Chapter 72

We arrived back at the base early in the morning, rousing Koo from her bed to activate the Gateway and receive us. Once back and after reassuring her that everything was all right, we ditched our gear and we headed off to breakfast. By the time we’d eaten, Kim, Monty, and Hendrick had been rousted as well, and they had come and joined us in the upper mess hall. It was one of the few structures still standing on the base. While they ate their breakfast, and my people drank tea, we chatted.

Kim wanted to know how things had gone. She was impressed that we hadn’t had to kill anyone, and that we had in fact established an outpost of our tribe in Kuwait. We’d have to work on integrating them into our way of life, but she saw the mission as a success, particularly since we’d brought back twenty gallons of diesel. That fact turned our conversation towards what I had promised them in return for them working for us.

Kim wrote everything down. She noted what foodstuff I’d promised them to help them survive until they could provide for themselves. She wondered openly if we should update our report to General Ridgeway indicating that another supply run had appeared out of nowhere. I just shook my head at that.

“It didn’t happen when we were there,” I pointed out in an attempt to squash the idea, “and personally, I think we can manage this on our own. We still have some uptime supplies left over from what Ridgeway sent us last year and both southern settlements had bumper crops that they harvested last fall. I’d rather depend on our own capabilities than to hope that General Ridgeway can swing another shipment of goods.”

Kim couldn’t argue my point, even though she wanted to, if only to prod me a bit about manipulating events like I had done before. I didn’t let her get to me. I just sat and drank my tea and talked about whom I thought should deliver the goods. Kim immediately volunteered to be the lead.

I let Burton head back to his settlement to spend the day catching up with his people while Dunbar and I headed south to visit Gogra. I wanted to chat with him for a bit, and I wanted to go hunting. Gloria ended up staying at the base, visiting with Koo and a few other people who still worked at the place. While we did our thing, Monty and Hendrick got together and did the math.

China turned out to be a different story, altogether.

Our problems started the instant we arrived at our drop zone in China. The Gateway dropped us in the middle of a forest and while nothing bad had occurred to any of us during the transition, being dropped into the middle of a forest made finding out where we were, exactly, a bit hard. It took us several hours of tramping through the forest to find high ground that gave us a view of our surroundings, and a clear area in which we could launch our drone.

It was actually too late in the day when we finally did make it out of the forest and onto a hillside that was clear enough of vegetation that we could have launched the drone and recovered it without worrying about losing it. Even so, it didn’t stop us from having a short look about using our binoculars.

There wasn’t much to see. We were in a coastal region, although the coastline was definitely several days away from where we were standing. The region about us was rolling hills all covered in forest. There was, in fact, very little open ground visible from where we were looking. We did spot what looked like a major river in the distance. It wound in and out between the rolling hills and the forest. It was a reassuring sight. According to the maps we’d found back at Winslow’s old base, the compound was supposedly situated somewhere along it. Where exactly was questionable. We had GPS coordinates for it, in relation to our own Earth, but that didn’t help us here. Hopefully, we’d be able to find it in the morning.

Whilst Gloria and I erected a couple of makeshift lean-tos to spend the night under Dunbar and Burton went hunting. We erected the lean-tos facing each other and put a trench fire between them so that the heat of the fire would radiate into each of the shelters. The region was damp and cold and we definitely needed the fire to keep warm. Burton brought back a small deer for supper. We had it with some of the supplies we’d packed in with us and then headed off to bed. Gloria and I shared one lean-to and the guys shared the other. Of course, we all stood a watch as we were in unknown territory. While no one expected anyone to drop in on us unexpectedly, there was always the chance that a predator might decide to pay us a visit. Gloria pulled the first watch, followed by me. I then woke Dunbar which gave Burton the last watch of the night. Thankfully, nothing happened.

Dunbar launched the drone shortly after we’d eaten breakfast. We’d taken compass bearings the night before to get a general idea in which direction we needed to fly it. Our big problem was that we didn’t know where we were in relation to the compound. It could be directly north of us, or somewhere east or west of our position, close to the river. Our best hope was to locate the river and then fly the drone along it, hoping to find the place. Knowing full well that we could be at it for a while, those of us not flying the drone settled ourselves in for the day.

We didn’t get lucky this time. Dunbar flew the drone until the power level on it dropped into the yellow and then turned the drone back towards us. He hadn’t stumbled over anything of interest during his sweep. He did get the drone to the big river that we thought the compound was situated along, but he’d only barely made it. The river was almost at the halfway point for the drone we were using which meant that he had to turn it back before we could even try and sweep the area.

“So what do you want to do?” Dunbar asked as he stood off to one side of our camp, carefully flying the drone back towards us. “Do you want to break camp?”

It was more of a rhetorical question than anything else. Dunbar knew that we needed to change location if we were going to find the compound we were looking for. The real question was where we should move to so we could start looking again. I didn’t even have to pause to answer the question.

“We’ll wait until the drone is back and on the ground,” I told him plainly. “Once it is, and the power pack is plugged in and recharging, you and I can review the flight recording. I’m certain we can figure out an easy route down this hill and over the next one, and somewhere along that route there must be another open space like this one. We’ll head to it as best we can, and once there we’ll send the drone up again. Sooner or later we’ll find that compound. Hopefully, it will be sooner.”

Dunbar agreed. A half hour later we recovered the drone without a hitch. Then we hooked it up to the solar power charger we’d brought along with us. We left it to charge while Dunbar and I reviewed the flight record. It took some effort and a couple of replays of the recorded footage, but eventually we spotted a track down the hillside that led over the next hill and into a nearby valley. We took a bearing off the onboard telemetry that the drone had radioed back to us while Dunbar had flown the bird, and then packed up and headed out.

The nearby valley wasn’t as nearby as we thought. The trek down the hill from our campsite wasn’t a straight line. The terrain was broken by outcrops of rock closer to the bottom of the hill and we had to work our way around them and a few ravines and gullies that we hadn’t noticed while reviewing the film footage. We then had to work our way up the neighbouring tree-covered hill. The terrain there was very rugged, damp and slippery. It got even damper as we moved since the sky decided to open up on us while we trekked along. By the time we reached the floor of the neighbouring valley we were tired, wet, and cold, and it was getting late.

We decided to camp upon a hillock off to the side of the valley we’d arrived in. This time Dunbar and Burton set up the camp while Gloria and I went in search of firewood. That took us some time since most of the wood we came across was wet. It was getting dark by the time we got back to camp.

We kept things simple that night. We made a quick stew out of the leftover deer that Burton had killed the night before. We ate the meal in our loincloths and wrapped up in our sleeping bags in an effort to keep warm. Our clothing got hung up to dry. Once we’d eaten, and talked about the day for a bit, we packed it in for the night. Gloria got first watch again and we ran the watch just as we’d done the night before.

It was drizzling when we woke up in the morning. That didn’t help our mood, particularly since we’d run out of firewood during the night. It meant a cold breakfast for everyone.

“What are we going to do today?” Gloria wanted to know, looking a little miserable wrapped up in her sleeping bag, chewing on a piece of cold venison and a leftover biscuit from the night before.

“We’re going to get the drone in the air, if we can do that,” I told Gloria bluntly, “and then we’ll see if we can find that compound. If we can, we’ll break camp and head for it.”

“And if we can’t?” Gloria enquired hesitantly. “Will we have to move again?”

“That depends,” I responded without hesitation, patting the woman on the shoulder as I said it, in an attempt to comfort her. “We’ll see how far from the river we are once the drone is in the air. If we’re close and we don’t find anything towards the east along the course of the river, well then we’ll stay here tonight and we’ll send the drone westward tomorrow. It will mean that we’ll need to get out of our sleeping bags and go look for some more dry wood. Of course, if the river is still some distance away, then we’ll have to pack up and head towards it. We’ll just have to wait and see.”

As it turned out, we were still a good distance from the river. That meant getting dressed and packing up our gear once again. Dunbar hadn’t found the compound with his drone, although he did come across a small village far to the east and close to the river’s edge. I took note of that. If worse came to worse, we could head for it.

The drizzle stopped about the time the drone returned. More importantly, the cloud cover broke which meant that we could recharge the power pack for the drone while we marched.

We ended up following the valley we were in towards the north-east for much of the day. It was the easiest route and it avoided climbing more hills. It still took us time and effort, and all of us were tired when we made camp that night.

It was while Gloria and I set up camp and Dunbar and Burton were out hunting fresh meat, that we came upon the first sign of the compound and the people who’d been assigned to it. Gloria and I had set up our lean-tos for the night, just as they’d been set up the last couple of nights. We’d stowed our gear in them, putting our packs in one and Dunbar’s and Burton’s in the other and we’d laid out our ground sheets and sleeping bags. When that was done I got to work digging the fire pit trench between the two lean-tos which left Gloria to start looking for firewood. Naturally she had to move away from the camp and into the forest. Anything out in the open was sopping wet. I was just finishing up the fire pit when I heard her call out over my ear piece. Her voice told me that she was rattled.

“Jake,” Gloria called out, her accent heavy as she said my name. “I’ve found something that you need to look at.”

“What is it?” I enquired quickly, putting aside my trenching tool and glancing about as I spoke in the hope of spotting Gloria. “Where are you?”

“I’m in the woods to the right of our line of march,” Gloria replied. “If you head straight for the trees from where we set up camp, you’ll spot a game trail. I’m up it by about two hundred yards. Oh, and I found a skeleton.”

I slung my carbine and headed out, following Gloria’s directions to the letter. I had no problems finding the game track or her, once I’d gotten into the forest and headed uphill. Within minutes I was standing beside her looking down at the skeleton that she’d found and it took me only a second to realize why she’d wanted me to see it. The skeleton, which had obviously been there for a while, was wrapped up in the tattered remains of a sleeping bag. Whoever the person had been before their demise, they had to have come from the compound. Silently noting this, I knelt down beside the remains and I started to check it out.

The skeleton had been secreted under the boughs of a large coniferous tree. The low hanging boughs had protected it from the elements and from any large predators that would have probably scattered the remains during their feeding frenzy, if they’d gotten to the body. That didn’t mean that the skeleton hadn’t been picked clean ages ago, because it had, but it did mean that for the most part the skeleton was complete.

I found enough evidence to make me believe that the skeleton belonged to someone from my Earth. There was a day bag lying under the skeleton that looked like it had been used as a pillow when the person had lain down here just before dying. It was heavily bloodstained, and the fabric of the bag had been chewed at. The bag was bloodstained because whoever the person had been, they’d ended their own life with a bullet in the head. I found a well rusted service pistol lying next to the skeleton, and what was left of the skull showed the telltale signs of an entry wound and a massive exit wound. When I checked the contents of the day bag out, I found a disposable lighter, a rechargeable flashlight, a sealed ration pack, and a rain poncho. Everything was either rusted or chewed upon by small animals, but there was enough evidence left to assure me that my assumption was right.

“So why did this person take their life?” I wondered out loud, glancing over at Gloria as I said the words.

“I looked while I was waiting for you to get here,” Gloria admitted with a hint of awkwardness in her voice. “I got the sleeping bag open to have a look at the whole skeleton. It looks like whoever they were; they’d fallen and broken their leg. It was a very bad break. I guess they couldn’t set it, and couldn’t get back to the compound, and they had no one with them who could help them out.”

I nodded my head in understanding as Gloria explained this. It made sense to a point. My only wonder was, why the individual was out here alone. That was something I never permitted my people to do. Even letting Gloria go off looking for firewood wasn’t technically letting her go off by her own. We were connected by throat mic and radio at all times and if she’d gotten into trouble I would have been there in a matter of seconds to help her out. This person had died alone and I was wondering why.

We ate roasted deer for supper with Dunbar having made the kill this time. While we ate I brought the two men up to speed on what Gloria had found. The news led to a lot of speculation as to what had happened, but that was all it led to, given the lack of more intelligence. Hopefully we would get that soon, when we found the compound. We set up our watch rotation, this time starting with Burton and ending with Gloria, and went to bed.

Dunbar had the drone in the air first thing in the morning, right after breakfast. By then we knew that we were within a mile or so of the river and about eight miles away from the local village that the drone had flown over the day before. Dunbar flew the drone along the course of the river at an altitude that would allow the drone to send a video feed back that included both sides of the river. The drone didn’t find the compound, but we did spot something of interest later when we reviewed the video feed that had been captured by the control unit. Dunbar had let the drone buzz the local village a couple of times so we could see how many people were there and how the village was laid out. To our surprise we spotted an anomaly in the village that became apparent the second time the drone overflew the distant community. We spotted a blonde haired woman amongst a village populated with dark haired members. That sighting set off a few warning bells!

“We have to go rescue her,” Gloria declared once Dunbar and I had finished reviewing the video, and we’d shared the fact that we’d spotted the woman in the village.

“There is no proof that she needs rescuing,” I pointed out, attempting to keep my voice neutral as I told Gloria this, not wanting to get into a pissing match. “Even so, I do think we need to pay that village a visit. If the woman is from the compound, she might be able to tell us where it is.”

“So do we go today,” Dunbar asked out of curiosity, “or do we wait another day so I can scout the river tomorrow morning in the other direction?”

I thought about it for a moment or two and then gave everyone my decision. The village was roughly eight miles away from our present position. At a good pace we could cover that distance in a couple of hours depending on the terrain. At the worst it might take us up to four hours to reach the place, but that would only happen if we ran into problems along the way, and from what the video feed had shown us, besides a few hills to climb up and down, there were no major barriers between us and the village. We could easily make the village by early afternoon, and if all went well we’d have the answers to our questions about where the compound was. I told everyone to pack up and prepare to move. Fifteen minutes later we were on the move.

The trek took roughly two hours. I led the way with Burton bringing up the rear. Most of the travel was through the forest and along animal tracks. When we got to the village, we basically just stepped out of the tree-line and into the community which did cause a bit of a stir.

The locals’ reaction to my presence was instant hostility. I really couldn’t blame them since I’d simply walked in on them without alerting them to my presence. The men of the village grabbed for spears the second they saw me, and they started brandishing them as the women and children who’d been milling about the village ran off in fright. I did spot the blonde woman off to the side of the village and towards the river as I took in the villagers’ response, and instinctively I called out to her.

“Tell them to lower their spears,” I shouted to the woman in English, hoping that she understood me. “If they do, I won’t hurt them. Their village is surrounded.”

That wasn’t the complete truth. I had left everyone else back in the tree-line when I’d stepped into the village, and both Burton and Dunbar had taken up firing positions on either side of me, but technically we didn’t have them surrounded. The woman didn’t know that, and neither did the villagers. Hopefully they’d fall for my ruse.

I got lucky. The woman spoke English and as it became quickly apparent she also spoke the local language. She stammered something to the villagers, which immediately brought the men in the community to a halt. A second after she’d spoken they were glancing about trying to see who else was in the trees. While the men did that, I took the opportunity to speak to the woman again.

“I’m not looking to cause any trouble,” I shouted over to the woman. “I just came here to speak to you. If these villagers can put down their weapons and back off, we can do that.”

The woman looked at me strangely for a moment or two and then stammered something to the men. The men didn’t take too kindly to what the woman said. One of the men shouted at the woman in an angry manner, gesturing to her that she should get over to where the women and children of the village were gathered, while another of the men spouted off at me in his own language, brandishing his spear at me.

“Tell them to let you talk for me,” I told the woman as she started to get up from where she’d been at the time of my arrival. “If they don’t we’re not going to be able to communicate.”

The woman tried. She started saying something to the man who’d been shouting at her, but the man wouldn’t have any of it. He screamed her silent, stomping towards the woman as he did, brandishing his spear as he went. The woman’s reaction was to shut up and cower.

I sighed on seeing this. I hadn’t come here to kill anybody. All I had wanted to do was to talk to the woman and to get a little information out of her. Depending on what the woman ended up telling me, I would have left the village in peace. Now it was becoming obvious that my plan wasn’t going to work.

“Stop!” I shouted in warning, bringing my carbine up and to my shoulder as I did, taking aim at the man.

My cry startled the man and it startled the rest of the men in the community. The response was instantaneous. The man stopped and turned to face me, and even as he did, a couple of his buddies who were standing arrayed against me, decided it was time to turn me into a pin cushion.

They didn’t get the chance. Shots rang out on either side of me, dropping the two attacking men before they’d even taken more than a couple of steps. Their death cries brought the rest of the community up short.

The next thing I knew was that the man who’d been yammering at the woman was now yammering at the man I’d pegged to be the village leader. The first man shouted something a couple of times and he’d thrust his spear in my direction. Unfortunately for the man, whatever he was yammering on about, and I had a pretty good idea what it was, it was falling on deaf ears. The leader was looking at the two dead men and then he was looking at the rest of his community.

I could see what the man was thinking about. It was clear that he didn’t want any more of his people to die. I took advantage of that.

“Tell the chief that I don’t want to kill anyone else, but I will if his people continue to act aggressively towards me,” I shouted at the woman. “Tell him I only want to talk.”

The woman tried to tell the man that. She was able to get a few words out when she was suddenly interrupted by the man that had been yammering earlier. The man let out a bellow of anger that startled everyone, including me. His cry got everyone’s attention. Then without pausing the man hefted his spear and threw it with as much strength that he could muster towards me. It was a stupid move and it got the man killed.

I was a good seventy feet or more from where the man was standing. My eyes were on him and I saw him heft the spear and heave it. The spear went up in the air and I watched it rise, marking its progress as I did. Then I simply stepped to one side. When the spear did come down, it fell short, although not by much.