Once Anne had disappeared, Bob got back to digging the bath pit as he thought about what those Dracos were doing. Although he didn't know much about 'raising' a species tech, he figured artificially raising it from a hunter/gatherer to a hunter/gatherer with rifles and canons was not a good thing. Those natives barely understood what they were using. Worse was the idea those Dracos were using them for their own gain, using the natives here as a servant species. They were also killing off the grass dwellers.

Making the pit a few feet deep and large enough for a few people to sit in, he noted the inside was crumbly with dirt and roots. "Mal, could you put some fire in that pit to smooth out the inside and make it a litle harder?"

Malinara nodded. Holding out a hand, she cast fire into the pit. It burned some and smoked, but the bottom and the sides smoothed out, now mostly a thin coat of partially melted rock. Watching the pit, she added a bit more flame here and there, then frowned slightly. "What do you think?" she asked.

The pit smoldered some, but it looked a little better. "Not bad, it will work," Bob said. He dug the incoming channel from the stream to the pit. With water coming in, he dug an exit trench downstream a short ways. Water from the stream came in . After the pit was full, it would be running back out, refreshing the water in the pit.

Bob and Malinara were watching the pit fill up. Belle came close and jerked on Bob's arm and pointed off across the field. He looked up. Coming across the field was a single lizard again. It looked a bit taller than the one who'd came before. "Better go see what they want," he grumbled.

When Bob moved to leave, Malinara went with him. He stopped. "Mal, just stay here, I'm sure they just want to talk again."

Malinara frowned. "I'll be watching," she said firmly.

Bob went out to meet the lizard. It was meatier than Eva was, and a bit taller. He figured it was the male of the species. He strode towards it until they within easy speaking range. He raised a hand in greeting.

"What can I do for you?" Bob asked.

"How many humans are here?" the lizard asked in a hiss.

Bob shrugged. "Just me. I got put here by myself."

The lizard nodded, then pulled up with a pistol device and shot Bob in the head.

Watching, Malinara saw the arm come up and heard the report, then Bob fell backwards, limp. Without thinking, she reacted, created heat and thrust it out at the lizard. His body burst into flame. The lizard wailed out and flailed. It ran a few steps in escape then fell burning.

Right after her immediate reaction, Malinara ran out to see how bad Robert was hurt. She did put the grass fire out from the burning lizard remains.

"Robert!" she cried and knelt by him.

Bob was limp, he wasn't breathing. There was a hole just above his right eyebrow. "No," Malinara gasped. No, he didn't die, he can't die!

"noooo," Malinara whined weakly in disbelief. That lizard had killed her Robert.

As Malinara stared down on her Master, her face faded from a look of shock into a gaze of pure rage. Robert had come to talk to that THING, and it killed him. Flame appeared over Malinara, she panted as her anger grew. They were not going to get away with this!

Malinara shot up and strode in the direction that cindered corpse had come from. Getting to it, she stomped down on it's black skull, breaking it apart. They killed her Robert, not one was going to survive!

.

Bob awoke on his back in the grass. He smelled something burnt. Sitting up, not far away was a burnt patch of grass. Feeling the after-sting from being shot on his forehead, he wiped his forehead and found blood. OK, that asshole shot him. Getting up, he saw that same asshole's charred remains lying in the burnt grass.

He quickly put together what happened. That lizard shot him, then Malinara fried it. He looked around, not seeing her, he called for her. She didn't answer. OK, this wasn't good. He'd have to go find her. Since he'd been shot and she most likely wasn't happy about it, he headed for the dry stream bed.

"Obert", a meek voice said from behind him.

He turned to see Belle. She was eyeing him with a worried look. She reached out and touched his forehead.

"I'm OK," he assured her. He cast her a brief smile and went to find Malinra.

She followed.

There were couple fresh paths in the grass, but only one showed grass tips that had been burnt. OK, that had to be Malinara. She'd seen him get shot, and was 'burning' angry. Yeah, this wasn't good at all.

.

The firefight at th base with the native men was over. Many dead on both sides and the remaining natives had fled their village. Eva frowned heavily. Things had been going so well, and now this. WHY had it happened? The only ones who knew were Draco who'd been with the men and gotten killed, and the natives who'd fled. It was a disaster!

Eva worked at getting things calmed down and finding out who was left. Many wounded were taken to the hospital, she had all the young children taken to the ship's medical area to ensure they'd be safe.

A transport came into the town and skidded to a halt the Draco driving jumped out and cried, "Leader! We have trouble at the entrance!"

Eva turned to him. "What now?"

"There is a native woman coming, and she's on fire, her whole body! The guards went to try and put her out, but the fire raced out and burned them both to death! The fire then reached out and destroyed the guard station. She's headed this way!"

"That's impossible!" Eva snapped. "If she was burning like that, she'd be dying, if not dead already."

"I can't explain it, but the fire rolling of her doesn't seem to affect her!"

It was then Eva noticed a burning figure approaching the first buildings in town. Through the flames around it, the figure did look like a native. The figure thrust it's arms out and fire, like from a flamethrower, hit the buildings to each side. The thick, hot flames caught the buildings on fire and blew windows in.

Eva gapped a the impossible display. She also heard screams pealing out. Some Dracos escaping the buildings were burnt a couple still were burning. They dropped to the ground and rolled around, trying to put themselves out.

The figure then pointed it's rms at the street. A wash of flame blew out, covering the ones who had escaped the buildings. Screams wailed out louder. The flame front was coming towards her.

Terrified, Eva ran between a couple buildings to escape the impossible. Behind her, the transport blew up. The crescendo of screams wailed louder. Behind the buildings, she saw flames blow out from in between them and burst out windows.

She ran for the ship. The ship was in sight, Dracos were scurrying to flee up the entrance ramp. Running as fast as she could, she also fled for the ramp. She had no thoughts left except to escape being burned alive by whatever that was. With the entrance ramp right in front of her and the sound of the ship warming up for takeoff, flame raced past her and up the ramp.

Eva was burned alive, screaming in pain and terror.

.

Crossing the dry stream, Bob noted Belle was still following him. He stopped and said, "Go back," pointing the way. Belle stopped with him, but didn't move.

Up ahead, a gigantic explosion sounded. The ball of fire that rose up reminded him of a small nuclear weapon. Rising in the air, the ball of fire darkened into a cloud and formed a mushroom shape.

What the hell was that? That was a big bang. It was also enough for Belle to belt out a cry and race back the way she came.

Bob noted there was a blast concussion that blew by, but it wasn't more than a stiff wind. As the cloud rose up, there area where it happened was burning. Malinara had gone that way. Bob moved into a jog to go see if he could find her.

By what he saw, that had been a couple miles away. It took him a while to cover the distance. As he ran, he saw the fires were getting smaller. OK, whatever could burn was being burned up. There was plenty of smoke on the horizon. He also tried to reason out what that might have been. It probably wasn't a nuke. Maybe an ammunition bunker had gone up, or a fuel depot? If Malinara had been close to that explosion, he was sure she had to be hurt bad, if she was still alive. He quickened his pace.

.

Getting to the first small collapsed building, Bob noted it was spread out, a few charred bodies in the black rubble. It was hard to tell, but they were all too tall to be Malinara. There were also a couple what looked like fire extinguishers near them. He studied the remains then hurried to the next collapsed buildings that still had smoke rising from fires within.

This place was a mess. Everything he saw was collapsed and burning. Walking along, again he noted cindered bodies all over the place. None looked like they could be Malinara.

"Robert?" a cry came to him. He looked to see Malinara, frazzled and her clothing ripped, but she was alive. "Mal!" he cried, happy to see she'd survive whatever happened. She dropped the knife she was holding. They ran to plow into each other in a tight hug. Malinara wept in relief.

"What happened here?" he asked.

Looking up at him, he said, "Well, I thought that lizard killed you and … I kinda killed them all."

Looking over the debris, he didn't see a single object standing, or any other movement. "Mal," he said with a sigh. "I can't die, hon. Yeah, he shot me but I got back up. You didn't have to do this."

"I thought you were dead, I kinda went crazy." Malinara said weakly, then hugged him a bit tighter.

"I'll say," he agreed. "Anyone else survive?"

"I don't think so."

Bob petted her head. "Let's look around and make sure."

"Thinking you were dead, I was ready to die," Malinara said blankly. "I even found a knife so I could give you my breasts as a pillow."

OK, that was why she had a knife. "Well, you don't need to. We need to find out if anyone survived."

With the total destruction of this place, Bob really didn't think they were going to find anyone else alive. Debris was scattered all over the place. Some chunks looked like they could be parts of a big vehicle, or maybe a ship. One big piece Bob was sure used to be some kind of engine.

As they searched, they kept an arm around each other ans listened, hearing only the soft crackling of flames around them.

After a couple hours of searching, Bob concluded, "If anyone did survive, I'm sure they fled."

"I really thought you were dead," Malinara said softly.

"I know. Let's keep looking."

Walking along where a wall used to be near some rubble, Bob stopped. He thought he heard soft crying. "Hear that?" he asked and searched for the source.

Listening, Malinara pointed. "I think it's coming from that way."

They walked slowly towards a collapsed building wall that was propped up by the remains of a stone wall. "Under there." Bob said. He got down and looked into the space. Yes, the weeping sounds were coming from under there. "Hello? Where are you?" he asked loudly.

A soft, weepy plea responded. "Please help me, I'm stuck and I can't get out."

It was dark inside. He couldn't see very far into the void. "We'll get you out, OK?" Well, as soon as he figured out how. "Are you hurt, bleeding anywhere?"

"I feel pinched, I can't move," the weak voice replied.

Inspecting the debris, it looked like a section of wall fell, but was being propped up by stone from the wall. The space was too small to crawl into. The wall section also was cracked, it wasn't just one piece. There were loose stones around from the stone wall collapsing. He looked at Malinara.

"Hon, I'm going to have to lift this wall up. When I do, can you get that stone there and put in on top to support this piece of wall?"

Malinara nodded.

Bob squatted and gripped the wall. Malinara picked up a lose stone and nodded. Bob lifted. It was hard but he got the wall raised up about a foot. Watching the crack, so far, it didn't split further.

"OK, stone's in place," Malinara told him.

Bob eased off, the wall stayed in place. He studied this piece of wall. It was about ten feet long. "We need something to hold this wall up higher," he noted.

They looked around. Malinara saw a mostly free length of steel framing. Bob hauled on it and got it out of the rubble.

"Are you still there?" the weak voice asked.

"We're here, this might take a while," Bob called into the void.

"I'm scared I'm going to die."

"We are scared you're going to die too, that's why we're being a careful as we can be." Bob called in. He studied the wall section again, an the metal he'd freed. It was an chunk of I beam about a foot thick in the center with sturdy looking flats on the ends. He showed Malinara how he wanted it put on the stone wall to support the wall section he was going to raise up.

Malinara shook her head. "I can't lift that, it's too big."

She was right. Shit. Looking at the ground, he saw it was packed dirt. OK, he'd have to dig. "I need something to dig with."

A short search and they found a bend chunk of angle steel. Bob decided to dig with that and had Malinara look for something better as he began ripping at the ground.

"I can hear you," the voice said.

"Yeah, we can't lift that stuff off you, so I'm digging a trench to get to you. I'm surprised you know how to speak English."

"I learned in school. I am learning several languages. When all the shooting started, bullets were coming in the windows, so I hid where I thought no one could find me."

"Smart," Bob replied as he hacked away at the ground some more, then dug the dirt out with his hands. "Do you know where you are?"

"I can't see any more, but the place I hid was in the ditch beside the stone wall. I was safe, then the building came down on me."

"Can you turn your head?" Bob asked.

"A little. I can see a bit of light. Is that where you are?"

"Probably. I have to dig my way to you." He replied. Digging with a piece of angle steel was going slow. He wished Malinara would hurry up and bring him something better. He'd gotten a foot down and barely under the debris. "Just hang in there, I'm coming. What's your name?"

"I'm Tenya, daughter of Tarone and Alieya. Have you seen them?"

"I'm Robert. Many people call me Bob. So far, you're they only one we've found."

"Is everyone else gone?"

Bob didn't want to tell this, he was sure it was a girl, that everyone else died. "Right now, we need to concentrate on getting you out of there."

"They left me?" she asked in a whine.

"Not intentionally. We can look for them after you're free." Bob got a rock out of the hole and tossed it behind him. He was not digging under the wall. Yeah, progress.

"I hear a noise. Is that you digging? You have a shovel?" she asked.

"It's a lousy chunk of steel, but at least I can made some progress with it. I got someone looking for something better to dig with. This is like using a spoon instead of a shovel." Bob said with a grunt as he picked another rock out of the front of his trench.

"If you don't make it to me, thank you for trying," Tenya said.

"Hey!" Bob snapped. "Don't think like that! I will make it to you and we will get you out of there! DO NOT give up, you hear me?"

"You sound forceful. Are you a guard?"

"No, just a guy who is constantly asked to do the impossible. I will get you out, Tenya," Bob said firmly.

"I'm hungry."

"Me too, but first we got to get you free."

"Robert!" Malinara cried, "Look what I found!"

Bob got up out of his hole to see Malinara had a shovel head. "Great!" Not perfect, but much better. He put the piece of steel down and took the shovel head. Actually, at the moment for the tight space he was in, this was perfect as it could get. He rammed the shovel head into the dirt and got a good half shovel full out. "Mal, start getting the loose stuff out of the hole behind me."

Bob dug much faster now, it felt like he was making real progress. "Tenya, let me know if you're seeing more light."

"You got a shovel?"

"Just the head of a shovel, but this is much better," he told her as he dug away, ripping out dirt and rock to throw it behind him.

Behind him, Malinara was huffing, throwing material out of the hole with her hands.

"I can here you. It sounds like you found some kind of machine to dig with," Tenya said.

"Nope, I'm just a digging machine," Bob replied. "John Henry has nothing on me," he quipped.

"Who's John Henry?"

As he dug, Bob told her about John Henry racing the steam drill and beating it.

"Robert, I can't keep up!" Malinara cried.

"Do your best," Bob called back. "This girl is pinned in place."

Bob shoved the shovel head again into the ground in front of him. He pulled out nearly a full shovel of dirt. In the dim light, he saw a hand drop down. It looked like the hand of a smaller lizard. He held into the fingers. "This you, Tenya?"

"Yes," she cried happily. "You're going to free me!"

"That's the plan," he replied. "I'm going to have to dig more carefully now, I don't want to hurt you further. What part of you is pinched?"

"My left leg feels pinched, and something is on my torso."

Bob dug under her torso. When she dropped some, he stopped and dug towards her lower body. Digging underneath her, he tried to lower her down some evenly. He felt her hand touch his back.

Tenya let out a yelp and fell in a rain of dirt, almost burying Bob. "You did it!" she said happily.

"See, I told you to not give up," he replied. He tried to back up and found he too now was stuck here. A dirt mound was behind him. Shit. Tenya lay beside him facing the other way. He was laying down and saw she only had one shoe. Great for pulling her out behind him. Otherwise, stuck like this, it sucked. He'd been digging in front of him, he had no room to turn around.

Bob had enough room to get his elbows under him and his knees partway up. His back was against what he figured was the wall. Forcing himself up, he heard a crackling. He had an idea. "Tenya, can you move OK?"

"I'm sore, but I can move."

"Try to wiggle your way under me and turn around to put your arms around my neck."

He saw her moving. The girl was skinny, she got partway under him and got her hand up on his shoulders to pull herself more or less under him.

"How will this help us get out?" she asked.

"Just hold on," he coaxed. Bob strained and got his arms under him and pushed hard. There was more crackling and the wall above him lifted. He got his knees, then was able to force his legs under him.

"What are you doing?" Tenya asked sounding frightened.

"Escaping," Bob sated, then pushed up hard with all he had. The wall lifted. Something broke loose and Bob got his hands above him. He shifted into a squat and shoved up a hard as he could.

More crackling sounded and light now came through to them. He'd broken a long chunk of wall apart. Before him was daylight.

"Mal, come get her!" he called.

Malinara scrambled over the debris where Robert was standing head and shoulders above the mess, holding a piece of wall over his head. She helped Tenya climb up and out and guided her off the rubble.

Returning to Robert, Malinara asked, "Robert, how.."

"Get off the ruble, this thing is heavy!" Bob roared.

Malinara did. She and Tenya stood watching as Bob lowered down some then thrust up hard and to the side. The piece of wall tipped to the side, he rolled out of the hole and made it before the wall crashed back down.

"Wow," Tenya whispered. Robert was really strong and quick! She also noted he was dirty and had streaks of blood on his head. Having no shirt to speak of, he could easily see he was a native. So was the red headed woman beside her.

Robert walked back to them. "Well, she's out, lets see if we can find anyone else alive."

Tenya looked around. Their town was completely destroyed. She also noticed pieces of their ship here and there. She knew the natives were fighting them, but they couldn't have caused this much destruction.
"What happened?" she asked weakly.

"Right now, focus on finding anyone else who survived," Bob stated.

Maliara just nodded. She understood, it was her that had destroyed this place thinking Robert had been killed. Since he hadn't, she was feeling terrible about what she did.

.

Anne returned to the hotel where people were gathered waiting to hear what she'd found. The Sheriff and Harry Dresden were there also.

"Master, Bob is very far away, like many light years away."

"Like we were with Moms and dad, thousands of light years away?" Joan asked.

"More like millions, on the other side of our galaxy," Anne told her. "Harry can you do a portal or something to span the distance?"

"Hell bells," Harry grumbled. "Try to go that far and be at least semi-accurate when I've never been there?" he asked. "Even if I had the location, the EXACT location of where Bob is, I'd be lucky to land in the right solar system, let alone the spot on the right planet he's at. You are talking a very vast distance."

"I can show you where he is in your mind, if you let me." Anne offered.

Harry frowned. "OK, try it."

Anne went over to Harry and stood by his side and slapped her spade tail on his forehead.

Harry's eyes widened. "Ahh, yeah. I can see Bob and Malinara, but I have no reference or direction." He whispered a spell and shook his head. "I can't get a feel of where he is."

Alison offered, "Can John and Cameron maybe go and find him in a ship?"

Joan shook her head. "Doubt it, just traveling a few thousand light years took a while. If he's millions of light years away, we'd have to know right where that planet is. Even then, but the time we got there, that whole solar system would have moved."

"He got sent there," the Sheriff stated. "That means there must be a way to get them back. We just have to find it." Looking at Anne, he said, "You got there and found him."

"Yes, in the ethereal plane." Anne replied.

"Is there any way you can take someone else into the Ethereal plane with you?"

"I don't know," Anne said with a shrug.

"Harry?" the Sheriff asked.

Harry bobbed his head. "I'll search but right off hand, I don't know how it's possible either.

.