The Peacekeepers. Books 1 - 3.

by Ricky Sides

  Pete was walking stiffly beside Jim. Anger was the predominant expression on his face as he stalked around the perimeter. He said, “There isn’t even time to dig proper foxholes.” He angrily turned to Jim and said, “We can’t even evacuate the women and children. The Marauders are already sitting at the highway to block any such attempt.”

  “I’ve got an idea along those lines, Pete,” Jim said.

  Pete stopped and turned to Jim. “I hope it’s a good one. We need a miracle.”

  “I don’t have a miracle, but I do have a plan to evacuate the non-combatants,” Jim said.

  Pete’s expression softened and his face became calm. “Alright,” he said, “Let’s hear your plan.”

  “Select twenty of your best woods fighters. Assemble them with the women and children, and then send them into the woods.” Jim pointed to the woods behind the house and said, “The woods behind the house travel north and south for miles in either direction.” He shrugged and said, “They should be able to slip out to safety.”

  Pete smiled and said, “It should work. Of course, we’ll have to create a diversion. I’m sure the Marauders are expecting us to make some attempt to get our women and children out of here.”

  Jim smiled and said, “That’s where we come in. We attempt to break through the Marauders. We have to make it look good. Who knows? We might even be able to break out.”

  Pete grinned and nodded his head in agreement. “Bill!” he yelled. A moment later, Bill Young ran up to him. He quickly issued the orders that would initiate the plan. Bill ran off to see that the orders were carried out.

  “Bill seems like a good man,” Jim observed.

  Pete said, “He is.” Pausing a moment, he continued, “Bill isn’t the best fighter I’ve ever trained, but he is one of the most loyal. He’s also a damned fine officer.”

  Jim turned his face to the clear blue sky. It was a beautiful day. Turning to his long time friend he said, “It’s a good day to die.”

  Pete said, “To hell with that. Let the Marauders die for what they believe in, if they want. It’s a damned fine day to kill Marauders.”

  Laughing, Jim observed, “You’ve always said that. I always thought it was right nice of you.”

  “Thank you.” Pete shrugged his shoulders, and then he added, “You know me, Jim. I’m just a hell of a nice guy.”

  Ten minutes later, they were ready to begin their assault on the Marauders who had them blocked in.

  Pete was talking to the sergeant in charge of the evacuation. “Sergeant Wilcox, I hope you understand that timing is critical to the success of your mission.”

  Sergeant Wilcox nodded his head and said, “I won’t forget. I just wish you’d let someone else take this detail. I’d rather be with you when you try to break out of the Marauder’s barricade.”

  Frowning, Pete said, “I know that’s what you’d rather do, Sergeant, but you’re the right man for the job. Your ability to weigh the odds and make the correct decisions is already a proven trait in you. Any replacement would be less reliable in my opinion. Therefore for the sake of the safety of our women and children, your duty will be to lead that expedition.”

  “Yes, Sir, I’m sorry for the complaint,” The sergeant said.

  Jim stepped forward and handed the man a map that had the location of his retreat marked on it. “Lacey has been there once. She’ll be able to assist you once you get close to the retreat. There will be plenty of food there and weapons as well. Unfortunately, there won’t be enough space for everyone inside the shelter, but you can shelter those who may become sick and the smaller children. You should only need it for a day or two. By then, we’ll have won and the Marauders will be dead, or they will have won and moved on.”

  “Understood, Sir,” Sergeant Wilcox replied.

  “One last thing, Sergeant,” Pete said, “If you encounter any Marauders, kill them without mercy if you have to fight them. Take no prisoners. They would compromise the safety of your charges.”

  The sergeant soberly nodded his understanding.

  “Dismissed, Sergeant, and good luck,” Pete said.

  Jim watched as Sergeant Wilcox trotted to the barn. The women and children were already assembled in the barn and were waiting for the moment that they’d have to sneak out the back and make the run for the woods.

  “It seems to me that you have quite a few loyal and dedicated men,” Jim observed.

  Pete frowned and said, “Not all are that loyal.”

  Turning to face the men who were about to create the diversion, so that the women and children could be escorted to safety, Pete gave the signal for the men to begin the slow advance toward the Marauders.

  The dirt road that led from the highway to the farm had a deep curve in it about halfway to the highway. Several of the Marauders had taken up positions at this curve and were observing the survivalists. As soon as the survivalists began their advance, the Marauders at the curve ran toward the highway.

  Pete smiled when the Marauders turned and ran away. He waited a full minute and then blew a long protracted note with the large whistle he had with him. Sergeant Wilcox was waiting for this signal. As soon as he heard the signal, he led the women and children toward the woods. The women and soldiers assigned to the details carried the smaller children, so that they wouldn’t fall behind in the mad dash for the woods.

  Jim turned his head and looked for Lacey and Evan in the group of fleeing women and children, but he couldn’t pick them out in the packed crowd. He sighed and turned his attention to the coming battle.

  As they rounded the curve, they saw that it was too late for them to attempt to break through the Marauder line. The tanks had arrived and were now rumbling down the dirt road toward them.

  Pete immediately ordered a retreat. His company of men turned and ran back toward the defensive line they’d hastily built.

  As he ran, Jim could hear the laughter and taunts of the Marauders. Hot anger spread through him like a flash fire. “The hell with it,” he said to himself and stopped running toward the defenses. He turned and darted back toward the curve that he’d just passed on the way back to the defenses. He stopped beside a tree and brought his rifle up to cover the dirt road in the direction of the Marauders. He could hear the rumbling of the engines of the tanks and the clanking of their treads. He waited for a few seconds, and then he saw the first of the Marauder ground forces surge into view. They were coming in front of the tanks. He opened fire, and in rapid succession, killed five Marauders before their friends spotted his position. Turning to the left, he darted away, using the thin wood line between himself and the Marauders to screen his escape.

  They couldn’t see him, but that didn’t keep them from firing in his general direction. The sounds of heavy rifle fire reached a crescendo as he turned toward the defensive line and sprinted toward it. Thankfully, he was nowhere near the area that the Marauders were targeting, so none of the shots being fired was ever a real threat to him. Still, it’s an unnerving thing to hear that much gunfire, and know that every shot being fired is being fired at you.

  When he reached the defensive line, he dropped down on his back behind the sandbags and just lay there breathing for a moment.

  “You hit?” yelled Pete.

  “No, just winded from the run,” Jim said between gasps.

  “I thought maybe you’d put on a bit of weight. You’re getting soft,” Pete, taunted.

  “Yeah, well I never could stomach all those MREs the way you could. Besides, Lacey’s a good cook,” Jim responded. They both laughed then, because Jim was well aware that Pete hated the MREs, and swore that the old-fashioned C-rations were much better.

  “Here they come!” someone in the defensive line shouted. Moment’s later the tanks rumbled into view. Jim glanced nervously in the direction that the sergeant had led the women and children. He relaxed when he saw that they were out of sight. He turned back to face the advancing tanks and the skirmish line of Marauders advancing toward their
defenses.

  Pete scrambled over to Jim and lay down in the prone position. He handed his friend a sandbag that contained several grenades and said, “I thought you might need these.”

  Jim nodded his head and smiled as he thought of a possible way to use them to take out the tanks. Pete slapped him on the shoulder and said, “Good luck, Jim.” and then he scrambled back to his original position beside the radioman and several of the Women’s Elite Corps.

  Jim saw that the tanks were only three hundred yards away and he wondered why they hadn’t opened fire yet. He sighted in as the tanks stopped. “This is it,” he thought. “Now they’ll open fire at us.”

  The only sound that any of the defenders heard was the rumbling of the diesel engines. Repeatedly the drivers gunned their engines and then, as if on signal, they all shut down their engines.

  The silence after the engines shut down was oppressive and ominous. Jim caught himself holding his breath, waiting for something to happen, and forced himself to relax.

  The silence was short lived. A man in a jeep drove up and parked between two of the tanks. Jim saw a large outdoor speaker attached to the front of the jeep. The man in the jeep stood up, raised a microphone to his lips, and spoke. When he did, his voice was amplified and broadcast by the speaker as he said, “You people don’t have a chance in hell against us now. My leader is willing to let you surrender. You have five minutes to think it over.”

  “So that’s why the tanks hadn’t opened fire,” Jim thought. He watched as the man in the jeep sat down to await their reply. He was still watching the man when he heard the report of a rifle to his right. Since he had been watching the man, he saw his head whip backwards when the bullet struck him.

  Jim turned his head to the right in the direction of the sound of the rifle shot. He saw Pete in the prone position with his head just above the sandbags and his rifle cradled across them. “Nice shot,” Jim shouted.”

  “I was just giving the man my answer. It would be rude not to reply,” Pete stated sarcastically.

  Jim’s reply was equally sarcastic when he yelled, “Well, you always were the polite one. You’re a regular stickler for manners.” Several of the men lying nearby laughed at the banter between the two men. Many of them understood that such banter helped to ease the stress of combat situations such as this.

  The tanks had stopped two hundred yards from the defenders line. Moments after the messenger was shot, they restarted their engines. They opened fire with their machine guns and Jim was forced to duck behind the sandbags as the rounds from the three tanks tore into the defender’s positions.

  Jim cursed and reached for the sack of grenades. Opening the small burlap bag, he pulled out half a dozen and laid them on the ground beside him in a neat row making sure they all faced in the same direction, with the pins on the left. This tiny preparation would ensure that he would save precious seconds as he reached for them because they would already be oriented in the most efficient manner. Repeatedly during Jim’s training, Pete had stressed the importance of little details of that ilk. He had said, “A large percentage of casualties get hit because they are busy dealing with little issues that careful planning would eliminate. For example, if you are using grenades from a static position you know you can’t leave and then prepare the grenades for use. The five to ten seconds saved by pre staging them often means the difference between life and death to a defender.” Jim smiled as he recalled that lecture and many more of a similar nature.

  Jim waited anxiously for the tanks to begin their approach. He planned to use the grenades to try to take out the treads on the tanks. In order to do that, they would need to be much closer. Taking out their treads would prevent them from being able to move. It wouldn’t silence their guns, but at least if they lost their mobility the defenders could hope to escape their murderous firepower. Presently there was very little hope of that. He was also hopeful that a salvo of grenades might cause the tanks to explode.

  The roaring of the engines and the rhythmic firing of the machine guns were so loud that they almost masked the clanking of the treads. Jim began to suspect that the tank crews were firing their machine guns to cover the sound of their advance. He knew that the survivalists had no anti-tank weapons, but the tank crews couldn’t be aware of that. Jim figured they were playing it safe and laying down suppression fire as they advanced.

  The machine guns abruptly stopped firing. In the silence that followed, many of the defenders risked peeking over the edges of their sandbags. Jim had just brought his own eyes over the edge of the sandbags when one of the tanks fired its cannon from less than forty yards away. For an instant, Jim thought he was a dead man. He could have sworn the tank had fired at him, but the round from the cannon hit the defensive line forty yards to his left. Jim saw a man’s body fly into the air. The body seemed to disintegrate as it flew through the air.

  Jim jumped up, pulled the pin on a grenade, and threw it at the tank that had fired its cannon. His first grenade was still in the air when he pulled the pin on a second grenade and threw it at the same tank. He immediately dropped to the ground and covered his head with his hands.

  Machine gun fire stitched the sandbags at Jim’s position, but for the moment, he was safe. He heard the grenades detonate with only a slight pause between the first and second grenade. He was unable to see the results of his attack, because the other tank was concentrating its fire on Jim’s position.

  Jim was beginning to worry. The concentrated machine gun fire that the tank was pouring into his position was systematically destroying his sandbags. He knew that he had only a few moments to react before the bullets began to penetrate the sandbag defensive line. Unfortunately, he couldn’t think of a damned thing to do until the tank ceased fire at least momentarily.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Jim saw Pete and several of the women jump up and throw grenades at the tanks. They immediately dropped back down behind the sandbag defenses.

  Multiple explosions rocked the battle zone. Pete and the women had succeeded in blowing up the tank that had been firing at Jim. The Marauders had stacked extra ammunition on top of their tank. The defenders had targeted that ammunition in the hopes that the powerful secondary explosions from this ammunition would disable the tank. Pete had laughed at the stupidity of the men in the tank and ordered his people to target the ammunition.

  Cheers went up all along the line of defenders. It was a victory that was badly needed to lift their sagging morale.

  Jim carefully raised his head above the sandbags. He saw the destroyed tank burning viciously. A thick, acrid black smoke was billowing from the charred remains of the tank. He saw that his own attack had not caused any visible damage to the tank that he had targeted. He also saw that the two remaining tanks were backing rapidly away from the defenders.

  Jim knew that the tanks weren’t leaving. They were backing away, out of effective grenade range. Once they felt there was no reasonable threat from the grenades, they would stop and commence firing at the defensive line with their main guns. He was sure the only reason they hadn’t done so in the very beginning was because they would have preferred to save the ammunition. Tank main gun ammunition was no doubt hard to obtain. He also knew that it was possible the Marauders were trying to secure the survivalists weapons, which would almost require them to use something other than their main guns.

  Jim’s heart sank. He knew that Pete had no choice but to order a retreat before the tanks stopped and opened fire with their main guns.

  Jim looked over and saw Pete kneeling at the defensive line talking hurriedly to Bill Young and he knew that he had guessed correctly. Pete was about to order his men to retreat.

  Jim knew that if they could make it to the woods they had a fighting chance of getting away. The tanks wouldn’t be able to follow them into the woods because the trees were too large and spaced too closely together.

  He also knew that the moment they began that sprint for the woods the tanks would halt and open f
ire on the survivalists. It was going to be bad for the survivalists. Many would never make it to the woods.

  He was getting ready for the run to the woods when all of a sudden a shout went up from several locations along the defensive line. Jim ducked down hastily, thinking that the tanks must have stopped and were about to unleash a hell storm of cannon fire on the survivalists but when nothing happened, he slowly raised his head to see what was happening.

  He stared hard at the sight before his eyes. He even rubbed his eyes thinking he must be seeing things, but when he once more stared incredulously at the battlefield, he still saw the strange grayish flying machine. It was hovering about twenty feet off the ground between the defenders and the tanks.

  As he stared in wonder at the ship, a blue beam of light lashed out and struck one of the tanks. As soon as it hit the tank, red pulses shot down the beam and the tank exploded with a tremendous detonation. The ship immediately fired at the remaining tank with the same results. The tank exploded and a huge fireball shot skyward.

  Jim stood up in awe, watching as the vehicle sped up the road toward the main body of the Marauders. He jumped over the sandbag defensive works and ran after the flying machine as fast as he could run. A quick look to his right and then left showed him that Pete and the entire group of survivalists were charging as well.

  The sound of explosions reached his ears just before Jim rounded the curve in the road. Terrified screams also reached his ears. A grim smile spread across his face as he thought of what the Marauders must be thinking. Then he rounded the curve in the road that had prevented him from seeing the battle.

  When Jim came around the curve, he slowed down. A moment later, he stopped entirely and just stared in disbelief at the battle being waged. His eyes were assaulted by brilliant colors. A pair of green lights flashed from the rear of the ship and hit a van that several men were using for cover to fire at the ship. The lights seemed to flash on and off like a strobe light. Each time they hit the van, they struck in a different position, and each time they struck it, they left a hole. As a result of this attack, the van took on a Swiss cheese appearance, and Jim knew that there was no way anyone inside the van survived that attack.