by Ricky Sides
Four minutes from the time the air war had begun, it was over for all practical purposes. They later received a message that the pilots of the helicopters who’d accepted the offer had just landed beside a large peacekeeper checkpoint and been given a vehicle to leave in peace. Jim ordered the men there to guard the helicopters. A decision as to what to do with them would be made after the coming battle. Namid pointed out that some of the alternates from flight school who’d not won a seat in a fighter had helicopter experience and claimed to be good helicopter pilots.
Jim turned to Pol and said, “Execute phase three if you please.”
“Aye, Captain, commencing attack run,” Pol said calmly as he flew the battleship over the building that they had decided would be the primary target of their bombing run. “Bombardier, be ready,” Pol warned.
“Yes, Pol, I am ready,” said one strike force member who was serving as a drone operator for this phase of the mission. A minute later he reported, “Bombs away!”
When the bomb doors on the drone had opened, six vertically racked bombs had dropped through the thin steel roof of the target building into the large hangar below. That hangar was believed to be the barracks for hundreds of men and it was also believed that the armory was situated in some portion of that building. During their original raid, the reconnaissance video revealed unarmed men going into the building and exiting with rifles and boxes of ammunition.
The building was wracked by a series of explosions and then secondary explosions. Soon a black, oily smoke was issuing from several gaping holes in the roof. From what they could see, the interior was a raging inferno.
Next, the battleship turned to the fuel depot and circled the area hammering the men manning machinegun nests near that position with the forward miniguns, and continuing that punishment with the rear miniguns as they flew past. The fuel depot was not destroyed. They wanted to try to take that intact because fuel was still a rare commodity. With the battleship providing covering fire, the Peacekeeper landed and a squad of hand picked men exited the cargo bay door and took up defensive positions. Those men were not normally assigned to the Peacekeeper. The strike force teams were needed elsewhere or they would have conducted that mission.
A predator drone came within range of the battleship and fired its hellfire missiles. The Peacekeeper couldn’t jam those missiles. One of the peacekeeper fighters shot the predator out of the sky seconds after the launch. Pol had just a moment to react. He activated the resynchronization system and the nose of the battleship pitched upward. He fired a sustained burst with the main forward laser then and Namid said, “Oh my god. Look at that!” She was referring to the minigun style laser that Pol had developed for the battleship since it was so large that it should have the energy to spare to operate the very energy inefficient weapon. The weapon was spewing out an incredible six thousand shots per minute in a dazzling display of blue light. “It’s as if every round is a tracer,” Namid remarked. Pol scored a hit on the first missile immediately but it took two tries to get the remaining missile. “Oh yeah I want one of those!” Namid exclaimed in awe.
“So do I!” demanded Pete. “Is that Malcolm’s design that we once spoke of, Pol?”
“It is indeed my friend. Unfortunately, neither the Peacekeeper nor the fighter would be able to produce the energy required to utilize such a weapon. The fighter could never fire it at all and the Peacekeeper would be drained of power to critical levels after a five second burst. It’s just not practical,” Pol pointed out. “Plus the electrical leads on the battleship were designed specifically with the needs of that weapon in mind. The transfer wiring is incredibly thick to handle the load.”
“Damn,” said Namid causing Pete to grin and agree with her sentiments.
Two of the normal sized drones arrived to fly cover for the men at the gas depot and hovering above them was a fighter that was slowly turning on its axis, mounting a watchful guard as well.
The remaining drones and the fighters searched the area seeking out machinegun emplacements. This time there were far fewer than the last and Jim suspected that they had destroyed most of the machineguns during the initial raid and that Tom had been able to replace some but by no means all of those he’d lost.
They cleared the machineguns in and around the airport and then concentrated on personnel. Building after building was checked by pilots, who hovered their fighters, and by drones, which literally flew inside some of the hangar bays seeking out the enemy. More than one large pocket of men was flushed out of hiding by the little drones only to encounter fighters hovering outside. Caught between those two forces the men on the ground were cut to ribbons.
Thirty minutes from the time that they encountered the first helicopter the airport was securely in the hands of peacekeeper ground forces who’d been called in to secure the area from the troops they had in the encircling maneuver.
Several trucks loaded with citizens of Kansas arrived at the airport and the men spoke to the peacekeepers that were on the ground. Soon Jim received a radio message saying that the men who’d arrived were related to several females who’d been forcefully taken from their community and brought to Salina. Jim instructed the officer to tell the men that he thought he knew where he could find the women and he’d do his best to rescue them. He advised the man to tell the Kansas men to please stay out of the fighting and let them rescue the women. He was to point out that peacekeepers were trained to deal with this crisis and the best thing that the relatives and friends could do to help was to let them do their jobs without having to worry if the man they had targeted was an innocent man looking to free his wife. Soon the man radioed back that the men agreed. They didn’t like it, but they had agreed to stay out of the way and wait.
Phase three was completed. Now it was time to initiate phase four of the plan. The drones were sent in first and they took out several machinegun positions with their lasers and their bombs. But some of the defensive positions were so well constructed that the smaller bombs the drones carried were ineffective and that was when the fighters with their bombs proved their worth. They took out a dozen concrete pillboxes that housed heavy machineguns. Two drones flying between the fighters and the pillboxes took the massive damage that the fighters would have otherwise suffered and they crashed having been destroyed by the fifty caliber bullets, but they spared the lives of the pilots by taking the strafing that the fighters would have otherwise endured. Thankfully, Tom had possessed few of the fifty caliber machineguns. Most of his had been lost in the failed attempt to send his men against the peacekeeper base. It was an expensive victory but the peacekeepers had neutralized the outer defensive perimeter surrounding the Traveler’s Inn.
Moving in past the destroyed pillboxes the drones next encountered dozens of men armed with rocket propelled grenades. Another drone was lost in the initial contact in that defensive ring. Pol suggested that the battleship clear that area and he moved the drone in for the attack. The forward miniguns strafed one section of the area and as the battleship passed over the Traveler’s Inn, Pol opened fire with the main laser on the other side of the perimeter. The men on the ground were cut down where they stood and the laser blasted every square inch of ground in that vicinity. Three rocket propelled grenades were launched at the battleship but the laser blew those out of the sky as well.
Pol turned the battleship about and approached from another direction. This time he and another operator used the forward miniguns until they ran dry and then he had to wait until the rear gunners could finish off that target. He didn’t have the energy left for a sustained burst with the main laser. Pol flew away from the defensive perimeter to make way for the fighters and drones to finish off the resistance there but there wasn’t a lot left to be mopped up. The firepower of the battleship was simply amazing.
The next defensive ring was infantry located behind concrete walls. The infantry was firing at the peacekeepers from behind those walls. Drones lined up to strafe those defensive positions. It was a
slaughter and more than one drone operator felt deep regret at the need for such a slaughter, but when men go bad and decide to prey upon the weak and innocent you have to treat them like mad dogs and not men. They understood that what they were doing was necessary, but they didn’t like having to do what they were doing. Here and there handfuls of men slipped away from that death trap and the peacekeepers let them, for now. If they had failed to learn a lesson then they would fight them again another day, but for now innocent lives were at stake and they focused their attention on saving them.
Chapter 30
Phase five of the plan called for the drones to encircle the Traveler’s Inn completely, and then fire on any enemy seeking to fire at the peacekeepers from the windows. Once the drones were in position, Jim used the external speakers to communicate with the men trapped inside. “Gentlemen, this is Jim Wilison, Captain of the Peacekeeper. That’s the big ship you see hovering outside the front of the hotel. Your kingdom is hereby dissolved by order of the peacekeepers and the good citizens of Kansas. The airport is under our control. The entire state has been liberated from your rule. We know that you have captives inside with you and I demand that they be released immediately or we will be forced to come in and get them.”
“What do the drones report at the rear of the building, Patricia?” Jim asked as he waited for an answer from the men inside the building.
“They’ve spotted two guards up on the third floor in the back rooms and neutralized them, sir. They say if Pol drops down low enough to carry out the plan then the men on the second floor would see the lower portion of the battleship. Sir, they are reporting that some of the men on the second floor have grenade launchers.” Patricia stated.
“Thank you, Lieutenant. Have the drones surrounding the place all fly right up to those windows. Let’s see if the men inside really want to go face to face with the drones. I’m betting they’ll find an excuse to go elsewhere, and if other drones are crowding in then the men on the second floor won’t think it so odd that the battleship is snuggled up close,” Jim reasoned.
“Aye, sir,” Patricia said. A moment later she reported that the trick had worked and the men armed with the grenade launchers had left for other areas.
“Pol, begin the maneuver,” Jim ordered. “Let me know when you need the noise to cover the entry,” he added.
Speaking through the external speakers again Jim said, “Gentlemen, my patience has its limits. Release the captive women this minute or suffer the consequences.”
“We are ready, Jim,” Pol said.
“Fire when ready, Pete,” Jim stated.
Pete opened fire with the minigun shredding the concrete wall that separated the ship from the hotel.
Behind the hotel strike force teams one and two were standing atop the battleship. They sent men through two windows into two separate rooms. The captive women were led back to the windows where boards had been situated for them to cross. Some of the women were frightened and had to be coaxed to cross the boards but most were so relieved to be rescued at last that they were more than willing to cross the boards. Two of the women were behaving oddly. They would do as they were instructed but they would respond to no one verbally.
One of the men motioned for the liberated women to join him near the center of the battleship and he opened a small access port in the top of the hull, which Pol had ordered created when the plan had been conceived back at Base 1. They dropped the five feet into the bowels of the ship and a man was waiting there to lead them away from the entrance to make room for everyone.
On top of the drone, several more men entered the already cleared rooms. On cue, they entered the halls and began to go door to door looking for more women. They found more in two of the rooms and led them back down the hall to the rooms where they could access the wooden planks to get to the top of the drone. Once there, other men led them to the access port and they too were safe.
Lieutenant Wilcox, standing by the window, asked several of the women how many women were prisoners in the hotel. All said fourteen. That left one woman still in need of rescue. The lieutenant ordered his men to continue the search. So far, they had not located Lina and he felt a surge of hope that Lina was the missing woman. Several of his team stopped near the two staircases and stood guard. Others stopped near the elevator to guard it as the rest of those inside searched the other rooms. They found Lina tied to a bed in the master suite. One of the men motioned for her to be quiet and covered her naked body with the bedspread while others cut the ropes, which were tied to her limbs.
The men quickly discovered that Lina was drugged out of her mind. They gently wrapped the woman in the bedspread and then the lieutenant ordered one of the biggest peacekeepers in the room to pick her up and take her to the waiting battleship. The big peacekeeper got her over one shoulder with ease and headed for the battleship. The team quickly made their way back to the windows and crossed the planks.
Two minutes later the battleship gently climbed and flew at a gentle ten miles per hour toward the airport with its precious cargo. “Congratulations, Pol, that was some delicate maneuvering to have to maintain for such an extended period of time,” Jim stated. Shaking his head he said, “I never would have thought of using the battleship for a life raft. Lieutenant Wilcox is to be commended for the plan.”
“Patricia,” Jim said, “Please tell the strike teams that I said well done. As usual, their performance was superb.”
“Done, sir. The Lieutenant wishes for me to thank you and inform you that they have Lina, but she appears to be heavily drugged. All of the women have been sexually abused and raped numerous times. Some are in bad shape emotionally and he is requesting Maggie, sir,” Patricia said.
“Tell the Lieutenant we’ll have her at the airport in just a moment, and that he is to have his men ready to board the moment that we arrive. Have him arrange for security with the peacekeepers stationed there on the ground.” Jim replied. Turning toward Namid he said, “Navigator, take us to the airport and set us down beside the battleship. We will return once personnel have come aboard and others have disembarked.”
“Aye, Captain,” said Namid.
“Communications, relay a message to the drone operators and fighters. Tell them what we are doing and why. They are to maintain a sharp vigilance while we are gone for a few minutes,” Jim ordered.
As the Peacekeeper made the short trip to the airport Jim went aft to the infirmary where he found Lacey and Maggie preparing to disembark to see to the former captives. “You already know about the request?” he asked.
“I was standing at the end of the hallway by the control room when Patricia told you, Captain,” Maggie said grinning.
“Your timing is superb, and you're both wearing your armor. That's good,” said Jim. He kissed Lacey and told her to be careful and hurriedly wished Maggie luck and then he ran back to the control room.
The Peacekeeper was settling to the ground as he resumed his seat. “Nice landing, Lieutenant. If you want to trade positions with Tim permanently I’ll speak to him regarding the matter,” he said teasing her.
“No thank you, sir. I love flying this ship, but I miss my little fighter. I can make her dance you know,” said Namid with a wink, and then she said, “Cargo bay door open, sir.”
“I’ll be in the cargo bay seeing to the personnel,” Jim said.
Jim found that Lacey and Maggie had already disembarked and the strike force teams were boarding and celebrating. He congratulated them all on their daring rescue. Calling the lieutenant aside, he asked about the condition of the women. The lieutenant said he thought that a couple might need some really serious mental help. They seemed catatonic. They would follow any order given but would react verbally to nothing anyone said to them.
“And Lina?” Jim asked.
The lieutenant frowned and said, “It’s bad, sir. As bad as any I’ve ever seen.” The lieutenant paused and shook his head, then added, “She’s almost as thin as she was when she turned
up at our base after her flight from Texas.” Pausing again he said, “There’s something else, sir. There were dozens of needle tracks in her arms. Apparently Tom has kept her drugged almost constantly.”
“Thank you for the report, Lieutenant. See to your men and then join us in the control room. You earned the right to see firsthand what happens next.”
“And the boys, sir?” the lieutenant asked hopefully.
“They’re welcome as well. Just don’t sit on any buttons,” Jim said and walked back to the control room.
“Secure the cargo bay door, Lieutenant,” Jim said. Then he added, “Please take us back to the hotel.”
Beside Jim, Lieutenant Wilcox said, “Sir, there is something that you should know.”
“Go ahead, Lieutenant, I’m listening,” Jim said.
“Originally there were twenty-six female captives. Twelve were strangled by Tom Whitmore,” the lieutenant said with his eyes flashing angrily.
“Thank you, Lieutenant. I’ll bear that in mind when the time comes to punish him,” Jim said cryptically.
Standing by the windshield as the ship lifted into the air Jim saw a group of men and women hugging each other and crying. One man and woman turned and waved up to him and Jim thought that he was the man he’d seen holding a boy earlier on the way to Salina. He waved back and smiled. Another group of men sat on the tarmac with dejected and lost expressions on their faces. Many sat with their heads in their hands. “Namid,” Jim said softly.