by Ricky Sides
“Captain, the ground teams are requesting confirmation that the bridge was destroyed and that the river is now impassable by ground. They can’t tell from their position, and we can save them the trouble of going back and inspecting the site,” said Shelley Winters.
“Give them the confirmation they seek, Lieutenant.”
“Navigation, set a course for the base,” said Captain Wilcox.
“Aye, Captain,” Namid responded.
***
At Base 1, Tim toured the base with the commander. He was there to ensure that everything was secured properly for the duration of the emergency, and to secure his own farmhouse home Jim had given him in the wake of Lacey’s death.
At the end of the tour, Tim congratulated the commander on securing the base as well as he had. Both men knew that if a determined group of men really wanted to penetrate the base or its buildings, then they would eventually manage the feat despite their precautions. Some of those precautions were as elaborate as covering the exterior steel doors with plates of the Huxley alloy and sealing them shut. It would require the electronic boxes the peacekeepers used to unseal the alloy plate from the thresholds. Other preparations had been as simple as setting the electronic countermeasures on automatic computer control. No one would be flying into the base in one of the flying automotives.
The most elaborate measures had been taken to safeguard the national treasures that the peacekeepers had removed from Washington prior to the war with the pirates. Several layers of Huxley alloy had sealed the blast resistant doors to those underground warehouses. The commander assured Tim that no one would be able to simply burn through the metal with a cutting torch because he had the trap Pete designed installed beneath the exterior layer of the alloy. Anyone attempting to use a torch on the entrance would end up blown to bits by the resultant explosion.
At one point during his tour, Tim said, “How’s the city doing? I didn’t see any burned out homes as I flew over on the way here.”
“I wish I had an answer for you, but I really don’t know. I do know that there was a mass exodus after the news spread that the plague was in Huntsville and Decatur last week. I hope they make it, but you know as well as I do that they haven’t had enough time to develop immunity from the vaccine.”
“A lot of them may be going to stay with relatives in the country,” Tim suggested.
“I do know there was a lot of anger at us over the vaccine, despite the fact that we warned everyone that it would give some people the disease.”
“That’s unfortunate, but unavoidable. We had to let the people know we could save some of them. In another couple of days, the immunity will begin to take hold.”
“That brings up a question I wanted to ask you. Since the immunity will be established in a few days, why are we still going through with the plan to vacate the bases?”
“You just answered that question,” Tim said. “Think about it. The plague is barely here and already there is a growing disenchantment with us on the part of the population. Once people in the community start dying, there will be some who turn on us.”
“Tim, I’m not trying to start an argument with you, but I find that hard to believe. We’ve always had an excellent relationship with the people around here.”
“Todd Baxter said the same thing.”
“Todd Baxter? Isn’t he the captain of the Oklahoma?”
“Yes, and he stated in a captain’s council meeting that he felt it was unnecessary to evacuate their base because they had a superb relationship with the people of the community. Two days later, an armed group tried to storm his ship when he landed to distribute vaccine. His strike team successfully defended the ship, but several of them were wounded. One was critically wounded. He may not survive.”
“Why the hell would they do that? They wouldn’t be able to operate the ship.”
“They were planning to demand transportation to Canada. They thought they’d be safe there. Now they are just dead,” Tim said pointedly.
“The strike team killed them all?”
“Of course, Commander. The crews of our ships understand that the loss of one isn’t just an economic loss. It’s permitting one of the most powerful forces in the world to fall into unfriendly hands. You do understand that with a ship at your disposal, any city would fall within minutes. For that reason alone, all crewmembers swear an oath to defend their ship to the death against any and all boarders. The cook of the Oklahoma gutted a man with his best Chef’s knife because he was caught without a firearm when the boarding occurred. He raced down the hall to reinforce the men in the cargo bay.” Tim shook his head and added, “By evacuating from the proximity of our good neighbors, we are removing such temptations for the duration of this crisis.”
“We can begin evacuating personnel tomorrow as scheduled,” the commander responded. “In view of what you just told me, I hope we can complete the evacuation without incident.”
“So do I, Commander,” Tim said with feeling. “So do I.”
***
All across America, the peacekeeper bases were closing down in preparation for the evacuation to the Damroyal. The Texas citadel and Jerome, Arizona, bases were deemed safe enough so that they alone would remain open.
A small number of people with the plague had already visited the citadel, just as Tim had dreamed they would. The outcome was radically different from that of the dream because the base had been warned in advance that a group suspected of carrying the plague was en route to the citadel. The base commander had questioned that warning, but the council had declined to explain, stating that they had to protect a source. The commander had accepted that explanation. It was one he had used in the past himself.
When the infected people showed up at the base, they found a small stockpile of supplies left in the desert for them, but no personnel were there to greet them. They saw three drones guarding the entrance to the citadel. A voice emanated from one of the drones explaining that they were carriers of the plague, so there was nothing the peacekeepers could do for them other than to supply them with food and water.
One of the refugees drew a pistol and fired at a drone as he tried to run past them and into the entrance of the base. Three lasers pierced the man’s body, killing him instantly. Three fighters emerged from the citadel in rapid succession. They fired their main lasers at the body of the dead man until he was cremated.
The rest of the people who had accompanied the man had fled. Only a couple of them had paused to take some of the supplies and then they too fled the area. The three fighters aimed their lasers at the remaining supplies, which now had to be considered contaminated. Within moments, the small pile of provisions was reduced to a mound of ashes.
***
Bob Reager shook his head sadly. “I can’t believe it’s already so close. You’re sure it isn’t related to the vaccine? We know some of the people who took it will contract the disease.”
“There is that too, but no, sir. We have reports that much of Detroit is burning. There are too many fires to attribute it to the vaccine.”
“It must be true then,” said Bob to his aide. “Issue the statement we prepared. Warn everyone to stay inside their homes. Initiate the food delivery system, but warn the men involved not to risk contamination.”
“Yes, sir,” said the aide.
Bob glanced up when the man didn’t immediately leave to carry out his instructions. “Was there something else?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. Have you’d decided which of the projects you’ve been considering that we’d take on after the plague has died out?”
Bob smiled and said, “We’ll do what we do best. We’ll build a stockpile of Huxley alloy while Detroit gets ready to resume manufacturing.” Pausing to stare at his aide, he said, “I was recently reminded by a friend that there would be survivors. There always are. It will take time, but America will rebound, and when it does we’ll be producing their autos, roofs, and in some cases, their very homes.”
> “We’re going to rebuild the city, sir?”
“No, but have you ever considered the possibility of a flying home that you could move almost anywhere in the country?”
“Is that even possible, sir?”
“My engineers tell me that it is,” Bob assured the aide.
Chapter 21
“How’s the desalinization plant work coming along?” Jim asked Pol. It was the day before they planned to submerge with the majority of the peacekeeper fleet and they were once more meeting in the conference room of the Damroyal.
“That project is ahead of schedule. In fact, it is completed,” Pol responded with a pleased expression on his face.
“Already? I thought that problem would take considerably longer to solve.”
“Actually, so did I. As you know, converting that much seawater into potable water would require a lot of energy. But my assistant had an idea. He suggested solving the problem by utilizing the heat from the battery compartments. You know that the storage batteries of the Damroyal produce an excess amount of heat that we bleed into the atmosphere. He was working on the cooling problem we would face when submerged when he thought of using seawater, pumped through a series of pipes atop the storage compartment to cool the batteries. The pipes then go through a cooling tank filled with cold seawater. The steam inside the pipes then liquefies and is added to the reserve water tanks.”
“What a simple solution. I like simple,” Jim said with a grin.
“My friend, you’re not fooling me. I’ve long known that you could follow me much better than you pretend,” Pol said with a knowing smile.
“Will we be able to house and feed everyone for the duration of the emergency as we thought?” Jim asked Tim, who had promised to look into that matter personally.
“Yes. We’ll be crowded, but we can take on all of the personnel by utilizing the extra space in the flight bay for barracks style sleeping quarters. Cabins will be assigned to married couples, as per your orders. Displaced crewmembers of the Damroyal will rough it in the flight bay on the cots. There has been some grumbling, but surprisingly little. Everyone seems to understand the dire nature of this emergency,” Tim explained.
“As to supplies, we now have adequate food stores aboard to feed us for a minimum of three months without resupply. At that point, we would need to surface and remove additional stores from the patrol ships and APCs, all of which will be loaded with additional foodstuffs. That set of supplies would give us another month.”
“We don’t anticipate this being anywhere near that long in duration. Are your figures based on full rations or is that with a reduced consumption rate?”
“Full rations. But the fresh eggs, milk and vegetables will go fast. After the first couple of weeks, it’ll be canned goods and powdered eggs. We may get tired of some of the food we’ll be eating, but we’ll stay well fed and, hopefully, healthy,” Tim explained.
“I always liked powdered eggs,” Jim observed, causing Tim to laugh.
“Medical, have all of our people been screened?” Jim queried Maggie.
“Yes, Admiral, that has been completed. The unfortunates who contracted the plague have all been relocated to the camp we set up.”
“How many people are you referring to, Doctor? I don’t have that information yet.”
“One hundred sixty-three people, Admiral. Most of them contracted the disease as a result of taking the vaccine. That number would have been much higher had all peacekeepers taken the medication. However, surprisingly few people took it because they were aware that we’d be evacuating everyone to an isolated location. The rest of the victims caught it for various reasons, but the most common was contact with plague victims.”
“Does your count include those from the California refugee camp who were isolated at the outset?”
“No, sir, it doesn’t. Those people have all died as a result of their exposure, and I didn’t include the casualty list.” Pausing for a moment to consult her papers, Maggie found what she was looking for, looked up from the paper, and then she said, “We’ve lost an additional forty-seven men and women since the outset of the plague. Seventeen were contaminated at refugee camps. The rest were to acts of violence that they were attempting to stop all over the country, and of course the patrol ship Nevada and the Florida APC incidents.”
“That’s bad. Even one is too many, but I suppose it could have been a lot worse,” Jim observed.
Jim thanked Maggie for her report, and then he turned to Patricia. “Have all of the incoming vessels reported in to confirm their arrival as scheduled?”
“They have, sir. The ships and fighter squadrons will begin to arrive by midday tomorrow. If there are no delays, all hands should be aboard the Damroyal by early afternoon.”
“Has all of the software been updated, tested, and confirmed?”
“Yes, Admiral, it has. A simulation has tested the modifications to the Damroyal several times. In every simulation, the programs work. There are variations on the degree of energy consumption required, but that’s Pol’s field. I’d prefer to let him address that.”
Jim looked to Pol with a resigned expression on his face, causing Pol to laugh. “Don’t worry, my friend, I’m not going to give you the numbers. Suffice it to say that the variations are acceptable. Even in the worst case scenario, the power needed to maintain depth, operate the ship for daily activities, and propel us through the water is not going to overtax the ability of the Damroyal to produce energy.”
“What about the structural integrity of the aircraft that will be attached to the flight deck? Are we certain they won’t leak?”
“We’re going to seal the cockpits of the fighters. Remember, after the war with the pirates we worked out seals for the laser gun ports so that a downed fighter would float longer if it sustained little damage. That was in response to the loss of several fighters with relatively minor damage to the battery compartments that caused them to have to ditch in the ocean. The Patrol ships and drones are also watertight now, thanks to the upgrades we did last year. They should all be fine.”
“That brings up another matter. Those things are aerodynamic but won’t they create a lot of drag and cut our underwater efficiency?”
“Yes they would, if we slapped them down on the forward section of the flight deck, in a haphazard fashion, but we won’t be doing that. The Constitution will sit on the aft section of the deck. The rest of the patrol ships will sit forward of the Constitution. The APCs will sit forward of the patrol ships, and the fighters will be furthest forward. That will even further reduce the overall drag created by the presence of so much of the fleet on the flight deck because the aircraft will be laid out as aerodynamically as possible,” Tim explained.
“It sounds as if you and Pol have been busy.”
“We have,” Tim affirmed.
“We have tried to anticipate everything, but as you know, that’s impossible. Something unexpected will always come up in such undertaking of this scale. But we do feel we have covered all of the major issues,” Pol explained.
***
The morning of the eighteenth day of Ramon’s stay in the city, the Havana landed near his camp and his strike team emerged. There had been no other evidence of new cases of the plague in the city so Ramon was keeping his promise to call in help if the people remained inside their homes. Now he needed to gather the victims, dispose of their bodies, and then burn the homes while watching for escaping rodents. By late afternoon, his men had all of the bodies assembled in one location.
That night, the captain stood wearing a gas mask as he watched the funeral pyre for the dead victims of the plague in Cabo de San Antonio.
It saddened him that Ruth del Valle was among those victims. He had found a note attached to the door of her house that stated she had heard a young child crying in one of the plague stricken homes, and that she was going to give the child what comfort she could until it passed away. His strike team had found her in one of the homes, still cradlin
g the dead toddler. There was evidence that she had fed the infant and kept it clean until it had succumbed to the disease. Although she had been dead for days, there was no sign of the usual decay and there was a strong smell of roses on her body that even the gas masks of the peacekeepers couldn’t filter out.
As the funeral pyre consumed the bodies, the image of that fire reflected off the lenses of the gas masks worn by the Cuban peacekeepers present. Ramon observed the fire for the first few minutes. He was about to order his men to begin decontamination when he saw a strange sight. A ghostly form of a woman appeared. She hovered there for a moment and then raised her hands into the air as if in supplication to God. A moment later, the figure disappeared.
Photo by Robert L McCullough Noël Baba’s Fotos, Weatherford, TX
Model: Elle Renee Walker
For a moment, this caused Ramon to doubt his sanity, but then he saw one of the other peacekeepers cross himself and heard the man ask, “Did you all see that?” The others quietly nodded that they had, but said nothing further. The pitiful sights they had seen as they recovered the bodies for cremation had acutely affected most of the men.
“Goodbye, Ruth de Valle, Madre de Cuba,” Ramon stated formally in Spanish, which when translated means Ruth of the Valley, Mother of Cuba. “In death, God has made you young again.”
“He must mean the old woman who tended the baby,” said one of the peacekeepers to the man next to him.
“Let’s go men. We have more work to do before we can rest this night,” Ramon instructed. “First we must decontaminate ourselves, and then we have to burn the homes of the victims. It’s too dangerous to leave that contamination in the city.”