John Ringo - To Sail a Darkling Sea

“Si, that would be for the best I think, Lieutenant,” Villa said. “Conchita?”

“Yes?” the woman said, coming out of the restaurant. “I have more food coming. Thank you for the fish. It has been so long since we had any. And all the food; it is so wonderful. Gracias.”

“De nada,” Chen said. “This is the good part of this job. And having spent months on a lifeboat with starvation rations, I’m glad to have it, too.”

Villa and Conchita chatted in Spanish for a moment, then one of the other men interjected and it scaled up quickly to argument.

“There are guns and wine involved here,” Chen said, raising his hands. “Can I get a general text of the argument?”

“Some don’t want to go to La Playa,” Villa said, shrugging. “Others don’t want to stay here because of the infectado. Even tonight.”

“We’ve got some room on the boats… ” Chen said.

“Permission to speak, sir?” Sophia said.

“Go ahead, Lieutenant,” Chen said, slightly amused at the formality.

“I checked out that yacht tied up to the jetty,” she said. “It’s in good shape. I mean, we need to see if it starts, but if it does, we can just load people on that and pull it into the harbor for the night.”

“Point,” Chen said, nodding. “I’m still getting my head around grabbing any boat or materials that happen to not be nailed down.”

“Zombie apocalypse moment, sir,” Faith said, carefully. “For example, sitting in a really nice restaurant on a pretty little harbor with a bunch of guns sitting around just in case a zombie turns up. Also, salvage is pretty much all we do. Like, say, an assault carrier, sir.”

“Point again,” Chen said, chuckling.

“I’m actually thinking about asking if I can grab it, sir,” Sophia said. “The No Tan Lines is sort of beat up at this point and we could use more room. Or one like it, maybe, depending on what we find at La Playa and Gomera.”

“Officer Villa, this raises an interesting point,” Chen said. “Legally, a boat which is tied up or anchored in a harbor and abandoned is not general salvage, but property of the local government or the harbor owner if fees have not been paid… ”

“If you want boats, you can have boats,” Villa said, waving his hand. “I think I am the only government official you have found, si? Have boats. Except, one, perhaps, we should keep for ourselves. A boat, if it works, has power and such on it and we can pull away from the dock if there are infectado. But if there are more, yes, you can have them. There are always many at San Sebastian De La Gomera. There may be some at La Playa, yes. It has a small harbor but it has the best shipyard on the island. A moment… ”

He turned and talked to the group in Spanish. There was a good bit of arm waving and a bit of shouting but finally it wound down.

“They agree in general,” Villa said. “We will accompany you to La Playa and San Sebastian De La Gomera and see what the conditions there are, as well. We may find others who are familiar with firearms. Diego, he has been born and raised here in Puntilla and has rarely even gone to San Sebastian De La Gomera. He does not really want to leave. But I say we see what the other towns are like, what other survivors there are of the infectado, then decide. I go with you and I am the only one familiar with guns, si? So they go with us then we decide.”

“Works for me,” Chen said. “Can any of you drive that thing? Assuming it works.”

“That is why I need Diego,” Villa said, smiling. “He is captain. So, we eat, yes?”

* * *

“Pretty little town,” Sophia said as the guns ravaged the “infectado.” “But the harbor sucks. Why would anyone put a boatyard in a town like this?”

There were about twenty yachts and smaller boats up on blocks in the small boatyard. It was pushed so far up against a cliff the road past it went through a tunnel. The harbor was barely large enough for the three boats to spread out in their standard formation and they were firing across the jetty instead of down it since the tip jutted straight out to sea.

“You’re asking me?” Faith asked. “Hell if I know. Ask Villa or something… ”

* * *

“We got customers!” Pagliaro shouted.

“Survivors?” Faith asked then racked her weapon at the sight of three “infectado” coming down the road. “Time to stop, Staff Sergeant.”

“Stopping, ma’am,” Derek said. “But if I may, I think Pag’s probably got this, LT.”

“Permission to engage, Corporal?” Pagliaro said.

“Sure,” Faith said, sighing. She’d had it explained to her by the Gunny and Lieutenant Volpe that the job of an officer was to figure out what the unit was going to do next . Not kill zombies, then , unless there was a specific reason. That was what privates and lance corporals were for. She was starting to wonder if maybe she should have asked to be a private.

“Engage, PFC!”

“Engaging, aye.”

* * *

“Barbie guns,” Faith muttered, tapping her fingers on her crossed arms as Pag and Derek engaged another group of infected.

The small, picturesque, seaside town turned out to be so complicated , all the infected hadn’t made it to the harbor by morning. The two teams were running into scattered groups of zombies between bouts of getting totally lost.

She glanced to the side and saw a zombie coming down the alleyway they’d stopped by. Pag and Derek were forward, taking out the group of infected while she, the proper officer, waited in the car for them to get done. She debated if it was her job to tell Pag he had a zombie coming up behind him or what. Finally, she just drew her H amp;K and fired it off-hand, hitting the zombie in the chest. The woman dropped like a stone. She was blonde which meant probably a tourist stuck here when the Plague shut down travel.

Faith decocked, holstered and checked the mirror to make sure there weren’t any coming up behind. Then she checked her, admittedly light, make-up and touched up her lip gloss.

“You guys done?” she said, leaning out the window.

“Yes, ma’am,” Derek said.

“How’s your ammo count?” Faith asked.

“Fine for now, ma’am,” Derek said, starting up the Fiat. “We’re having to use a lot of rounds as usual but it’s not like we’re in an assault or anything.”

“Barbie guns,” Faith sighed. “Onward, Derek,” she said, pointing forward.

“Did you do something different with your hair, ma’am?”

* * *

“I’m going to declare La Playa as a yellow zone,” Lieutenant Chen said as the sun descended on the cleared town. There had been ten survivors found. None of them were in great shape but they weren’t death camp survivors, either. They’d been gathered on the “local” yacht, the Estrella De Mar . “We can immediately transit to Gomera and start the evening festivities, then clear that tomorrow. It’s bigger and may take more than a day.”

“I don’t think I’ll be joining the festivities this evening, sir,” Faith said, yawning. “Although I’ve mostly been riding around in a taxi, it’s been a long few days.”

* * *

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Faith said. “Not another one.”

There was a cruise ship tied up to the wharf at San Sebastian De La Gomera.

“That’s not all that big, ma’am,” Januscheitis said.

“It’s not the size that matters,” Faith said. “I’ve got a real case of PTSD about cruise ships. The Iwo … you guys had a fighting chance. You could fight. You did fight. You weren’t locked in your fucking staterooms waiting for help that never came and slowly starving to death. And you were Marines. You sign up to go somewhere Uncle Sam needs people killed. You weren’t on your honeymoon or a family vacation. It’s opening up the compartments and finding the kids with arms like toothpicks that didn’t even really bloat because there wasn’t anything to bloat that bugs the hell out of me, okay, Staff Sergeant?”