Chapter 4

CSS Araby
5:30 AM
Wednesday

Mmm, a mouth full of tit with an erect nipple. Now that’s the way to wake up. It’s a big one too. Alexandra. It has to be. That woman fully demonstrates why larger women will never go entirely out of fashion. I can feel her shaved pussy pressed against my hip. That’s right. Jacki declared that last night was ‘Daddy’s turn to have sex with my harem’. So. Queenie is still asleep on my left. Those two loving sisters, Cynthia and Pat are here someplace. Now where is that imp of a daughter of mine? I’d better open my eyes.

“Mmm. You do know how to suck on a tit, Master, Boss’s dad, Stud, General, Sir.” Alexandra shifted her shoulders, shoving her breast a little bit more firmly into Fred’s face. “What do you want in exchange? Mouth, Pussy or Ass?”

“Mmmpfh!” Fred didn’t have room to move his mouth far enough from the breast to be understood.

Alexandra smiled as Jacqueline came back from the rest room. “All three it is! But it appears I’ll have to wait in line.” Jacki was climbing onto Fred and lining herself up over her father’s groin. “It looks like the little boss lady is taking charge for a bit.”

The Pentagon
9:30 AM
Wednesday Morning

“Fred, nice to see you again. Drink? How are things in the agency that does not exist that you don’t work for?” General Simpson walked over to the liquor cupboard as he waved a weary looking General Winthrop into a chair

“Nice to see you, Jim. Scotch. Neat.” Fred took the proffered glass. “But I am afraid that I no longer work for that agency that I couldn’t have worked for because, of course, there is...”

“No Such Agency.” It was a nicely timed chorus from both Generals. They grinned.

Fred continued. “It’s an old joke, but someone has to keep up the traditions. I’m glad that the CAP tests don’t include the quality of my humor in the scores or I would just be my wife’s concubine. Well, that might not be so bad either. However, I have a new position. I am now the Military Governor of the Confederacy colony, Vulcan.”

“Oh, I hadn’t heard that. I just got a message that you needed a favor. Something to do with basing?”

“Yes. The new job just started this weekend. I’ve got a major problem in pickup procedures and I am hoping that you can help me fix it, at least for my own colony’s pickups. Currently, the Marines collect a few volunteers at a time and send them up to a ship. If you have, say, twenty pickup teams and each gets five volunteers per trip and one trip per day, you get one hundred volunteers per day. Now with the early ships holding just ninety-six pods, that means just a couple of days in orbit. But the newer Kilo class ships hold one thousand twenty four. That would be over ten days. It’s actually taking closer to a week, but still that takes a critical ship out of action for way too long.

“Now, by doing preplanned large pickups, I have filled almost eight hundred pods in just four days and I have plans for my next ship that will fill it just as fast. However, I would like to speed things up even more. I need someplace to hold people; up to six thousand adults and their kids for a week or two at a time. We can collect them faster than the ships can make round trips. We can provide replicators to feed them all if we can get some raw materials. We mainly need housing on Earth, temporary and isolated from the rest of the world. We can use transporters to get in and out, so we won’t tie up facilities that we aren’t standing right on. Right now I have two ships making what I hope will be round trips of about five weeks, so that leaves me about two and a half weeks between trips, one week of down time for my Marines while they are planning for their next ops and then a week or so of collections followed by the big upload when the ship arrives. Then rest again. Have you got some way you can help out?”

“Possibly, but what would I get out of it? Oh, not me personally. What I mean is, how can I justify this for the Joint Chiefs, the GAO, the House and the Senate? Show me a Quid Pro Quo.”

“Several things. You can argue that getting Americans out of the way of the invasion is patriotic, humanitarian and just plain the right thing to do. Secondly, I am going to place a Confederacy med station at the same site for my Marines. They will use it for preliminary workups for the pickups and also for emergency treatments for people with serious problems. However, it should be idle for most of a week per cycle. The AI at the local testing center will monitor it. I don’t have a problem with your people being authorized to use it during those idle periods. Not for serious rebuilds but for fifteen minute physicals with nanite treatments for viruses, cancer treatments, arthritis and some other things. They could do even more, but it takes a lot of time. I can leave the med station after my six months of evacs are done. Send us a couple of medical personnel and we can train them in its use.”

“What about those pickups, are you going to steal my best people?”

“I won’t take any active duty personnel, but if you want to submit to my review committee the names of specific volunteers who are out of the service, we can arrange discreet pickups of qualified people. I could use some Black Hawk or other chopper pilots, some wing wipers for the transports and ground attack fighters and lots of NCOs and officers for Infantry and Arty. Anyone with a real understanding of electronics such as radar and comms, as well. You know. The wizards, not the people that treat them like black boxes.

“If you have people that are getting out because of medical reasons, we can probably take them. Almost all I really need is a working brain, spine and gonads, and even the spine is somewhat repairable. They can replace limbs, various organs, skin, hair, bones, muscles, cartilage and ligaments. It seems they can fix most things, but I am not sure about ears and noses. The smelling part of the nose, that is; they could rebuild even your ugly schnoz to make it look decent.”

Fred thought for a moment. “One last thing, what weapons are you being issued now?”

“We are just starting to get some of the Confederacy Marine stuff. Most of the stuff made on Earth is actually going out to the colonies first, though. We will be getting the laser rifles. The army’s line units should be fully equipped with them in a year.”

“OK, I am going to be setting up a munitions plant on Vulcan. I hope to be making small arms and ammo within three months. There are some weapons developed on Demeter that I know a starting colony can make. I can try to get you some of the M88 plasma launchers. That’s a two-klick bunker buster that should replace Dragons. It’s high signature, though. We should also be able to make you some of the ADA platforms, called the M211 air defense system. It’s mounted on a grav-sled. It’s a couple of quick fire lasers, with a thermal sighting system and a fire control computer. My info says that they are very skill dependent to get good results, so getting them early for training could help. We won’t be able to make a LOT before I lose the transports, but we can get you some, maybe just for your quick reaction forces.” Fred looked at his old friend hopefully. “We can leave the med units when we’re done, and we will probably be bringing in some of those housing pods to expand our facilities if there is room. They would be left behind for your use as well.”

General Simpson thought for a minute. “Fort McCoy, Wisconsin. It’s a good-sized base. We just did a renovation during the Second Gulf War, but they still have some of the old temp housing that is suitable and a bit isolated from the main base. You know the type, built for WWII and still not demolished. We may need to add some prefab stuff until your pods get there. I can contact General Lucas...”

Offices of the Washington State Department of Corrections
Olympia
Wednesday Morning
P-Day plus 4

“This is a highly unusual request, Commander.” The Director of the Washington State Department of Corrections was a political appointee who had no actual expertise in the field. He had received the call from his boss, the state governor, almost an hour ago. He had then made the commander wait in the outer office for most of that time.

“Not really, sir. I am sure you have heard of the practice of judges giving male offenders the option of serving their time or joining the Armed Forces, or more recently, sentencing people to community service. This is similar. Yes, it is essentially a life sentence into what is effectively slavery, but as near as I can tell, most situations shake out into a somewhat more benevolent situation after a few months. Also, this is entirely voluntary on the inmate’s part. It will get them off planet, which most of them would fight for a chance for anyway, and also, it will take a large hunk of pressure and expense off of your hands. Your budget projections are about to get a lot easier. We have talked to your governor and he has given the permission for this and has signed an executive order to that effect, we are just here to coordinate the pickups. For that matter, we are doing this in several other states as well. For the sake of keeping chaos at bay we have promised not to pick up any of your staff on that occasion, but we are keeping track of whom we see and may collect some later. Time is of the essence, Director.” Commander Pierson stood to indicate that he was ready for the meeting to be over.

The Director had perked up when the budget projections were mentioned. Try as he would, he could not figure how to support the number of prisoners that the courts sent him on the budget that the legislature approved. Hmm, the recidivism rate of someone that has moved off planet was going to be essentially nil, so that would help those numbers, as well, and if they did happen to pick up some of the guards then those were pensions that he could cut. He would have to call in some staff analysts and have them get started on the benefits analysis so that he could take as much credit as possible for the turnaround in his department. “Very well. I will make the calls. Umm, I don’t suppose that you want any of the men? We have a lot more of them.”

The commander just chuckled as he shook his head. He shook hands with the director and left the office.

As the Commander walked out and the door closed behind him, he slipped a card from a small stack in his shirt pocket into the hand of the Director’s executive secretary in an outer office. He looked her directly in the eyes and placed a finger against his lips in the near universal ‘shh’ signal. At the same time, with his other hand he tapped the card that he was holding against her palm, calling her attention to it. Then he left. The card read, “Don’t talk to ANYONE about this. If interested in being picked up by the Confederacy, collect your Family/Harem together. Call after 6 PM today or tomorrow ONLY for pickup. Do not call from work. Read special rules FIRST at www.VulcansForg...”