Chapter 9: A Bully from a Good Seed

Whitney was still hugging Tamara when a man entered the command post from the teleport room's passageway. "Hey! It's the unattached slut! Are you giving it out now! You refused me on the ship! You're unattached and can't do that!"

The man reached out to grab Whitney. His hand had barely touched her when James burst from his chair and in a flying tackle slammed the man against the wall of the room. "Tamara, get her out of here. Xavier! Get me whoever is in charge of the Tintagel crew!"

Xavier gasped as James pressed the man's face into the wall. He turned around and shouted something to Terrence. I could not hear the answer. Meanwhile Tamara had quickly guided Claire and Whitney from the room. Moments later most of the remaining concubines left as well, leaving only Esther, Tina and I with the citizens.

The man was fighting against James. "What the fuck! She's just some unowned cunt! Who cares if I have a bit of fun with her? She's not even pregnant and my family created four citizens. Her next child could be a citizen."

"So could her current one," James hissed. "And while I'm not able to ban you from abusing your own concubine, you don't do things to anyone else's concubine on this planet."

"James," Xavier called out, causing everyone to look his way. "Lieutenant Kathy Krupke here is the senior officer alive."

I watched Yvette sigh as James nodded. "Sorry about this, but it seems we have a discipline problem. But it sounds like I can't just send him back to the ship. Lieutenant, do you have a suggestion?"

The Lieutenant stepped into the room. She proved to be an extraordinarily plain woman. In some ways her plain features were striking, as they were so different from the bold and beautiful women on Ishtar. However, the only thing I noticed was how her face fell when she saw who James had pinned to the wall.

"I can do nothing about him," she admitted. "He barely listened to Captain Jordan. I don't know of any officer he'll listen to."

Just then Mike called out. I whirled in surprise to find him sitting at the communications station with Linus handling tracking. "Incoming boost signal from Borneo. Putting it through."

"This is Ishtar Control. We have a minor incident with one of the crew of Tintagel Castle, give me a moment," James called.

"What's the damage," Admiral Himmel's voice growled.

Before anyone could answer, the man James had pinned cried out. "Father! This man is abusing me! He's got me pinned against the wall. All I did was ask a concubine to have sex!"

I heard several people gasp, but my master's response showed no hesitation. He bounced the man's head against the wall. The action appeared to stun the man. While he was still groggy James stepped back and used the boot of his left foot against the man's back to again pin him against the wall. He looked over at Yvette.

"Yvette! You're into the interesting bedroom games. Would you have a ball gag, some cuffs and perhaps a chastity belt for this ass? We can't send him back home and I really don't need to hear him whine about how he's being treated," James growled.

The speakers hissed out a long slow sigh. "I've always known he was arrogant, but never thought he was stupid," Admiral Himmel supplied with a groan.

"But father! I committed no crime! And you are in charge out here! You can order James to let me go! You have to! I'm your son!" William Monroe cried out.

I heard a very feminine sob. Just then a voice called out. "I can't believe you, William. A true son would never force himself on another woman, but how many does that make now? Is it seven or eight?" The voice was harsh and filled with pain. I looked around the room to see everyone looking up at one of the speakers.

Admiral Himmel sighed. "William, right now I'm damn fucking glad you don't use my last name. I personally warned you about your little power games and how they would be received on Ishtar. Considering the fact that I still don't have a report on the damages to Tintagel Castle, I'd say you didn't last five minutes. I'm done."

"You're what?!" William Monroe screamed.

Admiral Himmel continued. "James, you should know the laws. You can't actually charge Sergeant Monroe with more than disorderly conduct, but he's got priors so I can assure you that the district command would look the other way if you decide to place him in close confinement until Tintagel returns to service. Once he gets back to Borneo I'll be transferring him out of the district."

"You're going to what?!" William Monroe shouted again. He was struggling some with James, but Philipe and Tom appeared in the doorway. They walked over to William and pulled his arms behind his back. Moments later his wrists were held behind his back encased in some fur-lined handcuffs.

"Fur handcuffs?" Kathy asked, her eyes widening at the sight.

Yvette shrugged. "We don't have any regular ones on the planet. Never needed them before."

James took his foot off of William's neck. The man made a dash for the door, but his attempt to escape was quickly quashed by Philipe and Tom, who drove him to the ground. Shouted obscenities filled the air. Finally Philipe punched William in the jaw. That stopped the struggling and the two concubines then dragged the still body of Admiral Himmel's son from the command room. James just sighed.

'"I hate to do that. He's almost as bad as the cavemen who used to infest our colony," he said.

"Almost?" Admiral Himmel's voice asked. "Could the others who used to live there have been that bad?"

Yvette giggled. "We only know what was said of them in story mostly. But what we did hear was rather nasty."

"Well, let's not talk about the family disappointment," Admiral Himmel growled. "How soon can you get my corvette back into service?"

"We can't," Louis' voice responded. I looked over to find him reviewing the scan logs and shaking his head. "There is no structural integrity on the forward half of the hull. The only reason the ship survived was because the damage was confined to the forward part of the hull and the starboard engine, but I'm amazed it emerged from the jump. The bridge is open to space."

"There was no one at the helm?" Admiral Himmel asked.

"Not since about five minutes before we jumped," Lieutenant Krupke's voice rang out clearly. "I had to write overrides down in engineering to activate and later deactivate the portside jump engine. Corporal Sloan promised me that he had the ship pointed at Ishtar, just before he died, but I had no way of knowing if we'd held course while I finished writing the code I needed. And I was less sure we'd hold course once we jumped. I was writing all kinds of adjustment codes in an attempt to balance the thrust around the one engine. Thankfully, Corporal Sloan deliberately aimed a bit to the left so the drift I couldn't eliminate didn't push us out of the system when we emerged."

"Who is this?" Admiral Himmel asked.

"Lieutenant Kathy Krupke," the woman responded. "I am the engineering officer on Tintagel."