Chapter 7

-Tulakat-

“Alright ladies, listen up because we have a new toy to play with today. Doctor V has been hard at work finding a new way for you lazy bastards to kill some dickheads without getting yourselves killed in the process.” I picked up one of the canisters and bounced it on my palm. “What we have here is his latest invention, and we get the joy of field testing it.”

There were several groans and I barked out a laugh. “Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll get back to those poor misguided cunts who were dumb enough to latch on to a bunch of degenerates like you. This will probably be our safest field test to date. We just need to find a nice space where we know some dickheads will hang out for a while, set these babies up, then bug out. Suit up, we move out in twenty.”

“What’s our status?”

<Marine units all clear. Approximately two minutes to activation. Three Sa’arm units will be caught in the initial activation.>

I just grinned. I’d been hoping for a larger initial test run, but the set up we’d found had been ideal. The Sa’arm were expanding into a new area, and we’d caught them prepping their food dispensers. While the dickheads were gathering up their last batch of raw materials, bravo team had slipped in and left them a present. They’d waited until the dickheads were ten minutes out before popping the seals and bugging out, so our test subjects would still be loading the dispensers when the magic happened.

<Activation. Seventy-two units converging on the test location, but the cloud is already settling and airflow at the location will disperse the gas cloud before they arrive. Units caught in the activation show no signs of life.>

“I’ll be damned, that crazy bastard actually did it. AI, tell marine command I want half a dozen field tests as quickly as we can prepare the canisters.”

<They used all twelve canisters they received for this test to ensure coverage.>

“Damn, we only have two finished, and we’re only making one a day at this point. I wish we’d brought Doctor Morris with us, as he was making four times what our boys are managing. Have them do an open-air dispersal test to see how much one canister covers before we set up the next field test, so we can stretch out the product.”

<Orders relayed to marine command. Open-air dispersal test scheduled for 09:00 tomorrow in an area with zero Sa’arm presence.>

“Perfect, and I want all test locations monitored for forty-eight hours after dispersal to see if there’s any lingering effect. It’s supposed to dissipate, but we might get lucky and poison their food supply as well.”

<Acknowledged.>

-Copic-

<Doctor Morris, please report to the med-tube immediately. Your implant is not responding.>

Everyone started giggling at the AI’s announcement as Virgil let out an exasperated sigh. In the four months since our extraction, his implant had gone offline twenty-three times now. It was better than his run with cell phones, but his inexplicable ability to destroy communication devices had stuck with him even off Earth.

“Activate the med-tube in the master bedroom. Who triggered the alert this time?”

His implant seemed to work fine as long as it was just monitoring his health. It was when he tried to communicate with the AI or the AI tried to communicate through it that it suddenly stopped working.

<Rear Admiral Foster sent a private communication that just arrived via messenger drone from Tulak-at.>

I could see he looked confused as he got up. “Okay, I’m going to assume it’s a report on the field tests. Is there a reason you didn’t just alert me through the house intercom and print it out from the replicator?”

<Message is marked private and requires your implant to decrypt.>

He just snorted. “To the med-tube I go then. Someone take my spot and keep these crazy kids out of North America.”

There were several snickers as Amy took his place, but it was about hopeless. Greg, Hannah, and Riley had him surrounded and were determined to take him out first. I went back to my less cutthroat game of cards with our younger kids. We made it through a couple more hands before he came out of the bedroom, laughing, with a stack of papers.

“Good news,” I asked as I hopped up and went over to him.

“Even better than we anticipated,” he said, waving the papers. “They’ve only done a few tests, but one was an open-air expansion test. Three ounces in an open field made an eight thousand cubic foot cloud in about ten seconds before it started to settle and spread out to fill the field.”

“So we’re getting better coverage than you were expecting,” I asked. “That’s going to really help when it comes to clearing out lairs since we have no idea how big they actually are.”

“Yes, and the efficiency tests are even more impressive,” he chuckled. “They’ve had some difficulty finding test subjects due to the activation time, but the efficiency rate is at one-hundred percent.”

He was grinning as I stepped closer and hugged him. “Was there ever any doubt?”

“Not really,” he chuckled, “but they’re not going to be doing any further testing on this version of the formula. The deployment time is just too long to make it an efficient weapon for anything but clearing out lairs, and we need massive amounts for that to be feasible. They’re switching over to producing the flash version for tactical weapons testing.”

“Let me guess, they want you to get full-scale production up for both versions as soon as possible?”

“Of course,” he sighed, rolling his eyes. “They want the slow version running first though. We need five thousand gallons for a full-scale test run.”

“So three months of production for the first run? I guess that’s not too bad,” I mused, “considering we’re talking about enough to clear the damn bugs off a planet.”

I stopped as he shook his head. “That’s for one lair. They have the Sa’arm contained on Tulak, but this is too big to test there so they found a Sa’arm controlled system with just one colony world. There’s one lair on Bosun that has five known entrances and consists of over a billion cubic feet of tunnels. They want to dump a thousand gallons down each entrance and have the marines collapse the entrances as it activates to force the gas down the tunnels.”

“Jesus,” I murmured. “How many lairs are on Bosun?”

“Fourteen that they know of.”

I squeezed him tighter as I buried my face in his neck. “Are we ever going to end this damn war?”

“Of course we are,” he chuckled. “No one ever said it was going to be easy though. It’s probably going to take another month to finish the scaled-up parts for the new mixing station, then I’ve got to put it together and pray that everything works. I’ve been careful, but you know how touchy some of these parts are. You’ve got me a little worried though. What’s got you so tense?”

“Just a crappy day at work,” I sighed. “You heard about the accident at the shipyard last week, where they lost eight workers when an engine overloaded and blew up? Yeah, I got twenty new concubines in the brothel because of it. I know it’s part of the job, but that squad of marines came over from the base and decided to test drive the new girls. These girls are still in mourning because they loved their sponsors, and they had to deal with this group of assholes fucking them like whores and talking about how great it is that there was finally some fresh pussy in the brothel. Care to guess how many of them actually picked up a new sponsor from it?”

He just shook his head and held me, already knowing the answer. I’d been complaining about those eight from pretty much the beginning and had discreetly checked them out. They were all ex-marines, earth-side variety, who’d been picked up as a group from some bar in Alabama. The ‘A woman’s place is to cook, clean, fuck, and raise kids’ mindset was strong with all of them, but there were no indications they were abusing their conks or dependents. They were just redneck assholes.

“Have they finally given up on trying to convince you to let them show you, Luna and Janet what a real man can do?”

I snorted out a laugh. “Nope, it was worse today, but so much more fun. I’d warned the girls not to say anything rude to them, but Luna slapped them down pretty hard. Two of them were standing right next to her desk talking about how much she’d love to have two real men double-teaming her and she started to act all excited about the idea. You should have seen their faces when she checked them out and gave them a disappointed look. Then she looked at me and asked if we could clone Virgil so she could have two real men double-team her. One of them looked like he wanted to hit her, but they just stormed out.” He tensed up against me, and I was surprised to hear him growling.

“Luna, Janet,” he barked and they both jumped up and rushed over. “Helen just told me what happened today. I don’t care if it’s allowed, you will never make a comment like that again. Did you know a fully augmented marine can put enough force behind a strike to crush your skull? Knowing they’ll be reprimanded and will have to give me their conks as replacements will be cold comfort when you’re dead. You will ignore any sexual comments they make to you in the future, understood?”

“Yes, Master,” they both said, heads bowed. Luna added, “I’m sorry, Master.”

“I’m not mad at you as much as I’m worried something could happen to you. The drug cocktail they have those guys on so they can fight the Sa’arm leaves them strong but a little unstable.” He lifted my chin, so I was looking into his eyes. “You, of all people, should understand that. I think we need to have a conversation once the kids are all in bed, don’t you?”

A shiver ran down my spine as I bit my lip and nodded. He hadn’t used that tone with me since our first night together. Tonight, he was my Master. I’d probably be sitting gently tomorrow, but I could understand his reasons. My position would keep the marines from lashing out at me, but our girls didn’t have any real protection. Sure, I could force a retest for them destroying my property, but if they didn’t drop below sponsor level, the worst case would be them having to give us their concubines and not being allowed to replace them for a year.

“It is almost eight though, so it’s time to start getting ready for bed.”

He was mobbed by our group of five to seven-year-old girls as he started heading toward the lift. Most of the kids had wanted their own rooms, and once we landed we’d been able to accommodate them, but those four loved their bunk room and had asked to stay together. They also love having their dad help them get ready for bed and tuck them in.

Our older kids grumbled a bit as they followed him up, but we’d made the rules clear. Bedtime was eight o’clock. It didn’t mean they had to go to sleep, but they were limited to quiet activities they could do in their rooms. We encouraged them to spend the time reading and studying, but as long as they were quiet, it was their time.

After getting all the kids tucked in and kissed goodnight, Virgil looked at me. “Would you like to do this privately, or should we continue in the living room so everyone understands what you did wrong?”

I bit my lip for a second. “The living room would be best. I haven’t been a very good sponsor in several cases so we should cover it with everyone.”

He just nodded and guided everyone down the lift before joining us. “AI, lock the lift and let me know if any of the children need us. Everyone else needs to take a seat for a little family meeting.”

Most of the girls looked confused as they found someplace to sit and watched Virgil guide me to the center of the room. “First I need to point out that none of you are in any trouble, there was just an incident at the brothel today that Helen should have been more concerned about. We’ve been pretty lax about letting you speak your minds around the pod, and I certainly don’t want that to change, but we apparently need to cover a couple of items about how to act in public.”

“As I’m sure you’ve all noticed, some sponsors are of the mind that concubines should be seen and not heard. I’m not trying to censor you, but when you’re around other sponsors, you need to think about if what you’re saying could be construed as offensive. Luna made a comment to Helen earlier, that while allowed, insulted the two marines that were hitting on her and pissed them off. I’m not going to say she was out of line, because they completely deserved it, but disparaging comments about a marine’s manhood should be kept private. If he’d gotten mad enough to strike her, she could have been seriously injured or killed before anyone could have intervened.”

He stopped and looked around the room, trying to judge their reactions. “I’m not saying you need to be afraid to express yourselves around other sponsors, just exercise caution. Even Luna’s comment wasn’t a problem, but it was insulting in the context of the moment. Helen’s in trouble for not nipping the problem in the bud before Luna was put in a potentially dangerous situation.”

“Virgil’s right,” I sighed. “I’ve let a few of you make comments to men who were making a pass at you because I like hearing you talk up our master, but it has to stop. As your sponsor, it’s my job to keep you out of trouble, so I’ll be the one telling annoying men that you’re not available.”

I glanced over at Virgil, seeing the question in his eyes. Shaking my head, I started undoing my uniform top. “He’d let me take this to the bedroom, but I need to prove to everyone here that I’m serious when I call him our master. The few times our master has had to punish one of you, it has been done in front of the family so everyone understands the rules. I screwed up this time, and while I’m your sponsor, I still submitted to him as my master. You get to watch so you remember to let me handle any issues with other sponsors in the future, or he will punish me again for not taking care of my responsibilities.”

Laying my top off to the side, I slipped my skirt and panties down then stepped out of them. “How would you like me, Master?” He sat down and patted his lap, so I laid across it. I was already a bit embarrassed, but I was still wet from his taking control like this.

“You understand I’m not going to go easier on you because we’re doing this publicly, and you’re expected to count just like our concubines do?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Cross your hands at the small of your back.”

I put my hands back and shivered a bit when he grabbed my wrists and pinned me to his lap. The control factor was making me wet, but I knew I wouldn’t enjoy what was coming next. I yipped and whimpered out ‘one’ when the first stoke fell. This wasn’t the light spanking he gave the girls who enjoyed that kind of play. Tears sprang to my eyes as I counted out the second stroke and were flowing freely by the fourth.

It took me a few seconds to realize he’d released my wrists after the twentieth stroke fell. My ass was burning and I was openly sobbing as I shifted to sit in his lap and let him hold me as I cried. The only sound for several minutes was me trying to get my tears under control. No one moved or said anything until I finally quieted and pulled back enough to softly kiss his lips.

“Thank you for correcting my behavior, Master. Can we note that I love having you take control like this, but I really don’t like being spanked?”

“Noted,” he said, squeezing me a bit tighter. “Are we okay?”

“Of course we are,” I replied, putting my head on his shoulder and nuzzling his neck. “It hurt a lot more than I thought it would, but I think that’s the whole point behind getting spanked. I’m certainly going to try to avoid it in the future, but to be clear, you’re still my master, and you decide if I need to be punished, or, you know, anything else you might want to do after taking control.”