When I went to strap Bob down for the takeoff, he was a bit grumpy and uncooperative.“It’s only for takeoff and landing,” I assured him. Susie d...dn’t have any problem with being strapped down, and chided her partner.“See, all of the troops are strapped in,” I told him also, and he finally accepted being strapped down, but we had the time to do it properly now.“When we get somewhere with food, the Partners need to eat. I could do with something besides emergency rations myself,” Luther reminded. ”“Yes. They bought five thousand of our coffeemakers using an intermediary. The group that accepted delivery of the coffeemakers then destroyed the machines. In some cases, they drilled holes through the sides of coffeemakers. They then tried to return them under warranty expecting us to replace all five thousand coffeemakers with new ones. The idea was that they would then do the same thing with the replacement coffeemakers and keep doing it until we were out of business,” Dexter replied.“They. ”He interrupted to snarl out, his voice echoing in the big room, “Should!” then in a more normal tone, “But those things are fairly bristling with weapons, and, as I’m sure you noticed from the vid I left you, their weapons are potent. Whether the interceptors’ shields will hold up against that firepower is something we’re going to have to learn the hard way. And I will not have you in harm’s way while we’re finding out.”“But you’re going to allow Arlene and Ann to fight...”Again, he hesitated.. There was a dull finality to the sound. He didn’t sit back down, didn’t give me a chance to plead with him. “Please…” I whispered.I felt the breeze as the compartment I crawled in through opened. “For that, you’ll count an extra twenty.”I began crying in earnest, but I didn’t let any sound escape. “The total count will be one hundred. Then I will use both of your holes. You’ll also spend the rest of the day with a butt plug in. Hopefully this will encourage you to learn your lesson.”There was.