Page 22 of Resolution
Mike came running around the end of the APC, the dog bounding ahead and barking. “How do you know?”
Jeff handed him the badge. “Found this. Smart girl, your sister, left us a sign.”
Shoulders slumped, Mike stared at the sky. “But then where did they take her? How are we ever going to find her now?”
He tried to hand the pin back but Jeff shook his head. “You keep it, for luck. We’ll figure something out, I promise.” Jeff turned to Cody while Mike was pinning the badge to his shirt pocket.. “I want surveillance on this place. I don’t care what you have to do, cannibalize all the damn drones to make one super drone if necessary but we need eyes here in case the flyer comes back, and then to be able to track them when they leave.”
“I’ve been working on extending their range and capabilities,” Cody said. “But it may be as much as a month before the flyer arrives here again, if it ever does.”
“I believe it will. They want the people Quantike is sending them. He wants the supplies, being too lazy to go scavenge for himself. I don’t see him or these mysterious Others altering their arrangements because of us. It’s obviously a long standing system of pickup and delivery and as far as they know, we got here, killed a few infected and left. They don’t know who we are or what we want.” Jeff was confident he was right—he had to be now he knew for sure Melly was being held by whoever arrived in the flyer. “How long will it take for you to enable a drone to do what I want?”
Cody shrugged “Couple of hours.”
“What are you standing here for then? Go get to it.”
As the soldier jogged off, Trent asked, “After he gets his modified drone up in the air, what’s our next move, sir?”
Taking a deep breath, Jeff looked at the abandoned research facility. His next words were bitter on his tongue. “There’s nothing more we can do here.”
“We could wait till these guys come back,” Mike said eagerly. “Ambush them, make them tell us where my sister is.”
“Certainly one option,” Jeff agreed, not wanting to crush the boy’s enthusiasm. “In my judgment though it’s a better use of our time to head to our ranch instead of sitting out here in the open for maybe a month, twiddling our thumbs. We’ve got all kinds of useful toys waiting for us there. We might even be able to locate the flyer’s home base by other means once we get our hands on the gear that was sent there for our use on this mission.” With sympathy he observed the mulish set to Mike’s lips. “I know, don’t you think it’s hard for me too, driving away from the last place we know for sure Melly was? But I believe we have a better chance of locating her and rescuing her if we go balls to the wall north, reach our homestead and unpack the cargo containers that came ahead of us, before the outbreak.” He leaned closer and lowered his voice. “I have a flyer there too.”
“You do?”
“It’s in pieces, waiting for us to assemble it but yes.”
“All right then, I guess I can go along with your plan.” Mike stared at his sister’s pin. “You have to let me help rescue her, once we find her. She’s all I have left of my family.”
Jeff rested his hand on Mike’s shoulder. “I give you my word. We’re going to get her back. She’s tough and smart—these people, whoever they are have no idea what kind of trouble they have on their hands right now. Or what hell we’re going to unleash on them once we suss out the location of their base.”
Buddy barked and wagged his tail enthusiastically. Mike nodded, gave the dog a hug and walked off, heading to APC1.
“Gonna take the kid along on a combat mission, sir?” Trent asked.
Jeff watched Mike moving away, shoulders squared. The kid had been through a lot since the outbreak hit the planet but his spirit was strong. Losing his big sister too might be the final straw and Jeff was determined to shield Mike from that tragedy. He wasn’t desperate to rescue Melly solely for his own sake, although that was his primary driver. “No of course not. He’ll stay at the ranch to help guard the place. But he needed to hear my commitment to find Melly.”
“We all heard that, loud and clear. We’re committed to bringing her home safe too. We’re not losing a team member to this damn place, not now.”
“I appreciate the support.” Jeff glanced at the large depression in the ground where the enemy flyer had been and his frustration threatened to choke him. Not knowing what had happened to Melly after she got aboard the craft and flew away with her captors was almost more than he could take. But he had to stay frosty and pursue whatever he deemed the best plan to help her, even if it meant driving away from here. He raised his eyes to the sky. I’m coming, sweetheart, don’t you worry. Hang in there and do whatever it takes to survive.
Three hours later, with Cody’s upgraded super drone on station over the site, Jeff was the last one to board the APC. He did one final check of the ravaged area, seeing Melly here in his mind’s eye. A huge bubble of anger and frustration made his gut roil but there was nothing more to be done here. Reluctantly he stepped into APC1 and closed the hatch, hating the finality of the sound.
“All right, you’ve got the heading for the ranch?” he asked Zach. “Head out, soldier. How long till we arrive?”
“Best speed, minimal stops?” Zach’s question was clearly rhetorical. It was obvious Jeff didn’t want a leisurely sightseeing type journey. He initiated the APC’s drive before he answered. “Five days.”
“See if we can do any better.” Jeff wasn’t satisfied. Every second counted now. “We’ll take shifts and drive through the night too.”
“We’ll be too exhausted to get anything done when we arrive,” Cody said in a cautious attempt to be reasonable.
“First twenty-four hours we’ll get the modular house building itself and we’ll take the downtime for ourselves. Maybe assemble together a few items from the gear in the cargo pods but no heavy labor. I want to try and contact my superiors and update them on the situation. See if they can provide any intel on who might have done this. We’ve got the alien languages on the medical machinery and the configuration of the flyer, based on its outline. Commander Ironside should be able to give us a few answers.” Sinking into the seat next to the driver, Jeff closed his eyes for a moment and reviewed the manifest for the equipment which should have been sent to them, on top of the standard agri package. Oh yes, he definitely had resources at his command once he unsealed those secret pods which had been dropshipped from orbit. The thought was comforting on what was otherwise one of the bleakest days of his life.
Chapter Eight
Melly came to slowly, her mind in a fog and her vision and hearing dulled. She tried to sit up but was too dizzy. The memory of being in Dr. Sharpton’s office came to her in a rush and she gasped. Jeff! But she could tell the subaural com wasn’t working and her desperate mental scream went nowhere. She was in the back of a lurching groundtruck, going fast through a series of tight curves and she forced herself to crawl into a spot where she wasn’t tossed around as much. The cargo compartment was quite large but she was the only occupant and there were no boxes or containers. She was weak and knew herself to be dehydrated. She wondered how many days she’d been lying here. And how had she managed to relieve herself without making a mess? Had her captors taken her out of the truck at some point? If so she had no memory of it and the idea was chilling. Waking up further, she took a quick inventory and was glad to see her underwear and utility pants were in place and she had no pain or other indication she might have been assaulted. She still wore her bra, T-shirt and the white jacket, although now it was grimy from the truck bed. Her boots were missing.
There was nothing in the truck to use as a weapon but as the vehicle slowed, she tried to limber up enough to put up a fight when the door was opened.
