A World for the Taking Ch. 09

This is the final chapter of this story. Hope you enjoy it. I'll be heading back to work on Monday and I do not know when I will get time to write more. Maybe I'll get another one done before the end of the year. In the meantime if you have questions or observations please go to the forum thread I created for this series.

http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1346444

*****

A World for the Taking

Chapter 9

"Damn it," Yoshi swore softly. "Doesn't match up. I thought this stuff would match. I mean, there are only so many ways to make a transceiver."

F`reet `du Hom knelt beside him scowling at the cable ends as if she wanted to tear them from the console. Yoshi felt much the same. His frustration made it difficult to concentrate and the impending arrival of the Dusig multiplied the stress a thousand fold. Tammy had been gone for more than an hour already. When were the Dusig coming? He had to get this done. They had to send the message.

"The power leads went together easy," he grumbled, nervous sweat dripping off his nose. "All we had to do was make connectors to fit the ends and..."

Yoshi froze, his thoughts racing. Connectors. The power lead connectors were designed to transfer the energy with limited resistance. When he crimped them in place it did not matter if one lead was thicker than the other or if one was wide and flat while the other was round. The connectors with their built-in boosters or resistors carried the load smoothly from Human tech to jZav` tech. He needed something to carry the signal from the transceiver to the antenna the same way.

"That's it!" he cried.

F`reet `du Hom jerked back, startled. Yoshi was too intent on his idea to notice and sprang for the bulky fabricator, grinning like a maniac.

"It should be simple. Not easy. Simple. They aren't the same. My dad says that all the time. Simple. Keep it simple."

The jZav`Etch pilot sat beside the transceiver blinking without comprehending as the boy rattled on. His fingers flew over the controls and his gaze focused entirely on the screen.

"It's like a tiny transformer." He keyed something into the controls. "It's the same sort of thing the CP gear does when it receives and decodes the signal from an alien made communications array. Only I have to make it tiny. Tiny and simple."

F`reet `du Hom rose and crossed to him, careful to not distract him from his task. Her head snapped up to look at the door in trepidation, but Yoshi did not notice. His lips were pressed together in concentration.

"There!" he barked. "That's what I need. Vespan to CP transfer link. The CP side is fine."

He set his pad on the reader atop the fabricator and keyed the link before scrolling through the jZav`Etch component data he had entered. It took a little time to calculate the necessary parameters but seconds later the fabricator hummed and began creating a connector.

"This is it!" Yoshi cried happily, his stress dropping as he plucked it from the dispenser. He held it out to show F`reet `du Hom but she wasn't there. She wasn't anywhere.

Yoshi glanced quickly around and wondered what had happened until he heard shots being fired somewhere outside the tower. His guts turned to ice. The Dusig had arrived. He rushed back to the transceiver and began making the connection. A quick test showed the design worked and he rushed to have the fabricator make more. The machine hummed again and spat out a handful of the small devices and the boy rushed back to the transceiver. His fingers moved with dexterous accuracy, crimping one connector in place after another. He made a splice without even needing to think about it. Three cables were joined into one and fed into the powerful antenna. It took him a few minutes to come up with a modification to mate a hard line to a pulse cable and ended up using a compact little transformer capable of decoding the jZav`Etch information and reformatting it for the CP equipment.

More shots were fired outside, sounding much closer. Yoshi's hands were shaking, but he kept himself focused. It was easier to think about the job at hand than to think about the fighting outside. Only when he thought about Jean did he stop in the grip of fear. But that was her rifle going. If she was shooting, she was alright. He redoubled his efforts.

"That's the relays," he croaked, swallowing hard and wiping sweat off his brow. "Power and relays are done. Now I need to do the controls. I need to figure this out. What does what?"

Yoshi looked at the contacts and the ports. Nothing made sense. He couldn't recall which plug went where. He had watched carefully as F`reet `du Hom had disconnected the transceiver, but that was days ago. The pile of salvaged jZav`Etch cables and connector lines was as mysterious as the inner workings of a Twentieth Century stereo system with all of its weird bulbs and tubes. He hadn't had time to make notes. He hadn't even shot any video. Besides, the controls had all been torn out of the pilot's ship. He had no frame of reference.

Suddenly the shooting stopped. Yoshi looked up. The door stood open, letting in the cool evening air. The suns were dropping towards the western hills and all was quiet outside. Were the Dusig creeping up on him even now? They'd probably toss a grenade or something in and blow him apart. He reached for the shotgun and got to his feet. Many footsteps outside came rushing towards the opening. Yoshi hummed a distressed, high pitched little noise and brought the weapon to his shoulder.

Jean hurried through the door with a steelie following close behind. Shaking with nervous reaction, Yoshi lowered the gun and cried aloud in relief. Jean shot him a worried and frightened glance, letting go of the steelie's lead strap.

"Yoshi?" she asked, rushing to him

"I thought..." He trailed off and hugged her tight.

"I'm okay," she said in a strained voice, returning his hug fervently. "I'm okay. I don't know what happened to Tammy. Her radio isn't transmitting."

"She probably dropped it," he said lamely. "Oh thank God you're okay!"

Jean kissed his cheek and stepped back.

"I have to get the steelies under cover," she said and went to gather up the lead strap. "They tried shooting them. Can't let them get killed."

Yoshi now recognized Tinkerbelle as the girl led her across the small room to the dining area with its table and chairs. Jean darted out again, returning a moment later with Little Gertie followed by Boudi. Last came Duchess, the oldest of the mares. She glanced around and snorted as if not pleased to be inside. Jean dumped the remaining feed on the floor and the steelies began munching happily. The room soon filled with the scent of the beasts punctuated with the occasional flatulent expulsion. Yoshi wrinkled his nose.

"I gotta get back outside," said Jean, giving him another brief hug.

"I need the pilot's help with this," he said, gesturing at the transceiver on the floor. "I don't know what to do about the controls. She needs to show me what needs to be done."

"I'll tell her," Jean promised and was gone.

Outside at the lip of the hill she found F`reet `du Hom crouching among the bushes overlooking the northern face of the hill.

"Yoshi needs you," Jean told the pilot.

F`reet `du Hom looked uncertain for a moment and then nodded. She placed a gentle hand on the girl's cheek and asked, "jZeen` okay?"

"I'm okay," Jean confirmed with a nod. "Yoshi."

Brushing her cheek on Jean's, F`reet `du Hom left. Jean did not watch her go. She took out her binoculars and scanned the slope in front of her. There were only very small heat signatures, rabbits, squirrels and the like, frightened into stillness by the firefight that had ensued. One signature was not small, though. It was already cooling. She had shot that one in the face. Jean turned her binoculars away, not wanting to get any better look at the corpse. She saw no sign of any living Dusig. That worried her.

"What would Pa do?" she wondered aloud.

Jean did not realize it, but she was not as unnerved after the firefight as she had been after killing her first Dusig when they had gotten to the tower. Certainly her nerves were alive and adrenaline was still coursing through her veins, but the horror of the experience was less. She was able to think.

After several minutes of consideration she decided her father would not sit and wait the way she was doing. He wouldn't go rushing down to confront the enemy, but he wouldn't just passively wait for them to come get him either. He would be doing something. She had to take a risk and decided to have a look at the sensors in the flyer.

When she brought up the image of the area around the tower she was relieved to find her sister was still out there. Jean gasped and whimpered in relief, saying a quick, thankful prayer to whatever god was watching over them. Tears welled in Jean's eyes and her fingers brushed lightly through the holographic map where Tammy was represented as a green blip. She could not dwell on her sister's fate, though. Tammy had told her to protect Yoshi and F`reet `du Hom. She had said the message was the most important thing.

"I'll try," the girl whispered and forced herself to look at the rest of the map.

The sensors showed her there were Dusig moving through the trees along the slope of the hill, heading westward where the terrain was less steep. She counted three in that direction. Those had to be the survivors from the attack. Two more were moving towards the tower across the bottom of the valley. Four others were grouped in the cut near the big oak where she had spotted the enemy soldiers earlier and none of them were moving.

"What do I do?" she worried. "I'm all alone. What do I do?"

As she worried she noted she would have some time at least. Even if the three moving along the slope turned to come up the hill it would take them several minutes to get in range where they could fire on the tower. What could she do in those minutes to prepare? She couldn't dig a hole to hide in.

"I guess I could use the explosives to blow a hole."

That thought stopped her. The explosives. Tammy had made a bomb and thrown it at the three that had been chasing her. It had done nothing, though, because it had not been contained or directed. She knew that much from what her parents had taught her when blowing stumps or boulders to clear an area for construction. A quick inspection of the hilltop showed her there were a number of large rocks in the cleared area surrounding the tower. If she put explosives by one of those, she could send it hurtling. Her father had once used too much Pugh 36 and sent a stump flying over their house to crash through the canopy of the family spinner. A small, sad smile crossed her face at that memory of her father trying to explain it to her mother. She wanted to be home. She wanted to be in bed and reading or watching a show. This was such a bad place.

"Get it done," she reminded herself. "Get it done and we can all go home."

Launching a boulder at the enemy sounded like a good idea but Jean wasn't foolish enough to think it would hit anything. She recalled Yoshi's description of the weapon from Ancient Earth used during that war before the North American Event. She had always thought a claymore was a kind of sword. Well, they called laser guns and gauss guns rifles and there was no rifling involved. She shook her head. It didn't matter what that old weapon had been called. She understood the principle of the thing and she had the means to replicate it.

Twenty minutes of running around like a wren building a nest resulted in four piles of small stones at the bases of four large rocks. Jean tore bunches of grass, roots and all, from behind the large rocks and planted them in front of the piles to hide them. Her last detonator went into a small lump of the Pugh 36 she placed beside the doorway of the tower. As with the other charges, she piled small stones in front of it and disguised the whole thing with a clump of grass.

Checking the sensors again showed her the Dusig had worked all the way around to the western approach. Her heart beat a little faster when she realized they were on their way up, but she was also glad they had not gone any further. If they came directly up to the tower they would walk right into her explosives. She calculated it would be at least another half an hour before they came in range. The suns would be setting by then and she would have the light in her eyes. That would be bad, but not as bad as it might be if she had not prepared. What else could she do to even the odds?

"I don't have any more bombs," she mused, worrying her thumbnail between her teeth. "But they don't know that!"

With a small amount of hope she sprang from the flyer and began gathering more small stones. She tried to make the piles match the ones she had already made. These would not have explosives but if the soldiers hesitated because of them, it would give her more time to react. It might even convince them to break off their attack. Maybe. She didn't really believe it, but there was a better chance with the decoys than without.

*****

The suns were setting behind the western hills and night was creeping rapidly across the valley below. Already the river and Big Lake were cast in darkness. Jean looked through her rifle scope and saw the Dusig on the slope below her, moving among the trees. She licked dry lips, sighted in on the one in the lead and pulled softly on the trigger. The rifle shoved back into her shoulder with the frizzling crack she had become so accustomed to. Her target jerked backward and rolled down the hill with a keening cry. The others went to ground. All she could see were their heads and gun muzzles. To her surprise they did not return fire. Weird calls came to her faintly and she understood they were talking to one another. The soldier she had shot continued to keen in a pleading voice. Finally the uninjured two opened fire. They shot wide of her, tearing rents in the soil and smashing saplings. Jean waited as calmly as she could. The one on the right dashed for the wounded one and she squeezed her trigger. The 9mm bullet struck his breastplate under his left arm and sent him tumbling. He rose again and she fired, sending another round into his leg. Again he fell and again he rose up. Her rifle wasn't powerful enough to smash through the armor plates. She fired and missed and suddenly a gout of soil and smoldering grass exploded next to her head. Jean rolled away behind the lip of the hill and crawled south in a half panic, fully intending to start shooting at them again, but as soon as she got to where she could look down the slope, more viridian bolts chewed up the grass and soil around her.

Jean shrieked in panic and rolled away. Scrabbling along on her belly, her rifle dragging in the grass by its strap, she made for the open door of the tower.

"Yoshi!" she screamed and got up into a bear crouch, rushing along on all fours. She was crying and panting, nearly hyperventilating and when she saw Yoshi appear in the doorway she surged to her feet with her arms outstretched.

"Are you hurt?" he asked, wrapping his arms around her protectively.

Jean was about to answer when F`reet `du Hom shoved both of them out of the door and let loose with her alien rifle. Sizzling bolts burned long, black furrows through the grass and tossed up geysers of smoldering earth at the edge of the hilltop. Jean could only gape and weep as Yoshi pulled her inside the tower and dragged her across the floor to safety.

"I was so scared!" she cried and clung desperately to him.

"Stay down!" the boy said, and pushed her hands off of him. Taking his shotgun he went to the doorway and began firing.

Jean watched as her boyfriend and the alien pilot blasted the lip of the hill clear of grasses and weeds. A figure rose up briefly amongst the carnage and sent a bolt at the tower. It flashed through the doorway and exploded against the ferrocrete* of the wall, filling the chamber with the stink of ozone and scorched limestone. Jean ducked down and put her head in her hands.

"Jean?" Yoshi asked softly.

The girl looked up and hugged him desperately. The shooting had stopped. She didn't know how long she had been cowering on the floor but the sky outside was black and star specked.

"Are you hit?" he asked fearfully.

"I'm..." She looked at herself. Her clothes were filthy, but they had been filthy for a few days. She saw no blood and shook her head. "I'm not hurt. I'm so sorry, Yoshi! I wanted to protect you. I'm supposed to protect you. I just... When they shot at me... I..."

Yoshi wrapped his arms around her and kissed the top of her head.

"It's alright," he said gently. "We took care of it."

"They're dead?" she asked.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I only saw one. I tried to shoot him. Pretty sure I missed."

"Where's F`reet `du Hom?" she asked, pulling away from him to look around.

"Outside," he said. "The suns set a few minutes ago. I don't know what she's doing."

"What about the message?" she asked.

"We were working on the controls when you called for me," he told her. "She helped me hook up a spare screen to the transceiver. I'm still trying to figure out how to link my pad so it will change the transmission bands. I think I've got it figured out."

"You aren't finished?" Jean asked, sounding distressed and plaintive, even to herself.

"We stopped working when you called me," he said.

"Finish it, Yoshi! Finish it! I want to get out of here!"

*****

Tammy heard movement. A lot of movement. Many feet were rushing through the undergrowth, trampling rotted leaves and old sticks. Whoever it was, was not trying to be quiet. They were in a big damn hurry.

She tried to sit up and have a look, but her body protested. All of her muscles were tight and sore and her left arm was numb and cold below the elbow. She blinked and only then realized it was night. How long had she been wherever she was? She cradled her injured arm with the other and hissed in discomfort.

"Fuck me," she growled softly and winced as pain shot through her scalp.

The rushing feet were drawing closer and she tried to lie still. Maybe they would pass her by. She was sunk in a hole, after all. Surely they wouldn't see her. But what was she doing in a hole? She had been jumping through the trees, hadn't she? Did she fall?

Tentatively she touched her scalp and found a large lump and a lot of crusted blood and matted fur. The whole right side of her face was matted and stiff. She shooed away some flies, too hurt and groggy to worry about them or even be grossed out. They buzzed away, slow from the chill in the air. Her fingers explored the cut, it seemed it had stopped bleeding while she had lain unconscious.

Whoever was making the noise was definitely close and getting closer. She felt for her rifle and found it in the hole at her side, its sling still about her. With her left arm all but useless, she would be unable to shoot properly. She checked her holster and sighed in relief. Her pistol was a welcome weight in her hand. She held it close to her breast and tried not to breathe too loudly.

After several minutes of lying there quietly, listening to the approaching footfalls she was able to more or less localize them. They passed some thirty meters from her and seemed to be making their way along the valley floor. There was at least half a dozen of them. Might be more. When their noise faded Tammy put her pistol away and felt along her belt for her medical kit.

"What the hell did I do with it?" she grumbled and searched more agitatedly. Her search became almost desperate when she failed to find it in any of her pouches. "Did I drop it somewhere?"

With a soft groan Tammy forced herself to sit up. She began digging in her pocket for her pad to use its light when her fingers brushed something hard and smooth and cool to the touch lying on the ground beside her.