by Ricky Sides
Tim went to bed that night certain that he would rest well. He was wrong.
***
William Banister couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t been a pirate. He had gone to sea at the age of fourteen to get away from an abusive father who blamed him for his mother’s death. His mother had run out into the street and thrown him to safety, just before the bus ran her down. That vehicle would have surely killed him if she hadn’t saved his life. He had been three years old at the time, and had toddled out into the street while she was unlocking the front door to their home.
William originally went to sea by stowing away on a small merchant ship. When that vessel fell to pirates, they kidnapped and forced him into service aboard the pirate ship. For three years, he swabbed the decks and did a multitude of unpleasant tasks that the crew shirked. Then, one day, one of the pirates tried to rape him. He had gutted the man with his own knife. The other men wanted to kill him for the murder, but the captain shouted them down, demanding to know whom among them would have been the willing bed partner of the dead man.
In the years that followed, William rose in the ranks of the crew eventually becoming the first mate of Captain Ed Wilfred. He served that captain faithfully, and his reward was to be treated as a son, by the old pirate. Then they went to war against the peacekeepers in American waters and one of their aircraft strafed their pirate ship, killing the captain in the process.
Now William Banister was the captain of the Albatross, and William Banister wanted one thing above anything else in the world. He wanted revenge against the people who had killed Captain Wilfred. To that end, he had met in the captains’ counsel of the remnant of the pirate fleet and fought for the right to lead the flotilla.
Now he made the decisions, and one of his first was to have all radio traffic monitored. Most of the enemy transmissions were scrambled, but William understood that you could learn a lot about the enemy by listening to the civilian radio traffic, which often spoke of seeing their ships and fighters. Sometimes the foolish people even referenced their flight direction. More than once, this habit of monitoring the radio traffic had enabled the flotilla to avoid discovery by altering their course.
Because it had proven so useful in the past, William took to listening to the radio as much as possible. Therefore, when he heard about the sixteen-ship convoy riding low in the water and sailing along the east coast to Havana, Cuba, he was interested. When he learned that the cargo ships were loaded with the new flying cars the Americans now sported, he was even more interested.
With visions of a makeshift air force of their own, comprised of the stolen flying automobiles, William summoned the flotilla to assemble near the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico. He ordered them all to come if they wanted a share in the biggest prize any of them could ever hope to capture. When some captains were reluctant to leave their sheltered Caribbean coves he said, “You’ve seen the flying cars the Americans use during some of your raids. What would you say if I told you I know where and when sixteen cargo ships loaded with hundreds of those cars will be located in the Gulf of Mexico? Be there or lose your share. It’s as simple as that.”
William Banister easily convinced even the most reluctant pirate captains to come in for a share of such a prize. He did warn them that the ships were said to be loaded with mercenaries who would defend them, but the pirates were accustomed to dealing with such mercenary bands. They generally offered the mercenaries a share of the loot, which caused most to turn on their employers. Later, after the ships had been taken, the pirates would break out the liquor and ply the mercenaries with drink. When they had succumbed to the effects of the alcohol, the pirates slit the mercenaries’ throats, took their weapons and other valuables, and then dumped the bodies at sea. The occasional mercenary who didn’t drink was usually among the first to die. The few mercenary bands that remained loyal to their employers were always defeated in the end. No, the pirates weren’t worried about mercenaries. They never did.
***
As the junior teams prepared to board their APCs, they passed two lines of peacekeepers waiting for the command staff to interview them so they could register for discharge, transportation home, or for the Ark Program. Evan noted that the ark line was by far longer than the simple discharge line. There were more peacekeepers in those lines than he had expected.
Boarding their APC, Evan went about his routine inspection, and then he went into the cockpit to speak to Lisa. “We have no emergency supplies onboard,” he said. “Contact JT2 and JT3. Tell Clem and Wayne I said to double check their supplies.”
In the flight control office of the citadel, the base commander watched with interest to see if the junior teams would enter the flight line. When all three hatches opened and the commanders stepped out, he assumed they had passed their initial test.
The three commanders ordered their replacement supplies, which were delivered in record time. Their crews stowed the supplies as quickly as they could, and soon the three APCs entered the flight lineup.
Their flight to Houston was uneventful, but when they landed, they discovered that they would have to load the supplies themselves. “Is this another little surprise from the commander?” asked Clem.
Evan didn’t bother to reply. He grabbed one of the boxes in the pile designated for his APC and helped the strike team load them. Lisa volunteered to assist, but Evan vetoed the suggestion, saying, “I need you manning the radio. Make sure the other radio operators do the same.”
The trip from the citadel to Houston was a three-hour flight. Add the time they spent in the flight line and the loading time and this made the run a seven-hour mission, but they had two scheduled that day. The crews grabbed a quick meal while their APCs were being unloaded and then it was time to leave for their second mission of the day.
Once again, Evan discovered that all of the emergency food and water supplies had been removed from the APC. This time Wayne’s radio operator contacted Lisa, reporting that their supplies had also been removed.
When they stepped outside their APCs, Evan could tell that Wayne was furious. “Wayne,” he said in a low pitched, but urgent tone of voice. “Look at me. Don’t look at the control room window. He’s there.”
Wayne looked at Evan. The anger on his face was evident. “I know he’s there. I want to give him a piece of my mind.”
“You gonna let him win the first day?” Evan asked. “He’ll ground you for insubordination, and he can make it stick.”
“How long do we have to take this crap?” Wayne asked.
“We’ll have to put up with it until we prove ourselves worthy of the critical missions. You shouldn’t blame him. I don’t.”
“You don’t?”
“No, and you shouldn’t either. You do understand what my dad means when he uses the term critical mission don’t you?” Evan asked.
“Important, yeah I get that.”
“No. All missions are important to dad, but when he uses the term critical missions, he always means that peoples’ lives are on the line. That’s why I don’t blame the base commander for testing us severely. He’s just doing his job. Now let’s prove to him that we can do ours without losing our tempers the first day,” Evan said.
In the control room, Commander Finch watched with interest as Evan calmed down the other two commanders, one of whom appeared to be ready to storm the control room. Though he couldn’t hear what they were saying, it was obvious to him that Evan was calming down the other commanders. He nodded his head approvingly. “That boy is a natural leader,” he muttered to himself.
“Who is, sir?” asked his aide.
“I meant Evan.”
“Well, he is the admiral’s son. I expect he’s had command responsibilities drilled into him from an early age. He was also a ship brat, so he’d be familiar with most things that deal with the safe operation of a ship.”
“Your point?”
“Perhaps you need to challenge him with something out of his realm of experien
ce, sir.”
“We’re all about to be challenged in that manner, Lieutenant. But I get your point. I’ll give that some thought.”
A short time later, the three junior teams left for their mission to Houston. This time, no one was surprised when they had to load their own cargo.
The next day the teams were pleasantly surprised when they found their emergency supplies onboard. But when they tried to use their radios, they quickly discovered that they wouldn’t work. Lisa quickly repaired hers when she discovered that a power relay switch had been deactivated. It took the other two ships ten minutes to get their radios working, but then they checked in with JT1 before maneuvering to the flight line.
“You handled that well,” Evan complimented Lisa as they flew toward Houston.
“I watched Pol and Patricia troubleshooting the com system a million times. That was always the first thing they checked. Patricia once said to never overlook the simplest solution because more often than not, that was the fix you needed,” Lisa explained.
“Yeah, in some ways, being a ship brat gives us an edge,” Evan stated.
They flew two missions to Houston that day. At the outset of the second mission, Evan discovered that the battery reserve had been drained to twenty-five percent. He checked with the other two teams and discovered that their APCs were down to precisely the same level of power reserves. This forced him to make a decision. He could still fly the mission because most of it would be made during the daylight, but there would be little margin for error.
“What do we do, Evan?” Clem asked because Evan was still the overall leader of the three junior teams.
“We make the run. By the book, we can make it as long as we are above twenty percent power when we leave. But this is so close that I want you to film your flight plans beside the energy readouts. We’ll do the same. That way, no one can say we departed at twenty percent.”
“Roger that, Commander. Give me five minutes and we’ll be ready for flight,” Clem replied.
“Will do, Commander,” Wayne said with a chuckle. Evan nodded his head in satisfaction. Since he had explained the situation to the commanders, both were now taking the tests in stride.
During the trip to Houston, Evan borrowed Lisa’s headset again to address the other two teams. “Guys, I don’t know about you, but I think I want to have a little fun with the base commander. What say we return these birds with a three quarter charge?”
“Now that sounds like fun. I can just see the puzzled look on Finch’s face when he gets the report,” said Wayne with an accompanying laugh. “But how do we pull that off?”
“Turn off your air conditioner, kill the cargo area lighting, and have your gunner switch to sleep mode on the energy weapons.”
“Won’t that disable the weapons?” asked Wayne.
“No, it doesn’t disable them. It just takes fifteen seconds for them to go back to full active mode. Putting them in sleep mode will just take away our ability to fire in an instant, but we’ll save a lot of energy,” Evan explained. “It’s a trick Pol taught me to utilize in an emergency,” he clarified.
“Hell, that’s good enough for me. Pol would never recommend a bad technique in the ships,” Clem stated.
“If you really want to have some fun, film the power level rising for a few seconds, then pan to your exterior view to verify that you are airborne. Just don’t reference how you did it in the film. Let the base commander wonder,” Evan said with a laugh of his own.”
“Why, Evan,” Lisa said in mock surprise. “I didn’t know you could be so devious.”
“You’re right. Maybe I should tell them to forget it,” Evan said feeling guilty. He glanced toward Lisa, who was smiling and deactivating systems.
“Don’t you dare! This is going to be fun!” his wife exclaimed as she reached for the camera.
The trip was hot, and the strike teams complained about the heat as they loaded the cargo, but when the commanders explained why they were taking the steps they were taking the strike teams stripped down to their t-shirts and stopped complaining.
They didn’t have seventy-five percent reserves when they reached the citadel, but they had seventy, which was more than enough for the base commander to make inquiries. One by one, the team commanders showed Commander Finch the videos they had prepared, but declined to explain how they had achieved that seemingly miraculous feat. They suggested that he consult Pol to learn how pilots could accomplish such deeds since they had employed his training.
Instead of contacting Pol, Commander Finch called in one of his best pilots who had served under him at the Houston base. That APC pilot updated him on how they had accomplished the seemingly impossible. He didn’t mention the delay that would be caused by putting the energy weapons in sleep mode. He was a Californian, and he felt he owed it to Evan and Lisa to keep that bit quiet. He hadn’t forgotten their role in saving LA from the nuke.
The next day the teams were scheduled to make two Dallas runs. Evan was nervous when he entered the flight line because he had failed to find anything wrong with the APC. He said as much to Lisa as they waited for clearance to take off.
“Maybe this time, they are testing your procedures. Have you forgotten anything?” she asked helpfully.
“Nope and I’ve been through the list mentally half a dozen times.”
“Well, remember Patricia’s advice and look to the simplest of things,” she advised.
Evan thought for a moment, and then he reached down for his copy of the weather forecast. “Damn!” he cursed. “They gave us the wrong weather forecast. This is for the Houston run, but we’re heading for Dallas. That could make a world of difference.”
“I’ll call in a query,” Lisa stated. It was a good thing that she did. While the Houston run would have had mild weather, the Dallas forecast was calling for severe thunderstorms all afternoon.
“Flight control, please advise the officer who prepped our flight plans that he inadvertently gave JT2 the wrong forecast too,” stated Clem.
“JT3 as well,” Wayne stated calmly.
“I’ll speak with the officer responsible, commanders,” the flight control officer said. “All right, that’s enough testing in my hangar bay gentlemen,” the three junior teams heard the flight control officer say in anger before he killed the microphone.
“He sounds angry,” Lisa said.
“He did, didn’t he,” Evan agreed with a grin. Flight control officers were notoriously fussy about discipline in the hangar bay because disaster was always just a single mistake away. They viewed monkey business in the bay as an open invitation to disaster.
“I think we can safely assume that’s the last of the tests that originate in the hangar bay,” Evan observed thoughtfully. He knew that no one, not even the base commander, overruled the flight control officers when it came to the safety of their bay. “Dad once told me that there were three officers in the citadel you never wanted to cross,” Evan said quietly to Lisa. “The head cook, the flight control officer and the head doctor. Any of those three officers can make your life a nightmare in the citadel.”
“True,” said Lisa “I suspect that’s also true of the Damroyal.”
“JT1, you are cleared for launch,” the flight control officer said over the radio. Evan thought his voice sounded smug.
“Sounds like he just won an argument,” Lisa said with a laugh. “Thank you, flight control. We will launch and execute our flight plan. JT1 out,” Lisa said in response.
The flight to Dallas was uneventful, but they saw disturbing signs that all was not well in the Dallas area. They flew over or near several cemeteries that seemed to be very busy. There were also signs of numerous house fires, as if someone was burning homes in the area.
At the Dallas base, which was smaller than the Houston base, several men loaded their APC as fast as they could. There seemed to be a sense of urgency to their work. When they were finished loading the APC the sergeant in charge said, “You’d better get airborne
and away from the Dallas area as quickly as you can. The radio operator told us a major storm is going to hit this area any minute.”
Evan thanked the man, but then he went to altitude and waited ten minutes while the other two APCs finished taking on their cargos. While he was waiting for them, Evan spun the APC on its axis and stared at the massive approaching storm to the west. Black clouds filled the western horizon. Vivid flashes of lightning illuminated the darkening skies, giving the clouds a multicolored hue. The airframe of the APC vibrated with the violence of the booming thunder.
The moment the remaining APCs were airborne, Evan said, “Tell the guys it’s time to go. That storm looks to be worse than the one we encountered on our first run to the Damroyal.”
Lisa transmitted his message, and then she hung on for a white knuckled ride as the APCs were buffeted by the turbulence of the approaching storm. From time to time, Lisa saw distant landmarks travel to the right across their windshield at an alarming speed. She knew that this meant they were being pushed sideways through the air at a great velocity. For five minutes Lisa resisted the urge to ask Evan to land, but then a downdraft cost them fifty feet of airspace when, caught in a downdraft, they dropped like a rock. “Maybe we should land until the front passes,” she suggested.
“We can’t. We’re too close to the city. It’s forbidden to land there, and besides, I think the plague is in Dallas now,” Evan explained.
Lisa’s eyes widened in alarm, but she said nothing more about landing.
Ten minutes later, Evan judged that they were far enough out from the city to attempt a landing, but by then he could see what appeared to be the southern edge of the storm.
“Tell the guys I said to follow me. We’re going to deviate slightly from the flight plan to attempt to avoid landing.” Evan stated. He then flew southeast for a few miles before adjusting and coming back onto course. Soon they flew beyond the reach of the raging storm.
When they arrived at the citadel, the base commander had left word that he wanted to see the junior pilots in his office.