The Amazon - Part 5
Amazon Rainforest, Brazil
August 26 2032
“We, we have to… We have to save them,” Lacey wheezed, gripping the jeep’s steering wheel so tightly her knuckles were turning white, her breathing growing ever faster below trembling eyes.
“Oh my God,” Captain Schuler radioed, adjusting her trucks light to scan more of the tree line. “Red’s entire team has been crucified…”
“This is insane,” Voelcker said, shaking his head as beads of sweat started pouring down his face. “We can’t go up against these people. They are barbarians. What if they are waiting in the woods to do that to us?”
“They aren’t,” Alveraz said with an urgent but focused voice. “These assholes are gone.” Alveraz turned around in her seat to face the medic. “You hear me, Voelcker? They’re gone. That’s why they set the fires. Those are what we have to face, not them. But this,” she said, turning back around to point at the appalling scene, “this is to make us choose.”
“Save them or save ourselves before the fires come over base camp,” Lacey said.
“That’s right,” Alveraz nodded.
“Why would they make us choose something like that?” Voelcker asked. “What is the point?”
“To give us ghost to remember in these woods," Alveraz answered, “so that we would never want to return here again.”
“We aren't going to choose,” Lacey said. “We can’t do that, we… We can save them if we move - ”
“What do you want to do, Alveraz?” Captain Schuler radioed, her voice agitated and tense. “Whatever we’re going to do we’d better do it fast!”
Without hesitation Alveraz opened her door, took a step down on one leg so everyone in each parked vehicle could see her and boldly said into her earpiece, “We are not leaving them. We are not running and hiding. UNIRO doesn’t run. Not from anyone or anything… All squadron members, listen up,” she commanded without fear. “Captain Schuler, take your team and your trucks and prepare camp for the fires. Get power back online and get any water pumps you can working again. Turn this clearing into a lake.”
“Got it,” Schuler responded, already moving her team’s trucks towards the camp’s interconnected container units.
“My team and Defoe’s, you’re with me. We are going to save our fellow squadron members if it’s the last thing we do. We’ll take them down, get them inside and get them the care they need. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’am!” everyone answered over the channel.
“Captain Chow. Captain Parnell. You help Schuler and her team prepare the base when you arrive in any way you can.”
“Understood.”
“Okay!”
“Let’s move then!” Alveraz yelled, throwing her arm in the direction of the suffering squadron. Ducking back into the jeep she slammed the door and said, “Hit it, Lacey.”
“On it!” the lieutenant replied, putting the vehicle into drive and pressing her foot to the accelerator.
The electric jeep whizzed its way out ahead of the other parked convoy vehicles and made a quick dash for Captain Red’s stricken team.
“Voelcker get ready back there,” Alveraz warned. “I don’t need to remind you that these people will need serious medical assistance.”
“I’ll do what I can, captain,” Voelcker said courageously. “I promise!”
“I know you will,” Alveraz grinned knowingly. “Use anyone you need. Keep our men safe.”
“Alveraz, this is Chow. We’re here.”
“Good. Get those containers ready for the fire,” Alveraz responded through her earpiece. “We’ll be at Captain Red’s team in five seconds.”
Lacey parked the jeep a few feet from the tree where Captain Red hung, the man’s head slumped down, his screams now silent. Other members of his squadron appeared to be in a similar unconscious condition; skin pale, sweating, and blood dripping down their bodies, off their boots and pooling below.
As the rest of the convoy vehicles filed in behind her jeep’s Alveraz practically leapt out of her seat and shouted, “Okay everyone, get any ladders we got and get these people down! Voelcker’s in charge, he’s got the most medical training of any of us. Listen to his direction.”
Rescue Officer Voelcker jumped out of the jeep’s open bed. “I need all the stretchers we have!” he yelled as he began opening an equipment box attached to the side of the bed to retrieve a portable fold out ladder. “We’re going to carry everyone to the base camp, they will not be able to walk! Be careful when taking out the nails in their hands! They should be removed first. If we don’t then their own body weight could crush their lungs and asphyxiate them!”
As Voelcker was coordinating the two team’s response Alveraz looked back over her shoulder just as white and gray ash began falling across the base camp. An ominous deepening orange and yellow glow was expanding through the camp’s far tree line as flames relentlessly approached. She could now see the firestorm’s smoke rising into the night sky, lit from below by the flames. Wind lapped at her face, whipping ash about as if it were snow in a blizzard.
Lights across the camp’s structures suddenly came on, finally giving them proper light to work by.
“Alveraz, Schuler,” came over her earpiece. “Power is back up and running. We’ve checked the antenna though, it’s completely destroyed. Good thing you got a message out before it was trashed.”
“Yeah. But my message will be no good if we’re dead. Get those pumps going.”
“Coming right up!” Schuler assured.
“Captain Alveraz,” a man radioed. It was Captain Parnell of Wildfire Firefighting Squadron 2. “We’ve arrived,” he announced as three heavy duty fire trucks rolled out of the forest. “Heading to the base to help Schuler.”
“Good. Thank you.” Alveraz sighed. “...I hope we have enough time,” she whispered.
“Captain!” Lacey called from behind. “We need your help, please!”
Alveraz turned around to see her, Voelcker and another rescue officer helping Captain Red down, with Voelcker gently placing the injured man over his shoulder and walking him down the ladder they had erected after removing long nails from his hands and feet. Lacey and the other rescue officer helped to guide Voelcker down, telling him where to step and how many rungs were left before the ground. Alveraz ran over just as Voelcker and Red made it down where she helped to sling his left arm over her right shoulder with Lacey taking the weight of the other as Voelcker moved away.
“Let’s get him down Lacey, get him down,” Alveraz gritted under the weight of the man. Together they gently placed him in a stretcher on the ground. “Red, can you hear me?” Alveraz asked once he was secured. “Can you hear me?”
Red groaned but did not open his eyes.
“I’m going to give him something for the pain, then we’ll get him inside the base’s medical facility,” Voelcker said as he rummaged through his medical pack.
The wind quickly increased as a swift and forceful gust blew through the camp. Trees and branches swayed as leaves and dust flew up from the ground.
“Fire is generating its own wind,” Lacey observed. “It’s getting more intense.”
“Get those pumps working, Schuler,” radioed Alveraz. “Winds picking up out here. We may have to shorten our timeframe.”
“I know,” Schuler replied. “Pumps should be up in a minute or less. Drone is showing we probably have less than ten minutes now before it overtakes our position.”
“Damnit… It’s speeding up,” Alveraz said.
Just then the sound of rushing water emanated from the container units. Sprayers mounted around the top perimeter of each container began releasing water in every direction with a steady stream, a fail-safe should the camp ever become endanger of facing a firestorm.
“Oh thank God,” Lacey said with a sigh of relief.
The wind increased to over thirty-five miles per hour in a gust. It knocked Voelcker, Alveraz and Lacey back, who were all crouched over Captain Red’s stretcher. Branches creaked above. Snapping noises throughout the woods and accompanying thuds of branches falling to earth resonated all around them. Erie moans and natural shrieks produced by the fierce gale grew louder. A large branch perched over themselves and their jeep swayed dangerous from side to side.
“We’ve got to move!” Alveraz yelled, noticing the branch above them.
Voelcker and Lacey grabbed each end of Red’s stretcher and moved it fifteen feet further from the tree line just as the branch cracked and fell atop their jeep, crushing its cab under its immense weight.
The medic ran back to the damaged jeep and helped the injured man he had been attending to in its bed on their drive in. He thankfully found the man unharmed from the impact.
Embers began strafing through the camp, launching outward from the advancing wall of fire now only a mile away. As Alveraz stood up, an ember stung her cheek with its burning heat. “Ahh,” she cringed in pain, quickly wiping the ember away like a mosquito.
“We’re going to get overrun, captain!” Lacey cried over the wind and roar of the approaching inferno. “We’ve got to get inside the containers now! It’s out of control!”
The captain looked left and right down the tree line. “We’ve still got two squadron members crucified to the trees… Four volunteers, with me!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. “Everyone else, get the injured back inside the camp’s containers and don’t come out until the fire has passed! That’s an order! Move! Move! Move!”
“Okay, let's go!” several shouted. Others, “You heard her, get them up. Hurry!” And, “Go! Go! Go! Be careful with the stretchers!”
Voelcker, Lacey and two other rescue officers from Defoe’s team named Leman and Brewer ran up to Alveraz, selflessly offering their services to save the remaining victims.
“Thank you,” Alveraz nodded to each of the four eager volunteers. “Now come on!” she waved, sprinting in the direction of the first injured UNIRO member roughly forty feet away as all others ran towards the camp carrying the injured either in stretchers or slung over their shoulders.
…
“Captain Schuler,” a rescue officer spoke up, examining a computer monitor inside the camp’s main control room, “we’ve got a problem.”
“What is it now?” Schuler asked.
“Pumps are not achieving maximum output. Must be from damage caused by our attackers. We’re not getting as much water out of them as we should. Parts of the camp remain dry and unprotected.”
“Crap,” Schuler muttered, reviewing the monitor herself to confirm what the rescue officer was saying. “How long until the firestorm reaches us now?”
“About five minutes, ma’am,” another rescue officer said. “Our recon drone is getting hard to control in this wind. We may lose it. I’ve never seen anything like this firestorm before. It has a mind of its own.”
“Can we fit everyone inside the areas that are receiving water?” Schuler asked.
“No,” said her lieutenant despairingly.
“Even with our trucks spraying the containers?”
“No. I’m sorry, ma’am,” her lieutenant said. “The safe space we have won’t be enough.”
Schuler lowered her heard and sighed. “Then we aren’t all going to make it.”
Cover Photo Credit: Joanne Francis on Unsplash