Chapter 513

Winter Park – Victoria’s Secret

... Laughing, the two women headed for the mall entrance, but Tosha knew she would not allow Kei to buy her anything. There were no rules to prohibit it, but she had too much fun to be rewarded for the morning’s work.

As they entered the store, Kei briefly wondered how much she would have left in her accounts once the divorce was finalized and she was rid of her husband, but then she realized everything would be totaled after the house (she couldn’t think of it as a home anymore) was sold and their debts paid off. I’ll be completely free of him after that.

With the thought came a warming in her heart as an image of Jeff’s smiling face seemed almost to surround her, the image so intense that she stumbled slightly. Instantly, Tosha’s hand shot out to steady the smaller woman.

“You okay?” Tosha asked, concerned.

Kei felt her face get warm and knew she was blushing intensely. “Uh, I just realized that I was probably going to be free soon, maybe very soon, and I will no longer have an overbearing husband from whom I have to ask permission before doing the most mundane things.”

“And...” Tosha prompted with a grin.

“Uh, that is all,” Kei denied

“Bullshit, Girl. That was love written all over your face. I think you just fully realized that you were going to be the Colonel’s next wife,” Tosha teased while loving Kei’s precise speech, her perfect enunciation, her habit of never using contractions and even her erect posture.

When Kei didn’t immediately deny it, Tosha turned the young woman to hug her for a second. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but the Colonel doesn’t micromanage his Security personnel, so here goes. Look, I’ve told you that we know a lot about you, well, it’s just a drop in the bucket compared to what we know about the Colonel and his wives. We regularly spend many hours reviewing and expanding our knowledge of them, all in an effort to be able to better protect them – and we are tested. But ... when you study someone over a long period of time and in that much detail, you begin to understand what drives them, their psyche, I suppose you could say. It helps us to know what they might do under different circumstances, but it also tends to show something else. Kei, they’re good people, and the Colonel loves his wives almost beyond reason. He obviously has feelings for you. After all, he has instructed us to treat you exactly the same as we would one of his wives. At this point, you have no idea what that really means.

“It isn’t very professional of me to say anything like this, but darnit, I like you, so here it is. Get rid of that asshole you’re married to, and when the Colonel asks you to marry him – and I just know he will – say yes before the words are out of his mouth.”

While they had been talking, they had found a seat near the store, and Kei reached to touch Tosha’s hand. “I appreciate the information. I really do ... but I do not know whether I want to be number seventeen in a harem or not. I want a husband who loves me and is mine, and I am his. How often would I even get to see him with sixteen in front of me? Oh, I have feelings for him – feelings so intense that they scare me, but I do not understand them. I have only known him off and on for a few months, and most of that professionally. During that time, he found work for me that has rewarded my efforts unbelievably well.

“Now that I am living at the Retreat, I have seen him and his wives under much more personal conditions, I suppose you could say. It is almost unbelievable how intimate they can all be while...”

“Keeping their clothes on?” Tosha offered with a grin.

“Yes,” Kei returned as her face blazed again. “I, uh, walked in on the most intimate thing I could imagine without ... the sex act being involved.”

When Kei hesitated, Tosha reminded her, “We know everything about the family, so I can probably imagine.”

“He was nursing Arlene,” Kei blurted. “And the look on her face was something I’ll remember forever. I want to love like that – be loved like that.”

“So, marry him,” Tosha advised. “If I weren’t already in love with someone, I would be standing at his back door 24/7. Go for it, Girl,” she advised as she came to her feet. “Let’s get you some things that will knock his eyes out.”

“But, he will never see my sleepwear. I am not...”

“Trust me. You will be. Now come on.”

They spent two hours in Victoria’s Secret. Shortly after they arrived, Kei quietly talked to one of the clerks. Tosha sometimes admired something, but wound up putting it back, only keeping a few things to take to the register. Following Kei’s instructions, after Tosha had moved to another rack, the clerk had checked the size and taken each item that Tosha had admired off the rack, secretly putting it aside for her.

Tosha paid for her few items first, and Kei wound up with several bags of beautiful negligees, panties, bras, etc., more than half of which were Tosha’s.

After putting their purchases in her car and closing the trunk, Kei, not wanting the mood to end, suggested they do some window shopping. A while later, she asked Tosha if she was ready to eat.

“I’m with you, remember?” Tosha replied with a smile.

“Good, then let’s check out the restaurant over there, and ... if you are still game, we can even catch a movie. I think there is a chick flick showing.”

When Tosha looked at her with a raised eyebrow, Kei went on. “I saw my father receive something that should have happened to him many years ago. Now, I am out from under my husband’s vicious control, and I am living with wonderful people in a safe environment. I am enjoying myself and I do not want our day to end just yet.”

“Lay on, Ms. Macduff,” Tosha responded with a chuckle and a sweep of her hand.

Later, at the bottom of the drive when Tosha took her bag out of the trunk, Kei handed her three others.

“What?” Tosha said, stunned.

“Make your man happy,” Kei said as she sat back in the driver’s seat, Tosha barely managing a weak thank you before Kei pulled away.

Arriving at the Retreat, the AI informed her that the Matthews had left word that they were visiting Morales and Jasmine on 2214 again. Just before she got to her suite, the “thundering herd,” as Jeff called them, flashed into being around her – the puppies jumping up and down and the half-grown kittens meowing and purring.

Plopping down on her rear, she put her packages aside to hug and pet the animals. “So,” she said while giggling, “you are desperate for love since everyone has gone, and you have condescended to allow me to pet and make over you?” she asked them. Showing off, the animals kept popping from one place to another. “How do you do it?” she asked. “The only human who can teleport is Selina, yet all of you have learned to do it, too. Do you somehow talk to one another? Must I learn your language before I can learn to teleport, too?”

Happier than she had been in a long while, she lay on the carpet and tussled with her furry friends.

When the Matthews Clan rounded the corner in the hall, Kei was sound asleep, practically enshrouded in dozing animals. Cell phone coverage was still spotty on the mountain, but the camera function worked just fine in all their phones. Kei woke to a series of popping sounds when all the animals launched themselves toward Jeff, Selina and the women.

“Welcome home,” Kei got out a bit groggily as she sat up.

Deep Space

The First Officer again sat in the Chief Engineer’s office, both with cups of stim nearby. “It just does not make sense,” the Chief groused. “I checked, double checked, and checked again, then continually monitored the coils as we went to warp. Nothing was wrong. Oh, the tuning was not as perfect as it would be out of the Repair Facility, but with the instrumentation I have cobbled together, I should have been able to achieve near-perfection as I continued to tune after we moved above warp 1, but that has not happened. Yet again, everything seemed to be operating as it should, then suddenly, the coils were out of balance. Balance that I had just painstakingly achieved. Each time, I and my subs have caught the imbalance before it could destroy the coils, but it just does not make sense.”

The First absently took a sip of his stim while thinking. “I have mentioned it before, but I will ask again...”

“No,” the Chief snarled. “My people are loyal – every one of them. They risked their lives and worked until they literally could no longer stand as we all struggled to resurrect the warp coils. Despite that, I have surreptitiously observed them, anyway. They are not doing anything to ruin the tuning of the coils, and they hate the Captain almost as much as I do. Remember what he did to my crew? They will never forget. They are loyal,” he finished in an almost-whisper, the hand that was holding his cup of stim, shaking.

The First Officer had long realized that the Chief Engineer was probably the most intelligent person he had ever known or ever would know. They had gone over this subject more than once, already, but still the warp coils worked properly for a time, but as soon as they began moving toward a higher warp, something went wrong.

“Are you certain we cannot be overheard?” the First asked his friend.

“As I have told you before, my office is surrounded by a distortion field. We could scream to the top of our lungs and nothing could be heard outside this room.”

“Then, let us start from the beginning. Your coils are balanced perfectly, right?”

“Not... perfectly. I can only achieve that as we gradually increase the load on them.”

“Okay, then they are close enough to allow us to increase our speed to at least warp 2, right?”

“Yes, but I would have to fine tune again once we reach and maintain that point.”

“What about component variables.”

“Found that and replaced the part with a newly hand-manufactured one,” the Chief responded. “We’ve gone over all this...”

“Just bear with me, please. You are positive there is nothing in the engine room that could affect your tuning?

“I have searched. My subs have searched. We have torn everything apart that could possibly contain such a device. Nothing.”

“Some outside influence?”

“We are shielded, and I have checked the shielding generator repeatedly.”

“But there are techs on board capable of deploying such a device.”

The Chief stared at him. “Certainly there are – quite a few of them – but my shielding has not been breached.”

“So ... what is left?” the First Officer asked.

“Nothing. The only logical answer is that I have somehow failed in my tuning.”