by Charles Lamb
They had never actually evolved to the point of space travel. They hardly used technology at all beyond terrestrial vehicles and weapons. They would have been overlooked entirely, except for one thing. They were in the middle of a fight between the NeHaw and a Netite neighboring planet.
Both battling races had landed on the Netite home world and the unfortunate neighbor arrived there first. The NeHaw watched as the Netite overwhelmed the invaders and settled the dispute before the NeHaw had to raise a finger.
Since that day, the NeHaw had maintained a garrison of Netite, which they dropped on planets that required the occasional reminder as to who was in charge. They had to be used sparingly though as they tended to kill indiscriminately and destroy anything in their path. They would fight for whatever spoils they could take, so that made them extra appealing to the NeHaw.
With her plan decided, she issued the orders. It was going to take many cycles to get all the required resources together, but that was fine. She had other issues to address in the meantime, though she did smile in satisfaction. A shortage of Klinan art did not concern MeHak much. Her female friends would just have to endure.
----*----
Feeling a little disconnected, Jake decided to jump on one of the regular supply runs to Prosperity. It was one thing to read the daily reports and review the occasional video and completely another to walk the streets. It was Jake’s understanding that the town had lived up to its name and was now the center of commerce for hundreds of miles in all directions.
He was also starting to wonder what had happened to Sandy. Every time he inquired about her status, all ALICE would say is she was on a community recruitment assignment. She wanted it to be a surprise for Jake so she was sworn to secrecy, but ALICE assured him she was well supervised. With ALICE’s involvement, he let the issue slide.
As for Prosperity, Bonnie and Linda had established the trade routes between Texas and California, providing air transport for goods and the occasional passenger. Between the large heavy lift helicopters and the V-27 transport aircraft, they could move a seriously large amount of cargo with little effort. The only restriction was they required humans to load and unload all cargo, and all under the watchful eye of specially trained loadmasters.
As most of the landing zones were, at best, rustic, Jake didn’t want to have to create a series of special bots just to do the work. This way the communities created jobs, and he saved on materials. The loadmasters were all ALICE facility staff and loved their work.
Jake had to suppress a laugh when the startled loadmaster found him and Sara at the end of her loading ramp for this flight. Recovering quickly with a sharp salute, she led the two onto the aircraft and forward into the seating area. Jake had to remind himself, that they rarely ever saw anyone over a captain. With Sara’s oak leaves and his eagles, they were surely VIP.
They had a peaceful trip over, chatting with the loadmaster, who had relaxed noticeably after the first few minutes. She had been recruited by Sharon, in Washington, but had relocated south as part of her current duty assignment. She had also just returned from R&R on San Nicolas island and was sporting a painful looking sunburn. Jake and Sara gave their sympathies, as they both could relate.
Once the aircraft touched down in Prosperity, actually just at the edge of town in a specifically designated area for the larger aircraft, they all buttoned up. As the loading ramp dropped, the loadmaster led the two off, their priority given over cargo.
As they came down the ramp, Jake could see several horse drawn wagons waiting to take on loads. He was surprised to see two of the patrol jeeps waiting as well. He assumed there were supplies inside for them as well.
Sara jumped as the waiting patrol members, both male and female, snapped to attention in surprise. Both Jake and Sara returned the salutes, and Jake stopped for a quick exchange praising their military bearing and inquired about their duties.
All relaxed slightly and verified they were there for patrol supplies of a non-lethal nature. Jake was aware that they supplemented the patrol as a means of easing the burden on the communities. He also knew that all military supplies, including weapons and ammunition, came on a separate, secure transport. After the incident with Chris in LA, they had tightened up security on the supply process.
Moving on, he and Sara wandered down the busy street. For Jake, it was a bit disconcerting. It was a combination of 1800’s Wild West and 20th century living. The buildings were all in good repair and Jake could see electric lighting inside some, the power provided by the medical module they delivered last year. On the street, there were horse drawn wagons and electric jeeps.
The wagons were not the wooden wheeled transports of the past though. These were metal boxes with rubber tired and bearings in the axles. Built to be light but strong, it never ceased to amaze Jake at the human ingenuity of the things. Obviously built from scrounged parts, they were a marvel of rework, you would never believe they weren’t designed and built from scratch.
Jake suddenly realized they were the center of attention as they walked down the street. He had been absently returning salutes as they walked by patrol members, not really paying attention. Under the category of news travels fast, Jake made out Burt, in a hurried pace and heading straight for them.
“Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes!” he declared as he approached, “And looky here, a full bird colonel now!”
Burt had been in the posse the day Jake had rescued Sara, Sandy and the others. As Prosperity was Sara’s hometown and was their first ally, Burt and it held a soft spot in Jake’s heart.
“Yeah, no good deed goes unpunished,” Jake replied with a laugh.
“So, to what do we owe the honor of your presence?” Burt asked with a flourish.
Jake laughed, “So are you taking eloquence lessons? That’s a mouthful for you! We are just here for a friendly visit.”
“Well come on into my office,” he said, as he led them back across the street and over to a red brick building with “City Hall” marked across the front.
“We still use the original city hall building. It works just fine so no reason to change,” he said as he led them inside and up the hall past a receptionist. As they walked up the hall they passed several doors, one marked “Patrol Captain” on it in large gold letters. Jake laughed to himself as he thought, “nothing ever changes.” He would have been just as happy with a plain door and no gold leaf.
“Here we are,” Burt said as he led them to a door marked in plain black letters “Mayor.”
They followed him inside and as he walked to his desk he began, “I’d offer you a drink but….”
Burt stopped in mid-sentence, stunned. Before him, both Jake and Sara had removed their helmets.
“Well I’ll be damned,” he said, “Didn’t think I’d ever really see your face without that helmet.”
Jake laughed, “We are loosening up a little, and particularly in the areas we consider safe zones. Don’t expect this outside anytime soon, but in here I feel pretty safe.”
As Burt was about to speak, his door burst open and the patrol captain barged in, “Burt, I heard…”
He stopped and stared at Jake and Sara.
“Yes, Captain, you heard we have visitors,” Burt finished for him.
Recovering, the captain came to attention and saluted.
“At ease,” Jake said, returning the salute, with Sara doing the same.
“Sir, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” the captain started, “had I known you were coming I would have met you personally!”
“No worries, captain,” Jake replied, “this is purely a social visit. I do want to say we ran into some of your people when we arrived and I am very impressed with them.”
Jake could see the praise had a visible effect on the captain, as the man was positively beaming. He tried to avoid the second-class attitude most military officers developed regarding local guard units over regulars. He had seen hard working talent and laziness in both. Unfortunately,
this man radiated political appointment. He was surprised Burt would tolerate such a thing, but was sure he had his reasons.
Moreover, it fell under the strict noninterference policy Jake had instituted from the beginning. So long as they continued to perform their jobs as agreed and no one ran amuck, he stayed out of their business.
“Thank you sir!” he replied, “Well if you don’t need me then, I’ll get back to my duties.”
With a quick salute, the man turned and closed the door behind him as he left.
Jake turned in time to see Burt roll his eyes before saying, “Sorry about that. He is actually a great administrator and the officers under him are extremely effective field people. You know all totaled, we have over 500 patrol members now. To be honest, we could probably cut that in half. Things have slowed down so much since you leveled the stadium in LA that we have had to assign them to make work details.”
“You know about the LA activities?” Jake asked, surprised.
“Oh yeah, Sandy’s Weekly News covered the whole thing. Even did a special with that Chris fella. I was so glad to find out he wasn’t a bad fella after he ran off with all those guns.”
Now it was Jake’s turn to roll his eyes. Still he couldn’t complain too much, as he had left it to ALICE to filter the broadcasts. If she had permitted it, then it must have been acceptable.
It was at that point Sara spoke up, “Burt, what are you doing with all those patrol members? Why the make work? We did see quite a few in town, which is unusual.”
“Most of them are young folks, not interested in farming and with all the advancements you brought, aren’t needed there. They joined the patrol for a little adventure and get a little restless if we don’t keep them busy,” he replied.
That gave Jake an idea, “Burt, as I’ve said before, I think we can help you.”
----*----
Once they returned to Nevada, Jake pulled together a quick meeting with Linda, Patti and Sara. While they were in town, Jake and Sara had presented Burt with an offer. They wanted to interview and recruit up to 250 patrol members from his rolls. They would receive training for positions in either ground force combat or spaceship crew. Burt had to think it over before agreeing to broach the subject with the captain.
The captain was extremely resistant to the idea at first, concerned at the thought of nearly gutting his force. Jake reassured him that with the extended forces now running all the way up to Sacramento and LA on the skids, he was still well manned. What tipped the scales in their favor was Jake’s insinuation that the training program, instituted by the captain, had created so many great potential candidates. He could hardly deny his protégés the possibility of advancement.
Burt agreed to get the word out and Jake and Sara suggested they set up an interview site in town for any volunteers. He would get ALICE to select a few interviewers and they would obviously have her wired in for the final approvals.
Leaving them to get everything organized, Jake returned to his room to spend a little time on his side project. Since leaving ALICE-9, he had continued working on the computer analysis that he had started there.
He asked ALICE to set him up a virtual environment of servers mimicking the hardware each of the ALICE facilities operated on. He didn’t want to risk accidently giving birth to an AL, only to kill it off in a reboot. The virtual environment only ran simulations against his code changes to determine the outcome.
After several hours of trial and error, he finally decided to stop for the day. He just started to query ALICE on the whereabouts of the rest of the group when his door chimed.
“Come,” He said.
The door opened and Sandy blew in like a whirlwind. She was obviously excited about something and as Jake stood, she swept up to him and planted a kiss squarely on his lips. Never one to embrace the uniform, she was in one of her clingy short flower print dresses. Her bare tan arms and legs giving Jake the impression she had been outside quite a bit lately.
“Oh my god, I am so glad you’re here,” she started, “you will never guess where I have been!”
Not waiting for Jake to reply, she continued, “Australia. Did you know that they have some of the funniest looking critters there?”
“Sandy,” Jake inserted, “What were you doing in Australia? And how did you get there?”
“Well, I heard that you and Sara were talking about going there. Someone said that you had always been interested in going, so I looked into it. Turns out that, after the bombing, a large portion of their population survived. They mostly live on the coasts and the NeHaw didn’t concentrate their attack, except for military installations. It was pretty much a pattern bombing, evenly spaced.”
“Ok, so?” Jake asked, surprised that she even knew what pattern bombing was.
“Well, I had ALICE check it out and even though they got hit like everyone else did, they didn’t dissolve into fighting amongst themselves like most places. Oh there were some localized problems, but mostly everyone just went on as live and let live.”
Taking a breath, she continued, “So I grabbed one of the fire teams for security and a plane and we went there. ALICE did the driving, and we checked everything out with her before we did anything,” she added before Jake could jump in.
Pausing to absorb all that she said, he finally asked, “Well what did you find?”
“Ok, well we located several communities that were very excited to hear about our revival. I have contact names and locations for several potential communities to adopt. Did you know that Americans are still very popular there? Anyway, we have also located three gold mines that were active before the fall and would be prime candidates for the automated mining equipment I asked the Wawobash about.”
Jake held up a hand, indicating for her to stop, “Sandy, you talked to the Wawobash?”
“Oh yeah, you said to look into it remember? Anyway, so once we were all settled in, we did some sightseeing. ALICE says we were on some great reef there, she said you might like to see?”
“Yes, the Great Barrier Reef is on my “to do” list,” Jake replied, confused, and then asked, “Settled in?”
“Oh yeah, ALICE transported one of those housing modules we have on San Nicolas, and put it on the beach there. This one was a little smaller, but for us five girls it was plenty. Actually, it wasn’t on the beach, it was on an island. I can’t remember what ALICE called it, but we were the only people within 100 miles. From there, we did our runs to the mainland and surveyed the mines.”
Jake just stared at Sandy for a moment, not really knowing what to say. It seemed the girl had single handedly brought Australia into the fold. The mineral wealth was great, not that they needed the gold at the moment, but the people were a great asset. Jake had always felt the Aussies were a kindred spirit to the Americans. Canadians as well, all with the English colony ties and Sara had already kicked off that relationship in Maine.
“Well I have to say I am really impressed. In addition, a little frightened at the risk you took. But if ALICE was shepherding the excursion, I guess I can’t object too much. So I have to ask, what did you think about Australia?”
Sandy stood there for a moment thinking, before saying, “I think they have a hearing problem there, because no matter how many times I said my name was Sandy, they kept calling me Sheila,” and then said, as she lifted her dress up over her head, “And the beaches are awesome!”
She was not wearing anything underneath her dress and had a tan from head to toe. Then she stepped up to close to Jake and wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him.
----*----
The following morning, Jake and Sandy had his breakfast in his room, and then sent her off to order the mining equipment for Australia. They really didn’t need it, but Jake didn’t want her hard work to be for naught. After she left, he had ALICE properly brief him on the trip and reviewed the analysis she provided.
He was surprised to find Sandy’s thumbnail assessment had been fairly accurate. The co
mmunities they had contacted had great strategic value, regarding their placement and local resources. He sensed the touch of ALICE as a guiding hand in the whole thing.
Apparently, the island they selected was one of the Whitsunday Islands and according to ALICE, they weren’t very populated before the bombing. From the images ALICE displayed, it was every bit as beautiful as he expected it to be. Had he a moments free time, he would be packing for a trip that day. It didn’t hurt that none of the five women in the images had brought a swimsuit, thus Sandy’s all over tan.
Logistically, the trip between Nevada and the coast of Queensland was about 8,000 miles. That was a long flight for anything but the fighters or the new transports coming out of Lanai. Easily capable of doing the trip in 2 to 3 hours, they were going to have to be the bridge between the two countries.
Jake laughed at the mental reference, because with no national governments, it was really a regional thing. He guessed the next step was to move east to England and Europe.
Next, he checked on the interview process in Prosperity. As he expected, the response was overwhelming from the patrol. Instead of one interview room, they had five going. For once, the numbers were favoring men over women, something he was sure would be popular inside the facilities.
Chapter 24
The next few weeks had Jake and the rest of the crew in Nevada working long hours processing new personnel and designating work assignments. Jake felt particularly responsible in setting up the ground combat assignments, as that was his core competency. He would never ask any of these people to do something he wouldn’t do.
With that in mind, he had also requested several of the combat space suits to be shipped down from South Dakota, AKA Kola, for him to evaluate. He did some initial testing in the hangar, just getting familiar with the fit and function. The power assist exoskeleton was a nice touch, but with his already enhanced strength, he needed one of the others to evaluate its true capabilities. He had selected an experienced fire team to help him. Sara took the same team to Maine with her.