Chapter 14 - Less than Innocent Remarks

Traci ignored everyone except Jennifer and dashed forward to stand by the bed. "Oh god!" Traci screamed. "I can't believe that such a thing could happen to you! Who did it! Why?"

I think everyone was shocked by this action. I was looking over at Traci and noticed that the collar pins she normally wore had changed slightly. The ark appeared the same, but the other was now co-joined women's symbols rather than the mix of male and female symbols from when I visited her office. I was going to speak when Sarah called out. "AI? Can you tell me what Traci's real age is?"

There was silence and Traci turned in shock as if just realizing we were there. Jason and Miles were glaring at my concubine. I said nothing at first, but moved to block the exit. As I did Traci's face drained of blood and became white.

"Concubine..." I then growled. "You ask the most puzzling questions, but this time I'll back you up. AI, what is Traci's age?"

The AI, which had remained silent when Sarah spoke replied immediately. "Citizen Traci Milosevich is forty-seven chronological years old."

"What?" Miles shouted. "I only brought her into DECO nine months ago when she was first picked up. She couldn't have been older than twenty-five. She looked like she does now!"

Traci smiled. "I didn't lie about that. I really did ask for almost no changes when I went into a pod. I've always looked a lot younger than I am, and it proved rather easy to have the few signs rolled back without any changes."

Miles then looked at me. "So she's a lot older than we all thought. What is your concubine blithering about? I have work to do."

I ignored him and looked at Sarah. "You were playing with the PDA. What do you suspect?"

Sarah shrugged and handed the PDA to me. It had the photos of Traci's four concubines from her pickup. Three were clearly models. The fourth was an extremely nerdy looking woman, complete with the coke-bottle horn-rimmed glasses. I looked at this and sighed. "AI, please tell me that none of Traci's concubines knew much about computers before the pickup."

Of course, the AI dashed that faint hope. "Traci's concubine Meredith was the IT director at Jones Modeling Agency. The woman has a master's as well as a doctorate in computer science."

Linda gasped. "So she would have known everything necessary to..."

I sighed. "Traci, do you want to throw yourself on the mercy of the court now?" I asked.

"What!" Miles screeched. "She's mine! You have no right to arrest her! Besides what crime has she commited? She might have a CAP less than eight, but she's still a valued and intelligent woman."

Linda shook her head. "She's also a lesbian. One who if I'm not mistaken made a pass at Jennifer and was rejected sometime after they were both picked up."

Jennifer looked a bit surprised and thoughtful,but before she could speak Fleet Admiral Tucker turned to me. "Can you explain what all this is about? It sounds like you have an arrest. Heck, I'm still not sure what the crime is."

Traci smiled at that. "He's got a point. You haven't exactly called out what crime I might have committed. And you are from a colony, how could you prove that I committed any crime out there? I have never left the Earthat system. My pickup brought me immediately to the Success and I was head of assignments a week later."

Miles looked uncomfortable when everyone turned to look at him. "Hey, we are just as understaffed as everyone else," he said with a shrug. "And until five minutes ago I thought we were doing a perfect job. What is this about a crime anyways? She didn't stab Jennifer."

Linda looked at the two men who between them pretty much ran the human part of the Confederacy. "This first question will likely make little sense to you. Have either of you ever heard of a colony called Ishtar?"

Both men frowned and Traci looked over at me. "I remember Commander Nelson asked me if I had any pickup requirements for Ishtar, but there are none in the queue. So what does this so called colony have to do with whatever crime you are investigating?"

I smiled. "AI? Please confirm the location of colony Ishtar and under which jurisdiction it should be at the moment."

There was a moment and the AI replied. "Information regarding the colony is sealed."

I looked at Traci who had grown pale in the face again. She stared at me as I looked over at the AI speaker and spoke again. "AI, I have with me Fleet Admiral Jason Tucker as well as Miles Chandler the head of DECO. Neither of them ever authorized that seal on the records, so unless it's from another Internal Affairs officer, I order that seal removed and the information given."

Jennifer's eyes widened. "You can do that?" she asked.

It was my turn to nod. "No Internal Affairs investigator wants to do something like that, but in this case I feel it is necessary."

Everyone stood silently for several moments. Finally the AI spoke again. "Colony Ishtar is located within Sa'arm controlled territory. Its closest Confederacy neighbors are Borneo at one hundred light years away and Kelor at one hundred ten light years away. Officially the colony should be designated as a DECO concern as it was not properly handed over to the local district control after citizens were landed."

Fleet Admiral Tucker hissed. "Its inside Sa'arm territory? When was it founded."

Linda looked at me and at my nod spoke. "We aren't sure. Even with Commander Nelson's experience in dealing with the AI units, obtaining that information might have impacted our investigation."

The AI interrupted. "The first instructions to drop the colony center and terraform equipment were made fifteen months ago. Actual selection of colonists occurred over a two week period five Earth months ago."

"Who did the selection? And why?" Miles asked.

I had been watching Traci and noticing that with each revelation she grew paler and paler. By now I could see the knuckles of her right hand whiten against the rail of the gurney. I gazed directly into her eyes before I spoke.

"That is what I was sent to investigate," I admitted. "General Montgomery found out about the colony after a memo crossed his desk telling about a Sa'arm attack on the colony that was repelled. He was rather upset about a colony in the district's zone of control that he had not be properly informed about."

Fleet Admiral Tucker gave a harsh sounding cough. "Wait. Did I just hear you say the planet repelled an attack? We have major marine bases that all but collapse once the Sa'arm land. How many citizens are on the planet and how did they do it?"

Miles just sneered. "Yes, how did these citizens protect their illegal colony?"

I nodded for Linda to speak. Fate was now leaning against the wall looking confused as Sarah once again played with my PDA. Linda seemed to be smiling. "Well, I haven't visited to ask, but the after-action report detailed the use of some ground-based lasers. A talk with one concubine who apparently rode out to the planet with the colonists revealed that some of the citizens took their safety seriously and claimed one of the empty pods being carried out with them to be converted for use on the colony."

I could see the looks of disbelief on the faces of the two commanders and shrugged. "It might also help that Ishtar is a young world and has a very acidic atmosphere. The report only speculated on the reason the Sa'arm ship was destroyed, but did credit the atmosphere for doing additional damage after hits from the lasers cut into the shell of the ship. However, that isn't a concern to the investigation. The question I was sent to answer was who bypassed proper channels in setting up the colony and how they did it. I'm afraid that the discovery of who did it will be accompanied by multiple counts of murder and attempted murder."

"Murder?" Miles screamed. I could see Traci slump down slightly. "What do you mean?"

I looked right at him. "The colony was founded by sending out one hundred citizens. Since there was no proper authorization and the planet can rightly be called a potential death trap for anyone living there, even the AIs will support attempted murder charges."

"But they fought off the Sa'arm," Miles said. "So why should anyone be charged?"

I gave him a long look. "They fought off the Sa'arm because some of the people sent out decided they weren't going to be meek and allow their own slaughter. I'm sure that Admiral Tucker can tell you how many other colonies have ground-based defenses. There is no question that our culprit hoped that the colonists would quietly disappear. Or at least that was my initial thought. Now I'm not so sure."

Linda looked at me. "The lesbian scorned?" she asked.

I looked over at Traci. "I think so. Sarah, you have been playing with my PDA. Am I right that Traci has no male concubines?"

Sarah giggled. "Of course boss. But you've lost me now."

From the expressions on the faces of the two high command members they felt the same, but Traci was now staring at me with tears streaming down her face. "So I'm a lesbian, that's no crime in the Confederacy," she said quietly.

"No its not," I said, trying to smile. "But the comment Linda overheard about a lesbian being scorned helped me finally put the pieces together. I knew from my visit to your office that you definitely had the opportunity, but other than your habit of wearing a uniform to annoy the rest of the DECO hierarchy, there didn't seem to be a good motive for you to send one hundred citizens out to die."

Miles grabbed at me. "And that should prove she didn't do it! No member of the high command has any reason for that! Not even the bleeding hearts in the Navy that want to pick up every six point five scoring body on the planet. We should be worrying about the nines and setting up to recover in the future. We can't save everyone!"

I sighed but held up a hand to warn Admiral Tucker to refrain from coming to my rescue. "Miles, I don't deny that you are one of the more important men in the Confederacy right now, and that rescuing people with high CAP scores is important, but you have all the compassion of a starving rabid wolverine allowed into a henhouse."

He let go of me and a moment later I continued. "Yes, Traci doesn't appear to have a direct motive. At first Linda and I expected to find that one of the naval officers involved in pickups decided to act alone in an effort to silence complaints from the training base commanders. The initial analysis Linda and I performed on the citizens on Ishtar suggested that most would have been difficult to train. In fact at first I was sure it was Commodore Pruitt. He is young, earnest and in a position where he gets to hear all of the complaints that the training base commanders make. Fortunately for him, the attack on Miss Gates here proved his innocence."

"How?" Miles screamed. "You make it sound like he'd have a far better reason to send these losers away than Traci. You keep hinting at a motive, but you have none!"

"No?" I asked, looking at him for a moment. I then turned my gaze to Traci who was still slumped against the wall of the room. It was a long silence and finally she spoke up.

"What gave me away?" she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

"Same thing that proved Commodore Pruitt did not do it. The attack on his cousin Miss Gates," I replied.

Miles started screaming again. "But Traci did not attack Jennifer! You admitted that yourself at the start! Look she's in here worried about Jennifer's recovery. How can you claim she attacked her?"

Linda gasped and I nodded over to Sarah for a moment. My concubine was holding my PDA against her chest and I had to smile.

"Traci did not attack Miss Gates," I admitted. "But while I expect the idea of setting up a colony to dump rejects was pushed by Traci. She had to find a Navy officer to help her develop her plan. It was that officer who attacked Jennifer. I expect if we ask him, he'll reveal that he thought the whole idea was Jennifer's, and he wanted to eliminate her because my investigation was threatening his career."

It was Admiral Tucker's turn to snort. "A likely idea. But why would he do it? Its not like he could be bribed with money!"

I sighed. "Sarah, which of Traci's concubines was it?"

My concubine turned the PDA around to reveal pictures of a stunningly beautiful woman. In every photo she was wearing silk and lace lingerie and several photos had magazine titles. "Well, she'll have to tell us if I'm right, but Katya Karlova was the cover girl for all three major men's magazines in the three months before she was picked up. I can imagine a night with her would have been sufficient currency for most of the men on this ship."

I could see Admiral Tucker pale. "Damn, yes it would. Even with the nanotech treatments, any of my officers would love to be able to brag about fucking a real cover model rather than a concubine who just looked like one." The Admiral looked at Traci. "Which of my officers was it."

Traci had tears streaming down her face. "Commodore Franks," she whispered.

"What?" Miles screamed. "You mean its all true?"

Traci just nodded. I could see Jennifer turn to glare at her former friend as the tension in the room spiked and then it dropped as Miles almost deflated.

"Well, that ends my investigation I guess. We now know who did it, and I expect Traci is going to confirm that is was her computer-experienced concubine who helped with how to foil the AI's standard defenses. But I can handle that interview later. I do want to ask you two gentlemen a couple quick questions. First, Miles, what do you want to do with Ishtar? And second, what should be done for Jennifer? Its clear she's not happy in DECO."

Miles growled. "Quarantine Ishtar or bomb it, or leave it to rot. I don't care! It's an embarrassment to the Confederacy and we're better off without it. As for Miss Gates," his voice had turned almost shrill. "If that ungrateful bitch doesn't want to be part of those that will be setting the rules, she can join the Navy. She's no longer part of DECO."

The head of DECO turned to leave. Linda called out one last time. "What about Traci? Do you want to be involved in the rest of the investigation?"

Miles turned to look at the woman who had been intimately involved in pickups and personnel allocations for the last nine months. "She never wanted to be in DECO either. Punish her as you will. I'll make sure that her replacement doesn't embarrass me again."

With that the man walked out and the door closed quietly behind him. Once he was out of the room Linda spoke. "Did he really just dump the problem just like that? And what will he do now that Jennifer and Traci are both no longer part of his organization."

Admiral Tucker gave a short laugh. "He'll find replacements quickly. He might have to accept slightly lower CAP scores for a time, but there are always people being picked up. Its not the first time one of his high CAP protégé's has proven to be less than ideal."

Jennifer gave a sigh. "What happens to me?" she asked.

We all turned to look at her. I wanted to say something, but it was Admiral Tucker who spoke up. "It means retraining, but we can always use officers. However, we need to get a few more important answers first. And that means I have to ask Traci here, why?"

The woman looked crushed, with the tears streaming down her face, but she sighed. "I never thought about the people being picked up and dumped. It was just a reaction. Miles stuck me in that hellhole of a job. I didn't even understand what I needed to do, but Jennifer was so understanding and helpful. I guess I started to see a romantic connection with her. I mean, I enjoy being with my concubines, but they all made it clear they were escaping the Sa'arm and not that they were coming because of strong feelings for me. I needed to be loved and needed. Miles didn't need me except to perform a job he disdains. Jennifer appeared to offer me what I wanted, but when I made a pass at her she turned me down."

"I did?" Jennifer asked. "I didn't even know you felt that way about me, although I'm afraid that I'm a bit too hetero to feel a romantic love for you. But back when I was helping you I was also lost in the misery of being rejected by the Navy. Your pass never registered with me."

Traci nodded again. She wiped the tears from her eyes and continued. "Well, there I was, miserable in a job I barely tolerated, working for a man I despised, and turned down by a woman I lusted for. I decided to try to get revenge on him and wanted to do it in a way to embarrass him as much as possible. I overheard Commodore Pruitt, well Major Pruitt back then worrying about all the complaints from the training base commanders. Once I found out that Commodore Franks was a former associate of several of the commanders an idea took shape."

"Not a very good one," Admiral Tucker said with a snort.

"I never said it was. I guess deep down I always knew it was wrong, but when I first thought of it, I just wanted revenge. It took months of work by Meredith to put together a basic program, which would allow the AI to issue the commands necessary to start the colony without alerting anyone. After that it was simple to request one of the pod transfer ships to Earth to make the pickups. I didn't even try to conceal what I was doing. I think I wanted to be caught, but I was trying to set it up so Commodore Pruitt would be blamed..." her talking paused. "Wait? How did you know he didn't do it?"

I looked over at Jennifer as Linda spoke. "Jennifer, why would Commodore Pruitt avoid doing anything like that?"

Jennifer's eyes lost focus as she thought for a moment. "I don't... Oh god! Tom! That's right, he was attending my promotion party too. Is he still on the Success?"

Linda nodded. "Yes, and I guess Traci decided to try to use him as a stalking horse for her scheme. She figured that he'd be the obvious villain."

Jennifer blushed. "He'd never do anything to embarrass me. He'll struggle and even do something that he knows will fail if he thinks it will protect me."

I turned to Admiral Tucker. "Linda and I found that out just before we came here to interview Jennifer. At that point I was pretty sure of who was involved, but not why. At least now we know."

Admiral Tucker nodded. "Yes. Now I have to ask, what was the real damage? I mean you admit that the one hundred citizens sent to Ishtar were not strong candidates for officerhood. Was the Confederacy hurt by this?"

"Well, my trainee over there is definitely going to be biased about that, since some of the people on Ishtar saved her brother's life I understand. But at the same time General Montgomery pointed out that we did lose one hundred soldiers without a shot."

"Could we take the citizens off and move them elsewhere?" Admiral Tucker asked.

The AI spoke. "The schism on Ishtar suggests that many of the citizens on the planet will refuse to leave." I found myself staring at Admiral Tucker when the AI spoke again. "One moment. It appears that the last package of information from Borneo includes a message about Ishtar to be opened once the investigation revealed how it was founded."

There was a pause and then one wall of the room lit up. For a moment a rectangular area was bathed in white light, but it quickly came into focus showing Admiral Himmel and General Montgomery sitting in chairs. It was clear they had planned this recording as Admiral Himmel spoke first.

"If you are watching this, I guess you now know how Ishtar was colonized and someone is questioning what to do about the colonists. I should mention that I had one of my more scientifically inclined officers look into removing the pods from Ishtar. They determined that there is no way to remove the pods at this time. They could survive the drop through the atmosphere by turning all of their power into renewing the outer shell and relying on the speed of their descent preventing the damage from causing catastrophic failures of the grav units protecting the interiors, but they would never be able to ascend fast enough to avoid suffering breaches which would kill all the occupants."

General Montgomery continued. "And as our brief talks with James Rabb revealed, most of the people on the planet have basically declared themselves outside Confederacy authority. We could remove them using the teleport units, but it would probably require sending in a full battalion of marines to drag them out of their pods. We don't have the time to do that with the Sa'arm pressing on Leo District, nor do I want to waste the manpower. We could take the loyal ones off, but they aren't very military and do serve a purpose there."

"They do?" Admiral Tucker asked the video. The AI must have sensed his outburst because the images froze. The Admiral watched the unmoving video for a moment and then turned to look at me. I could see he wanted me to speak, but it was Linda who sighed.

"Yes," she whispered. "In fact that's part of how I ended up on this investigation. I guess the AI believed that Ishtar was being set up as a repair station, and my brother's ship showed up there badly damaged. I was working in the communications center on Borneo when we first received word about it. It was the day Admiral Himmel first realized that the colony existed."

Traci gasped. "You mean they weren't all losers?"

Everyone turned to stare at her and she blushed. For a moment her mouth opened and closed silently before she sighed and spoke. "Sorry. I guess Commodore Franks' opinion rubbed off on me a bit. I deliberately chose people whose subscores suggested that they would be too arrogant or too pacifistic to train well. It went with a theory the training base commanders have that it's possible to slip through with a six five score despite not being an ideal soldier."

I sighed. "Well, you did send at least one person with a score over seven along, since we know James Rabb is a seven two. But to answer your question, not all of them were losers. The little trojan programs you left behind to warn if anyone started investigating Ishtar made it impossible to ask directly, but we did find someone who knew a bit about what James and his friends planned."

Sarah giggled. "People always forget concubines."

"Concubine," I growled as I reached out and pulled her into my arms. "You are supposed to stand around and look pretty. No more comments from you!" She squirmed a bit to put her arms around me and gave me a kiss on the neck as I continued. "Yes, that was it. I never asked the exact circumstances, but the ship that carried the colonists to Ishtar did file its log, which showed that it returned to Frik carrying a concubine that had been selected by one of the marines who had been on the trip out. She was available to talk briefly and said that James and some others had been working to ensure their own survival and success during the trip out."

Admiral Tucker whistled. "And those people scored badly enough that Traci's filter selected them?"

It was Traci's turn to shrug. "I had two different groups I filtered for. The stories I was hearing had two types of person who didn't train well. The first was the ones who were brilliantly intelligent, but angry and wanted to be in charge. I noticed that as long as they showed some level of understanding of morality they often slipped in with a six five score. It was far lower than the eight or nine a person with much less anger in their heart would get, but still a qualifying score. However, I'm pretty sure the loyalist band includes few of those because their scores also usually showed that they would only follow someone they perceived as stronger."

I nodded at this comment. Admiral Tucker opened his mouth to say something, but paused and a moment later shook his head. "I was going to say that the Confederacy has few people like that, but just realized I see a lot of that here. There are quite a few citizens who follow the rules of the Confederacy as much out of a wary fearful respect as honest loyalty."

To everyone's surprise Jennifer spoke up. "And as a former HR person I can tell you that training a group of people with that personality trait is very difficult. But I'm sure that Traci is correct and none of the loyalist group had those scores."

"What caused them to be selected then?" Admiral Tucker said with a hiss. "Right now I'm trying to make a final decision on a number of things and I need to know who is being left on a death world in Sa'arm space."

Traci looked at the floor. "People with strong instincts to fight in self-defense only who also had strong independent streaks. At least that was what I was having the AI sort for."

"But then they wouldn't exactly be loyal!" the Admiral howled.

"Incorrect," the AI interjected. "On the standard ten point scale where a ten is perfectly loyal no member of the enclave on Ishtar has a loyalty lower than nine seven. Both as a group and as individuals they are extremely loyal. That includes Barbara who was not an original member of the enclave, but admitted shortly before the Sa'arm attack."

Linda gasped. "They've admitted outsiders?"

"Yes," the AI said. "The reports are limited due to distance and the fact that no one on the colony is regularly reporting the situation, but status reports from the Ishtar AI indicate that the enclave has admitted one sponsor as well as several concubines through the doors that separate them from the rest of the colony."

I looked at Admiral Tucker who had a hand on his chin. He rubbed his chin for a while before looking at Traci. "You caused this, so I have to ask one thing. How do we prevent it from happening again?"

Traci smiled. "Just change the rules on colony creation to require that the local military district commander has to agree to the placement of a new colony before Central Command can begin to schedule drops. Meredith was the one who stumbled on the fact that Central Command completely controlled colony creation and there was no requirement that anyone be informed when it was placed. It made it easy to hide the creation, although she warned me that it would likely be found eventually. I guess now I have to pay for that."

Admiral Tucker nodded. "Yes, but we are too short of personnel for me to do too much, and I'm beginning to think your crime was not out of malice so much as despair and pain. So I'm going to offer you a chance to redeem yourself. I need a replacement for Commodore Franks who is about to find himself commanding one of our scout ships for a term or two. You know what is needed and I think you'll be honest this time. But you'll do it as an ensign. It's clear we've allowed some postings to gain authority they don't need."

Traci sighed and nodded. "Its better than I deserve. Can I see if any of my underlings want to join me? I expect Alex, Morton and Leia won't, but Yvonne and Nathan work well with me."

"You can ask. I expect Miles will be happy to let them go if they agree. But no more games. If you have a problem or a concern talk to me. Heck, if you just need a friendly ear talk to me. I do fight with Miles over the course of the Confederacy, but I also want my people to see hope for the future. If you have a problem I'm happy to try to help."

Traci smirked. "I just need a woman I can talk to who is about my level. I love my concubines, but they can't always relate to me. Meredith is the only one with lots of intelligence, but she's shy and retiring. The others are rather typical models. Very pretty and sexy, but conversation is not their strong suit. I think that's why I fell so hard for Jennifer. She talked to me as an equal and I needed that."

Jennifer blushed. "Sorry, but I can't be more than a friend. I'm beginning to see that while Miles might be right that high CAP scores are important, he's also ignoring how important friends and family can be."

Linda giggled. "Hey, I got lucky and ended up on the same planet as my brother. He's on a ship while I was stationed at the district headquarters, but we did get to visit when his ship was on the planet. It helped me quite a bit."

Admiral Tucker nodded. "I'll have to see. Not many women scored the six five necessary to emigrate and it can be hard to find one I feel will thrive in Central Command. But I'll keep my eye out for one Miss Milosevich. Meanwhile, I need to deal with two things. Well, three."

"Ishtar, Miss Gates and her cousin Mister Pruitt?" I asked.

"Exactly," Admiral Tucker said. "I'll do the easiest one first. Ishtar should be part of the Borneo military district and it's now their problem. You can inform them that the ones who set up the colony have been identified and reassigned, but I refuse to allow any formal charges of murder or attempted murder on anyone. Yes, the assignment to that colony was pretty much a death sentence, but there is no way the Confederacy can afford even the rumor that we tried to eliminate some picked up citizens to filter back to Earth. This incident should remain secret."

I could see the women in the room pale. All seemed quite frightened so I spoke. "I can't argue with that. I guess that means that Miss Gates won't be stationed here?"

Admiral Tucker smiled. "You are correct. In fact, I'm going to send her back with you to Borneo along with her cousin. I understand that Admiral Himmel has been trying to get a second base set up at Kelor and needs some ship commanders. It means a bit of a demotion for Commodore Pruitt, but the Navy figured out long ago that rank here in Central Command often means nothing near the front. I just hope he'll understand."

Jennifer smiled. "If he and I are on the same planet, he won't mind. He's a rather simple soul. People do follow him though."

Linda smiled. "People follow you as well. Think back to how your friends joined you as concubines when you were selected."

Jennifer started crying. "And I betrayed my promise to them by falling for Miles' program to raise their CAP. I miss them."

Fate spoke up. "Let them know that. I know that Ally and Char would love to have their friend back. They just refuse to talk to the bitch you became under Miles."

At that Admiral Tucker smiled. "Well, it sounds like you have wrapped up your investigation. And the good news is that we have a colony ship heading off to the Borneo district in a few days. I'll work with Miles on how to announce that your investigation is complete. Ensign Milosevich, Commander Gates, expect some of the others here to figure out that your reassignments are partly punishment. I do ask that you not speak of the events or investigation."

With that he left the room. Traci then collapsed into sobs holding onto the gurney as Jennifer struggled to sit up and climb out of the bed. Once she was free she gave her friend a hug. It was a touching moment and one I did not want to interrupt so I pointed to the door and quickly left, with my concubines and Linda following behind me.

Once we were outside Linda giggled.

"This was way too easy," she said with a huff. "I thought it was going to be some convoluted investigation where we had to interview multiple people and somehow get the AI to admit who modified it."

"It was easy, but remember, everyone here knew that the AI watches everything and those that felt guilty started looking for a way to divert attention. Once that started, it was only a matter of time," I said.

Sarah giggled. "Yeah, and the fact that Traci had overplanned and forgot that Commodore Franks might not go quietly helped. It was his failed attack that basically broke the case."

"It happens," I said. "Now how about we get back to the pod and relax. We definitely had enough excitement today."

Sarah and Fate grabbed my arms to show their appreciation of that idea and dragged me off as Linda's laughter followed. I could look forward to a sweaty and loving night with my concubines before we started the journey home.