“That’s what we were just talking about before you got up here. Most of the ship’s officers were ripped apart in the first twenty minutes of the outbreak. The crawlerz hit the bridge here especially hard. They also went through the officers quarters like a tornado. At this point we’re hoping we can find someone alive who can sail the ship. The engineering officer down in the reactor room may be able to help if we can’t find anyone else. The guys down there are pretty much stuck though. Unless we can kill our way through a ton of the infected.” Jeff said exasperated. The situation took the FUBAR acronym to a whole new level.
“If nobody’s driving the ship how do we know where we’re going?” Drew asked unable to contain himself. He was ok with that for this question. It was a very valid question.
“We don’t. Right now, we’re barely treading water. We’re launching some ops to pull out people who can help. There’s a lot of people stuck below who weren’t infected. That trick with the overhead speakers is going to help a lot with rescuing them. Which is good since otherwise we’re going to be stuck on this thing until we run aground somewhere.” Jeff said. He meant it as a joke, but nobody was laughing.
“Did we rescue any pilots?” Drew asked.
“There’s some stuck below in their quarters. We’re hoping to get them. Even though the bays with the planes stored in them are pretty much surrounded by crawlerz. I don’t know how useful the pilots are without access to the planes.” Jeff said.
The group of officers had turned around and were staring back at Jeff. He was obviously needed back over there to authorize whatever operations they were coming up with. He excused himself with a quick kiss for Yue and a back-pounding hug for Drew.
“We’re so screwed.” Drew said leaning back against the bulkhead.
“When are we not?” Yue asked him with a shrug.
Chapter 21: Can Do
“So, what are we building here?” Master Chief Mattison AKA Victor asked LeBron. LeBron looked around at the small team of Seabees staring attentively back at him. They were meeting on the level of the warehouse the vehicles were parked in.
“We need to make these vehicles crawler proof. They need to be capable of being beat on by a large mob of insanely strong humans for days at a time without the occupants dying. Following the beating they need to be able to continue on their journey. They’ll be used to transport people as well as supplies and weapons. The people they’ll be transporting may be either refugees or our own men. We’ll be using these to recon areas we suspect survivors are gathering in. Any high-tech tricks you can think of to aid in that mission would also be good.” LeBron hoped his ideas were making sense. Based on how the men were nodding along with him he must be doing ok.
“We’re a construction battalion not a bunch of mechanics but I think we can figure it out. Anything else?” Victor asked.
“There’s another thing I was thinking of that might be more up your alley. We need to verify this building is crawler proof. We don’t want what’s happening at the barracks up the hill to happen here. We also need to build living areas for any refugees we bring here. This place looks big now but add in a few hundred refugees...” LeBron said opening his arms to indicate how packed it’d start to get.
“Sounds good kid. I was wondering why Leander had us talking to a kid. Now I know. We’ll take care of the difficult parts first. The impossible stuff we’ll work on later. I assume hardening the vehicles is the first priority?” Victor asked trying to get his mind wrapped around the tasks being set for him. As a master chief in the Seabees he wasn’t used to taking orders from someone LeBron’s age, but game recognizes game. The boy had some solid ideas and that was all that mattered.
LeBron hung out helping the Seabees get organized. They had plenty of questions about the recon missions he was envisioning. LeBron spoke freely but tempered his feedback with the warning that none of his plans had been officially authorized yet.
“I think we’ve got enough to keep us busy for a few days at least. Why don’t you go meet up with Leander and make sure we’re on the right track? This is good stuff kid. I see why you’re still alive.” Victor said setting down a massive bundle of steel rods he’d just unloaded from a green forklift. He was a hands-on type of manager. Which was a good thing since there were only a handful of men there to help.
LeBron walked past the rows of gear and vehicles in the massive underground warehouse to get to the staircase leading up. He ran up the stairs two at a time to get to the next level quickly. He walked past groups of soldiers who were getting the space organized. He noted several were taking the opportunity to get some rest. He remembered hearing his dad say multiple times that you could always tell the real soldiers because they never passed up a chance to take a nap. You’ve got to get your sleep when and where you can. You never know when you’re going to be spending the next twenty-four hours wide awake doing your best to kill the enemy. You needed to be alert when that happened since the enemy would also be doing their best to kill you.
Weaving his way through the crowd standing in front of the communications room LeBron finally located Leander. Leander was standing beside the radioman who was attempting repetitively to raise the carrier on the radio. He must’ve been getting frustrated as he slammed his hand into the base of the machine and started cussing. Then he began fiddling with knobs and doublechecking everything. It looked like it must be the tenth time or so he’d checked everything based on the aura of frustration surrounding him. Leander leaned back and looked around the room finally spotting LeBron staring at him from the door.
“Let’s take a walk. I need to clear my head.” Leander said walking over to where LeBron was standing. LeBron nodded and followed Leander out into the warehouse. The motion sensitive lights coming on as they walked down the aisles piled high with supplies. The supplies that they needed to somehow get into the hands of the survivors in their region if there was to be any hope of the regular human race surviving here. LeBron imagined there were islands out there where the inhabitants fended off anyone trying to land to avoid getting themselves infected. Those islanders would live on in happy isolation while the rest of the world died.
“What’s going on with the radio?” LeBron asked after they’d walked a couple of rows in silence.
“We can’t raise the Ford. We’ve tried two different radios and multiple frequencies and we’re getting back nada.” Leander said. LeBron’s analytical mind quickly crunched through likely scenarios to quickly come up with the worst-case one.
“We just sent a plane with five of the infected to the carrier? You don’t think that’s it? I mean the infected were wrapped up in body bags, duct taped like mummies and locked in solid metal cages. I don’t really see how that could’ve gotten screwed up. We even had Drew and Blaze in the plane to make sure nothing happened.” LeBron said. Even as he listed out all the reasons there shouldn’t have been a problem, he was busy thinking through all the ways it could’ve gone wrong.
“We both know it was a risk. The people on that ship. Most of them haven’t even seen a crawler in real life. They took off on that cruise to nowhere before everything went to hell. They knew what was coming and what they had to do. They were smart until they got stupid. That’s what I’m thinking anyway. Maybe your brother got bit, and no one noticed. Not even him. Maybe Blaze did something stupid. Who knows? When they landed, and the door came down we both know how fast the infected can move. A hundred Marines on the deck waiting for the door to come down might not have been enough.” Leander said. The tension and frustration obvious in his voice.
They continued to pace along in silence. Each lost in their own thoughts. There was no way to know if the Ford never answered them. Had they doomed the carrier by complying with the order to send the infected test subjects? Were his brother and sister still alive? There was nothing to be done now. All they could do was wait and hope the carrier reached back out to them at some point. Maybe it was just a coincidental technical issue with the radio
s. Weirder things had happened.
“Did you meet up with the master chief?” Leander finally broke the silence to ask. LeBron nodded.
“Yes sir. We went down to the garage level and talked strategy. I gave him the vision we’ve been talking about. Where we switch it up and send our men out to retrieve the survivors instead of just trying to supply them.” LeBron answered.
“So, they’re doing the upgrades on the trucks then looking into ways to shore up this base. Not that we can do much with crawlerz all over the place.” Leander said.
“One thing I was thinking was that we should lend every available hand to the Seabees. Let the master chief use them to get as much work knocked out as possible. Our guys may not know how to weld or whatever, but they can all carry stuff and drive trucks. They can hand the people welding whatever they need to make the work go by faster. They can run wire and stuff like that.” LeBron said. He was thinking of the master chief wasting his time moving steel rods around. That was something one of the Marines could be doing. They needed to work out anyway.
“Makes sense. I’ll get some men assigned to him as soon as we get back. Pretty much everyone who isn’t on guard duty can help out. Probably make guard duty a lot more popular.” Leander said smiling for the first time. If given a choice between carrying a ton of steel rods around or sitting beside a door upstairs staring at the wall for four hours most people would take staring at the door. Assuming the likelihood of what they were guarding against coming through the door was minimal.
“We should look into getting lights setup again. The bright ones that put off the same kind of light as the sun. We string those up all over the place we can keep the crawlerz from getting too comfortable out there.” They had plenty of power why not put it to use? He’d actually brought this up before. Leander must’ve remembered because he shook his head ruefully.
“Hindsight, right? So many things we could’ve done differently. Stadium lights or whatever we need are going on my shopping list. I’m hoping once we get the first couple of vehicles put together that we can send out some scouts to recon and forage for anything we don’t already have in this underground super Costco. Considering the size of this warehouse I’ll take another look to make sure we don’t already have stadium lights. That actually wouldn’t surprise me at all.”
They continued walking in companiable silence eventually descending down to the garage level. While they were there Leander received a status report from Victor. Not a lot had been accomplished in the hour since LeBron had left. The Seabees had been busy working on cataloguing what supplies they had to work with. They were happy with the tools and workstations that’d been created for use in the base. They were ecstatic when Leander offered up more hands to help them out. Seeing that the master chief knew what he was doing Leander took LeBron back upstairs. He wanted to start finding people to ‘volunteer’ to help out the Seabees with the manual labor portion of the tasks they’d taken on.
LeBron was making himself a coffee a little bit later in the breakroom outside the operations center when a man came running out of the operations center and asked him if he knew where Leander was.
“I think he’s still rounding up people to help out the Seabees. I was going to have a cup of coffee then go down there too. He has one of those portable phones on if you want to call him.” LeBron sat down the coffee mug. The man looked completely freaked out. He nodded at what LeBron had told him before turning around and rushing back into the operations center. Finishing his coffee prep in record time LeBron hurried in behind him to see what was going on.
Everyone inside was sitting around the conference phone in silence. The phone had the red lights on around the base signaling they had it in mute mode. They were still sitting around staring a few minutes later when Leander walked in holding the little WIFI phone they used inside the hangar for communications. The units were notoriously unreliable. Government procurement at its best. Probably another example of the lowest bidder getting the contract. You get what you pay for.
Getting what you pay for was going to be an even bigger problem with the supposedly bombproof barracks up the hill. The men sitting around the conference phone had been talking to the men up in the operations center doing a routine check. They stayed in constant touch since the men up the hill had full access to all of the video feeds. The men from the barracks had reported that dirt was drifting down from the ceiling in several places. They’d even seen the walls bulge out a few times. The obvious answer to the question of what was going on was that the crawlerz had finished digging and were now trying to get in.
“Do you think it’ll hold?” One of the men in the room with Leander asked. They’d muted so as not to cause any noise on the other end that may attract the crawlerz. The men on the other end weren’t saying anything for the same reason.
“Dirt coming out of the ceiling and the walls moving around doesn’t sound good. Did they say if they saw crawlerz out in the field earlier?” Leander asked.
“Yes sir. Standard report that once the sun went down the whole place started crawling with ‘em. Like a swarm of roaches is how they described it.” It was how it’d been described multiple times by multiple people. Watching on video that’s just how it looked. As the sun went down the crawlerz would ooze out of their hiding spots and begin to scurry busily around on their endless quest to spread the infection.
“There’s no way we can get to them before sunup. They need to make sure they’re in the most secure room. I was thinking the armory personally. It’s more isolated than some of the other rooms and it’s full of guns.” LeBron said.
“You can talk to them if you need to sir. They’re switching the audio over to the duty officers blue tooth headset.” One of the men said. Leander nodded and hit the mute button to unmute the phone.
“This is warehouse actual requesting barracks comm center status over.” Leander said succinctly into the mic.
“We’re all in the operations center. Dirt’s falling from the ceiling. We can hear those things beating on the walls.” A very hushed voice responded. The duty officer was definitely in consideration for an Oscar for most dramatic sitrep of the year.
“We can’t get to you tonight. Too many crawlerz between here and there. Recommend you abandon the operations center and shelter in the armory until morning.” Leander said.
“Yes sir. The banging is getting louder sir.” The subdued voice of the duty officer reported.
Nothing else was said as they muted the speakerphone again. Every man in the room listening intently as the men on the other end of the line formed up to make a run for the armory. The rapid breathing of the duty officer the only thing they could really hear.
There was nothing besides that harsh breathing sound for a couple of minutes then a muted scream could be heard over the line. The loud sound of gunfire clearly discernable over the sound of the duty officer yelling for everyone to run for the armory. Leander and the other men gathered around the phone in the warehouse all held their breaths. Each of them imagined the chaos happening up in the barracks.
It was nothing but gunshots and harsh breathing until another loud feral scream was heard. A scream of pain filled the communications room. It echoed out of the speakerphone and reverberated off every wall. The men listening recoiled in horror and sadness. Each knowing it could’ve been them ordered to stay and stand guard over that facility. None of them had really thought the crawlerz would be able to get in. At least not so soon.
“The OOD’s dead. I grabbed his headset. We’re locked in the armory but they’re banging on the door pretty hard. Request assistance over?” A hopeless young voice came out of the speakerphone. Feeling like the worst kind of voyeurs they all knew the answer. They knew they’d be sitting there intently listening when whoever it was talking to them over the headphones was ripped apart. They’d hear those last screams.
“Negative. We’re unable to assist at this time. We may be able to offer rescue in the morning. Can you ho
ld out that long?” Leander asked. He didn’t bother muting the phone again.
“No sir. They’re getting in. We’re not going to wait. We’ve got enough ammunition to carve a decent hole through them. We’re making a run for it now. If you’re able to let us in, we’ll knock on the door when we get down there.” The headphones made a loud noise as if they’d been thrown down on the ground.
“You’ve got this Marine. Give ‘em hell.” Leander said quietly with his head bowed. There was no way those last few men would be able to make it all the way down the hill at night with the hundreds of crawlerz out there.
Gunfire blasted out of the speakerphone. The screams of the damned and the screams of the screwed mixing together as the doomed men went out in a blaze of glory. LeBron sat and listened with the rest of the men until the screams and gunfire eventually died down.
Chapter 22: Ship of the Damned
Yue and Drew slid closer to the knot of men around Jeff. They both wanted to hear what the men were saying as it could have an immediate impact on them. One of them was arguing that sending in Marines to try and rescue a big portion of the crew all at once was too risky. He felt like they should stick to the plan of easy rescues while they slowly secured different sections of the ship. The problem with that approach being the number of people who’d starve to death waiting to be rescued at the rate they were moving.
Crawlerz | Book 2 | Batten Down The Hatches Page 20