The slavers’ ship was no longer trying to ascend and plopped back down to earth. Puddle Jumpers 3, 4, and 5 went into the docking bay of the mother ship. Terry and Tony stayed outside with rockets ready for any transport ship which might come to the aid of their mother ship. Bob stayed in place above the enemy ship.
Puddle Jumpers 7 through 10 waited to be deployed as number 6 rose one thousand feet and began to monitor the implants on the ground. The pilots were the police pilots on loan to the Earthland Security Force.
The first thing they told Bob was there were many implants and most of those were not moving. They all felt exhilarated by this news and knew they had destroyed the communications room and the link between the Peeds and their slaves.
>
“Move, move, move,” yelled Tim as his forty troopers rushed out the puddle jumper.
Tim pointed to the entrance into the mother ship from the flight deck, “secure the area.” The forty troopers, all former slaves who could speak English went past him. They responded with confidence and took defensive positions at the end of the corridor leading to the hangar. They covered the lift and the armory. It went like clockwork and without any opposition.
Big John led his forty men to the secondary lift to secure the second arms room and cover the slave pod room doors.
Sam led his forty men to the primary lift and rode up to the deck where the slaver pods were. They didn’t immediately go to the com room as they knew the communications link was destroyed. They would secure any slavers in stasis first.
Within fifteen minutes no opportunity existed for the slave commander and any slaver to acquire arms and exit the ship. Tim was awaiting Big John and Terry to use the walkie talkie and he would start the next phase.
“Tim this is Sam. Over.”
“Sam is Big John there? Over?”
“Yep. Forty slaves in pods and only two slavers.”
“Okay. We’ll start up with a squad to the com room. You cover the commander’s exit with Sasha. Over.”
“Gotcha. Out.”
Everyone moved as if choreographed. And in a sense it was. Most of the one hundred twenty four of the Earthland Security Force had already been involved in the actions on the Enterprise and Potemkin. They were all familiar with the lay out of the mother ship and knew which areas might hide crossfire or snipers.
Tim led his squad of ten into the primary lift and rose up. However, the lift would not go all the way up due to the damage from the missiles. They got out two decks shy of the com room deck and went over to the secondary lift.
“Big John, do you copy?”
“Yeah, Tim, what’s up? Over.”
“Can’t go up the primary lift. Am two decks below target. Will go in secondary lift. Is Sasha in position? Over.”
“He should be there be now.”
Tim led the first squad and the second squad who were to act as back up and cover the lift. However, he didn’t like the idea of leaving them to cover the lift without any support or communication so he took them up the second lift.
They arrived on the com room deck and he could see Sasha and his squad of ten covering the exit to the corridor of the commander’s bedroom and the lift. Tim had a long walk and took half his 2nd squad with him to the lounge of the com room. He met no enemy fire.
Tim and the fifteen with him went to the large foyer where the lift was. It was heavily damaged. The lift doors were intact but crumpled and warped. As they moved out of the foyer and into the hall leading to the com room they could see holes in the mother ship and the whole area was too damaged to be traversable.
“Big John. You copy?”
“Yeah Tim. How’s it look?”
“You forgot to say over. Over.”
“Damn. I think I’ll say shit instead. How’s that? Shit.”
“Fine. Anyway we cannot proceed and it’s doubtful any slavers came this way. It’s totally destroyed.”
“Think any slavers survived the rockets? And you didn’t say over. Over.”
“Shit. Ah, the door to the lounge is completely gone as is part of the wall. We can see in somewhat but can’t tell anything from here. We’re on our way back to Sasha and we’ll try to go through that way. Oh, and out.”
The walk back was quicker since they ran most of the way. They were anxious to see if the commander and any slavers had escaped. They reached Sasha and apprised him of the situation.
The 2nd squad was told to cover and guard the lift as they needed Sasha in the commander’s and com rooms. Since his men only spoke Romanian they had to come as well.
There were few places to hide along the corridor but they stationed guards along the way. All within sight of one another. They reached the commander’s exit and the door was open.
Tim looked at Sasha who shrugged. They tossed in a grenade. It exploded but no other sounds were heard. Tim and his 1st squad went into the room with ray guns at the ready. No one was in the room.
The door to the commander’s room was blown out and they could see no one was in the chair or anywhere in the room. They didn’t have to go into the com room. It didn’t exist anymore.
They could see the large hill outside through the gaping hole in the side of the mother ship. It didn’t look safe to go in and Tim tried to count the bodies from the door of the commander’s room.
“Big John do you copy?”
“Sure do Tim. What’s the word?”
“The com room is completely destroyed and enough of the commander’s room is as well. Sasha can do nothing here. The commander isn’t here though. Seems everyone in the com room was killed. The ace slaver is loose.”
“Okay, we’ll tell Bob we need clean up now if they’re not too busy out there.”
CHAPTER TWO
“Terry. You see what I see?” Tony asked.
McNeill nodded then remembered he had to use the com link, “yeah.” He turned to shout into the cabin, “hey Keoni. We got company. You see ‘em?”
Keoni and Hawk did indeed see them. Two transport ships were winging their way back to the mother ship. Terry and Tony both rotated the puddle jumpers to the oncoming slavers.
Both Tony and Terry could see the side hatch open and ray guns peeked out. When the range was one hundred yards Terry told Tony he’d take the one to their right. Keoni and Hawk were ready. At seventy five yards the rockets were launched. The first transport ship didn’t even veer course. The slavers probably never saw a rocket before. The second did the normal thing and began an evasive maneuver. But too late.
“Aaah, oooh. What a beautiful sight,” said Terry. There was nothing left of either of the slavers transport ship.
“Incredible,” the radio squawked. Eric the police pilot had seen the whole show.
“Hey Eric,” asked Terry. “Do you see anymore of them?”
“I sure do. Hold on and I’ll plot a course”
Ten seconds later, “Sonovabitch. They’re moving off.”
“Where’re they going?”
“Hold on.”
Forty five seconds later, “there’re heading north. And fast. Wow, now there’s a second. Hold on. A third. Shit. They’re getting away.”
“Tony, this is Terry. Let’s go after them?”
“Terry, this is Jonathan. Nix. You’ve got more weight and they have the same engines. I can track them from here. Let’s see how many of the slaves we can find and make into ex-slaves.”
“Okay. We’ll get them later right?”
“You bet your ass.”
>
There was celebrating but it was low key and minimal. The former slaves had no idea about celebrations and there was still plenty to do. With Puddle Jumper 6 giving the coordinates of implants which remained stationary the process of picking up the no-longer-linked slaves began.
They were able to find over three thousand alien humans and another four hundred which had been captured with the rings around their necks. However, they also found several hundred dead alien slaves.
&nbs
p; These were presumably killed by the slavers when it appeared the link was severed. It now seemed the slavers not only knew they had a large earthborn human force attacking them but may have figured out this force were using the former slaves against them.
McNeill turned grim faced to Schollander when he reported finding the dead slaves, “scorched earth policy of the worst kind.”
Jonathan had flown down to give the report. It was easier for him to come down than the others to go up. There was still much to do. They did place the unchipped-slaves in the stasis pods as Bob ferried everyone back to North Vancouver. One surgery team began immediately to remove the chips from the unconnected slaves.
After greetings and back slapping the meeting commenced in the tent at Mosquito Creek Park.
“I’ve got some good news and some bad news,” Jonathan began. “I’ll start with the good news.”
“We tracked the Peeds’ puddle jumpers and there were ten of them in all. There were too many implants too close proximity to calculate how many of them there were but a best guess is about one hundred.”
“I think these slavers had an idea they might be attacked and took precautions. At least not to stray far from one another. They all headed to the mother ship in China.”
“Now the bad news. The three mothers left are in communication with one another. We have not broken the frequency and have no idea what they’ve told each other. Of course, if they use their alien language we’ll never know.”
“The slavers are now in a defensive stance and will have some tricks up their sleeves. One thing has already happened. PJ’s from the mother ship in India are on the move and it’s assumed they’ll pick up the slavers in Romania.”
There were moans and tight lips. They knew their next attack will be met with heavy resistance and probably with serious causalities.
“More good news. And I’ve saved the best for last. Kookli and the mayor’s secretary have covered a lot of ground. They just got back from New York. A lot of people survived in the northeast and many more in the Appalachians and other mountains.” A cheer went up.”
“How about Florida?” asked one of the original guerrillas.
“Sorry to say but the coast from New Jersey to Florida…well, there’s nothing there now. Texas and the middle of the country were pretty much wiped out though some pockets remained above the flooding or the flooding didn’t go in that direction.”
“How about Washington D.C.?” another asked.
“All the nuclear energy plants exploded. The radiation from Three-Mile-Island killed just about everyone in D.C. Maryland and Pennsylvania. I guess parts of Virginia as well. The radiation levels are still too high to go in.”
The Americans looked at one another. Someone called out, “what does this mean?”
Jonathan shrugged his shoulders a little, “it means we have to find a way to elect a president and congress and all. And find a place safe for the government.”
“How in the world are we going to do all this?”
“The mayor of Vancouver with the help of mayors in Seattle and Portland will arrange a way of communicating and are working on linking the old fashioned telephone lines. The slavers cannot jam our communication anymore. Maybe telegraph as well. Anyway, we’ll be able to talk with most people after a while. Ham radios are also a good bet.”
This was a fascinating course of events. To reestablish their country. Yet, it seemed somewhat strange to those who had been surviving well on the island of Vancouver for nearly two years.
“What are we going to do about the China slavers?”
“That’s a good question…thee question of the moment. They know we’ll be coming. We have no way of knowing how much of the country they have taken over and since none of us speaks Mandarin or Cantonese we cannot even figure out what they’re doing when they’re outside of their mother ship.”
“My guess is that the warlords have taken over parts of the country.” Jonathan added, “probably generals from their army and if so they have weapons and numbers to resist the slavers.”
“I wonder,” asked Terry, “if we should go and try to attack the one in Pakistan first?”
Jonathan nodded. “One, they may think we’ll try for the ones in China first and two we may be able to shield our attack because of the many mountains. We can go in several directions. Also, we can have more training now. We can look at the terrain and train for what we’ll face. With more time maybe we’ll have even better planning.”
“One thing I’ve been doing up there,” Jonathan referred to the Potemkin which they understood, “is to study the coastlines…of everywhere.”
“Few people survived on the coasts or the small islands. However, inland and in the mountains most people lived through the catastrophe and many survived afterwards. There are a lot of people still in the world.”
“So, I’m optimistic. Everywhere there’s people they’ll be resistance to the slavers.”
Jonathan was quiet. He wanted to let this sink in. Though there still was urgency in attacking and overthrowing the slavers there now seemed a chance to succeed and patience may well be rewarded.
CHAPTER THREE
Dr. Prezlee stood behind Sasha in the Com room on the Enterprise. He had a lot of faith in…
“Ah, Jonathan. We haff the feed.”
Prezlee watched the monitor. “That’s from Tony’s PJ?”
“Correct. Hmm, let’s see…there. You can talk with him.”
“Tony can you hear me?”
“That’s affirmative. What are you seeing?”
“We’re picking up everything from your camera.”
“Are the Peeds still cloaked and what’s the eta to their mother ship?” asked Tony.
“We still haven’t figured out how to penetrate their cloaking. And I’m starting to get a bad feeling. They definitely know we’re coming and they’re more technologically sophisticated than we are. At least in some respects. You are not to take any serious risks.”
“Don’t worry.”
“How’s the communication with the Indian Air Force?”
“It’s good,” Captain Schollander replied. He was back as a captain and now the head of the Earthland Security Air Force. The camera panned to Tony’s left and anyone at a monitor could see the lead jet of the Indian escort.
Prezlee silently thanked the Indian government. Of all the government’s in the world theirs was the least devastated. When the Peeds’ mother ship landed on the Indian Pakistan border it didn’t take long before the Indian Parliament and PM realized they were at war with the slave masters.
The Earthland Security Force was not able to communicate with the Indian government until recently and only after the Peeds’ mother ship had vacated from the subcontinent. They hoped for a combined surprise attack on the Peeds’ mother ship in China.
Jonathan and the others felt they could not delay the attack on the Peeds’ mother ship in China. Since they could now communicate with the Indian government they asked for assistance. From northern India one military base provided two thousand troops and three jets were scrambled to escort and assist the Earthland force.
But they were heading into China blind. The Peeds had found a way to neutralize their implant beacons and the Earthland force had no idea how many slaves might be in the Peeds’ army.
“Sasha patch me through to the entire command…to all attack personnel.” This Sasha did.
“This is Jonathan speaking. The first and foremost objective is to ground the slave master mother ship. Do not go on the ground until it has been determined the extent of their slave army. It may be considerably more than ten thousand.”
This was no time to underestimate the Peeds. He briefly wondered how many had their television sets on or their radios. This whole operation was being broadcast from the Enterprise but routed through the Potemkin in orbit around the planet. Any TV or radio which happened to have electricity and be turned on would pick up the feed just as they were on the monitor
s of the com center on the Enterprise.
This will seem like a sci-fi show no doubt, he thought to himself. No television for two years then this…it just won’t seem real to anyone not in India. Units of the Indian army had engaged the Peeds and their slave army so those in India knew the danger but it was doubtful many others did.
“Jonathan, still no way to see anything?”
“No, Tony. From here it looks like a large blanket over the area. We cannot see through it.”
“How large an area is masked?”
“Hmm, hold on a sec.” Prezlee turned to Sasha.
The Ukrainian shrugged, “best guess…? I tink maybe fifty miles in diameter.”
“You hear that Tony?”
“Yeah. As you can see we’re flying over Tibet now. We’re flying low but you think they can see us coming?”
“I would assume that yes. They certainly know about us now and they should assume we will continue to attack them.”
“Right. It should be only a few more minutes. Over and out.”
“Good luck…to everyone. Out.”
Jonathan breathed deeply. He grabbed a chair to watch the monitor with Sasha and the other technicians in the com center. He could do nothing more now but wait and see what those who had functioning and turned on televisions would see. The radios would pick up the audio. He wondered what people must be thinking if they were just hearing without the visual. It just cannot seem real to them.
>
They watched the action from Captain Schollander’s camera. The slave army of the Peeds was huge.
“Sasha patch me through…this is Dr. Prezlee. Do not, I repeat, do not land and engage the slave army.”
They could hear the chatter of the different puddle jumpers. They were at least at a two-to-one disadvantage in numbers if not larger.
Their primary objective was to disable the mother ship. In this the Indian pilots and rockets from puddle jumpers 1 and 2 were causing massive destruction. They were receiving fire from the ground but the jets were too high and the PJ’s were in constant motion.
They then heard, “what the hell is that?” Sounded like one of the puddle jumpers giving support.