Doc nodded, taped the incision in the back temporarily, and looked at Nat. We're ready. Show him what he has to say.
"I'm here, Mister. Are you all right? Oh my gosh, your back is all bloody."
"I'm alright," Clumsy read. "Hurts. Do you see any big gouges?"
"No, but you have gobs of blood everywhere."
"Help me put my arms over that log."
Nat and Doc did just that and pulled the log into the lake far enough that Clumsy could kick his legs.
"Mister, why don't I take you home with me? My mom can fix you up. You can cross the lake later. You look really hurt."
Clumsy read the final card adding some expressive pauses and grunts. "Can't. Have to go now. Clear out, kid, before you're caught. Tell me where to go first."
"Land as close as you can to that tall tree. That tree is in Alberta. The beach is mined, but you'll see a small stream coming down the slope and that hasn't been mined. The Wilizy placed a removable patch in the fencing just above the stream. Slide through the fence there and don't forget to re-attach the patch. The Wilizy's camp is at 2 o'clock from where you slip through the fence but you have to go through some heavy woods first. You'll find a good-sized clearing, but the Wilizy hide under the trees to the edge of it. I know they were in their camp last week because they helped someone cross the border. I'll swim beside your log to make sure you're headed in the right direction, but I can't go too far."
Doc gave Nat a thumbs-up for a perfect recitation of the speech he had rehearsed the previous night.
Clumsy started to kick paddle across the lake. It was going to take him a long time with Doc standing in front of the log and stopping it from going anywhere. But the kicking and splashing sounds were real. Meanwhile Nat kept sloshing water into Clumsy's open wound in his hairline where the wireless receiver was embedded. Clumsy added a lot of groans.
Soon a bright spark short-circuited the electronics in the wounds and Doc announced that they could talk now. It only took Doc a few minutes to remove both devices and slap some bandages on the worst scrapes. The DPS would be on their way to the Wilizy hideout soon, so time was running short. Doc gave his patient a final set of instructions. "You have to move quickly now. Leave the log where it is. Stay in the water with Nat. There's a rock shelf 100 meters down the shore where you can come out of the lake without leaving footprints. Nat will take you to a safe place where I can fix up your back properly. Someone from the Wilizy will be in touch with you after you've had time to recover."
Doc collected all the bloody swabs and Clumsy's shirt while Nat and his charge waded through the shallow water and disappeared into the woods. Doc sat in his sling, towed the log more than half way across the lake, and then flicked out of sight. The DPS would find evidence of the accident and Clumsy's and Nat's footprints would show where they had gone into the water. There would be no other footprints to find, either on this side of the lake or on the other. However they would find the hole in their security fence that Wolf had cut yesterday. The lonely log floating in the lake would present a compelling story why Clumsy had disappeared.
Doc joined the group in the Wilizy while I took my position on the other side of the lake and began scanning my sector of the horizon. I don't think I'll call the DPS technician Clumsy any more. He must want to join us badly; I couldn't help but notice that he's just as muscular in the chest as Will.
# # # # # # # #
The actual battle was anti-climatic. The DPS attacked with four waves of para-gliders who were quite adept at landing noiselessly in the Wilizy's clearing and hiding in the trees. Before they could attack an empty meadow, Wolf closed his trap with some powerful explosions that chucked a lot of wood around. Hence the operational name Woodchuck. When it was done, the DPS were inside four huge prison walls of felled trees, split lumber, chunks of wood, and other associated debris. They would be able to crawl out of their prison eventually, but not quickly and not without exposing themselves to fire from our hidden soldiers – all four of us. Dad, Will, Izzy and I were not only invisible inside our slings, but we were hiding inside a dark dense forest behind a few tons of gigantic toothpicks scattered hither and yon. Wolf boomed out some warnings through a portable PA system, we displayed some red laser dots on some chests, and Will and Dad gave a few non-lethal examples of what would happen if anyone moved without permission. The DPS gave up without firing a shot.
Wolf lined them up in military formation and had two soldiers put all their weapons in a pile that Will destroyed in an impressive explosion. One by one they put their outer clothes on the fringe of the clearing and rejoined their formation. Only when we were sure that she'd encounter no hidden weapons did Scrawny Butt land in her stolen DPS helicopter and appear in her white and emerald clothes and her flowing red hair to inspect their formation. Unfortunately they didn't measure up and Izzy had to downgrade each of them with a W cut on one cheek and a Z cut on the other. Just a little memento of their battle with the Wilizy. Thirty-one of Zzyk's soldiers would now be unavailable for public duty, or at least that was the theory. Izzy didn't think that Zzyk would want to have his soldiers ridiculed in public by having our victory badge on their face. I didn't say anything in the debriefing, but Will told me privately that Zzyk wouldn't care what happened to his soldiers or what the people thought. If anyone would know what Zzyk was thinking, it would be Will. I think it was just an excuse for Scrawny Butt to wear her fancy-dancy clothes and get her hair all dolled up.
Izzy didn't put the initials on the 32nd soldier and that was a surprise to all of us. She was going to W-Z the DPS commander last, but changed her mind when she saw the stricken look on his face. She pulled him aside and asked, "Do you know what Zzyk is going to do to you when your reinforcements arrive?" He swallowed hard in response. "I'll trade you your life, but not your freedom, for information. Interested?"
Izzy led him into her helicopter and we could see her heading east, further into Alberta. However she didn't go far before stuffing her captive and the copter into a safe hole for the night. Wolf told the other soldiers that they could get dressed so that they'd be presentable for the arrival of their reinforcements who would undoubtedly want to congratulate them for not having wasted a single bullet. We made a few rustles in the brush as we departed and then boarded the Wilizy that by now was far away and very high. Still close enough though to see what was happening below. The youngsters on the telescopes reported that 19 of the soldiers tried to desert into A.N. land, but we don't know how far they got.
We had to wait for Izzy to arrive before starting our celebration, but she wanted to debrief everyone right away while our memories were fresh. I thought that the operation had gone perfectly and had even congratulated Wolf on a wonderful ambush although I almost broke my jaw squeezing the words out. What did we have to debrief? They lost, we won. Break out the ice cream.
# # # # # # # #
From Izzy’s journals: May 5.
Yollie was hot to celebrate right away, but I stomped on that hard. We shouldn't be celebrating. We should be counting our lucky stars.
First, the positives. I congratulated Wolf for his creative trap and complete control of the battleground. We had captured 32 soldiers without a mortal injury, so that was impressive. I also said that the kids were great, Granny was a big help in the Wilizy, and Hank disabled two soldiers with pinpoint shots before they could even climb to their feet. Will did the same to a soldier who was trying to crawl away.
I didn't say anything about Yolanda letting the Wilizy drift far too low over an active bomb, nor did I say anything public to Will about how close he had taken himself to that bomb. I'm sure that he can make a long distance magnifying lens and I'll suggest that to him privately. I don't think he has any concept of personal danger. Doc had also been way too close to that bomb, but nobody could have talked Doc out of doing that operation.
Then came the negatives. I was going to take the blame but I had to impress on them that everyone has to be ready to ra
ise concerns in the planning meetings, to think defensively, to think strategically. Well, just to think, really.
All of us were surprised that Zzyk had attacked from the west. I should have predicted that. I had focused too much on making sure that I gave Wolf a free rein and so I didn't run through all the possible threats that we'd face. I stressed to them that we must always expect Zzyk's attacks to be unconventional. We must always expect, and plan for, something treacherous.
I tried to emphasize what a threat Zzyk was. When we think of Zs, we think of Will. Passive, smart, but not dangerous. Zzyk may not be able to match Will in creating scientific marvels, but he's very smart at keeping power through any means whatsoever. I told them that we must always be prepared for multiple layers of duplicity when we are dealing with him. After all, at the same time that Zzyk was holding me hostage and winning that battle, he was also wiring up the technician with a bomb in case I wriggled out of his trap.
Yollie was all mushy about the technician and had praised him for being willing to shred his back in order to join us. She would have proposed inviting him into the group right then, I think. Some of the others were also impressed by what he had done. I had to stop that thinking right away.
"Just because Zzyk trolls his bait in front of our noses, and just because that bait told us that he's a lowly technician who made a mistake of spreading my cartoon picture around, that doesn't mean that the man with the shredded back is that technician. We don't even know if such a person even existed. We know nothing about this man other than what Zzyk wants us to know." I may have become a little heated; everyone was so gullible!
"Look at how easy it was for the technician to warn us that he was carrying a bomb. Look at how obvious the incision scars were. Look at how easily the devices were removed. Isn't it obvious that Zzyk wanted his plot to be uncovered? No treacherous man like Zzyk would make such a simplistic plan and expect it to work on us. Now that we've freed this poor man, Zzyk is hoping that we'll hide the technician from his wrath – which we have done. He's now expecting that we will bring the technician into our group. The real bomb that we have to fear is not the black disc that Doc removed from the technician's back. The real threat is the technician himself."
I had to stop for a breath. They were staring at me, still not believing that a man would openly say that he was going to kill us when in fact, he was going to kill us. I started what I hoped would be a clinching argument.
"Yollie noticed how hard it had been for the technician to remove his brain-band. I went back to his camp and dug up that band. It's far too dangerous to bring here – and perhaps Zzyk was hoping that I'd do that. We'd probably be dead right now, if I had. But I took pictures."
They crowded around the table and looked closely. Nobody had seen anything like it. It certainly wasn't the usual brain-band that IOF citizens wore; nor was it like the gold brain-bands that IOF executives wore. "Why would a lowly technician be given a brain-band the likes of which we've never seen before?" I asked the group.
Nobody had anything to say.
"Why do you think he did?" Wolf asked.
"I have no idea," I admitted.
# # # # # # # #
I found the rest of the debriefing easier to manage. We had messed up but there were solutions. I backed off and let the group work it out.
We were surprised by the use of the para-glider forces. We defeated them because we were expecting an attack, because we were scanning all quadrants of the horizon, and because it was daylight. Had those conditions been different, and had that clearing been our real camp, we would have been surprised and defeated. Long telescopes can't see little dots gliding through a pitch-black sky.
The presence of a well trained para-gliding attack force that we didn't know existed underscores the need for Wolf to collect intelligence. As a starting point, he'll be part of the captured DPS officer's interrogation. But we need information on the DPS garrisons daily. That attack force came from somewhere, travelled into A.N territory, camped there, and we didn't know a thing.
Also coming out of the debriefing were three recommendations that I liked a lot.
(1) The ship must always be kept high in the sky when we are in battle mode. This will reduce any risk of damage to the Wilizy and its personnel.
(2) Will is going to develop long-range sensors that are always active and which can warn Wilizy officers when a potential threat is detected. He's also going to tie some weapons to the long range sensors so that attacking objects can be destroyed before they approach too close to cause us damage.
(3) The ship will become our permanent battle command center with physical space on it converted for that purpose. Yolanda and Granny have been designated as the Wilizy's master and system-wide communicator during battles and all the youngsters will be trained to operate our navigation, communication and sensor equipment. Their visible presence in the command center will remind the navigational crew to keep the Wilizy as high above the battlefield as they can manage.
I didn't mention Yollie's failure to conduct a broad security sweep even once during the three days that the youngsters were guiding the technician to the ambush site. You always do a broad sweep when you're planning to camp in a potentially dangerous area. She would know this. In retrospect, and I take the blame for not thinking of this earlier, Zzyk had data from the technician's bug that would have told him exactly where the technician and his guide were at all times. He also had a battle group setting up in that same area. He could have captured our guide quite easily but perhaps chose not to because he was after bigger targets.
Yollie's mental lapse created a serious gap in our defensive cover. We'll have long-range sensors soon and that should prevent this kind of mistake from being fatal, but I do wonder how much I can trust her. Wolf is so efficient, smart, and calculating. Yollie is, well, – she can be a goof-ball. Also she has an obvious attraction to the technician who is almost certainly an enemy agent. How will this physical attraction affect her ability to read him?
Yollie's readings will probably be the only warning we'll get when Zzyk activates the technician. But if all she can see is a cute guy, will there be a warning? Granny and Yolanda can't read people outside their own age groups all that well, so does that mean that we are totally reliant on a goof-ball to give us advance warning? Not being able to trust Yollie means that I will have to keep the technician far away from our operations and none of us can ever be physically close to him. All he'd have to do is plant a miniature tracking device on somebody's clothes. What happens when Zzyk sees that his device is floating in the air but there's no visible body holding it up? At that point, we'll lose our secret weapon and we'll be doomed.
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Chapter 5
The Narrator: May 9.
You may be wondering what Hank and Yolanda's family looked like. Unlike Will and Izzy who had their images broadcast widely during their war with Zzyk, no visual records existed that showed Hank, Yolanda or their children at this time in their lives. I know their first names, and for the children, I know when they were born. Other than reiterating their aboriginal heritage, there's not much else that I can write that will allow you to visualize the family as they were in 2082. I was unable to find any biographical data at all on Doc and Granny.
I did discover that Yolanda was about 37 when Operation Woodchuck was executed. Of course no formal A.N. birth or marriage records were kept during this time, and even if there had been, Hank would not have allowed any records to be made of his family. Remember that Hank and his family were members of the Aboriginal Nation's border patrol, which was facing a powerful tyrant who was casting greedy glances westward. Hank knew that any information that Zzyk obtained about his family could endanger all of their lives.
However I did discover from scraps of anecdotal data that Hank and Yolanda were sweethearts in school although Hank was anywhere from two to four years older than Yolanda. At some point, both left school at a
bout the same time. I know that they worked together briefly before they took up residence in a small B.C. valley in about 2064. Wolf was born there in 2065. When the Aboriginal Nation became a distinct entity in 2066, that part of B.C. became Aboriginal Nation land. Hank and Yolanda both joined the Aboriginal Nation's border patrol at that time. Yollie was the first of their children to be born in Aboriginal Nation land in 2066. The other six followed soon afterwards – all were born in their home in that tiny valley.
Like my readers, I know the name of the small village where H&Y took up residence and where in the mountains it is located. Even now, decades after the Wilizy's war with Zzyk and the DPS has ended, normal citizens are prevented from seeing details of their compound from land or from air. The smart ones don't test the compound's defenses.
I can give you a sense of what the village looked like back in the 2080s before the Wilizy legend began. Their village was constructed along the pattern of other Aboriginal Nation border patrol villages at that time. Patrol members had real, normal houses with all the modern conveniences and appliances. Those of you who have imagined that they lived in wigwams and cooked over an open fire need to open your minds. H&Y's village had six houses. Four of them were nestled together in a tight square so that they could offer mutual help in the event of an attack by the DPS. All four houses were one story high and were interconnected below ground by escape tunnels that included weapon storage areas. All four houses had living quarters underground. The heavy logs that formed their exteriors provided some degree of safety against conventional weaponry as it existed at this time. All villagers could use a meadow adjoining the square as pasture land.
You will recall that all of the exotic and highly lethal weapons of the early 21st century disappeared or rusted away after the oil-based world ended in chaos. During this period, many people in the remoter areas of the A.N. carried conventional pistols to protect themselves. Long guns were also favoured if they could be found since they were the most deadly against attackers. They were also very useful for keeping the family supplied with meat, but all members of the Aboriginal Nation were adept with bow and arrows. People trained as snipers were very valuable assets to a community because they could keep people fed in hard times. I know for a certainty that Hank had received such training. He undoubtedly passed this knowledge on to his children and I found some evidence that Yolanda was highly proficient as well.