Page 31 of Darken
Gina went about showing them the features of the com-tablet. “If you forget the touch menus, you can ask for what you want. The com is tied into the public AI network, so you can get information about almost anything, and it will put the info on the screen or read it for you.
“Well, we may be way behind in tech, but we all learned how to read and write. We were lucky that our town library put its paper and hardcover books in storage to preserve them rather than dumping them before the war,” Julia explained. “Each generation taught the next after the war cut us off from the rest of the world.”
“They also passed down the news about the bombings they saw before power and communications were lost. Nobody understood why, though… only that it happened,” Avery said.
“You can access all that with your com-tablet. Soon, they will be giving them out to individuals, but for now, we are giving them to the community leaders,” Gina explained.
“Thanks so much,” Julia said, and Avery added his thanks.
“You are welcome.” Gina smiled as Darken rose from his chair to end their visit. She followed suit.
“We have more towns to contact. Let us know if those kidnappers come back,” Darken added.
They stopped at three more villages and hamlets before sunset. On their way home, they did a flyover where they’d last seen the wolves. The wolves had moved further north from where they were spotted earlier in the day.
The pack seemed to be watching over four pups playing and exploring close by. Since this was the first time they’d seen the pups out, Darken decided to land for a visit because he knew it was what Gina wanted.
The wolves pranced back and forth, howling greetings to their human pack members. The alphas came to greet them, seeking physical contact.
“I can hardly believe they are acting so much like big dogs,” said Gina.
“That is only because we have a kinship with them. They would not greet just anyone with this show of affection. Nor should they ever live in captivity,” Darken replied. “They are meant to be free.”
“Of course,” she agreed. “I just like they accept us and seem happy to see us when we visit. It helps that you know how to talk to them.”
As the sun slipped lower on the horizon, they bid their wolf friends farewell and headed for home.
Chapter Twenty
Nearly two weeks later, the drone robin alertedDarkenthat the surveillance site had become active again. They were bringing people into the Quonset building several at a time.
One of the tiny cams got close enough to broadcast conversations by two men. They had two more days to fill their quota before moving the current captives east to Devlin White’s estate. Darken still hadn’t heard back on the Enclave petition to hold the Eastern overlords accountable for human trafficking and outright slavery.
That meant Darken and the other cyborg rangers could not go into overlord territory to rescue those already abducted. But these people were still in his territory, and he planned to stop their captors from moving them.
Darken landed the sky cycle as soon as he got the messages from the spy cams. He opened his tablet to its full size to share the info with Gina, and they pored over the aerial view of the compound together, hashing out their plan of attack.
The cover was scant in the area surrounding the solitary building. There was a small rise about seventy yards from the structure.
He dropped down to hover along the rough ground a couple miles out so Stockman’s crew wouldn’t see him coming. Landing on the backside of the rise, they climbed to the top in full body armor that could change with their surroundings in camouflage mode.
They picked a spot for Gina to cover him with her ion rifle. She lay on her belly with her rifle propped on a stand, pointed toward the back of the building.
Darken scanned for who was where. “I got this,” he said over their armor coms. “I’ll let you know when I’ve secured the enemy.”
“I’ll be right here.”
The sun was high in the sky, and the heat would have been unbearable if not for the cooling function of their body armor. Darken determined that everyone was inside. Somehow one of the tiny cams had buzzed inside an open doorway, giving him the interior layout.
There were four rooms on the backside, two on each side with a short hallway in the center to a door leading to a holding area with two rows of chain-link cages, four on each side.
Darken dropped down from the rise in two jumps with his blaster drawn and sprinted across the open field dotted with creosote and mesquite.
The large hover transport was parked near the back entrance unattended. A solid door with a small camera mounted above covered it. Darken pinged the AI to scramble the feed and waited.
About a minute and a half later, the man he recognized as Manny burst out the door to check the camera. Darken came around the corner while the other man squinted up at the camera and used his weapon on stun to knock him out. Stepping inside, he took down two more of the crew. It seemed almost too easy when he’d neutralized all five of the males in charge of the holding unit in just a few minutes.
Zip tying their hands and feet, Darken stowed them all on the floor in one of two bunk rooms. Then he opened the door into the holding area. Every cage was filled with young men and women languishing in a poorly cooled building. Retracting his helmet, he strode down the length of pens and back, counting 63 people altogether.
