by Ricky Sides
When Evan announced that they were coming out and then walked into the clearing, Lisa smothered him with kisses prompting Ralph to say, “Hey what about me? I was out there too you know.”
Lisa released Evan and hugged Ralph tightly. “That was so brave of you.” Releasing Ralph, she saw that he was embarrassed.
“I was just doing my job. Really, it’s no big deal. Evan’s the real hero here. He helped take out the enemy, and then he killed a gator that planned to eat me for a snack.”
Then Ralph noted that everyone was standing in the open. He was about to tell everyone to get behind cover because there could be other enemies out there that they hadn’t encountered. But he saw a section of foliage behind Lisa shake, and then he saw the end of a rifle barrel. He darted in front of Lisa, sweeping his rifle up to fire, but the enemy fired first. Ralph felt a burning sensation in his chest, and then he collapsed to the ground.
One of the men had seen the muzzle blast from the enemy weapon and he opened fire. His tracer rounds told the rest of the peacekeepers where the enemy had been spotted and Evan and the rest of the strike team opened fire as well.
When they stopped firing, Evan said, “Two of you check it out, but be careful.”
Two of the men moved into the brush while Harvey and Lisa worked to save Ralph’s life. Evan knelt beside his friend and took his hand. Ralph’s pain filled eyes found his. “Did you get him?” he asked.
“I think so,” Evan said quietly. He added, “Thank you for what you did. That shot would have hit Lisa if you hadn’t stepped into the line of fire.”
“You know I love her like a sister. I couldn’t let her get hit. Might hurt the baby.”
“I know. I’m doubly grateful,” Evan said and then he cleared his throat.
He looked at Harvey, who was working frantically. The medic had already cut away a portion of Ralph’s uniform and was working on his chest. Harvey looked up at Evan and said, “I need more light!”
“Then you’ll have it,” Evan promised. He went to the fire and pulled two makeshift torches from the flames. He handed Lisa a torch and they moved to stand behind Harvey to illuminate the patient.
“That’s better,” Harvey said. Looking at Ralph to gauge his level of pain, he added, “I’m going to give you some morphine, and then I’m going to see if I can get the bullet out. You’re lucky.”
“Lucky? I get shot twice in one night and you think I’m lucky?”
“It only went in a couple of inches. I think I can see the end of the bullet. The energy must have been spent penetrating your soft armor. And yes, you are lucky. You were hit twice and you are going to survive both hits.”
“We found the guy who shot him. He was dead, sir,” reported Frankie who had been one of the peacekeepers who had entered the woods.
“Thanks. Grab a torch. Doc here needs more light,” Evan stated. Then he asked, “Where’s John?”
“Here, sir,” John reported.
“How’s the head wound?”
“I’ll live. They tell me I have you to thank. They say you went out and got me and then carried me back to the shelter. Thank you, sir.”
“You’d have done the same for any of us,” Evan stated. He added, “Grab a torch.”
“Oh! Damn, Doc! Can’t you let the morphine take affect before doing that?” Ralph complained.
“I wish I could,” Harvey said, adding, “but I can’t wait much longer. I need to control the bleeding, and that would be a lot easier if I could treat the wound correctly.”
The medic looked his friend in the eyes and said, “I’m sorry, but this is gonna hurt.” Looking around at the others, he said, “Someone get something to put between his teeth.”
“What the hell are you all doing? There may be other men out there sighting on you as we speak. One of you men, watch the woods. I want another watching the marsh for the damned gators. The rest of you kneel down to minimize the targets,” Ralph snapped.
“Wow, Ralph. You get shot a couple of times and you go and get all grumpy,” Lisa teased, in a voice choked with emotion.
“Are you crying?” Ralph asked. “Aw don’t cry for me. I’ll be fine, soon as Harvey’s drugs take affect. I think the clown hit me with water instead of morphine,” he added jokingly.
Lisa wiped her eyes and said, “Thank you for what you did.”
“You’re welcome.” Turning to Harvey, Ralph took the stick between his teeth, and then he nodded like a bull rider signaling the gate men to open the gate.
Chapter 20
“Captain, I have a lock on the two signals,” said the communications specialist of the Alabama.
“Mark the location in case we lose the signal and feed the coordinates to navigation,” ordered Captain Braden Murphy.
“Aye, Captain.”
“Navigation, when you have the course laid in I want you to fly us to the location at top speed.”
“Course plotted and laid in, sir. Estimated flight time, sixteen minutes.”
“Excellent. Communications, notify the strike team to be ready to deploy, and have the doctor standing by in case they need medical treatment.”
When the communications officer had completed her tasks, Brandon stood up and approached her. “Have they answered your hails?”
“No, sir. It’s possible that they have removed the hats from their heads, but they are still in contact with live bodies or they would not be functional at this power level.”
“Try again every couple of minutes,” the Captain ordered. “I’ll be in the cargo bay.”
Braden found the strike team putting the finishing touches to their gear. “Be careful out there, Lieutenant. We haven’t been able to contact Evan or Lisa, so we have no idea what the situation is at the landing zone.”
“We’ll be careful.”
***
Evan and Lisa had removed their hats and laid them across their knees, and then they poured a small trickle of water over their heads in order to cool down. They left their hats off so that the breeze would dry their hair and help in cooling their overheated bodies. “It’s hot here, even at dawn,” Lisa remarked as she wiped sweat from her brow.
“Well, we’ve been working pretty hard gathering all those weapons and other gear the raiders carried.”
“Most of it is useless. The gear I mean. Not the weapons.”
Evan saw Harvey stand up and stretch. “I’ll relieve Harvey. He should try to rest,” Evan stated. As he started to rise, he heard the faint whine of an approaching peacekeeper fighter that was flying at about half speed. He looked up into the sky and a moment later, he saw a fighter stop and hover near them. He jumped to his feet and waved. Then he saw the Alabama come into view. The patrol ship hovered only briefly before settling down to the ground near their camp.
The strike force team of the Alabama rushed out into the camp. They saw the piles of weapons and other assorted gear. Their lieutenant looked at Evan and said, “Captain Wilison. It seems you and your people will have an interesting story to tell.”
“I’m back to commander again. I think,” Evan said with a grin. “It’s good to see you guys. We have a seriously wounded man here.”
“The doctor is waiting in the cargo bay. I’ll get him.” The lieutenant turned and pointed to two of his men. “We’ll need a stretcher for the wounded man.” He started for the bay to get the doctor, but then stopped and turned to face Evan. “Oh, Captain Murphy is requesting you put on your hats, sir.”
Evan and Lisa exchanged embarrassed expressions, but then she giggled and he laughed as they put their hats on their damp hair.
***
Ramon stood outside Ruth’s house staring at her door. He saw a large manila envelope attached to the entrance of the home. The captain untied the string, which secured the envelope to the ornate doorknocker, and then he knocked on her door to see if she would answer. When it became obvious that she wasn’t coming to the door, Ramon opened the envelope and pulled out the contents.
As t
he captain read the short note on the top piece of paper, his hands began to tremble.
Captain Ramon Marino,
She came to me again as promised, and is beside me now, as I write this note. I am to tell you that my savior has heard your prayers and if you but listen to him he will show you a way to judge who should and should not receive the medicine. But know that this requires faith on your part. If your faith falters for even a moment, then you will fail.
She has told me to use my skill to prove to you that you should have faith in what will transpire today. I have not told you, because I did not think it important, but I have some small skill with pad and pencil. I hope that my skill is sufficient to bolster your faith, good Captain, for you will surely have it tested today.
Go with God, Captain,
Ruth del Valle
Ramon moved the letter to the back of the small sheaf of papers in his hand. He gasped in surprise when he saw the beautifully rendered portrait of his wife Anna. “God must have inspired your hand, Ruth. You have captured the essence of her beauty with a simple pencil and piece of paper,” Ramon said to himself.
He lovingly stroked the page. He could almost smell the scent of rose petals that Anna had so favored.
Reluctantly, Ramon moved the portrait to the back of the stack, and then fell to his knees in awe. So strong was his emotional response to the picture that his eyes immediately teared up, but he brushed the tears away with a rapid motion of his hand, the better to see the image that Ruth had so lovingly crafted.
The picture was a representation of Anna sitting with Ramon on a porch swing. She was wearing the dress that he remembered and he was wearing a suit. Anna’s head rested lightly on his shoulder with her face tilted up toward his. Her right hand was behind his neck in that delicate embrace that he so fondly remembered. His face was turned toward hers and he was leaning in to kiss her slightly parted lips. Ramon would never forget that scene. It was a perfect depiction of their first kiss, shared on a porch swing.
At the bottom of the picture was a simple caption in neat script that said, “First Kiss.” Beneath that caption was a date. Ruth had drawn that picture a year ago. Ramon thought that she had probably drawn it after recovering from her illness.
He reverently put the papers back in the envelope, tilted his face to the morning sky, and said, “I believe. Please grant me the wisdom to know what to do. I will faithfully do that which must be done. I seek your wisdom that innocents should not suffer because of the medicine.”
Ramon waited, but there was no answer. No sudden inspiration came upon him. No voice inside his head revealed what he must do. He repeated the request. This time it took the form of a formal prayer. But still he received no enlightenment.
The troubled captain climbed to his feet. He could delay no longer. He needed to begin distributing the vaccine if he was to complete the delivery today as promised.
At his first stop, Ramon saw that the letter Y followed by the number three had been drawn on the door. He prayed once more for wisdom and this time he felt a sense of peace, and somehow he knew that everything would be fine when he left the medicine at this house.
At the next house that had requested vaccine, Ramon again prayed for guidance, and again he felt certain it was safe to leave it.
The third house was requesting only one vaccine. Ramon started to get off the sled to deliver it, but he felt an overwhelming sense that he should not make that delivery. Then Ramon understood how this would work, and for a moment, his faith almost faltered. “What if it is all my imagination?” he asked himself. “Am I playing god here?”
A faint breeze swept by him. That breeze carried the odor of rose petals, and for a moment, he could swear he felt something unseen brush his lips. “I believe,” he said aloud. He took a pen and quickly wrote a note, which stated that he had prayed for guidance, and God didn’t want the resident at this home vaccinated because the resident would contract the disease from the medication. He left the note on the door and then he proceeded to the next home.
This house had no sign that the occupants wanted vaccine, but regardless of that fact, Ramon felt compelled to stop. He knocked on the door and then backed away. A frightened young woman answered the door and he explained that he was now delivering the vaccine.
“I’m so glad you stopped. I wanted it, but could find nothing to mark the door that would be visible from the street.” This incident served to bolster Ramon’s faith that divine intervention was indeed involved in his work this day.
So went the rest of Ramon’s day. He kept a tally of the vaccines he had delivered and the number of them that he had withheld. He wasn’t surprised when at the end of the day he’d withheld twenty percent that had been requested. Eighteen people who’d opted not to take the vaccine changed their minds when Ramon asked them to pray about the matter because he felt strongly that it was God’s will that they take it. He had waited while they prayed and decided. Several homes hadn’t requested vaccine so he did not stop at them because he felt no compulsion to do so.
Ramon accepted the impossible things that had occurred the past few days because he had no options. Before he went to sleep that night, the captain said a prayer of thanks for what he felt certain was nothing short of divine intervention.
***
Captain Cliff Barnes stared sadly at the massive funeral pyre burning in San Francisco, California. His ship had just delivered the last of their allotment of vaccine, and they were about to fly to the California air base where they would link up with the rest of the California armada before flying to the Damroyal.
There had been little violence in the streets of San Francisco. The plague had struck the city brutally and the reason behind it was not a mystery. Thousands of people from Los Angeles had fled the plague. Many of them had carried it with them. The peacekeepers and the city population had attempted to stop the panicked refugees from coming into the city by the bay until they could be tested for the plague. That task had proven impossible as the desperate refugees found ways into the city faster than the defenders could block them.
When the plague began to spread, it did so from hundreds of locations around the city. Had it begun at a central point of origin, the majority of the population may have had time for the vaccine to provide immunization against the disease. But starting as it did, it quickly overtook those in even the most sparsely populated sections of the city. Again, the rats accelerated the rate of infection.
***
Captain Bill Young stared sadly at the remnants of another small town in Kentucky as they flew over it on their way to the growing assembly of the peacekeeper fleet in the Gulf of Mexico. Like many of the towns the Constitution had passed, this one had been largely burned out as people desperately tried to contain the plague.
“If they keep burning the towns at this rate, there won’t be much left for the survivors,” the gunner observed.
Bill kept his opinion to himself, but privately, he didn’t believe that there would be many survivors. He had kept a lot to himself lately. Not even his crew knew that the council had given him a secret task, as they had all the ship captains. It was no accident that Bill had his crew overflying cities and towns at every opportunity. He was surveying the scope of the loss of human life, and to a lesser extent, the loss of the infrastructure due to the plague.
The truth of the matter was that the plague was still overrunning communities that had received the vaccinations because they hadn’t had time to develop the immunization required to survive the plague. Of course, not everyone in the hardest hit of the communities died as a direct result of contracting the disease. There were always survivors. In some cases, not many made it through the pandemic, but a few were always able to survive the disease. However, they found themselves isolated and ill equipped to survive on their own.
There had been talk of bands of men who had commandeered flying city transports, which were the equivalent of the APCs utilized by the peacekeepers, minus the weaponry a
nd altitude capabilities. According to the rumors he had been picking up here and there, those men were going to cities threatened by the plague and offering to transport people to a huge shelter established by the peacekeepers. That part of the rumors deeply troubled Bill. He had investigated and followed up on one such rumor of people boarding a transport by trying to locate the little ship. Instead, he had found the bodies of many people who had been murdered. Conspicuous by their absence were the young women and men. The bodies had been those of the old and infirm.
Captain Young was troubled because he had a feeling that when the current emergency passed, as all eventually do, they would ultimately learn that someone was setting up another slave farm such as the ones they’d destroyed in Texas. On the other hand, maybe they were forming a kingdom somewhere such as the one King Tom had tried in Kansas.
***
“How long will we have to remain in isolation?” Namid asked her husband as Jack stared down at the road leading into Jerome and the Arizona peacekeeper base. On the ground below, the peacekeeper demolition team had just finished setting their charges and was preparing to detonate them. Even as he watched the scene below, Namid initiated the maneuvers to comply with his order to take the Arizona a safe distance from the blast zone.
“No one knows for certain,” he replied. “It could only be a matter of a few weeks, or it could prove to be months.”
“How will we know when the plague has run its course and died out?” she queried.
“We’ll send out observation flights in a month. If those flights find evidence of the plague, they’ll report it. That evidence won’t be hard to spot.”
“Not with everyone trying to burn the problem out of their cities,” Namid said in agreement. Then she said, “We’re in position, Captain.”
Jack returned his attention to the roadway below. He was concentrating on the bridge they were observing when the charges detonated in a series across the four hundred foot span. The old bridge seemed to stand defiantly for another moment, but then it collapsed into the steep walled chasm of the dried up riverbed. Now, no ground traffic would be able to approach Jerome. The electronic deterrents would stop flying autos, but if some got through that defense, then the fighters would deal with them.