Dancing with the Wild Geese
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: By now you should know I don't own any of this. Rating: Maybe K Time: Long, long ago in a galaxy…Er, no. I mean a couple of centuries from now in an alternate universe.
"I can't. I don't have enough room in the truck to take everybody. Will you at least stay long enough to have some breakfast?"
Red and Marie exchanged glances and Red nodded.
"Sure would appreciate that."
They all headed back into the house.
"I didn't know this Captain Castle was your nephew?" Trip said softly.
"He isn't. But the more people who think I have a powerful family member out there, the better."
They all finished breakfast and Red and Marie left. It wasn't more than two hours before the sentries called down that more humans were headed their way.
Once more, Jim checked them out through the spotting scope.
"That Greg Hill and his women. The girls' father was a violent drunk back on some planet or another. He got picked up and sent here. For some damn fool reason, they sent his two daughters with him. He got himself killed and Greg ended up with the girls who were teenagers by then. He took both of them as his wives."
"Isn't that illegal for most humans?" T'Pol asked.
"True, but there's no law out here."
"Don't worry, darlin', I'm perfectly happy with the one wife I have." Trip said, smirking.
"You'd better be." T'Pol said coldly but then winked.
Greg's vehicle was in worse shape than the O'Donnell's vehicle.
"I don't think you're going to get much further than this, Greg." Jim said, looking over the vehicle. "I think you and your family should stay with us."
"Thanks, Jim. We have guns, so we can help out." He gestured to a gunrack that held weapons that were in as bad a shape as the vehicle.
"You have…" Jim started counting the people.
"There's me, Sarah Beth, Sandra Lee and the kids. There's Amber, 10, Barb, 8, Claudia, 6, Debbie, 4 and little Evelyn. She just turned two."
Now that they knew that the Second Comers were coming, Sergeant Fa'an got busier setting up his defense. He'd already planted engineering stakes, so it was very easy to string concertina wire and razor wire around Jim's place. Directional mines were also set up.
"What are directional mines?" Trip asked.
"We use a couple of kinds, but they're more or less the same. A thick steel plate with plastic explosive on one side, mixed in with steel ball bearings. When they're fired, they send the ball bearings straight into the enemy. For what we use that's anywhere between one hundred and two hundred and fifty ball bearings."
Other Tarkai and some humans filled sandbags to build bunkers along the perimeter and on top of the house.
"If we have to, we'll fort up in the house." Sergeant Fa'an said.
T'Pol found herself with a job she'd never had before. She was reading a story to the Hill children. It was about three anthropomorphic pigs, and a large predator called a wolf.
"The first little pig decided to build his house out of straw." This was too much for T'Pol. "That was obviously illogical. Not only would it allow predators to attack, but it would be cold and drafty. And the straw would burn if a fire were near."
She looked up to see Trip smiling at her.
"Vulcanizing The Three Little Pigs, are you?" He said, laughing.
"One day we hope to have children of our own." She replied. "They will be both Vulcan and human. It will be appropriate to raise them to appreciate both of our cultures."
"Good thinking, darlin'." He walked towards the kitchen. "I'm getting lemonade for everyone, but I want to hear that story again, exactly as you tell it."
Once the barbed wire and mines were in place, they filled more sandbags. Then they cut strips of sod to cover the sandbags. Sergeant Fa'an and T'Pol walked the perimeter from a distance to see how well the sod had camouflaged the bunkers.
"Bunker number six." Fa'an yelled. "You can see the sandbags on the right. No, my right!"
When both were satisfied, Sergeant Fa'an began working on the bunkers on the roof of the house. They had built one bunker high enough to see over the hill of the little valley they were in. Fa'an thought it'd be perfect for a sniper, or their machine gun and he wanted similar bunkers on each side of the roof.
By the end of the day, everyone was tired, but both Kathy and Jim, and Trip and T'Pol made love.
Afterwards, they opened their minds to each other.
What did you think of the story, darlin'?
It was very illogical. The first two pigs behaved foolishly. They both could have been killed by the predator if not for the third pig. What was the point of such a story for children?
They're sort of little life lessons that children can understand. If you plan ahead, work hard and do everything right, you're okay in the end. And you can help those who aren't as logical as you.
T'Pol snorted.
It would have been more logical for all three pigs to work together to build a bigger and better brick house.
I'm sure you'll have a whole raft of logical fairy tales for our kids.
I do want children with you, Trip. However, it will require skilled medical intervention.
Nothing we can't handle, darlin'.
Rifleman Tubo cursed under his breath and grabbed his radio.
"Sentry to Central. Come in. Over."
"Central here. Report. Over." Fa'an replied.
"Central, there are four vehicles filled with humans headed right towards us. We could be in trouble."
"I'll be out in a second. Central out."
Everyone rushed to take up their positions as Fa'an and Jim watched the approaching vehicles.
"We may still be in trouble, but not from the Second Comers." Jim said. "That's Lucky Vaughn, the crook I told you about. We might want to let him see we have plenty of troops, so he won't get any stupid ideas."
Fa'an had half his troops stick their heads up over their sand bagged bunkers.
Vaughn stopped his vehicle about twenty meters from the wire, then dismounted and walked to Fa'an and Jim. The two had been joined by Trip and T'Pol. With her helmet on, T'Pol looked human. Lucky was attended by a redhead and a tall, well-armed man Jim had never seen before.
"Hi, Jim. It looks like your nephew sent you some of his troops. You'll be needing them. The damned Second Comers are headed this way. They move pretty slow. Seems they have to spend at least half the day listening to sermons. But there are a hell of a lot of them."
"How many?" Fa'an asked.
Lucky shrugged.
"Eight hundred, maybe a thousand. Mostly fighters, but some elders, women and children. The Wells boys scouted them. They're pretty good. Too damned many for me. I'm headed for Braminco. You'd be wise to do the same."
"No, I haven't got room in the truck for everyone. We'll stay and fight."
"We have more bullets than they have people." Fa'an added.
The redhead walked over to Jim and smiled. She had on a pair of cut off blue jeans that showed most of her ass and a blue work shirt that was unbuttoned but tied at the bottom. When the wind blew you could see her boobs.
"I see you have a new girlfriend, Jim."
"I'm Mrs. Beckett." Kathy said coldly.
The redhead laughed.
"Really? Where did you find a priest out here?"
"Father James married us, Meredith." Jim said.
"That crazy old man? He's not a priest and that's not really a marriage."
"I was raised by nuns. I know enough Latin to know he's for real. He's a Jerusalem Catholic, the same as the nuns who raised me."
"Married to a Bible thumper, Jim. What a waste."
Meredith's eye turned to Trip.
"Hello, handsome. You're new here."
"And I'm married everywhere." Trip said, putting his arm around T'Pol. Vulcan women were very, very protective of the sanctity of their marriages. Trip could feel that T'Pol wanted to seriously damage this woman.
"You don't know what you're missing." Meredith smiled and untied the bottom of her shirt. When the wind blew Trip and T'Pol could easily see her boobs. T'Pol was getting very angry.
"Meredith, we're here talking all friendly like. Get back in the pickup." Vaughn said.
She got back in the truck, but she didn't like it.
"Mr. Vaughn." A voice said from one of the other vehicles. "I think Jimmy and I'll stay here. Looks interesting."
"You two always were crazy, Lee." Vaughn turned to Jim. "You know the Wells boys, don't you Jim?"
Two young men got off of one of the trucks. They were both tall, well-built and had long blond hair. One had his hair in a pigtail that fell to the middle of his back. The other had two long blond braids.
They wore boots made of crudely tanned leather from some local animal, baggy canvas pants, homespun shirts and long coats that fell to mid-thigh. Each was well armed with a 7mm battle rifle with a telescopic sight and a large bore revolver on their right hip. On the left was a wicked looking machete. One carried a submachine gun and the other a shotgun. They had bandoleers of ammo draped over both shoulders and around their waists.
"How do, sir." Said one. "I'm Lee Wells and this is my little brother, Jimmy. If you'll have us, we'd like to stay here."
Jim looked long and hard at the two.
"I've heard about you two, but suppose you tell me about yourselves."
Lee nodded.
"We're originally from Hoosier, damned near to Earth and the Core. It was a real civilized planet. Ma, Pa and Uncle Ray were crooks. Thieves, mostly. The folks on Hoosier didn't believe in punishing people for breaking the law. That was way too uncivilized. They'd explain why it was bad to steal and talk about how good it felt to be a law-abiding citizen. That didn't slow Ma, Pa and Uncle Ray down none."
"I didn't imagine it would." Jim said.
"Well, they had them a change of government and the new government decided to send all of the folks like Ma, Pa, Uncle Ray and me and Jimmy off the planet. We ended up here. Pa didn't have no gun, but he'd got him a machete. Second night here we run across and old fellow with three mules. Pa went up to him and shook his machete at him and demanded his goods. Back on Hoosier any law-abiding citizen woulda given Pa everything. This old fella drew his pistol and shot Pa dead."
"No surprise." Jim said, nodding.
"Uncle Ray wasn't what you'd call smart. He ran at that old man and got shot for his trouble. Took him three days to die. Ma just wasn't the same after that. All she did was cry and yell about how she hated this planet. One day while we was out hunting, she just walked away. We never did find her."
"We got lucky, sort of. We ran into Sher Khan, the horse dealer. He had trouble keeping help because he was a stingy bastard. Didn't pay people shit and charged you for everything you got from him. We worked for him and learned how to break and care for horses. About five years ago we were riding some new horses and found us a big ole lump of froonium. We grabbed it and sent the horses back to Sher Khan. Found a prospector who paid us for the froonium in goods. Most importantly, we got guns. Not as good as the guns we have now, but good enough."
"Now we hunt and make jerky to sell to folks and also hides. We ride shotgun sometimes for people, but mostly we prospect."
TBC