Every Last Mother's Child

by William J. Carty, Jr

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  A few days later Aggie came into the residence and sought out Lisa and Jill.

  “What are you guys doing today,” Aggie asked.

  “Nothing much,” Jill answered, “I am off school for a couple of days. Why?”

  “How about you Lisa,” the Queen asked the older woman.

  “Nothing much,” Lisa answered, “Why?”

  “I want you two go with me to the North Coast, General Langtree and that lieutenant Hooper have been working the housing problem on Home. They have been harvesting the forest along North Coast.” The Queen replied, “I want to see it.”

  “Okay,” Lisa spoke softly she suspected that the real reason that the Queen wanted Lisa to photograph the damage being done to the forest and Trena. “I’ll grab my camera.”

  “Thank you,” Aggie returned. She wanted to see the damage she had ordered to be done, but she didn’t want to do it alone. She was having a difficult time dealing with everything that was going on. Lady Wilson was a calming influence on her at times. It didn’t seem to her, that much bothered the Marshal’s wife. She had been a great comfort after the bombing incident. She seemed to bounce back after being shot at too. She didn’t understand. It had taken her more than a couple of days to get over being almost killed at the convention center.

  A couple of hours later they boarded a landing craft. As they flew to the North Coast Jill who had been out of the city only as far as Lady Hawthorne’s Estate a few weeks before had no idea that Trena was so lush. She remembered her conversation with the IRS captain who had treated her to dinner as she traveled to Trena. He had mentioned a couple of the more spectacular sights on Trena, but not its natural beauties. The forests seemed to go one forever. Where there was evidence of man it was almost invisible. She had never seen farm land like she was seeing as they over flew the prairies of Trena’s main continent. Working in a couple of the fields were harvesting machines. There were long swathes of fields that were golden brown on one side and a lighter shade of gold from the stubble left behind by the harvester.

  As they approached the coast they began to see an immense forest. The landing craft swung out over the ocean and came in at tree top level. The scar was evident from several miles out. It looked like someone had taken a giant bite out of the forest. They could see from the air the remains of the forest. Tree stumps were the only evidence that there had been a forest there at all. As they watched they saw a tracked vehicle working slowly from side to side. Its turret swinging left to right then right to left. In front of it, trees were falling like someone had taken a large scythe through them. It was then that the Queen realized that it was a militia main battle tank. She had taken a ride in one a few years back when she was reviewing one of Trena’s two armored units. She had been allowed to fire the weapons and had been impressed by the shear destructiveness of the vehicle. Watching it work now she was torn between being proud her militia owned something like the tank, and saddened by the shear destructiveness of a device she owned as it took down her forest. She watched as a landing tug. A large landing craft that had no cargo bay; but a large open space that could carry odd shaped cargoes that didn’t fit into an LC-10 the largest landing craft anyone flew. It was using force fields and tractor beams to bring up the trees felled by the tank. Within seconds its external hold was loaded. The trees were loaded branches and all. No effort had been made to trim the branches off to package the trees better for transport.

  “I wonder why they didn’t trim the branches off,” Jill asked.

  “I don‘t know,” Aggie replied. She watch quietly as both Lisa and Georgia stood in the open cargo hatch at the front of the landing craft quietly taking pictures. “It’s horrible!”

  “Do you want to land and see it from the ground,” Jill asked and got a horrified look from the Queen. Jill caught the subtle shake of her mother’s head and asked, “Want to see where this stuff is going?”

  The Queen nodded and excused herself. Lisa gave her cameras to Georgia and went in search of the Queen. She found her crying in a corner of the landing craft’s cargo bay. Lisa held her until they landed at the factory ship. Brushing the tears out of her eyes, she walked to the front cargo ramp where a force field held the atmosphere of the cargo bay in so they could look out the open cargo hatch.

  “That’s not an Attack Carrier,” Lisa commented as she snapped a few pictures.

  “No it’s one of the orbital factories,” Aggie replied, “It was lying idle. From what Jonesy said it was only a matter turning it on. I guess it will chew up the trees and spit out a composite product.”

  As they watch a landing tug released its load of trees. The load sailed into the open maul of the factory ship. Soon another replaced it and they could see that there were several landing tugs lining up to deliver their loads.

  The landing craft turned so as to make its docking. When it was docked they were met by a young militia lieutenant. Jill remembered him as the young lieutenant whose office her father had first met her in. With him was middle aged woman wearing the insignia of a Master Sergeant. They both stood at attention until Aggie acknowledged them.

  “Welcome aboard Majesty,” the young maintenance trooper greeted them, “Lady Wilson, Miss Wilson.”

  “Thank you,” The Queen returned the greeting, “You guys worked fast.”

  “Well Jonesy was planning on using this beast to make some of the containers. At least the interior fittings,” the lieutenant replied, “We were going to recycle some of the cars left behind, Thought that was a win-win proposition. The Marshal is concerned about all the vehicles left behind. We thought this might solve some issues.”

  “So my order to cut the trees down was not needed,” Aggie asked dejectedly.

  “May I, your majesty,” Sergeant Erickson asked, seeing the young woman’s distress. The Queen nodded.

  “Majesty we are recycling everything we can from Trena. But we’re in the early stages of the evacuation and there isn’t that much stuff available.” The sergeant began, “So we don’t have enough raw materials to do what we need. We will be using materials from the asteroids, but the wood products will be used for trim pieces, and nailers. We need the wood products to build the prefab.”

  “We really need the wood products Majesty,” Lieutenant Hooper chimed in, “not just for trim but for siding and such. We could use artificial materials and we will, but we also thought that using the wood from Trena would be fast and furious. More so, since we don’t have to be ecologically friendly to the planet.” Jill noticed the sergeant gently kicking the back of lieutenant’s leg. “I don’t like what we are doing Your Majesty; but it will help our people.”

  “I know,” Aggie replied.

  “Let’s go to the output end,” the lieutenant suggested. They trooped to the other end of the factory, where sitting on large pallets where sections of walls.

  “That’s a house for eight people.” He pointed to the pile of pallets, “It is all prefab. Our average family size is eight so we are building modules in multiples of eight. We won‘t be able to cut the house down to four people so everyone will get a house that can comfortably house eight. Everything is being made from either the asteroids or forests. There are hard wood floors, and plastic walls. They won’t be painted. The windows will be cased in wood and the walls will be filled with blown in insulation made from the wood we are bringing up. All of the systems are being prefab, piping, heating, and communication. Some of the people are bringing their expert systems so they will be able to be plugged right in to the home’s system. It takes about three hours for the raw materials to be converted into a home. We will have about four of these factories soon in orbit. We are putting a couple of them in a couple of attack carriers. They will be star capable factories then. We hope that we can build all the houses we need with in the time we have.

  “I sure don’t want to do to Home what we are doing to Trena.” Hooper said. “Do you want to see the whole manufacturing process?”

/>   “No,” the Queen answered, “Thank you Lieutenant Hooper and Sergeant Erickson. Keep up the very good work.”

  “Aye ma’am,” The lieutenant replied, the party left then as they did Jill thought she heard the sergeant scolding the lieutenant about his manners. Jill asked for and got a photo the damage the clear cutting was doing to Trena. She placed it in her diary.