John Ringo - Islands of Rage and Hope

“I know,” Athena said, her face working. “And I don’t know…I don’t…” She twitched and grabbed her left arm with her right hand, trying to quell a sudden muscle spasm. “I don’t… NO! No… Please …”

“Sweet merciful…” Anna said, backing away fast. “ATHENA’S TURNING!”

When they had the group’s leader pinned down, Anna slipped a rope around her friend’s neck and gave herself more rope burns.

“Julianna, you’re in charge, now,” Anna said when Athena’s body had been added to the pile. Even through double tarps the pile stunk and was covered in flies.

“I think you’re in charge, kid,” Sarah said sarcastically.

“I have one job in this room, Sarah,” Anna said, turning to the starlet and staring at her with blank, dead, eyes. “Do not require my services.”

“Saint Barthelemy,” Faith said, pointing to the satellite image. It was hazy due to cloud cover and thus there was a secondary map up. “It is generally called St. Barts. Main town and capital is Gustavia. French island, sort of. Usual history, got passed around in wars, in this case for a while to Sweden…”

The gunny had already taken training in hand and things were starting to shake down. She still wasn’t happy with so many of the Gitmo Marines in squad leader positions but she was going to let the gunny and the colonel argue over that.

“That’s why the capital has a Swedish name, oorah? Pre-Plague population estimate was seventy-three hundred but it had a lot of tourists. Those were mostly in the winter so we don’t know how many, exactly, were on the island when the Plague hit. Harbor is a really nice U shape in Gustavia. Town sort of hooks around it. If it was bigger it would be an awesome harbor for big boats but only the yachts are going to be able to fit into it. Cargo pier is over here…” she said, pointing to the north of the main harbor.

“If we hook off the Grace that will be the landing point. This peninsula…” she continued, pointing to the west side of the main harbor, “has a military base for the local police. But it’s occasionally used by visiting French forces. Satellite imagery has detected possible survivors here, here, here and at the military base. Recommend gunboats here, at this unnamed beach north, at this beach by the cargo pier, Shell Beach, south of Gustavia, Anse du Governeur , which is ‘Governor’s Cove.’ Last division here, in the harbor, firing up this boat launch.

“After clearance fire, have the division by the boat launch, whichever is chosen, move over to support landing here on the tip of the peninsula. We can sweep the town and the military base on foot, then link up with the Grace to offload the five-tons, if we choose to do so. This town doesn’t have a medical school, there’s no really big hospital and the only reason we’re really clearing it is it’s on the way to the other objectives. Up to command if you want to do a thorough clear. Those are my recommendations, sir.”

“Why the peninsula?” Hamilton asked. “Rather than the cargo pier?”

“If we don’t get a really good clearance, the infected are going to have a hard time figuring out how to get over to the peninsula, sir,” Faith said. “Sort of narrows their approach, sir. We can pull out any time pretty easy. And it’s close to the military base, which seems to have some survivors, sir. From the looks of the pier we may be able to offload from the Grace there. It may be tight, though, but it’s possibly doable. Worse comes to worst, we pull the survivors at the police station and shift by boat to the cargo pier.”

“Concur,” Hamilton said. “Lieutenant Commander Chen, Navy side.”

“Ensign?” Chen replied.

“The main issue with the approach is reefs and shoals, sir,” Sophia said. “Also wrecks. We’ve dealt with those before but this place is a whole nother order of crazy. The approach to the harbor has several small islands in the way and their reefs and shoals are very extensive. Then on the satellite it appears there’s a large vessel, possibly an island support ship or a megayacht, overturned in the harbor entrance. It’s hard to tell on the satellite but it looks as if the harbor is littered with sunk boats. We’ll need to be very careful with navigation on the approach and we should make that very clear, and why, to all captains. The other firing points are actually clearer than the harbor approach. Stay away from the capes and you’re good.”

“Gunnery Sergeant Sands,” Hamilton said. “Status of the Marine landing party?”

“They’re still not up to the standards I’d prefer, sir,” Sands said. “But they should be able to handle a simple vehicle level sweep, especially from open five-tons. I’m mostly uncomfortable with the lieutenant’s choice to go ground mount and sweep for the initial landing. They’re getting less skittish about infected, but it’s still a toss-up if they will maintain fire discipline. I will be accompanying the landing, sir.”

“Are you recommending against the peninsula landing?” Hamilton asked.

“No, sir,” Gunny Sands said. “I’m going to be all over them the whole time we’re on the ground, sir. We won’t have a repeat of the incident at the medical school, sir.”

“Lieutenant,” Hamilton said. “I want you and the gunny to coordinate closely on how far you’re going to do the ground sweep. Recover the survivors from the police base, then determine if you’re going to sweep to the pier or shift. But I want you to discuss it. Issues?”

“No, sir,” Faith barked.

“I want the full operations order on my desk by thirteen hundred,” Hamilton said. “Good brief.”

“Mission…blow the fuck out of a bunch of infected and rescue survivors…No, won’t fly…” Faith said, biting her lip as she slowly typed with two fingers. “E… Expectations? No, Environment? C-O-M-E…? No, shit, it’s…P-O-M-E? Why the fuck does the U.S. Marine Corps use Aussie slang…?”

“Pretty,” Sophia said as they approached the island.

Saint Barthelemy was a volcanic island with lush vegetation. The main town, Gustavia, and the surrounding hills were packed with houses of all sizes, most sporting red-tile roofs. Once a destination for the “rich and famous” of Europe, it had obviously suffered from the secondary effects of the Plague. Many of the houses were burned out and the numerous cliffs and reefs that surrounded it were littered with boats of every size. And it wasn’t just the shore. There were sunk boats all over the place . The “rich and famous” had had a lot of boats.

Sophia had the Bella anchored with the rest of the force well off-shore to the west of Les Gros Islets. She was making her way in in a Zodiac piloted by Olga and carefully checking the soundings.

“Nope,” she said, looking back over the side into the clear water. There was a wooden sailboat, about sixty feet, sunk and turned on its side in the channel. Partially unfurled sails were flapping in the light tide. There was a school of medium sized fish using the boat for cover. “I’m not sure we can get the Grace in here without doing actual salvage and raising some of this.”

“So what are we going to do?” Olga asked.

“Change the plan, I guess,” Sophia said. “We’ve got to find a way to get the gunboats in at least. And we’ll have to check each of the approaches. This is going to take time.”

“Now is when we could use a helicopter, sir,” Lieutenant Commander Chen said. “Much of this wasn’t apparent on the satellite due to cloud cover.”