The House on Infinity Loop

by Bonnie K T Dillabough

  Fortunately, Burt, Brendan, Gariel and Tarafau all had significant experience and she guessed that it was also part of the training and experience of the Troopers. She breathed a mental sigh of relief that this wouldn't all be on her and moved over to the huddle of her team by the assembled Troops.

  Gariel turned from the huddle to the Troopers, his beard twitching animatedly as he spoke. "I want the platoons to split into an advance and a rearward formation. The rest of the party will advance between the two platoons. Your first priority is to protect the Guardians. Be aware that we may find ourselves threatened by more than enemy forces. This jungle is crawling with creatures that are dangerous in many ways. Most predators will stay away from such a large force, but some of the deadliest creatures in this jungle are small enough and silent enough to be easily missed.

  Vigilance is easily worn down over long marches, especially in this heat and humidity. Stay alert and, if you feel yourself wearing down, remember what awaits us at the end of this long march. We go from the frying pan," and he wiped the sweat from his brow, "into the fire."

  Chapter 33: Out-sneaking The Sneak

  Jenny walked beside the hovering stretcher, her hand on the chest of the Trooper laying on it, to calm him. As they walked, she whispered what she hoped were comforting words. "We caught it in time. You're gonna recover. I'm right here." The Trooper still trembled, but his breathing was not as ragged.

  They had stopped for a short lunch break, only taking time to get their food out and take care of other needs before intending to eat on the march. By this time, Jenny was beginning to understand the enormity of their task. It was Gariel's intention to get in 25 miles before making camp for the night. This meant pushing at a steady pace with very few breaks.

  One of the Troopers had sat on a mossy log to change his socks. Suddenly he yelled, swatting at something on his ankle. "Wandering Spider," said Brendan worriedly, "otherwise known as the banana spider. Bad luck, mate. They usually only come out at night." In an instant, the venom treatment kit was in his hand. First, he used a suction cup to pull as much venom out of the wounds as possible. "These buggers are very aggressive and often bite multiple times by the time you notice the first bite," he went on calmly as he selected a vial from the kit, inserting it into a type of hypo-pen. "Fortunately, they do make an anti-venom for it." He stabbed the hypo into the man's calf above the wounds. "Now we'll bandage this, put you on a stretcher and elevate the leg to slow the spread of the poison. We can only hope you don't have an allergic reaction in addition to the other symptoms."

  The man had been strapped onto the stretcher. They pulled out a bedroll to put under his leg. He had trembled and twitched with muscle spasms for nearly an hour, but Brendan had told her, that if he made it past a half hour, there was nothing more to do but keep him hydrated and let him rest, until the poison worked its way out of his system.

  Before they had set out again, Gariel reminded his Troops of the consequences of inattention and once more emphasized the importance of vigilance.

  It was nearly 4 p.m. when they paused again. Jenny had been on some long and difficult hikes, but nothing had prepared her for this. First of all, unlike the calming redwoods of her native California and beautiful Sanglarka, the jungle was never silent. Things seemed to be constantly stirring from the various insects who buzzed and clicked and reptiles that slithered, swishing through the underbrush, to the various wildlife, such as birds, monkeys and large predators. It felt like there were eyes constantly bearing down on them. And she never felt the urge to pee, as she was sweating out every drop she drank.

  The man had finally sunk into a restless sleep and she turned the watch over to Nona. She drank another half bottle of water, grabbed some rations and ate standing. She knew if she were to sit down, she would probably fall asleep.

  "We'll be at our projected campsite in about an hour," Burt told her as he was about to walk by and noticed her standing there. "Can you manage it?"

  Jenny nodded tiredly. It felt like even that was too much effort. "Setting up the campsite will be a little more complicated than you may have experienced even with all of the hikes you've been on," he said. "In addition to setting up tents, and all of that, we also need to see to a defense perimeter and coordinate multiple night watches. We're going to rise soon after dawn, before the real heat sets in to give ourselves a bit of head start tomorrow, since we will also have the morning rain to contend with. At the end of that day we will set up our first semi-permanent camp while we send the bots out to reconnoiter. Once we have more intel we will make some decisions. This part of the Amazon basin is crosshatched with rivers and streams. We may decide to do part of the trip on the water to speed things up and take it a little easier on our forces."

  She later wouldn't be able to remember exactly how she got through it, except that she called on her breathing exercises to distance herself from the pain, heat and exertion.

  When they finally arrived, they set up camp in a little clearing. According to the information they already had, they were far away from any of the native tribes, so they wouldn't risk any cultural or biological contamination. Jenny hoped that none of this conflict would affect any humans in the area. The Groga already had so much to answer for.

  Bob was busily assembling his bot army. Burt and Gariel were setting up the command tent and the Troopers went about setting up the rest of the camp. Jenny, her Guards and Tarafau would all be bivouacking together in a small cabin-sized building, complete with cots, chairs, a curtained space with a porta potty and a small table.

  Once Jenny had settled in to her small space in the cabin, she decided that she should go to the command tent, but, if she was honest with herself, she was exhausted, she didn't have any clue how much use she would be. She had no battle experience and she had competent advisors, but she couldn't just sit and wait for all of the decisions to be made even though she knew, in this case especially, she was leader in name only.

  Burt and Gariel were studying a large map of the Amazon basin on an air screen when she arrived. She and her Guards pulled up chairs and waited for the others of the tactical team to arrive. It felt good to sit in the relative cool of the tent. Gariel had explained to her that they deliberately had no air conditioning in the tents, although they had the tech to do so, since they needed to acclimatize themselves to the heat, if they were to survive this trek.

  Tarafau, followed by Bob, Juan, Aliki and Brendan strode into the tent. Soon after, the squad commanders entered, reporting that the camp was set up and secured and the watches had been put into place. The men were currently eating and would be on stand-by for instructions.

  "OK. Let's start with Bob," said Gariel.

  "The bots have been deployed in pairs into the most probable areas. They are in complete camouflage mode and are employing heat and sound sensors. Their programming is set up to eliminate beast and critter sounds as well as anything that isn't man-shaped. They are streaming constant reports and we'll know the moment any of them encounters troop sized numbers."

  "Great," said Gariel, his beard twitching mildly. "Aliki, have you checked out the local waterways to see how many of them might be a path to our potential destinations? And have you checked out the watercraft?"

  "Yes, boss," Aliki replied amiably. "We have a lot of options, depending on what the bots tell us. The boats are shipshape and watertight. How many of your men know how to handle watercraft on a river?"

  "Easily half of them," said Gariel confidently. "We had a mission not long ago that required them to navigate similar boats. And Brendan, have you set up our little 'surprise'?"

  "Easy as pie." Brendan's eyes sparkled with mirth. "Thanks to Lizzie, they won't know what hit 'em. At least, not until it does."

  "Those MDPs sure made all of this simpler. But I don't want any of you thinking this is going to be a walk in the park, like our last encounter. Even if these Groga are as mindless as the last bunch, there are way more of them and they may have tech we haven't a
nticipated," Gariel intoned seriously, looking from face to face.

  "Bob, when should we start receiving reports from the bots?"

  Bob scratched his head. "Hard to say. It all depends on how far out our friends have camped. At the widest point, the jungle stretches across 1,200 miles and covers over 3 million square miles in dense rainforest with few clearings. It's also crisscrossed with multiple waterways from small creeks to wide rivers. At this point we're only about 200 miles in and most of that was because of the hovercraft. It's a lot of area to cover, even flying over the canopy. If our luck holds, we could hear by morning. If not, we'll just have to keep our fingers crossed that we can pull this off before they head out of that portal."

  "Then, there is nothing to do but wait, for now. All our resources are organized, and we can be on the move with 20 minutes notice. Get some rest while you can and stay hydrated. I know I'm being repetitive, but you'll be glad you took my advice." And Gariel looked pointedly at Jenny.

  Jenny shrugged. She knew that her concern probably showed on her face. She wouldn't neglect herself. As an experienced hiker, she knew the importance of both rest and hydration and in this heat where you sweated water out nearly as fast as you could take it in, it would be doubly important.

  She looked at the map stretched out in front of her. They had specifically blown up the area that featured the rainforest. It was vaster than she had realized. Stretching across nine countries in South America, it appeared to be about half the size of the entire United States. The proverbial needle within the haystack didn't even start to describe the near impossibility of their task.

  She hoped that clever use of technology would give them the edge they needed to find the Groga and implement their plans to find the portal, prevent the defeat of yet another culture and allow them to infiltrate, find and defeat the Groga and their allies once and for all. Piece of cake, right?

  The mess crew had brought food into the command tent and the team ate quietly, each lost in their own thoughts and plans. When Jenny rose to head to their tent to get some rest, Lyra, Nona and Mynn got to their feet and followed her out to her tent.

  It felt like she had no sooner laid her head on her pillow than Tarafau was shaking her awake. "There's news," he said. "We're gathering in the command tent."

  Her Guards were already on their feet. They strode back across the encampment. Inside the tent the air seemed electrified. All heads turned to Jenny and her escort.

  "I don't know what the odds are, but the bots have found them. About 135 miles as the crow flies, or the robot, in this case, and they don't even appear to be covering their tracks that well. They're well away from any native villages and appear to be going about their business without a lot of urgency. The portal appears to be in the center of their camp. If we travel up river, instead of whacking our way through the jungle, we could be there in a few days. That doesn't leave us a lot of time for planning." Bob said as they seated themselves around the map.

  We have less than a week before their deadline, if our intel is accurate," said Gariel gravely. He turned to one of his commanders. "Disassemble the camp and assemble the troops outside in an hour. We should have our travel plan completed by then."

  The commander nodded curtly, turned on his heel and left.

  "We'll be travelling by boat during the day as long as the light lasts, and we'll camp long enough to get some sleep at night. I want this council in one boat, so we can plan as we go. In the meantime, Aliki, which of these waterways will get us there the fastest all in one piece?"

  Aliki grinned. "Well, boss, with the boats Lizzie so generously provided us, we can use this waterway here." He pointed to a not-so-wiggly blue line that extended from where they were to the big red dot someone had put over the area where the Groga were camped.

  "It's a fairly straight shot, as these rivers go, and we should be able to make the trip with only a couple of stops each day. Be sure to remind everyone to use their sunscreen. The reflection of the sun off of the water can cause some really nasty sunburns and there will be little shade during the trip. In a few places the trees shelter the water from the sun, but those are few and far between.

  The watercraft are an adaptable design. We tweaked them and now they're like river tour boats you may have seen. They will hold about 24 people each, not counting the pilot. This means four troop craft and one command craft to hold all of us. They should be fast enough to get us where we're going in two days with rest in between.

  I'd like to recommend that every trooper is armed for a potential fire fight, although, if that happens, we are going to be hard pressed to defend ourselves, or so anyone watching would think. However, as an added precaution, we'll be deploying Bob's handy little bots along the river route, following us as we travel. Anyone lurking in the undergrowth on the banks will have a nasty little surprise waiting above them.

  Jenny, in addition to your Guards and Tarafau, I want you to keep your bot next to you in the boat. We want to keep you safe."

  Jenny found herself more than a little annoyed at this "keep Jenny safe" thing that had been going on since her fight with the three workmen in her house that day. It seemed like, since she had experienced two encounters with the enemy and come off not much the worse for wear, they would trust her to take care of herself. On the other hand, she guessed it was more about the importance of her position as Gatekeeper. She earnestly wanted to tell them she could take care of herself, but she knew their intentions and their reasoning were sound.

  Gariel thanked Aliki and looked at Burt. "Have you transmitted our findings to Lova?"

  Burt nodded. "I have all of the bots set up to transmit all of their intel to Sanglarka, in case they see something we may have missed. I would like everyone to use mindspeech as we travel. I want to be as quiet as possible. Sound carries farther on water. The engines of our craft are quieter than most, but I don't want us yelling back and forth to communicate."

  Gariel turned to Bob. "Do we still have access to those handy little flying nanobots? It worked so well as a distraction last time and if the trackers were activated on them, we would be able to track any strays, not to mention as they go through the portal and we end up fighting them."

  "Yes, although we don't have enough to handle the numbers we'll be facing. I replicated as many as I could while we were in Sanglarka. But any distraction is better than none. If we are strategic on how we use them, we should be able to take advantage of their special talents.

  Also, if we can get one on someone going through their portal, it might give us a clue as to the frequencies or coordinates they are using. I'm hoping they're using some sort of transmitter to key up the gate. If that's the case, we should be able to quietly liberate one so we can send one or more of them to the Alliance to examine."

  "Agreed," said Gariel, his heavy brows furrowed. "And we should have more information available as we travel. OK. Get your gear. I'll meet with the Troopers and we'll head out."

  It only took a moment to gather the few things she left on her bunk. She considered the MDP one of the big compensations for the choice she had made. No heavy backpacks or luggage when she traveled. She knew Bob would love to get his hands on the scientific principles that made them work, even if he would never be allowed to reproduce them for Earth consumption, at least until Earth technology caught up.

  The Troopers were already formed up in the now empty clearing. By the time she had walked over to stand beside Gariel, her cabin had disappeared into someone's MDP and you could barely tell they had ever been there.

  When the last were assembled, Gariel sent to his Troopers, "Who are we?"

  In one mighty mental voice they replied. "We are The Troopers of the Dimensional Alliance, dedicated to protecting the weak. We defend the right and the liberty of all beings by the grace of The Creator of All."

  "What is our creed?"

  "Peace is our first priority. True to the cause of freedom and faithful to our companions and our mission."


  As they stood at attention, mental voices reciting with conviction and power, Jenny really looked at them for the first time. They all appeared to be no different than any soldier she had ever seen. She remembered as a kid, her dad in his uniform. He always looked like a super hero to her. He too, had that light in his eyes that told her that his convictions were deep, and he did what he did to protect their family and the families of all of her friends.

  These men and women were diverse in so many ways. All humanoid, skin colors ranging from the slightest tinge of green to every racial skin tone on earth. She did not doubt that they varied also in other ways that couldn't be seen by her, but the one thing they all had in common was that fervor. They believed intensely in those words.

  "We go once again into the unknown as we have so many times before. We cannot allow the incursions of the Groga to continue. Our force is smaller, but each of you have been hand-picked for your ability to work as a team and make intelligent individual decisions as they are required. As we travel on the river, you will receive your orders and instructions. We are the shield of the dimensional gateways. There will be no welcoming victory parades for us. We serve those who do not know us and who may never realize the sacrifice each of us have chosen to make for their protection.

  I would trust every single one of you with my life and the lives of those I hold dear. You are my brothers and sisters. We would not harm the Groga or their allies, if they would attend to their own business, but we cannot allow them to continue to harm innocents for whatever reason. We go to victory, regardless of the outcome, either to conquer the Groga or to find ourselves in the arms of The Creator of All Things."

  At that point he held up both hands and they began to sing. It reminded Jenny of the Gregorian chants her mother had been fond of. The deeper voices harmonized with the higher voices in such perfection that the air vibrated. Jenny couldn't understand the words, but it made her feel peaceful and there was an ascending warmth and joy emanating from the chorus.