Chapter 19: Starbase 3092

A starbase is a beautiful thing from the outside. Inside lies the problem. There are a lot of dangerous places in the FoM, none more notorious than a starbase. A star base serves as a center of commerce for the star systems it protected. Starbase 3092 protected a section of the galaxy that had 219 inhabited star systems. Each star system had an area of the base that it considered its own. That area was governed by that system's laws.

This meant that an outsider could easily get into deadly trouble and not even know what he did since what was perfectly legal in one star systems section could get you the death penalty one section over.

FoM military personnel were the exception. No one dared harm them.

Most travelers, unless they had business on the star base never left their ships. I was not about to make an exception to that rule. The star base commander would come to me.

Cargo started being loaded onto the Lee almost immediately upon our docking with the starbase. It would take less then eight hours to complete the supplying of the Lee.

Five minutes after we docked the commander of the starbase appeared at the docking tube requesting permission to come aboard and to meet with me. I was asked by Captain Gonzales to meet her at the egress module.

The starbase commander was a short woman, from a planet with high gravity. One look at her and I knew I had my work cut out for me. I was glad I had the order of the birch locked up in my quarters, with Candy's crystal.

The base commander was very muscular with a heavy bone structure. She had an air of authority about her that seemed to say, I'm in charge, don't mess with me. In her own way though she was beautiful, especially if you like rippling muscles on a woman.

When the Captain and I met her at the egress module, the base commander had a long metal tube and an brief case in her had. The base commander introduced herself as Commodore Dorra Shmitt and then told us, "I have some top secret information to share with Captain Jackson. I will do so in his quarters. I have a white noise device in my brief case. Please don't worry if you lose the video feeds in the area of the Captains quarters". I was wondering how she planned to pull this off, and now I knew.

She walked with me to my quarters, making small talk on the way. Once we were in my quarters she opened her brief case and flicked a switch on a box inside it. I locked the door to my cabin and turned on privacy mode in the cabin. With privacy mode on no one outside the room could here anything inside it.

The Commander opened and removed from the tube 3 birch rods. These rods were much closer to old fashioned birch rods of the 20^th century and earlier. Earlier I had hypothetically asked Yoko if I could us the Order Birch to deal with woman outside the Orders if I needed to. Yoko said that there was no problem with that, as long as I had someone clean the order birch after I was done.

Dorra turned to me and said, "Sir, we both know why I am here. Normally I'd apologize for my conduct, namely refusing to immediately send you and your ladies help, but that would be self serving and mean nothing at this point. I really screwed up. I am lucky to get this chance to be punished as an alternative to court martial".

I said, "Dorra, I need some answers to some questions first. Why are you so angry with these ladies?"

She stammered for a second or two then said, "I am not angry with the ladies at all. I was angry with the Reverend. I thought he was the one making the request for help. It should not have mattered who it was though I should have sent help".

I was not going to let her off the hook and then asked, "Then why are you so angry at the Reverend, and don't even try to tell me it was the damage he did to your career, you did that yourself and you know it".

She didn't answer for a minute or two. I could sense she was considering the problem in her mind and working the answer out. She needed time to think it out, or at least come to terms with telling someone else the answer. I knew that once it was out, she would be better off. I also knew that if I forced it faster I would get a convenient answer, but quite likely the wrong one. I waited, I had the time and so did she.

Finally she said, "Sir, I come from a planet where men and women are monogamous. My father however cheated on my mother often and let my mother know. He was a very cruel man and when he would cheat, he would punish my mother severely for not being an adequate wife. Often he would cheat right in front of my mother. The Reverend reminds me of my father. We had had many problems with the Reverend and his crew. Several times he and the Beverly had stopped at the base before and reeked havoc of various types while here".

"When the Reverend came to the base demanding that we prosecuted the crew members that assaulted his women, I thought it was outrageous. He kept the ladies in bikinis all the time on the ship. The men were under constant temptation. It was inevitable that something like this would happen. His ladies didn't even know if the Reverend would approve of the men beating them that way, for some trumped up reason. The ladies cooperated. They consented to the beatings and sex.

"The attempted murder charge might have helped, except the Reverend would not allow that lady, Sally as I remember it, to testify. In fact as I remember it Sally had the only legitimate rape case and the Reverend was not allowing us to use her. I felt that Reverend was as guilty as the crew men".

"The Reverend was at the very least obstructing justice, by refusing access to Sally. There are rape shield laws in the FoM. There was no reason to deny us access to Sally".

She paused. I had to admit she was making some amount of sense. I had pretty much thought the same thing. The men of the Beverly were known not to be choir boys.

She continued, "Now this where I lost it. When I told him that without Sally's testimony there was no case against the men, he accused me of being worse than the men. I was outraged. He was belittling me for something that was his own fault, exactly as my father had done to my mother. I exploded at him. He had good reason to be upset but he had said this in front of my crew. I ordered him arrested and placed with the crew members under a charge of negligence leading to an assault and obstruction of justice.

"Fortunately, my head of security, bless his sole, understood that what I had done was a recipe for career destruction and had the guts to stand up to me. He did not put the Reverend in with the men. My legal department then really messed up. I was told that if we could not charge the crew members with a crime we had to let them go. The head of the department was incompetent fool and since he was new to the post, I had not yet learned that. I had no idea I had the option to return the men to the Reverend for prosecution. I ordered the crew members released".

"The Reverend was rightfully furious, but had the good sense at this point to not tell me. My second in command demanded that I drop the charges on the Reverend. Frankly, I did not have a case either. I did and he was released".

"The Reverend then complained to High Command and my career has been on hold since. I know what I did to him was over the top. It has taken me a decade to correct the course of my career. Still I was very angry at the Reverend".

"Now I do this. I have to admit, I have a serious blind spot with the Reverend. I am furious with myself.

"When your request for assistance came in, the message that was relayed to me was that the Reverend was requesting a ship to help him. It was not clear from the report given to me that there was an accident. It was five days before I was told that there had been a mistake, that there was an accident and the ladies needed rescue. I immediately had the captain's of the Clark and Adams prepare for departure to assist you. It was going to take a day or two arrange for transportation for you and the ladies and I had that in the works too. I had the captain's of the Clark and Adams met me to receive their orders. When they heard that the Zeus was the ship that was being rescued and that you needed the help, they told me who you were. Naturally I was quite aghast".

"Right about then the Admiral called to enquire if he could help in any way. I told him what had happened. He read me the riot act. He didn't care if I hated the Reverend's guts. To quote him, 'ANY civilian ship requesting help is to be immediately responded to'. By the time he was done with me I knew I was one step from out of a career. I am sure the captains of the Adams and Clark told you how I immediately reacted".

I acknowledged that indeed they had.