Farmers' Tales

(061/1105, Sorel/Glisten)

Moving cautiously forwards, Captain Nose worked his way around the western side of the farmyard, reaching the cover of the pigsties. From there he cold see the front of the farmhouse, and the distant figure of the man in the far fields. A glance with his PRIS revealed the man was actually ploughing the field with horses.

Meanwhile, the Zho Boys moved up on the eastern side, covered from the rear by Lasnus. Crossing the hedgerows into the farm garden, they rapidly made for the cover of the rear wall of the farmhouse; unlike the rest of the wooden building, it was made of stone and had a nice big chimney breast sticking out. They huddled in behind that.

Nose moved from his pig sty across the western edge of the farmyard to the barn. Checking through the rather large gaps in the wooden door, he was startled to see the silhouette of a modern grav vehicle looming in the gloom! Carefully double-checking that no-one seemed to be in the barn, he slipped inside. There, he found a rather battered and dirty freight grav ATV, of TL 10-11 construction. For safety's sake, he opened an access panel onto the gravitic drive systems and removed a small but vital component. Then he climbed into the barn's hayloft, giving himself a good view through the farmhouse kitchen window.

While he did this, Dliiavrnt worked his way around to the farmhouse's front door, sending his brother to cover the back. Then he boldly knocked on the door.

The farmer's wife answered the door, and Dliiavrnt, seizing a Combine name at random, declared himself to be a representative of Varlith, here to see if he could do business. This did not get the expected reaction; he found himself being royally castigated by both the farmer and his wife, the expression, "You Combine boogers 'ave been troying to get moi faarm for years now, but y'wont, y'hear? Now sod orf!" being typical. The door slammed.

A bit bemused, he decided on a more active tack. He and Stpierb' therefore broke in through the front and back doors and proceeded to hold up the farmer and his family. Despite some difficulty with the back door (he'd never encountered a door that split half-way down!) Stpierb' secured the wood-axe and hammer-action 4-bore double-barrelled shotgun that formed the farm's only weapons.

As this was happening, Nose went quietly across the fields and collected the ploughman, bringing him back to the farmhouse as well. While he did this, he grilled the man for what information he could. The combined story from the two sets of captives was as follows:

Shortly before the arrival of the Akhushaa, Farmer Blacksmith was approached by a group of men claiming to be bailiffs. While the Combines of Sorel tend to obey a sort of code of practice in trying to buy out the few independents, these men were rather nasty and aggressive, purporting to have court orders entitling them to take possession of the entire farm and the two children. Blacksmith responded to this in his usual way, but three days later a young farmhand disappeared, and the "bailiffs" made it subtly clear that more bad things would happen if their wishes weren't met.

At this point Dreng and his crew happened along. Hearing of the farmer's problem, they went off in search of the "bailiffs", returning some days later with a wounded man (the description sounds like Kirk Majors) and an unexplained grav vehicle - the one now in the barn. The farmer was given to understand that the "bailiffs" wouldn't be a problem any more, and offered them a full load of veg in payment. They accepted that, and left the grav vehicle behind, saying it wouldn't go in the hold in any case, and showing Blacksmith how to work it before they went.

While the Zho Bros explained to the farmer and his wife that their "benefactors" were actually wicked, hunted criminals, and that the people who had just broken into their home and held them up at gunpoint were legitimate enforcers of law and justice, Nose extracted the ATV's keys from the farmer and went quietly back to the barn. After fixing the "damage" he'd done earlier, he opened up the vehicle and had a good look around inside.

Something he saw intrigued him, and he called on Dliiavrnt, whom he knew had forensic training. While the inch-thick mud on the floor of the driver seat area was hopelessly muddled, in the mud to the rear was one perfect clear print; of a combat-armoured boot. Dliiavrnt took a careful series of pictures and a cast of the print. They checked the nav computer, but the logs had been wiped.

Feeling that signs were hopeful that Dreng and his crew would return to Sorel, Team 7 waited there for a further month, filling in the time with some small trading, the loading of a spec cargo of 70 d-tons of mixed vegetables, the purchase by Stpierb' of four barrels of excellent local Nutty Dark ale at a knockdown price, and several pleasant nights at the Blue Duck. Finally, however, they gave up and set off back to Aki.