Chapter 696

The Retreat

After breakfast, Arlene, Ann and Selina gathered enough food to last them the rest of the day.

“Should this not be the correct castle and we continue the search, we will need something to drink with our lunch,” Selina said as she opened a refrigerator.

“There is water available at each station on the interceptor. As for soft drinks, please bring only what you are sure you will drink. Storage space is at a premium,” Arlene told the seven-year-old.

“Bathroom?” Selina asked as she turned to face the young wives.

“We suggest that you go before we leave, just as we will. There are ... facilities onboard our interceptor, but you will not enjoy them,” Ann assured her.

“I am not a child. I will use what you two use, and I will not whimper as would a baby,” she said, her voice tight.

“Sorry, Selina. I didn’t mean to imply anything. It’s just that there is no privacy. It’s something that interceptor crews have to accept as part of the job. We’ll show you how to use the facilities when we’re on board. Hopefully, this will be the correct castle, and we’ll find your Mom and Dad just sitting there waiting for the phone service to come back on.”

Selina put one drink in with the food. “I’ll drink this when we have our lunch, and water the rest of the day should we have to continue our search after we check the castle you have found.”

The three stopped to use the restroom before going out through the garage door and starting toward the fake building.

Selina was in the lead, and as she walked through the wall of the fake building, she stopped to gaze at the interceptors sitting there in neat rows.

Arlene chuckled as she walked on past Selina to approach their interceptor. “Not only does it look real from the outside, but she somehow made room for the interceptors too. Someday, maybe you will fully understand the concept and teach us how she does it.”

Selina shrugged. “Ship is, indeed, teaching me some of her science, but there are things that she says I am not ready for.”

“I’ll bet that went over like a lead balloon,” Ann said as the belly hatch opened and the steps descended. “My time to do the walk-around,” Ann told her partner as she turned away from the other two in order to begin the outer physical inspection of their interceptor.

Arlene smiled at the seven-year-old. “Before you ask, we know that Ship’s mechanicals have inspected the interceptor, but ... Hey, did you see the thing on the news a while back where a passenger jet was losing parts just as it left the runway?”

“Yes,” Selina said. “Not only did it lose parts, but the right engine caught on fire while the airport’s cameras were still recording the airplane’s departure. And I know what you’re going to say. If the pilots had done a proper walk-around, they would have discovered that the service crew had not properly fastened down the engine cowlings after completing their work. When the cowling blew off the right engine, it broke a fuel line which promptly caught the engine on fire. The other engine didn’t catch on fire, but with the way the parts of the cowling were blowing around, it was just a matter of time before something on the engine was damaged or destroyed and caused that engine to stop as well. Everyone aboard was lucky to have survived.

“So, we check everything we can, every time before we launch. Ship’s mechanicals will never make a mistake because she oversees everything that is going on, but we will check every time, anyway. All my aviators do a detailed walk around before launch, and they know that they won’t be on my Wing if they don’t.

“Now come on, Sweetheart. I have things to do before we launch.”

As they entered the crew compartment, the AI, its voice jubilant, said, “Good morning, Arlene. Good morning, Selina, and welcome aboard to our new crew member. It is good to have you aboard today. I hope you will find the trip interesting.”

“Good morning,” Selina returned after a second’s hesitation before going on with, “Please do not even think of treating me as you would a child. I am certainly not a full crew member of this interceptor, but I will do all I can in the search for my parents.”

“Yes, Selina. I apologize. I had no intention of treating you in any way other than as Ship’s official Navigator,” the AI responded. “I was merely stating the facts.”

Selina, having thought the AI was speaking to her as he would a child, blushed furiously. “I stand corrected. I apologize.”

“No apology necessary. You conducted yourself appropriately.”

Arlene fought back a grin and showed Selina where to store her lunch case. “We would normally have a bit more storage room, but we have MREs and bottled water should we meet someone in the secluded areas who might need them.

“Now, let’s get you situated so I can start my checklist. Here,” she said while pointing to an area with a screen and various controls, but there didn’t seem to be a way to sit in front of it. When Arlene gave the order for the jump seat to be activated, a seat moved back from the console and half turned, waiting.

“In an emergency, the jump seat can be used as a second gunner’s position. Your screens are active, but the weapon controls are not.” As soon as Selina sat, the seat turned back to the console and adjusted to her height. Arlene spent a couple of moments showing the child the various views from the cameras and how to use them, but she stopped before her short lecture was complete because Selina had already mastered the controls.

As Arlene went about her computer checklist, Selina, who had long since studied Ship’s information pages on the interceptors, sat looking about the cockpit. When Ann came in, the AI retracted the stairway and sealed the hatch. Ann, Arlene and the AI conferred for a few seconds before declaring the checklists complete and the craft ready to launch.

“Ready, Selina?” Arlene asked from her position as primary pilot.

“I’ve been ready,” Selina returned while barely suppressing a giggle in her nervousness.

“Remember, we have an inertialess drive. This is an interceptor capable of three-quarters light if I push it, and it can cruise at a half-light all day, so I refuse to fly it as if it were a bus.”

When Selina felt the interceptor’s drive come on as well as the artificial gravity, she almost asked if Arlene had forgotten to tell the AI to open the outer hatch of the building, but realized at the last second as the interceptor lifted straight through the illusion. With little more than an eyeblink, Selina’s screens showed them in space with the crescent of the Earth showing.

“I’ve already laid in the coordinates,” Arlene said even as the forest around the castle they had located on the map swelled alarmingly on Selina’s screen.

“We could have traveled at a much lower altitude since air resistance doesn’t bother the inertialess drive, but it’s simpler to go higher and stay clear of any possible aircraft. I went even higher than necessary, so you would have a better view, short though it was.”

“But we still don’t have a place to hide our interceptor while we visit the castle to see if we can learn anything useful,” Ann said as she turned to Arlene.

“Oh, I have that all planned out,” Arlene said as she took over the controls from the AI. A moment later, it became apparent what she was planning.

“But they’ll see the interceptor,” Ann blurted.

“So what? If they have a working TV, they’ve seen both our interceptors as well as the aliens’ Paladins. If they panic and think we’re Miadax, they’ll soon realize their error. Besides, with the communications out at this whole end of the country, there aren’t any phones to call someone else. They’ll soon realize we’re human. By then, reason will have had time to take hold, and we’ll be talking to them.”

“If they aren’t shooting at us by then,” Ann said with a sick chuckle.

A few seconds later, they settled to the ground in the exact center of the castle’s helicopter landing pad.

Dessie and Phillip at The Waterfall Campsite

... Phillip’s body was shaking, and it took a second for her to realize that he was chuckling. He had been relaxed throughout the whole process, while she had sweat beading her forehead. “Oh, You,” she said as she gently whacked him on the shoulder. “I think it was harder on me to take the stitches out than it was on you to have them taken out. Of course, when I stitched you up, there was blood everywhere, and it was scaring me half to death. I suppose that kept my mind off the stitching. But ... amateur or not, those were some very nice stitches. In six months, your scar will be barely discernible,” she bragged.

With the stitches out, Phillip was a lot more comfortable, and it showed. As the weeks rolled by, Dessie continued to fish, hunt rabbits and pheasants and search for food in the overgrown field while Phillip slowly began to come out of the coma and became more responsive.

Eventually, she made it to the trees in the distance, and indeed, they were apple trees, but without care for all those years, there were few apples on them and what was there was far from ripe anyway.

She had devised crude snares that worked to a degree with the rabbits but lesser so with the pheasants. The problem with the rabbits was that once it was caught, she all too frequently had to kill the animal while it stared at her.

Earlier, when Phillip was still in a coma, Dessie had sat staring at the two-wheel cart they had used to bring many of their supplies to their campsite. She had briefly considered the cart when she was deciding how she was going to move Phillip from the landslide to their campsite, but with the large wheels and the narrow frame, she was afraid the cart would overturn and dump her husband, who might well slide or roll all the way down to the stream. Even on reasonably level ground, she couldn’t see how she could get an unconscious man to stay on the thing, since the pull handles came out at an angle, not to mention what would happen to his broken leg. It did a great job of carrying the two pouches filled with their supplies, but there was no way she could strap her husband to it. Too bad, since she might well pull him back to the castle if it would work, and ... if there wasn’t a swamp to cross and a couple of very steep hills to negotiate, not to mention crossing a rushing stream on a downed tree.

Could she take the wheels off and mount them on something similar to the travois? Even if she managed, there was still the same terrain problem to overcome. Besides, without tools, there was no way those wheels were coming off. She turned to look at her husband, who was propped against a nearby tree, and he smiled back at her. He was better, and it appeared that the leg had healed. He could now struggle to a sitting position but still couldn’t talk other than to mumble a few words, and he moved both legs around when he needed to. Still, he wasn’t nearly strong enough to stand, even if he had the coordination — which he did not.

If Phillip could walk, she could take a sufficient number of potatoes to feed them on their trip back. If...