Angelika Queen Of Mars

Chapter 48

Chapter 48 Kicking Back, and Spending Money

Danica insisted on detailing her life since being discharged from the marines, in many ways it was a sad story, and I began to feel sorry for her, but she asked for no pity.

"I know I f****d up, but goddamn, I was horney, I shoulda knownbetter, so I paid the price."

"So you miss the corps?" I asked. Danica thought a moment, then shrugged,

"It got me out of the situation I was in, after dad died, my brother went up to North Dakota to work the oil fields and I was left with mom, who went out and married a jerk, he tried messing with me once I kicked him in the balls and walked out. Mom tried to pretend nothing had happened, but she knew better. I played "nicy-nice" long enough for her to sign my enlistment papers, then I was gone. Course no one ever came to see me graduate at Lejeune, but I didn't give a fuck." Her attitude then made a full 180,

"Look sir, I hate to beg, but it's this gig or nothing, I've got nothing to go back to, my back is against the wall, all I ask for is a chance."

"I contemplated her plea, then studied her for a moment.

"I told you security limits what I can tell you about the job, and I'm asking for you to make a huge leap of faith here. I'm thinking right now of the duties you will be expected to perform, like I said, you will be working closely with our hosts, you will be the "mother hen," who smoothes out the rough spots for the team, makes sure they have the equipment they need, it's where it needs to be, and at the proper time. Now I don't want to give you the impression that our hosts are neglectful or demanding, they are not, as you will hopefully find out. Now I'm going to tell you something else, and it will depend on a lot of factors. Let me state right up front, neither me or my team approve of women in combat, there are too many reasons to go into it right now, but that having been said, you may get the opportunity to spend time in the field, you trained as a marine, you are a marine, conduct yourself accordingly, and you might be surprised what might come your way."

"Are you telling me sir that I got the job?" she asked,

"As of right now…Yes,, but like I said, you won't be leaving until the end of the month, maybe a little later, it's just the way this all works out, you'll see why when the time comes. For starters, I've got several TM's and manuals dealing with supply, and procurement, but our hosts do things somewhat differently, they will give you a general idea though. Also, you can stay in Carman's room until transportation comes, I don't think she will mind. Dori and I do a couple laps around the property every morning, and sometimes after work, you're welcome to join us, maybe get back in shape a little bit."

She then asked me,

"Is your wife from another country?"

"Why do you ask?" I replied.

"Well she has an accent, and what she said about "Where I'm from," and the royal family."

I grinned at her,

"I hate to keep telling you this, but again, you're just going to have to wait on that answer."

When it was time to go home, Dori wanted to ride on Danica's Harley, having never ridden on a motorcycle before, so I had Danica throw all her gear in the back of the truck. Before heading home as well, I stopped at the store to pick up a few groceries. In the foyer, they had a bulletin board where people posted notices pertaining to cars for sale, or lost pets. Normally I don't pay it much attention, but for some reason, I stopped to look at the notices, one of them left me cold.

It was obviously done on a printer,

"Missing, Edward Simmons, and Arthur Buck

Missing since June 15th 2014

Last seen in the Sturgis area

If you know the whereabouts of these men, the family asks that you

contact the authorities"

The notice must have been up for quite awhile as it was full of pin holes from other notices that had been posted over it. There were two pictures, but the notice must have been done on a crummy printer, as you could barely tell what they looked like. I glanced at it one last time as I left the store, and thought,

"Sorry whoever you are that is looking for these two slugs, they are but ashes in a nameless grave, and their truck is millions of light years away by now."

The well man finally finished the well, a new septic tank was installed, one that allowed for trailers to dump their holding tanks into, and the new shed was finished, and I was done hassling with those people as well. I kept the two trailers parked just outside the shed just in case, and I let Danica keep her bike stored in the older shed. On a couple occasions, she took the opportunity to ride around the black hills area, free of all the bike traffic usually found before and after bike week. She also seemed to be true to her word about doing her best, as she threw herself into getting back into shape. Jogging with Dori and I, and assisting with any heavy lifting, and work around the place. Once when we were clearing brush around one of the "landing pads" she asked,

"What are these large cleared areas for?" I stopped what I was doing, and looked at her.

"I can't tell you right now Danica; I told you everything would make itself clear at the proper time. Don't worry, that time is fast approaching, in fact, tonight before you go to bed, I've got something I want you to do." This only puzzled her even more, but she accepted it.

Handing her a small square patch, I explained,

"Place this over your jugular vein Danica, trust me, it won't harm you, it's safe, but again, the answer will come in short order." I told her it would work while she slept, and as I expected, in the morning at breakfast, she again asked for an explanation.

"Very well, Dori, tell her where you're from." Dori gave me a puzzled look,

"Go on, I'm tired of this." Dori then shrugged, then looked at Danica.

"My name is Dori Kerk, I'm originally from the planet Grocyra, I came here on the spacecraft Giuffrida, are you familiar with Angelika, the "queen" of Mars?" Danica thought it was a gag, and looked at both of us expecting us to start laughing.

"Repeat what she said," I instructed, Danica then repeated what Dori had told her.

"Dori spoke to you in her own language Danica," I explained, "That patch I had you put on your neck allows you to understand her.

The patch contains what are called "Transnano's" that enter your bloodstream and go to your brain; somehow they allow you to understand other languages. Don't worry, they won't turn you into a monster or anything like that, I took them, so did everyone on the team, again, I'm asking for a big leap of faith here, you won't be disappointed."

Right now Danica's brain was trying to process information that wasn't making sense to her,

"Wait!" She exclaimed, "Did you just tell me you're from another planet?"

"I am," replied Dori, but like Jake says, you're just going to have to be patient, you'll see."

"I think I need a drink," replied Danica, as Dori and I chuckled.

She didn't have to wait long, two days later, we were watching TV when a brief rumble from outside caught my ears. Dori heard it too as did Danica.

"Was that thunder?" she asked, "They didn't say anything about rain on the weather."

"I'd better put the coffee on, looks like it's going to be a long night."

"Why, what's going on?" asked a concerned Danica.

Doing my best Rod Serling imitation;

"There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fear and the summit of his knowledge.

This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call…The Twilight Zone." This only made her more ill at ease, and nervous.

"Come on into the kitchen Danica, it's "Showtime," where all is revealed." Cautiously she followed us into the kitchen, where Dori started to get coffee mugs out of the cupboard, and I started the coffee brewer.

Right about this time, there came a louder rumble from outside, then quiet. The automatic yard lights went on, and looking out the back window, I could make out my friends. First up was Rek, followed by Carman, and someone I didn't recognize, then it looked like Premick Karym, then finally Kha'Mak. I saw none of the kids who had all gone on the last trip, so I had to assume everything was fine with them.

"Hey everybody!" I called out, "Welcome back!" When Rek stepped into the kitchen, I heard a "squeak" behind me from Danica. Turning around, I saw her biting the tip of her thumb, with a worried look on her face. Next up was Carman, who hugged Dori and I, the guy with her was obviously a Falthian, and a very well dressed one at that, I shook his hand as Carman introduced him.

"This is my friend Jarnack Marzon; he is the financial manager of Sotora, a company that makes life support systems."

"Welcome Jarnack," I said, "Welcome to earth." Obviously, Carman had been busy, and "landed" a wealthy businessman.

I greeted Premick, and then Kha'Mak,

"Good to see you again old friend, but I'm afraid I don't have any new sci-fi for you to read."

"Oh that's all right," he replied, "Mike Bickford gave me several sources of information concerning these…Robots, which I intend to pursue." By now, all eyes were on Danica, who I introduced.

"Well Danica, now you know, there IS life out there, let me introduce you to my friends, this is Rek Stirner, he's an Averlander, but he, like Dori is originally from Grocyra."

I then turned to Carman, and said,

"Carman, this is Danica Kraus, unless we scare her off, Danica will be heading for Falth, where she'll take a lot of the admin duties off Jeff and the others, she served with the second marine logistics group, supporting the twenty-sixth Expeditionary unit. Danica, this is Carman Walsh who I was telling you about."

"I knew some of the people in the second," exclaimed Carman, who then started to rattle off names, which Danica recognized a few. Next up was Premick, and Kha'Mak. After everybody had been introduced, we sat down at the kitchen table and drank coffee.

"This Danica, is why I couldn't tell you anything, and the reason for that Transnano patch, otherwise you couldn't understand anyone."

"Are-are, all of you really from another planet?" stammered Danica, everyone laughed.

"Where is this Falth?" she asked, Rek, being something of a prankster, replied as he pointed towards the ceiling,

"Second to the right, and straight on till morning!" I wondered where he had gotten hold of "Peter Pan," but those were the directions to "Never-Never," land. Kha'Mak then spoke,

"Seriously, Falth is approximately six thousand of your light years from here; however, hyper light speeds allow us to reach here is just over one of your weeks."

"Jeezist!" gasped Danica; you guys must really be hauling!"

"Did you ever read Dune? I asked her,

"Yeah, I think so, back in high school."

"Remember how they had the ability to "fold" space,"

"Yeah…I think so."

"Well hyper speed is a lot like that, apparently everyone else but us can do it."

"What, do you mean there are others?" Again more laughter,

"That reminds me," broke in Kha'Mak,

"As we were passing Hyach 3, I received a bulletin concerning Commander Aelfric, apparently the task force has made contact with another race somewhere, they are on their way back." This was certainly news, no doubt Angelika was still a considerable distance out, but I wasn't surprised there were other races out there.

Gradually Danica accepted the reality of "aliens" and even took up a conversation with Rek. Premick, told me she had returned to take up some independent study of her own, and had even brought the standard Falthian disguise… special contact lens designed to look like human eyes. Carman and Jarnack chose one of the new trailers as theirs while Premick took one of the guest rooms. Kha'Mak, headed for his basement haunt, in Moreck's old study, while Rek took the other guest room. Before we all turned in, Carman gave me a pouch with mail from all the kids, prompting me to ask,

"How are they, everybody seem to be adjusting?" Carman smiled,

"You should have seen them as we came over Falth, talk about being stunned, and then seeing Cluria for the first time. I think that if any of them had any doubts about leaving earth that first sight of Falth and Cluria changed it."

"Looks like you've got yourself quite a catch there Carman, is it serious?"

She grinned and winked at me,

"Umm, could be, but now I know why all those earth women fell for Falthian men…Wow!"

"So what do you think of Danica?" I asked,

"Well if she can get over being so far from home on a strange planet, I think she'll do OK."

"That's all I wanted to hear," I replied. Later, Carman told me,

"All the guys say "Hi," I managed to catch them before they were going off to some sort of training planet. I was able to take care of a few of their admin problems like pay; Kevin wasn't receiving all of it for some reason. Man, I got to say that credit system of theirs is pretty neat, it took me about half an hour to get things back on track for Kevin, once I understood what they were doing."

"So what did you and Tarsig do while you were on Falth? I see you must have found a "friend" at some point." Carman giggled,

"That yacht Tarsig's folks own is awesome; I felt like a queen, I really like her mom."

"It looks like you got a nice tan while you were there," I added. Carman shook her head and snickered,

"Considering neither Tarsig nor I wore any clothes while we were on that yacht, Hell! The whole boat was like one of those German mineral water spa's, nobody wore anything during the day, and even at dinner, I wore a dress that exposed my boobs all the time, it was wild, but you got used to it pretty quick." Carman wanted to show Jarnack Mount Rushmore, so she and he took off for most of the day. When I went looking for Rek, I found him and Danica laughing about something,

"Have you done anything with that truck yet," I asked Rek.

"Well Lemmick and I have made a good start. I changed my mind on changing out the engine; we got to looking at the thing and decided to just modify the whole thing."

"What do you mean?" I asked,

"We pulled the whole engine and…the transmission. Sono cleaned them, which removed every speck of dirt and caked on lubricant, then removed…You'll have to excuse me; I'm still adjusting to the terms you use for the various parts and components. Anyway, we removed the manifold, and cylinder heads, along with the crankshaft, and pistons."

"Wow!" I exclaimed, you're getting rather involved aren't you?"

"Well we wanted it to be more of a challenge and besides our department is holding a contest for those that can come up with something very unique."

"What's the prize?" I asked,

"The winner gets to take anything they want from the project room."

"That doesn't sound like much of a prize," I said. Rek gave me a sly grin,

"There are things in that room your scientists and engineers would kill for. These are items salvaged from projects that didn't go anywhere or were abandoned, I'm thinking of something right now that would advance your space program a hundred dorns right now."

"Sorry," I replied, "I stand corrected." Rek told me the cylinders would be re-sleeved and smaller pistons installed. The sleeves were made of some exotic heat absorbing metal that would be frozen to some unimaginable temperature, then inserted into the cylinders where it would contract, and literally weld itself to the cylinder wall. The valves would be coated with some sort of coating that would keep them as clean as brand new for the life of the engine. In the end, the whole thing would run on some gas Rek knew about that would power the vehicle, along with the replacement of the computer that was tuned to the new specs, and the Falthian atmosphere.