They watched as Jensen moved to the five-handled spin wheel of the vault door and gave it a hug.
“There’s pressure switches in the ends of two of these handles at three o’clock and eight o’clock.” Jensen explained. The physicist stretched out his arms and embraced the ends of the thick steel rods.
“When I say, ‘Go,’ Mr. Krouse.”
Jeff just shrugged and looked up at him with a “here goes nothing” look. “Roger that, switch, on the word ‘go.’”
“I will give a count to three, then the word,” Jensen said calmly.
“Ready.”
“One . . . Two . . . Three . . . Go.”
A loud slamming sound echoed through the mine shaft. They all felt the vibration through the floor. For a split second, Kyle had known they’d done something wrong, and that he was looking at a long stay on Earth, the last place he wanted to be right now. It had been the bolts around the circumference of the vault door slamming back into their recesses.
Jensen spun the wheel on the door and then pulled it open before turning around sheepishly. “I think this old man just shit himself. I forgot about that noise.”
Kyle sucked in a deep breath; the hairs on the back of his neck were still standing rigid. Jeff’s dark face looked to have paled several shades.
“Any more surprises, Doc?” Jeff asked, coming to his feet. “I don’t think my heart can do that again.”
“No more, we’re here.”
True to Jensen’s description, the phone booth was literally two large CONEX containers welded together. Heavy power cables ran from recesses in the wall to connections on the side. There was less than ten feet of clearance between the natural rock walls of the cavern and the portal device.
“How in the hell did you guys get this here?”
Jensen stepped into the room and shrugged. “Normal translation.”
“Seriously?”
“Remember, we were already here; we had time to take some very precise measurements once we were set up in New Seattle. Given enough time, enough data from previous translations, I could have put this thing in the Oval Office without scratching the paint.”
“I’ll be damned.”
Jensen grinned like a little boy playing with firecrackers. “Of course, the shock wave from the atmospheric dislocation would have blown out the windows and all the walls.”
Jeff looked over at him and grinned. “Yeah, there is that.”
Kyle walked around the front of the chamber and took a closer look at his ride home back to Elisabeth. Not to mention what would hopefully be Jake and Audy’s lifeline.
“Alright, Doc,” he said. “Light the boilers, or whatever it is you do. Clock’s ticking.”
“We’ll need to run a full diagnostic before we start charging it,” Jensen explained, looking at the device. “Get my team and the gear down here, and we’ll get started.”
*
Baltic Island, Bay of Riga, Chandra
They’d all translated in a succession of three groups, separated by the five minutes it took to recharge the portal in New Seattle, load in the Jema and their gear, and drop the heavy doors. A hundred and twenty-five Jema, along with twenty Edenite volunteers and all the gear necessary to keep the expeditionary force alive in every contingency they could think of were piled together in the dark. The area they were in was heavily wooded, sitting above a rocky cove of a small island north of what would have been the Bay of Riga on Earth, or Eden for that matter.
Jake had been in the first group, ready to hit the ground running if he had to. Their choice of location had worked out well. A complete patrol of the small island, even in the dark, had only taken an hour. They were confident they had the small island to themselves. There had been nothing beyond a single old campsite. The timing of their arrival hadn’t been as fortuitous; the cold rain had been coming down in sheets for the last hour, and they were still digging through the tons of packed supplies to find the rain ponchos.
He looked down at Lupe Flores, who was hunched over against the rain, cradling his sniper rig. He’d promised Carlos to look after his “primo.” He’d heard the stories from Kyle and others about Lupe’s rough life back on Earth. He paid it no mind. The guy had been solid against the Strema. There was no way Carlos would consider the guy his “cousin” if he hadn’t. Carlos, back on Eden, was already hitched with Lupe’s real cousin, so he was pretty sure there wasn’t anything actually tying the two together in a familial way beyond the shared experience of war. That weighed every bit as much as blood for Carlos and in his book as well.
“We should have packed fishing poles in the go bags.” He almost had to shout against the sound of the rain hammering into the trees above them and the rocky ground.
Lupe just looked back at him. “This sucks.”
“Beats being dropped into a community meeting of the locals.”
Lupe considered that for a moment and then gave his head a shake. “You sure about that?”
He wasn’t. The storm didn’t look to be letting up at all.
They’d timed their arrival for an hour after nightfall. This far north, in late October, they’d have a solid fifteen or sixteen hours of darkness. Jake figured they still had most of that as he stood up and tried to get a look at the cover below them. Somewhere across the water and the impenetrable darkness of the storm, thirty miles directly south of them lay the northern shore of the European continent. Technically, it would have been Latvia on Earth. Here on Chandra, it was one of the places the Jema had lived for thousands of years before the Kaerin had arrived and relocated the clan to the Iberian Peninsula.
According to Audy, the ancient Jema had controlled the shores of what he thought of as the Baltic states, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland, as well as the thousands of islands that dotted the Baltic Sea. They’d gone from here to the sunbaked Iberian Peninsula at gunpoint, courtesy of the Kaerin. That had been some five hundred years ago. At this point, he had more experience operating in this area, courtesy of joint NATO training missions, than any of the Jema. That needed to change. Their first priority was to find somebody to act as a local guide and fill in their lack of local knowledge.
Audy and Jomra were convinced there were small groups of free peoples, the Creight, living in the far north. Tribes too small to play a part in or threaten the Kaerin’s feudal system, but still actively hunted by the rulers of this planet when they were spotted. That was all well and good, but they weren’t going to be able to foment a revolution using tribesman who lived off of hunting caribou and seals. They needed a place they could set up and defend, somewhere in close proximity to the Hatwa clan that had been moved into the area when the Jema had been moved out.
Audy and Jomra’s plan was to use the Kaerin system of control against them. The Jema had never been ordered to fight the Hatwa, or vice versa. The Kaerin were wise enough not to have allowed the Jema access to their ancestral grounds. They’d normally been used against two other clans indigenous to Iberia. Then the Jema had revolted, and defeated their neighbors. It had taken the full might of the Strema and the Kaerin themselves to stop the Jema, but stop them they had. The Kaerin had followed up by culling the Jema down to a group of fifty thousand or so children. Millions had been executed; the Jema who now called Eden home were all that were left.
Audy came out of the gloom, the red diode on his headlamp casting the dimmest of light.
“The RHIBs ready?” Jake asked. The inflatable patrol boats with two outboard engines each had been shipped unassembled in order to save space. Audy’s people had trained on inflating them, but he doubted if they’d done it in the dark, or in a rainstorm.
Audy sat down next to him and switched off his helmet-mounted light. “Just one so far. We will not be going tonight. We had difficulty locating the air pumps.”
He nodded to himself, knowing they wouldn’t be able to see shit on a night like this. “You find the rain gear?”
“It is inside that mountain of supplies.” Audy jerked a
thumb behind him. “No.”
Jake pointed off to his side. “That large island to the north of us, I think I saw light from a campfire or lantern before the rain picked up. Let me take a couple of your guys and see if we can get ourselves a volunteer.”
“A volunteer?”
“A co-optee, then.”
Audy tilted his head to the side. “I don’t . . .”
“OK, a prisoner, then,” he relented. “Probably just someone on a fishing trip.”
“Our scouts saw it as well,” Audy agreed. “I had planned to take the first boat myself.”
“Let me go.”
“Jake.” Audy shook his head. “If we are discovered too soon, we will need your experience in this kind of fighting to survive. I won’t risk you, not yet.”
He just smiled back. “You and your people have a lot of experience with covert, small boat, nighttime water insertion?”
He shook his head when Audy just looked at him. He knew what the Jema were capable of. In a stand-up fight, he’d never seen better. This was something different.
“Audy, I was a SEAL. This is exactly what I was trained to do.”
Audy just looked back at him, the dimmest of light from Lupe’s red headlamp giving the Jema’s face a ghostly look.
“Don’t make me beg, Audy . . . and I will if I have to.”
“Fine, you may go. But you will harm no one. Just return and report.”
He clapped Audy on the shoulder and stood up. “Roger that, sir. Who’s your best swimmer?”
Audy unclasped his hands and opened them in confusion. “Jake, we have a boat.”
He smiled down at his friend. “Trust me, Audy.”
Now if he could just find the wet suit and flippers he’d packed.
*
Chapter 9
Nebraska, Earth
“OK, that’s it. He’s gone.”
Tom looked over at Pete Ballard, across the darkened cab of the rancher’s pickup. He’d seen the taillights of the last car leaving the small municipal airport’s parking lot himself. If he didn’t know better, Pete seemed to be enjoying himself.
“Let’s wait a few minutes, in case he forgot something.”
“That’s Emmett Crosby; he’s going home. Trust me. He won’t be back till tomorrow. Man’s never put in a hard day’s work his entire life.”
“You’re sure there’s no cameras?”
“Not unless the Feds put them in,” Pete growled. “Nothing here to steal except half a dozen crop dusters, and a couple of ancient Cessnas.”
“But they have jet fuel?”
“No, I said they have a tank labeled Jet Fuel A. You saw it.”
Tom mentally gave his head a shake. Pete could be a real pain in the ass. It wasn’t like he could blame the guy. Their arrival had turned the rancher’s life upside down.
“You give any more thought to coming with us?”
Pete sat there in silence for a moment before grunting, “Not like you’ve left me any choice. Besides, Sharon informed me she’s going. Not up for debate, something about how she was going to watch her grandkid grow up.”
Britt had already told him that Pete’s wife was coming with them. If he’d met a kinder soul in his life than Sharon Ballard, he couldn’t remember when. The fact that she’d been married for nearly forty years to Pete put her in rarified territory, to the point Tom figured she deserved sainthood.
“Pete, I know we’ve apologized; but seriously, if we’d had an option, we would have taken it.”
Pete ignored him, which he’d almost gotten used to. “She might have said something about how I was a miserable, angry asshole, too stuck in my ways to see a good thing when it was right in front of me. Said I should be thanking you.”
“I’m still sorry.”
Pete held up a finger. “She said that, not me. We get to this fantasy land; I’ll thank you then.”
“Fair enough.”
They sat in silence for another five minutes. “What’s taking your fly-boy so long?”
Rich had come with them. He was out there somewhere on foot, off to the side of the runway. He’d test the fuel first before he signaled to them to come down the narrow asphalt runway. They were pulling an empty weed sprayer behind the old F-250. Pete had assured them that he’d rinsed out the tank after using it last. They’d driven by the airport during the day and had seen the small tank; even if it happened to be full, there wouldn’t have been enough fuel to get the Osprey to Idaho. All they were hoping for was enough to get them to the Muncy Ranch. Once there, they’d have to refuel or be prepared for a very long walk.
“Not the first fuel he’s had to steal; he knows what he’s doing.”
Pete looked at him for a moment before hawking up something and spitting out the window.
He was starting to wonder why Sharon Ballard wasn’t trying to convince the crotchety old bastard to stay behind, when he saw the three flashes from Rich’s flashlight spark within the darkness next the airfield’s single hangar at the far end of the runway.
“OK, there’s fuel,” he said, and pointed out the windshield.
“’Bout time,” Pete muttered as he started his truck and put it in gear. The sprayer made what he thought was an ungodly racket as it crested the shoulder of the runway. There shouldn’t have been anybody around to see or hear them. The small airfield, like the community it supported, was out in the middle of nowhere.
“Your boys saw my antler collection in the barn,” Pete said, as he straightened the rig out on the runway. “Said you do a lot of hunting. I mean before you were a federal fugitive and all.”
“As much as I could, lately just little whitetails in the Carolinas. Some wild hogs as well.”
“We’re starting to get them out here, too; the sows are good eating. I got a guy that says they’ve just followed the irrigation from the East Coast, and up from East Texas all the way out here.”
“They’re a fun hunt. I know some guys that hunt them with spears from horseback.”
“What the hell for?”
“The challenge, I guess. They were always trying to get me to go. I’d have liked to given it a shot.”
Pete shook his head and may have even smiled a little bit. “You may be alright, Tom.”
“You too, Pete.”
“Doesn’t mean this crazy ninja bullshit isn’t going to see us praying for sunscreen down in New Mexico.”
“Just when I start thinking you’re not a miserable, angry asshole, you go and prove me wrong.”
For a moment, he thought he’d stepped over the line with Pete. A huge grin broke out on the rancher’s face, and he slapped the steering wheel and was still laughing when they rolled to a stop next to the small tank farm.
Rich materialized out of the dark and looked in through the passenger window at both of them. “You guys alright?”
“There fuel in that tank?” Pete almost shouted.
“Some, not a lot.” Rich looked between them, his gaze settling on him. “Who knows how long it’s been setting there, though.”
“I reckon we’ll know when you try to spark your turbines,” Pete said, as he hopped out of the truck.
“What’s with him?” Rich whispered as Pete disappeared around the back of the farm sprayer.
“I think he just realized he’s with us, whether he wants to be or not.”
“Not sure that’s a good thing.” Rich grinned.
“Hey!” Pete shouted from behind the truck. “You ladies expect the Marine to do this by himself?”
*
Idaho, Earth
“What you got?” It had taken Kyle twenty minutes to make it out of the mine and hike the half mile to where Jeff had posted as a lookout. Three clicks on the radio, followed by two more, had meant come quick, but threat unidentified. From his position, Jeff’s OP had a good view down the canyon in either direction.
“I have no earthly idea,” Jeff answered with his eyes glued to his binoculars. He pulled away, and handed over t
he glasses. “Way down the valley, about a hundred yards this side from that turnaround where the dirt road ends.
“West side of the creek,” Jeff added once he had the binoculars up and was looking.
“What? . . . what the hell?”
“I got two theories,” Jeff chuckled. “I thought the two rednecks, who look like they could be your cousins, were up to no good. I apologize, racial profiling . . . sue me. But they’re all packing high-quality assault weapons, even the pregnant lady, and it’s not the first time she’s held one. I watched them bury their monster truck in the brush. I had to guess, she’s in charge.”
Kyle could see the two solid-looking white guys, soldier types, dressed in hunting camo, but they moved like civilians. The small black guy wearing civilian clothes, though, he moved like a soldier. And the woman . . . the woman was definitely preggers. The whole group was carrying some M4 variant, and the three men weighed down with heavy packs were moving super slow through the brush to where the trail alongside the creek began. It was a picture that made absolutely no sense.
“You said two theories . . .”
“Adopt a Redneck Week at the local college? Some religious cult? Maybe they’re headed out here to check on their meth lab?”
“That’s three theories.” Kyle smiled in response. His imagination hadn’t come up with anything better. He checked the sun; it was going to be dark in less than an hour.
“No way they continue up here in the dark. I say we go down and pay them a visit tonight.”
“Sounds like a good way to get shot.”
“You think they could be part of some local resistance? On the run? Looking for a place to hide?”
Jeff shook his head. “Could be, I guess. You don’t bring a pregnant lady along unless you don’t have a choice. Question is, why the hell are they headed directly at our mine?”
“Yeah.” He rolled over to face Jeff. “We need that answer. Keep an eye on them; I’ll head back down and collect—”
“Dom,” Jeff interrupted. “I spelled Hans; the big guy needs his sleep.”
“Right.” He started to go and then stopped. “Once they stop to camp for the night, why don’t you catch a few until I get back with Dom? Not like anybody else is coming up that valley without having to come through them, whoever they are.”
New Shores: The Eden Chronicles - Book Three Page 11
