by Ricky Sides
Book 5
In the wake of the sea battle, a team of peacekeepers was attacked on the outskirts of Birmingham, Alabama. The crew of the Peacekeeper and several fighters flew to the emergency beacon, and discovered that the massacre had been perpetrated by a vampire cult, intent upon forming a new nation of people who embrace vampirism.
One by one, the five nests of the cult were located and destroyed by the men and women of the Peacekeeper, the Alabama, and the Constitution. When the crew of the Peacekeeper tries to take on the two remaining cult leaders and twenty of their best fighters, they find themselves battling people who refuse to stay down despite mortal wounds.
In the basement of the mansion, where the final conflict of that brief war was fought, Captain Jim Wilison faced two of the deadliest people he’d ever fought in hand to hand combat. For the first time since he’d set them aside as too dangerous to utilize, Jim picked up his ultimate martial arts weapons. He carried his Sais into that final conflict, because the foe he had to battle was one capable of destroying his very soul.
Part 1
Chapter 1
The six months following the battle with the vampire cult in Alabama was a period of large-scale reorganization of the peacekeepers. Perhaps the biggest shift in the structure of the peacekeepers was the decentralization of the economic burden. Prior to the changes, the Alabama based core of the peacekeepers had shouldered the entire economic responsibility for the growth of the fleet. In the wake of the meeting of the leaders, that burden was redistributed. By the end of the fourth month following the reorganization of the economic burden, Pol announced that for the first time the peacekeepers had a small surplus of the Huxley alloy and the chemicals needed to create the batteries.
Gary Nobel from Colorado, Torey Gilliam from Oregon, Peter Wesley from Washington State, and Todd Baxter from Oklahoma all got their patrol ships.
Ramon Marino took possession of a patrol ship for the Cuban peacekeepers. For the time being, he would serve as both the base commander and the captain of the Havana. He had a promising potential commander who would work closely with him for a few months. Once Ramon was certain of the man’s mindset, he planned to turn over the command of the base to that man much as Pete had done with the Base 1 commander. But like Pete, Ramon would still be very influential concerning the Cuban base.
The Cuban peacekeepers also received their twenty-fighter squadron the day their candidates passed flight school. Twenty-two men and women had attended that training. The two with the lowest scores would be the drone operators for the two drones assigned to the Havana, and would serve as backup pilots, should one of the duty pilots take ill.
Cuba also needed two of the new trucks for hauling freight as well as two of the new transport ships. By the end of the fifth month, they had managed to acquire sufficient trade goods to meet the prices required to acquire those support vehicles. They also acquired one of the new sleds that could be used to load the ship.
***
All peacekeeper bases were upgraded. Those upgrades included the new sentry boxes that hovered at one hundred feet on a tether. They also included the new sleds, which were used for maintenance and for facilitating the loading and unloading of the ships.
The Michigan factories profited from this period of reorganization. Reager Industries was now operating at full capacity running twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Bob Reager and his board of directors had to open another facility in the city of Saginaw to process and manufacture the Huxley alloy to meet the demands. They also opened a third facility to manufacture siding and roofing materials from the alloy. In addition, Bob’s engineers came up with the idea to design prefabricated Quonset huts and battery systems on speculation that some customers such as the peacekeepers and cities that had organized a form of government might like the concept. The Detroit auto facility underwent a similar period of explosive growth and had to open another facility. By the end of the sixth month, that facility was handling the truck and personnel carriers.
Some cities ordered versions of the personnel carriers for a form of mass transit. Those vehicles flew at an altitude of thirty feet, whereas the peacekeeper units were custom designed to fly at two hundred feet. The peacekeepers had formally requested that the auto manufacturer not exceed fifty feet in their design, so that the peacekeeper fleet wouldn’t have to contend with congested air traffic when responding to emergencies. The Detroit facilities delivery trucks had often been saved from marauders by peacekeeper intervention. They were quite willing to assist the peacekeepers in maintaining an efficient response time to emergencies.
Saginaw and Detroit were the first two cities to utilize the personnel carriers as a form of mass transit. The cities near the peacekeeper bases saw these new flying vehicles as a means to help restore trade and communication. Understanding that trade and communication were critical to the restoration of order, these cities began to acquire trade goods with which they could barter for the new flying vehicles.
Independent truckers, who had lived that lifestyle prior to the collapse of the American government, began to show up with trucks fully loaded with trade goods that they had managed to acquire over the years. They bartered those trade goods for the new tractor-trailer class vehicles. Those truckers often formed convoys, as they roamed the country, delivering goods to varying locations as they had in the pre-disaster days.
The proliferation of the flying vehicles was not without its share of problems. Incursions over the airspace of peacekeeper bases began to occur with alarming frequency. Almost all of those incursions were completely innocent. The occupants were just people out enjoying their new vehicles. But the peacekeeper council became alarmed as the potential for base invasions grew. Pol was asked to look into the matter and see if there was any way to use science to help remedy the problem.
Pol and his assistants labored diligently on the issue for a month and then reported their findings to the council. There were ways to correct the matter but they would be time consuming and expensive to implement in terms of labor and materials.
Fences surrounded all the peacekeeper bases. Those fences could be utilized to set up an electronic screen around the bases that would extend up from ground level to one hundred feet. Any vehicle passing through that field would find their navigation shut down and they would be effectively stranded above the base until a peacekeeper tech reset their onboard computer system. Patricia had designed the computer control systems for the vehicles, so she had been instrumental in working out a solution that would not inflict permanent damage to the vehicles. It was a non-lethal solution to the problem. If the visitors turned out to be harmless, then a drone could tow the stranded vehicles out of the base airspace and a tech could reset the system.
Since all civilian traffic was restricted below fifty feet and all peacekeeper ships, fighters, and drones could fly considerably higher than the one hundred foot cap for the defensive screen, it should be possible to implement the defensive strategy in a manner that was minimally disruptive. However, it would require considerable manpower. Pol recommended that the council have a team of engineers and tech people brought in from each base so they could observe the process of the system being installed at Base 1. They could all get hands-on-experience with the project and apply that knowledge at their own bases. He assured the council that the electronic screen would present no threat to wildlife, nor would it require a lot of energy to operate.
Patricia added that the computers aboard peacekeeper vessels could also be tweaked so they were not susceptible to the defensive screen. She said it was a simple matter, but the council was well aware that, what Patricia considered simple when it came to computers, was probably very difficult. Not many people could hope to match the ease with which Patricia manipulated computer software. The council wanted the tweaks made to the peacekeeper fleet so that drones, fighters, and ships could operate safely below the one hundred foot level, anywhere on or around the bases for security reasons.
> The council issued the orders and three days later, peacekeeper ships converged on the base, delivering the personnel for the three-day process that would teach the workers what they would need to know in order to implement the system.
Near dusk on the third day, the Base 1 system went active and Pol tested it with drones that had not been adapted to ignore the barrier. The system worked flawlessly, no matter how fast the drone tried to fly past the barrier. In a real life scenario, the techs would have to use a sled to reach the stranded vehicles once they’d been towed clear of the defensive screens. The defensive screen projected a field ten inches wide from ground level to one hundred feet above. They also tested some fighters that had been retrofitted to ignore the barrier and they worked flawlessly, as did the drones they tested. Then the Peacekeeper was tested. When the ship passed through the field with no ill effects, Jim had the Peacekeeper detached from the battleship module and then he ordered both the Peacekeeper and the battleship drone to fly through the defensive screen.
The testing was a complete success. They now had a defensive screen solution to the security issues brought about by the proliferation of flying vehicles. A veil of secrecy was placed over the security arrangements as to the extent of the limitations of the defensive screen. The peacekeepers, who were training to install the new defensive system, were encouraged to let the word leak out that the defensive screen extended to an altitude of one thousand feet. This misinformation was meant to discourage people from attempting to tweak the existing electromagnetic engines and emitters to clear the defensive screens.
By the end of the six-month reorganization period, the defensive screen covered every existing base.
***
Pol and his team had ingeniously dealt with the incursion problem, but their research produced an unexpected benefit when Namid made a casual observation. She had said she wished they could mount one of those engine-killing emitters to her fighter so that she would have a non-lethal alternative to dealing with some situations.
Pol had corrected her and said that the beam shut down the navigational computer and not the engine. Then he had smiled. Whipping a pad and pencil from a shirt pocket, Pol had quickly drawn a sketch of a fighter and added what appeared to be a small weapons module just aft of the nose, on top of the fuselage. Glancing up at Namid he said, “I suppose one hundred feet is too close for the fighter.”
“One thousand feet would be better,” Namid observed. “That would give the pilot a second or two to react to the disabling of the vehicle so they could safely fly around the transport.”
“One thousand feet would be nice for the bases, too. Unfortunately, we lack the technology to keep the beam focused at that distance,” Pol stated frowning.
“Then make it a swivel mount or fixed but pointing on a forty-five or ninety degree angle. Then the pilot can just fly alongside the suspect and disable the vehicle safely,” observed Namid.
Pol dutifully made a note of her recommendation, thanked her, and then left muttering about feasibility studies.
The next morning, Pol approached Namid and asked for permission to equip the experimental module on her fighter. With the support of his two assistants, Pol installed the module in an hour. The outer casing of the module was made of the Huxley alloy. The module was fused into position on a forty-five degree angle, a foot from the tip of the nose, located on top of the fuselage. He hardwired it to the battery system and installed a simple push button switch on the cockpit dashboard. Pol informed her that the switch would glow a soft red, so it would be easily visible in full darkness, should the need arise to use the device at night.
Pol explained that the disabling device was not going to be hooked up to the computer targeting system. He felt that was unnecessarily complicated, since all the pilots need do, was put the targeted vehicle off the port side of their aircraft on a forty-five degree angle.
Next, Pol had Namid conduct a series of tests with drones that had not yet been retrofitted to ignore the beam. She was easily able to disable those drones.
Once more, the word went out for a gathering of peacekeeper armorers responsible for the maintenance of the fleet. Flight leaders were also asked to attend. In a two-day class, the armorers learned to assemble the necessary components and equip the fleet with this new tool, which was easy to build, install, and maintain. Pol was touched when the pilots named the new system, the Bleakman ray gun.
The council was quite happy with this development. It gave them the means to shut down the Marauders, who would eventually come to possess the flying vehicles. The council considered that eventuality inevitable. Within two weeks, the entire fleet had that capability.
***
Pol also used this time to experiment with laminating the carbon fiber, hard body, armor with the Huxley alloy. Although the process was very difficult and time consuming, the attempt was successful. Pol proved that it could be done, but the resulting armor was so heavy that it was impractical for serious combat use. At Pol’s request, Lieutenant Wilcox did test the full gear. Since the lamination process made the component parts larger, they would not fit beneath the uniform and had to be worn on top of the clothing. He complained that he looked like a Star Wars storm trooper when he wore the armor.
When Pete turned up to see the new armor being tried for the first time he asked, “Pol, where did you get the Star Wars costume?”
Bill Young had accompanied Pete to see the new armor and he said, “There’s no way in hell I’m wearing that thing. Our old armor looks ridiculous enough.”
Chapter 2
Jim and Lacey stood hand in hand, watching as the Peacekeeper lifted into the air above the trees in the distance and flew away. For the next week, they would be alone at the secluded two-bedroom cabin located in the Bankhead National Forest. They had spotted the cabin the year before, during one of their mission flights. Lacey had fallen in love with the cabin and the surrounding woodlands. Jim had promised that when they could find the time he would bring Lacey back to the cabin for a few days.
Lacey had reminded him of that promise the week before. She wanted the promised getaway for a few days. She had asked Jim about the trip with such a look of expectation and hope in her eyes that he couldn’t refuse. Jim asked Pete to take charge of the ship in his absence, and arranged for the ship to drop them off as close to the cabin as possible. Some of Lieutenant Wilcox’s strike force had preceded them to the cabin and reported it was all clear. As nearly as they could tell, no one had disturbed the cabin since their previous visit. The strike force had also carried in the supplies that the little family would need for their week at the cabin.
Evan already wanted to go to the waterfall that was a quarter mile from the cabin. Smiling at Jim, Lacey said, “You two go along and I’ll start supper. There will be plenty of time for me to see the waterfall tomorrow.”
“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea, Lacey. I’m not comfortable with you being all alone out here,” answered Jim with obvious misgivings.
“I’ll be fine. I can lock the cabin until you return and I have my pistol. I’m a good shot now, you know,” Lacey reassured him.
Smiling down at his wife, Jim hugged her and gave her a kiss. “Alright, Lacey, we’ll go see the waterfall. I think Evan wants to try to dam up a small tributary stream.” Chuckling, Jim added, “He’s had that on his mind ever since I told him that I used to try to dam streams as a kid.”
“Oh really? How’d that turn out for you, Jim?” Lacey asked.
“Actually, I did get one to hold for a few minutes,” Jim said. “Then a stick bumped it and broke my dam.”
“And you thought that was fun?” Lacey asked.
“Well yeah, I did. It’s a guy thing, babe,” Jim said. He laughed when Lacey rolled her eyes.
“Just don’t let Evan fall into deep water. He can’t swim very well,” Lacey said with a worried tone.
“He’ll be fine. I promise I won’t let him out of my sight, but I’m not going anywhe
re until you’re safely tucked away inside the cabin,” Jim said adamantly.
Lacey kissed Jim goodbye and then she warned Evan to listen to Jim and not stray away. Jim promised to return before sundown and then he watched her until she had closed and locked the door to the cabin. Turning to Evan, he asked, “Are you up to a little hike, Evan?”
“I sure am. Don’t forget, you promised to show me how to skip stones on the water like the other boys do back at the pond on our farm,” Evan responded with excitement.
Jim replied, “The trick is in using the right stones, son. It’s not hard at all, if you use the correct stone. I promise, before this day is over, you’ll get one to skip three times.”
“Johnny can skip a rock five times. Do you think I can learn to do that?” asked Evan hopefully.
“Five times? Now, Evan, skipping a rock five times can be done, but it takes a good rock, a great throw, and a little luck. I think you can do it, but you may not make that goal today,” Jim explained, as they began to walk toward the trail that led to the waterfall.
***
In the house, Lacey went about the work of preparing a special meal for her husband and son. Tonight she had a special announcement to make and she wanted everything to be just right when she made it.
Lacey glanced out the window, admiring the view of the forest, but movement at the edge of the woods caught her attention. She froze in position and watched that section of the forest, but there was no repeat of the movement. Sighing to herself, Lacey assumed that the movement was the result of a squirrel or a bird.
***
Jim taught Evan to skip rocks that afternoon. He never achieved his five-skip goal, but he did enjoy a respectable four-skip success. They also constructed a decent small dam on the feeder stream. Evan had delighted in watching minnows and small crawfish mill about in the backed up water. Jim reminded Evan that in a survival situation, the ability to make such a dam could save his life.