''Seems that way, sir.''
''What's your situation?''
Kris reported on her earlier skirmish and what looked to be building up ahead of her. She emphasized the divided nature of the opposing force.
''I'd been hearing stories that some of the worst problems might be just hungry folks the local establishment here didn't view as deserving poor,'' the Colonel drawled. ''You came up with some pretty cagey ideas here in town for feeding everyone, no questions asked. The level of violence went down as the number of full bellies went up. Think we can do the same out there?''
''Doubt it, sir. The murder and rapes out here have people polarized but good. A lot of them just want payback.'' Like me.
''You got yourself a tough tactical problem, Ensign,'' was his crisp reply.
It was nice not to face one of Father's rants about responding with her emotions rather than thinking with her head. ''Doesn't help that I won't know where it is until it starts shooting at me,'' Kris answered, staying on the present problem, not rehashing a past that couldn't be helped. ''I'd give my right arm just now for a Stoolpigeon.''
''I figured you might be asking my advice at a time like this. Stoolbirds are too fragile for weather like this, but a big old Spy Eye can fly in a damn near hurricane. I ordered one out of storage on Wardhaven, almost a museum piece. It arrived last night. I'll have it over you in an hour.''
''Thank you, Colonel,'' Kris breathed in half a prayer.
''Don't thank me until you've got yourself home.''
''Any suggestions, sir?''
''None that you haven't already thought of. Try not to get any of your people killed. Try not to kill any more civilians than you have to. You know, the usual crap. Now, if you'll excuse me, I got a Spy Eye to launch, and I may be the only one here old enough to remember how to wind up the rubber band. Hancock, out.''
Kris glanced around slowly, reviewing her assets and none too happy. Sleepy darts gave her the option to shoot them all and sort them out later, but the wind was kicking up. Low-powered sleepy darts would be blown all over the place and hit nothing. Face it, Princess, this is going to be a live fire exercise.
Hunching her shoulders against the rain, Kris stood. ''Tom, let's mount ‘em up.''
Tom got to his feet, shook himself, glanced around. ''I think I'm glad this problem is yours,'' he muttered. As he strode toward the trucks, he began the usual patter. ''You heard the boss gal. We're out of here. Truck leaders, mount your teams.'' It didn't take long. The civilians gathered for a celebration. Some of the recruits looked to have gotten invited, but when their leaders hollered, they came. Tom was standing beside the lead truck, watching as the other ones filled up when Kris joined him. ''So, what's it going to be? We going to use the Colonel's Spy Eye to go around these guys, or are we going to kill some more rapists?''
''What would you think of a fight?''
Tom blew out a long breath. ''There's two hundred of them. There's only thirty of us, and we showed what a great bunch of berserkers we are this morning. Still, my da would whip my butt if I didn't come when a woman hollered for help. But my grandmother would be most disappointed if I didn't come home. Tell me, Ensign Longknife. What are we going to do?''
''The only thing we can do. Fight the ones that want a fight. Let the rest run if they will.''
''Even if they're rapists? Even if they looked the other way?''
''We need to break the back of the bad guys. I want to get us home safe. I can't afford to worry about anything else.''
''If we wanted to get home safe, we'd go around this bunch,'' Tom pointed out.
''We've got to break them.'' Kris would not give on that. ''It will be easier doing it when they're all together.''
Tom shook his head. ''They'll massacre us. Half of us didn't get our damn safeties off. Most of the rest didn't have the stomach to shoot. At least this morning, it was thirty of us against twenty of them. Now there's two hundred of them!''
''That was this morning. We've been there once. Now we're veterans.''
Tom looked at her like she was crazy.
''Or maybe I've just learned a few tough lessons. Listen, Tom, we have to do this.''
Tommy looked at her for a long moment; then, with a rattling sigh, he said, ''Didn't me da warn me. ‘You take the king's coin, he gets you body and soul. And you do what you're told.' '' Tom turned and went to his side of the truck.
Kris pulled herself up onto the running board, tried to shake as much water as she could from her poncho, and settled into her place with a smile of encouragement for the three recruits in the back. They were wriggling out of their ponchos, getting ready for a long ride back to base. The woman glanced at Kris, noticed that she was not doffing her slicker. The recruit's eyes grew wide. The friendly chatter that had started in the backseat fell to silence as the men followed her glance to Kris.
''Oh shit,'' the failed hero snorted.
''Marines, I want truck six up behind me.'' Kris spoke softly into her mike.
''That mean you're gonna have some targets for us, ma'am?''
''We'll be stopping a few klicks down the road to talk about that,'' Kris advised everyone on net. Silence came back to her.
The five trees stood alone beside the road, open fields giving Kris a good view of anyone approaching. Their bedraggled canopy gave some protection from the rain. Kris gathered her crew around her by truck teams; they came quietly. She waited until they stood around her, then she told them to take a seat. She wanted them comfortable. Besides, it was harder to run when you were sitting down.
''Between us and the port are about two hundred bandits,'' Kris said bluntly. There were low whistles and bitter swearing at her announcement.
''The good news is that not all of them are armed and most of the rest aren't really interested in opposing us. Thirty, maybe forty of them are looking for a fight. The others are just part of the crowd that's hungry and wants to eat. You saw this morning how hard our prisoners fought once their leaders were down.'' That got Kris several thoughtful nods. Kris quickly filled her team in on the makeup of their opposition.
''So most of them are just hungry farmhands the farm owners here tossed out when things got hard,'' Courtney said.
''Most. Not all. The guys who sold the IDents off planet, the toughs that are their enforcers, those guys can't have us moving freely here. If we show everyone that we can, they lose, and civilization starts to win again on Olympia.'' Kris paused to let that sink in. Then she took a deep breath.
''I made a mistake this morning. I threw you into the middle of a firefight without preparing you for it. Some of you may have heard about the hostage rescue op I ran a few weeks ago.'' That got nods. ''Me and my team had four days to prepare for that.'' And most of her marines were four- or six-year vets. No need to mention that. ''I should have given you more time to get ready, to familiarize yourself with your weapon. It's one thing to be issued a rifle. It's another thing to be comfortable with the idea of using it. That's why we stopped here. I'm assigning a marine to each truck team of Navy recruits. I want the marine and your petty officer to take you through all the switches and doodads on your rifle. Yeah, they did that in boot camp, but how many of you ever thought you'd need to use a piece of obsolete technology like this?'' she said, grinning as she hefted her rifle. ''I don't know about you, but I did some quick studying when I pulled the short straw and found myself stuck with a night drop and hostage rescue.'' That drew nervous laughs.
''Finally, I want each of you to fire a full clip of darts. There's nothing like the feel of a rifle actually kicking back against your shoulder, the sight of darts hitting what you aimed at. It lets you know you really can do this.'' Kris paced off two steps, made them move their heads to follow her.