John Ringo - Under a Graveyard Sky

“Do you have a plan?” Stacey said.

“I have an inkling,” Steve said. “I have a goal. I have the goal of a zombie free world. I don’t know if I’ll see it in my lifetime. But I’ll start with the U.S. and that’s going to have to be good enough.”

“Big plan,” Stacey said, shaking her head. “Steve, I love you for your paladin side. But ‘saving the world’ is usually a metaphor.”

“If not us, who ?” Steve asked. “Tom, if he’s out there still, is locked into a fortress and can’t get out. Ditto any remaining government groups. There probably are government secure points that held out. But they’re trapped by the zombies. We have mobility. And there are other boats, ships, survivors out there. We’ll rescue them and organize.”

“You think they’ll go for it?” Stacey asked. “Tina’s a lovely child but she’s not going to be much help. They’re all going to be traumatized, terrified…”

“Some will,” Steve said. “Those that don’t…” He shrugged. “Cross that bridge when we come to it. We’ll cross every bridge when we come to it. We’re going to win and I’m not going to let the bloody damned zombies stop us. I will not bow.”

Cleaning the Toy was an unimaginable pain.

The two zombies had crapped and pissed everywhere. Not just on the floor but on the seats and walls. Stacey had taken over checking the elctronics and engineering while Sophia did an inventory of stores. Which left Faith and Steve to clean up, ripping up the carpet and ripping out the seats. The Fairline wasn’t going to be nearly as comfortable when they were done but it was going to be livable.

The bunks in the port cabin were ruined. But they were the same size as the ones on the Mile Seven so they could be switched out. It was mostly a matter of ripping out most of the fabric and then elbow grease.

Tom took a break after two hours and went up to the helm. The seats there were just as messed up as the rest of the saloon but Stacey had ripped them out, stuffed in some pillows and started to work on the electronics.

“Figuring it out?” Steve asked. The console was so much more complicated than the Hunter he found it intimidating.

“Fortunately, Tina’s father was detail oriented,” Stacey said. “There are manuals for everything. He wrecked a couple of the screens, but they were for peripheral systems. The whole thing is networked and it was mostly the secondaries that were damaged. So, yes, figuring it out. Here’s one thing that you’ll find interesting, given our conversation last night.”

She flipped through a touch-screen menu on one of the screens, then brought up one that was a map of the Atlantic. A false color image of weather.

“What’s that?” Steve asked.

“Tina’s dad was a techie,” Stacey said. “It’s a weather satellite image?”

“A file copy?” Steve asked.

“No,” Stacey said. “Current. The GOES for the Atlantic. And here…” she said, changing screens. “That’s North America.”

“We’ve, sort of, got weather reports,” Steve said, sighing in relief.

“Sort of,” Stacey said. “All it gives us is the satellite.”

“I can’t believe it’s still transmitting,” Steve said. “They’re still transmitting. I thought they had to have ground stations.”

“I guess it’s like the GPS,” Stacey said, shrugging. “That should have gone down with Boulder. Didn’t. Secrets of the universe I guess. But then there’s this,” she added, bringing up a screen filled with red dots.

“Okay, lots of red,” Steve said. “That’s bad.”

“Little context,” Stacey said, zooming out. As she did, the outline of the North American continent came into view. The dots were in the Atlantic. And they were everywhere.

“Distress beacons?” Steve asked.

“Two different types,” Stacey said. “Three, really. One is EPIRBs,” referring to Emergency Position Indicator Radio Beacons, “the other is AIS.”

“AIS?” Steve asked.

“Automated Indicator System,” Stacey said, hitting a control. Most of the indicators disappeared. “AIS is a system on large vessels. Those are big ships or boats that are in distress.”

“Jesus,” Steve said, shaking his head. “I didn’t realize there were so many ships at sea at any time.” He leaned in and looked at something. “What are those clusters?”

“I wondered the same thing,” Stacey said, zooming in on Bermuda. There were a cluster of distress beacons along its southern shores. “Those are run aground. Seen enough of those.”

Every time they had run in sight of shore there had been ships and boats run aground. One time they even saw what looked like a submarine. It was partially submerged and it might have been the bottom of a boat turned turtle. But it looked like a sub. And not an American one.

“EPIRBs are going to be lifeboats,” Steve said. “We might find survivors on those.”

“And then there’s the third system,” Stacey said, zooming in on their position and hitting the menu again. “You know that emergency GPS thingy on the Hunter?”

“Right,” Steve said. “Push the button on the radio for five seconds and it sends out your location? Is that AIS?”

“No,” Stacey said. “That’s Digital Selective Calling. And that is…these.”

“How far?” Steve said, looking at the screen. There were at least twenty indicators on the screen.

“That’s fifty miles,” Stacey said. She pointed to an indicator at the bottom. “Twenty-four DSC in one hundred miles. And…” she touched another control and more dots popped up. “Sixteen EPIRBs, four AIS. So…there. Boats and potential survivors.”

“It’s going to take all day to get this boat even vaguely livable,” Steve said. “Then cross-loading. After that, we’ll get to the real work. Thank you, Milady. That would have taken me days and I’d have been tearing my hair out.”

“That’s why you have me around, my charming knight,” Stacey said, patting him on the arm. “I’d kiss you but then I’d have to take off my respirator.”

“And from the little bit that’s been getting through, you don’t want to smell this,” Steve said. “Or me.”

“And that is what salt-water showers are for…”

* * *

Steve took off his respirator and took a whiff.

“Ugh,” he said, shaking his head. “ Still stinks. What did we miss?”

“I think it’s just baked in,” Sophia said, grimacing.

“I think we’re just going to have to get used to it,” Stacey said. “Once we get moving we’ll get some of the forward hatches open and air it out. Maybe that will help.”

“Hopefully,” Steve said. “Well, it’s as good as it’s going to get for now, and people are waiting. Time to cross-load…”

* * *

“What are those?” Tina said, wrinkling her brow at the small and obviously heavy cases.

“Ammo,” Faith said. “Bullets.”

“You’ve sure got a lot,” Tina said. She’d asked if she could help but had been told to just keep building her strength. She still could barely totter around.

“Not as much as we used to have,” Faith said, hefting two cases of 7.62x39. “And I think we’re going to need lots more if Da’s going to seriously clear every boat in the Atlantic.”

“Can you do that?” Tina asked, following along behind as Faith carried the cases up on deck.

“One boat at a time,” Faith said. “But I’m going to rebel if I also have to clean them all up.”

* * *

Sophia sounded the bullhorn as they pulled up to the inflatable life raft. There was no response but they hadn’t really expected any. They could see a zombie onboard.