I HEAR YOU, NELLY. NOW LET ME WORK.
“So, Admiral, what do we do with this mess? And I hope you’ll excuse me if I push for something to be decided quickly. I fear if we blather for too long, others will make the decisions for us.”
“Vicky, will you please explain to Her Highness here that N.S. Holding Group is not someone you want to get on the wrong side of.”
“I already did, sir. I don’t think mere money and political power impress the lieutenant commander all that much.”
“How commendable,” the admiral said with a sigh. “However, us simple working folks are expected to bow and scrape and work for the likes of Ms. da Fitz,” he said.
“Even to the point of covering up murder?” Vicky asked.
“I truly hate working with idealistic young people,” the admiral grumbled. “People, I want this room. Commander, could you please have a sailor show my staff to your wardroom for a cup of coffee. I’ll call you back when I need you.”
Nelly quickly made the arrangements. Penny was just returning to the room as the last of them filed out. Colonel Cortez was at her elbow this time.
The colonel eyed the procession leaving and turned to Kris. “Should Penny and I follow their lead?”
“Please don’t,” Vicky said.
Her admiral raised an eyebrow, but Vicky stood her ground. “What’s the use of having advisors if you send them away when you need advice? I wish I had not let you talk me out of bringing Doc Maggie along from the Fury. I do not think I will back down next time.”
The admiral rolled his eyes at the overhead. “Is the girl learning or just still too headstrong and stubborn?
“Probably both,” Kris said. “Now, there are a lot of slaves down there. Do we free them or not? Oh, and there may be some distressed mariners. Do we rescue them or let them be slaughtered?”
“If only the question were that easy,” the admiral said.
“Tell me why it’s not,” Vicky said.
“You know why, young woman. N.S. Holdings is a major presence in the court. I fully expect that old biddy down there will be on your father, the emperor’s, first list of ennoblements. She’ll be a grand duchess, same as you.”
Vicky made an ugly face at that prospect.
“But our problem today is that she says this planet is already established and registered to N.S. Holdings. They are the law here, not us.”
“Since when does the Greenfeld flag fly over slaves,” Vicky shot back.
“Slavery is against the law, and officially, there are no slaves on Port Royal. Oh, she says that’s the planet and city’s name. In honor of your father.”
“Gee thanks,” Vicky said, dryly. “And the slaves?”
“What slaves? All these people are paid regular wages.”
“Nelly, can you verify that?” Kris asked.
“Yes, Kris, I have access to the payroll records of the entire planet,” Nelly said proudly. “And I got that access even as they were being loaded at 11:20 this morning.”
“Loaded,” the admiral said.
“At 11:20 this morning. Before that, nothing.”
“I’m sorry, Vicky, Kris,” the admiral said, shaking his head. “I believe your fine computer, Miss Nelly, but in a court of law on Greenfeld, I don’t see that standing for very much.”
Kris wondered if anything would stand for much in a Greenfeld court if it had to stand against money and power. Kris wondered, but bit her tongue and said nothing.
“Kris, Jack wants to talk to you,” Nelly announced. “Are you available?”
“Make it quick, Jack. You know those elephants we talked about this morning? Well, I’m surrounded by a herd of them. They can’t decide whether to ignore me or stomp me into the ground, but what they won’t do is what I want them to do.”
“Better you than me, Commander, but I may have something that will help you.”
“Please, make my day.”
“We found the two missing sailors.”
Around Kris, the room lit up in smiles. Even the admiral. “Talk to me, Jack.”
“When these two heard the sonic booms of our assault boats, they wisely decided to make themselves scarce. Good thing, because from where they were hiding out under crates of drugs, they saw their buddies get gunned down. They weren’t too sure how to react to our Marines, but when we announced that we were going to burn the drug barns, they figured they’d better come out.”
“Who are they?” the admiral asked.
“I’ll put them on view,” Jack said.
The screen beside Kris changed to show two scarecrows in rags, but these scarecrows were grinning from ear to ear. They were seated at a table, spooning in a thin soup as medics checked them out.
“I’m Sam Hatzo. I was wiper on the engineering crew of the Hawaiian Star out of Brenner Pass. This is my buddy Oka Akino, he was a deckhand on the same. I can’t tell you what a lovely sight your ugly jarhead mugs were to these two sailors.”
“Thank you,” Kris said. “Nelly, do we have IDs on these two?”
“Yes, Kris,” and two merchant-sailor union cards appeared beside the former slaves. The pictures didn’t look all that much like the scarecrows, but Nelly quickly ran a facial recognition program and got ninety-two percent matches. “Fingerprints also match,” the computer concluded.
“So,” said Kris, eyeing the admiral, then Vicky, then back to the admiral, “we have at least two merchant sailors who were taken by pirates and sold into service vile. We have their witness to five of their comrades being murdered. Admiral, will you release your Marines to join my Marines in sweeps of the farms below in search of slaves and distressed mariners?”
The admiral took a deep breath. “I always told the missus that someday I’d take up chicken farming and be underfoot twenty-four hours a day. She said it would never happen. She would never live so long.”
He shrugged. “So, what’s the worst that can happen? I get to raise chickens, and Vicky here has to find another old coot to educate her in the ways of the world.”
“Five will get you ten you get a citation for this,” Vicky said.
“Young woman, I have warned you against gambling on my ship.”
“It’s Kris’s ship.”
“Worse, you’re gambling before the . . . ah . . . a Longknife. Behave yourself. Nelly, would you call my staff back in. It seems we have a jump mission to plan.”
39
Captain Jack Montoya, Royal United Sentient Marine Corps, was having a good day. On the average.
He’d gotten to rescue a certain twelve-year-old girl. She and her aunt were on the first shuttle back to the Wasp. Jack had looked Cara over. She looked a lot older . . . and her smile was missing.
Cara had come aboard the Wasp a frail waif who had just lost her mother and grandmother. Then, she’d looked like serious was her first, last, and middle name.
Then the smile slowly found its way out. Jack felt like he was watching a beaten and abused kitten discover that it could play when a ball of twine was dangled in front of her.
In no time, that waif and her smile had wrapped most every member of the Wasp’s crew around her little finger.
But the smile was gone now. Gone, leaving Jack to wonder if it would ever return.
That many of the men and women who had stripped Cara of that smile were dead was not an even trade in Jack’s book.
Jack sighed. There were professionals on the Wasp whose job it was to help little girls find their smiles.
No doubt, in weeks to come, they would bring out their best solutions for Cara.
Today, Jack was only too happy to try his own.
The first shuttle down after the combat drop had brought a Navy landing party led by the Command Master Chief Mong. He and his team brought down a boatload of flamethrowers and were busy applying them to the local crop of poison.