John Ringo - To Sail a Darkling Sea

“No, Faith ain’t gonna get charged with assault. I’m not even sure the incident occurred cause neither are you. You get three days off on the Alpha to get your head back together. Then you decide if you want to help out or go in a hold. Or, hell, I’ll drop you off at a little town and you can fight zombies for supplies and fish for your supper. If you decide you want to help, God knows we need people who can organize and you should be able to do that. But if so, you’re going to have to climb down . And you sure as shit had better figure out a way to apologize to Lieutenant Smith or at some point you’re going to end up shark bait. Because the Marines, with the exception of Captain Milo ‘I’m scared of zombies’ Wilkes, just absolutely hate your fucking guts . And the one group you do not want pissed off at you in this Squadron is the fucking Marines. And of all the Marines, the one you seriously do not want to get on the bad side of is Faith Marie Smith. They call her Shewolf for a reason … ”

* * *

“If you would knock on the hatch, please, sir,” Faith said.

Wilkes was lost. He knew he was lost and he didn’t like it. The bowels of the supermax liner were one corridor after another, all of them pitch black. And he didn’t like being ‘instructed’ by a thirteen-year-old girl.

“Why?” Wilkes said. He’d open the hatch but the little bitch was holding the key.

“Because the objective, sir, is to determine if there are infected on the far side of the hatch, sir,” Faith said. “That way they can be drawn into our kill zone rather than entering theirs. The objective is, as much as possible, to engage at range, rather than entering melee… ”

“If they’re on the other side we can just back off,” Wilkes said.

“As I was saying, sir,” Faith said, patiently. “Infected often rest. The rest is extremely deep, similar to hibernation. Banging on the hatch gets them up. You can detect them by sound at that point and prepare a plan based on the estimated number. So, sir, if you would be so kind as to bang on the hatch, sir.”

Wilkes banged on the hatch with his fist.

“Satisfied, Lieutenant?”

“Sir… ” Faith said. “No, sir. Several reasons. One, there are many hatches. At a certain point, you begin to damage your hand, sir. Two, as mentioned, infected tend to sleep. That would be unlikely to wake them, sir.”

“Just open the hatch, Lieutenant,” Wilkes said.

“Yes, sir,” Faith said, swiping the card. “The hatch is green, sir. Feel free to proceed.” She waved a hand into the darkness of a large baggage compartment.

“Enlisted should take point, Lieutenant,” Wilkes said. “That is what they are for.”

“I would normally agree, sir,” Faith said. “But I was told that you, sir, are here to learn the basics of infected clearance, sir. Not managing or leading, sir. Doing, sir. This compartment needs to be cleared, sir. I will be your wingman, sir. After you, sir.” She swiped it again cause it had locked while they were talking.

Wilkes cracked the compartment and flashed his taclight around the large compartment. It was half filled with bags and pallets. Some of the pallets had been broken open.

“It looks clear,” he said, quietly.

“It has to be walked, sir,” Faith said. “The point is to ensure it is clear, sir. So that later salvage parties, sir, do not encounter any unpleasant surprises, sir.”

“So which way?” Wilkes asked, quietly.

“Left, right, center, take your pick,” Faith said. “On compartments like this, I tend to go right and hug the wall at first. That way, if anything springs up out of the darkness, my barrel is pointing in its general direction. Sir.”

Wilkes went right. Despite what he had thought of as an over-abundance of lights, there were far too many shadows for his liking. And there was no way to ‘hug the walls.’ There were bags and pallets up against the bulkheads. He stayed as far to the right as he could, went down the first bulkhead then turned up the next.

He was half way down the bulkhead, tip-toeing past a pallet, when he stepped on something soft. And the zombie came up with a low groan that raised into a howl.

“Annnd now we’re in the scrum,” Faith said, as infected started popping up in every direction. Including the ones the captain had missed on his way by.

Wilkes let out a yell and fired multiple rounds into the infected with its teeth sunk into his boot.

“Not into the deck , you idiot!” Faith yelled, dropping two infected coming up behind them with her Saiga. “They go all over the place! With due respect! Sir.”

“LT?” Januscheitis radioed. “Need a hand?”

“No worries,” Faith yelled. “Got this… ”

Infected poured over the bags and pallets. Wilkes got two, missing far more than he hit, the missed rounds ricocheting all over the compartment, then got dogpiled.

Faith cleared the infected heading for her, dropping to pistol when she was out on 12-gauge, then reloaded her Saiga and pistol while Wilkes writhed on the deck, covered in seven infected. When she’d put fresh mags in the pistols… she reloaded the mags from ammo in her assault ruck. The captain had words to say. They were sort of muffled.

Finally, when it was clear he wasn’t extracting himself, she pulled her kukhri and started chopping necks.

“The objective of banging on the door, sir,” Faith said, pulling a zombie off the captain, “is to wake the infected who are sleeping so as to bring them into your kill zone, not go into theirs , sir. Zombies are found anywhere there is water. If you had listened to that part of the lecture and maintained situational awareness , sir, you would have noted that there is some sort of leak on the port bulkhead. There is a puddle of water over there. Water equals zombies, sir.”

“Understood, Lieutenant,” Wilkes said, getting to his feet. “Speaking of water: I guess I need to go decontaminate.”

“Why, sir?” Faith asked, wiping down her blood smeared kukhri. “Your gear is not penetrated and there are more compartments to clear, sir.”

“You’re serious?” Wilkes said.

“Sir, I’ve been in five or six worse scrums in a day , sir,” Faith said, sheathing the kukhri without looking. “From which I generally self-extract because, as you noted sarcastically earlier, I am covered in fucking knives and guns, sir. So, yes, sir, with due respect I am serious, sir. There are more compartments to clear, sir. So are we going to continue with this mission or shall you go bunk off to get cleaned up, sir? Would sir care for a lollipop to go with sir’s shower, sir?”

* * *

“So, is this normal?” Wilkes said.

The captain was trying to hold a door closed against what sounded, to him, like about two hundred howling infected. At least five had their arms through the hatch and were scrabbling at his left arm. He had the hatch braced with his foot and was pushing on it with all his might but he was slowly and inexorably being pushed back by the weight of zombies. There were shoulders. It was not looking good.

“Yes, sir, pretty much,” Faith said. “Zombies are not people as we understand it. No sentience. They are just aggression, hunger and occasionally lust. Sort of Marines without stops, sir.”

“Would the Lieutenant care to instruct the Captain on what the fuck you’re supposed to do now ? Quickly?”

“It is recommended in a situation like this that the lead request support from his team mates in temporarily reducing movement of the hatch, sir,” Faith said. “Given that this is not a hatch with a coaming, but flush to the deck, that is simply managed, thusly… ” She pulled out one of her boot knives and jammed it under the door then kicked it into place. “Better, sir?”