Katie Kincaid Ensign by Andrew van Aardvark

Author:Andrew van Aardvark [Aardvark, Andrew van]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: N14
Publisher: Napoleonsims Publishing
Published: 2021-05-22T04:00:00+00:00

9: Ensign Kincaid Digs Deeper

Katie was pretending to be a civilian. A local native of Vesta, or at least someone off of one of the local mining rigs. She had to get to the Governor, and it wasn’t possible to do so without transiting some fairly densely populated parts of the asteroid colony.

Katie was doing so dressed in a Belter shipsuit and alone. Katie’s heavily armed marine squad in battle dress would have stood out. Even if they hadn’t been outnumbered by criminal thugs operating on their home turf, that would have been problematic. The crooks didn’t need to worry about harm to the local civilians. Katie and the marines as representatives of the Space Force did.

Katie’s job was to get to the Governor and lead him out to where the marines were hiding in a lesser traveled part of the colony. One of the side maintenance tunnels running between gravity rings out towards the mining rig docks. Boat Beta and Sub-Lieutenant “Bobby” Maddox were waiting in one of those docks. That was their ride home.

It was a big task, but Katie wished she could do more.

The civilians around her in the concourse of the Admin ring’s shopping district were obviously worried and distressed. They didn’t know what was happening. Not completely. Not for sure. Evidently what they did know worried them. Katie hadn’t heard or seen any official reports of what was happening. She was overhearing a lot of rumors. Words and phrases like “coup”, “kidnapping”, “pirates”, and “military operations” kept popping up in the snatches of conversation she was catching. She dared not linger to listen to what people were saying. Katie was on a mission.

If Katie had been in command of a battalion of troops, maybe she could have taken control of Vesta and put all the concerns of the civilians on the asteroid to rest. But she wasn’t. Katie didn’t have a battalion of troops. Katie had the Resolute’s squad of marines. They weren’t in touch with the small number of marines actually stationed on Vesta. Also, although most of the local marines likely remained honest and loyal, the Resolute’s command staff had learned for a fact that the local marines had been infiltrated. The same was true of the Space Force personnel based on Vesta and the local civilian administration.

With the police, the situation was worse. They might not all be rotten, but it was a fact much of their command structure was compromised.

And so all Katie and the Resolute’s command could depend on was their own troops. Their single squad of marines. Until the Governor was safe, they didn’t dare to openly do anything to challenge the locally entrenched bad guys.

A lot of the civilians around Katie didn’t seem to be there in the shopping concourse with any clear purpose. A lot of them seem to be just out and about, so they didn’t have to sit at home alone and fret. People also seemed to be trying to gather news. Hence all the rumors and speculation.

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