The Battle for Eden

by Mark E Burgess

  During these hectic days the work occupied most of their waking hours, but at night Simon and Katherine took time to explore their growing love for each other, and with each passing day the bonds between them grew stronger.

  After the home defenses were solidified, it came time to address the other contingency, that of life on the run. What to take with them, and where to run to, were the primary concerns that needed addressing immediately.

  “I don’t know of any other homesteads that are set up well to defend themselves,” Tyrus began as he addressed the gathered family one evening. “Nor could they take in a group our size for long. Resources will be limited, now that overland travel for supplies is so risky.”

  “How about finding an abandoned farm or building somewhere remote?” T. J. asked. “It would be hard to find us there, wouldn’t it?”

  “I suppose,” Simon answered. “Do you have a place in mind?”

  “Well, no,” the young man admitted. “Nothing specific.”

  “That is our problem,” Tyrus concluded. “I should have thought of this before the Crabs came a-calling. It’s too late now to worry over what should have been. The simple fact is, we have no good destination in mind. Where do we go from here?”

  Sarah spoke up, “We could stay on our own land; we’ve got a lot of property, and some of it borders heavy woods. Papa, you’ve often said the Knackers hate forested terrain, right?”

  Tyrus looked thoughtful. “Ay, that I did. I must admit, the thought of staying close to home, near our own property, has appeal. I’ve taught everyone basic survival skills in case we had to live off the land.” He glanced over at Simon, who shrugged noncommittally. Turning back to his daughter, he said, “You’ve done the most exploring these last few years, Sarah. How well do you know the hill country out west?”

  She grinned. “Like the back of my hand.”

  He nodded. “Are there good water sources other than Byre’s Creek? More remote ones where we can hole up?”

  “Yes, there are other creeks, some of which persist year around, up in the hills.”

  “What about food?” Simon asked. “How would all of us subsist in the woods?”

  “There are a number of edible animals living there,” Sarah replied. “Some are small, but a few would yield quite a bit of meat, like the Dire Bucks.”

  “We’d need plant sources too, for a balanced diet,” Simon countered.

  “I know some wild plants which are nutritious,” Sarah replied. “And I can get on the computer and look up information on Eden’s outdoor resources; years ago I bought a digital book with pictures of edible plant and animal life.”

  “Load that onto a portable reader, then, and pack it in our travel supplies,” her father told her. “That may just save our lives.”

  “What about shelter?” the eldest son, Keith, asked. “If we don’t take refuge in a building, how will we deal with the elements? Especially if we’re out there for more than a short time? It won’t be summer forever.”

  “True,” Tyrus replied. “I’m thinking heavy all-weather tents should do the trick; we’ve got those in our outdoor gear, along with portable stoves, coolers, bedding, and the like.”

  “I’ve got a couple of thoughts,” Simon answered. “The Knackers are probably using the human road system to move around on the ground. Is there any way to monitor how much alien traffic is traveling on the highway that runs past your property? It could give us some idea of the activity in our area, and we might see an attack force coming.”

  “Hmmm. We could put a sensor-camera up on one of the trees near the highway, and it would tell us what is passing by. I should get back to monitoring the Crab transmissions more regularly, too. We have more than one translator now, and we really need to know what they’re up to.”

  Simon nodded. “Good idea.”

  “Okay, Sarah,” her father said. “You know the territory. Head out in the smaller floater and see if you can find a possible site for us to retreat to, should the need arise. We want something that’s fairly deep in the woods and defensible, preferably approachable from only one or two directions. Thick forest would be ideal, as the Crabs won’t easily spot us from the air, and their larger floaters and shuttles can’t penetrate the deep woods.”

  “And don’t forget a potable water source nearby,” Simon added.

  Sarah nodded. “Got it. I’ll start scouting tomorrow.”

  “Take a partner, and go armed,” Tyrus cautioned. “Keith, why don’t you ride with her.”

  Sarah’s brother nodded. “We’ll handle it,” he said.

  “Simon and Samuel, I’ll leave it to you to set up the highway sensor,” Tyrus continued. “Meanwhile I’ll work on converting some additional Knacker weapons for human use. Those plasma rifles and grenade launchers would be really helpful out there.” He stood, rubbing his hands together briskly. “Let’s get some rest, and we’ll start work first thing in the morning.”

  With that the family disbanded, its members heading off to their rooms. Simon held Katherine’s hand as they headed upstairs together, and he helped her get Jessie tucked into bed. Then he accompanied her to their room at the end of the hall. They had decided to share Katherine’s bedroom, as it was larger and better appointed than the guestroom that Simon had been occupying. Once alone they made love with an urgency borne of the uncertainty ahead, drawing strength from their shared warmth, and finally falling into a peaceful sleep cradled in each other’s arms.

  * * * *

  The following morning Simon and Samuel headed out to set a sensor-camera device near the highway, while Sarah took Keith into the west hills to explore the forest. By noon the men had returned, but the sun was sinking low in the western sky by the time the front door opened and Sarah walked in. Keith followed soon after, his feet dragging.

  Amanda heard them entering and walked into the front room to meet them. “Well, there you two are! We were beginning to worry!” Once she saw that they were unharmed, her tone turned teasing. “Keith, darling, you look worn out. Did little Sarah run you ragged?”

  He waved a dismissive hand, saying, “Yeah, yeah, she’s used to climbing all over the hills. I’ve had better things to do with my life until now.”

  Sarah and Amanda exchanged amused grins, and then Sarah’s expression turned serious as she said, “We’d better gather the others so I can brief them on what we found.”

  Her mother nodded and told her, “You’ll find most everyone in the greatroom, dear. They’re checking out the new road camera and listening to the enemy airwaves. Go on in; they’ve been waiting for your return. Keith, you come with me and we’ll fix up some food for the both of you. I imagine you must be hungry.” She headed off toward the kitchen with her son in tow, and Sarah went to find the others.

  When all the family had assembled, they reviewed the day’s activities. “Sam and I found a tree near the highway where we could mount the camera,” Simon began. “It’s well hidden and can be aimed down the road in either direction, giving us a good view of what’s coming and going. The camera has a sensor array that will alert us if it detects motion. We ran the controls through the main video console.” Sarah glanced toward the screen, which currently showed a still image of the highway that ran along the east border of their property. Simon punched a button, and the view panned to the right, showing a long stretch of road that shrank into the distance.

  “Nice work,” Sarah said, grinning as she took in the images. “No action there yet?”

  “Nothing so far,” Tyrus answered. “This area has not been a hotbed of activity for the Knackers. I wouldn’t expect more than an occasional floater, until they mount another attack.”

  “How about their airwave communications?” she asked Tyrus.

  “Mostly just routine ops chat, nothing specific to us. Much of it originates from more than one hundred klicks away.”

  Simon interjected, “What about your findings, Sarah? You look like you’re bursting with news.”

 
; She grinned. “Well, we followed Byre’s Creek into Dark Hollow for a bit, then turned west and went up over the hill into the next valley. Another small stream runs there, and when we got to looking around, I remembered that I had explored that area years ago. That’s when I also recalled something else.”

  “Tell them, already!” Keith said from the doorway, grinning. He held a plate with a sandwich and a piece of fruit on it, and he came over and handed the food to Sarah where she sat. “Eat up, sis,” he said. “You need your strength.”

  “Look who’s talking,” she retorted around a mouthful of sandwich. “Okay, where was I? Oh, yes, we were on the valley floor between the hills, and I thought I recognized the place. On a hunch we turned and headed upstream along the creek. As we proceeded the land began to rise, at first a little, then more steeply. The tree cover was still dense overhead, but rock outcrops showed up here and there, which grew as we climbed, until they were narrow spires reaching ten or twenty meters high.”

  “Sounds like columnar basalt,” Tyrus commented. “The erosion of the stream and winds must have exposed them over time. Those hills are supposedly ancient remnants of volcanic peaks, so that would fit.”

  “Well, they were a pain to navigate through, I can tell you that,” Sarah declared, and Keith chuckled as he seconded her opinion. “Then we squeezed between two particularly large formations, and just beyond, we found it.”

  “What?” Simon and Tyrus asked together.

  She grinned like a Groon eating a Blue Hare. “The hideout.”

  Her father looked at Simon with a puzzled expression, then back at Sarah. “You mean a good place to hide, I assume. But what makes it so right for our needs?”

  She shook her head and replied, “No, I mean it’s a hideout already! Or it was, for poachers most likely.” She laughed at the confused expression on the men’s faces and explained, “There’s a log cabin already built there, nestled in a little sheltered area. It has tree cover shielding it from the sky, and limited ground access due to the dense woods and rock formations. The stream flows close by, so water is ready at hand. The structure is in some need of repair, as it looks as if it’s been abandoned for a long time. But it’s sturdy, and it can provide shelter from weather and wildlife. Nine people would find it a tight fit, but there’s room to sleep all of us at night in roll-up beds.”

  Simon looked at Tyrus, and his expression was excited. “If this place is defensible....”

  “It is,” Sarah avowed. “Anyone approaching would likely be coming up the valley as we did; the terrain above and behind is very rough, with rocks and thick forest and steep slopes. Also, there is nothing beyond the cabin but more wilderness; anyone coming from populated areas would hit the valley first. From that approach, attackers would be at a disadvantage. We’d have the high ground, and they’d have to wind almost single-file through the rock pillars and tree trunks. Defenders could hide behind those features and fire away.”

  “I like it,” Tyrus grinned, nodding. “You’ve outdone yourselves, kids. We’ll still need a large tent or two, for housing our supplies and for extra living space. But as a base home and sleeping shelter, it sounds perfect. Being made of wood, and nestled among rocks, it won’t show as easily on scanners as synthetic materials. We should go check it out tomorrow, and get to work fixing it up. Simon, want to join me on a little ride?”

  “Sounds like fun,” Simon said with a broad smile. “I’d love to get out in the air again.”

  They discussed their plans a bit more, playing with the camera monitor on the highway as they did so, before calling it a day and retiring for the evening. Tomorrow would require an early start.

  * * * *

  Just after dawn the bed alarm woke Simon from a deep sleep. He groaned as he fumbled to punch the button that would silence the intrusive noise, finally succeeding. His Darter emitted an annoyed chirp from its cage next to the bed as it too protested the disturbance. As he lay on his back in a fog, a warm shape next to him pressed against his side, and a delicate hand slid across his chest. He smiled as he felt soft hair tickling his bare shoulder and even softer lips caressed his ear. It was hard not to start the day at peace when he had this amazing woman in his life.

  He turned and met her lips with his, and after a few moments of bliss he reluctantly pulled away, saying, “I’ve got to go, milady. Tyrus and the others will be waiting.”

  She pouted cutely, her face shadowed in the dim light. “Can’t I come with you?” she asked him, batting her eyes.

  “I’d love nothing better,” he told her, sighing. “But the small floater only carries four, and Tyrus, Sarah and T. J. will be coming along. We’ll scout out the site, and bring a few tools to begin repairs on the cabin. After we all know the route to the hideout, we’ll start sending the floaters back and forth with supplies, and you can hitch a ride on one of those trips. We’ll need most of the family working on this to get things ready quickly.”

  “All right, but promise to be careful!” she told him, planting a last kiss before pulling away. “Now, if you’re going to leave me here, I’m getting some more sleep!” She winked as he growled something about lazy people, and he left her wrapped in the warm blankets as he stumbled toward the bathroom.

  A short time later he was gulping breakfast in the floater as it headed toward the west hills. Sarah was piloting, with her father by her side, and Simon and T. J. sitting in the back of the vehicle. They zipped across the fields and grasslands with the rising sun at their backs, approaching Byre’s Creek and entering Dark Hollow within fifteen minutes. From there the trip slowed to a relative crawl as Sarah deftly maneuvered their craft through tree falls, boulders, and massive old growth trunks that towered around them on all sides. The creek ran along a gulch between two slopes that angled upward to their left and right. At times the gradient of the hills was moderate, but in other places the land rose steeply away from the water.

  In a short while they came to a bend in the creek where a rockslide had once tumbled down the western slope. The ground to their right was littered with half-buried rocks and boulders, ranging in bulk from the size of a man’s head to half the length of their floater. Here the hillside was only moderately steep, and the trees grew a bit more widely spaced than in most areas of the hollow. A visible animal path meandered over the groundcover vegetation, tracking its way upslope around trees and rocks.

  Sarah turned the floater to follow the path’s direction, weaving over fallen logs and around obstacles as they gained elevation. The hill was sizable and the going slow, and it took a handful of minutes to reach the crest of the rise. When the floater topped the ridge, Sarah took it straight down the other side. In awhile the land leveled out again into a small valley, wherein coursed a creek slightly smaller than Byre’s. Turning left to head upstream, they followed the water through a green meadow dotted with yellow and purple flowers. Post-dawn mists still clung to the ground here and there, and large insectoid life resembling iridescent butterflies fluttered in the early morning light.

  As they proceeded up the valley, the ground became gradually more rocky and broken, and they reentered the woods. Eventually the land began to hump and buckle, and the way steepened. Even here the forest remained thick and pristine, with Ironwood trees vying for space with many other species of plant life, both large and small. The undergrowth was a solid thicket in places; it would have been tough going had they needed to hack through at ground level.

  The creek now splashed and tumbled in a series of small waterfalls, as it fell over shelves and outcrops on its descent through the rough terrain. The valley narrowed until they were hemmed in by forested slopes on either side, the sky shut out by the looming hills and a solid canopy of green overhead. The rock around them began to sprout vertical black pillars with odd hexagonal shapes. These reached skyward, some many meters tall, like fingers of buried titans grasping for air. Between the rock columns and the ranks of trees it was becoming increasingly difficult for the floater to navigate th
e terrain. Just as Simon was starting to think that they would have to continue on foot, Sarah squeezed their ride through a narrow gap in the stones and he saw their destination.

  A small area of flat ground maybe twenty meters on a side lay directly ahead. It too was thickly forested and dotted with the ubiquitous stone columns, and was backed by a high bluff. At some point in the past most of the undergrowth had been cleared away, making the site feel open and airy compared to what they had been traveling through.

  Toward the rear of the area, amidst a cluster of old growth Ironwoods, sat a square, one-story cabin. The age-darkened logs comprising its sturdy walls and roof were covered with mossy saprophytes, making it seem as if it had stood there as long as the forest itself. Its simple design spoke of durability and functionality rather than style. Small windows and a single front door were the only visible adornments. A stone chimney ran up the outside of one wall, ending a meter above the sloped roof. Despite being the only artificial construct for kilometers, the cabin felt like it belonged there, as if the woods and the rocks had somehow given rise to the structure when it was needed.

  Sarah gently set the floater down on level ground between the trees, about thirty meters from the building. “Well, guys, here we are,” she said, grinning. “Quite a sight, isn’t it?”

  Simon asked, “Have you been inside?”

  She shook her head. “No, the door is locked. We figured we’d wait until we brought someone back before breaking it open.”

  “Let’s go have a look,” Tyrus declared, raising the floater door.

  They got out and approached the structure slowly, alert for signs of danger. Sarah and Tyrus headed the group, guns drawn. They moved almost soundlessly as the soft loam beneath their feet cushioned their steps. The burble of the creek sounded close to their right, just out of view. Seeing nothing out of place, they walked up close to the cabin, examining its exterior.