Chapter 17

Natasha shuffled nervously from one foot to the other while I tried to regain my composure. I definitely hadn’t seen that one coming. Glancing at my wives I saw them looking back and forth at each other until Renee announced, “It’s your decision, Mike. We have no problem with it.”

My mind was racing. Yeah, I knew Natasha, but I really didn’t know her all that well. Besides, she was way too young to be considering marriage ... although she was nearly finished with college. I remembered how I felt at that age. I was too young to be an adult but knew too much to be a regular teenager.

“We will seriously consider her request. Since we hardly know Natasha, though, I suggest that she stay with us as if she were a wife so that we can all get to know each other better. I expect her to finish school, and once she has her PhD, we will discuss marriage.”

Natasha was ecstatic and jumped on me, wrapping her legs around me so she didn’t fall off. Marco and Inna were happy, both that I had agreed to think about it, and that I had addressed their concern about her being too young to make such a big decision. “I think Mike’s going to be snoring tonight,” Jenna quipped. While my wives laughed about that, Renee quietly explained the private joke to Marco and Inna, who immediately joined the laughter.

I shooed Natasha off to finish her studies and headed for my lab with my two assistants in tow. I fired up my computer and created a fake screen name: Topp1chessdogg. Then I went looking online for Vladimir, explaining to Danielle what I wanted her to do when I found him. I was somewhat surprised to find that he was online still. I knew it had to be between eleven pm and seven am if he was in Russia. The time stamp on his message showed it to be 3:47 a.m. so he was right in the middle of Russia somewhere, definitely not in Moscow. Danielle began flirting with him, at the same time challenging him to a chess game. He accepted, insisting that she move first.

I started Natasha off with a Ruy Lopez opening, knowing it wasn’t commonly used anymore. His next moves were predictable. I watched as he marshaled his forces into what appeared to be a classic gambit. Almost.

A couple of slight variations quickly showed his true intent if you knew to watch for it. After an apparent misplay on my part, he attacked, only to find himself mated in three moves. His ego insisted on a rematch, and I quickly obliged. After all, how often does someone who thinks they’re the best in the world get thrashed in less than 30 minutes? Knowing him, the fact that a girl beat him made it even worse.

As loser, he went first. His moves were more deliberate and thought out this time, but the result was the same: 45 minutes to mate. When he asked for a third march, I had Danielle tell him that she had to go because her mommy was calling her. We laughed for quite a while after that, imagining the slow burn Vladimir was doing right now.

Stan commed and asked if I could come by the war room. Since I wanted to talk to him about the best direction for ship production, I told him I’d be right there. Even after kissing Kateryna when I passed by air traffic control, I made it in less than ten minutes.

“Gwen says that you’re worried about the possibility of the new troops breaking down if they have to kill someone,” he said. I explained what I was worried about and what I had suggested.

“Good idea. Let me show you what we’ve done for the pilots,” he offered. He showed me one of the VR helmets and explained that they had 40 former captives training to fly Bumblebees. They would practice for twelve hours a day on the simulators until he felt they were ready. At that point, he would actually have them go aboard a Bumblebee as the pilot, telling them that they were going on a real raid. The path was pre-programmed in the Bumblebee and would take them on a circuitous route for fifteen minutes before settling over Holloman. All of the sensors were pre-programmed with a training scenario and the trainee pilot thought they were actually going on a raid. As soon as the initial phase of the raid was completed and her androids had debarked to collect the pirates and their captives, twenty pirate ships appeared out of nowhere and ambushed the rest of her Battle Group. They watched the pilot’s reaction speed as well as their actual reaction and response. One of the former captives, Mere, had even outscored our most experienced Bumblebee pilots and the Kashmir’s crew.

Her reaction was to order the AI androids to hot swap the AIs ASAP, and for the piggybacked shuttles to tow the captured ships into orbit while the AI’s were being swapped, turning the captured ship towards the enemy ships with the piggybacked shuttles shielded temporarily. She launched all of her remaining shuttles and slipped in behind the phalanx of ships as they headed for the enemy. Each of the piggybacked shuttles got at least one of the enemy ships before being knocked out of commission.

Mere popped unexpectedly out from behind the phalanx of shuttles and began a series of spinning and rolling maneuvers that sliced the remaining enemy ships with her plasma ion sabers, a series of maneuvers that left several experienced pilots disoriented. Evidently, Mere had learned to fly a cold fusion shuttle when she was ten, and spent hours doing aerobatic spins, flips, and dives over the Pacific. She also spent a lot of time playing online computer games as a hot fusion fighter pilot and had been ranked number one in the world on the two most popular games before being kidnapped a year ago.

Stan flipped a switch and suddenly the communications between Kateryna and the rest of Battle Group VENEZUELA filled the room. “Raid initiation sequence has begun ... all ships are in place ... all pirate ships are piggybacked ... overhead gassing begins in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1... 15 seconds to raid initiation... 10... 5...”

The silence was always nerve-wracking. A minute later, a very young voice professionally made the announcement. “Phase one is successfully completed. All 93 pirates down and accounted for. Troops debarking now; Uncloaking now. One hundred forty-two captives accounted for, 41 down, 101 standing. Prison ship is landing and uncloaking. Hot swap team is out.

“Sky’s clear. Captive boarding is underway. No captives reported injured. All pirates are reported restrained, one with a minor head laceration. Prison ship loading is underway and cargo container ship is landing. Captive loading is complete, four seeking medical attention for previous injuries. Injured pirate’s head wound reported as minor and has been disinfected and closed. The four cargo containers have been scanned. One is weapons, one is ammo, and two are food. Hot swap team is retrieving computers and electronics. Pirate loading is completed. Prison ship is now cloaking and departing. Bumblebee 43 is landing and uncloaking. Hot swap team is loaded and leaving. Bumblebee 23 is handing off to Bumblebee 43 and returning to base. Bumblebee 23 out.”

Bumblebee 43 took over the continued cleanup as the cargo containers were loaded and the temporary housing transports arrived, as well as continuing the commentary. Stan flipped off the sound. “Well, what do you think?” he asked.

“Nicely done, and she sounded very professional,” I answered.

“Not bad for a fifteen-year-old, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Fifteen?” I gasped as Stan chuckled.

We discussed his continuing efforts to train new pilots, and then shared our thoughts about refitting the captured ships. We agreed to continue as is until we had 40 Battle Groups, then I wanted mostly Bumblebee production for when we started hitting the estates. We needed to complete those raids as quickly as possible to avoid other estate owners finding out what we were doing and killing their slaves before heading for safety in Russia.

We were just winding down when Stan got commed by Lt. Commander Pulver who had just returned with a load of doctors for Greg. H also brought 27 female former naval officers, mostly UN, that left the service because they were tired of watching most of the promotions go to men. He also had a list of over 300 former female troops that he hadn’t been able to contact yet.

Stan left to meet them, and I stopped by to see Kateryna again, and to get her opinion of Mere’s skills. She was as impressed as Stan and I were, adding that Mere had suggested over 20 new things to include in the training simulations. Mere had also requested an extendable arm for some of the Bumblebee’s shuttles. At night, many of the portable houses were closed, making it so the fireflies couldn’t get inside. A shuttle would scan the house and locate a wall or section of the roof in an unoccupied room that they could cut a hole in with the plasma ion saber. The problem happened if they had to cut the hole in the wall. The shuttle had to be turned on its side so the android with the saber could reach the wall. This meant that the shuttle lost their scanning ability and it was always possible that someone could walk into the room at that moment, undetected. The second issue was that even at night there were guards patrolling the bases. With the shuttle sideways, and with no scanning ability, a guard could walk into the shuttle’s shielding and raise an alarm. Mere had suggested between two and four of these extendable arms per Bumblebee.

I commed Bree and asked what she suggested. She explained about a company in Spain specializing in robotic arms for manufacturing that always did excellent work. When she asked, I explained that the arm needed to have the same agility as a human wrist, the “hand” needed to be able to grasp a four-inch cable, and the arm needed to bend and flex at least as well as a regular arm. We needed a minimum of 100 right now, and another 1,000 ASAP. When she commed me back an hour later, she said that they had something that would work. The only thing they had in quantities that large was an extendable arm for agricultural androids. Each arm came with a kit to permanently convert one android so that the left arm was interchangeable. It took only 60 seconds for the android to change his arm after the plate was installed. Not only did the arms do everything a regular arm could do, but also it would extend hydraulically to six feet. They had 1500 in stock right now for another customer, but since we were paying cash on delivery, they would give us as many as we wanted. Bree had ordered all 1500 knowing how fast we were building ships. I let Kateryna and James know what we had.

James laughed. “I will keep a few, too. They will come in handy with some of the work on the retrofits of the pirate ships,” he explained.

“By the way, the new generator will be here in about ten minutes. I’m having it delivered and installed at Holloman. We had the cabling set up there for it and made loops at 70, 25, 10, and 5 miles from the center of the base. Each loop will have a plasma ion saber on a flexible mount every quarter mile. The sabers can be fired individually or in groups. Katie estimates that we will be able to fire 275 of them at once set for a range of five miles, or 1375 set at 1 mile. They’ve set up hangar sixteen and are making the sabers,” James said. I told them that I wanted Inna to take a look at the generator so that she could do some theoretical calculations for me, then commed her and explained what I wanted.

Sven commed and asked to see me ASAP. I could tell by the worried look on his face when I got there that there was a problem. Garrett was with him, and Sven motioned for him to go ahead once I was settled. “I was at six bases today recruiting more psychiatrists and getting files of all of the female navy personnel with flight or combat experience that have left the service in the last three years. At each base, the main topic of conversation was gossip about who they thought Commander Omega might be.

“I heard about two dozen names mentioned, and heard you mentioned more than once at every base. I told the base commanders that I wanted all discussion about the PITA Task Force and Commander Omega stopped immediately. Only personnel that needed to discuss it in the performance of their duties were allowed to do so. I also sent that message to all other UN bases, but I know people will still talk about it when they think nobody is listening. Sooner or later, it’s going to leak out to the media.”

We watched each other think for a minute before Penny spoke up. “What if Mike did something that got him in trouble publicly?”

“Like what?” Sven asked.

Penny shrugged, but I said, “Like smuggle food into Russia.” Sven immediately called for Johann. I called Bree and told her I needed duplicate androids of Helga and me immediately, and of Jenna, Vonna, Renee, and Natasha ASAP. She promised the first two inside of four hours. As an afterthought, I asked to have one of Sven and one of Johann made up and delivered, too.

When Johann arrived, Sven explained the problem and the suggested solution. “That would work. Normally, someone caught smuggling in or out of Russia is imprisoned for five years. If one of his ships was seen leaving Russian air space, and surveillance showed several cargo containers of food in a city near where his ship was seen, they could revoke his permit to work and confine him to the city limits of Albuquerque since they couldn’t actually prove he was on the ship. I would suggest,” he said, looking directly at me, “that if you do this, your wife Helga be somewhere very public where she will be spotted on security cameras. Otherwise, they might try to involve her in the process.” He grinned at my surprise that he knew about that.

“Actually, I intended to send an android look-alike out shopping. I wanted her with us to dispel any worries the people in the village might have.”

“Since you will be making the trip as a personal envoy of the Secretary General, no laws would be broken by you or anyone who went with you, so that would be okay.”

“So, when do you want to go?” Sven asked.

“I was thinking tomorrow, after breakfast. It should be early evening in Russia by then.”

“What do you think about me going?” Sven asked.

“If you just want to watch, that’s fine. I don’t think you and I should be seen together off of the base here, though.” He agreed. I commed Helga, Renee, Vonna, Jenna, and Marco and asked them to meet us in Sven’s office. When I commed Stacey, I was surprised to get Janine.

“Stacey gave me her com unit so you could get hold of me. She said to tell you that she kidnapped a dozen of your medi-vets to help finish setting up the venom lab,” she said, laughing.

“Janine, would it be possible to get three cargo containers of beef frozen by eight tomorrow morning?”

“Sure, anything else?” she asked happily.

“Yeah, check with Marco and see what he would suggest filling five more cargo containers with to take to Russia in the morning. Something besides Vodka,” I laughed.

“Gentlemen, I have another issue I need to deal with,” I said after completing that call, looking to Sven and Johann. I explained about Kateryna, and how her family ended up in Ukraine. I told them that I was worried about retaliation against both her immediate family and any of her extended family still in Russia. I wanted to make sure all of them were safe, just as I made sure that their own extended families were all safe.

“Since she honorably completed her tour of duty, Sven can grant her and her immediate family citizenship. Since she’s single, that would include her parents and siblings,” Johann suggested.

“What about any family members still inside Russia?” Sven asked.

Brow furrowed, Johann thought about it. “You could always grant them temporary political asylum. It is temporary, isn’t it?” he asked me.

“As soon as it’s safe, we’ll take them back,” I promised.

Kateryna was visibly nervous when she came into the office. Since she worked much closer to Sven’s office, she got there first. Sven didn’t even let her get settled before he announced “Kateryna Repin, in recognition of your exemplary military service to the UN forces during your tour of duty, I grant full UN citizenship to you, your parents, and your siblings. In consideration of the danger to your extended family in Russia, I will grant them temporary political asylum to come here to the base until it’s safe to go back home.”

Kateryna was speechless and two tears slowly blazed trails, one down each cheek. “Thank you, all of you,” she managed to whisper.

“We’re leaving right after breakfast so get some sleep,” I told her.

“I’ll sleep on the trip over. We’ve had fifteen raids today and have eleven more scheduled tonight. I have twelve former captives training with me to be assistant controllers. They really take their job seriously since they know just how important these raids are to the women that are still captives. They know that if they screw up, women will die. The first four trainees have each supervised three raids so far and did a great job,” she said proudly.

“Have two battle groups ready to go with us tomorrow for cover,” I requested, not knowing what we might drop into the middle of.

She left just as my wives arrived, with Marco right behind them. I explained what we would be doing tomorrow morning. Helga was ecstatic that she would be allowed to deliver food legally to the town she’d been helping before. Marco commented that the biggest thing they would need, besides food, were the immunizations everyone outside of Russia received as a child. The series of vaccines gave everyone immunity to every known bacteria and virus that were detrimental to humans, as well as severely reducing their susceptibility to most forms of cancer.

“How big is the town?” I asked.

“17,000 people five years ago,” she answered.

“Greg, any possibility of getting 20,000 sets of the childhood vaccine series?” I asked.

“20,000?” he sputtered. “When do you need them?” he asked.

“By breakfast?”

“At least you gave me more than a couple of hours,” he joked.

“I think I can get most of them. Let me see what I can do,” he answered.

I let command know we would need several freighters and androids for moving families in the morning, as well as a cargo container transport.

“Just think, our husband will be a criminal tomorrow,” Renee teased.

“I guess we’ll get to find out if bad boys really are sexier,” Helga teased.

I stopped by to see Serena after the meeting. The fifteen raids had netted 975 pirates, 91 pirate ships, no more Russian ships, 1358 captives, 647 temporary buildings, and 63 cargo containers, mostly containing food, but about a quarter of which had weapons and ammo.

The scan for level three shields was finished on the surface of Earth. There were 38 we hadn’t known about that weren’t inside Russia, weren’t known military bases, known pirate bases, or right near cities that would indicate they were probably an estate. The underwater scan found 19 additional shields besides the one Marco’s parents and sister had lived in. Planetary, lunar, and asteroid scans were currently underway.

Serena was confident that we now had locations for all of the estates, about 620. She had details on most, and warrants for the 52 in the North American EU, the 37 in the South American EU, the 99 in the African EU, the 65 in the European EU, and the 30 in the Mid-Eastern EU. She estimated that, using the same population to estate ratio, there should be close to 337 total estates in China and SE Asia EU. She had identified 302 of them. She thought she was missing about fifteen in China and 20 in SE Asia. I told her to go ahead and order more used androids from the Southeast Asia EU if they still had any. If possible, I wanted to know everything about every estate before we headed into battle against them.

With some time to kill before dinner, I asked where Li was. Grinning, Penny dragged me around the estate. I marveled at the progress being made on the expansion of the estate. The excavation for the below-ground sections had been finished and the carbon fiber reinforced concrete foundation laid. The walls and flooring for each below-ground level of the northern addition were complete. The external walls for the southern addition were in, and the trenching could be back filled like the other two sections were as soon as the flooring for each below-ground level was done to support the outer walls. The eastern addition looked to be finished from the outside. I was sure there was quite a bit of interior finishing work to be done, though.

What really surprised me was what lay beyond the busy shuttle parking east of the estate. Many of the temporary housing units had been assembled into five five-story buildings.

“Schools,” Penny said, answering my unasked question.

Karin had been busy. Each building had special instruction classes on the ground floor for pregnant women, teaching them how to care for themselves and their newborns. Primary grades were on the second floor, secondary grades on the third floor, college on the fourth floor, and education for adults who didn’t get to finish school on the fifth floor. There was one building with classes taught in Chinese, one for Spanish, one for English, and one for Hindi. The fifth building was for anyone that didn’t speak one of the official languages. The first building we came to had the word OFFICE painted all over the front of it in dozens of different languages. From inside the office, there were five doors leading to the back. Four had the language posted over the door in huge letters. There were a dozen androids there to help anyone that wanted or needed it.

We went through the door marked Chinese, and up to the second floor. The sound of children laughing is the same in any language. We found Li in the first room we came to and watched quietly from the back of the room for almost a minute before the children noticed us. Recognizing me, the teacher dismissed class for the day, and we were mobbed by the kids after Li told them I was her daddy.

Outside the building, through the windows, I noticed androids busy installing playground equipment, and beyond that, more sod from somewhere. There was also equipment for sports fields stacked neatly, waiting to be installed. One large section of grass was shaded by Chinese Scholar Trees planted around 20 tables that could be used for eating or for study. There was a short, two-foot tall fence consisting of one support post every ten feet and a single, carbon fiber tube along the top.

Every person at the school could easily go over or under the fence at will. The fence was merely a way to denote where one school’s area began and the other’s ended, not a way to keep the children from “escaping” or from playing with children at the next-door school. The fact that there were also openings in the fence every 20 feet helped make it less threatening. The way it was, it wouldn’t have a traumatic effect on the students there that had spent much of their life to date in a fenced in area. After a quick phone call we left, me grinning.

Inna commed me just as I was sitting down to dinner. The generator would be able to project a shield with at least a 1500-mile radius. Five such shields would easily enclose Russia. I commed Mr. Sugiyama and told him that I needed five more generators just like that one ASAP. He promised them within a week, maximum. Much of the time it took to make the first one had been crunching the numbers and adjusting the design. He suggested that he could complete the job much faster if we could send additional help. Hesitantly, he asked for 400 additional workers. I told him I’d have 800 there within the hour. He thanked me and said that he should be able to get them finished in four days or less. I commed James and let him know what we needed.

Li chattered happily all through dinner about being able to go to school. From what I had managed to find out about the type of place she grew up, the girls there were either purchased from parents that wanted a son instead of a daughter or were born in “baby factories.” China still taxed families that had more than one child, something that has slowed their population growth to near zero for the last 200 plus years, and had been copied in several other Asian countries. The girls purchased from those families were raised on “baby farms” until they were old enough to be sold as slaves if they were lucky or, more likely, to be sold as sex slaves. They were taught to perform various sex acts from age five on, but were kept virgin in most cases since the virgins brought a premium price. The girls were fed and exercised regularly, but their schooling was only in serving, manners, languages, and sex.

Supposedly, by the time they were eight, all of the girls were accomplished at fellatio, even able to take an erection completely into their throat without gagging. The girls that weren’t purchased from parents who didn’t want them were purchased from estates that were “baby factories.” Those were where hundreds or even thousands of women were kept imprisoned and kept pregnant in order to sell their children. The reported baby factories were in Russia, China, and other parts of Asia. The child the women bore each year was usually raised and sold to a baby farm, then trained to be a sex toy, although occasionally, one was sold to a family to adopt.

After five or six years, most of the women that bore the children were sold off to an even worse fate. The women that produced exceptionally beautiful children were kept and bred until they could no longer get pregnant or until they died from the complications of childbirth. During our interrogations, many of the pirates estimated that well over half of the young children sold as sex slaves every year came from these baby factories. So far, Serena hadn’t been able to identify any of the estates we knew about as being baby factories or baby farms.

After dinner, I reminded my wives that I had a “date” with Gwen tonight. They laughed, knowingly. “Everyone on the base knows about it,” Vonna laughed. We retired to the bedroom to relax before leaving for the soccer field. I took half an ACCO-L, and brought the toys with me. Li insisted on watching, too. She wanted to watch daddy and one of his special friends.

“Wow,” was about all I could think of that was appropriate to say in front of Li. From somewhere, bleacher seating had appeared on all four sides of the field, leaving a large area about a hundred feet square, covered with athletic mats with more stacks of pillows piled everywhere than the fashion show the other night. Somebody saw us approaching and suddenly Gwen’s troops formed into a less formal gauntlet than last time.

Nadhu smiled shyly at my look of surprise when I saw her. Someone had done the plastic surgery on her scar. It was still healing, but the clear covering made it obvious that the tiny scar remaining could eventually be removed to leave a scar-free cheek.

“Looking good,” I said as she hugged me.

Gwen and Serena were waiting for me at the end of the line and Gwen was absolutely beaming. She practically dragged me to the center of the mats where we slowly stripped each other before turning our attention to Serena.

The spectators were quickly forgotten as Gwen showed me just how sexy her mouth was. Although Serena managed to keep Gwen somewhat distracted, she still made quick work of my first cum, swallowing it eagerly.

After blowing me a quick kiss, she rolled over, pulling Serena over on top of her in the 69 position. “She’s first,” Gwen said as she spread Serena’s labia, her voice slightly muffled by Serena’s muff.

“Is that what you want?” I whispered to Serena. The hair on top of her head shook up and down, I guess indicating “yes.” I handed Serena the Ben Wa balls and controller. “Try these on her,” I whispered. This time she stopped to look up at me, grinning conspiratorially. Gwen’s face registered the surprise when Serena pressed the first ball inside of her, and even more surprise after they were both inside and turned on.

Watching the two lovers had re-inflated my interest and I knelt behind Serena and let Gwen guide me home. Now both lovers were moaning into the other’s sex as they continued their lingual and digital manipulation of the other. When Gwen slipped a finger inside of Serena’s pussy alongside my cock, Serena’s face came up from between Gwen’s legs and she shuddered her first climax. Gwen continued to massage Serena’s G-spot, tonguing her clit while Serena and I thrust against each other in unison.

A second, stronger orgasm followed a minute later. This one was strong enough that I felt the walls of her pussy squeezing me as her body shuddered. Serena began thrusting back against me more vigorously and I matched her pace, gripping her waist firmly and pulling her to me each time. The slap ... slap ... slap of naked skin meeting naked skin joined with her grunts each time I bottomed out inside of her.

Serena picked the pace up even more, as the urgency of her needs increased. She was getting close, as was I. I was sure that whichever of us came first would send the other over the top, as well. I loved watching the well-developed muscles of her ass ripple each time our bodies collided. With each thrust, I tried, unsuccessfully, to shove my cock a couple of inches deeper inside her than the previous time.