Lost Dawns: A Short Prequel Novel to the Lost Millinnium Trilogy

by Mike Shepherd

  If Launa had not found the pool all to herself, she still might have chickened out. Once she dove in, the feel of the water through her skimpy suit was unsettlingly pleasurable. The water caressed her breasts and abdomen bared by the suit. The swim left her breathless beyond mere exercise.

  One mile later, she pulled herself from the pool. She had just laid down on a lounger to catch her breath when Marilyn sat down in the chair next to her.

  "You swam those laps pretty fast. You're in good shape"

  "Thank you," Launa basked in the other woman's approval.

  "For a minute there, you startled me, you looked so much like Sandy."

  "Sandy?"

  "Yeah, Jack's wife. I only saw her once, before I shipped out for some TDY in Africa. She and their baby died in a car crash while I was gone. Jack was pretty shook up after that, thought we might lose him. He's really looking good these last few days, isn't he?"

  "I guess so."

  "Well, a girl can't sit around in a man's world. I better be running. See you around."

  Launa watched Marilyn go, still trying to catch her breath.

  She could not have been more blown away if Marilyn had used a rocket launcher on her. Jack had been married. He had a baby.

  Secondary explosions went off in her skull. Was this what Judith had meant by Jack's dues? Launa looked like his dead wife; did that explain Jack's behavior toward her? She was damned if she was going to let Jack treat her as anything but a soldier.

  Interlude Two

  Bakuza Qwabes scanned the dispatch from America, then read it three times slowly, trying to comprehend its full meaning. It did not come easy.

  A frequent problem with field reports was that the writers wanted to please the readers, or at least not draw down their anger. It was clear to Bakuza that the writer of this report did not want anyone to accuse him of believing what he was reporting.

  If Bakuza understood the dispatch, the Americans were prepared to tamper with the very fabric of time in order to defeat the Leader. Frowning, Bakuza put the report aside.

  He had been supervising the drawing down of the Stalkers in America. They were needed in North Africa. The Chief of Missions, United States, had beamed with pride as he explained his recruitment strategy -- "acquire information, but not operatives. This month's glowing recruit might be tomorrow's double agent. The stalkers in America are clean and lean."

  They were also few and getting fewer.

  A glance at his notes confirmed only seven teams remained in America. The woman identified seven groups and a primary target. Assuming she was cooperating, Bakuza prepared a short note for the Leader. They had suborned the woman and would verify her information. For the moment, no further transfers should be made from America.

  It was a good plan. It would be hard for anyone to fault it.

  6

  At the stables, a laconic cowboy was waiting. Launa quickly went through the basics. After an hour, she headed for supper and a showdown.

  They were ordering when Jack came in. As he took the last chair at their table, Launa took a deep breath and put down her menu. "Jack, we've got a problem. I'll eat your `local rations' for breakfast and lunch, but the cooks here can match any chef in New York. I think we ought to enjoy supper?"

  "Am I facing mutiny already?" Jack studied Launa, then turned to Judith. "How would the Old Europeans approach this?"

  "They'd listen to the woman." Judith snapped her menu shut.

  Jack pushed his chair back. "Yes, they would. In fact, they'd be more likely to listen to the woman than to me."

  Judith gave Jack that smile teachers save for a slow student who is finally catching on. Launa realized she had opened a bigger can of worms than she had intended.

  The Captain pursed his lips. "Okay, I see the point. Where we're going, women may call the shots and Launa may be in command."

  Launa had not expected Jack to give so much ground. She blanched, "I can do the talking, but that doesn't mean I have to command."

  In her dreams Launa was the general, but not now. Not until she had some experience, had some time to make mistakes with a good sergeant and C.O. to back her up.

  In her profession, mistakes killed people.

  Jack shook his head. "Doesn't work that way. We're going up against some hard cases. You can't be looking over your shoulder, wondering if I'll support you. If women call the plays, you take charge and I follow. It's time I start working on that."

  Jack faced Judith. "The Old Europeans built their culture on cooperation, right?" The scholar nodded and Jack turned back to Launa.

  "Lieutenant, the normal chain of command isn't going to work. Everything I've seen about you so far makes me glad we're sharing this job. You and I can work as partners. If I forget that, give me a nudge. I'll do the same for you."

  Launa studied him. After what Marilyn had told her, she did not know what to make of this man. He was full of surprises. What made him tick?

  For the moment, she would take him at face value until she knew more about him. "You’ve got yourself a deal, partner."

  She ran a hand along the edge of the menu. "There's still a lot I've got to learn. We'll work on that together."

  "I suspect," Judith added dryly, "you both have a lot to learn. Now, can we order some food?"

  Launa agreed wholeheartedly with both sentiments as she selected from the best the chef had to offer. Jack ordered the same, but skipped the wine.

  During the meal, Brent kept up a running account of student pranks and professorial follies. He provided such detail that Launa began to wonder if he was quite the innocent bystander he claimed.

  Late in the meal Samantha entered. She frowned when she saw Jack seated at a full table. Marilyn whispered something to Dick, who waved at Samantha from their table. The boss woman beamed and joined them.

  Marilyn threw Launa a knowing smirk as Dick held a chair for the administrator.

  "Just who decides which team will go?" Launa tried to keep the worry from her voice. Judith followed Launa's eyes to the other table.

  "The computer will have a lot to say," Judith's green eyes were sober. "The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs will also. Of course, the President will have the final decision. Though I suspect Samantha thinks she will make it."

  "She won't," Brent growled.

  "I hope not," Launa added under her breath; then suppressed a laugh. Jack had spoken in unison with her.

  "I bet you didn't know I am quite the horseman?" Under Brent's urging, the four departed for an evening ride.

  In the saddle, the old scholar's assertion proved to be a bit overblown. With this group, Launa admitted she had spent time with horses at summer camps.

  "What more are you holding back on me?" Jack asked, only half laughing. Launa felt herself coloring. "I didn't want to look bad in front of you."

  Judith gave her a wink. Brent picked that moment to challenge Jack to a race. Brent lead off in a cloud of dust, but Jack quickly passed him and Brent gave up the chase.

  An hour later, Launa groaned as she dismounted. "I'm supposed to be in good shape, but God, I hurt."

  "It's the jacuzzi for all of us." Judith sounded as definite as any mother.

  Launa considered the swimsuit problem and almost backed out, but she was sore and she could not think of a more supportive environment to get used to being nearly naked around Jack.

  Five minutes later, she was at the jacuzzi, shedding her sweat suit. When Jack's sweats came off, his swimsuit was as tiny as hers. There was enough light to answer one question; Jack had not been circumcised.

  They both splashed hurriedly into what cover the water offered.

  The jacuzzi soothed Launa complaining muscles and she was soon ready to call it an evening, but after fifteen minutes of quiet soaking, Jack sat up.

  "What do we need to do to get ready?"

  "I need to get out of this hot water." Judith pulled herself up, sat on the side, dangling her feet in the water. "Launa, what do you think you
need?"

  Launa also wanted out, but she was not about to sit around as bare as this in front of Jack. She prepared to soak as long as he. "I don't know how to weave or make clothes from skins. Do you, Jack?"

  He shook his head.

  Judith reached in her bag for pen and paper and started taking notes. "That's something you'll both need to know. I don't think they had separated things out into women's and men's work yet."

  For the next half hour, Jack and Launa built a list. The scholars took notes and added items. It was Jack who finally suggested they get dressed and continue the discussion in Judith's room.

  Launa was glad for the change. Was it her imagination or was Jack becoming as physically aware of her as she was of him?

  The brainstorming session with Judith and Brent lasted until almost 2300 hours.

  Jack shook his head as they finished. "Samantha's going to go crazy finding some of this. Security won't like all the people we want to bring in."

  Launa bristled. "I'm not going 6,000 years from the nearest drug store without knowing something about herbal medicine, or a lot of other things."

  Jack waved a calming hand. "We'll make them happen. Now, more importantly, 0500 is going to come early; let's sleep in tomorrow."

  Brought back to the present, Launa gave him a grateful assent.

  * * *

  Launa slept until 0600. It worked out better. She needed the sleep and Samantha was leaving the dining room at 0730.

  The woman glared at Jack and ignored Launa. They joined Brent and Judith who were digging into pancakes and eggs. Launa found she really enjoyed Maria's "Special."

  Vocabulary was the morning's program and it earned them a visit from the other team. "You didn't tell us you knew something about their language," Dick growled.

  "You didn't ask," Judith said, not giving an inch.

  Launa liked the iron in the woman scholar's backbone.

  Brent interjected himself. "What we have are written examples of several conquerors' tongues. Quite a few words seem to have been borrowed. Words for plow, loom and the likes were grafted onto the language."

  "They stole the skills and the words," Judith growled.

  "How's Jack supposed to say `To arms, to arms, the red coats are coming?'" Marilyn grinned slyly.

  "I haven't the foggiest." Brent missed the joke. "Verbs like `to be' and `to come' were already in the invaders tongue. They didn't borrow them. But the real problem is finding someone damn fool enough to take up arms."

  Jack looked straight at Marilyn. "Seems to me the Civil War was the last time people had guts enough to face an enemy who wanted to jab sharp steel in their gut. Then there's the second half of the problem. Mom shared how my father felt when someone spat on him after his first Vietnam tour. Grandfather wondered what he got for fighting Japanese in the Pacific. Why fight?"

  "The son of a Congressional Medal of Honor winner couldn't be going pacifist on us now, could he, Captain?" Dick jabbed.

  "Posthumous metals make you think." Jack's face went hard as he turned to the professors. "Would non-violence get to first base with the Kurgans?"

  "I think that's what the Old Europeans tried." Judith reached out to rest a hand on Jack's arm.

  "We won't have any problems like that," Dick crowed. "A bullet at long range for the headman and we're in charge. After that, anyone who crosses us is dog meat."

  "Right on!" Marilyn gave him five.

  Brent kept doggedly to the topic. "It will be hard to persuade a Neolithic farmer to take up arms. To raise an army, you'll need to think like them; things like rhetoric and argument in the classical sense. That's why I'm here." "Think like an ignorant gook. You're kidding." Dick shot to his feet and stomped for the door.Brent's eyes followed him. "You need to quit shaving."

  Jack looked startled. "You're right."

  Dick stopped in the doorway.

  With their attention, Brent continued. "You also have to quit speaking from the mind set of a twentieth century man. These people are not dumb. They're different. Let me show you."

  Brent piddled with his computer for a few seconds, then the screen lit up. Two women dressed in flowing gowns stood on either side of a nude man. He held a plow by its yoke pole.

  "Found it the first time." Brent congratulated himself. "This shows the Goddess giving man the plow."

  "Two women are there." Jack observed.

  "Right, they're different manifestations of the same Goddess." Brent continued. "Note his penis." It was draped across the pole.

  Dick chortled. "It's bent weird. If that's the way they all are, the women will be glad I came."

  "Oh," Launa frowned thoughtfully at the computer screen. "The angle of his penis and the angle of the plow shear are the same."

  "You got it." Brent rewarded her with a grin. "These folks know nothing about the science of biology, but they know if you plow the ground, it's more fertile."

  "And if you plow the women, they are too." Judith continued. "Their handle on cause and effect is not tied to scientific proof, but they know how the world works."

  Jack was beginning to see the full extent of his problem. "So to simply say ‘the Kurgan is the enemy’ is too twentieth century. It's too vague for the Old European by its very exactness. But, if I say the Kurgan is a river in flood, destroying all before it, they could see my point?"

  "That's it." Judith beamed. "Let your Indian blood speak."

  Jack shook his head, feeling inadequate to the praise. "Remember, this Indian did most of his growing up in L.A."

  "But, I still see a problem." Launa spoke slowly, as if struggling with the question. "The flood is a natural part of the world. The Goddess sends it for good and bad and you just have to accept it. If the Kurgan's are like a flood, won't they think of them the same way?"

  Brent and Judith nodded slowly.

  Marilyn got up. "If you people can't give us better stuff than this, we've got better things to do."

  Jack walked over to the window and let out a long breath as the door closed behind them. "When I first got here, I wanted to kick the tire, light the fire, let's jump tomorrow. I settled in to wait, because an infantryman has to be patient. I'm beginning to see we need time to put this show together."

  Launa nodded. "We've got a lot to learn and it's not just how to make bows."

  Most of that morning they studied words and the way they might be pronounced. Just before they left for their run, Brent began introducing the soldiers to the rudiments of allegory.

  Jack and Launa spent the afternoon at the metal shop learning to cast copper and bronze.

  Launa left Jack bent over a mold when it was time for her riding lesson.

  * * *

  Launa knew the other team was competition, but she had been raised that soldiers were supposed to be comrades. There was no excuse for not pulling together.

  Always before, Launa had been able to find a way to patch up people’s differences. Even when the colonel was drunk and the folks were going at it, she had usually found some middle ground for them. Not the last time, of course, but usually.

  She did not like the way the two Green Berets kept hitting it off wrong with her and Jack. When she spotted Marilyn coming from the stables, Launa decided it was time to do something about it. "Marilyn, you got a second?"

  The woman turned and waited.

  Launa got straight to the point; from the way Marilyn held herself, patience was not her strong suit. "Would you and Dick like to join Jack and me for supper tonight?"

  "You eating with those two school teachers again, Lieutenant?"

  "Usually we do. We're picking their brains for all they're worth."

  "Why bother?" Marilyn snorted. "Lieutenant, you don't know how to play the game. They'll drop me and Dick with high powered rifles and a couple of good horses and we'll be running a horse clan inside a week and have them killing each other in a month." The woman grinned at the thought. "The gooks'll tear themselves up so bad it'll take'em four hundred years t
o find their asses."

  Launa had never met so cold-blooded a person. Her nose felt the tingle of frostbite. She's got to be kidding.

  But Marilyn was still talking. "Six thousand years later what we do will still strike fear in people’s hearts. No son of a bitch will ever use me again. I'll have the power then. Marilyn the Terrible. I kind of like the sound of that. Hell, I could take my horsemen south and conqueror the Euphrates valley. It'd be fun being the first Empress of Babylon." Marilyn scoured the sky, seeing more than Wyoming.

  "Back then, a woman could take what she deserved, not settle for the tame shit they hand out now." She turned and swaggered off, Attila the Hun with tits.

  "She is for real," Launa whispered under her breath. Who had hurt this woman so much that all she wanted now was to hurt the world first?

  "I'll pass on supper," Marilyn called over her shoulder.

  Launa was glad. Comrades or not, she had had enough of both of them.

  * * *

  That day set the pattern for the next two weeks; the Special Forces went their own way. Launa and Jack spent the mornings exercising the body and the mind. Launa picked up what language possibilities she could. Both found there was nothing sloppy about thinking in allegory and metaphor.

  They had to be just as exact as any scientist searching for the mythical thirteenth decimal place. During one warm up, Jack admitted that learning from Brent was like drinking from a fire hydrant.

  Launa pounded him on the back for the metaphor.

  Afternoons were technical. They learned to work wood with fire, stone and bronze tools. One afternoon, they went bow hunting for elk and Launa dressed out her kill. The next day's lesson was on the natural tanning processes for that hide.

  In the following week they learned to make needles from bone, threads from sinews and clothes from hide. Surprisingly, most of the instructors they needed were already on the ranch staff. Her instructor in making wool yarn was a strapping six foot four computer geek.

  Launa did not ask where the computers were.

  Growing up Army, Launa had never been much of an animal person. With so many family moves, she had never had so much as a pet goldfish. When Jack took her behind the barn and introduced her to three huge dogs, Launa almost jumped out of her skin.