John Ringo - To Sail a Darkling Sea

“He is cute isn’t he?” Faith said, grinning.

“Senorita, Division.”

“Division, Senorita,” Sophia said, picking up the radio.

“Need to get the Marines back over to their boat. We are pulling out in thirty.”

“Roger, Division. The party was just breaking up. Senorita, out.”

“So where you going next?” Faith asked, headed to the away boat.

“Las Galletas,” Sophia said. “Know nothing about it except ‘intel’ suggests there are some useable boats. Nothing about survivors.”

“You be careful,” Faith said, giving her a hug again before getting on the boat. “Especially with all these mall ninjas.”

“We’ll get it done,” Sophia said. “Da wants boats and survivors, we’ll get him boats and survivors… ”

* * *

“We’re definitely not clearing this one. Definitely not.”

They’d arrived at the town of Candelaria just before dawn. Which wasn’t good. It meant they couldn’t draw any of the infected in to a kill zone. And there were going to be infected. The town was huge, at least as big as Las Corrillas. But there were some big yachts in the basin. The question was whether they could get them out. They’d been told to just anchor off-shore and wait for dawn. It was dawn. And it was a damned pretty one. But it didn’t mean the boats were any closer to being in their hands. And there were infected moving around.

“Senorita. Take your away boat and go recon. See if we can cut these yachts out. I’m told recon indicates some good deep water inflatables as well. Check on them.”

“Roger, Division,” Sophia said, her face working. “One question, Division, define ‘cut out,’ over.”

“Remind me to assign you some reading material, Senorita. See if we can go in and grab them without actually mixing it up, much, with infected, over.”

“Oh, sure, that should be easy,” Sophia said. “Olga, gear up. I want somebody besides me on this run.”

“Aye, aye, Captain Crunch,” Olga said, saluting. “Gearing up!”

* * *

There were the usual bunch of sailboats in the harbor. Probably more than normal. But there were also two big motor yachts. They were both rigged as sport fishers but one was at least a 65 and the other was enormous, probably a 90 or better.

There were nine or ten big off-shore inflatables. They were rigged for fishing as well. It was apparent that sport fishing was a big industry in the area. But they’d be really useful as general purpose “get-around” boats. Better than her dinghy, that was for sure.

Then there were the infected. There were a lot of them and they were active at the moment. But they were scattered. The way the marina was laid out, there were only so many that could, easily, make their way to the boats. One of the yachts was tied up alongside the seawall. The other was butt-in to one of the docks.

She looked up at the sound of an outboard puttering along and wasn’t surprised it was Lieutenant Chen.

“I’m glad you’re here, sir,” Sophia said. She held up her digital camera. “I was taking pictures, but I didn’t know if they were going to make sense.”

“What do you think?” Chen asked.

“I think it’s going to take careful coordination,” Sophia said. “And one of the gunboats. Just in case it drops in the pot. And our best people. We come up to that one that’s butt in. Throw a grapnel on the front rail. Send a team aboard. One of them cuts the ropes, I’d suggest a machete for that, while the other two cover. If the infected react, the gunboats engage outside the boat, port and starboard, and the security team engages inside. Once they’ve cut the ropes, pull it out. Then we find out if it’s going to run.”

“And the big one?” Chen asked.

“Pretty much the same thing, sir,” Sophia said. “Possibly with both gunboats. One inside and one outside. The inflatables will be easy. I’d suggest that we take out the one that’s sternfirst, first. That’s closest to the main entrance and most likely to attract a bunch of infected. The other one, we can cover it pretty good. There’s only one way for them to approach and we can chew them up with the fifties if they come that way.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Chen said. “Rusty and Anarchy, for sure. Who else?”

“Olga,” Sophia said, thumbing at the girl. “With the machete.”

“Oh, you’re going to give me a machete!” Olga said, clapping her hands happily.

“Are the other gunners going to be disciplined enough with Anarchy gone, sir?” Sophia asked.

“I’ll be watching them, Lieutenant,” Chen said. “We’ll use my boat to pull it out.”

* * *

“Okay, the first problem,” Anarchy said, looking up at the bulwarks of the yacht. “How the hell do we get aboard?”

The side of the yacht was well above the level of the inflatable. At least at the front.

“I’ll creep back to the stern,” Paula said, quietly. As one of the people with the most experience driving small boats, she’d been elected to drive the inflatable. She really didn’t like being this close to infected, but she knew she was the best choice.

The sun was well up and most of the infected had gone to ground. They mostly moved at night and around dawn and dusk. But it didn’t mean they weren’t there.

“Hey, boss,” Rusty whispered.

“Yeah,” Anarchy said.

“We get back there, I can boost you and Olga over,” Rusty said. “Then you give me a hand up.”

“Okay,” Anarchy said. “Let’s try to keep this quiet. If we don’t fire at all, I’d be just as happy. I’d like these guys to keep sleeping. Okay, Paula, let’s do it.”

* * *

“You said boost ,” Mcgarity muttered as he was more or less hurled over the bulwark. Rusty was a big boy, Mcgarity not so much. And Rusty had gotten back pretty much all his strength, then some, handling the big fifties and their ammo.

The problem being, there was an infected sleeping in the shadow of the superstructure of the yacht. It woke up at the clatter of the arriving infantryman and scrabbled towards him on hands and knees, hissing.

It hit Mcgarity and tried to bite. The security specialist wasn’t wearing full zombie fighting gear and it nearly managed to get his neck. He fended it off and got a hand on its throat just before it let out the standard zombie howl.

Mcgarity drew his side-arm and shoved it into the infected’s stomach, pulling the trigger repeatedly and trying to angle up. Being in contact muffled the sound of the shots. Something must have given because the infected stopped struggling.

It was only when he pushed it off that he realized the infected was a teenage boy, shrunken and emaciated by privation and covered in scars including bite marks.

“Fuck,” Mcgarity said, shaking his head. “Looks like fucking Gollum… ”

He rolled over then reloaded and holstered his 1911, looking around to see if the scuffle had attracted any attention. None immediately apparent.

“Gimme a hand getting this body in the harbor… ”

* * *

Between the two of them and a rope, and Paula pushing on his ass and boots, they managed to get Rusty over the side.

“We gotta figure out a better way to do this,” Anarchy said. “Olga, get the ropes.”

“Okay,” Olga said, drawing her machete.

An infected came down the wharf, on hands and knees, snuffling at the boards of one of the buildings.

“Target,” Rusty said, raising his weapon.

“No,” Anarchy said. “And inside voice. Just be quiet. Olga!” he hissed.

Olga lifted her head and looked at him. She was just about to chop one of the ropes.

He held his finger up to his lips, pointed at the infected, which was no more than thirty yards away, then motioned for her to cut with a knife.