by Ricky Sides
“Yes Ma’am,” said Robert.
Lacey went to the door and stepped out into the hall, but Maggie turned to the couple and said, “And no sex, you two, you’re both too weak.” Maggie grinned and left as Lina giggled and Robert blushed red.
“Maggie’s a riot isn’t she?” Lina asked grinning.
“Well she does bring up one thing which worries me. I’m so much older than you that I’m not sure I will be a suitable match, if you know what I mean,” Robert confessed.
“Will you love me when we are intimate, Robert?” Lina asked.
“More than anything in the world,” he confessed with a dreamy eyed look.
“That’s why it’s called making love, Robert,” Lina explained and gently pulled his face near hers to kiss him. “I had sex as a slave. As a wife, I will never have sex, but I will make love with my husband. Promise me, Robert, that you will never just have sex with me. Promise me that you will always make love when we come together as a man and a woman.”
“As God is my witness, Lina, I will always make love to you with tenderness and passion. It will never be just sex to me,” Robert said sincerely.
“Thank you Hun,” she said and kissed him again. “Now feed me before the doctor comes and makes you leave. Lacey is nice, but you’re my handsome man,” she said smiling contentedly.
Chapter 9
In the weeks that followed, both Lina and Robert slowly recovered from their ordeal while the peacekeepers made an all out effort to prepare a large scale force to go to Texas and stop the enslavement of the population by Wild Bill’s army of convicts. Radio warnings were sent to all peacekeeper outposts regarding what was happening. The Louisiana and Mississippi peacekeepers were especially concerned because of the projected invasion of their territory by the slavers. Both states recruited as many men and women as they could and sent them to Base 1 for training. By spring, the new recruits should be ready to return to their home states but the peacekeepers had no intentions of waiting for spring to move against the slavers. Lina and Robert both assured the peacekeepers that every week they waited, more people were enslaved, and innocents were dying.
By the end of the second week, Pol had completed his laser assemblies and the weapons tested as reliable. They immediately mounted them in the pillbox style concrete bunkers that Pete had ordered strategically located inside the base grounds.
By the end of the third week, they had installed Pol’s miniaturized lasers in the drones. Tim and the armorer had devised a reliable bomb for the version equipped with wings. Tim supplied the detonator and bomb expertise. He had spent the interim time locating the appropriate materials at some of the military bases. He’d explained that there were numerous detonators available, but only a few classes would be appropriate. The rest were just too dangerous to utilize. He worked with several peacekeepers and trained them in the safe manufacture of the bombs.
The armorer developed the release mechanism for reliably dropping the bombs. That proved to be more difficult than the bombs themselves, but after a day of testing, they had overcome that problem.
Lina and Robert were married in a ceremony that weekend. Jim gave away the bride and Maggie and Lacey were her bridesmaids. Robert had asked Pete to be his best man.
The fourth week they prepared everything for the trip to Texas. The armorer had been experimenting for two months and he thought he’d finally gotten everything right for the surprise that Pete was planning for the strike-force battle bike team. He went aboard the ship with a team of his apprentices and worked for three hours while the strike force team anxiously waited outside the ship to see the results.
Pete had authorized sufficient armor plating parts taken from the facility in Missouri to be cannibalized to form protective armored plating for the battle bikes and their riders. This required custom cutting the parts from the available pre-formed chest pieces and the bikes looked odd when completed, but now the riders would have a bulletproof fairing to protect their upper body and hands. Armor thigh guards were cut to fit below the fairing to cover the rider’s shins with an extra layer of protection.
Other pieces had been custom cut from shin guards to cover the top of the rider’s forearms. Ballistics helmets and faceguards were also located and added to their equipment. The crew tested that and steadfastly refused the gear because they couldn’t wear it with their caps and they depended heavily upon the communications. This prompted the armorer to take one of the caps and cut off the bill. He handed the cut down cap to a man and said, “Now try the rest of the head gear.” To the delight of the strike force team, they found that the radios functioned perfectly without the bills and they accepted the equipment, though one of them did say that he felt as if he was wearing a Halloween costume when he was in his full gear.
The riders then tested the gear and the modified bikes. The bikes handled a bit differently, as was expected, since the alterations changed the aerodynamics of the bikes. Lieutenant Wilcox had the men practice until they were fully accustomed to the alterations. He also made the men wear their full plate every minute of every day that they were awake for several days. To assure that nobody cheated, the men had to wear all of the upper body gear in plain sight. The helmets were an exception to that rule. Those they only had to wear when riding. They became so accustomed to wearing their armor on the outside of their clothing that they requested permission to do so in battle as well as it was more comfortable causing Bill to groan and swear he’d never wear his in public. Pete had laughed and granted permission for the battle bike team to do so when riding because the slick hard surface of the armor was more apt to slide on the asphalt if they went down whereas the cloth would tend to cause more tumbling incidents.
While all of this was going on, Pete and Jim worked with the rest of the control room crew to work out the best means of attack. Thanks to the hard work of the armorer, they now had a large supply of ammunition for the minigun, which they planned to utilize extensively during the attacks. The two men who were the regular infantrymen attached to Bill’s sniper team, designated strike force team two, had the responsibility of learning to clean and reload the minigun. The men practiced diligently under the critical eyes of the armorer until they reached the point that they could accomplish the cleaning and reloading in forty minutes. The armorer slapped the men on the backs congratulating them, and then he taught them how to shave another ten minutes off the reloading time by skipping one step which didn’t really need to be taken every reload. However, he warned them that they must take the maintenance step every other reload or risk mechanical failure on the third firing cycle.
Pol tried out the control system that Patricia had designed for the drones and found that the interface was perfect. It was quickly decided that it would be best to land, open the cargo bay door and have the strike force team carry the drones outside for takeoff and that they would need to land to retrieve the drones. It was simply too dangerous to attempt takeoffs and landings inside the cargo bay in flight, though Pol could do so, as he’d proven. Nevertheless, even he said he felt it too risky. Of course, two operators were required to fly the drones. Pol would fly one and Bill would fly the other unless they were busy in which case two of the snipers would fill in. They were also trained in all aspects of the drones including weapons practice. The lasers were accurate and powerful despite their diminutive size. The bombs were small but nasty anti-personnel things designed to take out crowds of the enemy. They were very reliable despite the low altitude dropping points that left them little room to fall to gain momentum. To compensate for the lack of altitude, all four men learned to drop the bombs ahead of time at high speed so that their forward momentum would carry them on to the target and guarantee detonation. They were prone to failure when dropped in hover mode because the bombs dropped too slowly from that low altitude to gain the kinetic energy required to activate the triggering device upon impact, unless they struck an extremely rigid surface.
The ship and the strike teams would bear
much of the burden of prosecuting this short but violent conflict against the slavers. First on the agenda was liberating the people in the two factories in Eastland. Then they would take on the two smaller farms. Once they had reached all four of those goals, they would proceed to the largest farm and the largest concentration of men.
A team of the Louisiana peacekeepers had volunteered to scout the city of Eastland. They located the two factories. They had also managed to learn where most of the three hundred or so convicts spent the majority of their time and where the factory slaves were quartered. None other than Clem, whose team was gaining a reputation among the peacekeepers as Those Crazy Cajuns, led that team.
The day before leaving for Texas, they spent loading the Peacekeeper with everything from food and medical supplies, to ammunition. The entire crew had orders to make last checks on their battle armor and the condition of their personal weapons. The busy control room crew got an assist from the bored men of the strike force teams in inspecting and cleaning their personal weapons and Pete went back over their work ensuring that everything was as it should be.
One of the cabins was altered and the men who were normally quartered there gave up their quarters for the duration of this mission as Lina and Robert came onboard. The inside information that these two had on the day to day operations of a slave farm would be an incredible asset, so they would be going to act as advisors. Once this mission ended, they planned to undergo peacekeeper training and join the peacekeeper trucking section. That suited both just perfectly as they both had wanderlust and missed traveling. In the peacekeepers, they would normally be traveling with at least one other truck, and quite often five or more. These small convoys offered additional security on the road.
A convoy of peacekeeper transports had been prepared and several hundred peacekeepers would be traveling by land to the city of Eastland. In addition to the transports for personnel were the supply trucks, which would accompany the convoy. These trucks carried food, ammunition, and medical supplies. All of the personnel involved in the coming conflict had been issued full battle armor taken from the Missouri facility. This took every scrap of the hard armor that they could muster and was the primary reason that only three hundred fighting men and women would be going on the trip. Pete vowed to find a way to get the factory in Missouri back up and running at least enough to create additional battle armor hard shell components in the future.
It would take the convoy an estimated fifteen hours to travel the distance of eight hundred miles to Eastland but that was if everything went perfectly which was seldom the case. The ground forces would get to the slaves and defend them from attack while the ship handled most of the heavy fighting.
Some curious radio traffic caused Patricia to approach Pete and Jim who were having coffee in the mess hall. She said, “Captain, I think you’d better come to the control room. There’s something going on that you should know about,” she said grinning merrily, but when questioned she refused to elaborate.
As they entered the control room, Pete noted that her grin must be infectious for every crewmember present was smiling broadly. Patricia played back a tape she’d recorded and the two peacekeeper commanders listened intently as peacekeeper elements from Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, and Arkansas all spoke of the coming conflict. “I hope that was on our secured channel,” Pete said.
“Oh it was,” Patricia assured him, however it was on an auxiliary channel that we have for backup. I think they mean to surprise us and were afraid we’d order them not to do what they have in mind,” Patricia explained.
“Which is?” Pete asked.
“Better if you hear it from them, sir,” Patricia stated and pushed play again.
Jim listened for a moment and then he had her stop the tape. “Rewind it to the beginning but before you press play, get the rest of the crew in here.”
Soon the control room was crowded as every soul onboard the Peacekeeper stood listening entranced by what they were hearing. They listened as a radio meeting took place between the peacekeepers from the states of Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, and Arkansas.
A deep male voice spoke up saying, “This is Arkansas, and my commander wants to know how many of the Crazy Cajuns are planning to meet at the rendezvous point.”
“Arkansas, this is Louisiana,” a female with a mellow tone responded. “All of us will be going. The town will be safe enough but we are targeted for a spring invasion and we sort of resent that,” she said simply.
“Well my commander says to inform you that he’s bringing you all some special sauce he made himself,” the deep male voice said in response. “He’s also bringing most of our personnel. We have a hot spot here and he can’t bring us all. The guys are drawing lots now to see who has to stay,” he said. In the background, they heard a woman cursing and asking one of the guys to trade straws with her, but the man laughed and said he aimed to go kill a slaver or two.
Georgia spoke up saying that they were also sending a large segment of their total numbers and that their folks had left hours ago to make the scheduled rendezvous. The spokesman sounded bitterly disappointed that he would miss the liberation of the slaves when he said, “Y’all free a man or woman for me, and let them know the folks of Georgia commiserate with their misery.”
“Will do, Georgia,” replied the deep voiced Arkansas man.
Tennessee spoke up saying that they also had a team en route to the planned meeting spot. Their representative was a female with a light tenor voice who said, “We remember Alamo and what you folks did for us.”
“Tennessee, this is Mississippi. How long have you been waiting to use that line?” asked a man who sounded amused.
The woman from Tennessee giggled and said, “A while now, but the chance finally presented itself and I couldn’t resist.” Pausing a moment she ruffled a piece of paper and said, “We’re sending a substantial number of our people, but my commander would skin me alive if I said how many even on a secure channel.”
“Good man then,” stated Mississippi. “It would be crazy to assume that no one would ever be able to get into this channel. My commander says the same thing to me all the time.” Then just as evasively, the man added, “But Mississippi will be there. One of our guys is bringing along a football. He thinks he can organize some sort of southeastern playoff,” the man said this last laughing.
“He just told them Mississippi is sending at least eleven peacekeepers,” Lieutenant Wilcox said laughing. “It takes eleven to form a team.”
One by one, the other states reported that they could participate in the playoff series thus confirming that at least eleven peacekeepers were coming from each state. They all wished each other luck and signed off.
“Well I’ll be,” said Pete smiling. It was all he could manage at the moment.
Chapter 10
The trip began well before sunrise the next morning. The ground vehicles left first and when they reached northwestern Alabama, they found several vehicles loaded with supplies and personnel from the northwestern Alabama element of the peacekeepers. These vehicles fell in behind the convoy and one of the convoy leaders reported to the peacekeepers aboard the ship that the northwestern Alabama peacekeepers had just joined them.
“Well that really shouldn’t surprise us,” Jim said grinning as the ship lifted to fly out and join the convoy. They’d waited a while since they would have to travel slowly or leave the convoy behind. In view of the fact that the convoy was starting in the dark, but would be passing through safe territory, they opted to wait for daylight to begin their journey. They knew that they could easily overtake the convoy in short order. Night flying could be done. They’d done it before, but Tim preferred daylight because of the possibility of hitting power lines or other obstacles, which could be difficult to see in the darkness.
The convoy passed through Mississippi into Tennessee, and a while later they entered Arkansas. Just across the Arkansas line, they encountered the large conv
oy of peacekeepers that had converged from the surrounding states to link up with those peacekeepers from Base 1. It was an impressive sight as the large convoy fell in behind the other peacekeepers to the cheers of the Base 1 contingent.
Pol couldn’t resist the urge any longer and he asked, “Captain, permission to launch the drones?”
“It can be done safely?” Jim asked.
“At this speed, aye, sir, it can,” Pol said and then he added. “There are no bombs loaded at the moment or I wouldn’t ask.”
Jim knew that Pol wanted to show off his project, and Bill seemed equally eager. Tim and Pete both smiled and nodded and Jim said, “Go aft and have the crew prepare the drones for launching. It wouldn’t hurt to test the ability and the show should break the monotony of the trip for the convoy,” Jim said smiling.
A few minutes later, the drivers in the convoy saw the Peacekeeper slowly flying past them to take the lead. The point man’s jaw dropped as the ship descended to one hundred feet and the rear door opened. A man waved at him and disappeared. A moment later, a small replica of the ship emerged followed quickly by another, which had wings. The two drones separated. One went to the left of the convoy and the other went to the right. Hovering stationary at an altitude of ten feet the drones were clearly visible to the drivers as they drove past the floating ships. A few moments into the hover, both ships accelerated toward the rear of the convoy. The cargo bay door on the big ship closed as the two drones flew with a burst of speed toward the rear of the column, climbing as they did so. When they reached the end of the convoy, the ships came about in a climbing turn and flew back toward the mother ship at an incredible speed. The Peacekeeper climbed as the two ships approached and shot forward with a sudden burst of acceleration as it climbed. The two drones matched its course and speed. When they drew near their mother ship the drone with no wings flew alongside the control room on the left. The drone with wings took the same position on the right.