by Chris Hechtl
“Miss Dragonheart?” Jethro asked.
“Ah, you met her? She's pretty solid I heard. She was one of their fighters, her and a bunch of others. She even helped board that ship they captured.”
“Ah,” Jethro said with a nod. To board and capture a ship with little training and mostly hunting rifles? No space suits? That was insane. And she thought he had been crazy to board the Nelson? He snorted. Apparently it took one to know one he thought.
“There are hundreds of Marine and Navy recruits. Two thirds are Neos. They are still hashing it out whether to let the Navy recruits on the ships fill in the blanks for the losses they suffered. Apparently Captain C'lax is worried about them taking over or something,” Tyler said with a grin.
“Yeah, it's probably on his mind. But we're all on the same side,” Jethro reminded him.
“Yeah. You want to check out our quarters and security?”
“I'm going to do a walk about here, poke around, then check the quarters, yes. I want someone on the armory. We don't have to worry about distribution of the goodies …,” he indicated some of the gear that had come down. Some of it was for the planet's population to help them rebuild. Stuff like communication's sets, medical texts, computers, solar panels, all sorts of stuff to help bootstrap them back up the civilization ladder. Sabrina 99 was deploying satellites in orbit to help improve their weather forecasting and communications.
“They are putting us up in a motel. Apparently they've got construction crews all over the place restoring the buildings. The president or governor or whatever is already after us to distribute the tools to them,” Tyler said.
“Well, since she's also Captain White Wolf do as you’re told. Just make sure the people who pick stuff up are legit,” Jethro said.
“Seriously?” Tyler said blinking at him. Jethro just looked at him. Slowly he whistled. “Aye aye, Gunny,” he said shaking his head. “I never thought I'd see the day when a Marine was a president!”
Jethro chuffed in amusement and agreement as he left.
<(>~^~<(>
Jethro checked out the motel they had been assigned, which was fortunately right next to the warehouse district. It had good thick walls and was like a majority of the other buildings, elevated off the ground. Most of the buildings were elevated by at least a meter, some double that. Some had some sort of basement. All of them had steps leading up to the main door. He'd wondered about that briefly until the snow on the distant mountains and in some of the shadows made him remember his trip to the arctic on Agnosta. Of course, they had to keep above the snow line.
The quarters were okay, utilitarian but okay. Each room had a small wood burning stove. He wasn't sure if he liked that idea or not; he didn't want to be responsible if someone accidentally set fire to the place. Nor did he want to wake up with the place on fire. He made a note to have a lecture with the Marines on fire safety later.
The motel was full, and to his surprise the Marine recruits were bunked with his people. His people were clustered together in one section near the main gate and the empty parking lot. He shook his head. That was another question, not who was training and watching the recruits but vehicles. There were some. He'd ridden the bus back and forth, but was it all public transport? He'd have to find out. He didn't want to be caught out … wait. He froze as a new thought struck him. “Didn't the captain order us on a convoy? Some sort of mission?”
Bast just eyed him.
“Yeah, I know. But how is this convoy arranged?” he demanded. “A bus? Can you imagine the fun that will be?” he asked. She flicked her ears and then shrugged. “Some help you are,” he growled sourly. She sniffed at him.
“Right. So, shelter and heat, what about water, food, fuel ….” He started to work his way down the list of things they'd need.
“We're going to need a sentry here too. Someone to watch our stuff. I don't want a thief to get in. Not that they'd profit for long from the experience,” he mused. Bast flicked her ears at him. A lot of their hardware could be tracked since they had some sort of RF or WiFi link. Come to think of it … he turned and noted his space bag was in a room adjacent to the officers. “Officers have their own quarters, right? But we're bunking up the rest?” he asked as a recruit on patrol walked by. He noted the alert look and slight curious expression shot his way before the husky finished walking by.
Bast shrugged.
“Yeah, no network?” he asked. She flicked her ears and then spread her hands apart. A window opened in between them showing a network but with little bandwidth and very little WiFi access points in the area.
“Okay, another thing to fix. I want regular check-ins with the ships. And with our people too. I'll have to work out the schedule with the officers. Which reminds me, liberty ….”
Chapter 15
When Jethro got off duty, he checked his inbox and found another email, this one from Tyler. Apparently the sergeant had heard about his trip and wanted to have a send-off. Jethro relented; he could use a break so he stopped in at the lounge on the Spaceport perimeter the sergeant had found for a beer with the crew. It was dark, but better than the dive he'd been half expecting.
As his eyes adjusted he was dragged in by Sergeant Farsea much to Bast's amusement. A young woman named Belinda Carlisle was the lounge singer there, singing some song about being mad about someone. Jethro had to admit the human was good. She had a nice furry voice, and the song's lyrics were a nice byplay. It was definitely better than screamer rock he'd been expecting.
Dez and a few of the other Marines were already in the bar, poking fun at each other and tossing peanuts and bar nuts at each other. Jethro shook his head as the Neobear bartender poured him a stout beer in a tall stein then went back to work.
“I don't think my bladder can fit all that,” Jethro said softly. Bast chuffed silently at him. She was back to being quiet and uncommunicative to him.
Tyler hit on the human female waitress, but she was married. She let him down easy with a coy grin. Tyler put his hands up when the woman's husband rose out of his chair by the door. The Marine instantly backed off, apologizing as he went. That got the other Marines laughing at his discomfort.
“You're a Marine?”
“We're all Marines,” Dez said to the guy on a stool further away.
“What's it like?” the human asked, seemingly curious as the band took a fifteen-minute break. Other civilians looked up curiously and turned expectantly to them.
“No time like the present to do some recruiting I guess,” Farsea texted Jethro. Jethro flicked his ears at him.
They started talking about the training and duties, but it was immediately apparent when their audience got impatient that the civilians wanted war stories. Many were fascinated by a few the Marines told and of course they all wanted to know about the most recent dust up. Much to Jethro's annoyance that was when Farsea clapped him on the shoulder. “That's why we're here! This guy ….”
“Don't …,” Jethro got out but it was too loud and the sergeant was already on a roll and didn't want to be denied.
“Is a hero. He boarded one of the destroyers on his own. He was shooting it up, tearing the place apart when they set off the self-destruct to chase him out. He got out, and they took off like a scared jack rabbit.”
“They did?”
“Yeah. Probably pissed themselves when the gunny here started tearing them apart. Those fascist bastards learned the hard way not to mess with a Neo!”
There was a loud cheer and offers to buy the Marines a round from the group. Jethro groaned, hoping his liver was up to the challenge. The sergeant grinned and leaned over to him. “And now you know why I told the story. They'll have to roll us out of here. And the story will get told all over the place. You're famous!”
“Not what I wanted,” Jethro fired right back, “nor needed. Don't do me any more favors, Tyler,” he growled, shaking his head.
“You got a problem with beer?”
“No, just …,” Bast shook her hea
d on his HUD, “other problems. I'm supposed to be keeping a low profile.”
“Oh.” Tyler frowned then shrugged. “Now you tell me. Oops.”
“Yeah. Oops,” Jethro said shaking his head.
“Well, what's done is done. Best enjoy it while it lasts,” the sergeant said with a grin.
“Yeah, right.”
“Consider this a send-off. You get to report to the planet Mounty's office bright and early tomorrow to go on your expedition,” Dez said, saluting him with an upraised beer stein.
“Lucky me,” Jethro muttered, clinking his glass to hers.
“Better you than me. I love riding in a car but not for that long,” she said in disgust.
“Joy.”
“Your ass is going to be so sore,” Shaneka teased.
“Can it. I'll get a pillow or something.”
“Right after he deals with the hangover,” Monique said.
“What hangover?” Jethro demanded, eying her.
“The one you're going to get trying to drink us all under the table,” she said, tapping the table with her challenge coin.
There were some groans and some grins at that clacking sound. “Now you've gone and done it,” Tyler said with a laugh.
“Yeah right, he's older and wiser and …,” Dez said.
“Deeper in sin,” Jethro finished. “Let's see who passes out first,” he said.
“More like who barfs first,” Omri said shaking his head mournfully.
“Just for that you're the designated driver and pick-up man,” Tyler said.
Omri swore then shrugged. “Fine by me I guess,” he said, pushing his beer away. “Just remember, I like messing with drunks,” he said with an evil grin.
“Oh frack,” Tyler muttered.
<(>~^~<(>
Moira scowled as she checked the latest meteorological report. The satellites Sabrina 99 had deposited in orbit were networked together. They had a cluster of computers on the ground connected to two ground stations to handle their data at the moment. She hoped that number would triple soon, but for now only Carlson and the Capital City had the link.
What they told her spelled trouble … if the prediction algorithms were right. The further out in time one tried to predict the weather the more variables happening in the present could throw them off. Even something as simple as a fire could throw them off. The line about a butterfly flapping its wings and a tornado touching down on the other side of the planet played through her mind briefly as she sipped at her morning tea.
She shouldn't have bought into Robert Dane's spiel. She'd been so eager, so ready to believe he was on the level. They needed industry; they needed people working. And they needed the raw material, though trees were some of the last things they should be cutting down if they wanted to stave off the damn ice age. She'd believed him when he'd promised her that he'd plant twice as many trees as he cut down. But the bastard had been greedy as well as stupid. Not only had his Dane timber clear cut against the contracts, but he hadn't used the greenhouses she'd leased to him for the saplings. Instead he'd let them lay empty.
She'd been so tied up in other projects that she hadn't checked back on him until the forest fires of late fall. By then it had been too late. The old growth was gone, and the new growth had been burned away. Bob had whined that he didn't have enough money to plant despite making record profits. She'd found that out later when a friend of hers had gotten a report from her daughter who had been employed as Bob's brother's accountant. The entire Dane clan had been involved, up to their necks, in skimming off the money. Every Dane was either employed by bob or his brothers. Bob's brother Mallow had a lock on the timber mills in the area. His brother Billy had had a lock on the trucks. She shook her head.
They'd needed the jobs, the wood, and food. She kept telling herself that. Neo cats, dogs, wolves, bears, and a few of the other species tended to have litters with multiple births. But in the field they tended to focus on the strongest of the litter; the others survived or died with what was left over. It was harsh, but for centuries it had been the only way many could sustain their species.
Now with modern medical care, training, and proper housing and nutrition, that was changing. The litters were turning into a population explosion. One that could bring the entire civilization down around their ears if they didn't take precautions.
Inbreeding was a problem she'd had to deal with from time to time. Plus a host of other issues. Many she hadn't had any fixes for. But now she did. With a taste of civilization, many of the Neos had wanted more. That had created the demand for homes and wood for fire, furniture, and other things.
Sometimes she felt sorry for the apes on the planet. Those that were still around. Oh, the humans were fine; there were plenty to go around since the pirates had favored them. But the chimps and such were already outnumbered. And since their population grew at the same pace as the humans did, they were quickly becoming a small minority underclass on the planet like any surviving alien species. The other Neos were barely civilized too. Most were more feral than civilized.
Which was where the jobs and timber had come in—to train them and to supply the growing industry with building materials. Something simple, something they could transition through to new jobs when they became available. But the Danes had gotten greedy.
She had taken the precaution of getting the contract in writing with all sorts of provisions to enforce the clauses. Dane hadn't thought she'd get pissed enough to invoke them, and he certainly hadn't thought she'd use the Rangers and Mounties to serve warrants to secure his money, holdings, equipment and timber! Her forensics accountant had tracked the money to the Dane family. She'd earned an enemy for life when she'd gone after that money.
She had more guns than they did. But it had made her think twice of updating her security. It hadn't been popular with the timber jacks and their families, but she'd found a way to fix that. It wasn't glamorous, but she'd put them to work in the greenhouses growing the seedlings and then transporting them and planting them in the clear cut forests. It had been grueling back-breaking work that many hadn't liked. Most had quit, but other people had stepped up to do the job.
It hadn't been enough though. It was far easier to cut a tree down, the work of a few minutes with a crew or a couple of seconds with mechanization, but it took a lot longer to clean up the mess and then plant a tree. Time had been against them, and they'd only planted a couple of acres when the winter storms had closed the project out.
And now this. The snow packs were slowly melting. Near mid-spring when the rains came, they could have serious flooding, possibly even mudslides and avalanches. She shook her head. “I really am getting to old for this shit,” she muttered.
“Ma'am?”
She looked up to Cali and flicked her ears. “Sorry, woolgathering. I'm worried about the hills and mountains.”
Cali scowled. “I think the Dane clan is keeping a low profile, ma'am. They know better than to come after you. The rest of us would tear them apart.”
“Great, my own Hatfield and McCoy vendetta. That's not something I need.” She rubbed at her brow for a long moment.
“If they got you, ma'am, you wouldn't be around to watch,” the teenager replied with a sniff.
The wolf eyed her and then flicked her ears in amusement. “But I'd be around and I'd damn well come back and haunt you—you or Blizzard,” she said shaking her head. “So behave.”
“I won't start anything, ma'am. But that doesn't mean I won't finish something they start,” Cali replied with as much dignity as she could muster. She raised her chin slightly and stood at attention.
“Good answer. Now, I want people to get on the hills and mountains to fix that damn problem. Get with Lieutenant Queen or whoever is around at the Marines to check on that. See if they have anything on the problem in their database.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“Good. In the meantime, I think the rangers can do exercises in that area. I want a recon, check it out
and report back to me on how bad it is.”
“Yes, ma'am,” Cali said.
“Cali, watch your ass. It's slippery and as dangerous as a firefight. Possibly more so if you're not careful,” Moira warned sternly.
“I'll keep my head down, ma'am,” Cali replied with a nod.
“It's not getting shot at that is your only problem. I wasn't kidding about slippery and dangerous. If the topsoil goes, you're going to have seconds to get people out of there. Not enough time.”
Cali blanched as she stared at her. Slowly the wolf nodded.
“Yes, so be careful,” the wolf said slowly.
“Yes, ma'am.”
<(>~^~<(>
As Jethro approached the blockish HQ building, Bast caught the scent of a female cat in the late stages of estrus. She knew Jethro enough to know he'd react, most likely by making an ass of himself. He'd been a bit of a fool during the time in the bar twelve hours ago despite her nanites cleaning out the worst effects of the alcohol. From the scent it was from a feline of large size, possibly a potential mate for the panther. She decided the best thing to do to keep the panther out of trouble was to block the scent. So she tinkered with his sinuses.
“You the guy?” a speckled white and black Great Dane asked, tipping his battered baseball hat back.
“Guy?”
“The Marine guy.”
“Yeah, that's me. I was told to report here,” he flicked his ears.
“Inside,” the Great Dane said. “They are going to love you,” he said, sizing the panther up. “You're some piece of work. We need more like you here,” he said.
“Thanks I think,” the panther replied, eying the Great Dane suspiciously.
“Names, Toby. I'm the bush mechanic. That over there is Scotty. Also known as scooter since he brings that damn thing everywhere,” the big dog said, pointing to a black schnauzer dressed in Scottish tartan clothes. “He's nuts I tell you. But he's a good mutt. Fortunately he keeps his trap shut most of the time.”