Louis rushed forward in the face of the Lenape warriors, getting in front of Commander Takar and the travelers.  “Wait,” he shouted.  “Cousins.  Listen first.  These people are friends of the big Swede.  They are outsiders, not English or French.  They are not your enemies.  We heard the guns and are coming to see if we can end the fighting.”  He turned to Lockhart.  “Yes?”

Lockhart shrugged before he spoke.  “We are strangers here.  We are not your enemies.  We will see what we can do to help.”

Decker spoke to the men.  “I assume you came upriver to cross over and come back down this side to fall on your enemy.”

“Brother Moonwalker said to signal when we are ready, and he will keep the Englishmen busy while we attack their rear.”

“Good plan,” Decker said.  “I am sure Lars would not mind if we added our guns to the effort.”

“Decker…” Lockhart began.

Katie interrupted.  “Sometimes we have to,” she said, and took his arm.

Lockhart knew he was outvoted.  “Let’s at least look first,” he said, and turned to the men in front who had clearly relaxed.  “I’m Lockhart.  This is Katie, Decker, Commander Takar, and Louis…”

“We don’t like Mohawk in our land,” one of the men said, and turned to Lockhart.  “Morharala.  Come.  We will show you.”

They moved up the trail and Louis explained to Lockhart and Katie.  “Morharala is Big Bird tribe.  They are Turkey Clan.”

“Big Bird?” Lockhart said and looked at Katie.

Katie grinned. “Don’t start.”

When they reached a rise in the road, they were still relatively far away. They could hear the occasional shots from the flintlocks or matchlocks, and sometimes see the puff of smoke the black powder produced, but they could not see the people well with the eye.  Morharala wanted to move them to a side trail where they could circle around the enemy, but Lockhart made them pause.  “Look first,” he reminded them.  He and Tony got the binoculars.  Katie and Decker got the scopes for their rifles, and Decker snapped his in place.

Tony let Lincoln take a look, before he helped Louis see.  Lockhart shared his first with Morharala before he turned to Commander Takar, but it seemed the Commander had his own spyglass of a sort, and Morharala wanted to share the glasses with the rest of his crew.

“Visual line of site helps,” Lockhart told Commander Takar.  “You know, I worked as a police officer for nearly fifty years, though much of that was with the Men in Black.”

Commander Takar stopped spying on the people in the distance and tapped the spot on his neck before he smiled.  “A good long time,” he said.  “About the same for me.”

“My father,” Elder Stow stepped up.  “Two things. First, the sanguar is somewhere down by the river edge.  I can pinpoint the spot in a minute.  First… or Second…” he called up a holographic image of the men in the trees down below.  His scanner turned the trees to ghost-like images so they could be seen, but the men in yellow stood out.  “There are twenty, mostly by the riverbank and spread out down the river a bit, wherever they can shoot from cover, I assume.  There are three more behind, holding two dozen horses.  The natives, including the ones with us are in red.  Sorry, I can’t say which one is Swedish.  We are in blue, and I have taken the liberty of presenting Commander Takar in green.”

“Morharala,” Lockhart called, but they were already staring at Elder Stow’s projection.  “Colonel?  Major?”

Decker glanced at Katie before he spoke.  “Katie and I are the best option.  We will take out the horse guards and make sure no one escapes.  Tony and Lincoln can stay here with the rifles, scopes, horses, and Nanette who is presently our healer.  No good if she gets injured.”

“Decker.  I can help.  I am not a porcelain doll.”

“My wife,” Decker told the Morharala.  They smiled, and Commander Takar laughed when he got the translation.  “Lockhart, you need to take Elder Stow and Sukki with you, for your own protection, as you say.  Take the Turkeys.  Take Elder Stow’s sonic device and offer the English a chance to surrender.  You know, use your best police stuff.  If they refuse to surrender, we may have to fight.  We can use this place as a redoubt.  Commander Takar and Louis should stay here, and Commander Takar, see if you can get a better spot on your lost prisoner.  Humans squabble all the time, but we don’t need alien worms eating people.”

Katie snapped her scope to her rifle and handed it to Lincoln.  “Ready sir,” she said, offering no additions or corrections to the plan, but Lockhart spoke to Morharala before he pulled his shotgun.  “We are going to get the English to surrender.  If any of you run out ahead to attack the English before they surrender, you may be accidentally shot or badly burned.  We are dealing with powers here you cannot understand.  I’m sorry, but that is the way it is.  I will say if we have to fight.  Elder Stow, please take off your glamour and Sukki please put yours on.”

“Yes,” Suki said.  “I mostly forget I can do that.”  She appeared as a Neanderthal girl and Elder Stow appeared to be her real father.  Elder Stow handed her a disc as Commander Takar shouted.

“Gott-Druk!  Suddenly, it makes sense that you have equipment way beyond what the Kargill was able to supply us with.  My scanner is just a relay.  It sends information to my ship’s computer to analyze and returns to appear on my grid.  I imagine your vastly superior equipment is self-contained.”

“Up Sukki,” Elder Stow said, ignoring the Ahluzarian.  Sukki and Elder Stow rose about ten feet in the air before they disappeared.  “We will go with you, but unseen if you don’t mind,” Eder Stow said, and he got out his now invisible screen device to set a Decker Wall a few feet in front of them when they stopped.

Lockhart gave Decker and Katie five minutes before he pushed through the woods toward the main river path and the river.  He stopped at the edge of the path.  The English were all closer to the water, hiding behind trees and bushes, hoping to catch a native sticking his head up on the other side of the river.  He had to wait a minute for Elder Stow to finish setting his screen device, and then he handed Lockhart his sonic device set to broadcast his voice.

Lockhart spoke and his voice echoed through the woods.  “Throw your weapons down and put your hands on your head.  You are surrounded and cannot escape.  Surrender and no harm will come to you.”  He waited.  Several guns fired but the bullets did not stand a chance of getting through Elder Stow’s wall.  Lockhart heard guns fired back by the horses and knew Katie and Decker were busy.

He spoke again.  “Throw down your weapons and come to the path through the woods, hands on your head.  You cannot escape but if you surrender you will be treated fairly.”  He waited again.  Two men came to the path.  They had guns and fired them at Lockhart and his group.  Lockhart returned fire with his shotgun.  Both men went down.  Guns went off by the horses and from the hill.  Men began to fall all around the woods.

“Last chance,” Lockhart said.  “Surrender and you will live.”  Men began to come to the path and guns got thrown in the dirt.  Some of the men were wounded.  Most were not, but they had enough.  Elder Stow became visible, his glamour of humanity back in place.  He showed Lockhart his scanner projection and Lockhart spoke.  “You two hiding in the bushes by the river.  Come out now and surrender or die.  Your choice.”  One started to get up, but the other shook his head.  “Both of you, now,” Lockhart said, and Elder Stow turned his weapon on the tree beside the men.  The tree burst into flame and Lockhart repeated, “Both.  Now.”  They came.

“That is all of them,” Elder Stow said, and he made Sukki visible, her glamour removed so she looked human again.

“Morharala.”  Lockhart turned to the natives behind him. “Please collect the weapons and keep the men on their knees for the present.  No killing, understand?”  The natives were not going to argue after what they saw.

Decker and Katie brought four more prisoners from the horse area, two being wounded.  They killed five men there.  Tony and Lincoln killed two from the hill and wounded three others.  Lockhart killed two.  There were seven uninjured prisoners, until Katie arrived.  She looked at them carefully and called to Lincoln up on the rise.

“I have a man here that looks familiar,” she said.  She grabbed the man’s chin and turned the man’s head even as the man tried to hide his face.  As Lincoln responded, the man broke free and turned to run.

“Mister Muller from Augsburg,” Lincoln said.  Katie shot the man.

“Doctor Miller,” one of the men protested, but he dared not move in the face of such firepower.  Katie searched the dead man and found two vials.  One had an ‘S’ on it.  The other had a ‘C’ scribbled in crayon.