On Distant Shores (Exiles Triology Book 1) (38 page)

              Everett spoke, “No, Mike, while you were taking your nap, we were taking care of business.  Junior is down and done.”

              “So, since every hostile up there is dead, you guys think you might stop the comedy routine and roll this big bastard off of my mech armor so that I can stand up?”

              “Well, Mike, you have to understand, this type of situation, doesn’t come along every day.  So, we do need to savor the moment.”

              “When you’re done savoring, you might want to get me out of here.  Not for my sake, God knows.  But we might want the techs to take a look at the mech armor before another wave of these things hits.”

              “Weellll, yeah, I guess you’re right.”

              Another voice clicked on.  It was Bob, “Don’t worry boys, we have everything saved on video.  You can watch and re-watch to your heart’s desire.”

              “Thanks Bob, you’re a great help,” Mike replied. “
Comedians, surrounded by comedians
,” he thought.

              The team got busy.  It didn’t take them too long.  Another twenty minutes and Mike was freed from his prison.  Much longer and he would have tunneled out through the dragon. 

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              There were no more hostiles to deal with.  They sat in the mechs for a good hour, watching for hostiles. Mike felt that the situation had cooled down, and with no more hostiles inbound, Mike started rotating the team out to get something to eat, drink, to stretch, or to hit the latrine.  Another two hours and they were back down to their lowest security stance, with Mickey on watch in his mech armor.  The security team was much friendlier now.  Days of interacting with Mike and the team had brought the groups together.  Now they understood they had the same mission, to protect each other, and the engineers below.  As Mike and his team sat down among the security police and other Air Force personnel that were now on the security team, he could feel how the attitudes had shifted.  He and his team were now accepted.  Stories were told and retold as the afternoon wore on. 

Lenny and Matki Awrani came over to talk to Mike.Mike was eating an MRE.  Matki Awrani eyed the MRE covetously.  Mike fished out a muffin top and tossed it to him.  Matki Awrani’s eyes lit up as the package flew through the air towards him.  He snatched it out of the air and started to open it.  His eyes rolled in pleasure as he saw the chocolate chip muffing top.  Mike motioned for them to have a seat with him.

              “Hey Mike, how are you?”

              “Pretty good Lenny.  How are you and M.A. doing?”

              Matki Awrani was busy inhaling the muffin top.

              “He has some more information about the dragons.”

              “Really?  That translation software of yours must be working pretty good.”

              Lenny nodded, “Yeah, it’s almost scary how well the AI is working in the translation program.”

              Mike considered this, “I know what you mean.  The AI in my mech armor is getting so good that I don’t even realize that it is there.  Every now and then, though, a display or icon will light up a split second before I realize that I triggered it.”

              Mike took a bite of lasagna, “So, what’s up with the dragon situation?”

              Lenny threw a rock at one of the stalactites on the cave floor, “Well, it’s not good news.”

              Mike laughed, “I didn’t think it would be.”

              “It’s not going to stop.”

              “What’s not going to stop?”

              “The dragons.  They’ll keep on coming until one of them finally claims this location.  It’s their way.”

              “Their way, huh?  Maybe we can change their ways.”

              “I don’t think that’s possible.  M.A. says that there has always been a dragon in this valley.  When one dies, another replaces it.  Sometimes the one replacing it hastens the dying process.  That’s what they do.”

              Mike mulled this over.  He wanted a place that they could use as a base.  From what Lenny was telling him that was going to be impossible in this location.

              “And, it gets worse.”

              “Good Lord, Lenny, you’re just the bearer of bad tidings today.”

              Lenny looked glum.  Mike saw the look on Lenny’s face.  He softened his voice, “Hey, Lenny, don’t worry about it.  I’m just kidding you. I would rather you tell me the good news and the bad news.  I need both, so that I can make good decisions.  Bad news doesn’t get any better with time.  It stinks worse, like road kill in the sun.”

              Lenny nodded, the look on his face lightened a small bit.  “Mike, you know those dead dragons in their eggs, in the shaft.  The ones we had to drag out with the mother?”

              “Yeah, that was a big mess.”

              “Well, it turns out that was a blessing in disguise.”

              “Mmmmm, and why is that?”

              “Well, think about the size of those things.  They were the size of large pit bulls, and M.A. tells that they get bigger than that before they’re born.”

              “Yeah, but they’re all dead.”

              “Well, these are.”

              Mike put his head down into his hands, then ran his hands through his hair.

              “Let me guess, there are other females with other broods.”

              “Yeah, there are.  Probably not around here, because we just killed two females.  One that had a brood about to hatch, and another that was going into estrus.  When the brood hatches, they gang up into packs, and go hunting, until they get big enough and can’t stand to be around each other.”

              “You’re telling me that we’re going to be dealing with not only the big ones, but the little ones as well.”

              “Yeah, that’s about it.”

              Mike thanked him for the information.  The rest of the day was spent doing maintenance on the mech armor, to make sure that it was ready for more hard usage.

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              He dreamed of a lazy Saturday.  Before they got the pups, when they had just started trying for a baby.  He was lying in bed and Jo was sleeping on his chest.  He was looking up at the ceiling, watching the patterns of light as the sun crept through the blinds and the shadows of the ceiling fan as it moved.  It was a sweet day.  Any day he had with Jo was an amazing day.  He looked at her beautiful face, her breath tickling the hairs on his chest.

              He stretched, and she shifted as he moved.  When she slept, Jo would hold her hands together, like she was praying.  As he moved, one of her hands moved across his chest and then stopped on his stomach.  He leaned his head forward so that he could inhale the clean smell of her hair.  He breathed in deep, enjoying the aroma.  He kissed the top of her head.  Her hand shifted across his stomach, to the other side of his body, and her body shifted in closer to his.  His skin warmed as more of her body came into contact with it.

              He kissed her again, on top of her head.  She shifted her head so that he could kiss her forehead.  He twisted his body so that he was facing her.  She moved her arm under his body as he slipped his other arm around her.  She moved her head so that they could kiss.  The kisses started small, slow.  Jo started exploring his body with her hands and he explored hers.  He loved her lean, muscular body.  Yoga was such a wonderful thing.  The kisses grew in length as they explored.  The kisses became full, long, and languid.

              Jo whispered his name, “Mike.”

              He kept kissing her.

              “Mike, hey Mike.”

              Mike woke up.  He was dazed as he looked around.  Finally he recognized his surroundings.  The cot that he was on creaked as he shifted his weight.  He let the air out of his lungs in a grunt.

              “Hey buddy, are you okay?”

              Mike opened his eyes and looked at the smiling face of Rob Torres.

              “Hey Mike, you were groaning in your sleep.  I was worried about you after today.”

              Mike waved Rob off, “Yeah, don’t worry, I’m okay.  No problems.  It wasn’t nightmares, it was memories.”

              Everett walked over, “Hey, everything okay?

              Mike nodded, “Yeah, just dreaming about Jo.”

              Everett looked concerned.  This was the first time Mike had mentioned Jo since the incident.  He was worried about Tom and Mickey as well.  Neither of them were big talkers.  He and Rob had talked about their families, the ones they had left behind.  Everett knew it wasn’t going to get easier as time moved on.  He would have to monitor the team to make sure they were okay.

              Everett was on watch.  From now on, there would always be one leader on watch with the guards.  The days on this planet, or this dimension, or this universe, whatever the hell it was, were much longer than they were on Earth.  The team had figured that out the first full day topside.  The day didn’t seem like it would ever end.  So, they timed the day length, hoping the information might help them figure out where they were.  They timed the day from sunset to sunset to figure out how long the day was.  This was complicated by the cloud cover in the area, so it wasn’t precise, but they discovered the day here was about thirty-three hours long.

              They broke down the day into four eight hour shifts, which would slowly rotate as that extra hour came into play.  Mike, Everett, Jen, and Lieutenant Jondreau, or Ken as he now preferred to be called, were the leaders of the shifts.  Security was evenly divided into four shifts, ready to be called in case of emergency.  Bodies were packed in close across the cave floor.  Maintenance and logistics were broken down into shift rotations as well.  Rob, Mickey, and Tom pitched in to ensure that all necessary tasks were taken care of.

              Mike swung his feet out of the sleeping bag, and then moved into a sitting position.  There was a fire at the mouth of the cave, with a murder bird roasting on a homemade spit.  It turned out that murder bird was edible and very tasty.  Plus, they were too stupid to run away when they saw a hunting party.  They were like murderous dodo birds.  He wondered about their eggs.  He could use an omelet.

Mike looked out past the fire and he could see that night had fallen.  He yawned.  Everett squatted down next to the fire, and filled a canteen cup with coffee and moved over to Mike and Rob.  Rob sat down on the edge of the cot.  Everett came over and gave them both cups of coffee.  Everett sat down on his heels, and they were quiet for a minute as they thought about the people that they left behind.

              Rob asked, “Do you think we’ll ever get back?
              Mike looked at him, “Honestly, I don’t know.  I don’t know where we are, or where they are, or how we can go back.”  He paused, “Hell, I don’t even know if the brain trust downstairs can figure out where we are or what we can do about it.” 

They grew quiet again.  Mike sipped his coffee, wondering when the last of it would run out, “Who’s in the mech armor?”

              Everett answered, “I put Murph in.”

              It had been agreed, on conference with the brain trust and security leadership that more people needed to get acclimatized to the mechs.  The others may not have the athletic ability that Mike and his team did, but the work that they had done paved the way for others to use the mechs.  Plus it made sense.  If Mike, or anybody on the team were hurt, they would need to be replaced.  Now, the Air Force personnel and civilians were being rotated through systems training so the AI could get used to them.  The AI had been reprogrammed so that it had profiles for the people that rotated in and out of the equipment.  Mike even ensured that the profiles for Mike and his team were located on each suit of mech armor in case they couldn’t get to their original mechs.

              This training was extending to more than just mech armor training.  Mike and his team were shifting back to their Special Forces background, and starting to train everybody on weapons systems, hand to hand combat, survival, small unit tactics, and first aid.  While the older guys weren’t able to fully participate in some of the more athletic activities, such as the hand to hand combat training, a lot of those guys, especially the ones that had prior military training, were death with a rifle or hand gun.

              Their major problem was ammunition.  They were getting low on ammunition.  They dealt a large amount of damage to the dragons, and other predators.  The rub was, these were large animals, and required a lot of damage to bring them down.

              Tom was working with Hank, the fabrication lead, to build a few rifles big enough to take down the dragons.  This led to other problems though, such as brass, gunpowder, and primers.  They had the fifteen pieces of brass for the .50 BMG that was expended in the first fight with the original dragon.  They only had thirty-fiveunfired cartridges left.  They would have to figure out how to make new bullets.  That wasn’t an easy prospect when you didn’t have an industrial base to work with.  So they were looking for ways to create weapons that would deal with the problem.