Second Chances (42 page)

Miles watched them go then went over to Jake. He murmured a similar order to his son, who passed it on to Pedro and Sydney. He crossed his arms, looking about in approval as his people worked the crowd. Then his eyes fell on a famous figure. His eyes narrowed as he recognized Chambers, the rich guy who probably started this mess.

“There has been an anomaly,” the aliens rumbled, bringing all conversation to a momentary halt.

\------{}------/

After the second year meeting with the aliens, he set his sights on Mitch Chambers and what the other man had achieved. He realized Chambers had it all and had set himself up to be king of the world in his citadel base. Chambers had it all, money, power, industry, Miles realized he resented and envied it. The guy handed out shit, but Miles was on to him. He was kissing ass and babies to make people thankful to him so they'd support him.

When you threw in the news from the aliens that Chambers had somehow gotten the government off its stick and into taking both the aliens and the threat of the asteroid seriously...yeah, he could see Chambers becoming king here easily. King, emperor, or “president for life,” or some other bullshit title.

Well, he wasn't going to have it. And he'd damn well take what he could. He looked over to Ciara and the kids then nodded to himself. For himself and his kids. He wasn't going to bow to anyone nor were his kids. They'd gotten a general idea of where people were, communities that might be near. He looked over to Irma and Jesus. Both were going over the details Rodrigo and the others were reporting. He'd let them go out with a plane full of polyp juice to see if any of the leads panned out.

He turned his head to Diego and Carlos. Both were talking animatedly to their families. Diego had given more than he'd gotten; apparently no one else was herding Barox. But a few had other animals, and he'd gotten a list of what was good and what wasn't worth keeping. So perhaps a fair trade.

Carlos had picked up a few things as well—local foods that were edible and tricks to improve yields in the climate. He had a piece of paper out and was jotting them down as fast as he could, nodding as some of the other farmers brought up one point or idea as well.

“We're the future,” Miles growled, resting his hand on his daughter's shoulder as she came up to lean against him. He looked down as she looked up, then out to the others. “We're here to stay,” he said.

Chapter 24

As they ate lunch, Mitch listened to the excited chatter around him. Everyone had had a chance to talk to someone; all were now talking about people they had encountered at the meeting. From the general sound of it, two-thirds of the survivors had come from modern communities, though many had come from the country not city folk. There was some speculation about medicine and education versus material they started with.

“Three thousand, three hundred and twenty-one people. Anyone get a handle on how many kids there were?” Mitch asked. He stood as the room quieted. There were 191 people in the base, all good people. Jane and her helpers stopped what they were doing to listen.

“Everyone, your attention.” Mitch waited a bit for everyone to look his way. “We've been going about this wrong. We were just given some intelligence, and we need to exploit it as quickly as possible,” he said, nodding to Travis, Robert and the gunny. Both men nodded back. “That being said, we need you, everyone, to write down who you talked to, what they looked like, what they said, anything and everything you saw. Think of it as a witness statement. No detail is too small. It could help us down the road,” Mitch said.

Travis nodded as he got to his feet. “Mitch is right,” he rumbled. Heads swiveled in his direction. “So, pull out a tablet or phone or paper,” he said, pulling his own phone out. “And do what I've been doing, take notes,” he said. “Jot down everything Mitch said. If you have to go back, that's fine. If you repeat yourself, that's fine. We'll set up a website to upload it all too,” he said. Jolie waved a hand. He nodded to her. “See Jolie about that,” he said. “Or Pete,” he said, nodding to the teen. Pete grinned.

Cloth rustled as people pulled out their electronic devices or paper. Words dropped to murmurs as they got what they could down.

“I'm going to go call that in to the other villages,” Jolie said, getting to her feet and leaning over to Mitch. He nodded. “I think we all should be doing this,” she said. “I'll get the site set up as soon as we put the call in,” she said.

“Good thinking,” he said as she left with Pete on her heels.

A few minutes later, it was apparent that just about everyone had gotten their initial impressions down. They started to compare notes with their families and table mates, sparking more notes or debate.

Mitch frowned thoughtfully as he finished wrapping up his notes. He still had a lingering headache from the transport, but he was feeling better after the sandwich and water. “I'm guessing, and this is only a guess mind you, each person was grouped and dropped in a similar environment and climate that they left on earth. That gave them their best chance to adapt.”

“But it's not the best here,” Sandra said, looking up from her tablet. Cassie frowned but kept typing at her tablet. Vance poked her. She looked over to him with a mock frown. He smiled even white teeth. She sniffed and went back to work. After a moment though, she snuck a glance his way. Her eyes ducked down when she realized he was still grinning at her. Mitch could see the color in her cheeks as she turned away.

“No. A lot of people had little or nothing to begin with. We buy stuff on credit, remember?” Cassie said, shaking her head as she entered the conversation. “Those that did might have been able to survive if the animals and aliens hadn't been involved.”

“Your survival kits helped a lot,” Vance said softly to Mitch. Mitch nodded.

“Not enough,” he murmured. His people had gotten 431 packs out to those they had positively identified as fellow travelers. Bob had sent out smaller kits to those on the secondary lists, but there was no way of confirming if they got them in time or if they had been the right people. Or if they'd even taken them with them.

“I'm guessing about 8, maybe as high as 20 percent of the people in that meeting were kids under three, which tells me all of them had been born on the planet,” Sandra said, looking up. She tapped her finger against her lips thoughtfully. “Also, I'd say, um...roughly 68 percent of the population were female,” she said.

Cassie snorted. “Wait, you are serious?”

Her mother nodded. “It makes sense in some way, I mean...” Janet paused beside her. She had an apron on and plastic dish pan on her hip since she was helping to buss tables. The woman always had to keep busy it seemed. Anne waddled over to her and then sat, cradling her swollen belly.

“Hunting and gathering is dangerous,” Mitch said with a nod. “Your experience last year...” he shook his head. Both women nodded grimly and shivered. They'd had a close call when they'd been dropped. Their group of ninety-nine had merged with another group of a hundred dropped people. It had been roughly fifty-fifty men to women, but that had changed within weeks of their landing. Men had died like flies out in the bush it seemed.

Those men that had survived had become very parochial. They figured since they were the ones risking their necks for food, they should be in charge. They'd been brutal to some of the women including Lisa who had been raped. That had been the straw that had broken through to the passive women. “Mistress Tabitha” and her supporter Diane had taken over the leadership role after a mob of women had staked the rapist out as summary justice.

They'd kept the kids in the base which had been rough on the manpower problem. There had never been enough food. Tabitha and Diane had set up their own “Amazon Utopia” that hadn't gotten off the ground. Only the timely intervention of Mitch had kept them all from dying out when winter came. Less than fifty women and children had survived.

“Yeah,” Janet said, making a face. “We lost...” She closed her eyes in pain as she guesstimated the numbers. Anne, her partner touched her arm, then patted it. She opened her eyes to touch the hand briefly. “So many,” she finally whispered.

“Too many,” Paul said. His pregnant wife, Frances, nodded. Sam did too from across the table.

“From the reports I've heard, they weren't killed by predators. Several people were killed in falls or construction. Even minor injuries can prove deadly. I heard one kid tripped and fell and broke his neck, which is why people are having kids...”

“Why? I mean, why raise them to be...food?” Cassie asked, then turned in surprise to Frances. “Sorry, sorry!” she said as Frances paled and then leaned into Paul's arms.

“It's okay,” Frances murmured.

“To have a piece of their spouse. To make sure they go on,” Sandra said, eyes going to Frances and then Anne. She rubbed Mitch's shoulders and then looked up to the expectant group. “And don't forget, we've run out of birth control,” she said with a grim smile.

Janet and a few of the other women winced or nodded. Cassie bit her lip and shot Vance a guilty look. He shrugged.

From the sound of the conversations around him, the intel they had gathered was maddeningly sporadic. Some had map or major landmark locations, they jotted them out when they could remember. Everyone was different though; correlating it all would be fun Mitch thought in amusement. He made a note to sick someone with intel training on the project. The computer could only cross reference so much; it would take human eyes, probably more than one, to sift through it all. They'd probably need to spend all winter interviewing and re-interviewing people, talking the matter to death to dredge out every detail.

Other people had picked up bits about plants and animals along with the dead or those living with them. The list of the dead and flora and fauna weren't very helpful, most of it was common to what they had seen or some of the other local communities had seen.

They had also found out about the AWAC's crash and that a wormhole had been left open. “Sloppy of the aliens,” Paul said. Sam nodded grimly.

“Apparently so.”

“What happened to the aircraft? Can they take off and go back to Earth?” Brian asked eagerly.

“Apparently not, it got stomped flat by a bunch of dinosaurs,” Angie explained. Janet winced. A few faces fell.

“They are busy salvaging it and the other aircraft. Word is they are trying to rig up some sort of radar.”

That perked up a few people. “Radar? Why? Oh, the weather?”

“Not just the weather,” Sam said, putting in his two cents worth. “It seems they've got flying jellyfish. They look like man-o-war, not the ones that took us here. Sort of like those Zerg things from Starcraft.”

“Overlords. Okay...”

“But sky colors. The tentacles are poisonous. They fly about somehow and drop onto prey from above.” He mimicked the attack with his hands floating like a jellyfish then attacking from above.

“Oh boy.”

“I'm not sure the radar could pick them up. I mean, maybe, but without metal?”

“Yeah, I'm not sure either. And of course we don't know if they can get it to work. But they've got some good people, an engineering professor, um...Kinkley? No, Hindy? Something like that.”

“Hinkley?” Mitch asked, wrinkling his nose. The name sounded vaguely familiar.

Akira Tenaka snapped his fingers, then pointed to Mitch and nodded. “That's the one. Former MIT student and teacher. I remember him vaguely. I think I had a class of his when I was sent to MIT two years before we left. He's a big-time engineer, broadly focused. He's been turning their scrap into all sorts of goodies,” he said.

“I think I know who you're talking about,” Travis Roberts, their resident Navy SEAL said. “I spoke with a guy about modifying a pistol into an improvised rifle. They only have two pistols left there.”

Mitch winced. “Ouch.”

“Yeah. A lot of the weapons in the Poseidon's armory were trashed. Those that they managed to salvage ran out of ammo or were just too small caliber to be used for hunting. The air marshal's .44 magnum pistol lacks punching power too because it was set up to not punch through the thin skin of the hull of the aircraft. Short ranged and since it had low velocity rounds…” the SEAL shook his head.

“And of course they only have so many rounds to begin with...” Gunny Hodges pointed out. The others nodded grimly.

“They'll need to save their brass. Figure out a way to make reloads...” Mitch mused, rubbing his chin.

“They said they're working on it. Well, that professor guy, he made black powder. Crude, but it apparently works well. The stuff is pretty potent with dino guano.”

“Rich in nitrogen?”

“I guess so; I'm no chemist. Anyway, he made grenades and rockets for them. Some sort of mortar, which is right up your alley, Gunny,” Travis said motioning to the Marine artillery specialist.

The Marine nodded. “Good for them. They'll need it.”

“Come on people, let's give the lady a hand with cleanup, then get back to making notes. Can I count on you,” Mitch indicated Travis, Gunny Hodges, Akira, and Sam. “To go over what they've pulled in? Sort it out? The computer can cross reference names and such but...”

“But it can only go so far. Sure,” Travis said. “We still need to do some more security checks though,” he said.