The Peacekeepers. Books 4 - 6.

by Ricky Sides

“My friend, I think you have solved our problem. What a wonderful idea,” Pol said smiling. Then he said, “I’ll run the numbers and see what I can come up with and have a conclusive answer for you in a few minutes.”

  “Thank you, Pol,” Jim said. “I’m glad I could help.”

  Two hours later Pol presented a sketch of a fighter with a battery-weapons package module attached to the bottom of the fuselage. He said, “The news is better than I anticipated. Assuming the fighter has a full charge to its main battery and that the auxiliary weapon’s battery is also fully charged, then you can get four, three-second bursts, or one twelve second sustained burst.”

  “Isn’t that roughly the same performance that we get out of the conventional fighter miniguns?” asked Jim.

  “Give or take a few seconds, yes,” Pete replied grinning.

  “Pol, can you set up an assembly line production system as was done for the main laser system?” asked Pete.

  “Yes but this weapon is more complex and will require more work stations and personnel,” Pol answered.

  “Do we have the components needed to make this happen?” Tim asked from his navigator’s position.

  “Yes, but some of the components are not in California. They are at Base 1 in storage,” Pol responded.

  Turing to Patricia, Jim ordered, “After the meeting, get the list from Pol and get a message to the base to have the items loaded and shipped to the Carwell facility.”

  “Send a two fighter escort, as well as a strong ground escort,” Pete added. “Tell them to coordinate with Texas, and California. I want Texas to send two fighters to intercept the convoy. When they do so, then the Base 1 fighters are to return to their base. The California fighters are to meet the Texas fighters at the California, state border and take over the escort duty. Under no circumstances is a flight to leave the convoy without air cover, if one of the teams is late for a rendezvous.”

  Pete explained, “I’ve wanted to drill the three bases on just such a relay, and this is the perfect opportunity.”

  “Do we also wish to retrofit the existing fighters or do we leave those as they are currently configured?” asked Pol.

  “There is also a third option,” Jim pointed out. “We could actually remove the conventional miniguns and replace them with the energy versions.”

  “If they work out and test as expected we could cut down the numbers of the conventionally armed fighters,” Pete agreed. “But I’d like to have at least ten fighters, per fighter wing, armed with the conventional weapons as backup in protracted battles where power may run low.”

  The other council members agreed that this was a sensible precaution and that if the weapons tested well, then that would be their approach. This would enable them to rectify the shortage of conventional miniguns, should they be unable to locate more, and it would free up units, which the patrol class ships they were hoping to develop in the coming months could utilize.

  However, they hadn’t quite given up on locating the missing stockpile of miniguns that the factory should have had in the days leading up to the day of the quakes.

  Later that afternoon they landed in the parking area at Dillon Aero.

  Even though the peacekeepers had visited Dillon Aero facility in the past, they made no assumptions regarding the safety of the location. Lieutenant Wilcox and the two strike force teams entered the facility to clear it before any other member of the crew set foot on the ground. Namid hovered facing the door through which the teams had entered. Twelve minutes elapsed before the teams exited the building and gave the all clear. The lieutenant reported that they had located no assembled weapons, though they had located a large quantity of parts.

  “Please tell me that the power is on,” Patricia said hopefully.

  “It is now,” the lieutenant said with a grin.

  They entered the facility. Some of the strike force members would provide security guarding both Patricia and Pol. The two computer experts coaxed as much information as possible from the computers of the executives and the shipping and receiving department. The rest of the strike force members would secure the entrances to the facility.

  For three and a half hours, they searched the many computers in the facility before Patricia finally found a file that revealed some useful information. On the day of the quakes, an unnamed government official activated a standing agreement between the company and the government. The company was to load a series of company trailers with all of their assembled weapons systems. Those weapons systems would be picked up by drivers under government contract, who would present the agreed upon credentials. The drivers would then hook their rigs to the trailers and transfer the weapons to the agreed upon location for safekeeping until the national state of emergency had passed. The crates were to be marked tool and die equipment.

  Patricia reported her findings to the council. Pete took special interest in her report. He returned to the Peacekeeper and pulled up one of his files. It was a report made by the team of peacekeepers who were sent in an attempt to determine if any miniguns were present at the Dillon Aero facility. The team leader had reported finding a tractor-trailer rig with the Dillon Aero logo, which had been involved in an accident on the highway to the east of Scottsdale. The team had been excited at first and had gone to the trouble to cut the lock off the back door and scramble inside to examine the contents of the trailer, but it had been filled with crates of tool and die equipment. Examining the report Pete smiled and sent a guard to ask everyone to secure the facility and return to the ship as quickly as possible.

  The sun was almost set when the Peacekeeper landed beside the Dillon Aero trailer. The truck had run off the road into the median where it had collided with another vehicle. The cargo bay door was opening even as the ship settled to the ground. Strike force team one was out and inside the trailer before Pete and the other council members could reach the back of the truck. They were prying one of the crates open when the council stopped at the back of the trailer. Soon the packing material was exposed and then the fading light of the late afternoon sun revealed the working end of a minigun.

  “Search the tractor. Look for maps or any documents that might reveal the destination this truck was heading for when it crashed,” Jim ordered and then he radioed the ship and requested that Pol attempt to find a landing spot so that the crates could be loaded aboard the battleship drone.

  By the time they had safely secured the last crate inside the battleship, it was nearly ten in the evening. The truck had contained twenty crates. There had been no maps inside the cab of the truck. The council decided to return to the Dillon Aero facility where they would sleep in shifts and tomorrow they would again look at the parts that were available in the facility before leaving to go to Millbrae.

  A search of the available parts in the facility revealed that it was a replacement parts bonanza. Pete had a message sent for the armorer and his assistants to come to the Dillon Aero facility with two of the tractor-trailers and an armed escort. They were to secure the parts and transport them to Base 1.

  They locked up the facility and headed for California. It was time to return to Carwell Industries, a place they had all begun to consider a home away from home.

  Chapter 6

  The work at the Carwell facility proceeded smoothly. Pol’s adaptations to tilt the nose of the fighters worked well on the aircraft and the one hundred thirteen planes built, received the newer minigun style lasers to complement their main lasers. They were all pleased to see that Pol’s feasibility study was vindicated when the fighters averaged twelve second sustained bursts, or four three-second bursts and the fighters could still maintain defensive capability with the main laser. Pol credited Jim with the innovative idea but Jim declined the credit saying that he had just been thinking way outside the box and the majority of his idea had been impossible to implement.

  The peacekeeper council called in the fighters in small groups. A large team, who had learned to install the modified battery modules, an
d laser miniguns, set about the work of removing all but thirty-one of the conventional miniguns on the first generation fighters. Laser versions replaced those units.

  The crew of the Peacekeeper attended the graduation ceremony for the flight class and then assigned the new pilots to their bases. Lina was among the graduates, and she graduated in the top ten. Jim wasn’t overly surprised when Lina volunteered for assignment to the Texas base. It seemed to Jim that Lina’s destiny was tied to that state.

  Pol turned his attention to the modifications, which would permit the merger of the battleship drone and the Peacekeeper. Before the work could begin, the council insisted on seeing a demonstration with one of the drones. With the help of the research of the Detroit engineer, Pol was able to demonstrate that the drone could be attached to an alloy structure and detached successfully. The council then gave their blessings for the work on the battleship to commence.

  By now the second large shipment of the alloy had arrived and after that, the deliveries would probably be smaller, at least until the factory in Saginaw ramped up to full production capability.

  First, Pol drew a draft of the superstructure additions to the battleship, which the council approved, but the council did request an addition to his design. They wanted the capability for one fighter to land in the cargo bay so that, if the need arose, their escort fighter could land for munitions replenishment in midair. Once the draft was amended, the work on the superstructure began. First, the framework was laid, as had been the case when the battleship had first been created. The battleship served as a foundation for the rest of the superstructure. Once the framework was in place the workers who had helped to manufacture the battleship put their experience to work and soon the outer hull was complete. The work inside the ship took another month with men and women working in shifts. Finally, all of the work on the addition was completed. The wiring was run, lighting installed and the furnishings were put into place. Heating and cooling units were also installed, as were additional booth style tables. Now every crewmember would have quarters available and for the first time it would be possible for the entire crew to eat together in the larger mess hall, if they so desired. There was also a fully stocked galley in the battleship.

  For three days, systems were tested and then retested. Finally, the time came for the big test. Patricia had worked out a computer program, which would bring the Peacekeeper inside the rectangular opening with twelve inches of clearance. When the ship was two inches above the deck, the computer backed it carefully into its cavern-like niche. The Peacekeeper had landed with the front fifteen feet of the ship protruding from the niche. Special panels slid from the battleship toward the Peacekeeper. These panels were custom cut to fit snuggly against the outer hull of the ship where they touched its surface. The appropriate current was sent through those panels fusing them seamlessly with the hull of the Peacekeeper. That same charge transferred through the rest of the hull and fused the bottom of the ship to the deck of the battleship upon which it rested.

  Pol and the others exited the Peacekeeper and entered the main section of the battleship module. Viewing the seams from inside, they determined that the two ships were now joined as one. For all practical purposes, the two separate ships had been merged into a single aircraft.

  Now it was time to test the release of the ship, so they went back inside the Peacekeeper and conducted that test. The hulls separated and the retractable panels slid back into their retracted position, giving the Peacekeeper clearance to depart. Jim wanted a full test so Tim had the computer guide them out of the recess and into open airspace. Everything worked flawlessly. The two ships were merged again. It was time to try a full range of flight and weapons tests.

  The first flight test that Jim wanted to perform was a test of the hover sleep mode. The Peacekeeper always landed at night when the crew slept in shifts. This was necessary because the ship was light enough to be pushed around a great deal by the force of the wind pushing on its surface. He wanted to test Patricia’s computer program that would automatically make adjustments if the ship were moved from its parking position two hundred feet above the ground. Therefore, the first hour they conducted that test. At the end of the test, they had determined that unless there were strong storm winds present, the ship could quite efficiently maintain its parking position. Using the global positioning system, they determined that their drift during that hour was imperceptible by the system. Whether or not the ship could maintain its position in storm winds would have to be tested later.

  While the parking test was being conducted, Jim and Pete walked through the ship checking to see if the aircraft was showing signs of structural stress. One of the easiest ways to accomplish this was to test doors. All of the doors had worked flawlessly prior to the first flight of the new battleship module. If the doors began to function improperly that was a sure sign of structural stress. All crewmembers knew to report immediately even the slightest problem with any door. There were also numerous laser style sensors on the exterior of the ship. Those laser sensors would sound an alarm if they broke contact with their receiving sensors. That system had been designed to be a first alert at the slightest amount of warping of the superstructure. They found everything to be in working order, so they returned to the Peacekeeper just as the parking test was being completed.

  Jim used the intercom to let the crewmembers know that they were about to begin their test flight and that all should be aware that they would be running a gambit of aerial maneuvers so the crew should prepare for what would probably be a rough ride.

  The configuration was tested stringently for a full eight hours. They flew out to a remote area in the desert and every weapon aboard was tested and then tested again. Pete attempted to use the rear gun of the Peacekeeper, but the computer told him that the ship was in battleship mode; therefore, that weapon system was unavailable. He got the same result when he attempted to employ the belly gun. Of course, for safety reasons the power couplings to those weapons had been disconnected prior to the test. He found that the control system for the weapons was working efficiently. In battleship mode, he had control of the main laser, and the minigun of the Peacekeeper, as well as the battleship laser minigun, and forward laser. He was also the bombardier.

  As part of the testing, the duty cook prepared a meal in the new battleship galley and the ship was parked above the desert while most of the crew assembled in the new mess hall for the meal. When the crew finished their meal, the pilot, weapons officer, and the communications specialist were relieved of duty by replacements so that they could enjoy their dinner.

  During the dinner, the control room crew congratulated Pol on the success of his designing and engineering work that had produced the new battleship module. After that, the talk turned to the next project that they were to undertake. Jim stated that he wanted a crew to be trained in every step of the manufacturing process so that once the initial patrol ship was up and running they would be able to return to other duties. Pete concurred, saying that they really needed to tour the various bases so that they could get an idea as to who would be able to maintain a ship, and of course, who had the manpower needed to operate one as well.

  Pol explained that he had given a great deal of thought to the patrol class ships and thought it best to keep them relatively small. He felt that the Peacekeeper was almost the ideal size for a patrol class ship, though he wanted the cargo bay area to be about twice the size as that of the Peacekeeper. This was necessary if the patrol ships were to be of more use in troop transport duty. Pol wanted to as closely as possible duplicate the remainder of the design; however, he felt that it would be best to go with the winged model. Since they wouldn’t be able to obtain the energy efficient appliances that the Peacekeeper contained, the addition of wings would permit a larger battery area for the extra power those units would require and gave them a platform for better weaponry such as the laser minigun. He also felt it best to equip them with bomb racks and a conventional minigun. H
is target goal was the same performance that the Peacekeeper enjoyed. The council readily agreed upon this plan.

  The conversation then turned to the location where these ships would be constructed. As much as they all liked California, there were drawbacks to manufacturing the ships there. Chief among those drawbacks was the sheer distance that raw materials would have to be transported. Tennessee was the closest base to the Saginaw based raw material supplier, but that base was on a property that wouldn’t meet all their needs, because it was too small, though it was large enough to house a Tennessee peacekeeper patrol ship. Base 1 was the closest base with sufficient space for manufacturing the ships though the new crews would need to pick them up almost as soon as they had completed the testing.

  Laughing, Patricia pointed out that this wouldn’t be a problem. The other bases wanted ships so badly that the biggest problem might be getting them to wait until the ships were fully tested before arriving to take possession of their patrol ships.

  Pol pointed out that the biggest problem that they would have to contend with was water. There simply wasn’t an existing means to generate water in the manner that the Peacekeeper could. That prototype system was so far ahead of anything existing as to make it impossible to substitute even grossly less efficient units, and sadly the factory that had created that system was gone now. An earthquake had destroyed the facility and what hadn’t been destroyed by the quake had burned in the subsequent fire. He explained that the best that they would be able to do was add a storage tank to hold a few hundred gallons of water but the crew would have to monitor water levels closely and refill the tank when needed.

  Pol added that he had redesigned the sleeping quarters and went with bunk beds, the frames of which would be formed from the alloy and permanently attached to the walls. This design would remedy the chronic bunk shortage that the Peacekeeper had endured. This would make it possible for the patrol class ships to accommodate extra personnel when they were needed, as had so often been the case in the past. Since the ships would double as troop transports when needed, the extra bunk space would be a godsend.