Chapter 4: The Order of the Strap

The Order of the Strap

We made our rendezvous with Paula at the auto doc and revived her. When she came to Paula was all smiles and in the sexiest voice I could remember ever hearing said, "Hello, Master! How may I serve you?" She was still recovering from the drugs a bit and I could hear the snickers behind me. I repeated my instructions to Paula on rivalries. She looked at the other ladies, grinned and said, "Our new companion learns way too fast".

Paula then noticed the red eyes and tears the rest of the ladies had. "What's wrong Linda?"

Linda said to Paula, "In case you had any doubts Sis, you did the right thing. We saw holo's of the Beverly on the bridge. There is no doubt that the Reverend and crew of the ship are dead. The damage to the engine section, the aft and central habitats and the control sections is catastrophic. There will be no survivors there. It is a miracle we survived".

Sally spoke to me, "Sir, if I may ask?" I nodded. "Why aren't we using the central corridor to access the other sections?"

It was a reasonable question. I answered, "I scanned that and it was ruptured in several paces and open to space". She clenched her fists. I could tell she was very angry. She then relaxed, and then looked sad, tears returning to her eyes. I thought she wanted to say something and then thought better of it. I wanted to make a point, so I said, "I want you all to be totally frank with me and speak you minds. You are to tell me everything I might need to know. I'll spank you later if I need to. So Sally, out with it!"

"Oh! It is something personal, sir. I helped design the Beverly. The corridor was one of my designs, as were the passenger compartments. I am afraid I think I know what went wrong on the ship. I was angry for a second because the chief architect removed several additions I had made to strengthen to corridors to match the strength of the passenger compartments. The chief architect tried to do the job as efficiently and inexpensively as possible. My guess is some part other part of the ship that was less than fully strengthened gave out and there was a cascade effect throughout the ship. The sad part is the chief architect was in one of those people crushed passenger compartments. I really liked her. I considered her one of my best other Order friends and a mentor. <Sob> Of course, I may be completely wrong, we will probably never know". Sally had managed pretty well up until that point but now she was in tears. The other women went to comfort her. They hadn't moved to comforting each other until then. Sally was someone very special to all three of the others. I would find out why later.

After she calmed down I said to Sally, "You need to control you anger a little better. They could get you in a lot of trouble".

They all laughed through their tears, as if it was the understatement of the century. It was the first time all four of them had smiles on their faces at the same time. It was a pleasure to behold. Sally said, "Yes sir. You have certainly have read me correctly. I have to work hard at it every day. They have caused me quite a lot of punishment and problems over the years. I am pretty good at it now, but the scale of the disaster has gotten the better of me several times today. Please forgive me. Most of the time getting angry solves nothing and so far, I have been wrong every time today".

I said, "You should know Sally that the extra hull sealant that the crew modules had and the heavy anti radiation shielding are the only reasons you and your sisters are alive today. The next time we are on the bridge, remind me to show you something. I think I can show you what caused the catastrophe on the Beverly. It does not look like a man made problem to me".

Now she looked really relieved and said, "Thank you, Sir. Please do. I really am worried that it might be something I designed that caused the Beverly's problem. I am not sure I could bear to live with the deaths I may have caused".

We arrived at the airlock just then. I cycled it and we entered the Beverly. I turned on the lights but again there was no one there to greet us. As I reached the bypass panel Sally said, "If I may sir, you go ahead I'll check this and see if I can get the computer up and at least turn on the lights here and in the other sections. They have been in total darkness for hours now. They must be scared to death.

I said, "Great, see if you can get the ships intercom working too. If you do tell them what is happening, what to expect and how we will deal with it".

Paula added, "Tell them that I said that the capitulation ritual and the surrogate rule are time honored methods of dealing with the type of problem we face and that I said that the Reverend would have approved".

Paula turned to me and continued as we walked down the passage way to the second passenger compartment on the Beverly, "Sir, you made the right decision letting Sally handle that. She knows the Beverly better than anyone, including the chief architect". As she said the last phrase I could tell that Paula was not completely pleased with the chief architect. I would later learn that Paula had been the negotiator between Sally and the chief architect and there were at least some, if no a lot of emotions still lingering.

Paula though recovered nicely and continued, "Sir, all the other ladies know me, I am the current law and ritual expert as appointed by the Reverend. There is no guarantee but they should go along with what I suggest".

Paula continued, "The person who speaks first in the group will be the senior sister of the group. If she is on the same page as us everything will be easy".

She looked at some of the marking on the walls and said, "Good! This is the compartment of the Order of the Strap. Do the same thing you did in my compartment. You can skip the two hours of explanation and pleading and go right to the 'You are risking my life as well as yours'. If they refuse, I'll explain their alternatives, if the have not already realized them and show them my bruises. The senior sister of this group, Sister Amanda is reasonable and smart. It would be better if we had some time to warn them, so that they can draw their own conclusions, and come up with a surrogate themselves. Amanda will of course volunteer before anyone else can. She can take the most of the strap, or at least that's what everyone thinks". Linda and Jackie gave Paula a knowing smile. There was a little secret buried in the last statement, but I had no idea what and I chose not to ask right then.

We arrived at the hatch, and just like the one before, there was stacks of debris to move. It took a lot less time with the women helping me. I was about to turn on the lights in the central compartment when suddenly they came on without my help. Once the hatch was clear, I opened it and entered the compartment. These women were just as beautiful as the as the Ladies of the Brush, wearing bright red string bikinis. A woman in the group, a stunning redhead with green eyes, said the expected, "Sir, who are you?"

Everything went according to the script until we got to the "Do you all agree to Amanda as surrogate?" when three of the women refused saying, "We do not trust Sister Amanda as our surrogate".

Amanda was stunned. She had no idea what to do. I thought she should be acting, in her position as senior sister. I chimed in, with typical male foot in mouth disease, and said, "Ladies I don't have time for this. If you refuse you can sit here in the dark until I rescue the rest of the women in the other compartments. If there is time and if you are still alive I'll comeback and get you. You can each count on the worst thrashing you have ever received and I will not stop until I feel you have agreed and beg forgiveness from Sister Amanda. In addition you will be subject to whatever discipline you order bestows on you for your insolence. You have two minutes to decide".

I looked at Amanda, I thought she be pleased that I was backing her authority. She was in tears. I walked over to Amanda, and with my back to the audience I asked her "What is going on here?" She responded, "Please, sir! Please don't do that. I made a serious mistake about a week ago, when there was a report that the three girls up there were doing something not in agreement with Order rules or their vows. I investigated and recovered multiple instances of hard physical evidence that the report was true. I had the evidence checked by a trusted expert in another Order. She was convinced it was authentic. I had the girls punished despite their denials. It turned out that it was a fake report generated by a crew member of the ship, 'to watch the fun', since they had refused his sexual advance. We caught a crew member retrieving a recording of Monica being punished. We confronted their accuser and he told us what he had done mocking us. I apologized to Monica and the other two, but they do not trust me any more and I can't blame them. It will be some time before I restore their respect for me and longer before they trust me. They were punished just two days ago and there has not been enough time. The surrogate rule requires that you absolutely trust the surrogate. They can't possibly agree to your terms. They are being truthful and are in the right. For the record, I will not assign them any order discipline. I will stay with them until you get back. This is totally my fault, I should have seen this coming and let Lori be surrogate".

I could see I was on the verge of another miscarriage of justice, and I didn't want to start this way. I said to Amanda, "Ok. I understand now. NO it is not your fault at all. You did your job to the best of your ability. The miscarriage of justice is the fault of the crew member. These ladies will recover their respect of you with time. They would not be so hurt if they didn't love and trust you. The current problem is my fault, for jumping in without all the facts. Fortunately for me, it is not too late for me to fix my mistake. You did not have this luxury".

Time to remove my foot I thought. I turned back to the gallery and I said, "After further review, it seems I may have been a bit hasty and a bit of an ass. I didn't know the whole story. I thought you were being disrespectful of your leaders at the worst possible time. Try to forget everything I just said. Let's try starting again."

"You three come down here ... I want to talk to you." They came down, up until I told them to come down they were righteously defiant, in the 15 seconds it took them to get down to me that changed to bravely scared to death.

I asked, "What are your names?" The ring leader was Monica. The other two Susan and Cynthia were standing behind her backing her up. I said, "Monica, if you were in Sister Amanda's position, what would you have done"?

She replied, "I would have trusted my sisters. She should have known that we'd never do what we were accused of doing!" It was clear the other two girls were totally in agreement. Amanda was behind them in my peripheral vision shaking her head up and down.

I continued, "Are you sure about that? Amanda had hard physical evidence that the report was true. You all, including Sister Amanda, had a vicious dirty trick played on you, by a very cruel person. I would bet that Amanda did not believe that you'd do whatever you were accused of doing, until she saw the evidence with her own eyes. Amanda had an expert in another order verify that the evidence was authentic.

"When a person has trusted hard physical evidence of something they believe their eyes over their feelings. They really have no other choice. Cleverly faked evidence is the hardest type of crime to detect. If the person who is deceived is in charge of discipline, a host of bad things can and often do occur".

Monica, tears in her eyes, "But I love her, look up to her and trusted her. She hurt me to my core for something I'd never do. How could she make this mistake and take an outsider's word rather than mine? She should have known the evidence was a fake..." She paused, "What? How could an expert make such a mistake?" She was processing what I said in the middle of her rant and realized she had new information, "Why the hell didn't you tell me you had the evidence checked? You let me think you were the only person at fault and that you didn't have it checked". She was obviously catching up, quickly and then continued, "Oh, I see now. It is your responsibility for discipline. You'd never blame another sister, especially if you knew it would make the situation worse". She stopped, obviously thinking about the current situation, her head bowed down embarrassed.