Chapter 39

Third Mission, outbound aboard the FUP Deep Space Exploration vessel Glenndeavor, 2401 CE

With my neighbor, Melvina Bimini, gone, I did my morning stretches and forms naked. As a thin sheen of sweat began coating my skin, I detected our mixed smells coming off my groin, tinting the air of the compartment with hints of our earlier activities. It was good mental exercise for me, not attaching any of my focus on the fragments of images from last night triggered by the odors while staying present and in the zone as my forms slowly flowed from one position to the next.

After that I'd showered, dressed in my duty-blues and put new sheets on the big bunk in C003. I picked up all my toys off the bunk in C001 that I didn't think I needed in my big hack kit and put my tool kits away. Then I collected and packed my vid cameras safely back in their case along with the two tripods and the articulated arm used to deploy the recorders around the big bunk. Before I closed the top, I removed one item from the container.

Now I was almost done copying the videos of Melvina Bimini and me off the memory sticks from the cameras. I could see the time was 2231 by the indicator in the bottom right of the small holographic field and figured I'd had about four hours of useful sleep and was feeling chipper and alert. Coffee before duty might not be necessary but it would be welcomed.

I sat at my desk using one of my almost-finished electronics projects—a small, audio and 3D-video editing suite that I'd built into a trim briefcase and now stored in the long case holding the rest of my video gear. The editing suite had an inexpensive holoprojector mounted in the lid, and, as well as the Ship's time, displayed five icons up the left margin and a growing, green, download-progress bar near the bottom of the holo-field projected into the air above my desk.

After these duplicate files of Bimini and me on the bunk in C003 were safely transferred onto the bubble drive of the editor, I'd be able to turn the original sticks over to Juliet—once she arrived from the Royal Yacht and whatever aftermath there was from their bachelorette party shenanigans. I'd back up my copies of the files from the bubble drive onto another memory stick at some point as my personal, second copy.

While the editing suite worked fine as it was, there on my desktop, until I had a better holographic projector in the unit I wouldn't consider the project complete. Now that our household had requisitioned those crazily-superior contraband holographic projector units, I just needed to make the time to swap out the inexpensive projector and retro-fit one of the new units—then I'd consider my editing suite project a success. And I needed to make the time to accomplish that as soon as possible.

The completed editing suite was important. I intended to obtain all the videos of our commitment ceremony I could get my hands on from my three cameras and those of friends attending the festivities. Using the skills I'd developed taking several courses in audio-visual production and editing that fulfilled elective credits while I was youngster in college, and that I had honed since then, I would use all the files to create a professional quality documentary of my household's commitment ceremony.

I'd also include quick interviews with my good friends who attended the ceremony so my parents and family would have faces and voices to attach to some of the names they'd been hearing about from e-attachments sent on previous missions and in the e-vids I'd been recording since right after we left Hapner L-Four. Copies of the final product would go out to all my extended family.

I'd also see to it that short interviews with the friends of Juliet, Anika, and Bea were included as well. I'd provide Juliet, Anika, and Bea with copies to send to their families. That way, if the women wanted their families to know about the ceremony and see some of our friends aboard the Glenndeavor, they could send them the video along with whatever digital files they were sending.

In my Royal Princess's situation, I wasn't sure she would want the video going out to her family. I don't think anyone couldn't say who might intercept a copy of any e-files that were flagged for her family on her home world of Nowe Gniezno; and the Brotherhood wanted my youngest wife.

The evidence we'd discovered in the hold of the Royal Yacht, along with the stasis pods containing members of TECMA's kidnap squad, indicated the Brotherhood didn't know what she looked like. Now that she no longer drank the fountain-of-youth water from Nowe Gniezno, Anika appeared to be a young teenager rather than the nine- or 10-year-old I saw in the picture and drawing found among the kidnap team's gear. While the Brotherhood knew, or suspected, that she was a crewmember aboard the Glenndeavor, if they got their hands on a copy of our commitment ceremony video, they would know what she looked like and the name she was using.

So I had another item to discuss with Lieutenant Shellbee, and perhaps Major Luce, Merch, and the Captain as well.

As I watched the progress bar lengthen in the holographic field, I decided I still needed to proceed with my video project. Because if everyone agreed that it should be safe for Juliet, Beatrice, and me to send copies to our families—without mentioning exactly who Anika really was—those files would have to go out on the post-warp message drones the Captain said would be dispatched soon after we entered the outer disc of the first star system on our new Order of Survey.

And that, I figured would happen in... three or four days.

Double gowno! I thought. What else do I have to make sure has been taken care of for our ceremony? I needed to talk to Benny, my dear friend and event coordinator, so I reached for my Heavy resting to the right of my editing suite on the desktop.

The hatchway to my right opened, and I forgot about picking up my black-ops version of a crew-issued POC as Anika and her jaw-length, curly hair under her garrison cap, literally bounced into the compartment.

The Polka Fireball was already dressed in her duty-blues and wore her holstered .40 caliber pistol and her POC. I had time to see her glowing, aristocratic face wreathed in a 900-kilowatt smile before she wrapped her arms around my shoulders from behind my articulated chair.

In spite of the small headrest behind my skull, I felt her nuzzle the left side of her face against my right ear. That helped me calm down from the adrenaline buzz I was starting to feel from the realization I had to get busy if I was going to send off evidence I was married to my mother sometime in the next week. Then Anika moved her head back a bit.

"Oh, my Jamison," my Anika breathed into my right ear, her young voice all but dripping happiness and sexual energy while sending excited sparkles up my spine under my coveralls, "I am loving you so much. You are being, truth-told, most fabulous, understanding, and opened of the mind, and generous ... also being—of course—sexiest of all men existing in my known universe. I am proud and happy, being second wife to our luscious Mindy and chosen by you to be sharing our lives together in such unthought-of before ways."

For emphasis, she kissed my ear before pulling her head back again, sighing.

"So—" I asked, turning my head to my right as best I could and still not able to really focus on her eyes, "—did you have, well,"—and part of me was almost afraid to know—"a good time at your bachelorette party?"

"The almost perfect time," Anika cooed, "having nearly enough."

"Enough of what?" I teasingly asked her, and freeing her hands from around my chest, I was able to rotate the chair around and had my petite, big busted, youngest wife eagerly plop down on my lap. With Anika's legs going off my right thigh, she leaned back into the crook of my left arm, her lower back against that armrest. I could feel the tip of her holster against the top of my left thigh just above my knee.

"My naughty husband, you must be waiting, yes, to be seeing videos capturing last night's, ah, festivities," Anika told me as I admired the rakish angle of her garrison cap that somehow managed to not fall off her rebellious, copper-colored curls. Her dark blue eyes focused on first my right eye and then my left, making me feel a little disoriented until she grasped my right hand with both of her smaller hands. Batting her incredibly long, copper-colored eyelashes at me, Nika pulled my fingers to the chest of her dark-blue coveralls, just below the bottom swell of her breasts. As she held my hand there with both of hers, part of me noticed she hadn't put her Purple Heart and other ribbons on her coveralls yet. The ten-day time period dictated by Captain Mowmyier in which all combatants and support personnel who upheld in Colony Stasis Bay Three were to wear our ribbons so other members of the crew might know the faces of those who saved the Glenndeavor wasn't up yet.

"So," she asked, her voice sounding playfully guarded as she looked into both of my eyes for the truth, "are you now having equally sexy movies you are going to be sharing with us, my naughty husband? If not, copious amounts of gowno, I am thinking, shall be raining down upon your noble brow. Yes?"

No doubt about that, my paranoid ass-wipe chuckled. Luckily, we are SAFE. The download should be finished by now, dude.

"It was," Anika told me, "how do you say, ah—gentlemanly of you—to be offering our friend, Iz, person of Claire to become possibly girlfriend. However, my naughty husband, I was having horns for movies of you being demanding as you took your pleasure in all aspects of her ripe body ... alas."

I could feel my body beginning to respond to Nika's body resting on my lap and felt a grin starting to form on my face.

"In place of such exciting movie," my Princess said, giving my fingers in her clasp a squeeze, "I was seeing Iz could not be keeping his, as Juliet was saying, hands to himself, even while hearing my tale of woe and travail at being of royal blood, forced by cruel powers beyond my control to be leaving my home world for experience of bigger ... ah ... understanding of Federation while forsaking the waters of my world, and; therefore, suffering terrible Neuholm's syndrome as well as seemingly being as little girl among the crew who are disrespecting of me, for most part."

I was amazed that she was able to say the whole sentence while only taking one extra breath. I knew I was breathing a little faster, enjoying her cushy weight on my lap.

"After Arrbra and Juliet is telling them that all I was saying is truth told," Nika said, shrugging the shoulders of her duty-blues and giving my held hand a little shake, "our name friends, and Benny's comrades, are understanding now. Be knowing, my naughty husband," she told me with a little wiggle of her bottom, "they are feeling understandable privilege of inclusion in such knowledge and association, and all swearing to be protecting of my back while not spreading rumors, as we are now—with this revelation—extended family I am telling them each and every one."

Feeling proud of Anika for opening up to our friends about her family, health, and political situation, I squeezed her hands holding mine against her chest. I decided to tell her some of what happened between Claire, Iz, and me in C001.

"Well, Claire did tell me before she and Iz left—" I said to Anika who started slowly squirming on my lap and flexing the cheeks of her bottom, hoping to continue getting a rise out of me, I was sure. "—that she was willing to get together with me later, if that was okay with you, Juliet, and Bea; and Israel as well now. He said he'd have to think about that, but I don't believe he'd like it—unless one of you would be willing to get together with him; and I can't abide with that idea at all. Selfish; yes—but that is how it is, Nika."

"You are knowing best answers for my ears, my naughty husband," my youngest, fidgeting wife told me as she rewarded me with a breath-taking smile that made her dark-blue eyes dance. "However, I am thinking—from observations now, I am telling you—that Claire would be willing to be giving you all access pleasures of her body without telling Israel of such, ah, before she is agreeing to be his acknowledged woman. However, it is good our brother, Iz, is now our name-friend and we are already holding him in high regard. Yes?"

She saw the look in my eyes as she played with my fingers she held in her hands and added, "—I am voicing my truth-told feelings after watching Claire since lunch ... And my naughty husband—what am I feeling pushing against my fine, womanly rump?"

"My growing desire for you, my loving, obedient wife," I chuckled.

"The downloading you were monitoring on arrival of my joyous sunshine," my curly-haired Nika told me, looking over my shoulder at what could only be my editing unit that was on my desktop, "is now completed. I am seeing prompt asking what you wish to do next as I feel other prompt I am resting on.

"Perhaps a quick fucking of your youngest, obedient wife?" she asked in a breathy voice as her eye brows rose and threatened to dislodge her garrison cap from the copper-colored curls on her head.

Bumping my lap and hardening cock up against Anika's soft, yet firm bottom, I told her, "I would wish to make you submit to what you've been squirming around on. But where are Juliet, Bea, and your party guests? Did you really have a good time last night—and did you get all the dresses picked out and fitted as well?"

"A-firmative to gowns," she replied in a crisp manner. "Arrbra and I, on waking, policed up Royal Yacht to shipshape order as best as we are able."

A small shudder went through my youngest wife's teen-aged frame on my lap. Bringing her head close to mine, she told me in a whispered voice that barely contained her excitement, "And, Jamison, Arrbra is telling me that kittens are now expected in Hydroponics! Having second pair of cats out of stasis now, Arrbra, ah, has forced the issue—being good, intelligent pun—although no babies for nine weeks yet she is telling me, yes?"

I could see a far away, innocent look developing in my loving Nika's dark blue eyes. My youngest wife was imagining getting her hands on playful, fluffy kittens, I was certain. I felt my warm affection for her flood up into my throat, making me smile.

Becoming aware of me smiling at her, Anika grinned back at me and shrugged her shoulders then cuddled herself against my left shoulder.

"Remaining sleepy-heads, as Arrbra is calling them," the Polka Fireball told me, "are being motivated to be, ah, getting up and at them by her as I am speaking to you and enjoying feel of what is poking me. However, my Jameson, I am saying to you now that our Juliet is not being accomplished in drinking skills for distilled spirits. Any child can drink wine; however, after only few drinks of true alcoholic nature, our loving Mindy is, ah, giggling and speaking louder.

"Also I am discovering this morning," said Anika, her young voice now sounding slightly scornful, "that she and Courtney suffer from kac, ah, przepicie. Kac, Arrbra is telling me is called hanging ... hanging over. The remaining spirits of our celebrating toasts during sleepover are now hanging over heads of Mindy and Courtney as if big hammers of the workers. However this is being their own faults for not drinking kaca lekarstwo Beatrice and I offered to ward off such, along with the taking of two aspiryna and consuming minimum twelve ounces water before sleeping. More is always better, even when not water of Nowe Gniezno.

"And, my naughty husband!" Anika's voice rose and her countenance changed to glee as she started bouncing up and down on my trapped and growing erection. "Last night was truth-told sleepover—as I see in naughty movie—at last! Courtney being reluctant, at first. Beatrice telling me to not be hasty with her; and then, after only few more drinks, my hand is to be found—surprise—in Ney-Ney's naughty, damp panties. However, I am sworn not to be telling you more."

"What?" I blurted out as the images in my mind's eyes dissolved with her comment.

Ask about their videos! demanded my PAW from my churning lizard brain.

"I am only wishing," Anika told me with a sigh as her delectable bottom ceased moving on my lap, "I was having in possession my personal pleasuring device for sleeping-over."

"You're to pick that up today," I asked Anika, sort of know where this thread might be going, "aren't you?"

"Truth told, my naughty husband—" my copper-curled, loving wife said with a nod of her garrison–cap-covered head, "—if having new PPD last night in ribaldry of our celebrations, Courtney would now be cooing as dove, if not for her hanging over, I am thinking. Bur Brandt would be facing tall order next time Ney-Ney is belly bumping in bunk with that fine rift-of-raft she will be wedding." And Anika chuckled as a devilish grin appeared on her aristocratic features.

And he would deserve it, my PAW announced with a satisfied nod of his head.

"You wouldn't do something like that to our name-friend," I asked Nika, hearing more teasing in the sound of my voice than the shock I was hoping to exude, "would you—giving his intended an experience he couldn't hope to rival?"

"Before Arrbra was going back to find her sleep in clothing bay, so we could be having our youthful fun as she is calling our later antics," my Polka Fireball told me with another big grin, "we all are having long talk about loving, living with, and then marrying men in service to the Federation. While both were being drunk at that point, Juliet and Courtney paid attention under circumstances with rest of us. Then, many questions were asked, some—no, many—being of salacious nature at end, but all good and enlightening; Arrbra answering all with sound counsel to my ears."

"Sounds like it was a good thing," I said, wishing I could have heard what she told them.

"Arrbra tells us," said Anika in a thoughtful-sounding voice, "that you and our name friend, Wilbur, are being good men—loving, supportive, and open to betterment and discovery by us of our truth-told selves, and each of us learning to be living with same in present. Arrbra says you will always be treating us such if you are being approached by us in forthright manner without deception considering our sexy schemes with other women not of our household."

"See what a fantastic husband you have, my love," I said to Anika, "especially if a perceptive woman such as Arrbra confirms my good qualities."

"She will not be confirming all of your excellent qualities," my Polka Fireball told me. "However, she is telling us that knowing you have done your best to do as you both see is right and needed for each of us to be loved, protected, nurtured, and such, then we should not be jealous of friendships you are having outside of our household—with a man or a woman. Of course this is correct thinking, yes? You are open to our outside friendships and trust us. We shall be doing same ... as with G4 Bimini last night, I am hoping?"

"I have the files," I told her with a sigh. "That was what I was copying when you came in."

"Such a good, considerate husband," Anika said with a smirk. "I am thinking you have made discoveries concerning our new neighbor, at same time bringing her to excellent discoveries about her self, ah, last night? Both parties were good for people making discoveries of selves last night. This week, Courtney and Bur will be having much to be discussing about her discoveries last eve at my hands, as well as Bea-Bea's ... our mouths and fingers also.

Gowno; I hoped last night wouldn't cause Courtney and Bur any big problems.

"This will test our truth-told friendships, and strengthen them in Bur and Ney-Ney's case," said Anika in a matter-of-fact-sounding voice. "I am thinking G4 Bimini will be, ah, as I am hearing saying, work in progress. I am hoping she is not lost cause. There is yet to be reckoning between the two of us in many matters I am looking forward to. I will not be worrying about damage that brings her to be our new neighbor."

That's truth told, my paranoid ass-wipe spoke up. But Anika might be surprised; especially if Mel the Chin remains true to her upbringing and wants some royal blood, so to speak, as well as the good orgasms she found she was capable of having last night. She could STILL go to the authorities, you know.

I didn't think that was going to happen and decided to not worry about whatever Melvina decided. She needed time to assimilate her experiences in bed with me. And I hoped that she had felt the growing affection I realized I had for her. I felt satisfied that I had done my best to show her I cared about her as a person, not just as a receptacle for harvesting orgone energy.

I shook my head at that whole wrinkle, knowing I'd have to talk to Juliet about what she knew, or thought she knew, about the existence of that supposed energy force.

Anika sighed and, letting go of my hand, put her arms around my shoulders. She gave me as good of a hug as possible with her on my lap, my left hand on her back and my right holding her left hip. Closing my eyes, my entire world became the two of us in the articulated chair. I let all of my thoughts and thinking go, zoning into the love, affection, and comfort I felt welling up from our connection and moving between my middle and Anika's center. I became lost in our being together in this moment.

Feeling refreshed, and still in our slightly awkward embrace in the articulated chair, I zoned back into our compartment and the here and now. Anika had her forehead and part of her garrison cap against my left temple, her breathing slow and even.

The first thought that popped into my cleared mind was of Bur Brandt. I couldn't let go of the conviction that he was the motivator of this whole idea of a bachelor party for me—not that I didn't enjoy my celebration that actually occurred once I got used to the idea. I am sure he had no concept of what he set in motion, but Bur would probably piss himself laughing if he did find out—well, if he didn't mind Courtney being seduced by Anika and Beatrice.

If what he'd done was an indication of his sense of humor and devious nature, I had to admit that my buddy was going to be a pain-in-the-ass. While I'd have to stay alert, I also felt sort of honored that he went to all that trouble. After all, he had used considerable skill and insight in answering Anika's questions about the nature of bachelor parties in the way that he did.

I am sure he knew at some point I'd have to deal with any further questions my youngest wife had concerning his spin on a proper bachelor party. He turned what most fiancées would consider grounds for ending their engagement before the wedding or worse, after the ceremony, into activities that showed just how thoughtful and caring the groom was in providing the best possible luck for the newlywed couple as man and wife.

I decided that I would continue to develop intel on my fine buddy, Bur; his habits, likes, dislikes, quirks, and all those things that good friends came to know or suspect about each other over time. That way, I could come up with my response to the first prank he pulled on me. However, I certainly didn't want anything I would do, or that my youngest wife and our mistress had already done, to be the cause of deep and permanent trouble between Courtney and him.

I looked at my youngest wife, with her head back and her arms still loosely around the shoulders of my duty-blues. I felt all of my love and affection for her continuing to swell up in my heart. She was studying me with a speculative look in her dark-blue eyes. She sighed and her speculation became a knowing, satisfied look I'd seen my grandmother give my Pater Grand on so many occasions while I was growing up.

"Be not concerned, my loving husband," Anika spoke up, letting go of my shoulders and leaning back into the crook of my left arm against the armrest, "Bur Brandt is worthy of our friendship and of our loyalty. After describing extent of arrangements for your bachelor party, much to Courtney's shock and surprise, I was realizing, with help of our sweet friend, Arrbra, that Bur was, mmm, pulling on fast one, yes? Arrbra was then telling of complexity of some good-natured, ahh, zart, mmm, pranks, between her husband and his best male friend, Merch. Arrbra explained that such actions are one sign of their great friendship."

"Arrbra explained that to you," I asked, a little spooked that Anika was talking about Bur when I'd just been thinking about him after our moment together, and suddenly I had a flash of insight into the long relationship between my Pater Grand and my grandmother, "did she?"

"Truth told," my youngest wife informed me, a big smile forming on her face. "Also is good Bur's pranking is not occurring during Sylwester, ahhh, being the Eve of the New Year."

"And why is that?" I asked, again aware and enjoying Anika's weight on my lap and against my left arm, thinking how comfortable this chair was for holding her like this—well, the hug wasn't as satisfying as it could have been, I had to admit.

"For, on Nowe Gniezno," she told me with humorous certainty I could hear building in her voice, "Sylwester is time of greatest pranks on family and friends—which must go unpunished. You are, in back of mind, already thinking best of ways to be responding to Bur's ploy, I am knowing. This is why you are asking me and Beatrice so many questions concerning what Bur is telling of his knowledge of bachelor celebrations and such earlier. Yes? While I would want you to have such good friend in Wilbur Brandt as Arrbra's husband was having with Merch, I will also help with any devious retaliations you are wanting for Bur—may I be helping?"

"Yes, you certainly shall. Your eyes see many things others overlook," I told Anika, my eyebrows going up as I focused on her beautiful, dark-blue eyes as she leaned back against my left arm. "I find that very stimulating, Nika. And from what you've told me that you and Ney-Ney did together during your girls sleepover, you might have already started doing your part in our getting back at Bur." And I flexed the muscles under her warm bottom.

"Doskonaly, my naughty husband!" Anika giggled. "I cannot be telling you better than what you will be seeing with own eyes of videos recorded of last night's nefarious proceedings. Truth-told, Ney-Ney was not being upset about our doings of last night on waking.

"Also," she added, "I am now understanding, and I am happily seeing that people of many planets in Federation are actually having poczucie humoru, that being, sense of humor. The Three Stooges, this sprawka of Bur Brandt's; shows what my people have been knowing always—there is high art to great zart, yes?"

As my Polka Fireball put her Kilo over her copper curls, I wondered when Anika and I would be blessed by the appearance of Juliet and Bea. And would any of the other revelers stop by the suite before they headed out to wherever they were going? I watched Anika as she walked through the opened hatchway into the head. She hadn't muttered her sexy initiation phrase yet; I figured she didn't want any POV video of her using the facilities recorded by her helmet cams.

The hatch closed behind her as I fit my communications bud into my right ear. I had already activated my Kilo helmet, but then took it off and put it down on my desk crown up when I realized I wasn't wired for sound. With my RTC now in place behind my right ear, I was ready to receive any communication directed to my Heavy or to my Kilo through the ear bud. And I was expecting a call, or at least a text message, from Lieutenant Shellbee that would give us our duty assignment. I suspected we would continue our contraband search following the compartment listing she'd already given us.

Suddenly a rush of embarrassment shot through me. I realized that if my youngest wife had said her Kilo initiation phrase, my language-translation hack would have deployed my data visor. That would have made the front of my helmet rise up off the desk—it might have even tipped my Kilo off onto the carpeted deck. Anika would have, of course, asked all kinds of questions I wasn't willing to answer right now, and the next time she said something in Polish and my visor deployed, the Polka Fireball would start looking for cause and effect.

I wanted to spring my language translation hack on her, preferably right after she said something in Polish that would be particularly embarrassing and that she felt sure I didn't understand. I was beginning to see that my Pater Grand was right about finding a woman—or several women in my case—that I wanted to bedevil for the rest of their lives.