Islands of Rage and Hope (eARC)

by John Ringo

  "Aye, aye, ma'am," Barnard said.

  "When we get out on missions, I'll dump the simple stuff on you," Faith said, shrugging. "Sorry, best way I can put it. I'm not big on words. I tell you we need wheels, you find the wheels and get 'em running. I say we need a house cleared, you handle it. I'll be figuring out where we're going next and which house to clear. You get it done. Okay?"

  "Aye, aye, ma'am," Barnard said.

  "I'm still a green lieutenant," Faith said. "Killing zombies I got down pat. Running a platoon, that I'm still learning. So I'm going to be asking your opinion on stuff. And hopefully most of the time we'll agree and I'll say 'Yep, sounds good, go for it.' But if I say we're doing it another way, we're doing it my way, okay?"

  "Yes, ma'am," Barnard said.

  "Bottom line is if something fucks up, people may get pissed at you," Faith said. "But it's really on me.

  "So, we got a mission," Faith said. "We gotta pick up all the weapons on the base, get 'em sorted out and get 'em fixed up and cleaned. How do you think we should detail that out, Staff Sergeant?"

  "I see they kept the last bullet for themselves," Sergeant Douglas said, pulling open the back door of the Humvee. A desiccated and bug-chewed female corpse in NavCam tumbled out at his feet. The skull cracked away from the body and rolled onto his boots. A half-dozen rats followed it and skittered under the Humvee. "I do so love my job."

  "You hear anything about what we're going to do with the bodies, Sergeant?" Lance Corporal Ken Ferguson asked. "That's our gunnery sergeant in there."

  "We dumped Captain Carrion's little helpers on the bodies on the points," Douglas said. There was a .45 on the floor in the rear compartment and an M4. From the looks of things, they'd all shared the .45 at the end. The M4 was out of rounds. "But other than that, I really don't know. We haven't been doing much cleanup, but we hadn't planned on holding any of the places we hit. Maybe they'll get the civilians to collect 'em up. But don't figure on a lot of ceremony. There's not enough of us left to bury the dead and we've got more important missions. And we're done here...Building seven next..."

  "How long to sweep the base?" Steve asked, looking at the operations plan.

  "About five days, sir," Colonel Hamilton. "To fully sweep it."

  "Two," Steve said. "Get as many weapons picked up as you can in two. Detail some areas for the Navy ground people to sweep as well. Day three you need to be rolling. Clean them up on the way to Anguilla."

  "Yes, sir," Hamilton said. "The question has been raised about the dead, sir."

  "Which has already been considered," Steve said. "Lieutenant Commander Isham is getting teams together to gather them up and get them buried. Mass grave, mind you. We'll be working on that while you're on the op. As noted, we're going to hold this base for the time being and it's a public health issue. As are the legions of rats and flies. We'll be getting it cleaned up and habitable while you're on float, Colonel. So, good news, not your problem. Bad news: ground clearance ops have their own unpleasantries. Two days, Colonel. Any questions?"

  "No, sir," Colonel Hamilton said.

  "Base this size I can't believe they don't have AT-ATs," Isham grumped.

  The handysized freighter M/V Paul Osted was unloading its cargo onto Pier L. All of it. A team had gone through its computerized manifest and triaged the containers based on "this is definitely useful, this is possibly useful, this is not useful right now." The plan was to unload all the containers, sort them out, reload the "useful"--pretty much anything in terms of "consumables"--while checking the "possibly useful." The "this isn't useful" were going to be stacked and stored.

  "AT-ATs?" Steve said. "Like the elephant tank things in Star Wars?"

  "Those big gantry cranes," Isham said. "Like they had, you know, in Tenerife?"

  Fortunately, the ship had its own cranes. Unfortunately, as usual, the people using them had limited experience. The answer was "don't hurry." On the other hand...

  "Well, we couldn't exactly use the ones in Tenerife, Jack," Steve said. "Bit of an infected problem. How long?"

  "Two weeks, minimum," Isham said. "You have no clue how much stuff is in there."

  "Alas, most of it useless," Steve said.

  "There are two, count 'em, two containers listed as 'medical supplies,'" Isham pointed out. "Don't know what kind until we get to the detailed manifest. But the codes indicated pharmaceuticals and equipment. That should be good."

  The ship had been out of Rotterdam headed to a series of small African ports when the Plague had been announced and it was "stranded" at sea. Shortly after the crew, which had naturally already picked up the virus, had gone zombie. The captain had left a quite detailed log up to a point.

  "Anything like that is useful," Steve said. "The truth is that everything we critically need is sitting on some ship, somewhere. If we had, say, the internet we could probably even figure out which and where."

  "Wouldn't that be nice," Isham said. "I know what business I'm getting into when I'm done with this Navy shit."

  "I think it's the only business there's going to be for the foreseeable future," Steve said. "I just hope we can keep civilization functioning in that environment."

  "You worry too much, Steve," Isham said, turning away from the unloading ship.

  "Clearance of the bodies on the base?" Steve asked. The pier had been cleared but he could see the seagulls squawking over the bodies on Radio Point.

  "Not a lot of takers," Isham said. "I've got some guys with civilian construction experience digging a pit for a mass grave. You know how big a mass grave you need for about seven thousand bodies?"

  "Big is about the best I can do," Steve said.

  "The same guys are willing to go around with front-end loaders to pick them up," Isham said. "Problem being, you got to have people on the ground, too. And between being afraid of the infected and, well, not being into moving bodies..."

  "We're keeping back some Navy masters-at-arms," Steve said. "Have them roust out the "lazy" among the SLLs. At gunpoint if necessary. The carrot will be we're going to be rough clearing some Caribbean islands. If they help out on this, and they will even if we've got to break out whips, we'll put them on a nice Caribbean island with some weapons in case of infected and they can just scavenge and beachcomb the rest of their lives."

  "We might have to get whips," Isham said. "They're pretty comfortable with a bed, water and sushi."

  "There was a study done post-Katrina," Steve said as they walked down the pier. "About how refugees respond. About ten percent have to have something to do to help out and they tend to be the first to jump ship and get out of whatever refugee camp they're in. At the other end, ten percent will do anything they can to avoid leaving food and a place to sleep. They used cruise ships for some of the refugees and that bottom ten percent had to be physically removed from them. So round up that bottom ten percent and tell them they can either pick up bodies or we will drop them off on the Cuban side, where the infected haven't been cleared, and they can try to fend for themselves. I am that serious."

  "That's kind of like murder," Isham pointed out.

  "I'm kind of past caring, Jack," Steve said. "I'm going to send my daughters out on another ugly mission to help save the world, and I really don't give two shits about people too lazy to help."

  "You warmed up enough, Lieutenant?" Fontana asked as Faith pounded the bag.

  "Warmed up enough to kick your ass, Lieutenant," she said to the hulking former SF NCO.

  "So the student shall defeat the master?" Fontana asked, humorously, putting in a mouth guard.

  "What student?" Faith said, directing a light snap-kick in his direction. "You think I'm your student?"

  "How's the new platoon?" Falcon asked.

  "Honestly, I can't really tell," Faith said, blocking his punch and going for a wrist bar, which he evaded. She feinted a punch and tried another snap-kick. You had to be careful with Fontana; he'd put you on your ass if he caught your kick. "I know I have to let the ne
w staff sergeant handle shaking them down. I know that. And I need to just let her do her job clearing the base. But I want to get out there picking up weapons and stuff. Hell, I want to go beyond the cleared zones and do some zombie hunting."

  "You at least are going zombie hunting," Fontana said. "I am stuck here playing catch-up on being a baby doctor. I have dealt with more insane women and looked at more vaginas in the last week than I ever wanted to see in my life."

  "TMI, Falcon," Faith said. She attacked with a blurring combination of kicks and punches, then backed off. As usual, she couldn't break through his defenses. She'd taken a couple of different styles of martial arts since she was a kid, but Fontana had been a hand-to-hand instructor in the Special Forces. It had been noted almost from 9/12 that occasionally soldiers, especially people like SF who were out on or beyond the front lines, had to actually, you know, fight for their lives and occasionally that got down to hand-to-hand. Which was why, eventually, SF had gotten serious about hand-to-hand training. It was Fontana's training as much as anything that Faith had used when it got down to "scrums." Not that it had in a while.

  "Two thousand four hundred and eighty-three women in current manning in the squadron," Fontana said. "More women survived than men. No clue why. Of those, eighteen hundred are pregnant. With most coming to term within a month of each other. And when one woman in a confined group goes into labor, it tends to cause a ripple effect. We've already had twenty-six premature births. One looks like he might survive. We're going to have more and more. God help us if we have a storm or something. Any sort of global stress, even a big weather change, can trigger premature labor."

  "Well, I've made up my mind," Faith said. "Sex, maybe. Babies, never."

  "One does tend to follow from the other, Faith," Fontana pointed out.

  "Every time we do a sweep, I've been picking up birth control pills and stashing them," Faith said. "So there."

  "I wouldn't place my...trust in birth control pills that are probably out of date and for sure have been overheated," Fontana said. He managed to get a punch through that rocked her back on her heels.

  "Better than the alternative," Faith said, dropping back. "I'm considering losing my virginity. You up?"

  She attacked like lightning as he froze for a second and managed to get in a hard blow on his head that stunned him for a brief moment. One roundhouse kick and he was down.

  "Hah," Faith said, holding up her hands in victory. "Treachery wins again! And, sorry, I wasn't actually serious. I'm looking for somebody a bit closer to my own age." She held out her hand to help him up.

  "Well, just be careful, okay?" Fontana said, rubbing his jaw. "You realize if you do get pregnant I'm probably going to end up looking at your twat and that would just ruin our relationship. Now prepare to have your ass kicked..."

  CHAPTER 11

  "...if anybody has a doctor, we sure could use some advice..."

  From: Collected Radio Transmissions of The Fall

  University of the South Press 2053

  Thomas Fontana entered the curtained alcove and picked up the chart.

  "How's it going, Tina?" he asked.

  "Fine, Lieutenant," Tina replied, moving the ultrasound wand around.

  They were still in the process of stripping both base hospitals. High on the list was anything obstetrical related.

  "Hi, Missy," Fontana said, looking at the chart and the ultrasound. "How've you been feeling?"

  "Ready to get done," the girl said. She was nineteen and had been on a cruise with her parents when the plague hit and the captain ordered abandon ship. The inevitable had occurred on the lifeboat which, fortunately, had also managed to contain no infected.

  "How's the morning sickness?" Fontana asked, pulling out a stethoscope.

  "Morning, noon and night," Missy said, dimpling. "But at least I'm not throwing up sushi all the time. It tastes better going down."

  "Lemme listen in on junior," he added, putting his stethoscope in his ears. He straightened up after a moment. "Nobody, including the doctors in the CDC, have any clue if there's going to be effects from things like being castaway, okay?"

  "Okay," Missy said unhappily. It wasn't like she hadn't heard it before.

  "That being said, looking at the ultrasound, listening to the heart, this appears to be a nice normal, healthy, active baby," Fontana said, sort of smiling. His face wasn't really made for it.

  "I hope so," Missy said. "I just want him...her to be okay, you know?"

  "I know," Fontana said, scribbling in the chart. "We all do. We are so few. Keep up the prenatal vitamins, try to keep them down for that matter, but it's all looking good..."

  "Lieutenant," one of the nurses said, sticking her head in the cubicle. "We need you in exam six."

  "It's going to be fine," Thomas said, smiling and waving as he walked out.

  "What's up?" he asked the nurse.

  "Patient is presenting with abdominal pain," the girl said carefully. She was obviously trying to remember the lingo since "nurse" was a stretch. "She has a fever of one oh one and her BP is lower than her last visit."

  "Okay," Thomas said, taking the chart and entering the cabin. "Hello...Cathy."

  "I'm sorry to take up your time, Lieutenant," the woman said unhappily. "I wasn't supposed to be in until next week. But I think something's wrong."

  The woman's pregnancy hadn't been as easy as Missy's. She'd had bouts of high blood pressure and the fetus had never been terribly robust. He would have put her on daily checks if he had the time and people.

  "Let me do a quick check," Thomas said, pulling out his stethoscope. He listened for a moment, then said: "I'll be right back."

  He stepped out into the hallway and down to the nurse's station.

  "Start prepping the OR," he said.

  "Problem?" Lieutenant Fallon said.

  "Pretty sure that fetus is dead. Please tell me we have some Keflex left. 'Cause I'm also pretty sure it's necrotic."

  "You guys look like you could use a drink," Steve said, waving his tray at the table. "Mind if I?"

  "Please," Walker said.

  They'd eventually set up an "officers" area in the dining room. Walker, as one of the "doctors" was automatically included. Steve didn't always use it; he preferred to strike up conversations with random people to get a feel for what was going on. But tonight it looked as if it was the right place to be.

  "Bad day?" Steve asked, taking a bite of fish.

  "Two premature deliveries," Fontana said. "In the U.S., pre-Plague, they'd be in intensive neonatal care. As it is, I just wrote 'stillborn.' Which they weren't, exactly, but they didn't last long. And one that died in the womb."

  "Ouch," Steve said.

  "I'm not going to ruin your dinner describing taking it out," Walker said. "We're now pumping the mother full of some of our precious remaining antibiotics and we're not sure it's going to work."

  "I just gave orders to have the ablebodied, by our estimation, among the sick, lame and lazy start clearing the bodies on the base," Steve said, continuing to eat. He'd told himself at the beginning that he had to eat regular meals no matter what. "At gunpoint if necessary. When I hear things like this, those decisions come easier."

  "The instructors in Q Course stressed over and over again, 'You are not an MD,'" Fontana said. "I mean, I've got no real clue about toxicology, histology, rheumatology..."

  "So if I recall correctly," Steve said to fill in the pause, "we're anticipating three to four hundred serious complications?"

  "When we actually started doing exams and crunching the number, we got it to three hundred forty," Fontana said. "Probably. Statistically. We're getting up to about forty that have lost them one way or another. Three late-term abortions based on serious complications. Four if you count today. We don't have the original studies so we don't know if early to mid-term miscarriages count. Anyway, at this rate only three hundred to go. Yay."

  "The way things are going, if we could materially and socially
, I'd say pull the babies on at least two hundred of the mothers," Walker said, munching placidly on a tuna roll. "Which we can't because there's not enough trained hands and there's no way you can get them all to agree. Not to mention it would be horrible for morale."

  "Losing all two hundred mothers is going to be just as bad," Fontana said.

  "Are we going to?" Steve asked quietly.

  "Yes," Walker replied. "We are. Not necessarily the two hundred I'd pick but we are going to lose two hundred or so to pregnancy related complications. We've already lost ten. Lot more to go. Possibly less if we have enough equipment or find some MDs or anyone with enough surgical training to emergency C-section."

  "On the other hand, that means sixteen hundred new children," Steve said.

  "More," Fontana said. "We have an unusually high number of multiples. Should be two percent, it's more like five percent. No clue why. Admittedly, more of those mothers are in the 'at risk' group. But we'll have more than one child per mother on average."

  "All to the good," Steve said. "The truth is, no children, no future. Not for a civilization enshrining the notion of the Rights of Man and all the rest. In which case there is no damned point to any of this."

  "I hate to stick my nose in," Walker said.

  "Mr. 'Walker,'" Steve said drily, "you can and should any time you'd like. I've yet to hear anything come out of your mouth that wasn't on point."

  "Has any thought be given to the aftermath?" Walker asked, smiling slightly. "Babies require various support materials if they are going to grow properly. Among other things, not all mothers provide adequate milk. And post weaning, they'll need adequate food and vitamins. Study I read somewhere indicated that high survival rates in the toddler years didn't really start until we developed lactose tolerance and started milking cows. Then there's the whole 'diapers' issue."