Jill nodded. She heard her step mother; but wasn’t certain how she could slow down. She had already fallen into a pattern. A pattern that might be hard to break.
“What time do you have to be at the academy today?” Lisa asked.
“Late day today,” Jill said, “Mitch is acting as the duty officer today, so she’ll take the morning formation. I don’t have to be there until history class second period.”
“All right,” Lisa said, “I know better than to tell you to cool out. But I want you to get away from the books a bit. So let’s take a walk.”
###
Jill was studying quietly the next morning in the cadet commander’s office at the academy when Mylea walked into the office. “Jill?”
“Oh hi Aunt Mylea,” Jill replied, “What brings you here?” “We got a message from Lamile” Mylea said.
“You have a message from Lamile!” Jill asked excitedly. She had become very worried about her friend. No one was saying much. Her father would only say that she was okay, and Mylea would only say she was in this town or that town, or that she was seen someplace. But she had heard nothing on how her friend was doing. So Jill was a little bit excited that Lamile had a message for her.
“Yes,” Mylea replied, she pulled out a small device and soon Lamile’s image filled the office.
“Hi Jill,” Lamile said, “I can’t talk long. I have to make these recordings when the others can’t see me. I’m in Mansfield, about sixty miles from Trenaport. I have about two hundred kids with me. I had no idea that there were so many lost and abandoned kids. Especially the little guys. I am doing okay. Tired. I could use a new set of boots. Something I can walk in. I am worried about the kids who we have to leave behind. The ones that can’t keep up; or who are too sick to go on. We have enough food,” she looked away then turned back, “got to go…”The image cut out and the next time it came on Lamile was in a wooded setting, “Jill I am not going to be able to speak much longer. Just promise me that the little guys, and the others are being taken care off. I’ll see you soon!” The image faded out.
“Aunt Mylea,” Jill asked, “Can I send her a message.”
“Maybe,” Mylea replied, “Mostly we just send her voice messages. We were surprised to have gotten this.”
“Do you suppose if I got the kids that Lamile has gotten to us together and have them say thank you it could be recorded and delivered to Lamile?”
Her aunt smiled and said, “She has a Black Guard escort. If they can’t get a message to her then no one can. Besides I think it will do her soul some good.”
Mylea had heard the depressed and the anxious tone of her daughter’s voice in her message. She was concerned about Lamile. Mylea was wondering if she shouldn’t pull her out. But in the end she couldn’t do that to her daughter. Lamile would never forgive her if she pulled her out before her mission had been completed.
Later in the day Jill stood by herself on the quad in front of the admin building. Mylea had a recorder and nodded to Jill to begin, “Lamile, we got your message. The kids are okay! See!” On the word “see” all the kids that Lamile had to leave by the side of the road or given to adults to get to a doctor ran in front of Jill. When they were all set a banner was rolled out from one side across the kids. It said “Thank You Lamile!” when it was fully extended the kids yelled “Thank you!” and then Jill now standing behind the kids asked, “Message Received?”
###
Lamile was poking around in an abandoned store when she saw the envelope with her name on it. Although Lamile was a common name among Thonians she doubted that in an abandoned hardware store there would be an envelope for any other Lamile’s. She opened it and found a data chip. She found a data reader near the cashier’s station. She looked around to see if anyone was watching. Seeing none she put the chip in the reader. She saw the message from Jill and began to cry. The kids, the sick injured kids who hadn’t been able to go any farther were all there. In a special piece the one that she worried about the most little Carlin said thank you from his hospital bed. One of the doctors then said in no uncertain words, “Carlin is doing okay Lamile, you got him here just in time.”
She didn’t see that Rhonda, one of her lieutenants, had followed her into the hardware store and seen the whole thing. She had suspected that Lamile was more than who she said she was; but she didn’t know if she was a member of the Mounties or not. The girl quickly left. Rhonda didn’t want Lamile to know that her secret was out of the bag. Yet Rhonda didn’t want to share the secret with anyone. Lamile had gotten them this far with few problems.
Lamile made a quick message and left it for whoever had left the message for her.
###
“So after Sergeant Mitchum told you to stop you continued?” Lady Hawthorne was holding a Commandant’s Mast for Gene Perkins, Mitch’s assistant barracks chief.
“Yes Lady Hawthorne,” the fourteen year old boy said.
“Did you know why she wanted you to stop?” Lady Hawthorne asked.
“Yes. She said that writing on the walls was an honors violation.” The youngster answered.
“Why did you continue,” Delores asked. They had found that in the boys shower, in Mitch’s barracks that someone had written disrespectful things about Mitch.
“I don’t know,” the kid said.
“Gene,” Jill injected at this point it was supposed to be her show. “I know you have been disrespectful to Sergeant Mitchum for a while. And I know you feel that you should have retained your post as barracks chief. It was my decision to put Mitch in your place.”
Jill looked at the boy who was barely a teenager. She wanted to see how he handled what she was saying. When he said nothing, she continued. “Gene, you have one opportunity to tell us why you did what you did. We expect you to tell us the truth and to be honest with us.”
Lady Hawthorne sat watching Jill do her thing. She wanted to jump in; but Sergeant Green had taken her aside and told her that she had to let Jill do the job. Jill had to learn how to do this.
“Okay Gene,” Jill said when the kid didn’t answer, “Here is the holo of what you did. It also shows that you were asked by Cadet Mitchum to stop and to clean up your mess.
Which you did not do! Do you have anything to say now?”
The holo from the School Mistress surveillance system played in the conference room. It showed the kid scrolling something on the wall and Mitchum asking that the kid stop and clean it up.
“Is that you?” Jill asked.
“Yes,” The kid said.
“Now do you have anything to say?” Jill asked.
“I don’t know why I did it. I thought it was unfair that Valerie took my job.” The kid said, “I had spent several days learning how to do the job and getting the kids to do what needed to be done. I thought it was unfair to turn it over to Mitch.” “Didn’t Mitch ask you to help her? To be her assistant,” Jill asked.
The kid nodded.
“And you fought her the entire way didn’t you.” Jill asked.
“Yes,” Gene responded.
“From what Sergeant Mitchum has said, she gave you every chance to work with her didn’t she?” Jill asked. The kid nodded. “Just so the record is clear Mitch did not report you. School Mistress did; but only after you failed to work with Mitch. Mitch tried to work with you without putting you on report. Are you aware of that?”
“No! I was not aware of that!” Gene said looking at his cadet sergeant.
“She didn’t want you to have any demerits on your cadet record.” Jill said, “For that is what she is supposed to do. Her job is to train you to replace her, and to work with you so the whole squad can achieve their goals. As such she failed you also for not reporting to me the problems she was having so we wouldn’t be here today.” She looked at Mitch. She had already spoken to Mitch, and Mitch knew what was coming next. “You have failed Mitch and your cadets, and you both have failed me. As such you both
have been given twenty demerits. Each! We will meet on the quad after evening mess, and we will walk off those twenty demerits. In full uniforms with riffle. We will march a perfect square around the quad twenty times.”
“When you say we,” Gene said, “Does that mean you too? “
“Yes! I failed to give you and Mitch the guidance you needed. So I am to blame for you not performing to my specifications.” Jill said. That got Millie Green’s attention. Never had she heard of the Cadet Commander walking punishment tours at the Point on Earth, or other military academy because of their junior officer getting punished. That impressed her.
Later that evening when the three of them began their punishment tours Delores Hawthorne took to the newly built reviewing stand and waited until the tours were complete. Jill and Lady Hawthorne had set the first of many traditions in the short history of the academy. That when cadet officers drew punishment details, the Cadet Commander drew them also, and the commandant would stand on the reviewing stand until the detail was over. When Millie and Delores talked later that evening, Delores explained that she had failed Jill by not having given her the direction she needed. As time went on when Delores couldn’t stand on the reviewing stand Millie did. When she did she stood at attention until the tours were done.
###
“I was surprised to see Lady Hawthorne standing on the reviewing stand when we did our tours,” The princess read aloud to the class, “She didn’t stand at attention but she stood there even when it began to rain.
“Now in my room at the palace,” the young girl continued to write, “I am pondering what mom said earlier in the week. I don’t want to be Miss Perfect, yet I believe I have to help set the standards that the corps will follow. Sergeant Millie has instilled in me the need to be if not perfect, careful in what I say and do. To set examples that can be easily followed. It about broke my heart to punish Mitch. In the short time I have known her she has become a good friend. Though I miss Lamile something terrible, Mitch is a great one to talk with. She sometimes sees things I miss or has another angle on a problem. I want to talk with Sergeant Millie and Lady Hawthorne about making Mitch a cadet officer. I need a couple of officers to help me run the corps. Mitch seems to be perfect as a candidate.
“Now that I think about it the look on Sergeant Green’s expression when I said we would be walking tours and when I said we I also meant myself was unbelievable. A couple of the kids watched us as we walked the tours also. My feet are sore I hope I never have to do that again.” The princess concluded her reading.
“To this day when a cadet draws tours on the chopping block, their immediate superior is to walk the tours also. If a cadet NCO walks tours, their company officers walk the tours, and sometimes depending on the offense, every cadet officer in the cadet’s chain of command up to an including the corps commander will walk tours. At the very least, if cadet officers have to walk tours the cadet commander will stand at attention while they do their tours.” The general said, “As you know it is the goal of every NCO, and Officer on this post to lead in a way that prevents disciplinary problems from going to the mast. It mostly works.”
“Is that why all our officers are free with the butcher bill; but always try to help us work them off before going to the mast,” Georgia Hawthorne asked.
“Yes,” the General answered, “Discipline, appropriate discipline, is to be had at the lowest possible level it can be. Discipline that requires the attention of a higher level officer is a failure of discipline, and a failure of leadership.”
T’harla nodded it had not been lost on him that the academy was one large leadership lab. Where the cadets were both test subjects and testers as they learn how to lead others in the profession of combat arms and public service to the Kingdom.
Chapter 20: The Kids Come Home
“We could spend a whole quarter discussing Lamile Atomi’s achievements.” The General began her class, “I wish I had time to tell you of her entire journey. From what she told me later it was both harrowing, and exhilarating.
“She had been wandering the country side of Trena for nearly a month collecting kids who seemed to be on their own. Walking them to Trenaport where the authorities were eagerly awaiting them. As you read, Queen Jill had made preparations for when the kids came into the academy. She was concerned about the impact to the academy and how to deal with the sudden influx of so many kids and their problems.
“Other things were going on too,” Alice said, “I still hadn’t found the AI that was causing us problems. Also we were dealing with several looting incidents. The looting was something the police were having trouble stopping altogether. They were trying to slow down the large scale organized looting. Both the Mounted Patrol and the Companions were working the problem. On the same day that Lamile was bringing the kids home, the Queen and her command staff were dealing with a serious case of looting by Lieutenant General Latimar. He and some of his troopers on their security sweeps were looting whole neighborhoods. The General had asked for a Monarch’s Hearing, and Queen Agatha granted it.
“We were also allowing salvage companies in to salvage whole neighborhoods. We didn’t want to! We felt that the shipping being used to transport the goods off world should be used to transport our people off world instead. We needed the money though, the crown was quickly going broke, and the Queen’s personal fortune was also taking serious hits as she used it to help with the evacuation.
“We were moving tons of people! Nearly twenty thousand people a day,” the General continued, “the arrival of the attack carriers from the Empire helped a great deal. Also some nongovernmental organizations had managed to charter some ships and brought them to the kingdom. The Evacuation was a happening thing, even with some of the problems we were facing.
“The greatest single achievement of the entire evacuation was not the physical feat of moving nearly seventy million people off of Trena. That was just logistics,” the General was trying to set the scene for her class, “The rescue of one thousand children by a woman that was almost a child herself, is without a doubt one of the greatest rescue missions of all time. It was concluded with the arrival of the abandoned, lost, and runaway children that Lamile Atomi brought to the old boarding school.
“Without a doubt Lamile was a hero of the Evacuation.” The General stated.
###
Lamile was tired. But it was the type of tired that she had never expected to actually enjoy. She stopped by the side of the road as she watched the kids go by. She was shocked, dismayed, and pleased at the same time. Almost a thousand kids were walking with her to Trenaport. They could actually see the outskirts of the capital as they walked along the shore road. One of the kids near her same age came up and stood by her. Alan, was big for his age, and stood almost eye to eye with her. Lamile stood six two, and was considered of medium height for her people.
“What’s up Alan,” Lamile asked.
“Taking a breather,” Alan said, He was a farm boy used to working hard in his parent’s fields. He had come home one day from the fields to find his family gone. His sisters and parents were not home. They had left a note for him to go out to the south fields of the farm. He got there just in time to see a landing craft take off. That had been in the early days of the evacuation. He couldn’t find them. He had assumed they had left on the landing craft. He tried to work the farm; but it was just too much for him. The farm was going to pot. He was sitting on one of the tractors, when he saw Lamile’s gaggle of kids approaching the farm. He had quickly gone to the barn and filled the livestock water tank and hooked it to the tractor. He took it to the kids with everything he had that could hold water. He let the kids sleep around and in the barns overnight and slaughtered and barbequed a stag like his father had shown him. He had been taken aback, when none of the kids hadn’t known how to help him. He had thought everyone his age knew how to do this. Latter Lamile had convinced him to come along. For a while he had
driven the tractor pulling a couple trailers that held the smallest kids. Later he let one of the other kids who walked with a limp do that.
“It’s almost over,” Lamile said pointing to a landing tug roaring into space on the edge of the city. They could see several containers hanging from the tug, “We can’t be more than ten miles out.”
“Not more than that anyways,” Rhonda, one of Lamile’s assistants came up. Rhonda was a short girl, younger than Lamile; but was filled with life and was Lamile’s whip. If one of the kids acted up it was Rhonda who took care of it. Lamile had scolded Rhonda a time or two that her methods were too rough; but the kids would follow them anywhere.
“What’s that?” Alan pointed to the woods on the other side of the road. He thought he had seen a wisp of smoke. When he didn’t see it again, he said, “I guess nothing, time to move on.”
They shouldered their packs and moved on. Not before Alan looked back one more time to where he thought he saw something. He couldn’t shake the feeling that he had seen smoke. As a farm boy he had seen what fire could do if not controlled.
They walked for another hour, when Lamile decided it was time to halt for the day. Although it was early, not even 16 yet and very maddening to stop so short of their goal; the little kids just couldn’t go any further today. She knew that in the morning, that she and her kids would enter the city proper. She suspected that by midday if not by sunset she would be back in her mother’s home. She was a little apprehensive about her home coming. She had gotten one short note from her mother. It simply said, “We’ll talk when you get home.”
As they set up camp she pondered on the events of the last month. They had been incredibly lucky. The general and the guardsmen had made things happen for them. Every once in a while they would stumble onto supplies. Medicine, food, clothing once for a couple of the little guys who were all but naked had been left for them. She knew the SpecWars were looking after her. Every once in a while she would be walking around the perimeter of the camp, when one of them would make themselves known. Sometimes they would have an adult walk with them for a few days. That adult would be a guardsmen and he or she would pass on information. Every once in a while after she came from the latrine or from a nearby creek where she had wiped the grime from her face and hands, one of them would talk to her. They would pass on weather information to her, what roads to follow, what roads to avoid. They let her know about a group of men who were ransacking homes ahead of them and that they should stay where they were for a night. Carlin wasn’t the only kid that they had to get to help. One of the kids had been very sick and Lamile had let her watchers know. One of them came down the road in a jeep. She explained that they were on the last jamboree of the Trena Scouts and their adults were in town. The man who Lamile knew simply as Big Brother took the kid and got him to help. Later she thought she had seen a landing craft land and take off again. She had worried herself sick over that one until Jill’s message saying he was at the Royal Corps of Cadets Academy. They had heard about the academy. The kids were all talking about it as it was a place they could go and be safe.