Chapter 6: Back To The Future

Slowly Boats’s memories moved forward to her immediate past.

Vivie’s recent walk from the med-tube to her pod demonstrated her continuing special relationship with shipboard Marines who regarded her with awe. Their typical passing greeting of ‘rah’ was now upgraded back to ‘Oorah!’ or ‘Oorah, Boats!’ When she considered that a traditional function of shipboard Marines was to protect officers from mutiny, the enthusiastic Oorahs were both heartwarming and chilling.

If her actions with Captain Tweedledee were mutiny, she couldn’t admit that to anyone, and particularly, she could not let it spread to other crewmembers. Unable to sleep, Vivie summoned Clarence Darrow, her AI representative that she had named in jest. They were sequestered in her pod’s office, consulting.

<You can’t reveal any part of our discussion to anyone or any AI? Including Bossie?> she asked Clarence in her initial interview.

<That is correct, > the new AI bud responded.

<Then let’s get on with it!> she told it.

<We will start with your actions, in order, to see how they relate to the charges that could be brought against you. It is the Captain’s duty to specify any charges, and Captain Masters has not yet done so. What we have, so far, is the recording of Captain Dreck’s informal statement that you disobeyed his order to have your concubines spar with him.>

<Captain Dreck gave no order. He made a statement. Then he made an assertion that he had given an order. I responded that he had not given a legal order, and was given no opportunity to explain. He immediately attacked with no bow, and I was forced into defense.>

<Did you attack Captain Dreck?>

<Not until after he declared ‘No quarter!’ His standing orders for that, both in person to his officers and NCOs and issued through Bossie to the crew, was that all sparing combatants were to attempt to kill his or her opponent. At that point, I had no choice but to go on attack.>

<Was he was attempting a permanent kill on you?>

<From my earliest days, I was trained by and sparred with some of the very best combat experienced Confederacy Marines. My records are accurate. I’m an acknowledged expert. I know what I saw; he was going to make my death painful and permanent.>

<Did your assessment affect your decision to kill him? Why did you yourself go for a permanent kill?>

<Did I? I was just following Captain Dreck’s orders. The Captain always demanded blind obedience. He wasn’t dead yet, so under his standing orders, I made sure he was. Remember, I called for the medics before I killed him. Why would I do that if I was trying to make his death permanent?>

On and on the questions and responses continued until Vivie was mentally and physically exhausted. Finally, Clarence told her, <I think we’re as good as we’re going to get. I suggest that I answer any questions and avoid having Bossie analyze your voice. Go to bed early so you’ll be fresh.>

Yeah! Right!

Vivie knew that decisions involving major offences such as murder and mutiny could go any way at all. Humans had to make this call. This time nudged and backstopped and second-guessed by an immature, self-righteous, bossy AI. Her actions would be evaluated and questioned, her motives guessed, but a crew that clearly backed her would be on the spot as well. She could not do or say anything that would precipitate a demonstration before or after her hearing with Captain Masters.

Sleep wouldn’t come. She was prepared to die protecting her shipmates, her ship, and her family, but not willingly. To die while killing the Sa’arm, not for offing some pissant Caligula, was a worthy sacrifice. She sighed. No matter how hard the system tried, a jackass or two always seemed to make it through the sieve.

She thought back to Petra and Lucas, her first dependents, and when she turned fourteen, her first lovers. They’d snuggled in her bed, lay quiet and still, and at the stroke of midnight had wakened her when they assaulted every erogenous spot on her body. By then, they were full-fledged sponsors, refusing to leave her household. Luckily so, because they, along with Gunny and Melody, were the intended inheritors of her current and many possible concubines and dependents.

She’d saved her hymen for the pair, and because she had insisted she didn’t want an additional CAP test, she was able to sleep and be rested when Sam and Melody subsequently assaulted –fully pleasured anew – the body she had thought was completely sated.

Her early citizenship in the Confederacy had been, professionally and personally, crazy, hectic, and rewarding. She spent her first two years firmly resisting frustrated urgings to become a midshipman officer candidate. Oh, she took the sleep training required for midshipman, just as she took sleep training for every enlisted specialty onboard her colony transport, both naval and Marine. When done, she started on sleep training for all the officers’ berths.

She was a complete enigma to the AI and ship’s officers alike, but the enlisted folk, concubines, and children loved her.

Vivie refused cosmetic body modifications, but took all enhancements available to upgrade speed, strength, and endurance. She looked like what she was, a beautiful, healthy girl-woman in early puberty. She sparred with ‘her’ Marines, learning from them every variation, legal and treacherously dirty, that each had to offer. They trusted her to the point they would share techniques they held in reserve and taught no other.