She watched a man climb out on the roof of a building at the edge of town. He carried a rifle. Back in the main city, hunters had to check the rifle out of the armory before they went hunting, but it had been felt that would be too onerous out here in the boondocks. She’d argued against it, but had been overruled. “Now, you’ll understand why I argued so hard,” she muttered under her breath.
She lined her shot up on the man as he was lining his shot up on Marc. Unwilling to take a chance that he was just providing cover, Mariana took the shot. The stunner hit the guy in the back, knocking him out. His rifle went off.
CRACK!
“What the hell, Johnny! I told you not to shoot unless I told you to.”
“Shooter was lining up on you,” Mariana told Marc over their Comm channel. “I took him out with a stunner round.”
“That was my sniper, she took your guy out because he was aiming a rifle at me. Don’t worry, she was using stun rounds, this time.”
“So, you’re going to come in here with your Jack-booted Marines and kill us all?!” O’Brian yelled.
“No, I wouldn’t want to do something like that. But I would like you to honor your contract and start delivering the gold, silver, and copper from the mines. We’ve invested a lot of time and material to get this town established, and we don’t want to lose it.”
“Well, we invested a lot of sweat to build this here town. And more sweat to get those mines up and running.”
“Everyone here on Artemis can say the same thing. You volunteered to be miners and come out here. You’re getting paid a premium for mining and another one for the isolation.”
“Well, we don’t think it’s enough. If you’re not going to kill us all, what are you going to do? We’ve got the gold.”
“I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,” Marc said. “We’re going to build another town over there about fifty miles. We’ll start another mine there to extract what we need. We will not bother you, but we will not pay you or buy your gold. You’ll need to start a garden because we will also not be bringing any food by either.”
“Someone will buy our gold!”
“I don’t think so. We’ll apply sanctions against anyone who does. All of the money out here is electronic, so we’ll know what they spend it on. And you are a long way off, so I don’t think anyone’s going to be trekking all the way out here to buy something that there are no customers for.”
“That’s not fair!”
“And breaking your contract with MacKenzies is? Stealing the gold from the company land and trying to sell it back to us is fair?!” Marc shouted. “Anyone who wants to honor the original agreement, we’ll move you to the new town. The rest of you let us know if and when you want to honor your original agreement, until then we’ll just leave you alone.”
Marc turned and started to walk back toward the Lynx.
“Hold up!” one of the other men yelled. “If I come with you now, will I still get paid?”
“Yes, we won’t hold anything against you if you come now. If you wait, then you’ll forfeit all your wages from before.”
“It’s a damn shame to leave this town. We did a nice job on it. But I’m not a thief and I never really thought this was a good idea. Me and mine want to stay with MacKenzies.”
“I do too!” a woman called out. “I’m not interested in becoming a farmer.”
Marc watched as slowly each member of the group separated themselves from O’Brian. Over half had moved away, and the rest were exchanging nervous glances when O’Brian yelled. “Wait, what if everyone agreed to honor their contracts?!”
“Well, then we wouldn’t need to build a new town,” Marc said.
“Will you promise not to hold it against any of the others?”
“I’m willing to forgive everyone else,” Marc said.
“Then I’ll go with you. That way, all these folks won’t lose all their hard work for listening to me.”
“I really don’t want you,” Marc said.
“You mean you’re going to cast me out of the colony?”
“No, I was thinking you would want to stay here. You’ve done a good job getting the town built.”
“Then what are you going to do to me?”
“You’ll forfeit half your pay up until today. But this is your third strike. That’s usually all I give anyone, but I’m going to give you a pass on the first one. But you’re not going to get another one.”
“Okay, that’s more’n fair. I won’t be causing you no more problems.”
“Good, the hauler will be out here tomorrow with a load of supplies, and I expect it to come back full.”
“Don’t worry, it will.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“Boss, is that all?” Mariana complained.
“Sure.”
“He called us Jack-booted Marines!”
“Then you have my permission to go down there and kick his ass. He drops his right shoulder just before he throws a jab.”
“Thanks!”
Chapter 22Oh My Gosh
Marc started the board meeting feeling pretty good. It was the first that he would conduct from Artemis, and things seemed to be in hand. The colonists were in general alignment once again; the powers on Earth seemed to be cooperating, and the aliens heading for Artemis were still six months away.
“Thank you for joining me,” Marc said. “Catie, are you tied in?”
“Yep, everything’s good on my end.”
“Then let’s get started. I’m sure you’ve all read the status report on our little strike here on Artemis. We’ll have to track things as we go, but I’m optimistic that things will settle down.”
“Do you really think it was smart, leaving O’Brian in charge of the mining town?” Blake asked.
“Yes,” Marc said with a smile.
“Okay, let me rephrase, why did you leave O’Brian in charge of the mining town?”
“He’s a smart guy, he’s really proud of what they’ve accomplished out there. If I
