The Peacekeepers. Books 4 - 6.

by Ricky Sides

  The lights of the tunnel became a blur as the aircraft hurtled through the passageway, and then it emerged into the clear morning air over the desert. Namid breathed a sigh of relief, and said, “Peacekeeper, I am in the clear.”

  “We noticed, Phoenix,” Patricia replied, and then she said, “Pete says he’d like you to take the aircraft for a short test flight and then return. We’ll be locking the house, and then preparing to go home. He wants you to stay close to us, just in case the aircraft gives you trouble.”

  “Roger, Peacekeeper. I’ll take her for a test flight, and be back in a few minutes,” Namid responded.

  Chapter 4

  After breakfast, Jim, Lacey, and Evan went to the waterfall, as they had done every day since they’d arrived at the cabin four days ago. The family had tried other activities, but they preferred the area near the waterfall. They spent most of the day there admiring the view, talking, and watching Evan, as he skipped stones across the surface of the water. They enjoyed a picnic beside the waterfall, after which Evan resumed his practice with the stones. He was determined to learn how to get a five-skip toss. Jim congratulated the young man when he achieved that goal. “I knew you could do it. Well done, Evan,” Jim said.

  “Can we work on the dam, again Jim?” Evan asked.

  “We can stay a few more minutes Evan, but we need to get back to the cabin soon so we can dig a fire pit to bake some potatoes for supper,” Jim replied.

  “Oh yeah, I forgot you were going to teach me that today,” Evan responded. “I’m ready to go when you are. I’d like to learn how to make a baking pit.” Evan explained.

  Jim said, “If it has anything to do with survival training, I know you’ll be all for it. You keep learning at the rate that you have been the past few years, and I swear you’ll be the world’s foremost expert by the time you’re eighteen years old.”

  Evan beamed with pride, but then he admitted, “I told Pete I’d try to learn a new trick or two about how to survive while we were on this trip. Yesterday I learned to make the dam, and today I’ll learn to make a fire pit. He said that if I learned three new things from you on this trip, then he’d take me fishing.”

  “So that’s it,” Jim said. He laughed and asked, “Are you and Pete still after that old catfish in the pond? I would have thought the two of you would have given up by now.”

  Jim was referring to the fish that Pete and Evan had been trying to catch for years. Both swore it was a catfish, but Jim privately suspected it was a turtle. He didn’t have the heart to tell them what he thought because they enjoyed trying to catch the monster catfish they were so sure inhabited the pond.

  “Well, if a fishing trip is the prize for learning three new survival techniques, then we’ll just have to add another. We may as well cover starting a fire without matches. We can do that when we start the fire in the fire pit,” explained Jim.

  “That will give me three new techniques,” Evan said with a smile.

  As they walked back to the cabin, Lacey spoke quietly to Jim voicing her concern that they hadn’t heard from the Peacekeeper in days.

  “Maybe they are just trying to give us some privacy for the duration of our visit here,” Jim speculated. They could just be out of range. We know that the radios will work a long way from the ship, but we’ve never really fully tested the hat radios, so the true range is still unknown.”

  “Is it alright if I run on to the cabin and use the bathroom, Jim?” asked Evan.

  Jim gauged the distance to the cabin and nodded, but he said, “By now you know this trail like the back of your hand. Head straight there, use the toilet, and wait on the porch. Don’t go wandering off into the woods. Not even just in the edge of the forest.”

  “I won’t,” replied Evan. “I remember the stories about people who go into strange woods, get lost, and never find their way out.”

  “Mind your step son. Watch for snakes and just give them a wide berth,” Jim warned.

  “Yes, sir, I will,” Evan responded and he trotted off with his eyes dutifully scanning the trail.

  “He adores you,” Lacey said unexpectedly. Her pregnancy had her feeling a bit more emotional than usual.

  “I adore him right back,” Jim said fondly. He stopped on the trail and took Lacey’s hand in his. He tenderly kissed her and said, “Thank you, Lacey.”

  “Thank you for what, dear?” Lacey asked.

  “Thank you for bringing Evan into my life. Thank you for the baby, and most of all, thank you for marrying me. I probably don’t say it often enough, but I love you, Lacey. Meeting you and Evan is the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  Lacey kissed Jim passionately. When they broke their embrace she murmured, “Jim Wilison, you just don’t know how special you are. Being your wife has made me so happy. I’ve been happier than I ever dreamed possible, after my first husband died. And you treat Evan just as if he were your biological child. That’s a comfort to me. I know that if anything were to happen to me, you’d take care of Evan.”

  Jim took Lacey’s chin in his hand and gently tilted her head back so that he could look into her eyes. “Of course I would, love, but nothing’s going to happen to you.” Then he paused and his eyes opened wide in fear. “Lacey, is something wrong with you? Is it the baby? Is carrying the child endangering your life?”

  “Relax, sweetheart. There’s nothing wrong. Every mother wants to know that someone will look after her child, should something happen to her. And you can’t buy that sort of security. It has to be freely given,” Lacey explained.

  Jim smiled and visibly relaxed. “Well, speaking of security, we’d better get back to the cabin. Evan will be worried.”

  They found Evan waiting on the porch. Lacey went inside to sort through their provisions and decide on what she would prepare for supper.

  Jim and Evan dug a hole about a foot in diameter and a foot deep in the clearing near the cabin. Then they gathered wood to build a fire and stacked that beside the little pit. They would build the fire and let it burn down to coals beside the pit. When they had sufficient coals for the task, they would push them into the pit, and add a thin layer of dirt. Then they would place their aluminum foil wrapped potatoes into the pit. Another layer of dirt placed over the potatoes would complete the preparations.

  But before they were ready to do all of that, Evan had to light the fire. Jim showed Evan how to place the tinder underneath the pile of wood. He nodded his approval as Evan gathered small twigs, which he would place in the burning tinder once the fire ignited.

  “How am I going to light the fire, Jim?” asked Evan.

  “With this,” Jim replied. He opened his hand to reveal a small, but powerful magnifying glass. He showed Evan how to focus sunlight through the magnifying glass to create an intense beam of light, and then he handed it to the young man.

  It took only minutes for Evan to get the fire going. He carefully set the magnifying glass aside, and added twigs to the fire. When the fire was burning well, Evan picked up the magnifying glass and held it out for Jim to take. “Keep it for your kit, Evan,” Jim responded.

  “Thanks Jim.” replied Evan. “I won’t abuse it, I promise,” the boy said earnestly.

  “I know you won’t, Evan. Just stick it in your pocket for now, so you don’t lose it. The fire will need tending for another few minutes.”

  Evan was putting the magnifying glass in his pocket when Lacey screamed a blood-curdling scream. Jim was lunging to his feet when a shot rang out. He was knocked off his feet. Turning his head toward the cabin, he saw Lacey run out onto the porch. Two men followed, hot on her heels. Jim surged back to his knees in an effort to get up and defend Lacey, but another bullet hit him and his body sprawled face first into the yard.

  The last thing he heard was Lacey screaming and Evan shouting.

  ***

  “Try again, Patricia,” Pete ordered. The Peacekeeper was flying from the citadel, back to Base 1.

  “I’m trying, Pete, but there hasn�
��t been another message, and none of them are answering my calls,” Patricia explained.

  She was referring to the two-word message that the computer had directed to her a few moments earlier. The computer had tagged the message as having been sent by Evan. The message was, “One, Peacekeeper, help!”

  “Tim, how far are we from the cabin?” Pete asked.

  “Too far, Pete. It’ll take us two hours to get there, and with our altitude cap that’s taking some ungodly risks,” Tim responded.

  “Find a spot where we can land. Make that a spot big enough for Namid to land as well. We’ll put some strike force members aboard the new ship. She can get there much faster by flying ahead with the men,” Pete ordered. Then he said, “Patricia, relay a message to Namid. Tell her to land beside us. Then get Lieutenant Wilcox up here.”

  “I’m here, sir,” Lieutenant Wilcox stated as he strode into the control room.

  “Good. Get a relief pilot. Tim will be flying Namid’s fighter, so we need a pilot for this ship. Gather five of your men and get them ready to board the new ship. Namid’s going to take us on a possible rescue mission.”

  “Possible?” Lieutenant Wilcox queried.

  “We’re not sure yet, but…,”

  “We’re down, Pete,” Tim said, and he hastily climbed to his feet and ran out of the room.

  “Sir, Namid says she is down and waiting,” Patricia stated.

  “Alright, Patricia, call the relief pilot to the control room. Lieutenant, get your crew aboard that ship ASAP. Pol, you have command of this ship. Get her there as fast as you can, but don’t take unnecessary risks. I’m going on ahead to the cabin with the others.”

  “I’m ready Pete,” Maggie stated from the doorway that led back into the corridor.

  “Good, it’s time to go,” Pete said with an uncharacteristic air of urgency. He knew Evan well. The boy would not make such a radio transmission without a damned good reason.

  In eight minutes, Namid was lifting the new ship off the ground. Tim was flying cover for her because the new ship was unarmed. Namid shouted for the crew to prepare for maximum acceleration. She gave them ten seconds, and then she shoved the throttle forward and accelerated on her course for the cabin. She brought the aircraft to three hundred miles per hour before she backed off the throttle and slowed the rate of acceleration. Emergency or not, they could not go from zero to five hundred miles per hour at maximum acceleration without the risk of blacking out. If the pilot collapsed on the controls at that speed, a disaster would result. Although the ship could fly at six hundred miles per hour, the fighter couldn’t. Therefore, she would fly the unarmed ship at the best speed the fighter could match.

  ***

  Jim awoke to a splitting headache. Reaching his hand up to his face, he felt a lump the size of a goose egg on his forehead. His hand brushed against the rock embedded in the ground that had injured his head as he struggled to his knees. Dazed, Jim paused for a moment to try to assess his condition. His back was hurting in two places. He tried to figure out what had happened to him, and then the memories flooded back into his awareness.

  Jim staggered to his feet, looking around the clearing for any sign of Lacey and Evan, but something was wrong with his vision. Disoriented by a sudden wave of nausea, Jim reached up to his eyes. The right eye was closed and stuck shut by something sticky. Putting his hand in front of his other eye, he saw blood and reasoned out his vision problem. The lump on his forehead had bled, and the blood had congealed on his right eye, sealing the eye shut. He staggered to the well and located the bucket of water he’d drawn in case the fire got out of control. He cupped water in his palm and brought it to his eye, rinsing away some of the congealed blood. After the third rinsing, the eye opened partially when he tried it. He rinsed it again and soon he had the eye open.

  “At least I can see now,” he said to himself. But then he spotted Lacey. “Lacey!” Jim shouted.

  She was lying on her back beside the porch. Jim rushed to her side and dropped to his knees beside his wife. He could see that she was breathing, but her breathing was shallow and irregular. The handle of a hunting knife protruded from her abdomen. There was blood and other abdominal fluid all over the front of her pink t-shirt. He reached toward the knife, but hesitated. Extracting the blade could kill her at this point.

  “Jim. Jim, is that you?” Lacey’s voice spoke in barely audible tones.

  “I’m here, Lacey,” Jim said.

  “I thought you were dead. I saw you get shot,” she said and paused. “They took Evan. He tried to fight them,” Lacey said. She coughed and blood bubbled from her mouth.

  Tears filled Jim’s eyes. His wife was dying, and he knew it. He took a rag from his cargo pocket and gently wiped the blood from her mouth. He was in a state of shock and didn’t know what to do.

  “I’ll get Evan back, Lacey. I promise,” Jim said.

  Lacey managed to open her eyes then. “It hurts so much!” she said, and her body involuntarily jerked as it sought to deal with the pain. Beads of sweat stood on her forehead.

  “I can go inside and get your medical kit, Lacey. Hang on, baby,” Jim said, and started to rise.

  “No, please just stay with me, Jim. I don’t want to die alone. I need to tell you that I’m sorry. I wanted to give you a child so much. Now I’ll never be able to do that,” Lacey said with her heart breaking.

  “You already gave me a child. Evan may not be mine by birth, but I love him just as if he were,” Jim said, and then he added, “I’ll find him, no matter where they took him. I swear to God, I will, Lacey.”

  “I know you will. I’m cold, Jim. So very cold,” Lacey said.

  Jim took off his uniform shirt and draped it over Lacey’s upper body, being careful not to touch the knife.

  Lacey trembled. “I love you, Jim,” she said.

  “I love you too, baby. Please hang on for a while longer. I can get the medical kit and help you!”

  “I can’t, J…,” Lacey started, but then her back arched violently. Her body collapsed and lay still.

  “Lacey. Lacey, no don’t go! Laceyyy!” Jim screamed at the top of his lungs. As the echo of his wife’s name died, he threw back his head and vented a long and mournful cry of anguish.

  ***

  On a small wooded hilltop near the cabin, four men stopped and listened to the echoing cry of anguish and despair. “I thought you said he was dead, Ray,” the leader of the small group said accusingly to one of the men.

  “I shot him twice, Glenn. It didn’t look to me like he was breathing. He didn’t offer to move when I stripped his weapons. I hit him twice in the back with my forty-five,” Ray explained. “He’s bound to die.”

  “He saw me and Tuck. You know the rule about witnesses, so you go back there and finish him off,” Glenn ordered.

  “Alright, I will, Glenn. No need to get all tore up over it. The man’s as good as dead,” Ray said defensively.

  “You leave Jim alone!” Evan said angrily, his eyes still red from crying over the deaths of his mother and Jim. Now it seemed that at least Jim still lived.

  Ray’s hand shot out and cuffed the boy on the side of the head. The force of the blow staggered the teenager, and it would have knocked him off his feet if one of the men hadn’t been holding his shoulder.

  “Lay off the kid, Ray. He’ll bring a good price at the sale barn,” said Glenn. He pointed back in the direction of the cabin and said, “Now get to the cabin and make sure that guy is dead this time. Bring back his head to prove you got him.”

  “I don’t have a knife, so how am I supposed to cut off his head?” complained Ray.

  “Then use this,” Glen said as he drew Jim’s dragon dagger he had taken from Ray when he’d seen the mahogany handle.

  “Yeah, this will do the trick,” Ray said as he examined the blade.

  “I’ll be having that back when you return,” Glenn said.

  “Don’t you hurt Jim!” Evan shouted again.

  “Boy, y
ou just don’t know when to keep your mouth shut, do you?” Ray asked, but then he turned and strode away from the group. He planned to get back to the cabin and kill the man as quickly as possible. He wanted to make sure that he caught up to the group before they got to the barn, or they might decide he didn’t deserve a cut of the price the boy brought.

  Behind him, Ray heard the kid shout, “One, one, Peacekeeper, help!” Turning around he saw Glenn cuff the kid so hard his hat flew off his head.

  Glenn laughed and said, “There ain’t no peacekeepers here, boy. You’d best remember that, and behave yourself, if you want to live.”

  One of the other men picked up the hat and adjusted it to fit himself. He tossed his old worn out hat aside in favor of Evan’s.

  ***

  Jim carried Lacey’s body inside the cabin to protect it from the predations of animals. He laid her on the couch and arranged her body gently. Kneeling beside her, he kissed her tenderly and cried in misery at losing her. Steeling himself for what he had to do, he then pulled the knife from her body and threw it aside in anger and loathing. He couldn’t leave the blade in her body. He wouldn’t.

  Jim knew he had to move quickly if he wanted to locate Evan before the trail got too cold, so he made himself get up and search the house. In the kitchen, he found Lacey’s pistol in the drawer where she kept it when Jim was with her at the cabin. She didn’t like wearing a pistol when she was cooking. Jim sighed and wished he had insisted that she do so anyway. Now it was too late.

  He saw that the back door of the cabin had been forced open. He closed it to keep out animals and wedged a chair under the doorknob, because the latch was broken. Jim sobbed as he put Lacey’s pistol in his holster. He angrily brushed away tears. This was no time to lose control. He’d lost Lacey and nothing would change that. If he didn’t act immediately, he would also lose Evan. He could do something about that, and he’d do it or die trying. Jim went to the bedroom and got another uniform shirt to replace the one he’d left on Lacey. He knew he would need the protection of the soft armor shirt in his effort to recover Evan.