John Ringo - To Sail a Darkling Sea

“Excuse me?” Steve said.

“One of the containers we used to block the quay turned out to contain some formal dresses, sir,” Chen said. “Faith… protracted the engagement to sort through them looking for a dress for the Marine Corps Ball, sir.”

“Seriously?” Steve said. “I mean… Seriously?”

“Yes, sir,” Chen said. “I haven’t formally investigated it, sir, but… ”

“I hear what you’re saying, Lieutenant,” Steve said, carefully. “And I understand your concern. It… it just doesn’t sound like Faith. She’s not normally a shopaholic.”

“The Marines think it’s funny, sir,” Chen said, seriously. “Just another example of, well, ‘Miss Faith.’ But it put them in a dangerous position while the Lieutenant went, well, dress shopping, sir. I understand she is your daughter, sir, but… ”

“That’s… Yes,” Steve said. “She is. However, I convinced the Gunny she was worthy of a lieutenancy on the basis that she’s not quite as immature as she acts. This is a counter example. Did she give any argument in favor? I mean, I cannot find an argument but… ”

“I haven’t brought it up with her, yet, sir,” Chen said. “It’s a touchy subject. The Marines think the world of her and they think it was hilarious. But it was not only putting her Marines in jeopardy to go dress shopping, it was using them for personal privilege, sir. On the other hand, she’s a Marine, not Navy, and she’s your daughter, sir. I’d considered bringing it up with Captain Wilkes but… You’re my chain of command, sir. And she’s your daughter.”

“Well, I’m her chain of command as well,” Steve said. “I’d like to bring her in to discuss it. See if she has any reasonable arguments. If not… Letter of reprimand?”

“I… wouldn’t go that far, sir,” Chen said. “Possibly a written counseling statement.”

“Very well,” Steve said. “I’ve got a slot at fourteen-thirty. Bring her by.”

* * *

Faith woke from a dream that all the women who’d been raped and murdered on the Alpha were trying to talk to her. She couldn’t understand their words, though. Just that they were warning her of something.

She really didn’t like being on the Alpha . She’d had to clear it with her Dad and Sergeant Fontana and it was one of the clearances that gave her nightmares. On the other hand, she had a cabin to herself and a private bathroom. She’d put up with the nightmares.

Someone had kindly laid out a pair of shorts and a Marines T-shirt on her bed before she got there. And all her stuff was not only in the room but unpacked and put in drawers. Her hard-found dress was in the closet and someone had even put it in a plastic bag.

She’d just dropped her uniform on the deck, pulled off her bra and crawled into the sheets, she was that tired. The brown T-shirt and panties were fresh. Good enough.

She got up and went into the bathroom and examined herself in the mirror.

“Okay, now I get what they mean by ‘death warmed over.’ ” Her face was drained. She looked like a recent kill. Maybe that’s what the women were trying to tell her. “ You look like shit, Faith.”

She wasn’t even sure what time it was. She could see it was twilight. Probably the sun was going down, not coming up. If it was coming up, she was already late for assembly.

There was a sign in the shower stall: “Please conserve water. Wet down. Turn off the water. Lather up. Rinse off.”

She turned the shower on full and just hung her head under it. Screw water conservation. They could get some from the fresh water tanks on the freighter. The freighter her team had fucking cleared. And if they ran out? Well, they’d just clear another fucking freighter. Or get it from the liner. Liners always had big fucking fresh water tanks.

The shower helped. She did some push-ups and sit-ups and stretches and that helped more.

By the time she’d gotten done with that, her stomach was rumbling.

“Time to find food,” she muttered.

She was off duty so she just wore the Marine T-shirt and shorts and some flip-flops. If anybody had a problem with that, they could bite her.

When she got to the main saloon, there was a buffet laid out and it was about full of people. What got her, initially, was that there were very few she’d recognized. While her team had been clearing the towns in the Canaries, the rest of the Squadron had been doing recovery ops at sea and apparently they’d been pretty successful. She saw a few of the girls from the Money scattered around but they seemed to be “sponsors.” Mostly it was one to a table. And you could tell a lot of the people were “freshies,” fresh off the lifeboat or out of a compartment. The “boaties” all had super dark tans. The “ghosts,” compartment people, were all wearing shades and were either ghost white or sunburned.

She grabbed a tray and started filling up a plate. She’d always worried about her weight but clearance ops were calorie intensive. You could eat about anything you wanted when you were spending all day climbing stairs carrying a hundred pounds of gear, ammo and weapons and fighting zombies. Another benefit of a zombie apocalypse.

“Hey, LT,” a voice said.

She turned around and thought about it. The face was familiar…

“Sergeant Smith,” Smith said. “I was in the compartment with Staff Sergeant Januscheitis, Lieutenant.”

“Smitty,” Faith said, nodding. “He talks about you a lot.”

“Marines are over on the other side of the messdeck,” Smitty said, gesturing with a thumb. “The Staff Sergeant’s still down. But Derk and Pag are over there.”

“I’ll be right over,” Faith said. “Just let me load up with some carbs.”

“I can get that for you, ma’am,” Smitty said.

“I think I can carry my own tray, Sergeant,” Faith said. “But thanks.”

She skipped the deserts, her tray was getting overloaded and she could always come back, and headed over to the table.

“Room for one more?” she asked.

“Right here, Skipper,” Pagliaro said, pulling out a chair.

“Why thank you, kind sir,” Faith said, sitting down. “And I know you work for a living.”

“How’d the meeting go, ma’am?” Derek asked.

“I only sort of vaguely remember it,” Faith said. “I get the feeling Captain Wilkes doesn’t like me.”

“He’s trade school, ma’am,” one of the Marines said. “Citadel of all places. He’s not really that up on ROTC officers. And he’s a pilot. They’re all ‘I’m a pilot so I’m hot shit.’ ”

“He’s doing okay at running the clearance,” another said, shrugging. “For a guy who’s not infantry.”

“How’s it going?” Faith asked. She was vaguely aware that it wasn’t a good idea for an officer to get into running down a superior.

“Lots of zombies,” one of the Marines said. “Lots of fucking zombies.”

“Lieutenant Fontana said it’s almost as bad as the Voyage ,” another said. “But the cabins weren’t locked down.”

“How come so many survived?” Pagliaro said. “I mean, water, hello!”

“Fountains,” Sergeant Smith said. “The place has fucking fountains and pools everywhere. And they were all full. There’s also pools on the upper deck that caught rainwater. And most of the doors were open so they could move around. Some of the compartments below the water tanks had valves leaking or partially opened. It’s a fucking zombie fest.”

“Which Captain Wilkes has been careful to avoid,” one of the Marines said. “He hasn’t gone past the embarkation area.”

“And he had us lay out all the bodies and ‘prepare them for proper burial,’ ” another said. “If he expects us to do that with the whole ship… ”