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

by Ricky Sides

  “Isn’t the closest base Jerome, Arizona?” asked the determined gunner.

  “Yes, at top speed I can get us there in a little over an hour.”

  “Then head there at top speed.”

  “You’ve got it,” said the pilot who for a few moments thought he would have to take over command when the gunner went down. He was relieved that he didn’t have to do that. He loved to fly the ship, but had no interest in command decision making.

  “We’re getting messages from multiple peacekeeper ships in response to our emergency message. Admiral Wilison just ordered us to head for Jerome at top speed. He said a team of men will be ready to storm the ship from the cargo bay.”

  “Inform the admiral that we are en route at top speed. We estimate one hour and eleven minutes flight time,” the pilot responded.

  “Then apprise the admiral of our situation. Tell him that as far as we know the rest of the crew is dead. Inform him that Captain Giles dove on top of a grenade to save the rest of the control room crew,” the gunner ordered.

  “Yes, sir,” the communications specialist responded.

  An hour and twelve minutes later, the Nevada settled to a rough landing in the designated landing spot at the Jerome, Arizona base. The base commander, speaking to the crew of the Nevada via radio, cued them for the precise moment they were to open their bay door. Before the bay door could even stop opening, one of the smaller, more agile drones zipped inside. The little drone shot three men in rapid succession, but then it didn’t see any further targets. The drone operator searched the bay and saw no further sign of an enemy presence. “That’s all I can do sir,” the man reported to his commander. “I can’t get my drone in the storage spaces, and they are large enough for men to conceal themselves,” he added.

  “Leave it to the other men then, and good work, Sergeant,” the commander responded. He then ordered the ground troops inside. A few minutes later, there was a furious exchange of gunfire from inside the cargo bay when the peacekeepers located two men hiding in the storage area, just as the drone pilot had suggested could be the case.

  The peacekeeper rescue team was heading up the corridor toward the control room when two men stepped out of one of the cabins, tossed grenades at them with their left hands while firing at them with pistols with their right.

  Twin explosions rocked the ship as the grenades detonated, killing three peacekeepers. Another two went down to the bullets fired from the deadly boarders before the remaining peacekeepers were able to cut the men down where they stood with a hail of nine-millimeter bullets.

  Then it was over. The door to the control room unsealed and opened. The gunner cautiously entered the corridor with his weapon at the ready.

  “Who the hell were these guys?” one of the Arizona peacekeepers asked.

  “I have no idea,” said the gunner as he moved to check their bodies. The first man he checked was dead, but the second was still breathing. “This one’s still alive,” the gunner said and then he pointed his pistol at the man’s head.

  “Hold your fire, Lieutenant!” the base commander shouted from the far end of the corridor.

  “They killed my captain and crewmates, sir!” the angry gunner shouted back.

  “That’s an order, Lieutenant,” the commander stated firmly but in a lower, calming tone of voice. “I want to know who organized this, and why they did it,” he added.

  The gunner pointed the muzzle of his pistol in the air and said, “So do I, sir. So do I.”

  “Get that man to the infirmary. I want him searched for weapons and papers. Leave a guard detail with the doctor just in case he tries anything, and then I want all these bodies searched. I also want this ship searched for anything, anything at all that these boarders could have secreted aboard once they knew they were trapped. Lieutenant, this is your ship. I’m counting on you to assist in that search.”

  “Yes commander,” the lieutenant responded.

  Chapter 17

  “Thank them for the escort. Tell them we appreciate their concern, but we are almost to the mainland now so they should turn back and head home. We’ll be fine,” Evan instructed Lisa. The Cubans had arrived before they reached Fort Jefferson and secured the island. Under the watchful eyes of the drones of the Havana and the four fighters, the vaccine exchange had gone smoothly.

  Moments after Lisa relayed the message, they saw the two escort fighters fly past them at a high rate of speed. “What the heck are they doing? They’re headed in the wrong direction,” Lisa observed.

  “They intend to honor us. I guess they’re grateful for the medicine. Watch, you’ll see what they are up to in a minute,” Evan responded with a pleased look on his face.

  Far ahead of their APC, Lisa saw the fighters execute tight turns with one turning to the right and the other to the left, and then they were racing back toward the APC at full speed. They were flying close to each other with only a few feet separating their wingtips. At the last moment, the two fighters broke right and left around the American peacekeeper ship. Lisa barely had time to notice that both of the Cuban pilots were waving a farewell as they streaked past, one to either side of the APC. She estimated that they had executed their pass within just a few feet of their ship.

  “How’d you know they were going to do that?” Lisa asked Evan.

  “Namid told me all about the ways fighter pilots honor other ships back when I went through that ‘I want to be a fighter pilot’ phase,” Evan responded. “See, the fighters can’t execute most of the aerial maneuvers that traditional fighters can execute because they lack most of the control surfaces such as flaps and rudders. So they came up with a way to show their respect with the fighters by making a high speed pass, turn, and then a high speed head on pass. If there had been four of them they would have assumed a diamond pattern, staggered of course because you can’t fly the fighters one directly above the other.”

  “The drive of the top aircraft would make it difficult to control the lower fighter,” Lisa correctly observed.

  “Yep, so they stagger such formations. They make the head on run spaced as closely as they dare and open up the formation at the last moment as they execute their pass. In the diamond formation, the fighters pass as the two just passed us, and the other two will fly right above and below the ship, they’re passing. It’s pretty impressive because the drive field of the top fighter will cause it to spring upward while the field of the ship they are passing forces the bottom fighter down like an elevator.”

  “It looks dangerous. I’m surprised your dad and the rest of the council permit it.”

  “Dad and Pol don’t like it, but Tim is a fighter pilot’s best friend on the council. He told them that you may as well tell a horse not to run with the wind as to try to reign in fighter pilots who only want to show off the capabilities of their aircraft.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” Lisa observed with a puzzled frown. Evan laughed, causing Lisa to ask, “Did I say something funny?”

  “No, you said exactly the same thing Pol said to Tim.”

  “Oh? Well, what did Tim say to that?”

  “He said, ‘Neither does telling a fighter jock he can’t do what he wants with his bird.’”

  Lisa frowned as her glance fell on the navigation computer and she saw that once more, according to the computer they were off course, only this time it was by a larger margin. “Are you sure we’re on course?” she asked Evan.

  “I’m pretty certain, but we’ll have confirmation in a few minutes. I think we’re about five minutes out from Highway 1. Why? Is the navigation computer on the fritz again?”

  “If it isn’t, then we are about forty miles too far to the east.”

  “There’s no way I’m off by that much,” Evan said speaking with confidence.

  “Then I’d say the problem is getting worse,” Lisa observed with a frown. “It’s not that I doubt your ability to get us where we need to go, but I am concerned.”

  “Don’t worry, I’
ll get us to the Miami base, and we won’t leave there until we know this bucket of bolts is airworthy. I promise.” Evan could see that his reassurances weren’t easing his wife’s concerns, and he didn’t want her to be worried so he said, “Why don’t you contact the base and ask them to ping us electronically and give us a position fix. I’ll bring us to a stop to make that easier. Once we have an exact position report we can see precisely how far off the navigation computer is, report that to the base, and then make adjustments as we proceed if we need to do so.”

  “That’s a great idea. I’ll get them on the radio,” she said looking relieved. Evan was glad he had made the suggestion, but he still wasn’t concerned. The flight to Miami was relatively simple and he was confident that he could make the trip without the aid of the navigation computer.

  As they hovered above the ground at two hundred feet waiting for the Miami base to give them their exact position, Lisa asked, “Where do you think we are?”

  Evan pointed to a section of the map that was a few miles southwest of Highway 1. His opinion was vindicated minutes later when the base fed Lisa their exact coordinates. Then the Miami based radio operator asked, “Do you need a beacon?”

  Evan shook his head in the negative. No pilot liked asking for a beacon in clear weather, especially on a bright and sunny day. Doing so could make them the object of ridicule among their piers. “Tell them we’re fine. I could find the Miami base in the dark on a cloudless night. But tell them I want someone to fix our computer when we arrive before we head out for the Damroyal tomorrow.”

  Lisa passed along his message and the radio operator assured her that the base would have an engineer on stand-by and that he would begin work on the problem the moment they arrived.

  “See? It’s nothing to worry about, dear. I’ll get us there safely,” Evan reassured Lisa.

  Ten minutes later, the navigation computer shut down for no apparent reason, and nothing Lisa tried would restart the unit. She even checked the power relay switches, but they were in working order. She radioed in that they had completely lost their navigational computer and that Evan was now flying by dead reckoning.

  Again they offered a beacon, but again Evan declined.

  Fifteen minutes after that, they lost their altimeter. Evan cursed and said, “Radio the base that we just lost our altimeter. It looks as if we are experiencing a cascading failure. Ask them if we should land and reboot everything.”

  The answer was quick in coming to the concerned couple. The radio squawked to life, and a deep male voice said, “This is the Miami base commander. Negative, don’t land. I repeat, do not land. You’re in the middle of a bad plague zone. I’m putting an experienced APC pilot on with you. He’s tracking you now but we need to activate the beacon to provide continuous, real time, position information on your unit. He’ll use that to guide you the rest of the way to the base.”

  “Roger, we are activating the beacon receiver,” Lisa stated at Evan’s nod.

  For the next fifteen minutes, the Miami base pilot talked Evan through a series of small course changes, and then Evan said, “You better tell him to use his navigational gear to locate a safe place to land. We’re losing power to the lift engine and losing altitude. I don’t think I can keep us in the air much longer. We’re also losing airspeed.”

  Lisa relayed the message and then she listened to what the man on the other end said. Her face paled as she listened, but in a calm voice she said, “Understood. I’ll tell the pilot.” Turning to Evan, she said, “He says it sounds as if we are suffering battery failure. He recommends we turn off all nonessential electrical drains.”

  “Do it,” he ordered her. Then he shouted, “Ralph, get up here!”

  “Yes?” Ralph asked as he poked his head into the small cockpit.

  “We think we’re suffering battery failure. Get aft and shut down everything and I mean everything. You boys will need to sit in the dark.”

  “Yes, sir. Anything else?”

  “Yeah, once you’ve done that secure all loose gear. We may be in for a rough landing, so I want anything that can become a projectile tied down. Even the little things we never bother to secure, like Harvey’s medical bags and your binocular case. Then I want everyone buckled into their rough weather harnesses. Go!”

  “On it, sir,” Ralph promised and then he disappeared.

  Evan frowned and said, “I don’t get it. The charge meter is showing almost a three quarter charge.”

  “I’ve shut down all nonessential power drains. It’s going to get hot in here fast, but the airspeed seems stable for the moment.” She paused in her report and listened intently to what the man in Miami was saying. “Turn eight degrees to port,” she said, passing along the instructions.

  “Done, Evan said moments later.

  “Good. He is saying we need to unseal the door now, before the power gets too low,” Lisa stated in alarm.

  Evan reached over and flipped the toggle switch that would unseal the door. It seemed to him that it took a long time for the readout to change from green, which meant sealed, to red, which meant the opposite. Lisa noted the delay as well, because she blew a sigh of relief and said to the man in Miami, “For a moment there, I didn’t think it was going to unseal, but it did.”

  “It must have used up too much power, because we’re losing altitude again. I estimate we’re at one hundred feet, maybe even a little less,” Evan reported. Then he asked, “Why’d he want us to come to this course?”

  Lisa relayed his question, listened to the man’s reply, and then stated, “He says that there is some marshland about thirty miles from our position and that we should try to land in that area. That way, if you see you’re about to lose all power you can cushion the blow by landing in the edge of the marsh. The water is shallow enough that the APC won’t sink.”

  “All right. Tell him there’s no way we can make it to Miami. At the rate we’re losing altitude, I’d say we are going down in a matter of minutes. Request a rescue and then contact the Damroyal.”

  “Miami has already notified the Damroyal. They are feeding them information while someone locates your dad. He is in the Valiant on a mission,” Lisa responded.

  “Okay,” Evan said. He grimaced and tried to relax. He had caught himself straining at the controls as if his strength could force the APC to gain altitude, and he knew that was impossible. Fifty feet,” Evan said calmly, but then he shouted at the top of his lungs for the benefit of the crew in the back of the APC, “We’re going down in a matter of minutes! Get ready back there!”

  Ralph immediately shouted the reply, “We’re ready, sir!”

  Now Evan had to dodge around trees as he made his way toward a large open expanse that he saw in the distance. “Come on, baby. Just a little more,” he coaxed the APC.

  “I love you,” Lisa said quietly.

  Evan risked a quick glance at his wife and smiled for her benefit. “I love you too, baby. Do you think we can maybe have a little fun when we get to our quarters at the Miami base?”

  “You’re thinking about that at a time like this?” she asked incredulously.

  “You got something better to think about at a time like this?” he replied. “I for one can’t think of anything I’d rather think about than making love to you.”

  Despite the seriousness of their situation, Lisa smiled and said, “I’ll tell you what, husband. You get us down in one piece, and when we get to our quarters, I’ll give you a night you’ll never forget.”

  “Consider it done, sweetheart,” Evan said with a boyish grin of anticipation on his face.

  “You’re impossible,” she said in mock exasperation, but then she grew quiet as she noted that they were now only about twenty feet in the air.

  Evan didn’t mind her sudden silence. He had accomplished what he wanted to with their quick exchange. He had succeeded in taking his wife’s mind off dying and put it on other, less distressing matters.

  “I think we can make it,” he said. Th
en he instructed Lisa to tell the Miami man to get a good fix on their position because they were going down in a matter of moments.

  “He’s got us locked and will follow us all the way to the ground.” Looking toward Evan, Lisa added, “He said not to try to hover and descend for a landing. That would drain all our power and we’d drop like a rock. Instead, he said to come in on a gentle descent, dumping airspeed to a crawl and ditch in the edge of the marsh. He also said to wish you luck.”

  Evan noted the moment when they passed over the edge of the marsh with a sigh of relief. Reaching down beside his seat, he grabbed his jacket that he always carried with him on a mission in case they were delayed overnight and handed it to his wife. “Put it over your face to protect you from the glass, just in case.”

  Lisa saw an earnest pleading look on her husband’s face and knew that he understood what he was asking of her, but he wanted her to do it anyway.

  For a moment, Evan thought she would refuse. He knew she couldn’t stand her head being covered. Reggie had often kept her confined in that manner. But she smiled wanly and said, “I’ll do it for you.”

  “Thank you, baby,” he said.

  Snapping his eyes back to the marsh, he shouted, “Brace for impact!”

  Evan noted his airspeed was still forty miles per hour. He saw the marsh grass sweeping by as the APC continued its inexorable descent. Here and there, startled waterfowl took wing as the aircraft shot past them. He had their airspeed down to twenty miles per hour when they hit the water and skipped off it like a flat rock, and for a moment, he thought of the day that Jim had taught him to skip stones across the surface of the water. He remembered that each skip seemed to dump energy and he reasoned that a couple more skips would actually be beneficial. They were getting too far from the solid ground, so he altered course slightly to bring them in closer.

  The APC slammed into the water again, only this time it didn’t skip. A huge plume of water flew thirty feet into the air as the aircraft moved across the surface of the marsh for thirty feet and then settled to a halt. The peacekeeper vessel was so heavy that it promptly sank a good four feet into the water. But they were down, and Evan was confident that no one was seriously hurt.