by John Ringo
“Without the question mark, Mr. Isham and, yes, that includes the young lady with the gun to your head . . . to follow the orders of the crew . . .”
“To follow the orders of the crew . . .”
“Of the rescue boat Tina’s Toy . . .”
“Without backtalk . . .”
“Or sarcasm . . .”
“To the best of my ability . . .”
“Until I can get the hell away from these nutjobs . . .”
“So help me God.”
“You can holster, Faith,” Steve said.
“Damn,” Faith said, decocking and holstering.
“For everyone else,” Steve said. “I was a para in the Australian Army. I am a combat veteran long before this current brouhaha. I am a naturalized American citizen. Immediately prior to the plague, I was a history teacher. I actually understand these times because they have been common in history. Oh, not zombie plagues, but similar situations. Once we have more than one bloody boat for people to be on, we can determine who gets the boat and who goes on it. And we’ll do that by vote. Not that you get a vote about taking this boat anywhere. But when one comes open, anyone who fears for their safety with us mad people, or who is unwilling to aid in this Great Endeavor, can move to that boat. Or, as I’ve said repeatedly, when we approach shore you can take your chances. But until I’m assured that you are not going to mutiny, do not become a security threat. Do I make myself very clear? A chorus of ‘yes, Captain’ would be appropriate.”
“Yes, Captain,” the group said.
“Aye, aye, captain,” Chris said from the galley. He was spinning a rather large knife. “I’ve got asahi coming up, if that meets with the captain’s approval?”
“Thank you, Chris, that would be superb,” Steve said. “The next boat that we come to, if there are no security threats, you’ll be clearing the EPIRB, Mr. Isham. Clear?”
“Yeah, sure,” Isham said nervously.
“Clear, Captain or Aye, aye, Captain,” Steve said, trying not to sigh. “There really is a reason for it. So . . . Try it again . . .”
CHAPTER 18
“Toy, this is Cooper.”
“Cooper, Tina’s Toy, over,” Sophia said.
Sophia sometimes thought about complaining that she was on the helm about fourteen hours a day. She, like, never got a break. The problem being, she knew she loved being at the helm.
They’d picked up two other boats and six more survivors. Isham, Christianson and four others who volunteered to leave had been put on one of the yachts and told they could go anywhere they wanted, don’t let the door hit you in the ass and don’t get in our way.
Chris was now running the Daniel Cooper, a 75-foot “flush deck trawler.” It wasn’t as cool-looking at the Toy, but Sophia had to admit it had more room. And it had taken less of a beating from zombies.
“Uh, Captain Chris wants you to come over here . . .”
“Where is here and why, over?” Sophia asked.
“There’s a big boat here. He says it’s a Shewolf job.”
“Give me your location, over,” Sophia said, trying not to snort. She was actually at fault for the nicknames. She’d been talking to Paula, at the helm as usual, and telling some stories from Da’s old days. His old para nickname of Wolfsbane had come up. That got changed to “Captain Wolf.” Then people started calling her, Sophia, “Seawolf.” So now it was “Papa Wolf” or “Captain Wolf,” “Mama Wolf,” “Seawolf” and “Shewolf.”
She took down the coordinates, then another voice crackled over the speaker.
“Seawolf, Cooper, over,” Chris said.
“Roger, Cooper,” Sophia replied.
“Need to talk to your Da, over.”
“Da,” Sophia said, keying the intercom. “Cookie’s on the horn. Says there’s a boat that’s a ‘Shewolf job.’”
“I hate you!” Faith yelled from the saloon. She was engaged in cleaning some of the guns.
“It’s not my fault you’re adopted,” Sophia sang out.
“I’m not adopted,” Faith said.
“She’s not adopted,” Steve said, walking onto the bridge. “Cooper, Toy actual, over.”
“Got a big job here, Toy. Forty, fifty-meter tug. Zombies, plural, on deck. Lots of corridors. Not our cuppa.”
Steve had supplied Chris with some weapons to clear open boats, but not something like that. Besides, he’d expressed an unwillingness to do serious clearance. “I was a chef, not SBS.”
“Roger,” Steve said, thinking about it. “We’re about to clear a purb. We’ll vector after that.”
“Roger. We’re on to other clearance then?”
“Roger. Continue clearance. We’ll handle the big job.”
“Better you than I. Cooper, out.”
“Shewolf job?” Faith said. “Big job?”
“You are about to get your wish, I think,” Steve said. “Big ocean-going tug. Hundred and fifty feet or so. Zombies on deck.”
“Which means zombie city,” Faith said, excitedly. “Boo-yah!”
“You’re too weird not to be adopted . . .”
* * *
The EPIRB had been another bust. The tug was another matter.
“Assuming it didn’t run its engines out and it’s diesel, that’s a boomer of fuel for the taking,” Steve said.
The tug was enormous. Next to it the Toy looked like, well, a toy. And, as reported, there were zombies on the deck.
“I can get an AK and try to shoot them off,” Faith said.
“You mean I can try to shoot them off,” Steve said. They were certainly lining up for it. “I’m a better hand with a rifle.”
“Bet I get more than you,” Faith said. “Bet you dishes.”
“The problem is bouncers,” Steve said, considering the angles. “We’re going to hit low some of the time. We don’t want them bouncing back. That would be unwelcome.”
“I was thinking from the flying bridge,” Faith said. “But if we fire from down here, they’re going to bounce up, right?”
“There’s a bit of a lip,” Steve said, pointing to the metal bulwark. “Either way, we’re going to have some come back and down. Seven six two tends to keep going, you know. Like going through your mother, going through the hull—”
“Frangibles?” Faith said.
“We’re a bit short on those,” Steve said. “Full-up body armor, ballistic glasses, shotgun, and hope like hell we don’t kill anyone but zombies or sink the boat.”
“Shotgun spreads, Da,” Faith pointed out.
“It also is relatively low-velocity,” Steve replied. “When, not if, it bounces, it hopefully will not go all the way through the hull. The family will rig up, everyone else below decks.”
* * *
“Think you put enough holes in the boat, honey?” Stacey asked nicely. There was a large one right in one of the saloon windows.
“I’m just glad nothing worse happened,” Steve said. He was finishing rigging for the entry. This time an assault pack made sense. But they’d put life vests on outside everything. They were going to have to climb a boarding ladder to get up to the tug’s deck. That was going to be a new experience. “We’re going to have to figure out a better way to clear zombies off the deck.”
“Like water cannon maybe?” Sophia called. She’d taken off her helmet but was still in armor. And she hadn’t liked it when a bouncer had come through the cabin.
“As I said,” Steve said, “we’ll have to find something better.”
“I’ll go get the fiberglass patches . . .” Stacey said.
“I still got more than you did,” Faith said. “You’re on dishes tonight.”
* * *
“We need to use the dinghy for this,” Steve said, grimacing. “I don’t want to put the boat alongside until we can get some of those big balloon things from the tug.”
“Going up there from the dinghy is going to be tough,” Faith said.
“Which is why we’re going to do it very carefully,” Ste
ve said. “And wear life vests.”
* * *
“Pirates make this look so easy,” Faith said, throwing the grapnel again. “Damnit!”
“Don’t hole the dinghy,” Steve said as she pulled the rope back in.
* * *
“Son of a b-blug-blug . . .” Faith spit out a mouthful of water and flailed at the surface. “This vest isn’t . . . Blug!”
Given the weight of her gear, the vest was barely keeping her at the surface.
“Grab the rope, Faith!” Steve yelled. He was up on the deck already and dangling a recovery line to her. Fortunately, the vessel wasn’t moving much in the light swells.
“Ow!” Faith said, as the hull hit her helmet and pushed her under. She managed to get a hand on the recovery line, though, and Steve pulled her back out from under the tug.
“Tell me there aren’t any sharks,” Faith said, flailing with one free hand for the boarding ladder.
Steve looked around and considered his answer carefully. The recently terminated infected had, after all, bled out. The scuppers were, in the old term, running with blood. And, yes, there were a few shadows. And fins . . .
“You might want to hurry . . .”
* * *
“We need a better way to get onto boats,” Faith said. She was sprawled out on the deck of the tug.
“You realize you’re lying in infected zombie blood, right?” Steve said.
“I sooo don’t care,” Faith said. “We’re going to wash down when we reboard, anyway. Christ, that sucked. I was getting ready to dump my gear. If we didn’t need it and if I could figure out a way to do it without taking off the vest, I would have. But all I could think was if I took off the vest I was doing the deep dive with sixty pounds of gear to take off on the way down.”
“We’re going to have to figure out better protocols,” Steve said. “That’s for sure. But we’re still going to have to use the ladder.”
“I hate those,” Faith said. “I really do.”
* * *
“Zombies, zombies, zombies!” Faith yelled, pounding on the exterior hatch with a crowbar. “Come to Papa Wolf! Zombies, zombies . . . And we’ve got customers, Da.”
“Roger,” Steve said, taking a free-hand stance back from the hatch. “Make sure to cover yourself with the hatch.”
“Try not to nail me with bouncers,” Faith said, undogging the hatch. She pulled it all the way open and hid behind it.
Four zombies stumbled out into the light, blinking.
“HERE!” Steve called, taking the first one out. “Here, here, here!”
The zombies, half blinded by the light, stumbled towards the shouts and were dropped in a line.
“All clear?” Faith asked, sticking her head around the hatch.
“Step away and we’ll see,” Steve said.
She moved back to his position and considered the darkened interior.
“We’re really going to have problems with adjustment,” she pointed out.
“I read an article where the reason that pirates wore eye patches was to keep one eye available for moving into darkness,” Steve said. “Go into a hold and switch it to the other eye.”
“I guess maybe we should have flip-up sunglasses or something?” Faith said.
“Maybe,” Steve said. “Zombies! Hello . . . ZOMBIES! Anybody home?”
“Zombies, zombies, zombies!” Faith yelled, banging on the deck with her crowbar.
“Ah, that’s got one,” Steve said as another zombie stumbled out into the light.
“Wait,” Faith said, dropping the crowbar and drawing her pistol. “We’ve still got more forty-five than twelve-gauge.”
“Point,” Steve said as she fired. “I was afraid you were going to use the crowbar.”
“Been there,” Faith said. “Prefer shooting them.”
“Let’s dog it again and check the bridge,” Steve said. “Then we’ll clear down from that.”
“Okay,” Faith said, shrugging. “Any particular reason?”
“More light up there?”
* * *
There was a zombie on the bridge. A well-fed one. Which was explained by the two corpses also on the bridge.
“So . . .” Faith said, tilting her head. “One was wearing clothes. The other looks like he wasn’t . . .”
“Zombies eat each other,” Steve said. “Interesting factoid.”
“Whoops,” Faith said as a zombie came up the companionway. She fired and it tumbled back down. But there were sounds of more stumbling in the darkness below. “Think we’ve got a nest here, Da.”
“If we have to, retreat through the door,” Steve said, stepping next to her. Another headed up the companionway and he terminated it. The following zombie stumbled over that one and then started crawling up the stairs.
Faith let her Saiga fall on its sling and drew her .45. One shot to the head terminated that one.
“I think I’ve got this,” Faith said.
“I don’t think they were all crew,” Steve said, letting her take the shots. He had the Saiga up and pointed if any got past her. “This is too many for crew.”
“And there are women,” Faith said as she took one down.
“There are women in merchant marine,” Steve said. “But . . . yeah. I think they took on refugees.”
“Or family,” Faith said, pausing. “Da?”
“Got it,” Steve said, dropping his Saiga to its sling and killing the child zombie with one round of .45.
“I hate shooting the kids,” Faith said. She didn’t have any trouble with the grown male following.
“Here’s a puzzle,” Steve said thoughtfully. “Zombie up here is dead and eaten. I’d see them killing the weakest first. Why did the child survive?”
“You’re asking me?” Faith said. “That sounds like a Sophia question. I think it’s clear.”
“We certainly made enough noise,” Steve said. They’d given up on earplugs, and his ears were ringing. “We’re going to go deaf with all this fire.”
“I’ll take deafness in old age over being eaten by zombies,” Faith said, shrugging. “Why are my ears ringing in rhythm?”
“Because that’s metal pinging on metal,” Steve said. “I think we got us a survivor.”
“Another salvage operation ruined!” Faith said.
* * *
“Ah, Jesus,” the man said, turning away from the taclights and holding up his arm.
“Sorry,” Steve said, turning the light away. The locker the survivor been hiding in had no portholes and the lights must have been like a nuke going off.
The survivor was skinny as a rail with long, shaggy hair and a beard that must have started out long and gotten longer. He was also wearing only a pair of shorts. If he hadn’t responded verbally to their bangs, Steve would have thought he was a zombie.
“I’m not going to be able to see for a day,” the man said. “Sorry, let me start again. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Steve said. He pulled a chemlight out of a pouch and dropped it on the floor in the compartment. “Here’s some water,” he said, taking the bottle from Faith and getting it into the man’s hands. “We’re going to keep clearing and come back when we’re sure we can extract you safely. Just hang in there.”
“Not a problem,” the man said, taking a swig of the water with his eyes still closed. “God, that’s good. God almighty, that is sooo good.”
“Just hang in there,” Steve repeated. “We’ll be back.”
* * *
“This place is a maze,” Faith said, swinging her taclight around. “Do you know where we left that guy?”
“I think we’re going to have to find the bridge again and follow the trail of bodies,” Steve said, opening a hatch. He held his hand up to the descending sun and grimaced. “Okay, based on the bodies, this is where we first were . . .”
“Then the bridge ladder should be up and to the . . . left? Port, right?”
“Starboard,” Steve said. “See why that�
��s important on a boat?”
“Let’s just see if we can find that guy again . . .”
* * *
“Some of the guys brought their families,” the survivor said, pulling the blanket up as he sipped tomato soup. He still was wearing the sunglasses Faith had found for him. “We figured if we stayed at sea we could avoid it. Somebody, maybe a couple, were infected . . .”
The survivor’s name was Michael “Purplefly” Braito, deckhand and assistant engineer on the oceangoing tug Victoria’s Boss.
“Anybody else?” he asked, pushing up the sunglasses and grimacing.
“I didn’t hear any more banging,” Steve said. “But that doesn’t mean it’s clear. It was sort of a maze.”
“Not if you know it,” Braito said. “I could . . . Christ, I don’t want to go back on, but I could help you find your way around?”
“Tomorrow,” Steve said. “And we’re going to need to figure out some better protocols for boarding and clearing . . .”
* * *
“Okay, why didn’t we do this the first time?” Faith asked. She had a line clipped to her gear, which was being belayed by Steve from the deck. She’d held a line from the dinghy as he’d climbed the ladder.
“Because I didn’t think about it,” Steve admitted as she cleared the railing. “Makes a lot of sense in retrospect.”
“So does marking everything,” Faith said, pulling out a can of spray paint. “We’re going to need more of this. Okay,” she continued, unclipping and throwing the line over the side. “Your turn, Fly.”
* * *
“Zombies, zombies, zombies?” Faith said, banging on the hatch with the butt of a knife. “Sounds clear, Da.”
“Open,” Steve said, taking a two-handed stance with his .45, covering the opening hatch. He’d picked up a head-lamp and had two more lights duct-taped to his gear pointing forward.
“Stuck,” Faith said. The dog had released but the hatch wouldn’t open.
“Crowbar,” Steve said. “Carefully.”
“There is no careful with a crowbar, Da,” Faith said, pulling it out.
“Wait,” Braito said. “There’s something better . . .”
* * *
“I need, like, a sheath for this,” Faith said, hefting the Halligan tool. “This is, like, totally made for zombie fighting.”