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Episode 5: Comrades

She tried to remember everything Celste and Deckett had told her about night vision tech. Mostly about the stuff to avoid, and why.

They drew closer, obviously searching for the Little People. Gessy watched them in the viewfinder. She came up with a plan, but wasn't sure if she could affect both giants at the same time.

She racked her brain and came up with a second possible approach. Again, though, it might only get one giant, and just warn the other.

Wait. She could use BOTH plans! Very carefully, she lined up the camera to the face of the closest giant. She set the range finder laser, the invisible one, to touch directly on his cheek.

When she was sure she was ready, she flipped the switch to visible and swept the laser beam across the lenses of the man's goggles.

His scream was everything she could have hoped for. He grabbed his face and pitched backwards to the ground.

"Wakkell! What happened?" The second giant turned towards Gessy's tree. She closed both eyes and pressed the button for a flash photograph.

Seconds later she was skidding down the slope of the tree. It was impossible to stop at the bottom. She just shouted, 'C'mon!' as she passed the roots and took off running into the dark. She'd mapped out an escape route before shutting down the camera and kept along it.

Behind her the Earthling women followed the sounds of her feet and panting, slipping through the dark.

Far behind her, two giants rolled on the ground and called out to each other in confusion and pain. Even if their eyes cleared, she was pretty sure from Celste's warnings that the technology would be worthless until the next night.

-----

Gessy circled far around the giants towards the general area of the Earther's spaceship. When she was quite sure that the hunters couldn't pick up their trail again, she paused to scan the area for a hiding place. A burrow under a tree's root seemed perfect.

She led the exhausted women to it. By then, no one was running, just staggering along. They all threw themselves on the ground and rested for a while. If, for 'rest' you mean 'collapsed in a boneless heap.' The forest outside had started to lighten with the sunrise.

When she could move again, Valerie crawled over to lay beside Gessy. The two shared a quick hug. "Oh, girl, you really saved our lives back there. Thank you so much."

"What she said," Betty added.

"My pleasure," Gessy assured them.

"How did you do it?" She swung the camera around, careful not to point the lens at either woman.

"This is a camera," she explained. Don't look in the lens. Deckett would have a hard time explaining a picture of an Earthling on it, especially if he doesn't try to catch them."

The humans shared a look between them. Unsure what they meant, Gessy spoke quickly to reassure them. "He won't, you know. I promise. He won't and he didn't. When he could have."

"We know he didn't," Valerie said, squeezing Gessy's hand reassuringly.

"And we know he could have captured us all," Betty said, moving to sit on the girl's other side. "We were wrong about him before and we know that now. We, uh, we trust you."

"And we trust him," Valerie said.

Betty cocked her head for a second. "At least, as much as we can trust any giant."

The younger girl lowered her head to rest against Betty's shoulder for a second. "Thanks. For being honest, if nothing else."

The group sat in quiet companionship for a second before Betty started looking out the entrance. "Well, what do we do now?"

"Room service," Valerie said, falling back to the ground. "A trough of coffee, some croissants, maybe an apple or two."

"That sounds lovely," Betty agreed. "Make sure there's a bucket of cream for the coffee."

Gessy looked back and forth at her companions. "You people are insane," she said.

"Gessy, we were just-" Valerie said.

"It's bubble bath first, THEN breakfast!" the domestic insisted. She managed to keep a straight face only until the others laughed, then she lost it.




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