The Peacekeepers. Books 4 - 6.

by Ricky Sides

  Next Flavious shifted his attention to an attempt to sweep Jim’s legs out from under him. Jim jumped up in the air and countered with a strike to his opponent’s throat with the blunted end of his sai. But Flavious easily blocked that strike and hit Jim hard in the left side of his chest. Such was the force of that blow that Jim was propelled backwards a dozen feet. Jim landed unsteadily but managed to maintain his footing.

  As Jim struggled to retain his balance, he saw the man turn toward him and bare his fangs. Flavious screamed inarticulately as he once more charged Jim.

  Flavious had apparently decided to go all out with kick attacks for he launched a set of seven lightning fast kicks from multiple positions. Jim had to back away as three of the kicks came close to connecting. But Jim didn’t just retreat in a random direction. He used a circular retreat that kept Flavious near his preferred attack range. As Jim blocked one side kick his left sai flicked downward, spearing the side of Flavious’s knee joint. He’d put two inches of steel inside that joint and still Flavious seemed unaffected.

  Jim decided to counter with a set of his own kicks. He launched several combinations. To his credit, Flavious managed to block most of Jim’s kicks with apparent ease. Jim did manage to connect with one front kick to Flavious’s groin, but the man ignored the pain, if he even felt any, and moved in closer to Jim.

  Flavious reached for Jim’s throat, but Jim’s sais retaliated. He didn’t attempt to trap Flavious’s wrist. The man had seen him trap Clarissa’s wrist, and would expect that move. Instead, Jim moved in closer. He dodged his head to the right and felt Flavious’s hand thrust past his head as he slammed both sais into the man’s chest. Both penetrated several inches. Flavious struck Jim hard in the jaw, literally knocking the peacekeeper captain’s body away from him, but Jim retained his grip on the sais. He pulled them from the man’s body as the force of the blow propelled him away from Flavious.

  ***

  In the Peacekeeper, Tim said, “What the hell?! The man’s not bleeding!”

  “Neither did Clarissa,” Patricia reminded her husband quietly.

  “What on earth is the Captain fighting?” Pol asked.

  They watched in stunned silence as Flavious launched a set of punches and kicks at Jim. This caused Tim to say, “We know the enemy is a trained fighter, and fast. Faster than any man I’ve ever seen.”

  “He is fast yes, but look at the Captain. I had no idea that he could move so quickly, and I have seen him fight before,” Pol said as he watched Jim block one punch after another and retaliate with several stabbing attacks. Twice Jim stabbed the man in the chest and both times that should have ended the fight.

  Flavious closed with Jim attempting to stomp on his instep to prevent him from retreating. But Jim had no intentions of retreating. The captain snatched his foot off the ground and pistoned it immediately back down in the space that it had just vacated. His foot had trapped Flavious’s foot, effectively reversing Flavious’s attack plan. Jim’s right sai automatically reversed to the overhand grip as his body darted to the left to avoid a punch. The right sai darted in piercing Flavious’s shoulder. Flavious launched a strong hard right punch to Jim’s solar plexus but Jim’s body was turning for his next attack and the punch only partially connected.

  “There is something different about Jim. Is it just me, or does he seem to be glowing slightly?” Tim asked.

  “Glowing? I do not see a glow my friend,” Pol observed. Then on a hunch, he said. I am switching to thermal view for a moment. Don’t worry, the camera will continue to record in normal mode.”

  A moment later, they saw Jim’s figure. He was a glowing golden color in a state of constant motion as he blocked strikes and retaliated with attacks of his own at an unbelievable rate of speed. But they could see no sign of the other man whom Jim was fighting. “Now that makes absolutely no sense. We know the camera is working. It’s showing Jim’s heat signature,” Tim protested.

  “Perhaps the man is wearing a thermal resistant body suit to mask him from the thermal imaging.” Pol speculated.

  “That wouldn’t explain his face, head, and hands not registering, and you know it, Pol,” Tim said.

  “True my friend, but I can give you no answer. Nor do I see Clarissa’s body, though I know she is near them and should still be hot enough to register on the thermal imager. Switching back to the other camera view,” Pol said. Once more, they saw both Jim and the man whom he was fighting.

  ***

  The peacekeepers present wanted to help Jim, but the two combatants were moving with such speed that there was no way that they could get off a safe shot through the doorway at the enemy without endangering Jim. Pete considered letting the lieutenant’s men rush the man and help tackle him but almost as if Jim anticipated that tactic he shouted, “Don’t interfere!”

  It wasn’t that Jim wanted to keep the fight to himself, and the enemy. He’d have gladly welcomed help, but he had a tiger by the tail. He was barely managing to keep up with Flavious and if he could barely match the man then most peacekeepers would be at a terrible disadvantage. Somehow, he doubted that a gunshot would keep the man down. There was also the fact that if another man interfered, then Flavious could take advantage of the situation to use their body as a shield while he attacked Jim. That would be a disaster so he shouted, “Stay out of his reach, and leave this to me!”

  Pete understood Jim’s concern, and he shouted, “You heard Jim. Don’t interfere. If he loses concentration at a critical moment he’ll be killed, so don’t let the man he’s fighting grab you!”

  “Pete the woman is moving!” one of the peacekeepers shouted incredulously.

  “Sniper, your weapon!” Pete said as Clarissa lurched to her feet. She staggered the few steps through the doorway toward Jim and Flavious but stopped behind one of the large pillars that supported the floor above. Pete could barely see the tip of the woman’s nose as she stood behind the pillar waiting for Flavious to back Jim in her direction. Pete cursed as the sniper handed him his weapon. He darted to the left, trying to get to a spot where he could see her but that was worse. He couldn’t see her at all from that position. Going back to the right Pete saw her nose again, but that was all that he could see. He ran forward two steps but Flavious darted into his path blocking him at the doorway and hissing. Pete almost shot him, but then he saw Jim behind the man and couldn’t risk the shot. If the bullet passed through Flavious, it would endanger Jim.

  Jim followed Flavious intent upon keeping the man from getting away. Flavious launched another set of punches and kicks. As before, Jim managed to block almost all of the strikes. Several times, he’d hooked an attacking limb on one of his quillions, but those wounds seemed to mean nothing to the man. When Flavious’s strikes got through Jim’s defenses, it was like being hit by a hammer, despite the protection of his body armor. If he hadn’t been wearing that armor the fight would long ago have been lost. Jim wasn’t sure how much more he could take. He was fairly certain that his armor had cracked in a couple of places already.

  “Move away from the pillar Jim! Clarissa is up!” shouted Pete as he desperately tried to get an angle at the woman. He glanced toward the ceiling and saw the decorative concrete crown molding, and an insane idea came to mind. He judged the angle as best he could, and then tried harder. Jim’s life was riding on the accuracy of this shot. He knew the method he’d need to make the shot go where he wanted, but he could still see only Clarissa’s nose and would have to estimate the rest. He was going to attempt to cause a bullet to ricochet off the concrete crown molding in the corner and do a sort of billiard bank shot. Flicking off the safety, he relaxed and willed himself to concentrate only on the shot. He shifted his aim a fraction of an inch, which would lower the expected point of impact several inches. A moment later the rifle fired and he turned to see Clarissa pitch forward and land on her face. “This was it. This was the reason I had to stay with the ship,” Pete said to himself and he knew in his heart that he was right. He doubted
that he could duplicate that shot himself, and he seriously doubted that any other marksman present could have done it under these conditions.

  Flavious howled in rage, and turned toward Pete forgetting Jim in his fury. Jim flung his right sai as hard as he could at Flavious’s exposed back penetrating the spinal column and separating the vertebra. Flavious howled in rage and reached behind him to try to pull out the sai but he couldn’t reach the weapon. Incredibly, the man retained his footing.

  Jim darted around to face the man. He knew what he needed to do. Now he held his dagger in his right hand and his sai in his left. He stabbed Flavious in the heart with his sai. That brought the man to his knees. When Flavious hit his knees Jim swung his dagger with its foot long blade and struck the man’s neck hard. The head rolled away across the floor and the body toppled forward.

  “Someone behead Clarissa,” Jim said tiredly. “I don’t think I have the energy,” he added as he backed away from the body of Flavious and leaned tiredly against the wall.

  Pete saw to that matter himself. He was tired of people who should be dead, deciding to get up and walk around to take another shot at killing peacekeepers. When that task was done, he ordered a peacekeeper to gather the heads and take them outside. He wanted them burned. Captain Murphy’s strike force leader said they’d dealt with another such man in the tunnel. He’d been beheaded after getting up and trying to attack them, despite three lethal chest wounds. He sent his team back to retrieve that head as well. Pete ordered all of the enemy bodies located at this site treated in that manner. He also wanted the bodies cremated.

  It was all somewhat surreal. No one voiced the question but most of those present wondered if somehow they had encountered a small core group of the vampire cultists who were something more than mere fanatics. No one forbade the peacekeeper personnel present from discussing the matter, but most of them felt more comfortable with the drugged out crazies explanation. That was something they understood.

  Chapter 24

  The ships of the Peacekeeper fleet had been called to converge on Base 1, the headquarters of the peacekeepers, for an unprecedented meeting. All morning long the airspace over the base had been crowded as the ships landed at the base and their top officers exited to attend a special meeting. The ships also brought with them the commanders and the top ranking men and women of every base in the peacekeeper territories. This included every strike force leader and their seconds in command. It also included every flight leader in the peacekeeper air force and their seconds. Namid was there as well. She enjoyed flight leader status due to the need to often lead elements of fighters on special missions as they escorted the Peacekeeper. Once each ship had discharged their people attending the meeting, they flew to the outer perimeter of the base in order to open the field for other ships, so that they could land and discharge their participants in the meeting.

  The meeting was to be conducted in the back section of the command bunker. Jim opened the meeting by thanking all for attending, and explaining that the meeting would take all day and probably last into the night. He explained that the people present were about to be shown a three hour documentary after which the assembly would take up any questions that arose from viewing that documentary. The captain encouraged all of the participants to write down any questions, which might occur to them as they watched the documentary. He also encouraged them to keep an open mind as they watched the documentary, because some of what they were about to see would challenge their belief structures. He explained that Patricia and Pol had gone over every piece of available film and photographs, every seized computer, and written document relevant to the case to produce this film. That work had taken a week, but they felt that this was the best means to utilize to inform the rest of the assembled people exactly what had transpired in the Birmingham, Alabama, area, and why it was of critical importance to them all.

  Jim sat down at the table and motioned for Patricia to begin the documentary.

  The documentary was being played on a large screen television. The blue screen faded to black and the documentary opened with the voice of the female peacekeeper reporting that their camp was under attack. They heard the radio operator advising the unit to activate their beacon and they heard the sounds of the fighting in the background.

  Next, they heard the emergency radio transmissions from the base to the Peacekeeper, and the responses from the ship that had sent the fighter squadron ahead to the area.

  This was followed by video footage from the fighters that depicted the camp and the subsequent dog attacks on the peacekeepers who’d landed. Then came close up footage of the grisly scene at the camp, and the excellent documentation made by strike team one of the peacekeeper bodies located in the woods. Maggie’s voiceover explained that the peacekeepers had been taken captive and bled dry at that scene.

  One by one the raids on the nests and the documentation of the evidence located in those nests was presented in the documentary. Special care had been taken to document the entrances to the cavern systems and that dogs had been utilized extensively. The four-picture set of Clarissa and the little girl was presented to the peacekeepers, as well as the captured documentation of the locations of other nests. Also of great importance was the method utilized by the cult to gain the trust of families and lure them out to the remote areas where they were drugged and kidnapped. The plans to seize prepubescent children had also been revealed.

  The dormitory and hospital nest raids had extensively been reviewed in the second hour of the documentary. Fifteen minutes of that segment was dedicated to the poor brain dead patients whose bodies had been farmed for blood. It was pointed out in a voiceover by Doctor Michael Dean of the battleship Constitution that the patients had been rendered brain dead by the process of draining too much blood. He also pointed out that their bodies had been kept alive on life support to serve as blood factories.

  The third hour opened with a black screen and a voiceover of Namid’s frantic message to the Peacekeeper to abort the attempt to deploy the strike force, and the events that immediately followed. They saw a security camera angle shot of the Peacekeeper going on lockdown and all of the captains present winced. They could well understand the emotions that would have ravaged the crew in that moment.

  Then came Namid’s video of the two men leaping twenty feet into the air to board the ship as the Peacekeeper climbed. That piece of video caused gasps of disbelief on behalf of many of the people assembled. They also had some footage of the interior of the cargo bay as the ship was boarded. That footage was being shot by a strike team member’s helmet cam. He didn’t get the scene of the enemy boarding but he did film the attack that ripped out the peacekeeper’s throat and the subsequent gutting and heart stabbing of the boarder responsible. He also captured the inconceivable efforts of the boarders to get back to their feet after they should have been dead, and their subsequent beheadings, which had kept them down.

  Next came the video footage of the Peacekeeper landing, and the assault on the mansion was presented. The assembly saw video evidence portraying the attackers who emerged from the house taking multiple kill shots and getting back to their feet. Gasps of astonishment greeted that evidence as men who’d been shot in the chest by high powered rifles got back to their feet.

  That was followed by video footage from Captain Murphy’s strike team that depicted their encounter with Thanatos with his snarling expression, and blood filled mouth highlighting prominent fangs. They saw how Thanatos had managed to get back to his feet despite chest wounds, either of which should have proven fatal. They saw the man shot in the head twice and beheaded.

  Then they saw Jim battling Clarissa. The woman exhibited impossible strength and durability, as she took wounds that should have ended the fight numerous times. They witnessed her moving from the left to the right many times seeking to penetrate the captain’s guard. They noted that she was moving at an unbelievable rate of speed. The assembly saw Jim drive his sais into her back and work them bac
k and forth. All seeing that realized the damage that would have been done to her torso. Yet they later saw her rise as Jim battled Flavious. And they saw Pete’s remarkable shot take her down.

  There was a footnote voiceover by Jim pointing out that documentation seized at Clarissa’s primary nest explained her fighting prowess. Clarissa had been a highly skilled martial artist prior to the quakes.

  The assembly saw the footage of Flavious battling Jim. There was an accompanying voiceover by Pol explaining that the man had not appeared on the thermal imaging camera system at all. They saw the videos run side by side. One showed the standard camera image in which Flavious was visible but the other showed the thermal imaging in which Jim was a glowing golden figure in a state of constant flowing motion, but Flavious wasn’t visible at all.

  Pol had concluded that segment saying, “It pains me to report to you the impossible with no viable explanation to offer. Neither of the two combatants that you have just seen Captain Wilison fight registered on thermal imaging. Nor did most of the twenty-one other men located at that particular site as you would have noted earlier during the boarding incident. I say most because not all were filmed with the thermal, but all who were filmed did not appear on the thermal imaging camera. This is impossible, I know. However, failure to report this anomaly could lead to such individuals penetrating our security fields unless precautions against that eventuality are made. Therefore, it is vital that you all understand that you cannot, and I repeat, you cannot rely solely on thermal imaging in your security arrangements. While this is excellent in dealing with almost all known threats, it will leave you defenseless against this threat or others of similar nature.”

  Next had come ten minutes with voiceovers by Jim and Pete describing intelligence information that had been obtained during the campaign. The pieces of intelligence were displayed on the screen as the two men briefed the assembly as to what these items were.