First Strike Weapon

by Gavin G. Smith

  Captain Schiller stood up. “Well, I suppose, since you’ve gone to all the effort of hijacking my ship, I should at least pay you the courtesy of a conversation.” He exchanged a few words in German with one of the bridge crew and walked past Vadim for the stairs.

  SCHILLER POURED HIMSELF a very large glass of brandy and offered Vadim one. The other captain was tempted, but had no idea what it would do to him in his current state. He suspected it would just be a waste. He shook his head.

  Schiller’s cabin was bare, but for a picture Vadim took to be of the captain’s family. There was a woman of an age with the captain, and two younger families with five children between them: presumably the captain’s children, their spouses and grandchildren. There was also a crucifix on the wall and a bookcase, mostly nautical texts or biographies. The captain sat on a wooden swivel chair at a narrow desk.

  Vadim found himself looking at the cross.

  “I wasn’t being serious about Hell, in case you were wondering,” Schiller said. “I suspect that whatever made people crazy is just another technological horror, like the nuclear weapons. We are more than capable of making our own hell.”

  Vadim turned to face the captain.

  “I am dead, and so are four of my squad. You need to come to terms with that,” he told him. “Whether it’s supernatural, or science –”

  “I thought Communists do not acknowledge the supernatural?” Schiller asked. Vadim didn’t answer. “What do you want, captain? I am assuming you want us to take you somewhere.”

  “The Baltic –” Vadim started but Schiller was already shaking his head.

  “We’re a feeder ship, we don’t have the fuel.”

  “Captain, if you’re lying...”

  “Enough,” Schiller said, and leaned forward. “I will deal honestly and fairly with you at all times, because my paramount interest is the safety of my crew and my passengers, and I don’t want you threatening either of them.”

  For what it was worth, Vadim believed him. He put the police shotgun down on the bunk, then the revolver, which was digging into his stomach. He unslung the AK-74 and laid that down on the bunk as well. The captain watched with something approaching amusement.

  “Are you sure you don’t need any more guns?” he asked.

  “We had to keep taking them from your crew. Are there any more?” Vadim asked as he sat on the edge of the bed. Then the fatigue really hit him. He wondered if he could still sleep. The more he thought of sleep, however, the more it scared him. It felt like it would be a loss of control, like he would wake up one of the mindless dead.

  “We have six rifles in total, standard ship’s complement. I have no idea if the passengers are armed or not.”

  “Where can you get to, with the fuel you have?”

  “Most of the people we took on are American. I think we should make for one of the ports further north, or perhaps even Canada. Are you at war with Canada?”

  Vadim nodded; he assumed that they were at war with all of NATO and Iran, at the very least.

  “America is gone,” Vadim told him. “The entire continent.”

  Schiller chuckled. “My countrymen learned some forty years ago not to underestimate the Americans.”

  “This attack was part of a coordinated strategy. The release of the... chemical weapon in cities, nuclear weapons for infrastructure. Create chaos, and then remove any chance of a coordinated response to it. The continent will be a wasteland for however long it takes the corpses to rot. You take those people back to America and you guarantee their deaths.”

  Schiller was staring at Vadim, open disgust on his face. “I trust you know that’s monstrous,” he finally managed.

  “Even by German standards,” Vadim told him. “Fuel?”

  “Greenland,” Schiller suggested, clearly trying to suppress his anger.

  “Europe,” Vadim insisted.

  “Spain, Portugal...”

  “Too far south.”

  “Ireland, maybe the UK.”

  “Britain,” Vadim said, nodding. He was sure the USSR would have invaded the island nation. They wouldn’t have made the same mistakes the Germans made during the last war, allowing what amounted to a huge staging post to go unconquered that close to Europe. “Supplies?”

  “Surprisingly, we have enough food. We were shipping beef up from Galveston. We also have several containers of tinned fruit. Potable water will be the issue.”

  “How many of the containers are refrigerated?” Vadim asked.

  “Just over a hundred, I believe.”

  “We can scrape the ice out, melt it.”

  “It will be filthy.”

  “We can show you how to purify it.”

  “And when we get to Britain, then what?” Schiller asked. Vadim’s smile was without humour.

  “Then you all learn to become good communists.”

  “And live in a socialist utopia? I’ll leave it to you to break this to our American passengers.” It wasn’t a conversation that Vadim was looking forward to.

  “What happened?” Vadim asked, after a few moments of silence.

  “You mean after your despicable attack?” Schiller asked. He took a sip of his brandy. It looked as though he was trying to wash a bad taste out of his mouth. “We saw the flash. A wall of flame. I can only imagine the Upper Bay and the Hudson served as a firebreak, though it sent banks of scalding steam across the water. The pressure wave almost capsized us.”

  “The people?” Vadim asked quietly.

  “There was anarchy. Many people in Red Hook made for the docks. We were trying to find out what was happening when the... well, the things like you attacked the crowds. We took as many on board as we could.”

  Vadim looked down and nodded.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  1142 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) -4, 17th November 1987

  The Dietrich, North-West Atlantic

  WEAPONS HAD BEEN collected. Princess and New Boy had been installed in the crew quarters, given the smallest berth to themselves. After consultation with Captain Schiller, Vadim and the dead Spetsnaz had taken up quarters in a half-empty container towards the bow of the ship, much to Gulag’s vocal disgust. Vadim, however, wanted them as far away as possible from the living passengers and crew. It was cold, but they didn’t really feel that, and Mongol was of the opinion the cold would slow down the rot as their bodies started to putrefy.

  They had all gone through pallor mortis, becoming pale and drawn. Algor mortis also: Mongol had checked their body temperatures and they appeared to match the ambient temperature. Rigor mortis, the stiffness of the limbs, fortunately did not seem to affect them. Vadim had, however, noticed that much of his lower body was covered in patches of purple and red, as the blood started to settle. The agent that they had been infected with seemed to have slowed down the stages of death a little, but decomposition seemed inevitable.

  He was making his way aft past the containers towards the bridge castle, accompanied by the Fräulein, for a task that he wasn’t looking forward to. He’d managed some rest and even drifted off to a fitful sleep full of red dreams. He’d been jerked awake by the motion of the ship. There had been a moment’s disorientation, and then he remembered what he had become and what he’d done. At least sleep hadn’t caused him to give into the mindless hunger, however.

  Out in the Atlantic, the weather was much worse: gone was the radioactive humidity of New York, to be replaced with driving Arctic winds and rough seas. The sun hadn’t come up, either. The thousands of tonnes of dirt, dust and ash thrown up into the sky by the nuclear detonations were blocking it out. If he concentrated, he could just about make out a dull glow above the solid, dirty cloud cover. Then it had started to snow. The snow was as black as the ash had been.

  Vadim and the Fräulein entered the bridge castle. It smelled of vomit, brought on by seasickness, and food odours from the overworked galley as it tried to cope with all the new passengers. Vadim was thankful that the stench made him considerably
less interested in feeding on any of them. People were sleeping in the corridors, the crew having done the best they could to supply them with blankets, or at least some kind of cover, and something soft to lie on. The refugees stared at Vadim and his second-in-command with expressions ranging from naked terror to borderline fury. He couldn’t blame them.

  He mounted the stairs to the second level, where more refugees lying in the corridor, struggling with the motion of the ship, had to move out of their way. He hammered his fist against the door of the cabin that Princess and New Boy had been assigned, and then opened the door. They were both in there, sound asleep.

  “Wake up,” Vadim called. Tired eyes opened, hands moved towards convenient weapons.

  “You need to lock this door,” the Fräulein told them. She didn’t need to say it was in case the refugees turned on them. The wooden door wouldn’t stop them, but it might give them enough time to grab weapons.

  “I thought I had,” a sleepy New Boy said.

  “Can you speak English?” Vadim asked him. He knew Princess could, from her time on the VIP squad, but of the two of them, New Boy was more diplomatic. Princess liked to keep communication to a bare minimum, where possible.

  “Not well, boss,” he said shaking his head.

  “You’d better not just be wanting extra time in bed,” the Fräulein snapped.

  “I swear,” he told her.

  “Princess, get up, get dressed, you’re coming with us. Sidearm only, we don’t want to scare them any more than we already have,” Vadim told her. He and the Fräulein were only carrying their Stechkins and knives. Princess grumbled, glared at New Boy and then started to drag her clothes on.

  VADIM AND THE Fräulein stood at the front of the room. A bored, sleepy-looking Princess sat on a table pushed against the wall in the cramped mess area. Captain Schiller was there, along with a crew member that Vadim didn’t recognise. The Dietrich had been docked at Red Hook in Brooklyn, and the majority of the refugees came from there. There was no place on the ship large enough for them to assemble, so Schiller had asked them to choose representatives to speak with the Spetsnaz commandos on their behalf. Vadim wasn’t surprised to see Officer Harris among them.

  “My name is Captain Scorlenski –” he managed to begin.

  “We are citizens of the United States of America, you have no right to hold us against our will.” The speaker was a slightly fleshy man in a rumpled, oversized suit, with glasses and an odd, floppy haircut.

  “Commie bastard,” added a large, red-faced man dressed in rugged clothes and boots. Possibly a dock worker, Vadim decided.

  “Look that’s not going to help –” Officer Harris started.

  “Yeah? You already gave up your weapon,” the red-faced dockworker said. “What are you, a collaborator or something?”

  “Fred, let them talk.” This from a Hispanic woman, in her late twenties or possibly early thirties, dark-haired, with an accent so thick Vadim struggled to make out what she was saying. A young girl of about seven or eight, presumably her daughter, clung desperately to her.

  “Why don’t you leave this to the menfolk, Maria?” Fred suggested. “Maybe do something useful, like go and help out in the kitchen?” Princess laughed and earned a glare from Fred, which she gave no indication of having noticed.

  “You need to turn this ship –” the man in the suit started.

  “Shut up!” the Fräulein snapped, in her drill-sergeant voice. Even Vadim was tempted to obey it. The little girl jumped and started to cry. Maria tried to comfort her.

  “Thank you,” Vadim said. “I’m afraid there are some undeniable realities to your situation here. America has been subject to both a nuclear and chemical attack. To all intents and purposes it has been rendered uninhabitable. Even if the ship had the fuel to take you back and still carry us to our destination, it would be kinder for us to just put a bullet in your head and throw you overboard. Kinder to you and easier for us.”

  “You bastards!” Fred shouted.

  “If he does that once more, I’m shooting him,” Princess said in Russian.

  “What did she say?” Fred demanded.

  “Why don’t you ask her?” the Fräulein suggested, not bothering to hide her irritation.

  “Have you radioed the navy, the coast guard?” the man in the suit asked Schiller.

  “This is Eric,” Schiller gestured to the other crewmember, a thin, nervous-looking man, although everyone looked nervous at the moment.

  “Short-range radio communication is problematic due to the effects of” – he swallowed – “nuclear detonations. Currently long-range communication is impossible.”

  “If you attract the attention of the navy, then we will have to fight, and nobody wants that,” Vadim pointed out.

  “So we’re a human shield, then?” the man in the suit asked.

  “That’s what I figured,” Fred snorted. “These guys are pussies, not capable of a stand-up fight. They just wanna pick on civilians.”

  “I suspect that the navy and the coast guard will have more pressing issues to attend to,” Schiller interjected, possibly to try and forestall a confrontation.

  “You are responsible for this?” the man in the suit demanded of Vadim.

  “We took part in the attack, yes,” Vadim told him. Maria looked up from comforting her child. He had their attention now.

  “You monsters,” the man in the suit said. Vadim said nothing.

  “We’re going to nuke you back to the Stone Age,” Fred told them.

  “There’s no ‘we,’ to do the nuking,” Vadim explained.

  “You won’t get away with this,” the man in the suit said.

  “Obviously we didn’t,” the Fräulein muttered.

  “Why?” Officer Harris asked his voice trembling.

  “I could speculate, but we’re not part of the decision-making process, as I’m sure you can imagine.”

  “Fucking communists!” Fred spat.

  “So now what?” Harris asked. “You taking us to Russia so we can all become good Marxists?”

  “I can assure you that we’re not going to Russia,” Schiller told them. “We don’t have the fuel.”

  “The UK,” Vadim told them.

  “England?” the man in the suit demanded. “My family and I aren’t going to England, that’s ridiculous. Canada, take us to Canada, they’ll have an embassy. We can find out the truth of all your commie terrorist propaganda!”

  Vadim turned to look at the man. “What is your name?”

  “Why do you want to know?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Tell him your fucking name!” Princess snapped, losing her patience and making him jump.

  “Carlsson, Davis Carlsson,” he told her.

  “Well, Mr Carlsson,” Vadim began. “The only question you need to ask yourself is whether or not you wish to survive. It’s that simple.”

  “Hey,” Fred said. Vadim ignored him. “Hey, I’m talking to you!” Vadim looked up. “When the US military catches up with you, they’re going to hang you high, you understand me.”

  Vadim crossed to the big man. Part muscle, part fat. Vadim knew the type, using his size and strength to intimidate and bully. The longshoreman blanched at his approach, going almost as pale as Vadim was himself.

  “Would you like to check my pulse?” Vadim asked quietly.

  “What are you going to do with us?” Maria asked. Vadim looked over at her, and Fred backed away.

  “We have no interest in you,” Vadim told her. “We wish you no ill.”

  “Yeah?” Fred demanded. “Tell that to Will Foster, and that other poor kid.”

  “Not to mention the two crew members they killed,” Carlsson added. Vadim glanced at Schiller, but he remained impassive.

  “The crew deaths were unfortunate –” Vadim said.

  “And in self-defence,” the Fräulein added.

  “Foster?” Vadim asked.

  “The two wounded that you killed in cold blood,” Maria to
ld them.

  “They were wounded?” Princess asked. Nobody answered. The sniper chuckled.

  “They were infected...” Vadim started.

  “With the same thing you have?” Maria asked. Her little girl was staring at Vadim.

  “Yes,” Vadim admitted.

  “Gonna do us all a favour and kill yourself?” Fred demanded.

  “Give it a break, Leary,” Harris told the longshoreman. Vadim figured they had history.

  “Fuck yourself, collaborator,” Leary snapped. Vadim tensed, ready to intervene, but the police officer just sighed.

  “I’m not collaborating, I’m listening,” Harris said. “Y’know, so I can learn stuff.”

  “Can I shoot the big loud man?” Princess asked in Russian.

  “No,” Vadim told her.

  “What did she say?” Leary demanded. “Why doesn’t she speak American?”

  “Because there’s no such language,” Vadim pointed out. “And she asked if she could shoot you.”

  “What did you say?” Leary sounded a little worried.

  “That I hadn’t decided yet,” he said, and then to Maria: “As far as we’re concerned, you just happen to be on the same ship as us. We’ll even help you survive. But if anyone acts against us, they will die. If all of you act against us, then you all die.”

  “Has England been occupied?” Carlsson asked.

  “My honest answer is I don’t know,” Vadim told him.

  “And if you were to guess?” Officer Harris asked.

  “Probably.”

  “So you’re going to have us enslaved by your commie masters, then,” Leary spat.

  “I don’t know what you think communism is about...” Vadim started.