The Peacekeepers. Books 7 - 9 (The Peacekeepers Boxset Book 3)

by Ricky Sides

  “Try to document the ships in that battle group before they can scatter,” the captain instructed.

  “Aye, sir, I’m on it,” Rufus said. He trained his camera on the battleship and then began to fly the length of the armada, filming every ship from their port side.

  “Missile launch!” shouted the drone operator from his position in the Arizona. Rufus heard the warning through the radio. He executed a tight right turn, but the drone operator could see that the missile was tracking the fighter. Without thinking, the drone operator executed a right angle turn at full speed, putting his drone on a collision course with the missile. He fired his laser in an attempt to destroy the missile, but it was a futile effort. A moment later, there was a midair collision. The missile detonated and destroyed the drone, but Rufus was safe.

  “Rufus, back off until we get there. We are about a minute out,” the Captain said.

  “I will, sir. Thank the drone pilot for me. That missile had my name on it,” Rufus replied.

  “You’re welcome, Rufus,” the drone pilot answered.

  “I owe you, buddy, and I never forget a debt,” Rufus said.

  “Sharon, transfer the command key for one of the backup drones to the Corporal’s station,” the captain ordered.

  “Yes, sir,” Sharon said.

  “Battleship ahead, sir,” Namid reported as she approached the starboard side of the armada.

  “Gunner, you may fire when ready,” the captain said.

  “Aye, sir,” the gunner responded. He was just sighting in on the waterline of the battleship when Namid shouted, Missiles launching.”

  Lieutenant Rockwell switched from the main laser to the conventional minigun. He sighted on the first of the three incoming missiles and fired. The targeted missile detonated. The resultant explosion detonated another of the missiles, and that explosion caused the third missile to be blown off course. The errant missile made a course correction, but by then a drone had targeted the weapon and fired, neutralizing the threat.

  Which ship is firing those missiles?” asked the captain.

  “They’re coming from the munitions ship, sir,” responded the Corporal who had lost his drone.

  “Use your drone to try to drive it away, Corporal,” the captain ordered.

  “Yes, sir,” the Corporal responded. Turning his latest drone toward the source of the missiles, the drone operator began an attack run. Firing the laser in short bursts, the Corporal forced the men on the deck to duck down and run for cover. The munitions ship turned hard to port and ran for it. “Should I pursue the enemy, Captain?” asked the Corporal.

  “No. Our top priority this mission is the battleship. All drones drop near the surface. Spread out and encircle the ship. Bore into her hull,” Jack ordered.

  Rufus shouted that he had the angle for a rear shot. He warned the drones to stay clear of his field of fire as he began to attack.

  Lieutenant Rockwell fired at the starboard side of the wheelhouse with the main forward laser. His laser soon had secondary explosions blasting a way through the heavy armor plating.

  “I bored into the stern!” shouted Rufus in an elated tone of voice. The pilot flew the fighter past the battleship. He was descending toward the surface to attempt to bore into the bow of the vessel, when he dropped directly into the path of a machine gun that was firing at his fighter.

  “Oh hell,” Namid said as she watched the canopy being shredded by the projectiles, but Rufus managed to drop just below the line of fire. He spun the fighter on its axis and headed back toward the Arizona.

  “He’ll try to land, sir,” Namid explained.

  “Turn us away from the battleship until he has landed, and hold her steady,” Jack ordered.

  “Aye, sir,” Namid responded. She turned the stern toward the battleship so the windshield wouldn’t be vulnerable. For the moment, they were a sitting duck.

  “All hands, move away from the stern of the ship as quickly as you can. We will be taking heavy fire there,” Jack said on the intercom.

  “Sir, Rufus isn’t answering my hails,” said the communications specialist.

  “Camera operator, see if he’s managed to land,” Jack ordered.

  A moment later, the camera operator said, “He has landed, but I don’t think the fighter is locked down, sir.”

  “Sir, the battleship seems to be sinking,” said one of the drone operators.

  “Five drones, stay with that battleship. Make sure she goes down. I need one drone to check on Rufus,” the captain ordered.

  “I’ll check on him, sir,” the Corporal volunteered.

  “Oh my God!” the drone pilot said.

  The captain got up and walked over to the monitor to see what the pilot was seeing. “Namid, take us away from the ships, but remember, the fighter isn’t locked down,” he said.

  “Aye, Captain,” said Namid. She gently flew the Arizona away from the battle zone.

  “Corporal, stay close to the fighter. If you see it shift, try to hold it in position with your drone,” the captain ordered.

  “Yes, Captain,” replied the corporal.

  Moving rapidly to his chair, the captain sat down and depressed the intercom button. “Doctor Smith, prepare to receive a patient. Lieutenant Farns, organize a rescue team. Rufus’s fighter is atop the Arizona. It’s not locked down and he has been wounded. We are moving away from the ships so that you can affect a rescue.”

  “Just say the word, Captain, and my team will go get him,” Lieutenant Farns said through the intercom.

  “Sir, the battleship is definitely sinking, and the other ships are leaving,” one of the drone pilots said. Then he added, “Should we pursue?”

  Jack was about to send the drones after the other ships when the Corporal said, “Sir, the fighter is slipping, and my drone can’t stop it alone.”

  “Do your best, Corporal. We need your drones here, people. I want one of you to stay with that armada. Just pace it to keep track of its location. The rest of you, get back here and try to stabilize the fighter,” the captain ordered.

  “Namid, try to bring us to a slow stop,” Jack said.

  “Oh hell, she’s slipping over the edge sir!” the corporal shouted.

  Jack looked into the monitor and saw that the fighter was about to slip over the edge, but then one of the drone operators cried out elatedly, “I’ve got him!”

  Jack stared incredulously as one of the drones raised the starboard side of the fighter back to a near trim position. Even as he watched, the rest of the drones arrived to help. They gently nudged the stricken fighter back into proper position.

  “Well done, men,” Jack said.

  “All stop, sir,” Namid announced.

  “Inform Lieutenant Farns to begin his rescue. I’m on my way down there,” Jack said as he ran for the corridor.

  In the cargo bay, Jack found that the rescue team had already exited the ship. The doctor and engineer were standing by the inner bay door, ready to open it when the crewmembers returned.

  Jack stood by the monitor anxiously waiting. While they waited, Abe said, “I sent a lock down unit with the team. If the one in the fighter was damaged, then they can use the spare to secure the fighter to the hull.”

  “That was good thinking,” Jack said and he nodded his appreciation. “It saves them a second trip in a hazardous situation.”

  Jack turned his attention back to the monitor, and as he did, he saw two men scramble into view. Soon a stretcher descended toward the two waiting men. The two men took possession of the stretcher, and Jack saw the ropes drop down atop the still form. One by one, the rest of the rescue team dropped down to the extended cargo bay door. They quickly moved inside the outer cargo bay and closed the bay door.

  The moment the outer door closed, the captain slapped the control to open the inner door. The stretcher-bearers were the first to enter the room. “He’s alive, sir,” Lieutenant Farns said.

  “What the hell is he wearing?” asked Doctor Smith who h
ad never seen the prototype armor.

  “It’s experimental body armor,” Abe explained.

  “Give me a hand getting the helmet off while I take his blood pressure and pulse, guys,” said the doctor.

  Members of the strike team helped to remove the helmet from Rufus’s head. One of the men turned the helmet to examine it. Shaking his head, he handed the helmet to Lieutenant Farns. The lieutenant took one look at the helmet and said, “I hope I’m as lucky as Rufus when I take hits.”

  Turning the helmet so the captain could see it, the lieutenant said nothing. Instead, he pointed to the impact marks on the forehead of the helmet and the face protection section. The captain understood what the lieutenant was getting at. Rounds had impacted the helmet both above and below the open section. The visor was cracked from those impacts, but no rounds had struck the vulnerable eye area.

  By now, the doctor had finished examining the pilot’s forehead, which bore a nasty goose egg sized lump. Next, he took his flashlight and examined the man’s eyes. Satisfied, he then opened the unconscious man’s mouth and checked his teeth. “Several of his teeth are slightly loose. That’s probably from the impact on the bottom front section of his helmet,” the doctor speculated.

  Now the doctor turned his attention to the rest of the pilot’s armor. “I see no evidence of wounds on the thighs. That’s good. Alright, men, help me with the chest piece,” the doctor instructed. “No, don’t raise him up to take it off. I want him laying flat. Cut the binders for me, so I can remove the chest piece a fraction of an inch at a time. I want to look under it to see if that round penetrated the armor and is embedded in his chest”

  The doctor was referring to the large caliber bullet embedded in the center of the chest piece. It was the Russian equivalent of the fifty-caliber round.

  The doctor squatted on his haunches. Bit by bit, he raised the chest piece until he had it in position so that he could peer under it with his mini light. Breathing a sigh of relief, the doctor said, “Take it off, Lieutenant. Rufus is lucky he was wearing that new armor. That stuff saved his life.” Turning to the captain, he added, “If adding a statement from me will help you get this armor standardized for the pilots, call on me.”

  The captain nodded his head, and then he said, “I will, Doc. What’s his condition?”

  “I can’t be certain without x-rays, but I’m betting he has some upper rib damage from the impact. Hairline fractures at the least, but most likely one or more are broken. He has a mild concussion, some loose teeth, and he must have remained conscious just long enough to land. He should live, unless the impact was so hard it damaged internal organs, but I don’t believe that’s the case. His vital signs are too good for that. He’ll have a headache from Hell for a while. He may suffer vertigo, dizziness, or fainting spells for the next day or two, so flying his fighter’s out of the question,” the doctor said in conclusion.

  “Thanks, Doc. Are you ready to move him to your infirmary?” asked the captain.

  “Yes, Captain,” said the doctor. He led the two men carrying the stretcher to the infirmary.

  “Is the fighter secured?” asked the captain.

  “Yes it is, sir,” the lieutenant confirmed. “Rufus must have passed out before he could lock it down. The lock worked just fine,” Lieutenant Farns explained.

  “Captain, you’re needed in the control room,” Sharon said over the intercom.

  “Tell her I’m on my way,” Jack said as he turned and ran to the corridor. Making his way forward, Jack soon came to the spiral staircase that led to the upper deck. He climbed the stairs as rapidly as he could, emerging in a small alcove aft of the control room.

  “Sir, we just lost the drone that was trailing the armada,” reported the drone operator who had been assigned to trail the ships.

  “That’s unfortunate, Sergeant, but I’m sure you did your best,” Jack said.

  “Sir, you don’t understand. I shouldn’t have lost the drone. I was keeping it well out of range of the deck guns. In fact, I was so far away from the armada that I had to zoom all the way in with my camera, just to keep them in sight. One minute my drone was fine, and the next it shut down,” the man explained.

  “Were you low on power?” the captain asked.

  “No, Captain. The power levels were in the green. All systems were good. I’m afraid I can’t explain this failure. It’s as if someone just deactivated the drone,” the Sergeant stated.

  “Sharon, review the communications logs. Try to determine if the enemy somehow accessed the drone and remotely shut it down,” the captain ordered.

  “Aye, Captain, I’ll get right on that, but it may take some time before I have an answer for you,” Sharon responded.

  The captain nodded his understanding, moved over to his chair, and took a seat.

  “Captain, how is Rufus?” Namid asked.

  “He has a concussion. He was plenty beat up by the attack, but he’ll live,” Jack explained.

  “He was lucky. I wouldn’t have thought that attack survivable,” Namid responded.

  “It wouldn’t have been if he’d been wearing standard armor, but he was testing the Huxley laminated gear,” said Jack.

  “He couldn’t have picked a better time,” Namid began, but then she said, “Sir, the battle group has come about. They are now heading toward us.”

  “Captain, my drone just died!” one of the men said.

  “I lost mine too, sir!” another added.

  “Helm, hard to starboard, and put some more distance between us and the armada, until we figure out what is going on here,” Jack ordered.

  “Well, the drones float,” the gunner said as Namid turned the Arizona.

  “That’s good to know. Maybe we can pick them up when we work out the problem, but I can’t get mine to reactivate. It’s as if someone hacked my drone and changed the access code,” the drone operator observed.

  “You other drone operators, land on the Arizona and lock down before we lose your drones,” Jack ordered.

  Jack waited a full minute, and then he said, “That should be far enough, Namid. Bring us to a stop and turn us to face the armada. I want to see what they’re doing. Camera operator, zoom in on them please.”

  “Got it, Captain!” said communications specialist Winters. “They must have some sophisticated communications gear aboard one of those ships, and a pretty good computer expert. They are running a random key code analyzer. At least I think they are. I am altering the configuration of the drones to accept a different format of code that should be harder for their software to break, assuming they are using the hardware that I think they are using. But this will take a few minutes.”

  “Is the Arizona in danger from this type of attack?” asked Jack.

  “No, Captain. Drones are designed for remote activation and operation, and for that reason the exploitable weakness is built into them. The Arizona is safe, and so are the fighters,” she explained.

  “Thank God it didn’t occur to them to try to attack the Arizona with the drones,” Jack said.

  “They may have, sir. The new drones have a safety device built into them. If an operator inadvertently targets a fighter or a ship, the attack computer gets a signal from the friendly transponder and the drone can’t fire,” Sharon explained.

  Nodding his understanding, Jack said, “That’s a good thing in this situation.”

  “Sir, the frigate is coming to a stop near our drones in the water,” Namid warned.

  “We can’t let them recover those drones. Attack the frigate,” Jack ordered.

  “With pleasure,” Namid said.

  “The drones are secure, sir. I’m sending new access codes to the control panels now!” Sharon said triumphantly.

  Jumping to his feet Jack said, “You men with drones in the water, attack!”

  The drone operators were too busy to reply. Like the captain, they had quickly realized the advantage that they would have in this situation. The two drones near the frigate both w
ent airborne and began firing at the waterline of the ship near the stern.

  Behind the small armada, the first drone that had been taken out of action rose from the surface of the sea. It flew toward the munitions ship that was currently at the rear of the armada. The pilot opened fire at the waterline of the vessel, near the stern. He was hoping to bore into her hull and sink the ship, but his drone had been in the water the longest. The tough little aircraft might float, but they weren’t watertight. Water had seeped in and was causing the operator’s video feed to blink in and out. The operator cursed under his breath when the feed disappeared for several seconds. It came back on just in time for him to see the missile streaking at him.

  “A missile got my drone, Captain,” the man said as his camera went dead.

  However, Jack missed his comment. He was absorbed by the tableau unfolding before him as Namid bore down on the frigate and David opened fire with the main laser. Namid had brought the Arizona toward the frigate broadside in order to permit the gunner to target the side of the wheelhouse. She was deftly manipulating her speed so that he would have time to bore through the armor plating just before he would lose the target. One of the benefits of being an experienced fighter pilot was that Namid had an intimate understanding of the tactical needs of the gunner. As a result, David often found it unnecessary to communicate with the pilot in battle to let her know what he needed to make a good strategic attack.

  As the Arizona approached the stern of the frigate, Namid slowed the airspeed to a crawl. Once the ship was over the stern, she put the Arizona into a hard climb. Just as had happened with the other frigate, the stern was forced beneath the sea by the tons of pressure being exerted against it. Water poured into the two holes that the drones had succeeded in boring through the hull, but the tough little ship popped back up.

  “Incoming missiles!” David shouted, causing Namid to reflexively resort to a violent maneuver, which took the ship from five hundred feet to twenty feet above the surface of the frigate. Jack felt a queasy sensation and then a brutal impact when they came to a sudden stop.

  “Sorry about that, Captain,” Namid said as she spun the Arizona and accelerated away from the frigate. She quickly executed another turning maneuver and headed back for the ship, but the last maneuver above the frigate had once again submerged the stern. This time, the stern failed to return to the surface.