by Lee Thomas
“Alright, I said I had a special prize for the winner, and here it is. If Leslie beats me, she will be CO for the day tomorrow, all day.” I announced, and then paused for the applause. “Now, to her credit, she has been phenomenal so far, so I’m sure I have my work cut out for me.” I finished speaking and the crowd exploded again. With Leslie in her corner, I moved back to mine, we each took our stance and saluted each other, then began the match, moving towards each other, and each of us giving a few test swings, just to open with. We went back and forth, feinting and attacking, stepping into and back away from each other. She was good, and even during the battle, I made a mental note to see about adding her to the training team. Most of the time I had the advantage with my two swords to her one, but she was good at dodging the second attack while blocking the first.
We were both breathing heavy after a bit, and the crowd was very reactive, cheering and clapping with each attack and deflected swing. Back and forth we went, until finally Leslie caught me off guard. As I stepped forward for a thrust, she spun and ducked, rolling to my side as she swung at my legs, taking them out from under me, and as I fell backwards, she lifted and then thrust her sword down, catching me right in the chest. The crowd hushed for about a second, and then exploded in cheers as everyone realized what had happened. Leslie stood, reaching down to help me back up, and I clapped her on the back and raised her hand once I was upright again which continued the cheers and applause.
“Your winner, Leslie!” I yelled over the cheers and applause. The congratulations continued for quite some time as everyone came to clap her on the shoulder. I wormed my way through the crowd to put my practice swords up, then headed back up to my cabin. A hot shower helped ease some of the muscles I had obviously been neglecting as I was very sore now. After drying off, I stepped back into my bedroom to get dressed, then went and sat on the couch to play a game for a little bit. A knock on my door startled me, so I paused the game and called out. The door opened and Leslie walked in, still smiling.
“Leslie, good match, congratulations. What’s up?” I said, standing and walking to meet her.
“Thanks, but about that. I’ve seen you fight plenty of times, and you have never done a straight thrust like that without immediately spinning to keep your opponent from reaching your back. I just wanted to know, you let me win, didn’t you?” she asked bluntly, leaning against the bar counter.
“I had no idea you kept such a close watch on my matches, and your right, I usually do thrust and then spin, or thrust with my left hand, to prevent my back from being targeted. Letting you win, no, that was not my intention. I simply made a mistake and you capitalized, which I probably would have done the same. It was a clean match, well fought, and you won, I wouldn’t read anymore into it than that.” I replied. I certainly wasn’t going to tell her that was the truth, and besides, she was very good, and could easily have beat me on her own if the match had continued much longer.
“I’m not sure I believe you, but I’ll accept that. So, this whole CO for a day thing, when does it start?” she asked.
“Tomorrow, say 9am?” I offered.
“Ok. Should I come here or what?”
“Meet me in the bridge. We’ll go over what is planned and everything, and then you get to make decisions for the day. Provided of course that it doesn’t threaten the safety of the ship or the people.” I stated, adding the last part just in case.
“Of course, that goes without saying. I’ll see you tomorrow at nine.” She said, turning and heading out, closing the door behind her. I went back to my game for a bit, then turned it off and decided to head to bed.
Sept. 29th, 2020.
I awoke to the sound of the alarm, wondering why I had set it. The events of yesterday finally made their way through my sleep haze, and I groaned as I remembered I was supposed to meet Leslie at nine for her captain of the day. I swung my legs out of bed, shaking my head to clear the cobwebs as best as possible, and then stood and started getting ready. After getting dressed, I stumbled up to the bridge to find the day crew just getting started, and the night crew finishing relating how the night went. It had apparently been quiet, nothing seen on land or the water, and I waved to the off-going men as they headed for the stairs.
“Please tell me there is coffee.” I mumbled, leaning against the console and propping my head up.
“Yes, it’s brewing now.” Chief said with a chuckle as he entered from the small kitchen area off the back of the bridge. I glanced up at him and scowled at his cheerfulness this early, which earned me a laugh.
“That’s not natural, you know.” I grumbled as I headed for my own cup. Even during my Navy days, I was never a morning person. Coffee was a necessity before ten, and even then, I was questionable. We had been lucky to find large amounts of coffee and stockpile it, as well as managing to start a couple of small plants for the beans, but that wasn’t going too well, and our stock was extremely diminished, so we enjoyed it if we had it, and waited for the day it ran out.
“That was quite a show yesterday, and a great idea for a prize, I might add.” Chief said as I stepped back into the bridge with my mug.
“Thanks. I know it has been awhile since we’ve done anything to relax and I thought we could all use it. Stress will kill us faster than the infected if we don’t watch it.” I replied, staring out the windows as the sun rose behind us, casting the tower’s shadow out across the flight deck. The weather report said it should be sunny today since that storm had passed over, but not too warm. The ground would probably be wet and muddy most of the day, but the deck should be dry soon, as well as the pier area, so I hoped we could get some work done on the fence today and start using those buildings for housing and storage. I wanted to start getting away from the ships as much as possible, because much of the group was not comfortable on them. I wanted us to be back on land soon so we could get back to a more normal way of life, or at least as close to normal as we could return.
“Good morning, gentlemen, how are we this morning?” Leslie asked as she entered the bridge.
“Good morning ma’am, how are you this fine Navy morning?” Chief asked with his normal cheerfulness. I think he did it just to aggravate me this early in the morning, as chief petty officers were not usually known for their cheerful demeanor.
“Tired, and sore, but awake and alive.” She replied, leaning against the table.
“Same here. That was an impressive showing yesterday, I must say. I was fresh and you still gave me a good run. Are you ready to be captain for the day?” I asked.
“I think so, although I’m not really sure what that entails, or what we could really do, honestly.” She answered.
“Well, let’s see what the day brings. First off, I always check the daily logs, here, to see if anything needs attention today, like maintenance issues, personnel issues, anything like that. Next, I check the radio messages, if there are any. We have a repeating message on multiple frequencies that we broadcast every fifteen minutes. We use CB, ham radio, and of course military and all first responder bands. If we get a response, we try to make contact. That’s how we have found a few of the smaller groups. Let’s look at the clipboards, see if anything needs your attention.” I informed her, pointing to the various clipboards which held the different reports I looked at. Once finished, I motioned for her to take the lead and she walked over to the daily section reports, flipping through the different pages from each department. Engineering and Maintenance were always the longest, since they covered most areas on the ship. There was also Personnel, which only sent me a report when we had new people, simply to let me know that beds had been found for them, or if the laundry service needed any help. Security reported in only if there had been any fights or breaches of the fence, so rarely I saw anything from them. Operations covered everything from the weather reports, radar signals, as well as any off-ship missions.
After reading the entire clipboard, she shrugged and handed it to me for confirmation that it was all cl
ear. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary on any of them, so we continued with the day. The radio report was also bare of responses, so I then led Leslie out of the bridge to do one of my walks around the ship to talk to people. Quite a few people congratulated Leslie on the match, and we chatted with several of them, just checking in with people like I usually did. We eventually made our way back to my office, where I showed her some of the plans I was working on, and asked her what she thought we should work on that day.
“The fence seems to be the most important thing to work on right now. Let’s focus on that today.” Leslie said after looking at all the options.
“Good, let’s go pass the word to the bridge.” I replied, motioning to the door for her to head out. I let her make the announcement to Chief, who then passed the orders on through the 1MC. Leslie followed me out onto the flight deck to watch as men and women started filtering out of the ship onto the pier, followed shortly by others hauling building supplies down to the pier. The basic plan was to build wooden frames with tin sheets on them to prevent infected or animals from seeing in. That would allow an extra bit of security for this area until we knew for sure it was safe.
Leslie and I chatted about the different things I did during the day usually, and what we each did before the event. She was a legal aid before, so her skill set was not exactly called for in this new world. She had been working with Val in helping keep records of how many people we had, bunk assignments, and inventory lists. It worked for her and let her feel like she was contributing. We talked about our experiences when everything happened, people we met, people we lost, and our hopes for the future here. Men and women came and went from the ship, helping with the construction of the wall panels, or else going to check out the buildings to see what could be salvaged, or how the buildings would be best used.
“So, there’s not much to leading this group, then, is there?” she asked.
“Honestly, not anymore. We have the wall protecting the base, the ships, and once we have this area here safe, I’m sure there won’t be any more need for a leader like me, which I am more than happy with. Of course, we may still have some form of leadership, to manage guard details and such. That will be a discussion for a different day, though.” I replied.
“So what else is there to do today?”
“Well, other than building the fence, and going through the buildings, not much. The search teams are going to start going out at night with the FLIR units so we don’t have to go door to door anymore. It will be safer, and much faster. I hope to have at least half of the entire peninsula cleared by New Years’.” I told her, motioning back towards the tower to indicate we should go inside. I led her back towards my office and we reviewed the reports from the other locations, mapping out how far they had searched so far to give us an idea how much land we knew was safe.
“Has anyone ran across any infected yet?” she asked.
“Not any large herds, but the occasional few, yeah. Since we secured the bridges, here, here, and here, infected were seen steadily at first. Those sightings and encounters have dwindled ever since, so my assumption is that either the infected got smart and started staying in the interior and away from the coast, or we have already cleared most of them out. They haven’t shown any signs of intelligence before, so I’m doubtful of the former.” I answered. My finger traced the edges of searched area, and it was clear that the southern sections were moving faster; probably because the southern area had more wildlife habitats and marsh land, so the buildings were much more spread out and easier to search. Still, after a week, we had only made a small dent in the entire search area.
“What about people? Have we found any others after the apartments?” she asked.
“No, not since then.” I replied.
“I heard the rumor about the tigers, what about other animals?”
“Well, we had seen several large animals that had obviously escaped from zoos, not only up here, but on the way here, as well as around Norfolk. There have been reports of bears, tigers, leopards, and even lions. Packs of dogs, wolves, cats, and all manner of scavengers have also been seen as well.” I answered.
“What happens if we run into packs of large animals up here? Do you plan on killing them all?” she asked me.
“Only if we need to, or if they attack us. The safety of the people is my priority, but I don’t want to kill animals unnecessarily, either. Any animal killed, however, will be used; for meat, the hides for fur, things like that.” I replied, hoping to set her mind at ease, but at the same time trying to get her to see the reality of it.
“You mentioned that you wanted to only keep a limited leadership after everyone moves up here, but I think that is a bad idea. We should have some form of government, to have a military force to guard us, as well as to organize some form of emergency response for fires and the like.” She said.
“I had been thinking about that actually, some form of long term plan, but haven’t had the heart to put much work into it yet. Why don’t you work on that, come up with a plan, some form of government, a few basic laws, and we will have a meeting with everyone that is considered a leader around here and discuss it.” I answered. She did have a valid point that some form of leadership should stay in place to help manage the guards, keep basic maintenance of the infrastructure up, as well as have some form of laws to maintain the peace. Her point was basically that the world was gone as we knew it, and what we were doing was basically starting over. This would be a new country all over again, and we could shape it as we saw fit, make it better, correct the corruption that had plagued politics for so long.
“You want me to work on it?” she asked, turning to look at me.
“Why not? You were a law clerk before, I believe, so you would have at least a basic understanding of how laws work, you should be able to come up with a short list of items that we should all follow. Give it a try, see what you come up with, and then we will meet with everyone in a leadership position here and go over them, together.” I answered. We continued staring out over the pier area for a while, watching the people come and go, watching the progress of the wall panels as they were built here with some open space, and then trucked to the fence. We could hear the hammering quite clearly up here, and the chatter of the men and women as they worked. That sound was what kept me going every day, knowing that even as crazy as things have become, as desperate as people have become, we could still live and thrive if we worked together.
“I’ll see what I can come up with then, if you insist. Any idea where or how I should start?” she asked.
“Well, basic things first; no stealing from another individual, no hoarding food, and no shirking of responsibility would be a good start. We also need to think about punishments for breaking the rules. Come up with whatever you think sounds good, and we will discuss it.” I replied. I knew that was something we would have to consider at some time anyways to keep peace and order, and ensure that the group didn’t dissolve into chaos.
We continued watching the progress down below for a while, then headed back into the ship. It was getting late in the afternoon now, and it was a cloudy day as well, so I wanted to check the weather and make sure we could still start using the FLIR tonight. Leslie thanked me for the chance to see what it was like to oversee things, even for a little while, then said she was going to go start working on her project. I headed down to the weather office to check on things so we could plan our night. As I stepped in, Jackson waved me over as he was studying the computer screen.
“Sheldon, I’ve been watching this system that just moved through, and while it did bring plenty of rain, it doesn’t look like anything too serious happened. It’s still cloudy, but it should be clear of rain now for quite some time.” He told me, sitting back in his chair.
“Good, I was hoping to be able to start using the FLIR tonight with the choppers, and it sounds like we can. Let me know if anything changes.” I replied, clapping him on the shoulder. My next stop was the flight offi
ce to have the pilots be notified that they would be flying tonight, and then to the ground team office so the ground crews could prepare also. If this went as well as I thought it would, we may have this entire sector cleared by the end of the month. If we could, we could start moving people up here to claim housing and start building an infrastructure, like repairing lines to restore power and water. We also had all new areas to raid for supplies, like medicines, gas, food, and weapons. I expected to find many new items to add to our inventory.
After speaking with the both offices and starting the process of getting the men ready, I headed back up to the bridge. I went to the radio room and sent a message to Michelle and a few others, asking that any replies be sent to my cabin, then headed down there to shower and relax before planning the next steps we would need to take. I would have to check how much JP-5 we had on board, since I knew most of it had been removed early on when the aircraft were off-loaded to the base. That would determine how effective the choppers would be, because without fuel they would be very large, expensive ornaments on the flight deck. I knew the pilots had given them the all clear in the maintenance area, but fuel would be an issue. The vehicles would need gas also, and we only brought a very small amount with us as we hoped to be able to scrounge and scavenge up here.
After my shower, I reviewed the reports from the ground teams regarding their progress and things they had found along the way. Between what I had seen the days I went with them, and the reports they put in, there appeared to be many cars abandoned that we could siphon gas from, and maybe find some gas stations too. The APC’s ran on diesel, so they would be harder to find fuel for, but we could easily find other vehicles to use, like we did before. As I was looking at the reports, I noticed that one of them specifically mentioned an almost fully stocked liquor store. That gave me a laugh as it showed me that even through everything that has happened, sailors and soldiers are still concerned about where their next drink will come from.