Arisen, Book Six - The Horizon

by Michael Stephen Fuchs

  He seized her and pulled her close, giving her a major flutter, exhaustion or no.

  And there he goes, making me feel like a woman again…

  Noise

  JFK - Bridge

  The two suicides were reported to Drake first thing, as he strode onto the Bridge for the early watch. Waking him had been discussed. But there was nothing he could have done. Those people were dead.

  “Goddammit,” Drake said, scrolling through the two reports with his thumb. “So one body…?”

  “And a note for the other. But he’s AWOL from his duty station, and a search failed to turn him up. Presumed overboard.”

  “Goddammit,” Drake repeated. “What’d the note say?”

  The ensign stood over his commander, but respectfully back a few feet, and he hesitated before answering. “It said: ‘I’m done here’.”

  Drake almost said Goddammit again. But he restrained himself, just cursing mentally. He only had one more question. “Anyone we can’t do without?”

  “Not really, no.”

  Drake exhaled with relief. But then he recalled the thing that was really haunting his dreams lately, and also many of his waking hours, perhaps in part because he hadn’t yet told a soul about it.

  It was his last secret from the Battle of the JFK, and it was this: that their final reserve force of sailors, which he had sent out to make a last stand at the gaping hole in the ship, at the very worst point of the battle… had been carefully selected as the ratings the carrier and strike group could most readily do without. Basically, he’d picked them because they were expendable. And he had been willing to sacrifice those men and women, all hundred of them, in a desperate bid to save everyone else aboard.

  Some of them had survived in the end. But no thanks to Drake.

  And he knew he was going to hell for it.

  Luckily, he knew there either was no hell – or, alternatively, if there was one, they were certainly living in it already. So Drake would probably just be paying for this in very bad dreams, and very poor sleep, for a long time to come.

  But the suicides coming back again – was that his fault as well? They had been left alone by that particular plague – and its insidious root cause, despair – for a good few months before now. Drake had even dared to hope they might have left it behind them for good. He’d also gotten his hopes up that winning the battle – which of course really just meant surviving and escaping – would give morale a boost.

  But he also knew that everything was how you looked at it. And, looking at this now, he knew how easy it would be to see nothing but another five hundred souls lost – and more sacrifice, struggle, and pain ahead for those who’d survived.

  Drake scratched his sandy crewcut at the back, and figured he had better do something for morale. But he just didn’t have the time or bandwidth. Africa was practically visible on the horizon now, and there was as always so much still to be done. He couldn’t just stop and throw a big party. He was already trying to keep the plane from coming apart in mid-air – conducting repairs while navigating and conducting an aerial dogfight, all at the same time.

  Maybe the commitment ceremony had been a bad idea. No, he chose to believe it had been the right thing – that his 2,500 crew members had needed it. That it had failed two of them didn’t change that fact.

  And he couldn’t second-guess every damned thing.

  “Dispose of the remains quietly,” he said. “Have those men’s COs gather their teams for a morale and welfare check.” Drake handed the tablet back. “A quick one. And I want to hear about it if they think anyone else is at risk.”

  “Roger that, sir.”

  Drake checked their heading, course, speed, and the shipboard status updates board. Africa actually was nearly visible on the horizon. He sighed out loud, and slumped back in his chair. He really was beginning to feel like Admiral Adama again – leading his dwindling band across the galaxy, the not-quite-humans snapping at their heels, looking for some mythical place that might or might not exist.

  Trying to keep hope alive.

  * * *

  Handon ran into Sergeant Coulson in the widest and most trafficked companionway on 01 Deck, and smiled as he recognized him. The two of them had forged an iron bond in the cauldron of the flight-deck battle. Not to mention that Brandon “Ice Cube” Coulson had also saved his life, on at least a couple of occasions.

  The two of them stopped, nodded, and shook hands. They then stood there talking for a while, Coulson tall and lanky, Handon big and solid, and between them making people hug the bulkhead to squeeze around them.

  Handon said, “So you got tapped to lead the scavenging mission when we make landfall.”

  “Yep,” Coulson said. “Drake wants to keep Fick alive for Somalia.”

  “Yeah. I do, too.” Handon regarded the younger man. Coulson was a very solid operator. He had proven that when he had been thrust into command, after his Gunnery Sergeant went down. But Africa worried Handon. “You concerned?” he asked the Marine.

  “Nah. I’ve been through that wringer a hundred times. This mission profile, a scavenging op, was basically our whole job description before we got to Britain.”

  “Run any ops in Africa before?”

  “No. But the whole world’s overrun. It can’t be a whole hell of a lot worse there than all the places we’ve already been.”

  Handon resisted the temptation to tell Coulson to just watch himself, and to watch his team. The man was a professional, and an operator. He certainly wouldn’t have survived this long if he needed to be told to watch himself and his men. So Handon just said, “That was a hell of a day.”

  “Like no other.”

  “Hey – whatever happened to those militia guys you saved? Armour, and I forget the names of the two men.”

  “Parlett, and Roy. They’re fine. I’ve seen all three around.”

  “That’s good – that they survived.”

  “Yeah. It is. Listen, I gotta go – a hundred things to do before I get jocked up for this thing. Team’s already in the pipe.”

  “Go well,” Handon said.

  Over his shoulder, halfway out of sight, Coulson raised his voice and said, “Hey, I’ll scavenge us a nice case of African beer, some Windhoek or something. And we’ll drink it watching the sun go down on the fantail deck…”

  Handon thought that sounded very nice indeed.

  * * *

  Drake had gotten light-headed again and was back to working on his cot, when a long shadow descended upon him. He looked up thinking, Oh damn…

  “You are a very tall woman, aren’t you?” he said, craning his neck up at Dr. Walker. She seemed to be lording it over him. It was pretty much unheard of for the CO of the hospital to make house calls. But Drake knew exactly why she was here. “I’m fine,” he said. Holding up his bandaged arm, he added, “All healing very nicely.”

  “Uh huh,” Walker said. Drake was reminded that was exactly the noise he made to Fick recently. Payback’s a bitch… Walker grabbed his wrist and locked two fingers onto his radial artery. She lectured while she counted.

  “It’s not the burns, shrapnel, or gunshot wound I’m worried about.”

  “What then?” Drake wanted his hand back.

  “Your big, fat head – specifically, the contents of your brainpan.”

  “I’m fine,” Drake said, for the five millionth time.

  Walker tutted. “Commander, your brain got violently banged into the side of your skull when that grenade went off ten feet from you. The MRI yesterday didn’t show anything. But, being as the human brain is the most complex object in the known universe, there are a lot of subtle ways it can be damaged. And knocking it around like that is a dangerous business.”

  “Uh huh.”

  “I want to get you down for another MRI today.”

  “Sure,” Drake lied. He had a mission to oversee today.

  Walker put her hand on her hip, near her gun. “After the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, thousan
ds of veterans came back with TBI, traumatic brain injury, mostly from close encounters with roadside bombs, as they rode in vehicles with varying levels of armor. They seemed uninjured at the time. But they weren’t uninjured. And the fact that we were so slow to diagnose and treat them resulted in some very negative health outcomes for a lot of them.”

  Drake exhaled and battled his patience. “Your point?”

  “That this vessel and crew need you wigging out from undiagnosed brain trauma like we need another hole in the ship.”

  “I’ll come down after the forenoon watch,” he said finally, almost meaning it. “Dismissed.”

  At least he still outranked her.

  Not that it mattered.

  * * *

  The bearded Sikh pilot dude rounded the corner almost as soon as Coulson had disappeared around it.

  Looks like it’s just run-into-people day, Handon thought. He started to flag the man down – but before he could, the Sikh’s face lit with recognition and he stopped on his own.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Hi,” Handon responded.

  He saw the other man still wore the scimitar – and also had slung over his shoulder the bulky rifle he had daringly, or stupidly, rescued from his burning plane as it got dumped over the side. “That’s quite a weapon,” Handon said. “Auto Assault 12.”

  The Sikh nodded. “Zombie-fighting always wants a shotgun.” He spoke in an elegant English accent, with clipped and formal tones. He unslung the weapon, checked the safety, hauled the heavy bolt back, and handed it over.

  Handon felt the weight. “Full-auto, 300 rounds per minute, 32-round drum mag.”

  The Sikh nodded. “Many zombies.”

  Handon wasn’t sure whether to laugh, or keep nodding. He handed the bad-ass assault shotgun back, suddenly feeling chagrined that he and Alpha were still plinking at brainstems with the same little 5.56 rounds they’d used in the counter-terror wars. There had to be better ways. They’d just had their backs to the wall for two years.

  And there hadn’t been a lot of time to force-innovate.

  He belatedly noticed the man was also carrying the same big white cardboard box that he’d also risked his neck to rescue. Now Handon could see what was written on it: “Kenwood Smoothie Pro.” It also had a color picture of a blender with a big jug, aluminum base, and a tap at the bottom. But surely there was something else in there – something worth risking his life for.

  “Whatever’s in there must be very valuable.”

  “It is. My smoothie maker.” Handon just stared. “It’s never been more important to keep up your health and energy.”

  Handon nodded neutrally. “I guess you think you’re going to live a long time.”

  “Oh, yes. I plan on living a long time indeed. In good health and prosperity.”

  Handon fought off a smile. “You’ve got a lovely attitude.”

  “You can have it, too.”

  Handon finally asked the question that had been on his mind ever since he first saw the man kicking ass during the assassination attempt.

  “Okay. Who the hell are you?”

  The man bowed deeply. “Just a humble servant of Ik Onkar.” He came out of his bow and said, “My name is Araib Baddar Badaar Mahmood Khalid Sardar.”

  Handon looked as if he had actually been struck in the face by this eighteen-inch name. “Is that what people call you?”

  “I usually go by my call sign.”

  “Which is?”

  “Noise.”

  “As in ‘Bring da’?”

  The Sikh smiled. “Precisely.”

  “I’m—”

  “You are Command Sergeant Major Handon of the Unified Special Operations Command – late of Army Compartmented Elements, AKA the Combat Applications Group, AKA First Special Operations Detachment-Delta. An honor to meet you.”

  Handon wordlessly took the man’s hand.

  “Now. You must excuse me. For I must go.”

  And just like that, Noise walked on, leaving Handon standing in the companionway, slack-jawed.

  That, Handon decided, is someone I really need to talk to at greater length…

  Sparrows

  JFK - Front Edge of the Flight Deck

  The horizon swelled and grew uneven.

  After days of being nothing but flat, featureless, perfectly smooth ocean in every direction, now the hazy gray and brown features of the African coast emerged slowly out of the horizon in the southeast.

  They were approaching the coast at an angle, having cut diagonally across nearly the full length and breadth of the Atlantic. And after days at sea, and the long ocean crossing, there was something profoundly reassuring about the sight of dry land. As word spread, crew members of every rank, rating, and description, perhaps the majority of those not on watch, thronged up onto the flight deck.

  They came to watch Africa appear.

  At the very front, Handon stood with Ali and Homer, plus Ben and Isabel. Handon had tried to convince Predator, Juice, and Henno to take a break, as well. God knew they’d earned it. And Handon felt like their mission planning and prep for Somalia was on schedule, or maybe even a bit ahead. But Juice had merely mumbled, “I’ve seen enough of Africa”; and Pred opted not to leave him. Henno, not looking up, said only, “If it’s not Yorkshire, I’m not impressed.”

  And Sarah was still intently doing her job down in the lab – which was keeping Dr. Park “in her back pocket.”

  Now the two operators, and two kids, that Handon had been able to lure away, stood up at the prow with him, just ahead of the lumpy mass of metal and hole in the deck where Ammo City used to be, and also at the front of a growing crowd. They were like some kind of non-traditional extended family – Homer had his arms around Ben and Isabel, Ali had her arm crooked in his, and Handon stood beside them with hands in pockets.

  He stole a sidelong glance at the others. Homer seemed happy, and serene as always; and the kids looked delighted. But there was something off about Ali’s posture, some kind of tension. Maybe it was his imagination.

  In any case, he felt like they all deserved a few minutes to lay their burdens down.

  And just be tourists in their own fallen world.

  * * *

  Drake and his senior officers had no such luxury. He had abandoned his cot again and set up shop on the Flag Bridge, with Abrams assisting as XO. They had an intermittently open channel to LT Campbell down in CIC. And they were about to put up some air, to scope things out over the land, and around the Saldanha naval base.

  Sailing into an unfamiliar port was both more and less perilous than it used to be. Back in the world, they generally only exercised harbor privileges where they were welcome. But, even when they were officially invited in by the controlling power, they weren’t always welcomed by the populace.

  This was something the USS Cole had learned to its cost, when a handful of jihadi knuckleheads in a motorboat packed with explosives killed seventeen of their crew, and injured thirty-nine. They also blew a gigantic hole in the side, and came surprisingly close to sinking her. And that had happened just on the other side of this continent they now faced – in the Port of Aden.

  Which was also the Kennedy’s next port of call.

  And, as far as Drake was concerned, they already had absolutely all the holes in this boat they were ever going to need.

  Luckily, these days, knuckleheads were a lot thinner on the ground – as were all other types of people, except dead ones. And so now the carrier’s main tactical imperative was to avoid riling up the local Zulus. The sleepier they stayed, the easier the scavenging op would go. In the early days of the ZA, they would continue to exercise a lot of the customary precautions before steaming into a new port. But after a while it became clear that they were only going to be met by the dead, no matter where they went.

  But they also didn’t go in blind.

  Drake punched a button, palmed a phone, and said. “CIC, Bridge. Send up the Fire Scout… Affirmative, standar
d pre-mission ISR sweep on a port facility and environs. But I want a six-thousand-foot floor. Yeah. Out.”

  He replaced the handset, flicked at a switch he hoped would turn on the big overhead monitor – then got busy dividing his attention between that, and the view ahead out the screens. He looked up when Abrams stepped out, onto the platform outside.

  He liked his views unmediated.

  * * *

  Homer felt the humming of the gigantic aircraft elevator before anyone else heard it. By the time the MQ-8 Fire Scout helicopter drone rose into view, he had both kids pointed back toward it, at the notch in the port side of the deck that the giant elevator platform was just filling back in, with the drone upon it.

  Handon also turned to watch the compact rotary-wing aircraft as its rotors spun up. The Fire Scout was an unmanned autonomous helo about the size of a VW microbus. And it had that creepy eyeless alien look of so many drones – with just a featureless bulb where its cockpit ought to be.

  Of course, its real eyes were built into its sensor payload, which was packed into a ball-turret slung underneath the nose: electro-optic and infrared cameras, a laser range finder, tactical synthetic aperture radar – and, if Handon recalled correctly, a tactical minefield detection system. This one also visibly had weapons rails, jutting from either side of the body, terminating in rocket pods. Handon guessed these held the laser-guided rockets known as APKWS (Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System).

  After only a few seconds of spinning up – it had the lightweight aspect of a remote-controlled toy, which was basically what it was – the Fire Scout rocked smoothly off its skids, took flight, and rose into a blue sky streaked with thin white stratus. It looked like it was headed high enough to recon their target without being audible at ground level.

  Handon leaned over to Homer and whispered, “You’re not worried about having the kids up here again? After the zealot attack?”

  Homer had just been looking over the starboard side at the hole in the ship, lamenting the destruction of his favorite private spot to hide out in. That had been the deck between the Sparrow missile launchers, and the Phalanx Close-In Weapon System (CIWS), the carrier’s two anti-missile defense systems, before their destruction in the mutiny. He supposed he could always take the kids to the identical area on the other side, if he got the chance. For now, where they were was fine. He smiled and shrugged. “I can’t keep them locked below forever.”