Chapter 25

When I woke up the next morning I somehow felt like a large weight had been removed from my chest. I felt very good from a night of restful sleep and from something else. I just couldn't put my finger on it. At least until I went in to take a shower. On my shoulder was a bite mark. I put my robe on and went back into my room and checked the bed. As a kid I had experienced 'wet' dreams or nocturnal emissions as they were also called and knew what to look for. There was nothing of that sort staining the sheets. I returned to the shower and was certain that sometime during the night I had engaged in sexual activity with someone. The signs were too definite. I didn't know whether to be pissed or flattered.

After cleaning up I dressed and left the hospital. I ate a quick breakfast and walked over to the vehicle yard. I checked out one of the small hovers and took it out. There's a river not far from where we had made our camp. Up stream a couple of klicks there're several big shade trees growing beside it. While they look something like Oaks I don't know what kind of trees they are, they're native to the planet. They smell good and provide shade so I used them.

I sat on the bank and tossed rocks in the water. There was a small gravel bed there so there was plenty of ammunition. I would think a while and throw a rock or two and then start all over. I had been there for a while when I heard a voice ask. "May I join you?"

Without even turning around I answered him. "No, Doc you can't. You can leave me alone. Right now I don't want to see you, hear you or even think about you. That was a rotten thing you did to me last night and I'm sorry but I can't forgive you for it. Not right now. I don't want to hear any of your shrink bullshit, so just leave."

"Mick, it wasn't me. It was something the girls decided on their own," he said as he was leaving.

I stayed there until dusk. I was running out of rocks to throw. Not only that I was starting to get hungry and I was thirsty for something other than water.

I took the hover back to the vehicle yard and went to the mess hall. They were still serving so I could get something to eat. After that I went to my quarters and stretched out on the sofa and did some more thinking. Someone knocked on my door. The knock was so light I nearly missed it. I jerked the door open expecting several people but not the person who was there. She just stood there looking at me. She didn't say anything, not out loud. Her eyes spoke lots of things, there was an ache in them I'd never seen before. I moved out of the door and went back to the sofa. She stepped in and closed the door.

"Why?" that's all I could think to ask.

"Because you needed me, Mick. You need to come back to life. You're the most frustrating man on this base. You speak to us, you're polite to us but you never see us as women. We don't exist to you. It's like you're dead inside. I don't think there's a single unmarried woman on this base that you know is alive. You flirt outrageously with all the married women because they're safe, they're spoken for. But to all of us single females you're polite, you're courteous and you ignore us. Us as people. Us as individuals who could share things with you. You're frustrating as hell!"

"You're wrong. There's one. She has a deep husky voice that made me come back from the dead just to find out who she was. She makes me tingle down deep just to listen to her talk. She's pretty without making a big thing of it. She's intelligent which is more important. She's well read, has a sense of humor and is very caring."

"Did you ever tell her that? Don't you think she might like to hear what you think? That she might care what you think about her?"

"I don't know how to talk to attractive females. Hell, I don't know how to talk to unattractive females when I get passed the Blarney."

She looked up at me with her eyes so big and brown and so full of tears. "You big dummy. You just take her in your arms and tell her what you just said." Then she hit me on the arm.

I took her in my arms and looked into those big eyes full of tears and said, "Jade, you make me tingle all over when I listen to you talk. I think you are very attractive and funny and very caring."

In a voice that was between a laugh and a cry she asked, "What was so hard about that?" Then standing on tip toes she kissed me. Jade kissed me, not Marci and I knew the difference. I didn't want her to do all the work so I helped her by doing my part as well.

An hour or so later we were still cuddling on the sofa talking when someone started to bang on the door. "Mick, are you in there? You have to come back to the hospital."

"Not tonight Doc. I'll see you in the morning."

"But Mick, we need to hook you up and monitor you. We think we know where the sending is coming from."

"Not tonight Doc. They're not coming back. I told them not to return last night."

"Mick, this is ridiculous. Open the door."

Before I could say anything Jade spoke up. "Doc if you don't leave us alone I'll tell everyone on the base what J.J. really stands for. We'll see you in the morning."

"Jade? Is that you?"

"Yes, Doc. Good night, Doc. We'll see you in the morning."

"Ok, you win."

"I knew I would, Doc. Tell Jasmine and Rena where I am and that I hooked him."

We could hear Doc muttering to himself as he left. Soon it was all quiet again. "What's this 'hooked him' business. Am I a fish?"

"You're a lot of things. You're a little boy, a warrior, a man lost, but a fish? No, not that. I was coming in the door when Jasmine hugged you yesterday. I was coming in to check on you but didn't want to interrupt. I just wanted it to be me and not her you were hugging. I heard the answer you gave her to her question. I also heard you talking to Doc last evening. That's why I came back later."

"Mick, you aren't the only one who has looked from afar. I've known who you were for a long time. When we were on Tortuga you gave me your jacket so I could cover up after Doc had purchased us. We didn't know then what was going to happen to us but you treated us all politely, with courtesy, dignity and even better, compassion. You made us feel important by the way you treated us. And you weren't doing it for what you could get from us. You just did it. You made me curious about this very polite, very distant man who helps abused females."

"So I asked Doc about you. He told me a little. He told me about your girlfriend and how she got killed. And I watched. I watched you get into one impossible scrape after another and some how come out of them alive. You nearly got killed on Cate's Hole not once but twice. Then on Dindatari you start strafing Dropships in a LAM. Aerospace fighters can get away with that, they're faster but not LAMs. Then you go charging off to save Doc, not really knowing what you were facing, just that he was in trouble."

"Mick, you have a death wish. You lost your fiancee and you were looking to die also. You couldn't commit suicide so you placed yourself in impossible, suicidal situations and claimed you were taking care of your troops. They bought it but I don't. It's time you started to think about living not dying. Think about yourself not your Dad or your Brothers. You're not building that empire of yours for anyone but Sean. I know it and you know it if you would be honest with yourself."

"That's why I say you're a man lost. And only a Warrior could have come through those crazy situations alive. The little boy part is simple also. It's the twinkle in your eye, the sound in your voice and the expression on your face when you relax enough to let someone get a glimpse behind your wall."

"Mick, I love you, you big dummy and I don't want you killing yourself because of someone who's been dead for four years. Stay alive. Be alive with me, please." The tears were back and the ache was in her eyes again. I had tears also. They were burning my eyes and my throat.

"Jade, Jade, lovely Jade. I don't deserve someone as lovely as you, as sweet as you or as caring as you."

Scrambling to her feet she pulled on my arm. "You big dumb Scotsman. You got me whether you deserve me or not. Now come in here and make love to me. Not to her but to me. Call my name out and know it's me that's with you."

Laughing I got to my feet and joined her in the other room. I undressed and gathered her up and carried her to the shower. Together we took a slow, warm shower and I soaped her all over and rinsed the foam away. We dried each other off and then laid down on the bed. We played and discovered things about one another and just enjoyed being together. I traced the scar she had on her back and kissed every centimeter. We talked and cuddled and nestled and smooched. We laughed and talked some more and did all the things that lovers do when they're together and much, much later we made love. Slowly, with lots of feeling.

When the sun rose I felt like I'd had days of sleep instead of just a couple of hours. I had an appetite and slipped out of bed to raided the food bin to see what if anything was available. There was little food in the quarters as I took most of my meals at the mess hall now. I hadn't had a reason to cook. There was no one to share it with. That would change as soon as I could get some food in the house. I showered and cleaned up. When I went in to waken her, she was gone. I wasn't dreaming. The pillow she had used still had the dent from her head.

I ate breakfast and went to the hospital. Rena was all smiles when I walked in. "Where is she?" I asked.

"She's in quarters getting ready for a new day. She took nothing with her last night and didn't want you to see her as she looks in the morning."

"Women are beautiful in the morning. Just like they are any other time, Rena. Is Doc up yet?"

"Yes, he's in his office. He wasn't happy last night when he came back from your quarters. He was much disturbed about something."

"About me not coming back with him and probably about Jade being with me. Thank you. I'll go on back and see him."

I did. I went back and knocked on his door and he growled. "I can always come back some other time, Doc. It doesn't matter to me."

"Mick? Is that you? Get in here." I walked in and he was going over some kind of narrow paper with squiggly lines on it. "I was just going over your read out from night before last again, what there is of it. Someone turned the monitor off for nearly an hour and a half."

"Good. You didn't need to see that part anyway. That wasn't what you were supposed to be monitoring."

"Yeah, but this one is even different than the other one. I don't understand it. There are high peaks but nothing like before. The Zeta waves are fairly steady but the Epsilon waves run riot again this time."

"Doc, I wasn't scared. This time I was pissed and I blew them up. I wasn't in my Mech, I was walking in the meadow dressed like I am now. I could feel the sun, the breeze. I could smell the flowers and hear the birds. When the tanks attacked I could hear them. I pointed my finger at them and blew up three and the track off of a fourth one. I told them not to come back or I would blow them all up the next time. Doc, I didn't have any dreams last night. Not any scary ones anyway."

"Mick, you wouldn't have recognized a scary dream last night if it bit you. Why did you point your finger at them? How did you blow them up?"

"I don't know why I did it, Doc. In dreams you do a lot of things that don't make sense. All I know is something told me to point my finger at them. I then thought 'fire' and fire shot from my finger and hit the tanks. It worked like my PPCs were supposed to work but didn't. I fired four times and hit each time. I blew a turret off the largest one and one of the middle sized ones. I blew up a little one and hit the second middle sized one dead on and blew the track off the right side. I don't know how or why, just something inside me said do it and it worked." I sat looking at him trying to make sense of what I had just told him. He was having as hard a time with it as I had.

"I thought about that a lot yesterday. Whoever is sending me these pictures, thoughts, what ever you want to call them was also trying to tell me how to stop them. This is going to sound even crazier than the other stuff. Those tanks are thought protected. Fear strengthens their armor and weakens our weapons."

"It starts in a very pastoral setting, everything to make you calm and mellow. Then suddenly something big and deadly intrudes on this scene and threatens you. You react with normal fight or flight response and it weakens you while strengthening them. You fire at them and your weapons don't do as much damage as you expected so your fear and concern increases. The next shot does even less damage because you've strengthened their armor with your fear. It's a vicious circle. The more you're afraid the stronger they get. I don't know if that is normal dreaming or if that was being transmitted or sent also."

"I wasn't afraid, I was pissed. How dare they interrupt me when I am enjoying a peaceful setting like this. I 'fired' at them and did great amounts of damage. Their armor was weak, my weapons were strong and they lost."

"If these things are real then anger and rage are what will defeat them, not weapons. Doc, I told you it was going to sound crazy."

"It does, but it sounds just crazy enough to be what might work. Mick, we still don't know what all the brain is capable of doing. We have powers in our mind that we don't know how to control, how to turn on or even that we have them."

"We did track a signal. It was faint and very indistinct but it was a Zeta, Epsilon signal. It came from outward. From somewhere further out than we are. It very well could be that you were part of another experiment to see how we humans would react to danger as they perceived it. They were pleased when you couldn't fight them and now that you know how, they have stayed away like you told them to do. If they are the same ones who told you how to fight, how to fight them, they'll be back. If it was a different 'person' then he'll be back."

"I thought you said you couldn't track them."

"Normally we can't but Karuska has been working with Zeta, Epsilon waves trying to modify Mechs to be controlled mentally so that some of our handicapped people can pilot them. Zeke remembered a unit he had over at R&D and brought it over here. We set it up and were able to get a faint trace night before last. By fine tuning it we were hoping to zero in better last night but our receiver took the night off. With no receiver we had nothing to track."

"Ok. I'll make a deal with you. Every other night for the next week I'll spend here hooked up to all your gadgets and let you use me for a receiver. The other nights I get to spend in my quarters without all your gadgets, no monitors, no nothing. At the end of the week I go back to work. Deal?"

"Let me talk to Zeke. If he goes for it so will I. Come back after supper and I'll let you know. Oh, by the way. Did you know that today is Jade's day off? I don't think she knew it either. Why don't you take her on a picnic or something."

I looked at him a moment with a lump in my throat. "Thank you, my friend. I'll do that."

I walked out the door and bellowed, "Jade, me sweet darling. Where are ya hiding? If it's a good spot can I hide in there with ya?"

She came running. "Will you be quiet! There are sick people here you know."

"It's your day off and Doc said to take you on a picnic. I'll pick you up in fifteen minutes. Don't be late or I'll go without you!"

She stood there in total surprise.

"By the way. Have I told you this morning, I love you?"

She jumped into my arms, starched uniform and all. "No you big lummox, you haven't." and kissed me.

When we came up for air there was a round of applause. Many of the doors had people standing in them, bandages and all. Most of them knew me. "Hey, Colonel," one called. "If I yell for her like you did and tell her I love her too, do you think I could get a kiss like that?"

"I sure hope not. Leave a man to a little joy will ya."

We didn't go on a picnic, at least not the kind normally thought of as a picnic. I took her home to St. Andrews. I showed her around the manor that Dad and I had been building. We all three have suites that are more like apartments and share the living room, dining room, kitchen and the rest of the house. There's a large barn with livestock, a small Mech facility, implement shed and all the other buildings you would expect on a farm along with eight or ten smaller homes for the families who work there and also a large barracks style building for the single workers. There were several fortified gun turrets but that was to be expected on a new planet like ours.

After showing her the main things we returned to the house where I excused myself after taking her to the library and went to the office as Dad needed me for something.

"She seems to be very nice, Son." was all he said about Jade when I joined him. The business took about twenty minutes and I returned to find Jade and Kathleen talking and giggling like two young school girls.

"And just what wild, wicked stories have ya been filling her head with Katie me Darling? Jade you have to be nice to her or she'll put the curse of the Banshee on you. I haven't found out just what that curse is but I've been threatened by it many times."

"Nun 'o that Katie me Darling stuff from ya young Michael. I might nut put the Banshee curse on ya but I'll put the curse 'o me hand on ya backside and I still can even if ya be grown all tall and handsome. Now take yaself off, we be talkin gurl talk and donna need the likes 'o ya here."

Raising my hands in total defeat I withdrew. "I'll be upstairs if I needed."

I left the door open and was working at the desk. There were several things that Dad had routed to my terminal that I needed to catch up on and make some decisions on. It must have been an hour or so later that I looked up and found her sitting in a chair just watching me. "How long have you been here? You should have said something."

"I was just watching, you were engrossed in what you were doing. I was watching the different facial mannerisms you use when you're problem solving. That Kathleen is quite a person, isn't she?"

"She is that! She joined the folks when Denny was a new born and has been with us ever since. Dad's tried to retire her a couple of times but she refuses. When they came here she packed up her things and insisted on coming along. She wanted to know 'jest who do ya think will take care 'o the likes 'o ya two if I donna'. When Mom died she took over the running of the household. In fact she'd been running it for a while because Mom had been sick a lot. Katie would check with her but she ran the place. It was easier slipping by Mom and Dad when we were growing up than it was slipping by Katie. Yeah, Katie's quite a person."