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  Jake's blaster wavered as he shivered.

  Russel stood up.

  "I wanted you on my side," said Russel. "We could have worked together to destroy the enemy, but I can see that won't happen."

  "Buddy, you're the enemy. Unless you're killing Licks, you are the enemy."

  "Parker!" Russel shouted.

  His assistant ducked through the slit doorway, more than his head this time, and holding a rifle aimed at the back of Babe's armor.

  "Get Jerome and his men in here."

  "Yes sir," Parker backed out, afraid to turn his back on the armored man standing in the middle of the tent.

  "Jake," Russel stepped closer to his son, putting distance and a row of chairs between himself and Babe. "I'm giving you a group of men you can trust. I want him delivered to our allies."

  The tent flap opened again as six hard looking men stepped in from the sunshine.

  Jerome glared at Babe, his harsh visage hidden under a long beard and braided hair.

  He was a burly man, layered under clothes and a heavy coat that made him look even larger than he was.

  A rifle was strapped to his back, and a large .357 Magnum rested in a holster on his belt.

  "I've got a job for you," Russel said.

  "Whatever you need," the bearded man answered.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  "Brother James," Eli introduced him to the man standing at the bottom of the double steps up to the brick church doors.

  Brother James beamed at Lt and Annie, his rugged face offset with a boyish enthusiasm, long fingers grasped together in front of his waist.

  He wore a denim jacket and denim jeans, scuffed boots with traces of mud in the creases.

  "I would say welcome," he said in a melodious voice that sounded custom crafted for a pulpit or politician's stage. "But since Eli has brought you to us at the point of the gun, I may hold my well wishes until I learn more."

  Smart, thought Lt. Charming as hell.

  "We ain't got no problem with that, Reverend Jim. No problems with you, either, I'm gonna point out. We were just passing through, when Honest Abe there decided we needed to pay you a visit?"

  The smile on his face faltered as he tried to process what Lt said.

  "Who is Abe?"

  "It's something he does," Eli explained.

  "You call people by something other than their name?"

  "He calls me Warbucks, if it helps," offered Annie.

  Brother James took a step toward them.

  "And what is your name?"

  "Annie," she said.

  James nodded.

  "Annie Warbucks," James nodded, the smile popping back on like a flash bulb. "Little Orphan Annie. Very clever. But Abe?"

  "He thinks I'm honest," said Eli.

  "Astute," said James.

  "I've been called a lot of things in my day, Reverend Jim, but astute ain't one of 'em. Hell, I don't even know what a stoot is."

  Brother James offered a slight chuckle.

  "I prefer James," he said. "And what should we call you?"

  "Lieutenant William H. Bonney," said Lt. "You can call me Lt or Lt Bonney. Just don't call me-,"

  "Billy the Kid," James said.

  "That's right, Reverend Jim. You are a smart cookie."

  James tilted his head to one side.

  "I haven't had a cookie in years," he sighed. "I miss chocolate chips. And the Generation Suit?"

  "That what you call it?" Lt glanced down at his armor, face still hidden inside his helmet.

  He didn't want to take the chance and give one of these folks a free pot shot at him.

  "I only saw pictures from before, but that's what they were called, right?"

  "Gen One," Lt corrected. "First generation of this model. We have us a Pede back at my camp that knows how to work them."

  "Pede? Is that another nickname?"

  "Nah, his name is Doc," said Lt.

  "Pede means Ph.D.," Annie explained. "An engineer, I think."

  "This one is from space," said Eli.

  James glanced at Annie.

  "An orphan from space?"

  "Something like that. I'm from the Bezos."

  The group around them, the ones who could hear at least, glanced up at the blue sky as if they could spy the giant vessel floating in orbit.

  "There is still a ship up here?" James turned his eyes from the sky to the woman in front of him.

  "Ships," she corrected.

  "Thirteen," Lt added.

  "Like the Apostles," James clasped his hands together and grinned even broader.

  "I thought there were only twelve of them," Lt asked.

  "Yes, plus Jesus," said James.

  He turned to the women arrayed on the steps behind him.

  "It's a sign," he said. "It's what we've been praying for."

  He rushed past Lt and Annie and grabbed Eli by the arm.

  "Did you tell them? Is that why you brought them here?"

  Lt and Annie exchanged a glance.

  "He's good at finding things," said Eli. "He found the Suit. He found the Space men."

  "Woman," Annie corrected.

  "Spacewoman," Eli offered a tight grin in apology, the hardness of his eye flickering for a moment as a pain crossed his face.

  "Do you think he can? They can?" James asked.

  Eli shrugged.

  "It won't hurt to ask."

  "Look," Lt said. "We're in sort of a hurry, so if you could just get down to it, we can make our statement and get going. We ain't just out for a walk in the fucking woods."

  James ignored the gasp from the people around them.

  "I suppose you're not," he said. "We're going to feed you. We should do that much, at least, though it's not much. It is fresh, though, and well prepared. And we'll explain while we eat."

  "You hungry?" Lt asked Annie.

  "I could eat," she nodded.

  "Clean water. Food that ain't grown in your own shit. I hope this don't spoil you too much, Warbucks."

  "We'll eat in my home," said Jim.

  He made a motion with his hand and three of the women on the steps disappeared inside.

  "Eli, can you keep them entertained while I go pray?"

  "You could just tell us what the what is," said Lt. "Save the prayers for after you have an answer."

  James smiled and clapped his hands.

  "No, I need to pray on the before and after," he said.

  He too went inside the Church. Lt turned to Eli, who cradled the rifle in the crook of his arm and waved them to follow.

  "He think we're the answer to his prayers or something?"

  Eli stopped and took a deep breath through his nose. His hard eyes flashed.

  "We hope you are."

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Brother James sat at the head of a long oak plank table set across three sawhorses. Wooden chairs of mismatched patterns were lined around the wood, space for James and the other men from the camp.

  Annie couldn't help but notice she was the only woman at the table. The only other women in the Church served the food, poured clear water into glasses and withdrew to the walls to wait.

  And listen, she noted. They were listening.

  Eli was there, along with the man who was with him when they were captured at the bridge.

  She knew technically that she was the one who was captured, that Lt in his armor just came along for the ride so she wouldn't get shot or hurt.

  She also noticed he was nice enough not to say anything about it yet, but she was sure it would come up.

  It was just his way.

  There were four others besides Eli and the other man. They stared at her with a mix of open admiration and trepidation, as if she was a ghost from the past visited upon them by their sins or omissions.

  Annie supposed she must seem like a ghost to them, a relic of the past.

  "This looks good," Lt said. "Let's tuck in."

  He grabbed a plate and began to pile roasted vegetables on
it. There was no meat, no bread, just what they could grow in the crops around the building.

  But as promised, it was fresh. Okra. Squash. Cucumbers. Tomatoes. Beans.

  "We pray first," Jim said.

  "Don't let me stop you," Lt said as he plopped a helping of beans on the corner of his plate. "Put in a good word for me."

  "You won't pray with us?"

  Lt stopped with four slices of tomato speared on the end of his fork frozen in the air.

  "Nah, I won't do that."

  He dropped them on his plate and went back for sliced cucumber.

  "Put one of these in your water glass," he told Annie. "Won't taste like piss, but you'll like it anyway."

  "That joke's getting old," she said and popped a slice in her water anyway.

  "Don't you believe in our Lord the Savior," James persisted.

  Lt stared at his plate like a man who had tried to avoid a conversation, one that had arrived despite his hope that it wouldn't.

  "Look Reverend Jim, I went to church before all this started. I noticed a lot of folks had a take it or leave it attitude and I suppose I may have had one of them myself. But if you think God created the Universe-"

  "He did. He created the world and all that is in it."

  "See there, that's where I got a problem with it," said Lt. "Cause if you think that, if that is true, then God made man, and he made the Lick. And if God made the Lick, then I got no use for him."

  He waited to see if James or any of the others would respond, but they kept quiet. Lt sliced one of the tomatoes and popped it in his mouth with joy.

  "I got to tell you, we been eating mostly squirrel when we get to eat on patrol. This here tastes like a little slice of paradise, if you don't mind me saying that."

  "I'm glad you enjoy it," said James. "Do you mind if we pray?"

  "It's your house, Reverend Jim. I don't care if you pray, or whatever you want to do, so long as it don't interfere with what I want to do."

  "Which is nothing," said Eli.

  He looked neither bothered nor disturbed by Lt's lack of religion. He waited with his head bowed, eyes open as James offered up thanks for their bounty.

  Then the others began to prepare their plates from the assorted dishes on the table.

  "Do you think we had that same attitude in other wars before the aliens came?" James asked Lt.

  "What? That God made the Muslim, so we should just accept it?"

  "Yes," said James.

  He picked at the food on his plate but didn't eat any.

  Annie sat beside Lt and kept popping small bites into her mouth.

  She had a ton of vegetables grown in space, but Lt was right. They tasted slightly different. Less flavor than food grown in earth soil.

  "Ain't got a problem with Muslims," said Lt as he finished the food on his plate and pushed it away from him. "Ain't got a problem with the couple of billion humans that were born and died before the Jews started talking about God, and the Church took it over two thousand years later and added Odin to it. Ain't got a problem with the godless Chinese, or the Africans or hell, anyone or anything that don’t think or believe the way I do."

  Lt's eyes flashed as he pointed at Jim.

  "But I do have a problem with the Licks. I got a big damn problem with them. And if you traffic with them, then I've got a problem with you."

  James sat back in his seat.

  "I do not," he said. "I do not traffic with the aliens, as you put it. But I do believe God has a plan. And if I believe that, which I do, then they are a part of it."

  Lt opened his mouth to respond, but James held up a hand to forestall him.

  "I may believe," he said. "It does not mean I enjoy, or do not wish it otherwise."

  Lt closed his mouth and grunted.

  "You know what Reverend Jim, I'm an asshole. I'm sorry bout that. I shouldn't have been snapping at you like that, and after you invited us to the dinner table. I'm a poor guest, and I apologize. Long as you hate the Licks, we should get along fine."

  James shook his head and grinned.

  "My prayers are tough to reconcile with our current reality sometimes," he confessed. "But I am blessed."

  "But you got a problem," Lt said as he let his eyes lock onto Eli's flint colored orbs before turning back to James.

  "Yes."

  "Then why don't you tell us what you want found, and why you think we can do it."

  James turned his gaze on the wall.

  "We're simple farmers," he stated. "As you can tell, we don't have much. God has blessed us."

  There were murmurs of Amen and agreements from the men at the table and the women against the wall.

  "But?"

  James smiled as he looked at the ceiling.

  "But we have an issue and we need your help."

  "Lost something?" Lt asked.

  He picked up the glass of water and swirled it around.

  "Is that armor comfortable?" Eli asked.

  "Honest?"

  "Is there any other way?"

  "Yeah, it's like a fucking second skin, Abe. Doc said the nano injections, little robots in my bloodstream, talk to the computers inside the suit."

  "You're a cyborg?" James asked.

  "I don't think so."

  "But robots are in your bloodstream."

  "Micro-robots," Lt held up his fingers and held his thumb and forefinger a hair's width apart. "And I don't feel them at all."

  "I remember reading about the technology," said James. "Fascinating. And now it's back when we have no technology left."

  "Except a space ship," Eli said as he glanced at Annie. "According to her."

  "First of all," said Annie. "We don't have a space ship. We have a lander. And the only we who have a lander is me."

  "Beg pardon," said Eli. "I only meant that humans had it back. Courtesy of you."

  She lowered her head in a nod, not quite an agreement, but an acknowledgement.

  "Two pieces of the past in our lives in the same day," James said. "It is as if our prayers have been answered."

  "What were you praying for?" Lt asked.

  "A miracle," James and Eli said at the same time.

  "I ain't that," Lt sniffed. "So why don't you tell me what you're wanting and let's see if we can help you out."

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Lutz watched Parker saunter up to the man guarding the fence.

  "You can take him back," he nodded toward Doc. "Stay with him, and if you hear any trouble from these, put two in his head."

  Doc gulped, but the man guarding him nodded.

  Parker watched as he escorted him back to the building.

  "Where's Babe?" Lutz called out.

  "He's going on a trip," Parker said.

  "What kind of trip?"

  "Don't worry," the man smiled at him through the wire. "You'll get your chance."

  "Chance at what?" Waldo stood next to Waldo.

  "Back up," Parker warned them. But he was the one who took a step back from the two armored shells.

  The fence between them was thin wire hurricane fence, designed as a line of demarcation and not much of a prison.

  Especially not against the Suits.

  He hoped the threat against Doc would hold them still, make them compliant, but what if Russel had misinterpreted the relationship.

  He gulped and dug his toes in, ready to run if they moved toward him.

  Waldo stepped away from Lutz, putting three meters between them. The others on the ground didn't move, just turned their heads to watch, as if awaiting the outcome.

  Parker nodded and released a breath he didn't realize he was holding.

  He also unclenched muscles in his arms and legs and felt the pressure to go to the bathroom.