Voyagers: SS Robert Heinlein

 

 

CHAPTER 20

 

FINDING A ROUTINE

 

By Douglas DD

Assisted by Zarek Dragon

 

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 28

 

 

 

0640

 

Kyle and Danny were up, showered, dressed and on their way to breakfast by 0640. They had told Koji and Duskin what was expected of them this morning before tucking them into bed.  The boys’ alarm had been set for 0715 and they were to be up, showered, dressed, and finished with breakfast in time to report to the ship’s classroom by 0830. Danny planned on checking up on them at 0730 after he had enjoyed breakfast with Kyle. Kyle would be in his ready room working toward finalizing the plans for the trek to Spencer Planet Colony that he, Devin, Steve, and Danny had worked on.

 

During Mars orbit, executive chef Ian McFlynn and sous chef Che Sitsitsky had put their plan in motion to modify the dining setting. The executive dining room was still small in scope and restricted to command officers, department heads, and assistant department heads, as well as visiting officers and executives. What had been the officer’s dining room was now the buffet. 

 

“Since the majority of the crew have an officer’s rank it’s silly to call it the officer’s dining room since it doesn’t have room for all of the officers on the ship,” Ian had explained to Kyle and Devin. “And since we usually set up buffets, I figure we’d just change it to the buffet, and everyone can grab their grub and then sit in the main dining room.” 

 

Lucias Hayes, the assistant operations chief, and Lenny Groves, who was in charge of ship maintenance, had put together a plan to move the positions of some of the temporary bulkheads to add the space in the main dining room. Their work had started while the Heinlein had been in Earth orbit and the finishing touches were added the day before. The new dining system was now fully operational. 

 

<0800>

 

The third watch had the bridge. Lucas had taken the conn at 0600. Devin would normally have the conn for the first trick of a watch. However, since Kyle wanted to get an early start on completing their agenda, Devin would be attending Kyle’s meeting in the captain’s ready room, so Lucas would be manning the conn. Lucas might have been new to the Heinlein, but he had been the Operations Chief on the Endurance and knew his way around a bridge.

 

Danny and Ace Cardiff attended the start of the meeting to go over their shuttle pilot training itinerary with Kyle and Devin. It was based on the time the Heinlein would be sub light for the shuttle training, which would be from 1330 hours to 1500 hours. 

 

Ben would be training on the Mozart and working on docking at the outside air locks as well as some emergency maneuvers. Warren would be training on the Brahms working on exiting and entering the shuttle bay and berthing and unberthing the shuttle. Warren would also take the Brahms into warp and learn the ropes of entering and leaving warp as well as overall warp drive flying. When needed, regular pilots Chappie Irving and AJ Crowley would act the role of co-pilot for Warren and Ben respectively. 

 

After the meetings were finished, Kyle remained in his ready room and dealt with the administrative details that he had been warned would haunt him. Hal, who had been one of Kyle’s captains on the Sooloo, had taken him aside during the Heinlein’s trials. 

 

“They will weigh you down when you start your command, but as you get experienced in dealing with the administrative part of the job it will take up much less of your time,” Hal had told him. 

 

“How do I know when I’ve got it figured out?” Kyle had asked him.

 

“When you learn how to distinguish the important stuff that needs immediate attention, from the routine stuff that needs to be read and acknowledged within a day or two, to the plain old bullshit that can be handled with the delete key.”

 

“Great. And how am I supposed to tell the difference?”

 

“That’s where experience comes in. Almost all of the important stuff comes from an officer high on the totem pole and is marked IMPORTANT in capitals and or is highlighted in red. The routine stuff is usually a request for one of your regular required reports. And you’ll recognize the bullshit for what it is, which is plain old bullshit,” Hal had chuckled.

 

“And what if I make a mistake and dump a routine request into the delete file?”

 

“Usually you’ll get a reminder sent to you. The sender of a reminder usually figures the original request for the report was deleted. It happens to every captain, although less and less so with experience. Remember, a deleted file is kept for ten days before it’s gone for good. What I ended up doing was keeping my own files in a to-be-deleted-folder and not actually deleting the original request until after two weeks. If nobody’s asked for it by then it was probably bullshit anyway.”

 

“What do you think of my creating a bullshit file to keep things in for a while no matter what?”

 

“I think it’s a great idea and I was going to strongly suggest it. Most beginning captains do exactly that. It won’t be long before it will be rare for you to make a mistake. But there are two big moves you’ll need to make to get out from under the administrative end of the job.  One is to turn writing the replies to most of the routine stuff over to your yeoman. 

 

“The other is to have your first officer handle everything including the important requests. The ones in red saying ‘For Captain’s Eyes Only’ or words to that effect will go to you, everything else gets its first reading from your number one. You’ll train him what he should forward to you after he read it and what he can send directly to your yeoman.”

 

“Wow, that’s a lot to think about,” Kyle noted.

 

“Yes, it is, but I can tell you from experience that part of your job will become routine and that you’ll probably cut your time spent on administrative responsibilities from HQ by eighty percent or more. That will give you time to give more of your attention to the direct administration of your ship,” Hal told him. “But we’ll go over that part of the job in our next meeting. That’s the part of the job that separates the good captains from the outstanding captains.”

 

“What about the shitty captains?”

 

“If they can’t handle this aspect of the job, they won’t be shitty captains for long since they’ll find themselves being ex captains. And I know with all of my being, that you are way too good an officer to be a shitty captain.” With that, Hal had dismissed Kyle. 

 

The next day’s training on the administration of the ship’s operation had taken half the day. Kyle had found it to be more like the tasks he envisioned a captain doing. As a result, it had ended up being much more useful and much more interesting.

 

1015

 

A good example of that kind of administration came up just as Kyle finished his administrative work for the morning. Tommy Harper and Caleb Brown came through Kyle’s open door with a special request. 

 

“Good morning, Captain,” Tommy grinned. Since he was Kyle’s brother-in-law, Tommy wasn’t used to addressing Kyle formally. He was happy he didn’t mess it up in front of Caleb, who was his crewmate and the brother of his crewmate and best friend, Bobby. Caleb was 12 and Tommy and Bobby were 10. Tommy and Caleb had called on Kyle to make a formal request. Making the request was Tommy’s idea. Since protocol required that two crewmen had to be present to present this particular proposal, Tommy asked Bobby to be his second.

 

What Tommy didn’t take into consideration was that Bobby was a cadet, which made him a student and not a full-fledged crewman. Bobby was disappointed he couldn’t bring the request before Kyle, so he suggested his brother Caleb be Tommy’s second. Tommy readily agreed to Bobby’s suggestion. Not only was he Bobby’s big brother, but he had helped in the planning of the request. 

 

“So, what is it you two would like to request?” Kyle asked to keep the proceeding formal. The request was being recorded, which both boys had been told. 

 

“We’re requesting that the Heinlein have a clothing optional day once a month,” Tommy stated confidently. 

 

“And you’re here for the same reason?” Kyle asked Caleb, who nodded. “Please give an oral reply for the record.”

 

“Sorry…um, sir,” Caleb said. It was the first time Caleb had to address Kyle formally. Caleb recovered from his faux pas quickly. “Yes, I’m here for the same reason as Tommy Harper.” 

 

“That’s what I figured. I’m afraid I can’t approve your request.”

 

“What?” Tommy squawked. “When we talked about it, you said…”

 

“That’s enough Ensign Harper.” It hurt Kyle to get all captain-like with his young brother-in-law. “The problem isn’t your request, it’s your procedure. Explorer protocol says that this particular request has to be presented to the first officer who will then poll the crew to see if they are in agreement with the request. Then it goes to the captain for final approval.”

 

“Then how come you didn’t tell me that?” Tommy asked in frustration. 

 

“I believe I suggested that you make sure to read the protocol. I felt that since you were now a full-time ensign you would show the initiative to pick up the Explorer Program Manual and read the protocol.”

 

“Yeah, but,” Tommy started in. Before Kyle could say anything, he cut himself off. “Oh yeah,” he said with a burst of enlightenment. 

 

“Oh yeah what?”

 

“Oh yeah, Commander Hernandez told us in leadership class that it’s always a good idea to treat a suggestion from your captain the same as an order.” Tommy shook his head and finished. “And I even got that right on the Ensign test.”

 

“School lessons and tests don’t mean much if you don’t apply what you learn bro,” 

 

“I think I just learned that lesson. So, what do we do now?” 

 

“What do you think you should do?”

 

“I know,” Caleb volunteered. He was getting weary of being left out of the discussion. 

 

“Do tell, Ensign Brown,” Kyle said.

 

“We should make an appointment with First Officer French to tell HIM our proposal. And I apologize to Tommy, since I should have known the protocol, too.”

 

“Well, it’s all good now, Ensign. I think you guys learned a lesson, so how about you two take care of business so you can get your petition heard.”

 

“Will do. Thanks Captain Robinson,” Tommy saluted. He and Caleb rose from their seats and left the ready room. 

 

As Kyle watched them leave, he hoped he wasn’t too hard on the two, especially Tommy, who he loved like a real brother. But even if I was, if the two of them learned a worthwhile lesson from what I said, then it was worth it he thought.

 

 

 

1030

 

All of the current Guardians gathered in a meeting room created in the holodeck. It was labeled as Room 3a in the morning’s set up. Don Nixon had requested the space and time along with the room layout from Perry Fox, who was the holodeck manager.  He wanted to have a meeting that was held in a public place, even though it wasn’t a public meeting, to allay some of the senior officers’ concerns regarding the purpose of the Guardians. 

 

The room was well laid out with twelve comfortable chairs set around a rectangular table. Don sat at one end and his assistant, Everett, sat at the other end. Terry Broxton, Wade Green, Mark Winters, and Ben Kennedy sat in the chairs on the starboard side, and Barney Werney, Malcom Stephens, and Jim Maxwell sat on the port side. 

 

“Hey, guys, I’m glad you could all make it to this little meeting,” Don said. “As most of you know we’re using a scrambler to block anybody from seeing or hearing us. That means it’s safe for any of us to say whatever we want.”

 

“That all sounds really good, but there was nothing blocking who entered this room of the holodeck for this meeting,” Ben pointed out.

 

“Very true, but there is nothing that says people can’t have a private little party. If somebody wants to make an issue of it, then we have cause to go to the Explorer high command and report their sorry ass.”

 

“To put that in plain English, ‘Nice try, Kyle, but you fucked up again,’” Everett said to a round of laughter. 

 

“Speaking of his highness the captain, he seems to have been showing his good side lately,” Ben said.

 

“Nobody said he was a total idiot,” Don said, “although sometimes he seems to come damn close. But before we go into what our little boy captain has been doing, both good and bad, I want to talk about what the Guardians have been doing and what we’re going to need to do to ensure command of the ship gets turned over to us when the big meltdown comes.”

 

“I thought we were going make that meltdown happen,” Terry Broxton said.  

 

“Oh, we are going to do that, but we also have to make sure that when he goes down the toilet his first, second and third officers get flushed down right along with him. To start with, let’s see how well we represent the ship.”

 

“How are you going to figure that out?” Ben asked. 

 

Everett looked down at his pad. “We have at least one person from each department at this meeting. Tactical Security has one and that is Mark Winters. Navigation has one and he is Ben Kennedy. Operations has Jim Maxwell and Malcom Stephens. Terry Broxton is from Information Services and Wade Green and Barney Werney are from Engineering. Don and myself represent Science.”

 

“Thanks for the report, Everett. Well done,” Don said. “As you can tell, we have only one representative from Tactical Security, Information Services, and Navigation. Right now, I’m looking at Caden Jamison in Navigation, Lincoln Landis in Information Services, and Ali Khoury in Tactical Security.”

 

“Caden is my roommate, and I think I have a good chance of securing him,” Ben said. 

 

“Do what you can,” Don said. “And if any of you guys know the other two, any help in getting them to see things the Guardian way would be appreciated.”

 

“What if maybe we think we might be able to recruit somebody else?” Terry Broxton asked. 

 

“Then go for it but let me or Everett know what you’re thinking. And if any of you talks to anybody, including the guys I said I was looking for, make sure you keep me or Everett or the number three guy informed.”

 

“Who’s the number three guy?” Jim Maxwell asked.

 

“We’re going to be voting for him before we finish this meeting. And speaking of finishing, Everett and Lincoln are working on making it so we can send out meeting agendas to you guys.”

 

“What about the medical staff and the support staff like the cooks? Will any of them be Guardians?” Lincoln Landis asked. 

 

“Everett and I think we should not include them, but I think that it should be voted on by the group at the next meeting, which will be the day we’re in orbit around the Spencer Colony Planet. We’ll give you the time as soon as we know the watch schedule for the day. And if any of you can’t make a meeting because of the watch schedule, Everett will send you a video recording of it.”

 

The election then commenced with Lincoln Landis, Jim Maxwell, and Terry Broxton being nominated. They each stated their qualifications for the job. Each of the three gave their work and academic qualifications as well as giving their reasons for wanting Kyle to be brought down. Since nobody had a majority in the first round, Don called for a runoff election between Jim and Terry, who were the top two vote getters. Jim Maxwell, of Operations, won the election, 6-3. 

 

“Now I can help even more to get Kyle, that stuck up idiot loser with the voice and brains of a six-year-old, kicked off the bridge,” Jim smirked.

 

Don surprised Jim with a big hug. “I like how you think,” he told his new number three man. 

 

Don then dismissed his little cabal of Guardians, telling Jim and Everett they would be meeting in his and Everett’s cabin the next day. “Are you standing a watch this afternoon?” Don asked Jim. He already knew Everett’s schedule.

 

“Nope. I’ve got first watch, first trick, which is fucked, but I’m ready any time this afternoon,” Jim replied. The watch time was from midnight to 0300. 

 

“How about we meet after lunch, say at 1330?” 

 

Jim and Everett both said the time worked for them. “We’ll be talking about the agenda for Saturday’s meeting and about maybe creating a couple of minor disruptions,” Don said. After leaving the room, Don opened a control box which was around ten feet from the door to the holodeck meeting room where the Guardians had met and set the timer for three minutes. Once time expired a switch would be activated shutting down the holodeck room.

 

<Devin, Tommy, and Caleb>

 

After their nearly disastrous meeting with Kyle that morning, Tommy immediately contacted Devin French hoping the first officer hadn’t heard from Kyle about the mess he and Caleb had made at their meeting with him.

 

“What can I do for you Ensign Harper?” Devin asked when he answered his communicator. Tommy told him he and Caleb Brown wanted to schedule a meeting with him.

 

“Is this about your wanting to petition the crew to approve of a clothing optional day?” 

 

“Yes, sir.” After what had happened that morning, Tommy felt he should be as formal as possible. 

 

“I can meet with you and Caleb at 1400 in my ready room.”

 

“You mean, like, today?”

 

“That is exactly what I meant unless you guys aren’t ready for your presentation yet.”

 

“Oh, we’re totally ready,” Tommy responded, trying to keep control of his excitement. 

 

“Wow, he’s meeting with us today!” Caleb yelped as he literally jumped for joy. “I thought for sure he’d make us wait for a week or two once he’d talked to Kyle.”

 

“Maybe he hasn’t talked to Kyle,” Tommy said. 

 

“Then we better hope he doesn’t before we meet with him.”

 

“We can’t control whatever is going to happen, so let’s make sure we’re totally prepared to make our presentation, just like we were when we met with Kyle. Only this time, we’ll be doing it right and are going to be making our presentation.”

 

“Too bad we can’t be naked when we make it,” Caleb giggled. “Then Devin would know we mean business.”

 

Tommy laughed heartily. “I like you, Caleb. You’re a lot of fun. I’ll meet you at my cabin at 1330 so we can make any final plans. And we can’t waste time because I have duty at 1500. And don’t you have class this afternoon?”

 

“Ali said I didn’t have to come to class today, but I have to make up the work and write a report on how our presentation went.”

 

“Sounds fair to me. I’ll see you at 1330.”

 

 

 

1330

 

Exec Agenda-minor disruptions. Medical and service positions as Guardians. Propose by-laws for the group. Recruiting members Need for something to create a major disruption. Out of our control. It’s unlikely minor disruption will faze Kyle. We need a major disruption with major problems. Major disruptions are out of Guardians control which is a problem. 

 

Don Nixon, Everett Belmont, and Jim Maxwell went to Don and Everett’s quarters to discuss the items on their agenda. Don and Everett sat close together on Everett’s bed and Jim sat at the desk. Jim couldn’t help but note that Don and Everett looked quite cozy. 

 

“First item on the agenda is whether or not we recruit any medical of service personnel,” Don opened. “Any thoughts?”

 

“I don’t think we need them,” Everett responded. “After we take command of the ship, they’ll continue to do their jobs because it’s what they do—especially the medical personnel. You know, the whole ‘do no harm’ thing.”

 

“I agree,” Jim said.

 

“Then it’s unanimous and we can move on to the next item,” Don said.

 

“But you said in our group meeting that the entire group would vote on it,” Jim pointed out.

 

“I did?” 

 

“Yes, you did,” Everett said.

 

“Damn, I guess I had so much on my mind I forgot I said it. Well then, we better go by what I said or else I’ll start being like Baby Kyle and do what I want when I feel like it without giving a reason.”

 

The fairness Don showed as leader of the Guardians is what convinced Everett that Don got robbed when he was passed over for captain of the Heinlein and it was given to Kyle. Jim was starting to feel the same way. There should be no question in anybody's mind that Kyle Robinson was the ship’s captain because his father was the commander-in-chief of the Explorer Program and for no other reason. 

 

“Next on the agenda is writing by-laws to make us look nice and official when we take over the ship,” Don said. “I’d like to have something for the whole group to vote on at our next meeting.” 

 

“I can do that,” Jim said. "That’s the kind of shit Operations does and I can look like I’m really busy doing my job while I write them. And no worries about anybody discovering it because everything we do is password protected and sometimes double protected. I’ll make sure a retina scan is required as well as my password for any Guardian stuff I do. I’ll just need you and Everett to give me an idea of what you want me to write.”

 

“I think we can work that out,” Don told him. 

 

The rest of their meeting was about creating disturbances to start disrupting Kyle. “Things have been going too easy for him and he’s starting to think his shit doesn’t stink. We need to start making him look bad,” Don said.

 

They talked about testing out the devices Don’s dad had given him by using the remote to create a minor disturbance in engineering. They agreed to hold off until after they left the Spencer Planet Colony on their assigned mission, whatever that ended up being. 

 

Don adjourned the meeting and Jim left to stand his watch. As soon as the door to their quarters closed, Everett and Don shared a long, deep kiss and felt up each other’s cocks and balls as they made out . 

 

 

 

Tommy and Caleb arrived at Devin French’s office five minutes early. Since his brother Danny was Kyle’s husband, making him Kyle’s brother-in-law, Tommy had it pounded into him that on the Heinlein being on-time meant being at least five minutes early.

 

Like Kyle, Devin had an open-door policy. Since Devin’s office door was open it meant Tommy and Caleb could walk into the office with a perfunctory knock. Devin rose from his seat and gestured for the boys to sit at the table to the right of the desk. 

 

“Greetings, gentlemen, and thank you for being on time,” Devin said as he closed the door. That meant that for someone to enter Devin’s office they would now have to knock and wait for someone to tell them to enter, the exception being Kyle who could knock and enter if he felt he needed to. 

 

“I understand the two of you are here to propose having a regular clothing optional day on the Heinlein,” Devin said after he took a seat at the table. 

 

“Yes, sir. We feel it would be something special for the crew,” Tommy responded. Tommy and Caleb had agreed that Tommy would be the spokesperson for the two. “Especially since the history of the first clothing optional days in the Explorer Program involves the captain of this ship.”

 

“How about telling me about how the tradition got started, Caleb.” Devin elected to call on Caleb since the pair had obviously picked Tommy to speak for them and he wanted to make it clear that he expected Caleb to be more than just a warm body occupying a seat, especially since he was the older of the two. 

 

After their ill-fated meeting with Kyle, Kyle had told them to be prepared for Devin to use that tactic since it was one he used as well. 

 

Caleb was ready.  Danny had explained it to him a few days ago when he prepared them for the presentation of their proposal. “It happened on the Sooloo when they were fighting this rogue star named Azysomething.” 

 

“Azazel,” Tommy said.

 

“Yeah, sorry about that.” Caleb was upset with himself for screwing up right from the start. “It was Azazel,” he added to show Devin he wasn’t a dumb ensign and that he knew what he was talking about.

 

Devin could sense Caleb’s nervousness. Devin had been in the hot seat more than once and knew what the ensign was going through. “You’re doing great. Just tell the story and don’t worry about names and you’ll do fine.”

 

“Thanks.” Caleb looked at Tommy who nodded with a grin and gave him a thumbs up. 

 

“Well, what happened was Azazel took over the Sooloo’s navigation system and somehow started taking over the crew’s minds making them all get mad at each other and thinking the rogue star that was in front of them was kind of like their best friend.” That was a mouthful, Caleb thought. He paused for a moment to get his thoughts back together.

 

“What happened to change that?” Devin asked.

 

Caleb took a deep breath and went on the way he had practiced the story with Danny. “Then Kyle ended up on the bridge naked because he got called to come to the bridge ASAP and his uniform was soaked when the ship getting knocked out of warp caused water in the holodeck to drench him. 

 

“Captain Bowman got all mad at him because the navigation chart was all messed up, so he kicked Kyle off the bridge because he was naked.” Danny had told him this was where he could cut out all the detail stuff. “Anway,” Caleb went on, “Kyle went to his quarters and somehow learned that Azazel was getting his power though the uniforms of the crew, but he and a couple of other naked guys saw exactly what was happening because he had no power over them. So, in the end, he got almost everybody naked and soon even Captain Bowman got naked, and Azazel had no power and the Sooloo beat him. And ever since then, the Sooloo has had clothing optional days and other ships started having it to salute one of the biggest wins in Explorer Fleet history.” 

 

Caleb knew there was more to the story than he had told, but Danny had told him it would have taken forever to tell the whole story with all of the little things going on. He knew he had gotten the basic story right and said everything Danny had instructed him to say. There was one thing Caleb and Tommy had agreed that Tommy would talk about if Devin asked him if he had anything to add. 

 

“Do you have anything to add, Ensign Harper?” Devin asked Tommy which caused Caleb to chuckle to himself. 

 

“Caleb did a super job, but I do want to add one thing,” Tommy replied. “One part of the Sooloo beating Azazel was that Kyle, Danny, Brad, and some others stole the Raphael, one of the shuttles, and went through a rift and away from Azazel. They were all naked, so Azazel was helpless in stopping them. That’s why the Sooloo had a special clothing optional shuttle flight whenever they could during clothing optional day. That’s why we’re asking that the Heinlein does the same thing in honor what they did.”

 

Devin knew most of the story as well. It was a big part of Explorer Fleet lore and history. It had been a huge victory and the Sooloo became a legend. Kyle Robinson received one of his two Distinguished Service Stars for his role in defeating Azazel.  

 

“Excellent job Ensign Brown and Ensign Harper,” Devin said. “I can tell you right now I’m going to approve your petition and place the proposal before the crew for a vote on whether or not to have a once-a-month clothing optional day.”

 

“I heard there’s a video about the battle with the star and that everybody on the crew has to watch it before the election,” Caleb said. 

 

“That is correct. Assuming that Captain Robinson doesn’t veto my decision, which he can do, but the three of us know he isn’t going to do to it. I’ll be giving the petition to Commander Boyer and the Operations Department to organize the voting. Kyle will address the crew as soon as the date for the vote is set. This meeting is now officially over. Great work gentlemen and you two are dismissed.” Devin kept the closing formal since it would be an important part of the final record to be sent to Space Fleet.

 

After leaving the first officer’s ready room, Tommy and Caleb both took deep breaths. “Good job, Caleb,” Tommy grinned.

 

“Same to you, Tommy,” Caleb responded. 

 

“I kinda babbled a lot. It wasn’t as good as the last time we practiced it,” Caleb said.  

 

“Devin approved the petition and that means we can feel good about what we did, even if we did get off to a bad start with Kyle.”

 

“What you’re saying is it might not have been really good but it was good enough to get the job done.”

 

“That’s not what I’m saying at all. What I’m saying is you can be proud of what we did. Now, let’s go to the soda machines in the main dining room and get us a cold drink.”

 

“Sounds like a good plan to me,” Caleb said. “I’m really, really thirsty.”

 

That evening, as they snuggled in bed, Kyle and Danny talked about Tommy and Caleb’s meeting with Devin. Danny said it obviously went well since Devin approved the proposal. “Tommy and Caleb practiced hard to get everything right.”

 

“They obviously had a good teacher,” Kyle told Danny before kissing his lips. “Having Caleb and Tommy on the spot was a good test of their mettle and their being able to work under pressure. It’s hard to grow as an Explorer officer if you aren’t run through the wringer on occasion,” Kyle said.

 

“Run through the wringer? What does that mean?”

 

“It’s something I learned from Alicia. It’s some kind of device on ancient washing machines that squeezed the water out of wet clothes. It’s used sometimes when somebody gets squeezed for information or whatever by somebody.”

 

“How primitive. I’m gonna have to look that up and see what it looks like,” Danny said. He quickly asked his communicator to look up washing machines with wringers. “You’re right; it is primitive. Just a couple of rollers that squeeze the clothes.” 

 

“Devin told me that Caleb and your ten-year-old bro did a really good job.”

 

“Tommy told me that they were really nervous, especially after screwing up and meeting with you first. But doing this was their idea and they came through big time. I told them it takes time to get used to dealing with a senior officer.” Danny looked straight at Kyle and smirked. “Even if he’s just a thirteen-year-old punk captain like you.”

 

“And here I was going to give you the chance tonight to make the captain of an Explorer starship your bottom, but now I’m not so sure,” Kyle said.

 

“You know you want it.”

 

“You know me all too well.” Kyle pulled back the bed covers, raised his spread legs, and showed off his smooth ass to his thirteen-year-old husband. 

 

Danny not only knew Kyle’s secrets, he also knew his assets, and a tight ass was one of them. The love making was fast, furious, and sensual with the two young teens enjoying simultaneous orgasms. 

 

Next: Delays