Chapter Seventeen
New Beginnings
Talaric watched as the glow of the lamps of the vessel that his brother and friends rode in grew dim in the distance. It hadn’t been easy to stay.
He had wanted to go home and escape the strangeness and dangers of this world as bad as the rest of them had, but last night he’d had a dream, a fantastic dream.
A dream that he didn’t think was so much a dream, but rather a glimpse of something that was going to happen in the future. And then earlier today he had heard a voice that he had verified as coming from the Creator telling him in no uncertain terms that he was to stay and accomplish some task.
What that task was he did not know yet. He was just excited that the Creator wanted to use him for anything so he had willingly made the sacrifice. Turning back to the task at hand he saw that the Baron’s men having satisfied themselves that the perpetrators weren’t on the mansion grounds were beginning to give chase.
At least fifteen vessels were roaring down the road towards his vantage point. Talaric pulled a long barreled weapon out of the bag he had brought with him from the mansion.
He may be unschooled in the weapons of this world, but he was a quick study and it wasn’t all that complex really.
Resting the barrel in the crook of a tree he sighted through the crystal glass that brought the distance in closer to him. Aiming where the driver would be in the lead vessel he pulled the trigger.
The lead vehicle spun out to the side and crashed into a tree. Talaric kept firing until the weapon was empty. He had managed to take out two more vehicles with the rifle.
One vehicle took out a fourth vehicle, as it spun out of control. The other eleven vehicles kept coming as they swerved around the crashed ones.
They were approaching a narrow bridge over a stream that ran down the valley. It was time for a different approach to the situation. Putting the rifle to the side he pulled the heaviest item out of the bag.
He had a pretty good idea that if the long string of bullets was any indicator this weapon fired a lot of the deadly projectiles very quickly. Talaric folded out the support legs of the weapon and then laid down on the ground and sighted in on the vehicles approaching the bridge. Pulling the trigger Talaric held onto the wildly jumping gun.
Wow!
This weapon was awesome!
The first vehicle blew up right on the bridge followed closely by the second and third vehicles. With the bridge hopelessly blocked the remaining vehicles stopped and their occupants dove to either side of the roadway in search of cover.
The evidence of return fire began pinging off the trees and dirt all around Talaric. Paying no attention to the harbingers of death pinging all around him Talaric concentrated on destroying the last of the vehicles.
The weapon clicked empty. Grabbing it up mindful of the hot barrel Talaric scooted back out of view. It was time to go.
There would be no more pursuit of the others for at least a little while. After stashing the weapons back in the bag he then slung it over his shoulder and headed south down through the forest.
He didn’t know what may lay ahead of him, but with the Creator’s help he would conquer it and complete the mission, whatever it may be.
Evette was driving and I almost wished that I was instead, as the wheels screeched and the SUV leaned heavy over to one side, as we pulled out of yet another curve in the road.
Evette was driving like she was trying to leave something else behind other than just the pursuers in our wake. Eventually she did slow her pace down some and I think we all relaxed a little. We didn’t stop except to change drivers and fill the SUV up from the cans in the back.
The second evening had us close to the coast once more. Evette was driving, as she looked over at Larc and said, “We can’t go back to the same beach you landed on. They know about it and they’ll have it under heavy surveillance.”
Larc considered what she had said for a moment, “Is there a town near there where we could get a boat from?”
“There’s one just a few miles on up the road, but once we steal a boat they’ll be onto us. We need to create a diversion of some kind.”
Larc nodded and looked back out the window to his right.
What kind of diversion would successfully lead the Committee off our trail?
Our means of creating a diversion were severely limited anyway I looked at it. It was going to be a near thing if we managed to pull off this last part of the mission successfully.
I became weighed down in my mind as all the possible bad outcomes of this stage of the mission occurred to me in a repeating litany of bad news.
In the need to divert my mind I refocused on the written encouragement and wisdom of the book spread open in Orhanin’s lap. It was everything we had always thought it was. Life itself in written form.
Whoever hadn’t been driving had been fighting for a spot beside Orhanin or peering over his shoulder in order to read the book of the Creator’s words.
Orhanin hadn’t let go of the Bible since receiving it and I didn’t blame him, but it was irritating when he kept turning the pages before I had a chance to read it all!
Oh well once copies were made I would have a copy all to myself and I would read it at my own pace.
Late afternoon saw us pulling into a small sleepy fishing town that lay only a couple of miles up the coast from the beach that we had landed on. That felt like it was so long ago now, because so much had happened since then.
We drove through the town down to the wharf district. An old abandoned looking warehouse loomed up before us and we pulled up to it.
Thannic and I got out and after first looking to make sure no one was around we opened one of the warehouse’s big doors and Larc drove the SUV inside. We closed the doors quickly.
The warehouse was empty and there was little to do other than wait for night time to come. Tonight was one of the pickup nights.
I feared that if we weren’t successful in getting back on the space vessel tonight it was even more unlikely that we would succeed in surviving to attempt it again in four more days.
Once word reached the coast of what had happened in Loch Lynn Heights, the Committee might perhaps redouble their efforts to catch us. It was extremely doubtful whether we would be able to remain unnoticed under that heightened awareness for four more days.
Two hours slowly passed by, which seemed like an eternity to me.