John Ringo - Under a Graveyard Sky

Faith came up with a zombie on her back and shrugged it off, spinning in place with the kukhri and cutting its throat as she fired her.45 into the back of one grabbing her waist.

“I AM SICK AND TIRED OF THESE MOTHERFUCKING ZOMBIES ON THIS MOTHERFUCKING…” she screamed at the top of her lungs.

Hocieniec cleared the railing and finally saw what was going on. He clearly was frozen trying to figure out what to do, pull zombies off Faith or engage the ones still closing. Faith swung the Halligan tool, jamming the claw-hammer into a zombie’s skull, then overbalanced and went down again.

“GET THE OTHERS,” Sophia boomed. “FAITH’S DOING FINE.”

* * *

Bradburn waved a finger at the periscope repeater.

“COB.”

“Sir?”

“Remind me never to piss that young lady off.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Dibs on direct commission.”

Lieutenant Colonel Justin Pierre had been missing meetings due to a recurrence of, of all things, malaria. He’d picked it up in Afghanistan. Doctors at Walter Reed thought they’d gotten out every trace with a new drug regime but it turned out they were, well, wrong. Which hadn’t been spotted before he was put on this assignment or he’d never have had it. In fact, malaria was now one of those things that was ground for medical retirement. Or, possibly, a letter of reprimand since you were supposed to take prophylaxis medication.

Colonel Pierre had not been lax in his use of prophylaxis medication. He had ended up way in the back of nowhere and cut off for about thirty days until he could E &E to friendly lines. Unlike the SEALs who had ended up in a similar situation, his team had never made the news. Probably because he had managed to extract all of them without any deaths. Wounded, yes, but they had an 18 Delta with them. Regular medics and corpsmen were trained to stabilize a patient until they could be evacuated. Special Forces medics were trained to heal people. They admitted they were not doctors, nor anywhere close, but Sergeant Ford had gone above and beyond.

However, they were planning for a seven day mission. Not thirty. All of them had gotten malaria.

But he was back in the saddle and determined to get that girl as a commissioned officer in the United States Army.

“I’ll throw in submitting a Memo for Record to the CJCS that they waive normal restrictions against women attending advanced combat schools, set up a quicky Q course and automatically pass her.”

“She’s thirteen, Colonel,” Brice said, drily.

“I think the youngest officer the U.S. Army ever commissioned was fifteen,” Pierre said. “ I can gin up a recommendation to the Joint Chiefs that given current global conditions we can waiver some people.”

“That’s a lot of waivers, Colonel,” Freeman said. “Besides, I think all things considered, she’s more the SEAL type.”

“Got any available SEAL instructors?” Pierre said. “I’m a qualified Q course instructor.”

“Actually I was thinking Marines,” Mr. Galloway said. “Colonel Ellington. I now have a better appreciation for your paladin in hell metaphor.”

Galloway looked over at Ellington and saw that the colonel’s face was covered in tears.

“Colonel?” Galloway said, carefully.

“She reminds me of my wife, sir,” the colonel said. “She was a lieutenant in the MPs when we met.”

“I am…” Galloway said. There was an unspoken rule against speaking about family. At least in these sort of circumstances. “Sorry. I hope to have the opportunity to meet her someday.”

“That would be difficult, sir,” Ellington said. “She was killed in Iraq. Long before this…debacle. Suicide bomber. I was standing about ten feet from her. Facing her, sir. They…picked parts of her out of my face at Walter Reed, sir.” He pointed to an odd bump on his face. “Then again, parts of her are still with me, sir. They believe it is a portion of a tooth. My wife had beautiful teeth.”

“Holy fuck, Ellington,” Brice whispered. “That wasn’t in your service report. Just that you’d been hit by an IED in Iraq.”

“That was personal rather than professional,” Ellington said with a shrug. “She essentially shielded me from the blast. I survived. She did not. It was tough, but we’d arranged to be on the same team, doing analysis of the Iraqi WMD program. She was commanding the security team. She was always…” His face tightened and he breathed hard.

“I am a Marine officer. I am versed in combat. But she was the warrior , sir, General. I was, am, a geek. I can fight. I have proven that. I have direct combat action in Iraq. But she was the warrior of us, Mr. Under Secretary, General Brice. She was our warrior half. Colonel Pierre, my wife was an Army officer. I would not prevent that young lady’s career in the Marines in any way. She would make a fine Marine. I would also not be upset if she chose the Army. Some Marines might. But I have known the warrior women of the Army and they are fine warriors. Honorable and courageous warriors, all.”

“Thank you, Colonel,” Pierre said. “I wish I had met her in my career. Mr. Under Secretary, a serious suggestion?”

“Yes?” Galloway said.

“I would recommend that a recording of this be downloaded to all the still in contact submarines,” Pierre said. “There is damned little, currently, to build morale. Perhaps put it together with earlier bits such as Miss Smith’s response to her father’s question about back-up plans.”

“That, Colonel, is a really sensible suggestion,” Galloway said. “Commander, can we do that bandwidth wise?”

“Not an issue, sir,” Freeman said. “And, yes, I’d agree it’s an excellent idea. It sure as hell raised my morale.”

“Let’s hope her father is as heartened,” General Brice said. “I’m betting he hits the roof.”

* * *

“You okay, Faith?” Steve said, clearing the landing ladder. You couldn’t walk on the deck for all the bodies. He literally had to jump into an open ribcage to get off the ladder. When he’d gotten into contact with Sophia she’d been really noncommittal about how things were going. “Faith’s still there. No bites.” Now he knew why.

“No worries, Da,” Faith said, shrugging. She was absolutely covered in blood. “Fair dinkum scrum. Hooch handled it just fine.”

Hocieniec’s gear, while blood-splattered, was splattered , not covered . For that matter, parts of Faith’s heavy battle gear were torn . There were teeth marks everywhere. And she had some knives missing from their sheathes. And her machete was on the deck, bent. And her Halligan tool had matted brain matter and hair on it. It was long and blond and for a second Steve wondered if she’d somehow ripped some of her own hair out with it. Except hers was thoroughly covered by her gear.

“Trixie got a little messed up,” Faith said, reaching back to pat the teddy bear. “Trixie’s going to need a nice hot bath after this, isn’t she? Trixie says she got a little frightened but she’ll be okay. She shut her eyes during the bad parts.”

Steve had seen enough zombies dead from wounds at this point for a twenty-year career. And he knew wounds even before this apocalypse. Zombies were cut, smashed, bashed in heads, all the shot wounds had speckling around them from close or direct contact shots. Angles were insane on some of them. Shots down into the shoulder, which could only be done from…

“Okay,” he said. “No worries. Thanks for holding the high ground. You need to take a breather for a bit?”

“What I need to do is ammo up,” Faith said. “But I think most of my mags are so…messed up that they sort of need to be cleaned first. And I’m down to less than one mag of Saiga.”