Chapter 20

The following new character appears in the next couple of chapters:

Phra Sampanno

Abbot of Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua, 5’-4’’ tall, 110 pounds, 65 years old, shaved head, brown eyes

The following character from previous stories is mentioned:

SFC Luna Two Bears

Sergeant First Class, Supply Sergeant, Cherokee, 5’-11’’ tall, 170 lb, 36D-25-36, 35 years old, long black hair, brown eyes

“What can you tell us about this Monk who is causing so much trouble and the Wat where he preaches?” Trish asked our interpreters after dealing with Henshaw.

“His name is Phra Sampanno. He is often addressed as Luang Por or Venerable Father, and he is the Abbot at Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua. He is an older man of about 65 years. Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua is a Forest Monastery of the Kammatthana or Thai Forest Tradition of Theravada Buddhism. It is also somewhat different from earlier Forest Monasteries as it includes the teaching of Dhammakaga meditation. Both Monks and lay people go there to study meditation.

“The Monks of the Thai Forest Tradition are the ones who most strictly uphold the original monastic rules of discipline laid down by the Buddha. The Forest Tradition most strongly emphasizes meditation practice and the realization of enlightenment as the focus of monastic life. The Forest Monks follow the Patimokkha, which is the monastic discipline of 227 rules for Monks. They also engage in austere practices in which they wander on foot through the countryside in search of solitary retreats where they can meditate in search of the Buddha’s path to enlightenment,” Sompung told us before pausing for a breath.

“The Wat is located about 160 km (100 miles) north of New Bangkok. It is located on the entry road to a huge forest preserve that covers some 400,000 hectares or something close to 1544 square miles. The Northern Preserve covers lowlands and highlands with everything from fields and forests to jungle areas. The Preserve was established by the First Settlers just as the locations of the major cities were. Not even the Woos could change that, or the several other major forest and jungle areas set aside by the First Settlers,” he continued but stopped again to sip some water.

“All of those things were set in stone by the original colonists and can not be changed any more than the name of the planet could be changed,” he continued.

“We were wondering why the name of the planet hadn’t been changed, considering all of the names here are from Southeast Asia,” Lucy said.

“Captain Owen was the one whose ship first discovered the planet. He was a Fa rung but had grown up in Southeast Asia. Most of his crew were Thai, Lao, or Khmer, and he spoke all three languages fluently. Thecrew were educated people and realized that it could be a good place for their people. They were the ones who recruited the other settlers, but they insisted on keeping the Captain’s name on the planet. Along with the First Colonist, they were also instrumental in setting everything up from what the type of government would be to where the cities were located.

“They are also the ones who set up the pact with those on the south continent and agreed that Humans would not bother or interfere with them. They also agreed that they could have part of the north continent to farm,” Jong told us, casting light on some of the things that we had wondered about.

“There is something else that you should know,” Sompung told us in a serious voice.

“What is it?” the Colonel asked.

“There are Tigers in the Northern Preserve. They are not the same as your Tigers. They are what are called Indochinese Tigers and were native to Southeast Asia on Earth. They are not as large as your Tigers. There are many of them both at the Wat and in the Preserve,” he told us much to our surprise.

“Really!” Trish asked in surprise. “Are they wild or are any of them Enhanced?” she asked.

“We don’t know. None of us can speak with our minds or do Magic as you can, so we have no idea,” he told us with an embarrassed look.

“I guess we’ll find out when we go to see this Monk,” Trish told him.

“Speaking of going to see him, who should go?” she asked next.

“I would think that Tiger Team would be the ones to go. Certainly, you will need to be the one to negotiate with him along with Sompung to do the translating unless this Monk, Phra Sampanno speaks very good Standard,” I told her but had another thought.

“We should take, at least, a part of Team A-31 with us, since they have the only other Tiger,” I added.

“Yes, but I don’t believe that it would be wise to split the Team up. We can take the entire Team. What about an escort though, since we aren’t going there to fight anyone?” she asked.

“Maybe two squads of Marines in their assault vehicles, as that is the only transportation that they have,” I suggested.

“Which squads, or do I need to ask?” Trish inquired with a grin.

“Hanson’s and Gram’s, they could use a nice relaxing trip to the countryside,” I suggested with a smile.

“Okay, what’s next on the agenda?” she asked.

“Someone needs to make an exploratory trip to Vientiane to check on the situation there and see what the Pathet Lao are doing. Perhaps Team A-23 could do that while we are visiting the Abbot,” I suggested.

“All right, but they will need an entire platoon to go with them. How far is it to Vientiane?” she asked.

“It is about 640 km or 400 miles or so,” Sompung told us.

“They will need to refuel on the way then,” the Colonel said.

“Della will need to obtain gas cards for both them and us. The other Teams will also need them when they go out plus the Marines will need them,” I reminded her.

“They’ll need to take rations also as well as water,” she said in a tired voice.

“Yes, we aren’t set up very well to travel long distances with the assault vehicles,” I agreed. “We hadn’t considered this when making our plans because we thought that aviation assets would be available here. There were some, but they were mostly civilian passenger types of planes. Crops, the major bulk product moved here, travel by rail as do most of the poorer people. Trains are easy to ambush or derail, so that wouldn’t be a good solution for us. They are also fairly slow here,” I finished not knowing what the solution might be.

“Yes, the fastest means of long distance transportation here seems to be by shuttle for everything. Remember how you were moved to Arnold after being shot down on Addison III?” Trish asked.

“Now that you mention it, yes I remember, but we didn’t have Operation vehicles or assault vehicles to move then,” I reminded her.

“True, but with the Quarantine there will be a lot of shuttles sitting around unused once they return all of the cargoes to the ground to be decontaminated,” she reminded me.

“That could take a while, if they actually do that. It may be possible that they will try to decontaminate them on the station to avoid the cost of all of those extra shuttle flights. That would make shuttles available for other things a lot sooner,” I suggested.

“Yes, we’ll need to wait and see what they actually do. In the meantime, we still need to visit that Monk and have our people check out guerrilla activity in the Vientiane area,” the Colonel insisted. Being the unit S-3, it was my responsibility to create the plans for those operations, and I needed to get started on that.

“I’ll start both the S-3 and the S-2 sections on that immediately,” I told her before asking, “Do you want Sompung or Jong to go with us on the visit to the Monk?”

“I believe that Sompung should go with us when we visit the Wat. This Monk, Phra Sampanno, will probably be uncomfortable talking to me as a woman already. Two women would only make it worse,” she told me.

“All right, I schedule Jong to go with Team A-23 to Vientiane,” I agreed before leaving to start planning both trips.

On reaching the S-2/3 area, I’ll called Luther and Sergeants Platner and Elliott over and explained what had been decided for our first operational moves. Luther and Elliott got out the maps that we had obtained and started planning the routes that both Teams would be taking. Platner and I began working on the necessary things that we would need to have with us on these two operations. One of the first things that I thought of was fuel for the vehicles – where to get it and how. I needed to talk to Della about that as she had procured the fuel, electricity, and water services that we had already. I called her on her PDU.

“Della, Cleve, I need to know how and where we can obtain fuel when on missions,” I told her when she answered.

“Cleve, that’s not a problem. I took care of that the other day when I went to the city. I obtained fuel purchase cards from the Unity supply section. The cost will be charged to the Unity mission here and not to our account. I got one for each Team’s vehicle and two for each of the Marines’ platoons. Of course, that was when we expected to have four platoons. With only three, there will be two extra,” she assured me. “Oh yes, I gave them to Captain Rodeo to issue when you went on missions. Are you preparing to leave on a mission?” she asked in an interested voice.

“We are currently setting up two missions, and I wanted to be sure that there would be sufficient fuel available while they were on the road,” I told her but that was all. I had to admit that Della was really on the ball having already foreseen the need and obtained the needed fuel cards and on the Unity mission’s account at that and not ours.

With that taken care of, I could now turn my attention to other matters, such as food for the Partners on these missions and other important things. One of the first that came to mind was who was going to be in charge of the mission to Vientiane. They would need someone with sufficient rank to talk to those in charge of the government there. Since Henshaw was out of the picture now, we would need someone to clear the way with the local politicians so we could get an accurate assessment of the situation there. Who to send was the question. There were several possibilities, but who could I recommend? Of course, Trish would make the final decision.

Kanisha had been stuck here in the compound while the rest of us had been out taking care of various problems. She would surely like to get out on a mission or two, but who was to be in charge of the unit if both the Colonel and the XO were gone? To make things worse, as the Operations Officer or the S-3, I was the next in line to take command when the other two were gone. But, and it was a big but, I was also the Commander of Tiger Team and would be away with them. Not only that but Tiger Team was the only Team that had an officer leading it. Not only leading it, but everyone on the Team was an officer! We would need to make a recommendation to Special Operations Headquarters that the S-3 and possibly the S-2 not be members of Teams in the future.

Who else was there though? Well, there was Greg Roanoke. He was a Major like Kanisha, but he wasn’t actually a member of the unit. He was attached to us as the Liaison to the Marines. He wasn’t a member of their unit either, but they would do whatever he told them, being part of their unit’s former commander. Additionally, he may want to go on one of the missions.

The problem then was that there wasn’t anyone else in the unit who was combat qualified. Rodeo was the senior Captain, but he was supply. Della was in the same situation, and Hue was the junior Captain and from personnel. Laura Mellifont was Medical and had no command training. We definitely had a problem, but there were other things that needed attention. I would need to bring this up to the Colonel but later after the other problems were taken care of. I did get with Greg to have him alert the Marines to the two missions, but we didn’t have a start date yet.

At the daily afternoon operations meeting, I presented what we had worked out. There were immediate problems.

“We don’t have a sufficient backlog of meat on hand to allow either mission to take a lot of meat with them,” Captain Rodeo objected.

“How much do we have on hand?” the Colonel asked.

“We have basically a two day supply on hand for the Partners and our personnel. The Marines are supplying their own needs,” Rodeo informed us.

“The mission to the Wat shouldn’t take more than a day to a day and a half. The mission to Vientiane may require as much as a week or more. They won’t be able to take that much meat with them. They will need to purchase meat and some other food items for not only the Team but also for the Marines. Field rations just don’t satisfy you like a good meal,” the Colonel said thinking ahead and bringing up the subject before I could. She turned to Della then.

“Della, can you procure additional meat for the unit here and then go with the mission to Vientiane to procure food for them there?” she asked a smiling Della.