Chapter 32: Untimely Arrivals

The next four weeks passed peacefully. We saw visits from several ships, but none were heavily damaged. The longest stay was the corvette Aspen, which arrived with a missile jammed in its starboard tube. Terrence and Louis spent four hours with the AI carefully manipulating the missile until they could pull it free from the launcher.

My tapestry was completed, and now hanging near the first door separating the enclave from the visitors part of the colony. Janice had claimed the loom and was working on her own tapestry. She had composed a snowscape on a moonlight night. It was an impressive picture with lots of shadows.

My daughter continued to grow. She was now able to sit up on her own, and it was not uncommon to find all four babies sitting in a circle and babbling together. I was a bit worried about her starting to grow teeth, but Bethany assured us that we had several months before we needed to be concerned about teething babies.

James and Yvette did spend hours in conference and sending messages to Admiral Himmel in Borneo. We were shocked to discover that someone in Central Command had noticed that Ishtar had never been formally designated as a colony and used that fact to demand that Admiral Himmel not interfere with Chief Scientist Johanes "lawful researching duties." The Admiral had tried to elevate this issue, but was blocked by someone working in Research. We were forced to accept that he would only have a limited ability to support us in our fight with the scientist.

"Why not let the scientist have the artifacts?" Maria asked one morning in our recreation room while we were discussing the fact that he was due to arrive. "It's not like you are researching them."

"We've already set that up," Yvette responded. "The whole reason we announced to Admiral Himmel and Central Command that we had the things was in the hopes that they'd come and take them away. The problem is that we've received orders regarding the visit. The Chief Scientist is going to establish a temporary research base here and conduct additional probes into the nearby systems to seek the source of the artifacts."

"Which is what we didn't want to have happen," James admitted. "The whole reason we held the artifacts at first was to avoid causing too much excitement and having multiple scientists demand that we open our planet up as a base camp for additional research. We had hoped we'd get a reasonable scientist to request that we send him the artifacts.'

"And instead, we got ... I can't even think of how to describe the man coming to visit," Tina said with a sigh.

"James," Edith's voice called out. She was on sensor data today so everyone looked up. "We have a jump point opening, but it's funny."

"Explain funny," James said as he rose to his feet.

"Well, it's not in line with any of the local planets," Edith said. "It appears to be a Confederacy ship, but it's not a class I recognize."

"Wait," Janet called out. "The IFF is working. The ship appears to be Sir Paridell."

All conversation in the recreation room halted. "I'll be in the command post in a moment," James said.

James turned to walk out of the room. Brittany, Kitty and I jumped to follow after him. We found ourselves leading a wave of people leaving the recreation room. Some immediately turned down side corridors, but I followed James as he made his way to the command post.

The pace was a bit too fast for easy conversation. Worry had me biting my lower lip as everyone proceeded silently. We came up to the tapestry, which had already been moved aside to reveal the door, and stepped inside.

Inside we found Edith and Janet sitting at the main stations. Edith was following the readings on a screen. She seemed a bit worried. Edith had her left hand over her ear. Her right hand hovered over one of the controls.

"Yes, Sir Paridell. I understand that you want a parking orbit and do not want to dock with the repair station. We are trying to identify the best location to have your ship park," she said.

"The ship will park directly above your colony," a gravelly voice growled. "Understand that as of now, I am in charge on Ishtar."

"Sir, this is James Rabb. We were expecting a scientist. Is this Chief Scientist Johanes?" my master called out.

"This is acting Governor Johanes," the man growled. "Now I need Sir Paridell parked directly above the colony. Give me the coordinates."

Everyone in the command room gasped, but James reached out and hit the control to cut off communications to the ship. "Put him in orbit on the opposite side of the planet from us. If he doesn't have the brains to just scan why should we help him?"

Janet nodded, flipping the control back on. "Sir, I'm sending you a signal. Follow it and you'll establish the parking orbit."

Edith watched her console. "He's about two hours out," she said. "No other ships are in the system."

James nodded as the gravelly voice spoke again. "Good. Now I need to meet with you as soon as possible. I want to teleport in and meet with James and Yvette. I understand you do have teleport capability."

James turned off the microphones in the room again. He looked over his shoulder to see Terrence and the twins standing there. "Tiffany, gather up anyone who has been fitted with battle armor and get them armored up. Terrence, we'll meet this jerk in the visitor's teleport room. Get over there and start powering the system up."

Terrence and the twins dashed out of the room. Yvette put a hand on James' arm. "We can't antagonize this man right away," she reminded my master.

"I know, but if we allow him to push us around too easily, he'll try to completely take over. We have to stand up where we can," James said.

"James," Janet cried. "He's going to want an answer."

"Tell him that it will take a few minutes to get the teleport room powered up. Yvette and I will meet him there. No concubines though."

"None?" Yvette asked.

"I get a feeling it will be a very bad idea to put a concubine within his reach," James said.

Yvette nodded. "Let's go. Meiko, if any concubines want to watch, do it from the briefing room and make sure none of you are heard. When you eavesdrop from this room we can hear you speak sometimes."

I blushed, but nodded as James gave Brittany, Kitty and me a hug and then left the command post. Once they had gone, I led my sister concubines to the briefing room.

"Everyone," Janet's voice rang out, "it's who we have been waiting for. For concubines wanting to listen in, Yvette has asked that you go to the briefing room. I'll be setting the speakers and view screens there to show what's going on, but the microphones will be off."

I sat down in a chair at one end of the briefing table. Kitty and Brittany found seats to my right and slumped in their chairs. "I'm scared," Kitty admitted as she wrapped her arms around her body.

"Me too," I admitted. As we sat, the many view screens in the room started displaying video of the teleport room. We watched as Terrence dashed in and began powering up the main control.

"I'll be up in five minutes," he said as he hit the switch to signal the command post. "Everything is green on this end."

"James!" Janet called out. "That Chief Scientist is sounding rather impatient. He wants to know why you haven't activated the teleportal."

We watched as James and Yvette dashed into the teleport room. James quickly set about straightening his uniform. There had been quite a bit of debate about the uniform. Yvette wanted James to wear the rank insignia of a Major, but James repeatedly pointed out that no one on the planet had an official rank or the authorization to give another citizen a rank. He insisted that putting rank tabs on the uniform would only escalate the confrontation he was predicting for the initial meeting.

He finished fidgeting and then it looked like he and Yvette had exchanged a couple of whispered words before he turned to face the teleportal. "Put him through."

"Opening communications in the teleport room," Janet responded.

James waited a moment. "Sir, we have the teleporter power up and are ready to initiate transfer. Can I ask how many will be arriving?"

"No! It's not necessary for you to question every decision. And why did it take so long to get the teleportal ready?" the voice growled

Yvette shook her head as James nodded to Terrence. "Sir, when I first talked to you, I was in the communications and tracking station we use to assist damaged ships. There is no teleporter in that room, and we only power up the unit we have after ships arrive in the system. We had to scramble to get to our primary teleport room and prepare to greet you upon your arrival."

"We should have prepared the red carpet treatment," I heard Lindsay whisper. "This man sounds like that might have actually mollified him."

"And he might have decided that he needed the services of a few concubines," Zenita sighed. "I get a feeling this man is going to try to push James until he can charge him with something."

I shivered. On the viewscreens we could see a teleportal open. The first two bodies through were massive men in battle armor. Their mirrored helmets prevented us from seeing their faces as they stepped off the platform and searched the room.

"It's clear," one of the two spoke. "Three people in the room, all wearing uniforms. One man at the controls to the teleportal. A man and a woman just waiting. Based on our briefing I expect it's James Rabb and Yvette Mimeux."

"How did we hear them?" I heard Heather whisper.

"Stupid idiot didn't scramble that signal," Janet's voice whispered into the room. "Like our systems can't pick up a transmission that's in the clear."

The teleportal flashed again. This time the first figure through was a man. He towered over James and Yvette as he stepped forward to greet them. I immediately noticed that he was wearing an immaculately white lab coat over dark slacks. He strode purposefully up to James and then stood in front of him.

James watched him approach and then the instant the man stopped walking snapped off an impressive salute. Yvette and Terrence mirrored his actions. The man's eyes widened as James held the salute. He scowled, but finally returned the salute. Behind him, two more armored marines followed him into the room.

"No welcoming party?" the man growled.

"We don't have many citizens here," James said. "And most have assigned duties. I felt it best to avoid disrupting the station to greet your arrival."

"The correct thing to do," the man said pulling several sheets of paper from a pocket of his coat. "Now, I brought a physical copy of some orders for you. I'll read them to you so there are no arguments later."

James nodded. In the briefing room, Kitty grabbed my right arm as Brittany put a hand on my left shoulder and cowered against me.

"Central Command Order Number One Four Eight Seven Dash A Forty-Two. The artifacts discovered by probes sent from the planet Ishtar are to be immediately turned over to Chief Scientist Johanes," the man began.

The scientist paused and looked at James. James nodded back. "The AI reports that the radiation level on the artifacts is lethal. They are being kept in a special chamber on Inanna. Access to them is available through a new laboratory and scientific pod. To go there simply leave through the door, turn left and walk down the passage. The third doorway on the right is the laboratory."

"Good, I'll continue then," the scientist said. "The Chief Scientist will remain on Ishtar to analyze the artifacts and to implement a through probe deployment. All unexplored systems within thirty light years are to be probed."