by Ricky Sides
“You will do no such thing, Lisa,” Maggie stated emphatically. “Pete and I have discussed it and we want you to be our daughter. We know we aren’t your real parents, but we’ll love you and protect you as if you are our real daughter,” Maggie said and she began to cry.
Pete nodded his head soberly and said, “That goes for me too, Lisa. I know that what was done to you in the past has made you afraid of men, but I’ll never hurt you. You found a place in my heart. I hope one day to find a place in yours as I have in Maggie’s.”
Lisa ran to them crying then and they knelt on the floor to embrace her. Pete dried Lisa’s tears and wiped Maggie’s away as well. He kissed Lisa’s cheek and then kissed Maggie. Standing he said, “I have to go. We’ll work out the details when I get back.”
“You be careful, Pete Damroyal,” Maggie said as she stood and took Lisa’s hand. “Remember, we love you,” Maggie said.
“And I love you both,” Pete said as he softly closed the door.
***
The bait lures were set and the two sniper teams were waiting. They’d had the Peacekeeper to drop them off a quarter mile from the selected site and walked in the rest of the way. Time can drag by with infinite slowness at times and tonight while awaiting the deadly predators the time seemed to stand still. They had been in place for several hours when they heard the first coughing growl coming from the woods.
The lioness made a stealthy approach to the lures, often pausing and tilting her head back to scent the smell of fresh blood on the air. The periodic moaning and groans caused her ears to twitch as she sought to pinpoint the source. Her head held low and body semi-crouched, she made her way inch by inch toward the lure.
“Come on, come on! Just one more foot,” Jim thought and then the lioness was in position for the perfect shot. One of the best snipers had taught Jim. He knew what to do and how to do it. When his rifle fired, he knew that the shot would hit true. The spotter confirmed the kill as the lioness slumped to the ground and lay still. In the woods from which the lioness had emerged, an angry roar sounded challenging the night.
Jim prepared himself by shifting his position slightly in the direction from which the roar had issued. Gesturing toward his eyes, he then pointed toward the woods to the left and right of the direction in which he had aimed his rifle and his spotter knew to watch those two areas, as Jim would be concentrating on the center position, his field of vision limited to that of the area depicted in the scope.
The man also quietly reported the kill over the radio and the radioman on duty congratulated Jim on the kill. Neither Pete nor his spotter risked sending a message since they were closer to the wood line than Jim and his spotter were, so the risk of the remaining lion hearing them was greater. A band of dense foliage had separated Pete and his spotter from the lioness, which was why they hadn’t observed its approach. But the lioness hadn’t escaped the visual perceptions of Jim and his spotter, who were situated on slightly higher ground.
Jim waited anxiously. He was almost certain that something was approaching. He could feel it in his bones. Then the spotter whispered that he had movement coming from behind the other sniper position. Immediately he went live on the radio with a warning to the other fire team that they had incoming behind them, moving rapidly. Jim leapt to his feet in frustration for the cat had disappeared somewhere behind Pete and his spotter. Jim motioned for the spotter to join him and they circled warily trying to spot the big cat that now had to be close to the other fire team.
Jim saw the lion rise from the tall grass. It must have crawled forty feet on its belly. The cat bounded the last twenty-five yards toward Pete and the other spotter, moving so fast that neither Jim nor his spotter could hope to get a shot in the short distance it needed to travel to reach the men.
***
Pete heard the lion roar after Jim’s single shot. He heard the report by the spotter that Jim had killed the lioness but they were too close to the woods to risk giving away their position by using the radio.
Soon Pete began to get that prickly feeling he had experienced before when an enemy was maneuvering to come at him from the rear. For the first time that night, he nudged his spotter and pointed to his eyes and then he pointed behind them. The spotter turned his body with infinite slowness to observe the area behind them. A few moments later, he nudged Pete and held up one finger signaling one enemy to the rear. Pete carefully rolled over onto his back and motioned for the spotter to get down. The man slowly lowered his own body until he was lying on his back. He understood that to minimize a silhouette one needed to merge with the ground at night. Otherwise, anything lower than you could easily spot you.
Pete slowly brought his rifle up from beside his body and let the foregrip rest on his right leg. At that moment, the other fire team spotted the cat and sent a warning over the radio.
Pete and his spotter waited tensely for the cat to appear. When it finally did appear, they had scant seconds to react as the big male lion charged their position. Pete and the spotter both fired their weapons and the big cat fell quite literally at their feet. Both shots had hit the cat in the head. Getting to their feet, they stared warily at the animal. It twitched its left front leg and Pete pressed the muzzle of his rifle against the head and fired again.
“Noooo!” a man screamed and ran at them with a knife. Pete turned but he hadn’t chambered another round and the man was almost on him. The spotter couldn’t get a clear shot because Pete was in the line of fire. He circled to the right trying to bring his rifle up. Pete prepared to deflect the knife with his rifle, but a shot rang out and the man pitched forward shot through the head. Pete turned and saw Jim wave and walk toward them chambering another round in his rifle as he walked.
Pete did likewise and it was good that he did, because out of the darkness came an angry menacing growl. A moment later, a large black bear lumbered into sight, charging the men. Pete and his spotter stood side by side as the bear charged. They fired simultaneously. Two more shots sounded as Jim and his spotter added their firepower to the encounter. The bear growled once more, as it collapsed and then it lay still. The spotter beside Pete started to move forward, but Pete stopped him pointing to the bleeding wound visible on the bear’s upper shoulder. The spotter understood. They’d all been taught dead targets don’t bleed in a normal sense of the word. Once the heart stops, there’s no blood pressure to pump the blood. They drain, but they don’t bleed.
Pete raised his rifle to his shoulder sighting on the bear’s head and fired again. The bear’s body jerked and lay still and as they watched, the bleeding stopped.
“What next? An angry chimp?” asked Jim who’d just joined them.
“Wouldn’t much surprise me, not after all that’s happened here the past few minutes,” Pete quipped.
Chapter 18
The next day, late in the afternoon, a camp was located deep in the woods. Skeletal remains were found. After examination, Maggie announced that they appeared to be the remains of the three missing men. Apparently, the animal tamer had fed their bodies to the predators when he had run out of sheep to feed the animals. Plenty of evidence was located that indicated that the man had moved the sheep to the camp, built a makeshift enclosure for them, and then brought the predators. They didn’t know how he had managed to keep the predators form slaughtering the small herd of sheep in a killing frenzy, but apparently, he had managed it somehow. The evidence indicated a systematic slaughter of the sheep over a long period of time.
Jim notified the people of Jonesboro that they had succeeded in killing the two lions, a bear, and the animal trainer responsible for the attacks. He further mentioned that they had found the camp, and detailed what they had learned during their investigation of the campsite. In summation, he informed the people that as far as the peacekeepers could tell the threat to Jonesboro, had been eliminated. He cautioned them to keep a wary eye out, for it was possible that another dangerous animal lurked in the forests around the city but as far as they k
new, they had located and killed all those in the area.
Before the peacekeepers left, several men approached Jim with a request. They wanted to go with the peacekeepers and train to become peacekeepers themselves and then return to the town to serve their community. Jim consulted with Pete regarding the matter and they both decided that such an idea had merit. Pete told them to gather up to ten men who were willing to leave Jonesboro for three months and report to the ship in two hours with a change of clothing. Everything else that they required would be provided by the peacekeepers. He warned them sternly that the peacekeepers tolerated no bullies and any peacekeeper who abused their training by persecuting the innocent were treated as traitors and hunted down by the peacekeepers.
Two hours later, ten men showed up. Clem was among them. The trip back to the peacekeeper base was crowded. The cargo bay was nearly wall-to-wall with sleepers but it was a short trip.
***
Pete and Maggie were married not long after their return to the base. Immediately following the marriage ceremony, the newly joined couple stood before the assembled peacekeepers and announced that they had asked Lisa to become their child and that she had agreed. There was thunderous applause from the assembled peacekeepers who knew what the child had endured as Reggie’s captive. All knew that it was best for the girl if they did not refer to that period in her life.
As Jim had promised, there was a formal ceremony promoting Maggie to lieutenant. Jim had also spoken of the valor displayed by Sergeant Wilcox and his pride in the entire crew of the Peacekeeper.
Sergeant Wilcox was released from medical restriction in three weeks. Bill Young’s injuries required better than a month to heal sufficiently for him to be taken off restriction. He had to undergo extensive rehab training to bring his atrophied muscles back up to par, but the enforced restrictions had brought about his full recovery. He even regained full use of the arm that had been jammed into the tiger’s mouth when he’d blocked the tiger’s attack with his forearm. That had especially worried Maggie who was pleased to see him make such an excellent recovery. The thigh wounds had been the most serious. One of the clawed trench wounds had come close to a major artery. Had that artery been severed, the man would have bled out in minutes, and nothing Maggie could have done would have prevented that fate.
The return of the Peacekeeper to their base with ten recruits from Jonesboro set in motion a chain of events that would lead to the institution of a new program to help communities seeking to reestablish law and order. The cities near the peacekeeper base were quick to find men willing to undergo the training and soon recruits representing a dozen cities were going through the rigorous training required to become a peacekeeper.
All new recruits were taught the unabridged history of the peacekeepers. It was made plain that anyone seeking the training to become bullies or abuse it against their fellow man would be best off to leave the training at that point, for the peacekeepers policed their own ranks. Anyone convicted of going rogue would pay the ultimate price for that folly. To emphasize that point, the trainers played the video of the execution of Reggie. That video was sufficient proof of their seriousness regarding rogues. A few did leave their training at that point. Of course, no one ever admitted that they were there to learn so that they could abuse the power and abilities. They usually cited moral differences with an outfit that would summarily execute a man. No one bothered the men who opted to leave, but notations of their names and all available information was kept in a file in their database. Priority would be given to accusations of crimes committed by these individuals in the future should such accusations be made.
Maggie, accompanied by the other two peacekeeper doctors, asked for a meeting with Jim, Pete, and Tim who were a sort of unofficial peacekeeper leadership council. The three men knew that if Maggie were requesting a meeting, then the reasons behind that request would be serious so naturally the meeting was arranged.
Maggie pointed out that many of their medical supplies were beginning to run low. She indicated that she was aware most major medical facilities would have been stripped bare by now, but requested that consideration be given to the factories that manufactured the products. Naturally if those factories were intact and still functioning they could not simply take their products from the owners but perhaps trade arrangements could be made. In the event that these factories had been abandoned, then no one would mind the peacekeepers putting the merchandise to use. The other two doctors concurred with her assessment that unless something was done to supplement their medical supplies, they would run out before the end of the year. They had all three compiled lists of what they thought the priorities should be and then they had compared their lists and formed one master list.
When Jim had asked how they would locate the factories, Maggie had an answer ready. “I took the liberty of having Patricia do a search for us,” she said sweetly and handing Jim a copy of the list of addresses of the factories. Then she handed him folders with the names of each of the locations printed on their covers. Inside the folders were lists of what the factories manufactured that were on their priority list.
“Ah, Maggie, it would seem you’ve made our decision relatively easy,” Jim said approvingly.
“That was my intention,” Maggie said truthfully.
In the weeks that followed, the Peacekeeper traveled to several of the factories and acquired the necessary medical components on Maggie’s list. They found the majority of the factories abandoned. The few that were not abandoned proved difficult to bargain with, and most of those had to be forgotten for the moment in the hopes that the materials they supplied could be had elsewhere. The refrigerated items were the hardest. In three of the four factories that listed those items, the power had been off so long that the medications were ruined, and the one still in operation proved impossible to deal with at all. The owners were waiting for civilization to be reestablished before releasing their products.
Convoys of peacekeeper trucks began to move mountains of medical equipment and supplies. Many of these supplies were distributed to local hospitals, whose staff was working without pay, but they were struggling to keep the population healthy.
They sorted, catalogued, and stored the remainder of the medical equipment in local abandoned factory buildings, which the local peacekeepers secured and safeguarded.
The overall success of this medical enterprise led to the same efforts in the months that followed in the area of communications equipment, computers, generators, tools, food, weapons, and ammunition. Alcoholic beverages were also sought out as a prime trade good that was in high demand.
Most of these items were stored in the abandoned factories in the city of Athens, Alabama in an industrial park located on the north side of the city with one access road in and out. With the permission of the city, these factories were utilized and the access road leading to them was blocked to public traffic. Guard shacks were set up at critical areas with the guards being rotated at eight-hour intervals.
The weapons and ammunition needed to be safeguarded at their base. This required the construction of another bunker specifically for that purpose. Several out of work construction crews offered to barter their services for food and a few other items. Teams of peacekeepers negotiated with these crews and soon professional construction crews were brought in to create the new bunker. It was decided that since they had labor readily available, they would construct a second bunker while they were at it and a third once the second unit had been completed.
The second bunker would house much of the food supply that the peacekeepers were retrieving in their supply convoy runs. The third would house the Peacekeeper ship itself and would be constructed into the side of a large hill.
These construction projects would be ongoing and would take another several months to complete but by the fall of that year, all three bunkers had been completed. The construction crews only knew what was to be housed in one of the bunkers and that one would serve as a hanger for the Pe
acekeeper. The purpose of the other two bunkers was known only to the peacekeepers.
As the Peacekeeper recruits began to complete their training, kits were put together for their use in their cities. These kits contained weapons and ammunition, computers, radio equipment, and assorted other miscellaneous items. In most cases, it took a tractor-trailer rig to deliver these loads of equipment. These new recruits were accompanied by a team of experienced peacekeepers who would help to set up the new peacekeeper base and organize it in such a manner that they were a boon to their community serving as a buffer between the decent citizens of their community and the outlaw bands that traveled at will. Once these bases were up and running, usually within thirty days, the experienced peacekeeper teams returned to their home base.
Moreover, word spread as the peacekeepers grew and prospered. Soon other cities petitioned peacekeeper bases requesting a base in their city. Always they were told to select men and women from their community who were willing to undergo the rigorous training required to become a peacekeeper, and many did so.
Slowly, bit by bit, city-by-city, organized civilization was being reestablished. Though the peacekeepers didn’t act as a government, they did make it possible for the decent people of the community to work together toward the common goal of restoring their communities as much as possible to a pre disaster level, though many of the cities were still without power.
However, there were elements that didn’t like what the peacekeepers were doing. There were elements of outlaws forced from their preferred areas by the peacekeepers, and in some cases, forced to move more than once. Some of these outlaw elements began to converge and discuss the peacekeepers, and what they should do about the people who were making their lives miserable.