Vortex of Evil (14 page)

Tom sat on the floor of the tent and fiddled with the laces on his boots.  “So the effects last for about twenty-four hours?  Have you felt much pain?”

Doug was flexing his arms and making a fist with each hand then releasing it.  “No pain.  Just complete lack of feeling.  Then it starts to wake up, but no pins and needles.  The numbness just fades away.”

“We need to find a safer place to camp than this.  I realize we have a nice arrangement here, but as long as the people that took Erin are nearby, we are sitting ducks.”

Doug was frustrated by being unable to get up and go.  “I can see how you felt when you were all banged up and blind last week.  This helpless thing is intolerable.”  He sat on the edge of the cot and lifted his right leg a few inches off the floor.  “I should be ready to travel in a few hours.  Where could we go that would be any safer?”

“We saw the Viking ship to the north.  They have a camp on a small island there, but it is pretty exposed.  The Haida headed off to the south to their homeland.  They didn’t want to come back here after seeing the hover vehicle attack us.  Megan and I had to swim to shore after we dove out of the canoe.”

Doug laughed.  “You guys could win a swimming contest with the amount of swimming you are doing.  What happened that you ended up in the canoe?”

“Flying Raven rescued us after our zodiac was destroyed.  We fired one of the missiles at the flying saucer, but it didn’t do much to them.  Caused it to wobble.  Then they fired that orange ball at us and we had to jump out of the boat to survive.  I think our missile surprised them since they headed back to their boat right afterwards.  If we could hit them with two missiles at the same time, we just might be able to shoot them down.”  Tom finished lacing his boots and stood up.

“And you saw a boat to the west?  Where the hover vehicle is based?”  Doug continued to lift one leg, then the other.  Gradually making progress.

“Yes.  Erin has to be on that boat with everyone else.  And if they were able to come here from the future, then they might be able to go back at any time.  We need to get on that boat before they decide to go.  If we don’t, we won’t see our friends and the girls won’t see their mother ever again.”

Doug wondered why the future people were even there.  They seemed to be collecting samples, but they were not shy about dealing out the death and destruction if anyone got in their way.  He had a deep hatred of them for what they did to Erin and the others.  But especially for their kidnapping Erin.  He would personally kill every future person he could until she was back with him.  At least that was what he was feeling inside.  To him they were not people. They were just targets.

“So we have two zodiacs left.  Can we mount an attack on their boat?”  Doug had his intense look.

“Only if we can shoot down their air support.  If we go up against that thing, we won’t last two minutes.  And they seem to have sensors that can locate us, either by our heat or some other way to identify us.  The way they turned around and blasted us was pretty impressive.”

“We could pull it off if we had a diversion.  Something to keep them looking at more than one target.  We have three missiles left, correct?”

Tom was getting interested in this discussion, but also worried about the risk that was involved.  If they failed, they would all pay the price and maybe die immediately.  “Yes, we have three missiles.  And a few rocket-propelled grenades.   But before we try anything, we should get Megan, Ying and the girls away from here to somewhere safer.   Any ideas?”

“That camp where Peter and John stayed, the one that the girls have been using, is a safer location than here.  We should try to get them there before we attack that boat.”

“I don’t think they are going to want to leave you.  Not after they ‘found’ you again, back from beyond the grave.”

“I know, but in the circumstances, we are trying to save them from falling into the hands of people who might want to use them for medical experiments.  Or food.  Or some other horrible purpose.  God knows what kidnappers who show up in flying saucers have in mind.   We need to keep them safe before we start trouble.  That goes for Megan as well.

“Hey, I can take care of myself.”  Megan had just entered the tent and was carrying two cups of something that approximated coffee.  “I hate to ask, but what are the two of you planning?  We haven’t attacked or been attacked for a few hours now, so it must be time to start a war or something similar.”

Tom and Doug looked at each other and smiled.  “We were considering some attacking, but first we need to get you and the girls, and Ying, to a safer place.  If they come back here with that flying saucer, we are toast.”

“The girls said we could be back to their place in four hours, give or take.  Why don’t we go there first thing in the morning.”  Megan and Katelyn had come up with a similar plan to what Doug and Tom were proposing. 

Doug reached out his hand to Tom and grabbed his arm.  He slowly struggled to his feet and balanced awkwardly like a new fawn trying its first steps.  “I am ready to hit the road.”

Tom laughed.  “More like ready to fall flat on your face.  Maybe you should take it easy for a day and let us go try to rescue Erin.”  Tom might have poured ice cold water over Doug given the reaction he got. 

Doug firmly grabbed Tom by the arm.  “Anybody forms a rescue party, it better include me.”  On sheer strength of will, he walked stiffly across the tent, slid past Megan and went outside.  Then his legs gave out and he fell flat on his face.

Chapter 18

Tom started up the zodiac and pulled slowly away from the shore.   Against his better judgment, he and Doug were heading out for an early morning reconnaissance mission while Megan and the rest of their “team” headed back to the camp where Doug’s temporal daughters lived.

She was not wild about them splitting up, but she agreed it made no sense to get the girls involved in any fighting.  And fighting usually followed Doug around, especially when anyone was trying to do something bad to someone he cared about.  She knew that Tom was going to think about her the entire time until they were back together.

Doug was a little shaky, but he was able to walk and the tension of watching him recover in camp was far greater for Tom to bear than the tension of going on a mission with him at less than one hundred percent.  They had two of the small antiaircraft missiles, two rocket-propelled grenades and a nice selection of rifles and pistols for this effort to rescue Erin, Peter and Gaby.  And the girl’s mother Erin, although neither Tom nor Doug was sure what to call her.  Megan had taken the other missile after a quick tutorial on how to fire it.  Tom hoped that it would not be necessary of her to be shooting at things in the sky.  Megan, the girls and Ying were armed to the teeth and carrying as much extra food and ammunition as was practical.  They buried the rest for future recovery.

Tom piloted the zodiac south along the eastern shore, feeling the cool sea breeze against his face.  In another month there would be periodic storms to think about and he hoped that they would be long gone by then.  Or in a better, more sheltered accommodation than a tent.

“How are you feeling?”  Tom turned to look at Doug who had settled in at the rear of the zodiac and was scanning the horizon in front of them with his binoculars.

“I don’t feel too bad, but the whole experience has left me a little weak.  They have designed the weapon to be a very effective, non-lethal way to put someone out of commission for a couple of days.  It must be designed for crowd control.  I imagine in the future they may have population issues with overcrowding and scarce resources.  Unless they got a lot smarter in the years after our time.  They seem to have made great strides in the art of flying.”

Tom kept his focus on the south end of the island as they were about to pass through the channel between the main island and a small, rocky island just to the south that served as another well-populated bird sanctuary.  “I guess my real question is whether I can count on you if we run into a spot of trouble.  I don’t want us both to die because you are overoptimistic about your physical condition.”

“I thought about that.  You know me.  But I really am ok.  We aren’t walking ten miles up a mountainside and if we were I would probably drop out.  But for this mission, I have to go.  I want to see if Erin is still in there on the boat and if we can somehow either rescue her or get taken prisoner with her.”

Tom turned around at that comment.  “So you would rather be captured with her, and maybe taken away to be executed, than stay here and try to save the girls?”

Doug didn’t hesitate.  “Yes.  I can try to pretend to be their father, but I can’t replace the version of me that lived with them for nearly their entire lives.  If I am going to live that life, I want to live it with Erin and experience it.  Not just hear about it as if I slept through the whole thing.  But if things don’t work out, and we can’t rescue everybody, I want you to go back and do your best to see that everyone lives as safe and happy a life as is possible in these circumstances.  And remember, the vortex effect that started this whole thing can occur any time in the future.   It cuts across time, space and different realities.  Stay close together so you don’t lose anyone.”

“Let’s not talk about ‘what if’ scenarios.  We need to all survive and work together to get through this.  We will save Erin and the rest, no matter what it takes.”

Doug saw the boat first, just after they cleared the channel on the south side of the island.  It was about 3 miles ahead of them, due west of the island.  “Stop right here.  Just for a minute or two.”  He looked through the binoculars at the shape on the horizon.

Tom turned down the throttle and the outboard motor hummed along at idle speed until he shut it off.  “Why do you want to stop here?”

“I wanted to see if they notice us and launch the hover vehicle to investigate.  We are still close enough to the island that we could get ashore before they blasted us.”

“So once we go out to their boat, we are sitting ducks, right?”

“It depends.  How good are these little missiles?”  Doug intently watched the boat through the binoculars, but he could not see any activity.

“They will hit the saucer if we can hold our position and keep the target in the sights.  It is a visual lock only, so if we don’t keep the crosshairs on the target, it is more likely to miss.”

“If we could position you in one of the seaside caves here on the west side of the island, where you had some cover, and then lure them towards you, you should be able to shoot the bastards down, right?”

Tom looked back at the sea cliffs, trying to spot the one that he and the woman that was then called Erin had occupied those first few hours after they landed on the island.  Doug’s idea was a pretty good one, unless the hover vehicle had sophisticated sensors that would detect his location and lock on him with their pulse weapon.  “It’s worth a try, but we only have two missiles.  Am I supposed to take them both, in case I miss with the first one?”

Doug turned and smiled.  “I had a slightly different plan in mind.  If we can disable both the boat and the hover vehicle, they would have to stay in this reality until they made repairs.  That seems like the best way to keep them from escaping to a place where we could never hope to find them.  If we only manage to knock out the hover vehicle, they can just take off in the boat.  Whether they go far in distance or far in time, they will be out of our range very quickly.”

“Makes sense to me.”  Tom was considering all the possible outcomes and trying to think of anything they had glossed over.  “What if they have more than one hover vehicle?”

“We’d be screwed in that case.  But I don’t think they do.  They would probably scoff at the thought that anything that we could use to attack them could bring it down.  We may be able to use their overconfidence to our advantage. 

“Good thing we are humble.”  Tom laughed as he started the motor.  “So I am dropping myself over there by the cave, right.”

“You may want to hurry up on that.  It looks like we may have company soon. We each get one missile.  Mine is for their boat and yours is for their flying saucer.  I will aim at the stern and try to disable their engine or propeller.”

Doug saw someone standing on top of the square structure that was just behind the bridge of the futuristic boat that they had brought to this reality.  The roof opened up and the hover vehicle slowly rose up out of its hanger until the hover vehicle door was even with the level where the man was standing.  As he stared intently, Doug could tell it was probably the guy they called insect man since he appeared to be very tall.   Just as he was getting into the vehicle, Doug was almost sure he turned and looked right at him and waved.

Tom gunned the motor and the zodiac sped along just offshore until he found the rocky beach where they had first come ashore.  “Wait until he is pretty close before you fire.”  As Tom jumped into the shallow surf, Doug patted him on the back.  “Good luck.”

“You are the one who will need it.  Don’t get killed.”  Tom was carrying one of the missiles and an assault rifle.  He quickly made his way up the small beach and climbed into the mouth of the cave.  He had a good vantage point to shoot at the hover vehicle from that spot.

Doug turned the zodiac and went full throttle towards the futuristic boat.  He kept looking through the binoculars to see if he could see anyone on board.  Tom had told him that the missiles would be most effective if the target was within a mile.  He just wished his “air cover” back in the cave was a little closer to the boat.  He would be at risk as he tried to get close enough to disable the boat, but still have a chance of luring the hover vehicle close enough to Tom.