by Ricky Sides
“One of the women cut the lieutenant’s neck pretty bad. He’ll be ok, but she nicked an artery or vein near the jugular. The medic pulled medical rank on him, and made him evacuate on a stretcher,” the sergeant explained.
“Good for you,” Pete said addressing the medic. Smiling he added, “If I know the lieutenant, he didn’t like that very much.”
“You know him very well then, sir,” the medic said, and laughed. He knew he’d done the right thing even if it turned out that it wasn’t as bad as he feared, and he fervently hoped that in this case, he had been wrong.
The two parties merged and headed back the way the lieutenant’s party had come. The ship was on that side, and if Maggie was treating a serious wound, Jim didn’t want the ship moved to come pick them up.
It was well past dark by the time they emerged. They entered the ship and locked up their prisoner in an empty cabin. A guard was posted outside the door.
Pete did a head count, and when all personnel were accounted for, he radioed Jim. Jim ordered Namid to land and then he had Pol to land his drone. The bay door was sealed and the Peacekeeper was parked for the night, hovering two hundred feet above the cavern complex.
The crew was so exhausted that they ate a quick meal and made preparations for the night with prisoners aboard their ship. The prisoners were fed and a five gallon bucket was placed in each room along with toilet paper and a bottle of water. This was accomplished in the presence of several guards, and was handled one room at a time. To be certain that none of the prisoners escaped, alloy bars were sealed to the outside of the alloy walls and doors thus making them escape proof. Now the crew could rest with the normal security precautions. All of the crew was exhausted and needed the rest.
Chapter 9
Lieutenant Wilcox was doing well, but he wouldn’t be ready to return to duty for at least a day. The medic had been right to make the call that he’d made in the field but he had been wrong about the artery affected. The damage had begun to heal and in a few days, the lieutenant would be as good as new. He would be able to return to duty the next day but would have to suffer the heavy bandage for a few days and he would be on restricted duty.
Both of the laptops contained files that were password protected. Patricia had some difficulty with the one that Pete’s men had found but she easily accessed the other unit. The computers proved to be loaded with evidence. There were disgusting digital photographs of the cult performing their ceremonies. Many showed them clearly murdering their victims. The one the lieutenant’s men had found showed the cultists torturing and murdering people. The female cultists were as guilty as their male counterparts. Many photographs depicted them as being the executioners.
One string of photographs was of an especially lovely woman with long dark hair who was sitting in a chair before the assembled cultists. She was holding a small child who seemed to be clinging to her in fear. In another picture, the woman had her fingers under the child’s chin. She had tilted the child’s head up so that she could look into the little girl’s eyes. She seemed to be conveying a sense of warmth and trust. The child’s mouth was parted in a warm smile, which conveyed her trust in the adult who held her. In the next photograph, the woman’s right index finger was on the child’s neck and a trickle of blood was clearly visible. The child’s face and eyes were now twisted in fear, pain, and confusion and her lips were contorted by her agony. But the woman’s beatific smile remained in place as her eyes stared into those of the child. In the fourth photograph of that series, the woman’s head was bent and the photographer had gotten a close up of the woman’s lips pressed tightly against the child’s neck. The child’s left arm dangled loosely as the woman’s hands held the child in a deadly embrace.
Pol had to relieve Patricia after those photographs were revealed. She needed to go to her cabin for a few minutes to regain her composure. Those photographs alone were sufficient reason for the death sentence in the eyes of the council, but there were more. Hundreds more.
There were also files that contained photographs of the cult’s hospital and college dormitory nests. There were exterior and interior shots. There was also a file that contained photographs of the entrance to another nest cave that they had not yet found. Interior pictures of the cave showed a massive cavern where at least a hundred cultists had gathered. Printouts of the cave entrance were made, so that Namid and the other pilots of the ship and drones could study the entrance area and try to visualize what it must look like from the air.
By then, Patricia had regained her composure sufficiently to return to duty. She studied that photograph for a moment and then she zoomed in on a shape in the background. She enhanced the photograph and began to smile. Clearly visible in the distance was the Birmingham, Alabama, fifty-six foot statue of Vulcan atop its one hundred twenty-three foot stand. Further enhancement cleared up which specific portion of the body of the statue was visible from the cave side. They now had a good reference for lowering the search perimeters for that cave nest.
The spiral notebook was also a significant find. That notebook was the property of the cult leader for that nest. It contained the names of the cult elders. Clarissa was named as an elder, as were both Claudius and Thanatos. The peacekeepers suspected that none of the names were the real names of the cult elders. The cultists who lived in the caves favored Clarissa. Claudius was the representative favored by those cultists who had made the former college dormitory their home. Those cultists who dwelled in the abandoned hospital favored Thanatos.
The notebook was an important source for the peacekeepers because it revealed who these leaders were and where they might be found. It also revealed how the cult was ruled in more detail. Each elder ruled their sect of the cult independently. They gathered together only rarely and then only for the time required to perform the ceremony after which they went their separate ways.
***
By noon that day the strike force team had gathered all of the items from the footlockers, which would be sorted to see if they contained any further evidence of value. They also brought out the bodies of a male and a female cult member. Those bodies were laid out on the ground. The Peacekeeper was detached from the battleship module. The captive cult members were brought from their temporary prisons, and tied to a log under very heavy guard. Pete addressed them saying, “You have been tried and convicted of your crimes. As a result of your convictions, you will be executed. However, we will be generous and shoot you. I can promise you a painless death, if you cooperate and answer my questions. If you refuse to cooperate, then you will not be given the painless death, but rather a horribly painful death. You decide.”
“I will tell you nothing. I do not fear you human. I am a child of the night,” One of the men said.
Smiling, Pete motioned for Tim to begin the demonstration. Tim brought the Peacekeeper around and activated the belly gun. He started at the toes of the dead male vampire. “Now imagine those are your feet,” Pete said and the man looked at him with an expression of horror as the smell of the burned flesh reached his nostrils. “Do you think you will smell that foul when it is your turn to die?” Pete asked sociably. “Of course you can always take the bullet to the back of the head. If you wish, then you won’t even see it coming.”
“What do you want to know peacekeeper?” the man asked as he watched the shins of the corpse turn to ash and then disintegrate.
“How many more nests are there, and how many cult members are in each nest?” Pete asked.
“You have found both south of the city. There is a large one on the northeast side of the city in a cave. There is a hospital inside the city that was abandoned after the quakes. It contains a nest. There is a college dormitory in another section of the city. It too was abandoned and reclaimed by us,” the man stated.
“How many in each nest?” Pete asked. Before the man could answer the question, the woman who had attacked Lieutenant Wilcox and spoken of Clarissa turned on the prisoner. She launched her body at him, a
nd clamped her fangs into his throat. Shaking her head violently she ripped out the man’s throat. Pete shot the man in the head. Turning to the woman he said, “You will answer my question.”
She spit blood and pieces of the man’s throat on Pete’s boots. “You don’t have the guts to carry out your threat,” she said and laughed at Pete. “Go ahead and kill me. You can’t make me talk.”
Pete holstered his pistol and called for Tim to stop. He did so and the beam stopped consuming the body. Pete wrapped several wraps of the woman’s lead rope around his wrist. Taking his knife from its sheath, he cut her lead rope free of the log and then returned the blade to its sheath. He walked toward the ship with the woman’s lead rope in his hand. When the rope was stretched taunt, he dragged her across the ground toward the ship. The woman cursed him but did not believe that he would actually go through with the execution. He dragged the woman to a position beside the corpse of the female vampire cult member, and tied her to that body at the waist and thigh. Walking back away from the bodies Pete signaled Tim to begin again.
“You can stop this when you decide to give me the information I want,” Pete said as the Peacekeeper’s belly gun cremated the corpse of the male cult member slowly, inch by inch. The females were positioned with their feet at the man’s head. By the time the beam reached the man’s chest, the female was ready to talk. She yelled that she would give Pete the information he wanted. Pete signaled Tim to stop.
“Clarissa’s cave nest holds about one hundred members. Claudius’ former college dormitory nest has ninety members. Thanatos’ abandoned hospital nest is home to one hundred twenty members,” the woman confessed.
Pete walked out to the woman and shot her in the forehead.
“You promised we wouldn’t see it coming!” one of the women cultists said.
“I said you wouldn’t see it coming if you cooperated. She didn’t, and she made me break my promise to the man who did cooperate. I had to shoot him from the front when she attacked him,” Pete said. “But since you are so eager to talk tell me when the attacks on the young children are scheduled to begin.”
“Last night, mister. That is why my nest took two of your men. To keep you tied up while other nests raided the city,” she said this last with an air of satisfaction.
Pete walked up and shot her in the forehead. Then he walked down the line shooting the rest of the captives. He wasn’t concerned about them experiencing fear as they died. They’d caused the little girl in the pictures terror before she died and countless others as well. Not to mention the forty peacekeepers who’d been murdered by the cult.
Pete radioed Tim and told him what he’d just learned. Tim said he’d dock with the battleship immediately. Pete ordered the crewmembers on guard back inside the bay doors. The sergeant got the head count and assured Pete that all personnel were present and accounted for. He sealed the cargo bay door.
When Pete entered the Peacekeeper control room he said, “We need help. We need a lot, and we need it fast.”
Jim said, “Patricia is radioing the base. If Bill is back with the Constitution, we can have him bring two hundred men. The Alabama can bring fifty.”
“Yes that would work fairly well. We’ll also need some air cover to help watch for members fleeing. I don’t know about you, but I think we need to eradicate this cult,” Pete said and paused. When he spoke, his voice was low as he said, “If they will do what they have done to heavily armed peacekeepers, then the average people in the area are in an incredible amount of danger. We already know what they do to children. That’s reason enough to eradicate them,” Pete said.
“I agree,” Jim said.
“So do I,” Tim concurred.
Jim leaned closer to Pete and quietly asked, “Would you have really let her be burned alive by the belly gun?”
Pete noticed that Tim was listening for his response as well. “No, Jim. We walk a fine line in what we do as peacekeepers. Sometimes the lines get fuzzy because of the need to be judge, jury, and executioner. But we have to operate this side of the line that separates us from the marauders. At some point, the ends do not justify the means.”
“Sir, I have Bill on the radio. He is offloading the Constitution at the base and then he has to take on supplies. He says that he can be ready to leave in two hours if you can get the orders through the channels at the base to have the men ready to board,” Patricia explained. “And the Captain of the Alabama says he can be ready in an hour if you can cut through the red tape to get the personnel assigned for the mission.”
“Thank them both for me,” Jim said. “Tell them we’ll contact the base commander and have the men there as soon as possible. And tell Bill we’ll be looking forward to hearing how his trip fared.”
“Should we bring in the Mississippi and the Georgia patrol ships?” asked Jim.
“I think we’ll have sufficient forces once the Constitution and the Alabama arrive. This is primarily going to be a ground conflict. If we have to do so, we can always transfer personnel from one nest site to another,” Pete said. Moving toward the radio he added, “I’ll get things moving at the base.”
***
When the Constitution arrived at the base, they were shocked to learn what had happened in their absence. As the materials that they had obtained were being unloaded at the base, other materials were being requisitioned and stacked on one of the new maintenance sleds. One of the patrol ship crews had mistaken the purpose for the new sleds and had used one to load cargo into the back of their patrol ship. One of the crewmembers had explained that the sled could be improved if they made the rear portion of the guardrails solid so that packages being taken aboard the ship wouldn’t fall through the gaps as the sled tilted on an angle when it flew up the cargo ramp.
Pol’s assistants soon discovered that they would need to manufacture more of the maintenance sleds that as it turned out were also the right size for loading cargo. Every ship visiting Base 1 put in a request for one of the new sleds. The captains pointed out that such sleds would also be great for use when they were on scavenging runs to the deserted factories and warehouses.
The crew of the Constitution was quick to point out this new development. They also pointed out how much such a sled would have assisted them in the Washington scavenging. Captain Bill Young had already put in the formal request for one of the sleds. Pol’s assistant had winked and told Bill to tell his men to forget to return the sled they were using to the maintenance hangar when they completed the loading process. He then handed Bill a small control box and said, “Have your engineer install this on the unit. It will enable the sled to seal to your deck plating.”
“He’ll know how to hook this up?” Bill asked.
Laughing the assistant said, “Peter designed the box to hook up to the universal power couplings we use on all peacekeeper technology.” Then turning serious the assistant said, “Captain, bring the sled by my workshop. I’ll get you some scrap pieces of the alloy that you can have Peter attach to the railings. That would give your strike team a floating platform that is bullet resistant for scavenging or missions.”
Bill smiled and said, “I’ll make that the last stop before we accidentally forget to return the sled to maintenance. Thank you for your help.”
“Anything for the Constitution, Bill,” the man said winking.
The sled made the unloading process much more efficient, and by the time that Bill got the call from Patricia the process was flowing smoothly.
The Alabama landed near the Constitution as extra personnel arrived to assist with the loading process. Soon the food and other supplies needed had been loaded aboard both ships. Bill sent the man who’d been operating the borrowed sled to the assistant’s workshop. He soon returned to the ship with the sled and its alloy cargo.
Peter Boyd went to work on the sled immediately. First, he installed the lock down control box. That was imperative to prevent accidents in flight should the sled shift. Then Peter grabbed a couple of maintenance
techs he saw outside the ship. Working together the three men had the armor plating installed before the two hundred extra peacekeepers and their gear could be loaded. Peter asked the two maintenance techs to forget about the sled and with a wink, they said they had done it for the Constitution and were glad to help.
Soon two hundred fifty peacekeepers assembled on the field outside the two ships in full gear. They were ordered to unload their weapons for the flight, and then they boarded the vessels for the brief flight to Birmingham.
The peacekeepers were briefed in flight. They were told that they were going to attack the cult who had murdered the forty peacekeepers just outside Birmingham, and that they would be joining the Peacekeeper which was already in Birmingham. They were warned about what they were up against. Patricia had sent the communications officers detailed files concerning what they had learned about the cult. That information was shared with the peacekeepers who would be doing the fighting. They were warned about the unique weapon favored by the female cultists and they were shown printouts of the four-picture set of Clarissa and the child. At the end of that portion of the briefing they were informed, that the cult had raided Birmingham the previous day. During the course of that raid they and taken prisoner dozens of prepubescent children who would meet the same fate as the child in the photographs unless they were rescued. Therefore, this was not just a search and destroy mission. This was first and foremost, a rescue mission. To that end, the Peacekeeper was attempting to locate the precise locations of the three nests prior to their arrival. They thought that they had already found two but the third was proving difficult.
***
“Come on Namid, think!” Namid said to herself in frustration as she continued to fly a search pattern in the quadrant where the cave entrance had to be located. The ground below her looked familiar. She knew it well by this, her fourth pass over the suspect area. Yet she still couldn’t spot the entrance to the cave. She realized that the cave entrance just might not be visible from the air, so she had switched to looking for trails that the cult might use to get to the cave. That had also proven to be futile. Pausing her search, Namid hovered while she once more studied the details of the photographs. She quickly set aside the enlargement that showed the statue of Vulcan in favor of the picture that showed the entrance. Behind that entrance and well to the right was a large poplar tree sitting at the edge of a field. To the right of that tree about fifty feet was a line of forest growth. There was an open stretch of grass to the left of the tree in a direct line with the small and difficult to distinguish image of Vulcan. To the left of that field, almost centered with the popular tree, was a small pond. Oak trees crowded near the left bank of that pond.