“We know officer,” Crandle said to the officer at his side of the car. “I am going to take out my papers and present them to you.”
“Okay,” the young officer said, as his partner took up a position to blow away everyone in the truck if needed.
Crandle presented his papers, and then asked that the officer call the ranking officer on the post. After the young officer reviewed the papers Crandle presented him, saw that it would be best to call the ranking officer. It just happened to be Princess Carroll.
When the Princess saw who it was at the check point, she told the Mounties to let them past. Crandle had asked permission a couple days before to train with her Black Guardsmen. The Princess thought it would be good for everyone. Besides they were getting to know everyone’s moves. So the training exercises were becoming a game. The Trojack team would add some new challenges for all of them.
“Okay folks.” the Princess said as she led Crandle into the skull session before the first practice extraction for the day. “This is Captain Crandle, formerly of EBio Security on Trojack. He is the subject matter expert for EBio company goons. He has worked with Hozenbur before and can help you get into Hozenbur’s head. He’s also volunteered his unit to be your opposition. Crandle?”
“Good day,” Crandall said, “first off let me assure you that my guys and girls hold no grudges against any of you. If we do hold a grudge it is against the closers who continue to harm biopeople who just want to be free. I know you have been briefed about Hozenbur but you haven’t had this. This is a confidential file that was given to me prior to our departure on Trojack. Roy our manager thought he had seen something where she was on
Trena and I was instructed to bring her in.”
“I didn’t know that was your assignment,” the Princess said thinking that this might not be a good idea to use these people.
“We didn’t want it to be advertised, because we didn’t want it to be known we were hunting her. We thought, (and still do) at the time of the assignment, that since the Trena Authorities are known to be hunting the woman that, if we were inserted clandestinely, then we had a better chance of nailing her. Now with her having abducted Lady Wilson it might not make a difference. But we can give your troops some live experience with dealing with a containment cop.” Crandall said. “I will assume that you know that there is no one Captain Hozenbur hates more than as Lady Wilson. Lady Wilson foiled two of her biggest recoveries and has eluded her for at least fifteen years.”
“So there’s a good chance we’ll be doing a recovery,” someone from the back of the room asked.
Princess Carroll bristled at that and snapped. “This is not a recovery! It’s the rescue of Lady Wilson. Anyone who doesn’t think that way is gone!”
“General,” the marine who had spoken up said, “Ma’am, as distasteful as that thought is, we have to be prepared for that eventuality. If this woman is as psychopathic as everyone claims, it’s a possibility.”
“She’ll only kill Lady Wilson as a last result.” Crandall spoke carefully, “Hozenbur’s a torturer, and tormenter. She’ll be planning a way to harm Lady Wilson physically and mentally prior to killing her. She might induce labor to bring Lady Wilson’s children into the world and kill them before her eyes. She would find that immensely satisfying. She would let the children live long enough for Lady Wilson to bond with them, and then either kill them in front of her, or possibly take them from her and kill her letting Lady Wilson know that her children will be sold into slavery as she does the coup de grace.
No we won’t be on a recovery, but we might find our victim in sorry shape.”
“We assumed that,” Lieutenant Anthony of the Trena Fire Department spoke up. His team had drawn the air ambulance assignment. They were the best next to the IRS. The XO had decided that Lady Wilson would feel more comfortable with someone other than the IRS on this one. She had trained this man’s team when they had stood it up. Lady Wilson had discovered that the lead medic on this team had the same empathic abilities as she had and had worked with the young medic that was part of the Lieutenant’s flight crew. “Tina will be ready. We’re also requesting an obstetrics team fly in with us. General Langtree’s got my bird and is turning it into a mobile PICU. We should have the bird back in a few hours.”
“Do I need to say something to the General not to be so fussy?” the Princess asked.
“I doubt if he would listen to you,” Corithia, the Thonian MP unit commander injected, she had great respect for General Langtree, and knew how he approached his work, “but in this case, if he says a couple of hours it will be not a moment longer, and possibly a lot sooner. He’s not tuning the bird; but he will make sure every piece of equipment is installed properly, and its backups are fail safe.”
“Okay what type of house would the captain choose, to hold up in,” The Mounty SWAT team unit leader asked.
“Well first off she’s not going to be in the traditional places these people hold up.” Crandall said, “She will be in a house near or at the port; or by an air facility. Some place she can make a getaway from in hurry. It may not be isolated, it may be surrounded by other houses where she can put her over watch system in place or have loyal people watching the approaches for her. She would prefer that if she has to escape in a hurry, there would be more places for us to search. The bad news is because of the evacuation and the amount of abandoned cars left around she’s got plenty of cars to get away with.”
“Not Really.” A sergeant from Mounty SWAT unit spoke, “All of the evacuees who didn’t take their cars with them were told to pull the power. The Crown didn’t want to have the cars become a problem. They were told to park them on their lawns or if they lived in an apartment to leave them in the lot. So anything on the street is a working vehicle and should be being used by someone.”
“Well that will help some.” Crandall said, “The biggest thing you can count on is that Hozenbur will do exactly what you think she shouldn’t. She’ll hole up in the top floor of an apartment building with no apparent escape path. Just when you expect to get her, you’ll find she has escaped. The one thing we have in our advantage is that she won’t harm
Lady Wilson until she has too.”
“We have got a holo from her. There was enough stuff on it to give us a good idea what the room Lady Wilson is being held in looks like. The techies are a finding house that looks like it. Soon as they find it we’ll try an extraction.” The facility commander said.
“We’ll be doing a different house every day until the time they find where she is being held. We can’t all be training. We need to have a reaction force that can deploy quickly. I want to put the 83rd on alert tomorrow, the Mounties will go into crew rest and the Guard will go into practice against the OpFor.” “We can be the OpFor,” Crandle injected.
“Crandle,” the princess spoke up. “We have enough folks here to be a different OpFor every day. Besides they would learn your moves and be able to best you if you were to be the OpFor every day!”
“May we be put into the alert rotation,” Crandle asked.
Everyone was quiet while the Princess who was the Evacuation Command’s special operations commander pondered the request. She had no doubt that the team was good. When she asked Kellogg about it he confirmed that they were good. But she didn’t know how much she trusted them. She was going to let them train with her people as a way to keep them close. But she didn’t want to commit them to the rescue of Lady Wilson until she got a better feel for their true allegiances.
Sensing that the Princess didn’t quite trust them, Crandle spoke up, “Let us earn your trust. We want to be part of Lady Wilson’s rescue, and the arrest of Captain Hozenbur. That won’t happen if we don’t work as a team. If you don’t trust us then we can’t build the team.”
The Princess when she spoke did so with a little relief in her voice, “Thank you for understanding Mr. Crandle. You can be of great help to us.”
> “But we have to earn you trust,” Someone from Crandle’s team spoke up. “I guess we need to get about that.”
Over the next few days the special operations team from Trojack earned if not the trust of the other special operations teams they did earn their respect. Although not nearly as aggressive as the Black Guard, or the Companions HRT, they did get the job done. Often with fewer simulated casualties and usually before the hostage came to grief.
The Black Guard unit leader and Crandle were sharing a meal after a day of heavy simulations, “I thought my guys were good at infiltration. But we haven’t been able to detect you in the last couple of passes. Even the cyber watches didn’t catch on.”
“The whole key captain; is over watch and cyber skullduggery,” Crandle replied. “We have a good electronics counter measure suite to begin with and we know most of the Imperial, Thonian, and Trena’s surveillance devices. The company went to great pains to know what their capabilities were.”
“That makes sense,” the captain said, “We always had trouble infiltrating your guy’s places.”
“Oh that reminds me,” Crandle said looking to one of his people across the dining hall. “Lincoln!”
“Yes boss,” the older man spoke.
“You get with the cops and the guard and let them have everything we have on company electronic counter measures and such.” Crandle called, “They’ll need that to make their infiltration and rescue!”
“Already done boss,” the man said, “I sat down with them yesterday!”
Crandle smiled his people were doing everything to earn the other SpecOps people trust. The next day the Lor’ns, the thonians who were nominally the special operations site manager came up to Crandle. They sat with him after a practice rescue and said, “Starting tomorrow, your team goes into the rescue rotation. If you are not on when the balloon goes up we want you to be part of the over watch unit.” “Thank you,” Crandle said.
“You are welcomed,” They got up and went about their tasks.
###
“Grand mom’s back,” Jill had written in her diary, “Though she seems not to be herself. I wouldn’t say moody; but maybe so. When I talked to Dad about it, he said she remembered when she had been shot the last time. I think it’s more than that. I think she is really worried about Mom. But then so are all of us. I see her and Georgia walking the grounds. Often in animated conversation. Georgia is still hurting from the assault
“But so are all of us.” The diary went on, “I am so worried that hardly an hour doesn’t go by when I don’t wonder and worry about Mom. Mom, I would never have thought I would call Lisa mom. I was all set to hate her after all she had taken Dad from me. Yet over the last few months I have become quite close to mom. Grand mom and I had a good relationship. There was little I couldn’t discuss with her. When I began to see that Lisa was not the evil step mother I had envisioned and could be trusted, I began to trust her and actually enjoyed her company. Especially on those nights when Dad was away and it was just me and Mom sitting in one of the gardens just talking. I don’t know when I began to love her, I just hope that nothing happens to her. I really don’t know how I will deal with losing her. I already miss her terribly.
“The last few months have been so unpredictable I wonder what will happen next,” Jill concluded her entry.
Chapter 28: Home gets a Government
“From reading the Queen’s diary,” Princess Lisa said in class the next time the class met, “she had no idea what was going to happen next. But I don’t think anyone else did either.”
“Yes the Queen and her father had given the planet of Home or a large part of it to the refugees from Trena.” The General commented, “They had deliberately down played the formation of a government on Home. Queen Agatha, felt that because of her charter, and the opinion of her regent, and the Galactic Council that her monarchy was tied to Trena and the Trena System, didn’t extend outside of the Trena System. Because of this she could not be the planetary ruler oh Home. Truthfully I think that she didn’t want to be queen after the disaster on Trena. The Wilson’s for their part really didn’t want to be planetary rulers either and was hoping they wouldn’t be. But as you know that didn’t happen.
“Here is how it fell,” The general began her lecture in earnest.
###
“Jill,” her father accompanied by Princess Carroll and her grandmother came into the study where she was reading a few more of the reports that the searchers had filed about the hunt for her mother. She was considering hiring some private investigators, but did not want to have the argument she knew she would have with the Princess and her grandmother. “We need to talk!”
“They found Mom?” Jill asked expecting good news.
“We wish!” her grandmother answered, as Queen Agatha came into the study.
“So what’s up?” Jill asked disappointed there was no news about her mother. She was glad for a distraction as there was nothing in the report she was reading that indicated where her step mother was.
“Well the four of us need to discuss some stuff going on, on Home.” Her father replied.
“Oh,” Jill commented, “I thought things were going okay.”
“They are! But something’s come up that we have to decide on.” Her father replied,
“They want to form a government.”
“Oh,” Jill commented, “I thought that as the owner that I ruled it. But I was all set to let Aggie take charge. To cede it to her like I did Trojack a while back. I don’t want to be a ruler or a queen.”
“We know that Jill,” her father said, “but we’re running into a hand full of problems.”
”My charter prohibits me from colonizing another world,” Queen Agatha said, “So
I can’t just take over Home. But you know that!” Jill nodded.
“It’s more complicated than that,” Aggie said, “We’ve been talking with experts and they say that my charter being the way it is, and your ownership of the world they feel that I cannot rule the world. But you can!”
“Well since I own it I guess I can rule it; but I don’t want to.” Jill injected, “I can’t image running a planet! I have trouble enough running my life!”
“It can be a challenge,” Aggie commented, “From what we can tell a couple of the nobles from Trena are forcing the issue. What we thought made sense is for you to authorize a grand council of all the districts.”
“Larry thinks that none of the nobles have enough of a backing to be named the leader,” her father said, “But we think if you authorize a grand council of the districts one or two people from each district to meet and settle some issues. May cool out the nobles.”
“Also it is time to form some sort of government on Home,” Aggie injected. “You are not going to want to be the answer girl for everything. Also by letting the people choose their form of government it might work.”
“But what if one of the hot heads gets appointed or takes charge,” Jill asked.
“We don’t think that will happen,” Aggie said, “With Larry’s help and that of your agents we have identified a lot of people who would be good people to have on the council. Larry seems to think planting the seed for these folks to be included in the council will more or less keep it under control.”
“So they would be a constitutional convention and create the formal document of how Home is to be governed,” Jill asked. Everyone nodded, “What if I abdicate and choose not to rule the planet.”
“We think there will be revolution,” her father said,
“I see,” Jill replied. “So you think this will prevent a revolution.”
“We don’t know Jill,” Aggie answered, “The very least thing that will come about is that you will rule the planet as you do now with benign neglect. The worse thing will be that you will not be able to just do what you want when you want. Though something in between is more likely to come about.”
Jill sighed with
exasperation. She didn’t want to be a planetary ruler she really didn’t want to own any planets. She just wanted to be a girl!
“Jill we have a couple of options,” Her father spoke softly, “You can cede Home to the people of Trena and ask permission to live on the world you own. You can abandon it to the people of Trena and not worry about what happens next. Or we can throw the dice with this council and see what happens.”
“What happens if we just let things take their course?” Jill asked.
“Maybe nothing,” Her father replied.
“Grand mom, Princess,” She turned to the older women who had said nothing during the conversation. “What is your opinion?”
“I am not certain you can cede the world to the people of Trena or give it to Queen Aggie,” the Princess answered, “I’ve talked with the Galactic Council, Ambassador Gray, the Thonian Ambassador and a couple of galactic law specialists they all seem to think that you have to make a positive statement on how you will treat the people of Trena. But they all seem to think that you are the owner of the planet and must rule it, run it, or govern it in some fashion. You can abandon it but unless you sign the title over to the governing body of Home you will still be responsible for anything that goes on, on the planet.
“Logically,” the princess general continued, “Aggie should be the one you turn the world over to.”
“When this is all over I hope to be just a common citizen!” Aggie responded, “I...I am not certain that I can…handle being a ruler of a world after what is happening.”
“Aggie,” The princess replied, “We understand. The other option is to let the refugees form a government and then turn the world over to them. Have a small preserve on the planet that is your family’s home. Then do your best to stay out of things.” “That will be no problem!” Jill said.
“What about your children and other descendants,” her grandmother asked. “How will you set it up so they won’t want to retake the world and rule it?” “This is not going to be simple,” Jill remarked, “is it?” “No it isn’t,” the Queen answered.
“What are you suggesting,” Jill asked.