To Sail a Darkling Sea - eARC Read online

  “Thank you, Faith,” Steve said. “I had a broader reason but that’s a good point.”

  “Just here to be helpful,” Faith said, banging on the bulkhead. “Anybody hooome… ?”

  * * *

  “No Tan Lines?” Steve said, trying not to snort.

  “Oh, my God,” Faith said, gleefully. “That is so you, Soph!”

  After the continuous nightmare of clearing the Voyage, Steve decided that there was only so much any one person could do. Not to mention he rarely got to see his kids who were still growing up. Okay, he probably saw too much of Faith. But the same could not be said of Sophia.

  So while they were around he tried to have a family dinner, just the four of them, at least once a week. They were the only intact family in the Squadron. They might as well make the most of it.

  “All it takes to change it is some paint and a good hand,” Stacey pointed out.

  “You know, we talked about it and decided to keep the name,” Sophia said, spooning up the ikan santen. Da’s one real “perk” as the boss was that he had one of the better cooks they’d found. Sari was a real find. She’d had it as hard as anyone, harder than some, but she just sailed along. She didn’t talk much about when the Alpha was in the hands of its “security contingent.” The security, a group called Socorro Security run by a former SF major Fontana knew, and loathed, was one of the last, and worst, decisions Mike Mickerberg ever made. Dad had boiled it down to: If you have to use mercenaries, choose wisely. Socorro Security had not been a wise choice.

  “That was somebody’s pride and joy. It’s a nice boat. Changing the name would be sort of dissing the dead. So we’ll keep it.”

  “I’m sure you’ll… overcome it?” her mom said.

  “Actually, Mom,” Sophia said. “Hate to tell you this but I don’t have much in the way of tan lines.”

  “How’s your new security guy?” Steve said, to fill in the gap in the conversation.

  “I think he’ll do,” Sophia said, shrugging. “And if not, I’ll find another. He’s no Fontana. No real training. But he says he grew up with guns. Redneck, you know? I gave him a pistol and he knew which way the magazine went in. I had to explain that on my boat, you had better clear every single time. I’ll make sure he stays safe. Best I can do for now.”

  “We haven’t found any survivors, yet,” Steve said. “But it’s early days and the areas we’re checking we weren’t really expecting any.”

  “I hope they’re in… ” Stacey said then glanced at Faith.

  “Better condition than the ones we found on the Voyage?” Faith said. “Me too. And when we don’t get any response, I haven’t been checking the compartments. Hooch has, which is sort of… ”

  “He’s handling it,” Steve said. “What do you think about the trip south, Soph?”

  “Looking forward to it,” Sophia said. “I want to get back to nautical, you know? Do some fishing, do some rescuing. Clear some boats.”

  “You’re going to need a better, and bigger, base than the Large eventually,” Steve said. “Keep an eye out for something. If it’s too big for your group to clear, we’ll send down a team. Hopefully, anyway. Assuming there’s anything to find.”

  The problem with distress beacons was that they lasted a far shorter time than humans could. With a solar still, a fishing line or spear gun and some luck, people could survive a long time on rafts or lifeboats. One guy in the ’80s had drifted across almost the entire Atlantic in a life raft. Some lifeboats had solar powered distress beacons. But their range was short. And boats’ and ships’ distress signals stopped when their batteries ran out. It was mostly a matter of “Mark One Eyeball” finding the boats these days.

  “There’ll be stuff,” Sophia said. “There always is. I’m not sure about survivors. I’m sort of going to miss the tuna tower on the Endeavor. It was good for spotting stuff. The new one is lower even though it’s a fishing boat, too.”

  “ ‘Oh, I just get a pleasure yacht.’” Faith mimicked. “All I get is a ton of stuff and a Barbie gun!”

  “Faith ...”

  So maybe a family dinner wasn’t the best idea…

  * * *

  “Oh, yes,” Sophia said, pulling away from the cluster of craft around the Iwo Jima. They hadn’t managed to sneak quite all of the Endeavor’s “special stocks” over to the new boat, but they’d gotten a lot of them. And she wasn’t having to ferry stuff back and forth from the Alpha or Grace anymore. “The freedom of the open sea… ”

  “Kuzma Flotilla, form line astern of Vessel One,” Kuzma called. “And when I say, ‘form line,’ I mean something resembling an actual line.”

  “You were saying?” Paula asked.

  “Son of a bitch… ”

  * * *

  “Son of a bitch,” the sailor said, covering his eyes.

  “I told you to cover your eyes and not open the hatch all the way up,” Fontana said, tossing a chemlight into the compartment. “That will give your eyes some time to adjust. How many in your compartment?”

  “Four,” the Petty Officer said. “Left.”

  “Here’s four pairs of sunglasses,” Fontana said. “Put them on when we come back.”

  “You Coast Guard?”

  “No. Nor Navy, Marines or Sea Scouts. Wolf Squadron. I’m Special Forces, she’s some sort of psycho anime chick come to life… ”

  “Hey!”

  “Long story… ”

  * * *

  “I’m up for a threesome if anybody’s interested… ?”

  When you were so bored and tired of being in a compartment with people you no longer could stand that you couldn’t even get a flicker out of Mister Willy at a suggestion like that, you knew it was bad. And he was out of Copenhagen. Bad on toast.

  Turned out that Gowen had never had group sex. Group sex hadn’t been what Januscheitis had actually suggested but the idea got floated about two weeks after their little discussion. After the first time, she got really into it. By a couple of weeks after that it had been ongoing. There was flat nothing else to do in the compartment. He’d tried reading by the light of his watch and decided that was a bad idea. And he was out of Copenhagen. The senior NCO in the compartment had not been a happy camper for a few days when the Copenhagen ran out.

  He’d maintained PT every day. Some of the guys thought that a go around with Gowen should count. They’d done PT, even Patel the swabbie. So had Gowen even after it was pretty clear she was preggers. How they were going to explain that, he wasn’t sure.

  They’d checked the corridors to see if the zombies had left. On one end the answer was they’d all died of dehydration. Which meant that the watertight doors on the other side were dogged. They’d checked that and run into more zombies. So their perimeter had expanded but that was about it. They’d knocked on a couple of bulkheads and found out there were other survivors in the area. But nobody they could link up with. The zombies held all the intermediate areas.

  They’d used tap code to get a roster and passed their own on. They’d tried to use it to pass information and converse. That had worked for prisoners of war but there was no real point with this situation.

  One of the compartments had run short of water after a short while. They’d tapped about ways to get some to them but they had nothing that could cut through the steel bulkheads. L-4-638 tapped that they drew lots and were going to “terminate” two to conserve water. It was three dudes and a split and the dudes had agreed that she wasn’t in the lottery.

  Semper Fi, dudes. Both of the Marines had “terminated.”

  638 was just about down to the final male swabbie terminating. They were drinking piss mixed with water and everything that anyone could think of to hold out. 642 had dudes slowly scratching through with a crowbar, trying to cut a hole to the compartment. Like their own, 642 had a tap and was below the main fresh water tanks. So far they’d had a steady stream and they were putting more into every ration can they emptied.

  649 was low on food. But
they figured they had about another two months on short rations. 642 had reported that when they were through to 638 they’d try to find a way to 649. Eventually you could cut through steel with a crowbar. They weren’t reporting their progress, though, which didn’t bode well for either compartment.

  “I wouldn’t turn down a blowjob,” PFC Rodas replied.

  “Patel, you’re up,” Derek said.

  “That is getting really old, jarhead,” Seaman Patel snapped.

  “Come here, honey,” Derek said. “If none of these other gentlemen are up to the challenge of satisfying you… ”

  “Freeze,” Smitty said.

  “What?” Gowen said. “Why… ?”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Januscheitis snapped. “Smitty?”

  “Freeze,” the Sergeant replied. “Listen.”

  “Got noth—”

  “I hear it,” Gowen said. “Banging?”

  “So somebody’s banging on a compart—”

  There was the clear echo of a burst of fire in the distance.

  “Threesome hereby terminated,” Januscheitis said, rolling to his feet. “Somebody survived with rounds! Git it on, Marines!”

  “OO-RAH!”

  * * *

  “I think we got customers,” Faith said, listening to the distant banging.

  “Supply areas,” Fontana said. “Makes sense.”

  “Hooch,” Faith said, keying her radio. “We got more customers in Sector L.”

  “Good to hear,” Hooch replied. “We’ve got some in M as well.”

  Rain had blown into some of the open outer hatches. That had, in turn, worked into pools in the upper area corridors, some of them all the way to the coamings. There were dead bodies and shit in most of the water but the zombies drank it anyway. It was amazing what the human body could withstand. Some anyway.

  They’d been following a series of open hatches, finding live zombies all the way down. The surrounding compartments had all failed to respond to banging. Somebody else would have the fun of checking them later.

  “This way,” Fontana said, turning his head from side to side.

  Faith banged on the hatch and was rewarded with the irregular banging, scratching and howling they’d come to associate with zombies.

  “Right about now I’d like a grenade or something,” she said, putting her hand on the hatch’s locking mechanism.

  “Never use a frag on a boat,” Fontana said. “About the only thing I knew about clearing boats before this. Ready?”

  “Hang on,” Faith said, reaching for her iPod. “Or a chainsaw maybe… ”

  * * *

  “Open the hatch,” Januscheitis said.

  “You su—?” Derek said then recalled he was a Marine again. “Aye, aye, Staff Sergeant.”

  They didn’t have much in the way of melee weapons but if the rescuers needed help they were going to give it. Januscheitis figured that it must have been a group like themselves who had somehow held out long enough to access a magazine. And the rescue team’s noise had drawn the infecteds away from hatch 943.

  Derek popped the hatch and Januscheitis went through, crowbar up and at the ready.

  What he had forgotten was that there was little or no way that any rescue group could clear without having lights. Derek popped the hatch at almost exactly the same time as the rescue group opened theirs. He wasn’t even in direct line and the lights had him blinded. They must have been using about fifty tac lights or some sort of super-power spot.

  Then he heard the singing. Everybody heard the singing.

  * * *

  “I’m one with the warrior sign,” Faith caroled. “My dominance can’t be denied! Your entire world will turn into a battlefield tonight!”

  She was taking point, multi-tapping in time with the rhythm and dancing as she backed up from the oncoming infecteds. When she hit the end of the chorus she rolled to the left, popping out her magazine as Fontana took over. After a quick reload, she had taken the back position as Fontana continued to engage the infecteds. When he was out, she took over again. “Come on bring it, you can’t see it… ”

  * * *

  Januscheitis had taken cover behind the hatch at the fire from down corridor but while there were some bouncers from pass-throughs, the fire was remarkably accurate, given that the shooter seemed to be a split with an addiction to Disturbed. What was… disturbing was that the shots were in time to the music. There was a second shooter that took over with what was to his ears really solid timing. He’d tuned his ears to combat in plenty of actions and he caught the very quick reload, in time to the song again but fast. This was an experienced two-person team that had worked together a lot.

  The firing finally settled down and Januscheitis stuck his head back out. The months had really wrecked his eyes but he could sort of pick up, from the singing and the way that the lights were flashing around, that the split had continued to dance after the firefight was over.

  There were lights moving their way, though, and he slit his eyes against them, then covered them entirely.

  “Sorry about her,” a voice said. “Chemlight coming through. Once she starts a song she’s impossible until it’s done. And that wasn’t enough infecteds to run through Warrior. Thank God it wasn’t Citadel or Winterborn. We’d be here all day.”

  “No issues, dude,” Januscheitis said. “Never been gladder to hear fire. Or meet new people. I guess you’re not guys from the Iwo.”

  “One of us is,” the dude said as the split continued to sing. And apparently dance. “Hooch is with the other team. But, no, Wolf Squadron. Volunteer group. Mostly civvies with some odds and sods of others. Staff Sergeant Thomas Fontana, Fifth Special Forces Group. And I was just a castaway myself.”

  “It’s that fucked up?” Januscheitis said.

  “It’s that fucked up. Pretty much totally fucking gone. Chain of command is guys on a radio in the Hole in Omaha. And they’re not moving.”

  “Jesus.”

  “As I stand before you. With a warrior’s heart now. I can feel the strength that will.

  Ensure my victory this tiiiiiiiime… ”

  “Okay,” Fontana said. “I guess we can get going now… ”

  CHAPTER 3

  You cannot exaggerate about the Marines. They are convinced to the point of arrogance, that they are the most ferocious fighters on earth—and the amusing thing about it is that they are.

  Father Kevin Keaney

  1st Marine Division Chaplain

  Korean War

  “Lieutenant, Lieutenant, Staff Sergeant, have a seat,” said “Wolf,” gesturing to the table.

  Januscheitis sort of knew the Marine Lieutenant. He’d been an XO in Charlie. The Navy Lieutenant, equivalent of a Marine Captain, he didn’t know. "

  “Wolf” looked tired. He should, from the little Januscheitis had picked up. He wasn’t sure how big the “Voyage” thing was but from what people had said it was the size of a supercarrier with about as many compartments. And now here the “Commodore” was clearing the Iwo with one Marine, one SF Staff and a thirteen-year-old split. Who, admittedly, was pretty fucking bad-ass.

  “The pamphlet you were given only covers rough details,” Smith said. “And it glosses over a lot of things. The Joint Chiefs is a group of colonels or equivalent and one general… ”

  “Excuse me, sir?” the Navy LT said.

  “You heard me, Lieutenant,” Smith said. “There are probably more senior officers who’ve survived. Somewhere. But the current acting CNO, being someone who is actually in communication and in direct contact with the NCCC, is a commander. Given that our current count on Navy personnel who are not essentially trapped in subs is… ” He consulted a list. “Seventeen, he’s actually overranked. But we are, now, starting to have some semblance of an actual military force, US military at that, and the question of who is legally permitted to give orders has come up. So, I had a talk with the Chiefs and the NCCC and now you are going to have a chat with the Chiefs, or at least the Nav
y commander in the Hole and a sub commander that slightly outranks him. Their decision… surprised me. And not in a good way. But they’ll explain it to you.”

  He turned his laptop around and nodded as he got up.

  “I apparently have to go find a uniform somewhere… ”

  * * *

  “Lieutenant Joseph Pellerin?” the commander on the screen asked. It was split three ways. The person talking was in some sort of meeting room. One of the guys was a civilian, also in a meeting room; one was another Commander with the background of a sub con.

  “Yes, sir,” Pellerin said, cautiously.

  “I’m Commander Louis Freeman. The gentleman in the suit is Under Secretary Frank Galloway, the National Constitutional Continuity Coordinator.”

  “I was formerly the Under Deputy Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Arms Proliferation Control,” Galloway said. “I was number one hundred and twenty-six on the list of potential NCCCs or Acting Presidents.”

  “Hundred and twenty-six?” Januscheitis whispered.

  “Also present is Commander Alan Huskey, skipper of the Florida,” Commander Freeman said. “Although I am, technically, the head of the Navy by various regulations, Commander Huskey has me by date of rank as well as being a boomer commander. I have not yet had a command of any vessel as a Commander. It’s not a split in command in any way. But we thought he should be present.”

  “Yes, sir,” Pellerin said, blinking.

  “You’re barely out of the ship, Lieutenant,” Huskey said, his arms crossed. His uniform fit him loosely and he had the look of prolonged malnutrition. “Are you sure you and your people are up for a difficult conversation?”

  “Possibly,” Pellerin replied.

  “That would be yes or no, Lieutenant,” Huskey said. “Possibly is not the correct answer.”

  “Sir… ” Pellerin said, with a touch of rancor. “It’s not that I just got out of a compartment. Mine had plenty of food and water. I… maintained discipline… ”