To Sail a Darkling Sea Page 7

  “Staff Sergeant, divide thirty by five.”

  “Six,” Januscheitis said, then frowned. “Damn.”

  “As to only having seven rounds,” Faith said, holding up her pistol. “You only have seven rounds because you use the ancient and renowned, sort of like, say, the Titanic, Colt 1911 whereas I use the modern H&K USP with twelve rounds, which has been proven capable of killing a hammerhead shark in sixty feet of water. That works out to sixty rounds of five five six in relative killing power in an actual zombie fight. With lighter total weight in ammo, not having to reload and it doesn’t just zip through and go bouncin’ arounnnd like you’ve dropped a frag grenade. Old and busted. New hotness.”

  “Yes, Miss Faith.”

  * * *

  “Oh come onnnn Jannnn, let me throw the grenade. If I can’t throw it, let Trixie. Trixie wants to throw the grenade . . . !”

  * * *

  “There is, in fact, a primary storage of twelve-gauge on board, Staff Sergeant,” Gunny Sands said, his voice muffled by the gas mask.

  The gunny was notably unhappy not being able to accompany the clearance parties. It just wasn’t right for a gunny to be lolling around in the rack when his Marines were fighting zombies. He’d made a foray a day and spent the rest of the time eating, conducting physical therapy and, far too often in his opinion, resting. But the fatigue would just hit him like a hammer whenever he exerted himself.

  Today, however, he’d moved forward to the clearance command post set up in the CIC of the Iwo. The bodies had been cleared out but it was still MOPP conditions in the compartment.

  “I was unaware of that, Gunnery Sergeant,” Januscheitis said.

  “Security and control teams use twelve-gauge,” the gunny said, pointing to a schematic of the ship. “There should be twenty thousand rounds in Compartment six tack 190 tack one tack mike. It should be, if memory serves, port side, aft in the compartment. The rest of the compartment is mainly devoted to M829 DS for the M1s.”

  “Check that out on the next sweep forward,” Fontana said. “Which will be after we clear the Central Four and Five levels . . .”

  * * *

  “You told me there wasn’t any twelve-gauge, Jan,” Faith said, pouting. “There’d better be twelve-gauge.”

  “So I’m not The Gunny,” Januscheitis said, throwing his hands up in the air. “He’s a gunny, okay? They, like, know everything!”

  “Well, there’d just better be twelve-gauge . . .”

  * * *

  “Oh,” Faith said, panting slightly. “Oh . . . Oh . . .”

  “It’s not much,” Januscheitis said.

  “Not much?” Faith said, grabbing one of the cases of 12-gauge double-ought. “Not much? It’s . . . It’s . . . I’ll be in my bunk . . .”

  Januscheitis just stood there with his mouth open as she left the compartment.

  “Do you think she meant . . .” Derek said then paused. “I hope she didn’t mean . . .”

  The hatch undogged and Faith stuck her head in the compartment.

  “Reloading my Saiga mags, you PERVERTS!”

  CHAPTER 5

  I could not tread these perilous paths in safety,

  if I did not keep a saving sense of humor.

  Admiral Horatio Nelson

  “Soph, got something funky,” Patrick said.

  “I suppose I should get some clothes on,” Sophia muttered. She was currently adding some reality to the boat’s name up on the flying bridge. “In a bit . . .”

  She could tell “funky” was not an emergency by Patrick’s tone. Paula was “a good man in a storm.” She just sailed on regardless of the conditions. Patrick had a bit of a tendency to panic. Which was not great in your engineer, but he was fine with the maintenance and stuff.

  “Define ‘funky,’ ” she said over the intercom, readjusting her sunglasses. She picked up a pair of binos to check out something on the horizon but it was just a bit of junk. Her ostensible reason for being on the flying bridge was “visual search for survivors.” Which was pretty much a waste of time. Which was why she was actually catching a tan.

  The Atlantic ocean was really, really, really big. And boats, even commercial freighters and such, were really, really, really small in comparison.

  Depending on which authority you asked, the North Atlantic Ocean, which they were currently searching for survivors, was about twenty million square miles in area. Their radar had a range of around fifty miles, if the target was radar reflective, while visually they could see between twenty and thirty miles. Realistically, it was possible that one boat might spot a lifeboat within ten miles. Essentially, it was like one microscopic germ trying to find another germ in the area of a standard American living room. That was clean and really germ free.

  When they’d first started clearing boats off of Bermuda, there had still been some distress beacons working. Not many, but they were there. And there had been a lot of boats. The waters between the U.S. mainland and Bermuda were some of the most crowded in the world under normal circumstances. With anyone with an ocean-capable boat fleeing the Plague, and the east coast of the U.S. having a lot of such people, they were definitely crowded. There were days when they had twenty or more radar contacts or lifeboats and small boats in sight.

  The Great Equatorial Current . . . Not so much. Oh, there were boats down here. And life rafts. And freighters. And, somewhere, God help them, based on some of the lifeboats they’d been finding, some cruise ships including at least one super-max. But they were scattered. They were lucky if they found two or three vessels in a day instead of thirty.

  They were only there, really, to keep them out of the storm belt in the North Atlantic and tropical storms in the eastern zone, give them something to do and get some people rescued. Unfortunately, as usual, most of the boats they were finding were empty. Of live, sane, people, at least. Bodies they’d found aplenty. People . . . not so much. Not even live zombies. In the last two weeks the No Tan Lines had only found four survivors. But four was a number greater than zero.

  The only reason they were finding most of the life rafts was that they had some modern additions. Back in the 1980s, the USCG pointed out that the material life rafts were made of, plastic, was fairly stealthy. You could pimp them up in any color you’d like, they didn’t turn up on radar. So most modern life rafts and lifeboats included Mylar radar reflectors in their construction. And, fortunately, the No Tan Lines had radar. So Patrick was manning the radar and other gizmos while she scanned “visually.” And caught up on her tan.

  “Well, it’s a distress beacon,” Patrick said.

  “I probably would have led with that,” Sophia muttered.

  “But it’s well inside the range where we should have picked it up. It’s only about twenty miles out.”

  “Azimuth?” Sophia said.

  “No Tan Lines, Alexandria.”

  “Stand by, Patrick,” she said, then switched frequencies and straightened up to start the main engines. “No Tan Lines.”

  * * *

  “Holy, hell,” Commander Robert “Thunderbear” Vancel, skipper of the USS Alexandria said. Vancel was on his first tour as a sub skipper when the worst disaster in human history hit. It had not been a pleasure cruise. He’d been a bit heavy before this cruise. Now, not so much. “COB: Down periscope. Now! And tell me that’s not being broadcast all over the ship.”

  “Looks like she’s just trying to live up to her boat’s name, sir,” the COB said.

  “Fifteen, COB,” the skipper snapped. “Fifteen. And, for God’s sakes, an ensign? Remind me to talk to that young lady about the decorum expected of a Naval officer at the first opportunity after we meet.”

  “Duly noted, sir.”

  * * *

  “Alex, No Tan Lines,” Sophia repeated. Usually the Navy was right up on calling back but there had been a distinct pause.

  “Lines, Alex. Be advised just picked up an intermittent distress beacon, your bearing, one one four, range: ten point three n
autical miles. Be advised, beacon was not there four minutes ago. Signal is intermittent. Our evaluation, persons operating manual generator for intermittent signal. Probable survivors. Proceeding that location at this time.”

  “Roger, Alex, keep us advised.”

  She switched to intercom. “Going full,” she said and put the hammer down. No real reason for it, the Alex was going to be there long before they were . . .

  * * *

  “Okay, up periscope,” Commander Vancel said.

  “Isn’t that redundant, sir?” the COB asked.

  “Again, COB, fifteen! And, sweet Lord Jesus I Can’t Believe They Did This, LANTFLEET’s daughter!”

  “As well hanged for a sheep, sir . . .”

  * * *

  “Da, Da!” Julie yelled. “Look!”

  Lincoln Lawton stepped out onto the aft deck of the forty-five-foot Gentle Breezes and shaded his eyes against the glare. He stopped and his jaw dropped at the sight of a periscope not five hundred meters off the boat.

  Lawton, formerly the general manager for Information Technologies of Wilson Gribley, LLC, Liverpool, UK, had just left port for a month-long trip to the Mediterranean when the news of the Plague had been released. He had, briefly, contemplated putting back into port to return to work. He knew the term “workaholic” was often used to describe him and it seemed that if there was going to be a major influenza outbreak, the Firm, which was in the biomedical technologies field, would need his services.

  Susan, his normally accepting and supportive wife, had put her foot down. First of all, it was the first long vacation that he had taken in nearly ten years. During which time his children had grown up with a father who was a virtual stranger. Second, given that the flu bug was described as being particularly nasty and wide-spread, it would be better to just cruise along for a bit without encountering it. Let it burn out and they’d put into port.

  As it turned out, Susan was right. A point she tried not to rub in. They were not infected by the “zombie plague.” On the other hand, food and fuel only last so long. They had stocked well but eventually the food ran out. And the fuel. Fortunately, there was an emergency solar still onboard that produced barely enough water for the lot of them. And he had stocked quite a few rods onboard. About the only time he spent with his family was angling on the boat in the Irish Sea.

  It was a constant surprise to him that when you were hungry enough, any raw fish was a delicacy. His family had also come as something of a surprise. He wasn’t sure exactly why he hadn’t spent more time with them. Oh, being on a small boat occasionally drove everyone nuts. But he had some great children and, given that he’d had little to do with them, he also had come to have a new appreciation for his wife. An appreciation that, as the tan got darker and they both lost quite a bit of weight, had eventually overcome their desire to avoid certain difficulties.

  Which was why Susan was, as far as they could tell, about two months pregnant.

  “Help William with the signs if you would, there’s a good lass,” Lincoln said, waving at the periscope. It was clearly looking at them. He hoped the submarine would not surface, however. As far as they could tell, they were uninfected. Raw fish or no, they wished to stay that way.

  William, his ten-year-old son, and Julie, fourteen, came up on deck quickly with the cobbled together signs. They had made them from bits of stitched together plastic and can boxes to keep from damaging their sheets.

  They carefully held them up to prevent them tearing in the breeze.

  * * *

  “ ‘Do Not Approach.’ ” Commander Vancel said. “ ‘Not Infected.’ They’re in the same boat we are.”

  “With less in the way of stores and no power, sir,” his XO pointed out.

  “Seem to be making it,” the CO replied, touching a control.

  * * *

  A light began to wink on the periscope.

  “If I understood bloody Morse maybe I’d understand what you were saying,” Lincoln said through gritted teeth. The signal was repetitive, though, two flashes then two flashes . . .

  “I think they’re just saying they understand,” Susan said.

  “I was thinking the same,” Lincoln replied. He waved and nodded. “I wonder if they’re infected? Or not.”

  * * *

  “See if the Lines is monitoring,” Commander Vancel said.

  * * *

  “No Tan Lines, Alexandria, over.”

  Sophia had been expecting the call and already had the mike in her hand.

  “Alex, Lines, over.”

  “Sierra is forty-five-foot Activa motor yacht. No power. Four survivors, probable family, uninfected. Boat has British registry. Over.”

  “Roger, Alex. Just over the horizon. Have them on radar. Will come up from their lee and attempt to communicate.”

  “Roger. Standing by.”

  “Alex, could you retrans to flotilla, then possibly squadron ops?”

  “Roger, stand by . . . Ready on retrans to flotilla, over.”

  “Livin’ Large, Livin’ Large, No Tan Lines, over . . .”

  “No Tan Lines, Livin’ Large, over.”

  “We have a contact this area. According to the Alexandria, they’re uninfected. Last I heard, the squadron still had a few units of vaccine. I’d suggest that it would be advisable, given these people’s circumstances, out of fuel and in the middle of nowhere, to use it on them. Over.”

  “Stand by, Lines . . .”

  “Standing by,” Sophia muttered. She could see the yacht on the horizon. The wind was from the southeast and she was coming in from the northwest. Which would put her downwind, or to the lee in nautical speak, from the yacht. Which was where she wanted to be.

  It was, at this point, extremely unlikely that casual contact with the people on the yacht, or the sub crews, would give them H7D3. Flu eventually became noninfectious as a person’s immune system overcame it. She probably could come from windward, fuel up the yacht, transfer supplies, carefully . . .

  “Extremely unlikely” was not the same as “could not happen.” And nobody wanted to infect people who had survived this long. Families like hers were not so much rare as nonexistent. Nobody found so far had so much as one family member survive. The closest was Chris Phillips, captain of the David Cooper, and his former fiancé. And both believing the other one dead, they had sought opportunities elsewhere in the interim. Even if a family was on a life raft or boat, like this one, drifting, only one survivor had generally been found.

  Preserving this family was, in her opinion, critically important. They probably felt the same way.

  The problem was . . . The ocean was really, really big. Finding them in the first place had been a matter of luck and that “intermittent distress signal.” If they left the boat behind, they might be able to find them again. They knew the currents in the area and they knew where they were, now. But it was, again, only “likely.” And if they were left to drift . . . They could drift until they were all old and grey and died on the boat if they ended up pushed into the Sargasso Sea. More likely, they’d eventually run aground and either get infected or eaten. Sum it up as “bad things.”

  Kuzma knew all this and he had way more experience than she did. Maybe he’d come up with a good answer.

  * * *

  “. . . that’s my take on it, sir,” Kuzma said. “If we leave them drifting, even for the time it would take to go up to Squadron and get the vaccine, we’ll probably lose them. I’m sort of lost for an answer here, sir . . .”

  “Roger, Large,” the Alex replied. “We’ve been kicking it around as well. The only solution we see, and we’d have to get permission from higher, is for one of our subs to take them under tow and bring them up to Squadron AO. We’re going to discuss that with higher.”

  “Roger, Alex,” Kuzma said, his face working. “I’m going to leave this on you and the Tan Lines for now if that’s all right.”

  “Under control, Large.”

  “Livin’ Large, out,” Ku
zma said. He shook his head and looked at the helmsman. “That’s a zammie.”

  “Definite zammie, sir . . .”

  * * *

  “Boat, Da,” William said, pointing to the northeast.

  “I’m going to assume they’re with the submarine,” Lincoln said, looking at the approaching yacht through his binoculars. “I hope they stay downwind.”

  “Leeward, Da,” Julie said didactically. Lincoln had one manual on seamanship and his oldest had studied it assiduously.

  “I hope they stay to leeward, then,” he said, trying not to smile.

  * * *

  “Good afternoon,” Sophia said over the loudhailer. “We get that you’re uninfected. Which an amazing number of people find tremendously exciting. You’re the first complete boat of survivors we’ve found. Which is why you are about to have a zammie, which is an acronym for a ‘zombie apocalypse moment.’ The pre-Plague term is ‘what the heck?’ ”

  * * *

  “Da,” William said. He was always the one looking around. “Another submarine!”

  Forward of the ship an American attack sub surfaced.

  * * *

  “The USS Annapolis is going to fire you a line. They are uninfected so there’s no chance of catching the flu. When you get it, hook it up to your forward cleat. We have a small stock of vaccine back at our squadron, which is operating about six hundred miles north of here. It’s going to take a few days for you to get there but they’ll tow you up. They will also pass you some water since your still won’t work being towed. No food, sorry, they’re short on rations as well. Anyway, a billion-dollar nuclear submarine is about to act as a tow truck for one forty-five-foot yacht full of vacationers. Welcome to a zombie apocalypse moment. We hope that you consider Wolf Squadron and the U.S. Navy in the future for all your towing needs . . .”

  * * *

  “Hoooh,” Sophia said, adjusting the focus on her binoculars. “Sweet.”

  She keyed the intercom, powered up and turned to starboard.

  “Rig for fishing ops!” she boomed, then switched to the radio. “Flotilla, Lines, over.”