Chapter 18: Rendezvous with the FoM Robert E. Lee

The next morning I woke up to the ladies continuing to plan the structure of the household. By now the ladies sleeping with me the night before knew the plan too, and they were making recommendations.

One of the ladies, who was a fourth tier lady said, "The only thing I worry about is, the promotion spankings. Up two levels is a lot of swats by the Captain". It turned out that at every promotion the lady would get a good girl spanking (something like the birthday spankings) as a reward for the promotion. The rate was 50 hand swats per level. I quickly did some quick math and multiplied and realized the minimum any sister would be getting is 550 swats and multiplied that by 400 ladies. This was not going to work, it was nearly quarter of a million swats. I was headed in the direction no man had gone before. It was worked out that I'd change the promotion procedure and the ladies would over the next several months get spankings with the ping pong paddle at diner much like the birthday spankings. I'd have four extra sleeping companions every night.

We had breakfast with the rest of the ladies. Then I made a little speech. I said, "We are about to board another ship. I will not be in command of it. You are going to be required to follow the orders of the crew of the vessel. Follow their orders exactly at all times.

"I want to be very clear on something though. I know you ladies have vows that you must keep. Those vows state that you are to follow me and whatever orders I give you. Under no circumstances are you to follow any order I or the crew give you that will put your life in danger, if I am not there to countermand those orders.

"This means if a crew member orders you to get off the Lee without a space suit, do not follow the order! I never want to hear one of you died because I gave you an order that you followed even though you knew you'd be seriously injured.

"Do we understand each other?"

"Yes Sir", was the response though they were a little confused. They understood what I meant; they just never considered how to put their safety above their vows.

I wanted to be clear, "Ladies", I said, "I am not asking you to break your vows. I want you to consider this order something that I have commanded you to do at a higher priority than any other subsequent orders I might give you".

They were a lot less confused, the order could now be followed as part of their vows.

We rendezvoused with the FoM military transport Lee about 2 hours after breakfast. The Captain of the transport was a beautiful olive skinned, black haired lady, about 6 foot 2 inches tall. She was probably of Spanish descent. Her name was Rhonda Gonzales (ok, in the 21^st Century the name would have been a dead give away, except this was the 41^st century and by now your ancestry and your name usually had no correlation). She was tall yet rail thin. We talked briefly two days before the rendezvous, since she wanted to make sure the ladies understood that there was no room aboard a military transport for large amounts of female clothing and various other articles. I assured her there was no problem in that area. She asked to address the ladies on my ship before they transferred to the Lee, since the Military transport had no accommodations for large group meetings. I said granted her permission. I had no idea why she wanted to address the ladies but I decided to wait until then.

The Zeus and Lee docked at the passenger egress module, and Captain Gonzales came aboard with a half dozen marines. We exchanged small talk as we walked to the passenger compartment. When we entered into the compartment and the Captain saw the 'accommodations' she turned beet red. I asked her if there was a problem.

"Sorry Captain, I am embarrassed to say that I have made a miscalculation. I had no idea the ladies were living in the cargo hold this way. I had the wrong picture completely. I thought this was a passenger compartment with passenger accommodations.

"To put it bluntly, my experience with civilian women made me believe, despite your reassurances that there was going to be a major problem on board. The reason for my addressing the women at this point is gone. My speech would sound quite idiotic at this point".

I replied, "Don't feel so bad, where these ladies are concerned I have made my share of mistakes in judgment.

"They are waiting for your little speech though. Why don't you just greet them and tell them they are welcome to board the Lee. Tell them that they are to follow all crew orders immediately. Remind them that unlike the Zeus and the Beverly, there is a lot of exposed equipment on the Lee. Tell them that the need to be careful and not touch anything. If they accidentally bump a control they should immediately tell the nearest crew member".

Assimilating the idea, Captain Gonzales replied, "Yes! Thank you! That will work fine". She addressed the ladies, it was clearly unrehearsed but it went well.

After her address, she came over to me and said, "Thank you again. I own you one". How much she valued that assistance I would not know until later. I knew better than to say, "Don't worry about it". FoM Officers took favors seriously and I accumulated them in case of emergency. She would have been offended if I turned it down or made little of it.

I said that I'd remember and that someday I'd claim it. She replied with a clearly cryptic, "I hope that you get the chance, you'd better do it soon". Combining the statement of the Admiral with her remark, I was getting concerned that something very serious was up.

Captain Gonzales continued, "Come, let me introduce you to the pilot and crew that will get the Zeus to Jewel". We walked over to a line of marines waiting for us at attention. "Captain Jackson, this is Lieutenant Commander Alice Cook, she will command the Zeus on the voyage to Jewel". She then introduced six other crew members.

I told the ladies to start boarding the Lee. I showed the marines the bridge and introduced Lieutenant Cook to Mother. I gave the marines access to everything including the Zeus' weapon systems. Lieutenant Cook was clearly shocked at the armament that Zeus had. I quickly explained the reasons for the armament and how the Zeus was sometimes used against pirates. She understood. I showed them how to access the FTL communications system in my quarters. I told them to use it if any problems occurred.

It took less then an hour for the ladies to board the Lee and get comfortable. The crew was a little unsure about dealing with the ladies but it do not take long for the ladies to put them at ease.

We undocked with the Zeus and were on the way to Starbase 3092 five minutes later.

During the trip to the star base I noticed that the crew was very tense. I also noticed that Captain Gonzales was sort of listless. Every time a crew member looked at her they had this worried concerned look on there faces. I had enough problems to solve, so I didn't follow pursue the issues, something I would at least ask about otherwise. I doubted that the crew members would have told me anyway.

The trip on the Lee to the star base would have been routine except for the morning of the day we were to arrive at the star base. The captain of the Lee, had been watching the birthday spankings. We carried them out because it was the right thing to do. That morning the after breakfast the Captain Gonzales asked me to come to her quarters. She wanted to discuss an important issue. I figured it had something to do with the task I agreed to perform for the Admiral. I could not have been more wrong.

When I arrived she took me to her living area asked me to have a seat in the couch. Captain Gonzales then sat next to me and said, "Ed, I need to talk to someone about my current personal crisis. When I looked at your record I saw that you have a level 6 security clearance". This was the highest security clearance a person could have in the FoM. The FoM military granted me the clearance in my pirate hunting days.

I responded, "Captain, now wait a minute".

She interrupted me and said, "In my cabin or when we are in private, please call me Rhonda, sir".

"Sure, Rhonda, you need to be careful here. Please don't tell me anything you should not. It would put me in a very bad situation".

"I know sir, the Admiral gave me permission to talk to you when he contacted me with new orders. I had asked to be relieved of duty because I was having this personal crisis. I was not sure I could handle the simplest of jobs. I would never put my crew in jeopardy because I was not fit for command. The Admiral refused to relieve me of duty. The Admiral knew I had no one on board that I could talk to. He said I could tell you the entire story if I needed to. He really trusts you".

I responded, "Well ok then, go ahead, Rhonda".

She started tears welling up in her eyes, "I have lost my husband and all my close friends already to the problem the Admiral mentioned to you about things that are happening on the other side of human space.

"I feel so guilty! I took the promotion to Captain three years ago and this assignment even though it was going to take me away from my husband for a few years. He strongly encouraged me to accept the promotion.

"Last month I receive news that my husband and his entire crew had been killed in action. I am beyond the initial mourning of the loss. What I could not understand is how they could be "killed in action", since there was absolutely nothing in the area he was deployed in. In fact I was supposed to be in more danger than him. I snooped around trying to discover the reason for my loss".

When she paused I said, "I am very sorry for your loss. I don't know your husband, but if he was anything like most FoM officers, he would have been very happy to know that you were not with him at the time".

Rhonda's eyes were now glistening with tears. I knew she was going to lose control any minute. I knew that when she did she would be better off. She continued, "Eventually I managed to get a hold of a report on my husband's ships demise. The FoM is under attack from an unknown intelligent space faring species. My husband's ship was one of the first ships attacked".

That was news. It was the first intelligent species the FoM had run into. It was not a complete surprise that they were hostile. It was inevitable that the FoM ran into one, but it would have been nice if it was a friendly species.

She continued, "I have asked to be transferred back to that area. I want to kill those aliens. The HC will not let me go back. They think I'd be a danger to myself and my crew. They are right of course". The tears were running down her cheeks. She came over to me and buried her head in my shoulder. I held her as she cried and boy this lady could cry. She had reason to.