by Clyde Key
* * *
It was Saturday and most of the soldiers who weren’t on guard duty or alien escort service had been given passes. And every one of the soldiers on pass had gone to Albuquerque for a weekend of rest and recreation. Albuquerque was the farthest destination allowed on a weekend pass. The few soldiers who were left on base were the ones that Major Baines had recruited already for the Resistance Army.
When Ed wandered through the camp on his daily walk, he came on to a scene of feverish activity. Most of Baines’s Resistance soldiers were re-crating weapons. Crates that had held twenty-four laser pistols were being repacked with only a dozen, and crates of a dozen laser shoulder weapons were being reduced to only six. The extra guns were then being repacked into large food boxes. Major Baines grinned when he saw Ed watching the activity.
“You don’t waste any time do you?” said Ed. “I thought you were only going to think about it for a while.”
“I thought about it and I decided there’s no time to waste. The way things happen, we could be ordered to disband at a moment’s notice and then the country would be left completely vulnerable.”
“Where are you going to stash the weapons?”
“That is a secret,” said Baines. “I know a good location but only you and me and about two of these troops are going to know. It’s safer that way. I’ll tell you before we get them moved.”
Ed left for the rest of his walk and returned a half an hour later to find soldiers loading the boxes into two large transport floaters. When he saw Major Baines, he called him aside. “Okay, where are the guns going?”
Baines looked around to see if anybody could overhear. “We’re taking them to Texas. My brother has a business with a warehouse in Lubbock. It’s already about three fourths full of boxes that look like these.”
