Kadance

12a

"Two days until planet fall. Everything ready?" Kadance asks irritably. "Stop hovering over me. I'm pregnant not an emergency room patient that needs to have hovering people to keep her alive. I've had patients near death that didn't have so many people hovering over them." She shoos them all back.

"Okay that's better." She says taking a deep breath, "Status reports. Jayse?"

"The meeting is set for 36 hours after planet fall. The grand ballroom of Dunworthy Holdings best Hotel on Jandin. We'll be staying in the penthouse suite there. There's enough bedrooms for the whole team to stay there although we'll have to double up. But that won't be a problem. We'll be leaving one week after planet fall. The files for the redliners/suiciders are now on your com unit. My choices highlighted."

Kadance takes a quick look. "Very good. I'll look these over by the meeting. Tommy your report?" Kadance says distractedly.

"Uniforms are ready so they tell me. Command was having a bit of a problem choking on the weapons request." Tommy says more than a bit smug.

Kadance looks up and snaps, "It's none of their concern."

Tommy holds his hands out in peace, "Hey, don't worry boss lady. I let them have it. Of course mentioning you'd get online again seemed to work beautifully. Boss lady you have everyone at Central terrified of you. Man I love my job.

"Anyhow, I told Central they didn't have to pay for the weapons or the uniforms and that helped to calm them down. When I got to the part that they'd no longer have to pay the redliners salaries they were happy to do whatever they could for us." Tommy continues with a beatific smile. "So hot off the presses newest toys will be waiting for us when we land. Not just weapons either boss, there'll be a full range of toys."

Kadance looks thoughtfully at Tommy. "Very good. Take all the team members not on duty. Select what you want. When you get there feed a vid line for those on duty to pick what they want. Set payment up through my trust. However, save the items and don't send them back until our team is complete.

"I want you to pick out arms for the Holdings Security. I want you, Rackem, Candlen and Dest outfitting the security building. If it's in too bad of shape ditch the current location and find a new one.

"Borden I want you and Jayse to go over our candidates and pick out two teams. Set up hierarchy in both. Include Dall on the second, he'll be leading it.

"Amgle, I want you and Marks to review various plans for search and rescue: For attacks by shifters, for natural disasters. I want attack plans, preparations plans, evac. plans for all holdings on this planet to places of safety. Plans that would be a cooperative effort with the civilians. I want them done before we leave. I need them so I can give them to Dunworthy exec. here." Here Kadance grimaces, "That's going to be fun." She dismisses them except for Dall.

"Dall, I need you to stay for a minute," Kadance requests softly.

Tommy stays working on his assignments over in the corner. Dall stays in his seat while the others file out. "Yes, boss lady?"

"It seems that Tommy's little joke is sticking." She grimaces and Tommy snorts. "When I said I had a sister on Celeste I wasn't completely lying. We lived there for seven years. Up to the time the boys were sent to Camp. But she died at the transfer point for Camp not Celeste.

"The Warrior Society only had a small presence there, only about a hundred or so. Most like my sister were in intelligence. After my sister's death, I never returned. A few things were sent to me. A few were saved for the boys. Shortly after that they decided it was too isolated and not sufficiently protected. They closed down the Warrior office or whatever it's called and transported everyone off planet. They were located on the Eastern Continent.

"While we were living there we found caves, a series of caves. In them were stockpiles of food, clothing and daily necessities were cached. Each section of the city, every civilian knew of a location or an entrance to those caves. There were sufficient stores to last the entire population a year. If attack threatened they were to take cover in the caves.

"If they had been given sufficient time most of the citizens would have made it. I believe they did. I've been going over the reports, only a few thousand could be accounted for. There were well over two hundred thousand living there. I want you to take the second group. They will be a search and rescue team. After you've located as many as you can, you can either stay there on Dunworthy Security team leader or return to us on my team."

Dall stares at her in amazement, "Survivors? You don't think we were too late to save them?" He closes his eyes and the tears silently start to fall.

Kadance's voice is soft, "I'm sorry it took me this long Dall. But before I said anything I wanted to check the records. The last thing I want is create false hope. My guess is the dead bought time for the others to get away. I'm willing to bet at least 75% of the population made it. But they won't know it's safe to come out yet. Our new uniforms are sufficiently similar to military ones that they should trust you. Are you willing to accept this assignment?" Kadance asks softly.

Dall goes over and hugs her. "Thank you boss lady. I'd be proud to do so." He lets her go as he hears Tommy's warning growl. He leaves quickly after that.

Kadance glowers over at Tommy, "You need to play nice Tommy."

Tommy stalks over to her fire lit in his eyes. "He was about to kiss you. I could smell his interest in you grow." He barely managed to growl that out. "It has fired mine up even higher." He pulls her close and kisses her hard.

"Jealousy Tommy?" Kadance manages to gasp out when he lets up.

"Survival Stefi, survival." Then neither was able to speak.