Redoubtable

39

Captain Jack Montoya, Royal United Sentient Marine Corps, was having a good day. On the average.

He’d gotten to rescue a certain twelve-year-old girl. She and her aunt were on the first shuttle back to the Wasp. Jack had looked Cara over. She looked a lot older . . . and her smile was missing.

Cara had come aboard the Wasp a frail waif who had just lost her mother and grandmother. Then, she’d looked like serious was her first, last, and middle name.

Then the smile slowly found its way out. Jack felt like he was watching a beaten and abused kitten discover that it could play when a ball of twine was dangled in front of her.

In no time, that waif and her smile had wrapped most every member of the Wasp’s crew around her little finger.

But the smile was gone now. Gone, leaving Jack to wonder if it would ever return.

That many of the men and women who had stripped Cara of that smile were dead was not an even trade in Jack’s book.

Jack sighed. There were professionals on the Wasp whose job it was to help little girls find their smiles.

No doubt, in weeks to come, they would bring out their best solutions for Cara.

Today, Jack was only too happy to try his own.

The first shuttle down after the combat drop had brought a Navy landing party led by the Command Master Chief Mong. He and his team brought down a boatload of flamethrowers and were busy applying them to the local crop of poison.

Not that much fire was needed to put the fields aflame. The leaves of this particular plant had an oily feel and were only too eager to burn. This was nice, because Master Chief Mong and his sailors were enthusiastically torching them.

Marines were still moving from one farm to the next, looking for sailors and blowing up processing plants. There was occasional opposition.

Jack would hear the low report of a slug pistol or rifle. It would immediately be followed by the high-pitched snap of an M-6. One hostile shot. One Marine reply.

Then a long and death-filled silence.

So far, no Marine had requested medical assistance. Only twice had a call come in for assistance to a down civilian . . . and one of them had been for an innocent bystander who got hit by the initial pistol shot.

It’s a good day when a Marine can contribute his little bit to evil’s getting its comeuppance.

That didn’t mean there weren’t annoyances.

Gunny Brown had called in with a civilian. Fellow was berating Gunny about this being private property and a business operation and that Gunny had no right to come in and disturb his operation.

Problem was that Gunny’s team had already found an open grave with a dozen bodies, all in different stages of decomposition, out behind the drug barns.

The creep had the gall to claim that those were just workers who’d died on the job without taking out the offered funeral insurance.

The story from his slaves was a bit different.

Jack had ordered Gunny to document the situation and bring the guy in in cuffs along with some witnesses. The Marine captain had no idea how the local legal system would handle a case like this, but he would make sure it had to face it.

The pictures that Gunny showed of this man’s slaves were particularly troubling to Jack. All of the slaves here were on short rations, but this fellow’s slaves were little more than scarecrows.

What was it with these people? They had already beaten their workers into submission. Why weren’t they at least giving them enough food to keep body and soul alive? What good was a starved and dying worker?

This whole situation made no sense to Jack.

It didn’t. Unless and until he factored in the simple fact that here, on this planet, the owners could treat their slaves this way. For the plantation owners and the whip-cracking overseers, that was all they needed. If they could get away with brutalizing this part of humanity, they would brutalize it.

Jack shook his head. Hopefully, Kris would see that the local elephants did something about all this injustice, which cried out for its day in court. A real court.

“Jack, are you there?”

“Yes, Kris, I’m here,” he said, forcing his voice to professional calm. “How’s it coming with your elephant taming.”

“It’s taken an interesting turn. I’m coming dirtside.”

“Hold it. I thought your new duties required you to hold yourself aloof from our low-class fun and games.”

“Maybe not so much.”

“You want to tell your lowly minion what you’re up to.”

“I’d rather not. Let’s hold this for face-to-face. By the way, have you gotten ahold of much transportation?”

“Yes, I’ve got several sets of wheels.”

“Get more, we’re going to need them. See you in a bit.”