Did you get impatient waiting for this chapter to be posted? If you said yes, I hope you are wearing flame proof underwear.
Chapter 92
Tanks For The Memory
Taking food, water and a medical kit, the three stranded adventurers started to walk due west on runway 22 until they reached the edge of the dry lake. They turned onto a taxiway, intending to follow it northwest to the buildings they could see in the distance when Calla suddenly came to an abrupt halt.
"Why'd ya stop?" Blue asked but Calla just held a finger to her lips.
Everyone fell silent and listened until they all noticed a distant mechanical rumbling sound coming from the South Base just under a kilometre away.
"Quick; hide" Blue said and they all ran off the apron and into the sparse low bushes nearby.
The entire area was completely flat so the trio had no hope of hiding from anyone who sought them out, but it was obvious the clanking noise was now making its way towards their abandoned mini shuttle, so when it became clear that there was no attention being payed in their direction, they decided to make a run for the northern side of the base.
Keeping low and staying off the taxiway, they managed to put some distance between themselves and the large military vehicle making its way out onto the lake bed, until they finally reached the edge of northern apron. To their right was the ruin of the former control tower, but straight ahead were two vehicle sheds that looked like a good place to hide. Blue guessed the clanking vehicle should be at least two kilometres away, so they quickly made the final dash across the broken tarmac and entered the first building through a side door.
"Hmm... a fire station" Calla noted.
"How can you tell?" Abigail asked.
"The old fire trucks are a bit of a clue" Calla replied with a smile.
"Hey Calla" Blue called from a window on the far side of the building.
"Yeah?" she wandered over.
"That bigger building next to us" he pointed "Aircraft hanger?"
"Definitely" Calla nodded.
"I'm thinking we hide out in there and if anyone comes looking for us, we can get out on the opposite side. It would only take them a few seconds to get around a small building like this, but it would take a minute or two to get around that one, giving us a good head start."
"Good idea" she agreed "Just give me a minute to see if I can find anything useful here and then we'll get going."
"Right" Blue said and went to fetch his sister.
Abigail was studying the old trucks with fascination, because she had never seen anything so exposed before. None of the vehicles had an airlock and they all had thin windows that could be opened. As she looked underneath at the drive train, it was clear to see the truck would not last five minutes being driven through the destructive Martian dust.
"Come on, we're leaving" Blue whispered.
They met up with Calla by a door opposite the hanger, where she showed them what she had found.
"There was a tool box on one of the fire trucks but it was too heavy to bring, so I grabbed a few handy tools" she said as she removed her backpack and passed out what she had.
To Blue she gave a solid pair of bull nosed pliers and two screwdrivers.
"I thought you'd better take these because you know I can't be trusted with a flat bladed screwdriver."
For the life of her, Abigail could work out why her brother was trying not to laugh.
"Take these Abby" Calla handed her a pocketknife and a medium sized shifting spanner.
"This may come in handy if I have to defend myself" Abigail grinned as she unfolded a blade from the knife.
"Forget the knife" Calla advised "That's just a tool. You'd be better off hitting any attackers with the spanner; head, hand or lower leg, whatever is more accessible."
Abigail looked at Calla wide eyed. Blue had once said she knew how to survive on Earth, but the extent of her knowledge was now coming to the forefront.
"What's that handle sticking out of you pack?" Blue asked.
"Yeah I must admit, I kept the best one for myself" Calla grinned as she pulled the fireman's axe out to show her friends."
"What do you expect to do with that?" Abigail gasped.
"Cut firewood, break down locked doors, make people who want to catch me wish they'd never tried... and other handy stuff like that" Calla smiled sweetly.
Blue opened the door a crack and listened for a familiar clanking sound. When he failed to hear it, pushed the door open and looked around outside.
"All looks clear" he said "Since you have the universal door key Calla, how about you go first, I'll send Abby if you signal it's okay and then I'll cover the rear."
"No sweat" Calla agreed "but you can keep your hands off my rear."
"I only meant..." Blue started to defend himself till he saw the cheeky grin on Calla's face.
"Yeah, ha ha, very witty" he smirked.
Everything was quiet when the three took turns to run across the roadway to the other side, while the Leghorn Chicken of Short Journeys involving Road Crossings looked on approvingly. The hanger door hung ajar and Calla was glad she did not need to make unnecessary noise by using her new axe.
"Whoa... what kind of planes are these?" Abigail stared, wide eyed.
Calla looked around and did her best to answer the question, even though she did not know the exact names of each aircraft.
"Okay you've got Fighter Jet, Fighter Jet, Cargo Plane, Swing Wing Bomber, two Light Trainers, an Attack Drone..."
Calla stopped when her brain told her what she had just said out loud. Blue had been on his way to the southern end of the building to see if he could spot the machine that had made the strange noise, but when he heard Calla say Attack Drone, he went back to see it.
"It's bigger than I imagined" he said as he ran his hand down the side.
"My dad said they could fly halfway around the world" Calla noted.
"I wonder if this was the one..."
"It can't be" Calla answered before Blue could complete the question "Professor Adisa said he saw it destroyed."
"Oh yeah... I wasn't thinking. But it was something just like this that made us all think my mother was dead for so many years."
"Time to stop reminiscing and start planning" Calla interrupted "Now it's late afternoon so I think we should bunk down here, maybe hide in the cargo plane, and then tomorrow we start out for the west coast. Maybe we'll find a settlement on the way or maybe we'll have to get there by ourselves; but no matter what, we'll try and get passage on a ship going west or find an abandoned sailboat to take."
"We can't go out on the open ocean by ourselves!" Abigail declared adamantly.
"We can if we find the right kind of boat" Calla disagreed "All we need is something at least fifteen meters long, with a double sealed hull and..."
Calla stopped talking as soon as she heard the familiar clanking noise.
"How could they have found us?" Abigail said in a very frantic voice.
"They haven't" Blue tried to be reassuring "Whoever it is, they are probably just passing by on their way somewhere."
"But what if they come in here?" Abigail continued to hyperventilate.
"Just look at this place" Calla noted "No one has been in here for years."
"If you two grab the gear and hide as we planned, I'll go see where it goes" Blue suggested.
"Keep your head down" Calla said as she grabbed Abigail's hand and half dragged her up the open ramp at the back of the cargo plane.
Once they were safely inside, Abigail sat in the shadows and hid while Calla watched Blue through a side window.
"I'm sorry I keep panicking" Abigail said softly.
"Don't worry about it" Calla said comfortingly "Your brother and I both realise how new and unfamiliar this is for you."
The sound of the machine outside grew steadily louder as it drew nearer to the hanger.
"I just can't believe it's all happening again" Abigail said in a broken voice "When Dad and I came here from Mars, Commander Sage tried to kill us and we ended up going to the asteroid belt. Now when I think we'll be going to the Railgun in Sumatra, someone else tries to kill us and we end up on the other side of the planet."
Abigail was already feeling a certain level of nervous déjà vu, so if she had known it was the same Sage who had attempted to shoot them down, it would have truly blown her young mind.
"I've travelled across the planet before" Calla tried to be reassuring "Just stick with me and Blue and you'll be fine.
Outside the building, a strange machine that was nothing like Blue had ever seen before, slowly crawled up the same taxiway the three adventurers had just followed to the north side of the base. As Blue watched through a dirty cracked window, he saw something very disturbing.
"Oh no... it's stopped" Abigail noted as she felt another panic attack coming on.
As soon as the noise of the machine had died down, Blue made his way back to their hiding place to join the girls and let them know what he'd seen.
"It's some kind of giant military vehicle and there could be as many as a hundred soldiers on board."
"Oh my god" Abigail gasped.
"I only saw one guy though and he appeared to be trying to decide which way to go. It looks like he's assuming we either followed the taxiway north, or went west between the buildings. If he makes a decision and moves on we'll be fine."
"And if he doesn't?" Calla asked "I get the feeling you're not telling us everything."
"Two other possibilities" Blue shrugged "A platoon of men pile off that thing and start searching the buildings or... they come in here to park the Star Runner."
"They've got the ship?" Calla did some gasping of her own.
"Yeah they towed it back here; but there are a lot of hangers on this base so they may not choose this one."
As the trio continued to quietly discuss possible outcomes, they suddenly noticed someone was shouting very loudly outside. He was too far away to be heard, especially by anyone hiding in a derelict plane inside a derelict hanger, but the sound of his voice still made the small group very nervous.
"Do you think he's organising a search party?" Abigail postulated.
"It doesn't sound like it" Calla noted "It sounds like he's calling out to us. Maybe he's making treats because he wants us to surrender, or maybe he's simply asking us to come out."
"Stay here and I'll go check" Blue said.
Calla watched out the side window again as Blue made his way back to the side door they had entered through. He opened the door just a little and listened very carefully. Calla then saw Blue look out the door before returning to the plane.
"You're not going to believe this" he said.
The look on his face seemed to say that Blue too was having a hard time believing what his eyes were telling him.
"What?" Calla pushed him to tell.
"It's DeGroot" Blue admitted.
"The dragon guy?" Abigail asked.
"What's he doing out here?" Calla wondered.
"Wouldn't have a clue" Blue shrugged "Grab your gear and let's go ask him."
On the home stretch now. Just one more chapter followed by an epilogue.