Chapter 205

Bobby and Sandra came back from their bathroom break to find Hope sitting on the couch waiting for them.

"Do you want us to stand here?" Bobby asked as she moved over to the area where the seats had been.

"Not like that," Hope giggled. "Black heels, the higher the better." Then with a blush deepening, "Uh, could you, uh ... like lose those clothes and put on matching thongs, or G-string panties? Enough to cover yourselves, but no more – if you have them," she finished in a rush, her face now approaching cherry red.

Sandra and Bobby looked at each other, their matching grins becoming bigger by the second. "Oh, do we have them," Bobby laughed.

Sandra grabbed Bobby's hand. "Come on. Art's gonna have a stroke when he sees the sketch."

Hope could barely hold back a giggle. "Might want to add a touch of makeup. I'll be using my color pencils."

A couple of minutes later, the bedroom door popped open enough for Bobby to stick her head out. "How long will this take?"

"Probably most of the afternoon. I don't really know. I've never done what I plan to do today."

"Okay. We've called Arlene and asked her to bring us some sandwich fixings. If we're not back when she leaves, lock the door after her. We have no idea when Art will be back, but I'm sure you wouldn't want him to see the sketch before it's finished."

A few moments later, a grinning Arlene pushed a serving cart in, said, "Enjoy," and left.

Hope, barely suppressing the giggles that seemed to want to overcome her, locked the door after the young Queen and thought, This is going to be fun.

A little earlier, Van had gotten Ben Aldridge on the phone. "How about eating lunch with us?"

"Sure. You know I've always loved your woman's cooking," his neighbor said. "About noon?"

"That would be perfect. You ready to sign on the deal?"

"What? Well sure, but it took two weeks to get the title search and the paperwork done when I bought the place. How'd you get it done so quick?"

"Don't ask me; I have no idea. I told you about borrowing the money from a friend. His lawyer and accountant are taking care of that. The lawyer just called and said he was ready. They'll be here at one to do the paperwork and transfer the money into your account."

"They're coming out here? Never heard of such. I thought you always had to go in to see them."

"I think Jeff has a bit of pull," Van dryly returned.

"Hot damn. That sounds great. I'm anxious to get to my son's. This is damn fine news. Uh, I've got a lot of furniture in this big old house. I'm thinking about renting the biggest U-Haul my pickup will pull and taking what furniture I can. I'll leave the rest so your son will have something to start out with."

"Unh uh. There will be a moving company taking care of all your furniture, and the moving is already paid for. They're gonna get your car and pickup to your son's, too. All you have to do is pack the clothes you want to take on the plane with you. The moving people will do the rest. You have a place to store your furniture when it gets there?"

"Yeah. Hal's got several big barns that I can store my excess stuff in, but I want to sleep on my own bed. Who knows, I might build a house one of these days. Did you say something about a plane?"

"Yeah. Ever flown first-class?"

"Hell, " Ben laughed. "I've never flown, period. I'd be scared shitless. And besides that, a moving company will cost a ton of money. I know for a fact you ain't got it to throw away, and paying for my move was never discussed..."

"It's a done deal, Ben. Part of the price for your farm, equipment and animals. And just a little bit of a thank you for all the things you did for me and my family over the years. Now get your butt over here so we can shoot the bull for a while before lunch. I'm gonna miss you being next door."

"Shit, Van. The animals and equipment came as part of the price. You knew that from the beginning, but ... I don't know how to thank you."

"Just get your butt over here so we can have a long talk face to face one more time. I bought you a little going away present and I need to get you up to speed on it."

Van had bought his old friend a top-of-the-line laptop with a large screen so they could keep in touch and see each other while they were doing it.

"In a way, I hate to leave, but my son and daughter-in-law want me to live on their ranch so they can take care of me. And I sure want to be around the grandkids. Bet it's gonna be good for you to have your boy back home again. Oh yeah, I talked to Hal this morning. He says to tell you hello and to remind you that you and your family are always welcome to visit. And he ain't just talking through his hat; he means it."

"We'll all see each other again, Ben. You can bet on that. Now get over here so we can do some planning."

Jeff stood looking down at the cases of ball bearings on Security's dock.

"Three-eights to two inches, an equal amount of case hardened steel, and tungsten carbide balls," Mayfield said. Before Jeff could comment on how many of the balls the Lieutenant had ordered, Mayfield continued, "The General got into the process and apparently multiplied everything by ten." Then with a grin, "Guess you need to learn how to be a machine gun."

"Very funny," Jeff groused. "I'm still at the stage where I'm trying to keep from killing myself."

"That your new and improved launcher?" Mayfield asked, nodding to the dowel in Jeff's hand.

"Yeah," the Prime laughed. "This is just a basic prototype until I learn what I'm doing. No use in anything decent, yet. I'm afraid at this point that I'll accidentally destroy it when I launch the ball. But Dave and I have been talking about a repeating launcher, if I manage to get better."

Jeff indicated four cases of the balls: half inch and three-quarter inch in both types of hardness. "We'll take these. I think I'll leave the larger ones until I learn more control."

Carter grabbed two of the cases as if they weighed nothing, and two of the Security troopers took a case each. When an ATV was loaded with the steel balls, Jeff stepped aboard another ATV with the Lieutenant, and they were off, a trail of Security ATV's and snowmobiles following.

"Do we need all of them?" Jeff groused, jerking his head toward the troops following, "It feels like a parade."

Mayfield couldn't help but chuckle. "Surely, you're not going to deny them the demonstration, Colonel?"

"The 'demonstration' might very well be me just making a fool out of myself. I've done this exactly twice. The first time, I took out a piece of molding above my living room window, and the second time I almost blew us all up, according to Little One. It scares me to think that I considered pushing the ball bearing hard. If my math is correct, this whole area might have been a radioactive hole this morning."

Amazing Jeff, Mayfield laughed. "Well, I've heard it said that your team would follow you into Hell. By the way, most of them are already at the range waiting for you."

Jeff tried to glare at Mayfield, but couldn't seem to get rid of his grin long enough to do it.

The Prime stood in the shooting area looking around, impressed. When they had started down into the crevasse where the rifle range was located, the Prime's sharp eyes had picked out the shooting house, and after a moment, had identified the targets as well, but he doubted if satellite cameras would notice anything. The top and sides of the shooting house looked like the rest of the area – just rock-strewn rubble.

They parked the vehicles under a seemingly natural overhang that had what amounted to a large cave carved into the wall of the crevasse behind the overhang. Satellite imaging could only happen from almost directly overhead because the crevasse was narrow and fairly deep.

Jeff glanced around, noting the various screens focused on a variety of targets positioned from twenty-five meters out to a thousand. All were automated and required little from range personnel. There was sophisticated sound baffling in the shooting house, even though it was mostly open on the front side.

Jeff turned to a smiling Mayfield. "You've done one hell of a lot of work since I've been out here. I'm impressed."

But Mayfield denied the credit. "Not me, Colonel. The General has practically inundated us with the latest technology to set things up, not to even mention personnel to do the work. Sometimes, I think he's a little disappointed that I don't order more than I do. He expands on everything I request. 'Nothing is too good for the Colonel, ' is what he tells me."

He doesn't want anything to happen to his starship driver, Jeff thought, but quickly admonished himself, knowing that the General meant well. Hell, he's not only protecting me, but my family, also.

Jeff sat at one of the shooting "consoles" as Mayfield referred to them. The Lieutenant, apparently somewhat embarrassed, quickly said, "I ordered a long shooting table that would go completely across the front of the house. What I got were these," he laughed. "With a flick of a remote, you can make them into one long shooting bench, or you can divide it into sections, any of which will move out of the way." He demonstrated to show pads, or rests, rising up from within the console to accept a rifle or handgun. No bother with sandbags or such. "No need for a spotting scope, either," Mayfield added as a screen focused on the thousand yard target swung lower to give a perfect close-up picture of the distant target.

The Lieutenant showed Jeff the remote. "Touch this button and the mechanism changes the target."

Jeff put on his shooting glasses and earphones. "I doubt if we'll have much use of that button for the time being," he said with a chuckle as he opened a box of the three-quarter inch balls, took one out and waited.

The range Sergeant standing directly behind him bellowed out, "Ears. Eyes. Ready on the right. Ready on the left." After a short pause, "Ready on the firing line ... The line is HOT! Fire at will, Colonel."

Feeling ridiculous, Jeff held his dowel vertically, nestled the steel ball into the golf tee, eased in a calming breath, took aim at the distant target and gently pushed. There was a rolling "crack" of sound, a flash of intense light, and a pile of rocks at the end of the crevasse and well to the right of the target rearranged themselves into much smaller rocks. When the plume of rock dust cleared, and chunks of rocks stopped falling, Jeff let out a quiet, "Shit."

Most everyone there had already said the same thing, but the others had a quite different meaning. Jeff was pissed because he missed the target so widely; the others were impressed with the violence of the event.

The Range Sergeant stepped forward to offer, "Perhaps a little spin on the ball, Sir, to give it some stabilization."

"That was with spin," Jeff quietly said, despite his mood being not at all calm just then. "Or rather, I tried to," he added. "The damn thing was gone before I could do anything to it." As he focused on his launcher, "And my golf tee as well," he added. Then to himself, I guess Dave had a good idea. Looks like I'm going to use up a lot of tees until I get the hang of this – if ... I get the hang of this.

Jeff turned the launcher over and shook out the spike of the destroyed tee, slipped another tee into place, and tucked another steel ball into position. Concentrating on making the ball spin, he carefully opened the energy gate. A flash of blinding white light, possibly with a faint violet hue, a "crack," and the target still stood pristine after an explosion at the end of the crevasse. The missile had gone high and to the left.

"It's like a hand-held antitank missile on steroids," Mayfield commented.