Every Last Mother's Child
Page 138
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Lady Hawthorne didn’t know that there was a network both official and unofficial that the sergeants and noncoms were part of. Sometimes known as the sergeant’s net, it was working its magic at the academy. During the next few days as Lady Hawthorne and her people got the old boarding school up and running as a cadet academy NCOs just started showing up. They began to make things happen for the cadets. Several militia combat engineers coming back from another assignment stopped by the school and with their heavy equipment graded and dragged the athletic fields fixed all of the gates and other outdoor equipment. In addition to the CE unit, a couple of retired black guard sergeants began showing up every morning. They worked with getting the kids out on the green in the morning for roll call and had started to identify kids who would make good cadet officers. Not only retired marines had just shown up, some Interstellar Rescue Service NCOs and officers, but Thonians as well. Not just retired military but serving military, police officers and fire fighters began showing up also.
Jill was there when Lady Hawthorne decided to get to the bottom of what was going on.
“Gentlemen,” Lady Hawthorne approached the two men who seemed to be the ring leaders of all the help she was getting. She had to know what was going on. More so since Jill’s principle agent didn’t seem to have a problem with any of the people who were helping out. She didn’t worry about the active duty military as they spent only their off time at the school, but the others she felt that she was using them. “I have contracts for you and your friends, sergeant.”
“We don’t want contracts,” the older of the two said, “Our pension covers our expenses. Especially if we eat here every day!”
“Then how do I pay you?” Lady Hawthorne asked.
“Ma’am,” the younger of the two spoke softly; he was old enough to be her grandfather, “we owe a few people a lot of favors. They took care of us as we were coming up. We heard that you and the young lady needed help and so we thought it might be a good idea to make sure that you got that help.”
“Lady Hawthorne,” Jenny, Jill’s agent commented, “Your network is only second to the Noncom’s network. I’ve been checking up on what’s happening. The sergeants for whatever reason have made this place a project.”
“Why?” Lady Hawthorne asked. She noticed that Jill was listening to them intently.
“The kids,” the younger man said, “They deserve the best we can give them and you folks while very good at what you do Lady Hawthorne, need as much help as you can get. A couple of Marshal Wilson’s friends from the police academy will be here tomorrow they are PT instructors. They have a couple of days so they’re going to lead the kids through a series of PT drills.”
“But these are kids,” Lady Hawthorne said.
“Yes ma’am,” the old marine said, “They’ve been looking over your population they have the kids divided into groups and have developed a specific PT Drill for each group. The fifteen to 18 year olds will be out of your hair most of the day, the twelve to fifteen year olds will be on the athletic fields all day, and the little guys will be in the gym.”
“What are the older kids doing,” Lady Hawthorne asked.
“We have ten trucks coming in with more clothing and sundry items for the kids. They’ll be stocking the warehouse and the store room. The Gunny will be back for a while to check on things. I hear she’s getting assigned planet side on the Princess’ staff. The Gunny said it was okay to load the warehouse but it better be to her plan!”
“You know the crown has some ferocious laws concerning child labor.” Lady Hawthorne said half seriously.
“UCMJ has even more ferocious law concerning the care, feeding and handling of cadets.” The older man said. “Trust us, my lady those kids will be worked, and some of them will find they have muscles that they don’t know they have, they’ll be back by evening chow. But they will not be harmed even though they might think are!”
“Okay,” The young woman said.
“What happens to these kids when we get to Home,” The younger of the two asked.
“I am working on it now.” Lady Hawthorne. She had no idea what was going to happen on Home but she was already wondering would it be big enough to have a boarding school.
The two men looked at each other as if coming to a decision.