* * *
Flight operations never stopped on the USS Ronald Reagan. If they weren’t launching F/A-18 Super Hornets, they were recovering them and refueling/rearming them for the next cycle. With the POTUS ruling out the use of high explosives, the fighters were reduced to low-level strafing runs on identified clusters of infected moving on in on the Marines. These attacks were vastly less efficient, as the infected made effective use of cover where they could find it, a tactic they’d probably learned to avoid being food for each other.
The result was each Super Hornet shot out their ammo load with massively reduced enemy casualties. They still took off with a pair of bombs, just in case, but were banned from using them by direct Presidential order. The presence of the bombs still on the aircraft was by Admiral Tomlinson orders. He believed in contingencies.
The flight deck crew of USS Ronald Reagan was working at a furious rate, even for a highly-trained crew such as the one on the Gipper. With dozens of Super Hornets in the air at all times, and helicopters coming and going, the flight deck was a chaotic place with no room for error. The Reagan had left port as the crisis spiraled out of control, and 227 crewmen hadn’t made it aboard in time. Dozens of vital positions were desperately short of crew to work the extended hours they were now being forced to serve.
The first planes were catapulted into the sky an hour before dawn, and they had been going nonstop ever since. The crews were tired and, more importantly, hungry. Kitchen staff were just as stretched. The ship was crowded with personnel from other ships and former military personnel located in the flotilla which were being pressed back into service. They were so crowded that a young cook hurrying to duty collided with a civilian on a ladder and broke his ankle. Down a cook, and having to deliver food to the flight deck for desperately-hungry team members, several staff were put to work without much training.
One such volunteer, an Army assistant cook, found himself in a much more crowded and crazy kitchen than he was used to. His job was to prepare meat for sandwiches, one of the few quick to eat and portable meals the flight deck crew could handle. The problem was the CPO who’d taken charge of him didn’t brief the man very well.
“It’s all in the cool locker,” he’d said. “Follow the posted notice on the door. Find some meat. Move it.” The CPO was off before the Army cook could completely digest the instructions. Now he was alone with a cart full of bread and several gallon jugs of condiments, but he had nothing to put inside the sandwiches. He looked around until he found the door marked “COOLER #2-B.”
“Must be the place,” he said and opened the door. It was just above freezing, and everything had been staged for use. “Now what notice?” he wondered and looked around. There was a clipboard hanging on a shelf. “Ah hah,” he said and grabbed it. Sure enough, it was a spreadsheet of all kinds of recently-defrosted food items. They were categorized A, B, and X. He puzzled over that for a second.
In the Army, they used stores by order of age. Always use the old stuff first. There were no dates, so maybe the letters corresponded to use dates. If that were the case, then X must be the oldest. He moved his finger down until he found, “Chicken/White Meat/Chunk.” There was mayo, mustard, and relish on the cart. Chicken salad would make a good sandwich, and almost everyone loved that. He noted the ID number and moved down the line of shelves. At the end, near the floor, were bags containing all kinds of meat. Each one had a Sharpie written “X” on it. “Bingo,” he said and grabbed several of the bags.
Returning to his work area, he got a dozen huge metal bowls and started dumping chunk chicken into them. The rest was easy: split a gallon of mayo between the twelve bowls, then dollop in mustard and relish until it looked right. He stirred them all using the big Cuisinart blender with the single whip attachment, then added a couple tablespoons of paprika. Using a spoon, he tasted one, then added some more paprika. Perfect.
Half an hour after he got the order, he had a hundred slices of bread laid out and was slapping a big spoon of chicken salad onto each one. Another volunteer saw him working and quickly jumped it, putting a piece of bread on top of each one and stacking them on trays, two high, forty to a tray.
“Got anything ready?” asked a tired runner who came by the work area.
“Yeah,” the Army cook said, “sandwiches. I think they’re for the flight crew?”
“Reactor room gets first dibs,” the sailor said. “Gimme one of those trays.”
The cook thought about looking for the CPO first, then decided against it. He had enough chicken salad for another hundred sandwiches, so he shrugged. “Find some plastic wrap,” he told the guy who’d jumped in. A few seconds later the runner was hurrying down ladders, a plastic-wrapped tray heavy with chicken salad sandwiches and a jug of coffee slung over a shoulder.
“Grub!” he yelled as he entered the reactor space. The compartment hummed with power as the two Westinghouse A4W reactors heated steam to run the ship’s systems.
“About time!” said Commander Seamus Curran, who oversaw the watch. “We’re short-staffed and haven’t been off duty in 16 hours. McNeal, take some of those sandwiches down to Reactor Two?”
“Aye, aye, sir!” the young seaman said, grabbing a dozen sandwiches. He stuffed one into his mouth before he headed off. Curran nodded, took one for himself, and bit into it. His eyes went wide with delight as he chewed.
“Chicken salad!” he said, excitedly. “Tell cookie he’s a lifesaver. I don’t know where he found this, but we’re sick of over-cooked fish, no matter how much hot sauce they use!”
“Will do, Commander,” the runner said. He pulled a coffee jug from the strap and sat it on the table. “Do you mind, sir?” He asked and gestured at the rapidly-emptying tray.
“Help yourself, Son.” The runner grabbed one and bit into it greedily.
“Thanks,” he said around a mouthful. “I haven’t eaten since dinner last night.” A short time later he was heading up-ladder again, empty tray and jug under one arm. In no time, he had another tray of sandwiches and was heading to the bridge with it.
All in all, the helpful Army cook prepared and served over 500 chicken salad and roast beef sandwiches to the hungry crew of the Ronald Reagan. A tray even made it into one of the squadron ready rooms, where it was almost instantly devoured. Then the cook was pressed into service helping move buckets of soup into the chow line. When the meat sandwiches stop appearing, there were a lot of disappointed sailors; word had travelled fast.
The first to get sick was the runner, who’d helped himself to a sandwich even before he’d asked Commander Curran in the reactor room. He collapsed just off the flight deck less than two hours after he’d eaten the sandwich. A pair of corpsmen took him on a stretcher down to medical. By the time they got him there, he was unconscious. The doctor on duty was just finishing setting the ankle of the cook who’d broke it trying to get on duty. No one noticed when the runner suddenly sat up, eyes wide, and looked around. They did notice when he screamed incoherently and jumped on the nearest orderly, ripping the hapless man’s ear off with his teeth.
A pair of orderlies managed to bring the runner under control, though both had been bit before it was all over, and he’d been strapped to a cot. The surgeon in charge, unaware that Strain Delta could also be passed by bite, treated the wounded orderlies for superficial bites and ordered them to return to their bunks to rest. Then he called the bridge to report the incident.
Since the Reagan had joined up with the flotilla and Tomlinson had taken command, the ship had experienced three Strain Delta outbreaks. Through a quirk of chance, none had managed to bite anyone else before being detained. All outbreaks were traced back to undeclared food, usually stashed in a sailor’s or transferred civilian’s personal goods. Many still didn’t understand the risk of foods processed in the last few weeks before the outbreak, like bulk-packaged and frozen meats.
Had the Army cook looked closer, he’d have noticed the clipboard his supervisor mentioned on the inside of th
e door. On it the code letters were described. “X” marked possibly tainted meat loaded just before Reagan left port as the outbreak was spreading. He didn’t cook any of that meat. Why would he? It was all clearly marked ‘precooked.’ The department head had held onto it for possible use after being carefully re-cooked at very high temperature, just like the fresh fish. He never had time to regret the decision; one of the assistant cooks ripped his throat out.
The ship’s captain immediately assumed the outbreak was the result of the runner having a stash and sent security to check his bunk without bothering to find out where the man’s duty station was. Had he known it was the galley, he might have had a small chance of controlling the situation.
Down in the reactor space, Commander Currant didn’t feel well, so he’d retired to his office to sit for a bit and run reactor numbers through the computer. No one saw him turn. When his assistant went to check on him, Currant screamed and tore into the man with teeth and fingernails. It wasn’t an isolated incident. Inside of 10 minutes, more than 400 crewmen had succumbed to Strain Delta.
* * *
“Jesus Christ,” Alex West hissed as he fought the helicopter’s controls. The shimmy had become a violent shake. He’d been forced to slowly descend from the cruising altitude of 8,000 feet to only 3,000 feet before it became manageable. He was now afraid the damned tail rotor was about to fly off. He might be able to auto-rotate down safely, and right into the sea. “Do you know how far to the OOE platform?” he asked the pilot of the other helicopter, Patty Mize.
“Another 15 miles,” she said. The inflection of her voice suggested that his craft looked as bad from the outside as it felt on the inside. He consoled himself with the fact that if he hadn’t done the crazy maneuver to get rid of the infected hanging on the doors, he’d be dead anyway. He also hoped he’d bought himself more than a few extra minutes of life. A mumbling from the other seat made him look. “Boss, you awake?”
“What the hell happened?” Jeremiah asked. The president and founder of OOE had seen better days. Partially-dried blood coated the right side of his face where he had hit the helicopter door during the spin, and his white shirt was black with dried blood, too.
“We had an incident,” West said. Jeremiah put a hand up to touch the side of his head; it came away wet with congealing blood. Jeremiah’s eyes went wide in terror. “You hit your head on the door, you didn’t get attacked.”
“How long have I been out?” he asked.
“Maybe half an hour.”
“Why does the helicopter feel like it’s about to fly apart?”
Because you’re not wrong. “We got a little banged up in our escape from Catalina Island.”
“Oh,” his employer said. He looked to be quickly coming to his senses. That was good, it meant less chance of a concussion. “Where’s the other chopper?” West locked the collective arm with the friction brake and pointed. Jeremiah followed the arm and saw the other helicopter several thousand feet above them. “Is there a reason they’re so much higher?”
“Their helicopter isn’t damaged,” West explained, deciding on the simplest explanation.
“Are we going to crash?” West was again forced to decide on an answer. He knew Jeremiah was an aerospace engineer, and he likely knew that a helicopter acting like a pissed-off bronco wasn’t a healthy one.
“That is a possibility.”
“Oh, hell,” Jeremiah said and tightened his seat belt. With nothing more to be said, West released the friction lock and took full control back. Jeremiah craned his head around, wincing a little as he did, and saw Alison in a bunch in the back seat, seemingly covered in blood. “What happened to her? She bit?”
“In answer to your first question, she hit the door, too, only she wasn’t strapped in like you were. To the second, no.” A master alarm on the console started flashing. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I think we’re running out of time.” Jeremiah stayed silent and watched West with wide eyes. He gripped his chair’s arms with white-knuckled intensity.
West examined the lights. “Tail Rotor RPM.” Yeah, that was a bad one. He reduced power to the engine. If it seized, they were going down immediately. He also saw the hydraulic pressure to the rotor was high and climbing. A hose pinched? He looked at their air speed, 100 knots, ran it against the distance Patricia had given him, and how long ago that’d been. They were at least five miles out. A few of the flotilla’s outlying ships were already visible below.
A few were adrift, likely abandoned. A couple were all but sunk. One was on fire, black smoke climbing into the morning-bright sky. Ahead a few miles, he could see a line of storm clouds moving east. They were about where OOE’s ship should be. As if landing this busted bucket of bolts in perfect weather on the ship’s rather small platform wouldn’t be hard enough?
“Is that a carrier?” Jeremiah asked. This time he was pointing out the chin bubble on his side. West leaned over and looked. Holy shit, it was a carrier! Was that a damned C-17 on its nose? It was just completing a turn to the north and appeared to be speeding up. West turned on his radio and tuned it by memory to a Navy channel.
“Navy carrier, this is the OOE helo about one mile off your stern, coming in from the east.”
“OOE helo, this is the USS Gerald R. Ford Departure Control. We have you on radar. Steer clear, your ship is four miles south southwest.”
“Negative Ford, we are declaring an emergency. My craft has sustained damage, and I must land immediately.” The radio was silent for a moment before the controller came back on.
“Helo, confirm if you have any infected aboard.”
“That is a negative, Ford. We have two wounded but not infected.”
“How were they wounded?” West ground his teeth. He couldn’t tell them they been in a fight with infected on Catalina Island. He’d seen Navy helicopters out that way. They probably already knew the island was crawling with infected.
“We had a malfunction of flight controls. They were injured in a violent maneuver.” West was sure someone on the carrier probably had glasses on him right now. He was having a harder time keeping the helicopter flying true, so he knew it was at least convincing. Another alarm went off; hydraulic pressure was falling. Swell, the line must have parted.
“OOE, is that second helo with you as well?”
“Yes, Ford, that’s correct. I’d love to answer all your questions, but this bird is getting worse by the minute!”
“Observers confirm you are smoking from the tail boom,” the controller said. West swallowed. “You are granted permission to land on the fantail, as far aft as possible.” He sighed. “I’m handing you over to the tower. Commander Beeker.”
“Understood,” West said, and began to descend quickly.
“OOE helicopter, this is Commander Beeker on Ford. I understand you’re in distress?” West described the Jet Ranger’s condition. “I see; can you land without making a mess on my flight deck?”
“Sir, I believe so.”
“Very well. Captain Gilchrist also orders your other helicopter to land as well.”
“No,” Jeremiah hissed. He had gotten his headset on finally. With half his face and neck covered in blood, he looked like one of the infected.
“Commander, we’d just as soon have our undamaged helicopter return to our ship.”
“Mister, we’ve observed some unusual comings and goings of your people. The captain wishes to have a word with you. Down here. Now. You will instruct your other bird to set down forward of wherever you manage without making a mess. Is that understood?”
“Perfectly,” West said and began changing frequencies back to give Patty the news.
“What if she ignores them?” Jeremiah asked. “They won’t shoot her down.”
“You want to risk five lives on that bet?” Jeremiah looked upset but shook his head. “Grab a water bottle and wash some of that blood off. If they think you’re infected, they’ll probably shoot us all.” He changed the channel and called Patty as he w
orked the controls with shaking hands. He was getting really tired, and the bird was as responsive as a cement truck.
A few seconds later he was straining against the collective, trying to build enough thrust as he pulled back on the cyclic to bring the nose up. He was approaching the Ford from behind, trying to eyeball the ship’s speed against his own. His years of flying said it was close. The carrier had to be doing 25 knots. As he pulled back and slowed, the shimmy became a death rattle.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” he said and worked the pedals. The helicopter was starting to spin no matter what he did. A sailor in a white vest was standing in the middle of the flight deck, about 20 yards from the end of the fantail, a bright red Ping-Pong paddle held in each hand. He was making like a flapping duck. Wave off, West thought. It was land, swim, or crash into the towering ass of the carrier. He decided it was option one or bust. He slammed the pedals over onto the stops, and the turn just barely stopped. He was at least 45 degrees sideways to the deck as he dropped toward it. The sailor in the vest gave up signaling and ran. West pulled as hard as he could on the collective. The stall warning screeched. The skids hit the deck.
For a sickening moment, he thought they were going to flip in the direction of his landing. He pulled the cyclic opposite the impact and prayed to whatever gods might have a soft spot for barely-trained helicopter pilots. The tortured Jet Ranger did a bunny hop and came back down, scraping several feet on the rubberized steel plates of the flight deck’s fantail before coming to a shuddering stop. West’s hands were shaking like a drunk with DTs as he madly flipped switches to shut the engine down. Hydraulic failure, tail rotor failure, and turbine fire were only a few of the warnings.
Turning Point (Book 2): A Time To Run Page 24