Farenough: Strangers Book 2

by Melissa McCann

  "How many soldiers with the Admiral Hirshorn?"

  "A hundred Marines, give or take."

  That was not enough to keep every human indoors and quiet even if Tora made the Special Commander Marduk give her all the black-uniforms to help. As she jogged toward the water, she thought of something the humans would want more than shooting soldiers and maybe even more than medicine at least for a little while. She squeezed the clip on her collar. "Ms. Stamos, you are talking to the Admiral Hirshorn?"

  Ms. Stamos did not reply right away, not for almost a minute. "Hi Colonel, yes, I'm going through the exchange operators and talking to General Baldwin."

  "Tell the Admiral Hirshorn no uniforms, stun weapons only, and bring food and water."

  "Blankets," Mr. Ventnor added.

  "Blankets," Tora repeated to Ms. Stamos. "Medicine. No talking about plague cure."

  "Unless people are getting panicky about it," Mr. Ventnor prompted.

  "Unless panic," Tora agreed.

  "Candy for the kids if they've got it."

  "Candy for child-humans. Make Cyrion send those things. Black-uniforms can give them to humans, but no uniforms and no shooting."

  "I'll pass all that along, Colonel."

  Tora said, "Where is the Admiral Hirshorn coming into Murrayville?"

  "We're still trying to convince him to use your lot. He doesn't like the idea of putting his people ashore in such small numbers."

  Tora snorted. The Admiral Hirshorn didn't know how to manage humans. "Where is Mr. Hollin?"

  "He's on the waterfront now, liberating some of Solante's warehouses there."

  Warehouses were for keeping large piles of useful things. She wasn't sure about liberating, but Mr. Hollin knew how to get things to people who needed them. "Where is Liam?"

  A moment later, Liam said, "I am here."

  "Tell runners find out what people need and tell Mr. Hollin. Go to waterfront and tell the Marines soldiers where to take those things."

  "Yes," Liam said. That was all he needed to say. He was a good soldier, a good commander for the runners.

  Tora and Mr. Ventnor emerged onto the waterfront where the big docks were and the warehouses stood on the other side of the boardwalk where things could be carried straight from the docks into the warehouses or back out to ship up or down the river. Tora scanned the sky and found the white and gold navy airships coming up the river. They burned a little with red where the sun had begun to set and turn the sky bright colors.

  "Where are Civilian Communication Corps?" she asked Mr. Ventnor.

  He pointed with his chin. "They've taken over Ms. Cullen's place."

  Ms. Cullen made cider, which was cold and hot at the same time and made your head feel light if you drank too much. Her shop stood over the water on long posts. The humans inside all stood around a table covered with bits and pieces of metal and carbon and plastine and wires and cables and small generators.

  "You're tuning it too high. It's bouncing off the com block."

  "It's getting out just fine, it's them getting through from their side that's the problem."

  A young man with a long, thin face said, "I already told you we need the third generator."

  "That will burn out the projector."

  "Not if we add the second projector."

  "The second signal will interfere with the first."

  "I told you I already worked out an overtone to blend them back into a single signal."

  Tora would recognize her Civilian Communication Corps with her eyes closed. "Report," she barked.

  They scrambled upright except for the young one who Tora already knew was the one named Saahir because he told the older ones how to make the communication equipment work.

  The adult-human male who told the others what to do made a salute like the militia with a fist thumped to his skinny chest. "Colonel Miraz, we're having trouble keeping contact with the navy fleet. Our equipment can't handle the second generator, and we keep having to replace burnt out parts."

  Tora nodded. "You do good. I want one more time to speak to the Admiral Hirshorn."

  The Saahir said, "I've got the second projector and the tone modulator right here."

  The woman with her grey hair hanging over her shoulders and far down her back turned on the boy. "It will blow out both projectors, and that will be it. We'll be deaf and dumb."

  "I think the boy has the only idea we've got left to try," one of the men said. He was plump and ruddy with very sharp eyes.

  Tora let them argue a little longer before she said, "I need communication now."

  The woman raised her hands and looked at the ceiling as if she thought help might come from that direction. Some others grumbled and turned their backs, but the Saahir boy started working on wires and boxes and pieces of things Tora didn't understand. The man who was their leader, and the other one with the sharp eyes went to help him, and some of the others came back to help as well, and they argued all the time they worked except for the boy. Now that everybody was doing what he wanted, he did not argue anymore.

  Finally the man who was the leader and whose name was Corney handed to Tora a com microphone almost as big as her palm, then all the Civilian Communication Corps got very excited, and pushed buttons and twisted dials and jiggled wires, and a voice from the microphone in her palm said, "Murrayville, we hear you."

  Tora turned the microphone and found the switch for her thumb that made the microphone hear her voice. "I am Tora Miraz. I will speak to the Admiral Hirshorn now."

  The voice from the speaker said, "The Admiral's chief of staff is..."

  "I don't want chief of staff. I want the Admiral Hirshorn."

  Then General Baldwin said, "Is that Tora? Tora, report."

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  "No time for reporting. Where is the Admiral Hirshorn?"

  "Tell me what you want. I'll relay it to him."

  Tora considered. General Baldwin was a good commander. He would try to convince the Admiral Hirshorn to do what Tora said, but Tora wanted to hear the Admiral Hirshorn and speak to him. She wanted to know what kind of a commander he was and how to negotiate with him. "You tell him talk to me or many humans will be killed in Murrayville. He protects humans?"

  General Baldwin said, "It's more complicated than that, Tora. He's an officer of the United Worlds charged with protecting this whole planet. He can't risk all that for one little camp chartered town."

  Tora did not think Murrayville was little. It was full of humans who all had to be protected even from themselves when they decided to do something stupid, and they would do something stupid if the Admiral Hirshorn's Marines soldiers came into the town the wrong way. "Make him speak to me."

  "Tora..."

  "Make him speak to me."

  She lowered the microphone and made a slashing gesture to her Civilian Communication Corps. The Saahir cut off the power, and all the operators jumped on the equipment and started moving wires and adjusting clamps, and re-attaching connections and arguing.

  "I want to speak with the Admiral Hirshorn when he calls."

  The leader waved his hand without looking up. "We'll have it ready. At least Saahir's modifications worked."

  "How close?" Tora asked Mr. Ventnor.

  He went to the door that opened straight out onto the water, leaned out, and looked at the sky. "They're cutting it close. We have maybe ten minutes until they come in."

  Tora went to the other door and stepped out onto the boardwalk. Humans had come out of their homes and were looking at the sky. Some humans looked afraid, and some looked angry, and some of the ones that were afraid now would be angry when the Marines soldiers started to come into Murrayville. Tora went back inside.

  The leader of the Civilian Communication Corps waved for her to come closer. "We're ready to receive. The equipment is working fine so far. No burnouts on this last run. I think Saahir's got it."

  "You do good," Tora told them.

  "Five minutes," Mr. Ventnor said from
the door over the water

  Then the communication equipment all over the table and the floor buzzed, and sparks came from some parts, and everyone scurried around adjusting things, and General Baldwin's voice came out of the speaker. "Tora, Admiral Hirshorn's agreed to speak with you for two minutes."

  Then a second voice said, "Ms. Miraz, please say what you want to say."

  Tora made calculations in her head. The Admiral Hirshorn was not flexible like the Special Commander Marduk. He had too many soldiers for Tora to fight. Fall back and wait for reinforcements? Tora had no reinforcements. She thought very fast. Could she use the black-uniforms as reinforcements? She did not think the Special Commander Marduk would fight the Admiral Hirshorn. Tora had no credit to negotiate with the Admiral Hirshorn. Could she pretend to have credit? Make her own credit? Give the Admiral Hirshorn credit the way she had done with the Special Commander Marduk so he would have to give her credit in return? Could she make the Admiral Hirshorn be her reinforcements?

  She said, "Admiral Hirshorn, thank you for coming to help protect humans. Humans are very afraid. They are afraid enough to fight soldiers. I can't protect so many humans if they fight soldiers."

  "Ms. Miraz, I am not here to babysit Murrayville. My job is to contain this outbreak. If your people try to fight me, they will be put down."

  "Humans will not fight if they are not afraid. Do you damage humans if you do not have to damage them?" She took a risk by challenging him, even if she was making him challenge himself. She thought probably he was not the kind of human who liked to hurt other humans.

  He did not reply to her for a while. She heard him talking with General Baldwin, but although she could recognize the voices, she could not understand what they were saying. Finally, the Admiral Hirshorn came back to his microphone. "What are you doing to keep the disease from spreading?"

  He wanted to know how much credit Tora had. How much should she show him? How much should she keep back? "I have all soldiers in Murrayville, militia and blue-sash soldiers. My soldiers watch boundaries to stop humans from running away and letting disease enemy out. They talk to people to keep them calm. Special Commander Marduk keeps black-uniforms outside Murrayville to stop humans from running away, but no humans get past my soldiers." She hoped that was true. Mr. Ventnor nodded once to say it was true, so that was good.

  "My soldiers and my Civilian Support Corps take food and water and medicine to humans so they can stay at home and not spread disease enemy."

  The Admiral Hirshorn talked to General Baldwin again.

  Mr. Ventnor leaned out to look at the ships in the sky. "They're standing off, but that's not going to reassure the rank and file on the street."

  Tora nodded. She had to get the ships down and some of the Marines soldiers on the street, but make the not shoot anyone. Then humans would start to be not so afraid.

  General Baldwin came on the speaker. "Tora, the admiral is going to put down three ships at the big slip. That's number nine. Can you find that?"

  Tora considered maybe knocking General Baldwin down and thumping his head on the ground. Not very hard but enough to remind him she was not a drone. "I will meet you there."

  "You can bring a handful of the militia. I want to see Ms. Stamos and Dess."

  Ms. Stamos was at the control post with the Solante's com station. Dess was with Mr. Bracxs in the district, talking with humans there. They did not have time to come to the waterfront before General Baldwin and the Admiral Hirshorn landed. Tora said, "I will bring militia."

  More sparks came from the mess all around the table, and the Civilian Communication Corps swore and jumped and grabbed for wires that still sparked, but Tora had finished talking. "You do good," she told them, then she and Mr. Ventnor went out to the boardwalk. More humans had come, talking and watching the navy airships and scowling. Some of the militia had arrived, too, and some of the blue-sashes. Tora went to meet them. "We go talk to the Admiral Hirshorn now."

  She said it so the humans could hear even though she was not talking to them. One of the humans said, "Colonel Miraz, what are they doing here? Is it martial law? What are they going to do to us?"

  "They come to help," Tora told them. She thought probably it was true. The Admiral Hirshorn would not fight humans if he did not have to.

  "What about the plague? Is he here to firebomb?"

  "There will be cure," Tora answered. She did not to say Annia had already made the cure. She did not want to say the cure would be here very soon. She did not want humans to fight to get to the hospital. "Right now, I go talk to the Admiral Hirshorn. Mr. Ventnor, Lize, Mr. Pente, you come." She picked out two blue-sashes. She would have to learn their names later. "You come, too."

  The rest of the militia stayed to talk to the humans and try to keep them calm and not afraid. Tora led her group at a trot toward slip nine, which of course she knew because she was not a stupid drone.

  Mr. Hollin came out of a warehouse on the side of the boardwalk and waited for Tora and Mr. Ventnor to get to him. He joined them. "Ms. Miraz, I've opened up three of Mr. Solante's warehouses. A lot of it's worthless, but I've found some food and blankets, bedding, camp shelters, some materials we could use to make tents for the sick around the hospital, but I don't have any way to move them."

  "I have people to move things," Tora told him. "The Admiral Hirshorn."

  "You're going to make the Marines haul crates and build shelters?"

  Tora shrugged. "He wants soldiers in Murrayville. I get them into Murrayville without fighting. Good for everybody."

  Mr. Hollin whistled. "That's one way to do it." He didn't sound like he thought it was a good way to do it.

  Tora thought he might be right, but it was all the credit she had to negotiate with.

  They got to slip nine as the three airships settled to the surface of the lake. The water sagged underneath them, but it held them up so the Marines could climb out on the slip and form ranks. General Baldwin got out of the nearest ship, and another man followed him in a white uniform. The Admiral Hirshorn's staff came out, too and stood behind him, then they all marched toward the boardwalk.

  Tora waited with Mr. Ventnor on her right side and Mr. Hollin on her left until the Admiral Hirshorn came right up to her and stopped not close enough for fighting but close enough to say he was stronger than Tora. Tora held her place and did not step back or show anger. "Well?" he said. "Are you the clone who runs this rabble?"

  The lieutenants behind her made little noises and shifted their feet. They did not like to be called rabble. It was an insult like "bulls" that they called the blue-sashes.

  Tora did not let the Admiral Hirshorn make her fight. She said, "Thank you for coming to help protect humans."

  The Admiral Hirshorn looked very hard at her, then at Mr. Ventnor who had his thumbs hooked in his belt and looked calm and not interested in the Admiral Hirshorn. Then he looked at Mr. Hollin and nodded his head. "Hollin," he said.

  Mr. Hollin nodded back. "Good to see you again, Admiral."

  Tora did not take her eyes off the Admiral Hirshorn. She could not fight him with soldiers, but she must make him understand he was not Command for Murrayville.

  The Admiral Hirshorn must have decided Tora was a good enough commander for him to negotiate with her. He said, "You have a plan for getting my people into the town without bloodshed." He said it like he doubted that it was true.

  Tora nodded. "You have food and supplies for humans?"

  "Emergency supplies, yes, but those are for my people, not these here."

  Tora nodded again. "Mr. Hollin has food and supplies. You bring those things to humans. Your soldiers wear half-uniforms, carry only stun weapons, deliver food to humans. Militia and blue-sashes go with them, humans will know militia. They will not be afraid, will not fight."

  "And you think I can infiltrate the town and take over before anyone knows what's happening."

  Tora would not let the Admiral Hirshorn take over Murrayville. He did know how to
properly care for humans. She said, "Humans will not fight you." She might fight him, but humans would not.

  General Baldwin said, "Tora has a point, Admiral. It's better to infiltrate without fighting until it's absolutely necessary."

  "What about you, Hollin?" the admiral said.

  Mr. Hollin shrugged. "People trust Ms. Miraz. If they see her treating you like a friend, they're less likely to jump straight to gunfighting."

  The Admiral Hirshorn took a breath and slitted his eyes at Tora. "I'll try it your way, but at the first shot from anyone in this town, I'll arm my people and lock this town so tight it will squeak."

  The Marines soldiers did not like to carry crates, and they did not like to follow the runners where the people needed food, and they did not like to have the militia and the blue-sashes with them. Tora did not like to have them in her territory. She did not know how long it would be before some of the Marines soldiers decided to fight humans.

  Tora went to the border of the town and asked to talk to the Special Commander Marduk. He came himself, and Tora decided she was probably glad she had not killed him for stunning Mr. Ventnor. It was only a stun after all.

  The Special Commander Marduk already knew about the Admiral Hirshorn. "There's nothing I can do," he told her. "With the declaration of martial law, he's the supreme authority on Yetfurther."

  "You can help protect humans," Tora said.

  "I can't fight marines."

  Tora shook her head. "No fighting. Only taking food to humans and talking to Marines soldiers."

  "It sounds like you already have enough crate-carriers."

  Mr. Ventnor said, "I think what the Colonel is suggesting is that the more calm and friendly folks are watching the Marines and standing between them and the civilians, the less likely it is that anyone will panic and start shooting. On either side."

  The Special Commander Marduk looked from Mr. Ventnor to Tora. Tora made her face blank. She did not want to give an order that would make her or the Special Commander Marduk fight the Admiral Hirshorn.