Governor's Tribute

by Sharon L Reddy

Chapter Five

  Jobe made the decision. He asked if the time to go to other places would be enough for the bureau directors to give people weapons and make them think they should fight. Boer ordered a course change and sent messages. The emperor received the one he sent to him six days before they reached NuncTura. He played it twice and began issuing orders.

  "Admiral Grader! Meeting of the Joint Military Staff here now! Wing Seven of the fleet to NuncTura full speed! Wing Nine will be escort for Transport Group Five! Stuff them with every bit of educational equipment and teacher we can get on them! Wing Five will escort Transport Group Three with all the household tech we can come up with in four days! I want every doctor, med tech and surgical unit we can get on a ship headed for NuncTura in two days! Get Marine Engineer Group Three moving to rendezvous! Boer is about to take apart Hell and he's going in with one old ship and one hundred eighty nearly unequipped marines!"

  "Shit! Excuse me, Highness!"

  "I consider it an appropriate response. Get on it."

  They didn't move quite as fast on Dereva and their ships weren't as fast, but they were a great deal closer. They met with the fleet from Baslior and received messages fleets from Rinder and O'Dona were coming from the other direction, but they were all several days behind their governor.

  On thirteen worlds and six colony worlds, people were preparing to follow the fleets. Boer had sent them the proof they'd found, what they knew and what they'd surmised. Illiteracy was enforced and the populace being reduced and prepared for enslavement. He'd interrupted the plan by accepting the hideously scarred boy they'd presented instead of repudiating the treaty. Jobe softly explaining the government let the poor fish from the beaches at night where he'd been, but he didn't know what the poor who didn't live by the ocean ate, roused them to fury.

  The fleets followed their governor, but people prepared because his bride had asked for their aid for his people. Not Nunceon or Turon, the poor, most of the people of a world.

  On the governor's ship, everyone who could read a spec list, use a tool or program a comp was at work on Li's idea. Boer authorized the drop to sub-light to install the parts for the drive and the control system. If they worked, they'd lose half a day, not six, and landing the ship had become very important. If they couldn't, they could only get forty marines down to the surface at a time and it would take the two shuttles nearly an hour for each round trip.

  Li said she had an idea for them too, but hadn't had time to really work on it. Anverd said giggling probably wasn't the appropriate response, but he certainly felt like it. Boer said he did understand. Nineteen hours later, the ship initiated FTL drive and one hundred ninety-five people cheered. Li and Jobe giggled. Boer had both of them in his arms and was dancing around the bridge.

  The ship dropped to sub-light and went straight down. They'd decided where to land from the visual orbital surveys they'd done and a very old geology mapping of the planet. They were pretty sure the ship wouldn't sink, much. The six tumball practice fields south of the gov center spaceport were on pretty solid ground. Boer hit the broadbeam comm as they dropped toward them.

  "This is Governor Thiretess Boer Hadlain. The planet of NuncTura is hereby placed under martial law for failure to comply with Imperial Law One-three, Section Two-one, Paragraph Six in accordance with the Treaty of Relatross. The nine senior directors of government bureaus are placed under arrest and all government offices are closed. All government accounts are frozen. All government assets will be seized. All personal assets of government employees will be seized for inventory. Failure to comply with any order from any of my staff will result in immediate arrest and any resistance will be dealt with by force of arms. I'm landing. The weapons on this ship weren't really designed to be used on a planet, but I'd thoroughly enjoy seeing what they'd do to government center. Give me an excuse to just blow you all to Hell and save the empire the expense of providing you with defense counsel."

  "Well, that should slow them down a bit."

  "I hope so, Anverd."

  "This is NuncTura government center. You can't declare martial law for failure to... treat and document injuries incurred during practice or game play in team sports competition in levels six through twelve in public schools."

  "I can and I have. It's just an excuse, but I do have proof of it. There isn't any public education and I know it. So does the rest of the sector and the emperor. There aren't any food subsidies to the poor, which is about everyone who doesn't work for the government. There's not much, if any, private business left. The general populace is totally illiterate and is being reduced through lack of medical care and starvation in preparation for enslavement. My bride was rather young when he survived the explosion that rendered him blind and deaf and left him terribly scarred, but he remembers what it means to be poor on NuncTura very well. You probably won't like him, but everyone else does. You severely underestimated me and what I could, and would, do once already. Don't make the same mistake again. Pity is as close as I can come to mercy for you. Surrender or die."

  Some didn't listen to the warning. They tried to run. Captain Farner tossed Boer the only artillery they had. He shot the a-grav generation unit on the bottom of the ship from the hip with a 'weapon' designed to reduce the dangers of avalanche on Sealore and yelled, "Down!" Dona had forgotten it was in her field camp kit until he'd said he wished they had something that would at least knock down a door. She'd had three rounds for it.

  No one among those who had gotten off Boer's ship was hit by any of the debris from the other ship when it hit the ground and exploded, but it did make a real mess of the port. He apologized to Jobe for flattening him when he'd landed on top of him. He said he did usually land a bit more gently and he had noticed the ground was harder than a bed, but he didn't think he was much flatter. Aura noted he was obviously right about the ground being hard because the ship seemed to have stopped sinking. Men began to come out of buildings with their hands raised.

  All nine bureau directors and their thirty-six deputy directors had been on the ship. They'd been planning on running, as soon as they finished stocking the very large luxurious yacht awaiting them on NuncTura's smallest moon and transferring a great deal of credit into accounts in Yarrow sector. They'd expected to have at least a quarter-year to disappear, but they'd planned on leaving NuncTura in about six days. Anverd and Cal had managed to stop the wipe command of all nine bureau records before it got very far and enjoyed the "small challenge" of breaking into their secret files.

  The Great Boar had taken a world with one old ship and a hundred eighty ex-Imperial Marines with hand weapons. But now that he had it, he really didn't know what to do with it. Or where to start to fix it.

  "With the people, of course."

  "How, Dirda? Which people? I don't even know how many people there are, or where they are. Currently, the only ones who know the government has fallen are people who... worked for the government in government center. I don't even know how to tell the ones who need help most it's on its way."

  "Tell one poor. All will know before night falls."

  "Perhaps in one district, Jobe, but it's a whole world."

  "You're right, Boer. It might take tomorrow too."

  "Uh, Jobe, there are four continents and a lot of water between them."

  "We'll cross them in a flyer and tell one poor on each side of each one. They'll all know by the end of tomorrow in this place."

  "Word can't spread that fast without communication equipment."

  "They'll get it if it's needed, Dirda. No one will stop them using it. The ones who work as laborers on the boats and in places their grandfathers owned will help them use it."

  "Agreed. Let's go find a flyer."

  "I'm going with you."

  "So am I."

  "Me too."

  "And me."

  "No. I'm not being protective. I need you here. I think my mind stopped running i
n neutral, or in circles, when Jobe said, 'flyer.' He's right about telling the people and that those who do have access to comms and such will help. Dirda, you're the one who can speak for me. The rest of you have skills that none of the marines do. However, they can all operate flyers and cams and they can all talk to people. Now, we do need some here and some ready to move fast if someone decides to get even. Aura, that's yours and you have eighty marines. Nora, assess crops, herds and cropland; how many they'll feed, how close they are to harvest, how fast we can plant more. Li, we don't have any idea what the actual level of technology is on most of this world and that means we don't know if we can get fields planted if we can get enough seed to plant them. Dona, you know we don't know anything about the current condition of this world and we need to. Barri, boys and girls and Nunceons and Turons have to think of themselves as kids and people. Misty, I need you watching the bunch who were in power and Via figuring out how to build a new system and what kind it should be. Lou, what we learn and what we do are important, but they need to know... what they did have and where it went wrong. Mim, you know what I need you to do. Lola, the same with you and Cal. Eddy, there are fleets from four worlds and the empire headed this way and a lot of just people coming because they want to help. You've got figuring out how they can work together. I don't want 'You here, you there, you there.' The cooperation of many 'races' from many worlds is critical. And most of all, I need you visibly here and putting it together because you're women. It's why Jobe and I are the right ones to contact the people. He's very obviously Nunceon, but doesn't think of himself as such. He thinks of himself as one who was poor. That's the important designation. I'm very obviously neither Nunceon nor Turon and I think of them all as my people. We'll be making a lot more stops than just one on each side of each continent. We have about fourteen days to put a plan together for this world before a large number of people begin to arrive to help implement it."

  "He took care of that argument effectively, didn't he, Eddy."

  "He certainly did, Dirda. He's getting too good at it."

  "Don't worry. I'll make sure he doesn't get too smug to tolerate."

  "Oh, thank you, Jobe."

  "You're welcome, Boer."

  "Jobe, you should wear your title on this."

  "Title?"

  "Boer, you didn't tell him."

  "I forgot about it, Eddy. You're Prince Thiretess-Relatross, Jobe."

  "You think I must wear this title?"

  "I trust Eddy's judgment on it."

  "All right. I will wear the title. Do I have to wear shoes too?"

  Boer burst into laughter. Jobe did not like shoes. Of course, they hadn't actually had any that were more than an approximate fit and those had been Lola's. She had wide, but not big, feet for a woman. Jobe had small feet, even for a small man. He told him his feet were liable to get very cold some places they went, but they'd look for sandals and socks for him. An hour later, the marines had found boy's sandals, socks, some nice clothes, including a warm jacket, and a flyer for them. Jobe thanked them and told them he'd wear them when his feet got cold. Boer was still laughing when he climbed in the flyer. So were the marines.

  Boer had the orbital survey map and a listing of government housing projects. They were all near the sea or a river. "Allowing" the poor to fish with hand-drawn nets at night "reduced problems" and hadn't cost the government anything. They started with the one he thought Jobe had come from. He landed the flyer near the sea on the trampled dirt of what was called a street on the gov project plan. Jobe stepped out of the flyer and sniffed the air.

  "Yes, this was my place. That way."

  "There's nothing there, Jobe."

  "I was there. They'll know me when I am there again. I'll fix their nets so they'll be sure."

  "You want to do more than just tell them."

  "Only in this place, Boer. I think there must be one the people know, who knows what is said is true, for all to believe. Boer, you won't like my place."

  "I don't like any of it already, Jobe. Since I already killed the ones most responsible for it, I'll use my anger constructively to begin healing the damage they did."

  Boer used his anger to hold his stomach down. Jobe's "place" was a lean-to, with rags on the ground in the back, beside a channel dumping raw sewage into the ocean. Jobe explained he knew the fishers cast their nets on the other side of the rocks so they didn't make people sick, but the sea was wild there and the rocks were slick. In that place, he didn't get lost because he could find his way by smell.

  Boer sat on his anger and his stomach and sat down beside him at the front of the lean-to. Jobe smiled, reached back and pulled strands of yellow seaweed from beneath the rags and began to tightly twist them together to make a cord.

  "It's harder to do. I have fingers that get in the way and I'm not used to seeing what I do with the others, but I think about how happy I am to have fingers that stick out and to be watching them every time I breathe in the air."

  "Tell me your name."

  "Jobe. None here will call me by another."

  "I didn't ask for them. I asked for myself. I can't explain why it's important to me, even to myself, but it is."

  "I felt very strange when you told me Eddy had named me Jobe. I had heard no voice since... the warm and safe ended. My name was Jobim Urtala and my mother called me Jobe."

  "Uh... I'm reminding myself I don't believe in destiny again and I'm sure it's laughing at me."

  "No, Boer, Destiny laughs with you. They come. They have a net with them. They want to know if I really am the one some came and took from this place. Bring your net! I will fix it! This time I won't hold out my hand for fish after I have found the hole! This time, you need not wait for darkness to cast your nets! This is Prince Thiretess Boer Hadlain, our Imperial Governor. He killed the bureau directors and the government of NuncTura is dead. Give it to me so you will know I am the one whose place this was. A big hole. It would have cost a fish and a weed. Boer, tell them how you came to be beside me in this place."

  Boer told the three men the story of the emperor appointing him governor and the bureau directors bringing Jobe to him, sure that he would refuse him and end the treaty that made them part of the empire. He told them of his admiration for the boy who had still fought them and of learning to admire and love him. Then he told them of his anger when Jobe had been healed and begun to tell him the truth of what the bureau directors were doing to all the people of his world, to the people the emperor had given him to protect. Then he stood up and they backed up.

  "You have nothing to fear from me. I killed the only people on this world I wanted to kill. I admit I wish it had been with my hands and one at a time instead of all at once, with a shot that took out the a-grav on the ship they were using to try to escape. The one fixing your nets is the first of my family, called my 'bride.' He is Jobe, Prince Thiretess-Relatross. I know you brought your nets to him because you needed them fixed, but I also know you assured none took the fish you brought him from him and none hurt him further. The others of my family, the thirteen women the other worlds presented to me as the best aid they could give, are learning all they can about you and your world. They will build a plan for you for the future, so that this will never happen again. I swear to you it will not. The other worlds of my sector and the emperor are sending aid, foremost among them teachers and doctors. They will teach you to read and write and to govern yourselves and heal the injured among you. From this day, there will be no Nunceon and Turon. You have been forged into one people in the flames of oppression by the few who ruled. The name of this world will be changed. It will be Nunture and all its people Nunturi. I have so ordered and the emperor will so command. He's my cousin and I've been bullying him for years. I'm the only one he lets get away with it. We both knew he was going to stick a crown on my head and marry me to fourteen people as soon as I met all the treaty qualifications for
governor and figured he deserved it."

  "He had to get to be a general in the Imperial Marines first and manage to stay unmarried. I think staying unmarried was more difficult, but I've heard many stories that tell me he enjoyed the challenge a great deal. The marines who followed him to find the truth of... Nunture and free the Nunturi enjoy telling them to one who has not heard them already."

  "You've been talking to Lieutenant Urber."

  "And Lieutenant Jastorim and Captain Farner and... They all ask to make sure I haven't heard a story yet. I've never answered yes and they don't seem to be running out of stories. I think Lou is collecting them for the family history."

  "Uh, they are exaggerated some, Jobe. The marines know it."

  "If they know that, why are none of them surprised being married to fourteen is not tiring you out? Your net is fixed. Bind it well to those of several others and take a boat onto the sea to fish the reef. No one will tell you that you should not."

  "We'll get that damn sewer fixed for you fast. In fact, we'll get it all fixed for you fast. Once it is, I'll come back to see how you're doing once in awhile and pat you all on the back. It's the part of the job I'm looking forward to most. Tell all my people they're free to become all they can be and many friends are coming to help them learn all that is. Now can we leave this smelly place, Jobe?"

  "Yes, Boer. I wasn't really homesick for it."

  "Good."

  Boer surprised Jobe when he smashed the very sturdy lean-to apart with his fists, then 'tossed' him over his shoulder and trotted toward the flyer. He'd have told him the trot was more bouncy than when he ran, but he was giggling too hard.

  The three men looked at each other and smiled. Then one whooped and they ran to tell what they had learned to all who had watched the flyer land and hidden in fear. The ugly "net boy" had become a beautiful prince, and the prince who had rescued him had named them Nunturi and freed them all.