'm guessing that Yvette is telling us that Colonel Johanes is in the same position. Although he does have the marines under Major Bonham to back him up."

"Exactly," Yvette replied. "Fortunately, the AI unit appears to be holding to James' last orders regarding the passages between our homes and the area of the colony we put our visitors. They can't open the doors in the main passage, and don't even seem to be aware of the others yet."

"They'll figure out that we have other ways to get between the two areas soon if they haven't already," I said. "After all, James used the door to the skating rink to sneak back last time. I'm sure Colonel Johanes has figured out that James has escaped him."

There was a loud squawk over the speakers. "Get me James!"

Yvette placed a kiss on Marie's forehead. "He's gone back to his pod for some well deserved rest. What do you need him for?"

"I need him in front of me," Colonel Johanes screamed. "Right now!"

"No," Yvette said. She held Marie's chin and gave her concubine a series of brief kisses.

For several moments there was no response. I held Bethany's hands in mine as we waited to hear the response. I could see Jillian shivering in Tif's arms as Yvette went about teasing her concubine.

Finally the speakers erupted again. "Major Bonham, bring James to me now!"

"I can't do that," the voice of Major Bonham replied.

"What?" Colonel Johanes screamed. The scream was so forceful I glanced up at the nearest speaker, almost expecting to see spittle flying from it. "How is it you can't bring James to me?"

"I don't know where he is," Major Bonham began slowly. "I expect he's still on the other side of the armored doors I passed through over sixteen hours ago when I visited the laser setup the colony has. He did not follow me out, but the doors closed behind me."

"So open them and go fetch him," Colonel Johanes said.

"The doors won't open," Major Bonham replied. "I'm at them now. We kept the third door from closing when I exited this morning, but the second door is closed."

"What about the first door? Or do you not know about that one?"

"It closed before the second door opened," Major Bonham replied. "The system appears to be designed to make it impossible to run down the hallway and catch all the doors open. Only one door is open at a time."

"What?" I could hear Colonel Johanes shout. "AI, what is the meaning of this? I demand that Major Bonham be given access to the tunnel behind the armored doors."

"I am unable to comply with that request," the AI replied tonelessly.

I gasped, but Yvette was smiling and shaking her head. "I knew it," she whispered.

"What?" I asked.

"I hear the AI has finally made it official that it doesn't consider Colonel Johanes much of a governor," Terrence called out. I looked up as he stepped into the room. He looked over at the nearest speaker.

"Colonel, the problem is rather simple. When those doors were installed they were set up to separate the two halves of the colony so that we could do our jobs without being interrupted by the barbarians who were dropped with us. The official word was that as long as we fulfilled the tasks set for the colony in regards to repairing damaged ships and monitoring this region of space for the Confederacy, those doors would protect us. It appears the AI is going to maintain those rules," Terrence said.

"How would you know that?" Colonel Johanes screamed. "And why would you believe that! I know how the AI units work and they'd never accept such an order."

"Everyone who is alive on Ishtar remembers how things were when we landed," Terrence replied. "And we saw how those doors worked multiple times. The AI has been quite happy to support the policies put into place when we originally landed. And I don't see why it matters to you. I thought you were here to conduct research. Your demands to see James could hardly be regarded as research."

"I have my orders," Colonel Johanes reported. "And those orders placed me as governor of this planet and system. As governor it's my duty to deal with disciplinary issues. James is preventing me from conducting a proper investigation into the actions of your man who assaulted a marine."

"You can conduct the investigation whenever you need to," Yvette said.

"Not without interviewing the criminals involved!" Colonel Johanes snapped. "What kind of fool do you take me for?"

"An old one," Terrence muttered. He sighed and then looked at the ceiling. "Colonel, you can always set up an interview via the communications system. I don't think anyone has refused to talk to you. However, might I suggest that you calm down first. No one is going to believe you are impartial if you start an interview by calling someone a criminal."

"Can anyone actually be a criminal anymore?" Tif asked. "I'd think the worst punishment would involve a retest. At least for the level of crime that Brad is accused of. Somehow I don't think he'll have much trouble."

Yvette laughed. "Maybe we should allow Colonel Johanes to charge him. It would be interesting to see the results of a retest. I'd lay money on his score increasing."

"Fine, send him to me," Colonel Johanes said. "And tell him to bring his concubines. They can serve my men until the investigation is over and he passes his retest."

I gasped. Yvette just glared at the ceiling. "AI, please remind this officious twit that he doesn't have the right or the authority to tell anyone what they do with their property. And while you are at it, can we place an official complaint with Central Command about the caliber of man they consider worthy of being the governor of our colony."

"AI, I command that you not release any message drones without my order!" Colonel Johanes screamed.

There was a moment of silence. Then my master's voice rang out. "Yvette, why is the AI asking me about sending out a message drone? I thought we had settled everything for today."

"What do you mean the AI is asking you!" Colonel Johanes shouted. He was so loud I was wondering what the marines and scientists near him thought. "I should be the only one to give orders to the AI on this planet!"

"Colonel, I didn't even ask to be part of this argument," James said with a sigh. "I was enjoying an evening with four of my concubines and my children. I don't get to spend enough time with them. Now, I joined this conversation when the AI told me that Yvette had requested a message drone be sent to Central Command. I knew nothing about your feelings about it."

"I'm the governor! I'm supposed to make those decisions," Colonel Johanes repeated.

"Governor," James said slowly. "You have yet to actually govern this colony. Honestly, I don't think you ever planned on governing. Since you arrived you have threatened and berated the citizens who were here before. As for who makes the decisions regarding the drones, it's clear to me that the AI unit will make the final decision. I couldn't even tell you where the drone will launch from, but I'm willing to bet that it won't be from the surface of Ishtar, so none of us can stop it. Why don't you concentrate on your research and stop worrying about things you have no knowledge of?"

"Drone launched," the AI said in its toneless voice.

"Cut communications," Yvette snapped. She gently pushed Marie off her lap and stood up. I was staring at the ceiling speaker when Yvette walked up to Bethany and me. "Go to James," she said. "This is going to open up a huge controversy and we'll need to remain calm. Colonel Johanes can't do much directly, but I imagine he won't just accept what just happened."

"Two message drones have been launched by Sir Paridell," the AI informed us.

I gripped Bethany's arms as I jumped out of her lap, then we sprinted out of the room and headed home. My heart was in my throat as I thought about the danger that had descended on the colony.