"What the hell are you doing here Reilly?" Julia walked over to the screen. Reilly pretended to look shocked. "Why, checking up on my favorite Eden Project m'dear." Then went back to his normal cynical look. "And taking care of some unfinished business between us."
"Why aren't you in VR?" she had never seen him on a vidscreen before, only in VR.
Reilly swept a hand around him. "I like a change once and a while." Then he scowled at her. "So where's the boy hiding?"
Julia tilted her head up. "You do realize of course, you'll never get the boy. There are too many people watching over him, and I won't let you touch him as long as there's a breath left in my body" she told him defiantly.
"I don't think I'll have to *take* him. As a matter of fact, I think he's on his way here now." Reilly gave her a sick smile.
Julia eyes him suspiciously. "What do you mean?" "He wouldn't let his mother die, now would he." `So he did get Devon.' she thought blackly. "So where is she? Is she still alive? And what about Danziger?"
"The drone is still alive, for now. And Adair has just finished her interrogation, and will probably be near dead in some holding cell somewhere."
Julia tried not to lose her temper, `He's only a program.' she kept reminding herself. "So Danziger hasn't been interrogated?"
"Umm, oh yes. He's scheduled to be in the interrogation room right now." that sick smile was showing again.
`Out smart him girl! He likes playing mind games, beat him at his own game.' she scolded herself. She began pacing in front of the screen. "So how did you get all these *real* people to listen to you anyway?"
"So you found out eh? Well, no matter, you wouldn't want me to give up the rest of my secrets now would you? Anyway, now it's my turn."
"Your turn for what?" Julia stopped in front of the screen again. "My questions of course. I've answered all of yours, now I want to ask a few. What made you so late? I figured you'd get here sooner then this? Wasn't the colony ship supposed to arrive in a few days?"
"What do you mean *supposed to*?" Julia got a bad feeling in her stomach. "I had some men take care of that little problem." The news hit her, hard. `All for nothing. All those families, gone.' She looked up at Reilly, a sudden anger filling her body.
"You will *NEVER* get the boy, you will *NEVER* get this planet, and I will *NOT* play any more of your mind games Reilly, so you can take your programming, and go to hell." She walked up to the screen and put her cuffed hands through it.
Reilly quickly disappeared, and the soldier reappeared, to take her away from the screen by giving her a hypo.
But, Julia felt strangely relieved as she slipped into darkness, like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
True had been watching the camp for quite some time, wondering where her father would be. Then, just when she was about to give up hope, she saw a group of men taking Devon, who was fighting them every step of the way, into a long building with a whole bunch of doors.
`That must be the jail!' True thought excitedly. `But what's Devon doing there? Well, I'll just wait until dark before I go rescue Devon, then we can go look for my dad.' So, with sort of a plan in mind, she sat back against the trunk of the tree that she had climbed and was watching from, and rested a while.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The cargo pod had landed and Yale ran out to meet it, Morgan, Walman and a few others in tow.
After the dust had settled, one man immediately came from the pod. He started running towards them.
"I'm commander Tristan Woods. I'm head of sercurity here." He said after reaching them. Woods was a rather tall, muscular man, with brownish-blond hair and an intimidating look about him.
"Yale." he extended his hand. "How many men do you have with you?" he asked after he and Woods had shaken hands.
"I have twelve security personnel, including myself and about twenty or so men with some form of combat skills, ranging from ex-officers from the Council Army to police from Earth."
Morgan let out a hissed breath. "Great, we have about forty people to take on a few hundred. We're gonna need a miracle to get out of this one."
Woods eyed Morgan critically. "You worked on the Stations?" Morgan nodded. "You ever do any stratigic work?"
"For a boardroom, yeah."
Woods smiled and patted him on the shoulder. "Then you, the cyborg and I are going to do some serious planning." he nodded to Walman. "Help my men get set up over there and we'll brief you in about two hours." then walked towards the Dome, Morgan and a slightly confused cyborg following close behind.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"So, what are we going to do? Wait for her to come out of hiding? C'mon man, I, *we* don't have time to go on a wild goose chase. And besides, she probably got scared and went home." Baines whispered to Alonzo.
They had been silently going around the Army's camp for hours now, and still no sign of True.
Alonzo sighed. "I know, I know. If she's here when the attack starts she's gonna get blown to bits. And what are we going to tell Danziger? `I'm sorry man. We lost True and we think she blew up with the rest of the camp.'" Alonzo gave Baines a look of disdain, and leaned back against the tree they'd been sitting under.
True, who just happened to be in the tree Alonzo was leaning against, gasped. `They're going to attack the camp? What about my dad? And Devon?' she thought frantically.
Alonzo heard the sound and slowly peeked upwards. He saw a duffel bag hanging from one of the tree's branches. He nodded to Baines, who followed his gaze. The two men smiled at each other.
Suddenly Alonzo put his gear on.
"Yeah Yale, I hear ya." he said quietly to no one. "What? You mean Danziger's okay? Yeah...but True...yeah, okay." he paused and tried very hard not to smile. "Okay, we're coming back. Alonzo out." he put his gear back around his neck, and looked at Baines. "Yale says Danziger managed to escape and got back to the camp, but he's really hurt bad and is calling for True, but since we can't find her..." he left the sentence hanging.
Baines looked solemn. "Okay, let's go back." and they started backing up. "Alonzo! Baines! Wait!" True whispered harshly from the tree. Alonzo smiled and whispered back. "True, that you?" True gave him an exasperated sigh. "Well, it ain't the tooth fairy! Hold on I'm coming down. Catch!" she threw her bag down and quickly scampered down after it. When she finally had her feet on the ground, she grabbed the bag and started sneaking back towards their camp. "C'mon guys!" she whispered at the two men when she saw they weren't following her.
Baines smiled at Alonzo and they started after her. "I can't believe that worked." he said.
"Neither can I." Alonzo replied.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Now if we have one troop attack from this end and another one take a more frontal assault, which I'm sure they're not expecting, then I think we can get Devon, Danziger and Julia out of there with minimal damage to us." Morgan appeared pleased with himself for planning such a perfect strategy.
"But there's just one problem." Woods told him. "We don't know where they're being kept."
Moragn looked down at the *very* rough map they had made. "Well...." "Yes we do!" True came in through the door, followed by Alonzo and Baines. "True! Thank God you're alright." Yale ran to her and hugged her. She squirmed out of his grasp. "Sure I am..." Yale looked at her disapprovingly. "We are going to have a very long talk about running off like this later..."
Woods cut him off. "What do you mean? You know where they are?" True walked up to their map. "This building isn't here, it's over more to the left. It covered the jail from your angle." she pointed out where the building should be. "It's kinda in the middle back, so it's hard to see." she looked up at Morgan. "It's where they have Devon right now."
"What about Danziger and Julia?" Bess asked from the back of the room. "WHAT?" True spun around and went after Alonzo; again. "You said my father was here!! Why did you lie to me?!" she threw herself at Alonzo, but instead of hitting him again, she burst into tears. "You said he was here...you said he wanted me..." she buried her face him his shoulder.
"I'm sorry True, we had to get you home." Alonzo tried comforting her. "Well, now we have a place to look, thanks to her." Woods looked at True, who had slowly stopped her crying, but was still sniffling. "Don't worry dear, we'll get your father home." then he turned to Yale. "Let's get the men briefed. We leave in an hour." and Yale walked out, preparing for the hardest challenge of his life. Getting Devon and the other's out of there alive.
Chapter End Notes:
I still don't have my spell check working, so please excuse any spelling mistakes. Thanks =b