Chapter 2

Joe was out of his med-tube before Alison. It had fixed his eyes so everything looked sharper than before and the nurse, Tammi according to her name-tag, said he wouldn't need his reading glasses any more. He was still thinning on top, but Tammi assured him that work was in progress and his hair would grow back naturally. She was holding Scott in his tube until his mother had finished. Alison was taking longer because she was pregnant.

"There isn't a problem, is there?" Joe asked, worried.

"No, sir. Everything looks fine. We're doing a thorough check because she had a miscarriage about a year ago. There's no sign of any trouble with this one."

While Joe waited, he thought about the situation with Patricia and Wesley. He needed to plan a way for Patricia to return Wesley to Earth, and let her find a replacement concubine. If Wesley was as big a fool as Suki said, then the first part should be easy; Patricia was intelligent enough to realize her mistake. He would need to think harder about the second part.

The AI interrupted his thoughts via his newly installed internal link, «Joe, Suki and Charlie are on their way to medical.»

The two siblings arrived just as the nurse was getting Alison out of her tube. Charlie went into an empty tube, while Suki took the one Alison had vacated. Scott had been in a half-size tube, suitable for young children.

Walking back to their pod, Alison was obviously relieved that her pregnancy was going well. With Confederacy medicine to help, she was confident that this one would be fine.

Leaving Alison to look after Scott, Joe retreated to his office to plan his strategy for the Wesley problem.

Again, the AI interrupted him, "Joe, Suki and Charlie have finished in medical. No problems were detected. Charlie's CAP estimate is 6.3 to 6.7."

Good. Charlie had an excellent chance of making sponsor, if not the first time then on one of his annual retests. As his guardian, it was up to Joe to help Charlie make it over the line.

Soon after Suki and her brother returned, Alison produced some food in the kitchen. Scott proudly told everyone that he'd helped set the table. Joe noticed that Charlie ignored the young boy, and called him on it. "Charlie, say thank you to your younger brother."

The look on Charlie's face was priceless. Suki just about succeeded in not spraying her mouthful of food over the table. "That's right big brother," she managed to get out before collapsing into laughter again.

Joe did a stage whisper into Charlie's ear, "Call her 'mother'."

That set Joe and Alison off at the shocked expressions on the siblings' faces. "You're my concubine, Suki," he told her. "So you're a mother to all my dependents. Just like Alison is a mother to both Scott and Charlie, so are you."

"But only for a few months," Charlie put in.

"Five months, one week and four days, Earthat time," the AI interrupted, surprising Charlie.

"Yeah, then I'll be a sponsor. Maybe Joe will give you to me?" he said to his sister.

Joe shook his head to reassure Suki. "Only if you make sponsor, Charlie. It's not certain."

"I'll make sponsor for sure." Charlie didn't have any doubt.

"AI," Joe asked, "is there any specific training available to help Charlie reach the score for sponsor?"

"Yes, Joe. Special courses are available for those with a CAP estimate near 6.5. Charlie's estimate qualifies him for those courses."

"Oh shi..." Charlie said, moderating his language just in time. "I'm gonna be on extra-credit courses for five months."

"Would you rather spend a year as a concubine?" Joe asked.

Charlie grimaced. He did not want to be a concubine. If he was, then Suki would tease him mercilessly all year. He'd teased her when she'd scored 5.2 and there was no way she'd miss the chance to get him back if she could.

Luckily, Alison had brought some of Scott's favorite toys with her to Ossie's, and she'd found a big stuffed toy Confederacy Marine for him in the replicator menus. That helped reconcile him to leaving behind his other toys. He played with his old and new toys – including the new toys called Joe, Suki and Charlie – before his mother announced it was bedtime.

All of them got a childish kiss before Alison took him off to the bathroom and to bed. Scott was soon asleep, hugging his new toy Marine. The AI, acting as baby monitor, showed a small display of him sleeping for Alison.

Joe enjoyed having Scott around. It reminded him of when his own children were young, and when his marriage was still good. Better to remember the good times than the not-so-good. Even Charlie seemed to enjoy Scott using him as an impromptu climbing frame. A quick check with the AI showed that Charlie's estimated parenting scores were clearly above average. Good, that would be important later on. Joe had calculated the number of children he could expect in his family, and Charlie's family would be the same size. Good parenting skills would be essential.

There was more work to do on the Wesley problem, so Joe retired to his office to discuss his options with the AI. From its point of view, Wesley was worthless – only sponsor-level humans counted for anything. Female concubines had some use for breeding, but male concubines were expendable. The AI assumed that sponsors, not concubines, would father all children. Joe had to rework his arguments away from the effect on Wesley to emphasize the effect on Patricia. The AI understood that killing Wesley would have a bad effect on Patricia, and that could justify the slight expenditure of resources needed to return him to Earth. Even arguing that Wesley would be of military age when the Sa'arm arrived didn't have any real impact. One soldier more or less didn't count for a lot in the AI's view.

It was very clear to Joe that the Confederacy saw humans as no more than a temporarily useful, though unpredictable, tool. If they hadn't been threatened by the Swarm, then the Confederacy would have avoided Earth altogether and kept all those dangerously violent humans in quarantine.

The AI was more helpful with the second part of the problem, finding a new male concubine for Patricia. It came up with some suggestions that Joe could put to her.

Joe decided to take Alison to bed that night. Suki wasn't happy about that, but she'd had Wesley at the pickup, while Alison had only had her pussy licked briefly.

He checked that both Suki and Charlie knew the Confederacy's rules about sex with minors. They had some idea, but Joe told them: no sex with each other. It wasn't a big danger; a, "Ewww," from Suki and a, "Yuck," from Charlie confirmed that the two siblings weren't interested in each other that way. Joe told the AI to monitor them anyway – better to make sure.

Alison and Joe approached sex slowly. They were both experienced and neither felt the need to rush into things. Alison was very protective of her pregnancy – because of her previous miscarriage, Joe assumed – so she didn't want missionary. Joe wanted to see her face, so they started with cowgirl. Bouncing on Joe's rod hurt Alison's enlarged tits. She tried holding them, but that felt too awkward. Eventually they managed with Alison lying at the edge of the bed and Joe kneeling on the floor between her thighs. They both got a surprise when the AI unexpectedly lowered the bed to line the two of them up correctly. It wasn't a wild night of passion, more a confirmation of what their new relationship would be. If Joe wanted passion, then Suki was the better choice.

For Alison, the sex was more about reassurance than anything else. She still had Scott, but she'd had to leave Pete behind. Joe wasn't Pete, not by a long way, but he obviously wanted to make this new situation work for both of them.

For his part, Joe was careful not to ask about Alison's husband. He assumed that the Confederacy would have done something in the med-tube earlier that day to take the edge off her loss. There would be a lot of people: dependents, concubines and sponsors, who had left partners, parents or friends behind. He let the nanites work undisturbed. They could discuss her husband later, if she raised the subject.

Over breakfast the AI announced that they all had training to attend. Alison and Suki had concubine training, while Charlie had school.

"What about Scott?" Alison asked.

"Childcare facilities are provided," the AI informed her.

Joe had an introductory Naval lecture to go to, so he had to put on his new black uniform. Suki didn't like her gray shift one bit, but with Charlie around she kept it on. She knew that if she took it off, she'd like his comments even less.

Joe told them to meet him in the mess for lunch and they all set off for their different destinations.

Looking round the mess, it was obvious that the ship wasn't fully loaded yet. More than half the tables were empty, and those that weren't generally had plenty of space. Joe saw Al Zuckerman, in a green Marine uniform, sitting with the blonde mother from Ossie's, her twins and a second concubine; probably one of the office workers since she looked too old for high school. He could talk to his former colleague later, first he needed to talk to Patricia.

Luckily, Patricia was at a table with enough empty places for Joe's family of five. He sent his two women, with Scott, to collect food from the replicators, while he and Charlie went to Patricia's table.

Patricia had obviously been through the tubes as well, since she wasn't wearing glasses now and her hair looked better than it had in Ossie's. Like Joe, she was in a black Navy uniform.

"Do you mind if we sit here?" he asked.

"No problem." She waved a hand to take in the five empty seats at the table.

Joe sat next to her at the circular table, "You're Patricia, aren't you?"

"I prefer Patty. The other sounds too formal."

"Fine, Patty it is then. I'm Joe."

She nodded. "You picked the Navy as well? I saw you in this morning's lecture."

He hadn't noticed her, so she must have been sitting behind him, Joe thought. "Yes, I don't want to be a two-meter gorilla."

"One of my uncles is Navy, US Navy that is, so I followed him," she explained.

The rest of Joe's family arrived, with Scott dashing ahead. He sat next to Charlie, followed by Alison and lastly Suki. That put Suki next to Wesley, who was sitting furthest from Patty.

Patty looked at Suki and commented, "I see you picked the number two bitch."

"I wanted a number two. She needs to follow orders from myself and Alison. I chose her because she does what she's told."

"Yeah, she was always a follower," Patty confirmed.

Just then Suki interrupted them, shouting, "Get your fucking hands off me, Wesley! I don't belong to you, you stupid asshole!"

As Joe got up to investigate the problem he heard Patty say, "Shit," under her breath. He also saw one of the Marines moving closer to the table, probably anticipating a potential problem.

Wesley suddenly realized he was in deep trouble. Two sponsors and one of those big Marines were converging on him, and the Marine had some sort of weapon in her hand.

The Marine ignored Wesley completely. "Which of you two owns this one?" she asked the two sponsors.

"I do," Patty answered nervously.

"Want me to recycle him, or just sting him?" the Marine asked.

Joe could see that Patty was panicking, unable to decide what to do. "I suggest that you have him stung for the moment, Patty."

She nodded, and the Marine pointed her weapon at Wesley. There was a strange sizzling sound and he slumped unconscious to the floor.

There were a few screams from nearby tables, and Patty looked shocked. "He's not... ?"

"No, he's not dead," Joe reassured her. "We need to talk about him though."

Patty nodded, "I think I made a mistake there."

As Joe had anticipated, she'd already realized her error with Wesley. That would make things easier. "Eat quickly and we can talk in private," he suggested.

The AI directed them to a small room off the mess. Joe started, "Suki warned me about Wesley, so I took the liberty of exploring some options for you." Patty nodded. "You can return Wesley to Earth if you want to. If you don't, he'll probably do something else stupid and you'll have to kill him."

"Oh no! I don't want to have to execute him. You're probably right though. Sometime soon he's really going to put his foot in it."

"Yes, so best to send him back now, while we're still in Earth orbit. Once we're on our way, killing him is pretty much the only option."

Patti nodded, "At least he'll still be alive. But that leaves me short of a stud."

"You have some options there. AI?"

"Sponsor Patricia Keown, you have two primary options," the AI told her. "Firstly, you can let the Marine Extraction Teams select the best available male concubine for you from multiple concurrent extractions. Secondly, you could join a team and select a candidate yourself from a single extraction."

"I'll want to select him myself, but how do I avoid picking another loser?"

Joe butted into the conversation, "I used the AI to help me at our pickup. I told it what I wanted and it pointed me at the best matches. You could do the same."

"Can you do that, AI?" Patty asked.

"Affirmative. It would be useful to know your requirements in advance, to narrow down the selection. We can discuss options early this afternoon, and you could accompany an extraction team later today or tomorrow morning."

"OK, I'll do that," Patty said. "Send Wesley back to Earth. I'll think about his replacement and talk to you in about thirty minutes."

"Acknowledged," the AI replied.

Joe excused himself and returned to his family in the mess.

Wesley woke up lying on a hard floor. He hurt like hell, and he suspected that things weren't looking good for him.

The big Marine from the mess loomed over him. "You blew it big-time, motherfucker. Your sponsor has dumped you and, luckily for you, she doesn't want you dead. Me, I'd recycle you for basic stupidity, but you got lucky. She's sending you back."

"Wha'?"

"You're going back downstairs with a big red mark on your CAP card: 'Do not let this moron go with a female sponsor'. Better hope you can find some high CAP gay guy who likes your ass, 'cause if you don't you're gonna be Swarm McNuggets."

Picking him up easily, the Marine frogmarched him over to a transporter. "This will take you back to the CAP Testing Center where you got your card. After that you're on your own." She pushed him towards the transporter. "Sayonara, asshole."