Hunter waits until his ears stop ringing before he gets to his feet. Where the bomb went off is now a crater in the deck. Hunter kneels to look down into a bathroom—the head as the sailors call it. Hunter finds the least jagged edge of the hole to climb down through, his feet finding purchase on the sink.
The explosion will probably bring out the zeebs from a few decks down, so Hunter doesn’t have much time. He opens the bathroom door to check the corridor. There aren’t any zeebs yet. With a sigh of relief, he starts to run again.
***
The shelves of the galley are cleaned out; there’s not even a jar of cooking grease or paprika. From the dust on the shelves, it must have happened some time ago. He’s still not sure what happened to most of the crew, though he has seen enough zeebs to not have much hope for the crew or Nation and his people.
The freezers and refrigerators are no longer running, but there’s nothing in there to go rotten. The stoves and ovens won’t come on; he doesn’t smell any gas either. It’s really not a surprise given the shape of the rest of the aircraft carrier that he has seen so far.
A ghost ship. That’s the thought that pops into his mind. There used to be stories about the Flying Dutchman and the like, ghost ships that would continue to haunt the ocean where they went down. This isn’t quite so literally a ghost ship, but it’s pretty fucking close.
Since there aren’t any zeebs around the mess hall, Hunter sits down on one of the metal chairs to relax for a couple of minutes. His feet and back are sore from all the running and climbing, like he’s playing a real life game of Donkey Kong. Just how far down did Nation go? Or maybe he jumped into the harbor, taking his chances with the water.
Hunter gives himself five minutes before he gets back to his feet. He peeks out a doorway to make sure no zeebs are coming. Then he sets out again. He still hasn’t found a weapons locker yet. He’s down to fifteen bullets for the M4 and a clip each for the handguns. If he runs into another pack like by the hangar he’ll be in big trouble.
After another hour of scouring the ship, he’s down to only five bullets left in his sidearm. He dropped the Mexican pirate’s gun while the M4 he has slung over his back to use as a club if needed. It might come to that pretty soon.
He has finally reached the door to the engine room. Hunter tries to turn the wheel to unlock it, but it won’t move. He tries again, bearing down with all his strength and weight. Nothing happens.
His first thought is that he must be too worn out from running around the equivalent to scaling the Empire State Building from top to bottom. With how easily he has managed the other hatches, he doubts this is the case. More likely is that the hatch is locked. Probably some survivors barricaded themselves down here in a last ditch attempt to escape the zeebs. By now they’re probably all dead.
Still, he might as well knock and see if someone answers. He uses the butt of the M4, the sound loud enough to make him wince. Any zeeb on this deck will probably start to head this way now and he only has five bullets left.
He jumps when he hears a tap come from the other side of the door. He recognizes it as Morse code from his basic training. It’s an S.O.S. call. He closes his eyes as he tries to remember his Morse code. With the butt of the M4 he slowly taps out his name and rank: Major Hunter Hawking, USAF.
The sound of the last tap is fading when the hatch opens. Hunter doesn’t recognize the haggard man in the dirty flight suit at first, not until Nation says, “I should have known you’d be here to save my ass again.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” Hunter says. He looks over his shoulder; there aren’t any zeebs yet, but he can hear shuffling feet echoing down the corridor. “We’d better get moving. You got any ammo? I’m running on empty.”
“We’re down to clubs and shivs in here,” Nation says.
“Then let’s hurry.” Hunter peeks over Nation’s shoulder, but there’s not much to see, just some banks of machinery. “How many are there?”
“About fifty.”
“Fifty?”
A pale man with sunken eyes and wearing the remains of a khaki uniform joins Nation. He holds out a hand to Hunter. “Commander Ed Wayne. Used to be the CAG of this ship. Never thought I’d need one of you Air Force pukes to save my ass.”
“What shape are the rest of your guys in?”
“We can walk, but we might not be much good in a fight,” Wayne says. “We were gnawing on insulation like rats for the last month, until these other guys showed up.”
“A few ration bars don’t last very long with fifty guys,” Nation says.
“All right, who are the healthiest guys?”
“I guess that’d be my crew,” Nation says. “Ed wasn’t joking before. They were a couple days away from turning into the Donner party.”
The sound of shuffling feet is getting louder. It won’t be much longer now. “Then you guys come with me. We’ll try to buy some time for the others to get out of here. The mess hall seemed clear. We can regroup there.”
Someone clears his throat. A flesh-coated skeleton in denim work clothes waves a hand. “Sorry to interrupt guys. I think I got a better idea.”
“Who are you?”
“Master Chief Carl Sherwood.”
“Carl’s the one who’s been keeping power for us down here,” Nation says.
“You guys need a weapon. I think I got what you need.” He holds up a beer bottle with a rag sticking out of it. “Moltov cocktails. Might not kill them all, but it’ll burn some of those sons of bitches. Buy us some time.”
“Good idea, Carl,” Hunter says. “How many you got?”
“I can whip up a half-dozen in a jiff.”
“It better be quicker than that,” Hunter says. “We don’t have much time.”
“I’m on it,” Carl says. He tosses the first Moltov cocktail into the air. Hunter catches it before it can hit the floor. Carl has already disappeared back inside.
“One of you guys got a lighter?” Hunter asks.
“Yeah, sure,” Wayne says. He takes a silver Zippo from a pocket. He hands it over to Hunter. “I’ll go get everyone moving.”
Hunter nods to him and then starts down the corridor. He waits until he’s within twenty feet of the first zeebs before he lights the Moltov cocktail with the lighter. Once he’s sure the rag making up the “fuse” is burning, he tosses the bottle into the pack of zeebs. At first nothing happens, but then there’s a flash of fire. The zeebs roar as the fire races through the front line.
Probably more out of a primordial instinct than actual pain, the zeebs drop to the deck. The ones behind them stomp over them, until they’re on fire too. Hunter has to give Carl credit; just the one Moltov cocktail has done a good job in slowing the zeebs down.
There’s a tap on his shoulder. Nation and a couple of his guys are behind Hunter with more of the bottles. “Cover us,” Nation says. Hunter nods and then takes out his sidearm. He stays a couple of feet back as Nation throws his cocktail. It penetrates deeper into the mass of zeebs, stirring them into an even greater frenzy of roaring and stampeding.
Two more Moltov cocktails leave the whole corridor bottlenecked. “Let’s go,” Hunter says. He falls back to the ladder he came down to reach this deck. Wayne and the rest of the surviving crew are climbing up.
As they wait, Nation asks, “Did Val make it out?”
“Just barely.” He tells Nation about her getting jumped by the Mexican F-5s and then crash landing in Arizona. “She lost her left leg. It was pretty well crushed below the knee when I got to her. They had her in surgery when I left to find you. By now she’s probably out of it.”
Whether that’s to be transported to intensive care or the morgue, Hunter has no idea. Nation listens to Hunter and then shakes his head. “I shouldn’t have let her go. I knew it was suicide. But you know how she is.”
“I know,” Hunter says. There was probably no way short of knocking Val out and then dragging her into the bowels of the ship that Nation could have stopped her.
“Even if she lost her leg, it’s not the end of the world for her. They still have prosthetics.”
“Yeah. If anyone can come back from that it’s her. Still, why did I let her go off by herself? I should have sent someone else.”
“Then you’d probably have two mangled pilots,” Hunter says.
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
The zeebs have recovered enough that a few stragglers are approaching the ladder. Hunter takes out his knife, not wanting to waste the bullets. He lunges forward to stab one of the zeebs in the head. The knife doesn’t pull free. He lets it go to kick the closest zeeb in the midsection. It collapses back against a wall, but doesn’t go down. As it starts to lurch towards Hunter, a pipe caves in its skull.
“Thanks,” Hunter says to Nation.
“Just trying to pay you back.”
Hunter plants his foot on the neck of the fallen zeeb with the knife in its head. Pulling as hard as he can, the knife comes free. He has just enough time to clean it off before another wave of zeebs is on them. This time Hunter slashes the zeeb’s throat before kicking it to the deck. He spins around to sweep the legs from the other. With both hands on the knife, he stabs it in the head.
Nation finishes off a couple of his own and then nods to the ladder. “We better get going.”
“Right.”
Hunter lets Nation go first. By the time Hunter has gotten a few rungs up, more zeebs are approaching. They growl and claw at the ladder, but none of them are bright enough to get up it. He lets himself sigh with relief before continuing up to the next deck.
***
They regroup in the mess hall. The Navy guys are badly in need of a rest by that point after months of malnutrition. They could use a visit to sickbay for IV fluids, but there’s no way they can risk that. “We emptied out what we could before we locked ourselves in down there,” Wayne says.
“Why didn’t you jump off the boat?” Hunter asks.
“We were in the middle of the Pacific. We had been near Honolulu to resupply when we got the call. CINCPAC wanted us back in San Diego. The message they sent was just three words: Initiate Groundhog Protocol.”
‘“Groundhog Protocol?”’
Wayne lowers his voice so no one else can listen in. “It means the bigshots were going to hole up. The bunker in Cheyenne Mountain. When people think about those Doomsday scenarios they usually think you take all these scientists and artists and shit with you. There probably were some, but whenever they emerged from their hole, they wanted some firepower too.
“It’s all hush-hush, but I don’t suppose it really matters now. They had the mechanics take apart two of our squadrons and crate them up. We were supposed to drop them in San Diego for transport to the bunker.
“Except we never made it. A couple of guys died and then the outbreak spread until the whole ship was overrun. The ship has been wandering around on its own since then. Probably two weeks ago it beached itself here.”
“In San Diego,” Hunter says.
“Yeah. A little too late, right?”
Hunter nods. It has been two years since the Washington first got her orders to return to port in San Diego. If those politicians made it to Colorado, they’ve been there for a while without their fighter squadrons.
“You still have those planes crated up?”
“Probably. Unless someone has taken them.”
“I doubt it,” Nation says. “We got word about ten days ago from the Hub. Came down here to take a look-see, but before we could try to get those planes or anything else off, the zeebs were all over us. Val volunteered to go get help. You know how that turned out.”
“She got help. Though I’m not sure how much good I can do. Not unless you guys want to hang off the Harrier’s wings.”
“No, listen, we found something at the Marine air station near here. A V-22 Osprey. She should still fly. You bring that here and we can all get out,” Nation says.
“While I’m getting that, where are you supposed to go?”
“We’ll go up top. Shouldn’t be any of them up there, should there?”
“No,” Hunter admits. “Might be a few guns too.”
“Sounds like we have a plan,” Wayne says.
“But first we have to get up there.”
“That is a problem,” Nation says.
“There’s a whole bunch of them on the hangar deck. Might be tricky getting past them.”
“You did it.”
“By blowing a hole in the hangar.”
“You did what?” Wayne says. Hunter describes his makeshift bomb that had blown open a portion of the hangar. “Christ. Good thing we’re not still in active service.”
Hunter nods and then gets to his feet. “We’d better get moving. We can figure out the rest as we go.”
Chapter 26
Thanks to Carl Sherwood, they made it up to the flight deck. Carl was able to get the hydraulics for one of the elevators to work again. The noise had drawn the attention of the zeebs, but they couldn’t open the hatches or climb up through the hole Hunter had made. That hole had let them get into the hangar thanks to a human ladder. Hunter, Nation, and his crew had made it up the ladder while the emaciated Navy guys climbed up them, until there were enough to start pulling Hunter and the others up.
Before they got on the elevator to escape, Wayne showed Hunter the piles of crates at one end of the hangar. Inside the crates were two squadrons of F/A-18 Hornets. They should still be in pristine condition, though the mechanics at Davis-Monthan could verify that.
Staring at the crates, Hunter had seen the key to taking on Reverend Shelley and his Utopia goons. Two squadrons of Hornets, along with his X-29 and anything else they could cobble together would be enough to stand up to Shelley’s Russian air force. With a little luck, they could win and take away Shelley’s biggest advantage.
That was if Hunter could get the planes off the carrier. If he could get them back to Davis-Monthan. And if he could find pilots for all of them. Wayne and the other Navy guys might be of some help with that, but this wasn’t really their fight.
Once they were on the flight deck, Hunter let out a sigh of relief to find the Harrier still there. No crews of scavengers had shown up yet, which meant everything was the way he had left it. “There should still be some weapons on them,” Hunter said, motioning to the corpses.
“Great. We’ll see what we can scrounge,” Nation said.
Before Wayne could go with them, Hunter had grabbed his bony arm. He motioned to the Harrier. “I think you can squeeze in behind the seat. It’d be good to have a co-pilot for that V-22.”
“Sure, no problem. Always wanted to ride in one of those.”
Thanks to two years of rationing, Wayne could squeeze in behind Hunter’s ejector seat. So long as Hunter didn’t have to eject, Wayne should be plenty safe. Hunter lowered the canopy and then brought the Harrier’s engines online.
The Marine air station isn’t too far from where the carrier beached itself. Hunter doesn’t see Nation’s C-130s on the runway, meaning they’ve either been stolen or they’re in the hangars. He hopes they’re still there, as the cargo planes will come in handy when it’s time to leave San Diego.
Hunter lands the Harrier on the runway and then shuts it down. He turns to look back at Wayne. “You all right?”
“My feet fell asleep about ten minutes ago. Other than that, I’m fine.”
Though it’s undoubtedly embarrassing for the Navy pilot, Hunter carries him on his back as he climbs down from the Harrier. He lets Wayne down and then holds one arm to steady him as he gets the feeling back in his legs. Wayne takes a deep gulp of the air and then smiles. “I forgot how fresh air felt after being locked up in the engine room for two years.”
“I can’t imagine how shitty that was. I spent most of the last two years up at an old hunting lodge, eating squirrels and cans of beans.”
“I’d have killed for a squirrel,” Wayne says. “Though a steak would be even better. A Porterhouse as thick as
my arm. Maybe thicker, now.”
“That might be hard to find, but I’m sure Nation could get hold of it.”
“He seems like a good guy. Helped pull our butts out of the fire. He was right about when he found us. We were going to start drawing lots to pick out who got eaten first. Not that it would be much of a meal.” Wayne shakes his head sadly. “Christ, we had turned into fucking animals down there. Not much better than the zeebs.”
“You don’t have to worry about that anymore. You’re not going back in there.”
“Let’s hope not.”
They start to look through the hangars, Hunter opening the doors since Wayne is too weak for it. The first door they try reveals one of Nation’s C-130s. They find the second a couple doors down. Both planes seem in good enough shape to get them back to Davis-Monthan.
The V-22 Osprey is on the other side of the rows of hangars. With its twin propellers down, the Osprey looks like an ordinary cargo plane. What makes it so unique is that the propellers can rotate up to lift the Osprey off like a helicopter. That gives it unparalleled versatility for transporting cargo.
Hunter does a quick check on the airplane to make sure it is still in working condition. It has most of a tank of fuel and everything else checks out green. He pats the Osprey’s gray fuselage. “She looks ready to go.”
“Great. It’d be my luck that after two years cooped up in that ship that I’d die in a plane crash.”
“I don’t think you have to worry about that,” Hunter says. He helps Wayne up into the V-22. Hunter takes the pilot’s seat while Wayne sits across from him in the co-pilot’s chair. As Hunter starts flipping switches, he notes that everything looks good. “I’m not sure how long she’s been here, but she doesn’t seem in bad shape at all.”
“Yeah, well, let’s hope it can do what it’s supposed to.”
“Right.”
They could take off normally if they wanted; there’s more than enough room on the runway for that. Hunter switches the engines to their VTOL mode to make sure it’ll work. The displays show everything is good, but Hunter can’t resist looking out the window to make sure the engines are standing up like a pair of rotors.
Army of the Damned (Sky Ghost #1) Page 24