"Are you ok?" Earl asked Lee a second time before she heard him. She was looking after the man. "Yeah, that guy really sounded like somebody I knew."
"Somebody to worry about?" Earl asked concerned.
"No, he worked for us once. But if it was him he'd have stopped and said hi. We got along and parted on good terms. I guess with so many people like you have here, you must see people that look alike now and then."
"You do," he admitted. "My wife will point out somebody in a store and ask me if they don't look like so-and-so." But you said it was how he sounded, he remembered. He watched and marked that it was an older blue pickup in which the man left.
* * *
The man's name was John Williamson, his wife Jan looked nervous and their girl Clare was excited. She rarely got to go to the city and it was a treat.
Earl and he chatted about seemingly trivial things. What the heck was a Menominee? Everybody had a small sundae and Earl got up and shook John's hand. "See you here Thursday," he said. Why didn't John just pick her up at their house? Wouldn't the free bus guy notice she didn't ride home with Earl? She decided to figure it out herself, instead of opening her mouth and proving her ignorance. Earl told her the trip would cost twelve hundred dollars and she could pay John half in the City so he could spend it there.
"You don't have a bag." John said, but it was definitely a question.
"I'd guess Earl didn't want to advertise I was leaving," she guessed. "We just moved and everybody warned us the old bat across the court is the neighborhood watchdog. If you even walk down to check the mail box, you see her drapes pulled back to snoop. They said she calls the police or the housing authority at least once a week."
"Thank God, we don't have one of those on our block," John said heartfelt.
That would be rough on your business, Lee thought. "I'll buy some clothing while we are in the City," Lee told him. "I understand you know where to go shopping for stuff."
"Most things. Earl told me you want to visit bank or mall ATMs where you can get some cash. He said you have the good sense not to flash it around. He also said not to be surprised if you visited some high end places. Did he mention to you we'd like paid half while we are down south?"
"Yes, that's no problem. I'd like your girl to help me shop too. I have no idea what is in style and what looks stupid. Would you have any objection?"
"Me? Not at all. Ask Clare herself though," he invited, nodding toward her.
Lee just looked at her. She figured no need to repeat herself.
"I'd be happy to, in exchange for you buying me a few pieces too," she qualified it.
"Of course," Lee agreed. She didn't resent paying for the help, but it amused her how very much like the father the daughter was already. Her dad used to have some phrase about that and she couldn't remember it. Something about nuts… Lee held out her hand. Clare looked at it funny, not knowing what she intended.
"She wants you to shake hands on the deal," John explained. "Oh," Clare said surprised and took Lee's hand awkwardly and shook it. "Nobody ever did that with me."
"Men-folk still do that amongst themselves," John confided, "but women hardly ever shake hands anymore. With city-folk, we don't much trust it means anything if they do," he added.
* * *
"Principal got in a full sized older sedan with a family. They are leaving town headed east toward Newberry. I'm following, but traffic is light outside town and I lose sight of them on occasion on dips and curves. Advise license number is NYP-7331. If I lose them I suggest you have a spotter positioned to cover the crossings at Sault St. Marie and the Mackinac bridge."
* * *
The Ambassador for the Lunar Republic, Eric Lannis, stretched a hand out and deposited a small box on the desk. It was white glossy paper over cardboard like you'd use for a gift. It made a metallic tinkle. The interim Secretary for Interstellar Affairs looked at it suspiciously like it might be a bomb.
"It's been vetted to load on an interstellar fast drone, allowed into my own office and past security to get in your building. It's nothing that is going to bite you, Al."
That may be, but he had a feeling it wasn't good news either. The Honorable Ambassador had lost family in the rebellion of the Lunar Republic. He despised Earth, hated Earthies and he looked entirely too comfortable delivering it. He also didn't appreciate being addressed by his given name and he really resented the implication he was afraid of it – because he was.
"You've seen the contents?" Al asked.
"No I delivered an open cardboard box, that probably cost four ounces Au to send from Derfhome, to the bottom of this stinking high G hell-hole and never looked in it, because it only said 'care of the Lunar Republic' so it is obviously none of my business. You think I'd get within a hundred meters of it without scanning it six different ways and having a flunky empty it out first? If they'd sealed it up we'd have broken the seal remotely anyway and they knew it."
He reached across exasperated and dumped the contents on the desk since the Secretary seemed frozen.
It was dog tags. A lot of them on a thin cable and a few photos and a letter in a plain white envelope.
Two hundred and fourteen tags, some with readable chips, some partially melted and a few more scraps of tags.
The letter listed all the known dead and referenced the photo as the reason some were missing. Remains of weapons and other objects indicated there were troops still inside the shuttle that self destructed. There wasn't much of the shuttle left in the photo. It was a low mound of blackened metal covering about the area of a tennis court. A few large pieces that were likely engine parts and landing struts poked up waist high.
Another photo showed a Major of Space Marines laying on his back, with his legs still up on the seat of what looked like an enormous picnic table. On the opposite side was a huge male Derf in gaudy armor sprawled on the floor too. Bizarrely there was a glass in the major's hand and an open bottle of Maker's Mark Bourbon on the table. They were in what looked like a rustic hunting lodge. The Major was identified on the photo as was the Derf. Our only casualty, was noted after his name.
"Their only casualty?" Al Plantus asked. "What did he do? Die of alcohol poisoning?"
"The tags are mildly radioactive," Lannis explained. "The level and isotopic ratios, indicate they were exposed to an intense burst of high energy neutrons. Your men were killed with an enhanced radiation nuclear weapon."
"Where would Derf get nukes? Did they get past all the safeguards and steal them from an explorer ship?"
"I have it on some good authority, that converting explorer weapons to a specialized sort like this, is harder than just making them from scratch. We know of four off Earth human nations that can produce them. Fargone is the only one aggressively marketing weapons, so they are the most likely source." He carefully didn't mention the Lunar Republic was one of the four.
The secretary was rattled by that revelation. They had suspected as much, but never had proof before. But four? That was very bad news. If he was to be believed. He turned back to the letter. Other than the list of dead it was brief.
"Do not send more forces to the Derf system or we shall kill them also. The St. Louis is also lost to you. Given the nature of space battles there was no recoverable artifact to prove this.
"Derf do not 'play' at war. If you do not renounce your course and affirm the Treaty of Man or treat for a new one we will continue to wage war. We understand in your earlier history your nation demanded unconditional surrenders. To explain our different culture know this. In our earlier history we have never asked a surrender. Clans fought until one passed from existence and neither thought to ask or offer surrender. You also have kidnapped our clan kin known to you as Lee Anderson. You shall return her. This is a separate violation of the Treaty of Man. You may communicate any response through the Lunar ambassador."
There was a note explaining the seal affixed was the legal mark of the three Mothers of Red Tree clan, similar to a Japanese hanko.
"Handed you your ass, didn't they?" the Lunarian asked. He refrained from saying again.
* * *
The National Security staff looked at the pile of dog tags in front of the President. The Secretary of Defense was livid. "We need custody of that girl right now," he growled. "This has to be answered."
And how do those two connect in his mind? The President wondered. He wasn't sure the Secretary of Defense was entirely rational right now. He feared the girl might come to harm if the man had custody of her in his state of mind. And wouldn't that be a mess? "That is a job for the FBI," the President reproved him mildly. "See Justice moves on it, right now," he said with a nod to his National Security Advisor.
"The girl did not kill our Space Marines," he gently reminded them. "I do not want to hear of her being mistreated. I do however need a response plan. I'll expect a presentation of our options in twenty-four hours. And we need our forces to poke around out there. See if there is more hostility than just this one tribe." The way he said 'tribe' made you think of grass skirts and spears…not nukes.
* * *
"The First Bunch of Idiots got the nod from the Boss to find the girl and grab her," the Secretary of Defense informed his deputy. "Of course if any of our assets know her location they should hold her for safekeeping so we can turn her over to the Bureau," he said with an unblinking deadpan stare. He didn't have to spell it out.
"Yes, sir. That wouldn't look bad at all if we were the fustest with the mostest, would it, sir?" He left the room moving briskly.
* * *
The world was known as Balance in English. The crew that discovered it was Chinese, so Gordon assumed it was named in Chinese, but the Claims Commission would list it in the English translation. Why it was named that was not listed in the navigational data. It was a water world, but without much free oxygen in the atmosphere. A variety of plankton and algae had been dropped in both fresh water lakes and sheltered ocean bays. On land bamboo, oat grass, prickly pear, kudzu and various short grasses had been placed where it was hoped they would take hold. Nobody was surprised that crabgrass flourished.
The terraformers however were embarrassed, when besides their carefully planned progression to create a biosphere, one of the miners in the domed company town had strewn a kilo of ordinary prairie flower mix outside the domes in an area, with no systematic preparation and it now had a firm grip on the soil three kilometers all around and twelve kilometers downwind. The experts insisted it would die out in a season or two, but the damn stuff continued to defy them. In the twenty years since they started seeding, the free oxygen in the atmosphere was already up .00001 percent.
The reason for a large commercial presence on Balance was its mineral wealth. There were very rich deposits of beryllium, mercury, silver and gold. When the air grew sweet and the population increased to need it, there was copper, iron, nickel and rare earths present. Aluminum was already being mined because the indium content was unusually high. The indium was worth shipping, but the aluminum was not, so it was stacked in ground car sized ingots on a dry plain.
Everything locally was made of aluminum, because it was basically free. Even the roads were extruded sections of textured aluminum decking with drain channels and a sheltered cable niche along each side built in. They locked end to end and had leveling jacks.
There were two freighters in orbit. Balance had no space station or moon, but it had a medium sized asteroid that it had captured. The first miners determined it would decay out of orbit and impact the world in about ten thousand years. It was the work of three years and about two percent of its mass, to boost it into a slightly higher and more circular orbit. It was good for fifty thousand now if they didn't boost it again. It was a convenient place to spot communications and a depot to accumulate metal from the world below, instead of maintaining the means to lift a large amount in a short period of time. The freighters were mast docked to the rock.
The system also had two thin asteroid belts, in which a half dozen mining ships gathered scarce metals, which they also brought to the asteroid. One look at the moonlet told Gordon why it was named the Pear. The mast where the ships docked was the stem. It now even had a dimple on the opposite big end, where mass had been removed to feed the ion drives that altered its orbit.
"This is the Nation of Red Tree Privateer Retribution," Gordon spoke over the radio, "The freighter Allentown is ordered to stand down from any maneuvering and prepare to be boarded. We intend to take your ship as our prize. We will harm no one if we are not met with force. You are forbidden to transmit on other than this band until we give you leave. If we detect transmissions, we will remove your external antennas with beam weapons," he warned.
"Retribution, this is Loadmaster Pearl Barlow," The screen filled with a very anxious young black woman with intricately braided hair, spotted with silver beads, "we have a two person watch crew aboard. Our Engineer Second Class and myself. Our Master and Navigator are both down-world, so we are not contemplating moving. We are in loading and have civilian personnel in our holds and around the ship. Please be aware we intend no resistance, but it will take us a few moments to let the dock rats know there is an, uh, situation. If they see a bunch of armed men they may panic and do something stupid. Other than that what are your orders, sir? I didn't know there were any pirates in space and I'm not about to be the one to argue with them. I'm just a wage slave employee, not a share owner or company man."
"Privateer," Gordon explained patiently. He suspected he was going to get tired of telling people the difference. "Pirates are outlaws working for themselves. Privateers are acting for a government on the basis of Letters. The clan of Red Tree has declared war on the United States of North America and our Mothers have issued me Letters of Marque to take USNA shipping. As for your loading, the Pear personnel should not even be aware anything is happening. We certainly won't bother any dock workers. We sent three humans, not Derf, to your lock right now. They only have side arms and will look at the holds from inside but do nothing to interfere with the dock crew."
"You will be given every courtesy and transportation to the planet. If you have personal items please pack your ship duffel and take them with you. We will not steal personal valuables or personal weapons. Your people down planet can recover their things under escort too. Or ask you to retrieve them. We will allow you to communicate with your superiors down-world, once we feel the ship is secured. Do you have any questions?"
"No, I think you better talk to the other freighter. He's on my side screen and I have him muted, but he looks like he is going to pop a vein pretty soon. Can I talk to him without getting my antennas blown off?"
"Let's do a three-way, dear. I'm splitting my screen."
"-do you think you are doing?" screamed a pointy nosed man with oily looking hair.
His eyes flicked back and forth between the suddenly split screen. "You were transmitting in the clear. I recorded it and intend to present the file to the authorities!" he waited, lips drawn thin, for a response to this threat.
"I bet you said, "I'm going to tell!" a lot as a child didn't you?" Gordon asked, propping his chin on his hand. This was going to take more time than he cared for he could tell.
"This is the City of Lights, a fine vessel of the French State and European nation." He informed Gordon, ignoring the personal jab. "We will not surrender her to you under any conditions," he warned.
"You got yourself all worked up for nothing Frenchie. We have no Letters for your nation. We never intended to bother you unless you are incredibly stupid and declare yourselves allies of the Americans and thrust yourselves into an argument that doesn't concern you. If there is nothing else we can just happily ignore each other. Do you want to say good bye or do you want to keep talking until you say something stupid enough to really irk me?"
"I see," the Frenchman said, surprised. "May I ask you to communicate by tight beam laser and I'd like to ask a question privately?"
Gordon could see one o
f his boarders on the bridge of the American vessel already. "No need," he told the Frenchman. "Bart," he told the fellow in a full armor p-suit. "Turn the ship to ship off for about five minutes and then get back to me. The right half of the screen blacked out and the French fellow went full screen. "What's the question?"
"We are in queue to be loaded after the Allentown. You allow the American to continue loading. Do you intend to seize the stockpiles on The Pear also? There is certainly no reason for us to stay if our cargo is going to be gone."
"Balance is a Chinese affiliated company world, not even a colony. I am authorized to seize nothing in this system. I can seize an American ship and anything aboard her. If she wants to let them finish filling her holds with more booty off the Pear, why ever would I suggest she stop?" Gordon asked with faked puzzlement.
The French merchanter looked astonished, then broke down in laughter, beating the edge of his console with his palm and shaking his head in wonder. "I most certainly don't approve of what you are doing," he said when he gained control again, "it will certainly make our profession much riskier. But I will say nothing to the American, if for no other reason than it will give me a story to tell at every bar until I retire. She is going to be so chagrinned when she figures out what she did." He was still chuckling when he broke the connection.
"It would appear habit is a more powerful force than I ever realized," Gordon told his crew, "Ms. Barlow was left behind to see to the loading and she is going to by the gods continue to do her job, until somebody orders her otherwise."
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