by R J Murray
Chapter 12 - Breakthrough
The meeting went smoothly, with Colonel Davis doing a good job running it and bringing out the details from each man in the room. Joshua made a note about a chief of staff and showed it to John who nodded. About an hour later the consensus was to evacuate. It would take an airship at least once a day to keep the base operational. The resources would be too strained by such a schedule. John had the Colonel make the announcement and ask the civilians what they wanted to do. Given the choice of going or being abandoned, they chose to go. John had the two girls watch as Joshua used the com crystals to call Christine at the Citadel and had Tasha use one, but not with Joshua, remembering the first, last and only incident of co-ed com crystals.
Tasha was sold after that. Maria was a bit jealous, but said she would hang with her anyway. She wanted to at least see the castle.
Joshua let John know that the air wing would arrive in three hours to start the evacuation. John raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything. When they were out of earshot of the others Joshua had questions, and explanations. “That was very different. You have a change of heart and going official on us?”
“These people were not under the stress that the West Base was and they had a military organization still working. The Professor was actually running the show at West Base, so everyone was used to taking orders from a civilian. Here, I really had to work at it to get them confused enough to accept the absurdity of me as their new CO. I have a headache from using the mental shadow thing.”
“Mental shadow. You really have to start talking about this stuff a little more. You just keep coming up with things that are just so far out. Mental shadow. Neat name.”
“What about you. The air wing will arrive in three hours. You think that two ships will impress them?”
“Four ships. The two twins, the grappler and another single hull, which the grappler is carrying.”
Ships were designated by an official class now. The single was a single tank; the twin was the two huge marine tanks with a separate cockpit and passenger section. The grappler was the heavy lifter Suki had been finishing when they left last night. It had a big cockpit and cabin but instead of a tank for carrying, it had a bare metal framework with straps and chains, so you could load things like overseas containers into the cradle and lift them. That way the containers could be loaded by the recovery teams and picked up by the grappler without having a ship sitting on the ground until the tanks were filled.
“Really. Suki is not magic, is he? Sometimes I wonder about how he gets these things done so fast.”
“Ask him when he gets here.”
“He's coming too? Why?”
“He didn't explain and Christine didn't explain.”
“He didn't explain. Suki, himself, didn't explain. Did you talk to him?”
“Yes, on the com . . .”
John smiled. “The plot thickens. He can't use com crystals, only Wizards can. How did you talk to him on the com crystals?”
“Uh. Ask him when he gets here?” Joshua grinned, wondering what was going on with Suki.
The two men spent the next three hours making sure that everything that could be loaded, either in the airship already on the base or in as many overseas containers as were needed. They were loaded on the containers by priority, for the most part, since only one grappler was coming. The people were very organized thanks to the Colonel, who did have a knack for the details. When the small fleet arrived, they were as ready as they could be. Christine landed first with one of the twins followed by Jenny in the second. The grappler set the single down and maneuvered over the overseas container before landing on top of it. Elizabeth and Suki came out of the grappler and waved at John and Joshua as they came down the ladder needed to disembark, attached with a rotating pin to the side of the grappler. The five Wizards meet in the middle of the landing area and had a few seconds before the Colonel joined them.
“Suki, what happened, you get bored sitting around the Citadel?”
Suki grinned. “Something like that. Do you know what this is?” He held up a wand with a slightly larger handle.
“Is this a trick question?”
Suki aimed the wand in the air and unleashed a bolt of lightning.
John and Joshua looked at him opened mouthed for a second, then started pounding him on the back, jumping around and hugging him. When the Colonel arrived, he wasn't sure whether to call a squad or just let them sober up quietly. John got his composure back and made the introductions. When the saluting died down, John explained the breakthrough.
“So you're saying that we can now operate this technology without the gene.”
“Yes Sir. I have a few samples I brought with me for the Wizard to look over and while it is still in the developmental stage, we should have a few working pieces of equipment for the troops in a few days. Weapons, energy weapons like you have never seen in your life. And I flew the grappler for the last hour and landed it. I have a small plane in the works which can be carried inside one of the twins, and can be flown by a Human or a Wizard.”
“Human?”
“Someone without the gene. Try to stay with us Colonel. How did you do it?”
“Not me. Well, not just me. Part of it came from that chemical guy, Benton. Batteries, you know that batteries are all dead. This could take a little time. Want to start loading while we talk?”
“Good idea. Colonel, get the troops moving and come back. We'll wait for you.”
“Yes Sir.” He took off quickly, returning in five minutes.
“It's like this. When the waves hit the Earth on The Day, a lot of chemicals broke down or were changed with batteries among those things. All electrical storage discharged completely and regular batteries were changed chemically so they no longer worked. Ni-cads were not changed, just discharged and as you know, Ni-cads are rechargeable. Once the insulation was available we started the steam engines, hooked them up to the generators and started generating electricity. We were able to recharge some of the Ni-cads and use them in flashlights. Benton built several types of batteries and we started seeing what we could run off of them.
“Johnson had sent a friend of his over, Dan something, who used to be with NASA, he did stuff with the Mars rovers and geology and crystal structures. Anyway, he had been looking into why the crystals were used as channels for you Wizards and how they worked. When we got some of the new batteries from Benton, Dan asked for a few, because he had been using the electric for a while. You know, AC, but he wanted DC instead. Are you with me so far?” He didn't wait for a response. “When he got the DC batteries, Dan hooked them up and was able to use the DC current to activate a lite crystal. Then we started working on ways to make the current stronger and last longer. I can get four or five shots off with this but the grappler can fly for two hours on batteries and this can give me about four hundred shots before I need to change batteries.” Suki pulled out a bulky submachine gun from his bag.
“I don't recognize the model but it looks good to me. Soldiers with real weapons. What a unique idea. Remind me to buy the team a round of drinks. Colonel, I would like to see this work. Would you care to join us?”
“Yes Sir, I most definitely would.”
Christine said. “We've seen it and we are suitably impressed. We are going to meet the new girl. Meet you back at the ships when you're done.”
The three ladies walked off as the men headed away from the occupied buildings. When they had moved off a few hundred yards, Suki opened up with the weapon. It was fairly simple. The crystals were in the firing chamber, connected to the batteries, which were attached where the magazine would be. A small round plate connected to a small electric motor, interrupted the current to the crystals and when the trigger was pulled, the plate spun, causing an intermittent, but regular pulse of electricity to the crystals, which then fired a pulse of energy. It was a little on the crude side, but it worked and it was a prototype, after all. They spent the next twenty minutes discussing the weapon and the po
ssibilities, as well as taking turns firing it.
In the meantime, the ladies were having a nice time. Tasha and Christine could have been twins and the others were having a hard time with the implications.
“So, do all Elves look the same?”
“Do you both have the same abilities?”
“Do you both have the hots for Joshua?”
Everyone looked at Jenny and Tasha asked Christine, “Do you have the hots for him? He is kinda cute, but isn't he a little young? I mean you are thirty two right?”
“So is he. Thirty three, actually. He's a year older than I am and yes, I guess I do.”
“So is John taken?”
Jenny jumped. “He is way too old for you. He's old enough to be your grandfather.”
“So you like him. Are you like fifty or something?”
“No, I don't like him! He is stupid! He does stupid stuff! And I am NOT some old lady like you!”
“Wow. She really does like him. A lot.” Elizabeth leaned over and whispered to Jenny, who blushed deeply.
“I really gotta ask what you said. You do that a lot.” Christine folded her arms across her chest. “Come on 'fess up.”
Elizabeth smiled coyly and looked down so innocently. “Who? Me?!”
Jenny was fuming for a few seconds, then started laughing. “I guess I don't hide it too well, do I. It's kinda hard, sometimes. He treats me like I was a little kid most of the time, then he just pats me on the head or asks me if I want some candy or something stupid.”
“He asks if you want candy. How does he say it?”
“He gets this really dumb look on his face and smiles and says 'want some candy little girl?' and just grins at me.”
“Really. How interesting. I am going to hurt him.” Christine shook her head and Tasha chuckled.
“Am I missing something?” Elizabeth was puzzled and so was Jenny.
“Never mind. Right now, you are too young for him. Even if he was twenty, you're still twelve, so in six years, come back and get him, but not until then. Don't feel bad, he's even way too old for me and I did have a few thoughts that way myself, at first. Not now, but at first he was, well, romantic. The outfits he wears, the way he carries himself, the stuff he can do. It's easy to see why you would be interested and I do understand what it means when the one you want doesn't want you. I used to be an old, pudgy plain blah kind of person. There was a few times when I thought I would die if that guy or this guy didn't like me, but I lived. Now, I think and feel different and I look different. Tasha, you went through a hard time as a kid too, right?”
“How did you know?”
“Been there. I recognize the look in your eyes and I'm a Wizard. I know things.” Christine looked at Maria. “Were you friends before?”
“Yes, we were. Our parents had ranches next to each other, so I grew up with Tasha as my babysitter. She was always really sweet, but she had this glandular thing and it really was bad. By the time I was like twelve, she couldn't hardly even walk and I would come over and sit with her, to keep her company. We were together when, you know, all this happened and you know, it was like there was this beautiful girl laying there in Tasha's dress and it was her. It was awesome you know.”
Christine was looking back and forth between the two girls and thinking of Tricia. Tasha was blushing and looking at her feet. Jenny and Elizabeth moved to her and hugged her. Jenny said, “At least you got a good friend. Most of us lost everybody. If it wasn't for John, Joshua and Christine, I still wouldn't have anyone. I was kind of a spoiled brat. I wasn't very nice to anyone. They had to teach me how it feels to have a friend. You're lucky.”
“If I had talked to a grownup like she had talked to John, my mom and my dad would have tanned my butt. She's a lot nicer now. A whole lot. A really huge, big, massive . . .”
“We get the picture, Elizabeth.” Jenny playfully stuck out her tongue and Elizabeth suddenly saw Sarki on that pile of trash where Dogg had left her when he was done. She burst into tears and it took a while for the others to get her to stop and tell them what happened in Atlanta.
“I guess we had it pretty easy.” Christine was sitting with an arm around Elizabeth's shoulders and running her fingers through the girl’s hair. The others were sitting around her, in shock from the vivid tale she had just finished.
“Yeah. Volcanoes, fires, earthquakes, dire wolves, Goblins and that guy. I thought I had it bad when I didn't have any servants.” Tasha and Maria looked at each other, not sure she was joking. Jenny saw the look and continued. “Yes, I had servants, at least two, all my life. They picked up after me, gave me my bath, dressed me, cut up my food. I made them do some things and if I didn't like what they did nor if they didn't do it fast enough, I would get them in trouble. I must have had six of them fired, just because I could. My parents made sure I had tutors, private school, piano, dance and fencing lessons. I owned a stable, too. The busier I was, the less they had to deal with me.”
“So you went from one fairy tale to another. Bummer.” Christine was still looking at Elizabeth, but listening to the others. “We can continue this back at the base but right now we need to start loading the ships. If you will all follow me we will be going. Jenny, stay close to Elizabeth, OK?”
“Sure. I would anyway, but extra close today.”
They walked out of the building to find the ships were loaded and John was headed for them, the sun setting behind him.
“Ladies, have a nice talk?” Elizabeth walked up to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. He stroked her hair as he asked, “Elizabeth, you all right?”
“No, she isn't John.”
“Memories of Atlanta?”
“Yes. Was it as bad as she remembers?”
“Probably worse. The mind tends to block out the really bad stuff. She mention names?”
“Later. We don't want to stir up any more demons.”
“OK. If you will get to your ships, we will head back to base.”
There were still three containers they would have to come back for, as well as several crates still stored in one of the buildings, but the ships were full and all the people were aboard, so it would have to wait for another day.
Elizabeth was quiet on the trip back, sitting close to John with Jenny on the other side.
