Solomon Family Warriors II

by Robert H. Cherny

  Gasping for air, Rachel said, “Thank you. Friends?”

  “Friends.”

  Once the cadets had stowed their gear in the barracks, the platoons reassembled on the parade field. Suwanee and Rachel were the oldest members of their platoon and stood at the front of the formation. They were given their orders for the day The platoons went their separate ways to be issued the equipment they would need for the training. They returned to their barracks carrying duffel bags full of their gear which included protective armor, combat boots and foul weather gear. In their wallets they carried the paperwork documenting the deduction of the cost of the gear from their pay.

  Their days quickly settled into a physically demanding routine. Each day started at 0600. With the dew still on the ground, they did physical training for three hours on courses designed to develop their endurance and stamina. The next hour was spent in weaponless hand-to-hand combat. The following hour was devoted to the use of weapons other than fire arms. They were allowed one hour for lunch. After lunch their schedules varied. The platoons were split up due to the limits of the facilities available to them. They learned to fire a variety of hand held weapons including laser pistols, ballistic pistols, rifles, grenade launchers, bazookas, shoulder fired missile launchers and rapid fire weapons of several sizes.

  Their training included time in the water as well as on land. Rachel and Wendy had learned to swim in the lake in front of the house. Faye Anne had never learned to swim, so teaching her became a joint weekend project. One of the misconceptions they addressed early was the idea that firearms do not work when wet. They work. They rust and have to be cleaned quickly. The newer polymer weapons were less susceptible to moisture and therefore were preferred over the heavier metal ones.

  Each platoon learned to operate both heavy and mobile artillery. They drove armored personnel carriers and remote control devices. The goal of the artillery training was not to become proficient in its operation, but to understand the weapons uses and shortcomings in battle. Each day ended in the classroom. By 1600 hours when the daily summer rains began, the company moved indoors for lectures and exercises in classrooms or on computer simulators. Supper was taken in shifts to maximize the time each student had on the simulators. “Lights out” was at 2100 hours and by that time exhaustion had set in and sleep came easily.

  Religious services on the weekends were the only time the partners were not expected to stay together. The first weekend, the Jewish students went to Sabbath morning services without their sparring partners, and on Sunday morning the Marines went to their services alone. While some of their colleagues enjoyed the respite from their partners, the six from Eretz and their partners found the time separated somehow awkward and unnatural. The second weekend, they all went to each other’s services and continued to do so for the remainder of the time they were at Parris Island.

  Rachel especially enjoyed the classes on the history of warfare and became engrossed in the classic battles of antiquity. Relating the classic battles to the ones she had fought, she sought to learn how a smaller force, by virtue of superior strategies, could emerge victorious over a larger one.

  Where Rachel saw the grand sweep of armies pitted against each other in epic struggles, Wendy saw the details of the movements of individual platoons and regiments as they dealt with the business of vanquishing an enemy.

  Reuben and Rashi focused on the technological advantages and disadvantages of the opposing forces. They were fascinated by those conflicts where technology and not strategy had turned the tide of battle. The World War II battle for the North Atlantic was one of their favorite case studies.

  Faye Anne followed the “fifth column” activities. She looked to the Marines’ intelligence gathering capabilities for her inspiration. She became her platoon’s intelligence officer as they prepared for the war games that would end the training. Her partner, Janet, appreciated Faye Anne’s knack for finding out people’s secrets and enjoyed the intrigues.

  David did his best to keep up. The tough-guy bravado that had caused him to accost Rachel in the first place was long gone. He was glad they were not together because, for the first time in a long time, he could stand or fall on his own and not as part of the group. David’s partner, Luther, had perhaps the easiest going attitude of the group. Participating in the training program was like a vacation to him. He was happy that he was not standing guard duty on some forsaken outpost in horrendous weather. David and Luther could often be seen laughing at some private joke which, since they were not with the others, they did not have to share.

  On weekends the six cadets who had arrived together and their partners rejoined as a group. The Marines taught the cadets the vices of the local adult entertainment establishments. They learned billiards, darts, bowling and a wide variety of card games. Reuben and Darius turned out to be nigh unto unbeatable at billiards. Reuben would see the shot and point it out to Darius. Darius would hit it. Rachel, Wendy, Suwanee and Pat were evenly matched at darts. Their contests would go on long into the night. Rashi and Lionel spent incredible amounts of money on the electronic games that lined the back walls of most of the places they frequented.

  Shore Patrol Marines were plainly visible and obviously alert in the places they frequented, but other than twice having to be escorted to their barracks due to their inability to get home on their own, the twelve of them managed to stay out of trouble.

  Of all their training, the part they all enjoyed the most was the mobile artillery. These machines were the closest hardware the Marines used to their own P I ships. They alternated with their partners driving and being fire control. Rachel had the most difficulty adjusting to the machines. She kept forgetting that “up” was not an option. She could never remember that when you throttled back the machine stopped abruptly instead of coasting weightlessly through space. She sank one in the river when she forgot to close the lower escape hatch. Her reflexes and instincts were tuned to space flight and aerial maneuvers. She never did master the mobile artillery or the armored personnel carriers.

  Suwanee turned out to be the perfect partner for Rachel. Easily as intelligent as Rachel but lacking her education, they worked together exactly as Lt. Col. Strong had hoped they would. Their combined aggressiveness fed on itself and drove the entire platoon to excel.

  On the fourth weekend, Luther arranged for them to leave the base and go horseback riding. He had grown up not far from there and knew where they could rent horses. It was a bittersweet activity for Rachel and Wendy. After riding, they told the others about their lives growing up on Homestead. They had never confided in anyone what life had been like on that frontier settlement so far from civilization. They talked about the horses that grazed in the meadows next to their spacecraft. For them growing up presented daily contrasts between the most advanced lethal technology that was theirs to control and the bucolic life on a farm that was theirs to enjoy. They explained how life had been so idyllic and yet marred by the threat that permeated everything they did. They talked about the horrific damage the battle had done to the wonderful place they had called home and how they might never be able to return to the place of their birth. Lying on their backs on the grass watching the sunset, they felt a peace that Rachel and Wendy had not felt for a very long time.

  The one thing Rachel and Wendy did not talk about was the mission that Grandma Rose had given them, the one she inspired them to accept. On the way back to the base they passed through Yemmassee and saw the site of the disastrous Ringling Circus derailment. While there they watched in awe as a large, heavily loaded freight train pulled through. For the first time they understood what their grandmother had said about the freight train moving and their being on it. They could ride it, or control it, but they couldn’t jump off.

  The train was running. Soon it would be up to them.

  ACADEMY - CHAPTER THREE

  SIX WEEKS INTO SUMMER training camp, Wendy was awakened by her hand-held data assistant buzzing shrilly from inside her locker. S
tartled into awareness, she scrambled to silence the errant hunk of over rated electronics. As she fumbled to retrieve it from the locker she realized that this was not her wake-up alarm. This was a high priority text message alert. Such a message could only mean trouble. Her heart in her throat, she decoded it.

  The first part of the message was in plain text. “Sir James Matthew Barrie sends his regards.”

  The next two hundred-fifty-six characters were random and had no meaning. They were intended to throw off decoding attempts. The two hundred-fifty-seventh character indicated the language to use to read the rest of the message. The binary number 01000100 indicated that the message was in plain text Hebrew with the characters shifted up four in the alphabet.

  Translating back to Federation Standard, the message read, “Peter Pan urgently requires the return of Wendy, Tinkerbelle, Tiger Lily and Lost Boys. Request Indian escort with full quivers.”

  “Pat! Get up!” Wendy shook her partner. “Battle Stations!”

  “Say what?”

  “Battle Stations. Our friend is in trouble and is calling for help.”

  Pat groaned and pulled the blanket back over her head.

  Rachel stormed through the door with a half dressed Suwanee right behind her.

  “Battle Stations!” Rachel and Wendy shouted at each other in panic.

  Suwanee held up her hands for silence. “Before you two crazy ladies go charging off into outer space, would you please tell me what the hell is going on here?”

  “Peter is calling for help!” Wendy shouted.

  “Who is Peter?” Suwanee asked.

  “Peter Pan is our ship,” Rachel answered.

  “Your ship sent you a message?” Suwanee asked.

  “Yes, it’s programmed to do that when it’s in trouble,” Wendy said.

  “Wasn’t it supposed to take those two engineering guys home months ago?” Pat asked.

  “We knew about the delays. They had trouble making some of the new parts fit the old hull. It took longer than they expected. They should have been gone by now,” Wendy answered.

  Faye Anne staggered through the door. Janet arrived moments later. “It took me forever to decode the message. I kept losing count. Sorry.”

  “If you got the message then the guys must have gotten it too,” Rachel said breathlessly.

  “Dammit will somebody tell me what is going on?” Suwanee demanded.

  Wendy took a deep breath. “Our cargo ship is programmed to call us if it detects a situation where either it or we are in danger. We have prearranged codes so that someone intercepting the message won’t understand it. Let me interpret. Sir James Matthew Barrie wrote a book about a boy named Peter Pan who could fly. He befriends a girl named Wendy. He has a magic fairy friend named Tinkerbelle. He lives on an island with the Lost Boys. The Lost Boys fight against a band of Indians lead by their princess Tiger Lily. Their common enemy is a pirate named Captain Hook. When we flew here we decided that the ship was Peter Pan since it never seemed to grow old and it took us to all these magical places just like in the book. I’m Wendy. Rachel is Tiger Lily. Faye Anne is Tinkerbelle because of the way she flits around the cabin in weightlessness and these,” pointing to Reuben, Rashi and David as they burst through the door followed by their partners, “are the Lost Boys. I assume that the six of you must be the Indians, and you are to come fully armed.”

  Suwanee eyed them skeptically. “We can’t just go dashing off into space because of some message from some ship, can we?”

  “I don’t know. We should ask permission,” Rachel said. “Do you have space combat armor?”

  “Yes,” Suwanee replied.

  “We should visit Colonel Connors immediately,” Rachel suggested.

  Colonel Connors listened politely as Rachel and Wendy explained as calmly as they could what the messages meant.

  “May I see the message?” he asked evenly, revealing none of his thoughts.

  “I didn’t write it down. Dad said never to write down a decoded secret message.”

  Colonel Connors smiled. “I need to see the message header not decoded.”

  Rachel handed him her data assistant. He checked the message against a message on his data assistant. “The message is legitimate. There is an authentication code buried in the header. Your father was concerned that something like this might happen and sent me codes to use to determine if a message was real and who sent it. Your ship sent this one. What do you propose to do?”

  “I thought we’d drive to Canaveral, rent a ship and find out what is going on,” Rachel said.

  “As simple as that?” Colonel Connors said.

  “Well yes. We’re rated pilots. We can fly anything in a commercial rental fleet,” Rachel said.

  Colonel Connors held up his hand to stop her. “Has it occurred to you that none of you is twenty five years of age, and no one will rent to you because you can’t get insurance?”

  Wendy and Rachel stared at each other.

  “Not only that, but whoever may be causing your ship to send this message will be looking for you to depart from Canaveral. They will follow you, and you lose the advantage of surprise.”

  “So what do we do?” Rachel asked.

  “We leave from Myrtle Beach,” Faye Anne said confidently.

  “What?” Rachel and Wendy turned to look at her.

  “I thought the Air Force base was turned over to civilian use,” Rachel said.

  Colonel Connors chuckled, “Please continue.”

  “It’s been back and forth a couple of times. ATF and DEA operate secret flights from there,” Faye Anne said. “And I’ll bet Colonel Connors could get us cleared to leave from there.”

  “How did you know that?” Rachel asked, astounded.

  “Listen more, talk less,” Faye Anne gloated.

  “Is what you’re suggesting legal?” Wendy asked.

  “Yes,” David offered, “due to our status as flight officers in the Eretz defense forces. If we were merely Federation cadets, no.”

  “Can we take reinforcements with us?” Rachel asked.

  “As Eretz officers, yes, as cadets, no,” David replied. “You should have listened in law class.”

  “How do we go from being cadets to being Eretz officers?” Wendy asked.

  “We request leave from the Federation. Due to the fact that we are not on leave from Eretz and rather are on temporary duty assignment, we automatically revert to Eretz status unless we request leave from both services simultaneously, and only then to we revert to being temporary civilians. However, even on leave, we must obey the rules of conduct that govern service members on leave.”

  Colonel Connors opened a drawer and produced a pile of leave forms. “Be careful out there.”

  That evening, under the cover of darkness, the twelve quietly left the base on a bus that routinely ferried Marine guards to and from the base at Myrtle Beach. Each of them carried a duffel bag packed with everything they could possibly imagine needing if they had to do battle. They had discreetly discovered that the only rental company that would rent to them was called “Space Junk Unlimited”. They approached the dilapidated shack next to the dingy hangar that served as an office and quietly knocked on the door. They could see a man asleep leaned back in his chair with his feet on the desk. He was snoring so loudly that they could hear him from outside the building. When he did not awaken, they tried the door, and to their surprise it swung open on squeaky hinges. Startled awake, the man convulsed and sat up pulling his feet off the desk.

  The sight of six Marines in full battle dress and six pilots in white flight suits trimmed with blue obviously scared the rental agent. His face became pale, “I didn’t do nutthin’! The ships are legit. I got paperwork.” He stood behind the desk.

  Rachel stared at him. “We need some wings. You have any we can rent?”

  “Yeah.” He was visibly relieved.

  “How much?”

  He pointed to a chart on the wall that listed inventory and pr
ices.

  “I need your J type for a week,” Rachel said.

  “May I see your license please.”

  “Reuben, you’re the oldest, show him your pilot’s license.” Reuben offered his license.

  “Look, lady, he’s under twenty five. I can rent to ya, but the extra insurance is gonna kill ya. Is one of you girls a pilot? Insurance for you is a lot cheaper. Look, you seem like nice kids and I don’t know what you’re doin’ here in the middle of the night, but this place is crawling with cops. If you’re doin’ somethin’ illegal, I’m gonna get busted and that ain’t no good.”

  Rachel smiled. She handed him an envelope. He opened it warily. He read their authorization signed by the base commander for them to proceed to an undisclosed location off the planet.

  “Can I make a copy of this for my boss?”

  “No,” Rachel said. She reached into a pocket in her flight suit and pulled out a large amount of cash. She counted some out and handed it to the agent. “Will this cover the rental and insurance?”

  The agent’s mouth dropped open. Rachel peeled off a couple more bills. “This is for not telling anyone we have left for twenty-four hours. If the drug or alcohol agency guys ask, tell them what you know. Don’t get yourself in trouble trying to protect us. Don’t offer any information they don’t ask for, but don’t lie to them either. One hour after we leave, call the number on this card. She gave him the number for Faye Anne’s intelligence officer friend. Leave him a message. He will call you back. Tell him whatever he wants to know. Tell him the truth. Don’t make anything up. Got it?”

  “Yes Ma’am! Where are you going?”

  “I am not telling you so when someone asks you where we went you can tell the truth and tell them you don’t know.”

  “I need it for the insurance.”

  “The flight plan will be filed for the Orbital Astoria Resort and Spa.”

  “Is that where you are going?”

  “That’s what the flight plan will say.”

  “Y’all are gonna get me in trouble.”

  “Nope. Rent us the ship, and we’ll take good care of it. We’ll bring it right back. You’ll see.”