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Before they settled in for the night, Sheldon, Leonard Raj and Howard sat together. Leonard was grateful for the show of unity. He was however, worried for his friends safety. "How are you holding up Sheldon"?
Sheldon was shaken from his thoughts by the question. He tried to be as calm as he could. "Leonard, we have been dragged through muck and mire in a foreign land with untold pestilence. Penny is obviously suffering from some form of infestation. We have had the unenviable delight of sleeping on the floor last night, and now in the open air to be attacked by whatever indigenous fauna this god forsaken country holds. We must still ford the river at whatever point is found to be appropriate, we could be found by patrols, we have no proper paperwork to support any claims that we wandered off from the family picnic, and we are undoubtedly being followed by officials with guns. We are in this country illegally. If we are found, we will be declared spies, and in all likelihood SHOT at dawn. I couldn't be BETTER! He then started to twitch.
Howard looked on in awe. "Hold it together buddy". He then turned to Leonard, "What do you think will happen if we do get out of here"? We got the drone out safely. The controls were destroyed, what were you guys working on"?
Leonard looked down at his hands. "Dennis was working on trajectory and I was jotting down fuel calculations. We didn't have a chance to destroy anything, we had no idea we would be able to get away. Our notes are still back at the missile compound".
Raj put his hand on Leonard's shoulder, "Do you think they could get the mixture right? If they do, it could be very bad if Amy and Bernadette are right about biologic weapons".
Leonard looked up. "Well, every time we finished a mixture, they took the calculations. We screwed them up a bunch of times, so none were the right ones. Still, there are the ones we were working on that we didn't try. If they start to look at the variances in the calculations, they might be able to figure it out. As for the trajectory, we never actually launched a missile, so who knows. I just want to go home".
Bobby came by and told the group that they needed to get to resting. They were going to start before sunrise tomorrow in order get an early start. The group broke up and went to rest.
Leonard went over to be close to Penny. He sat down leaning against a tree and she put her head on his lap. Leonard rubbed her back and pushed some stray hair from her face. "How do you feel, Honey"?
Penny looked up at him. "Thank you for making us stop, I feel better now, but boy, was I whipped". I just feel bad I caused us to stop. We may have been able to make it and cross tonight. We could be safe already. Instead, we are still here and we could get caught. If that happened, I'll never forgive myself. She started to cry, "You heard Angie, they want you two. They don't care about us. They could take you back and who knows what they would do to us".
Leonard ran his hand through her hair. "Penny, please know that everything will be fine. We're close to being free. We'll make it, you'll see. Now please rest. We have a while to go and tomorrow we won't stop to rest. We need you to be strong. Sleep now, my love". With that, Penny drifted off to sleep.
During the night, Angie replaced Captain Chu as the look out. Before dawn, she decided to do a little recon. She took the dog and went off to the west tracing back in their trail. After a while, the dog started to get restless. Angie tied the dog and went to look ahead. Not far along, she came upon the soldiers' encampment. She saw that they were sleeping. What surprised her was that they were closer than she would have liked. She immediately turned and went to get the dog. They needed to get moving quickly.
About half way back to the group, it started to rain. This was both a blessing and a problem. The group would be awake, but so would their pursuers. When Angie got back, she got every ones attention. "The soldiers are closer than I had hoped. They must have kept coming after dark. They are certainly awake due to the rain. This means we need to get going NOW. The rain will help because it will help cover our tracks and make it more difficult for them to see which way we went. Hopefully that will give us the edge we need to get across. Now, let's get moving. We are going to have to quicken the pace, Penny, are you OK?
Penny looked at the group. "I'm fine, don't worry about me. Just keep going . I won't hold you up". With that, they started off at a very quick pace.
Joyce had the soldiers up and on the trail. She knew that their tracks would only last so long in this rain. However, she had an idea where they were headed. They wasted no time. They were all physically fit and were moving at a quicker pace than Angie's group.
As the rain intensified, the going got rough and the footing was more treacherous. The Pasadena group was certainly not in any kind of physical shape for this. Penny started to get short of breath, she started to lag behind. Leonard noticed and went to help her. He put his arm around her. "Penny, are you OK"?
Penny started to gasp for air. "Leonard, GO… I'm fine… GO… get up with the others…
Leonard held tighter. "I'm not going ANYWHERE. I told you I wouldn't leave you ever again and I meant it. Stop arguing, and let's see if we can catch up".
Penny started to cry and fell on one knee. "Leonard GET GOING… I won't be the cause of you getting caught. I wouldn't be able to live with myself"!
At that moment, Bobby came up. "Will you two stop arguing, we need to get out of here. He then told Penny to jump on piggyback and off they went. They had no idea how far behind the group they had fallen. Bobby was having no problem carrying Penny. She only weighed about one hundred ten pounds. In training, they had field packs weighted down with more. Leonard on the other hand was having a hard time keeping up. The pace Bobby put up was quicker than then what the group was originally moving.
Along the trail, they came across the dog when they stopped to give Leonard a breather. Just as they were going to start up again, the dog started to growl down the trail they had just come from. Bobby put Penny down to look and see what was agitating the dog. Not far down the trail, Bobby saw the advancing group of soldiers.