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

by Ricky Sides

  Saying no more, the young man boldly picked up the last three sacks of food and water. Staggering under the load, he trudged off after the line of refugees.

  “What did the man say to the women?” Jack asked, breaking the heavy silence that followed the exit of the refugees from the camp.

  “He told them not to beg. He also told them that the men who claimed that we would kill them all had been right, and that they should take the food and water and leave while they could, and that where there was life, there was hope,” Shelly paraphrased again, choking back tears as she made the report.

  “Captain, our casualties were contaminated during the riot,” Lieutenant Farns reported via the audio pickups. “Their contamination gear has been breached. With your permission, we can place them in body bags and bury them here.”

  “Put me on external speaker, Lieutenant Winters,” Jack said. When the communications specialist signaled her readiness, the captain responded, “Negative, Lieutenant. Don’t touch them if they’ve been contaminated. Get a couple of drums of fuel over beside the bodies and blow them. We’ll cremate their remains.”

  “Sir?” asked the strike team leader.

  “Do it, Lieutenant. That’s an order. I take full responsibility.”

  “You heard the captain!” the lieutenant shouted angrily a moment later.

  “Captain, I’m not afraid of the flu. I’ll volunteer for a burial detail,” a drone operator said.

  “So will I,” Namid spoke up angrily.

  “So would any member of our strike team,” Jack responded bitterly. “But my order stands. And that’s the last time I want to repeat an order. Do I make myself clear?”

  “We’re doing it, Captain!” Lieutenant Farns shouted back with barely controlled anger.

  Jack sighed. In his anger, he hadn’t realized that he was depressing the microphone when he’d addressed the control room crew. Now his strike team leader had heard him dress down the others and thought that he was addressing his men. “I’m sorry, Lieutenant. I wasn’t talking to you and your men. I had the microphone activated when I addressed someone else.”

  Eddy waved his understanding and then he joined his men in the grim detail they had been assigned.

  Jack breathed a sigh of relief, and then his eyes sought out Namid’s and the cold anger he saw in her eyes told him he wasn’t out of trouble yet. Not by a long shot.

  Chapter 6

  “Bill! It’s great to see you. It’s been too long,” Jim stated as Captain Bill Young walked into the conference room aboard the Damroyal.

  “It’s good to see you too, Jim,” Captain Young responded.

  “How goes the hunt?” Jim inquired. The Constitution had been assigned the unpleasant task of monitoring the seacoast in an effort to locate the pirate base, for the past four months. “We haven’t located the base, but we have managed to make a dent in the number of operational vessels the pirates can put to sea. So far, we’ve managed to sink sixty-three. We could’ve gotten a few more, but at the time we weren’t certain they were pirates.”

  “You’re earning your keep, my friend,” Jim stated and meant it. “Those sixty plus ships will never burden decent people again.”

  Bill nodded his acceptance of the praise, and then he said, “You know me, Jim. I’m not much for mincing words, so I’ll just come out and say what’s on my mind.”

  “I appreciate the candor,” Jim responded. He thought he had a fairly good idea why Bill had broken off the pirate hunt and came to rendezvous with the Damroyal.

  “I read the command dispatch that you sent. Is it as bad as it sounds?” Captain Young inquired.

  “It’s worse. Yesterday, the refugees in the Arizona camp attacked and killed the peacekeeper detachment that was trying to help them. Most of the refugees were killed during the fighting when they detonated an oversized fuel bomb. The Arizona got there in time to kill some of the men who had slaughtered the peacekeepers and armed themselves with their weapons. Jack gave the few refugees they located food and water, but then he ordered them to go south and not return.”

  “That would have been hard for him. It’s not his nature to do something like that,” Bill observed.

  “It’s worse than you think. There were three women, one man and five children. The odds of them surviving are not good, but Jack did the right thing. Doctor Smith reviewed the video footage, and is almost certain that one of the women had the flu.”

  “Does having this flu automatically mean you also have the plague disease?” Bill asked.

  “Not necessarily,” Maggie responded. “However, it is highly likely. Several of the refugees in that camp tested positive for the plague, and we all know how virulent that disease is. I think it highly unlikely that portions of that group would have the flu independent of the plague, though I wouldn’t completely rule out the possibility.”

  “You wanted to see us, Bill,” Tim said. He was referring to the fact that Captain Young had requested a meeting with the peacekeeper council, Maggie and Patricia. “What’s on your mind?” Tim bluntly asked.

  “I’m afraid you’ll have to overlook Tim’s gruff manner today, Bill. He’s lost a lot of sleep lately,” Jim said by way of explanation.

  “The dreams again?” Bill asked. Everyone in the room knew that Bill meant the precognitive dreams that Tim had experienced in the past.

  “They were our first warning that we were dealing with more than the flu,” Jim confirmed.

  “There was no mention of them in the dispatch,” Bill noted.

  “Would you want such information broadcast to the peacekeeper network if you were the one experiencing the dreams?” Tim asked defensively.

  “No, I don’t think I’d like that,” Bill responded. Sighing, he continued, “I hope I’m not overstepping my bounds here, but there are some things I want to say to all of you.”

  “We’ve known each other too long for you worry about offending us,” Tim said. “Sorry, Bill. I don’t mean to be so cranky. I can hardly believe some of the things I’ve said to friends the past couple of days. It’s nothing personal. I just need a good long rest.”

  “I can help with that,” Maggie offered.

  “We’ve already had that discussion. The dreams seem to have stopped, but I don’t know when they might start again. Nature will just have to take its course. Drug induced sleep will kill the dreams, and right now we could use more information.”

  “All right, if no one minds then I’ll state my case and get back to work on the pirate problem,” Bill said.

  Jim nodded, as did Tim and Pol.

  “My apologies to you, Maggie, because what I’m about to say might make you uncomfortable, but for the good of the peacekeepers, I need to say what’s on my mind.”

  Maggie nodded her tacit permission for Bill to speak without regard to her feelings.

  Bill sighed and leaned back in his chair. He removed his hat from his balding head and laid it on the top of the table in front of his chair. Jim noted the worry lines that creased Bill’s face, and for the first time, he thought Bill looked old.

  “I wanted to tell you about Chicago. Specifically, I wanted to tell you about a conversation Pete had with a couple of other men and me. It was when the conditions were at their worst in the city. Violent crime was rampant. We met with Pete because we wanted our group to do something about the terrible situation and help the people who were doomed to the not so tender mercies of the marauders.”

  “I remember Pete referencing that meeting a time or two,” Maggie observed.

  Bill nodded. “Pete was right. We wanted to bring the people into our shelter, but Pete said no. He said that in doing that, we would ultimately doom our entire group.”

  “But you helped people. I know you did. I heard the stories from too many sources for it not to be true,” Jim stated.

  “Yes, we helped people. We led them to safe areas and gave them scavenged food and weapons. But we didn’t take them into the shelters,” Bill stated firmly.
“I think we’re facing the same scenario with this current situation, but on a vastly larger scale. That is why I wanted to speak to you. To give you the advice that Pete gave us back then. If he were here, I think he’d say for us to help those we can. Get them to isolated areas. Leave them with what food and weapons we can, but not to endanger the core group.”

  “It happened in Chicago, and now it’s about to happen all over America. We peacekeepers, are about to be overwhelmed by the deluge of calls for assistance that is sure to come when things get bad. The time will come when we will be forced to stop answering those calls. It’ll be a time when things are so bad, that not even our technology will help us avert extinction if we continue to go on runs. The time is coming when we have to decide that if humanity is to remain viable, then we must survive to propagate it, because if we don’t, who will?”

  Dead silence greeted the end of Bill’s speech. Then, Jim nodded his understanding.

  Tim spoke for the rest of the people present when he said, “As I recall, Jim told the people of Arley, Tennessee that you don’t talk a lot, but when you do, people should listen. He was right. You’ve made some excellent points.”

  “I’m gravely concerned. It’s not our nature to turn down requests for aid. In the weeks and months ahead, we may look back on Jack’s actions in Arizona as of little consequence because by then we will be forced to take action that is much more drastic. And I fear the time is rapidly approaching when we will have to face the fact that we’ve done all we can do, and that it’s time to go to ground,” Bill explained.

  “Or to water,” Pol said with a smile.

  “Huh?” Bill asked.

  ***

  “May I have your attention please? All base personnel are to report to the hangar bay for a special announcement by the council. Repeat all personnel are to report to the hangar bay for a special announcement by the council. You have ten minutes to assemble.”

  Junior team one had just sat down to dinner when the assembly order sounded over the intercom. “Let’s go guys,” Evan said nervously. He knew some of what was going to be revealed at the assembly.

  “What’s going on, Commander?” asked Ralph.

  “We’ll soon find out,” Evan said evasively. Lisa noted that he looked away from Ralph as he replied and she suspected that her husband knew more than he was saying.

  The team joined the assembly in the hangar bay. Evan had never seen so many people in the citadel at one time. The entire hangar bay seemed crowded. This was a result of the influx of peacekeepers from the Houston and Dallas areas.

  Here and there among the assembly, people greeted one another in quiet tones, but with so many peacekeepers gathered in the bay that murmur tended toward a dull roar of background conversations.

  “May I have your attention please? Admiral Wilison is about to address us. This is a critically important announcement. Please remain quiet so that everyone can hear the admiral,” stated the control-room communications officer.

  The background clutter of conversations died out. Moments later, Evan heard Jim’s voice as he said, “Hello Peacekeepers. This message is being simultaneously sent to all peacekeeper bases, vessels, and mobile units. By now, many of you are aware that there is an emergency in progress. Yesterday, we issued landing restrictions in the states that border Mexico. In the coming days and weeks, we expect those orders to be upgraded to include other states.”

  “We are taking this unprecedented action because of the disease threat that originated in Mexico. You are probably aware that we set up refugee camps in the Border States to help assist the displaced people from Mexico. We provided food, water, clothing, and shelter for these people as well as medical treatment for the flu. Late yesterday afternoon, the Arizona refugee camp rioted. The peacekeeper contingent there was massacred. The perpetrators either died during the fighting or were terminated by one of our fighters.”

  “Today, we the council ordered the remaining refugee camps closed. The refugees there were given food and water, but were ordered to return to Mexico.”

  “This will shock many of you. It shocked us to be forced to issue those orders, but we felt we had no alternative, because we aren’t just dealing with the flu. The plague that the drug cartel unleashed in America, years ago, has returned. It has mutated by attaching itself to the flu. The first confirmed case occurred in California at the refugee camp there. Captain Cliff Barnes recognized the threat for what it was and took swift action to safeguard the personnel under his command. Unfortunately, several of the medical staff have now tested positive for the disease. They have been moved to a secure location for medical treatment, but their prognosis is grim.”

  “We have no way to determine how many people got through before we set up the camps. Furthermore, we know for a fact that not all of the refugees opted to go to the camps. Therefore, we must assume that the disease is even now spreading throughout America. It is the opinion of Maggie Damroyal, our top physician, that this plague has the potential to wipe out the population of America. Therefore, in the coming days and weeks, we will be taking drastic steps to see to the survival of our species in the continental United States, but we also have a responsibility to try to prevent the disease from spreading outside our borders. To that end, we must continue to prosecute our war on the pirates that have plagued us for years.”

  “We’ll save as many people as we can, but the time will come when it is time to hunker down and seal ourselves off from the rest of the country in an effort to save our own people and preserve the human race in America. Our technology gives us a fighting chance of succeeding.”

  “As you know, our Peacekeeper organization is an all volunteer group. When you joined up, you were told that you could leave when you wished. Some of you have extended families not living on a base. Therefore, we anticipate that some peacekeepers will want to leave to go and join their families. Those wishing to exercise that option within the next few days will be transported to the location of their choosing. We’ll even attempt to land in the Border States to drop you off near the location of your choice. Large cities are deemed unsafe because of their population densities, therefore, no flights will land in the cities, but we’ll drop you off as close as possible.”

  “We anticipate that some of you will petition us for the right to resettle your extended families on a base. Unfortunately, that isn’t feasible. We are faced with the monumental challenge of locating accommodations for all of the personnel currently under our umbrella of responsibility. Adding to our numbers at this stage would be impractical. We know that sounds harsh, but this is an extreme survival situation and we are forced to think of the good of the majority. However, we are not heartless. We can’t take in an unlimited number of people, but you are peacekeepers, and by your service you have earned special consideration for your families. Those of you who want to bring in your extended families so that you and they can participate in the Ark program are welcome to do so, provided you accompany them.”

  “The Ark program is designed to help ensure the survival of the human race. The arks are remote communities with no roads leading in and out. These locations were specifically chosen because approach by land is difficult at best, and in some cases it is next to impossible. It is our hope that their seclusion will offer the best protection against the plague. The exact details of the ark communities will remain classified for the protection of the inhabitants. Once you and your family arrive at an ark community, you are there for the duration of this emergency. Survival in these communities will be difficult, but hopefully it will also be plague free.”

  “Participants in the Ark program need to register with their commanders as soon as possible. The sooner the better because a time will come when it will become impossible to provide transportation.”

  “You should all bear in mind that the most effective protection the ark communities have, will be their secrecy. To that end, it is forbidden to discuss them with outsiders. Those of you wishing to participat
e should only tell your families that you are arranging for them to go to a safe place. Even you won’t know where you’re going until you board a transport for the flight to the community.”

  “Those wishing to be discharged so that you can return to your families will be issued a semiautomatic weapon and ammunition, as well as a few days’ rations. The automatic weapons must stay with the peacekeepers.”

  “Now, it’s time for a word about our bases. Several are vulnerable to siege. At the height of the plague, we expect such bases to become the targets of desperate masses. Their fall is inevitable, so we must abandon such bases. A few are deemed remote enough and are sufficiently secure to be maintained. If your base is one of the bases slated for closure, you may rest assured that other valid options are in the works. For security reasons, we aren’t going to list the bases that will be closed in this broadcast. Your base commanders already have that information when this message ends, they will address you. The closure list is classified, so that means you shouldn’t speak of the matter to outsiders.”

  “Those of you wishing to remain with the group are welcome to do so. We are making every effort to ensure the survival of you and your dependent families who currently reside on a base.”

  “Further updates will be made at the appropriate time. No matter what you decide to do, we the council wish you all the best of luck and thank you for your service to our country.”