by Ricky Sides
“I agree. Just be careful,” Jim said and the pilot landed his fighter.
Namid told the other pilot to protect the man who’d just landed and she would watch Jeff’s back. This way they were organized so that both men would be adequately covered.
By now, Jeff had climbed back to his feet and was walking among the bodies checking for signs of survivors. He looked up briefly and Namid’s camera caught his face in a close up. He sadly shook his head and continued checking for survivors.
Namid’s current wing mate shouted a warning as three Dobermans charged the pilot who’d just landed and then he shot one with his laser and the pilot on the ground shot the other two. “Namid, order the pilots on the ground to return to their fighters and get airborne,” Jim ordered. “It’s simply too dangerous down there, and so far there have been no signs of survivors.”
Namid didn’t like the orders, but she relayed them as instructed. She knew intellectually that it was the right call to make. The pilots on the ground didn’t like the order either, but they obeyed. “We’ll be there in ten minutes. If the animals return, you are authorized to take your fighters to a hover just above the ground and try to kill them if you can target them without hitting the peacekeepers in the campsite. Meanwhile I want you to take turns strafing the woods behind the tents. Do not hit the campsite, but you are cleared to use your miniguns.”
“Roger that,” Namid said. Now that order she did like. The dogs were emerging from the woods, so the odds were that they would hit at least some of them in there.
Namid made the first strafing run. She methodically strafed the area as closely to the campsite as she dared. When she had expended her ammunition, she returned to hover over the interstate while another pilot made a similar run a bit deeper into the forest. By the time the last pilot had made his strafing run, the Peacekeeper was approaching for a landing. The pilots were ordered to clear the airspace so that the big ship could land. The moment the ship was down they were to fly cover for the ground personnel. Namid saw the little drone zipping past as it flew down to hover protectively over the center of the encampment. She saw the cargo bay door lowering as the Peacekeeper landed gently on the highway.
Lieutenant Wilcox and his men rushed down the ramp with their weapons at the ready. Jim and Pete, who would be escorting their wives, as they tried to see to the medical needs of the survivors, followed them. Jim paused for a moment, and located Namid’s fighter. He gave her the hand signal that told her she was responsible for ensuring unauthorized personnel did not enter the cargo bay door, which needed to be left open in case the ground team needed to retreat to the safety of the ship. Namid brought her fighter in a bit closer and the captain knew she had understood.
Lieutenant Wilcox and his men spread out into a skirmish line and moved into the camp checking for survivors, while keeping one eye on the wood line behind the tents.
Maggie and Lacey walked among the bodies hoping to find survivors whom they could help. Many of the peacekeepers had been killed in their tents and were still in their sleeping bags. Some appeared to have been stabbed multiple times. Others had their throats cut, and still others appeared to have been killed by animal attacks. Within ten minutes, they had confirmed that there were no survivors present. Jim and Pete had each counted the bodies. There were thirty-two. That meant that eight personnel were unaccounted for at the campsite. There were eight dead strangers among the dead peacekeepers.
The patrol ship Alabama was coming in for a landing when Jim escorted the two women back up the ramp. He saw them safely inside, and then he descended the ramp to await the arrival of the fifty men from Base 1. He ordered four of those men to guard the ramp of the Peacekeeper and then he radioed Namid to begin a spiral search pattern to see if she could see anything suspicious. That search pattern was to extend to a four-mile radius. If she saw nothing significant, then she was to return. The other fighters were to maintain the air cover for the site.
The Alabama had launched her two drones and those drones were sent over the woods on a similar mission.
Lieutenant Wilcox’s strike force team was relieved of the guard duty by the strike force team of the Alabama. Jim ordered Lieutenant Wilcox’s strike force team into the woods to search for survivors. It was risky. In the full darkness, the Dobermans would have a decided advantage if they were still in the area but the lieutenant and his men were aware of the danger, and had requested the assignment. The council knew that if any of the eight missing peacekeepers were still alive every moment counted, so they agreed to the plan.
Ten minutes into the search, the strike force team found the eight missing peacekeepers. They were located inside the woods approximately forty yards from the camp in a very small clearing. The peacekeepers were all dead. Their hands had been tied behind their backs. The lieutenant had his man with the helmet camera video the scene as his men lit up the area with their powerful flashlights. He had every square foot of the surrounding area filmed. The moment the video was completed, Lieutenant Wilcox sent two of his men back for the council. They would want to see this for themselves. He radioed Jim that he was sending two men to lead the council back and advised him that he might want to bring Maggie with him to determine the exact cause of death. “They may have been killed by our fighters, Captain. There’s no way for me to know for certain,” the lieutenant stated with a worried tone in his voice.
The moment that he heard those words Jim’s blood ran cold. He had ordered the strafing. If that order had led to the deaths of eight peacekeepers, he would never forgive himself. He was to blame, and not the pilot who did the shooting. The pilots were just following his orders.
Jim turned to Pete and quickly explained the situation. Pete radioed Maggie and Lacey asking the women to join them at the camp, and explaining that the eight missing peacekeepers had been located, and they needed Maggie to determine the cause of death. He did not explain why. While they were waiting for the women, Pete quietly said, “Jim, you had no way to know that peacekeepers were in the woods. From the air, it appeared that they were all in the camp. The body count was right. There was no way to know in the dark that some of the bodies were the enemy.” Stopping Pete looked his friend in the eyes and said, “No matter which way this falls, I want you to remember that,” Pete said. “I would have made the same call. In fact, I was just about to suggest a strafing run to eliminate the threat posed by the dogs, but you ordered it before I spoke up. And, Jim, that’s the truth.”
Jim nodded his acceptance of what Pete had said, but he had a cold knot in his stomach that refused to let go.
Maggie and Lacey joined Pete and Jim a few moments later and they left with the two strike force men the moment that they emerged from the wood line. It didn’t take them long to reach the rest of the strike force team. Maggie took a quick look at one of the bodies and glanced up at Pete. “I see why you sent for me,” she said, and then she and Lacey began to examine each of the bodies in a slow and deliberate manner. Maggie asked one of the medics to lend her a hand and they removed the shirt from one of the dead men. Turning her attention to the bullet wounds on the torso she told the medics and Lacey to note the absence of blood. She then looked at the wound on the neck and noted the wounds on the necks of the other seven peacekeepers. She opened a bag and passed out syringes to Lacey and the two medics present. “Pick a man and draw blood samples please,” she requested and then she tried to get a sample from the man she was working on. None of them were able to draw a significant amount of blood. They tried with fresh syringes on the remaining four bodies with the same results.
Next Maggie asked, “Have the bodies all been documented?”
Lieutenant Wilcox assured her that the bodies had been filmed in detail, as had the surrounding area.
“Lieutenant, please have your men pick the bodies up one at a time and hold them up while I examine the ground beneath them,” Maggie requested. The lieutenant nodded and two of his men stepped up to handle the job. The moment the body c
leared the ground, Maggie shined her flashlight on the forest floor where they had lain. Squatting low, she then illuminated the bottom portion of the body. This procedure was repeated with the seven remaining bodies. In each case, the two men returned the bodies to the ground as gently and respectfully as possible.
When the last body had been checked, Maggie thanked the men who stepped away from the body. She turned to face the council and said, “I don’t know which of you ordered the fighters to strafe the area, but you are not responsible for the deaths of these peacekeepers. They were already dead when the fighter hit them. Someone cut their jugulars and drained them dry.”
“Oh my God, Captain! Did I kill the Peacekeepers?!” Jim heard Namid ask through his hat radio. Her voice sounded as if she were near tears.
Looking up Jim saw a fighter hovering over them and realized that Namid must have completed her spiral search mission. “Three, three. No, Namid, they were already dead,” Jim stated reassuringly. He had to add her channel number and say it twice so that the Peacekeeper communications system would forward it to the correct recipient.
He heard her sigh of relief, and knew exactly how she felt, as she asked, “You’re certain, sir?” She sounded somewhat relieved, but still concerned.
Turning to Maggie Jim said, “You’d better explain to Namid. She was apparently the one who strafed this area and she is asking if she killed them.”
“Is that her overhead?” Maggie asked, and when Jim nodded she waved and contacted Namid. Maggie explained what had killed the peacekeepers.
“Sir, what the hell are we dealing with here? Some kind of vampires?” Lieutenant Wilcox asked.
“I don’t know yet, Lieutenant. But I assure you we will find out,” Jim said.
Chapter 5
It took four trips to recover the dead from the woods and then the process of loading the dead aboard the Alabama took another hour and a half. The Alabama would ferry the dead back to Base One where they would be buried. The Peacekeeper and an extra ten men who had been transported to the site by the Alabama would remain at the camp site. The remaining forty men would complete the mission of the dead peacekeeper convoy and drive the equipment back to the base.
The convoy pulled out at first light. The three Base One fighters would escort the convoy through Birmingham. A relief flight was en route to take over that mission. Once the relief flight arrived, Jeff Brown and the other two pilots would fly back to the base where their fighters could be serviced and rearmed. Namid’s fighter had already been serviced and she was once more flying cover for the Peacekeepers on the ground.
Now the ground forces moved back into the woods looking for signs of the enemy. They found two dead men and several dead Dobermans but they were unable to locate any sign of additional enemies. Then they went back to the small clearing to study that area again in the light of day. They found fresh tracks in the area that overlaid those that the peacekeepers had made when they had documented the scene and recovered the bodies.
The lieutenant reported these findings and was ordered to begin a spiral ground search with his men spread out in a skirmish line. Half an hour later, they spotted a small cave opening. The cave opening was situated part of the way up a rather steep hillside. The lieutenant remembered a conversation he’d had with a pilot who was an avid deer hunter. That pilot had confided that he sometimes went on air patrols of areas he planned to hunt and located deer trails because they were easier to spot from the air. With that in mind, the lieutenant requested that Patricia give Namid his coordinates and take a look at the hillside to his north to see if she spotted signs of a visible trail.
He noted that the cave opening was overhung and knew that it would be hard to spot from the air. But from his position he could see it clearly. It took Namid less than five minutes to arrive overhead. The lieutenant told her that he wanted her to carefully examine the forest floor to his north and tell him if she saw a trail. She immediately responded that yes there was a clearly visible trail that seemed to stop part of the way up a hillside. When asked if she could see the cave entrance she replied that she could not.
“Captain, we may have something here,” the lieutenant reported. He proceeded to explain why he thought that he might have located a possible area of interest. The captain ordered him to check it out, but if the situation got too hairy, he was to withdraw and regroup with the rest of the peacekeepers. If they had to do so, then they would bring in an army of peacekeepers to deal with this threat. No one killed a peacekeeper with impunity. Namid was to fly top cover for them. Meanwhile Jim, Pete, and seven of the ten men brought by the Alabama would be moving in the direction of the cave. Pol and another drone operator would fly their drones to cover the entrance.
Pol’s drone arrived near the entrance just as the lieutenant and his group were about to enter. Pol asked the lieutenant to wait while he examined the entrance with an infrared camera. He hovered in front of the entrance and activated the camera. Immediately Pol detected three hot forms lying in wait deep inside the darkened depths of the cave. “I see three forms. One is human but two appear to be canine,” Pol reported inside the Peacekeeper. Patricia relayed the information in the council radio channel.
“Guards?” speculated Jim.
“Most likely,” Pete answered. Using the radio, Pete asked Pol, “Can you navigate inside the cave?” You won’t lose the signal and lose control of your drone will you?”
“If they go deep enough belowground yes that will happen, but under the circumstances I think we should take the risk. Better a drone than another peacekeeper,” Pol said with feeling.
“I agree,” Tim said, joining the conversation in the council channel. Jim concurred.
Lieutenant Wilcox was informed that two dogs and a man were waiting inside the cave and that Pol was going to penetrate deeper to see what he could flush out. The lieutenant and his men were to move in behind Pol’s drone but be prepared for anything.
Pol flew deeper into the cavern. The entrance to the cave was easily large enough for him to enter with the drone. Just inside the cave entrance, the cavern opened up into a chamber about forty feet in diameter. The stone floor of the chamber sloped downward at an angle. People entering the cave would have to exit the short entrance corridor before they would be able to see the exit to the chamber situated to the left of the entrance in the wall on the far side of the chamber. To the right of that entrance was an outcropping of rock shelf that formed a ledge. The rock ledge was situated about four feet off the floor of the twelve-foot tall chamber. The three suspect guards lay prone on that ledge.
Pol flew the drone toward the ledge. The two canine forms he saw in the infrared image leapt up at the approach of the drone. Pol noted the human form shift positions and thought that the man held something in his hands. A moment later, he saw a bright flash and heard a rifle shot from the audio feed that he was receiving. That shot was answered by three shots from the strike force team who had just moved into the chamber.
“Thank you, Pol,” Lieutenant Wilcox said. He added, “That ambush could have been nasty.”
Pol moved his drone toward the next passage as he replied, “This is why I advocate the drones so much. I wish to save peacekeeper lives.” Pol was disappointed when he looked inside the next passage. “Lieutenant, the passage narrows too much for the drone. I’m afraid I have done all that I can to assist you. I will remain here and cover you and the men should you have to retreat.”
“Thanks, Pol,” the lieutenant said. Then something occurred to him and he said, “Captain, I think I remember once reading something about the cave systems around Birmingham. I feel airflow coming from this passage, so there is definitely a large exit somewhere. Do you think our computer files may have something on the local caves?”
“Patricia had that same thought, Lieutenant. She is cross-indexing to find out and should have some information soon. She started looking while we were leaving the ship. Meanwhile I’ll have Namid and the other drone try to loc
ate another exit. That corridor leads to the northwest?”
“Yes, Captain, but it may twist in any direction,” the lieutenant replied.
“That’s true, but it’s a starting point. You men be careful. Remember we are on our way to assist, if you need us,” Jim said.
Lieutenant Wilcox motioned for his best point man to lead the way, and he followed a moment behind him. The corridor was six feet wide at the beginning, but approximately sixteen feet inside the passageway, it narrowed down to about two feet wide. The roof of the corridor also sloped downward. At the beginning of the passageway, the roof was about ten feet from the dirt floor of the cave, but it tapered down to about six feet at the narrowest part of the corridor.
They were just approaching the narrowest part of the corridor when they heard an unmistakable sound of someone chambering a round in a weapon. The point man snapped his weapon up and fired five rounds in rapid succession down the corridor. He immediately rushed ahead down the corridor, and reported that he had killed another guard. He then told the lieutenant he should examine the guard. “Look at the guy’s teeth, sir,” the point man requested by way of explanation, and then he proceeded down the corridor to make room for the lieutenant.
His flashlight in hand, Lieutenant Wilcox knelt and examined the dead guard. He immediately saw what the point man meant. The man had fangs. Reaching into the man’s mouth, the lieutenant tried to remove the fangs thinking that they were fakes such as the ones he’d worn as a kid one Halloween. But the teeth did not detach. They were real teeth or some sort of implants.
The lieutenant reported this to the captain, who requested that his man with the helmet camera document that. Jim said that they had arrived at the entrance but were waiting to see if Namid or the drone located another entrance nearby. He informed the lieutenant that Patricia’s search had not been fruitful. There were plenty of references to caves in the area, but there was no useful documentation concerning their entrances.