Every Last Mother's Child

by William J. Carty, Jr

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  The duty controller on the Imperial Attack Carrier Majestic had received the tasking order almost as soon as Jonesy disconnected from Lady Hawthorne. She had talked with Sarge at the Fletcher militia base, who had made the operations staff aware of what was needed, Sergeant Hoi, general Langtree’s aid and sergeant had received the order and had given it to the duty officer, who seeing that it was from Lady Hawthorn just nodded and let the system work. There were a couple of officers who would have gotten the twenty question routine, but not Lady Hawthorn, the evacuation command had been given the word, what Deloris wanted she got. It took only minutes for the duty controller to confirm the order. He keyed his communicator.

  “For the Alert flight!” The duty controller called, “Stand by for tasking.”

  “Alert flight standing by,” the pilot called, “we’re green board; waiting tasking.”

  “Tasking being up loaded now,” The duty controller called, the pilot a Lieutenant JG on his maiden cruise watched the tasking order come up. He pressed the acknowledge button and called on the intercom, “Chief! Don’t close the back ramp yet get your cargo chains out. We’re loading a mess unit and the duty med team.”

  “Aye Lieutenant Yokas,” The Load Master called.

  The chief hadn’t even started to think about raising the back ramp yet. He would wait until he saw the tasking order. He didn’t want to have to lower it again when they got tasking. The cargo ramp was always the last one to be sealed. He saw the mobile field kitchen and its crew of five marines before he saw the tasking order. When it was secure and the medical team aboard the chief buttoned up the landing craft as the flight line crew wiped the space craft down pulled safety pins, and made the ship ready it ready to launch into space. The smaller LC 6 was only about 100 feet long and designed to land medical teams into an area in hurry. It could carry only about 25 marines or fifty liter patients and wasn’t big enough to carry a life saver ambulance. The field kitchen was just about as big as it could carry. A small ground tug pulled the landing craft onto the cat shuttle as the flight line crew made the departure checks with the flight crew.

  “Majestic Alert five on the track,” the pilot called, seeing his status lights begin to go from standby yellow to launch green. “I have a green tree.”

  “Launching!” the controller called seeing the line crew had checked in by grabbing their hand holds indicating that the launch catapult path was clear. In micro seconds the landing craft was on its way to the orphanage.

  From start to finish the mission only took an hour to mount, and land at the old school and unload. By this time the children had been identified and sorted into groups of one hundred. Jill watched open eyed as the landing craft unloaded a field kitchen. She looked at Lady Hawthorne who simply said, “It looks like I owe Jonesy a big favor.”

  “Aye,” Jill agreed as the lead medic, a young lieutenant came up to Lady Hawthorne. “But what can you do for an AI?”

  “Lady Hawthorne?” the tall lanky IRS officer approached her, “Lieutenant Carnaye off the Majestic. I understand you have a bit of work for us.”

  “Yes sir,” The lady said she wasn’t much older than the lieutenant, “Find the infirmary, and begin getting every one of these kids looked at. I haven’t looked at them all yet; but none of them seem sick. You let me know what you find out.”

  “The captain said you were the boss,” The young man said nodding to his group to follow him.

  “Ma’am,” a marine sergeant approached Deloris, “Where do you want us?”

  “Who is us?” Delores asked.

  “30th combat field support mess team at your service Ma’am.” The husky thirty something sergeant replied.

  “Delores Hawthorne,” Delores offered her hand to the sergeant.

  “Sergeant Lucas ma’am,” the sandy haired marine replied.

  “How soon can you be ready to serve, and can you handle a thousand.”

  “We’ll be ready in about twenty minutes.” The young marine said, “I think we have about five hundred that only need to be heated up on the kitchen, let me into your kitchen and let me see what you have. We might be able to do more in a little while.”

  “The dining hall is that building.” Lady Hawthorne said.

  “Okay ma’am,” Lucas replied and walked back to the landing craft that was unloading his mess unit.

  “Hey Mary, Paul, Johnnie, and Ralph,” Jill called after the marine had left, “Get a couple of more kids and go over to the dining hall and get the tables cleaned off. Marti, Betty, you get these kids set up in two ranks of five hundred I want the little kids to go first. But they don’t eat until they get their hands and faces washed. Tom, Jerry and Billie get a hose from the side of the dining hall they can wash that way.”

  Deloris didn’t say a word. Jill had things well in hand, leaving Deloris to think about getting more people in. She called her estate and asked for anyone who was free to come out to the school. Lady Hawthorne then called the evacuation man power office and requested fifteen people to report to the orphanage. She asked for school teachers.

  Sergeant Lucas, the sergeant in charge of the field kitchen was disgusted at what he was seeing. Disgusted that many of the children he was seeing were in ragged clothing. Some of the children’s clothing looked worse than a Marine’s Battle Dress Uniform after they had spent a month at the escape and evasion facility on Paris Island. He didn’t understand how adults could let children be this dirty. He was single, with no kids of his own; but he had come from a family of ten. His mother never let him and his brothers and sisters get this dirty. But as disgusted as he was he was pleasantly amazed as he watched one young girl in particular. She wasn’t much younger than some of his youngest privates on their maiden tours. But she possessed a charisma that career master sergeants might envy. She had gotten the kids organized and ready for chow by getting some of the other kids to get them lined up and cleaned up. Then she got a couple of the kids to take charge in the dining room and get it cleaned up after the meal. They had fed all one thousand kids in less than two hours and the kitchen was ready to go for the next meal. All because the young blond was able to communicate with the kids and get them to do what she needed.

  “Who is that girl,” Sergeant Lucas pointed to a young teen age girl on the very brink of adulthood. He was sharing a cup of coffee with the middle age woman who seemed to always be in eye sight of the girl.

  “Jill Wilson,” the woman said.

  “She is amazing to watch,” the sergeant said refilling the coffee cup for the woman. “I’ve seen what she has done today.”

  “She is amazing,” the protective agent said, “I’ve been her agent for about two three months now. Most of it has been sitting in the back of a class room, or being up front as we drove her to school, or over to one of her friends places. I never knew she could do this. But I should have known.”

  “Why,” Deloris said sweetening the coffee from the sergeant.

  “I’ve met the Marshal, and I’ve met the admiral both are very competent, capable people.” Jenny remarked, “But sometimes those types of people don’t have children that are like them. Sometimes they fight their parents and I’ve been around enough noble kids to know it doesn’t breed true.”

  “I know,” Deloris commented.

  “She’s Marshal Wilson’s kid?” the sergeant said. “But I saw her cleaning toilets today!”

  “My grandmother had a very positive impact on me.” Jill said coming up on the three adults. She accepted a cup of coco from the sergeant, “Lady Hawthorne what happens next with these guys.”

  “I am bringing in several dozen teachers, a couple of pedphsyc’s and some others.” Delores replied, “But what they need is more than a hand to wipe their noses and keep them on the straight and narrow. They need to have something to go for. Some of these kids were abandoned by their parents. Some of them ran away from bad situations. Some got into worse situations. We need to do something to make
a positive change in their lives. This place, well it is a last stop for many of them.”

  “I heard about the suicides,” Jill said, one or two of the kids had mentioned them to her as she was working. She didn’t know how to respond to them. Jenny had been there when the kids had told her young charge. She had been proud of Jill when she had listened to what the kids had to say without saying anything. Just letting them talk and just being there with them for few minutes as they worked. “That has me worried. I didn’t know what to say to those kids. I suspect a couple more of these guys might be right on the verge.”

  “Maybe so,” Delores said, “That’s why we need to get experts in here.”

  “If I may say something,” The sergeant said, “If you want to beat the suicides you need to keep these guys so busy that they don’t have time to think about suicide. They need someone in their corner who is going to do more than wipe their nose.”

  “Lady Hawthorne,” Jill looked to the older woman, “He’s right, busy minds don’t have time to think about their problems. But how do we keep them busy? The whole place needs to be cleaned up; but we got to let them be kids too. We can’t keep them that busy! “

  “She’s right my lady,” her agent said. “Whatever we do it has to be quick. There’s a couple kids on the edge you can see it in their faces. The teachers and the physc people will need some time to make contact and get the kids confidence. They may not trust too many adults.”

  The sergeant listened to what the two civilians said, and asked, “May I make a suggestion?”

  “We’re listening,” Lady Hawthorne gestured for the marine to continue.

  “You have one thousand kids that have been left to mostly run wild in this school.” The sergeant continued, “You can’t just bring order to this place like flipping a switch. You’ll get more problems. Plus you’ll miss the kids who really need your attention.”

  “You sound like you know what you are talking about.” Lady Hawthorne commented.

  “Unfortunately,” The sergeant remarked, “I was the cook with a battalion that had been dropped on Maru. The colony’s adults for some reason had been taken ill and had left the children to their own devices for a few months. The kids had been running wild for at least six months. When we got them rounded up they just wouldn’t settle down. They had been running things for themselves and they saw no need to obey us. We took too long to exert control over the older kids who were running things. Once we realize who was doing what, we were able to begin to get some control but those older kids never did let us do what we were there to do, help them.”

  “How did you get things sorted out,” Jill asked.

  “We finally got the older kids off to one side and the commander told the kids how it was going to be. He just told them that they would either cooperate or be put in the brig. It worked but not as good as it should.”

  “So what’s the solution,” Lady Hawthorne asked.

  “You are looking at her.” The sergeant said, “This young lady here has already made the right connections. She has gotten the kids trust. She enjoys your confidence, and more importantly the kids listen to her. These kids are in the brig so to speak so threatening them with that won’t work.”

  “And I won’t tolerate anyone telling them they won’t be evacuated.” Deloris said.

  “Okay Commander,” The sergeant turned to Jill, “what’s your plan?”

  “Commander,” Jill said, “I’m just a kid.”

  The adults looked at each other sealing Jill’s fate.