On Distant Shores (Exiles Triology Book 1) (39 page)

Luckily, the small bullets for the rail guns were made of iron, so a pass with a homemade magnet over the area where the carcasses were eaten or decayed, picked up some of the iron that had been fired.  Some of the iron had been eaten with the chunks of meat, and scattered.  They wouldn’t be able to recover it all.

              Still, staying where they were was untenable.  They couldn’t stay in the facility for several reasons.  Climbing up and down the ladder everyday would get harder for the older people, and was, in fact, hard enough for some of them as it was now.  So they needed a base that was on the surface.  There was also the problem that the structure was sitting at an angle, putting stress on the materials that it was constructed of, stress that it wasn’t designed or built to hold.  Plus, they had to deal with the dragons that would continue to drift into the valley.

              That last part was significant.  Talking to Matki Awrani, who was some kind of hunter/scout/biologist for his people, he found out that, while the last beast that he fought was a big critter, some of the dragons could be as much as two tons larger.  Mike didn’t like the thought of having to fight two of three of those gigantic beasts at the same time.  He didn’t think that they would be able to survive that encounter.  While the beasts might not be able to crack the mech armor, what would happen when they ran out of ammunition for the rail guns, and the security team ran out of ammunition for the rifles that supported the mech team?

              That wouldn’t be a good day for anybody.

              Mike asked Matki Awrani if there were any places that the dragons wouldn’t, or couldn’t go.  Matki responded by pointing at the mountains behind them.  The mountains would stop the dragons, but it wouldn’t stop the packs of young dragons that might roam, looking for prey.

              Mike stood and stretched, “I think I’m going to get some fresh air.”

              Everett stood and said, “I think I’m going to join you.  You don’t mind do you?”

              Mike smiled, “why would I?”

              Everett shrugged, “Well, you were thinking about Jo.”

              Mike motioned towards the cave entrance with his head, “No prob, come on.”

              “Well, if you don’t mind, then I’m comin’ with you,” Rob added.

              They walked out, enjoying the cooler night air.  During the daytime, the guys in the Mech armor chopped up the meat of the dragons and had taken it far away from the cave.  They drug the carcasses very close to the mouth of the valley, about fifteen kilometers away from the entrance of the cave. Even with the blood and gore strewn across the meadow, everybody was hoping that the distance and amount of meat would keep the other, larger scavengers away.

              “God, this is a strange world,” Everett said.

              “Yeah, but there is a lot about it that is very familiar.  It’s almost as if we landed in a dimension just off from ours.  I mean, what if the dinosaurs hadn’t been wiped out by that big meteor in the Yucatan.  Would the world have ended up like this?”

              Mike continued to sip his coffee.  The sounds of the small animals and insects drifted across the meadow.  This was a good sound.  Hopefully it meant that there weren’tpredators out there hunting them.

              “So, what are we going to do?” Everett asked.

              “Well, I think we need to move back up into the mountains.  We need to send a scout team out to find a place we can fortify against predators.  That would give us some space to be able to drag everything out of here up to there, and maybe we can set everything up so that we can have electricity and some capability of fabrication.”

              Everett nodded agreement.

              Mike continued, “That means we have to get everybody on board.  And I’m not sure these people want to be dragged further out of their comfort zone.”

              Everett added, “Yeah, They’re so far outside their comfort zone, I’m amazed more of them haven’t gone off their rocker, like Jamison.”

              Mike shook his head at the mention of the name, “Yeah, all he does now is rock, drool, and keep saying it isn’t his fault.” 

Jamison was failing at an alarming rate.  The docs were thinking that it was a series of strokes or maybe even a tumor.

              Everett spoke, “How could it be his fault.  I mean, what the hell.”

              A light source was trying to peak out from behind the clouds.  The clouds were still pretty thick, but there was definitely a glow behind them, indicating the presence of some kind of satellite.  Silence descended again, as they sank back into memories.  A light wind sprung up across the meadow.  They watched as the breeze made the grasses in the meadow shift in rhythm.  They relaxed further as the natural world moved around them.

              Everett spoke, “Well, I think I’m going to go ahead and get some more coffee.”

              “Yeah, I think I’ll get another cup.  I’m going to stay out here for a while.  I need some fresh air after sleeping next to Stein.  What about you Rob?”

              “No, I still have some.”

              Mike and Everett walked back to the fire.  They poured some water, then sat the cups next to the fire, until it began to boil.

              Sergeant Joseph nodded as he walked past to go out to the latrine.  Mike watched as the big security policeman walked past the large mech armor towards the latrine.  Nobody dared to piss in the meadow anymore.  Mickey put his foot down pretty quick to ensure that people weren’t squatting down anywhere they decided, leaving urine and feces all over the place.  He designated an area, then a ‘hey you’ work detail dug a slit trench for a latrine.  Some of the women were upset at the lack of privacy.  They got over it when it was pointed out that at the present time, walls would impede the security over watch from doing their jobs.

              Joseph stood at the slit trench and Mike looked away.  Even though they worried about disease vectors, the slit trenches were pretty close.  People shoveled in dirt to cover urine and feces when they were finished with their business.  White toilet paper glowed in the night.

              Rob said, “Hey, that’s the first time I’ve seen the moon out here.”

              Everett and Mike looked up at this revelation. 

              Mike called out, “What, the moon is out?”

              “Yeah, clear as a bell.”

              Everett looked at Mike, “I guess the wind blew the clouds away.”

              Mike replied, “Well, let’s take a look.”

              He and Everett walked out and took a look at the sky.  The moon was three quarters full.
              “Wow.  That looks fantastic.”

              Joseph zipped up and joined them.

              The moon glow across the meadow, along the bobbing high grass, was mesmerizing.  They stood a few minutes and stared at the moon.  The moon didn’t look quite the same.  It had scars that Mike didn’t remember.

              “Well, we know we’re on Earth.”

              Rob, Mike, and Sergeant Joseph looked at Everett, “What do you mean?”

              Everett looked back at them, motioning towards the moon, “Our moon, our earth.”

              “Wow.”  The group looked over at Rob.  Rob looked like he was deep in thought.  Evidently, Everett had triggered something in his memory.

              Rob asked, “Who’s in the mech armor?”

              Everett looked at him, “Murph.”

              Rob reached into his pocket, pulled out his ear bud, and put it in his ear, “Hey Murph, do you know how to use the visual functions on the mech armor.”

              Murphy’s deep voice replied, “Ah, no, I’m just kind of watching the screens that are already up.”

              “Okay, no prob.”

              Rob walked over to the side of his mech armor.  He started climbing up the side.

              “Hey Rob, what’s going on?” Everett asked.

              “Ah, nothing really, I just want to get some pictures.  Something is nagging at a corner of my mind, and I need to see if it clicks with anybody downstairs in the brain trust.”

              “Anything we can do to help?” Mike asked.

              “Naw, just give me a few minutes and I’ll be back out.”

              Rob climbed in.  This wouldn’t need a full fire up, so he didn’t even climb all the way down inside of the armor.  He clicked on the switch that fired up the electronics, then pulled the helmet up and switched it on.  He put the helmet on and watched the head’s up display light up.

              As it lit up, he watched the drone feed spin up.  Finally it blinked on and showed the valley.  He re-targeted the lens so that it was looking up at the moon in the sky.  He took several pictures.  He reset the drone camera back down to the valley below.  He turned off the helmet and shut down the electrical systems.  He shut the hatch of the mech armor to keep moisture out, and climbed down the side.

              “Get what you wanted?” Everett asked.

              “Yeah, as good as I could, I guess.”

              “Anything you want to talk about?” Mike asked.

              “No, I’ll just wait until morning and drop downstairs and see if anybody knows something.  It might be something, but it’s probably nothing.”

              Mike kept quiet, trusting Rob’s instincts.

              The night moved on, to the sound of insects, wind rustling through the grass, the smell of coffee and roasting bird.

--------------------------------------

              The next morning, Rob found Bobby McFarland.  With Bobby’s help, they searched the internet pages to find what was nagging at Rob.  Rob was a smart guy, with one hell of a memory.  He had a ninety percent retention of everything he read.  Last night, when he looked at the moon, he remembered something that he learned in an elective astrophysics class about the solar system.

              Once he found the information that he was looking for, and did the calculations, he brought the information to Mike and Everett.  Mike, being the mathematician of the group, ran Rob’s calculations again.  Mike wasn’t happy with the results.  Rob’s calculations were correct.  Mike approached Pang and Jondreau.  They in turn talked to Colonel Mitchem, Dr. Randall, Major Nosstrand, Bob Leitz, Dr. Humphreys, and Dr. Nachman.  A meeting time was set.  They all came up to the surface.  What Rob had to say was important, and, if spread through the facility without proper socialization, could cause major problems.  When everybody was topside, the crowd moved out into the meadow.  Tom and Mickey were on guard to ensure that nobody walked to the crowd and interrupted.  Rob Stein was inside the mech armor on watch.

              Mike started, “First, I want to thank you for coming out when we asked.”                Mitchem and Randall didn’t look happy, but when did they ever.  When they heard there may be an explanation about where they were, they reluctantly agreed to come out.  Mike didn’t think he would ever get them on his side.  He really didn’t care, but he needed everybody’s support, to include Mitchem and Randall. 

“I wonder if Mitchem knows about his new nickname,”
he thought, “
Probably.  Kind of hard to avoid it.”

              Dr. Nachman spoke, “Well, if you have an explanation for how we got here, then I think everybody is willing to listen.”

              Major Nosstrand spoke, “And if we find out how we got here, maybe we can figure out how to get back.”

              Mike paused for a moment, “Well, we’ll see.”

              He continued, “Since its Rob’s theory, I’m just going to let him talk.”

              The group looked at Rob with anticipation.  He cleared his throat, “Well, I don’t know if any of you know anything about the moon and its relationship with earth,” He held up his hand as a few looked ready to speak, “Ah, just let me finish, then we can go ahead and talk about it in general.”  They settled down, and he continued, “We took some pictures of the moon face last night, and this moon is our moon.  There are some new scars on the face, but you have the same craters, and the dark spots from its early history.  They correspond with the same spots we have on our moon.  So I can say with high probability it is our moon.”

              Bob asked, “So, this means that we’re in a parallel universe or something?”

              Rob answered, “Well, more ‘or something’ than parallel universe.”

              The crowd looked confused so he continued, “What a lot of people don’t know about the moon is, due to tidal forces, and the transfer of angular momentum from the earth to the moon, the moon is actually moving away from the earth a small distance, about one and one half inches per year.”

              Mitchem spoke, “What does that have to do with anything?”

              Rob continued, “Well, due to this energy and momentum being transferred to the moon, the earth’s rotation is actually slowing down, a few milliseconds every year.”