by Ricky Sides
“Ralph, check the personnel and then get up here,” Evan said loudly as he gently pulled the jacket off Lisa’s head. It broke his heart to see the terrified expression on her face. “You did good, babe,” he said and patted her hand.
Ralph poked his head in the cockpit and said, “We’re all fine back here. That was a great emergency landing, sir.”
“Ralph, I want you to get Lisa to dry land. I’ll get the emergency supplies and join you.”
“I’ll go when you go,” Lisa said.
“Captain’s responsibility,” Ralph said. “You know in an emergency he has to be the last man out. Let’s go, Lisa.”
Evan gave Ralph a grateful look, and then he concentrated on what he needed to do. As Lisa vacated her seat, Evan slid into it and sent a message to the Miami base. He reported that they were down safely and were about to make their way to land, which he explained was less than two hundred feet from the APC. A man responded that a rescue vessel was already en route and should be there soon. Then the water rushed in as the door was opened and Evan was scrambling into the rear of the APC.
He double-checked and noted that the men had taken their rifles from the weapons racks. He saw Ralph and Harvey helping Lisa out the open door of the APC and breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay, guys, let’s get the emergency rations and water and get to dry ground,” he ordered.
The men waded through the muddy swamp water that was now thigh deep inside the APC. They gathered their emergency gear and then, one by one, they made their way out of the ship and into the water. They followed Ralph, Harvey, and Lisa. Evan went through the aircraft one last time checking to see if they had forgotten anything. He retrieved a small sack that contained a set of emergency flares, and near the door, he took the fireman’s axe that all APCs carried for emergency purposes. He felt the aircraft shift beneath his feet as he was stepping through the door. The alloy deck beneath his feet tilted sharply upward and he was thrown back inside by the sudden shifting of the peacekeeper vessel.
When the APC stabilized, it was leaning at a forty-degree angle to port. “Evan!” he heard Lisa call his name in fear. He gingerly made his way toward the door. The metal deck now had a thin film of mud on it, which made footing treacherous at best. The degree of tilt made firm footing impossible. He had just managed to grab the open door facing when he felt the ship slip further to port.
Scrambling across the extended door in an attempt to get off the sinking vessel, Evan felt his right boot slip. He threw his body toward the open expanse of water, but fell short. His left hand was holding the axe and bag of flares, but his right hand was free. He reached outward as far as he could and grasped the edge of the door. The APC slipped further into the water as he struggled to get off the steeply pitched door, but gravity and the swamp mud were working against him.
Then Evan felt something grasp his wrist with an iron-like grip. He was pulled up the door with a firm and steady motion. He looked up and saw Ralph and Harvey standing in chest deep water. Ralph had his wrist in a two handed grip and Harvey was desperately trying to get to them to assist.
He heard someone shout a warning, and then he heard several shots fired in rapid succession. Beside Ralph, a twelve-foot alligator floated motionless on the surface. He noted that Ralph looked visibly pale.
The APC slipped again, only this time it didn’t stop as it slowly began to glide beneath the surface of the marsh. With a herculean effort, Ralph pulled Evan’s body off the door before the ship could take the commander with it to the muddy depths of the swamp. Evan’s head disappeared beneath the water, but Ralph and Harvey had him on his feet in moments.
“Thanks guys,” Evan said. He noted that Ralph was favoring his right arm. “Are you okay, Ralph?” he asked.
“I will be. I think I just strained a muscle.”
“Well, let’s get to shore. There may be more gators in this water,” Evan cautioned. He looked back once as they made their way to dry land, but the APC was no longer visible. “Damn,” he said to himself.
***
“What do you mean they aren’t there?” asked the base commander of the Miami base.
“I mean they are not where our tracking indicated they went down, sir,” reported the APC pilot who’d been dispatched to locate and rescue the downed crew.
“How the hell is that possible?” asked the commander.
“I can’t answer that with certainty, sir. I can only speculate.”
“Then speculate. I need answers.”
“Bear with me, sir, and I’ll try to explain my hunch.”
“All right,” responded the commander, wishing the man hadn’t wasted the time it took to say that.
“I was told that the navigation computer went haywire prior to the downing and was considerably off true course. Let’s assume that somehow, the tracking was receiving faulty data from the APC that could have been off by as much as the last known discrepancy of the onboard computer. Recalculate where they’d be if that is the case,” the pilot said in a reasonable tone of voice.
“He has a point, Commander,” said the pilot who had been communicating with Lisa.
“Do it. Plot the course under those circumstances.”
“It will take a few...”
“Just do it, Sergeant. The admiral wants answers.”
The sergeant nodded his understanding, walked over to a navigational computer, and went to work. Five minutes later, he said, “Oh hell! Commander, if this is right they went down in the Everglades. To be precise, it is the northeastern section, near the rogue people who set up an encampment near the edge of the park.”
The commander cursed. The rogues were a large group of rough men who had opted to settle near the Everglades when America had collapsed. They made their own rules and lived by them. They had made it clear that strangers weren’t welcome in what they considered to be their territory, and the commander suspected that they’d murdered several people in the past, but that was something he had never been able to prove. He asked, “Have you pinpointed the location then?”
“I tried, sir. I think I have it narrowed down to within a few miles, but this is all guesswork on my part. I could be off a lot.”
The commander’s heart sank. He knew that searching miles of the everglades was going to be time consuming. “We still have about seven hours of daylight left. I want you to get in your APC and join in the search. But first, radio the APC at the other site and reroute him.”
“Yes, Commander,” the pilot responded.
***
Sixteen men loaded up into half a dozen canoes and made their way through the Everglades. They were looking for the source of the gunfire they had heard a few minutes earlier. It had sounded like fully automatic weapons fire to them, and such weapons were hard to come by for these men. They felt relatively certain that the shots were within a few miles of their encampment, and anyone that close to their home with automatic weapons was about to forfeit them, along with their lives.
Chapter 18
Evan surveyed the skies again, just as he had been doing for the past two hours. The time when the rescue vessel should have arrived had long since passed. Now, only a few hours remained before darkness would descend upon them. He made the decision to have the men set up a shelter and gather wood for the fire they would need after dark. The fire would serve as a beacon to the rescue team. It would also keep away potential predators. At least he hoped that it would. He wasn’t certain that alligators were afraid of fire. Several times, his men had spotted gators. They had requested permission to fire at the animals, but Evan had ordered them to hold their fire because more bodies in the water would just bring in more predators, just as the one they had killed had brought in others that had fought over its carcass.
Evan had ordered the men to keep a sharp watch on the water and warned them not to venture too close to the edge of the marsh.
Now, Evan issued new orders. The rescue craft was long overdue. Therefore, they must assume that they would be
here past dark. He instructed Ralph to have some of the men gather wood for a fire while others constructed a crude shelter from the materials available. He cautioned Ralph to maintain a watch of the water, so that no aquatic predators could come upon them by surprise.
The team soon gathered sufficient wood to last through the night if it was needed, but Evan wasn’t satisfied. He ordered more wood gathered and placed near the edge of the marsh. When the light of day began to fade, they would build another fire near the water in an effort to discourage the alligators. Evan wasn’t sure that was the right thing to do. There were differing opinions regarding the use of fire, or any light source to discourage gators. Some swore it was effective, other held the opinion that it actually attracted more of the predators to the area. He weighed the options and decided to risk it anyway because they needed a signal fire to attract the rescue vessel, and the illumination would help the guards locate potential threats further from shore.
Ralph had the men bring in plenty of green vegetation for use in signaling. During the daylight hours, they placed the green material on the fire, knowing that the thick white smoke that resulted from burning it would put out a plume of white smoke that should be visible for miles.
At one point, Ralph approached Evan and said, “I think something’s wrong. They should have been here a long time ago.”
“I know,” Evan confirmed. “You’d better set up a watch for the night.”
“In that case, I’ll have a couple of the boys try to get some sleep now so they can man the first watch.”
“Good. They’ll need to watch the water, and the land approaches to our rear. It’s gonna be a long night if the rescue team doesn’t get here soon.”
“You figure they’ll call off the search after dark?”
“Most likely. The odds of finding us in the dark aren’t good. Have everyone eat an MRE, but then have them burn all of the containers and scraps. Let’s not attract predators anymore than our presence already will, and, Ralph, no one leaves the camp alone for any reason.”
“Understood, sir. I’ll see to the orders at once.”
***
Full dark descended upon the small peacekeeper camp and still there had been no sign of the rescue flight. The team settled down to wait out the night. The fire near the marsh was lit. If it burned low, one of the men on watch was supposed to add more wood, but other than that, they were to keep their distance from the water. It didn’t take long for the fire to reveal the eyes of a few alligators out in the water that were facing the camp.
At one point, Lisa approached Evan and said, “My hat radio isn’t working.”
“I know. I’ve tried several times to radio the base myself and mine isn’t getting out either. I think it’s the terrain.”
“I’m not so sure that’s the problem. I think they don’t have access to the software that enables others to receive and decode the signal.”
“Well, if that’s the case, I’m sure the Peacekeeper will come looking for us as soon as they can.”
“They’ll be out delivering vaccine,” Lisa observed.
“Doesn’t matter. Any patrol class ship can locate us. They all have the software.”
“But they are all delivering vaccine,” she countered.
“Then we have to count on the base locating us. I don’t know what went wrong. They said they had a fix on us.”
“Maybe it had something to do with the navigation computer malfunction.”
“That doesn’t make sense. They were still getting a fix on us after that unit completely failed and shut down.”
“I’m not sure mind you, but I believe that Patricia once told me that the navigation computer feeds a GPS position to the beacon unit aboard ship that they ping. The beacon then tells them where we are located, based on that information it received from the navigation computer, so...”
“Our beacon thing lied. It fed them the wrong position?”
“If I’m right, then yes. But I may be wrong. It’s something she explained to me years ago. I may have the details all wrong.”
“I doubt it. I think you’re probably right. That would explain why they haven’t arrived, but I don’t understand why they wouldn’t have been aware of that and adjusted to compensate for the discrepancy.”
“This is an unusual accident. I can’t remember ever hearing of a battery failure before, unless of course the battery compartment was hit by weapons fire. Patricia will figure it out soon enough, but I wouldn’t count on a rescue tonight. Maybe not even tomorrow, considering everyone is frantically trying to deliver vaccine. And who knows what other emergencies may be arising.”
***
“Do we know who they were and why they attacked the Nevada?” asked Jim angrily.
“Yes, Admiral,” reported the base commander in Jerome Arizona. “We questioned the survivor. Apparently, they worked for organized crime as enforcers and their boss wanted the ship in case he needed it to survive the plague.”
“We can’t permit that kind of thing to happen with impunity. Is Captain Wilcox back from his vaccine run?” asked Jim.
“Yes. He landed two hours ago.”
“Get him for me. I need to talk to him. I want Jack to handle the reprisal.”
“Yes, Admiral,” the commander responded, and then he signed off.
***
Fifty-seven year old Johnny Carver was a lifelong resident of Las Vegas. He had gotten his start in organized crime at the young age of eleven by delivering packages in his school lunch box on his walk to school for a mid level drug distributer who worked in the city. One day some local bullies tried to take Johnny’s lunch box. That was the day that Johnny learned that working for the mob gave him protection. He learned this when two men approached the bullies and beat them down in the street. They had then returned Johnny’s lunchbox and sent him on his way so that he could finish making his deliveries.
He had moved up in the organization little by little until he earned a spot as the right hand man of the most powerful crime boss in the city. When that boss died during the night of the quakes, Johnny Carver moved up to become the most powerful crime lord in the city.
When the plague had come to America, Johnny had put a portion of his organization to work tracking what was happening. He became increasingly alarmed, as the plague contaminated city after city, and the majority of their population contracted it and died. Then one night during a meeting, one of his up and coming men had suggested that what he needed was one of the peacekeeper ships. With such a vessel, he could flee the city if the plague did come to Vegas. That man had organized a team of professional hit men who would storm the ship and capture it for the crime lord.
But the attack had failed, and Johnny assumed all of his men had died in the attempt because there had been no immediate reprisals.
Johnny was sitting in his penthouse office, working on another plan to seize a ship, when the alarms went off, signifying an emergency in the building, he felt it likely that the peacekeepers had discovered his role in the attack and sent in a team of men.
Johnny’s second in command entered the room in a calm manner and said, “Some peacekeepers entered downstairs. Our boys are holding them off, and I’ve called in our backup team to hit them from the rear.”
“Good. It’s about time the peacekeepers learned that not everyone in America is afraid to take them on in a fight,” Johnny declared confidently as his lieutenant helped him equip a bulletproof vest.
When they reached the first floor, his men had already succeeded in driving the peacekeepers back out into the street. “Is a ship out there?” Johnny shouted at some of the men near the windows.
“No, boss, and the peacekeepers just ran into our backup unit!” the man shouted by way of reply.
“Get out there and kill them all before they can get away!” Johnny ordered.
Outside in the street, the peacekeepers had taken refuge behind some vehicles and were exchanging gunfire with the group of men who had soug
ht to trap them inside the building. “Here they come!” one of the peacekeepers shouted as men ran out of the building they’d just vacated and charged up the street.
“Yeah, and we’ve got them out in the open, which is just where we want them,” another said and then he shot an enforcer who was attempting to lob a grenade at their position. The grenade fell from the man’s nerveless fingers and rolled a few feet toward the peacekeepers before it detonated harmlessly in the middle of the street.
Bullets from the men behind them began to come in toward the peacekeepers, who’d all mysteriously dropped to the ground. “They’re trying to make a smoke screen with that weird red smoke,” one of the enforcers who had just emerged from the building said.
“Yeah, well I can still see them well enough to hit them,” the second in command stated confidently. He raised his assault rifle to his shoulder and took careful aim, and then he fell backwards with a small neat hole burned into his forehead.
“What the hell?!” one of the men exclaimed in surprise, and then the drones descended on the mobsters.
The drones carefully avoided firing anywhere near the red smoke area. They concentrated on the two groups of men who were pouring weapons fire into the peacekeeper position. The four drones, working in concert, soon decimated the two groups of enforcers.
Inside the building, Johnny Carver saw the cream of his criminal empire dying in the street. He knew now that it had been a huge mistake to attempt to take on the peacekeepers. He was about to head for the basement parking garage where he kept his bulletproof limousine when a calm voice spoke behind him saying, “Johnny Carver, I presume.”
Not sure what to expect, Johnny turned around slowly. He was surprised to see several peacekeepers standing there, and they had one of the little drones with them. “No, I’m not Johnny. My name is Bill Paris. I just work here as the bartender in the bar.”