Part 13

The hologram disappeared and the space where it had been was as blank as the look on Ianthe’s face. “He was kidding. Contact him again,” she demanded.

“Slave Ianthe, I’ve had enough of your shit,” I shouted right in her face. “I had to risk my life and the lives of my crew to pull your ass out of trouble. All you’ve done since we saved you is complain, make demands, and insult the entire Court Quintin. You haven’t even had the grace to thank anyone for saving you. Your father, the Emperor and leader of this whole Empire thanked me three times in five minutes. I think it is time that you learn your place, SLAVE, strip,” I ordered.

“I will not strip in front of all these people,” she protested indignantly.

“Fine,” I retorted, nodding slightly to Aurora. In a well-coordinated motion, all four bots moved. Aurora and Dawn grabbed Ianthe’s arms while Bev and Agatha ripped the dress from the screaming girl.

A chair appeared from nowhere, almost like it had been pre-planned. I noticed that the crowd in the hangar had grown significantly. Ianthe was kicking, twisting, and screaming insults at me. I’m glad two bots were holding her. I don’t think any ten men could have held this tigress.

I stood silently in front of her, waiting for her to run down. It took ten minutes, but she finally ran out of steam. Aurora and Dawn were supporting her as much as holding her by then. Her chest was heaving from the exertion and rivers of sweat were running down her well-muscled body. “Damn,” I thought to myself, “she really is good looking.”

I held a hand out towards Carlisa and she stepped forward and handed me a bag. There were gasps when I took out the strap and the crop. Ianthe’s eyes bugged out. “Slave Ianthe, your outburst has earned you ten spankings. You have a choice of crop, strap, or hand. If you choose none, I will choose. If you have another outburst, the punishment will become twenty. Which do you choose?”

I could see her thinking about defying me. I could also see her looking nervously at the crop.

“Slave Lucina, come here.” She quickly and obediently stepped forward.

“Lucina, please turn around and show slave Ianthe what can happen when a slave pisses me off.” Of course, I wasn’t about to tell Ianthe that I hadn’t had the balls to do the whipping myself. Almost everyone else here knew who Lucina was and what had happened. Still, there were numerous gasps when they saw red and purple welts covering her entire body from shoulders to ankles.

Ianthe blanched at the sight. The defiance was gone from her eyes when she looked back at me. I knew it wouldn’t be the last confrontation we had but hoped it had been the worst.

“Last chance to make the choice--hand, strap, or crop?”

“Hand,” she answered very quietly and meekly.

I sat in the chair and called her over to me. “Slave Ianthe, crawl over to me.” I saw the defiant look momentarily return to her eyes and returned a blistering look of my own. She crawled, but her demeanor spoke volumes about how humiliated she felt. She stopped right in front of me and looked nervously at my lap, wondering if I was going to make her suck me off in front of everyone. She was so worried that she actually looked relieved when I told her to stand up and then lean across my lap for her spankings.

At first, she tried--hard--to maintain her dignity while across my lap having her ass blistered. By the third blow, she was crying openly. By the fifth, she was screaming. After the tenth, she practically collapsed on my lap. I gave her a minute to compose herself and then had her get off my lap and kneel directly in front of me. Her face was at crotch level. She started to become nervous again and tried not to look at my crotch.

“Slave Ianthe,” I said. At least she looked up this time. “You have twelve hours to learn your place and how to properly act as my slave. If you fail, you will be locked in the brig aboard Orca until the battle is over. Hopefully, we will remember to release you afterwards.

“You will remain naked until I give you permission to put clothes on. You will not ask for permission to put clothes on. If you need to eat, drink, or go to the bathroom, you must kneel in front of me and ask permission. Other than that, you are not to speak to me unless I ask you a question or give you permission to speak to me.

“You will walk with Carlisa. If she feels you are not behaving appropriately for a slave, she is instructed to use the crop on you swiftly and painfully to help you remember your new station.”

I turned to Carlisa. “Carlisa, you will use whatever punishment you deem appropriate on slave Ianthe. My only instruction is that her punishment is not to leave any permanent marks--yet. I must specifically give you permission to punish her in any way that could leave permanent marks, such as whipping or caning.”

“Yes, Master, it will be done,” Carlisa replied with an eagerness in her voice that made Ianthe squirm even more. It was all I could do to keep from cracking up at her enthusiasm.

“Slave Ianthe, I suggest that you spend as much time as you can talking to the women on these ships who are my slaves. Ask them why they have asked to be allowed to remain my slaves and what their life was like before I agreed. Ask them why they volunteered to be part of my crew, knowingly, and willingly putting themselves in harm’s way. Perhaps then, knowing what almost happened to you, you might begin to be grateful for what little you still have. Do you have any personal effects in the shuttle or in the life support pod that need to be collected?”

“No ... Master,” she replied sullenly.

I noticed Nina standing off to the side and I walked over to her.

“How are things going?” I asked as I slid an arm around her and pulled her to me.

“Much better, now,” she purred. “I can’t believe you spanked the Emperor’s daughter,” she laughed quietly in my ear.

“Maybe I should spank more of my crew,” I suggested as I squeezed her ass.

“Maybe,” she answered provocatively. She reached up, pulled my head down, and kissed me.

“I guess I should go back to work. My boss is a real slave driver,” she quipped as she turned away. I swatted her gently on the butt.

“How are repairs on the new ship going?” I asked.

“Excellent. The hull is repaired, life support is one hundred percent, and most of the electrical to the crew quarters is back on. You really should go over there, though and see what they found,” she said mysteriously.

“Probably more ground troops,” I thought to myself.

A loud smack and a shriek had everyone’s attention and we turned to look at the source. “Master, slave Ianthe was speaking disrespectfully about you,” Carlisa explained. The red stripe across Ianthe’s stomach and abdomen was quite pronounced.

I stepped to Carlisa and gave her a quick kiss, squeezing her tight little ass as I did. She wiggled her butt enthusiastically in my hand while Ianthe tried to glare at me. I took Carlisa’s crop and snapped it across Ianthe’s firm, gorgeous breasts. She screamed as I caught the right nipple. “Carlisa, when we arrive inside Shark, get out your whip and keep it with you. We may need it after all.”

We all boarded Shark again to head over to the new ship. On the way, I had Carlisa demonstrate her skill with the whip by leaving two new red marks on the back of Ianthe’s thighs.

I had all the other women strip since most of us were still wearing our battle gear. “Ianthe, do you see even one whip mark on any of their bodies?”

“No ... Master,” she answered nervously after a perfunctory examination.

“If you learn to behave, you will find your time as my slave to be almost agreeable. I allow my slaves a considerable amount of latitude in their behavior. I even allow them to make important decisions without my oversight. If, however, you continue to act out like a spoiled child, you will find your time as my slave quite painful and unbearable. I might even be too busy to conduct negotiations for your return to your father for a year or two.”

The look on her face told me that she realized just how deep a hole she had dug for herself. She whispered to Carlisa who had a shocked look on her face.

“Master, Slave Ianthe wishes to speak to apologize,” Carlisa said. I nodded my agreement.

Ianthe walked to me, her posture one of a Princess in her own environment, not of a slave. She knelt gracefully in front of me, never letting her gaze drop from my eyes. Even kneeling, her posture was elegant, shoulders back, breasts thrust forward.

“Master, I apologize for my inappropriate behavior, my outburst earlier, and for embarrassing both you and my father by demanding to be released immediately. I was prepared to face the raiders when I was released. By the time I realized it wasn’t the raiders, I was worried about what you would say and hoped I could bluff my way out of punishment. I fully accept my position as your slave and accept the fact that you are free to do whatever you will with me. Please let me know if there is anything I may do to make up for my earlier behavior, and what you would like me to do for you, Master.”

I reached out to her and she took the proffered hand. I pulled her gently to her feet. “Ianthe, I hope you meant every word of what you just said. If so, when your punishment is over, you will be treated just like the others. If not, today will seem mild by comparison.”

“Thank you, Master. I did mean every word and look forward to proving it.”

She was surprised when I pulled her to me and kissed her. She seemed more surprised that was all I did--maybe even a little disappointed.

“Ianthe, before your punishment is complete, you must apologize personally, one at a time, to all twenty female members of Shark’s crew. There are fifteen women and five AI’s on board who risked their lives to save you. After you apologize to each, they will punish you in their own way. No punishment will last longer than ten minutes. After you have accomplished that task, find me and we will discuss your future.”

“Master, may I ask a question?”

I nodded. “You said that you have five AIs on board Shark?” she asked incredulously.

“Yes, we combined five AIs. That is something I order you never to reveal to anyone or even to talk about with anyone but Shark crew and troops. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master. Will there be anything else?”

“Go back to Carlisa. She will decide in what order you are to apologize, and she is still to enforce punishment if you become disrespectful in any way.”

“Thank you, Master,” she said as she bowed, and then turned and walked gracefully back to Carlisa.

I felt the gentle bump as Shark set down in the landing bay of the new ship. “We have arrived at the new ship, Captain,” Kit announced.

“Crystal, how long before the Admiral arrives?”

“About one hour, Sir.”

“Have arrangements for his arrival on board been made?”

“Yes, Sir, everyone involved will be arriving in the next fifteen minutes if they aren’t here already. Bev is waiting outside to show you what they found and are so excited about.”

“Thank you, Crystal,” I said as I opened the hatch. Yeah, Bev was definitely excited. She was fucking beaming. She gave me an excited hug, picked me up, and swung me around.

“Okay, let’s go see what’s so exciting,” I conceded.

It felt strange to have others doing what I was used to doing--patching the ship, exploring the inside of the captured ship, transferring the AIs between ships, and things like that. Nevertheless, I knew our situation had changed dramatically from when it was just a small crew and me aboard a scout ship. Hell, we had a fucking armada now, and an army. Well, maybe army was the wrong word ... Marines. I was glad my grandfather would be here soon. He was used to delegating and directing to a large force. I was used to doing, either by myself or with a small group.

Bev led me to a docking bay on the opposite side of the ship from the first one. It was filled with something, but I had no idea what they were. They were cigar-shaped, but looked like someone had flattened the cigar slightly, leaving an edge along each side instead of a perfectly rounded form. Each one was about seven meters long and two meters in diameter. Two hatches opened on top, about three meters apart. “Okay, what are they?” I asked.

“They’re the newest fighters,” Bev announced excitedly, “a full wing of two squadrons of twenty-four fighters, with three flights of eight in each squadron. Ninety-six of the bots are trained to fly them, two bots per fighter. They can be flown with just one pilot if there is no ship-to-ship combat.”

“HOLY SHIT!” I gasped.

“There’s more,” Bev giggled as she continued to lead me. The next hold was full of the same armament we found on Orca--namely forty armored tanks, fifty armored personnel carriers, and twenty pieces of heavy artillery.

“As on Orca, two hundred fifty of the bots are to operate this. One hundred fifty bots are to fly and maintain the aircraft. One hundred bots are transport and shuttle pilots, and for maintenance. There are another six shuttles and twelve transports on board in another hangar. We’ve already used the extra AIs we had in Rampage’s shuttles and transports. We’ll use the one from Ianthe’s shuttle, the one from Nightmare, and the last extra from Rampage’s transports to start de-bugging these transports. When they’re clear, we’ll start on the fighters. Crystal estimates less than an hour for each.”

“Bev, pull the AIs from Orca’s six shuttles and use them, too. Check the six shuttles here first and pull their AIs. That way you can add two AIs to six different fighters at a time. Assign one of the AIs from this ship to act as air traffic control for our ships, especially the fighters. Make sure the fighters are under Nina’s command and the troops aboard this ship are integrated into Trina’s command.

Aella stepped in next to me. “Captain, Admiral Carteris will be arriving in fifteen minutes.”

Next to Aella was another Navy AI clone. Her face was more pixie-ish than Aella or Phillipis, but the body was the same. I grinned when I noticed the Shark’s slave tattoo on her left bicep. “Captain, this is Victoria, the ship’s AI. She is a fully loyal member of Shark’s extended crew.”

“Welcome, Victoria. How are repairs and modifications coming?”

“All repairs have been completed. We calculate two more hours until the malicious code is out of the system. We hope to have the modifications, internal and external, finished by then. Once we’ve finished, all that remains is deleting the malicious codes from the transports and fighters. I understand that my designer and son of my namesake is arriving shortly?” she asked excitedly.

“Yup, in about ten minutes. I guess we should head to the hangar,” I suggested.

The Demarest blue corvette landed almost exactly ten minutes later. Nine others took up defensive positions around the ship, something I had to chuckle about. Louis led the parade exiting the shuttle, followed by Ben, Gwen, and a dozen women whose attributes would make any male member of House Demarest salivate. It was strange not to see Grandfather Louis wearing a Navy uniform. He and the women with him were dressed in official Shark uniforms.

“Welcome, Grandfather,” I said excitedly as I hugged him.

“I don’t have to give a speech, do I?” he kidded, as he looked around at the formal welcome.

I shook my head while I handed him a Shark cap that said ‘Captain’. “I guess you’ve been demoted,” I teased. He and his entire staff laughed.

Seeing my confusion at the laughter, Gaylia, the woman wrapped around his right arm explained, “Six months after being promoted to Admiral he was upset about it. He missed the action and always complained about all the ass-kissing and politics involved in being an Admiral.”

Still laughing at Gaylia’s comment, Ben stepped up and gave me a hug, followed by Gwen in her usual uniform. Gwen added one of her wonderful, wet kisses.

Grandfather Louis introduced the lovelies with him; they had been his command staff. At some point before transferring to his staff, each had been a high-ranking officer on various ships.

“I thought you said that the damage to the exterior of the ship was minor,” he commented.

“The damage has been repaired for well over an hour. They’re adding antennas and sensors so that we can find and track cloaked ships. Then they will make a few minor modifications to the exterior of the ship to make it impossible for anyone to track us the same way.”

“Cloaked ships?” Louis gasped.

“That is one of the secrets I was telling you about,” I said.

“How?” he asked.

“That’s a second of our secrets. We now have five combined AIs functioning on each major ship.”

“Five?” he gasped. I nodded.

“The final thing is that we have modified the cloaking of our ships, allowing us to fire our weapons while we’re still cloaked.” Louis was slack-jawed.

“We found out that combining three AIs increases their capacity and power by a factor of twenty-seven. Four increase it by a factor of two hundred fifty-six, and five increases it by a factor of thirty-one hundred twenty-five. The increase is exponential, not geometric or algebraic. In addition, other factors can raise that factor even higher. As such, they figured out how to modify the cloaking of the ships to be able to fire while we’re still cloaked. We can also have one AI from each ship send their avatar to a command ship. Communication with each ship is instantaneous and there are no radio signals to detect.”

“No wonder you’ve been so successful against the raiders,” Louis mused aloud.

“That and the fact that their ships still have the malicious codes. All we had to do was transmit a few coded messages and their engines, sensors, weapons, comms, and shields were deactivated. Aella showed us where to hit the destroyer and battleship to punch a hole in the hull over the bridge without damaging the ship too much. The raiders end up as space detritus and leave us the ship nearly intact. They never even knew what hit them.”

“Shit,” Louis gasped. “So, now what?” he asked.

“I suggest that we formally christen your new ship first. After that, I’ll let you look around and familiarize yourself with everything. Modifications to the ship and deleting the malicious coding should be done in about two hours and we’ll move out then. Plus, we still have to plan our next attack. We should also check the coding in the ship you arrived in.”

“Definitely,” Louis gasped. “So, where are the fireworks going to be?” he asked once he recovered from the shock about his ship possibly having the malicious codes and we headed for the bridge.

I had Victoria bring up a map hologram showing where we were, and where we were headed. I explained the ‘black box’, and how it had deleted all references to the raider planets. Next, I had a hologram of the raider compound brought up.

“Captain, I’m sorry to interrupt, but there has just been an attack on the Demarest lodgings in St. Louis,” Aella told us as she showed us the recording of the attack made by Cherry’s team who had been embedded with the Demarest troops lying in wait to spring an ambush.

The broadcast by the team at the Demarest lodgings headlined the news that night. About eight hours after our arrival at the lodgings, it had been attacked by seventy-five raider troops. Unfortunately, for the raiders, there was nobody home at the lodgings--although no mention of that fact was made. There were five hundred Demarest troops in the immediate vicinity. The raiders were surrounded and quickly annihilated by crossing fire. The entire firefight took only two minutes from the first shot to the last. Only a dozen Demarest troops were slightly wounded.

At the end of the broadcast there were teasers reminding everyone to watch tomorrow night when Cherry would interview “the inestimable and indomitable Captain Edward Demarest of the scout ship Shark who is single-handedly bringing the raiders to their knees and who was the raider’s target in this failed assassination attempt.”

I could only imagine how pissed the rest of the raiders must feel right now after watching the scene being transmitted via the Empire’s commercial FTL relay system. They’d know now that my luck so far was anything but luck, which meant they’d be better-prepared for me next time.

Once we reached the bridge, I retrieved the bottle of champagne I had someone take there for me. “Ladies and Gentleman, I’m tired of calling our new ship ‘the new ship’. Victoria, if you could come over here, please.”

Once she stood next to me, I looked at her. “Sorry about this Victoria. Normally they smash the bottle against the bow of the ship, but I’m hoping this works just as well. I opened the bottle of champagne carefully. Last thing I needed was a cork ricocheting around the bridge.

Watching my blonde princess goddess closely I continued. “I christen this ship the S. S. Goddess, “ I said as I poured a little champagne over Victoria’s head. She jumped and squealed. Everyone else laughed. I took a healthy swig out of the bottle and passed it to Andrea. She was still watching me, goggle-eyed. The rest of the girls were smirking.

“Interesting name,” Louis commented. “What does the S.S. stand for?”

“Shark Ship, “ I answered. I watched him grin as he looked back and forth between Andrea and me while the bottle continued to make the rounds.

Louis assigned a tall, slender blonde (would it be redundant to say large breasted?) named Reah to be the XO on Goddess. He assigned the lovely, brown haired Gaylia as First Mate, and assigned Maree, Shandra, Adjit, and Ellil to staff the navigation, weapons, and sensor consoles as well as the new secondary sensor console that was being built as we spoke. They stayed on the bridge with Victoria to get up to speed with the activity on the ship and what work had been completed. Aella and Louis accompanied the rest of us back to the war room aboard Rampage for a planning meeting.

Once we moved the tables along one side of the room, Kit brought up a hologram that took up the center of the room. It was big enough that we could walk around inside it and showed six bunkered gun emplacements equidistant around the perimeter of the compound. Each bunker had openings in all four directions so the raiders could keep watch or fire in any direction. She wasn’t sure what sort of guns they had in each one, but reviewing data from Claudia, Enigma’s AI, showed heavy caliber machine guns and small cannon of some sort guarding the Enigma from the bunkers nearest her. Lucina was pretty sure it was bots manning the bunkers because they never appeared tired, slovenly, or hung over like the raiders usually were.

There were also a number of bots with automatic weapons constantly patrolling the perimeter of the factory. They were frequently joined by a few of the raiders. Reviewing Enigma’s files showed there was never a time someone could slip by them. There were enough guards that they were always within sight of at least two other guards.

The factory and warehouse were on one side of the compound. A large, three-story, heavily fortified stone building reminiscent of the saloon on Bringer’s homeworld sat in the center of the compound. The opposite side of the compound from the factory had six houses like the ones we found on Bringer’s homeworld, except that these were at ground level.

Lucina explained that, while she never left the safety of her ship (not that the raiders would have allowed it if she’d wanted to), the talk she’d overheard indicated that it was, indeed, similar. The ground floor had a bar and several tables where the raiders would play cards or other games. There was a stage where the women were regularly forced to perform various sex acts for the entertainment of their captors. There were seats enough for fifty or so women who were expected to be there during regular shifts for sex. There were several fuck rooms at the back of the saloon. The upstairs was also similar to the last one with a main dormitory room on each floor where the assigned women slept unless they were selected to spend the night with one of the raiders in an upstairs room.

The data from Enigma showed raiders entering and leaving the various houses throughout the day, with captives wandering in and out freely, most doing various chores such as laundry, or taking food to the houses. Basically, it was the same as what we’d learned from the captives after the other two raids. The women cooked, cleaned, did laundry, and were available for sex. Their “spare” time was spent sleeping, consoling each other, or tending to the various and numerous injuries inflicted upon them by their captors.

The other two points of the compass were landing areas for ships. Lucina pointed out one that was usually empty for her when she arrived and indicated that there were usually fifteen to twenty ships in the other landing area, ranging from small shuttles to a corvette or two, along with an occasional large cargo ship. The ships were guarded by three or four raider guards during the day, and ten to twelve at night.

Once we had reviewed the defenses and forces, we sat back and thought. This would not be like the last raids. With bots manning guard positions, there would be no stealth attack. That meant a large and protracted firefight, one none of the captives was likely to survive.

Carlisa’s haunting words came back to me. “When we were detained we prayed every second for a rescue or a quick death. Either was preferable to the HELL we were in.”

While I completely understood the sentiment, I still wasn’t willing to casually accept the deaths of an untold number of captives. “It’s too bad that those bots don’t have the same malicious code as the ships. We could practically shut them down if they did,” I grumbled.

“That’s it!” Bev exclaimed, jumping up from her seat excitedly.

I looked at her wondering if fembots could go crazy.

Bev explained her thoughts. “With as many new military bots as we’ve had to reprogram, we’ve started having one of the AIs do it. With their extra power, they can use bot net and program or reprogram entire groups.”

“Excellent idea Bev, comments anyone?”

Kit spoke up. “There’s one small problem. Any bots that are already programmed have to be shut off for five minutes while the reprogramming is being done. Otherwise, the programming affects them, too.”

I looked around the room to see everyone contemplating the problem. “Is there a way to change the frequency of bot net in our bots?” I asked.

“It’s never been done before,” Kit answered, causing my crew to laugh.

His curiosity piqued, Louis asked, “What’s so funny?”

“Someone always says that about Eddy’s new ideas--right before we do it,” Andrea chuckled.

I noticed that Kit and our bots were quiet.

“It worked,” Agatha announced. “Bev and I are on a different frequency than everyone else.

“Aurora, Dawn, see if you can detect Bev and Agatha when they use their bot net.”

They were quiet for several seconds before Aurora answered, “No, Captain.”

“Can the modification be made to allow you to switch back and forth at will, and to monitor one frequency while using the second?”

This time they were quiet and intent on their project for almost thirty seconds. Dawn was the one to announce their findings. “The military bots can only function on or monitor one frequency at a time. The four of us can switch back and forth at will, and can monitor one frequency while using the second one. Our conclusion is that it is due to our higher processing ability.”

“Can we password protect our bots to keep them from being reprogrammed by someone else? In fact, can we protect the AIs the same way?”

Grandfather Louis was grinning and shaking his head slowly as he watched me while the bots and AIs conferred.

“Yes, we can do that,” Kit announced.

“Outstanding,” I commented, thinking about what I wanted to do.

“Kit, switch our bots to TAC2. I want the military bots password protected so they can’t be re-programmed or switched back. Make the password ‘blondeprincessgoddess’.” Andrea gasped and blushed while the rest of the ladies snickered.

“I take it that phrase has some personal significance?” Louis asked, obviously enjoying watching Andrea squirm because she was suddenly in the spotlight when she hadn’t been expecting it.

“Considerable personal significance, Grandfather,” I answered thoughtfully. At least he was still smiling.

“Kit, program the AIs with the same password.”

“Nobody takes command of one of our ships unless they’ve been introduced by one of the people aboard now, or someone they’ve introduced. Password-protect Bev, Agatha, Aurora, and Dawn, but leave them able to switch frequencies at will, and to monitor one frequency while using another. After that, see how far away you can be from Orca and still reprogram the bots there. If we can do this, we may still be able to save the majority of the hostages on the Stepford planet,” I concluded hopefully.