John Ringo - To Sail a Darkling Sea

“When the plague was announced, the government put us in quarantine,” Third Officer Darren Arras said. “It was already on the island but they locked us down, anyway. We… segregated the infected. We tried to manage them but… ”

“We ended up taking them into some of the empty economy cabins,” Kyle said then shrugged. “There wasn’t much we could… ” she frowned and shook her head.

“We found them,” Faith said. “If it’s any consolation, New York City had warehouses that looked like that.”

“The quarantine wasn’t so much lifted as things just started falling apart,” Kyle continued. “Some of the passengers left the boat to find someplace on land. The ship’s officers left with some friends on a yacht.”

“Gotta love the loyalty,” Januscheitis said.

“Normal,” Faith said. “Same thing happened on the Voyage .”

“ Voyage Under Stars ?” Arras said. “I’m glad I wasn’t on that bloody floating abattoir.”

“Abat… ” Faith said. “Oh, slaughterhouse. Yeah. Pretty much covers it.”

“The team only got about a hundred people off the Voyage ,” Januscheitis said, then gestured at Faith. “The Lieutenant… ”

“Not important,” Faith said. “How did you manage to keep so many people alive?”

“First Officer Zastrow,” Kyle said. “When it came apart, the First Officer requested passengers and crew fall back on the stores compartments. We… secured ourselves. There were water spigots from the main water stores. As long as that held out… ”

“We did the same thing on the Iwo Jima ,” Januscheitis said. “But there was no plan. Just chaos.”

“I’d like to officially say as a representative of what is left of the United States Government that you and your crew did one hell of a job,” Faith said. “Better than any group we’ve found so far. In one of those stores compartments, I regret to tell you, the infecteds gained control. But you kept a lot of people alive. More than anyone could think possible.”

“We had to… ” Kyle said, then looked away. “There were some people, passengers and crew, in our compartment… ”

“That couldn’t handle the strain,” Januscheitis said. “And had to be dealt with.”

“Which is one of the reasons we hold to ‘what happened in the compartment, stays in the compartment,’” Faith said.

“One of our stewards kept trying to open the door,” Arras said, wincing. “We couldn’t keep him from trying. And we couldn’t keep him tied up all the time. Finally, there was an… incident.”

“What happens in the compartment, stays in the compartment,” Januscheitis said. “We’ll get some of the ‘Welcome to Wolf Squadron’ brochures printed up. Mostly it’s about making sure that people don’t think that what happened in the compartment is still okay after you get out. As soon as we’ve ensured the ship is free of infected, you can have the run of it.”

“However,” Faith said. “There is the issue of usage. And support. We’re almost entirely marine-based at this point. We’ve only cleared a few of these small towns and they’re only rough-cleared. We need people to help and we need this ship to tote those people. We’re running out of room with the ships that we’ve got. Which is good, it means more survivors. But we still need this ship. It’s in good shape compared to most we find and it’s fully ocean capable. So… ”

“I can’t exactly contact the owners for permission,” Kyle said, drily. “I’m not sure how the passengers will take it.”

“I generally start with ‘it’s better than being eaten.’” Faith said.

* * *

“Is your Lieutenant as young as she looks?” Kyle asked Januscheitis when they had a moment alone.

“Younger,” Januscheitis said. “Thirteen.”

“Bloody hell,” Kyle said. “How does one become a Marine lieutenant at thirteen?”

“Well, it helps that her father is the senior officer that’s not trapped somewhere and is acting Commander Atlantic Fleet,” Januscheitis said. “But mostly it’s a matter of being one of the four people who cleared the Voyage of infecteds. And from what they said, about half the passengers and crew survived. As infecteds. How’d you put it? ‘Bloody abattoir.’ They went through twenty thousand rounds of ammunition in three weeks.”

“Oh,” Kyle said, clearly envisioning what the blindsided battle must have been like in the cave-black caverns of the massive “super-max” cruise liner. “Hell. That had to be… ”

“Clearing this was a walk in the park for her,” Januscheitis said. “You can tell she’s happy we found so many survivors and bored with the few dozen infected. There’s a video of her boarding the Voyage that’s both frightening and hilarious. She gets repeatedly dogpiled by infected and comes up over and over again, having killed them all. Which is why we call her Shewolf and us big, tough devil-dogs follow her around like, well, puppies.”

“You do know who Boadicea was, right?” Kyle said.

“No,” Januscheitis said. “We figured it was Spanish or something.”

“Really?” Kyle said, obviously trying not to laugh. “Seriously…?”

* * *

“Okay, so, mission for today is… ” Faith said, then paused, flicking off her safety. “Kirby, two steps left.”

“Two steps left, aye,” Kirby said, taking two steps to the left.

Faith lifted her AK and fired twice.

“Clearing this town,” she continued, flicking her safety back on as the two infected that had been loping down Paseo De Fred Olsen dropped. “Which obviously needs some additional clearance.”

“Ma’am,” Januscheitis said, raising his hand.

“Staff Sergeant?”

“Point of order. Found out what ‘ Boadicea ’ means. Sorta funny story… ”

* * *

“Command, Team Two.”

“Command,” Faith said. She could hear the crack of rounds over the radio call from Januscheitis team.

“We’ve hit a big concentration of infected on… Calle Mahona or something. About fifty. Oh, and we’re sort of lost… ”

“Can you break contact?” Faith asked, waving for Derek to stop.

“Roger,” Januscheitis said.

“Try to rendezvous at… Calle de la Era. It’s back towards the port. There’s a little square on the map. We’ll meet you there.”

“We’ll try to find it,” Januscheitis said.

“We’ll set up a kill zone there,” Faith said. “Try to lead them back.”

“Don’t think that’s going to be a problem… ”

“See if you can get this thing turned around, Derek.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am.”

* * *

“So why don’t we use.308 as a rifle round?” Faith asked looking through binoculars at the oncoming infected tumbling before the MG240.

“It’s heavy, ma’am?” Januscheitis said, taking a sip of water. It had taken the team some time to find their way around the twisty streets of the town and back to the square at the intersection of Calle De La Era and Calle Del Guincho. “It overkills?” he added as one of the tracers passed through an infected and pinged into the distance.

“There is no such thing as ‘overkill,’ Staff Sergeant,” Faith said.

“There is only ‘Open fire’ and ‘Reloading,’ yes, ma’am,” Januscheitis said. “You can carry more five five six. And, yes, I am doing the math, ma’am. Given five rounds of five five six, it would be less weight to carry three oh eight. You can’t fire it on full auto. But nobody who has any sense fires full auto anyway. I dunno, ma’am. One of those mysteries of the military, I guess.”