Chapter 3

"Will you just hold still!"

"I'm sorry, the collar itches and I can't seem to get this belt fastened."

"Here, let me." Erica took the Sam Browne belt's shoulder strap from me and had it clipped into the main belt in short order. "There. Now, let me take a look at you," she said as she took a few steps back.

Unlike me, Erica looked delightfully comfortable in what she was wearing. Now that we were past the 48 hour moratorium on concubine clothing, all the women of the pod were exploring the design banks of the replicator. Her current selection was an incredibly sexy summer dress and it was simply amazing how the greens in the fabric highlighted her eyes.

As for me, I couldn't help but tug at my high jacket collar again.

She frowned at me, something I never like to see. Stepping close, she tugged a bit at the grey jacket and ran her fingers along the offending collar. "It seems fine," she told me. "I'm surprised you're having so much trouble with it, considering your previous profession."

"I was never a fan of clerical collars either," I muttered as I tugged at the noose around my neck yet again.

"You're just nervous," she said, pulling away my hand with her own. Lifting up on her tiptoes, she kissed me lightly on the lips. "You'll be fine. And when it's all done, you'll come back and I'll help you take this uniform off. And maybe... ," she said with a seductive wiggle of her eyebrows, "I'll get Trisha to help."

"That is so not fair," I complained, looking down at the bulge in my trousers.

"I know," she whispered in my ear while rubbing said bulge through the fabric. "Aren't I naughty?"

With a sigh, I stepped out into the ship corridor. Turning back toward the pod, I watched Erica kiss her fingertips and wave them at me as the door closed. I could only shake my head. If only I didn't have something more pressing and urgent to do.

I had been in the transporter room, seeing Felicity off, when the message came through. The tribunal was in session and my presence was expected at 1430 hours. I had just under an hour to get back to my pod, get cleaned up, get dressed, then back out the door and finally arrive at wherever I was supposed to go.

<Just step through the door to your right and onto the moving track and you'll be at the crew quarters in very short order.>

Seeing the referenced door, I followed the given directions. <Thanks.>

<You're welcome, Sponsor Hendricks.>

It was a people mover like you find in major airports, except it was in a self-contained tube and seemed to move a lot faster. I looked down and took in my newly slimmed body, now encased in a grey dress uniform. It's what I was told to wear for the hearing. There was no rank insignia apparent, but I'd done enough research to know I was clothed in Civil Service grey. If that was the cost of my favor, then so be it.

As I rode along, though, Erica's reference to Trisha tickled in the back of my brain. I knew it was far more than a seductive tease or an appeal to every man's supposed fantasy. She was trying to tell me something in that helpful, low key way of hers. Thoughts and images swirled in my mind as I struggled to figure out what that was.

And then it finally clicked. Erica was inviting me to see Trisha as a woman ... my woman. I shook my head in ... what? ... dismay? I'd selected her as my concubine but I'd been treating her as a child ever since. And as sweet as she was, I knew Trisha would never complain—probably just cry into her pillow every night. I resolved that it was past time for me to do right by her.

The trip proved to be as quick as the AI predicted. Stepping off at the directed stop, I walked through another set of doors and out into another standard ship corridor. As if anticipating my confusion, the AI chimed in, yet again.

<Turn left at the next hallway and follow the red glowing line on the floor.>

With a nod and a sub-vocal <thank you>, I headed off to the left. I meandered with the line through several twists and turns, until it terminated at a closed double door—Conference Room H3. A chime sounded and, after a few moments, the doors opened.

Before me was a large oblong table, around the opposite end of which were seated four individuals. At my end was one, lone chair. As the doors closed behind me, I was politely invited to sit by a large marine who'd been standing guard off to the side.

I watched as those opposite me appeared to be sorting through digital files across multiple PDA's, so I just waited. Two were familiar. I recognized Decurion Sundberg right away, as well as the captain of the vessel, Lt. Col. Derrick Coleman, seated in his Fleet Auxiliary Blues. The other two, however, a major and a commander in their Marine Greens, were completely unknown to me.

Fortunately, I did not have to wait long.

"My apologies for the delay, Colonel Hendricks," the captain eventually offered, using my retired rank as an honorific. "It would appear the circumstances that led us to bring you here have changed."

"How so?"

At that point the major, a strikingly beautiful woman of black hair and dark completion, spoke. "You told Sergeant Davis that Corporal Grigorian was, and I quote, a sadistic menace. What did you mean by that?"

"I'm sorry, who are you?" I asked her.

"Excuse me, Colonel," she offered with a slight smile, "I am Major Emma Hernandez from the Marine Office of the Judge Advocate General's Corps."

Ah, a lawyer, and a really pretty one at that, for an oversized marine. Since I couldn't imagine OJAG having a lawyer stationed on a colony ship, I figured she must be here visiting.

Pointing at the others near her, she continued with the introductions. "I presume you know Decurion Sundberg and Captain Coleman. Rounding out our number is Commander Roman Spivey. He was Corporal Grigorian's Company CO."

That one word—was—caught my attention. Considering the infractions involved, they would have only restricted the corporal to his quarters until this hearing. Was—definitely a fearful word at this moment. I recalled the alarming gleam in his eye.

"What are the conditions of his concubines?"

"I'm not sure that's..." the major began before she was cut off by Commander Spivey.

"One concubine, a four year old boy, and an infant girl are dead, the other two—plus a six year old girl—are currently in medtubes." The clench of his jaw told of his restrained anger. "It was pretty bad."

"Torture?"

He nodded grimly.

"Now you can understand, Colonel, why we need to..."

I held up my hand to the lawyer. "One moment please."

"Is he dead?" I asked, turning back to Spivey, knowing that the murder of the children would be dealt with harshly.

"Recycled thirty minutes ago."

"I'll take them," I told the decurion with no further elaboration.

The voice of the ship's AI broke in. "Concubines Theresa and Priya, as well as Heather, the minor daughter of deceased Concubine Katrina, are now transferred to Sponsor David Hendricks."

"AI, what is their estimated recovery time?"

"The child's physical trauma was relatively minor due to her mother shielding her. She will be released in approximately 15 minutes. The two concubines' injuries were much more severe, involving massive internal hemorrhaging and bone fractures, as well as they each suffered miscarriages. Their treatment is estimated to last several more hours."

Major Hernandez was about to speak again but I raised a finger to delay her.

"AI, please open a channel to my pod."

"Done."

"Hi, Honey, that was quick," Erica chimed in. "Is your hearing finished already?"

"Unfortunately, no," I replied. "I need you to do a favor for me."

"Anything."

"Grab Gina and head over to," I paused to look up the number, "Medical Bay D14. The AI will direct you. The corporal lost it with his concubines—two of them and a six year old girl survived but are really banged up." Erica audibly gasped at the news. "The girl's name is Heather. She's now an orphan and is set to wake up in less than fifteen minutes."

"We're on our way," she choked out. "I love you."

"I love you, too. Is Sharon there?"

"I'm here, David."

"The women's names are Theresa and Priya. It will be a while before they're healed, so keep tabs on that with the AI. If you want to go check on them before then, be sure to take Gene with you. Okay?"

"Diane and I will take care of it, David. Thank you for letting us help."

"I can see why you want him for the Civil Service, Einar," I heard the captain remark.

"The Colonel's leadership, decisiveness and empathy scores caught Director Chandler's attention right away," the decurion admitted, "but there is another of his qualities that has the AIs very interested, as well. In fact, he's already got them revising their CAP testing." Looking over at the major, he nodded in my direction. "Ask your question again and you'll see what I mean."

"There's no need. I remember it," I responded, waving her off. "I said he was a sadistic menace because I've seen it before. Publically, he kept his behavior in tight bounds, like a drill instructor, but it was still there in his eyes. He got off on what he was doing—taking pleasure in inflicting misery. I knew if he wasn't already a danger to those around him, he soon would be."

I turned toward Grigorian's Company CO. "I suspect he was a competent soldier under you, for the most part, but never should have made corporal because he didn't really play well with others, did he?"

"Got that in one," Spivey conceded with an admiring nod.

"I also bet he was a marginal extractee," my comment now directed to the Civil Service representative. "If I had to guess, I'd say he was barely a 6.5 or maybe a 6.6, with high aggressiveness and decent intelligence but low sociability and empathy. Am I right?"

The decurion tapped his PDA and Corporal Simon Zachary Grigorian's initial CAP score of 6.5, along with his subscores, appeared on an oversized screen on the far wall.

The major let out a low whistle. "And you got all that from his eyes?"

"That and his nonverbal cues," I replied. "They're tough for people to keep a lid on all the time."

Standing up, I walked over to the screen. Something was bothering me, so I tapped two subscores and enlarged them. "I'd imagine an empathy score in this range is usually not a problem, as long as the aggressiveness is below here," I showed them, pointing with my finger.

"So, someone who's mediocre on both aggression and empathy but off the charts on ... say ... intelligence and technology," the captain observed, "won't present the same problems Grigorian did."

"Right." I paused. Something was still niggling at me.

"I bet this isn't the only bad combination of subscores possible, though," the major observed.

"Sure," Commander Spivey chimed in, "raise the empathy a bit but drop the intelligence or reasoning, and you've got another version of the same problem."

Suddenly, everything clicked. "It's not just the scores," I pointed out. "It's what the Confederacy does to these people after they get them."

Tapping on the screen, I drew up Grigorian's primary extraction information. "Simon, here, was pulled off Earth eight months ago at age seventeen. Originally 5'8" and 140 pounds, he was given the standard Marine Super-Soldier modifications. A social misfit, he was given absolute power over several concubines. Then, after that, he was turned into a trained killer—something that, because of his personality, he had no real way or desire to turn off in polite company."

"So, he was a walking time bomb."

I agreed with the captain's assessment. "Lord Acton's warning about power corrupting is borne out as true yet again."

"He never should have been a marine," Spivey observed. "But I've got fifteen or so guys just like him in my company right now. What do I do with them?"

"Short of dropping them off on a Sa'arm world and letting them go?"

He nodded.

I turned back to the screen and pointed to Grigorian's empathy subscore. "This is what was bothering me a bit ago. As low as this is, it's way too high for the man I met three days ago. I seriously doubt he would have passed a CAP re-test yesterday."

"It's a shame we have to wait for them to start going bad before we can do that, though," he replied.

"That it is," I agreed. "And the real sad thing is that if Grigorian had limited himself to only murdering his concubine, we wouldn't even be having this conversation."

The pod door silently slid open and I was met with one of the most cheerful greetings a man can receive.

"Daddy, you're back!" Wee little Gretchen charged through the entryway and leapt into my arms. Wrapping her arms around my neck, she gave me a sloppy kiss on the lips and, if my heart wasn't moved before, nestled into my neck and chest for a cuddle.

With moist eyes, I kissed the top of the girl's head. She was the one who would always sit on my lap when I gave children's messages during worship. Now she called me Daddy. It absolutely floored me and brought back memories of my own girls—my older girls, I corrected—Joy and Grace, when they were her age. How precious little ones like her are, I thought, as I stood there and held her close to my heart.

Hearing footfalls, I glanced up to see Matt running toward me, trailed by a smiling Trisha. I must say, looking at her, that the nanites did quite the phenomenal job in far less time than I thought. Erica called her adorable but even that word was insufficient.

For one thing, she had these huge blue eyes, like that actress Zooey Deschanel, set in the cutest heart-shaped face, above a pert nose and cupid bow lips. They were all naturally hers, by the way, with no modification needed. Next was the hair. She'd somehow sussed out my love of long hair and now had beautiful blonde curls descending all the way to her lovely little bottom.

Which brings us to the rest of her. Barely five foot tall and ninety pounds soaking wet, Trisha was now a pixie with gentle curves in all the right places—an adult sized Tinker Bell. Her outside had finally caught up with her inside and it was well past time I did something about it.

"Hey, Matt," I called, holding out my fist to him. "How's my buddy?"

"Good," he smiled back, bumping my fist with his own. "We've been playing Go Fish."

"I take it everyone else is still gone?"

Trisha nodded. "Martin's up doing some sleep training but, yeah, everyone else is down at the Med Bay."

"So," I said, deepening my voice and playfully poking the munchkin in my arms, "were you two good for Mama Trisha?"

Gretchen giggled and nodded her head into my neck. Matt, for his part, called out a yes and shook his head along with his sister's.

"And how should I reward Mama Trisha," I asked in that same deep voice, "for being so wonderful and taking such good care of you?"

Gretchen lifted up her head and whispered in my ear.

"A kiss?" I glanced over at the pixie in question and wiggled my eyebrows. "Do you think," I asked, looking back and forth between each child, "she'd actually want one?" Both were nodding vigorously and Gretchen even wiggled to get down so I could do as she suggested.

As I was setting the little tyke down, Trisha offered up her own response. "Yes, please!"

"Don't you think she should close her eyes, though?" I asked the children.

They were firmly on my side by this point, so Trisha acquiesced—but not without an eye roll before she closed them.

Stepping closer, I leaned down so that my face was mere inches from hers. Closing the gap and tilting my head just a bit to the right, I lightly pressed my lips to her own. A squeal erupted from her throat as she flung her arms around my neck and jumped into my arms. What she lacked in technique, she certainly made up for in enthusiasm. I don't think I have ever been kissed so thoroughly in all my life!

Well, a person can stand there kissing a girl he's holding about a foot off the ground for only so long. So, I finally set her down to the applause of our pint sized audience, only to find that Trisha—very much glassy-eyed and flushed in the face—was having difficulty standing. With a bit of a chuckle—and only a bit as I was somewhat out of breath myself—I swept her up in my arms, walked over to one of the sofas and plopped down so that she was now sitting in my lap.

And that is where we were, sometime later—watching a movie with the kids and occasionally kissing—when the AI intruded.

"Sir, you have a call from Earth. It's Concubine Felicity."

<AI, can you confirm that she is pregnant?> I asked sub-vocally.

There was a pause. <Yes.>

"AI, please pause the film." I nodded and then gestured to Trisha, who was still on my lap, and the kids to remain quiet. "Hey, there, Flick! Can I assume all is well and that you've done what I've sent you there to do?"