by Ricky Sides
Nodding her head, Maggie began to equip the suit, which she put on over her normal clothing. As she did so, she spoke to Pete saying, “Once we have the samples we will come back to the ship. We’ll strip off the gear outside and pile it on the ground. It is imperative that they burn the ship and equipment completely. Pol and I will have to take turns using the shower. Absolutely no one is to come near us until we’ve scrubbed and decontaminated.”
Her husband nodded his understanding and said, “You just be careful not to contaminate yourself.”
Maggie smiled at her husband and said, “I’ve done this sort of thing before, granted just once, but I know the protocols inside out.”
Speaking to Tim, Maggie said, “Once you determine the wind direction please land upwind and turn the control room door away from the ship as an added safety precaution.”
“All right, Maggie, we’ll be there in just a few minutes.” Then Tim addressed Pete saying, “Pete, you’d better check their gas mask filters. God only knows how long those masks have been in storage.”
“Good point,” Pete said and he hastily examined the filters. “I believe they will be alright. They seem to be a bit stopped up, but they should serve for a few minutes. But if either of you encounter difficulty breathing, you should head back to the ship at once. Try to keep them on and don’t take them off beside the bodies.” Then he looked at Pol and said, “Maggie knows what to expect, Pol, but try not to throw up in the gas mask. If you feel sick, get back to the ship. Get on the safe side and then remove the mask.”
“Thank you my friend,” Pol said, looking a bit apprehensive at the thought of throwing up inside the mask.
“Landing,” Tim reported.
Maggie pulled the built in hood of the jumpsuit over her head gesturing for Pol to do the same. They both equipped their gas masks and then their heavy rubber gloves. When they were ready to depart Pete made them stand with their legs spread and arms extended. Pete and Jim inspected the suits for the slightest tears. It was determined that they were ready to go after this final inspection.
Tim had landed the Peacekeeper so smoothly that they hadn’t even noticed. Turning to Maggie, he did something that he almost never did. He exercised his authority as a council member formally when he said, “Doctor, I know you feel that you have a duty to perform here and I won’t interfere, but under no circumstances are you to go below deck on that ship. I’m really not even comfortable with you boarding the ship. I’d prefer you to get your samples from the two men on the beach.”
“Yes, sir,” Maggie said with a trace of resentment and Tim turned away. She was angry and he knew it, but he didn’t want to lose the fiery doctor so he had added the warning.
When Maggie and Pol had left and the door was sealed, Pete stepped over beside Tim and quietly thanked him.
Tim shrugged and said, “She’ll still do what she feels she has to do, but maybe what I said will at least make her more cautious. I hope I’m wrong, but I have a gut feeling that this is bad. Really bad.”
“She’s a pro, and Pol is with her. She wouldn’t want to endanger him, but if she hears someone below, she’ll probably check it out. She may anyway, just to make sure she isn’t condemning someone to being burned alive,” Pete observed.
Once they were outside, Pol and Maggie stared up at the fighters maintaining guard near the ship and then moved out to approach the bodies of the men on the beach. When they got to them, Maggie knelt in the sand and examined the bodies carefully. From the condition of their bodies, both appeared to have been dead at least two days. “Let’s take the samples from these two subjects,” Maggie stated. Pol opened a case and handed her the implements as she requested them. Soon they had the samples she needed and stored them in sealable plastic bags.
“Are you breathing ok, Pol?” Maggie asked.
“It is a bit difficult but I am fine,” Pol remarked.
“I have to check the ship Pol. I can’t just assume there are no sick survivors aboard,” Maggie explained.
Pol nodded gravely and said, “Then I will be the one to go below deck. You must stay above deck.”
“Why should you be the one to go below?” Maggie asked.
“Have you ever been aboard such ships as this?” Pol asked.
“No, I can’t say that I have,” Maggie answered.
“I once spent a week aboard a very similar model, while doing some research,” Pol explained. “This model will have a few differences, but the layout will be familiar to me.”
“Then let’s go. I want us to complete this as soon as possible and then decontaminate. Remember to try to avoid direct contact with the bodies or any bodily fluids,” Maggie reminded the scientist.
“You stay on the beach,” Pol said. “There is no sense in both of us getting wet and the water would be neck deep for you.”
“How could you possibly know that?” Maggie asked.
“I did explain that I had experience with such small ships,” Pol said and shrugged. “I know approximately how much of the ship is below the waterline.”
“All right, but be careful,” Maggie cautioned.
Pol set aside all unnecessary gear taking only a flashlight with him. He waded out into the surf and soon he had reached the side of the ship. He jumped up and grabbed the rail. Pulling himself up, he athletically hooked a leg over the rail. In moments, he stood dripping on the tilted deck. In two minutes, he was able to discern that everyone on deck was dead. Pol walked down the short flight of stairs and turned on his flashlight. He found himself in a small room that was a combination bedroom and kitchen. There were two dead men in this area. He made his way to the small bathroom and opened the door. In the bathroom, he found a mess. Apparently, someone had tried to get to the bathroom to throw up, and had been unable to get to the small commode in time. Bloody vomit had dried on the floor and splashed the side of the toilet. Pol left the door open and returned to the deck. He had been careful to touch nothing but the doorknob and he had avoided the dried pools of vomit.
Pol eased himself back over the side and moved back to the beach with a steady but rapid pace. It was getting more difficult to breathe and the stench from the dead bodies was terrible, even through the partially stopped up mask. When he was close enough to Maggie for her to hear him through the gas mask he said, “No survivors. All aboard appear to have died several days ago.” He waded ashore and then he said, “As terrible as this sounds, Maggie, I think it best we didn’t find any survivors. I don’t think we are ready to deal with this threat.”
Maggie nodded her understanding and then she said, “Head back to the ship. You’re dripping wet. You shower first.”
“Under the circumstances I must decline. It is more important for you to decontaminate first because if this isn’t contained, then you and the other doctors just became indispensable,” Pol said soberly.
Maggie shook her head, giving up and turned to walk back to the Peacekeeper. At the ship, they followed the protocols for disrobing from the possibly contaminated outer clothing. Maggie stripped off her boots as well and then she discarded her shirt and pants while Pol stood with his back to her. Then she entered the ship, headed straight for the shower, barefoot and in her underwear. The crew in the control room averted their eyes as she returned, knowing that she was taking no chances by bringing any of her outer clothing inside the ship.
Maggie left the samples in their special case outside the door to the infirmary on her way to the shower. The crew knew not to touch the package. She didn’t want to risk contaminating the infirmary. She would decontaminate everything that the sample and case had touched, but first it was urgent that she and Pol decontaminate themselves to prevent the possibility of them contaminating areas inside the ship.
Outside, Pol stripped down to his underwear, dropping his clothing to the top of the pile of Maggie’s gear. He entered the ship and headed to the cargo bay where he stood behind a stack of crates waiting to take his shower.
When Maggie exited t
he shower, Pete was waiting at the door with a robe. Sliding into the robe, she exited and saw Pol’s head above a stack of crates. She warned him to scrub well, but not to abrade the skin. A break in the skin could admit disease organisms and easily lead to infection.
As they walked toward their cabin, Pol shouted for Pete to be a gentleman and leave his robe on the floor outside the bathroom for him, and then he told Pete where it was located in his cabin.
Twenty minutes later the Peacekeeper hovered over the discarded pile of gear and the belly gun incinerated the entire pile. The heat was so intense that it fused the sand in that area. Next, the two bodies on the beach were incinerated. Then they took the ship out to hover near the small ship. The task of incinerating the bodies on the ship was not easy. The bodies beneath the deck weren’t exposed, and moving them was out of the question. Maggie was almost certain that they were dealing with a virulent communicable disease. Tim used the Peacekeeper to gently push and manipulate the ship until he had it further up toward the beach. It took thirty minutes for the Peacekeeper to incinerate the ship sufficiently to be certain they had gotten all of the bodies. Once the ship was burned down to the waterline their task grew much more difficult as water lapped over the sides, but eventually they were sure that they had gotten all of the bodies.
Chapter 8
Namid flew east in her assigned search area. She wasn’t certain exactly what she was looking for, but she knew that she was to look for any sign of abnormal deaths in the region. She knew that other fighters had been assigned to fly in all directions from the area where the ship had come ashore. She was following a little country road when she came to the little village. She saw little evidence of people at first and that bothered her. At this time of the day, the people should have been busy tending their gardens or going about other daily activities. She circled the village and slowed her airspeed to a crawl. She was about to give up when she saw the field behind the village as she passed over a row of trees that screened the field from the village proper. In the field, she saw a dozen fresh graves and lying on the ground near one of the graves was a man. Using her video camera Namid captured the scene and sent a video feed to the Peacekeeper.
Jim’s voice immediately spoke in her radio saying, “Phoenix, zoom in on the man on the ground please.”
Namid complied and said, “It looks like the disease has spread, sir.”
“We’ve noted your coordinates, Phoenix. Please proceed with the search. I take it that you’ve seen no evidence of survivors there,” Jim said sadly.
“No, sir. No evidence of a living soul here. They may have left to look for help,” Namid speculated and then she added, “I see luggage piled on top of some vehicles as if they were planning to leave.”
“Roger, Phoenix, we see it in your feed. Proceed to the next city please,” Jim responded.
“On my way,” Namid replied.
For a few minutes, she flew and saw no further sign of humanity. Then she came up behind a car parked on the highway. Slowing to observe the automobile, she saw a man and a child lying beside the car. Namid sent a video feed of that scene to the Peacekeeper and said, “It looks as if the man got sick and stopped and the child tried to help him, before she too succumbed to the sickness, sir.” The bloody splotches were on the faces of both the man and the young girl of indeterminate age.
“Resume your search, Phoenix, and go to maximum altitude,” Jim ordered.
“Aye, sir,” Namid responded and throttled her fighter away from the victims, all too willing to put that scene behind her.
A bit later, she came to a larger city. “Oh my God!” Namid said in shock as she saw the hundreds of bodies lying where they had fallen along the streets of the city. “My God, sir. Are, are you getting this?” she asked quietly as she stared at the dead and noted not a single living soul in the city below.
“We see, Phoenix. Proceed to the next city. We have to determine the extent of the spread of this disease,” Jim replied.
“Roger, Peacekeeper, on my way,” Namid replied and tore her eyes from the scene below. She throttled up the fighter and soon she was back over the rural countryside. All too soon, she came to the next small community and saw a similar scene. In the streets below were scores of dead bodies.
It was the same at the next city, and the next. Finally, Namid flew within sight of columns of smoke rising into the air to the east. Turning on her camera, she sent the feed to the Peacekeeper and reported the sighting. Jim asked her to fly toward the nearest smoke column to see what she could learn. The flight to the designated smoke column took just minutes. Namid saw the source of the black oily smoke column and stared stunned at the tableau unfolding on the ground beneath her.
In the Peacekeeper, the control room crew stared in disbelief at their monitors. They saw dump trucks dumping bodies in massive piles. Men wearing protective clothing were spraying a flammable liquid on the piles. The men then moved away from the piles of bodies, lit the safety flares, and then tossed them onto the piles. There were two other piles of bodies near that area. When the fires burned down men would spray the bodies again.
Some of the men on the ground waved up to Namid in the fighter as she hovered there observing the proceedings. The people of Louisiana were no strangers to the peacekeeper fighters. Though the state hadn’t had its own fighter wing long, they had flown over the area frequently. Namid’s radio activated and a man’s voice greeted her saying, “Peacekeeper pilot, this is the acting Mayor Reagan of New Orleans. Do not land. There is an epidemic in the city and there is a great risk of contamination.”
“Roger, sir,” Namid responded, and then she said, “I just flew here from the west. I passed through eight small towns and they were also infected with the disease. How bad is your situation here in New Orleans?”
There was a momentary pause and then the man said, “We have already lost half our population and we fear we’ll lose half of the survivors. The disease hits fast and it hits hard. The symptoms are fever, coughing, vomiting, and the vomit contains blood. In the final stages, the victims have open lesions that bleed. The disease seems to transmit through physical contact with bodily fluids and does not seem airborne. Thank God for that. We now know how to stop the disease in the city and by this time, day after tomorrow; it should have run its course. It is imperative that cleanup is handled very carefully to prevent infection. In one city shelter we lost thousands of people and after making sure that no one remained alive inside we sealed and burned the whole structure.”
Maggie, who had heard the conversation inside the Peacekeeper, spoke up at that point. She introduced herself and asked what about the mortality rate of the disease, the suggested cure, and the duration of the illness. There was a brief pause and then the man said, “The disease has a one hundred percent mortality rate. We have found no cure that works. There is no cure that we’ve found that works. The illness seems to incubate in a few hours. Our doctors tell me, six to twelve hours, depending upon the victim’s immune system. The fever comes first, and the disease progresses through the other symptoms to end with the bleeding lesions. Death comes within hours of the appearance of the lesions. The entire illness from the onset of symptoms to death seems to take between twenty-four and thirty hours.”
“Mayor Reagan, this is Captain Jim Wilison. Is there anything that we can do to assist you?” Jim asked.
“Captain, it would be great if you can see to the bodies in the other cities so that no one brings further contamination here. And while you’re at it you’d better get someone to check on the Reager Industries representatives who were here a few days ago.”
In the fighter above the city, Namid felt a cold chill come over her as she thought about the possibility of the disease spreading to other cities. She listened as Jim said, “How many were in New Orleans, sir. Please give me all of the details.”
“Three men came down to the city to discuss a trade deal with the mayor and our city council. They were traveling in one of their
flying cars and they were here when the disease first broke out. They may be fine. They didn’t go near anyone sick so there was no reason to think they’d been exposed, but after they left we learned that a portion of the food supply had been contaminated and we have no way to know whether or not they ate any of the contaminated food during their stay here. They left yesterday and said that they would be flying straight back to Michigan,” Mayor Reagan concluded.
“Wouldn’t cooking kill the disease?” Jim asked Maggie.
“Yes, but it is likely that this time of the year there would be fresh food you don’t cook, such as tomatoes, lettuce and a few other items. They’d be washed, but only rinsed off, so the disease would still be present though diluted to a degree.”
“Mayor Reagan, do you know if the visitors had a salad during their stay?” Maggie asked the man.
“No, I’m sorry Doctor. I have no idea what they ate.” the mayor replied.
“Don’t worry about the bodies in the other cities mayor. We’ll take care of that problem,” Jim assured the man and wished him luck.
***
The first priority of the peacekeepers was to see that the disease did not spread. To that end, Jim contacted the Lake Charles fighter wing and ordered them to put a fighter in the air above each city that the disease had hit thus far. Their mission was to warn off anyone approaching the cities. Next, he contacted the Detroit based peacekeepers and explained the situation to them. They were to fly patrols around the city and report any obvious signs of the disease having reached the city of Saginaw, and report back to the council on their findings. Then Jim had Patricia to get Bob Reager on the radio. That took half an hour, but when he became available, Jim explained the situation to the man. He informed Jim that the men had not yet arrived and that there had been no radio contact with them. This concerned Bob since they had expected the men on the previous evening. He said that they had a search team standing by ready to go look for the men. Jim cautioned him to have his men beware the possibility that the missing men had come down with the disease and then quietly explained about the loss of life in New Orleans and the cities between the ship they had found and the large metropolitan city. Bob agreed to contact the Detroit officials and inquire about the men.