Solbidyum Wars Saga 5: Desolation (19 page)

Kala and I started a ritual of taking Lunnie and Reidecor down to the pond in the evening after the sun had set, but while it was still light, and taking them into the water to bathe them.  The water tended to be only a tad on the cool side and was comfortable for bathing.  At first the babies didn’t know what to make of the water.  Reidecor fussed about it while Lunnie slapped the water with her hands with glee, but soon both of them enjoyed playing in the water as we washed them.  Kala insisted that she was going to teach the babies to swim.  I was dubious of her success at their young age; however, I was amazed at how quickly she taught them how to hold their breaths and to roll over in the water and float so their heads were above water, so they could breathe.  While I was not sure you could actually call it swimming, it certainly was lifesaving if one of them accidentally ever fell in the water.  I had heard of babies being taught to swim back on Earth, but I had never witnessed it.

We had been on Desolation nearly eight months when one day we heard sounds on the emergency radio.  We had been keeping it on day and night and recharging it either by solar energy or by a crank on the side that would recharge the battery.  Lunnie had discovered the radio and was always pushing buttons on it.  She had accidentally changed the frequency so it was no longer on the emergency channel.  This was not something new, as she did this quite often, since she had discovered the radio, and we always had to reset it to the emergency channel every time she took a nap.  On this particular occasion, Kala was cleaning up after our last meal as I was topping off the sand that had leaked out of one of the basket chairs, when unexpectedly a man’s voice blared out over the radio.

“...find them and make sure they are dead.”  A second voice replied.  “Wouldn’t it make more sense, if they are alive to take them as hostages?  This guy is the richest in the universe, I am sure he would pay a huge ransom to save his life.  We could buy as many ships as we need.”

“Look, just find their ship and make sure they are dead… if they are alive, kill them!  Roritat was quite emphatic about that.”

By now, both Kala and I were at the radio listening intently.  Kala picked up Lunnie, just as she was about to push another button that would have changed the frequency.  The voices on the radio continued.  “Listen,” the first voice said, “we don’t have a lot of time.  The Federation is only a short way behind us, and they are racing to rescue Tibby, we need to be gone before they arrive.

“It was solely by luck that we happened to be closer to this planet than any of them and heard the emergency signal first.  Find their ship, send down troopers and make sure they are dead and get out of there.  You have maybe a day at the most before Federation ships start arriving and you need to be away from there when they get here.”

“Understood,” the second voice came back, “but I don’t see what the fuss is about this Tibby guy; we’re winning the battle against the Federation, what difference can one man make?”

“This guy is bad news for us.  Do you realize how many of our operations and plans this one man has disrupted?  Roritat wants him dead, so dead it will be.  You got that?”

“Hold on,” the second man said, “we’re picking up readings, I think we’ve found the ship.”

“Get down there and check it out, and remember, no survivors.  Be sure to leave the bodies behind for evidence, so when the Federation arrives, they will know their hero is dead!”

“Tibby, what are we going to do?”  Kala asked as she hugged a confused Lunnie to her.

“Well, the first thing I’m going to do is try to disguise the entrance to this building.”  I said as I grabbed one of the tarps and a mat that Kala had made.

“How do you plan to do that?”

“By making it appear less square and more like a natural feature.”

“And, how are you going to do that?”

“I’m going to to use the floor mats you wove.  If I place them diagonally across the square corners of the opening and weigh down the ends outside the hole with rocks, and then take some of this lose grass, and place it over the corners in the right fashion.  It may appear to be just a natural hole in the ground; at least the obvious square shape won’t stick out like a sore thumb.”

“Like a sore thumb?” Kala said looking at me strangely.

“Sorry dear, it’s an old Earth expression for something that catches your attention by not being normal.”  I replied.

“Ah, I see!” Kala replied as she placed Lunnie on the mattress with Reidecor and began helping to gather up the mats.

An hour later, we had the mats in place and grass conveniently strewn about, hoping it would make the opening to the underground building less conspicuous.  We had also used sand at places in hopes of making it look more natural, but I had my doubts about how convincing it looked from the air.  Fortunately, we had a light shower that naturally rearranged the grass and dirt, making it appear more normal.  I had my fingers crossed that it would at least throw the Brotherhood off track long enough for Federation ships to arrive.  That night I didn’t go out, and I rolled the stone in front of the opening to the outer chamber so any light from the solar lamps would not be visible through what remained of the opening to the surface.  We listened to the radio and only picked up a brief communication between the Brotherhood ship in orbit and their contact someplace nearby.

“We’re positive now it’s Tibby’s ship.  We’ve not gone to the surface yet since it was raining earlier and looked pretty messy.  It looks to be dead and there isn’t any sign of life around it.  We are getting no energy readings at all from the ship and there didn’t seem to be any signs of human activity there.  Sand is piled up around most of the ship.  Right now we are seeing a lot of lights all over the desert around the ship.  It looks like it’s being generated naturally from some kind of plants.”

“You haven’t gone down yet because it was raining?  By the balls of a hairy dudokian, Banowet, I swear I’ll kick your ass if you don’t get down there right now and check things out!  We’re running out of time.  The Federation has ships closing in on this location right now.  Roritat will turn us all over to Ming for discipline if we fail in this task, and we don’t want to face Ming.”

“Understood, we’re on our way now.  I’ll take two squads of troopers.”

“You’ll take three; now get your asses moving.  I want a report back in an hour.  Understood?”

“Yes sir!”

I had brought all the arms in the arms locker to our place on the plateau, and fortunately they all were still fully charged, but if the Brotherhood found out where we were, it was unlikely they would attack us with troops.  Instead they would simply attack from above using the weapons of the ship and blow the place up.

“If they aren’t convinced we have perished, they will come looking for us and eventually find us.  We may have to move deeper underground in the tunnels.  I have no idea where the tunnels go, but if the Brotherhood starts looking for us, we will have no choice but to find out.”  I donned my environment suit as Kala asked.  “Where are you going now?”

“I’m going out there to watch and see what happens down at the ship.  This suit will block my infrared image, so I shouldn’t be spotted by any of their scanners, plus I will be cloaked as well so I won’t be spotted.  I’ll go to the cliff edge, from there I can at least see their movements and get some idea what’s going on. You can monitor the radio and listen to any broadcasts they make until I get back.”  I think it would be good if you don your suit also and get some backpacks ready with several days’ supplies of food.  We may need to move quickly.

Kala nodded and bit her lip as she began to don her environment suit as I slipped out the entrance and onto the plateau.  I got myself situated at a point near the cliff edge where I could see down to the desert below.  From this point, I had a good view of the area and by focusing the image coming through the screen on my helmet, I could zoom in on the ship.  There was no sign of life other than for the Sisoma trees and a muralam scrounging about looking for something to eat.  Then three patrol ships swooped down silently setting to the desert floor around the
ALI
.  Their hatches opened, and three companies of Brotherhood troopers poured out and quickly surrounded the
ALI
.  I saw three troopers enter the ship as their squads took up positions outside.  Several minutes passed before the troopers who entered came out, and all the troops outside relaxed from their ready positions.  I could see the three troopers talking to a fourth individual whom I assumed to be their commanding officer.  After a few minutes I saw him turn, and all the troopers in the area turned looking at him.  He obviously issued some orders for them to search the area, looking for some signs of survivors.  When he turned back to the three troopers who had previously gone inside the ship, I saw one of them point to something inside the hatch, and I observed as he walked over examining an object in the airlock.  The rock, I realized he was looking at the rock with the message I had left behind.  Now they knew for sure we had survived the crash. The question was, did he believe we still survived?

As I watched I saw him turn and look at the canyon with the stream flowing through it, his head following its course.  I noticed him look about the area and turn toward the mountain plateau on which I stood.  Even though I knew he could not see me, I felt naked and exposed and almost expected him to have his men take aim at me and begin shooting.  In an instant he turned and barked some orders and a squad of men quickly boarded one of the patrol ships and lifted off, rising in the air to a height about 500 meters above the desert.  They slowly began tracing the course of the stream in the canyon.  I turned to run back into our underground house, and as I ran my eyes wandered down to the stream.  The dam, I’d forgotten about the dam.  From the air, they would clearly be able to see it, and they would know it was man made.  They would all be here on the plateau in just minutes.  We needed to move and move quickly.

As I ran into our shelter, I was hoping the patrol ship following the course of the stream would go slowly looking for any signs of us, even at their slowest pace, they would see the dam in about 20 to 30 minutes at the most.  I uncloaked and went into the second chamber where Kala and the twins were and quickly moved the large stone back in front of the door.  I knew it wouldn’t buy us any time, but I felt safer knowing it was in place.

I said, “We’ve got to move now.  Into the tunnel, quickly!  They will be here in less than 30 minutes.”

“Tib,” Kala said in an alarmed voice.  “Padaran has been trying to reach us on the emergency radio.”

“Padaran?”

“Yes,” Kala said.  “He’s requested we not reply, as he knows the Brotherhood is already here and they would detect our transmission.  He said that the
NEW ORLEANS
is en route and only a few hours away.”

“If we don’t find a place to hide and defend ourselves, we might not be alive in a few hours,” I exclaimed as I put a backpack on my back, had a rifle in one hand and reached down and picked up Lunnie in my other arm.  Come on, we need to get as deep into the tunnels as we can.  Kala grabbed a backpack, a rifle, and Reidecor and followed me.  As we proceeded deeper into the mountain away from the cliff, I cursed myself for never exploring the tunnels more.  I knew the tunnel we were in dead-ended in a cave in just a little past the point where the small room with the hole in the floor and where the water leaked in.  However, I believed that if we could get down the hole, that there was another level of tunnels below, and I hoped those would still be clear.  When we arrived at the hole, I said to Kala, “I’m going to go down, it’s less than a 3 and a half meter drop.  If the tunnels go on from there you can toss the backpacks to me and then hand the twins down and come down after them.”

“What if the tunnels don’t go on?”  Kala asked.

“We’ll worry about that once I find out there is nowhere to go from down there.” 

I moved to the edge of the hole and lowered myself over the side, so I was hanging by my hands.  I looked down to see my feet were only about a half meter short of the floor below, so I let go landing in about 75 centimeters of water  pooled there from the leaking crack in the wall, before it flowed off in a direction of the cliff.  I looked in the other direction to see a long and dark corridor.  About 9 meters away I noticed the floor seemed to be dry again.  I went a short distance down the corridor.  I could feel cool air moving out from deeper in the mountain, and I knew that someplace further along the tunnel that there had to be another connection to the outside.  I returned to the opening in the floor.

“It appears to go on for some distance, toss me the backpacks.”

Kala tossed the backpacks down and lowered the rifles next.  Finally, she lay on her stomach and lowered the twins down as far as she could before dropping them into my arms.  Reidecor was first, and I carried him to the dry location in the tunnel and set him by the backpacks and told him to sit still.  He seemed quite confused by what was going on, but he didn’t seem frightened.  Lunnie was next and for some reason, seemed to think it was a game, and she laughed when Kala dropped her into my arms.  Then Kala slipped over the edge and dropped to the floor beside me.  We immediately headed down the tunnel deeper into the mountain.  Along the way, we passed side corridors and rooms.  All of them were empty save for paintings on the walls and some shards of what looked like pieces of pottery.

“Tib,” Kala whispered, “how do you know you are going in the right direction?”