Chapter 425

Ship’s Space Academy

... Camp interrupted yet again, his voice louder. “He thinks he can, and by damn, if he believes it, so do I.”

“Shit!” Worthington snarled, but what Camp said about going back with their tails between their legs really worried him. Frantically, he set about planning his strategy.

“Launch in ten seconds. 10... 9... “ the carrier’s AI announced loudly enough to wake the dead.

As soon as they cleared the bay doors, Worthington maxed the throttles and left like the hounds of hell were after them. As far as he was concerned, they were.

“What the fuck?” Camp hissed while staring at his screens, then at his partner as their course continued in a straight line away from the carrier, on and on.

“Sit tight. I’m going to give us some room so we can see that bastard coming.”

“But...”

“I know that fucker can outmaneuver me,” Worthington snarled, his voice tight as his gaze jumped from one screen to the other. “I fucking hate to admit it, but I agree with what you said. He always wins. Also, like you said, he thinks he can win, and you think he can, and by damn, I suppose he can. So screw the maneuvering. We’re gonna make him come to us. You sure our stealth is on and operating properly?”

“Yeah, but you know it only limits the distance he can detect us, and it works the same way for us. Hopefully, the aliens’ detection equipment isn’t on a par with ours.” There was a pause, “Wait, he just came within range. He’s roughly two hundred clicks out and seems to be pacing us.”

Instead of answering directly, the pilot said, “The instructor didn’t put a time limit on us. Everybody thinks the Colonel is death to any adversary, and right now, we’re his adversaries. Besides, I’m beginning to think you’re right. I fucking hate to admit it, but those young wives of his are a hell of a lot better at this than we are, and ... I fucking don’t want to be cut. I’ve never failed at anything I’ve ever tried... ever. And by damn, I’m not going to fail at this, either. What I’ve been doing hasn’t worked, so I’m going to try something new. You with me?“

Camp hesitated before saying, “He’s flying a two-man interceptor. That should limit him to forward guns only, but the guy is too confident. Fuck, he keeps telling us to put on our A game. He isn’t stupid, so I suspect that somehow, he’s going to be able to operate all his guns. Again, I hate to admit it, but with the way his wives took us apart, I’m afraid he’s going to be even better.” There was another hesitation as they both continued to watch their screens and the blurry dot that represented the Colonel’s interceptor.

Another minute went by. “How long are you going to run?” But Worthington didn’t answer. A couple of minutes of silence between the two, and Camp asked louder, frustration obvious in his voice, “When are you going to engage? I don’t want to be labeled a fucking coward. The interceptors are identical. No way can we outrun him.”

“No,” Worthington quietly said. Then in a stronger voice, “I want you to fire at a rate that our generators will continue to support. We don’t want to be without guns – not even for a second.”

“So what are you...”

“I’m going to fly right down his throat. In a head on, we stand just as good a chance as he does.”

“He’ll maneuver...”

“ ... And so will we, but we’re not going to run this time. Those girls have proven they can outmaneuver us, and I’m not going to learn the hard way that he can, too.” Then after another pause, while they both thought about being cut, “You ready?”

“No sweeping turns,” Camp began, but Worthington had already spun them around on their axis and was heading for the Colonel’s interceptor at maximum velocity.

A few seconds later, “Get ready. We’re coming within range,” Worthington said through locked teeth.

“He’s firing,” Camp screamed as he tried to lock onto the jinking image on his guns’ screen. Then after a pause as he struggled with his gun’s controls, “I can’t get a fucking lock...” he hissed out.

“Fire anyfuckingway,” Worthington yelled out even as a bolt from the Colonel’s interceptor barely touched their screens, causing an eerie screeching sound as its energy glanced away.

“With us jinking, and him jinking, too, I can’t fucking hit anything.”

“Keep fucking firing, we’ll be coming down his throat in another few seconds,” Worthington yelled.

The Colonel’s interceptor wasn’t just jinking up and down, but randomly from side to side as well.

“Wham,” one of the Colonel’s bolts hit Worthington and Camp’s craft head-on, then a second later, another passed near enough to again screech as it was deflected away from their shields.

Worthington changed direction, then did it another five times before he instantly spun about and bounced back toward where the Colonel’s interceptor had been.

Jeff, in his interceptor, grinned as he operated his guns with his TK. Well, he thought, looks like they finally woke up. If they keep this up for another six months of training, I might let them go after the aliens.

After a prolonged period of maneuvering, Jeff got a lock on the other craft and decided to finish the battle.

“Wham. Wham!”

And in the midst of it, Camp got in another hit on his adversary, but then the world exploded around them as bolt after bolt rained down on them.

“Ah, phfuckkkk,” Worthington moaned as he tried to speak past numb lips and tongue yet again.

Camp just remained silent until his nerves quit jangling and his mouth began to work properly. “I hit him three times,” he said, amazed. “True, they were spaced out, so his shields had no problem repulsing them, but by damn, I did hit him.”

“Well, you lasted ten whole minutes this time,” the instructor snarled over the intercom, sarcastically. “And you got in three solid hits, but ... unfortunately for you, the hits were spaced over minutes and didn’t bother the Colonel a bit. Hell, I suspect he let you get those in.” There was a long pause before the instructor continued as if it pained him to the core to say, “The Colonel sends his compliments. You did well. But he advised you to keep practicing your jinking, because you become somewhat predictable over time.”

The two aviators stared at each other. “No shit,” Worthington whispered, amazed. “He fucking bragged on us.”

But much to his chagrin, the instructor had been listening. “The Colonel did add that you were both much too arrogant to ever be number one in this class.”

That brought total silence inside the simulator.

The Prison Planet

Breakfast over, Morales pulled the bars aside to allow Gertrude and her brood to go out to their fenced in area. After picking up his crossbow and quiver, he started to follow so he could open the gate for them when he noticed Abigail and Hortense. Both hens had moved as far toward the barrier as their tethers would allow, and ... he could swear they were looking pleadingly at him.

“Ladies, I’m afraid to turn you loose just yet. I don’t want to risk losing you.”

They looked at him as he spoke, then both pulled on their tethers again, stretching out as far as they could toward the barrier and outside. He turned back toward the passageway and had taken a step when he realized that Gertrude, surrounded by her chicks, had stopped and was looking back at him.

“I can’t risk losing them,” he said aloud, then chided himself mentally for trying to explain to a chicken. Then, “Ah, fuck it.” Before he could change his mind, he let his crossbow hang from its lanyard, picked up Hortense and cut the knot on her tether, put her down and did the same for Abigail. “Come on, Ladies,” he called over his shoulder as he motioned Gertrude and her chicks on out the passageway.

He was almost afraid to look behind him, thinking the new hens might already have left for the valley, but when he pulled the brush gate aside, Gertrude herded them in with her brood. He stood watching for a moment as all the chickens began scratching in the soft soil, Abigail and Hortense making the quiet puck, puck, pucking sound that he had already decided meant contentment. “If you leave,” he told the new hens, “you won’t eat as well as you have since I brought you here, not to mention having to watch for predators all the time.”

“Shit,” he mumbled as he closed the brush gate and, turning, bumped into Lobo, who was standing directly behind Morales staring at the chickens. “Oops. Sorry, Lobo.” Then with a sigh, “I guess I’ve gotten soft. Ten to one, they’ll be flying over the fence and headed for the valley before noon.”

Lobo chuffed at him before making an exploratory circle around the area.

He hadn’t charged his batteries in a few days, so he went back inside to get his solar chargers for his lantern and computer batteries. When the equipment was set up atop the big rock above the cave, he gathered up his saws and axe, taking them to the tree he had downed.

After he had the first section cut from the trunk, he used long poles to raise it clear of the ground a bit so the tip of his saw wouldn’t hit the dirt, scotched the section so it wouldn’t roll and began the monotonous and tiring job of sawing it into the dimensions he had in mind.

It was warm, especially with the heavy work, so as he usually did when sawing out boards, he slipped his shirt off. By midday, he thought he had most of what he would need. Itching from the sawdust and sweat, he walked down to the stream to wash the grime off his upper body in the cold water.

Must be cold in the mountains already, he thought yet again. Fall is here for sure and I suspect winter will be, shortly. Will I be ready? That cave bear has been around a couple of times. Will I be ready for his visit if he decides to come into the cave? And what the hell did Lobo smell? He seems to think that whatever it was had entered the cave. But that just can’t be. The bars were still up.

Yet again, his mind toyed with the problem. The only logical thing left is that it was a man. But dammit, there were no tracks in the soft soil of the woods around the cave. Sure, the ground inside and the entrance is too hard for tracks to show, but whoever it was would have had to have left tracks in the surrounding woods. And even if they somehow didn’t, Lobo should have been able to follow the visitor’s scent trail – but, dammit, he couldn’t. The whole thing just doesn’t fucking make sense.

With his shirt back on, he spent the next several minutes carrying the heavy pieces into the cave. “I still need a center pole,” he told Lobo. “But there are plenty of trees that size where I got the logs for my front wall. Hmmm, I’ll need about five feet above ground, and I can dig a hole three feet deep for the base pole to sit in. So eight feet in length should do it. That’ll be easier than the longer logs I used on the wall. But that’s a job for tomorrow morning. I’m still going to bring in the rest of the oats first.”

Sawing had made him even hungrier than usual, so he had a big lunch of ham and potatoes, then put a pot of dried beans on to soak while he was in the valley. Later in the day, he would start them cooking when he brought in a load of oats.

Roughly half way to the field, Lobo alerted, but Morales realized that the wolf was not signaling danger. He had no idea just how he knew that, but the silent communication between the two had progressed with Morales hardly realizing it. “What is it, Boy?” he asked barely audibly as he silently released the pull handle of the cases and brought his crossbow around on its lanyard.