Confederation -- 20

Chapter 20

I became aware of the pain in my wrists first. Something was cutting into them. I moved my head to try and see and inadvertently groaned. It felt like the back of my skull was caved in. My head was throbbing, and my arms were somehow twisted behind my back.

Someone came up and kicked me hard in the gut about that time.

"Bout time you came to, you sumbitch. You killed most of my men. I'm goin' ta take you back to field HQ, and we're goin' ta jam an implant in yer head. Then we'll see what ya know. Nobody can hold out against one of them. I figure a fancy pilot like you will know a lot about the Denver group. Ya just might earn me a promotion," he slurred.

I realized that he was about half drunk. Maybe the farmer had kept a supply of liquor. He kicked me again and staggered off towards what I now realized was a fire. My head was hurting so bad that I'd thought it was just a flashing in my eyes at first.

My next thought was to wonder where Whistle was. I tried to roll so that I could look around, but I couldn't see him. It was dark, but the firelight allowed me to see that only four men were in the group. I fervently hoped that I'd killed the rest of the blood-thirsty barbarians. Anyone who would kill innocents like that deserved to be gone from this world.

I tried to move my hands, and it seemed like they must have used zip-ties on them. They were so numb that I couldn't feel my fingers. If I did manage to escape, I might still lose my hands if they were too far gone.

The men at the fire opened another bottle of something and passed it around. They were getting louder as they drank more. As the bottle's level dropped, one of them got up to relieve himself. He came over to my location, unzipped his pants, and then pissed all over my back. His urine was hot on my skin but rapidly cooled in the chill air.

I lay still, and he stepped closer. I could see one of the men by the fire toppled over, too drunk to sit upright any longer. The one by me kicked my ribs tentatively. Suddenly it was all too much. I swung my legs around and swept his feet from under him. He dropped, hitting with a grunt as the air was knocked out of him. I rolled over and got my legs around his neck. I think he had a knife, but he was too drunk to use it. We rolled around a little until I got the proper leverage and broke his neck.

I looked over to see if the others had heard anything, but there was only one sitting upright now with his head on his chest. Two of them had passed out.

I struggled to my feet and started to move back into the darkness. After ten steps, someone moved right in front of me. I sighed. Maybe they'd been smart enough to set a watch, and I was caught, but then a low voice whispered, "Turn around, and I'll cut you loose."

It wasn't one of them. I turned around. There was some fumbling with my hands, and then my arms swung free. I immediately tried to work my hands. To my relief, they were still mobile. Compartmentalization hadn't set in, and I thought I'd probably be all right. I rubbed my wrists along my arms. I couldn't use my hands well enough as yet.

My rescuer stepped up beside me. He was small, a youth, I thought. Maybe one of the farmer's children.

"There's only three of them left. I didn't think you could kill anyone the way you did, Mister. You wait here. I'm going to finish this now," he said in a low voice.

"Be careful. They're a lot bigger than you," I cautioned.

He snorted, "I've killed a lot better ones than them. They're drunk and don't know what's up. Killing them will be almost too easy, but I saw what they did to those girls in the farmyard. They're dead now."

He stepped forward a few paces and raised his hand. There was a sharp snap and a little flash from the muzzle of the gun he held. It must have been a small caliber from the sound of it, but the seated soldier groaned and fell forward with his face in the fire. He didn't move, so the shot must have been immediately fatal.

The youth walked closer to the fire, carefully shot each of the other two in the head, and then stooped down to check their bodies. I walked up slowly. The kid, for so I judged him, was holding a small pistol in his hand while he searched the bodies for valuables. He paused over the second man.

I walked up and saw that the man's head had suffered some kind of explosion from within. The little gun wouldn't have done that. Puzzled, I knelt and examined the body. Fluid and blood were coming out of its ears, and both eyes had been pushed out of their sockets and were now hanging loosely on the corpse's cheeks. I turned the head and found a large hole behind the right ear. I suddenly remembered the implant that I'd detected in the sniper who had been trying to kill Kasm when we first met with Jake in Estes Park. Perhaps this was the same sort of thing. The twenty-two bullet had bounced around inside the guy's skull and struck the implant, triggering a self-destruct charge. It was a nasty device.

While I looked the body over, the youth had stepped to the third man and knelt. He fumbled around with the guy's equipment. After a moment, he unfastened a belt that held a holstered pistol and brought it over to me.

"Here, you might need this. You can shoot a pistol, can't you? You're not just someone who can shoot fireballs from an airplane, right?" he asked.

The implication that I was helpless irritated me, and I answered, "Yeah, I can handle a pistol, but we'd better get their rifles and get out of here before any others show up. You're taking too long looting them."

"Don't criticize me, Mister. I cut you free, and don't you forget it," he hissed.

I regretted my harshness and answered, "I know, and I'm grateful. It's just that we need to be going."

He stepped past me, and I reached out to stop him. My hand pushed against his chest and – He was a girl! I was momentarily shocked, and I gasped in surprise.

She swung her little gun up to point at my face and snarled, "So, you know! Don't get any ideas about me. I can take care of myself. Just because I rescued you doesn't mean that – that –"

She paused as if overcome by the implied thought.

I hastily interjected, "You're safe with me. I'm married with two children, and all I want to do is to get back to my wife."

She relaxed perceptibly. "That's okay, then. I've been moving towards the mountains. How far do you think they are from here?"

I was puzzled, "You don't know?"

"No, why do you think I asked? A person wouldn't ask if she knew," she said in an irritated tone.

I resolved to start over. "Look, my name is Declan, and you might be?" It was an idiotic line, but it had always worked for me before.

"You can call me 'Hattie,'" she said in an easier tone of voice.

"Hattie, where is my ship, and did you see any small, furry creature anywhere?" I was very worried about Whistle.

She snorted, "Your ship is about a mile over that way, and I haven't seen any dogs or cats or anything else but you and these dead guys." She paused and then added, "I did see a rabbit yesterday, but I shot it for dinner."

"That's not what I meant. The pilot of my flyer was a Sunny. They sort of look like big otters, but their heads are disproportionately large. They're intelligent aliens from another planet; and our friends," I added as an afterthought.

She seemed surprised but then said, "I heard there were space aliens here now, but I never expected to see one."

"Well, lead me to where my ship is, and we'll see if he's around there," I instructed.

A few minutes later, we were approaching the pond from below the dam. We climbed over the dam and looked. The shuttle should have been visible since it wasn't that dark. The full moon had started to rise, and its light was enough that I could see the shuttle was gone.

I exclaimed, "It's not here. The Motherland people couldn't have moved it, so – maybe, uh, maybe Whistle fixed whatever was wrong and took it back to base. At least that's what I hope."

We walked around to where we'd landed. The ground was torn up, but there was no sign that the shuttle had been dragged away. It had to have taken off.

I thought quickly. We needed to find some safe place to hole up before the next day broke. I didn't want to be captured again if any of the Motherland people were around. Assuming we could hide out during the day, maybe we could make our way back to Jake's territory.

I explained to her, and she snorted in response. "Look, Declan, that's just what I've been doing. There's a road back that way about half a mile, and we can follow that for a few hours until we get too tired. Maybe we can find a safe place to hide then. I've been doing pretty good, just going out into the pastures and finding a coyote den or a hole to lay up in. I'm going to keep on doing that. I suggest you come with me, but if you don't like that idea, you can just go on your own without me."

She was sure of herself. I liked that. The girl certainly had spunk. I said, "You can call me 'Dec.' It's shorter, and most people call me that. What's your real name?"

She hesitated then said firmly, "Hattie."

I asked, "Is that all? Just 'Hattie'?"

She nodded, "Just 'Hattie.'

We'd been walking towards the road she'd mentioned, and we had reached it. I stepped on the bottom fence wire and lifted the next one, making a gap for her to duck through. She did and then performed the same service for me.

Bending down made my head throb like fury and I kind of groaned.

She asked, "Are you alright? You must have been beat up pretty bad."

"I think I'll be okay. It's just that somebody hit me on the back of the head, and it hurts pretty bad," I answered.

"Bend down here so I can feel it," she ordered.

I did, and she gently probed my scalp. Finally, she said, "Well, it has clotted blood all over, and your hair is matted, but I can't feel any holes or anything, so I think your skull is okay."

I quickly straightened up and said, "That's a relief. I was kind of scared to feel it myself."

We walked quietly for several hours. She didn't talk much, only enough to let me know that my questions weren't welcome.

Along about dawn, we found a deep gully in a field. There was a clump of cottonwood trees on the gully bank by a small pool of water, and one of them had a large hole under its roots. There was enough room for both of us, and it looked as if it would be pretty good cover, so we holed up there.