“Well, shit,” Alex said and dodged sideways as the seal came at him. The damned thing was the size of a small car, though not as fast, or he’d have bought it right then and there. Despite the behemoth’s lack of acceleration, it had quick reflexes. As Alex dove aside, it swung its massive head and clipped him, sending the surprised pilot flying.
He bounced off a still-quivering pile of not-quite-dead harbor seal and landed next to the ruined door. Fetching up against the wall, he saw stars and shook his head to try and clear it. He immediately noticed that he was lying on something hard. Reaching under him, he found a pistol. Patty’s gun!
He rolled to a seated position and scooped up the gun. It was small. Way too small. Jesus Christ, Patty, get a real gun! However, any gun was better than none, even against a marine mammal the size of a Subaru. Since Patty had just reloaded it prior to her stint as an elephant seal chew toy, he raised the weapon and fired. He’d shot target pistols with more recoil.
The elephant seal turned and looked at him. It seemed offended. Alex emptied the magazine into the elephant seal which sat there and absorbed every bullet with no more effect than it would have if Alex had been insulting his parentage. The little pimp-gun locked open. He didn’t know where Patty was. Even though she had another magazine, he wouldn’t have time to reach it. Well, this is it.
The elephant seal reared up and moved toward him. He glanced around, looking for anything to fight with. Rocket launcher? Whale harpoon? Maybe a .50 caliber rifle? Nope. He sighed and waited for the hit.
Craaaack! A bolt of lightning as bright as the sun lanced across the room. It shot behind the seal, illuminating it like a photo strobe. The instantaneous boom which followed the flash made him think it was a lightning bolt. If the seal’s bulk hadn’t been between him and the event, he would have been blinded.
“You missed!” he heard Jeremiah yell. He looked behind him and saw Wade Watts with Jeremiah standing next to him. The chunky computer programmer and gamer looked like he was holding a damned satellite dish. The seal advanced on the pair. Alex tried to find another magazine for the gun, without success. Just as the seal attacked Jeremiah and Wade, the ‘gun’ fired again.
* * *
“Help me lift this thing,” Wade said.
Jeremiah stared at the contraption. Wade Watts had used just about every piece of high-power conductor he could find, including a taser, which Jeremiah didn’t think was in the shop. For that matter, most of the stuff in Wade’s creation was a surprise to him. Now, he understood why the tech department went through so much money. Regardless, the contraption was huge. “Could you have made it a little bigger?”
“Just help me?”
Alex was shooting like crazy, dropping the small army of harbor seals. He obviously hadn’t seen the elephant seal sliding down the stairs like it was at a water park. Blood and dead seals were everywhere, and while Jeremiah was no expert on guns, he knew Alex must be about out of ammo.
Jeremiah looked at the Frankenstein monster Wade had created, trying to find a place to grab. As an aerospace engineer, he knew better than to grab something with obviously high voltage. Wade held it by a rear section, which had started life as a ceramic insulator, and the taser. But there seemed nowhere particularly safe to grab it.
Then he spotted a pair of electrical gloves. After he pulled them on, he took another hard look at the contraption and made a face. The gloves probably wouldn’t be enough. Then he spotted the rubber mat.
“Is it energized yet?”
“No, why?”
Jeremiah grabbed the rubber mat and tossed it over one of the shelves Wade had been under. He took hold of the strongest piece of the contraption and lifted. Shit, it’s heavy! When he set it on the mat, the shelf underneath partially collapsed. “Well?” he asked.
“Good enough,” Wade said and knelt behind the thing.
Across the room, Alex rolled over and pointed a tiny gun. Jeremiah didn’t know much about guns, but he knew the little gun wouldn’t do a damned thing against a couple tons of elephant seal. Bang, bang, bang. Yup, nothing. The seal reared up.
“Clear!” Wade yelled, and there was a pop!
“That’s it—” Jeremiah started to ask. Then he realized all Wade had done was fire the taser. The overweight programmer shifted his grip to the back of the cobbled-together device, and he depressed a high-voltage relay. The sound was akin to that of the million-volt breaker Jeremiah had heard explode in a lab back in college. A bolt of lightning as thick as his forearm lit up the room as brightly as the surface of the sun. The explosion which followed knocked him backward off his feet.
The elephant seal froze, its attack interrupted. It turned to look behind it. Part of the thick hide on its back was blackened and smoking. Jeremiah hadn’t been looking at the front of the gun, or he would have been flash blinded. He’d been looking at Wade’s hands. He turned to track the shot and saw a hole in the bulkhead. Rather, several holes leading out to the ocean, all of them rimmed with red-hot, melted steel. Mother of God!
“I can’t see!” Wade cried, rubbing his eyes.
“You missed,” Jeremiah said.
“Reload the taser,” Wade instructed and held out a black, plastic pistol—another taser.
“How?”
“Jesus Christ, you’re a rocket scientist, aren’t you?!”
Jeremiah cursed and looked at the gun’s business end. The taser that was still attached was basically molten plastic. However, a high voltage connector, also partly melted, was attached to the taser’s battery pack. The seal was looking at him. Oh, fuck. Jeremiah considered. Based on the attacking animal’s behavior, he maybe had a couple seconds. It would take a lot more than a couple seconds to re-MacGyver another taser into place. The rest of the gun looked more or less intact. The seal turned toward him and Wade, obviously making the correct assumption that they were the source of the attack. Time was up.
The seal flopped forward twice and reared up. Jeremiah angled the gun upward as the seal struck. “Fire!” he screamed as the monster’s mouth rammed down on the burned end of the weapon. He prayed there was enough metal left to conduct. God reached out and slapped him into oblivion.
* * *
Alex watched the elephant seal rear back to strike, knowing he was about to be unemployed. There was nothing he could do. The beast struck downward. Then there was an dazzling explosion of light and sound, and the top of the seal’s head exploded.
Cooked chunks of seal meat and bone flew in all directions. A big chunk bounced off the wall behind Alex and landed in his lap. He stared at it, dumbfounded. It was charred through and through, with a curl of smoke rising from it. He shoved it off quickly, and it singed his fingers. What the hell did they do? The remainder of the elephant seal lay burning in the middle of the bay.
Wade got up on unsteady legs and swayed, pointing. “Jeremiah!” he yelled.
“What about him?” Alex asked. Anyone who was still alive was extracting themself from the burnt seal meat.
“He got hit by the Tesla gun.”
Is that what that was? Alex made his way through the minefield of seal chunks to where Jeremiah lay in a heap against a bin of parts.
“Let me,” Alison said. “I’ve had basic EMT training.”
“I learn something new about you every day,” he said.
She knelt next to their boss and evaluated his vitals. Her head came up in a second. “He’s not breathing.”
“I’m not surprised,” Wade said. He was blinking quickly and squinting at everyone. “All I can see is outlines. I didn’t know how much power it could throw.”
Alison began CPR as Alex spoke. “What did you use to power it?”
“The alien power module. I didn’t have time do to more than wire it to the Tesla coil. It was pure luck that it worked at all. I read Dr. Coldwell’s files, and he said he didn’t think it used electrical energy.”
“I think we can confirm it does,” Coldwell said, surveying the cooked seal carcass. �
�Great work improvising the weapon. I kept the Tesla coil around for fun. Never thought it would be useful.”
“It probably won’t be anymore,” Wade said, squinting at the half-melted remains of the gun he’d slapped together. “I can see a little better now.” He bent and retrieved the alien power module, brushing seal ash from it. “Doesn’t seem damaged.”
“We’ll have to do some tests,” Coldwell said. “I’ll have Cynthia find the meters in this mess.”
“The seal ate Cynthia,” another associate said.
“Oh,” Coldwell said. “Pity.”
“Any luck?” Alex asked Alison when she stopped to check her patient’s pulse.
“Yeah, he’s breathing.” She looked Jeremiah over. When she got to his hands, she hissed. “Oh, God, look at his hands.” The heavy, rubber, insulating gloves had melted into his skin. “We need to get him to the infirmary.”
“Unless the seals have eaten the medics,” Alex said. “First, we need to see if anyone else can be saved and find some more weapons.” A sound from the ruined hatch made him search the floor for a weapon. He found Jeremiah’s discarded wrench and scooped it up. And to think I used to like the circus!
A pair of soldiers in full combat gear slowly peered through the entrance and took in the scene of marine mammal-induced carnage. “Hello? Anyone alive in there?”
“More or less,” Alex replied. “Who are you guys?”
“Captain Mays, US Army,” the older of the pair said. “You need help?” Mays was examining the still hot burn in the hull.
“Does it look like we need help?” Coldwell asked.
“We’ve got Jeremiah Osborne over here,” Alison said. “He’s badly injured. Can you help us get him to the infirmary?”
Mays yelled up to the deck and, in moments, the room filled with soldiers. Alex acquired a spare handgun and ammunition from Mays and felt much better for it. Two of the men were medics who evaluated Jeremiah and the others who were hurt. They found Patty Mize who had a fractured skull. Her prognosis was no better than Jeremiah’s.
“The medics said we need to evacuate both of them,” Mays told Alex. “Best we bring everyone over to the Pacific Adventurer.”
“Unique name for a military ship,” Alex said.
“You can say that again,” Mays mumbled.
“We can’t just leave all this,” Coldwell said.
“Why not? It’s just junk,” Mays said.
“This junk made an aircraft carrier fly.”
Mays shook his head. “No shit? I bet the General would like to hear about this.”
* * * * *
Chapter 6
Midnight, Friday, May 3
Shangri-La
Amarillo, TX
“It’s a miracle we only lost one man,” Cobb said as Governor Taylor and Clark listened. Others in the gondola were intent on the discussion despite having other duties. “I hope the generators were worth it.”
“The report says the third one got a little shot up, but we can use it for parts,” Clark said. He glanced at the governor, then quickly away. “The power was essential, though. We’ve got a lot of pre-plague meat and other food, but without the ability to keep it frozen, it would all be lost. We’ve been trying to find generators for days, but we didn’t have the troops.”
“You have our thanks,” Taylor said with her signature smile. Cobb nodded.
Below them, salvage crews were still picking up the containers identified by Courtney Raines and her invaluable data. Cobb knew the data included information on refrigerated railcars containing food and the dates it was produced. Those cars were running out of the fuel that kept their refrigerators operating and, thus, were prime targets.
The cranes worked ceaselessly, each one lowering a pair of men with a framework to attach to the railcars. The infected still swarmed, but without any coordination. Lacking a single effort on the ground, they seemed confused and were easily distracted by spotlights or occasional flash-bang grenades. He could see a huge rail tanker, labeled diesel on the side, being lifted. It appeared Clark was correct; fuel wasn’t the problem.
“If everything is okay,” Cobb said, “I need to talk to Master Sergeant Schardt.”
“Of course,” Taylor replied. “Get some sleep too. We are looking at another trip to Houston. We know where a group of survivors have been hiding out.”
Cobb rounded on her. “Then why aren’t they up here?” She ground her teeth together. “Oh, right.” He left without another word. There was something about the relationship between Taylor and the other ‘leaders’ of Shangri-La which didn’t sit well with him.
He was already learning his way around Shangri-La. The military ‘barracks’ were only a few hundred feet from the entrance to the gondola. It was faster to cut through a couple of workshops and the infirmary than to take the roadways. Sure, the roads helped provide a feeling of comfort, but they were a waste of effort in his opinion. He hadn’t been aboard a day and already knew their biggest problem; they were simply existing and had no vision for the future.
He reached the trailers that belonged to the military. The soldiers weren’t lounging around like the last time. By now, they all knew about the loss of one of their own, and Cobb suspected the news hadn’t been well received. He needed to get ahead of the situation. The problem was multifaceted. He had a severe shortage of NCOs and a complete lack of junior officers. The bird General Rose put on his shoulder didn’t help. The rank and file felt a full-bird colonel was no longer a field officer. He was seen as a POG, a person other than a grunt. At least, until he proved otherwise.
When he entered the unit where he’d first met the sergeants, but only Zim and Schardt were there. Both stood when he entered. Cobb waved them down with a grunt. “None of that shit,” he said. Both men looked somber and uncomfortable. “We obviously need to talk.”
“Of course, sir,” Zim said.
“Colonel,” Schardt said.
“I know nobody is happy, and I’m sure they’re blaming me.”
“Not as much as you’d think,” Schardt said, making Cobb stop in surprise.
“The problem is that Private Davis was one of Groves’ men,” Zim explained.
“Ah,” Cobb said. “Now I see.” He’d only learned the dead soldier’s name after they’d gotten back to Shangri-La. He wasn’t used to fighting with men whose names he didn’t know. He had pulled the men from a list assembled by Zim on a spreadsheet named ‘Ready Teams.’ They’d been rotating people to keep everyone from being on alert more than 12 hours a day. It was still tough duty, and part of what concerned him about the near future. “And where is Staff Sergeant Groves?”
“Staff Sergeant Groves is in her team’s trailer,” Schardt said.
“They have their own trailer? It was my understanding that the men were billeted together in one trailer and the women in another.” The two sergeants didn’t respond. They knew Cobb wasn’t happy. “How long has this situation existed?”
“Since the staff sergeant came aboard, Colonel,” Zim said.
“Right.” He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index finger. It had been at least 36 hours since he’d gotten any meaningful rack time. However, this couldn’t wait. He got up and removed his web gear. There was a rifle rack in the sergeants’ office trailer, so after checking that his carbine was cleared and locked, he stowed it there and hung his web gear from a hook.
“Can the master sergeant ask the colonel what he intends?”
“I’m going to have a chat with Staff Sergeant Groves.”
“Would you care to hear the master sergeant’s advice, Colonel?”
“I’m always interested in a senior NCO’s advice.”
“I’d hold off on this one. Groves is too much of an unknown factor. Take some time to figure out her angle, maybe see if her situation settles itself.”
“I respect that, Schardt, but the situation is too fluid right now. I need to let the staff sergeant know exactly how things s
tand.”
“Understood, sir.” Schardt looked nervous. “I would still suggest you don’t do this.”
“Duly noted. I’ll be back in a few minutes, and we can discuss some new procedures for recovery operations, then I need some sack time.”
“Roger that,” Schardt said.
“Will do,” Zim agreed.
Cobb nodded his thanks and turned to leave. He didn’t notice the pair of sergeants exchange a look, wait a half minute, then head back into the trailer’s back offices.
Outside, he looked at the line of trailers. Soldiers stood on the steps outside of two of them, smoking. Even in an apocalypse, they were following procedures. Each time they saw him, they saluted the way they would in the field, casually yet respectfully. Schardt appeared correct, they weren’t holding him responsible for the loss of Private Davis.
He didn’t know which trailer held the staff sergeant and her team, so he stopped and asked a couple of the soldiers who were smoking.
“Them?” a private asked. “Trailer on the end, near the edge.” The other private nodded, his mouth a thin line.
No love for the staff sergeant there. He thanked the men and headed for the staff sergeant’s trailer. “Colonel?” one of the men called.
“Yes, son?”
“Are we going to finally start looking for more of our people?”
Cobb walked back to them, climbing the stairs to get closer. Both looked apprehensive at his approach, perhaps fearful they’d said something they shouldn’t have. “Where are you men from?”
“We’re both 101st,” the one who’d spoke said, and they both turned slightly so he could see the distinctive shield patch with “Airborne” across the top and a stylized eagle in the center.
“Fort Campbell.” They nodded. “You guys were mobilized when the SHTF?”
Turning Point (Book 3): A Time To Live Page 21