Chapter 14

The following character reappears from previous stories:

Lt. Norfolk

Marine Company XO, 5’-11’’ tall, 165 pounds, 25 years old, auburn hair, gray eyes

I found Trish in her office in conference with Captain Chesapeake, the Marine CO. I knocked and then quickly entered not waiting for her to answer.

“Trouble?” she asked on sensing my unrest over what had happened.

“Yes, and from something that we hadn’t considered,” I told her while nodding to Chesapeake. He is a tall man, a bit heavy, and somewhat old to still be a Company Commander.

“What kind of trouble?” he also demanded in a deep voice.

“Medical! There is apparently some kind of illness going around. It appears to be rather widespread according to the Chief Monk. One of his Monks is up in intensive care with it now. Atchine is checking to determine what it is.

“My question is why weren’t we informed of this when we arrived here, or possibly even before we left Ainalhai III? The Chief Monk told me that they became aware of it over four months ago,” I finished.

“Just how dangerous is this illness?” the Colonel asked.

“Khong only told me that a lot of people have died from it in all of the cities on this continent and the north continent. He didn’t say anything about those out on the farms or in the mountains, but he may not have access to that kind of information, or hasn’t heard anything from those locations,” I told her.

“Are we talking about something like a Pandemic, or is it more like the old Flu that used to occur every year on Earth?” the Colonel asked.

“Unknown at this time. We also don’t know how it’s spread, but at a guess, I would say from person to person in crowded conditions. That seems to be a common method of transmission for various types of illnesses,” I reminded her.

“It could also be spread in the water or the food. Given that you said it was a Monk who is sick, it’s possible to be any of those,” Chesapeake injected.

“Until we know more about this, don’t allow Henshaw and his people to leave. I’m going to have some serious questions for him as soon as we know more about this problem,” the Colonel told us.

“I’ll have two squads standing by to ensure they don’t leave the compound,” Chesapeake assured us before pulling out his communicator and calling his unit.

“How did the ceremony and the cremation go?” Trish asked while he was speaking to his people.

“Everything went well until the Monk passed out about 20 minutes or so after the fires were started,” I told her before turning to Chesapeake, who had finished his call.

“Your Marines did a bang-up job getting everything set up and the bodies moved. They even started the fires burning,” I told him with a smile. Following that, the conversation shifted to a discussion on unloading his unit’s equipment.

“How much do you still have to unload,” Trish asked after a time.

“About a third of the unit. The thing is, most of that is the heavy and bulky stuff. We sent down a larger number of people on the early shuttles because of the attack. That left a lot of other things like the remaining assault vehicles, a few other vehicles, and the bulky cargo like bedding and furniture to be unloaded later.

“The assault vehicles are heavy but are quick to unload. We can get a number of them down here in a day. The other stuff will be slower to unload and then unpack and get set up,” he told us.

“Yes, we had to do something similar when we finally got this location to set up in. It was nearly two weeks after we had arrived here before we started to unload. There was even an attack on us on the space station when we arrived,” the Colonel told him.

“An attack on the station!?” Chesapeake asked in a surprised voice.

“Yes, two men opened fire on us, but we had wards around us already, and Bob took both of them out,” the Colonel told him.

“Bob?”

“Bob is one of my Partners. He’s a large male Tiger and weighs 700 pounds,” I told him.

“Thankfully, we don’t need to go through the space station. We’re unloading directly from the Churchill and one of the supply ships. My XO, a new man, is supervising that,” Chesapeake told us.

“A new man?” Trish asked.

“Yes, a Senior Lieutenant named Norfolk. He came over with the two extra platoons that we received when we boarded the Churchill,” he told us.

“Norfolk?” I asked. “Could there be two of them?”

“Do you know him?” Chesapeake asked, somewhat surprised.

“When we were on Parthas, we had two platoons of Marines from the Franklin. A Lieutenant Norfolk was one of the Platoon Leaders. We should get Greg in here and see if he knows where Norfolk was reassigned,” I told them.

“These two extra platoons that you received, did they come with him?” the Colonel asked.

“I know that he is very friendly with some of them,” Chesapeake told us. “Why?” he asked.

“A couple of squads served with us previously on both our Addison and Parthas deployments,” Trish told him.

“That’s rather curious. I’ll be talking to him later today and will check on that,” Chesapeake told us with a grin.

Right after that, we received a message from Greg. Sergeant Dohla brought it to the Colonel’s office.

“Sir, a message from Major Roanoke,” he told her, handing her the message form.

“Thanks Dohla,” she said while reading the message.

“He says that the ceremony is over and everyone will be returning to the compound, but the detail monitoring the fires,” Trish told us. This was followed immediately by a call on her PDU.

“Sir, this is Sergeant Atchine, We have a real problem. The disease that is prevalent here is very aggressive and reproduces very quickly according to our tests. This is not something that we are set up to handle. It’s way above my pay grade,” Atchine told her.

“Do we need a Doctor to handle this?” Trish asked.

“Not so much a Doctor as an Epidemiologist. A specialist who deals with major outbreaks of diseases and pandemics. They are going to need to develop a vaccine to stop this thing,” Atchine told her.

“Is it that bad?” Trish asked.

“Yes sir, it’s that bad, and if it has gotten into the food shipped to other worlds, it’s going to be even worse,” Atchine told her, and Trish turned very pale on hearing this. I wasn’t doing so well myself.

“How much danger are we in, that is First Mobile?” she asked.

“Our present vaccinations seem to be working fairly well, but I don’t know how long that will last,” Kim told her.

“Keep me updated. We’re going looking for answers after I contact the Admiral,” Trish told her before disconnecting.

“Captain Chesapeake, have your people ready to stop Henshaw from leaving. I’m going to send a message to the Admiral, if I can’t contact her directly. Then, I’m going to kick that turkey Henshaw in the ass and find out what the hell is going on here,” the Colonel told him in an upset voice. Chesapeake quickly departed.

“Cleve, come with me and bring your Partners,” she told me. I alerted Bob and Susie while we made our way to commo.

“I need to speak to Admiral Tokugawa, Dohla,” the Colonel told the young Sergeant on duty there.

“Yes sir,” he said before adjusting the mike and the video camera there in commo.

“Churchill commo, this is First Mobile commo. Over,” he then sent.

“First Mobile commo, this is Churchill commo. Send your message. Over.”

“Churchill commo, First Mobile commo. Colonel Ferguson needs to speak to Admiral Tokugawa. Over.”

“First Mobile commo, Churchill commo. We will need to see if the Admiral is available. Could your commander send a recorded message if necessary? Over.”

“Churchill commo, First Mobile commo. We are prepared to do that if necessary. Over.”

“Roger, First Mobile commo. I have someone checking on the Admiral’s availability now. We will call you back when we have an answer. Churchill commo, out.”

“We’ll need to wait on their answer, sir,” Dohla told the Colonel, though we had all heard the messages. About 10 minutes went by before there was an answer.

“First Mobile commo, Churchill commo. Are you prepared to receive a video conference call? Over.”

“Churchill commo, First Mobile commo. We are prepared to receive the video conference call. Over.”

“Roger, First Mobile. Conference call will start in 5 4 3 2,” He didn’t finish before the video screen in front of us lit up with Admiral Tokugawa’s image on it.

“Good day, Colonel. What is the problem? I presume there is a problem, or you wouldn’t have called,” the Admiral said to start the conference call.

“Sir, we have just recently been made aware that there is a serious disease problem on the planet. It is apparently widespread. My Chief Medical Technician considers it serious enough that she recommends that an Epidemiologist be brought in to handle the problem. Would there be one on the hospital ship accompanying you?” the Colonel asked.

“How did you obtain this information? We haven’t heard anything about this from the government,” the Admiral demanded.

“Following the attack yesterday, we needed someone to conduct services for those killed. Mr. Henshaw obtained the services of three Monks to perform the ceremony and the cremation. The Chief Monk informed us of the problem when one of his assistants came down with the disease during the ceremony,” the Colonel informed her.

“Attack! What attack? I wasn’t informed of an attack,” the Admiral demanded in an upset voice.

“It wasn’t much of an attack. Twenty-five of the terrorists were killed. They were the ones’ we needed the service for,” the Colonel told her.

“And your casualties?” the Admiral demanded.

“We didn’t have any casualties, or any personnel injured,” the Colonel told her.

“I see. In the future, you will report any attacks, no matter how inconsequential. Now about this disease problem, I have no idea if the hospital ship has one of these Epidemiologists on board or not. I’ll have my people check on this and advise you. In the meantime, I will call the planetary representative and find out what is going on, and why we weren’t informed sooner. What are your plans on learning more about this situation?” she demanded.

“We have a Mr. Henshaw, one of the attaches here at our compound. I intend to squeeze him for everything that he knows. We should have learned about this long ago, as it has been going on for over four months according to the Chief Monk who is here,” the Colonel told her.