Not that much fire was needed to put the fields aflame. The leaves of this particular plant had an oily feel and were only too eager to burn. This was nice, because Master Chief Mong and his sailors were enthusiastically torching them.
Marines were still moving from one farm to the next, looking for sailors and blowing up processing plants. There was occasional opposition.
Jack would hear the low report of a slug pistol or rifle. It would immediately be followed by the high-pitched snap of an M-6. One hostile shot. One Marine reply.
Then a long and death-filled silence.
So far, no Marine had requested medical assistance. Only twice had a call come in for assistance to a down civilian . . . and one of them had been for an innocent bystander who got hit by the initial pistol shot.
It’s a good day when a Marine can contribute his little bit to evil’s getting its comeuppance.
That didn’t mean there weren’t annoyances.
Gunny Brown had called in with a civilian. Fellow was berating Gunny about this being private property and a business operation and that Gunny had no right to come in and disturb his operation.
Problem was that Gunny’s team had already found an open grave with a dozen bodies, all in different stages of decomposition, out behind the drug barns.
The creep had the gall to claim that those were just workers who’d died on the job without taking out the offered funeral insurance.
The story from his slaves was a bit different.
Jack had ordered Gunny to document the situation and bring the guy in in cuffs along with some witnesses. The Marine captain had no idea how the local legal system would handle a case like this, but he would make sure it had to face it.
The pictures that Gunny showed of this man’s slaves were particularly troubling to Jack. All of the slaves here were on short rations, but this fellow’s slaves were little more than scarecrows.
What was it with these people? They had already beaten their workers into submission. Why weren’t they at least giving them enough food to keep body and soul alive? What good was a starved and dying worker?
This whole situation made no sense to Jack.
It didn’t. Unless and until he factored in the simple fact that here, on this planet, the owners could treat their slaves this way. For the plantation owners and the whip-cracking overseers, that was all they needed. If they could get away with brutalizing this part of humanity, they would brutalize it.
Jack shook his head. Hopefully, Kris would see that the local elephants did something about all this injustice, which cried out for its day in court. A real court.
“Jack, are you there?”
“Yes, Kris, I’m here,” he said, forcing his voice to professional calm. “How’s it coming with your elephant taming.”
“It’s taken an interesting turn. I’m coming dirtside.”
“Hold it. I thought your new duties required you to hold yourself aloof from our low-class fun and games.”
“Maybe not so much.”
“You want to tell your lowly minion what you’re up to.”
“I’d rather not. Let’s hold this for face-to-face. By the way, have you gotten ahold of much transportation?”
“Yes, I’ve got several sets of wheels.”
“Get more, we’re going to need them. See you in a bit.”
40
“We’re going to arrest who?” Jack asked, incredulously.
“Ms. van da Fitz,” Kris answered, as if it was the most rational idea in human space.
She glanced around. Jack had collected the Wasp’s Marine company and several cars and trucks. The Marines showed their usual patience as they stood by the transportation, checked their weapons, and readied themselves to follow her next order, whatever it might be.
“And if Miss van da Snooty doesn’t want to come along peacefully?” their captain asked.
“That’s why we’re taking a whole Marine company,” Kris said.
“Any chance we might get a couple of battalions of Imperial Greenfeld Marines?” the Royal Marine asked.
“Not a good idea,” Kris said, unrolling a large flimsy that showed the details of Port Royal and stretching it out on the hood of their potential staff car. “Greenfeld Marines know very well how much money Fitz has in her change purse. Very likely, she’d buy her way out. Certainly, she’d know we are coming well before we got there. Admiral Krätz felt it would be a good idea if we did it using only Wardhaven assets.”
“And if we get killed doing this?”
“No doubt Emperor Henry will make him a duke for being the guy who finally killed Kris Longknife,” Kris answered evenly.
“Kris, did you hear what you just said,” Jack growled. “You’ve gotten us into some bad situations, but this has got to take the cake.”
“Don’t be so sure, Captain. This may only be practice for my next, even worse, idea.”
“Such as?”
“Let’s save that for later,” Kris said. “Colonel Cortez has gone over the map, and he thinks there are three distinct approaches, one for each of the platoons,” Kris began the briefing for her officers. “Our target is the N.S. tower, right here on the bay front. Notice how all roads lead straight to it.”
Two hours later, Kris had driven straight to it without so much as a shot fired. As she arrived two blocks from the tower, First Lieutenant Stubben reported the first platoon deployed to her right, in the buildings along Harbor Road East. Gunny Brown deployed the third platoon covering Kris’s left, in the smaller businesses along Harbor Road West.
They awaited her orders.
Kris and Jack drove up State Street and parked their rigs behind an imposing two-story stone bank building. The rest of the platoon took its time taking up shooting positions in the stores across the street and in the bank.
Now Kris stood in the shade of the bank entrance eyeing what lay before them.
“How are we supposed to do this?” Jack said as he surveyed the tactical problem. N.S. tower was a good twenty stories high in front of them, the highest building in the new and growing town of Port Royal.
Laid out like a fan on its shoreward side were parking lots and a park with statues, a fountain, and palm trees. Lovely open spaces stretched for the thousand meters between the bank and the tower.
It looked like a lovely place to visit.
Attack it?
Not so much.
“You think they have any autocannons?” Kris asked.
“They had plenty on their space station. What makes you think they’d scrimp around their ground headquarters?” Jack asked, answering her question with a question . . . and maybe a bit of sarcasm to boot.
“It’s not my place as an admiral to interfere with you gravel crunchers’ tactical problem,” Admiral Krätz said on net, “but have you ever considered calling on her to surrender like any law-abiding outlaw?”
“So nice of him to have suggestions since he’s not down here risking his neck,” Jack muttered to Kris, hopefully off net.
“Anything’s worth a try,” Kris muttered back, and jacked up the power on her battle suit’s loudspeaker. “You are surrounded. Throw down your weapons and come out with your hands up, and you will all survive today.”
For a long second, nothing happened. Then another long second went by. Maybe enough time passed for Ms. van da Fitz to quit laughing at the joke.
Or maybe she hit the automated defense button in midlaughter.
The fountain quit spewing water, and an ugly twin-barrel device rose from the pond at its base. It took a second for the guns to level and point themselves right at Kris—but only a second.
Then it started spewing big ugly slugs.
A chunk from several of the tree trunks retracted, and more weapons let loose. Where stone statues stood, suddenly the stone faces of the cube pedestals fell away, showing a machine gun behind each quarter. They opened fire, spraying fire in four different directions.