John Ringo - Under a Graveyard Sky

“We got a resupply of two hundred rounds of shotgun,” Steve said, grimacing. “That was all that was in the ready locker or found scattered onboard. There’s a magazine but it’s apparently a vault. And nobody can find the keys. And since it’s a magazine…”

“You can’t exactly cut it open with a blow torch,” Fontana said.

“There’s a team looking for the keys at the moment,” Steve said. “According to what I got, there should be two thousand more rounds of twelve gauge in there. Another reason to use the rifles whenever possible. We have, also, a limited amount of seven six two but we’re currently better on that than on shotgun. So when it’s possible, Sergeant Fontana will take the shot. Please make sure that all rounds go into the target.”

“I will,” Fontana said. “But you get bouncers from shotgun as well.”

“They tend to be caught by the body armor,” Steve said. “And the spots not covered by armor that are likely to kill us are small. With the exception of the face, of course. Which is why in addition to all the other stuff we’re carrying, we’re going to be adding ballistic face shields. The Campbell had six onboard. They’ve already been mounted to the helmets.

“Kuzma has set up a fresh-water decontamination shower on the lifeboat deck, forward. If we get as bloodied up as we did yesterday, Faith, we’ll run through that. There’s also a forward support post set up with food, water and ammo, and we can drop back to it and take a break. One thing we’re going to have to look for is a forward point that we can set up as a permanent secure point on the Voyage. Not too big, not too small, some exterior light and most of all secure.”

“That’s all I’ve got for now. Let’s eat.”

* * *

“Just sip,” the lady said, putting a straw to his lips. “It’s chicken broth…”

Rusty still could barely do that. He was feeling better. Not human but all the water they’d been pumping through him was helping. He still could barely lift his arms.

“Thank you,” he said, leaning back on the pillows when the small cup of broth was down. He was so far gone, he actually felt full. “Are you a nurse? And where…?”

“Okay, first of all, you’re on a support ship called the Grace Tan ,” the lady said. “I’m Amanda. No, I’m not a nurse. We’ve only got one nurse survivor and she’s organizing this. I’m a survivor like you. I was on a lifeboat. I was on the Voyage , too. The way things worked out… I’m glad I made it to the lifeboat. But a lot of those…” She shook her head.

“So… Is it the Navy or…?” Rusty asked.

“It’s a long story,” Amanda said, smiling. “If you feel you’re up to some reading, they’ve made a little pamphlet…”

* * *

“I can’t believe we’re trying to unrep from a cruise liner,” Gardner said.

Unrep, or “underway replenishment,” was a tricky business in the best of times and circumstances. The basic idea was to create sort of zip-lines between two ships and slide stuff back and forth. Simple on land. Two rocky points tended to stay reasonably the same distance apart down to the subatomic level. Ships, however, did not. So what usually happened was that your package, be it ammunition or food or toilet paper or, God help them, people, tended, if the ships closed, to go into the drink, or if they separated, be flung upwards at a high rate of speed. In extreme circumstances the package could fail to choose between being crushed as the too-close following ships collided or being flung upwards, the rope part and go flying into the far distance.

One unfortunate, and extremely disliked, lieutenant commander in the Navy in the 1960s had all four happen on a single attempt at moving between a destroyer and a carrier. The lieutenant commander was first dunked, then popped back out rapidly enough to thoroughly dry the ropes as they hyperextended. This, of course, had the effect of bouncing him up and down like a tightened rubber band. He was then dunked, again, repopped at which point the carry line parted, throwing the unfortunate officer upwards in a ballistic arc. The lieutenant at the conn of the destroyer panicked, ordered a radical course correction to starboard, towards the carrier, just as the officer landed in the water between the two vessels, which promptly collided. The lieutenant commander was assumed to have been crushed as his body was never found. The irony that the lieutenant commander, the carrier vessel battle group’s inspector general, had just written a scathing report on the conn training of the officers of the destroyer was not lost on the incident report board.

Thereafter the Navy went to all helo or boat transfers for personnel at sea.

* * *

“You know we just hit the four hundred mark?” Steve said, keying the double doors.

“Four hundred days?” Fontana asked, popping the hatch with the Halligan and moving back.

“Four hundred people,” Steve said. “Four hundred known survivors of humanity. Plus the Hole and CDC and whoever they’re in contact with.”

“Holy crap,” Faith said softly.

“I know it’s not a lot,” Steve said, shining his taclight around the cavernous room. A zombie in the distance growled, then howled. It couldn’t even be seen, but it alerted others who stumbled to their feet and headed to the lights. “But we’re getting there. Back to defense positions.”

“Not that,” Faith said, taking up her position behind a counter. “That room. What was it?”

“Casino I think,” Fontana said. He began slow aimed fire at the blinded zombies stumbling through the door. He already had four magazines laid out on the counter.

“It’s huge ,” Faith said, sticking a finger in her ear to cut down on the cracks from the AK.

“Should have seen the ones in Vegas,” Fontana said.

“Maybe someday,” Faith said. “When I’m, like, ninety. Zombie clearance, Vegas.”

“Resident Evil: The Cruise Ship. You can see the game, right?” Hooch said.

“I think we’re playing it,” Steve pointed out.

* * *

“How come when I’m shooting, my ears don’t ring?” Faith asked, tagging a zombie in the chest as it tried to figure out how to get around a roulette table with a Surefire in its eyes. “The beauty of this ride ahead…” Tap, tap…

The zombies were having trouble with the complex layout of the casinos. Casinos were designed to get people to change directions so they’d go “Oooo…I bet I can win that game!” The zombies could see the lights, they just couldn’t figure out how to get to them. Then, all of a sudden, they would. For that matter, it wasn’t always clear where the open areas, or the zombies, were to the clearers.

Clearing them out was a painstaking process of zombies howling and thrashing in the darkness. When they could, they took them at range.

Faith had had to break out the kukhri. Twice.

“Aural damping,” Fontana said.

“Checking right,” she said, shining the light around the other side of the roulette table. For some reason, the chewed up people just weren’t horrible anymore. She could even slide her eyes right over the kids. “There’s an answer? I was sort of asking one of those rectangular questions.”

“Rhetorical,” Fontana said, chuckling. “Clear left. Clearish. I think we’re going to have to sweep and resweep.”

“Works for me,” Faith said. “Hang on, stumbler coming around my side.” She took the shot. She’d stopped double tapping to conserve ammunition but the.45 round was usually good enough with one shot. It didn’t kill the zombies immediately, but they bled out pretty quickly. “Reloading. Hang on. Da?” she said, over the radio.