Chapter 589

Deep Space – The Alien Mother Ship

... Finally, the shroud made a turn and the Engineer opened a hatch. The ladder down was only a couple of times their height as they stepped into an auxiliary pump room.

A moment later, they turned a corner and were face to face with a startled Paladin pilot. “Take me to your Commander,” the Captain snarled out.

To say that the Commander was not expecting to see the Captain was an understatement. As soon as they walked into his office, he shot to his feet, and not to show respect for the Captain. “How did you get here?” he demanded. “Has that ass finally shut down the mutiny defenses?”

The Captain turned to the pilot who escorted them in. “Leave us, and send some food back here for me.” Then to the Engineer, “Go with him. I will send for you when I am ready to return.”

“He could have said thank you,” the Engineer mumbled under his breath as he followed the pilot down the corridor.

“How did you get here?” the pilot asked when they were well away from the Commander’s office.

“I am under orders not to reveal that,” the Engineer growled out while wishing he had been somewhere else when the Captain had entered the pumping station.

...”Finally,” the Commander finished as he summed up what he knew to have been happening, “that asshole First Officer has initiated all the mutiny defenses in every access to the Bridge and that end of the ship. I have been trying to reach you, but the ass will not even answer me when I call. What the hell is going on?”

“He has taken over my command,” the Captain snarled as he motioned for the Commander to move out of his seat. Frowning, the Commander moved, but it was evident that he did not like relinquishing his seat one little bit.

“And, Commander, it would seem that you have made little effort to change the First’s standing,” he snarled. “Where the hell is my food? I am hungry and thirsty.”

“I am sure it will be here soon. What was I to do?” the Commander snarled back. “The corridors are locked down and the mutiny defenses active. Once we thought we had the proper access codes, I sent a picked team, but they were all killed. Again, how did you get through?”

“We will discuss that later. What has the First told you about me?”

“About you? Nothing. The First will not speak to me no matter how many times I call. Why have you not killed the bastard?”

The Captain glared at the Commander. “I have at least tried – which seems to be a lot more than you have done. He shot me, but for some reason only known to him, he put me into the chamber before I bled to death.”

“Then he has mutinied? I knew it would happen sooner or later.”

“You did not know?”

“Of course not. How could I? All communication has been cut off between my section and the bridge. None of our communicators work on any frequency. The First just said he would call if he needed me and suggested that my Paladin crews and I train in preparation for the assault on this ‘Earth’ planet. But we cannot do that as long as we are under warp. Oh, I have repeatedly run the crews through the simulators, but we need some actual time in our Paladins. So, he has taken over the ship?”

The Captain shrugged. “I do not think that most of the ship’s personnel realize what is going on. When I was awakened from the healing fields, I was given an empty weapon and told that I would be shot if it were charged, or even showed that it had been charged in the recent past. I was told that I could give no orders to anyone upon penalty of instant death.”

“But that does not make sense. If the First shot you, why did he order you healed? The penalty for either is death.”

“I ... do not know,” the Captain admitted, “but I wish I did.”

After receiving permission to enter, one of the pilots guided a float in with the Captain and Commander’s meals.

When the two were alone again, the Commander stared at the Captain. “How did you get here? I assume that it has something to do with the Engineer, but this could be the answer to both our problems. If the First shot you, then he is guilty of treason. I am going to kill the son-of-a-bitch on sight because the arrogant prick has locked my people and me in this area without access to the rest of the ship. Now, I have an even better excuse to kill him.”

The Captain stopped feeding his face long enough to stare at the Commander. “We must be very cautious. Since I have been ostracized from the command crew, I have spent some time thinking and reviewing happenings about the ship. No matter the incident, that prick seems to always come out on top. As we have discussed in the past, I have ordered him killed, but something always happens and he winds up alive while his assailants do not. I had him with my weapon in my hand and his back turned, and he still shot me even as I was pulling the trigger at point-blank range.

“I have reviewed the recordings of attempts to have him assassinated, and it is almost eerie. He seems to be where the charges are not, and he never misses. It is almost as if he knows where his assailant’s charge will hit, and he moves just enough for it to miss, whether it is energy or a projectile. Not to mention that he is faster than any being has a right to be. I could not have missed, and there was no way he could turn and fire before I killed him, yet ... the bastard was unhurt, and his charge took off part of my shoulder and arm.”

“Is he a telepath? That would...”

“I have read everything in his records. There is no mention of his being one, nor does he show any inclination toward that in any of the tests he has been subjected to. He is a Precog One, but that is generally recognized as having no practical value.”

“But if he shot you, why did he allow you to live?”

“An excellent question and one that I have thought long and hard on. The only thing that I can come up with is that he does not wish to go rogue, but that does not make any sense, either, for as you say, the High Command will order his execution as soon as they find out what he has done. The penalty is the same whether it is an attempt on a Captain’s life or a completed act. The High Command will order his death as soon as we return.”

“You have still not told me how you managed to get past the mutiny defenses. I assume that the Engineer is the key to this?”

“The key and the weak point – should he decide to tell the First.”

“Then, he needs to die.”

“But, if I order him killed, the First will know the order came from me. We must find a way to keep the Engineer quiet without the First becoming suspicious.”

“The corridor defenses,” the Commander reminded/insisted.

“I will show you how to bypass them, but somehow we must make absolutely certain that the First never realizes that you and your people now have access to the bridge, and certainly not before we are ready to make our move. The pathway is a lengthy process, and it also limits the number of personnel that can be quickly available to us. And they will be exposed to the general crew’s scrutiny at the other end of that shroud that is our pathway.”

The Paladin Commander and the Captain stood on the flight deck. “Way up there? I vaguely knew that the armored shroud protected the piping, and I certainly knew that the ship was modular, but I never stopped to think that there could be a passageway beside the piping. However, it stands to reason that the builders would have made some way to access the piping in case something catastrophic happened and the ship had to be reassembled. I suppose it points out just how near to indestructible this ship actually is.”

“The Science Officer or someone on the primary bridge crew has rendered our internal communicators useless, at least between that end of the ship and this area. However, I did manage to swipe two of the mated units from Stores. As you know, they will transmit and receive only to their mates, so, at least, theoretically, no one else can detect a transmission from them,” the Captain said as he handed the Commander a tiny unit. After determining that the units did, indeed, transmit to each other, they agreed to check once per shift at prearranged times.

“I need to get back before the First or some of his cronies discover that I am not in my quarters. You do not happen to have any knee pads, do you?”

The Retreat

The next morning.

“So, how do you like being a wife?” Diana asked Kei.

The young architect looked over at the Clan Queen as they walked down the wide stairs to the basement and the gym. “I suppose that you mean other than our husband’s lovemaking?” she asked with a slightly wrinkled forehead.

“Yep.”

After a hesitation, Kei responded. “I confess that I knew little about what you guys actually did, well, other than making love with that fabulous man.”

“You mean that we actually don’t lie around all day waiting to make love to him?” Diana asked while trying to hold back a snigger.

Kei let out a groan. “The first week ... Well, if it had not been for Little One, I do not think I would have managed to get to the kitchen to help with breakfast each day. I have never been so sore in my life. And ... as you know, I am not talking about lovemaking.”

They waved to several sister-wives and some other Alphas’ wives, as Kei and Diana entered the gym proper. The small woman put her sweat towel across the front of the nearest ARC machine and stepped up on the pedals. While she adjusted the settings, following Diana’s exercise plan, she continued. “That first few days, I was the sorest I have ever been in my life, and that was with the enhancement. I hate to think how much pain there would have been without it.”

Diana was already on the machine beside Kei’s and had it going. “Without the enhancement, you probably would not have been as sore since you would have been able to do far less. Also, your muscles would not have recovered as fast or improved nearly as quickly, either.”

Diana looked over to check Kei’s settings while making sure that the new wife was sticking to the routine that she, Susan and Arlene had developed, which would have given a trainer nightmares, who was not accustomed to enhanced women. With a smile, she winked at the young wife, who managed a glance at Diana’s setting, and winced inwardly. Realizing, Diana responded. “I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you, and also, my body has been enhanced a lot longer than yours.”

“Yeah, I know, but still, when I see your settings...”

“No ‘buts.’ Please, just stick to the schedule. If I let you get hurt, my husband would not be pleased.”

I am a lot stronger than I was when I first started this exercise routine, but after thirty minutes at the present setting, my legs are so wobbly they feel as if they belong to someone else, yet Diana uses twice the resistance I use and moves half again as fast, not to mention that while the sweat is pouring off me, she hardly ever has to use her sweat towel.

When Kei finished with that machine and started on one of the arm machines, the Clan Queen smiled at her as she stepped off her ARC and said, “I have something to do this morning. You know the routines now, so please keep with the program that we’ve laid out for you. I do not want my husband worried about you, and you know what happens when you...”

“ ... overdo,” Kei finished for her. “I promise.”

“After you finish here, Arlene will take you to Security where the Sergeant will get you started on pulse rifles. When you return...”

“It’s more firearms training on the indoor range with Arlene. After lunch, it’s on with the gi for Helen to make me sore in places that I never knew I had,” Kei finished with a grimace. “Then another hour in here for weight training before I meet everyone in the kitchen to help prepare supper. Will I ever graduate to the big girls’ classes?” she sighed out.

Taking her seriously, Diana responded, “Yep. It will soon be time for us to schedule you for Ship’s Space Academy, then you’ll be so very, very glad of your prior training. Although Ship’s training is ‘simulated,’ your body won’t know the difference”.

“If I were only bigger?” Kei griped as she looked down at her petite frame.