Bless Me On My Way - English Edition by dublinertinte (beach read book .TXT) 📕

did it anyway. Rachel responded scared and insecure.
"A flash in the sky? But we use to see this sometimes, when the sky’s clear.”
"The sky is not clear."
"But ..." He interrupted her.
"I have seen the light through the trees. Not in the sky. This was not a satellite. What do we do?"
"Don’t know."
She stared at him scared. Jack sighed, abandoned everything what was in his thoughts while on the roof. It was impossible to play a dove, if you were a hawk.
"I inform the others”, he said, "you pack up a few things, just to be safe. The others will make their own decisions.”

Jack went to the huts to inform the Ciudad about the light he had seen, and made it as short as possible. Then he went to Hudd, who assorted iron and steel scraps and answered he had seen no light and does not think it was important. Thus, most of the villagers had responded in this way.
"If something is wrong, the dogs will react on it," he said, "they have shown the great storm that has raged for two weeks and so far they are still lazy and snoring in their sleeping places. Do not think so, Jack."
"If the dogs behave differently, then go away and find some shelter. I already informed the others.”
"What about you?"
Jack knew what he meant, but he acted the fool.
"What about me, Hudd?”
“Don’t you know more about this than you say?”
"I just know from experience that the light does not mean any good. Mauri and you told me about the latest attacks. I'm just cautious."
"What did Rachel say? She has lost her mother in an attack."
"That's why I told her first. I take care of her.”

When Jack was on his way back, finally the rain stopped, the earth was steaming and smelling of spring, as it must have done in the good times, the smell of fresh shoots, fertile soil and recurring renewal. There was no spring, because there was no winter and no summer, only small shifts of the seasons on this planet. He had known it when he greased with the glider. Evergreen, densely covered everything except the places where the ore was mined.

He would not have minded if they had decimated the whole forest at the time of his crash, then he would not have been almost died under the trees. At last he had activated his tracker and found it not working. He could have thrown it away, but he had plugged it back into his gear and waited that some animal would come and eat him. A short time in freedom, but at least he died in freedom. He already had finished with it, when Rachel’s father had found him. It was a better alternative than having a tracker working and they had found him.
They would have fixed his leg in the station much faster, but on the other hand they would have sent him immediately to the next assignment. With the Ciudad he was a man without past and could start from the scratch, without having to think about what the consequences might be if he did nothing. Finally he could let everything come toward him, nobody wanted serious decisions from him, no commander to send him to clean the room in a foreign space freighter.

"It's okay," said Rachel, when he was finally back, "the others said it could have been a light from the mines, or something that was burned in the atmosphere. They did not attack us for such a long time, right? You are still wet. Change your clothes, I’ll make some hot drink.”

Their composure was faked. The neighbors might have calmed down, but they all could hardly keep their eyes closed. Rachel made him a vegetable stock, she fed the dogs and they spent the remaining hours of the afternoon watching the mist in the forest, retreating further and further. They noted that something was amiss when the two ponies that had grazed on the meadow, they lifted their heads, listened in one direction and then disappeared into the forest. They did not take the usual beaten track, and they did not just trott away, they ran off through the undergrowth.
Rachel ran to the house, listened, and shuddered when the first explosion echoed through the forest.
"Jack," she cried, "I can’t hear where it comes from. We can’t escape in any direction. We could run against them."
Jack pulled her back into the house, made her grab the packs and took the dogs on a leash.
"Take them with you," he said, "they'll take you away from danger."
"I don’t know."
“Stay close to the river and follow the dogs. I tell the others the same."
"What about you? Are you coming with me?”
"I'll get you as soon as I can."
She resisted, pressed the bag against her breast and refused to leave the house. Even when Jack grabbed her by the upper arms and pulled the door, she would not run off.
"No," she said, "don’t leave me alone."
"You're not alone."
He could not follow her despair anymore, he could not explain his actions, because there was no time for it, but Rachel did not understand.
"If we are attacked, Rachel, I need to secure a few things, which are damn important. I will not let you down, I just want you to bring yourself to a safe place. With all the others. The further you get away from the village, the better."
"What do you have to bring to a safe place?”
A second explosion rolled through the forest and the two dogs wandered around whining, pulling on the leash. Rachel winced.
"I crashed with a glider, I was the pilot. Actually, I would not have stayed with you folks, I wanted to leave the planet and ensure that no one finds me. Everything went in a different way. Nevertheless, I keep a part of my technical equipment hidden, and I have to get it.”
“You hide it from me?”
"These are highly technical equipment, and you'd only asked questions about it. I wanted to hide here and I wanted to be treated as normal."
"You have devices hidden from us that we could have used to be warned from the Tusk?”
She moved away from him, her eyes opened wide in horror and she forgot the current situation. Jack felt the urge to slap her in the face.
“I could not have localized Tusk or others and warn you. Do you think I would have assembled the entire glider and repaired it? All I have are a few fucked up ground location devices and the damn combat gear. What do you want to say? That I would hand you over?”
"My dad always said ..."
"He knew me a lot and he kept this to himself because he knew that it was better in that way. Rachel, we do not have the time to discuss all this.”
They finally took the frightened dogs and ran from the village. Other people also packed up their things, some stood around hesitantly.
"Look for shelter," said Jack, "if they are fast, the next explosion will us all blow away."
"George said we should only kill the lights."
"He will not leave the village. Sometimes looters fake such attacks and then they steal all the beasts and food. "
Jack looked at their faces and saw it again. He had seen it years ago when he arrived in this village. These people were sometimes so narrow minded and stupid, so incredibly intellectually limited that it nearly blew his fuse. Should they sit quietly in their homes and wait for the things to pass by.
"Go," he cried, "down to the river."
He ran shortly behind Rachel, until he turned off on the way to the dome. She pulled the dogs back to him.
"Damn, Rachel, run down to the river."
"The dome? Couldn’t we hide there? "
"You cannot hide under a glass roof."
He had another idea.
"If I turn the system on, I direct their attack on the dome. This gives you more time to disappear."
"There is no entrance into the dome."
Jack said that he had already found it and that he hoped to bring the generators back to live.
"Where will you be when they shoot at the dome?"
Jack pressed one last kiss on her mouth and mumbled: "I would have hid myself already."
The explosion and the roar of the approaching gliders filled the air and finally Rachel obeyed, turned and ran. Jack waited until she was gone, looking for the entrance to the dome, and thought that he probably could survive in there. The passage was built deep into the rock and if he managed to illuminate the dome and hide here, everything could be well. But there was a snag in it. The dome would only be the first target and nothing would stop the Tusk to burn the whole forest and kill everyone hiding inside. He had to deal with it differently.
If the battery packs were fine, it would work, but Jack had no time to test it. The first attempt had to be successful.
Lights on

, he thought, searched his way through the dark passage, and then we start the fireworks.

He knew what he was doing and he knew it would probably go wrong for him, but that was fine. He had over three years, had a good life, and he was not sorry to bear the consequences.
Bless me on my way

, he thought, I can’t let them destroy everything. If I can shoot one of the gliders, I’ve already won.

He took on his old combat gear, found the weapons and the tracker and was amazed that his combat gear would not fit him anymore. He had to adapt it, but he did not fully succeed. The stupid or intelligent thing of this gear was that they had to be worn every day to keep fit. They adapted themselves to the body. He had not worn these for over three years and he had lost weight on his special wood and meadows diet.
On the control panel, he turned on the generators, waited with bated breath for a response and hit his fist on the panel in triumph as the lights flashed up in the big room.
His heart raced. After such a long time he was pushed back into his old live and he enjoyed it.
The tracker was connected to one of the batteries and he hoped it would work again, placed it on the floor behind the control panel.
From the raised podium Jack could overlook the entire space of the dome. He was interested in the scientific computer programs he could run, he opened the gun cabinets, activated the laser cannon and put his hand on the control panel. The electric light gleaming in the dome was humming, far visible in the forest, and Jack did not have long to wait for the glider. He hoped that it was the Tusk, not one of the mining company ships ready to burn the forest. One of the target screens crackled and failed, but the other one could do the job.
This has to work

, he thought.
The first glider appeared on the screen, Jack targeted and fired the laser cannon. The first one was no problem, they did not expect an attack, he hit the glider’s tail and the Tusk rushed down into the woods. The