Gods of War (Jethro goes to war Book 5)

by Chris Hechtl

  Chapter 50

  The citizens of Fallbrook reacted to the Smith farm massacre with at first shock and bewilderment, then grief and anger. Those that had gone to the farm came back distraught, traumatized by what had happened and what they had seen.

  Two days after the dead had been buried, a town meeting was called. The town hall had been next to the jail; getting the Horathian sympathizers out had meant both buildings had been razzed. The buildings were only partially rebuilt. The Essens offered their inn, but that was declined. There was still too much stigma over the innkeepers, and a lot of cynicism over the Essens selling food and drink to a captive crowd for a profit.

  Instead, it became an open-air evening encounter in the town's one park. It turned into something of a picnic, though everyone wore their best clothes for the memorial. The Marines and grim-faced volunteers were out on the perimeter providing security as well as crowd control. They even provided some flood lights to light the area.

  A few farmers in outlying areas rode in to pay their respects and see what was said. Vendors sold food and drink around the perimeter from carts or people brought picnic lunches. It was something of a normal gathering until the sun began to set.

  Once it was dark, the meeting truly began. Old Buck announced some of the agenda and started everything off by explaining to everyone what had happened at the Smith farm so they would have their facts straight. When he was finished, he took a sip of ice tea and then held a memorial for the dead. Everyone bowed their heads and listened as he listed the dead and spoke for them. “May they join their ancestors and be at peace,” the old jurist said ending the sermon.

  That signaled Claire to light a bonfire for the dead, followed by the release of paper lantern balloons called sky balloons. The heat from the fire made them rise into the night sky. Isabel's eyes weren't the only ones to follow the embers and lights up into the heavens. Her eyes teared, she would miss the Smith family, miss seeing the kids, making them their clothes. She felt her cheeks dampen with her shed tears. She also felt Tessa's hand slip into her right hand, and Flo's simian hand slip into her left.

  When the balloons were gone, the discussion began.

  Isabel listened to some of the talk. It was subdued at first; the feelings that they were finally getting somewhere had been crushed by the reality that the first invaders were still out there, still willing to prey on them. “We're never going to be safe. Not until they are routed out and destroyed,” Judith said.

  “Brought to justice you mean,” Old Buck said testily.

  “Whatever,” she replied, equally testy.

  A few of the people voiced their concern about the loss in food production. Al rounded on them, snarling. “Is that all you care about??!?” he bellowed until Serena and their eldest son caught him and physically pushed him away before he could get violent. He visibly trembled as she quietly talked him down.

  “It is a bit too soon to ask who will handle it. Gretchen, the only survivor, didn't say anything about the farm or what to do with the livestock and growing crops,” Old Buck said quietly. He turned to face Al directly. “And no, Al, the food isn't our only concern,” he said pointing to the fire and distant lights. “They will be sorely missed. But we have to look to the future. They would want that. They would want their livestock taken care of.”

  Al grimaced but then nodded once curtly at that dig. But his rage was palatable. “We need to kill the bastards who are behind this. Find them and end this,” All snarled, fists balled in rage.

  “Let the professionals do their job,” Old Buck said, nodding to the Marines. “Our job is to help them in any way we can. Their example has showed us that our old path was the right one, not the one that the first invaders tried to force on us,” he said, looking over to Flo, her children, then to a few of the other non-humans in the group. “I, for one, would like to welcome old friends back into our fold. We made a mistake in not sticking up for you or protecting you,” he said. “For that we will forever be in your debt.”

  He waited a long moment. “I'd like to hold a vote on the town paying for the repair or rebuilding of their homes and businesses. To clarify I mean only the homes of those who have returned. But I also propose we also build a memorial in their honor as well as for the Smiths and others who died so we will never forget what they paid for our fear. To remind us to never allow this to happen again.” He paused, then shrugged. “You can pay for the support of the projects in material or labor of course,” he said when he saw a few looks of concern among the audience.

  “I second the motion,” Isabel said, raising a hand.

  “I do too.” Zane Broushard said. “As do I,” his sister the teacher said a moment later. Others echoed their agreement.

  “Fine then. A hand vote. Then we'll work on the rest of the agenda,” the jurist and acting mayor said as he seemed to settle himself.

  Isabel realized that some resented that they were ignoring the farm issue, while others resented that they were just moving on as if it didn't matter. She too felt annoyance, but she realized they had to do so. They would let some things lie for the moment, but life had to continue. She turned to look down at brown eyes by Flo. They owed it to the kids she thought before she looked back up to the night sky.

  It was a pity the flood lights spoiled the view of the heavens. She would have loved to have seen the stars.

  <)>^<)>/

  General Drier got word of Lishman overdue when the lieutenant missed his last three check-ins.

  “So you think he's what? Captured?” the general asked, eying his staff. He was still training them in their duties. It was painful sometimes; it was a steep learning curve given that they were under the gun. So far they seemed up to the task, but barely.

  Lieutenant Wong Fisher grimaced. He'd been a noncom up until a few months ago. He'd known Lishman. The guy was squared away and a good leader; otherwise, he wouldn't have been left alone in Fallbrook. “We're getting word from some of our contacts that a squad raided a farm near Fallbrook, sir.”

  “Within his AO,” the general said with a nod.

  “Yes, sir. We believe he went after Debois there. Communications picked up pieces of a conversation there. Recent news releases confirm that Debois has been picked up alive but wounded.”

  “Ah. So you are piecing together Lishman's disappearance with the raid, with Debois?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Thin.”

  “I know, sir. At the moment, it's all we have to go on.”

  “Understood. He knew where certain caches were. Send out a trapper or two to check them. Then we'll have to abandon them.”

  “Should we set up a trap in them, sir?”

  “No. We don't know for certain it was Lishman, nor do we know if he or some of his people got away so no traps.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Next problem?”

  “You wanted to hit the enemy again. I believe Captain Zhukov's points about hitting their main bases are valid, sir. That ship has sailed. Their security has gotten even tighter since his last raid. He wouldn't be nearly as successful.”

  “Understood. And we can't hit their drone command and control?”

  “No, sir. We've been over the information his people picked up during the spaceport raid thoroughly. There were no trailers; there were communications equipment, which they hit peripherally, but nothing on the order to control so many drones.”

  “Remember, they have A.I. too,” the general said.

  “Yes, sir. But you always want an organic in the loop.”

  “True. No one wants a repeat of the first A.I. war. Continue,” he said, flicking his fingers.

  “Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Fisher said, bobbing a nod. “Comm has detected some transmissions from ground sources, but the majority are coming from space. Microwave.” He pointed to Corporal Danvers who nodded.

  “So they are controlling them with a ship in orbit?”

  “Yes, sir. And we've received word that some of the shi
ps have left now that they've unloaded. They took on a load of recruits.”

  “Pity we couldn't have done something about that,” Captain Goddard growled.

  “True,” the general said. “But what's done is done,” he said as he flicked his fingers on the table top a few times. “I want more INTEL on them. We have a piece of their command structure? Can we hit them in a weak link?”

  “We're working on that, sir. So far they haven't uncovered anyone other than a Captain Falco, the leader of their aircav who was killed with a lot of his pilots and air crews in the spaceport raid,” Lieutenant Fisher said.

  “Ah, such a pity,” Captain Goddard murmured with a shark-like grin. “My heart bleeds.”

  “It looks like they are solidifying their positions. They are reforming their drones. We don't know at this time if they have spares or the means to build new ones from field resources. We can't get a good look into the hangars, but we've seen a few more drones and aircraft in the air over the past two days. Lieutenant Robinson passed on a summation that they are repairing the damaged drones and aircraft from the raid.”

  “Some might have been down for maintenance too. We don't know their maintenance cycle. Another thing we're going to need to learn,” the general said. “What about Zhukov?”

  “Dimitri believes his people are screwed if they are out in the open and hit by the enemy air cover. I concur, sir,” Captain Goddard said. “The same goes for our regular troops. The enemy controls the air, and we need to be continually aware of it. He's working on a series of hit and run raids outside of their air cover umbrella, but eventually the enemy is going to get wise to them. When they do, they'll set up an ambush or strike force to pin him down and run him into the ground.”

  “Okay. So?”

  “I think he's also working on a few mouse traps of his own. Mainly to hit them where it hurts. To turn their own ambushes against them. He's also going to look for scenarios and tasty targets that are too good to be true.”

  “Anything that forces them on the defense is a good thing. Obviously, he can't send me his plan, but I want a summary before I commit to it,” the general mused. “But he'd better keep me in the loop. I don't want him going off half-cocked.”

  “Yes, sir. I'll have him send what he can,” the captain said with a nod.

  <)>^<)>/

  Kiki woke in a hospital bed. It was an unfamiliar situation to her: the sterile plain white sheets, the green walls, the strange lights and smells.

  The nurse came in and checked her. “You are okay, ma'am; you are with friends. You are on the hospital ship Colonel Harper. You were in stasis briefly until we could fix you.”

  “But …,” Kiki struggled to move.

  “Relax, ma'am,” the Neoorangutan nurse said, resting a long hand on her shoulder. “Go easy, even though you've been patched up you haven't moved in a while and you are still recovering.”

  “Okay,” Kiki said in a meek croak. “Can I get some water?”

  “Sure,” the nurse said. The nurse came back with a small cup with water in it and a straw. Kiki diligently sucked at the straw. The water was clear, cold, and very good. She flicked her ears in appreciation.

  “The doctors will be making the rounds soon. Try to relax,” the nurse said.

  Okay,” Kiki said. She got bored with looking around the room. There were a lot of curious things to see, but after a while, she dozed.

  <)>^<)>/

  Jean Claude had a tearful reunion with his family on the hospital ship. His wife kept saying over and over again that she had thought she would have never seen him again.

  It had taken time to get them sorted out and even more time to get him moved over to the Marine command ship. He found out through their guide that the convoy had recently broken up with some of the ships returning to Federation space with some of the recruits who had asked to join the Marines or Navy.

  He wished his countrymen the best of luck in that.

  On the evening he settled his family into the small cramped cabin with bunk beds they'd been given, he was asked to give his first recorded broadcasts to his native countrymen to let them know he wasn't just alive but still willing to help them.

  It took a while to get the hang of talking again. They wanted him to write a speech out, but he disdained it to go freehand. It felt more natural that way, not scripted. It sounded like him he realized when he heard the playback, not like a robot reading what the Marines wanted him to say.

  “I want to tell you, I wouldn't be here without the kindness of a family who paid the ultimate sacrifice for me and others. They took me and the others with me in and sheltered us and fed us while a storm, both a natural one and an evil one, raged outside. The natural one passed, but the evil one somehow found its way to their doorstep. Evil cut them down like wheat, and I grieve for their loss. I was horrified to see that evil showed no mercy, not even to the children whom they burned alive in the farmhouse.”

  “We must stand up to that evil, my friends, we must. We must not turn a blind eye to it; we must shine a burning light into the deep recesses of our planet and our souls to route it out. Only then will we ever be safe. Only then will our children and our children's children be safe. We must route it out here and elsewhere. Everywhere evil chooses to spread, to try to thrive, we must be there to stop it. Hear my words, please, please take them to heart. For the sake of the Smith family and their children who will never see the light of day, never grow up again. Remember what happened to them can happen just as easily to you and yours if you let fear rule you and you do nothing.”

  They transmitted the signal on a series of FM and AM frequencies across the planet through their satellite and ground networks. A majority of his fellow natives had some sort of radio. The best were the powered versions, either run from a power plant in the city or a generator hooked up to a windmill or water wheel. But there were more people who were out there on the outlying farms that had only a crystal radio and listened to the network only at set times in the evening or when the weather was bad.

  The native-built sets were crystal radios that require no power. They were made from lead crystals and received on the AM channel. They were crude and were weak, they couldn't transmit, but they were a way for the far-flung people to listen to others.

  After seeing everything he had in the ship, he knew his people could and did deserve better. After receiving the hospital care he'd received and seeing his children get vaccinated and treated for every manner of ailment found, he vowed to find a way to bring such things to his people.

  They owed that to the next generation, to make their lives better than the previous one.

  <)>^<)>/

  Once the ships were unloaded, the convoy reassembled to return to Pyrax. Duty and Honor led the four Liberty class tenders, Chester Puller, Iwo Jima, the re-purposed transport, and the Dora freighter, to the jump point. The Dora class ship that had brought and assembled the ansible had departed only a few days after they had finished their job. They had wanted to remain for some liberty but doing so in a combat zone wasn't what the captain considered safe or sane.

  The Chester Puller carried several thousand recruits destined for Pyrax and Agnosta. Most were destined for Agnosta since they were Army or marine recruits. Few of the people on the planet knew how to run a ship or had an interest it seemed. Gretchen Smith was among them.

  Once they left, Throat Slasher, General Murtough, the government aide worker's ship, and Colonel Harper were the only ships left in orbit. Throat Slasher was in a polar orbit opposite General Murtough. Between the two of them and the network of satellites, they could cover the planet. Colonel Harper was in an equatorial orbit with the government transport. Shuttles occasionally moved between the ships or between the ships and the ground.

  Most of the cargo that had been designated for the planet's population to help them rebuild was housed in temporary warehouses at the spaceport as well as the Marine's primary base. Less than 5 percent had been distributed to the popul
ation, though the pace was beginning to pick up as the Marines certified parts of the planet as safe.

  Government aid workers had to be careful where they went. Outside the bases they had to be escorted by a Marine team at all times. Since the Marines were in short supply, it meant their job was hampered, which caused some friction with Mister Hernandez and the Marine chain of command. He resented being used as on-call engineering help for purely Marine objectives.

  Mister Hernandez wasn't the only one who had issues with the security arrangements’ the doctors in his group as well as those on Colonel Harper wanted to get down and make the rounds to help people. Unfortunately, they could only do it in very secure areas. After the third time, they started to get swamped by people from all over coming in to get treated for various maladies.

  That caused a rift with Major N'v'll who saw such congregations as a hazard, both to the Marines and to the public. It was too much of a target so he ordered the team to make their trips in a random pattern without a set schedule. That hampered those who wanted to seek treatment, but it was the only way to ensure the enemy couldn't lay a trap for the time being.

  <)>^<)>/

  Kiki had been polite in her visit by the doctors. She had been glad to hear that she was recovering nicely and wouldn't have any permanent damage. The modern medicine they'd used on her was tantamount to magic in some ways, but she appreciated it.

  They'd sternly warned her about the damage to her spine and that it would take time to recover. There was no mention of a bill. When she inquired about what she owed, they waved it off.

  “You are in good hands here, ma'am. We might have to kick you lose early if we get swamped and need the bed space. In fact, that most likely will happen eventually. But while you are in our care, there is no charge.”

  “Thank you,” she murmured. She would remember that she owed them a debt however.

  She was warned that she would have a long time in therapy to get back on her feet. “You will need to relearn some of your muscles and retrain yourself on how to move.” She'd nodded dutifully and had been compliant with the therapy assessment and initial sessions to get her moving again.