The Peacekeepers. Books 1 - 3.

by Ricky Sides

  Lacey said, “I’m sorry that I hurt you. I wish that I could do something to take that hurt away.” She stopped talking for a moment and turned her face to look out the window. Jim’s training had instilled in her the need for constant awareness of her surroundings.

  “You could move a little closer,” Jim thought. “God you smell so nice,” He thought next. Then he thought, “What’s wrong with me? I’m worse than a teenager.” Then Lacey turned to face him once more. The quarter moon was rising behind Jim and its light illuminated Lacey’s face. Her green eyes sparkled and the moonlight played upon the silken strands of her light blond hair. At that moment, Jim thought she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

  She must have seen something in the way he looked at her that made her realize what he was thinking. She tossed her hair with her fingers and enjoyed the cool breeze on the back of her neck. Jim was enjoying the way her hair looked as it cascaded over both of her shoulders. For a moment, he was tempted to take her in his arms and passionately kiss her. Then his self-control reasserted itself and he unobtrusively griped the arm of his seat with both hands to ensure that he didn’t make a fool of himself with this woman. Considering the subject of their discussion, making a pass at her would do just that.

  He belatedly realized that she was waiting for him to respond to her apology. He stammered out that he’d long since forgotten the incident and that she should do the same.

  He couldn’t believe it. He was a thirty-five year old man, yet he was acting just like a sixteen-year-old virgin.

  With a great effort, he managed to relax. He stared intently into Lacey’s face. His stare was so intense that Lacey asked, “Is something wrong?”

  “I was just remembering something my grandmother told me after my divorce. I was devastated and very unhappy. She told me that one day I’d meet another woman I loved more than life itself, and that when I did, it would be as if I’d been reborn.” Smiling he said, “Granny was a wise woman. I didn’t believe her until tonight.”

  Jim slowly leaned forward. At that moment, his skin seemed electrified and hypersensitive. He could feel her breath on his face as her breathing became more rapid. He could smell the sweet scent of her perfume as he leaned closer. His right hand went up to caress her cheek, and when she didn’t pull away he leaned even closer.

  Jim’s own breathing had become more rapid as he leaned ever nearer the beautiful woman sitting beside him. He closed his eyes and kissed her gently, but when she responded his kiss grew more insistent. His hands moved almost with a will of their own to the silken strands of her beautiful blond hair. His hands felt something akin to an electrical spark as they touched her hair.

  Lacey hadn’t expected the kiss. She had long ago come to realize that Jim was the kind of man who’d need some prodding if he ever made advances to a woman. She’d begun to suspect that this was a result of his background in teaching women self-defense. She suspected that in order to do so, Jim had learned to shut down most of the emotions that he felt for women. It seemed to her that this would be necessary in order to keep misunderstandings at bay. Her real reason for coming to him tonight had been to prompt some action on his part. She’d had no idea that it would work so well.

  If Lacey was surprised by Jim’s response, her own shocked her. She hadn’t felt this much passion in years. She leaned back against the door and brought Jim with her.

  In what seemed like an eternity later, she opened her eyes and saw tears in Jim’s eyes. In surprise, she reached up and touched his face. “What’s wrong, darling?” she asked in a soft voice.

  “I never thought that I’d feel this strongly about another woman again,” he answered. But his words didn’t reveal the whole truth. For the first time Lacey knew just how terribly lonely Jim had been. She pulled his head down to her breast and softly caressed his check as she held him.

  The next time Jim looked up, he saw tears on Lacey’s cheeks, and he kissed them away. She was lonely too.

  ***

  The next morning Jim woke up and for a moment, he wondered if it had all been a dream. Then he noted the smell of Lacey’s gentle perfume that lingered in cab of the truck, as it did in his memory, and he was certain that it hadn’t been a dream.

  Looking at his watch, he noted that Lacey and Evan would be up already. If Lacey followed her normal pattern, she’d have breakfast cooking. A few minutes later, he was standing at the farmhouse door. Evan answered his knock at the door with his usual morning cheer. He said, “Come in, Jim. Mom says breakfast will be ready soon.”

  Jim walked into the kitchen and took his customary seat. Lacey brought him a glass of coke and a stack of pancakes. She smiled and said, “Good morning.”

  Still feeling slightly disoriented, Jim made a polite response and began eating the pancakes. He noticed that Evan had taken his food into the living room, and was eating his pancakes while he watched some cartoons on a VCR.

  Jim looked casually in Lacey’s direction. She smiled and winked at him. He smiled and returned her wink with one of his own. He was beginning to get his bearings, and the sense of disorientation now seemed much less pronounced.

  Jim leaned over and said, “Good morning. I hope you slept well.”

  “Actually, I didn’t do much sleeping at all. I lay awake thinking most of the night.”

  “Oh?” remarked Jim in surprise. “What was so important that it kept you awake most of the night?”

  “I was thinking about us,” Lacey explained.

  Jim felt heartened by this and said, “I’m leaving today. I want you and Evan to come with me.”

  “I thought that you’d say something like that today. That’s what I was thinking about last night.”

  He reached out and placed his hand atop hers on the kitchen table. “Have you reached a decision?” he asked hopefully. Fear of the wrong answer knotted his throat and made his voice sound odd to his ears.

  Lacey nodded her head and said, “I want you to go away for two weeks. I need more time to think. When you come back, I’ll have my mind made up.”

  Jim was disappointed, but he took heart in the fact that she hadn’t said no. He got up and said, “Ok, Lacey. I’ll do that, but I want you to wait for me in town. It should still be safer there.”

  Lacey smiled and stood up. She could see Evan in the adjoining living room and she saw that he was engrossed in the cartoon he was watching. She walked around the table and stopped beside Jim. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek then she whispered, “Come onto the back porch with me.”

  They quietly walked out the kitchen door. On the porch, she leaned back against the house and smiled sleepily at Jim. “We’ll go to town if you think that’s the best thing to do.”

  “I do. At least there you have a few friends and neighbors,” he replied.

  Lacey reached out and caught Jim’s hand. She pulled him up to her and softly kissed him. When she broke the embrace Jim said, “I don’t understand. You say you need more time to think about this, but you act as if you love me.”

  “I do love you. I already know that. I want the two weeks so that I can break the news to Evan.”

  “I think he likes me. I hope there won’t be any problems with that,” he said fearfully.

  “I’m sure there won’t be. He loves you already, but I want some time to break this news to him.”

  Feeling relieved, Jim responded, “Okay, Lacey. I’ll give you all the time you need. Just don’t change your mind while I’m gone.”

  Lacey smiled and pulled him closer once more. She kissed him passionately then, and when they broke the embrace she said, “Just don’t forget to come back for us.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that. I’ll never forget you and Evan,” he said this with a feeling that touched the woman’s heart. They gently embraced.

  Neither of them saw Evan standing just inside the screen door. He was smiling.

  Chapter 36

  Tim was sitting at the helm, plotting
a course, when the radio alarm activated. He immediately got up and headed for the communications station, but before he could get there, Patricia came darting into the control room. She stopped at the communications console and activated the radio.

  Tim waited expectantly and soon he could hear a man’s voice come over the radio. He said, “That’s right, John. I want every man in the city killed. Be careful not to kill any of the women though. We can trade them for enough food and gas to last a year.”

  Patricia looked at Tim expectantly and he nodded his head. “Get the location and we’ll go stop this.” His tone was abrupt and angry. In the past month, they hadn’t even been able to get out of Missouri. Tim was angry about the delays, but he knew that his conscience wouldn’t permit him to just turn his back on all the innocent people who were being victimized.

  Patricia monitored the conversation for a couple of minutes and then she brought a piece of paper to Tim. It had the name of the city written on it. Tim looked at the name and said, “Dexter, that’s only a few miles from here.”

  Patricia was already strapping herself into her seat. She knew that the ride would probably be at maximum velocity. They’d already been through twenty operations such as this. She knew that Tim would get the ship to the location as fast as he could, but she also knew that for some of the victims, it would be too late.

  Tim plotted the course by inputting the name of the city and state that was their destination. The computer checked their location with the global positioning satellites and then displayed the best course available. Tim loved that system. He’d asked Patricia just how long she thought the satellites would remain functional. She’d explained that as of April 2007, there were 30 actively broadcasting satellites in the GPS constellation. The GPS system depended upon a minimum of three satellites to participate in the triangulation of your precise location. At any given time, there were at least six satellites that could be located from anywhere on earth. She’d gone on to explain that it would take numerous satellite failures before their GPS system was compromised, so she didn’t anticipate losing it for many years to come.

  Once the course was set, Tim brought the ship to its normal operational flight level. When he took off in the direction of the city, he quickly accelerated to their maximum cruising speed of one hundred-eighty miles per hour. No matter how many times he took the ship to top speed he couldn’t get used to it. The landscape was always a blur and he constantly worried that one of these days he was going to meet a truck coming around some curve.

  Patricia looked anxiously at the speeding landscape. To take her mind off the danger she asked, “What’s our ETA?”

  “We should arrive in eight minutes,” replied Tim.

  Suddenly, the radio alarm went off again. Patricia listened to the radio for about a minute and said, “Someone in the city is calling to anyone who can hear her. She is asking for help.”

  Tim was concentrating on piloting the ship, so he didn’t turn to her when he answered, “Tell her help is on the way. We should be there in five minutes. Remind her to tell no one we are en route. I want the element of surprise on our side.”

  Patricia relayed Tim’s message, and was listening to the woman’s reply when she heard shooting in the background. She said, “You hang in there, honey. Trust me. When we get there we’ll be able to help.” Then she listened for a moment and signed off.

  “She asked me if we were the Peacekeepers in the Peacekeeper ship she’d heard about recently!” Patricia said in amazement. Then she added, “It looks as if the population has sort of named the ship, and us too for that matter.”

  “The Peacekeeper? And we’re supposed to be the Peacekeepers? Well it does sort of fit doesn’t it?” Tim asked.

  “I think I like it!” Patricia exclaimed. “Besides, the reputation is apparently getting around that if you take on the Peacekeeper you’ll lose.”

  Tim broke in then, saying, “Get ready, Patricia. I see the first of the Marauders up ahead.”

  There wasn’t even time for Patricia to reply before the main gun of the ship opened fire on a truck loaded with men. Patricia saw that the men in the truck were firing at a group of men who had a barricade set up at the outskirts of the city. She had the satisfaction of seeing the group of Marauders killed when the laser fire of the main gun struck their truck and it exploded with a fireball that sent burning bodies hurling through the air.

  Tim reduced speed and slowly approached the men at the barricade. He activated the external com system and brought the ship to hover in front of the barricade. He asked, “Are there anymore of these scum around?”

  The men at the barricade all seemed shocked at the sight of the ship. Tim smiled to himself and thought of the many times the ship had been mistaken for a UFO. He asked again, “Where are the rest of the Marauders?” We know that they were in radio communication with someone, so there has to be at least one more vehicle around here somewhere.”

  One grizzled old man stepped atop the barricade and pointed to starboard. He yelled, “There are three more truck loads of them, somewhere on the other side of town.”

  “Thanks, old timer,” said Tim. He waved to the old man and then turned the ship forty-five degrees to starboard. He accelerated wildly for thirty seconds then he slowed to one-quarter speed, and started searching for the remaining Marauders. It took him three minutes to locate the other vehicles. They were on the main street charging another barricade, which had been hastily constructed by the defenders.

  Tim accelerated again and soon he was hovering directly over the rear vehicle. He activated the belly gun, even as he raised the flight level of the ship to maximum. The explosion that occurred when the ammunition in the target truck exploded buffeted the ship. His aim wasn’t affected by that as he targeted the second of the three trucks with the main gun. It soon exploded and he flew the ship through the smoke and falling debris.

  He was about to fire at the third truck when he noticed several female hostages contained in the back. He also saw several armed men in the back of the truck with the women. They were shaking their fists at the ship in anger.

  Tim flew close to the truck and hovered about ten feet off the ground. He used the external speaker again, this time to communicate with the Marauders. He said, “It looks as if we have a stalemate. You can’t shoot your hostages or I’ll kill the lot of you where you stand. On the other hand, I can’t kill you for fear of hurting the hostages.”

  A man walked to the back of the truck. He was dressed in a set of oak leaf camouflage BDUs and was wearing a Green Beret and mirror sunglasses. He carried a pistol in a hip holster, and in his hands, he held a pump shotgun.

  As soon as he saw the man, Tim realized he was the leader of the Marauders. He looked the man over as he swaggered to the back of the truck and watched curiously, as the man climbed into the back.

  This was the largest of all the trucks. It was an old army dump truck. Tim asked, “Are you the leader of this outfit?” If you are, I suggest you release the hostages.”

  The leader shifted his gaze from Tim to the women in the back of the truck. He smiled and said, “I believe that these women are the only thing that is keeping us alive at the moment. I would be pretty stupid to release them, now wouldn’t I?” The man smiled and shook his head. “I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. You are going to land that fancy ship of yours and get out. Then I’ll release half of the hostages. Once we’re safely out of town, I’ll release the other half.”

  Tim reached over and turned off the external com system and then he turned the ship away from the Marauder leader as if he were seeking a suitable place to land. He hastily gave Patricia a set of instructions.

  A few moments later, he turned the ship back to face the leader. He reactivated the com system and asked, “What’s your name, Mister?”

  “Tom Neals,” said the man and then he asked, “Well what’s it going to be? Are you going to land that thing or not?”

  Tim could see the wicked s
mile on the man’s face quite clearly. He knew that this man was evil to the core of his being. He also knew that the man would never release any of the hostages once he got out of town. He nudged the ship slightly and brought it to within ten feet of the leader. He wanted to get a good look at the Marauder, and at the same time he wanted the Marauder to get a good look at the interior of the ship.

  Tim smiled at the Marauder and said, “Look, buddy, I didn’t just get off the boat you know. I’m not stupid enough to believe you’d let any of the women go, if I landed and got out of the ship.” Tim pointed to the man’s shotgun and said, “The first thing you’d do is blow my head off with your shotgun and then leave with all of the hostages.”

  The leader asked, “Do you want to make a compromise? As a gesture of my good faith, I’ll release half the hostages before you get out. I’ll even let them walk over to the barricade. Then you’ll know they’ll be safe.”

  Tim nodded his head and said, “All right, you do that and I’ll land the ship and get out.” He backed the ship away from the truck and watched as the Marauder leader selected half of the hostages, seemingly at random, and released them. Tim noted that he kept the prettiest girls, which served as a strong indication that he didn’t intend to release the remaining hostages. He smiled and watched as the freed hostages ran to the barricade and joined the men there.

  After the hostages reached the safety of the barricade, Tim spun the ship around and flew it to the pre selected landing site. He set the ship down gently and then headed for the door. Patricia met him at the door. She handed him a rifle and then she stood on her tiptoes and kissed him. “You be careful out there, Tim. I don’t trust that guy one bit. He wants the ship.”