The Peacekeepers. Books 4 - 6.

by Ricky Sides

  When questioned on the time needed to construct the ship, Pol answered carefully. He pointed out that the first ship would be the hardest, as they would have to work out everything for the first time. He estimated two and a half months to three months working in shifts to complete the prototype. Once they were past the learning curve, the next ship should be considerably faster. As he saw it, the day would come when they could produce one a month until they had the number of patrol ships they desired, and that number was based on the current work force of thirty trained men and women. By increasing the workforce, they could probably produce several in a month, provided the alloy and other raw materials were available.

  ***

  Two months and six days later, the first patrol class ship was ready for testing. It took an additional five days to work out all of the bugs, but finally the patrol ship was turned over to Captain Cliff Barnes of California. The captain had personally selected a crew who would serve on the ship. They had been at the base for the past month training in the Peacekeeper and were now ready to take charge of their own ship.

  The council decided to name the patrol class ships after the states that they would represent. It was a proud moment for Captain Barnes when he took command of the California, to the accompaniment of wild applause by the crew who had labored so diligently to build the patrol ship. The captain thanked the peacekeepers of Base 1 for their hard work, and then he ordered his Californians to board their ship. The crowd waited expectantly and soon the ship lifted up into the morning sky. It turned on its axis to face the west. As the patrol ship began its westward flight, the six fighter escorts from California lifted off from the fighter area and raced to catch their commander. As they approached the patrol ship, the fighters climbed above it and paced the ship on its homeward voyage. It was a magnificent moment in the history of the peacekeepers.

  ***

  In the six months that followed the maiden flight of the California under her new captain, the peacekeepers of Base 1 labored to build additional ships. For the most part the shipments of alloy managed to keep them adequately supplied but it was beginning to be difficult to locate the parts needed to build the lasers, and some of the chemicals needed to make the batteries were also becoming an issue.

  Pol had kept the promise to inform Reager Industries about the improved battery formula, and at first, the supplies that they had been able to locate seemed adequate. However, the patrol ships required large battery systems to handle the loads and now the chemicals were in short supply. Pol had contacted Bob Reager asking if they were having a similar problem locating the chemicals. Bob informed him that there was a supplier in Ohio, with whom his company had made a trade deal. That company had the capability of supplying all they needed. Bob suggested that the peacekeepers contact the same company and work out some sort of trade agreement.

  The peacekeepers had entered into negotiations with the company and worked out a complex trade agreement. The peacekeepers would obtain fuel oil shipments from their suppliers and deliver the fuel oil to the chemical supplier in exchange for quantities of the chemicals that they needed. In return for the fuel oil, the peacekeepers would provide fighter escorts for the crude oil supplier of the refinery, which was having difficulty in the Gulf of Mexico.

  It was this trade arrangement that had led to the need for an additional fighter wing to be based in the Lake Charles area of Louisiana. This required substantial work because the peacekeepers didn’t have a base established in southern Louisiana. The piracy in the Gulf of Mexico was a growing problem and the council felt it best to deal with the problem before it became too large to be manageable. A base was built in the region, with the blessings of the local population. The locals were happy to have a peacekeeper base in their area because of the stability they brought to regions once they were established.

  At first, this air base was composed of thirty fighters drawn from all three of the other air bases. Lina was among the fighter pilots based out of Texas who served in the Lake Charles operation. She served with distinction during the tour of duty, sinking several pirate vessels, which had dared to attack the cargo ships and oil tankers sailing in those waters. She also shot down two aircraft that the pirates had sought to utilize to combat the peacekeepers. Lina had learned to point shoot her little fighter and was now considered to be one of the top five pilots in the peacekeeper air force.

  The peacekeepers decided to open the Carwell facility again when a large supply of the laser components was located and Pol knew that he could arm additional fighters. Another one hundred fighters were manufactured in the months that followed, and another flight training class went through the training program. When that class graduated, half of the pilots relieved the thirty fighters temporarily assigned to the Lake Charles base. The other half went to the Detroit area where the latest peacekeeper base was being established at the request of Reager Industries and the Detroit manufacturing plant where the new vehicles were being manufactured. These fighters were needed to escort the shipments of new vehicles being sent to the various trading partners. Those shipments had come under increasing attacks by various bands of Marauders across the country as they traveled to deliver the new vehicles.

  One year from the date that the first sheet of alloy had been cut in the Saginaw facility, America was recovering slowly. Bob’s projections about what would happen when Americans regained the ability to travel safely had proven true, and Michigan, was ahead of the other states in the recovery of their state government.

  Chapter 7

  A wave caught the ship broadside and shoved it a bit further up the beach. The ship rocked violently, causing the three sick men to awaken. The three men struggled to their feet and stared out over the rail at the Louisiana, coastline where their ship had come ashore. Around them lay more than a dozen bodies of the men and women who hadn’t survived the voyage. The strongest of the three men scrambled over the side of the ship and dropped to the surf below. He felt weak from his exertions so he hesitated before attempting to flee to safety. Behind him, the two men called out asking him to help them but he ignored them and continued wading toward the beach. They already had visible on their faces, the sores that marked them as carriers of the disease. He knew that to stay with them was a death sentence.

  As he hobbled ashore, he heard them cursing him and then he heard the sound of splashing in the water behind him. He redoubled his efforts and soon he had waded out of the chest deep water and made it ashore. He wanted to rest, but he couldn’t. He could hear the others thrashing around behind him in the surf. He ran as best he could until he thought that his chest would explode and then he sat down to rest in the shade of a tree beside a road.

  The two desperately ill men in the surf disappeared under the water several times, as they tried to make it ashore. They were so weak that they kept falling, and by the time they had managed to drag themselves from the ocean, their former companion had disappeared. They sat down on the beach at a loss as to what they should do next. The water that they had inhaled as they had gone under the surface of the sea caused them to cough and gag. One threw up on the beach and stared horrified at the blood mingled throughout the vomit. The other man tried to crawl away from the man who had vomited when he saw the blood, but then he too vomited a large amount of blood. They both lay down on the beach then. They knew that the blood in the vomit meant that they were in the last stages of the disease and there was no hope for them. Twenty minutes later, one of the men died in his sleep. The other outlived him by half an hour, but then he died as well.

  The man who had left the two sick men behind rested in the shade for a few minutes. As he sat beneath the tree, Elian del Monte closed his eyes. Almost immediately, he fell asleep and began to dream that he was once more adrift in a boat of the damned, with dead people all about him. He awoke with a scream of panic. His heart beat rapidly in his chest. Sobbing, he realized that it had been a dream. Elian lumbered to his feet and struggled up the road for an hour until
he finally came to a small village.

  The people of the village greeted him warily, but with no hostility. He indicated that he was hungry and a woman who thought he might have become lost in the nearby swamps, kindly gave him a bowl of shrimp gumbo. Every year at least one or two people who had gotten lost in the swamp wandered into the village, so the stranger’s appearance there raised no alarm. He was so hungry that he wolfed down the gumbo, but the spicy dish was too much for his stomach, and he threw up. The woman and her husband became angry that the man had thrown up on their porch and the husband told him to leave. Grabbing the sick man by the arm the irate husband thrust him toward the steps and gestured for him to leave the village. His angry wife used old rags to mop up the vomit, disgustedly wiping some of the residue on the leg of her pants.

  Elian stopped a few feet out into the yard and coughed with his hand over his mouth. When he finished coughing, he looked at his palm and noted the red flecks in the phlegm. He grabbed his hair and started pulling at it as he screamed in terror. The man and woman on the porch thought the man had gone insane. Soon more men of the village arrived. Together, they forced the man to leave the village. He left walking up the road. He walked for an hour, and then a pickup truck loaded with freshly harvested corn stopped beside him. The kindhearted farmer driving the truck offered to let him ride into town if he didn’t mind resting on the corn. Elian spoke no English but he readily understood the farmer’s gestures when he motioned for him to ride in the back of the truck.

  Crawling into the back of the truck the sick man lay there trembling in exhaustion and weakness. The old farmer drove directly to the town, unaware that the jouncing about in the truck had caused the sick man to vomit on the corn. While the farmer and several men were unloading the crop, they discovered the vomit when they were exposed to the contents of the sick man’s stomach. One of the men thought that he noted flecks of blood in the vomit. They looked for the man but he had disappeared.

  Down the street from the busy farmers, Elian got a ride with a truck driver who was heading east. The driver was picking up food supplies from different communities and working his way toward New Orleans. He loaded these food supplies on the bed of his large flatbed truck. When he had a load, he would take the food east to New Orleans where it would join other loads collected by other drivers. The food collected by these drivers would be transferred into the city food bank.

  In the back of the truck, Elian sweated profusely and shivered. He had the fever now and was anxiously feeling of his face to see if the sores were beginning to appear. He didn’t know where he was going and he didn’t care. He just wanted to get as far away from the ship as possible before the Americans found it and began to figure out what was happening. He was afraid that the Americans would learn that he was here illegally and either deport him or kill him.

  The truck stopped at seven more small communities. At each community, the truck driver and some of the local men loaded food supplies that their community had grown. The truck driver was dropping off packages at the communities that contained the items the farmers had requested in return for the food shipments. Several times the truck driver had to ask the sick man to move aside because he was sitting on, or leaning against the packages that he needed. Elian did not understand the driver’s words but the man motioned with his hands, which helped Elian to understand what he wanted. He learned simply to move away from the items on the truck when they stopped and that seemed to please the driver.

  When they finally reached New Orleans late that night Elian was asleep in the back of the truck. The driver woke him and gestured for him to get out of the truck. The sick man saw that he had entered a large city. He coughed and got down out of the back of the truck. It was so dark that the driver failed to notice the bleeding sores on the man’s face. He watched briefly as the man walked slowly down the street and then he began the process of unloading the truck. A few minutes into the unloading process, the duty crew who had the night shift joined the truck driver. Working together, they unloaded the food in the darkness and carried it into the food warehouse. The driver complained about the darkness but he was told that the power was out again. Several of the men unloading the food supplies noted that some of the containers were sticky. It wasn’t until they got the containers inside where the light of lanterns illuminated the produce that they discovered that the man had apparently bled on some of the containers. “God I hope that guy doesn’t have AIDS!” the driver exclaimed in disgust.

  Blocks away from the sorting warehouse, Elian staggered and leaned against a wall. He was exhausted, and he didn’t know what to do. Two men stopped to assist him. “Come with us into the shelter,” an old black man, said kindly. He assumed that the man was newly arrived in New Orleans. A fellow survivor and just worn out from the road.

  The sick man followed the two strangers into the shelter where three thousand residents of the city were crammed into a space much too small to accommodate them all.

  The next day someone noticed that the man had died. They carried him out of the shelter and buried Elian del Monte.

  ***

  As had happened in the past upon numerous occasions, the first sign of pending trouble came via the radio. On a routine patrol flight, a group of the Louisiana fighters had discovered that a small ship had come ashore in southern Louisiana. They reported seeing bodies on the deck and two more on the shore and said that one of their pilots was hovering over them. From what the pilot could see, the people were all dead.

  It just so happened that the Peacekeeper was at the Louisiana air base on an inspection tour to see if they had made the improvements that Pete had recommended before they would qualify for a patrol ship. As the fighter messages began coming in, Patricia brought the messages to the attention of the council who asked her to put it on the speaker so that they could listen to the report. They heard the pilot who was hovering close to the ship describe the bodies. Maggie, who was visiting the control room, spoke up saying, “Tell them not to land. Get those fighters up and away from the bodies, and tell them to warn anyone who approaches the ship to stay away.”

  Patricia looked to Jim and he nodded for her to send the appropriate orders. “Thank you, Captain,” Maggie said. She explained that because of the description of the bodies, she thought they were dealing with a disease outbreak, and from the sound of it, the disease was extremely virulent. Turning to Patricia she asked, “Did the pilot send a video feed to the flight commander?”

  Patricia said that she thought so and then she said, “Captain, the base flight commander would like to know what is going on.”

  Jim nodded and picked up his microphone. “Commander, our doctor is aboard and she says from the description the pilot gave we are dealing with a deadly disease. Please send us your video feed so that she can examine it in detail.”

  “Yes, sir, right away,” replied the Commander. A moment later Patricia had the video feed playing on the monitor.

  “Damn,” Maggie cursed and then she said, “Alright, I apologize if I overstep my position here, but time is a critical factor. I need to get some equipment from the battleship infirmary, and then I’ll return. All non-essential personnel should transfer to the battleship. Once I’ve returned we need to separate from the battleship and go down there. We should land upwind of the boat. That part is important,” she said glancing at Tim who nodded his understanding. “Then I will get out in a protective suit and go in for a closer examination, but if this is what I think it is we will need to use the belly gun to burn the boat and the bodies.”

  “You’re fairly certain of all this, Maggie?” asked Jim.

  Shaking her head Maggie said, “No I’m not certain at this point. They could have also died of exposure to the elements and dehydration, but look at the puddles of blood on the deck. It looks as if they were vomiting blood. Taking the steps I am recommending is the safest way to proceed. I’ll know more when I collect samples.”

  “Alright, Maggie, you’re the doctor,�
� Jim said agreeably.

  “Will one of the suits fit me?” Pol asked quietly.

  “It would be best not to risk exposing another person,” Maggie stated.

  “With all due respect, Maggie, that violates all safety protocols and you know it. I will accompany you,” Pol said with an air of finality, and then he smiled and added, “It won’t be the first time I have worn protective gear and I know the protocols.”

  “Thank you, Pol,” Maggie said smiling and then she added, “Since you’ve had some training then you can come with me to watch my back.”

  Pete nodded his appreciation to Pol and walked over to take a closer look at the video feed while Maggie and Pol ran through the ship to the large, well-equipped infirmary located in the battleship module. As they ran, they heard the captain issuing orders for all crewmembers not presently on duty in the control room to proceed at once to the battleship section and make certain that the children were with them.

  In the infirmary, Maggie opened a storage room door and entered. Soon she emerged with two disposable low-level safety suits. Pol was already gathering the other items they would need. She was reassured that he did indeed know what he was doing when she glanced at the small pile of items that he had already collected. She handed him his gear and picked up her own. They would wait until they were in the Peacekeeper control room to equip the gear. Together they made their way back to the others.

  They reported to the control room and the Peacekeeper detached from the battleship module. “ETA?” Maggie asked as the Peacekeeper lifted into the sky.

  “Ten minutes,” Tim responded as he turned the Peacekeeper and headed toward the beached ship.