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Janet Able went to the Command post of the companies monitoring the fire to see how things were going. She needed to get out, to see them so they knew she cared about them and to make sure they had what they needed. The command chief, the bioman from Trojack had command of the incident which surprised her a bit. But not really she had only four companies left on Trena. His company and three volunteer companies were on 24-7 until they were evaced in the next day or so. “Chief we’re finally getting a handle on the fires.”
“That’s good news,” Janet said.
“But it’s weird,” The chief said. He went to the map, “all the fires are set along these roads. All of them were too wide for the fire to jump. They have combined and are starting to burn toward the center. All we are doing is getting the hot spots that fall outside of the zone. I have also fired a couple of the buildings, to force the fire to burn out faster. This pig’s contained. We’re getting ready to pull the back to the space port.”
Janet said seeing the situation. “There’s nothing of value so let it burn.”
The bioman nodded in agreement glad Chief Able had seen his point, “I’ll get our guys out.” He turned to the open tailgate of the chief’s buggy he had been using and took a sealed envelope marked evidence and handed it to Chief Able, “Oh by the way, the Marshal and the Queen may want to see this.”
“What is it,” Janet asked.
“It’s evidence linking the Republic and the Theocracy to this and the damn break you guys suffered early on.” He gave her the envelop, “The Black Guard had taken out a sniper who they thought was shooting on our guys, the fire jumped to the house they were in and the cops couldn’t get in. When the fire burned out we found three guys dead. The Black Guard reported only the one they had killed. The other two guys were shot from the back. They were identified as people who came in a few months back to work the salvage, this guy the third one was identified as Father Pierce. This chip is his confession. The man said he was sorry for all the grief he caused. For what it is worth, he saved a few of our fire fighters. The Guard said that he killed the two that were taking pot shots at us. I think he was sincere.”
“I’ll take it,” Janet said, “Chief thank you for all you have done. I may not get back to you before you lift; but I think I can speak for the Queen by saying that the people of Trena thank you for everything you have done for us.”
“You are welcome Chief,” the clone said, “We couldn’t just stand back and not help you.”
“I need to get back. I have a command to shut down.” Janet said. Although her staff was shutting down her part of the evacuation command there was still a lot of stuff that had to be done before she could leave. She had to be sure her closing report was in the can, that all of her records from the evacuation were complete. Already there were law suits being filed in various interstellar courts around the galaxy. A lot of companies had lost a lot of money on Trena. Some because she refused to fight fires that didn’t directly support the evacuation of Trena. She figured she would be in court for years.
As she drove back to the palace, the town felt eerie. There was no traffic to speak of. The businesses had all been abandoned. Even the dogs seemed to be gone. There were still people in the city. Three days left. 75 thousand people all total. Most of them were camped out at the space port or the four other lift points around the city. She stopped for a convoy of Militia trucks heading for Fletcher. They were a militia group that had been patrolling the abandoned country side. They had wanted to make sure that no one was left behind. Trying to ensure Wilson’s promise that every last mother’s child would be evacuated from Trena. She wasn’t quite so sure they were going to get everyone. They had tried to make sure everyone was accounted for; but she knew that there were several thousand living around the world that refused to be evacuated. Wilson was concerned about that; but he was smart enough to know that there was little he could do about it. He didn’t have the resources to chase people down and put them on the landing craft. When he had the resources he checked the abandoned towns and what he could of the cities.
She remembered one fiery session with the Queen over this. The Queen had been more than mad and had yelled at all of them. It had only been Lord Mercer that calmed her down. Lady Hawthorne, who had been the chief architect of the census, had convinced the Queen that there was just so much they could do. Princess Carroll had convinced the Queen that if some people for whatever reason didn’t want to leave their homes there was little they could do. Some people had gone into hiding. Wilson wasn’t about to search several billion structures again and all of the continents to find them. He had his hands full just trying to make sure people got to the right LZ and to the right transport off Trena. As she pulled into the palace as she saw Wilson and the Queen step into a landing craft to make one more trip to the outback.
Every Last Mother's Child Page 239
