Part Nineteen – An eye to the future

I stood outside of a meeting room in a little inn that had been taken over in the town of Plymouth on the east coast. Beside me, NJ stood and she asked me, "This sure is taking a while, do you think it's going well?"

I watched the way my MoD ran a hand through her hair before standing and collecting her things and I said, "Doesn't look like it."

NJ sighed and watched her SecDev collect his things before they both started to march towards the doors, both put their hands on the door at the same time before they both started to yell at one another again and the door flew open just as I heard my MoD say, "… and the bike your rode in on!" When she spotted me, she locked eyes with me and said, "Negotiations are done for today, come with me, Thunderer."

I was going to protest but she took me by the arm and started to lead me away as I heard the SecDev calling back, "You are unbelievably unprofessional!"

The MoD stopped in her tracks, spinning around and making a rude gesture at the SecDev as she hollered back, "You're one to talk!"

I clear my throat and whisper, "Things not going well?"

The MoD takes my arm again and leads me away before letting go and walking in a little circle as she fumed out, "He is the most infuriating man I have ever met!"

"What's wrong?" I ask as I look around.

She stops and does her hair back up as she takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly before saying, "Some trade concessions, defense concessions, and the rights to any offspring should they happen from such a union."

I fold my arms across my chest as I state, "Like hell I'd let that happen."

"As free as New Jersey is, she is still considered property of the Eagle Union Government." She goes to say something before closing her mouth, but it's clear that she wants to say something else.

My lips compress and I guess, "Much as I am still considered property of the Monarchy."

"Only until the debt taken on to bring you into service has been paid, then you are free from service." She looks down and admits.

My right fist balls and I strike the wall above her head, cracking the brick as I growl out, "So I'm still a slave to someone else."

She jumps a little at the impact and looks up to my fist and the cracks in the wall before she says, "Not a salve, you are as free as any human is in military service to the Monarchy, just your term of service is longer."

I glare at the MoD as I growl out, "That is unacceptable."

She takes a step back against the wall and says, "But it is the way things are. Kansen are expensive, very expensive to maintain, feed, and house, not to mention the costs involved in the acquisition."

Pulling my fist back I tower over the MoD as I ask, "How long is my term of service?"

She avoids eye contact with me as she says, "Fifty years."

With a cold tone of voice, I issue a warning, "Fifty years is unacceptable, find something more reasonable."

The MoD takes a deep breath and adjusts her top before saying to me, "To you fifty years is nothing. You are effectively immortal, I'll be in my nineties if I live that long."

She had a point, I hated to admit it, but she did. Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly I snarl at her, "I don't care. Figure out a better time frame."

"Or what?" she asks her hands going to her hips.

"Name one way you have to stop me from doing something, aside from running out of the range of my guns." I say as I turn and start to walk away, looking over my shoulder I see a shocked expression on her face. If I had to guess, I don't think she would've expected that kind of response out of me. Once she was out of my sight I lean against a building and run a hand down my face as I sigh out to myself, "The more I deal with humans, the less I like dealing with humans."

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It was late and I had just climbed into my rack on my hull, like hell I was going to stay in a hotel room tonight when I sensed someone on my hull and making their way below decks. They seemed to know where they were going as they were making a direct line to my cabin. Sitting up in bed I tilted my head to the side and waited for the door to open, when it finally did I saw NJ standing there in an overcoat and she asked, "Sorry, did I wake you?"

Shaking my head I scoot over in the rack and pull the blankets back, she smiles and drops her overcoat to the floor letting me see that she was in her big pajama shirt and she slipped into the bed, pressing her back against my front before reaching behind her to pull my arm across her body and lace out fingers together and asking, "Can you turn out the light?"

Once the light was out I settled in and tried to sleep, but I heard a sniffling sound that sounded like it was coming from NJ, giving her hand a squeeze I ask, "NJ, what's wrong?"

She sighs and shakes her head as she says, "Nothing."

Using my other hand I stroke her hair and whisper to her, "You can tell me."

I feel NJ let go of my hand and she rolls to face me before saying to me, "He wants me to get pregnant with your offspring before anything is figured out. He wants to be able to lay claim to any offspring, under the guise of securing a new source of strategic assets."

"And?" I ask as I know there is more to this.

NJ cuddles more into me as she says, "If successful he'd want to establish breeding rights with the MM for you and multiple other kansen from the fleet."

My lips compress, more humans being humans. I hold NJ tightly and say to her, "I'm not about to do that. Besides, that would be something the two of us would need to want to go through."

NJ strokes my cheek as she says, "That's what I said, that you wouldn't want to do that to me, or anyone else for that matter." She pauses and I can tell she's biting her lower lip before she says, "Then he threatened to send Iowa up to improve the odds." When I don't respond she asks me, "Mitchel, is everything okay?"

"No, no it's not." I sigh out and bring my hand up to stroke her cheek as I add, "The more I deal with humans, the less I like dealing with humans."

"We don't have any other options; we have to deal with them, Mitchel. We serve them; we are their shield after all." NJ says before she presses herself against me.

"Why though, why do we have to serve them? I know firsthand just how weak humans are, how self-serving they are, how hurting us doesn't mean anything to them." I say as I roll onto my back, pulling NJ on top of me as do so.

NJ sits upright and scoots down to my crotch, lacing her fingers together with mine as she asks, "And what would happen if we stopped serving them?"

"I don't know." I sigh out as she lets go of my hands and pulls her top off before she laced her fingers back through mine.

NJ adjusted how she was pressing against me as she said to me, "I trust and," she paused there before adjusting herself again, leaning forward to place her forehead against mine as she initiated a night battle and whispered, "I love you."

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I'm awoken by a pounding on my cabin door and as I open my eyes I see NJ is still asleep pressing her back against my front and I'm reminded how much more intense last night's activity had been, how much more emotional it had been, just as I was aware that it was done without any protection. The pounding on my door got louder and I heard the SecDev's voice call out, "Get out here New Jersey, we are leaving! The talks are off!"

I get out of the bed and walk over to the door and open it, as I step into the hall, the MoD looks me up and down, her face going bright red, but my attention was on the SecDev. He was a man in his forties, slender in build and balding. I was easily two or three times his size, he looked up at me over his glasses and asked, "Perhaps you would like to put on some clothes?"

"No." I growl.

He adjusts his tie before clearing his throat and saying, "Well it is going to be difficult to take you seriously while you are standing out here, naked."

"You are on my hull, uninvited. If my lack of clothes offends you, leave." I continue to growl at him.

He looks to the MoD and in the most superior tone I could imagine was possible he said, "Get your kansen under control."

I place a hand on his shoulder, gripping his suit jacket, and lifted him off the ground before slamming him against the bulkhead as I snarled out, "She does not control me."

His eyes go wide and he looks at the MoD as he says, "Get him under control!"

The door opens behind me and I feel a hand touch my shoulder as NJ asks, "Can you put him down, Thunderer, please?"

I look over my shoulder at NJ and I see a sad look in her eyes before I nod and let go of the SecDev. When he hits the ground NJ smiles and leans in to whisper to me, "I meant those words last night."

Before I can say anything the SecDev gets up and takes NJ by the wrist and starts to lead her away, I feel rage building again and I take a step to follow before the MoD puts her hand in front of me and says, "We lost this round, but the war isn't over," she paused and looked down again before her eyes snapped back up and she asked, "can you put on some pants, please?"

"Fine." I get out between clenched teeth and went back into my cabin as she called after me, "I'll take the findings from this to the PM, see if he can put some pressure on the President for a more amicable solution."

"Don't bother." I call back as I do up my pants and add, "I'll contact my soon-to-be brother-in-law and see about getting pressure applied to both of them."

She went overly quiet at that before asking, "Are you sure that's the best idea?"

"No." I answer and pull on my Royal Navy shirt before adding, "Get your bags, we'll set sail for Halifax within the hour."

Once she was gone, I went over to my mobile and called Dominion, for I knew her mobile number and knew it would get through at the very least.

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I stood in my office nearly three weeks after I had talked to Dominion who said she would pass that information to His Majesty. And it'd been nearly a week since he had called me back in the late evening his time with news that wasn't ideal, but it was better than nothing. He said he would try to apply some pressure to both my PM and the President of the Eagle Union, that however didn't leave me feeling much better. Opening the curtains to look out at the port I notice that there seems to be an almost lack of activity in the port today, this seemed kind of strange to me. From behind me, I hear my intercom come to life and Minotaur loudly saying, "You can't just barge right into his office!"

That came a second before my door flew open and a voice I didn't know spoke in a slightly youthful male's voice, "Thunderer, what do you think you are doing!"

I turn slightly and see the person speaking at me as Minotaur was right on his heels she looked very frustrated. Looking past him I say to her, "Thank you Minotaur; that will be all." As the door closed I looked at my guest and spoke, "What can I do for you Prime Minister?"

He walks around my office and runs a hand through his dark hair before running that hand down his face as he all but yells, "What do you think you're doing, getting His Majesty of the United Kingdom involved in our negotiations with the Eagle Union?!"

"Why do you think it is okay to keep us kansen as indentured soldiers for fifty years?" I ask as I fold my arms across my chest.

He blinked at me a couple of times and asks, "What are you talking about? You're free to resign your commission."

My lips compress and I snort out, "No, I'm not." I pause and put down my service contract on my desk as I say coldly, "There is no provision for me to leave the service, short of serving my fifty years!"

He looks a little panicked as he comes over and looks at the contract as he says, "You should've read the contract before signing it then."

My fist slams down into the top of my desk and he jumps as I bellow out, "I never saw it or signed it! It was done between the RCN and the RN! All I did was say I would take the offer of service here! Aside from Minotaur and myself, none of us kansen know about this!"

He skips through pages of the contract and sees the signatures of his MoD and the MoD of the RN, but no others, his face pales and he asks, "When did you find out about this term of service?"

"Three weeks ago, when things fell apart with the SecDev on figuring out how I can have a relationship with New Jersey before the SecDev wanted to lay claim to any offspring as a strategic asset." I seethed out, pausing to add, "So yes, I called my sister, talked to her betrothed, and asked for his help, but there are limits to what he can do!"

The PM puts down the contract and walks around my office, his right hand on his chin as he asks, "What do you think I can do?"

"Figure out a way to deal with these contracts or figure out a way to deal with the SecDev!" I yell back.

"Don't take that tone with me." He says coldly.

"I'll take any damn tone I like, it's the only thing I can do!" I counter.

His lips compress and he goes to my door, pausing to look over his shoulder at me as he sniped, "You are replaceable as the flagship, don't forget that."

My fists ball and I start to walk towards him and he opens my office door and exits taking with him his attendants. I stop at my door, my right hand gripping the door frame tightly to the point the wood cracks, Minotaur looks at me and asks, "I take it things didn't go well?"

"About as well as I expected." I say to her as I try to calm myself.

She picks up some documents and moves to stand beside me and asks, "What do you want to do?"

"I want to set fire to the whole port right now in protest." I say as I take the top document off of her pile.

"I don't think that'd be an act of protest." She lightly scolds me before adding, "Refusal to do our jobs would be."

"They're not jobs." I counter as I go and sit in my chair looking over the paper that seemed to be about expenditures of resources to keep the fleet maintained and I ask, "Do you know how these resources are acquired?"

"Through trade treaties, mostly, some are through defense pacts," Minotaur says to me as she sits in a chair across from me.

I toss the paper onto my desk and say as a bit of a joke, "If only we had our own nation and could dictate the terms for kansen service."

"I'd run away to join it." Minotaur says as she looks out my window and adds, "Humans took away my name; humans gave it back after you put pressure on them. That means I got my name back because of you."

I give her a sideways look for a moment before I ask, "Do you think it'd be possible to set it up?"

She shrugs and says to me, "We'd need an island big enough for a few thousand of us to live on and dock at. But the real problem is getting the resources we would need, I think a lot of nations would be alarmed if their kansen up and ran away one day."

"I think the United Kingdom would conduct trade with such a hypothetical nation. His Majesty is going to be my brother-in-law soon." I start to muse before looking to Minotaur and asking, "Do you think you can start looking discreetly for islands big enough? I wouldn't care if we have to take it by force, they are only humans after all."

Minotaur lifts her papers to her bust and nods as she says to me, "North or South of the equator? Also Pacific or Atlantic sides?

I pick up a pen and start to bounce it off of my thumb between my index and middle fingers as I say, "Far enough from the Eagle Union's air power. If they would want to attack us, I'd want to force them to use kansen to do it."

"Got it, I'll start looking on my lunch break." She says to me as she leaves my office.

Once she's gone I send a text message to NJ, asking if she's okay

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A/N: Things are heating up!