''Ma'am, I've got a real bleeder on my hands,'' Courtney said.
''I know, Petty Officer. We will police the area until the wounded are loaded. What we bust, we bust. What we don't get to, we'll leave to rust. Good enough.''
''Sorry, ma'am,'' Courtney whispered.
''You three,'' Kris indicated the survivors of her right wing, ''you bring in…him.'' She didn't even know his name.
''Willie, ma'am.'' the woman looked up. ''Willie Hunter.''
Kris left them wrapping him in his poncho. She moved with the others through the woods, picking up rifles, stripping them of firing pins. She slammed a gun against a tree, hard. It felt good as the action gave way, the butt flew off.
Kris got in some very good whacks before Tom called from the road. ''Longknife, I have all the wounded loaded. We need to move out.''
''Okay, crew, we've done good, now let's go. Everybody, back to the bus,'' she shouted. Around her, tired troops finished what they were doing and turned to the road.
''Tom, as soon as you have five people in the next two trucks, you get them and the truck with the wounded moving.''
''Are you staying behind?''
''No, I'll get everyone moving right behind you. But the wounded, they go first, and they go fast.''
''Yes ma'am.''
Kris was just in sight of the road as the first three trucks took off. If she knew Tom, he'd be driving the truck with the wounded. It would have been interesting to be in it, to see how much Tom went for speed and how much he swerved to make the ride more comfortable to those in back. Poor Tommy, he was spending a lot of time torn between two goods.
Kris made a call to the last farm as she waited for her fire teams to trail out of the woods. Yes, the owner would pick up her prisoners from the first fight. Kris signed off as the scouts came out of the woods with their heavy burden; she waved them to the last truck. They settled Willie in the back, then refused to ride in the cab, preferring to share the wet, cold truck bed with their fallen friend. Kris started to join them, then realized that there was no one to keep Spens company. It had been a long day; the drive back would not be easy. Someone had to keep him awake.
Kris climbed into the cab. She wriggled out of her poncho as Spens joined the tag end of the line moving out. ''Think we turned a profit today?'' her accountant asked her.
''Think you'll be happy keeping to your computer ledgers after today?'' she asked back.
''I don't know. It was kind of nice, getting out here, seeing the look on the kids', women's faces when we arrived with the first food they'd had in a long, long time.''
''And this?'' Kris asked, nodding to the woods as they drove out of them.
''We hurt the bad guys, didn't we? They won't mess with the Navy next time we come out, will they?''
Kris thought for a long moment. They'd come out here to feed the starving… and they had. They'd had a chance offered them to make things better… and they had. The price seemed high to Kris at this moment.
''Yes,'' she agreed. ''They won't mess with the Navy.''
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The truck drove slowly into the compound like the hearse it was. Kris dismounted and moved to help those in back remove the body of her one casualty. Colonel Hancock, however, was in her way. ''How'd it go?'' he said.
''Not bad, I guess,'' Kris answered, leaning around the Colonel to watch as three spacers from the base helped with the poncho-wrapped burden.
''Let them take care of that,'' the Colonel told her.
''Him,'' Kris corrected. Since the Colonel showed no intent of getting out of her way, she turned toward the headquarters. ''I'd better look in on my wounded.''
''They're being taken care of. I want to talk to you in my office.''
''I'll be there in a few minutes.''
''Like last time?'' the Colonel asked with an arched eyebrow.
Kris turned right and headed for sick bay. The Colonel's office was left; he followed her. As she expected, Tom was applying his asteroid miner first aid training, helping one corpsman while the doc and other corpsman struggled to keep Courtney's bleeder alive. Kris paused at each of the wounded, told them they'd done good. One picked that moment to go into shock. As Tom rushed in to start treatment; the Colonel edged Kris out of sick bay with an iron grip on her elbow.
A moment later she was seated in his office, a large tumbler in her hand. The Colonel produced a bottle of fine, single malt whiskey and popped the cork. The aroma filled the room even before he began pouring Kris's tumbler to the lip. He then did the same for himself, raised the amber-filled glass in a toast, and said, ''You did a very good job out there.''
Kris eyed the glass for a moment. How many times had she almost gotten killed today? Did it matter if she finished it stone cold sober or not? She took a long sip. It was fine whiskey, flowing smoothly down to warm her stomach, massage out the knots. She sighed and relaxed into her chair. ''I guess so.''
''No, Ensign, you did good.''
Kris took another sip. If she'd done so good, why did she feel so …? That was the problem; she didn't know how she felt. Maybe Grampa Trouble would, but she didn't. All of it was too new, too strange, too scary. She did know what Grampa Trouble would say though. ''A lot of people did good today. How do I write them up for medals, sir? Everyone on those trucks deserves something.''
The Colonel took along pull on his drink. ''And they'll all get the Humanitarian Aid Medal.''
Kris almost threw her glass. ''Hell, sir, they give that medal for sitting on your backside counting the aid boxes on Wardhaven. My people were out in the mud, getting shot at, outnumbered eight to one, in the finest tradition of this bloody service…sir.'' She finished her bit of tirade with a bigger gulp than she'd intended. White fire seared her belly. At least the pain felt good. After today, she ought to hurt somewhere.
The Colonel took another sip. ''I know, Kris, but was it combat?''
''I don't know what the hell else it was, sir. If that was a noncombat situation, someone forgot to tell the damn bullets.''
He nodded. ''I know. So are you, then, prepared to declare that those citizens are in armed rebellion against the lawful government of Olympia?''
Kris blinked twice at that sentence, tried to parse its meaning, and gave it up as a lost cause. She retreated into a sip of her own drink. ''I haven't seen much ‘lawful government.' '' She made the words bitter. ''Where are they?''
''Around here somewhere,'' the Colonel waved his tumbler at everything and nothing. ''All they have is a legislature. By their constitution it can only meet for one six-week session every three years. They had the last one before the volcano blew. They can't have another for a year and a half unless they hold a new election. You want to run an election in this mess?''
''There must be some option on the books to cover a mess like this.'' Kris remembered how her father had finagled Wardhaven's laws to get what he wanted. That brought her to a quick stop. She eyed the Colonel.
'' ‘They govern best by governing least,' '' he scowled. ''It's the first sentence of their Constitution. They are permitted to have exactly one hundred pages of laws. Size of pages, margins, and font size specified to prevent cheating. The founders of this colony were quite adamant that they were not going to have any big government here. No chief executive, no prime minister, just a legislature and its laws.''
''Then who asked the Society for help?''
''As I got it, one of the big farmers up north knows someone on Wardhaven who's in the government. Wardhaven sponsored this mission in the Senate. Might be one of your relatives?''