Every Last Mother's Child
Page 33
Chapter 2: A Princess’ Arrival
Princess Carroll; arrived a couple of days ahead of the hospital ships and her marines. Her landing was unspectacular. Although the Mists of Empire was the vessel the Emperor used when he traveled, no fanfare was made when it arrived in system. The call sign for the yacht was not the traditional call “Marine 1", in fact the call sign was that of its side number. Although the AI knew that the side number was that assigned to Earth Empire’s Head of State’s vessel, it noted that the filed flight plan mentioned only that the Commandant of the Marine Corps was aboard with a small staff. The landing craft bearing Princess Alphine and her staff landed after dark at the Fletcher Militia Base. It wasn’t done deliberately it was just the way it happened.
A lieutenant from the VOQ met the party with a mini bus.
“General,” as the lieutenant escorted the princess’ party to the mini bus spoke to the princess. “I’ll be taking you to Quarters Six. We have a guest house for visiting flag officers. We could take you to the Embassy if you prefer your majesty.”
“No, Quarters Six will be okay,” Carroll Alphine replied, “I don’t want to wake them and the embassy doesn’t need the bull shit my presence would entail. They have too much work to do.”
“Aye-Aye general,” the lieutenant replied. Once they were loaded with their bags, he nodded to the sergeant to drive them to Quarters Six. Quarters Six was set in a remote part of the base. It was far enough away from the active flight line that generals and admirals wouldn’t be disturbed by the activity but close enough to headquarters to not be a long journey. Quarters Six was almost park like. With large homes and big lawns as befitted the men and women who ran Trena’s Militia, and the flag officers of foreign militaries that were based on, or visiting Trena. The driver parked before the main entrance of a large single story home that was all lit up. The Lieutenant got out first leading the way. The Princess’ security detail followed the lieutenant into the building. They came out a few minutes later signaling their charge it was okay, and took up positions around the house as their charge stepped out of the bus and carried her bag into the house.
Once in the house she was wide awake and drifted into the study where there was a secure expert system. It was only 1400 on the ship she had just left, nearly 2200 at Trenaport. She spent until the early hours reading everything she could get on the situation. She was even given unprecedented access to secure and sensitive reports generated by the Crown Intelligence Service. She was surprised when she had been given such access. When she asked the expert system, it had simply told her that Lord Wilson had given her a Mountain Event Clearance, the highest clearance in the kingdom. She was surprised to say the least, but she understood. The embassy had of course let Wilson and the Queen know she was coming in, and it had been made clear that she was not on an official visit. That she was on Trena as her father’s representative and to be a resource for the Queen of Trena and her people.
From what Mike had shared with her, she found that her old friend had gotten a start on what he had to do. He was checking the survey of the planet. He was getting a census done. He had people out checking nursing homes, hospitals, orphanages and the like. He had the Militia inventorying all the space and star capable vessels in the system. He still didn’t have a plan yet. Which didn’t surprise her, he had to determine what his exposure was, and what his resources were before he could start planning. Though she saw the glimmer of a plan it wasn’t ready to be published yet; but she could see where it was heading. All she had to do now was figure out how the empire could help them.
As dawn broke a messenger arrived from the palace with an invitation for the general to breakfast with the Queen. The Princess told the messenger to wait, then asked the leader of her detail to come with her and went with the messenger to the palace.
The Queen met them in the entrance to her residence dressed in very casual clothes. She was dressed in sweat shirt and a casual pair of slacks. The princess felt over dressed, in her office dress uniform of a skirt, and blouse with basic insignia. No medals, or awards, just a comfortable business suit.
“I am so glad you could join me,” The Queen led her into the private residence, where her steward had laid out breakfast; “The Marshal may or may not join us. He usually takes breakfast with his family, and meets with me a little later.”
“That’s fine,” Carroll replied, “I wouldn’t want to disturb him this early anyhow.”
They sat down at the table and without any preamble the Queen asked, “Princess, my people need the empire’s help. I have several thousand souls in nursing homes that I can’t abandon. I can’t just ship them off to any place. I was hoping that the Interstellar Rescue Service and the empire could help me get them some place where they can continued their care and recovery.”
“Your majesty,” The princess said taken aback, she didn’t think that her invitation to breakfast was anything more than a social thing to acknowledge her social status. She hadn’t been aware that this young woman would be working to solve this on her own. She had for some reason thought that she would route everything through Wilson. “The empire is ready to assist your people in any way possible. I have a letter from my father to that extent.”
“Good,” The Queen replied, “Marshal Wilson will be glad to hear that. Before you ask, Michael and I discussed your visit yesterday afternoon. He thought that it would be a good idea for me to ask you to help us evacuate our nursing home residents. We are aware that several hospital ships are en route to us. We felt that would be a good use for them.”
“I see,” The princess was impressed. The Queen and Wilson were working as a team. The Queen was right to handle this matter of state. Asking the heir to a neighboring star nation to use their hospital ships was a diplomatic thing, something the Queen should handle herself. “You have them.”
“Thank you,” The Queen said as her steward poured their coffee.
“How do you plan to move them?” The princess asked, “Do you have enough space lift to get them to the hospital ships?”
“Not medevac,” the Queen replied, “I think the crown boasts a total of maybe thirty medevac landing craft. The militia has ten multi casualty ships; but the bulk of the medevac is mostly owned by fire departments around the planet. They are mostly two and four liter carriers. I’m not certain that we have enough surface transport to get them there. The Militia has forty or so armored ambulances; but not much more. I don’t want to tie up fire rescue resources transporting people to landing pads.”
“What about private ambulances,” the princess asked.
“We might have maybe a couple hundred throughout the throughout the continent. I think I saw somewhere that there are ten thousand nursing home patients needing skilled nursing escorts, but another thirty thousand will need just assistance to get on and off the transports.”
“Well each of the hospital ships has four multiple place medevac landing craft that will give us forty medevac landing craft. But the thing is not all the ships are due to arrive at the same time.” The princess said, “You know I have the attack Carrier Majestic in bound. It has a MASH unit with a full medevac component aboard. They are used to handling severe trauma. They will be here the day after tomorrow. Will that give us enough time to get this planned?”
“Carroll!” a voice said behind them, the princess turned to see the man she had a crush on as young wet behind the ears lieutenant. “When did you get in?”
“About 22 last night,” the general replied, “I spent the last ten hours or so reading the sit reps. Thank you for letting me view them. I was surprised to see the classified ones that had Mountain Event labels on them. You had some problems didn’t you? How many cans did you actually find people stowing away in?”
“One too many,” Michael said sitting down. The steward approached and Michael asked for coffee. “Lisa said hi Aggie. She says she might be a little late for lunch. She is taking Jill shopping. The kid showed up with not mu
ch more than the clothes on her back.”
“Do I need to release some funds for her?” Carroll asked. She had gotten word that her ward was headed to Trena to be with her father. She was one of two people who were Jill Wilson’s financial trustees. “It wouldn’t take but a phone call.”
“Naw,” Michael replied, “Lisa can cover it. The boss has given me generous living expense account.”
“I might as well have I can’t spend it all!” The Queen remarked bitterly, her family owned Trena outright, and her ancestors had invested wisely. She was quite well off she would even make money on the evacuation as she owned stock in many of the companies building things for the evacuation.
“Let me know if you need anything for Jillian and I’ll see what I can do,” The general remarked.
“Me and the general were discussing medevac.” The Queen brought them back to what they were discussing before the Marshal arrived.
“Good,” Michael said as his coffee was poured. The two women brought him up to speed on what they had discussed. Wilson nodded making notes on a pad. Soon they were on to other subjects.