Chapter 31: Musical Ships

I returned to our home hallways in time to catch James coming out of the command post. With Diana and Ingrid's help I cornered him in the hallway and ordered him to throw me over his shoulder and take me back to our home to ravish me. He did after telling the AI to order Bethany home.

James did not really ravish me though. He jumped into the shower while Bethany and I fed our daughters and then pulled us into the hot tub for an hour of playful fun. Bethany held onto him at the end of that hour, kissing his neck and smiling.

We agreed that we wanted to have more stolen mornings like this one, but Captain Narvaza was loudly demanding that James come to the visitor's lounge, so James got out of the tub and dried off after ordering Bethany and me to cuddle and comfort each other.

Tina showed up some time later. She was hungry so we joined her for lunch and then left to continue our work on various projects.

I did have time to ask James about trading rabbits based on promises of seeds being delivered in the future. He explained that if we did that, everyone would make the same promise.

The idea of inviting Briget to come and see the rabbits was mentioned, but Captain Narvaza demanded that a pod be set up to run simulations. He dragged his crew into that pod and kept them in there for hours. Yvette suggested that he back off a bit and give his people some rest, but her comments were scornfully ignored.

The arrival of the crew of Cabo San Lucas only added to the confusion and instability. They had lost their two most senior officers. Captain Narvaza tried to issue orders to them, only for Lieutenant Dawn, the most senior officer left on Cabo, to call James and demand that Admiral Himmel be informed. James sat down with both officers to try to calm the situation down, but it soon became clear that they would never get along.

And both ships were going to require three days to repair. With tensions high, Yvette had ordered all concubines to remain within the enclave. So two days after the arrival of Cabo I was in the briefing room sitting on James' lap when Ulla called out. "Admiral Himmel for you James."

"Put him through," James replied.

"James, how are things out on Ishtar?" Admiral Himmel replied. He sounded extremely happy.

"Slow," James replied. "The crews of Sahara and Cabo don't really get along, so we've had to work to keep them separated. It's been a bit of a trial."

"Any real problems?' the Admiral asked. "I did mention to Captain Narvaza that I expected him to cooperate with you."

"Not really. Captain Narvaza keeps his people too busy to cause problems, and Lieutenant Dawn is trying to patch together a crew. They lost a lot of people. We are retesting one concubine from Cabo."

"You are?" the Admiral asked.

"Yes," James replied. "He belonged to Captain Custer. Roderick Payne is his name. It was his ability on the helm that brought Cabo to Ishtar."

"Sounds like a good man. Will you keep him on Ishtar?" the Admiral asked.

"Hell no," James replied. "We are finding that even adding people temporarily is a great way to disrupt life here, and that stupid scientist is due in another month. Besides, he's said that if he scores high enough he'd like to be able to claim Captain Custer's pod and concubines. I get a feeling that he was comfortable living with them."

"We'll see. When will you know his score?" the Admiral asked.

"A few hours. He's testing right now."

"Well, that leaves open part two of my question. Can you gather Captain Narvaza, Lieutenant Dawn and Lieutenant Cassidy," the Admiral asked.

"Why is it that we call female officers by their rank and first name, but male ones by their rank and last name?" Yvette asked with a giggle.

"Just get them and call me back," the Admiral gruffed.

"Ulla!" James called out.

"Already on it, meet in the lounge?" she called back.

James looked over at Yvette. She nodded. "It's for the best. We should probably have a briefing area set up there."

"Tell them to arrive in the next fifteen minutes," James called back. "Yvette and I are on our way."

"Should I go as well?" I asked James.

He kissed my forehead briefly. Then as he lifted me from his lap and stood up he put his arms around me and kissed my lips hard. I put my arms around him and held him tight until he backed away from the embrace. "No," he told me with a smile. "This should probably be citizens only."

He walked out of our briefing room. Yvette gave me her own hug. "Sorry. He doesn't like not being with you, but Sahara's crew is a bit rough around the edges. It's best if we don't dangle any bait."

I heard James snort as Yvette ran to catch up with him. I wandered out of the briefing room and sighed.

"Want to know what they are saying?" Ulla asked.

"How?" I asked.

Ulla pointed to the chair next to her. "We know they will be talking to Admiral Himmel. We'll just have the speaker in here working as well. The microphone will be off though. You can listen in and hear what's said."

"Should we be spying on James like that?' I asked.

"We won't be causing any harm," Veronica said.

I slid into the chair. Ulla giggled and reached out to pat me on the shoulder. "Don't worry too much. The twins were the ones that showed us how to do this. We use it when the briefing room door is closed."

I looked over at Ulla. She was concentrating on the screens in front of her. After a few moments she glanced my way and then shook her head. "Oh, don't be so surprised. The best way to be able to anticipate the needs of our master is to listen in when he's in meetings and such. You don't have to because you have so many sisters to help spread the work."

"I just try to make sure James is happy. I don't want to upset him," I whispered as I squirmed in the chair.

"This won't upset him," Veronica said. "There is no way he isn't aware that people listen in at times. If he knew it was private, he'd tell us to keep the conversation private."

I sat in the chair feeling increasingly uncomfortable. Ulla was listening to something coming in through a small ear bug she was wearing. I had started to climb out of the chair to leave when she grabbed my arm.

"Where are you going?" she asked

"Home. Madoka will need to be fed soon," I whispered.

Ulla used her other hand to flick a switch and then turned to look at me. "I know you fed Madoka just before you came here with James, so she can't be very hungry."

The speaker burst into life. "Ulla should have sent the signal to Admiral Himmel to join in. He wanted all of you gathered," James said.

"Why am I here with these two?" Captain Narvaza growled. "Lieutenant Cassidy I can understand since she's my navigation officer, but that other one isn't even assigned to my ship."