The Peacekeepers. Books 1 - 3.

by Ricky Sides

  “All right then, I’ll ask. How can you be drafted into a volunteer army?”

  “Well, I originally joined the National Guard. Everything was fine the first few months, but then the girl I was dating broke off our engagement,” Shrugging he continued, “After that, I guess I had attitude problems. I became a screw up in a major way. I skipped a few drills, for the hell of it, and the Guard informed me I was getting into a bad situation. One more skipped drill, and I’d be transferred to active duty army. I managed to clean up my act for a while. I met another girl and we fell in love. Things were going great. Then word came down that we had to leave town for our two-week annual drill. I decided that I didn’t want to go because I’d just met the girl and didn’t want to be away from her for two weeks. I skipped the drill. Next thing I knew, I was before a judge who gave me my options. I could serve a tour in the Army or do five years in prison.” Smiling at Patricia he finished, “Even for a screw up like me, the smart decision was obvious. So you see I was drafted.”

  “Well no offense, but you had it coming,” Patricia observed.

  “Oh hell, I know that. As I said, I was a screw up. But it was a good experience for me. The discipline of the active Army helped me to get my act together. When that first tour of duty was up, I think I surprised most of the people who knew me when I reenlisted.”

  “Since then, I’ve made the Army my life, though to be perfectly honest, I still got into trouble from time to time.” He’d already explained the call to his brother the day of the quakes and the consequences of that call.

  “Now it’s your turn,” Tim said at that point.

  Patricia shared her background with Tim then. She was a college graduate, who had studied computer programming in the hopes of becoming qualified to assist in her father’s work. Tim had noted that she was too young for that scenario to play out, and he questioned her regarding the apparent inconsistency in the time lines. She seemed embarrassed when she revealed that she’d been a child prodigy and by the age of twelve she was writing complex computer programs. She’d gone on to explain, “When I was sixteen, dad brought home some software that was giving him trouble. He had it loaded on the computer in his office to attempt to debug the program at home over a three-day weekend. I walked into the room to call him to dinner that Friday night. While I was in there, I noticed the screen and pointed out a problem I saw. I noticed that the problem would cause a cascade effect, which would cause multiple errors leading to crashes, and I said as much.”

  “Dad said that was what he was trying to fix, and offered to let me try to debug it. It was just a copy, so I couldn’t harm the original program you understand.” Shrugging, she added, “I fixed it and we went to eat dinner. It was no big deal to me, but it was to dad and to the other team members. I graduated at the age of seventeen and applied for a position with the team. When I joined the team, they’d been working on the vehicle that we’re trying to locate for two years.”

  “It took us another eight years to perfect the systems and get the vehicle ready for the final demonstration to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Unfortunately, the demonstration was scheduled for the same month that the natural disasters began. The vehicle was transported in secrecy from our lab to Fort Leonard Wood for the demonstration, but that demonstration was postponed on three separate occasions, due to the disasters that were happening all over the country.”

  Tim nodded his head as a picture of what had transpired emerged in his mind. He said, “That explanation leaves a few questions in my mind.”

  “By all means ask, and I’ll try to explain if I can,” Patricia had said.

  “All right, I will. From everything that you’ve said, I gather that this team that worked on the project was all civilian, working under a government contract to develop the vehicle.”

  Patricia nodded her head and said, “You surmise correctly.”

  “What happened to the team members?”

  Patricia’s lip quivered and her eyes filled with tears, but she held them back as she answered, “A few hours before the last big earthquakes struck, the army sent men to pick up the team members and their immediate families. They were taken to a shelter. Dad and I weren’t home when they arrived to pick us up. When we got home, we found two soldiers waiting for us. They informed us we had to get into the shelter immediately, and rushed us into the back seat of a car. We were en route to the shelter when the earthquakes hit. We rode out the quakes on the side of the road in our car. When that was over, we tried to drive to the shelter to link up with the team, but we had to stop a mile away from the shelter.”

  She started crying, so Tim tried to console her. “That’s all right, Patricia. If it’s too painful, you don’t have to talk about it.”

  Sniffing and blowing her nose on a handkerchief she said, “I think I need to.” Then she had resumed her narrative. “The shelter had collapsed. Apparently, one of the earthquakes had done it. Where the shelter had been located, there was only a pit in the ground. That pit stretched out in all directions for about a quarter mile. The road was impassable a mile away from it. We walked in as close as we could to see if there were any survivors, but nothing could have survived that disaster.”

  “What happened to the two men with you?” Tim asked in curiosity.

  “They went to check on their families the next day when it became apparent that the disasters were nationwide. I can’t say that I blame them. I would’ve done the same if dad hadn’t been with me,” she explained.

  “The two soldiers dropped us off at our house and we stayed there for two days. At first, the radio stations were on the air. Soon we had a good idea of the situation in the country. When word spread that the military had disintegrated and the government had pretty much ceased to exist, we decided to try to recover the experimental prototype. Dad was adamant that his work not fall into the hands of the lawless element. I agreed.”

  “We left in our car but soon traded that for two motorcycles. The bikes seemed more practical because of the condition of the roads near military bases.” She paused in her narrative and said, “It seems odd, I know. Dad and I even discussed how odd it is. However, we observed that the closer you got to military bases, the more severe the earthquake damage tends to be. It’s almost as if the bases were the epicenters.”

  Shrugging she said, “You know the rest. Three men cornered us in the Ozark National Forest. They tied my father to the tree and threatened to kill him if I didn’t cooperate and show them a good time. Dad went berserk and kicked one of the men, despite the fact that he was tied to a tree. That was when they wrapped him with a strand of barbed wire and went to work on him with the knife. I tried to fight them, but two of the men held me down while the third cut dad with the knife.”

  She began to cry then, and Tim moved closer to her and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. “You couldn’t have prevented it Patricia,” he said softly as she sobbed. She laid her head on his shoulder and he added, “You did nothing wrong. Your father loved you very much. He wouldn’t have permitted you to cooperate with those Marauders even if it would have saved him, and odds are it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference if you had. They would have still killed him. They may have let you live for a while, but then again they may have just killed you after the rape.”

  Wiping her eyes, she looked up at Tim and said, “Intellectually I know that is true. Still, I can’t help but wonder if I’d acted differently could I have saved dad?”

  Tim sighed and said, “I think you need to remember that some things are worse than death. I won’t claim to know your father’s mind intimately, but from our limited contact, I’d say he was the kind of man who’d rather die than see his daughter have to do what you would’ve been forced to do in order to save him. For him, I think seeing you have to do that would’ve been far worse than death.”

  “Dad said that to me minutes before he died,” Patricia said as fresh tears cascaded down her cheeks. She cried then. Great heart wrenching sobs. Tim held her
as she wrapped her arms around him and cried her heart out. She cried for her father. She cried for the great loss of life during the earthquakes. She cried for the loss of the team, which was actually an extended family to her. She also cried because she knew that human animals that preyed on the weak would trap other people and torment them, and there was no one to stop them.

  Tim just held her and let her cry herself out because he knew she needed to. He felt that once she did so, she could begin a healing process that she needed. When she voiced her fears, he assured her that they would do what they could to help others who needed the help. He was sure many good people would do the same.

  When she’d cried herself out, she wiped her tears away and thanked him for being so patient with her. “What a pain it must be to have to put up with my emotional crap tonight.”

  “Actually,” Tim said, “I can’t think of anyplace I’d rather be tonight than right here with you.”

  Patricia gave him a warm expression of gratitude and smiled at him. “That was a sweet thing to say. She leaned closer to him and kissed him lightly on the lips. It caught him by surprise, and she’d broken the kiss and backed away before he could react to it.

  “It’s time for me to sleep. Thank you for your patience with me,” she said as she got up and walked to her small tent. They’d acquired two small tents to use when camping.

  “Sleep well,” he responded happily. He watched as she sealed the entrance behind her, then he reached up and touched his lips in contemplation. “Well I’ll be damned,” he said. “Our first kiss and I wasn’t ready.”

  In her tent, Patricia sat down on her sleeping bag. She pulled her knees up, wrapped her arms around her legs, and put her chin on her knees. She was beginning to feel the first stages of love for Tim. He’d been a perfect gentleman in all regards toward her. He had taken no overt steps to indicate his feelings for her, but a woman knows.

  Reaching up with the fingertips of her right hand, she touched her lips. Smiling faintly, she thought, “Our first kiss.”

  ***

  After that night by the river, they grew more comfortable in each other’s company and traveling together became routine. They finally made it to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. It had taken them many weeks because of the numerous detours they were forced to make, but they finally arrived at their destination.

  Tim stopped their truck and asked, “Are you sure this is the right spot? I don’t see any sign of an entrance to an underground complex.”

  Patricia looked around the area and said, “Well according to dad, not even the troops stationed here were aware that the complex was on the base.” Then she said, “I wish it hadn’t been moved from the lab we used to develop it, just before things went to hell.”

  “Well I guess I’d better get busy and find the entrance,” Tim said.

  It took Tim two days to find the concealed entrance. Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to cover it up with several feet of dirt and rocks. He finally found the entrance when he had taken a break in the search and sat down to talk to Patricia. He explained that the plowed field they were currently searching reminded him of the cotton fields he’d seen on his grandfather’s farm. Even as he was explaining to her what life on a farm was like, his eyes kept returning to one specific section of the field. Finally, he said, “Now that’s odd. The earth in that section of the field is a different color than the rest. It’s close to the same color but it isn’t the same. And it is roughly square in shape.”

  Laughing he told Patricia he thought they’d found the entrance. He dug a test hole there to confirm or disprove his theory. It took an hour to dig the three feet down to the concrete. It took that long because just below the surface of the dirt was a layer of limestone rock. These rocks were about a foot thick and several feet square. They were laid out so that they were touching each other. Tim had been forced to chip away at one corner until he could wedge a pick under the rock.

  After he cleared the first layer of limestone slabs, he found another layer of dirt. He dug this layer out and finally he reached the concrete outer shell of the complex.

  Tim climbed out of the hole and said, “This looks like the complex to me. It’s going to take a lot of work to clear away all of the obstructions but in a couple of weeks we should be able to uncover the vehicle.”

  Patricia smiled and brushed some loose dirt out of Tim’s hair. She said, “I knew you could do it. I would have never noticed the difference in the colors of the soil if you hadn’t pointed it out to me.”

  “You would if you’d been raised around farms,” Tim said.

  “If we get the vehicle out of the complex, what do you think we should do with it?” Patricia asked.

  Tim tilted his face to the ground. Using both hands, he briskly agitated his hair to remove the loose dirt that coated his head. “I’d say that you have much more right to that decision than I do,” he responded as he shook the last fragments of dirt from his hair. “But since you asked my opinion, I’ll tell you,” he said with a grin. “I think we should use it to help people who are having problems with Marauders.”

  Patricia nodded her head solemnly and said, “That’s what I’d like to do too, but do you think we could handle the job?”

  Tim pondered her question and finally said, “Yes I do. I know you said that the ship is supposed to have a five man crew, but I think we’ll be able to manage.”

  Tim looked back at the small opening he’d made. He shrugged and said, “We won’t know for sure until I get the vehicle out of the complex. That could take a long time.”

  “We don’t have enough food to last long enough to dig out the ship,” Patricia observed.

  Unscrewing the cap on his canteen, Tim took a long drink of water before replying to Patricia’s concern. “I suppose I’ll have to see what I can scrounge up for us at Leonard Wood.”

  He stood up and slid the canteen back into its pouch. “There’s still several hours of daylight left. I may as well go on and see what I can find now.”

  Patricia said, “I’m ready if you are.”

  Tim looked at her for a moment and thought about telling her that she shouldn’t go. She must have been expecting him to say something like that because she had that stubborn look in her eyes. Tim smiled and asked, “Are we going to argue about this?”

  Patricia shrugged and responded, “Only if you try to leave me here.”

  Chuckling, Tim said, “All right, let’s go then. I don’t really feel like arguing with you today.”

  Patricia smiled sweetly and said, “You’re learning quite a bit about me, aren’t you?”

  Shaking his head, he said, “Not really. I’m just a firm believer in the serenity prayer.” Pausing for emphasis he continued, “You know, this part, ‘Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.’”

  Maintaining her smirk, Patricia said, “I guess that makes you a wise man doesn’t it?”

  “Well I don’t like to brag but, yes I guess it does,” Tim said. He winked at her to let her know he was kidding.

  Patricia burst out laughing and said, “Let’s go before it gets dark. We could stand around here all day long verbally sparing.”

  It took two hours for Tim and Patricia to locate the food. They entered a storage room that had only been partially destroyed by the earthquake that had destroyed Leonard Wood. Inside the large storage room, they found dozens of cases of MREs. Tim said, “No more food problems for us. There’s enough here to last us for months.

  Patricia looked skeptically at the dark brown plastic bags and said, “Dad used to bring these things home with him from time to time. They don’t taste very good.”

  “If we get hungry enough, they’ll taste great. Don’t worry. I’ll show you how to maximize their flavor.”

  Patricia spotted something sticking out from under a pile of boxes. She pointed it out to Tim and together they went over to see what she’d found. Tim moved the boxes that were sitting on top of the items she had lo
cated. He uncovered coffee and looked at Patricia with a broad smile on his face. Patricia had mentioned on numerous occasions that she missed her coffee terribly. They had managed to scrounge a little coffee but it was always in such short supply that it was necessary for them to ration it carefully. “At least we’ll have plenty of coffee to go with the MREs,” he said.

  Patricia couldn’t believe their luck. She stared at the large cans of coffee and said, “There must be enough here to serve an army!”

  Tim burst out laughing and Patricia laughed with him as she realized how foolish her statement had been. Tim said, “Well it was here to serve an army.”

  After they loaded the food supplies, Patricia said, “There’s one other item I want to try to find while we’re here.”

  “Geez, Patricia, don’t you think we have enough stuff in the truck? Look at the way it’s loaded now,” Tim carped.

  “Well, I was just thinking that it’s about time we stopped sleeping in separate tents, and we should consider getting a GP tent to share, but you’re right of course. The truck’s pretty much loaded down.”

  Tim stopped what he was doing and stood very still. As sweat from his exertions dribbled down his face, a smile slowly formed and spread across his face. “Does this mean you’ve decided to marry me?” he asked hopefully. He’d proposed to her two days ago, but she had asked for time to consider it.

  “Yes, I’ll marry you. I do love you. I hope you know that.”

  “And I love you, Patricia. I have ever since you nursed me back to health. As God is my witness, I’ll try to be the best husband you could ever hope to find,” he stated very seriously.

  “Well, I just thought we might as well get a tent big enough for both of us, but if you’d rather wait till after the wedding that’s fine. And like you said the truck is loaded pretty heavy as is.”

  “Nonsense, there’s plenty of room left,” Tim said and frantically began shoving the contents as far forward on the bed as possible.