Eric nodded earnestly and Byron offered him a squat can. “Go upstairs, eat, and sack out. It’ll be dark soon. We’ll be moving out early if I’m reading Hadrian right.”
He took the can and made his way out of the bunker. Someone had dragged their packs in next to the couch by the front door. Eric pulled his pack around as he sat and dug through a pouch to pull out a set of hiking utensils. Weary, he pulled the tab on the can’s lid and peeled it back. Fish? Meh. He stuck his fork in the shredded meat and stuffed some in his mouth.
“Better than nothing, I guess,” he said to himself. The pattering of little feet on the stairs caught his attention, and moments later a slate grey cat perched on his knees. “You have to have been someone’s pet.”
The cat meowed pitifully. Darker than its body, the cat’s tail waved about as it kneaded his leg, purring.
“Ow, shit, stop, stupid cat,” Eric blurted, and swiped the cat off his lap. He sighed and shoveled another fork of meat into his mouth. Purring even louder, the cat hopped up onto the couch next to him, crowding the can.
“Cat, really? My fish, not yours.”
Soulful blue eyes stared back at him.
“Fuck off, cat,” he growled after the sixth attempted fork interception. The cat meowed. Eric looked at what was left in the can. “Fine, you want what’s left? Here, have it. Eating around you is worse than eating in prison.”
Eric sat the can on the floor. The cat head butted his knee and hopped down. The purring continued unabated when the door opened and Hadrian stepped in.
“First you try to kill it, now you’re trying to tame it?” Hadrian asked.
Eric smirked. He was considering apologizing for earlier despite Byron’s advice when Hadrian paused by the steps down to the bunker and regarded him silently.
“Byron suggested I rack out since it’ll be dark soon. What watch am I standing?” Eric asked to break the silence.
“I’ll have him get you up.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. The next few days are going to be hell.”
Day 12
Eric staggered up the last few steps up to the porch. Every muscle fought him as fatigue threatened to veto every movement. Shaking under the strain, he managed to get the front door open and staggered several paces inside before he shrugged off his backpack. Last of his energy spent, he half-collapsed, half sat onto the over-packed ruck and weakly unzipped his coat.
“Fuck that,” he wheezed as Anne came down the stairs, a look of concern on her face. A shadow in the doorway announced Byron’s arrival.
“You’re all back?” Anne said with a smile as Byron slowly shucked his pack.
“The others will be a second,” Byron told her, taking a slug from his canteen.
“Oh, I’ll go get some tea.”
“Water first,” Byron told her.
“Yes. Water. A lot of water,” Eric managed. Byron gave him a long, considering look.
“Not a bad showing, Eric. Well, for someone who’s never humped a ruck before.”
“Humped a ruck? I just lugged almost sixty kilos half way down this godforsaken valley. I’m pretty sure I’m dying.”
Byron cracked a grin as Anne brought in a tray of tall glasses of clear water. “Nah, you’re not that lucky.”
“Oh god, this water is good,” Eric gasped after emptying half the glass. “Next person to ask me if I want to go on a nature hike gets punched. In the throat.”
Byron chuckled.
“In the throat, eh?” Hadrian asked as he walked in and closed the door behind him. “I guess combatives might be a good thing to move to now that you won’t get too lost out there. Nature hike, anyone?”
Eric rolled his eyes. “Why is it I’m this damn tired and you two look like you could go jog all the way to that cabin and back again?”
“Would you believe superpowers or deals with unholy entities?” Byron offered with a wry grin.
“That last one I just might. Shit, I’ll be lucky if I can stand back up,” Eric managed to answer.
“Dropped the sleds around back like you said,” Terry commented as the rest of the team joined the gathering.
“We’ll have lunch ready within the hour,” Anne told them.
“Oh,” all of the men sighed in exhausted anticipation.
“But you’ll damn well be showered before you sit at my table,” Anne added.
“Yes, ma’am,” they replied in unison.
With some help from Byron, Eric lurched to his feet.
“What are we doing with the packs?” he asked Hadrian.
“They’ll keep just fine until we eat.”
Eric grunted as he climbed the stairs. Every movement hurt, from the muscles used to raise his feet, his strained back, or sore feet, but he eventually found himself closing the door to his room.
Undressing in his room proved another hurdle. Eric’s stomach growled angrily at the thought of missing a real meal and having to eat another pre-packaged field ration. He couldn’t safely sit, exhaustion would surely drag him under, but his aching back protested any idea of bending over to undo his boots.
“Fuck me,” he muttered. I wonder if I could get away with just standing under the shower with my boots on. Eric snorted and ignored singing agony to reach for his boots. Minutes later, towel around his waist, he shuffled into the sink room to the sound of water spraying from multiple shower heads from the showers around the corner. A low moan echoed through the tiled chamber. Eric paused at the entrance to the showers.
“You need some personal time, Byron?”
“Nah. I’m too old for this shit,” Byron replied with a weak chuckle.
Eric hung his towel and pulled on the knob for the nearest shower head. He echoed Byron’s earlier moan as he ducked into a stream.
“Oh, god. Hot water, where have you been? I missed you so much,” Eric sighed. Byron snorted.
“Hey, you going to eat or keep standing there wasting hot water?”
Eric whipped his head around to see Hadrian leaning into the now-foggy shower room in fresh clothes. Water dripped from other shower heads, but only his sprayed steaming water. Other than Hadrian, he was alone. Shit. Did I fall asleep? Eric tugged the knob and quenched the flow of water.
“Yeah, I’ll be right down.”
By time he fumbled clothes on and stumbled into the dining room, only hunger kept sleep at bay, and until the smell of chicken hit him, it was losing. His stomach growled. Several heads turned toward him at the table while the rest continued eating.
“Nice of you to join us,” Hadrian said with knowing grin from the far end and went back to talking with Jeff.
“Over here, Eric,” Leah said as she smiled and waved. “I saved you a seat.”
“And some food. Were it not for her stalwart defense of that platter, you’d be sorely disappointed,” Byron told Eric as he made his way to the empty seat next to Leah.
What’s different about her? That smile. Has to be.
Leah tugged his seat back as he approached.
“Thank you, Eric,” she said. “How did you know I liked cats?”
Byron began choking. His face going red, he pounded his chest with one hand. Roll with it, Eric interpreted the hand signal the old man made with his other hand while all eyes were on his face.
“I’m okay,” Byron muttered. “You evidently can’t breathe chicken.”
“No, you can’t,” Eric told Byron. He looked over to Leah as he sat and said, “Oh, I honestly wasn’t entirely sure. I figured he seemed fairly friendly and if there were issues with mice, he’d probably be able to help.”
“She,” Leah corrected him
Eric shrugged and stabbed a piece of breaded chicken off a platter with a fork. “She. Shows how much I know about cats.”
“Her name is Muffin,” Leah said with a glowing smile.
Eric scooped out the remainder of a bowl of mashed potatoes onto his plate, followed by several large spoons of corn.
“Muffin, huh?
” he asked as he emptied one of the gravy boats onto his potatoes.
“She’s actually a decent mouser. Caught one already.”
“No shit?” Eric mumbled around a mouthful of potatoes. “Wow, this is, this is phenomenal.”
“I helped Anne make them,” Leah beamed. “We didn’t have a lot of spices, but they’re as close to my mother’s recipe as I could manage.”
Eric mixed some of his corn into his gravy and said, “Your mother is a saint. Remind me to thank her if we ever get off this rock. How’s the planting stuff going?”
Leah deflated. “Oh, it’s not. The new guy’s in charge now.”
“New guy?” Eric asked.
“Yeah, he showed up day before yesterday. One of the hunters came across him. Turing put him in charge. I can’t say it was a bad decision though, he’s a much better choice. I’m still in charge of small projects though like the herb garden.”
Doc’s voice carried from the hall, “You’re lucky it’s still not infected. I don’t have nearly enough antibiotics to go around.”
Leah nodded her head toward the door. “That should be him.”
Eric turned his head to the door as it opened. Doc led a man with bandages wrapping his head into the room. Eric’s fork clattered off his plate.
Wide eyed, Eric stammered, “What the shit? Pascal?”
“Eric?” Blaise said.
“I saw you die,” Eric said and stumbled to his feet.
“Pretty sure I saw them toss you in the black after me,” Blaise mumbled through Eric’s embrace. “Ouch, watch the bandages?”
“Shit, sorry,” Eric apologized and backed up a step. “What happened to you?”
“This? Gunshot.”
“Motherfucker,” Hadrian whispered behind him. Eric heard a chair grind as it slid across the floor behind him. Hadrian icily demanded, “Explain.”
“Me and a dozen folks got dropped off in the evening, I guess, west of here? Got waylaid. They lined everyone up after they rifled through our shit and put a bullet in everyone’s head.”
“How many were there?”
“Four?”
Hadrian growled. Eric and Blaise watched the soldier stalk out of the room.
“Guess Fox was right, I do have a hard head for an officer,” Blaise said with a slight smirk. “What’s his problem?”
“Hadrian?” Eric asked. Blaise nodded. “He’s in charge of security here.”
“Oh, well, I guess that makes sense. Chief Wilkins was kind of a hard-ass, too. Someone tell me there’s chicken left.”
The silent crowd behind him let out the breath it had been holding, small talk started as he helped Blaise to an open chair.
“So, you’re in charge of all the planting stuff?” Eric asked. “Why?”
Blaise bit his lip. “Bachelors in agronomy.”
Eric laughed. “You’re kidding?”
Blushing, the Fortune’s youngest officer told him, “Nope. Graduated summa cum laude and found out the hard way there wasn’t much call for it on Pershing. Not if you wanted to make decent money anyway. Wandered a bit, ended up on the Fortune. What can I say? I was stupid when I was your age.”
“I’m suddenly very sorry for all those jokes I made about officers having useless degrees in basket weaving.”
Blaise chuckled for a few seconds before a serious cast erased his mirth. He raised his glass to Eric. “It’s all good. To lost friends?”
Eric clinked his glass against Blaise’s and Byron’s joined theirs moments later.
“To lost friends, may we be worthy of their company again,” Byron said and everyone drank. “Whiskey’s better for this than tea, but I’ll never pass up honoring my lads.”
“So you know Eric, Blaise?” Leah asked several minutes later.
“Know? Since he was old enough to shave.”
Eric rolled his eyes at Pascal’s comment. Leah’s next question evaporated at Hadrian’s entrance. Anger rolled off the man in thick waves.
“Byron, Eric, meeting downstairs once you’re done eating. Bring the rucks,” Hadrian ordered. “Also, Rick, I’ll need you open for business tomorrow early. No, scratch that, I’ll get the keys from you.”
“I,” Eric started with a complaint on his lips, but suddenly thought better of it. He finished, “We’ll be there.”
Hadrian nodded curtly and left.
“You were going to ask?” Blaise said to Leah.
“Well, I was just curious how well you knew him, that’s all.”
“Oh? Well, he’s a good kid. Never had any discipline issues, almost pathologically honest, always does the right thing.”
Eric snorted. “How’s your head doing?”
“Doc says it’ll heal. He’s worried about a possible fracture, but evidently there isn’t much he can do about it here, so I’m supposed to take things light for a while. Spent yesterday going over plans for the spring with Turing.”
“Yeah? He’d said something about the stuff they did before being inefficient.”
Blaise nodded as he drank from his glass. “Grossly from the looks of it. No rotating crops, no testing soil pH levels, planting in wrong soil types, insufficient or too much sun for the crop, that kind of thing. Not that we can do much about pH levels, but it helps to have an idea for where to plant stuff if you can. I’m supposed to go over things with Denise and some Terry guy tomorrow.”
“Sounds busy,” Byron commented.
“Yeah, it will be. I don’t see how we’ll have the labor to do what needs done. I’m really thinking we’ll have to start rationing food, no matter what Turing says.”
“Is it that bad?” Eric asked. Leah and Blaise nodded simultaneously.
“Part of the problem is the lack of wood for any large scale project. They had a really basic mill set up on the far side of the property, but it got bombed a few months back.”
“No shit?”
“Yeah, no shit. Lost a bunch of good people from what it sounds. That’s actually one of Jeff’s biggest projects, trying to get enough of a machine shop together to make rebuilding the mill possible. I tell you, this whole set up looks like we’re trying to fly by pulling on our own bootlaces.”
“I,” Eric started, dragging it out to stall for time, “don’t really know what to say? That doesn’t sound good at all.”
“It’s not. Without that mill, I don’t have any source for finished lumber. Granted I need more than just lumber, but without the lumber there’s no new structures. Not even basic ones. A greenhouse would be terribly helpful here, but that’s not happening any time soon. It gets more messed up when you consider labor. We’re caught coming and going, really. Unless we start moving folks into the halls here, we can barely house new people, much less feed them, but in order to get anything done, we need more people. Not just more people, but people with the right skill sets. I’d kill to have Jorgen here. Between him and Jeff, we’d probably be able to build a damn ship and get off this rock in a week.”
Eric nodded and tried not to think about the Fortune’s burly chief engineer as he drank the rest of his tea.
“So what do they have you doing, Leah?” Eric asked.
“Organizing some small scale stuff right now. Quality of life, I think was the term Turing used. Anne was complaining that we were running low on a lot of the common herbs and spices she has and I suggested putting together some herb boxes. We should be able to hang them under the windows to grow what we can year round. We could even prep vegetables before planting season is here to give them a head start. I don’t know what I’ll be doing beyond that though.”
Byron shrugged when Eric looked over at him and stuffed the last food into his face as he stood. Eric wolfed down the last of his potatoes and followed Byron out the door to the front hall.
Hefting the ruck onto his back, Eric grunted under the strain.
“Did you guys really hike around like this every day when you were younger?” he asked as the pair made their way down the concealed staircase.
<
br /> “Oh, I don’t know about every day, but it sure felt like it. You get used to it, eventually,” Byron replied as they reached the bottom of the stairs to find the door to the supply room open.
On the other side, Eric whistled at the stacks of boxes, crates, and shelving. Pretty sure this room is about the same size as the whole floor upstairs. Wait, is that--why do they have spools of heavy duty electrical line?
“Over here,” Hadrian’s voice carried from around a set of shelves. “Drop your rucks there by the door.”
Freed from his burden, Eric made his way toward the shelves with an eye on the tangle of cabling and piping hanging from the ceiling. That’s an awfully impressive amount of fiber optics. One particular cable caught his attention, a power line that led from the light next to the door around the shelves ahead.
Created by removing two short rows of shelving, the space on the other side had been converted to a small office nestled in clutter. Filing cabinets lined the back wall to either side of a large junction box. Hadrian and a black-haired, grim-faced man with a goatee were leaning over a large desk in the center of the space studying a sizable unfolded map.
“What are we looking at?” Byron asked.
“Map of the valley,” the grim-faced man said without looking up.
“Byron, Eric, Julien. Julien, Byron and Eric,” Hadrian introduced them.
Julien grunted.
Hadrian pointed to various spots on the map as he talked. “This is the manor, the stone wall and the like. Lake over here, largest stream runs through here. These dozen squares are the hunting cabins. The one we just came back from is this one here. Questions on the map before I go further?”
“What’s that just inside the wall on the stream?” Eric asked as he scanned the confusing lines. I hate topography maps.
“Ruins of the mill and the old machine shop,” Julien answered.
“What do the circles around the cabins mean? The ones with X’s off to the side?” Byron asked.
“X’s denote cabins whose supply bunkers have been tapped out. Circles are occupied cabins.”
“Occupied?” Eric and Byron asked at the same time.
“Guests, Turing calls them. Anywhere else, we’d call them squatters,” Hadrian groused. “We’re more or less on friendly terms with most of them. Thankfully we emptied the supply bunkers below the occupied ones before the current residents showed up. Most of them are sponging off the food we left behind at Turing’s insistence.”
By Dawn's Early Light Page 23