John Ringo - To Sail a Darkling Sea

“Aye, aye, sir.”

* * *

“Oh, sweet,” Pagliaro said as.50 caliber BMG rounds started tearing up the closing infected. When the massive “anti-material” rounds hit, most of the infected literally exploded from hydrostatic shock. The majority of the rounds then continued on to hit any infected on the far side.

“Except for the bouncers,” Januscheitis said. A tracer round that had already passed through two infected hit the reinforced corner of a container, bounced off, hit the side of the ship then caromed wildly into the distance. “But, yeah, direct fire MaDeuce support is always a welcome sight. Now if we just had some tanks. Those are sweet.”

“Friendlies,” Pag said as pretty much everyone else arrived at once.

“Oh, this is just so much more fun than I’d expected,” Dougherty said.

“We ran into an infected on the way,” Derek said, dropping two boxes of MG ammo to the deck.

“We’ve got this,” Faith said. “Kirby, hump ammo from the boat. Derk, Bear, go make sure we’re clear otherwise. Topside and close all hatches. We’ll worry about belowdecks when we have to. Tech, can you get the gangway off?”

The crew gangway started with a solid platform that was inserted onto the deck of the ship through a latched back “door” in the bulwark. The platform extended outboard from the ship about four feet. A sloped ramp was attached to it that led to another, similar, platform that rested on the pier.

“Maybe,” Dougherty said, hesitantly. “If I don’t get shot doing it.”

He tentatively stepped onto the extended platform and looked over the side. Then he bent over the rail and ralphed.

“Watch where you stick your head,” Januscheitis snapped. The engineer had nearly stuck his head into his fire.

“Sorry,” Dougherty said, wiping his mouth. “This really isn’t my gig. Jesus.”

“Can you get the gangway off?” Faith asked.

“I dunno,” Dougherty said. “I was gonna pull the hinges on the ramp. That was gonna be tough enough but with the weight of the… bodies… Only idea I’ve got is a bad one.”

“Which is?” Faith asked.

“Pull the dogs,” he said, pointing.

The shipboard platform was solidly attached to the ship while the pier-side platform moved to allow for tidal changes and sway of the ship. The attachments were latches into the deck.

“The platform’s balanced so there’s usually not a lot of weight on them,” Dougherty said. “Right now… Hell, if many more of ’em die on it, it might go on its own. It’s only designed to hold the weight of twenty people at a time. And if we pull the dogs with this much weight on it, I’m not sure what it’s gonna do. Might fall, might stay in place, might stay in place for a while then fall. I just dunno.”

“Pull the dogs,” Faith said. “If we have to, we’ll lever it over the side with a Halligan.”

“I’ll need a hammer,” Dougherty said.

“Kirby,” Januscheitis radioed. “Get a hammer and a Halligan from the Senorita.”

“Errr… Should I bring this ammo first or drop it and get the Halligan, over?”

“Where are you?” Januscheitis asked.

“Right around the corner, Staff Sergeant!” Kirby shouted.

“Bring the ammo,” Januscheitis shouted.

“Sorry, Staff Sergeant… ” Kirby said, running up to the firing position. He had boxes of ammo on straps all over his body.

“Just drop the ammo and go get a Halligan and hammer,” Januscheitis said.

“ Senorita , Ground Lead, over,” Faith said, trying not to grin. Given that Kirby had been a Marine cook, he was taking to killing zombies pretty well. But he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed.

“Ground lead. We’ve got the Halligan and hammer standing by. I take it you mean a sledge, over?”

“You want a sledge hammer?” Faith asked.

“Yes,” Dougherty said. “Right.”

“Roger sledge, over,” Faith said.

“Just waiting on you.”

“Hoof it, Kirby!” Staff Sergeant Januscheitis said.

“Aye, aye, Staff Sergeant!”

“I think we could probably hold this position indefinitely,” Faith said. “But we’re burning up ammo.”

“Only so much on the boat, ma’am,” Januscheitis said. “And I’m about to have to change barrels. So I wouldn’t say indefinitely.”

* * *

“Heave!” Januscheitis said, pushing on the angled platform. The heavy wood construct finally slid over the side of the ship and fell into the water with a crash. Bodies of infecteds and the few who were hail fell into the shark teaming water.

The clearance team ignored the screams.

“Thank you for your assistance, Mister Dougherty,” Faith said. “We need to get the rest of your team onboard, now, to see if we can get the crane working.”

“Gonna suck if this was all for nothing,” Kirby said.

“Did we ask your opinion, Marine?” Januscheitis said.

“No, Staff Sergeant,” Kirby said. “No excuse, Staff Sergeant.”

“Just go escort Mister Dougherty… ”

* * *

It had taken a trip belowdecks, which turned out to be another place infected had found to hole up, to get the crane into operation. But it was running.

“I’d thought we’d have to start the mains,” Faith said as the first container went over the side. The supply ship had tied up to the bigger freighter for the evolution.

“You don’t use mains for anything but propulsion power,” Dougherty said. “Pretty much everything else runs on secondary systems. The good news was the primary gen and hydraulics weren’t damaged. If they had been… I probably could have fixed ’em but it would have been a pain in the ass.”

“How much of a pain in the ass is it going to be to get these onto the pier?” Januscheitis asked.

“One of ’em, not so much,” Dougherty said. “The one that’s going water side will be easy. But the one that’s going interior? We’re going to have to get right up to the dock. And I mean, in contact. We can only swing it out so far.”

“So… We’ll go aboard the supply ship to make sure you don’t get boarded,” Faith said. “And this time we’ll bring company. Division, ground team leader, over… ”

“God I love this system!” Anarchy said. He was stroking the trigger of the Browning in bursts because there just weren’t enough infected to engage full-bore. “The only thing that would make it better was if it was duals or quads!”

The two “gunships” had moved to the end of the pier, right by a bright red harbor tug, and were engaging infecteds “infiltrating” from the direction of the city. The sound of the guns didn’t really carry all that far, but infected from all over were converging on the usual flocks of gulls.

“It’s sweet,” Rusty said. As one of the more “senior” people in the squadron who had transferred over to the Navy, he had been chosen as one of the “primary gunners.” More junior people were humping the ammo. Which worked for him. “What’s a dual?”

“Uh, oh,” Anarchy said. A huge group of infected had just come into view. Previously they’d been trickling in in small groups or singles. This was a couple of hundred and it looked like more behind them. “Rock concert time! Rusty, get the leakers!” he started engaging at long range. The BMG could kill out to nearly a mile. This was less than a thousand yards. But the single gun wasn’t stopping the tidal wave.

“Division, you see this? Tell them to get a move on!”

* * *

“Roger, I see it,” Lieutenant Chen said. He’d taken a position well outboard from where the containers were being put into place just so his boat would be the primary on engagement. “Boat Two, stop the leakers. Rusty, engage long. Repeat, engage long. Garcia, Garcia ,” he radioed. “What’s the status on closure, over?”