John Ringo - To Sail a Darkling Sea

“Where is it?” Fontana asked.

“Back home in the safe,” Faith said. “We loaded out what we needed, not what we had. Some fucker probably broke into it, too. People knew we were preppers. Point is… I can see where you’re going, Gunny. You want Marines to be accurate. I want Marines to be able to put down zombies in compartments and corridors, fast and accurate.”

“Unlike certain pilots,” Lieutenant Volpe said, grinning.

“Okay, this time I’m going to make the point,” Wilkes said, shaking his head and grinning. “Yeah, pilot , okay? Gimme a Seacobra and a 20 and I’ll show you who’s the boss, Mike.”

“Aye, aye, Captain Pilot, sir,” Volpe said, saluting.

“I wonder if that’s the plan?” Fontana said.

“What?” Faith said.

“Okay, your ‘Da’ has hinted that he needed a pilot,” Fontana said. “In fact, remember when we were clearing the Iwo and he was sort of pissed that there were no survivors in the pilot’s quarters.”

“Didn’t need to be reminded of that, Tom,” Wilkes said. “Those were my friends.”

“Sorry, sir,” Fontana said. “But he’s been practically biting his nails for pilots. Helo pilots. So maybe… hover a helo then blow them away with 20 when they cluster?”

“Oh, please, God, yes,” Wilkes said. “If there is a loving God, yes.”

“Not enough 20 in a LHD,” the Gunny said. “Not even in a pre-po. Not for the whole mainland.”

“Finding a pre-po would be sweet,” Volpe said.

“Pre-po?” Faith said.

“Pre-positioned support ship,” Fontana said. “Just a big roll-on roll-off freighter, sort of like a ferry, that’s filled with all sorts of goodies.”

“All the material support needed for a Marine Expeditionary Unit and thirty days of combat,” Wilkes said.

“Sweet is right,” Faith said. “Where do we get one of those?”

“Norfolk,” Sands said. “There was one tied alongside and there was no plan to punch it. Or Blount Island where the MPF ships are unloaded and reloaded. The truth is, we got more ammo and supplies on the Iwo than we got Marines to use it.”

“Which gets back to shoot training,” Faith said. “So, sure, you train them on accuracy. But to be a boarding guy, you need people who can put lots of rounds on target fast and accurate. At mostly short ranges. That’s different than ‘did you hit the center of the black.’ ”

“There’s more to it than that,” Jan said. “We had some training in boarding and clearance. Fair amount. But we’d need more. A lot more. In gear so they get used to the weight.”

“In weighted gear,” Gunny Sands growled. “ Over weighted gear. The more you sweat, the less you bleed.”

“Gunny, we have so got to get you laid,” Volpe said. He grinned then winced and looked at Faith.

“Hey, don’t look at me !” Faith said, holding up her hands. “Hello? Thirteen?”

“I think he didn’t want you to be offended,” Fontana said.

“Since I was a kid, I’ve been hanging out with guys,” Faith said, shrugging. “Which was fine. We played ball. I’d threaten to kiss them and they’d run like mad. Then, all of a sudden, all they can talk about is p… girls. It was, like, what? When did that happen? So I’m used to it. No issues. If you say anything I don’t like, I’ll start talking about what happens when you forget to bring along pads. It’s really God awful, you know…?”

“Okay, okay,” Volpe said, holding up his hands. “We surrender.”

“Glad we got that out of the way,” the Gunny said. “And for your information, Lieutenant, I’m married,” he said, holding up his wedding ring. “And I don’t fool around on deployment.”

“Sorry, Gunny,” Volpe said as everyone very carefully did not look around. All the dependents were back at Lejeune. Which was zombie city. “I forgot.”

“No problem,” Gunny Sands said. “Just looking forward to the float being done with. Wanna get home to my cold-beer.”

“The Royal Netherlands Liner P/V Saga of Amsterdam is officially clear,” Captain Wilkes said. “Two hundred and fifty-six survivors, mostly crew and, as usual, mostly associated with food services or housekeeping.”

“Can we use them?” Steve asked, looking at Isham.

“Nine engineering or maintenance personnel,” Isham said. “They’re all onboard with working in those areas. Three passengers with significant boating or yachting experience who are in good enough mental condition to take a small boat. One is a master mariner. I’ve told her we’re going to save her for something that needs her skill. The rest are the usual odds and sods. Some of them are still getting their heads together but I figure most of them will pitch in. Nine that are pretty much round the bend. That’s starting to be a problem. We’ve got forty people in that sort of condition and there’s not much we can do with them except lock ’em in a cabin. Which freaks them the fuck out. The support people are mostly Indonesian. Some of them are already working in cleaning crews finishing up on the Boadicea and the couple of boats we’ve pulled in and hadn’t cleaned up.”

“We’ll take the next one down the line,” Steve said. “Did you intentionally finish clearing just in time for the birthday of the Marine Corps, Captain?”

“Let’s say it put a little relish in the hotdog, sir,” Wilkes said, grinning. “I told the guys I couldn’t promise them a day off if they finished by the ninth but I could try to swing it.”

“Do you want it off the day of or the day after?” Steve asked.

“Short day doing initial reconnaissance on the Tenth, sir,” Wilkes said. “Stop operations at sixteen-thirty. Then the day after off.”

“I can live with that,” Steve said.

“We believe we can increase the pace on the next one, sir,” Wilkes said. “If we can get some logistics support.”

“Define,” Steve said.

“Lieutenant?” Wilkes said, turning to Faith.

“The guys can carry their assault packs on clearance, sir,” Faith said. “But they clock out on rounds, anyway. We’re averaging about nine rounds per infected. We need to get that down, but that’s where we’re at. That means that the assault pack and basic load only allows sixty kills.”

“I hadn’t done that math,” Steve said, nodding.

“Nine rounds is really phenomenal, sir,” Wilkes pointed out. “The average in Iraq was six thousand rounds per stepped on kill.”

“Six thousand?” Isham said. “You have got to be joking!”

“It was sixty thousand in the Korean War,” Steve said. “Lots of use of machine guns. Different situation. So, only sixty infected per Marine per reasonable load. And the answer is?”

“We have spare magazines, sir,” Faith said. “We pretty much brought every mag we could find on the Iwo . If we could get support in having spares loaded and moved forward, the Marines wouldn’t have to go all the way back to the entry area then reload their mags. The trip sometimes takes ten minutes and reloads take up to thirty. That’s nearly an hour all around. They’re not bitching about that, they just sort of think that’s what you do. We discussed this with the Gunny and he thinks we’re coddling them, but it would just make clearance more efficient.”

“Loading and moving are two different things,” Steve said. “I can see finding people to load… Jack?”

“That we can find people for,” Isham said, cautiously. “Carrying it through the ship? That’s going to be tougher.”

“My gunners would do it,” Lieutenant Chen said. “My shooters are really chomping at the bit.”