by Ricky Sides
Stepping back inside the control room, Jim was greeted by Teresa who said, “Sir, Sergeant Borden says that the fire has been extinguished. He requested the bay door be lowered for a few moments to clear the smoke from the aft section.”
Nodding his head, Jim ordered the bay door opened for a few minutes. Outside the windshield, Jim saw the Constitution and the Arizona. The Constitution had taken multiple hits, but it didn’t appear as if the missiles had penetrated beyond the first layer of her hull. The Arizona had been luckier than the other two ships in that none of the missiles had struck it, but numerous drones seemed to be missing. Without taking the time to count, Jim was certain that he saw only a fraction of the drones that he should be able to see.
“Captain, we’re receiving multiple Maydays,” Teresa shouted from her communications console.
“Are they from pilots in distress?” Jim asked.
“Yes, Captain. Five, no, make that seven aircraft are down and sinking. Other fighters are attempting rescues, but the enemy is closing on the downed fighters,” she reported.
“Order the drones to cover the rescue attempts, and send the Arizona back in to assist. Check with Bill to see if the Constitution can lend them a hand. I’ve got to determine whether or not we are battle worthy,” Jim instructed.
“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Connors replied.
Turning to the engineer again, Jim saw that the man was coming around. He was examining his board that monitored the power flow readings. “What’s our status, Max?” Jim asked.
“It’s bad, Captain. If these readings are correct, we have to head for land at once. Even if we were already on the way back, I’m not sure we could reach land before we lose all power. We must be leaking battery fluid at an alarming rate.”
“We are. I see the problem,” Lisa said calmly from one of the drone operator stations.
Jim turned and headed for her monitor. He saw a gapping hole in the bottom of the ship where the rocket had entered.
“I’ll fix it, Dad,” Evan said. He flew his drone beneath the spot and then increased the altitude until his drone touched the hull of the Valiant. He then tried to lock it in place, but the drone couldn’t lock because of the force of the fluid pressing down on the top of the drone. “Push my drone up Lisa,” Evan instructed.
A few moments later, Lisa and Evan succeeded in locking his drone in place, but when Lisa tried to fly her drone away, she discovered that it was now locked to the bottom of Evan’s drone. “Hey, I’m stuck to your drone now,” she reported.
“Just toggle your locking sequence,” Max advised. “That will unlock your drone,” he added as he stared at his power readouts. “That’s better, Captain. Well done guys,” he said to Lisa and Evan.
“Then we can stay in the battle?” Jim asked hopefully.
“No, Captain, but we will probably make it to land, so we won’t have to swim home,” he added.
“Captain, the enemy is attacking the downed fliers. Five have been rescued, but one was killed and the enemy has captured another. The Arizona is pursuing,” she reported, and paused to listen to further information being sent to her station. “They bored into the engine of the ship. Captain Wilcox is sending in his strike team to retrieve the pilot.”
“Send all available drones and fighters to assist with covering fire, but be careful not to hit our own personnel. Instruct them to concentrate on keeping the rest of the enemy fleet away the moment the strike team is aboard the enemy vessel,” Jim ordered.
Jim then ran aft to see the damage to the Valiant for himself. He soon encountered the strike team members who were struggling to complete emergency repairs to the damaged deck. “Most of the damage was contained in the battery compartment, sir,” reported the strike force leader. Then Sergeant Borden added, “We were losing fluid, but that seemed to stop, so we’re putting down a deck patch for now. The rest of the damage seems to be cosmetic.”
“No one was injured, Sergeant?” the captain asked.
“No, sir. On that account, we were lucky. Had it hit forward in the passenger compartment, instead of here in the sleeping berth area, we’d be scraping pieces of people off the walls,” replied the sergeant.
“Thank you, Sergeant. The Arizona is boarding a ship to recover a captured pilot. You may be needed to assist. Get your team ready and stand by in the cargo bay,” Jim ordered.
“Right away, Sir,” the sergeant responded. He turned and ran for the cargo bay with his team on his heels.
Jim returned to the communications station. “Ask the Arizona if their team needs assistance,” Jim ordered.
The communications officer transmitted Jim’s query, and then she listened to the reply. “They say that the captain of the ship is offering to free the prisoner if we let his ship go,” Teresa reported.
“Tell Jack I said he knows what to do,” Jim responded.
Jim ordered Lina to fly the ship to a position near the Arizona. Looking down on the deck from a position hundreds of feet above the ship, Jim had a good view of the events unfolding below.
The strike force had spread out in a skirmish line and had been advancing along the length of the ship. Jim saw the bodies of several crewmen who had tried to fight the strike team. Currently, the strike team members were taking advantage of any cover available. Their weapons were trained on the wheelhouse. As he watched, he saw a small door open and a pilot emerged. The man staggered toward the peacekeepers on the deck. The front of his uniform was bloody. Two strike team medics jumped up from their places of concealment and rushed to the pilot’s aid. In moments, the medics had the man in the outer cargo bay of the Arizona. Jim watched as the strike force team made an orderly retreat. He saw a man standing at the foot of the boarding ramp. He appeared to be taking the time to get a head count before entering the ship himself. When he was satisfied, he entered the ship, and the door closed behind him.
Jim continued to watch the events unfolding from the windshield. He saw the Arizona rise into the air and fly away from the cargo ship they had assaulted in order to liberate a fellow peacekeeper. If the enemy had not abused the pilot, then Jack would honor his pledge to the captain and leave him afloat, but as he watched, Jim saw the Arizona turn and face the enemy ship. Then, he knew that the enemy must have done something terrible. When the Arizona opened fire, Jim ordered the Valiant to fire its conventional weapons as well. In less than a minute, the pirate ship was sinking.
“Captain, you have an incoming message. Captain Wilcox wants to speak with you,” the communications officer reported.
Taking the microphone in his hand, Jim said, “I’m here, Captain.”
“Admiral, they carved up the man’s chest and cut off a finger for kicks, so I saw no need to honor the agreement,” Jack reported.
“Will the pilot make it?” Jim asked in concern.
“Yes, Sir. No thanks to the scum on the ship,” Jack responded.
“Thank you, Captain, and congratulate your team for me. They did a great job under difficult circumstances,” Jim said.
“Will do, Admiral. The boys will be happy to hear that you’re pleased with their performance,” Jack said with a touch of pride. Then he asked, “Will we resume the attack on the fleet now?”
“We’ve sustained major damage. My engineer tells me we’ll be lucky to make it to land. I’m afraid the Valiant will have to fly back for repairs, so we’ll all call it a day. If the Valiant goes down, we will need the Arizona and her surface capabilities to help affect a rescue of my crew.”
“Understood, Sir. We’ll follow you in on your command. What?” asked Captain Wilcox, speaking to a member of his crew. There was a momentary pause, and then he said, “Sir, our doctor just informed me that we need to transfer the wounded pilot to the Constitution. He needs a blood transfusion and we don’t have a crewman aboard with his blood type. He says that Doctor Dean of the Constitution reports they have three crewmen who have the correct blood type.”
“Alright, get a safe distance from th
e hostiles. We’ll stand guard during the transfer,” Jim ordered.
A fighter pilot facilitated the transfer. He lowered his rope to the open bay door of the Arizona. The wounded pilot had been placed inside a rescue basket for the transfer. It only took a few minutes for the pilot to lift the basket from the extended ramp, which had been stopped when it was level with the floor of the cargo bay, and transfer him to the cargo bay door of the Constitution. Soon, Doctor Dean and his nurse Edith were beside the emergency stretcher as it was carried to the infirmary. Edith carried Doctor Smith’s notes as to the patient’s condition and the extent of his wounds. They would perform their own examination, but the notes told them what they needed to address first.
Back aboard the Valiant, Jim waited until the bay door of the Constitution closed. He then gave the order for the peacekeeper attack group to head back to Washington.
Chapter 14
“Are the fishing boats in position?” Captain Lynch asked his new first mate.
“Yes, Captain. The men are awaiting your orders,” the mate responded.
“Good. Tell them I said to begin their raids shortly after sunset. I want maximum chaos and terror. Tell them to set fire to the cities. I want them to create panic along the eastern seaboard. I want every little village and hamlet along the coast demanding protection. That should force the enemy to redeploy their forces to protect their communities,” Captain Lynch explained.
***
Ten medium sized fishing boats, loaded with hundreds of pirates, targeted three cities that night. The cities selected were Jacksonville, Florida; Savannah, Georgia; and Groton, Connecticut.
Four of the fishing boats arrived just off the coast of Jacksonville, Florida about thirty minutes past sunset. The pirates didn’t know it, but the peacekeepers had warned the citizens of Jacksonville days in advance. A local militia composed of former military men and police officers had been formed to deal with the crisis. They decided to act as coast watchers and established lookout points that would watch for the pirates all along the beaches. A team of these militiamen spotted the ships while they were still offshore. Within ten minutes, more than two hundred heavily armed men arrived and took up defensive positions that had been carefully selected in advance. They called in on the peacekeeper frequency and reported four boats heading for a landing at the beach.
A flight of peacekeeper fighters was patrolling the coastline. They were diverted to the area to check out the suspicious fishing boats that the men on shore did not recognize. The fighters arrived just as the men in the fishing boats were swarming up the beach. The militia activated powerful spotlights and illuminated the pirates, who responded by opening fire on the lights and spraying the area before them with rifle fire.
The militia fired back. It was a one-sided battle of short duration. The militia was firing from carefully prepared positions that provided good cover. The pirates were caught in the open, on the beach. Within three minutes, the battle was over. The peacekeeper fighters dealt with one pocket of pirates that made it to a concrete building and barricaded themselves inside, but the militia handled the rest.
In Savannah, Georgia, three ships came ashore, forty-five minutes after sunset. The pirates made it ashore unobserved. Marching through the streets, they tossed Molotov cocktails into buildings and fired at anyone they saw in the streets. They killed three men before the two peacekeeper APCs arrived to do battle with them. It was a short battle. The conventional weapons of the APCs cut down the pirates while peacekeeper ground troops exited the vehicles. The two crews separated and trapped the enemy in crossfire. In ten minutes, the battle was over.
Just off the coast of Groton, Connecticut, the three pirate vessels approached the city an hour after sunset. However, as they approached the beach a siren began to wail and they knew that they had been spotted, but it would take more than the wailing of a siren to drive them away. They boldly tied their boats to the piers and climbed onto the boardwalk. They were almost to the end of the boardwalk, when the spotlights came on, blinding them. “Who are you men, and what do you want?” asked a disembodied voice.
One of the pirates fired his pistol blindly in the direction of the voice. What followed was a two-minute firefight in which the town militia, who had been put on alert by the peacekeepers, killed all of the pirates. Several men of the community were wounded, but the careful planning of their defensive positions prevented them from losing militiamen during the firefight. Most of those who were wounded were hit as they moved forward to check the bodies after they thought the battle was over. Some of the pirates had feigned death until the militiamen approached them. After that incident, the men of the community stood back, and fired at the bodies of the pirates until they were certain no one could have possibly survived.
***
In the middle of the night, seventeen pirate ships of the southern fleet moved past the southern tip of Florida. By sailing close to Cuba, they had managed to elude the American fighter patrols. They almost made it past Cuba without being spotted, but a pair of Cuban fighter pilots returning from a patrol in the Gulf of Mexico saw them. One of the pilots alerted the patrol ship Havana that there were several ships moving into the Gulf. In anticipation of such an incursion, Captain Ramon Marino had his communications officer radio Tim, who had led his attack group to the Florida Keys.
Tim decided to wait until daybreak to attack the group of ships. The peacekeeper battle group was still low on energy from the battle the previous day, and it would do no good to engage the enemy with little to no energy reserve.
Nevertheless, Ramon wasn’t hampered by the energy problem. He informed Tim that he was going to fly out to investigate the little fleet.
The Havana left the base with an escort of ten fighters. Within half an hour, they had passed the spot where they should have intercepted the fleet had the pirates maintained their last observed heading. Ramon regretted his decision to order the two fighters back to the base, but it had been a command decision. The pilots had been in the air fifteen hours and they needed to rest. Captain Marino ordered the fighters to begin flying a widely spaced spiral flight pattern. Fifteen minutes into that search, one of the fighter pilots spotted the enemy. They‘d turned north, and were apparently heading for the Dry Tortugas. Ramon consulted a map and uncharacteristically cursed. “Get me the Peacekeeper. Tell the man on duty I need to speak to Captain Wilison immediately,” Ramon said.
When Tim heard the news that the pirates were making for Fort Jefferson on Garden Key in the Dry Tortugas, he began to curse. Tim Wilison loved that old fort. He knew the peacekeepers could easily defeat the enemy if they occupied it, but not without destroying a national monument in the process. “We’re on our way, Captain,” he said to Ramon.
“We’ll do our best to turn them away from their course,” Ramon assured Tim.
Tim wished the Cuban luck, and then he went about the process of alerting the battle group to the threat, approximately seventy miles west of Key West, where they were camped.
Ramon had his battle group fly a circular flight plan, so that they approached the enemy head on with their lasers blazing. He was counting on the visual affect this would have on the enemy. As expected, this caused the enemy to turn to port, thus altering their course away from their presumed destination, but they didn’t maintain their new course for long. Soon the ships had turned back to the original course, and they were once more heading for Fort Jefferson.
Ramon understood that the pirates were attempting to take the fort and establish a base, but the plan made no sense to him. Their ships would still be vulnerable to attack by the peacekeepers, and they could easily be stranded on the small island. Ramon pondered the matter, and only two things came to mind that would make such a gambit worth the risk and effort. It could be a diversion, meant to draw large amounts of peacekeeper assets to that specific area. It could also be a rallying point for any of the pirates who made it into the Gulf, and it was possible they didn’t know they were the first
to arrive. The pirates were maintaining radio silence, so that was a distinct possibility.
No matter the reason, Ramon was sure that the peacekeepers would be able to prevent the ships from landing at the isle. He was about to order a more concentrated attack on the enemy armada when a third option occurred to him. For the second time that night, Ramon cursed, causing the control room crew to look toward the man who was normally so calm in battle. “Drone operators, I want two drones dispatched to Fort Jefferson. Approach with caution. It just occurred to me that the pirates might already have forces stationed there. If you see signs of an enemy presence on the island, document it. Send the feed directly to the Havana Communications specialist. Get ready to receive that feed, and if there is an enemy presence, then you are to relay that feed to the Peacekeeper. Contact their communications officer to let them know what we are doing and why,” Ramon ordered in a rapid-fire string of instructions.
Aboard the Peacekeeper, Patricia relayed Ramon’s message to Tim who in turn asked her to access the reconnaissance reports to see if any flights had passed over or near the fort in the past few days. In two minutes, Patricia responded that no recon missions had been flown over that area in the past several months. Tim groaned, and then he said, “Let’s just hope they haven’t already occupied the fort.”
A few minutes later, Tim was watching the video feed from the drones. Dozens of pirate ships were moored in the anchorage near the fort.
The Havana and her escort fighters savagely attacked the pirate armada that was en route for the island fortress. They had given up on intimidating the enemy into diverting their course. They were now attacking vessels with all their firepower, one by one. Six of the ships had already been destroyed. Now the Cuban peacekeeper battle group turned their attention to the most formidable enemy vessel. It was a medium sized cargo ship, which had been equipped with multiple gun emplacements. As the peacekeepers approached that target, the gunner shouted, “They are firing multiple missiles!”