Arisen, Book Eight - Empire of the Dead

by Michael Stephen Fuchs

  Homer looked undisturbed. “What I’m telling you this time is: it’s also a lot easier to take down or capture a ship at anchor than you realize. Hell, a bunch of organic farmers and messianic nutjobs almost took this ship.”

  Handon looked at Homer from under lowered brow. He knew full well that Homer had spent a big chunk of his life training for and executing VBSS missions: visit, board, search, and seizure. This meant swarming onto an enemy or pirate-controlled vessel – from the air, from the water, or usually both – and taking control of it by force. Usually with a relatively small team.

  “As you discovered yourselves,” Homer said, “you don’t need that many guys – they just need to be in the right place, have the element of surprise, and be moving a million miles an hour. If they’re highly trained and skilled, as well as vicious and merciless, so much the better. And a major training task of any Spetsnaz naval unit is going to be VBSS – ship takedowns.”

  Abrams suddenly found himself doubting that Drake’s dismissal of the idea was totally warranted. He said to Homer, “What makes you think that’s what they were attempting?”

  Homer looked across at him. “Firstly, they had a lot of personnel, plus a mini-sub, cruising around underneath this vessel. And two of them were doing hostile reconnaissance – peering through the hull with a thermal imaging camera.”

  Abrams didn’t yet find this compelling. But Homer wasn’t done. “And those two helos that flew directly at us after the missile attack? Anyone have a competing theory about what they were planning on doing when they got here?”

  The silence said no one did.

  “And the missile attack itself. They had no way of knowing our anti-missile defenses were almost completely exhausted. I think that attack was a feint – they expected it to fail, that their missiles would be shot down. Because they didn’t want to destroy this vessel. They wanted to own it.”

  Fick spoke, his gravelly voice respectful. “Why the limpet mines, then?”

  Homer shrugged. “The mines were insurance. They were prepared to sink us if they had to.” He laid his hands flat on the table, and looked from Fick to Drake. “But there’s maybe one vessel still floating that would be better to ride out the ZA in than a Kirov-class battlecruiser. And it’s this one. Really, you should have NSF doing foot patrols right now on every deck. Checking people’s IDs.”

  “Jesus,” Abrams said, the magnitude of this hitting him.

  Homer shrugged again. “We chased off their helos, and I disrupted their sub-surface op. But for all we know they have combat swimmers climbing up onto the rear dock and changing into U.S. Navy uniforms right now. That would be exactly in character for Spetsnaz. And it’s not as if ship’s security is what it used to be – back when you faced opponents with working brains.”

  Abrams looked around the table, where pretty much everyone was sitting rapt and wide-eyed now. It occurred to him that this was all suddenly looking a lot like a loya jirga. After a year in Afghanistan doing intel work – a strange place for a naval officer, but that was post-9/11 for you, plus he had volunteered – he knew this Pashto phrase meant “grand council.” It was a mass meeting, called for major decisions such as choosing a new king or planning a war. Abrams had a sense that the direction this discussion took in the next few minutes, and whatever decision they all reached, would have a critical impact on, perhaps, the fate of the entire world.

  But before Abrams could speak, to try and channel the discussion, Drake beat him to it.

  “Homer’s right,” he said finally. “They’ve been two steps ahead of us at every stage. We’re getting out of here.”

  Homer sighed. “That’s not my point. My point is: we have to destroy them. And we have to do it now. The time for half-measures is over.”

  Now Handon spoke, his expression about as dark as most of those there had seen it. “Leaving now would also entail one other terrible cost.” He looked around the table before finishing. For a second, Abrams thought he meant the ground commander who’d been left behind on the shore mission – Juice. But he didn’t. He said, “We can’t do without the supplies still sitting in that base.”

  Drake said, “Then we’ll have to find another source.”

  Fick scratched his stubble and said, “You got some plan for getting us to the Port of Aden and Somalia – with that big bastard floating right between us and it?”

  Drake blinked. “We’ll go around it if we have to.”

  Handon said, “That could take days. And the world might not have days.”

  Drake looked down at the tabletop. When he looked up again and caught his eye, Homer thought his expression was very strange. He looked horror-struck – like he was somehow already looking at a dead man.

  When he finally managed to speak again, Drake said, “I don’t care. We’re not attacking that battlecruiser again. They’ve had our number every time. I’m just not doing it. I’m not sending more people out to their deaths.”

  He stood up. This apparently settled the matter.

  “I’m on the bridge,” he said, and exited.

  * * *

  The others kept their seats, and regarded one another around the table. They all sensed that this was the discussion after the discussion.

  “I’m sorry,” Abrams said. With these two words, he conveyed to the others his understanding that Drake had lost the ability to command. But also that there was nothing he could do about it.

  Campbell, known more for her caginess, smarts, and tactical acumen than particularly for her loyalty, said: “Okay, so previously Drake dismissed Homer’s warning about the threat to this ship. And if it weren’t for Homer, we’d all be sleeping with the fishes right now.”

  Predator leaned forward over the table, casting a shadow. “Not to mention that he was nearly killed doing it, fighting off the threat on his own.”

  Campbell shook her head. “And now Drake’s doing the exact same shit again. Not listening.”

  Handon peered pointedly at Abrams. “Look,” he said. “You’ve got to take command of the ship.”

  Abrams shook his head. “I can’t do that.”

  “There’s no choice. Drake is incapable.”

  “Just because he doesn’t agree with your tactical assessment doesn’t make him incapable. Anyway, only a medical officer can make that determination.”

  Campbell tapped her thin fingers on the table. “Handon’s right. Drake’s not getting the job done.”

  “Nonetheless,” Abrams said. “He’s still in command.”

  Fick now pushed himself back from the table with this thick arms, sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He looked around the table and said: “You know what they call a leader with no followers?”

  The others waited for him to answer his own question.

  “Just a guy out taking a walk.”

  Homer leaned in closer to Handon now and said: “We can fix this ourselves. I can get it done.”

  “Define fix,” Handon said.

  Without hesitation Homer reeled it off: “Save Juice. Secure the supplies. And finish this – for good.”

  Handon nodded. “Talk,” he said.

  Abrams rose to his feet and said: “Whatever you guys are planning… I don’t want to know about it. Also, do it fast.”

  And with that, he exited in Drake’s footsteps.

  Through the open hatch, and down the length of the flag bridge, the others could just hear the whooping blades of an incoming helicopter.

  Get Some

  Jesus Two Zero - Inbound to the JFK

  Ali watched the flight deck below swarming with movement as she descended and flared in to land. She aimed to put the Seahawk down close to the island, mainly so the wounded could be gotten below quickly. The people moving around below her were partly flight deck, air wing, and maintenance guys. But mostly medical personnel.

  They had been alerted well in advance that this flight was bringing in critically injured men.

  As Ali descended, something about one of the
figures below grabbed her. Focusing in, she saw it was Homer, just exiting the island – and he had Predator and Henno with him. She watched him turn and exchange shouted instructions with them. Then those two ducked back inside, while Homer dashed out toward Ali’s landing spot.

  He still seemed to be wearing his wetsuit.

  Plus what looked like quite a lot of duct tape.

  Ali touched the aircraft down on its three fat tires, kissing the deck dead level and smooth as silk. This was slightly surprising – both to her, and to everyone apprehensively watching – as she was flying a helicopter so shot-up that you could probably read a newspaper through it.

  But these Seahawks were tough old birds.

  Gurneys and medics swarmed the main cabin, after yanking open both side doors. In seconds, they were assessing wounds, applying tourniquets – and injecting adrenaline and doing chest compressions. Ali looked over her shoulder and was not in the least surprised to see all four crew members being treated, as if all had survivable injuries.

  They were alive, and they could be saved, until a certified flight surgeon damn well said otherwise.

  She was just reaching up to bring the engines offline when Homer pulled open the cockpit door, stuck his head in, and started shouting at her. Ali pulled her ICS headset down around her neck and leaned over.

  “Keep her running!” Homer said.

  Ali started to ask him why. But she got the answer from his expression alone: she was going to have to trust him. She nodded and let the rotors turn. Slightly belatedly, she noticed his injuries – including the bandaged knife wound across his face. “You look like shit,” she said.

  He reached out, put his hand on her left cheek, and said: “You look beautiful.”

  Smiling despite herself, Ali touched her own hand to her right cheek – where the giant gauze pad was still stuck to her face with dried blood.

  “How’s your fuel situation?” Homer shouted again, his head pressed up close to hers now.

  Ali shrugged. “Not bad. We weren’t actually out that long.”

  “How far can you go?”

  “Depends. How far do you need to go?”

  “Depends.”

  Ali rolled her eyes. “We can always top the tanks.”

  Homer shook his head. “This isn’t exactly a scheduled or supported air op, so I don’t think we’re going to get refueling services. Anyway, there’s no time.”

  He looked around now at the variety of large bulletholes and exposed insulation. “Will this thing stay in the air?”

  Ali shrugged again. “Yeah, probably. It has so far. Radio doesn’t work.”

  “Perfect,” Homer said, and climbed in.

  * * *

  After they roared back around the stern of the Kennedy, and flared in again over the rear dock, Ali had to try and hold a hover – beside a gigantic warship moving at near its top speed. Staying just off the rear edge of the dock required keeping her rotors spinning about six inches from the stern. She was also flying sideways, so the side cargo door faced the dock.

  This was harder than it looked.

  Stealing a glance down and across at the dock, she could see Henno and Pred already down there – with a large bundle of nylon strapping, which they were using to ensnare what looked like a gigantic dildo.

  In reality, it was the Russian mini-sub.

  Homer jumped out the door onto the dock and started trans-shipping what looked like a shit-ton of limpet mines, from the bay of the wet submersible, over to the main cabin of the Seahawk. He finished doing that at the same time as Henno and Pred finished fashioning what Ali realized now was a sling-load.

  It was also clearly going to be a heavy one – and Ali was obviously going to be expected to lift it off that dock without swinging it, or the helo itself, into the Kennedy and killing herself and everyone in the vicinity.

  Homer climbed aboard now and reached back as Henno passed across his dive equipment – air tank, rebreather, fins, etc. – and then a second nearly identical set of dive gear. Finally, Henno and Pred grabbed their rifles and threw themselves on board.

  At the last second, Gunny Fick and two Marines came leaping down the rear ladder, each carrying a pair of ten-gallon fuel cans. As they handed them across, Ali thought she could hear him shout something like, “Been keeping these in reserve! I don’t want to hear any bullshit about how you didn’t have enough to get back!”

  As Ali pulled her collective and lifted away, doing complex back-of-the-envelope calculations to keep the swinging weight of the sling-load from turning the flight into an exciting but short carnival ride, she could see the Marines down below, pumping their fists and waving their hats as they shrank to toy-soldier size. And she could read their lips as they shouted:

  “Yeah! Get some!”

  * * *

  Abrams stood on the observation deck outside the bridge and watched the Seahawk come around from the stern again, drop down close to the deck – as low as it could, with what looked like a gigantic steel dildo slung underneath it – and blast straight toward shore, nose down and looking serious.

  Within seconds, it had disappeared among the trees and ground clutter – which Abrams ardently hoped meant it would be invisible to radar on the Russian battlecruiser as well.

  He was so lost in his own thoughts, which were at this point chasing one another around in increasingly frantic circles in his head, that he only realized Handon was standing at the railing beside him when he spoke.

  “Looks like I was wrong,” Handon said.

  “About what?”

  “About Alpha being unable to do anything to help with naval surface warfare.”

  Without turning his head, Abrams said, “Does your guy know what he’s talking about?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Handon said.

  “Does he know what he’s doing?”

  Handon just bobbed his head and gazed off toward the shrinking dot of the Seahawk. And he kept his mouth shut while thinking:

  I sure as hell hope so.

  All the Way Home

  JFK - Captain’s Ready Room

  Commander Drake sat in the cocoon of the silence and near dark. A thick coating of dust covered the desk in front of him. No one had disturbed it, not for a long time. And neither had he.

  He was still sharing this compartment with the dead. They kept assailing him. And no amount of blocking them out, through sheer force of will, seemed to make them go away. Willpower, and denial, were working worse for him all the time.

  Trying not to see their faces, he couldn’t stop himself thinking again of the two sailors who had taken their own lives. That committal ceremony, which Drake had thought would buck everyone up, pull them all together, hadn’t been enough to save them. Hell, the damned depressing thing was probably what pushed them over the edge.

  And now he remembered all the men and women who had died in the terrible mutiny and outbreak – including most of the engineering section, in that magazine explosion. And all because he hadn’t listened to Homer – who had tried to warn him of the activities of the Zealots down in the chapel.

  And evidently he hadn’t learned a damned thing from the experience, because hadn’t listened to him the next time, either, about the threat of the Russians. He kept doing the same shit, repeating the same mistakes over and over again.

  Maybe he shouldn’t have defied CentCom, should have gotten the scientist the hell out of there and back to Britain while he could. Maybe he’d screwed up to think they would all be safe here. This floating city had seemed so secure – away from the dead, away from the world.

  Maybe he should have listened.

  Then there were the fatalities, and all the terrible burn injuries, from the missile strike. And the death of Sergeant Brandon “Ice Cube” Coulson – a Marine who could hardly be spared, but who had spent his life anyway, trying to save others. All because Drake had failed to take sufficient precautions coming into port. Then the death of Tom-o, and the loss of the CAG, because he had been i
n too much of a hurry to attack, had been so sure he knew what he was doing.

  Then again – some still-rational part of Drake’s mind tried to tell him – everything was obvious in retrospect. They even had a name for it: “hindsight bias.” It referred to the difficulty of remembering how little you knew at the time, how uncertain things were, before they all played out. Even wildly contingent events looked inevitable in retrospect. But they weren’t. And it’s actually psychologically difficult to imagine not knowing back then what you know now.

  It was also easy to cherry-pick the blown decisions after the fact. For instance, all the clues pointing to 9/11 were there beforehand – but they were buried in an ocean of thousands of clues, all of which had to be sifted through. Similarly, Drake had been dealing with a thousand issues and making hundreds of decisions at the time. After the fact, it was easy to pinpoint the calls he should have made differently, and the people he should have listened to.

  But good advice doesn’t come in a box marked “good advice.” And pointing out what facts he should have paid attention to at the time was painting the bullseye around where the arrow happened to hit.

  But there was also no denying that Drake’s arrows were going increasingly wild.

  He knew that the decline of his powers of judgment, and of command, had all gotten much worse, started spiraling out of control really, after he survived that gunshot wound and grenade explosion – when that last surviving Zealot had almost gotten him after all. He’d had a lot of bad and worsening physical symptoms – headache, dizziness, ringing ears, blurred vision, light sensitivity – before the behavioral ones started to kick in.

  It turned out Doc Walker had been right to try and keep an eye on him. And he had been wrong to brush her off. Once again, he hadn’t listened.

  Drake shook his head, and almost laughed. Now, for some reason, the fog around him seemed to clear a bit, and the dead retreated. It gave him space to breathe. And to think. And what he thought was:

  All the good decisions I’ve made, all the close calls and breaks we’ve gotten, all the wildly improbable victories… none of it will mean anything – if it all falls apart now.