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Kawalski and the others came to stand behind Sarge, watching the iPad.
“Look there,” Autumn said, “to the northeast.”
A slight glow arched above the trees.
“Zoom in, Sparks.”
“Right.”
“Damn,” Sarge said. “Those are campfires.”
Lojab came in from the woods. He glared at Autumn, then folded his arms and watched the display on the iPad.
“It’s the Vocontii village,” Autumn said.
“Yeah,” Sarge said. “And it’s a lot bigger than we thought.”
“There must be hundreds of fires,” Autumn said.
“Go up to five thousand,” Sarge said.
Sparks reduced the zoom and centered on their fire again. He then flew up to five thousand feet. The display of the campfire moved off the screen.
“What happened?” Sarge asked. “We lost the fire.”
“Wind.” Sparks rotated the controls. “I need to see the fire to find her.”
“What if you can’t locate the fire?”
“I can hit the ‘home’ button, and it’ll fly back here. But it might hit the trees when it comes down and tear itself apart.” He panned the camera left to right. “Ah, we’re almost to the Vocontii camp.” He watched the display as the Dragonfly drifted toward the fires of the Vocontii. “So, the wind is coming from the southwest.” He turned into the wind and flew forward. “Here we are.” Their campfire came up on the screen. “Now that I know the wind direction, I can hold our position.”
“Wow,” Kawalski said as Sparks panned around the horizon. “It’s as dark as midnight in a coalmine.”
“Damn,” Sarge said. “I thought sure we’d see a big city. How far away is the horizon at this height?”
“About eighty miles,” Sparks said.
“So, if there was a big city out there,” Autumn said, “even two hundred miles away, we would see the glow of the lights.”
“I think so,” Sarge said. “All right, Sparks, bring her down. This sinkhole is a lot bigger than I thought.”
“If we’re in a sinkhole,” Lojab said, “we can’t get up high enough to see out of it.”
“We were at five thousand feet, Lojab,” Sarge said. “That’s high enough to see something, if there was anything to see.”
“I think we should get moving,” Lojab said, “and see if we can climb out of here.”
“And I say we stay here,” Sarge said, “until we have a better idea of what’s happened to us.”
“Well, I vote for heading north until we come to a big city and civilization. Then we can get back to our own time.”
“This army unit is not a democracy.” Sarge stood and took a step toward Lojab. “We don’t vote on what we want to do; we follow orders.”
“What are we?” Lojab said. “A bunch of lap dogs, lying around, waiting for you to tell us when to eat, when to sleep, and when to go take a piss?”
Sarge looked around at the others as they watched him intently. “I wouldn’t call any of my soldiers lap dogs, Lojab, but yes, everyone is going to wait until I decide what to do. And that includes you.”
“Fuck this shit.” Lojab stormed off toward Trevor and the other two crewmen from the C-130.
Behind Sarge, Sparks barked like a dog.
“Down, boy,” Kawalski said. “Be good and I’ll let you sit in Apache’s lap.”
* * * * *
The next morning, Kawalski walked with Liada, down by the river. His rifle was across his back, and he carried his helmet by the chin strap.
“Liada,” he said.
She looked up at him.
“Those men are foot soldiers.” He pointed toward a group of men working on a raft.
“Yes.”
“And those are horse soldiers.”
She watched the four men ride by. “Yes.”
“The horse men in the scarlet capes…” He tried to explain with his hands, as he’d seen Autumn do. He plucked a red flower from a bush and fluttered it over his shoulder.
She laughed. “Carthage sons of, um, big peoples.”
“Ah,” Kawalski said, “the aristocracy.” He slipped the flower into her hair, over her ear. “Okay, we have the foot soldiers.” He held his hand out flat, at about waist height. “Then the horse soldiers.” He raised his hand a bit. “The sons of Carthage.” He held his hand a little higher. “Then comes Rocrainium,” his hand went higher, “the boss.”
Liada wrinkled her brow.
“Who is up here, on top?”
Liada stared at Kawalski for a moment, then her face brightened. “Big boss?”
“Yes, who is the big boss?”
“Hannibal is.”
“Hannibal?”
“Yes,” she said.
Kawalski put on his helmet and touched the comm switch. “Anybody out there?”
Several people answered.
“Apache?”
“Yeah.”
“Sarge?” Kawalski asked.
“Yes, what’s up?”
“Ballentine?”
“I’m here,” Karina answered.
“As hard as it is for me to say this, Ballentine,” Kawalski said, “you were right.”
“About what? I’m right about so many things, I’ve forgotten most of them.”
Someone laughed.
“Remember that four-star general we saw on the big black warhorse?”
“Yeah?”
“I know his name.”
“Really?” Karina said.
“How do you know?” Sarge asked.
“Come to me,” Kawalski said to Liada.
She came close to him, and he put his arm around her, pulling her even closer until her lips were almost touching his.
“Who is the big boss?” Kawalski pointed to the mic in his helmet.
“Hannibal,” she whispered into the mic. She looked up, into his eyes, keeping her lips close to his.
He tilted his helmet up.
“I knew it,” Karina said.
“Where are you, Kawalski?” Sarge said.
“Hannibal is going to cross the Rhone,” Karina said. “Then he’s going over the Alps. Right, Kawalski?”
Kawalski pulled off his helmet and let if fall to the ground.
“Who is the big boss?” Kawalski whispered.
“Hannibal.” Liada’s warm breath brushed his lips.
“Hannibal?” He drew out the last syllable.
“Hanni…”
“Ask her when Hannibal’s going to cross the river.” Sarge’s voice came from the speakers inside Kawalski’s helmet where it lay on the ground, but it was too faint for Kawalski to hear. “Kawalski?”
“I think his comm went dead,” Karina said.
“Either that, or he’s trying to get something more from Liada,” Sarge said.
“Yeah.” Autumn giggled. “Probably that.”
Chapter Thirteen
Sergeant Alexander sipped his coffee and watched Sparks unfold the solar panels and plug in his charger to recharge the batteries for the Dragonfly.
“You know what I’ve been thinking about?” Sparks asked.
Sarge looked at Sparks and raised an eyebrow.
“We know the satellites are still up there, right?”
“Yes, because your GPS unit picks them up. That’s one of the reasons I think we’re in some kind of a sink hole.”
“You know what else might be up there?”
Sarge looked up at the sky. “What?”
“The space station.”
“Hey, you’re right. Can we contact them?”
“I don’t know what frequencies they use, but I’ve been broadcasting on all of them.”
“If we could contact them and tell them where we are, they could tell us where the nearest city is.”
“Maybe.” Sparks stared at the sky for a moment. “I might be able to rig up a strobe light and point it straight up. As the space station orbits the Earth, they see the whole surface every few days.”
“What good would that do?”
“I think I can set the strobe to blink Morse Code, maybe something like ‘S.O.S. Contact 121.5.’ If they happen to see the blinking light, they’ll figure out it’s sending Morse Code.”
“You ever see a satellite photo of Europe at night?”
“I know, there’s millions of lights, but if we’re in a hole of some kind, like you said, then there would be miles of darkness all around us. That way, our strobe light might stand out. And it would be much brighter than any campfire.”
