Trial by Nick

By David J. Wighton

You'll recall that Scandinavia considered itself at war with the Wilizy, so you may wonder why the Wilizy agreed to send a delegation to a symposium in Stockholm after they figured Prince Wilhelm's invitation was a lure. When they found themselves living in a big house in a desolate forest, they knew what was coming. Hypodermic needles of sleepy time juice and operation Matching Panties took care of everything.

A month later, Maddy and Liset's two wolves saved them from Scandinavia's attempt to kidnap them. This prompted the Wilizy to move the war to Scandinavia. But it would not be a typical war. Winnie's idea would make sure of that.

Bob the Invisible Dragon became a hungry Scandinavian dragon who roamed the skies looking for tasty citizens that he could haul back to his lair and supposedly eat. Nobody knew that he wore oven mitts on his talons so that nobody would get hurt. However, the fear that Bob generated prompted Wilhelm to join forces with a powerful ally that 10 year old Winnie had invented. She got the idea from a 1960's TV show, wrote a script and directed a dramatic production starring Nary, Marie, TG, Stu, and Melissa. They even had realistic costumes and weapons.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David J. Wighton
• Release date: Jun 16, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370632671

David J. Wighton

David Wighton is a retired educator who enjoys writing youth novels when he's not on a basketball court coaching middle-school girls. The books in his Wilizy series peek at how people lived after the word's governments collapsed in the chaos that followed the catastrophic rise in ocean levels and the disappearance of the world's last deposits of oil. Luckily today, in the 2080s, the citizens of Alberta are safe because their It's Only Fair society uses brain-bands to zap people whenever they break a rule. That way, all children grow up knowing the difference between right and wrong. Unfortunately, they're also taught that women's ankles need to be covered so that men can't see them and turn into perverts. Plus, no-one in Alberta can have babies any more because the government manufactures them in a way that ensures that no child has an unfair advantage over any other child. All of this makes sense to Alberta's dictator, but not to Will and Izzy – two teenagers who are decidedly different from everyone else.Wighton's novels have strong teenage characters driving the plot and facing challenges that, in many respects, are no different from what teenagers face today. His novels are intended to entertain and readers will find adventure, romance, suspense, humour, a strong focus on family, plus a touch of whimsy. Wighton also writes to provoke a little thought about life in today's societies and what the future might bring. Teachers may find the series useful in the classroom and the novels are priced with that intent in mind.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Identify yourself, a female voice whispered from the shadows.

The male was standing in a small clearing where his body would be visible in the moonlight. He held his arms well away from his body and turned towards the darkness of the deep woods in response to the whisper. Sandcastle, he replied. The man spoke softly in English which was not unexpected since they were deep in an Aboriginal Nation river valley at the time. Your turn.

Flapjack, the female uttered in a low voice. I'm coming in. No sudden moves.

I'm not stupid.

Flapjack noticed the slight imperfection in the way the man said stupid. This was to be expected. Most Scandinavian soldiers had not received the same number of English pronunciation lessons that she had mastered. Flapjack lit up the other soldier's body briefly with a small light. Lieutenant, she acknowledged.

The man had his own small light and used it. Captain, he addressed his guest. Let's get out of this moonlight.

Take me as close to the Wilizy's electronic fence as you can without activating it. I want to see where the river leaves their property.

# # # # # # # #

This little river winds through their compound. It's running high right now because we've had some rain and a lot of water is draining off the mountains.

Show me how far I could wade up the river before the red lights begin to flash.

The lieutenant slipped the rifle off his shoulder, pulled the stock to his shoulder, and clicked a lever. A red beam flashed through the woods and splashed against a big boulder in the river. Right about there, he said.

The captain recognized that the lieutenant was using a laser-guided sniper rifle but she already knew that the soldiers he was commanding in this valley were all snipers. That information had been part of the briefing that the commanding officer of Special Operations had given her. She herself was also a member of Special Ops, but her unit did not deal with surveillance and sabotage.

You can leave now, Lieutenant.

Captain, I must caution you. You have no hope of getting past that boulder without being identified as an intruder. Swimming up the river will not work. If the red light appears, turn around immediately. We don't want to alert the Wilizy that we're here.

I've read your report, Lieutenant. Your caution is not necessary. You're pulling your unit out tonight, I understand.

The captain hadn't actually read the lieutenant's full report. That degree of access was beyond her pay grade. She did read the part of his report dealing with a potential ground-level assault on the Wilizy compound by Scandinavia's elite forces. The Captain's conclusion had been very clear: No possible ground entry into the compound was possible with conventional armed forces. She didn't get to read the other parts of his report where he described other ways of defeating these Wilizy merchants. For his part, he didn't get to read any parts of her strategic proposal at all.

Yes, we're pulling out tonight. We've done all we can do here for now.

Your men will be waiting for you, Lieutenant. Don't let me keep you.

The captain waited by the river a full fifteen minutes before turning towards the woods and flashing her light two times and then three times again. A small figure dressed entirely in black approached.

Muskrat, the captain addressed the figure when it reached the river.

# # # # # # # #

Do you know what a muskrat is? the captain asked.

It's like a small beaver. We don't have any back home but they have them here in Canada.

And what does a muskrat like to do.

Swim.

And do you like to swim too?

Yes. I can swim underwater if I have my mask.

Did you know that you're the best swimmer in our school?

I am?

Yes, you are our very best. That's why you're in Operation Muskrat. You get to be a Muskrat and go swimming. The captain didn't mention that swimming was not the most important reason why she was the key to Operation Muskrat. Being small was the most important part. Muskrat was the smallest swimmer they had in the school. Are you ready to swim?

Yes. I knew that I was going to go swimming because I had to wear the wet suit and I have a mask in my backpack.

That gave it away, I guess. Here's what you're going to do. Listen carefully.

Essentially Muskrat would. (1) Swim up the river or creep along the river bottom to the big boulder that the captain identified. (2) If she were able to get past the boulder without seeing any flashing red lights, she could stand up, put on her night vision goggles, and wade up the river. (3) When she arrived at the compound, she would take pictures of every building she could see but only if she could do so without leaving the river. (4) When she was sure that no more buildings were up river, she would lie down in the river and let it float her back to where they were right now. (5) If a flashing red light appeared in front of her at any point in the operation, she would let the river carry her back downstream and the operation would be over.

I knew all of this already, Muskrat said.

I know. I just wanted to be sure that you remembered. Here's a little test. What do you do if you see some dogs?

If they're sleeping, I keep going but very quietly. If they approach me, I stay still until I can shoot them with my tranquilizer gun. After they are sleeping again, I continue with the operation.

Are you scared of the dogs?

No, because they won't be able to smell me when I'm in my wetsuit.

If they charge at you, you can kill them with your weapon.

I can?

Yes, but that will make a noise. You'll have to lie down in the river and come back here as quickly as you can. Try not to wake them up.

OK. Do I get to kill any bad men?

Not this trip. Perhaps if we come back.

# # # # # # # #

Operation Muskrat went swimmingly for Muskrat up to the point where a red light started to flash as she approached the boulder. As per her orders, she let the river carry her downstream. Muskrat expressed her disappointment as she and the captain hiked back to the hidden copter.

Klara got to shoot her gun in her operation and I couldn't even take pictures. Stupid red light.

Not every operation goes according to plan.

Klara got to skip school for three days as a reward and she had double desserts the whole time too.

That's because Klara killed the bad man she was ordered to kill.

Klara says that I'm too small to ever kill any bad men.

She's wrong about that. You'll get your chance.

Muskrat began to limp.

...

I hurt my ankle in the river. Will you carry me back to the copter?

The captain hoisted her onto her shoulders and they finished the trip that way. Muskrat ended the operation with a little smile on her face – the face that the captain couldn't see. The smallest girl in the school was not only the school's best swimmer, but she had received top marks in the lying course too.

Back to the Table of Contents

Chapter 2

My readers may recall that at the end of Wheelchair Moccasins, almost the entire Wilizy family had gathered in Maasin City to hear Kashmira sing. You didn't know that William was back at the home compound on an urgent mission.

You may also recall that at the end of Bean's trial, Yolanda had asked her to translate some recordings as a favour to her. Bean did that willingly although it took her several days to get through all of them. She gave Yolanda a verbal report and then left to find her family in Scandinavia. Yolanda shared that report with Hank who brought in William since it was his defensive perimeter that the Scandinavians were trying to defeat and that's why he was in the home compound guarding it. According to Bean, the Wilizy had nothing to worry about. The soldiers were conceding that no assault on the ground could be successful and they would have left already to work out other forms of attack had they not been told to stay. Special Ops was planning something else entirely, but the soldiers didn't know what.

It was Tuesday, November 26 and William was reporting to the Wilizy Directors. Hank and Yolanda were back at the home compound. Granny and Doc were still living in the skies above Maasin City as Kashmira wasn't quite ready to leave the Philippines yet. Their involvement in the executive meeting was by mental message conferencing.

I watched a little girl try to swim up the river past the fence, but the system caught her heartbeats and activated itself as she came near, William reported. She gave up immediately. I followed her and a lady soldier all the way back to their copter and made sure that they were flying home. The other soldiers left that night as well.

Bean's translations weren't necessary? Yolanda asked.

They were more reassuring than necessary, William replied diplomatically. We now know that they had thought of tunneling underneath the defenses but couldn't find anywhere that this could be done. We now know that they had thought of disguising themselves under the hide of a small deer, but that didn't work. They did have a small girl who could swim and had been trained to kill. We now know that the defenses will work against even that unusual threat. All of this is mostly reassuring, as I said.

What's not reassuring, William? Hank asked.

There are other ways of trying to defeat the defenses beside sneaking underneath. I expect they'll be back. Or somebody like them will be back. We may need this Beanstalk girl so that she can translate again.

She has already agreed to do that, Yolanda offered. I gave her a tracker to wear in her hair so that we can find her.

What's with the little girl, William? Doc asked. Had she really been trained to kill?

"She complained that a classmate had been given a reward for killing a bad man. Her handler reassured her that she'd get her chance to kill too."

'How old do you think she was?

It was too dark to see much, Doc. I know that she's small for her age. Other than that, I couldn't say. I can tell you that she's not Scandinavian. She had a definite American accent.

One of Safe Haven's blonde blue eyed girls? Yolanda asked.

Perhaps. I couldn't see her hair under her wet suit. Was EmmaGee being groomed to be an assassin?

We've seen no sign of that, Yolanda reported.

It's too much of a coincidence for this swimming girl not to be associated with Safe Haven.

So the Scandinavians have a whole school of young girls trained to kill bad men and at least one of them speaks English with an American accent.

We've found some of our missing Safe Haven slave girls, Granny concluded.

And we can find where they're being kept with time-travel, William added.

Thanks to Bean, you were here to see her, Yolanda was making sure that Bean received due credit. I had a feeling that our paths would cross.

They're not likely to cross again, Hank stepped in. This girl Bean has gone home and we have no reason to go to Scandinavia.

# # # # # # # #

By the second week of December, Granny, Doc, Kashmira, and Mathias were back at the home compound. They had taken a leisurely trip home so that Kashmira could recover her health. She was interested in the whole trip especially when they had settled down into the Pacific Ocean and had actually sailed like a sailing ship would. Mathias was particularly interested in this part of the trip too. The ocean was covered with so much debris in spots that the ship had to fly a meter above the water to make any headway.

Bean didn't receive a leisurely stress-free visit home. Her mother was still living in the same house, except that it now had an image of a dark red shawl emblazoned on the door. The smell of animal blood indicated that the image was not a warm Welcome to the Community sign. Not one to shy away from danger, Bean walked right in and took control. How long has that monstrosity been on the door? Where's Dad? Has anybody hurt you? Why is your refrigerator empty? How long have you been without food?

Bean became increasingly angry as the story came out. She couldn't do anything about her father's arrest and imprisonment, but she could do something for her mother. They were coptering out of Scandinavia an hour later. It was on that long trip back to North America that Bean confessed everything to her mother. Akilah didn't know anything about talking heads in a shower but she did admit that she had blamed herself for Bean's disappearance. They had plenty of time to work through the misery of Bean's life and then, what she wanted for the future.

First, they had to find a safe city to live in. Not in the United States. Too much risk of a dingle or a dangle working there. Somewhere in Canada. A job for her mother was next to consider. Something in medicine and not something that required her to wash floors. They also wanted a school for Bean to prepare herself for a new career that didn't involve killing.

Bean and Akilah Ekelund ended up in Toronto which was the largest city in what had been Canada. A Muslim community played an active role in the city. It was reasonably safe for citizens of all kinds now that some corrupt politicians and policemen had been removed. In two days, they had found a clinic that was advertising for a female doctor and was willing to give Bean's mother a trial period. An affordable two-bedroom apartment was close by and Bean had ample funds to rent it for two months in advance.

Bean's new apartment was three blocks away from a Toronto high school. Yes, they would accept her and they gave her a series of tests to determine what grade she should enter. Bean admitted to a background in the military in a non-battlefield role. Physical training, that sort of thing. What did she see herself doing ten years from now in her career? Not prepared for that kind of question, Bean blurted out the first thing she could think of. Medicine.

Then, back to the apartment and her mother.

I'm going back to Scandinavia. I have a good idea where they took Dad.

The army will release him if you ask them to? Your military background allows you to do that? Will it be safe for you?

Sure. I have a friend who'll help.

Later, when she was alone in her bedroom, Bean took Yolanda's tracker out of her hair, disconnected the battery, and re-connected it again. She did this three times. For the next three days, she'd spend a lot of time in Toronto's public spaces. Yolanda had told her that three days would give her sufficient time to copter to any place in Canada or the northern United States. Bean was prepared to wait four days before trying a solo-rescue.

Back to the Table of Contents

Chapter 3

Did you find him? Yolanda was mind-messaging her question from her cabin in the Wilizy/America, which was floating above Toronto and serving as living quarters for the Wilizy teenagers in Toronto. She was staying there under the pretext of visiting the teenagers, which was sort of true. She did want to see them, and she did want to check out whether the ship looked like a bomb had gone off inside of one of boys' cabins. (It didn't.) But really, she was in Toronto because she had asked Melissa and Mac to help with a private operation. They were going to help Bean rescue her father.

Mac's reply was reassuring. We found him easily. You gave us the date and location when he was arrested and Melissa and I used that to TiTr him. It's the same man as in the picture you sent. He's alive. How healthy he is, we can't say. We only observed him from a distance.

Where is he?

Some sort of work camp way up at the very top of Scandinavia. The prisoners are all making Princess Freya dolls. Push a button and the doll says something that we couldn't understand. We estimate the prison holds sixty prisoners. It was easier to count the guards: four shifts of four men each.

That seems like very light security.

They don't need much security. The camp is on an island at least one kilometer off the coast. To escape from the camp, they'd have to swim. They might last five minutes in the water; probably less.

What kind of transport do the guards have to get on and off the island?

No boats. Access into the camp is by copter only. They have four copters in camp on a semi-permanent basis. All four are black military troop transports with capacity for up to twenty. We did a TiTr scan of the traffic into the camp and we saw the occasional command copter come in for an hour or so. Food shipments are weekly and these are handled through troop transports that the guards unload. The copters are kept in a heated hanger. Even the visiting command copter is pulled into the hangar after it arrives. It's extremely cold outside right now.

How do the prisoners and guards handle the cold?

There are six buildings all connected together by enclosed, heated walkways. The camp consists of a large barracks for the prisoners, a smaller barracks for the guards, a mess hall/kitchen for guards and prisoners, a command office, a large building that serves as the doll factory, and the copter hanger that also has a repair facility. Any door to the outside is permanently locked from the inside. Even if a prisoner managed to get outside, he'd die from exposure. They wear orange jumpsuits that are warm enough when they're inside the buildings, but offer no protection from the cold outside.

Do the guards check outside?

No. They may have some electronic form of security, but we didn't see any signs of it. This camp is essentially escape-proof, at least in the dead of winter. It's permanently dark outside. The copter hanger has the highest level of security. One man is constantly on guard inside. Only the camp commander has the key that opens the internal door into the hangar. It's not possible to get into the hangar from the outside. The inside guard has to raise the hangar's door when visitors arrive.

Outside clothing for the guards?

Military apparel complete with rank on both their heavy-duty coats and head coverings. Pants, boots, gloves are all heavily insulated. Anybody going outside wears the full kit, including a woolen scarf covering the face. They have insulated goggles to cover their eyes.

The cold sounds intimidating. Did Melissa come up with a plan?

She needs answers to some questions first. Incidentally, don't count on Melissa to be on any action team. She handled the trip there and back well enough, but the pregnancy makes it difficult for her to move around. She's sleeping at home right now.

How many people will we need?

Three Wilizy plus this other person. You did say that she has a military background and speaks Scandinavian, right?

Yes. What questions did Melissa have?

1. Did you want this man to escape and visibly appear to die in the process, or does he escape mysteriously?

2. Do we appear in disguise, do we appear as ourselves, or do we operate invisibly throughout the operation?

3. Do you want other prisoners to escape and be dropped off somewhere in Scandinavia?

4. We may have to disable at least one guard. Do you want all the Scandinavian guards and commandant to survive the operation?

I'll check with my friend. How much time do you need to pull it all together?

Several days once you give permission to go ahead. The biggest challenge will be getting Scandinavian army cold weather gear. If that's not possible, we can wear Saskatchewan army cold weather gear but that opens up the risk that our gear may be notably different from Scandinavia's. If so, we may have to operate invisibly and that may leave Scandinavia wondering how a prisoner could escape from an escape-proof work camp.

Give me twenty-four hours to think about it.

Good. I need to sleep.

# # # # # # # #

Identify yourself, a female voice whispered from the Scandinavian shadows.

The other female was standing in a small clearing where her body would be visible in the moonlight. Her arms were well away from her body. She turned towards the darkness of the deep woods in response to the whisper. Beanstalk, she replied softly. And you?

Macintosh apple, was the reply. [Narrator: Army people give themselves such inventive nicknames.]

We're about an hour's flight away from the work camp, Bean said to the three Wilizy who slipped into the clearing. She