Chapter 2

Aboard CSS Araby
Monday Morning, 5:30 AM
P-Day plus 3

OK, that’s a leg. Why is a leg on my chest and another one under my right arm? So there should be a pussy right about ... Yup. And someone else is lying on either side. The girl with the legs seems to be working on the girl on my right. Janet and Gillian were both in with Robert celebrating their new bodies. I started with Caitlin, her mother Jan, Mei Ling and Karen. The leg is too pale for Mei Ling, and that’s not her moaning. That must be Karen making the noise, so that leaves Caitlin or Jan. That’s Jan on top. She has the honey blonde hair. So where is Caitlin? Ahh, here she comes now.

“Morning Fred, sorry, I had to pee and brush my teeth.” The sixteen year old had not been podded for any upgrades yet. There was very little need and they were still in checkup and emergencies only mode, anyway. “Are you taking off first thing, again?” She slid in on the left and started caressing Mei Ling’s lovely breast.

The moaning from Karen was reaching a crescendo.

“No. I have an hour this morning. I thought I would get in some quality cuddling time.”

Caitlin laughed and crawled up towards his face. She pressed her breast onto Mei Ling’s face and her pussy into Fred’s mouth. “Cuddling is just not going to cut it this morning, stud.”

He heard an energetic agreement from both Caitlin’s mother on top and Mei Ling on the side.

8 AM

“General, those two Marines with ‘bright ideas’ are outside,” Sergeant Major Rodriguez reported

“Send them in, Tony.”

The two Marines entered the small conference room that Fred and Tony were using as their office. “Sir, Lance Corporals Hancock and Taylor reporting as ordered.” Taylor and Hancock looked as much alike in height and build as they looked different in facial features. General Winthrop had not gotten used to that yet. It was a much more pronounced similarity than that of an army training base with everyone in identical buzz cuts and BDUs.

“At Ease. Sit. What ideas do you have for me? Hancock?”

“Sir, I come from a logging town on the Olympic Peninsula, Washington State. Population was about six hundred. No high school; we all went to a nearby, bigger town. I was in Seattle for the State Basketball Tournament. We had the whole team at a hotel, where they also had some ladies’ sales convention going on. When they picked us up, most of the team was mobbed by the middle-aged volunteer ladies looking for a young stud or two. Very scary, Sir. Much worse than the Swarm. Sorry Sir, off topic. Anyway, I have been in contact with friends and family in my hometown by E-mail. The town’s adult mix is about 60% women, now. Some of our truckers have gotten collected while they were out of town. A few others, especially the young ones, went to the bigger towns hoping for pickups, but when they cut back on those in the States, more girls than guys seemed to drift back home. The guys stayed away, looking for work. The people there are hard working, resourceful types. From what I have seen on other planets, Sir, we’ll need some people supervising robot drones in the fields and forests as they harvest biomass. I know for a fact of at least thirty people still in the town’s vicinity who are volunteer status. I figure you can get about a third of the adult population at once. It’s June; that’s fire season. They have this big alarm for forest fires. Set it off and everyone comes to the town center first.”

“That sounds do-able,” the General said approvingly. “Give the town info to the Sergeant Major as you two leave and we will see what we can work out. How about you Taylor?”

“Similar thing, sir, except probably bigger. Maybe you will need to wait on a later ship, an empty one. My cousin lives in a small South Kansas town. It’s over two thousand population with a lot more outside of the city limits. The town was an early supporter of the Confederacy and the pickups. They have pretty near a zero tolerance for the Earth First types. My cousin and a couple of others made this proposal to the city council and it passed in open session. Most of the town was there for the debate and it was a very popular idea. What they did was make this program, just a simple database thing, really, but every person in town that was interested was listed with their status as a Volunteer, Concubine, Kid or Stay-at-Home. The Stay-at-Homes have paperwork that lets them take over some property and the animals of the people leaving in exchange for feeding all the animals, making sure the places don’t burn down, and so on.

“If the town’s tornado siren goes off in a certain pattern, everyone heads to town. As they check in at either the city hall, or at the three schools, they are listed on the other linked systems. So Ricky comes in and he knows that Lucy, Fred and Ethel have all checked in. If they get picked up, they don’t even have to be in the same building. He has the option at that time to change his mind, of course, but a bunch of pre-packs are locked up already. The few people that weren’t interested have just stayed away, but some have moved out of town. They hold about six drills a year. The school bus drivers go through the neighborhoods collecting the people without transportation. The police check on people that have not checked in. It takes about four hours all told to finish the drill.

“Jennifer, that’s my cousin, she said that at the last drill, they had over two hundred volunteers with almost eight hundred Harem members. Plus kids of course. There are about four hundred registered Stay-at-Homes, mostly some older people, but a few are just plain greedy and staying to get the land and farm animals. The thing is, two nearby towns are putting the same plan in effect. About five hundred population in one town and thirteen hundred in the other.”

“That’s a real interesting concept. We should encourage preparedness, mainly by collecting them. How hard would it be to get them started headed in early?”

“Mayor decides when to call a drill, Sir. Just give the word and the sirens go off.”

“Give that info to the Sergeant Major as well. Thank you, men.” General Winthrop dismissed the men graciously.

Annapolis, Maryland
Monday Morning 9:30 AM
P-Day plus 3

Jason was thinking about things he could no longer do anything about. ‘Man, I hope Junie has no problems driving that big rented van.’ Jason was lead Security officer for the four-man contingent escorting the ‘package’ to the Baltimore convention facilities. He knew the other two men and one woman quite well and he approved of their choice. Especially if they were included in what he thought was happening. The ‘package’ was twenty analysts and tech geeks. The two drivers would take the vans back to Fort Meade as soon as they were unloaded. The actual mission was very strange and if he had not been alerted, he would have thought that something was very wrong. And so, he had taken the General’s comment to heart; on Thursday he had requested a minute with the Director to verify. He had gotten his minute almost at once, which almost answered his question right then and there.

Office of the Director, NSA
Fort Meade, Maryland
Last Thursday, P minus 1, late afternoon

“Come in Jason. You are here to ask me about Monday and the off book escort mission for General Winthrop, correct?”

“Yes, Sir. And I believe that you have just answered my questions about this being OK.”

“Yes, but you needed to ask. It’s your job to be professionally paranoid.” The Director stood and shook Jason’s hand. “Good luck, Jason. I enjoyed having you as my driver last year. I hope you and your family will all do well. Please give my best to General Winthrop.”

Annapolis, Maryland
Monday, 9:55 AM

The ‘package members’ were talking among themselves a bit. They had had no notice before Friday of this ‘special seminar’ and they all thought it very strange. Jason had a briefcase full of ‘Secret level’ briefing documents in sealed envelopes for them.

The group walked around a pink Escalade in the entry drive as they headed into the hotel lobby. Jason turned and quietly addressed them. “OK, we’re here. Please stay together as we enter the facility and get to our little conference room. I have been assured that this is an important event and that you will not want to miss it.” That was actually overstating things a bit, since no one at the NSA seemed to even know what it was about, but he figured it was worth it to keep these guys and gals in line for just a bit longer. It did get him a few glances from the other Security guys though. Hmmm, according to the reader board in the lobby, several different events were going on in here, some mother-daughter bonding thing, a couples-only parenting seminar and the last day of a sales convention for some cosmetics products. Also, a ... Wait a minute. Lots of women, just a few guys, mainly married ones, several dozen teenage girls. Well, well, well! This was going to be the first real public extraction that he knew of in this area in almost a year. And there was a big cluster of people, including a half dozen with green scarves, near his conference room door. Jason grinned as he winked and walked past his smiling wife. Their room was between the mother-daughter event and the married couples.

Jason opened his envelope and noticed the other three escorts each opening an envelope that they had pulled from their suit jackets. Hmmm, at 10:00 AM, by the wall clock, he was to call his wife on the cell phone and she would bring the family inside. As he looked at the clock, one minute left, he noticed the other three looking up also. They all spotted that and grinned at each other. Then the clock clicked to 10 AM. “OK, Please hang on a minute more. It looks like we have to make some confirming calls.” He used his speed dial. “Junie, bring them all in.” All of their people from the lobby came in. There were seventeen adults and eight kids. Well, that was his guess, but the count was dependent on the actual ages of some of the younger teenagers. “You new ladies and gentlemen, if you will all take a seat in the back, please. Please remain quiet for now, as we figure out what is happening next. OK, the rest of you, we are right on schedule. If you would all take the envelope with your name on it, but don’t open it yet, I have some preliminary instructions here for you.” He handed out the briefing envelopes.

Jason glanced up to ensure he had everyone’s attention, and then started reading from his briefing page. “OK, if you Agency people will break the seal and open your packet, you will find a device that looks like this.” He held up something that looked like a rectangular magnifying glass. “It’s a special reader that extracts info from the data chips embedded in CAP Cards and displays it on the screen. If you would please experiment with your own card, you can see that the sub-score breakdowns have little pop-up labels that explain what they mean as you touch them on the screen. Next, you will see that you have a sheet of paper with a number in large type at the top and a list of people that you know. These people are family and friends of yours.

“You are being asked to pick people in advance for your personal Harem in the event of an extraction or pick up. You may select or reject each of them. If you select them, it means that, in the event of an extraction, someone will approach them for pickup as your concubine. They do not actually have to be in the same location as you to get collected and will be brought to you. If they have children aged thirteen or less, those children will automatically come with them. You can also list them as alternates to be used if someone turns you down. If the person has the word MOTHER next to them, it means she qualifies as a mother figure in the eyes of the Confederacy. The number at the top of your list is the number you can take for your Harem. If one or more of the people whom you choose is a qualified Mother, then you get ONE extra.

“Now, you are not required to take any or all of your people on your list, but the only people who will be approached outside of your presence are the ones on your list. You are also not required to take any or all of your available choices from this list. Just check Yes, No or Alternate next to the names on your list. Now, at this point I will ask for questions, but please make your selections as we go. We have limited time for this segment.” Still three minutes to stall.

“Ah, Mr. Wilson, is this an extraction?” That was one of the two women, a mousy thing with bright, intelligent eyes.

“Not at this time. You are being offered the chance to prepare for a possible extraction. I am not working for the Confederacy. There are no Confederacy personnel in this room. I am not even a qualified volunteer. This is a special service due to your unique skills and current position.”

“What if I want someone not on this list? Why would they not be on it?” One of the few handsome, confident looking guys, he probably was thinking about a woman he had been flirting with.

“My briefing notes don’t say. If they aren’t on the list, well ... As to why, I’m just guessing, but I can think of a couple of reasons. You can see the scores for your people from the papers you have just as you could from their cards. Therefore, I would imagine that some people were pre-screened and were found seriously lacking. Or, alternatively, they may be volunteers in their own right. Also, it’s possible that those people were not locatable, or at least not believed to be locatable in a short notice situation. Lastly, it is possible that if it is someone that you have not been in contact with in quite a while, that the extent of your relationship was not known.”

“What if we have say, four choices, but we have ten good people on our list. I can’t take them all, but I would like to help get them out of danger.” A worrier. Jason had met him before.

“Good question. I don’t know. However, if they have good scores, then by knowing you they have come to the attention of whoever set this up, so maybe...” Jason didn’t want to commit to the possible all happy ending, so he just suggested and then let it drop.

“Ok, what...?” The sounds of the retraction of the movable wall that separated Conference Room C from Conference Room D cut this one off.

Hmmm, mother-daughter work day. The appearance of General Winthrop and two obvious Marines, one male and one female, in the doorway was all of a final clue that they needed. “Ok, NOW it’s an extraction. Class, would you all please pass your homework to the front?”

Aboard Araby
Two hours later

“Jason. All settled in? Any family problems?”

“No, Sir. Umm, last night was a bit ... interesting, Sir. My daughter, well, she has basically decided that her Harem is part of our Family. So, the wife and I have, well, free access to them. She wants me to help with pregnancies. Also, she asked if I minded if Junie and her sister helped the one other older lady in her Harem to train her stud. That’s what she called him. ‘My stud.’ Of course, then she giggles, which kind of ruins the effect. Anyway, I couldn’t be a hypocrite enough to have sex with all of the women and not allow Junie to have fun as well; so last night was basically a big orgy. I almost overslept for our extraction.”

“That would have been embarrassing. By the way, these are yours.” Gen Winthrop handed Jason a PDA and a small device that looked to be a cross between a set of brass knuckles and those old fist concealable squirt guns. “That’s a stinger. Kind of a taser device, I understand. Don’t adjust the settings until you take the familiarization. You’re my back up on pickups this week.”

“Yes, Sir. Incidentally, Sir, I approve of the other three security types you recruited. I know them all and they all are top-notch people.”

“I would have liked to have taken a few more at that level, but I can’t just grab everyone. I got Will Knox. His wife is a volunteer. He has her sister in his Harem, same as you. He also got his niece. His wife only brought four Harem people of her own, but she snapped up a mother-daughter team at the hotel. Thirty-four and thirteen-years-old and two younger kids are being collected.”

“Speaking of which, Sir, one of our analysts asked about the non-picked friends and family on their lists.”

“We had the people on those lists invited to one or more special free events, all one hundred twenty one of them. Seventy-eight were selected by your analysts. The people watching those events went in and notified those people, then discretely approached the rest and just asked them if they wanted to be extracted. Sixteen did not agree or were no-shows to the events. Twenty-seven were transported up, with any available kids. Various Marines have already tentatively selected twenty of them. I expect the rest to go quickly as the Marines cycle in and out from other pickups. Here is the current list, you might pass by the tech and analyst teams and let them know.” He manipulated his PDA and the file appeared on Jason’s PDA

“Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir. You know, Sir, I was just thinking. Can’t you just see the confusion? I mean when the parking valets are trying to figure out what to do with fifty abandoned pink Cadillacs?”

Independent Companies
Prologue

Aboard CSS Araby
Monday 12:30 PM
P-Day plus 3

<General Winthrop, The Commander of the 7th Independent Company is back at his ship and is available to talk to you now.>

“Put him on my desk unit and contact CSM Rodriguez. Have him monitor the conversation and remain available. Put it through.”

<Acknowledged.>

“This is Commander Waring, 7th Independent Marine Company. How can I help you, General?”

“You have been assigned to my command, Commander. You have been notified, I believe.”

“Yes, Sir. Generally, we’ve just been transported to our new assignment and then briefed upon arrival. An earlier briefing will be refreshing. Let’s us cut down on the scuttlebutt.”

“Actually, this is not a short term assignment. It’s a permanent change of station. You’ve been permanently assigned to my command, Commander. You will be transferring to the new colony on Vulcan for integration into a new regiment. I just need to get you assigned to a ship and get your Harems transferred there as well. The AI is apparently unable to tell me where they are. Can you enlighten me?”

“Sir, we are currently assigned to and kept aboard the Sir Robin.”

“Sorry, did you say...?”

“Yes, Sir, the Sir Robin. Someone, somewhere, has a very sick sense of humor. But, Sir, we don’t really have Harems and all twenty-six of our women are on board with us.”

“Twenty-six? You should have about four hundred fifty and about twice that many children by now. What’s the story here?”

“Sir, that’s a real sore point with the troops and, frankly Sir, with myself as well. Permission to speak freely, Sir?”

“Granted!”

“Sir, we were recruited before the current rules were developed. We were asked to volunteer before anyone else even knew about the Swarm. We were not given concubines. No one had them then. We are not now authorized concubines, as we have never been tested for CAP scores. We were told when we signed up that in exchange for our service, we would be reunited with our families in a safe place at a later date, but no one can tell us when. We have not been allowed to communicate with our families at home. We do have seven men, assigned to the unit as casualty replacements, who are sharing their women, plus we picked up a few from various Navy ships that took pity on us and gave us their rejects and we, uhm, found, a few when we helped clean up that mess on P’Yong colony.”

“DAMN IT! Sergeant Major, get on the line! Commander, get your First Sergeant on line. AI, I want you in this conversation as well.”

<All present, General.>

“First. AI, is what the Commander has told me correct?”

<Yes, Sir. His statements are essentially correct in all elements>

“Why has this situation been allowed to exist?”

<The new agreement superseded the old agreement. The Independent Company Marines were recruited before CAP testing was fully underway and well before Harems were announced to the public. They are not authorized Concubines as they have no CAP scores. They will be tested for CAP scores when they are assigned to a colony. Their families will be reunited with them when they are assigned to a colony. They can only be assigned to a colony by their commander, or by the Confederacy council. Other commands have declined to accept them as permanent additions due to their restive nature and the fact that, as they have no CAP scores, they do not meet Confederacy Citizen status. The Confederacy council has not acted to change that status quo.>

“Wait! Are you saying that ALL of the Independent Companies are in this Catch-22?”

<Catch-22? Ah, a literary reference. Yes, General. All of the current Independent Company Marines are in this status. Some units that took heavy casualties have been normalized.>

“First Sergeant, I need a ‘No BS’ evaluation. What is the morale of your men, both in a combat situation and out of one?”

“Sir, in combat, we are confident and in control. No problems. We have only had seventeen KIA casualties in our company in over four years and most of those happened early on. Ten were before the CAP testing began, seven afterwards. Out of combat is ... It’s getting bad, Sir. They ... We don’t trust either the Confeds or higher command. No one has gone to bat for us or even brought us messages from home.”

“Commander Waring, do you agree?”

“Yes, Sir. And I have talked to a couple of the other independent commanders. They all have the same read on their units.”

“OK, First. I want your AI to squirt your unit records to my AI. Top, I want you to get with every man and go over his personal data. I want to know what he considers his own core family to be, who and where are they. Send that in a later transmission to the Sergeant Major here. I will see what we can do. Also, I want that same info for your previous casualties as much as you can figure it out. Understood?”

“Aye, Aye, Sir.”

“AI, why have the other commanders not done as I am doing? I can’t believe they don’t want these units in their commands.”

<It is not commanders, but commands that have declined the units.>

“What’s the difference? Who made the decision?”

<The AI assigned to each command has made the decision.>

“Do you mean the individual Confederacy AI’s have declined them and then just not told the Human Commanders what they had done?”

<Yes.>

“So, one hundred fifty four Marines per company. Six Companies, so that totals nine hundred twenty four Marines. Figure an average of three concubines per Marine and three maybe even four babies per concubine in almost six years. This decision has cost the Confederacy over SIX THOUSAND children and possible future warriors so far, plus any children already in those families. Correct?”

<Yes. That is statistically reasonable, assuming that all of the Marines have a sufficient CAP score to be assigned a Harem.>

“Well, I am assigning the rest of the Independent Companies to Vulcan. Is that understood?”

<That is not in your authority.>

“Then all of these Marines are Citizens of the Confederacy on their own and constitute six separate colonies?”

<No. They do not have CAP scores, so they cannot be assigned to a colony.>

“Ok, then they are free agents, and may travel as they please. Maybe they could visit one of the Darjee worlds.”

<No, they must be restricted in their movement as they are not Citizens.>

“Very well! They cannot be assigned to a colony, so they must belong back on Earth! It’s too bad that the resultant terrible publicity about your breach of contract with our troops will make future pickups even more difficult, if not make Earth pull out of the agreement completely. You have superseded and amended their original contract without their consultation or permission and you have not even attempted to comply with their new contract. Earth First will just love hearing about this.”

<A moment for consultation, please.>

Gen. Winthrop was a bit surprised by that request. He had never even heard of it happening before. The moment only lasted about twenty seconds however.

<Very, well. The six remaining Independent Companies will all be assigned to your colony. Current military assignments will be completed before transfer.>

“That will be fine. After this conversation is over, I want an unedited copy of it sent to each of the six Independent Company commanders, along with their orders permanently assigning them and their ships to Vulcan Colony and to the Vulcan regiment. I also want a copy of this conversation sent, unedited, to every General and Admiral in the Confederation human forces. Is that understood?

<Yes.>

“Now, we need to get that personal data for each member of each of those units including previous KIA casualties. Also, I will make arrangements for at least some of the necessary concubines to be collected and placed aboard a ship to Vulcan. Where is the Sir Robin currently headed?

<To Vulcan. It will leave Truman in approximately six hours and will arrive shortly before your advance party. The Kennebunkport will meet them enroute.>

“OK. Commander Waring, when you get to Vulcan orbit you will meet my sister Elizabeth and her husband Franklin O’Neil. They are in charge of initial placement of the main township, Regimental HQ, First Battalion’s dependent’s quarters and a battalion sized training base. They will have a partial squad of current Marines to advise them and a bunch of retread recruits that are all prior service US Army trainers. Feel free to advise. We will try to get some pods shipped out there for you before our big ships get there a week or two later. Dang. Six companies, that’s umm, nine hundred twenty four more pods needed.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Top, tell me true. Do I send the standard pick-up for your first concubines? Soccer moms, sixteen-year-olds collected at a mall, etc? Or should I send someone a bit more toughened? Like hookers and such.”

“Hookers, Sir. One each. Let them get it out of their system, then send in the hothouse flowers.”

“That’s what I figured. Commander, Top, are there any other problems? Any questions?”

“Yes, Sir. I hate to bring this up, but, promotions?” The First Sergeant looked as if he was worried that he was going to get bitten if he petted the so far friendly, but very big, stray dog.

“Uhmm, go on. What about promotions?”

“Same story, Sir. Separate unit. No authorization. No open slots in the TO&E. No promotions. It’s been over five years, Sir. The pay in the confederacy doesn’t really change, but the recognition...”

“First Sergeant, I can guarantee promotions will be available for a number of your people. I am specifically bringing in experienced Cadre personnel for this Regiment, but I am also getting a whole bunch of trainees. If I mix in six, no I’m wrong, it’ll be seven companies of trained Marines with about the same number of trainees, I should be able to put a solid Regiment in place in a few short months and make a good start on the second one.

“Commander, I need you to get with your people and do a real, ‘Absolutely No BS’, evaluation on each and every Marine in your unit. Also, I will have the AI on your ship start doing CAP interviews. Tell your people not to worry, I will grandfather them in somehow if they don’t pull a 6.5. For that matter, I authorize you to let them listen in to a copy of this entire conversation. Now, any more interesting problems you got for me?” The wry grimace told the Marines that they were not in trouble for bringing their situation to the General.

“No, Sir. We’re good. Thank you, General.” The Commander glanced at his First Sergeant in a way that said “Shaddup.”

“OK. AI, we’re clear.” The link closed down.

Fred looked over at Tony. “What a FUBAR!” the NCO said.

“Tony, I want you to monitor this situation. Make contact with each of those companies as soon as they become available. Let them hear the unedited record of that conversation. Find out their status. Get their personnel info. How long to Vulcan, what transport do they have, etc. Hmmm, six Sir Lancelot class ships will be nice for training and such. And lots of nicely experienced troops.”

“Yes Sir. Where are we going to put them, Sir? The troops, that is.”

“Well, for a week or so, they can sit in orbit, I guess. They’ve been doing that a lot already. Hmm. Damn it! I want a thousand Pods in orbit next week. AI. What options do you have for me?”

<A Kilo class ship will be diverted to Vulcan with a load of empty pods. However, it cannot wait long enough for the ‘Swooping Crane’ to arrive and plan your township. That would add a week plus the time to unload and position the pods. The ship has four tenders per ring for thirty-two total. The number of necessary trips is thirty-two per tender at three hours per trip, totaling ninety-six hours. That is four days. They could not start to be hooked up to the Town structure until the construction units have arrived and spent about two days in initial work. The small freighter with the power plant, AI and construction remotes will arrive one day before the Swooping Crane. The diverted pod transporter will arrive one day later.>