###
Once down on the academy, Jill felt out of place as she walked the grounds. She was checking up on the kids making sure things had gone right the night before. She was surprised at how many people were around the academy grounds including quite a few enlisted men and officers from the militia and the marines now on the academy grounds. It surprised how the military came to attention and saluted her as she passed them. Even more shocked when they held the salute until Jill passed or she acknowledged them. She stopped by the dining hall to get a cup of coco and ran into Sergeant Lucas.
“Hello Colonel,” the man handed her the cup of coco.
“Hi Sarge,” Jill took the cup, “This is weird.”
“I know,” The man replied. He had seen how the officers and enlisted men were treating her.
“Can you walk with me a bit?” Jill asked.
“Sure,” The sergeant replied, “Toni! I’m going to be with Colonel Wilson for a bit.
Those cookies will be out in a couple of minutes don’t let them burn!” “Sure thing Sarge!” the enlisted woman replied.
“Sarge how do I do this.” Jill asked, as still another junior officer passed her saluting. “I don’t know how to respond to these guys. Shouldn’t I be saluting them first?”
“Colonel, some of them are reacting to the eagle on your shoulders.” The sergeant said, “Remember we’ve been taught to salute the grade, as a measure of respect. You’ll get used to it.”
“I don’t expect that to be soon,” Jill replied, “But the other thing that is bothering me and since it was your idea I need to pick your brains.”
“Oh?” the thirty year old sergeant said, “Go ahead then.”
“How do I get these kids to buy into this corps of cadets?” Jill asked.
“Just ask them.” The sergeant answered.
“I can just ask them?” Jill sounded astounded.
“They are ready to follow you,” the sergeant returned. “A lot of the kids wondered where you were this morning.”
“But how do I ask them?” Jill asked.
The sergeant thought for a minute before speaking, “Send them a piece of mail. Personalize it with the help of the School Mistress, so it is a personal mail from you asking
them to join the Queen’s Own Royal Corps of Cadets.”
“I don’t want to con them into something,” Jill said.
“Jill,” Jenny said. She had been following quietly behind the two, “I think if you make the pitch they’ll come along. After all it is coming from one of their own.”
“Okay,” Jill said, “Thank you Sarge.”
“Colonel,” Sergeant Lucas said, “Just be yourself. State your goal and just be yourself.”
Jill went back to the administration building and wandered up to the office that Lady Hawthorne has taken over.
“Oh there you are Jill.” Lady Hawthorne greeted her young friend. “I was about to send a search party for you. I had heard you were back.”
“Just checking on things,” Jill said, “What did you need?”
Delores looked at the young woman in front of. She noticed that the slouch that Jill had was gone. It was as if putting on the uniform had changed her posture. “I was about to hold an assembly and announce the cadet corps.”
“Let’s wait for that,” Jill said and told her what the sergeant suggested.
“Makes sense,” Lady Hawthorne said, “Get your presentation written up and we’ll get it delivered.”
Several hours later, Jill stood before a desk with the Queen. She had stopped by to see how things were going and when told what Jill was about to do decided to help. On either side of the desk were the Royal Flag of the Court of Trena and a new flag displaying the insignia of the Corps of Cadets.
“Hello,” The Queen spoke, “I hope you won’t mind our intrusion. Jill and I would like to ask you to be part of something to help you. This morning, I created The Queen’s Own Royal Corps of Cadets. After consultation with the Marshal, the Crown Attorney, and others we agree that the corps should be populated with you and your fellow young people who have been abandoned by your parents, or who are orphans. I have as of this morning, appointed Jillian Wilson as the first cadet commander of corps of cadets. Jill?”
“Hello,” Jill began speaking, “Many of you know who I am. You saw me working with you and the adults yesterday as we began making things better for you. We have a great start. I am here as the cadet commander to help you build on that start and to initiate the corps of cadets. My job is to work with kids between 12 and 18 who want to be part of the corps. By joining me in the corps of cadets we will be working to get you off world. As we get ready to leave our world, the Evacuation Command promises to use the older cadets around the planet to assist in evacuating our people. I hope that you will join me in this endeavor. Should you wish to join me, report to the admin building and we’ll sign you into the corps. Should you be under twelve, or not want to join us we will work to get you off world and take care of you until your parents are found or you become an adult. I look forward to working with you as we help as my father says to get every last mother’s child off our world.”
“I too, look forward to seeing all of you in the corps of cadets.” The Queen said, and finished, “Good Day. I will see you on Home.”
“School Mistress, Please display that on all public terminals around the academy, and see that every kids a copy of that.” Jill said.
“Done,” The AI said.
“It sounded good,” Lady Hawthorne said, “I wonder how many we’ll get.”
Less than fifteen minutes later the first of the kids were beginning to line up outside of the admin building. Jill watched in awe as the line got longer and longer. She turned to the queen who was standing next to her, “This is awesome. I would have never thought these kids would buy into this.”
“Me either Jill,” Aggie responded.
“These kids want something to do.” Jenny said, “They see a lot of military helping our people so they want to be part of it.”
“She’s right Jill,” Sally who was temporarily part of their detail injected. She was the only one on the team who had any education in child psychology, “They have been desperate for something, anything that will change their lives. This school is like jail. So you are giving them a chance to get out of jail. Many of these kids may only want something to do. Others will want to help if they can. You guys hit a cord. A good cord I think. Jenny do you think Mac would let me hang out here?”
“I don’t know,” Jenny, who was the senior agent, knew what her young friend wanted to do. What she had been trained to do. “You are very good with Little Bear.” She used Abby’s code name, “Sally. The rest of us are good with her but you have her confidence. But I will see that anytime Tom is not available and you are not needed by
Little Bear that you get on the detail. That’s the best I can do Sally.”
“Okay,” Sally said though she didn’t know how she was going to balance being a protective agent and working with these kids.
“Jill lets go down and meet the troops,” Aggie injected.
Jill nodded and walked with the young queen down to the line of kids forming up to be in the corps. As they walked to the line of kids one of Lady Hawthorne’s staff who had been a marine before marrying her now missing noble husband called, “Attention on deck! Trena is aboard!”
“As you were,” The Queen said. She had first heard that when she was not too much older than some of these kids when she first realized they were talking about her. Some of the kids knowing what to do came to a sort of attention, others looked bewildered. “Good afternoon!”
A lot of the kids looked taken aback as here was their queen walking among them. The queen dived into the line and began shaking hands. Even the youngest kid in the line, he couldn’t have been more than six or seven. Aggie knelt down to him.
“Thank you for wanting to join.” The Qu
een said, “What’s your name?”
“Billy,” the kid said after an older kid prodded him. It wasn’t lost on the queen.
“Well Billy you are a bit young to be in this group,” the Queen said, “But when you are old enough I will personally make sure you get in.”
The kid nodded and Aggie looked at the older kid who was almost a teenager. She stood up and asked, “What’s your name.”
“Mary Bollard,” the girl answered.
“Welcome to the corps, Cadet Bollard,” Aggie greeted the girl shaking her hand,
“Is Billy your brother?”
“Yes,” The girl replied.
“How did you get here?” Jill asked.
“Oh mom died months ago,” The girl said, “the police said someone beat her to death. They brought us to Trenaport Family Services, and then they brought us here.” “Why do you want to be a cadet,” Jill asked.
“You folks have tried to help me and my brother,” the girl answered, “I would like to pay it back if possible.”
“I see,” Jill replied. “Well we’ll be happy to get you.”
They worked the line for a while meeting the kids and talking with them. There were quite a few little kids.
“I knew we had a lot of young kids but I didn’t know we had this many.” Lady Hawthorne said. “Well I knew I had seen them around the grounds; but I didn’t quite understand the impact until now.”
“Neither did I,” Aggie said, “We have to make this work. These kids are our future.” “A big part of our future,” Lady Hawthorne commented.
“Delores what do you need from me.” Aggie asked.
“May I?” Sally said breaking more than a handful of rules of the protective detail. She was not to join in her principles’ conversations.
“Yes,” The Queen said seeing Jenny flinch. Aggie knew the rule; but wasn’t about not to hear Sally McBride’s thoughts. She had personally reviewed everyone on the detail protecting the Marshal’s family. She hadn’t approved everyone on it; but she had made sure that they all were top of the line people. So she knew of McBride’s past.
“You need to get some grandmothers and grandfathers in with the little guys.” Sally offered, “They need someone who these kids can turn to without feeling they are in trouble. Especially for people like Miss Bollard who are going to be busy with the cadet corps. In other words they need a lap to crawl up into.”
“That makes sense,” Aggie said, “What else?”
“We need a cadre of officers and enlisted people to be the instructors at the academy,” Delores said, “The Gods know I am not military.”
“I can’t spare any officers right now,” Aggie said, “Michael and Qoum will have my head if I assign anyone here. At least I think they will.”
“Let me work with Dad,” Jill said, “sometimes I can get what I want out of him!”
All the women present smiled. But they also knew that as much as Jill could get what she wanted out of her father, they also knew that the Marshal was no easy push over.
What no one expected was what actually did happen.
###
As the School Mistress finished her lecture one of the cadets asked, “What of the kids who didn’t become cadets? What happened to them?”
“Many children were reunited with their parents,” the School Mistress replied. “Lady Hawthorne created a special team whose only job was to reunite the children with their families.”
“A bunch of us were talking about the number of kids that ended up at the academy,” Cadet Langtree commented, “it is hard to believe that there were so many children who were homeless, and whose parents had abandoned them.”
“Not all the foundlings were abandoned,” the School Mistress returned, “Some of the foundlings were kids who didn’t want to leave Trena. Some of the kid’s had simply missed their evacuations, when their families were smuggled of Trena.” “How many little kids were there,” another cadet asked.
“Less than one hundred,” the School Mistress replied, “and those were mostly children already in the care of the crown.”
The room lapsed into silence. Each with their own thoughts.
“General Jones will be back next time,” the School Mistress spoke, “the next chapter concerns Valerie Mitchum.”
Chapter 18: Rescued?
Cadet Lamile Mitchum was standing at rigid attention as her squad leader tore her bunk apart.
“You think just because your name is Lamile Mitchum that you don’t have to toe the same standards as the rest of cadets!” the cadet sergeant had come over to her and stood three feet away from her. The thonian towered over her by a good foot. She had been his special project since she was assigned to the barracks. At first she couldn’t get her shoes shinny enough. Then her locker had not been 33-2, the manual that the described how their lockers were to be done. The other day she was gigged because her hair touched her collar. Her bed had been perfect, her grooming had been perfect, and as had everything else in the room she shared with Princess Lisa. Her niece never got the same attention from this cadet sergeant. She didn’t flinch, or back away. She stood her ground. She wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of adding to her butcher bill. Lisa and the others said she should say something to their platoon leader. So far she had refused.
“Fix that bunk!” the sergeant roared.
Cadet Mitchum quickly went to her bunk and made her bed praying that the sergeant would fine no errors. She was sure it was right.
The sergeant went over to the bunk muttering, “Tsk, tsk, tsk”
He was about to tear it up again when one of the cadet’s called, “Attention on deck.” The cadets all came to attention as the Cadet Commander walked into the room.
“At ease,” the Cadet Commander said softly. With him was the Cadet Sergeant Major.
The cadets flowed to at ease, as the party inspected the dorm. The Cadet Commander inspected Cadet Mitchum‘s bunk he took out a one crown note and checked the margins and finally flipped a coin on the bunk. It bounced. The Cadet Commander quickly hid a smile and turned to Cadet Mitchum and said, “Good job.”
“Sergeant Mattingly, walk with me,” he turned and left the dorm with both cadet sergeants.
Once the cadets were alone in their dorm Lamile Mitchum vented.
“I swear,” Cadet Mitchum griped, “Sergeant Mattingly has it in for me! That bunk was perfect!”
“If your name was anything but Mitchum” the Princess remarked, “He wouldn’t be on your case!”
“Everyone thinks I want use my grandmother’s name to just get by!” the girl moaned. “I want to earn my way through the academy. To do anything else would dishonor
Great Grand Mother’s Legacy!”
“We all do,” Princes Lisa replied. “None of us want to skate through!”
“Attention on Deck!” a young voice called. The cadets flowed to attention. As they did the cadet commander walked in.
“Stand easy!” the cadet commander called softly.
The cadets flowed out of attention and stood easy.
“Cadet Mitchum,” the young man addressed Lamile Mitchum, “You indeed have large shoes to fill. So far you have nothing to fear. You have more than lived up to Chief Mitchum’s legend. As of today any chops in your butcher bill by Sergeant Mattingly have been removed. Several of us will be tenderized on the block for our lack of leadership. He went too far and none of us in the chain of command caught it and took appropriate action at the appropriate time and level. My apologies.”
He saluted and left. All four cadets looked at each other astounded. None of them could hardly believe what they had just witnessed. Without saying another word they sat down at their desks and cracked the books. Lamile opened the text book reading about her grandmother Mitch.
###
As Mitch walked through the nearly deserted mall she couldn’t believe the destruction she was seeing. The stores we
re being abandoned daily as their owners were either evacuated to Home or found transportation off Trena. Many of the store fronts were abandoned with nothing in them. Many stores whose owners hadn’t left yet had been shuttered to prevent looting. The shutters had stopped a lot of the looting. A lot of the shop owners had to abandon their goods when they were evacuated. There was over a million crowns worth of merchandise abandoned in the now nearly deserted mall. All of it abandoned, as the Crown and the Evacuation Command were concentrating on getting people off world. The Crown was allowing people to take their things with them. Mostly household items, like their furniture, clothing, and their kitchen equipment. They could even take their car with them. If they were a tradesman they could take their tools with them. Depending on their trade; they could take their work truck. They could load it into a second container and if they had a work shop they could take their shop tools with them. If they were a doctor and they were immigrating to Home their practice was packed into a
second container. Generally though, merchants were forced to choose between their personal possessions or their business inventory.
The crown was making an effort to ensure that people got to Home with enough household furnishings so that they would be able to be if not be comfortable, able to have clothing, and other things they needed to survive on Home. But some of the merchants had skimped on their personal possessions and loaded most of their container with their merchandise. Some of the merchandise didn’t take up much space. Mitch had helped a book seller and his family pack their container. Loading it with books, mostly they were simple folios with a book chip in them. A couple were traditional books. They stuck books in any place they would fit. She had seen where a clothier had filled every place she could stick clothing in that she could.
Now as she was approaching the music store she was vividly reminded how the destruction she was seeing got started.
It had been the day before when the Evacuation Command agent had come to seal one of the containers. The man from the Evacuation Command had been ready to seal the container, when he noticed that it wasn’t closed properly. When he went to closed it properly, it opened spilling its contents. The sporting goods that had been packed into it, had spilled all over the place. All of it was on the proscribed list. There were no personal belongings in the container.