An hour after full dark, the two flyers lifted off the plateau and began their flight home, flying in loose formation at about the speed of a galloping horse. A fast galloping horse. As agreed, they tested the communication devices as they travelled.
"Vilna 1 to Tanart 1," said Ardan.
"Go ahead, Vilna 1." Velna's response was clear.
"All clear so far, we'll test again when we separate."
"Agreed. Tanart 1 out."
Also, as agreed, they landed briefly at the point where their routes home separated. Hugs all round and expressions of good will were exchanged.
"Jandol will be sorry he let me come on this trip," said Velna with a grin for Ardan. "But if the communicators have the range at least you'll be able to talk."
"We'll keep testing as we go. That last ridge before the Hold might be crucial. If we're still in touch when you get there, keep talking as you cross the ridge and head down, we'll see if there's a cut off."
"Okay, we'll do that. For now, we'd better get going, there's only a couple of hours before dawn, and we want to be under cover by then. Take care, and may the Goddess protect you."
"And you," said Ardan, giving his friend's sister a brief, fierce hug, echoed by Leara a moment later.
Dawn found the Vilna station flyer safely tucked under a gelin tree, well out of sight of any invader flyers. This time, Kira took first watch and used one of the cookers they'd found to brew herself a hot drink, sipping it while she looked around. Beside her, the communicator crackled, then Velna's voice.
"Tanart 1 to Vilna 1?"
"Vilna 1, aye?"
"Safely under cover. You? Over."
"Same. Over."
"Sleep well. Tanart 1 out."
Nothing disturbed the peace of the day and at the end of her two hours, Kira went over to wake Ardan only to find him already awake.
"Anything?" he said, and Kira shook her head.
"Nothing but birdsong," she said. "There's a pair of Yelka building a nest in that other gelin tree and they haven't shut up all of my watch." She grinned. "But they won't keep me awake."
"Okay, Kira, you're relieved and I'm on watch. Get your head down."
She nodded and tucked herself away in her bedroll. Ardan made himself comfortable, leaning against the tree, as relaxed as he could be while on watch, and settled to wait out his two hours. The time was almost over when he became aware of movement about a hundred paces away. He reached out to wake Leara and found her already awake.
"Ready to hand over?" she asked quietly, but he shook his head.
"Not yet, but we have company." She was beside him instantly, her energy gun in hand.
"Where and what?"
"Over there," he said, pointing, and they watched together as two figures made their careful way towards the flyer, keeping to cover as much as possible. Obviously human, one carried a bow, the other an invaders' tube weapon. When they were about thirty paces away, they stopped, and there was a soft call.
"Hello, the camp?"
Ardan stood. "Yes? What is it?"
"Can we come in? There are only the two of us."
"Come ahead slowly, and keep your weapons pointed away from us."
The two figures did as requested and scuttled, almost, across to where Ardan and the others waited. Under the cover of the gelin tree, the two figures straightened, after carefully laying their weapons down.
"We saw your flying machine land and knew it wasn't one of those
things
machines. We've heard tales of our people fighting back with Terran weapons and took a chance it was you. Any chance of getting some weapons for us? There are six of us. I'm Galen Yar, by the way. This is my sister, Alona."
"Ardan Tearo, Vilna Station. Weapons, you say? We can't let you have Terran weapons, at least not the guns. We only have enough for our three teams, Vilna Station, Ansel Crossing and Tanart's Hold. But what we can let you have is one of those invaders tube weapons, fired only once that we know of, so there should be twenty-odd shots left. That and some crossbows. You should be able to make spare bolts for the crossbows without too much trouble, and we know for a fact that a properly placed crossbow bolt will stop one of those things."
"We'll take anything you can offer us," said Galen, "with only six of us we have to be careful what we do. We can't afford to be involved in a major conflict, we have to be irritants."
"Like vards," said his sister, with a grin.
"Yeah, like vards. Irritating beasties that aren't worth a major hunting effort because when you turn around, they're gone! That's us, in, nip, and away again."
"How close do you get?" asked Tor, awake now.
"Very close, sometimes. There are only two or three places where a flyer can put down in our area, and there are broken rock formations all round, lots of cover." Galen grinned. "They've learned not to follow us into the rocks."
Ardan had been thinking, and spoke up. "Okay, we'll give you the invaders tube weapon, four crossbows, with ten bolts for each, if you need more you'll have to make them."
"I think we can manage that."
"I'm also going to give you fifteen hand bombs," he said, reaching for one of the green spheres. "See, the ring here?"
Galen nodded. "Yes."
"Pull that out and the bomb is armed. You have about three seconds before it explodes, so make sure you are well away from it when it does. Lobbing one into a flyer from cover is one option, but I'm sure you'll think of others. Now this lot is going to be too heavy for the two of you so we'll wait until dark and then fly you back to your base, okay?"
Galen signalled assent. "I could fetch the others but the idea of a ride in a flyer is more appealing, eh, Alona?"
His sister grinned. "Absolutely."
Leara touched Ardan's shoulder. "I'm on watch now. You chat to our new friends, I'll just be over there." She pointed, then bent to give Ardan a brief, hot kiss, before making her way to her chosen watch point.
"I'd guess you two are a couple," said Alona, grinning.
"We are. One of these days, if we can find a priest, we'll get married. Both families said if we get the chance, go ahead with a wedding even if no-one from either family could be there."
Alona nodded. "Makes sense. One of our group is a priest. His temple was destroyed by the invaders. He takes no part in the actual fighting but in every other way he's a member of our team."
Ardan laughed. "Doubt we'll have time for a wedding, we need to get these weapons back to Vilna station and Ansel Crossing."
"Not to Tanart's Hold? Didn't you say they were the third group?"
"Yes, they are, but they have a captured flier of their own, and are on their way back with their own load of weapons. In fact, I was just about to check and see if all is well." Ardan reached for the communicator and raised it to his mouth, pressing the 'alert' button.
"Vilna 1 to Tanart 1?"
The answer was almost immediate. "Tanart 1, aye. Go ahead, Vilna 1." Dran's voice.
"Is all well with you? Over."
"All well. Flyer is tucked away under a polsi tree. An invaders flyer flew over a little while ago but gave no indication they'd seen us. You? Over."
"Much the same, except our cover is a gelin tree. However, we've made contact with another group, six members. We're giving them a captured tube weapon, four crossbows and fifteen of the green hand bombs. Over."
"Good to know we have allies. Pass on our good wishes. Over."
Ardan laughed. "You just did. Two of them are listening in. Contact again an hour after full dark. Vilna 1 out." He turned to the two visitors. "We have a couple of spare communicators, I'll leave one with you. Channel one is the general channel, which will alert all three of our groups, channels two to ten are for our three groups, three channels each. I suggest you use channel eleven. If we need to contact you we'll call on channel eleven. We'll test as we go and see if we can still communicate with you when we're back at the Station. If we can, you can let us know if there's any unusual invader activity." He gestured. "We'll need a call sign for you. The three already in use are Vilna 1, Ansel 1 and Tanart 1, so something sufficiently different not to be confused with those three, but meaningful to you. Suggestions?"
Galen and his sister looked at each other. "Our home base is Polldo Ford," said Alona, "why not Polldo 1. It's different enough to the other call signs not to be confused."
Her brother nodded. "Fine with me. Polldo 1 it is. Now you'd better show us how to use these things."
* * * * *
The six of them were chatting generally when, bang on time, the Vilna communicator chirped. "Tanart 1 to Vilna 1." Velna's voice.
"Vilna 1, aye."
"All well here. No sign of invaders. You? Over."
"All clear here as well. We're going to drop our new friends off at Polldo Ford, and then head home. Communication check every ten minutes, or as dictated by terrain. If there are any big lumps in the way, make sure we can still hear each other when we're past them. Over."
"Understood. Tanart 1 out."
