John Ringo - Under a Graveyard Sky

“Empty rafts,” Sophia said. “What happened? Who knows. Rafts with zombies and bits of the rest of the crew. Lifeboats with corpses and one zombie. Or even that’s dead. Just putrid bits of meat and intestines all over the fucking place…” She took another hit of the scotch and breathed it through her nose. “So I’m fifteen and I’m shooting for cirrhosis of the liver by thirty. Sue me. We earn this.”

* * *

“We barely touched the Grace’s tanks,” Isham said, looking at the computer. “I mean, the Alpha took them down but less than a quarter. There’s three times a fill-up for the Alpha in Grace’s tanks and the Alpha wasn’t dry. And we’ve filled the Large . I figured with the Coasties on it, they weren’t going to up and run off with it.”

“We were just preparing for a supply run when the word broke about the plague,” Victor Gilbert, First Mate of the Offshore Support Vessel M/V Grace Tan said. “We sort of packed along our…” He stopped and his face worked. “We packed along our families. Just a little…cruise…”

“Mr. Gilbert,” Steve said, handing him a glass dark with whiskey. “The same thing would have happened if they were on land.”

“Yeah,” Gilbert said, taking a drink. “But I wouldn’t have had to watch my wife and kids turn. You know?”

“I’m one of the few who doesn’t,” Steve admitted, shrugging. “Luck. Planning.”

“Bloody-mindedness,” Isham said.

“That as well,” Steve said. “Issues?

“No,” Isham said. “Just keeping it in mind.”

“So I ended up in the compartment with Stella, Larry Ashley’s wife and… Christ, Luis is Jeff Busler’s kid. Jeff was the deck boss. Larry was maintenance. And Sharon, she’s Chad Wilborn’s daughter, and Rich, he’s Sherri and Bob Tilley’s son, Sherri was the systems tech. Nobody has anybody…”

“No,” Steve said, “You all have each other. Captain Gilbert, those are the only children except Tina we’ve found. Alive anyway. This plague may or may not have wiped out civilization, but it has wiped out an entire generation.”

“Yeah, but there seems to be a new one on the way,” Isham said, chuckling.

“Pardon?” Gilbert said.

“Ahem,” Steve said. “I’m not going to pry, but I suspect Stella is pregnant?”

“How’d you…” Gilbert said, his eyes flaring. “Look…!”

“No worries, mate,” Steve said, shaking his head. “Just about every woman who was in a compartment with a man is pregnant. And we can usually sort out the rapes from the other.”

“Vic,” Isham said to the still visibly upset captain. “Take a deep breath. What Steve is saying is that it’s how things are, now. Part of the new now. Hell, there’s even a meme.”

“Meme?” Gilbert said. “Like LOLKatz or something?”

“Sort of,” Steve said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if someone hasn’t photoshopped it onto a picture of a pregnant woman. The saying is ‘What happened in the compartment, stays in the compartment.’ Goes two ways. There’s stuff that happens that you’re really ashamed of. On boats, in compartments. Having to kill somebody who turned.”

“Or, hell,” Isham said, “There’s one boat where there was a death that people just don’t talk about. It came out slow, they sort of hemmed and hawed…”

“And the response is, what happened in the compartment, stays in the compartment,” Steve said. “If there’s a complaint, we investigate it. To the extent we can. But… Stella hasn’t even hinted it was rape…”

“It wasn’t, honest,” Gilbert said, holding up his hands. “Hell, it just sort of…”

“You can talk about it if you want,” Steve said, shrugging. “Or keep it in the compartment. But you don’t have to be guilty about it. Yes, her husband was recently dead. So was your wife. The ‘right’ way, even if you’d liked each other before, was to ‘wait a decent period.’ You were alone in a compartment with nothing else to do and death all around you.”

“Except the kids in this case,” Isham said.

“We waited til they were asleep and did it real quiet,” Gilbert said. “Sue me.”

“Again and again if necessary,” Steve said. “ No worries . One of the women from a liferaft, the man with her had to kill her husband when he turned. And she’s pregnant and they’re a couple. Humans adjust to the incredible. The survivors do. And one of the ways we adjust is things like ‘What happened in the compartment, stays in the compartment.’ Nobody but the people in the compartment, life raft, what have you, can really judge. It is one of the reasons that people in unusual jobs are given different courts than common citizens. Seamen have their own courts. Military. Because there is a reality to ‘You weren’t there. You can’t know. You can’t understand.’”

“And then there’s the prison thing,” Isham said, smirking.

“Prison thing…” Gilbert said, then grimaced.

“What happened in the compartment,” Steve said.

“Stays in the compartment,” Gilbert said. “Got it.”

“So, seriously, no issues,” Steve said. “The real issue is that while we’re starting to find some professionals, most of our crews are not professional seamen. Most of our captains are not professional seamen. And we have a real, critical, shortage of engineering personnel. Even mechanics. So when something breaks on a boat, the crews are generally stuck. And although most of them have been through storms, it’s mostly been stuck in compartments or puking up their guts and holding on for dear life in lifeboats and rafts.”

“No storms while you’ve been doing this?” Gilbert asked.

“Nothing serious,” Steve said, shrugging. “High summer and we’ve only had one tropical come up this way. That was before we started clearing and it was only a storm by the time it got here.”

“I remember that one,” Gilbert said.

“Me too,” Isham said.

“So we’re going to have to move,” Steve said.

“Move?” Isham said. “Why? We’ve got a good harbor here.”

“You’ve got Bermuda harbor,” Gilbert said. “Which is an okay harbor. You get hit by a really hard late season, I’m-going-to-rip-you-a-new-asshole hurricane, this is not the harbor you want to be in.”

“And with the ships, absent a truly excellent harbor, it’s better to be at sea,” Steve said. “If you’ve got the right crew. Which we don’t. And the small craft… There’s a reason they call it a ‘small craft advisory.’ Between the late season hurricanes that we’re going to get soon and the diurnals and winter storms… I’m thinking Canary Islands?”

“Good choice,” Gilbert said, nodding. “We’re going to have to fuel. I mean, the Grace has plenty for herself and could probably enough for a while for the small boats. But not to constantly refuel the Alpha .”

“Could you tow a full sized tanker?” Steve asked.

“Yes,” Gilbert said. “But I’d need a tow crew who knew what they were doing.”

“How about a guy who knows what he is doing and some people willing to learn?” Steve said, grinning. “Because that is the best you are going to get for any job in this flotilla.”

“What fun what fun,” Gilbert said, grimacing. “In that case, I can try. But I’ll be perfectly content to cut it loose.”

“Works,” Steve said. “ I think we’re going to have to leave the Vicky . I really should have gotten Mike in on this. But you’ve got quite a few accommodations from what I saw.”

“We could have carried a lot more people than we did,” Gilbert said, then sighed. “I don’t think that would have been a good idea.”