“Why?” Gilchrist asked.
“Physics,” Jeremiah deadpanned.
Gilchrist nodded, then cocked his head. “Isn’t it against the rules of physics to go faster than light and to violate gravity?”
“Man’s got a good point,” Watts said.
“Okay, Mr. Osborne, what do you want out of this?”
“Survival is a good motivator,” Jeremiah said. “Sure, being rich is nice, but I suspect money is worthless. There might still be some benefit to being at the center of this. Tell you what, our people will get this figured out. You protect us, keep us fed, make sure me and mine are included in any benefits, and let people know we figured it all out.”
“Not asking for much, is he?” Tobias asked.
“He’s offering a lot more than he’s charging,” Gilchrist replied. “I can agree to all of those except letting people know what you’re doing. We have to keep this classified for now.”
“Who are we hiding it from, the Russians?” Alex asked.
“Exactly. We cannot assume all the global players folded up their chairs and went quietly into the good night. Tell me, Mr. Osborne, do you think this forcefield can stop a nuke?”
“I’d rather not try to find out,” Jeremiah admitted.
“So, we keep the details quiet. At least, as quiet as you can after a Ford-class aircraft carrier flies to space and back.”
“Tobias will see to your transport back to your ship. I’ll brief the other captains about what’s going on, assign security for your ship, and see if we can get some Marines for on-site security.”
“As long as they don’t steal anymore stuff.”
“Guaranteed,” Gilchrist said.
A few minutes later, they were on the hangar deck where the Azanti sat. Several sailors were curiously walking around, looking and pointing. Wade Watts looked suspiciously at the craft after the others had already boarded. Patty Mize had stayed on board to keep an eye on things, just in case.
Alex looked back at the overweight man checking the improvised welds with a dubious expression on his face. “Safer than a helicopter,” he said.
“Says you,” Wade replied. “I’ve been on helicopters before.”
“You know what a helicopter is?” Patty asked. “It’s a million parts, rotating rapidly around an oil leak, waiting for metal fatigue to set in. Who is round boy there?” she asked Alex.
“The guy who put the Ford into orbit.”
“We going to dump him in the ocean for Gilchrist?”
Wade had been halfway through the door, but he froze upon hearing Patty’s words.
“No,” Jeremiah said. “He works for us now.”
Wade finished boarding. Alex had to squeeze by the 2XL man to reach the hatch and pull it closed. “Speaking of that,” Wade said. “How am I getting paid?”
“Same as we are,” Jeremiah said. “Food and safety.”
“Not much of a deal,” Wade said.
“Half a helicopter ride is still an option,” Patty said.
“Where do I sit?” Wade whined.
“It’s a two-minute flight. Just stand,” Alex told him, squeezing past him again to get into the pilot’s seat. “They get us off the deck?” he asked Patty.
“Yeah, they used a crane to set us on wooden blocks.”
Alex nodded. “Should work. Powering up.” He heard a gasp from Wade and grinned to himself.
“Good field,” Alison confirmed.
Alex translated up a tiny amount and moved them toward the open hangar doors. Alison laughed at something.
“What?” Alex asked.
“Check the aft camera. They should have lifted us a little higher.”
On the screen, they could see the sailors staring in amazement at a perfectly shaped ice-cream scoop of metal missing from the hangar deck and no doubt riding inside their forcefield.
“Huh,” Alex said, “I wondered about that.” The Azanti flew out of the hangar and out over the water.
* * *
Shangri-La
Over Amarillo, TX
Cobb had to admit it; he was impressed. The floating conglomeration of metal dubbed Shangri-La was organized on every level. After Bisdorf landed his craft in a designated landing spot (one of three Cobb spotted), a crew came to check it for offload and to take care of basic maintenance—replenish the water, fill it with fuel, and dump the waste tanks. The process reminded him of a gas station in the 1950s. Check the oil for you?
There appeared to be a lot of survivors in Shangri-La’s population. There was also a sizeable number of professionals. Many were big, burly guys who moved about with a purpose. Roughnecks? They certainly had the look and demeanor. They were people who weren’t afraid of getting dirty and wanted to see a job through until it was done.
The top of the structure, despite being made mostly of steel Conex containers, was shockingly level. A short distance away, a crew was using arc welders to cover the tops with steel plates, all cut to shape with a plasma cutter. They were even covering the locking points on the corners so you could move about safely without fear of tripping. They reached a point where the plates were much thicker. Cobb was about to ask why when a golf cart, one of the big ones with room for a dozen people, rolled up. It’s a roadway!
“How big is this place?” he asked Bisdorf.
“When I left it was 40 containers wide, by 60 containers long.”
“2,400 containers!” Tim Price exclaimed.
“I think we’re up to 3,000.” Cobb turned at the voice. A man at least twice the size of Henry Ross, who Cobb thought was huge, was standing next to one of the big cranes. His skin was like rich, dark chocolate, and he seemed like the kind of guy who was always ready with a smile.
“Hey, Clark. Six hundred more since I left?”
“Yeah, we’re almost out. Gonna have to hit another container yard.”
“How’s the alien field holding up?”
“Every 200 or so containers, Hans runs a test. Great so far. Who’re the newbies?”
“I rescued them in Kendal; they were stuck in a court house, surrounded by zombies.”
The man named Clark looked at the group, and his gaze settled on Cobb. “Army?”
“Yes sir, Colonel Cobb Pendleton, reactivated.”
“Colonel, you say? I know someone who’ll be glad to meet you.”
“What about my friends? The woman over there lost her husband as we were being rescued.” Cobb looked at the group and sighed. “They’ve been through a lot.”
“Haven’t we all?” He pointed at a group of men and women who were approaching. “They’re from a group called the Angels. They take in new people and help them deal with what they’ve been through.”
“Talking about us, Clark?” a woman in the group asked.
“Colonel Cobb, this is Amelia. She’s the Angels’ leader.”
“If you can call me a leader,” the woman said. She was an elderly woman with American Indian heritage, unless he missed his guess. Her eyes and face showed frown lines, which spoke of a tough life. “We do help get people adjusted to life here, but we also enforce a quarantine.”
“Have you had problems?” Cobb asked.
“In short, yes. We’re lucky it hasn’t gone beyond a few instances with new arrivals. The infection hasn’t spread here, and we’ve had no casualties. To be safe, everyone spends 24 hours under observation.”
“What about me?”
“I’m going to take him to the sergeants, then to Ann,” Bisdorf said. “The sergeants will take care of him.”
Sergeants, plural. Interesting.
Amelia narrowed her eyes as she examined Cobb, and he wondered if she had x-ray vision. He felt like he was under a microscope. “Fine,” she said and turned to her people who were helping Vance’s group of survivors. Two young women, no more than girls themselves, were supporting Ann Benedict. She still seemed to be in shock.
“Amelia?” Cobb called to her. The older woman looked back at him. “Were you ev
er a Catholic nun?”
She laughed out loud and left to help load the others into the big golf cart. Then they drove off.
Cobb fell in behind Bisdorf and Clark as they led him along the surreal landscape of Shangri-La. It reminded him a little of an aircraft carrier, a Hollywood set, and a temporary army FOB, or forward operating base. There were tank farms, long lines of brand-new mobile homes and bunk houses, actual military mobile field kitchens, and what looked like an honest-to-God control tower in the center of the construct.
They passed within a short distance of the control tower—close enough for Cobb to see that it was mounted on a huge truck bed. “Is that a portable control tower?”
“Yep,” Bisdorf said. “Liberated it.”
“From a military base?”
The other man looked nonplused and didn’t answer.
“Would you agree survival is the name of the game?” Clark asked.
“At the cost of others not surviving?”
“I can guarantee you, nobody was harmed or deprived of anything by our taking these assets.”
“How can you be sure?” Cobb asked. He really wasn’t worried; he’d done some traveling through the landscape, seen tens of thousands of infected, and knew how few uninfected likely remained. He was merely trying to get a feel for this group of survivors and where he’d stand with them. He found it interesting that nobody had said anything about the M-16 over his shoulder or the pistol on his hip.
“We’ll have to show you later,” Bisdorf said and gestured. They’d come to a series of standard, portable military bunkhouses. They were more evidence the group had raided at least one military base. They were set up on steel legs which were welded to the metal container base of Shangri-La. Outside the nearest one, a dozen soldiers in army and marine camo were sitting on metal barrels, working on weapons.
As Cobb and his two escorts approached, one looked up and did a double take when he spotted the eagle on Cobb’s epaulet. “Shit,” he cursed and jumped to his feet. The other 11 men saw, quickly figured out what was happening, and jumped to attention as well.
“At ease, guys. I’m new here.”
“Sir!” the first one who had come to attention, a specialist, said.
“Sergeants inside?” Bisdorf asked.
“Yes,” another soldier, a PFC, replied.
Cobb and the others walked to the trailer steps. “Calm down, guys, I’m not wearing stars,” Cobb said as he passed. A couple of them chuckled as the door opened, and he went inside.
The interior was laid out in a command trailer configuration, with a large conference room at one end. It also included one large office and four small ones. A trio of NCOs, two men and a woman, were sitting at the conference table, pouring over a large Texas/Oklahoma/New Mexico map covered in Legos. The oldest among them, a sergeant major, looked up and blinked when he saw Cobb.
“Who do you have here?” he asked Bisdorf and Clark.
“Says he’s an army colonel, Sergeant.”
“We’ve heard that one before,” the female NCO, a staff sergeant named Groves, said. The other man, a buck sergeant, watched the proceedings through narrowed eyes.
“Colonel,” the master sergeant said as he approached. “Can I see some identification?”
Cobb nodded and fished out his well-worn wallet. He opened it, took out two cards, and handed them to the master sergeant. The name on the master sergeant’s BDUs was “Schardt.” Oh, I bet he got a lot of grief over his name.
Schardt took the cards and looked them over. “DD 2765,” he said. “Retired. Says here Lieutenant Colonel.” His eyes flashed to the subdued eagle sewn on Cobb’s epaulets. Then he looked at the other card, a freshly minted CAC, or common access card. It didn’t have a picture, but it did have his service number, name, and rank of Colonel. Schardt grunted. “Looks legit, but it’s a bit confusing. Can you elaborate?”
“I was reactivated at Hood when I brought in a group of survivors, including a zoomie.”
“A fighter pilot, huh?” the buck sergeant, Zimmerman, asked. “Who was in command at Hood?”
“Lieutenant General Rose, III Corps.”
“Something anyone could know,” Staff Sergeant Groves mumbled.
Schardt glanced at her, then at Cobb. “What would you say if I said I’d served under Leo Rose?”
“I’d say you were lying; he goes by Leon. Doesn’t like being called Leo to his face.”
Schardt nodded and handed back the cards. He came to attention and saluted. The other two sergeants did as well, though Groves was slower than Zimmerman. “My apologies, Colonel. You understand, with the situation…”
“No apologies necessary, Sergeant Major.” Cobb put the cards away. “Can you bring me up to speed?”
Schardt nodded and gave a quick report. The soldiers present were survivors of a dozen different commands, and more than half were reservists, national guard, or retirees. In total, there were 82 men and women—35 army, 22 Marines, 15 air force, 9 navy, and one coast guard. In a strange twist of fate, the only officers were a navy ensign fresh out of the academy and an army WO1, warrant officer rank 1.
“The navy kid straight up refuses to use his status as an officer,” Schardt explained.
“Thank God,” Groves said. Schardt gave her some side eye.
“He did take command of our only armed sky-barge.”
“What’s a sky-barge?” Cobb asked.
“I’ll show you later, sir.”
Schardt continued to explain that they’d started with him and five men from their command, part of a supply unit trying to get back to Hood after the SHTF. They’d been picked up by the flying city early on and had continued to add more soldiers since then.
“A few refused to come aboard,” Zimmerman explained. “I think they thought we were a hallucination.”
“Can you blame them?” Cobb asked. For the first time, Groves grinned slightly.
“Gentlemen and ladies,” Clark spoke up. “I’m going to leave you with the colonel. There is a small rail yard we’ll be passing over in a few minutes, and I want to be in the gondola.”
“Gonna need security?” Schardt asked.
Clark looked between the sergeants and Cobb, licking his lips. “I’ll let you know once you get everything sorted out. Talk to you later.” He left without another word.
“He’s nervous,” Bisdorf explained. “The military makes a lot of them nervous.”
“They’re afraid we’re going to take over,” Schardt explained.
“Would that be such a bad thing?” Groves asked.
“Yes, it would,” Schardt replied, staring at her. “We’ve been over this.”
“Not to my satisfaction.”
Groves turned her steely blue eyes on Cobb. “What’s your intention, sir?”
It was clear to Cobb, or anyone with functioning hearing, that Groves didn’t like officers. That seemed to often be the case with staff sergeants. She looked to be between 30 and 35 and had probably had her career sidetracked by a bad fitness report whether she’d deserved it or not. Bad officers were as common as bad NCOs. Now, however, she was his problem.
“Well, it looks like I’m in command.” Groves rolled her eyes. “Staff Sergeant, are we going to have a problem?”
“Just because there’s an eagle on your shoulder doesn’t mean you’re qualified to lead us,” she said, her eyes as sharp as her tongue.
“The chain of command disagrees. I’m no operator, but I’ve been shot at. A lot more than most staff sergeants.” She bristled, and he pushed on. “I wore the uniform for 29 years, Sergeant, and when General Rose asked me to put it back on, I damned well did.” He looked at all three. “Fate put me here. The lack of officers around here seems to suggest it was for a reason. So, whether you like it or not, I’m in command until relieved.” He looked at a laptop on a nearby desk.
“Unless I miss my guess, you have a TOE already done up. This Shangri-La looks pretty squared away. Let’s take a look at it so I
know what I’m dealing with.”
Schardt and Zimmerman nodded and went to the computer. Cobb followed to watch them work.
“I have to use the bathroom,” Groves said and left without waiting for approval.
“Gonna read me in?” he asked Schardt.
Zimmerman sighed and spoke. “One, doesn’t like officers. Two, doesn’t like men. Three, she liked being one of the big dogs.”
“She’s a competent NCO,” Schardt added. “But what Zim said is accurate. She was with six men we picked up outside Austin. They’re guard. The bunch didn’t talk much about how they got picked up, or what they were doing. Had a couple trucks chocked full of gear, though. A lot of it wasn’t military. Said they’d been picking up stuff along the way.”
“But not people?” Cobb asked.
“Claimed they helped some civvies, but none came along.”
Cobb grunted and looked at the computer as Zimmerman explained how the tabs on the spreadsheet were set up with age, service, and MOS, military occupational speciality. Throughout the discussion, his mind kept wandering to Staff Sergeant Groves and her story. When she returned, she stayed at the back and watched without comment. Cobb could feel her eyes on his back like bugs crawling. He decided to keep a close eye on her.
* * *
USS Pacific Adventurer
150 Nautical Miles West of San Diego, CA
General Rose watched from the bridge as the oceangoing tugboat he’d ‘acquired’ in the same way Dr. Breda had acquired the Helix finished tying up to the derelict cruise ship Ocean Vista. Most of the dependents he’d brought from Fort Hood were aboard, along with some of his injured and a few older retired servicemen to help guard the dependents. Behind it was an oceangoing barge holding all their air assets—four V-22 Osprey and four AH-64 Apache gunships. A single UH-60 Blackhawk rested on the Pacific Adventurer’s helicopter pad.
The pilot was nervous about the helipad on his ship; he said it wasn’t rated for the load. But it hadn’t collapsed yet, so Rose wasn’t too worried. He had more important things to worry about than the helicopter pad.
Turning Point (Book 3): A Time To Live Page 14