by Ricky Sides
“Shoot them down,” Ramon ordered, moving over to watch as the two drones engaged the three fighters. The fighter pilots were taken by surprise. Two were blown out of the sky by the first sustained shots of the drones. Within thirty seconds, the aerial battle was over, and all three of the fighters had been shot down. The third fighter could have escaped had the pilot shot the throttle to full acceleration, but instead of executing that maneuver, the pilot had tried to turn and fire at one of the drones. That mistake had cost the pilot his life as he turned into the flight path of the second drone, which opened fire in a sustained burst at the cockpit window.
“Turn northeast. The fighters would be out front. The rest of the enemy is probably along the flight path to the northeast.”
“Yes, Captain,” the lead drone pilot responded.
Less than a minute later, the air lit up with bolts of laser fire as the two drones flew toward a large air group of the enemy. “Attack at will,” Ramon instructed the two drone pilots.
Turning to communications, he said, “Note the drone coordinates. I want all but six fighters scrambled in that direction. Those six will act as a last line of defense at the mouth of the bay. They are to take out anything that gets past us.”
Ramon watched their fighter escorts fly away at top speed as they rallied to join the drones in the massive aerial battle taking place near Key West. “Give me an ETA for our arrival,” Ramon said to the pilot.
“About thirteen minutes, sir,” the pilot stated.
“Be certain you keep us well above their flight level. I don’t want them landing on our ship.”
“I understand,” the pilot confirmed as he flew the ship toward the battle.
“Captain, I just lost my drone,” reported one of the drone operators. “But I got five of the sky cars before they got me,” the man added.
“I’ll put in a request for a replacement. Thank you for a job well done,” Ramon said to the operator.
The other drone operator was still in the battle. Ramon walked over to watch the fight on the man’s monitor. He saw dozens of the flying cars and two APC class vehicles. The lead drone pilot was skillfully weaving his drone to present a difficult target for the enemy air armada. From time to time, he fired as an enemy aircraft came within his targeting system. Ramon saw three of the flying cars careen out of control and fall out of the sky.
Then the first wave of peacekeeper fighters arrived. In the initial minute of the attack by the ten fighters, they struck a devastating blow to the enemy as sixteen of their aircraft were shot down.
The enemy split their formation in a haphazard, almost chaotic manner; the raiders flew away in all directions. The ten fighters managed to pick off several of the raiders who were slower to flee, but soon they saw nothing but the empty night sky in their vicinity.
Ramon knew that if the raiders intended to press on with their planned raid, then they would probably not regroup until they reached Cuba, if they even bothered to regroup at all. He ordered all fighters to fly toward Havana at top speed.
“Shall I turn us around too, Captain?” asked the pilot.
“How far out is our drone?” the captain asked the communications officer who could see the drone’s position on her terminal thanks to the tracking devices embedded in the unit.
“The drone is within fifteen miles and closing rapidly, sir.”
“Then we can wait. Maintain your heading, Pilot.”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Captain, I found one of the enemy aircraft. I am closing to shoot it down,” the drone pilot stated.
Moving to stand behind the man, Ramon saw that the target was one of the Detroit big truck versions that truckers in the United States had so sought to acquire. “Belay that. Do not shoot it down. Are there any other enemy aircraft in sight?” he asked.
“Just this one, Captain.”
“Do not fire on it. Do you see the recess in the cowling just behind the cab?”
“Yes, I see it.”
Can you tuck your drone in that recess so that it would be difficult for the enemy to spot?”
“I believe so, but I can’t be certain they won’t hear the landing. If the back of the truck is full of men, I imagine they would hear me landing the drone. I don’t think men in the cab would hear it.”
“Do it.”
“Captain I have the truck in sight,” the gunner shouted gleefully.
“Hold your fire!” Ramon shouted. Running to the gunner, he added, “Use your skill for the shot. I want you to hit the passenger side of the windshield with the briefest of bursts. I want minimum damage, but maximum fear. We need to turn that truck back for their base.”
“My drone is down, Captain. I even managed to turn it around so that we can see with the camera. It is now sealed to the truck.”
“Well done. Thank you for the report.”
Ramon looked back toward the gunner just as the main forward laser shot a short burst at the windshield of the truck. The pilot of that aircraft wrenched the wheel to the left in a reflex reaction to the near death experience he had just had. He executed a wide turn and then accelerated to his top speed, only now he was running for America.
“Oh, well done, Gunner. Well done indeed, but he may change his mind in a moment and turn back. Don’t hit him. I want you to fire a burst past his side window. Make it brief, so that he can’t accidently yank the aircraft into the path of the beam if he panics.”
“Yes, sir. I get the idea. This is going to be fun,” the gunner said smiling.
The pilot of the truck thought that it was anything but fun. Several times, he saw the blue laser bolts flash past his window. He swore as each shot came a bit closer. He cursed as the last shot partially melted the glass in his side window because he knew that it would have to have come within a fraction of an inch of the glass to do that.
He had been considering running from the big ship until it broke off the pursuit and then turning back for Cuba. However, that ended when the glass partially melted. He would rather risk the Warlord’s wrath than die a certain death over the sea. At least if the Warlord killed him, he would live to see the sunrise in the morning as he flew back to the base. He felt certain that if he tried to go to Cuba, then that would never happen. He also felt certain that he had used up all of his luck for one night. He briefed a sigh of relief when the laser stopped firing.
“Well done, Gunner,” Ramon said. “That was a fine display of marksmanship.”
“Captain, the squadron leaders are reporting that their flights shot down several more aircraft as they raced for Cuba. They are now closing with their destination and await further orders.”
“Resume defensive strategy Alpha,” Ramon ordered without hesitation.
“Pilot, get us to Havana as quickly as possible. Gunner, if you see any other enemy aircraft, you are to shoot them down on sight.”
“That will be my great pleasure, Captain,” the gunner stated. He was in a great mood, having thoroughly enjoyed himself at the beleaguered truck pilot’s expense.
The air pirates came toward the Cuban coastline across a five-mile front. The center of that line flew directly toward Havana. Those pilots met the peacekeeper fighters at their two-mile offshore staging area.
This time, the enemy pilots were ready for the fight. Apparently, they had learned to elevate their lasers to a degree because several of the aircraft could fire at up to a forty-five degree angle. The Cubans lost three fighters in the opening minute of the battle before they managed to shoot down the enemy aircraft with that capability. Many of the others turned and ran back for America at that point.
The Havana arrived and set about rescuing the downed fliers who could be saved. One of the fighters sank beneath the surface of the sea before they could rescue the pilot, but they managed to rescue the other two. Ramon left three fighters to search for the missing pilot, but he was afraid the man had gone down with his aircraft.
He sent the rest on to Havana, where the other peacek
eeper fighters were just beginning to engage the enemy who had come in east and west of the city and altered course to converge upon it. The air battle for Havana lasted for forty-five minutes. In the streets of Havana and along the battlements of Fort El Morro, Cubans stared up into the night sky and witnessed the bravery of the peacekeeper pilots as they valiantly fought off the aggressors. When it was over, most of the enemy aircraft had been shot down. The remainder had turned tail and ran back for their base.
It was an expensive victory for Ramon’s forces. They had lost seven pilots and nine fighters that night. Even the Havana had taken multiple laser hits to various sections of her hull as her gunner shot down as many enemy aircraft as he could target. Thankfully, the beams had not killed a crewmember, but the ship was heavily damaged and had been forced to land in El Morro and wait out the fighting. Troops from the fort poured out of their bunker when she landed. They manned the battlements, bravely daring the enemy lasers as they sent up so much defensive fire that they frightened the raiders away. They quickly learned that while the bodies of the vehicles were bullet proof to small arms fire, the glass of the windows and windshield were not.
Ramon took the precaution of having the computer and communications expert enable the failsafe that would not permit the ship to be flown, but that proved to be unnecessary. The ship and crew that had fled Cuba under a cloud of suspicion and anger had returned as saviors and heroes.
The base engineer was a man who had been vocal about his anger toward the American peacekeepers, as well at Ramon, his crew, and the fighter pilots. He pledged to have the Havana repaired and airborne in three days. He also apologized for his behavior, and then he organized teams of men to recover the downed fighters that had fallen over land. Their skin would provide the alloy he needed to repair the Havana’s hull.
One by one, the fighters landed inside the walls of El Morro. Their pilots had also been vindicated in the eyes of their countrymen.
The lights were switched back on at the base. Ramon stood outside the ship near most of his crew as the lights came back on in Havana. He prayed with the pilots and his crew. He offered thanks for their victory, and he prayed for the souls of their countrymen who had died protecting Cuba.
As if in answer to his prayers, a single church bell rang out in the night in the city. That bell was soon answered by another in a different section of the city. Soon, many bells rang out in the night.
“What is it, Commander?” Ramon asked the man when he caught him looking at him in a strange manner.
“You know, Ramon, it is one thing to hear tales of wonder assigned to your name, but it is quite another for a man to see things with his own eyes.”
“I’m afraid you have confused me,” Ramon stated.
“Surely, you have heard the tales spoken of you. It is said that a cross protected you from a lethal wound when you took El Morro from the drug cartel.”
“There is no mystery there. The bullet did strike my cross, but its energy had been spent penetrating my armor. There was nothing miraculous about it. It was just a coincidence.”
“Then they say that of all of the vaccine you delivered, not one person became sick.”
“That was Ruth de Valle’s doings, and is the reason I called that former nun Ruth del Valle, Madre de Cuba,” Ramon stated.
“You return to Cuba on the day we will be raided after an absence of weeks.”
“A friend warned me that it was time to return home,” Ramon explained, although he did not mention the identity of that friend.
“And now, you pray and church bells ring,” the commander noted.
“Church bells often ring when the people have cause to celebrate, do they not?” Shrugging, Ramon added, “But there are special people among us. They are people who deserve your regard, and indeed the regard of us all. Seven of our fellow peacekeepers died tonight defending our country. They were men who left Cuba with me because some of you would have betrayed the American peacekeepers and seized the air assets. They are the men who deserve to be revered, because they gave their all for all of us. They died fighting for what is right. Is that not why we all became peacekeepers in the first place?”
When Ramon paused, he saw that most of the people present had drawn closer to listen to the exchange. Many were men who had openly demanded that the Cuban peacekeepers seize all the assets and break away from any connection to the Americans. Now those men looked down in shame.
“Yes, we lost thousands of our countrymen because we opted to use the vaccine, but, lest we forget, the Americans could have given it to their people. Two hundred thousand Americans died for lack of the vaccine we so ungratefully cursed them for giving us. We should ponder that when we want to assign blame. I am quite certain Jim Wilison, Tim Wilison, and Pol Bleakman think of little else when the subject comes up.”
Chapter 14
“Admiral, you are needed in the control room. Admiral, to the control room ASAP.” Jim was sitting at the desk in his office when he heard the page over the intercom of the Damroyal. He had been going through a mountainous backlog of paperwork that had accumulated in his absence.
Only too happy to have an excuse to leave the paperwork for a while and stretch his legs, Jim headed for the control room at once.
“Sir, you have a priority call from Captain Marino of the Havana.”
“Thank you, I’ll take it on the headset,” Jim responded.
“Hello, Captain. I hope all is well.”
“Admiral, I apologize for the delay in reporting. My communications have been down until five minutes ago, and I needed to submit this report via our network. My communication officer is sending it now. You will understand everything when you read it.”
“Thank you, I’ll get right on that. Is everything all right there now?”
The prolonged silence that followed the query told Jim that something was wrong. “It would really be best for you to read the report, Admiral,” Ramon suggested. “I’ll say goodbye for now. It is critical that you read that report without delay.”
“Goodbye, my friend. I’ll read it immediately,” Jim promised.
When he took off the headset, the communications officer handed him a thin sheaf of papers that she had just stapled together to keep them in order. “Thanks,” he said and then he left for his office with the papers in his hand.
At his desk, Jim read a detailed report of the losses the Cuban peacekeepers had suffered during their battle the previous night, but they had shot down dozens of the enemy aircraft and sent the rest running back to America. Then he read the part about the drone that they had attached to the truck. The Cubans had tracked it as far as southern Texas before their system went down in the heat of the battle. The report included the transponder code number for the drone. When Jim saw that, he jumped to his feet and headed back to the control room.
Now, he understood why Ramon had been reluctant to discuss issues over the radio. There was a possibility that the enemy had learned to monitor their radio communications. It wasn’t likely, but it was a possibility that they would be fools to ignore. If they learned about the truck with the transponder equipped drone attached, they would order it to stay away from their base.
When he reached the control room, Jim ordered the communications officer to fire up the system that tracked drones. He then gave her the transponder number for the specific drone he wanted a location update on and asked her to run the check immediately.
The officer reported within minutes. “It’s in Nebraska, Admiral.”
“Is it stationary?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I want it constantly tracked and I want a record of its every move. What’s the closest ship we have to its location?”
“The Arizona. She was going back to her base, but Captain Wilcox diverted north to answer a distress signal.”
Jim hastily wrote a note. “Send this, plus the file we just received from the Havana, to Captain Wilcox aboard the Arizona.”
“Will do,
sir.”
Jim waited as the communications officer scanned his message. She already had the electronic file sent by the Havana. She sent both dispatches, and then she glanced at her monitor because the Admiral had ordered constant monitoring. “Admiral, the drone is moving again,” she reported.
“Direction and speed?” Jim queried.
“It’s moving northwest at approximately one hundred miles per hour, sir.”
“Extend that course all the way to the border and let me see it,” Jim ordered.
When he was looking at the map with the extended course plotted, he thought something looked familiar. “Show me the tracking data on the three houses we’ve been monitoring.”
When Jim saw the map, he noted that the extended course of the truck with its drone stowaway was similar to the course the houses had taken. Then he noted that the houses had moved overnight. “Is the Athens tracking these houses now or are we sending them tracking data?”
“We’re feeding them the data, Admiral. Tracking them requires modifications to the tracking software that Lisa’s replacement can’t handle. Such modifications are part of the advanced training courses that she took, but her replacement isn’t qualified to make the alterations.”
“They have the new data? This isn’t what I gave him during his briefing.”
“Yes, sir. They’ve been getting hourly updates since they departed.”
“Thank you. I swear you’re becoming as efficient as Patricia.”
“Thank you, sir. That’s the nicest compliment anyone has given me since I became a peacekeeper,” the young woman said.
“Now pull up the map that depicts the location where the Valiant and her air group were attacked by the air raiders,” Jim said, returning to business once more. “While you’re at it, add the course they were flying during their search for the base after the attack.”
Jim took a moment to study that map. “Hmm, I can’t really tell by this. Can you superimpose the other references we’ve been checking?”
“Yes, Captain,” she responded. That took a few minutes because she had to manipulate all three files during the process, but she soon called him over to her monitor to see the results.