Chapter 7 - An encounter with a Bully

Once at the medbay we found Ensign Bates sitting and having a rather animated conversation with Janice and Tina. The earlier changes I had planned had been followed through on. I had to stop for a moment as I examined the four beauties waiting for me in the medbay. With Ensign Bates telling some kind of entertaining story none of them noticed me for a moment, but then Meiko turned and seemed to explode out of her chair to wrap me up in a hug.

My other ladies noticed me as Meiko burst from her chair and all followed her, giving me loving hugs.

"Wow," Yvette said as she saw the changes. "You barely made any changes, but those changes are impressive. I'd love to borrow your ladies for an evening."

I could feel Janice and Meiko both stiffen next to me and sighed. "Not funny Yvette. My girls are part of a family, and we don't do stuff like that."

Bethany laughed. "I think Yvette knows that. She just wanted to let you know that she finds us beautiful."

I turned to glare at Bethany, but she only nodded towards me and winked. Yvette laughed as she apologized and once each of my ladies had the opportunity to twirl and pose, we left the medbay heading for my pod.

We were walking down the center ring and nearly at the crossover to the green ring when a nasty voice rang out. "Well, well. To think that such beautiful ladies were just waiting to be taken by Big Larry. Come little chickies, you are mine, tonight."

Yvette and I had been leading the group, and turned together. Just behind my four ladies was a brute of a man, standing about six foot five and well over three hundred pounds, little of it muscle. He was leering obscenely at Bethany and Tina.

I did not hesitate for once. "Yvette, please escort my ladies to my pod. I will take care of the apeman."

Yvette laughed as Meiko, Tina, Bethany and Janice dashed past us. "They will be untouched until you return," she promised as she followed them down the corridor and I stepped into the middle to block the way.

The man who called himself Big Larry watched them run off and then glared hard at me. "You can't protect them you know. I'm going to just beat you to a pulp and then drag you to the door where you'll beg me to let you open the door so I can have two of those beauties. I'll deal with the bitch and her two friends later."

"Why not just return to your own cubicle and the concubines you have?" I asked, trying to distract the man.

He frowned and started forward. "One of them died last night. She decided that her darling daughter wasn't to be touched by me and I beat her," he hissed. "Now I think I'll take one of yours as a replacement until the daughter can be touched. She has a week until she's fourteen."

His words shocked me, but I kept my eyes on his hands and was easily able to duck the wild roundhouse swing he made with his right. Larry growled and followed up with a thrust from his left hand, and instead of simply ducking I grabbed the arm and pulled him towards me, using my hip to toss him into the air.

As he landed I let go and dashed around him to resume blocking the corridor. Larry lay there for a moment, shaking his head as if surprised I had tossed him, but got to his feet and again led with a right hand roundhouse that I easily ducked.

He followed it with another roundhouse swing, but this time from the left. Rather than try to toss him I grabbed the arm as it went past and used the elbow and shoulder as pressure points to force him to his knees. Unfortunately, once I had him down I could not think of an attack that would not free his arm, so I quickly released him and again moved down the corridor to wait.

"Tricky bastard," he growled as he stood back up and looked at me. "But you obviously don't really know the moves. You're just buying time. Well, time has run out for you."

Larry put both hands together over his head and charged right at me. I was retreating and trying to find an opening when a shrill sound rang out behind him and he slowly fell over. I looked past him to see Sergeant Powell in the corridor, leading an obviously frightened, naked teenaged girl.

"Damn Neanderthals," the Sergeant grumbled as he walked over to look at the man he had just stunned with a stinger. "If the AI would let me, I'd have them all turned into dickless eunuchs for the rest of the trip out."

"It wouldn't work on the females, and I remember seeing a few of them at the meeting, too," I said.

The Sergeant laughed. "Oh joy, yes! Ruth, Ellen, Barbara, Eunice and Gertrude! Those five are worse than the men. Ruth and Ellen are two of the ringleaders too."

He looked more closely at Larry, and I noticed that the girl behind him had covered her eyes and was crying onto the deck. "Um, she looks a bit young," I started.

The Sergeant snorted. "She's a week away from fourteen. Was the daughter of one of the concubines belonging to this monster. The AI told us about his attempts to force her. Right now we need to find her a home until she turns fourteen and can be tested."

I thought for a moment. "How about with Brenda and the bunnies? The rabbits might help calm her, and Brenda wouldn't mind a visitor."

The Sergeant looked at me and nodded. "The only problem will be if she doesn't score high enough to volunteer. We aren't carrying any spares, and right now we have three sponsors who are short concubines."

"Three?" I asked.

The Sergeant nodded. "Ruth threw her male concubine away at that first briefing. Larry here killed Brittany's mother, and Dennis killed one of his because she wouldn't stop crying after anal sex."

"Bloody hell," I muttered as an AI-controlled grav sled pulled up next to Larry's inert body. Powell immediately looked at me.

"Help me throw his body on and we can walk over to the bunny pod. Putting Brittany there is a good idea," he said.

Sergeant Powell easily could have moved the body by himself, but I did join in as Larry's body was unceremoniously thrown onto the platform of the grav sled, which quickly vanished down the corridor. Throughout our labor the girl I now knew as Brittany hovered just behind the Sergeant much like Meiko would hover near me in the pod.

"If she doesn't score high enough, you ought to take her with you," I said indicating Brittany as we walked down the corridor of the green ring. "She appears to trust you."

The sergeant laughed. "Can't. I'm already one over the official limit because I accepted my brother's concubines after he died in battle. I could only do that because I turned one concubine in to civil service because she couldn't seem to get along with the rest of my household."

"I'm sorry," I replied.

"Don't be," was his quiet answer. "Kayla and Lena are wonderful ladies, and have meshed well with my household. I do miss my brother, but his fighter didn't survive when the strike carrier Wake Island got caught between one of their advance ships and a Sa'arm planet."

"Any survivors?" I asked.

The Sergeant snorted. "Three fighters, one bomber, and two crew shuttles carrying ten crew, and thirty concubines from the Wake. The ship had gone out with a full compliment. Thirty fighters, organized as two fifteen-unit squadrons, twelve bombers, and a crew of one hundred forty. One hundred eighty two total military personnel, and one hundred forty concubines since the navy allows their crew to have one concubine each accompany them."

I could see Brittany stiffen as she heard the news. "I'd love to hear more, especially as we are going to be behind their front line as it were, but later," I said as we reached the door to Green seven. The hallway was quiet. "AI, is concubine Brenda awake?" I asked.

"Yes, and she has several rabbits out. I have reconfigured this pod door to allow humans to step in and keep the rabbits from escaping when necessary, do you wish me to open it this way?" the AI asked.

"Please," I answered. "The door opened up at a height of two feet, forcing the Sergeant, the girl and I to step over it to enter. As soon as we were all inside the door quickly closed.

Brenda appeared from the back and we watched a couple rabbits dash into the room ahead of her. She seemed to be a bit unhappy when she saw us. "You aren't the right person," she muttered as she waved us towards a bench set along one wall.

"Sorry Brenda," I said. "We came here for a reason though."

"Yeah, play with the bunnies and then abandon me to boredom," Brenda said in a huff. "I haven't even seen Matt all day."

Sergeant Powell coughed. "That's partly my fault. We were directed to release all but a couple of personnel and Corporal Mattingly and I are the last two marines on this side of the ship. He and I have been kept far too busy dealing with problems."

"Problems?" snapped Brenda. "But these are all supposed to be high CAP people."

I sighed. "Brenda, people change all the time, and most of these people barely had the scores to volunteer. I understand that there are only three people with scores above six point eight among the volunteers. The ones causing trouble are seeing themselves as little overlords and kings and haven't been too worried about who they might hurt."

Brenda just stared at me as Sergeant Powell nodded. "And that's why we're here now," he said. He reached out to help Brittany stand in front of Brenda. "Can you watch this young lady and let her stay with you for at least a week?" he asked.

"What?" Brenda said, clearly surprised.

Brittany surprised everyone by speaking up. "I'm sorry, but Larry wants to, and I'm not fourteen, and I don't like him, so I want to get away, but where to, and the Sergeant said he'd find me a place until I can test next week!"

She returned to silence, shivering in fear. Brenda smiled and gave her a quick hug. "Its okay, you can stay here, but the rabbits require a lot of attention. I hope you're ready."

Brittany looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time. The front room held the cages for probably twenty of the sixty-four rabbits residing in the pod. There were a couple of the younger rabbits playing tag outside the cages as she scanned the room, but most of the rabbits were resting peacefully in their cages.

"But?" Brittany said.

"Fellow colonists," I said. "Of course, they didn't volunteer, but they are coming along."

"Except mine," Brenda said. "Matt agreed to that last night. I can keep my girls, but I have to leave some of their litters behind."

I nodded. "I figured that, we can probably do a bit of swapping when it's time for you to leave. Momma rabbits don't care about if it's their baby or that of another rabbit, so we can foster babies, and perhaps let you travel with a few unrelated rabbits to help expand the gene pool you have."

A naked Brittany was wandering between the cages, looking at the rabbits and pausing to pet them. Sergeant Powell laughed to see her happy. "Well, I have to get back to work. Captain Nelson is talking about issuing a general lock down where no one can leave a pod without approval. We are supposed to discuss that shortly." He turned to me. "You should get a stinger, you are approved, and it will definitely allow you to protect your ladies, although from what I saw, you just need to take some of the martial arts sleep training. As for Brittany, she should be good here, but do get her in some clothes Brenda, so that she'll feel a bit more comfortable. AI, since Brittany is still a child don't argue about clothing, please."

The Sergeant left, and after a quick stop to say hello to the rabbits I claimed I headed out to return to my own pod.