Chapter 29: Sprinting to Our New Home

The day we spent in the Kelor system proved to be a good break for everyone. Most of my crew had made friends outside the ship during the training and it seemed like every single member of my crew was bidding godspeed to friends they had made during our four week journey.

Once the three hundred citizens had separated from Princess Victoria we were informed that the ship would be increasing speed for the final run to Borneo. Instead of having multiple days, the ship would be arriving at our new home in about thirty-six hours.

This announcement sent ripples of excitement through my crew. Luther, Philip and Este all reported that their teams were looking forward to actually walking the deck of our ship. I knew the feeling and began looking into the berthing setup. This resulted in the calling of an emergency meeting with my officers twelve hours after we had left Kelor. This time we held it in my pod, allowing their concubines to come and visit with Jade and Bryn.

I was sitting in my entry lounge with my officers and it was Tilly who started the main part of the conversation.

“I see how this will be a disaster,” she said. “The crew berths are set up as mostly triple bunk beds and the crew rotate through sleep periods. Most of the beds will have two people using them each day depending on which shift they work on when we aren’t fighting. Obviously during a battle no one sleeps.”

“Seven sleeping spots for my gunner crews. Two of the triple bunk rooms and then a single room with three bunks. I was going to have my team leads use the single room,” Este said. “At least the officer room is nearby.”

“I’ll be sharing that with you,” Tilly said. “It’s a bit larger than the crew bunks, but not much.”

“Engineering isn’t any better,” Herb said. “If you include the damage control crews that use many of the same spaces, we also get two rooms each with triple bunks. Luther, are your people going to be able to work with that?”

“I was going to ask if you would be willing to have one of those rooms be female only,” Luther said. “I have four women on my damage control teams and you have two in engineering. It might keep some of the arguments down. Especially now that we were informed that any crewman can bring a single concubine, if that concubine is not pregnant.”

“Which means that none of the male crew will have their concubines along,” I said. “But the concubines stay in a special room that’s deep along the spine of the ship. They do not stay in the berths with the crew.”

“Good idea,” Herb said. “That will prevent some arguments. And I like the idea of an all female berth, at least initially.”

“Initially?” I asked.

Herb sighed. “Janet.”

“Who?” Philip asked. He looked at a distant point for a minute. “Wait, are you talking ‘about small cock Jane’?”

“Who?” Luther asked. “I haven’t heard that nickname spread around.”

“Janet is a good electrician and maintenance tech who has spent a lot of time helping my tracking team. Its been her insight that improved the layout of the controls. We shouldn’t have anyone leaving the tracking controls on a bad setting going forward,” Philip said. “But I’ve heard that she gets upset with the other female crew if they start talking about enjoying the large endowments of their concubines.”

Herb nodded. “The woman is brilliant and loves her work, but definitely doesn’t want anything to do with a man who has a larger than average cock and she isn’t afraid to let others know. I’m not sure she’ll work out in a room of female citizens.”

“Did something happen to her in the past?” I asked.

“Probably,” Herb admitted. “But she doesn’t talk about her past.”

Jade had just come out from the strip lounge where the concubines had gathered. She walked over to kiss me on the cheek. “She’s had some kind of trauma,” my concubine said. “Sounds like a sexual assault from someone who liked to brag about how big his cock was and how he could make any woman obsess over him.”

“She has no problem with race,” Philip said. “One of my tracking girls is Shanequa. When Janet ends up talking, they gossip like a pair of grannies talking about their children. Which isn’t too surprising as both women have children in their pods.”

“About half of our crew does,” Luther said. “And I’m assuming that children won’t be allowed on the ship.”

“Not unless we must,” I replied. “Freya is going to war and having children aboard is a bad idea. We might have an open house in the future, but everything I’ve been hearing indicates that we’ll need to head out almost immediately after boarding. Call it a shakedown cruise.”

“I’ll warn my crews,” Este said. “Both about the quick turn to get onto the ship and the fact that only male concubines can come on this cruise.”