Chapter 54: Stares Through a Wall

The next morning I woke up still wrapped up in Bethany's arms. I could hear someone over by the food replicator and carefully sat up, trying to leave Bethany undisturbed. I found Kitty trying to balance four trays on her arms.

I was lying on the outside of the couch, so I rolled away from Bethany and stood up. Kitty was trying to turn away from the replicator and two of the trays looked like they were about to fall to the floor when I dashed in and grabbed them.

"Thanks," Kitty whispered. "I was going to serve everyone breakfast in bed."

"You only have four trays," I pointed out.

Kitty giggled. "Brittany and I like the same things for breakfast, so I just doubled that order. We can share a tray."

I nodded as we walked toward the bedroom. Kitty took a moment to glance past the couch to the cribs. "Kristi and Jerome did they?" she asked.

"They are fine," I replied. "They woke a few times during the night and were hungry."

"But you never came in to wake us," Kitty pointed out.

"The replicator can produce bottles filled with milk for the babies. Madoka and Astrid are about big enough to start trying baby food as well, so Bethany and I both had a bit of extra milk for the newborns," I admitted.

"Wow," Kitty said. "You turn James on and then leave him to Brittany and me. Then you take care of our babies so we can have an all night cuddle with him. Meiko, I don't deserve that."

The door to the bedroom opened as we spoke. I let Kitty lead us into the room. "Oh, I don't know, I think all my concubines deserve to be very happy," James said as I followed her.

"James!" I cried happily.

"Notice she doesn't even mention the rest of us," Tina chirped.

"I know," Janice added. I stepped a bit to the left so I could see around Kitty and saw my sister concubines sitting up on the bed. Janice had a smirk on her face as she continued. 'Really, give a girl one of the best orgasms she ever had and what does she do? She dumps us for some guy. What can you say about that?"

Brittany giggled. "I'd say she has perfect taste."

Everyone laughed at that as Kitty and I reached the bed. Kitty handed the two trays she was carrying to James and Tina and then took the ones from me to offer to Janice and Brittany. She jumped onto the bed to sit next to Brittany once her hands were free.

James looked up. "Where is Bethany?" he asked.

"She was still dozing on the couch," I replied as I climbed onto the bed and leaned on his right shoulder. "Trying to keep seven babies fed and sleeping kept us up most of the night."

"Is Jamie hungry?" Brittany asked. She set her tray down on the blankets and started to slide back on the bed.

"They're all sleeping," a sleepy voice said from the doorway. I glanced up and saw Bethany leaning against the jab as she covered her mouth. Her eyes closed as she yawned.

"I'm sorry," James began.

Bethany shook her head. "James, there is nothing to be sorry for. Someone had to watch the babies. We also had Colonel Klink demanding attention."

James snorted. "I know nothing ... Nothing!" he shouted. "But shouldn't we still call him Governor?"

"Not if the AI is to be believed. It told him off last night and basically said that his appointment had not been properly approved," Bethany replied as she came over to sit next to me. Her arm went around my waist as we cuddled on the bed.

James nodded. "AI, is Colonel Johanes awake?" he asked the ceiling.

"Aww, we wanted breakfast without work," Tina mourned. "Now you'll get all stressed and all that good work from last night will be ruined."

"Colonel Johanes is awake," the AI intoned. 'Would you like to speak to him?"

"Like?" James replied dubiously. "I don't think anyone enjoys talking to the man. However, I probably should hear about his current demands before he makes official complaints."

"A note, two message drones were launched by Sir Paridell during the night. As there was no order to stop them, they were allowed to leave the system," the AI informed us.

I could feel James shrug at this pronouncement. Janice turned to look at James, but before anything was said, the voice of Colonel Johanes growled out. "So, you finally deign to respond to me. I ordered you to listen in on the announcement. From what I understand only one citizen bothered to listen, and they promptly ignored the orders."

I leaned over to kiss James on the cheek. "Stay calm," I whispered.

James sighed. "Colonel, I don't know what you are doing on Ishtar, but it's becoming increasingly clear that research is not your primary goal. It's also come to my attention that your appointment did not go through proper channels."

"My appointment is valid!" Colonel Johanes growled. "I am the rightfully appointed governor of this colony."

"The AI told him otherwise last night," Bethany muttered. I giggled and turned to give my sister concubine a loving kiss.

James was shaking his head. "Fine, what proper administration have you done? Do you know the layout of the colony? How about the section you currently have access to? Have you studied the layout? Do you think you can offer real and tangible improvement ideas?"

"What's that got to do with me being governor!" Colonel Johanes shouted. "And even if that did matter, you are still a trainee, and I am a Colonel, you will obey my orders."

"Colonel," James said in a monotone. "I have a hard time obeying orders that are illegal. You also have yet to show that you have any understanding of the reason this colony exists. I probably am better trained than any of the marines you brought. How many of your marines know how to run a transporter station? How many can operate system defense lasers? How many can coordinate ship repairs? How many could even use our communications and tracking systems? Every citizen here has gone through training and then spent months using the skills they learned. Right now I can't picture any of the marines you brought being able to do anything more than stand around and look bored."

"My men could take over in an instant!" Colonel Johanes claimed. "What you do is not that difficult?"

James smirked. "If it wasn't for the fact that the navy around here deserves the best, I'd actually challenge you to put your men in the command post and make it happen. You are a fool. Tamara and Tiffany have refined the training for the command post in the year they've been on Ishtar. The basic training now takes seven hours. If you want all the specialized training for the command post, you will spend over twenty hours in training and they then demand four hundred hours of working with someone with more experience."

"Four hundred hours!" Colonel Johanes screamed. "That's absurd! Just to run a simple communications station?"

"I'd hardly call our system simple," Tamara's voice rang out. "We do far more than just route communications on the planet."

"It's communications! All you have to do is push a few buttons!" Colonel Johanes snapped.

"How many signals and repeaters do we have in operation?" Tiffany asked. "And how closely does communications have to coordinate with scanning?"

"I fail to understand this line of questioning," Major Bonham's voice rang out. He sounded upset.

Tamara laughed bitterly. "And that is why we have problems. Major, a huge part of how we protect this planet involves having weapons modules scattered throughout the system. But to use them in combat we have to be able to send and receive signals from every unit almost instantly. If we try to run these weapons using light speed communications we might as well program them to automatically fire at any ship entering their targeting zone. But rather than live with a time lag that can be up to two hours each way, we seeded the system with repeaters that allow us to talk to all of the system resources and defenses in real time."

"And?" Major Bonham said. "I'm not navy, but I've heard that we have some scanners and communications that aren't limited to light speed."

"Is the man always this dumb? Or has he been partaking of what passes for alcohol?" Tiffany asked. 'Major, the communications links to our system defenses are fragile, sensitive and require constant attention. Yes, we also keep communications on the planet open and will initiate communications with passing ships, but a huge part of the job is making all of the adjustments necessary to keep the system defenses online."