CHAPTER THREE

The Captain was busy going over his files, trying to figure out some other measures the crew would need to implement, when the Sargent interrupted him.

 “Captain. We have a problem!”

 “This better be important, Sargent!” The captain shouted as he made his way over to the Sargent’s station.

 “This is what I just picked up when I did my sensor sweep.” The Sargent stated.

 “So?”

 “Sir, look closer. The markings on that car are the same as those on the building where Sara Parker works.” The Sargent remarked.

By now, Private was standing next to both of them, and when the Sagent zoomed in on the driver…”

 “Its Sara” Private said softly.

 “You idiot, did you tell her…”

 “Come on Captain, I would never tell her anything that she did not need to know.

“Right,” the Sargent mumbled.

 “Well then explain to me what she is doing way out here? We picked this location on purpose because it is not on any direct routes to anywhere!” The Captain continued in an angry tone.”

 “Maybe she is lost?” The Private questioned.

 “It doesn’t look that way, she has turned on the road leading to these caves.”

 “Captain, I can take our car and go out and meet her, before she gets too close.”

 “No, she is too close already.” The Captain flipped a few switches.

“Sargent, keep scanning to see if there is any other land or air traffic headed our way. Private, you’re with me!”

 Sara stopped her car.

“This is nuts, there is nothing out here for miles.”

 She put her head down on the steering wheel.

 “I am so dead,” she mumbled.

 Two seconds later there was a tap at here window. She looked up and let out a scream. There was Private, a little shaken by her scream. She rolled down her window.

“Wow I didn’t know they delivered pizza out this far.” Private said with a smile,

“What/ Where? How?” Sara said all in quick succession.

“I am sorry Sara, one question at a time.”

“We are in big trouble,“ Sara finally got out.

“Let me guess, you are out of pepperoni again.”

 Sara opened the door and got out.

 “Percy, this is serious!”

 “Okay, but how did you know to come out this way to find me?” Private asked.

 “No! This time you answer my questions first!”

 Before she could even begin to ask, the Sargent contacted them.

 “I am detecting a large number of armored ground vehicles headed this way.”

 The Captain looked at Private, then Sara. He let out a deep breath.

 “Get in the car, “ he ordered them. 

When they were all in, he signaled the Sargent. In a blink of an eye all, including the car, was in the caves.

 Sara was completely overwhelmed and passed out. The Sargent came running down the ramp in a panic.

 “Quick, inside! He shouted.

 “What about Sara?” Private asked.

 “She should be fine, one crisis at a time,” The Captain stated.

 They rushed to the Sargent’s screen.

 “There is no way that they could know we are here. The humans have nothing that could detect us.”  Private stated.

 “That may be true that they could not detect our equipment, but there is nothing that says that they would not have tracking devises on the equipment we got from that parts saleswomen out there,”  The Captain stated.

 “Sir, I can’t believe that Sara would willingly be a part of…”

 “Private, you are just as much under her spell as all those other males.” The Sargent stated.

 “What are you trying to say?” Private asked.

 “I am not trying to say anything. I am saying it!” The Sargent said angerly.

 “Enough you two, you can settle that later. Right now, we have shoot first ask questions later, humans almost within range.”

 The Captain passed for a moment.

 “We can’t just transport to another location. They would track us there, and it is to late to simply transport their equipment.” The Captain stated.

 Private smiled broadly,

 “Not a different location Sir, a different time.”

 The Captain looked at the Sargent,

 “Do we have enough power to do that?”

 “Yes Sir, but it will take some time to build up power from the reserves,”

 “Do it now, and as fast as possible.” The Captain ordered.

 “Captain, what about Sara?”

 “Yes, well, until we know her involvement, we are going to have to keep her with us.”

 “Captain, you can not be serious?” The Sargent objected, but quickly shut up.

 Percy went out and carried Sara into the ship and buckled her into a seat. When he had finished the cave began to rattle as it was getting bombarded with artillery fire.

 “Get us out of here Private!”

 Private flipped several switches and pulled down on a lever. The ship jumped ten years into the future. The caves that they had been in were gone. It was assumed that it had been leveled looking for them and the equipment ten years ago. The surroundings, other than that was relatively unchanged.

“Report!”

 “Sir, the cloak is functioning. All power cut to minimum. No visible signs of any activity for…One hundred miles. Our power usage to get to this time has put us down to 6000 N.Y.C.’s. Our signal for rescue has been reduces by 56% and we fried 18 Hagrid circuits,” The Private reported.

 “We are alive, still able to generate some sort of rescue signal, and we have parts to work with. Lets try to be a bit mor positive shall we?” The Captain stated.

 “Speaking of parts, lets go have a little chat with our parts agent.”

 Private and the Captain went back to where Sara was,

“Sara? Sara?”

 Private spoke softly as he slowly tried to wake her.

 “What? What happened?” Sara asked, as she slowly tried to sit up straighter.

 “Wait where am I?”

 “We will get to all of that.

 “Why did you lead all those government forces out to where we were?” The Captain asked.

 “I didn’t! When Percy left with the last batch of parts, I passed by my bosses office. He was on the phone. I heard him say that he had just left. I only assumed he was talking about Percy. He saw me and called out tome and asked if I knew where those last part I sold was going. I told him no, and asked him why.”

 Sara paused and wiped a few tears.

 “All he would say was the F.B.I. was on his back and he needed answers. I said I would try to find out. I did some checking and discovered that he had been suspected of selling parts to our enemies. I figured he was trying to pin the blame on me.”

 She broke down some, but then continued.

 “Please tell me you are not spies.”

 Private took her hand.

 “Sara, I can assure you that we are not your enemies.”

 She breathed a sigh of relief.

 “I also learned that they had placed tracking devises on all those parts. This was another way to blame me. Even if you turned out not to be spies, I would be ruined.”

Sara paused and took a look around.

 “Where am I?”

“One thing at a time, finish your story,” the Captain urged her.

 “Well, I have worked with a lot men, very few that I felt I could trust. Yet from the moment I met Percy, and later the two of you, I felt calm, at peace. I know that is strange…”

 “Not as strange as it is going to get,” the Sargent mumbled.

 The Captain elbowed him , then told Sara to go on.

 “Anyway, when I was leaving I heard my boss say something about sending out troops and tanks…”

 Sara kind of snapped back into reality.

 “Troops and tanks, we need…”

 She got up in a panic.

 “It is okay Sara, we are all safe,” Private said, as he helped her sit back down.

 The Captain looked at the Sargent.

 “From what little data I could access, it appears that her story is true,” the Sargent reported in almost a disappointed tone.

 Sara again stood up.

 “Well of course it is true! Look, I risked my career, and my life…”

 “And we just saved yours, so we are even.” The Captain told her, then paused a moment.

 “We also took a big risk, bringing you with us, but it was of upmost importance for us to know if we could fully trust you.

 “Captain, you can not seriously believe that she can be trusted.” The Sargent stated.

 “Captain?” Sara asked.

“Look Sargent, I am still in charge here. I make the decisions! We are not done making repairs. We will still need to have some help.”

 “Sargent? Repairs? Percy, what are they talking about?” Sara asked.

 Ignoring Sara’s questions, the Captain and the Sargent continued to argue.

 “Hush, I have seen this before, they will go on for hours.” Private whispered.

 Privaye unbuckeled Sara and helped her out of her seat. he led her to another section of the ship.

"Where am I?" Sara asked in wonderment.

"All I can tell you at this point is that you are safe."

He reached into a compartment of the ship and pulled out a bunch of sandwiches. He handed on to Sara and began making quick work of the ones he had.

 Sara was now totally bewildered. Between all that had happened, the argument that was going on, and the fact that she was sitting in a place that looked like an odd shaped space craft, was to much, she passed out. When she came to, not much had changed, The Captain and the Sargent were still going at it, and Private was still downing sandwiches.

 The only good thing that came from this long drawn out battle of words, was that Sara got a lot of information without having to ask many questions. The debate ended in the usual fashion.

 “The bottom line, is the fact, I am in charge, you obey my orders, and I am ordering you to shut up!”  The Captain shouted.

 The two of them marched into the ship in an angry huff, totally forgetting that Private and Sara were still nearby.

“So you really are from outer space?” Sara whispered.

 "Yes, and we are not sure why they left us behind.” Private told her.

 “Is your ship too broken to get you home?”

 “She is only designed for short range flight. We have to connect with a carrier ship. We are trying to get a signal to get them to send one.” Percy answered

 “That is why the government was so alarmed. All that equipment and parts could have been used to set up a huge spy network.” She paused and looked at Percy.

 “Now what?” She asked.

 “Well as you heard, we have suffered quite a few setbacks. The biggest one recently.”

 He paused and urged Sara to get up and follow him. He took her over to a computer screen.

 “This is not going to be easy for you, but we are now in the year 1974, We jumped forward in time to keep from being buried under that mountain, and to keep humans, well most humans, from knowing we have been here.”

 Private paused and pulled up a huge file of information.

 “The Gein have been studying species throughout the universe for eons. We have a great thirst for knowledge, and an even bigger curiosity. No offence, but humans were way down on our list of species to visit. Mainly because we could extract most of what we needed without having to travel this far. Again, no offence, but what we had extracted really was not all that interesting to our scientist. That was until, one of the scientists started to question why there were so many different kinds of behavior patterns.”

 Private paused and change screens.

 “He wanted answers, and he knew he would have to do something out of the ordinary to get others on board, so he labeled humans as ‘consistently inconsistent.’ It took a little bit, but that label moved your species up the list.”

 “Percy, why would some species want to know why humans change their minds on matters?”

  Private smiled,

 “Species throughout the universe will alter a previous decision, but most of those changes are based on logic. If the facts are changed, then it is logical to change the decision. Humans, on the other hand, change or don’t change their decisions a lot of the time, simply based on emotion. We wanted to better understand emotions.”

“That would be the discovery of the century. We humans have never been able to figure it out.” Sara said shaking her head.

 “We have gain great insight from what we have observed so far.” Private said proudly.

 He flipped over to another screen and began searching for places to get the parts they could use. It appeared that the Captain and Sargent had finished their “debate”, and as usual the Captain was in a foul mood.

 “Private! Where have you been and what are you up too?”

 “Private?” Sara mumbled.

 “We have located three possible places that are nearby, that might have the parts we could use.” Private said as he pointed to his screen.

 The Captain stomped down the ramp and walked over to his screen to talk a closer look. By the time he got there, the Sargent came to the top of the ramp to find out what was going on.

 “We will need a plan to try to get on these bases in this time period.” Private said.

 “Sara seems to be able to get anywhere and anything she wants,” the Sargent said in a flippant tone.

 Sara gave him a cold dark stare.

 “I don’t know what life is where you come from, but you have bothered to notice, here on earth men and women are not treated equally, I am one of the few women that have been successful. In order to get certain accounts, you have to “negotiate” with practically everyone. The men in my field have access to certain incentives, such as ball game tickets, or fancy dinner reservations, I don’t get to use those.”

Sara paused,

 “It is expected by both the men I need to negotiate with, and the man I work for, that I use my womanly ways. I hate being a tease, and many times I have to loose the deal because the tease is not enough.”

 Sara paused and looked away,

 “It is funny, I was really looking for a way to stop being used, and I thought maybe being with you three, things would be different,” she said sadly.

 Private turned her back towards him.

 “Don’t worry Sara, I believe we can come up with a plan to where you won’t have to play that game any more,” Private said with a smile.

“Oh Brother,” Sargent mumbled, rolled his eyes, then went back to his station..

“What ever you come up with, do it quickly…and make sure it goes past me first!” The Captain shouted.

 Private reach in a compartment and pulled out two more sandwiches and started on them.

 The Captain shook his head.

 At the rate you are going through our food supplies, you better come up with a plan to replenish that as well,” the Captain grumbled and went back up to his chair.

 “Okay Sara, lets see what we can come up with.” Private said as he finished off his sandwich,