John Ringo - Islands of Rage and Hope

“All to the good,” Steve said. “The truth is, no children, no future. Not for a civilization enshrining the notion of the Rights of Man and all the rest. In which case there is no damned point to any of this.”

“I hate to stick my nose in,” Walker said.

“Mr. ‘Walker,’” Steve said drily, “you can and should any time you’d like. I’ve yet to hear anything come out of your mouth that wasn’t on point.”

“Has any thought be given to the aftermath?” Walker asked, smiling slightly. “Babies require various support materials if they are going to grow properly. Among other things, not all mothers provide adequate milk. And post weaning, they’ll need adequate food and vitamins. Study I read somewhere indicated that high survival rates in the toddler years didn’t really start until we developed lactose tolerance and started milking cows. Then there’s the whole ‘diapers’ issue.”

“The answer is ‘Thought had been given,’” Steve said. “There also was little in the way of answers until you and my daughter saved the day.”

“How did we save the day?” Walker asked.

“The Paul Osted ,” Steve said. “It was loaded with supplies for various small ports in Africa. A lot of the stuff is useless to us, of course. But there were, in fact, several containers containing baby ‘stuff.’ At least according to the manifest. Notably dried formula and vitamins. And, glory be, there were even two containers of condensed milk. If all else fails, there’s always wet nurses. Diapers. That’s going to have to be the old-fashioned way. Cloth we have. Pins we have. Rubber pants, not so much. The sewing shop is cutting up a bunch of rain-gear we found to make some. Probably not enough. The big problem is that we have to send out the small boat squadron on this sweep. Which will probably push them up into ‘we’re dropping babies’ time. And a third of the crews are pregnant women.”

“I noticed,” Walker said. “We’ve pulled most of the ones that have been showing signs of at-risk pregnancy off of deployable status. That doesn’t mean we won’t have problems.”

“Understood,” Steve said. “One of the reasons to send you with the sweep.”

“Unfortunately, that means I’ll be working off the Grace Tan ,” Walker said. “So I won’t have the pleasure of your daughter’s company.”

“You’re not going to be spread out this time,” Steve said. “Have all your serious kit in the Grace Tan ’s sick bay and use the Bella as your moving boat for checking up on the ladies of the float. Think of it as housecalls. Boat calls at least. Did you know that was one of Sophia’s potential careers?”

“Pregnant?” Fontana said.

“She wanted to be a doctor,” Steve said. “I’d gotten quite comfortable teaching school. One of the points, between us, to this whole program is that I sincerely doubt that the bastard who did this died in the Plague. He was going to have a vaccine. He’s probably holed up somewhere laughing at the mess he’s created. Someday, someone will find him.”

“Oh, let it be me,” Fontana said. “Please.”

“I really can’t think of anything that is worth doing to him that is also worth violating the Constitution,” Walker said. “There is literally no sufficient torture ever invented by man on Earth. If we do find him, I’d just put a bullet in his head and go on with trying to repair the damage. Hope there is a hell.”

“More or less my thought as well,” Steve said.

“Lieutenant?” a lady in a nurse’s uniform said, walking up. More like waddling. “Mr. Walker…we’ve got another emergency patient.”

“And I need to get back to work as well,” Steve said. “Good luck.”

“How’s it going, Sergeant Smith?” Faith said, stepping out of the Humvee.

She’d made it a habit to check on the progress of the sweep at least once each day. Colonel Hamilton had counseled her that it was primarily an NCO job and had her working her butt off on plans for the island hopping operation. But they were her people and the colonel agreed that she had to show her face from time to time.

“Just fine, ma’am,” Smitty said, saluting. Faith returned it and he continued setting an M4 in the bed of a civilian pickup truck. It was the best vehicle for their purposes. He tossed the spent magazine that had been in the well into a five gallon bucket. There were others for any remaining ammo.

So far there hadn’t been any complications at all. The gunboats and their sweeps had apparently killed the vast majority of the remaining infected. Occasionally one would turn up but the sweep teams were armed.

Not so much the body recovery teams. There was one of those in the distance walking next to a front-end loader. They were accompanied by a Navy master-at-arms who was armed. Also keeping them in front of him. As she watched, they stopped and picked up the pieces of what had once been a member of the base, tossing them into the bucket of the front-end loader.

“Every day’s a holiday and every meal’s a banquet,” Faith responded.

“Every day I’m not trapped in a compartment is a good day, ma’am,” Smitty said, grinning. “And at least it ain’t August. I hear it gets a bit hot here then. How’ve you been, if I may ask, ma’am?”

“I hear there are people who adore paperwork,” Faith said. “Sophia kind of likes it. Me, not so much. And apparently that’s what officers are for; doing paperwork. Nobody told me that when I took the oath. I’m sort of feeling screwed.” She grinned to show it was a joke.

“We’ve got a float coming up, ma’am,” Sergeant Smith said. “That should take care of some of it.”

“Yep,” Faith said. “Islands to clear, zombies to kill, people to save. My kind of party. You seen Staff Sergeant Barnard?”

“She’s up by Corinaso Point, ma’am,” Smitty said.

“Well, I guess I need to go to Corinaso Point, then,” Faith said. “Take care, Smitty.”

“Will do, ma’am,” Smitty said.

“So that’s the LT?” Lance Corporal Robert “Bubba” Freeman said.

“That is Shewolf,” Smitty said. “I think she got the word she was supposed to act more like an officer or something. Or she’d be down here pitching weapons with the rest of us.”

“No disrespect intended, Sergeant,” LCP Freeman said. “I just have a hard time with…I mean you and the rest of the Iwo Marines have talked about her, but…”

“Do not let Shewolf fool you,” PFC Kirby said. “She is one absolute badass. Forget the video. You gotta see her in action for it to make any sense.”

“She’s not all that hot at long-range,” Smith said. “Zombie gets within fifty meters of her and zap it’s gone. We’re all good. With Shewolf it’s like breathing. None of which matters. She is, yeah, our platoon leader and a Marine officer and you show her that respect. Trust me, when you’ve worked with her for a while you won’t just show her respect. You’ll want to have her babies.”

“Staff Sergeant,” Faith said, getting out of the Humvee. She kept wondering when she was going to get driving lessons. But officers got drivers so, so far, it was all good.

“Ma’am,” Barnard said, saluting.

“We need to get this operation terminated by thirteen hundred,” Faith said, returning the salute. “Which means all vehicles back at the pier? The stuff that hasn’t been sorted and prepped we’re now going to do on the boats. So all that has to be prepped this evening for loading. And I want a one hundred percent inspection of all gear before lights out. Most of our load-out is being handled by Navy: ammo and suchlike, okay? But the teams need to get their gear prepped for the float. If there’s anything that needs to be DXed, better we do it here which means tonight, okay? Load-out starts at zero five tomorrow morning which means first call at zero three. I convinced the colonel we could use the extra couple hours. If it takes all night, well, it’s a sixteen-hour float to Anguilla and we don’t have anything to do the first night, okay?”