Chapter 3: Friends for Dinner

Mark was preparing to head back out of hanger 3 and to follow the same cave he and Lana had entered just two days before then he paused because it seemed like so much longer then two days. 'Oh well, ' he thought, 'maybe I'll get used to all this with time. But waking up just knowing all of these new things is not helping' he thought. "Well, I'd better get started if I hope to get back by nightfall. "Moon, will the communicator work through the mountain?" he asked.

"Yes, actually it will. It is a sub-space device. This means it sends it's signal outside of normal space so no objects or distance will interfere with the communications."

"Okay, well then if something happens I will let you know. Otherwise I will keep communications to minimum, just in case they can be detected by the Enemy. Lana, my love, I will be back tonight."

He had been walking for a couple of hours when he reached to outlying homes of his town. First, he noticed that the people did not seem to be around. This was extremely odd since it was nearly time for the harvest and the Offering Festival. The farmers should have at least been out here maintaining the crop. He decided he had to get into the town proper if he was going to get answers, so he hurried his pace a little. When he did reach the middle of town there still seemed to be no one around. He couldn't figure out where the nearly 125 people of his town would be. When he turned the corner, to enter the town square, which housed the market and was flanked by the town meeting hall, he jumped back around the corner to peek around it.

There were ten Keepers standing guard around the town hall. he thought 'all the people must be in there, but why?' He decided to risk asking Moon if there would be any reason for the Keepers to all of a sudden place his entire town under holding.

"They shouldn't have any way of knowing I'm here, so I think it would be safe to assume it must have been something else. Wait, unless during my powering up all the systems out of standby caused a power spike. That could have drawn them here. They must not have been able to get an exact location and your town is the closest settlement, so they must think someone here caused the power surge." Moon said.

Mark thought about this for a moment then said, "Here's what we'll do. Moon; send me two maintenance drones, best possible speed without them being detected. Next, I'll incapacitate the Keepers then we get everybody here back to the base. Some may not want to stay, but that will just be too bad until we are completely up and running. The Keepers will have to come too, only because I don't want to kill them for just doing what they were ordered to by false Gods. Before we leave I will set a charge near the town center that can be the 'source' of the energy spike. It'll destroy everything here and, hopefully. convince the Enemy everyone died. Can you or Lana see any faults to this plan?"

Moon replies, "Sir, I don't like it but it sounds like the only course of action we can take."

Lana said, "Mark, I trust you. bring everyone here safely."

About half an hour later, two drones approached Mark. He was ready to put his plan into motion. First, he had one of the drones produce a stun rifle, then he proceeded to stun all of the Keepers. This turned out to be extremely easy, since they did not have any kind of weapons.

Now came the hard part, convincing everyone they had to come with him. Mark entered the town hall and everyone turned to look at him and one young man ran up to him. "Mark! We thought you would have been long gone by now, did they catch you too?"

"No Andrew, they didn't catch me. I came back to find you and some other people to come help with a problem I found."

"What do you mean?" Andrew replied, "You just walked back here and the Keepers just let come in to ask us some questions? All they have been doing is asking everyone about forbidden technology."

"Well no, they didn't just let me walk back in here. I may have an explanation for why you were all being held."

Mark then outlined what was happening, but he left out many details in case this didn't work. He finished his speech and asked if anyone had a problem with coming with him to his new home. There were only a couple of the older townspeople who thought they were better off going to the priests and letting them decide how to act, but when Mark told them if he had to he would stun them as well but added he would much rather let everyone gather a few personal items and follow him. He told them they would get the full explanation once they reached his new home.

After some grumbling and a few harsh words from other townspeople everyone gathered and was ready to leave. Mark warned that under no circumstances was anyone to reenter town once they left.