Chapter 19

The following characters return from previous stories:

SSG Hezekiah Niles

Staff Sergeant, Communication Supervisor and repairman, 5’-10’’ tall 165 lb, 40 years old, brown hair, blue eyes

Senf, Peter

Specialist 5, assistant cook, 5’-10’’ tall, 155 pounds, 25 years old, blond hair, blue eyes, partly enhanced

There was a knock on the Colonel’s door less than a minute after Commander Bentley had finished. It roused us from the shock of what he had said.

“Come,” the Colonel said and SSG Niles, the Commo Section Chief, entered.

“Sir, we’ve just received a message that Admiral Tokugawa will have a mandatory broadcast to all Unity officials and the Military in about a half hour. Where would you like us to route the broadcast to?” he asked.

“Send it to the monitor in the conference room. We’ll assemble the staff there to watch it,” she told him before turning to me.

“Cleve, alert everyone on the staff as well as the Marines. We all need to be in the conference room in 25 minutes,” she told me.

I immediately contacted Joel and Lucy mentally while heading out the door to find Greg. Joel and Lucy helped me notify the staff of the meeting. I quickly found Greg coming out of the mess hall with Captain Chesapeake.

“There is going to be a broadcast by the Admiral in about 25 minutes. We will be watching it in the conference room. You and your Officers and Senior NCOs are invited,” I told them.

“Any idea what it’s about?” Greg asked.

“Bentley said it’s about Quarantining the entire system because of the virus outbreak,” I told them to surprised looks.

In 20 minutes, the heads of all of the staff sections and their Senior NCOs plus the Leaders of all of the Teams along with all of the Marines’ Officers and Senior NCOs had assembled in our conference room. It was a bit crowded but everyone could see the large video screen on the wall there. Just after 25 minutes, the screen lit with a view of the briefing room on one of the cruisers. We presumed that it was the Churchill. A voice made an announcement.

“This is a mandatory briefing for all Unity Officials both Civilian and Military. It is also mandatory viewing for all Officials of the Owen’s World government. It is being broadcast on all of the wavelengths used by both the Military and Civilians. Additionally it is being broadcast to all news sources on the planet. Standby for Admiral Tokugawa in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1,” the voice said and ended there. Admiral Tokugawa and several other Senior Navy Officers entered the briefing room. The Admiral, herself, moved up to the podium and the mike there.

“I am Admiral Heine Tokugawa. I am the Senior Unity Commander in the Owen’s World system. This broadcast is to inform all Unity government personnel and Owen’s World government personnel plus the general population of Owen’s World that as of three hours ago I have declared a Total Medical Quarantine of the entire Owen’s World system. No ships will be allowed to dock at the space station or land on the planet.

“Ships entering the system will be told to depart. Any refusing to depart or to be searched by Unity Space Marines will be taken under fire by a ship or ships of Task-force Churchill. All contaminated cargo already loaded on ships at the space station will be unloaded and returned to the surface to await decontamination when a cure for the virus is found. All ships in the system will be decontaminated before loading any cargo again and before being allowed to leave the system. All personnel on those ships will be tested to ensure that they are virus free before being allowed to rejoin their ships.

“This Quarantine will be in effect until canceled by myself or my replacement. Additional information will be forwarded to all government sections and agencies including the Military on what their responsibilities are under the quarantine and what they are to do. This message will be repeated continuously for the next hour on all civilian frequencies in the Owen’s World system. That is all for now,” she finished and the other Officers followed her out of the briefing room. The broadcast ended then but after ten seconds it started again.

Everyone sat or stood there in our conference room for a number of seconds in shock and disbelief before anyone said anything. Immediately following that a number of expletives were heard in loud voices.

“At ease people ... at ease,” the Colonel’s voice was heard rising above the others.

“I’m sure that we will be receiving more explicated orders on what our role is to be during this pandemic and quarantine. Major Roanoke and Captain Chesapeake, have either of you any thoughts on what we heard?” the Colonel asked.

“I must say that this development wasn’t unexpected given what we know about the disease,” Greg Roanoke said.

“There is a good possibility that the Admiral may want more than two platoons of Marines on duty to check any ships arriving in the system. We’ll need to see what orders arrive shortly on our status here on the planet,” Captain Chesapeake told us.

“Very well,” the Colonel said. “First Mobile will wait to see what instructions or orders arrive for us. In the meantime, all Section Chiefs and Team Leaders are to gather their sections or Teams and explain what we know now, and to alert them to be prepared to receive changes in our mission,” the Colonel informed everyone but had something else to say.

“Commander Bentley, are we still on for vaccine shots tomorrow?” she asked.

“I haven’t received any change to that schedule. It will be a Medical Team from the Pasteur that will be administering the vaccine and not my people, so there shouldn’t be any changes,” he told us.

“Captain Jensen will develop a schedule for when each section is to receive their shots. Since we need to remain operational, it would be best to send only part of each section at a time to be vaccinated. We’ll also need to work out a time when the Partners will be vaccinated,” the Colonel informed everyone before releasing all of us to inform our people. The Marines had been the first to depart to alert their people.

Joel and I along with MSGs Platner and Elliott went to inform the S-2 and S-3 staff about the quarantine and the shots. I still needed to develop a plan for when each section would get their shots, but obviously the Marines could go first and the Partners last. Our people would fill in the middle, I thought. The Officers and Senior NCOs for the other staff sections and the Team Leaders had gone to inform their section personnel and Teams. The Colonel, Joel and I would go to inform our Partners of what had occurred after taking care of our Human personnel, who would be able to watch the broadcast after being notified.

The meeting with our people in the S-2 and the S-3 sections didn’t produce any surprises. While many of them were young, they were aware of what was going on, and what we had planned, so they were not surprised or shocked by the news of the quarantine. They were surprised about the vaccinations for both our people and the dependents of those working for us. I set MSGs Platner and Elliott to developing the order in which the sections would be sending their people to be vaccinated, but not the times yet. Joel remained there to assist them. I needed to see MSG Atchine about the use of vaccine guns. I found her in her clinic just finishing talking to her people.

“Attention,” she called when I appeared in her doorway.

“At ease, carry on,” I gave as I entered, and she dismissed her people.

“What can I do for you?” she asked with a smile.

“I need some information about vaccine guns,” I told her to another smile.

“Worried about them?” she asked to my surprise.

“What?” I asked before realizing what she meant. “No, I’ve gotten plenty of shots from both the guns and needles. What I need to know is how many people can they vaccinate in a given time, say 15 minutes or half an hour?” I asked her.

“Individual guns can usually vaccinate someone about every minute to minute and a half or so. They will probably have multiple guns here tomorrow, possibly two or three of them. So, you could figure about 40 to 60 people per gun per hour times the number of lines,” she told me.

“So, fifty people per line per hour should be a good figure,” I said.

“Yes, that would give them some time to rest presuming everything goes well. If there are problems, it will back things up, but that can’t be avoided,” she said with another smile.

“Thanks, Kim. This at least gives me a starting point for the vaccinations tomorrow. That is going to take precedence over plans for the vaccination of our employees’ dependents for a time,” I told her before returning to the S-3. On reaching there, I informed them of what I had learned.

“It looks like we play this by ear until they arrive, and we see what they brought before we can make any definite plans,” Joel said.

“Yes,” I agreed, “but let’s alert the Marines to go first as they have the most people. They must be up close to 250 people with the two extra squads and the vehicle crews that they now have. I’ll call Chesapeake and alert him to that. That will give us time to alert our people to when they will be scheduled to get their shots. The Partners will be the last ones getting shots,” I told them.

“That’s as good a plan as we can make for now,” Joel and the others agreed. I went to talk to Greg about the plan. On hearing it, he agreed with it and called Chesapeake himself to arrange things. Tiger Team still needed to talk to our Partners.

Arriving at the warehouse, we found the members of the other Teams already there and communicating with their Partners. Bob and Susie were at the front of their mobile home near the bars.

“Trouble?” Susie sent on seeing us.

“Some trouble, yes,” I sent to them.

“No too bad?” Bob sent.

“Not too bad,” I sent to them. “The Admiral has stopped all ships from leaving and others from arriving here because of the disease. We are waiting for new orders,” I sent to them.

“Still get meat?” Bob asked. Apparently, that was all that he was worried about.

“Yes, still get meat,” I sent to reassure them. They both went back to sleep then. I wished that things were that easy for the rest of our Team. Joel and Trish had spoken with Samson and Sara also.

On returning to the S-3, Joel and I found Sergeant Dolha from commo there with a new message. After reading it, I took it to the Colonel.

“So, we are to continue with our original mission, but with only three platoons of Marines and their support vehicles. We’ll need to get with Chesapeake and see how he wants to do this. I presume that he has also received this news. Let’s talk to Greg since he is the liaison,” Trish said after reading the message.

It turned out that Greg was already talking with Chesapeake when we arrived at his office. They finished after a short time, and he turned to us.

“May I presume that you have received directions from the Admiral?” he asked.

“Yes, we are to continue with our mission, but with only three platoons of Marines,” the Colonel told him.

“That’s basically what Chesapeake was just telling me. Since he has to move people anyway, he will be bringing down the remainder of the platoon that you had on Parthas and removing two of the platoons that are here now. That will leave you with the one platoon that you know and two that are new to you. He will be returning to the Churchill and will leave Lieutenant Norfolk in charge of the platoons here,” he told us.