Timeframe: this is just about two years after the Defense Force Special "Average Joes" by Thinking Horndog.

This is a sequel to 'Catch a Rising Star' and should be read after that story.

Lt. Jared Baker, Confederacy Navy, walked through the doors of the US government's General Services Administration building in LA, California. He was in civilian clothes and carried a large attach� case. Few people other than close family would have recognized him. He was nearly thirty-five now, but he looked about twenty. The biggest changes however, were the removal of several small scars on his face and the repair of his formerly blind left eye. Before his pickup, he had worn tinted lenses at all times to conceal the filmy look it had. Sophia would have never hired him if he had appeared disfigured. The small scars and the associated reconstructive surgery had somewhat reshaped the way his face looked, so without them he was not going to be easily recognized. The rental car was waiting in the Zipcar spot as planned. He used his card, got in and drove away. It was very early on a Saturday morning, and he hoped to be in place in just over an hour.

Malibu

The door was answered by a man that Jared recognized from the dossier that he himself had prepared on him. That was two years ago, but Jared's memory of the face was still sharp. Also, he had been expecting to see him sometime today, anyway. "Mr. Winter. It is early and I don't have an appointment, but I believe that she will see me." He handed the man a business card. There was only one word on the card. It was his name: 'Jared'.

Mark Winter looked at the card and gave a little start. He peered into Jared's face. "I have a security question to ask in this circumstance. What happened with the security personnel when you were last here?"

"Two stayed professional, two got grabby, and two just kind of faded into the crowd of naked women."

Mark nodded. "If you will wait in the front room, I'll see if she is up."

"Where the hell have you been? You said one year!"

"Hello, Sophia. It is so nice to see you again. I am so glad that the anger management classes are working for you."

The beautiful actress snorted as she tried to stay mad, while acknowledging the sly hit. "Never could win an exchange with you." She stepped up to him and gave him a rib-straining hug. "Missed you! I missed all of you! But I missed you the most. I can't fight with Mark. He loses and takes it personally. It gets his feelings hurt. Which reinforces my anger management training, actually." She thought for a moment. "He didn't do that at first. It started after I got into the class. That bastard! I'll get him for that." She grinned and then seemed to focus back on Jared. "Is it time?"

"Maybe. It's your choice. I have a transporter right here," he said, tapping the attach� case sitting beside his foot. "However I, or more accurately we, have an offer for you. A two-for-one sale, with bonus offers." Jared pulled out a card reader. "Give me your card, please."

Instead of searching for her purse, as she would have two years ago, she opened a small card case that she had in a pouch on her belt. He slipped the card into the reader.

"You beefed your score up from a 6.3 to a 6.7 in one year. Well done. You were making a movie at the time and it seemed that you were on a roll, so we let you finish it. Then the Hollywood establishment started going anti-Confederacy and we were glad that you were publicly opposing that. Not really loudly, but it was noticeable. You got some press." He showed her a cluster of scores on the reader. "I see the spatial relationships and mechanical training paid off. And your math skills went even higher than we had predicted. The Navy wants you."

"Who is this 'WE' you keep talking about?

"Myself, the AI in charge of monitoring trends on Earth, and my Admiral."

"YOUR Admiral?"

"I'm his aide. Same job as for you, but he's not as good-looking. He's in N-4, Logistics, Personnel, CAP Evaluation. When I was picked up, I passed your info up to him and he read my brief. Then he drafted me. I was supposed to be a Marine. I was previously an Army Sergeant after all. One more month in this job and I get to go out with the ships. Still Navy though."

He tapped the card reader again. "Anyway, We were planning how to collect you in the best way and then we found you were scheduled to be on that cable TV show, 'The Squad: War and Lust'. It's very popular with the Marines. They treat the series stars and the combat scenes as comedy, but they do love the actresses. So we left you here to do that show and then the next movie seemed like a good fit for you. The Marines rate that episode of yours very highly by the way. You had a CAP test anniversary coming up by then, so we just waited. You got a 6.9. Not bad at all! I see here that the martial arts training has helped. And, of course, we all know about the scuffle you had with those Earth First sympathizers. That guy you put in the hospital is going to end up not getting any prison time if you leave the planet, but at least he got his ribs broken. And a stiletto hole in the top of his foot. And his groin smushed. Publicly. On camera. They must have played that a million times on the news. It's been bad publicity for the more rabid Earth First factions and thus good for the Confederacy. So! And then the public voted yes on Proposition 43, the California State Confederacy Free Zone.

"So, here is the deal. We'll count your 6.9 as a 7.0, letting you get four picks instead of two. We pick you and your people up the night before the Proposition goes into law, in public, preferably on live-camera. But wait! There's more!" Jared grinned at Sophia when she frowned at the line from late night infomercials. "Any celebrities you can get to go along with you publicly as part of your Harem are yours to keep as extras. Free and clear. If they want their families, we can work something out. We have a list of people in the industry that can qualify on their own as well. We'll give them a similar deal. If you get the chance to say something publicly, we would love that as well. We want to thumb our nose at Hollywood and California. What do you think?"

The press conference was scheduled for the Patio of The Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel at 3 PM Pacific Time. It would be live for most east coast news channels and several local television channels, and tape delayed for the center of the country and the local evening news shows. Rumors abounded, from Sophia announcing her retirement, to allegations of scandal, to a new movie signing. Security was unusually tight, but everyone tolerated and understood that. Sophia had been attacked at this very venue last year. Several news programs showed that event as a teaser for the upcoming live broadcast. Others concentrated upon whom else was rumored to be attending. When the event finally started, they saw a rather large group of well-known people walking out to flank the podium. Various family members were in the background including lots of spouses and children. Appearing in the front ranks were dozens of celebrities of various levels:

Kelly, a young, teenaged supporting actress, who had played Sophia's niece in her last movie role. As always, Kelly was accompanied, in the background, by her mother. She had a restraining order out on her father, who had tried to sell nude pictures of her; A dozen actors, both male and female who had not aged as well as they might have wished. They ranged in age from their forties to well into their sixties; Another dozen lesser actresses that had appeared on the hit cable show, 'The Squad' and were now somewhat blacklisted in Hollywood. Two married singers, one male and one female, whose voices had given out from the smoke, booze and other excesses; One aging boy band, minus the drummer; Two girl bands, one was aging a bit, one was just not getting any more gigs; Nearly two-dozen other male and female actors, singers and celebrities of varying levels of fame, who had a known disdain for the Anti Confederacy movement and who also had families that they famously doted on; Several producers, directors and writers whose faces were well known to the media; And finally, three of the most outspoken critics of the recent Proposition 43; One was a retired soldier, one a physicist and one a politician. The celebrities had families of varying sizes from none to a dozen resulting in nearly three hundred people facing the reporters

Sophia walked out last and moved to the podium. "My friends and colleagues here have agreed to allow me to give this speech on their behalf. It will be brief and I will not be taking any questions. This is addressed to everyone who is willing to listen to it, but it is especially meant for all the people who supported the California Confederacy Free Zone Proposition.

"Fine. We get it. You don't want our views heard anymore. You think we should all dig foxholes and wait to fight the Swarm without outside support. What, you say? No outside support? But they are giving us weapons and ships? Get real! Do you really think they will KEEP supporting us if it gets them nothing? Thirty naval personnel in a ship fifty light years from here can result in one hundred thousand less of the Swarm arriving on this planet. Our people going off to fight is the way we are paying for the Confederacy's help. It is also letting our troops find out how to fight these creatures. And furthermore, it is giving us the time to prepare the world for its defense. However, you have decided. In two short years you have managed to stop pickups in America. Fine. The State of California is now under Confederacy Interdict. This decision is not from the Confederacy's Aliens. It's from the Confederacy's Humans.

"My contacts in the Confederacy have told me they are not taking your replicators back from the restaurants and the grocery stores. The few medical stations that are here will stay here. Anything else that is already here will stay here, as well, and so will all of the people of this state. As of tomorrow, every CAP testing station in the state will close down, except for those in Federal buildings or foreign consulates. If you want to test, you will need to leave the state. If you want to be picked up, you will need to leave the state. My friends and I are leaving the state and among other things, we do not intend to ever again make a movie, song, play or anything else written, financed, cast, produced or shown in the State of California.

"Nothing produced by the Confederacy will any longer be shipped into this state. No more replicators. And the ones you have will no longer take new recipes or templates. If you had a contract, sorry, it's been nullified by the voters of the state. No new medical procedures or equipment. No new Confederacy supplied weapons, armor or other gear will be provided to military units in this state. Specifically, this means the National Guard units stationed here. No e-mails or other communications will be allowed to or from your relatives serving in the Confederacy Forces.

"This event right now is the last pick-up from this state. Anyone here who wants out can follow us as we leave. We'll find a place for you if you aren't a volunteer. If you are, we'll find you some people for your harem."

Sophia looked back at the people behind and beside her. When she nodded her head, most of them started stripping. They sorted themselves into rather large clusters of one sponsor and several concubines. The audience did not know that the actual selections had already happened quietly and discreetly. Many of the celebrities had been quietly collected while officially at a 'spa', placed in med tubes and given the mother-of-all skin tucks. The sponsors all had their implants as well. The youngest children in the background were either thirteen-year-olds who had been warned to leave shorts or panties on or they were babes in arms. The other young children were already in orbit. And, of course, everyone had been carefully dressed in either their sexiest clothes and underwear or their easiest to strip out of, preferably both.

Sophia had her staff standing naked behind her along with Kelly's mother. Kelly herself blushed as she did her first nude scene ever on live television, but she was thinking more about the older male sex symbol next to her that had also joined Sophia's harem. He was notorious for having beautiful women in every movie featuring his best-known character. She and her mother had designs on him. His daughter had joined their group with her young children. It had been determined that the daughter, Kelly's mother and the other dependents of celebs would not count against their CAP limits, so Sophia was still two short of allotment but she was not feeling deprived. Sophia had the married singer couple, three older ladies who were willing to be sex slaves to look young and beautiful again, two women in their upper thirties with young children and two acting couples with their children, including two teenaged girls and one teenaged boy. She also had one of the women that she had met on the set of 'The Squad' whose tongue she had fallen in love with. Sophia had six men and fifteen women. She had been forced to be choosy even at that. A dozen other celebs were turned away for lack of a personality that she could live with. Someone else had ended up taking them. There were only eight volunteers at the podium, and ten more from the families in the background, but the Confederacy was making a statement. They were even taking women well past their fifties, menopause or not. If you were famous, today was your day to get off the planet. There were a lot of minor and major television stars from the Seventies, Eighties and Nineties represented, including the entire casts of a couple of major sitcoms.

Astute watchers had noticed when the Confederacy Marines stepped into the open, but they seemed to be just observing. This was a media PR event, not an orgy. One of the female reporters checked that her hand-held mike was still off and stepped over to a nearby marine. "Can we get my kids? The oldest is eleven."

The Marine checked with his boss via his implant. Her station's market share was high and she had a recognition factor well into the double digits in this area. "Yup. But you have to announce it up in front of everyone and strip publicly. And I mean on camera for all of the cameras. We are still live."

"Who... ? Who will have me?" She stumbled a bit on the wording.

"Anyone up there who is dressed can have you if they accept you. Don't worry about their Harem limits. You can ask publicly, or just offer yourself to all who are interested, or just strip and join the others and we'll sort you out later. You need to announce your name and your affiliation, just like you were asking a question at a press conference or signing off after your spot. Wear your id tag until you get chosen or go through the transporter." He pointed to her ID with station logo that was hanging around her neck.

"Oh! My CAP card is out in the truck."

"Waived. We're making a statement. You don't have much time."

"Ok." She walked into her cameraman's view and told him to start her audio and keep it rolling. Then she stepped out in front of the other cameras, which no one was expecting, so they all reacted by turning upon her. "This is Wendy Pritchard, K-17 news, live at the Polo Lounge. I am sorry to say that this is my last broadcast for my viewers. Goodbye." Then she put down her mike and started taking her clothes off. Being an on-the-scene reporter, she had to be ready to be shown full body at all times, so she exercised vigorously as often as possible to keep herself toned and fit. Her pants suit was stylish, but nothing too flashy. Luckily, she figured, today she was wearing a matching set of frilly bra and panties with calf-high hose. She finished stripping, smiled at her cameraman of two years and turned to face the celebrities. "Take my kids and you can have me anyway you want me, although I would really not mind being in the same harem as Rick and Danny," she said while gesturing at the older boy band members. There were quite a few laughs and one of the older women crooked her finger at her.

"They're mine. But we can share. I need another mother, anyway." She looked out at the group. She smiled that smile that had made her famous, shook her red hair back and she turned a bit to show a fine profile below the collar as well. "Anyone else? Last chance to sleep with an Oscar winner, boys." Then she took her top off and showed that she no longer needed a heavy-duty bra to get that profile.

Suddenly there were a dozen television reporters, camera people and hotel staff taking their clothes off. Jared had arranged for extra staff to be standing around in their blazers. As the staff was picked for the event, he had quietly arranged for the losers to be moved, and for the volunteer level people to be identified and their spouses located. For the sake of the PR message, he didn't want any crying left-behind wives showing up on the next night's news cycles. Even if the volunteer didn't take her, she got a ride out if she wanted one. The other reporters, camera people and hotel staff, whether volunteers or not, would get the same considerations. Fully half of the media in the room ended up joining those at the front. Several cameras were left with no one operating them. Finally, there was no one moving to volunteer anymore.

Several cameras had their signal shut down by the producers in the vans, but the Marines had showed up there as well. They didn't interfere, but the techs and producers were invited to join the party. Enough did that some of the signals had gotten all the way to the stations. At least a few of them had continued to broadcast, as they were not seeing any on-air sex acts. Of course, several stations had a policy, or maybe just enough of the right (or wrong) people in charge, that they had shut it down when they saw the pro-Confederacy message.

One thing that no one had really considered in advance, was that many people in the hotel had seen the cameras and wondered what news event was happening. So, they had turned their televisions on in their rooms. 'Gee, a pick-up. It's downstairs. I wonder how I can get in on it.' Plains clothes observers had been placed outside the Polo Lounge. Armed observers, but not Marines who would stand out too much ... They saw the masses of people entering the hotel lobby and proceeding to the lounge. Using their implants they started checking on how many were of volunteer status and they came up with favorable numbers. Shortly, the entire lounge was filling up. When people stopped arriving, the new fields went up. Marines arrived and began setting up transporters and sorting the people out. Sponsors could pick from their family and friends. Everyone else would be transported to the orbiting ships to be picked over and selected by their new masters and mistresses. If a lady wanted her husband, and two other couples but only qualified for four, she got the extra. No one stayed behind today.

One man was hanging back at the entrance, looking around when he saw the walls go up. He smiled and made sure his hands were out of his pockets before approaching two men casually standing off to the side.

When they both focused on him, he smiled, mostly to himself. He handed his CAP card to them. "I want to stay today and meet someone later. My wife and family are not here. There are five of us in my group. Five sponsors, I mean. I think you are going to see a bunch of people leaving this state in the next year. I have a ticket for Portland tomorrow. I'll be home in Lebanon, Oregon late tomorrow night. I can have all five of us and our families together early the next evening. Pick a location, secure it, call me and we go to your choice of spots. It's warm there this week. We can even walk in naked if you need it for security."

The navy petty officer never even looked at the card before he said, "Sorry, we don't know what you are talking about, Mr Prescott." He smiled politely as he declined the card.

Del Prescott was worried at that, but then he heard the list of sponsors called up to the bar. His name was not one of those called. The guy he had thought to be undercover security had not looked at his card, but he had known Del's name. He smiled again, ordered a drink and sat down to watch the floor show. There were a lot of naked 'Beautiful People' taking their clothes off.

Back on the patio, Sophia was finished deciding if she wanted any of the non-celebs to fill out her last two spots. She had finally picked a young sound tech who had tried to get her to take his wife and kids. He had shown her a picture of his family and said if she picked them up, she could dump him later. She hadn't decided if she would later find someone else to take the entire family or not, but the sound tech was getting lucky one way or another tonight. She liked loyalty. Besides, he was pretty cute. She had pulled off her dress to gauge his reaction and he had had problems deciding where to look. Fair enough, at least he was only looking at her.

The Marine ensign in charge of the pick-up team gave the Sponsors a signal via their implants. Time to go.

"Ok, everyone. Single file behind your sponsor, and just walk over the transporters. If you are unattached, just follow on afterwards. Don't rush and don't stop on the other side until someone tells you to." Sophia walked towards the disk assigned to her. Wearing only her three-inch heels and a black thong, she got as much attention leaving as arriving. Kelly and her mom were rubbing up against their chosen victim. Looking over her shoulder, she called out. "Come on Kelly, and you two, also. You can jump his bones after we get to the ship. You are just delaying it." She stepped onto the transporter disk leaving Earth with a glimpse of a final shake of her fine ass.

Thanks to Mulligan and the Swarm Writer's Group for editing help.