Chapter 5

I asked Inks a lot of questions as we walked back to his hut. Most of the questions were fed to me by Leader Och-Cher. By the time we got back, the scientists had all the information they were looking for so Amy and I bid the natives goodbye and walked of into the sunset.

We were transported back to the base camp as soon as we were out of sight of Inks' family. The first thing Och did when we arrived was to hand us a personal transporter field dampener each. This was to keep us from being kidnapped by the bad guys who were bringing in the blunta.

The scientists had the answer to their questions about why the humans disappeared, so their part of the project was complete. We all met to discus what the scientists were going to do next. I knew that I wanted to catch the bastards who were trying to kill off the natives, and I was sure the rest of the Retro Team felt the same way. But I wasn't sure that we should endanger the scientists; after all, they didn't have our special capabilities.

I was able to convince them that they should go back to their homes and let us "professionals" handle the villains. We did ask them to leave behind the equipment and supplies we could use and they agreed. I also asked to talk to the operating technicians about staying with us; if they would stay, it would make our job a whole lot easier.

The technicians, to a being, agreed to stay and help. They shipped out the scientists and we set about trapping the bad guys. Our plan was to gather up the remaining humans into one community where we could protect them. We figured that we could block them from transporting in any more blunta and force them to show up in person. If we could do that, we should be able to capture one and finally find out who and what we were dealing with.

The part of the plan I was unhappy with was that we would have to represent ourselves as gods so that we could calm their fears of being transported. We simply couldn't wait for them to walk to an assembly point because we couldn't protect them while they were widely dispersed.

We sent out the drones to find people we could talk to. We started with Inks' family, since we knew where to find them. Amy and I were jumped to their location and startled them as we popped into their midst. Amy and I held up our hands to show our peaceful intentions. "Please listen to us, Inks. Amy and I want to help you get rid of the devil dogs forever. I'm sorry that we lied to you earlier about our relationship to the gods. We are not gods, but we serve the gods in a war with the creatures who are sending the devil dogs. We want to move you to a safer place where the devil dogs will have a much harder time finding you. When this is over, we will return you to wherever you want to go. Will you join us?"

"I don't see any other thing we can do. You have proved your friendship so I will trust you. When will we move?"

"Right now!" I answered. At that moment, Inks, his family, and all his possessions were moved to a place close to our base.

"Your power is awe inspiring! I didn't know such power was in the hands of even the gods! We will do anything you say!" Inks fell to his knees.

I took his hands and raised him to a standing position. "Right now, there is nothing you need to do, but we will need your help, later. Go on with your lives as you normally would, but wear this talisman and give one to each member of your family. The talisman will help protect you from the devil dogs, though it is not full protection." The talisman, of course, was a personal transporter field shield.

The drones were able to find 97 more families and we were able to move them to be with Inks over the next few days. This cleared out the countryside for a 100 mile radius. Once we had everybody safely relocated, we started forming a militia. We recruited both men and women into the militia, explaining that the gods wanted them to set aside their traditional attitudes and train together to fight the demons. We got recoil compensated semiautomatic shotguns firing #4 buckshot in 16-gauge for every member of the militia.

The very old were to take care of the young while everybody else fought the demons. This gave us a fighting complement of 274 soldiers, all eager to fight. We did some intensive training in proper use of the shotguns and defensive tactics. We were lucky that one of our technicians had some military training and was willing to take over the training chores. It was easy for him to get his students attention, since he was one of the bear/alligator look-alikes. The natives were afraid of him, at first, but his good nature and friendliness brought them around. They were particularly attentive when he would grin at them!

Our plan showed positive results when we were finally attacked by a pack of devil dogs. The animals popped into existence about 200 yards from the camp and we had time to get everybody into defensive positions. We had prepared defensive foxholes spaced uniformly around the camp. These foxholes were large enough to hold three defenders all armed with the shotguns and grenades. We of the Retro Team were the mobile reserve and were armed with our combination assault rifle/grenade launcher.

We recorded the fight for later analysis, and that's when we found that 63 devil dogs had made up the first attack. We jumped into the appropriate foxholes and began shooting at the devil dogs with our rifles and grenade launchers as soon as they headed toward us. We were tearing hell out of them the moment we started shooting, but that didn't slow them down!

Of course, the natives began firing their shotguns while the devil dogs were still well out of range, but we didn't care since we had made sure that there was plenty of ammunition available. The animals tended to bunch up, which made it easier for us to shoot them. They stayed together and charged at three of the foxholes.

The devil dogs were subjected to massive fire from all sides and were wiped out before they could reach the first foxhole. We hardly had time to catch our breath and congratulate each other before we were hit by a second wave of devil dogs.

This time, the whole perimeter was attacked at the same time. Even though there were more animals in this attack, they were spread out and the fight got a bit hectic before the last devil dog was killed.

Our team was forced to split up and try to cover the whole perimeter. The devil dogs were so big that a single bullet was not enough to stop them; they had to be hit in a small, vital spot for one shot to do any good. Their bodies were well adapted to dissipating the shock of a single bullet's impact, so we had to resort to almost exclusive use of the grenade launcher. There are not many animals that can continue to fight after losing a significant percentage of their body, but the devil dogs came close!

It was a good thing that the grenade launcher was semiautomatic and that it used a drum of 6 rounds. If we were charged by more than one devil dog at one time, life got pretty frantic as we tried to pump the grenades into the running, jumping, never still bodies of our attackers. Our transporter technician was really hopping as he hurried to keep everybody supplied with ammunition.

The natives fired their shotguns at a prodigious rate. They were, understandably, very afraid of the devil dogs and tended to shoot as soon as one came into sight. We needed to get them more firepower, it just took too many hits with the shotgun pellets to kill a devil dog. However, we would have to worry about that after the battle!

We were attacked in two more waves before the bad guys gave up. We wondered where they were staging their attacks from, since there was a total of 538 devil dogs in the four attacks. That was a lot of animals to tend to, particularly when they were as aggressive as these.

Several of the defenders were bitten, some seriously, during the attacks and had to be evacuated to a hospital for treatment. This "house of the gods" made a big impression and those with battle wounds were the heroes of the day!

Julia and Augusta put on a big celebratory feast the day after the battle; it took a whole day for the fighters to catch their breath! There were a lot of speeches about how Inks and Arlo and Jolli and several others had distinguished themselves by their valor in battle. Medals were handed out and everybody got something, if only a badge to show that they were there at the big battle.

Several men and women showed themselves to be natural leaders and the occasion was used to promote them to the rank of squad leader. We were rapidly developing a finely tuned military cadre. What the hell were we going to do with them after the war was over—a question often raised about an army of citizen-soldiers.

The day after the battle, we held a meeting of the Retro Team to discuss better weapons and tactics for fighting the devil dogs. Cicero suggested that we try crew-served grenade launchers. If we could get belt-fed automatic grenade launchers firing at about 100 to 200 rounds per minute, a two-person crew could do a lot more damage than triple that many could do with shotguns.

We applauded his idea and appointed him and Augusta as a committee to do whatever was necessary to implement the plan. Their first job was to go back to Capital to confer with Rik and the GPSC about getting us some of the weapons. Cicero and Augusta departed within the hour. Thanks to the marvelous side effects of time travel, they were back within 5 minutes with a load of weapons to start the training program.